The epistemic-basing relation is the relation that holds between a reason, or one’s grounds, and one’s belief when the belief is held for that reason. As I will explain, understanding this relation is crucial for epistemology since basing a belief on a reason seems necessary for epistemic justification to obtain. But what is the nature of this relation? Is it, at least in part, causal as one might assume? Or, due to problems with causal accounts, are rival accounts of the (...) basing relation motivated? That depends whether causal theories are really subject to the standard objections made against them. I will discuss what I take to be the most fundamental objection here. (shrink)

This review is mainly expository. At one place, Following a suggestion of carnap's, It is suggested that advances in brain physiology might enable us to revive the notion of conventional truth.

Orthologic is defined by weakening the axioms and rules of inference of the classical propositional calculus. The resulting Lindenbaum-Tarski quotient algebra is an orthoimplication algebra which generalizes the author's implication algebra. The associated order structure is a semi-orthomodular lattice. The theory of orthomodular lattices is obtained by adjoining a falsity symbol to the underlying orthologic or a least element to the orthoimplication algebra.

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)

This paper is written in an analytic style, but it is meant to deprive analysis of an important prop. The title needs a short introduction. The mistake is to take ‘real’ as governed in its separate uses by criteria; and this paper is meant to show that this is a mistake and that Ausin makes it. In the course of the argument I try to develop my own account and, although I am not altogether satisfied with it, the result gives (...) something to build upon. I believe the mistake is by no means confined to Austin, but that it is connected with a particular conception of philosophy. (shrink)

I do not approach the question of free will as a scientist, like Colin Blakemore, or a lawyer, like David Hodgson, or philosopher, like Daniel Dennett, but as a priest -- someone who feels responsible for my own actions and who is called upon to counsel and absolve such as come to me with their shame and their guilt. Should I say that their sense of responsibility is illusory? Or should I encourage them to accept responsibility, and then to deal (...) with it in the various ways -- religious, psychological and practical -- that are open to them? (shrink)

Williamson claims that we are cognitive homeless, and for most aspects of our cognitive life it is not the case that if we are in the mental state S we know or are in a position to know that we are in said mental state. In this paper, I critically examine Williamson’s argument, some common misconceptions, and provide a different understanding of the way we relate to our own mental states that shows how we are not always in a condition (...) of cognitive homelessness. (shrink)

In this article, I present a critical literature study of the theoretical approach of practical theologians in South Africa to our discipline, in honour of Yolanda Dreyer on her 60th birthday. Some of my colleagues' approaches at the universities of Stellenbosch, Free State, Pretoria, Unisa and NWU are discussed. All of them work with practical theological hermeneutics. The basic hermeneutic approach of Daniël Louw is widened with an integrated approach by Richard R. Osmer in which practical theology as a hermeneutic (...) discipline also includes the empirical aspect which the action theory approach has contributed to the discussion. After discussing Louw's basic hermeneutic approach, all the other colleagues who basically accepted Osmer's approach in their publications are discussed. Important and new ground is being broken by contemporary colleagues, including research in public practical theology, without neglecting the focus on Christian congregations, and new work is being done at the grass roots level of African issues in our country. (shrink)