One recent trend in Kant scholarship has been to read Kant as undertaking a project in philosophical semantics, as opposed to, say, epistemology, or transcendental metaphysics. This trend has evolved almost concurrently with a debate in contemporary philosophy of mind about the nature of concepts and their content. Inferentialism is the view that the content of our concepts is essentially inferentially articulated, that is, that the content of a concept consists entirely, or in essential part, in the role that that (...) concept plays in a system of inferences. By contrast, relationalism is the view that this content is fixed by a mental or linguistic item's standing in a certain relation to its object. The historical picture of Kant and the contemporary debate about concepts intersect in so far as contemporary inferentialists about conceptual content often cite Immanuel Kant not only as one of the founding fathers of a tradition that leads more or less straightforwardly to contemporary inferentialism, but also as the philosopher who first saw the fatal flaws in any attempt to articulate the content of our concepts relationally. (shrink)

According to the received view, Hume is a much more rigorous and consistent concept-empiricist than Locke. Hume is supposed to have taken as a starting point Locke's meaning-empiricism, and worked out its full radical implications. Locke, by way of contrast, cowered from drawing his theory's strange consequences. The received view about Locke's and Hume's concept-empiricism is mistaken, I shall argue. Hume may be more uncompromising (although he too falters), but he is not more rigorous than Locke. It is not because (...) of (intellectual) timidity that Locke does not draw Hume's conclusions from his empiricism. It is, rather, because of his much sounder method. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that nurses should be holists whilst at the same time accepting that ‘holism’ is a contentious concept. One of the problems for a supporter of holism is that of which holism -- an attempt to outline the version of holism advocated is made by identifying only two versions of holism: The Strong theory and the Pragmatic theory of holism. By introducing this device it is hoped to avoid, if only by stipulation, some of the (...) more sophisticated nuances of holism drawn by other commentators. However despite a most judicious use of Ockham's Razor some detailed groundwork remains. In the first part of this paper a simple example is used which aims to articulate what are arguably some of the central issues within the holism debate. These issues are then placed within a wider philosophical context. The second part of the paper will offer definitions of Strong and Pragmatic holism. Drawing on specific examples from the nursing context it will be argued that the Pragmatic theory of holism is the theory of holism most compatible with nursing theory and practice. The methods employed in this paper are philosophical. Since the questions considered are conceptual rather than empirical requiring a discursive approach, utilising thought experiments and case implication to explore the issues. (shrink)

The first half of this review article on Locke on primary and secondary qualities leads up to a fairly straightforward reading of what Locke says about the distinction in Essay II.viii, one that, in its general outlines, represents a sympathetic understanding of Locke’s discussion. The second half of the paper turns to consider a few of the ways in which interpreting Locke on primary and secondary qualities has proven more complicated. Here we take up what is sometimes called the Berkeleyan (...) interpretation of Locke, the understanding of Locke’s resemblance thesis, and Locke’s views of qualities and their relationship to powers. (shrink)

Recent discussions in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind have defended a theory according to which we live in a virtual world akin to a computer simulation, generated by our brain. It is argued that our brain creates a model world from a variety of stimuli; this model is perceived as if it was external and perception-independent, even though it is neither of the two. The view of the mind, brain, and world, entailed by this theory has some peculiar (...) consequences which have rarely been explored in detail. This paper sets out virtual world theory and relates it to various central philosophical problems, the role of the perceiver and the problem of the existence of the external world ). The second part suggests three interpretations of virtual world theory, two familiar ones and a somewhat less familiar one. The remainder of the paper argues that the irrealist interpretation is the one we should adopt. (shrink)

I aim to stand the received view about verificationism on its head. It is commonly thought that verificationism is a powerful philosophical tool, which we could deploy very effectively if only it weren’t so hopelessly implausible. On the contrary, I argue. Verificationism - if properly construed - may well be true. But its philosophical applications are chimerical.

In this paper, I consider some ways in which the Copy Principle and Hume’s nominalism impinge on one another, concluding that the marriage is not a happy one. I argue for the following claims. First, Hume’s argument against indeterminate ideas isn’t cogent even if the Copy Principle is accepted. But this does not vindicate Locke: the imagistic conception of ideas, presupposed by the Copy Principle, will force Locke to accept something like Hume’s view of the way general terms function, the (...) availability of abstract ideas notwithstanding. Second, Hume’s discussion of nominalism provides support for the “old Hume” interpretation, which takes the Copy Principle to be a criterion of meaningfulness, as against the “new Hume” reading, according to which it constrains what we can know. Finally, nominalism forces Hume to adopt a more complicated theory of ideas. (shrink)

David Hume (1711–1776) described the question of liberty and necessity as ‘the most contentious question of metaphysics, the most contentious science’ (Hume [1748] 1975, p. 95). He was right about it being contentious. Whether it is metaphysical is another matter. I think that what is genuinely metaphysical is an assumption that Hume, and a good many other philosophers, make in their treatment of the question. The assumption is about language and reality. I call it ‘the conformity assumption’. But more about (...) that shortly. Let us begin at the obvious beginning, by considering what the terms ‘liberty’ and ‘necessity’ mean in the expression ‘liberty and necessity’. (shrink)

Molyneux’s question asks whether someone born blind, who could distinguish cubes from spheres using his tactile sensation, could recognize those objects if he received his sight. Locke says no: the newly sighted person would fail to point to the cube and call it a cube. Locke never provided a complete explanation for his negative response, and there are concerns of inconsistency with other important aspects of his theory of ideas. These charges of inconsistency rest upon an unrecognized and unfounded assumption (...) that seeing entails recognition. Locke’s negative answer to Molyneux’s question is consistent with his other philosophical commitments. (shrink)

Different explanations of color vision favor different philosophical positions: Computational vision is more compatible with objectivism (the color is in the object), psychophysics and neurophysiology with subjectivism (the color is in the head). Comparative research suggests that an explanation of color must be both experientialist (unlike objectivism) and ecological (unlike subjectivism). Computational vision's emphasis on optimally prespecified features of the environment (i.e., distal properties, independent of the sensory-motor capacities of the animal) is unsatisfactory. Conceiving of visual perception instead as the (...) visual guidance of activity in an environment that is determined largely by that very activity suggests new directions for research. (shrink)

A standard interpretation of Hume’s naturalism is that it paved the way for a scientistic and ‘disenchanted’ conception of the world. My aim in this paper is to show that this is a restrictive reading of Hume, and it obscures a different and profitable interpretation of what Humean naturalism amounts to. The standard interpretation implies that Hume’s ‘science of human nature’ was a reductive investigation into our psychology. But, as Hume explains, the subject matter of this science is not restricted (...) to introspectively accessible mental content and incorporates our social nature and interpersonal experience. Illuminating the science of human nature has implications for how we understand what Hume means by ‘experience’ and thus how we understand the context of his epistemological investigations. I examine these in turn and argue overall that Hume’s naturalism and his science of man do not simply anticipate a disenchanted conception of the world. (shrink)

1. In this exciting and ambitious book, Duncan Pritchard defends a novel conception of perceptual epistemic grounds, which can both be factive and reflectively available to the agent. Pritchard calls this position the ‘holy grail’ of epistemology for its power to undercut two of contemporary epistemology’s most central problems: the epistemic internalism/externalism controversy and radical scepticism. While Pritchard’s book manages to make a convincing case for why one should accept epistemological disjunctivism (ED), the ‘neo-Moorean’ anti-sceptical strategy that he derives from (...) it is less compelling. This is not because ED does not provide us with the materials for a plausible anti-sceptical strategy, however, but rather because Pritchard misidentifies where ED’s real power lies, namely, in its potential to prevent the radical sceptical problem from arising in the first place. If I am right, then there is no need to establish Moore-type anti-sceptical theses with the ground rules for doing so set by scepticism. For once (and as McDowell has maintained) the thought has been undermined that my perceptual epistemic grounds can only ever consist of the ‘highest common factor’ between the ‘good case’ and the ‘bad case’, the traditional route to radical scepticism is blocked. (shrink)

In the early eighteenth century context there was an intimate connection between problems concerning the existence of the material world and problems of natural religion. Two issues are of particular importance for understanding Hume’s irreligious intentions in the Treatise. First, if we are unable to establish that we know that the material world exists, then all arguments for the existence of God that presuppose knowledge of the material world (i.e. its beauty, order, design, etc.) are placed in doubt. Second, if (...) we are naturally disposed to believe in the existence of body, but this belief is false, then it seems to follow that God must be a deceiver -- or does not exist. Hume’s arguments in 1.4.2, I maintain, are finely crafted to present both these (irreligious) challenges to the orthodox view. (shrink)

Locke claimed that God superadded various powers to matter, including motion, the perfections of peach trees and elephants, gravity, and that he could superadd thought. Various interpreters have discussed the question whether Locke's claims about superaddition are in tension with his commitment to mechanistic explanation. This literature assumes that for Locke mechanistic explanation involves deducibility. We argue that this is an inaccurate interpretation and that mechanistic explanation involves a different type of intelligibility for Locke.

Locke’s claim that the primary signification of (most) words is an idea, or complex of ideas, has received different interpretations. I support the majority view that Locke’s notion of primary signification can be construed in terms of linguistic meaning. But this reading has been seen as making Locke’s account vulnerable to various criticisms, of which I consider two. First, it appears to make the account vulnerable to the charge that an idea cannot play the role that a word meaning should (...) play. I argue that the role Locke actually gives to signified ideas is not susceptible to this criticism. Second, it appears to make Locke guilty of at least some degree of semantic idealism. I argue that Locke is not guilty of this and that he makes a proper distinction between the non-referential relation that holds between a word and its primary signification and the referential relation that holds between a word and things the word is used to speak about. (shrink)

Exposing the chimpanzee to language training appears to enhance the animal's ability to perform some kinds of tasks but not others. The abilities that are enhanced involve abstract judgment, as in analogical reasoning, matching proportions of physically unlike exemplars, and completing incomplete representations of action. The abilities that do not improve concern the location of items in space and the inferences one might make in attempting to obtain them. Representing items in space and making inferences about them could be done (...) with an imaginal code, but representing relations and judging the relations between them, as in analogies, requires a more abstract code. Language training cannot instill such an abstract code, but for species that have the code to start with, it may enhance the animal's ability to use it. (shrink)

The secondary qualities are those qualities of objects that bear a certain relation to our sensory powers: roughly, they are those qualities that we can readily detect only through a certain distinctive phenomenal experience. Contrary to what is sometimes supposed, there is nothing about the world itself (independent of our minds) that determines the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Instead, a theory of the secondary qualities must be grounded in facts about how we conceive of these qualities, and ultimately (...) in facts about human perception. (shrink)

En este ensayo analizaremos el argumento que usa Berkeley para probar la existencia de Dios en el Tratado sobre los principios del conocimiento humano I, §29. Veremos cuál es la estructura del argumento, la justificación que ofrece Berkeley de sus premisas y expondremos los que creemos son los principales problemas del argumento. A partir de nuestro análisis, llegaremos a la conclusión de que el argumento es dialécticamente inútil, en tanto que sus premisas no están justificadas.

John Locke’s claims about relations (such as cause and effect) and mixed modes (such as beauty and murder) have been controversial since the publication of the Essay. His earliest critics read him as a thoroughgoing anti-realist who denies that such things exist. More charitable readers have sought to read Locke’s claims away. Against both, I argue that Locke is making ontological claims, but that his views do not have the absurd consequences his defenders fear. By examining Locke’s texts, as well (...) as the intellectual context in which they were written, I show that Locke’s position is at once radical and thoroughly traditional. (shrink)

How are we to understand philosophical claims about sense perception being direct versus indirect? There are multiple relevant notions of perceptual directness, so I argue. Perception of external objects may be direct on some notions, while indirect on others. My interest is with the sense in which ideas count as perceptual mediators in the philosophy of Descartes and Locke. This paper has two broader aims. The first is to clarify four main notions of perceptual directness. The second is to support (...) my contention that in the texts characterizing ideas as immediate objects of perception, Descartes and Locke are invoking the notion of directness I call 'objectual'. This notion is modeled on the way a picture mediates perception of the pictured object. The upshot of my account is that – with respect to the objectual notion of directness – Descartes and Locke each hold an indirect theory of perception. (shrink)