Persistence Narrativism and the Determinacy of Personal Identity

Philosophia - We have a strong intuition that personal identity is a determinate relationship. Parfit famously challenged this intuition. In this paper I explain how narrative identity theories can...     

On Being Lutheran In A Religiously Plural World

Abstract : For those of us who are self‐consciously Lutheran, the reality of contemporary religious pluralism engenders important theological questions. The thesis of this essay is that “being Lutheran” within the context of contemporary religious pluralism requires the creation of “Lutheran identity” that is pluralistic in structure, while simultaneously avoiding either theological exclusivism or theological inclusivism. The implications of this thesis are that (1) dialogue with the religious traditions of the world is of primary importance for thinking Lutherans, and (2) the church's witness and mission needs to be reconfigured in light of the practice of interreligious dialogue.     

Terrorism and Innocence

This paper begins with a discussion of different definitions of “terrorism” and endorses one version of a tactical definition, so-called because it treats terrorism as involving the use of a quite specific tactic in the pursuit of political ends, namely, violent attacks upon the innocent. This contrasts with a political status definition in which “terrorism” is defined as any form of sub-state political violence against the state. Some consequences of the tactical definition are explored, notably the fact that (unlike the political status definition) it allows for the possibility of state terrorism against individuals, sub-state groups and other states. But a major problem for the tactical definition is the account to be given of “the innocent.” In line with justwar thinking, the idea of “the innocent” is unpacked in terms of the concept of non-combatants and this in turn is treated as the category of those who are not prosecuting the harm that allows for a legitimate violent response. Problems with this approach are explored, with particular reference to criticisms made by Gregory Kavka. The recent drive to expand the class of those who may be legitimately attacked is subjected to scrutiny. Particular attention is paid to the role of “collective responsibility” and “deserving your government” in these arguments. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Myth of Innocence: On Collective Responsibility and Collective Punishment

Abstract

Collectivities, just like individuals, exist, can act, bear responsibility for their acts and omissions, and be guilty. It sometimes makes sense to hold them responsible for what they do, or don't do, and to punish them for their misdeeds. With respect to many collectivities there is no practical purpose in holding them responsible, since there is not way that we can bring them to justice. But there are exceptions from this rule. In particular it is plausible to assume that sanctions against entire nations or peoples or populations living in open and democratic states may be an effective means to setting them straight where, collectively, they act wrongly. The best present example of this seems to be the Israelis.     

Infinite Populations,Choice and Determinacy

This paper criticizes non-constructive uses of set theory in formal economics. The main focus is on results on preference aggregation and Arrow’s theorem for infinite electorates, but the present analysis would apply as well, e.g., to analogous results in intergenerational social choice. To separate justified and unjustified uses of infinite populations in social choice, I suggest a principle which may be called the Hildenbrand criterion and argue that results based on unrestricted axiom of choice do not meet this criterion. The technically novel part of this paper is a proposal to use a set-theoretic principle known as the axiom of determinacy (\(\mathsf {AD}\)), not as a replacement for Choice, but simply to eliminate applications of set theory violating the Hildenbrand criterion. A particularly appealing aspect of \(\mathsf {AD}\) from the point of view of the research area in question is its game-theoretic character.     

Plural signification and the Liar paradox

In recent years, speech-act theory has mooted the possibility that one utterance can signify a number of different things. This pluralist conception of signification lies at the heart of Thomas Bradwardine’s solution to the insolubles, logical puzzles such as the semantic paradoxes, presented in Oxford in the early 1320s. His leading assumption was that signification is closed under consequence, that is, that a proposition signifies everything which follows from what it signifies. Then any proposition signifying its own falsity, he showed, also signifies its own truth and so, since it signifies things which cannot both obtain, it is simply false. Bradwardine himself, and his contemporaries, did not elaborate this pluralist theory, or say much in its defence. It can be shown to accord closely, however, with the prevailing conception of logical consequence in England in the fourteenth century. Recent pluralist theories of signification, such as Grice’s, also endorse Bradwardine’s closure postulate as a plausible constraint on signification, and so his analysis of the semantic paradoxes is seen to be both well-grounded and plausible.

Sets and Plural Comprehension

The state of affairs of some things falling under a predicate is supposedly a single entity that collects these things as its constituents. But whether we think of a state of affairs as a fact, a proposition or a possibility, problems will arise if we adopt a plural logic. For plural logic says that any plurality include themselves, so whenever there are some things, the state of affairs of their plural self-inclusion should be a single thing that collects them all. This leads to paradoxes analogous to those that afflict naïve set theory. Here I suggest that they are the very same paradoxes, because sets can be reduced to states of affairs. However, to obtain a consistent theoretical reduction we must restrict the usual axiom scheme of Comprehension for plural logic to ‘stratified’ formulas, to avoid viciously circular definitions. I prove that with this modification to the background plural logic, the theory of states of affairs is consistent; moreover, it yields the axioms of the familiar set theory NFU.     

多元目标与社会稳定

社会稳定不仅是一个现实问题 ,也是一个理论问题。对社会稳定的不同理解和界定 ,直接影响着致力于社会稳定的实践及其结果。从理论上说 ,社会本身是由多维度组成的结构整体 ,每一社会单元组织都依存于这个结构整体的不同维度之上 ,并朝着不同的方向用力。传统社会 ,由于社会单元组织的目标单一 ,因而是向一个点上用力 ,从而导致社会结构紧张 ,使社会产生不稳定。现代社会 ,由于改革开放 ,使社会目标多元化 ,也使社会结构整体出现松弛的现象。但这并不是不稳定 ,相反 ,正是现代意义下的动态稳定