A radical opponent of Western higher education asserts that its pedagogy and content depend on belief in objective truth and knowledge. This epistemology and education are attacked as exclusive and domineering toward women, minorities, and non-Westerners. The critic puts forward a pragmatist epistemology, leading to multi-cultural education aimed at social criticism and personal autonomy. The critic's dialogue with a defender of traditional epistemological ideas provides a critical introduction to the claims justifying many radical criticisms of Western curricula and pedagogy.

A semantics is presented for Storrs McCall's separate axiomatizations of Aristotle's accepted and rejected polysyllogisms. The polysyllogisms under discussion are made up of either assertoric or apodeictic propositions. The semantics is given by associating a property with a pair of sets: one set consists of things having the property essentially and the other of things having it accidentally. A completeness proof and a semantic decision procedure are given.

The paper shows that for any invalid polysyllogism there is a procedure for constructing a model with a domain with exactly three members and an interpretation that assigns non-empty, non-universal subsets of the domain to terms such that the model invalidates the polysyllogism.

Fred's semantics for McCall's syntactic presentation of Aristotle's assertoric and apodeictic syllogistic is altered to free it from Thom's objections that it is unAristotelian. The altered semantics rejects Baroco-XLL and Bocardo-LXL, which Thom says Aristotle should have accepted. Aristotle's proofs that use ecthesis are formalized by using singular sentences. With one exception the (acceptance) axioms for McCall's system L-X-M are derivable. Formal proofs are shown to be sound.

Fred shows how problems with Slater's restriction of the classical propositional logic can be solved.

McCall's system for contingent syllogisms is modified. A semantics for the resulting system is provided.

Aristotle's syllogistic is extended to include denumerably many quantifiers such as 'more than 2/3' and 'exactly 2/3.' Syntactic and semantic decision procedures determine the validity, or invalidity, of syllogisms with any finite number of premises. One of the syntactic procedures uses a natural deduction account of deducibility, which is sound and complete. The semantics for the system is non-classical since sentences may be assigned a value other than true or false. Results about symmetric systems are given. And reasons are given (...) for claiming that syllogistic validity is relevant validity. (shrink)

One semantic and two syntactic decision procedures are given for determining the validity of Aristotelian assertoric and apodeictic syllogisms. Results are obtained by using the Aristotelian deductions that necessarily have an even number of premises.

A theorem due to Shoesmith and Smiley that axiomatizes two-valued multiple-conclusion logics is extended to partial logics.

Consequence rleations over sets of "judgments" are defined by using "overdetermined" as well as "underdetermined" valuations. Some of these relations are shown to be categorical. And generalized soundness and completeness results are given for both multiple and single conclusion consequence relations.

Syllogisms with or without negative terms are studied by using Gergonne's ideas. Soundness, completeness, and decidability results are given.

Counting functions are shown to be complete by using a simpler argument than that used by Pelletier and Martin.

Parry discusses an extension of Aristotle's syllogistic that uses four nontraditional quantifiers. We show that his conjectured decision procedure for validity for the extended syllogistic is correct even if syllogisms have more than two premises. And we axiomatize this extension of the syllogistic.

In this first study of the role of scepticism in literature, Fred Parker offers a lively and stimulating introduction to key issues in eighteenth-century literature and philosophy. Parker traces the presence of sceptical thinking in works by Pope, Hume, Sterne, and Johnson, relates it more broadly to the social self-consciousness of eighteenth-century culture, and discusses its source in Locke and its inspiration in Montaigne.

This volume shows how Gandhi's thought and action-oriented approach are significant, relevant, and urgently needed for addressing major contemporary problems and concerns, including issues of violence and nonviolence, war and peace, religious conflict and dialogue, terrorism, ethics, civil disobedience, injustice, modernism and postmodernism, oppression and exploitation, and environmental destruction. Appropriate for general readers and Gandhi specialists, this volume will be of interest for those in philosophy, religion, political science, history, cultural studies, peace studies, and many other fields.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume on the Abstract Idea of Existence: Comments on Cummins' "Hume on the Idea of Existence"1 Fred Wilson Hume'sviews on theconceptofexistence: thisisone ofthemore obscure parts of Hume's philosophy. Professor Cummins has done a valuable service simply by trying to unravel some ofthe puzzles; it is still more valuable for shedding as much light as it does on the issues. There are nonetheless problems with the interpretation that he (...) develops, and I would like to bring out some ofthese. I will address three questions: (a)What, more precisely, is the (abstract) idea ofexistence? (b)What is the notion of"necessity" as Hume would use it in connection with the notion that something exists "necessarily," or, contrarily, "contingently"? (c)Does it follow from the fact that whatever thing we conceive we conceive as existent that every thing necessarily exists? In order toanswerthese questions somethingwillhave tobe said about Hume's doctrine ofabstractideas. Butonall theseissues, Humeis often not so much inadequate as incomplete; and I shall suggest that a numberofpoints canbeilluminatedbylookingatthe historical context that Hume himselfcould take for granted. The upshot will not be that Hume's views are unproblematic, but only that they are perhaps less problematic than Professor Cummins makes out. I. Abstract Ideas In many respects, Hume's doctrine of ideas is fairly traditional. We think in terms ofideas. In particular, our capacity to think generally, and to use general terms, is a matter ofhaving abstract ideas. In this, Hume follows the views ofhis predecessors such as Locke, Descartes and the Port Royal logicians. Hume also adopts the principle that what is conceivable is possible. Again, he follows the same tradition ofLocke, Volume XVII Number 2 167 FRED WILSON Descartes and the Port Royal logicians. Where Hume differs from his predecessors is in his account of what precisely an abstract is. For Hume's predecessors, one forms an abstract idea by separation. Thus, for Locke, forming ideas by abstraction consists in "separating them from all other Ideas that accompany them in their real existence."2 This sortofseparation is the mechanism bywhich "the Mind makes the particular Ideas, received from particular Objects, to become general" (Essay, 2.11.9). The Port Royal logicians make the same point: abstraction occurs with respect to "choses... composées" when one "les considérant par parties, et comme par les diverses faces qu'elles peuvent recevoir." In abstraction what is thus known is considered separately from the whole; either one considers "les parties séparément" in the case of"parties intégrantes," or one "peut séparer les choses en divers modes," or, finally, "quand une même chose ayant divers attributs, on pense à l'un sans penser à l'autre."3 The former occurs when, for example, we separate in thought the parts ofthe body. Thisis the simplestform ofabstraction. Berkeleyhas noproblems with this notion: "Iwill notdenyI can abstract, ifthatmay properlybe called abstraction, which extends only to the conceiving separately such objects, as is possible may really exist or be actually perceived asunder."4 Neither does Hume have problems with this notion; it is the basis of his—and Berkeley's—view that ideas are either simple or complex and that some of the complex ideas are a result of our combining simple parts in ways that are not found in reality, as, for example, in our idea ofthe New Jerusalem.5 It is the other two sorts ofabstraction that are more problematic. Consider the first of these two forms of abstraction. We begin with simple ideas ofsensation, for example, white (Essay, 2.3.1). One forms the abstract idea of white by separating the property white from the other qualities with which it is conjoined in the white particulars, for example, snow or milk (Essay, 2.21.73), that are given in sense experience. The resultingideais distinct from other ideas, for example, blue or heat (Essay, 2.12.1). The example given by Nicole and Arnauld is thatofthe geometers who explore the idea ofthree-dimensional space by considering first length alone, then area, and finally volumes or solids (which is the same, for these Cartesians as "corps," body) (Logique, 1.5). This is one form ofseparation. By this means one forms abstract... (shrink)

We submit a normative pragmatic theory of exhorting—an account of conceptually necessary and potentially efficacious components of a coherent strategy for securing a sympathetic hearing for efforts to urge and inspire addressees to act on high-minded principles. Based on a Gricean analysis of utterance-meaning, we argue that the concept of exhorting comprises making statements openly urging addressees to perform some high-minded, principled course of action; openly intending to inspire addressees to act on the principles; and intending that addressees’ recognition of (...) the intentions to urge and inspire creates reasons for addressees to grant a sympathetic hearing to what the speaker has to say. We show that the theory accounts for the design of Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Union address. By doing so we add to the inventory of reasons why social actors make arguments, continue a line of research showing the relationship of arguing to master speech acts, and show that making arguments can be an effective strategy for inspiring principled action. (shrink)

This paper contrasts two views of the necessity to manifest the rational adequacy of argumentation. The view advanced by Ralph Johnson’s program for informal logic will be compared to one based on an account of obligations incurred in speech acts. Both views hold that arguers are commonly obliged to make it apparent that they are offering adequate support for their positions, but they differ in their accounts of the nature and scope of those obligations.

Abstract W. E. Johnson argued that by taking into account both the epistemic and constitutive conditions for using arguments in inferences one could dissolve the paradoxes of material implication. This essay argues that the same sort of consideration can be used to dissolve the paradox of ravens in confirmation theory. It is argued in particular, and in agreement with certain points raised by the Popperians, that those instances of a generalization which are verifying but apparently not confirming cannot raise (...) the posterior of that generalization. (shrink)

This article defends a new model of personal privacy. Privacy should be understood as demarcating culturally defined aspects of an individual's life in which he or she is granted immunity from the judgment of others. Such an analysis is preferable to either of the two favorite models of privacy in the current literature. The judgment of others model preserves all of the insights of the liberty and information models of privacy, But avoids the obvious problems and counterexamples. In addition, This (...) model allows us to better see the normative importance of privacy. A final section discusses the notion of sexual privacy in connection to the proposed model. (shrink)

Political activists drive around with bumper stickers proclaiming their commitment to equality. Perhaps the bumper sticker loudly asserts “=!” Oppressed people lament their lack of equality. Political philosophers contemplate equality and try to formulate general principles about it. In recent days, some advocates of marriage rights for same-sex couples argued for their view by claiming it’s just a matter of equality. Indeed, one of their advocacy websites uses the name ‘Equality’.1 They want equal rights. Everyone seems to take it for (...) granted that equality is important. This seems entirely wrong to me. It seems to me that equality is legally (and politically and socially and economically and morally) irrelevant. (shrink)

Some theists maintain that they need not answer the threat posed to theistic belief by natural evil; they have reason enough to believe that God exists and it renders impotent any threat that natural evil poses to theism. Explicating how God and natural evil coexist is not necessary since they already know both exist. I will argue that, even granting theists the knowledge they claim, this does not leave them in an agreeable position. It commits the theist to a very (...) unpalatable position: our universe was not designed by God and is instead, most likely, a computer simulation. (shrink)

Pursuing Justice in Africa focuses on the many actors pursuing many visions of justice across the African continent--their aspirations, divergent practices, and articulations of international and vernacular idioms of justice. The essays selected by editors Jessica Johnson and George H. Karekwaivanane engage with topics at the cutting edge of contemporary scholarship across a wide range of disciplines. These include activism, land tenure, international legal institutions, and post-conflict reconciliation. Building on recent work in sociolegal studies that foregrounds justice over and (...) above concepts such as human rights and legal pluralism, the contributors grapple with alternative approaches to the concept of justice and its relationships with law, morality, and rights. While the chapters are grounded in local experiences, they also attend to the ways in which national and international actors and processes influence, for better or worse, local experiences and understandings of justice. The result is a timely and original addition to scholarship on a topic of major scholarly and pragmatic interest. Contributors: Felicitas Becker, Jonathon L. Earle, Patrick Hoenig, Stacey Hynd, Fred Nyongesa Ikanda, Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, Anna Macdonald, Bernadette Malunga, Alan Msosa, Benson A. Mulemi, Holly Porter, Duncan Scott, Olaf Zenker. (shrink)

The emergence of linguistic pragmatism has given rise to a lively debate over whether philosophy should focus on language or experience. But the experience vs. language dichotomy is just another type of dualism of the sort that pragmatists ought to be wary of. We need to appreciate that, insofar as pragmatism aspires to elucidate and transform our meaningful experience, it must recognize that meaning goes deeper than language. What linguistic pragmatists hope to do with language cannot be done without meaning (...) resources that are not themselves linguistic. Meaning, understanding, thinking, and valuing all have to be enacted as embodied processes. Moreover, no use or analysis of language is possible without an experience of meaning, and so we can never avoid experience in our philosophical undertakings, even granting that there is no perspective-free take on what some thing or event means. (shrink)

The 2010 Quinnipiac cheerleading case raises interesting questions about the nature of both cheerleading and sport, as well as about the moral character of each. In this paper we explore some of those questions, and argue that no form of college cheerleading currently in existence deserves, from a moral point of view, to be recognized as a sport for Title IX purposes. To reach that conclusion, we evaluate cheerleading using a quasi-legal argument based on the NCAA’s definition of sport and (...) conclude that cheerleading fails to qualify as a legitimate sport. A philosophical argument leads to the same conclusion, primarily because of the essential entertainment-aspect of cheerleading. We then examine a consequentialist moral case for making cheerleading an intercollegiate sport and argue that the balance of moral reasons is against doing so. Finally, we look at cheerleading’s newest offspring – Acrobatics and Tumbling, and STUNT – and express our moral reservations about their current claims to be worthy of Title IX recognition. While we would not claim that any single one of our arguments is decisive, we are convinced that the cumulative weight of the arguments against granting intercollegiate sport status to any of the forms of cheerleading or its derivatives is, at present, irresistible. (shrink)

"Sure to be controversial and of interest to a wide audience in feminist history" (Judith Grant, University of Southern California), this book draws on a wide range of political and intellectual traditions to demonstrate that, only by ...

The economic and moral defense of sweatshops given by Powell and Zwolinski has been criticized in two recent papers. Coakley and Kates focus on putative weaknesses in the logic of Powell’s and Zwolinski’s argument. Preiss :55–82, 2014) argues that, even granting the validity of their economic argument, Powell’s and Zwolinski’s defense is without force when viewed from a Kantian republican viewpoint. We are concerned that sweatshop critics have misinterpreted the economic literature and overstated the conclusions that follow from their ethical (...) premises. We show that the best understanding of the current economic literature supports Powell’s and Zwolinski’s conclusions about the negative effects of sweatshop wage regulation, and that it is unreasonable to reject economic analysis in moral argument against sweatshops even from a Kantian perspective. Additionally, we defend the theory of exploitation as unfairness given by Wertheimer, and show how economic analysis can be applied to that theory to identify cases of sweatshop exploitation. (shrink)

The U.S. agricultural research establishment has been severely criticized by biological and physical scientists, humanists, and various activist groups. The scientists have criticized concentration on short-run problems to the neglect of basic hard science research. The humanists have criticized agricultural researchers for failing to give adequate attention to such basic values as equity, the value of family farms, environmental values, etc.Closely related to the humanists' criticisms are those of activists who have railed against (1) an alleged alliance between big agribusinesses, (...) the agricultural research establishment, and large farmers, (2) multinational corporations, (3) alleged premature development of labor-saving technology in order to dispossess small farmers and eliminate jobs for farm laborers, and (4) the creation of technology unduly emphasizing fertilizers, pesticides, and fuels derived from exhaustible fossil energy. These activists' criticisms have been offset, in part, by activists who support the status quo.This paper demonstrates that logical positivism mitigates against the objective research of intrinsic (as opposed to exchange) values needed to satisfy such criticisms. Attention is given to the advantages of placing greater reliance on pragmatism and various forms of normativism. These philosophies have distinct advantages as guides for structuring and understanding the problem-solving and issue-oriented research that the land-grant colleges of agriculture are uniquely qualified to conduct. Such practical problems and issues will be numerous as we expand land use 50 to 100 million acres, double yields, and intensify land use in the next 50 years. (shrink)

This paper draws an antigonal line leading from Sophocles’s Antigone to the lynching of Emmett Till. Drawing this line is an attempt to celebrate and honor that spirit of defiance in the name of loving the dead and memorializing loss. In particular, it takes up that portion of the line that centers on lynching. An overarching goal is thus to argue that lynching and its afterlives deserve more philosophical attention than they have received, especially from American philosophers. It is long (...) past time that philosophers take on lynching as a meaningful while volatile topic, especially insofar as it makes claims on the racial identities of the philosophers doing so. But rather than addressing lynching in general, this paper looks at one particular point on this line: the lynching of Emmett Till and the defiant mourning of his mother, Mamie Bradley. Doing so is meant to invite others to locate other points on this antigonal line. Upon sketching Sophocles’s play and Till’s murder, I consider some of the key features of Hegel’s influential interpretation. While philosophy has been mostly silent on lynching, Hegel’s Phenomenology provides essential, while problematic, material for initiating a philosophical approach to this neglected topic. Building on Hegel’s reading, I next consider the nature of “white law and order” and its complicity in extrajudicial murder and terror. Then I turn to Black mourning, where I explore what Fred Moten calls Mamie Bradley’s “Black Mo’nin”—her antigonal refusal of the white drive to annihilate Black life—and consider her as a practitioner of Christina Sharpe’s notion of “wake work.” I then turn to an artistic intervention in lynching photography to take up Sharpe’s challenge for how to respectfully engage lynching given different racial identities. Finally, I conclude by sketching an opening for a possible next antigonal point: the work of Ida B. Wells. (shrink)

Keith Donnellan (1931 – ) began his studies at the University of Maryland, and earned his Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. He stayed on at Cornell, earning a Master’s and a PhD in 1961. He also taught at there for several years before moving to UCLA in 1970, where he is currently Emeritus Professor of Philosophy. Donnellan’s work is mainly in the philosophy of language, with an emphasis on the connections between semantics and pragmatics. His most influential work was his (...) 1966 paper “Reference and Definite Descriptions”. In this paper, he challenges the canonical view, due to Bertrand Russell, about definite descriptions. Russell had argued that the proper semantic treatment of a definite description such as “the present king of France” was quantificational. Thus, a sentence like “the present king of France is bald” should be analyzed as “There exists one and only one entity x that is the present king of France, and x is bald”. Donnellan argues that in natural languages, there are actually two different kinds of uses of definite descriptions. Russell’s analysis picks out the “attributive” use of definite descriptions. When we use a definite description (“the F”) this way, we mean to make statements about the unique entity x that is F. However, Donnellan notes that we also sometimes use definite descriptions “referentially” to pick out a given entity and say something about it. To see this, imagine you are at a party where virtually everyone is drinking beer. However, you and your friend are observing a man in a corner of the room holding a martini glass. Unbeknownst to you, the man’s glass is filled with water. You turn to your friend and ask, “who is the man drinking a martini?” Suppose further that your friend knows that the man in question is Fred and that Fred’s glass is filled with water. According to the Russellian attributive analysis, such a question would amount to asking for the identity of the one and only one man drinking a martini. But the presupposition that there is a man drinking a martini is false, and so there should be no answer to the question.. (shrink)

W.M. Marston introduced the magic lasso in Wonder Woman's origin story: created under the direction of the goddesses Aphrodite and Athena, it compelled anyone bound by it to obey whatever commands they were given. Princess Diana not only had to prove herself champion of the Amazons, but also devoted to the goddesses, to love and wisdom itself, before she was granted this "power to control others". To borrow from the Greek philosopher Plato's allegory: with the lasso, a person can be (...) dragged from the shadowy cave of ignorance into the light of truth and knowledge, whether they want to or not. It's this version of the lasso that this chapter focuses on. The chapter discusses four basic approaches to ethics that make good touchstones for this conversation. Although the Amazons have refined their combat skills over centuries, it is their core ethos to seek, whenever possible, non‐violent methods of preventing harm or addressing a threat. (shrink)

A decent education is a basic human right. The provision of free, compulsory education in the US attests to a national commitment to this right. However, thecurrent school system is plagued by inequities, including spending less money on schools serving predominantly poor and non-White populations, subjectingstudents of color to harsher punishments, putting non-White students in special education tracks at higher rates, and neglecting students who are not fluent inEnglish. These inequities are taken for granted within the school system, making the (...) inevitable outcome, achievement gaps between White and non-Whitestudents, seem natural and inevitable. Bourdieu calls this process of making arbitrary differences seem natural “symbolic violence.” Two recent federalinterventions, No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, have the potential to provide tools for combating this symbolic violence. However, each is designedaround flawed premises which inhibit that potential, which we explore in the context of teacher education. (shrink)

Appealing to Romans 10:17, Summa Halensis states, "'faith comes from hearing' and preaching is the exterior medium whereby people are instructed and moved to receive grace."1 Given this claim it may come as a surprise to many, that Francis of Assisi did not necessarily understand his propositum vitae to focus on the ministry of preaching. In his musings in the Testament two years before his death in 1226, he claims that the vocation of the brothers was to live according to (...) the form of the holy gospel.2 Even after Innocent III granted permission to him and his fellow paupers from Assisi in 1209 to continue their Gospel experiment and added that they could also preach penance, the exempla of lived experience took... (shrink)

An illustrated exploration of fandom that combines academic essays with artist pages and experimental texts. Fandom as Methodology examines fandom as a set of practices for approaching and writing about art. The collection includes experimental texts, autobiography, fiction, and new academic perspectives on fandom in and as art. Key to the idea of “fandom as methodology” is a focus on the potential for fandom in art to create oppositional spaces, communities, and practices, particularly from queer perspectives, but also through transnational, (...) feminist and artist-of-color fandoms. The book provides a range of examples of artists and writers working in this vein, as well as academic essays that explore the ways in which fandom can be theorized as a methodology for art practice and art history. Fandom as Methodology proposes that many artists and art writers already draw on affective strategies found in fandom. With the current focus in many areas of art history, art writing, and performance studies around affective engagement with artworks and imaginative potentials, fandom is a key methodology that has yet to be explored. Interwoven into the academic essays are lavishly designed artist pages in which artists offer an introduction to their use of fandom as methodology. Contributors Taylor J. Acosta, Catherine Grant, Dominic Johnson, Kate Random Love, Maud Lavin, Owen G. Parry, Alice Butler, SooJin Lee, Jenny Lin, Judy Batalion, Ika Willis. Artists featured in the artist pages Jeremy Deller, Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski, Anna Bunting-Branch, Maria Fusco, Cathy Lomax, Kamau Amu Patton, Holly Pester, Dawn Mellor, Michelle Williams Gamaker, The Women of Colour Index Reading Group, Liv Wynter, Zhiyuan Yang. (shrink)

We greatfully ackknowledge that research for this projrect was supported by N.E.H. fellowship and by grant from the American Philosophical Society. All Transletions are our own, unless otherwise noted.