Featuring more than 150 articles by more than 70 leading scholars, this is the first encyclopedia devoted to empiricism. The _Encyclopedia of Empiricism_ serves four main purposes. First, it provides a convenient source for scholars and students seeking information on particular figures, topics, or doctrines, specifically in their relation to empiricism as an historical movement or to empiricism as a broader tendency of thought. Because each entry contains a brief bibliography of primary and secondary sources, it can usefully serve as (...) a point of first reference. Second, the _Encyclopedia_ illustrates the continuity and logical development of the Empiricist movement by examining, within topical articles, the contributions of a number of different philosophers related to the statement and solution of particular issues. Third, it explicates the relations, both logical and historical, between empiricism as a movement of the 17th and 18th centuries and the various species of empiricism that preceded and succeeded it. Finally, the _Encyclopedia_ explores some of the most important intellectual influences on empiricism as a methodology of thought. Outstanding Academic Book. (shrink)

Suppose that U and U' are normal ultrafilters associated with some supercompact cardinal. How may we compare U and U'? In what ways are they similar, and in what ways are they different? Partial answers are given in [1], [2], [3], [5], [6], and [7]. In this paper, we continue this study. In [6], Menas introduced a combinatorial principle χ(U) of normal ultrafilters U associated with supercompact cardinals, and showed that normal ultrafilters satisfying this property also satisfying this property also (...) satisfy a partition property. In [5], Kunen and Pelletier showed that this partition property for U does not imply χ (U). Using results from [3], we present a different method of finding such normal ultrafilters which satisfy the partition property but do not satisfy χ (U). Our method yields a large collection of such normal ultrafilters. (shrink)

Suppose $\kappa$ is a supercompact cardinal and $\lambda > \kappa$. We study the relationship between the partition property and the weak partition property for normal ultrafilters on $P_\kappa\lambda$. On the one hand, we show that the following statement is consistent, given an appropriate large cardinal assumption: The partition property and the weak partition property are equivalent, there are many normal ultrafilters that satisfy these properties, and there are many normal ultrafilters that do not satisfy these properties. On the other hand, (...) we consider the assumption that, for some $\lambda > \kappa$, there exists a normal ultrafilter $U$ on $P_\kappa\lambda$ such that $U$ satisfies the weak partition property but does not satisfy the partition property. We show that this assumption is implied by the assertion that there exists a cardinal $\gamma > \kappa$ such that $\gamma$ is $\gamma^+$-supercompact, and, assuming the GCH, it implies the assertion that there exists a cardinal $\gamma > \kappa$ such that $\gamma$ is a measurable cardinal with a normal ultrafilter concentrating on measurable cardinals. (shrink)

Suppose κ is a supercompact cardinal. It is known that for every λ ≥ κ, many normal ultrafilters on P κ (λ) have the partition property. It is also known that certain large cardinal assumptions imply the existence of normal ultrafilters without the partition property. In [1], we introduced the tree T of normal ultrafilters associated with κ. We investigate the distribution throughout T of normal ultrafilters with and normal ultrafilters without the partition property.

Reviewed Works:M. Magidor, Combinatorial Characterization of Supercompact Cardinals.Carlos A. Di Prisco, William S. Zwicker, Flipping Properties and Supercompact Cardinals.Donna M. Carr, $P_\kappa\lambda$-Generalizations of Weak Compactness.Donna M. Carr, The Structure of Ineffability Properties of $P_\kappa\lambda$.Donna M. Carr, $P_\kappa\lambda$ Partition Relations.Donna M. Carr, A Note on the $\lambda$-Shelah Property.

In this note, we show that a partition of a cake is Pareto optimal if and only if it maximizes some convex combination of the measures used by those who receive the resulting pieces of cake. Also, given any sequence of positive real numbers that sum to one (which may be thought of as representing the players' relative entitlements), we show that there exists a partition in which each player receives either more than, less than, or exactly his or her (...) entitlement (according to his or her measure), in any desired combination, provided that the measures are not all equal. (shrink)

welcomed by a new generation of students and scholars in all branches of learning.

How can I give you a reason to believe what I tell you? I can influence the evidence available to you. Or I can simply invite your trust. These two ways of giving reasons work very differently. When a speaker tells her hearer that p, I argue, she intends that he gain access to a prima facie reason to believe that p that derives not from evidence but from his mere understanding of her act. Unlike mere assertions, acts of telling (...) give reasons directly. They give reasons by inviting the hearer’s trust. This yields a novel form of anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony. The status of testimony as a sui generis source of epistemic warrant is entailed by the nature of the act of telling. We can discover the nature of this illocution, and its epistemic role, by examining how it functions in the real world of human relations. (shrink)

The Nature of God explores a perennial problem in the philosophy of religion.

In this paper I am going to try to indicate my notion concerning the nature and subject-matter of psychology. I am a behaviorist. I hold that psychology does not seek descriptions and intercommunications concerning immediate experience per se. Such descriptions and attempts at direct intercommunications may be left to the arts and to metaphysics. Psychology seeks, rather, the objectively stateable laws and processes governing behavior. Organisms, human and sub-human, come up against environmental stimulus situations and to these stimulus situations they, (...) after longer or shorter intervals of time, behave. The laws and processes determining this their behavior are stateable in objective terms. Even in the cases where the organism is oneself, these determining causal factors can and must—for the purposes of psychology—be stated objectively. It is true that in these latter instances, in which the animal in question is oneself, one may in one's rôle, not of a psychologist, but of an artist or a metaphysician, attempt to describe and convey to another man one's own facts of immediate experience. But such a description and report of immediate experiences, except in so far as this report is itself a form of behavior and therefore like all other behaviors the basis for an investigation of the objective laws and processes underlying it, essentially new to the picture. Experience qua experience, while of concern and interest to the man in the street, the philosopher and the poet, does not enter as such into the laws and equations of psychology,—in so far, at any rate, as psychology is to be considered as a science. (shrink)

In this paper I make some distinctions, which I hope are of help for Laura Valentini and others. Are the recommendations of a theory of what the government should do possible and are they feasible? Is the project of the theorist possibility-sensitive and is the project feasibility-sensitive?

Given Heidegger’s inflammatory remarks about the intellectual poverty of modern logic, it may come as a surprise to be told that he has something to contribute to the philosophy of logic. One of the rewards of Daniel Dahlstrom’s Heidegger’s Concept of Truth is its argument that Heidegger can illuminate such issues in the philosophy of logic as the character of propositions, the nature of bivalence, and the concept of truth. Dahlstrom focuses on Heidegger’s work in the years immediately before and (...) after the publication of Being and Time, with particular emphasis on the lecture courses from this period, especially the one published as Logik: Die Frage nach der Wahrheit. (shrink)

This paper argues for the value of philosophers in a school of social sciences within a university, for fixing what I call disciplinary constitutions. A disciplinary constitution is a statement of “How our discipline works: how we achieve the ends of our discipline.” A lot of people depend on a constitution, but such a thing usually runs into problems and philosophers can identify these problems and propose solutions. I suggest that it is essential for the autonomy of an ambitious school (...) to be able to do such work internally. (shrink)

Omniscience is the divine attribute of possessing complete or unlimited knowledge. This article examines motivations for taking such a property to be a divine attribute, attempts to define or analyse omniscience, possible limitations on the extent of divine knowledge, and, finally, objections either to the coherence of the concept or to its compatibility with other divine attributes or with widely accepted claims.

This document gathers together, in summary form, objections scattered across many papers and multiple online databases. Nevertheless, it omits some objections, notably complicated ones.

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

This paper tries to capture Salvador Dali’s conception of a genius in his Diary of a Genius. The Japanese writer Mishima strikes me as of a comparable level, but if so it seems he either does not think of himself as a genius or he has a different conception of genius.

If beliefs are a map by which we steer, then, ceteris paribus, we should want a more accurate map. However, the world could be structured so as to punish learning with respect to certain topics—by learning new information, one’s situation could be worse than it otherwise would have been. We investigate whether the world is structured so as to punish learning specifically about moral nihilism. We ask, if an ordinary person had the option to learn the truth about moral nihilism, (...) ought she to take it? We argue, given plausible assumptions about ordinary human preferences, she should not. (shrink)

On one natural interpretation of what the narrator from Notes from Underground is saying, “People are rebels.” If you give them evidence that this is the career path for them, say, they do something else. But underdeterminism entails one objection to this theory.

The author resolves a conflict between Frege's view that the cognitive significance of coreferential names may be distinct and Kaplan's view that since coreferential names have the same "character", they have the same cognitive significance. A distinction is drawn between an expression's "character" and its "cognitive character". The former yields the denotation of an expression relative to a context (and individual); the latter yields the abstract sense of an expression relative to a context (and individual). Though coreferential names have the (...) same character, they may have distinct cognitive characters. Propositions involving these abstract senses play an important role in explaining de dicto belief contexts. (shrink)

I present a sense of the term “ideal theory” based on Joseph Raz’s response to the situation of a lifeguard faced with three drowning on one side and two on the other and unable to save all. From what is of value, such a theory builds up a conception of an ideal political state or an aspect of it which we have reason to realize, but ignoring whether it is possible for us to realize this.

In place of earlier instrumentalist and phenomenalist interpretations of science both Quine and Sellars have developed highly influential realist positions centering around the doctrine that accepting a theory as explanatory and irreducible rationally entails accepting the entities posited by the theory. A growing reaction against this realism is partially based on perceived inadequacies in the doctrines of Quine and Sellars, but even more on reconstructions of scientific explanations which do not involve such ontic commitments. Three types of anti-realistic positions are (...) considered and criticized. Hesse's neo-Duhemian position couples a statistical theory of inference to a downgrading of purely theoretical statements. Sneed uses the method of axiomatrization through set-theoretic predicates to supply a reconstruction of Kuhn's account of scientific development. Here Ramsey-reduction sentences serve to eliminate purely theoretical terms. The longest section deals with van Fraassen's semantic model based on a state-space representation of scientific theories and the use of this model in interpreting quantum mechanics. It is argued that the model is valuable, but that the anti-realist interpretation accorded it is not justified and entails serious inconsistencies. (shrink)

The justification of the theory -- Gewirth's argument for the principle of generic consistency -- Objections to Gewirth's argument -- Positive rights and community -- Agents and persons : the dignity-conferring value of rights -- A reconstruction of Gewirth's argument for the PGC around the concept of self-respect -- The unity of the right and the good : rights, virtues, and sentiments -- The unity of the right and the good -- Conflicts of duties : special obligations -- The resolution (...) of the conflict between self-interest and morality -- Justification, motivation, and compliance -- The conflict between self-interest and morality -- The practical application of the theory : a neo-stoic perspective -- The ethical foundations of professional practice -- The application of the PGC in professional ethics -- The neo-stoicism of Gewirth's rationalist ethics. (shrink)

Apparently the Western philosophical tradition has (wrongly) preferred speech over writing – so claims Jacques Derrida. In this paper, I consider whether utilitarianism involves such a preference. There are at least two arguments against the claim.

Science provides us with representations of atoms, elementary particles, polymers, populations, genetic trees, economies, rational decisions, aeroplanes, earthquakes, forest fires, irrigation systems, and the world’s climate. It's through these representations that we learn about the world. This entry explores various different accounts of scientific representation, with a particular focus on how scientific models represent their target systems. As philosophers of science are increasingly acknowledging the importance, if not the primacy, of scientific models as representational units of science, it's important to (...) stress that how they represent plays a fundamental role in how we are to answer other questions in the philosophy of science (e.g. the scientific realism debate). This entry begins by disentangling ‘the’ problem of scientific representation, before critically evaluating the current options available in the literature. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a problem for regarding the reflective equilibrium and original position methods as consistent. I do not prove that there is an inconsistency, but there is a puzzle of how the two methods can be made consistent. The concern about inconsistency is because the former method allows for a kind of historical bias, as noted by T.H. Irwin, whereas the latter method seeks to guard against historical bias.

In her paper ‘An Awkward Relationship: the Case of Feminism and Anthropology’, Marilyn Strathern argues that feminist research cannot produce a paradigm shift in social anthropology. I reconstruct her arguments and evaluate them, revealing that they are insufficient for ruling out this possibility.

Practical commitment is Janus-faced, looking outward toward the expectations it creates and inward toward their basis in the agent’s will. This paper criticizes Kantian attempts to link these facets and proposes an alternative. Contra David Velleman, the availability of a conspiratorial perspective (not yours, not your interlocutor’s) is what allows you to understand yourself as making a lying promise – as committing yourself ‘outwardly’ with the deceptive reasoning that Velleman argues cannot provide a basis for self-understanding. Moreover, the intrapersonal availability (...) of such a third perspective is what enables you to commit yourself ‘inwardly.’ Here I offer an alternative to Christine Korsgaard’s account of practical commitment, on which committing yourself requires identifying yourself with a principle. You needn’t identify yourself with a principle, I argue, because the unity at which you aim when you commit yourself is a unity not with your acting self but with a later perspective, where the relation is one of self-intelligibility, not self-justification, and therefore needn’t be mediated by principles. This ‘twice-future’ perspective – neither your present intending nor your (once-)future acting but a third perspective that looks back on that relation – plays the intrapersonal role played in interpersonal commitment by potential co-conspirators. Kantians are therefore right to link your ability to commit yourself with your ability credibly to express that commitment to others. But the linkage generates a strikingly unKantian result. The nature of agency cannot provide an apriori basis for honesty because what enables you to commit yourself is what also enables you to lie. (shrink)