Epistemology is often a problem for libertarianism. Many libertarian texts assume that they need to do more than explain and defend the libertarian conjecture. Instead, they try to offer epistemological support for it (whether empirically or morally); which falsificationism and, more broadly, critical rationalism explains is not possible. Moreover, they often mistake this attempt at support for an explanation of libertarianism (which ought to include an abstract theory of liberty and how it relates to liberty in practice). Therefore, when a (...) criticism of falsificationism appears on a libertarian website it seems useful to reply to it (even though no discussion of libertarianism itself is involved). (shrink)

Readers of “Falsificationism Redux” (the rejoinder) may have found it to be another waffling non-explanation of induction and the alleged falsity of falsificationism—or even self-refuting, as its title indicates (redux: brought back, revived, restored). However, it seems worth another round of replies if only because the arguments are fairly typical of the would-be ‘inductivist’ and it might help some people who have yet to see how these arguments fail.

It is the purpose of this paper to carry out a partial syntactical analysis of imperatives. Imperatives form a large body of linguistic expressions, appearing, e.g. in mathematical proofs be a continuous function!”), laws, moral injunctions, instruction, etc. For analytical purposes we distinguish between two forms of imperatives, the fiat and the directive. By a directive we mean an imperative which includes an indication of the agent who is to carry it out. For example, “Henry, don't forget to stop at (...) the grocery!” is a directive. By a fiat we mean an imperative which includes no reference to an agent who is to carry it out. For example, “Let there be light!” is a fiat. This is a distinction made in terms of meaning. If, however, proper symbolic devices were introduced for the formalization of imperatives, it could be made in a syntactical manner. Thus we could distinguish between imperatives which possess a certain operator—the directive operator formed by putting a name within square brackets—as “[Henry]!”, and imperatives which do not possess this operator, e.g. “Let it be the case that Henry does not forget to stop at the grocery!” In the following we pay attention only to fiats. This, of course, involves a great limitation of subject matter and excludes topics of great interest. (shrink)

No presente artigo, defendemos que uma constelação é formada por gêneros que se diferenciam em seus propósitos comunicativos específicos, mas que podem ser agrupados por razões diversas, como para a realização de uma tarefa para a qual seja necessária uma cadeia de gêneros. (SWALES, 2004). Com base na perspectiva teórica acima, objetivamos discutir as implicações pedagógicas do conceito de constelação de gêneros, tomando como referência o ensino da língua materna. Acreditamos que a compreensão do citado fenômeno, por parte dos professores, (...) pode ser útil para este ensino na medida em que a competência sociodiscursiva dos alunos pode ser ampliada em relação a um determinado elemento motivador da constelação. Isto se justifica porque os gêneros que se constelam se tornam distintos entre si graças à teia de propósitos comunicativos que eles formam dentro da constelação, a fim de atender às mais diversas funções sociais dentro da tarefa maior em função da qual eles se encadeiam. Portanto, o estudo de cadeia de gêneros dentro de uma tarefa escolar maior pode proporcionar aos estudantes uma visão mais ampla da função social dos gêneros, não limitando a compreensão acerca dos modos como a sociedade organiza seus processos comunicativos nos diversos tipos de constelação que podem existir. (shrink)

I am grateful to the commentators for their deep engagement with the issues raised in my paper. They raise a number of important challenges and questions about the use of frailty i...

Excluding only pure nominalists and "imagists" he includes in the classical theory "almost everyone who lived before the second decade of the twentieth century." This of course covers most of the other general types of theory found in the epistemology textbooks: that concepts are in the mind, that they are also in the thing, and finally that they are fundamentally prior to the thing. These types may be exemplified by Locke, Aristotle, and Plato, respectively. The controversy between these three schools (...) Price feels can for his purposes be regarded as a "domestic difference within the classical tradition." His subsidiary discussions of these differences he confines almost entirely to the first two. The Platonic theory he handles very lightly and gingerly; "it is a sufficiently difficult task in these days to convince people that there is any sense in talking of universals at all, even in the mild and moderate Aristotelian way". (shrink)

Rights have two properties which prima facie appear to be inconsistent. The first is that they are conditional in the sense that one some occasions it is always justifiable for someone to act in a way which appears to be inconsistent with someone else's rights, such as when the defence of necessity applies. The second is that rights are indefeasible in the sense that they are not subject to being defeated our outweighed by utilitarian or policy considerations. If we view (...) rules and the rights which they establish as being subject to a ceteris paribus clause, the form of which generates out the exceptions, the conditionality of rights becomes reconcilable with their nondefeasibility. Such a view of rules and rights would entail that the goals of the law and their orderings be considered as a part of the law. When so viewed, propositions about goals and their orderings become legitimate premises for legal reasoning, furnishing solutions to hard cases in the law of torts, without resort to balancing of interests or judicial discretion. (shrink)

ExcerptIn what follows, I would like to investigate the character of traditional Christian ritual, not as a full or comprehensive interpretation, but as a single step in that direction, inspired by recent archaeological excavations in southeastern Turkey and elsewhere that imply the primacy of ritual over material and economic factors in the development of society.1 The implications of these findings suggest that both anthropology and philosophy might focus on ritual as a key to the human. Yet if archaeological remains possess (...) the virtue of keys to the primordial, they also suffer from ineradicable obscurity that the absence of decipherable inscription…. (shrink)

J C Forge; A Role for Philosophy of Science in the Teaching of Science, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 13, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 109–117, http.

Louis Frédéric Ancillon was a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres whose imagined dialogue between Berkeley and Hume was read to the Academy in 1796 and published in 1799. It is important as an indicator of the reception of Hume and Berkeley in francophone philosophical circles in late eighteenth-century Prussia. Our introduction is followed by an English translation with notes.