I argue that Moore's propositions, for example, 'I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don't believe that I did' cannot be rationally believed. Their assertors either cannot be rationally believed or cannot be believed to be rational. This analysis is extended to Moorean propositions such as God knows that I am an atheist and I believe that this proposition is false. I then defend the following definition of assertion: anyone asserts that p iff that person expresses a belief (...) that p with the intention of causing relevant epistemic change in the cognition of an actual or potential audience. (shrink)

Sir John Hicks is one of the highest-regarded contemporary economists, and it is fitting that the new series of _Critical Assessments of Contemporary Economists_ should commence with his work. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1972, Sir John Hicks’ work is extremely wide-ranging, with the list of topics reading almost like an agenda for the whole of modern economics: general equilibrium theory, welfare economics, problems of index numbers, trade cycles, wages and many others. He may, however, be (...) best known to present day economists for having introduced IS-LM curves, now a standard means of Keynesian analysis. A comprehensive, scholarly work, this four-volume set gives students of economics and economic thought immediate access to Sir John Hicks' contributions and shows how his work has been received and modified by others. (shrink)

This paper is roughly in two parts. The first deals with whether know-how is constituted by propositional knowledge, as discussed primarily by Gilbert Ryle (1949) The concept of mind. London: Hutchinson, Jason Stanley and Timothy Williamson (2001). Knowing how. Journal of Philosophy, 98, pp. 411–444 as well as Stephen Hetherington (2006). How to know that knowledge-that is knowledge-how. In S. Hetherington (Ed.) Epistemology futures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The conclusion of this first part is that know-how sometimes does and sometimes (...) does not consist in propositional knowledge. The second part defends an analysis of know-how inspired by Katherine Hawley’ (2003). Success and knowledge-how. American Philosophical Quarterly, 40, pp. 19–31, insightful proposal that know-how requires counterfactual success. I conclude by showing how this analysis helps to explain why know-how sometimes does and sometimes does not consist of propositional knowledge. (shrink)

Moore’s paradox is the fact that assertions or beliefs such asBangkok is the capital of Thailand but I do not believe that Bangkok is the capital of Thailand or Bangkok is the capital of Thailand but I believe that Bangkok is not the capital of Thailand are ‘absurd’ yet possibly true. The current orthodoxy is that an explanation of the absurdity should first start with belief, on the assumption that once the absurdity in belief has been explained then this will (...) translate into an explanation of the absurdity in assertion. This assumption gives explanatory priority to belief over assertion. I show that the translation involved is much trickier than might at first appear. It is simplistic to think that Moorean absurdity in assertion is always a subsidiary product of the absurdity in belief, even when the absurdity is conceived as irrationality. Instead we should aim for explanations of Moorean absurdity in assertion and in belief that are independent even if related, while bearing in mind that some forms of irrationality may be forms of absurdity even if not conversely. (shrink)

(A) I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don’t believe that I did (1942, p. 543) or (B) I believe that he has gone out. But he has not (1944, p. 204) would be “absurd” (1942, p. 543; 1944, p. 204). Wittgenstein’s letters to Moore show that he was intensely interested in this discovery of a class of possibly true yet absurd assertions. Wittgenstein thought that the absurdity is important because it is “something similar to a contradiction, thought (...) it isn’t one” (1974, p. 177). What is the explanation of the absurdity of saying or believing something about myself that might be true? Wittgenstein thought that although the explanation will say “something about the logic of assertion” it will also show that “logic isn’t as simple as logicians think it is”. So although the explanation should.. (shrink)

The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill, published in two volumes in 1963, were well received by critics and scholars alike. The publication of these four volumes of later letters completes this edition of Mill's personal correspondence. These volumes contain over 1,800 letters, most never before published, and some sixty earlier letters that have come to light since the publication of the first two volumes of correspondence. The letters have been assembled from widely dispersed collections in the libraries of (...) fifty-eight institutions and of some thirty private collections in Britain and in other countries of the Commonwealth, Europe, and North America. In addition, many personal letters of which no originals sirvived have been located in contemporary periodicals or biographies of Mill's correspondence. (shrink)

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

Realism for the 21st Century is a collection of thirty essays from John Deely—a major figure in contemporary semiotics and an authority on scholastic realism and the works of Charles Sanders Peirce. The volume tracks Deely's development as a pragmatic realist, featuring his early essays on our relation to the world after Darwinism; crucial articles on logic, semiotics, and objectivity; overviews of philosophy after modernity; and a new essay on “purely objective reality.”.

The paper presents a brief survey of recent work by Metakides, Nerode and others in the area of effective algebra and makes some comments on the relation between formal presentations, characterizations, etc. of sets and of algebraic structures and their practical presentations.

An investigation of Proclus' logic of the syllogistic and of negations in the Elements of Theology, On the Parmenides, and Platonic Theology. It is shown that Proclus employs interpretations over a linear semantic structure with operators for scalar negations (hypemegationlalpha-intensivum and privative negation). A natural deduction system for scalar negations and the classical syllogistic (as reconstructed by Corcoran and Smiley) is shown to be sound and complete for the non-Boolean linear structures. It is explained how Proclus' syllogistic presupposes converting the (...) tree of genera and species from Plato's diairesis into the Neoplatonic linear hierarchy of Being by use of scalar hyper and privative negations. (shrink)

Frequency effects are pervasive in studies of language, with higher frequency words being recognized faster than lower frequency words. However, the exact nature of frequency effects has recently been questioned, with some studies finding that contextual information provides a better fit to lexical decision and naming data than word frequency ( Adelman et al., 2006 ). Recent work has cemented the importance of these results by demonstrating that a measure of the semantic diversity of the contexts that a word occurs (...) in provides a powerful measure to account for variability in word recognition latency ( Johns et al., 2012, 2015 ; Jones et al., 2012 ). The goal of the current study is to extend this measure to examine bilingualism and aging, where multiple theories use frequency of occurrence of linguistic constructs as central to accounting for empirical results ( Gollan et al., 2008 ; Ramscar et al., 2014 ). A lexical decision experiment was conducted with four groups of subjects: younger and older monolinguals and bilinguals. Consistent with past results, a semantic diversity variable accounted for the greatest amount of variance in the latency data. In addition, the pattern of fits of semantic diversity across multiple corpora suggests that bilinguals and older adults are more sensitive to semantic diversity information than younger monolinguals. (shrink)

Class inclusion theory asserts that one cannot reverse the topic and vehicle of a metaphor and produce a new, meaningful metaphor that is based on the same interpretive ground. In 2 experiments we test that claim. In Study 1 we replicate the procedures employed by Glucksberg, McGlone, & Manfredi (1997) that provided support for the assertion. However we now add experimental conditions in which the target metaphors, either with the topic and vehicle in its canonical order or reversed, are placed (...) in discourse contexts that provide support for a meaningful interpretation based on the same ground. In contrast to the prediction of class inclusion theory, fully 72% of the cases the reversed metaphors were rated as interpretable and interpretation was based on the same ground used in interpreting the metaphors in their canonical order. In Study 2, the online processing of the metaphors in context are examined in a word-by-word reading task. We find that canonical and reversed order metaphors were read at the same rate throughout and both sets exhibited the same reading patterns: increased reading time of the noun-phrase (NP) that contains the metaphoric vehicle and of the first word in the text that follows the metaphor. We take these data to indicate that nonreversibility cannot be taken as a necessary condition of metaphor. (shrink)

In (2004) I gave an argument for Evans’s principle -/- Whatever justifies me in believing that p also justifies me in believing that I believe that p -/- Hamid Vahid (2005) raises two objections against this argument. I show that the first is harmless and that the second is a non sequitur.

The paper is a study of the logic of existence, negation, and order in the Neoplatonic tradition. The central idea is that Neoplatonists assume a logic in which the existence predicate is a comparative adjective and in which monadic predicates function as scalar adjectives that nest the background order. Various scalar predicate negations are then identifiable with various Neoplatonic negations, including a privative negation appropriate for the lower orders of reality and a hyper-negation appropriate for the higher. Reversion to the (...) One can then be explained as the logical inference of hyper-negations from mundane knowledge. Part I develops the relevant linguistic and logical theory, and Part II defends Wolfson and the scalar interpretation against the more traditional Aristotelian understanding of Whittaker and others of reversion as intensional abstraction. (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.

This article discusses the 2005 OUP biography of Michael Polanyi by William T. Scott and Martin X. Moleski S.J., Michael Polanyi, Scientist and Philosopher . The discussants are N. E. Wetherick, Brian G Gowenlock, and John Puddefoot; Martin X. Moleski, S. J. briefly responds, providing a previously unpulished letter from Polanyi to Reverend Dr. Knox, a Presbyterian mininster.

In “The Backward Clock, Truth-Tracking, and Safety”, Neil Sinhababu and I gave Backward Clock, a counterexample to Robert Nozick’s truth-tracking analysis of knowledge. In “Knowledge as Fact-Tracking True Belief”, Fred Adams, John Barker and Murray Clarke propose that a true belief constitutes knowledge if and only if it is based on reasons that are sensitive to the fact that makes it true, that is, reasons that wouldn’t obtain if the belief weren’t true. They argue that their analysis evades Backward (...) Clock. Here I show that it doesn’t. Backward Clock likewise shows their analysis to be too weak. The broader lesson seems to be that Backward Clock tells us the time is up for purely modal analyses of knowledge. (shrink)

The absurdity of (i) and (ii) arises because asserting 'p' normally expresses a belief that p. Normally, when (i) is asserted, what is conjointly expressed and asserted, i.e. a belief that p and a lack of belief that p, is logically impossible, whereas normally, when (ii) is asserted, it is differently absurd, since what is conjointly expressed and asserted, i.e. a belief that p and a belief that -p, is logically possible, but inconsistent. A possible source of confusion between 'impossible' (...) and 'inconsistent' is the fact that a proposition which is inconsistent tout court is always self-contradictory and hence necessarily false, unlike one which is inconsistent with other propositions. Whereas the proposition Ibp&-Ibp is inconsistent, the proposition IBp &IB-p is not. I cannot hold a belief which I lack, but I can.. (shrink)

Distributional models of semantics learn word meanings from contextual co‐occurrence patterns across a large sample of natural language. Early models, such as LSA and HAL (Landauer & Dumais, 1997; Lund & Burgess, 1996), counted co‐occurrence events; later models, such as BEAGLE (Jones & Mewhort, 2007), replaced counting co‐occurrences with vector accumulation. All of these models learned from positive information only: Words that occur together within a context become related to each other. A recent class of distributional models, referred to as (...) neural embedding models, are based on a prediction process embedded in the functioning of a neural network: Such models predict words that should surround a target word in a given context (e.g., word2vec; Mikolov, Sutskever, Chen, Corrado, & Dean, 2013). An error signal derived from the prediction is used to update each word's representation via backpropagation. However, another key difference in predictive models is their use of negative information in addition to positive information to develop a semantic representation. The models use negative examples to predict words that should not surround a word in a given context. As before, an error signal derived from the prediction prompts an update of the word's representation, a procedure referred to as negative sampling. Standard uses of word2vec recommend a greater or equal ratio of negative to positive sampling. The use of negative information in developing a representation of semantic information is often thought to be intimately associated with word2vec's prediction process. We assess the role of negative information in developing a semantic representation and show that its power does not reflect the use of a prediction mechanism. Finally, we show how negative information can be efficiently integrated into classic count‐based semantic models using parameter‐free analytical transformations. (shrink)

I argue that ‘Moore’s paradox for God’. I do not believe this proposition shows that nobody can be both omniscient and rational in all her beliefs. I then anticipate and rebut three objections to my argument.

What were Shakespeare's final thoughts on history, tragedy, and comedy? Shakespeare's Last Plays focuses much needed scholarly attention on Shakespeare's "Late Romances." The work--a collection of newly commissioned essays by leading scholars of classical political philosophy and literature--offers careful textual analysis of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, All is True, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The essays reveal how Shakespeare's thought in these final works compliments, challenges, fulfills, or transforms previously held conceptions of the playwright (...) and his political-philosophical views. (shrink)

While interest in doing business continues to rise steadily, information concerning the evolving social ethics of Chinese managers is sparse. This study reports the findings obtained from intensive interviews with thirty-nine Chinese advertising executives. In general, there appears to be developing a cautious optimism about the role of advertising in the Chinese economy. Findings are compared with earlier studies of American and Hong Kong managers and it is suggested that further research and observation is needed to track the development of (...) business ethics in this largest of the world's developing nations. (shrink)

‘Feuerbach resolves the religious essence into the human essence. But the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of social relations.’It is a common belief, shared both by Marxists and by critics of Marxism, that differences in the interpretation of this statement have important implications for the assessment of Marx's system of ideas. How we read it will affect our view of the unity of Marx's thought and of the continuity (...) of its development over his lifetime, and it will bear crucially on our appraisal of the epistemological status—metaphysical, scientific or mythopoeic—of the various elements of the Marxian system. Among Marxists, members of the Frankfurt School have emphasized the paternity of Marxian metaphysical humanism in Hegel's conception of man as a self-creating being, while Althusser and his disciples have seen in the extrusion from Marx's later work of any such ‘anthropomorphic’ notion a guarantee of the scientific character of his historical materialism. Among Marx's liberal critics, it is widely agreed that he espoused an essentialist view of man and, often enough, it is thought that this alone is sufficient to disqualify his system from scientific status. No consensus exists, however, as to the cognitive standing of the several components of Marx's thought. That agreement should be lacking as to the place in it of a conception of human nature is hardly surprising. Different construals of the role of a view of man will reflect divergent commitments, not only in the philosophy and methodology of social and historical inquiry, but in moral and political thought as well. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Timothy Williamson offers the ordinary practice, the lottery and the Moorean argument for the ‘knowledge account’ that assertion is the only speech-act that is governed by the single rule that one must know its content. I show that these fail to support it and that the emptiness of the knowledge account renders mysterious why breaking the knowledge rule should be a source of criticism. I argue that focussing exclusively on the sincerity of the speech-act of letting one know engenders (...) a category mistake about the nature of constraints on assertion. After giving an analysis of assertion I propose that the norm of a type of assertion is the epistemic state one needs for one’s speech-act to succeed in being an assertion of that type and that the epistemic state in question is determined by the point of the type of assertion. One is practically irrational in violating the norm. (shrink)

The present paper is a very hastily executed attempt to provide a philosophical account of personality within the framework of a more or less Platonic ontology. I am writing it because I believe the conscious person, the “soul” as it would have been called in an earlier thought-dispensation, to be one of the most interesting and pivotal of cosmic structures, one which, if dealt with in a careless or reachme-down manner, as a side-issue or queer offshoot of things not conceived (...) in its peculiar terms and manner, will throw one’s whole cosmic picture and system of fundamental categories out of joint. The conscious person may be an extremely rare, transitory, fortuitously produced phenomenon—there are increasing grounds for regarding it in this manner—but its modes of operation and some of its basic logical properties are so very extraordinary as perhaps to throw more light on the universe out of which it arises than the indefinitely numerous, unconscious, impersonal things which surround it on every side and which will with some probability ultimately engulf it. I am also writing it because I have come to entertain the conviction that what absolutely and unambiguously is, is more of the nature of a universal, a subsistent, an essence, something which is a Nature or Character itself, rather than anything which transitorily or inadequately embodies or exemplifies or is a case of it, and because I wish to accommodate these two profoundly held convictions to one another. My problem is the one Plato dealt with whenever, as in the Phaedo, Timaeus, and other writings, he tried to see how Soul, the source of motion in the changeable world, and itself internally changeable, can stand to essences of which it does not make sense to predicate intrinsic change. And it is also the issue dealt with by Hegel when he makes conscious Spirit the carrying out into full reality of the eternal Idea, and when he goes so far as to identify the Ego, which is the center of the conscious person, with absolute universality and negativity in its purest, most intransigent, all-sublating form. (shrink)