Moral realism and antirealist-expressivism are of course incompatible positions. They disagree fundamentally about the nature of moral states of mind, the existence of moral states of affairs and properties, and the nature and role of moral discourse. The central realist view is that a person who has or expresses a moral thought is thereby in, or thereby expresses, a cognitive state of mind; she has or expresses a belief that represents a moral state of affairs in a way that might (...) be accurate or inaccurate. The view of antirealist-expressivism is that such a person is in, or expresses, a conative state of mind, one that consists in a certain kind of attitude or motivational stance toward something, such as an action or a person. Realism holds that moral thoughts have truth conditions and that in some cases these truth conditions are satisfied so that our moral thoughts are true. Antirealist-expressivism holds, to a first approximation, that the distinctive moral content of a moral thought does not have truth conditions. (shrink)

Though many working mathematicians embrace a rough and ready form of Platonism, that venerable position has suffered a checkered philosophical career. Indeed the three schools of thought with which most of us began our official philosophizing about mathematics—Intuitionism, Formalism, and Logicism—all stand in fundamental disagreement with Platonism. Nevertheless, various versions of Platonistic thinking survive in contemporary philosophical circles. The aim of this paper is to describe these views, and, as my title suggests, to trace their roots.I'll begin with some preliminary (...) remarks about the big three schools. This seems a reasonable approach to the issues both because most observers are familiar, at least in a general way, with the tenets of Intuitionism, Formalism, and Logicism, and because it is in reaction to these that contemporary Platonism has taken shape. (shrink)

“S ought (not) to see to it that p at t” is true iff an intention on the part of S to see to it that p at t is (in) correct. From this truth condition follows an understanding of the conceptual role of ought-claims in practical inference: ought-claims are interchangeable with intentions having the same content. From this conceptual role, it is quite clear why first-person, present-tense ought-judgments, and just those, motivate: failure to be motivated is a failure of (...) rationality. The point and purpose of 'ought' is mainly to express the results of practical reasoning performed on premises held hypothetically, an exercise of which there are many varieties. Our capacity for normative thought and language is a consequence of, and intimately related to, our capacity for practical thought. (shrink)

In constructing the concept of truth I believe to be implicit in Sartre's philosophy, I shall inevitably make glancing contact with differences between his and Descartes' understanding of the cogito—their common foundational truth. This family quarrel will, however, remain peripheral to my discussion of what I take to be the core claim of any cogito-argument: that my existence is certain insofar as it results from my thinking. Beyond that, nothing is certain about what Descartes meant by the certainty of the (...) cogito, or about what could reasonably be meant by it. His express inconsistencies in characterizing the force of his cogito-argument are well known, as are the various incompatible, textually more or less defensible, construals of generations of his interpreters. Unsurprisingly, then, the problem of truth for those of his followers, including Sartre, who have not been content to accept cogito, ergo sum as an unanalyzable datum, has tended to centre on proposing more intellectually transparent readings of their ancestor's seemingly inscrutable ergo. (shrink)

Alonzo Church (1903–1995) was a renowned mathematical logician, philosophical logician, philosopher, teacher and editor. He was one of the founders of the discipline of mathematical logic as it developed after Cantor, Frege and Russell. He was also one of the principal founders of the Association for Symbolic Logic and the Journal of Symbolic Logic. The list of his students, mathematical and philosophical, is striking as it contains the names of renowned logicians and philosophers. In this article, we focus primarily on (...) Church’s philosophical contributions. (For an account of his life and academic history see the Introduction to The Collected Works of Alonzo Church (2019).) However, we also discuss his mathematical results when it is desirable to do so in order to pursue a philosophical issue. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to set out an argument for moral objectivity. A brief sketch of the considerations at issue should help make it possible to keep sight of the forest amid the profusion of trees.

Non-naturalism has a shady reputation. This reputation is undeserved, at least in the case of one variety of non-naturalism – the variety Sidgwick offers. In section I, I present Sidgwick's view, distinguishing it from views with which it is often lumped. In II and III, I defend Sidgwick against recent objections to non-naturalism from motivation and supervenience. In IV, I briefly consider objections which brought about the downfall of non-naturalism at the middle of the century. In V, I consider the (...) role Sidgwick's arguments for non-naturalism play in Methods I.3. In VI, I contrast Sidgwick's attitude toward analytic metaethics to that of Moore and the non-cognitivists. (shrink)

Moore is taken to have followed Sidgwick in his arguments against naturalism and in his consequentialism. I argue that there are differences on both issues. Sidgwick's arguments against naturalism do not rely on a controversial view of analysis, and one of his arguments for consequentialism gives him greater resources against critics of consequentialism such as T. M. Scanlon.

The article argues that modal concepts should be explained in terms of the essences or nature of things: necessarilypif, and because, there is something the nature of which ensures thatp; possiblypif, and because, there is nothing whose nature rules out its being true thatp. The theory is defended against various objections and difficulties, including ones arising from attributing essences to contingent individuals.