Existential claims are widely held to be grounded in their true instances. However, this principle is shown to be problematic by arguments due to Kit Fine. Stephan Krämer has given an especially simple form of such an argument using propositional quantifiers. This note shows that even if a schematic principle of existential grounds for propositional quantifiers has to be restricted, this does not immediately apply to a corresponding non-schematic principle in higher-order logic.

How do we change the normative landscape by making requests? It will be argued that by making requests we create reasons for action if and only if certain conditions are met. We are able to create reasons if and only if doing so is valuable for the requester, and if they respect the requestee. Respectful requests have a normative force – it will be argued – because it is of instrumental value to us that we all have the normative power (...) of creating reasons by making requests. The normative power has the potential for creating and shaping valuable interactions and relationships for the requester and the requestee. This potential could not be realized if we did not have the normative power of making requests. It will also be shown why this account of the normative force of requests should be preferred to the two alternative accounts of the reason-giving force of requests that have been put forward by James H.P. Lewis and David Enoch. (shrink)

Theories of explanation are characterized as being either pragmatic or non-pragmatic, without a clear sense of what this is supposed to mean. The present paper offers a definition of a "pragmatic explanation-sentence", and in terms of this, of a "pragmatic theory of explanation". It is argued that van Fraassen's theory of explanation, despite claims to the contrary, is not genuinely pragmatic. By contrast, the author's own "illocutionary" theory is pragmatic. Attention is devoted particularly to sentences of the form "E is (...) a good explanation of q", which, it is urged, are pragmatic in a strong sense. In defense of this claim, and of the advantages of a pragmatic account generally, appeal is made to Rutherford's 1911 subatomic explanation of the results of his scattering experiments. Implications of a pragmatic theory are drawn for the debate between realists and anti-realists and absolutists and relativists. (shrink)

Kinship terminologies are basic cognitive semantic systems that all human societies use for organizing kin relations. Diversity in kinship systems and their categories is substantial, but constrained. Rácz, Passmore, and Jordan explore hypotheses about such constraints from learning theories and social pressures, testing the impact of a community‐size driven learning bottleneck against the social coordination demands of different kinds of marriage and resource systems.

We present Birch and colleagues with a dilemma. On one interpretation, they aim to chart the distribution of a sort of minimal perceptual awareness across the animal kingdom, where that awareness can be fully characterized in third-person psychological terms. On this interpretation, the project is worthy but dull, since it doesn’t touch the question that has excited most people: whether other animals are phenomenally conscious. On an alternative interpretation, in contrast, they hope to resolve this latter question, arguing that phenomenal (...) consciousness is extremely widespread. But if this is their intention, then their argument begs the question. (shrink)

This essay reconstructs the place of Marx's thought within Adorno's writings from his 1931 inaugural lecture to his famous 1962 seminar on Marx. It focuses on three areas: the critique and transformation of philosophy; the sociology of the commodification of art; and the social ontology of the objectivity of illusions, derived from the critique of political economy. Adorno, it argues, ended his academic life significantly more of a Marxist than he had entered it, leaving a legacy that was distinctive both (...) for its dialectical appropriation of Marx's critique – and suspended supersession – of philosophy and for its philosophical interpretation of Marx's critique of political economy. (shrink)

This paper argues that as a name for a speech act, epistemologists typically use ‘testimony’ in a specialist sense that is more or less synonymous with ‘assertion’, but as a name for a distinctive speech act type in ordinary English, ‘testimony’ names a unique confirmative speech act type. Hence, like any good English word, ‘testimony’ has more than one sense. The paper then addresses the use of ‘testimony’ in epistemology to denote a distinctive kind of evidence: testimonial evidence. Standing views (...) of a hearer’s testimonial evidence see it as partly supervening on a speaker’s assertion that P. The paper argues for a broader account that sees a hearer’s testimonial evidence as partly supervening instead on the hearer’s representation as of a speaker meaning that P. This broader account is the comprehension view of testimonial evidence. The upshot is that not all so-called “testimony-based beliefs” are caused by a speaker’s testimony. (shrink)

I explore a strand of reception history that follows Rudolf Carnap’s shift from a purely syntactical analysis of constructed languages to his conception of pure semantics. My exploration focuses on Gustav Bergmann’s and Everett Hall’s interpretation of pure semantics, their understanding of what constitutes a ’formal’ investigation of language, and their arguments concerning the relationship between expressions and their extra-linguistic referents. I argue that Bergmann and Hall strongly misread Carnap’s semantic project and, subsequently, their misunderstanding is passed down through colleagues (...) and students. (shrink)

Methodological questions concerning Chomsky’s generative approach to linguistics have been debated without consensus. The status of linguistics as psychology, the psychological reality of grammars, the character of tacit knowledge and the role of intuitions as data remain heatedly disputed today. I argue that the recalcitrance of these disputes is symptomatic of deep misunderstandings. I focus attention on Michael Devitt’s recent extended critique of Chomskyan linguistics and I suggest that his complaints are based on a failure to appreciate the special status (...) of Chomsky’s computational formalisms found elsewhere in cognitive science. Devitt ascribes an intentional conception of representations that Chomsky repudiates and that is independently implausible. I argue that Devitt’s proposed “linguistic reality ” as the proper subject matter of linguistics neglects the problems of tokens as opposed to types and he misses the force of Chomsky’s arguments against Behaviourism and nominalism. I suggest that Devitt’s case against intuitions as data misunderstands their standard role throughout perceptual psychology. Finally, of more general interest, I argue that Devitt’s position exemplifies compelling errors concerning mental representation seen throughout cognitive science and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In this essay, I claim that certain passages in Book IV of Benedict de Spinoza’s Ethics suggest a novel version of what is known as metaethical constructivism. The constructivist interpretation emerges in the course of attempting to resolve a tension between Spinoza’s apparent ethical egoism and some remarks he makes about the efficacy of collaborating with the right partners when attempting to promote our individual self-interest . Though Spinoza maintains that individuals necessarily aim to promote their self-interest, I argue that (...) Spinoza has an atypical conception of self that allows the interests of other people to be partially constitutive of one's own self-interest. In this way, Spinoza can account for the rationality of concern for the interests of others . This interpretation attributes to Spinoza a form of constructivism that differs in important ways from contemporary Humean and Kantian constructivisms and which can in principle be detached from Spinoza’s particular metaphysical commitments in order to yield a third general category of constructivist view . Though my treatment is necessarily brief, it is my hope that it can serve both to motivate a constructivist reading of Spinoza and, perhaps even more crucially, to suggest a Spinozistic variety of constructivism as a live theoretical option in metaethics. (shrink)

The primary aim of this important study is to produce a reliable account of Peter Martyr’s life before he left Italy in 1542. Earlier biographers had been content to follow the Swiss Calvinist Josiah Simler, who knew Peter Martyr in later years, delivered his funeral oration and published it in 1563. Dr McNair has tried ‘to delve beneath Simler to contemporary records’. He has discovered, for example, that Peter Martyr was born in 1499 not, as is usually (...) said, in 1500. He has been concerned to find out when Peter Martyr left his order and his Church, suggesting that there is little reason to believe that his apostasy began in his years at the University of Padua, 1518-26; it was in Naples, between 1537 and 1540, when he came to know Juan de Valdés, that Peter Martyr’s conversion took place. ‘He arrived a reformer after the order of Ximénez, he left a reformer after the order of Zwingli’, writes Dr McNair, meaning by this the Zwingli of the years immediately before 1523, when he wished to go further than Erasmus but not so far as Luther. (shrink)

Suppose that time is infinitely long towards the future, and that each feasible action produces a finite amount of utility at each time. Then, under appropriate conditions, each action produces an infinite amount of utility. Does this mean that utilitarianism lacks the resources to discriminate among such actions? Since each action produces the same infinite amount of utility, it seems that utilitarianism must judge all actions permissible, judge all actions impermissible, or remain completely silent. If the future is infinite, that (...) is, the prospects for utilitarianism look bleak. (shrink)

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)

On being told that "translation is an impossible thing," Anatole France replied: "precisely, my friend; the recognition of that truth is a necessary preliminary to success in art." The task of Transplantings is to add flesh and bones to that familiar quip. Indeed, Daniel Weissbort notes that Viereck's study represented a sixty-five year long project. Now, it is finally being brought to print in its full form, with the completion of the final manuscript shortly before Viereck's death. If translation is (...) a special genre in its own right, the translation of poetry, especially from major foreign languages, is a special subset of that genre. What emerges in the imperfect act of translation is an aesthetic dimension that Viereck considers unique in its own right. Transplantings provides new insight into Viereck as a poet of substance, but more than that as a public intellectual. He is critical in probing the work of the major figures such as Stefan George and Georg Heym. To round out this monumental new look at German poetical history, Viereck reviews Goethe, Novalis, and Rilke among others. For Viereck, the difference between the poetical and the political is critical. The quality of poetry is not measured by politics, nor can the worth of political action be defined by commitment to the poetical. The experience of German thought, as well as French and Italian efforts, reveals a divide that can be narrowed but hardly bridged by rhetoric. Transplantings does not simplify the task of the reader. Rather it shows without doubt that the passion of great poetry is part of a national tradition. Efforts at translation indicate how such poetry becomes part of an international culture. This is a major work by one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. It merits reading, and then, re-reading. "Peter Viereck was that rare scholar who captured the European experience with America, while fully realizing the American encounter with Europe. He did so with consciousness of and compassion for both sectors of Western Civilization" --Irving Louis Horowitz, Society Peter Viereck was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, critic, and historian. He held the Kenan Chair in History at Mount Holyoke College. He was known as one of America's conservatism's early leaders and was the recipient of Guggenheim Fellowships both in history and poetry. (shrink)

In his short life, Alan Turing (1912-1954) made foundational contributions to philosophy, mathematics, biology, artificial intelligence, and computer science. He, as much as anyone, invented and showed how to program the digital electronic computer. From September, 1939, his work on computation was war-driven and brutally practical. He developed high speed computing devices needed to decipher German Enigma Machine messages to and from U-boats, countering the most serious threat by far to Britain..

Dieses Buch gibt anhand von 22 Autoren und 22 ihnen zugeordneten Begriffen einen Überblick über das heute vorhandene Grundlagenwissen zur sprachlichen Interaktionsanalyse. Die Auswahl der Autoren umfaßt neben Linguisten (z.B. Bühler, Benveniste) auch Klassiker der Soziologie (z.B. Weber, Sacks), der Kulturtheorie (z.B. Volosinov) und der Sprachphilosophie (z.B. Wittgenstein, Austin); dazu kommen wichtige Autoren aus jüngerer Zeit (z.B. Bourdieu, Luckmann, Hymes, Geertz). Trotz dieser interdisziplinären Orientierung bleibt der Bezug auf sprachwissenschaftliche Fragestellungen erhalten. Das Spektrum der Grundbegriffe umfaßt Konzepte wie "Handeln", "Sprechakt", (...) "Kultur", "Intertextualität", "Subjektivität", "Performanz" und "Gattung". (shrink)

Despite the positive effects of including patients’ preferences into therapy on psychotherapy outcomes, there are still few thoroughly validated assessment tools at hand. We translated the 18-item Cooper-Norcross Inventory of Preferences into German and aimed at replicating its factor structure. Further, we investigated the reliability of the questionnaire and its convergence with trait measures. A heterogeneous sample of N = 969 participants took part in our online survey. Performing ESEM models, we found acceptable model fit for a four-factor structure similar (...) to the original factor structure. Furthermore, we propose an alternative model following the adjustment of single items. The German C-NIP showed acceptable to good reliability, as well as small correlations with Big-Five personality traits, trait and attachment anxiety, locus of control, and temporal focus. However, we recommend further replication of the factor structure and further validation of the C-NIP. (shrink)

_Stranger Cities_ explores the nature of Australia’s distinctive urban civilization with its portal ontology, axial metaphysics, ambidextrous style of thinking, architectonic spirit, and happy phlegmatic outlook. This classic ethos is offset by various choleric and melancholic strands of Australian romanticism.

This paper surveys mereology, the theory of parts and wholes, focussing on its origins in Leśniewski, and noting its intended employment as a surrogate for set theory. We examine parallel and independent work by Whitehead, Leonard and Goodman, and outline the subsequent adventures of mereology, both in its formal guises and in its now intensive application within philosophical ontology.

In this paper, we first develop truthmaker semantics for four relevance logics defined as the non-transitive relevant cores [as introduced in Verdée et al. (Aust J Log 16:10–40, 2019)] of the well-known propositional logics CL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\textbf {CL}}$$\end{document} (classical logic), LP\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\textbf {LP}}$$\end{document} (the logic of paradox), K3\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\textbf {K3}}$$\end{document} (strong Kleene logic), and FDE\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} (...) \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\textbf {FDE}}$$\end{document} (first degree entailment). The semantics is similar to Kit Fine’s truthmaker semantics for classical logic, but we define the notion of exact verification similarly to Fine’s notion of loose verification. Dropping Fine’s principle of Downward Closure of the set of consistent states nevertheless warrants the exactness of our verification notion. The semantics of the four non-transitive relevance logics shows that they are in fact straightforward cut-free substructural logics, despite their definition by means of a filtering criterion. We develop the associated sound and complete sequent calculi for these logics. Finally, we argue that the four presented truthmaker semantics are also interesting alternatives to the standard Kit Fine style truthmaker semantics for the original (irrelevant) consequence relations FDE\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\textbf {FDE}}$$\end{document}, LP\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\textbf {LP}}$$\end{document}, K3\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\textbf {K3}}$$\end{document}, and CL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\textbf {CL}}$$\end{document} themselves. The most interesting difference with Fine’s approach is the way in which tautologies are handled: next to their usual verifiers, they are also made true by the empty state. We provide philosophical arguments for the plausibility of such an account. (shrink)

Most studies examining gene-environment effects on self-regulation focus on outcomes early childhood or adulthood. However, only a few studies investigate longitudinal effects during middle childhood and adolescence and compare two domains of early caregiving. In a longitudinal follow-up with a sample of N = 87, we studied the effects of differences in the DRD4 tandem repeat polymorphisms and two domains of early maternal caregiving quality on children’s personality development using Block’s California Child Q-Set at age six and age 12 and (...) on problem behavior at ages six and seven. Early maternal regulation quality predicted later ego-resiliency and aggressiveness. In addition, significant gene-environment interactions revealed that children with the 7+ DRD4 tandem repeat polymorphism and poor maternal regulation quality in infancy showed lower scores in ego-resiliency and higher scores in ego-undercontrol and CCQ aggressiveness. In contrast, children who had experienced effective maternal regulation in infancy showed a comparable level in personality traits and problem behavior as the DRD4 7- group independent of the levels of maternal regulatory behavior. Similarly, longitudinal caregiving × DRD4 interactions were found for behavior problems in middle childhood, especially for oppositional-aggression, inattentive-hyperactivity, and social competence. Early caregiving effects were only found for maternal regulation quality, but not for maternal responsiveness. Effective early maternal regulation in infancy can moderate the negative effect of DRD4 7+ on children’s self-regulation in middle childhood and adolescence. However, maternal responsiveness has no comparable effects. It seems relevant to consider several dimensions of early caregiving and to also measure the environment in more detail in gene-environment studies. (shrink)

In this chapter, Amato explores the concept of “vernacular rationality” introduced by Emmanuel Chukwude Eze in his On Reason: Rationality in a World of Cultural Conflict and Racism. Amato interrogates the different ways this idea can be unfolded, expanded, and developed in the spirit if not the letter of Eze’s employment in relation to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics—in particular, its conception of the role tradition plays in the pursuit of understanding and the idea of hermeneutics as practical philosophy. A more (...) hermeneutical conception of vernacular rationality would have the benefit of embracing the linguisticality of our circumstance, and reorienting our rationality toward one another in conversation and dialogue. From the standpoint of Philosophical Hermeneutics this requires us to engage in a critical-constitutive relation toward our tradition(s), emphasizing the work of listening within and between tradition(s), and broadening the circle of listening so as to strengthen the practical connections that allow conversation and dialogue to overcome the irrational and inhumane. (shrink)