AUGUSTINE, AVICENNA,
OCKH. A.B.W. Dutch book, a bet or combination of bets whereby the bettor is
bound to suffer a net loss regardless of the outcome. A simple exple would be a
bet on a proposition p at odds of 3 : 2 combined with a bet on not-p at the se
odds, the total ount of money at stake in each bet being five dollars. Under
this arrangement, if p turned out to be true one would win two dollars by the
first bet but lose three dollars by the second, and if p turned out to be false
one would win two dollars by the second bet but lose three dollars by the
first. Hence, whatever happened, one would lose a dollar. PROBABILITY. R.Ke. Dutch book argument, the
argument that a rational person’s degrees of belief must conform to the axioms
of the probability calculus, since otherwise, by the Dutch book theorem, he
would be vulnerable to a Dutch book. R.Ke. Dutch book theorem, the proposition
that anyone who (a) counts a bet on a proposition p as fair if the odds
correspond to his degree of belief that p is true and who (b) is willing to
make any combination of bets he would regard individually as fair will be
vulnerable to a Dutch book provided his degrees of belief do not conform to the
axioms of the probability calculus. Thus, anyone of whom (a) and (b) are true
and whose degree of belief in a disjunction of two incompatible propositions is
not equal to the sum of his degrees of belief in the two propositions taken
individually would be vulnerable to a Dutch book. R.Ke. duty, what a person is
obligated or required to do. Duties can be moral, legal, parental,
occupational, etc., depending on their foundations or grounds. Because a duty
can have several different grounds, it can be, say, both moral and legal,
though it need not be of more than one type. Natural duties are moral duties
people have simply in virtue of being persons, i.e., simply in virtue of their
nature. There is a prima facie duty to do something if and only if there is an
appropriate basis for doing that thing. For instance, a prima facie moral duty
will be one for which there is a moral basis, i.e., some moral grounds. This
conDutch book duty 248 - 248 trasts
with an all-things-considered duty, which is a duty one has if the appropriate
grounds that support it outweigh any that count against it. Negative duties are
duties not to do certain things, such as to kill or harm, while positive duties
are duties to act in certain ways, such as to relieve suffering or bring aid.
While the question of precisely how to draw the distinction between negative
and positive duties is disputed, it is generally thought that the violation of
a negative duty involves an agent’s causing some state of affairs that is the
basis of the action’s wrongness (e.g., harm, death, or the breaking of a
trust), whereas the violation of a positive duty involves an agent’s allowing
those states of affairs to occur or be brought about. Imperfect duties are, in
Kant’s words, “duties which allow leeway in the interest of inclination,” i.e.,
that permit one to choose ong several possible ways of fulfilling them. Perfect
duties do not allow that leeway. Thus, the duty to help those in need is an
imperfect duty since it can be fulfilled by helping the sick, the starving, the
oppressed, etc., and if one chooses to help, say, the sick, one can choose
which of the sick to help. However, the duty to keep one’s promises and the
duty not to harm others are perfect duties since they do not allow one to
choose which promises to keep or which people not to harm. Most positive duties
are imperfect; most negative ones, perfect.
DEONTIC LOGIC, KANT, RIGHTS, ROSS. B.R. du Vair, Guillaume (1556–1621),
French philosopher, bishop, and political figure. Du Vair and Justus Lipsius
were the two most influential propagators of neo-Stoicism in early modern
Europe. Du Vair’s Sainte Philosophie (“Holy Philosophy,” 1584) and his shorter
Philosophie morale des Stoïques (“Moral Philosophy of the Stoics,” 1585), were
translated and frequently reprinted. The latter presents Epictetus in a form
usable by ordinary people in troubled times. We are to follow nature and live
according to reason; we are not to be upset by what we cannot control; virtue
is the good. Du Vair inserts, moreover, a distinctly religious note. We must be
pious, accept our lot as God’s will, and consider morality obedience to his
command. Du Vair thus Christianized Stoicism, making it widely acceptable. By
teaching that reason alone enables us to know how we ought to live, he bece a
founder of modern rationalism in ethics.
ETHICS, HUMAN NATURE,
STOICISM. J.B.S. Dvaita Vedanta, a variety of Hinduism according to which
Brahman is an independently existing, omnipotent, omniscient personal deity. In
Dvaita Vedanta, Brahman everlastingly sustains in existence a world of minds
and physical things without their being properly viewed as the body of Brahman,
since this would mistakenly suggest that Brahman is limited and can be affected
in ways analogous to those in which human beings are limited and can be
affected by their bodies. The Upanishadic texts concerning the individual an’s
identity to Brahman, and all things being in Brahman, are understood as
asserting dependence on Brahman and resemblance to Brahman rather than
numerical identity with Brahman. Each person is held to have his or her own
essence (cf. the medieval Scholastic notion of a haecceity) and accordingly
some are destined for enlightenment, some for endless transmigration, and some
for misery. K.E.Y. Dworkin, Ronald M. (b.1931), erican jurist, political
philosopher, and a central contributor to recent legal and political theory. He
has served as professor of jurisprudence, University of Oxford (1969–98),
professor of law, New York University (1975–), and Quain Professor of
Jurisprudence, University College, London (1998–). He was the first significant
critic of Hart’s positivist analysis of law as based on a determinable set of
social rules. Dworkin argues that the law contains legal principles as well as
legal rules. Legal principles are standards phrased generally (e.g., ‘No one
shall profit from his own wrong’); they do not have a formal “pedigree,” but
are requirements of morality. Nonetheless, courts are obliged to apply such
principles, and thus have no lawmaking discretion. Judicially enforceable legal
rights must derive from antecedent political rights. Dworkin characterizes
rights as political “trumps” – hence his title Taking Rights Seriously (2d ed.,
1978), which collects the papers that defend the views sketched. Dworkin
postulates an idealized judge, Hercules, who can invariably determine what
rights are legally enforceable. Dworkin denies any metaphysical commitments
thereby, and emphasizes instead the constructive and interpretive nature of
both adjudication and legal theory. These arguments are made in papers
collected in A Matter of Principle (1985). Law’s Empire (1986) systematizes his
view. He presents there a theory of “law as integrity.” The court’s obligation
is to make the community’s law the best it can be by finding decisions that
best fit both institutional du Vair, Guillaume Dworkin, Ronald M. 249 - 249 history and moral principle. Hercules
always best determines the best fit. Dworkin has also contributed to substantive
political theory. He defends a form of liberalism that makes equality as
prominent as liberty. His account of equality is found in a number of
independent papers; see, e.g., “Foundations of Liberal Equality,” Tanner
Lectures on Human Values XI (1990). Dworkin has applied his liberal theory in
two ways. He has continually acted as a critical watchdog of the U.S. Supreme
Court, assessing decisions for their adherence to the ideals of principle,
respect for equality, and achievement of best fit. Some of these essays are in
the two collections mentioned; the most recent are in Freedom’s Law (1996).
Life’s Dominion (1993) derives from these ideals an account of abortion and
euthanasia. Dworkin’s philosophizing has a conceptual richness and rhetorical
fire that, when not wholly under control, give his theoretical positions a
protean quality at the level of detail. Nonetheless, the ideas that
adjudication should be principled and enforce rights, and that we all deserve
equal dignity and respect, exercise a powerful fascination. EUTHANASIA, HART, JURISPRUDENCE, LEGAL
POSITIVISM, MORAL STATUS,
NATURAL LAW, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, RIGHTS. R.A.Sh. Dyad.ACADEMY. dynic logic, a
branch of logic in which, in addition to the usual category of formulas
interpretable as propositions, there is a category of expressions interpretable
as actions. Dynic logic (originally called the modal logic of progrs) emerged
in the late 1970s as one step in a long tradition within theoretical computer
science aimed at providing a way to formalize the analysis of progrs and their
action. A particular concern here was progr verification: what can be said of
the effect of a progr if started at a certain point? To this end operators [a]
and ‹a( were introduced with the following intuitive readings: [a]A to mean
‘after every terminating computation according to a it is the case that A’ and
‹a(A to mean ‘after some terminating computation according to a it is the case
that A’. The logic of these operators may be seen as a generalization of
ordinary modal logic: where modal logic has one box operator A and one diond
operator B, dynic logic has one box operator [a] and one diond operator ‹a( for
every progr expression a in the language. In possible worlds semantics for
modal logic a model is a triple (U, R, V) where U is a universe of points, R a
binary relation, and V a valuation assigning to each atomic formula a subset of
U. In dynic logic, a model is a triple (U, R, V) where U and V are as before
but R is a fily of binary relations R(a), one for every progr expression a in
the language. Writing ‘Xx A’, where x is a point in U, for ‘A is true at x’ (in
the model in question), we have the following characteristic truth conditions
(truth-functional compounds are evaluated by truth tables, as in modal logic):
Xx P if and only if x is a point in V(P), where P is an atomic formula, Xx[a]A
if and only if, for all y, if x is R(a)- related to y then Xy A, Xx ‹a( if and
only if, for some y, x is R(a)-related to y and Xy A. Traditionally, dynic
logic will contain machinery for rendering the three regular operators on
progrs: ‘!’ (sum), ‘;’ (composition), and ‘*’ (Kleene’s star operation), as
well as the test operator ‘?’, which, operating on a proposition, will yield a
progr. The action a ! b consists in carrying out a or carrying out b; the
action a;b in first carrying out a, then carrying out b; the action a* in
carrying out a some finite number of times (not excluding 0); the action ?A in
verifying that A. Only standard models reflect these intuitions: R(a ! b) %
R(a) 4 R(b), R(a;b) % R(a) _ R(b), R(a*) % (R(a))*, R(?A) % {(x,x) : Xx A}
(where ‘*’ is the ancestral star) The smallest propositional dynic logic (PDL)
is the set of formulas true at every point in every standard model. Note that
dynic logic analyzes non-deterministic action – this is evident at the level of
atomic progrs p where R(p) is a relation, not necessarily a function, and also
in the definitions of R(a + b) and R(a*). Dynic logic has been extended in
various ways, e.g., to first- and second-order predicate logic. Furthermore,
just as deontic logic, tense logic, etc., are referred to as modal logic in the
wide sense, so extensions of dynic logic in the narrow sense such as process
logic are often loosely referred to as dynic logic in the wide sense. Dyad
dynic logic 250 - 250 The philosophical
interest in dynic logic rests with the expectation that it will prove a
fruitful instrument for analyzing the concept of action in general: a
successful analysis would be valuable in itself and would also be relevant to
other disciplines such as deontic logic and the logic of imperatives. COMPUTER THEORY, DEONTIC LOGIC, MODAL LOGIC.
K.Seg. dynis.DUNIS, ENERGEIA. dynism.BOSCOVICH. dynis dynism 251 - 251 Eckhart, Johannes, called Meister
Eckhart (c.1260–1328), German mystic, theologian, and preacher. Eckhart entered
the Dominican order early and began an academic circuit that took him several
times to Paris as a student and master of theology and that initiated him into
ways of thinking much influenced by Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. At
Paris, Eckhart wrote the required commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard
and finished for publication at least three formal disputations. But he had
already held office within the Dominicans, and he continued to alternate work
as administrator and as teacher. Eckhart preached throughout these years, and
he continued to write spiritual treatises in the vernacular, of which the most
important is the Book of Divine Consolation (1313/1322). Only about a third of
Eckhart’s main project in Latin, the Opus tripartitum, seems ever to have been
completed. Beginning in the early 1320s, questions were raised about Eckhart’s
orthodoxy. The questions centered on what was characteristic of his teaching,
nely the emphasis on the soul’s attaining “emptiness” so as to “give birth to
God.” The soul is ennobled by its emptying, and it can begin to “labor” with
God to deliver a spark that enacts the miraculous union-and-difference of their
love. After being acquitted of heresy once, Eckhart was condemned on 108
propositions drawn from his writings by a commission at Cologne. The
condemnation was appealed to the Holy See, but in 1329 Eckhart was there judged
“probably heretical” on 17 of 28 propositions drawn from both his academic and popular
works. The condemnation clearly limited Eckhart’s explicit influence in
theology, though he was deeply appropriated not only by mystics such as
Johannes Tauler and Henry Suso, but by church figures such as Nicholas of Cusa
and Martin Luther. He has since been taken up by thinkers as different as
Hegel, Fichte, and Heidegger. ALBERTUS
MAGNUS, AQUINAS, PETER LOMBARD. M.D.J. eclecticism.COUSIN. Eco, Umberto
(b.1932), Italian philosopher, intellectual historian, and novelist. A leading
figure in the field of semiotics, the general theory of signs. Eco has devoted
most of his vast production to the notion of interpretation and its role in
communication. In the 1960s, building on the idea that an active process of
interpretation is required to take any sign as a sign, he pioneered
reader-oriented criticism (The Open Work, 1962, 1976; The Role of the Reader,
1979) and chpioned a holistic view of meaning, holding that all of the
interpreter’s beliefs, i.e., his encyclopedia, are potentially relevant to word
meaning. In the 1970s, equally influenced by Peirce and the French
structuralists, he offered a unified theory of signs (A Theory of Semiotics,
1976), aiming at grounding the study of communication in general. He opposed
the idea of communication as a natural process, steering a middle way between
realism and idealism, particularly of the Sapir-Whorf variety. The issue of
realism looms large also in his recent work. In The Limits of Interpretation
(1990) and Interpretation and Overinterpretation (1992), he attacks
deconstructionism. Kant and the Platypus (1997) defends a “contractarian” form
of realism, holding that the reader’s interpretation, driven by the Peircean
regulative idea of objectivity and collaborating with the speaker’s
underdetermined intentions, is needed to fix reference. In his historical
essays, ranging from medieval aesthetics (The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas,
1956) to the attempts at constructing artificial and “perfect” languages (The
Search for the Perfect Language, 1993) to medieval semiotics, he traces the
origins of some central notions in contemporary philosophy of language (e.g.,
meaning, symbol, denotation) and such recent concerns as the language of mind
and translation, to larger issues in the history of philosophy. All his novels
are pervaded by philosophical queries, such as Is the world an ordered whole?
(The Ne of the Rose, 1980), and How much interpretation can one tolerate
without falling prey to some conspiracy syndrome? (Foucault’s Pendulum, 1988).
Everywhere, he engages the reader in the ge of (controlled)
interpretations. DECONSTRUCTION,
MEANING, SEMIOSIS, STRUCTURALISM. M.Sa. 252 E - 252 ecofeminism.ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY.
economics, philosophy of.PHILOSOPHY OF ECONOMICS. economics, welfare.PHILOSOPHY
OF ECONOMICS. education, philosophy of.PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION. eduction, the
process of initial clarification, as of a phenomenon, text, or argument, that
normally takes place prior to logical analysis. Out of the flux of vague and
confused experiences certain characteristics are drawn into some kind of order
or intelligibility in order that attention can be focused on them (Aristotle,
Physics I). These characteristics often are latent, hidden, or implicit. The
notion often is used with reference to texts as well as experience. Thus it
becomes closely related to exegesis and hermeneutics, tending to be reserved
for the sorts of clarification that precede formal or logical analyses.
HERMENEUTICS. F.S.
Edwards, Jonathan (1703–58), erican philosopher and theologian. He was educated
at Yale, preached in New York City, and in 1729 assumed a Congregational
pastorate in Northpton, Massachusetts, where he bece a leader in the Great
Awakening. Because of a dispute with his parishioners over qualifications for
communion, he was forced to leave in 1750. In 1751, he took charge of
congregations in Stockbridge, a frontier town sixty miles to the west. He was
elected third president of Princeton in 1757 (but died shortly after
inauguration). Edwards deeply influenced Congregational and Presbyterian
theology in erica for over a century, but had little impact on philosophy.
Interest in him revived in the middle of the twentieth century, first ong
literary scholars and theologians and later ong philosophers. While most of
Edwards’s published work defends the Puritan version of Calvinist orthodoxy,
his notebooks reveal an interest in philosophical problems for their own sake.
Although he was indebted to Continental rationalists like Malebranche, to the
Cbridge Platonists, and especially to Locke, his own contributions are
sophisticated and original. The doctrine of God’s absolute sovereignty is
explicated by occasionalism, a subjective idealism similar to Berkeley’s, and
phenomenalism. According to Edwards, what are “vulgarly” called causal relations
are mere constant conjunctions. True causes necessitate their effects. Since
God’s will alone meets this condition, God is the only true cause. He is also
the only true substance. Physical objects are collections of ideas of color,
shape, and other “corporeal” qualities. Finite minds are series of “thoughts”
or “perceptions.” Any substance underlying perceptions, thoughts, and
“corporeal ideas” must be something that “subsists by itself, stands
underneath, and keeps up” physical and mental qualities. As the only thing that
does so, God is the only real substance. As the only true cause and the only
real substance, God is “in effect being in general.” God creates to communicate
his glory. Since God’s internal glory is constituted by his infinite knowledge
of, love of, and delight in himself as the highest good, his “communication ad
extra” consists in the knowledge of, love of, and joy in himself which he
bestows upon creatures. The essence of God’s internal and external glory is
“holiness” or “true benevolence,” a disinterested love of being in general
(i.e., of God and the beings dependent on him). Holiness constitutes “true
beauty,” a divine splendor or radiance of which “secondary” (ordinary) beauty
is an imperfect image. God is thus supremely beautiful and the world is
suffused with his loveliness. Vindications of Calvinist conceptions of sin and
grace are found in Freedom of the Will (1754) and Original Sin (1758). The
former includes sophisticated defenses of theological determinism and compatibilism.
The latter contains arguments for occasionalism and interesting discussions of
identity. Edwards thinks that natural laws determine kinds or species, and
kinds or species determine criteria of identity. Since the laws of nature
depend on God’s “arbitrary” decision, God establishes criteria of identity. He
can thus, e.g., constitute Ad and his posterity as “one thing.” Edwards’s
religious epistemology is developed in A Treatise Concerning Religious
Affections (1746) and On the Nature of True Virtue (1765). The conversion
experience involves the acquisition of a “new sense of the heart.” Its core is
the mind’s apprehension of a “new simple idea,” the idea of “true beauty.” This
idea is needed to properly understand theological truths. True Virtue also provides
the fullest account of Edwards’s ethics – a moral sense theory that identifies
virtue with benevolence. Although indebted to contemporaries like Hutcheson,
Edwards criticizes their attempts to construct ethics on secular foundations.
True benevolence ecofeminism Edwards, Jonathan 253 - 253 embraces being in general. Since God is,
in effect, being in general, its essence is the love of God. A love restricted
to fily, nation, humanity, or other “private systems” is a form of
self-love. BERKELEY, CALVIN, FREE WILL
PROBLEM, MORAL SENSE THEORY, OCCASIONALISM. W.J.Wa. effective procedure, a
step-by-step recipe for computing the values of a function. It determines what
is to be done at each step, without requiring any ingenuity of anyone (or any
machine) executing it. The input and output of the procedure consist of items
that can be processed mechanically. Idealizing a little, inputs and outputs are
often taken to be strings on a finite alphabet. It is customary to extend the
notion to procedures for manipulating natural numbers, via a canonical
notation. Each number is associated with a string, its numeral. Typical exples
of effective procedures are the standard grade school procedures for addition,
multiplication, etc. One can execute the procedures without knowing anything
about the natural numbers. The term ‘mechanical procedure’ or ‘algorithm’ is
sometimes also used. A function f is computable if there is an effective
procedure A that computes f. For every m in the domain of f, if A were given m
as input, it would produce f(m) as output. Turing machines are mathematical
models of effective procedures. Church’s thesis, or Turing’s thesis, is that a
function is computable provided there is a Turing machine that computes it. In
other words, for every effective procedure, there is a Turing machine that
computes the se function. CHURCH’S
THESIS, COMPUTER THEORY, TURING MACHINE. S.Sha. efficacious grace.ARNAULD.
efficient cause.ARISTOTLE. effluences.DEMOCRITUS. effluxes, theory
of.DEMOCRITUS. ego.FREUD. ego, empirical.KANT. ego, transcendental.KANT.
egocentric particular, a word whose denotation is determined by identity of the
speaker and/or the time, place, and audience of his utterance. Exples are
generally thought to include ‘I,’ ‘you’, ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘this’, ‘that’,
‘now’, ‘past’, ‘present’, and ‘future’. The term ‘egocentric particular’ was
introduced by Russell in An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940). In an
earlier work, “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism” (Monist, 1918–19), Russell
called such words “emphatic particulars.” Some important questions arise
regarding egocentric particulars. Are some egocentric particulars more basic
than others so that the rest can be correctly defined in terms of them but they
cannot be correctly defined in terms of the rest? Russell thought all
egocentric particulars can be defined by ‘this’; ‘I’, for exple, has the se
meaning as ‘the biography to which this belongs’, where ‘this’ denotes a
sense-datum experienced by the speaker. Yet, at the se time, ‘this’ can be defined
by the combination ‘what I-now notice’. Must we use at least some egocentric
particulars to give a complete description of the world? Our ability to
describe the world from a speaker-neutral perspective, so that the denotations
of the terms in our description are independent of when, where, and by whom
they are used, depends on our ability to describe the world without using
egocentric particulars. Russell held that egocentric particulars are not needed
in any part of the description of the world.
CAUSAL THEORY OF PROPER
NES, INDEXICAL, TOKEN-REFLEXIVE. P.Mar. egocentric predicent, each person’s
apparently problematic position as an experiencing subject, assuming that all
our experiences are private in that no one else can have them. Two problems concern
our ability to gain empirical knowledge. First, it is hard to see how we gain
empirical knowledge of what others experience, if all experience is private. We
cannot have their experience to see what it is like, for any experience we have
is our experience and so not theirs. Second, it is hard to see how we gain
empirical knowledge of how the external world is, independently of our
experience. All our empirically justified beliefs seem to rest ultimately on
what is given in experience, and if the empirically given is private, it seems
it can only support justified beliefs about the world as we experience it. A
third major problem concerns our ability to communicate with others. It is hard
to see how we describe the world in a language others understand. We give
meaning to some of our words by defining them by other words that already have
effective procedure egocentric predicent 254 -
254 meaning, and this process of definition appears to end with words we
define ostensively; i.e., we use them to ne something given in experience. If
experiences are private, no one else can grasp the meaning of our ostensively
defined words or any words we use them to define. No one else can understand
our attempts to describe the world.
PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT, PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS. P.Mar. egoism, any
view that, in a certain way, makes the self central. There are several
different versions of egoism, all of which have to do with how actions relate
to the self. Ethical egoism is the view that people ought to do what is in
their own selfinterest. Psychological egoism is a view about people’s motives,
inclinations, or dispositions. One statement of psychological egoism says that,
as a matter of fact, people always do what they believe is in their
self-interest and, human nature being what it is, they cannot do otherwise.
Another says that people never desire anything for its own sake except what
they believe is in their own self-interest. Altruism is the opposite of egoism.
Any ethical view that implies that people sometimes ought to do what is in the
interest of others and not in their self-interest can be considered a form of
ethical altruism. The view that, human nature being what it is, people can do
what they do not believe to be in their self-interest might be called psychological
altruism. Different species of ethical and psychological egoism result from
different interpretations of self-interest and of acting from self-interest,
respectively. Some people have a broad conception of acting from self-interest
such that people acting from a desire to help others can be said to be acting
out of self-interest, provided they think doing so will not, on balance, take
away from their own good. Others have a narrower conception of acting from
selfinterest such that one acts from self-interest only if one acts from the
desire to further one’s own happiness or good. Butler identified self-love with
the desire to further one’s own happiness or good and self-interested action
with action performed from that desire alone. Since we obviously have other
particular desires, such as the desires for honor, for power, for revenge, and
to promote the good of others, he concluded that psychological egoism was
false. People with a broader conception of acting from self-interest would ask
whether anyone with those particular desires would act on them if they believed
that, on balance, acting on them would result in a loss of happiness or good
for themselves. If some would, then psychological egoism is false, but if,
given human nature as it is, no one would, it is true even if self-love is not
the only source of motivation in human beings. Just as there are broader and
narrower conceptions of acting from self-interest, there are broader and
narrower conceptions of self-interest itself, as well as subjective and
objective conceptions of self-interest. Subjective conceptions relate a
person’s self-interest solely to the satisfaction of his desires or to what
that person believes will make his life go best for him. Objective conceptions
see self-interest, at least in part, as independent of the person’s desires and
beliefs. Some conceptions of self-interest are narrower than others, allowing
that the satisfaction of only certain desires is in a person’s self-interest,
e.g., desires whose satisfaction makes that person’s life go better for her.
And some conceptions of self-interest count only the satisfaction of idealized
desires, ones that someone would have after reflection about the nature of
those desires and what they typically lead to, as furthering a person’s
self-interest. BUTLER, ETHICS,
MOTIVATIONAL INTERNALISM, REASONS FOR ACTION. B.R. egoistic
consequentialism.CONSEQUENTIALISM. eidetic intuition.HUSSERL. eidos.ARISTOTLE,
HUSSERL. Eightfold Path.BUDDHISM. eikasia.DIVIDED LINE. Einfühlung (German,
‘feeling into’), empathy. In contrast to sympathy, where one’s identity is
preserved in feeling with or for the other, in empathy or Einfühlung one tends
to lose oneself in the other. The concept of Einfühlung received its classical
formulation in the work of Theodor Lipps, who characterized it as a process of
involuntary, inner imitation whereby a subject identifies through feeling with
the movement of another body, whether it be the real leap of a dancer or the
illusory upward lift of an architectural column. Complete empathy is considered
to be aesthetic, providing a non-representational access to beauty. Husserl
used a phenomenologically purified concept of Einfühlung to account for the way
the self directly recognizes the other. Husserl’s student Edith Stein described
Einfühlung as a blind egoism Einfühlung 255 -
255 mode of knowledge that reaches the experience of the other without
possessing it. Einfühlung is not to be equated with Verstehen or human understanding,
which, as Dilthey pointed out, requires the use of all one’s mental powers, and
cannot be reduced to a mere mode of feeling. To understand is not to apprehend
something empathetically as the projected locus of an actual experience, but to
apperceive the meaning of expressions of experience in relation to their
context. Whereas understanding is reflective, empathy is prereflective.
Einstein, Albert
(1879–1955), German-born erican physicist, founder of the special and general
theories of relativity and a fundental contributor to several branches of
physics and to the philosophical analysis and critique of modern physics,
notably of relativity and the quantum theory. Einstein was awarded the Nobel
Prize for physics in 1922, “especially for his discovery of the law of the
photoelectric effect.” Born in Ulm in the German state of Württemberg, Einstein
studied physics at the Polytechnic in Zürich, Switzerland. He was called to
Berlin as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics (1914) at the
peak of the German ultranationalism that surrounded World War I. His reaction
was to circulate an internationalist “Manifesto to Europeans” and to pursue
Zionist and pacifist progrs. Following the dratic confirmation of the general
theory of relativity (1919) Einstein bece an international celebrity. This fe
also made him the frequent target of German anti-Semites, who, during one
notable episode, described the theory of relativity as “a Jewish fraud.” In
1933 Einstein left Germany for the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Although his life was always centered on science, he was also engaged in the
politics and culture of his times. He carried on an extensive correspondence
(whose publication will run to over forty volumes) with both fous and ordinary
people, including significant philosophical correspondence with Cassirer,
Reichenbach, Moritz Schlick, and others. Despite reservations over logical
positivism, he was something of a patron of the movement, helping to secure
academic positions for several of its leading figures. In 1939 Einstein signed
a letter drafted by the nuclear physicist Leo Szilard informing President
Roosevelt about the prospects for harnessing atomic energy and warning of the
German efforts to make a bomb. Einstein did not further participate in the
development of atomic weapons, and later was influential in the movement
against them. In 1952 he was offered, and declined, the presidency of Israel.
He died still working on a unified field theory, and just as the founders of
the Pugwash movement for nuclear disarment adopted a manifesto he had cosigned
with Russell. Einstein’s philosophical thinking was influenced by early
exposure to Kant and later study of Hume and Mach, whose impact shows in the
operationalism used to treat time in his fous 1905 paper on special relativity.
That work also displays a passion for unity in science characteristic of nearly
all his physical thinking, and that may relate to the monism of Spinoza, a
philosopher whom he read and reread. Einstein’s own understanding of relativity
stressed the invariance of the space-time interval and promoted realism with
regard to the structure of spacetime. Realism also shows up in Einstein’s work
on Brownian motion (1905), which was explicitly motivated by his long-standing
interest in demonstrating the reality of molecules (and atoms), and in the
realist treatment of light quanta in his analysis (1905) of the photoelectric
effect. While he pioneered the development of statistical physics, especially
in his seminal investigations of quantum phenomena (1905–25), he never broke
with his belief in determinism as the only truly fundental approach to physical
processes. Here again one sees an affinity with Spinoza. Realism and
determinism brought Einstein into conflict with the new quantum theory
(1925–26), whose observer dependence and “flight into statistics” convinced him
that it could not constitute genuinely fundental physics. Although influential
in its development, he bece the theory’s foremost critic, never contributing to
its refinement but turning instead to the progr of unifying the electromagnetic
and gravitational fields into one grand, deterministic synthesis that would
somehow make room for quantum effects as limiting or singular cases. It is
generally agreed that his unified field progr was not successful, although his
vision continues to inspire other unification progrs, and his critical
assessments of quantum mechanics still challenge the instrumentalism associated
with the theory. Einstein’s philosophical reflections constitute an important
chapter in twentieth-century thought. He understood realism as less a
metaphysical doctrine than a motivational progr, and he argued that determinism
was a feature of theories rather than an aspect of the world Einstein, Albert
Einstein, Albert 256 - 256 directly.
Along with the unity of science, other central themes in his thinking include
his rejection of inductivism and his espousal of holism and constructivism (or
conventionalism), emphasizing that meanings, concepts, and theories are free
creations, not logically derivable from experience but subject rather to
overall criteria of comprehensibility, empirical adequacy, and logical
simplicity. Holism is also apparent in his acute analysis of the testability of
geometry and his rejection of Poincaré’s geometric conventionalism. DETERMINISM, FIELD THEORY, QUANTUM MECHANICS,
RELATIVITY, UNITY OF SCIENCE. A.F. élan vital.BERGSON.
Eleatic School, strictly,
two fifth-century B.C. Greek philosophers, Parmenides and Zeno of Elea. (The
Ionian Greek colony of Elea or Hyele in southern Italy bece Velia in Roman
times and retains that ne today.) A playful remark by Plato in Sophist 242d
gave rise to the notion that Xenophanes of Colophon, who was active in southern
Italy and Sicily, was Parmenides’ teacher, had anticipated Parmenides’ views,
and founded the Eleatic School. Moreover, Melissus of Sos and (according to
some ancient sources) even the atomist philosopher Leucippus of Abdera ce to be
regarded as “Eleatics,” in the sense of sharing fundental views with Parmenides
and Zeno. In the broad and traditional use of the term, the Eleatic School
characteristically holds that “all is one” and that change and plurality are
unreal. So stated, the School’s position is represented best by Melissus. MELISSUS OF SOS, PARMENIDES, XENOPHANES.
A.P.D.M. elementary equivalence.CATEGORICAL THEORY. elementary quantification
theory.FORMAL LOGIC. elenchus, a cross-exination or refutation. Typically in
Plato’s early dialogues, Socrates has a conversation with someone who claims to
have some sort of knowledge, and Socrates refutes this claim by showing the
interlocutor that what he thinks he knows is inconsistent with his other
opinions. This refutation is called an elenchus. It is not entirely negative,
for awareness of his own ignorance is supposed to spur the interlocutor to
further inquiry, and the concepts and assumptions employed in the refutations
serve as the basis for positive Platonic treatments of the se topic. In
contrast, sophistic elenchi are merely eristic: they aim simply at the refutation
of an opponent by any means. Thus, Aristotle calls fallacies that only appear
to be refutations “sophistical elenchi.”
SOCRATES. E.C.H. Elias.COMMENTARIES ON ARISTOTLE. eliminability,
Rsey.BETH’s DEFINABILITY THEOREM.
Elizabeth of Bohemia (1618–80),
German Princess whose philosophical reputation rests on her correspondence with
Descartes. The most heavily discussed portion of this correspondence focuses on
the relationship between the mind and the body and on Descartes’s claim that
the mind-body union is a simple notion. Her discussions of free will and of the
nature of the sovereign good also have philosophical interest. DESCARTES, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. M.At.
ellipsis, an expression (spoken or written) from which semantically or
syntactically essential material has been deleted, usually for conciseness.
Elliptical sentences are often used to answer questions without repeating
material occurring in the questions. For exple, the word ‘Lincoln’ may be an
answer to the question of the authorship of the Gettysburg Address or to the
question of the birthplace of George Boole. The single word ‘Lincoln’ can be
seen as an elliptical ne when used as an ellipsis of ‘Abrah Lincoln’, and it
can be seen as an elliptical sentence when used as an ellipsis for ‘Abrah
Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address’. Other typical elliptical sentences are:
‘Abe is a father of two [children]’, ‘Ben arrives at twelve [noon]’. A typical
ellipsis that occurs in discussion of ellipses involves citing the elliptical
sentences with the deleted material added in brackets (often with ‘sc.’ or
‘scilicet’) instead of also presenting the complete sentence. Ellipsis also
occurs above the sentential level, e.g. where well-known premises are omitted
in the course of argumentation. The word ‘enthymeme’ designates an elliptical
argument expression from which one or more premise-expressions have been
deleted. The élan vital ellipsis 257 -
257 expression ‘elliptic biguity’ designates biguity arising from ellipsis. BIGUITY, ARGUMENT, LOGICAL FORM. J. Cor.
emanationism, a doctrine about the origin and ontological structure of the
world, most frequently associated with Plotinus and other Neoplatonists,
according to which everything else that exists is an emanation from a
primordial unity, called by Plotinus “the One.” The first product of emanation
from the One is Intelligence (noûs), a realm resembling Plato’s world of Forms.
From Intelligence emanates Soul (psuche), conceived as an active principle that
imposes, insofar as that is possible, the rational structure of Intelligence on
the matter that emanates from Soul. The process of emanation is typically
conceived to be necessary and timeless: although Soul, for instance, proceeds
from Intelligence, the notion of procession is one of logical dependence rather
than temporal sequence. The One remains unaffected and undiminished by
emanation: Plotinus likens the One to the sun, which necessarily emits light
from its naturally infinite abundance without suffering change or loss of its
own substance. Although emanationism influenced some Jewish, Christian, and
Islic thinkers, it was incompatible with those theistic doctrines of divine
activity that maintained that God’s creative choice and the world thus created
were contingent, and that God can, if he chooses, interact directly with
individual creatures. PLOTINUS. W.E.M.
embodiment, the bodily aspects of human subjectivity. Embodiment is the central
theme in European phenomenology, with its most extensive treatment in the works
of Maurice MerleauPonty. Merleau-Ponty’s account of embodiment distinguishes
between “the objective body,” which is the body regarded as a physiological
entity, and “the phenomenal body,” which is not just some body, some particular
physiological entity, but my (or your) body as I (or you) experience it. Of
course, it is possible to experience one’s own body as a physiological entity.
But this is not typically the case. Typically, I experience my body (tacitly)
as a unified potential or capacity for doing this and that – typing this
sentence, scratching that itch, etc. Moreover, this sense that I have of my own
motor capacities (expressed, say, as a kind of bodily confidence) does not
depend on an understanding of the physiological processes involved in
performing the action in question. The distinction between the objective and
phenomenal body is central to understanding the phenomenological treatment of
embodiment. Embodiment is not a concept that pertains to the body grasped as a
physiological entity. Rather it pertains to the phenomenal body and to the role
it plays in our object-directed experiences.
MERLEAU-PONTY, PHENOMENOLOGY. D.Le. emergence.METHODOLOGICAL HOLISM.
emergentism, descriptive.HOLISM. emergent materialism.PHILOSOPHY OF MIND.
Emersonian perfectionism.CAVELL. Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803–82), erican
philosophical essayist, lecturer, and poet, a leading figure in the
transcendentalist movement. He was born in Boston and educated at Harvard. As a
young man he taught school and served as a Unitarian minister (1826–32). After
he resigned his pastorate in 1832, he traveled to Europe to visit Coleridge,
Carlyle, and Wordsworth. Upon his return, he settled in Concord, Massachusetts,
and began anew as a public lecturer, essayist, and cultural critic. All the
while he maintained a voluminous correspondence and kept a detailed, evocative
journal. Most of this material has been published, and it casts considerable
light on the depth of his thought, at times more so than his public
presentations and books. His life was pockmarked by personal tragedies, notably
the death of his father when Emerson was eight; the death of his first wife,
Ellen, after two years of marriage; and the death of his oldest son, Waldo, at
the age of five. Such afflictions belie the commonly held assumption that
Emerson was a thinker who did not face the intractable problem of evil. To the
contrary, his writings should be read as a continuing struggle to render the
richest possible version of our situation, given that “things are in the saddle
and ride mankind.” Although Emerson did not write a systematic work in
philosophy, he unquestionably bequeathed an important philosophical vision and
countless philosophical pieces. Beginning with his concentration on the motif
of nature, its embracing quality, and the rhythms of our inextricable presence
within its activities, Emerson details the “compensatory” ebb and flow of the
human journey. The human soul and nature are related as “print” to “seal,” and
yet nature is not always beneficent. In his essay “Compensation,” emanationism
Emerson, Ralph Waldo 258 - 258 Emerson
writes that “the value of the universe continues to throw itself into every
point. If the good is there, so is the evil; if the affinity, so the repulsion,
if the force, so the limitation.” After the acclaim given the publication of
Emerson’s first book, Nature (1836), he began to gather his public lectures, a
presentational medium at which he was riveting, convincing, and inspiring. In
1841 Emerson published his Essays – First Series, which included the lovely
piece “Circles,” wherein he follows the blunt maxim “we grizzle every day” with
the healing affirmation that “life is a series of surprises.” This volume also
contains “Self-Reliance,” which furnished a motto for the self-proclaiming
intrepidity of nineteenth-century erican individualism. The enthusiastic
response to Emerson’s essays enabled him to publish three additional
collections within the decade: Essays – Second Series (1844), Nature, Addresses
and Lectures (1849), and Representative Men (1850). These books and their
successors contained lectures, orations, poems, and addresses over a wide range
of topics, philosophical, personal, characterological, travel, historical, and
literary. Emerson’s prose is swift, clear, and epigrmatic, like a series of
written stochastic probes, resulting in a Yankee crazy quilt, munificent of
shape and color. Emerson spoke to be heard and wrote to be read, especially by
the often denigrated “common” person. In fact, during Emerson’s European
lecture tour in 1848, a letter to a London newspaper requested lowering the
admission price so that poorer people could attend, for “to miss him is to lose
an important part of the Nineteenth Century.” Emerson’s deeply democratic
attitude had a reflective philosophical base. He believed that ordinary
experience was epiphanic if we but open ourselves to its virtually infinite
messages. Despite his Brahmanic appearance and demeanor, Emerson was in
continuous touch with ordinary things. He wrote, “Our chief experiences have
been casual.” His belief in the explosive and pedagogical character of ordinary
experience is especially present in his influential oration “The erican
Scholar.” After criticizing erican thought as thoroughly derivative, he plots
the influences necessary to generate a genuine scholar, parount ong them nature
and the learning of the past, though he cautions us not to be trapped in
excessive retrospection at the expense of “an original relation to the
universe.” It is his discussion of “action” as the third influence on the
scholar that enables him to project his clearest statement of his underlying
philosophical commitment. Without action, “thought can never ripen into truth,”
moreover, “thinking is a partial act,” whereas living is a “total act.”
Expressly opposed to any form of psychological, religious, philosophical, or
behavioral dualism, he counsels us that the spiritual is not set apart, beyond
reach of those who toil in the everyday. Rather, the most profound meanings of
the human condition, “lurk” in the “common,” the “low,” the “filiar,” the
“today.” The influence of the thought of Emerson reaches across class, caste,
genre, and persuasion. Thinkers as diverse as Jes, Nietzsche, Whitman, Proust,
Gertrude Stein, Robert Frost, Frank Lloyd Wright, Frederick Law Olmsted, and
Wallace Stevens are ong those deeply indebted to Emerson. Yet, it was Dewey who
best caught the enduring bequest of Emerson, writing of “the final word of
Emerson’s philosophy, [as] the identity of Being, unqualified and immutable,
with character.”
TRANSCENDENTALISM. J.J.M.
emotion, as conceived by philosophers and psychologists, any of several general
types of mental states, approximately those that had been called “passions” by
earlier philosophers, such as Descartes and Hume. Anger, e.g., is one emotion,
fear a second, and joy a third. An emotion may also be a content-specific type,
e.g., fear of an earthquake, or a token of an emotion type, e.g., Mary’s
present fear that an earthquake is imminent. The various states typically
classified as emotions appear to be linked together only by overlapping fily
resemblances rather than by a set of necessary and sufficient conditions. Thus
an adequate philosophical or psychological “theory of emotion” should probably
be a fily of theories. Even to label these states “emotions” wrongly suggests
that they are all marked by emotion, in the older sense of mental agitation (a
metaphorical extension of the original sense, agitated motion). A person who
is, e.g., pleased or sad about something is not typically agitated. To speak of
anger, fear, joy, sadness, etc., collectively as “the emotions” fosters the
assumption (which Jes said he took for granted) that these are just
qualitatively distinct feelings of mental agitation. This exaggerates the
importance of agitation and neglects the characteristic differences, noted by
Aristotle, Spinoza, and others, in the types of situations that evoke the
various emotions. One important feature of most emotions is captured by the
older category of passions, in the sense of ‘ways of being acted upon’. In many
lanemotion emotion 259 - 259 guages
nearly all emotion adjectives are derived from participles: e.g., the English
words ‘used’, ‘annoyed’, ‘ashed’, ‘astonished’, ‘delighted’, ‘embarrassed’,
‘excited’, ‘frightened’, ‘horrified’, ‘irritated’, ‘pleased’, ‘terrified’,
‘surprised’, ‘upset’, and ‘worried’. When we are, e.g., embarrassed, something
acts on us, i.e., embarrasses us: typically, some situation or fact of which we
are aware, such as our having on unmatched shoes. To call embarrassment a
passion in the sense of a way of being acted upon does not imply that we are
“passive” with respect to it, i.e., have no control over whether a given
situation embarrasses us and thus no responsibility for our embarrassment. Not only
situations and facts but also persons may “do” something to us, as in love and
hate, and mere possibilities may have an effect on us, as in fear and hope. The
possibility emotions are sometimes characterized as “forward-looking,” and
emotions that are responses to actual situations or facts are said to be
“backward-looking.” These temporal characterizations are inaccurate and
misleading. One may be fearful or hopeful that a certain event occurred in the
past, provided one is not certain as to whether it occurred; and one may be,
e.g., embarrassed about what is going to occur, provided one is certain it will
occur. In various passions the effect on us may include involuntary
physiological changes, feelings of agitation due to arousal of the autonomic
nervous system, characteristic facial expressions, and inclinations toward
intentional action (or inaction) that arise independently of any rational
warrant. Phenomenologically, however, these effects do not appear to us to be
alien and non-rational, like muscular spasms. Rather they seem an integral part
of our perception of the situation as, e.g., an embarrassing situation, or one
that warrants our embarrassment.
JES-LANGE THEORY, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. R.M.G. emotions, the seven.
KOREAN PHILOSOPHY.
emotions, the six.CH’ING. emotive conjugation, a humorous verbal conjugation,
designed to expose and mock first-person bias, in which ostensibly the se
action is described in successively more pejorative terms through the first,
second, and third persons (e.g., “I firm,
You are stubborn, He is a pig-headed fool”). This exple was used by Russell in
the course of a BBC Radio “Brains’ Trust” discussion in 1948. It was
popularized later that year when The New Statesman ran a competition for other
exples. An “unprecedented response” brought in 2,000 entries, including:
“I well informed, You listen to gossip,
He believes what he reads in the paper”; and “I went to Oxford, You went to
Cbridge, He went to the London School of Economics” (Russell was educated at
Cbridge and later taught there).
RUSSELL. N.G. emotive meaning.EMOTIVISM, MEANING. emotivism, a
noncognitivist metaethical view opposed to cognitivism, which holds that moral
judgments should be construed as assertions about the moral properties of
actions, persons, policies, and other objects of moral assessment, that moral
predicates purport to refer to properties of such objects, that moral judgments
(or the propositions that they express) can be true or false, and that
cognizers can have the cognitive attitude of belief toward the propositions
that moral judgments express. Noncognitivism denies these claims; it holds that
moral judgments do not make assertions or express propositions. If moral
judgments do not express propositions, the former can be neither true nor false,
and moral belief and moral knowledge are not possible. The emotivist is a
noncognitivist who claims that moral judgments, in their primary sense, express
the appraiser’s attitudes – approval or disapproval – toward the object of
evaluation, rather than make assertions about the properties of that object.
Because emotivism treats moral judgments as the expressions of the appraiser’s
pro and con attitudes, it is sometimes referred to as the boohurrah theory of
ethics. Emotivists distinguish their thesis that moral judgments express the
appraiser’s attitudes from the subjectivist claim that they state or report the
appraiser’s attitudes (the latter view is a form of cognitivism). Some versions
of emotivism distinguish between this primary, emotive meaning of moral
judgments and a secondary, descriptive meaning. In its primary, emotive
meaning, a moral judgment expresses the appraiser’s attitudes toward the object
of evaluation rather than ascribing properties to that object. But secondarily,
moral judgments refer to those non-moral properties of the object of evaluation
in virtue of which the appraiser has and expresses her attitudes. So if I judge
that your act of torture is wrong, my judgment has two components. Its primary,
emotive emotions, the seven emotivism 260 -
260 sense is to express my disapproval of your act. Its secondary,
descriptive sense is to denote those non-moral properties of your act upon
which I base my disapproval. These are presumably the very properties that make
it an act of torture – roughly, a causing of intense pain in order to punish,
coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure. By making emotive meaning primary,
emotivists claim to preserve the univocity of moral language between speakers
who employ different criteria of application for their moral terms. Also, by
stressing the intimate connection between moral judgment and the agent’s
non-cognitive attitudes, emotivists claim to capture the motivational
properties of moral judgment. Some emotivists have also attempted to account
for ascriptions of truth to moral judgments by accepting the redundancy account
of ascriptions of truth as expressions of agreement with the original judgment.
The emotivist must think that such ascriptions of truth to moral judgments
merely reflect the ascriber’s agreement in noncognitive attitude with the
attitude expressed by the original judgment. Critics of emotivism challenge
these alleged virtues. They claim that moral agreement need not track agreement
in attitude; there can be moral disagreement without disagreement in attitude
(between moralists with different moral views), and disagreement in attitude
without moral disagreement (between moralists and immoralists). By
distinguishing between the meaning of moral terms and speakers’ beliefs about
the extension of those terms, critics claim that we can account for the
univocity of moral terms in spite of moral disagreement without introducing a
primary emotive sense for moral terms. Critics also allege that the emotivist
analysis of moral judgments as the expression of the appraiser’s attitudes
precludes recognizing the possibility of moral judgments that do not engage or
reflect the attitudes of the appraiser. For instance, it is not clear how
emotivism can accommodate the oralist – one who recognizes moral requirements
but is indifferent to them. Critics also charge emotivism with failure to
capture the cognitive aspects of moral discourse. Because emotivism is a theory
about moral judgment or assertion, it is difficult for the emotivist to give a
semantic analysis of moral predicates in unasserted contexts, such as in the
antecedents of conditional moral judgments (e.g., “If he did wrong, then he
ought to be punished”). Finally, one might want to recognize the truth of some
moral judgments, perhaps in order to make room for the possibility of moral
mistakes. If so, then one may not be satisfied with the emotivist’s appeal to
redundancy or disquotational accounts of the ascription of truth. Emotivism was
introduced by Ayer in Language, Truth, and Logic (2d ed., 1946) and refined by
C. L. Stevenson in Facts and Values (1963) and Ethics and Language (1944).
COGNITIVISM, ETHICAL
OBJECTIVISM, METAETHICS, MORAL SKEPTICISM, NIHILISM, NONCOGNITIVISM,
PRESCRIPTIVISM. D.O.B. empathic solipsism.SOLIPSISM. empathy, imaginative
projection into another person’s situation, especially for vicarious capture of
its emotional and motivational qualities. The term is an English rendering (by
the Angloerican psychologist E. G. Titchener, 1867– 1927) of the German
Einfühlung, made popular by Theodore Lipps (1851–1914), which also covered
imaginative identification with inanimate objects of aesthetic contemplation.
Under ‘sympathy’, many aspects were earlier discussed by Hume, Ad Smith, and
other Scottish philosophers. Empathy has been considered a precondition of
ethical thinking and a major contributor to social bonding and altruism, mental
state attribution, language use, and translation. The relevant spectrum of
phenomena includes automatic and often subliminal motor mimicry of the
expressions or manifestations of another’s real or feigned emotion, pain, or
pleasure; emotional contagion, by which one “catches” another’s apparent
emotion, often unconsciously and without reference to its cause or “object”;
conscious and unconscious mimicry of direction of gaze, with consequent
transfer of attention from the other’s response to its cause; and conscious or
unconscious role-taking, which reconstructs in imagination (with or without
imagery) aspects of the other’s situation as the other “perceives” it.
EINFÜHLUNG, EMOTION, EXPRESSION THEORY OF ART,
HUME, PROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS, SIMULATION THEORY, SMITH, VERSTEHEN. R.M.G.
Empedocles (c.495–c.435 B.C.), Greek preSocratic philosopher who created a
physical theory in response to Parmenides while incorporating Pythagorean ideas
of the soul into his philosophy. Following Parmenides in his rejection of
coming-to-be and perishing, he accounted for phenomenal change by positing four
elements (his “roots,” rizomata), earth, empathic solipsism Empedocles 261
- 261 water, air, and fire. When they
mix together in set proportions they create compound substances such as blood
and bone. Two forces act on the elements, Love and Strife, the former joining
the different elements, the latter separating them. In his cyclical cosmogony
the four elements combine to form the Sphere, a completely homogeneous
spherical body permeated by Love, which, shattered by Strife, grows into a
cosmos with the elements forming distinct cosmic masses of earth, water (the
seas), air, and fire. There is controversy over whether Empedocles posits one
or two periods when living things exist in the cycle. (On one view there are
two periods, between which intervenes a stage of complete separation of the
elements.) Empedocles accepts the Pythagorean view of reincarnation of souls,
seeing life as punishment for an original sin and requiring the expiation of a
pious and philosophical life. Thus the exile and return of the individual soul
reflects in the microcosm the cosmic movement from harmony to division to
harmony. Empedocles’ four elements bece standard in natural philosophy down to
the early modern era, and Aristotle recognized his Love and Strife as an early
expression of the efficient cause.
PYTHAGORAS. D.W.G. empirical.A PRIORI. empirical decision theory, the
scientific study of human judgment and decision making. A growing body of
empirical research has described the actual limitations on inductive reasoning.
By contrast, traditional decision theory is normative; the theory proposes
ideal procedures for solving some class of problems. The descriptive study of
decision making was pioneered by figures including os Tversky, Daniel Kahneman,
Richard Nisbett, and Lee Ross, and their empirical research has documented the
limitations and biases of various heuristics, or simple rules of thumb,
routinely used in reasoning. The representativeness heuristic is a rule of
thumb used to judge probabilities based on the degree to which one class
represents (or resembles) another class. For exple, we assume that basketball
players have a “hot hand” during a particular ge – producing an uninterrupted
string of successful shots – because we underestimate the relative frequency
with which such successful runs occur in the entire population of that player’s
record. The availability heuristic is a rule of thumb that uses the ease with
which an instance comes to mind as an index of the probability of an event.
Such a rule is unreliable when salience in memory misleads; for exple, most
people (incorrectly) rate death by shark attack as more probable than death by
falling airplane parts. (For an overview, see D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A.
Tversky, eds., Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, 1982.) These
biases, found in laypeople and statistical experts alike, have a natural
explanation on accounts such as Herbert Simon’s (1957) concept of “bounded
rationality.” According to this view, the limitations on our decision making
are fixed in part by specific features of our psychological architecture. This
architecture places constraints on such factors as processing speed and
information capacity, and this in turn produces predictable, systematic errors
in performance. Thus, rather than proposing highly idealized rules appropriate
to an omniscient Laplacean genius – more characteristic of traditional
normative approaches to decision theory – empirical decision theory attempts to
formulate a descriptively accurate, and thus psychologically realistic, account
of rationality. Even if certain simple rules can, in particular settings,
outperform other strategies, it is still important to understand the causes of
the systematic errors we make on tasks perfectly representative of routine
decision making. Once the context is specified, empirical decision-making
research allows us to study both descriptive decision rules that we follow
spontaneously and normative rules that we ought to follow upon reflection. BAYESIAN RATIONALITY, DECISION THEORY,
HEURISTICS. J.D.T. empirical ego.KANT. empirical meaning.MEANING. empirical
probability.PROBABILITY. empiricism (from empiric, ‘doctor who relies on
practical experience’, ultimately from Greek empeiria, ‘experience’), a type of
theory in epistemology, the basic idea behind all exples of the type being that
experience has primacy in human knowledge and justified belief. Because
empiricism is not a single view but a type of view with many different exples,
it is appropriate to speak not just of empiricism but of empiricisms. Perhaps
the most fundental distinction to be drawn ong the various empiricisms is that
between those consisting of some claim about concepts and those consisting of
some empirical empiricism 262 - 262
claim about beliefs – call these, respectively, concept-empiricisms and
belief-empiricisms. Concept-empiricisms all begin by singling out those
concepts that apply to some experience or other; the concept of dizziness,
e.g., applies to the experience of dizziness. And what is then claimed is that
all concepts that human beings do and can possess either apply to some
experience that someone has had, or have been derived from such concepts by
someone’s performing on those concepts one or another such mental operation as
combination, distinction, and abstraction. How exactly my concepts are and must
be related to my experience and to my performance of those mental operations
are matters on which concept-empiricists differ; most if not all would grant we
each acquire many concepts by learning language, and it does not seem plausible
to hold that each concept thus acquired either applies to some experience that
one has oneself had or has been derived from such by oneself. But though
concept-empiricists disagree concerning the conditions for linguistic
acquisition or transmission of a concept, what unites them, to repeat, is the
claim that all human concepts either apply to some experience that someone has
actually had or they have been derived from such by someone’s actually
performing on those the mental operations of combination, distinction, and
abstraction. Most concept-empiricists will also say something more: that the
experience must have evoked the concept in the person having the experience, or
that the person having the experience must have recognized that the concept
applies to his or her experience, or something of that sort. What unites all
belief-empiricists is the claim that for one’s beliefs to possess one or
another truth-relevant merit, they must be related in one or another way to
someone’s experience. Beliefempiricisms differ from each other, for one thing,
with respect to the merit concerning which the claim is made. Some
belief-empiricists claim that a belief does not have the status of knowledge
unless it has the requisite relation to experience; some claim that a belief
lacks warrant unless it has that relation; others claim that a belief is not
permissibly held unless it stands in that relation; and yet others claim that
it is not a properly scientific belief unless it stands in that relation. And
not even this list exhausts the possibilities. Belief-empiricisms also differ
with respect to the specific relation to experience that is said to be
necessary for the merit in question to be present. Some belief-empiricists
hold, for exple, that a belief is permissibly held only if its propositional content
is either a report of the person’s present or remembered experience, or the
belief is held on the basis of such beliefs and is probable with respect to the
beliefs on the basis of which it is held. Kant, by contrast, held the rather
different view that if a belief is to constitute (empirical) knowledge, it must
in some way be about experience. Third, belief-empiricisms differ from each
other with respect to the person to whose experience a belief must stand in the
relation specified if it is to possess the merit specified. It need not always
be an experience of the person whose belief is being considered. It might be an
experience of someone giving testimony about it. It should be obvious that a
philosopher might well accept one kind of empiricism while rejecting others.
Thus to ask philosophers whether they are empiricists is a question void for
vagueness. It is regularly said of Locke that he was an empiricist; and indeed,
he was a concept-empiricist of a certain sort. But he embraced no version whatsoever
of belief-empiricism. Up to this point, ‘experience’ has been used without
explanation. But anyone acquainted with the history of philosophy will be aware
that different philosophers pick out different phenomena with the word; and
even when they pick out the se phenomenon, they have different views as to the
structure of the phenomenon that they call ‘experience.’ The differences on
these matters reflect yet more distinctions ong empiricisms than have been
delineated above. EPISTEMOLOGY, LOGICAL
POSITIVISM, RATIONALISM. N.P.W. empiricism, constructive.SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM.
empiricism, British.RATIONALISM. empiricism, logical.
LOGICAL POSITIVISM.
enantiorphs (from Greek enantios, ‘opposite’, and morphe, ‘form’), objects
whose shapes differ as do those of a right and left hand. One of a pair of
enantiorphs can be made to look identical in shape to the other by viewing it
in a mirror but not merely by changing its spatial orientation. Enantiorphs
figure prominently in the work of Kant, who argued that the existence of
enantiorphic pairs entailed that Leibnizian relational theories of space were
to be rejected in favor of Newtonian absolutist theories, that some facts about
space could be apprehended empiricism, constructive enantiorphs 263 - 263 only by “pure intuition,” and that space
was mind-dependent. KANT, LEIBNIZ. R.Ke.
encrateia.AKRASIA. Encyclopedia, in French, Encyclopédie; full English title:
Encyclopedia, or a Descriptive Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Trades.
Launched in 1747 by the Parisian publisher Le Breton, who had secured
d’Alembert’s and Diderot’s editorship, the Encyclopedia was gradually released
from 1751 to 1772, despite a temporary revocation of its royal privilege.
Comprising seventeen folio volumes of 17,818 articles and eleven folio volumes
of 2,885 plates, the work required a staff of 272 contributors, writers, and
engravers. It incorporated the accumulated knowledge and rationalist,
secularist views of the French Enlightenment and prescribed economic, social,
and political reforms. Enormously successful, the work was reprinted with
revisions five times before 1789. Contributions were made by the philosophes
Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, d’Holbach, Naigeon, and Saint-Lbert; the
writers Duclos and Marmontel; the theologians Morellet and Malet; enlightened
clerics, e.g. Raynal; explorers, e.g. La Condine; natural scientists, e.g.
Daubenton; physicians, e.g. Bouillet; the economists Turgot and Quesnay;
engineers, e.g. Perronet; horologists, e.g. Berthoud; and scores of other
experts. “The purpose of an Encyclopedia,” wrote Diderot, “is to collect the
knowledge dispersed on the surface of the earth, and to unfold its general
system” (“Encyclopedia,” Vol. 5, 1755). The Encyclopedia offered the educated
reader a comprehensive, systematic, and descriptive repository of contemporary
liberal and mechanical arts. D’Alembert and Diderot developed a sensationalist
epistemology (“Preliminary Discourse”) under the influence of Locke and
Condillac. They compiled and rationally classified existing knowledge according
to the noetic process (memory, imagination, and reason). Based on the
assumption of the unity of theory and praxis, their approach was positivistic
and utilitarian. The Encyclopedists vindicated experimental reason and the rule
of nature, fostered the practice of criticism, and stimulated the development
of new sciences. In religious matters, they cultivated biguity to escape
censorship. Whereas most contributors held either conciliatory or orthodox
positions, d’Alembert, Diderot, and d’Holbach barely concealed their
naturalistic and atheistic opinions. Their radicalism was pervasive.
Supernaturalism, obscurantism, and fanaticism were ong the Encyclopedists’
favorite targets. They identified religion with superstition and theology with
black magic; asserted the superiority of natural morality over theological
ethics; demanded religious toleration; and chpioned human rights. They
innovatively retraced the historical conditions of the development of modern
philosophy. They furthermore pioneered ideas on trade and industry and
anticipated the relevance of historiography, sociology, economics, and
linguistics. As the most bitious and expansive reference work of its time, the
Encyclopedia crystallized the confidence of the eighteenth-century bourgeoisie
in the capacity of reason to dispel the shadows of ignorance and improve
society. D’ALEMBERT, D’HOLBACH, DIDEROT,
VOLTAIRE. J.-L.S. Encyclopedists.ENCYCLOPEDIA. end in itself.KANT.
endurance.PERDURANCE. energeia, Greek term coined by Aristotle and often
translated as ‘activity’, ‘actuality’, and even ‘act’, but more literally
rendered ‘(a state of) functioning’. Since for Aristotle the function of an
object is its telos or aim, energeia can also be described as an entelecheia or
realization (another coined term he uses interchangeably with energeia). So
understood, it can denote either (a) something’s being functional, though not
in use at the moment, and (b) something’s actually functioning, which Aristotle
describes as a “first realization” and “second realization” respectively (On
the Soul II.5). In general, every energeia is correlative to some dunis, a
capability or power to function in a certain way, and in the central books of
the Metaphysics Aristotle uses the linkage between these two concepts to
explain the relation of form to matter. He also distinguishes between energeia
and kinesis (change or motion) (Metaphysics IX.6; Nicomachean Ethics X.4). A
kinesis is defined by reference to its terminus (e.g., learning how to
multiply) and is thus incomplete at any point before reaching its conclusion.
An energeia, in contrast, is a state complete in itself (e.g., seeing). Thus,
Aristotle says that at any time that I
seeing, it is also true that I have seen; but it is not true that at any
time I learning that I have learned. In
Greek, this difference is not so much one of tense as of encrateia energeia 264
- 264 aspect: the perfect tense marks a
“perfect” or complete state, and not necessarily prior activity. ARISTOTLE. V.C. energeticism, also called
energetism or energism, the doctrine that energy is the fundental substance
underlying all change. Its most prominent chpion was the physical chemist
Wilhelm Ostwald (1853–1932). In his address “Die Überwindung des
wissenschaftlichen Materialismus” (“The Conquest of Scientific Materialism”),
delivered at Lübeck in 1895, Ostwald chastised the atomic-kinetic theory as
lacking progress and claimed that a unified science, energetics, could be based
solely on the concept of energy. Many of Ostwald’s criticisms of materialism
and mechanistic reductionism derived from Mach. Ostwald’s attempts to deduce
the fundental equations of thermodynics and mechanics from the principles of
energy conservation and transformation were indebted to the writings of Georg
Helm (1874–1919), especially Die Lehre von Energie (“The Laws of Energy,” 1887)
and Die Energetik (“Energetics,” 1898). Ostwald defended Helm’s factorization
thesis that all changes in energy can be analyzed as a product of intensity and
capacity factors. The factorization thesis and the attempt to derive mechanics
and thermodynics from the principles of energetics were subjected to
devastating criticisms by Boltzmann and Max Planck. Boltzmann also criticized
the dogmatism of Ostwald’s rejection of the atomickinetic theory. Ostwald’s
progr to unify the sciences under the banner of energetics withered in the face
of these criticisms. BOLTZMANN, MACH,
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. M.C. energetism, energism.ENERGETICISM. Engels,
Friedrich (1820–95), German socialist and economist who, with Marx, was the
founder of what later was called Marxism. Whether there are significant
differences between Marx and Engels is a question much in dispute ong scholars
of Marxism. Certainly there are differences in emphasis, but there was also a
division of labor between them. Engels, and not Marx, presented a Marxist
account of natural science and integrated Darwinian elements in Marxian theory.
But they also coauthored major works, including The Holy Fily, The German
Ideology (1845), and The Communist Manifesto (1848). Engels thought of himself
as the junior partner in their lifelong collaboration. That judgment is
correct, but Engels’s work is both significant and more accessible than Marx’s.
He gave popular articulations of their common views in such books as Socialism:
Utopian and Scientific and AntiDühring (1878). His work, more than Marx’s, was
taken by the Second International and many subsequent Marxist militants to be
definitive of Marxism. Only much later with some Western Marxist theoreticians
did his influence decline. Engels’s first major work, The Condition of the
Working Class in England (1845), vividly depicted workers’ lives, misery, and
systematic exploitation. But he also saw the working class as a new force created
by the industrial revolution, and he developed an account of how this new force
would lead to the revolutionary transformation of society, including collective
ownership and control of the means of production and a rational ordering of
social life; all this would supersede the waste and disparity of human
conditions that he took to be inescapable under capitalism. The German
Ideology, jointly authored with Marx, first articulated what was later called
historical materialism, a conception central to Marxist theory. It is the view
that the economic structure of society is the foundation of society; as the
productive forces develop, the economic structure changes and with that
political, legal, moral, religious, and philosophical ideas change accordingly.
Until the consolidation of socialism, societies are divided into antagonistic
classes, a person’s class being determined by her relationship to the means of
production. The dominant ideas of a society will be strongly conditioned by the
economic structure of the society and serve the class interests of the dominant
class. The social consciousness (the ruling ideology) will be that which
answers to the interests of the dominant class. From the 1850s on, Engels took
an increasing interest in connecting historical materialism with developments
in natural science. This work took definitive form in his Anti-Dühring, the
first general account of Marxism, and in his posthumously published Dialectics
of Nature. (AntiDühring also contains his most extensive discussion of
morality.) It was in these works that Engels articulated the dialectical method
and a systematic communist worldview that sought to establish that there were
not only social laws expressing empirical regularities in society but also
universal laws of nature and thought. These dialectical laws, Engels believed,
reveal that both nature and society are in a continuous process of evolutionary
though conflict-laden development. Engels should not be considered primarily,
if at all, a speculative philosopher. Like Marx, he was energeticism Engels,
Friedrich 265 - 265 critical of and
ironical about speculative philosophy and was a central figure in the socialist
movement. While always concerned that his account be warrantedly assertible,
Engels sought to make it not only true, but also a finely tuned instrument of
working-class emancipation which would lead to a world without classes.
MARXISM, POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHY. K.N. Enlightenment, a late eighteenth-century international
movement in thought, with important social and political rifications. The
Enlightenment is at once a style, an attitude, a temper – critical, secular,
skeptical, empirical, and practical. It is also characterized by core beliefs
in human rationality, in what it took to be “nature,” and in the “natural
feelings” of mankind. Four of its most prominent exemplars are Hume, Thomas
Jefferson, Kant, and Voltaire. The Enlightenment belief in human rationality
had several aspects. (1) Human beings are free to the extent that their actions
are carried out for a reason. Actions prompted by traditional authority,
whether religious or political, are therefore not free; liberation requires
weakening if not also overthrow of this authority. (2) Human rationality is
universal, requiring only education for its development. In virtue of their
common rationality, all human beings have certain rights, ong them the right to
choose and shape their individual destinies. (3) A final aspect of the belief
in human rationality was that the true forms of all things could be discovered,
whether of the universe (Newton’s laws), of the mind (associationist
psychology), of good government (the U.S. Constitution), of a happy life
(which, like good government, was “balanced”), or of beautiful architecture
(Palladio’s principles). The Enlightenment was preeminently a “formalist” age,
and prose, not poetry, was its primary means of expression. The Enlightenment
thought of itself as a return to the classical ideas of the Greeks and (more
especially) the Romans. But in fact it provided one source of the revolutions
that shook Europe and erica at the end of the eighteenth century, and it laid
the intellectual foundations for both the generally scientific worldview and
the liberal democratic society, which, despite the many attacks made on them,
continue to function as cultural ideals.
HUME, KANT, LIBERALISM, LOCKE, VOLTAIRE. G.G.B. ens a se (Latin,’a being
from itself’), a being that is completely independent and self-sufficient.
Since every creature depends at least upon God for its existence, only God
could be ens a se. In fact, only God is, and he must be. For if God depended on
any other being, he would be dependent and hence not self-sufficient. To the
extent that the ontological argument is plausible, it depends on conceiving of
God as ens a se. In other words, God as ens a se is the greatest conceivable
being. The idea of ens a se is very important in the Monologion and Proslogion
of Anselm, in various works of Duns Scotus, and later Scholastic thought. Ens a
se should be distinguished from ens ex se, according to Anselm in Monologion.
Ens a se is from itself and not “out of itself.” In other words, ens a se does
not depend upon itself for its own existence, because it is supposed to be
dependent on absolutely nothing. Further, if ens a se depended upon itself, it
would cause itself to exist, and that is impossible, according to medieval and
Scholastic philosophers, who took causality to be irreflexive. (It is also
transitive and asymmetric.) Hence, the medieval idea of ens a se should not be
confused with Spinoza’s idea of causa sui. Later Scholastics often coined
abstract terms to designate the property or entity that makes something to be
what it is, in analogy with forming, say, ‘rigidity’ from ‘rigid’. The Latin
term ‘aseitas’ is formed from the prepositional phrase in ‘ens a se’ in this
way; ‘aseitas’ is translated into English as ‘aseity’. A better-known exple of
forming an abstract noun from a concrete word is ‘haecceitas’ (thisness) from
‘haec’ (this). ANSELM, DIVINE ATTRIBUTES,
DUNS SCOTUS, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. A.P.M. ens ex se.ENS A SE. en soi.SARTRE.
ens per accidens.PER ACCIDENS. ens perfectissimo.
ENS REALISSIMUM. ens
rationis (Latin, ‘a being of reason’), a thing dependent for its existence upon
reason or thought; sometimes known as an intentional being. Ens rationis is the
contrasting term for a real being (res or ens in re extra anim), such as an
individual animal. Real beings exist independently of thought and are the
foundation for truth. A being of reason depends upon thought or reason for its
existence and is an invention of Enlightenment ens rationis 266 - 266 the mind, even if it has a foundation in
some real being. (This conception requires the idea that there are degrees of
being.) Two kinds of entia rationis are distinguished: those with a foundation
in reality and those without one. The objects of logic, which include genera
and species, e.g., animal and human, respectively, are entia rationis that have
a foundation in reality, but are abstracted from it. In contrast, mythic and
fictional objects, such as a chimera or Pegasus, have no foundation in reality.
Blindness and deafness are also sometimes called entia rationis. AQUINAS, SUÁREZ. A.P.M. ens realissimum
(Latin, ‘most real being’), an informal term for God that occurs rarely in
Scholastic philosophers. Within Kant’s philosophy, it has a technical sense. It
is an extension of Baumgarten’s idea of ens perfectissimum (most perfect
being), a being that has the greatest number of possible perfections to the
greatest degree. Since ens perfectissimum refers to God as the sum of all
possibilities and since actuality is greater than possibility, according to
Kant, the idea of God as the sum of all actualities, that is, ens realissimum,
is a preferable term for God. Kant thinks that human knowledge is “constrained”
to posit the idea of a necessary being. The necessary being that has the best
claim to necessity is one that is completely unconditioned, that is, dependent
on nothing; this is ens realissimum. He sometimes explicates it in three ways:
as the substratum of all realities, as the ground of all realities, and as the
sum of all realities. Ens realissimum is nonetheless empirically invalid, since
it cannot be experienced by humans. It is something ideal for reason, not real
in experience. According to Kant, the ontological argument begins with the
concept of ens realissimum and concludes that an existing object falls under
that concept (Critique of Pure Reason, Book II, chapter 3). BAUMGARTEN, KANT. A.P.M. entailment.IMPLICATION.
entelechy (from Greek entelecheia), actuality. Aristotle, who coined both
terms, treats entelecheia as a near synonym of energeia when it is used in this
sense. Entelecheia figures in Aristotle’s definition of the soul as the first actuality
of the natural body (On the Soul II.1). This is explained by analogy with
knowledge: first actuality is to knowledge as second actuality is to the active
use of knowledge. ’Entelechy’ is also a technical term in Leibniz for the
primitive active force in every monad, which is combined with primary matter,
and from which the active force, vis viva, is somehow derived. The vitalist
philosopher Hans Driesch used the Aristotelian term in his account of biology.
Life, he held, is an entelechy; and an entelechy is a substantial entity,
rather like a mind, that controls organic processes. ENERGEIA, PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY. P.Wo.
enthymeme, an incompletely stated syllogism, with one premise, or even the
conclusion, omitted. The term sometimes designates incompletely stated
arguments of other kinds. We are expected to supply the missing premise or draw
the conclusion if it is not stated. The result is supposed to be a syllogistic
inference. For exple: ‘He will eventually get caught, for he is a thief’; or
‘He will eventually be caught, for all habitual thieves get caught’. This
notion of enthymeme as an incompletely stated syllogism has a long tradition
and does not seem inconsistent with Aristotle’s own characterization of it.
Thus, Peter of Spain openly declares that an enthymeme is an argument with a
single premise that needs to be reduced to syllogism. But Peter also points out
that Aristotle spoke of enthymeme as “being of ycos and signum,” and he
explains that ycos here means ‘probable proposition’ while signum expresses the
necessity of inference. ‘P, therefore Q’ is an ycos in the sense of a
proposition that appears to be true to all or to many; but insofar as P has
virtually a double power, that of itself and of the proposition understood
along with it, it is both probable and demonstrative, albeit from a different
point of view. SYLLOGISM. I.Bo. entity,
abstract.ABSTRACT ENTITY. entity, theoretical.THEORETICAL TERM. entrenchment.
GOODMAN. entropy, in
physics, a measure of disorder; in information theory, a measure of
“information” in a technical sense. In statistical physics the number of
microstates accessible to the various particles of a large system of particles
such as a cabbage or the air in a room is represented as W. Accessible
microstates might be, for instance, energy levels the various particles can
reach. One can greatly simplify the ens realissimum entropy 267 - 267 statement of certain laws of nature by
introducing a logarithmic measure of these accessible microstates. This
measure, called entropy, is defined by the formula: S(Entropy) % df. k(lnW),
where k is Boltzmann’s constant. When the entropy of a system increases, the
system becomes more random and disordered, in the sense that a larger number of
microstates become available for the system’s particles to enter. If a large
physical system within which exchanges of energy occur is isolated, exchanging
no energy with its environment, the entropy of the system tends to increase and
never decreases. This result of statistical physics is part of the second law
of thermodynics. In real, evolving physical systems effectively isolated from
their environments, entropy increases and thus aspects of the system’s
organization that depend upon there being only a limited range of accessible
microstates are altered. For exple, a cabbage totally isolated in a container
would decay as complicated organic molecules eventually bece unstructured in
the course of ongoing exchanges of energy and attendant entropy increases. In
information theory, a state or event is said to contain more information than a
second state or event if the former state is less probable and thus in a sense
more surprising than the latter. Other plausible constraints suggest a
logarithmic measure of information content. Suppose X is a set of alternative
possible states, xi , and p(xi ) is the probability of each xi 1 X. If state xi
has occurred the information content of that occurrence is taken to be
-log2p(xi ). This function increases as the probability of xi decreases. If it
is unknown which xi will occur, it is reasonable to represent the expected
information content of X as the sum of the information contents of the
alternative states xi weighted in each case by the probability of the state,
giving: This is called the Shannon entropy. Both Shannon entropy and physical
entropy can be thought of as logarithmic measures of disarray. But this
statement trades on a broad understanding of ‘disarray’. A close relationship
between the two concepts of entropy should not be assumed. INFORMATION THEORY, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE.
T.H. envelope paradox, an apparent paradox in decision theory that runs as
follows. You are shown two envelopes, M and N, and are reliably informed that
each contains some finite positive ount of money, that the ount in one
unspecified envelope is twice the ount in the unspecified other, and that you
may choose only one. Call the ount in M ‘m’ and that in N ‘n’. It might seem
that: there is a half chance that m % 2n and a half chance that m = n/2, so
that the “expected value” of m is (½)(2n) ! (½)(n/2) % 1.25n, so that you
should prefer envelope M. But by similar reasoning it might seem that the
expected value of n is 1.25m, so that you should prefer envelope N. DECISION THEORY. D.A.J. environmental
ethics.ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. environmental philosophy, the critical study
of concepts defining relations between human beings and their non-human
environment. Environmental ethics, a major component of environmental
philosophy, addresses the normative significance of these relations. The
relevance of ecological relations to human affairs has been recognized at least
since Darwin, but the growing sense of human responsibility for their
deterioration, reflected in books such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962)
and Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation (1975), has prompted the recent upsurge of
interest. Environmental philosophers have adduced a wide variety of human
attitudes and practices to account for the perceived deterioration, including
religious and scientific attitudes, social institutions, and industrial
technology. Proposed remedies typically urge a reorientation or new “ethic”
that recognizes “intrinsic value” in the natural world. Exples include the
“land ethic” of Aldo Leopold (1887–1948), which pictures humans as belonging
to, rather than owning, the biotic community (“the land”); deep ecology, a
stance articulated by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess (b.1912), which
advocates forms of identification with the non-human world; and ecofeminism,
which rejects prevailing attitudes to the natural world that are perceived as
patriarchal. At the heart of environmental ethics lies the attempt to
articulate the basis of concern for the natural world. It encompasses global as
well as local issues, and considers the longer-term ecological, and even
evolutionary, fate of the human and non-human world. Many of its practitioners
question the anthropocentric claim that human beings are the exclusive or even
central focus of envelope paradox environmental philosophy 268 - 268 ethical concern. In thus extending both
the scope and the grounds of concern, it presents a challenge to the stance of
conventional interhuman ethics. It debates how to balance the claims of present
and future, human and non-human, sentient and non-sentient, individuals and
wholes. It investigates the prospects for a sustainable relationship between
economic and ecological systems, and pursues the implications of this
relationship with respect to social justice and political institutions. Besides
also engaging metaethical questions about, for exple, the objectivity and
commensurability of values, environmental philosophers are led to consider the
nature and significance of environmental change and the ontological status of
collective entities such as species and ecosystems. In a more traditional vein,
environmental philosophy revives metaphysical debates surrounding the perennial
question of “man’s place in nature,” and finds both precedent and inspiration
in earlier philosophies and cultures.
APPLIED ETHICS, ETHICS,
FEMINISM, NATURALISM, VALUE. A.Ho. epapoge, Greek term for ‘induction’.
Especially in the logic of Aristotle, epagoge is opposed to argument by
syllogism. Aristotle describes it as “a move from particulars to the
universal.” E.g., premises that the skilled navigator is the best navigator,
the skilled charioteer the best charioteer, and the skilled philosopher the
best philosopher may support the conclusion by epagoge that those skilled in
something are usually the best at it. Aristotle thought it more persuasive and
clearer than the syllogistic method, since it relies on the senses and is
available to all humans. The term was later applied to dialectical arguments
intended to trap opponents. R.C. epicheirema, a polysyllogism in which each
premise represents an enthymematic argument; e.g., ‘A lie creates disbelief,
because it is an assertion that does not correspond to truth; flattery is a
lie, because it is a conscious distortion of truth; therefore, flattery creates
disbelief’. Each premise constitutes an enthymematic syllogism. Thus, the first
premise could be expanded into the following full-fledged syllogism: ‘Every
assertion that does not correspond to truth creates disbelief; a lie is an
assertion that does not correspond to truth; therefore a lie creates
disbelief’. We could likewise expand the second premise and offer a complete
argument for it. Epicheirema can thus be a powerful tool in oral polemics,
especially when one argues regressively, first stating the conclusion with a
sketch of support in terms of enthymemes, and then – if challenged to do so –
expanding any or all of these enthymemes into standard categorical
syllogisms. SYLLOGISM. I.Bo.
Epictetus.STOICISM. Epicureanism, one of the three leading movements
constituting Hellenistic philosophy. It was founded by Epicurus (341–271 B.C.),
together with his close colleagues Metrodorus (c.331– 278), Hermarchus
(Epicurus’s successor as head of the Athenian school), and Polyaenus (d. 278).
He set up Epicurean communities at Mytilene, Lpsacus, and finally Athens (306
B.C.), where his school the Garden bece synonymous with Epicureanism. These
groups set out to live the ideal Epicurean life, detached from political
society without actively opposing it, and devoting themselves to philosophical
discussion and the cult of friendship. Their correspondence was anthologized
and studied as a model of the philosophical life by later Epicureans, for whom
the writings of Epicurus and his three cofounders, known collectively as “the
Men,” held a virtually biblical status. Epicurus wrote voluminously, but all
that survives are three brief epitomes (the Letter to Herodotus on physics, the
Letter to Pythocles on astronomy, etc., and the Letter to Menoeceus on ethics),
a group of maxims, and papyrus fragments of his magnum opus On Nature.
Otherwise, we are almost entirely dependent on secondary citations, doxography,
and the writings of his later followers. The Epicurean physical theory is
atomistic, developed out of the fifth-century system of Democritus. Per se existents
are divided into bodies and space, each of them infinite in quantity. Space is,
or includes, absolute void, without which motion would be impossible, while
body is constituted out of physically indivisible particles, “atoms.” Atoms are
themselves further analyzable as sets of absolute “minima,” the ultimate quanta
of magnitude, posited by Epicurus to circumvent the paradoxes that Zeno of Elea
had derived from the hypothesis of infinite divisibility. Atoms themselves have
only the primary properties of shape, size, and weight. All secondary
properties, e.g. color, are generated out of atomic compounds; given their
dependent status, they cannot be added to the list of per se existents, but it
does not follow, as the skeptical tradition in atomism had held, that they are
not real either. Atoms are in constant rapid motion, epapoge Epicureanism 269
- 269 at equal speed (since in the pure
void there is nothing to slow them down). Stability emerges as an overall
property of compounds, which large groups of atoms form by settling into
regular patterns of complex motion, governed by the three motive principles of
weight, collisions, and a minimal random movement, the “swerve,” which
initiates new patterns of motion and blocks the danger of determinism. Our world
itself, like the countless other worlds, is such a compound, accidentally
generated and of finite duration. There is no divine mind behind it, or behind
the evolution of life and society: the gods are to be viewed as ideal beings,
models of the Epicurean good life, and therefore blissfully detached from our
affairs. Canonic, the Epicurean theory of knowledge, rests on the principle
that “all sensations are true.” Denial of empirical cognition is argued to ount
to skepticism, which is in turn rejected as a self-refuting position.
Sensations are representationally (not propositionally) true. In the paradigm
case of sight, thin films of atoms (Greek eidola, Latin simulacra) constantly
flood off bodies, and our eyes mechanically report those that reach them, neither
embroidering nor interpreting. Inference from these guaranteed (photographic,
as it were) data to the nature of external objects themselves involves
judgment, and there alone error can occur. Sensations thus constitute one of
the three “criteria of truth,” along with feelings, a criterion of values and
introspective information, and prolepseis, or naturally acquired generic
conceptions. On the basis of sense evidence, we are entitled to infer the
nature of microscopic or remote phenomena. Celestial phenomena, e.g., cannot be
regarded as divinely engineered (which would conflict with the prolepsis of the
gods as tranquil), and experience supplies plenty of models that would account
for them naturalistically. Such grounds ount to consistency with directly
observed phenomena, and are called ouk antimarturesis (“lack of
counterevidence”). Paradoxically, when several alternative explanations of the
se phenomenon pass this test, all must be accepted: although only one of them
can be true for each token phenomenon, the others, given their intrinsic
possibility and the spatial and temporal infinity of the universe, must be true
for tokens of the se type elsewhere. Fortunately, when it comes to the basic
tenets of physics, it is held that only one theory passes this test of
consistency with phenomena. Epicurean ethics is hedonistic. Pleasure is our
innate natural goal, to which all other values, including virtue, are
subordinated. Pain is the only evil, and there is no intermediate state.
Philosophy’s task is to show how pleasure can be maximized, as follows: Bodily
pleasure becomes more secure if we adopt a simple way of life that satisfies
only our natural and necessary desires, with the support of like-minded
friends. Bodily pain, when inevitable, can be outweighed by mental pleasure,
which exceeds it because it can range over past, present, and future. The
highest pleasure, whether of soul or body, is a satisfied state, “katastematic
pleasure.” The pleasures of stimulation (“kinetic pleasures”), including those resulting
from luxuries, can vary this state, but have no incremental value: striving to
accumulate them does not increase overall pleasure, but does increase our
vulnerability to fortune. Our primary aim should instead be to minimize pain.
This is achieved for the body through a simple way of life, and for the soul
through the study of physics, which achieves the ultimate katastematic
pleasure, ”freedom from disturbance” (ataraxia), by eliminating the two main
sources of human anguish, the fears of the gods and of death. It teaches us (a)
that cosmic phenomena do not convey divine threats, (b) that death is mere
disintegration of the soul, with hell an illusion. To fear our own future
non-existence is as irrational as to regret the non-existence we enjoyed before
we were born. Physics also teaches us how to evade determinism, which would
turn moral agents into mindless fatalists: the swerve doctrine secures
indeterminism, as does the logical doctrine that future-tensed propositions may
be neither true nor false. The Epicureans were the first explicit defenders of
free will, although we lack the details of their positive explanation of it.
Finally, although Epicurean groups sought to opt out of public life, they took
a keen and respectful interest in civic justice, which they analyzed not as an
absolute value, but as a contract between humans to refrain from harmful
activity on grounds of utility, perpetually subject to revision in the light of
changing circumstances. Epicureanism enjoyed widespread popularity, but unlike
its great rival Stoicism it never entered the intellectual bloodstre of the
ancient world. Its stances were dismissed by many as philistine, especially its
rejection of all cultural activities not geared to the Epicurean good life. It
was also increasingly viewed as atheistic, and its ascetic hedonism was
misrepresented as crude sensualism (hence the modern use of ‘epicure’). The
school nevertheless continued to flourish down to and well beyond the end of
the Hellenistic age. In the first century B.C. its exponents Epicureanism
Epicureanism 270 - 270 included
Philodemus, whose fragmentarily surviving treatise On Signs attests to
sophisticated debates on induction between Stoics and Epicureans, and Lucretius,
the Roman author of the great Epicurean didactic poem On the Nature of Things.
In the second century A.D. another Epicurean, Diogenes of Oenoanda, had his
philosophical writings engraved on stone in a public colonnade, and passages
have survived. Thereafter Epicureanism’s prominence declined. Serious interest
in it was revived by Renaissance humanists, and its atomism was an important
influence on early modern physics, especially through Gassendi. DOXOGRAPHERS, HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY. D.N.S.
Epicurus.EPICUREANISM. Epimenides paradox.SEMANTIC PARADOXES.
epiphenomenalism.PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. episodic.DISPOSITION. episteme.ARISTOTLE.
epistemic.PERCEPTION. epistemic accessibility.EPISTEMOLOGY. epistemic
certainty.CERTAINTY. epistemic deontologism, a duty-based view of the nature of
epistemic justification. A central concern of epistemology is to account for
the distinction between justified and unjustified beliefs. According to
epistemic deontologism, the concept of justification may be analyzed by using,
in a specific sense relevant to the pursuit of knowledge, terms such as
‘ought’, ‘obligatory’, ‘permissible’, and ‘forbidden’. A subject S is justified
in believing that p provided S does not violate any epistemic obligations –
those that arise from the goal of believing what is true and not believing what
is false. Equivalently, S is justified in believing that p provided believing p
is – from the point of view taken in the pursuit of truth – permissible for S.
ong contemporary epistemologists, this view is held by Chisholm, Laurence
BonJour, and Carl Ginet. Its significance is twofold. If justification is a
function of meeting obligations, then it is, contrary to some versions of
naturalistic epistemology, normative. Second, if the normativity of
justification is deontological, the factors that determine whether a belief is
justified must be internal to the subject’s mind. Critics of epistemic
deontologism, most conspicuously Alston, contend that belief is involuntary and
thus cannot be a proper object of obligations. If, e.g., one is looking out the
window and notices that it is raining, one is psychologically forced to believe
that it is raining. Deontologists can reply to this objection by rejecting its
underlying premise: epistemic obligations require that belief be voluntary.
Alternatively, they may insist that belief is voluntary after all, and thus
subject to epistemic obligations, for there is a means by which one can avoid
believing what one ought not to believe: weighing the evidence, or
deliberation.
EPISTEMOLOGY,
JUSTIFICATION. M.St. epistemic dependence.DEPENDENCE. epistemic holism.HOLISM.
epistemic immediacy.IMMEDIACY. epistemic justification.EPISTEMOLOGY. epistemic
logic, the logical investigation of epistemic concepts and statements.
Epistemic concepts include the concepts of knowledge, reasonable belief,
justification, evidence, certainty, and related notions. Epistemic logic is
usually taken to include the logic of belief or doxastic logic. Much of the
recent work on epistemic logic is based on the view that it is a branch of
modal logic. In the early 1950s von Wright observed that the epistemic notions
verified (known to be true), undecided, and falsified are related to each other
in the se way as the alethic modalities necessary, contingent, and impossible,
and behave logically in analogous ways. This analogy is not surprising in view
of the fact that the meaning of modal concepts is often explained
epistemically. For exple, in the 1890s Peirce defined informational possibility
as that “which in a given (state of) information is not perfectly known not to
be true,” and called informationally necessary “that which is perfectly known
to be true.” The modal logic of epistemic and doxastic concepts was studied
systematically by Hintikka in his pioneering Knowledge and Belief(1962), which
applied to the concepts of knowledge and belief the semantical method (the
method of modal sets) that he had used earlier for the investigation of modal
logic. In this approach, the truth of the proposition that a knows that p
(briefly Kap) in a possible world (or situation) u is taken to mean that p
holds in all epistemic alternatives of Epicurus epistemic logic 271 - 271 u; these are understood as worlds
compatible with what a knows at u. If the relation of epistemic alternativeness
is reflexive, the principle ‘KapPp’ (only what is the case can be known) is
valid, and the assumption that the alternativeness relation is transitive
validates the so-called KK-thesis, ‘Kap P Ka Ka p’ (if a knows that p, a knows
that a knows that p); these two assumptions together make the logic of
knowledge similar to an S4-type modal logic. If the knowledge operator Ka and
the corresponding epistemic possibility operator Pa are added to quantification
theory with identity, it becomes possible to study the interplay between quantifiers
and epistemic operators and the behavior of individual terms in epistemic
contexts, and analyze such locutions as ‘a knows who (what) b (some F) is’. The
problems of epistemic logic in this area are part of the general problem of
giving a coherent semantical account of propositional attitudes. If a
proposition p is true in all epistemic alternatives of a given world, so are
all logical consequences of p; thus the possible-worlds semantics of epistemic
concepts outlined above leads to the result that a person knows all logical
consequences of what he knows. This is a paradoxical conclusion; it is called
the problem of logical omniscience. The solution of this problem requires a
distinction between different levels of knowledge – for exple, between tacit
and explicit knowledge. A more realistic model of knowledge can be obtained by
supplementing the basic possible-worlds account by an analysis of the processes
by which the implicit knowledge can be activated and made explicit. Modal
epistemic logics have found fruitful applications in the recent work on
knowledge representation and in the logic and semantics of questions and
answers in which questions are interpreted as requests for knowledge or
“epistemic imperatives.” EPISTEMOLOGY,
KK-THESIS, MODAL LOGIC. R.Hi. epistemic operator.OPERATOR. epistemic
permissibility.EPISTEMOLOGY. epistemic possibility.EPISTEMIC LOGIC. epistemic
principle, a principle of rationality applicable to such concepts as knowledge,
justification, and reasonable belief. Epistemic principles include the
principles of epistemic logic and principles that relate different epistemic
concepts to one another, or epistemic concepts to nonepistemic ones (e.g.,
semantic concepts). Epistemic concepts include the concepts of knowledge, reasonable
belief, justification, (epistemic) probability, and other concepts that are
used for the purpose of assessing the reasonableness of beliefs and knowledge
claims. Epistemic principles can be formulated as principles concerning belief
systems or information systems, i.e., systems that characterize a person’s
possible doxastic state at a given time; a belief system may be construed as a
set of (accepted) propositions or as a system of degrees of belief. It is
possible to distinguish two kinds of epistemic principles: (a) principles
concerning the rationality of a single belief system, and (b) principles
concerning the rational changes of belief. The former include the requirements
of coherence and consistency for beliefs (and for probabilities); such principles
may be said to concern the statics of belief systems. The latter principles
include various principles of belief revision and adjustment, i.e., principles
concerning the dynics of belief systems.
CLOSURE, KK-THESIS. R.Hi. epistemic priority.DEPENDENCE. epistemic
privacy, the relation a person has to a proposition when only that person can
have direct or non-inferential knowledge of the proposition. It is widely
thought that people have epistemic privacy with respect to propositions about
certain of their own mental states. According to this view, a person can know
directly that he has certain thoughts or feelings or sensory experiences.
Perhaps others can also know that the person has these thoughts, feelings, or
experiences, but if they can it is only as a result of inference from
propositions about the person’s behavior or physical condition.
epistemic regress
argument, an argument, originating in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, aiming
to show that knowledge and epistemic justification have a two-tier structure as
described by epistemic foundationalism. It lends itself to the following
outline regarding justification. If you have any justified belief, this belief
occurs in an evidential chain including at least two links: the supporting link
(i.e., the evidence) and the supported link (i.e., the justified belief). This
does epistemic operator epistemic regress argument 272 - 272 not mean, however, that all evidence
consists of beliefs. Evidential chains might come in any of four kinds:
circular chains, endless chains, chains ending in unjustified beliefs, and
chains anchored in foundational beliefs that do not derive their justification
from other beliefs. Only the fourth, foundationalist kind is defensible as
grounding knowledge and epistemic justification. Could all justification be
inferential? A belief, B1, is inferentially justified when it owes its
justification, at least in part, to some other belief, B2. Whence the
justification for B2? If B2 owes its justification to B1, we have a troublesome
circle. How can B2 yield justification (or evidence) for B1, if B2 owes its
evidential status to B1? On the other hand, if B2 owes its justification to
another belief, B3, and B3 owes its justification to yet another belief, B4,
and so on ad infinitum, we have a troublesome endless regress of justification.
Such a regress seems to deliver not actual justification, but at best merely potential
justification, for the belief at its head. Actual finite humans, furthermore,
seem not to be able to comprehend, or to possess, all the steps of an infinite
regress of justification. Finally, if B2 is itself unjustified, it evidently
will be unable to provide justification for B1. It seems, then, that the
structure of inferential justification does not consist of either circular
justification, endless regresses of justification, or unjustified
starter-beliefs. We have foundationalism, then, as the most viable account of
evidential chains, so long as we understand it as the structural view that some
beliefs are justified non-inferentially (i.e., without deriving justification
from other beliefs), but can nonetheless provide justification for other beliefs.
More precisely, if we have any justified beliefs, we have some foundational,
non-inferentially justified beliefs. This regress argument needs some
refinement before its full force can be appreciated. With suitable refinement,
however, it can seriously challenge such alternatives to foundationalism as
coherentism and contextualism. The regress argument has been a key motivation
for foundationalism in the history of epistemology.
epistemology (from Greek
episteme, ‘knowledge’, and logos, ‘explanation’), the study of the nature of
knowledge and justification; specifically, the study of (a) the defining
features, (b) the substantive conditions or sources, and (c) the limits of
knowledge and justification. The latter three categories are represented by traditional
philosophical controversy over the analysis of knowledge and justification, the
sources of knowledge and justification (e.g., rationalism versus empiricism),
and the viability of skepticism about knowledge and justification. Kinds of
knowledge. Knowledge can be either explicit or tacit. Explicit knowledge is
self-conscious in that the knower is aware of the relevant state of knowledge,
whereas tacit knowledge is implicit, hidden from self-consciousness. Much of
our knowledge is tacit: it is genuine but we are unaware of the relevant states
of knowledge, even if we can achieve awareness upon suitable reflection. In
this regard, knowledge resembles many of our psychological states. The
existence of a psychological state in a person does not require the person’s
awareness of that state, although it may require the person’s awareness of an
object of that state (such as what is sensed or perceived). Philosophers have
identified various species of knowledge: for exple, propositional knowledge
(that something is so), non-propositional knowledge of something (e.g.,
knowledge by acquaintance, or by direct awareness), empirical (a posteriori)
propositional knowledge, nonempirical (a priori) propositional knowledge, and
knowledge of how to do something. Philosophical controversy has arisen over
distinctions between such species, for exple, over (i) the relations between
some of these species (e.g., does knowing-how reduce to knowledge-that?), and
(ii) the viability of some of these species (e.g., is there really such a thing
as, or even a coherent notion of, a priori knowledge?). A primary concern of
classical modern philosophy, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was
the extent of our a priori knowledge relative to the extent of our a posteriori
knowledge. Such rationalists as Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza contended that
all genuine knowledge of the real world is a priori, whereas such empiricists
as Locke, Berkeley, and Hume argued that all such knowledge is a posteriori. In
his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Kant sought a grand reconciliation, aiming
to preserve the key lessons of both rationalism and empiricism. Since the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a posteriori knowledge has been widely
regarded as knowledge that depends for its supepistemics epistemology 273
- 273 porting ground on some specific
sensory or perceptual experience; and a priori knowledge has been widely
regarded as knowledge that does not depend for its supporting ground on such
experience. Kant and others have held that the supporting ground for a priori
knowledge comes solely from purely intellectual processes called “pure reason”
or “pure understanding.” Knowledge of logical and mathematical truths typically
serves as a standard case of a priori knowledge, whereas knowledge of the
existence or presence of physical objects typically serves as a standard case
of a posteriori knowledge. A major task for an account of a priori knowledge is
the explanation of what the relevant purely intellectual processes are, and of
how they contribute to non-empirical knowledge. An analogous task for an
account of a posteriori knowledge is the explanation of what sensory or
perceptual experience is and how it contributes to empirical knowledge. More
fundentally, epistemologists have sought an account of propositional knowledge
in general, i.e., an account of what is common to a priori and a posteriori
knowledge. Ever since Plato’s Meno and Theaetetus (c.400 B.C.), epistemologists
have tried to identify the essential, defining components of knowledge.
Identifying these components will yield an analysis of knowledge. A prominent
traditional view, suggested by Plato and Kant ong others, is that propositional
knowledge (that something is so) has three individually necessary and jointly
sufficient components: justification, truth, and belief. On this view,
propositional knowledge is, by definition, justified true belief. This is the
tripartite definition that has come to be called the standard analysis. We can
clarify it by attending briefly to each of its three conditions. The belief
condition. This requires that anyone who knows that p (where ‘p’ stands for any
proposition or statement) must believe that p. If, therefore, you do not
believe that minds are brains (say, because you have not considered the matter
at all), then you do not know that minds are brains. A knower must be
psychologically related somehow to a proposition that is an object of knowledge
for that knower. Proponents of the standard analysis hold that only belief can
provide the needed psychological relation. Philosophers do not share a uniform
account of belief, but some considerations supply common ground. Beliefs are
not actions of assenting to a proposition; they rather are dispositional
psychological states that can exist even when unmanifested. (You do not cease
believing that 2 ! 2 % 4, for exple, whenever your attention leaves
arithmetic.) Our believing that p seems to require that we have a tendency to
assent to p in certain situations, but it seems also to be more than just such
a tendency. What else believing requires remains highly controversial ong
philosophers. Some philosophers have opposed the belief condition of the
standard analysis on the ground that we can accept, or assent to, a known
proposition without actually believing it. They contend that we can accept a
proposition even if we fail to acquire a tendency, required by believing, to
accept that proposition in certain situations. On this view, acceptance is a
psychological act that does not entail any dispositional psychological state,
and such acceptance is sufficient to relate a knower psychologically to a known
proposition. However this view fares, one underlying assumption of the standard
analysis seems correct: our concept of knowledge requires that a knower be
psychologically related somehow to a known proposition. Barring that
requirement, we shall be hard put to explain how knowers psychologically
possess their knowledge of known propositions. Even if knowledge requires
belief, belief that p does not require knowledge that p, since belief can
typically be false. This observation, filiar from Plato’s Theaetetus, assumes
that knowledge has a truth condition. On the standard analysis, if you know
that p, then it is true that p. If, therefore, it is false that minds are
brains, then you do not know that minds are brains. It is thus misleading to
say, e.g., that astronomers before Copernicus knew that the earth is flat; at
best, they justifiably believed that they knew this. The truth condition. This
condition of the standard analysis has not attracted any serious challenge.
Controversy over it has focused instead on Pilate’s vexing question: What is
truth? This question concerns what truth consists in, not our ways of finding
out what is true. Influential answers come from at least three approaches:
truth as correspondence (i.e., agreement, of some specified sort, between a
proposition and an actual situation); truth as coherence (i.e.,
interconnectedness of a proposition with a specified system of propositions); and
truth as pragmatic cognitive value (i.e., usefulness of a proposition in
achieving certain intellectual goals). Without assessing these prominent
approaches, we should recognize, in accord with the standard analysis, that our
concept of knowledge seems to have a factual requirement: we epistemology
epistemology 274 - 274 genuinely know
that p only if it is the case that p. The pertinent notion of “its being the
case” seems equivalent to the notion of “how reality is” or “how things really
are.” The latter notion seems essential to our notion of knowledge, but is open
to controversy over its explication. The justification condition. Knowledge is
not simply true belief. Some true beliefs are supported only by lucky guesswork
and hence do not qualify as knowledge. Knowledge requires that the satisfaction
of its belief condition be “appropriately related” to the satisfaction of its
truth condition. This is one broad way of understanding the justification
condition of the standard analysis. More specifically, we might say that a
knower must have adequate indication that a known proposition is true. If we
understand such adequate indication as a sort of evidence indicating that a
proposition is true, we have reached the traditional general view of the
justification condition: justification as evidence. Questions about
justification attract the lion’s share of attention in contemporary
epistemology. Controversy focuses on the meaning of ‘justification’ as well as
on the substantive conditions for a belief’s being justified in a way
appropriate to knowledge. Current debates about the meaning of ‘justification’
revolve around the question whether, and if so how, the concept of epistemic
(knowledge-relevant) justification is normative. Since the 1950s Chisholm has defended
the following deontological (obligation-oriented) notion of justification: the
claim that a proposition, p, is epistemically justified for you means that it
is false that you ought to refrain from accepting p. In other terms, to say
that p is epistemically justified is to say that accepting p is epistemically
permissible – at least in the sense that accepting p is consistent with a
certain set of epistemic rules. This deontological construal enjoys wide
representation in contemporary epistemology. A normative construal of
justification need not be deontological; it need not use the notions of
obligation and permission. Alston, for instance, has introduced a
non-deontological normative concept of justification that relies mainly on the
notion of what is epistemically good from the viewpoint of maximizing truth and
minimizing falsity. Alston links epistemic goodness to a belief’s being based
on adequate grounds in the absence of overriding reasons to the contrary. Some
epistemologists shun normative construals of justification as superfluous. One
noteworthy view is that ‘epistemic justification’ means simply ‘evidential
support’ of a certain sort. To say that p is epistemically justifiable to some
extent for you is, on this view, just to say that p is supportable to some
extent by your overall evidential reasons. This construal will be non-normative
so long as the notions of supportability and an evidential reason are
nonnormative. Some philosophers have tried to explicate the latter notions
without relying on talk of epistemic permissibility or epistemic goodness. We
can understand the relevant notion of “support” in terms of non-normative
notions of entailment and explanation (or, answering why-questions). We can
understand the notion of an “evidential reason” via the notion of a
psychological state that can stand in a certain truth-indicating support
relation to propositions. For instance, we might regard nondoxastic states of
“seeming to perceive” something (e.g., seeming to see a dictionary here) as foundational
truth indicators for certain physical-object propositions (e.g., the
proposition that there is a dictionary here), in virtue of those states being
best explained by those propositions. If anything resembling this approach
succeeds, we can get by without the aforementioned normative notions of
epistemic justification. Foundationalism versus coherentism. Talk of
foundational truth indicators brings us to a key controversy over
justification: Does epistemic justification, and thus knowledge, have foundations,
and if so, in what sense? This question can be clarified as the issue whether
some beliefs can not only (a) have their epistemic justification
non-inferentially (i.e., apart from evidential support from any other beliefs),
but also (b) provide epistemic justification for all justified beliefs that
lack such non-inferential justification. Foundationalism gives an affirmative
answer to this issue, and is represented in varying ways by, e.g., Aristotle,
Descartes, Russell, C. I. Lewis, and Chisholm. Foundationalists do not share a
uniform account of non-inferential justification. Some construe non-inferential
justification as self-justification. Others reject literal self-justification
for beliefs, and argue that foundational beliefs have their non-inferential
justification in virtue of evidential support from the deliverances of
non-belief psychological states, e.g., perception (“seem-ing-to-perceive”
states), sensation (“seeming-to-sense” states), or memory (“seeming-toremember”
states). Still others understand noninferential justification in terms of a
belief’s being “reliably produced,” i.e., caused and sustained by epistemology
epistemology some non-belief belief-producing process or source (e.g.,
perception, memory, introspection) that tends to produce true rather than false
beliefs. This last view takes the causal source of a belief to be crucial to
its justification. Unlike Descartes, contemporary foundationalists clearly
separate claims to non-inferential, foundational justification from claims to
certainty. They typically settle for a modest foundationalism implying that
foundational beliefs need not be indubitable or infallible. This contrasts with
the radical foundationalism of Descartes. The traditional competitor to
foundationalism is the coherence theory of justification, i.e., epistemic
coherentism. This is not the coherence definition of truth; it rather is the
view that the justification of any belief depends on that belief’s having
evidential support from some other belief via coherence relations such as
entailment or explanatory relations. Notable proponents include Hegel,
Bosanquet, and Sellars. A prominent contemporary version of epistemic
coherentism states that evidential coherence relations ong beliefs are
typically explanatory relations. The rough idea is that a belief is justified
for you so long as it either best explains, or is best explained by, some
member of the system of beliefs that has maximal explanatory power for you.
Contemporary coherentism is uniformly systemic or holistic; it finds the
ultimate source of justification in a system of interconnected beliefs or
potential beliefs. One problem has troubled all versions of coherentism that
aim to explain empirical justification: the isolation argument. According to
this argument, coherentism entails that you can be epistemically justified in
accepting an empirical proposition that is incompatible with, or at least
improbable given, your total empirical evidence. The key assumption of this
argument is that your total empirical evidence includes non-belief sensory and
perceptual awareness-states, such as your feeling pain or your seeming to see
something. These are not belief-states. Epistemic coherentism, by definition,
makes justification a function solely of coherence relations between
propositions, such as propositions one believes or accepts. Thus, such
coherentism seems to isolate justification from the evidential import of
non-belief awareness-states. Coherentists have tried to handle this problem,
but no resolution enjoys wide acceptance. Causal and contextualist theories.
Some contemporary epistemologists endorse contextualism regarding epistemic
justification, a view suggested by Dewey, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn, ong others.
On this view, all justified beliefs depend for their evidential support on some
unjustified beliefs that need no justification. In any context of inquiry,
people simply assume (the acceptability of) some propositions as starting
points for inquiry, and these “contextually basic” propositions, though lacking
evidential support, can serve as evidential support for other propositions.
Contextualists stress that contextually basic propositions can vary from
context to context (e.g., from theological inquiry to biological inquiry) and
from social group to social group. The main problem for contextualists comes
from their view that unjustified assumptions can provide epistemic
justification for other propositions. We need a precise explanation of how an
unjustified assumption can yield evidential support, how a non-probable belief
can make another belief probable. Contextualists have not given a uniform
explanation here. Recently some epistemologists have recommended that we give
up the traditional evidence condition for knowledge. They recommend that we
construe the justification condition as a causal condition. Roughly, the idea
is that you know that p if and only if (a) you believe that p, (b) p is true,
and (c) your believing that p is causally produced and sustained by the fact
that makes p true. This is the basis of the causal theory of knowing, which
comes with varying details. Any such causal theory faces serious problems from
our knowledge of universal propositions. Evidently, we know, for instance, that
all dictionaries are produced by people, but our believing that this is so
seems not to be causally supported by the fact that all dictionaries are
humanly produced. It is not clear that the latter fact causally produces any
beliefs. Another problem is that causal theories typically neglect what seems
to be crucial to any account of the justification condition: the requirement
that justificational support for a belief be accessible, in some sense, to the
believer. The rough idea is that one must be able to access, or bring to
awareness, the justification underlying one’s beliefs. The causal origins of a
belief are, of course, often very complex and inaccessible to a believer.
Causal theories thus face problems from an accessibility requirement on
justification. Internalism regarding justification preserves an accessibility
requirement on what confers justification, whereas epistemic externalism
rejects this requirement. Debates over internalism and exepistemology
epistemology ternalism abound in current epistemology, but internalists do not
yet share a uniform detailed account of accessibility. The Gettier problem. The
standard analysis of knowledge, however elaborated, faces a devastating
challenge that initially gave rise to causal theories of knowledge: the Gettier
problem. In 1963 Edmund Gettier published a highly influential challenge to the
view that if you have a justified true belief that p, then you know that p.
Here is one of Gettier’s counterexples to this view: Smith is justified in
believing the false proposition that (i) Jones owns a Ford. On the basis of
(i), Smith infers, and thus is justified in believing, that (ii) either Jones
owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona. As it happens, Brown is in Barcelona, and
so (ii) is true. So, although Smith is justified in believing the true
proposition (ii), Smith does not know (ii). Gettier-style counterexples are
cases where a person has justified true belief that p but lacks knowledge that
p. The Gettier problem is the problem of finding a modification of, or an
alternative to, the standard analysis that avoids difficulties from
Gettier-style counterexples. The controversy over the Gettier problem is highly
complex and still unsettled. Many epistemologists take the lesson of
Gettier-style counterexples to be that propositional knowledge requires a
fourth condition, beyond the justification, truth, and belief conditions. No
specific fourth condition has received overwhelming acceptance, but some
proposals have become prominent. The so-called defeasibility condition, e.g.,
requires that the justification appropriate to knowledge be “undefeated” in the
general sense that some appropriate subjunctive conditional concerning
defeaters of justification be true of that justification. For instance, one
simple defeasibility fourth condition requires of Smith’s knowing that p that
there be no true proposition, q, such that if q bece justified for Smith, p
would no longer be justified for Smith. So if Smith knows, on the basis of his
visual perception, that Mary removed books from the library, then Smith’s
coming to believe the true proposition that Mary’s identical twin removed books
from the library would not undermine the justification for Smith’s belief
concerning Mary herself. A different approach shuns subjunctive conditionals of
that sort, and contends that propositional knowledge requires justified true
belief that is sustained by the collective totality of actual truths. This
approach requires a detailed account of when justification is undermined and
restored. The Gettier problem is epistemologically important. One branch of
epistemology seeks a precise understanding of the nature (e.g., the essential
components) of propositional knowledge. Our having a precise understanding of
propositional knowledge requires our having a Gettier-proof analysis of such
knowledge. Epistemologists thus need a defensible solution to the Gettier
problem, however complex that solution is. Skepticism. Epistemologists debate
the limits, or scope, of knowledge. The more restricted we take the limits of
knowledge to be, the more skeptical we are. Two influential types of skepticism
are knowledge skepticism and justification skepticism. Unrestricted knowledge
skepticism implies that no one knows anything, whereas unrestricted
justification skepticism implies the more extreme view that no one is even
justified in believing anything. Some forms of skepticism are stronger than
others. Knowledge skepticism in its strongest form implies that it is
impossible for anyone to know anything. A weaker form would deny the actuality
of our having knowledge, but leave open its possibility. Many skeptics have
restricted their skepticism to a particular domain of supposed knowledge: e.g.,
knowledge of the external world, knowledge of other minds, knowledge of the
past or the future, or knowledge of unperceived items. Such limited skepticism
is more common than unrestricted skepticism in the history of epistemology.
Arguments supporting skepticism come in many forms. One of the most difficult
is the problem of the criterion, a version of which has been stated by the
sixteenth-century skeptic Montaigne: “To adjudicate [between the true and the
false] ong the appearances of things, we need to have a distinguishing method;
to validate this method, we need to have a justifying argument; but to validate
this justifying argument, we need the very method at issue. And there we are,
going round on the wheel.” This line of skeptical argument originated in
ancient Greece, with epistemology itself. It forces us to face this question:
How can we specify what we know without having specified how we know, and how
can we specify how we know without having specified what we know? Is there any
reasonable way out of this threatening circle? This is one of the most
difficult epistemological problems, and a cogent epistemology must offer a
defensible solution to epistemology epistemology it. Contemporary epistemology
still lacks a widely accepted reply to this urgent problem. A PRIORI, COHERENTISM,
equipollence, term used
by Sextus Empiricus to express the view that there are arguments of equal
strength on all sides of any question and that therefore we should suspend
judgment on every question that can be raised.
SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. R.P.
equipossible.EQUIPROBABLE. equiprobable, having the se probability. Sometimes
used in the se way as ‘equipossible’, the term is associated with Laplace’s
(the “classical”) interpretation of probability, where the probability of an
event is the ratio of the number of equipossibilities favorable to the event to
the total number of equipossibilities. For exple, the probability of rolling an
even number with a “fair” six-sided die is ½ – there being three
equipossibilities (2, 4, 6) favorable to even, and six equipossibilities (1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6) in all (and 3 /6 % ½). The concept is now generally thought not to
be widely applicable to the interpretation of probability, since natural
equipossibilities are not always at hand (as in assessing the probability of a
thermonuclear war tomorrow).
PROBABILITY. E.Ee. equivalence, mutual inferability. The following are main
kinds: two statements are materially equivalent provided they have the se
truthvalue, and logically equivalent provided each can be deduced from the
other; two sentences or words are equivalent in meaning provided they can be
substituted for each other in any context without altering the meaning of that
context. In truth-functional logic, two statements are logically equivalent if
they can never have truthvalues different from each other. In this sense of
‘logically equivalent’ all tautologies are equivalent to each other and all
contradictions are equivalent to each other. Similarly, in extensional set
theory, two classes are equivalent provided they have the se numbers, so that
all empty classes are regarded as equivalent. In a non-extensional set theory,
classes would be equivalent only if their conditions of membership were
logically equivalent or equivalent in meaning. R.P. equivalence,
behavioral.TURING MACHINE. equivalence class.PARTITION, RELATION. equivalence
condition.CONFIRMATION. equivalence relation.PARTITION, RELATION. equivocation,
the use of an expression in two or more different senses in a single context.
For exple, in ‘The end of anything is its perfection. But the end of life is
death; so death is the perfection of life’, the expression ‘end’ is first used
in the sense of ‘goal or purpose,’ but in its second occurrence ‘end’ means
‘termination.’ The use of the two senses in this context is an equivocation.
Where the context in which the expression used is an argument, the fallacy of equivocation
may be committed.
INFORMAL FALLACY. W.K.W. equivocation, fallacy
of.INFORMAL FALLACY. Er, myth of.MYTH OF ER. Erasmus, Desiderius (1466?–1536),
Dutch scholar and philosopher who played an important role in Renaissance
humanism. Like his Italian forerunners Petrarch, Coluccio Salutati, Lorenzo
Valla, Leonardo Bruni, and others, Erasmus stressed within philosophy and
theology the function of philological precision, grmatical correctness, and
rhetorical elegance. But for Erasmus the virtues of bonae literarae which are
cultivated by the study of authors of Latin and Greek antiquity must be
decisively linked with Christian spirituality. Erasmus has been called (by
Huizinga) the first modern intellectual because he tried to influence and
reform the mentality of society by working within the shadow of ecclesiastical
and political leaders. He epistemology, evolutionary Erasmus, Desiderius 278
- 278 bece one of the first humanists
to make efficient use of the then new medium of printing. His writings embrace
various forms, including diatribe, oration, locution, comment, dialogue, and
letter. After studying in Christian schools and living for a time in the
monastery of Steyn near Gouda in the Netherlands, Erasmus worked for different
patrons. He gained a post as secretary to the bishop of Kerijk, during which
time he wrote his first published book, the Adagia (first edition 1500), a
collection of annotated Latin adages. Erasmus was an adviser to the Emperor
Charles V, to whom he dedicated his Institutio principii christiani (1516).
After studies at the University of Paris, where he attended lectures by the
humanist Faber Stapulensis, Erasmus was put in touch by his patron Lord
Mountjoy with the British humanists John Colet and Thomas More. Erasmus led a
restless life, residing in several European cities including London, Louvain,
Basel, Freiburg, Bologna, Turin (where he was awarded a doctorate of theology
in 1506), and Rome. By using the means of modern philology, which led to the
ideal of the bonae literarae, Erasmus tried to reform the Christian-influenced
mentality of his times. Inspired by Valla’s Annotationes to the New Testent, he
completed a new Latin translation of the New Testent, edited the writings of
the early church fathers, especially St. Hieronymus, and wrote several
commentaries on psalms. He tried to regenerate the spirit of early Christianity
by laying bare its original sense against the background of scholastic
interpretation. In his view, the rituals of the existing church blocked the development
of an authentic Christian spirituality. Though Erasmus shared with Luther a
critical approach toward the existing church, he did not side with the
Reformation. His Diatribe de libero arbitrio (1524), in which he pleaded for
the free will of man, was answered by Luther’s De servo arbitrio. The
historically most influential books of Erasmus were Enchirion militis
christiani (1503), in which he attacked hirelings and soldiers; the Encomium
moriae id est Laus stultitiae (1511), a satire on modern life and the
ecclesiastical pillars of society; and the sketches of human life, the
Colloquia (first published in 1518, often enlarged until 1553). In the small
book Querela pacis (1517), he rejected the ideology of justified wars
propounded by Augustine and Aquinas. Against the madness of war Erasmus
appealed to the virtues of tolerance, friendliness, and gentleness. All these
virtues were for him the essence of Christianity. HUMANISM; MORE, THOMAS. H.P. Erfahrung,
German term translated into English, especially since Kant, as ‘experience’.
Kant does not use it as a technical term; rather, it indicates that which
requires explanation through more precisely drawn technical distinctions such
as those ong ‘sensibility’, ‘understanding’, and ‘reason’. In the early twentieth
century, Husserl sometimes distinguishes between Erfahrung and Erlebnis, the
former indicating experience as capable of being thematized and methodically
described or analyzed, the latter experience as “lived through” and never fully
available to analysis. Such a distinction occasionally reappears in later texts
of phenomenology and existentialism.
ERLEBNIS. J.P.Su. Erigena, John Scotus, also called John the Scot,
Eriugena, and Scottigena (c.810–77), Irish-born scholar and theologian. He
taught grmar and dialectics at the court of Charles the Bald near Laon from 845
on. In a controversy in 851, John argued that there was only one
predestination, to good, since evil was strictly nothing. Thus no one is
compelled to evil by God’s foreknowledge, since, strictly speaking, God has no
foreknowledge of what is not. But his reliance on dialectic, his Origenist
conception of the world as a place of education repairing the dage done by sin,
his interest in cosmology, and his perceived Pelagian tendencies excited
opposition. Attacked by Prudentius of Troyes and Flores of Lyons, he was
condemned at the councils of Valencia (855) and Langres (859). Charles
commissioned him to translate the works of Pseudo-Dionysius and the bigua of
Maximus the Confessor from the Greek. These works opened up a new world, and
John followed his translations with commentaries on the Gospel of John and
Pseudo-Dionysius, and then his chief work, the Division of Nature or
Periphyseon (826–66), in the Neoplatonic tradition. He treats the universe as a
procession from God, everything real in nature being a trace of God, and then a
return to God through the presence of nature in human reason and man’s union
with God. John held that the nature of man is not destroyed by union with God,
though it is deified. He was condemned for pantheism at Paris in 1210. J.Lo.
eristic, the art of controversy, often involving fallacious but persuasive
reasoning. The ancient Sophists brought this art to a high level to achieve
their personal goal. They may have found their material in the “encounters” in
the Erfahrung eristic 279 - 279 law
courts as well as in daily life. To enhance persuasion they endorsed the use of
unsound principles such as hasty generalizations, faulty analogies,
illegitimate appeal to authority, the post hoc ergo propter hoc (i.e., “after
this, therefore because of this”) and other presumed principles. Aristotle
exposed eristic argumentation in his Sophistical Refutations, which itself
draws exples from Plato’s Euthydemus. From this latter work comes the fous
exple: ‘That dog is a father and that dog is his, therefore that dog is his
father’. What is perhaps worse than its obvious invalidity is that the argument
is superficially similar to a sound argument such as ‘This is a table and this is
brown, therefore this is a brown table’. In the Sophistical Refutations
Aristotle undertakes to find procedures for detection of bad arguments and to
propose rules for constructing sound arguments.
DIALECTIC, INFORMAL FALLACY, SYLLOGISM. I.Bo. Erklärung.VERSTEHEN.
Erlebnis, German term for experience used in late nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century German philosophy. Erlebnis denotes experience in all its
direct immediacy and lived fullness. It contrasts with the more typical German
word Erfahrung, denoting ordinary experience as mediated through intellectual
and constructive elements. As immediate, Erlebnis eludes conceptualization, in
both the lived present and the interiority of experience. As direct, Erlebnis
is also disclosive and extraordinary: it reveals something real that otherwise
escapes thinking. Typical exples include art, religion, and love, all of which
also show the anti-rationalist and polemical uses of the concept. It is
especially popular ong the Romantic mystics like Novalis and the
anti-rationalists Nietzsche and Bergson, as well as in phenomenology,
Lebensphilosophie, and existentialism. As used in post-Hegelian German
philosophy, the term describes two aspects of subjectivity. The first concerns
the epistemology of the human sciences and of phenomenology. Against naturalism
and objectivism, philosophers appeal to the ineliminable, subjective qualities
of experience to argue that interpreters must understand “what it is like to
be” some experiencing subject, from the inside. The second use of the term is
to denote extraordinary and interior experiences like art, religion, freedom,
and vital energy. In both cases, it is unclear how such experience could be
identified or known in its immediacy, and much recent German thought, such as Heidegger
and hermeneutics, rejects the concept.
ERFAHRUNG,
EXISTENTIALISM, PHENOMENOLOGY. J.Bo. Eros, the Greek god of erotic love. Eros
ce to be symbolic of various aspects of love, first appearing in Hesiod in
opposition to reason. In general, however, Eros was seen by Greeks (e.g.,
Parmenides) as a unifying force. In Empedocles, it is one of two external
forces explaining the history of the cosmos, the other being Strife. These
forces resemble the “hidden harmony” of Heraclitus. The Symposium of Plato is
the best-known ancient discussion of Eros, containing speeches from various
standpoints – mythical, sophistic, etc. Socrates says he has learned from the
priestess Diotima of a nobler form of Eros in which sexual desire can be
developed into the pursuit of understanding the Form of beauty. The contrast
between agape and Eros is found first in Democritus. This bece important in
Christian accounts of love. In Neoplatonism, Eros referred to the mystical
union with Being sought by philosophers. Eros has become important recently in
the work of Continental writers. AGAPE.
R.C. erotetic, in the strict sense, pertaining to questions. Erotetic logic is
the logic of questions. Different conceptions of questions yield different
kinds of erotetic logic. A Platonistic approach holds that questions exist
independently of interrogatives. For P. Tichý, a question is a function on
possible worlds, the right answer being the value of the function at the actual
world. Erotetic logic is the logic of such functions. In the epistemic-imperative
approach (of L. Bqvist, Hintikka, et al.), one begins with a system for
epistemic sentences and embeds this in a system for imperative sentences, thus
obtaining sentences of the form ‘make it the case that I know . . .’ and
complex compounds of such sentences. Certain ones of these are defined to be
interrogatives. Then erotetic logic is the logic of epistemic imperatives and
the conditions for satisfaction of these imperatives. In the abstract
interrogative approach (of N. Belnap, T. Kubigski, and many others), one
chooses certain types of expression to serve as interrogatives, and, for each
type, specifies what expressions count as answers of various kinds (direct,
partial, . . .). On this approach we may say that interrogatives express
questions, or we may identify questions with interrogatives, in Erklärung
erotetic 280 - 280 which case the only
meaning that an interrogative has is that it has the answers that it does.
Either way, the emphasis is on interrogatives, and erotetic logic is the logic
of systems that provide interrogatives and specify answers to them. In the
broad sense, ‘erotetic’ designates what pertains to utterance-and-response. In
this sense erotetic logic is the logic of the relations between (1) sentences
of many kinds and (2) the expressions that count as appropriate replies to
them. This includes not only the relations between question and answer but
also, e.g., between assertion and agreement or denial, command and report of
compliance or refusal, and (for many types of sentence S) between S and various
corrective replies to S (e.g., denial of the presupposition of S). Erotetic
logics may differ in the class of sentences treated, the types of response
counted as appropriate, the assignment of other content (presupposition,
projection, etc.), and other details.
DEONTIC LOGIC, EPISTEMIC LOGIC, MODAL LOGIC. D.H. error theory.MORAL
REALISM. Esprit movement.FRENCH PERSONALISM. Esse est percipi.BERKELEY.
essence.ESSENTIALISM. essence, nominal.ESSENTIALISM. essence, real.ESSENTIALISM.
essentialism, a metaphysical theory that objects have essences and that there
is a distinction between essential and non-essential or accidental
predications. Different issues have, however, been central in debates about
essences and essential predication in different periods in the history of
philosophy. In our own day, it is commitment to the notion of de re modality
that is generally taken to render a theory essentialist; but in the
essentialist tradition stemming from Aristotle, discussions of essence and
essential predication focus on the distinction between what an object is and
how it is. According to Aristotle, the universals that an ordinary object
instantiates include some that mark it out as what it is and others that
characterize it in some way but do not figure in an account of what it is. In
the Categories, he tells us that while the former are said of the object, the
latter are merely present in it; and in other writings, he distinguishes
between what he calls kath hauto or per se predications (where these include
the predication of what-universals) and kata sumbebekos or per accidens
predications (where these include the predication of how-universals). He
concedes that universals predicated of an object kath hauto are necessary to
that object; but he construes the necessity here as derivative. It is because a
universal marks out an entity, x, as what x is and hence underlies its being
the thing that it is that the universal is necessarily predicated of x. The
concept of definition is critically involved in Aristotle’s essentialism.
First, it is the kind – infima species – under which an object falls or one of
the items (genus or differentia) included in the definition of that kind that
is predicated of the object kath hauto. But, second, Aristotle’s notion of an
essence just is the notion of the ontological correlate of a definition. The
term in his writings we translate as ‘essence’ is the expression to ti ein
einai (the what it is to be). Typically, the expression is followed by a substantival
expression in the dative case, so that the expressions denoting essences are
phrases like ‘the what it is to be for a horse’ and ‘the what it is to be for
an oak tree’; and Aristotle tells us that, for any kind, K, the what it is to
be for a K just is that which we identify when we provide a complete and
accurate definition of K. Now, Aristotle holds that there is definition only of
universals; and this commits him to the view that there are no individual
essences. Although he concedes that we can provide definitions of universals
from any of his list of ten categories, he gives pride of place to the essences
of universals from the category of substance. Substance-universals can be
identified without reference to essences from other categories, but the
essences of qualities, quantities, and other non-substances can be defined only
by reference to the essences of substances. In his early writings, Aristotle
took the filiar particulars of common sense (things like the individual man and
horse of Categories V) to be the primary substances; and in these writings it
is the essences we isolate by defining the kinds or species under which filiar
particulars fall that are construed as the basic or paradigmatic essences.
However, in later writings, where ordinary particulars are taken to be
complexes of matter and form, it is the substantial forms of filiar particulars
that are the primary substances, so their essences are the primary or basic
essences; and a central theme in Aristotle’s most mature writings is the idea
that the primary substances and their essences are necessarily one and the se
in number. error theory essentialism 281 -
281 The conception of essence as the ontological correlate of a
definition – often called quiddity – persists throughout the medieval
tradition; and in early modern philosophy, the idea that the identity of an
object is constituted by what it is plays an important role in Continental
rationalist thinkers. Indeed, in the writings of Leibniz, we find the most
extreme version of traditional essentialism. Whereas Aristotle had held that
essences are invariably general, Leibniz insisted that each individual has an
essence peculiar to it. He called the essence associated with an entity its
complete individual concept; and he maintained that the individual concept
somehow entails all the properties exemplified by the relevant individual.
Accordingly, Leibniz believed that an omniscient being could, for each possible
world and each possible individual, infer from the individual concept of that
individual the whole range of properties exemplified by that individual in that
possible world. But, then, from the perspective of an omniscient being, all of
the propositions identifying the properties the individual actually exhibits
would express what Aristotle called kath hauto predications. Leibniz, of
course, denied that our perspective is that of an omniscient being; we fail to
grasp individual essences in their fullness, so from our perspective, the
distinction between essential and accidental predications holds. While
classical rationalists espoused a thoroughgoing essentialism, the Aristotlelian
conceptions of essence and definition were the repeated targets of attacks by
classical British empiricists. Hobbes, e.g., found the notion of essence
philosophically useless and insisted that definition merely displays the
meanings conventionally associated with linguistic expressions. Locke, on the
other hand, continued to speak of essences; but he distinguished between real
and nominal essences. As he saw it, the filiar objects of common sense are
collections of copresent sensible ideas to which we attach a single ne like
‘man’ or ‘horse’. Identifying the ideas constitutive of the relevant collection
gives us the nominal essence of a man or a horse. Locke did not deny that real
essences might underlie such collections, but he insisted that it is nominal
rather than real essences to which we have epistemic access. Hume, in turn,
endorsed the idea that filiar objects are collections of sensible ideas, but
rejected the idea of some underlying real essence to which we have no access;
and he implicitly reinforced the Hobbesian critique of Aristotelian essences
with his attack on the idea of de re necessities. So definition merely
expresses the meanings we conventionally associate with words, and the only
necessity associated with definition is linguistic or verbal necessity. From
its origins, the twentieth-century analytic tradition endorsed the classical
empiricist critique of essences and the Humean view that necessity is merely
linguistic. Indeed, even the Humean concession that there is a special class of
statements true in virtue of their meanings ce into question in the forties and
fifties, when philosophers like Quine argued that it is impossible to provide a
noncircular criterion for distinguishing analytic and synthetic statements. So
by the late 1950s, it had become the conventional wisdom of philosophers in the
Anglo-erican tradition that both the notion of a real essence and the
derivative idea that some ong the properties true of an object are essential to
that object are philosophical dead ends. But over the past three decades,
developments in the semantics of modal logic have called into question
traditional empiricist skepticism about essence and modality and have given
rise to a rebirth of essentialism. In the late fifties and early sixties,
logicians (like Kripke, Hintikka, and Richard Montague) showed how formal
techniques that have as their intuitive core the Leibnizian idea that necessity
is truth in all possible worlds enable us to provide completeness proofs for a
whole range of nonequivalent modal logics. Metaphysicians seized on the
intuitions underlying these formal methods. They proposed that we take the
picture of alternative possible worlds seriously and claimed that attributions
of de dicto modality (necessity and possibility as they apply to propositions)
can be understood to involve quantification over possible worlds. Thus, to say
that a proposition, p, is necessary is to say that for every possible world, W,
p is true in W; and to say that p is possible is to say that there is at least
one possible world, W, such that p is true in W. These metaphysicians went on
to claim that the frework of possible worlds enables us to make sense of de re
modality. Whereas de dicto modality attaches to propositions taken as a whole,
an ascription of de re modality identifies the modal status of an object’s
exemplification of an attribute. Thus, we speak of Socrates as being
necessarily or essentially rational, but only contingently snub-nosed.
Intuitively, the essential properties of an object are those it could not have
lacked; whereas its contingent properties are properties it exemplifies but
could have failed to exemplify. The “friends of possible worlds” insisted that
we can make perfectly good sense of this intuitive distinction if we say that
an object, essentialism essentialism 282 -
282 x, exhibits a property, P, essentially just in case x exhibits P in
the actual world and in every possible world in which x exists and that x
exhibits P merely contingently just in case x exhibits P in the actual world,
but there is at least one possible world, W, such that x exists in W and fails
to exhibit P in W. Not only have these neo-essentialists invoked the Leibnizian
conception of alternative possible worlds in characterizing the de re
modalities, many have endorsed Leibniz’s idea that each object has an
individual essence or what is sometimes called a haecceity. As we have seen,
the intuitive idea of an individual essence is the idea of a property an object
exhibits essentially and that no other object could possibly exhibit; and
contemporary essentialists have fleshed out this intuitive notion by saying
that a property, P, is the haecceity or individual essence of an object, x,
just in case (1) x exhibits P in the actual world and in all worlds in which x
exists and (2) there is no possible world where an object distinct from x
exhibits P. And some defenders of individual essences (like Plantinga) have
followed Leibniz in holding that the haecceity of an object provides a complete
concept of that object, a property such that it entails, for every possible
world, W, and every property, P, either the proposition that the object in
question has P in W or the proposition that it fails to have P in W.
Accordingly, they agree that an omniscient being could infer from the
individual essence of an object a complete account of the history of that
object in each possible world in which it exists. ARISTOTLE, DEFINITION, HAECCEITY, MODAL
LOGIC, NECESSITY, POSSIBLE WORLDS. M.J.L. essentialism, mereological.
HAECCEITY, MEREOLOGY.
essential property.PROPERTY. eternal recurrence.ETERNAL RETURN. eternal return,
the doctrine that the se events, occurring in the se sequence and involving the
se things, have occurred infinitely many times in the past and will occur
infinitely many times in the future. Attributed most notably to the Stoics and
Nietzsche, the doctrine is antithetical to philosophical and religious viewpoints
that claim that the world order is unique, contingent in part, and directed
toward some goal. The Stoics interpret eternal return as the consequence of
perpetual divine activity imposing exceptionless causal principles on the world
in a supremely rational, providential way. The world, being the best possible,
can only be repeated endlessly. The Stoics do not explain why the best world
cannot be everlasting, making repetition unnecessary. It is not clear whether
Nietzsche asserted eternal return as a cosmological doctrine or only as a
thought experiment designed to confront one with the authenticity of one’s
life: would one affirm that life even if one were consigned to live it over
again without end? On either interpretation, Nietzsche’s version, like the
Stoic version, stresses the inexorability and necessary interconnectedness of
all things and events, although unlike the Stoic version, it rejects divine
providence. NIETZSCHE, STOICISM. W.E.M.
eternal return, law of.COMPUTER THEORY. eternity.DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. ethical
absolutism.RELATIVISM. ethical constructivism, a form of anti-realism about
ethics which holds that there are moral facts and truths, but insists that
these facts and truths are in some way constituted by or dependent on our moral
beliefs, reactions, or attitudes. For instance, an ideal observer theory that
represents the moral rightness and wrongness of an act in terms of the moral
approval and disapproval that an appraiser would have under suitably idealized
conditions can be understood as a form of ethical constructivism. Another form
of constructivism identifies the truth of a moral belief with its being part of
the appropriate system of beliefs, e.g., of a system of moral and nonmoral
beliefs that is internally coherent. Such a view would maintain a coherence
theory of moral truth. Moral relativism is a constructivist view that allows
for a plurality of moral facts and truths. Thus, if the idealizing conditions
appealed to in an ideal observer theory allow that different appraisers can
have different reactions to the se actions under ideal conditions, then that
ideal observer theory will be a version of moral relativism as well as of
ethical constructivism. Or, if different systems of moral beliefs satisfy the
appropriate epistemic conditions (e.g. are equally coherent), then the truth or
falsity of particular moral beliefs will have to be relativized to different
moral systems or codes. ETHICAL
OBJECTIVISM, ETHICS, IDEAL OBSERVER, RELATIVISM. D.O.B. essentialism,
mereological ethical constructivism 283 -
283 ethical conventionalism.RELATIVISM. ethical dualism.
ZOROASTRIANISM. ethical
egoism.EGOISM. ethical eudaimonism.EUDAIMONISM. ethical hedonism.HEDONISM.
ethical intuitionism.ETHICS. ethical naturalism.ETHICS, MORAL REALISM, NATURALISM.
ethical nihilism.RELATIVISM. ethical objectivism, the view that the objects of
the most basic concepts of ethics (which may be supposed to be values,
obligations, duties, oughts, rights, or what not) exist, or that facts about
them hold, objectively and that similarly worded ethical statements by
different persons make the se factual claims (and thus do not concern merely
the speaker’s feelings). To say that a fact is objective, or that something has
objective existence, is usually to say that its holding or existence is not
derivative from its being thought to hold or exist. (In the Scholastic
terminology still current in the seventeenth century ‘objective’ had the more
or less contrary meaning of having status only as an object of thought.) In
contrast, fact, or a thing’s existence, is subjective if it holds or exists
only in the sense that it is thought to hold or exist, or that it is merely a
convenient human posit for practical purposes. A fact holds, or an object
exists, intersubjectively if somehow its acknowledgment is binding on all
thinking subjects (or all subjects in some specified group), although it does
not hold or exist independently of their thinking about it. Some thinkers
suppose that intersubjectivity is all that can ever properly be meant by
objectivity. Objectivism may be naturalist or non-naturalist. The naturalist
objectivist believes that values, duties, or whatever are natural phenomena
detectable by introspection, perception, or scientific inference. Thus values
may be identified with certain empirical qualities of (anybody’s) experience,
or duties with empirical facts about the effects of action, e.g. as promoting
or hindering social cohesion. The non-naturalist objectivist (eschewing what
Moore called the naturalistic fallacy) believes that values or obligations (or
whatever items he thinks most basic in ethics) exist independently of any
belief about them, but that their existence is not a matter of any ordinary
fact detectable in the above ways but can be revealed to ethical intuition as
standing in a necessary (but not analytic) relation to natural phenomena.
‘Ethical subjectivism’ usually means the doctrine that ethical statements are
simply reports on the speaker’s feelings (though, confusingly enough, such
statements may be objectively true or false). Perhaps it ought to mean the
doctrine that nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. Attitude
theories of morality, for which such statements express, rather than report
upon, the speaker’s feelings, are also, despite the objections of their
proponents, sometimes called subjectivist. In a more popular usage an objective
matter of fact is one on which all reasonable persons can be expected to agree,
while a matter is subjective if various alternative opinions can be accepted as
reasonable. What is subjective in this sense may be quite objective in the more
philosophical sense in question above.
ETHICS, MOORE, MORAL
REALISM. T.L.S.S. ethical pragmatism.MORAL EPISTEMOLOGY. ethical
relativism.RELATIVISM. ethical skepticism.RELATIVISM. ethics, the philosophical
study of morality. The word is also commonly used interchangeably with
‘morality’ to mean the subject matter of this study; and sometimes it is used
more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group, or
individual. Christian ethics and Albert Schweitzer’s ethics are exples. In this
article the word will be used exclusively to mean the philosophical study.
Ethics, along with logic, metaphysics, and epistemology, is one of the main
branches of philosophy. It corresponds, in the traditional division of the
field into formal, natural, and moral philosophy, to the last of these
disciplines. It can in turn be divided into the general study of goodness, the
general study of right action, applied ethics, metaethics, moral psychology,
and the metaphysics of moral responsibility. These divisions are not sharp, and
many important studies in ethics, particularly those that exine or develop
whole systems of ethics, are interdivisional. Nonetheless, they facilitate the
identification of different problems, movements, and schools within the
discipline. ethical conventionalism ethics 284 - 284 The first two, the general study of
goodness and the general study of right action, constitute the main business of
ethics. Correlatively, its principal substantive questions are what ends we
ought, as fully rational human beings, to choose and pursue and what moral
principles should govern our choices and pursuits. How these questions are
related is the discipline’s principal structural question, and structural
differences ong systems of ethics reflect different answers to this question.
In contemporary ethics, the study of structure has come increasingly to the
fore, especially as a preliminary to the general study of right action. In the
natural order of exposition, however, the substantive questions come first.
Goodness and the question of ends. Philosophers have typically treated the
question of the ends we ought to pursue in one of two ways: either as a
question about the components of a good life or as a question about what sorts
of things are good in themselves. On the first way of treating the question, it
is assumed that we naturally seek a good life; hence, determining its
components ounts to determining, relative to our desire for such a life, what
ends we ought to pursue. On the second way, no such assumption about human
nature is made; rather it is assumed that whatever is good in itself is worth
choosing or pursuing. The first way of treating the question leads directly to
the theory of human well-being. The second way leads directly to the theory of
intrinsic value. The first theory originated in ancient ethics, and eudaimonia
was the Greek word for its subject, a word usually translated ‘happiness,’ but
sometimes translated ‘flourishing’ in order to make the question of human
well-being seem more a matter of how well a person is doing than how good he is
feeling. These alternatives reflect the different conceptions of human
well-being that inform the two major views within the theory: the view that
feeling good or pleasure is the essence of human well-being and the view that
doing well or excelling at things worth doing is its essence. The first view is
hedonism in its classical form. Its most fous exponent ong the ancients was
Epicurus. The second view is perfectionism, a view that is common to several
schools of ancient ethics. Its adherents include Plato, Aristotle, and the
Stoics. ong the moderns, the best-known defenders of classical hedonism and
perfectionism are respectively J. S. Mill and Nietzsche. Although these two
views differ on the question of what human well-being essentially consists in,
neither thereby denies that the other’s answer has a place in a good human
life. Indeed, mature statements of each typically assign the other’s answer an
ancillary place. Thus, hedonism, as expounded by Epicurus, takes excelling at
things worth doing – exercising one’s intellectual powers and moral virtues in
exemplary and fruitful ways, e.g. – as the tried and true means to experiencing
life’s most satisfying pleasures. And perfectionism, as developed in
Aristotle’s ethics, underscores the importance of pleasure – the deep
satisfaction that comes from doing an important job well, e.g. – as a natural
concomitant of achieving excellence in things that matter. The two views, as
expressed in these mature statements, differ not so much in the kinds of
activities they take to be central to a good life as in the ways they explain
the goodness of such a life. The chief difference between them, then, is
philosophical rather than prescriptive. The second theory, the theory of
intrinsic value, also has roots in ancient ethics, specifically, Plato’s theory
of Forms. But unlike Plato’s theory, the basic tenets of which include certain doctrines
about the reality and transcendence of value, the theory of intrinsic value
neither contains nor presupposes any metaphysical theses. At issue in the
theory is what things are good in themselves, and one can take a position on
this issue without committing oneself to any thesis about the reality or
unreality of goodness or about its transcendence or immanence. A list of the
different things philosophers have considered good in themselves would include
life, happiness, pleasure, knowledge, virtue, friendship, beauty, and harmony.
The list could easily be extended. An interest in what constitutes the goodness
of the various items on the list has brought philosophers to focus primarily on
the question of whether something unites them. The opposing views on this
question are monism and pluralism. Monists affirm the list’s unity; pluralists
deny it. Plato, for instance, was a monist. He held that the goodness of
everything good in itself consisted in harmony and therefore each such thing
owed its goodness to its being harmonious. Alternatively, some philosophers
have proposed pleasure as the sole constituent of goodness. Indeed, conceiving
of pleasure as a particular kind of experience or state of consciousness, they
have proposed this kind of experience as the only thing good in itself and
characterized all other good things as instrumentally good, as owing their
goodness to their ethics ethics 285 -
285 being sources of pleasure. Thus, hedonism too can be a species of
monism. In this case, though, one must distinguish between the view that it is
one’s own experiences of pleasure that are intrinsically good and the view that
anyone’s experiences of pleasure, indeed, any sentient being’s experiences of
pleasure, are intrinsically good. The former is called (by Sidgwick) egoistic
hedonism, the latter universal hedonism. This distinction can be made general,
as a distinction between egoistic and universal views of what is good in itself
or, as philosophers now commonly say, between agent-relative and agent-neutral
value. As such, it indicates a significant point of disagreement in the theory
of intrinsic value, a disagreement in which the seeming arbitrariness and
blindness of egoism make it harder to defend. In drawing this conclusion,
however, one must be careful not to mistake these egoistic views for views in
the theory of human well-being, for each set of views represents a set of
alternative answers to a different question. One must be careful, in other
words, not to infer from the greater defensibility of universalism vis-à-vis
egoism that universalism is the predominant view in the general study of
goodness. Right action. The general study of right action concerns the
principles of right and wrong that govern our choices and pursuits. In modern
ethics these principles are typically given a jural conception. Accordingly,
they are understood to constitute a moral code that defines the duties of men
and women who live together in fellowship. This conception of moral principles
is chiefly due to the influence of Christianity in the West, though some of its
elements were already present in Stoic ethics. Its ascendancy in the general
study of right action puts the theory of duty at the center of that study. The
theory has two parts: the systematic exposition of the moral code that defines
our duties; and its justification. The first part, when fully developed,
presents complete formulations of the fundental principles of right and wrong
and shows how they yield all moral duties. The standard model is an axiomatic
system in mathematics, though some philosophers have proposed a technical
system of an applied science, such as medicine or strategy, as an alternative.
The second part, if successful, establishes the authority of the principles and
so validates the code. Various methods and criteria of justification are
commonly used; no single one is canonical. Success in establishing the
principles’ authority depends on the soundness of the argument that proceeds
from whatever method or criterion is used. One traditional criterion is
implicit in the idea of an axiomatic system. On this criterion, the fundental
principles of right and wrong are authoritative in virtue of being self-evident
truths. That is, they are regarded as comparable to axioms not only in being
the first principles of a deductive system but also in being principles whose
truth can be seen immediately upon reflection. Use of this criterion to
establish the principles’ authority is the hallmark of intuitionism. Once one
of the dominant views in ethics, its position in the discipline has now been
seriously eroded by a strong, twentieth-century tide of skepticism about all
claims of self-evidence. Currently, the most influential method of
justification consistent with using the model of an axiomatic system to expound
the morality of right and wrong draws on the jural conception of its
principles. On this method, the principles are interpreted as expressions of a
legislative will, and accordingly their authority derives from the sovereignty
of the person or collective whose will they are taken to express. The oldest
exple of the method’s use is the divine command theory. On this theory, moral
principles are taken to be laws issued by God to humanity, and their authority
thus derives from God’s supremacy. The theory is the original Christian source
of the principles’ jural conception. The rise of secular thought since the
Enlightenment has, however, limited its appeal. Later exples, which continue to
attract broad interest and discussion, are formalism and contractarianism.
Formalism is best exemplified in Kant’s ethics. It takes a moral principle to
be a precept that satisfies the formal criteria of a universal law, and it
takes formal criteria to be the marks of pure reason. Consequently, moral
principles are laws that issue from reason. As Kant puts it, they are laws that
we, as rational beings, give to ourselves and that regulate our conduct insofar
as we engage each other’s rational nature. They are laws for a republic of
reason or, as Kant says, a kingdom of ends whose legislature comprises all
rational beings. Through this ideal, Kant makes intelligible and forceful the
otherwise obscure notion that moral principles derive their authority from the
sovereignty of reason. Contractarianism also draws inspiration from Kant’s
ethics as well as from the social contract theories of Locke and Rousseau. Its
fullest and most influential statement appears in the work of Rawls. On this
view, moral principles represent ethics ethics 286 - 286 the ideal terms of social cooperation
for people who live together in fellowship and regard each other as equals.
Specifically, they are taken to be the conditions of an ideal agreement ong
such people, an agreement that they would adopt if they met as an assembly of
equals to decide collectively on the social arrangements governing their
relations and reached their decision as a result of open debate and rational
deliberation. The authority of moral principles derives, then, from the
fairness of the procedures by which the terms of social cooperation would be
arrived at in this hypothetical constitutional convention and the assumption
that any rational individual who wanted to live peaceably with others and who
imagined himself a party to this convention would, in view of the fairness of
its procedures, assent to its results. It derives, that is, from the
hypothetical consent of the governed. Philosophers who think of a moral code on
the model of a technical system of an applied science use an entirely different
method of justification. In their view, just as the principles of medicine
represent knowledge about how best to promote health, so the principles of
right and wrong represent knowledge about how best to promote the ends of
morality. These philosophers, then, have a teleological conception of the code.
Our fundental duty is to promote certain ends, and the principles of right and
wrong organize and direct our efforts in this regard. What justifies the
principles, on this view, is that the ends they serve are the right ones to promote
and the actions they prescribe are the best ways to promote them. The
principles are authoritative, in other words, in virtue of the wisdom of their
prescriptions. Different teleological views in the theory of duty correspond to
different answers to the question of what the right ends to promote are. The
most common answer is happiness; and the main division ong the corresponding
views mirrors the distinction in the theory of intrinsic value between egoism
and universalism. Thus, egoism and universalism in the theory of duty hold,
respectively, that the fundental duty of morality is to promote, as best as one
can, one’s own happiness and that it is to promote, as best as one can, the
happiness of humanity. The former is ethical egoism and is based on the ideal
of rational self-love. The latter is utilitarianism and is based on the ideal
of rational benevolence. Ethical egoism’s most fous exponents in modern
philosophy are Hobbes and Spinoza. It has had few distinguished defenders since
their time. Benth and J. S. Mill head the list of distinguished defenders of
utilitarianism. The view continues to be enormously influential. On these
teleological views, answers to questions about the ends we ought to pursue
determine the principles of right and wrong. Put differently, the general study
of right action, on these views, is subordinate to the general study of
goodness. This is one of the two leading answers to the structural question
about how the two studies are related. The other is that the general study of
right action is to some extent independent of the general study of goodness. On
views that represent this answer, some principles of right and wrong, notably
principles of justice and honesty, prescribe actions even though more evil than
good would result from doing them. These views are deontological. Fiat justitia
ruat coelum captures their spirit. The opposition between teleology and
deontology in ethics underlies many of the disputes in the general study of
right action. The principal substantive and structural questions of ethics
arise not only with respect to the conduct of human life generally but also
with respect to specific walks of life such as medicine, law, journalism,
engineering, and business. The exination of these questions in relation to the
common practices and traditional codes of such professions and occupations has
resulted in the special studies of applied ethics. In these studies, ideas and
theories from the general studies of goodness and right action are applied to
particular circumstances and problems of some profession or occupation, and
standard philosophical techniques are used to define, clarify, and organize the
ethical issues found in its domain. In medicine, in particular, where rapid
advances in technology create, overnight, novel ethical problems on matters of
life and death, the study of biomedical ethics has generated substantial
interest ong practitioners and scholars alike. Metaethics. To a large extent,
the general studies of goodness and right action and the special studies of
applied ethics consist in systematizing, deepening, and revising our beliefs
about how we ought to conduct our lives. At the se time, it is characteristic
of philosophers, when reflecting on such systems of belief, to exine the nature
and grounds of these beliefs. These questions, when asked about ethical
beliefs, define the field of metaethics. The relation of this field to the
other studies is commonly represented by taking the other studies to constitute
the field of ethics proper and then taking metaethics to be the study of the
concepts, methods of justificaethics ethics 287 - 287 tion, and ontological assumptions of the
field of ethics proper. Accordingly, metaethics can proceed from either an
interest in the epistemology of ethics or an interest in its metaphysics. On
the first approach, the study focuses on questions about the character of
ethical knowledge. Typically, it concentrates on the simplest ethical beliefs,
such as ‘Stealing is wrong’ and ‘It is better to give than to receive’, and
proceeds by analyzing the concepts in virtue of which these beliefs are ethical
and exining their logical basis. On the second approach, the study focuses on
questions about the existence and character of ethical properties. Typically,
it concentrates on the most general ethical predicates such as goodness and
wrongfulness and considers whether there truly are ethical properties
represented by these predicates and, if so, whether and how they are interwoven
into the natural world. The two approaches are complementary. Neither dominates
the other. The epistemological approach is comparative. It looks to the most
successful branches of knowledge, the natural sciences and pure mathematics,
for paradigms. The former supplies the paradigm of knowledge that is based on
observation of natural phenomena; the latter supplies the paradigm of knowledge
that seemingly results from the sheer exercise of reason. Under the influence
of these paradigms, three distinct views have emerged: naturalism, rationalism,
and noncognitivism. Naturalism takes ethical knowledge to be empirical and
accordingly models it on the paradigm of the natural sciences. Ethical
concepts, on this view, concern natural phenomena. Rationalism takes ethical
knowledge to be a priori and accordingly models it on the paradigm of pure
mathematics. Ethical concepts, on this view, concern morality understood as
something completely distinct from, though applicable to, natural phenomena,
something whose content and structure can be apprehended by reason independently
of sensory inputs. Noncognitivism, in opposition to these other views, denies
that ethics is a genuine branch of knowledge or takes it to be a branch of
knowledge only in a qualified sense. In either case, it denies that ethics is
properly modeled on science or mathematics. On the most extreme form of
noncognitivism, there are no genuine ethical concepts; words like ‘right’,
‘wrong’, ‘good’, and ‘evil’ have no cognitive meaning but rather serve to vent
feelings and emotions, to express decisions and commitments, or to influence
attitudes and dispositions. On less extreme forms, these words are taken to
have some cognitive meaning, but conveying that meaning is held to be decidedly
secondary to the purposes of venting feelings, expressing decisions, or
influencing attitudes. Naturalism is well represented in the work of Mill;
rationalism in the works of Kant and the intuitionists. And noncognitivism,
which did not emerge as a distinctive view until the twentieth century, is most
powerfully expounded in the works of C. L. Stevenson and Hare. Its central
tenets, however, were anticipated by Hume, whose skeptical attacks on
rationalism set the agenda for subsequent work in metaethics. The metaphysical
approach is centered on the question of objectivity, the question of whether
ethical predicates represent real properties of an external world or merely
apparent or invented properties, properties that owe their existence to the
perception, feeling, or thought of those who ascribe them. Two views dominate
this approach. The first, moral realism, affirms the real existence of ethical
properties. It takes them to inhere in the external world and thus to exist
independently of their being perceived. For moral realism, ethics is an
objective discipline, a discipline that promises discovery and confirmation of
objective truths. At the se time, moral realists differ fundentally on the
question of the character of ethical properties. Some, such as Plato and Moore,
regard them as purely intellective and thus irreducibly distinct from empirical
properties. Others, such as Aristotle and Mill, regard them as empirical and
either reducible to or at least supervenient on other empirical properties. The
second view, moral subjectivism, denies the real existence of ethical
properties. On this view, to predicate, say, goodness of a person is to impose
some feeling, impulse, or other state of mind onto the world, much as one
projects an emotion onto one’s circumstances when one describes them as
delightful or sad. On the assumption of moral subjectivism, ethics is not a
source of objective truth. In ancient philosophy, moral subjectivism was
advanced by some of the Sophists, notably Protagoras. In modern philosophy,
Hume expounded it in the eighteenth century and Sartre in the twentieth
century. Regardless of approach, one (and perhaps the central) problem of
metaethics is how value is related to fact. On the epistemological approach,
this problem is commonly posed as the question of whether judgments of value
are derivable from statements of fact. Or, to be more exact, can there be a
logically valid argument whose conethics ethics 288 - 288 clusion is a judgment of value and all
of whose premises are statements of fact? On the metaphysical approach, the
problem is commonly posed as the question of whether moral predicates represent
properties that are explicable as complexes of empirical properties. At issue,
in either case, is whether ethics is an autonomous discipline, whether the
study of moral values and principles is to some degree independent of the study
of observable properties and events. A negative answer to these questions
affirms the autonomy of ethics; a positive answer denies ethics’ autonomy and
implies that it is a branch of the natural sciences. Moral psychology. Even
those who affirm the autonomy of ethics recognize that some facts, particularly
facts of human psychology, bear on the general studies of goodness and right
action. No one maintains that these studies float free of all conception of
human appetite and passion or that they presuppose no account of the human
capacity for voluntary action. It is generally recognized that an adequate
understanding of desire, emotion, deliberation, choice, volition, character,
and personality is indispensable to the theoretical treatment of human
well-being, intrinsic value, and duty. Investigations into the nature of these
psychological phenomena are therefore an essential, though auxiliary, part of
ethics. They constitute the adjunct field of moral psychology. One area of
particular interest within this field is the study of those capacities by
virtue of which men and women qualify as moral agents, beings who are
responsible for their actions. This study is especially important to the theory
of duty since that theory, in modern philosophy, characteristically assumes a
strong doctrine of individual responsibility. That is, it assumes principles of
culpability for wrongdoing that require, as conditions of justified ble, that
the act of wrongdoing be one’s own and that it not be done innocently. Only
moral agents are capable of meeting these conditions. And the presumption is
that normal, adult human beings qualify as moral agents whereas small children
and nonhuman animals do not. The study then focuses on those capacities that
distinguish the former from the latter as responsible beings. The main issue is
whether the power of reason alone accounts for these capacities. On one side of
the issue are philosophers like Kant who hold that it does. Reason, in their
view, is both the pilot and the engine of moral agency. It not only guides one
toward actions in conformity with one’s duty, but it also produces the desire
to do one’s duty and can invest that desire with enough strength to overrule
conflicting impulses of appetite and passion. On the other side are
philosophers, such as Hume and Mill, who take reason to be one of several
capacities that constitute moral agency. On their view, reason works strictly
in the service of natural and sublimated desires, fears, and aversions to
produce intelligent action, to guide its possessor toward the objects of those
desires and away from the objects of those fears. It cannot, however, by itself
originate any desire or fear. Thus, the desire to act rightly, the aversion to
acting wrongly, which are constituents of moral agency, are not products of
reason but are instead acquired through some mechanical process of
socialization by which their objects become associated with the objects of
natural desires and aversions. On one view, then, moral agency consists in the
power of reason to govern behavior, and being rational is thus sufficient for
being responsible for one’s actions. On the other view, moral agency consists
in several things including reason, but also including a desire to act rightly
and an aversion to acting wrongly that originate in natural desires and
aversions. On this view, to be responsible for one’s actions, one must not only
be rational but also have certain desires and aversions whose acquisition is
not guaranteed by the maturation of reason. Within moral psychology, one
cardinal test of these views is how well they can accommodate and explain such
common experiences of moral agency as conscience, weakness, and moral dilemma.
At some point, however, the views must be tested by questions about freedom.
For one cannot be responsible for one’s actions if one is incapable of acting
freely, which is to say, of one’s own free will. The capacity for free action
is thus essential to moral agency, and how this capacity is to be explained,
whether it fits within a deterministic universe, and if not, whether the notion
of moral responsibility should be jettisoned, are ong the deepest questions
that the student of moral agency must face. What is more, they are not
questions to which moral psychology can furnish answers. At this point, ethics
descends into metaphysics. BIOETHICS,
CONTRACTARIANISM, HEDONISM, JUSTICE, MORALITY, NATURALISM, PERFECTIONISM,
UTILITARIANISM. J.D. ethics, autonomy of.ETHICS. ethics, deontological.ETHICS.
ethics, autonomy of ethics, deontological 289 - 289 ethics, divine command.DIVINE COMMAND
ETHICS. ethics, environmental.ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. ethics,
evolutionary.PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY. ethics, teleological.ETHICS. ethics of
belief.CLIFFORD. ethics of love.DIVINE COMMAND ETHICS. ethnography, an
open-ended fily of techniques through which anthropologists investigate
cultures; also, the organized descriptions of other cultures that result from
this method. Cultural anthropology – ethnology – is based primarily on
fieldwork through which anthropologists immerse themselves in the life of a
local culture (village, neighborhood) and attempt to describe and interpret
aspects of the culture. Careful observation is one central tool of
investigation. Through it the anthropologist can observe and record various
features of social life, e.g. trading practices, farming techniques, or
marriage arrangements. A second central tool is the interview, through which
the researcher explores the beliefs and values of members of the local culture.
Tools of historical research, including particularly oral history, are also of
use in ethnography, since the cultural practices of interest often derive from
a remote point in time.
ETHNOLOGY. D.E.L.
ethnology, the comparative and analytical study of cultures; cultural
anthroplogy. Anthropologists aim to describe and interpret aspects of the
culture of various social groups – e.g., the hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari,
rice villages of the Chinese Canton Delta, or a community of physicists at
Livermore Laboratory. Topics of particular interest include religious beliefs,
linguistic practices, kinship arrangements, marriage patterns, farming
technology, dietary practices, gender relations, and power relations. Cultural
anthropology is generally conceived as an empirical science, and this raises
several methodological and conceptual difficulties. First is the role of the
observer. The injection of an alien observer into the local culture unavoidably
disturbs that culture. Second, there is the problem of intelligibility across
cultural systems – radical translation. One goal of ethnographic research is to
arrive at an interpretation of a set of beliefs and values that are thought to
be radically different from the researcher’s own beliefs and values; but if
this is so, then it is questionable whether they can be accurately translated
into the researcher’s conceptual scheme. Third, there is the problem of
empirical testing of ethnographic interpretations. To what extent do empirical
procedures constrain the construction of an interpretation of a given cultural
milieu? Finally, there is the problem of generalizability. To what extent does
fieldwork in one location permit anthropologists to generalize to a larger
context – other villages, the dispersed ethnic group represented by this
village, or this village at other times?
ETHNOGRAPHY, PHILOSOPHY
OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES. D.E.L. ethnomethodology, a phenomenological approach to
interpreting everyday action and speech in various social contexts. Derived from
phenomenological sociology and introduced by Harold Garfinkel, the method aims
to guide research into meaningful social practices as experienced by
participants. A major objective of the method is to interpret the rules that
underlie everyday activity and thus constitute part of the normative basis of a
given social order. Research from this perspective generally focuses on mundane
social activities – e.g., psychiatrists evaluating patients’ files, jurors
deliberating on defendants’ culpability, or coroners judging causes of death.
The investigator then attempts to reconstruct an underlying set of rules and ad
hoc procedures that may be taken to have guided the observed activity. The
approach emphasizes the contextuality of social practice – the richness of
unspoken shared understandings that guide and orient participants’ actions in a
given practice or activity. VERSTEHEN.
D.E.L. Eucken, Rudolf.LEBENSPHILOSOPHIE. Euclid.EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY. Euclidean
geometry, the version of geometry that includes ong its axioms the parallel
axiom, which asserts that, given a line L in a plane, there exists just one
line in the plane that passes through a point not on L but never meets L. The
phrase ‘Euclidean geometry’ refers both to the doctrine of geometry to be found
in Euclid’s Elements (fourth century B.C.) and to the mathematical discipline
that was built on this basis afterward. In order to present properties of
rectilinear and curvilinear curves in the plane and solids in space, Euclid
sought definitions, axioms, ethics, divine command Euclidean geometry 290 - 290
and postulates to ground the reasoning. Some of his assumptions belonged more
to the underlying logic than to the geometry itself. Of the specifically
geometrical axioms, the least self-evident stated that only one line passes
through a point in a plane parallel to a non-coincident line within it, and
many efforts were made to prove it from the other axioms. Notable forays were
made by G. Saccheri, J. Playfair, and A. M. Legendre, ong others, to put forward
results logically contradictory to the parallel axiom (e.g., that the sum of
the angles between the sides of a triangle is greater than 180°) and thus
standing as candidates for falsehood; however, none of them led to paradox. Nor
did logically equivalent axioms (such as that the angle sum equals 180°) seem
to be more or less evident than the axiom itself. The next stages of this line
of reasoning led to non-Euclidean geometry. From the point of view of logic and
rigor, Euclid was thought to be an apotheosis of certainty in human knowledge;
indeed, ‘Euclidean’ was also used to suggest certainty, without any particular
concern with geometry. Ironically, investigations undertaken in the late
nineteenth century showed that, quite apart from the question of the parallel
axiom, Euclid’s system actually depended on more axioms than he had realized,
and that filling all the gaps would be a formidable task. Pioneering work done
especially by M. Pasch and G. Peano was brought to a climax in 1899 by Hilbert,
who produced what was hoped to be a complete axiom system. (Even then the axiom
of continuity had to wait for the second edition!) The endeavor had
consequences beyond the Euclidean remit; it was an important exple of the
growth of axiomatization in mathematics as a whole, and it led Hilbert himself
to see that questions like the consistency and completeness of a mathematical
theory must be asked at another level, which he called metathematics. It also
gave his work a formalist character; he said that his axiomatic talk of points,
lines, and planes could be of other objects. Within the Euclidean realm,
attention has fallen in recent decades upon “neo-Euclidean” geometries, in
which the parallel axiom is upheld but a different metric is proposed. For
exple, given a planar triangle ABC, the Euclidean distance between A and B is
the hypotenuse AB; but the “rectangular distance” AC ! CB also satisfies the
properties of a metric, and a geometry working with it is very useful in, e.g.,
economic geography, as anyone who drives around a city will readily
understand. NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY,
PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS. I.G.-G. eudaimonia.ARISTOTLE, EUDAIMONISM.
eudaimonism (from Greek eudaimonia, ‘happiness’, ‘flourishing’), the ethical doctrine
that happiness is the ultimate justification for morality. The ancient Greek
philosophers typically begin their ethical treatises with an account of
happiness, and then argue that the best way to achieve a happy life is through
the cultivation and exercise of virtue. Most of them make virtue or virtuous
activity a constituent of the happy life; the Epicureans, however, construe
happiness in terms of pleasure, and treat virtue as a means to the end of
pleasant living. Ethical eudaimonism is sometimes combined with psychological
eudaimonism – i.e., the view that all free, intentional action is aimed
ultimately at the agent’s happiness. A common feature of ancient discussions of
ethics, and one distinguishing them from most modern discussions, is the view
that an agent would not be rationally justified in a course of action that
promised less happiness than some alternative open to him. Hence it seems that
most of the ancient theories are forms of egosim. But the ancient theories
differ from modern versions of egoism since, according to the ancients, at
least some of the virtues are dispositions to act from primarily
other-regarding motives: although the agent’s happiness is the ultimate
justification of virtuous action, it is not necessarily what motivates such
action. Since happiness is regarded by most of the ancients as the ultimate end
that justifies our actions, their ethical theories seem teleological; i.e.,
right or virtuous action is construed as action that contributes to or
maximizes the good. But appearances are again misleading, for the ancients
typically regard virtuous action as also valuable for its own sake and hence
constitutive of the agent’s happiness.
EGOISM, ETHICS, HEDONISM,
UTILITARIANISM. D.T.D. Eudoxus of Cnidus (c.408–c.355 B.C.), Greek astronomer
and mathematician, a student of Plato. He created a test of the equality of two
ratios, invented the method of exhaustion for calculating areas and volumes
within curved boundaries, and introduced an astronomical system consisting of
homocentric celestial spheres. This system views the visible universe as a set
of twenty-seven spheres contained one inside the other and each concentric to
the earth. Every celestial body is located on the equator of an ideal
eudaimonia Eudoxus of Cnidus 291 - 291 sphere that revolves with uniform speed
on its axis. The poles are embedded in the surface of another sphere, which
also revolves uniformly around an axis inclined at a constant angle to that of
the first sphere. In this way enough spheres are introduced to capture the
apparent motions of all heavenly bodies. Aristotle adopted the system of
homocentric spheres and provided a physical interpretation for it in his
cosmology. R.E.B. Euler diagr, a logic diagr invented by the mathematician
Euler that represents standard form statements in syllogistic logic by two
circles and a syllogism by three circles. In modern adaptations of Euler
diagrs, distributed terms are represented by complete circles and undistributed
terms by partial circles (circle segments or circles made with dotted lines):
Euler diagrs are more perspicuous ways of showing validity and invalidity of
syllogisms than Venn diagrs, but less useful as a mechanical test of validity
since there may be several choices of ways to represent a syllogism in Euler
diagrs, only one of which will show that the syllogism is invalid. SYLLOGISM, VENN DIAGR. R.P. Eurytus of
Croton.PRE-SOCRATICS. euthanasia, broadly, the beneficent timing or negotiation
of the death of a sick person; more narrowly, the killing of a human being on
the grounds that he is better off dead. In an extended sense, the word
‘euthanasia’ is used to refer to the painless killing of non-human animals, in
our interests at least as much as in theirs. Active euthanasia is the taking of
steps to end a person’s – especially a patient’s – life. Passive euthanasia is
the omission or termination of means of prolonging life, on the grounds that
the person is better off without them. The distinction between active and
passive euthanasia is a rough guide for applying the more fundental distinction
between intending the patient’s death and pursuing other goals, such as the
relief of her pain, with the expectation that she will die sooner rather than
later as a result. Voluntary euthanasia is euthanasia with the patient’s
consent, or at his request. Involuntary euthanasia is euthanasia over the
patient’s objections. Non-voluntary euthanasia is the killing of a person
deemed incompetent with the consent of someone – say a parent – authorized to
speak on his behalf. Since candidates for euthanasia are frequently in no
condition to make major decisions, the question whether there is a difference
between involuntary and non-voluntary euthanasia is of great importance. Few
moralists hold that life must be prolonged whatever the cost. Traditional morality
forbids directly intended euthanasia: human life belongs to God and may be
taken only by him. The most important arguments for euthanasia are the pain and
indignity suffered by those with incurable diseases, the burden imposed by
persons unable to take part in normal human activities, and the supposed right
of persons to dispose of their lives however they please. Non-theological
arguments against euthanasia include the danger of expanding the principle of
euthanasia to an everwidening range of persons and the opacity of death and its
consequent incommensurability with life, so that we cannot safely judge that a
person is better off dead.
BIOETHICS, ETHICS,
INFORMED CONSENT. P.E.D. event, anything that happens; an occurrence. Two
fundental questions about events, which philosophers have usually treated
together, are: (1) Are there events?, and (2) If so, what is their nature? Some
philosophers simply assume that there are events. Others argue for that,
typically through finding semantic theories for ordinary claims that apparently
concern the fact that some agent has done something or that some thing has
changed. Most philosophers presume that the events whose existence is proved by
such arguments are abstract particulars, “particulars” in the sense that they
are non-repeatable and spatially locatable, “abstract” in the sense that more
than one event can occur simultaneously in the se place. The theories of events
espoused by Davidson (in his causal view), Kim (though his view may be unstable
in this respect), Jonathan Bennett, and Lawrence Lombard take them to be
abstract particulars. However, Chisholm takes Euler diagr event 292 - 292
events to be abstract universals; and Quine and Davidson (in his later view)
take them to be concrete particulars. Some philosophers who think of events as
abstract particulars tend to associate the concept of an event with the concept
of change; an event is a change in some object or other (though some
philosophers have doubts about this and others have denied it outright). The
time at which an event, construed as a particular, occurs can be associated
with the (shortest) time at which the object, which is the subject of that
event, changes from the having of one property to the having of another,
contrary property. Events inherit whatever spatial locations they have from the
spatial locations, if any, of the things that those events are changes in.
Thus, an event that is a change in an object, x, from being F to being G, is
located wherever x is at the time it changes from being F to being G. Some
events are those of which another event is composed (e.g., the sinking of a
ship seems composed of the sinkings of its parts). However, it also seems clear
that not every group of events comprises another; there just is no event composed
of a certain explosion on Venus and my birth. Any adequate theory about the
nature of events must address the question of what properties, if any, such
things have essentially. One issue is whether the causes (or effects) of events
are essential to those events. A second is whether it is essential to each
event that it be a change in the entity it is in fact a change in. A third is
whether it is essential to each event that it occur at the time at which it in
fact occurs. A chief component of a theory of events is a criterion of
identity, a principle giving conditions necessary and sufficient for an event e
and an event eH to be one and the se event. Quine holds that events may be
identified with the temporal parts of physical objects, and that events and
physical objects would thus share the se condition of identity: seness of
spatiotemporal location. Davidson once proposed that events are identical
provided they have the se causes and effects. More recently, Davidson abandoned
this position in favor of Quine’s. Kim takes an event to be the exemplification
of a property (or relation) by an object (or objects) at a time. This idea has
led to his view that an event e is the se as an event eH if and only if e and
eH are the exemplifications of the se property by the se object(s) at the se
time. Lombard’s view is a variation on this account, and is derived from the
idea of events as the changes that physical objects undergo when they
alter. CAUSATION, DAVIDSON, METAPHYSICS,
PERDURANCE, QUINE. L.B.L. event causation.CAUSATION. everlasting.DIVINE
ATTRIBUTES. evidence, information bearing on the truth or falsity of a
proposition. In philosophical discussions, a person’s evidence is generally
taken to be all the information a person has, positive or negative, relevant to
a proposition. The notion of evidence used in philosophy thus differs from the
ordinary notion according to which physical objects, such as a strand of hair
or a drop of blood, counts as evidence. One’s information about such objects
could be evidence in the philosophical sense. The concept of evidence plays a
central role in our understanding of knowledge and rationality. According to a
traditional and widely held view, one has knowledge only when one has a true
belief based on very strong evidence. Rational belief is belief based on
adequate evidence, even if that evidence falls short of what is needed for
knowledge. Many traditional philosophical debates, such as those about our
knowledge of the external world, the rationality of religious belief, and the
rational basis for moral judgments, are largely about whether the evidence we
have in these areas is sufficient to yield knowledge or rational belief. The
senses are a primary source of evidence. Thus, for most, if not all, of our
beliefs, ultimately our evidence traces back to sensory experience. Other
sources of evidence include memory and the testimony of others. Of course, both
of these sources rely on the senses in one way or another. According to
rationalist views, we can also get evidence for some propositions through mere
reason or reflection, and so reason is an additional source of evidence. The
evidence one has for a belief may be conclusive or inconclusive. Conclusive
evidence is so strong as to rule out all possibility of error. The discussions
of skepticism show clearly that we lack conclusive evidence for our beliefs
about the external world, about the past, about other minds, and about nearly
any other topic. Thus, an individual’s perceptual experiences provide only
inconclusive evidence for beliefs about the external world since such
experiences can be deceptive or hallucinatory. Inconclusive, or prima facie,
evidence can always be defeated or event causation evidence 293 - 293
overridden by subsequently acquired evidence, as, e.g., when testimonial
evidence in favor of a proposition is overridden by the evidence provided by
subsequent experiences.
EPISTEMOLOGY, SKEPTICISM.
R.Fe. evidence of the senses.EVIDENCE. evidentialism, in the philosophy of
religion, the view that religious beliefs can be rationally accepted only if
they are supported by one’s “total evidence,” understood to mean all the other
propositions one knows or justifiably believes to be true. Evidentialists
typically add that, in order to be rational, one’s degree of belief should be
proportioned to the strength of the evidential support. Evidentialism was
formulated by Locke as a weapon against the sectarians of his day and has since
been used by Clifford (ong many others) to attack religious belief in general.
A milder form of evidentialism is found in Aquinas, who, unlike Clifford,
thinks religion can meet the evidentialist challenge. A contrasting view is
fideism, best understood as the claim that one’s fundental religious
convictions are not subject to independent rational assessment. A reason often
given for this is that devotion to God should be one’s “ultimate concern,” and
to subject faith to the judgment of reason is to place reason above God and
make of it an idol. Proponents of fideism include Tertullian, Kierkegaard, Karl
Barth, and some Wittgensteinians. A third view, which as yet lacks a generally
accepted label, may be termed experientialism; it asserts that some religious
beliefs are directly justified by religious experience. Experientialism differs
from evidentialism in holding that religious beliefs can be rational without
being supported by inferences from other beliefs one holds; thus theistic
arguments are superfluous, whether or not there are any sound ones available.
But experientialism is not fideism; it holds that religious beliefs may be
directly grounded in religious experience wtihout the mediation of other
beliefs, and may be rationally warranted on that account, just as perceptual
beliefs are directly grounded in perceptual experience. Recent exples of
experientialism are found in Plantinga’s “Reformed Epistemology,” which asserts
that religious beliefs grounded in experience can be “properly basic,” and in
the contention of Alston that in religious experience the subject may be
“perceiving God.” PHILOSOPHY OF
RELIGION. W.Has. evidential reason.EPISTEMOLOGY. evil, moral.PHILOSOPHY OF
RELIGION. evil, natural.PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. evil, problem of.PHILOSOPHY OF
RELIGION. evolution.DARWINISM. evolutionary epistemology, a theory of knowledge
inspired by and derived from the fact and processes of organic evolution (the
term was coined by the social psychologist Donald Cpbell). Most evolutionary
epistemologists subscribe to the theory of evolution through natural selection,
as presented by Darwin in the Origin of Species (1859). However, one does find
variants, especially one based on some kind of neoLarckism, where the
inheritance of acquired characters is central (Spencer endorsed this view) and
another based on some kind of jerky or “saltationary” evolutionism (Thomas
Kuhn, at the end of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, accepts this
idea). There are two approaches to evolutionary epistemology. First, one can
think of the transformation of organisms and the processes driving such change
as an analogy for the growth of knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge.
“Darwin’s bulldog,” T. H. Huxley, was one of the first to propose this idea. He
argued that just as between organisms we have a struggle for existence, leading
to the selection of the fittest, so between scientific ideas we have a struggle
leading to a selection of the fittest. Notable exponents of this view today
include Stephen Toulmin, who has worked through the analogy in some detail, and
David Hull, who brings a sensitive sociological perspective to bear on the
position. Karl Popper identifies with this form of evolutionary epistemology,
arguing that the selection of ideas is his view of science as bold conjecture
and rigorous attempt at refutation by another ne. The problem with this
analogical type of evolutionary epistemology lies in the disanalogy between the
raw variants of biology (mutations), which are random, and the raw variants of
science (new hypotheses), which are very rarely random. This difference
probably accounts for the fact that whereas Darwinian evolution is not
genuinely progressive, science is (or seems to be) the paradigm of a
progressive enterprise. Because of this problem, a second set of
epistemologists inspired by evolution insist that one must take the biology
literally. This evidence of the senses evolutionary epistemology 294 - 294
group, which includes Darwin, who speculated in this way even in his earliest
notebooks, claims that evolution predisposes us to think in certain fixed
adaptive patterns. The laws of logic, e.g., as well as mathematics and the
methodological dictates of science, have their foundations in the fact that
those of our would-be ancestors who took them seriously survived and
reproduced, and those that did not did not. No one claims that we have innate
knowledge of the kind demolished by Locke. Rather, our thinking is channeled in
certain directions by our biology. In an update of the biogenetic law,
therefore, one might say that whereas a claim like 5 ! 7 % 12 is
phylogenetically a posteriori, it is ontogenetically a priori. A major division
in this school is between the continental evolutionists, most notably the late
Konrad Lorenz, and the Anglo-Saxon supporters, e.g. Michael Ruse. The former
think that their evolutionary epistemology simply updates the critical
philosophy of Kant, and that biology both explains the necessity of the
synthetic a priori and makes reasonable belief in the thing-in-itself. The
latter deny that one can ever get that necessity, certainly not from biology, or
that evolution makes reasonable a belief in an objectively real world,
independent of our knowing. Historically, these epistemologists look to Hume
and in some respects to the erican pragmatists, especially Willi Jes. Today,
they acknowledge a strong fily resemblance to such naturalized epistemologists
as Quine, who has endorsed a kind of evolutionary epistemology. Critics of this
position, e.g. Philip Kitcher, usually strike at what they see as the soft
scientific underbelly. They argue that the belief that the mind is constructed
according to various innate adaptive channels is without warrant. It is but one
more manifestation of today’s Darwinians illicitly seeing adaptation
everywhere. It is better and more reasonable to think knowledge is rooted in culture,
if it is person-dependent at all. A mark of a good philosophy, like a good
science, is that it opens up new avenues for research. Although evolutionary
epistemology is not favored by conventional philosophers, who sneer at the
crudities of its (frequently nonphilosophically trained) proselytizers, its
supporters feel convinced that they are contributing to a forward-moving
philosophical research progr. As evolutionists, they are used to things taking
time to succeed. DARWINISM,
EPISTEMOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY, SOCIAL BIOLOGY. M.Ru. evolutionary
ethics.PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY. evolutionary psychology, the subfield of
psychology that explains human behavior and cultural arrangements by employing
evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology to discover, catalog, and analyze
psychological mechanisms. Human minds allegedly possess many innate,
special-purpose, domain-specific psychological mechanisms (modules) whose
development requires minimal input and whose operations are context-sensitive,
mostly automatic, and independent of one another and of general intelligence.
(Disagreements persist about the functional isolation and innateness of these
modules.) Some evolutionary psychologists compare the mind – with its
specialized modules – to a Swiss army knife. Different modules substantially
constrain behavior and cognition associated with language, sociality, face
recognition, and so on. Evolutionary psychologists emphasize that psychological
phenomena reflect the influence of biological evolution. These modules and
associated behavior patterns assumed their forms during the Pleistocene. An
evolutionary perspective identifies adaptive problems and features of the
Pleistocene environment that constrained possible solutions. Adaptive problems
often have cognitive dimensions. For exple, an evolutionary imperative to aid
kin presumes the ability to detect kin. Evolutionary psychologists propose
models to meet the requisite cognitive demands. Plausible models should produce
adaptive behaviors and avoid maladaptive ones – e.g., generating too many false
positives when identifying kin. Experimental psychological evidence and social
scientific field observations aid assessment of these proposals. These modules
have changed little. Modern humans manage with primitive hunter-gatherers’
cognitive equipment id the rapid cultural change that equipment produces. The
pace of that change outstrips the ability of biological evolution to keep up.
Evolutionary psychologists hold, consequently, that: (1) contrary to sociobiology,
which appeals to biological evolution directly, exclusively evolutionary
explanations of human behavior will not suffice; (2) contrary to theories of
cultural evolution, which appeal to biological evolution analogically, it is at
least possible that no cultural arrangement has ever been adaptive; and (3)
contrary to social scientists, who appeal to some general conception of
learning or socialization to explain cultural transmission, specialized
psychological evolutionary ethics evolutionary psychology 295 - 295 mechanisms
contribute substantially to that process.
CONCEPTUALISM.
existence.SUBSISTENCE. existence, ‘is’ of.IS. existential.HEIDEGGER.
existential generalization, a rule of inference admissible in classical
quantification theory. It allows one to infer an existentially quantified
statement DxA from any instance A (a/x) of it. (Intuitively, it allows one to
infer ‘There exists a liar’ from ‘Epimenides is a liar’.) It is equivalent to
universal instantiation – the rule that allows one to infer any instance A
(a/x) of a universally quantified statement ExA from ExA. (Intuitively, it
allows one to infer ‘My car is valuable’ from ‘Everything is valuable’.) Both
rules can also have equivalent formulations as axioms; then they are called
specification (ExA / A (a/x)) and particularization ((A(a/x) / DxA)). All of
these equivalent principles are denied by free logic, which only admits
weakened versions of them. In the case of existential generalization, the
weakened version is: infer DxA from A(a/x) & E!a. (Intuitively: infer
‘There exists a liar’ from ‘Epimenides is a liar and Epimenides exists’.) EXISTENTIAL INSTANTIATION, FORMAL LOGIC, FREE
LOGIC, UNIVERSAL INSTANTIATION. E.Ben. existential graph.PEIRCE. existential
import, a commitment to the existence of something implied by a sentence,
statement, or proposition. For exple, in Aristotelian logic (though not in
modern quantification theory), any sentence of the form ‘All F’s are G’s’
implies ‘There is an F that is a G’ and is thus said to have as existential
import a commitment to the existence of an F that is a G. According to
Russell’s theory of descriptions, sentences containing definite descriptions
can likewise have existential import since ‘The F is a G’ implies ‘There is an
F’. The presence of singular terms is also often claimed to give rise to
existential commitment. Underlying this notion of existential import is the
idea – long stressed by W. V. Quine – that ontological commitment is measured
by existential sentences (statements, propositions) of the form (Dv) f. ONTOLOGICAL COMMITMENT. G.F.S. existential
instantiation, a rule of inference admissible in classical quantification
theory. It allows one to infer a statement A from an existentially quantified
statement DxB if A can be inferred from an instance B(a/x) of DxB, provided
that a does not occur in either A or B or any other premise of the argument (if
there are any). (Intuitively, it allows one to infer a contradiction C from
‘There exists a highest prime’ if C can be inferred from ‘a is a highest prime’
and a does not occur in C.) Free logic allows for a stronger form of this rule:
with the se provisions as above, A can be inferred from DxB if it can be
inferred from B(a/x) & E!a. (Intuitively, it is enough to infer ‘There is a
highest natural number’ from ‘a is a highest prime and a exists’.)
existentialism, a
philosophical and literary movement that ce to prominence in Europe,
particularly in France, immediately after World War II, and that focused on the
uniqueness of each human individual as distinguished from abstract universal
human qualities. Historians differ as to antecedents. Some see an
existentialist precursor in Pascal, whose aphoristically expressed Catholic
fideism questioned the power of rationalist thought and preferred the God of
Scripture to the abstract “God of the philosophers.” Many agree that
Kierkegaard, whose fundentally similar but Protestant fideism was based on a
profound unwillingness to situate either God or any individual’s relationship
with God within a systematic philosophy, as Hegel had done, should be exact
similarity existentialism 296 - 296 considered the first modern existentialist,
though he too lived long before the term emerged. Others find a
proto-existentialist in Nietzsche, because of the aphoristic and
anti-systematic nature of his writings, and on the literary side, in
Dostoevsky. (A number of twentiethcentury novelists, such as Franz Kafka, have
been labeled existentialists.) A strong existentialist strain is to be found in
certain other theist philosophers who have written since Kierkegaard, such as
Lequier, Berdyaev, Marcel, Jaspers, and Buber, but Marcel later decided to
reject the label ‘existentialist’, which he had previously employed. This
reflects its increasing identification with the atheistic existentialism of
Sartre, whose successes, as in the novel Nausea, and the philosophical work
Being and Nothingness, did most to popularize the word. A mass-audience
lecture, “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” which Sartre (to his later regret)
allowed to be published, provided the occasion for Heidegger, whose early
thought had greatly influenced Sartre’s evolution, to take his distance from
Sartre’s existentialism, in particular for its self-conscious concentration on
human reality over Being. Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism, written in reply to a
French admirer, signals an important turn in his thinking. Nevertheless, many
historians continue to classify Heidegger as an existentialist – quite
reasonably, given his early emphasis on existential categories and ideas such
as anxiety in the presence of death, our sense of being “thrown” into
existence, and our temptation to choose anonymity over authenticity in our
conduct. This illustrates the difficulty of fixing the term ‘existentialism’.
Other French thinkers of the time, all acquaintances of Sartre’s, who are often
classified as existentialists, are Cus, Simone de Beauvoir, and, though with
less reason, Merleau-Ponty. Cus’s novels, such as The Stranger and The Plague,
are cited along with Nausea as epitomizing the uniqueness of the existentialist
antihero who acts out of authenticity, i.e., in freedom from any conventional
expectations about what so-called human nature (a concept rejected by Sartre)
supposedly requires in a given situation, and with a sense of personal
responsibility and absolute lucidity that precludes the “bad faith” or lying to
oneself that characterizes most conventional human behavior. Good scholarship
prescribes caution, however, about superimposing too many Sartrean categories
on Cus. In fact the latter, in his brief philosophical essays, notably The Myth
of Sisyphus, distinguishes existentialist writers and philosophers, such as
Kierkegaard, from absurdist thinkers and heroes, whom he regards more highly,
and of whom the mythical Sisyphus (condemned eternally by the gods to roll a
huge boulder up a hill before being forced, just before reaching the summit, to
start anew) is the epitome. Cus focuses on the concept of the absurd, which
Kierkegaard had used to characterize the object of his religious faith (an
incarnate God). But for Cus existential absurdity lies in the fact, as he sees
it, that there is always at best an imperfect fit between human reasoning and
its intended objects, hence an impossibility of achieving certitude.
Kierkegaard’s leap of faith is, for Cus, one more pseudo-solution to this hard,
absurdist reality. Almost alone ong those ned besides Sartre (who himself
concentrated more on social and political thought and bece indebted to Marxism
in his later years), Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86) unqualifiedly accepted the
existentialist label. In The Ethics of biguity, she attempted, using categories
filiar in Sartre, to produce an existentialist ethics based on the recognition
of radical human freedom as “projected” toward an open future, the rejection of
inauthenticity, and a condemnation of the “spirit of seriousness” (akin to the
“spirit of gravity” criticized by Nietzsche) whereby individuals identify
themselves wholly with certain fixed qualities, values, tenets, or prejudices.
Her feminist masterpiece, The Second Sex, relies heavily on the distinction,
part existentialist and part Hegelian in inspiration, between a life of
immanence, or passive acceptance of the role into which one has been
socialized, and one of transcendence, actively and freely testing one’s
possibilities with a view to redefining one’s future. Historically, women have
been consigned to the sphere of immanence, says de Beauvoir, but in fact a
woman in the traditional sense is not something that one is made, without
appeal, but rather something that one becomes. The Sartrean ontology of Being
and Nothingness, according to which there are two fundental asymmetrical
“regions of being,” being-in-itself and being-for-itself, the latter having no
definable essence and hence, as “nothing” in itself, serving as the ground for
freedom, creativity, and action, serves well as a theoretical frework for an
existentialist approach to human existence. (Being and Nothingness also nes a
third ontological region, being-for-others, but that may be disregarded here.)
However, it would be a mistake to treat even Sartre’s existentialist insights,
much less those of others, as dependent on this ontology, to which he himself
made little direct existentialism existentialism 297 - 297 reference in his
later works. Rather, it is the implications of the common central claim that we
human beings exist without justification (hence “absurdly”) in a world into
which we are “thrown,” condemned to assume full responsibility for our free
actions and for the very values according to which we act, that make
existentialism a continuing philosophical challenge, particularly to ethicists
who believe right choices to be dictated by our alleged human essence or
nature.
NEWCOMB’s PARADOX, SAINT
PETERSBURG PARADOX. experientialism.EVIDENTIALISM. experimentum crusis.CRUCIAL
EXPERIMENT. explaining reason.REASONS FOR ACTION, REASONS FOR BELIEF.
explanandum.EXPLANATION. explanans.EXPLANATION. explanation, an act of making
something intelligible or understandable, as when we explain an event by
showing why or how it occurred. Just about anything can be the object of
explanation: a concept, a rule, the meaning of a word, the point of a chess
move, the structure of a novel. However, there are two sorts of things whose
explanation has been intensively discussed in philosophy: events and human
actions. Individual events, say the collapse of a bridge, are usually explained
by specifying their cause: the bridge collapsed because of the pressure of the
flood water and its weakened structure. This is an exple of causal explanation.
There usually are indefinitely many causal factors responsible for the
occurrence of an event, and the choice of a particular factor as “the cause”
appears to depend primarily on contextual considerations. Thus, one explanation
of an automobile accident may cite the icy road condition; another the
inexperienced driver; and still another the defective brakes. Context may
determine which of these and other possible explanations is the appropriate
one. These explanations of why an event occurred are sometimes contrasted with
explanations of how an event occurred. A “how” explanation of an event consists
in an informative description of the process that has led to the occurrence of
the event, and such descriptions are likely to involve descriptions of causal
processes. The covering law model is an influential attempt to represent the
general form of such explanations: an explanation of an event consists in
“subsuming,” or “covering,” it under a law. When the covering law is
deterministic, the explanation is thought to take the form of a deductive
argument: a statement – the explanandum – describing the event to be explained
is logically derived from the explanans – the law together with statements of
antecedent conditions. Thus, we might explain why a given rod expanded by
offering this argument: ‘All metals expand when heated; this rod is metallic
and it was heated; therefore, it expanded’. Such an explanation is called a
deductive-nomological explanation. On the other hand, probabilistic or
statistical laws are thought to yield statistical explanations of individual
events. Thus, the explanation of the contraction of a contagious disease on the
basis of exposure to a patient with the disease may take the form of a statistical
explanation. Details of the statistical model have been a matter of much
controversy. It is sometimes claimed that although explanations, whether in
ordinary life or in the sciences, seldom conform fully to the covering law
model, the model nevertheless represents an ideal that all explanations must
strive to attain. The covering law model, though influential, is not
universally accepted. Human actions are often explained by being “rationalized’
– i.e., by citing the agent’s beliefs and desires (and other “intentional”
mental states such as emotions, hopes, and expectations) that constitute a
reason for doing what was done. You opened the window because you wanted some
fresh air and believed that by opening the window you could secure this result.
It has been a controversial issue whether such rationalizing explanations are
causal; i.e., whether they invoke beliefs and desires as a cause of the action.
Another issue is whether existential polarity explanation 298 - 298 these
“rationalizing” explanations must conform to the covering law model, and if so,
what laws might underwrite such explanations.
exponible. In medieval
logic, exponible propositions were those that needed to be expounded, i.e.,
elaborated in order to make clear their true logical form. A modern exple might
be: ‘Giorgione was so called because of his size’, which has a misleading form,
suggesting a simple predication, whereas it really means, ‘Giorgione was called
“Giorgione” because of his size’. Medieval exples were: ‘Every man except
Socrates is running’, expounded as ‘Socrates is not running and every man other
than Socrates is running’; and ‘Only Socrates says something true’, uttered by,
say, Plato, which Albert of Saxony claims should be expounded not only as
‘Socrates says something true and no one other than Socrates says something
true’, but needs a third clause, ‘Plato says something false’. This last exple
brings out an important aspect of exponible propositions, nely, their use in
sophisms. Sophismatic treatises were a common medieval genre in which metaphysical
and logical issues were approached dialectically by their application in
solving puzzle cases. Another important ingredient of exponible propositions
was their containing a particular term, sometimes called the exponible term;
attention on such terms was focused in the study of syncategorematic
expressions, especially in the thirteenth century. However, note that such
exponible terms could only be expounded in context, not by an explicit
definition. Syncategorematic terms that produced exponible propositions were
terms such as ‘twice’, ‘except’, ‘begins’ and ‘ceases’, and ‘insofar as’ (e.g.
‘Socrates insofar as he is rational is risible’). SYNCATEGOREMATA. S.L.R. exportation (1) In
classical logic, the principle that (A 8 B) / C is logically equivalent to A /
(B / C). (2) The principle ((A 8 B) P C) P (A P (B P C)), which relevance
logicians hold to be fallacious when ‘P’ is read as ‘entails’. (3) In
discussions of propositional attitude verbs, the principle that from ‘a Vs that
b is a(n) f’ one may infer ‘a Vs f-hood of b’, where V has its relational
(transparent) sense. For exple, exportation (in sense 3) takes one from ‘Ralph
believes that Ortcutt is a spy’ to ‘Ralph believes spyhood of Ortcutt’, wherein
‘Ortcutt’ can now be replaced by a bound variable to yield ‘(Dx) (Ralph
believes spyhood of x)’.
QUANTIFYING IN, RELEVANCE
LOGIC. G.F.S. expressibility logicism.LOGICISM. expressionism.EXPRESSION THEORY
OF ART. expression theory of art, a theory that defines art as the expression
of feelings or emotion (sometimes called expressionism in art). Such theories
first acquired major importance in the nineteenth century in connection with
the rise of Romanticism. Expression theories are as various as the different
views about what counts as expressing emotion. There are four main variants.
(1) Expression as communication. This requires that the artist actually have
the feelings that are expressed, when they are initially expressed. They are
“embodied” in some external form, and thereby transmitted to the perceiver. Leo
Tolstoy (1828–1910) held a view of this sort. (2) Expression as intuition. An
intuition is the apprehension of the unity and individuality of something. An
intuition is “in the mind,” and hence the artwork is also. Croce held this
view, and in his later work argued that the unity of an intuition is
established by feeling. (3) Expression as clarification. An artist starts out
with vague, undefined feelings, and expression is a process of coming to
clarify, articulate, and understand them. This view retains Croce’s idea that
expression is in the artist’s mind, as well as explanation, covering law
expression theory of art 299 - 299 his view that we are all artists to the
degree that we articulate, clarify, and come to understand our own feelings.
Collingwood held this view. (4) Expression as a property of the object. For an
artwork to be an expression of emotion is for it to have a given structure or
form. Suzanne K. Langer (1895–1985) argued that music and the other arts
“presented” or exhibited structures or forms of feeling in general. AESTHETICS, INSTITUTIONAL THEORY OF ART.
S.L.F. expressive completeness.COMPLETENESS. expressive meaning.MEANING.
extension.INTENSION. extensionalism, a fily of ontologies and semantic theories
restricted to existent entities. Extensionalist ontology denies that the domain
of any true theory needs to include non-existents, such as fictional,
imaginary, and impossible objects like Pegasus the winged horse or round
squares. Extensionalist semantics reduces meaning and truth to set-theoretical
relations between terms in a language and the existent objects, standardly
spatiotemporal and abstract entities, that belong to the term’s extension. The
extension of a ne is the particular existent denoted by the ne; the extension of
a predicate is the set of existent objects that have the property represented
by the predicate. The sentence ‘All whales are mmals’ is true in extensionalist
semantics provided there are no whales that are not mmals, no existent objects
in the extension of the predicate ‘whale’ that are not also in the extension of
‘mmal’. Linguistic contexts are extensional if: (i) they make reference only to
existent objects; (ii) they support substitution of codesignative terms
(referring to the se thing), or of logically equivalent propositions, salva
veritate (without loss of truthvalue); and (iii) it is logically valid to
existentially quantify (conclude that There exists an object such that . . .
etc.) objects referred to within the context. Contexts that do not meet these
requirements are intensional, non-extensional, or referentially opaque. The
implications of extensionalism, associated with the work of Frege, Russell,
Quine, and mainstre analytic philosophy, are to limit its explanations of mind
and meaning to existent objects and material-mechanical properties and
relations describable in an exclusively extensional idiom. Extensionalist
semantics must try to analyze away apparent references to nonexistent objects,
or, as in Russell’s extensionalist theory of definite descriptions, to classify
all such predications as false. Extensionalist ontology in the philosophy of
mind must eliminate or reduce propositional attitudes or de dicto mental
states, expressed in an intensional idiom, such as ‘believes that ————’, ‘fears
that ————’, and the like, usually in favor of extensional characterizations of
neurophysiological states. Whether extensionalist philosophy can satisfy these
explanatory obligations, as the thesis of extensionality maintains, is
controversial. A
BSTRACT ENTITY,
INTENSIONALITY, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, RUSSELL, THEORY OF DESCRIPTIONS, TRUTH.
D.J. extensionality, axiom of.SET THEORY. extensionality thesis.EXTENSIONALISM.
extensive abstraction.WHITEHEAD. extensive magnitude.MAGNITUDE. externalism,
the view that there are objective reasons for action that are not dependent on
the agent’s desires, and in that sense external to the agent. Internalism
(about reasons) is the view that reasons for action must be internal in the
sense that they are grounded in motivational facts about the agent, e.g. her
desires and goals. Classic internalists such as Hume deny that there are
objective reasons for action. For instance, whether the fact that an action
would promote health is a reason to do it depends on whether one has a desire
to be healthy. It may be a reason for some and not for others. The doctrine is
hence a version of relativism; a fact is a reason only insofar as it is so
connected to an agent’s psychological states that it can motivate the agent. By
contrast, externalists hold that not all reasons depend on the internal states
of particular agents. Thus an externalist could hold that promoting health is
objectively good and that the fact that an action would promote one’s health is
a reason to perform it regardless of whether one desires health. This dispute
is closely tied to the debate over motivational internalism, which may be
conceived as the view that moral beliefs (for instance) are, by virtue of
entailing motivation, internal reasons for action. Those who reject
motivational internalism must either deny that expressive completeness
externalism 300 - 300 (sound) moral beliefs always provide reasons for action
or hold that they provide external reasons.
ETHICS, MOTIVATIONAL INTERNALISM, RELATIVISM. W.T. externalism, content.
PHILOSOPHY OF MIND.
externalism, epistemological.EPISTEMOLOGY. externalism, motivational.
MOTIVATIONAL INTERNALISM.
external negation.NEGATION. external reason.EXTERNALISM. external
relation.RELATION. exteroception.PERCEPTION. extrasensory
perception.PARAPSYCHOLOGY. extrinsic desire, a desire of something for its
conduciveness to something else that one desires. Extrinsic desires are
distinguished from intrinsic desires, desires of items for their own sake, or
as ends. Thus, an individual might desire financial security extrinsically, as
a means to her happiness, and desire happiness intrinsically, as an end. Some
desires are mixed: their objects are desired both for themselves and for their
conduciveness to something else. Jacques may desire to jog, e.g., both for its
own sake (as an end) and for the sake of his health. A desire is strictly
intrinsic if and only if its object is desired for itself alone. A desire is
strictly extrinsic if and only if its object is not desired, even partly, for
its own sake. (Desires for “good news” – e.g., a desire to hear that one’s
child has survived a car accident – are sometimes classified as extrinsic
desires, even if the information is desired only because of what it indicates
and not for any instrumental value that it may have.) Desires of each kind help
to explain action. Owing partly to a mixed desire to entertain a friend, Martha
might acquire a variety of extrinsic desires for actions conducive to that
goal. Less happily, intrinsically desiring to be rid of his toothache, George
might extrinsically desire to schedule a dental appointment. If all goes well
for Martha and George, their desires will be satisfied, and that will be due in
part to the effects of the desires upon their behavior. ACTION THEORY, INTENTION, MOTIVATIONAL
EXPLANATION, VALUE. A.R.M. extrinsic property.RELATION. extrinsic
relation.RELATION. externalism, content extrinsic relation 301 - 301 fa,
Chinese term for (1) a standard, model, paradigm, or exemplar; (2) proper
procedure, behavior, or technique; (3) a rule or law; (4) dharma. A mental
image (yi) of a circle, a compass, and a particular circle can each serve as a
fa for identifying circles. The sage-kings, their institutions, and their
behavior are all fa for rulers to emulate. Methods of governing (e.g., by
reward and punishment) are fa. Explicit laws or bureaucratic rules are also fa.
(See Mo Tzu, “Dialectical Chapters,” and Kuan Tzu, chapter 6, “Seven
Standards.”) After the introduction of Buddhism to China, fa is used to translate
‘dharma’. BUDDHISM, DHARMA, MO TZU.
B.W.V.N. fa-chia.CHINESE LEGALISM. fact.STATE OF AFFAIRS. facticity.
fact–value distinction,
the apparently fundental difference between how things are and how they should
be. That people obey the law (or act honestly or desire money) is one thing;
that they should is quite another. The first is a matter of fact, the second a
matter of value. Hume is usually credited with drawing the distinction when he
noticed that one cannot uncontroversially infer an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ (the
is–ought gap). From the fact, say, that an action would maximize overall
happiness, we cannot legitimately infer that it ought to be done – without the
introduction of some (so far suppressed) evaluative premise. We could secure
the inference by assuming that one ought always to do what maximizes overall
happiness. But that assumption is evidently evaluative. And any other premise
that might link the non-evaluative premises to an evaluative conclusion would
look equally evaluative. No matter how detailed and extensive the
non-evaluative premises, it seems no evaluative conclusion follows (directly
and as a matter of logic). Some have replied that at least a few non-evaluative
claims do entail evaluative ones. To take one popular exple, from the fact that
some promise was made, we might (it appears) legitimately infer that it ought
to be kept, other things equal – and this without the introduction of an
evaluative premise. Yet many argue that the inference fails, or that the
premise is actually evaluative, or that the conclusion is not. Hume himself was
both bold and brief about the gap’s significance, claiming simply that paying
attention to it “wou’d subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us
see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the
relations of objects, nor is perceiv’d by reason” (Treatise of Human Nature).
Others have been more expansive. Moore, for instance, in effect relied upon the
gap to establish (via the open question argument) that any attempt to define
evaluative terms using non-evaluative ones would commit the naturalistic
fallacy. Moore’s main target was the suggestion that ‘good’ means “pleasant”
and the fallacy, in this context, is supposed to be misidentifying an
evaluative property, being good, with a natural property, being pleasant.
Assuming that evaluative terms have meaning, Moore held that some could be
defined using others (he thought, e.g., that ‘right’ could be defined as
“productive of the greatest possible good”) and that the rest, though
meaningful, must be indefinable terms denoting simple, non-natural, properties.
Accepting Moore’s use of the open question argument but rejecting both his
non-naturalism and his assumption that evaluative terms must have (descriptive)
meaning, emotivists and prescriptivists (e.g. Ayer, C. L. Stevenson, and Hare)
argued that evaluative terms have a role in language other than to denote
properties. According to them, the primary role of evaluative language is not
to describe, but to prescribe. The logical gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’, they
argue, establishes both the difference between fact and value and the
difference between describing (how things are) and recommending (how they might
be). Some naturalists, though, acknowledge the gap and yet maintain that the
evaluative claims nonetheless do refer to natural properties. In the process
they deny the ontological force of the open question argument and 302 F - 302
treat evaluative claims as describing a special class of facts.
ETHICS, MOORE, MORAL
REALISM. G.S.-M. faculty psychology, the view that the mind is a collection of
departments responsible for distinct psychological functions. Related to
faculty psychology is the doctrine of localization of function, wherein each
faculty has a specific brain location. Faculty psychologies oppose theories of
mind as a unity with one function (e.g., those of Descartes and associationism)
or as a unity with various capabilities (e.g., that of Ockh), and oppose the
related holistic distributionist or mass-action theory of the brain. Faculty
psychology began with Aristotle, who divided the human soul into five special
senses, three inner senses (common sense, imagination, memory) and active and passive
mind. In the Middle Ages (e.g., Aquinas) Aristotle’s three inner senses were
subdivied, creating more elaborate lists of five to seven inward wits. Islic
physicianphilosophers such as Avicenna integrated Aristotelian faculty
psychology with Galenic medicine by proposing brain locations for the
faculties. Two important developments in faculty psychology occurred during the
eighteenth century. First, Scottish philosophers led by Reid developed a
version of faculty psychology opposed to the empiricist and associationist
psychologies of Locke and Hume. The Scots proposed that humans were endowed by
God with a set of faculties permitting knowledge of the world and morality. The
Scottish system exerted considerable influence in the United States, where it was
widely taught as a moral, character-building discipline, and in the nineteenth
century this “Old Psychology” opposed the experimental “New Psychology.”
Second, despite then being called a charlatan, Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828)
laid the foundation for modern neuropsychology in his work on localization of
function. Gall rejected existing faculty psychologies as philosophical,
unbiological, and incapable of accounting for everyday behavior. Gall proposed
an innovative behavioral and biological list of faculties and brain
localizations based on comparative anatomy, behavior study, and measurements of
the human skull. Today, faculty psychology survives in trait and instinct
theories of personality, Fodor’s theory that mental functions are implemented
by neurologically “encapsulated” organs, and localizationist theories of the
brain.
fallibilism, the doctrine, relative to some
significant class of beliefs or propositions, that they are inherently
uncertain and possibly mistaken. The most extreme form of the doctrine
attributes uncertainty to every belief; more restricted forms attribute it to
all empirical beliefs or to beliefs concerning the past, the future, other
minds, or the external world. Most contemporary philosophers reject the
doctrine in its extreme form, holding that beliefs about such things as
elementary logical principles and the character of one’s current feelings
cannot possibly be mistaken. Philosophers who reject fallibilism in some form
generally insist that certain beliefs are analytically true, self-evident, or
intuitively obvious. These means of supporting the infallibility of faculty
psychology fallibilism 303 - 303 some beliefs are now generally discredited. W.
V. Quine has cast serious doubt on the very notion of analytic truth, and the
appeal to self-evidence or intuitive obviousness is open to the charge that
those who officially accept it do not always agree on what is thus evident or
obvious (there is no objective way of identifying it), and that beliefs said to
be self-evident have sometimes been proved false, the causal principle and the
axiom of abstraction (in set theory) being striking exples. In addition to
emphasizing the evolution of logical and mathematical principles, fallibilists
have supported their position mainly by arguing that the existence and nature
of mind-independent objects can legitimately be ascertained only be
experimental methods and that such methods can yield conclusions that are, at
best, probable rather than certain. B.A. false cause, fallacy of.INFORMAL
FALLACY. false consciousness, (1) lack of clear awareness of the source and
significance of one’s beliefs and attitudes concerning society, religion, or
values; (2) objectionable forms of ignorance and false belief; (3) dishonest
forms of self-deception. Marxists (if not Marx) use the expression to explain
and condemn illusions generated by unfair economic relationships. Thus, workers
who are unaware of their alienation, and “happy homemakers” who only dimly
sense their dependency and quiet desperation, are molded in their attitudes by
economic power relationships that make the status quo seem natural, thereby
eclipsing their long-term best interests. Again, religion is construed as an
economically driven ideology that functions as an “opiate” blocking clear
awareness of human needs. Collingwood interprets false consciousness as
self-corrupting untruthfulness in disowning one’s emotions and ideas (The
Principles of Art, 1938).
false pleasure, pleasure
taken in something false. If it is false that Jones is honest, but Smith
believes Jones is honest and is pleased that Jones is honest, then Smith’s
pleasure is false. If pleasure is construed as an intentional attitude, then
the truth or falsity of a pleasure is a function of whether its intentional
object obtains. On this view, S’s being pleased that p is a true pleasure if an
only if S is pleased that p and p is true. S’s being pleased that p is a false
pleasure if and only if S is pleased that p and p is false. Alternatively,
Plato uses the expression ‘false pleasure’ to refer to things such as the
cessation of pain or neutral states that are neither pleasant nor painful that
a subject confuses with genuine or true pleasures. Thus, being released from
tight shackles might mistakenly be thought pleasant when it is merely the
cessation of a pain. HEDONISM, VALUE.
N.M.L. falsifiability.POPPER, TESTABILITY. falsification.POPPER.
falsum.Appendix of Special Symbols. fily resemblance.WITTGENSTEIN. Fang, Thomé
H. (1899–1976), Chinese philosopher of culture. Educated at the University of
Nanking and the University of Wisconsin, he had an early interest in Dewey’s
pragmatism, but returned to the ideals of Chinese philosophy during World War
II. He had a grand philosophical scheme, always discussing issues from a
comparative viewpoint through perspectives of ancient Greek, modern European,
Chinese, and Indian thought. He exerted a profound influence on younger
philosophers in Taiwan after 1949. CHINESE
PHILOSOPHY. S.-h.L. Farabi, al-.AL-FARABI. fascism.POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
fatalism.FREE WILL PROBLEM. feature-placing discourse.STRAWSON. Fechner, Gustav
Theodor (1801–87), German physicist and philosopher whose Elemente der
Psychophysik (1860; English translation, 1966) inaugurated experimental
psychology. Obsessed with the mind–body problem, Fechner advanced an identity
theory in which every object is both mental and physical, and in support
invented psychophysics – the “exact science of the functional relations . . .
between mind and body.” Fechner began with the concept of the limen, or sensory
threshold. The absolute threshold is the stimulus strength (R, Reiz) needed to
create a conscious sensation (S), and the relative threshold is the strength
that must be added to a stimulus for a just noticeable difference (jnd) to be
perceived. E. H. Weber (1795–1878) had shown that a constant ratio held between
relative threshold and false cause, fallacy of Fechner, Gustav Theodor 304 -
304 stimulus magnitude, Weber’s law: DR/R % k. By experimentally determining
jnd’s for pairs of stimulus magnitudes (such as weights), Fechner formulated
his “functional relation,” S % k log R, Fechner’s law, an identity equation of
mind and matter. Later psychophysicists replaced it with a power law, R % kSn,
where n depends on the kind of stimulus. The importance of psychophysics to
psychology consisted in its showing that quantification of experience was
possible, and its providing a general paradigm for psychological
experimentation in which controlled stimulus conditions are systematically
varied and effects observed. In his later years, Fechner brought the
experimental method to bear on aesthetics (Vorschule der Aesthetik, 1876).
T.H.L. Fechner’s law.FECHNER. feedback.CYBERNETICS. feedforward.CYBERNETICS.
felicific calculus.BENTH. felicity conditions.SPEECH ACT THEORY. feminist
epistemology, epistemology from a feminist perspective. It investigates the
relevance that the gender of the inquirer/knower has to epistemic practices,
including the theoretical practice of epistemology. It is typified both by
themes that are exclusively feminist in that they could arise only from a
critical attention to gender, and by themes that are non-exclusively feminist
in that they might arise from other politicizing theoretical perspectives
besides feminism. A central, exclusively feminist theme is the relation between
philosophical conceptions of reason and cultural conceptions of masculinity.
Here a historicist stance must be adopted, so that philosophy is conceived as
the product of historically and culturally situated (hence gendered) authors.
This stance brings certain patterns of intellectual association into view –
patterns, perhaps, of alignment between philosophical conceptions of reason as
contrasted with emotion or intuition, and cultural conceptions of masculinity
as contrasted with femininity. A central, non-exclusively feminist theme might
be called “social-ism” in epistemology. It has two main tributaries: political
philosophy, in the form of Marx’s historical materialism; and philosophy of
science, in the form of either Quinean naturalism or Kuhnian historicism. The
first has resulted in feminist standpoint theory, which adapts and develops the
Marxian idea that different social groups have different epistemic standpoints,
where the material positioning of one of the groups is said to bestow an
epistemic privilege. The second has resulted in feminist work in philosophy of
science which tries to show that not only epistemic values but also
non-epistemic (e.g. gendered) values are of necessity sometimes an influence in
the generation of scientific theories. If this can be shown, then an important
feminist project suggests itself: to work out a rationale for regulating the
influence of these values so that science may be more self-transparent and more
responsible. By attempting to reveal the epistemological implications of the
fact that knowers are diversely situated in social relations of identity and
power, feminist epistemology represents a radicalizing innovation in the analytic
tradition, which has typically assumed an asocial conception of the epistemic
subject, and of the philosopher.
EPISTEMOLOGY, FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY, KUHN, MARXISM, QUINE. M.F. feminist
philosophy, a discussion of philosophical concerns that refuses to identify the
human experience with the male experience. Writing from a variety of
perspectives, feminist philosophers challenge several areas of traditional
philosophy on the grounds that they fail (1) to take seriously women’s
interests, identities, and issues; and (2) to recognize women’s ways of being,
thinking, and doing as valuable as those of men. Feminist philosophers fault
traditional metaphysics for splitting the self from the other and the mind from
the body; for wondering whether “other minds” exist and whether personal
identity depends more on memories or on physical characteristics. Because
feminist philosophers reject all forms of ontological dualism, they stress the
ways in which individuals interpenetrate each other’s psyches through empathy,
and the ways in which the mind and body coconstitute each other. Because
Western culture has associated rationality with “masculinity” and emotionality
with “femininity,” traditional epistemologists have often concluded that women
are less human than men. For this reason, feminist philosophers argue that
reason and emotion are symbiotically related, coequal sources of knowledge.
Feminist philosophers also argue that Cartesian knowledge, for all its
certainty and clarity, is very limFechner’s law feminist philosophy 305 - 305
ited. People want to know more than that they exist; they want to know what
other people are thinking and feeling. Feminist philosophers also observe that
traditional philosophy of science is not as objective as it claims to be. Whereas
traditional philosophers of science often associate scientific success with
scientists’ ability to control, rule, and otherwise dominate nature, feminist
philosophers of science associate scientific success with scientists’ ability
to listen to nature’s self-revelations. Since it willingly yields abstract
theory to the testimony of concrete fact, a science that listens to what nature
says is probably more objective than one that does not. Feminist philosophers
also criticize traditional ethics and traditional social and political
philosophy. Rules and principles have dominated traditional ethics. Whether
agents seek to maximize utility for the aggregate or do their duty for the sake
of duty, they measure their conduct against a set of universal, abstract, and
impersonal norms. Feminist philosophers often call this traditional view of
ethics a “justice” perspective, contrasting it with a “care” perspective that
stresses responsibilities and relationships rather than rights and rules, and
that attends more to a moral situation’s particular features than to its
general implications. Feminist social and political philosophy focus on the
political institutions and social practices that perpetuate women’s
subordination. The goals of feminist social and political philosophy are (1) to
explain why women are suppressed, repressed, and/or oppressed in ways that men
are not; and (2) to suggest morally desirable and politically feasible ways to
give women the se justice, freedom, and equality that men have. Liberal feminists
believe that because women have the se rights as men do, society must provide
women with the se educational and occupational opportunities that men have.
Marxist feminists believe that women cannot be men’s equals until women enter
the work force en masse and domestic work and child care are socialized.
Radical feminists believe that the fundental causes of women’s oppression are
sexual. It is women’s reproductive role and/or their sexual role that causes
their subordination. Unless women set their own reproductive goals
(childlessness is a legitimate alternative to motherhood) and their own sexual
agendas (lesbianism, autoeroticism, and celibacy are alternatives to
heterosexuality), women will remain less than free. Psychoanalytic feminists
believe that women’s subordination is the result of earlychildhood experiences
that cause them to overdevelop their abilities to relate to other people on the
one hand and to underdevelop their abilities to assert themselves as autonomous
agents on the other. Women’s greatest strength, a capacity for deep
relationships, may also be their greatest weakness: a tendency to be controlled
by the needs and wants of others. Finally, existentialist feminists claim that
the ultimate cause of women’s subordination is ontological. Women are the
Other; men are the Self. Until women define themselves in terms of themselves,
they will continue to be defined in terms of what they are not: men. Recently,
socialist feminists have attempted to weave these distinctive strands of feminist
social and political thought into a theoretical whole. They argue that women’s
condition is overdetermined by the structures of production, reproduction and
sexuality, and the socialization of children. Women’s status and function in
all of these structures must change if they are to achieve full liberation.
Furthermore, women’s psyches must also be transformed. Only then will women be
liberated from the kind of patriarchal thoughts that undermine their
self-concept and make them always the Other. Interestingly, the socialist
feminist effort to establish a specifically feminist standpoint that represents
how women see the world has not gone without challenge. Postmodern feminists
regard this effort as an instantiation of the kind of typically male thinking
that tells only one story about reality, truth, knowledge, ethics, and
politics. For postmodern feminists, such a story is neither feasible nor
desirable. It is not feasible because women’s experiences differ across class,
racial, and cultural lines. It is not desirable because the “One” and the
“True” are philosophical myths that traditional philosophy uses to silence the
voices of the many. Feminist philosophy must be many and not One because women
are many and not One. The more feminist thoughts, the better. By refusing to
center, congeal, and cement separate thoughts into a unified and inflexible
truth, feminist philosophers can avoid the pitfalls of traditional philosophy.
As attractive as the postmodern feminist approach to philosophy may be, some feminist
philosophers worry that an overemphasis on difference and a rejection of unity
may lead to intellectual as well as political disintegration. If feminist
philosophy is to be without any standpoint whatsoever, it becomes difficult to
ground claims about what is good for women in particufeminist philosophy
feminist philosophy 306 - 306 lar and for human beings in general. It is a
major challenge to contemporary feminist philosophy, therefore, to reconcile
the pressures for diversity and difference with those for integration and
commonality.
Ferguson, Ad (1723–1816),
Scottish philosopher and historian. His main theme was the rise and fall of
virtue in individuals and societies. In his most important work, An Essay on
the History of Civil Society (1766), he argued that human happiness (of which
virtue is a constituent) is found in pursuing social goods rather than private
ends. Ferguson thought that ignoring social goods not only prevented social
progress but led to moral corruption and political despotism. To support this
he used classical texts and travelers’ writings to reconstruct the history of
society from “rude nations” through barbarism to civilization. This allowed him
to express his concern for the danger of corruption inherent in the increasing
selfinterest manifested in the incipient commercial civilization of his day. He
attempted to systematize his moral philosophy in The Principles of Moral and
Social Science (1792). J.W.A. Fermat’s last theorem.CHOICE SEQUENCE. Feuerbach,
Ludwig Andreas (1804–72), German materialist philosopher and critic of
religion. He provided the major link between Hegel’s absolute idealism and such
later theories of historical materialism as those of Marx and other “young (or
new) Hegelians.” Feuerbach was born in Bavaria and studied theology, first at
Heidelberg and then Berlin, where he ce under the philosophical influence of
Hegel. He received his doctorate in 1828 and, after an early publication severely
critical of Christianity, retired from official German academic life. In the
years between 1836 and 1846, he produced some of his most influential works,
which include “Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy” (1839), The Essence of
Christianity (1841), Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843), and The
Essence of Religion (1846). After a brief collaboration with Marx, he emerged
as a popular chpion of political liberalism in the revolutionary period of
1848. During the reaction that followed, he again left public life and died
dependent upon the support of friends. Feuerbach was pivotal in the
intellectual history of the nineteenth century in several respects. First,
after a half-century of metaphysical system construction by the German idealists,
Feuerbach revived, in a new form, the original Kantian project of philosophical
critique. However, whereas Kant had tried “to limit reason in order to make
room for faith,” Feuerbach sought to demystify both faith and reason in favor
of the concrete and situated existence of embodied human consciousness. Second,
his “method” of “transformatory criticism” – directed, in the first instance,
at Hegel’s philosophical pronouncements – was adopted by Marx and has retained
its philosophical appeal. Briefly, it suggested that “Hegel be stood on his
feet” by “inverting” the subject and predicate in Hegel’s idealistic
pronouncements. One should, e.g., rewrite “The individual is a function of the
Absolute” as “The Absolute is a function of the individual.” Third, Feuerbach
asserted that the philosophy of German idealism was ultimately an extenuation
of theology, and that theology was merely religious consciousness systematized.
But since religion itself proves to be merely a “dre of the human mind,”
metaphysics, theology, and religion can be reduced to “anthropology,” the study
of concrete embodied human consciousness and its cultural products. The
philosophical influence of Feuerbach flows through Marx into virtually all
later historical materialist positions; anticipates the existentialist concern
with concrete embodied human existence; and serves as a paradigm for all later
approaches to religion on the part of the social sciences. HEGEL, KANT, MARX, MARXISM. J.P.Su. Fichte,
Johann Gottlieb (1762–1814), German philosopher. He was a proponent of an
uncompromising system of transcendental idealism, the Wissenschaftslehre, which
played a key role in the development of post-Kantian philosophy. Born in
Saxony, Fichte studied at Jena and Leipzig. The writings of Kant led him to
abandon metaphysical determinism and to embrace transcendental idealism as “the
first system of human freedom.” His first book, Versuch einer Kritik aller
Offenbarung (“Attempt at a Critique of all Revelations,” 1792), earned him a
reputation as a brilliant exponent of Kantianism, while his early political
writings secured him a reputation as a Jacobin. Inspired by Reinhold, Jacobi,
Maimon, and Schulze, Fichte rejected the “letter” of Kantianism and, in the
lectures and writings he produced at Jena (1794–99), advanced a new, rigorously
systematic presentation of what he took to be its Ferguson, Ad Fichte, Johann
Gottlieb 307 - 307 “spirit.” He dispensed with Kant’s things-inthemselves, the
original duality of faculties, and the distinction between the transcendental
aesthetic and the transcendental analytic. By emphasizing the unity of
theoretical and practical reason in a way consistent with “the primacy of
practical reason,” Fichte sought to establish the unity of the critical
philosophy as well as of human experience. In Ueber den Begriff der
Wissenschaftslehre (“On the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre,” 1794) he
explained his conception of philosophy as “the science of science,” to be
presented in a deductive system based on a self-evident first principle. The
basic “foundations” of this system, which Fichte called Wissenschaftslehre
(theory of science), were outlined in his Grundlage der gesten
Wissenschaftslehre (“Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre,” 1794–95)
and Grundriß der Eigentümlichen der Wissenschaftslehre in Rücksicht auf das
theoretische Vermögen (“Outline of the Distinctive Character of the
Wissenschaftslehre with respect to the Theoretical Faculty,” 1795) and then,
substantially revised, in his lectures on Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo
(1796–99). The “foundational” portion of the Wissenschaftslehrelinks our
affirmation of freedom to our experience of natural necessity. Beginning with
the former (“the I simply posits itself”), it then demonstrates how a freely
self-positing subject must be conscious not only of itself, but also of
“representations accompanied by a feeling of necessity” and hence of an
objective world. Fichte insisted that the essence of selfhood lies in an active
positing of its own self-identity and hence that self-consciousness is an
auto-productive activity: a Tathandlung or “fact/act.” However, the I can posit
itself only as limited; in order for the originally posited act of “sheer
self-positing” to occur, certain other mental acts must occur as well, acts
through which the I posits for itself an objective, spatiotemporal world, as
well as a moral realm of free, rational beings. The I first posits its own
limited condition in the form of “feeling” (occasioned by an inexplicable
Anstob or “check” upon its own practical striving), then as a “sensation,” then
as an “intuition” of a thing, and finally as a “concept.” The distinction
between the I and the not-I arises only in these reiterated acts of
self-positing, a complete description of which thus ounts to a “genetic
deduction” of the necessary conditions of experience. Freedom is thereby shown
to be possible only in the context of natural necessity, where it is limited
and finite. At the se time “our freedom is a theoretical determining principle
of our world.” Though it must posit its freedom “absolutely” – i.e.,
schlechthin or “for no reason” – a genuinely free agent can exist only as a
finite individual endlessly striving to overcome its own limits. After
establishing its “foundations,” Fichte extended his Wissenschaftslehre into
social and political philosophy and ethics. Subjectivity itself is essentially
intersubjective, inasmuch as one can be empirically conscious of oneself only
as one individual ong many and must thus posit the freedom of others in order
to posit one’s own freedom. But for this to occur, the freedom of each
individual must be limited; indeed, “the concept of right or justice (Recht) is
nothing other than the concept of the coexistence of the freedom of several
rational/sensuous beings.” The Grundlage des Naturrechts (“Foundations of
Natural Right,” 1796–97) exines how individual freedom must be externally
limited if a community of free individuals is to be possible, and demonstrates
that a just political order is a demand of reason itself, since “the concept of
justice or right is a condition of self-consciousness.” “Natural rights” are
thus entirely independent of moral duties. Unlike political philosophy, which
purely concerns the public realm, ethics, which is the subject of Das System
der Sittenlehre (“The System of Ethical Theory,” 1798), concerns the inner
realm of conscience. It views objects not as given to consciousness but as
produced by free action, and concerns not what is, but what ought to be. The
task of ethics is to indicate the particular duties that follow from the
general obligation to determine oneself freely (the categorical imperative).
Before Fichte could extend the Wissenschaftslehre into the philosophy of
religion, he was accused of atheism and forced to leave Jena. The celebrated
controversy over his alleged atheism (the Atheismusstreit) was provoked by
“Ueber den Grund unseres Glaubens in einer göttliche Weltregierung” (“On the
Basis of our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World,” 1798), in which he
sharply distinguished between philosophical and religious questions. While
defending our right to posit a “moral world order,” Fichte insisted that this
order does not require a personal deity or “moral lawgiver.” After moving to
Berlin, Fichte’s first concern was to rebut the charge of atheism and to reply
to the indictment of philosophy as “nihilism” advanced in Jacobi’s Open Letter
to Fichte (1799). This was the task of Die Bestimmung des Menschen (“The
Vocation of Man,” 1800). During the French occupation, he delivered Reden an
die deutsche Nation (“Addresses to the German Fichte, Johann Gottlieb Fichte,
Johann Gottlieb 308 - 308 Nation,” 1808), which proposed a progr of national
education and attempted to kindle German patriotism. The other publications of
his Berlin years include a foray into political economy, Der geschlossene
Handelstaat (“The Closed Commercial State,” 1800); a speculative interpretation
of human history, Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtiges Zeitalters (“The
Characteristics of the Present Age,” 1806); and a mystically tinged treatise on
salvation, Die Anweisung zum seligen Leben (“Guide to the Blessed Life,” 1806).
In unpublished private lectures he continued to develop radically new versions
of the Wissenschaftslehre. Fichte’s substantial influence was not limited to
his well-known influence on Schelling and Hegel (both of whom criticized the
“subjectivism” of the early Wissenschaftslehre). He is also important in the
history of German nationalism and profoundly influenced the early Romantics,
especially Novalis and Schlegel. Recent decades have seen renewed interest in
Fichte’s transcendental philosophy, expecially the later, unpublished versions
of the Wissenschaftslehre. This century’s most significant contribution to
Fichte studies, however, is the ongoing publication of the first critical
edition of his complete works. HEGEL,
IDEALISM, KANT. D.Br. Ficino, Marsilio (1433–99), Italian Neoplatonic
philosopher who played a leading role in the cultural life of Florence.
Ordained a priest in 1473, he hoped to draw people to Christ by means of
Platonism. It was through Ficino’s translation and commentaries that the works
of Plato first bece accessible to the Latin-speaking West, but the impact of
Plato’s work was considerably affected by Ficino’s other interests. He accepted
Neoplatonic interpretations of Plato, including those of Plotinus, whom he
translated; and he saw Plato as the heir of Hermes Trismegistus, a mythical
Egyptian sage and supposed author of the hermetic corpus, which he translated
early in his career. He embraced the notion of a prisca theologia, an ancient
wisdom that encapsulated philosophic and religious truth, was handed on to
Plato, and was later validated by the Christian revelation. The most popular of
his original works was Three Books on Life (1489), which contains the fullest
Renaissance exposition of a theory of magic, based mainly on Neoplatonic
sources. He postulated a living cosmos in which the World-Soul is linked to the
world-body by spirit. This relationship is mirrored in man, whose spirit (or
astral body) links his body and soul, and the resulting correspondence between
microcosm and macrocosm allows both man’s control of natural objects through
magic and his ascent to knowledge of God. Other popular works were his commentary
on Plato’s Symposium (1469), which presents a theory of Platonic love; and his
Platonic Theology (1474), in which he argues for the immortality of the
soul.
fiction, in the widest
usage, whatever contrasts with what is a matter of fact. As applied to works of
fiction, however, this is not the appropriate contrast. For a work of fiction,
such as a historical novel, might turn out to be true regarding its historical
subject, without ceasing to be fiction. The correct contrast of fiction is to
non-fiction. If a work of fiction might turn out to be true, how is ‘fiction’
best defined? According to some philosophers, such as Searle, the writer of
nonfiction performs illocutionary speech acts, such as asserting that
such-and-such occurred, whereas the writer of fiction characteristically only
pretends to perform these illocutionary acts. Others hold that the core idea to
which appeal should be made is that of making-believe or imagining certain
states of affairs. Kendall Walton (Mimesis as Make-Believe, 1990), for
instance, holds that a work of fiction is to be construed in terms of a prop
whose function is to serve in ges of make-believe. Both kinds of theory allow
for the possibility that a work of fiction might turn out to be true.
field theory, a theory
that proceeds by assigning values of physical quantities to the points of
space, or of space-time, and then lays down laws relating these values. For
exple, a field theory might suppose a value for matter density, or a
temperature for each space-time point, and then relate these values, usually in
terms of differential equations. In these exples there is at least the tacit
assumption of a physical substance that fills the relevant region of
space-time. But no such assumption need be made. For instance, in Ficino,
Marsilio field theory 309 - 309 Maxwell’s theory of the electromagnetic field,
each point of space-time carries a value for an electric and a magnetic field,
and these values are then governed by Maxwell’s equations. In general
relativity, the geometry (e.g., the curvature) of space-time is itself treated
as a field, with lawlike connections with the distribution of energy and
matter. Formulation in terms of a field theory resolves the problem of action
at a distance that so exercised Newton and his contemporaries. We often take
causal connection to require spatial contiguity. That is, for one entity to act
causally on another, the two entities need to be contiguous. But in Newton’s
description gravitational attraction acts across spatial distances. Similarly,
in electrostatics the mutual repulsion of electric charges is described as
acting across spatial distances. In the times of both Newton and Maxwell
numerous efforts to understand such action at a distance in terms of some
space-filling mediating substance produced no viable theory. Field theories
resolve the perplexity. By attributing values of physical quantities directly
to the space-time points one can describe gravitation, electrical and magnetic
forces, and other interactions without action at a distance or any intervening
physical medium. One describes the values of physical quantities, attributed
directly to the space-time points, as influencing only the values at
immediately neighboring points. In this way the influences propagate through
space-time, rather than act instantaneously across distances or through a
medium. Of course there is a metaphysical price: on such a description the
space-time points themselves take on the role of a kind of dematerialized
ether. Indeed, some have argued that the pervasive role of field theory in
contemporary physics and the need for space-time points for a field-theoretic
description constitute a strong argument for the existence of the space-time
points. This conclusion contradicts “relationalism,” which claims that there
are only spatiotemporal relations, but no space-time points or regions thought
of as particulars. Quantum field theory appears to take on a particularly
abstract form of field theory, since it associates a quantum mechanical
operator with each space-time point. However, since operators correspond to
physical magnitudes rather than to values of such magnitudes, it is better to
think of the field-theoretic aspect of quantum field theory in terms of the
quantum mechanical plitudes that it also associates with the space-time
points.
EINSTEIN, NEWTON,
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, QUANTUM MECHANICS, SPACETIME. P.Te. figure.SYLLOGISM.
figure–ground, the discrimination of an object or figure from the context or
background against which it is set. Even when a connected region is grouped
together properly, as in the fous figure that can be seen either as a pair of
faces or as a vase, it is possible to interpret the region alternately as
figure and as ground. This fact was originally elaborated in 1921 by Edgar Rubin
(1886– 1951). Figure–ground effects and the existence of other biguous figures
such as the Necker cube and the duck–rabbit challenged the prevailing
assumption in classical theories of perception – maintained, e.g., by J. S.
Mill and H. von Helmholtz – that complex perceptions could be understood in
terms of primitive sensations constituting them. The underdetermination of
perception by the visual stimulus, noted by Berkeley in his Essay of 1709,
takes account of the fact that the retinal image is impoverished with respect
to threedimensional information. Identical stimulation at the retina can result
from radically different distal sources. Within Gestalt psychology, the
Gestalt, or pattern, was recognized to be underdetermined by constituent parts available
in proximal stimuli. M. Wertheimer (1880–1943) observed in 1912 that apparent
motion could be induced by viewing a series of still pictures in rapid
succession. He concluded that perception of the whole, as involving movement,
was fundentally different from the perception of the static images of which it
is composed. W. Köhler An exple of visual reversal from Edgar Rubin: the object
depicted can be seen alternately as a vase or as a pair of faces. The reversal
occurs whether there is a black ground and white figure or white figure and
black ground. figure figure – ground 310 - 310 (1887–1967) observed that there
was no figure– ground articulation in the retinal image, and concluded that
inherently biguous stimuli required some autonomous selective principles of
perceptual organization. As subsequently developed by Gestalt psychologists,
form is taken as the primitive unit of perception. In philosophical treatments,
figure–ground effects are used to enforce the conclusion that interpretation is
central to perception, and that perceptions are no more than hypotheses based
on sensory data. KÖHLER, PERCEPTION.
R.C.R. Filmer, Robert (1588–1653), English political writer who produced, most
importantly, the posthumous Patriarcha (1680). It is remembered because Locke
attacked it in the first of his Two Treatises of Government (1690). Filmer
argued that God gave complete authority over the world to Ad, and that from him
it descended to his eldest son when he bece the head of the fily. Thereafter
only fathers directly descended from Ad could properly be rulers. Just as Ad’s
rule was not derived from the consent of his fily, so the king’s inherited
authority is not dependent on popular consent. He rightly makes laws and
imposes taxes at his own good pleasure, though like a good father he has the
welfare of his subjects in view. Filmer’s patriarchalism, intended to bolster
the absolute power of the king, is the classic English statement of the
doctrine.
ENTROPY. first limit
theorem.PROBABILITY. first mover.PRIME MOVER. firstness.PEIRCE.
first-order.ORDER. first-order logic.FORMAL LOGIC, ORDER, SECOND-ORDER LOGIC.
first philosophy, in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, the study of being qua being,
including the study of theology (as understood by him), since the divine is
being par excellence. Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy was concerned
chiefly with the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the nature
of matter and of the mind. METAPHYSICS.
P.Bu. first potentiality.ARISTOTLE. fitness.PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY. five
phases.WU-HSING. Five Ways.AQUINAS. Fludd, Robert (1574–1637), English
physician and writer. Influenced by Paracelsus, hermetism, and the cabala,
Fludd defended a Neoplatonic worldview on the eve of its supersession by the
new mechanistic philosophy. He produced improvements in the manufacture of
steel and invented a thermometer, though he also used magnets to cure disease
and devised a salve to be applied to a weapon to cure the wound it had
inflicted. He held that science got its ideas from Scripture allegorically
interpreted, when they were of any value. His works combine theology with an
occult, Neoplatonic reading of the Bible, and contain numerous fine diagrs
illustrating the mutual sympathy of human beings, the natural world, and the
supernatural world, each reflecting the others in parallel harmonic structures.
In controversy with Kepler, Fludd claimed to uncover essential natural processes
rooted in natural sympathies and the operation of God’s light, rather than
merely describing the external movements of the heavens. Creation is the
extension of divine light into matter. Evil arises from a darkness in God, his
failure to will. Matter is uncreated, but this poses no problem for orthodoxy,
since matter is nothing, a mere possibility without the least actuality, not
something Filmer, Robert Fludd, Robert 311 - 311 coeternal with the
Creator.
NEOPLATONISM. J.Lo.
fluxion.CALCULUS. flying arrow paradox.ZENO’S PARADOXES. focal
meaning.ARISTOTLE. Fodor, Jerry A. (b.1935), influential contemporary erican
philosopher of psychology, known for his energetic (and often witty) defense of
intensional realism, a computationalrepresentational model of thought, and an
atomistic, externalist theory of content determination for mental states.
Fodor’s philosophical writings fall under three headings. First, he has
defended the theory of mind implicit in contemporary cognitive psychology, that
the cognitive mind-brain is both a representational/computational device and,
ultimately, physical. He has taken on behaviorists (Ryle), psychologists in the
tradition of J. J. Gibson, and eliminative materialists (P. A. Churchland).
Second, he has engaged in various theoretical disputes within cognitive
psychology, arguing for the modularity of the perceptual and language systems
(roughly, the view that they are domain-specific, mandatory, limited-access,
innately specified, hardwired, and informationally encapsulated) (The
Modularity of Mind, 1983); for a strong form of nativism (that virtually all of
our concepts are innate); and for the existence of a “language of thought” (The
Language of Thought, 1975). The latter has led him to argue against
connectionism as a psychological theory (as opposed to an implementation
theory). Finally, he has defended the views of ordinary propositional attitude
psychology that our mental states (1) are semantically evaluable (intentional),
(2) have causal powers, and (3) are such that the implicit generalizations of
folk psychology are largely true of them. His defense is twofold. Folk
psychology is unsurpassed in explanatory power; furthermore, it is vindicated
by contemporary cognitive psychology insofar as ordinary propositional attitude
states can be identified with information-processing states, those that consist
in a computational relation to a representation. The representational component
of such states allows us to explain the semantic evaluability of the attitudes;
the computational component, their causal efficacy. Both sorts of accounts
raise difficulties. The first is satisfactory only if supplemented by a
naturalistic account of representational content. Here Fodor has argued for an
atomistic, externalist causal theory (Psychosemantics, 1987) and against holism
(the view that no mental representation has content unless many other
non-synonymous mental representations also have content) (Holism: A Shopper’s
Guide, 1992), against conceptual role theories (the view that the content of a
representation is determined by its conceptual role) (Ned Block, Brian Loar),
and against teleofunctional theories (teleofunctionalism is the view that the
content of a representation is determined, at least in part, by the biological
functions of the representations themselves or systems that produce or use
those representations) (Ruth Millikan, David Papineau). The second sort is
satisfactory only if it does not imply epiphenomenalism with respect to content
properties. To avoid such epiphenomenalism, Fodor has argued that not only
strict laws but also ceteris paribus laws can be causal. In addition, he has
sought to reconcile his externalism vis-à-vis content with the view that causal
efficacy requires an individualistic individuation of states. Two solutions
have been explored: the supplementation of broad (externally determined)
content with narrow content, where the latter supervenes on what is “in the
head” (Psychosemantics, 1987), and its supplementation with modes of
presentation identical to sentences of the language of thought (The Elm and the
Expert, 1995).
folk psychology, in one
sense, a putative network of principles constituting a commonsense theory that
allegedly underlies everyday explanations of human behavior; the theory assigns
a central role to mental states like belief, desire, and intention. Consider an
exple of an everyday commonsense psychological explanation: Jane went to the
refrigerator because she wanted a beer and she believed there was beer in the
refrigerator. Like many such explanations, this adverts to a so-called
propositional attitude – a mental state, expressed by a verb (‘believe’) plus a
that-clause, whose intentional content is propositional. It also adverts to a
mental state, expressed by a verb (‘want’) plus a direct-object phrase, whose
intentional content appears not to be propositional. In another, related sense,
folk psychology is a network of social practices that includes ascribing such
mental states to ourselves and others, and proffering explanations of human
behavior that advert to these states. The two senses need fluxion folk
psychology 312 - 312 distinguishing because some philosophers who acknowledge
the existence of folk psychology in the second sense hold that commonsense
psychological explanations do not employ empirical generalizations, and hence
that there is no such theory as folk psychology. (Henceforth, ‘FP’ will
abbreviate ‘folk psychology’ in the first sense; the unabbreviated phrase will
be used in the second sense.) Eliminativism in philosophy of mind asserts that
FP is an empirical theory; that FP is therefore subject to potential scientific
falsification; and that mature science very probably will establish that FP is
so radically false that humans simply do not undergo mental states like
beliefs, desires, and intentions. One kind of eliminativist argument first sets
forth certain methodological strictures about how FP would have to integrate
with mature science in order to be true (e.g., being smoothly reducible to
neuroscience, or being absorbed into mature cognitive science), and then
contends that these strictures are unlikely to be met. Another kind of argument
first claims that FP embodies certain strong empirical commitments (e.g., to
mental representations with languagelike syntactic structure), and then
contends that such empirical presuppositions are likely to turn out false. One
influential version of folk psychological realism largely agrees with
eliminativism about what is required to vindicate folk psychology, but also
holds that mature science is likely to provide such vindication. Realists of
this persuasion typically argue, for instance, that mature cognitive science
will very likely incorporate FP, and also will very likely treat beliefs,
desires, and other propositional attitudes as states with languagelike
syntactic structure. Other versions of folkpsychological realism take issue, in
one way or another, with either (i) the eliminativists’ claims about FP’s
empirical commitments, or (ii) the eliminativists’ strictures about how FP must
mesh with mature science in order to be true, or both. Concerning (i), for
instance, some philosophers maintain that FP per se is not committed to the
existence of languagelike mental representations. If mature cognitive science
turns out not to posit a “language of thought,” they contend, this would not
necessarily show that FP is radically false; instead it might only show that
propositional attitudes are subserved in some other way than via languagelike
representational structures. Concerning (ii), some philosophers hold that FP
can be true without being as tightly connected to mature scientific theories as
the eliminativists require. For instance, the demand that the special sciences
be smoothly reducible to the fundental natural sciences is widely considered an
excessively stringent criterion of intertheoretic compatibility; so perhaps FP
could be true without being smoothly reducible to neuroscience. Similarly, the
demand that FP be directly absorbable into empirical cognitive science is
sometimes considered too stringent as a criterion either of FP’s truth, or of
the soundness of its ontology of beliefs, desires, and other propositional
attitudes, or of the legitimacy of FP-based explanations of behavior. Perhaps
FP is a true theory, and explanatorily legitimate, even if it is not destined
to become a part of science. Even if FP’s ontological categories are not
scientific natural kinds, perhaps its generalizations are like generalizations
about clothing: true, explanatorily usable, and ontologically sound. (No one
doubts the existence of hats, coats, or scarves. No one doubts the truth or
explanatory utility of generalizations like ‘Coats made of heavy material tend
to keep the body warm in cold weather’, even though these generalizations are
not laws of any science.) Yet another approach to folk psychology, often wedded
to realism about beliefs and desires (although sometimes wedded to
instrumentalism), maintains that folk psychology does not employ empirical
generalizations, and hence is not a theory at all. One variant denies that folk
psychology employs any generalizations, empirical or otherwise. Another variant
concedes that there are folk-psychological generalizations, but denies that
they are empirical; instead they are held to be analytic truths, or norms of
rationality, or both at once. Advocates of non-theory views typically regard
folk psychology as a hermeneutic, or interpretive, enterprise. They often claim
too that the attribution of propositional attitudes, and also the proffering
and grasping of folk-psychological explanations, is a matter of imaginatively
projecting oneself into another person’s situation, and then experiencing a
kind of empathic understanding, or Verstehen, of the person’s actions and the
motives behind them. A more recent, hi-tech, formulation of this idea is that
the interpreter “runs a cognitive simulation” of the person whose actions are to
be explained. Philosophers who defend folk-psychological realism, in one or
another of the ways just canvassed, also sometimes employ arguments based on
the allegedly self-stultifying nature of eliminativism. One such argument
begins from the premise that the notion of action is folk-psychofolk psychology
folk psychology 313 - 313 logical – that a behavioral event counts as an action
only if it is caused by propositional attitudes that rationalize it (under some
suitable actdescription). If so, and if humans never really undergo
propositional attitudes, then they never really act either. In particular, they
never really assert anything, or argue for anything (since asserting and
arguing are species of action). So if eliminativism is true, the argument concludes,
then eliminativists can neither assert it nor argue for it – an allegedly
intolerable pragmatic paradox. Eliminativists generally react to such arguments
with breathtaking equanimity. A typical reply is that although our present
concept of action might well be folk-psychological, this does not preclude the
possibility of a future successor concept, purged of any commitment to beliefs
and desires, that could inherit much of the role of our current,
folk-psychologically tainted, concept of action. COGNITIVE SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND,
REDUCTION, SIMULATION THEORY. T.E.H. Fonseca, Pedro da (1528–99), Portuguese
philosopher and logician. He entered the Jesuit order in 1548. Apart from a
period (1572–82) in Rome, he lived in Portugal, teaching philosophy and
theology at the universities of Evora and Coimbra and performing various
administrative duties for his order. He was responsible for the idea of a
published course on Aristotelian philosophy, and the resulting series of
Coimbra commentaries, the Cursus Conimbricensis, was widely used in the
seventeenth century. His own logic text, the Institutes of Dialectic (1564),
went into many editions. It is a good exple of Renaissance Aristotelianism,
with its emphasis on Aristotle’s syllogistic, but it retains some material on
medieval developments, notably consequences, exponibles, and supposition
theory. Fonseca also wrote a commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics (published
in parts from 1577 on), which contains the Greek text, a corrected Latin
translation, comments on textual matters, and an extensive exploration of
selected philosophical problems. He cites a wide range of medieval
philosophers, both Christian and Arab, as well as the newly published Greek
commentators on Aristotle. His own position is sympathetic to Aquinas, but
generally independent. Fonseca is important not so much for any particular
doctrines, though he did hold original views on such matters as analogy, but
for his provision of fully documented, carefully written and carefully argued
books that, along with others in the se tradition, were read at universities,
both Catholic and Protestant, well into the seventeenth century. He represents
what is often called the Second Scholasticism. E.J.A. Fontenelle, Bernard Le
Bovier de (1657–1757), French writer who heralded the age of the philosophes. A
product of Jesuit education, he was a versatile freethinker with skeptical
inclinations. Dialogues of the Dead (1683) showed off his analytical mind and
elegant style. In 1699, he was appointed secretary of the Academy of Sciences.
He composed fous eulogies of scientists; defended the superiority of modern
science over tradition in Digression on Ancients and Moderns (1688);
popularized Copernican astronomy in Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds
(1686) – fous for postulating the inhabitation of planets; stigmatized
superstition and credulity in History of Oracles (1687) and The Origin of
Fables (1724); promoted Cartesian physics in The Theory of Cartesian Vortices
(1752); and wrote Elements of Infinitesimal Calculus (1727) in the wake of
Newton and Leibniz. J.-L.S. Foot, Philippa (b.1920), British philosopher who
exerted a lasting influence on the development of moral philosophy in the
second half of the twentieth century. Her persisting, intertwined themes are
opposition to all forms of subjectivism in ethics, the significance of the
virtues and vices, and the connection between morality and rationality. In her
earlier papers, particularly “Moral Beliefs” (1958) and “Goodness and Choice”
(1961), reprinted in Virtues and Vices (1978), she undermines the subjectivist
accounts of moral “judgment” derived from C. L. Stevenson and Hare by arguing
for many logical or conceptual connections between evaluations and the factual
statements on which they must be based. Lately she has developed this kind of
thought into the naturalistic claim that moral evaluations are determined by
facts about our life and our nature, as evaluations of features of plants and
animals (as good or defective specimens of their kind) are determined by facts
about their nature and their life. Foot’s opposition to subjectivism has
remained constant, but her views on the virtues in relation to rationality have
undergone several changes. In “Moral Beliefs” she relates them to
self-interest, maintaining that a virtue must benefit its possessor; in the
(subsequently repudiated) “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives”
(1972) she went as far as to deny that there was necessarily anything contrary
to reason in Fonseca, Pedro da Foot, Philippa 314 - 314 being uncharitable or
unjust. In “Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake?” (Oxford Journal of
Legal Studies, 1995) the virtues themselves appear as forms of practical
rationality. Her most recent work, soon to be published as The Grmar of
Goodness, preserves and develops the latter claim and reinstates ancient
connections between virtue, rationality, and happiness. ETHICS, HARE, VIRTUE ETHICS. R.Hu. force,
illocutionary.PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, SPEECH ACT THEORY. forcing, a method
introduced by Paul J. Cohen – see his Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis
(1966) – to prove independence results in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory (ZF).
Cohen proved the independence of the axiom of choice (AC) from ZF, and of the
continuum hypothesis (CH) from ZF ! AC. The consistency of AC with ZF and of CH
with ZF ! AC had previously been proved by Gödel by the method of constructible
sets. A model of ZF consists of layers, with the elements of a set at one layer
always belonging to lower layers. Starting with a model M, Cohen’s method
produces an “outer model” N with no more levels but with more sets at each
level (whereas Gödel’s method produces an ‘inner model’ L): much of what will
become true in N can be “forced” from within M. The method is applicable only
to hypotheses in the more “abstract” branches of mathematics (infinitary
combinatorics, general topology, measure theory, universal algebra, model
theory, etc.); but there it is ubiquitous. Applications include the proof by
Robert M. Solovay of the consistency of the measurability of all sets (of all
projective sets) with ZF (with ZF ! AC); also the proof by Solovay and Donald
A. Martin of the consistency of Martin’s axiom (MA) plus the negation of the
continuum hypothesis (-CH) with ZF ! AC. (CH implies MA; and of known
consequences of CH about half are implied by MA, about half refutable by MA !
-CH.) Numerous simplifications, extensions, and variants (e.g. Boolean-valued
models) of Cohen’s method have been introduced.
INDEPENDENCE RESULTS, SET THEORY. J.Bur.
Fordyce, David (1711–51),
Scottish philosopher and educational theorist whose writings were influential
in the eighteenth century. His lectures formed the basis of his Elements of
Moral Philosophy, written originally for The Preceptor (1748), later translated
into German and French, and abridged for the articles on moral philosophy in
the first Encylopaedia Britannica (1771). Fordyce combines the preacher’s
appeal to the heart in the advocacy of virtue with a moral “scientist’s”
appraisal of human psychology. He claims to derive our duties experimentally
from a study of the prerequisites of human happiness. M.A.St. foreknowledge,
divine.DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE. form, in metaphysics, especially Plato’s and
Aristotle’s, the structure or essence of a thing as contrasted with its matter.
(1) Plato’s theory of Forms is a realistic ontology of universals. In his
elenchus, Socrates sought what is common to, e.g., all chairs. Plato believed
there must be an essence – or Form – common to everything falling under one
concept, which makes anything what it is. A chair is a chair because it
“participates in” the Form of Chair. The Forms are ideal “patterns,”
unchanging, timeless, and perfect. They exist in a world of their own (cf. the
Kantian noumenal realm). Plato speaks of them as self-predicating: the Form of
Beauty is perfectly beautiful. This led, as he realized, to the Third Man
argument that there must be an infinite number of Forms. The only true
understanding is of the Forms. This we attain through annesis, “recollection.”
(2) Aristotle agreed that forms are closely tied to intelligibility, but denied
their separate existence. Aristotle explains change and generation through a
distinction between the form and matter of substances. A lump of bronze
(matter) becomes a statue through its being molded into a certain shape (form).
In his earlier metaphysics, Aristotle identified primary substance with the
composite of matter and form, e.g. Socrates. Later, he suggests that primary
substance is form – what makes Socrates what he is (the form here is his soul).
This notion of forms as essences has obvious similarities with the Platonic
view. They bece the “substantial forms” of Scholasticism, accepted until the
seventeenth century. (3) Kant saw form as the a priori aspect of experience. We
are presented with phenomenological “matter,” which has no meaning until the
mind imposes some form upon it.
ARISTOTLE, KANT, METAPHYSICS, PLATO. R.C. form, aesthetic.AESTHETIC
FORMALISM, AESTHETICS. force, illocutionary form, aesthetic 315 - 315 form,
grmatical.LOGICAL FORM. form, logical.LOGICAL FORM. form, Platonic.FORM, PLATO.
form, schematic.LOGICAL FORM. form, substantial.FORM, HYLOMORPHISM. formal
cause.ARISTOTLE. formal distinction.FUNDENTUM DIVISIONIS. formal fallacy, an
invalid inference pattern that is described in terms of a formal logic. There
are three main cases: (1) an invalid (or otherwise unacceptable) argument
identified solely by its form or structure, with no reference to the content of
the premises and conclusion (such as equivocation) or to other features,
generally of a pragmatic character, of the argumentative discourse (such as
unsuitability of the argument for the purposes for which it is given, failure
to satisfy inductive standards for acceptable argument, etc.; the latter
conditions of argument evaluation fall into the purview of informal fallacy);
(2) a formal rule of inference, or an argument form, that is not valid (in the
logical system on which the evaluation is made), instances of which are
sufficiently frequent, filiar, or deceptive to merit giving a ne to the rule or
form; and (3) an argument that is an instance of a fallacious rule of inference
or of a fallacious argument form and that is not itself valid. The criterion of
satisfactory argument typically taken as relevant in discussing formal
fallacies is validity. In this regard, it is important to observe that rules of
inference and argument forms that are not valid may have instances (which may
be another rule or argument form, or may be a specific argument) that are
valid. Thus, whereas the argument form (i) P, Q; therefore R (a form that every
argument, including every valid argument, consisting of two premises shares) is
not valid, the argument form (ii), obtained from (i) by substituting P&Q
for R, is a valid instance of (i): (ii) P, Q; therefore P&Q. Since (ii) is
not invalid, (ii) is not a formal fallacy though it is an instance of (i).
Thus, some instances of formally fallacious rules of inference or
argument-forms may be valid and therefore not be formal fallacies. Exples of
formal fallacies follow below, presented according to the system of logic
appropriate to the level of description of the fallacy. There are no standard
nes for some of the fallacies listed below. Fallacies of sentential (propositional)
logic. Affirming the consequent: If p then q; q / , p. ‘If Richard had his
nephews murdered, then Richard was an evil man; Richard was an evil man.
Therefore, Richard had his nephews murdered.’ Denying the antecedent: If p then
q; not-p / , not-q. ‘If North was found guilty by the courts, then North
committed the crimes charged of him; North was not found guilty by the courts.
Therefore, North did not commit the crimes charged of him.’ Commutation of
conditionals: If p then q / , If q then p. ‘If Reagan was a great leader, then
so was Thatcher. Therefore, if Thatcher was a great leader, then so was
Reagan.” Improper transposition: If p then q / , If not-p then not-q. ‘If the
nations of the Middle East disarm, there will be peace in the region. Therefore,
if the nations of the Middle East do not disarm, there will not be peace in the
region.’ Improper disjunctive syllogism (affirming one disjunct): p or q; p /
,, not-q. ‘Either John is an alderman or a ward committeeman; John is an
alderman. Therefore, John is not a ward committeeman.’ (This rule of inference
would be valid if ‘or’ were interpreted exclusively, where ‘p or EXq’ is true
if exactly one constituent is true and is false otherwise. In standard systems
of logic, however, ‘or’ is interpreted inclusively.) Fallacies of syllogistic
logic. Fallacies of distribution (where M is the middle term, P is the major
term, and S is the minor term). Undistributed middle term: the middle term is
not distributed in either premise (roughly, nothing is said of all members of
the class it designates), as in form, grmatical formal fallacy 316 - 316 Some P
are M ‘Some politicians are crooks. Some M are S Some crooks are thieves. ,Some
S are P. ,Some politicians are thieves.’ Illicit major (undistributed major term):
the major term is distributed in the conclusion but not in the major premise,
as in All M are P ‘All radicals are communists. No S are M No socialists are
radicals. ,Some S are ,Some socialists are not not P. communists.’ Illicit
minor (undistributed minor term): the minor term is distributed in the
conclusion but not in the minor premise, as in All P are M ‘All neo-Nazis are
radicals. All M are S All radicals are terrorists. ,All S are P. ,All
terrorists are neoNazis.’ Fallacies of negation. Two negative premises
(exclusive premises): the syllogism has two negative premises, as in No M are P
‘No racist is just. Some M are not S Some racists are not police. ,Some S are
not P. ,Some police are not just. Illicit negative/affirmative: the syllogism
has a negative premise (conclusion) but no negative conclusion (premise), as in
All M are P ‘All liars are deceivers. Some M are not S Some liars are not
aldermen. ,Some S are P. ,Some aldermen are deceivers.’ and All P are M ‘All
vpires are monsters. All M are S All monsters are creatures. ,Some S are not P.
,Some creatures are not vpires.’ Fallacy of existential import: the syllogism
has two universal premises and a particular conclusion, as in All P are M ‘All
horses are animals. No S are M No unicorns are animals. ,Some S are not P.
,Some unicorns are not horses.’ A syllogism can commit more than one fallacy.
For exple, the syllogism Some P are M Some M are S ,No S are P commits the
fallacies of undistributed middle, illicit minor, illicit major, and illicit negative/affirmative.
Fallacies of predicate logic. Illicit quantifier shift: inferring from a
universally quantified existential proposition to an existentially quantified
universal proposition, as in (Ex) (Dy) Fxy / , (Dy) (Ex) Fxy ‘Everyone is
irrational at some time (or other) /, At some time, everyone is irrational.’
Some are/some are not (unwarranted contrast): inferring from ‘Some S are P’
that ‘Some S are not P’ or inferring from ‘Some S are not P’ that ‘Some S are
P’, as in (Dx) (Sx & Px) / , (Dx) (Sx & -Px) ‘Some people are
left-handed / , Some people are not left-handed.’ Illicit substitution of
identicals: where f is an opaque (oblique) context and a and b are singular
terms, to infer from fa; a = b / , fb, as in ‘The Inspector believes Hyde is Hyde;
Hyde is Jekyll / , The Inspector believes Hyde is Jekyll.’ EXISTENTIAL IMPORT, LOGICAL FORM, MODAL
LOGIC, SYLLOGISM. W.K.W. formalism, the view that mathematics concerns
manipulations of symbols according to prescribed structural rules. It is cousin
to nominalism, the older and more general metaphysical view that denies the
existence of all abstract objects and is often contrasted with Platonism, which
takes mathematics to be the study of a special class of non-linguistic,
non-mental objects, and intuitionism, which takes it to be the study of certain
mental constructions. In sophisticated versions, mathematical activity can
comprise the study of possible formal manipulations within a system as well as
the manipulations themselves, and the “symbols” need not be regarded as either
linguistic or concrete. Formalism is often associated with the mathematician
formalism formalism 317 - 317 David Hilbert. But Hilbert held that the
“finitary” part of mathematics, including, for exple, simple truths of arithmetic,
describes indubitable facts about real objects and that the “ideal” objects
that feature elsewhere in mathematics are introduced to facilitate research
about the real objects. Hilbert’s formalism is the view that the foundations of
mathematics can be secured by proving the consistency of formal systems to
which mathematical theories are reduced. Gödel’s two incompleteness theorems
establish important limitations on the success of such a project.
formalization, an
abstract representation of a theory that must satisfy requirements sharper than
those imposed on the structure of theories by the axiomatic-deductive method.
That method can be traced back to Euclid’s Elements. The crucial additional
requirement is the regimentation of inferential steps in proofs: not only do
axioms have to be given in advance, but the rules representing argumentative
steps must also be taken from a predetermined list. To avoid a regress in the
definition of proof and to achieve intersubjectivity on a minimal basis, the
rules are to be “formal” or “mechanical” and must take into account only the
form of statements. Thus, to exclude any biguity, a precise and effectively
described language is needed to formalize particular theories. The general kind
of requirements was clear to Aristotle and explicit in Leibniz; but it was only
Frege who, in his Begriffsschrift (1879), presented, in addition to an
expressively rich language with relations and quantifiers, an adequate logical
calculus. Indeed, Frege’s calculus, when restricted to the language of
predicate logic, turned out to be semantically complete. He provided for the
first time the means to formalize mathematical proofs. Frege pursued a clear
philosophical aim, nely, to recognize the “epistemological nature” of theorems.
In the introduction to his Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (1893), Frege wrote: “By
insisting that the chains of inference do not have any gaps we succeed in
bringing to light every axiom, assumption, hypothesis or whatever else you want
to call it on which a proof rests; in this way we obtain a basis for judging
the epistemological nature of the theorem.” The Fregean fre was used in the
later development of mathematical logic, in particular, in proof theory. Gödel
established through his incompleteness theorems fundental limits of
formalizations of particular theories, like the system of Principia Mathematica
or axiomatic set theories. The general notion of formal theory emerged from the
subsequent investigations of Church and Turing clarifying the concept of ‘mechanical
procedure’ or ‘algorithm.’ Only then was it possible to state and prove the
incompleteness theorems for all formal theories satisfying certain very basic
representability and derivability conditions. Gödel emphasized repeatedly that
these results do not establish “any bounds for the powers of human reason, but
rather for the potentialities of pure formalism in mathematics.”
CHURCH’S THESIS, FREGE,
GÖDEL’S INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS, PROOF THEORY. W.S. formalize, narrowly
construed, to formulate a subject as a theory in first-order predicate logic;
broadly construed, to describe the essentials of the subject in some formal
language for which a notion of consequence is defined. For Hilbert, formalizing
mathematics requires at least that there be finite means of checking purported
proofs. FORMALIZATION, PROOF THEORY.
S.T.K. formal justice.JUSTICE. formal language, a language in which an
expression’s grmaticality and interpretation (if any) are determined by
precisely defined rules that appeal only to the form or shape of the symbols
that constitute it (rather than, for exple, to the intention of the speaker).
It is usually understood that the rules are finite and effective (so that there
is an algorithm for determining whether an expression is a formula) and that
the grmatical expressions are uniquely readable, i.e., they are generated by
the rules in only one way. A paradigm exple is the language of firstorder
predicate logic, deriving principally from the Begriffsschrift of Frege. The
grmatical formulas of this language can be delineated by an inductive
definition: (1) a capital letter ‘F’, ‘G’, or ‘H’, with or without a numerical
subscript, folformalism, aesthetic formal language 318 - 318 lowed by a string
of lowercase letters ‘a’, ‘b’, or ‘c’, with or without numerical subscripts, is
a formula; (2) if A is a formula, so is -A; (3) if A and B are formulas, so are
(A & B), (A P B), and (A 7 B); (4) if A is a formula and v is a lowercase
letter ‘x’, ‘y’, or ‘z’, with or without numerical subscripts, then DvA' and
EvA' are formulas where A' is obtained by replacing one or more occurrences of
some lowercase letter in A (together with its subscripts if any) by v; (5)
nothing is a formula unless it can be shown to be one by finitely many
applications of the clauses 1–4. The definition uses the device of
metalinguistic variables: clauses with ‘A’ and ‘B’ are to be regarded as
abbreviations of all the clauses that would result by replacing these letters
uniformly by nes of expressions. It also uses several ning conventions: a
string of symbols is ned by enclosing it within single quotes and also by
replacing each symbol in the string by its ne; the symbols ‘7’, ‘(‘,’)’,
‘&’, ‘P’, ‘-’ are considered nes of themselves. The interpretation of
predicate logic is spelled out by a similar inductive definition of truth in a
model. With appropriate conventions and stipulations, alternative definitions
of formulas can be given that make expressions like ‘(P 7 Q)’ the nes of
formulas rather than formulas themselves. On this approach, formulas need not
be written symbols at all and form cannot be identified with shape in any
narrow sense. For Tarski, Carnap, and others a formal language also included
rules of “transformation” specifying when one expression can be regarded as a
consequence of others. Today it is more common to view the language and its
consequence relation as distinct. Formal languages are often contrasted with
natural languages, like English or Swahili. Richard Montague, however, has
tried to show that English is itself a formal language, whose rules of grmar
and interpretation are similar to – though much more complex than – predicate
logic. FORMAL LOGIC. S.T.K. formal
learnability theory, the study of human language learning through explicit
formal models typically employing artifical languages and simplified learning
strategies. The fundental problem is how a learner is able to arrive at a grmar
of a language on the basis of a finite sple of presented sentences (and perhaps
other kinds of information as well). The seminal work is by E. Gold (1967), who
showed, roughly, that learnability of certain types of grmars from the Chomsky
hierarchy by an unbiased learner required the presentation of ungrmatical
strings, identified as such, along with grmatical strings. Recent studies have
concentrated on other types of grmar (e.g., generative transformational
grmars), modes of presentation, and assumptions about learning strategies in an
attempt to approximate the actual situation more closely. GRMAR. R.E.W. formal logic, the science of
correct reasoning, going back to Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, based upon the
premise that the validity of an argument is a function of its structure or
logical form. The modern embodiment of formal logic is symbolic (mathematical)
logic. This is the study of valid inference in artificial, precisely formulated
languages, the grmatical structure of whose sentences or well-formed formulas
is intended to mirror, or be a regimentation of, the logical forms of their
natural language counterparts. These formal languages can thus be viewed as
(mathematical) models of fragments of natural language. Like models generally,
these models are idealizations, typically leaving out of account such phenomena
as vagueness, biguity, and tense. But the idea underlying symbolic logic is
that to the extent that they reflect certain structural features of natural
language arguments, the study of valid inference in formal languages can yield
insight into the workings of those arguments. The standard course of study for
anyone interested in symbolic logic begins with the (classical) propositional
calculus (sentential calculus), or PC. Here one constructs a theory of valid
inference for a formal language built up from a stock of propositional
variables (sentence letters) and an expressively complete set of connectives.
In the propositional calculus, one is therefore concerned with arguments whose
validity turns upon the presence of (two-valued) truth-functional
sentence-forming operators on sentences such as (classical) negation,
conjunction, disjunction, and the like. The next step is the predicate calculus
(lower functional calculus, first-order logic, elementary quantification
theory), the study of valid inference in first-order languages. These are
languages built up from an expressively complete set of connectives,
first-order universal or existential quantifiers, individual variables, nes,
predicates (relational symbols), and perhaps function symbols. Further, and
more specialized, work in symbolic logic might involve looking at fragments of
the language of the propositional or predicate calculus, changing the semantics
that the language is standardly given (e.g., by allowing formal learnability
theory formal logic 319 - 319 truth-value gaps or more than two truth-values),
further embellishing the language (e.g., by adding modal or other
non-truth-functional connectives, or higher-order quantifiers), or liberalizing
the grmar or syntax of the language (e.g., by permitting infinitely long
well-formed formulas). In some of these cases, of course, symbolic logic
remains only marginally connected with natural language arguments as the
interest shades off into one in formal languages for their own sake, a mark of
the most advanced work being done in formal logic today. DEONTIC LOGIC, EPISTEMIC LOGIC, FREE LOGIC,
INFINITARY LOGIC, MANY-VALUED LOGIC, MATHEMATICAL INTUITIONISM, MODAL LOGIC,
RELEVANCE LOGIC, SECONDORDER LOGIC. G.F.S. formal mode.METALANGUAGE. formal
reality.REALITY. formal semantics, the study of the interpretations of formal
languages. A formal language can be defined apart from any interpretation of
it. This is done by specifying a set of its symbols and a set of formation
rules that determine which strings of symbols are grmatical or well formed.
When rules of inference (transformation rules) are added and/or certain
sentences are designated as axioms a logical system (also known as a logistic
system) is formed. An interpretation of a formal language is (roughly) an
assignment of meanings to its symbols and truth conditions to its sentences.
Typically a distinction is made between a standard interpretation of a formal
language and a non-standard interpretation. Consider a formal language in which
arithmetic is formulable. In addition to the symbols of logic (variables,
quantifiers, brackets, and connectives), this language will contain ‘0’, ‘!’,
‘•’, and ‘s’. A standard interpretation of it assigns the set of natural
numbers as the domain of discourse, zero to ‘0’, addition to ‘!’,
multiplication to ‘•’, and the successor function to ‘s’. Other standard
interpretations are isomorphic to the one just given. In particular, standard
interpretations are numeral-complete in that they correlate the numerals
one-to-one with the domain elements. A result due to Gödel and Rosser is that
there are universal quantifications (x)A(x) that are not deducible from the
Peano axioms (if those axioms are consistent) even though each A(n) is
provable. The Peano axioms (if consistent) are true on each standard
interpretation. Thus each A(n) is true on such an interpretation. Thus (x)A(x)
is true on such an interpretation since a standard interpretation is
numeral-complete. However, there are non-standard interpretations that do not
correlate the numerals one-to-one with domain elements. On some of these
interpretations each A(n) is true but (x)A(x) is false. In constructing and
interpreting a formal language we use a language already known to us, say,
English. English then becomes our metalanguage, which we use to talk about the
formal language, which is our object language. Theorems proven within the
object language must be distinguished from those proven in the metalanguage.
The latter are metatheorems. One goal of a semantical theory of a formal
language is to characterize the consequence relation as expressed in that
language and prove semantical metatheorems about that relation. A sentence S is
said to be a consequence of a set of sentences K provided S is true on every
interpretation on which each sentence in K is true. This notion has to be kept
distinct from the notion of deduction. The latter concept can be defined only
by reference to a logical system associated with a formal language.
Consequence, however, can be characterized independently of a logical system,
as was just done. DEDUCTION, LOGICAL
SYNTAX, METALANGUAGE, PROOF THEORY, TRANSFORMATION RULE. C.S. formal
sign.SEMIOSIS. formation rule.WELL-FORMED FORMULA. form of life.WITTGENSTEIN.
Forms, theory of.PLATO. formula.
WELL-FORMED FORMULA.
formula, closed.OPEN FORMULA, WELL-FORMED FORMULA. formula, open.OPEN FORMULA,
WELL-FORMED FORMULA. Foucault, Michel (1926–84), French philosopher and
historian of thought. Foucault’s earliest writings (e.g., Maladie mentale et
personnalité [“Mental Illness and Personality”], 1954) focused on psychology
and developed within the freworks of Marxism and existential phenomenology. He
soon moved beyond these freworks, in directions suggested by two fundental
influences: formal mode Foucault, Michel 320 - 320 history and philosophy of
science, as practiced by Bachelard and (especially) Canguilhem, and the
modernist literature of, e.g., Raymond Roussel, Bataille, and Maurice Blanchot.
In studies of psychiatry (Histoire de la folie [“History of Madness in the
Classical Age”], 1961), clinical medicine (The Birth of the Clinic, 1963), and
the social sciences (The Order of Things, 1966), Foucault developed an approach
to intellectual history, “the archaeology of knowledge,” that treated systems
of thought as “discursive formations” independent of the beliefs and intentions
of individual thinkers. Like Canguilhem’s history of science and like modernist
literature, Foucault’s archaeology displaced the human subject from the central
role it played in the humanism dominant in our culture since Kant. He reflected
on the historical and philosophical significance of his archaeological method
in The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). Foucault recognized that archaeology
provided no account of transitions from one system to another. Accordingly, he
introduced a “genealogical” approach, which does not replace archaeology but
goes beyond it to explain changes in systems of discourse by connecting them to
changes in the non-discursive practices of social power structures. Foucault’s
genealogy admitted the standard economic, social, and political causes but, in
a non-standard, Nietzschean vein, refused any unified teleological explanatory
scheme (e.g., Whig or Marxist histories). New systems of thought are seen as
contingent products of many small, unrelated causes, not fulfillments of grand
historical designs. Foucault’s geneaological studies emphasize the essential
connection of knowledge and power. Bodies of knowledge are not autonomous
intellectual structures that happen to be employed as Baconian instruments of
power. Rather, precisely as bodies of knowledge, they are tied (but not
reducible) to systems of social control. This essential connection of power and
knowledge reflects Foucault’s later view that power is not merely repressive
but a creative, if always dangerous, source of positive values. Discipline and
Punish (1975) showed how prisons constitute criminals as objects of
disciplinary knowledge. The first volume of the History of Sexuality (1976)
sketched a project for seeing how, through modern biological and psychological
sciences of sexuality, individuals are controlled by their own knowledge as
self-scrutinizing and self-forming subjects. The second volume was projected as
a study of the origins of the modern notion of a subject in practices of
Christian confession. Foucault wrote such a study (The Confessions of the
Flesh) but did not publish it because he decided that a proper understanding of
the Christian development required a comparison with ancient conceptions of the
ethical self. This led to two volumes (1984) on Greek and Roman sexuality: The
Use of Pleasure and The Care of the Self. These final writings make explicit
the ethical project that in fact informs all of Foucault’s work: the liberation
of human beings from contingent conceptual constraints masked as unsurpassable
a priori limits and the adumbration of alternative forms of existence.
BACHELARD, CANGUILHEM, NIETZSCHE. G.G.
foundationalism, the view that knowledge and epistemic (knowledge-relevant)
justification have a two-tier structure: some instances of knowledge and
justification are non-inferential, or foundational; and all other instances
thereof are inferential, or non-foundational, in that they derive ultimately
from foundational knowledge or justification. This structural view originates in
Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (at least regarding knowledge), receives an
extreme formulation in Descartes’s Meditations, and flourishes, with varying
details, in the works of such twentieth-century philosophers as Russell, C. I.
Lewis, and Chisholm. Versions of foundationalism differ on two main projects:
(a) the precise explanation of the nature of non-inferential, or foundational,
knowledge and justification, and (b) the specific explanation of how
foundational knowledge and justification can be transmitted to non-foundational
beliefs. Foundationalism allows for differences on these projects, since it is
essentially a view about the structure of knowledge and epistemic
justification. The question whether knowledge has foundations is essentially
the question whether the sort of justification pertinent to knowledge has a
twotier structure. Some philosophers have construed the former question as
asking whether knowledge depends on beliefs that are certain in some sense
(e.g., indubitable or infallible). This construal bears, however, on only one
species of foundationalism: radical foundationalism. Such foundationalism,
represented primarily by Descartes, requires that foundational beliefs be
certain and able to guarantee the certainty of the non-foundational beliefs
they support. Radical foundationalism is currently unpopular for two main
reasons. First, very few, if any, of our perceptual beliefs are certain (i.e.,
indubitable); and, second, those of our beliefs that might be
candifoundationalism foundationalism 321 - 321 dates for certainty (e.g., the
belief that I thinking) lack sufficient
substance to guarantee the certainty of our rich, highly inferential knowledge
of the external world (e.g., our knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology).
Contemporary foundationalists typically endorse modest foundationalism, the
view that non-inferentially justified, foundational beliefs need not possess or
provide certainty and need not deductively support justified non-foundational
beliefs. Foundational beliefs (or statements) are often called basic beliefs
(or statements), but the precise understanding of ‘basic’ here is controversial
ong foundationalists. Foundationalists agree, however, in their general
understanding of non-inferentially justified, foundational beliefs as beliefs
whose justification does not derive from other beliefs, although they leave
open whether the causal basis of foundational beliefs includes other beliefs.
(Epistemic justification comes in degrees, but for simplicity we can restrict
discussion to justification sufficient for satisfaction of the justification
condition for knowledge; we can also restrict discussion to what it takes for a
belief to have justification, omitting issues of what it takes to show that a
belief has it.) Three prominent accounts of non-inferential justification are
available to modest foundationalists: (a) self-justification, (b) justification
by non-belief, non-propositional experiences, and (c) justification by a
non-belief reliable origin of a belief. Proponents of self-justification
(including, at one time, Ducasse and Chisholm) contend that foundational
beliefs can justify themselves, with no evidential support elsewhere.
Proponents of foundational justification by non-belief experiences shun literal
self-justification; they hold, following C. I. Lewis, that foundational
perceptual beliefs can be justified by non-belief sensory or perceptual
experiences (e.g., seeming to see a dictionary) that make true, are best
explained by, or otherwise support, those beliefs (e.g., the belief that there
is, or at least appears to be, a dictionary here). Proponents of foundational
justification by reliable origins find the basis of non-inferential
justification in belief-forming processes (e.g., perception, memory, introspection)
that are truth-conducive, i.e., that tend to produce true rather than false
beliefs. This view thus appeals to the reliability of a belief’s nonbelief
origin, whereas the previous view appeals to the particular sensory or
perceptual experiences that correspond to (e.g., make true or are best
explained by) a foundational belief. Despite disagreements over the basis of
foundational justification, modest foundationalists typically agree that
foundational justification is characterized by defeasibility, i.e., can be
defeated, undermined, or overridden by a certain sort of expansion of one’s
evidence or justified beliefs. For instance, your belief that there is a blue
dictionary before you could lose its justification (e.g., the justification
from your current perceptual experiences) if you acquired new evidence that
there is a blue light shining on the dictionary before you. Foundational
justification, therefore, can vary over time if accompanied by relevant changes
in one’s perceptual evidence. It does not follow, however, that foundational
justification positively depends, i.e., is based, on grounds for denying that
there are defeaters. The relevant dependence can be regarded as negative in
that there need only be an absence of genuine defeaters. Critics of foundationalism
sometimes neglect that latter distinction regarding epistemic dependence. The
second big task for foundationalists is to explain how justification transmits
from foundational beliefs to inferentially justified, non-foundational beliefs.
Radical foundationalists insist, for such transmission, on entailment relations
that guarantee the truth or the certainty of nonfoundational beliefs. Modest
foundationalists are more flexible, allowing for merely probabilistic
inferential connections that transmit justification. For instance, a modest
foundationalist can appeal to explanatory inferential connections, as when a
foundational belief (e.g., I seem to feel wet) is best explained for a person
by a particular physical-object belief (e.g., the belief that the air
conditioner overhead is leaking on me). Various other forms of probabilistic
inference are available to modest foundationalists; and nothing in principle
requires that they restrict foundational beliefs to what one “seems” to sense
or to perceive. The traditional motivation for foundationalism comes largely
from an eliminative regress argument, outlined originally (regarding knowledge)
in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. The argument, in shortest form, is that
foundationalism is a correct account of the structure of justification since
the alternative accounts all fail. Inferential justification is justification
wherein one belief, B1, is justified on the basis of another belief, B2. How,
if at all, is B2, the supporting belief, itself justified? Obviously, Aristotle
suggests, we cannot have a circle here, where B2 is justified by B1; nor can we
allow the chain of support to extend endlessly, with no ultimate basis for
justification. We cannot, moreover, allow B2 to remain unjustified, foundationalism
foundationalism 322 - 322 lest it lack what it takes to support B1. If this is
right, the structure of justification does not involve circles, endless
regresses, or unjustified starter-beliefs. That is, this structure is evidently
foundationalist. This is, in skeletal form, the regress argument for
foundationalism. Given appropriate flesh, and due attention to skepticism about
justification, this argument poses a serious challenge to non-foundationalist
accounts of the structure of epistemic justification, such as epistemic
coherentism. More significantly, foundationalism will then show forth as one of
the most compelling accounts of the structure of knowledge and justification.
This explains, at least in part, why foundationalism has been very prominent
historically and is still widely held in contemporary epistemology. COHERENTISM, EPISTEMOLOGY, JUSTIFICATION.
P.K.M. foundation axiom.
SET THEORY. Four Books, a
group of Confucian texts including the Ta-hsüeh (Great Learning), Chung-Yung
(Doctrine of the Mean), Lun Yü (Analects), and Meng Tzu (Book of Mencius), the
latter two containing respectively the teachings of Confucius (sixth– fifth
century B.C.) and Mencius (fourth century B.C.), and the former two being
chapters from the Li-Chi (Book of Rites). Chu Hsi (1130–1200) selected the
texts as basic ones for Confucian education, and wrote influential commentaries
on them. The texts served as the basis of civil service exinations from 1313 to
1905; as a result, they exerted great influence both on the development of
Confucian thought and on Chinese life in general. K.-l.S. four
causes.ARISTOTLE. four elements.EMPEDOCLES. four humors.GALEN. Fourier,
François-Marie-Charles (1772–1837), French social theorist and radical critic,
often called a utopian socialist. His main works were The Theory of Universal
Unity (1822) and The New Industrial and Societal World (1829). He argued that
since each person has, not an integral soul but only a partial one, personal
integrity is possible only in unity with others. Fourier thought that all
existing societies were antagonistic. (Following Edenism, he believed societies
developed through stages of savagery, patriarchalism, barbarianism, and
civilization.) He believed this antagonism could be transcended only in
Harmony. It would be based on twelve kinds of passions. (Five were sensual,
four affective, and three distributive; and these in turn encouraged the
passion for unity.) The basic social unit would be a phalanx containing 300–
400 filies (about 1,600–1,800 people) of scientifically blended characters. As
a place of production but also of maximal satisfaction of the passions of every
member, Harmony should make labor attractive and pleasurable. The main
occupations of its members should be gastronomy, opera, and horticulture. It
should also establish a new world of love (a form of polygy) where men and
women would be equal in rights. Fourier believed that phalanxes would attract
members of all other social systems, even the less civilized, and bring about
this new world system. Fourier’s vision of cooperation (both in theory and
experimental practice) influenced some anarchists, syndicalists, and the
cooperationist movement. His radical social critique was important for the
development of political and social thought in France, Europe, and North
erica. POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. G.Fl.
fourth condition.EPISTEMOLOGY. fourth condition problem.EPISTEMOLOGY.
fre.COGNITIVE SCIENCE. Frankena, Willi K. (1908–94), erican moral philosopher
who wrote a series of influential articles and a text, Ethics (1963), which was
translated into eight languages and remains in use today. Frankena taught at
the University of Michigan (1937–78), where he and his colleagues Charles
Stevenson (1908–79), a leading noncognitivist, and Richard Brandt, an important
ethical naturalist, formed for many years one of the most formidable faculties
in moral philosophy in the world. Frankena was known for analytical rigor and
sharp insight, qualities already evident in his first essay, “The Naturalistic
Fallacy” (1939), which refuted Moore’s influential claim that ethical
naturalism (or any other reductionist ethical theory) could be convicted of
logical error. At best, Frankena showed, reductionists could be said to
conflate or misidentify ethical properties with properties of some other kind.
Even put this way, such assertions were question-begging, Frankena argued.
Where Moore claimed to see propfoundation axiom Frankena, Willi K. 323 - 323
erties of two different kinds, naturalists and other reductionists claimed to
be able to see only one. Many of Frankena’s most important papers concerned
similarly fundental issues about value and normative judgment. “Obligation and
Motivation in Recent Moral Philosophy” (1958), for exple, is a classic
treatment of the debate between internalism, which holds that motivation is
essential to obligation or to the belief or perception that one is obligated,
and externalism, which holds that motivation is only contingently related to
these. In addition to metaethics, Frankena’s published works ranged broadly
over normative ethical theory, virtue ethics, moral psychology, religious
ethics, moral education, and the philosophy of education. Although relatively
few of his works were devoted exclusively to the area, Frankena was also known as
the preeminent historian of ethics of his day. More usually, Frankena used the
history of ethics as a frework within which to discuss issues of perennial
interest. It was, however, for Ethics, one of the most widely used and
frequently cited philosophical ethics textbooks of the twentieth century, that
Frankena was perhaps best known. Ethics continues to provide an unparalleled
introduction to the subject, as useful in a first undergraduate course as it is
to graduate students and professional philosophers looking for perspicuous ways
to fre issues and categorize alternative solutions. For exple, when in the
1970s philosophers ce to systematically investigate normative ethical theories,
it was Frankena’s distinction in Ethics between deontological and teleological
theories to which they referred.
Frankfurt School, a group
of philosophers, cultural critics, and social scientists associated with the
Institute for Social Research, which was founded in Frankfurt in 1929. Its
prominent members included, ong others, the philosophers Horkheimer, Adorno,
and Marcuse, as well as the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1900–80) and the
literary critic Walter Benjin (1892– 1940). Habermas is the leading representative
of its second generation. The Frankfurt School is less known for particular
theories or doctrines than for its progr of a “critical theory of society.”
Critical theory represents a sophisticated effort to continue Marx’s
transformation of moral philosophy into social and political critique, while
rejecting orthodox Marxism as a dogma. Critical theory is primarily a way of
doing philosophy, integrating the normative aspects of philosophical reflection
with the explanatory achievements of the social sciences. The ultimate goal of
its progr is to link theory and practice, to provide insight, and to empower
subjects to change their oppressive circumstances and achieve human
emancipation, a rational society that satisfies human needs and powers. The first
generation of the Frankfurt School went through three phases of development.
The first, lasting from the beginning of the Institute until the end of the
1930s, can be called “interdisciplinary historical materialism” and is best
represented in Horkheimer’s progrmatic writings. Horkheimer argued that a
revised version of historical materialism could organize the results of social
research and give it a critical perspective. The second, “critical theory”
phase saw the abandonment of Marxism for a more generalized notion of critique.
However, with the near-victory of the Nazis in the early 1940s, Horkheimer and
Adorno entered the third phase of the School, “the critique of instrumental
reason.” In their Dialectic of Enlightenment (1941) as well as in Marcuse’s One
Dimensional Man (1964), the process of instrumentally dominating nature leads
to dehumanization and the domination of human beings. In their writings after
World War II, Adorno and Horkheimer bece increasingly pessimistic, seeing
around them a “totally administered society” and a manipulated, commodity
culture. Horkheimer’s most important essays are from the first phase and focus
on the relation of philosophy and social science. Besides providing a clear
definition and progr for critical social science, he proposes that the
normative orientation of philosophy should be combined with the empirical
research in the social sciences. This metaphilosophical orientation
distinguishes a “critical,” as opposed to “traditional,” theory. For exple,
such a progr demands rethinking the relation of epistemology to the sociology
of science. A critical theory seeks to show how the norm of truth is historical
and practical, without falling into the skepticism or relativism of traditional
sociologies of knowledge such as Mannheim’s. Adorno’s major writings belong
primarily to the second and third phases of the development of the Frankfurt
School. As the possibilities for criticism appeared to him increasingly narrow,
Adorno sought to discover them in aesthetic experience and the mimetic relation
to nature. Adorno’s approach was motivated by his view Frankfurt School
Frankfurt School 324 - 324 that modern society is a “false totality.” His
diagnosis of the causes traced this trend back to the spread of a one-sided,
instrumental reason, based on the domination of nature and other human beings.
For this reason, he sought a noninstrumental and non-dominating relation to
nature and to others, and found it in diverse and fragmentary experiences.
Primarily, it is art that preserves this possibility in contemporary society,
since in art there is a possibility of mimesis, or the “non-identical” relation
to the object. Adorno’s influential attempt to avoid “the logic of identity”
gives his posthumous Aesthetic Theory (1970) and other later works a
paradoxical character. It was in reaction to the third phase that the second
generation of the Frankfurt School recast the idea of a critical theory.
Habermas argued for a new emphasis on normative foundations as well as a return
to an interdisciplinary research progr in the social sciences. After first
developing such a foundation in a theory of cognitive interests (technical,
practical, and emancipatory), Habermas turned to a theory of the unavoidable
presuppositions of communicative action and an ethics of discourse. The
potential for emancipatory change lies in communicative, or discursive,
rationality and practices that embody it, such as the democratic public sphere.
Habermas’s analysis of communication seeks to provide norms for non-dominating
relations to others and a broader notion of reason.
free logic, a system of
quantification theory, with or without identity, that allows for non-denoting
singular terms. In classical quantification theory, all singular terms (free
variables and individual constants) are assigned a denotation in all models.
But this condition appears counterintuitive when such systems are applied to
natural language, where many singular terms seem to be non-denoting (‘Pegasus’,
‘Sherlock Holmes’, and the like). Various solutions of this problem have been
proposed, ranging from Frege’s chosen object theory (assign an arbitrary
denotation to each non-denoting singular term) to Russell’s description theory
(deny singular term status to most expressions used as such in natural
language, and eliminate them from the “logical form” of that language) to a
weakening of the quantifiers’ “existential import,” which allows for
denotations to be possible, but not necessarily actual, objects. All these
solutions preserve the structure of classical quantification theory and make
adjustments at the level of application. Free logic is a more radical solution:
it allows for legitimate singular terms to be denotationless, maintains the
quantifiers’ existential import, but modifies both the proof theory and the
semantics of first-order logic. Within proof theory, the main modification
consists of eliminating the rule of existential generalization, which allows
one to infer ‘There exists a flying horse’ from ‘Pegasus is a flying horse’.
Within semantics, the main problem is giving truth conditions for sentences
containing non-denoting singular terms, and there are various ways of
accomplishing this. Conventional semantics assigns truth-values to atomic
sentences containing non-denoting singular terms by convention, and then
determines the truth-values of complex sentences as usual. Outer domain
semantics divides the domain of interpretation into an inner and an outer part,
using the inner part as the range of quantifiers and the outer part to provide
for “denotations” for non-denoting singular terms (which are then not literally
denotationless, but rather left without an existing denotation).
Supervaluational semantics, when considering a sentence A, assigns all possible
combinations of truth-values to the atomic components of A containing
non-denoting singular terms, evaluates A on the basis of each of those
combinations, and then assigns to A the logical product of all such
evaluations. (Thus both ‘Pegasus flies’ and ‘Pegasus does not fly’ turn out
truth-valueless, but ‘Pegasus flies or Pegasus does not fly’ turns out true
since whatever truth-value is assigned to its atomic component ‘Pegasus flies’
the truth-value for the whole sentence is true.) A free logic is inclusive if
it allows for the possibility that the range of quantifiers be empty (that
there exists nothing at all); it is exclusive otherwise. FORMAL SEMANTICS, PROOF THEORY, QUANTIFICATION.
E.Ben. Frankfurt-style case free logic 325 - 325 free rider, a person who
benefits from a social arrangement without bearing an appropriate share of the
burdens of maintaining that arrangement, e.g. one who benefits from government
services without paying one’s taxes that support them. The arrangements from
which a free rider benefits may be either formal or informal. Cooperative
arrangements that permit free riders are likely to be unstable; parties to the
arrangement are unlikely to continue to bear the burdens of maintaining it if
others are able to benefit without doing their part. As a result, it is common
for cooperative arrangements to include mechanisms to discourage free riders,
e.g. legal punishment, or in cases of informal conventions the mere disapproval
of one’s peers. It is a matter of some controversy as to whether it is always
morally wrong to benefit from an arrangement without contributing to its
maintenance. JUSTICE, SOCIAL CHOICE
THEORY, UTILITARIANISM. W.T. free variable.VARIABLE. free will
defense.PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. free will problem, the problem of the nature of
free agency and its relation to the origins and conditions of responsible
behavior. For those who contrast ‘free’ with ‘determined’, a central question
is whether humans are free in what they do or determined by external events
beyond their control. A related concern is whether an agent’s responsibility
for an action requires that the agent, the act, or the relevant decision be
free. This, in turn, directs attention to action, motivation, deliberation,
choice, and intention, and to the exact sense, if any, in which our actions are
under our control. Use of ‘free will’ is a matter of traditional nomenclature;
it is debated whether freedom is properly ascribed to the will or the agent, or
to actions, choices, deliberations, etc. Controversy over conditions of
responsible behavior forms the predominant historical and conceptual background
of the free will problem. Most who ascribe moral responsibility acknowledge
some sense in which agents must be free in acting as they do; we are not
responsible for what we were forced to do or were unable to avoid no matter how
hard we tried. But there are differing accounts of moral responsibility and
disagreements about the nature and extent of such practical freedom (a notion also
important in Kant). Accordingly, the free will problem centers on these
questions: Does moral responsibility require any sort of practical freedom? If
so, what sort? Are people practically free? Is practical freedom consistent
with the antecedent determination of actions, thoughts, and character? There is
vivid debate about this last question. Consider a woman deliberating about whom
to vote for. From her first-person perspective, she feels free to vote for any
candidate and is convinced that the selection is up to her regardless of prior
influences. But viewing her eventual behavior as a segment of larger natural
and historical processes, many would argue that there are underlying causes
determining her choice. With this contrast of intuitions, any attempt to decide
whether the voter is free depends on the precise meanings associated with terms
like ‘free’, ‘determine’, and ‘up to her’. One thing (event, situation)
determines another if the latter is a consequence of it, or necessitated by it,
e.g., the voter’s hand movements by her intention. As usually understood,
determinism holds that whatever happens is determined by antecedent conditions,
where determination is standardly conceived as causation by antecedent events
and circumstances. So construed, determinism implies that at any time the
future is already fixed and unique, with no possibility of alternative
development. Logical versions of determinism declare each future event to be
determined by what is already true, specifically, by the truth that it will
occur then. Typical theological variants accept the predestination of all
circumstances and events inasmuch as a divine being knows in advance (or even
from eternity) that they will obtain. Two elements are common to most
interpretations of ‘free’. First, freedom requires an absence of determination
or certain sorts of determination, and second, one acts and chooses freely only
if these endeavors are, properly speaking, one’s own. From here, accounts
diverge. Some take freedom (liberty) of indifference or the contingency of
alternative courses of action to be critical. Thus, for the woman deliberating
about which candidate to select, each choice is an open alternative inasmuch as
it is possible but not yet necessitated. Indifference is also construed as
motivational equilibrium, a condition some find essential to the idea that a
free choice must be rational. Others focus on freedom (liberty) of spontaneity,
where the voter is free if she votes as she chooses or desires, a reading that
reflects the popular equation of freedom with “doing what you want.” Associated
with both analyses is a third by which the woman acts freely if she exercises
her control, implying responsiveness to free rider free will problem 326 - 326
intent as well as both abilities to perform an act and to refrain. A fourth
view identifies freedom with autonomy, the voter being autonomous to the extent
that her selection is self-determined, e.g., by her character, deeper self,
higher values, or informed reason. Though distinct, these conceptions are not
incompatible, and many accounts of practical freedom include elements of each.
Determinism poses problems if practical freedom requires contingency (alternate
possibilities of action). Incompatibilism maintains that determinism precludes
freedom, though incompatibilists differ whether everything is determined. Those
who accept determinism thereby endorse hard determinism (associated with
eighteenthcentury thinkers like d’Holbach and, recently, certain behaviorists),
according to which freedom is an illusion since behavior is brought about by
environmental and genetic factors. Some hard determinists also deny the
existence of moral responsibility. At the opposite extreme, metaphysical
libertarianism asserts that people are free and responsible and, a fortiori,
that the past does not determine a unique future – a position some find
enhanced by developments in quantum physics. ong adherents of this sort of
incompatibilism are those who advocate a freedom of indifference by describing
responsible choices as those that are undetermined by antecedent circumstances
(Epicureans). To rebut the charge that choices, so construed, are random and
not really one’s “own,” it has been suggested that several elements, including
an agent’s reasons, delimit the range of possibilities and influence choices
without necessitating them (a view held by Leibniz and, recently, by Robert
Kane). Libertarians who espouse agency causation, on the other hand, blend
contingency with autonomy in characterizing a free choice as one that is
determined by the agent who, in turn, is not caused to make it (a view found in
Carneades and Reid). Unwilling to abandon practical freedom yet unable to
understand how a lack of determination could be either necessary or desirable
for responsibility, many philosophers take practical freedom and responsibility
to be consistent with determinism, thereby endorsing compatibilism. Those who
also accept determinism advocate what Jes called soft determinism. Its
supporters include some who identify freedom with autonomy (the Stoics,
Spinoza) and others who chpion freedom of spontaneity (Hobbes, Locke, Hume).
The latter speak of liberty as the power of doing or refraining from an action
according to what one wills, so that by choosing otherwise one would have done
otherwise. An agent fails to have liberty when constrained, that is, when
either prevented from acting as one chooses or compelled to act in a manner
contrary to what one wills. Extending this model, liberty is also diminished
when one is caused to act in a way one would not otherwise prefer, either to
avoid a greater danger (coercion) or because there is deliberate interference
with the envisioning of alternatives (manipulation). Compatibilists have shown
considerable ingenuity in responding to criticisms that they have ignored
freedom of choice or the need for open alternatives. Some apply the
spontaneity, control, or autonomy models to decisions, so that the voter
chooses freely if her decision accords with her desires, is under her control,
or conforms to her higher values, deeper character, or informed reason. Others
challenge the idea that responsibility requires alternative possibilities of
action. The so-called Frankfurt-style cases (developed by Harry G. Frankfurt)
are situations where an agent acts in accord with his desires and choices, but
because of the presence of a counterfactual intervener – a mechanism that would
have prevented the agent from doing any alternative action had he shown signs
of acting differently – the agent could not have done otherwise. Frankfurt’s
intuition is that the agent is as responsible as he would have been if there
were no intervener, and thus that responsible action does not require
alternative possibilities. Critics have challenged the details of the Frankfurt-style
cases in attempting to undermine the appeal of the intuition. A different
compatibilist tactic recognizes the need for open alternatives and employs
versions of the indifference model in describing practical freedom. Choices are
free if they are contingent relative to certain subsets of circumstances, e.g.
those the agent is or claims to be cognizant of, with the openness of
alternatives grounded in what one can choose “for all one knows.” Opponents of
compatibilism charge that since these refinements leave agents subject to
external determination, even by hidden controllers, compatibilism continues to
face an insurmountable challenge. Their objections are sometimes summarized by
the consequence argument (so called by Peter van Inwagen, who has prominently
defended it): if everything were determined by factors beyond one’s control,
then one’s acts, choices, and character would also be beyond one’s control, and
consequently, agents would never be free and there would be nothing free will
problem free will problem 327 - 327 for which they are responsible. Such
reasoning usually employs principles asserting the closure of the practical
modalities (ability, control, avoidability, inevitability, etc.) under
consequence relations. However, there is a reason to suppose that the sort of
ability and control required by responsibility involve the agent’s sense of
what can be accomplished. Since cognitive states are typically not closed under
consequence, the closure principles underlying the consequence argument are
disputable.
Frege, Gottlob
(1848–1925), German mathematician and philosopher. A founder of modern
mathematical logic, an advocate of logicism, and a major source of
twentieth-century analytic philosophy, he directly influenced Russell,
Wittgenstein, and Carnap. Frege’s distinction between the sense and the
reference of linguistic expressions continues to be debated. His first
publication in logic was his strikingly original 1879 Begriffsschrift
(Concept-notation). Here he devised a formal language whose central innovation
is the quantifier-variable notation to express generality; he set forth in this
language a version of second-order quantificational logic that he used to
develop a logical definition of the ancestral of a relation. Frege invented his
Begriffsschrift in order to circumvent drawbacks of the use of colloquial
language to state proofs. Colloquial language is irregular, unperspicuous, and biguous
in its expression of logical relationships. Moreover, logically crucial
features of the content of statements may remain tacit and unspoken. It is thus
impossible to determine exhaustively the premises on which the conclusion of
any proof conducted within ordinary language depends. Frege’s Begriffsschrift
is to force the explicit statement of the logically relevant features of any
assertion. Proofs in the system are limited to what can be obtained from a body
of evidently true logical axioms by means of a small number of truth-preserving
notational manipulations (inference rules). Here is the first hallmark of
Frege’s view of logic: his formulation of logic as a formal system and the
ideal of explicitness and rigor that this presentation subserves. Although the
formal exactitude with which he formulates logic makes possible the
metathematical investigation of formalized theories, he showed almost no
interest in metathematical questions. He intended the Begriffsschrift to be
used. How though does Frege conceive of the subject matter of logic? His
orientation in logic is shaped by his anti-psychologism, his conviction that
psychology has nothing to do with logic. He took his notation to be a
full-fledged language in its own right. The logical axioms do not mention
objects or properties whose investigation pertains to some special science; and
Frege’s quantifiers are unrestricted. Laws of logic are, as he says, the laws
of truth, and these are the most general truths. He envisioned the
supplementation of the logical vocabulary of the Begriffsschrift with the basic
vocabulary of the special sciences. In this way the Begriffsschrift affords a
frework for the completely rigorous deductive development of any science
whatsoever. This resolutely nonpsychological universalist view of logic as the
most general science is the second hallmark of Frege’s view of logic. This
universalist view distinguishes his approach sharply from the coeval algebra of
logic approach of George Boole and Ernst Schröder. Wittgenstein, both in the
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) and in later writings, is very critical
of Frege’s universalist view. Logical positivism – most notably Carnap in The
Logical Syntax of Language (1934) – rejected it as well. Frege’s universalist
view is also distinct from more contemporary views. With his view of
quantifiers as intrinsically unrestricted, he saw little point in talking of
varying interpretations of a language, believing that such talk is a confused
way of getting at what is properly said by means of second-order
generalizations. In particular, the semantical conception of logical
consequences that becomes prominent in logic after Kurt Gödel’s and Tarski’s
work is foreign to Frege. Frege’s work in logic was prompted by an inquiry
after the ultimate foundation for arithmetic truths. He criticized J. S. Mill’s
empiricist attempt to ground knowledge of the arithmetic of the positive
integers inductively in our manipulations of small collections of things. He
also rejected crudely formalist views that take pure mathematics to be a sort
of notational ge. In contrast to these views and Kant’s, he hoped to use his
Begriffsschrift to define explicitly the basic notions of arithmetic in logical
terms and to deduce the basic principles of arithmetic from logical axioms and
these definitions. The explicitness and rigor of his formulation of logic will
guarantee that there are no implicit extralogical premises on which the
arithmetical conclusions depend. Such proofs, he believed, would show
arithmetic to be analytic, not synthetic as Kant had claimed. However, Frege
redefined ‘analytic’ to mean ‘provable from Frege, Gottlob Frege, Gottlob 328 -
328 logical laws’ (in his rather un-Kantian sense of ‘logic’) and definitions.
Frege’s strategy for these proofs rests on an analysis of the concept of
cardinal number that he presented in his nontechnical 1884 book, The
Foundations of Arithmetic. Frege, attending to the use of numerals in
statements like ‘Mars has two moons’, argued that it contains an assertion about
a concept, that it asserts that there are exactly two things falling under the
concept ‘Martian moon’. He also noted that both numerals in these statements
and those of pure arithmetic play the logical role of singular terms, his
proper nes. He concluded that numbers are objects so that a definition of the
concept of number must then specify what objects numbers are. He observed that
(1) the number of F % the number of G just in case there is a one-to-one
correspondence between the objects that are F and those that are G. The
right-hand side of (1) is statable in purely logical terms. As Frege
recognized, thanks to the definition of the ancestral of a relation, (1)
suffices in the second-order setting of the Begriffsschrift for the derivation
of elementary arithmetic. The vindication of his logicism requires, however,
the logical definition of the expression ‘the number of’. He sharply criticized
the use in mathematics of any notion of set or collection that views a set as
built up from its elements. However, he assumed that, corresponding to each
concept, there is an object, the extension of the concept. He took the notion
of an extension to be a logical one, although one to which the notion of a
concept is prior. He adopted as a fundental logical principle the ill-fated
biconditional: the extension of F % the extension of G just in case every F is
G, and vice versa. If this principle were valid, he could exploit the
equivalence relation over concepts that figures in the right-hand side of (1)
to identify the number of F with a certain extension and thus obtain (1) as a
theorem. In The Basic Laws of Arithmetic (vol. 1, 1893; vol. 2, 1903) he
formalized putative proofs of basic arithmetical laws within a modified version
of the Begriffsschrift that included a generalization of the law of extensions.
However, Frege’s law of extensions, in the context of his logic, is
inconsistent, leading to Russell’s paradox, as Russell communicated to Frege in
1902. Frege’s attempt to establish logicism was thus, on its own terms,
unsuccessful. In Begriffsschrift Frege rejected the thesis that every
uncompound sentence is logically segmented into a subject and a predicate.
Subsequently, he said that his approach in logic was distinctive in starting
not from the synthesis of concepts into judgments, but with the notion of truth
and that to which this notion is applicable, the judgeable contents or thoughts
that are expressed by statements. Although he said that truth is the goal of
logic, he did not think that we have a grasp of the notion of truth that is
independent of logic. He eschewed a correspondence theory of truth, embracing
instead a redundancy view of the truth-predicate. For Frege, to call truth the
goal of logic points toward logic’s concern with inference, with the recognition-of-thetruth
(judging) of one thought on the basis of the recognition-of-the-truth of
another. This recognition-of-the-truth-of is not verbally expressed by a
predicate, but rather in the assertive force with which a sentence is uttered.
The starting point for logic is then reflection on elementary inference
patterns that analyze thoughts and reveal a logical segmentation in language.
This starting point, and the fusion of logical and ontological categories it
engenders, is arguably what Frege is pointing toward by his enigmatic context
principle in Foundations: only in the context of a sentence does a word have a
meaning. He views sentences as having a function-argument segmentation like
that manifest in the terms of arithmetic, e.g., (3 $ 4) ! 2. Truth-functional
inference patterns, like modus ponens, isolate sentences as logical units in
compound sentences. Leibniz’s law – the substitution of one ne for another in a
sentence on the basis of an equation – isolates proper nes. Proper nes
designate objects. Predicates, obtainable by removing proper nes from
sentences, designate concepts. The removal of a predicate from a sentence
leaves a higher level predicate that signifies a second-level concept under
which first-level concepts fall. An exple is the universal quantifier over
objects: it designates a second-level concept under which a first-level concept
falls, if every object falls under it. Frege takes each first-level concept to
be determinately true or false of each object. Vague predicates, like ‘is
bald’, thus fail to signify concepts. This requirement of concept determinacy
is a product of Frege’s construal of quantification over objects as
intrinsically unrestricted. Thus, concept determinacy is simply a form of the
law of the excluded middle: for any concept F and any object x, either x is F
or x is not F. Frege elaborates and modifies his basic logical ideas in three
seminal papers from 1891–92, “Function and Concept,” “On Concept and Frege,
Gottlob Frege, Gottlob 329 - 329 Object,” and “On Sense and Meaning.” In
“Function and Concept,” Frege sharpens his conception of the function-argument
structure of language. He introduces the two truth-values, the True and the
False, and maintains that sentences are proper nes of these objects. Concepts become
functions that map objects to either the True or the False. The
course-of-values of a function is introduced as a generalization of the notion
of an extension. Generally then, an object is anything that might be designated
by a proper ne. There is nothing more basic to be said by way of elucidating
what an object is. Similarly, first-level functions are what are designated by
the expressions that result from removing nes from compound proper nes. Frege
calls functions unsaturated or incomplete, in contrast to objects, which are
saturated. Proper nes and function nes are not intersubstitutable so that the
distinction between objects and functions is a type-theoretic, categorial
distinction. No function is an object; no function ne designates an object; there
are no quantifiers that simultaneously generalize over both functions and
concepts. Just here Frege’s exposition of his views, if not the views
themselves, encounter a difficulty. In explaining his views, he uses proper nes
of the form ‘the concept F’ to talk about concepts; and in contrasting
unsaturated functions with saturated objects, apepars to generalize over both
with a single quantifier. Benno Kerry, a contemporary of Frege, charged Frege’s
views with inconsistency. Since the phrase ‘the concept horse’ is a proper ne,
it must designate an object. On Frege’s view, it follows that the concept
‘horse’ is not a concept, but an object, an apparent inconsistency. Frege
responded to Kerry’s criticism in “On Concept and Object.” He embraced Kerry’s
paradox, denying that it represents a genuine inconsistency, while admitting
that his remarks about the function–object distinction are, as the result of an
unavoidable awkwardness of language, misleading. Frege maintained that the
distinction between function and object is logically simple and so cannot be
properly defined. His remarks on the distinction are informal handwaving
designed to elucidate what is captured within the Begriffsschrift by the
difference between proper nes and function nes together with their associated
distinct quantifiers. Frege’s handling of the function– object distinction is a
likely source for Wittgenstein’s say–show distinction in the Tractatus. At the
beginning of “On Sense and Meaning,” Frege distinguishes between the reference or
meaning (Bedeutung) of a proper ne and its sense (Sinn). He observes that the
sentence ‘The Morning Star is identical with the Morning Star’ is a trivial
instance of the principle of identity. In contrast, the sentence ‘The Morning
Star is identical with the Evening Star’ expresses a substantive astronomical
discovery. The two sentences thus differ in what Frege called their cognitive
value: someone who understood both might believe the first and doubt the
second. This difference cannot be explained in terms of any difference in
reference between nes in these sentences. Frege explained it in terms of a
difference between the senses expressed by ‘the Morning Star’ and ‘the Evening
Star’. In posthumously published writings, he indicated that the sense–reference
distinction extends to function nes as well. In this distinction, Frege extends
to nes the notion of the judgeable content expressed by a sentence: the sense
of a ne is the contribution that the ne makes to the thought expressed by
sentences in which it occurs. Simultaneously, in classifying sentences as
proper nes of truth-values, he applies to sentences the notion of a ne’s
referring to something. Frege’s function-argument view of logical segmentation
constrains his view of both the meaning and the sense of compound nes: the
substitution for any ne occurring in a compound expression of a ne with the se
reference (sense) yields a new compound expression with the se reference
(sense) as the original. Frege advances several theses about sense that individually
and collectively have been a source of debate in philosophy of language. First,
the sense of an expression is what is grasped by anyone who understands it.
Despite the connection between understanding and sense, Frege provides no
account of synonymy, no identity criteria for senses. Second, the sense of an
expression is not something psychological. Senses are objective. They exist
independently of anyone’s grasping them; their availability to different
thinkers is a presupposition for communication in science. Third, the sense
expressed by a ne is a mode of presentation of the ne’s reference. Here Frege’s
views contrast with Russell’s. Corresponding to Frege’s thoughts are Russell’s
propositions. In The Principles of Mathematics (1903), Russell maintained that
the meaningful words in a sentence designate things, properties, and relations
that are themselves constituents of the proposition expressed by the sentence.
For Frege, our access through judgment to objects and functions is via Frege,
Gottlob Frege, Gottlob 330 - 330 the senses that are expressed by nes that mean
these items. These senses, not the items they present, occur in thoughts. Nes
expressing different senses may refer to the se item; and some nes, while
expressing a sense, refer to nothing. Any compound ne containing a ne that has
a sense, but lacks a reference, itself lacks a meaning. A person may fully
understand an expression without knowing whether it means anything and without
knowing whether it designates what another understood ne does. Fourth, the
sense ordinarily expressed by a ne is the reference of the ne, when the ne
occurs in indirect discourse. Although the Morning Star is identical with the
Evening Star, the inference from the sentence ‘Smith believes that the Morning
Star is a planet’ to ‘Smith believes that the Evening Star is a planet’ is not
sound. Frege, however, accepts Leibniz’s law without restriction. He
accordingly takes such seeming failures of Leibniz’s law to expose a pervasive
biguity in colloquial language: nes in indirect discourse do not designate what
they designate outside of indirect discourse. The fourth thesis is offered as
an explanation of this biguity.
French personalism, a
Christian socialism stressing social activism and personal responsibility, the
theoretical basis for the Christian workers’ Esprit movement begun in the 1930s
by Emmanuel Mounier (1905–50), a Christian philosopher and activist. Influenced
by both the religious existentialism of Kierkegaard and the radical social
action called for by Marx and in part taking direction from the earlier work of
Charles Péguy, the movement strongly opposed fascism and called for worker
solidarity during the 1930s and 1940s. It also urged a more humane treatment of
France’s colonies. Personalism allowed for a Christian socialism independent of
both more conservative Christian groups and the Communist labor unions and
party. Its most important single book is Mounier’s Personalism. The quarterly
journal Esprit has regularly published contributions of leading French and
international thinkers. Such well-known Christian philosophers as Henry Duméry,
Marcel, Maritain, and Ricoeur were attracted to the movement. MARCEL, MARITAIN, PERSONALISM, RICOEUR. J.Bi.
Freud, Sigmund (1856–1939), Austrian neurologist and psychologist, the founder
of psychoanalysis. Starting with the study of hysteria in late nineteenth-century
Vienna, Freud developed a theory of the mind that has come to dominate modern
thought. His notions of the unconscious, of a mind divided against itself, of
the meaningfulness of apparently meaningless activity, of the displacement and
transference of feelings, of stages of psychosexual development, of the
pervasiveness and importance of sexual motivation, as well as of much else,
have helped shape modern consciousness. His language (and that of his
translators), whether specifying divisions of the mind (e.g. id, ego, and
superego), types of disorder (e.g. obsessional neurosis), or the structure of
experience (e.g. Oedipus complex, narcissism), has become the language in which
we describe and understand ourselves and others. As the poet W. H. Auden wrote
on the occasion of Freud’s death, “if often he was wrong and, at times, absurd,
/ to us he is no more a person / now but a whole climate of opinion / under
whom we conduct our different lives. . . .” Hysteria is a disorder involving
organic symptoms with no apparent organic cause. Following early work in
neurophysiology, Freud (in collaboration with Josef Breuer) ce to the view that
“hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences,” in particular buried memories of
traumatic experiences, the strangulated affect of which emerged (in conversion
hysteria) in the distorted form of physical symptoms. Treatment involved the
recovery of the repressed memories to allow the cathartic discharge or
abreaction of the previously displaced and strangulated affect. This provided
the background for Freud’s seduction theory, which traced hysterical symptoms
to traumatic prepubertal sexual assaults (typically by fathers). But Freud
later abandoned the seduction theory because the energy assumptions were
problematic (e.g., if the only energy involved was strangulated affect from
long-past external trauma, why didn’t the symptom successfully use up that
energy and so clear itself up?) and because he ce to see that fantasy could
have the se effects as memory of actual events: “psychical reality was of more
importance than material reality.” What was repressed was not memories, but
desires. He ce to see the repetition of symptoms as fueled by internal, in
particular sexual, energy. While it is certainly true that Freud saw the
Frege-Geach point Freud, Sigmund 331 - 331 working of sexuality almost
everywhere, it is not true that he explained everything in terms of sexuality
alone. Psychoanalysis is a theory of internal psychic conflict, and conflict
requires at least two parties. Despite developments and changes, Freud’s
instinct theory was determinedly dualistic from beginning to end – at the
beginning, libido versus ego or self-preservative instincts, and at the end
Eros versus Thanatos, life against death. Freud’s instinct theory (not to be
confused with standard biological notions of hereditary behavior patterns in
animals) places instincts on the borderland between the mental and physical and
insists that they are internally complex. In particular, the sexual instinct
must be understood as made up of components that vary along a number of
dimensions (source, aim, and object). Otherwise, as Freud argues in his Three
Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), it would be difficult to understand
how the various perversions are recognized as “sexual” despite their distance
from the “normal” conception of sexuality (heterosexual genital intercourse
between adults). His broadened concept of sexuality makes intelligible sexual
preferences emphasizing different sources (erotogenic zones or bodily centers
of arousal), aims (acts, such as intercourse and looking, designed to achieve
pleasure and satisfaction), and objects (whether of the se or different gender,
or even other than whole living persons). It also allows for the recognition of
infantile sexuality. Phenomena that might not on the surface appear sexual
(e.g. childhood thumbsucking) share essential characteristics with obviously
sexual activity (infantile sensual sucking involves pleasurable stimulation of
the se erotogenic zone, the mouth, stimulated in adult sexual activities such
as kissing), and can be understood as earlier stages in the development of the
se underlying instinct that expresses itself in such various forms in adult
sexuality. The standard developmental stages are oral, anal, phallic, and
genital. Neuroses, which Freud saw as “the negative of perversions” (i.e., the
se desires that might in some lead to perverse activity, when repressed, result
in neurosis), could often be traced to struggles with the Oedipus complex: the
“nucleus of the neuroses.” The Oedipus complex, which in its positive form
postulates sexual feelings toward the parent of the opposite sex and bivalently
hostile feelings toward the parent of the se sex, suggests that the universal
shape of the human condition is a triangle. The conflict reaches its peak
between the ages of three and five, during the phallic stage of psychosexual
development. The fundental structuring of emotions has its roots in the
prolonged dependency of the human infant, leading to attachment – a primary
form of love – to the primary caregiver, who (partly for biological reasons
such as lactation) is most often the mother, and the experience of others as
rivals for the time, attention, and concern of the primary caregiver. Freud’s
views of the Oedipus complex should not be oversimplified. The sexual desires
involved, e.g., are typically unconscious and necessarily infantile, and
infantile sexuality and its associated desires are not expressed in the se form
as mature genital sexuality. His efforts to explain the distinctive features of
female psychosexual development in particular led to some of his most
controversial views, including the postulation of penis envy to explain why
girls but not boys standardly experience a shift in gender of their primary
love object (both starting with the mother as the object). Later love objects,
including psychoanalysts as the objects of transference feelings (in the
analytic setting, the analyst functions as a blank screen onto which the
patient projects feelings), are the results of displacement or transference
from earlier objects: “The finding of an object is in fact a refinding of it.”
Freud used the se structure of explanation for symptoms and for more normal
phenomena, such as dres, jokes, and slips of the tongue. All can be seen as
compromise formations between forces pressing for expression (localized by
Freud’s structural theory in the id, understood as a reservoir of unconscious
instinct) and forces of repression (some also unconscious, seeking to meet the
constraints of morality and reality). On Freud’s underlying model, the
fundental process of psychic functioning, the primary process, leads to the
uninhibited discharge of psychic energy. Such discharge is experienced as
pleasurable, hence the governing principle of the fundental process is called
the pleasure principle. Increase of tension is experienced as unpleasure, and
the psychic apparatus aims at a state of equilibrium or constancy (sometimes
Freud writes as if the state aimed at is one of zero tension, hence the Nirvana
principle associated with the death instinct in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure
Principle [1920]). But since pleasure can in fact only be achieved under
specific conditions, which sometimes require arrangement, planning, and delay,
individuals must learn to inhibit discharge, and this secondary process
thinking is governed by what Freud ce to call the reality principle. The aim is
still satisfaction, but the “exigencies of life” require attention, reasoning,
and Freud, Sigmund Freud, Sigmund 332 - 332 judgment to avoid falling into the
fantasy wishfulfillment of the primary process. Sometimes defense mechanisms
designed to avoid increased tension or unpleasure can fail, leading to neurosis
(in general, under the theory, a neurosis is a psychological disorder rooted in
unconscious conflict – particular neuroses being correlated with particular
phases of development and particular mechanisms of defense). Repression,
involving the confining of psychic representations to the unconscious, is the
most important of the defense mechanisms. It should be understood that unlike
preconscious ideas, which are merely descriptively unconscious (though one may
not be aware of them at the moment, they are readily accessible to
consciousness), unconscious ideas in the strict sense are kept from awareness
by forces of repression, they are dynically unconscious – as evidenced by the
resistance to making the unconscious conscious in therapy. Freud’s deep
division of the mind between unconscious and conscious goes beyond neurotic symptoms
to help make sense of filiar forms of irrationality (such as selfdeception,
bivalence, and weakness of the will) that are highly problematical on Cartesian
models of an indivisible unitary consciousness. Perhaps the best exple of the
primary process thinking that characterizes the unconscious (unconstrained by
the realities of time, contradiction, causation, etc.) can be found in dreing.
Freud regarded dres as “the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious.” Dres
are the disguised fulfillment of unconscious wishes. In extracting the meaning
of dres through a process of interpretation, Freud relied on a central
distinction between the manifest content (the dre as dret or as remembered on
waking) and the latent content (the unconscious drethoughts). Freud held that
interpretation via association to particular elements of the manifest content
reversed the process of dre construction, the dre-work in which various
mechanisms of distortion operated on the day’s residues (perceptions and
thoughts stemming from the day before the dre was dret) and the latent
dre-thoughts to produce the manifest dre. Prominent ong the mechanisms are the
condensation (in which many meanings are represented by a single idea) and
displacement (in which there is a shift of affect from a significant and
intense idea to an associated but otherwise insignificant one) also typical of
neurotic symptoms, as well as considerations of representability and secondary
revision more specific to dre formation. Symbolism is less prominent in Freud’s
theory of dres than is often thought; indeed, the section on symbols appeared
only as a later addition to The Interpretation of Dres (1900). Freud explicitly
rejected the ancient “dre book” mode of interpretation in terms of fixed
symbols, and believed one had to recover the hidden meaning of a dre through
the dreer’s (not the interpreter’s) associations to particular elements. Such
associations are a part of the process of free association, in which a patient
is obliged to report to the analyst all thoughts without censorship of any
kind. The process is crucial to psychoanalysis, which is both a technique of
psychotherapy and a method of investigation of the workings of the mind. Freud
used the results of his investigations to speculate about the origins of
morality, religion, and political authority. He tended to find their historical
and psychological roots in early stages of the development of the individual.
Morality in particular he traced to the internalization (as one part of the
resolution of the Oedpius complex) of parental prohibitions and demands,
producing a conscience or superego (which is also the locus of self-observation
and the ego-ideal). Such identification by incorporation – introjection – plays
an important role in character formation in general. The instinctual
renunciation demanded by morality and often achieved by repression Freud
regarded as essential to the order society needs to conduct its business.
Civilization gets the energy for the achievements of art and science by sublimation
of the se instinctual drives. But the costs of society and civilization to the
individual in frustration, unhappiness, and neurosis can be too high. Freud’s
individual therapy was meant to lead to the liberation of repressed energies
(which would not by itself guarantee happiness); he hoped it might also provide
energy to transform the world and moderate its excess demands for restraint.
But just as his individual psychology was founded on the inevitability of
internal conflict, in his social thought he saw some limits (especially on
aggression – the death instinct turned outward) as necessary and he remained
pessimistic about the apparently endless struggle reason must wage
(Civilization and Its Discontents, 1930).
functional dependence, a
relationship between variable magnitudes (especially physical magnitudes) and
certain properties or processes. In modern physical science there are two types
of laws stating such relationships. (1) There are numerical laws stating
concomitant variation of certain quantities, where a variation in any one is
accompanied by variations in the others. An exple is the law for ideal gases:
pV % aT, where p is the pressure of the gas, V its volume, T its absolute
temperature, and a a constant derived from the mass and the nature of the gas.
Such laws say nothing about the temporal order of the variations, and tests of
the laws can involve variation of any of the relevant magnitudes. Concomitant
variation, not causal sequence, is what is tested for. (2) Other numerical laws
state variations of physical magnitudes correlated with times. Galileo’s law of
free fall asserts that the change in the unit time of a freely falling body (in
a vacuum) in the direction of the earth is equal to gt, where g is a constant
and t is the time of the fall, and where the rate of time changes of g is
correlative with the temporal interval t. The law is true of any body in a
state of free fall and for any duration. Such laws are also called “dynical”
because they refer to temporal processes usually explained by the postulation
of forces acting on the objects in question. R.E.B. functional explanation.
functionalism, the view
that mental states are defined by their causes and effects. As a metaphysical
thesis about the nature of mental states, functionalism holds that what makes
an inner state mental is not an intrinsic property of the state, but rather its
relations to sensory stimulation (input), to other inner states, and to
behavior (output). For exple, what makes an inner state a pain is its being a
type of state (typically) caused by pinpricks, sunburns, and so on, a type that
causes other mental states (e.g., worry), and a type that causes behavior
(e.g., saying “ouch”). Propositional attitudes also are identified with
functional states: an inner state is a desire for water partly in virtue of its
causing a person to pick up a glass and drink its contents when the person
believes that the glass contains water. The basic distinction needed for
functionalism is that between role (in terms of which a type of mental state is
defined) and occupant (the particular thing that occupies a role). Functional
states exhibit multiple realizability: in different kinds of beings (humans,
computers, Martians), a particular kind of causal role may have different
occupants – e.g., the causal role definitive of a belief that p, say, may be
occupied by a neural state in a human, but occupied (perhaps) by a hydraulic
state in a Martian. Functionalism, like behaviorism, thus entails that mental
states may be shared by physically dissimilar systems. Although functionalism
does not automatically rule out the existence of immaterial souls, its
motivation has been to provide a materialistic account of mentality. The advent
of the computer gave impetus to functionalism. First, the distinction between
software and hardware suggested the distinction between role (function) and
occupant (structure). Second, since computers are automated, they demonstrate
how inner states can be causes of output in the absence of a homunculus (i.e.,
a “little person” intelligently directing output). Third, the Turing machine
provided a model for one of the earliest versions of functionalism. A Turing
machine is defined by a table that specifies transitions from current state and
input to next state (or to output). According to Turing machine functionalism,
any being with pscychological states has a unique best description, and each
psychological state is identical to a machine table state relative to that
description. To be in mental state type M is to instantiate or realize Turing
machine T in state S. Turing machine functionalism, developed largely by Putn,
has been criticized by Putn, Ned Block, and Fodor. To cite just one serious
problem: two machine table states – and hence, according to Turing machine
functionalism, two psychological states – are distinct if they are followed by
different states or by different outputs. So, if a pinprick causes A to say
“Ouch” function, mathematical functionalism 334 - 334 and causes B to say “Oh,”
then, if Turing machine functionalism were true, A’s and B’s states of pain
would be different psychological states. But we do not individuate
psychological states so finely, nor should we: such fine-grained individuation
would be unsuitable for psychology. Moreover, if we assume that there is a path
from any state to any other state, Turing machine functionalism has the
unacceptable consequence that no two systems have any of their states in common
unless they have all their states in common. Perhaps the most prominent version
of functionalism is the causal theory of mind. Whereas Turing machine
functionalism is based on a technical computational or psychological theory,
the causal theory of mind relies on commonsense understanding: according to the
causal theory of mind, the concept of a mental state is the concept of a state
apt for bringing about certain kinds of behavior (Armstrong). Mental state
terms are defined by the commonsense platitudes in which they appear (David
Lewis). Philosophers can determine a priori what mental states are (by
conceptual analysis or by definition). Then scientists determine what physical
states occupy the causal roles definitive of mental states. If it turned out
that there was no physical state that occupied the causal role of, say, pain
(i.e., was caused by pinpricks, etc., and caused worry, etc.), it would follow,
on the causal theory, that pain does not exist. To be in mental state type M is
to be in a physical state N that occupies causal role R. A third version is
teleological or “homuncular” functionalism, associated with Willi G. Lycan and
early Dennett. According to homuncular functionalism, a human being is
analogous to a large corporation, made up of cooperating departments, each with
its own job to perform; these departments interpret stimuli and produce
behavioral responses. Each department (at the highest subpersonal level) is in
turn constituted by further units (at a sub-subpersonal level) and so on down
until the neurological level is reached. The role–occupant distinction is thus
relativized to level: an occupant at one level is a role at the next level
down. On this view, to be in a mental state type M is to have a sub- . . .
subpersonal f-er that is in its characteristic state S(f). All versions of
functionalism face problems about the qualitative nature of mental states. The
difficulty is that functionalism individuates states in purely relational
terms, but the acrid odor of, say, a paper mill seems to have a non-relational,
qualitative character that functionalism misses altogether. If two people, on
seeing a ripe banana, are in states with the se causes and effects, then, by
functionalist definition, they are in the se mental state – say, having a
sensation of yellow. But it seems possible that one has an “inverted spectrum”
relative to the other, and hence that their states are qualitatively different.
Imagine that, on seeing the banana, one of the two is in a state qualitatively
indistinguishable from the state that the other would be in on seeing a ripe
tomato. Despite widespread intuitions that such inverted spectra are possible,
according to functionalism, they are not. A related problem is that of “absent
qualia.” The population of China, or even the economy of Bolivia, could be functionally
equivalent to a human brain – i.e., there could be a function that mapped the
relations between inputs, outputs, and internal states of the population of
China onto those of a human brain; yet the population of China, no matter how
its members interact with one another and with other nations, intuitively does
not have mental states. The status of these arguments remains
controversial.
fundentum divisionis
(Latin, ‘foundation of a division’), term in Scholastic logic and ontology
meaning ‘grounds for a distinction’. Some distinctions categorize separately
existing things, such as men and beasts. This is a real distinction, and the
fundentum divisionis exists in reality. Some distinctions categorize things
that cannot exist separately but can be distinguished mentally, such as the
difference between being a human being and having a sense of humor, or the
difference between a soul and one of its powers, say, the power of thinking. A
mental distinction is also called a formal distinction. Duns Scotus is well
known for the idea of formalis distinctio cum fundento ex parte rei (a formal
distinction with a foundation in the thing), primarily in order to handle
logical problems with functionalism, analytical fundentum divisionis 335 - 335
the Christian concept of God. God is supposed to be absolutely simple; i.e.,
there can be no multiplicity of composition in him. Yet, according to
traditional theology, many properties can be truly attributed to him. He is
wise, good, and powerful. In order to preserve the simplicity of God, Duns
Scotus claimed that the difference between wisdom, goodness, and power was only
formal but still had some foundation in God’s own being. A.P.M. Fung Yu-lan
(1895–1990), Chinese philosopher. He was educated at Peking University and
earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University. His History of Chinese Philosophy
was the first such complete history of high quality by a contemporary scholar.
During World War II he attempted to reconstruct Chu Hsi’s philosophy in terms
of the New Realism that he had learned from the West, and developed his own
system of thought, a new philosophy of li (principle). After the Communist
takeover in 1949, he gave up his earlier thought, denouncing Confucian philosophy
during the Cultural Revolution. After the Cultural Revolution he changed his
position again and rewrote his History of Chinese Philosophy in seven
volumes.
future contingents,
singular events or states of affairs that may come to pass, and also may not
come to pass, in the future. There are three traditional problems involving
future contingents: the question of universal validity of the principle of
bivalence, the question of free will and determinism, and the question of
foreknowledge. The debate about future contingents in modern philosophical
logic was revived by Lukasiewicz’s work on three-valued logic. He thought that
in order to avoid fatalistic consequences, we must admit that the principle of
bivalence (for any proposition, p, either p is true or not-p is true) does not
hold good for propositions about future contingents. Many authors have
considered this view confused. According to von Wright, e.g., when propositions
are said to be true or false and ‘is’ in ‘it is true that’ is tenseless or
atemporal, the illusion of determinism does not arise. It has its roots in a
tacit oscillation between a temporal and an atemporal reading of the phrase ‘it
is true’. In a temporalized reading, or in its tensed variants such as ‘it
was/will be/is already true’, one can substitute, for ‘true’, other words like
‘certain’, ‘fixed’, or ‘necessary’. Applying this diachronic necessity to
atemporal predications of truth yields the idea of logical determinism. In
contemporary discussions of tense and modality, future contingents are often
treated with the help of a model of time as a line that breaks up into branches
as it moves from left to right (i.e., from past to future). Although the
conception of truth at a moment has been found philosophically problematic, the
model of historical modalities and branching time as such is much used in works
on freedom and determination. Aristotle’s On Interpretation IX contains a
classic discussion of future contingents with the fous exple of tomorrow’s sea
battle. Because of various biguities in the text and in Aristotle’s modal
conceptions in general, the meaning of the passage is in dispute. In the
Metaphysics VI.3 and in the Niocmachean Ethics III.5, Aristotle tries to show
that not all things are predetermined. The Stoics represented a causally
deterministic worldview; an ancient exple of logical determinism is Diodorus
Cronus’s fous master argument against contingency. Boethius thought that
Aristotle’s view can be formulated as follows: the principle of bivalence is
universally valid, but propositions about future contingents, unlike those
about past and present things, do not obey the stronger principle according to
which each proposition is either determinately true or determinately false. A
proposition is indeterminately true as long as the conditions that make it true
are not yet fixed. This was the standard Latin doctrine from Abelard to
Aquinas. Similar discussions occurred in Arabic commentaries on On
Interpretation. In the fourteenth century, many thinkers held that Aristotle
abandoned bivalence for future contingent propositions. This restriction was
usually refuted, but it found some adherents like Peter Aureoli. Duns Scotus
and Ockh heavily criticized the Boethian-Thomistic view that God can know
future contingents only because the flux of time is present to divine eternity.
According to them, God contingently foreknows free acts. Explaining this proved
to be a very cumbersome task. Luis de Molina (1535–1600) suggested that God knows
what possible creatures would do in any possible situation. This “middle
knowledge” theory about counterfactuals of freedom has remained a living theme
in philosophy of religion; analogous questions are treated in theories of
subjunctive reasoning. ARISTOTLE,
BOETHIUS, FREE WILL PROBLEM, MANY-VALUED LOGIC, TENSE LOGIC, VAGUENESS. S.K.
Fung Yu-lan future contingents 336 - 336 fuzzy logic.FUZZY SET, VAGUENESS.
fuzzy set, a set in which membership is a matter of degree. In classical set
theory, for every set S and thing x, either x is a member of S or x is not. In
fuzzy set theory, things x can be members of sets S to any degree between 0 and
1, inclusive. Degree 1 corresponds to ‘is a member of’ and 0 corresponds to ‘is
not’; the intermediate degrees are degrees of vagueness or uncertainty. (Exple:
Let S be the set of men who are bald at age forty.) L. A. Zadeh developed a
logic of fuzzy sets as the basis for a logic of vague predicates. A fuzzy set
can be represented mathematically as a function from a given universe into the
interval [0, 1].
Gader, Hans-Georg
(b.1900), German philosopher, the leading proponent of hermeneutics in the
second half of the twentieth century. He studied at Marburg in the 1920s with
Natorp and Heidegger. His first book, Plato’s Dialectical Ethics (1931), bears
their imprint and reflects his abiding interest in Greek philosophy. Truth and
Method (1960) established Gader as an original thinker and had an impact on a
variety of disciplines outside philosophy, including theology, legal theory,
and literary criticism. The three parts of Truth and Method combine to displace
the scientific conceptions of truth and method as the model for understanding
in the human sciences. In the first part, which presents itself as a critique
of the abstraction inherent in aesthetic consciousness, Gader argues that
artworks make a claim to truth. Later Gader draws on the play of art in the
experience of the beautiful to offer an analogy to how a text draws its readers
into the event of truth by making a claim on them. In the central portion of
the book Gader presents tradition as a condition of understanding. Tradition is
not for him an object of historical knowledge, but part of one’s very being.
The final section of Truth and Method is concerned with language as the site of
tradition. Gader sought to shift the focus of hermeneutics from the problems of
obscurity and misunderstanding to the community of understanding that the
participants in a dialogue share through language. Gader was involved in three debates
that define his philosophical contribution. The first was an ongoing debate
with Heidegger reflected throughout Gader’s corpus. Gader did not accept all of
the innovations that Heidegger introduced into his thinking in the 1930s,
particularly his reconstruction of the history of philosophy as the history of
being. Gader also rejected Heidegger’s elevation of Hölderlin to the status of
an authority. Gader’s greater accessibility led Habermas to characterize
Gader’s contribution as that of having “urbanized the Heideggerian province.”
The second debate was with Habermas himself. Habermas criticized Gader’s
rejection of the Enlightenment’s “prejudice against prejudice.” Whereas
Habermas objected to the conservatism inherent in Gader’s rehabilitation of prejudice,
Gader explained that he was only setting out the conditions for understanding,
conditions that did not exclude the possibility of radical change. The third
debate, which formed the basis of Dialogue and Deconstruction (1989), was with
Derrida. Derridean deconstruction is indebted to Heidegger’s later philosophy
and so this debate was in part about the direction philosophy should take after
Heidegger. However, many observers concluded that there was no real engagement
between Gader and Derrida. To some it seemed that Derrida, by refusing to
accept the terms on which Gader insisted dialogue should take place, had
exposed the limits imposed by hermeneutics. To others it was confirmation that
any attempt to circumvent the conditions of dialogue specified by Gaderian
hermeneutics is selfdefeating.
Galen (A.D. 129–c.215),
physician and philosopher from Greek Asia Minor. He traveled extensively in the
Greco-Roman world before settling in Rome and becoming court physician to
Marcus Aurelius. His philosophical interests lay mainly in the philosophy of
science (On the Therapeutic Method) and nature (On the Function of Parts), and
in logic (Introduction to Logic, in which he develops a crude but pioneering
treatment of the logic of relations). Galen espoused an extreme form of
directed teleology in natural explanation, and sought to develop a syncretist
picture of cause and explanation drawing on Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and
preceding medical writers, notably Hippocrates, whose views he attempted to
harmonize with those of Plato (On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato). He
wrote on philosophical psychology (On the Passions and Errors of the Soul); his
materialist account of mind (Mental Characteristics Are Caused by Bodily
Conditions) is notable for its caution in approaching issues (such as the
actual nature of the substance of the soul and the age and structure of the
universe) that he regarded as unde338 G - 338 cidable. In physiology, he
adopted a version of the four-humor theory, that health consists in an
appropriate balance of four basic bodily constituents (blood, black bile,
yellow bile, and phlegm), and disease in a corresponding imbalance (a view owed
ultimately to Hippocrates). He sided with the rationalist physicians against
the empiricists, holding that it was possible to elaborate and to support
theories concerning the fundentals of the human body; but he stressed the
importance of observation and experiment, in particular in anatomy (he
discovered the function of the recurrent laryngeal nerve by dissection and
ligation). Via the Arabic tradition, Galen bece the most influential doctor of
the ancient world; his influence persisted, in spite of the discoveries of the
seventeenth century, until the end of the nineteenth century. He also wrote
extensively on semantics, but these texts are lost. R.J.H. Galileo Galilei
(1564–1642), Italian astronomer, natural philosopher, and physicist. His
Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632) defended Copernicus by
arguing against the major tenets of the Aristotelian cosmology. On his view,
one kind of motion replaces the multiple distinct celestial and terrestrial
motions of Aristotle; mathematics is applicable to the real world; and
explanation of natural events appeals to efficient causes alone, not to
hypothesized natural ends. Galileo was called before the Inquisition, was made
to recant his Copernican views, and spent the last years of his life under house
arrest. Discourse concerning Two New Sciences (1638) created the modern science
of mechanics: it proved the laws of free fall, thus making it possible to study
accelerated motions; asserted the principle of the independence of forces; and
proposed a theory of parabolic ballistics. His work was developed by Huygens
and Newton. Galileo’s scientific and technological achievements were
prodigious. He invented an air thermoscope, a device for raising water, and a
computer for calculating quantities in geometry and ballistics. His discoveries
in pure science included the isochronism of the pendulum and the hydrostatic
balance. His telescopic observations led to the discovery of four of Jupiter’s
satellites (the Medicean Stars), the moon’s mountains, sunspots, the moon’s
libration, and the nature of the Milky Way. In methodology Galileo accepted the
ancient Greek ideal of demonstrative science, and employed the method of
retroductive inference, whereby the phenomena under investigation are
attributed to remote causes. Much of his work utilizes the
hypothetico-deductive method. R.E.B. gbler’s fallacy, also called Monte Carlo
fallacy, the fallacy of supposing, of a sequence of independent events, that
the probabilities of later outcomes must increase or decrease to “compensate”
for earlier outcomes. For exple, since (by Bernoulli’s theorem) in a long run
of tosses of a fair coin it is very probable that the coin will come up heads
roughly half the time, one might think that a coin that has not come up heads
recently must be “due” to come up heads – must have a probability greater than
one-half of doing so. But this is a misunderstanding of the law of large
numbers, which requires no such compensating tendencies of the coin. The
probability of heads remains one-half for each toss despite the preponderance,
so far, of tails. In the sufficiently long run what “compensates” for the
presence of improbably long subsequences in which, say, tails strongly
predominate, is simply that such subsequences occur rarely and therefore have
only a slight effect on the statistical character of the whole.
ge theory, the theory of
the structure of, and the rational strategies for performing in, ges or gelike
human interactions. Although there were forerunners, ge theory was virtually invented
by the mathematician John von Neumann and the economist Oskar Morgenstern in
the early 1940s. Its most striking feature is its compact representation of
interactions of two or more choosers, or players. For exple, two players may
face two choices each, and in combination these choices produce four possible
outcomes. Actual choices are of strategies, not of outcomes, although it is
assessments of outcomes that recommend strategies. To do well in a ge, even for
all choosers to do well, as is often possible, generally requires taking all
other players’ positions and interests into account. Hence, to evaluate
strategies directly, without reference to the outcomes they might produce in
interaction with others, is conspicuously perverse. It is not surprising,
therefore, that in ethics, ge theory has been preeminently applied to
utilitarian moral theory. As the numbers of players and strategies rise, the
complexity of ges increases geometrically. If two players have two strategies
each and each ranks the four possible outcomes without ties, there are already
seventy-eight strategically disGalileo Galilei ge theory 339 - 339 tinct ges.
Even minor real-life interactions may have astronomically greater complexity.
One might complain that this makes ge theory useless. Alternatively, one can
note that this makes it realistic and helps us understand why real-life choices
are at least as complex as they sometimes seem. To complicate matters further,
players can choose over probabilistic combinations of their “pure” strategies.
Hence, the original four outcomes in a simple 2 $ 2 ge define a continuum of
potential outcomes. After noting the structure of ges, one might then be struck
by an immediate implication of this mere description. A rational individual may
be supposed to attempt to maximize her potential or expected outcome in a ge.
But if there are two or more choosers in a ge, in general they cannot all
maximize simultaneously over their expected outcomes while assuming that all
others are doing likewise. This is a mathematical principle: in general, we
cannot maximize over two functions simultaneously. For exple, the general
notion of the greatest good of the greatest number is incoherent. Hence, in
interactive choice contexts, the simple notion of economic rationality is
incoherent. Virtually all of early ge theory was dedicated to finding an
alternative principle for resolving ge interactions. There are now many
so-called solution theories, most of which are about outcomes rather than
strategies (they stipulate which outcomes or range of outcomes is
ge-theoretically rational). There is little consensus on how to generalize from
the ordinary rationality of merely choosing more rather than less (and of
displaying consistent preferences) to the general choice of strategies in ges.
Payoffs in early ge theory were almost always represented in cardinal,
transferable utilities. Transferable utility is an odd notion that was
evidently introduced to avoid the disdain with which economists then treated
interpersonal comparisons of utility. It seems to be analogous to money. In the
language of contemporary law and economics, one could say the theory is one of
wealth maximization. In the early theory, the rationality conditions were as
follows. (1) In general, if the sums of the payoffs to all players in various
outcomes differ, it is assumed that rational players will manage to divide the
largest possible payoff ong themselves. (2) No individual will accept a payoff
below the “security level” obtainable even if all the other players form a
coalition against the individual. (3) Finally, sometimes it is also assumed
that no group of players will rationally accept less than it could get as its
group security level – but in some ges, no outcome can meet this condition.
This is an odd combination of individual and collective elements. The
collective elements are plausibly thought of as merely predictive: if we
individually wish to do well, we should combine efforts to help us do best as a
group. But what we want is a theory that converts individual preferences into
collective results. Unfortunately, to put a move doing just this in the
foundations of the theory is questionbegging. Our fundental burden is to
determine whether a theory of individual rationality can produce collectively good
results, not to stipulate that it must. In the theory with cardinal, additive
payoffs, we can divide ges into constant sum ges, in which the sum of all
players’ payoffs in each outcome is a constant, and variable sum ges. Zerosum
ges are a special case of constant sum ges. Two-person constant sum ges are ges
of pure conflict, because each player’s gain is the other’s loss. In constant
sum ges with more than two players and in all variable sum ges, there is
generally reason for coalition formation to improve payoffs to members of the
coalition (hence, the appeal of assumptions 1 and 3 above). Ges without
transferable utility, such as ges in which players have only ordinal
preferences, may be characterized as ges of pure conflict or of pure
coordination when players’ preference orderings over outcomes are opposite or
identical, respectively, or as ges of mixed motive when their orderings are
partly the se and partly reversed. Mathematical analysis of such ges is
evidently less tractable than that of ges with cardinal, additive utility, and
their theory is only beginning to be extensively developed. Despite the
apparent circularity of the rationality assumptions of early ge theory, it is
the ge theorists’ prisoner’s dilemma that makes clear that compelling individual
principles of choice can produce collectively deficient outcomes. This ge was
discovered about 1950 and later given its catchy but inapt ne. If they play it
in isolation from any other interaction between them, two players in this ge
can each do what seems individually best and reach an outcome that both
consider inferior to the outcome that results from making opposite strategy
choices. Even with the knowledge that this is the problem they face, the
players still have incentive to choose the strategies that jointly produce the
inferior outcome. Prisoner’s dilemma involves both coordination and conflict.
It has played a central role in contemporary discusge theory ge theory 340 -
340 sions of moral and political philosophy. Ges that predominantly involve
coordination, such as when we coordinate in all driving on the right or all on
the left, have a similarly central role. The understanding of both classes of
ges has been read into the political philosophies of Hobbes and Hume and into
mutual advantage theories of justice.
DECISION THEORY, PRISONER’S DILEMMA, UTILITARIANISM. R.Har. Gandhi,
Mohandas Karchand, called Mahatma (1869–1948), Indian nationalist leader, an
advocate of nonviolent mass political action who opposed racial discrimination
in South Africa (1893–1914) and British colonial rule in India. He called his
approach Satyagraha (Sanskrit satya, ‘truth’, and agraha, ‘force’), considering
it a science whose end is truth (which he identified with God) and method
nonviolence (ahimsa). He emphasized constructive resolution, rather than
elimination, of conflict, the interrelatedness of means and ends (precluding
evil means to good ends), and the importance of enduring suffering oneself
rather than inflicting it upon adversaries. Gandhi believed limited knowledge
of truth deprives us of a warrant to use violence. He took nonviolence to be
more than mere abstention from violence and to call for courage, discipline,
and love of an opponent. Ordinary persons can practice it without full
understanding of Satyagraha, which he himself disclaimed. He ce to distinguish
Satyagraha from passive resistance, a weapon of the weak that can turn to
violence when faced with failure. Satyagraha requires strength and consistency
and cannot be used in an unjust cause. Not an absolutist, Gandhi said that
though nonviolence is always preferable, when forced to choose between violence
and cowardice one might better choose violence. He was a man of practice more
than a theoretician and claimed the superiority of Satyagraha to violence could
be proven only be demonstration, not argument. He saw his work as an experiment
with truth. He was influenced particularly by the Bhagavad Gita from Hindu
thought, the Sermon on the Mount from Christianity, and the writings of
Tolstoy, Ruskin, Emerson, and Thoreau.
BHAGAVAD GITA, NONVIOLENCE, PACIFISM. R.L.H. Gassendi, Pierre
(1592–1655), French philosopher and scientist who advocated a via media to
scientific knowledge about the empirically observable material world that
avoids both the dogmatism of Cartesians, who claimed to have certain knowledge,
and the skepticism of Montaigne and Charron, who doubted that we have knowledge
about anything. Gassendi presented Epicurean atomism as a model for explaining
how bodies are structured and interact. He advanced a hypothetico-deductive
method by proposing that experiments should be used to test mechanistic
hypotheses. Like the ancient Pyrrhonian Skeptics, he did not challenge the
immediate reports of our senses; but unlike them he argued that while we cannot
have knowledge of the inner essences of things, we can develop a reliable
science of the world of appearances. In this he exemplified the mitigated
skepticism of modern science that is always open to revision on the basis of
empirical evidence. Gassendi’s first book, Exercitationes Paradoxicae Adversis
Aristoteleos (1624), is an attack on Aristotle. He is best known as the author
of the fifth set of objections to Descartes’s Meditations(1641), in which
Gassendi proposed that even clear and distinct ideas may represent no objects
outside our minds, a possibility that Descartes called the objection of
objections, but dismissed as destructive of all reason. Gassendi’s Syntagma
Philosophiae Epicuri (1649) contains his development of Epicurean philosophy
and science. His elaboration of the mechanistic atomic model and his advocacy
of experimental testing of hypotheses were crucially important in the rise of
modern science. Gassendi’s career as a Catholic priest, Epicurean atomist,
mitigated skeptic, and mechanistic scientist presents a puzzle – as do the
careers of several other philosopher-priests in the seventeenth century –
concerning his true beliefs. On the one hand, he professed faith and set aside
Christian doctrine as not open to challenge. On the other hand, he utilized an
arsenal of skeptical arguments that was beginning to undermine and would
eventually destroy the rational foundations of the church. Gassendi thus
appears to be of a type almost unknown today, a thinker indifferent to the apparent
discrepancy between his belief in Christian doctrine and his advocacy of
materialist science. DESCARTES,
EPICUREANISM, SKEPTICS. R.A.W. Gauss, Carl Friedrich.NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY.
Gay, John (1699–1745), British moralist who tried to reconcile divine command
theory and utilitarianism. The son of a minister, Gay was Gandhi, Mohandas
Karchand Gay, John 341 - 341 elected a fellow of Sidney Sussex College,
Cbridge, where he taught church history, Hebrew, and Greek. His one
philosophical essay, “Dissertation Concerning the Fundental Principle of Virtue
or Morality” (1731), argues that obligation is founded on the will of God,
which, because people are destined to be happy, directs us to act to promote
the general happiness. Gay offers an associationist psychology according to
which we pursue objects that have come to be associated with happiness (e.g.
money), regardless of whether they now make us happy, and argues, contra
Hutcheson, that our moral sense is conditioned rather than natural. Gay’s blend
of utilitarianism with associationist psychology gave David Hartley the basis
for his moral psychology, which later influenced Benth in his formulation of
classical utilitarianism. HARTLEY,
HUTCHESON, MORAL SENSE THEORY. E.S.R. GCH.Appendix of Special Symbols.
Geach, Peter (b.1916),
English philosopher and logician whose main work has been in logic and
philosophy of language. A great admirer of McTaggart, he has published a
sympathetic exposition of the latter’s work (Truth, Love and Immortality,
1979), and has always aimed to emulate what he sees as the clarity and rigor of
the Scottish idealist’s thought. Greatly influenced by Frege and Wittgenstein,
Geach is particularly noted for his powerful use of what he calls “the Frege
point,” better called “the Frege-Geach point,” that the se thought may occur as
asserted or unasserted and yet retain the se truth-value. The point has been
used by Geach to refute ascriptivist theories of responsibility, and can be
employed against noncognitivist theories of ethics, which are said to face the
Frege-Geach problem of accounting for the sense of moral ascriptions in
contexts like ‘If he did wrong, he will be punished’. He is also noted for
helping to bring Frege to the English-speaking world, through co-translations
with Max Black (1909– 88). In logic he is known for proving, independently of
Quine, a contradiction in Frege’s way out of Russell’s paradox (Mind, 1956),
and for his defense of modern Fregean-Russellian logic against traditional
Aristotelian-Scholastic logic. He also has a deep admiration for the Polish
logicians. In metaphysics, Geach is known for his defense of relative identity,
the thesis that an object a can be the se F (where F is a kind-term) as an
object b while not being the se G, even though a and b are both G’s. His
spirited defense of the thesis has been met by equally vigorous attacks, and it
has not received wide acceptance. An obvious application of the thesis is to
the defense of the doctrine of the Trinity (e.g., the Father is the se god as
the Son but not the se person), which has caught the attention of some
philosophers of religion. Geach’s main works include Mental Acts (1958), which
attacks dispositional theories of mind, Reference and Generality (1962), which
contains much important work on logic, and the collection Logic Matters (1972).
A notable defender of Catholicism (despite his animadversions against
Scholastic logic), his religious views find their greatest exposure in God and
the Soul (1969), Providence and Evil (1977), and The Virtues (1977). He is
married to the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe.
Gentile, Giovanni (1875–1944), Italian idealist philosopher and
educational reformer. He taught at the universities of Palermo, Pisa, and Rome,
and bece minister of education in the first years of Mussolini’s government
(1922–24). He was the most influential intellectual of the Fascist regime and
promoted a radical transformation of the Italian school system, most of which
did not survive that era. Gentile rejected Hegel’s dialectics as the process of
an objectified thought. His actualism (or actual idealism) claims that only the
pure act of thinking or the Transcendental Subject can undergo a dialectical
process. All reality, such as nature, God, good, and evil, is immanent in the
dialectics of the Transcendental Subject, which is distinct from Empirical
Subjects. ong his major works are La teoria generale dello spirito come atto
puro (1916; translated as The Theory of Mind as Pure Act, 1922) and Sistema di
logica come teoria del conoscere (“System of Logic as a Theory of Knowledge,”
1917). Gentile’s pedagogical views were also influenced by actualism. Education
is an act that overcomes the difficulties of intersubjective communication and
realizes the unity of the pupil and the teacher within the Transcendental
Subject (Sommario di pedagogia come scienza filosofica, “Summary of Pedagogy as
a Philosophical Science,” 1913–14). Actualism was influential in Italy during
Gentile’s life. With Croce’s historicism, it influenced British idealists like
Bosanquet and Collingwood. IDEALISM.
P.Gar. genus.DEFINITION. genus, summum.GENUS GENERALISSIMUM. genus
generalissimum (Latin, ‘most general genus’), a genus that is not a species of
some higher genus; a broadest natural kind. One of the ten Aristotelian categories,
it is also called summum genus (highest genus). For Aristotle and many of his
followers, the ten categories are not species of some higher all-inclusive
genus – say, being. Otherwise, that all-inclusive genus would wholly include
its differences, and would be universally predicable of them. But no genus is
predicable of its differences in this manner. Few authors explained this
reasoning clearly, but some pointed out that if the difference ‘rational’ just
meant ‘rational animal’, then to define ‘man’ as ‘rational animal’ would be to
define him as ‘rational animal animal’, which is ill formed. So too generally:
no genus can include its differences in this way. Thus there is no
all-inclusive genus; the ten categories are the most general genera.
Gerson, Jean de, original
ne, Jean Charlier (1363–1429), French theologian, philosopher, and
ecclesiastic. He studied in Paris, and succeeded the nominalist Pierre d’Ailly
as chancellor of the university in 1395. Both d’Ailly and Gerson played a
prominent part in the work of the Council of Constance (1414–18). Much of
Gerson’s influence on later thinkers arose from his conciliarism, the view that
the church is a political society and that a general council, acting on behalf
of the church, has the power to depose a pope who fails to promote the church’s
welfare, for it seemed that similar arguments could apply to other forms of
political society. Gerson’s conciliarism was not constitutionalism in the
modern sense, for he appealed to corporate and hierarchical ideas of church
government, and did not rest his case on any principle of individual rights.
His main writings dealt with mystical theology, which, he thought, brings the
believer closer to the beatific vision of God than do other forms of theology.
He was influenced by general relativity Gerson, Jean de 343 - 343 St.
Bonaventure and Albertus Magnus, but especially by Pseudo-Dionysius, whom he
saw as a disciple of St. Paul and not as a Platonist. He was thus able to adopt
an anti-Platonic position in his attacks on the mystic Ruysbroeck and on
contemporary followers of Duns Scotus, such as Jean de Ripa. In dismissing
Scotist realism, he made use of nominalist positions, particularly those that
emphasized divine freedom. He warned theologians against being misled by pride
into supposing that natural reason alone could solve metaphysical problems; and
he emphasized the importance of a priest’s pastoral duties. Despite his early
prominence, he spent the last years of his life in relative obscurity. E.J.A.
Gersonides, also called Levi ben Gershom (1288–1344), French Jewish philosopher
and mathematician, the leading Jewish Aristotelian after Maimonides. Gersonides
was also a distinguished Talmudist, Bible commentator, and astronomer. His
philosophical writings include supercommentaries on most of Averroes’
commentaries on Aristotle (1319–24); On the Correct Syllogism (1319), a
treatise on the modal syllogism; and a major Scholastic treatise, The Wars of
the Lord (1317–29). In addition, his biblical commentaries rank ong the best
exples of philosophical scriptural exegesis; especially noteworthy is his
interpretation of the Song of Songs as an allegory describing the ascent of the
human intellect to the agent intellect. Gersonides’ mentors in the Aristotelian
tradition were Maimonides and Averroes. However, more than either of them,
Gersonides held philosophical truth and revealed truth to be coextensive: he
acknowledged neither the conflict that Averroes saw between reason and
revelation nor Maimonides’ critical view of the limitations of the human
intellect. Furthermore, while remaining within the Aristotelian frework,
Gersonides was not uncritical of it; his independence can be illustrated by two
of his most distinctive positions. First, against Maimonides, Gersonides claimed
that it is possible to demonstrate both the falsity of the Aristotelian theory
of the eternity of the world (Averroes’ position) and the absurdity of creation
ex nihilo, the traditional rabbinic view that Maimonides adopted, though for
nondemonstrative reasons. Instead Gersonides advocated the Platonic theory of
temporal creation from primordial matter. Second, unlike Maimonides and
Averroes, who both held that the alleged contradiction between divine
foreknowledge of future contingent particulars and human freedom is spurious,
Gersonides took the dilemma to be real. In defense of human freedom, he then
argued that it is logically impossible even for God to have knowledge of
particulars as particulars, since his knowledge is only of general laws. At the
se time, by redefining ‘omniscience’ as knowing everything that is knowable, he
showed that this impossibility is no deficiency in God’s knowledge. Although
Gersonides’ biblical commentaries received wide immediate acceptance,
subsequent medieval Jewish philosophers, e.g., Hasdai Crescas, by and large
reacted negatively to his rigorously rationalistic positions. Especially with
the decline of Aristotelianism within the philosophical world, both Jewish and
Christian, he was either criticized sharply or simply ignored.
ARISTOTLE, AVERROES,
JEWISH PHILOSOPHY, MAIMONIDES, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. J.Ste.
Gesellschaft.SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. Gestalt.FIGURE–GROUND, KÖHLER. Gestalt
psychology.KÖHLER. Gettier problem.EPISTEMOLOGY. Gettier-style
exple.EPISTEMOLOGY. Geulincx, Arnold (1624–69), Dutch philosopher. Born in
Antwerp, he was educated at Louvain and there bece professor of philosophy
(1646) and dean (1654). In 1657 he was forced out of Louvain, perhaps for his
Jansenist or Cartesian tendencies, and in 1658 he moved to Leyden and bece a
Protestant. Though he taught there until his death, he never attained a regular
professorship at the university. His main philosophical work is his Ethica
(1675), only Part I of which appeared during his lifetime as De virtute et primis
ejus proprietatibus (1665). Also published during his lifetime were the
Questiones quodlibeticae (1652; later editions published as Saturnalia), a
Logica (1661), and a Methodus inveniendi argumenta (1665). His most important
works, though, were published posthumously; in addition to the Ethica, there is
the Physica vera (1688), the Physica peripatetica (1690), the Metaphysica vera
(1691), and the Metaphysica ad mentem peripatetic (1691). There are also two
posthumous commentaries on Descartes’s Principia Philosophiae (1690 and 1691).
Geulincx was deeply influenced by Descartes, and had many ideas that closely
resemble those Gersonides Geulincx, Arnold 344 - 344 of the later Cartesians as
well as those of more independent thinkers like Spinoza and Leibniz. Though his
grounds were original, like many later Cartesians, Geulincx upheld a version of
occasionalism; he argued that someone or something can only do what it knows
how to do, inferring from that that we cannot be the genuine causes of our own
bodily movements. In discussing the mind–body relation, Geulincx used a clock
analogy similar to one Leibniz used in connection with his preestablished
harmony. Geulincx also held a view of mental and material substance reminiscent
of that of Spinoza. Finally, he proposed a system of ethics grounded in the
idea of a virtuous will. Despite the evident similarities between Geulincx’s
views and the views of his more renowned contemporaries, it is very difficult
to determine exactly what influence Geulincx may have had on them, and they may
have had on him.
Ghazali, al-.AL-GHAZALI.
ghost in the machine.RYLE. Giles of Rome, original ne, Egidio Colonna
(c.1243–1316), Italian theologian and ecclesiastic. A member of the order of
the Hermits of St. Augustine, he studied arts at Augustinian house and theology
at the University in Paris (1260– 72) but was censured by the theology faculty
(1277) and denied a license to teach as master. Owing to the intervention of
Pope Honorius IV, he later returned from Italy to Paris to teach theology
(1285–91), was appointed general of his order (1292), and bece archbishop of
Bourges (1295). Giles both defended and criticized views of Aquinas. He held
that essence and existence are really distinct in creatures, but described them
as “things”; that prime matter cannot exist without some substantial form; and,
early in his career, that an eternally created world is possible. He defended
only one substantial form in composites, including man. He supported Pope
Boniface VIII in his quarrel with Philip IV of France. J.F.W. Gilson, Étienne
(1884–1978), French Catholic philosopher, historian, cofounder of the
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, and a major figure in
Neo-Thomism. Gilson discovered medieval philosophy through his pioneering work
on Descartes’s Scholastic background. As a historian, he argued that early
modern philosophy was incomprehensible without medieval thought, and that
medieval philosophy itself did not represent the unified theory of reality that
some Thomists had supposed. His studies of Duns Scotus, Augustine, Bernard,
Aquinas, Bonaventure, Dante, and Abelard and Héloïse explore this diversity.
But in his Gifford lectures (1931–32), The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy,
Gilson attempted a broad synthesis of medieval teaching on philosophy,
metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology, and employed it in his critique of
modern philosophy, The Unity of Philosophical Experience (1937). Most of all,
Gilson attempted to reestablish Aquinas’s distinction between essence and
existence in created being, as in Being and Some Philosophers (1949). NEO-THOMISM, THOMISM. D.W.H. Gioberti,
Vincenzo (1801–52), Italian philosopher and statesman. He was an ordained
priest, was imprisoned and exiled for advocating Italian unification, and bece
a central political figure during the Risorgimento. His major political work,
Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani (“On the Moral and Civil Primacy of
Italians,” 1843), argues for a federation of the Italian states with the pope
as its leader. Gioberti’s philosophical theory, ontologism, in contrast to
Hegel’s idealism, identifies the dialectics of Being with God’s creation. He
condensed his theory in the formula: “Being creates the existent.” The
dialectics of Being, which is the only necessary substance, is a palingenesis,
or a return to its origin, in which the existent first departs from and
imitates its creator (mimesis), and then returns to its creator (methexis). By
intuition, the human mind comes in contact with God and discovers truth by
retracing the dialectics of Being. However, knowledge of supernatural truths is
given only by God’s revelation (Teorica del soprannaturale [“Theory of the
Supernatural,” 1838] and Introduzione allo studio della filosofia
[“Introduction to the Study of Philosophy,” 1841]). Gioberti criticized modern
philosophers such as Descartes for their psychologism – seeking truth from the
human subject instead of from Being itself and its revelation. His thought is
still influential in Italy, especially in Christian spiritualism. P.Gar. given,
in epistemology, the “brute fact” element to be found or postulated as a
component of perceptual experience. Some theorists who endorse the existence of
a given element in experience think that we can find this element by careful
Ghazali, al- given 345 - 345 introspection of what we experience (Moore, H. H.
Price). Such theorists generally distinguish between those components of
ordinary perceptual awareness that constitute what we believe or know about the
objects we perceive and those components that we strictly perceive. For exple,
if we analyze introspectively what we are aware of when we see an apple we find
that what we believe of the apple is that it is a three-dimensional object with
a soft, white interior; what we see of it, strictly speaking, is just a
red-shaped expanse of one of its facing sides. This latter is what is “given”
in the intended sense. Other theorists treat the given as postulated rather
than introspectively found. For exple, some theorists treat cognition as an
activity imposing form on some material given in conscious experience. On this
view, often attributed to Kant, the given and the conceptual are interdefined
and logically inseparable. Sometimes this interdependence is seen as rendering
a description of the given as impossible; in this case the given is said to be
ineffable (C. I. Lewis, Mind and the World Order, 1929). On some theories of
knowledge (foundationalism) the first variant of the given – that which is
“found” rather than “postulated” – provides the empirical foundations of what
we might know or justifiably believe. Thus, if I believe on good evidence that
there is a red apple in front of me, the evidence is the non-cognitive part of
my perceptual awareness of the red appleshaped expanse. Epistemologies
postulating the first kind of givenness thus require a single entity-type to
explain the sensorial nature of perception and to provide immediate epistemic
foundations for empirical knowledge. This requirement is now widely regarded as
impossible to satisfy; hence Wilfred Sellars describes the discredited view as
the myth of the given.
PERCEPTION;
PHENOMENALISM; SELLARS, WILFRID. T.V. given, myth of the.SELLARS, WILFRID.
Glanvill, Joseph (1636–80), English philosopher and Anglican minister who
defended the Royal Society against Scholasticism. Glanvill believed that
certainty was possible in mathematics and theology, but not in empirical
knowledge. In his most important philosophical work, The Vanity of Dogmatizing
(1661), he claimed that the human corruption that resulted from Ad’s fall
precludes dogmatic knowledge of nature. Using traditional skeptical arguments
as well as an analysis of causality that partially anticipated Hume, Glanvill
argued that all empirical knowledge is the probabilistic variety acquired by
piecemeal investigation. Despite his skepticism he argued for the existence of
witches in Witches and Witchcraft (1668). J.W.A. Gleason’s theorem.QUANTUM
LOGIC. global supervenience.
gnosticism, a dualistic
religious and philosophical movement in the early centuries of the Christian
church, especially important in the second century under the leadership of
Valentinus and Basilides. They taught that matter was evil, the result of a
cosmic disruption in which an evil archon (often associated with the god of the
Old Testent, Yahweh) rebelled against the heavenly pleroma (the complete
spiritual world). In the process divine sparks were unleashed from the pleroma
and lodged in material human bodies. Jesus was a high-ranking archon (Logos) sent
to restore those souls with divine sparks to the pleroma by imparting esoteric
knowledge (gnosis) to them. Gnosticism influenced and threatened the orthodox
church from within and without. NonChristian gnostic sects rivaled
Christianity, and Christian gnostics threatened orthodoxy by emphasizing
salvation by knowledge rather than by faith. Theologians like Clement of
Alexandria and his pupil Origen held that there were two roads to salvation,
the way of faith for the masses and the way of esoteric or mystical knowledge
for the philosophers. Gnosticism profoundly influenced the early church,
causing it to define its scriptural canon and to develop a set of creeds and an
episcopal organization. CLEMENT OF
ALEXANDRIA, ORIGEN. L.P.P. goal-directed system.COMPUTER THEORY, CYBERNETICS.
Göckel, Rudolph.
GOCLENIUS. Goclenius,
Rudolphus, in Germany, Rudolf Göckel (1547–1628), German philosopher. After
holding some minor posts elsewhere, Goclenius bece professor at the University
of Marburg in 1581, where he remained until his death, teaching physics, logic,
mathematics, and ethics. Though he was well read and knowledgeable of later
trends in these disciplines, his basic sympathies were Aristotelian. Goclenius
was very well given, myth of the Goclenius, Rudolphus 346 - 346 regarded by his
contemporaries, who called him the Plato of Marburg, the Christian Aristotle,
and the Light of Europe, ong other things. He published an unusually large
number of books, including the Psychologia, hoc est de hominis perfectione . . .
(1590), the Conciliator philosophicus (1609), the Controversiae logicae et
philosophicae (1609), and numerous other works on logic, rhetoric, physics,
metaphysics, and the Latin language. But his most lasting work was his Lexicon
Philosophicum (1613), together with its companion, the Lexicon Philosophicum
Graecum (1615). These lexicons provide clear definitions of the philosophical
terminology of late Scholastic philosophy, and are still useful as reference
works for sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century thought. D.Garb. God.
Gödel’s incompleteness
theorems, two theorems formulated and proved by the Austrian logician Kurt
Gödel (1906–78) in his fous 1931 paper “Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der
Principia Mathematica und vervandter Systeme I,” probably the most celebrated
results in the whole of logic. They are aptly referred to as “incompleteness”
theorems since each shows, for any member of a certain class of formal systems,
that there is a sentence formulable in its language that it cannot prove, but
that it would be desirable for it to prove. In the case of the first theorem
(G1), what cannot be proved is a true sentence of the language of the given
theory. G1 is thus a disappointment to any theory constructor who wants his
theory to tell the whole truth about its subject. In the case of the second
theorem (G2), what cannot be proved is a sentence of the theory that
“expresses” its consistency. G2 is thus a disappointment to those who desire a
straightforward execution of Hilbert’s Progr. The proofs of the incompleteness
theorems can be seen as based on three main ideas. The first is that of a Gödel
numbering, i.e., an assignment of natural numbers to each of the various
objects (i.e., the terms, formulas, axioms, proofs, etc.) belonging to the various
syntactical categories of the given formal system T (referred to here as the
“represented theory”) whose metathematics is under consideration. The second is
that of a representational scheme. This includes (i) the use of the Gödel
numbering to develop number-theoretic codifications of various of the
metathematical properties pertaining to the represented theory, and (ii) the
selection of a theory S (hereafter, the “representing theory”) and a fily of
formulas from that theory (the “representing formulas”) in terms of which to
register as theorems various of the facts concerning the metathematical
properties of the represented theory thus encoded. The basic result of this
representational scheme is the weak representation of the set of (Gödel numbers
of) theorems of T, where a set L of numbers is said to be weakly represented in
S by a formula ‘L(x)’ of S just in case for every number n, n1 L if and only if
‘L([n])’ is a theorem of S, where ‘[n]’ is the standard term of S that, under
the intended interpretation of S, designates the number n. Since the set of
(Gödel numbers of) theorems of the represented theory T will typically be
recursively enumerable, and the representing theory S must be capable of weakly
representing this set, the basic strength requirement on S is that it be
capable of weakly representing the recursively enumerable sets of natural
numbers. Because basic systems of arithmetic (e.g. Robinson’s arithmetic and
Peano arithmetic) all have this capacity, Gödel’s theorems are often stated using
containment of a fragment of arithmetic as the basic strength requirement
governing the capacities of the representing theory (which, of course, is also
often the represented theory). More on this point below. The third main idea
behind the incompleteness theorems is that of a diagonal or fixed point
construction within S for the notion of unprovability-in-T; i.e., the
formulation of a sentence Gödel of S which, under the given Gödel numbering of
T, the given representation of T’s metathematical notions in S, and the
intended interpretation of the language of S, says of itself that it is not
provable-in-T. Gödel is thus false if provable and unprovable if true. More
specifically, if ‘ProvT(x)’ is a formula of S that weakly represents the set of
(Gödel numbers of) theorems of T in S, then Gödel can be any formula of S that
is provably equivalent in S to the formula ‘- ProvT ([Gödel])’. Given this
background, G1 can be stated as follows: If (a) the representing theory S is
any subtheory of the represented theory T (up to and God Gödel’s incompleteness
theorems 347 - 347 including the represented theory itself), (b) the
representing theory S is consistent, (c) the formula ‘ProvT (x)’ weakly
represents the set of (Gödel numbers of) theorems of the represented theory T
in the representing theory S, and (d) Gödel is any sentence provably equivalent
in the representing theory S to ‘ProvT ([Gödel])’, then neither Gödel nor
-Gödel is a theorem of the representing theory S. The proof proceeds in two
parts. In the first part it is shown that, for any representing theory S (up to
and including the case where S % T ), if S is consistent, then -Gödel is not a
theorem of S. To obtain this in its strongest form, we pick the strongest
subtheory S of T possible, nely S % T, and construct a reductio. Thus, suppose
that (1) -Gödel is a theorem of T. From (1) and (d) it follows that (2)
‘ProvT([Gödel])’ is a theorem of T. And from (2) and (c) (in the “if”
direction) it follows that (3) Gödel is a theorem of T. But (1) and (3) together
imply that the representing theory T is inconsistent. Hence, if T is
consistent, -Gödel cannot be a theorem of T. In the second part of the proof it
is argued that if the representing theory S is consistent, then Gödel is not a
theorem of it. Again, to obtain the strongest result, we let S be the strongest
subtheory of T possible (nely T itself) and, as before, argue by reductio. Thus
we suppose that (A) Gödel is a theorem of S (% T ). From this assumption and
condition (d) it follows that (B) ‘-Provr ([Gödel])’ is a theorem of S (% T ).
By (A) and (c) (in the “only if” direction) it follows that (C) ‘ProvT
([Gödel])’ is a theorem of S (% T ). But from (B) and (C) it follows that S (%
T ) is inconsistent. Hence, Gödel is not provable in any consistent representing
theory S up to and including T itself. The above statement of G1 is, of course,
not the usual one. The usual statement suppresses the distinction stressed
above between the representing and represented theories and collaterally
replaces our condition (c) with a clause to the effect that T is a recursively
axiomatizable extension of some suitably weak system of arithmetic (e.g.
Robinson’s arithmetic, primitive recursive arithmetic, or Peano arithmetic).
This puts into a single clause what, metathematically speaking, are two
separate conditions – one pertaining to the representing theory, the other to
the represented theory. The requirement that T be an extension of the selected
weak arithmetic addresses the question of T’s adequacy as a representing
theory, since the crucial fact about extensions of the weak arithmetic chosen
is that they are capable of weakly representing all recursively enumerable
sets. This constraint on T’s capabilities as a representing theory is in
partnership with the usual requirement that, in its capacity as a represented
theory, T be recursively axiomatizable. For T’s recursive axiomatizability
ensures (under ordinary choices of logic for T ) that its set of theorems will
be recursively enumerable – and hence weakly representable in the kind of
representing theory that it itself (by virtue of its being an extension of the
weak arithmetic specified) is. G1 can, however, be extended to certain theories
whose sets of (Gödel numbers of) theorems are not recursively enumerable. When
this is done, the basic capacity required of the representing theory is no
longer merely that the recursively enumerable sets of natural numbers be
representable in it, but that it also be capable of representing various
non-recursively enumerable sets, and hence that it go beyond the weak
arithmetics mentioned earlier. G2 is a more demanding result that G1 in that it
puts significantly stronger demands on the formula ‘ProvT (x)’ used to express
the notion of provability for the represented theory T. In proving G1 all that
is required of ‘ProvT (x)’ is that it weakly represent θ (% the set of Gödel
numbers of theorems of T); i.e., that it yield an extensionally accurate
registry of the theorems of the represented theory in the representing theory.
G2 places additional conditions on ‘ProvT (x)’; conditions which result from
the fact that, to prove G2, we must codify the second part of the proof of G1
in T itself. To do this, ‘ProvT (x)’ must be a provability predicate for T.
That is, it must satisfy the following constraints, commonly referred to as the
Derivability Conditions (for ‘ProvT (x)’): (I) If A is a theorem of the
represented theory, then ‘ProvT ([A])’ must be a theorem of the representing
theory. (II) Every instance of the formula ‘ProvT ([A P B]) P (ProvT ([A]) P
ProvT ([B]))’ must be a theorem of T. (III) Every instance of the formula
‘ProvT ([A]) P ProvT ([ProvT ([A])])’ must be a theorem of T. (I), of course,
is just part of the requirement that ‘ProvT ([A])’ weakly represent T’s
theoremset in T. So it does not go beyond what is required for the proof of G1.
(II) and (III), however, do. They make it possible to “formalize” the second
part of the proof of G1 in T itself. (II) captures, in terms of ‘ProvT (X)’,
the modus ponens inference by which (B) is derived from (A), and (III)
codiGödel’s incompleteness theorems Gödel’s incompleteness theorems 348 - 348
fies in T the appeal to (c) used in deriving (C) from (A). The result of this
“formalization” process is a proof within T of the formula ‘ConT P Gödel’
(where ConT is a formula of the form ‘- ProvT ([#])’, with ‘ProvT (x)’ a
provability predicate for T and ‘[#]’ the standard numeral denoting the Gödel
number # of some formula refutable in T ). From this, and the proof of the
second part of G1 itself (in which the first Derivability Condition, which is
just the “only if” direction of (c), figures prominently), we arrive at the
following result, which is a generalized form of G2: If S is any consistent
representing theory up to and including the represented theory T itself, ‘ProvT
(x)’ any provability predicate for T, and ConT any formula of T of the form ‘-
ProvT ([#])’, then ConT is not a theorem of S. To the extent that, in being a
provability predicate for T, ‘ProvT (x)’ “expresses” the notion of provability
of the represented theory T, it seems fair to say that ConT expresses its
consistency. And to the extent that this is true, it is sensible to read G2 as
saying that for any representing theory S and any represented theory T
extending S, if S is consistent, then the consistency of T is not provable in
S.
Godfrey of Fontaines
(probably before 1250– 1306 or 1309), French philosopher. He taught theology at
Paris (1285–c.1299; 1303–04). ong his major writings are fifteen Quodlibetal
Questions and other disputations. He was strongly Aristotelian in philosophy,
with Neoplatonic influences in metaphysics. He defended identity of essence and
existence in creatures against theories of their real or intentional
distinction, and argued for the possibility of demonstrating God’s existence
and of some quidditative knowledge of God. He admitted divine ideas for species
but not for individuals within species. He made wide applications of
Aristotelian actpotency theory – e.g., to the distinction between the soul and
its powers, to the explanation of intellection and volition, to the general
theory of substance and accident, and in unusual fashion to essence-existence
“composition” of creatures. J.F.W. Godwin, Willi (1756–1836), English
philosopher, novelist, and political writer. Godwin’s main philosophical
treatise, Enquiry concerning Political Justice (1793), aroused heated debate.
He argued for radical forms of determinism, anarchism, and utilitarianism.
Government corrupts everyone by encouraging stereotyped thinking that prevents
us from seeing each other as unique individuals. Godwin’s novel Caleb Willis
(1794) portrays a good man corrupted by prejudice. Once we remove prejudice and
artificial inequality we will see that our acts are wholly determined. This
makes punishment pointless. Only in small, anarchic societies can people see
others as they really are and thus come to feel sympathetic concern for their
wellbeing. Only so can we be virtuous, because virtue is acting from
sympathetic feelings to bring the greatest happiness to all affected. Godwin
took this principle quite literally, and accepted all its consequences.
Truthfulness has no claim on us other than the happiness it brings. If keeping
a promise causes less good than breaking it, there is no reason at all to keep
it. If one must choose between saving the life either of a major human
benefactor or of one’s mother, one must choose the benefactor. Ideally we would
need no rules in morals at all. They prevent us from seeing others properly,
thereby impairing the sympathetic feelings that constitute virtue. Rights are
pointless since sympathetic people will act to help others. Later utilitarians
like Benth had difficulty in separating their positions from Godwin’s notorious
views.
BENTH. J.B.S. Goethe,
Johann Wolfgang von (1749–1832), German writer often considered the leading
cultural figure of his age. He wrote lyric poetry, dras, and fictional,
essayistic, and aphoristic prose as well as works in various natural sciences,
including anatomy, botany, and optics. A lawyer by training, for most of his
life Goethe was a government official at the provincial court of Saxony-Weimar.
In his numerous contributions to world literature, such as the novels The
Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), Wilhelm Meister’s Years of Apprenticeship
(1795/96), Elective Affinities (1809), and Wilhelm Meister’s Years of
Pilgrimage (1821/29), and the two-part tragedy Faust (1808/32), Goethe
represented the tensions between individual and society as well as between
culture and nature, with increased recognition of their tragic opposition and
the need to cultivate a resigned self-discipline in artistic and social
matters. In his poetic and scientific treatment of nature he was influenced by
Spinoza’s pantheist identification of nature and God and maintained that
everything in nature is animate and expressive of divine presence. In his
theory and practice of science he opposed the quantitative and experimental
method and Godfrey of Fontaines Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 349 - 349 insisted
on a description of the phenomena that was to include the intuitive grasp of
the archetypal forms or shapes underlying all development in nature.
golden mean.ARISTOTLE.
Goldman, Alvin I(ra) (b.1938), erican philosopher who has made notable
contributions to action theory, naturalistic and social epistemology,
philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. He has persistently urged the
relevance of cognitive and social science to problems in epistemology,
metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and ethics. A Theory of Human Action
(1970) proposes a causal theory of action, describes the generative structure
of basic and non-basic action, and argues for the compatibility of free will
and determinism. In “Epistemics: The Regulative Theory of Cognition” (1978), he
argued that traditional epistemology should be replaced by ‘epistemics’, which
differs from traditional epistemology in characterizing knowledge, justified
belief, and rational belief in light of empirical cognitive science.
Traditional epistemology has used a coarse-grained notion of belief, taken too
restrictive a view of cognitive methods, offered advice for ideal cognizers
rather than for human beings with limited cognitive resources, and ignored
flaws in our cognitive system that must be recognized if cognition is to be
improved. Epistemologists must attend to the results of cognitive science if
they are to remedy these deficiencies in traditional epistemology. Goldman
later developed epistemics in Epistemology and Cognition (1986), in which he
developed a historical, reliabilist theory of knowledge and epistemic
justification and employed empirical cognitive science to characterize
knowledge, evaluate skepticism, and assess human cognitive resources. In
Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences (1992) and in
Knowledge in a Social World (1999), he defended and elaborated a veritistic
(i.e., truth-oriented) evaluation of communal beliefprofiles, social
institutions, and social practices (e.g., the practice of restricting evidence
admissible in a jury trial). He has opposed the widely accepted view that
mental states are functional states (“The Psychology of Folk Psychology,”
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1993) and defended a simulation theory of mental
state attribution, on which one attributes mental states to another by
imagining what mental state one would be in if one were in the other’s
situation (“In Defense of the Simulation Theory,” 1992). He has also argued
that cognitive science bears on ethics by providing information relevant to the
nature of moral evaluation, moral choice, and hedonic states associated with
the good (e.g., happiness) (“Ethics and Cognitive Science,” 1993).
good-making
characteristic, a characteristic that makes whatever is intrinsically or
inherently good, good. Hedonists hold that pleasure and conducing to pleasure
are the sole good-making characteristics. Pluralists hold that those
characteristics are only some ong many other goodmaking characteristics, which
include, for instance, knowledge, friendship, beauty, and acting from a sense
of duty.
ETHICS, HEDONISM. B.R. Goodman, Nelson
(1906–98), erican philosopher who made seminal contributions to metaphysics,
epistemology, and aesthetics. Like Quine, Goodman repudiates analyticity and
kindred notions. Goodman’s work can be read as a series of investigations into
how to do philosophy without them. A central concern is how symbols structure
facts and our understanding of them. The Structure of Appearance (1952)
presents Goodman’s constructionalism. Pretheoretical beliefs are vague and
mutually inconsistent. By devising an interpreted formal system that derives
them from or explicates them in terms of suitable primitives, we bring them
into logical contact, eliminate inconsistencies, and disclose unanticipated logical
and theoretical connections. Multiple, divergent systems do justice to the se
pretheoretical beliefs. All systems satisfying our criteria of adequacy are
equally acceptable. Nothing favors any one of them over the others. Ways of
Worldmaking (1978) provides a less formal treatment of the se themes. Category
schemes dictate criteria of identity for their objects. So mutually irreducible
category schemes do not treat of the se things. Since a world consists of the
things it comprises, irreducible schemes mark out different worlds. There are,
Goodman concludes, many worlds if any. Inasmuch as the categories that define
identity Goldbach’s conjecture Goodman, Nelson 350 - 350 conditions on objects
are human constructs, we make worlds. Languages of Art (1968) argues that art,
like science, makes and reveals worlds. Aesthetics is the branch of
epistemology that investigates art’s cognitive functions. Goodman analyzes the
syntactic and semantic structures of symbol systems, both literal and
figurative, and shows how they advance understanding in art and elsewhere.
Fact, Fiction, and Forecast(1954) poses the new riddle of induction. An item is
grue if and only if it is exined before future time t and found to be green or
is not so exined and is blue. All hitherto exined emeralds are both green and
grue. What justifies our expecting future emeralds to be green, not grue?
Inductive validity, the riddle demonstrates, depends on the characterization as
well as the classification of the evidence class. ‘Green’ is preferable,
Goodman maintains, because it is entrenched in inductive practice. This does
not guarantee that inferences using ‘green’ will yield truths. Nothing
guarantees that. But entrenched predicates are pragmatically advantageous,
because they mesh with our habits of thought and other cognitive resources.
Goodman’s other works include Problems and Projects (1972), Of Mind and Other
Matters (1984), and Reconceptions (1988), written with Catherine Z. Elgin.
AESTHETICS, ANALYTIC
–SYNTHETIC DISTINCTION, GRUE PARADOX. C.Z.E. Gorgias (c.483–c.376 B.C.), Greek
Sophist. A teacher of rhetoric from Leontini in Syracuse, Gorgias ce to Athens
in 427 B.C. as an bassador from his city and caused a sensation with his artful
oratory. He is known through references and short quotations in later writers,
and through a few surviving texts – two speeches and a philosophical treatise.
He taught a rhetorical style much imitated in antiquity, by delivering model
speeches to paying audiences. Unlike other Sophists he did not give formal
instruction in other topics, nor prepare a formal rhetorical manual. He was
known to have had views on language, on the nature of reality, and on virtue.
Gorgias’s style was remarkable for its use of poetic devices such as rhyme,
meter, and elegant words, as well as for its dependence on artificial
parallelism and balanced antithesis. His surviving speeches, defenses of Helen
and Paledes, display a range of arguments that rely heavily on what the
ancients called eikos (‘likelihood’ or ‘probability’). Gorgias maintained in
his “Helen” that a speech can compel its audience to action; elsewhere he
remarked that in the theater it is wiser to be deceived than not. Gorgias’s
short book On Nature (or On What Is Not) survives in two paraphrases, one by Sextus
Empiricus and the other (now considered more reliable) in an Aristotelian work,
On Melissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias. Gorgias argued for three theses: that
nothing exists; that even if it did, it could not be known; and that even if it
could be known, it could not be communicated. Although this may be in part a
parody, most scholars now take it to be a serious philosophical argument in its
own right. In ethics, Plato reports that Gorgias thought there were different
virtues for men and for women, a thesis Aristotle defends in the Politics. SOPHISTS. P.Wo. Göttingen
School.NEO-KANTIANISM. grace, efficacious.ARNAULD. Gracián y Morales, Baltasar
(1601–58), Spanish writer, moralist, and a leading literary theorist of the
Spanish baroque. Born in Belmonte, he entered the Jesuit order in 1619 and bece
rector of the Jesuit College at Tarragona and a favorite of King Philip III.
Gracián’s most important works are Agudeza y arte de ingenio (“The Art of
Worldly Wisdom,” 1642–48) and El criticón (“The Critic,” 1651–57). The first
provides philosophical support for conceptismo, a Spanish literary movement
that sought to create new concepts through the development of an elaborate
style, characterized by subtlety (agudeza) and ingenious literary artifices. El
criticón, written in the conceptist style, is a philosophical novel that
pessimistically criticizes the evils of civilization. Gracián anticipates
Rousseau’s noble savage in claiming that, although human beings are fundentally
good in the state of nature, they are corrupted by civilization. Echoing a
common theme of Spanish thought at the time, he attributes the nefarious
influence of civilization to the confusion it creates between appearance and
reality. But Gracián’s pessimism is tempered by faith: man has hope in the
afterlife, when reality is finally revealed. Gracián wrote several other
influential books. In El héroe (“The Hero,” 1637) and El político (“The
Politician,” 1640), he follows Machiavelli in discussing the attributes of the
ideal prince; El discreto (“The Man of Discretion,” 1646) explores the ideal
gentleman, as judged by Spanish society. Most of Gracián’s books were published
under pseudonyms to avoid censure by his order. Gorgias Gracián y Morales,
Baltasar 351 - 351 ong authors outside Spain who used his ideas are Nietzsche,
Schopenhauer, Voltaire, and Rousseau. J.J.E.G. grmar, a system of rules
specifying a language. The term has often been used synonymously with ‘syntax’,
the principles governing the construction of sentences from words (perhaps also
including the systems of word derivation and inflection – case markings, verbal
tense markers, and the like). In modern linguistic usage the term more often
encompasses other components of the language system such as phonology and
semantics as well as syntax. Traditional grmars that we may have encountered in
our school days, e.g., the grmars of Latin or English, were typically
fragmentary and often prescriptive – basically a selective catalog of forms and
sentence patterns, together with constructions to be avoided. Contemporary
linguistic grmars, on the other hand, aim to be descriptive, and even
explanatory, i.e., embedded within a general theory that offers principled
reasons for why natural languages are the way they are. This is in accord with
the generally accepted view of linguistics as a science that regards human
language as a natural phenomenon to be understood, just as physicists attempt
to make sense of the world of physical objects. Since the publication of
Syntactic Structures (1957) and Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965) by No
Chomsky, grmars have been almost universally conceived of as generative
devices, i.e., precisely formulated deductive systems – commonly called
generative grmars – specifying all and only the well-formed sentences of a
language together with a specification of their relevant structural properties.
On this view, a grmar of English has the character of a theory of the English
language, with the grmatical sentences (and their structures) as its theorems
and the grmar rules playing the role of the rules of inference. Like any
empirical theory, it is subject to disconfirmation if its predictions do not
agree with the facts – if, e.g., the grmar implies that ‘white or snow the is’
is a wellformed sentence or that ‘The snow is white’ is not. The object of this
theory construction is to model the system of knowledge possessed by those who
are able to speak and understand an unlimited number of novel sentences of the
language specified. Thus, a grmar in this sense is a psychological entity – a
component of the human mind – and the task of linguistics (avowedly a
mentalistic discipline) is to determine exactly of what this knowledge
consists. Like other mental phenomena, it is not observable directly but only
through its effects. Thus, underlying linguistic competence is to be
distinguished from actual linguistic performance, which forms part of the
evidence for the former but is not necessarily an accurate reflection of it,
containing, as it does, errors, false starts, etc. A central problem is how
this competence arises in the individual, i.e., how a grmar is inferred by a
child on the basis of a finite, variable, and imperfect sple of utterances
encountered in the course of normal development. Many sorts of observations
strongly suggest that grmars are not constructed de novo entirely on the basis
of experience, and the view is widely held that the child brings to the task a
significant, genetically determined predisposition to construct grmars
according to a well-defined pattern. If this is so, and since apparently no one
language has an advantage over any other in the learning process, this inborn
component of linguistic competence can be correctly termed a universal grmar.
It represents whatever the grmars of all natural languages, actual or
potential, necessarily have in common because of the innate linguistic
competence of human beings. The apparent diversity of natural languages has
often led to a serious underestimation of the scope of universal grmar. One of
the most influential proposals concerning the nature of universal grmar was
Chomsky’s theory of transformational grmar. In this frework the syntactic
structure of a sentence is given not by a single object (e.g., a parse tree, as
in phrase structure grmar), but rather by a sequence of trees connected by
operations called transformations. The initial tree in such a sequence is
specified (generated) by a phrase structure grmar, together with a lexicon, and
is known as the deep structure. The final tree in the sequence, the surface
structure, contains the morphemes (meaningful units) of the sentence in the
order in which they are written or pronounced. For exple, the English sentences
‘John hit the ball’ and its passive counterpart ‘The ball was hit by John’
might be derived from the se deep structure (in this case a tree looking very
much like the surface structure for the active sentence) except that the
optional transformational rule of passivization has been applied in the
derivation of the latter sentence. This rule rearranges the constituents of the
tree in such a way that, ong other changes, the direct object (‘the ball’) in
deep structure becomes the surface-structure subject of the passive sentence.
It is thus an important feature of this theory that grmatical grmar grmar 352 -
352 relations such as subject, object, etc., of a sentence are not absolute but
are relative to the level of structure. This accounts for the fact that many
sentences that appear superficially similar in structure (e.g., ‘John is easy
to please’, ‘John is eager to please’) are nonetheless perceived as having
different underlying (deep-structure) grmatical relations. Indeed, it was
argued that any theory of grmar that failed to make a
deep-structure/surface-structure distinction could not be adequate.
Contemporary linguistic theories have, nonetheless, tended toward minimizing
the importance of the transformational rules with corresponding elaboration of
the role of the lexicon and the principles that govern the operation of grmars
generally. Theories such as generalized phrase-structure grmar and lexical
function grmar postulate no transformational rules at all and capture the
relatedness of pairs such as active and passive sentences in other ways.
Chomsky’s principles and pareters approach (1981) reduces the transformational
component to a single general movement operation that is controlled by the
simultaneous interaction of a number of principles or subtheories: binding,
government, control, etc. The universal component of the grmar is thus enlarged
and the contribution of languagespecific rules is correspondingly diminished.
Proponents point to the advantages this would allow in language acquisition.
Presumably a considerable portion of the task of grmar construction would
consist merely in setting the values of a small number of pareters that could
be readily determined on the basis of a small number of instances of grmatical
sentences. A rather different approach that has been influential has arisen
from the work of Richard Montague, who applied to natural languages the se
techniques of model theory developed for logical languages such as the
predicate calculus. This so-called Montague grmar uses a categorial grmar as
its syntactic component. In this form of grmar, complex lexical and phrasal categories
can be of the form A/B. Typically such categories combine by a kind of
“cancellation” rule: A/B ! B P A (something of category A/B combines with
something of category B to yield something of category A). In addition, there
is a close correspondence between the syntactic category of an expression and
its semantic type; e.g., common nouns such as ‘book’ and ‘girl’ are of type
e/t, and their semantic values are functions from individuals (entities, or
e-type things) to truth-values (T-type things), or equivalently, sets of
individuals. The result is an explicit, interlocking syntax and semantics
specifying not only the syntactic structure of grmatical sentences but also
their truth conditions. Montague’s work was embedded in his own view of
universal grmar, which has not, by and large, proven persuasive to linguists. A
great deal of attention has been given in recent years to merging the undoubted
virtues of Montague grmar with a linguistically more palatable view of
universal grmar. CHOMSKY, LOGICAL FORM,
PARSING, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. R.E.W. grmar, categorial.GRMAR. grmar,
Montague.GRMAR. grmar, transformational.GRMAR. grmar, universal.GRMAR.
grmatical form.LOGICAL FORM. grmaticality intuitions.
INTUITION. grmatical
predicate.LOGICAL SUBJECT. grmatical subject.LOGICAL SUBJECT.
Gramsci, Antonio
(1891–1937), Italian political leader whose imprisonment by the Fascists for
his involvement with the Italian Communist Party had the ironical result of
sparing him from Stalinism and enabling him to better articulate his
distinctive political philosophy. In 1917 he welcomed the Bolshevik Revolution
as a “revolution against Capital” rather than against capitalism: as a
revolution refuting the deterministic Marxism according to which socialism
could arise only by the gradual evolution of capitalism, and confirming the
possibility of the radical transformation of social institutions. In 1921 he
supported creation of the Italian Communist Party; as its general secretary
from 1924, he tried to reorganize it along more democratic lines. In 1926 the
Fascists outlawed all opposition parties. Grsci spent the rest of his life in
various prisons, where he wrote more than a thousand s of notes ranging from a
few lines to chapterlength essays. These Prison Notebooks pose a major
interpretive challenge, but they reveal a keen, insightful, and open mind
grappling with important social and political problems. The most common
interpretation stems from Palmiro Togliatti, Grsci’s successor as leader of
grmar, categorial Grsci, Antonio 353 - 353 the Italian Communists. After the
fall of Fascism and the end of World War II, Togliatti read into Grsci the
so-called Italian road to socialism: a strategy for attaining the traditional
Marxist goals of the classless society and the nationalization of the means of
production by cultural means, such as education and persuasion. In contrast to
Bolshevism, one had to first conquer social institutions, and then their
control would yield the desired economic and political changes. This democratic
theory of Marxist revolution was long regarded by many as especially relevant
to Western industrial societies, and so for this and other reasons Grsci is a
key figure of Western Marxism. The se theory is often called Grsci’s theory of
hegemony, referring to a relationship between two political units where one
dominates the other with the consent of that other. This interpretation was a
political reconstruction, based primarily on Grsci’s Communist involvement and
on highly selective passages from the Notebooks. It was also based on
exaggerating the influence on Grsci of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Gentile, and
minimizing influences like Croce, Mosca, Machiavelli, and Hegel. No new
consensus has emerged yet; it would have to be based on analytical and historical
spadework barely begun. One main interpretive issue is whether Grsci, besides
questioning the means, was also led to question the ends of traditional
Marxism. In one view, his commitment to rational persuasion, political realism,
methodological fallibilism, democracy, and pluralism is much deeper than his
inclinations toward the classless society, the abolition of private property,
the bureaucratically centralized party, and the like; in particular, his
pluralism is an aspect of his commitment to the dialectic as a way of thinking,
a concept he adapted from Hegel through Croce.
Green, T(homas) H(ill)
(1836–82), British absolute idealist and social philosopher. The son of a
clergyman, Green studied and taught at Oxford. His central concern was to
resolve what he saw as the spiritual crisis of his age by analyzing knowledge
and morality in ways inspired by Kant and Hegel. In his lengthy introduction to
Hume’s Treatise, he argued that Hume had shown knowledge and morality to be
impossible on empiricist principles. In his major work, Prolegomena to Ethics
(1883), Green contended that thought imposed relations on sensory feelings and
impulses (whose source was an eternal consciousness) to constitute objects of
knowledge and of desire. Furthermore, in acting on desires, rational agents
seek the satisfaction of a self that is realized through their own actions.
This requires rational agents to live in harmony ong themselves and hence to
act morally. In Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (1885) Green
transformed classical liberalism by arguing that even though the state has no
intrinsic value, its intervention in society is necessary to provide the
conditions that enable rational beings to achieve self-satisfaction. HUME, IDEALISM, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. J.W.A.
Gregory I, Saint, called Gregory the Great (c.540–604), a pope and Roman
political leader. Born a patrician, he was educated for public office and bece
prefect of Rome in 570. In 579, he was appointed papal representative in
Constantinople, returning to Rome as counselor to Pope Pelagius II in 586. He
was elected Pope Gregory I in 590. When the Lombards attacked Rome in 594,
Gregory bought them off. Constantinople would neither cede nor defend Italy,
and Gregory stepped in as secular ruler of what bece the Papal States. He
asserted the universal jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome, and claimed
patriarchy of the West. His writings include important letters; the Moralia, an
exposition of the Book of Job summarizing Christian theology; Pastoral Care,
which defined the duties of the clergy for the Middle Ages; and Dialogues,
which deals chiefly with the immortality of the soul, holding it could enter
heaven immediately without awaiting the Last Judgment. His thought, largely
Augustinian, is unoriginal, but was much quoted in the Middle Ages. AUGUSTINE. J.Lo. Gregory of Nyssa, Saint
(335–98), Greek theologian and mystic who tried to reconcile Platonism with
Christianity. As bishop of Cappadocia in eastern Asia Minor, he chpioned
orthodoxy and was prominent at the First Council of Constantinople. He related
the doctrine of the Trinity to Plato’s ideas of the One and the Many. He
followed Origen in believing that man’s material great chain of being Gregory
of Nyssa 354 - 354 nature was due to the fall and in believing in the
Apocatastasis, the universal restoration of all souls, including Satan’s, in
the kingdom of God.
Gregory of Rimini
(c.1300–58), Italian philosopher and monk. He studied in Italy, England, and
France, and taught at the universities of Bologna, Padua, Perugia, and Paris
before becoming prior general of the Hermits of St. Augustine in his native
city of Rimini, about eighteen months before he died. Gregory earned the
honorific title “the Authentic Doctor” because he was considered by many of his
contemporaries to be a faithful interpreter of Augustine, and thus a defender
of tradition, in the midst of the skepticism of Ockh and his disciples
regarding what could be known in natural philosophy and theology. Thus, in his
commentary on Books I and II of Peter Lombard’s Sentences, Gregory rejected the
view that because of God’s omnipotence he can do anything and is therefore
unknowable in his nature and his ways. Gregory also maintained that after Ad’s
fall from righteousness, men need, in conjunction with their free will, God’s
help (grace) to perform morally good actions. In non-religious matters Gregory
is usually associated with the theory of the complexe significabile, according
to which the object of knowledge acquired by scientific proof is neither an
object existing outside the mind, nor a word (simplex) or a proposition
(complexum), but rather the complexe significabile, that which is totally and
adequately signified by the proposition expressed in the conclusion of the
proof in question.
Grice: English philosopher
whose work concerns perception and philosophy of language, and whose most
influential contribution is the concept of a conversational implicature and the
associated theoretical machinery of conversational ‘postulates.’ The concept of
a conversational implicature is first used in his ‘presentation’ on the causal
theory of perception and reference. Grice distinguishes between the ‘meaning’ of
the words used in a sentence and what is implied by the utterer’s choice of
words. If someone says “It looks as if there is a red pillar box in front of
me,” the choice of words implies that there is some doubt about the pillar box
being red. But, Grice argues, that is a matter of word choice and the sentence
itself does not ‘impl’ that there is
doubt. The term ‘conversational implicature’ was introduced in Grice’s Willi
Jes lectures (published in 1988) and used to defend the use of the material
implication as a logical translation of ‘if’. With Strawson (“In Defence of
Dogma”), Grice gives a spirited defense of the analytic–synthetic distinction
against Quine’s criticisms. In subsequent systematic papers Grice attempts, ong
other things, to give a theoretical grounding of the distinction. Grice’s
oeuvre is part of the Oxford ordinary language tradition, if formal and theoretical.
He also explores metaphysics, especially the concept of absolute value.
Groot, Huigh de.GROTIUS.
Grosseteste, Robert (c.1168–1253), English theologian who began life on the
bottom rung of feudal society in Suffolk and bece one of the most influential
philosophers in pre-Reformation England. He studied at Oxford, becoming a
master of arts between 1186 and 1189. Sometime after this period he joined the
household of Willi de Vere, bishop of Hereford. Grosseteste may have been
associated with the local cathedral school in Hereford, several of whose
members were part of a relatively advanced scientific tradition. It was a
center for the study of natural science and astrology as well as liberal arts
and theology. If so, this would explain, at least in part, his lifelong
interest in work in natural philosophy. Between 1209 and 1214 Grosseteste bece
a master of theology, probably in Paris. In 1221 he bece the first chancellor
of Oxford. From 1229 to 1235 he was secular lecturer in theology to the
recently established Franciscan order at Oxford. It was during his tenure with
the Franciscans that he studied Greek – an unusual endeavor for a medieval
schoolman. He spent the last eighteen years of his life as bishop of Lincoln. As
a university scholar, Grosseteste was an original thinker who used Aristotelian
and Augustinian theses as points of departure. He believed, with Aristotle,
that sense knowledge is the basis of all knowledge, and that the basis for
sense knowledge is our discovery of the cause of what is experienced or
revealed by experiment. He also believed, with Augustine, that light plays
Gregory of Rimini Grosseteste, Robert 355 - 355 an important role in creation.
Thus he maintained that God produced the world by first creating prime matter
from which issued a point of light (lux), the first corporeal form or power,
one of whose manifestations is visible light. The diffusion of this light
resulted in extension or tridimensionality in the form of the nine concentric celestial
spheres and the four terrestrial spheres of fire, air, water, and earth.
According to Grosseteste, the diffusion of light takes place in accordance with
laws of mathematical proportionality (geometry). Everything, therefore, is a
manifestation of light, and mathematics is consequently indispensable to
science and knowledge generally. The principles Grosseteste employs to support
his views are presented in, e.g., his commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior
Analytics, the De luce (“Of Light”), and the De lineis, angulis et figuris (“Of
Lines, Angles, and Figures”). He worked in areas as seemingly disparate as
optics and angelology. Grosseteste was one of the first to take an interest in
and introduce into the Oxford curriculum newly recovered Aristotelian texts –
some of which he translated, along with Greek commentaries on them. His work
and interest in natural philosophy, mathematics, the Bible, and languages
profoundly influenced his younger contemporary, Roger Bacon, and the
educational goals of the Franciscan order. It also helped to stimulate work in
these areas during the fourteenth century.
Grotius, Hugo, in Dutch,
Huigh de Groot (1583– 1645), Dutch humanist, a founder of modern views of
international law and a major theorist of natural law. A lawyer and Latinist,
Grotius developed a new view of the law of nature in order to combat moral
skepticism and to show how there could be rational settlement of moral disputes
despite religious disagreements. He argued in The Law of War and Peace (1625)
that humans are naturally both competitive and sociable. The laws of nature
show us how we can live together despite our propensity to conflict. They can
be derived from observation of our nature and situation. These laws reflect the
fact that each individual possesses rights, which delimit the social space
within which we are free to pursue our own goals. Legitimate government arises
when we give up some rights in order to save or improve our lives. The
obligations that the laws of nature impose would bind us, Grotius notoriously
said, even if God did not exist; but he held that God does enforce the laws.
They set the limits on the laws that governments may legitimately impose. The
laws of nature reflect our possession of both precise perfect rights of justice,
which can be protected by force, and imperfect rights, which are not
enforceable, nor even statable very precisely. Grotius’s views on our combative
but sociable nature, on the function of the law of nature, and on perfect and
imperfect rights were of central importance in later discussions of morality
and law. NATURAL LAW, RIGHTS. J.B.S.
grue paradox, a paradox
in the theory of induction, according to which every intuitively acceptable
inductive argument, A, may be mimicked by indefinitely many other inductive
arguments – each seemingly quite analogous to A and therefore seemingly as
acceptable, yet each nonetheless intuitively unacceptable, and each yielding a
conclusion contradictory to that of A, given the assumption that sufficiently
many and varied of the sort of things induced upon exist as yet unexined (which
is the only circumstance in which A is of interest). Suppose the following is
an intuitively acceptable inductive argument: (A1) All hitherto observed
emeralds are green; therefore, all emeralds are green. Now introduce the
colorpredicate ‘grue’, where (for some given, as yet wholly future, temporal
interval T) an object is grue provided it has the property of being either
green and first exined before T, or blue and not first exined before T. Then
consider the following inductive argument: (A2) All hitherto observed emeralds
are grue; therefore, all emeralds are grue. The premise is true, and A2 is
formally analogous to A1. But A2 is intuitively unacceptable; if there are
emeralds unexined before T, then the conclusion of A2 says that these emeralds
are blue, whereas the conclusion of A1 says that they are green. Other
counterintuitive competing arguments could be given, e.g.: (A3) All hitherto
observed emeralds are grellow; therefore, all emeralds are grellow (where an
object is grellow provided it is green and located on the earth, or yellow
otherwise). It would seem, therefore, that some restriction on induction is
required. The new riddle of induction offers two challenges. First, state the restriction
– i.e., demarcate the intuitively acceptable inductions from the unacceptable
ones, in some general way, without constant appeal to intuition. Second,
justify our preference for the Grotius, Hugo grue paradox 356 - 356 one group
of inductions over the other. (These two parts of the new riddle are often
conflated. But it is at least conceivable that one might solve the analytical,
demarcative part without solving the justificatory part, and, perhaps, vice
versa.) It will not do to rule out, a priori, “gruelike” (now commonly called
“gruesome”) variances in nature. Water (pure H2O) varies in its physical state
along the pareter of temperature. If so, why might not emeralds vary in color
along the pareter of time of first exination? One approach to the problem of
restriction is to focus on the conclusions of inductive arguments (e.g., All
emeralds are green, All emeralds are grue) and to distinguish those which may
legitimately so serve (called “projectible hypotheses”) from those which may
not. The question then arises whether only non-gruesome hypotheses (those which
do not contain gruesome predicates) are projectible. Aside from the task of
defining ‘gruesome predicate’ (which could be done structurally relative to a
preferred language), the answer is no. The English predicate ‘solid and less
than 0; C, or liquid and more than 0; C but less than 100; C, or gaseous and
more than 100; C’ is gruesome on any plausible structural account of
gruesomeness (note the similarity to the English ‘grue’ equivalent: green and
first exined before T, or blue and not first exined before T). Nevertheless,
where nontransitional water is pure H2O at one atmosphere of pressure (save
that which is in a transitional state, i.e., melting/freezing or
boiling/condensing, i.e., at 0°C or 100; C), we happily project the hypothesis
that all non-transitional water falls under the above gruesome predicate.
Perhaps this is because, if we rewrite the projection about non-transitional
water as a conjunction of non-gruesome hypotheses – (i) All water at less than
0; C is solid, (ii) All water at more than 0; C but less than 100; C is liquid,
and (iii) All water at more than 100; C is gaseous – we note that (i)–(iii) are
all supported (there are known positive instances); whereas if we rewrite the
gruesome projection about emeralds as a conjunction of non-gruesome hypotheses
– (i*) All emeralds first exined before T are green, and (ii*) All emeralds not
first exined before T are blue – we note that (ii*) is as yet unsupported. It
would seem that, whereas a non-gruesome hypothesis is projectible provided it
is unviolated and supported, a gruesome hypothesis is projectible provided it
is unviolated and equivalent to a conjunction of non-gruesome hypotheses, each
of which is supported. The grue paradox was discovered by Nelson Goodman. It is
most fully stated in his Fact, Fiction and Forecast (1955).
guise theory, a system
developed by Castañeda to resolve a number of issues concerning the content of
thought and experience, including reference, identity statements, intensional
contexts, predication, existential claims, perception, and fictional discourse.
For exple, since (i) Oedipus believed that he killed the man at the crossroads,
and (ii) the man at the crossroads was his (Oedipus’s) father, it might seem
that (iii) Oedipus believed that he killed his father. Guise theory blocks this
derivation by taking ‘was’ in (ii) to express, not genuine identity, but a
contingent seness relation betweeen the distinct referents of the descriptions.
Definite descriptions are typically treated as referential, contrary to
Russell’s theory of descriptions, and their referents are identical in both
direct and indirect discourse, contrary to Frege’s semantics. To support this
solution, guise theory offers unique accounts of predication and singular
referents. The latter are individual guises, which, like Fregean senses and
Meinong’s incomplete objects, are thinly individuated aspects or “slices” of
ordinary objects at best. Every guise is a structure c{F1 . . . , Fn} where c
is an operator expressed by ‘the’ in English – transforming a set of properties
{F1, . . . , Fn} into a distinct concrete individual, each property being an
internal property of the guise. Guises have external properties by standing in
various seness relations to other guises that have these properties internally.
There are four such relations, besides genuine identity, each an equivalence
relation in its field. If the oldest philosopher happens to be wise, e.g.,
wisdom is factually predicated of the guise ‘the oldest philosopher’ because it
is consubstantiated with ‘the oldest wise philosopher’. Other seness relations
account for fictional predication (consociation) and necessary external
predication (conflation). Existence is self-consubstantiation. An ordinary
physical object is, at any moment, a cluster of consubstantiated (hence,
existing) guises, while continuants are formed through the transubstantiation
of guises within temporally distinct clusters. There are no substrates, and
while every guise “subsists,” not all exist, e.g., the Norse God of Thunder.
The posiGrundnorm guise theory 357 - 357 tion thus permits a unified account of
singular reference. One task for guise theory is to explain how a “concretized”
set of properties differs internally from a mere set. Perhaps guises are façons
de penser whose core sets are concretized if their component properties are
conceived as coinstantiated, with non-existents analyzable in terms of the
failure of the conceived properties to actually be coinstantiated. However, it
is questionable whether this approach can achieve all that Castañeda demands of
guise theory.
Habermas, Jürgen
(b.1929), German philosopher and social theorist, a leading representative of
the second generation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. His work has
consistently returned to the problem of the normative foundations of social
criticism and critical social inquiry not supplied in traditional Marxism and
other forms of critical theory, such as postmodernism. His habilitation, The
Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1961), is an influential
historical analysis of the emergence of the ideal of a public sphere in the
eighteenth century and its subsequent decline. Habermas turned then to the
problems of the foundations and methodology of the social sciences, developing
a criticism of positivism and his own interpretive explanatory approach in The
Logic of the Social Sciences (1963) and his first major systematic work,
Knowledge and Human Interests (1967). Rejecting the unity of method typical of
positivism, Habermas argues that social inquiry is guided by three distinct
interests: in control, in understanding, and in emancipation. He is especially
concerned to use emancipatory interest to overcome the limitations of the model
of inquiry based on understanding and argues against “universality of
hermeneutics” (defended by hermeneuticists such as Gader) and for the need to
supplement interpretations with explanations in the social sciences. As he ce
to reject the psychoanalytic vocabulary in which he formulated the interest in
emancipation, he turned to finding the basis for understanding and social
inquiry in a theory of rationality more generally. In the next phase of his
career he developed a comprehensive social theory, culminating in his
two-volume The Theory of Communicative Action (1982). The goal of this theory
is to develop a “critical theory of modernity,” on the basis of a comprehensive
theory of communicative (as opposed to instrumental) rationality. The first
volume develops a theory of communicative rationality based on “discourse,” or
second-order communication that takes place both in everyday interaction and in
institutionalized practices of argumentation in science, law, and criticism.
This theory of rationality emerges from a universal or “formal” pragmatics, a
speech act theory based on making explicit the rules and norms of the
competence to communicate in linguistic interaction. The second volume develops
a diagnosis of modern society as suffering from “onesided rationalization,”
leading to disruptions of the communicative lifeworld by “systems” such as
markets and bureaucracies. Finally, Habermas applies his conception of
rationality to issues of normative theory, including ethics, politics, and the
law. “Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Progr of Moral Justification” (1982) argues
for an intersubjective notion of practical reason and discursive procedure for
the justification of universal norms. This “discourse principle” provides a
dialogical version of Kant’s idea of universalization; a norm is justified if
and only if it can meet with the reasoned agreement of all those affected.
Between Facts and Norms (1992) combines his social and normative theories to
give a systematic account of law and democracy. His contribution here is an
account of deliberative democracy appropriate to the complexity of modern
society. His work in all of these phases provides a systematic defense and
critique of modern institutions and a vindication of the universal claims of
public practical reason.
haecceity (from Latin haec, ‘this’), (1)
loosely, thisness; more specifically, an irreducible category of being, the
fundental actuality of an existent entity; or (2) an individual essence, a
property an object has necessarily, without which it would not be or would
cease to exist as the individual it is, and which, necessarily, no other object
has. There are in the history of philosophy two distinct concepts of haecceity.
The idea originated with the work of the thirteenthcentury philosopher Duns
Scotus, and was discussed in the se period by Aquinas, as a positive perfection
that serves as a primitive existence and individuation principle for concrete
existents. In the seventeenth century Leibniz transformed the concept of haecceity,
which Duns Scotus had explicitly denied to be a form or universal, into the
notion of an individual essence, a distinctive nature or set of necessary
characteristics uniquely identifying it under the principle of the identity of
indiscernibles. 359 H 4065h-l.qxd 359
Duns Scotus’s haecceitas applies only to the being of contingently existent
entities in the actual world, but Leibniz extends the principle to individuate
particular things not only through the changes they may undergo in the actual
world, but in any alternative logically possible world. Leibniz admitted as a
consequence the controversial thesis that every object by virtue of its
haecceity has each of its properties essentially or necessarily, so that only
the counterparts of individuals can inhabit distinct logically possible worlds.
A further corollary – since the possession of particular parts in a particular
arrangement is also a property and hence involved in the individual essence of
any complex object – is the doctrine of mereological essentialism: every
composite is necessarily constituted by a particular configuration of
particular proper parts, and loses its self-identity if any parts are removed
or replaced.
Haeckel, Ernst
(1834–1919), German zoologist, an impassioned adherent of Darwin’s theory of
evolution. His popular work Die Welträtsel (The Riddle of the Universe, 1899)
bece a best-seller and was very influential in its time. Lenin is said to have
admired it. Haeckel’s philosophy, which he called monism, is characterized
negatively by his rejection of free will, immortality, and theism, as well as
his criticisms of the traditional forms of materialism and idealism. Positively
it is distinguished by passionate arguments for the fundental unity of organic
and inorganic nature and a form of pantheism. M.K. Ha-Levi, Judah
(c.1075–1141), Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet. Born in Toledo, he studied
biblical and rabbinical literature as well as philosophy. His poetry introduces
Arabic forms in Hebrew religious expression. He was traveling to Jerusalem on a
pilgrimage when he died. His most important philosophical work is Kuzari: The
Book of Proof and Argument of the Despised Faith, which purports to be a
discussion of a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew, each offering the king of the
Khazars (in southern Russia) reasons for adopting his faith. Around 740 the
historical king and most of his people converted to Judaism. HaLevi presents
the Christian and the Muslim as Aristotelian thinkers, who fail to convince the
king. The Jewish spokesman begins by asserting his belief in the God of Abrah,
Isaac, and Jacob, the God of history who is continuously active in history,
rather than the God of the philosophers. Jewish history is the inner core of
world history. From the revelation at Sinai, the most witnessed divine event
claimed by any religion, the Providential history of the Jews is the way God
has chosen to make his message clear to all humankind. Ha-Levi’s view is the
classical expression of Jewish particularism and nationalism. His ideas have
been influential in Judaism and were early printed in Latin and Spanish. JEWISH PHILOSOPHY. R.H.P.
Halldén-complete.COMPLETENESS. hallucination.
PSEUDOHALLUCINATION.
hallucination, argument from.PERCEPTION. halting problem.COMPUTABILITY. Hann,
Johann Georg (1730–88), German philosopher. Born and educated in Königsberg,
Hann, known as the Magus of the North, was one of the most important Christian
thinkers in Germany during the second half of the eighteenth century.
Advocating an irrationalistic theory of faith (inspired by Hume), he opposed
the prevailing Enlightenment philosophy. He was a mentor of the Sturm und Drang
literary movement and had a significant influence on Jacobi, Hegel, and
Kierkegaard. As a close acquaintance of Kant, he also had a great impact on the
development of Kant’s critical philosophy through his Hume translations. Hann’s
most important works, criticized and admired for their difficult and obscure
style, were the Socratic Memorabilia (1759), Aesthetica in nuce (“Aesthetics in
a Nutshell,” 1762), and several works on language. He suppressed his
“metacritical” writings out of respect for Kant. However, they were published
after his death and now constitute the bestknown part of his work. M.K. Hilton,
Willi (1788–1856), Scottish philosopher and logician. Born in Glasgow and
educated at Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Oxford, he was for most of his life
professor at the University of Edinburgh (1821–56). Though hardly an orthodox
or uncritical follower of Reid and Stewart, he bece one of the most important
members of the school of Scottish common sense philosophy. His “philosophy of
the conditioned” has a somewhat Kantian flavor. Like Kant, he held that we can
have knowledge only of “the relative manifestations of an existence, which in
itself it is our highest wisdom to recogHaeckel, Ernst Hilton, Willi 360
4065h-l.qxd 360 nize as beyond the
reach of philosophy.” Unlike Kant, however, he argued for the position of a
“natural realism” in the Reidian tradition. The doctrine of the relativity of
knowledge has seemed to many – including J. S. Mill – contradictory to his
realism. For Hilton, the two are held together by a kind of intuitionism that
emphasizes certain facts of consciousness that are both primitive and
incomprehensible. They are, though constitutive of knowledge, “less forms of
cognitions than of beliefs.” In logic he argued for a doctrine involving
quantification of predicates and the view that propositions can be reduced to
equations. SCOTTISH COMMON SENSE
PHILOSOPHY. M.K. Han Fei Tzu, also called Master Han Fei (third century B.C.),
Chinese Legalist political theorist. He was a prince of the state of Han and a
student of Hsün Tzu. His thought, recorded in the text Han Fei Tzu, mainly
concerned the method of government and was addressed primarily to rulers. Han
Fei Tzu believed that human beings are self-seeking by nature, and that they
can rarely be transformed by education and moral exples. Accordingly, the ruler
should institute a precisely formulated and clearly propagated system of laws
(fa) to regulate their behavior, and enforce it with punishment. Officials, in
addition to being governed by laws, are to be rewarded and punished according
to whether their performance coincides with their official duties and proposed
plans. The ruler should enforce this system strictly without favoritism, should
shun contact with subordinates to avoid breeding filiarity, and should conceal
his personal likes and dislikes to avoid their being exploited. Having properly
set up the machinary of government, the government will run smoothly with
minimal intervention by the ruler.
CHINESE LEGALISM. K.-l.S. Han Yü (768–824), Chinese poet and essayist
who, though his thoughts lacked philosophical depth, was the first to emphasize
“correct transmission” of the Way from the sage-emperors to Confucius and
Mencius. His views later profoundly influenced Neo-Confucian philosophers in
the Sung dynasty. He vigorously defended Confucianism against Buddhism and
Taoism on cultural grounds: the monks and nuns were parasites on society. He
also formulated a threefold theory on which human nature has superior, medium,
and inferior grades. CONFUCIANISM,
CONFUCIUS, MENCIUS, NEO-CONFUCIANISM, TAO-T’UNG. S.-h.L. happiness.
ARISTOTLE, HEDONISM,
UTILITARIANISM. hard determinism.FREE WILL PROBLEM. Hardenberg, Friedrich
von.NOVALIS. hardware.COMPUTER THEORY. Hare, R(ichard) M(ervyn) (b.1919),
English philosopher who is one of the most influential moral philosophers of
the twentieth century and the developer of prescriptivism in metaethics. Hare
was educated at Rugby and Oxford, then served in the British army during World
War II and spent years as a prisoner of war in Burma. In 1947 he took a
position at Balliol College and was appointed White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy
at the University of Oxford in 1966. On retirement from Oxford, he bece
Graduate Research Professor at the University of Florida (1983–93). His major
books are Language of Morals (1953), Freedom and Reason (1963), Moral Thinking
(1981), and Sorting Out Ethics (1997). Many collections of his essays have also
appeared, and a collection of other leading philosophers’ articles on his work
was published in 1988 (Hare and Critics, eds. Seanor and Fotion). According to
Hare, a careful exploration of the nature of our moral concepts reveals that
(nonironic) judgments about what one morally ought to do are expressions of the
will, or commitments to act, that are subject to certain logical constraints.
Because moral judgments are prescriptive, we cannot sincerely subscribe to them
while refusing to comply with them in the relevant circumstances. Because moral
judgments are universal prescriptions, we cannot sincerely subscribe to them
unless we are willing for them to be followed were we in other people’s positions
with their preferences. Hare later contended that vividly to imagine ourselves
completely in other people’s positions involves our acquiring preferences about
what should happen to us in those positions that mirror exactly what those
people now want for themselves. So, ideally, we decide on a universal
prescription on the basis of not only our existing preferences about the actual
situation but also the new preferences we would have if we were wholly in other
people’s positions. What we can prescribe universally is what maximizes net
satisfaction of this algated set of preferences. Hence, Hare concluded that his
theory of moral judgment leads to preference-satisfaction act utilitarianism.
However, like most other utilitarians, he argued that the Han Fei Tzu Hare,
R(ichard) M(ervyn) 361 4065h-l.qxd
361 best way to maximize utility is to have, and generally to act on,
certain not directly utilitarian dispositions – such as dispositions not to
hurt others or steal, to keep promises and tell the truth, to take special
responsibility for one’s own fily, and so on.
EMOTIVISM, ETHICS,
PRESCRIPTIVISM, UTILITARIANISM. B.W.H. harmony, preestablished.LEIBNIZ. harmony
of the spheres.PYTHAGORAS. Hart, H(erbert) L(ionel) A(dolphus) (1907–92),
English philosopher principally responsible for the revival of legal and
political philosophy after World War II. After wartime work with military
intelligence, Hart gave up a flourishing law practice to join the Oxford
faculty, where he was a brilliant lecturer, a sympathetic and insightful
critic, and a generous mentor to many scholars. Like the earlier “legal
positivists” Benth and John Austin, Hart accepted the “separation of law and
morals”: moral standards can deliberately be incorporated in law, but there is
no automatic or necessary connection between law and sound moral principles. In
The Concept of Law (1961) he critiqued the Benth-Austin notion that laws are
orders backed by threats from a political community’s “sovereign” – some person
or persons who enjoy habitual obedience and are habitually obedient to no other
human – and developed the more complex idea that law is a “union of primary and
secondary rules.” Hart agreed that a legal system must contain some
“obligation-imposing” “primary” rules, restricting freedom. But he showed that
law also includes independent “power-conferring” rules that facilitate choice,
and he demonstrated that a legal system requires “secondary” rules that create
public offices and authorize official action, such as legislation and adjudication,
as well as “rules of recognition” that determine which other rules are valid in
the system. Hart held that rules of law are “open-textured,” with a core of
determinate meaning and a fringe of indeterminate meaning, and thus capable of
answering some but not all legal questions that can arise. He doubted courts’
claims to discover law’s meaning when reasonable competing interpretations are
available, and held that courts decide such “hard cases” by first performing
the important “legislative” function of filling gaps in the law. Hart’s first
book was an influential study (with A. M. Honoré) of Causation in the Law
(1959). His inaugural lecture as Professor of Jurisprudence, “Definition and
Theory in Jurisprudence” (1953), initiated a career-long study of rights,
reflected also in Essays on Benth: Studies in Jurisprudence and Political
Theory (1982) and in Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy (1983). He defended
liberal public policies. In Law, Liberty and Morality (1963) he refuted Lord
Devlin’s contention that a society justifiably enforces the code of its moral
majority, whatever it might be. In The Morality of the Criminal Law (1965) and
in Punishment and Responsibility (1968), Hart contributed substantially to both
analytic and normative theories of crime and punishment.
Hartley, David (1705–57),
British physician and philosopher. Although the notion of association of ideas
is ancient, he is generally regarded as the founder of associationism as a
self-sufficient psychology. Despite similarities between his association
psychology and Hume’s, Hartley developed his system independently,
acknowledging only the writings of clergyman John Gay (1699– 1745). Hartley was
one of many Enlightenment thinkers aspiring to be “Newtons of the mind,” in
Peter Gay’s phrase. In Hartley, this took the form of uniting association
philosophy with physiology, a project later brought to fruition by Bain. His
major work, Observations on Man (1749), pictured mental events and neural
events as operating on parallel tracks in which neural events cause mental
events. On the mental side, Hartley distinguished (like Hume) between sensation
and idea. On the physiological side, Hartley adopted Newton’s conception of
nervous transmission by vibrations of a fine granular substance within
nerve-tubes. Vibrations within sensory nerves peripheral to the brain
corresponded to the sensations they caused, while small vibrations in the
brain, vibratiuncles, corresponded to ideas. Hartley proposed a single law of
association, contiguity modified by frequency, which took two forms, one for
the mental side and one for the neural: ideas, or vibratiuncles, occurring
together regularly become associated. Hartley distinguished between
simultaneous association, the link between ideas that occur at the se harmony,
preestablished Hartley, David 362 4065h-l.qxd 362 moment, and successive association,
between ideas that closely succeed one another. Successive associations occur
only in a forward direction; there are no backward associations, a thesis
generating much controversy in the later experimental study of memory. ASSOCIATIONISM. T.H.L. Hartmann, Eduard von
(1842–1906), German philosopher who sought to synthesize the thought of
Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. The most important of his fifteen books was
Philosophie des Unbewussten (Philosophy of the Unconscious, 1869). For Hartmann
both will and idea are interrelated and are expressions of an absolute
“thing-in-itself,” the unconscious. The unconscious is the active essence in
natural and psychic processes and is the teleological dynic in organic life.
Paradoxically, he claimed that the teleology immanent in the world order and
the life process leads to insight into the irrationality of the “will-to-live.”
The maturation of rational consciousness would, he held, lead to the negation
of the total volitional process and the entire world process would cease. Ideas
indicate the “what” of existence and constitute, along with will and the
unconscious, the three modes of being. Despite its pessimism, this work enjoyed
considerable popularity. Hartmann was an unusual combination of speculative
idealist and philosopher of science (defending vitalism and attacking
mechanistic materialism); his pessimistic ethics was part of a cosmic dra of
redemption. Some of his later works dealt with a critical form of Darwinism
that led him to adopt a positive evolutionary stance that undermined his
earlier pessimism. His general philosophical position was selfdescribed as
“transcendental realism.” His Philosophy of the Unconscious was translated into
English by W. C. Coupland in three volumes in 1884. There is little doubt that
his metaphysics of the unconscious prepared the way for Freud’s later theory of
the unconscious mind.
Hartmann, Nicolai
(1882–1950), Latvian-born German philosopher. He taught at the universities of
Marburg, Cologne, Berlin, and Göttingen, and wrote more than a dozen major
works on the history of philosophy, ontology, epistemology, ethics, and
aesthetics. A realist in epistemology and ontology, Hartmann held that
cognition is the apprehension of something independent of the act of
apprehension or any other mental events. An accurate phenomenology, such as
Husserl’s, would acknowledge, according to him, that we apprehend not only
particular, spatiotemporal objects, but also “ideal objects,” “essences,” which
Hartmann explicitly identified with Platonic Forms. ong these are ethical
values and the objects of mathematics and logic. Our apprehension of values is
emotional in character, as Scheler had held. This point is compatible with
their objectivity and their mindindependence, since the emotions are just
another mode of apprehension. The point applies, however, only to ethical
values. Aesthetic values are essentially subjective; they exist only for the
subject experiencing them. The number of ethical values is far greater than
usually supposed, nor are they derivable from a single fundental value. At best
we only glimpse some of them, and even these may not be simultaneously
realizable. This explains and to some extent justifies the existence of moral
disagreement, between persons as well as between whole cultures. Hartmann was
most obviously influenced by Plato, Husserl, and Scheler. But he was a major,
original philosopher in his own right. He has received less recognition than he
deserves probably because his views were quite different from those dominant in
recent Anglo-erican philosophy or in recent Continental philosophy. What is
perhaps his most important work, Ethics, was published in German in 1926, one
year before Heidegger’s Being and Time, and appeared in English in 1932.
A PRIORI, HUSSERL, MORAL REALISM, PLATO,
SCHELER. P.B.u Hartshorne, Charles (b.1897), chief erican exponent of process
philosophy and theology in the late twentieth century. After receiving the
Ph.D. at Harvard in 1923 he ce under the influence of Whitehead, and later,
with Paul Weiss, edited The Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce (1931–35). In The
Philosophy and Psychology of Sensation (1934) Hartshorne argued that all sensations
are feelings on an affective continuum. These ideas were later incorporated
into a neoclassical metaphysic that is panpsychist, indeterministic, and
theistic. Nature is a theater of interactions ong ephemeral centers of creative
activity, each of which becomes objectively immortal in the memory of God. In
Man’s Vision of God (1941) Hartshorne chastised philosophers for being
insufficiently attentive to the varieties of theism. His alternative, called
dipolar theism, also defended in The Divine Hartmann, Eduard von Hartshorne,
Charles 363 4065h-l.qxd 363
Relativity (1948), pictures God as supremely related to and perfectly
responding to every actuality. The universe is God’s body. The divine is, in
different respects, infinite and finite, eternal and temporal, necessary and
contingent. Establishing God’s existence is a metaphysical project, which
Hartshorne characterizes in Creative Synthesis (1970) as the search for
necessary truths about existence. The central element in his cumulative case for
God’s existence, called the global argument, is a modal version of the
ontological argument, which Hartshorne was instrumental in rehabilitating in
The Logic of Perfection (1962) and Anselm’s Discovery (1965). Creative
Synthesis also articulated the theory that aesthetic values are the most
universal and that beauty is a mean between the twin extremes of order/disorder
and simplicity/complexity. The Zero Fallacy (1997), Hartshorne’s twentieth
book, summarized his assessment of the history of philosophy – also found in
Insights and Oversights of Great Thinkers (1983) and Creativity in erican
Philosophy (1984) – and introduced important refinements of his
metaphysics.
PANPSYCHISM, PHILOSOPHY
OF RELIGION, PROCESS PHILOSOPHY, WHITEHEAD. D.W.V. hasty generalization,
fallacy of.INFORMAL FALLACY. heap paradox.SORITES PARADOX. heart.HSIN1.
Heaven.T’IEN. hedonic calculus.BENTH. hedonism, the view that pleasure
(including the absence of pain) is the sole intrinsic good in life. The
hedonist may hold that, questions of morality aside, persons inevitably do seek
pleasure (psychological hedonism); that, questions of psychology aside, morally
we should seek pleasure (ethical hedonism); or that we inevitably do, and ought
to, seek pleasure (ethical and psychological hedonism combined). Psychological
hedonism itself admits of a variety of possible forms. One may hold, e.g., that
all motivation is based on the prospect of present or future pleasure. More
plausibly, some philosophers have held that all choices of future actions are
based on one’s presently taking greater pleasure in the thought of doing one
act rather than another. Still a third type of hedonism – with roots in
empirical psychology – is that the attainment of pleasure is the primary drive
of a wide range of organisms (including human beings) and is responsible,
through some form of conditioning, for all acquired motivations. Ethical
hedonists may, but need not, appeal to some form of psychological hedonism to
buttress their case. For, at worst, the truth of some form of psychological
hedonism makes ethical hedonism empty or inescapable – but not false. As a
value theory (a theory of what is ultimately good), ethical hedonism has
typically led to one or the other of two conceptions of morally correct action.
Both of these are expressions of moral consequentialism in that they judge
actions strictly by their consequences. On standard formulations of
utilitarianism, actions are judged by the ount of pleasure they produce for all
(sentient beings); on some formulations of egoist views, actions are judged by
their consequences for one’s own pleasure. Neither egoism nor utilitarianism,
however, must be wedded to a hedonistic value theory. A hedonistic value theory
admits of a variety of claims about the characteristic sources and types of
pleasure. One contentious issue has been what activities yield the greatest
quantity of pleasure – with prominent candidates including philosophical and
other forms of intellectual discourse, the contemplation of beauty, and
activities productive of “the pleasures of the senses.” (Most philosophical
hedonists, despite the popular associations of the word, have not espoused
sensual pleasure.) Another issue, fously raised by J. S. Mill, is whether such
different varieties of pleasure admit of differences of quality (as well as
quantity). Even supposing them to be equal in quantity, can we say, e.g., that
the pleasures of intellectual activity are superior in quality to those of
watching sports on television? And if we do say such things, are we departing
from strict hedonism by introducing a value distinction not really based on
pleasure at all? Most philosophers have found hedonism – both psychological and
ethical – exaggerated in its claims. One difficulty for both sorts of hedonism
is the hedonistic paradox, which may be put as follows. Many of the deepest and
best pleasures of life (of love, of child rearing, of work) seem to come most
often to those who are engaging in an activity for reasons other than pleasure
seeking. Hence, not only is it dubious that we always in fact seek (or value
only) pleasure, but also dubious that the best way to achieve pleasure is to
seek it. Another area of difficulty concerns happihasty, generalization,
fallacy of hedonism 364 4065h-l.qxd
364 ness – and its relation to pleasure. In the tradition of Aristotle,
happiness is broadly understood as something like well-being and has been
viewed, not implausibly, as a kind of natural end of all human activities. But
‘happiness’ in this sense is broader than ‘pleasure’, insofar as the latter
designates a particular kind of feeling, whereas ‘well-being’ does not.
Attributions of happiness, moreover, appear to be normative in a way in which
attributions of pleasure are not. It is thought that a truly happy person has
achieved, is achieving, or stands to achieve, certain things respecting the
“truly important” concerns of human life. Of course, such achievements will
characteristically produce pleasant feelings; but, just as characteristically,
they will involve states of active enjoyment of activities – where, as
Aristotle first pointed out, there are no distinctive feelings of pleasure
apart from the doing of the activity itself. In short, the Aristotelian thesis
that happiness is the natural end of all human activities, even if it is true,
does not seem to lend much support to hedonism – psychological or ethical.
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