"Remarkable how well Bouwsma understood Wittgenstein's approach to philosophical problems and how intelligently he was able to recount Wittgenstein's discussions. The bits about sensation are especially good. And the asides about the other philosophers--e.g. Dewey, Russell, Anscombe--are, while not frivolous, gossipy and titillating." --Riley Wallihan, Western Oregon University.

This paper critically examines a formal argument against deducing ‘ought’-judgments from ‘is’-judgments, an argument suggested by a literal reading of a famous passage in Hume'sTreatise of Human Nature. According to this argument, judgments of the two kinds have different logical structures (i.e., their subjects are differently related to their predicates) and this difference disallows cross-categorical deductive inferences. I draw on Fregean accounts of the ‘is’- copula and on syntactical interpretations of ‘ought’-judgments that have become standard in deontic logic to argue (...) that twentieth century work in philosophical grammar and logic casts doubt on all three of the argument's premises. (shrink)

The Roman Inquisition against Heretical Depravity, also known as the Holy Office, established in 1542, and the Congregation of the Index of Prohibited Books, announced officially in 1572, undertook to protect Italy from ideas and practices that menaced the authority of the Roman Catholic Church in this world and the salvation of its members in the next. This grandiose public-health program required trained and dedicated thought police to receive and evaluate alarms from the public and, when business was bad, to (...) seek out sources of infection themselves. The resultant records of accusations, investigations, trials, condemnations, expurgations, and exceptions, if extant in its entirety, would go far to fill.. (shrink)

Deals with the question of whether there is a use of ‘is true’ that is the primary or generic name for that which at bottom we are always saying ‘is true’. Austin discusses the views that truth is primarily a property of beliefs and of true statements. He goes on to argue that the word ‘true’ denotes the validity of an intended correspondence between a representation and what it represents, and dismantles confusions about the meaning of the words that underlie (...) such a view, such as ‘fact that’ and ‘corresponds’. (shrink)

A reflection upon the experience of time reveals two data : An infinitely rapid flow of nows through the present, and the unmoving everpresence of the now in which I live. This all-pervasive duality of the present is implicit in many analyses of time, including Husse'rl's, but it needs to, be made ex- plicit. Although our data are, by the nature of the case, perfectly available for our inspection, their explication is not easy (as Augustine's frustration indicates). Consequently, the explication (...) will be achieved slowly and per- haps indirectly, through arguments about the present and through illustrative metaphors. The following initial characterization will serve as. a referent for succeeding explications. (shrink)