Abstract creationism about fictional characters is the view that fictional characters are abstract objects that authors create. I defend this view against criticisms from Stuart Brock that hitherto have not been adequately countered. The discussion sheds light on how the number of fictional characters depends on authorial intention. I conclude also that we should change how we think intentions are connected to artifacts more generally, both abstract and concrete.

We present a Reformed view on the relation between Christianity and non-Christian religions. We then explore what this view entails for the question whether Christians and non-Christian religious believers refer to, believe in, and worship the same God. We first analyze the concepts of worship, belief-in, and reference, as well as their interrelations. We then argue that adherents of the Abrahamic religions plausibly refer to the same God, whereas adherents of non-Abrahamic religions do not refer to this God. Nonetheless, it (...) would be wrong to say that adherents of all Abrahamic religions believe in and worship the same God. (shrink)

Can we believe that there are non-existent entities without commitment to the Meinongian metaphysics? This paper argues we can. What leads us from quantification over non-existent beings to Meinongianism is a general metaphysical assumption about reality at large, and not merely quantification over the non-existent. Broadly speaking, the assumption is that every being we talk about must have a real definition. It’s this assumption that drives us to enquire into the nature of beings like Pegasus, and what our relationship as (...) thinkers is to them. However, I argue this assumption only holds if you think your language, and in particular that aspect of it to do with referring to entities works in a specific way. This is the specific way generally assumed by the discipline called ‘Semantics’. I sketch out an alternative, call it global expressivism, in which talk of referring is given an expressivist, speech-act theoretic treatment. If we accept that our talk of the non-existent works as the global expressivist tells us it does, then the question of the metaphysical nature of non-existent entities is utterly void. You might say that Pegasus is empty of any metaphysical nature. Since the non-existent lacks any metaphysical nature, the metaphysics of the non-existent, Meinongianism, as a form of inquiry, lacks a subject matter, despite the fact that we talk happily, and indeed unavoidably, of the non-existent. (shrink)

The Introduction to the collection of papers, _Reflexivity: A Source-book in Self-reference_. The Introduction studies the limits of our understanding that we carry unavoidably with us. We are perpetually confined within the horizons of our conceptual structure. When this structure grows or expands, the breadth of our comprehensions enlarges, but we are forever barred from the wished-for glimpse beyond its boundaries, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much credence we invest in the substance of our learning and (...) mist of speculation. (shrink)

The subject of my article is the principle of characterization – the most controversial principle of Meinong’s Theory of Objects. The aim of this text is twofold. First of all, I would like to show that Russell’s well-known objection to Meinong’s Theory of Objects can be reformulated against a new modal interpretation of Meinongianism that is presented mostly by Graham Priest. Secondly, I would like to propose a strategy which gives uncontroversial restriction to the principle of characterization and which allows (...) to avoid Russell’s argument. The strategy is based on the distinction between object- and metalanguage, and it applies to modal Meinongianism as well as to other so-called Meinongian theories. (shrink)

Husserl’s philosophy, by the usual account, evolved through three stages: 1. development of an anti-psychologistic, objective foundation of logic and mathematics, rooted in Brentanian descriptive psychology; 2. development of a new discipline of "phenomenology" founded on a metaphysical position dubbed "transcendental idealism"; transformation of phenomenology from a form of methodological solipsism into a phenomenology of intersubjectivity and ultimately (in his Crisis of 1936) into an ontology of the life-world, embracing the social worlds of culture and history. We show that this (...) story of three revolutions can provide at best a preliminary orientation, and that Husserl was constantly expanding and revising his philosophical system, integrating views in phenomenology, ontology, epistemology and logic with views on the nature and tasks of philosophy and science as well as on the nature of culture and the world in ways that reveal more common elements than violent shifts of direction. We argue further that Husserl is a seminal figure in the evolution from traditional philosophy to the characteristic philosophical concerns of the late twentieth century: concerns with representation and intentionality and with problems at the borderlines of the philosophy of mind, ontology, and cognitive science. (shrink)

Intentionality (‘directedness’, ‘aboutness’) is both a central topic in contemporary philosophy of mind, phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, and one of the themes with which both analytic and Continental philosophers have separately engaged starting from Brentano and Edmund Husserl’s ground-breaking Logical Investigations (1901) through Roderick M. Chisholm, Daniel C. Dennett’s The Intentional Stance, John Searle’s Intentionality, to the recent work of Tim Crane, Robert Brandom, Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi, among many others. In this paper, I shall review recent discussions (...) of intentionality, including some recent explorations of the history of the concept (paying particular attention to Anselm), and suggest some ways the phenomenological approach of Husserl and Heidegger can still offer insights for contemporary philosophy of mind and consciousness. (shrink)

This paper examines causal theories of reference with respect to how plausible an account they give of non-physical natural kind terms such as ‘gene’ as well as of the truth of the associated theoretical claims. I first show that reference fixism for ‘gene’ fails. By this, I mean the claim that the reference of ‘gene’ was stable over longer historical periods, for example, since the classical period of transmission genetics. Second, I show that the theory of partial reference does not (...) do justice to some widely held realist intuitions about classical genetics. This result is at loggerheads with the explicit goals usually associated with partial theories of reference, which is to defend a realist semantics for scientific terms. Thirdly, I show that, contrary to received wisdom and perhaps contrary to physics and chemistry, neither reference fixism nor partial reference are necessary in order to hold on to scientific realism about biology. I pinpoint the reasons for this in the nature of biological kinds, which do not even remotely resemble natural kinds (i.e., Lockean real essences) as traditionally conceived. (shrink)

John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality and Hernando de Soto’s The Mystery of Capital shifted the focus of current thought on capital and economic development to the cultural and conceptual ideas that underpin market economies and that are taken for granted in developed nations. This collection of essays assembles 21 philosophers, economists, and political scientists to help readers understand these exciting new theories.

Recently, a number of authors have suggested that we understand scientific models in the same way as fictional characters, like Sherlock Holmes. The biggest challenge for this approach concerns the ontology of fictional characters. I consider two responses to this challenge, given by Roman Frigg, Ronald Giere and Peter Godfrey-Smith, and argue that neither is successful. I then suggest an alternative approach. While parallels with fiction are useful, I argue that models of real systems are more aptly compared to works (...) that portray real people, like the Emperor Claudius. This approach will allow us to avoid problems with fictional characters. (shrink)

[Draft of October 2024] David Lewis acclimated us to talk of “nonactual concreta that exist,” regarding talking donkeys and the like. I shall argue that this was not for the best, and try to normalize a way of describing them as “actual concreta that do not exist.” The basis of this is a defense of the Meinongian thesis “there are objects of which it is true that there are no such objects,” re: fictitious and illusory objects. I first formulate the (...) problem of negative existentials in a novel way, and discuss why this new version is more forceful against anti-Meinongians. Additional data is also pressed against anti-Meinongians--e.g., the truth of ‘Pegasus is imaginary’, and a reading of ‘There actually are illusory objects’ where it comes out true. The Meinongian, in contrast, easily and uniformly explains the same data, by allowing the existence Pegasus, pink elephants, and the like. But contra Meinong, these cases suggest that the nonexistent objects are mind-dependent objects, and I clarify and defend this suggestion from several objections. The resulting Meinongianism is thus “conservative” in that it merely acknowledges the sense in which there are mind-dependent objects, imaginary and illusory objects being prime examples. Of special note, the “ideology” is conservative as well in that the typical Meinongian jargon of “nuclear” or “encoded” properties is paraphrased away. New suggestions about the ontology of abstracta, mere possibilia, and impossibilia are sketched in light of this. Comparisons are also made with Crane and McGinn, among others. (shrink)

This paper maintains (following Yougrau 1987; 2000 and Hinchliff 1996) that the dead and other former existents count as examples of non-existent objects. If the dead number among the things there are, a further question arises: what is it to be dead—how should the state of being dead be characterised? It is argued that this state should be characterised negatively: the dead are not persons, philosophers etc. They lack any of the (intrinsic) qualities they had while they lived. The only (...) facts involving the dead are facts about the relations they stand in—including the relations they bear to the qualities they formerly instantiated, and the intentional relations they stand in to us. Given an appropriate conception of qualities the dead can be said to be quality-less objects: bare particulars. The ‘Bare Particular Theory’ of individuals, it is argued, is coherent if and only if it concedes that the bare particulars it allows for don’t exist. The account of the dead and other former existents as bare particulars does justice to the misfortune of death, and points the way to a general theory of nonexistent objects. (shrink)

John Cook Wilson (1849–1915) was Wykeham Professor of Logic at New College, Oxford and the founder of ‘Oxford Realism’, a philosophical movement that flourished at Oxford during the first decades of the 20th century. Although trained as a classicist and a mathematician, his most important contribution was to the theory of knowledge, where he argued that knowledge is factive and not definable in terms of belief, and he criticized ‘hybrid’ and ‘externalist’ accounts. He also argued for direct realism in perception, (...) criticizing both empiricism and idealism, and argued for a moderate nominalist view of universals as being in rebus and only ‘apprehended’ by their particulars. His influence helped swaying Oxford away from idealism and, through figures such as H. A. Prichard, Gilbert Ryle, or J. L. Austin, his ideas were also to some extent at the origin of ‘moral intuitionism’ and ‘ordinary language philosophy’ which defined much of Oxford philosophy until the second half of the twentieth-century. Nevertheless, his name and legacy were all but forgotten for generations after World War II. Still, his views on knowledge are with us today, being in part at work in the writings of philosophers as diverse as John McDowell, Charles Travis, and Timothy Williamson. (shrink)

We review some of the work already done around the notion of phenomenal intentionality and propose a way of turning this body of work into a self-conscious research program for understanding intentionality.

From the Editor’s Introduction: "The Internal Limitations of Human Understanding." We carry, unavoidably, the limits of our understanding with us. We are perpetually confined within the horizons of our conceptual structure. When this structure grows or expands, the breadth of our comprehensions enlarges, but we are forever barred from the wished-for glimpse beyond its boundaries, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much credence we invest in the substance of our learning and mist of speculation. -/- The limitations (...) in view here are not due to the mere finitude of our understanding of ourselves and of the world in which we live. They are limitations that come automatically and necessarily with any form of understanding. They are, as we shall see, part and parcel of any organization or ordering of data that we call information. -/- The consequences of these limitations are varied: As a result of them, hermeneutics cannot help but be hermetic; scientific theories of necessity are circumscribed by the boundaries of the ideas that define them; formal systems must choose between consistency and comprehensiveness; philosophical study, because it includes itself within its own proper subject matter, is forced to be reflexive in its self-enclosure. The fundamental dynamic shared by all forms of understanding testifies to an internal limitative keystone. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to sketch an idea—seen from the point of view of a cognitive scientist—of cognitive semiotics as a discipline. Consequently, the article presents aspects of the relationship between the two disciplines: semiotics and cognitive science. The main assumption of the argumentation is that at least some semiotic processes are also cognitive processes. At the methodological level, this claim allows for application of cognitive models as explanations of selected semiotic processes. In particular, the processes of embedded (...) interpretation are considered: belief revision, dynamic organization of meaning and metaknowledge. The explanations are formulated in terms of artificial cognitive agents of the GLAIR/SNePS cognitive architecture. Finally, it is suggested that even if someone rejects the idea of artificial cognitive systems as simulations of semiotic processes, they may acknowledge the usefulness of cognitive modeling in analysis of semiotic processes in virtual, simulated worlds and in the area of “new media”. (shrink)

On the now dominant Quinean view, metaphysics is about what there is. Metaphysics so conceived is concerned with such questions as whether properties exist, whether meanings exist, and whether numbers exist. I will argue for the revival of a more traditional Aristotelian view, on which metaphysics is about what grounds what. Metaphysics so revived does not bother asking whether properties, meanings, and numbers exist (of course they do!) The question is whether or not they are fundamental.

I argue that the concept of representation is ambiguous: a picture of 'a man', when there is no actual man that it depicts, both does, in one sense, and does not, in another sense, represent 'a man'--hence the need for a distinction of internal from external representation. Internal representation is also defended from reductive, non-referential alternative views, and from 'prosthesis' views of picturing, according to which seeing a picture of an actual man just is seeing through the picture to that (...) actual man himself. The view also provides a strong foundation for a theory of reference to fictional entities. (shrink)

Reference is a relation that obtains between a variety of representational tokens and objects or properties. For instance, when I assert that “Barack Obama is a Democrat,” I use a particular sort of representational token—i.e. the name ‘Barack Obama’—which refers to a particular individual—i.e. Barack Obama. While names and other referential terms are hardly the only type of representational token capable of referring (consider, for instance, concepts, mental maps, and pictures), linguistic tokens like these have long stood at the center (...) of philosophical inquiries into the nature of reference. Accordingly, and to keep things to a reasonable length, this entry will focus primarily on linguistic reference. Assuming that at least some token linguistic expressions really do refer, a number of interesting questions arise. How, for example, does linguistic reference relate to the act of referring—something that we as speakers do with referential terms? How exactly do referential terms come to refer? That is, in virtue of what do they refer to what they do? Is there a single answer to this question, a single mechanism of reference, or different answers depending on the sort of term in question—or even the circumstances in which a single term is used? And what exactly is the relationship between reference and meaning? Answers to these various questions will turn out to be closely related, and the task of this entry will be to trace out some of the main clusters of answers. (shrink)

The present paper presents experimental evidence confirming that contextually mismatching scalar implicatures can be generated even when quantifiers range over empty domains. In the literature, this possibility has been interpreted as providing further evidence for a grammatical approach to scalar implicatures. The main result presented here is that scalar sentences with empty domains are judged as more infelicitous when associated with a mismatching implicature than variants with the same empty domains but associated with a non-mismatching implicature. We interpret this result (...) as suggesting that the infelicity judgment associated with the first kind of sentence stems from the cumulative effect of the mismatching implicature and the contextual domain emptiness. Compared to previous literature on blind implicatures, our results indicate that the body of knowledge involved in relevance assignments is restricted to ignoring existential determination while still considering the properties attributed to nonexistent entities. They also show that, while not blocking implicature generation, contextual domain emptiness plays a role in speakers’ evaluation of scalar sentences, reflecting the unconscious nature of scalar implicature generation. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the problems of ficta ‘generation’ and ‘properties’ in light of the philosophies of Alexius Meinong and Roman Ingarden. Comparing Ingarden and the historical Meinong is not a novel idea. By contrast, comparing Ingarden and a phenomenological Meinong has not, to my knowledge, yet been explored. Here, I rely on Alberto Voltolini’s ‘phenomenological conception of außerseiende entities’. I devise Ingarden’s phenomenological ontology to account for the problems of ascription and generation that cripple Meinong’s account. In short, (...) I argue that Ingarden’s account is better suited to accommodate ficta’s generation and properties in a way that does not complicate our approach to fiction. (shrink)

In this first volume of The Sylvan Jungle, the editors present a scholarly edition of the first chapter, "Exploring Meinong's Jungle," of Richard Routley's 1000-plus page book, Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond. Going against the Quinean orthodoxy, Routley’s aim was to support Meinong’s idea that we can truthfully refer to non-existent and even impossible objects, like Superman, unicorns and the round-square cupola on Berkeley College. The tools of non-classical logic at Routley’s disposal enabled him to update Meinong’s project for a (...) new generation. This volume begins with an Introduction from Dominic Hyde, “The ‘Jungle Book’ in Context,” an essay that situates Exploring Meinong’s Jungle and Beyond historically. We provide the original Preface by Routley, followed by Chapter 1: “Exploring Meinong’s Jungle and Beyond.” In Chapter 2, Nicholas Griffin argues that Sylvan’s project was insufficiently radical with his essay, “Why the Original Theory of Items Didn’t Go Far Enough.” Sylvan revisits his position from this time in Chapter 3, with his article, “Re-Exploring Item-Theory.” Filippo Casati, who has worked in the Routley Archives then takes up the question of the future of Sylvan’s research program in his essay, “The Future Perfect of Exploring Meinong’s Jungle.” Iconic and iconoclastic Australian philosopher Richard Routley published Exploring Meinong’s Jungle and Beyond in 1980. This work has fallen out of print, yet without great fanfare it has influenced two generations of philosophers and logicians. (shrink)

Thanks to the Inlaks Foundation in India, I was able to do my doctoral research on Our Talk About Nonexistents at Oxford in the early eighties. The two greatest philosophers of that heaven of analytical philosophy - Peter Strawson and Michael Dummett - supervised my work, reading and criticising all the fledgling philosophy that I wrote during those three years. At Sir Peter's request, Gareth Evans, shortly before his death, lent me an unpublished transcript of Kripke's John Locke Lectures. Work (...) on the Appendix about Indian Philosophy was supervised by the late Professor Bimal Krishna Matilal with whom informal but intense philosophical conversations used to spill over into dinner at his place almost every other day. It was Professor Matilal who sent me, over a summer, to study a tough Navya-Nyaya text under his own Nyaya teacher Pandit Visvabandhu Tarkatirtha at Calcutta. All four of these teachers were as kind to me as my life-long mentor in philosophy Professor Pranab Kumar Sen, whose clarity and depth remain the unreachable regu lative ideal of my intellect. When I came back to India, my life became blissfully free of the agonising anxiety to publish, until, after a conference at Jadavpur University where I gave an impromptu paper, ironically enough, on Non-doings, I met Derek Parfit. He had a six-hour conversation with me, explicitly planning my life. Five years had already elapsed since I had finished my D. Phil, but Derek read my thesis and liked it. (shrink)

Um dos grandes desafios da era da informação consiste em filtrar informações claras, rigorosas e atualizadas sobre tópicos importantes. O mesmo vale para a filosofia. Como encontrar conteúdo filosófico confiável em meio a milhares de artigos publicados diariamente na internet? Para ir ainda mais longe, como encontrar uma introdução a algum tópico com uma lista de referências bibliográficas atualizadas e que seja organizada por um especialista da área? Já que você começou a ler este livro, é provável que tenha ouvido (...) falar em algum momento da Enciclopédia Stanford de Filosofia, disponível gratuitamente na internet desde 1995. A página da Stanford faz exatamente isso. Ela cobre inúmeros verbetes sobre quase tudo em filosofia, oferecendo informação confiável sobre temas como feminismo, filosofia na América Latina, zumbis, metafísica e milhares de outros tópicos. A sugestão típica aos profissionais da filosofia que têm interesse em começar a estudar algum tópico, mas não sabem sequer por onde começar, é procurar pelo verbete relevante da Stanford. Infelizmente, o grande empecilho da página para o nosso contexto é que todos os verbetes estão disponíveis apenas em inglês, algo que cria um obstáculo a inúmeros estudantes e interessados que não dominam a língua. Neste sentido, acreditamos que esta publicação preencha um hiato importante na filosofia brasileira. Embora a filosofia no Brasil tenha se profissionalizado e expandido ao longo dos anos, há ainda lacunas em diversas áreas, e os verbetes foram aqui selecionados cuidadosamente no intuito de preencher ao menos algumas dessas lacunas. Este livro apresenta quatro verbetes cruciais para a filosofia, aqui divididos em quatro capítulos: (1) condições necessárias e suficientes, (2) referência (3) causação e (4) consciência. (shrink)

De um modo geral, queríamos mostrar que a filosofia tem suas próprias áreas, mas tem também subáreas em interdisciplinaridade com as ciências. As ciências e as disciplinas acadêmicas em geral têm problemas, cuja a solução pode ser encontrada empiricamente, por meio de experimentos, entrevistas, documentos, ou formalmente, por meio de cálculos etc, porém os problemas das filosofias dessas disciplinas são justamente os problemas mais fundamentais dessas disciplinas, que fundam o quadro conceitual e de pesquisa das mesmas, e que só poderiam (...) ser respondidos por meio de uma extensa argumentação. A filosofia de cada uma dessas disciplinas é uma mistura (a) de metafísica da disciplina, perguntando-se qual a natureza e justificação das entidades que formam o quadro teórico da disciplina, i.e., quais delas realmente existem na realidade (não sendo meros instrumentos para obter resultados) e quais as suas categorizações fundamentais, naturezas e funções teóricas, (b) de epistemologia dessa disciplina, ao nos perguntarmos sobre como tal área poderia obter conhecimento de modo confiável e se ela de fato o faz, e (c) de teorias do valor, ao nos perguntarmos, por exemplo, sobre qual o valor moral do desenvolvimento de uma certa disciplina e, finalmente, (d) a lógica, que perpassa tudo, ao nos perguntarmos sobre a consistência das teses assumidas pela disciplina. Não é à toa que falamos que a filosofia é mãe de todas as ciências. Ela é mãe tanto num sentido geracional, pois a maioria das ciências foram desenvolvimentos particulares, empíricos ou de cálculo, das questões filosóficas sobre um certo tema, quanto num sentido fundamental, pois é a filosofia que fornece os fundamentos mais gerais, metafísicos, epistêmicos, valorativos e lógicos, na construção do quadro teórico de cada ciência e na qualidade dos métodos para se aproximar da verdade que a disciplina utiliza. A biologia, por exemplo, foi criada por Aristóteles, tal como os primeiros desenvolvimentos da meteorologia (na verdade, esta começa com os pré-socráticos), e grande parte do fundamento da física atual jaz nas discussões de filosofia da física. Sendo você filósofo ou cientista de outra área, a filosofia promete te dar as bases para uma reflexão geral ou sobre sua área, que seja muito mais informada e profunda do que aquilo que você poderia realizar sem ela. /// In general, we wanted to show that philosophy has its own areas, but it also has subareas in interdisciplinarity with the sciences. The sciences and academic disciplines in general have problems, the solution of which can be found empirically, through experiments, interviews, documents, or formally, through calculations etc., but the problems of the philosophies of these disciplines are precisely the most fundamental problems. of these disciplines, which build their conceptual and research framework, and which could only be answered through extensive argumentation. The philosophy of each of these disciplines is a mixture (a) of metaphysics of the discipline, asking what is the nature and justification of the entities that form the theoretical framework of the discipline, ie, which ones really exist in reality (not being mere instruments for achieving results) and what are its fundamental categorizations, natures and theoretical functions, (b) the epistemology of this discipline, when we ask ourselves how such an area could obtain knowledge reliably and if it does, and (c) theories of value, when we ask ourselves, for example, about the moral value of the development of a certain discipline and, finally, (d) the logic, which permeates everything, when we ask ourselves about the consistency of the theses assumed by the discipline. It is not for nothing that we say that philosophy is the mother of all sciences. It is a mother both in a generational sense, as most sciences were particular empirical or formal developments of philosophical questions on a certain topic, and in a fundamental sense, as it is philosophy that provides the most general, metaphysical, epistemic, evaluative and logical foundations, in the construction of the theoretical framework of each science and in the quality of the methods to approach the truth that the discipline uses. Biology, for example, was created by Aristotle, like the first developments in meteorology (in fact, it starts with the pre-Socratics), and much of the foundation of current physics lies in discussions of the philosophy of physics. Whether you are a philosopher or scientist from another area, philosophy promises to give you the basis for a general reflection or about your area, which is much more informed and profound than what you could accomplish without it. (shrink)

Este artigo é uma breve introdução à filosofia da linguagem. Ele se concentra nos problemas que surgem a partir de dois conceitos centrais: referência e significado. Em particular, o foco central é no problema fundacional da referência e no problema descritivo do significado, assim como a relação entre eles. Embora esta de modo algum seja uma introdução exaustiva ao tema, muitos conceitos centrais são clarificados, como por exemplo teoria da referência, termo singular, termo geral, teoria do significado, composicionalidade, conteúdo, significado (...) linguístico, implicatura conversacional, vagueza, etc. Espera-se que sirva como um primeiro contato com a disciplina, principalmente voltado a estudantes de filosofia, filosofia da linguagem e áreas afins. (shrink)

PLEASE NOTE: This is the corrected 2nd eBook edition, 2021. ●●●●● _Critique of Impure Reason_ has now also been published in a printed edition. To reduce the otherwise high price of this scholarly, technical book of nearly 900 pages and make it more widely available beyond university libraries to individual readers, the non-profit publisher and the author have agreed to issue the printed edition at cost. ●●●●● The printed edition was released on September 1, 2021 and is now available through (...) all booksellers, including Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and brick-and-mortar bookstores under ISBN 978-0-578-88646-6. ●●●●● In light of the length of this book, readers who would like to have a more detailed description of the book's objectives and method may find it helpful to read the detailed and clearly written Wikipedia entry about this work: From the Wikipedia search page, use the search phrase "Critique of Impure Reason". At least at the time of this writing (11/29/2021), the Wikipedia entry is well-researched and accurate. ●●●●● In addition, a "Primer on Bartlett's CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON" has been made available by the author. It is available under its title through PhilPapers and other philosophy online archives. ●●●●● COMMENDATIONS OF THIS WORK, from the back cover of the published edition: ●●●●● “I admire its range of philosophical vision.” – Nicholas Rescher, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, author of more than 100 books. ●●●●● “Bartlett’s _Critique of Impure Reason_ is an impressive, bold, and ambitious work. Careful scholarship is balanced by original analyses that lead the reader to recognize the limits of meaning, knowledge, and conceptual possibility. The work addresses a host of traditional philosophical problems, among them the nature of space, time, causality, consciousness, the self, other minds, ontology, free will and determinism, and others. The book culminates in a fascinating and profound new understanding of relativity physics and quantum theory.” – Gerhard Preyer, Professor of Philosophy, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, author of many books including _Concepts of Meaning_, _Beyond Semantics and Pragmatics_, _Intention and Practical Thought_, and _Contextualism in Philosophy_. ●●●●● “[This work’s] goal is of a unique and difficult species: Dr. Bartlett seeks to develop a formal logical calculus on the basis of transcendental philosophical arguments; in fact, he hopes that this calculus will be the formal expression of the transcendental foundation of knowledge.... I consider Dr. Bartlett’s work soundly conceived and executed with great skill.” – C. F. von Weizsäcker, philosopher and physicist, former Director, Max-Planck-Institute, Starnberg, Germany. ●●●●● “Bartlett has written an American “Prolegomena to All Future Metaphysics.” He aims rigorously to eliminate meaningless assertions, reach bedrock, and place philosophy on a firm foundation that will enable it, like science and mathematics, to produce lasting results that generations to come can build on. This is a great book, the fruit of a lifetime of research and reflection, and it deserves serious attention.” — Martin X. Moleski, former Professor, Canisius College, Buffalo, NY, studies of scientific method, the presuppositions of thought, and the self-referential nature of epistemology. ●●●●● “Bartlett has written a book on what might be called the underpinnings of philosophy. It has fascinating depth and breadth, and is all the more striking due to its unifying perspective based on the concepts of reference and self-reference.” – Don Perlis, Professor of Computer Science, University of Maryland, author of numerous publications on self-adjusting autonomous systems and philosophical issues concerning self-reference, mind, and consciousness. ●●●●● ●●●●● The _Critique of Impure Reason: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning_ comprises a major and important contribution to philosophy. Thanks to the generosity of its publisher, this massive 885-page volume has been published as a free open access eBook (3.75MB) as well as an open access printed edition. It inaugurates a revolutionary paradigm shift in philosophical thought by providing compelling and long-sought-for solutions to a wide range of philosophical problems. In the process, the work fundamentally transforms the way in which the concepts of reference, meaning, and possibility are understood. The book includes a Foreword by the celebrated German philosopher and physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. ●●●●● In Kant’s _Critique of Pure Reason_ we find an analysis of the preconditions of experience and of knowledge. In contrast, but yet in parallel, the new _Critique_ focuses upon the ways—unfortunately very widespread and often unselfconsciously habitual—in which many of the concepts that we employ _conflict_ with the very preconditions of meaning and of knowledge. ●●●●● This is a book about the boundaries of frameworks and about the unrecognized conceptual confusions in which we become entangled when we attempt to transgress beyond the limits of the possible and meaningful. We tend either not to recognize or not to accept that we all-too-often attempt to trespass beyond the boundaries of the frameworks that make knowledge possible and the world meaningful. ●●●●● The _Critique of Impure Reason_ proposes a bold, ground-breaking, and startling thesis: that a great many of the major philosophical problems of the past can be solved through the recognition of a viciously deceptive form of thinking to which philosophers as well as non-philosophers commonly fall victim. For the first time, the book advances and justifies the criticism that a substantial number of the questions that have occupied philosophers fall into the category of “impure reason,” violating the very conditions of their possible meaningfulness. ●●●●● The purpose of the study is twofold: first, to enable us to recognize the boundaries of what is referentially forbidden—the limits beyond which reference becomes meaningless—and second, to avoid falling victims to a certain broad class of conceptual confusions that lie at the heart of many major philosophical problems. As a consequence, the boundaries of _possible meaning_ are determined. ●●●●● Bartlett, the author or editor of more than 20 books, is responsible for identifying this widespread and delusion-inducing variety of error, _metalogical projection_. It is a previously unrecognized and insidious form of erroneous thinking that undermines its own possibility of meaning. It comes about as a result of the pervasive human compulsion to seek to transcend the limits of possible reference and meaning. ●●●●● Based on original research and rigorous analysis combined with extensive scholarship, the _Critique of Impure Reason_ develops a self-validating method that makes it possible to recognize, correct, and eliminate this major and pervasive form of fallacious thinking. In so doing, the book provides at last provable and constructive solutions to a wide range of major philosophical problems. ●●●●● CONTENTS AT A GLANCE ▪▪▪▪▪ Preface ▪▪▪▪▪ Foreword by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker ▪▪▪▪▪ Acknowledgments ▪▪▪▪▪ Avant-propos: A philosopher’s rallying call ▪▪▪▪▪ Introduction ▪▪▪▪▪ A note to the reader ▪▪▪▪▪ A note on conventions ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART I ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ WHY PHILOSOPHY HAS MADE NO PROGRESS AND HOW IT CAN ▪▪▪▪▪ 1 Philosophical-psychological prelude ▪▪▪▪▪ 2 Putting belief in its place: Its psychology and a needed polemic ▪▪▪▪▪ 3 Turning away from the linguistic turn: From theory of reference to metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 4 The stepladder to maximum theoretical generality ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART II ▪▪▪▪▪ THE METALOGIC OF REFERENCE ▪▪▪▪▪ A New Approach to Deductive, Transcendental Philosophy ▪▪▪▪▪ 5 Reference, identity, and identification ▪▪▪▪▪ 6 Self-referential argument and the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 7 Possibility theory ▪▪▪▪▪ 8 Presupposition logic, reference, and identification ▪▪▪▪▪ 9 Transcendental argumentation and the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 10 Framework relativity ▪▪▪▪▪ 11 The metalogic of meaning ▪▪▪▪▪ 12 The problem of putative meaning and the logic of meaninglessness ▪▪▪▪▪ 13 Projection ▪▪▪▪▪ 14 Horizons ▪▪▪▪▪ 15 De-projection ▪▪▪▪▪ 16 Self-validation ▪▪▪▪▪ 17 Rationality: Rules of admissibility ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART III ▪▪▪▪▪ PHILOSOPHICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE METALOGIC OF REFERENCE ▪▪▪▪▪ Major Problems and Questions of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Science ▪▪▪▪▪ 18 Ontology and the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 19 Discovery or invention in general problem-solving, mathematics, and physics ▪▪▪▪▪ 20 The conceptually unreachable: “The far side” ▪▪▪▪▪ 21 The projections of the external world, things-in-themselves, other minds, realism, and idealism ▪▪▪▪▪ 22 The projections of time, space, and space-time ▪▪▪▪▪ 23 The projections of causality, determinism, and free will ▪▪▪▪▪ 24 Projections of the self and of solipsism ▪▪▪▪▪ 25 Non-relational, agentless reference and referential fields ▪▪▪▪▪ 26 Relativity physics as seen through the lens of the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 27 Quantum theory as seen through the lens of the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 28 Epistemological lessons learned from and applicable to relativity physics and quantum theory ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART IV ▪▪▪▪▪ HORIZONS ▪▪▪▪▪ 29 Beyond belief ▪▪▪▪▪ 30 _Critique of Impure Reason_: Its results in retrospect ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ SUPPLEMENT ▪▪▪▪▪ The Formal Structure of the Metalogic of Reference ▪▪▪▪▪ APPENDIX I ▪▪▪▪▪ The Concept of Horizon in the Work of Other Philosophers ▪▪▪▪▪ APPENDIX II ▪▪▪▪▪ Epistemological Intelligence ▪▪▪▪▪ References ▪▪▪▪▪ Index ▪▪▪▪▪ About the author. 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Chief amongst the issues Toshihiko Izutsu broached is the philosophisation of Zen Buddhism in his book Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism. This article aims to critically compare Izutsu’s reconstruction of Zen metaphysics with another metaphysical tradition rooted in Descartes’ cogito ergo sum. Putting Izutsu’s terminological choices into the context of Zen Buddhism, we review his argument based on the subject-object distinction and establish a comparison with the Cartesian cogito. A critical analysis is conducted on the functional relationship between subject (...) and object in Izutsu’s metaphysics of Zen. This is examined step by step from the perspective of Descartes’ Meditations. On the one hand, we focus on prima facie similarities in meditative and reflective methodologies used by the Zen and Cartesian approaches. On the other, we highlight some unequivocal differences in the metaphysical role of the subject: an indubitable foundation for the epistemological access to objective reality, and an introspective apprehension of the egoless void or absolute reality. (shrink)

Reid’s dilemma concludes that, whether the idea associated with a denied proposition is lively or faint, Hume is committed to saying that it is either believed or merely conceived. In neither case would there be denial. If so, then Hume cannot give an adequate account of denial. I consider and reject Powell’s suggestion that Hume could have advanced a “Content Contrary” account of denial that avoids Reid’s dilemma. However, not only would a Humean Content Contrary account be viciously circular, textual (...) evidence suggests that Hume did not hold such an account. I then argue that Govier’s distinction between force and vivacity cannot help Hume. Not only did Hume fail to recognize this distinction, we can advance a variant of Reid’s dilemma even if we distinguish force from vivacity. (shrink)

The consequences of Quine's criterion of ontological commitment epitomized in his treatment of the term 'Pegasus' in "On What There Is" are evaluated in terms of Quine's own work, in particular in "The Variable" and "Variables Explained Away". There is a cost to maintaining this criterion with regard to the empirical consequences of some non-existent objects, given considerations prompted by Quine's holism. This cost can be reduced by adopting a noneist position according to which non-existent objects can be values of (...) bound variables as well. (shrink)

Semantic theories of fictional names generally presuppose, either explicitly or implicitly, that fictional predicates are guaranteed a referent. I argue that this presupposition is inconsistent with anti-realist theories of fictional characters and that it cannot be taken for granted by realist theories of fictional characters. The question of whether a fictional name refers to a fictional character cannot be addressed independently of the much-neglected question of whether a fictional predicate refers to a fictional property.

If different translations of the same literary work have different syntaxes and semantics, how are they supposed to be about one and the same fictional character? In order to answer this question it’s necessary to (a) know what fictional characters are and (b) present reference conditions for them. Relying on Amie Thomasson’s (1999, 2003, 2007) and Saul Kripke’s (1980, 2013) works I argue that fictional characters are abstract artifacts whose reference is fixed by the baptism performed by an author; and (...) that the identity of a fictional character is preserved due to the maintenance of the same chain of reference. Finally, I show how translators maintain the chain of reference initiated by the author of a given work and how consequently a fictional character remains the same abstract artifact throughout different translations. (shrink)

É bem conhecida a divergência entre as posições de Gottlob Frege e Bertrand Russell com relação ao tratamento semântico dado a sentenças contendo termos singulares indefinidos, ou seja, termos singulares sem referência ou com referência ambígua, tais como ‘Papai Noel’ ou ‘o atual rei da França’ ou ‘1/0 ’ ou ‘√4’ ou ‘o autor de Principia Mathematica’. Para Frege, as sentenças da linguagem natural que contêm termos indefinidos não formam declarações e portanto não são nem verdadeiras nem falsas. Já para (...) as sentenças da matemática, Frege defende que elas precisam ser corrigidas através da convenção forçada de uma referência não ambígua. Russell, por outro lado, aceita os termos indefinidos e propõe, através de sua teoria das descrições definidas, uma maneira de avaliar as sentenças em que eles ocorrem; e Quine amplia a teoria de Russell para abranger também os nomes com problemas de referência. Na prática da matemática são comuns os termos singulares indefinidos, sem referência, tais como ‘1/0 ’, ou com referência ambígua, tais como ‘√4’. Apesar de não haver uma sistematização rigorosa desta situação entre os matemáticos, há, no entanto, um conjunto de regras convencionais que tradicionalmente costumam ser aplicadas no tratamento matemático dos termos indefinidos. Nossa proposta é tomar a convenção matemática como inspiração e modelo para apresentar uma interpretação semântica formal para as descrições definidas e os nomes e utilizá-la como um argumento que favorece a abordagem de Russell relativamente à de Frege. (shrink)

This volume examines the entire logical and philosophical production of Nikolai A. Vasil’ev, studying his life and activities as a historian and man of letters. Readers will gain a comprehensive understanding of this influential Russian logician, philosopher, psychologist, and poet. The author frames Vasil’ev’s work within its historical and cultural context. He takes into consideration both the situation of logic in Russia and the state of logic in Western Europe, from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of (...) the 20th. Following this, the book considers the attempts to develop non-Aristotelian logics or ideas that present affinities with imaginary logic. It then looks at the contribution of traditional logic in elaborating non-classical ideas. This logic allows the author to deal with incomplete objects just as imaginary logic does with contradictory ones. Both logics are objects of interesting analysis by modern researchers. (shrink)

Öz: Frege özel adların (ve diğer dilsel simgelerin) anlamları ve gönderimleri arasında ünlü ayrımını yaptığı “Anlam ve Gönderim Üzerine” (1948) adlı makalesinde, bu ayrımın önemi, gerekliliği ve sonuçları üzerine uzun değerlendirmeler yapar ancak özel adın anlamından tam olarak ne anlaşılması gerektiğinden yalnızca bir dipnotta kısaca söz eder. Örneğin “Aristoteles” özel adının anlamının Platon’un öğrencisi ve Büyük İskender’in öğretmeni ya da Stagira’da doğan Büyük İskender’in öğretmeni olarak alınabileceğini söyler. Burada dikkat çeken nokta örnekteki özel adın olası anlamları olarak gösterilen belirli betimlemelerin (...) de özel ad içeriyor olması. Anlamın Frege için bileşimsel olduğu, bir başka deyişle bir dilsel simgenin anlamının (varsa) parçalarının anlamlarınca belirlendiği düşünülürse, örnekteki belirli betimlemelerin anlamlarının saptanabilmesi için içerdikleri özel adların da anlamları saptanıp betimleme içinde geçtikleri yere konmalıdır. Bu işlem hiçbir özel ad kalmayana kadar sürdürülmelidir. Ancak biraz düşünülünce bir özel adın nesnesini tekil olarak betimleyecek ve içinde özel ad geçmeyecek bir betimleme bulmanın kolay olmadığı görülür. Örneğin yukarıdaki betimlemelerde geçen “Platon”, “Büyük İskender” ve “Stagira” gibi özel adların anlamları olabilecek ancak özel ad içermeyen betimlemeler bulmak pek kolay görünmüyor. Ortaya bir sonsuz gerileme sorunu çıkmış gibi duruyor. Frege’nin anlam-gönderim ayrımını için ciddi sonuçları olabilecek bu sorunu Frege çözebilir mi? Bu yazıda bu sorunun yanıtını arayacağım. Sorunu betimledikten sonra Frege’nin önündeki seçenekleri (örneğin bağlama duyarlı terimlerden (gösterme adılları veya belirteçler) yararlanma veya bağlamı sınırlama gibi) değerlendireceğim. -/- Abstract: In his “Sense and Reference” (1948), Frege makes his famous distinction between the sense and the reference of a proper name (and other signs) and discusses at length the significance, necessity and consequences of the distinction, but he explains how the sense of a proper name should be understood very briefly in a footnote. According to him, for example, the sense of the proper name “Aristotle” can be taken as the pupil of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great or the teacher of Alexander the Great who was born in Stagira. What is interesting here is that the definite descriptions given as the possible senses of this proper name do themselves contain proper names too. Since the sense is something compositional for Frege, which means the sense of a linguistic sign is determined by its constituents (if there are any), in order to determine the sense of definite descriptions in question, we should first determine the senses of proper names they contain and substitute these senses with the proper names themselves. This process should continue until no proper name remains. However, it does not seem easy to find a definite description which describes the object of a proper name uniquely but contains no proper name itself. For instance, could we find appropriate senses that contain no proper name for “Plato”, “Alexander the Great” and “Stagira”? It does not seem likely. A problem of infinite regress appears to arise. Can Frege solve this problem, which poses a serious threat for his sensereference distinction? I will explore this problem in this paper. After explaining the problem, I will discuss the options (e.g. turning to indexicals or context restriction) Frege can take to deal with it. (shrink)

In Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Timothy Williamson claims that the possibilism-actualism (P-A) distinction is badly muddled. In its place, he introduces a necessitism-contingentism (N-C) distinction that he claims is free of the confusions that purportedly plague the P-A distinction. In this paper I argue first that the P-A distinction, properly understood, is historically well-grounded and entirely coherent. I then look at the two arguments Williamson levels at the P-A distinction and find them wanting and show, moreover, that, when the N-C (...) distinction is broadened (as per Williamson himself) so as to enable necessitists to fend off contingentist objections, the P-A distinction can be faithfully reconstructed in terms of the N-C distinction. However, Williamson’s critique does point to a genuine shortcoming in the common formulation of the P-A distinction. I propose a new definition of the distinction in terms of essential properties that avoids this shortcoming. (shrink)

Resumen El concepto de “quiasmo” es fundamental en la filosofía del “último” Merleau-Ponty. Me interesa retomar este concepto para mostrar que, en la nueva ontología esbozada en Le visible et l’invisible y en las notas de la misma época, su función guarda correspondencia con la tarea que, a lo largo de la historia de la filosofía, ha desempeñado la imaginación. En este sentido, una ontología del quiasmo supone por necesidad pensar una ontología de la imaginación. Además, este concepto permite arrojar (...) una luz nueva sobre el problema de la subjetividad.The concept of “chiasm” is central to the philosophy of the “late” Merleau-Ponty. My aim is to retrieve this concept in order to show that, within the framework of the new ontology outlined in Le visible et l’invisible and the notes written during the same period, its function corresponds to the function that imagination has performed throughout the history of philosophy. Thus, an ontology of chiasm necessarily involves reflecting upon an ontology of imagination. Furthermore, the concept of chiasm enables us to shed new light on the problem of subjectivity. (shrink)

The study of the arts in philosophy has often concentrated on the role that emotions (and affective responses more generally) play in art’s creation and value. Philosophical theories of art have sometimes even defined art in terms of its capacity to elicit or express emotions. Philosophers have debated such questions as what it is to express an emotion in art; whether emotions form part of the value of an artwork; whether the emotions involved in art appreciation are of the same (...) kind as those that we experience in real life, or of a different, even sui generis kind (i.e., aesthetic emotions); whether it is rational or appropriate to experience emotions in response to art; and what value, if any, there is in art that evokes unpleasant emotions. Although the focus here will be on what, to a first approximation, can be characterized as the “Western mainstream philosophical tradition,” discussion of the role of emotions in art can also be found in different approaches and traditions of thought: from Indian philosophy to cognitive science, to so-called Continental philosophy. (shrink)

This essay describes computational semantic networks for a philosophical audience and surveys several approaches to semantic-network semantics. In particular, propositional semantic networks are discussed; it is argued that only a fully intensional, Meinongian semantics is appropriate for them; and several Meinongian systems are presented.

How hard is it to answer an ontological question? Ontological trivialism,, inspired by Carnap’s internal-external distinction among “questions of existence”, replies “very easy.” According to, almost every ontologically disputed entity trivially exists. has been defended by many, including Schiffer and Schaffer. In this paper, I will take issue with. After introducing the view in the context of Carnap-Quine dispute and presenting two arguments for it, I will discuss Hofweber’s argument against and explain why it fails. Next, I will introduce a (...) modified version of ontological trivialism, i.e. negative ontological trivialism,, defended by Hofweber, according to which some ontologically disputed entities, e.g. properties, trivially do not exist. I will show that fails too. Then I will outline a Meinongian answer to the original question, namely, ‘How hard is it to answer an ontological question?’ The Carnapian intuition of the triviality of internal questions can be saved by the Meinongian proposal that quantification and reference are not ontologically committing and the Quinean intuition of the legitimacy of interesting ontological questions can be respected by the Meinongian distinction between being and so-being. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel account of the contents of memory. By drawing on insights from the philosophy of perception, I propose a hybrid account of the contents of memory designed to preserve important aspects of representationalist and relationalist views. The hybrid view I propose also contributes to two ongoing debates in philosophy of memory. First, I argue that, in opposition to eternalist views, the hybrid view offers a less metaphysically-charged solution to the co-temporality problem. Second, I show how the (...) hybrid view conceives of the relationship between episodic memory and other forms of episodic thinking. I conclude by considering some disanalogies between perception and memory and by replying to objections. I argue that, despite there being important differences between memory and perception, those differences do not harm my project. (shrink)

This paper starts with the presentation of an Aristotelian theory of negative properties. Against this backdrop, it then asks whether there could be objects that have solely negative properties, i.e., completely negative objects. This possibility is entertained by Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The notion of a completely negative object is compared to the concepts of a nonexistent object, a nonconcrete object, and a nonactual object. Ultimately, it is argued that there can be no completely negative objects, because all negative (...) properties entail some positive properties. (shrink)