Thomas Ricketts has developed a powerful interpretation of Frege on judgment, truth and logic. Recently, Ricketts has modified his reading, holding that judgment is an act of knowledge-acquisition; this rules out incorrect judgment. I argue that Ricketts goes too far here. I criticize the textual basis for Ricketts's new view, and show that the interpretive problems which led him to this change can be met without such extreme measures. Thus, I defend Ricketts' earlier view against his own later modification. Along (...) the way I discuss Kant and Brentano on judgment, and I explore Fregean argument concerning the objectivity of truth. (shrink)

This essay places Paulo Freire in dialogue with a Black Radical Tradition (BRT) in three distinct yet interrelated ways. First, the paper situates the significance of Cedric’s Robinson’s articulation of a BRT while exploring how contemporary scholars are troubling his disputatious relationship with Marxist social thought. Second, the paper foregrounds Freire’s modest contributions to a BRT in his anticolonial literacy campaigns in Guinea Bissau, Africa. Extending the principles of ‘dialogical cultural action’ in the context of African struggle that Freire documented (...) in the letters compiled in Pedagogy in Process, a robust theorization of solidarity comes into sharper view. Third, the paper calls for further reinvention of Freire pointing to the ways his cogent analysis can be augmented by other racialized groups and radical traditions in solidarity with Black struggle to more explicitly confront the inherent racism and anti-Blackness fundamental to global capitalism. (shrink)

The moral complexity surrounding intervention is influenced by a broad spectrum of both ethical and practical assumptions and considerations.

In this paper, I argue that, on a reductionist reading of Buddhist no-self ontology, Buddhists could not have sincere ethical intentions toward persons. And if Buddhists cannot have sincere intentions toward persons, they cannot have second-personal moral reasons for acting. From this I conclude that Buddhists fail to qualify as genuine members of the moral community if, as some contemporary Anglo-American moral philosophers argue, such membership depends on an individual agent’s having the capacity to be motivated by second-personal moral reasons.

This little book which is a sequel to "Cartesianism" is not written for professional philosophers. Its less ambitious purpose is to initiate undergraduate students of Catholic Universities and Colleges, who are engaged in the study of scholastic philosophy, into a knowledge of the fundamental principles of those numerous systems that have contributed to the chaos of modern thought from the time of Descartes to the present day.

The three books reviewed in this essay, Morality Among Nations: An Evolutionary View , Righteous Realists: Political Realism, Responsible Power, and American Culture in the Nuclear Age , and Securing Europe , in some sense represent a reaction to Reagan's ideological policies.

The essay first makes some observations on the general interrelationship between the logical writings of Albert and Buridan. Second, it gives an account of a ‘semantic logical model’ for analyzing complex subject terms in some basic categorical propositions which is defended by Albert of Saxony, and briefly recounts Buridan's criticisms of that model. Finally, the essay maintains that the Albertian model is typically compatible with, and a further development of, what is called by a late-fourteenth century anonymous scholar ‘the English-Rule’ (...) but the ‘determinable/determinate’ grammatical model defended by Buridan is not. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Effective communication relies on the use of rhetorical devices and strategies to make ideas present in the minds of an audience. By employing the concept of cognitive environments, we can use the visual analogy of making an idea “present” to its fullest effect, empowering our rhetorical skills and helping influence audience reception. In this article, the author argues that while cognitive environments do indeed provide a significant and important conceptual tool for understanding and anticipating an audience’s experiences, beliefs, and (...) knowledge, a more robust sense of agreement is necessary. The article proposes the concept of a topos that serves as a shared meeting place within cognitive environments within which both author and audience contribute their background assumptions to find common ground and commonalities in interpretations. It is in figuring the topos effectively that cognitive environments can be more accurately and effectively mapped onto each other, and breaches between such environments can be productively bridged. (shrink)

The first chapter explores the theory developed in Kripke's "Outline of a Theory of Truth." A tension in Kripke's account of the concept of truth is revealed--a conflict between two intuitions. The first intuition, called the "fixed point conception of truth," is that the whole meaning of the truth predicate is given by the formula "we may assert of a sentence that it is true iff we may assert that sentence." The second intuition, called the "thesis of the supervenience of (...) semantics," is that the interpretation of the truth predicate is determined by the interpretations of all the other non-logical constants of the language. I show that these two intuitions cannot be reconciled within the context of Kripke's theory, and I argue for the choice of the fixed point conception of truth over the principle of the supervenience of semantics. Chief among the considerations that I advance is the fact that the fixed point conception of truth yields a natural logic of truth. In the second chapter I present that logic of truth in the form of a cut-free sequent calculus. I then turn, in chapter three, to a discussion of the significance of such cut-free sequent calculi. I argue that we may view the sequent calculus introduction rules for a logical constant as giving the meaning of that constant, under certain conditions. In particular, we can see our logic of truth as providing an explication of our intuitive concept of truth which complements Kripke's original model-theoretic explication. The fourth chapter takes up some criticisms of Kripke's theory which center on the logic of truth. In addition, the general ideas developed in the first three chapters are applied in a discussion of the various schemes of three-valued logic which can be used in the development of Kripke's approach. Finally, in the last chapter, it is shown that Kripke's technical concepts, and the logical ideas developed in the second and third chapters, can be used to provide a unified account of many contexts in which paradox arises. (shrink)

This paper offers the first philosophical analysis of a form of artificial intelligence (AI) which the author calls facial profiling technology (FPT). FPT is a type of facial analysis technology designed to predict criminal behavior based solely on facial structure. Marketed for use by law enforcement, face classifiers generated by the program can supposedly identify murderers, thieves, pedophiles, and terrorists prior to the commission of crimes. At the time of this writing, an FPT company has a contract with the United (...) States federal government. After recounting how FPT resurrects the same moral problems associated with the pseudoscience of physiognomy, the author of this manuscript develops and defends the ‘Liberal Argument Against Facial Discrimination’ (LAAFD), which concludes that government use of FPT poses a significant risk of violating the classical liberal value of equality before the law by committing unjust discrimination against groups of people whose faces happen to match FPT classifiers. A key move in the argument suggests how a future scenario that results in widespread discrimination based solely on facial structure could be as unjustified and harmful, mutatis mutandis, as similar discrimination based solely on racial background. In the final section, the author of this paper develops prima facie policy proposals designed to protect classical liberal values if FPT is to be utilized by governments in liberal democratic societies. (shrink)

A number of thinkers in recent decades have argued that, in light of the Trinity, we can see that God's being is communion. Particularly effective was John D. Zizioulas, whose Trinitarian ontology centered on communion. Some skeptical of this claim have invoked Aquinas as a source for countering an ontology of communion. I argue that, while Thomas never explicitly affirms that the divine being is communion, he can give us deep resources for reaching this conclusion. Indeed, he can ultimately lead (...) us towards a divine being which is more thoroughly a matter of communion—and towards an ontology which is more radically Trinitarian—than anything we find in Zizioulas. (shrink)

Smith provides a summary of Walzer's work, with particular emphasis on his method of moral argument. Walzer's argument emphasizes the importance of moral judgment based on the principle of human rights rather than on utilitarian calculation.

This book examines spectral haunting through the philosophies of Levinas and Derrida. Arguing that moral obligation can appear terrifying to the complacent self, the text interrogates ethical responsibility in contemporary horror genres.

This dissertation aims at forging an archetectonic link between Kant's first and third Critiques within a cognitive-semantic framework. My aim is to show how the major conceptual innovations of Kant’s third Critique can be plausibly understood in terms of the theoretical aims of the first, (Critique of Pure Reason). However, unlike other cognition-oriented approaches to Kant's third Critique, which take the point of contact between the first and third Critique's to be the first Critique's Transcendental Analytic, I link these two (...) works via the first Critique's Transcendental Dialectic, specifically its discussions of the "ideas of pure reason." -/- According to Kant, the “ideas of pure reason” (IPRs) — viz., the notions of self, world-whole, and God — are innate content-bearing entities representing three types of transempirical object, none of which are possible objects of cognition. However, although Kant denies that these rather unique content-bearers can be used for purposes of “speculative cognition,” he does think that they have an internal functional value for human cognitive systems. Although under my analysis of their functional value the IPRs subserve a highest-order aim which derives from theoretical reason — namely, to ground and optimize cognitive systematicity — their directive content in fact renders their implementation(thus their form of intentionality) more characteristic of practical reason. Kant’s positive account of reason’s “interest” in and use of the IPRs exhibits a kind of cognitive pragmatism. -/- Of utmost concern to the cognitive-semantic enterprise, as I conceive it, is the development of (what might be called) a metaphysics of intentionality. A `metaphysics of intentionality', as I use the term, refers to a coherent set of postulative propositional cognitions (or, at any rate, content-bearing entities) implemented, first, for the sake of rationally explaining the phenomenological unity and object-directed character of our perceptual states and, second, to explain why the objects represented in such states are, or must be, law-governed and thus necessarily amenable to scientific investigation. On my view, the discussions in Kant’s third Critique nontrivially contribute to the development of a metaphysics of intentionality and thus to the larger cognitive-semantic enterprise of Kant's first Critique, and it is this link that lends Kant's third Critique a cognitive significance. -/- . (shrink)

Post-millennial scholarship in Buddhist studies reflects increasing interest from Anglophone philosophers working within the analytic tradition.1 Within this emerging body of work the aim has been not merely to bring the conceptual toolkit of analytic philosophers to bear on topics traditionally of interest to Buddhist philosophers but also to enlist the theories that analytic philosophers have developed on core topics within epistemology and metaphysics as frameworks within which to interpret the work of major Buddhist philosophers. Two recent notable examples of (...) this interpretative enterprise are seen in the work of Siderits and Hayashi. These Anglophone commentators utilize theories... (shrink)

Jorge Luis Borges introduces the mythical ouroboros as follows: “A third-century Greek amulet, to be found today in the British Museum, gives us an image that can better illustrate that infinitude:...

This article is an examination of Borden Parker Bowne’s account of diachronic personal identity. Specifically, it addresses the question of whether the kind of permanence that Bowne ascribes to persons in his analyses of memory and thought is consistent with his more general views about diachronic identity when framed within the context of his accounts of being and substance. The first section provides an examination of how Bowne understands the permanence of selves, with an emphasis on his repeated insistence that (...) they must remain numerically identical across time to make sense of certain kinds of experiences. Section II examines his embrace of a theory of being that is in some ways a forerunner of process philosophy. The article concludes by suggesting that this deeper metaphysical account of being as becoming stands in tension with what he says about the abidingness of persons. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 591-592 [Access article in PDF] J. A. Cover and John O'Leary-Hawthorne. Substance & Individuation in Leibniz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. x + 307. Cloth, $59.95. This close engagement with Leibniz's modal metaphysics is as rewarding as it is challenging. Crisply written and tightly argued, the book aims to achieve a balance between what the authors describe as their historical (...) objective—to ascertain Leibniz's views on individuation against the backdrop of scholastic philosophy—and their philosophical goal—to investigate the issue of individuation more generally by construing Leibniz as a mediary between scholastic and modern metaphysics (4). The result is an original, if at times contentious, reinterpretation of some of the central tenets of Leibniz's philosophy.Since a full discussion of the work is beyond the scope of this review, we focus on one principal line of argument that supports much of what the authors say about Leibniz. Although in early texts Leibniz occasionally shows sympathy for a relational view of individuation (59-63), his dominant position (developed in the seminal Disputatio metaphysica) is that a substance's principle of individuation is wholly internal to it. For the authors, this becomes a benchmark for the interpretation of Leibniz's later philosophy. On their reading, Leibniz's account of individuation rests on two main theses: "the requirement of separability" (that the existence of any substance is metaphysically independent of that of any other substance except God) and "the requirement that whatever individuates a substance must be wholly internal to it" (87).These theses are heavy with consequences. Concerning the ontological status of relations and relational properties (or extrinsic denominations) the authors convincingly argue that Leibniz embraces a reductionist position, according to which relational properties supervene on a substance's intrinsic accidents, i.e., its perceptions and appetitions. Monadic facts about substances suffice to determine all relational facts, and the latter cannot change without a change in the former (though the converse does not hold). Emphasizing Leibniz's statement that God sees in a complete concept the "foundations" of all that can be predicated of a substance, the authors add to this the more controversial claim that extrinsic denominations are not included in the complete concept of an individual substance (83-4). Thus, the identity of any substance is defined by the totality of its intrinsic denominations, and these in turn determine the relations that hold among substances.The centerpiece of the book addresses the modal dimension of Leibniz's theory of individuation. Here the authors argue that Leibniz adheres to what they call "strong essentialism" rather than "superessentialism." The former, like the latter, holds that a substance could not have a complete concept different than the one it has. However, as a "strong essentialist" Leibniz denies that all of a substance's properties are essential to it. Based on their reading of Leibniz's doctrine of relations, the authors maintain that all and only intrinsic denominations are essential to a substance. From this they infer that Leibniz allows for the transworld identity of substances: the same substance can exist in different possible worlds, worlds distinguished by the fact that they contain different constituent substances. This is possible, according to the authors, because the "laws of harmony" impose no constraint on which substances can coexist in a world. A possible world is defined by the collection of individuals supposed to exist in it, and laws [End Page 591] of harmony are merely relational truths supervening on those substances' intrinsic accidents (109).The authors are candid in admitting that their interpretation cannot be reconciled with all of Leibniz's texts. Their goal instead is to give Leibniz the best he can get, metaphysically speaking: "Our efforts here are to show that the architectonic of Leibniz's own metaphysics is properly captured by strong essentialism, that the important and deepest threads of his thinking better hang together on that construal" (103). Yet one might take issue with their view of what count as Leibniz's "deepest" thoughts. Surely it is a... (shrink)

As regards the question of the nature of time, Leibniz's account of monads raises the question of whether they have a temporal order and what this temporal order derives from. His account is generally taken to be an attempt to ground the asymmetric direction of time in a non-temporal sequence, such a chain of causes or reasons. The problem is whether such chains can ground temporal sequences without presupposing what it is that they are supposed to ground. Is his attempt (...) circular, as many commentators have argued? A case can be made that monadic states can be individuated without presupposing time, which would enable him to account for temporal sequences in terms of a non-temporal one. (shrink)

Leibniz’s metaphysics is centered on the claim that ultimate reality is composed of mind-like, immaterial substances, monads. While it is universally agreed that such substances are non-spatial, monads’ relation to time is less clear. In some passages, Leibniz suggests that monads are themselves temporal, yet in others he implies that they have only derived temporal properties in virtue of being connected to phenomenal bodies. This has led to predictable disagreements among commentators, some insisting that monads are intrinsically temporal and some (...) insisting that they are intrinsically non-temporal. In this article, I seek to defend the latter interpretation. To do this, I focus on Leibniz’s account of monadic perception and appetition, arguing that the order of monadic states is given by the intentional content represented therein. This view, I suggest, commits Leibniz to the conclusion that monads are intrinsically non-temporal, having only second-order, derivative temporal properties. (shrink)

The philosophical ramifications of modern science—physical, biological, and formal and mathematical—figure centrally in Royce's philosophy. Even the most cursory of glances at his corpus reveals a systematic and deep engagement with many of the leading developments in nineteenth-century science, from the nebular hypothesis, or evolution in both its Darwinian and Spencerian forms, to the work of Cantor and Dedekind. It would perhaps not be going too far to suggest that, from his first to last writings, the development of Royce's philosophy (...) is in no small measure driven by an attempt to come to terms with these developments. And yet, while this has received some attention from the scholarly community, it remains an .. (shrink)

This article examines Leibniz's philosophy of causation with the aim of clarifying how causes are related to their effects. I argue that, much like J. L. Mackie's INUS conditions, Leibnizian causes are members of complex causal conditions. More precisely, Leibniz identifies causes with elements of complex causal conditions, where the complex condition as a whole is sufficient for the effect, and the cause is a necessary part of that condition. This conception of causation is able to incorporate Leibniz's many other (...) definitions of ‘cause’, thereby resolving what appear to be internal inconsistencies in his philosophy of science. Introduction The ingredients of causation Causes and conditions Causes as INUS conditions Conclusion. (shrink)

It has recently been suggested that, for Leibniz, temporal facts globally supervene on causal facts, with the result that worlds differing with respect to their causal facts can be indiscernible with respect to their temporal facts. Such an interpretation is at variance with more traditional readings of Leibniz’s causal theory of time, which hold that Leibniz reduces temporal facts to causal facts. In this article, I argue against the global supervenience construal of Leibniz’s philosophy of time. On the view of (...) Leibniz defended here, he adopts a non-modal reduction of time to events, a form of reductionism that entails a strong covariation between a world’s temporal facts and its causal facts. Consequently, worlds discernible with respect to their temporal facts must be discernible with respect to their causal facts, and worlds discernible with respect to their causal facts must be discernible with respect to their temporal facts. This position strongly favors the standard identificatory reduction of time to causation often imputed to Leibniz. (shrink)

Integrating large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 into medical ethics is a novel concept, and understanding the effectiveness of these models in aiding ethicists with decision-making can have significant implications for the healthcare sector. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of GPT-4 in responding to complex medical ethical vignettes and to gauge its utility and limitations for aiding medical ethicists. Using a mixed-methods, cross-sectional survey approach, a panel of six ethicists assessed LLM-generated responses to eight (...) ethical vignettes.The main outcomes measured were relevance, reasoning, depth, technical and non-technical clarity, as well as acceptability of GPT-4’s responses. The readability of the responses was also assessed. Of the six metrics evaluating the effectiveness of GPT-4’s responses, the overall mean score was 4.1/5. GPT-4 was rated highest in providing technical (4.7/5) and non-technical clarity (4.4/5), whereas the lowest rated metrics were depth (3.8/5) and acceptability (3.8/5). There was poor-to-moderate inter-rater reliability characterised by an intraclass coefficient of 0.54 (95% CI: 0.30 to 0.71). Based on panellist feedback, GPT-4 was able to identify and articulate key ethical issues but struggled to appreciate the nuanced aspects of ethical dilemmas and misapplied certain moral principles.This study reveals limitations in the ability of GPT-4 to appreciate the depth and nuanced acceptability of real-world ethical dilemmas, particularly those that require a thorough understanding of relational complexities and context-specific values. Ongoing evaluation of LLM capabilities within medical ethics remains paramount, and further refinement is needed before it can be used effectively in clinical settings. (shrink)

In this follow-up to the highly successful _Ethnography Unbound,_ Michael Burawoy and nine colleagues break the bounds of conventional sociology, to explore the mutual shaping of local struggles and global forces. In contrast to the lofty debates between radical theorists, these nine studies excavate the dynamics and histories of globalization by extending out from the concrete, everyday world. The authors were participant observers in diverse struggles over extending citizenship, medicalizing breast cancer, dumping toxic waste, privatizing nursing homes, the degradation (...) of work, the withdrawal of welfare rights, and the elaboration of body politics. From their insider vantage points, they show how groups negotiate, circumvent, challenge, and even re-create the complex global web that entangles them. Traversing continents and extending over three years, this collaborative research developed its own distinctive method of "grounded globalization" to grasp the evaporation of traditional workplaces, the dissolution of enclaved communities, and the fluidity of identities. Forged between the local and global, these compelling essays make a powerful case for ethnography's insight into global dynamics. (shrink)

Leibniz's philosophy of time, often seen as a precursor to current forms of relationalism and causal theories of time, has rightly earned the admiration of his more recent counterparts in the philosophy of science. In this article, I examine Leibniz's philosophy of time from a new perspective: the role that tense and non-tensed temporal properties/relations play in it. Specifically, I argue that Leibniz's philosophy of time is best (and non-anachronistically) construed as a non-tensed theory of time, one that dispenses with (...) tensed temporal properties such as past, present, and future. In arguing for this thesis, I focus on the three facets of Leibniz's philosophy most relevant for evaluating his commitment to a B-theory of time: (1) the nature of change, (2) the reality of the future, and (3) the truth-conditions for tensed temporal statements. Despite prima facie evidence to the contrary, I show that a close examination of Leibniz's views on these topics provides compelling evidence for interpreting his philosophy of time as a B-theory of time. (shrink)

In 1903 the Cody Road opened, leading travelers from Cody, Wyoming, to Yellowstone National Park. Cheyenne photographer J. E. Stimson traveled the route during its first week in existence, documenting the road for the state of Wyoming's contribution to the 1904 World's Fair. His images of now-famous landmarks like Cedar Mountain, the Shoshone River, the Holy City, Chimney Rock, Sylvan Pass, and Sylvan Lake are some of the earliest existing photographs of the route. In 2008, 105 years later, Michael (...) Amundson traveled the same road, carefully duplicating Stimson's iconic original photographs. In Passage to Wonderland, these images are paired side by side and accompanied by a detailed explanation of the land and history depicted. Amundson examines the physical changes along "the most scenic fifty miles in America" and explores the cultural and natural history behind them. This careful analysis of the paired images make Passage to Wonderland more than a "then and now" photography book--it is a unique exploration of the interconnectedness between the Old West and the New West. It will be a wonderful companion for those touring the Cody Road as well as those armchair tourists who can follow the road on Google Earth using the provided GPS coordinates. The University Press of Colorado gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University toward the publication of this book. (shrink)

John Norris’s novel and compelling theory on the soul’s immortality is both a central element of his overall philosophical vision and a vital engagement with his contemporaries on the topic. Even so, it has been mostly neglected in the secondary literature. This article aims to fill this lacuna by providing a detailed analysis of how Norris arrives at two seemingly inconsistent theses: the soul is naturally immortal in the sense of being incorruptible but naturally mortal in the sense of being (...) perishable. I focus particularly on how Norris articulates this position in dialogue with a number of Scholastic philosophers whose views he rejects. I conclude by suggesting that Norris’s arguments against these thinkers are less than fully successful. (shrink)

Leibniz’s philosophy of time stands at the center not only of his metaphysics but also of his overall philosophy. For this reason, it has attracted the interest of Leibniz scholars and of philosophers of science alike. This concern notwithstanding, scant attention has been paid to what Leibniz himself takes to be a principal philosophical and theological issue in his philosophy of time: the world’s eternity. This article aims to redress this imbalance by ascertaining Leibniz’s views on the beginning, or beginninglessness, (...) of the world. Situating Leibniz’s views against the backdrop of ancient and medieval philosophy, I argue that he rejects traditional arguments seeking to prove the impossibility of an infinite temporal regress. At the same time, Leibniz equally eschews efforts to show that the world cannot have a beginning. Thus, Leibniz denies that the extent of the world’s duration can be decided on purely philosophical grounds. (shrink)

Paulin and Cahill‐Lane explore the origins of event processing and event prediction in animal evolution. They propose that the evolutionary benefit of being able to predict and thus to quickly react to anticipated events may have triggered the evolution of the earliest nervous systems.

We would like to thank the commentators for their generous comments, valuable insights and helpful suggestions. We begin this response by discussing the selfishness axiom and the importance of the preferences, beliefs, and constraints framework as a way of modeling some of the proximate influences on human behavior. Next, we broaden the discussion to ultimate-level (that is evolutionary) explanations, where we review and clarify gene-culture coevolutionary theory, and then tackle the possibility that evolutionary approaches that exclude culture might be sufficient (...) to explain the data. Finally, we consider various methodological and epistemological concerns expressed by our commentators. (shrink)