I want to pull together some well-known facts which, when taken together, provide us with a plausible, and I think persuasive, argument that Aristotle's logic is inconsistent. We cannot, of course, hope to show that it is formally inconsistent since he does not present us with a fully worked-out formal system. On the other hand, we do have Lukasiewicz's formal version of Aristotelian logic which he proves consistent. (edited).

This article discusses the history of the concepts of potential infinity and actual infinity in the context of Christian theology, mathematical thinking and metaphysical reasoning. It shows that the structure of Ancient Greek rationality could not go beyond the concept of potential infinity, which is highlighted in Aristotle's metaphysics. The limitations of the metaphysical mind of ancient Greece were overcome through Christian theology and its concept of the infinite God, as formulated in Gregory of Nyssa's theology. That is how (...) the concept of actual infinity emerged. However, Gregory of Nyssa's understanding of human rationality went still further. He said that access to the infinity of God was to be found only in an asymptotic ascension, as expressed in apophatic theology, and this view endangered the rationality of theology. Deeply influenced by the apophatic tradition, Nicholas of Cusa avoided this danger by showing that infinity could be accessed by symbolic representation and asymptotic mathematical reasoning. Thus, he made an immense contribution in making infinity rationally accessible. This endeavor was finally realized by Georg Cantor. This rational accessibility revealed discernible structures of infinity, such as the continuum hypothesis, and the cardinal numbers. However, the probable logical inconsistency of Georg Cantor's all-encompassing Absolute Infinity points to an intuitive understanding of infinity that goes beyond its rational structures – as in apophatic theology. (shrink)

This paper provides moderate criticism of so-called normative theories of thinking and reasoning. The discussion focuses on the problems of idealization, adequacy, inconsistent yet non-trivial logics, logical omniscience etc. I called them “internal” to the normative approach, because they stem from the very properties of formal systems used to model these two human activities. Some arguments, however, refer to the current theories in cognitive science, including those which are developed within “descriptive” framework.

Meditations, aphorisms, maxims, notes, and comments construct a philosophy of thought congruent with the inconsistency of our reality. Those who continue to think never return to their point of departure. —Inconsistencies These 130 short texts—aphoristic, interlacing, and sometimes perplexing—target a perennial philosophical problem: Our consciousness and our experience of reality are inconsistent, fragmentary, and unstable; God is dead, and our identity as subjects discordant. How can we establish a new mode of thought that does not cling to new gods (...) or the false security of rationality? Marcus Steinweg, as he did in his earlier book The Terror of Evidence, constructs a philosophical position from fragments, maxims, meditations, and notes, formulating a philosophy of thought that expresses and enacts the inconsistency of our reality. Steinweg considers, among other topics, life as a game (“To think is to play because no thought is firmly grounded”); sexuality (“wasteful, contradictory, and contingent”); desire (”Desire has a thousand names; It's earned none of them”); reality (“overdetermined and excessively complex”); and world (“a nonconcept”). He disposes of philosophy in one sentence (“Philosophy is a continual process of its own redefinition.”) but spends multiple pages on “A Tear in Immanence,” invoking Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, and others. He describes “Wandering with Foucault” (“Thought entails wandering as well as straying into madness”) and brings together Derrida and Debord. He poses a question: “Why should a cat be more mysterious than a dog?” and later answers one: “Beauty is truth because truth is beauty.” By the end, we have accompanied Steinweg on converging trains of thought. “Thinking means continuing to think,” he writes, adding “But thinking can only pose questions by answering others.” The question of inconsistency? Asked and answered, and asked. (shrink)

With the advent of classical logic we are continuing to observe an adherence to the laws of logic. Moreover, the system of classical logic exhibits a prominent role within analytic philosophy. Given that the laws of logic have persistently endured in actively defining classical logic and its preceding system of logic, it begs the question as to whether it actually proves to be consistent with Islam. To consider this inquiry in a broader manner; it would be an investigation into the (...) consistency between Islam and the logic which has been the predominant driving force of analytic philosophy. Despite the well documented engagement and novel contributions made in the field of logic by Arab and Islamic theologians/logicians, I think this question deserves examination not just in terms of classical logic but also from perspectives which go beyond classical logic, namely, non-classical logic. Doing so, would I believe, retain this inquiry within the purview of analytic philosophy despite the reference to non-classical logic. To be more specific, this question would be directed toward the Islamic theologian who espouses the system of classical logic in attempting to make sense of an absolute ineffable God of Islam. The inquiry would seek to determine if classical logic is consistent (amenable) in making sense of an absolute ineffable God of Islam. This would principally involve an analysis which determines whether the metaphysical assumptions of the laws of logic (more specifically the law of non-contradiction) are consistent in making sense of an absolute ineffable God of Islam. I shall argue that it is inconsistent. I shall establish my position on this matter by demonstrating why classical logic is inconsistent (not amenable) with an absolute ineffable God of Islam. Although, I am principally concerned with classical logic, my argument is as applicable to all earlier systems of logic as much as it is to classical logic. This is on the basis that both systems of logic, namely, all preceding systems and classical logic, consider the laws of logic as defining features. (shrink)

Moral conflicts are the situations which emerge as a response to deal with conflicting obligations or duties. An interesting case arises when an agent thinks that two obligations A and B are equally important, but yet fails to choose one obligation over the other. Despite the fact that the systematic study and the resolution of moral conflicts finds prominence in our linguistic discourse, standard deontic logic when used to represent moral conflicts, implies the impossibility of moral conflicts. This presents a (...) conundrum for appropriate logic to address these moral conflicts. We frequently believe that there is a close connection between tolerating inconsistencies and conflicting moral obligations. In paraconsistent logics, we tolerate inconsistencies by treating them to be both true and false. In this paper, we analyze Graham Priest’s paraconsistent logic LP, and extend our examination to the deontic extension of LP known as DLP. We illustrate our work, with a classic example from the famous Indian epic Mahabharata, where the protagonist Arjuna faces a moral conflict in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. The paper aims to avoid deontic explosion and allows to accommodate Arjuna’s moral conflict in paraconsistent deontic logics. Our analysis is expected to provide novel tools towards the logical representation of moral conflicts and to shed some light on the context-sensitive paraconsistent deontic logic. (shrink)

For most of the problems that economists consider, the assumption that agents are self-interested works well enough, generating predictions that are broadly consistent with observation. In some significant cases, however, we find economic behavior that seems to be inconsistent with self-interest. In particular, we find that some public goods and some charitable ventures are financed by the independent voluntary contributions of many thousands of individuals. In Britain, for example, the lifeboat service is entirely financed by voluntary contributions. In all rich (...) countries, charitable appeals raise large amounts of money for famine relief in the Third World. The willingness of individuals to contribute to such projects is an economic fact that requires an explanation. (shrink)

This study investigates the trajectories of intended critical thinking in a social context present in the K-5 social studies content standards of six states. It considers how the nature of context-based critical thinking present in the standards’ benchmarks is represented. The findings reveal a complex dynamic in K-5 social studies content standards, which fundamentally expect young learners to advance their critical thinking in social context. But the content standards promote inconsistent critical thinking in a social context (...) across grade levels. The sophistication of context-based critical thinking decreases within the standards as students advance through the grades. As such, implications for elementary social studies education in terms of how standards reflect official stances from the state on the nature of social studies in elementary education are discussed. (shrink)

The National Football League, the premier professional organization for American football, developed a policy concerning the protocol in cases where players contract COVID-19. This policy includes elements such as collective punishment that appear, at first glance, to be morally problematic. To the contrary, the policy is indeed morally acceptable as we should not think of organizations such as the NFL in the same way we think of governments in stable nations, but rather in the same way that we think of (...) hybrid justice systems in countries where because of histories of colonialism, the identity of citizens is divided, with tribal identities being more important than national citizenship. (shrink)

For most of the problems that economists consider, the assumption that agents are self-interested works well enough, generating predictions that are broadly consistent with observation. In some significant cases, however, we find economic behavior that seems to be inconsistent with self-interest. In particular, we find that some public goods and some charitable ventures are financed by the independent voluntary contributions of many thousands of individuals. In Britain, for example, the lifeboat service is entirely financed by voluntary contributions. In all rich (...) countries, charitable appeals raise large amounts of money for famine relief in the Third World. The willingness of individuals to contribute to such projects is an economic fact that requires an explanation. (shrink)

In each of two experiments, college students were assigned to two ad hoc groups that competed in a dart-throwing contest. On each trial, one contestant from each team threw a single dart at a standard dart board, trying to come as close as possible to hitting the bull's-eye. Also on each trial, the other participants judged the likelihood that both the Team A contestant and the Team B contestant would come closer to hitting the bull's-eye. In both experiments, participants exhibited (...) a strong wishful thinking effect. They judged the likelihood that their own team members would come closer to be greater than the likelihood that the opposing team members would come closer. Experiment 2 suggested that it was participants' desires, as opposed to some other variable associated with team membership, that influenced their predictions. Experiment 2 also showed that the size of the effect did not depend on whether participants believed that their predictions had been influenced by their team membership. These results help bridge the gap between previous experimental laboratory studies, which have produced inconsistent results, and correlational field studies of sports fans and voters, which have consistently produced large effects. (shrink)

This article presents a relational criticism of the "morphogenetic theory" of M. Archer. This theory is founded and representative of the most influential mode of perception of the social universe of the last few decades: co-determinism (structure ↔ agency). Co-determinism's influence can be explained by its integration of modern general presuppositions like freedom, individualism, and the quest for a new social order. By identifying five basic principles of relational sociology, we see that Archer's co-deterministic theory offers a complicated solution to (...) avoid voluntarism and co-determinism, limits the potential of sociological imagination, cannot adequately see the fluidity of social processes, produces a certain reification of social structures and agency, and is based on an inconsistent use of egocentric and relational perspectives. These problems can be avoided if we use a relational approach (actor ↔ actor ⇒ structures) based on the study of complex and empirical trans-actions. (shrink)

There has always been a sub-group of established economists trying to convey an environmental critique of the mainstream. This paper traces their thinking into the late 20th century via the development of associations and journals in the USA and Europe. There is clearly a divergence between the conformity to neo-classical economics favoured by resource and environmental economists and the acceptance of more radical critiques apparent in ecological economics. Thus, the progressive elements of ecological economics are increasingly incompatible with those (...) practising neo-classical environmental economics who try to reduce all concepts to fit within the confines of their models. A group of people can be identified who teach that ecological economics is nothing more than a name for the link between mainstream economics and ecology. A new movement and paradigm are unnecessary for such ends. This viewpoint is argued to be inconsistent with the roots and ideas of the ecological economics movement. Ecological economics is seen here to be synthesising various types of economics and moving back to explicit inclusion of ethical issues in the mode of classical political economy. This inevitably means rediscovering neglected past works and exploring new ways of thinking about socio- economics and the environment. (shrink)

The few people familiar with the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus generally have a low opinion of it. It's easy to see why: the dialogue is a mish-mash of Platonic, Epicurean and Cynic arguments against the fear of death, seemingly tossed together with no regard whatsoever for their consistency. As Furley notes, the Axiochus appears to be horribly confused. Whereas in the Apology Socrates argues that death is either annihilation or a relocation of the soul, and is a blessing either way, "the (...) Socrates of the Axiochus wants to have it both ways": death is both annihilation and a release of the soul from the body into a better realm. This may be used to construct a valid argument for the conclusion that death is not evil, but at the expense of having a contradiction as one of its premises. But D. S. Hutchinson has recently proposed that these inconsistencies shouldn't surprise us if we view the Axiochus as "an unconventional version of a very conventional genre--the consolation letter." In this paper I expand on Hutchinson's brief suggestion and argue that the Axiochus can be rehabilitated by paying attention to its genre. Although the Axiochus does display many similarities to the consolation letter, the shift from letter to dialogue does--pace Hutchinson--significantly affect what's going on. Within the dialogue, Socrates behaves toward Axiochus in a way similar to the way the author of a consolation letter behaves towards the letter's reader: he is willing to use inconsistent arguments, borrowed from any source, in order to soothe the patient. However, in depicting this type of consolatory relationship between Socrates and Axiochus, the dialogue itself is not aiming at consoling its readers. Instead, it should be seen as displaying for the reader's consideration a certain type of consolatory argumentative practice. -/- Socrates notes that Axiochus is "very much in need of consolation" (365a), and he uses any means necessary to accomplish this task. Socrates exhibits many ways in which he is willing to sacrifice argumentative hygiene for the sake of therapeutic effectiveness. These include: -/- * Use of arguments with inconsistent premises, presented in propria persona. * Appeals to emotion * Tailoring arguments to the audience. * Presenting invalid arguments so as to induce unjustified but comforting beliefs. * Evasion. In these respects, I think that Socrates' argumentative practice is best compared to PH III 280-1, where Sextus Empiricus says that the skeptic will deliberately use logically weak arguments as long as they work. Dorothy Tarrant claims that what links the Socrates of the Axiochus to Socrates as he appears elsewhere in the Platonic corpus is his evident care for the welfare of his interlocutor's psyche. But this concern takes a quite different form in the Axiochus than it usually does. As with Sextus, psychic therapy in the Axiochus involves relief from pain. The primary difference between them is that Socrates, unlike Sextus, is not aiming at producing epochê in his patient. (shrink)

This volume offers an English translation of John of St. Thomas's Cursus theologicus I, question I, disputation 2. In this particular text, the Dominican master raises questions concerning the scientific status and nature of theology. At issue, here, are a number of factors: namely, Christianity's continual coming to terms with the "Third Entry" of Aristotelian thought into Western Christian intellectual culture - specifically the Aristotelian notion of 'science' and sacra doctrina's satisfaction of those requirements - the Thomistic-commentary tradition, and the (...) larger backdrop of the Iberian Peninsula's flourishing "Second Scholasticism." In this latter context, John of St. Thomas applies the theological principles of Thomas Aquinas to the Scholastic disputes preoccupying Thomist, Franciscan, and Jesuit theologians, such as Cajetan, Bañez, Luis de Molina, Vazquez, Suárez - to name only a few - in a tour de force of theological thinking throughout the entire period of Scholasticism. In the process - and not insignificantly - the status quaestionis of theology's scientific character is clearly framed and answered according to John's satisfaction. Key to John of St. Thomas's resolution of the question is his understanding of the continuity of the power of human reason with the super-intelligibility of divine revelation spelled out in terms of what he calls "virtual revelation." This text presented in this volume is a quintessential example of the deep and abiding harmony that flourished between faith and reason as well as grace and nature within the golden era of Baroque Scholasticism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die by Steven NadlerJohn GreySteven Nadler. Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020. Pp. x + 234. Hardback, $39.95.Think Least of Death is not just an interpretation of Spinoza, but a defense of his philosophy. Nadler develops Spinoza's arguments in ways that are intended (...) both to reflect Spinoza's views and to persuade us that the views in question are true. He uses success language throughout to describe Spinoza's ideas ("What Spinoza discovered, and what he wants us to know, is that..." [11]) and arguments ("Spinoza... has demonstrated, rigorously and a priori, that..." [188]). Nadler is not just a Spinoza scholar here; he also thinks that Spinoza basically got it right. It would be a mistake, then, to evaluate Think Least of Death solely on its interpretive merits as a reading of Spinoza's Ethics. It is more fruitful to look at the places where Nadler not only describes, but apparently endorses, Spinoza's views.Following Nadler, I will focus here on the practical philosophy. Briefly put, Spinoza takes the right way of living to consist in adherence to the dictates of reason, which prescribe "that everyone love himself, seek his own advantage... and 'absolutely, that everyone should strive to preserve his own being as far as he can'" (191). These general principles issue in more specific directives based on facts about human nature. For instance, since the nature of the human mind is such that it always benefits from further understanding, reason directs us to strive for further understanding. To the extent that a human being lives in accordance with such dictates of reason, they will feel joyful, be free, and act virtuously. Conversely, when they are driven by their passions rather than reason, they will often feel sorrow, lack autonomy, and do things that are harmful to themselves and others. This is the source of whatever motivating power these directives have: necessarily, following them conduces to our self-interest.A crucial point for Nadler is that these facts about human nature are the same for each human being. This implies that "there is in fact an objective, non-arbitrary determination of what constitutes a more perfect or ideal human being" (28), the ideal that Spinoza variously refers to as the model of human nature or the free man. On Nadler's reading, Spinoza's notion of the free man (which he treats as equivalent to the model of human nature) is not "some creature of the imagination or reflection of personal taste" (29), but a representation of "the ideal state toward which every individual [human] naturally and necessarily... strives" (29). [End Page 708]A signal contribution of the book is to show that the free person's life is a realizable goal rather than an unattainable ideal. The free person is determined to act by reason alone, yes—but this is compatible with him or her also having passions, so long as those passions do not determine his or her behavior. A free person might feel fear at the prospect of death or suffering, but that fear will not determine what he or she does. Instead, the free person's actions will be determined by the guidance of reason and the positive affects (joy, love, self-esteem, and the like).Since the life of the free person is in principle attainable, Nadler proposes that we take the free person's life as a model for how we ourselves should live. For instance, when Spinoza writes that "a free man always acts honestly" (E 4P72), the implication is that we ourselves should always act honestly. Now, there is an apparent inconsistency in this position, nicely articulated by Don Garrett ("'A Free Man Always Acts Honestly, Not Deceptively': Freedom and the Good in Spinoza's Ethics," in Nature and Necessity in Spinoza's Philosophy [New York: Oxford University Press, 2018], 441–61). The free man—living entirely according to the guidance of reason—always acts honestly. Yet reason also guides us to seek our own advantage, and sometimes the... (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a two level account of moral thinking that, unlike other accounts, does justice to three very plausible propositions that seem to form an inconsistent triad: (1) People can be morally virtuous without the aid of philosophy. (2) Morally virtuous people non-accidentally act for good reasons, and work out what it is that they ought to do on the basis of considering such reasons. (3) Philosophers engaged in the project of normative ethics (...) are not wasting their time when they search after highly general moral principles which could not be discovered or be justifiably accepted through non-philosophical thinking, and which specify the good reasons that virtuous people act on, as well as provide a criterion or criteria for determining what it is that people ought to do. (shrink)

Research into expertise is relatively common in cognitive science concerning expertise existing across many domains. However, much less research has examined how experts within the same domain assess the performance of their peer experts. We report the results of a modified think-aloud study conducted with 18 pilots . Pairs of same-ranked pilots were asked to rate the performance of a captain flying in a critical pre-recorded simulator scenario. Findings reveal considerable variance within performance categories, differences in the process used as (...) evidence in support of a performance rating, different numbers and types of facts identified, and differences in how specific performance events affect choice of performance category and gravity of performance assessment. Such variance is consistent with low inter-rater reliability. Because raters exhibited good, albeit imprecise, reasons and facts, a fuzzy mathematical model of performance rating was developed. The model provides good agreement with observed variations. (shrink)

For Schopenhauer, death, understood as the annihilation of an individual's existence, cannot be successfully accommodated by theories endorsing an optimistic assessment of both human life and the world at large. I argue that Schopenhauer also has reasons to think that optimism cannot adopt personal immortality as a solution to that problem, although he does not present them systematically. Thus, he argues, prolonging one's life would necessarily lead at some point to an unbearable state of exhaustion due to one's unchanging character. (...) Changing one's character infinitely many times in the future would not do either, as Schopenhauer regards that idea as internally inconsistent. Finally, the immortality gained through one's work, one's descendants, or the survival of a part of oneself, while consistent with optimism, could not amount to personal immortality, on Schopenhauer's criteria. I end by discussing the implications of Schopenhauer's criticism for his own view, and a possible reply to it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Martin Heidegger and OntologyEmmanuel Levinas (bio)The prestige of Martin Heidegger 1 and the influence of his thought on German philosophy marks both a new phase and one of the high points of the phenomenological movement. Caught unawares, the traditional establishment is obliged to clarify its position on this new teaching which casts a spell over youth and which, overstepping the bounds of permissibility, is already in vogue. For once, (...) Fame has picked one who deserves it and, for that matter, one who is still living. Anyone who has studied philosophy cannot, when confronted by Heidegger’s work, fail to recognize how the originality and force of his achievements, stemming from genius, are combined with an attentive, painstaking, and close working-out of the argument—with that craftsmanship of the patient artisan in which phenomenologists take such pride. In this study, it is important for us to understand, above all, the true intentions of our author, to illuminate what he thinks really needs to be said, and to surmise what is most critical for him.To get to the heart of Heidegger’s system, it seems fitting to begin with a problem that is generally familiar. We choose the problem of knowledge, a deeper understanding of which takes us to the very threshold of Heidegger’s thought. For this problem, central to modern philosophy, is one of the main obstacles of modern philosophy that Heidegger wishes to surmount. Neo-Kantianism, which takes knowledge as the philosophical problem of the first rank, is the movement against which Heidegger rebels with all his strength. We have, thus, every chance of gaining access to his thought by the main door, so to speak. Once inside the system we will try to trace its outlines, 2 reserving, for a second part of our work, the determination of Heidegger’s place in the history of ideas, especially in the phenomenological movement, as well as of his relations with the philosopher to whom he owes so much—Edmund Husserl. 31In its most general form, the problem of the theory of knowledge has a critical significance. It consists in delineating a domain where knowledge can be certain and in determining the criteria for the legitimate scope of knowledge. But this problem, as normal and as simple as it may appear, has deeper roots. That knowledge should need a criterion at all presupposes that truth is not identical to all that is known and that the course [End Page 11] of things can fail to correspond with the course of thought. “How does knowledge correspond to being?” is a more profound formulation of the problem of knowledge.But we are not going to touch anymore on the primordial phenomenon that generates the problem. The problem of correspondence between thing and thought presupposes a free activity of thought and its isolation in relation to the object. It is precisely this presupposition which renders their harmony and even their contact problematic. “How does the subject take leave of itself to attain the object?” is what the problem of knowledge, in the last analysis, boils down to. Its true source is thus the concept of “subject” as elaborated by modern philosophy. The cogito presided over the subject’s birth. The cogito was the affirmation of the privileged nature of the subject’s immanent sphere, of its unique place in existence; hence, the cogito was the specificity of the subject’s connection to the rest of reality, the sui generis nature which opens up the passage from immanence to transcendence, the passage from ideas contained in the thinking substance to 4 their “formal existence.”The concept of the subject, understood as a substance having a specific position in the entire domain of being, presents us with difficulties of two kinds. First, how do we understand this leave-taking from the self which the thinking substance brings about and which displays an entirely original aspect? Indeed, we could say that thought, in reaching out toward objects, does not actually take leave of itself, since its objects—considered as ideas and contents of thought—are, in a certain sense, already within it. In order to make sense of this paradox, Descartes... (shrink)

In his recent Philosophers’ Imprint paper “The (mostly harmless) inconsistency of knowledge attributions” [Weiner, 2009], Matt Weiner argues that the semantics of the expression “knows that”, as it is used in attributions of knowledge like “Hannah knows that the bank will be open,” are inconsistent, but that this inconsistency is “mostly harmless.” He presents his view as an alternative to the invariantist, contextualist and relativist approaches currently prevalent in the literature, (e.g. [Stanley, 2005], [DeRose, 1995], [Hawthorne, 2006], [MacFarlane, (...) 2005]) and argues that it avoids important disadvantages of each. Yet in calling the supposed inconsistency of knowledge attributions “mostly harmless”, Weiner implies that his view does not have new disadvantages of its own. My purpose in the present paper is to argue that the inconsistency and harmlessness theses cannot be jointly maintained: if we accept that the semantics of ‘know’—or indeed any word—are inconsistent, then we face a dilemma: one horn is dialetheism, the view that there there are true contradictions, the other is the view that that semantic competence in English requires belief in, or similar commitment to, falsehoods. I will argue that neither of these options is well described as “mostly harmless.” The paper is structured as follows: in the first part I present Weiner’s view and his arguments for it. Then in section 2 I compare the question of whether the semantics of ‘knows that’ are inconsistent to the much older controversy over whether the semantics of the expression ‘is true’ are inconsistent. In section 3 I will present Hans Herzberger’s arguments from the 1960s for thinking that no expression in a natural language can have inconsistent semantics. Finally, in section 4 I argue that although Herzberger’s argument seems anachronistic today, both contemporary ways of avoiding his conclusion have significant disadvantages. (shrink)

This book sets up a rich intercultural dialogue between the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Michel Foucault, and that of key African thinkers such as Kwame Anthony Appiah, Achille Mbembe, Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Gyekye, Tsenay Serequeberhahn, and Henry Odera Oruka. The book challenges western-centric visions of an African future by demonstrating the richness of thought that can be found in African and Afrodiasporic philosophy. The book first shows how thinkers such as Serequeberhan have criticised the inconsistencies in Kant's work, whereas (...) others such as Wiredu, Gyekye, Appiah and Mbembe also referred to his work positively and used it to develop progressive political concepts such as the metanational state; partial cosmopolitanism and Afropolitanism. The book goes on to consider how Mbembe and Mudimbe have responded to Foucault's ideas in deciphering the various Western, African and Afrodiasporic discourses of knowledge on Africa. The book concludes by considering various theories of intercultural exchange, from Gyekye's cultural borrowing, to Appiah's conversation across boundaries, Wiredu's cross cultural dialogue, Mbembe's thinking outside the frame, Serequeberhan's dialogue at a distance, and Oruka's call for global re-distribution and a new ecophilosophical attitude to safeguard human existence on the planet. This book invites us all to engage in intercultural dialogue and mutual respect for different cultural creations. It will be an important read for researchers in Philosophy wherever they are in the world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 509 covered and interpreted. Depending on their interests and their theories of causation, historians may have any variety of single-facetcd or multi-faceted interpretations. Social history of ideas is one variety. Practitioners of each of the above willnotice omissions of subdivisions and may differ with my definition of their field. Such a reaction would further indicate that indeed there is a plethora of approaches. Such abundance is (...) needed to meet the spectrum of concerns of historically-minded scholars. In each approach the focus is different; an idea, a general topic, the transmission of ideas, a discipline, a specific social environment, an intellectual community, the spirit of an era, a whole society and culture, an event, the life and times of a writer. Ideas do in fact have meaning and function along this full spectrum of contexts. A methodology is chosen which will throw light on a particular kind of context; some of the best scholarship results from the utilization by one individual of complementary methodologies. Fortunately, to compensate for the limitations of individual scholars, we have other scholars! The tensions between the horiz0ntalists and verticalists and between the externalists and intemalists are healthy tensions. Only through communicationamong scholars utilizing differentmethodologies and through attempts by individual scholars to approach their subject from several perspectives can we hope to gain a multi-faceted comprehension of man's past. MARYANNE CLINE HOROWITZ Occidental College DESCARTES' INCONSISTENCY: A REPLY* In my paper, "Descartes on Unknown Faculties: An Essential Inconsistency,''1 I point out that Descartes claims on one occasion that he could have a faculty which is unknown to him (Claim A), but on a second occasion, within the same Meditation, claims the contrary (Claim B). I then try to show that nothing which Descartes achieves or says between A and B justifies this volte face on his part, and subsequently conclude that he is inconsistent in Meditation III, and that this inconsistency is in fact essential to his argument. Professors Brewster and Humphrey have raised objections to my view that Descartes is inconsistent.2 Here I wish to reply to these objections because I think they fail, though sometimesin quite subtle ways, and because I believe I can in this way clarity my earlier contentions. Brewster and Humphrey, as I understand them, have raised three major objections to my paper. These objections, in the order in which I shall take them up, are: I. That I do not have a prima facie case for my claim that Descartes is inconsistent, for * I wish to thank my colleague, Professor Jonathan Robinson, and Professor Donald Livingston of Northern Illinois University for their helpful comments on a draft of this reply. i "Descartes on Unknown Faculties: An Essential Inconsistency," Journal of the History of Philosophy, VI, 3 (July, 1968), 244-256. 2 Leonard E. Brewster, "How to Know Enough about Unknown Faculties," Journal o! the History of Philosophy, XII, 3 (July, 1974), 366--371, and Ted B. Humphrey, "How Descartes Avoids the Hidden Faculties Trap," ibid., 371-377. 510 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Claim A can be demonstrated to be false, and hence Descartes is justified in maldng Claim B. (Brewster)8 Ii. That I fail to note that Claim A is made in a limited context, namely, a discussion of the origin of only those ideas which are adventitious, while Claim B is made in a signilicantly different context, and hence the two claims are not inconsistent. (Humphrey) III. That I have failed to see that for Descartes Jacultiesare always dependent modes of substances, and hence that no faculty could have a power exceeding the substance of which it is a mode, which is to say that I have missed a crucial metaphysical distinction which accounts for the apparent differences in the two claims, and permits both to be made without inconsistency. (Humphrey) I. Professor Brewster argues that I do not have a prima fade case for the claim that Descartes is inconsistent. The "pivotal issue," he suggests, "is whether the possibility of the unknown faculty invalidates Descartes' first proof for the existence of God." He then suggests that this proof consists of three premises: (1) "Descartes' assertion that he possesses an... (shrink)

I argue that there are living and everyday case in which rationality requires you, as a non-idealized human thinker, to have inconsistent beliefs while recognizing the inconsistency. I defend my argument against classical and insightful objections by Doris Olin, as well as others. I consider three versions of the preface paradox as candidate cases, including Makinson’s original version. None is free from objection. However, there is a fourth version, Modesty, that supposes that you believe that at least one of (...) your beliefs is false. I argue that this version escapes all the objections that could trouble the other versions, including the objection that given certain closure principles for justified belief, justified inconsistent beliefs saddle you with a pair of justified beliefs that are in explicit contradiction. I also argue more tentatively for the same verdict for Modesty*, a version that supposes that you believe that at least one of your beliefs is false. In that case, your belief guarantees that its content is true, in which case your beliefs are inconsistent, because at least one of them must be false. Once you think you’re wrong, you must be right! Crucial to my argument is a distinction between explicitly contradictory beliefs and three forms of inconsistency in belief. In the first of these, you believe contingent propositions each of which is logically independent of the others, yet you also believe the syntactic negation of their conjunction. In the second, your beliefs are inconsistent because of the rigid designation of demonstratives such as ‘this’ embedded in their contents. In the third, as in Modesty and Modesty* your beliefs are inconsistent because of self-reference. (shrink)

As the dialogue between science and religion has grown more robust, Christians have been led to more nuanced ways of thinking about the connections between these two modes of inquiry. This essay focuses on exploring various deficiencies in naturalistic conceptions of the cosmos, and further exploring how Eastern Orthodox theology provides a more encompassing picture of human beings and their place in the cosmos.

Nowadays there is a growing tendency in the philosophy of science to think that some phenomena cannot be exhaustively explained, or even described, by a single theory or a particular approach. Thus, we are occasionally required to use various approaches in order to give account of the phenomenon we are analyzing. And sometimes, we can appreciate this as an invitation to be pluralist in certain respects about our understanding of a particular aspect in science. -/- During the last decade applications (...) of pluralism have increased and led to several other relevant debates in the philosophy of science. By the strengthening of pluralism, new questions have emerged, and more importantly, new alternatives have been offered in dealing with problems about how to interpret the ontology and the ontological commitments of particular theories, or how to apply strategies to analyze and understand specific episodes from the history of science, or how to work within different, and sometimes incompatible, explanations about a particular phenomenon, among others. In general, pluralism seems to be a very rich and yet not enough explored path for the philosophy of science in general. -/- Today, it is recognized that, at least for methodological purposes, the application of pluralism to the study of science can offer a great number of benefits. One of them would be the opportunity of analyzing the role that some epistemic virtues -such as scope, fruitfulness, consistency, and simplicity, to name just a few- play in the scientific activity. From the different pluralist positions, a lot has been said about empirical adequacy, refutability and explanatory power yet consistency power, yet, consistency has not been equally dealt with. -/- As a matter of fact, the lack of consistency and its philosophical implications have been studied from an angle that does not necessarily involve a pluralism of any kind. At the moment, it is commonly accepted that inconsistencies are more frequent in scientific development that the traditional philosophy of science could have expected and the idea that inconsistency is not always a synonym of logical anarchy, as it was suggested in the classical literature of logic and the philosophy of science, has been gaining support. All this has been possible, mostly, thanks to the emergence of paraconsistent logics and the availability of case studies that show how inconsistency is not an uncommon phenomenon in science. -/- But pluralism does not necessarily entail inconsistency toleration nor vice versa. Accordingly the main motivation for this volume is to explore the links between pluralism and inconsistency toleration in science, in order to connect the reflections on inconsistency toleration with broader and major issues in philosophy of science. In order to do so, we will suggest two different lines of investigation: first, to focus on the implication of some pluralistic accounts in the philosophy of science, regarding inconsistency; and second to analyze the implications of some paraconsistent approaches regarding pluralism in science. (shrink)

Is there anything irrational, or self-undermining, about having "inconsistent" attitudes of caring or valuing? In this paper, I argue that, contra suggestions of Harry Frankfurt and Charles Taylor, the answer is "No." Here I focus on "valuations," which are endorsed desires or attitudes. The proper characterization of what I call "valuational inconsistency" I claim, involves not logical form (valuing A and not-A), but rather the co-possibility of what is valued; valuations are inconsistent when there is no possible world in (...) which what is valued can co-exist. Essentially conflicting valuations, I show, are no worse for an agent than contingently conflicting ones, which are common and no threat to rationality or well-being. Partly based on reflections about a conflicted mother, who values staying at home and also having a career, I argue that valuational inconsistency does not render a person unable to act, does not make a person's actions ineffective because of vacillation, does not undermine a person's autonomy, and need not make a person dissatisfied with himself. I defend my characterization of inconsistency as an apt one; I offer some reasons to value inconsistency itself; and I draw out some implications for coherence thinking in moral philosophy. (shrink)

Emotivists hold that moral opinions are wishes and desires, and that the function of moral language is to “express” such states. But if moral opinions were but wishes or desires, why would we see certain opinions as inconsistent with, or following from other opinions? And why should our reasoning include complex opinions such as the opinion that a person ought to be blamed only if he has done something wrong? Indeed, why would we think that anything is conditional on his (...) doing something wrong unless “doing something wrong” signifies a real kind of action? -/- Many have believed, and seemingly on good grounds, that these questions lack good answers, and that emotivism is doomed for that very reason. What I will argue, however, is that once emotivism is recognized for what it is, namely an empirical theory about the psychological nature of moral opinions, and once we relate it to a general theory of human reasoning, moral reasoning and intuitions of inconsistency and consequence are only to be expected. Recent objections to earlier emotivist or “expressivist” accounts can thus be met, and the phenomena of inconsistency and consequence fully embraced by emotivists. (shrink)

Kevin Scharp’s influential work on the alethic paradoxes combines an extensively developed inconsistency theory with a substantial conceptual engineering project. I argue that Scharp’s inconsistency theory is in tension with his conceptual engineering project: the inconsistency theory includes an account of concepts that implies that the conceptual engineering project will fail. I recommend that Scharp revises his account of concepts, and show how doing so allows him to resolve the tension. The discussion is important for ongoing work (...) on conceptual engineering. Firstly, it is important to get clear on whether Scharp’s conceptual engineering project is—or could be—successful. Secondly, the issues discussed herein may generalise to other conceptual engineering projects, such as explication and ameliorative projects. In particular, the discussion has implications for how conceptual engineers can think about concepts and their relation to how we use words. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a resurgent interest in the philosophical dimension of cultural products—cinema, in particular. Rather than analyzing the production, dissemination and reception of particular films through literary, cultural, sociological or psychological theories, one considers film as “doing the work” of theory/philosophy. This essay argues that cinema's possibility of being/becoming philosophy will emerge only if one remains open to the inconsistencies of the cinematic text, rather than seek to posit a mythical point of origin that reduces representation (...) to its effective functionality, thereby announcing the death of thinking. Following the ways in which Adorno and Horkheimer indicate the deep ontological significance of the myth of origin involved in the logic of Enlightenment, this essay attempts to offer responsibility, vigilance and hesitation as alternative ways of engaging with thought. Cinema, this essay finally claims, can offer a model with which thinking, as philosophy proper, can be recovered from its mythical origin. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on a major aspect of the later Wittgenstein’s investigation of thinking – his discussion of the idea of thinking as a process or an activity. I shall show that Wittgenstein’s remarks, apart from some concerning the methodology and conception of philosophy, are grammatical remarks, meaning that they describe the use of the word “thinking” and can be agreed to by every competent speaker. I thus show that Wittgenstein’s investigation of thinking is (...) a grammatical one, and hence that there is no inconsistency between his conception of philosophy and his philosophical practice. In the process of doing so, I shall also review previous studies on this topic and point out their deficiencies. (shrink)

Consequentialists typically think that the moral quality of one's conduct depends on the difference one makes. But consequentialists may also think that even if one is not making a difference, the moral quality of one's conduct can still be affected by whether one is participating in an endeavour that does make a difference. Derek Parfit discusses this issue – the moral significance of what I call ‘participation’ – in the chapter of Reasons and Persons that he devotes to what he (...) calls ‘moral mathematics’. In my paper, I expose an inconsistency in Parfit's discussion of moral mathematics by showing how it gives conflicting answers to the question of whether participation matters. I conclude by showing how an appreciation of Parfit's error sheds some light on consequentialist thought generally, and on the debate between act- and rule-consequentialists specifically. (shrink)

Contemporary debates on God’s emotionality are divided between two extremes. Impassibilists deny God’s emotionality on the basis of God’s omniscience, omnipotence and incorporeality. Passibilists seem to break with tradition by affirming divine emotionality, often focusing on the idea that God suffers with us. Contemporary philosophy of emotion reflects this divide. Some philosophers argue that emotions are voluntary and intelligent mental events, making them potentially compatible with omniscience and omnipotence. Others claim that emotions are involuntary and basically physiological, rendering them inconsistent (...) with traditional divine attributes. Thinking Through Feeling: God, Emotion and Passibility creates a three-way conversation between the debate in theology, contemporary philosophy of emotion, and pre-modern (particularly Augustinian and Thomist) conceptions of human affective experience. It also provides an exploration of the intelligence and value of the emotions of compassion, anger and jealousy. (shrink)

The Socrates of the dialogue Axiochus seems to advance incompatible arguments in his attempt to cure Axiochus of his fear of death. Is this incompatibility a foreseen and accepted consequence of the author’s therapeutic strategy? This paper argues that it is rather an intended and functional inconsistency: it serves to stimulate critical thinking in order to anchor philosophical conviction more deeply in the reader’s soul. The paper musters support for this reading by drawing attention to the different levels (...) of inconsistency in the dialogue; the multiple ways in which the text thematizes inconsistency; the importance of exercising judgement in the text; and the motivating concern of superficial persuasion. (shrink)

By investigating one of the major inconsistencies that Hume's parallel treatment of the identity of persons and objects issues, this essay offers an unconventional account of what it needs to avoid a dualist picture of mind and world. It will be argued that much hinges on the question of whether or not one is willing to allow the principally unperceivable to enter into one's concept of reality. Hume, as will be shown, rejects this approach: he denies that we have reason (...) to think that there are substances that divide the world into two separate realms. The strategic value of this move is that it enables us to think of minds in terms similar to those underlying our conception of physical objects without urging us to engage in reductionist or eliminativist projects. (shrink)

"Thinking about thinking", the topic of this section of our volume, leads us into an Escherian web of self-referential interconnections — which nevertheless make sense, at least if we do not shy away at once in the face of paradox, for fear of inconsistency. How do our critical faculties enter the picture? Adding a few conceptual dimensions to the merely linearly causal one may help us to shed light on the issue, and may help us also to (...) understand some of the basic strategies "Western" thought has developed throughout its historical pathway in its conscious dealings with the 'real'. Of course, in a few pages it is impossible to do justice to this complicated subject. But I'll try to give the reader an as clear as possible description of the, in my view, crucial issues, pointing out the ways they resonate into the many fields of interest represented in the intended readership, and leave it to the reader to dig deeper through the given references. (shrink)

According to much modern social psychology, behavioural economics and common sense, people's actions and beliefs are frequently the result of rapid intuitive thought rather than careful deliberation. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, in their influential book, Nudge, synthesised the literature and used it as the basis for numerous policy ideas.1 Not least, they gave the word ‘nudge’ as a handy term to apply to all sorts of ways of taking advantage of people's psychological quirks without coercing or bribing them. But (...) while Nudge was long on ideas and enthusiasm, it was short on conceptual clarity. The idea of a nudge was inconsistent with some of the policies Thaler and Sunstein endorsed and their account of nudging's relation to freedom and paternalism was flawed.In Salvaging the concept of nudge, Yashar Saghai acts as a friendly critic who thinks nudging has plenty to offer the policy world but sees that it needs both conceptual clarity and ethical defence.2 He wants to show how some of ways of taking advantage of people's psychology could leave them as free as before and he is especially concerned with what I would describe as a question of manipulation: …. (shrink)