John Austin's masterpiece, How to Do Things with Words, was not just a contribution to philosophy; it has proven to be a major contribution to linguistics, one of the founding documents o pragmatics, the investigation of how we use words to accomplish various ends in the social world. Strangely, not much attention has been paid by philosophers — or by psychologists and linguists — to how we use words in private, you might say, to think. As Wittgenstein once noted, ‘It (...) is very noteworthy that what goes on in thinking practically never interests us.’. (shrink)

What is logical relevance? Anderson and Belnap say that the “modern classical tradition [,] stemming from Frege and Whitehead-Russell, gave no consideration whatsoever to the classical notion of relevance.” But just what is this classical notion? I argue that the relevance tradition is implicitly most deeply concerned with the containment of truth-grounds, less deeply with the containment of classes, and least of all with variable sharing in the Anderson–Belnap manner. Thus modern classical logicians such as Peirce, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and (...) Quine are implicit relevantists on the deepest level. In showing this, I reunite two fields of logic which, strangely from the traditional point of view, have become basically separated from each other: relevance logic and diagram logic. I argue that there are two main concepts of relevance, intensional and extensional. The first is that of the relevantists, who overlook the presence of the second in modern classical logic. The second is the concept of truth-ground containment as following from in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. I show that this second concept belongs to the diagram tradition of showing that the premisses contain the conclusion by the fact that the conclusion is diagrammed in the very act of diagramming the premisses. I argue that the extensional concept is primary, with at least five usable modern classical filters or constraints and indefinitely many secondary intensional filters or constraints. For the extensional concept is the genus of deductive relevance, and the filters define species. Also following the Tractatus, deductive relevance, or full truth-ground containment, is the limit of inductive relevance, or partial truth-ground containment. Purely extensional inductive or partial relevance has its filters or species too. Thus extensional relevance is more properly a universal concept of relevance or summum genus with modern classical deductive logic, relevantist deductive logic, and inductive logic as its three main domains. (shrink)

Taking their motivation from the perceived failure of the reductive physicalist project concerning consciousness, panpsychists ascribe subjectivity to fundamental material entities in order to account for macro-consciousness. But there exists an unresolved tension within the mainstream panpsychist position, the seriousness of which has yet to be appreciated. I capture this tension as a dilemma, and offer advice to panpsychists on how to resolve it. The dilemma is as follows: Panpsychists take the micro-material realm to feature phenomenal properties, plus micro-subjects to (...) whom these properties belong. However, it is impossible to explain the generation of a macro-subject (like one of us) in terms of the assembly of micro-subjects, for, as I show, subjects cannot combine. Therefore the panpsychist explanatory project is derailed by the insistence that the world’s ultimate material constituents are subjects of experience. The panpsychist faces a choice of giving up her explanatory ambitions, or of giving up the claim that the ultimates are subjects. I argue that the latter option is preferable, leading to neutral monism, on which phenomenal qualities are irreducible but subjects are reducible. So panpsychists should be neutral monists. (shrink)

Russellian monism – an influential doctrine proposed by Russell (1927/1992) – is roughly the view that the natural sciences can only ever tell us about the causal, dispositional, and structural properties of physical entities and not about their categorical properties, and, moreover, that our qualia are constituted by categorical properties. Recently, Stoljar (2001a, 2001b), Strawson (2008), Montero (2010, 2015), Alter and Nagasawa (2012), and Chalmers (2015) have attempted to develop this doctrine into a version of physicalism. Russellian monism faces the (...) so-called combination problem, according to which it is difficult to see how categorical properties could collectively constitute qualia. In this paper, I suggest that there is an insufficiently discussed aspect of the combination problem which I call the difference-maker problem. Taking the difference-maker problem into account, I argue that the combination problem – whether or not it can be solved – results in a dilemma for the project of developing Russellian physicalism. That is, Russellian monism is either physicalistically unacceptable or it is implausible; hence, Russellian monism and physicalism are incompatible. (shrink)

Can philosophy still be fruitful, and what kind of philosophy can be such? In particular, what kind of philosophy can be legitimized in the face of sciences? The aim of this paper is to answer these questions, listing the characteristics philosophy should have to be fruitful and legitimized in the face of sciences. Since the characteristics in question demand that philosophy search for new knowledge and new rules of discovery, a philosophy with such characteristics may be called the ‘heuristic view’. (...) According to the heuristic view, philosophy is an inquiry into the world which is continuous with the sciences. It differs from them only because it deals with questions which are beyond the present sciences, and in order to deal with them must try unexplored routes. By so doing, when successful, it may even give birth to new sciences. In listing the characteristics that philosophy should have, the paper systematically compares them with classical analytic philosophy, because the latter has been the dominant philosophical tradition in the last century. (shrink)

The paper distinguishes between two kinds of mathematics, natural mathematics which is a result of biological evolution and artificial mathematics which is a result of cultural evolution. On this basis, it outlines an approach to the philosophy of mathematics which involves a new treatment of the method of mathematics, the notion of demonstration, the questions of discovery and justification, the nature of mathematical objects, the character of mathematical definition, the role of intuition, the role of diagrams in mathematics, and the (...) effectiveness of mathematics in natural science. (shrink)

Jin Yuelin (1895?1984), a Chinese logician and philosopher, is greatly influenced by Hume's and Russell's philosophies. How should we respond to Hume's problem of induction? This is an important clue to understand Jin's whole philosophical career. The first section of this paper gives a brief historical review of Russell and Jin. The second section outlines Hume's skeptical arguments against causality and induction. The third section expounds Russell's justification of induction by discussing his views on Hume's skepticism, causality, principle of induction, (...) and empirical postulates. The fourth section clarifies Jin's justification of induction by discussing his critique of Hume's epistemology and his arguments for the reliability of causality and the eternal truth and apriority of the principle of induction. The final section compares Jin's justification of induction with Russell's and concludes that there are similarities and differences between their projects and that both their attempts fail. This paper takes the similar responses to the problem of induction by Jin and Russell to demonstrate the communication that there has been between Chinese philosophers and the Western ones. (shrink)

Digital physics claims that the entire universe is, at the very bottom, made out of bits; as a result, all physical processes are intrinsically computational. For that reason, many digital physicists go further and affirm that the universe is indeed a giant computer. The aim of this article is to make explicit the ontological assumptions underlying such a view. Our main concern is to clarify what kind of properties the universe must instantiate in order to perform computations. We analyse the (...) logical form of the two models of computation traditionally adopted in digital physics, namely, cellular automata and Turing machines. These models are computationally equivalent, but we show that they support different ontological commitments about the fundamental properties of the universe. In fact, cellular automata are compatible with a rather traditional form of physicalism, whereas Turing machines support a dualistic ontology, which could be understood as a realism about the laws of nature or, alternatively, as a kind of panpsychism. (shrink)

In a seminal paper of 1923 on vagueness, Bertrand Russell discussed some of the most important problems concerning the nature of vagueness, its extension within the language, and its relation to truth and logic. The present paper inquires into Russell's theory. The following topics will be analysed and discussed in turn in sections 1?5: Russell's definition of vagueness; his claim that all phrases are vague; his theory of the source of the vagueness in our language; his principles for the transmission (...) of vagueness; and his claim that logic is incompatible with vagueness. This paper is an attempt to give a rational reconstruction of Russell's position as expressed in his paper. Compatible passages in other of his works are also studied. (shrink)

Russell’s critique of substance monism is an ideal starting point from which to understand some main concepts in Spinoza’s difficult metaphysics. This paper provides an in-depth examination of Spinoza’s proof that only one substance exists. On this basis, it rejects Russell’s interpretation of Spinoza’s theory of reality as founded upon the logical doctrine that all propositions consist of a predicate and a subject. An alternative interpretation is offered: Spinoza’s substance is not a bearer of properties, as Russell implied, but an (...) eternally active, self-actualizing creative power. Eventually, Spinoza the Monist and Russell the Pluralist are at one in holding that process and activity rather than enduring things are the most fundamental realities. (shrink)

In the preface to the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant laments thatit still remains a scandal to philosophy and to human reason in general that the existence of things outside us … must be accepted on faith, and if anyone thinks good to doubt their existence, we are unable to counter his doubts by any satisfactory proof. The two editions of the Critique each contain a celebrated refutation of epistemological scepticisms like those of Descartes and Hume. (...) The first edition refutation has been widely decried as relying on an objectionable sort of idealism. The refutation of the second edition, though rather more difficult to interpret than the first, has usually been read as a mere reworking of the first. (shrink)

The issue of time-awareness presents a critical challenge for empiricism: if temporal properties are not directly perceived, how do we become aware of them? A unique empiricist account of time-awareness suggested by Hume's comments on time in the Treatise avoids the problems characteristic of other empiricist accounts. Hume's theory, however, has some counter-intuitive consequences. The failure of empiricists to come up with a defensible theory of time-awareness lends prima facie support to a non-empiricist theory of ideas.

Standard views of personal identity over time often hover uneasily between the subjective, first-person dimension (e. g. psychological continuity), and the objective, third-person dimension (e. g. biological continuity) of a person’s life. Since both dimensions capture something integral to personal identity, we show that neither can successfully be discarded in favor of the other. The apparent need to reconcile subjectivity and objectivity, however, presents standard views with problems both in seeking an ontological footing of, as well as epistemic evidence for, (...) personal identity. We contend that a fresh look at neutral monism offers a novel way to tackle these problems; counting on the most fundamental building blocks of reality to be ontologically neutral with regards to subjectivity and objectivity of personal identity. If the basic units of reality are, in fact, ontologically neutral – but can give rise to mental as well as physical events – these basic units of reality might account for both subjectivity and objectivity in personal identity. If this were true, it would turn out that subjectivity and objectivity are not conflictive dimensions of personal identity but rather two sides of the same coin. (shrink)

It is often claimed that Russellian monism carries a commitment to a structuralist conception of physics, on which physics describes the world only in terms of its spatiotemporal structure and dynamics. We argue that this claim is mistaken. On Russellian monism, there is more to consciousness, and to the rest of concrete reality, than spatiotemporal structure and dynamics. But the latter claim supports only a conditional claim about physics: _if_ structuralism about physics is true, then there is more to consciousness (...) and to the rest of concrete reality than physics describes. Given the fundamental nature of their position, Russellian monists can, we argue, deny the antecedent without inconsistency. We also draw out two significant consequences of that result. One is that it provides a response to some recent objections to Russellian monism, by Alyssa Ney and Eric Hiddleston. The other consequence concerns a line of reasoning known as _the structure and dynamics argument_—reasoning that is thought to motivate Russellian monism. In David J. Chalmers’s version, which is regarded as canonical, structuralism about physics is implied by a premise. If our main thesis is true, then that version is problematic, at least from the perspective of Russellian monists who take the argument to motivate their theory. However, we argue, the argument can be reformulated without relying on structuralism about physics. (shrink)

After delineating the distinguishing features of pragmatism, and noting the resources that pragmatists have available to respond effectively as pragmatists to the two major objections to pragmatism, I examine and critically evaluate the various proposals that pragmatists have offered as a solution to the problem of induction, followed by a discussion of the pragmatic positions on the status of theoretical entities. Thereafter I discuss the pragmatic posture toward the nature of explanation in science. I conclude that pragmatism has (a) a (...) generally compelling solution to Hume's problem of induction; (b) no specific position on the status of theoretical entities, although something like the non-realism of the sort developed by van Fraassen seems a defensible candidate for most pragmatists in general, even though there are non-trivial objections to van Fraassen's position; and (c) central to the pragmatic conception of scientific explanation is the abandonment of our common conception of truth as a necessary condition for sentences to provide adequate explanations, and a drift in the direction of a contextualist account of explanation. (shrink)

This is a critical exposition and limited defence of a theory of first- person belief transiently held by Roderick Chisholm after giving up the early haecceity theory of Person and Object and before adopting the late self-attribution theory of The First Person. I reconstruct that 'middle' theory as involving what I call a 'hard-core' approach to de re belief and I rebut objections concerning epistemic supervenience and abnormal consciousness. In my rebuttals, I sketch a variant of the middle theory according (...) to which first- person belief essentially involves the believer's introspective acquaintance with herself. (shrink)

Summary In the attempt to understand science, definition is not much of a help. Due to the ever growing complexity of science, no unique and universally valid set of defining criteria is available. Hence, certain distinctions are resorted to: science is both a body of tested knowledge and a method of inquiry. The latter, in turn, consists of two phases: discovery and confirmation. The writer argues that it is mainly in respect of its method that science can best be characterized (...) and distinguished from other types of inquiry. (shrink)

A new reading of G.E. Moore's ‘Proof of an External World’ is offered, on which the Proof is understood as a unique and essential part of an anti-sceptical strategy that Moore worked out early in his career and developed in various forms, from 1909 until his death in 1958. I begin by ignoring the Proof and by developing a reading of Moore's broader response to scepticism. The bulk of the article is then devoted to understanding what role the Proof plays (...) in Moore's strategy, and how that role is played. (shrink)

Many in science are disposed not to take biosemiotics seriously, dismissing it as too anthropomorphic. Furthermore, biosemiotic apologetics are cast in top-down fashion, thereby adding to widespread skepticism. An effective response might be to approach biosemiotics from the bottom up, but the foundational assumptions that support Enlightenment science make that avenue impossible. Considerations from ecosystem studies reveal, however, that those conventional assumptions, although once possessing great utilitarian value, have come to impede deeper understanding of living systems because they implicitly depict (...) the evolution of the universe backward. Ecological dynamics suggests instead a smaller set of countervailing postulates that allows evolution to play forward and sets the stage for tripartite causalities, signs, and interpreters—the key elements of biosemiosis—to emerge naturally out of the interaction of chance with configurations of autocatalytic processes. Biosemiosis thereby appears as a fully legitimate outgrowth of the new metaphysic and shows promise for becoming the supervenient focus of a deeper perspective on the phenomenon of life. (shrink)

Mutual critique by scientists and religious believers mostly entails the pruning of untenable religious beliefs by scientists and warnings against scientific minimalism on the part of believers. John F. Haught has been prominent in formulating religious apologetics in response to the challenges posed by evolutionary theory. Haught's work also resonates with a parallel criticism of the conventional scientific metaphysics undergirding neo-Darwinian theory. Contemporary systems ecology seems to indicate that nothing short of a complete reversal of the Enlightenment assumptions about nature (...) is capable of repositioning science to deal adequately with the origin and dynamics of living systems. A process-based alternative metaphysics substantially mitigates several ostensible conflicts between science and religion. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, Hilda Diana Oakeley set out a new kind of British idealism. Oakeley is an idealist in the sense that she holds mind to actively contribute to the features of experience, but she also accepts that there is a world independent of mind. One of her central contributions to the idealist tradition is her thesis that minds construct our experiences using memory. This paper explores the theses underlying her idealism, and shows how they are intricately connected (...) to the wider debates of her period. I go on to explain how the parts of Oakeley's idealism are connected to further areas of her thought – specifically, her views on history and her growing block theory of time – to provide a sense of Oakeley's philosophy as a system. As there is no existing literature on Oakeley, this paper aims to open a path for further scholarship. (shrink)

For some two millennia, Western civilization has predominantly viewed mind and consciousness as the private domain of the human species. Some have been willing to extend these qualities to certain animals. And there has been a small but very significant minority of philosophers who have argued that the processes of mind are universal in extent, and resident in all material things.

As a typical subject, you experience a variety of paradigmatically temporal phenomena. Looking out of the window in the English summer, you can see leaves swaying in the breeze and hear the pitter-patter of raindrops steadily increasing against the window. In discussions of temporal experience, and through reflecting on examples such as those offered, two phenomenological claims are widely – though not unequivocally – accepted: firstly, you perceptually experience motion and change; secondly, while more than a momentary state of affairs (...) is presented in your ongoing perceptual experience, that which is presented nonetheless seems to be of a quite limited temporal extent. These two claims are frequently tied to the notion of the specious present. However, there has recently been a push back against the supposed link between perceived motion and the specious present. I argue that there are two ways of understanding this link, and while one has recently been the target of criticism, the other withstands such criticism. My overarching aim is to clarify the notion of the specious present through a discussion of the notion’s origins, in addition to recent criticism directed at the notion, with the hope of reframing how contemporary debates proceed. (shrink)

Reception of the Bohm-Hiley interpretation of quantum mechanics has a curiously Janus faced quality. On the one hand, it is frequently derided as a conservative throwback to outdated classical patterns of thought. On the other hand, it is equally often taken to task for encouraging a wild quantum mysticism, often regarded as anti-scientific. I will argue that there are reasons for this reception, but that a proper appreciation of the dual scientific and philosophical aspects of the view reveals a powerful (...) and extremely interesting metaphysical view of the world. This view is akin to that of Russellian Monism, in which the empirical world studied by science is restricted to relational features that stand in need of some background intrinsic properties to ground their reality. This allows for a theory that can embrace a world which exhibits a reasonable and plausible sort of emergence (especially of domains that fall under classical concepts) while also making room for distinctive and scientifically intransigent properties such as consciousness. (shrink)

Contemporaries often reject epiphenomenalism out of hand, while Russellian Monism is regarded as worthy of further development. It is argued here that this difference of attitudes is indefensible, because the easy rejection of EPI is due to its violating a certain Causal Intuition, and RM implicitly violates that same intuition. An enriched version of RM mitigates the violation, but the same mitigation results if we make a parallel enrichment of EPI. If RM and EPI are approached on a level playing (...) field, it is not obvious which will prove to be the better view. (shrink)

Three main versions of cognition-arousal theory are distinguished depending on how they interpret the theory’s basic postulate, that an emotion is a function of cognition and arousal: objectivist causal theories, attributional theories, and fusion theories. The objectivist causal and attributional theories each comprise a causal-functional and a part-whole version, and the fusion theory subsumes in particular a categorization and a perceptual integration version. In addition, the attributional version of cognition-arousal theory can be reinterpreted as a theory of emotion self-ascription. Although (...) arousal may in fact not be necessary for emotions, a modified cognition-feeling theory that replaces arousal with intrinsically affective feelings, seems still viable. Arguments are presented why the objectivist causal-functional version of this theory should be preferred. (shrink)

This paper considers how to best relate the competing accounts of scientific knowledge that Russell and Reichenbach proposed in the 1930s and 1940s. At the heart of their disagreements are two different accounts of how to best combine a theory of knowledge with scientific realism. Reichenbach argued that a broadly empiricist epistemology should be based on decisions. These decisions or “posits” informed Reichenbach’s defense of induction and a corresponding conception of what knowledge required. Russell maintained that a scientific realist must (...) abandon empiricism in favor of knowledge of some non-demonstrative principles with a non-empirical basis. After identifying the best versions of realism offered by Reichenbach and Russell, the paper concludes with a brief discussion of the limitations of these two approaches. (shrink)

Whereas Peirce’s logic drove him to postulate a primitive sentiency of physical matter, this essay argues that life exhibits behavior that is radically discontinuous from its preconditions; e.g., life manufactures chance by semiotic means. A sign being something that stands for another thing to a mind, signs are brought into existence only by acts of ‘reading.’ Peirce argued that this action is an element of physics, and thus the entire universe ‘lives.’ This essay postulates a degenerate form of Firstness that (...) is contingent upon ‘caused’ forms of apparent but not actual chance, and which consists of possibility sans sentiency. This argument limits the range of Peirce’s semiotics to biology; chance remains radical, though its roots now lie in the coextension of semiotics and life. As living things live only by incorporating extant phenomena, continuation depends on the ability to enter into successful semiotic relationships. This results in the ‘minding’ behavior that is both biological sentiency and genuine Firstness, and which expresses radically discontinuous behavior. Thus chance becomes something akin to truth: neither exists ‘metaphysically’ , both are quite distinct from being, and both happen only as a consequence of interpretation as it is generated by and re-generates sign-wielding beings as they seek what they need to go on living. While quite distinct from Peirce, this notion of chance may well result in a more productive use of his semiotics. (shrink)

Timothy Sprigge advanced an original synthesis of panpsychism and absolute idealism. He argued that consciousness is an irreducible, subjective reality that is only grasped by an introspective, phenomenological approach and constructed his ontology from what is revealed in the phenomenology. In defending the unique place of metaphysics in the pursuit of truth, he claimed that scientific investigation can never discover the essence of consciousness since it can only provide descriptions of structure and function in what we normally think of as (...) physical existence. In this paper I present a critical evaluation of Sprigge's view focusing in particular on his conception of the nature of scientific inquiry vis-à-vis the ambitious project of his metaphysics. I argue that a naturalistic metaphysics provides a more adequate approach to the relation between science and metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper concerns Bertrand Russell’s changing views on negative judgement. ‘Negative judgement’ is considered in the context of three theories of judgement that Russell put forth at different times: a dual relation theory ; a multiple relation theory ; a psychological theory of judgement. Four issues are singled out for a more detailed discussion: quality dualism versus quality monism, that is, the question whether judgement comes in two kinds, acceptance and rejection, or whether there is only one judgement-quality ; the (...) structure of negative judging; the problem of truth-making for negative facts; the different roles of ‘fact’ in Russell’s theories of truth. What emerges from the discussion is a rough chronology of Russell’s views on negative judgement during the period from 1903 to 1948. (shrink)

The main body of this article presents Vasubandhu’s and Candrakīrti’s discussion on the etymology of pratītyasamutpāda and its meaning as it appears in the Bhāṣya to Abhidharmakośa 3.28ab and Prasannapadā 4.5–9.27, respectively. Both authors put forward and critically examine various Buddhist grammatical analyses and interpretations of the term. Many passages in the indicated sections parallel or nearly parallel to each other suggest that Buddhist discussions on pratītyasamutpāda were held in a very specified manner during the mature phase of Buddhist philosophy (...) in India. In the conclusion of the article, an attempt is made to discern the reason for Buddhists’ mutually competing analyses of the term, showing that their seemingly objectively conducted discussions regarding pratītyasamutpāda are actually rooted in their ontological presumptions. Thus, for example, the nearly identical etymological analyses of the term provided by Va.. (shrink)

This paper argues that the subsistence of the fundamental theorem of contemporary financial mathematics is the ethical concept ‘reciprocity’. The argument is based on identifying an equivalence between the contemporary, and ostensibly ‘value neutral’, Fundamental Theory of Asset Pricing with theories of mathematical probability that emerged in the seventeenth century in the context of the ethical assessment of commercial contracts in a framework of Aristotelian ethics. This observation, the main claim of the paper, is justified on the basis of results (...) from the Ultimatum Game and is analysed within a framework of Pragmatic philosophy. The analysis leads to the explanatory hypothesis that markets are centres of communicative action with reciprocity as a rule of discourse. The purpose of the paper is to reorientate financial economics to emphasise the objectives of cooperation and social cohesion and to this end, we offer specific policy advice. (shrink)

Some theories of practical reasons incorporate a lexical priority structure, according to which some practical reasons have infinitely greater weight than others. This includes absolute deontological theories and axiological theories that take some goods to be categorically superior to others. These theories face problems involving cases in which there is a non-extreme probability that a given reason applies. In view of such cases, lexical-priority theories are in danger of becoming irrelevant to decision-making, becoming absurdly demanding, or generating paradoxical cases in (...) which each of a pair of actions is permissible yet the pair is impermissible. (shrink)

reprinted as 'Can We Know the Nature of Reality As It Is In Itself' in Galen Strawson, Real Materialism, 2008: Many hold that it is impossible in principle for finite creatures like ourselves to know anything of the nature of non-mental concrete reality as it is in itself, even if we can be said to know the nature of the qualitative character of our own experiences (as it is in itself) just in having them. I argue that there is no (...) insuperable obstacle to knowledge of the nature of non-mental concrete reality as it is in itself, even if we have very little as a matter of fact. (shrink)

Several debates in contemporary metaphysics provoke us to ask what an event is. One theory, Pioneered by chisholm, Develops the analogy between the occurrence of events and the truth of corresponding propositions. I call these propositional analyses. It is unclear whether their adherents wish to jettison our event-Concepts, And replace them with concepts from another category, Such as semantics. The other theory of what events are that I scrutinize, Namely kim's and goldman's property-Exemplification analysis, Seems reductive. My suspicion is that (...) if you attempt to boil down the occurrence of an event to the "obtaining" or "taking place" of a proposition-Like "state of affairs"--Or to the "exemplification" of a property by an "object"--At some "time", We have a residual event: a mysterious episode of "obtaining" or "exemplifying" in which either states of affairs or properties and objects participate. Reduction is unlikely. (shrink)

Sometimes in philosophy one view engenders another. If you hold the first, chances are you hold the second. But it’s not always because the first entails the second. Sometimes the tie is less clear, less clean. One such tie is between substance dualism and anti-criterialism. Substance dualism is the view that people are, at least in part, immaterial mental substances. Anti-criterialism is the view that there is no criterion of personal identity through time. Most philosophers who hold the first view (...) also hold the second. In fact, many philosophers just assume that substance dualists ought to, or perhaps even have to, accept anti-criterialism. But I aim to show that this assumption is baseless. Substance dualism doesn’t entail, suggest, support, or in any way motivate anti-criterialism, and anti-criterialism confers no benefit on dualism. Substance dualists have no special reason—and, indeed, no good reason at all—to accept anti-criterialism. Or so I shall argue. My aim isn’t to defend substance dualism, nor is it to attack anti-criterialism. My aim is to show that, contrary to a long-standing trend, dualists needn’t be anti-criterialists. Nor, as it will turn out, should they be. (shrink)

O presente manual tem como intenção constituir um guia para uma disciplina introdutória de filosofia da linguagem. Foi elaborado a partir da leccionação da disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto desde 2001. A disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I ocupa um semestre lectivo e proporciona aos estudantes o primeiro contacto sistemático com a área da filosofia da linguagem. Pretende-se que este manual ofereça aos estudantes os instrumentos necessários não apenas para acompanhar uma (...) iniciação ao campo da filosofia da linguagem mas também para o estudo e a investigação autónomos posteriores. Para isso é percorrido um trajecto que conduz das intuições pré-teóricas acerca de linguagem, de que todos dispomos, até um conhecimento disciplinar específico, histórico e temático, da filosofia da linguagem. Em termos práticos, são considerados como precedentes da disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I – mesmo se, pelo existem actualmente precedências em sentido estrito – as disciplinas de Lógica I e II e de Filosofia do Conhecimento I e II. Os programas dessas disciplinas nos últimos anos estiveram presentes por trás da elaboração do manual. (shrink)

The Humility Thesis is a persistent thesis in contemporary metaphysics. It is known by a variety of names, including, but not limited to, Humility, Intrinsic Humility, Kantian Humility, Kantian Physicalism, Intrinsic Ignorance, Categorical Ignorance, Irremediable Ignorance, and Noumenalism. According to the thesis, we human beings, and any knowers that share our general ways of knowing, are irremediably ignorant of a certain class of properties that are intrinsic to material entities … Continue reading Humility Regarding Intrinsic Properties →.

Philosophy becomes speculative when it raises questions about the ultimate nature of being and thought. What does it mean to be? What does it mean to think? How are being and thought related? What does it mean to ask these questions? These questions have occupied a central place in philosophy throughout history, but have led a shadow existence in twentieth-century thought, which has cut the tie between reason and these fundamental questions, leaving the questions in the twilight, and reason instrumentalised. (...) A.N. Whitehead (1861-1947), one of the founders of analytic philosophy and co-author (with Bertrand Russell) of Principia Mathematica, is one of the few contemporary thinkers to have developed an explicit speculative philosophy. Unsurprisingly, his philosophy has played a marginal role in academic debates. In this study, the methodological foundation of Whitehead’s speculative thought is reconstructed. On the basis of a systematic and historical examination of the nature of the question of being, Whiteheads ontology of the event as the passage into novelty emerges in its full scope, allowing the reader to understand why and to what extent Whitehead has walked a different path than other contemporary thinkers. His philosophy contains a conception of reason that is not alien to newness and creativity while being more than procedural or pragmatic, and a mode of understanding existence that brings out the acuteness of freedom, value and legitimacy, as well as the unity of things, of thought and nature. In order to show what is really happening in this philosophy, the received interpretation of Whitehead’s ontology is radically dismantled. The central thought, that to be means to happen, is explained in a process of reiteration and gradual clarification, examining traditional philosophical problems in metaphysics and epistemology (on topics like: nature and matter, knowledge, categorical structure, freedom and necessity, truth and meaning, modality) from its perspective. What emerges is a philosophy in which the temporality of being, when taken seriously, changes the status of familiar problems and dualisms and offers possibilities for thought, which previously did not exist. Whitehead “hears” the classical questions of philosophy in a new way. Beyond the trenches of twentieth-century philosophy, Whitehead’s speculative thinking contains many elements that will be of value to those studying the foundations of thought today and looking for new directions. In a time when the dualism of nature and man is maintained cynically in our economies and dismantled, but only in a biologistic fashion and therefore only seemingly, as a cover-up, in science and philosophy, Whitehead’s new and creative way of hearing, and answering, old questions about ultimate concerns, when understood properly, is more up to date than ever before. (shrink)

The topic of this study is a notion of empathy that is common in philosophy and in the behavioral sciences. It is here referred to as ‘the notion of empathy as emotional sharing’, and it is characterized in terms of three ideas. If a person, S, has empathy with respect to an emotion of another person, O, then (i) S experiences an emotion that is similar to an emotion that O is currently having, (ii) S’s emotion is caused, in a (...) particular way, by the state of O or by S’s entertaining an idea of the state or situation of O, and (iii) S experiences this emotion in a way that does not entail that S is in the corresponding emotional state. The aim of the study is to clarify this notion of empathy by clarifying these three ideas and by tracing the history of their development in philosophy. -/- The study consists of two parts. Part one contains a short and selective account of the history in Western philosophy of the notion of empathy as emotional sharing. In chapter 2 Spinoza’s theory of imitation of affects and Hume’s theory of sympathy are presented. It is argued that these theories only exemplify the second idea characteristic of the notion of empathy as emotional sharing. Chapter 3 contains presentations of Adam Smith’s theory of sympathy, and Schopenhauer’s theory of compassion. These theories are shown to exemplify the second and the third idea. In chapter 4 there are presentations of Edith Stein’s description of Einfühlung, and Max Scheler’s account of empathy and fellow-feeling. It is shown that these accounts contain explicit specifications of the third idea, and it is argued that they also exemplify the second idea. -/- In part two, the three ideas are further clarified and the notion of empathy as emotional sharing is defined. Chapter 5 contains a discussion of the main contemporary philosophical analyses of empathy. Three different views are distinguished: one that construes empathetic emotions as emotional states, one that construes them as imagined emotions, and one that construes them as off-line emotions. The first two views are criticized and rejected. The third is accepted and further developed in chapter 6, which contains a general analysis of the emotions. A distinction is made between two ways of experiencing an emotion, and it is argued that it is possible to have the affective experience characteristic of a particular kind of emotional state without being in that kind of state. In chapter 7, a definition of ‘empathy’ is proposed. This definition contains specifications of the three ideas characteristic of the notion of empathy as emotional sharing, and it shows both how the empathizer’s emotion resembles the emotion of the empathee, and how this emotion is caused and experienced. (shrink)