There are Intentionalia of Which it is True that Such Objects Do Not Exist

Abstract

According to Crane’s schematicity thesis (ST) about intentional objects, intentionalia have no particular metaphysical nature qua thought-of entities; moreover, the real metaphysical nature of intentionalia is various, insofar as it is settled independently of the fact that intentionalia are targets of one’s thought. As I will point out, ST has the ontological consequence that the intentionalia that really belong to the general inventory of what there is, the overall domain, are those that fall under a good metaphysical kind, i.e., a kind such that its members figure (for independent reasons) in such an inventory. Negatively put, if there are no things of a certain metaphysical kind, thoughts about things of that kind are not really committed to such things. Pace Crane, however, this does not mean that the intentionalia that are really there are only those that exist. For existence, qua first-order property, is no metaphysical kind. Thus, there may really be intentionalia that do not exist, provided that they belong to good metaphysical kinds.     

Response-dependence without reduction?

I will discuss those epistemic accounts of truth that say, roughly and at least, that the truth is what all ideally rational people, with maximum evidence, would in the long run come to believe. They have been defended on the grounds that they can solve sceptical problems that traditional accounts cannot surmount, and that they explain the value of truth in ways that traditional (and particularly, minimal) accounts cannot; they have been attacked on the grounds that they collapse into idealism.

I show that all these claims are mistaken. The system of statements accepted by an adherent of an epistemic account who also accepts the equivalence scheme is the same as that accepted by an adherent of a traditional account who also accepts a remarkably strong thesis of epistemic optimism. The singling out of one rather than another claim within this system as defining ‘true’ cannot make as much difference as to imply idealism or refute scepticism.

However, it can make all the difference when it is a matter of explaining the value of truth. For a crucial point in such explanation depends on what can be soundly substituted for what in intensional contexts; above all those governed by such verbs as ‘know’, ‘hope’, ‘believe’, ‘value’. That is, it depends on what expressions are intensionally equivalent. And one point of singling out one formulation as definitional can be to settle just this.

But though some epistemic theorists have deemed ability to explain the value of truth a merit of their account (and lack of this ability a fatal defect of traditional accounts, of minimal accounts in particular), it turns out that minimal accounts of ‘true’ fit a sound account of our valuing of truth in a way that epistemic accounts do not.

In the course of this argument I rebut related positions: e.g. Dummett's, that minimal definitions fail because they cannot account for the point of having a notion of truth, and that an account of the practice of assertion is what would fill this lacuna. I argue to the contrary that if the point of the notion could not be explained on the basis of a traditional definition, it could not be explained at all.     

Transcendence of the Ego (The Non-Existent Knight)

I exist, but I am not a thing among things; X exists if and only if there is something such that it=X. This is consistent, and it is a view that can be supported. Calvino’s novel The Non‐Existent Knight can be read so as to illustrate this view. But what is my relation to the things there are if I am not identical with any of them – things such as my arms, my garden, the city I live in? I name this the Gurduloo problem, after the Knight’s page. This relation must be one that admits of degrees; I suggest that we say that I manifest myself through the things thus associated with me. Several pseudo‐problems, pertaining to volitional action, supervenience, observability, and the emergence of consciousness, dissolve upon inspection.     

Reticence

There is an obvious role for self‐assertion within discourse. It is much less obvious what role self‐withdrawal might play. Indeed, it is far from obvious what role it could play. For how can we enter into discourse at all if we pull ourselves from the fray? Heidegger, however, claims not only that self‐withdrawal has a role to play but that reticence is the authentic mode of discourse. In this paper, I develop an account of reticence that explains its importance to Being and Time. I argue that Heidegger's conception of reticence is central to his explanation of how the understanding can be developed in terms of the things themselves, rather than in terms of what one says about things.     

Reasons for sequence preferences

Much research shows that when it comes to preferences over sequences of money, such as a monthly paycheck, people do not always maximize present value. Rather, they often choose the lower‐valued of a pair of sequences, especially when it has attractive properties such as an increasing trend. To unearth the reasons for sequence preferences we conducted a verbal‐protocol analysis of choices between money sequences, including lifetime and one‐year earnings and one‐year lottery winnings, as well as lifetime health sequences. Participants thought aloud while choosing between visual representations of sequences. Their verbalizations contained reference to a wide range of previously hypothesized, as well as new, reasons for choice. These reasons were also correlated in sensible ways with the choices made. There was some evidence of solid economic reasoning (which we called maximization), although this was largely restricted to choices for one‐year earnings. More commonly, respondents did not distinguish between earnings and consumption, and thought about money as if they would automatically spend it at the rate it was received. This meant the most frequently given reason was what we called appropriateness—how well the money received at a given point matched the desired consumption at that point. Other common explanations include the expectedness of a sequence (we argue this is mediated by appropriateness), the way that parts of the sequence constitute reference points for other parts, and the ease with which incoming money can be managed (convenience). Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is consciousness intrinsically valuable?

There are some things that we think are intrinsically valuable, or valuable for their own sake. Is consciousness—subjective, qualitative experience—one of those things? Some theorists favor the positive view, according to which consciousness is intrinsically valuable. According to a positive theorist, consciousness itself accrues intrinsic value, independent of the particular kind of experience instantiated. In contrast, I favor the neutral view, according to which consciousness is neither intrinsically valuable nor disvaluable. The primary purpose of this paper is to clarify what is at stake when we ask whether consciousness is intrinsically valuable, to carve out the theoretical space, and to evaluate the question rigorously. The secondary purpose is to show why the neutral view is attractive and why certain arguments for the positive view do not work.

     

The Duty to Object

We have the duty to object to things that people say. If you report something that I take to be false, unwarranted, or harmful, I may be required to say as much. In this paper, I explore how to best understand the distinctively epistemic dimension of this duty. I begin by highlighting two central features of this duty that distinguish it from others, such as believing in accordance with the evidence or promise-keeping. In particular, I argue that whether we are obligated to object is directly influenced not only by what other relevant members of the conversational context or community do, but also by the social status of the agent in question. I then show that these features are shared by the duty to be charitable, and the similarities between these two duties point to a potentially deeper explanation: while promise-keeping is regarded as a classic perfect duty, charity is an imperfect one. I then argue that the duty to object can be modeled on a particular conception of imperfect duties, one that takes the duty to belong to communities and other collectives, rather than to individuals. I conclude by showing that this framework provides us with reason for accepting that there are imperfect epistemic duties in general.     

A Deranged Argument Against Public Languages

Are there really such things as public languages? Are things like English and Urdu mere myths? I urge that, despite an intriguing line of thought which may be extracted from Davidson’s ‘A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs’, philosophers are right to countenance such things in their final ontology. The argument rebutted, which I concede may not have been one which Davidson himself ultimately embraced, is that knowledge of a public language is neither necessary nor sufficient for successful conversational interaction, so that such shared languages are explanatorily otiose. In particular, the ability of interlocutors to communicate in the face of linguistic novelty and error seems to support this conclusion. I respond with two main points. First, initial impressions aside, knowledge of things like English and Urdu is explanatorily necessary. Second, even if successful conversation could be explained without positing such knowledge, we have other reasons to take public languages ontologically seriously. The ultimate result is that what I label a ‘deranged argument against public languages’ is unsound.     

MORAL RELEVANCE AND CETERIS PARIBUS PRINCIPLES

My goal in this paper is twofold: to provide an account of what makes properties morally relevant, and to indicate the role such properties have in our moral thinking. I suppose that a property is morally relevant just in case it must, ceteris paribus, determine the moral status (the rightness or wrongness) of actions having it. The main part of the paper concerns the conditions under which the ceteris paribus caveat is satisfied, that is, when other things are equal. I argue that the caveat is satisfied when, with respect to a proposed set of morally relevant properties, an act differs from its alternatives at most in the degree to which it has one of those properties. Since other things are seldom equal, it is natural to wonder why what is true when they are equal should be important when they are not. That is, why is moral relevance, as I characterize it, a useful moral notion? I suggest that it is only by recognizing the moral relevance of properties that we are able to engage in useful moral thinking about the future.     

The Compatibility of Freedom and Necessity in Marx's Idea of Communist Society

Taking a well‐known passage from the third volume of Capital as my starting point, I explain on what grounds Marx thinks that freedom and necessity will be compatible in a communist society. The necessity in question concerns having to produce to satisfy material needs. Unlike some accounts of this issue, I argue that the compatibility of freedom and necessity in communist society has more to do with how production is organized than with the direct relation of the worker to the object produced or to his or her own productive activity. Moreover, I show how self‐realization and a form of activity that possesses an intrinsic value are made possible by the organization of the production process and how this is integral to Marx's account of the compatibility of freedom and necessity in communist society.     

道家道德的普世情怀

Daoism has often been misunderstood as moral nihilism or anti-moralism, but the true Daoism indeed adopts a positive attitude towards morality. At the foundation of its universal sentiment is an affirmation of morality. Daoism takes all things as the starting point of its values in moral philosophy, and ziran 自然 (sponstaneously so) as the foundation of its philosophy with the universal commitment. Daoism hopes to use “Dao to create the best environment for survival, and to fulfill individual responsibility for all things in the world. This is a universal and open attitude towards values. The attraction of Daoist universal sentiment is that it takes ziran as its path, and “objectless desire, “unprincipled knowing, “non-coercive action as ways and means to ensure the transfer of the universal value to all things, while ensuring that they realize their true values and make contributions to the whole society.     

The Duty to Forgive Repentant Wrongdoers

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to consider the question of whether we have a duty to forgive those who repent and apologize for the wrong they have done. I shall argue that we have a pro tanto duty to forgive repentant wrongdoers, and I shall propose and consider the norm of forgiveness. This norm states that if a wrongdoer repents and apologizes to a victim, then the victim has a duty to forgive the wrongdoer, other things being equal. That someone has a pro tanto duty to forgive a repentant wrongdoer means that he or she ought to forgive unless other considerations outweigh the norm of forgiveness. Furthermore, a distinction is made between what are termed ‘general considerations’ and ‘case‐relative considerations’, and it is argued that only after all the relevant considerations have been examined can it be determined whether there is a duty to forgive, all things considered.     

Reasons and ideals

This paper contributes to the debate on whether we can have reason to do what we are unable to do. I take as my starting point two papers recently published in Philosophical Studies, by Bart Streumer and Ulrike Heuer, which defend the two dominant opposing positions on this issue. Briefly, whereas Streumer argues that we cannot have reason to do what we are unable to do, Heuer argues that we can have reason to do what we are unable to do when we can get closer to success but cannot have reason to try to do what we are unable to do when we cannot get closer to success. In this paper, I reject both positions as they are presented, on the grounds that neither can accommodate an important category of reasons, which are the reasons to realise and to try to realise dimensions of value that lie at the boundary of what is realisable, specifically, genuinely valuable ideals. I defend a third view that we can have reason to do and to try to do what we are unable to do even when we cannot, in Heuer’s sense, get closer to success. Moreover, I argue that we can have reason to realise and to try to realise genuinely valuable ideals for their own sake and not simply for the sake of achieving mundane, realisable ends.     

On value and culture

Value stands for the significance of things, and concepts of value are ideas, opinions and attitudes about what kind of things are significant. Studies on the concept of value cannot be separated from culture. Every society has its own distinct culture and concept of value shared by its people. The relationship between concept of value and culture shows that the building of the concept of value must be based on culture. Developing culture, providing excellent products of culture and better humanitarian environment are the premise for people’s possession of the correct concept of value. __________ Translated from Hebei Xuekan 河北学刊 (Hebei Academic Journal), 2005 (1) by Dong Lihe     

Local pragmatics in a Gricean framework,revisited: response to three commentaries

There are two central themes that occupy the commentaries, and hence this response. The first is the character and role of what is said, both in my account, and in pragmatic theory in general. In response, I lay out in more detail the proposal from my original paper that the starting point for Gricean reasoning should be not what is said, but the pragmatically uncommitted what is expressed. As part of this argument, I restate and provide further arguments for my claim that global and local pragmatic effects are continuous. The second central theme of the commentaries concerns the value of a Gricean account, which is not intended to model the psychological processes of interpretation. I respond to this concern in Section 5, ‘Pragmatics, psychology and processing’.     

How to Do Things with Emotional Expressions: The Theory of Affective Pragmatics

It is widely accepted that emotional expressions can be rich communicative devices. We can learn much from the tears of a grieving friend, the smiles of an affable stranger, or the slamming of a door by a disgruntled lover. So far, a systematic analysis of what can be communicated by emotional expressions of different kinds and of exactly how such communication takes place has been missing. The aim of this article is to introduce a new framework for the study of emotional expressions that I call the theory of affective pragmatics (TAP). As linguistic pragmatics focuses on what utterances mean in a context, affective pragmatics focuses on what emotional expressions mean in a context. TAP develops and connects two principal insights. The first is the insight that emotional expressions do much more than simply expressing emotions. As proponents of the Behavioral Ecology View of facial movements have long emphasized, bodily displays are sophisticated social tools that can communicate the signaler's intentions and requests. Proponents of the Basic Emotion View of emotional expressions have acknowledged this fact, but they have failed to emphasize its importance, in part because they have been in the grip of a mistaken theory of emotional expressions as involuntary readouts of emotions. The second insight that TAP aims to articulate and apply to emotional expressions is that it is possible to engage in analogs of speech acts without using language at all. I argue that there are important and so far largely unexplored similarities between what we can “do” with words and what we can “do” with emotional expressions. In particular, the core tenet of TAP is that emotional expressions are a means not only of expressing what's inside but also of directing other people's behavior, of representing what the world is like and of committing to future courses of action. Because these are some of the main things we can do with language, the take home message of my analysis is that, from a communicative point of view, much of what we can do with language we can also do with non-verbal emotional expressions. I conclude by exploring some reasons why, despite the analogies I have highlighted, emotional expressions are much less powerful communicative tools than speech acts.     

The Theory and Practice of Psychiatry by Frederick C. Redlich and Daniel X. Freedman

Abstract

The noted humorist Dave Barry, in looking back over his life and thinking of things he had learned, said one of the things he learned was that “There is a very fine line between ‘hobby’ and ‘mental illness’” (1998, p. 182).

Following in Dave Barry’s path, I would like to look back over the 45+ years I’ve been practicing group therapy and see if there is anything to be learned by what I have learned over those years.     

Zhuangzi’s philosophy of thing

It is usually believed that the concept of ‘qiwu 齊物’ in the Zhuangzi means ‘equalizing things’. This reading of the Zhuangzi, however, presupposes that things are originally separated and exist independently. The equality of things is just a mental construct in a specific state of mind. In this paper, we will argue that this reading does not stand; what Zhuangzi does in the ‘Qiwulun 齊物論’is to examine how myriad things are created from the original oneness. According to Zhuangzi’s philosophy of thing, things are created by objectification through fact and value imposing. Oneness is therefore not a mere perspective but the condition for things being objectified. This understanding of the things’ being is comparable to Heidegger’s classification of thing and equipment, but it differs from Heidegger by its special implication on the Daoist liberation.     

Relativist Dispositional Theories of Value

Adopting a dispositional theory of value promises to deliver a lot of theoretical goodies. One recurring problem for dispositional theories of value, though, is a problem about nonconvergence. If being a value is being disposed to elicit response R in us, what should we say if it turns out that not everybody is disposed to have R to the same things? One horn of the problem here is a danger of the view collapsing into an error theory—of it turning out, on account of the diversity of agents' relevant dispositions, that nothing is really a value, since nothing is disposed to elicit R in everybody. Alternatively, there is a danger of an objectionable fragmentation of value, according to which there is no such thing as a value simpliciter, but only values_me and values_you, values_us and values_them. I advocate a de se relativist version of a dispositional theory of value. If we go for this sort of de‐se‐ified dispositional theory, we get to keep our theoretical goodies, but we avoid the problem of nonconvergence that leads to a danger of either collapse into an error theory, or else talking‐past, and a loss of common subject matter.