Luck,propositional perception,and the Entailment Thesis

Looking out the window, I see that it’s raining outside. Do I know that it’s raining outside? According to proponents of the Entailment Thesis, I do. If I see that p, I know that p. In general, the Entailment Thesis is the thesis that if S perceives that p, S knows that p. But recently, some philosophers (McDowell, in Smith (ed.) Reading McDowell on mind and world, 2002; Turri, Theoria 76(3):197–206, 2010; Pritchard, Philos Issues (Supplement to Nous) 21:434–455, 2011; Pritchard, Epistemological disjunctivism, 2012) have argued that the Entailment Thesis is false. On their view, we can see p and not know that p. In this paper, I argue that their arguments are unsuccessful.     

Mind,Body, and World: Todes and McDowell on Bodies and Language

Dreyfus presents Todes's (2001 Todes S 2001 Body and World Cambridge MA MIT Press  ) republished Body and World as an anticipatory response to McDowell (1994 McDowell J 1994 Mind and World Cambridge MA Harvard University Press  ) which shows how preconceptual perception can ground conceptual thought. I argue that Dreyfus is mistaken on this point: Todes's claim that perceptual experience is preconceptual presupposes an untenable account of conceptual thought. I then show that Todes nevertheless makes two important contributions to McDowell's project. First, he develops an account of perception as bodily second nature, and as a practical‐perceptual openness to the world, which constructively develops McDowell's view. Second, and more important, this account highlights the practical and perceptual dimension of linguistic competence. The result is that perception is conceptual “all the way down” only because discursive conceptualization is perceptual and practical “all the way up”. This conjunction of McDowell and Todes on the bodily dimensions of discursive practice also vindicates Davidson's and Brandom's criticisms of McDowell's version of empiricism.     

The Metaphysics of Meaning: Hopkins on Wittgenstein

Abstract

Jim Hopkins (2012 Hopkins, Jim (2012) ‘Rules, Privacy, and Physicalism’, in Jonathan Ellis and Daniel Guevara (eds) Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) defends a ‘straight’ (non-skeptical) response to Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations, a response he ascribes to Wittgenstein himself. According to this response, what makes it the case that A means that P is that it is possible for another to (correctly) interpret A as meaning that P. Hopkins thus advances a form of interpretivist judgment-dependence about meaning. I argue that this response, as well as a variant, does not succeed.     

The Hidden Set-Theoretical Paradox of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Tractatus</Emphasis>

We are familiar with various set-theoretical paradoxes such as Cantor's paradox, Burali-Forti's paradox, Russell's paradox, Russell-Myhill paradox and Kaplan's paradox. In fact, there is another new possible set-theoretical paradox hiding itself in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Wittgenstein 1989). From the Tractatus’s Picture theory of language (hereafter LP) we can strictly infer the two contradictory propositions simultaneously: (a) the world and the language are equinumerous; (b) the world and the language are not equinumerous. I call this antinomy the world-language paradox. Based on a rigorous analysis of the Tractatus, with the help of the technical resources of Cantor’s naive set theory (Cantor in Mathematische Annalen, 46, 481–512, 1895, Mathematische Annalen, 49, 207–246, 1897) and Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (hereafter ZFC) (Jech 2006: 3–15; Kunen 1992: xv–xvi; Bagaria 2008: 619–622), I outline the world-language paradox and assess the unique possible solution plan, i.e., the mathematical plan utilizing ‘infinity’. I conclude that Wittgenstein cannot solve the hidden set-theoretical paradox of the Tractatus successfully unless he gives up his finitism.     

Nietzsche’s ‘Anti-Naturalism’ in ‘The Four Great Errors’

Abstract

This paper is primarily a response to ‘analytically-minded’ philosophers, such as Maudemarie Clark and Brian Leiter, who push for a ‘naturalistic’ interpretation of Nietzsche. In particular, this paper will consider Leiter’s (2007 Leiter, B. 2007. Nietzsche’s Theory of the Will. Philosophers’ Imprint, 7(7): 1–15.  [Google Scholar]) discussion of Nietzsche’s chapter in Twilight of the Idols, ‘The Four Great Errors’, and argue that Leiter has misinterpreted this chapter in at least four ways. I provide a superior interpretation of this chapter, which argues that Nietzsche is using a transcendental style of argument to argue against a common conception of causation. I argue that Nietzsche’s ultimate aim of this chapter is to argue for ‘the innocence of becoming’ rather than, as Leiter claims, the error of free will. I argue that this anti-naturalist methodology and conclusion are in tension with Leiter/Clark’s Nietzsche, and highlights the need to pay attention to the being/becoming distinction in Nietzsche.     

Calling the beautiful game ugly: A response to Davis

In a previous article (Kretchmar 2005 Kretchmar, S. 2005. Game flaws. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, XXXII(1): 36–48.  [Google Scholar]), I identified problems in a certain species of games and traced these harms to something I called a ‘game flaw’. Unfortunately, ‘the beautiful game’ is a member of that species. I say it is unfortunate because Paul Davis (2006 Davis, P. 2006. Game strengths. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, XXXIII(1): 50–66.  [Google Scholar]), when taking me to task for providing an argument that, in his terms, was ‘not especially compelling’, focused on the game of soccer (hereafter, football). The issue over which we contended is one of ‘time management’– that is, how game initiation, duration and closure are structured. I suggest that two basic methods for managing such requirements are available. Games take place during a stipulated amount of time or for a specified number of events. In my original article, I identified four fundamental problems that may accompany time-regulated games. In this essay, I attempt to fortify those claims against Davis's criticisms.     

The role of cultural and spiritual expressions in affirming a sense of self,place, and purpose among young urban,Indigenous Australians

This article sets out to discuss the impact that urban living has had on the lives of young Indigenous people. It will seek to discover some of the problems that occur when there is a meeting of two cultures, in this case the Indigenous culture of Australian Aboriginal people and the mainstream culture that has been derived largely from west European traditions which, in turn, was born out of Western Christian perspectives. As well, it will explore the challenges faced by minority groups who live in pluralist contexts when they attempt to hand on their ways to their young people, in particular, the difficulties faced by urban Indigenous Australians who try to ensure that their young people will develop knowledge about their cultural and spiritual heritage. Finally it will examine how the rights of young Indigenous people need to be protected so that they can continue to develop their particular identity and at the same time take their place with pride and integrity in the pluralist social context that defines Australia today.

Many Australians understand that Aboriginal people have a special respect for nature. The identity we have with the land is sacred and unique. Many people are beginning to understand this more. Also there are many Australians who appreciate that Aboriginal people have a very strong sense of community. All persons matter. All of us belong and there are many more Australians who understand that we are people who celebrate together.

What I want you to know about is another special quality of my people. I believe it is most important. It is our most unique gift. It is perhaps the greatest gift we can give to our fellow Australians. In our language it is the quality called dadirri. It is inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness.

Dadirri recognizes the deep spring inside us. We call on it and it calls to us. This is the gift that Australia is thirsting for. It is something like what you call ‘contemplation’. (Ungunmerr, 2003 Ungunmerr, Miriam‐Rose. 2003. “Dadirri—The spring within”. In Dadirri: the spring within—the spiritual art of the Aboriginal people from Australia’s Daly River region, Edited by: Farrelly, E. vii–ix. Darwin, NT, , Australia: Terry Knight and Associates.  [Google Scholar])     

THE CONCEPT OF ‘PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY’ – A PSYCHOANALYTICALLY‐INFORMED CONTRIBUTION TOWARDS ‘SAFE,SOUND & SUPPORTIVE’ MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

It is not controversial to say that we live in an era of unprecedented preoccupation with the notion of ‘risk’ in our public mental health services, not to mention other areas of public life. Notions of ‘risk’ and ‘safety’ have long been at the heart of current government policy on mental health as epitomized by the guidance document entitled Modernising Mental Health Services: Safe, Sound & Supportive (Department of Health [DoH] 1998 Department of Health. 1998. Modernising Mental Health Services: Safe, Sound and Supportive, London: Department of Health.  [Google Scholar]). This is partly a consequence of the continuing switch of emphasis by both major political parties over the last 20 years or more away from hospital or in‐patient care and towards community‐based services. This is not the place, however, to focus on the political context. However, in clinical terms what really is the difference between a ‘safe’ or ‘secure’ mental health service and an ‘unsafe’ or ‘insecure’ one? The more I have been invited to think about this question, the more complex and unfamiliar the territory has revealed itself to be.     

Logic,Logic, and Logic

In his recent paper in History and Philosophy of Logic, John Kearns argues for a solution of the Liar paradox using an illocutionary logic (Kearns 2007 Kearns, J. 2007. ‘An illocutionary logical explanation of the Liar Paradox’. History and Philosophy of Logic, 28: 31–66. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Paraconsistent approaches, especially dialetheism, which accepts the Liar as being both true and false, are rejected by Kearns as making no ‘clear sense’ (p. 51). In this critical note, I want to highlight some shortcomings of Kearns' approach that concern a general difficulty for supposed solutions to (semantic) antinomies like the Liar. It is not controversial that there are languages which avoid the Liar. For example, the language which consists of the single sentence ‘Benedict XVI was born in Germany’ lacks the resources to talk about semantics at all and thus avoids the Liar. Similarly, more interesting languages such as the propositional calculus avoid the Liar by lacking the power to express semantic concepts or to quantify over propositions. Kearns also agrees with the dialetheist claim that natural languages are semantically closed (i.e. are able to talk about their sentences and the semantic concepts and distinctions they employ). Without semantic closure, the Liar would be no real problem for us (speakers of natural languages). But given the claim, the expressive power of natural languages may lead to the semantic antinomies. The dialetheist argues for his position by proposing a general hypothesis (cf. Bremer 2005 Bremer, M. 2005. An Introduction to Paraconsistent Logics, Bern: Lang.  [Google Scholar], pp. 27–28): ‘(Dilemma) A linguistic framework that solves some antinomies and is able to express its linguistic resources is confronted with strengthened versions of the antinomies’. Thus, the dialetheist claims that either some semantic concepts used in a supposed solution to a semantic antinomy are inexpressible in the framework used (and so, in view of the claim, violate the aim of being a model of natural language), or else old antinomies are exchanged for new ones. One horn of the dilemma is having inexpressible semantic properties. The other is having strengthened versions of the antinomies, once all semantic properties used are expressible. This dilemma applies, I claim, to Kearns' approach as well.     

Exclusion Problems and the Cardinality of Logical Space

Wittgenstein’s atomist picture, as embodied in his Tractatus, is initially very appealing. However, it faces the famous colour-exclusion problem. In this paper, I shall explain when the atomist picture can be defended (in principle) in the face of that problem; and, in the light of this, why the atomist picture should be rejected. I outline the atomist picture in Section 1. In Section 2, I present a very simple necessary and sufficient condition for the tenability (in principle) of the atomist picture. The condition is: logical space is a power of two. In Sections 3 and 4, I outline the colour-exclusion problem, and then show how the cardinality-condition supplies a response to exclusion problems. In Section 5, I explain how this amounts to a distillation of a proposal due to Moss (2012), which goes back to Carruthers (1990: 144–7). And in Section 6, I show how all this vindicates Wittgenstein’s ultimate rejection of the atomist picture. The brief reason is that we have no guarantee that there are any solutions to a given exclusion problem but, if there are any, then there are far too many.     

The Cheng Brothers’ Onto-theological Articulation of Confucian Values

In this article, I attempt to provide a new interpretation of li (commonly translated as ‘principle’) in the neo-Confucian brothers Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi. I argue that (1) the two brothers’ views on li are not as radically different as many scholars have made us to believe; (2) li in both brothers is a de-reified conception, referring not to some entity, including the entity with activity, but to activity, the life-giving activity of the ten thousand things; and (3) this life-giving activity, in terms of its mysterious wonderfulness, is called shen (literally meaning ‘God’ or ‘divinity’), and thus we have a Confucian theology (shen-talk) in the Cheng brothers, very similar to the Christian theology of creativity by Gordon Kaufman.     

Book Reviews

It is a common complaint that the syllogism commits a petitio principii. This is discussed extensively by John Stuart Mill in ‘A System of Logic’ [1882. Eighth Edition, New York: Harper and Brothers] but is much older, being reported in Sextus Empiricus in chapter 17 of the ‘Outlines of Pyrrhonism’ [1933 Sextus Empiricus. 1933. ‘Outlines of Pyrrhonism’, in R. G. Bury, Works, London and New York: Loeb Classical Library. [Google Scholar]. in R. G. Bury, Works, London and New York: Loeb Classical Library]. Current wisdom has it that Mill gives an account of the syllogism that avoids being a petitio by virtue of construing the universal premise as an inference-rule. I will show that both the problem and the role of inference-rules in its solution have been misunderstood. Inference-rules have very little to do with this problem, and I will argue further that nothing is gained with regard to this problem by the introduction of inference-rules in preference to premises.     

Seeing through eyes,mirrors, shadows and pictures

I argue that we can see in a great many cases that run counter to common sense. We can literally see through mirrors, in just the same way that we (literally) see through our eyes. We can, likewise, literally see through photographs, shadows, and (some) paintings. Rather than starting with an analysis of seeing, I present a series of evolving thought experiments, arguing that in each case there is no relevant difference between it and the previous case regarding whether we see. In a sense, my arguments can be thought of as akin to the Extended Mind Hypothesis (Clark and Chalmers 1998). But instead of arguing that our minds can extend into the world, I argue that our sensory organs can extend into the world. Among the things that emerge from this discussion are (1) that—contrary to Currie (1995) and Carroll (1996)—seeing an object O doesn’t require being able to locate O with respect to yourself, (2) that—contrary to Sorensen (2008)—we can see objects by seeing their shadows, and (3) that—contrary to Walton (1984)—it doesn’t matter whether the causal relation between O and yourself is mediated by beliefs.     

Religious teaching and political context: the case of Cyprus

In this article I aim to explore some philosophical issues involved in teaching religion in Cyprus and suggest some preconditions in order for this teaching to be sensitive to the multicultural character of the island and conducive to the vision of reconciliation and reunification. First, I shall clarify some particularities of the political problem of Cyprus, since many misconceptions obscure the understanding of the real stakes at issue, having crucial repercussions for demarcating the role of religious belief. For the Cyprus problem has been misconceived by many people as a kind of religious and ethnic conflict, thus raising various kinds of false dilemmas and expectations in relation to the local religions (Christian Orthodoxy and Islam) and their future cultivation in the schools of the two communities. I shall attempt to ‘put the record straight’ in a way, showing that the Cyprus issue is not reducible to the religious difference of the peoples involved, and suggest what I believe is the real challenge now regarding the teaching of religion in this part of the world.

The independence treaties left Cypriots—particularly Greek Cypriots—with a political half‐life. If the NATO allies thought the contrived constitutional arrangement would enable the two communities to live peacefully together, they were badly mistaken. (O’Malley & Craig, 2002 O’Malley, B. and Craig, I. 2002. The Cyprus conspiracy: America, espionage and the Turkish invasion, New York: I. B. Tauris Publishers.  [Google Scholar], p. 87)     

Artifact and Essence

An essential property is a property that an object possesses in every possible world in which that object exists. An individual essence is a property (or set of properties) that an object possesses in every world in which that object exists, and that no other object possesses in any possible world. Call the claim that some artifacts possess an individual essence ‘artifactual essentialism’. I will argue that artifactual essentialism is true. In doing so, I will be responding to two recent arguments by Penelope Mackie against artifactual essentialism (Mackie (2006), esp. ch. 3.). In “Individual Essence Properties”, I will rehearse the qualifications that any property must meet if it is to constitute an individual essence, and in “Artifacts and the Recycling Problem” and “Artifacts and the Tolerance Problem”, I will rehearse Mackie’s arguments against artifactual essentialism. In “Artifacts and Weak Unshareability?” and “Artifacts and Strong Unshareability?”, I will show why both of these arguments fail. In “Mona Lisa’s Essence”, I will defend the interesting claim that some artifacts possess an individual essence. In the final section I will entertain some objections to my proposal.     

Scientific Progress,Understanding, and Knowledge: Reply to Park

Dellsén (2016) has recently argued for an understanding-based account of scientific progress, the noetic account, according to which science (or a particular scientific discipline) makes cognitive progress precisely when it increases our understanding of some aspect of the world. I contrast this account with Bird’s (2007, 2015); epistemic account, according to which such progress is made precisely when our knowledge of the world is increased or accumulated. In a recent paper, Park (2017) criticizes various aspects of my account and his arguments in favor of the noetic account as against Bird’s epistemic account. This paper responds to Park’s objections. An important upshot of the paper is that we should distinguish between episodes that constitute and promote scientific progress, and evaluate account of scientific progress in terms of how they classify different episodes with respect to these categories.     

The Madhyamaka Concept of Svabhāva: Ontological and Cognitive Aspects

This paper considers the philosophical interpretation of the concept of svabhāva, sometimes translated as ‘inherent existence’ or ‘own-being’, in the Madyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy. It is argued that svabhāva must be understood as having two different conceptual dimensions, an ontological and a cognitive one. The ontological dimension of svabhāva shows it to play a particular part in theories investigating the most fundamental constituents of the world. Three different understandings of svabhāva are discussed under this heading: svabhāva understood as essence, as substance, and as the true nature of phenomena (absolute svabhāva). The cognitive dimension shows svabhāva as playing an important rôle in our everyday conceptualization of phenomena. Svabhāva is here seen as a superimposition (samāropa) which the mind projects onto the world.     

Desecularizing Secularism

Animated by a profound sense of complacency about history, rights and law, secularism has reached a dead end of political despair today. Thinking about this dead end will demand giving up certain cherished historicist claims to law and justice. The task of desecularizing secularism is one of dehistoricizing history. To relieve secularism of its appeal to the innocence of history, we need a conceptualization of time that folds the Nietzschean idea of active forgetfulness of history into the Derridian notion of the spectral present that is ‘out of joint with itself’. Such a notion of time/history may help us do the im-possible1 ?1. Throughout this paper I will use the words possibility and im-possibility interchangeably. Thus, when I say the possibility of non-juridical justice or active forgetting of history I also mean its im-possibility, because such a practice is not simply present out there, as an example or a case, under a sign. I am simply trying to imagine such an im-possibility. As will be clear, for Derrida the word im-possibility, as he wrote it, is irreducible to possibility or impossibility. work of thinking of inheriting the futures of democracy and justice irreducible to law and rights. The futures of the irreducible political, where we can neither forget our pasts nor remain bound to them, haunted by their ghosts, cannot be dictated by the apparatuses of the state or the politics of some non-state community. The futures are made possible by the very the non-contemporaneity of our living present, where historical disconnections defy ‘explanation’, opening up new political spaces of becoming.     

Making Sense of the Philosophy of Sport

Beginning from an earlier claim of mine that there was really no such area of study as the philosophy of sport, Part One of the paper reconsiders the place previously given to David Best’s distinction between purposive sports and aesthetic sports. In light of a famous cricketing event in the 1977 contest between England and Australia (‘The Ashes’), in which Derek Randall turned a cartwheel after taking the winning catch, the paper clarifies that not all aesthetically-pleasing events taking place in sporting competitions can be understood as the aesthetic in sport. Then, in Part Two, the force of the claim that philosophy is one subject is explored. The conclusion is that a focus just on the philosophy of sport is necessarily inappropriate, since it will present the student with only cases from sport to then apply to sport. Rather, one’s understanding must be informed by (much of) the breadth of philosophy. Charles Travis’s view of occasion-sensitivity provides a clear example of appropriately contextual appeal. Part Three of the paper returns to the need for an institutional account of sport, one recognizing that there is no one occasion on which a particular sport is played; and hence no single set of conditions which can uniquely identify that sport. Thus, soccer played with one’s children typically differs from elite soccer: but both are (genuinely) soccer. When one turns to the appreciation of sport (in the light of Stephen Mumford’s excellent Watching Sport: Aesthetics, Ethics and Emotion [2012a]), one recognizes that, in order to genuinely appreciate sport, one cannot detach oneself from the outcome as completely as Mumford’s extreme purist seems to. But reflection on that case may also return us to contextualism by moving us away from attachments to the complete or the exceptionless in our accounts of spectating as of sport: maybe there is no one thing that occurs in all the relevant cases.