This paper contributes to the long-running debate over Thomas Nagel’s claim that, although we cannot conceive of what it is like to be another type of conscious organism , there most certainly is something it is like. Peter Hacker has examined Nagel’s claim from the perspective of Wittgensteinian analysis, and has argued that the claim is conceptually confused: it makes no sense to say there is ‘something it is like’ to be a person, or a bat, or to be (...) oneself, and hence there can be no place for such expressions in our language. While taking seriously Wittgenstein’s approach to the investigation of language, I propose that Hacker has been too hasty in declaring the phrase ‘something it is like’ to be nonsensical. I put forward three distinct, but mutually supportive, arguments to substantiate my proposal. (shrink)

This paper examines Wittgenstein's conception of absolute safety in the light of two potential problems exposed by Winch. These are that, firstly: even if someone's life has been virtuous so far, the contingency of its remaining so until death vitiates the claim that the virtuous person cannot be harmed; and secondly: when voiced from a first-person standpoint, the claim to be absolutely safe due to one's virtuousness appears hubristic and self-undermining. I argue that Wittgenstein's mystical conception of safety, unlike some (...) others, requires no claim about one's own virtue and hence can be construed as avoiding these problems. (shrink)

If you are interested in the science behind casting spells, why too much and too little sex is not good for your life, and whether it is possible to predict future from dreams or speculate while asleep, this book is for you. We present the first complete critical edition of the set of commentaries on Aristotle's short psychological and physiological treatises, the so-called Parva Naturalia, penned by Walter Burley, an early fourteenth century Oxford philosopher, later William of Ockham's most (...) formidable opponent. It is a true compendium of medieval natural philosophy, putting together information taken from Aristotle, Avicenna, Averroes, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Peter of Auvergne, Simon of Faversham, and many more. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the theory of divine ideas of Walter Burley. The medieval common theory of divine ideas, developed by Augustine, was intended to provide an answer to the question of the order and intelligibility of the world. The world is rationally organized since God created it according to the models existing eternally in his mind. Augustine's theory, however, left open problems such as reconciling the principle of God's unity with the plurality of ideas, the way in which (...) ideas can or cannot be said to be eternal, their ontological status. Medieval authors discussed such questions until at least the late 14th century. By resorting to the semantic tool of connotation, Burley explains both in what way ‘idea' can signify the divine essence as much as the creatures, and in what sense we can say that God has thought them from eternity, without slipping into a necessitarian view that undermines the principle of divine freedom. Moreover, by envisaging the objective mode of being as the only mode of being of ideas, he explains in what way they truly differ from one another on the basis of their different conceptual contents. (shrink)

In a long question, "Whether there is motion to quality," which became part of his Oxford Expositio omnium librorum Physicorum cum questionibus optime disputatis, composed before 1310, Walter Burley supported the succession-of-forms theory of qualitative change. After commenting on Peter Lombard's Sentences at Paris, Burley took part in disputations on controversial questions in the early 1320s, resulting in his De primo et ultimo instanti and his Tractatus Primus and Tractatus Secundus de intensione et remissione formarum. In these (...) independent controversial works, Burley advanced and defended the succession-of-forms theory with greater detail and precision. This paper examines the treatment of the mathematics of alteration in Burley's final Parisian Expositio in libros octo de physico auditu in light of this earlier controversial work. (shrink)

An essential challenge of Aristotle’s Politics arises from the juxtaposition of contrasting and competing arguments in favour of virtuous monarchy, on the one hand, and the collective superiority of “the many”, on the other. This paper examines the purely theoretical reception of this contrast in the writings of some late medieval Aristotelians by focusing on a key section in Politics Γ (1280a8–1284b34). After reviewing Aristotle’s problematic position, the paper discusses its interpretation in the commentaries of Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas/ (...) class='Hi'>Peter of Auvergne and Walter Burley, as well as its use in the works of Giles of Rome, John of Paris and Marsilius of Padua. On that basis, finally, the paper outlines some general trends with regard to how medieval scholars dealt with Aristotle’s idea of the rule of the many as opposed to that of one or few virtuous persons. (shrink)

This paper investigates the late medieval controversy over the causal role of substantial forms in the generation of new substances. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, when there were two basic positions in this debate (section II), an original position was defended by Walter Burley and Peter Auriol, according to which accidents alone—by their own power—can generate substantial forms (section III). The paper presents how this view was received by the next generation of philosophers, i.e., around 1350 (...) (section IV), and how, even though some of the initial theoretical motivations for this view were quickly abandoned, the view was still defended by several philosophers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (section V). It is finally shown that this theory, still discussed by Suárez and early modern scholastics, and despite being generally rejected, contributed in its own way to the evolution of hylomorphism in the late Middle Ages and, to a certain extent, its gradual decline (section VI). (shrink)

This dissertation provides a model-theoretic semantics for English sentences atttributing a property or action to a group of objects, either collectively or distributively. It is shown that certain adverbial expressions select for collective predicates; therefore collective and distibutive predicates must be distinguishable. This finding is problematic for recent accounts of distributive predicates which analyze such predicates as taking group-level arguments, and hence as not distinguishable from collective predicates. ;A group-level treatment of distributives is possible, however, if predicate denotations are relativized (...) to a set of events for which a part/whole relation is defined. An event in which a group performs an action distributively will have subevents in which each of the group's members perform the same action; an event in which the group performs the action collectively will not. ;This analysis also makes possible an account of the fact that adverbials expressing collective action commonly have an additional use expressing spatial proximity, both in English and cross-linguistically. . A spatial "trace" function on the set of events allows formal definitions for the spatial uses of such adverbials to exactly parallel the definitions for the collectivizing uses. ;The dissertation also provides arguments for a set-theoretic model for plurality, in which the group membership relation is distinct from the subgroup relation. ;Certain quantifiers are shown sensitive to distinction between different sorts of group-level event. To accommodate this fact, it is suggested that verbal denotations provide, for each event, both an "inclusion set" and an "exclusion set"--corresponding roughly to positive and negative denotations. If the inclusion and exclusion sets are allowed under certain circumstances not to complement each other, correct results obtain. ;The splitting of verbal denotations into inclusion and exclusion sets also allows the solution of certain problems in previous accounts of the semantics of subject-verb agreement for number. The dissertation closes with a defense of the hypothesis that agreement is conditioned primarily by the semantics. (shrink)

The work encompasses analysis of philosophers and writers from ancient times through to the present day and examines such episodes as the Oklahoma City Federal ...

This paper examins how the medieval distinction between proper and improper signification can give a plausible explanation of both metaphorical use and the usual transformations a language can undergo. I will show how Thomas Aquinas distinguishes between ordinary ambiguous terms and metaphors, whereas William of Ockham and Walter Burley do not leave room for this distinction. I will argue that Ockham’s conception of transfer of sense through subsequent institution of words is best thought of as an explanation of how (...) ordinary usage can contain ambiguities, whereas Burley’s conception of transfer of sense without new imposition is more plausible when it comes to explaining metaphors. If metaphorical use is lumped together with equivocation, the account of how they work cannot do full justice to either, an insight that we already find in Peter Abelard, if not in Boethius. (shrink)

Inference to the Best Explanation is an unrivalled exposition of a theory of particular interest to students both of epistemology and the philosophy of science.

Uses Buddhist philosophy to discuss diversity as a value, one that can contribute to equity in a globalizing world.

Bridging from Husserl to Iamblichus, this book contributes phenomenological readings of Plotinus, Aristotle, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, in which prevalent misconceptions about the very identity of time in the phenomena of motion are corrected, and time's role in Greek philosophy recovered.

Early modern experimental philosophers were opposed to speculation, and yet many endorsed speculative theories. This chapter gives a partial explanation of why this is so, using Robert Boyle’s acceptance and promotion of the corpuscular philosophy as a case study. It argues that, in addition to furnishing experimental evidence for the corpuscular hypothesis in his Forms and Qualities, Boyle attempted to establish its epistemic superiority over other speculative theories on the grounds that it is founded upon superior principles. In his ‘Excellency (...) and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis’, Boyle claims that the principles of the corpuscular philosophy are more intelligible, more parsimonious, ontologically primary, simpler and more comprehensive than those of its rivals. On grounds of comparative plausibility then, according to Boyle, the corpuscular philosophy is eminently preferable to its rivals. The final section of the chapter traces the legacy of Boyle’s appraisal of the epistemic status of the corpuscular philosophy in the writings of many of his compatriots from the mid-1660s to the Cyclopedia of Ephraim Chambers of 1728. (shrink)

Literary Nonfiction. ESCAPE FROM THE NINETEENTH CENTURY is a group of essays by cultural critic Peter Lamborn Wilson and tackles the notion of modern progress: Did the Nineteenth Century ever come to an end? Was the "Twentieth" Century just a rerun? And what about the Twenty-First Century, the New Millennium? Another lackluster confirmation of the Eternal Return? Another garden of secondhand time? If to know "History" as tragedy is to escape its repetition as farce, then perhaps we need to (...) look more deeply at this Past that won't stop haunting us. Two illuminated madmen--Charles Fourier and Friedrich Nietzsche--and two too-sane geniuses--J.P. Proudhon and Karl Marx--are enlisted in the breakout plan. (shrink)

Spontaneous collapse theories provide a promising solution to the measurement problem. But they also introduce a number of problems of their own concerning dimensionality, vagueness, and locality. In response to these problems, advocates of collapse theories have proposed various accounts of the primitive ontology of collapse theories—postulated underlying entities governed by the collapse theory and underwriting our observations. The most prominent of these are a mass density distribution over three-dimensional space, and a set of discrete “flash” events at space-time points. (...) My argument here is that these primitive ontologies are redundant, in the sense that the structures exhibited by the primitive ontologies that allow them to solve the problems facing spontaneous collapse theories are also present in the wave function. But redundancy is not nonexistence; indeed, the fact that the relevant structures are already there in the wave function shows that the mass density ontology and the flash ontology exist whether they are explicitly postulated or not. By the same token, there is no need to decide between a wave function ontology, a mass density ontology and a flash ontology. (shrink)

At the heart of Peter Singer’s utilitarianism is the impartial weighing of the interests of those affected by our actions. Singer calls this the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests. This paper argues that Singer’s Principle does not accord with our moral intuitions and the logic of our moral thinking. It discusses the Principle in the context of the parable of the Prodigal Son and his Brother – a parable that raises the issue of impartiality in a particularly challenging (...) way. What the parable shows is, first, that our moral thinking often turns on judgements of fairness that are prior to any impartial weighing of interests; and, second, that impartial fairness itself is sometimes transcended by compassionate love. Both of these points have important implications for bioethics. (shrink)

This volume contains the first critical edition of the Scriptum super III-VIII libros Politicorum by Peter of Auvergne as well as a pragmatical edition of Books III-VIII of the medieval Latin translation of Aristotle's Politics. Intended as the continuation of Aquinas' unfinished commentary on the first three books of the Politics, the Scriptum became-together with Aquinas' commentary-the commentary on the Politics. From its appearance in the late thirteenth century to the end of the sixteenth century, the Scriptum represented the (...) most authoritative and influential interpretation of Books III-VIII of the Politics.The introduction to the volume provides both an overview of Peter's political thought and a case study of the production and dissemination of a university text. An examination of the manuscripts traces the preparation of the text from its first transcription and revision by a scribe close to the author-if not the author himself-to the preparation of the finished exemplar and its diffusion through the system of peciae. The introduction also explains how the text was adapted to fit the standards of humanistic Latin when it was first printed in the fifteenth century: its language was adjusted to humanistic standards, many formulations were reshaped, and passages were suppressed. These changes were subsequently preserved in all later editions of the text. Freed from this humanistic patina with which it has been transmitted since the early age of printing age, the Scriptum is now restored to its original version. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand RussellPeter H. DentonNicholas Griffin, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xvii + 550. Cloth, $75.00. Paper, $26.00.It is a daunting task to conceive of a single companion to Bertrand Russell, who in life as in thought was never content with a single anything. Nicholas Griffin has brought his customary expertise to the project, and in (...) snaring fourteen other contributors to this volume, has produced a welcome addition to an academic's library of Russell materials.The shape of the volume, its contents and its presentation, however, unfortunately reflect the lopsided nature of current Russell studies. One hopes for a companion volume that has the breadth of the earlier volume edited fifty years ago by Paul Schilpp, but in vain. This book is overwhelmingly about Russell before 1918, almost entirely about philosophy of mathematics, epistemology and logic, and several of the pieces easily could have been included in a festschrift for Frege instead.What is included is well done, but to call it "the most convenient and accessible guide to Russell available" is to speak in comparative terms. To be fair, it sets out to focus on a narrow definition of Russell's contributions to modern philosophy, and the contributors accomplish this task. Ian Grattan-Guinness writes on "Mathematics in and behind Russell's Logicism, and its Reception," a subject that continues into "Bertrand Russell's Logicism" by Martin Godwyn and Andrew D. Irvine. The roots of analytic philosophy are of primary concern in this volume, so Richard L. Cartwright explores "Russell and Moore, 1898-1905" and Michael Beaney relates "Russell and Frege." "The Theory of Descriptions" by Peter Hylton sets up two pieces on "Russell's Substitutional Theory" (Gregory Landini) and "The Theory of Types" (Alasdair Urquhart), while Paul Hager's "Russell's Method of Analysis" leads into "Russell's Neutral Monism" (R.E.Tully) and "The Metaphysics of Logical Atomism" (Bernard Linsky).The next portion of the book expands the intellectual focus somewhat, with "Russell's Structuralism and the Absolute Description of the World" by William Demopoulos—perhaps [End Page 349] the best in a series of good papers—and "From Knowledge by Acquaintance to Knowledge by Causation" by Thomas Baldwin. Approaching the end of the book, Anthony Grayling's essay on "Russell, Experience, and the Roots of Science" remains firmly planted in the pre-1918 milieu, though his tentative commentary on Human Knowledge at least glimmers the extension of Russell's intellectual life into the post-Great War period.Effectively the entire second half of Russell's life is left to the final contributor, Charles Pidgen, for commentary. Author of Russell on Ethics, much of Pigden's short essay here ("Bertrand Russell: Moral Philosopher or Unphilosophical Moralist?") somewhat plaintively directs the reader to his book for an elaboration of why Russell is worth reading after 1918, at least on the subject of ethics. Of the other authors, only Hager (317) observes the extent to which Russell's post-War work mistakenly has been ignored.The book concludes with a selective bibliography. The audience, for the most part, is a specialist one, with only some essays accessible to the general reader. On that score, Griffin's introduction and his own essay, "Russell's Philosophical Background," are easily the most readable. At the risk of quibbling, I was disturbed by the uneven production of the book, as each author set his own standard for footnotes, endnotes and bibliography (creating a jumble of styles). Even within individual contributions, there are a number of inconsistencies in notation as well as typographical errors.By the end, I was left hoping there might be a second companion volume for Bertrand Russell, one that reflects what he spent the last fifty years of his life thinking, writing, and doing. In the absence of such material (which is of far greater popular interest today just as it was in Russell's lifetime), this book by itself is more of a companion to current Russell studies than to Bertrand Russell himself.Peter H. DentonThe University of WinnipegCopyright © 2004 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.... (shrink)

A sequel to Gracia’s Introduction to the Problem of Individuation in the Early Middle Ages prepared by sixteen well-known historians of medieval philosophy, one advantage offered by this collection of essays is the broad coverage it provides: Avicenna and Averroes ; Maimonides, Gersonides, Bedersi ; Albert the Great and Roger Bacon ; Bonaventure and Buridan ; Aquinas ; Henry of Ghent ; Godfrey of Fontaines, Peter of Auvergne, John Baconthorpe and James of Viterbo ; Scotus ; Hervaeus Natalis, Richard (...) of Mediavilla, Durand of Saint Pourçain ; Walter of Burley ; William of Ockham ; Cajetan and Giles of Rome ; Javellus and Francis Sylvester Ferrar ; Francis Suárez ; John of Saint Thomas ; Leibniz. (shrink)