I offer a novel two-stage reconstruction of Hume’s general-point-of-view account, modeled in part on his qualified-judges account in ‘Of the Standard of Taste.’ In particular, I argue that the general point of view needs to be jointly constructed by spectators who have sympathized with (at least some of) the agents in (at least some of) the actor’s circles of influence. The upshot of the account is two-fold. First, Hume’s later thought developed in such a (...) way that it can rectify the problems inherent in his Treatise account of the general point of view. Second, the proposed account provides the grounds for an adequate and well-motivated modest ideal observer theory of the standard of virtue. (shrink)

Hume thinks moral judgments are based on sentiments of approval and disapproval we feel when we contemplate someone from a "general point of view." We view her through the eyes of her "narrow circle" and judge her in accordance with general rules. Why do we take up the general point of view? Hume also argues that approval is a calm form of love, love of character, which sets a normative standard for other (...) forms of love. In this paper I explain why, and argue that character, as a form of causality, is constructed from the point of view of one's narrow circle. We take up the general view to view people as persons, that is, as possible objects of love. (shrink)

It is tempting and not at all uncommon to find the striking—even noble—visage of an Ideal Observer staring out from the center of Hume's moral theory. When Hume claims, for instance, that virtue is “ whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation ,” it is only natural to think that he must have in mind not just any spectator but a spectator who is fully informed and unsullied by prejudice. And when Hume writes (...) that “the true standard of taste and beauty” is set by those who exhibit “[s]trong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice,” he appears to describe a character no ordinary human could actually possess. Indeed, Hume's frequent appeals to the moral sentiments of spectators, his insistence that those sentiments depend upon taking “the general survey,” and his persistent invocation of the general point of view , together make the temptation almost irresistible. (shrink)

Many readers see Hume's _General Point of View<D> as a cognitive achievement typically requiring a conscious effort of reason and imagination. Moral judging emerges as a special, relatively esoteric activity. Another reading depicts the _General Point of View<D> as largely a matter of habit (or custom). We are usually "insensible" of its operation. Morality appears to be ubiquitous and moral judging utterly commonplace, comparable to the habitual operations of causal inference without which life would be sheer (...) chaos. The author finds some support for each view, but in the end argues for the 'unconscious habit' reading. (shrink)

I focus on Garrett’s account of Hume’s theory of moral evaluation, which Garrett calls “a cognitive history.” Before turning to his account, however, I briefly outline my own alternative reading of Hume’s theory of moral evaluation. One way in which my account differs from Garrett’s is that I follow Árdal, among others, in thinking that Hume takes the moral sentiments to be calm forms of love and hatred. Thus Hume says that approval and disapproval are “nothing but a fainter and (...) more imperceptible love or hatred.” Morality, for Hume, is about what we love or hate, praise or blame, in people. (shrink)

Hume’s writings, taken as a whole, address a dazzlingly broad range of topics. I argue that they do so as part of a coherent and interesting philosophical programme. While Hume’s doctrine of the general point of view provides an attractive way of understanding the process of moral judgement, it raises the threat of parochialism – that is, it potentially makes us prey to the limitations and prejudices of our society. I show that Hume endorses what I call (...) “engaged cosmopolitanism”, which provides the resources to explain how we can, under certain circumstances, escape such parochialism. Engaged cosmopolitanism is the product of a particular sort of society – one that is open and commercial, and that governed by a system of equitable laws. Like Mandeville, Hume rejects the suspicion of commerce and “luxury” that was prevalent during his time. But he provides supporters of commercial society with a justification that does not, in contrast to Mandeville’s writings, abandon notions of morality altogether. On the contrary, he makes commerce a precondition to a society’s moral development. And he further links this development to a certain type of liberal political institutions, thus giving such institutions a moral basis. (shrink)

Here is an appealing position: one reason to pursue interaction with people from backgrounds that differ from our own is that doing so can improve our moral judgment. As some scholars have noticed, this position seems pedigreed by support from the famed philosophers of human sociability, David Hume and Adam Smith. But regardless of whether Hume or Smith personally held anything like the appealing position, neither might have had theoretically grounded reason to do so. In fact, both philosophers explain moral (...) judgment in ways that seem to present obstacles to the acceptance of the appealing position. This paper entertains the possibility that either of their moral theories contains resources to overcome these obstacles and implies the appealing position. I argue that Smith's theory does so more straightforwardly than Hume's does. This difference, I also argue, reveals something important about the Hume-Smith philosophical relationship. I close by sketching a way to fit the source of the appealing position in Smith's moral psychology with his focus on the desire for mutual sympathy. (shrink)

That Hume 's theory can be interpreted in two widely divergent ways-as a version of sentimentalism and as an ideal observer theory-is symptomatic of a puzzle ensconced in Hume 's theory. How can the ground of morality be internal and motivating when an inference to the feelings of a spectator in "the general point of view" is typically necessary to get to genuine moral distinctions? This paper considers and rejects the suggestion that in moral education, for Hume, (...) the inculcation of morality internalizes the sentiments of the ideal observer. It ultimately offers a different resolution of the conflicting strains. (shrink)

I focus on Garrett’s account of Hume’s theory of moral evaluation, which Garrett calls “a cognitive history.” Before turning to his account, however, I briefly outline my own alternative reading of Hume’s theory of moral evaluation. One way in which my account differs from Garrett’s is that I follow Árdal, among others, in thinking that Hume takes the moral sentiments to be calm forms of love and hatred. Thus Hume says that approval and disapproval are “nothing but a fainter and (...) more imperceptible love or hatred.” Morality, for Hume, is about what we love or hate, praise or blame, in people. (shrink)

A “conceptual spaces” approach is used to formalize Aristotle’s main intuitions about time and change, and other ideas about temporal points of view. That approach has been used in earlier studies about points of view. Properties of entities are represented by locations in multidimensional conceptual spaces; and concepts of entities are identified with subsets or regions of conceptual spaces. The dimensions of the spaces, called “determinables”, are qualities in a very general sense. A temporal element is introduced (...) by adding a time variable to state functions that map entities into conceptual spaces. That way, states may have some permanency or stability around time instances. Following Aristotle’s intuitions, changes and events will not be necessarily instant phenomena, instead they could be processual and interval dependent. Change is defined relatively to the interval during which the change is taking place. Time intervals themselves are taken to represent points of view. To have a point of view is to look at the world as it is in the selected interval. Many important concepts are relativized to intervals, for instance change, events, identity, ontology, potentiality, etc. The definition of points of view as intervals allows to compare points of view in relation to all these concepts. The conceptual space approach has an immediate semantic and structural character, but it is tempting to develop also logics to describe them. A formal language is introduced to show how this could be done. (shrink)

This book seeks to arrive at a better understanding of the relationships between the objective and subjective aspects of time. It discusses the existence of fluent time, a controversial concept in many areas, from philosophy to physics. Fluent time is understood as directional time with a past, a present and a future. We experience fluent time in our lives and we adopt a temporal perspective in our ways of knowing and acting. Nevertheless, the existence of fluent time has been debated (...) for both philosophical and scientific reasons, thus creating a rift between the subjective and objective aspects of time. Starting from the basic notion of points of view, or perspectives, this book explores the relationships between objective or external time, as it has been conceptualized by science, and subjective or internal time, which is involved in our lived experiences. It establishes a general framework encompassing the nature, structure and mode of existence of points of view, in which the objective and subjective aspects of time can be integrated. The book mainly addresses researchers and postgraduates in philosophy and logic. Additionally, it offers inspiration for physicists and computer scientists involved in the modeling and simulation of complex behaviors for which the representation of internal time should be considered together with the notion of objective, external time. (shrink)

El presente artículo ofrece una solución al problema metaético que florece en la ética humeana a propósito de la conciliación entre el cognitivismo derivado de la exigencia del General Point of View y el internalismo moral que se deriva de su argumento de la motivación. Asumiendo una descripción evolutiva en la construcción de la perspectiva evaluativa representada por el General Point of View, al tiempo que un proyectivismo epistemológico para los juicios causales que conectan (...) las motivaciones, acciones y utilidad de los distintos caracteres que surgen en el origen de la justicia, se puede conciliar -sin riesgo para la consistencia del planteamiento humeano- la existencia de individuos capaces de generar juicios morales cognitivos que derivan en una motivación moral internalista, identificada con el sentido del deber, e individuos con motivaciones claramente externalistas basadas en el uso instrumental de la razón. (shrink)

Hume believes that distinctively moral sentiments can only be felt from a disinterested perspective. While much scholarly attention has been paid to the question of how Hume believes we “correct” our moral sentiments to form a coherent moral language, less has been paid to the question of why we first adopt this disinterested vantage point. Answering this question involves determining what, for Hume, enables our disinterested point of view to influence us despite the fact that the sentiments (...) produced by our parochial vantage points are originally stronger. I term this the “influence question.” I contend that Hume has two answers to this question: one in the Treatise and one in the second Enquiry. While the former is based upon our ability to share sentiments with others via sympathy, the latter holds that our disinterested vantage point enables us to found the “party of humankind” upon the universal principle of humanity. I argue that Hume saw this latter answer as rectifying a certain deficiency in his Treatise explanation and that his later answer supports Hume’s aim of demonstrating that morality is a fundamentally social phenomenon. (shrink)

Problems of practical reasoning often arise as the result of a clash between two different points of view. What do we mean when we say that while from the point of view of prudence there is no reason to rescue one's drowning enemy, from the point of view of morality there is reason to do so? In this essay we examine how the idiom of points of view arises in practical discourse, and offer a (...) clarification of it. We will be particularly concerned with a common argument for assigning a privileged status to the moral point of view, an argument which can be seen to be fallacious once certain features of Judgments made from a point of view are clearly discerned. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

This book seeks to arrive at a better understanding of the relationships between the objective and subjective aspects of time. It discusses the existence of fluent time, a controversial concept in many areas, from philosophy to physics. Fluent time is understood as directional time with a past, a present and a future. We experience fluent time in our lives and we adopt a temporal perspective in our ways of knowing and acting. Nevertheless, the existence of fluent time has been debated (...) for both philosophical and scientific reasons, thus creating a rift between the subjective and objective aspects of time. Starting from the basic notion of points of view, or perspectives, this book explores the relationships between objective or external time, as it has been conceptualized by science, and subjective or internal time, which is involved in our lived experiences. It establishes a general framework encompassing the nature, structure and mode of existence of points of view, in which the objective and subjective aspects of time can be integrated. The book mainly addresses researchers and postgraduates in philosophy and logic. Additionally, it offers inspiration for physicists and computer scientists involved in the modeling and simulation of complex behaviors for which the representation of internal time should be considered together with the notion of objective, external time. (shrink)

This book seeks to arrive at a better understanding of the relationships between the objective and subjective aspects of time. It discusses the existence of fluent time, a controversial concept in many areas, from philosophy to physics. Fluent time is understood as directional time with a past, a present, and a future. We experience fluent time in our lives and we adopt a temporal perspective in our ways of knowing and acting. Nevertheless, the existence of fluent time has been debated (...) for both philosophical and scientific reasons, thus creating a rift between the subjective and objective aspects of time. Starting from the basic notion of points of view, or perspectives, this book explores the relationships between objective or external time, as it has been conceptualized by science, and subjective or internal time, which is involved in our lived experiences. It establishes a general framework encompassing the nature, structure and mode of existence of points of view, in which the objective and subjective aspects of time can be integrated. The book mainly addresses researchers and postgraduates in philosophy and logic. Additionally, it offers inspiration for physicists and computer scientists involved in the modeling and simulation of complex behaviors for which the representation of internal time should be considered together with the notion of objective, external time. (shrink)

This book seeks to arrive at a better understanding of the relationships between the objective and subjective aspects of time. It discusses the existence of fluent time, a controversial concept in many areas, from philosophy to physics. Fluent time is understood as directional time with a past, a present and a future. We experience fluent time in our lives and we adopt a temporal perspective in our ways of knowing and acting. Nevertheless, the existence of fluent time has been debated (...) for both philosophical and scientific reasons, thus creating a rift between the subjective and objective aspects of time. Starting from the basic notion of points of view, or perspectives, this book explores the relationships between objective or external time, as it has been conceptualized by science, and subjective or internal time, which is involved in our lived experiences. It establishes a general framework encompassing the nature, structure and mode of existence of points of view, in which the objective and subjective aspects of time can be integrated. The book mainly addresses researchers and postgraduates in philosophy and logic. Additionally, it offers inspiration for physicists and computer scientists involved in the modeling and simulation of complex behaviors for which the representation of internal time should be considered together with the notion of objective, external time. (shrink)

Hume’s moral philosophy makes sentiment essential to moral judgment. But there is more individual consistency and interpersonal agreement in moral judgment than in private emotional reactions. Hume accounts for this by saying that our moral judgments do not manifest our approval or disapproval of character traits and persons “only as they appear from [our] peculiar point of view... ” Rather, “we fix on some steady and general points of view; and always, in our thoughts, place ourselves (...) in them, whatever may be our present situation” (T 581-82), in order to “correct” our situated sentiments. This seems to create two serious difficulties for Hume’s theory. First, moral evaluations become inductive, empirical beliefs about what we would feel if we really occupied the imagined common point of view, and hence are the deliverances of causal reason; this contradicts Hume’s claim that the making of a moral evaluation is not an activity of reason but of sentiment. Secondly, given Hume’s thesis that the passions do not represent anything else, he cannot say that our moral evaluations will better represent the object being judged if they are made from the common point of view. This leaves no clear reason to adopt it, rather than making judgments from our real position. Hume says that left to our particular points of view, we will encounter contradictions and be unable to communicate, but it is hard to see why.My interpretation resolves these two difficulties. I argue that every time we reflect upon someone’s character from the common point of view, we feel an actual sentiment of approbation or disapprobation, which may alter and merge with the situated sentiment or may fail to do so, leaving two different feelings about the same character. Furthermore, whenever we make moral evaluations we also simultaneously make objective, causal judgments about the love and hatred, pride and humility that the trait will produce. We routinely take up the common point of view in order to achieve truth and consistency in our causal judgments, to avoid grave practical problems. (shrink)

This book seeks to arrive at a better understanding of the relationships between the objective and subjective aspects of time. It discusses the existence of fluent time, a controversial concept in many areas, from philosophy to physics. Fluent time is understood as directional time with a past, a present and a future. We experience fluent time in our lives and we adopt a temporal perspective in our ways of knowing and acting. Nevertheless, the existence of fluent time has been debated (...) for both philosophical and scientific reasons, thus creating a rift between the subjective and objective aspects of time. Starting from the basic notion of points of view, or perspectives, this book explores the relationships between objective or external time, as it has been conceptualized by science, and subjective or internal time, which is involved in our lived experiences. It establishes a general framework encompassing the nature, structure and mode of existence of points of view, in which the objective and subjective aspects of time can be integrated. The book mainly addresses researchers and postgraduates in philosophy and logic. Additionally, it offers inspiration for physicists and computer scientists involved in the modeling and simulation of complex behaviors for which the representation of internal time should be considered together with the notion of objective, external time. (shrink)

I argue that it’s quite comprehensible to get upset about metaethical nihilism, to indulge what I call nihilistic despair. When we lose the objective moral or normative point of view, we lose the promise of luck-immune guidance and categorical importance, things many of us hope for. This is all quite Williams-friendly, but I reject his puzzling but suggestive remarks that nihilistic despair must be a self-pitying muddle. Finally, I argue that internalism about reasons is even more depressing than (...) outright nihilism, in one way at least. (shrink)

This volume contains the papers read at the conference on 'Semantics from different points of view' that took place at Konstanz University in Septem ber 1978. This interdisciplinary conference Vias organized by the':Sonderfor schungsbereich 99 - Linguistik' and sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsge meinschaft. Li~guists, philosophers, logicians, and psychologists met to dis cuss recent developments in the study of the semantics of natural language from the point of view of their disciplines. But this is not to say (...) that there was one particular topic shared by all the participants. The conference was organized because the seven research groups that constitute the Sonderforschungsbereich wanted to discuss their results in an international context and to get advice and guidance for the work still to be done. Therefore, quite a number of topics were covered, though at different levels of precision, under the general label 'semantics'. And the selection of topics, as well as the relative importance given to them, is due to the research interests currently represented in the Sonderforschungs bereich. (shrink)

Truth-relativism is the claim that the truth of statements is dependent on the context in which they are made. In this article, truth-relativism is considered as a way to explain disagreements. Viewpoint relativism, a recent version of truth-relativism, is introduced as a useful framework to analyse how truth-relativism approaches disagreements. Viewpoint relativism is based on contextual semantics and the logic of viewpoint, which is a two-dimensional modal logic. In viewpoint relativism, the central concept is a point of view (...) in relation to which truth claims are evaluated. Viewpoint relativism is compared to the truth-relativism of Peter Lasersohn and John MacFarlane. Finally, truth-relativism is defended against the critique of Paul Boghossian that it represents untenable ‘replacement relativism’. (shrink)

Hume's moral philosophy makes sentiment essential to moral judgment. But there is more individual consistency and interpersonal agreement in moral judgment than in private emotional reactions. Hume accounts for this by saying that our moral judgments do not manifest our approval or disapproval of character traits and persons "only as they appear from [our] peculiar point of view..." Rather, "we fix on some steady and general points of view; and always, in our thoughts, place ourselves in (...) them, whatever may be our present situation" (T 581-82), in order to "correct" our situated sentiments. This seems to create two serious difficulties for Hume's theory. First, moral evaluations become inductive, empirical beliefs about what we would feel if we really occupied the imagined common point of view, and hence are the deliverances of causal reason; this contradicts Hume's claim that the making of a moral evaluation is not an activity of reason but of sentiment. Secondly, given Hume's thesis that the passions do not represent anything else, he cannot say that our moral evaluations will better represent the object being judged if they are made from the common point of view. This leaves no clear reason to adopt it, rather than making judgments from our real position. Hume says that left to our particular points of view, we will encounter contradictions and be unable to communicate, but it is hard to see why. My interpretation resolves these two difficulties. I argue that every time we reflect upon someone's character from the common point of view, we feel an actual sentiment of approbation or disapprobation, which may alter and merge with the situated sentiment or may fail to do so, leaving two different feelings about the same character. Furthermore, whenever we make moral evaluations we also simultaneously make objective, causal judgments about the love and hatred, pride and humility that the trait will produce. We routinely take up the common point of view in order to achieve truth and consistency in our causal judgments, to avoid grave practical problems. (shrink)

In his discussion of morals in the Third Book of the Treatise, Hume claims that the taking of what I shall call a general point of view is a necessary condition of the arousal of moral feelings. This aspect of Hume's theory has not received much attention from his commentators before now, although its implications for the theory as a whole might be regarded as significant.

Frankena sees moral point of view theories as steering a middle course between scepticism or relativism in ethics and absolutism or dogmatism. The constraints of a distinctive point of view limit the range of moral judgments, provide some basis to expect agreement between different moral judges, and generate standards if not of moral truth at least of moral acceptability. Since however these constraints arise only from the moral point of view, they are avoidable if (...) the point of view is avoidable, and do not impose absolute inescapable demands on every person. Frankena sees the judgments made from the moral point of view to include categorical ones, but since he does not characterize the point of view itself as either the final court of practical reason or as an inevitable point of view, the categorical judgments made from that point of view are themselves externally conditional on taking that view-point. The most that can be said is that when and if one takes that viewpoint, certain demands are inescapable and unconditional. The whole illocutionary act of making the categorical moral judgment is as it were limited by the condition that one’s hearers, including oneself as hearer, share the point of view. Made fully explicit, what I am calling the external conditional would take this form: “Provided that one takes the moral point of view, one must acknowledge the unconditional obligation to …”. This is quite different from claims like “If one is a parent one has obligations to one’s child,” which is itself presumably a claim which may have an implicit initial qualifier of the form “From the moral point of view …” or “From the legal point of view …”. It might of course also be saying “From the point of view of practical rationality as such, a point of view which one cannot refuse to take, and beyond which lies no more comprehensive or corrected point of view …”. Frankena distinguishes this ultimately authoritative practical judgment from a moral judgment, while nevertheless suggesting that practical reason will normally endorse what morality has decreed. It is not, however, part of the very meaning of “moral point of view” that that point be final or inescapable for human persons. (shrink)

This book argues that there is a common cognitive mechanism underlying all indexical thoughts, in spite of their seeming diversity. Indexical thoughts are mental representations, such as beliefs and desires. They represent items from a thinker's point of view or her cognitive perspective. We typically express them by means of sentences containing linguistic expressions such as 'this ' or 'that ', adverbs like 'here', 'now', and 'today', and the personal pronoun 'I'. While generally agreeing that representing the world (...) from a thinker's cognitive perspective is a key feature of indexical thoughts, philosophers disagree as to whether a thinker's cognitive perspective can be captured and rationalized by semantic content and, if so, what kind of content this is. This book surveys competing views and then advances its own positive account. Ultimately, it argues that a thinker's cognitive perspective - or her indexical point of view - is to be explained in terms of the content that is believed and asserted as the only kind of content that there is which thereby serves as the bearer of cognitive significance. The Indexical Point of View will be of interest to philosophers of mind and language, linguists, and cognitive scientists. (shrink)

In what follows, I’ll discuss both the metaphysics and the epistemology of supervenience from a probabilistic point of view. The first half of this paper will explore how supervenience claims are related to other issues; these will include the thesis that physics is causally complete, the claim that there are emergent properties, the idea that mental properties are causally efficacious, and the notion that there are scientific laws about supervenient properties that generalize over systems that deploy different physical (...) realizations of the properties in question. The second half will examine the question of how observational evidence can lend support to supervenience claims. This problem turns out to raise some surprisingly deep issues about the nature of hypothesis testing in science. (shrink)

The paper describes a system for dealing with nestings of belief in terms of the mechanism of computational environment. A method is offered for computing the beliefs of A about B (and so on) in terms of the systems existing knowledge structures about A and B separately. A proposal for belief percolation is put forward: percolation being a side effect of the process of the computation of nested beliefs, but one which could explain the acquisition of unsupported beliefs. It is (...) argued that the mechanism proposed is compatible with a general least effort hypothesis concerning human mental functioning. (shrink)

Hume offers two ways of reconciling the partiality of people’s feelings with the generality of moral thinking. First, the general point of view in moral evaluation is not that of a disinterested observer, but of another person who has a close relationship with the person to be judged. Here I find something analogous to the idea of Nel Noddings, who attempts to build an ethical theory on the basis of caring relationships. Second, according to Hume, the generality (...) of the rules of justice is also compatible with partial feelings. Such rules allow everyone to pursue his or her goals without fear of violent intervention from others. My idea is that these rules are comparable to those of a competitive game. The idea of fair competition is not necessarily alien to Noddings’ type of ethical theory. As children, human beings normally learn to be fair in competitive games, along with caring for family members and friends. An ethical ideal of fairness may develop through competitions and help people get along with others beyond narrow circles. Taking into account of the competitive elements in relationship between people will be helpful in giving a fuller picture of a broadly Humean, sentimentalist ethical theory. (shrink)

This is a presentation of Bolzano's ideas on logic, logical semantics, ontology, proof theory, the foundations of mathematics, and certain aspects of the philosophy of nature. Bolzano's world view was a universal one in the sense that philosophy, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics should build upon the same logical foundation. In the pursuit of this encyclopaedic point of view he already recognized many of the essential things to come in logic and the foundations of mathematics.

Whatever the precise analysis of the notion of an `internal point of view', to talk about `religious traditions' is to imply that traditions of a certain kind primarily deploy an internal point of view. But what can be said about the notion of an intellectual tradition that would at the same time also be, or be connected to, a religious tradition? To some, such notions appear to border on contradiction. In accordance with the Cartesian criticism of (...) coutume et exemple, we tend to think of an intellectual stance as the correlate of a detached view, with the rational remaining the enemy of the traditional. In that case, every application whatsoever of the predicate `intellectual' to a tradition would be flawed. According to a certain Enlightenment view, inspired by science, is it not of the very essence of the intellectual stance in general that one stand back at a critical distance from any tradition, especially one's own?In fact, historically oriented philosophers of science like Crombie, Kuhn, Laudan have reminded us of the fact that there is nothing disturbingly paradoxical in speaking of `intellectual traditions': to quote one of Kuhn's book titles, there is the "essential tension" that characterizes science in its development just as much as any other cultural tradition. This tension between the old and the new is the mark of traditions, including the ones defining the rationality or rationalities of science. We could say that Kuhn's `paradigms' already outlined the borders of specific `catholicities' for the specialized fields of scientific research traditions. If Kuhn ever had a point, it must be that science too can develop only within the framework of styles of reasoning, which is to say that it demands viewpoints that cannot be characterized as `external', at least not in an absolute, metaphysical sense of the word. (shrink)

I am going to present logic, logical semantics, ontology, proof theory, the foundations of mathematics, and certain aspects of the philosophy of nature from Bolzano’s point of view.

In 1985 Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson presented their now classic theory of theory change . In 1988 Adam Grove, generalizing David Lewis's theory of counterfactuals, presented a model theory suitable for the AGM theory. Although AGM and Grove mentioned object languages, neither used them. But recently, Maarten de Rijke has shown how object languages can be brought into the picture. In the present paper we take de Rijke's idea further, addressing the question whether there is a particular doxastic or epistemic (...) logic implicit in AGM. (shrink)

RésuméQue voulait dire Wittgenstein lorsqu'ilaremarqué: «Je ne suispas un homme religieux, maisje nepuis m'empecher de voir tout problème d'un point de me religieux»? La thèse de Malcom, c'est que cette remarque pointe du doigt les analogies entre la perspective philosophique de Wittgenstein et une vision religieuse de la vie. En revanche, Winch fait valoir que la remarque de Wittgenstein peut être interprétée comme ne faisant pas référence aux problèmes exclusivement philosophiques; Wittgenstein exprimait plutôt sa propre perspective quasi religieuse sur (...) la vie et soulignait l 'importance spirituelle de la clarté philosophique. Contrairement à Malcom et Winch, jefais valoir qu'il faut plutôt considérer que cette remarque signifie en gros: «Je ne suispas religieux moi-même, mais quand je réfléchis philosophiquement à ce que cela signifie pour quelqu'un de faire face à un certain type de problemes, par exemple les dilemmes moraux et autres décisions difficiles dans la vie, il importe de reconnoître la diversité des perspectives possibles d'oú ces problèmes peuvent être vus. Ce faisant, je nepuis m'empêcher d'imaginer comment de tels problèmes apparaîtraient depuis la perspective de quelqu'un de religieux.». (shrink)

Quine claims to be "working from within" our conceptual scheme and proceeding scientifically. This description makes his views of interest to those who are skeptical of traditional metaphysical projects and to those with confidence in science. This study examines whether Quine is in fact starting within ordinary language and proceeding scientifically and, if not, how his views are to be best understood. I proceed by exploring some central doctrines in Quine's writing, most notably indeterminacy of translation, but also his views (...) on underdetermination of scientific theory, truth, reality and the dispensability of theory, and the nature of scientific method. In examining Quine's arguments for these doctrines, I find that they do not all issue from what we would ordinarily or scientifically say on the topics concerned. Instead, I find that most arise from an underlying view of the nature of language and knowledge, which I call natural empiricism. I argue that natural empiricism involves assumptions and dynamics of reasoning characteristic of metaphysical points of view, rather than of an ordinary or scientific stance. This is a result with consequences for a critical evaluation of Quine's views. ;I show that natural empiricism leads not only to the central doctrines in Quine's writing that I examine, but also to his general claim to be "working from within" our conceptual scheme and proceeding scientifically. I argue that there is a tension between natural empiricism and "working from within" that is the major tension in Quine's views, leading him to reach different conclusions on the same topic. Quine's views are unusual in that this tension is internal to natural empiricism; most metaphysical views, while they may conflict with the ordinary, do not also endorse it. Natural empiricism is also an unusual point of view in its thoroughgoing empiricism: I claim that it is an empiricist overreaction to the vestiges of rationalism in twentieth century logical empiricism. It shares with the views to which it reacts the need to ground language and knowledge, in a metaphysical sense. Thus Quine's position is particularly valuable for showing up the differences and common motivations in the analytic tradition. (shrink)

This sophisticated, difficult, and puzzling book consolidates and continues the exploration of our finitude pursued in Adrian Moore’s earlier book The Infinite and in a number of previous and intervening articles by him. One of Moore’s purposes in Points of View is to defend an affirmative answer to the question “Are absolute representations possible?” Moore takes this question to be an expression of an essential connection between current concerns about language and mind, and what he regards as deeper perennial (...) concerns about our finitude. Another of his purposes is to recommend acquisition of a certain taste for nonsense as an apt response to those connected concerns, as “a philosophical tactic of very general utility.”. (shrink)

The history of mathematics can be read in two ways. On the one hand, unlike the history of physics, it does not proceed by conjectures and refutations. New theories rarely refute old theories, but give them new foundations, generalize them, and reinterpret them through new concepts. This reading is unifying, highlighting the unity of the history of mathematics from its origins, through the permanence of its truths. On the other hand, many contemporary historians of mathematics have insisted on the diversity (...) of methods, objects, and practices throughout history. They have shown that the objects of the past mathematics are not the same as those of today. That second reading shatters the illusion of unity. It disjoins what the first reading unifies.Rather than deciding between these two readings, this chapter examines what makes them both possible and legitimate, based on an analysis of the acts of reading that we have to perform when confronted with the pages of a mathematical text, its signs, diagrams and images, and the different language modalities it employs. Starting with a discussion of Husserl's theses in The Origin of Geometry on the role of writing in the history of mathematics, and using a number of historical examples, the chapter shows that any reading of a mathematical text involves at least three divisions, three delimitations made by the reader’s gaze: divisions between the true and the false, between language and image, and between what is inside mathematics and what is outside. For the same text, these divisions are traced by the gaze in different ways throughout history.The chapter develops an example in greater detail, concerning the status of the equation in Descartes’ Geometry. It discusses the contrasting recent readings of the equation by two historians of science, Henk Bos and Enrico Giusti. It shows the concepts of The Geometry and the ideas the philosopher develops on reading and the nature of the sign. It shows how these ideas can be used to reconstruct how Descartes might have read a mathematical text, and it explains how successive readings of The Geometry can at the same time insert it into the mathematics of later centuries. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the ethical behaviour of Muslim IT professionals in an attempt to stop many unethical practices such as software piracy, software intellectual property violations and general software development.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines the computer ethical principles presented in the Association for Computing Machinery code of conduct from an Islamic point of view through studying some relevant verses of The Holy Quran and Hadiths of Prophet Mohammed. An evaluation of the benefits of this (...) newly proposed Islamic computer code of ethics is presented by surveying how IT students, IT professionals and software house owners would adhere to it. The evaluation was carried out by teaching different groups of participants aspects of the ACM code of conduct and the proposed Islamic computer ethics code and then surveying their opinions by a questionnaire.FindingsThe study demonstrates that teaching computer ethics in general, and computer ethics from an Islamic point of view in particular, clearly contributes to ethical behaviour of Muslim IT professionals with regards to software development issues.Research limitations/implicationsIt is not possible to put participants through real life scenarios and practically observe how they would react to different ethical situations. The empirical research thus relies on what participants said they would do.Practical implicationsThe newly developed Islamic code of computer ethics and its proposed implementation method can be utilised by organisations for their benefit.Originality/valueThe study is the first to address the issue of computer ethics and Islam for IT professionals. This paper presents a first Islamic computer code of ethics and presents a methodology for applying it. It also reports a study undertaken in Bahrain of how attitudes might be influenced by teaching computer ethics in general, and computer ethics from an Islamic point of view in particular. (shrink)

The relation between leibniz's logical and his metaphysical views is the subject of much modern scholarship. Some commentators have argued that his metaphysics is based on his logic; others have taken the opposite position. However, Both sides pose the question in terms of 'priority'. On the contrary, I argue that it is likely that leibniz means the psr to play "both" a logical and a metaphysical role. The ambiguity of leibniz's psr indicates that he equates the metaphysical notion of causation (...) with the logical notion of deduction. The psr's ambiguity results less from any confusion on leibniz's part between the notions of cause and reason, Than from his desire to identify logic and metaphysics. That identity is achieved not by reducing one to the other, But by incorporating them on an equal basis into a single discipline. (shrink)

We study positive bilinear forms on a Hilbert space which are not necessarily bounded nor induced by some positive operator. We show when different families of bilinear forms can be described as a generalized effect algebra. In addition, we present families which are or are not monotone downwards (Dedekind upwards) σ-complete generalized effect algebras.

Thomas Nagel contends that facts regarding the qualitative character of conscious experience can be grasped from only a single point of view. This feature, he claims, is what renders conscious experience subjective in character, and it is what makes facts about the qualitative experience subjective facts. While much has been written regarding the ontological implications of the ‘point of view account’ relatively Iittle has been said on whether the account itself successfully defines the subjectivity of the (...) mental. In this paper, I show that considerations of what can be grasped from only a single point of view provide neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for subjective experience. (shrink)

This paper argues that the technical notion of conditional probability, as given by the ratio analysis, is unsuitable for dealing with our pretheoretical and intuitive understanding of both conditionality and probability. This is an ontological account of conditionals that include an irreducible dispositional connection between the antecedent and consequent conditions and where the conditional has to be treated as an indivisible whole rather than compositional. The relevant type of conditionality is found in some well-defined group of conditional statements. As an (...) alternative, therefore, we briefly offer grounds for what we would call an ontological reading: for both conditionality and conditional probability in general. It is not offered as a fully developed theory of conditionality but can be used, we claim, to explain why calculations according to the RATIO scheme does not coincide with our intuitive notion of conditional probability. What it shows us is that for an understanding of the whole range of conditionals we will need what John Heil (2003), in response to Quine (1953), calls an ontological point of view. (shrink)