In Tulving’s initial characterization, episodic memory was one of multiple memory systems. It was postulated, in pursuit of explanatory depth, as displaying proprietary operations, representations, and substrates such as to explain a range of cognitive, behavioural, and experiential phenomena. Yet the subsequent development of this research program has, paradoxically, introduced surprising doubts about the nature, and indeed existence, of episodic memory. On dominant versions of the ‘common system’ view, on which a single simulation system underlies both remembering and imagining, there (...) are no processes unique to memory to support robust generalizations with inductive potential. Eliminativism about episodic memory seems to follow from the claim that it has no dedicated neurocognitive system of its own. After identifying this under-noticed threat, we push back against modern eliminativists by surveying recent evidence that still indicates specialized mechanisms, computations, and representations that are distinctly mnemic in character. We argue that contemporary realists about episodic memory can retain lessons of the common system approach while resisting the further move to eliminativism. (shrink)

In previous articles, it has been shown that the deductive system developed by Aristotle in his "second logic" is a natural deduction system and not an axiomatic system as previously had been thought. It was also stated that Aristotle's logic is self-sufficient in two senses: First, that it presupposed no other logical concepts, not even those of propositional logic; second, that it is (strongly) complete in the sense that every valid argument expressible in the language of the system is deducible (...) by means of a formal deduction in the system. Review of the system makes the first point obvious. The purpose of the present article is to prove the second. Strong completeness is demonstrated for the Aristotelian system. (shrink)

One fairly common view about practical reason has it that whether you have a reason to act is not determined by what you know, or believe, or are justified in believing. Your reasons are determined by the facts. Perhaps there are two kinds of reasons, and however it goes with motivating reasons, normative reasons are determined by the facts, not your take on the facts. One fairly common version of this view has it that what's reasonable for you to do (...) is determined by what you know or believe. Any view that drives this kind of wedge between reasons and rationality is inherently unstable. I argue against this view, criticize the arguments typically presented in its favor, and sketch an alternative. (shrink)

For each positive n , two alternative axiomatizations of the theory of strings over n alphabetic characters are presented. One class of axiomatizations derives from Tarski's system of the Wahrheitsbegriff and uses the n characters and concatenation as primitives. The other class involves using n character-prefixing operators as primitives and derives from Hermes' Semiotik. All underlying logics are second order. It is shown that, for each n, the two theories are definitionally equivalent [or synonymous in the sense of deBouvere]. It (...) is further shown that each member of one class is synonymous with each member of the other class; thus that all of the theories are definitionally equivalent with each other and with Peano arithmetic. Categoricity of Peano arithmetic then implies categoricity of each of the above theories. (shrink)

This article accomplishes two closely connected things. First, it refutes an influential view about the relationship between perception and knowledge. In particular, it demonstrates that perceiving does not entail knowing. Second, it leverages that refutation to demonstrate that knowledge is not the most general factive propositional attitude.

The problem of downward causation is that an intuitive response to an intuitive picture leads to counterintuitive results. Suppose a mental event, m1, causes another mental event, m2. Unless the mental and the physical are completely independent, there will be a physical event in your brain or your body or the physical world as a whole that underlies this event. The mental event occurs at least partly in virtue of the physical event’s occurring. And the same goes for m2 [2] (...) and p2. Let’s not worry about what exactly “underlying” or “in virtue of” means here. Here’s the picture. m1 -----> m2 | | p1 -----> p2 The horizontal arrows represent causation, and the vertical lines represent underlying, whatever that may be. There’s some reason to think that the only way m1 can bring about m2 is by bringing about p2. You can’t convince someone of something through mental telepathy. You need to interact with the physical world, perhaps by saying something and so making some noise, or by pointing and getting them to turn their head and see. What goes for the case of two people goes for the case of one person as well. Superstition aside, there is no purely mental energy that floats free of the merely physical workings of the brain. If m1 brings about m2 by bringing about p2, then m1 brings about p2. This is downward causation. But wait. Doesn’t p1 bring about p2? Isn’t that what the bottom arrow represents? Maybe m1 and p1 work together to bring about p2. There are little holes in the physical causal structure that need to be filled by mental events. You don’t need a sweeping metaphysical thesis about the causal closure of the physical to find this implausible. Maybe p2 is overdetermined. (shrink)

Demonstrative logic, the study of demonstration as opposed to persuasion, is the subject of Aristotle's two-volume Analytics. Many examples are geometrical. Demonstration produces knowledge (of the truth of propositions). Persuasion merely produces opinion. Aristotle presented a general truth-and-consequence conception of demonstration meant to apply to all demonstrations. According to him, a demonstration, which normally proves a conclusion not previously known to be true, is an extended argumentation beginning with premises known to be truths and containing a chain of reasoning showing (...) by deductively evident steps that its conclusion is a consequence of its premises. In particular, a demonstration is a deduction whose premises are known to be true. Aristotle's general theory of demonstration required a prior general theory of deduction presented in the Prior Analytics. His general immediate-deduction-chaining conception of deduction was meant to apply to all deductions. According to him, any deduction that is not immediately evident is an extended argumentation that involves a chaining of intermediate immediately evident steps that shows its final conclusion to follow logically from its premises. To illustrate his general theory of deduction, he presented an ingeniously simple and mathematically precise special case traditionally known as the categorical syllogistic. (shrink)

One innovation in this paper is its identification, analysis, and description of a troubling ambiguity in the word ‘argument’. In one sense ‘argument’ denotes a premise-conclusion argument: a two-part system composed of a set of sentences—the premises—and a single sentence—the conclusion. In another sense it denotes a premise-conclusion-mediation argument—later called an argumentation: a three-part system composed of a set of sentences—the premises—a single sentence—the conclusion—and complex of sentences—the mediation. The latter is often intended to show that the conclusion follows from (...) the premises. The complementarity and interrelation of premise-conclusion arguments and premise-conclusion-mediation arguments resonate throughout the rest of the paper which articulates the conceptual structure found in logic from Aristotle to Tarski. This 1972 paper can be seen as anticipating Corcoran’s signature work: the more widely read 1989 paper, Argumentations and Logic, Argumentation 3, 17–43. MR91b:03006. The 1972 paper was translated into Portuguese. The 1989 paper was translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and Persian. (shrink)

This study concerns logical systems considered as theories. By searching for the problems which the traditionally given systems may reasonably be intended to solve, we clarify the rationales for the adequacy criteria commonly applied to logical systems. From this point of view there appear to be three basic types of logical systems: those concerned with logical truth; those concerned with logical truth and with logical consequence; and those concerned with deduction per se as well as with logical truth and logical (...) consequence. Adequacy criteria for systems of the first two types include: effectiveness, soundness, completeness, Post completeness, "strong soundness" and strong completeness. Consideration of a logical system as a theory of deduction leads us to attempt to formulate two adequacy criteria for systems of proofs. The first deals with the concept of rigor or "gaplessness" in proofs. The second is a completeness condition for a system of proofs. An historical note at the end of the paper suggests a remarkable parallel between the above hierarchy of systems and the actual historical development of this area of logic. (shrink)

The most cursory examination of the history of artificial intelligence highlights numerous egregious claims of its researchers, especially in relation to a populist form of ‘strong’ computationalism which holds that any suitably programmed computer instantiates genuine conscious mental states purely in virtue of carrying out a specific series of computations. The argument presented herein is a simple development of that originally presented in Putnam’s (Representation & Reality, Bradford Books, Cambridge in 1988 ) monograph, “Representation & Reality”, which if correct, has (...) important implications for turing machine functionalism and the prospect of ‘conscious’ machines. In the paper, instead of seeking to develop Putnam’s claim that, “everything implements every finite state automata”, I will try to establish the weaker result that, “everything implements the specific machine Q on a particular input set ( x )”. Then, equating Q ( x ) to any putative AI program, I will show that conceding the ‘strong AI’ thesis for Q (crediting it with mental states and consciousness) opens the door to a vicious form of panpsychism whereby all open systems, (e.g. grass, rocks etc.), must instantiate conscious experience and hence that disembodied minds lurk everywhere. (shrink)

What is the relation between works of fiction and the acquisition of knowledge?

There are two different ways of understanding alienation: as a condition and as a struggle. On this distinction turns the whole theory and practice of Marxism.

Aristotle said that induction (epagōgē) is a proceeding from particulars to a universal, and the definition has been conventional ever since. But there is an ambiguity here. Induction in the Scholastic and the (so-called) Humean tradition has presumed that Aristotle meant going from particular statements to universal statements. But the alternate view, namely that Aristotle meant going from particular things to universal ideas, prevailed all through antiquity and then again from the time of Francis Bacon until the mid-nineteenth century. Recent (...) scholarship is so steeped in the first-mentioned tradition that we have virtually forgotten the other. In this essay McCaskey seeks to recover that alternate tradition, a tradition whose leading theoreticians were William Whewell, Francis Bacon, Socrates, and in fact Aristotle himself. The examination is both historical and philosophical. The first part of the essay fills out the history. The latter part examines the most mature of the philosophies in the Socratic tradition, specifically Bacon’s and Whewell’s. After tracing out this tradition, McCaskey shows how this alternate view of induction is indeed employed in science, as exemplified by several instances taken from actual scientific practice. In this manner, McCaskey proposes to us that the Humean problem of induction is merely an artifact of a bad conception of induction and that a return to the Socratic conception might be warranted. (shrink)

As he moves closer to half of his term as president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Roa Duterte has continually been in friction with the Catholic Church, specifically with certain members of its hierarchy. Mainly identifiable as the dividing line between Duterte’s administration and the Church is the issue on human rights particularly the extrajudicial killings (EJK) of suspected users and pushers of illegal drugs. This paper argues that Duterte’s attitude and positioning towards the Catholic Church neither strengthen nor advance the (...) Philippine state towards a greater degree of secularization. On the contrary, the Church has become more politically and publicly involved. Consequently, it has remained a key actor or interest group providing an alternative moral discourse to that of the government. (shrink)

Worrall argued that structural realism provides a ‘synthesis’ of the main pro-realist argument – the ‘No Miracles Argument’, and the main anti-realist argument – the ‘Pessimistic Induction’. More recently, however, it has been claimed that each of these arguments is an instance of the same probabilistic fallacy – sometimes called the ‘base-rate fallacy’. If correct, this clearly seems to undermine structural realism and Magnus and Callender have indeed claimed that both arguments are fallacious and ‘without [them] we lose the rationale (...) for … structural realism ’. I here argue that what have been shown to be fallacious are simply misguided formalisations of ‘the’ arguments and that when they are properly construed they continue to provide powerful motivation for favouring structural realism. (shrink)

The artefacts produced by artists during their creation of works of art are very various: paintings, writings, musical scores, and so on. I have a general thesis to offer about the relations of artefacts and artworks, but within the confines of this article I shall mainly discuss cases drawn from the art of painting, central specimens of which seem to be autographic in Nelson Goodman's sense, namely such that even the most exact duplication of them does not count as producing (...) the same work of art. My view will be that an artwork (such as a painting) and its associated artefact are not identical, and nor is the artefact in any sense part of the painting in question,2 but that nevertheless it is still possible to maintain the view that paintings are autographic (which view I shall call l the autographic thesis). I shall proceed initially through presentation of some counter-examples to common assumptions as to the relations of artefacts and artworks, and then present an alternative 'representational' theory of their relations. (shrink)

Any satisfactory epistemology must account for the distinction between propositional and doxastic justification. Can infinitism account for it? Proposals to date have been unsatisfactory. This paper advances a new infinitist account of the distinction. The discussion proceeds as follows. Section 1 sets the stage. Section 2 presents Peter Klein's account. Section 3 raises a problem for Klein's account and suggests an improvement. Section 4 raises a further challenge. Sections 5 to 7 consider several unsuccessful attempts to meet the challenge. Section (...) 8 presents my new proposal, which can meet the challenge. Section 9 concludes the discussion. (shrink)

The field of machine perception is based on standard informational and computational approaches to perception. But naturalistic informational theories are widely regarded as being inadequate, while purely syntactic computational approaches give no account of perceptual content. Thus there is a significant need for a novel, purely naturalistic perceptual theory not based on informational or computational concepts, which could provide a new paradigm for mechanistic perception. Now specifically evolutionary naturalistic approaches to perception have been—perhaps surprisingly—almost completely neglected for this purpose. Arguably (...) perceptual mechanisms enhance evolutionary fitness by facilitating sensorily mediated causal interactions between an organism Z and items X in its environment. A ‘reflexive’ theory of perception of this kind is outlined, according to which an organism Z perceives an item X just in case X causes a sensory organ zi of Z to cause Z to acquire a disposition toward the very same item X that caused the perception. The rest of the paper shows how an intuitively plausible account of mechanistic perception can be developed and defended in terms of the reflexive theory. Also, a compatibilist option is provided for those who wish to preserve a distinct informational concept of perception. (shrink)

According to the computational theory of mind , to think is to compute. But what is meant by the word 'compute'? The generally given answer is this: Every case of computing is a case of manipulating symbols, but not vice versa - a manipulation of symbols must be driven exclusively by the formal properties of those symbols if it is qualify as a computation. In this paper, I will present the following argument. Words like 'form' and 'formal' are ambiguous, as (...) they can refer to form in either the syntactic or the morphological sense. CTM fails on each disambiguation, and the arguments for CTM immediately cease to be compelling once we register that ambiguity. The terms 'mechanical' and 'automatic' are comparably ambiguous. Once these ambiguities are exposed, it turns out that there is no possibility of mechanizing thought, even if we confine ourselves to domains where all problems can be settled through decision-procedures. The impossibility of mechanizing thought thus has nothing to do with recherché mathematical theorems, such as those proven by Gödel and Rosser. A related point is that CTM involves, and is guilty of reinforcing, a misunderstanding of the concept of an algorithm. (shrink)

Memory is studied at a bewildering number of levels, with a vast array of methods, and in a daunting range of disciplines and subdisciplines. Is there any sense in which these various memory theorists – from neurobiologists to narrative psychologists, from the computational to the cross-cultural – are studying the same phenomena? In this exploratory position paper, I sketch the bare outline of a positive framework for understanding current work on constructive remembering, both within the various cognitive sciences, and across (...) gulfs between the cognitive and the social sciences. I pinpoint some lines of psychological theory and research which offer promising and compatible ways of thinking about individual memory and shared or social memory simultaneously. These are obviously ambitious projects, and this paper seeks more to elicit help with forging these connections than to present firm results. The aim is to draw out some consequences of empirical work on social memory and in developmental psychology. (shrink)

1. The restless mind[1] Like us, early modern philosophers, both natural and moral, didn’t always understand the springs of their own actions. They didn’t want to feel everything they felt, and couldn’t trace the sources of all their thoughts and imaginings. Events from past experience come to mind again unwilled: abstract thought is interrupted by fantastical images, like the ‘winged horses, fiery dragons, and monstrous giants’ by which Hume exemplified ‘the liberty of the imagination’[2]. Then, as now, a failure to (...) keep a train of thought on track could be blamed for both personal and social ills, for wasted lives and erratic policies. The ongoing struggle to distinguish the deliverances of reason from what Hume called ‘the loose and indolent reveries of a castle-builder’ (1739/ 1978, p.624) thus required scrutiny of daydream and fancy as much as belief and knowledge (see also Tierney- Hynes 2007 on the ‘castle-builder’). The mind’s tendencies to float and to roam were of great interest to early modern philosophers as well as to others concerned with medicine, mental health, morals, education, and taste. This paper sketches one local line of thinking and theorizing about ‘mind-wandering’ and its bodily causes in British philosophy over the first decades of the 18th century, as a small exemplar of a form of cognitive history intended to illuminate independent historical and contemporary concerns about our understanding of mental life. The dual aim is to see problems in our historical material that we might otherwise miss, and to use history to explore phenomena more or less marginalized by modern psychology[3]. (shrink)

A psychological study of thought and language which takes an exposition of scientific linquistics as a point of departure.

An encyclopedic article on epistemic supervenience in Blackwell companion to epistemology, 2 ed.

What is the potential for improvements in the functioning of consciousness? The paper addresses this issue using global workspace theory. According to this model, the prime function of consciousness is to develop novel adaptive responses. Consciousness does this by putting together new combinations of knowledge, skills and other disparate resources that are recruited from throughout the brain. The paper's search for potential improvements in consciousness is aided by studies of a developmental transition that enhances functioning in whichever domain it occurs. (...) This transition involves a shift from the use of procedural (implicit) knowledge to declarative (explicit) knowledge. However, the potential of the transition to enhance functioning has not yet been realised to any extent in relation to consciousness itself. The paper assesses the potential for consciousness to use declarative knowledge to improve its own functioning and to thereby enhance human adaptability. A number of sources (including the practices of religious and contemplative traditions) are drawn on to investigate how this potential might be realised. (shrink)

The category of works of fiction is a very broad and heterogeneous one. I do have a general thesis in mind about such works, namely, that they themselves are fictional, in much the same way as are the fictional events or entities that they are about. But a defense of such a broad thesis would provide an intractably complex topic for an introductory essay, so I shall here confine myself to a presentation of a similar thesis for narrative theatrical works (...) or plays, performances of which are naturally regarded as involving, or evoking, a “fictional world” whose fictional characters and events are what the work in question is about. Another reason for initially focusing on such narrative plays is because performances of them provide a rich source of epistemic issues about evidence for artistic authenticity or correctness of artworks, which will turn out to be of integral importance to my fictionalist account of plays. (shrink)

What is the relation between a perceptual experience of an object X as being red, and one's belief, if any, as to the nature of that experience? A traditional Cartesian view would be that, if indeed object X does seem to be red to oneself, then one's resulting introspective belief about it could only be a _conforming _belief, i.e., a belief that X perceptually seems to be _red _to oneself--rather than, for instance, a belief that X perceptually seems to be (...) green to oneself instead. On such a Cartesian view, our introspective certainly about our own thoughts extends also to our perceptual experiences as to how things seem to be to us, so that our resulting introspective beliefs about our phenomenal states also count as knowledge of them. (shrink)

The representational content or subject matter of a picture is normally distinguished from various non-representational components of meaning involved in artworks, such as expressive, stylistic or intentional factors. However, I show how such non subject matter components may themselves be analyzed in content terms, if two different categories of representation are recognized--aspect indication for stylistic etc. factors, and normal representation for subject matter content. On the account given, the relevant kinds of content are hierarchically structured, with relatively unconceptualized lower level (...) aspectual contents encoding or symbolizing higher level conceptualized representational subject matter. Such an account is strongly supported by the latest findings of cognitive science regarding levels of conceptualization. The paper also demonstrates how the account given is compatible with the actual pictorial competence of normal viewers of visual artworks. (shrink)

Realistic uses of Virtual Reality technology closely integrate user training on virtual objects with VR-assisted user interactions with real objects. This paper shows how the Interactive Theory of Perception may be extended to cover such cases. Virtual objects are explained as concrete models that have an inner generation mechanism, and the ITP is used to explain how VR users can both perceive such local CMs, and perceptually represent remote real objects. Also, concepts of modeling and representation are distinguished. The paper (...) concludes with suggestions as to how the ITP methodology developed here could be extended to iconic external representations and models generally. (shrink)

Over the last three decades, a vast literature has amassed debating the merits of skeptical theism, and it is easy to get the sense that the rationality of theism itself depends crucially on the viability of the skeptical theist response. I will argue that this is mistaken, as there is no need for theists to maintain that non-theists are wrong to treat inscrutable evils as compelling evidence for atheism. I will show that theists instead need only take themselves to have (...) grounds for rejecting the existence of gratuitous evils and that they may look for these grounds among their more personal reasons for sustaining their trust in the theistic God rather than the more generally available skeptical considerations appealed to by skeptical theists. Accordingly, I call this alternative approach “trusting theism.” I will also show that the viability of trusting theism seems crucial to the rationality of theism whether or not skeptical theism is successful. Finally, I will show that trusting theism does not render theism impervious to possible counterevidence in the way skeptical theism has been accused of doing. (shrink)

Since at least late antiquity, Aristotle’s Prior Analytics B 23 has been misread. Aristotle does not think that an induction is a syllogism made good by complete enumeration. The confusion can be eliminated by considering the nature of the surviving text and watching very closely Aristotle’s moving back and forth between “induction” and “syllogism from induction.” Though he does move freely between them, the two are not synonyms.

According to R. G. Collingwood in The Principles of Art, art is the expression of emotion--a much-criticized view. I attempt to provide some groundwork for a defensible modern version of such a theory via some novel further criticisms of Collingwood, including the exposure of multiple ambiguities in his main concept of expression of emotion, and a demonstration that, surprisingly enough, his view is unable to account for genuinely creative artistic activities. A key factor in the reconstruction is a replacement of (...) the concept of expression with that of interpretation: what artists do is to interpret, rather than express, their initial emotions, in creative ways that may go far beyond their initial impulses. Thus more broadly the paper attempts to show that the concept of interpretation is just as central to understanding artistic creativity as it is in the analysis of the critical appreciation of artworks. (shrink)

A content theory of art would identify an artwork with the meaningful or representational content of some concrete artistic vehicle, such as the intentional, expressive, stylistic, and subject matter-related content embodied in, or resulting from, acts of intentional artistic expression by artists. Perhaps surprisingly, the resultant view that an artwork is nothing but content seems to have been without theoretical defenders until very recently, leaving a significant theoretical gap in the literature. I present some basic arguments in defence of such (...) a view, including the following. Content views of linguistic communication are ubiquitous, so why should they not be applicable in artistic cases as well? Also, propositional accounts of language involve two kinds of content (the proposition expressed by a sentence, plus the worldly state of affairs it represents), both of which kinds can be used in explaining artworks. In addition, the differing modal properties of artworks and concrete artefacts can be used to show that artworks could not be, or include, such physical artefacts. (shrink)

In "A Restriction for Pictures and Some Consequences for a Theory of Depiction", Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 61, 4 (2003): 381-394, Michael Newall defended a resemblance view of depiction. He concentrated on pictures X involving a perpendicular view of the physical surface of another picture Y, and argued that the actual restrictions on what picture X can depict of Y's physical surface are best explained by a strict resemblance or similarity view. But I show that there are many (...) problems with his approach, so that overall it is no more successful than more standard resemblance views of depiction. (shrink)

I propose a distinction between design intentions, activities and products, as opposed to artistic intentions, activities and artworks. Examples of design products would include a specific type of car (or any other invention or device) as well as closer relatives of art such as decorative wall designs. In order to distinguish artistic from design intentions, I present an example in which two sculptors independently work on a single object to produce two sculptures, which are distinct just because the artistic intentions (...) of the sculptors are distinct. This case is then contrasted with an attempted parallel example for design intentions, which fails to produce two correspondingly distinct design products in spite of the different design intentions of its designers. I argue that this failure occurs because designs are types, for which any single token of a given type could not simultaneously be a token of some other type of the same general kind; whereas the possibility of my sculptural 'double artwork' example shows that such artworks cannot be types. I then further investigate the concept of a design, and conclude by arguing that an extension of my sculptural example shows that literary artworks also cannot be types. (shrink)

In this paper, I critique arguments made by philosopher David Buller against central evolutionary-psychological explanations of human mating. Specifically, I aim to rebut his criticisms of Evolutionary Psychology regarding (1) women's long-term mating preferences for high-status men; (2) the evolutionary rationale behind men's provisioning of women; (3) men's mating preferences for young women; (4) women's adaptation for extra-pair sex; (5) the sex-differentiated evolutionary theory of human jealousy; and (6) the notion of mate value. In sum, I aim to demonstrate that (...) Buller's arguments contra Evolutionary Psychologists are left wanting. (shrink)

In a previous Philo article, it was shown how properties could be ontologically dispensed with via a representational analysis: to be an X is to comprehensively represent all the properties of an X. The current paper extends that representationalist (RT) theory by explaining representation itself in parallel epistemic rather than ontological terms. On this extended RT (ERT) theory, representations of X, as well as the real X, both may be identified as providing information about X, whether partial or comprehensive. But (...) that information does not match ontological, property-based analyses of X, so it is epistemically fundamental–hence supporting a broadly conceptualist rather than nominalist metaphysics. (shrink)

A series of representations must be semantics-driven if the members of that series are to combine into a single thought: where semantics is not operative, there is at most a series of disjoint representations that add up to nothing true or false, and therefore do not constitute a thought at all. A consequence is that there is necessarily a gulf between simulating thought, on the one hand, and actually thinking, on the other. A related point is that a popular doctrine (...) - the so-called 'computational theory of mind' (CTM) - is based on a confusion. CTM is the view that thought-processes consist in 'computations', where a computation is defined as a 'form-driven' operation on symbols. The expression 'form-driven operation' is ambiguous, as it may refer either to syntax-driven operations or to morphology-driven operations. Syntax-driven operations presuppose the existence of operations that are driven by semantic and extra-semantic knowledge. So CTM is false if the terms 'computation' and 'form-driven operation' are taken to refer to syntax-driven operations. Thus, if CTM is to work, those expressions must be taken to refer to morphology-driven operations. CTM therefore fails, given that an operation must be semantics-driven if it is to qualify as a thought. CTM therefore fails on each possible disambiguation of the expressions 'formal operation' and 'computation,' and it is therefore false. (shrink)

thesis as to the inseparability of the perception of a picture and the perception of its subject matter, making use of a recently developed ‘interpretive’ theory of pictorial representation, according to which a picture is represented by its physical vehicle, so that a picture is itself part of the representational content of the vehicle—which picture in turn interpretively represents its subject matter. I also show how Richard Wollheim's own twofoldness thesis, along with related views of his, might be vindicated by (...) reinterpretation along similar lines, and conclude by showing that Ernst Gombrich too may be protected from some standard criticisms of his views—which views are also consistent with those of Wollheim as thus reinterpreted. (shrink)

A counterfactual is a conditional statement in the subjunctive mood. For example: If Suzy hadn’t thrown the rock, then the bottle wouldn’t have shattered. The philosophical importance of counterfactuals stems from the fact that they seem to be closely connected to the concept of causation. Thus it seems that the truth of the above conditional is just what is required for Suzy’s throw to count as a cause of the bottle’s shattering. If philosophers were reluctant to exploit this idea prior (...) to 1970, it was because of a widespread feeling that the truth-conditions of the counterfactual conditional were not sufficiently well understood. The development of a formal semantics for counterfactuals by Robert Stalnaker [1968] and David Lewis [1973b] stands as a major recent achievement in philosophical logic. (shrink)

Issues concerning the spatial orientation of pictures play an important, though previously neglected, role in an adequate understanding of the nature and identity of visual artworks and other pictures. Using a previous contrast ('Artworks Versus Designs', BJA Vol. 41, No. 4, October 2001), I show that differing orientations of a design naturally give rise to distinct pictures, which may be appropriated as distinct artworks by a discerning artist--which also shows that such artworks cannot be types, since they share a common (...) token. The investigation also raises some significant issues concerning artistic printmaking, and strongly suggests in addition that two new concepts of interpretation--of identifying and constitutive interpretation--are required to adequately explain the artistic phenomena that are uncovered. (shrink)

In this paper I shall argue that the relations between metaphorical and literal kinds of language may be illuminated and clarified by comparison with corresponding differences and similarities between representing and represented objects. A kind of "picture theory" of metaphorical language will be proposed (though one which draws more on Wittgenstein's Investigations than on the Tractatus), in which successful metaphorical phrases are taken as being about things which are capable (in context) of being seen or recognized as representing or depicting (...) that which the words ordinarily refer to or describe when being used literally. (shrink)

This paper investigates the meaning of the neo-Confucian concept of 'li'. From early on, it has the sense of a pattern designating how things are and ought to be. But it takes on the appearance of something transcendent to the world only at a certain point in history, when it becomes juxtaposed to 'qi'. Zhu Xi has been criticized for this 'li-qi' dichotomization and the transcendentalization of 'li'. The paper re-examines this putative dualism and transcendentalism, looking into both Zhu's discussions (...) and pre- and post-Zhu discussions of 'li', and concludes it to be an inter-connective threading immanent to the world. (shrink)

Plays, symphonies and other works in the performing arts are generally regarded, ontologically speaking, as being types, with individual performances of those works being regarded as tokens of those types. But I show that there is a logical feature of type theory which makes it impossible for such a theory to satisfactorily explain a 'double performance' case that I present: one in which a single play performance is actually a performance of two different plays. Hence type theories fail, both for (...) plays and for the related performing art of music as well. (shrink)

The highly enjoyable experiences associated with drinking good wines have been widely misunderstood. It is common to regard wine appreciation as an analytical or quasi-scientific kind of activity, in which wine experts carefully distinguish the precise sensory qualities of each wine, and then pass on their accumulated factual knowledge to less experienced wine enthusiasts. However, this model of wine appreciation is seriously defective. One good way to show its defects is to provide a better and more fundamental scientific account of (...) what is involved in wine appreciation. In order to do so, I outline a novel, evolutionarily based theory of perceptual consciousness that explains why there must be imaginative as well as analytical kinds of experiences of wines. In addition, imaginative wine experiences, unlike typical imaginative artistic experiences, may be shown to involve highly individualistic, improvisatory elements that help to give wine drinking a unique place among the recreational arts. (shrink)

Although Paul Churchland and Jerry Fodor both subscribe to the so-called theory-theory– the theory that folk psychology (FP) is an empirical theory of behavior – they disagree strongly about FP’s fate. Churchland contends that FP is a fundamentally flawed view analogous to folk biology, and he argues that recent advances in computational neuroscience and connectionist AI point toward development of a scientifically respectable replacement theory that will give rise to a new common-sense psychology. Fodor, however, wagers that FP will be (...) largely preserved and vindicated by scientific investigations of behavior. Recent findings by developmental psychologists, I argue, will push both Churchlandians and Fodorians toward the pessimistic view that FP is a misguided theory that will never be displaced, because it is, so to speak, built into our cognitive systems. I explore the possibility of preserving optimism by rejecting the theory-theory and adopting the simulation theory, a competing view developed by Robert Gordon, Alvin Goldman, and Jane Heal. According to simulationists, common-sense interpretation of behavior is accomplished by means of pretense-like operations that deploy the cognitive system’s own reasoning capabilities in a disengaged manner. Since on this view no theory-like set of principles would be needed, the simulation theory seems to enjoy a simplicity advantage over the theory-theory. Steven Stich and Shawn Nichols, however, contend that as the cognitive system would require special mechanisms for disengaged operation, the simplicity question cannot be resolved until suitable computational models are developed. I describe a set of models I have constructed to meet this need, and I discuss the contribution such models can make to determining FP’s fate. (shrink)

Commercial lawyers working across borders know that globalization has changed commercial law. To think of commercial law as only the law of states is to have an inadequate understanding of the norms governing commercial transactions. Some have argued for a transnational conception of commercial law, but their grounds of justification have been unpersuasive, often grounded on claims about the common content among national legal systems. Legal positivism is a rich literature on the concept of a legal system and the validity (...) conditions for rules in legal systems, but it has not been used to understand legal order outside or beyond the state. This article aims to use legal positivism to conceptualize a transnational commercial law order. Prevailing positivist accounts at least implicitly condition legal order on state sovereignty. The article offers a cosmopolitan conception of legal positivism, in which the state is no longer an enabling condition for law. The cosmopolitan conception provides the means by which to adequately describe a transnational commercial law order. There are limits to the conceptual analysis this article provides, one of which is that it does not purport to evaluate the justice or morality of transnational legal order. But the cosmopolitan conception of legal positivism elucidated in this article stands on its own as a way of understanding a number of transnational legal orders other than commercial law. The attractiveness of the account is that it describes law as a human social practice even when it is not solely the product of the state, so that we do not have to rely on natural law theories to understand legal rules that states do not maintain. (shrink)