The long‐standing issue of Wittgenstein's controversial remarks on Gödel's Theorem has recently heated up in a number of different and interesting directions [, , ]. In their , Juliet Floyd and Hilary Putnam purport to argue that Wittgenstein's‘notorious’ “Contains a philosophical claim of great interest,” namely, “if one assumed. that →P is provable in Russell's system one should… give up the “translation” of P by the English sentence ‘P is not provable’,” because if ωP is provable in PM, PM is (...) ω ‐inconsistent, and if PM is ω‐inconsistent, we cannot translate ‘P’as ’P is not provable in PM’because the predicate‘NaturalNo.’in ‘P’“cannot be…interpreted” as “x is a natural number.” Though Floyd and Putnam do not clearly distinguish the two tasks, they also argue for “The Floyd‐Putnam Thesis,” namely, that in the 1930's Wittgenstein had a particular understanding of Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem. In this paper, I endeavour to show, first, that the most natural and most defensible interpretation of Wittgenstein's and the rest of is incompatible with the Floyd‐Putnam attribution and, second, that evidence from Wittgenstein's Nachla strongly indicates that the Floyd‐ Putnam attribution and the Floyd‐Putnam Thesis are false. By way of this examination, we shall see that despite a failure to properly understand Gödel's proof—perhaps because, as Kreisel says, Wittgenstein did not read Gödel's 1931 paper prior to 1942‐Wittgenstein's 1937–38, 1941 and 1944 remarks indicate that Gödel's result makes no sense from Wittgenstein's own perspective. (shrink)

From 1929 through 1944, Wittgenstein endeavors to clarify mathematical meaningfulness by showing how (algorithmically decidable) mathematical propositions, which lack contingent "sense," have mathematical sense in contrast to all infinitistic "mathematical" expressions. In the middle period (1929-34), Wittgenstein adopts strong formalism and argues that mathematical calculi are formal inventions in which meaningfulness and "truth" are entirely intrasystemic and epistemological affairs. In his later period (1937-44), Wittgenstein resolves the conflict between his intermediate strong formalism and his criticism of set theory by requiring (...) that a mathematical calculus (vs. a "sign-game") must have an extrasystemic, real world application, thereby returning to the weak formalism of the Tractatus. (shrink)

Most philosophers of science maintain Confirmationism's central tenet, namely, that scientific theories are probabilistically confirmed by experimental successes. Against this dominant conception of experimental science, Popper's well-known, anti-inductivistic Falsificationism has stood, virtually alone, since 1934. Indeed, it is Popper who tells us that it was he who killed Logical Positivism. It is also pretty well-known that Popper blames Wittgenstein for much that is wrong with Logical Positivism, just as he despises Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinian philosophers for abdicating philosophy's true mission. What (...) is not well-known, however, especially because Popper neglected to tell us in 1934, is that Wittgenstein is very much an ally. It was Wittgenstein who rejected induction in the strongest possible terms as early as 1922, and it was Wittgenstein who similarly rejected Confirmationism approximately four years prior to Popper. The aims of this paper are to illuminate the substantial agreements between Popper and Wittgenstein and, by doing so, to clarify their important disagreement regarding the status of “strictly universal,” scientific theories. (shrink)

Strong Al presupposes (1) that Super-Searle (henceforth ‘Searle’) comes to know that the symbols he manipulates are meaningful , and (2) that there cannot be two or more semantical interpretations for the system of symbols that Searle manipulates such that the set of rules constitutes a language comprehension program for each interpretation. In this paper, I show that Strong Al is false and that presupposition #1 is false, on the assumption that presupposition #2 is true. The main argument of the (...) paper constructs a second program, isomorphic to Searle’s, to show that if someone, say Dan, runs this isomorphic program, he cannot possibly come to know what its mentioned symbols mean because they do not mean anything to anybody. Since Dan and Searle do exactly the same thing, except that the symbols they manipulate are different, neither Dan nor Searle can possibly know whether the symbols they manipulate are meaningful (let alone what they mean, if they are meaningful). The remainder of the paper responds to an anticipated Strong Al rejoinder, which, I believe, is a necessary extension of Strong Al. (shrink)

For more than six decades, and for thousands of students, Introduction to Logic has been the gold standard in introductory logic texts. In this 15th Edition, Carl Cohen and Victor Rodych update Irving M. Copi's classic text, improving on its many strengths and introducing new and helpful material that will greatly assist both students and instructors.

In this article we define a logical system called Hybrid Partial Type Theory ( $\mathcal {HPTT}$ ). The system is obtained by combining William Farmer’s partial type theory with a strong form of hybrid logic. William Farmer’s system is a version of Church’s theory of types which allows terms to be non-denoting; hybrid logic is a version of modal logic in which it is possible to name worlds and evaluate expressions with respect to particular worlds. We motivate this combination of (...) ideas in the introduction, and devote the rest of the article to defining, axiomatising, and proving a completeness result for $\mathcal {HPTT}$. (shrink)

Le manuscrit decouvert a la Bibliotheque de la Sorbonne est la seule source en francais du cours d'esthetique de Hegel. Le cahier ne mentionne aucun nom, mais les traces de l'ecriture de Victor Cousin atteste que celui-ci en etait le possesseur et le destinataire. La comparaison avec les autres sources manuscrites montre que se texte se rapporte au cours donne a Berlin pendant le semestre d'ete 1823, prenant la forme d'un abrege. L'accent est mis sur la structuration du discours (...) et la dimension systematique, distinguant cette version condensee de l'edition traditionnelle de l'Esthetique. Le texte constitue egalement l'exemple exceptionnel d'une traduction hegelienne realisee du vivant du philosophe. L'enseignement de Hegel, inedit en son temps, se trouve ainsi restitue pour la premiere fois au public francophone sous sa forme originale. (shrink)

Constrained instrumentalist theories of punishment – those that seek to justify punishment by its good effects, but limit its scope – are an attractive alternative to pure retributivism or utilitarianism. One way in which we may be able to limit the scope of instrumental punishment is by justifying punishment through the concept of duty. This strategy is most clearly pursued in Victor Tadros’ influential ‘Duty View’ of punishment. In this paper, I show that the Duty View as it stands (...) cannot find any moral distinction between the permissible punishment of the guilty and the permissible punishment of the innocent in extreme circumstances, therefore undermining one the key pillars of its intuitive appeal. I canvass several ways to respond to this problem, arguing that a rights forfeiture theory which employs the distinction between rights forfeiture and rights infringement is the best solution. (shrink)

Political Monsters and Democratic Imagination explores the democratic thought of Spinoza and its relation to the thought of William Blake, Victor Hugo, and James Joyce. As a group, these visionaries articulate: a concept of power founded not on strength or might but on social cooperation; a principle of equality based not on the identity of individuals with one another but on the difference between any individual and the intellectual power of society as a whole; an understanding of thought as (...) a process that operates between rather than within individuals; and a theory of infinite truth, something individuals only partially glimpse from their particular cultural situations. For Blake, God is the constellation of individual human beings, whose collective imagination produces revolutionary change. In Hugo's novel, Jean Valjean learns that the greatest truth about humanity lies in the sewer or among the lowest forms of social existence. For Joyce, Leopold and Molly Bloom are everybody and nobody, singular beings whose creative power and truth is beyond categories and social hierarchies. (shrink)

This book offers a critical examination of those theories and advances a new argument for punishment's justification, calling it the 'duty view'.

This book provides a systematic, philosophically informed account of criminal responsibility. It begins by providing a general account of criminal responsibility based on the relationship between the action that the defendent has performed and their character. It then moves on to reconsider some of the central doctrines of criminal responsibility in the light of that account.

Can reasoning improve moral judgments and lead to moral progress? Pessimistic answers to this question are often based on caricatures of reasoning, weak scientific evidence, and flawed interpretations of solid evidence. In support of optimism, we discuss three forms of moral reasoning (principle reasoning, consistency reasoning, and social proof) that can spur progressive changes in attitudes and behavior on a variety of issues, such as charitable giving, gay rights, and meat consumption. We conclude that moral reasoning, particularly when embedded in (...) social networks with mutual trust and respect, is integral to moral progress. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that moral judgment is a natural kind by developing an empirically grounded theory of the distinctive conceptual content of moral judgments. Psychological research on the moral/conventional distinction suggests that in moral judgments right and wrong, good and bad, praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, etc. are conceptualized as serious, general, authority-independent, and objective. After laying out the theory and the empirical evidence that supports it, I address recent empirical and conceptual objections. Finally, I suggest that the theory uniquely (...) accounts for the possibility of genuine moral agreement and disagreement. (shrink)

The distinction between the body schema and the body image has become the stock in trade of much recent work in cognitive neuroscience and philosophy. Yet little is known about the interactions between these two types of body representations. We need to account not only for their dissociations in rare cases, but also for their convergence most of the time. Indeed in our everyday life the body we perceive does not conflict with the body we act with. Are the body (...) image and the body schema then somehow reshaping each other or are they relatively independent and do they only happen to be congruent? On the basis of the study of bodily hallucinations, we consider which model can best account for the body schema/body image interactions. (shrink)

Subjects experiencing thought insertion disown thoughts they are introspectively aware of. According to what I call “the rationality hypothesis”, thought-insertion reports are not merely intelligible, but also express, or potentially express, fully rational judgments in the light of highly disruptive experience. I argue that the hypothesis is ethically and theoretically motivated, and provides two insights into the philosophical significance of reports by subjects with schizophrenia. First, the reports can be seen as evidence that rational judgments of ownership of a thought (...) prioritize agency awareness over introspective awareness of it. This point fits with an integrative account of thought insertion at the personal and mechanistic levels. Second, rational and competent uses of the first person purely based on introspection do not necessarily involve a full-fledged first-person perspective over one’s thoughts. This suggests that agency awareness, and not introspection as such, is primarily involved in determining the reference of the first person featuring in the judgments. (shrink)

In resultant moral luck, blame and punishment seem intuitively to depend on downstream effects of a person’s action that are beyond his or her control. Some skeptics argue that we should override our intuitions about moral luck and reform our practices. Other skeptics attempt to explain away apparent cases of moral luck as epistemic artifacts. I argue, to the contrary, that moral luck is real—that people are genuinely responsible for some things beyond their control. A partially consequentialist theory of responsibility (...) justifies moral luck. But this justification is no mere rationalization of the status quo. Recent experimental and evolutionary work on punishment and learning suggests that the very same reasons that justify moral luck have also shaped the evolution of our luck-sensitive moral practices. (shrink)

The book outlines the contribution of passivity to the constitution of phenomena as diverse as temporal syntheses, perceptual associations, memory fulfillment and cross-cultural communication.

This paper provides a philosophical analysis of the Price equation and its role in evolutionary theory. Traditional models in population genetics postulate simplifying assumptions in order to make the models mathematically tractable. On the contrary, the Price equation implies a very specific way of theorizing, starting with assumptions that we think are true and then deriving from them the mathematical rules of the system. I argue that the Price equation is a generalization-sketch, whose main purpose is to provide a unifying (...) framework for researchers, helping them to develop specific models. The Price equation plays this role because, like other scientific principles, shows features as abstractness, unification and invariance. By underwriting this special role for the Price equation some recent disputes about it could be diverted. (shrink)

From Fodor and Pylyshyn’s celebrated 1988 systematicity argument in favour of a language of thought , a challenge to connectionist models arises in the form of a dilemma: either these models do not explain systematicity or they are implementations of LOT. From consideration of this challenge and of systematicity in domains other than language, defenders of connectionism have mounted a parallel systematicity argument against LOT which results in a new self-defeating dilemma, what I call here the systematicity challenge challenge : (...) either LOT does not explain nonlinguistic systematicity, or it is in no better position than its rivals to explain any systematicity, even linguistic systematicity. In this paper, first, I critically examine the SCC and some considerations that seem to support it. Second, I offer a response to the SCC by: showing that LOT was never meant to be a cognitive model restricted only to linguistic systematicity, and formulating a new argument in favour of LOT from nonlinguistic systematicity. Third, I argue that there is a central assumption underlying the SCC and maintain that it is mistaken. I conclude that the classical systematicity challenge continues to be fully valid for linguistic and nonlinguistic domains. (shrink)

Marr’s celebrated contribution to cognitive science (Marr 1982, chap. 1) was the introduction of (at least) three levels of description/explanation. However, most contemporary research has relegated the distinction between levels to a rather dispensable remark. Ignoring such an important contribution comes at a price, or so we shall argue. In the present paper, first we review Marr’s main points and motivations regarding levels of explanation. Second, we examine two cases in which the distinction between levels has been neglected when considering (...) the structure of mental representations: Cummins et al.’s distinction between structural representation and encodings (Cummins in Journal of Philosophy, 93(12):591–614, 1996; Cummins et al. in Journal of Philosophical Research, 30:405–408, 2001) and Fodor’s account of iconic representation (Fodor 2008). These two cases illustrate the kind of problems in which researchers can find themselves if they overlook distinctions between levels and how easily these problems can be solved when levels are carefully examined. The analysis of these cases allows us to conclude that researchers in the cognitive sciences are well advised to avoid risks of confusion by respecting Marr’s old lesson. (shrink)

This article is an update of our previous article in this SGJ journal, titled: On Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, Artificial Intelligence & Human Mind. We provide some commentary on the latest developments around AI, humanoid robotics, and future scenario. Basically, we argue that a more thoughtful approach to the future is "techno-realism.".

Western philosophers have generally neglected honor as a moral phenomenon worthy of serious study. Appiah’s recent work on honor in moral revolutions is an important exception, but even he is careful to separate honor from morality, regarding it as only “an ally” of morality. In this paper we take Appiah to be right about the psychological, social, and historical role honor has played in three notable moral revolutions, but wrong about the moral nature of honor. We defend two new theses: (...) First, honor is an emotional and moral form of recognition respect that can hinder or aid moral progress. Second, honor, so conceived, can play a rational role in progressive moral change, as it did among the working class in the British abolition of slave trade, when the pressure of moral consistency moved them to protest American slavery as an affront to their honor without change in their moral belief that slavery is wrong. (shrink)

Disgust originated as an evolutionary adaptation for avoiding disease, but it has since infiltrated morality. Many philosophers are skeptical of moral disgust. Skeptics argue that disgust is unreliable and harmful, and that we should eliminate or minimize feelings of disgust in moral thought. However, these arguments are unsuccessful. They do not show that disgust is more problematic than other emotions implicated in morality. Moreover, empirical research suggests that disgust supports important norms and values. Disgust is frequently elicited by “reciprocity violations,” (...) i.e., acts of cheating, dishonesty, and exploitation. The emotion is a fitting response because it accurately reflects the ability of these moral wrongs to pollute and to circulate. Repurposing its original functions, moral disgust motivates social exclusion, tracks the spread of immorality, and acts as a signaling system to coordinate sanctioning. Instead of expunging ourselves of moral disgust, then, we should seek to understand its virtues and its vices. (shrink)

It has been known for long time that most of the existing cosmology models have singularity problem. Cosmological singularity has been a consequence of excessive symmetry of flow, such as “Hubble’s law”. More realistic one is suggested, based on Newtonian cosmology model but here we include the vertical-rotational effect of the whole Universe. We review a Riccati-type equation obtained by Nurgaliev, and solve the equation numerically with Mathematica. It is our hope that the new proposed method can be verified with (...) observation data. (shrink)

This article explores the extent to which the magnitude of harm that a person is liable to suffer to avert a threat depends on the magnitude of her causal contribution to the threat. Several different versions of this view are considered. The conclusions are mostly skeptical—facts that may determine how large of a causal contribution a person makes to a threat are not morally significant, or not sufficiently significant to make an important difference to liability. However, understanding ways in which (...) causation may be scalar helps to deepen our understanding of other morally significant facts, such as responsibility. (shrink)