The background to this paper is the question of how rational belief is possible in the light of the commonly presented infinite regress in reasons. The paper investigates the neglected question of whether this regress is vicious. I argue that given the genuine requirements of rational belief, The regress would require the rational believer to hold an infinity of beliefs, Which is impossible. The regress would not entail the rational believer holding an infinitely complex belief, Which, Admittedly, Would be logically (...) impossible. (shrink)

This book shows otherwise. John Martin rehabilitates Neoplatonism, founded by Plotinus and brought into Christianity by St. Augustine.

Clearly, if a man holds a self-contradictory belief, then his belief cannot be rational, for there can be no set of evidence sufficient to justify it. This is most apparent when the self contradictory belief is a belief in a conjunction, , rather than when it is a non-conjunctive self-contradictory belief, e.g. a belief that red is not a color.

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"In 1982, the author of this book issued a "promissory note" of just the sort that analytic philosophers of the twentieth century have led us to expect will come to nothing. This particular "note" occurred as a passing remark in the concluding chapter of his Introducing Semiotic (Indiana University Press) to the effect that it would be possible to establish the classical distinction between sense and intellect by means of the analysis of the role of relations in the action of (...) signs." "Provoked by the remark of a colleague that, could this promissory note be fulfilled, it would provide "the first essay worth reading on the subject since the days of Locke and Hume," Deely decided to break with the analytic tradition of leaving promissory notes unfulfilled and to develop the alleged possible proof in full." "A colloquium convened by Professor Norma Tasca, in the Fall of 1995 in Porto, Portugal, provided Deely with the occasion. His lengthy essay for the occasion, ponderously titled "The Intersemiosis of Perception and Understanding," became the initial draft of this book." "Especially in the circles of English-speaking philosophers, where a mere difference of degree between animal intelligence and human understanding has come to be largely taken for granted and philosophy has been reduced to a play of linguistic signs without regard for the dependency of those signs upon other signs whose play is far from linguistic, the work is bound to stimulate considerable debate."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

An interpretation in modal and tense logic is proposed for Boethius's reconciliation of God's foreknowledge with human freedom from The consolation of philosophy, Book V. The interpretation incorporates a suggestion by Paul Spade that God's special status in time be explained as a restriction of God's knowledge to eternal sentences. The argument proves valid, and the seeming restriction on omnipotence is mitigated by the very strong expressive power of eternal sentences.

Contrary to what the author dismisses as false claims of postmodernity, the work shows that what is truly postmodern in philosophy both goes beyond modernity and recovers philosophy's past in a renewed understanding of the human condition.

In these lines Micio criticizes the way in which his brother Demea rears his son and implies comparison with his own method. Two types of imperium are contrasted, ‘imperium ’ and ‘illud quod amicitia adiungitur’. It is the latter phrase which will be discussed here. If this meant ‘si imperium tibi amicitia adiungas’, there would be no difficulty: cf. Cic. Mur. 41 ‘benevolentiam adiungit lenitate audiendi’; Sext. Rose. 116 ‘auxilium sibi se putat adiunxisse.’ The acquisition of imperium, however, is not (...) relevant here; Micio is talking of the imperium that a man has qua father and the point at issue is the manner in which each man administers this imperium. (shrink)

What explanation is there of the source of my justification for my beliefs about my beliefs that respects the fact that I am normally the best authority on them? Moore's paradox demands an explanation of the absurdity of believing or asserting possible truths of the forms p but I don't believe that p or p but I believe that not-p. I argue for Evans principle that whatever justifies me in believing that p also justifies me in believing that I believe (...) that p. This helps explain how I come to know my own beliefs and also shows that it is impossible for a Moorean belief to be justified. I then explain the absurdity of Moorean assertion while avoiding the messy notion of 'expressing belief' yet acknowledging Shoemaker’s constraint that if I cannot non-absurdly believe that p then I cannot non-absurdly assert that p. (shrink)

In ‘Generalization and Induction: Misconceptions, Clarifications, and a Classification of Induction’, we comment on Lee and Baskerville’s paper ‘Generalizing Generalizability in Information Systems Research’, which attempts to clarify the concept of generalization and classify it into four types. Our commentary discusses the misconceptions in their paper and proposes an alternative classification of induction. Their response ‘Conceptualizing Generalizability: New Contributions and a Reply’ perpetuates their misconceptions and create new ones. The purpose of this rejoinder is to highlight the major problems both (...) in their original paper and in their reply and to provide further clarifications. Lee and Baskerville’s so-called ‘new language’ of describing research activities based on their concept of generalization is confusing. Their classification abuses the term ‘generalize’ and is self-contradictory. Hence, contrary to their claim, their classification and ours are not compatible. Also contrary to their claim that we advocate paradigmatic domination, our commentary is just about the correct use of terms such as ‘generalize’, ‘induction’ and ‘deduction’. (shrink)

This paper argues that Malebranche’s semantics sheds light on his metaphysics and epistemology, and is of interest in its own right. By recasting issues linguistically, it shows that Malebranche assumes a Neoplatonic semantic structure within Descartes’ dualism and Augustine’s theory of illumination, and employs linguistic devices from the Neoplatonic tradition. Viewed semantically, mental states of illumination stand to God and his ideas as predicates stand in Neoplatonic semantics to ideas ordered by a privative relation on “being.” The framework sheds light (...) on interpretive puzzles in Malebranche studies such as the way ideas reside in God’s mind, the notion of resemblance by which bodies imitate their exemplar causes, and the issue of direct vs. indirect perception through a mechanism by which agents can see bodies by “seeing” ideas. Malebranche’s semantics is of interest in its own right because it gives a full account of the mediating relations that determine indirect reference; lays out a correspondence theory of truth for necessary judgments; defines contingent truth as based on an indirect reference relation that is both descriptive and causal but that does not appeal to body-mind causation; and within his theory of perception, works out an account of singular reference in which singular terms carry existential import, refer indirectly via causal relations, but describe their referents only in a general way. (shrink)

Mind, in pursuing its natural thrust toward knowing reality and knowing itself knowing reality, has too often carried along with itself an empty structure which interferes with its objective. This structure is the ordinary formal-logical categories possible, impossible, contingent, necessary.

Neither novel should be read as predictions, the accuracy of which can be used to judge them. Rather, both attempt to portray what humanity could conceivably become. The authenticity of this conceivability is a necessary condition of the power of both works to raise central philosophical questions about the human condition. What is ethically wrong with control? How far can Man go in recreating himself? In what sense are these worlds anti-utopian? Are they really possible worlds? How credible are they (...) as political systems? In what ways do the different systems depict the end of humanity? What logical and moral objections could be made against their fictional apologists? (shrink)

A central feature of Confucianism is the doctrine that an adult child has, for want of a better word, the ‘duty’ to care for his elderly parents1. Whether this doctrine should be framed in terms of an ethic of duties as opposed to an ethic of virtues is a vexed question. It might be argued that the doctrine is best framed in terms of the behaviour and dispositions appropriate to an agent who is, within the Confucian moral vision, good. Nonetheless, (...) in both popular discourse and in much the secondary literature, the doctrine is characterized in terms of a moral ‘ought’. We will adopt this perspective, and talk of the ‘filial duty of care’. We investigate the empirical question of whether Chinese communities still have a strong sense of this duty. We conclude that although there is a widespread perception among Chinese communities that their sense of filial duty of care has been eroded, in fact the adherence to it remains robust. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

'An impressive synthesis of semiotics and anthropology which puts human experience in a new light. Deely gives us the foundation for a new paradigm for anthropology.' -Nathan Houser, Peirce Edition Project.

There is an almost overwhelming mass of material available to the scholar who wishes to investigate the history of the text of Terence's plays. The manuscripts themselves number over 450 and of these over 100 belong to the period 800-c. 1300. No one, however, has undertaken a comprehensive recension of even the older group of medieval manuscripts. One reason for this is that the extent to which contamination has occurred makes classification extremely difficult, another is that it is unlikely that (...) the laborious task of examining and studying so many manuscripts will produce much new evidence for the text itself. Many of the corruptions which survive in the plays probably arose at an early stage in the tradition and prior to the archetype of the manuscripts which have been used by past editors. Any marked advance in the constitution of the text would seem to depend on the discovery of a manuscript which belonged to a different tradition. (shrink)