Several authors have argued that higher taxa are monophyletic homeostatic property cluster natural kinds. On the traditional definition of monophyly, this will not work: the emergence of taxon-defining homeostatic property clusters would not always correspond to unique speciation events. An alternative conception of monophyly is developed and advocated, which can accommodate the homeostatic property cluster proposal. Recent work in philosophy of science shows that it meets appropriate standards of objectivity and precision.

We live in a metaphysical age. And I do not mean just that too many people still believe The Prophecies of Nostradamus and/or the horoscopes found in most local newspapers. It is a metaphysical age among philosophers – even among those who shun horoscopes and are frankly embarrassed to fi nd Nostradamus so prominently displayed in the metaphysics section of their campus bookstore. Nowadays, distinguished philosophers in prestigious departments proudly call themselves metaphysicians. They all know, of course, that Carnap and (...) his Viennese friends campaigned in the late twenties and early thirties against metaphysics. (shrink)

Critical realism is the view that fictional characters arecontingent, actual, abstract individuals, ontologically on a par with such things as plots and rhyme schemes, andquantified over in statements such as “A character inHamlet is a prince.” A strong contender for thecorrect account of fictional characters, critical realismnevertheless has difficulty satisfying all that we intuitivelyrequire of such an account.

Simple heuristics are clearly powerful tools for making near optimal decisions, but evidence for their use in specific situations is weak. Gigerenzer et al. (1999) suggest a range of heuristics, but fail to address the question of which environmental or task cues might prompt the use of any specific heuristic. This failure compromises the falsifiability of the fast and frugal approach.

For traditional epistemologists like myself the rise in popularity of externalist epistemologies has made philosophical life more than a little difficult. The debate between internalist and externalist analyses of knowledge and justification has implications that range far beyond the immediate topic in dispute—the nature of knowledge and justified belief. This paper was written for a conference titled "Can Epistemology Be Unified?" Whether or not it can be unified, it certainly is not at the present time. To say that a field (...) of philosophy is unified is not, of course, to say that there is universal agreement on the answers to fundamental questions—if unification required that, then no field of philosophy would ever be unified. It is enough for epistemology to be unified that epistemologists recognize the legitimacy or philosophical interest of the same kinds of questions and recognize the legitimacy of the same general philosophical methodology. Both internalists and externalists are indeed addressing a common question when they ask about the nature of knowledge and justified belief, when the ask, that is, metaepistemological questions. Moreover, as far as I can tell, in attempting to answer metaepistemological questions, epistemologists employ more or less the classic methodology of analytic philosophy—analyses of epistemic concepts seek necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of epistemic concepts, and proposals are evaluated with the thought experiments that have been the stock in trade of analytic philosophy for centuries. The field of metaepistemology is unified. If the externalist's metaepistemology were correct, however, we would need to rethink the entire conceptual framework within which philosophers have addressed a host of epistemological and even metaphysical issues. If paradigm externalists were correct, philosophers, qua philosophers, should stop asking certain questions they used to find very interesting and should even abandon certain methods of doing philosophy. In this paper I am primarily interested in the implications of an externalist epistemology for the classic debate over direct realism concerning the external world. After suggesting that even externalists might need to abandon epistemological direct realism and outlining a problem that that might cause, I'll close with some very general remarks on how different the epistemic landscape becomes given the way in which externalists understand the distinction between inferentially and noninferentially justified belief. (shrink)

A number of studies in the apparent motion literature were examined using the cognitive penetrability criterion to determine the extent to which beliefs affect the perception of apparent motion. It was found that the interaction between the perceptual processes mediating apparent motion and higher order processes appears to be limited. In addition, perceptual and inferential beliefs appear to have different effects on perceived motion optimality and direction. Our findings suggest that the system underlying apparent motion perception has more than one (...) stage and is informationally encapsulated from cognitive factors. (shrink)

This collection of essays aims to mark a place for American philosophy as it moves into the twenty-first century. Taking their cue from the work of Peirce, James, Santayana, Dewey, Mead, Buchler, and others, the contributors assess and employ philosophy as an activity taking place within experience and culture. Within the broad background of the American tradition, the essays reveal a variety of approaches to the transition in which American philosophy is currently engaged. Some of the pieces argue from an (...) historical dialogue with the tradition, some are more polemically involved with American philosophy’s current status among the contemporary philosophical "schools," and still others seek to reveal the possibilities for the future of American philosophy. In thus addressing past, present, and future, the pieces, taken together, outline a trajectory for American philosophy that reinvents its importance from a new angle of vision. (shrink)

The philosophical texts of George Berkeley contain many references to the “relativity” of sensible qualities, that is, to their variation when perceived by different observers; and several of his arguments for immaterialism employ this concept. Many interpreters in this century have minimized the significance and impugned the validity of this argument. Warnock ridicules it as a sophism based on a “fantastic assumption,” and Johnston gives it short shrift. Jessop considers the relativity argument an ad hominem insufficient to demonstrate immaterialism. Indeed, (...) both Jessop and Luce so dilute the entire relativity element in Berkeley that, while he remains an idealist, he comes out assenting, in levelheaded fashion, to nearly absolute sensible objects which persist through time and are available to a plurality of perceivers. (shrink)

I argue for a basically Sartrean approach to the idea that one's self-concept, and any form of knowledge of oneself as an individual subject, presupposes concepts and knowledge about other things. The necessity stems from a pre-conceptual structure which assures that original self-consciousness is identical with one's consciousness of objects themselves. It is not a distinct accomplishment merely dependent on the latter. The analysis extends the matter/form distinction to concepts. It also requires a distinction between two notions of consciousness: one (...) relates to the employment of already formed concepts, the other to the structures of imaginative apprehension that help to constitute (empirical) concepts from the start. We need to see that (1) so far as objects are only conceptualized appearances, the material through which we apprehend them must be reflected in that apprehension itself; (2) the corresponding material consists of a manifold of pre-conceptually active anticipations and retentions concerning the course of one's own experience. The resultant structure imposes an orientation on the world of appearances that does not derive from a concept of oneself as an individual in it, but that nevertheless provides the only possible basis for such a concept. One's self-concept, at least as empirical subject, is simply that ofwhatever subject is indicated, in an appropriate way, by that orientation. (shrink)

I argue, First, That the bundle theory is compatible with certain views of mental states as alterations in an underlying substance. Then I distinguish between momentary and enduring experiencers and argue that the bundle theory does not imply the possibility of experiences apart from experiencers, But at most apart from enduring experiencers. Finally, I reject strawson's claim that the bundle theory implies that some particular person's experience might instead have belonged to some other person. Regarding experiences as events rather than (...) peculiar sorts of particulars facilitates each of these points. (shrink)

The commentaries on our target article address three main areas: (1) the relative importance of extraversion and other related traits to DA functioning, (2) how the long-term stability of extraversion can be conceptualized within a highly plastic central nervous system, and (3) the nature of DA functioning in the MOC network and in extraversion. We have organized our Response, therefore, into three major sections.

Motivations for systems of free logics are reviewed and systems are divided according as they are positive (asserting atomic truths with non-denoting terms) negative (denying all such sentences) or neutral. A positive theory is developed and defended. One of the major considerations in favor of the theory is that it allows (via translation) representation of the other points of view. Finally, the relation between free logic and truth theories is elaborated.

It is a pleasure to be a part of such great intellectual company in discussing Professor Stalnaker's very rich and insightful book. It is practically impossible not to be impressed by Stalnaker's breadth of knowledge, deep understanding of early Chinese texts, and keen observations about how the early Chinese philosophers offer intellectual resources still very much relevant to us today. My comments will focus on the relationship between skill and virtue. I'll ask one clarificatory question and offer two potential objections (...) to Stalnaker's account.Let me begin with my clarificatory question: Stalnaker presents the early Confucian thinkers as drawing a tight connection between skill and virtue.... (shrink)

Postmodern methodology in the human sciences and philosophy reverses the Aristotelian laws of thought such that (1) non-contradiction, (2) excluded middle, (3) contradiction, and (4) identity become the ground for analysis. The illustration of the postmodern logic is Peirce’s (1) interpretant, (2) symbol, (3) index, and (4) icon. The thesis is illustrated using the work of Merleau-Ponty and Foucault and the le même et l’autre discourse sign where the ratio [Self:Same :: Other:Different] explicates the communicology of Roman Jakobson in the (...) conjunctions and disjunctions, appositions and oppositions of discours, parole, langue, and langage. (shrink)

The scholarly literature suggests high or increased tax burdens tend to reduce economic growth, lowering incomes. Some argue, however, that low taxes and high economic growth can have adverse income distribution consequences or can lead to utility-reducing under-consumption of needed public goods. Evidence is presented questioning those assertions. People seek happiness by moving, and tend to migrate to low tax areas. Moreover, there is little evidence that governmental expansion leads to truly greater equality. Appropriately measured, income equality is actually far (...) greater than typically claimed. Moreover, income data suggest that the international equalization of incomes and global reduction of poverty largely reflect private sector activity, namely market forces working where the rule of law and strong protection of property rights prevails. (shrink)

[Richard Wollheim] Any experiential view of pictorial meaning will assign to each painting an appropriate experience through which its mean can be recovered. When the meaning is representational, what is the nature of the appropriate experience? If there is agreement that the experience is to be described as seeing-in, disagreement breaks out about how seeing-in is to be understood. This paper challenges two recent interpretations: one in terms of perceived resemblance, the other in terms of imagining seeing. Neither view (...) gives a correct account of how the spectator distributes his attention between the marked surface and the represented object. /// [Robert Hopkins] I offer two, complementary, accounts of the visual nature of representational picturing. One, in terms of six features of depiction, sets an explanatory task. The other, in terms of the experience to which depiction gives rise, promises to meet that need. Elsewhere I have offered an account of this experience that allows this promise to be fulfilled. I sketch that view, and defend it against Wollheim's claim that it cannot meet certain demands on a satisfactory account. I then turn to Wollheim's own view, arguing that it suffers from crucial obscurities. These prevent it from meeting the explanatory commitments I describe, and are only exacerbated by the demands Wollheim himself imposes. (shrink)

The notion of ‘bipolar’ or ‘second‐personal’ normativity is often illustrated by such situations as that of one person addressing a complaint to another, or asserting some right, or claiming some authority. This paper argues that the presence of speech acts of various kinds in the development of the idea of the ‘second‐personal’ is not accidental. Through development of a notion of ‘illocutionary authority’ I seek to show a role for the ‘second‐personal’ in ordinary testimony, despite Darwall's argument that the notion (...) of the ‘second‐personal’ marks a divide between practical and theoretical reason. (shrink)

This volume collects a number of important and revealing interviews with Richard Rorty, spanning more than two decades of his public intellectual commentary, engagement, and criticism. In colloquial language, Rorty discusses the relevance and nonrelevance of philosophy to American political and public life. The collection also provides a candid set of insights into Rorty's political beliefs and his commitment to the labor and union traditions in this country. Finally, the interviews reveal Rorty to be a deeply engaged social thinker (...) and observer. (shrink)

Demonstrating Richard Rorty's breadth of scholarship and his influence on diverse issues across the social sciences and humanities, this comprehensive bibliography contains 1,165 citations. A unique reference work on neo-pragmatism, this bibliography is essential for anyone researching Rorty's work and its impact on philosophy, literature, the arts, religion, the social sciences, politics, and education.