Provides a comprehensive introduction to the major philosophical theories attempting to explain the workings of language.

This volume collects some influential essays in which Simon Blackburn, one of our leading philosophers, explores one of the most profound and fertile of philosophical problems: the way in which our judgments relate to the world. This debate has centered on realism, or the view that what we say is validated by the way things stand in the world, and a variety of oppositions to it. Prominent among the latter are expressive and projective theories, but also a relaxed pluralism that (...) discourages the view that there are substantial issues at stake. The figure of the "quasi-realist" dramatizes the difficulty of conducting these debates. Typically philosophers thinking of themselves as realists will believe that they alone can give a proper or literal account of some of our attachments--to truth, to facts, to the independent world, to knowledge and certainty. The quasi-realist challenge, developed by Blackburn in this volume, is that we can have those attachments without any metaphysic that deserves to be called realism, so that the metaphysical picture that goes with our practices is quite idle. The cases treated here include the theories of value and knowledge, modality, probability, causation, intentionality and rule-following, and explanation. A substantial new introduction has been added, drawing together some of the central themes. The essays articulate a fresh alternative to a primitive realist/anti-realist opposition, and their cumulative effect is to yield a new appreciation of the delicacy of the debate in these central areas. (shrink)

The abstract structure of inquiry - the process of acquiring and changing beliefs about the world - is the focus of this book which takes the position that the "pragmatic" rather than the "linguistic" approach better solves the philosophical problems about the nature of mental representation, and better accounts for the phenomena of thought and speech. It discusses propositions and propositional attitudes (the cluster of activities that constitute inquiry) in general and takes up the way beliefs change in response to (...) potential new information, suggesting that conditional propositions should be understood as projections of epistemic policies onto the world.Robert C. Stalnaker is a professor in the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

The Fourth Edition of this long-established text retains all the key features of the previous editions, covering the basic topics of a solid first course in ...

Philosophers have long suspected that thought and discourse about what we ought to do differ in some fundamental way from statements about what is. But the difference has proved elusive, in part because the two kinds of statement look alike. Focusing on judgments that express decisions--judgments about what is to be done, all things considered--Allan Gibbard offers a compelling argument for reconsidering, and reconfiguring, the distinctions between normative and descriptive discourse--between questions of "ought" and "is." Gibbard considers how our actions, (...) and our realities, emerge from the thousands of questions and decisions we form for ourselves. The result is a book that investigates the very nature of the questions we ask ourselves when we ask how we should live, and that clarifies the concept of "ought" by understanding the patterns of normative concepts involved in beliefs and decisions. An original and elegant work of metaethics, this book brings a new clarity and rigor to the discussion of these tangled issues, and will significantly alter the long-standing debate over "objectivity" and "factuality" in ethics. Table of Contents: I. Preliminaries 1. Introduction: A Possibility Proof 2. Intuitionism as Template: Emending Moore II. The Thing to Do 3. Planning and Ruling Out: The "Frege-Geach" Problem 4. Judgment, Disagreement, Negation 5. Supervenience and Constitution 6. Character and Import III. Normative Concepts 7. Ordinary Oughts: Meaning and Motivation 8. Normative Kinds: Patterns of Engagement 9. What to Say about the Thing to Do: The Expressivistic Turn and What it Gains Us IV. Knowing What to Do 10. Explaining with Plans 11. Knowing What to Do 12. Ideal Response Concepts 13. Deep Vindication and Practical Confidence 14. Impasse and Dissent References Index This is a remarkable book. It takes up a central and much-discussed problem - the difference between normative thought and "descriptive" thought. It develops a compelling response to that problem with ramifications for much else in philosophy. But perhaps most importantly, it brings new clarity and rigor to the discussion of these tangled issues. It will take some time to come to terms with the details of Gibbard's discussion. It is absolutely clear, however, that the book will reconfigure the debate over objectivity and "factuality" in ethics. --Gideon Rosen, Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University Gibbard,/author> writes elegantly, and the theory he develops is innovative, philosophically sophisticated, and challenging. Gibbard defends his theory vigorously and with admirable intellectual honesty. --David Copp, Professor of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University. (shrink)

By distinguishing between pragmatic and semantic aspects of emotivism, and by distinguishing between inflationary and deflationary conceptions of truth conditions, this paper defends emotivism against a series of objections. First, it is not the case (as Blackburn has argued) that emotivism must explain the appearance that moral sentences have truth conditions. Second, it is not the case (as Boghossian has argued) that emotivism presupposes that non-moral sentences have inflationary truth conditions. Finally, it is not the case (as Geach and Blackburn (...) have argued) that emotivism is inconsistent with the validity of certain simple arguments. (shrink)

I conclude that Gibbard fails to solve several of the traditional problems for expressivism. He solves some of these problems, but his solutions to them in effect give up expressivism. Of course, one might respond that it does not really matter whether his theory is expressivist. In some ways, I agree. Gibbard says many fascinating things about morality which have at most indirect connections to his expressivist analysis. I am thinking especially of his later discussions of hyperscepticism, parochialism, and indirect (...) pragmatism. These views could still be developed even if he gave up expressivism. All I have tried to show here is that he does need to give up expressivism unless he can solve the problems that I have raised. (shrink)

Expressivism faces four distinct problems when evaluative sentences are embedded in unassertive contexts like: If lying is wrong, getting someone to lie is wrong, Lying is wrong, so Getting someone to lie is wrong. The initial problem is to show that expressivism is compatible with - being valid. The basic problem is for expressivists to explain why evaluative instances of modus ponens are valid. The deeper problem is to explain why a particular argument like - is valid. The deepest problem (...) is to explain the meanings of evaluative conditionals like . Expressivists can solve the initial and basic problems simply by acknowledging that evaluative sentences have minimal truth aptness, but the deeper and deepest problems require more. The deepest problem cannot be solved even with the semantics of Gibbard and Blackburn, as is shown by an extension of Dreier’s hiyo argument. (shrink)

Moral Realism is a systematic defence of the idea that there are objective moral standards. Russ Shafer-Landau argues that there are moral principles that are true independently of what anyone, anywhere, happens to think of them. His central thesis, as well as the many novel supporting arguments used to defend it, will spark much controversy among those concerned with the foundations of ethics.

This book examines some of the deepest questions in philosophy: What is involved in judging a belief, action, or feeling to be rational?

An original and elegant work of metaethics, this book brings a new clarity and rigor to the discussion of these tangled issues, and will significantly alter the ...

Geach's problem, the problem of accounting for the fact that judgements expressed using moral terms function logically like other judgements, stands in the way of most noncognitive analyses of moral judgements. The non-cognitivist must offer a plausible interpretation of such terms when they appear in conditionals that also explains their logical interaction with straightforward moral assertions. Blackburn and Gibbard have offered a series of accounts each of which interprets such conditionals as expressing higher order commitments. Each then invokes norms for (...) the coherent acceptance of attitudes to explain why we hold certain combinations inconsistent. Against these accounts the paper presses two related objections: (1) The norms needed to do the explanatory work cannot be strong enough to do that work without also ruling clearly consistent attitudes inconsistent. And (2), the norms of rational attitude acceptance do not neatly track the distinction between consistent and inconsistent attitudes. (shrink)