H.-J. Glock has made important contributions to discussions of rationality, reasons, and rules. This chapter addresses four conceptions of rationality that Glock identifies. One of these conceptions of rationality is that rationality consists in responsiveness to reasons. This chapter goes on to consider the idea that reasons became prominent in normative ethics because of their usefulness in articulating moral pluralism. The final section of the chapter connects reasons and rules and contends that both are ineliminable.

Strawsonians about moral responsibility often claim that our practices of holding morally responsible fix the facts of moral responsibility, rather than the other way round. Many have argued that such ‘reversal’ claims have an unwelcome consequence: If our practices of holding morally responsible fix the facts of moral responsibility, does this not imply, absurdly, that if we held severely mentally ill people responsible, they would be responsible? We provide a new Strawsonian answer to this question, and we explore the relation (...) between reversal claims and (in)compatibilism. (shrink)

According to Michael Zimmerman, no interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal captures a significant truth. He raises several worries about the Strawsonian view that moral responsibility consists in susceptibility to the reactive attitudes and claims that this view at best supports only an etiolated interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal. He outlines three problems. First, the existence of self-reactive attitudes may be incompatible with the interpersonal nature of moral responsibility. Secondly, Zimmerman questions (...) the significance of the interpersonal nature of moral responsibility, according to the Strawsonian view. Thirdly, he argues that that view may be taken to suggest the wrong kind of priority relation between ‘P is morally responsible’ and ‘it is appropriate to adopt some reactive attitude toward P’. I discuss each of these problems in turn and conclude that Strawsonians can respond to all three problems raised by Zimmerman. The Strawsonian view supports a significant interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal. (shrink)

The present article aims to show that a subject can only fully grasp the concept of the past if she has some experiential, or recollective, memories of particular past events. More specifically, I argue that (1) in order for a subject to understand the concept of the past, it is necessary that the subject understand the concept of a particular past event in such a way that it might contribute to her understanding of the concept of the past. (2) But (...) then, in order for a subject to understand the concept of a particular past event in such a way that it might contribute to her understanding of the concept of the past, it is necessary that the subject have some recollective memories of particular past events. (C) Hence, a subject can only understand the concept of the past if she has some recollective memories of particular past events. I defend the premises of the present argument against various objections, indicate why we should accept both premises, and accordingly end by endorsing the argument's conclusion. (shrink)

A point that Strawson often emphasises in his writings is that the concepts of knowledge and perception are closely linked. For example, the idea of such a link does important in his exposition and defense of a causal analysis of perception. According to this analysis a material object M is perceived by a subject S only if M causes an experience in S. Why should this be? One reason, according to Strawson, is that such a causal requirement on perception is (...) implied by perception’s knowledge-giving role. This is one sense in which, in the words of Strawson’s last book, ‘we could not explain all the features of the concept of sense perception without reference to the concept of knowledge’. (shrink)

Strawson's philosophical attitude towards scepticism is frequently thought to have undergone a significant shift from the “strong” or “robust” employment of transcendental arguments in Individuals to a more “modest” understanding of the efficacy of such arguments in Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties. I argue that this interpretation is based upon a misunderstanding of the function of transcendental arguments in Strawson's earlier works. Examining the continuity of Strawson's modest naturalistic approach to scepticism can offer some insight as to the continuing overestimation (...) of the anti-sceptical efficacy of transcendental arguments. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that ordinary objects, such as mountains and chairs, are not material in their own right, but only in virtue of the fact that they are constituted by matter. As Fine puts it, they are “only derivatively material” (2003, 211). In this paper I argue that invoking “constitution” to account for the materiality of things that are not material in their own right explains nothing and renders the admission that these objects are indeed material completely mysterious. Although (...) there may be metaphysical contexts in which mysterianism can be accepted with equanimity, I further argue, the question of the materiality of quotidian objects is not one of them. (shrink)

David Malament tried to show that the causal theory of time leads to a unique determination of simultaneity relative to an inertial observer, namely standard simultaneity. I show that the causal relation Malament uses in his proofs, causal connectibility, should be replaced by a different causal relation, the one used by Reichenbach in his formulation of the theory. I also explain why Malament's reliance on the assumption that the observer has an eternal inertial history modifies our conception of simultaneity, and (...) I therefore eliminate it. Having made these changes, Malament's uniqueness result no longer follows, although the conventionality of simultaneity is not reinstated. I contrast my approach with previous criticisms of Malament. Introduction Causality and Temporal Order Malament's Argument Causality versus Causal Connectibility Simultaneity and History Conclusion. (shrink)

I have attempted to show that many attributive adjectives can be dealt with within the framework of first-order predicate calculus by the method suggested in this paper. I've also supplied independent reasons for the claim that attributive adjectives that are not responsive to this method require a formal treatment different from the one that the adjectives successfully dealt with by that method require. Thus, if the method I've argued for is sound, then the scope of first-order predicate calculus was shown (...) to be wider than assumed by several logicians. This I take to be of interest from a logical point of view. (shrink)

Information modeling (also known as conceptual modeling or semantic data modeling) may be characterized as the formulation of a model in which information aspects of objective and subjective reality are presented (the application), independent of datasets and processes by which they may be realized (the system).A methodology for information modeling should incorporate a number of concepts which have appeared in the literature, but should also be formulated in terms of constructs which are understandable to and expressible by the system user (...) as well as the system developer. This is particularly desirable in connection with certain intimate relationships, such as being the same as or being a part of. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a pragmatic theory of the motivations behind the practice of defining concepts in philosophy. The “correct” definition in philosophy is not, as is usually supposed, the definition that accurately describes some pre-philosophical meaning, but the definition which is useful for the achievement of certain theoretical goals. I consider different examples of definitional debates from the history of philosophy. The analysis of these examples also evidences why philosophers do not usually grant the incidence of pragmatic (...) reason in their conceptual investigations. At the end of the paper, I provide some reasons that explain why the incidence of pragmatic reasons is inevitable. (shrink)

I argue against a principle that is widely taken to govern metaphysical explanation. This is the principle that no necessary facts can, on their own, explain a contingent fact. I then show how this result makes available a response to a longstanding objection to the Principle of Sufficient Reason—the objection that the Principle of Sufficient Reason entails that the world could not have been otherwise.

This paper develops a form of transcendental naïve realism. According to naïve realism, veridical perceptual experiences are essentially relational. According to transcendental naïve realism, the naïve realist theory of perception is not just one theory of perception amongst others, to be established as an inference to the best explanation and assessed on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis that weighs performance along a number of different dimensions: for instance, fidelity to appearances, simplicity, systematicity, fit with scientific theories, and so on. (...) Rather, naïve realism enjoys a special status in debates in the philosophy of perception because it represents part of the transcendental project of explaining how it is possible that perceptual experience has the distinctive characteristics it does. One of the potentially most interesting prospects of adopting a transcendental attitude towards naïve realism is that it promises to make the naïve realist theory of perception, in some sense, immune to falsification. This paper develops a modest form of transcendental naïve realism modelled loosely on the account of the reactive attitudes provided by Strawson in ‘Freedom and Resentment’, and suggests one way of understanding the claim that naïve realism is immune to falsification. (shrink)

This paper defends a version of the old empiricist claim that to think about unobservable physical properties a subject must be able to think perception-based thoughts about observable properties. The central argument builds upon foundations laid down by G. E. M. Anscombe and P. F. Strawson. It bridges the gap separating these foundations and the target claim by exploiting a neglected connection between thought about properties and our grasp of causation. This way of bridging the gap promises to introduce substantive (...) constraints on right accounts of perception and perception-based thought. (shrink)

Esta enciclopédia abrange, de uma forma introdutória mas desejavelmente rigorosa, uma diversidade de conceitos, temas, problemas, argumentos e teorias localizados numa área relativamente recente de estudos, os quais tem sido habitual qualificar como «estudos lógico-filosóficos». De uma forma apropriadamente genérica, e apesar de o território teórico abrangido ser extenso e de contornos por vezes difusos, podemos dizer que na área se investiga um conjunto de questões fundamentais acerca da natureza da linguagem, da mente, da cognição e do raciocínio humanos, bem (...) como questões acerca das conexões destes com a realidade não mental e extralinguística. A razão daquela qualificação é a seguinte: por um lado, a investigação em questão é qualificada como filosófica em virtude do elevado grau de generalidade e abstracção das questões examinadas (entre outras coisas); por outro, a investigação é qualificada como lógica em virtude de ser uma investigação logicamente disciplinada, no sentido de nela se fazer um uso intenso de conceitos, técnicas e métodos provenientes da disciplina de lógica. O agregado de tópicos que constitui a área de estudos lógico-filosóficos é já visível, pelo menos em parte, no Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus de Ludwig Wittgenstein, uma obra publicada em 1921. E uma boa maneira de ter uma ideia sinóptica do território disciplinar abrangido por esta enciclopédia, ou pelo menos de uma porção substancial dele, é extrair do Tractatus uma lista dos tópicos mais salientes aí discutidos; a lista incluirá certamente tópicos do seguinte género, muitos dos quais se podem encontrar ao longo desta enciclopédia: factos e estados de coisas; objectos; representação; crenças e estados mentais; pensamentos; a proposição; nomes próprios; valores de verdade e bivalência; quantificação; funções de verdade; verdade lógica; identidade; tautologia; o raciocínio matemático; a natureza da inferência; o cepticismo e o solipsismo; a indução; as constantes lógicas; a negação; a forma lógica; as leis da ciência; o número. (shrink)

Festschrift in Honor of Barry Smith on the occasion of his 65th Birthday. Published as issue 4:4 of the journal Cosmos + Taxis: Studies in Emergent Order and Organization. Includes contributions by Wolfgang Grassl, Nicola Guarino, John T. Kearns, Rudolf Lüthe, Luc Schneider, Peter Simons, Wojciech Żełaniec, and Jan Woleński.

Primitivist theories of truth have been defended by some of the luminaries of analytic philosophy, including the early Moore and Russell, Frege, Davidson, and Sosa. In this paper, I take up a contemporary primitivist theory that has been systematically developed throughout a sizeable body of work but has yet to receive sustained critical attention—Jamin Asay's primitivist deflationism. Asay's major ambitions are to defend a novel primitivist account of the concept truth and to harmonise that account with a deflationary theory of (...) the property truth. I will elaborate a thoroughgoing critique of primitivist deflationism, arguing that we have reason to doubt all of the five theses that constitute the view. Along the way, I will also highlight a number of possible escape routes for the primitivist deflationist, explaining how they can make the view more resilient even as they compel us to rework some of its central commitments. (shrink)

The reflections recorded in this paper arise from three moments in the theory of definition and of conceptual analysis. The moments are: Frege’s review of Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic, the discussion there of the paradox of analysis, and the division that Frege marks, ensuing upon his distinction of Sinn/sense from Bedeutung/reference, between two different conceptions of definition; Leibniz’s still serviceable account of a distinction between the clarity and the distinctness of ideas---a distinction that prompts the suggestion that the guiding purpose (...) of lexical definition is Leibnizian clarity whereas that of real definition is inseparable from the pursuit of Leibnizian distinctness; Leibniz’s speculations concerning the limit or terminus of analysis. The apparent failure of these speculations, casting doubt as it does upon the aspirations that give rise to them, points to the long-standing need to reconfigure the philosophical business of enquiry into concepts. (shrink)

Many equate the meaning of a linguistic expression with its use. This paper investigates prominent objections to the equivalence claim and argues that they are unsuccessful. Once one suitably distinguishes the kind of use to be identified with meaning, the two do not diverge. Doing so, however, requires employing terms that are cognates of ‘meaning’ (if not ‘meaning’ itself). Nonetheless, I stress, this does not count against the equivalence claim. Moreover, one should not assume that the circularity on this occasion (...) is vicious. (shrink)

In this paper, I briefly outline the notion of a truth-conditional meaning-theory and introduce two prominent problems it faces. The“extensionality problem” arises because not all correct specifications of truth-conditions are meaning-giving. The “explanatory problem”concerns the extent to which truth-conditional meaning-theories can contribute to the task of clarifying the nature of linguistic meaning.The “principle of humanity” is supposed to resolve both issues simultaneously. I argue that it fails to do so.

Many philosophers accept that a naturalistic reduction of meaning is in principle impossible, since behavioural regularities or dispositions are consistent with any number of semantic descriptions. One response is to view meaning as primitive. In this paper, I explore Brandom’s alternative, which is to specify behaviour in non-semantic but normative terms. Against Brandom, I argue that a norm specified in non-semantic terms might correspond to any number of semantic norms. Thus, his theory of meaning suffers from the very same kind (...) of problem as its naturalistic competitors. It is not sufficient, I contend, merely that some norms be introduced into one’s account but that they be specified using intensional, semantic notions on a par with that of meaning. In closing, I counter Brandom’s reasons for resisting such a position, the most significant of which is that it leaves philosophers with nothing constructive to say about meaning. (shrink)

Philosophical intuition has become one of the most debated problems in recent years, largely due to the rise of the movement called experimental philosophy which challenged the conviction that philosophers have some special insight into abstract ideas such as being, knowledge, good and evil, intentional action, etc. In response to the challenge, some authors claim that there is a special cognitive faculty called philosophical intuition which delivers justification to philosophical theses, while some others deny it based on experimental results. A (...) relatively smaller group of researchers aim at clarifying what the alleged intuition is. I follow the latter path. In this paper I argue that philosophical intuition is in the first place the capacity enabling one to what I refer to as the recognition of one’s epistemic position. The latter means becoming aware of the seemingly trivial “fact” that the way in which the world manifests itself depends on the cognitive apparatus one has, thereby propelling one to draw a distinction between appearances and reality. The recognition at stake is a very specific capacity to approach the world solely as it is experienced. This capacity, I argue, is the core and the defining feature of philosophical intuition. As part of my argumentation I also distinguish between the intuition in question and its different manifestations; and then introduce a novel notion of erotetic intuition. My argument is called “old-fashion” to emphasize the fact that I draw mostly on four figures who were pivotal in the twentieth- century philosophy and whose influence on the current debate concerning philosophical intuition should be, I believe, stronger than it is; I mean Russell, Carnap, Wittgenstein, and Husserl. (shrink)

Despite Donald Davidson's influential criticism of the very notion of conceptual schemes, the notion continues enjoying its popularity in contemporary philosophy and, accordingly, conceptual relativism is still very much alive. There is one major reason responsible for Davidson's failure which has not been widely recognized: What Davidson attacks fiercely is not the very notion, but a notion of conceptual schemes, namely, the Quinean notion of conceptual schemes and its underlying Kantian scheme-content dualism. However, such a notion simply cannot carry the (...) weight of conceptual relativism for it does not catch the essences of conceptual relativism. Consequently, I argue that the very notion of conceptual schemes and conceptual relativism have survived Davidson's attack. Therefore, the failure of the Quinean notion of conceptual schemes and Kantian scheme-content dualism, even if Davidson can claim victory, does not mark the end of the very notion of conceptual schemes.[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]. (shrink)

Epistemic reasons are meant to provide justification for beliefs. In this paper, I will be concerned with the requirements that have to be met if reasons are to discharge this function. It is widely recognized, however, that only possessed reasons can justify beliefs and actions. But what are the conditions that have to be satisfied in order for one to possess reasons? I shall begin by motivating a particular condition, namely, the ‘treating’ requirement that has been deemed to be necessary (...) for possessing reasons. In Sect. 1, I explain and criticize some of the existing accounts of the treating requirement for reason-possession. In Sect. 2, I will suggest a dispositional account of reason-possession in which the treating condition features prominently. Section 3 will deal with the some of the consequences of this account for such issues as the structure of epistemic defeat, the immediacy of perceptual justification and logical knowledge. (shrink)

In his new book, The Force of Law, Frederick Schauer maintains that law has no necessary properties, and that therefore jurisprudents should not assume that an inquiry into the nature of law has to be a search for such properties. I argue, however, that Schauer's attempt to show that legal anti-essentialism is a defensible position fails, because his one main argument is either irrelevant or else incomplete, depending on how one understands it, and because the other main argument is false.

In this article, I distinguish between a moral and a strictly legal conception of legal normativity, and argue that legal positivists can account for law's normativity in the strictly legal but not in the moral sense, while pointing out that normativity in the former sense is of little interest, at least to lawyers. I add, however, that while the moral conception of law's normativity is to be preferred to the strictly legal conception from the rather narrow viewpoint of the study (...) of law's normativity, it is less attractive than the latter from the broader viewpoint of the study of the nature of law. I then distinguish between a moral and a strictly legal conception of the normative force of legal justification, and argue that legal positivists may without contradiction embrace the moral conception, and that therefore the analysis of the normative force of legal justification need not be a problem for legal positivists. I conclude that, on the whole, we have reason to prefer legal positivism to natural law theory. I begin by introducing the subject of jurisprudence . I then introduce the natural law/legal positivism debate, suggesting that we ought to understand it as a debate about the proper way to explicate the concept of law . I proceed to argue that legal decision‐making is a matter of applying legal norms to facts, and that syllogistic reasoning plays a prominent role in legal decision‐making thus conceived . Having done that, I discuss law's normativity , the normative force of legal justification , and the relation between the former and the latter . I conclude with a critical comment on Joseph Raz’ understanding of the question of law's normativity. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss Alf Ross's claim that the concept of a legal right is best understood as a technical tool of presentation, which ties together a disjunction of operative facts and a conjunction of legal consequences, and that rights statements render the content of a number of legal norms in a convenient manner. I argue that while Ross's analysis is appealing, it is problematic in at least three respects. I also argue, however, that despite these difficulties Ross's analysis (...) deserves our continued attention, because the fundamental idea—that the concept of a legal right must be understood functionally—is sound. (shrink)

This article argues that philosophy instructors in general, and critical thinking instructors in particular, profit from developing concise preparatory remarks for introductory classes. To this end, it argues for two simple, but effective, introductory descriptions of philosophy: talking about how we do what we do and why we do what we do, and critical thinking applied to writing. Of particular interest with respect to the second formulation is an introductory treatment of the concept of thinking, emphasizing critical thinking as a (...) synthetic as well as analytic activity. The article also includes a suggested application of its thesis, namely, “the index-card exercise,” in which students engage in philosophical writing from day one of an introductory course, and use the results to structure and write philosophical papers. (shrink)

Although it is conceded that distinct knowledge domains do presentparticular problems of coming to know, in thispaper it is argued that it is possible to construct a domain independent modelof the processes of coming to know, one inwhich observers share understandings and do soin agreed ways. The model in question is partof the conversation theory of Gordon Pask. CT, as a theory of theory construction andcommunication, has particular relevance forfoundational issues in science and scienceeducation. CT explicitly propounds a ``radicalconstructivist'' epistemology. (...) A briefaccount is given of the main tenets of RC andCT's place in that tradition and the traditionsof cybernetics. The paper presents a briefnon-technical account of the main concepts ofCT including elaborations by Laurillard andHarri-Augstein and Thomas. As part of CT, Pask also elaborated a methodology – knowledgeand task analysis – for analysing the structureof different knowledge domains; thismethodology is sketched in outline. (shrink)

First-person present-tense self-ascriptions of belief are often used to tell others what one believes. But they are also naturally taken to express the belief they ostensibly report. I argue that this second aspect of self-ascriptions of belief holds the key to making the speaker's knowledge of her belief, and so the authority of her act of telling, intelligible. For a basic way to know one's beliefs is to be aware of what one is doing in expressing them. This account suggests (...) that we need to reconsider the terms of the standard alternative between “epistemic” and “non-epistemic” explanations of first-person authority. In particular, the natural view that the authority we accord to self-ascriptions reflects a distinctive way we have of knowing our own beliefs should not be conflated with the traditional epistemological thesis that such knowledge reflects a private “mode of access”. (shrink)

Hart’s criticism of Devlin’s stance on the legal enforcement of morality has been highly influential in shaping a new liberal sensibility and in paving the way to many important legal reforms in the UK. After 50 years it is perhaps time to go back to Law, Liberty and Morality to see it in the perspective of the general evolution of Hart’s thought since the early 50s. This is a period of extraordinary creativity for the Oxford philosopher, in which he writes (...) many important contributions to legal, moral and political philosophy. Prominent among these is ‘Are There Any Natural Rights?’, an article that sets the agenda for Hart’s subsequent work on liberty, fairness and rights, and provides the philosophical background for the liberal understanding of the relations between law and morality defended in Law, Liberty and Morality. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 63 Heft: 3 Seiten: 476-496.

Although recent epistemology has been marked by several prominent disagreements – e.g., between foundationalists and coherentists, internalists and externalists – there has been widespread agreement that some form of fallibilism must be correct. According to a rough formulation of this view, it is possible for a subject to have knowledge even in cases where the justification or grounding for the knowledge is compatible with the subject’s being mistaken. In this paper, I examine the motivation for fallibilism before providing a fully (...) general account of the view. I conclude by looking at the two major difficulties for fallibilism: the Gettier problem and the lottery paradox. (shrink)

Brentano’s suggestion that intentionality is the mark of the mental is typically spelled out in terms of the thesis that all and only mental states are intentional. An influential objection is that intentionality is not necessary for mentality. What about the idea that only mental states are intentional? In his 2008 paper published in Analysis, Nes shows that on a popular characterization of intentionality, notably defended by Crane, some non-mental states come out as intentional. Crane replies that the concept of (...) representation solves the problem. In this paper, I argue that no representational account of intentionality meets Nes’s challenge. After distinguishing between two notions of representation, I contend that there are two versions of Crane’s representational account, but neither of them is able to solve the problem posed by Nes. (shrink)

A longstanding debate in the philosophy of action opposes causalists to anti-causalists. Causalists claim the authority of Davidson, who offered powerful arguments to the effect that intentional explanations must be causal explanations. Anti-causalists claim the authority of Wittgenstein, who offered equally powerful arguments to the effect that reasons cannot be causes. My aim in this paper is to achieve a rapprochement between Davidsonian causalists and Wittgensteinian anti-causalists by showing how both sides can agree that reasons are not causes, but that (...) intentional explanations are causal explanations. To this end, I first defuse Davidson’s Challenge, an argument purporting to show that intentional explanations are best made sense of as being explanatory because reasons are causes. I argue that Wittgenstein furnishes anti-causalists with the means to resist this conclusion. I then argue that this leaves the Master Argument for the claim that intentional explanations are causal explanations, but that by distinguishing between a narrow and a wide conception of causal explanation, we can resolve the stalemate between Wittgensteinian anti-causalists impressed by the thought that reasons cannot be causes and Davidsonian causalists impressed by the thought that intentional explanations must be causal explanations. (shrink)

The question “What is philosophy?” is difficult to answer because it seems to presuppose answers to long‐standing and controversial philosophical questions. As answers to these questions affect one’s metaphilosophy, apparently irresolvable philosophical disagreements are then converted into deadlock concerning the nature of the discipline. As this problem is unique to philosophy, however, this difficulty itself reveals something of philosophy’s essential nature. As, under analysis, it turns out to arise from a definite way of posing problems, philosophy can initially be defined (...) by a particular mode of problematisation. This essay establishes this argument and proposes a method for developing this insight into a fully realised, socio‐historical metaphilosophy. This involves stages of (a) hermeneutical analysis and (b) historical contextualisation, both of which increase the account’s empirical adequacy. A conclusion discusses the extent to which philosophy is on trial here and argues that questioning the future of philosophy is not inherently philistine. (shrink)

An identification is made of the core metaphilosophical, philosophical, and intellectual history theses in Richard Rorty's pragmatism. Their rationale is displayed and it is argued that his metaphilosophical theses are very much dependent on certain of his non‐metaphilosophical philosophical theses, most centrally his anti‐representationalism. Questions emerge about the status and justification of these theses. Rorty, in his programmatic pronouncements, resists providing a vindication of them. Seeking to avoid what has been called performative contradictions, he regards it as sufficient to provide (...) the best narrative going of what is to be said here. It is argued that a more straightforward defence can be provided that does not depart from his holism or his historicism with its setting aside of claims of necessity. (shrink)

Different notions of analysis have been both theorized and put to use in early analytic philosophy. Two of them stand out: connective analysis and analysis as paraphrase. The latter played a central role in the development of analytic philosophy from Frege to Quine and beyond. With the advent of formal semantics of natural language in the 1970s, paraphrase came to be characterizable as translation into a formal “target language”. While I claim that the method cannot achieve its original philosophical aims, (...) I insist that, in spite of them, it is far from being a theoretically empty operation and that it lives on in some contemporary philosophical enterprises. (shrink)

Despite widespread confusion over its meaning, the notion of a conceptual scheme is pervasive in Anglo-American philosophy, particularly amongst those who call themselves ' conceptual relativists'. In this paper, I identify three different ways to understand conceptual schemes. I argue that the two most common models, deriving from Kant and Quine, are flawed, and, in addition, useless for the relativist. Instead, I urge adoption of a 'neo-Kantian', broadly Wittgensteinian model, which, it is ' argued, is immune from Davidsonian objections to (...) the very idea of a scheme. (shrink)

The merits of David Lewis’s Best System Account of natural law are frequently debated. But to my knowledge, the prospects for extending the BSA to cover meta-laws have never been examined. I shall identify two obstacles facing the most natural way of extending the BSA to cover meta-laws. The BSA’s fans should consider how these obstacles are to be overcome. Meta-laws are laws about laws. For example, Einstein’s special theory of relativity incorporates a meta-law: The content of the [special] relativity (...) theory can … be summarized in one sentence: all natural laws must be so conditioned that they are covariant with respect to Lorentz transformations. [The special theory of relativity] is not a theory in the usual sense but is better regarded as a second-level theory, or a theory of theories that constrains first-level theories. The principle of relativity is an example of a symmetry principle: a principle requiring that the first-order laws be unchanged under a given transformation. Long before Einstein proposed the principle of relativity, other spacetime symmetries were widely believed to be meta-laws: that the first-order laws are covariant under arbitrary spatial displacements, temporal displacements and spatial rotations. These spacetime symmetries require the laws to treat all spatial locations and directions alike and all moments alike. For instance, symmetry under temporal displacements rules out a fundamental force law specifying that a given force declines with the inverse-square of the distance before a given moment but with the inverse-cube of the distance at and after that moment. Wigner characterizes such a symmetry principle as ‘a superprinciple which is in …. (shrink)

A response to critics, Douglas Patterson and Mark Textor, on Künne's modest theory of truth in *Conceptions of Truth*.

While P.F. Strawson’s essay ‘Freedom and Resentment’ has had many commentators, discussions of it can be roughly divided into two categories. A first group has dealt with the essay as something that stands by itself in order to analyse Strawson’s main arguments and to expose its weaknesses. A second group of commentators has looked beyond ‘Freedom and Resentment’ by emphasizing its Humean, Kantian or Wittgensteinian elements. Although both approaches have their own merits, it is too often forgotten that Strawson was (...) an original thinker with his own views on the nature of philosophical problems and how to appropriately deal with them. The aim of this article is to remedy this forgetfulness and to make sense of ‘Freedom and Resentment’ from a Strawsonian perspective, by looking at Strawson’s own views on philosophical methodology. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson contributed to many philosophical domains, including the philosophy of language, the history of philosophy, metaphysics, moral philosophy and philosophical methodology. Most of his contributions in these areas have influenced contemporary debates, either because his views are still defended or because they are still considered worthy of detailed responses. His views on the philosophy of logic have been only rarely discussed, however. My aim in this paper is threefold. First, I provide a systematic account of Strawson’s philosophy of logic. (...) I argue that Strawson is an important predecessor of logical expressivism, a contemporary position in the philosophy of logic most notably defended by Robert Brandom. My main focus is on Strawson’s largely-neglected 1982 paper ‘Logical Form and Logical Constants’, which contains his most mature ideas on the topic. Second, while Strawson’s position is of historical and independent philosophical interest, I argue that he leaves many points unclear. Finally, I propose several clarifications of Strawson’s position. (shrink)

I was amazed to read that Professor Galen Strawson, who took up philosophy in 1972 at Cambridge, was then given to understand that the nine propositions he lists in ‘The depth(s) of the twentieth century’ (2010: 607) were generally considered to be true. I took up philosophy in 1960 in Oxford, and I was not given to understand any such thing. It is not obvious that there was a sea change with regard to these themes in the 12 years between (...) 1960 and 1972. By 1972 I had been teaching at Oxford for 6 years, and I observed no such change – only the lamentable rise of Davidsonian truth-conditional semantics and Dummett’s anti-realist theory of meaning, which progressively undermined and ultimately destroyed a flourishing milieu of first rate analytic philosophy at Oxford. But, I admit, Cambridge is another place. (shrink)

Although at present analytic philosophy is practiced mainly in the English-speaking world, it is to a considerable part the invention of German speakers. Its emergence owes much to Russell, Moore, and American Pragmatism, but even more to Frege, Wittgenstein, and the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. No one would think of analytic philosophy as a specifically Anglophone phenomenon, if the Nazis had not driven many of its pioneers out of central Europe.

There are three main positions on animalthought: lingualism denies that non-linguistic animalshave any thoughts; mentalism maintains that theirthoughts differ from ours only in degree, due totheir different perceptual inputs; an intermediateposition, occupied by common sense and Wittgenstein,maintains that animals can have thoughts of a simplekind. This paper argues in favor of an intermediateposition. It considers the most important arguments infavor of lingualism, namely those inspired byDavidson: the argument from the intensional nature ofthought (Section 1); the idea that thoughts involveconcepts (Sections (...) 2–3); the argument from the holisticnature of thought (Section 4); and the claim that beliefrequires the concept of belief (Sections 5–6). The lastargument (which Davidson favors) is uncompelling, butthe first three shed valuable light on the extent towhich thought requires language. However, none of themprecludes animals from having simple thoughts. Even ifone adopts the kind of third-person perspective onthought Davidson shares with Wittgenstein, the resultis a version of the intermediate position, albeit oneenriched by Davidson''s insights concerningintensionality, concepts and holism (Section 7). We canonly ascribe simple thoughts to animals, and even thatascription is incongruous in that the rich idiom weemploy has conceptual connections that go beyond thephenomena to which it is applied. (shrink)