[Revised entry by Andrew Eshleman on November 18, 2009. Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, notes.html] When a person performs or fails to perform a morally significant action, we sometimes think that a particular kind of response is warranted. Praise and blame are perhaps the most obvious forms this reaction might take. For example, one who encounters a car accident may be regarded as worthy of praise for having saved a child from inside the burning car, or alternatively, one may be regarded as...
Philosophy
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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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Moral Responsibility
18 Nov 2009 | 7:10 pm -
The Experience and Perception of Time
17 Nov 2009 | 1:34 am[Revised entry by Robin Le Poidevin on November 17, 2009. Changes to: Main text, Bibliography] We see colours, hear sounds and feel textures. Some aspects of the world, it seems, are perceived through a particular sense. Others, like shape, are perceived through more than one sense. But what sense or senses do we use when perceiving time? It is certainly not associated with one particular sense. In fact, it seems odd to say that we see, hear or touch time passing. And indeed, even if all our... -
Pythagoras
13 Nov 2009 | 5:27 pm[Revised entry by Carl Huffman on November 13, 2009. Changes to: Main text, Bibliography] Pythagoras, one of the most famous and controversial ancient Greek philosophers, lived from ca. 570 to ca. 490 BCE. He spent his early years on the island of Samos, off the coast of modern Turkey. At the age of forty, however, he emigrated to the city of Croton in southern Italy and most of his philosophical activity occurred there. Pythagoras wrote nothing, nor were there any detailed accounts... -
Personalism
12 Nov 2009 | 7:58 pm[New Entry by Thomas D. Williams and Jan Olof Bengtsson on November 12, 2009.] Although it was only in the first half of the twentieth century that the term personalism became known as a designation of philosophical schools and systems, personalist thought had developed throughout the nineteenth century as a reaction to perceived depersonalizing elements in Enlightenment rationalism, pantheism, Hegelian absolute idealism, individualism as well as collectivism in politics, and materialist, psychological, and evolutionary determinism. In its various strains, personalism always underscores... -
Supertasks
11 Nov 2009 | 4:35 pm[Revised entry by Jon Pérez Laraudogoitia on November 11, 2009. Changes to: Main text, Bibliography] Supertasks have posed problems for philosophy since the time of Zeno of Elea. The term 'supertask' is new but it designates an idea already present in the formulation of the old motion paradoxes of Zeno, namely the idea of an infinite number of actions performed in a finite amount of time. The main problem lies in deciding what follows from the performance of a supertask. Some philosophers have claimed that what...
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Talking Philosophy
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Killing Prisoners
17 Nov 2009 | 2:45 pmTwo years after the event, CNN is doing a major story on the killing of four Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers. Not surprisingly, the incident raises serious moral concerns. On the face of it, the killing of prisoners is morally unacceptable. While this should be obvious, it can be argued for in the following manner. Killing an individual in time of war is generally justified in terms of the threat presented by the enemy combatant. To be a bit more specific, the killing of an enemy combatant in direct combat can be justified on a similar basis to that used to justify killing in self… -
Another Life or Common Doom?
16 Nov 2009 | 7:25 amHere are two views for you, presented to me over beer and wasabi peanuts last week. A Christian friend argued that atheists have no way to ground moral value. Something transcendental is required, — a plan or purpose or creator of objective value — if we are to have good reasons to help one another. You can go on about the good will or pleasure or happiness, but there’s no reason to prefer one or the other of these. Only with religion do you get a proper moral code. Only with the promise of eternal life and divine purpose do you get meaning. If we’re just an… -
Socrates, Islam & Conscientious Objectors
13 Nov 2009 | 4:28 amImage via Wikipedia In 2009 Major Hasan is alleged to have killed 12 soldiers and one civilian at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. In 2007 he presented “The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military” During his presentation he said that “it’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims.” Based on this, he recommended that the “Department of Defense should allow Muslims [sic] Soldiers the option of being released as… -
Women, Wollstonecraft & Wealth
10 Nov 2009 | 2:31 amImage via Wikipedia For those concerned with equality, wealth presents something of a two-edged sword. Or, to present a slightly better metaphor, a two-sided coin. In her Vindication of the Rights of Women Mary Wollstonecraft considers this coin. On the negative side of the coin, Wollstonecraft contends that a focus on wealth is harmful to both men and women. In the case of men, the focus on wealth distracts them from their moral duties. In the case of the women of her time, their main hope for wealth rested in working hard on the beauty and charm needed to win a wealthy man. Of course, she… -
When I’m dead
7 Nov 2009 | 7:33 pmI’d just like it to be known that if anybody feels the urge to slag me off immediately after my death, or to attack my politics – which, of course, nobody will, since I’m hardly significant (but then neither was Chris Harman, albeit he was a ‘revolutionary’) – then I’d be delighted. I love the smell of hypocritical self-righteousness in the morning…
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AskPhilosophers.org | "All"
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Question about Mind - Mitch Green responds
20 Nov 2009 | 1:11 pmWhen we deliberate, we often make note of pertinent constraints as we form our opinion. For instance, a jury member might arrive at a different recommendation than she would have otherwise if she observes a judge's instructions to ignore a particular piece of testimony. Does the ability to determine our beliefs by considering some factors and not others show we can in some sense control what we believe? Response from: Mitch Green Nice question. I suggest that cases like the one you consider do show that in some sense we can control what we believe. The important thing is the 'in some sense'… -
Question about Ethics, Medicine, Mind - Jonathan Westphal responds
20 Nov 2009 | 12:10 pmAs someone who is clinically depressed, I have often wondered: philosophically speaking, is trying to treat depression wrong? People are depressed for a reason, possibly because life's pretty damned depressing once you get down to it. It seems to me that in plenty of cases, depression is a logical reaction to this planet, a rather depressing thought in and of itself. Despite the wars and the plagues and the genocides and the poverty and the seemingly countless other reasons for one to be depressed, people treat depression like a disease when it seems more like a perfectly acceptable reaction… -
Question about Ethics, Medicine, Mind - Mitch Green responds
20 Nov 2009 | 12:10 pmAs someone who is clinically depressed, I have often wondered: philosophically speaking, is trying to treat depression wrong? People are depressed for a reason, possibly because life's pretty damned depressing once you get down to it. It seems to me that in plenty of cases, depression is a logical reaction to this planet, a rather depressing thought in and of itself. Despite the wars and the plagues and the genocides and the poverty and the seemingly countless other reasons for one to be depressed, people treat depression like a disease when it seems more like a perfectly acceptable reaction… -
Question about Mathematics - William Rapaport responds
19 Nov 2009 | 1:32 pmIs this for philosophers, mathematicians, or logicians? But here goes: Given that the decimal places of pi continue to infinity, does this imply that somewhere in the sequence of numbers of pi there must be, for instance, a huge (and possibly infinite) number of the same number repeated? 77777777777777777777777777... , say? If Pi goes on forever, you might think it must be. After all, if you checked pi to the first googol decimal places you obviously would't find an infinite number of anything. Try a googlplex! Still nothing. But we haven't scratched the surface, even though the universe… -
Question about Mathematics - Daniel J. Velleman responds
19 Nov 2009 | 1:32 pmIs this for philosophers, mathematicians, or logicians? But here goes: Given that the decimal places of pi continue to infinity, does this imply that somewhere in the sequence of numbers of pi there must be, for instance, a huge (and possibly infinite) number of the same number repeated? 77777777777777777777777777... , say? If Pi goes on forever, you might think it must be. After all, if you checked pi to the first googol decimal places you obviously would't find an infinite number of anything. Try a googlplex! Still nothing. But we haven't scratched the surface, even though the universe…
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Leiter Reports
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Rutgers Raids the ANU: Schaffer, Schellenberg to New Brunswick in 2011
20 Nov 2009 | 9:43 amJonathan Schaffer (metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language) and Susanna Schellenberg (philosophy of mind, epistemology), both at the Australian National University, have accepted tenured offers as, respectively, professor and associate professor at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, to start in 2011... -
APA Adopts New Policy on Religious Institutions that Discriminate Against Gay Men and Women
19 Nov 2009 | 11:57 amAlastair Norcross (Colorado) reports that the National Board of the American Philosophical Association has now taken action on an initiative that began with a letter from Charles Hermes (UT Arlington) (posted here last February) and then a petition he crafted... -
Speaking of American fascists...
19 Nov 2009 | 11:32 am...as we and others have been doing, other worrisome signs continue to appear. -
What do philosophers believe?
19 Nov 2009 | 5:23 amDavid Chalmers explains the idea behind this fun survey meant to gauge the distribution of philosophical opinions about a range of traditional and au courant philosophical issues. You will, however, need a PhilPapers account or a 'guest' account for survey... -
Journals That Want to Know Where an Article Has Been Submitted Before?
18 Nov 2009 | 4:04 pmA philosopher writes with a pretty startling report of a phenomenon I had not heard of previously: I recently submitted an article to a journal that uses online Editorial Management software. In general, I like this way of handling submissions....
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Ethics Etc
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Haslanger’s Survey on Publishing in Philosophy
17 Nov 2009 | 10:08 amProfessor Sally Haslanger (MIT) is conducting a survey on publishing in philosophy. All professional philosophers are invited to participate. It should take about 10 minutes. It will be useful to have your CV handy as you complete the survey. You can find the survey here. If all goes well, Professor Haslanger [...] -
CFP: Cost-Benefit Analysis: Uncertainty, Discounting and the Sustainable Future
17 Nov 2009 | 6:24 amApril 12-13th, 2010 Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands Abstract Deadline: November 23rd, 2009 Opening Lecture: Simon Caney, University of Oxford The purpose of the conference is to invite experts in the fields of philosophy, ethics, applied economics, environmental economics and innovation studies. The focus will be on those aspects of uncertainty and the discount rate relevant to [...] -
Wedgwood on Instrumental Rationality
16 Nov 2009 | 6:03 amProfessor Ralph Wedgwood (Oxford University) will be giving a talk today at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar entitled ‘Instrumental Rationality.’ A copy of Ralph’s talk can be found here and a handout for his talk is here. Ralph would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of his talk: In this essay, I [...] -
Continuum Ethics book series
14 Nov 2009 | 5:06 amContinuum Ethics A series of books exploring key topics in contemporary ethics and moral philosophy. Continuum Ethics presents a series of books that will bridge the gap between new research work and undergraduate textbooks. They will provide close examination of key concepts in contemporary moral philosophy. Aimed largely at upper-level undergraduates and research students, they will also [...] -
Global Justice and Human Rights book series
14 Nov 2009 | 5:03 amAnnouncing two new book series with Edinburgh University Press: STUDIES IN GLOBAL JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS Series Editor: Thom Brooks “Global justice and human rights” is perhaps the hottest topic today. Studies in Global Justice and Human Rights is a new book series published by Edinburgh University Press. The series aims to publish groundbreaking work in this increasingly [...]
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Journal of Philosophical Logic
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Conjunction-based Sorites: A Misguided Objection to Degree-Theoretic (Fuzzy) Solutions to Sorites Paradoxes
17 Nov 2009 | 8:43 pmAbstract In 1987, Crispin Wright argued that degree-theoretic (fuzzy) solutions to the Sorites paradox fail because the solutions do not work when the paradox is restated using a conjunctive major premise. I show that Wright is incorrect: degree-theoretic solutions also work when the paradox is stated with a conjunctive major premise. Content Type Journal ArticleDOI 10.1007/s10992-009-9121-yAuthors Merrie Bergmann, Smith College Emerita, Department of Computer Science Northampton MA USA Journal Journal of Philosophical LogicOnline ISSN 1573-0433Print ISSN 0022-3611 -
Expressive Power and Incompleteness of Propositional Logics
23 Oct 2009 | 12:01 pmAbstract Natural deduction systems were motivated by the desire to define the meaning of each connective by specifying how it is introduced and eliminated from inference. In one sense, this attempt fails, for it is well known that propositional logic rules (however formulated) underdetermine the classical truth tables. Natural deduction rules are too weak to enforce the intended readings of the connectives; they allow non-standard models. Two reactions to this phenomenon appear in the literature. One is to try to restore the standard readings, for example by adopting sequent rules… -
A Routley-Meyer Type Semantics for Relevant Logics Including Br Plus the Disjunctive Syllogism
20 Oct 2009 | 7:26 pmAbstract Routley-Meyer type ternary relational semantics are defined for relevant logics including Routley and Meyer’s basic logic B plus the reductio rule and the disjunctive syllogism. Standard relevant logics such as E and R (plus ) and Ackermann’s logics of ‘strenge Implikation’ Π and Π are among the logics considered. Content Type Journal ArticleDOI 10.1007/s10992-009-9117-7Authors Gemma Robles, Universidad de La Laguna Dpto. de Historia y Filosofía de la CC, la Ed. y el Lenguaje, Facultad de Filosofía Campus de Guajara 38071 La Laguna Tenerife, Canary Islands… -
Symmetric Categorial Grammar
15 Oct 2009 | 11:36 amAbstract The Lambek-Grishin calculus is a symmetric version of categorial grammar obtained by augmenting the standard inventory of type-forming operations (product and residual left and right division) with a dual family: coproduct, left and right difference. Interaction between these two families is provided by distributivity laws. These distributivity laws have pleasant invariance properties: stability of interpretations for the Curry-Howard derivational semantics, and structure-preservation at the syntactic end. The move to symmetry thus offers novel ways of reconciling the… -
Traditional Logic, Modern Logic and Natural Language
13 Oct 2009 | 12:48 pmAbstract In a recent paper Johan van Benthem reviews earlier work done by himself and colleagues on ‘natural logic’. His paper makes a number of challenging comments on the relationships between traditional logic, modern logic and natural logic. I respond to his challenge, by drawing what I think are the most significant lines dividing traditional logic from modern. The leading difference is in the way logic is expected to be used for checking arguments. For traditionals the checking is local, i.e. separately for each inference step. Between inference steps, several kinds of…
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Linguistics and Philosophy
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Number-neutral bare plurals and the multiplicity implicature
16 Nov 2009 | 10:08 amAbstract Bare plurals (dogs) behave in ways that quantified plurals (some dogs) do not. For instance, while the sentence John owns dogs implies that John owns more than one dog, its negation John does not own dogs does not mean “John does not own more than one dog”, but rather “John does not own a dog”. A second puzzling behavior is known as the dependent plural reading; when in the scope of another plural, the ‘more than one’ meaning of the plural is not distributed over, but the existential force of the plural is. For example, My friends attend good schools requires… -
Judgment ascriptions
16 Nov 2009 | 10:08 amAbstract Some propositional attitude verbs require that the complement contain some “subjective predicate”. In terms of the theory proposed by Lasersohn, these verbs would seem to identify the “judge” of the embedded proposition with the matrix subject, and there have been suggestions in this direction. I show that it is possible to analyze these verbs as setting the judge and doing nothing more; then according to whether a judge index or a judge argument is assumed, unless the complement contains a subjective predicate, the whole matrix is redundant or there is a type… -
Public proper names and idiolectal identifying descriptions
10 Oct 2009 | 10:58 pmAbstract Direct reference theorists tell us that proper names have no semantic value other than their bearers, and that the connection between name and bearer is unmediated by descriptions or descriptive information. And yet, these theorists also acknowledge that we produce our name-containing utterances with descriptions on our minds. After arguing that direct reference proponents have failed to give descriptions their due, I show that appeal to speaker-associated descriptions is required if the direct reference portrayal of speakers wielding and referring with public names is to… -
On similarity in counterfactuals
17 Sep 2009 | 4:08 pmAbstract This paper investigates the interpretation of counterfactual conditionals. The main goal of the paper is to provide an account of the semantic role of similarity in the evaluation of counterfactuals. The paper proposes an analysis according to which counterfactuals are treated as predications “de re” over past situations in the actual world. The relevant situations enter semantic composition via the interpretation of tense. Counterfactuals are treated as law-like conditionals with de re predication over particular facts. Similarity with respect to particular facts is… -
On the interaction of aspect and modal auxiliaries
16 Sep 2009 | 6:08 amAbstract This paper discusses the interaction of aspect and modality, and focuses on the puzzling implicative effect that arises when perfective aspect appears on certain modals: perfective somehow seems to force the proposition expressed by the complement of the modal to hold in the actual world, and not merely in some possible world. I show that this puzzling behavior, originally discussed in Bhatt (1999, Covert modality in non-finite contexts) for the ability modal, extends to all modal auxiliaries with a circumstantial modal base (i.e., root modals), while epistemic…
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Oxford Journals: Philosophia Mathematica
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A Puzzle About Ontological Commitments: Reply to Ebert
11 Nov 2009 | 12:08 amThis note refutes P. Ebert’s argument against Epistemic Rejectionism. -
Exploring the Boundaries of Conceptual Evaluation
5 Nov 2009 | 6:26 am -
BRUNO DE FINETTI. Philosophical Lectures on Probability. Collected, edited, and annotated by Alberto Mura. Translated by Hykel Hosni. Synthese Library; 340
5 Nov 2009 | 3:19 am -
ANDREW D. IRVINE. Philosophy of Mathematics. (Handbook of the Philosophy of Science)
5 Nov 2009 | 3:19 am -
Whitehead and Russell on Points
5 Nov 2009 | 3:19 amThis paper considers the attempts put forward by A.N. Whitehead and by Bertrand Russell to ‘construct’ points (and temporal instants) from what they regard as the more basic concept of extended ‘regions’. It is shown how what they each say themselves will not do, and how it should be filled out and amended so that the ‘construction’ may be regarded as successful. Finally there is a brief discussion of whether this ‘construction’ is worth pursuing, or whether it is better—as in today’s mathematics—to prefer a…
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Philosophical Studies
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Darwin and moral realism: survival of the iffiest
17 Nov 2009 | 8:48 pmAbstract This paper defends moral realism against Sharon Street’s “Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value” (this journal, 2006). I argue by separation of cases: From the assumption that a certain normative claim is true, I argue that the first horn of the dilemma is tenable for realists. Then, from the assumption that the same normative claim is false, I argue that the second horn is tenable. Either way, then, the Darwinian dilemma does not add anything to realists’ epistemic worries. Content Type Journal ArticleDOI 10.1007/s11098-009-9473-8Authors Knut Olav… -
Local interactions and the dynamics of rational deliberation
17 Nov 2009 | 8:48 pmAbstract Whereas The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure supplements Evolution of the Social Contract by examining some of the earlier work’s strategic problems in a local interaction setting, no equivalent supplement exists for The Dynamics of Rational Deliberation. In this article, I develop a general framework for modeling the dynamics of rational deliberation in a local interaction setting. In doing so, I show that when local interactions are permitted, three interesting phenomena occur: (a) the attracting deliberative equilibria may fail to agree with any of the… -
Desires as additional reasons? The case of tie-breaking
12 Nov 2009 | 9:43 amAbstract According to the Desire-Based Reasons Model reasons for action are provided by desires. Many, however, are critical about the Model holding an alternative view of practical reason, which is often called valued-based. In this paper I consider one particular attempt to refute the Model, which advocates of the valued-based view often appeal to: the idea of reason-based desires. The argument is built up from two premises. The first claims that desires are states that we have reason to have. The second argues that desires do not add to the stock of reasons the agent has for… -
What are we to accept, and what are we to reject, while saving truth from paradox?
11 Nov 2009 | 11:09 amWhat are we to accept, and what are we to reject, while saving truth from paradox? Content Type Journal ArticleDOI 10.1007/s11098-009-9468-5Authors Greg Restall, The University of Melbourne School of Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry Parkville 3010 Australia Journal Philosophical StudiesOnline ISSN 1573-0883Print ISSN 0031-8116 -
Neo-Frankfurtians and buffer cases: the new challenge to the principle of alternative possibilities
10 Nov 2009 | 10:16 amAbstract The debate over whether Frankfurt-style cases are counterexamples to the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) has taken an interesting turn in recent years. Frankfurt originally envisaged his attack as an attempting to show that PAP is false—that the ability to do otherwise is not necessary for moral responsibility. To many this attack has failed. But Frankfurtians have not conceded defeat. Neo-Frankfurtians, as I will call them, argue that the upshot of Frankfurt-style cases is not that PAP is false, but that it is explanatorily irrelevant. Derk Pereboom and…
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University of Chicago: Philosophy of Science
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Discerning Elementary Particles
4 Nov 2009 | 9:22 amPhilosophy of Science, Volume 76, Issue 2, Page 179-200, April 2009. We maximally extend the quantum‐mechanical results of Muller and Saunders () establishing the ‘weak discernibility’ of an arbitrary number of similar fermions in finite‐dimensional Hilbert spaces. This confutes the currently dominant view that (A) the quantum‐mechanical description of similar particles conflicts with Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII); and that (B) the only way to save PII is by adopting some heavy metaphysical notion such as Scotusian haecceitas or Adamsian primitive… -
Symmetry and Its Formalisms: Mathematical Aspects
4 Nov 2009 | 9:22 amPhilosophy of Science, Volume 76, Issue 2, Page 160-178, April 2009. This article explores the relation between the concept of symmetry and its formalisms. The standard view among philosophers and physicists is that symmetry is completely formalized by mathematical groups. For some mathematicians however, the groupoid is a competing and more general formalism. An analysis of symmetry that justifies this extension has not been adequately spelled out. After a brief explication of how groups, equivalence, and symmetries classes are related, we show that, while it’s true in some instances that… -
Schaffner’s Model of Theory Reduction: Critique and Reconstruction
4 Nov 2009 | 9:20 amPhilosophy of Science, Volume 76, Issue 2, Page 119-142, April 2009. Schaffner’s model of theory reduction has played an important role in philosophy of science and philosophy of biology. Here, the model is found to be problematic because of an internal tension. Indeed, standard antireductionist external criticisms concerning reduction functions and laws in biology do not provide a full picture of the limits of Schaffner’s model. However, despite the internal tension, his model usefully highlights the importance of regulative ideals associated with the search for derivational, and… -
Epistemic Landscapes and the Division of Cognitive Labor
4 Nov 2009 | 9:20 amPhilosophy of Science, Volume 76, Issue 2, Page 225-252, April 2009. Because contemporary scientific research is conducted by groups of scientists, understanding scientific progress requires understanding this division of cognitive labor. We present a novel agent‐based model of scientific research in which scientists divide their labor to explore an unknown epistemic landscape. Scientists aim to find the most epistemically significant research approaches. We consider three different search strategies that scientists can adopt for exploring the landscape. In the first, scientists work alone… -
Kuhn’s Evolutionary Epistemology and Its Being Undermined by Inadequate Biological Concepts
4 Nov 2009 | 9:20 amPhilosophy of Science, Volume 76, Issue 2, Page 143-159, April 2009. Kuhn made two attempts at providing an evolutionary analogy for scientific change. The first attempt, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is very brief and unstructured; in this article I discuss some of its weaknesses. Alexander Bird takes this attempt more seriously and provides a criticism based on oversimplified evolutionary assumptions. These assumptions prove to be inadequate for the second, more articulate, evolutionary analogy suggested by Kuhn in “The Road since Structure.” I argue, however, that this…
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Studia Logica
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Meta-Argumentation Modelling I: Methodology and Techniques
18 Nov 2009 | 1:34 amAbstract In this paper, we introduce the methodology and techniques of meta-argumentation to model argumentation. The methodology of meta-argumentation instantiates Dung’s abstract argumentation theory with an extended argumentation theory, and is thus based on a combination of the methodology of instantiating abstract arguments, and the methodology of extending Dung’s basic argumentation frameworks with other relations among abstract arguments. The technique of meta-argumentation applies Dung’s theory of abstract argumentation to itself, by instantiating Dung’s abstract… -
Semantics for Higher Level Attacks in Extended Argumentation Frames Part 1: Overview
18 Nov 2009 | 1:33 amAbstract In 2005 the author introduced networks which allow attacks on attacks of any level. So if a → b reads a attacks b, then this attack can itself be attacked by another node c. This attack itself can attack another node d. This situation can be iterated to any level with attacks and nodes attacking other attacks and other nodes. In this paper we provide semantics (of extensions) to such networks. We offer three different approaches to obtaining semantics. 1. The translation approach This uses the methodology of ‘Logic by translation’. We translate faithfully the… -
Modal Provability Foundations for Argumentation Networks
18 Nov 2009 | 1:33 amAbstract Given an argumentation network we associate with it a modal formula representing the ‘logical content’ of the network. We show a one-to-one correspondence between all possible complete Caminada labellings of the network and all possible models of the formula. Content Type Journal ArticleIssue Title Special Issue: New Ideas in Argumentation TheoryDOI 10.1007/s11225-009-9215-0Authors Dov M. Gabbay, King’s College London UK Journal Studia LogicaOnline ISSN 1572-8730Print ISSN 0039-3215 -
Annotation Theories over Finite Graphs
18 Nov 2009 | 1:33 amAbstract In the current paper we consider theories with vocabulary containing a number of binary and unary relation symbols. Binary relation symbols represent labeled edges of a graph and unary relations represent unique annotations of the graph’s nodes. Such theories, which we call annotation theories, can be used in many applications, including the formalization of argumentation, approximate reasoning, semantics of logic programs, graph coloring, etc. We address a number of problems related to annotation theories over finite models, including satisfiability, querying problem,… -
Logical Modes of Attack in Argumentation Networks
18 Nov 2009 | 1:33 amAbstract This paper studies methodologically robust options for giving logical contents to nodes in abstract argumentation networks. It defines a variety of notions of attack in terms of the logical contents of the nodes in a network. General properties of logics are refined both in the object level and in the metalevel to suit the needs of the application. The network-based system improves upon some of the attempts in the literature to define attacks in terms of defeasible proofs, the so-called rule-based systems. We also provide a number of examples and consider a rigorous case…
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Synthese
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Reflections on the revolution at Stanford
17 Nov 2009 | 8:50 pmAbstract We inquire into the question whether the Aristotelian or classical ideal of science has been realised by the Model Revolution, initiated at Stanford University during the 1950s and spread all around the world of philosophy of science—salute Suppes. The guiding principle of the Model Revolution is: a scientific theory is a set of structures in the domain of discourse of axiomatic set-theory, characterised by a set-theoretical predicate. We expound some critical reflections on the Model Revolution; the conclusions will be that the philosophical problem of what a scientific… -
Erratum to: Synthese special issue: representing philosophy
5 Nov 2009 | 10:42 amErratum to: Synthese special issue: representing philosophy Content Type Journal ArticleCategory ErratumDOI 10.1007/s11229-009-9690-xAuthors Colin Allen, Indiana University Department of History and Philosophy of Science Goodbody Hall 130 Bloomington IN 47405-7000 USATony Beavers, The University of Evansville Department of Philosophy and Religion 1800 Lincoln Avenue Evansville IN 47722 USA Journal SyntheseOnline ISSN 1573-0964Print ISSN 0039-7857 -
Noesis and the encyclopedic internet vision
4 Nov 2009 | 1:29 pmAbstract Noesis is an Internet search engine dedicated to mapping the profession of philosophy online. In this paper, I recount the history of the project’s development since 1998 and discuss the role it may play in representing philosophy optimally, adequately, fairly, and accessibly. Unlike many other representations of philosophy, Noesis is dynamic in the sense that it constantly changes and inclusive in the sense that it lets the profession speak for itself about what philosophy is, how it is practiced, and why it is important. In this paper, I explain how Noesis is dynamic… -
Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation
3 Nov 2009 | 3:02 amAbstract The mass/count distinction attracts a lot of attention among cognitive scientists, possibly because it involves in fundamental ways the relation between language (i.e. grammar), thought (i.e. extralinguistic conceptual systems) and reality (i.e. the physical world). In the present paper, I explore the view that the mass/count distinction is a matter of vagueness. While every noun/concept may in a sense be vague, mass nouns/concepts are vague in a way that systematically impairs their use in counting. This idea has never been systematically pursued, to the best of my… -
Color, context, and compositionality
29 Oct 2009 | 12:15 amAbstract Color adjectives have played a central role in work on language typology and variation, but there has been relatively little investigation of their meanings by researchers in formal semantics. This is surprising given the fact that color terms have been at the center of debates in the philosophy of language over foundational questions, in particular whether the idea of a compositional, truth-conditional theory of natural language semantics is even coherent. The challenge presented by color terms is articulated in detail in the work of Charles Travis. Travis argues that…
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Experimental Philosophy
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Two New Surveys
19 Nov 2009 | 9:30 amFirst, Sally Haslanger asked me to make the following announcement about a survey she has undertaken as part of the important Women in Philosophy Task Force:All professional philosophers are invited to participate in a survey on publishing in philosophy. It should take about 10 minutes. It will be useful to have your CV handy as you fill it out. Please go here If all goes well, Sally Haslanger will report on the results at the December APA in the symposium on philosophy publishing (Wednesday December 30th, 11:15-1:15). Thanks for your help. Please spread the… -
Shameless self-promotion: BBS' call for commentaries on Doing without Concepts
16 Nov 2009 | 2:39 pmSome readers of this blog might be interested by the following news: Behavioral and Brain Sciences will publish a precis on my book, Doing without Concepts, and is now accepting proposals for commentaries. If you are not on the list of potential commentators, but would like to propose a commentary, e-mail me (machery@pitt.edu), and I'll suggest your name.E -
Levin on X-Phi
11 Nov 2009 | 9:27 amI just found this critical notice by Janet Levin, which came out in the October issue of Analysis:http://analysis.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/extract/69/4/761She discusses nearly every chapter in the collection by Knobe and Nichols, Experimental Philosophy, and ultimately argues that:the results of the most methodologically sound and philosophically relevant studies discussed in this volume could have been obtained from the armchair, and thus that experimental philosophy may not present a serious challenge to the traditional methods of analytic philosophy. (p. 761)However, I think this… -
Who's Thinking Boeing's Thoughts?
9 Nov 2009 | 6:14 pmConsider the following sentence: “After Boeing lost the Army contract, Boeing expected to have to lay off workers.” Now, consider this sentence: “After Boeing lost the Army contract, Boeing felt anxious about having to lay off workers.” Some recent work in experimental philosophy suggests that people think sentences such as the latter “sound weirder” than sentences such as the former: that is, that sentences attributing phenomenal states (e.g. happiness, fear) to groups are weirder than sentences attributing intentional states (e.g. belief, desire). There has been a… -
New Book from Tamler Sommers
9 Nov 2009 | 4:44 pmTamler Sommers has a new book out, collecting interviews he has conducted with various people doing exciting work in moral cognition. As many of you will know, Tamler is not only an insightful philosopher but also an awe-inspiringly good writer and both of those talents are clearly on view here.
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Feminist Philosophers
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Stay-at-Home Fathers
20 Nov 2009 | 10:10 amPerhaps an anthem is needed… -
Insurance coverage for abortion
20 Nov 2009 | 4:40 amThe Stupak Amendment to the US Health Care bill would dictate that no insurance policy which covers abortion (except in cases of rape, incest or danger to mother’s life) could be part of the pool of insurance plans for which people are entitled to government subsidies. As a long-time UK resident I confess that I was a little unsure at first how much of an impact this would have. My suspicion was that almost no US insurance policies covered abortion anyway. (The NHS, of course, does. And birth control pills are free.) It turns out this was wrong. And, given the way that insurance tends… -
Good news from the APA…
20 Nov 2009 | 2:30 am…regarding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Leiter reports: Alastair Norcross (Colorado) reports that the National Board of the American Philosophical Association has now taken action on an initiative that began with a letter from Charles Hermes (UT Arlington) (posted here last February) and then a petition he crafted (signed by over 1400 philosophers) followed by a motion put before the APA by Professor Norcross and with support from many others. For more, go here. -
RIP Jeanne-Claude, brilliant artist
19 Nov 2009 | 12:12 pmAs many will remember, The Gates in NYC’s Central Park was done by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. For some time their collaborative projects were labeled as if by him alone. For some information about the change, see below. We note that it is a familiar idea that women’s brilliance can be hidden behind a man’s name. And that in the past it may have made great sense to her. Jeanne-Claude, who collaborated with her husband, Christo, on dozens of environmental arts projects, notably the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin and the… -
Texas law bans anything “identical to” marriage. (Oops.)
19 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pmI’m in lefty pedantic philosopher heaven: Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state. The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.” But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares: “This state or a…
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Gender, Race and Philosophy: The Blog
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Publishing Survey
17 Nov 2009 | 6:39 pmAll professional philosophers are invited to participate in a survey on publishing in philosophy. It should take about 10 minutes. It will be useful to have your CV handy as you fill it out. Please go here to find it. It is especially important for women and philosophers of color to complete it so we have a statistically significant representation of underrepresented groups. If all goes well, I will report on the results at the December APA in the symposium on philosophy publishing (Wednesday December 30th, 11:15-1:15). -
Symposium on Joshua Glasgow, A Theory of Race
27 Oct 2009 | 8:44 amPlease note that the SGRP has posted its Fall 2009 Symposium on Joshua Glasgow's book, A Theory of RaceCommentaries are by Michael O. Hardimon (UCSD), Sally Haslanger (MIT), Ron Mallon (U. Utah), and Naomi Zack (U. Oregon) with Joshua Glasgow's reply. Please have a look and post your comments! -
Symposium on Ann Cudd, Analyzing Oppression
27 Oct 2009 | 7:50 amPlease note that the SGRP has posted its Spring 2009 Symposium on Ann Cudd's book, Analyzing Oppression. Commentaries are by Sally Scholz (Villanova), Deborah Tollefsen (U. Memphis) and Helga Varden (UIUC). Please have a look and post your comments. Check back for Ann's reply. Apologies to all for the delay in posting this. -
Update on SGRP symposia
3 Aug 2009 | 5:03 amIt may seem that this blog is defunct given that we haven't posted our Winter or Spring symposia. Sincere apologies from the editors. The Winter symposium is a discussion of Ann Cudd's book Analyzing Oppression. The Spring symposium is a discussion of Joshua Glasgow's book A Theory of Race. We are hoping to post them soon, so stay tuned. We will be posting all future symposia directly on this blog and will announce it here and on relevant listservs. -
Interviews with K. A. Appiah, John McWhorter and Tommie Shelby
17 Dec 2008 | 1:13 pmJohn Derbyshire has recently published interviews with Kwame Anthony Appiah, John McWhorter and Tommie Shelby in The Prospect (Dec 2008). The "abstract" reads:To many, Obama's election meant the dawn of a new "post-racial" era for America. But, say many leading black American thinkers, the reality is much more complicated.You can find and download the interviews here:http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10510and the article "Post-racial Kitsch," also by Derbyshire, here:http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10507
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The Prosblogion
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More on animal pain
17 Nov 2009 | 9:45 amSuppose I am a person who is either not embodied or who doesn't know that he is embodied. I spend all my time communing directly mentally with other minds, playing games like chess, speculating philosophically, praying to God--I am a theist--etc. I never have any perceptions of anything physical. One day, I learn that the world contains matter--maybe God suddenly equips me with some senses, or maybe I learn this from some authority that I have the right to trust. Among the material things in the world, I learn that on one planet there are complex information processing systems, some of which… -
Does skeptical theism make all evils inscrutable?
13 Nov 2009 | 7:13 pmReader Stephen Maitzen writes in with the following puzzle: According to skeptical theism, we should never regard it as likely that we'd spot God's morally sufficient justification for permitting some evil, and hence our failure to spot a justification is never evidence that God doesn't have one. In other words, we should never expect God's justification to be scrutable to us. By the same token, then, we should never regard it as likely that the justification we've spotted is in fact the justification God is using, relying on, or motivated by; it's never unlikely that God's justification is… -
The problem of animal pain
12 Nov 2009 | 9:50 am[Cross-posted to my blog.] Supposedly intense pains that non-human animals undergo provide significant evidence against theism. Why? Well, the thought is that, if he existed, God could have done things better. But how? Suggestion 1: He could have made something that has the same motivational effects that pain has but that doesn't hurt. Response: It's not clear that this is possible--it may be that the qualia of pain reduce to motivational effects and cognitive content. But let's grant it's possible. Now we can ask: Do we have good reason to think God hadn't done this? After all, if the… -
Impossible Omnipotence
12 Nov 2009 | 7:06 amMany students think that anything that is omnipotent could make 2+2 = 5 or create a round-square, or square-circle or the like. Now these sorts of claims are often dismissed as naive or not well thought out since they amount to the claim that an omnipotent being could do the impossible. I’m now less sanguine about this sort of response, though I’ve given it before. I don’t think that students or others who claim that an omnipotent being could create a round-square are in fact claiming that an omnipotent being could do the impossible. What they are claiming, I think, is that… -
Problems for the standard view of an everlasting God
9 Nov 2009 | 7:48 amThe standard view of an everlasting God is that God has existed in time for an infinite amount of time and will continue to exist for an infinite amount of time, and a finite amount of time ago, creation sprang into being. Thus, God existed a year ago, a billion years ago, a trillion years ago, and so on. (I think, though I shall not argue for this here, that if one denies God's atemporality, one should adopt the standard view on pain of believing something theologically much worse, such as that God has a finite age or that creation is infinitely old. So if the standard view of…
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In Socrates' Wake
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More on Thought Experiments in the Classroom
20 Nov 2009 | 11:48 amThis issue has been addressed before on ISW, but I would like to raise it again. I find it difficult to get students to see the relevance of thought experiments, even the less esoteric ones such as Singer's drowning child analogy in his argument for famine relief. Even if they come along for the first part of the ride, when I start adjusting the drowning child case to handle their objections to the analogy between it and the starving child, I start to lose them. David Boonin and Graham Oddie's applied ethics anthology has a helpful discussion of the role and relevance of thought experiments… -
Philosophers and ink stained wretches
19 Nov 2009 | 8:45 amCarlin Romano claims we need courses in the Philosophy of Journalism. Is he right?Romano suggests that philosophy of journalism belongs in the philosophy curriculum just as philosophy of law, philosophy of science, or philosophy of religion do. I'm not sure about this. I don't see that there are fundamental metaphysical questions in journalism as there are in science or religion. Nor does journalism present analogous conceptual questions associated with philosophy of law (the nature or law or legal norms, for example).On the other hand, I'm not a journalist (though I did play one as the… -
The noble lie I tell myself
8 Nov 2009 | 8:48 pmBoy, there's not a better article to get you thinking about the instructor-student relationship than this piece by Gary Lewandowski and David Stromhetz. When students don't learn, how quick are we to decide that they're the problem? The authors:Was it your teaching? Impossible, of course. You are a conscientious teacher who worked diligently on your lectures. You tracked down recent references, created examples, embedded discussion questions, made several rounds of revisions, and followed tips for creating proper PowerPoints. But the students still did poorly, and will surely blame you and… -
An Alternative way of Revising
1 Nov 2009 | 2:20 pmThis time of year, many of us find ourselves writing many comments on papers that we have written before, for the same student, and we find that we are writing the same comments throughout the paper. When we do this, we get frustrated, and the students get discouraged. But shouldn't we be marking all the places in the paper that illustrate the particular problems on which we expect students to improve? In addition, we all recognize the value of revision - but full papers are often insufficiently revised, compounding the frustration and disappointment of both teachers and students alike. What… -
On teaching "contemporary" philosophy
26 Oct 2009 | 7:21 amISW acolyte Kevin Timpe writes me with the following query about teaching a contemporary philosophy course:I'm scheduled to teach a Contemporary Philosophy course for the first time in the spring. It is part of the history of philosophy sequence for our major. While none of the courses in the sequence are specifically required, students have to take at least 3 of the 4 courses in the series. My question is this. I'm a typical analytic philosopher. I had a class on Levinas and one on Habermas in grad school, but I haven't taken studied or read Sartre, Heiddeger, Merleau-Ponty, etc., since my…
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Philosophy by the Way
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Montaigne and the stupidity of man
16 Nov 2009 | 5:56 amReaders of my blogs have probably noticed that Michel de Montaigne is one of my favourite philosophers. Even more, I started this series of blogs with a comment on a quotation from Montaigne’s Essays. Actually this is a bit strange, for the ideas of Montaigne have no direct relation with my main field of philosophical interest, which is the philosophy of mind and action. However, Montaigne is one of the few philosophers that I read and reread, since I came into touch with him. No wonder, for Montaigne was ahead of his time, and much of what he wrote more than 400 years ago is still modern. -
Outdoor cafes
9 Nov 2009 | 5:26 amStreets, and roads (“streets” for short) are places of public life everywhere. Streets have many functions. The main function is connecting places. That’s way they are there. Streets connect places that are important for people for one reason or another, because they live there or work there, because these places have special functions (theatres, shops, railway stations), and so on. In order to go from one such a place to another one you follow the streets that connect them, walking, by bike, by car or how you like. However, streets have many other functions as well. Some people work… -
Truth (2)
1 Nov 2009 | 3:40 pmWhen we admit, like I did in my blog last week, that we can never know that a statement is true, and that things expressed in it can always be different from what we originally thought that they are, truth can no longer be something absolute. However, it can serve as a guideline. For when I argue that there are only subjective viewpoints and interpretations of the world around us, I do not want to say that any viewpoint and any interpretation will do. It is a bit like what George Orwell said in his Animal Farm: All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. In the same way… -
Truth
25 Oct 2009 | 6:51 pmSome people, like Tarski, say that a statement is true if what it says corresponds with reality. But how do we know what reality is so that we can compare this statement with it? For we do not have an objective criterion for determining what is real. How do we know that a statement is true if what we see as real depends in the end on the subjective viewpoints of the observer and on his or her place in the world, so on his or her interpretation of the world? For this reason we can reach an intersubjective idea of what is real at most. Already Plato explained in his Legend of the Cave that what… -
Boxing and the peace movement
16 Oct 2009 | 4:59 amRecently the most important Dutch peace movement IKV Pax Christi held its yearly Peace Week. In order to attract new young people as peace activists a short video has been published on the Internet with a leading role for Jan Pronk, president of IKV and a former Dutch cabinet minister who performed also several high functions for the United Nations. In this video we see Pronk entering the training room of his wrestling school in a boxing outfit. He looks around and sees only an old man there, hardly able to do his exercises. Apparently it is not the right opponent for him. Pronk walks a bit…
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Knowledge and Experience
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Climate Change and Population Growth
18 Nov 2009 | 8:56 amA student from my ethics course sent along this link to a Yahoo News article on the relationship between climate change and population growth.The news article starts with a strong, clear statement:The battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available, the U.N. Population Fund said Wednesday.But then the majority of the article goes into criticisms of this policy and, indeed, casts doubt on any need to control population growth at all:On Wednesday, one analyst criticized the U.N. -
This is how business is done?
18 Nov 2009 | 8:46 amAfter hearing about Sally's paper scheduled for the APA next month (see below) and strategizing my holiday plans, I was thinking that I might swing by the conference for a day or two, even though I'm not presenting (and not--hooray!--interviewing or being interviewed). New York can be fun, even if expensive.BUT, not having the print program to hand (it's at home--I do pay my dues!), I thought I'd do it the 21st century way and pull up the website.No doing. The undated message on the website says:The APA National Office is in the midst of transitioning our website and its services to a new… -
Publishing Philosophy
17 Nov 2009 | 6:45 amAll professional philosophers are invited to participate in a survey on publishing in philosophy. It should take about 10 minutes. It will be useful to have your CV handy as you fill it out. Please go here to find it:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=TXA9uBYCaq4MtU_2bwLhLADQ_3d_3dIf all goes well, Sally Haslanger will report on the results at the December APA in the symposium on philosophy publishing (Wednesday December 30th, 11:15-1:15).Thanks for your help. Please spread the word. -
The Thoughtful Missing, Again
10 Nov 2009 | 9:39 amLeiter posts again on women in the profession. Sure, his posts are helpful. And as always we philosophers use our reasoning skills to hash it all out in the comments, so that now we can move toward putting thoughts into action. Ahem.One thing that's so very nice is that this conversation gets more sophisticated nearly every time we practice it. Sadly, though, the key points remain the same. Which to rehearse this time? That the constant stream of anecdotes about hostility toward women is sufficient to explain quite a lot? That philosophical exceptionalism can't stand up to counterexamples… -
Mathematical Ability and Environment
4 Nov 2009 | 1:26 pmThere's not much empirical evidence identifying systematic biologically-based intellectual differences between girls and boys, women and men, and what evidence there is doesn't reliably rule out the possibility of environmental rather than biological differences. One of the few points that hasn't been disproved is the observation that at the highest levels of mathematical ability (I'll wager, that means better at math than you are!), men and boys outnumber women and girls. This new paper looks at the geography of the distribution of female math whizzes and finds that they come out of a…
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The Brooks Blog
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Mind Research Fellowships (2)
18 Nov 2009 | 10:05 amThe Mind Association invites applications for up to two Research Fellowships to cover research leave for one term/semester in the academic year 2010–2011.The Fellowships are intended for academics in posts in a UK institution of higher education who are engaged in research in any area of Philosophy. The Fellowships may be used to fund research leave for projects at any stage of completion, including initial stages of research. The grants will be paid to the universities at which the scholars are employed, and will be £8,500 for a university with terms, and £13,000 for a university with… -
Survey on publishing in philosophy
17 Nov 2009 | 6:46 amI have received the following request from Sally Haslanger:All professional philosophers are invited to participate in a survey on publishing in philosophy. It should take about 10 minutes. It will be useful to have your CV handy as you fill it out. Please go here to find it:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=TXA9uBYCaq4MtU_2bwLhLADQ_3d_3dIf all goes well, Sally Haslanger will report on the results at the December APA in the symposium on philosophy publishing (Wednesday December 30th, 11:15-1:15).Thanks for your help. Please spread the word. I also strongly encourage interested colleagues… -
JOB: LSE
17 Nov 2009 | 5:41 amThree-year LSE Fellowship in PhilosophyLogic and Scientific Method and Forum for European PhilosophyDepartment of PhilosophyLondon School of Economics and Political Sciencehttp://jobs.ac.uk/job/AAH111/ -
JOB: Bristol
17 Nov 2009 | 5:40 amLecturer in PhilosophyDepartment of PhilosophyUniversity of Bristolhttp://jobs.ac.uk/job/AAH017/ -
JOB: East Anglia
17 Nov 2009 | 5:39 amDean of the Faculty of Arts and HumanitiesFaculty of Arts and HumanitiesUniversity of East Angliahttp://jobs.ac.uk/job/AAH001/
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fragments of consciousness
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The Philosophical Survey
18 Nov 2009 | 9:52 pmDavid Bourget and I have recently launched a new PhilPapers project: the Philosophical Survey. This is a survey of the philosophical views of members of the philosophy profession and others. We encourage all professional philosophers, graduate students, and interested others to take part.The survey contains thirty questions, each giving a choice between 2-4 views on a philosophical issue. Respondents can indicate that they accept or lean toward one of the options or can give one of a variety of "other" answers. We have kept the questions as simple as… -
Singularity Summit
2 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pmIve been in New York for the last two months, teaching at New York University (as I'll do in September-December for the next three years). There's been too much going on to report on in full, but two conferences are worth mentioning.In early October I attended the Singularity Summit. The term "singularity" here means different things to different people, but the core idea is I.J. Good's idea of an "intelligence explosion": if we can create machines more intelligent than us, then they'll be able to create machines more intelligent than them,… -
The extended will
21 Aug 2009 | 7:00 pmJoel Anderson gave a nice talk in CAPPE a few days ago on "Scaffolded Autonomy and the Extended Will". The talk focuses on the role of environmental triggers in facilitating the control of action, and on the ensuing possibility of an extended view of the will. The paper isn't online, but see his "Procrastination and the Extended Will" (co-authored with Joseph Heath) for the general idea.Joel wasn't certain whether he wanted a real extended will thesis, or a weaker embedding thesis on which the environment plays a crucial explanatory role in the… -
Five papers
19 Aug 2009 | 4:06 amFor the last couple of years I have mostly been working on books, so I have not posted many papers here. But I've recently significantly revised three old drafts and written up two new ones (previously circulated as talks), as follows: Verbal Disputes and Philosophical Progress: This is a written-up version of the old Powerpoint on Terminological Disputes (I gave in and went with the more common "verbal dispute"). Still extremely drafty in places. Revisability and Conceptual Change: A written-up version of an earlier handout on Conceptual Analysis meets "Two… -
Conference season wrap-up
16 Aug 2009 | 10:17 pmOK, I haven't been very good about keeping this blog up-to-date. I'll try to do better. First, recent conferences (here "recent" means since April). St. Andrews conference on Philosophical Methodology: I've posted photos. An audio file of my talk on verbal disputes (and also of Jonathan Schaffer's talk on modality and methodology) is online. Fullerton conference on Consciousness and Self: I've posted photos and Powerpoint for my wrap-up talk on "The Varieties of Self-Awareness". Someone uploaded the entire talk to YouTube.
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Jon Cogburn's Blog
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perverse egalitarianism thread
16 Nov 2009 | 5:44 pmMikhail started a thread with one of my comments (on his earlier somewhat grumpy post) and it's spawned another interesting thread HERE. -
interesting leiterreports thread on gender imbalances in academic philosophy
12 Nov 2009 | 4:42 amThe thread is HERE. -
Iggy Pop - Five Foot One
10 Nov 2009 | 8:28 pm -
final version of sunday school lecture notes for now
5 Nov 2009 | 9:06 amPosting has been light. I've been really digging into no-luck epistemologies, in particular Keith DeRose's fantastic work. But all my thoughts are going into academic papers with Jeff Roland, and I almost never blog arguments that I'm putting into papers.One other cool thing- Me and University Presbyterian Church Associate Pastor Clint Mitchell's notes on biblical interpretation and authority are finalized for the remainder of this semester's class and on-line HERE. A few conclusions: Naive inerrancy (I assume some folks at Baylor have a more sophisticated version than the… -
navel gazing after friends' reports from tour
28 Oct 2009 | 3:31 pmFor all my kind of pseudo-punk rock wingeing, I'm forced to conclude that U2 is one of the handful of big acts who actually are keeping the banner of rock waiving. Whose it going to be next? Billy Joel? Abba?Wait a minute, I already decided those guys wrote some pretty good songs.At least: (1) I still don't like progressive rock (though, disturbingly, two friends whose other aesthetic judgments I put a great deal of creedence in are big fans of the form), and (2) I'm irrationally exuberant about the fact that James Williamson and Iggy Pop have made peace and the former is resuming…
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Continental Philosophy
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LSU ‘Mardi Gras’ Philosophy Conference
18 Nov 2009 | 8:41 pmCall for Papers We are pleased to announce: The 2nd Annual LSU ‘Mardi Gras’ Philosophy Conference: Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, Louisiana February 19-20th, 2010 Keynote Speakers: Dr. Edward Casey, SUNY Stony Brook “A Matter of Edge: Border vs. Boundary at La Frontera.” Dr. David Wood, Vanderbilt University “Can Art Save the Earth?” This conference is open to all undergraduates and graduates. However, we will be looking for graduate-level work and only the best papers will be selected for presentation. This conference is open to any topic, but creative philosophical work… -
Roundtable on Marx’s Capital
17 Nov 2009 | 8:59 pmRoundtable on Marx’s Capital Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, February 24-27, 2011 Our second Roundtable will explore Volume One of Marx’s Capital (1867). We chose this text because the resurgence in references to and mentions of Marx – provoked especially by the financial crisis, but presaged by the best-seller status of Hardt and Negri’s Empire and Marx’s surprising victory in the BBC’s “greatest philosopher” poll – has only served to highlight the fact that there have not been any new interpretive or theoretical approaches to this book since Althusser’s… -
CFP: “Deleuze: Ethics and Politics”
9 Nov 2009 | 8:44 pmCall for Papers: 4th Biennial Philosophy and Literature Conference At Purdue University “Deleuze: Ethics and Politics” April 9-10, 2010 Purdue University, West Lafayette Deadline for Paper Submission: January 15, 2010 The philosopher Michel Serres once described Gilles Deleuze as “an excellent example of the dynamic movement of free and inventive thinking.” Without a doubt, Deleuze was one of the most singular and prolific philosophers of the 20th century. It is no surprise then, that the impact of Deleuze’s thought continues to reverberate throughout a host of diverse… -
Diacritics 38.1-2 Derrida and Democracy
9 Nov 2009 | 8:13 pmDiacritics 38.1-2 Derrida and Democracy Eds. Jonathan Culler and Phillip E. Lewis Derrida and Democracy Jonathan Culler Part One “The Most Interesting Thing in the World” Jonathan Culler Passionate Secrets and Democratic Dissidence David Wills Signed Paine, or Panic in Literature Peggy Kamuf Pulsations of Respect, or Winged Impossibility: Literature with Deconstruction Henry Sussman Spectral Gatherings: Derrida, Celan, and the Covenant of the Word Michael G. Levine Part Two For Better and for Worse (There Again . . .) Geoffrey Bennington Rogue Democracy Samuel Weber A Genealogy of… -
POLITICS, RELIGION, AND VIOLENCE -THE TILBURG PHILOSOPHY SUMMER SCHOOL July 2010
7 Nov 2009 | 2:44 pmA Seminar with Simon Critchley | July 15-24, 2010 The return to religion has become perhaps the dominant cliché of contemporary theory. Of course, theory often offers nothing more than an exaggerated echo of what is happening in reality, a political reality dominated by the fact of religious war. Somehow we seem to have passed from a secular age, which we were ceaselessly told was post-metaphysical, to a new situation where political action seems to flow directly from metaphysical conflict. This situation can be triangulated around the often-fatal entanglement of politics and religion, where…
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Philosophy of information
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CFP - Towards a Comprehensive Intelligence Test (TCIT) - Reconsidering the Turing Test for the 21st Century Symposium
13 Nov 2009 | 6:44 amCall for Paper Towards a Comprehensive Intelligence Test (TCIT) Reconsidering the Turing Test for the 21st Century Symposium http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~aayesh/TuringTestRevisited/ At AISB2010 Convention Leicester, UK 29th March – 1st April 2010 2010 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Turing’s paper, in which he outlined his test for machine intelligence. Turing suggested that the possibility of genuine machine thought should be replaced by a simple behaviour-based process in which a human interrogator converses blindly with a machine and another human. Although the precise… -
La révolution numérique considérée comme une quatrième révolution
3 Nov 2009 | 6:19 amPatrick Peccatte La révolution numérique considérée comme une quatrième révolution, par Luciano Floridihttp://blog.tuquoque.com/post/2009/11/03/revolution-numerique-quatrieme-revolutionLuciano Floridi's blog on the Philosophy of information -
How information becomes knowledge
1 Nov 2009 | 4:06 amSemantic Information and The Network Theory of Account (forthcoming in Synthese)The article addresses the problem of how semantic information can be upgraded to knowledge. The introductory section explains the technical terminology and the relevant background. Section two argues that, for semantic information to be upgraded to knowledge, it is necessary and sufficient to be embedded in a network of questions and answers that correctly accounts for it. Section three shows that an information flow network of type A fulfils such a requirement, by warranting that the erotetic deficit,… -
Simulations and Their Philosophical Implications
13 Oct 2009 | 10:01 amNACAP 2010 @ Carnegie Mellon University - July 24-26, 2010 Simulations and Their Philosophical Implications Call for Papers/Proposals Deadline: February 1st 2010 (firm) In honor of the 60th Anniversary of the publication of Alan Turing’s groundbreaking article, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” we are centering the 2010 NACAP Conference on simulations and their philosophical implications.Since the inception of the computer, simulations have become ubiquitous tools of the trade in a wide range of disciplines from astrophysics to sociology, machine learning to logic. When… -
Arsenic and e-Health
11 Oct 2009 | 11:20 amMonsieur Homais is one of the less likable characters in Madame Bovary. The deceitful pharmacist fakes a deep friendship for Charles Bovary. In fact, he constantly undermines his reputation with his patients, thus contributing to Charles’ ruin. Monsieur Homais is not merely wicked. A smart man, he has been convicted in the past for practicing medicine without a license and so he worries, very reasonably, that Charles might denounce him to the authorities for the illicit business of health advice and personal consultations that he keeps organising in his pharmacy.The ultimate success of the…
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In Search of Enlightenment
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Egalitarianism and Ideal/Non-Ideal Theory
19 Nov 2009 | 8:46 amSuppose one considers oneself an "egalitarian". And by that I mean one who believes in distributive equality (rather than moral or political equality). And this egalitarian also has philosophical inclinations, and thus they wish to undertake the project of developing an egalitarian theory of distributive justice. And, for the purpose of the exercise today, let us also suppose further that our egalitarian philosopher is primarily interested in developing an egalitarian theory of domestic justice for an affluent, liberal democracy like the US, Canada or England (rather than a global egalitarian… -
PNAS Study on Telomere Length and Centenarians
18 Nov 2009 | 6:38 amWhy is it that some people, who are exceptional cases, can live 100 years of disease-free life while the vast majority of their contemporaries die from cancer, heart disease or stroke 20-30 years earlier? This is perhaps the most important question which the medical sciences should be tackling today, rather than the questions which currently dominant the "disease model" approach to health extension (e.g. what causes specific diseases, like cancer, stroke, AD, etc.).If we had a better understanding of the things that influence "healthy aging" then we could reduce the increasing risks of… -
David vs Goliath
13 Nov 2009 | 6:11 amThe story of humanity is a fascinating and inspiring one. Despite the great adversity our species has, and continues to, face, we are capable of great compassion, imagination and inspiration. Indeed, it is perhaps these human traits that have helped us overcome the almost insurmountable obstacles we have faced in our species' evolutionary history.What we are today reflects the challenges we have had to overcome in the past. From our two eyes and two hands, to our emotions like love, hope and fear, we are a complex history of biological and, more recently, cultural evolution. The inhospitable… -
Biogerontology Paper Now Online
7 Nov 2009 | 11:45 amMy paper entitled "Framing the Inborn Aging Process and Longevity Science" is now published on the "Online First" section of the journal Biogerontology. Here is the abstract:The medical sciences are currently dominated by the ‘‘disease-model’’ approach to health extension, an approach that prioritizes the study of pathological mechanisms with the goal of discovering treatment modalities for specific diseases. This approach has marginalized research on the aging process itself, research that could lead to an intervention that retards aging, thus conferring health dividends that would… -
Gene Therapy Success for Brian Disease
6 Nov 2009 | 5:30 amNaturenews reports on another important success for gene therapy-- treatment for ALD (adrenoleukodystrophy), a rare, inherited metabolic disorder that afflicts young males. ALD results in severe degeneration of the structure that is crucial for brain-cell function and most die before adolescence. Here is a sample from the news story:Researchers have halted a fatal brain disease by delivering a therapeutic gene to the stem cells that mature into blood cells.The gene was transferred using a virus derived from HIV, a technique that researchers have pursued for more than a decade but has not been…
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Manyul Im's Chinese Philosophy Blog
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I’ve Moved!
8 Nov 2009 | 7:12 pm…and joined a group of scholars in launching a new group blog of Chinese and Comparative philosophy — Warp, Weft, and Way. This blog will remain on line indefinitely for archived reference, but postings and discussion will continue over at the new blog. I hope you will join the discussion over there. Please change your links [...] -
New SEP Entry on Neo-Taoism (xuanxue)
23 Oct 2009 | 12:23 amThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on “Neo-Taoism”, by Alan Chan (at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, formerly of National University of Singapore’s philosophy deparment), just became available on October 1. From He Yan and Wang Bi to Guo Xiang — everything you wanted to know about post-Han Daoism, encyclopedically considered; here’s a teaser: Both He [...] -
Hansen’s Tao Te Ching
19 Oct 2009 | 12:19 pmA little blogging while I’m running around and setting up the transition to the group blog… Chad Hansen’s translation of the Daodejing is available now. I happened to see it at the Yale Book Store, did a double-take, and snatched it up. It has a kind of boutique feel to it, literally — the hardcover has [...] -
Ivanhoe’s Lu-Wang School Translation Reviewed
15 Oct 2009 | 12:31 pmReviewed by friend of the blog, Justin Tiwald, at NDPR: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=17606 It’s good to see updated translation of Wang Yangming and Lu Xiangshan’s Neoconfucianism. What else would be nice to have in English? -
Transition to Group Blog in the Works
6 Oct 2009 | 7:42 amI’m working on the transformation of things. Thanks for being patient. I may actually blog before the transformation occurs; we’ll see. I’ll take more suggestions here for the name of the new blog, if something strikes your fancy. That’s still up in the air. Names that are named are not constant names… [...]
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In Living Color
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Giving Away Money
19 Nov 2009 | 7:05 amI am soooo busy with various and sundry that I've been unable to post or respond to comments lately. But here's an article I've been thinking about: Academic pledges to give away £1m Dr Toby Ord says his donations will improve people's lives An Oxford University academic has pledged to give £1m of his earnings to charity during the course of his life. Dr Toby Ord, 30, who -
The Faceless Woman
15 Nov 2009 | 7:13 amYes, I did watch the video clip of the woman who had her face ripped off by a chimpanzee, and her hands too. It was over at the ABC news website, and I couldn't resist. And yes, the image has been haunting me, as appparently it's been haunting a lot of people. Two of the blogs I read referred to the woman last week, and Jon Stewart talked about her with Jane Goodall a couple of nights ago. -
Good and Absurd
13 Nov 2009 | 7:04 amRussell Powell makes sense here, when he says religion doesn't have to be either absurd or good for the world. Apparently that's the false dichotomy presupposed by a series of debates between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson. Posed as a disjunction, the question assumes (and by inference, these opposing authors assume) that religion cannot be both absurd, in the colloquial sense of -
Women in Philosophy
11 Nov 2009 | 5:43 amThere’s been a torrent of discussion about women in philosophy since TPM published an article on the subject in the last issue. Here at Brian Leiter, Peter Carruthers suggests that experimental philosophers get involved in figuring out what keeps women underrepresented in the field. Carruthers points out that women are 25-30% at every stage—undergraduate education, graduate school, and -
Killing Traditions (with recipe)
8 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pmIt's starting to be that time of year. From the "archive" (11/07)-- ___ A student of mine once wrote a paper saying he couldn’t stop eating meat because it would mean giving up too many traditions. For example, on Thanksgiving Day you’re supposed to have the smell of roasting turkey wafting through the house all day. A vegetarian meal would simply cook too fast. To a purist this is an
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Stephen Law
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The Intelligence Squared Debate: Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry vs. The Catholics (1 of 5)
20 Nov 2009 | 3:31 amThanks to Blakeley Nixon for this link... -
STUDENT ESSAY COMPETITION
19 Nov 2009 | 11:54 amExpress yourself!Campaign for Free Expression Essay ContestThe Campaign for Free Expression is a CFI initiative to focus efforts and attention on one of the most crucial components of freethought: the right of individuals to express their viewpoints, opinions, and beliefs about all subjects—especially religion. To encourage free expression and to emphasize the importance of this fundamental right, CFI and its sister organization, The Council for Secular Humanism, are sponsoring this contest.Free Expression Essay Contest: Students enrolled in an accredited college or university are invited… -
A terrible justification for keeping TFTD exclusively religious
18 Nov 2009 | 3:18 amThe BBC Thought for The Day debate rumbles on. I notice that, according to an Ekklesia report, the BBC Trust defended the exclusively religious contribution to the TFTD programme against charges that this failed the test of 'due' impartiality on this ground:“The requirement of ‘due’ impartiality means that the approach required depends on audience expectations” the BBC Trust report ruled. Since the audience expected a certain range of contributors, then the status quo was acceptable in the Trust's opinion. [Source here].But of course, if this is the justification, it is terrible. -
Thought For The Day will continue to exclude non-religious
17 Nov 2009 | 10:29 amThe BBC Trust announced today:The BBC Trust today announced its findings on a number of appeals about the broadcast of Radio 4's Thought for the Day and BBC editorial policy on non-religious content.The Trust found that the editorial policy of only allowing religious contributors to participate on Thought for the Day does not breach either the BBC Editorial Guideline on impartiality or the BBC's duty to reflect religious and other beliefs in its programming. Go here. -
My notes for the McGrath debate
15 Nov 2009 | 12:31 pmHere are the notes I used for the debate with Professor Alister McGrath on the 29th October. I ended up only alluding to the second objection as I thought it too technical on the night.Does the natural world point to God?Cosmic fine-tuning arguments - that God provides the best, or even a half-decent, explanation of the character the natural world in which we find ourselves - face FIVE main types of objection.I am going to briefly outline all five. But, I intend to rest my case on just the last two. So the first three will just be sketched out, and are merely for your information only.FIRST…
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Gone Public
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Connecting New Media and the Political Unconscious
18 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pmIn two podcasts this week I have had the delightful opportunity to talk with colleagues from two distinct worlds about themes ranging from the political unconscious to new media. Early this week Brad Rourke, whom I know through our mutual association with the Kettering Foundation, engaged me in a conversation on the subject of his own work, new media and civic life, picking up some of the themes in my previous post, Discerning Media. We made a couple of key points: (1) the distinction between professional media and citizen media is less helpful than the distinction between journalism (which… -
Discerning Media
11 Nov 2009 | 6:28 pmI spent part of yesterday and today in meetings at the Kettering Foundation thinking about media and democracy. These conversations still, to my chagrin, keep getting tangled up with the debate about old school journalism versus new media. I’ve blogged about this debate before. But I keep coming back to these meetings because I think that something incredibly promising is happening in this new media environment. But it won’t happen inevitably; it won’t happen because the new technology just makes it so; it won’t happen unless we discern and aim toward using these… -
Execution Style
10 Nov 2009 | 6:38 pmNo doubt John Allen Muhammad was a sociopath and a murderer. I only wish that we as a society might be better than that. I’m sick to my stomach that our collective way of dealing with such sick, sociopathic murderers is to murder them back and in the process model killing as a way to solve problems. Shame on us. Shame, shame, shame. As reported in the New York Times: John Allen Muhammad, the Washington-Area Sniper, Is Executed John Allen Muhammad, the man known as the D.C. Sniper whose murderous shooting spree in the fall of 2002 left at least 10Ex dead, was executed at a Virginia… -
Twenty years ago today…
9 Nov 2009 | 2:12 pmIt was twenty years ago today that…. How do you finish that sentence? There are plenty obvious ways: …that the wall came down. …that the Cold War ended. …that Communism failed. …that capitalism (or was it democracy? or are these even interchangeable?) triumphed. blah blah blah Okay, it was some of all of that, though with Slavoj Zizek I agree that it wasn’t the last thing on that list. What I think changed that day, along with the weeks that led up to it and the cushy and technicolor revolutions that followed, was the notion that politics is about… -
The Mismeasure of Woman
24 Oct 2009 | 7:28 amOn today’s New York Times op-ed page, financial editor Joanne Lipman asks how it is that women finally make up half the work force and are the major breadwinner in 40 percent of families and yet are still treated as either witches or bimboes. Op-Ed Contributor The Mismeasure of Woman By JOANNE LIPMAN Published: October 24, 2009 Somewhere along the line, especially in recent years, progress for women has stalled. This isn’t simply a woman’s issue; it affects us all….
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Alexander Pruss's Blog
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Basic entities and predication
19 Nov 2009 | 2:48 pmSuppose that trope theory is correct. Then what it is for x to have a given property P is to have a trope, say Px, associated with it. But suppose now that x is a reducible entity—one facts about which reduce to the existence and functioning of other entities (e.g., x might be a table—table-facts reduce to facts about particles and societies). In that case, it is surely not the case that what it is for x to have P is for x to have associated with it Px. For if x has Px associated with it, then x is no longer reducible. For consider the fact that x has P. For this fact is the same as the… -
Correspondence theory of truth
19 Nov 2009 | 1:50 pmA correspondence theory of truth is sometimes presented as making sense of our intuition about the correspondence between true statements/beliefs/propositions and the world. However, Correspondence Theory(tm) holds more specifically that every true proposition corresponds to something in the world. And that is surely not intuitive. Certainly, Aristotle who said that to speak truly is to say of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not did not think that negative propositions corresponded to something that is. There is no widely held intuition that the proposition that there are no… -
A theory of spacetime
18 Nov 2009 | 7:54 pmI am not saying this theory is correct—it's too platonic for my taste. But it's suggestive. There are special properties called "locators". Moreover, as it happens, the collection of all locators forms a topological space (one can think of the open sets as corresponding to certain distinguished properties of locators). This space we can call the Receptacle. The Receptacle partitions into topologically connected subspaces. Each of these we can call a spacetime. Thus, a spacetime is a maximal connected set of locators. Some spacetimes have an additional structure, say a metric or manifold… -
A theory of personal identity with no counterexamples
16 Nov 2009 | 5:09 amThis is likely equivalent to Merricks' proposal—I still need to think about whether it is—but I like it. Question: When is it the case that the same person is located at spatiotemporal location y and at spatiotemporal location z? Answer: When and only when there exists an x such that (a) x is a person, (b) x is located at y, and (c) x is located at z. Note that the answer does not use the concept of identity, and all the concepts it uses are ones that substantive theories of personal identity also presuppose. -
Vagueness
13 Nov 2009 | 7:00 amA guiding intuition in much of my thinking in metaphysics is that no vague fact is to be taken metaphysically seriously. I don't have an account of the seriousness, though. Still, the intuition has some nice consequences. Psychological theories of personal identity make diachronic identity vague—but diachronic identity should be taken seriously, so the theories are false. Materialism makes it vague where there is intentionality (because it makes all interesting macroscopic properties vague), hence materialism is false.
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The Splintered Mind
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On Measuring People Twice
19 Nov 2009 | 12:42 pmLots of psychological studies involve measuring people twice. For example, in the imagery literature, there's a minor industry that seeks to relate self-reports about imagery to performance on cognitive tasks that seem to involve visual imagery, such visual memory tests or mental rotation tasks.(A typical mental rotation task presents two line drawings of 3-D figures and asks if one is a simple rotation of the other, for example:Image from http://www.skeptic.com here.)Participants in such studies thus receive two tests, the cognitive test in question and also a self-report imagery test of… -
Perplexities of Consciousness, submitted draft
5 Nov 2009 | 5:48 pmI have just submitted my new book manuscript, Perplexities of Consciousness, to MIT Press. The whole thing is now viewable from my homepage.Comments still welcome -- more than welcome! -- either on this post or by email.Now that this manuscript is in, I can focus on catching up with all those other things I should have been doing and didn't! -
Winner's Way
2 Nov 2009 | 8:48 am... a novel written by my father, Kirk Gable (born Ralph Schwitzgebel), is now available at Amazon. I hear his voice on every page, glimpse some piece of his worldview, which so affected my own.Here's the blurb:In this inspiring coming-of-age novel, Mark, a young man who thinks his life is full of walls, obligations and dead-ends, comes to realize that there is something more. Mark is a freshman in college, studying business—a field that doesn’t interest him at all. Family obligations have turned him from his real interests. Boring classes and medical problems make him feel vulnerable and… -
A Very Simple Argument Against Any General Theory of Consciousness
30 Oct 2009 | 3:09 pmSuspiciously simple, you might think. Here it goes:(1.) No general theory of consciousness can be justified except on the grounds that it gets it right about certain facts known independently of that theory. Those facts include facts about the presence or absence of conscious experience in a wide variety of actual and possible beings that are unlike us in potentialy relevant respects -- beings like frogs, insects, weird sea life, computers and robots of various types, alien beings of various types, and collective superorganisms of various types.(2.) Independently of a well-justified theory of… -
Curveball Illusion
28 Oct 2009 | 12:21 pmI hadn't seen this curveball illusion before. Very striking and surprising. I haven't had a chance to look into the theory behind it yet, but it seems to me to suggest something strange about the mapping of visual input into peripheral space.(Thanks to Paul Hoffman for the pointer.)
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Logic Matters
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The blog is dead .... long live the blog!
8 Nov 2009 | 2:12 amAfter almost 500 posts, this will be the last post here, meaning at this URL ........ but I'll be continuing the Logic Matters blog at logicmatters.net (and all the posts here at Blogger have been imported to that address, though the aesthetics are at the moment a bit primitive).Geeky explanation: At very long last, I'm joining the cool kids and am using the Wordpress platform on a hosted site. That's not in fact to make blogging easier -- I rather like the undistracting minimalism of Blogger -- but because Wordpress works as a nice content management system to build/maintain the rest of the… -
Gödel Without Tears -- 5
6 Nov 2009 | 7:16 amHere now is the fifth episode on the idea of a primitive recursive function. The preamble explains why this matters and where this is going. [As always, I'll be very glad to hear about typos/thinkos.]The previous episodes are available:Episode 1, Incompleteness -- the very idea (version of Oct. 16)Episode 2. Incompleteness and undecidability (version of Oct. 26)Episode 3. Two weak arithmetics (version of Nov. 1)Episode 4. First-order Peano Arithmetic (version of Nov. 1) -
Ruse gets a beta minus.
4 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pmPhilosophers don't get asked often enough to write for the newspapers and weeklies: so it is really annoying when an opportunity is wasted on second-rate maunderings. Michael Ruse writes in today's Guardian on whether there is an "atheist schism". And he immediately kicks off on the wrong foot.As a professional philosopher my first question naturally is: "What or who is an atheist?" If you mean someone who absolutely and utterly does not believe there is any God or meaning then I doubt there are many in this group.Eh? Where on earth has that "or meaning" come from? In what coherent sense of… -
The Autonomy of Mathematical Knowledge -- Chap. 2, §§3-5
4 Nov 2009 | 3:18 amTo return for a moment the question we left hanging: what is the shape of Hilbert's "naturalism" according to Franks? Well, Franks in §2.3 thinks that Hilbert's position can be contrasted with a "Wittgensteinian" naturalism that forecloses global questions of the justification of a framework by rejecting them as meaningless. "According to Hilbert … mathematics is justified in application" (p. 44), and for him "the skeptic's path leads to the death of all science". Really? But, to repeat, if that is someone's basic stance, then you'd expect him to very much want to know which mathematics is… -
The Autonomy of Mathematical Knowledge -- Chap. 2, §§1 & 2
2 Nov 2009 | 7:57 amHilbert in the 1920s seems pretty confident that classical analysis is in good order. "Mathematicians have pursued to the uttermost the modes of inference that rest on the concept of sets of numbers, and not even the shadow of an inconsistency has appeared .... [D]espite the application of the boldest and most manifold combinations of the subtlest techiniques, a complete security of inference and a clear unanimity of results reigns in analysis." (p. 41 -- as before, references are to passages or quotations in Franks' book.) These don't sound like the words of a man who thinks that the…
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In the Space of Reasons
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Endogenous constraint on thinking not Thought
20 Nov 2009 | 6:57 amHaving not enabled comments on this site, there is no neat way to report corrections. But Paul Witcombe has emailed me to point out the error of my post on Mind and World as transcendental anthropology. He says, surely correctly,I’ve been mulling over the issues you raised but my ‘mullings’ keep being dominated by trying to give content to the notion of an ‘endogenous factor/constraint’ in relation to thought, a conceptual scheme etc in the context of McDowell’s position.1. I think the notion requires the possibility of a relevant contrast in that context: that of an ‘exogenous… -
RCPsych Philosophy SIG newsletter
11 Nov 2009 | 8:45 amI've just been sent the Royal College of Psychiatrists Philosophy Special Interest Group newsletter. It seems that beer is being offered for a review of my shilling shocker. I would have specified it was beer only for a favourable review! -
Conference ennui
10 Nov 2009 | 1:20 pmAlthough going to conferences in one’s own subject should be good for one’s morale, I seem too often to slip into a kind of ennui.It is not as bad as experience of conferences in other areas although I suspect the worst case is an area only marginally distinct. I get bored in large straight psychiatry conferences which are mainly opportunities for quick overviews of the latest drug research and there’s no culture of questioning the speaker. But I was positively disturbed by a conference on reasons at St Andrews a few years ago.Thinking that ‘reasons’ cropped up in familiar phrases… -
Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy
5 Nov 2009 | 7:14 amI went to the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Royal Academy in London on Saturday. At Tate Britain (for what turned out to be a disappointing Turner Prize exhibition), Halloween activities had been organised for children who were constructing bats (the flappy sort), masks, hats etc but there was no such obvious reason why the Royal Academy was so busy except for the fact Kapoor has become something of a pop star. Having bought tickets in advance I was spared the queue which was about 50 yards long.Inside there was no escaping the masses. Oddly, for a couple of pieces, this seemed somehow… -
Recovery, values and subjectivity
30 Oct 2009 | 8:44 amI’ve been invited by Joana Ferreira, a psychiatry resident in Coimbra, Portugal and lecturer in psychopathology to psychology students at at the Catholic University of Braga and who attended the INPP conference in Lisbon, to submit a paper based on my grouchy presentation on recovery to their college magazine on psychiatry, psychology, philosophy and religious themes.So here is a very rough first rough stab (coming in at 3,500 words). Recovery, values and subjectivityIntroductionIn the UK, the recovery model has been promoted to guide mental healthcare in reaction against what is perceived…
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Sherryx's Weblog
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The Threat Within
19 Nov 2009 | 4:55 pmWe should all ask from our state and these right wing politicians Why? Ayesha Siddiqa Friday, 13 Nov, 2009. With thanks. Dawn on line A few days ago I came across a letter to the editor in Dawn in which the writer had protested against the use of the word ‘Taliban’ to describe the brutal killers currently terrorising the nation. In the writer’s view, such people should be termed ‘zaliman’. I thought I would advise the writer to watch more television and read newspapers to get rid of his anger against the Taliban. Perhaps the writer would have benefited tremendously by… -
Banned or Not Banned: Pakistan’s War on Terror
14 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pmWhy violent Hiaz ut tehrir is able to publish and distribute these leaflets [on very good quality glazed paper] despite being banned? Why its websites are not banned? If PTCL can ban Baloch websites why not Jihadi websites? Is call to overthrow constitutional government and establish a pan islamist caliphate allowed in Pakistan’s war on Terror? This was distributed in homes of southern punjab few days back. According to noted journalist Seymour Hersh this organization has infiltrated the Army as well. A spokesman for the Army has denied it but we know that fundamentalist sections exist in… -
Will Supreme Court Open this NRO: Sharif-Dar Money Gate
12 Nov 2009 | 12:34 pm“The Invisible NRO” Source: Dawn News Sharif brothers accused of money laundering Thursday, 12 Nov, 2009 Senator Ishaq Dar, while accusing Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif of money laundering, also implicated himself by confessing in the court that he had opened fake foreign currency accounts in different international banks. – File photo ISLAMABAD: Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif have allegedly indulged in money laundering, according to one of their close associates and a high-profile PML-N leader, Ishaq Dar. NAB Court documents have recently emerged which show that Senator Dar… -
South Asian Citizens Web’s Appeal on Balochistan
12 Nov 2009 | 12:01 pmThis appeal is from “Citizens of Pakistan”. I have always raised my voice on Baloch issue, my readers know about it. I have reservations on the ideology and working of SACW . First of all Pakistan has got no “citizen”, an Ahmedi is not citizen a woman is not citizen. I think we dont need to be apologetic, Muhammed Ali Jinnah was not a “champion of Kalat’s freedom” that is not right. The facts given are right but context is not clear. Mr Jinnah did plead Kalat’s case. He was attorney of Khan of Kalat and was receiving fee for that. It was… -
In Defense of Let US Build Pakistan: Protect Freedom of Expression of Pakistani Bloggers
9 Nov 2009 | 1:19 pmShaheryar Ali It’s a very sorry state of affairs. For more than 2 years now I have been writing about the dangers of “intellectual hegemony”, “selective radicalism” and “double discourse on Rights” being prevalent in Pakistani corporate media as well in Pakistani blogging community. The Pakistani blogging community though is generally better than the media corporations but unfortunately is plagued by the same myopic intolerance when it comes to any dissenting views regarding the myths about Pakistan, its origin, its democracy and its national interests as defined by Right-of…
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freemasoninformation.com
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Always Been Good Enough – The Emblematical Instant Coffee of Refreshment
18 Nov 2009 | 1:05 pmA budget debate in Excelsior Lodge focused on memorial contributions for deceased brethren. In the jurisdiction, it is customary for Lodges to remit a nominal amount as a memorial contribution to... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Very busy in the quarries
17 Nov 2009 | 6:08 amJob hunting, while very busy in Freemasonry. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
The Sanctum Sanctorum on Masonic Central
15 Nov 2009 | 11:02 amThis week on Masonic Central, we get to spend some time talking to the good brothers of The Sanctum Sanctorum Freemasons like to talk, a lot, and usually for good reason. Beyond the usual what time... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Ol’ Leroy McKrank and Lodge Donations
15 Nov 2009 | 2:00 amEarl Sunderman had belonged to the local Masonic lodge for nearly fifty years. As his health had become increasingly frail in his waning years—he was eighty-seven—he had decided to move into a... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] -
Out Of The Shadows
13 Nov 2009 | 12:21 pmOUT OF THE SHADOWS A BOOK REVIEW By Frederic L. Milliken THE AUTHORS Alton G. Roundtree is a Past Master of Redemption Lodge #24, the largest Lodge in the Washington D.C. Prince Hall... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
