The article investigates the treatment of modality in chapters 12 and 13 of De Interpretatione and gives a new interpretation of the puzzling table of modals to be found at the beginning of chapter 13, as well as dealing with some of Aristotle’s puzzles. This is achieved by extending Aristotle’s distinction between two senses of possibility, which (following Ackrill) I call ‘one-sided’ and ‘two-sided’, to the two notions of necessity and impossibility. The conclusion is reached that, while the two notions (...) of necessity and impossibility are logically incompatible when both are taken as one-sided, in their two-sided senses they are in fact equivalent. (shrink)

An interview with Ed Casey where we discuss the intersections of his philosophical work with current political issues, including the Israel-Palestine conflict.

This is a conjecture about the conditions and operating structures that are required for the phenomenality of certain mental states. Specifically, full-blown phenomenality is assumed, as contrasted with constrained examples of phenomenal experience such as sensations of color and pain. Propositional attitudes and content, while not phenomenal per se, are standardly concurrent and may condition phenomenal states (e.g., when tied to false beliefs). It is conjectured that full phenomenality natively arises in coherent processes of situated sensory synthesis and representation (with (...) conceptual content) that are looped, mereologically whole and multi-dimensional. And that phenomenal states are typically phase-states within a parameterized conjoint structure of world and experiencer processes that are causally modulated across Markov blankets (which are conditionally independent and may be nested: cf. M. Kirchoff, et. al., 2017, 2018; and T. Burge, 2010, re: anti-individualism). Though they may, it is not accepted that phenomenally conscious states must be targets of higher-order representations (cf. A. Byrne, 2004). (shrink)

This document briefly summarizes several objections to Thomas Kuhn on science, including by Feyerabend, Davidson, and Fodor.

This is a two page handout specifying approaches, or methods, used in interpreting Judith Butler. The methods of various analytic philosophers are identified.

This paper identifies three positions on the relationship between language and experience, the third of which I was not acquainted with before from my reading. It seems absurd.

Perceptual experience is often said to be transparent; that is, when we have a perceptual experience we seem to be aware of properties of the objects around us, and never seem to be aware of properties of the experience itself. This is a introspective fact. It is also often said that we can infer a metaphysical fact from this introspective fact, e.g. a fact about the nature of perceptual experience. A transparency theory fills in the details for these two facts, (...) and bridges the gap between them. We have three aims: to scrutinize Michael Tye’s transparency theory :137–151, 2002; Consciousness revisited: materialism without phenomenal concepts, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2009; Philos Stud 170:39–57, 2014a), introduce a new transparency theory, and advance a meta-theoretical hypothesis about the interest, and import, of transparency theories. (shrink)

This paper examines another criticism of Milan Kundera apart from the familiar charge of sexism: that his representations of crowds are overly negative. It is made in a paper by Martha Kuhlman. I agree that Kundera generally depicts crowds in a negative light, but I also observe that there are major and puzzling differences between novels when it comes to details, which I believe is intentional.

When Milan Kundera introduces the concept of graphomania, he seems to register only two extremes: the person who writes for a few known people and the person who writes for a very large audience. Joe Horton’s all-or-nothing problem provides a way of making sense of this conceptualization of the situation, though in a way that breaks with Kundera’s emphasis on a writer’s craving for audience attention.

From an observation by the poet Paul Valéry, I argue that rhyme schemes, while constraining, also enable the poet to achieve autonomy from various surrounding influences, such as the domestic and the political. The demand to keep to the rhyme scheme takes priority, reducing the likelihood of these dominating.

This brief paper asks how Lorenzo Cañás Bottos could bring himself to write comments on Nigel Rapport, after his Key Concepts in Social and Cultural Anthropology, with Joanna Overing! The title of my paper may be a bit misleading, but I present two futures for Argentine families, which start out similar, relating their conceptions of society to British anthropology.

This paper considers the debate between teams of skilled contributors versus a genius by focusing on a specific case: a team project to overturn some remarks by Wittgenstein on Frazer’s The Golden Bough. In theory, there can be a team which does this, but in actual practice, such a team seems unlikely to arise.

This is a one page handout presenting objections from Gluckman's book Politics, Law, and Ritual in Tribal Society.

This is a one page handout presenting different attempts to understand claims of the form "Everyone knows X.".

Mary Beard considers the thesis that Frazer’s book The Golden Bough was popular because it provided practical aid for colonialists. But she introduces another relationship between the book and British colonialism: that it provided an image of the British colonial project as a whole. I present two objections to the proposal that there was this relationship, as well as – in the appendix – flagging a concern about the internal coherence of Beard’s paper with the introduced relationship.

I present a fictional and somewhat unpleasant tutorial. In it a use of the term “ideal political theory” is connected with the reflective equilibrium method: an ideal theory requires no adaptation of specific moral judgments to fit with the theory. I have not been in a tutorial closely resembling this, I should say.

The paradox asserts “to be a decent human being, you have to treat people like they're special; but to be a decent sociologist, you have to remember they're not.” How then can a sociologist be a decent human being? I distinguish between rights and other things, such as beliefs or tastes, and draw attention to how respect for rights is compatible with a focus on the typical in research.

Adam Smith recommends specialization but I present a problem of when you are stuck with a certain apprentice but they don’t seem suited to your specialism. If you were less specialized or more versatile, you could solve the problem.

I make some proposals regarding which paradoxes Dr. Johnson was referring to in a preface.

This paper responds to a paradox Marilyn Strathern raises concerning who endorses a community first model of the village of Elmdon, according to which it is a community and the good of the community should take priority over individual interests. It is middle-class newcomers, whose peripheral position requires greatest sacrifice from them, if the model is to be implemented. I propose two solutions to the puzzle.

Diffusionism in anthropology posits centres of creativity from which things diffuse, such as ideas and innovations. But what sort of place is likely to be such a centre of creativity? I distinguish two cases, the second of which poses a problem for diffusionism.

In her book on the English village of Elmdon, the anthropologist Marilyn Strathern identifies an assumption made by villagers: that much as Elmdon has a set of real Elmdon families, long associated with the place, so other villages also have their real families. I present an argument in favour of the assumption; the argument is an informal model.

In his Edifying Discourses, Soren Kierkegaard published a sermon entitled ‘The Unchangeableness of God’ in which he reiterated the dogma which dominated Catholic, Protestant and even Jewish expressions of classical supernaturalist theology from the first century A.D. until the advent of process theology in the twentieth century. The dogma that as a perfect being, God must be totally unchanging in every conceivable respect was expressed by Kierkegaard in such ways as: He changes all, Himself unchanged. When everything seems stable and (...) in the overturn of all things, He remains equally unchanged; no change touches Him, not even the shadow of a change; in unaltered clearness He, the father of lights, remained eternally unchanged. 1. (shrink)

This is a two page handout summarizing a number of objections made against Robert Graves's book of Greek myths.

Is there anything new to be said about Anselm's ontological argument? Recent work by Lynne Baker and Gareth Matthews raises some interesting and important questions about the argument. First, Anselm's argument is set in the context of a prayer to God, whose existence Anselm seeks to prove. Is that peculiar or paradoxical? Does it imply that Anselm's prayer is insincere? Baker and Matthews have offered a novel interpretation of Anselm's argument, designed to solve a crucial problem with it. Does their (...) interpretation succeed in solving that problem? This paper addresses both of these questions. (shrink)

What did Max Gluckman actually say about apparently structureless societies? I introduce a fictional example to make sense of what he says regarding the Tonga.

How must you think about time when you form an intention? Obviously, you must think about the time of action. Must you frame the action in any broader prospect or retrospect? In this essay I argue that you must: you thereby commit yourself to a specific prospect of a future retrospect – a retrospect, indeed, on that very prospect. In forming an intention you project a future from which you will not ask regretfully, referring back to your follow-through on that (...) intention, “What on earth was I thinking?” I argue that this broader attitude expresses the self-accountability necessary for practical commitment. (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)

This paper proposes that before the opening of Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King, the “hero” had to solve a lot of riddles.

H.L.A. Hart’s objection to defining a law as a subtype of an unclear type, or one of his objections, suffers from two oversights, which I identify.

I identify what appears to be a "glaring" inconsistency between what Joseph Raz says on euthanasia in a 2012 lecture and what he says on well-being within his most celebrated book, The Morality of Freedom. There also appears to be a subtler inconsistency between what he says and his endorsement of H.L.A. Hart’s opposition to a definitional project.

What if, instead of a scandal, Jacques Derrida had been accepted by the community of analytic philosophers? My prediction is that little-known philosophers would make points like some which I have made: counterexamples to his claims. There is a different reaction to the question which I consider though, according to which these skills do not just transfer from topic to topic and would not be “activated” by Derrida’s philosophy.

In this paper, I propose that there are or will be examples where the principle of charity recommends an interpretation which makes a text more true than another interpretation, whereas the rival interpretation improves on making sense of its form.

I address the problem that British social anthropologists ignored the wider colonial relations which the societies they studied were part of, by proposing a solution from reflecting on the structure of European intellectual cults.

Among the most popular strategies for justifying political obligations are those that appeal to the principle of fairness. These theories face the challenge, canonically articulated by Robert Nozick, of explaining how it is that persons are obligated to schemes when they receive goods that they do not ask for but cannot reject. John Simmons offers one defense of the principle of fairness, arguing that people could be bound by obligations of fairness if they voluntarily accept goods produced by a cooperative (...) scheme. Simmons, however, thinks that such a theory will do little work in justifying political obligations, since virtually no one voluntarily accepts state goods. This paper attempts to advance just such a theory by arguing that states are in fact genuine cooperative schemes and that Simmons is overly pessimistic in his appraisal of whether the majority of citizens accept the goods provided by their states. (shrink)

I respond to the charge that one of my objections to Marilyn Strathern’s rejection of feminist anthropology is the same as an objection made by Kamala Visweswaran. They may seem very similar to begin with, but I argue that there is both a difference in focus - in which premises we are concentrating on - and in method.

In this paper, I present some advice in the style of Nietzsche for a university aspiring to move from being good to great, as a nearby university is.

Various tribes deny that males have a role in causing pregnancy. Edmund Leach thinks members don’t actually believe tribal dogma. I propose that there is a practical value in denying our biological knowledge.

As an answer to the title question, some stories you can operate on and then get something good. I explain why I find a story about a tiger attack good, because of this reason, “courageously” presenting what I take to be something good. In the appendix, I present an attempt to clarify a distinction.

This paper presents critical reactions to the use of the ostriches in Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, focusing on the fact that he does not use their most striking quality. But, despite the demand, I struggle to find much to criticize, though I do flag a worry about Kundera’s consistency regarding what is common knowledge.

This paper presents an objection to the theory of names according to which what a name refers to is determined by a description that the speaker or writer associates with that name. Some names are associated with paradoxical descriptions. I use the reputations of Henry Sidgwick and J.M.E. McTaggart to illustrate this problem.

The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan describes the right-wing intellectual as “no more than your Mr. Everyman, but your Mr. Everyman with greater strength of character.” It is tempting to apply the description to sensible English essayists, though they take up positions across the political spectrum. I shall raise two worries about this application, one of which is a puzzle for Lacan.

An explanation for why the Bisa do not perform a traditional dance to express their identity is all-or-nothing reasoning: “We would have to water it down for this audience and that is not a Bisa dance.”.

One way of trying to justify the thesis of the underdetermination of scientific theories is by actual examples. In this paper, I present a paradox which arises from trying to justify the thesis in this way.

This brief paper presents a problem: the specialist on specialization must seek to know the value of specialization across different fields, but that would seem to make them non-specialized. I also propose solutions.

This paper considers two explanations for why the main character of Flora Nwapa’s novel One is Enough does not answer the question of how many times her mother-in-law has visited. One of these is a variation on the surprise exam paradox.

This was abstracted from a lengthier article titled "A Genuine Monotheism for Christians, Muslims, Jews, and All" originally published in the JOURNAL OF ECUMENICAL STUDIES, 52:575-586. Thanks to Paul Chase at Penn Press Journals for permission to use it here. This article proposes an understanding of the identity of God and Jesus that might be attractive and even plausible to persons of all monotheistic faiths. The basic thesis is that Jesus (as both "fully God and fully human") is best understood (...) to mean that Jesus fully identified with God experientially, psychologically, evaluationally, morally, and spiritually; and God fully identified with Jesus in similar ways. Read the article to get the full explanation of this. Might the founders and saints of non-Christian religions also have also thus identified with God, and God with them? (shrink)

In this paper, I present a response to the surprise exam paradox which may be of some use to someone. It is somewhat frightening for me.

This paper presents two reasons for writing philosophy fast: to succeed in certain competitions; and to realize new and better ideas.

In this paper, I present an outline of a paradox which is a variation on the lottery paradox and concerns whether we can ignore hesitant moral judgments.