Self-Ascription and Belief De Re

Philosophical Studies -     

Science as a Paradigm for Halakhic Thought: an Introduction to the Theology of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

In the 20th century there was a single individual whose personality provided the inspiration for, and whose writings defined the parameters of, what came to be known as Modern Orthodox Judaism. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903?–?1993) served as the Rosh Yeshiva (Senior Talmudic Scholar) of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and Professor of Philosophy at Yeshiva University for almost 50 years. He was widely acknowledged, by all segments of the Jewish community, as the outstanding Talmudic scholar of his generation. At the same time, concern for the interface of tradition with modernity was central and pivotal to Soloveitchik's thought. In spite of his profound impact on American Orthodox Judaism, Soloveitchik's work is relatively unknown outside of this community. This article explores the implications of Soloveitchik's work for epistemology and methodology within the “science and religion” dialogue.     

Harm and the concept of medical disorder

According to Jerome Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis (HDA) of medical disorder, the inability of some internal part or mechanism to perform its natural function is necessary, but not sufficient, for disorder. HDA also requires that the part dysfunction be harmful to the individual. I consider several problems for HDA’s harm criterion in this article. Other accounts on which harm is necessary for disorder will suffer from all or almost all of these problems. Comparative accounts of harm imply that one is harmed when one is made worse off, that is, worse off than one otherwise would have been. Non-comparative accounts imply that one is harmed when one is put into some kind of condition or state that is, in some way, bad in itself. I argue that whether harm is construed comparatively or non-comparatively, HDA’s harm criterion is problematic. I tentatively conclude that an analysis of medical disorder should not make use of the concept of harm.     

Medical disorder,harm, and damage

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - Jerome Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis (HDA) of medical disorder is an influential hybrid of naturalist and normative theories. In order to...     

Naming and Nonexistence

I defend a cluster of views about names from fiction and myth. The views are based on two claims: first, proper names refer directly to their bearers; and second, names from fiction and myth are genuinely empty, they simply do not refer. I argue that when such names are used in direct discourse, utterances containing them have truth values but do not express propositions. I also argue that it is a mistake to think that if an utterance of, for example, “Vulcan is a planet” fails to express a proposition, then an utterance of “Le Verrier believed that Vulcan is a planet” cannot express a proposition. The argument applies to claims about fiction, such as “Sherlock Holmes is strong,” and claims about the attitudes of authors and auditors. The upshot is a semantics for fictional statements that provides a satisfying way for direct reference theorists to avoid taking fictional entities to be abstract objects and to accept the commonsense view that what is true in a fiction is ultimately a matter of what is pretended to be the case.