How should we respond to the humanity of others? Should we care for others’ well-being? Respect them as autonomous agents? Largely neglected is an answer we can find in the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism: we should love all. This paper argues that an ideal of love for all can be understood apart from its more typical religious contexts and moreover provides a unified and illuminating account of the the nature and grounds of morality. I defend a novel (...) account of love for all that avoids serious worries about the incoherence or impossibility of loving everyone. Doing so requires countenancing a neglected form of love. Love admits as its object not just individual entities like people and groups; we can also bear a love for the Fs in general---for all the Joneses, all the philosophers, or even all the human beings. I go on to argue that while it is possible for ordinary agents like us to love all, we shouldn't. Instead, we should approximate love for all. The minimal approximation of love for all is, surprisingly, respect; I derive the basic, structural features of deontological ethics (including anti-paternalism and anti-aggregation) from the ideal of loving all. (NB: This paper used to be titled "Ethics in the Shadow of Love" and has been cited as an unpublished manuscript under that title.). (shrink)

Some time ago, Joel Katzav and Brian Ellis debated the compatibility of dispositional essentialism with the principle of least action. Surprisingly, very little has been said on the matter since, even by the most naturalistically inclined metaphysicians. Here, we revisit the Katzav–Ellis arguments of 2004–05. We outline the two problems for the dispositionalist identified Katzav in his 2004 , and claim they are not as problematic for the dispositional essentialist at it first seems – but not for the reasons espoused (...) by Ellis. (shrink)

Analytic Philosophy, Volume 63, Issue 2, Page 131-136, June 2022.

I highlight three features of P.F. Strawson’s later, neglected work on freedom and responsibility. First, in response to a criticism by Rajendra Prasad, Strawson explicitly rejects an argument put forward in ‘Freedom and Resentment’ against the relevance of determinism to moral responsibility. Second, his remarkable acceptance of Prasad’s criticism motivates him to take the ‘straight path’, that is, to be straightforward about the relation between determinism, freedom, the ability to do otherwise and the conditions of responsibility. He claims that the (...) ability to do otherwise is a necessary condition of responsibility and provides a list of additional conditions, including a knowledge condition. Third, he clarifies the relation between responsibility, quality of will and the reactive attitudes. The latter do not figure essentially in his answer to the question, ‘What are the conditions of responsibility?’, but they do play an essential role in his answer to the question, ‘Why do we have the concept of responsibility?’ We have it, Strawson suggests, because of our natural concern about the quality of will with which people act, a concern expressed in our reactive attitudes. I argue that, although Strawson’s later work definitely involves a shift of emphasis when compared to ‘Freedom and Resentment’, his overall account of freedom and responsibility is coherent. The later work helps to better understand the nature and significance of Strawson’s contribution, and to identify problems with common interpretations of and objections to ‘Freedom and Resentment’. (shrink)

Internalism about moral responsibility is the view that moral responsibility is determined primarily by an agent's mental states; externalism is the view that moral responsibility is determined primarily by an agent's overt behaviour and by circumstances external to the agent. In a series of papers, Michelle Ciurria has argued that most if not all current accounts of moral responsibility, including Strawsonian ones, are internalist. Ciurria defends externalism against these accounts, and she argues that, in contrast to his contemporary followers, P.F. (...) Strawson himself was an externalist. I believe that Ciurria's reading of Strawson is problematic. The aim of this paper is to elucidate Strawson's position with regard to the internalism-externalism issue against the background of Ciurria's reading of him. I conclude that Strawson was neither an internalist nor an externalist about moral responsibility. I draw extensively upon the whole body of Strawson's work, much of which is sadly neglected in discussions of ‘Freedom and Resentment’, although it illuminates many of the issues discussed there. (shrink)

When viewing a circular coin rotated in depth, it fills an elliptical region of the distal scene. For some, this appears to generate a two-fold experience, in which one sees the coin as simultaneously circular (in light of its 3D shape) and elliptical (in light of its 2D ‘perspectival shape’ or ‘p-shape’). An energetic philosophical debate asks whether the latter p-shapes are genuinely presented in perceptual experience (as ‘perspectivalists’ argue) or if, instead, this appearance is somehow derived or inferred from (...) experience (as ‘anti-perspectivalists’ argue). This debate, however, has largely turned on introspection. In a recent study, Morales, Bax, and Firestone (2020) aim to provide the first empirical test of this question. They asked subjects to find an elliptical coin seen face-on from a search array that also included a circular coin seen either face-on or at an angle. They found that subjects reacted more slowly when the distracting circle was seen at an angle, such that it’s p-shape matched that of the target ellipse. From this, they concluded that the similar p-shape between the ellipse and circle constituted a phenomenal similarity between the two, and thus that perspectivalism is true. We show that these results can also be explained by pre-attentive guidance by unconscious representations (in what follows, just “unconscious pre-attentive guidance”) and that this explanation is at least as plausible as one from phenomenal similarity. Thus, we conclude that the experiment does not support perspectivalism over anti-perspectivalism. (shrink)

Actualists hold that contrary-to-duty scenarios give rise to deontic dilemmas and provide counterexamples to the transmission principle, according to which we ought to take the necessary means to actions we ought to perform. In an earlier article, I have argued, contrary to actualism, that the notion of ‘ought’ that figures in conclusions of practical deliberation does not allow for deontic dilemmas and validates the transmission principle. Here I defend these claims, together with my possibilist account of contrary-to-duty scenarios, against Stephen (...) White’s recent criticism. (shrink)

It is a consequence of the theory of imprecise credences that there exist situations in which rational agents inevitably become less opinionated toward some propositions as they gather more evidence. The fact that an agent's imprecise credal state can dilate in this way is often treated as a strike against the imprecise approach to inductive inference. Here, we show that dilation is not a mere artifact of this approach by demonstrating that opinion loss is countenanced as rational by a substantially (...) broader class of normative theories than has been previously recognised. Specifically, we show that dilation-like phenomena arise even when one abandons the basic assumption that agents have (precise or imprecise) credences of any kind, and follows directly from bedrock norms for rational comparative confidence judgements of the form `I am at least as confident in p as I am in q'. We then use the comparative confidence framework to develop a novel understanding of what exactly gives rise to dilation-like phenomena. By considering opinion loss in this more general setting, we are able to provide a novel assessment of the prospects for an account of inductive inference that is not saddled with the inevitability of rational opinion loss. (shrink)

Chapter: WHITE PRIVILEGE AND THE COLOR OF FEAR This chapter focuses on the role that power, innocence and ignorance play in maintaining the position of white privilege. There are times when white people use their privilege in ways that overtly attempt to put and keep people of color in their places, but more often white privilege is less obvious. White privilege does not stand out in white peoples’ behavior at all times. When white (...) behavior is normalized, it is masked. At these times, white privilege and power hide behind the masks of innocence and the masks of ignorance. White people can mask from themselves and others their location with relations to power. In the film, The Color of Fear, David C. hides his power. As he hides his power, he keeps his privilege invisible, that is, behind a mask. In this chapter, we focus on the masking and unmasking of innocence and ignorance to get a better look at how the process of normalization of these masks makes whiteness powerful and consequently hides white privilege. The logic of power and privilege is reflected in the following relationship: -/- innocence + ignorance = Invisibility (of White Privilege) -/- . (shrink)

One reason that many philosophers are reluctant to seriously contemplate the possibility that we lack free will seems to be the view that we must believe we have free will if we are to regard each other as persons in the morally deep sense—the sense that involves deontological notions such as human rights. In the contemporary literature, this view is often informed by P.F. Strawson's view that to treat human beings as having free will is to respond to them with (...) the reactive attitudes, and that if we suspend the reactive attitudes we can only regard human beings as objects to be manipulated in the service of social goals. This purported implication of suspending the reactive attitudes has persuaded many philosophers that we cannot truly treat human beings as persons without assuming that they have free will. I argue that this line of thinking is misguided. I think Strawson is correct to worry that the consequentialism he sees as implicit in the objective attitude undermines our ability to treat each other as persons. But I think it is a mistake to accept that we must maintain the reactive attitudes, or any other attributions of free will or moral responsibility, to avoid a depersonalizing slide into consequentialism. Kant's idea of treating people as autonomous ends in themselves, rather than as mere means to ends, provides a compelling analysis of what it means to treat humans as persons, and I argue that there are ways of interpreting Kant's idea which do not involve reactive attitudes or any other attributions of free will or moral responsibility. -/- . (shrink)

D. Justin Coates argues that, in ‘Freedom and Resentment’, P. F. Strawson develops a modest transcendental argument for the legitimacy of our moral responsibility practices. I disagree with Coates’ claim that Strawson’s argument provides a justification, in Wittgenstein’s and/or Strawson’s sense of that term, of our responsibility practices. I argue that my interpretation of Strawson solves some difficulties with Coates’ argument, while retaining its advantages.

The idea that thought and language can be clarified through logical methods seems problematic because, while thought and language are not always exact, logic (by its very nature) must be. According to Kuusela, ideal (ILP, represented by Frege and Russell) and ordinary language philosophy (OLP, represented by Strawson) offer opposed solutions to this problem, and Wittgenstein combines the advantages of both. I argue that, given Kuusela’s characterisation of OLP, Strawson was not an OLP’er. I suggest that, instead of seeing ILP (...) and OLP as opposed to one another, it is better to regard OLP as an extension of ILP. (shrink)

If A confirms H and B confirms H, it seems reasonable to infer that A&B confirms H. However, this inference is not valid; it is only a heuristic. I show that the level of confirmation A and B each give to H by itself implies nothing about the level of confirmation that A&B gives to H. Any combination of values is possible for P(H), P(H|A), P(H|B) and P(H|AB) is possible. Still, I show the heuristic leads from true premises to true (...) conclusions whenever A and B are statistically independent or correlated,which includes most situations where we evaluate evidence. There is risk, though, when one does not consider how A and B interact; one can miss anti-correlations that lead the heuristic to fail. The problem is exacerbated when groups of people are motivated to support a favored hypothesis. Each person finds evidence that confirms the hypothesis and contributes that evidence to the group’s discourse (e.g. through a climate change denial website). The temptation to focus solely on the number of individual pieces of evidence can lead people to ignore whether the evidence fits together. In combination with cognitive biases, this can lead to serious errors. (shrink)

This chapter contains an introduction by the editors of the volume P.F. Strawson and his Philosophical Legacy. First, the chapter describes Strawson’s life and gives a summary of his most important works, ranging from his early ‘On Referring’ to his latest book Analysis and Metaphysics. Secondly, it gives an overview of the contributions that appear in P.F. Strawson and his Philosophical Legacy. Lastly, a bibliography of primary and secondary sources is given. The aim of the chapter is to introduce the (...) reader to Strawson’s work and to facilitate the learning process of becoming acquainted with Strawson’s philosophical project. (shrink)

Strawson's view on punishment has been either neglected or recoiled from in contemporary scholarship on ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (FR). Strawson's alleged retributivism has made his view suspect and troublesome. In this article, we first argue, against the mainstream, that the punishment passage is an indispensable part of the main argument in FR (section 1) and elucidate in what sense Strawson can be called ‘a retributivist’ (section 2). We then elaborate our own hypothesis of symbolic retribution to explain the continuum between (...) moral reactive attitudes and punishment that Strawson only adumbrates (section 3). After this justification of the punitive response to wrongdoing, we compare and contrast our specific kind of retributivist hypothesis with other positions in the so-called ‘new retributivism’ (section 4). Our hypothesis differs from other subvarieties of expressive retributivism in putting centre stage the idea of punishment as taking up a reverential stance towards the victim. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to an objection raised by Duncan Pritchard and Jesper Kallestrup against virtue epistemology. In particular, they argue that the virtue epistemologist must either deny that S knows that p only if S believes that p because of S’s virtuous operation or deny that intuitive cases of testimonial knowledge. Their dilemma has roots in the apparent ease by which we obtain testimonial knowledge and, thus, how the virtue epistemologist can explain such knowledge in a way that (...) both preserves testimonial knowledge and grounds it in one’s virtues. I argue that the virtue epistemologist has a way to accomplish both tasks if we take epistemic trust to be an intellectual virtue. I briefly discuss what such trust must look like and then apply it to the dilemma at hand: showing that a key intellectual virtue plausibly operates in cases of testimonial knowledge and/or belief. (shrink)

Belief has a special connection to truth, a connection not shared by mental states like imagination. One way of capturing this connection is by the claim that belief aims at truth. Normativists argue that we should understand this claim as a normative claim about belief – beliefs ought to be true. A second important connection between belief and truth is revealed by the transparency of belief, i.e. the fact that, when I deliberate about what to believe, I can settle this (...) deliberation only by appeal to considerations I take to show p to be true. It is natural to think that there is a connection between these two features of belief, that the fact that believing for non-evidential considerations would be irrational can help to explain why it is impossible, and Shah and Velleman make exactly this argument. However, as I shall argue, we cannot explain transparency on the basis of a normative requirement on belief. For this explanation to work non-evidential considerations would have to fail to be reasons for belief, and we would have to be able to explain why we are unable to form beliefs on the basis of non-evidential considerations by appealing to the fact that they fail to be reasons for belief. However, while it is plausible that non-evidential considerations are not in fact reasons for belief, the explanatory picture is the other way around. Such considerations only fail to be reasons for belief because we are unable to form beliefs on their basis. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept a response constraint on normative reasons: that p is a reason for you to φ only if you are able to φ for the reason that p. This constraint offers a natural way to cash out the familiar and intuitive thought that reasons must be able to guide us, and has been put to work as a premise in a range of influential arguments in ethics and epistemology. However, the constraint requires interpretation and faces putative counter-examples due (...) to Julia Markovits, Mark Schroeder, and others. This paper develops and motivates an interpretation of the response constraint that avoids the putative counter-examples. (shrink)

We argue that P. F. Strawson's hugely influential account of moral responsibility in ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (FR) is inextricably bound up with his barely known account of morality in ‘Social Morality and Individual Ideal’ (SMII). Reading FR through the lens of SMII has at least three far-reaching implications. First, the ethics–morality distinction in SMII gives content to Strawson's famous distinction between personal and moral reactive attitudes, which has often been thought to be a merely formal distinction. Second, the ethics–morality distinction (...) sheds light on the scope of moral responsibility in FR, which is narrower than commentators think. Third, Strawson's discussion of morality shows that he was not insensitive to issues of power, as several critics have claimed. The link between morality and power helps to make clear that Strawson allows for criticism of our moral responsibility practices. (shrink)

Half of the drug offenders incarcerated in the United States are black, even though whites and blacks use and sell drugs at the same rate, and blacks make up only 13 percent of the population. Noncomparativists about retributive justice see nothing wrong with this picture; for them, an offender’s desert is insensitive to facts about other offenders. By contrast, comparativists about retributive justice assert that facts about others can partially determine an offender’s desert. Not surprisingly, comparativists, especially comparative egalitarians, contend (...) that differential punishment is retributively unjust. I agree with this assessment, but take issue with the reasons egalitarians cite in its favor. In this paper, I argue that differential punishment violates retributive justice because it contributes to structural racial oppression. Over the course of developing and defending this claim, I identify the shortcomings of both comparative egalitarianism and respectarianism, which is the most popular and plausible brand of noncomparativism. (shrink)

A fundamental question in responsibility theory concerns the relation between being responsible and our practices of holding responsible. ‘Strawsonians’ often claim that being responsible is somehow a function of our practices of holding responsible, while others think that holding responsible depends on being responsible, and still others think of being and holding responsible as interdependent. Based on a Wittgensteinian reading of Strawson, I develop an account of the relation between being and holding responsible which respects major concerns of all parties (...) in this debate. I characterize the way in which being responsible depends on holding responsible as genealogical, and the way in which holding responsible depends on being responsible as justificatory. I show how my account cuts across received ways of carving up the debate, and how it allows for all the kinds of fallibility about moral responsibility that are worth wanting. (shrink)

This volume offers a collective study of the work of P. F. Strawson (1919-2006) and an exploration of its relevance for current philosophical debates. It is the first book since Strawson's death to cover the full range of his philosophy, with chapters by world-leading experts about his lasting contributions to the philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, moral philosophy, and philosophical methodology. It aims to achieve a balance between exegesis of Strawson, critical engagement, and consideration of the reception and continuing value (...) of his work. It explores the intellectual relations between Strawson and some of his predecessors and contemporaries and it will be an indispensable source for scholars and students of twentieth-century philosophy and its influence in the twenty-first. With contributions by Anne Bezuidenhout, Ian Rumfitt, Paul Snowdon, Quassim Cassam, Michelle Montague, Hans-Johann Glock, Anil Gomes, Lilian Alweiss, Giuseppina D'Oro, A.P. Martinich, Paul Russell, Lucy Allais, and Victoria McGeer. (shrink)

Edward Wilson wrote in Consilience that “Human history can be viewed through the lens of ecology as the accumulation of environmental prostheses” (1999 p 316), with technologies mediating our collective habitation of the Earth and its complex, interdependent ecosystems. Wilson emphasized the defining characteristic of complex systems, that they undergo transformations which are irreversible. His view is now standard, and his central point bears repeated emphasis, today: natural systems can be broken, species—including us—can disappear, ecosystems can fail, and technological prostheses (...) potentiate rather than ameliorate disaster when the fragilities that they introduce into our evolutionary co-dependencies with natural systems, and with each other, are under-appreciated. (shrink)

In this chapter we deal with the challenge to the existence of free will and moral responsibility that is raised by the threat of determinism from a Wittgensteinian perspective. Our argument starts by briefly recapitulating Wittgenstein’s analysis of the practice of doubt in On Certainty. We subsequently turn to the problem of free will. We argue that the existence of free will is a basic certainty and that the thesis of determinism fails to cast doubt on it. We thereby make (...) use of – but also try to go beyond – Wittgenstein’s own remarks in his “Lectures on Freedom of the Will”. In the final section we focus more explicitly on moral responsibility. Inspired by P.F. Strawson’s work on free will and moral responsibility, which we take to be deeply Wittgensteinian, we argue that our practices of holding each other responsible manifest basic human certainties which cannot be meaningfully challenged by invoking the thesis of determinism. (shrink)

According to Michael Zimmerman, no interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal captures a significant truth. He raises several worries about the Strawsonian view that moral responsibility consists in susceptibility to the reactive attitudes and claims that this view at best supports only an etiolated interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal. He outlines three problems. First, the existence of self-reactive attitudes may be incompatible with the interpersonal nature of moral responsibility. Secondly, Zimmerman questions (...) the significance of the interpersonal nature of moral responsibility, according to the Strawsonian view. Thirdly, he argues that that view may be taken to suggest the wrong kind of priority relation between ‘P is morally responsible’ and ‘it is appropriate to adopt some reactive attitude toward P’. I discuss each of these problems in turn and conclude that Strawsonians can respond to all three problems raised by Zimmerman. The Strawsonian view supports a significant interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal. (shrink)

Strawsonians about moral responsibility often claim that our practices of holding morally responsible fix the facts of moral responsibility, rather than the other way round. Many have argued that such ‘reversal’ claims have an unwelcome consequence: If our practices of holding morally responsible fix the facts of moral responsibility, does this not imply, absurdly, that if we held severely mentally ill people responsible, they would be responsible? We provide a new Strawsonian answer to this question, and we explore the relation (...) between reversal claims and (in)compatibilism. (shrink)

David Shoemaker has recently defended a response-dependent view of moral responsibility. We critically discuss some aspects of Shoemaker's view.

In this article, I discuss Gerbert Faure’s Vrije wil, moraal en het geslaagde leven (Free Will, Morality, and the Well-lived Life). I summarize and elucidate Faure’s argument. My criticisms are directed primarily at the first chapter of the book, in which Faure develops what he regards as a Strawsonian account of free will and moral responsibility. Faure denies that we have free will; I argue that Strawsonians should not deny this. Faure argues that, although we do not have free will, (...) it is often justified to hold others responsible, because we owe it to the victim(s) of a wrong to hold the perpetrator responsible; it is our moral duty. I argue that we only have a moral duty to hold perpetrators responsible if they are morally responsible. I also comment on the way in which Faure presents Strawson’s distinction between theory and practice. (shrink)

It is unknown to what extent medical researchers generalize study findings beyond their samples when their sample size, sample diversity, or knowledge of conditions that support external validity do not warrant it. It is also unknown to what extent medical researchers describe their results with precise quantifications or unquantified generalizations, i.e., generics, that can obscure variations between individuals. We therefore systematically reviewed all prospective studies (n = 533) published in the top four highest ranking medical journals, Lancet, New England Journal (...) of Medicine (NEJM), Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and the British Medical Journal (BMJ), from January 2022 to May 2023. We additionally reviewed all NEJM Journal Watch clinical research summaries (n = 143) published during the same time. Of all research articles reporting prospective studies, 52.5% included generalizations beyond specific national study populations, with the numbers of articles with generics varying significantly between journals (JAMA = 12%; Lancet = 77%) (p < 0.001, V = 0.48). There was no evidence that articles containing broader generalizations or generics were correlated with larger or more nationally diverse samples. Moreover, only 10.2% of articles with generalizations beyond specific national populations reported external validity strengthening factors that could potentially support such extrapolations. There was no evidence that original research articles and NEJM Journal Watch summaries intended for practitioners differed in their use of broad generalizations, including generics. Finally, from the journal with the highest citation impact, articles containing broader conclusions were correlated with more citations. Since there was no evidence that studies with generalizations beyond specific national study populations or with generics were associated with larger, more nationally diverse samples, or with reports of population similarity that may permit extensions of conclusions, our findings suggest that the generalizations in many articles were insufficiently supported. Caution against overly broad generalizations in medical research is warranted. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship between personality traits and coping styles among college students in private higher educational institution. Hence, employing correlational design to assess the relationship between coping styles and personality of 150 college students. The statistical analysis reveals that the r coefficient of 0.54 indicates a moderate positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between coping style and (...) personality traits among fourth-year college students in a private state university. (shrink)

Awareness of, and respect for differences of gender, race, religion, language, and culture have liberated many oppressed groups from the hegemony of white, Western males. However, respect for previously denigrated collective identities should not be allowed to confine individuals to identities constructed around one main component used for political mobilisation, or to identities that depend on a priority of properties that are not optional, like race, gender, and language. In this article I want to sketch an approach for accommodating (...) different kinds of identity within a multicultural constitutional democracy. From a vantage point provided by a definition and explanation of personal identity, I want to show how people define, construct and change their personal identities to make themselves into unique individuals. Next I show how democratic political institutions and the personal identities of individuals reciprocally influence one another. In the final section I sketch ways in which diverse personal identities ought to be accommodated in multicultural constitutional democracies. The conclusion is that a society which gives its members the liberty, space, and opportunity to freely construct their own identities might avoid the formation of closed groups committed exclusively to their own sectional interests. (shrink)

We propose a multi-step evaluation schema designed to help procurement agencies and others to examine the ethical dimensions of autonomous systems to be applied in the security sector, including autonomous weapons systems.

Van Fraassen's Judy Benjamin problem asks how one ought to update one's credence in A upon receiving evidence of the sort ``A may or may not obtain, but B is k times likelier than C'', where {A,B,C} is a partition. Van Fraassen's solution, in the limiting case of increasing k, recommends a posterior converging to the probability of A conditional on A union B, where P is one's prior probability function. Grove and Halpern, and more recently Douven and Romeijn, (...) have argued that one ought to leave credence in A unchanged, i.e. fixed at P(A). We argue that while the former approach is superior, it brings about a Reflection violation due in part to neglect of a ``regression to the mean'' phenomenon, whereby when C is eliminated by random evidence that leaves A and B alive, the ratio P(A):P(B) ought to drift in the direction of 1:1. (shrink)

This new study of the “First” Crusade argues that “apocalyptic fervor” (p. 305) was the driving force of the expedition, as well as the Crusade movement. Previous studies, the author contends, have failed “to capture how precisely apocalyptic the First Crusade was” (p. xii). The remedy Rubenstein offers is a relentless focus on apocalypticism that ignores any weaknesses inherent in this approach and overlooks alternative explanations.

According to Jim Pryor’s dogmatism, when you have an experience with content p, you often have prima facie justification for believing p that doesn’t rest on your independent justification for believing any proposition. Although dogmatism has an intuitive appeal and seems to have an antisceptical bite, it has been targeted by various objections. This paper principally aims to answer the objections by Roger White according to which dogmatism is inconsistent with the Bayesian account of how evidence affects our rational (...) credences. If this were true, the rational acceptability of dogmatism would be seriously questionable. I respond that these objections don’t get off the ground because they assume that our experiences and our introspective beliefs that we have experiences have the same evidential force, whereas the dogmatist is uncommitted to this assumption. I also consider the question whether dogmatism has an antisceptical bite. I suggest that the answer turns on whether or not the Bayesian can determine the priors of hypotheses and conjectures on the grounds of their extra-empirical virtues. If the Bayesian can do so, the thesis that dogmatism has an antisceptical bite is probably false. (shrink)

I develop a phenomenological account of racialized encounters with works of art and film, wherein the racialized viewer feels cast as perpetually past, coming “too late” to intervene in the meaning of her own representation. This points to the distinctive role that the colonial past plays in mediating and constructing our self-images. I draw on my experience of three exhibitions that take Muslims and/or Arabs as their subject matter and that ostensibly try to interrupt or subvert racialization while reproducing some (...) of its tropes. My examples are the Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (2015), the exposition Welten der Muslime at the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin (2011–2017), and a sculpture by Bob and Roberta Smith at the Leeds City Art Gallery, created in response to the imperial power painting, General Gordon’s Last Stand, that is housed there. My interest is in how artworks contribute to the experience of being racialized in ways that not only amplify the circulation of images but also constitute difficult temporal relations to images. Drawing on Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, I argue that such racialized images are temporally gluey, or stuck, so that we are weighted and bogged down by them. This essay received Honorable Mention from the American Society for Aesthetics Feminist Caucus Committee in the Feminist Research Essay prize in 2020. (shrink)

There is a difference between merely thinking that P and really grasping that P. For example, Jackson's (1982) black-and-white Mary cannot (before leaving her black-and-white room) fully grasp what it means to say that fire engines are red, but she can perfectly well entertain the thought that fire engines are red. The contrast between merely thinking and grasping is especially salient in the context of certain moral decisions. For example, an individual who grasps the plight of starving children (...) thanks to evocative images seems much more likely to donate for the children's benefit than someone who is merely told about their plight. This paper offers a phenomenal account of grasping according to which grasping a content (whether a proposition or concept) consists in one's thoughts about the content being constituted by phenomenal experiences of constituents of the content. This account improves on earlier phenomenal accounts of grasping (Bourget 2017a, 2018) by allowing for partial grasping and generalizing to concepts. The paper also addresses objections to phenomenal accounts of grasping, including the objection that recent developments in AI technology show that consciousness is irrelevant to grasping and understanding. (shrink)

This article frames Trump's politics through a genealogy of propaganda, going back to P.T. Barnum in the 19th century and moving through the crowd psychologist Gustave Le Bon and the public relations counsel Edward Bernays in the 20th. This genealogy shows how propaganda was developed as a tool by eager professionals who would hire themselves to the elite to control the masses. Trump’s propaganda presents a break in that he has not only removed professionals from control over his propaganda, he (...) has mobilized it as a force against them. His lower and middle class supporters may not materially gain from Trump’s politics, but they get to vent their ressentiment on the professional class and see them too become the targets of propagandistic control. Ultimately, the conflict between working class whites, those without college degrees, and professionals earns little for its participants and occludes the role that elites play in class dynamics in the United States. This article adds substance and context to the claims that Trump’s appeal is anti-professional while showing that the claims that his supporters are ‘voting against their interests’ does not reflect the real psychological benefits many Trumpists get from supporting him. (shrink)

The Uniqueness Thesis (U), according to Richard Feldman and Roger White, says that for a given set of evidence E and a proposition P, only one doxastic attitude about P is rational given E. Luis Rosa has recently provided two counterexamples against U which are supposed to show that even if there is a sense in which choosing between two doxastic attitudes is arbitrary, both options are equally and maximally rational. Both counterexamples work by exploiting the idea that ‘ought (...) implies can’ and trying to spell out situations in which some inferences are beyond the capabilities of some reasoners. I argue that on a descriptive account of doxastic rationality, questions of whether ‘epistemic ought implies can’ can be bracketed and that at least one of the inferential moves that Rosa describes in his cases is irrational. I further argue that a descriptive account of doxastic rationality is the appropriate notion of rationality that is to be considered when evaluating U. If my argument for a descriptive account of rationality is successful, then we have reason to revise our use of the term rationality to fit this descriptive understanding. (shrink)

Even if our justified beliefs are closed under known entailment, there may still be instances of transmission failure. Transmission failure occurs when P entails Q, but a subject cannot acquire a justified belief that Q by deducing it from P. Paradigm cases of transmission failure involve inferences from mundane beliefs (e.g., that the wall in front of you is red) to the denials of skeptical hypotheses relative to those beliefs (e.g., that the wall in front of you is not (...) class='Hi'>white and lit by red lights). According to the Bayesian explanation, transmission failure occurs when (i) the subject’s belief that P is based on E, and (ii) P(Q|E) P(Q). No modifications of the Bayesian explanation are capable of accommodating such cases, so the explanation must be rejected as inadequate. Alternative explanations employing simple subjunctive conditionals are fully capable of capturing all of the paradigm cases, as well as those missed by the Bayesian explanation. (shrink)

Some of Dave Chappelle’s uses of storytelling about seemingly mundane events, like his experiences with his “white friend Chip” and the police, are examples of what W.E.B. Du Bois calls “Positive Propaganda.” This is in contrast to “Demagoguery,” the sort of propaganda described by Jason Stanley that obstructs empathic recognition of others, and undermines reasonable debate among citizens regarding policies that matter: the justice system, welfare, inequality, and race, for example. Some of Chappelle’s humor, especially in his most recent (...) Netflix specials, but also in his earlier standup performances and his series The Chappelle Show, is akin to art that appeals to emotion in the ways suggested by Du Bois in “Criteria of Negro Art” (1926). Beauty is essential to art, but, “I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda. But I do care when propaganda is confined to one side while the other is stripped and silent” (p. 22). The “one side” is that which appears to extoll American ideals, but in reality undermines them, perpetuating the subordinate status of “the other”--black citizens. Replace “beauty” with “humor” or “funny”, and we see striking parallels between Chappelle’s socio-political performances and Du Bois’ call for positive propaganda, each of which constitute “civic rhetoric” broadly construed. We no longer live in Du Bois’ America of explicit denial of rights. In many ways our situation is worse, as the mechanisms of exclusion are implicit, difficult to dislodge, because they are invisible. Chappelles’ humor draws attention to subtle undermining-propaganda in our liberal democracy, transforming it through his counter-propaganda into the spectacle that it should be; ubiquitous democracy-denying propaganda should be as obvious to whites as it is to minorities. In his words, we should all see that “that shit is fucking incredible” (Killin’ Them Softly). (shrink)

Many epistemologists hold that an agent can come to justifiably believe that p is true by seeing that it appears that p is true, without having any antecedent reason to believe that visual impressions are generally reliable. Certain reliabilists think this, at least if the agent’s vision is generally reliable. And it is a central tenet of dogmatism (as described by James Pryor) that this is possible. Against these positions it has been argued (e.g. by Stewart Cohen and Roger (...) class='Hi'>White) that this violates some principles from probabilistic learning theory. To see the problem, let’s note what the dogmatist thinks we can learn by paying attention to how things appear. (The reliabilist says the same things, but we’ll focus on the dogmatist.). (shrink)

On the basis of arguments put forth by (Kripke, 1977a) and (Kripke, 1980), it is widely held that one can sometimes rationally accept propositions of the form "P and not-P" and also that there are necessary a posteriori truths. We will find that Kripke's arguments for these views appear probative only so long as one fails to distinguish between semantics and presemantics—between the literal meanings of sentences, on the one hand, and the information on the basis of which one identifies (...) those literal meanings, on the other. This same failure, it will be argued, underlies the popular thesis that intersubstituting co-referring terms sometimes turns true sentences into false ones and vice versa. Though seemingly plausible, this thesis has a number of counterintuitive consequences, among them that the occurrence of “snow” in “it is true that snow is white” doesn’t refer to snow. An understanding of the distinction between semantics and presemantics suggests a way to develop a semantic system that doesn’t have these consequences and that, moreover, reconciles our intuitions concerning cognitive content with some powerfully argued theses of contemporary philosophy of language. Some of this paper's main contentions are anticipated by Andrzej Boguslawski in his 1994 paper “Sentential Complementation and Truth.”. (shrink)

The racist killing of Georg Floyd in the Summer of 2020 created waves of protests not only in the U.S. but all over the globe. In Turkey, my home country, there were also street demonstrations that demanded justice for Floyd, but “Twitter activism” was more popular. Turkish-speaking-twitter became a hotbed for condemnations. Amidst an array of tweets condemning Floyd’s racist killing, one stood out and made it to the headlines of alternative media outlets. A former official of the authoritarian Turkish (...) government, Yusuf Yerkel, wrote the following tweet in Turkish on June 5, 2020, in response to Floyd’s racist killing; here, I provide an English translation of his infamous tweet (the Turkish original of which is still available on Yerkel’s account on Twitter): “The reason that protests grew to this extent in the U.S. seems to be based on a phenomenon, in H. Arendt’s terms, ‘banality of evil,’ which has become evident in the face of Floyd’s murder. An ordinary White cop’s atrocity as an “everyday job” was the tipping point.” Yerkel herein uses Arendt’s notion of the banality of evil (see esp. p. 287 of the book) to describe Derek Chauvin’s atrocious act, where the evil of racist police violence has become ordinary, banal, and “every day.”. (shrink)

Complex constraints like conditionals ('If A, then B') and probabilistic constraints ('The probability that A is p') pose problems for Bayesian theories of learning. Since these propositions do not express constraints on outcomes, agents cannot simply conditionalize on the new information. Furthermore, a natural extension of conditionalization, relative information minimization, leads to many counterintuitive predictions, evidenced by the sundowners problem and the Judy Benjamin problem. Building on the notion of a `paradigm shift' and empirical research in psychology and economics, (...) I argue that the model of hypothesis testing can explain how people learn complex, theory-laden propositions like conditionals and probability constraints. Theories are formalized as probability distributions over a set of possible outcomes and theory change is triggered by a constraint which is incompatible with the initial theory. This leads agents to consult a higher order probability function, or a 'prior over priors,' to choose the most likely alternative theory which satisfies the constraint. The hypothesis testing model is applied to three examples: learning a simple probabilistic constraint involving coin bias, the sundowners problem for conditional learning, and the Judy Benjamin problem for learning conditional probability constraints. (shrink)

Aristotle’s words in the Metaphysics: “to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true” are often understood as indicating a correspondence view of truth: a statement is true if it corresponds to something in the world that makes it true. Aristotle’s words can also be interpreted in a deflationary, i.e., metaphysically less loaded, way. According to the latter view, the concept of truth is contained in platitudes like: ‘It is true (...) that snow is white iff snow is white’, ‘It is true that neutrinos have mass iff neutrinos have mass’, etc. Our understanding of the concept of truth is exhausted by these and similar equivalences. This is all there is to truth. In his book Truth (Second edition 1998), Paul Horwich develops minimalism, a special variant of the deflationary view. According to Horwich’s minimalism, truth is an indefinable property of propositions characterized by what he calls the minimal theory, i.e., all (nonparadoxical) propositions of the form: It is true that p if and only if p. Although the idea of minimalism is simple and straightforward, the proper formulation of Horwich’s theory is no simple matter. In this paper, I shall discuss some of the difficulties of a logical nature that arise. First, I discuss problems that arise when we try to give a rigorous characterization of the theory without presupposing a prior understanding of the notion of truth. Next I turn to Horwich’s treatment of the Liar paradox and a paradox about the totality of all propositions that was first formulated by Russell (1903). My conclusion is that Horwich’s minimal theory cannot deal with these difficulties in an adequate way, and that it has to be revised in fundamental ways in order to do so. Once such revisions have been carried out the theory may, however, have lost some of its appealing simplicity. (shrink)

The project of “public reason” claims to offer an epistemological resolution to the civic dilemma created by the clash of incompatible options for the rational exercise of freedom adopted by citizens in a diverse community. The present Article proposes, via consideration of a contrast between two classical accounts of dialectical reasoning, that the employment of “public reason,” in substantive due process analysis, is unworkable in theory and contrary to more reflective Supreme Court precedent. Although logical commonalities might be available to (...) pick out from the multitude of particularized accounts of what constitutes “civic order,” no “public reason” so derived could adequately capture - and thus be able to secure in a practical sense - any single determinate civic order, much less one that would be consistent with all citizens' conceptions of public order. Part I of this Article raises a number of issues for consideration relating to the epistemology of law and focuses especially on the concept of public reason and its critique. Part II addresses alternative approaches to legal reasoning suggested by classical accounts of practical reasoning and virtue theory and considers the operation of such legal analysis outside the area of substantive due process; Part III analyzes post-Lawrence case law confirming the dilemma created by the Supreme Court's ambiguous approaches to substantive due process and concludes that only one interpretation - that articulated fully in Washington v. Glucksberg and given lip service in Lawrence v. Texas - provides a method for resolving novel substantive due process challenges that is philosophically sound as well as historically coherent. Rather than perpetuating a fiction that denies the propriety of lawmaking unless based on principles that all citizens can rationally agree upon, an appropriate model of substantive due process analysis recognizes that law must inevitably be based upon principles that cannot be agreed upon by all citizens in virtue of rationality alone. -/- Abstract Footnotes (291) Beta -/- Revise My Submission -/- -/- One-Click Download | Share | Email | Add to Briefcase -/- Facebook | Twitter | Digg | Del.icio.us | CiteULike | Permalink Using the URL or DOI link below will ensure access to this page indefinitely -/- Based on your IP address, your paper is being delivered by: New York, USA Processing request. [Processing request.] Illinois, USA Processing request. [Processing request.] Brussels, Belgium Processing request. [Processing request.] Seoul, Korea Processing request. [Processing request.] California, USA Processing request. [Processing request.] -/- If you have any problems downloading this paper, please click on another Download Location above, or view our FAQ File name: SSRN-id1004757. ; Size: 424K -/- Sample Cover You will receive a black and white printed and perfect bound version of this document in 8 1/2 x 11 inch format, with glossy color front and back covers. Currently shipping to the US addresses only. Your order will be shipped within three business days. Quantity: Total Price = $0.50 plus shipping (U.S. Only) -/- If you have any problems with this purchase, please email [email protected] or call 1-585-442-8170. Reason's Freedom and the Dialectic of Ordered Liberty -/- Edward C. Lyons University of Notre Dame Law School -/- Cleveland State Law Review, Vol. 55, p. 157, 2007 -/- Abstract: The project of "public reason" claims to offer an epistemological resolution to the civic dilemma created by the clash of incompatible options for the rational exercise of freedom adopted by citizens in a diverse community. The present Article proposes, via consideration of a contrast between two classical accounts of dialectical reasoning, that the employment of "public reason," in substantive due process analysis, is unworkable in theory and contrary to more reflective Supreme Court precedent. Although logical commonalities might be available to pick out from the multitude of particularized accounts of what constitutes "civic order," no "public reason" so derived could adequately capture - and thus be able to secure in a practical sense - any single determinate civic order, much less one that would be consistent with all citizens' conceptions of public order. -/- Part I of this Article raises a number of issues for consideration relating to the epistemology of law and focuses especially on the concept of public reason and its critique. Part II addresses alternative approaches to legal reasoning suggested by classical accounts of practical reasoning and virtue theory and considers the operation of such legal analysis outside the area of substantive due process; Part III analyzes post-Lawrence case law confirming the dilemma created by the Supreme Court's ambiguous approaches to substantive due process and concludes that only one interpretation - that articulated fully in Washington v. Glucksberg and given lip service in Lawrence v. Texas - provides a method for resolving novel substantive due process challenges that is philosophically sound as well as historically coherent. -/- Rather than perpetuating a fiction that denies the propriety of lawmaking unless based on principles that all citizens can rationally agree upon, an appropriate model of substantive due process analysis recognizes that law must inevitably be based upon principles that cannot be agreed upon by all citizens in virtue of rationality alone. -/- Keywords: substantive due process, practical reason, public reason, Rawls, Casey, Lawrence, Glucksberg, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, dialectic, autonomy, freedom -/- . (shrink)

The concept of universal in Aristotle’s philosophy has several aspects. 1) Universal and plurality Aristotle posits universal (καθόλου) versus particular (καθ᾿ ἕκαστον) each covering a range of elements: some elements are universal while others are particulars. Aristotle defines universal as ‘that which by nature is predicated (κατηγορεῖσθαι) of many subjects’ and particular as ‘that which is not’ so. (OI ., I, 7, 17a38-b1) The plurality of possible subjects of universal is what Aristotle insists on. The inclusion of the notion of (...) ‘plurality’ in the definition of universal might make us expect to have ‘singularity’ in the definition of particular. So, when Aristotle says that universal is that which is naturally predicable of many subjects, we expect him to define the particular as ‘that which is predicable of one subject only.’ Nonetheless, Aristotle does not and indeed cannot define it this way. We cannot find a text in which he defines particular as such simply because particulars are not predicable of any subject unless we regard their predication of themselves a predication, which Aristotle does not, at least in a genuine sense. Thus, he defines a particular only negatively. Hence, the capability of predication of a plurality is indeed the capability of predication itself because the particular cannot be predicated of anything. A particular is that which cannot be predicated of anything (or: of anything else, if saying of a thing of itself is to be considered as predication). It is ‘numerically one’ and what of which the universal is predicated (Met., B, 999b34-1000a1). Those that cannot be predicated of anything, or particulars, are of two kinds: primary substances and individual accidents. Besides Categories we can hardly find a text where Aristotle discusses individual accidents maybe because they are of much less importance for him compared with substances. However, substances are what he mentions repeatedly so that we can confine particulars to substances. In fact, it is substance that Aristotle considers so repeatedly as what cannot be predicated. As the main particulars and individuals, substances are posited as the main things that are not universal. The closeness of the two concepts of ‘substance’ and ‘unpredicability’ is to the extent that he ignores individual accidents and makes these concepts equal and as the opposite of universal: ‘what is not predicated of a subject is said a substance (οὐσία λέγετα τὸ μὴ καθ᾿ ὑποκειμένου) but what is always said of some subject is called a universal.’ (Met., Z, 1038b15-16. cf. Met., B, 1003a7-9) Therefore, since particulars cannot be predicated of any subject and, thus, every predication is necessarily a predication of a plurality of subjects, the inclusion of ‘plurality’ in the definition of universal is either i) in the sense of ‘representation’ or it must be regarded as ii) an unnecessary addition mentioned just for clarification or iii) only for avoiding cases where something is predicated of itself. By the first we mean this: though a substance is not said of anything, it represents some one thing and there is some one thing that is that substance. A universal, on the other hand, can represent a plurality of things. There is, however, a third possibility that has no essential difference with the sense of representation. Aristotle might have ‘arbitrary predication’ in mind when he suses ‘plurality’ in the definition of universal: while a particular can be the arbitrary predicate of just one thing, a universal can be predicated, both really and arbitrarily, of many things. Whatever Aristotle’s intention was, what is important for our investigation is this: Aristotle uses the notion of plurality in the definition of universal in spite of the fact that it is not necessary. What this implies is that this notion is so important for Aristotle that albeit every predictability is a predictability of a possible plurality, he adds the notion of plurality. What makes this notion important, I believe, is that he has something like a class in mind when he defines a universal because the notion of plurality is indistinguishable from a class. 2) Universal and whole; particular and part In Aristotle, the concepts of universal and whole are so close: ‘That which is true of a whole class and is said to hold good as a whole (which implies that it is a kind of whole) is true of a whole in the sense that it contains many things by being predicated of each, and that each and all of them, e.g. man, horse, god, are one because all are living things (τὸ μὲν γὰρ καθόλου καὶ τὸ ὃλως λεγόμενον ὡς πολλὰ περιέχον τῷ κατηγορεῖσθαι καθ’ ἑκάστου καὶ ἓν ἃπαντα εἶναι ὡς ἑκαστον, ...). Phil Corkum points to Aristotle’s distinction between quantitative and integral wholes in Met., 5, 26, 1023b26-33 where a quantitative whole is called homoiomerous, as the sum of animal while an integral whole, e.g. a house, is called heteromerous. He links the notion of homoiomerous to the notion of indivisibility of individuals (in 1b6-9 and 3b10-18) and indivisibility of universals. He believes that in PrA., I, 4, 25b32-26a2 it is the transitivity of mereological containment that is discussed. 3) Universal is common between instances Universal is common (κοινόν) between all the plurality of subjects it can be predicated of because what belongs to more than one thing must be common between them. (Met., Z, 1038b10-12) In the Same way, what is common cannot be a particular and, thus, a substance. (Met., Z, 1040b23-24) An individual or substance is a ‘this’ and a ‘this’ cannot be what common indicates simply because it is here in ‘this’ and can be nowhere else while common must be common between several things. In fact, what can be indicated by a common is indeed a ‘such.’ (Met., B, 1003a7-9) 4) Universal is the same in its instances We have a universal i) in all of its instances and ii) in the same way (ταὐτὸ ἐπὶ πὰντων). (Met, Γ, 1005a9-10) While the first point is evident (otherwise how could it be their universal?), the second point might seem not only ambiguous but the cause of many problems. For Aristotle, therefore, a universal must be ‘one’ in number and not many. This numerically one universal is the very universal for all its instances. It is the same universal that is predicated on each of its instances. This sameness is not, however, a mere homonymous sameness or the sameness of a homonymous word. All these three points, namely oneness, sameness and rejection of mere homonymous sameness are asserted in Aristotle’s own words τι ἕν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἐπὶ πλειόνων μη ὁμώνυμον. (PsA., A, 11, 77a8-9) This non-homonymous unity is asserted also in PsA., A, 24, 85b15-16. 5) Universal as predicate Contrary to substance that cannot be a predicate, universal is what cannot be prevented from being in the place of predicate. Therefore, Aristotle distinguishes universal from subject because while the latter must necessarily be capable of being a predicate, though it might take the position of subject as well, the latter does not necessarily have such a capability especially when it is a this because it cannot be a predicate in such a case: ‘For the subject and universal differ in being or not being a ‘this’; like man and body and soul are the subject of accidents while the accident is something like musical or white.’ (Met., Θ, 1049a27-30) This indicates that a universal is basically different from subject and although it can be posited in the place of subject, it is the position of predicate that is its position as a universal. In Metaphysics, Z, 13, Aristotle asserts that ‘no universal can be substance.’ The same is asserted in Met., I, 1053b16-17 cf. 1060b21. As James H. Lesher points out, Aristotle’s position is that ‘nothing predicated universally is a substance.’ 6) Universal in substance In Met., 10388b8-9 Aristotle says that no universal is a substance. While a universal cannot be a substance in the way essence (to ti en einai) is, it is, Aristotle asserts, ‘in’ it (ἐν τούτῳ δὲ ἐνυπάρχειν) (Met., Ζ, 1038b16-18). Aristotle’s examples are: animal in man and horse. A universal is ‘in’ the thing it is its universal. But in what sense a universal can be in a thing? It cannot be in it as ‘in a subject’, which is denied in Categories for secondary substances. If we check the senses of being in, we can find some other senses of ‘being in’ some of which are compatible with this sense of ‘being in.’ Michael J. Loux believes that contrary to his earlier works like Peri Ideaon and Organon in which the immanence of universals signals a reproduction of the platonic two worlds picture, in his later works like Physics and Metaphysics, when Aristotle tells us that universals are in particulars he means that they are ‘components of or ingredients in sensible particulars.’ In Metaphysics (Δ, 1014b3-9) Aristotle compares elements with universals and call them ‘the most universal things because elements are present either in all or in many things. 7) Logos is of universal Not only universals have logos (Met., Z, 1038b18-19) but ‘Every logos and every science is of universals and not of particulars.’ (Met., K, 1059b25-26) The reason is that they are the same: the logos of the unjiversal ‘circle’ is nothing but ‘being circle’ and the logos of the universal ‘soul’ is ‘being soul.’ (Met., Z, 1035b33-1036a2) The same is said about definition. (Met, Z, 1036a27-29) 8) Universal: in the soul Contrasting individuals, universals are in the soul (So., 3, 5, 417b22-23; cf. PsA., B, 19, 100a6-7). Aristotle also says that the form, i.e. the essence, of the artwork is in the soul. (met., Z, 1032a32-b2) Moreover, as Michael J. Loux points out, ‘the Peri Ideon tells us that we need universals to serve as the objects of noetic acts.’ 9) Universal: not beside individual In spite of the fact that demonstration creates the opinion that demonstrating is based on the existence of universals as existing among the existing things, they do not have existence besides individuals (PsA., A, 24, 85a31-35; Met, Λ, 1071a19-23). Aristotle believes that universals of a P-series (B203, 71) are not παρὰ τὰ εἴδη: 999a6ff. Also check De Anima, II, 3, 414b20-25 10) Primary or commensurate universal Aristotle distinguishes ‘πρῶτον καθόλού’ (PsA., B, 17, 99a33-35) literally meaning ‘primary universal’ but mostly, and truly, translated as commensurate universal. While a universal merely ‘μὴ ἀντιςτρέφει,’ a primary universal ‘ᾧ ἓκαςτον μὲν μὴ ἀντιςτρέφει’ (PsA., B, 17, 99a33-35). Aristotle mentions three conditions for a commensurate universal. It is an attribute that i) belongs to every instance of its subject (without exception!!!), and this belonging is ii) essentially and iii) qua that subject itself (ᾗ αύτό). (PsA., A, 4, 73b26-28) However, he insists that the second and the third conditions are indeed the same. (PsA., A, 4, 73b28-30) The first condition he paraphrases as ‘to belong to any random instance of that subject’ and the second and the third as ‘when the subject is the first thing to which it can be shown to belong.’ (PsA., A, 4, 73b32-74a3) Aristotle’s example is ‘the equality of its angles to two right angles’. This attribute is not a commensurate universal of figure due to the first condition: it cannot be demonstrated of any figure. Nonetheless, though it can be demonstrated of every isosceles because every isosceles has angles equal to two right angles, it is not a commensurate universal of isosceles due to the other conditions: it is not predicated of isosceles qua isosceles but qua triangle. These conditions seem to be like regulators: they organize everything to match to the right group. The method of finding commensurate universal is like test and error method based on elimination: you must eliminate each of the higher or lower universals and check if the attribute remains or not. The commensurate universal is that which remains in between eliminated universals. (cf. PsA., A, 5, 74a37-b4) Brad Inwoodpresents an understanding of commensurate universal that is different from what I have understood and, thus, must be checked: ‘These universals are propositions in which, for example, ‘all A are B’ is true and which are still true universal statements if converted: ‘all B are A’ is also true.’ -/- . (shrink)

Predication is a lingual relation. We have this relation when a term is said (λέγεται) of another term. This simple definition, however, is not Aristotle’s own definition. In fact, he does not define predication but attaches his almost in a new field used word κατηγορεῖσθαι to λέγεται. In a predication, something is said of another thing, or, more simply, we have ‘something of something’ (ἓν καθ᾿ ἑνὸς). (PsA. , A, 22, 83b17-18) Therefore, a relation in which two terms are posited (...) to each other in a way that one is said (predicated) of the other is a predication. The term of which the other term is said is called a subject (ὑποκειμένον) and the other, which is said about the subject, is called the predicate. Thus, in a predication the predicate is predicated of the subject; given that being predicated is almost as the same as being said. The relation between being said and being predicated is so close that ‘if something is said of a subject both its name and its definition are necessarily predicated of the subject.’ (Cat., 5, 2a19-26) This, however, is true only about the second genera and not the accidents. a) Nature of relation in predication What is Aristotle’s theory about the nature of the relation in a predication? How does he fundamentally understand this relation? Phil Corkum distinguishes between predication logic and traditional term logic and argues that the relation between subject and predicate in Aristotle is of the latter kind. While in predicate logic, subjects and predicates have distinct roles, they have the same role in traditional term logic. In predication logic, subjects refer, but predicates characterize. Thereupon, a sentence expresses a truth if the object to which the subject refers is correctly characterized by the predicate. In traditional term logic, both subjects and predicates refer and a sentences expresses a truth if both name one and the same thing. He concludes that Aristotle ‘problematically conflates prediction and identity claims’ because while he thinks both subjects and predicates refer, he would deny that a sentence is true just in case the subject and the predicate name one and the same thing. Based on this, Corkum believes that Aristotle’s core semantic is not identity but the weaker relation of constitution, which is a mereological interpretation: ‘All men are mortal’ is true just in case the mereological sum of humans is part of the mereological sum of mortals. b) Aristotle’s theory of predication: one or two theories? Frank Lewis finds an inconsistent gap between the theory of predication in the Categories and that in the later books of the Metaphysics VII, 6. So too Joan Kung, Terry Irwin, Daniel Graham. c) Distinction of ‘being said of’ and ‘being in’ Owen enumerates the texts in which Aristotle’s distinction between ‘being said of’ and ‘being in’ is asserted: OI. 11b38-12a17; To., 127b1-4; Cat. 1a20-b9; 2a11-14; 2a27-b6; 2b15-17; 3a7-32; 9b22-24 d) Predication in Aristotle and the standard ‘S is P’ Marie De Rijk Lambertus thinks that the ‘S is P’ pattern is misleading when it comes to express predication in Aristotle. In his view, ‘The Aristotelian procedure should be described in terms of appositively assigning an attribute (κατηγορούμενον) to a substrate (ὑποκείμενον), rather than ascribing a predicate to a subject by means of a copula…. The comment should be considered an attribute which is said to fall to a substrate, without understanding this procedure in terms of sentence predication.’ e) Aristotle’s predication: bipartite or tripartite? It is a difficulty to make Aristotle’s theories of name-verb predication and tripartite predication consistent. The reason is that tripartite is not consistant with his name-verb structure based on which he says that the predicate term is the ‘verb.’ (20a31; 20b1-2; 16a13-5) The problem is that in a tripartite form like ‘Socrates is white’ we cannot take ‘is white’ as the verb because, based on Aristotle himself, no part of a verb can be significant itself. (16b6-7) However, his assertions about the equivalences between the two structures (OI. 12, 21b9-10; PrA. 51b13-16; Met., 1017b22-30) must mean that they are not inconsistent in his own view. Thus, as Allen Bāck points, ‘Aristotle seems to think that he has a single, consistent theory.’ The sense of saying or speaking as the root sense of rhema makes the relation between predication (saying something of something) and verb more interesting. The use of rhema in the sense of a long expression approves this. In Plato’s work (399ac) where Socrates claims that the name anthropos derives from anthron ha opopen (‘he who examines what he has seen’) we have an onoma from, or in place of, a rhema. 1) Subject The subject (ὑποκειμένον) is that of which another term is said or predicated. Aristotle’s own definition is of a much more philosophical value: ‘By subject I mean that which is expressed by an affirmative term (λέγω δὲ ὑποκείμενον τὸ κάταφάσει δηλούμενον).’ (Met., K, 1067b18) Throughout Aristotle’s work, three kinds of subjects can be found: possible, prime and absolute subject. a) Possible subject Those things that can take the position of a subject in a predication we call possible subjects, no matter they can or cannot take the position of predicate in any predication. All terms except the ultimate predicates are possible subjects because they can take the position of subject. b) Prime subject Those that in any predication can only take the position of a subject and not the position of a predicate are prime subjects. (Cat., 5, 3a36-b2; Met., Z, 1028b36-1029a1) This is the truest sense of subject and belongs only to substances. (Met., Z, 1029a1-2) In fact, ‘that which is not predicated of a subject, but of which all else is predicated’ is a substance. (Met., Z, 1029a7-9) In Categories, besides primary substances (Cat., 2, 1b3-6), individual qualities are also said not to be able to be said of anything else. (Cat., 2, 1a23-29) Aristotle’s examples are a certain ‘knowledge-of-grammar’ (τὶς γράμματικὴ) and ‘an individual white’ (τὸ τὶ λευκὸν). Thus, although substances are indeed in the truest sense individuals and, thereby, in the truest sense primary subjects, other individuals can take the position of subject as well. c) Absolute subject While substances are prime subjects of all other things, there is still something of which substances can be predicated and this predication is not an accidental predication: matter. (Met., Z, 1029a21-24) This predication is, indeed, the predication of a ‘form or this’ on matter and material substance. (Met., Θ, 1049a34-36) The only thing that is absolutely a subject, therefore, and can be a predicate is prime matter (πρώτη ὓλη). (Met., Θ, 1049a24-27) d) Subject and substance The most important thing in being a substance is being a subject: ‘It is because the primary substances are subjects for all the other things and all the other things are predicated of them or are in them, that they are called substances most of all.’ (Cat., 5, 2b15-17) And what is nearer to this position is more a substance as a species is more a substance than a genus.’ (Cat., 5, 2b7-8) e) Primary versus accidental subject A subject is a primary subject in a predication when the predicate is predicated of it as itself. In such a case, the subject is the subject of the predicate qua itself and not qua something else. A subject, on the one hand, is an accidental subject when it is not the primary subject of the predicate that is predicated on it. It means that a subject is an accidental subject when the predicate is predicated of it not qua itself but qua something else. An accidental subject is, therefore, anything other than a substance. 2) Predicate as universal It is evident from our discussion of kinds of subjects that except matter, primary substances (if we ignore both accidental predication and cases of absolute subjects) and other individuals, everything else can take the position of a predicate. Since primary substances are individuals, it results that everything except matter and individuals are capable to take the position of predicate. The immediate consequence of this is that the predicate must be a universal. When individuals cannot take the position of predicate, this position cannot be taken by any particular. Therefore, only universals can be predicated of others. Moreover, albeit universals can be a simple subject (for another universal), they are not prime subjects. The closeness of universal and predicate is to the extent that Aristotle differentiates universal from subject. (Met., Θ, 1049a27-30) 3) Categories or classes of predicates Aristotle distinguishes ten highest classes into one of which each predicate must necessarily fall: substance (or what a thing is), quality, quantity, relation, place, time, position, state, activity and passivity. (Cat., 4, 1b25-27; To., I, 9, 103b20- ; PsA., A, 22, 83b13-23) The substance counted among predicates must refer to secondary and not primary substances not only because Aristotle insists that primary substances cannot be predicated but also from his own examples of the category of substance: man and animal. (To., I, 9, 103b25) However, if a predicate be asserted of itself or its genus be asserted of it, the predicate signifies substance or what is; but if ‘one kind of predicate is asserted of another kind,’ it signifies one of the other nines. (To., I, 9, 103b30) These categories are so comprehensive that no predicate can remain outside them so that even non-being has as many senses as categories. (Met., M, 1089a26-30) a) That whether Aristotle’s categories are merely linguistic or fundamentally ontological is a so much controversial dispute. Some like G. E. R. Lloyd believe that ‘categories are primarily intended as a classification of reality … rather than of the signifying terms themselves.’ b) Although Aristotle’s categories have been historically regarded as a classification of predications, there are some recent commentators like Jonathan Barnes that think it is classifying predicates and not predications. 4) Kinds of predicates In his introduction of Categories, as J. W. Thorp truly points out , Aristotle distinguishes between the category of substance and the other categories using μὲν ... δὲ construction. This construction illustrates that beside tenfold classification of categories, there is an even more crucial differentiation between two kinds of predicates: substance or what is on the one hand and the other nine ones on the other hand: the distinction between what is predicated of the subject as what it is and what is predicated of it as an accident. Therefore, we have three kinds of classification - a twofold, a fourfold and a tenfold-complicatedly classifying the same thing, viz. the predicate. Predicates can be divided also to four kinds: property, definition, genus and accident. (To., I, 4, 101b11-20) A property is that predicate that is convertible with its subject and does not signify its essence. A definition is that predicate that is convertible with its subject and signifies its essence. It is a genus if it is not predicated convertibly and is contained in the definition of its subject. And it is an accident if it is neither convertible nor contained in the definition of its subject. (To., I, 8, ^103b3) All of these four kinds are among categories. (To., I, 9, 103b20) It seems that there might be some kind of relation between the twofold and the fourfold distinction: whereas genus and definition are predicated as what it is, accidents are not so predicated. There seems to be some rules that determine to each of these four kinds each predicate belongs. At To., IV, 123b30ff. Aristotle asserts: ‘If B has a contrary and A does not, then B does not belong to A as its genus.’ There is a dispute around per se accidents (τὰ καθ’ αὑτὰ συμβεβηκότα) (Topics., 102a18) whether they must be regarded as either of the four kinds or as a fifth kind. Barnes (1970) argued that they ‘do not fit at all neatly into the fourfold classification.’ He argues that based on the definition of accidents at A, 5, 102b4-5, they must be accidents but based on another definition, A, 5, 102b6-7, they cannot be accidents. He also defends the view that they are not properties. Barnes concludes: ‘This shows that the two definitions are not equivalent, and hence that the ‘predicables’ are not well-defined.’ Demetris J. Hadgopoulos defends the view that the two definitions of accidents are equivalent and per se accidents are properties. 5) Five types of predications We have five kinds of predications based on our division of subjects and our discussion of predicates: simple, primary (itself divided to substantial and accident), accidental (itself divided to primary and secondary), aoincidental and absolute predication. a) Simple predication. This is a predication in which a universal is predicated of either a particular or a universal subject. This sense of predication includes all other senses except the first kind of accidental predication. b) Primary predication. This is a predication in which a universal is predicated of a primary subject, namely a substance. A primary predication is of two kinds: i) Substantial predication. A primary predication in which the predicate is part of, or is included in, the definition of the subject. The universal that is the predicate here is the definition or the genus or the species or the diferentia of the subject. It is this predication that Aristotle calls a unity: ‘A statement may be called a unity … because it exhibits a single predicate as inhering not accidentally in a single subject.’ (PsA., B, 10, 93b35-37) It is only substantial predicates that can be predicated of each other: ‘Predicates which are not substantial are not predicated of one another.’ (PsA., A, 22, 83b18-19) Aristotle defines a substantial predication also in another way. A predication in which a higher genus is predicated on a lower genus, species, a substance or an individual, (or a species is predicated on an individual) is a substantial predication. Therefore, a substantial predication is a predication in a series that has individuals on one of its ends and a general category on its other end. In fact, only substantial predicates can be predicated of one another. (PsA., A, 22, 83b17-19) This series cannot be an infinite series because otherwise not only substances would not be definable but also a genus would be equal to one of its own species. (PsA., A, 22, 83b7-10) -/- ii) Accident predication. A primary predication in which the predicate is not part of, or is not included in, the definition of its subject. The universal that is the predicate here is the property or the accident of the subject. c) Accidental predication. This is a predication in which the subject is not a primary subject and its predicate is a substance. This predication is of two kinds: i) Primary accidental predication. This is a predication in which an accident is predicated of substance. Such a predication can go ad infinitum, which is inferable from Aristotle’s assertion that the secondary accidental predication cannot go ad infinitum. ii) Secondary accidental predication. It is a predication in which an accident is predicated of another accident. Such a predication, Aristotle asserts, cannot go ad infinitum because even more than two accidents cannot be combined. Now what is the meaning of Aristotle’s assertion that we cannot continue this ad infinitum? Does it mean that we cannot continue the predication ‘The musician is white’ and say ‘The white is Athenian?’ But why not? Or maybe he means that by adding any predication, we are still in a condition of predicating two accidents of a substance on each other. -/- As primary subjects, substances can also take the position of predicate though not essentially but accidentally. In propositions like ‘the white is a log’ or ‘That big thing is a log’ we observe substance taking the position of predicate but this is only accidentally: ‘When I affirm ‘the white is a log,’ I mean that something which happens to be white is a log- not that white is the subject in which log inheres (οὐχ ὡς τὸ ὑποκείμενον τῷ ξύλῳ τὸ λευκόν ἐστι), for it was not qua white or qua a species of white that the white (thing) came to be a log (οὔτε λευκὸν ὄν οὔθ᾿ ὃπερ λευκόν τι ἐγἐνετο ξύλον), and the white (thing) is consequently not a log except incidentally.’ (PsA., 22, 83a3-9) Aristotle compares this accidental use of substance in the position of predicate with the substantial use of it in the place of a subject: ‘On the other hand, when I affirm ‘the log is white,’ I do not mean that something else, which happens to be a log, is white (οὐχ ὃτι ἓτερόν τί ἐστι λευκόν, ἐκείνῳ δὲ συμβέβηκε ξύλῳ εἶναι), (as I should if I said ‘the musician is white,’ which would mean ‘The man who happens also to be a musician is white’); on the contrary, log is here the subject- the subject which actually came to be white, and did so qua wood or qua a species of wood and qua nothing else.’ (PsA., 22, 83a8-14) Aristotle asks us not to call propositions like ‘The white is a log’ a predication at all or at least call them accidental predication instead of simple (ἁπλως) predication. (PsA., A, 22, 83a14-17) An accidental predication, in which we have a substance in the place of predicate, is different from an essential predication in that while the subject of an accidental predication is said to be the predicate not by itself but as something different with which it coincides, the subject of an essential predicate is said to be the predicate by itself and not because it is something else: ‘Since there are attributes which are predicated of a subject essentially and not accidentally- not, that is, in the sense in which we say ‘That white (thing) is a man,’ which is not the same mode of predication as when we say ‘The man is white’: the man is white not because he is something else but because he is man, but the white is man because ‘being white’ coincides with ‘humanity’ within one subject. Therefore, there are terms such as are essentially subjects of predicates. (PsA., A, 19, 81a24-29) This capability of ‘non-essentially and only accidentally’ being a subject does belong, in fact, to all sensible things. (PsA., A, 27a32-36) d) Coincidental predication. this is a predication in which none of the subject and predicate are a substance or an individual. In this predication, one of the accidents of a substance or individual is predicated of one of the other accidentals of the same substance or individual. For example, when it is said that ‘The white is musical,’ there is an individual, say Socrates, for which both of white and musical are accidents. e) Absolute predication. This is a predication in which a form or a substance is predicated of a matter or a material substance. Some commentators like Loux and Lewis regarded this predication as close to accident predication, both based on inherence. As R.M. Dancy points out, these predications make Aristotle’s theory of predication immanentist: not only accident predications are explained by the immanence of accidents in substances, some of the substantial predications, which were not explained in Categories, are also explained by the immanence of form in matter. It is interesting that in this kind of predication, it is the predicate and not the subject, which is in the strictest sense substance. As the central books of Metaphysics claim, the form is the substance. Thus, in this predication, substance gets away from the sense of ὑποκείμενον. Corkum mentiones 68a19 as the only instance where Aristotle explicitly claims that a term may be predicated of itself, a passage that is, in Corkum’s view, problematic. 6) Demonstrable predicates Those predicates are demonstrable that are so related to their subjects that there are other predicates prior to them predicable of their subjects (ἔτι δ᾿ ἄλλος, εἰ ὧν πρότερα ἄττα κατηγορεῖται). (PsA., A, 22, 83b32-34) 7) Series of predications Since it is possible for a predicate to be itself the subject of another predication, we can have a series of predications in which the predicate of a predication is the subject of the next predication. This series has the following features: a) It has a limit (in number) (PsA., A, 22, 83b14-16) on the side of subjects: there are subjects that cannot themselves be predicated (PsA., A, 27, 43a39-41), which are, as we noted, prime subjects: particulars, i.e. prime substances and other individuals. (PsA., A, 19-22) Aristotle calls them ultimate (ὓστατον). (PsA., 21, 82a36-b1) b) It has a limit (in number of kinds) (PsA., A, 22, 83b14-16) also on the side of predicates: there must be predicates that cannot be subjects. (PsA., A, 19-22; PsA., A, 27, 43a36-39) Aristotle calls them primary (πρῶτον). (PsA., A, 21, 82b1-4) These are the highest categories or the highest genera of categories. (PsA., A, 22, 83b14-16) c) The series has an escalating shape from mere subjects at its downside to mere predicates at its upside. It is Aristotle himself whos uses the words up and down in this sense. (e.g. PsA., A, 22, 83b2-3) d) The predications that lie between lowest and highest ones must be finite in number. (PsA., A, 19-22 especially: 20, 82a21-35) These have subjects and predicates, each capable of both of the roles of being subject and being predicated. A result of this fitness is that neither demonstration can go to infinity nor everything is demonstrable, the two points Aristotle always insist on. e) The upward side includes the more universal ones and the downward the more particular ones. (PsA., 20, 82a21-23) f) It follows from the above features that ‘neither the ascending nor the descending series of predications … are infinite.’ (PsA., A, 22, 83b24-25) g) Reciprocation and convertibility. Except in case of terms (i.e. subjects and predicates) that are at each of the ends of series of predications, namely ultimates and primaries, it is possible to reciprocate (ἀντιστρέφειν) terms and convert the predication. (PsA., A, 19, 82a15-20) h) Antipredication. Antipredication means that in a predication (S is P), the subject becomes the predicate of its predicate (P is S) in the same category its predicate was predicated on it. For example, if P is in the category of quality, antipredication means that S be predicated of P in the category of quality. In other words, P is a quality of S and S is a quality of P. Aristotle rejects this. (PsA., A, 22, 83a36-b3) i) Self-predication versus other-predication. Aristotle distinguishes between a predication in which a term is said of itself and a predication in which a term is said of another. (Phy., Δ, 2, 209a31-33) j) Predicablity (Cat., 5, 3a36-b2): 1) Primary substances and individuals are not predicable. 2) Secondary substances are of two kinds: genus and species i) Genus is predicable able both of the species and of the individuals. ii) Species is predicable of the individual. 3) Differentiae are predicable both of the species and of the individuals. 8) Predication as classification a) Richard Patterson believes that Aristotle’s so repeated construction using hoper (estin A hoper B) in Topics (120a23 sq., 122b19, 26sq., 123a, 124a18, 125a29, 126a21, 128a35. Also in Posterior Analytics (83a24-30) (Brunschwig’s list. ‘expresses the fact that A is a kind of B (esti A B tis), that A is a species of the genus B.’ 9) Universal predication Aristotle defines universal predication (κατὰ παντὸς κατηγορεῖσθαι) as such: ‘wherever no instance of the subject (τῶν τοῦ ὑποκειμέμνου) can be found of which the other term cannot be asserted.’ (PrA., A, 24b27-29) In this predication, the subject is included in another as in a whole (ἐν ὃλῳ εἶναι) and the predicate is predicated of all of the subject (κατὰ παντὸς κατηγορεῖσθαι). (PrA., A, 24b26-27) Attach another discussion we had about ἐν ὃλῳ here. 10) Quantity of predication A predication, truly stated, has a quantity, which is the number of objects under the name of the subject of which the predicate is predicated. The quantity of subject can be stated in four ways: a. Indefinite: when the predicate belongs or does not belong to the subject without any mark to show to haw many of the particulars under the name of the subject it does or does not belong. E.g. ‘Man is white’; ‘Man is not white.’ (PrA., A, 24a20; OI., I, 7, 17b8-12) b. Universal quantity: When the predicate belongs to all or none of the subject. E.g. ‘Every man is animal’; ‘No man is animal.’ (PrA., A, 24a18-19; OI., I, 7, 17b5-6) The contrary of a predication of a universal quality is a predication of a universal quality. E.g. the contrary of ‘Every man is white’ is ‘No man is white.’ (OI., I, 7, 17b20-23) c. Particular quantity: When the predicate belongs (or does not belong) to some of the subject. E.g. ‘Some men are white’; ‘Some men are not white.’ (PrA., A, 24a19-20) d. Single quantity: when the subject is a proper name of only one object. E.g. ‘Socrates is white’; ‘Socrates is not white.’ The contrary of this predication is of a single quantity: ‘Socrates is not white.’ (OI., I, 7, 17b38-18a4) 11) Convertibility of predication. Some predications are convertible, that is, it is possible to change the place of subject and predicate in a true proposition so that the converted proposition remains true. This is supposed to mean that given the truth of a predication, the truth of the converted predication is inferable. The convert form of a predication depends on its quantity. a. Indefinite quantity: This predication has no strictly true convert because its quantity is not stated. b. Universal quantity: It can be converted in two ways: i) A negative universal can be converted to a negative universal in which the terms are changed. E.g. ‘No pleasure is good’ can be converted to ‘No good is pleasure.’ (PrA., A, 2, 25a5-8 and a14-19) ii) An affirmative universal can be converted to an affirmative particular in which the terms are changed. E.g. ‘Every pleasure is good’ can be converted to ‘Some good is pleasure.’ (PrA., A, 2, 25a7-9) c. Particular quantity: If it is negative, it cannot be converted but if it is affirmative, it can be converted to an affirmative predication with particular quantity. E.g. ‘Some pleasure is good’ can be converted to ‘Some good is pleasure.’ (PrA., A, 2, 25a10-13 and a20-24) d. Single quantity: It cannot be converted. 12) Characteristics of relations between subject and predicate 1. A predicate is of a wider range than its subject. It is based on this fact that Aristotle: a) Prevents individuals to be predicate because there is nothing of which an individual be of a wider range. In other words, it is due to the fact that since an individual is only ‘one particular’ thing and, thus, cannot be of a wider extent than anything that Aristotle prevents them of being a predicate. Matthews, however, thinks we cannot use Socrates, a substance and an individual, in the place of predicate and say it of Socrates because ‘Socrates does not classify Socrates: it names him.’ b) Prevents differentia, species and things under species to be predicated of genus. (To., Z, 6, 144a27-) c) Prevents the species and the things under it to be predicated of the differentia. (To., Z, 6, 144b1-4) d) Also about the effect because it is wider than its subject. (PsA., B, 17, 99a) e) Each attribute is wider than every individual it is predicated on, though several attributes, collectively considered, might not be wider but exactly the substance of a thing. (PsA., B, 13, 96a32-b1) 2. The predicate of a predicate of a subject will be predicated of the subject too: ‘whenever one thing is predicated of another as of a subject, all things said of what is predicated will be said of the subject too.’ (Cat., 3, 1b10-15) In fact, it is due to its predication of the subject that it is predicated of its predicate. (Cat., 5, 2a36-b1) Moreover, what is not predicated of the predicate of a subject cannot be predicated of it as well. (PrA., A, 27, 43b22-27) Thus, what, for example, is not predicated of animal, cannot be predicated of man. 3. The predicate of a subject can be predicated of its predicates as well. (Cat., 5, 3a1-6) For example, you call the individual man grammatical and, thence, you call both a man and an animal grammatical. Nonetheless, the predicate of a subject belongs to it more properly than to its higher predicates. (PrA., A, 27, 43a27-32) 4. It is only the subject that can be distributed and not the predicate. (PrA., A, 27, 43b16-22; OI, I, 7, 17b12-16) Therefore, we can say e.g. ‘Every man is animal’ but we cannot say ‘Every man is every animal.’ 5. It is the reason of the relation between subjects and predicates, that is the reason of predication, which is the subject of inquiry. (Met., Z, 1041a20-24) In other words, since it is a meaningless inquiry to ask why a thing is itself (Met., Z, 1041a14-15), the only remaining meaningful inquiry is to ask why something is something else, i.e. to ask about the reason of predication. 6. A subject cannot categorize its predicate in the same category in which it is categorized by it. If e.g. A is a quality of B, B cannot be a quality of A. Therefore, there is no reciprocation in the same category. (PsA., A, 22, 83a36-39) 13) Characteristics of series of predications 1. A series of secondary accidental predication cannot go ad infinitum for not even more than two terms can be comnbined. For an accident is not an accident of an accident, unless it be because both are accidents of the same subject. (Met., Γ, 1007b1-4) 2. Infinite series cannot be traversed in thought. (PsA., A, 22, 83b6-7) 3. The predications of genera on each other must be ended and cannot go to infinity because otherwise not only substances would not be definable but also a genus would be equal to one of its own species. (PsA., A, 22, 83b7-10) Therefore, a series of predication of genera on each other must be limited on both sides. There must be an upward limit in general categories as well as a downward limit in individual because they cannot be predicated of others. Whatever lies between these limits can both be predicated of others and others be predicated of them. (PrA., A, 27, 43a36-43) 4. The order of predicates matters: it makes a difference whether the series be ABC or BAC. (PsA., B, 13, 96b25-32) . (shrink)