(4) Grice’s hypothesis
that a sentence’s or word’s meaning is a function of what audience response a
typical utterer would intend to elicit in uttering it.
(5) inferential role
theories, as developed by Wilfrid Sellars out of Carnap’s and Wittgenstein’s
views: a sentence’s meaning is specified by the set of sentences from which it
can correctly be inferred and the set of those which can be inferred from it
(Sellars himself provided for “language-entry” and “language-exit” moves as
partly constitutive of meaning, in addition to inferences); (6)
verificationism, the view that a sentence’s meaning is the set of possible
experiences that would confirm it or provide evidence for its truth; (7) the
truth-conditional theory: a sentence’s meaning is the distinctive condition
under which it is true, the situation or state of affairs that, if it obtained,
would make the sentence true; (8) the null hypothesis, or eliminativist view,
that “meaning” is a myth and there is no such thing – a radical claim that can
stem either from Quine’s doctrine of the indeterminacy of translation or from
eliminative materialism in the philosophy of mind. Following the original work
of Carnap, Alonzo Church, Hintikka, and Richard Montague in the 1950s, the
theory of meaning has made increasing use of “possible worlds”–based
intensional logic as an analytical apparatus. Propositions (sentence meanings
considered as entities), and truth conditions as in (7) above, are now commonly
taken to be structured sets of possible worlds – e.g., the set of worlds in
which Aristotle’s maternal grandmother hates broccoli. And the structure
imposed on such a set, corresponding to the intuitive constituent structure of
a proposition (as the concepts ‘grandmother’ and ‘hate’ are constituents of the
foregoing proposition), accounts for the meaning-properties of sentences that
express the proposition. Theories of meaning can also be called semantics, as
in “Gricean semantics” or “Verificationist semantics,” though the term is
sometimes restricted to referential and/or truth-conditional theories, which
posit meaning-constitutive relations between words and the nonlinguistic world.
Semantics is often contrasted with syntax, the structure of grammatically
permissible ordering relations between words and other words in well-formed
sentences, and with pragmatics, the rules governing the use of meaningful
expressions in particular speech contexts; but linguists have found that
semantic phenomena cannot be kept purely separate either from syntactic or from
pragmatic phenomena. In a still more specialized usage, linguistic semantics is
the detailed study (typically within the truth-conditional format) of
particular types of construction in particular natural languages, e.g.,
belief-clauses in English or adverbial phrases in Kwakiutl. Linguistic
semantics in that sense is practiced by some philosophers of language, by some
linguists, and occasionally by both working together. Montague grammar and
situation semantics are common formats for such work, both based on intensional
logic. The theory of referenceis pursued whether or not one accepts either the
referential or the truthconditional theory of meaning. Its main question is: In
virtue of what does a linguistic expression designate one or more things in the
world? (Prior to theorizing and defining of technical uses, ‘designate’,
‘denote’, and ‘refer’ are used interchangeably.) Denoting expressions are
divided into singular terms, which purport to designate particular individual
things, and general terms, which can apply to more than one thing at once.
Singular terms include proper names (‘Cindy’, ‘Bangladesh’), definite
descriptions (‘my brother’, ‘the first baby born in the New World’), and
singular pronouns of various types (‘this’, ‘you’, ‘she’). General terms
include common nouns (‘horse’, ‘trash can’), mass terms (‘water’, ‘graphite’),
and plural pronouns (‘they’, ‘those’). The twentieth century’s dominant theory
of reference has been the description theory, the view that linguistic terms
refer by expressing descriptive features or properties, the referent being the
item or items that in fact possess those properties. For example, a definite
description does that directly: ‘My brother’ denotes whatever person does have
the property of being my brother. According to the description theory of proper
names, defended most articulately by Russell, such names express identifying
properties indirectly by abbreviating definite descriptions. A general term
such as ‘horse’ was thought of as expressing a cluster of properties
distinctive of horses; and so forth. But the description theory came under
heavy attack in the late 1960s, from Keith Donnellan, Kripke, and Putnam, and
was generally abandoned on each of several grounds, in favor of the
causal-historical theory of reference. The causal-historical idea is that a
particular use of a linguistic expression denotes by being etiologically
grounded in the thing or philosophy of language philosophy of language 674 674 group that is its referent; a
historical causal chain of a certain shape leads backward in time from the act
of referring to the referent(s). More recently, problems with the
causal-historical theory as originally formulated have led researchers to
backpedal somewhat and incorporate some features of the description theory.
Other views of reference have been advocated as well, particularly analogues of
some of the theories of meaning listed above – chiefly (2)–(6) and (8). Modal
and propositional-attitude contexts create special problems in the theory of
reference, for referring expressions seem to alter their normal semantic
behavior when they occur within such contexts. Much ink has been spilled over
the question of why and how the substitution of a term for another term having
exactly the same referent can change the truth-value of a containing modal or
propositional-attitude sentence. Interestingly, the theory of truth
historically predates articulate study of meaning or of reference, for
philosophers have always sought the nature of truth. It has often been thought
that a sentence is true in virtue of expressing a true belief, truth being
primarily a property of beliefs rather than of linguistic entities; but the
main theories of truth have also been applied to sentences directly. The
correspondence theory maintains that a sentence is true in virtue of its
elements’ mirroring a fact or actual state of affairs. The coherence theory
instead identifies truth as a relation of the true sentence to other sentences,
usually an epistemic relation. Pragmatic theories have it that truth is a
matter either of practical utility or of idealized epistemic warrant.
Deflationary views, such as the traditional redundancy theory and D. Grover, J.
Camp, and N. D. Belnap’s prosentential theory, deny that truth comes to
anything more important or substantive than what is already codified in a
recursive Tarskian truth-definition for a language. Pragmatics studies the use
of language in context, and the context-dependence of various aspects of
linguistic interpretation. First, one and the same sentence can express
different meanings or propositions from context to context, owing to ambiguity
or to indexicality or both. An ambiguous sentence has more than one meaning,
either because one of its component words has more than one meaning (as ‘bank’
has) or because the sentence admits of more than one possible syntactic
analysis (‘Visiting doctors can be tedious’, ‘The mouse tore up the street’).
An indexical sentence can change in truth-value from context to context owing
to the presence of an element whose reference fluctuates, such as a
demonstrative pronoun (‘She told him off yesterday’, ‘It’s time for that
meeting now’). One branch of pragmatics investigates how context determines a
single propositional meaning for a sentence on a particular occasion of that
sentence’s use.
Speech act theory is a
second branch of pragmatics that presumes the propositional or “locutionary”
meanings of utterances and studies what J. L. Austin called the illocutionary
forces of those utterances, the distinctive types of linguistic act that are
performed by the speaker in making them. (E.g., in uttering ‘I will be there
tonight’, a speaker might be issuing a warning, uttering a threat, making a
promise, or merely offering a prediction, depending on conventional and other
social features of the situation.
A crude test of
illocutionary force is the “hereby” criterion: one’s utterance has the force
of, say, a warning, if it could fairly have been paraphrased by the
corresponding “explicitly performative” sentence beginning ‘I hereby warn you
that . . .’.).
Speech act theory
interacts to some extent with semantics, especially in the case of explicit
performatives, and it has some fairly dramatic syntactic effects as well.
A third branch of
pragmatics (not altogether separate from the second) is the theory of
conversation or theory of implicature, founded by Grice.
Grice notes that
sentences, when uttered in particular contexts, often generate “implications”
that are not logical consequences of those sentences (‘Is Jones a good
philosopher?’ – ’He has very neat handwriting’).
Such implications can
usually be identified as what the speaker meant in uttering her sentence; thus
(for that reason and others), what Grice calls utterer’s meaning can diverge
sharply from sentence-meaning or “timeless” meaning.
To explain those
non-logical implications, Grice offered a now widely accepted theory of
conversational implicature.
Conversational
implicatures arise from the interaction of the sentence uttered with mutually
shared background assumptions and certain principles of efficient and
cooperative conversation.
The philosophy of
linguistics studies the academic discipline of linguistics, particularly
theoretical linguistics considered as a science or purported science; it
examines methodology and fundamental assumptions, and also tries to incorporate
linguists’ findings into the rest of philosophy of language. Theoretical linguistics
concentrates on syntax, and took its contempophilosophy of language philosophy
of language 675 675 rary form in the
1950s under Zellig Harris and Chomsky: it seeks to describe each natural
language in terms of a generative grammar for that language, i.e., a set of
recursive rules for combining words that will generate all and only the
“well-formed strings” or grammatical sentences of that language. The set must
be finite and the rules recursive because, while our informationprocessing
resources for recognizing grammatical strings as such are necessarily finite
(being subagencies of our brains), there is no limit in any natural language
either to the length of a single grammatical sentence or to the number of
grammatical sentences; a small device must have infinite generative and parsing
capacity. Many grammars work by generating simple “deep structures” (a kind of
tree diagram), and then producing multiple “surface structures” as variants of
those deep structures, by means of rules that rearrange their parts. The
surface structures are syntactic parsings of natural-language sentences, and
the deep structures from which they derive encode both basic grammatical
relations between the sentences’ major constituents and, on some theories, the
sentences’ main semantic properties as well; thus, sentences that share a deep
structure will share some fundamental grammatical properties and all or most of
their semantics. As Paul Ziff and Davidson saw in the 1960s, the foregoing
syntactic problem and its solution had semantic analogues. From small
resources, human speakers understand – compute the meanings of – arbitrarily
long and novel sentences without limit, and almost instantaneously. This
ability seems to require semantic compositionality, the thesis that the meaning
of a sentence is a function of the meanings of its semantic primitives or
smallest meaningful parts, built up by way of syntactic compounding.
Compositionality also seems to be required by learnability, since a normal
child can learn an infinitely complex dialect in at most two years, but must
learn semantic primitives one at a time. A grammar for a natural language is
commonly taken to be a piece of psychology, part of an explanation of speakers’
verbal abilities and behavior. As such, however, it is a considerable
idealization: it is a theory of speakers’ linguistic “competence” rather than
of their actual verbal performance. The latter distinction is required by the
fact that speakers’ considered, reflective judgments of grammatical correctness
do not line up very well with the class of expressions that actually are
uttered and understood unreflectively by those same speakers. Some grammatical
sentences are too hard for speakers to parse quickly; some are too long to
finish parsing at all; speakers commonly utter what they know to be formally
ungrammatical strings; and real speech is usually fragmentary, interspersed
with vocalizations, false starts, and the like. Actual departures from formal
grammaticality are ascribed by linguists to “performance limitations,” i.e.,
psychological factors such as memory failure, weak computational capacity, or
heedlessness; thus, actual verbal behavior is to be explained as resulting from
the perturbation of competence by performance limitations. GRAMMAR, MEANING, SPEECH ACT THEORY, THEORY OF
DESCRIPTIONS, TRUTH.
philosophy of law, also
called general jurisprudence, the study of conceptual and theoretical problems
concerning the nature of law as such, or common to any legal system. Problems
in the philosophy of law fall roughly into two groups. The first contains
problems internal to law and legal systems as such. These include (a) the
nature of legal rules; the conditions under which they can be said to exist and
to influence practice; their normative character, as mandatory or advisory; and
the (in)determinacy of their language; (b) the structure and logical character
of legal norms; the analysis of legal principles as a class of legal norms; and
the relation between the normative force of law and coercion; (c) the identity
conditions for legal systems; when a legal system exists; and when one legal
system ends and another begins; (d) the nature of the reasoning used by courts
in adjudicating cases; (e) the justification of legal decisions; whether legal
justification is through a chain of inferences or by the coherence of norms and
decisions; and the relation between intralegal and extralegal justification;
(f) the nature of legal validity and of what makes a norm a valid law; the
relation between validity and efficacy, the fact that the norms of a legal
system are obeyed by the norm-subjects; (g) properties of legal systems,
including comprehensiveness (the claim to regulate any behavior) and
completeness (the absence of gaps in the law); (h) legal rights; under what
conditions citizens possess them; and their analytical structure as protected
normative positions; (i) legal interpretation; whether it is a pervasive
feature of law or is found only in certain kinds of adjudication; its
rationality or otherwise; and its essentially ideological character or
otherwise. The second group of problems concerns the philosophy of law
philosophy of law 676 676 relation
between law as one particular social institution in a society and the wider
political and moral life of that society: (a) the nature of legal obligation;
whether there is an obligation, prima facie or final, to obey the law as such;
whether there is an obligation to obey the law only when certain standards are
met, and if so, what those standards might be; (b) the authority of law; and
the conditions under which a legal system has political or moral authority or
legitimacy; (c) the functions of law; whether there are functions performed by
a legal system in a society that are internal to the design of law; and analyses
from the perspective of political morality of the functioning of legal systems;
(d) the legal concept of responsibility; its analysis and its relation to moral
and political concepts of responsibility; in particular, the place of mental
elements and causal elements in the assignment of responsibility, and the
analysis of those elements; (e) the analysis and justification of legal
punishment; (f) legal liberty, and the proper limits or otherwise of the
intrusion of the legal system into individual liberty; the plausibility of
legal moralism; (g) the relation between law and justice, and the role of a
legal system in the maintenance of social justice; (h) the relation between
legal rights and political or moral rights; (i) the status of legal reasoning
as a species of practical reasoning; and the relation between law and practical
reason; (j) law and economics; whether legal decision making in fact tracks, or
otherwise ought to track, economic efficiency; (k) legal systems as sources of
and embodiments of political power; and law as essentially gendered, or imbued
with race or class biases, or otherwise. Theoretical positions in the
philosophy of law tend to group into three large kinds – legal positivism,
natural law, and legal realism. Legal positivism concentrates on the first set
of problems, and typically gives formal or content-independent solutions to
such problems. For example, legal positivism tends to regard legal validity as
a property of a legal rule that the rule derives merely from its formal
relation to other legal rules; a morally iniquitous law is still for legal
positivism a valid legal rule if it satisfies the required formal existence
conditions. Legal rights exist as normative consequences of valid legal rules;
no questions of the status of the right from the point of view of political
morality arise. Legal positivism does not deny the importance of the second set
of problems, but assigns the task of treating them to other disciplines –
political philosophy, moral philosophy, sociology, psychology, and so forth.
Questions of how society should design its legal institutions, for legal
positivism, are not technically speaking problems in the philosophy of law,
although many legal positivists have presented their theories about such questions.
Natural law theory and legal realism, by contrast, regard the sharp distinction
between the two kinds of problem as an artifact of legal positivism itself.
Their answers to the first set of problems tend to be substantive or
content-dependent. Natural law theory, for example, would regard the question
of whether a law was consonant with practical reason, or whether a legal system
was morally and politically legitimate, as in whole or in part determinative of
the issue of legal validity, or of whether a legal norm granted a legal right.
The theory would regard the relation between a legal system and liberty or
justice as in whole or in part determinative of the normative force and the
justification for that system and its laws. Legal realism, especially in its
contemporary politicized form, sees the claimed role of the law in legitimizing
certain gender, race, or class interests as the prime salient property of law
for theoretical analysis, and questions of the determinacy of legal rules or of
legal interpretation or legal right as of value only in the service of the
project of explaining the political power of law and legal systems. DWORKIN, HART, JURISPRUDENCE, LEGAL MORALISM,
LEGAL POSITIVISM, LEGAL REALISM, NATURAL LAW, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. R.A.Sh. philosophy
of liberation.LATIN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY. philosophy of linguistics.PHILOSOPHY
OF LANGUAGE. philosophy of literature, literary theory. However, while the
literary theorist, who is often a literary critic, is primarily interested in
the conceptual foundations of practical criticism, philosophy of literature,
usually done by philosophers, is more often concerned to place literature in
the context of a philosophical system. Plato’s dialogues have much to say about
poetry, mostly by way of aligning it with Plato’s metaphysical,
epistemological, and ethico-political views. Aristotle’s Poetics, the earliest
example of literary theory in the West, is also an attempt to accommodate the
practice of Greek poets to Aristotle’s philosophical system as a whole. Drawing
on the thought of philosophers like Kant and Schelling, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
offers in his Biographia philosophy of liberation philosophy of literature
677 677 Literaria a philosophy of
literature that is to Romantic poetics what Aristotle’s treatise is to
classical poetics: a literary theory that is confirmed both by the poets whose
work it legitimates and by the metaphysics that recommends it. Many
philosophers, among them Hume, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and Sartre, have tried
to make room for literature in their philosophical edifices. Some philosophers,
e.g., the German Romantics, have made literature (and the other arts) the
cornerstone of philosophy itself. (See Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc
Nancy, The Literary Absolute, 1988.) Sometimes ‘philosophy of literature’ is
understood in a second sense: philosophy and literature; i.e., philosophy and
literature taken to be distinct and essentially autonomous activities that may
nonetheless sustain determinate relations to each other. Philosophy of
literature, understood in this way, is the attempt to identify the differentiae
that distinguish philosophy from literature and to specify their relationships
to each other. Sometimes the two are distinguished by their subject matter
(e.g., philosophy deals with objective structures, literature with
subjectivity), sometimes by their methods (philosophy is an act of reason,
literature the product of imagination, inspiration, or the unconscious),
sometimes by their effects (philosophy produces knowledge, literature produces
emotional fulfillment or release), etc. Their relationships then tend to occupy
the area(s) in which they are not essentially distinct. If their subject
matters are distinct, their effects may be the same (philosophy and literature
both produce understanding, the one of fact and the other of feeling); if their
methods are distinct, they may be approaching the same subject matter in
different ways; and so on. For Aquinas, e.g., philosophy and poetry may deal
with the same objects, the one communicating truth about the object in
syllogistic form, the other inspiring feelings about it through figurative
language. For Heidegger, the philosopher investigates the meaning of being
while the poet names the holy, but their preoccupations tend to converge at the
deepest levels of thinking. For Sartre, literature is philosophy engagé,
existential-political activity in the service of freedom. ’Philosophy of
literature’ may also be taken in a third sense: philosophy in literature, the
attempt to discover matters of philosophical interest and value in literary
texts. The philosopher may undertake to identify, examine, and evaluate the
philosophical content of literary texts that contain expressions of
philosophical ideas and discussions of philosophical problems – e.g., the
debates on free will and theodicy in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers
Karamazov. Many if not most college courses on philosophy of literature are
taught from this point of view. Much interesting and important work has been
done in this vein; e.g., Santayana’s Three Philosophical Poets (1910), Cavell’s
essays on Emerson and Thoreau, and Nussbaum’s Love’s Knowledge (1989). It
should be noted, however, that to approach the matter in this way presupposes
that literature and philosophy are simply different forms of the same content:
what philosophy expresses in the form of argument literature expresses in
lyric, dramatic, or narrative form. The philosopher’s treatment of literature
implies that he is uniquely positioned to explicate the subject matter treated
in both literary and philosophical texts, and that the language of philosophy
gives optimal expression to a content less adequately expressed in the language
of literature. The model for this approach may well be Hegel’s Phenomenology of
Spirit, which treats art (along with religion) as imperfect adumbrations of a
truth that is fully and properly articulated only in the conceptual mode of
philosophical dialectic. Dissatisfaction with this presupposition (and its
implicit privileging of philosophy over literature) has led to a different view
of the relation between philosophy and literature and so to a different program
for philosophy of literature. The self-consciously literary form of
Kierkegaard’s writing is an integral part of his polemic against the
philosophical imperialism of the Hegelians. In this century, the work of
philosophers like Derrida and the philosophers and critics who follow his lead
suggests that it is mistaken to regard philosophy and literature as alternative
expressions of an identical content, and seriously mistaken to think of
philosophy as the master discourse, the “proper” expression of a content
“improperly” expressed in literature. All texts, on this view, have a
“literary” form, the texts of philosophers as well as the texts of novelists
and poets, and their content is internally determined by their “means of
expression.” There is just as much “literature in philosophy” as there is
“philosophy in literature.” Consequently, the philosopher of literature may no
longer be able simply to extract philosophical matter from literary form.
Rather, the modes of literary expression confront the philosopher with problems
that bear on the presuppositions of his own enterprise. E.g., fictional mimesis
(especially in the works of postmodern writers) raises questions about the
possibility and the prephilosophy of literature philosophy of literature
678 678 philosophy of logic philosophy
of logic 679 sumed normativeness of factual representation, and in so doing
tends to undermine the traditional hierarchy that elevates “fact” over
“fiction.” Philosophers’ perplexity over the truth-value of fictional
statements is an example of the kind of problems the study of literature can
create for the practice of philosophy (see Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism,
1982, ch. 7). Or again, the self-reflexivity of contemporary literary texts can
lead philosophers to reflect critically on their own undertaking and may
seriously unsettle traditional notions of self-referentiality. When it is not
regarded as another, attractive but perhaps inferior source of philosophical
ideas, literature presents the philosopher with epistemological, metaphysical,
and methodological problems not encountered in the course of “normal”
philosophizing.
AESTHETICS, LITERARY THEORY, POSTMODERN.
L.H.M. philosophy of logic, the arena of philosophy devoted to examining the
scope and nature of logic. Aristotle considered logic an organon, or
foundation, of knowledge. Certainly, inference is the source of much human knowledge.
Logic judges inferences good or bad and tries to justify those that are good.
One need not agree with Aristotle, therefore, to see logic as essential to
epistemology. Philosophers such as Wittgenstein, additionally, have held that
the structure of language reflects the structure of the world. Because
inferences have elements that are themselves linguistic or are at least
expressible in language, logic reveals general features of the structure of
language. This makes it essential to linguistics, and, on a Wittgensteinian
view, to metaphysics. Moreover, many philosophical battles have been fought
with logical weaponry. For all these reasons, philosophers have tried to
understand what logic is, what justifies it, and what it tells us about reason,
language, and the world. The nature of logic. Logic might be defined as the
science of inference; inference, in turn, as the drawing of a conclusion from
premises. A simple argument is a sequence, one element of which, the
conclusion, the others are thought to support. A complex argument is a series
of simple arguments. Logic, then, is primarily concerned with arguments.
Already, however, several questions arise. (1) Who thinks that the premises
support the conclusion? The speaker? The audience? Any competent speaker of the
language? (2) What are the elements of arguments? Thoughts? Propositions?
Philosophers following Quine have found these answers unappealing for lack of
clear identity criteria. Sentences are more concrete and more sharply
individuated. But should we consider sentence tokens or sentence types? Context
often affects interpretation, so it appears that we must consider tokens or
types-in-context. Moreover, many sentences, even with contextual information
supplied, are ambiguous. Is a sequence with an ambiguous sentence one argument
(which may be good on some readings and bad on others) or several? For reasons
that will become clear, the elements of arguments should be the primary bearers
of truth and falsehood in one’s general theory of language. (3) Finally, and
perhaps most importantly, what does ‘support’ mean? Logic evaluates inferences
by distinguishing good from bad arguments. This raises issues about the status
of logic, for many of its pronouncements are explicitly normative. The
philosophy of logic thus includes problems of the nature and justification of
norms akin to those arising in metaethics. The solutions, moreover, may vary
with the logical system at hand. Some logicians attempt to characterize
reasoning in natural language; others try to systematize reasoning in
mathematics or other sciences. Still others try to devise an ideal system of
reasoning that does not fully correspond to any of these. Logicians concerned
with inference in natural, mathematical, or scientific languages tend to
justify their norms by describing inferential practices in that language as
actually used by those competent in it. These descriptions justify norms partly
because the practices they describe include evaluations of inferences as well
as inferences themselves. The scope of logic. Logical systems meant to account
for natural language inference raise issues of the scope of logic. How does
logic differ from semantics, the science of meaning in general? Logicians have
often treated only inferences turning on certain commonly used words, such as
‘not’, ‘if’, ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘all’, and ‘some’, taking them, or items in a
symbolic language that correspond to them, as logical constants. They have
neglected inferences that do not turn on them, such as My brother is married.
Therefore, I have a sister-in-law. Increasingly, however, semanticists have
used ‘logic’ more broadly, speaking of the logic of belief, perception,
abstraction, or even kinship. 679
philosophy of logic philosophy of logic 680 Such uses seem to treat logic and
semantics as coextensive. Philosophers who have sought to maintain a
distinction between the semantics and logic of natural language have tried to
develop non-arbitrary criteria of logical constancy. An argument is valid
provided the truth of its premises guarantees the truth of its conclusion. This
definition relies on the notion of truth, which raises philosophical puzzles of
its own. Furthermore, it is natural to ask what kind of connection must hold
between the premises and conclusion. One answer specifies that an argument is
valid provided replacing its simple constituents with items of similar
categories while leaving logical constants intact could never produce true
premises and a false conclusion. On this view, validity is a matter of form: an
argument is valid if it instantiates a valid form. Logic thus becomes the
theory of logical form. On another view, an argument is valid if its conclusion
is true in every possible world or model in which its premises are true. This
conception need not rely on the notion of a logical constant and so is
compatible with the view that logic and semantics are coextensive. Many issues
in the philosophy of logic arise from the plethora of systems logicians have
devised. Some of these are deviant logics, i.e., logics that differ from
classical or standard logic while seeming to treat the same subject matter.
Intuitionistic logic, for example, which interprets the connectives and
quantifiers non-classically, rejecting the law of excluded middle and the
interdefinability of the quantifiers, has been supported with both semantic and
ontological arguments. Brouwer, Heyting, and others have defended it as the
proper logic of the infinite; Dummett has defended it as the correct logic of
natural language. Free logic allows non-denoting referring expressions but
interprets the quantifiers as ranging only over existing objects. Many-valued
logics use at least three truthvalues, rejecting the classical assumption of
bivalence – that every formula is either true or false. Many logical systems
attempt to extend classical logic to incorporate tense, modality, abstraction,
higher-order quantification, propositional quantification, complement
constructions, or the truth predicate. These projects raise important
philosophical questions. Modal and tense logics. Tense is a pervasive feature
of natural language, and has become important to computer scientists interested
in concurrent programs. Modalities of several sorts – alethic (possibility,
necessity) and deontic (obligation, permission), for example – appear in
natural language in various grammatical guises. Provability, treated as a
modality, allows for revealing formalizations of metamathematics. Logicians
have usually treated modalities and tenses as sentential operators. C. I. Lewis
and Langford pioneered such approaches for alethic modalities; von Wright, for
deontic modalities; and Prior, for tense. In each area, many competing systems
developed; by the late 1970s, there were over two hundred axiom systems in the
literature for propositional alethic modal logic alone. How might competing
systems be evaluated? Kripke’s semantics for modal logic has proved very
helpful. Kripke semantics in effect treats modal operators as quantifiers over
possible worlds. Necessarily A, e.g., is true at a world if and only if A is
true in all worlds accessible from that world. Kripke showed that certain
popular axiom systems result from imposing simple conditions on the
accessibility relation. His work spawned a field, known as correspondence theory,
devoted to studying the relations between modal axioms and conditions on
models. It has helped philosophers and logicians to understand the issues at
stake in choosing a modal logic and has raised the question of whether there is
one true modal logic. Modal idioms may be ambiguous or indeterminate with
respect to some properties of the accessibility relation. Possible worlds raise
additional ontological and epistemological questions. Modalities and tenses
seem to be linked in natural language, but attempts to bring tense and modal
logic together remain young. The sensitivity of tense to intra- and
extralinguistic context has cast doubt on the project of using operators to
represent tenses. Kamp, e.g., has represented tense and aspect in terms of event
structure, building on earlier work by Reichenbach. Truth. Tarski’s theory of
truth shows that it is possible to define truth recursively for certain
languages. Languages that can refer to their own sentences, however, permit no
such definition given Tarski’s assumptions – for they allow the formulation of
the liar and similar paradoxes. Tarski concluded that, in giving the semantics
for such a language, we must ascend to a more powerful metalanguage. Kripke and
others, however, have shown that it is possible for a language permitting
self-reference to contain its own truth
680 predicate by surrendering bivalence or taking the truth predicate
indexically. Higher-order logic. First-order predicate logic allows quantification
only over individuals. Higher-order logics also permit quantification over
predicate positions. Natural language seems to permit such quantification:
‘Mary has every quality that John admires’. Mathematics, moreover, may be
expressed elegantly in higher-order logic. Peano arithmetic and
Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, e.g., require infinite axiom sets in firstorder
logic but are finitely axiomatizable – and categorical, determining their
models up to isomorphism – in second-order logic. Because they quantify over
properties and relations, higher-order logics seem committed to Platonism.
Mathematics reduces to higher-order logic; Quine concludes that the latter is
not logic. Its most natural semantics seems to presuppose a prior understanding
of properties and relations. Also, on this semantics, it differs greatly from
first-order logic. Like set theory, it is incomplete; it is not compact. This
raises questions about the boundaries of logic. Must logic be axiomatizable?
Must it be possible, i.e., to develop a logical system powerful enough to prove
every valid argument valid? Could there be valid arguments with infinitely many
premises, any finite fragment of which would be invalid? With an operator for
forming abstract terms from predicates, higher-order logics easily allow the
formulation of paradoxes. Russell and Whitehead for this reason adopted type
theory, which, like Tarski’s theory of truth, uses an infinite hierarchy and
corresponding syntactic restrictions to avoid paradox. Type-free theories avoid
both the restrictions and the paradoxes, as with truth, by rejecting bivalence
or by understanding abstraction indexically. ,
philosophy of
mathematics, the study of ontological and epistemological problems raised by
the content and practice of mathematics. The present agenda in this field
evolved from critical developments, notably the collapse of Pythagoreanism, the
development of modern calculus, and an early twentieth-century foundational
crisis, which forced mathematicians and philosophers to examine mathematical
methods and presuppositions. Greek mathematics. The Pythagoreans, who
represented the height of early demonstrative Greek mathematics, believed that
all scientific relations were measureable by natural numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.) or
ratios of natural numbers, and thus they assumed discrete, atomic units for the
measurement of space, time, and motion. The discovery of irrational magnitudes
scotched the first of these beliefs. Zeno’s paradoxes showed that the second
was incompatible with the natural assumption that space and time are infinitely
divisible. The Greek reaction, ultimately codified in Euclid’s Elements,
included Plato’s separation of mathematics from empirical science and, within
mathematics, distinguished number theory – a study of discretely ordered
entities – from geometry, which concerns continua. Following Aristotle (and
employing methods perfected by Eudoxus), Euclid’s proofs used only “potentially
infinite” geometric and arithmetic procedures. The Elements’ axiomatic form and
its constructive proofs set a standard for future mathematics. Moreover, its
dependence on visual intuition (whose consequent deductive gaps were already
noted by Archimedes), together with the challenge of Euclid’s infamous fifth
postulate (about parallel lines), and the famous unsolved problems of compass
and straightedge construction, established an agenda for generations of
mathematicians. The calculus. The two millennia following Euclid saw new
analytical tools (e.g., Descartes’s geometry) that wedded arithmetic and
geometric considerations and toyed with infinitesimally small quantities.
These, together with the demands of physical application, tempted
mathematicians to abandon the pristine Greek dichotomies. Matters came to a
head with Newton’s and Leibniz’s (almost simultaneous) discovery of the
powerful computational techniques of the calculus. While these unified physical
science in an unprecedented way, their dependence on unclear notions of
infinitesimal spatial and temporal increments emphasized their shaky
philosophical foundation. Berkeley, for instance, condemned the calculus for
its unintuitability. However, this time the power of the new methods inspired a
decidedly conservative response. Kant, in particular, tried to anchor the new
mathematics in intuition. Mathematicians, he claimed, construct their objects
in the “pure intuitions” of space and time. And these mathematical objects are
the a priori forms of transcendentally ideal empirical objects. For Kant this
combination of epistemic empiricism and ontological idealism explained the
physical philosophy of mathematics philosophy of mathematics 681 681 applicability of mathematics and thus
granted “objective validity” (i.e., scientific legitimacy) to mathematical
procedures. Two nineteenth-century developments undercut this Kantian
constructivism in favor of a more abstract conceptual picture of mathematics.
First, Jànos Bolyai, Carl F. Gauss, Bernhard Riemann, Nikolai Lobachevsky, and
others produced consistent non-Euclidean geometries, which undid the Kantian
picture of a single a priori science of space, and once again opened a rift
between pure mathematics and its physical applications. Second, Cantor and
Dedekind defined the real numbers (i.e., the elements of the continuum) as
infinite sets of rational (and ultimately natural) numbers. Thus they founded
mathematics on the concepts of infinite set and natural number. Cantor’s set
theory made the first concept rigorously mathematical; while Peano and Frege
(both of whom advocated securing rigor by using formal languages) did that for
the second. Peano axiomatized number theory, and Frege ontologically reduced
the natural numbers to sets (indeed sets that are the extensions of purely
logical concepts). Frege’s Platonistic conception of numbers as unintuitable
objects and his claim that mathematical truths follow analytically from purely
logical definitions – the thesis of logicism – are both highly anti-Kantian.
Foundational crisis and movements. But antiKantianism had its own problems. For
one thing, Leopold Kronecker, who (following Peter Dirichlet) wanted
mathematics reduced to arithmetic and no further, attacked Cantor’s abstract
set theory on doctrinal grounds. Worse yet, the discovery of internal
antinomies challenged the very consistency of abstract foundations. The most famous
of these, Russell’s paradox (the set of all sets that are not members of
themselves both is and isn’t a member of itself), undermined Frege’s basic
assumption that every well-formed concept has an extension. This was a
full-scale crisis. To be sure, Russell himself (together with Whitehead)
preserved the logicist foundational approach by organizing the universe of sets
into a hierarchy of levels so that no set can be a member of itself. (This is
type theory.) However, the crisis encouraged two explicitly Kantian
foundational projects. The first, Hilbert’s Program, attempted to secure the
“ideal” (i.e., infinitary) parts of mathematics by formalizing them and then
proving the resultant formal systems to be conservative (and hence consistent)
extensions of finitary theories. Since the proof itself was to use no reasoning
more complicated than simple numerical calculations – finitary reasoning – the
whole metamathematical project belonged to the untainted (“contentual”) part of
mathematics. Finitary reasoning was supposed to update Kant’s intuition-based
epistemology, and Hilbert’s consistency proofs mimic Kant’s notion of objective
validity. The second project, Brouwer’s intuitionism, rejected formalization,
and was not only epistemologically Kantian (resting mathematical reasoning on
the a priori intuition of time), but ontologically Kantian as well. For
intuitionism generated both the natural and the real numbers by temporally
ordered conscious acts. The reals, in particular, stem from choice sequences,
which exploit Brouwer’s epistemic assumptions about the open future. These
foundational movements ultimately failed. Type theory required ad hoc axioms to
express the real numbers; Hilbert’s Program foundered on Gödel’s theorems; and
intuitionism remained on the fringes because it rejected classical logic and
standard mathematics. Nevertheless the legacy of these movements – their formal
methods, indeed their philosophical agenda – still characterizes modern
research on the ontology and epistemology of mathematics. Set theory, e.g.
(despite recent challenges from category theory), is the lingua franca of
modern mathematics. And formal languages with their precise semantics are
ubiquitous in technical and philosophical discussions. Indeed, even
intuitionistic mathematics has been formalized, and Michael Dummett has recast
its ontological idealism as a semantic antirealism that defines truth as
warranted assertability. In a similar semantic vein, Paul Benacerraf proposed
that the philosophical problem with Hilbert’s approach is inability to provide
a uniform realistic (i.e., referential, non-epistemic) semantics for the
allegedly ideal and contentual parts of mathematics; and the problem with
Platonism is that its semantics makes its objects unknowable. Ontological issues.
From this modern perspective, the simplest realism is the outright Platonism
that attributes a standard model consisting of “independent” objects to
classical theories expressed in a first-order language (i.e., a language whose
quantifiers range over objects but not properties). But in fact realism admits
variations on each aspect. For one thing, the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem shows
that formalized theories can have non-standard models. There are expansive
non-standard models: Abraham Robinson, e.g., used infinitary non-stanphilosophy
of mathematics philosophy of mathematics 682
682 dard models of Peano’s axioms to rigorously reintroduce
infinitesimals. (Roughly, an infinitesimal is the reciprocal of an infinite
element in such a model.) And there are also “constructive” models, whose
objects must be explicitly definable. Predicative theories (inspired by
Poincaré and Hermann Weyl), whose stage-by-stage definitions refer only to
previously defined objects, produce one variety of such models. Gödel’s constructive
universe, which uses less restricted definitions to model apparently
non-constructive axioms like the axiom of choice, exemplifies another variety.
But there are also views (various forms of structuralism) which deny that
formal theories have unique standard models at all. These views – inspired by
the fact, already sensed by Dedekind, that there are multiple equivalid
realizations of formal arithmetic – allow a mathematical theory to characterize
only a broad family of models and deny unique reference to mathematical terms.
Finally, some realistic approaches advocate formalization in secondorder
languages, and some eschew ordinary semantics altogether in favor of
substitutional quantification. (These latter are still realistic, for they
still distinguish truth from knowledge.) Strict finitists – inspired by
Wittgenstein’s more stringent epistemic constraints – reject even the
open-futured objects admitted by Brouwer, and countenance only finite (or even
only “feasible”) objects. In the other direction, A. A. Markov and his school
in Russia introduced a syntactic notion of algorithm from which they developed
the field of “constructive analysis.” And the American mathematician Errett
Bishop, starting from a Brouwer-like disenchantment with mathematical realism
and with strictly formal approaches, recovered large parts of classical
analysis within a non-formal constructive framework. All of these approaches
assume abstract (i.e., causally isolated) mathematical objects, and thus they
have difficulty explaining the wide applicability of mathematics (constructive
or otherwise) within empirical science. One response, Quine’s
“indispensability” view, integrates mathematical theories into the general
network of empirical science. For Quine, mathematical objects – just like
ordinary physical objects – exist simply in virtue of being referents for terms
in our best scientific theory. By contrast Hartry Field, who denies that any
abstract objects exist, also denies that any purely mathematical assertions are
literally true. Field attempts to recast physical science in a relational
language without mathematical terms and then use Hilbert-style conservative
extension results to explain the evident utility of abstract mathematics.
Hilary Putnam and Charles Parsons have each suggested views according to which
mathematics has no objects proper to itself, but rather concerns only the
possibilities of physical constructions. Recently, Geoffrey Hellman has
combined this modal approach with structuralism. Epistemological issues. The
equivalence (proved in the 1930s) of several different representations of
computability to the reasoning representable in elementary formalized
arithmetic led Alonzo Church to suggest that the notion of finitary reasoning
had been precisely defined. Church’s thesis (so named by Stephen Kleene)
inspired Georg Kreisel’s investigations (in the 1960s and 70s) of the general
conditions for rigorously analyzing other informal philosophical notions like
semantic consequence, Brouwerian choice sequences, and the very notion of a
set. Solomon Feferman has suggested more recently that this sort of piecemeal
conceptual analysis is already present in mathematics; and that this rather
than any global foundation is the true role of foundational research. In this
spirit, the relative consistency arguments of modern proof theory (a
continuation of Hilbert’s Program) provide information about the epistemic
grounds of various mathematical theories. Thus, on the one hand, proofs that a
seemingly problematic mathematical theory is a conservative extension of a more
secure theory provide some epistemic support for the former. In the other
direction, the fact that classical number theory is consistent relative to
intuitionistic number theory shows (contra Hilbert) that his view of
constructive reasoning must differ from that of the intuitionists. Gödel, who
did not believe that mathematics required any ties to empirical perception,
suggested nevertheless that we have a special nonsensory faculty of
mathematical intuition that, when properly cultivated, can help us decide among
formally independent propositions of set theory and other branches of
mathematics. Charles Parsons, in contrast, has examined the place of
perception-like intuition in mathematical reasoning. Parsons himself has
investigated models of arithmetic and of set theory composed of quasi-concrete
objects (e.g., numerals and other signs). Others (consistent with some of
Parsons’s observations) have given a Husserlstyle phenomenological analysis of
mathematical intuition. Frege’s influence encouraged the logical positivists
and other philosophers to view mathematical knowledge as analytic or
conventional. philosophy of mathematics philosophy of mathematics 683 683 Poincaré responded that the principle
of mathematical induction could not be analytic, and Wittgenstein also attacked
this conventionalism. In recent years, various formal independence results and
Quine’s attack on analyticity have encouraged philosophers and historians of
mathematics to focus on cases of mathematical knowledge that do not stem from
conceptual analysis or strict formal provability. Some writers (notably Mark
Steiner and Philip Kitcher) emphasize the analogies between empirical and
mathematical discovery. They stress such things as conceptual evolution in
mathematics and instances of mathematical generalizations supported by
individual cases. Kitcher, in particular, discusses the analogy between
axiomatization in mathematics and theoretical unification. Penelope Maddy has
investigated the intramathematical grounds underlying the acceptance of various
axioms of set theory. More generally, Imre Lakatos argued that most
mathematical progress stems from a concept-stretching process of conjecture,
refutation, and proof. This view has spawned a historical debate about whether
critical developments such as those mentioned above represent Kuhn-style
revolutions or even crises, or whether they are natural conceptual advances in
a uniformly growing science.
philosophy of mind, the
branch of philosophy that includes the philosophy of psychology, philosophical
psychology, and the area of metaphysics concerned with the nature of mental
phenomena and how they fit into the causal structure of reality. Philosophy of
psychology, a branch of the philosophy of science, examines what psychology
says about the nature of psychological phenomena; examines aspects of
psychological theorizing such as the models used, explanations offered, and
laws invoked; and examines how psychology fits with the social sciences and
natural sciences. Philosophical psychology investigates folk psychology, a body
of commonsensical, protoscientific views about mental phenomena. Such
investigations attempt to articulate and refine views found in folk psychology
about conceptualization, memory, perception, sensation, consciousness, belief,
desire, intention, reasoning, action, and so on. The mind–body problem, a
central metaphysical one in the philosophy of mind, is the problem of whether
mental phenomena are physical and, if not, how they are related to physical
phenomena. Other metaphysical problems in the philosophy of mind include the
free will problem, the problem of personal identity, and the problem of how, if
at all, irrational phenomena such as akrasia and self-deception are possible.
Mind–body dualism Cartesian dualism. The doctrine that the soul is distinct
from the body is found in Plato and discussed throughout the history of
philosophy, but Descartes is considered the father of the modern mind–body
problem. He maintained that the essence of the physical is extension in space.
Minds are unextended substances and thus are distinct from any physical
substances. The essence of a mental substance is to think. This twofold view is
called Cartesian dualism. Descartes was well aware of an intimate relationship
between mind and the brain. (There is no a priori reason to think that the mind
is intimately related to the brain; Aristotle, e.g., did not associate them.)
Descartes (mistakenly) thought the seat of the relationship was in the pineal
gland. He maintained, however, that our minds are not our brains, lack spatial
location, and can continue to exist after the death and destruction of our
bodies. Cartesian dualism invites the question: What connects the mind and
brain? Causation is Descartes’s answer: states of our minds causally interact
with states of our brains. When bodily sensations such as aches, pains, itches,
and tickles cause us to moan, wince, scratch, or laugh, they do so by causing
brain states (events, processes), which in turn cause bodily movements. In
deliberate action, we act on our desires, motives, and intentions to carry out
our purposes; and acting on these mental states involves their causing brain
states, which in turn cause our bodies to move, thereby causally influencing
the physical world. The physical world, in turn, influences our minds through
its influence on our brains. Perception of the physical world with five senses
– sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch – involves causal transactions from
the physical to the mental: what we perceive (i.e., see, hear, etc.) causes a
sense experience (i.e., a visual experience, aural experience, etc.). Thus,
Descartes held that there is two-way psychophysical causal interaction: from
the mental to the physical (as in action) and from the physical to the mental
(as in perception). The conjunction of Cartesian dualism and the doctrine of
two-way psychophysical causal interaction is called Cartesian interactionism.
philosophy of mind philosophy of mind 684
684 Perhaps the most widely discussed difficulty for this view is how
states of a non-spatial substance (a mind) can causally interact with states of
a substance that is in space (a brain). Such interactions have seemed utterly
mysterious to many philosophers. Mystery would remain even if an unextended
mind is locatable at a point in space (say, the center of the pineal gland).
For Cartesian interactionism would still have to maintain that causal
transactions between mental states and brain states are fundamental, i.e.,
unmediated by any underlying mechanism. Brain states causally interact with
mental states, but there is no answer to the question of how they do so. The
interactions are brute facts. Many philosophers, including many of Descartes’s
contemporaries, have found that difficult to accept. Parallelism. Malebranche
and Leibniz, among others, rejected the possibility of psychophysical causal
interaction. They espoused versions of parallelism: the view that the mental
and physical realms run in parallel, in that types of mental phenomena co-occur
with certain types of physical phenomena, but these co-occurrences never
involve causal interactions. On all extant versions, the parallels hold because
of God’s creation. Leibniz’s parallelism is preestablished harmony: the
explanation of why mental types and certain physical types co-occur is that in
the possible world God actualized (i.e., this world) they co-occur. In
discussing the relation between the mental and physical realms, Leibniz used
the analogy of two synchronized but unconnected clocks. The analogy is,
however, somewhat misleading; suggesting causal mechanisms internal to each
clock and intramental and intraphysical (causal) transactions. But Leibniz’s
monadology doctrine excludes the possibility of such transactions: mental and
physical phenomena have no effects even within their own realms. Malebranche is
associated with occasionalism, according to which only God, through his
continuous activities, causes things to happen: non-divine phenomena never cause
anything. Occasionalism differs from preestablished harmony in holding that God
is continually engaged in acts of creation; each moment creating the world
anew, in such a way that the correlations hold. Both brands of parallelism face
formidable difficulties. First, both rest on highly contentious, obscure
theological hypotheses. The contention that God exists and the creation stories
in question require extensive defense and explanation. God’s relationship to
the world can seem at least as mysterious as the relationship Descartes posits
between minds and brains. Second, since parallelism denies the possibility of
psychophysical interaction, its proponents must offer alternatives to the
causal theory of perception and the causal theory of action or else deny that
we can perceive and that we can act intentionally. Third, since parallelism
rejects intramental causation, it must either deny that reasoning is possible
or explain how it is possible without causal connections between thoughts.
Fourth, since parallelism rejects physical transactions, it is hard to see how
it can allow, e.g., that one physical thing ever moves another; for that would
require causing a change in location. Perhaps none of these weighty
difficulties is ultimately insuperable; in any case, parallelism has been
abandoned. Epiphenomenalism. Empirical research gives every indication that the
occurrence of any brain state can, in principle, be causally explained by
appeal solely to other physical states. To accommodate this, some philosophers
espoused epiphenomenalism, the doctrine that physical states cause mental
states, but mental states do not cause anything. (This thesis was discussed
under the name ‘conscious automatism’ by Huxley and Hogeson in the late
nineteenth century. William James was the first to use the term ‘epiphenomena’
to mean phenomena that lack causal efficacy. And James Ward coined the term
‘epiphenomenalism’ in 1903.) Epiphenomenalism implies that there is only
one-way psychophysical action – from the physical to the mental. Since
epiphenomenalism allows such causal action, it can embrace the causal theory of
perception. However, when combined with Cartesian dualism, epiphenomenalism,
like Cartesian interactionism, implies the problematic thesis that states of an
extended substance can affect states of an unextended substance. An
epiphenomenalist can avoid this problem by rejecting the view that the mind is
an unextended substance while maintaining that mental states and events are
nonetheless distinct from physical states and events. Still, formidable
problems would remain. It is hard to see how epiphenomenalism can allow that we
are ever intentional agents. For intentional agency requires acting on reasons,
which, according to the causal theory of action, requires a causal connection
between reasons and actions. Since epiphenomenalism denies that such causal
connections are possible, it must either maintain that our sense of agency is
illusory or offer an alternative to the causal theory of action. Similarly, it
must explain how thinking is possible philosophy of mind philosophy of mind
685 685 given that there are no causal
connections between thoughts. Monism The dual-aspect theory. Many philosophers
reject Descartes’s bifurcation of reality into mental and physical substances.
Spinoza held a dualattribute theory – also called the dual-aspect theory –
according to which the mental and the physical are distinct modes of a single
substance, God. The mental and the physical are only two of infinitely many
modes of this one substance. Many philosophers opted for a thoroughgoing
monism, according to which all of reality is really of one kind. Materialism,
idealism, and neutral monism are three brands of monism. Hobbes, a contemporary
of Descartes, espoused materialism, the brand of monism according to which
everything is material or physical. Berkeley is associated with idealism, the
brand of monism according to which everything is mental. He held that both
mental and physical phenomena are perceptions in the mind of God. For Hegel’s
idealism, everything is part of the World Spirit. The early twentieth-century
British philosophers Bradley and McTaggart also held a version of idealism.
Neutral monism is the doctrine that all of reality is ultimately of one kind,
which is neither mental nor physical. Hume was a neutral monist, maintaining
that mental and physical substances are really just bundles of the neutral
entities. Versions of neutral monism were later held by Mach and, for a short
time, Russell. Russell called his neutral entities sensibilia and claimed that
minds and physical objects are logical constructions out of them.
Phenomenalism. This view, espoused in the twentieth century by, among others,
Ayer, argues that all empirical statements are synonymous with statements solely
about phenomenal appearances. While the doctrine is about statements,
phenomenalism is either a neutral monism or an idealism, depending on whether
phenomenal appearances are claimed to be neither mental nor physical or,
instead, mental. The required translations of physical statements into
phenomenal ones proved not to be forthcoming, however. Chisholm offered a
reason why they would not be: what appearances a physical state of affairs
(e.g., objects arrayed in a room) has depends both on physical conditions of
observation (e.g., lighting) and physical conditions of the perceiver (e.g., of
the nervous system). At best, a statement solely about phenomenal appearances
is equivalent to one about a physical state of affairs, only when certain
physical conditions of observation and certain physical conditions of the
perceiver obtain. Materialism. Two problems face any monism: it must
characterize the phenomena it takes as basic, and it must explain how the
fundamental phenomena make up non-basic phenomena. The idealist and neutral
monist theories proposed thus far have faltered on one or both counts. Largely
because of scientific successes of the twentieth century, such as the rebirth
of the atomic theory of matter, and the successes of quantum mechanics in
explaining chemistry and of chemistry in turn in explaining much of biology,
many philosophers today hold that materialism will ultimately succeed where
idealism and neutral monism apparently failed. Materialism, however, comes in
many different varieties and each faces formidable difficulties. Logical
behaviorism. Ryle ridiculed Cartesianism as the view that there is a ghost in
the machine (the body). He claimed that the view that the mind is a substance
rests on a category mistake: ‘mind’ is a noun, but does not name an object.
Cartesianism confuses the logic of discourse about minds with the logic of
discourse about bodies. To have a mind is not to possess a special sort of
entity; it is simply to have certain capacities and dispositions. (Compare the thesis
that to be alive is to possess not a certain entity, an entelechy or élan
vital, but rather certain capacities and dispositions.) Ryle maintained,
moreover, that it was a mistake to regard mental states such as belief, desire,
and intention as internal causes of behavior. These states, he claimed, are
dispositions to behave in overt ways. In part in response to the dualist point
that one can understand our ordinary psychological vocabulary (‘belief’,
‘desire’, ‘pain’, etc.) and know nothing about the physical states and events
in the brain, logical behaviorism has been proposed as a materialist doctrine
that explains this fact. On this view, talk of mental phenomena is shorthand
for talk of actual and potential overt bodily behavior (i.e., dispositions to
overt bodily behavior). Logical behaviorism was much discussed from roughly the
1930s until the early 1960s. (While Ryle is sometimes counted as a logical
behaviorist, he was not committed to the thesis that all mental talk can be
translated into behavioral talk.) The translations promised by logical
behaviorism appear unachievable. As Putnam and others pointed out, one can fake
being in pain and one can be in pain and yet not behave or be disposed to
behave as if one were in pain (e.g., one might philosophy of mind philosophy of
mind 686 686 be paralyzed or might be
a “super-spartan”). Logical behaviorism faces similar difficulties in
translating sentences about (what Russell called) propositional attitudes (i.e.,
beliefs that p, desires that p, hopes that p, intentions that p, and the like).
Consider the following sample proposal (similar to one offered by Carnap): one
believes that the cat is on the mat if and only if one is disposed to assent to
‘The cat is on the mat’. First, the proposed translation meets the condition of
being purely behavioral only if assenting is understandable in purely
behavioral terms. That is doubtful. The proposal also fails to provide a
sufficient or a necessary condition: someone may assent to ‘The cat is on the
mat’ and yet not believe the cat is on the mat (for the person may be trying to
deceive); and a belief that the cat is on the mat will dispose one to assent to
‘The cat is on the mat’ only if one understands what is being asked, wants to
indicate that one believes the cat is on the mat, and so on. But none of these
conditions is required for believing that the cat is on the mat. Moreover, to
invoke any of these mentalistic conditions defeats the attempt to provide a
purely behavioral translation of the belief sentence. Although the project of
translation has been abandoned, in recent years Dennett has defended a view in
the spirit of logical behaviorism, intentional systems theory: belief-desire
talk functions to characterize overall patterns of dispositions to overt
behavior (in an environmental context) for the purposes of predicting overt
behavior. The theory is sometimes characterized as supervenient behaviorism
since it implies that whether an individual has beliefs, desires, intentions
and the like supervenes on his dispositions to overt behavior: if two
individuals are exactly alike in respect of their dispositions to overt
behavior, the one has intentional states if and only if the other does. (This
view allows, however, that the contents of an individual’s intentional states –
what the individual believes, desires, etc. – may depend on environmental
factors. So it is not committed to the supervenience of the contents of
intentional states on dispositions to overt behavior.the discussion of content
externalism below.) One objection to this view, due to Ned Block, is that it
would mistakenly count as an intentional agent a giant look-up table – “a
Blockhead” – that has the same dispositions to peripheral behavior as a genuine
intentional agent. (A look-up table is a simple mechanical device that looks up
preprogrammed responses.) Identity theories. In the early 1950s, Herbert Feigl
claimed that mental states are brain states. He pointed out that if mental
properties or state types are merely nomologically correlated with physical
properties or state types, the connecting laws would be “nomological danglers”:
irreducible to physical laws, and thus additional fundamental laws. According
to the identity theory, the connecting laws are not fundamental laws (and so
not nomological danglers) since they can be explained by identifying the mental
and physical properties in question. In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, the
philosopher Smart and the psychologist U. T. Place defended the materialist
view that sensations are identical with brain processes. Smart claimed that
while mental terms differ in meaning from physical terms, scientific
investigation reveals that they have the same referents as certain physical
terms. (Compare the fact that while ‘the Morning Star’ and ‘the Evening Star’
differ in meaning empirical investigation reveals the same referent: Venus.)
Smart and Place claimed that feeling pain, e.g., is some brain process, exactly
which one to be determined by scientific investigation. Smart claimed that sensation
talk is paraphraseable in topic-neutral terms; i.e., in terms that leave open
whether sensational properties are mental or physical. ‘I have an orange
afterimage’ is paraphraseable (roughly) as: ‘There is something going on like
what is going on when I have my eyes open, am awake, and there is an orange
illuminated in good light in front of me, i.e., when I really see an orange’.
The description is topic-neutral since it leaves open whether what is going on
is mental or physical. Smart maintained that scientific investigation reveals
that what in fact meets the topic-neutral description is a brain process. He
held that psychophysical identity statements such as ‘Pain is C-fiber firing’
are contingent, likening these to, e.g., ‘Lightning is electrical discharge’,
which is contingent and knowable only through empirical investigation. Central
state materialism. This brand of materialism was defended in the late 1960s and
the early 1970s by Armstrong and others. On this view, mental states are states
that are apt to produce a certain range of behavior. Central state materialists
maintain that scientific investigation reveals that such states are states of
the central nervous system, and thus that mental states are contingently
identical with states of the central nervous system. Unlike logical
behaviorism, central state materialism does not imply that mental sentences can
be translated into physical sentences. Unlike both logical behaviorism and
philosophy of mind philosophy of mind 687
687 intentional systems theory, central state materialism implies that
mental states are actual internal states with causal effects. And unlike
Cartesian interactionism, it holds that psychophysical interaction is just
physical causal interaction. Some central state materialists held in addition
that the mind is the brain. However, if the mind were the brain, every change
in the brain would be a change in the mind; and that seems false: not every
little brain change amounts to a change of mind. Indeed, the mind ceases to
exist when brain death occurs, while the brain continues to exist. The moral
that most materialists nowadays draw from such considerations is that the mind
is not any physical substance, since it is not a substance of any sort. To have
a mind is not to possess a special substance, but rather to have certain
capacities – to think, feel, etc. To that extent, Ryle was right. However,
central state materialists insist that the properly functioning brain is the
material seat of mental capacities, that the exercise of mental capacities
consists of brain processes, and that mental states are brain states that can
produce behavior. Epistemological objections have been raised to identity
theories. As self-conscious beings, we have a kind of privileged access to our
own mental states. The exact avenue of privileged access, whether it is
introspection or not, is controversial. But it has seemed to many philosophers
that our access to our own mental states is privileged in being open only to
us, whereas we lack any privileged access to the states of our central nervous
systems. We come to know about central nervous system states in the same way we
come to know about the central nervous system states of others. So, against
central state materialism and the identity theory, it is claimed that mental
states cannot be states of our central nervous systems. Taking privileged
access to imply that we have incorrigible knowledge of our conscious mental
states, and despairing of squaring privileged access so understood with
materialism, Rorty advocated eliminative materialism, the thesis that there
actually are no mental phenomena. A more common materialist response, however,
is to deny that privileged access entails incorrigibility and to maintain that
privileged access is compatible with materialism. Some materialists maintain
that while certain types of mental states (e.g., sensations) are types of
neurological states, it will be knowable only by empirical investigation that
they are. Suppose pain is a neural state N. It will be only a posteriori
knowable that pain is N. Via the avenue of privileged access, one comes to
believe that one is in a pain state, but not that one is in an N-state. One can
believe one is in a pain state without believing that one is in an N-state
because the concept of pain is different from the concept of N. Nevertheless,
pain is N. (Compare the fact that while water is H2O, the concept of water is
different from that of H2O. Thus, while water is H2O, one can believe there is
water in the glass without believing that there is H2O in it. The avenue of
privileged access presents N conceptualized as pain, but never as neurological
state N. The avenue of privileged access involves the exercise of mental, but
not neurophysiological, concepts. However, our mental concepts answer to –
apply in virtue of – the same properties (state types) as do certain of our
neurophysiological concepts. The identity theory and central state materialism
both hold that there are contingent psychophysical property and type
identities. Some theorists in this tradition tried to distinguish a notion of
theoretical identity from the notion of strict identity. They held that mental
states are theoretically, but not strictly, identical with brain states.
Against any such distinction, Kripke argued that identities are metaphysically
necessary, i.e., hold in every possible world. If A % B, then necessarily A %
B. Kripke acknowledged that there can be contingent statements of identity. But
such statements, he argued, will employ at least one term that is not a rigid
designator, i.e., a term that designates the same thing in every world in which
it designates anything. Thus, since ‘the inventor of bifocals’ is a non-rigid
designator, ‘Benjamin Franklin is the inventor of bifocals’ is contingent. While
Franklin is the inventor of bifocals, he might not have been. However,
statements of identity in which the identity sign is flanked by rigid
designators are, if true, metaphysically necessary. Kripke held that proper
names are rigid designators, and hence, the true identity statement ‘Cicero is
Tully’ is metaphysically necessary. Nonetheless, a metaphysically necessary
identity statement can be knowable only a posteriori. Indeed, ‘Cicero is Tully’
is knowable only a posteriori. Both ‘water’ and ‘H2O’, he maintained, are rigid
designators: each designates the same kind of stuff in every possible world.
And he thus maintained that it is metaphysically necessary that water is H2O,
despite its not being a priori knowable that water is H2O. On Kripke’s view, any
psychophysical identity statement that employs mental terms and physical terms
that are rigid designators will also be metaphysically necessary, if true.
philosophy of mind philosophy of mind 688
688 Central state materialists maintain that mental concepts are
equivalent to concepts whose descriptive content is the state that is apt to
produce such-and-such behavior in such-and-such circumstances. These defining
descriptions for mental concepts are intended to be meaning-giving, not
contingent reference-fixing descriptions; they are, moreover, not rigid
designators. Thus, the central state materialists can concede that all
identities are necessary, but maintain that psychophysical claims of identity
are contingent claims of identity since the mental terms that figure in those
statements are not rigid designators. However, Kripke maintained that our
concepts of sensations and other qualitative states are not equivalent to the
sorts of descriptions in question. The term ‘pain’, he maintained, is a rigid
designator. This position might be refuted by a successful functional analysis
of the concept of pain in physical and/or topic-neutral terms. However, no
successful analysis of this sort has yet been produced. (See the section on
consciousness below.) A materialist can grant Kripke that ‘pain’ is a rigid
designator and claim that a statement such as ‘Pain is C-fiber firing’ will be
metaphysically necessary if true, but only a posteriori knowable. However,
Kripke raised a formidable problem for this materialism. He pointed out that if
a statement is metaphysically necessary but only a posteriori knowable, its
appearance of contingency calls for explanation. Despite being metaphysically
necessary, ‘Water is H2O’ appears contingent. According to Kripke, we explain this
appearance by noting that one can coherently imagine a world in which something
has all the phenomenal properties of water, and so is an “epistemic
counterpart” of it, yet is not H2O. The fact that we can coherently imagine
such epistemic counterparts explains why ‘Water is H2O’ appears contingent. But
no such explanation is available for (e.g.) ‘Pain is C-fiber firing’. For an
epistemic counterpart of pain, something with the phenomenal properties of pain
– the feel of pain – is pain. Something can look, smell, taste, and feel like
water yet not be water. But whatever feels like pain is pain: pain is a
feeling. In contrast, we can explain the apparent contingency of claims like
‘Water is H2O’ because water is not constituted by its phenomenal properties;
our concept of water allows that it may have a “hidden essence,” i.e., an
essential microstructure. If Kripke is right, then anyone who maintains that a
statement of identity concerning a type of bodily sensation and a type of
physical state is metaphysically necessary yet a posteriori, must explain the
appearance of contingency in a way that differs from the way Kripke explains
the appearance of contingency of ‘Water is H2O’. This is a formidable
challenge. (The final section, on consciousness, sketches some materialist
responses to it.) The general issue of property and state type identity is
controversial. The claim that water is H2O despite the fact that the concept of
water is distinct from the concept of H2O seems plausible. However, property or
state type identity is more controversial than the identity of types of
substances. For properties or state types, there are no generally accepted
“non-duplication principles” – to use a phrase of David Lewis’s. (A
nonduplication principle for A’s will say that no two A’s can be exactly alike
in a certain respect; e.g., no two sets can have exactly the same members.) It
is widely denied, for instance, that no two properties can be possessed by
exactly the same things. Two properties, it is claimed, can be possessed by the
same things; likewise, two state types can occur in the same space-time
regions. Even assuming that mental concepts are distinct from physical
concepts, the issue of whether mental state types are physical state types
raises the controversial issue of the non-duplication principle for state
types. Token and type physicalisms. Token physicalism is the thesis that every
particular is physical. Type physicalism is the thesis that every type or kind
of entity is physical; thus, the identity thesis and central state materialism
are type physicalist theses since they imply that types of mental states are
types of physical states. Type physicalism implies token physicalism: given the
former, every token falls under some physical type, and therefore is token-token
identical with some token of a physical type. But token physicalism does not
imply type physicalism; the former leaves open whether physical tokens fall
under non-physical types. Some doctrines billed as materialist or physicalist
embrace token epiphenomenalism, but reject type physicalism. Non-reductive
materialism. This form of materialism implies token physicalism, but denies
type physicalism and, as well, that mental types (properties, etc.) are
reducible to physical types. This doctrine has been discussed since at least
the late nineteenth century and was widely discussed in the first third of the
twentieth century. The British philosophers George Henry Lewes, Samuel
Alexander, Lloyd Morgan, and C. D. Broad all held or thought plausible a certain
version of non-reductive materialism. They held or sympathized with the view
that every substance philosophy of mind philosophy of mind 689 689 either is or is wholly made up of
physical particles, that the well-functioning brain is the material seat of
mental capacities, and that token mental states (events, processes, etc.) are
token neurophysiological states (events, processes, etc.). However, they either
held or thought plausible the view that mental capacities, properties, etc.,
emerge from, and thus do not reduce to, physical capacities, properties, etc.
Lewes coined the term ‘emergence’; and Broad later labeled the doctrine
emergent materialism. Emergent materialists maintain that laws correlating
mental and physical properties are irreducible. (These laws would be what Feigl
called nomological danglers.) Emergentists maintain that, despite their
untidiness, such laws must be accepted with natural piety. Davidson’s doctrine
of anomalous monism is a current brand of non-reductive materialism. He
explicitly formulates this materialist thesis for events; and his
irreducibility thesis is restricted to intentional mental types – e.g.,
believings, desirings, and intendings. Anomalous monism says that every event
token is physical, but that intentional mental predicates and concepts (ones
expressing propositional attitudes) do not reduce, by law or definition, to
physical predicates or concepts. Davidson offers an original argument for this
irreducibility thesis. Mental predicates and concepts are, he claims, governed
by constitutive principles of rationality, but physical predicates and concepts
are not. This difference, he contends, excludes the possibility of reduction of
mental predicates and concepts to physical ones. Davidson denies, moreover, that
there are strict psychological or psychophysical laws. He calls the conjunction
of this thesis and his irreducibility thesis the principle of the anomalism of
the mental. His argument for token physicalism (for events) appeals to the
principle of the anomalism of the mental and to the principle of the
nomological character of causality: when two events are causally related, they
are subsumed by a strict law. He maintains that all strict laws are physical.
Given that claim, and given the principle of the nomological character of
causality, it follows that every event that is a cause or effect is a physical
event. On this view, psychophysical causation is just causation between
physical events. Stephen Schiffer has also maintained a non-reductive materialism,
one he calls ontological physicalism and sentential dualism: every particular
is physical, but mental truths are irreducible to physical truths.
Non-reductive materialism presupposes that mental state (event) tokens can fall
under physical state types and, thereby, count as physical state tokens. This
presupposition is controversial; no uncontroversial non-duplication principle
for state tokens settles the issue. Suppose, however, that mental state tokens
are physical state tokens, despite mental state types not being physical state
types. The issue of how mental state types and physical state types are related
remains. Suppose that some physical token x is of a mental type M (say, a
belief that the cat is on the mat) and some other physical token y is not of
type M. There must, it seems, be some difference between x and y in virtue of
which x is, and y is not, of type M. Otherwise, it is simply a brute fact that
x is and y is not of type M. That, however, seems implausible. The claim that
certain physical state tokens fall under mental state types simply as a matter
of brute fact would leave the difference in question utterly mysterious. But if
it is not a brute fact, then there is some explanation of why a certain
physical state is a mental state of a certain sort. The non-reductive
materialist owes us an explanation that does not imply psychophysical
reduction. Moreover, even though the non-reductive materialist can claim that
mental states are causes because they are physical states with physical effects,
there is some question whether mental state types are relevant to causal
relations. Suppose every state is a physical state. Given that physical states
causally interact in virtue of falling under physical types, it follows that
whenever states causally interact they do so in virtue of falling under
physical types. That raises the issue of whether states are ever causes in
virtue of falling under mental types. Type epiphenomenalism is the thesis that
no state can cause anything in virtue of falling under a mental type. Token
epiphenomenalism, the thesis that no mental state can cause anything, implies
type epiphenomenalism, but not conversely. Nonreductive materialists are not
committed to token physicalism. However, token epiphenomenalism may be false but
type epiphenomenalism true since mental states may be causes only in virtue of
falling under physical types, never in virtue of falling under mental types.
Broad raised the issue of type epiphenomenalism and discussed whether emergent
materialism is committed to it. Ted Honderich, Jaegwon Kim, Ernest Sosa, and
others have in recent years raised the issue of whether non-reductive
materialism is committed to type epiphenomenalism. Brian McLaughlin has argued
that the claim that an event acts as a cause in virtue of falling under a
certain physical type is consistent with the philosophy of mind philosophy of
mind 690 690 claim that it also acts
as a cause in virtue of falling under a certain mental type, even when the mental
type is not identical with the physical type. But even if this is so, the
relationship between mental types and physical types must be addressed. Ernest
LePore and Barry Loewer, Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit, Stephen Yablo, and
others have attempted to characterize a relation between mental types and
physical types that allows for the causal relevance of mental types. But
whether there is a relation between mental and physical properties that is both
adequate to secure the causal relevance of mental properties and available to
non-reductive materialists remains an open question. Davidson’s anomalous
monism may appear to be a kind of dual-aspect theory: there are events and they
can have two sorts of autonomous aspects, mental and physical. However, while
Davidson holds that mental properties (or types) do not reduce to physical
ones, he also holds that the mental properties of an event depend on its
physical properties in that the former supervene on the latter in this sense:
no two events can be exactly alike in every physical respect and yet differ in
some mental respect. This proposal introduced the notion of supervenience into
contem- porary philosophy of mind. Often nonreductive materialists argue that
mental properties (types) supervene on physical properties (types). Kim,
however, has distinguished various supervenience relations, and argues that
some are too weak to count as versions of materialism (as opposed to, say,
dual-aspect theory), while other supervenience relations are too strong to use
to formulate non-reductive materialism since they imply reducibility. According
to Kim, non-reductive materialism is an unstable position. Materialism as a
supervenience thesis. Several philosophers have in recent years attempted to
define the thesis of materialism using a global supervenience thesis. Their aim
is not to formulate a brand of non-reductive materialism; they maintain that
their supervenience thesis may well imply reducibility. Their aim is, rather,
to formulate a thesis to which anyone who counts as a genuine materialist must subscribe.
David Lewis has maintained that materialism is true if and only if any
non-alien possible worlds that are physically indiscernible are mentally
indiscernible as well. Non-alien possible worlds are worlds that have exactly
the same perfectly natural properties as the actual world. Frank Jackson has
offered this proposal: materialism is true if and only if any minimal physical
duplicate of the actual world is a duplicate simpliciter of the actual world. A
world is a physical duplicate of the actual world if and only if it is exactly
like the actual world in every physical respect (physical particular for
physical particular, physical property for physical property, physical relation
for physical relation, etc.); and a world is a duplicate simpliciter of the
actual world if and only if it is exactly like the actual world in every
respect. A minimal physical duplicate of the actual world is a physical
duplicate that contains nothing else (by way of particulars, kinds, properties,
etc.) than it must in order to be a physical duplicate of the actual world. Two
questions arise for any formulation of the thesis of materialism. Is it
adequate to materialism? And, if it is, is it true? Functionalism. The
nineteenth-century British philosopher George Henry Lewes maintained that while
not every neurological event is mental, every mental event is neurological. He
claimed that what makes certain neurological events mental events is their
causal role in the organism. This is a very early version of functionalism, nowadays
a leading approach to the mind–body problem. Functionalism implies an answer to
the question of what makes a state token a mental state of a certain kind M:
namely, that it is an instance of some functional state type identical with M.
There are two versions of this proposal. On one, a mental state type M of a
system will be identical with the state type that plays a certain causal role R
in the system. The description ‘the state type that plays R in the system’ will
be a nonrigid designator; moreover, different state types may play R in
different organisms, in which case the mental state is multiply realizable. On
the second version, a mental state type M is identical with a second-order
state type, the state of being in some first-order state that plays causal role
R. More than one first-order state may play role R, and thus M may be multiply
realizable. On either version, if the relevant causal roles are specifiable in
physical or topic-neutral terms, then the functional definitions of mental
state types will be, in principle, physically reductive. Since the roles would
be specified partly in topic-neutral terms, there may well be possible worlds
in which the mental states are realized by non-physical states; thus,
functionalism does not imply token physicalism. However, functionalists
typically maintain that, on the empirical evidence, mental states are realized
(in our world) only by physical states. Functionalism comes in many varieties.
philosophy of mind philosophy of mind 691
691 Smart’s topic-neutral analysis of our talk of sensations is in the
spirit of functionalism. And Armstrong’s central state materialism counts as a
kind of functionalism since it maintains that mental states are states apt to
produce a certain range of behavior, and thus identifies states as mental
states by their performing this causal role. However, functionalists today
typically hold that the defining causal roles include causal roles vis-à-vis
input state types, as well as output state types, and also vis-à-vis other internal
state types of the system in question. In the 1960s David Lewis proposed a
functionalist theory, analytical functionalism, according to which definitions
of mental predicates such as ‘belief’, ‘desire’, and the like (though not
predicates such as ‘believes that p’ or ‘desires that q’) can be obtained by
conjoining the platitudes of commonsense psychology and formulating the Ramsey
sentence for the conjunction. The relevant Ramsey sentence is a second-order
quantificational sentence that quantifies over the mental predicates in the
conjunction of commonsense psychological platitudes, and from it one can derive
definitions of the mental predicates. On this view, it will be analytic that a
certain mental state (e.g., belief) is the state that plays a certain causal
role vis-à-vis other states; and it is a matter of empirical investigation what
state plays the role. Lewis claimed that such investigation reveals that the
state types that play the roles in question are physical states. In the early
1960s, Putnam proposed a version of scientific functionalism, machine state
functionalism: according to this view, mental states are types of Turing
machine table states. Turing machines are mechanical devices consisting of a
tape with squares on it that either are blank or contain symbols, and an
executive that can move one square to the left, or one square to the right, or
stay where it is. And it can either write a symbol on a square, erase a symbol
on a square, or leave the square as it is. (According to the Church-Turing
thesis, every computable function can be computed by a Turing machine.) Now
there are two functions specifying such a machine: one from input states to
output states, the other from input states to input states. And these functions
are expressible by counterfactuals (e.g., ‘If the machine is in state s 1 and
receives input I, it will emit output O and enter state s2’). Machine tables
are specified by the counterfactuals that express the functions in question. So
the main idea of machine state functionalism is that any given mental type is
definable as the state type that participates in certain counterfactual
relationships specified in terms of purely formal, and so not semantically
interpreted, state types. Any system whose inputs, outputs, and internal states
are counterfactually related in the way characterized by a machine table is a
realization of that table. This version of machine state functionalism has been
abandoned: no one maintains that the mind has the architecture of a Turing machine.
However, computational psychology, a branch of cognitive psychology,
presupposes a scientific functionalist view of cognitive states: it takes the
mind to have a computational architecture. (See the section on cognitive
psychology below.) Functionalism – the view that what makes a state a
realization of a mental state is its playing a certain causal role – remains a
leading theory of mind. But functionalism faces formidable difficulties. Block
has pinpointed one. On the one hand, if the input and output states that figure
in the causal role alleged to define a certain mental state are specified in
insufficient detail, the functional definition will be too liberal: it will
mistakenly classify certain states as of that mental type. On the other hand,
if the input and output states are specified in too much detail, the functional
definition will be chauvinistic: it will fail to count certain states as
instances of the mental state that are in fact such instances. Moreover, it has
also been argued that functionalism cannot capture conscious states since types
of conscious states do not admit of functional definitions. Cognitive
psychology, content, and consciousness Cognitive psychology. Many claim that
one aim of cognitive psychology is to provide explanations of intentional
capacities, capacities to be in intentional states (e.g., believing) and to
engage in intentional activities (e.g., reasoning). Fodor has argued that
classical cognitive psychology postulates a cognitive architecture that
includes a language of thought: a system of mental representation with a
combinatorial syntax and semantics, and computational processes defined over
these mental representations in virtue of their syntactic structures. On this
view, cognition is rule-governed symbol manipulation. Mental symbols have
meanings, but they participate in computational processes solely in virtue of
their syntactic or formal properties. The mind is, so to speak, a syntactic
engine. The view implies a kind of content parallelism: syntaxsensitive causal
transitions between symbols will preserve semantic coherence. Fodor has
mainphilosophy of mind philosophy of mind 692
692 tained that, on this language-of-thought view of cognition (the
classical view), being in a beliefthat-p state can be understood as consisting
in bearing a computational relation (one that is constitutive of belief) to a
sentence in the language of thought that means that p; and similarly for
desire, intention, and the like. The explanation of intentional capacities will
be provided by a computational theory for mental sentences in conjunction with
a psychosemantic theory, a theory of meaning for mental sentences. A research
program in cognitive science called connectionism postulates networks of
neuron-like units. The units can be either on or off, or can have continuous
levels of activation. Units are connected, the connections have various degrees
of strength, and the connections can be either inhibitory or excitatory.
Connectionism has provided fruitful models for studying how neural networks
compute information. Moreover, connectionists have had much success in modeling
pattern recognition tasks (e.g., facial recognition) and tasks consisting of
learning categories from examples. Some connectionists maintain that
connectionism will yield an alternative to the classical language-of-thought
account of intentional states and capacities. However, some favor a
mixed-models approach to cognition: some cognitive capacities are symbolic,
some connectionist. And some hold that connectionism will yield an
implementational architecture for a symbolic cognitive architecture, one that
will help explain how a symbolic cognitive architecture is realized in the
nervous system. Content externalism. Many today hold that Twin-Earth thought
experiments by Putnam and Tyler Burge show that the contents of a subject’s
mental states do not supervene on intrinsic properties of the subject: two
individuals can be exactly alike in every intrinsic respect, yet be in mental
states with different contents. (In response to Twin-Earth thought experiments,
some philosophers have, however, attempted to characterize a notion of narrow
content, a kind of content that supervenes on intrinsic properties of
thinkers.) Content, externalists claim, depends on extrinsic-contextual
factors. If externalism is correct, then a psychosemantic theory must examine
the relation between mental symbols and the extrinsic, contextual factors that
determine contents. Stephen Stich has argued that psychology should eschew
psychosemantics and concern itself only with the syntactic properties of mental
sentences. Such a psychology could not explain intentional capacities. But
Stich urges that computational psychology also eschew that explanatory goal.
If, however, psychology is to explain intentional capacities, a psychosemantic
theory is needed. Dretske, Fodor, Ruth Millikan, and David Papineau have each
independently attempted to provide, in physicalistically respectable terms,
foundations for a naturalized externalist theory of the content of mental
sentences or internal physical states. Perhaps the leading problem for these
theories of content is to explain how the physical and functional facts about a
state determine a unique content for it. Appealing to work by Quine and by
Kripke, some philosophers argue that such facts will not determine unique
contents. Both causal and epistemic concerns have been raised about externalist
theories of content. Such theories invite the question whether the property of
having a certain content is ever causally relevant. If content is a contextual
property of a state that has it, can states have effects in virtue of their
having a certain content? This is an important issue because intentional states
figure in explanations not only in virtue of their intentional mode (whether
they are beliefs, or desires, etc.) but also in virtue of their contents.
Consider an everyday belief-desire explanation. The fact that the subject’s
belief was that there was milk in the refrigerator and the fact that the
subject’s desire was for milk are both essential to the belief and desire
explaining why the subject went to the refrigerator. Dretske, who maintains
that content depends on a causal-historical context, has attempted to explain
how the property of having a certain content can be causally relevant even
though the possession of the property depends on causal-historical factors. And
various other philosophers have attempted to explain how the causal relevance
of content can be squared with the fact that it fails to supervene on intrinsic
properties of the subject. A further controversial question is whether
externalism is consistent with our having privileged access to what we are
thinking. Consciousness. Conscious states such as pain states, visual
experiences, and so on, are such that it is “like” something for the subject of
the state to be in them. Such states have a qualitative aspect, a
phenomenological character. The what-it-is-like aspects of experiences are
called qualia. Qualia pose a serious difficulty for physicalism. Broad argued
that one can know all the physical properties of a chemical and how it causally
interacts with other physical phenomena and yet not know what it is like to
smell it. He concluded that the smell of the chemical is philosophy of mind philosophy
of mind 693 693 not itself a physical
property, but rather an irreducible emergent property. Frank Jackson has
recently defended a version of the argument, which has been dubbed the
knowledge argument. Jackson argues that a super-scientist, Mary, who knows all
the physical and functional facts about color vision, light, and matter, but
has never experienced redness since she has spent her entire life in a black
and white room, would not know what it is like to visually experience red. He
concludes that the physical and functional (topic-neutral) facts do not entail
all the facts, and thus materialism is false. In response, Lawrence Nemirow,
David Lewis, and others have argued that knowing what it is like to be in a
certain conscious state is, in part, a matter of know-how (e.g., to be able to
imagine oneself in the state) rather than factual knowledge, and that the
failure of knowledge of the physical and functional facts to yield such
know-how does not imply the falsity of materialism. Functionalism seems unable
to solve the problem of qualia since qualia seem not to be functionally
definable. In the 1970s, Fodor and Ned Block argued that two states can have
the same causal role, thereby realizing the same functional state, yet the
qualia associated with each can be inverted. This is called the problem of
inverted qualia. The color spectrum, e.g., might be inverted for two
individuals (a possibility raised by Locke), despite their being in the same
functional states. They further argued that two states might realize the same
functional state, yet the one might have qualia associated with it and the
other not. This is called the problem of absent qualia. Sydney Shoemaker has
argued that the possibility of absent qualia can be ruled out on functionalist
grounds. However, he has also refined the inverted qualia scenario and further
articulated the problem it poses for functionalism. Whether functionalism or
physicalism can avoid the problems of absent and inverted qualia remains an
open question. Thomas Nagel claims that conscious states are subjective: to
fully understand them, one must understand what it is like to be in them, but
one can do that only by taking up the experiential point of view of a subject
in them. Physical states, in contrast, are objective. Physical science attempts
to characterize the world in abstraction from the experiential point of view of
any subject. According to Nagel, whether phenomenal mental states reduce to
physical states turns on whether subjective states reduce to objective states;
and, at present, he claims, we have no understanding of how they could. Nagel
has suggested that consciousness may be explainable only by appeal to as yet
undiscovered basic nonmental, non-physical properties – “proto-mental
properties” – the idea being that experiential points of view might be
constituted by protomental properties together with physical properties. He
thus claims that panphysicism is worthy of serious consideration. Frank
Jackson, James Van Cleve, and David Chalmers have argued that conscious
properties are emergent, i.e., fundamental, irreducible macro-properties; and
Chalmers sympathizes with a brand of panphysicism. Colin McGinn claims that
while conscious properties are likely reductively explainable by brain
properties, our minds seem conceptually closed to the explaining properties: we
are unable to conceptualize them, just as a cat is unable to conceptualize a
square root. Dennett attempts to explain consciousness in supervenient
behaviorist terms. David Rosenthal argues that consciousness is a special case
of intentionality – more specifically, that conscious states are just states we
can come in a certain direct way to believe we are in. Dretske, William Lycan,
and Michael Tye argue that conscious properties are intentional properties and
physicalistically reducible. Patricia Churchland argues that conscious
phenomena are reducible to neurological phenomena. Brian Loar contends that
qualia are identical with either functional or neurological states of the
brain; and Christopher Hill argues specifically that qualia are identical with
neurological states. Loar and Hill attempt to explain away the appearance of
contingency of psychophysical identity claims, but in a way different from the
way Kripke attempts to explain the appearance of contingency of ‘Water is H2O’,
since they concede that that mode of explanation is unavailable. They appeal to
differences in the conceptual roles of neurological and functional concepts by
contrast with phenomenal concepts. They argue that while such concepts are
different, they answer to the same properties. The nature of consciousness thus
remains a matter of dispute.
ACTION THEORY, COGNITIVE
SCIENCE, CONNECTIONISM, FOLK PSYCHOLOGY, INTENTIONALITY, MEANING, PHILOSOPHY OF
LANGUAGE, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, PHYSICALISM. B.P.M. philosophy of
organism.WHITEHEAD. philosophy of psychology, the philosophical study of
psychology. Psychology began to separate from philosophy with the work of the
ninephilosophy of organism philosophy of psychology 694 694
teenth-century German experimentalists, especially Fechner (1801–87), Helmholtz
(1821– 94), and Wundt (1832–1920). In the first half of the twentieth century,
the separation was completed in this country insofar as separate psychology
departments were set up in most universities, psychologists established their
own journals and professional associations, and experimental methods were
widely employed, although not in every area of psychology (the first
experimental study of the effectiveness of a psychological therapy did not
occur until 1963). Despite this achievement of autonomy, however, issues have
remained about the nature of the connections, if any, that should continue
between psychology and philosophy. One radical view, that virtually all such connections
should be severed, was defended by the behaviorist John Watson in his seminal
1913 paper “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It.” Watson criticizes
psychologists, even the experimentalists, for relying on introspective methods
and for making consciousness the subject matter of their discipline. He
recommends that psychology be a purely objective experimental branch of natural
science, that its theoretical goal be to predict and control behavior, and that
it discard all reference to consciousness. In making behavior the sole subject
of psychological inquiry, we avoid taking sides on “those time-honored relics
of philosophical speculation,” namely competing theories about the mind–body
problem, such as interactionism and parallelism. In a later work, published in
1925, Watson claimed that the success of behaviorism threatened the very
existence of philosophy: “With the behavioristic point of view now becoming
dominant, it is hard to find a place for what has been called philosophy.
Philosophy is passing – has all but passed, and unless new issues arise which
will give a foundation for a new philosophy, the world has seen its last great
philosopher.” One new issue was the credibility of behaviorism. Watson gave no
argument for his view that prediction and control of behavior should be the
only theoretical goals of psychology. If the attempt to explain behavior is
also legitimate, as some anti-behaviorists argue, then it would seem to be an
empirical question whether that goal can be met without appealing to
mentalistic causes. Watson and his successors, such as B. F. Skinner, cited no
credible empirical evidence that it could, but instead relied primarily on
philosophical arguments for banning postulation of mentalistic causes. As a
consequence, behaviorists virtually guaranteed that philosophers of psychology
would have at least one additional task beyond wrestling with traditional mind–
body issues: the analysis and criticism of behaviorism itself. Although
behaviorism and the mind–body problem were never the sole subjects of
philosophy of psychology, a much richer set of topics developed after 1950 when
the so-called cognitive revolution occurred in American psychology. These
topics include innate knowledge and the acquisition of transformational grammars,
intentionality, the nature of mental representation, functionalism, mental
imagery, the language of thought, and, more recently, connectionism. Such
topics are of interest to many cognitive psychologists and those in other
disciplines, such as linguistics and artificial intelligence, who contributed
to the emerging discipline known as cognitive science. Thus, after the decline
of various forms of behaviorism and the consequent rise of cognitivism, many
philosophers of psychology collaborated more closely with psychologists. This
increased cooperation was probably due not only to a broadening of the issues,
but also to a methodological change in philosophy. In the period roughly
between 1945 and 1975, conceptual analysis dominated both American and English
philosophy of psychology and the closely related discipline, the philosophy of
mind. Many philosophers took the position that philosophy was essentially an a
priori discipline. These philosophers rarely cited the empirical studies of
psychologists. In recent decades, however, philosophy of psychology has become
more empirical, at least in the sense that more attention is being paid to the
details of the empirical studies of psychologists. The result is more
interchanges between philosophers and psychologists. Although interest in
cognitive psychology appears to predominate in recent American philosophy of
psychology, the new emphasis on empirical studies is also reflected in
philosophic work on topics not directly related to cognitive psychology. For
example, philosophers of psychology have written books in recent years on the
clinical foundations of psychoanalysis, the foundations of behavior therapy and
behavior modification, and self-deception. The emphasis on empirical data has
been taken one step further by naturalists, who argue that in epistemology, at
least, and perhaps in all areas of philosophy, philosophical questions should
either be replaced by questions from empirical psychology or be answered by
appeal to empirical studies in psychology and related disciplines. It is
philosophy of psychology philosophy of psychology 695 695 still too early to predict the
fruitfulness of the naturalist approach, but this new trend might well have
pleased Watson. Taken to an extreme, naturalism would make philosophy dependent
on psychology instead of the reverse and thus would further enhance the
autonomy of psychology that Watson desired.
BEHAVIORISM, COGNITIVE SCIENCE, NATURALISM, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. E.Er.
philosophy of religion, the subfield of philosophy devoted to the study of
religious phenomena. Although religions are typically complex systems of theory
and practice, including both myths and rituals, philosophers tend to
concentrate on evaluating religious truth claims. In the major theistic
traditions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the most important of these
claims concern the existence, nature, and activities of God. Such traditions
commonly understand God to be something like a person who is disembodied,
eternal, free, all-powerful, all-knowing, the creator and sustainer of the
universe, and the proper object of human obedience and worship. One important
question is whether this conception of the object of human religious activity
is coherent; another is whether such a being actually exists. Philosophers of
religion have sought rational answers to both questions. The major theistic
traditions draw a distinction between religious truths that can be discovered
and even known by unaided human reason and those to which humans have access
only through a special divine disclosure or revelation. According to Aquinas,
e.g., the existence of God and some things about the divine nature can be
proved by unaided human reason, but such distinctively Christian doctrines as
the Trinity and Incarnation cannot be thus proved and are known to humans only
because God has revealed them. Theists disagree about how such divine
disclosures occur; the main candidates for vehicles of revelation include
religious experience, the teachings of an inspired religious leader, the sacred
scriptures of a religious community, and the traditions of a particular church.
The religious doctrines Christian traditions take to be the content of
revelation are often described as matters of faith. To be sure, such traditions
typically affirm that faith goes beyond mere doctrinal belief to include an
attitude of profound trust in God. On most accounts, however, faith involves
doctrinal belief, and so there is a contrast within the religious domain itself
between faith and reason. One way to spell out the contrast – though not the
only way – is to imagine that the content of revelation is divided into two
parts. On the one hand, there are those doctrines, if any, that can be known by
human reason but are also part of revelation; the existence of God is such a
doctrine if it can be proved by human reason alone. Such doctrines might be
accepted by some people on the basis of rational argument, while others, who
lack rational proof, accept them on the authority of revelation. On the other
hand, there are those doctrines that cannot be known by human reason and for
which the authority of revelation is the sole basis. They are objects of faith
rather than reason and are often described as mysteries of faith. Theists
disagree about how such exclusive objects of faith are related to reason. One
prominent view is that, although they go beyond reason, they are in harmony
with it; another is that they are contrary to reason. Those who urge that such
doctrines should be accepted despite the fact that, or even precisely because,
they are contrary to reason are known as fideists; the famous slogan credo quia
absurdum (‘I believe because it is absurd’) captures the flavor of extreme
fideism. Many scholars regard Kierkegaard as a fideist on account of his
emphasis on the paradoxical nature of the Christian doctrine that Jesus of
Nazareth is God incarnate. Modern philosophers of religion have, for the most
part, confined their attention to topics treatable without presupposing the
truth of any particular tradition’s claims about revelation and have left the
exploration of mysteries of faith to the theologians of various traditions. A
great deal of philosophical work clarifying the concept of God has been
prompted by puzzles that suggest some incoherence in the traditional concept.
One kind of puzzle concerns the coherence of individual claims about the nature
of God. Consider the traditional affirmation that God is allpowerful
(omnipotent). Reflection on this doctrine raises a famous question: Can God
make a stone so heavy that even God cannot lift it? No matter how this is
answered, it seems that there is at least one thing that even God cannot do,
i.e., make such a stone or lift such a stone, and so it appears that even God
cannot be all-powerful. Such puzzles stimulate attempts by philosophers to
analyze the concept of omnipotence in a way that specifies more precisely the
scope of the powers coherently attributable to an omnipotent being. To the
extent that such attempts succeed, they foster a deeper understanding of the
concept of God and, if God exists, of the divine nature. Another sort of puzzle
concerns the consistency of attributing two or more properties to philosophy of
religion philosophy of religion 696
696 God. Consider the claim that God is both immutable and omniscient.
An immutable being is one that cannot undergo internal change, and an
omniscient being knows all truths, and believes no falsehoods. If God is
omniscient, it seems that God must first know and hence believe that it is now
Tuesday and not believe that it is now Wednesday and later know and hence
believe that it is now Wednesday and not believe that it is now Tuesday. If so,
God’s beliefs change, and since change of belief is an internal change, God is
not immutable. So it appears that God is not immutable if God is omniscient. A
resolution of this puzzle would further contribute to enriching the
philosophical understanding of the concept of God. It is, of course, one thing
to elaborate a coherent concept of God; it is quite another to know, apart from
revelation, that such a being actually exists. A proof of the existence of God
would yield such knowledge, and it is the task of natural theology to evaluate
arguments that purport to be such proofs. As opposed to revealed theology,
natural theology restricts the assumptions fit to serve as premises in its
arguments to things naturally knowable by humans, i.e., knowable without
special revelation from supernatural sources. Many people have hoped that such
natural religious knowledge could be universally communicated and would justify
a form of religious practice that would appeal to all humankind because of its
rationality. Such a religion would be a natural religion. The history of
natural theology has produced a bewildering variety of arguments for the
existence of God. The four main types are these: ontological arguments,
cosmological arguments, teleological arguments, and moral arguments. The
earliest and most famous version of the ontological argument was set forth by
Anselm of Canterbury in chapter 2 of his Proslogion. It is a bold attempt to
deduce the existence of God from the concept of God: we understand God to be a
perfect being, something than which nothing greater can be conceived. Because
we have this concept, God at least exists in our minds as an object of the
understanding. Either God exists in the mind alone, or God exists both in the
mind and as an extramental reality. But if God existed in the mind alone, then
we could conceive of a being greater than that than which nothing greater can
be conceived, namely, one that also existed in extramental reality. Since the
concept of a being greater than that than which nothing greater can be
conceived is incoherent, God cannot exist in the mind alone. Hence God exists
not only in the mind but also in extramental reality. The most celebrated
criticism of this form of the argument was Kant’s, who claimed that existence
is not a real predicate. For Kant, a real predicate contributes to determining
the content of a concept and so serves as a part of its definition. But to say
that something falling under a concept exists does not add to the content of a
concept; there is, Kant said, no difference in conceptual content between a
hundred real dollars and a hundred imaginary dollars. Hence whether or not
there exists something that corresponds to a concept cannot be settled by
definition. The existence of God cannot be deduced from the concept of a
perfect being because existence is not contained in the concept or the
definition of a perfect being. Contemporary philosophical discussion has
focused on a slightly different version of the ontological argument. In chapter
3 of Proslogion Anselm suggested that something than which nothing greater can
be conceived cannot be conceived not to exist and so exists necessarily.
Following this lead, such philosophers as Charles Hartshorne, Norman Malcolm,
and Alvin Plantinga have contended that God cannot be a contingent being who
exists in some possible worlds but not in others. The existence of a perfect
being is either necessary, in which case God exists in every possible world, or
impossible, in which case God exists in no possible worlds. On this view, if it
is so much as possible that a perfect being exists, God exists in every
possible world and hence in the actual world. The crucial premise in this form
of the argument is the assumption that the existence of a perfect being is
possible; it is not obviously true and could be rejected without irrationality.
For this reason, Plantinga concedes that the argument does not prove or
establish its conclusion, but maintains that it does make it rational to accept
the existence of God. The key premises of various cosmological arguments are
statements of obvious facts of a general sort about the world. Thus, the argument
to a first cause begins with the observation that there are now things
undergoing change and things causing change. If something is a cause of such
change only if it is itself caused to change by something else, then there is
an infinitely long chain of causes of change. But, it is alleged, there cannot
be a causal chain of infinite length. Therefore there is something that causes
change, but is not caused to change by anything else, i.e., a first cause. Many
critics of this form of the arguphilosophy of religion philosophy of religion
697 697 ment deny its assumption that
there cannot be an infinite causal regress or chain of causes. This argument
also fails to show that there is only one first cause and does not prove that a
first cause must have such divine attributes as omniscience, omnipotence, and
perfect goodness. A version of the cosmological argument that has attracted
more attention from contemporary philosophers is the argument from contingency
to necessity. It starts with the observation that there are contingent beings –
beings that could have failed to exist. Since contingent beings do not exist of
logical necessity, a contingent being must be caused to exist by some other
being, for otherwise there would be no explanation of why it exists rather than
not doing so. Either the causal chain of contingent beings has a first member,
a contingent being not caused by another contingent being, or it is infinitely
long. If, on the one hand, the chain has a first member, then a necessary being
exists and causes it. After all, being contingent, the first member must have a
cause, but its cause cannot be another contingent being. Hence its cause has to
be non-contingent, i.e., a being that could not fail to exist and so is
necessary. If, on the other hand, the chain is infinitely long, then a
necessary being exists and causes the chain as a whole. This is because the
chain as a whole, being itself contingent, requires a cause that must be
noncontingent since it is not part of the chain. In either case, if there are
contingent beings, a necessary being exists. So, since contingent beings do
exist, there is a necessary being that causes their existence. Critics of this
argument attack its assumption that there must be an explanation for the
existence of every contingent being. Rejecting the principle that there is a
sufficient reason for the existence of each contingent thing, they argue that
the existence of at least some contingent beings is an inexplicable brute fact.
And even if the principle of sufficient reason is true, its truth is not
obvious and so it would not be irrational to deny it. Accordingly, William Rowe
(b.1931) concludes that this version of the cosmological argument does not
prove the existence of God, but he leaves open the question of whether it shows
that theistic belief is reasonable. The starting point of teleological
arguments is the phenomenon of goal-directedness in nature. Aquinas, e.g.,
begins with the claim that we see that things which lack intelligence act for
an end so as to achieve the best result. Modern science has discredited this
universal metaphysical teleology, but many biological systems do seem to
display remarkable adaptations of means to ends. Thus, as William Paley
(1743–1805) insisted, the eye is adapted to seeing and its parts cooperate in
complex ways to produce sight. This suggests an analogy between such biological
systems and human artifacts, which are known to be products of intelligent
design. Spelled out in mechanical terms, the analogy grounds the claim that the
world as a whole is like a vast machine composed of many smaller machines.
Machines are contrived by intelligent human designers. Since like effects have
like causes, the world as a whole and many of its parts are therefore probably
products of design by an intelligence resembling the human but greater in
proportion to the magnitude of its effects. Because this form of the argument
rests on an analogy, it is known as the analogical argument for the existence
of God; it is also known as the design argument since it concludes the
existence of an intelligent designer of the world. Hume subjected the design
argument to sustained criticism in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
If, as most scholars suppose, the character Philo speaks for Hume, Hume does
not actually reject the argument. He does, however, think that it warrants only
the very weak conclusion that the cause or causes of order in the universe
probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence. As this way of putting
it indicates, the argument does not rule out polytheism; perhaps different
minor deities designed lions and tigers. Moreover, the analogy with human
artificers suggests that the designer or designers of the universe did not
create it from nothing but merely imposed order on already existing matter. And
on account of the mixture of good and evil in the universe, the argument does
not show that the designer or designers are morally admirable enough to deserve
obedience or worship. Since the time of Hume, the design argument has been
further undermined by the emergence of Darwinian explanations of biological
adaptations in terms of natural selection that give explanations of such
adaptations in terms of intelligent design stiff competition. Some moral
arguments for the existence of God conform to the pattern of inference to the
best explanation. It has been argued that the hypothesis that morality depends
upon the will of God provides the best explanation of the objectivity of moral
obligations. Kant’s moral argument, which is probably the best-known specimen
of this type, takes a different tack. According to Kant, the complete good
consists of perfect virtue rewarded with perfect happiness, and philosophy of
religion philosophy of religion 698
698 virtue deserves to be rewarded with proportional happiness because
it makes one worthy to be happy. If morality is to command the allegiance of
reason, the complete good must be a real possibility, and so practical reason
is entitled to postulate that the conditions necessary to guarantee its
possibility obtain. As far as anyone can tell, nature and its laws do not
furnish such a guarantee; in this world, apparently, the virtuous often suffer
while the vicious flourish. And even if the operation of natural laws were to
produce happiness in proportion to virtue, this would be merely coincidental,
and hence finite moral agents would not have been made happy just because they
had by their virtue made themselves worthy of happiness. So practical reason is
justified in postulating a supernatural agent with sufficient goodness,
knowledge, and power to ensure that finite agents receive the happiness they
deserve as a reward for their virtue, though theoretical reason can know
nothing of such a being. Critics of this argument have denied that we must
postulate a systematic connection between virtue and happiness in order to have
good reasons to be moral. Indeed, making such an assumption might actually
tempt one to cultivate virtue for the sake of securing happiness rather than
for its own sake. It seems therefore that none of these arguments by itself
conclusively proves the existence of God. However, some of them might
contribute to a cumulative case for the existence of God. According to Richard
Swinburne, cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments individually
increase the probability of God’s existence even though none of them makes it
more probable than not. But when other evidence such as that deriving from
providential occurrences and religious experiences is added to the balance, Swinburne
concludes that theism becomes more probable than its negation. Whether or not
he is right, it does appear to be entirely correct to judge the rationality of
theistic belief in the light of our total evidence. But there is a case to be
made against theism too. Philosophers of religion are interested in arguments
against the existence of God, and fairness does seem to require admitting that
our total evidence contains much that bears negatively on the rationality of
belief in God. The problem of evil is generally regarded as the strongest
objection to theism. Two kinds of evil can be distinguished. Moral evil inheres
in the wicked actions of moral agents and the bad consequences they produce. An
example is torturing the innocent. When evil actions are considered
theologically as offenses against God, they are regarded as sins. Natural evils
are bad consequences that apparently derive entirely from the operations of
impersonal natural forces, e.g. the human and animal suffering produced by
natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and epidemics. Both kinds of evil
raise the question of what reasons an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly
good being could have for permitting or allowing their existence. Theodicy is
the enterprise of trying to answer this question and thereby to justify the
ways of God to humans. It is, of course, possible to deny the presuppositions
of the question. Some thinkers have held that evil is unreal; others have
maintained that the deity is limited and so lacks the power or knowledge to
prevent the evils that occur. If one accepts the presuppositions of the
question, the most promising strategy for theodicy seems to be to claim that
each evil God permits is necessary for some greater good or to avoid some
alternative to it that is at least as bad if not worse. The strongest form of
this doctrine is the claim made by Leibniz that this is the best of all
possible worlds. It is unlikely that humans, with their cognitive limitations,
could ever understand all the details of the greater goods for which evils are
necessary, assuming that such goods exist; however, we can understand how some
evils contribute to achieving goods. According to the soul-making theodicy of
John Hick (b.1922), which is rooted in a tradition going back to Irenaeus, admirable
human qualities such as compassion could not exist except as responses to
suffering, and so evil plays a necessary part in the formation of moral
character. But this line of thought does not seem to provide a complete
theodicy because much animal suffering occurs unnoticed by humans and child
abuse often destroys rather than strengthens the moral character of its
victims. Recent philosophical discussion has often focused on the claim that
the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good being is
logically inconsistent with the existence of evil or of a certain quantity of
evil. This is the logical problem of evil, and the most successful response to
it has been the free will defense. Unlike a theodicy, this defense does not
speculate about God’s reasons for permitting evil but merely argues that God’s
existence is consistent with the existence of evil. Its key idea is that moral
good cannot exist apart from libertarian free actions that are not causally
determined. If God aims to produce moral good, God must create free creatures
upon whose cooperation he must depend, philosophy of religion philosophy of
religion 699 699 and so divine
omnipotence is limited by the freedom God confers on creatures. Since such
creatures are also free to do evil, it is possible that God could not have
created a world containing moral good but no moral evil. Plantinga extends the
defense from moral to natural evil by suggesting that it is also possible that
all natural evil is due to the free actions of non-human persons such as Satan
and his cohorts. Plantinga and Swinburne have also addressed the probabilistic
problem of evil, which is the claim that the existence of evil disconfirms or
renders improbable the hypothesis that God exists. Both of them argue for the
conclusion that this is not the case. Finally, it is worth mentioning three
other topics on which contemporary philosophers of religion have worked to good
effect. Important studies of the meaning and use of religious language were
stimulated by the challenge of logical positivism’s claim that theological
language is cognitively meaningless. Defenses of such Christian doctrines as
the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement against various philosophical
objections have recently been offered by people committed to elaborating an
explicitly Christian philosophy. And a growing appreciation of religious
pluralism has both sharpened interest in questions about the cultural
relativity of religious rationality and begun to encourage progress toward a
comparative philosophy of religions. Such work helps to make philosophy of
religion a lively and diverse field of inquiry.
AQUINAS, DIVINE
ATTRIBUTES, DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE, FREE WILL PROBLEM, MYSTICISM, PARADOXES OF
OMNIPOTENCE, THEODICY, THEOLOGICAL NATURALISM. P.L.Q. philosophy of science,
the branch of philosophy that is centered on a critical examination of the
sciences: their methods and their results. One branch of the philosophy of
science, methodology, is closely related to the theory of knowledge. It explores
the methods by which science arrives at its posited truths concerning the world
and critically explores alleged rationales for these methods. Issues concerning
the sense in which theories are accepted in science, the nature of the
confirmation relation between evidence and hypothesis, the degree to which
scientific claims can be falsified by observational data, and the like, are the
concern of methodology. Other branches of the philosophy of science are
concerned with the meaning and content of the posited scientific results and
are closely related to metaphysics and the philosophy of language. Typical
problems examined are the nature of scientific laws, the cognitive content of
scientific theories referring to unobservables, and the structure of scientific
explanations. Finally, philosophy of science explores specific foundational
questions arising out of the specific results of the sciences. Typical
questions explored might be metaphysical presuppositions of space-time
theories, the role of probability in statistical physics, the interpretation of
measurement in quantum theory, the structure of explanations in evolutionary
biology, and the like. Concepts of the credibility of hypotheses. Some crucial
concepts that arise when issues of the credibility of scientific hypotheses are
in question are the following: Inductivism is the view that hypotheses can
receive evidential support from their predictive success with respect to
particular cases falling under them. If one takes the principle of inductive inference
to be that the future will be like the past, one is subject to the skeptical
objection that this rule is empty of content, and even self-contradictory, if
any kind of “similarity” of cases is permitted. To restore content and
consistency to the rule, and for other methodological purposes as well, it is
frequently alleged that only natural kinds, a delimited set of “genuine”
properties, should be allowed in the formulation of scientific hypotheses. The
view that theories are first arrived at as creative hypotheses of the
scientist’s imagination and only then confronted, for justificatory purposes,
with the observational predictions deduced from them, is called the
hypotheticodeductive model of science. This model is contrasted with the view
that the very discovery of hypotheses is somehow “generated” out of accumulated
observational data. The view that hypotheses are confirmed to the degree that
they provide the “best explanatory account” of the data is often called
abduction and sometimes called inference to the best explanation. The alleged
relation that evidence bears to hypothesis, warranting its truth but not,
generally, guaranteeing that truth, is called confirmation. Methodological
accounts such as inductivism countenance such evidential warrant, frequently
speaking of evidence as making a hypothesis probable but not establishing it
with certainty. Probability in the confirmational context is supposed to be a
relationship holding between propositions that is quantitative and is described
philosophy of science philosophy of science 700 700 by the formal theory of probability. It
is supposed to measure the “degree of support” that one proposition gives to
another, e.g. the degree of support evidential statements give to a hypothesis
allegedly supported by them. Scientific methodologists often claim that science
is characterized by convergence. This is the claim that scientific theories in
their historical order are converging to an ultimate, final, and ideal theory.
Sometimes this final theory is said to be true because it corresponds to the
“real world,” as in realist accounts of convergence. In pragmatist versions
this ultimate theory is the defining standard of truth. It is sometimes alleged
that one ground for choosing the most plausible theory, over and above
conformity of the theory with the observational data, is the simplicity of the
theory. Many versions of this thesis exist, some emphasizing formal elements of
the theory and others, e.g., emphasizing paucity of ontological commitment by
the theory as the measure of simplicity. It is sometimes alleged that in
choosing which theory to believe, the scientific community opts for theories
compatible with the data that make minimal changes in scientific belief
necessary from those demanded by previously held theory. The believer in
methodological conservatism may also try to defend such epistemic conservatism
as normatively rational. An experiment that can decisively show a scientific
hypothesis to be false is called a crucial experiment for the hypothesis. It is
a thesis of many philosophers that for hypotheses that function in theories and
can only confront observational data when conjoined with other theoretical
hypotheses, no absolutely decisive crucial experiment can exist. Concepts of
the structure of hypotheses. Here are some of the essential concepts
encountered when it is the structure of scientific hypotheses that is being
explored: In its explanatory account of the world, science posits novel
entities and properties. Frequently these are alleged to be not accessible to
direct observation. A theory is a set of hypotheses positing such entities and
properties. Some philosophers of science divide the logical consequences of a
theory into those referring only to observable things and features and those
referring to the unobservables as well. Various reductionist, eliminationist,
and instrumentalist approaches to theory agree that the full cognitive content
of a theory is exhausted by its observational consequences reported by its
observation sentences, a claim denied by those who espouse realist accounts of
theories. The view that the parts of a theory that do not directly relate
observational consequences ought not to be taken as genuinely referential at
all, but, rather, as a “mere linguistic instrument” allowing one to derive
observational results from observationally specifiable posits, is called
instrumentalism. From this point of view terms putatively referring to
unobservables fail to have genuine reference and individual non-observational sentences
containing such terms are not individually genuinely true or false.
Verificationism is the general name for the doctrine that, in one way or
another, the semantic content of an assertion is exhausted by the conditions
that count as warranting the acceptance or rejection of the assertion. There
are many versions of verificationist doctrines that try to do justice both to
the empiricist claim that the content of an assertion is its totality of
empirical consequences and also to a wide variety of anti-reductionist
intuitions about meaning. The doctrine that theoretical sentences must be
strictly translatable into sentences expressed solely in observational terms in
order that the theoretical assertions have genuine cognitive content is
sometimes called operationalism. The “operation” by which a magnitude is
determined to have a specified value, characterized observationally, is taken
to give the very meaning of attributing that magnitude to an object. The
doctrine that the meanings of terms in theories are fixed by the role the terms
play in the theory as a whole is often called semantic holism. According to the
semantic holist, definitions of theoretical terms by appeal to observational
terms cannot be given, but all of the theoretical terms have their meaning
given “as a group” by the structure of the theory as a whole. A related
doctrine in confirmation theory is that confirmation accrues to whole theories,
and not to their individual assertions one at a time. This is confirmational
holism. To see another conception of cognitive content, conjoin all the
sentences of a theory together. Then replace each theoretical term in the
sentence so obtained with a predicate variable and existentially quantify over
all the predicate variables so introduced. This is the Ramsey sentence for a
(finitely axiomatized) theory. This sentence has the same logical consequences
framable in the observational vocabulary alone as did the original theory. It
is often claimed that the Ramsey sentence for a theory exhausts the cognitive
content of the theory. The Ramsey senphilosophy of science philosophy of
science 701 701 tence is supposed to
“define” the meaning of the theoretical terms of the original theory as well as
have empirical consequences; yet by asserting the existence of the theoretical
properties, it is sometimes alleged to remain a realist construal of the
theory. The latter claim is made doubtful, however, by the existence of “merely
representational” interpretations of the Ramsey sentence. Theories are often
said to be so related that one theory is reducible to another. The study of the
relation theories bear to one another in this context is said to be the study
of intertheoretic reduction. Such reductive claims can have philosophical
origins, as in the alleged reduction of material objects to sense-data or of
spatiotemporal relations to causal relations, or they can be scientific
discoveries, as in the reduction of the theory of light waves to the theory of
electromagnetic radiation. Numerous “models” of the reductive relation exist,
appropriate for distinct kinds and cases of reduction. The term scientific
realism has many and varied uses. Among other things that have been asserted by
those who describe themselves as scientific realists are the claims that “mature”
scientific theories typically refer to real features of the world, that the
history of past falsifications of accepted scientific theories does not provide
good reason for persistent skepticism as to the truth claims of contemporary
theories, and that the terms of theories that putatively refer to unobservables
ought to be taken at their referential face value and not reinterpreted in some
instrumentalistic manner. Internal realism denies irrealist claims founded on
the past falsification of accepted theories. Internal realists are, however,
skeptical of “metaphysical” claims of “correspondence of true theories to the
real world” or of any notion of truth that can be construed in radically
non-epistemic terms. While theories may converge to some ultimate “true”
theory, the notion of truth here must be understood in some version of a
Peircian idea of truth as “ultimate warranted assertability.” The claim that
any theory that makes reference to posited unobservable features of the world
in its explanatory apparatus will always encounter rival theories incompatible
with the original theory but equally compatible with all possible observational
data that might be taken as confirmatory of the original theory is the claim of
the underdetermination thesis. A generalization taken to have “lawlike force”
is called a law of nature. Some suggested criteria for generalizations having
lawlike force are the ability of the generalization to back up the truth of
claims expressed as counterfactual conditions; the ability of the
generalization to be confirmed inductively on the basis of evidence that is
only a proper subset of all the particular instances falling under the
generality; and the generalization having an appropriate place in the simple,
systematic hierarchy of generalizations important for fundamental scientific
theories of the world. The application of a scientific law to a given actual
situation is usually hedged with the proviso that for the law’s predictions to
hold, “all other, unspecified, features of the situation are normal.” Such a
qualifying clause is called a ceteris paribus clause. Such “everything else
being normal” claims cannot usually be “filled out,” revealing important
problems concerning the “open texture” of scientific claims. The claim that the
full specification of the state of the world at one time is sufficient, along
with the laws of nature, to fix the full state of the world at any other time,
is the claim of determinism. This is not to be confused with claims of total
predictability, since even if determinism were true the full state of the world
at a time might be, in principle, unavailable for knowledge. Concepts of the
foundations of physical theories. Here, finally, are a few concepts that are
crucial in discussing the foundations of physical theories, in particular
theories of space and time and quantum theory: The doctrine that space and time
must be thought of as a family of spatial and temporal relations holding among
the material constituents of the universe is called relationism. Relationists
deny that “space itself” should be considered an additional constituent of the
world over and above the world’s material contents. The doctrine that “space
itself” must be posited as an additional constituent of the world over and
above ordinary material things of the world is substantivalism. Mach’s
principle is the demand that all physical phenomena, including the existence of
inertial forces used by Newton to argue for a substantivalist position, be
explainable in purely relationist terms. Mach speculated that Newton’s
explanation for the forces in terms of acceleration with respect to “space
itself” could be replaced with an explanation resorting to the acceleration of
the test object with respect to the remaining matter of the universe (the “fixed
stars”). In quantum theory the claim that certain philosophy of science
philosophy of science 702 702
“conjugate” quantities, such as position and momentum, cannot be simultaneously
“determined” to arbitrary degrees of accuracy is the uncertainty principle. The
issue of whether such a lack of simultaneous exact “determination” is merely a
limitation on our knowledge of the system or is, instead, a limitation on the
system’s having simultaneous exact values of the conjugate quantities, is a
fundamental one in the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Bell’s theorem is a
mathematical result aimed at showing that the explanation of the statistical
correlations that hold between causally noninteractive systems cannot always
rely on the positing that when the systems did causally interact in the past
independent values were fixed for some feature of each of the two systems that
determined their future observational behavior. The existence of such “local
hidden variables” would contradict the correlational predictions of quantum
mechanics. The result shows that quantum mechanics has a profoundly “non-local”
nature. Can quantum probabilities and correlations be obtained as averages over
variables at some deeper level than those specifying the quantum state of a
system? If such quantities exist they are called hidden variables. Many
different types of hidden variables have been proposed: deterministic,
stochastic, local, non-local, etc. A number of proofs exist to the effect that
positing certain types of hidden variables would force probabilistic results at
the quantum level that contradict the predictions of quantum theory.
Complementarity was the term used by Niels Bohr to describe what he took to be
a fundamental structure of the world revealed by quantum theory. Sometimes it
is used to indicate the fact that magnitudes occur in conjugate pairs subject
to the uncertainty relations. Sometimes it is used more broadly to describe
such aspects as the ability to encompass some phenomena in a wave picture of
the world and other phenomena in a particle picture, but implying that no one
picture will do justice to all the experimental results. The orthodox
formalization of quantum theory posits two distinct ways in which the quantum
state can evolve. When the system is “unobserved,” the state evolves according
to the deterministic Schrödinger equation. When “measured,” however, the system
suffers a discontinuous “collapse of the wave packet” into a new quantum state
determined by the outcome of the measurement process. Understanding how to
reconcile the measurement process with the laws of dynamic evolution of the
system is the measurement problem. Conservation and symmetry. A number of
important physical principles stipulate that some physical quantity is
conserved, i.e. that the quantity of it remains invariant over time. Early
conservation principles were those of matter (mass), of energy, and of
momentum. These became assimilated together in the relativistic principle of
the conservation of momentum-energy. Other conservation laws (such as the
conservation of baryon number) arose in the theory of elementary particles. A
symmetry in physical theory expressed the invariance of some structural feature
of the world under some transformation. Examples are translation and rotation
invariance in space and the invariance under transformation from one uniformly
moving reference frame to another. Such symmetries express the fact that
systems related by symmetry transformations behave alike in their physical
evolution. Some symmetries are connected with space-time, such as those noted
above, whereas others (such as the symmetry of electromagnetism under socalled
gauge transformations) are not. A very important result of the mathematician
Emma Noether shows that each conservation law is derivable from the existence
of an associated underlying symmetry. Chaos theory and chaotic systems. In the
history of the scientific study of deterministic systems, the paradigm of
explanation has been the prediction of the future states of a system from a
specification of its initial state. In order for such a prediction to be
useful, however, nearby initial states must lead to future states that are
close to one another. This is now known to hold only in exceptional cases. In
general deterministic systems are chaotic systems, i.e., even initial states
very close to one another will lead in short intervals of time to future states
that diverge quickly from one another. Chaos theory has been developed to
provide a wide range of concepts useful for describing the structure of the
dynamics of such chaotic systems. The theory studies the features of a system
that will determine if its evolution is chaotic or non-chaotic and provides the
necessary descriptive categories for characterizing types of chaotic motion.
Randomness. The intuitive distinction between a sequence that is random and one
that is orderly plays a role in the foundations of probability theory and in
the scientific study of philosophy of science philosophy of science 703 703 dynamical systems. But what is a random
sequence? Subjectivist definitions of randomness focus on the inability of an
agent to determine, on the basis of his knowledge, the future occurrences in
the sequence. Objectivist definitions of randomness seek to characterize it
without reference to the knowledge of any agent. Some approaches to defining
objective randomness are those that require probability to be the same in the
original sequence and in subsequences “mechanically” selectable from it, and
those that define a sequence as random if it passes every “effectively
constructible” statistical test for randomness. Another important attempt to
characterize objective randomness compares the length of a sequence to the
length of a computer program used to generate the sequence. The basic idea is
that a sequence is random if the computer programs needed to generate the
sequence are as long as the sequence itself.
CONFIRMATION, DUHEM,
EXPLANATION, HYPOTHETICO-DEDUCTIVE METHOD, LAWLIKE GENERALIZATION, PHILOSOPHY
OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, SCIENTIFIC REALISM, THEORETICAL TERM. L.S. philosophy
of the social sciences, the study of the logic and methods of the social
sciences. Central questions include: What are the criteria of a good social
explanation? How (if at all) are the social sciences distinct from the natural
sciences? Is there a distinctive method for social research? Through what
empirical procedures are social science assertions to be evaluated? Are there
irreducible social laws? Are there causal relations among social phenomena? Do
social facts and regularities require some form of reduction to facts about
individuals? What is the role of theory in social explanation? The philosophy
of social science aims to provide an interpretation of the social sciences that
answers these questions. The philosophy of social science, like that of natural
science, has both a descriptive and a prescriptive side. On the one hand, the
field is about the social sciences – the explanations, methods, empirical
arguments, theories, hypotheses, etc., that actually occur in the social
science literature. This means that the philosopher needs extensive knowledge
of several areas of social science research in order to be able to formulate an
analysis of the social sciences that corresponds appropriately to scientists’
practice. On the other hand, the field is epistemic: it is concerned with the
idea that scientific theories and hypotheses are put forward as true or
probable, and are justified on rational grounds (empirical and theoretical).
The philosopher aims to provide a critical evaluation of existing social
science methods and practices insofar as these methods are found to be less
truth-enhancing than they might be. These two aspects of the philosophical
enterprise suggest that philosophy of social science should be construed as a
rational reconstruction of existing social science practice – a reconstruction
guided by existing practice but extending beyond that practice by identifying
faulty assumptions, forms of reasoning, and explanatory frameworks.
Philosophers have disagreed over the relation between the social and natural
sciences. One position is naturalism, according to which the methods of the
social sciences should correspond closely to those of the natural sciences.
This position is closely related to physicalism, the doctrine that all
higher-level phenomena and regularities – including social phenomena – are
ultimately reducible to physical entities and the laws that govern them. On the
other side is the view that the social sciences are inherently distinct from
the natural sciences. This perspective holds that social phenomena are
metaphysically distinguishable from natural phenomena because they are
intentional – they depend on the meaningful actions of individuals. On this
view, natural phenomena admit of causal explanation, whereas social phenomena
require intentional explanation. The anti-naturalist position also maintains
that there is a corresponding difference between the methods appropriate to
natural and social science. Advocates of the Verstehen method hold that there
is a method of intuitive interpretation of human action that is radically
distinct from methods of inquiry in the natural sciences. One important school
within the philosophy of social science takes its origin in this fact of the
meaningfulness of human action. Interpretive sociology maintains that the goal
of social inquiry is to provide interpretations of human conduct within the
context of culturally specific meaningful arrangements. This approach draws an
analogy between literary texts and social phenomena: both are complex systems
of meaningful elements, and the goal of the interpreter is to provide an
interpretation of the elements that makes sense of them. In this respect social
science involves a hermeneutic inquiry: it requires that the interpreter should
tease out the meanings underlying a particular complex of social behavior, much
as a literary critic pieces together an interpretation of the meaning of a
complex philosophy of the social sciences philosophy of the social sciences
704 704 literary text. An example of
this approach is Weber’s treatment of the relation between capitalism and the
Protestant ethic. Weber attempts to identify the elements of western European
culture that shaped human action in this environment in such a way as to
produce capitalism. On this account, both Calvinism and capitalism are
historically specific complexes of values and meanings, and we can better
understand the emergence of capitalism by seeing how it corresponds to the meaningful
structures of Calvinism. Interpretive sociologists often take the
meaningfulness of social phenomena to imply that social phenomena do not admit
of causal explanation. However, it is possible to accept the idea that social
phenomena derive from the purposive actions of individuals without
relinquishing the goal of providing causal explanations of social phenomena.
For it is necessary to distinguish between the general idea of a causal
relation between two events or conditions and the more specific idea of “causal
determination through strict laws of nature.” It is true that social phenomena
rarely derive from strict laws of nature; wars do not result from antecedent
political tensions in the way that earthquakes result from antecedent
conditions in plate tectonics. However, since non-deterministic causal
relations can derive from the choices of individual persons, it is evident that
social phenomena admit of causal explanation, and in fact much social
explanation depends on asserting causal relations between social events and
processes – e.g., the claim that the administrative competence of the state is
a crucial causal factor in determining the success or failure of a
revolutionary movement. A central goal of causal explanation is to discover the
conditions existing prior to the event that, given the law-governed
regularities among phenomena of this sort, were sufficient to produce this
event. To say that C is a cause of E is to assert that the occurrence of C, in
the context of a field of social processes and mechanisms F, brought about E
(or increased the likelihood of the occurrence of E). Central to causal
arguments in the social sciences is the idea of a causal mechanism – a series
of events or actions leading from cause to effect. Suppose it is held that the
extension of a trolley line from the central city to the periphery caused the
deterioration of public schools in the central city. In order to make out such
a claim it is necessary to provide some account of the social and political
mechanisms that join the antecedent condition to the consequent. An important
variety of causal explanation in social science is materialist explanation.
This type of explanation attempts to explain a social feature in terms of
features of the material environment in the context of which the social
phenomenon occurs. Features of the environment that often appear in materialist
explanations include topography and climate; thus it is sometimes maintained
that banditry thrives in remote regions because the rugged terrain makes it
more difficult for the state to repress bandits. But materialist explanations
may also refer to the material needs of society – e.g., the need to produce
food and other consumption goods to support the population. Thus Marx holds
that it is the development of the “productive forces” (technology) that drives
the development of property relations and political systems. In each case the
materialist explanation must refer to the fact of human agency – the fact that
human beings are capable of making deliberative choices on the basis of their
wants and beliefs – in order to carry out the explanation; in the banditry
example, the explanation depends on the fact that bandits are prudent enough to
realize that their prospects for survival are better in the periphery than in
the core. So materialist explanations too accept the point that social
phenomena depend on the purposive actions of individuals. A central issue in
the philosophy of social science involves the relation between social
regularities and facts about individuals. Methodological individualism is the
position that asserts the primacy of facts about individuals over facts about
social entities. This doctrine takes three forms: a claim about social
entities, a claim about social concepts, and a claim about social regularities.
The first version maintains that social entities are reducible to ensembles of
individuals – as an insurance company might be reduced to the ensemble of
employees, supervisors, managers, and owners whose actions constitute the
company. Likewise, it is sometimes held that social concepts must be reducible
to concepts involving only individuals – e.g., the concept of a social class
might be defined in terms of concepts pertaining only to individuals and their
behavior. Finally, it is sometimes held that social regularities must be
derivable from regularities of individual behavior. There are several positions
opposed to methodological individualism. At the extreme there is methodological
holism – the doctrine that social entities, facts, and laws are autonomous and
irreducible; for example, that social structures such as the state have dynamic
properties independent of the beliefs and purphilosophy of the social sciences
philosophy of the social sciences 705
705 poses of the particular persons who occupy positions within the
structure. A third position intermediate between these two holds that every
social explanation requires microfoundations – an account of the circumstances
at the individual level that led individuals to behave in such ways as to bring
about the observed social regularities. If we observe that an industrial strike
is successful over an extended period of time, it is not sufficient to explain
this circumstance by referring to the common interest that members of the union
have in winning their demands. Rather, we need information about the
circumstances of the individual union member that induce him or her to
contribute to this public good. The microfoundations dictum does not require,
however, that social explanations be couched in non-social concepts; instead,
the circumstances of individual agents may be characterized in social terms.
Central to most theories of explanation is the idea that explanation depends on
general laws governing the phenomena in question. Thus the discovery of the
laws of electrodynamics permitted the explanation of a variety of
electromagnetic phenomena. But social phenomena derive from the actions of
purposive men and women; so what kinds of regularities are available on the
basis of which to provide social explanations? A fruitful research framework in
the social sciences is the idea that men and women are rational, so it is
possible to explain their behavior as the outcome of a deliberation about means
of achieving their individual ends. This fact in turn gives rise to a set of
regularities about individual behavior that may be used as a ground for social
explanation. We may explain some complex social phenomenon as the aggregate
result of the actions of a large number of individual agents with a
hypothesized set of goals within a structured environment of choice. Social
scientists have often been inclined to offer functional explanations of social
phenomena. A functional explanation of a social feature is one that explains
the presence and persistence of the feature in terms of the beneficial
consequences the feature has for the ongoing working of the social system as a
whole. It might be held, e.g., that sports clubs in working-class Britain exist
because they give working-class people a way of expending energy that would
otherwise go into struggles against an exploitative system, thus undermining
social stability. Sports clubs are explained, then, in terms of their
contribution to social stability. This type of explanation is based on an
analogy between biology and sociology. Biologists explain species traits in
terms of their contribution to reproductive fitness, and sociologists sometimes
explain social traits in terms of their contribution to “social” fitness.
However, the analogy is misleading, because there is a general mechanism
establishing functionality in the biological realm that is not present in the
social realm. This is the mechanism of natural selection, through which a
species arrives at a set of traits that are locally optimal. There is no
analogous process at work in the social realm, however; so it is groundless to
suppose that social traits exist because of their beneficial consequences for
the good of society as a whole (or important subsystems within society). So functional
explanations of social phenomena must be buttressed by specific accounts of the
causal processes that underlie the postulated functional relationships. CAUSATION, DECISION THEORY, phrase
marker.AMBIGUITY. phrase structure.PARSING. phrastic.PRESCRIPTIVISM.
phronesis.ARISTOTLE. physicalism, in the widest sense of the term, materialism
applied to the question of the nature of mind. So construed, physicalism is the
thesis – call it ontological physicalism – that whatever exists or occurs is
ultimately constituted out of physical entities. But sometimes ‘physicalism’ is
used to refer to the thesis that whatever exists or occurs can be completely
described in the vocabulary of physics. Such a view goes with either
reductionism or eliminativism about the mental. Here reductionism is the view
that psychological explanations, including explanations in terms of
“folk-psychological” concepts such as those of belief and desire, are reducible
to explanations formulable in a physical vocabulary, which in turn would imply
that entities referred to in psychological explanations can be fully described
in physical terms; and elminativism is the view that nothing corresponds to the
terms in psychological explanations, and that the only correct explanations are
in physical terms. The term ‘physicalism’ appears to have originated in the
Vienna Circle, and the reductionist Philo the Megarian physicalism 706 706 physical realization pi 707 version
initially favored there was a version of behaviorism: psychological statements
were held to be translatable into behavioral statements, mainly hypothetical
conditionals, expressible in a physical vocabulary. The psychophysical identity
theory held by Herbert Feigl, Smart, and others, sometimes called type
physicalism, is reductionist in a somewhat different sense. This holds that
mental states and events are identical with neurophysiological states and
events. While it denies that there can be analytic, meaning-preserving
translations of mental statements into physicalistic ones, it holds that by
means of synthetic “bridge laws,” identifying mental types with physical ones,
mental statements can in principle be translated into physicalistic ones with
which they are at least nomologically equivalent (if the terms in the bridge
laws are rigid designators, the equivalence will be necessary). The possibility
of such a translation is typically denied by functionalist accounts of mind, on
the grounds that the same mental state may have indefinitely many different
physical realizations, and sometimes on the grounds that it is logically
possible, even if it never happens, that mental states should be realized
non-physically. In his classic paper “The ‘mental’ and the ‘physical’ “ (1958),
Feigl distinguishes two senses of ‘physical’: ‘physical1’ and ‘physical2’.
‘Physical1’ is practically synonymous with ‘scientific’, applying to whatever
is “an essential part of the coherent and adequate descriptive and explanatory
account of the spatiotemporal world.” ‘Physical2’ refers to “the type of concepts
and laws which suffice in principle for the explanation and prediction of
inorganic processes.” (It would seem that if Cartesian dualism were true,
supposing that possible, then once an integrated science of the interaction of
immaterial souls and material bodies had been developed, concepts for
describing the former would count as physical1.) Construed as an ontological
doctrine, physicalism says that whatever exists or occurs is entirely
constituted out of those entities that constitute inorganic things and
processes. Construed as a reductionist or elminativist thesis about description
and explanation, it is the claim that a vocabulary adequate for describing and
explaining inorganic things and processes is adequate for describing and
explaining whatever exists. While the second of these theses seems to imply the
first, the first does not imply the second. It can be questioned whether the
notion of a “full” description of what exists makes sense. And many ontological
physicalists (materialists) hold that a reduction to explanations couched in
the terminology of physics is impossible, not only in the case of psychological
explanations but also in the case of explanations couched in the terminology of
such special sciences as biology. Their objection to such reduction is not
merely that a purely physical description of (e.g.) biological or psychological
phenomena would be unwieldy; it is that such descriptions necessarily miss
important laws and generalizations, ones that can only be formulated in terms of
biological, psychological, etc., concepts. If ontological physicalists
(materialists) are not committed to the reducibility of psychology to physics,
neither are they committed to any sort of identity theory claiming that
entities picked out by mental or psychological descriptions are identical to
entities fully characterizable by physical descriptions. As already noted,
materialists who are functionalists deny that there are typetype identities
between mental entities and physical ones. And some deny that materialists are
even committed to token-token identities, claiming that any psychological event
could have had a different physical composition and so is not identical to any
event individuated in terms of a purely physical taxonomy. NATURALISM, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, REDUCTION,
UNITY OF SCIENCE. S.Sho. physical realization.REDUCTION. physician-assisted
suicide.BIOETHICS. physis, Greek term for nature, primarily used to refer to
the nature or essence of a living thing (Aristotle, Metaphysics V.4). Physis is
defined by Aristotle in Physics II.1 as a source of movement and rest that
belongs to something in virtue of itself, and identified by him primarily with
the form, rather than the matter, of the thing. The term is also used to refer
to the natural world as a whole. Physis is often contrasted with techne, art;
in ethics it is also contrasted with nomos, convention, e.g. by Callicles in
Plato’s Gorgias (482e ff.), who distinguishes natural from conventional
justice.
ARISTOTLE, PLATO, TECHNE.
W.J.P. pi, Chinese term meaning ‘screen’, ‘shelter’, or ‘cover’. Pi is Hsün
Tzu’s metaphor for an obscuration or blindness of mind. In this condition the
mind is obstructed in its proper functioning, e.g., thinking, remembering,
imagining, and judging. In short, a pi is anything that obstructs the
mind’s 707 Piaget, Jean Plantinga,
Alvin 708 cognitive task. When the mind is in the state of pi, reason is, so to
speak, not operating properly. The opposite of pi is clarity of mind, a
precondition for the pursuit of knowledge. A.S.C. Piaget, Jean (1896–1980),
Swiss psychologist and epistemologist who profoundly influenced questions,
theories, and methods in the study of cognitive development. The philosophical
interpretation and implications of his work, however, remain controversial.
Piaget regarded himself as engaged in genetic epistemology, the study of what
knowledge is through an empirical investigation of how our epistemic relations
to objects are improved. Piaget hypothesized that our epistemic relations are
constructed through the progressive organization of increasingly complex
behavioral interactions with physical objects. The cognitive system of the
adult is neither learned, in the Skinnerian sense, nor genetically
preprogrammed. Rather, it results from the organization of specific
interactions whose character is shaped both by the features of the objects
interacted with (a process called accommodation) and by the current cognitive
system of the child (a process called assimilation). The tendency toward
equilibrium results in a change in the nature of the interaction as well as in
the cognitive system. Of particular importance for the field of cognitive
development were Piaget’s detailed descriptions and categorizations of changes
in the organization of the cognitive system from birth through adolescence.
That work focused on changes in the child’s understanding of such things as
space, time, cause, number, length, weight, and morality. Among his major works
are The Child’s Conception of Number (1941), Biology and Knowledge (1967),
Genetic Epistemology (1970), and Psychology and Epistemology (1970). EPISTEMOLOGY. R.A.Sa. Pico della Mirandola,
Giovanni (1463–94), Italian philosopher who, in 1486, wrote a series of 900
theses which he hoped to dispute publicly in Rome. Thirteen of these were
criticized by a papal commission. When Pico defended himself in his Apology,
the pope condemned all 900 theses. Pico fled to France, but was briefly
imprisoned there in 1488. On his release, he returned to Florence and devoted
himself to private study. He hoped to write a Concord of Plato and Aristotle,
but the only part he was able to complete was On Being and the One (1492), in
which he uses Aquinas and Christianity to reconcile Plato’s and Aristotle’s
views about God’s being and unity. He is often described as a syncretist, but
in fact he made it clear that the truth of Christianity has priority over the
prisca theologia or ancient wisdom found in the hermetic corpus and the cabala.
Though he was interested in magic and astrology, he adopts a guarded attitude
toward them in his Heptaplus (1489), which contains a mystical interpretation
of Genesis; and in his Disputations Against Astrology, published posthumously,
he rejects them both. The treatise is largely technical, and the question of
human freedom is set aside as not directly relevant. This fact casts some doubt
on the popular thesis that Pico’s philosophy was a celebration of man’s freedom
and dignity. Great weight has been placed on Pico’s most famous work, On the
Dignity of Man (1486). This is a short oration intended as an introduction to
the disputation of his 900 theses, and the title was invented after his death.
Pico has been interpreted as saying that man is set apart from the rest of
creation, and is completely free to form his own nature. In fact, as the
Heptaplus shows, Pico saw man as a microcosm containing elements of the
angelic, celestial, and elemental worlds. Man is thus firmly within the
hierarchy of nature, and is a bond and link between the worlds. In the oration,
the emphasis on freedom is a moral one: man is free to choose between good and
evil. E.J.A. picture theory of meaning.MEANING, WITTGENSTEIN. pien, Chinese
Mohist technical term for disputation, defined as ‘contending over converse
claims’. It involves discrimination between what does and does not “fit the
facts.” In Hsün Tzu, pien as discrimination pertains especially to the ability
to distinguish mental states (such as anger, grief, love, hate, and desires) as
well as proper objects of different senses. Pien is significantly used in the
context of justification as a phase in ethical argumentation. Among other
things, pien as justification pertains to projection of the significance of
comparable past ethical experiences to present “hard cases” of human life.
A.S.C. pien che.SCHOOL OF NAMES. Pierre d’Ailly.D’AILLY. pineal
gland.DESCARTES, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. pistis.DIVIDED LINE. Plantinga, Alvin
(b.1932), one of the most important twentieth-century American
philosophers 708 of religion. His
ideas have determined the direction of debate in many aspects of the
discipline. He has also contributed substantially to analytic epistemology and
the metaphysics of modality. Plantinga is currently director of the Center for
Philosophy of Religion and John O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Notre Dame. Plantinga’s philosophy of religion has centered on
the epistemology of religious belief. His God and Other Minds (1967) introduced
a defining claim of his career – that belief in God may be rational even if it
is not supported by successful arguments from natural theology. This claim was
fully developed in a series of articles published in the 1980s, in which he
argued for the position he calls “Reformed Epistemology.” Borrowing from the
work of theologians such as Calvin, Bavinck, and Barth, Plantinga reasoned that
theistic belief is “properly basic,” justified not by other beliefs but by
immediate experience. This position was most thoroughly treated in his article
“Reason and Belief in God” (Plantinga and Wolterstorff, eds., Faith and
Rationality, 1983). In early work Plantinga assumed an internalist view of
epistemic justification. Later he moved to externalism, arguing that basic
theistic belief would count as knowledge if true and appropriately produced. He
developed this approach in “Justification and Theism” (Faith and Philosophy,
1987). These ideas led to the development of a full-scale externalist
epistemological theory, first presented in his 1989 Gifford Lectures and later
published in the two-volume set Warrant: The Current Debate and Warrant and
Proper Function (1993). This theory has become the focal point of much
contemporary debate in analytic epistemology. Plantinga is also a leading
theorist in the metaphysics of modality. The Nature of Necessity (1974)
developed a possible worlds semantics that has become standard in the
literature. His analysis of possible worlds as maximally consistent states of
affairs offers a realist compromise between nominalist and extreme
reificationist conceptions. In the last two chapters, Plantinga brings his
modal metaphysics to bear on two classical topics in the philosophy of
religion. He presented what many consider the definitive version of the free
will defense against the argument from evil and a modal version of the
ontological argument that may have produced more response than any version
since Anselm’s original offering.
EPISTEMOLOGY, EVIDENTIALISM, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, POSSIBLE WORLDS.
J.F.S. Plato (427–347 B.C.), preeminent Greek philosopher whose chief
contribution consists in his conception of the observable world as an imperfect
image of a realm of unobservable and unchanging “Forms,” and his conception of
the best life as one centered on the love of these divine objects. Life and
influences. Born in Athens to a politically powerful and aristocratic family,
Plato came under the influence of Socrates during his youth and set aside his
ambitions for a political career after Socrates was executed for impiety. His
travels in southern Italy and Sicily brought him into closer contact with the
followers of Pythagoras, whose research in mathematics played an important role
in his intellectual development. He was also acquainted with Cratylus, a
follower of Heraclitus, and was influenced by their doctrine that the world is
in constant flux. He wrote in opposition to the relativism of Protagoras and
the purely materialistic mode of explanation adopted by Democritus. At the
urging of a devoted follower, Dion, he became involved in the politics of
Syracuse, the wealthiest city of the Greek world, but his efforts to mold the
ideas of its tyrant, Dionysius II, were unmitigated failures. These painful
events are described in Plato’s Letters (Epistles), the longest and most
important of which is the Seventh Letter, and although the authenticity of the
Letters is a matter of controversy, there is little doubt that the author was
well acquainted with Plato’s life. After returning from his first visit to
Sicily in 387, Plato established the Academy, a fraternal association devoted
to research and teaching, and named after the sacred site on the outskirts of
Athens where it was located. As a center for political training, it rivaled the
school of Isocrates, which concentrated entirely on rhetoric. The bestknown
student of the Academy was Aristotle, who joined at the age of seventeen (when
Plato was sixty) and remained for twenty years. Chronology of the works.
Plato’s works, many of which take the form of dialogues between Socrates and
several other speakers, were composed over a period of about fifty years, and
this has led scholars to seek some pattern of philosophical development in
them. Increasingly sophisticated stylometric tests have been devised to
calculate the linguistic similarities among the dialogues. Ancient sources
indicate that the Laws was Plato’s last work, and there is now consensus that
many affinities exist between the style of this work and several others, which
can therePlato Plato 709 709 fore also
be safely regarded as late works; these include the Sophist, Statesman, and
Philebus (perhaps written in that order). Stylometric tests also support a
rough division of Plato’s other works into early and middle periods. For
example, the Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthyphro, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches,
and Protagoras (listed alphabetically) are widely thought to be early; while
the Phaedo, Symposium, Republic, and Phaedrus (perhaps written in that order)
are agreed to belong to his middle period. But in some cases it is difficult or
impossible to tell which of two works belonging to the same general period
preceded the other; this is especially true of the early dialogues. The most
controversial chronological question concerns the Timaeus: stylometric tests
often place it with the later dialogues, though some scholars think that its
philosophical doctrines are discarded in the later dialogues, and they
therefore assign it to Plato’s middle period. The underlying issue is whether
he abandoned some of the main doctrines of this middle period. Early and middle
dialogues. The early dialogues typically portray an encounter between Socrates
and an interlocutor who complacently assumes that he understands a common
evaluative concept like courage, piety, or beauty. For example, Euthyphro, in
the dialogue that bears his name, denies that there is any impiety in
prosecuting his father, but repeated questioning by Socrates shows that he
cannot say what single thing all pious acts have in common by virtue of which
they are rightly called pious. Socrates professes to have no answer to these
“What is X?” questions, and this fits well with the claim he makes in the
Apology that his peculiarly human form of wisdom consists in realizing how
little he knows. In these early dialogues, Socrates seeks but fails to find a
philosophically defensible theory that would ground our use of normative terms.
The Meno is similar to these early dialogues – it asks what virtue is, and
fails to find an answer – but it goes beyond them and marks a transition in
Plato’s thinking. It raises for the first time a question about methodology: if
one does not have knowledge, how is it possible to acquire it simply by raising
the questions Socrates poses in the early dialogues? To show that it is
possible, Plato demonstrates that even a slave ignorant of geometry can begin
to learn the subject through questioning. The dialogue then proposes an
explanation of our ability to learn in this way: the soul acquired knowledge
before it entered the body, and when we learn we are really recollecting what
we once knew and forgot. This bold speculation about the soul and our ability
to learn contrasts with the noncommittal position Socrates takes in the
Apology, where he is undecided whether the dead lose all consciousness or
continue their activities in Hades. The confidence in immortality evident in
the Meno is bolstered by arguments given in the Phaedo, Republic, and Phaedrus.
In these dialogues, Plato uses metaphysical considerations about the nature of
the soul and its ability to learn to support a conception of what the good
human life is. Whereas the Socrates of the early dialogues focuses almost
exclusively on ethical questions and is pessimistic about the extent to which
we can answer them, Plato, beginning with the Meno and continuing throughout
the rest of his career, confidently asserts that we can answer Socratic
questions if we pursue ethical and metaphysical inquiries together. The Forms.
The Phaedo is the first dialogue in which Plato decisively posits the existence
of the abstract objects that he often called “Forms” or “Ideas.” (The latter
term should be used with caution, since these objects are not creations of a
mind, but exist independently of thought; the singular Greek terms Plato often
uses to name these abstract objects are eidos and idea.) These Forms are
eternal, changeless, and incorporeal; since they are imperceptible, we can come
to have knowledge of them only through thought. Plato insists that it would be
an error to identify two equal sticks with what Equality itself is, or
beautiful bodies with what Beauty itself is; after all, he says, we might
mistakenly take two equal sticks to be unequal, but we would never suffer from
the delusion that Equality itself is unequal. The unchanging and incorporeal
Form is the sort of object that is presupposed by Socratic inquiry; what every
pious act has in common with every other is that it bears a certain
relationship – called “participation” – to one and the same thing, the Form of
Piety. In this sense, what makes a pious act pious and a pair of equal sticks
equal are the Forms Piety and Equality. When we call sticks equal or acts
pious, we are implicitly appealing to a standard of equality or piety, just as
someone appeals to a standard when she says that a painted portrait of someone
is a man. Of course, the pigment on the canvas is not a man; rather, it is
properly called a man because it bears a certain relationship to a very
different sort of object. In precisely this way, Plato claims that the Forms
are what many of our words refer to, even though they are radically different
sorts of objects from the ones revealed to the senses. Plato Plato 710 710 Love. For Plato the Forms are not
merely an unusual item to be added to our list of existing objects. Rather,
they are a source of moral and religious inspiration, and their discovery is
therefore a decisive turning point in one’s life. This process is described by
a fictional priestess named Diotima in the Symposium, a dialogue containing a
series of speeches in praise of love and concluding with a remarkable
description of the passionate response Socrates inspired in Alcibiades, his
most notorious admirer. According to Diotima’s account, those who are in love
are searching for something they do not yet understand; whether they realize it
or not, they seek the eternal possession of the good, and they can obtain it
only through productive activity of some sort. Physical love perpetuates the
species and achieves a lower form of immortality, but a more beautiful kind of
offspring is produced by those who govern cities and shape the moral
characteristics of future generations. Best of all is the kind of love that
eventually attaches itself to the Form of Beauty, since this is the most
beautiful of all objects and provides the greatest happiness to the lover. One
develops a love for this Form by ascending through various stages of emotional
attachment and understanding. Beginning with an attraction to the beauty of one
person’s body, one gradually develops an appreciation for the beauty present in
all other beautiful bodies; then one’s recognition of the beauty in people’s
souls takes on increasing strength, and leads to a deeper attachment to the
beauty of customs, laws, and systems of knowledge; and this process of
emotional growth and deepening insight eventually culminates in the discovery
of the eternal and changeless beauty of Beauty itself. Plato’s theory of erotic
passion does not endorse “Platonic love,” if that phrase designates a purely
spiritual relationship completely devoid of physical attraction or expression.
What he insists on is that desires for physical contact be restrained so that
they do not subvert the greater good that can be accomplished in human
relationships. His sexual orientation (like that of many of his Athenian
contemporaries) is clearly homosexual, and he values the moral growth that can
occur when one man is physically attracted to another, but in Book I of the
Laws he condemns genital activity when it is homosexual, on the ground that
such activity should serve a purely procreative purpose. Plato’s thoughts about
love are further developed in the Phaedrus. The lover’s longing for and
physical attraction to another make him disregard the norms of commonplace and
dispassionate human relationships: love of the right sort is therefore one of
four kinds of divine madness. This fourfold classificatory scheme is then used
as a model of proper methodology. Starting with the Phaedrus, classification –
what Plato calls the “collection and division of kinds” – becomes the principal
method to be used by philosophers, and this approach is most fully employed in
such late works as the Sophist, Statesman, and Philebus. Presumably it
contributed to Aristotle’s interest in categories and biological
classification. The Republic. The moral and metaphysical theory centered on the
Forms is most fully developed in the Republic, a dialogue that tries to
determine whether it is in one’s own best interests to be a just person. It is
commonly assumed that injustice pays if one can get away with it, and that just
behavior merely serves the interests of others. Plato attempts to show that on
the contrary justice, properly understood, is so great a good that it is worth
any sacrifice. To support this astonishing thesis, he portrays an ideal
political community: there we will see justice writ large, and so we will be
better able to find justice in the individual soul. An ideal city, he argues,
must make radical innovations. It should be ruled by specially trained
philosophers, since their understanding of the Form of the Good will give them
greater insight into everyday affairs. Their education is compared to that of a
prisoner who, having once gazed upon nothing but shadows in the artificial
light of a cave, is released from bondage, leaves the cave, eventually learns
to see the sun, and is thereby equipped to return to the cave and see the
images there for what they are. Everything in the rulers’ lives is designed to
promote their allegiance to the community: they are forbidden private
possessions, their sexual lives are regulated by eugenic considerations, and
they are not to know who their children are. Positions of political power are
open to women, since the physical differences between them and men do not in
all cases deprive them of the intellectual or moral capacities needed for
political office. The works of poets are to be carefully regulated, for the
false moral notions of the traditional poets have had a powerful and
deleterious impact on the general public. Philosophical reflection is to
replace popular poetry as the force that guides moral education. What makes
this city ideally just, according to Plato, is the dedication of each of its
components to one task for which it is naturally suited and specially trained.
The rulers are ideally equipped Plato Plato 711 711 to rule; the soldiers are best able to
enforce their commands; and the economic class, composed of farmers, craftsmen,
builders, and so on, are content to do their work and to leave the tasks of
making and enforcing the laws to others. Accordingly what makes the soul of a
human being just is the same principle: each of its components must properly
perform its own task. The part of us that is capable of understanding and
reasoning is the part that must rule; the assertive part that makes us capable
of anger and competitive spirit must give our understanding the force it needs;
and our appetites for food and sex must be trained so that they seek only those
objects that reason approves. It is not enough to educate someone’s reason, for
unless the emotions and appetites are properly trained they will overpower it.
Just individuals are those who have fully integrated these elements of the
soul. They do not unthinkingly follow a list of rules; rather, their just
treatment of others flows from their own balanced psychological condition. And
the paradigm of a just person is a philosopher, for reason rules when it
becomes passionately attached to the most intelligible objects there are: the
Forms. It emerges that justice pays because attachment to these supremely
valuable objects is part of what true justice of the soul is. The worth of our
lives depends on the worth of the objects to which we devote ourselves. Those
who think that injustice pays assume that wealth, domination, or the pleasures
of physical appetite are supremely valuable; their mistake lies in their
limited conception of what sorts of objects are worth loving. Late dialogues.
The Republic does not contain Plato’s last thoughts on moral or metaphysical
matters. For example, although he continues to hold in his final work, the
Laws, that the family and private wealth should ideally be abolished, he
describes in great detail a second-best community that retains these and many
other institutions of ordinary political life. The sovereignty of law in such a
state is stressed continually; political offices are to be filled by elections
and lots, and magistrates are subject to careful scrutiny and prosecution.
Power is divided among several councils and offices, and philosophical training
is not a prerequisite for political participation. This second-best state is
still worlds apart from a modern liberal democracy – poetic works and many
features of private life are carefully regulated, and atheism is punished with
death – but it is remarkable that Plato, after having made no concessions to
popular participation in the Republic, devoted so much energy to finding a
proper place for it in his final work. Plato’s thoughts about metaphysics also
continued to evolve, and perhaps the most serious problem in interpreting his
work as a whole is the problem of grasping the direction of these further
developments. One notorious obstacle to understanding his later metaphysics is
presented by the Parmenides, for here we find an unanswered series of
criticisms of the theory of Forms. For example, it is said that if there is
reason to posit one Form of Largeness (to select an arbitrary example) then
there is an equally good reason to posit an unlimited number of Forms of this
type. The “first” Form of Largeness must exist because according to Plato
whenever a number of things are large, there is a Form of Largeness that makes
them large; but now, the argument continues, if we consider this Form together
with the other large things, we should recognize still another Form, which
makes the large things and Largeness itself large. The argument can be pursued
indefinitely, but it seems absurd that there should be an unlimited number of
Forms of this one type. (In antiquity the argument was named the Third Man,
because it claims that in addition to a second type of object called “man” –
the Form of Man – there is even a third.) What is Plato’s response to this and
other objections to his theory? He says in the Parmenides that we must continue
to affirm the existence of such objects, for language and thought require them;
but instead of responding directly to the criticisms, he embarks on a prolonged
examination of the concept of unity, reaching apparently conflicting
conclusions about it. Whether these contradictions are merely apparent and
whether this treatment of unity contains a response to the earlier critique of
the Forms are difficult matters of interpretation. But in any case it is clear
that Plato continues to uphold the existence of unchanging realities; the real
difficulty is whether and how he modifies his earlier views about them. In the
Timaeus, there seem to be no modifications at all – a fact that has led some
scholars to believe, in spite of some stylometric evidence to the contrary,
that this work was written before Plato composed the critique of the Forms in
the Parmenides. This dialogue presents an account of how a divine but not
omnipotent craftsman transformed the disorderly materials of the universe into
a harmonious cosmos by looking to the unchanging Forms as paradigms and
creating, to the best of his limited abilities, constantly fluctuating images
of those paradigms. The crePlato Plato 712
712 ated cosmos is viewed as a single living organism governed by its
own divinely intelligent soul; time itself came into existence with the cosmos,
being an image of the timeless nature of the Forms; space, however, is not
created by the divine craftsman but is the characterless receptacle in which
all change takes place. The basic ingredients of the universe are not earth,
air, fire, and water, as some thinkers held; rather, these elements are
composed of planes, which are in turn made out of elementary triangular shapes.
The Timaeus is an attempt to show that although many other types of objects
besides the Forms must be invoked in order to understand the orderly nature of
the changing universe – souls, triangles, space – the best scientific
explanations will portray the physical world as a purposeful and very good
approximation to a perfect pattern inherent in these unchanging and eternal
objects. But Forms do not play as important a role in the Philebus, a late
dialogue that contains Plato’s fullest answer to the question, What is the
good? He argues that neither pleasure not intelligence can by itself be identified
with the good, since no one would be satisfied with a life that contained just
one of these but totally lacked the other. Instead, goodness is identified with
proportion, beauty, and truth; and intelligence is ranked a superior good to
pleasure because of its greater kinship to these three. Here, as in the middle
dialogues, Plato insists that a proper understanding of goodness requires a
metaphysical grounding. To evaluate the role of pleasure in human life, we need
a methodology that applies to all other areas of understanding. More
specifically, we must recognize that everything can be placed in one of four
categories: the limited, the unlimited, the mixture of these two, and the
intelligent creation of this mixture. Where Forms are to be located in this
scheme is unclear. Although metaphysics is invoked to answer practical
questions, as in the Republic, it is not precisely the same metaphysics as
before. Though we naturally think of Plato primarily as a writer of
philosophical works, he regards the written word as inferior to spoken
interchange as an instrument for learning and teaching. The drawbacks inherent
in written composition are most fully set forth in the Phaedrus. There is no
doubt that in the Academy he participated fully in philosophical debate, and on
at least one occasion he lectured to a general audience. We are told by
Aristoxenus, a pupil of Aristotle, that many in Plato’s audience were baffled
and disappointed by a lecture in which he maintained that Good is one. We can
safely assume that in conversation Plato put forward important philosophical
ideas that nonetheless did not find their way into his writings. Aristotle
refers in Physics IV.2 to one of Plato’s doctrines as unwritten, and the
enigmatic positions he ascribes to Plato in Metaphysics I.6 – that the Forms
are to be explained in terms of number, which are in turn generated from the
One and the dyad of great and small – seem to have been expounded solely in
discussion. Some scholars have put great weight on the statement in the Seventh
Letter that the most fundamental philosophical matters must remain unwritten,
and, using later testimony about Plato’s unwritten doctrines, they read the
dialogues as signs of a more profound but hidden truth. The authenticity of the
Seventh Letter is a disputed question, however. In any case, since Aristotle
himself treats the middle and late dialogues as undissembling accounts of
Plato’s philosophy, we are on firm ground in adopting the same approach.
ARISTOTLE, COMMENTARIES
ON PLATO, NEOPLATONISM, SOCRATES. R.Kr. Plato, commentaries on.COMMENTARIES ON
PLATO. Platonic form.FORM, PLATO. pleasure.EPICUREANISM, HEDONISM. pleasure,
katastematic.EPICUREANISM. pleasure, kinetic.EPICUREANISM. pleasure
principle.FREUD. Plekhanov, Georgy Valentinovich (1856–1918), a leading
theoretician of the Russian revolutionary movement and the father of Russian
Marxism. Exiled from his native Russia for most of his adult life, in 1883 he
founded in Switzerland the first Russian Marxist association – the Emancipation
of Labor, a forerunner of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ party. In
philosophy he sought to systematize and disseminate the outlook of Marx and
Engels, for which he popularized the name ‘dialectical materialism’. For the
most part an orthodox Marxist in his understanding of history, Plekhanov argued
that historical developments cannot be diverted or accelerated at will; he
believed that Russia was not ready for a proletarian revolution in the first
decades of the twentieth century, and consequently he opposed the Bolshevik
faction in the Plato, commentaries on Plekhanov, Georgy Valentinovich 713 713 split (1903) of the Social Democratic
party. At the same time he was not a simplistic economic determinist: he accepted
the role of geographical, psychological, and other non-economic factors in
historical change. In epistemology, Plekhanov agreed with Kant that we cannot
know things in themselves, but he argued that our sensations may be conceived
as “hieroglyphs,” corresponding point by point to the elements of reality
without resembling them. In ethics, too, Plekhanov sought to supplement Marx
with Kant, tempering the class analysis of morality with the view that there
are universally binding ethical principles, such as the principle that human
beings should be treated as ends rather than means. Because in these and other
respects Plekhanov’s version of Marxism conflicted with Lenin’s, his philosophy
was scornfully rejected by doctrinaire Marxist-Leninists during the Stalin era. RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY. J.P.Sc. plenitude,
principle of.PRINCIPLE OF PLENITUDE. pleonetetic logic.PLURALITIVE LOGIC.
Plotinus (A.D. 204–70), Greco-Roman Neoplatonist philosopher. Born in Egypt,
though doubtless of Greek ancestry, he studied Platonic philosophy in
Alexandria with Ammonius Saccas (232–43); then, after a brief adventure on the
staff of the Emperor Gordian III on an unsuccessful expedition against the
Persians, he came to Rome in 244 and continued teaching philosophy there until
his death. He enjoyed the support of many prominent people, including even the
Emperor Gallienus and his wife. His chief pupils were Amelius and Porphyry, the
latter of whom collected and edited his philosophical essays, the Enneads (so
called because arranged by Porphyry in six groups of nine). The first three
groups concern the physical world and our relation to it, the fourth concerns
Soul, the fifth Intelligence, and the sixth the One. Porphyry’s arrangement is
generally followed today, though a chronological sequence of tractates, which
he also provides in his introductory Life of Plotinus, is perhaps preferable.
The most important treatises are I.1; I.2; I.6; II.4; II.8; III.2–3; III.6;
III.7; IV.3–4; V.1; V.3; VI.4–5; VI.7; VI.8; VI.9; and the group III.8, V.8,
V.5, and II.9 (a single treatise, split up by Porphyry, that is a wide-ranging
account of Plotinus’s philosophical position, culminating in an attack on
gnosticism). Plotinus saw himself as a faithful exponent of Plato (see
especially Enneads V.1), but he is far more than that. Platonism had developed
considerably in the five centuries that separate Plato from Plotinus, taking on
much from both Aristotelianism and Stoicism, and Plotinus is the heir to this
process. He also adds much himself.
EMANATIONISM, NEOPLATONISM. J.M.D. pluralism, a philosophical
perspective on the world that emphasizes diversity rather than homogeneity,
multiplicity rather than unity, difference rather than sameness. The
philosophical consequences of pluralism were addressed by Greek antiquity in
its preoccupation with the problem of the one and the many. The proponents of
pluralism, represented principally by Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the Atomists
(Leucippus and Democritus), maintained that reality was made up of a
multiplicity of entities. Adherence to this doctrine set them in opposition to
the monism of the Eleatic School (Parmenides), which taught that reality was an
impermeable unity and an unbroken solidarity. It was thus that pluralism came
to be defined as a philosophical alternative to monism. In the development of
Occidental thought, pluralism came to be contrasted not only with monism but
also with dualism, the philosophical doctrine that there are two, and only two,
kinds of existents. Descartes, with his doctrine of two distinct substances –
extended non-thinking substance versus non-extended thinking substance – is
commonly regarded as having provided the clearest example of philosophical
dualism. Pluralism thus needs to be understood as marking out philosophical
alternatives to both monism and dualism. Pluralism as a metaphysical doctrine
requires that we distinguish substantival from attributive pluralism.
Substantival pluralism views the world as containing a multiplicity of
substances that remain irreducible to each other. Attributive pluralism finds the
multiplicity of kinds not among the furniture of substances that make up the
world but rather among a diversity of attributes and distinguishing properties.
However, pluralism came to be defined not only as a metaphysical doctrine but
also as a regulative principle of explanation that calls upon differing
explanatory principles and conceptual schemes to account for the manifold
events of nature and the varieties of human experience. Recent philosophical
thought has witnessed a resurgence of interest in pluralism. This was evident
in the development of American pragmatism, where pluralism received piquant
explenitude, principle of pluralism 714
714 pression in James’s A Pluralistic Universe (1909). More recently pluralism
was given a voice in the thought of the later Wittgenstein, with its heavy
accent on the plurality of language games displayed in our ordinary discourse.
Also, in the current developments of philosophical postmodernism (Jean-François
Lyotard), one finds an explicit pluralistic orientation. Here the emphasis
falls on the multiplicity of signifiers, phrase regimens, genres of discourse,
and narrational strategies. The alleged unities and totalities of thought,
discourse, and action are subverted in the interests of reclaiming the diversified
and heterogeneous world of human experience. Pluralism in contemporary thought
initiates a move into a postmetaphysical age. It is less concerned with
traditional metaphysical and epistemological issues, seeking answers to
questions about the nature and kinds of substances and attributes; and it is
more attuned to the diversity of social practices and the multiple roles of
language, discourse, and narrative in the panoply of human affairs. DEWEY, POSTMODERN, PRAGMATISM, SPECULATIVE
PHILOSOPHY. C.O.S. pluralitive logic, also called pleonetetic logic, the logic
of ‘many’, ‘most’, ‘few’, and similar terms (including ‘four out of five’,
‘over 45 percent’ and so on). Consider (1) ‘Almost all F are G’ (2) ‘Almost all
F are not G’ (3) ‘Most F are G’ (4) ‘Most F are not G’ (5) ‘Many F are G’ (6)
‘Many F are not G’ (1) i.e., ‘Few F are not G’ and (6) are contradictory, as
are (2) and (5) and (3) and (4). (1) and (2) cannot be true together (i.e.,
they are contraries), nor can (3) and (4), while (5) and (6) cannot be false
together (i.e., they are subcontraries). Moreover, (1) entails (3) which
entails (5), and (2) entails (4) which entails (6). Thus (1)–(6) form a
generalized “square of opposition” (fitting inside the standard one). Sometimes
(3) is said to be true if more than half the F’s are G, but this makes ‘most’
unnecessarily precise, for ‘most’ does not literally mean ‘more than half’.
Although many pluralitive terms are vague, their interrelations are logically
precise. Again, one might define ‘many’ as ‘There are at least n’, for some
fixed n, at least relative to context. But this not only erodes the vagueness,
it also fails to work for arbitrarily large and infinite domains. ‘Few’,
‘most’, and ‘many’ are binary quantifiers, a type of generalized quantifier. A
unary quantifier, such as the standard quantifiers ‘some’ and ‘all’, connotes a
second-level property, e.g., ‘Something is F’ means ‘F has an instance’, and
‘All F’s are G’ means ‘F and not G has no instance’. A generalized quantifier
connotes a second-level relation. ‘Most F’s are G’ connotes a binary relation
between F and G, one that cannot be reduced to any property of a
truth-functional compound of F and G. In fact, none of the standard pluralitive
terms can be defined in first-order logic.
FORMAL LOGIC, SQUARE OF OPPOSITION, VAGUENESS. S.L.R. plurality of
causes, as used by J. S. Mill, more than one cause of a single effect; i.e.,
tokens of different event types causing different tokens of the same event
type. Plurality of causes is distinct from overdetermination of an event by
more than one actual or potential token cause. For example, an animal’s death
has a plurality of causes: it may die of starvation, of bleeding, of a blow to
the head, and so on. Mill thought these cases were important because he saw
that the existence of a plurality of causes creates problems for his four
methods for determining causes. Mill’s method of agreement is specifically
vulnerable to the problem: the method fails to reveal the cause of an event
when the event has more than one type of cause, because the method presumes
that causes are necessary for their effects. Actually, plurality of causes is a
commonplace fact about the world because very few causes are necessary for
their effects. Unless the background conditions are specified in great detail,
or the identity of the effect type is defined very narrowly, almost all cases
involve a plurality of causes. For example, flipping the light switch is a
necessary cause of the light’s going on, only if one assumes that there will be
no short circuit across the switch, that the wiring will remain as it is, and
so on, or if one assumes that by ‘the light’s going on’ one means the light’s
going on in the normal way. CAUSATION;
MILL, J. S.; MILL’S METHODS; TYPE–TOKEN DISTINCTION. B.E. Plutarch of
Athens.NEOPLATONISM. Plutarch of Chaeronea.ACADEMY,
MIDDLE PLATONISM.
PM.APPENDIX OF SPECIAL SYMBOLS. pluralitive logic PM 715 715 pneuma.STOICISM. Po-hu tung (“White
Tiger Hall Consultations”), an important Chinese Confucian work of the later
Han dynasty, resulting from discussions at the imperial palace in A.D. 79 on
the classics and their commentaries. Divided into forty-three headings, the
text sums up the dominant teachings of Confucianism by affirming the absolute
position of the monarch, a cosmology and moral psychology based on the yin–yang
theory, and a comprehensive social and political philosophy. While emphasizing
benevolent government, it legitimizes the right of the ruler to use force to
quell disorder. A system of “three bonds and six relationships” defines the
hierarchical structure of society. Human nature, identified with the yang
cosmic force, must be cultivated, while feelings (yin) are to be controlled
especially by rituals and education. The Confucian orthodoxy affirmed also
marks an end to the debate between the Old Text school and the New Text school
that divided earlier Han scholars.
CONFUCIANISM; YIN, YANG. A.K.L.C. poiesis (Greek, ‘production’),
behavior aimed at an external end. In Aristotle, poiesis is opposed to praxis
(action). It is characteristic of crafts – e.g. building, the end of which is
houses. It is thus a kinesis (process). For Aristotle, exercising the virtues,
since it must be undertaken for its own sake, cannot be poiesis. The knowledge
involved in virtue is therefore not the same as that involved in crafts. R.C.
Poincaré, Jules Henri (1854–1912), French mathematician and influential
philosopher of science. Born into a prominent family in Nancy, he showed
extraordinary talent in mathematics from an early age. He studied at the École
des Mines and worked as a mining engineer while completing his doctorate in
mathematics (1879). In 1881, he was appointed professor at the University of
Paris, where he lectured on mathematics, physics, and astronomy until his
death. His original contributions to the theory of differential equations,
algebraic topology, and number theory made him the leading mathematician of his
day. He published almost five hundred technical papers as well as three widely
read books on the philosophy of science: Science and Hypothesis (1902), The
Value of Science (1905), and Science and Method (1908). Poincaré’s philosophy
of science was shaped by his approach to mathematics. Geometric axioms are
neither synthetic a priori nor empirical; they are more properly understood as
definitions. Thus, when one set of axioms is preferred over another for use in
physics, the choice is a matter of “convention”; it is governed by criteria of
simplicity and economy of expression rather than by which geometry is
“correct.” Though Euclidean geometry is used to describe the motions of bodies
in space, it makes no sense to ask whether physical space “really” is
Euclidean. Discovery in mathematics resembles discovery in the physical
sciences, but whereas the former is a construction of the human mind, the
latter has to be fitted to an order of nature that is ultimately independent of
mind. Science provides an economic and fruitful way of expressing the
relationships between classes of sensations, enabling reliable predictions to
be made. These sensations reflect the world that causes them; the (limited)
objectivity of science derives from this fact, but science does not purport to
determine the nature of that underlying world. Conventions, choices that are
not determinable by rule, enter into the physical sciences at all levels. Such
principles as that of the conservation of energy may appear to be empirical,
but are in fact postulates that scientists have chosen to treat as implicit
definitions. The decision between alternative hypotheses also involves an
element of convention: the choice of a particular curve to represent a finite
set of data points, e.g., requires a judgment as to which is simpler. Two kinds
of hypotheses, in particular, must be distinguished. Inductive generalizations
from observation (“real generalizations”) are hypothetical in the limited sense
that they are always capable of further precision. Then there are theories
(“indifferent hypotheses”) that postulate underlying entities or structures.
These entities may seem explanatory, but strictly speaking are no more than
devices useful in calculation. For atomic theory to explain, atoms would have
to exist. But this cannot be established in the only way permissible for a
scientific claim, i.e. directly by experiment. Shortly before he died, Poincaré
finally allowed that Perrin’s experimental verification of Einstein’s
predictions regarding Brownian motion, plus his careful marshaling of twelve
other distinct experimental methods of calculating Avogadro’s number,
constituted the equivalent of an experimental proof of the existence of atoms:
“One can say that we see them because we can count them. . . . The atom of the
chemist is now a reality.”
CONVENTIONALISM, PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS. E.M.
pneuma Poincaré, Jules Henri 716 716
polarity Polish logic 717 polarity, the relation between distinct phenomena,
terms, or concepts such that each inextricably requires, though it is opposed
to, the other, as in the relation between the north and south poles of a
magnet. In application to terms or concepts, polarity entails that the meaning
of one involves the meaning of the other. This is conceptual polarity. Terms
are existentially polar provided an instance of one cannot exist unless there
exists an instance of the other. The second sense implies the first. Supply and
demand and good and evil are instances of conceptual polarity. North and south
and buying and selling are instances of existential polarity. Some polar
concepts are opposites, such as truth and falsity. Some are correlative, such
as question and answer: an answer is always an answer to a question; a question
calls for an answer, but a question can be an answer, and an answer can be a
question. The concept is not restricted to pairs and can be extended to
generate mutual interdependence, multipolarity.
MEANING, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. M.G.S. Polish logic, logic as
researched, elucidated, and taught in Poland, 1919–39. Between the two wars
colleagues Jan Lukasiewicz, Tadeusz Kotarbigki, and Stanislaw Lesniewski,
assisted by students-become-collaborators such as Alfred Tarski, Jerzy
Slupecki, Stanislaw Jaskowski, and Boleslaw Sobocigski, together with
mathematicians in Warsaw and philosophical colleagues elsewhere, like Kasimir
Ajdukiewicz and Tadeusz Czezowski, made Warsaw an internationally known center
of research in logic, metalogic, semantics, and foundations of mathematics. The
Warsaw “school” also dominated Polish philosophy, and made Poland the country
that introduced modern logic even in secondary schools. All three founders took
their doctorates in Lvov under Kasimir Twardowski (1866–1938), mentor of
leading thinkers of independent Poland between the wars. Arriving from Vienna
to take the chair of philosophy at twenty-nine, Twardowski had to choose
between concentrating on his own research and organizing the study of
philosophy in Poland. Dedicating his life primarily to the community task, he
became the founder of modern Polish philosophy. Twardowski’s informal
distinction between distributive and collective conceptions influenced
classification of philosophy and the sciences, and anticipated Lesniewski’s
formal axiomatizations in ontology and mereology, respectively. Another common
inheritance important in Polish logic was Twardowski’s stress on the
process–product ambiguity. He applied this distinction to disambiguate
‘meaning’ and refine his teacher Brentano’s account of mental acts as
meaningful (“intentional”) events, by differentiating (1) what is meant or
“intended” by the act, its objective noema or noematic “intentional object,”
from (2) its corresponding noetic meaning or subjective “content,” the
correlated characteristic or structure by which it “intends” its “object” or
“objective” – i.e., means that: suchand-such (is so). Twardowski’s teaching –
especially this careful analysis of “contents” and “objects” of mental acts –
contributed to Meinong’s theory of objects, and linked it, Husserl’s
phenomenology, and Anton Marty’s “philosophical grammar” with the “descriptive
psychology” of their common teacher, the Aristotelian and Scholastic empiricist
Brentano, and thus with sources of the analytic movements in Vienna and
Cambridge. Twardowski’s lectures on the philosophical logic of content and
judgment prepared the ground for scientific semantics; his references to
Boolean algebra opened the door to mathematical logic; and his phenomenological
idea of a general theory of objects pointed toward Lesniewski’s ontology.
Twardowski’s maieutic character, integrity, grounding in philosophical
traditions, and arduous training (lectures began at six a.m.), together with
his realist defense of the classical Aristotelian correspondence theory of
truth against “irrationalism,” dogmatism, skepticism, and psychologism,
influenced his many pupils, who became leaders of Polish thought in diverse
fields. But more influential than any doctrine was his rigorist ideal of
philosophy as a strict scientific discipline of criticism and logical analysis,
precise definition, and conceptual clarification. His was a school not of
doctrine but of method. Maintaining this common methodological inheritance in
their divergent ways, and encouraged to learn more mathematical logic than
Twardowski himself knew, his students in logic were early influenced by Frege’s
and Husserl’s critique of psychologism in logic, Husserl’s logical
investigations, and the logical reconstruction of classical mathematics by
Frege, Schröder, Whitehead, and Russell. As lecturer in Lvov from 1908 until
his appointment to Warsaw in 1915, Lukasiewicz introduced mathematical logic
into Poland. To Lesniewski, newly arrived from studies in Germany as an
enthusiast for Marty’s philosophy of language, Lukasiewicz’s influential 1910
Critique of Aristotle’s principle of contradiction was a “revelation” in 1911.
Among other things it 717 Polish
notation political philosophy 718 revealed paradoxes like Russell’s, which
preoccupied him for the next eleven years as, logically refuting Twardowski’s
Platonist theory of abstraction, he worked out his own solutions and,
influenced also by Leon Chwistek, outgrew the influence of Hans Cornelius and
Leon Petraz´ycki, and developed his own “constructively nominalist”
foundations. In 1919 Kotarbisski and Lesniewski joined Lukasiewicz in Warsaw,
where they attracted students like Tarski, Sobocigski, and Slupecki in the
first generation, and Andrzej Mostowski and Czeslaw Lejewski in the next. When
the war came, the survivors were scattered and the metalogicians Morchaj
Wajsberg, Moritz Presburger, and Adolf Lindenbaum were killed or “disappeared”
by the Gestapo. Lukasiewicz concentrated increasingly on history of logic
(especially in reconstructing the logic of Aristotle and the Stoics) and
deductive problems concerning syllogistic and propositional logic. His idea of
logical probability and development of three- or manyvalued and modal calculi
reflected his indeterminist sympathies in prewar exchanges with Kotarbigski and
Lesniewski on the status of truths (eternal, sempiternal, or both?), especially
as concerns future contingencies. Lesniewski concentrated on developing his
logical systems. He left elaboration of many of his seminal metalogical and
semantic insights to Tarski, who, despite a divergent inclination to simplify
metamathematical deductions by expedient postulation, shared with Lesniewski,
Lukasiewicz, and Ajdukiewicz the conviction that only formalized languages can
be made logically consistent subjects and instruments of rigorous scientific
investigation. Kotarbigski drew on Lesniewski’s logic of predication to defend
his “reism” (as one possible application of Lesniewski’s ontology), to
facilitate his “concretist” program for translating abstractions into more
concrete terms, and to rationalize his “imitationist” account of mental acts or
dispositions. Inheriting Twardowski’s role as cultural leader and educator,
Kotarbigski popularized the logical achievements of his colleagues in (e.g.)
his substantial 1929 treatise on the theory of knowledge, formal logic, and
scientific methodology; this work became required reading for serious students
and, together with the lucid textbooks by Lukasiewicz and Ajdukiewicz, raised
the level of philosophical discussion in Poland. Jaskowski published a system
of “natural deduction” by the suppositional method practiced by Lesniewski
since 1916. Ajdukiewicz based his syntax on Lesniewski’s logical grammar, and
by his searching critiques influenced Kotarbigski’s “reist” and “concretist”
formulations. Closest in Poland to the logical positivists of the Vienna
Circle, Ajdukiewicz brought new sophistication to the philosophy of language
and of science by his examination of the role of conventions and meaning
postulates in scientific theory and language, distinguishing axiomatic,
deductive, and empirical rules of meaning. His evolving and refined
conventionalist analyses of theories, languages, “world perspectives,”
synonymy, translation, and analyticity, and his philosophical clarification by
paraphrase anticipated views of Carnap, Feigl, and Quine. But the Polish
thinkers, beyond their common methodological inheritance and general adherence
to extensional logic, subscribed to little common doctrine, and in their
exchanges with the Vienna positivists remained “too sober” (said Lukasiewicz)
to join in sweeping antimetaphysical manifestos. Like Twardowski, they were
critics of traditional formulations, who sought not to proscribe but to reform
metaphysics, by reformulating issues clearly enough to advance understanding.
Indeed, except for Chwistek, the mathematician Jan Slezygski, and the
historians I. M. Bochegski, Z. A. Jordan, and Jan Salamucha, in addition to the
phenomenologist Roman Ingarden, the key figures in Polish logic were all
philosophical descendants of Twardowski.
KOTARBIgSKI, LESNIEWSKI, LUKASIEWICZ. E.C.L. Polish notation.LOGICAL
NOTATION. political obligation.POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. political philosophy, the
study of the nature and justification of coercive institutions. Coercive
institutions range in size from the family to the nation-state and world
organizations like the United Nations. They are institutions that at least
sometimes employ force or the threat of force to control the behavior of their
members. Justifying such coercive institutions requires showing that the
authorities within them have a right to be obeyed and that their members have a
corresponding obligation to obey them, i.e., that these institutions have
legitimate political authority over their members. Classical political
philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, were primarily interested in providing
a justification for city-states like Athens or Sparta. But historically, as
larger coercive insti 718 tutions
became possible and desirable, political philosophers sought to justify them.
After the seventeenth century, most political philosophers focused on providing
a justification for nationstates whose claim to legitimate authority is
restricted by both geography and nationality. But from time to time, and more
frequently in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, some political
philosophers have sought to provide a justification for various forms of world
government with even more extensive powers than those presently exercised by
the United Nations. And quite recently, feminist political philosophers have
raised important challenges to the authority of the family as it is presently
constituted. Anarchism (from Greek an archos, ‘no government’) rejects this
central task of political philosophy. It maintains that no coercive
institutions are justified. Proudhon, the first self-described anarchist, believed
that coercive institutions should be replaced by social and economic
organizations based on voluntary contractual agreement, and he advocated
peaceful change toward anarchism. Others, notably Blanqui and Bakunin,
advocated the use of violence to destroy the power of coercive institutions.
Anarchism inspired the anarcho-syndicalist movement, Makhno and his followers
during the Russian Civil War, the Spanish anarchists during the Spanish Civil
War, and the anarchist gauchistes during the 1968 “May Events” in France. Most
political philosophers, however, have sought to justify coercive institutions;
they have simply disagreed over what sort of coercive institutions are
justified. Liberalism, which derives from the work of Locke, is the view that
coercive institutions are justified when they promote liberty. For Locke,
liberty requires a constitutional monarchy with parliamentary government. Over
time, however, the ideal of liberty became subject to at least two
interpretations. The view that seems closest to Locke’s is classical
liberalism, which is now more frequently called (political) libertarianism.
This form of liberalism interprets constraints on liberty as positive acts
(i.e., acts of commission) that prevent people from doing what they otherwise could
do. According to this view, failing to help people in need does not restrict
their liberty. Libertarians maintain that when liberty is so interpreted only a
minimal or night-watchman state that protects against force, theft, and fraud
can be justified. In contrast, in welfare liberalism, a form of liberalism that
derives from the work of T. H. Green, constraints on liberty are interpreted to
include, in addition, negative acts (i.e., acts of omission) that prevent
people from doing what they otherwise could do. According to this view, failing
to help people in need does restrict their liberty. Welfare liberals maintain
that when liberty is interpreted in this fashion, coercive institutions of a
welfare state requiring a guaranteed social minimum and equal opportunity are
justified. While no one denies that when liberty is given a welfare liberal
interpretation some form of welfare state is required, there is considerable
debate over whether a minimal state is required when liberty is given a
libertarian interpretation. At issue is whether the liberty of the poor is
constrained when they are prevented from taking from the surplus possessions of
the rich what they need for survival. If such prevention does constrain the
liberty of the poor, it could be argued that their liberty should have priority
over the liberty of the rich not to be interfered with when using their surplus
possessions for luxury purposes. In this way, it could be shown that even when
the ideal of liberty is given a libertarian interpretation, a welfare state,
rather than a minimal state, is justified. Both libertarianism and welfare
liberalism are committed to individualism. This view takes the rights of
individuals to be basic and justifies the actions of coercive institutions as
promoting those rights. Communitarianism, which derives from the writings of
Hegel, rejects individualism. It maintains that rights of individuals are not
basic and that the collective can have rights that are independent of and even
opposed to what liberals claim are the rights of individuals. According to
communitarians, individuals are constituted by the institutions and practices
of which they are a part, and their rights and obligations derive from those
same institutions and practices. Fascism is an extreme form of communitarianism
that advocates an authoritarian state with limited rights for individuals. In
its National Socialism (Nazi) variety, fascism was also antiSemitic and
militarist. In contrast to liberalism and communitarianism, socialism takes equality
to be the basic ideal and justifies coercive institutions insofar as they
promote equality. In capitalist societies where the means of production are
owned and controlled by a relatively small number of people and used primarily
for their benefit, socialists favor taking control of the means of production
and redirecting their use to the general welfare. According to Marx, the
principle of distribution for a socialist society is: from each according to
political philosophy political philosophy 719
719 ability, to each according to needs. Socialists disagree among
themselves, however, over who should control the means of production in a
socialist society. In the version of socialism favored by Lenin, those who
control the means of production are to be an elite seemingly differing only in
their ends from the capitalist elite they replaced. In other forms of
socialism, the means of production are to be controlled democratically. In
advanced capitalist societies, national defense, police and fire protection,
income redistribution, and environmental protection are already under
democratic control. Democracy or “government by the people” is thought to apply
in these areas, and to require some form of representation. Socialists simply
propose to extend the domain of democratic control to include control of the
means of production, on the ground that the very same arguments that support
democratic control in these recognized areas also support democratic control of
the means of production. In addition, according to Marx, socialism will
transform itself into communism when most of the work that people perform in
society becomes its own reward, making differential monetary reward generally
unnecessary. Then distribution in society can proceed according to the principle,
from each according to ability, to each according to needs. It so happens that
all of the above political views have been interpreted in ways that deny that
women have the same basic rights as men. By contrast, feminism, almost by
definition, is the political view that women and men have the same basic
rights. In recent years, most political philosophers have come to endorse equal
basic rights for women and men, but rarely do they address questions that
feminists consider of the utmost importance, e.g., how responsibilities and
duties are to be assigned in family structures. Each of these political views
must be evaluated both internally and externally by comparison with the other
views. Once this is done, their practical recommendations may not be so different.
For example, if welfare liberals recognize that the basic rights of their view
extend to distant peoples and future generations, they may end up endorsing the
same degree of equality socialists defend. Whatever their practical
requirements, each of these political views justifies civil disobedience, even
revolution, when certain of those requirements have not been met. Civil
disobedience is an illegal action undertaken to draw attention to a failure by
the relevant authorities to meet basic moral requirements, e.g., the refusal of
Rosa Parks to give up her seat in a bus to a white man in accord with the local
ordinance in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. Civil disobedience is justified when
illegal action of this sort is the best way to get the relevant authorities to
bring the law into better correspondence with basic moral requirements. By
contrast, revolutionary action is justified when it is the only way to correct
a radical failure of the relevant authorities to meet basic moral requirements.
When revolutionary action is justified, people no longer have a political
obligation to obey the relevant authorities; that is, they are no longer
morally required to obey them, although they may still continue to do so, e.g.
out of habit or fear. Recent contemporary political philosophy has focused on
the communitarian–liberal debate. In defense of the communitarian view,
Alasdair MacIntyre has argued that virtually all forms of liberalism attempt to
separate rules defining right action from conceptions of the human good. On
this account, he contends, these forms of liberalism must fail because the
rules defining right action cannot be adequately grounded apart from a
conception of the good. Responding to this type of criticism, some liberals
have openly conceded that their view is not grounded independently of some
conception of the good. Rawls, e.g., has recently made clear that his
liberalism requires a conception of the political good, although not a
comprehensive conception of the good. It would seem, therefore, that the debate
between communitarians and liberals must turn on a comparative evaluation of
their competing conceptions of the good. Unfortunately, contemporary
communitarians have not yet been very forthcoming about what particular
conception of the good their view requires.
ETHICS, JUSTICE, LIBERALISM, POLITICAL THEORY, SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY.
J.P.St. political theory, reflection concerning the empirical, normative, and
conceptual dimensions of political life. There are no topics that all political
theorists do or ought to address, no required procedures, no doctrines
acknowledged to be authoritative. The meaning of ‘political theory’ resides in
its fluctuating uses, not in any essential property. It is nevertheless
possible to identify concerted tendencies among those who have practiced this
activity over twenty-five centuries. Since approximately the seventeenth
century, a primary question has been how best to justify political theory
political theory 720 720 the political
rule of some people over others. This question subordinated the issue that had
directed and organized most previous political theory, namely, what constitutes
the best form of political regime. Assuming political association to be a
divinely ordained or naturally necessary feature of the human estate, earlier
thinkers had asked what mode of political association contributes most to
realizing the good for humankind. Signaling the variable but intimate
relationship between political theory and political practice, the change in
question reflected and helped to consolidate acceptance of the postulate of
natural human equality, the denial of divinely or naturally given authority of
some human beings over others. Only a small minority of postseventeenth-century
thinkers have entertained the possibility, perhaps suggested by this postulate,
that no form of rule can be justified, but the shift in question altered the
political theory agenda. Issues concerning consent, individual liberties and
rights, various forms of equality as integral to justice, democratic and other
controls on the authority and power of government – none of which were among
the first concerns of ancient or medieval political thinkers – moved to the
center of political theory. Recurrent tendencies and tensions in political
theory may also be discerned along dimensions that cross-cut historical
divisions. In its most celebrated representations, political theory is integral
to philosophy. Systematic thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and
Aquinas, Hobbes and Hegel, present their political thoughts as supporting and
supported by their ethics and theology, metaphysics and epistemology. Political
argumentation must satisfy the same criteria of logic, truth, and justification
as any other; a political doctrine must be grounded in the nature of reality.
Other political theorists align themselves with empirical science rather than
philosophy. Often focusing on questions of power, they aim to give accurate
accounts and factually grounded assessments of government and politics in
particular times and places. Books IV–VI of Aristotle’s Politics inaugurate
this conception of political theory; it is represented by Montesquieu, Marx,
and much of utilitarianism, and it is the numerically predominant form of
academic political theorizing in the twentieth century. Yet others, e.g.,
Socrates, Machiavelli, Rousseau, and twentieth-century thinkers such as Rawls,
mix the previously mentioned modes but understand themselves as primarily
pursuing the practical objective of improving their own political
societies. POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, SOCIAL
PHILOSOPHY. R.E.F. polyadic.DEGREE. Polyaenus.EPICUREANISM. polysemy.AMBIGUITY.
polysyllogism, a series of syllogisms connected by the fact that the conclusion
of one syllogism becomes a premise of another. The syllogism whose conclusion
is used as a premise in another syllogism within the chain is called the
prosyllogism; the syllogism is which the conclusion of another syllogism within
the chain is used as a premise is called the episyllogism. To illustrate, take
the standard form of the simplest polysyllogism: (a) (1) Every B is A (2) Every
C is B (3) , Every C is A (b) (4) Every C is A (5) Every D is C (6) , Every D
is A. The first member (a) of this polysyllogism is the prosyllogism, since its
conclusion, (3), occurs as a premise, (4), in the second argument. This second
member, (b), is the episyllogism, since it employs as one of its premises (4)
the conclusion (3) of the first syllogism. It should be noted that the terms
‘prosyllogism’ and ‘episyllogism’ are correlative terms. Moreover, a
polysyllogism may have more than two members.
SYLLOGISM. I.Bo. Pomponazzi, Pietro (1462–1525), Italian philosopher, an
Aristotelian who taught at the universities of Padua and Bologna. In De
incantationibus (“On Incantations,” 1556), he regards the world as a system of
natural causes that can explain apparently miraculous phenomena. Human beings
are subject to the natural order of the world, yet divine predestination and
human freedom are compatible (De fato, “On Fate,” 1567). Furthermore, he
distinguishes between what is proved by natural reason and what is accepted by
faith, and claims that, since there are arguments for and against the
immortality of the human individual soul, this belief is to be accepted solely
on the basis of faith (De immortalitate animae, “On the Immortality of the
Soul,” polyadic Pomponazzi, Pietro 721
721 1516). He defended his view of immortality in the Apologia (1518)
and in the Defensorium (1519). These three works were reprinted as Tractatus
acutissimi (1525). Pomponazzi’s work was influential until the seventeenth
century, when Aristotelianism ceased to be the main philosophy taught at the
universities. The eighteenth-century freethinkers showed new interest in his
distinction between natural reason and faith. P.Gar. pons asinorum (Latin,
‘asses’ bridge’), a methodological device based upon Aristotle’s description of
the ways in which one finds a suitable middle term to demonstrate categorical
propositions. Thus, to prove the universal affirmative, one should consider the
characters that entail the predicate P and the characters entailed by the
subject S. If we find in the two groups of characters a common member, we can
use it as a middle term in the syllogistic proof of (say) ‘All S are P’. Take
‘All men are mortal’ as the contemplated conclusion. We find that ‘organism’ is
among the characters entailing the predicate ‘mortal’ and is also found in the
group of characters entailed by the subject ‘men’, and thus it may be used in a
syllogistic proof of ‘All men are mortal’. To prove negative propositions we
must, in addition, consider characters incompatible with the predicate, or
incompatible with the subject. Finally, proofs of particular propositions
require considering characters that entail the subject. SYLLOGISM. I.Bo. Popper, Karl Raimund
(1902–94), Austrian-born British philosopher best known for contributions to
philosophy of science and to social and political philosophy. Educated at the
University of Vienna (Ph.D., 1928), he taught philosophy in New Zealand for a
decade before becoming a reader and then professor in logic and scientific
method at the London School of Economics (1946–69). He was knighted in 1965,
elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1976, and appointed Companion of
Honour in 1982 (see his autobiography, Unended Quest, 1976). In opposition to
logical positivism’s verifiability criterion of cognitive significance, Popper
proposes that science be characterized by its method: the criterion of
demarcation of empirical science from pseudo-science and metaphysics is
falsifiability (Logik der Forschung, 1934, translated as The Logic of
Scientific Discovery, 1959). According to falsificationism, science grows, and
may even approach the truth, not by amassing supporting evidence, but through
an unending cycle of problems, tentative solutions – unjustifiable conjectures
– and error elimination; i.e., the vigorous testing of deductive consequences
and the refutation of conjectures that fail (Conjectures and Refutations, 1963).
Since conjectures are not inferences and refutations are not inductive, there
is no inductive inference or inductive logic. More generally, criticism is
installed as the hallmark of rationality, and the traditional justificationist
insistence on proof, conclusive or inconclusive, on confirmation, and on
positive argument, is repudiated. Popper brings to the central problems of
Kant’s philosophy an uncompromising realism and objectivism, the tools of
modern logic, and a Darwinian perspective on knowledge, thereby solving Hume’s
problem of induction without lapsing into irrationalism (Objective Knowledge,
1972). He made contributions of permanent importance also to the axiomatization
of probability theory (The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1959); to its
interpretation, especially the propensity interpretation (Postscript to The
Logic of Scientific Discovery, 3 vols. 1982–83); and to many other problems
(The Self and Its Brain, with John C. Eccles, 1977). Popper’s social
philosophy, like his epistemology, is anti-authoritarian. Since it is a
historicist error to suppose that we can predict the future of mankind (The
Poverty of Historicism, 1957), the prime task of social institutions in an open
society – one that encourages criticism and allows rulers to be replaced
without violence – must be not large-scale utopian planning but the
minimization, through piecemeal reform, of avoidable suffering. This way alone
permits proper assessment of success or failure, and thus of learning from
experience (The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945). CONFIRMATION, DARWINISM, HISTORICISM, LOGICAL
POSITIVISM, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, PROBABILITY, PROBLEM OF INDUCTION,
RATIONALITY. D.W.M. Porphyry (c.232–c.304), Greek Neoplatonist philosopher,
second to Plotinus in influence. He was born in Tyre, and is thus sometimes
called Porphyry the Phoenician. As a young man he went to Athens, where he
absorbed the Platonism of Cassius Longinus, who had in turn been influenced by
Ammonius Saccas in Alexandria. Porphyry went to Rome in 263, where he became a
disciple of Plotinus, who had also been influenced by Ammonius. Porphyry lived
in Rome until 269, when, urged by Plotinus to pons asinorum Porphyry 722 722 travel as a cure for severe depression,
he traveled to Sicily. He remained there for several years before returning to
Rome to take over Plotinus’s school. He apparently died in Rome. Porphyry is
not noted for original thought. He seems to have dedicated himself to
explicating Aristotle’s logic and defending Plotinus’s version of Neoplatonism.
During his years in Sicily, Porphyry wrote his two most famous works, the
lengthy Against the Christians, of which only fragments survive, and the
Isagoge, or “Introduction.” The Isagoge, which purports to give an elementary
exposition of the concepts necessary to understand Aristotle’s Categories, was
translated into Latin by Boethius and routinely published in the Middle Ages
with Latin editions of Aristotle’s Organon, or logical treatises. Its inclusion
in that format arguably precipitated the discussion of the so-called problem of
universals in the twelfth century. During his later years in Rome, Porphyry
collected Plotinus’s writings, editing and organizing them into a scheme of his
own – not Plotinus’s – design, six groups of nine treatises, thus called the
Enneads. Porphyry prefaced his edition with an informative biography of
Plotinus, written shortly before Porphyry’s own death. NEOPLATONISM, PLOTINUS, TREE OF PORPHYRY.
W.E.M. Port-Royal Logic, originally entitled La logique, ou L’art de penser, a
treatise on logic, language, and method composed by Antoine Arnauld and Pierre
Nicole (1625–95), possibly with the help of Pascal, all of whom were solitaires
associated with the convent at Port-Royal-des-Champs, the spiritual and
intellectual center of French Jansenism. Originally written as an instruction
manual for the son of the Duc de Luynes, the Logic was soon expanded and
published (the first edition appeared in 1662, but it was constantly being
modified, augmented, and rewritten by its authors; by 1685 six editions in
French had appeared). The work develops the linguistic theories presented by
Arnauld and Claude Lancelot in the Grammaire générale et raisonnée (1660), and
reflects the pedagogical principles embodied in the curriculum of the “little
schools” run by PortRoyal. Its content is also permeated by the Cartesianism to
which Arnauld was devoted. The Logic’s influence grew beyond Jansenist circles,
and it soon became in seventeenth-century France a standard manual for rigorous
thinking. Eventually, it was adopted as a textbook in French schools. The
authors declare their goal to be to make thought more precise for better
distinguishing truth from error – philosophical and theological – and to
develop sound judgment. They are especially concerned to dispel the errors and
confusions of the Scholastics. Logic is “the art of directing reason to a
knowledge of things for the instruction of ourselves and others.” This art
consists in reflecting on the mind’s four principal operations: conceiving,
judging, reasoning, and ordering. Accordingly, the Logic is divided into four
sections: on ideas and conception, on judgments, on reasoning, and on method.
S.N. Posidonius.ACADEMY, COMMENTARIES ON PLATO, STOICISM. positional
qualities.QUALITIES. positive and negative freedom, respectively, the area
within which the individual is self-determining and the area within which the
individual is left free from interference by others. More specifically, one is
free in the positive sense to the extent that one has control over one’s life,
or rules oneself. In this sense the term is very close to that of ‘autonomy’.
The forces that can prevent this self-determination are usually thought of as
internal, as desires or passions. This conception of freedom can be said to
have originated with Plato, according to whom a person is free when the parts
of the soul are rightly related to each other, i.e. the rational part of the
soul rules the other parts. Other advocates of positive freedom include
Spinoza, Rousseau, Kant, and Hegel. One is free in the negative sense if one is
not prevented from doing something by another person. One is prevented from
doing something if another person makes it impossible for one to do something
or uses coercion to prevent one from doing something. Hence persons are free in
the negative sense if they are not made unfree in the negative sense. The term
‘negative liberty’ was coined by Bentham to mean the absence of coercion.
Advocates of negative freedom include Hobbes, Locke, and Hume. FREE WILL PROBLEM, KANT, POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHY. G.D. positive duty.DUTY. positive feedback.CYBERNETICS. positive
freedom.POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE FREEDOM. Port-Royal Logic positive freedom
723 723 positive morality.JURISPRUDENCE.
positivism, legal.JURISPRUDENCE, LEGAL POSITIVISM. positivism, logical.COMTE,
LOGICAL POSITIVISM. possibilia.NECESSITY, POSSIBLE WORLDS.
possibilist.EPISTEMIC LOGIC. possibility.NECESSITY. possibility,
epistemic.EPISTEMIC LOGIC. possible worlds, alternative worlds in terms of
which one may think of possibility. The idea of thinking about possibility in
terms of such worlds has played an important part, both in Leibnizian
philosophical theology and in the development of modal logic and philosophical
reflection about it in recent decades. But there are important differences in
the forms the idea has taken, and the uses to which it has been put, in the two
contexts. Leibniz used it in his account of creation. In his view God’s mind
necessarily and eternally contains the ideas of infinitely many worlds that God
could have created, and God has chosen the best of these and made it actual,
thus creating it. (Similar views are found in the thought of Leibniz’s
contemporary, Malebranche.) The possible worlds are thus the complete
alternatives among which God chose. They are possible at least in the sense
that they are logically consistent; whether something more is required in order
for them to be coherent as worlds is a difficult question in Leibniz
interpretation. They are complete in that they are possible totalities of
creatures; each includes a whole (possible) universe, in its whole spatial
extent and its whole temporal history (if it is spatially and temporally
ordered). The temporal completeness deserves emphasis. If “the world of
tomorrow” is “a better world” than “the world of today,” it will still be part
of the same “possible world” (the actual one); for the actual “world,” in the
relevant sense, includes whatever actually has happened or will happen
throughout all time. The completeness extends to every detail, so that a
milligram’s difference in the weight of the smallest bird would make a
different possible world. The completeness of possible worlds may be limited in
one way, however. Leibniz speaks of worlds as aggregates of finite things. As
alternatives for God’s creation, they may well not be thought of as including
God, or at any rate, not every fact about God. For this and other reasons it is
not clear that in Leibniz’s thought the possible can be identified with what is
true in some possible world, or the necessary with what is true in all possible
worlds. That identification is regularly assumed, however, in the recent
development of what has become known as possible worlds semantics for modal
logic (the logic of possibility and necessity, and of other conceptions, e.g.
those pertaining to time and to morality, that have turned out to be formally
analogous). The basic idea here is that such notions as those of validity,
soundness, and completeness can be defined for modal logic in terms of models
constructed from sets of alternative “worlds.” Since the late 1950s many
important results have been obtained by this method, whose best-known exponent
is Saul Kripke. Some of the most interesting proofs depend on the idea of a
relation of accessibility between worlds in the set. Intuitively, one world is
accessible from another if and only if the former is possible in (or from the
point of view of) the latter. Different systems of modal logic are appropriate
depending on the properties of this relation (e.g., on whether it is or is not
reflexive and/or transitive and/or symmetrical). The purely formal results of
these methods are well established. The application of possible worlds
semantics to conceptions occurring in metaphysically richer discourse is more
controversial, however. Some of the controversy is related to debates over the
metaphysical reality of various sorts of possibility and necessity.
Particularly controversial, and also a focus of much interest, have been
attempts to understand modal claims de re, about particular individuals as such
(e.g., that I could not have been a musical performance), in terms of the
identity and nonidentity of individuals in different possible worlds.
Similarly, there is debate over the applicability of a related treatment of
subjunctive conditionals, developed by Robert Stalnaker and David Lewis, though
it is clear that it yields interesting formal results. What is required, on
this approach, for the truth of ‘If it were the case that A, then it would be
the case that B’, is that, among those possible worlds in which A is true, some
world in which B is true be more similar, in the relevant respects, to the
actual world than any world in which B is false. One of the most controversial
topics is the nature of possible worlds themselves. Mathematical logicians need
not be concerned with this; a wide variety of sets of objects, real or
ficpositive morality possible worlds 724
724 titious, can be viewed as having the properties required of sets of
“worlds” for their purposes. But if metaphysically robust issues of modality
(e.g., whether there are more possible colors than we ever see) are to be
understood in terms of possible worlds, the question of the nature of the
worlds must be taken seriously. Some philosophers would deny any serious
metaphysical role to the notion of possible worlds. At the other extreme, David
Lewis has defended a view of possible worlds as concrete totalities, things of
the same sort as the whole actual universe, made up of entities like planets,
persons, and so forth. On his view, the actuality of the actual world consists
only in its being this one, the one that we are in; apart from its relation to
us or our linguistic acts, the actual is not metaphysically distinguished from
the merely possible. Many philosophers find this result counterintuitive, and
the infinity of concrete possible worlds an extravagant ontology; but Lewis
argues that his view makes possible attractive reductions of modality (both
logical and causal), and of such notions as that of a proposition, to more
concrete notions. Other philosophers are prepared to say there are non-actual
possible worlds, but that they are entities of a quite different sort from the
actual concrete universe – sets of propositions, perhaps, or some other type of
“abstract” object. Leibniz himself held a view of this kind, thinking of
possible worlds as having their being only in God’s mind, as intentional
objects of God’s thought.
COUNTERFACTUALS, KRIPKE SEMANTICS, MODAL LOGIC. R.M.A. possible worlds
semantics.KRIPKE SEMANTICS, POSSIBLE WORLDS. postcard paradox.SEMANTIC
PARADOXES. Post-complete.COMPLETENESS. post hoc, ergo propter hoc.INFORMAL
FALLACY. postmodern, of or relating to a complex set of reactions to modern
philosophy and its presuppositions, as opposed to the kind of agreement on
substantive doctrines or philosophical questions that often characterizes a
philosophical movement. Although there is little agreement on precisely what
the presuppositions of modern philosophy are, and disagreement on which
philosophers exemplify these presuppositions, postmodern philosophy typically
opposes foundationalism, essentialism, and realism. For Rorty, e.g., the
presuppositions to be set aside are foundationalist assumptions shared by the leading
sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century philosophers. For Nietzsche,
Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida, the contested presuppositions to be set aside
are as old as metaphysics itself, and are perhaps best exemplified by Plato.
Postmodern philosophy has even been characterized, by Lyotard, as preceding
modern philosophy, in the sense that the presuppositions of philosophical
modernism emerge out of a disposition whose antecedent, unarticulated beliefs
are already postmodern. Postmodern philosophy is therefore usefully regarded as
a complex cluster concept that includes the following elements: an anti- (or
post-) epistemological standpoint; anti-essentialism; anti-realism;
anti-foundationalism; opposition to transcendental arguments and transcendental
standpoints; rejection of the picture of knowledge as accurate representation;
rejection of truth as correspondence to reality; rejection of the very idea of
canonical descriptions; rejection of final vocabularies, i.e., rejection of
principles, distinctions, and descriptions that are thought to be
unconditionally binding for all times, persons, and places; and a suspicion of
grand narratives, metanarratives of the sort perhaps best illustrated by
dialectical materialism. In addition to these things postmodern philosophy is
“against,” it also opposes characterizing this menu of oppositions as
relativism, skepticism, or nihilism, and it rejects as “the metaphysics of
presence” the traditional, putatively impossible dream of a complete, unique,
and closed explanatory system, an explanatory system typically fueled by binary
oppositions. On the positive side, one often finds the following themes: its
critique of the notion of the neutrality and sovereignty of reason – including
insistence on its pervasively gendered, historical, and ethnocentric character;
its conception of the social construction of word–world mappings; its tendency
to embrace historicism; its critique of the ultimate status of a contrast
between epistemology, on the one hand, and the sociology of knowledge, on the
other hand; its dissolution of the notion of the autonomous, rational subject;
its insistence on the artifactual status of divisions of labor in knowledge
acquisition and production; and its ambivalence about the Enlightenment and its
ideology. Many of these elements or elective affinities were already surfacing
in the growing opposition to the spectator theory of knowledge, in Europe and
in the English-speaking world, long before possible worlds semantics postmodern
725 725 the term ‘postmodern’ became a
commonplace. In Anglophone philosophy this took the early form of Dewey’s (and
pragmatism’s) opposition to positivism, early Kuhn’s redescription of
scientific practice, and Wittgenstein’s insistence on the language-game character
of representation; critiques of “the myth of the given” from Sellars to
Davidson and Quine; the emergence of epistemology naturalized; and the putative
description-dependent character of data, tethered to the theory dependence of
descriptions (in Kuhn, Sellars, Quine, and Arthur Fine – perhaps in all
constructivists in the philosophy of science). In Europe, many of these
elective affinities surfaced explicitly in and were identified with
poststructuralism, although traces are clearly evident in Heidegger’s (and
later in Derrida’s) attacks on Husserl’s residual Cartesianism; the rejection
of essential descriptions (Wesensanschauungen) in Husserl’s sense; Saussure’s
and structuralism’s attack on the autonomy and coherence of a transcendental
signified standing over against a selftransparent subject; Derrida’s
deconstructing the metaphysics of presence; Foucault’s redescriptions of
epistemes; the convergence between French- and English-speaking social
constructivists; attacks on the language of enabling conditions as reflected in
worries about the purchase of necessary and sufficient conditions talk on both
sides of the Atlantic; and Lyotard’s many interventions, particularly those
against grand narratives. Many of these elective affinities that characterize postmodern
philosophy can also be seen in the virtually universal challenges to moral
philosophy as it has been understood traditionally in the West, not only in
German and French philosophy, but in the reevaluation of “the morality of
principles” in the work of MacIntyre, Williams, Nussbaum, John McDowell, and
others. The force of postmodern critiques can perhaps best be seen in some of
the challenges of feminist theory, as in the work of Judith Butler and Hélène
Cixous, and gender theory generally. For it is in gender theory that the
conception of “reason” itself as it has functioned in the shared philosophical
tradition is redescribed as a conception that, it is often argued, is
(en)gendered, patriarchal, homophobic, and deeply optional. The term ‘postmodern’
is less clear in philosophy, its application more uncertain and divided than in
some other fields, e.g., postmodern architecture. In architecture the concept
is relatively clear. It displaces modernism in assignable ways, emerges as an
oppositional force against architectural modernism, a rejection of the work and
tradition inaugurated by Walter Gropius, Henri Le Corbusier, and Mies van der
Rohe, especially the International Style. In postmodern architecture, the
modernist principle of abstraction, of geometric purity and simplicity, is
displaced by multivocity and pluralism, by renewed interest in buildings as
signs and signifiers, interest in their referential potential and resources.
The modernist’s aspiration to buildings that are timeless in an important sense
is itself read by postmodernists as an iconography that privileges the brave
new world of science and technology, an aspiration that glorifies uncritically
the industrial revolution of which it is itself a quintessential expression.
This aspiration to timelessness is displaced in postmodern architecture by a
direct and self-conscious openness to and engagement with history. It is this
relative specificity of the concept postmodern architecture that enabled
Charles Jencks to write that “Modern Architecture died in St. Louis Missouri on
July 15, 1972 at 3:32 P.M.” Unfortunately, no remotely similar sentence can be
written about postmodern philosophy.
ANTI-REALISM, DECONSTRUCTION, FOUCAULT, FOUNDATIONALISM, LYOTARD, RORTY,
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM, STRUCTURALISM. B.M. post-structuralism.CONTINENTAL
PHILOSOPHY, LYOTARD, STRUCTURALISM. potency, for Aristotle, a kind of capacity
that is a correlative of action. We require no instruction to grasp the
difference between ‘X can do Y’ and ‘X is doing Y’, the latter meaning that the
deed is actually being done. That an agent has a potency to do something is not
a pure prediction so much as a generalization from past performance of
individual or kind. Aristotle uses the example of a builder, meaning someone able
to build, and then confronts the Megaric objection that the builder can be
called a builder only when he actually builds. Clearly one who is doing
something can do it, but Aristotle insists that the napping carpenter has the
potency to hammer and saw. A potency based on an acquired skill like carpentry
derives from the potency shared by those who acquire and those who do not
acquire the skill. An unskilled worker can be said to be a builder “in
potency,” not in the sense that he has the skill and can employ it, but in the
sense that he can acquire the skill. In both acquisition and employment,
‘potency’ refers to the actual – either the actual acquisition of the skill or
its actual use. These post-structuralism potency 726 726 potentiality, first practical attitude
727 correlatives emerged from Aristotle’s analysis of change and becoming. That
which, from not having the skill, comes to have it is said to be “in potency”
to that skill. From not having a certain shape, wood comes to have a certain
shape. In the shaped wood, a potency is actualized. Potency must not be
identified with the unshaped, with what Aristotle calls privation. Privation is
the negation of P in a subject capable of P. Parmenides’ identification of
privation and potency, according to Aristotle, led him to deny change. How can
not-P become P? It is the subject of not-P to which the change is attributed
and which survives the change that is in potency to X. ARISTOTLE. R.M. potentiality, first.ARISTOTLE.
potentiality, second.ARISTOTLE. pour soi.SARTRE. poverty of the stimulus, a
psychological phenomenon exhibited when behavior is stimulusunbound, and hence
the immediate stimulus characterized in straightforward physical terms does not
completely control behavior. Human beings sort stimuli in various ways and
hosts of influences seem to affect when, why, and how we respond – our
background beliefs, facility with language, hypotheses about stimuli, etc.
Suppose a person visiting a museum notices a painting she has never before
seen. Pondering the unfamiliar painting, she says, “an ambitious visual
synthesis of the music of Mahler and the poetry of Keats.” If stimulus
(painting) controls response, then her utterance is a product of earlier
responses to similar stimuli. Given poverty of the stimulus, no such control is
exerted by the stimulus (the painting). Of course, some influence of response
must be conceded to the painting, for without it there would be no utterance.
However, the utterance may well outstrip the visitor’s conditioning and learning
history. Perhaps she had never before talked of painting in terms of music and
poetry. The linguist Noam Chomsky made poverty of the stimulus central to his
criticism of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (1957). Chomsky argued that there
is no predicting, and certainly no critical stimulus control of, much human
behavior. G.A.G. power, a disposition; an ability or capacity to yield some
outcome. One tradition (which includes Locke) distinguishes active and passive
powers. A knife has the active power to slice an apple, which has the passive
power to be sliced by the knife. The distinction seems largely grammatical,
however. Powers act in concert: the power of a grain of salt to dissolve in
water and the water’s power to dissolve the salt are reciprocal and their
manifestations mutual. Powers or dispositions are sometimes thought to be
relational properties of objects, properties possessed only in virtue of
objects standing in appropriate relations to other objects. However, if we
distinguish, as we must, between a power and its manifestation, and if we allow
that an object could possess a power that it never manifested (a grain of salt
remains soluble even if it never dissolves), it would seem that an object could
possess a power even if appropriate reciprocal partners for its manifestation
were altogether non-existent. This appears to have been Locke’s view (An Essay
concerning Human Understanding, 1690) of “secondary qualities” (colors, sounds,
and the like), which he regarded as powers of objects to produce certain sorts
of sensory experience in observers. Philosophers who take powers seriously
disagree over whether powers are intrinsic, “built into” properties (this view,
defended by C. B. Martin, seems to have been Locke’s), or whether the
connection between properties and the powers they bestow is contingent,
dependent perhaps upon contingent laws of nature (a position endorsed by
Armstrong). Is the solubility of salt a characteristic built into the salt, or
is it a “second-order” property possessed by the salt in virtue of (i) the
salt’s possession of some “firstorder” property and (ii) the laws of nature?
Reductive analyses of powers, though influential, have not fared well. Suppose
a grain of salt is soluble in water. Does this mean that if the salt were
placed in water, it would dissolve? No. Imagine that were the salt placed in
water, a technician would intervene, imposing an electromagnetic field, thereby
preventing the salt from dissolving. Attempts to exclude “blocking” conditions
– by appending “other things equal” clauses perhaps – face charges of
circularity: in nailing down what other things must be equal we find ourselves
appealing to powers. Powers evidently are fundamental features of our
world. DISPOSITION, QUALITIES, RELATION,
SUPERVENIENCE. J.F.H. power set.SET THEORY. practical argument.PRACTICAL
REASONING. practical attitude.PRACTICAL REASONING. 727 practical freedom practical reasoning
728 practical freedom.FREE WILL PROBLEM. practical judgment.
AKRASIA. practical
logic.INFORMAL LOGIC. practical modality.FREE WILL PROBLEM. practical
rationality.RATIONALITY. practical reason, the capacity for argument or
demonstrative inference, considered in its application to the task of
prescribing or selecting behavior. Some philosophical concerns in this area
pertain to the actual thought processes by which plans of action are formulated
and carried out in practical situations. A second major issue is what role, if
any, practical reason plays in determining norms of conduct. Here there are two
fundamental positions. Instrumentalism is typified by Hume’s claim that reason
is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions. According to
instrumentalism, reason by itself is incapable of influencing action directly.
It may do so indirectly, by disclosing facts that arouse motivational impulses.
And it fulfills an indispensable function in discerning means–end relations by
which our objectives may be attained. But none of those objectives is set by
reason. All are set by the passions – the desiderative and aversive impulses
aroused in us by what our cognitive faculties apprehend. It does not follow
from this alone that ethical motivation reduces to mere desire and aversion,
based on the pleasure and pain different courses of action might afford. There
might yet be a specifically ethical passion, or it might be that independently
based moral injunctions have in themselves a special capacity to provoke
ordinary desire and aversion. Nevertheless, instrumentalism is often associated
with the view that pleasure and pain, happiness and unhappiness, are the sole
objects of value and disvalue, and hence the only possible motivators of
conduct. Hence, it is claimed, moral injunctions must be grounded in these
motives, and practical reason is of interest only as subordinated to
inclination. The alternative to instrumentalism is the view championed by Kant,
that practical reason is an autonomous source of normative principles, capable
of motivating behavior independently of ordinary desire and aversion. On this
view it is the passions that lack intrinsic moral import, and the function of
practical reason is to limit their motivational role by formulating normative
principles binding for all rational agents and founded in the operation of
practical reason itself. Theories of this kind usually view moral principles as
grounded in consistency, and an impartial respect for the autonomy of all
rational agents. To be morally acceptable, principles of conduct must be
universalizable, so that all rational agents could behave in the same way
without their conduct either destroying itself or being inconsistently
motivated. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these views.
Instrumentalism offers a simpler account of both the function of practical
reason and the sources of human motivation. But it introduces a strong
subjective element by giving primacy to desire, thereby posing a problem of how
moral principles can be universally binding. The Kantian approach offers more
promise here, since it makes universalizability essential to any type of
behavior being moral. But it is more complex, and the claim that the
deliverances of practical reason carry intrinsic motivational force is open to
challenge. INSTRUMENTALISM, KANT,
MOTIVATIONAL INTERNALISM, PRACTICAL REASONING, RATIONALITY. H.J.M. practical
reasoning, the inferential process by which considerations for or against
envisioned courses of action are brought to bear on the formation and execution
of intention. The content of a piece of practical reasoning is a practical argument.
Practical arguments can be complex, but they are often summarized in
syllogistic form. Important issues concerning practical reasoning include how
it relates to theoretical reasoning, whether it is a causal process, and how it
can be evaluated. Theories of practical reasoning tend to divide into two basic
categories. On one sort of view, the intrinsic features of practical reasoning
exhibit little or no difference from those of theoretical reasoning. What makes
practical reasoning practical is its subject matter and motivation. Hence the
following could be a bona fide practical syllogism: Exercise would be good for
me. Jogging is exercise. Therefore, jogging would be good for me. This argument
has practical subject matter, and if made with a view toward intention
formation it would be practical in motivation also. But it consists entirely of
propositions, which are appropriate contents for belief-states. In princi 728 ple, therefore, an agent could accept its
conclusion without intending or even desiring to jog. Intention formation
requires a further step. But if the content of an intention cannot be a
proposition, that step could not count in itself as practical reasoning unless
such reasoning can employ the contents of strictly practical mental states.
Hence many philosophers call for practical syllogisms such as: Would that I
exercise. Jogging is exercise. Therefore, I shall go jogging. Here the first
premise is optative and understood to represent the content of a desire, and
the conclusion is the content of a decision or act of intention formation.
These contents are not true or false, and so are not propositions. Theories
that restrict the contents of practical reasoning to propositions have the
advantage that they allow such reasoning to be evaluated in terms of familiar
logical principles. Those that permit the inclusion of optative content entail
a need for more complex modes of evaluation. However, they bring more of the
process of intention formation under the aegis of reason; also, they can be
extended to cover the execution of intentions, in terms of syllogisms that
terminate in volition. Both accounts must deal with cases of self-deception, in
which the considerations an agent cites to justify a decision are not those
from which it sprang, and cases of akrasia, where the agent views one course of
action as superior, yet carries out another. Because mental content is always
abstract, it cannot in itself be a nomic cause of behavior. But the states and
events to which it belongs – desires, beliefs, etc. – can count as causes, and
are so treated in deterministic explanations of action. Opponents of
determinism reject this step, and seek to explain action solely through the
teleological or justifying force carried by mental content. Practical syllogisms
often summarize very complex thought processes, in which multiple options are
considered, each with its own positive and negative aspects. Some philosophers
hold that when successfully concluded, this process issues in a judgment of
what action would be best all things considered – i.e., in light of all
relevant considerations. Practical reasoning can be evaluated in numerous ways.
Some concern the reasoning process itself: whether it is timely and duly
considers the relevant alternatives, as well as whether it is well structured
logically. Other concerns have to do with the products of practical reasoning.
Decisions may be deemed irrational if they result in incompatible intentions,
or conflict with the agent’s beliefs regarding what is possible. They may also
be criticized if they conflict with the agent’s best interests. Finally, an
agent’s intentions can fail to accord with standards of morality. The
relationship among these ways of evaluating intentions is important to the
foundations of ethics. ACTION THEORY,
AKRASIA, INTUITION, PRACTITION, REASONS FOR ACTION, VOLITION. H.J.M. practical
syllogism.PRACTICAL REASONING. practical wisdom.ARISTOTLE. practition,
Castañeda’s term for the characteristic content of practical thinking. Each
practition represents an action as something to be done, say, as intended,
commanded, recommended, etc., and not as an accomplishment or prediction. Thus,
unlike propositions, practitions are not truth-valued, but they can be
components of valid arguments and so possess values akin to truth; e.g., the
command ‘James, extinguish your cigar!’ seems legitimate given that James is
smoking a cigar in a crowded bus. Acknowledging practitions is directly
relevant to many other fields.
ACTION THEORY, CASTAÑEDA,
DEONTIC LOGIC, FREE WILL PROBLEM, PRACTICAL REASONING. T.K.
praedicabilia.PREDICABLES. praedicamenta (singular: praedicamentum), in
medieval philosophy, the ten Aristotelian categories: substance, quantity,
quality, relation, where, when, position (i.e., orientation – e.g., “upright”),
having, action, and passivity. These were the ten most general of all genera.
All of them except substance were regarded as accidental. It was disputed
whether this tenfold classification was intended as a linguistic division among
categorematic terms or as an ontological division among extralinguistic
realities. Some authors held that the division was primarily linguistic, and
that extralinguistic realities were divided according to some but not all the
praedicamenta. Most authors held that everything in any way real belonged to
one praedicamentum or another, although some made an exception for God. But
authors who believed in complexe significabile usually regarded them as not
belonging practical syllogism praedicamenta 729 729 to any praedicamentum.
ARISTOTLE, COMPLEXE
SIGNIFICABILE, GENUS GENERALISSIMUM. P.V.S. pragmatic ambiguity.AMBIGUITY.
pragmatic contradiction, a contradiction that is generated by pragmatic rather
than logical implication. A logically implies B if it is impossible for B to be
false if A is true, whereas A pragmatically implies B if in most (but not
necessarily all) contexts, saying ‘A’ can reasonably be taken as indicating
that B is true. Thus, if I say, “It’s raining,” what I say does not logically
imply that I believe that it is raining, since it is possible for it to be
raining without my believing it is. Nor does my saying that it is raining
logically imply that I believe that it is, since it is possible for me to say
this without believing it. But my saying this does pragmatically imply that I
believe that it is raining, since normally my saying this can reasonably be
taken to indicate that I believe it. Accordingly, if I were to say, “It’s
raining but I don’t believe that it’s raining,” the result would be a pragmatic
contradiction. The first part (“It’s raining”) does not logically imply the
negation of the second part (“I don’t believe that it’s raining”) but my saying
the first part does pragmatically imply the negation of the second part. IMPLICATURE, PRESUPPOSITION. R.Fo. pragmatic
maxim.PEIRCE. pragmatics.PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, SPEECH ACT THEORY, THEORY OF
SIGNS. pragmatic theory of truth.PRAGMATISM, TRUTH. pragmatism, a philosophy
that stresses the relation of theory to praxis and takes the continuity of
experience and nature as revealed through the outcome of directed action as the
starting point for reflection. Experience is the ongoing transaction of
organism and environment, i.e., both subject and object are constituted in the
process. When intelligently ordered, initial conditions are deliberately
transformed according to ends-inview, i.e., intentionally, into a subsequent
state of affairs thought to be more desirable. Knowledge is therefore guided by
interests or values. Since the reality of objects cannot be known prior to
experience, truth claims can be justified only as the fulfillment of conditions
that are experimentally determined, i.e., the outcome of inquiry. As a
philosophic movement, pragmatism was first formulated by Peirce in the early 1870s
in the Metaphysical Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts; it was announced as a
distinctive position in James’s 1898 address to the Philosophical Union at the
University of California at Berkeley, and further elaborated according to the
Chicago School, especially by Dewey, Mead, and Jane Addams (1860–1935).
Emphasis on the reciprocity of theory and praxis, knowledge and action, facts
and values, follows from its postDarwinian understanding of human experience,
including cognition, as a developmental, historically contingent, process. C.
I. Lewis’s pragmatic a priori and Quine’s rejection of the analytic– synthetic
distinction develop these insights further. Knowledge is instrumental – a tool
for organizing experience satisfactorily. Concepts are habits of belief or
rules of action. Truth cannot be determined solely by epistemological criteria
because the adequacy of these criteria cannot be determined apart from the
goals sought and values instantiated. Values, which arise in historically
specific cultural situations, are intelligently appropriated only to the extent
that they satisfactorily resolve problems and are judged worth retaining.
According to pragmatic theories of truth, truths are beliefs that are confirmed
in the course of experience and are therefore fallible, subject to further
revision. True beliefs for Peirce represent real objects as successively
confirmed until they converge on a final determination; for James, leadings
that are worthwhile; and according to Dewey’s theory of inquiry, the transformation
of an indeterminate situation into a determinate one that leads to warranted
assertions. Pragmatic ethics is naturalistic, pluralistic, developmental, and
experimental. It reflects on the motivations influencing ethical systems,
examines the individual developmental process wherein an individual’s values
are gradually distinguished from those of society, situates moral judgments
within problematic situations irreducibly individual and social, and proposes
as ultimate criteria for decision making the value for life as growth,
determined by all those affected by the actual or projected outcomes. The
original interdisciplinary development of pragmatism continues in its influence
on the humanities. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., member of the Metaphysical Club,
later justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, developed a pragmatic theory of law.
Peirce’s Principle of Pragmatism, by which meaning resides in conceivable
practical effects, and his triadic theory of signs developed into the pragmatic
ambiguity pragmatism 730 730 field of
semiotics. James’s Principles of Psychology (1890) not only established
experimental psychology in North America, but shifted philosophical attention
away from abstract analyses of rationality to the continuity of the biological
and the mental. The reflex arc theory was reconstructed into an interactive
loop of perception, feeling, thinking, and behavior, and joined with the
selective interest of consciousness to become the basis of radical empiricism.
Mead’s theory of the emergence of self and mind in social acts and Dewey’s
analyses of the individual and society influenced the human sciences. Dewey’s
theory of education as community-oriented, based on the psychological
developmental stages of growth, and directed toward full participation in a
democratic society, was the philosophical basis of progressive education. CONTEXTUALISM, DEWEY, JAMES, NATURALISM,
PEIRCE. C.H.S. pragmatism, ethical.MORAL EPISTEMOLOGY. praxis (from Greek
prasso, ‘doing’, ‘acting’), in Aristotle, the sphere of thought and action that
comprises the ethical and political life of man, contrasted with the
theoretical designs of logic and epistemology (theoria). It was thus that
‘praxis’ acquired its general definition of ‘practice’ through a contrastive
comparison with ‘theory’. Throughout the history of Western philosophy the
concept of praxis found a place in a variety of philosophical vocabularies.
Marx and the neoMarxists linked the concept with a production paradigm in the
interests of historical explanation. Within such a scheme of things the
activities constituting the relations of production and exchange are seen as
the dominant features of the socioeconomic history of humankind. Significations
of ‘praxis’ are also discernible in the root meaning of pragma (deed, affair),
which informed the development of American pragmatism. In more recent times the
notion of praxis has played a prominent role in the formation of the school of
critical theory, in which the performatives of praxis are seen to be more directly
associated with the entwined phenomena of discourse, communication, and social
practices. The central philosophical issues addressed in the current literature
on praxis have to do with the theory–practice relationship and the problems
associated with a value-free science. The general thrust is that of undermining
or subverting the traditional bifurcation of theory and practice via a
recognition of praxis-oriented endeavors that antedate both theory construction
and the construal of practice as a mere application of theory. Both the project
of “pure theory,” which makes claims for a value-neutral standpoint, and the
purely instrumentalist understanding of practice, as itself shorn of
discernment and insight, are jettisoned. The consequent philosophical task
becomes that of understanding human thought and action against the backdrop of
the everyday communicative endeavors, habits, and skills, and social practices
that make up our inheritance in the world.
CRITICAL THEORY, MARX, MARXISM. C.O.S. Praxis school, a school of
philosophy originating in Zagreb and Belgrade which, from 1964 to 1974,
published the international edition of the leading postwar Marxist journal
Praxis. During the same period, it organized the Korcula Summer School, which
attracted scholars from around the Western world. In a reduced form the school
continues each spring with the Social Philosophy Course in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
The founders of praxis philosophy include Gajo Petrovic (Zagreb), Milan Kangrga
(Zagreb), and Mihailo Markovic (Belgrade). Another wellknown member of the
group is Svetozar Stojanovic (Belgrade), and a second-generation leader is
Gvozden Flego (Zagreb). The Praxis school emphasized the writings of the young
Marx while subjecting dogmatic Marxism to one of its strongest criticisms.
Distinguishing between Marx’s and Engels’s writings and emphasizing alienation
and a dynamic concept of the human being, it contributed to a greater
understanding of the interrelationship between the individual and society.
Through its insistence on Marx’s call for a “ruthless critique,” the school
stressed open inquiry and freedom of speech in both East and West. Quite
possibly the most important and original philosopher of the group, and
certainly Croatia’s leading twentieth-century philosopher, was Gajo Petrovic
(1927–93). He called for (1) understanding philosophy as a radical critique of
all existing things, and (2) understanding human beings as beings of praxis and
creativity. This later led to a view of human beings as revolutionary by nature.
At present he is probably best remembered for his Marx in the Mid-Twentieth
Century and Philosophie und Revolution. Milan Kangrga (b.1923) also emphasizes
human creativity while insisting that one should understand human beings as
producers who humanize nature. An ethical problematic of humanity can
pragmatism, ethical Praxis school 731
731 be realized through a variety of disciplines that include
aesthetics, philosophical anthropolgy, theory of knowledge, ontology, and
social thought. Mihailo Markovic (b.1923), a member of the Belgrade Eight, is
best known for his theory of meaning, which leads him to a theory of socialist
humanism. His most widely read work in the West is From Affluence to Praxis:
Philosophy and Social Criticism.
MARXISM, PRAXIS. J.Bi. & H.P. preanalytic, considered but naive;
commonsensical; not tainted by prior explicit theorizing; said of judgments
and, derivatively, of beliefs or intuitions underlying such judgments.
Preanalytic judgments are often used to test philosophical theses. All things
considered, we prefer theories that accord with preanalytic judgments to those
that do not, although most theorists exhibit a willingness to revise
preanalytic assessments in light of subsequent inquiry. Thus, a preanalytic
judgment might be thought to constitute a starting point for the philosophical
consideration of a given topic. Is justice giving every man his due? It may
seem so, preanalytically. Attention to concrete examples, however, may lead us
to a different view. It is doubtful, even in such cases, that we altogether
abandon preanalytic judgments. Rather, we endeavor to reconcile apparently
competing judgments, making adjustments in a way that optimizes overall
coherence. PRETHEORETICAL, REFLECTIVE
EQUILIBRIUM. J.F.H. precising definition.DEFINITION.
precognition.PARAPSYCHOLOGY. preconscious.FREUD. pre-Critical.KANT.
predestination.FREE WILL PROBLEM. predicables, also praedicabilia, sometimes
called the quinque voces (five words), in medieval philosophy, genus, species,
difference, proprium, and accident, the five main ways general predicates can
be predicated. The list comes from Porphyry’s Isagoge. It was debated whether
it applies to linguistic predicates only or also to extralinguistic universals.
Things that have accidents can exist without them; other predicables belong
necessarily to whatever has them. (The Aristotelian/Porphyrian notion of
“inseparable accident” blurs this picture.) Genus and species are natural
kinds; other predicables are not. A natural kind that is not a narrowest
natural kind is a genus; one that is not a broadest natural kind is a species.
(Some genera are also species.) A proprium is not a species, but is coextensive
with one. A difference belongs necessarily to whatever has it, but is neither a
natural kind nor coextensive with one.
ACCIDENT, DEFINITION, PRAEDICAMENTA, PROPRIUM. P.V.S. predicate.GRAMMAR,
LOGICAL SUBJECT. predicate, projectible.GRUE PARADOX. predicate calculus.FORMAL
LOGIC. predicate hierarchy.HIERARCHY. predicate logic.FORMAL LOGIC. predication.QUALITIES.
predication, ‘is’ of.IS. predicative property.TYPE THEORY.
prediction.PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. prediction paradox.PARADOX. preemptive
cause.CAUSATION. preestablished harmony.LEIBNIZ, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND.
preexistence, existence of the individual soul or psyche prior to its current
embodiment, when the soul or psyche is taken to be separable and capable of
existing independently from its embodiment. The current embodiment is then
often described as a reincarnation of the soul. Plato’s Socrates refers to such
a doctrine several times in the dialogues, notably in the myth of Er in Book X
of the Republic. The doctrine is distinguished from two other teachings about
the soul: creationism, which holds that the individual human soul is directly created
by God, and traducianism, which held that just as body begets body in
biological generation, so the soul of the new human being is begotten by the
parental soul. In Hinduism, the cycle of reincarnations represents the period
of estrangement and trial for the soul or Atman before it achieves release
(moksha). F.J.C. preanalytic preexistence 732
732 preface paradox pre-Socratics 733 preface paradox.SEMANTIC
PARADOXES. preference.DECISION THEORY. preference logics.DECISION THEORY.
preference satisfaction utilitarianism.HARE. prehension.WHITEHEAD.
premise.ARGUMENT. premise, major.SYLLOGISM. premise, minor.SYLLOGISM. prenex
normal form.NORMAL FORM. prescriptive definition.DEFINITION. prescriptive
meaning.MEANING. prescriptivism, the theory that evaluative judgments
necessarily have prescriptive meaning. Associated with noncognitivism and moral
antirealism, prescriptivism holds that moral language is such that, if you say
that you think one ought to do a certain kind of act, and yet you are not
committed to doing that kind of act in the relevant circumstances, then you
either spoke insincerely or are using the word ‘ought’ in a less than
full-blooded sense. Prescriptivism owes its stature to Hare. One of his
innovations is the distinction between “secondarily evaluative” and “primarily
evaluative” words. The prescriptive meaning of secondarily evaluative words,
such as ‘soft-hearted’ or ‘chaste’, may vary significantly while their
descriptive meanings stay relatively constant. Hare argues the reverse for the
primarily evaluative words ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘ought’, and
‘must’. For example, some people assign to ‘wrong’ the descriptive meaning
‘forbidden by God’, others assign it the descriptive meaning ‘causes social
conflict’, and others give it different descriptive meanings; but since all use
‘wrong’ with the same prescriptive meaning, they are using the same concept. In
part to show how moral judgments can be prescriptive and yet have the same
logical relations as indicative sentences, Hare distinguished between phrastics
and neustics. The phrastic, or content, can be the same in indicative and
prescriptive sentences; e.g., ‘Sam’s leaving’ is the phrastic not only of the
indicative ‘Sam will leave’ but also of the prescription ‘Sam ought to leave’.
Hare’s Language of Morals (1952) specified that the neustic indicates mood,
i.e., whether the sentence is indicative, imperative, interrogative, etc.
However, in an article in Mind (1989) and in Sorting Out Ethics (1997), he used
‘neustic’ to refer to the sign of subscription, and ‘tropic’ to refer to the
sign of mood. Prescriptivity is especially important if moral judgments are
universalizable. For then we can employ golden rule–style moral reasoning. EMOTIVISM, ETHICS, HARE, UNIVERSALIZABILITY.
B.W.H. present-aim theory.PARFIT. pre-Socratics, the early Greek philosophers
who were not influenced by Socrates. (Generally they lived before Socrates, but
some are contemporary with him or even younger.) The classification (though not
the term) goes back to Aristotle, who saw Socrates’ humanism and emphasis on
ethical issues as a watershed in the history of philosophy. Aristotle rightly
noted that philosophers prior to Socrates had stressed natural philosophy and
cosmology rather than ethics. He credited them with discovering material
principles and moving causes of natural events, but he criticized them for
failing to stress structural elements of things (formal causes) and values or
purposes (final causes). Unfortunately, no writing of any pre-Socratic survives
in more than a fragmentary form, and evidence of their views is thus often
indirect, based on reports or criticisms of later writers. In order to
reconstruct pre-Socratic thought, scholars have sought to collect testimonies
of ancient sources and to identify quotations from the preSocratics in those
sources. As modern research has revealed flaws in the interpretations of
ancient witnesses, it has become a principle of exegesis to base
reconstructions of their views on the actual words of the pre-Socratics
themselves wherever possible. Because of the fragmentary and derivative nature
of our evidence, even basic principles of a philosopher’s system sometimes
remain controversial; nevertheless, we can say that thanks to modern methods of
historiography, there are many points we understand better than ancient
witnesses who are our secondary sources. Our best ancient secondary source is
Aristotle, who lived soon after the pre-Socratics and had access to most of
their writings. He interprets his predecessors from the standpoint of his own
theory; but any historian must interpret philosophers in light of some
theoretical background. Since we have extensive writings of Aristotle, we 733 pre-Socratics pre-Socratics 734 understand
his system and can filter out his own prejudices. His colleague Theophrastus
was the first professional historian of philosophy. Adopting Aristotle’s
general framework, he systematically discussed pre-Socratic theories.
Unfortunately his work itself is lost, but many fragments and summaries of
parts of it remain. Indeed, virtually all ancient witnesses writing after
Theophrastus depend on him for their general understanding of the early
philosophers, sometimes by way of digests of his work. When biography became an
important genre in later antiquity, biographers collected facts, anecdotes,
slanders, chronologies (often based on crude a priori assumptions), lists of
book titles, and successions of school directors, which provide potentially
valuable information. By reconstructing ancient theories, we can trace the
broad outlines of pre-Socratic development with some confidence. The first
philosophers were the Milesians, philosophers of Miletus on the Ionian coast of
Asia Minor, who in the sixth century B.C. broke away from mythological modes of
explanation by accounting for all phenomena, even apparent prodigies of nature,
by means of simple physical hypotheses. Aristotle saw the Milesians as material
monists, positing a physical substrate – of water, or the apeiron, or air; but
their material source was probably not a continuing substance that underlies
all changes as Aristotle thought, but rather an original stuff that was
transformed into different stuffs. Pythagoras migrated from Ionia to southern
Italy, founding a school of Pythagoreans who believed that souls transmigrated
and that number was the basis of all reality. Because Pythagoras and his early
followers did not publish anything, it is difficult to trace their development
and influence in detail. Back in Ionia, Heraclitus criticized Milesian
principles because he saw that if substances changed into one another, the
process of transformation was more important than the substances that appeared
in the cycle of changes. He thus chose the unstable substance fire as his
material principle and stressed the unity of opposites. Parmenides and the
Eleatic School criticized the notion of notbeing that theories of physical
transformations seemed to presuppose. One cannot even conceive of or talk of
not-being; hence any conception that presupposes not-being must be ruled out.
But the basic notions of coming-to-be, differentiation, and indeed change in
general presuppose not-being, and thus must be rejected. Eleatic analysis leads
to the further conclusion, implicit in Parmenides, explicit in Melissus, that
there is only one substance, what-is. Since this substance does not come into
being or change in any way, nor does it have any internal differentiations, the
world is just a single changeless, homogeneous individual. Parmenides’ argument
seems to undermine the foundations of natural philosophy. After Parmenides
philosophers who wished to continue natural philosophy felt compelled to grant
that coming-to-be and internal differentiation of a given substance were
impossible. But in order to accommodate natural processes, they posited a
plurality of unchanging, homogeneous elements – the four elements of
Empedocles, the elemental stuffs of Anaxagoras, the atoms of Democritus – that
by arrangement and rearrangement could produce the cosmos and the things in it.
There is no real coming-to-be and perishing in the world since the ultimate
substances are everlasting; but some limited kind of change such as chemical
combination or mixture or locomotion could account for changing phenomena in
the world of experience. Thus the “pluralists” incorporated Eleatic principles
into their systems while rejecting the more radical implications of the Eleatic
critique. Pre-Socratic philosophers developed more complex systems as a
response to theoretical criticisms. They focused on cosmology and natural
philosophy in general, championing reason and nature against mythological
traditions. Yet the pre-Socratics have been criticized both for being too
narrowly scientific in interest and for not being scientific (experimental)
enough. While there is some justice in both criticisms, their interests showed
breadth as well as narrowness, and they at least made significant conceptual
progress in providing a framework for scientific and philosophical ideas. While
they never developed sophisticated theories of ethics, logic, epistemology, or
metaphysics, nor invented experimental methods of confirmation, they did
introduce the concepts that ultimately became fundamental in modern theories of
cosmic, biological, and cultural evolution, as well as in atomism, genetics,
and social contract theory. Because the Socratic revolution turned philosophy
in different directions, the pre-Socratic line died out. But the first
philosophers supplied much inspiration for the sophisticated fourthcentury
systems of Plato and Aristotle as well as the basic principles of the great
Hellenistic schools, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Skepticism. ELEATIC SCHOOL, IONIAN PHILOS 734 OPHY, MILESIANS, PARMENIDES, PYTHAGORAS.
D.W.G. presupposition, (1) a relation between sentences or statements, related
to but distinct from entailment and assertion; (2) what a speaker takes to be
understood in making an assertion. The first notion is semantic, the second
pragmatic. The semantic notion was introduced by Strawson in his attack on
Russell’s theory of descriptions, and perhaps anticipated by Frege. Strawson
argued that ‘The present king of France is bald’ does not entail ‘There is a
present king of France’ as Russell held, but instead presupposes it. Semantic
presupposition can be defined thus: a sentence or statement S presupposes a
sentence or statement SH provided S entails SH and the negation of S also
entails SH . SH is a condition of the truth or falsity of S. Thus, since ‘There
is a present king of France’ is false, ‘The present king of France is bald’ is
argued to be neither true nor false. So construed, presupposition is defined in
terms of, but is distinct from, entailment. It is also distinct from assertion,
since it is viewed as a precondition of the truth or falsity of what is
asserted. The pragmatic conception does not appeal to truth conditions, but
instead contrasts what a speaker presupposes and what that speaker asserts in
making an utterance. Thus, someone who utters ‘The present king of France is
bald’ presupposes – believes and believes that the audience believes – that
there is a present king of France, and asserts that this king is bald. So
conceived, presuppositions are beliefs that the speaker takes for granted; if
these beliefs are false, the utterance will be inappropriate in some way, but
it does not follow that the sentence uttered lacks a truth-value. These two
notions of presupposition are logically independent. On the semantic
characterization, presupposition is a relation between sentences or statements
requiring that there be truth-value gaps. On the pragmatic characterization, it
is speakers rather than sentences or statements that have presuppositions; no
truth-value gaps are required. Many philosophers and linguists have argued for
treating what have been taken to be cases of semantic presupposition, including
the one discussed above, as pragmatic phenomena. Some have denied that semantic
presuppositions exist. If not, intuitions about presupposition do not support
the claims that natural languages have truth-value gaps and that we need a
three-valued logic to represent the semantics of natural language adequately.
Presupposition is also distinct from implicature. If someone reports that he
has just torn his coat and you say, “There’s a tailor shop around the corner,”
you conversationally implicate that the shop is open. This is not a semantic
presupposition because if it is false that the shop is open, there is no
inclination to say that your assertion was neither true nor false. It is not a pragmatic
presupposition because it is not something you believe the hearer believes.
IMPLICATION, IMPLICATURE, MANY-VALUED LOGIC.
R.B. pretheoretical, independent of theory. More specifically, a proposition is
pretheoretical, according to some philosophers, if and only if it does not
depend for its plausibility or implausibility on theoretical considerations or
considerations of theoretical analysis. The term ‘preanalytic’ is often used
synonymously with ‘pretheoretical’, but the former is more properly paired with
analysis rather than with theory. Some philosophers characterize pretheoretical
propositions as “intuitively” plausible or implausible. Such propositions, they
hold, can regulate philosophical theorizing as follows: in general, an adequate
philosophical theory should not conflict with intuitively plausible
propositions (by implying intuitively implausible propositions), and should
imply intuitively plausible propositions. Some philosophers grant that
theoretical considerations can override “intuitions” – in the sense of
intuitively plausible propositions – when overall theoretical coherence (or
reflective equilibrium) is thereby enhanced.
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY, INTUITION, METAPHILOSOPHY, ORDINARY LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY,
PREANALYTIC, REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM. P.K.M. Price, Richard (1723–91), Welsh
Dissenting minister, actuary, and moral philosopher. His main work, A Review of
the Principal Question in Morals (1758), is a defense of rationalism in ethics.
He argued that the understanding immediately perceives simple, objective, moral
qualities of actions. The resulting intuitive knowledge of moral truths is
accompanied by feelings of approval and disapproval responsible for moral
motivation. He also wrote influential papers on life expectancy, public finance,
and annuities; communicated to the Royal Society the paper by his deceased
friend Thomas Bayes containing Bayes’s theorem; and defended the American and
French revolutions. Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France is a
response to one of Price’s sermons. J.W.A. presupposition Price, Richard
735 735 Prichard, H(arold) A(rthur)
(1871–1947), English philosopher and founder of the Oxford school of
intuitionism. An Oxford fellow and professor, he published Kant’s Theory of
Knowledge (1909) and numerous essays, collected in Moral Obligation (1949,
1968) and in Knowledge and Perception (1950). Prichard was a realist in his
theory of knowledge, following Cook Wilson. He held that through direct
perception in concrete cases we obtain knowledge of universals and of necessary
connections between them, and he elaborated a theory about our knowledge of
material objects. In “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?” (1912) he
argued powerfully that it is wrong to think that a general theory of obligation
is possible. No single principle captures the various reasons why obligatory
acts are obligatory. Only by direct perception in particular cases can we see
what we ought to do. With this essay Prichard founded the Oxford school of
intuitionism, carried on by, among others, Ross. ETHICS, ROSS. J.B.S. Priestley, Joseph
(1733–1804), British experimental chemist, theologian, and philosopher. In 1774
he prepared oxygen by heating mercuric oxide. Although he continued to favor the
phlogiston hypothesis, his work did much to discredit that idea. He discovered
many gases, including ammonia, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and
hydrochloric acid. While studying the layer of carbon dioxide over a brewing
vat, he conceived the idea of dissolving it under pressure. The resulting “soda
water” was famous throughout Europe. His Essay on Government (1768) influenced
Jefferson’s ideas in the American Declaration of Independence. The essay also
contributed to the utilitarianism of Bentham, supplying the phrase “the
greatest happiness of the greatest number.” Priestley modified the
associationism of Locke, Hume, and Hartley, holding that a sharp distinction
must be drawn between the results of association in forming natural
propensities and its effects on the development of moral ideas. On the basis of
this distinction, he argued, against Hume, that differences in individual moral
sentiments are results of education, through the association of ideas, a view
anticipated by Helvétius. Priestley served as minister to anti-Establishment congregations.
His unpopular stress on individual freedom resulted in his move to
Pennsylvania, where he spent his last years. R.E.B. prima facie duty.DUTY,
ROSS. prima facie evidence.EVIDENCE. prima facie justification.JUSTIFICATION.
prima facie right.RIGHTS. primarily valuative word.PRESCRIPTIVISM. primary
process.FREUD. primary qualities.QUALITIES. primary rule.HART. primary
substance.ARISTOTLE. prime matter.HYLOMORPHISM. prime mover, the original
source and cause of motion (change) in the universe – an idea that was
developed by Aristotle and became important in Judaic, Christian, and Islamic
thought about God. According to Aristotle, something that is in motion (a
process of change) is moving from a state of potentiality to a state of
actuality. For example, water that is being heated is potentially hot and in
the process of becoming actually hot. If a cause of change must itself actually
be in the state that it is bringing about, then nothing can produce motion in
itself; whatever is in motion is being moved by another. For otherwise
something would be both potentially and actually in the same state. Thus, the
water that is potentially hot can become hot only by being changed by something
else (the fire) that is actually hot. The prime mover, the original cause of
motion, must itself, therefore, not be in motion; it is an unmoved mover.
Aquinas and other theologians viewed God as the prime mover, the ultimate cause
of all motion. Indeed, for these theologians the argument to establish the
existence of a first mover, itself unmoved, was a principal argument used in
their efforts to prove the existence of God on the basis of reason. Many modern
thinkers question the argument for a first mover on the ground that it does not
seem to be logically impossible that the motion of one thing be caused by a
second thing whose motion in turn is caused by a third thing, and so on without
end. Defenders of the argument claim that it presupposes a distinction between
two different causal series, one temporal and one simultaneous, and argue that
the objection succeeds only against a temporal causal series. Prichard,
H(arold) A(rthur) prime mover 736
736 AGENT CAUSATION, AQUINAS,
ARISTOTLE. W.L.R. primitive symbol.LOGISTIC SYSTEM. principium individuationis,
the cause (or basis) of individuality in individuals; what makes something
individual as opposed to universal, e.g., what makes the cat Minina individual
and thus different from the universal, cat. Questions regarding the principle
of individuation were first raised explicitly in the early Middle Ages.
Classical authors largely ignored individuation; their ontological focus was on
the problem of universals. The key texts that originated the discussion of the
principle of individuation are found in Boethius. Between Boethius and 1150,
individuation was always discussed in the context of more pressing issues,
particularly the problem of universals. After 1150, individuation slowly
emerged as a focus of attention, so that by the end of the thirteenth century
it had become an independent subject of discussion, especially in Aquinas and
Duns Scotus. Most early modern philosophers conceived the problem of
individuation epistemically rather than metaphysically; they focused on the
discernibility of individuals rather than the cause of individuation
(Descartes). With few exceptions (Karl Popper), the twentieth century has
followed this epistemic approach (P. F. Strawson). INDIVIDUATION, METAPHYSICS. J.J.E.G.
principle of bivalence, the principle that any (significant) statement is
either true or false. It is often confused with the principle of excluded
middle. Letting ‘Tp’ stand for ‘p is true’ and ‘Tp’ for ‘p is false’ and
otherwise using standard logical notation, bivalence is ‘Tp 7 T-p’ and excluded
middle is ‘T (p 7 -p)’. That they are different principles is shown by the fact
that in probability theory, where ‘Tp’ can be expressed as ‘Pr(p) % 1’,
bivalence ‘(Pr (p) % 1) 7 (Pr (~p) % 1)’ is not true for all values of p – e.g.
it is not true where ‘p’ stands for ‘given a fair toss of a fair die, the
result will be a six’ (a statement with a probability of 1 /6, where -p has a
probability of 5 /6) – but excluded middle ‘Pr(p 7 -p) % 1’ is true for all
definite values of p, including the probability case just given. If we allow that
some (significant) statements have no truth-value or probability and
distinguish external negation ‘Tp’ from internal negation ‘T-p’, we can
distinguish bivalence and excluded middle from the principle of
non-contradiction, namely, ‘-(Tp • T-p)’, which is equivalent to ‘-Tp 7 -T-p’.
Standard truth-functional logic sees no difference between ‘p’ and ‘Tp’, or
‘-Tp’ and ‘T-p’, and thus is unable to distinguish the three principles. Some
philosophers of logic deny there is such a difference. MANY-VALUED LOGIC, PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC,
VAGUENESS. R.P. principle of charity.MEANING. principle of comprehension.SET
THEORY. principle of concretion.WHITEHEAD. principle of conservation.PHILOSOPHY
OF SCIENCE. principle of contradiction, also called principle of non-contradiction,
the principle that a statement and its negation cannot both be true. It can be
distinguished from the principle of bivalence, and given certain controversial
assumptions, from the principle of excluded middle; but in truth-functional
logic all three are regarded as equivalent. Outside of formal logic the
principle of (non-)contradiction is best expressed as Aristotle expresses it:
“Nothing can both be and not be at the same time in the same respect.” LAWS OF THOUGHT, PRINCIPLE OF BIVALENCE. R.P.
principle of determinism.MILL’S METHODS. principle of dominance.NEWCOMB’S
PARADOX. principle of double effect, the view that there is a morally relevant
difference between those consequences of our actions we intend and those we do
not intend but do still foresee. According to the principle, if increased
literacy means a higher suicide rate, those who work for education are not
guilty of driving people to kill themselves. A physician may give a patient
painkillers foreseeing that they will shorten his life, even though the use of
outright poisons is forbidden and the physician does not intend to shorten the
patient’s life. An army attacking a legitimate military target may accept as
inevitable, without intending to bring about, the deaths of a number of civilians.
Traditional moral theologians affirmed the existence of exceptionless
prohibitions such as primitive symbol principle of double effect 737 737 that against taking an innocent human
life, while using the principle of double effect to resolve hard cases and
avoid moral blind alleys. They held that one may produce a forbidden effect,
provided (1) one’s action also had a good effect, (2) one did not seek the bad
effect as an end or as a means, (3) one did not produce the good effect through
the bad effect, and (4) the good effect was important enough to outweigh the
bad one. Some contemporary philosophers and Roman Catholic theologians hold
that a modified version of the principle of double effect is the sole
justification of deadly deeds, even when the person killed is not innocent.
They drop any restriction on the causal sequence, so that (e.g.) it is
legitimate to cut off the head of an unborn child to save the mother’s life.
But they oppose capital punishment on the ground that those who inflict it require
the death of the convict as part of their plan. They also play down the fourth
requirement, on the ground that the weighing of incommensurable goods it
requires is impossible. Consequentialists deny the principle of double effect,
as do those for whom the crucial distinction is between what we cause by our
actions and what just happens. In the most plausible view, the principle does
not presuppose exceptionless moral prohibitions, only something stronger than
prima facie duties. It is easier to justify an oblique evasion of a moral
requirement than a direct violation, even if direct violations are sometimes
permissible. So understood, the principle is a guide to prudence rather than a
substitute for it. ETHICS, EUTHANASIA,
INTENTION, JUST WAR THEORY. P.E.D. principle of excluded middle, the principle
that the disjunction of any (significant) statement with its negation is always
true; e.g., ‘Either there is a tree over 500 feet tall or it is not the case
that there is such a tree’. The principle is often confused with the principle
of bivalence. PRINCIPLE OF BIVALENCE.
R.P. principle of generic consistency.UNIVERSALIZABILITY. principle of
indifference, a rule for assigning a probability to an event based on “parity
of reasons.” According to the principle, when the “weight of reasons” favoring
one event is equal to the “weight of reasons” favoring another, the two events
should be assigned the same probability. When there are n mutually exclusive
and collectively exhaustive events, and there is no reason to favor one over
another, then we should be “indifferent” and the n events should each be
assigned probability 1/n (the events are equiprobable), according to the
principle. This principle is usually associated with the names Bernoulli (Ars
Conjectandi, 1713) and Laplace (Théorie analytique des probabilités, 1812), and
was so called by J. M. Keynes (A Treatise on Probability, 1921). The principle
gives probability both a subjective (“degree of belief”) and a logical
(“partial logical entailment”) interpretation. One rationale for the principle
says that in ignorance, when no reasons favor one event over another, we should
assign equal probabilities. It has been countered that any assignment of
probabilities at all is a claim to some knowledge. Also, several seemingly
natural applications of the principle, involving non-linearly related
variables, have led to some mathematical contradictions, known as Bertrand’s
paradox, and pointed out by Keynes.
BERTRAND’S PARADOX, EQUIPROBABLE, KEYNES, LAPLACE, PROBABILITY. E.Ee.
principle of insufficient reason, the principle that if there is no sufficient
reason (or explanation) for something’s being (the case), then it will not be
(the case). Since the rise of modern probability theory, many have identified
the principle of insufficient reason with the principle of indifference (a rule
for assigning a probability to an event based on “parity of reasons”). The two
principles are closely related, but it is illuminating historically and
logically to view the principle of insufficient reason as the general principle
stated above (which is related to the principle of sufficient reason) and to
view the principle of indifference as a special case of the principle of
insufficient reason applying to probabilities. As Mach noted, the principle of
insufficient reason, thus conceived, was used by Archimedes to argue that a
lever with equal weights at equal distances from a central fulcrum would not
move, since if there is no sufficient reason why it should move one way or the
other, it would not move one way or the other. Philosophers from Anaximander to
Leibniz used the same principle to argue for various metaphysical theses. The
principle of indifference can be seen to be a special case of this principle of
insufficient reason applying to probabilities, if one reads the principle of
indifference as follows: when there are N mutually exclusive and exhaustive
events and there is no sufficient reason to believe that any one of them is
more probable than any other, principle of excluded middle principle of
insufficient reason 738 738 then no
one of them is more probable than any other (they are equiprobable). The idea
of “parity of reasons” associated with the principle of indifference is, in such
manner, related to the idea that there is no sufficient reason for favoring one
outcome over another. This is significant because the principle of insufficient
reason is logically equivalent to the more familiar principle of sufficient
reason (if something is [the case], then there is a sufficient reason for its
being [the case]) – which means that the principle of indifference is a logical
consequence of the principle of sufficient reason. If this is so, we can
understand why so many were inclined to believe the principle of indifference was
an a priori truth about probabilities, since it was an application to
probabilities of that most fundamental of all alleged a priori principles of
reasoning, the principle of sufficient reason. Nor should it surprise us that
the alleged a priori truth of the principle of indifference was as
controversial in probability theory as was the alleged a priori truth of the
principle of sufficient reason in philosophy generally. PRINCIPLES OF INDIFFERENCE, PROBABILITY. R.H.K.
principle of limited variety.MILL’S METHODS. principle of logical form.LOGICAL
FORM. principle of maximizing expected utility.NEWCOMB’S PARADOX. principle of
non-contradiction.PRINCIPLE OF CONTRADICTION. principle of parsimony.OCKHAM’S
RAZOR. principle of perfection.LEIBNIZ. principle of plenitude, the principle
that every genuine possibility is realized or actualized. This principle of the
“fullness of being” was named by A. O. Lovejoy, who showed that it was commonly
assumed throughout the history of Western science and philosophy, from Plato to
Plotinus (who associated it with inexhaustible divine productivity), through
Augustine and other medieval philosophers, to the modern rationalists (Spinoza
and Leibniz) and the Enlightenment. Lovejoy connected plenitude to the great
chain of being, the idea that the universe is a hierarchy of beings in which
every possible form is actualized. In the eighteenth century, the principle was
“temporalized”: every possible form of creature would be realized – not
necessarily at all times – but at some stage “in the fullness of time.” A clue
about the significance of plenitude lies in its connection to the principle of
sufficient reason (everything has a sufficient reason [cause or explanation]
for being or not being). Plenitude says that if there is no sufficient reason
for something’s not being (i.e., if it is genuinely possible), then it exists –
which is logically equivalent to the negative version of sufficient reason: if
something does not exist, then there is a sufficient reason for its not being.
R.H.K. principle of proportionality.CAJETAN. principle of
self-determination.SELF-DETERMINATION. principle of subsidiarity.SUBSIDIARITY.
principle of sufficient reason.LEIBNIZ, PRINCIPLE OF INSUFFICIENT REASON.
principle of the anomalism of the mental.PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. principle of the
conservation of matter.PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. principle of
uncertainty.PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, QUANTUM MECHANICS. principle of
universality.UNIVERSALIZABILITY. principle of universalizability.
UNIVERSALIZABILITY.
principle of unlimited comprehension.SET THEORY. principle of
utility.UTILITARIANISM. principle of verifiability, a claim about what
meaningfulness is: at its simplest, a sentence is meaningful provided there is
a method for verifying it. Therefore, if a sentence has no such method, i.e.,
if it does not have associated with it a way of telling whether it is
conclusively true or conclusively false, then it is meaningless. The purpose
for which this verificationist principle was originally introduced was to
demarcate sentences that are “apt to make a significant statement of fact” from
“nonsensical” or “pseudo-” sentences. It is part of the emotive theory of
content, e.g., that moral discourse is not (literally, cognitively) meaningful,
and therefore, not facprinciple of limited variety principle of verifiability
739 739 tual. And, with the
verifiability principle, the central European logical positivists of the 1920s
hoped to strip “metaphysical discourse” of its pretensions of factuality. For
them, whether there is a reality external to the mind, as the realists claim,
or whether all reality is made up of “ideas” or “appearances,” as idealists
claim, is a “meaningless pseudo-problem.” The verifiability principle proved
impossible to frame in a form that did not admit all metaphysical sentences as
meaningful. (Further, it casts doubt on its own status. How was it to be
verified?) So, e.g., in the first edition of Language, Truth and Logic, Ayer
proposed that a sentence is verifiable, and consequently meaningful, if some
observation sentence can be deduced from it in conjunction with certain other
premises, without being deducible from those other premises alone. It follows
that any metaphysical sentence M is meaningful since ‘if M, then O’ always is
an appropriate premise, where O is an observation sentence. In the preface to
the second edition, Ayer offered a more sophisticated account: M is directly
verifiable provided it is an observation sentence or it entails, in conjunction
with certain observation sentences, some observation sentence that does not
follow from them alone. And M is indirectly verifiable provided it entails, in
conjunction with certain other premises, some directly verifiable sentence that
does not follow from those other premises alone and these additional premises
are either analytic or directly verifiable (or are independently indirectly
verifiable). The new verifiability principle is then that all and only
sentences directly or indirectly verifiable are “literally meaningful.”
Unfortunately, Ayer’s emendation admits every nonanalytic sentence. Let M be
any metaphysical sentence and O1 and O2 any pair of observation sentences
logically independent of each other. Consider sentence A: ‘either O1 or (not-M
and not-O2)’. Conjoined with O2, A entails O1. But O2 alone does not entail O1.
So A is directly verifiable. Therefore, since M conjoined with A entails O1,
which is not entailed by A alone, M is indirectly verifiable. Various repairs
have been attempted; none has succeeded.
LOGICAL POSITIVISM, MEANING, VERIFICATIONISM, VIENNA CIRCLE. E.L.
priority, conceptual.DEPENDENCE. prior probability.BAYES’S THEOREM. prisca
theologica.FICINO. prisoner’s dilemma, a problem in game theory, and more
broadly the theory of rational choice, that takes its name from a familiar sort
of pleabargaining situation: Two prisoners (Robin and Carol) are interrogated
separately and offered the same deal: If one of them confesses (“defects”) and
the other does not, the defector will be given immunity from prosecution and
the other will get a stiff prison sentence. If both confess, both will get
moderate prison terms. If both remain silent (cooperate with each other), both
will get light prison terms for a lesser offense. There are thus four possible
outcomes: (1) Robin confesses and gets immunity, while Carol is silent and gets
a stiff sentence. (2) Both are silent and get light sentences. (3) Both confess
and get moderate sentences. (4) Robin is silent and gets a stiff sentence,
while Carol confesses and gets immunity. Assume that for Robin, (1) would be
the best outcome, followed by (2), (3), and (4), in that order. Assume that for
Carol, the best outcome is (4), followed by (2), (3), and (1). Each prisoner
then reasons as follows: “My confederate will either confess or remain silent.
If she confesses, I must do likewise, in order to avoid the ‘sucker’s payoff’
(immunity for her, a stiff sentence for me). If she remains silent, then I must
confess in order to get immunity – the best outcome for me. Thus, no matter
what my confederate does, I must confess.” Under those conditions, both will
confess, effectively preventing each other from achieving anything better than
the option they both rank as only third-best, even though they agree that
option (2) is second-best. This illustrative story (attributed to A. W. Tucker)
must not be allowed to obscure the fact that many sorts of social interactions
have the same structure. In general, whenever any two parties must make
simultaneous or independent choices over a range of options that has the ordinal
payoff structure described in the plea bargaining story, they are in a
prisoner’s dilemma. Diplomats, negotiators, buyers, and sellers regularly find
themselves in such situations. They are called iterated prisoner’s dilemmas if
the same parties repeatedly face the same choices with each other. Moreover,
there are analogous problems of cooperation and conflict at the level of
manyperson interactions: so-called n-person prisoner’s diemmas or free rider
problems. The provision of public goods provides an example. Suppose there is a
public good, such as clean air, priority, conceptual prisoner’s dilemma
740 740 privacy, epistemic privation
741 national defense, or public radio, which we all want. Suppose that is can
be provided only by collective action, at some cost to each of the
contributors, but that we do not have to have a contribution from everyone in
order to get it. Assume that we all prefer having the good to not having it,
and that the best outcome for each of us would be to have it without cost to
ourselves. So each of us reasons as follows: “Other people will either
contribute enough to produce the good by themselves, or they will not. If they
do, then I can have it cost-free (the best option for me) and thus I should not
contribute. But if others do not contribute enough to produce the good by
themselves, and if the probability is very low that my costly contribution
would make the difference between success and failure, once again I should not
contribute.” Obviously, if we all reason in this way, we will not get the
public good we want. Such problems of collective action have been noticed by
philosophers since Plato. Their current nomenclature, rigorous game-theoretic
formulation, empirical study, and systematic philosophical development, however,
has occurred since 1950. GAME THEORY,
SOCIAL CHOICE THEORY. L.C.B. privacy, epistemic.EPISTEMIC PRIVACY. private
language argument, an argument designed to show that there cannot be a language
that only one person can speak – a language that is essentially private, that
no one else can in principle understand. In addition to its intrinsic interest,
the private language argument is relevant to discussions of linguistic rules
and linguistic meaning, behaviorism, solipsism, and phenomenalism. The argument
is closely associated with Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (1958).
The exact structure of the argument is controversial; this account should be
regarded as a standard one, but not beyond dispute. The argument begins with
the supposition that a person assigns signs to sensations, where these are
taken to be private to the person who has them, and attempts to show that this
supposition cannot be sustained because no standards for the correct or
incorrect application of the same sign to a recurrence of the same sensation
are possible. Thus Wittgenstein supposes that he undertakes to keep a diary
about the recurrence of a certain sensation; he associates it with the sign
‘S’, and marks ‘S’ on a calendar every day he has that sensation. Wittgenstein
finds the nature of the association of the sign and sensation obscure, on the
ground that ‘S’ cannot be given an ordinary definition (this would make its
meaning publicly accessible) or even an ostensive definition. He further argues
that there is no difference between correct and incorrect entries of ‘S’ on
subsequent days. The initial sensation with which the sign ‘S’ was associated
is no longer present, and so it cannot be compared with a subsequent sensation
taken to be of the same kind. He could at best claim to remember the nature of
the initial sensation, and judge that it is of the same kind as today’s. But
since the memory cannot confirm its own accuracy, there is no possible test of
whether he remembers the initial association of sign and sensation right today.
Consequently there is no criterion for the correct reapplication of the sign
‘S’. Thus we cannot make sense of the notion of correctly reapplying ‘S’, and
cannot make sense of the notion of a private language. The argument described
appears to question only the claim that one could have terms for private mental
occurrences, and may not seem to impugn a broader notion of a private language
whose expressions are not restricted to signs for sensations. Advocates of
Wittgenstein’s argument would generalize it and claim that the focus on
sensations simply highlights the absence of a distinction between correct and
incorrect reapplications of words. A language with terms for publicly
accessible objects would, if private to its user, still be claimed to lack
criteria for the correct reapplication of such terms. This broader notion of a
private language would thus be argued to be equally incoherent. PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, PROBLEM OF OTHER
MINDS, WITTGENSTEIN. R.B. privation, a lack of something that it is natural or
good to possess. The term is closely associated with the idea that evil is
itself only a lack of good, privatio boni. In traditional theistic religions
everything other than God is created by God out of nothing, creation ex nihilo.
Since, being perfect, God would create only what is good, the entire original
creation and every creature from the most complex to the simplest are created
entirely good. The original creation contains no evil whatever. What then is
evil and how does it enter the world? The idea that evil is a privation of good
does not mean, e.g., that a rock has some degree of evil because it lacks such
good qualities as consciousness and courage. A thing has some degree of evil
only if it lacks some good that is 741
privileged access privileged access 742 proper for that thing to possess. In
the original creation each created thing possessed the goods proper to the sort
of thing it was. According to Augustine, evil enters the world when creatures
with free will abandon the good above themselves for some lower, inferior good.
Human beings, e.g., become evil to the extent that they freely turn from the
highest good (God) to their own private goods, becoming proud, selfish, and
wicked, thus deserving the further evils of pain and punishment. One of the
problems for this explanation of the origin of evil is to account for why an
entirely good creature would use its freedom to turn from the highest good to a
lesser good.
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION.
W.L.R. privileged access, special first-person awareness of the contents of
one’s own mind. Since Descartes, many philosophers have held that persons are
aware of the occurrent states of their own minds in a way distinct from both their
mode of awareness of physical objects and their mode of awareness of the mental
states of others. Cartesians view such apprehension as privileged in several
ways. First, it is held to be immediate, both causally and epistemically. While
knowledge of physical objects and their properties is acquired via spatially
intermediate causes, knowledge of one’s own mental states involves no such
causal chains. And while beliefs about physical properties are justified by
appeal to ways objects appear in sense experience, beliefs about the properties
of one’s own mental states are not justified by appeal to properties of a
different sort. I justify my belief that the paper on which I write is white by
pointing out that it appears white in apparently normal light. By contrast, my
belief that white appears in my visual experience seems to be self-justifying.
Second, Cartesians hold that first-person apprehension of occurrent mental
contents is epistemically privileged in being absolutely certain. Absolute
certainty includes infallibility, incorrigibility, and indubitability. That a
judgment is infallible means that it cannot be mistaken; its being believed
entails its being true (even though judgments regarding occurrent mental
contents are not necessary truths). That it is incorrigible means that it
cannot be overridden or corrected by others or by the subject himself at a
later time. That it is indubitable means that a subject can never have grounds
for doubting it. Philosophers sometimes claim also that a subject is omniscient
with regard to her own occurrent mental states: if a property appears within
her experience, then she knows this. Subjects’ privileged access to the
immediate contents of their own minds can be held to be necessary or
contingent. Regarding corrigibility, for example, proponents of the stronger
view hold that first-person reports of occurrent mental states could never be
overridden by conflicting evidence, such as conflicting readings of brain
states presumed to be correlated with the mental states in question. They point
out that knowledge of such correlations would itself depend on first-person
reports of mental states. If a reading of my brain indicates that I am in pain,
and I sincerely claim not to be, then the law linking brain states of that type
with pains must be mistaken. Proponents of the weaker view hold that, while
persons are currently the best authorities as to the occurrent contents of
their own minds, evidence such as conflicting readings of brain states could
eventually override such authority, despite the dependence of the evidence on
earlier firstperson reports. Weaker views on privileged access may also deny
infallibility on more general grounds. In judging anything, including an
occurrent mental state, to have a particular property P, it seems that I must
remember which property P is, and memory appears to be always fallible. Even if
such judgments are always fallible, however, they may be more immediately
justified than other sorts of judgments. Hence there may still be privileged
access, but of a weaker sort. In the twentieth century, Ryle attacked the idea
of privileged access by analyzing introspection, awareness of what one is
thinking or doing, in terms of behavioral dispositions, e.g. dispositions to
give memory reports of one’s mental states when asked to do so. But while
behaviorist or functional analyses of some states of mind may be plausible, for
instance analyses of cognitive states such as beliefs, accounts in these terms
of occurrent states such as sensations or images are far less plausible. A more
influential attack on stronger versions of privileged access was mounted by
Wilfrid Sellars. According to him, we must be trained to report
non-inferentially on properties of our sense experience by first learning to
respond with whole systems of concepts to public, physical objects. Before I
can learn to report a red sense impression, I must learn the system of color
concepts and the logical relations among them by learning to respond to colored
objects. Hence, knowledge of my own mental states cannot be the firm basis from
which I progress to other knowledge.
742 Even if this order of concept acquisition is determined necessarily,
it still may be that persons’ access to their own mental states is privileged
in some of the ways indicated, once the requisite concepts have been acquired.
Beliefs about one’s own occurrent states of mind may still be more immediately
justified than beliefs about physical properties, for example. CERTAINTY, FOUNDATIONALISM, IMMEDIACY,
PERCEPTION. A.H.G. pro attitude, a favorable disposition toward an object or
state of affairs. Although some philosophers equate pro attitudes with desires,
the expression is more often intended to cover a wide range of conative states
of mind including wants, feelings, wishes, values, and principles. My regarding
a certain course of action open to me as morally required and my regarding it
as a source of selfish satisfaction equally qualify as pro attitudes toward the
object of that action. It is widely held that intentional action, or, more
generally, acting for reasons, is necessarily based, in part, on one or more
pro attitudes. If I go to the store in order to buy some turnips, then, in
addition to my regarding my store-going as conducive to turnip buying, I must
have some pro attitude toward turnip buying.
ACTION THEORY, PRACTICAL REASONING. J.F.H. probabilism.MEDINA.
probabilistic automaton.COMPUTER THEORY, SELF-REPRODUCING AUTOMATON.
probabilistic causation.CAUSATION. probabilistic disposition.DISPOSITION. probabilistic
independence.PROBABILITY. probabilistic law.CAUSAL LAW. probability, a
numerical value that can attach to items of various kinds (e.g., propositions,
events, and kinds of events) that is a measure of the degree to which they may
or should be expected – or the degree to which they have “their own
disposition,” i.e., independently of our psychological expectations – to be
true, to occur, or to be exemplified (depending on the kind of item the value
attaches to). There are both multiple interpretations of probability and two
main kinds of theories of probability: abstract formal calculi and
interpretations of the calculi. An abstract formal calculus axiomatically
characterizes formal properties of probability functions, where the arguments
of the function are often thought of as sets, or as elements of a Boolean
algebra. In application, the nature of the arguments of a probability function,
as well as the meaning of probability, are given by interpretations of
probability. The most famous axiomatization is Kolmogorov’s (Foundations of the
Theory of Probability, 1933). The three axioms for probability functions Pr
are: (1) Pr(X) M 0 for all X; (2) Pr(X) % 1 if X is necessary (e.g., a
tautology if a proposition, a necessary event if an event, and a “universal
set” if a set); and (3) Pr(X 7 Y) % Pr(X) ! Pr(Y) (where ‘7’ can mean, e.g.,
logical disjunction, or set-theoretical union) if X and Y are mutually
exclusive (X & Y is a contradiction if they are propositions, they can’t
both happen if they are events, and their set-theoretical intersection is empty
if they are sets). Axiom (3) is called finite additivity, which is sometimes
generalized to countable additivity, involving infinite disjunctions of
propositions, or infinite unions of sets. Conditional probability, Pr(X/Y) (the
probability of X “given” or “conditional on” Y), is defined as the quotient
Pr(X & Y)/Pr(Y). An item X is said to be positively or negatively
statistically (or probabilistically) correlated with an item Y according to
whether Pr(X/Y) is greater than or less than Pr(X/-Y) (where -Y is the negation
of a proposition Y, or the non-occurrence of an event Y, or the set-theoretical
complement of a set Y); in the case of equality, X is said to be statistically
(or probabilistically) independent of Y. All three of these probabilistic
relations are symmetric, and sometimes the term ‘probabilistic relevance’ is
used instead of ‘correlation’. From the axioms, familiar theorems can be
proved: e.g., (4) Pr(-X) % 1 – Pr(X); (5) Pr(X 7 Y) % Pr(X) ! Pr(Y) – Pr(X
& Y) (for all X and Y); and (6) (a simple version of Bayes’s theorem)
Pr(X/Y) % Pr(Y/X)Pr(X)/Pr(Y). Thus, an abstract formal calculus of probability
allows for calculation of the probabilities of some items from the
probabilities of others. The main interpretations of probability include the
classical, relative frequency, propensity, logical, and subjective
interpretations. According to the classical interpretation, the probability of
an event, e.g. of heads on a coin toss, is equal to the ratio of the number of
“equipossibilities” (or equiprobable events) favorable to the event in question
to the total number of relevant equipossibilities. On the relative frequency
interpretation, developed by Venn (The Logic of Chance, 1866) and Reichenbach (The
Theory of Probability, pro attitude probability 743 743 1935), probability attaches to sets of
events within a “reference class.” Where W is the reference class, and n is the
number of events in W, and m is the number of events in (or of kind) X, within
W, then the probability of X, relative to W, is m/n. For various conceptual and
technical reasons, this kind of “actual finite relative frequency”
interpretation has been refined into various infinite and hypothetical infinite
relative frequency accounts, where probability is defined in terms of limits of
series of relative frequencies in finite (nested) populations of increasing
sizes, sometimes involving hypothetical infinite extensions of an actual
population. The reasons for these developments involve, e.g.: the artificial
restriction, for finite populations, of probabilities to values of the form
i/n, where n is the size of the reference class; the possibility of “mere
coincidence” in the actual world, where these may not reflect the true physical
dispositions involved in the relevant events; and the fact that probability is
often thought to attach to possibilities involving single events, while
probabilities on the relative frequency account attach to sets of events (this
is the “problem of the single case,” also called the “problem of the reference
class”). These problems also have inspired “propensity” accounts of
probability, according to which probability is a more or less primitive idea
that measures the physical propensity or disposition of a given kind of
physical situation to yield an outcome of a given type, or to yield a
“long-run” relative frequency of an outcome of a given type. A theorem of
probability proved by Jacob Bernoulli (Ars Conjectandi, 1713) and sometimes
called Bernoulli’s theorem or the weak law of large numbers, and also known as
the first limit theorem, is important for appreciating the frequency
interpretation. The theorem states, roughly, that in the long run, frequency
settles down to probability. For example, suppose the probability of a certain
coin’s landing heads on any given toss is 0.5, and let e be any number greater
than 0. Then the theorem implies that as the number of tosses grows without
bound, the probability approaches 1 that the frequency of heads will be within
e of 0.5. More generally, let p be the probability of an outcome O on a trial
of an experiment, and assume that this probability remains constant as the
experiment is repeated. After n trials, there will be a frequency, f n, of
trials yielding outcome O. The theorem says that for any numbers d and e
greater than 0, there is an n such that the probability (P) that _p–f n_ ‹ e is
within d of 1 (P ( 1–d). Bernoulli also showed how to calculate such n for
given values of d, e, and p. It is important to notice that the theorem
concerns probabilities, and not certainty, for a long-run frequency. Notice
also the assumption that the probability p of O remains constant as the
experiment is repeated, so that the outcomes on trials are probabilistically
independent of earlier outcomes. The kinds of interpretations of probability
just described are sometimes called “objective” or “statistical” or “empirical”
since the value of a probability, on these accounts, depends on what actually
happens, or on what actual given physical situations are disposed to produce –
as opposed to depending only on logical relations between the relevant events
(or propositions), or on what we should rationally expect to happen or what we
should rationally believe. In contrast to these accounts, there are the
“logical” and the “subjective” interpretations of probability. Carnap (“The Two
Concepts of Probability,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1945) has
marked this kind of distinction by calling the second concept probability1 and
the first probability2. According to the logical interpretation, associated
with Carnap ( Logical Foundations of Probability, 1950; and Continuum of
Inductive Methods, 1952), the probability of a proposition X given a
proposition Y is the “degree to which Y logically entails X.” Carnap developed
an ingenious and elaborate set of systems of logical probability, including,
e.g., separate systems depending on the degree to which one happens to be,
logically and rationally, sensitive to new information in the reevaluation of
probabilities. There is, of course, a connection between the ideas of logical
probability, rationality, belief, and belief revision. It is natural to
explicate the “logical-probabilistic” idea of the probability of X given Y as
the degree to which a rational person would believe X having come to learn Y
(taking account of background knowledge). Here, the idea of belief suggests a
subjective (sometimes called epistemic or partial belief or degree of belief)
interpretation of probability; and the idea of probability revision suggests
the concept of induction: both the logical and the subjective interpretations
of probability have been called “inductive probability” – a formal apparatus to
characterize rational learning from experience. The subjective interpretation
of probability, according to which the probability of a proposition is a
measure of one’s degree of belief in it, was developed by, e.g., Ramsey (“Truth
and Probability,” in his Foundations of Mathematics and Other Essays, 1926); Definetti
(“Foresight: Its Logical Laws, Its Subjective Sources,” 1937, transprobability
probability 744 744 lated by H.
Kyburg, Jr., in H. E. Smokler, Studies in Subjective Probability, 1964); and
Savage (The Foundations of Statistics, 1954). Of course, subjective probability
varies from person to person. Also, in order for this to be an interpretation
of probability, so that the relevant axioms are satisfied, not all persons can
count – only rational, or “coherent” persons should count. Some theorists have
drawn a connection between rationality and probabilistic degrees of belief in
terms of dispositions to set coherent betting odds (those that do not allow a
“Dutch book” – an arrangement that forces the agent to lose come what may),
while others have described the connection in more general decision-theoretic
terms. BAYES’s THEOREM, CARNAP, DUTCH
BOOK, INDUCTION, PROPENSITY, REICHENBACH. E.Ee. probability, prior.BAYES’s
THEOREM. probability function.BAYESIAN RATIONALITY. problematic judgment.KANT.
problematic modality.MODALITY. problem of evil.PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. problem
of induction. First stated by Hume, this problem concerns the logical basis of
inferences from observed matters of fact to unobserved matters of fact.
Although discussion often focuses upon predictions of future events (e.g., a
solar eclipse), the question applies also to inferences to past facts (e.g.,
the extinction of dinosaurs) and to present occurrences beyond the range of
direct observation (e.g., the motions of planets during daylight hours). Long
before Hume the ancient Skeptics had recognized that such inferences cannot be
made with certainty; they realized there can be no demonstrative (deductive)
inference, say, from the past and present to the future. Hume, however, posed a
more profound difficulty: Are we justified in placing any degree of confidence
in the conclusions of such inferences? His question is whether there is any
type of non-demonstrative or inductive inference in which we can be justified
in placing any confidence at all. According to Hume, our inferences from the
observed to the unobserved are based on regularities found in nature. We
believe, e.g., that the earth, sun, and moon move in regular patterns
(according to Newtonian mechanics), and on that basis astronomers predict solar
and lunar eclipses. Hume notes, however, that all of our evidence for such
uniformities consists of past and present experience; in applying these
uniformities to the future behavior of these bodies we are making an inference
from the observed to the unobserved. This point holds in general. Whenever we
make inferences from the observed to the unobserved we rely on the uniformity
of nature. The basis for our belief that nature is reasonably uniform is our
experience of such uniformity in the past. If we infer that nature will
continue to be uniform in the future, we are making an inference from the
observed to the unobserved – precisely the kind of inference for which we are
seeking a justification. We are thus caught up in a circular argument. Since,
as Hume emphasized, much of our reasoning from the observed to the unobserved
is based on causal relations, he analyzed causality to ascertain whether it
could furnish a necessary connection between distinct events that could serve
as a basis for such inferences. His conclusion was negative. We cannot
establish any such connection a priori, for it is impossible to deduce the
nature of an effect from its cause – e.g., we cannot deduce from the appearance
of falling snow that it will cause a sensation of cold rather than heat.
Likewise, we cannot deduce the nature of a cause from its effect – e.g.,
looking at a diamond, we cannot deduce that it was produced by great heat and
pressure. All such knowledge is based on past experience. If we infer that
future snow will feel cold or that future diamonds will be produced by great
heat and pressure, we are again making inferences from the observed to the
unobserved. Furthermore, if we carefully observe cases in which we believe a
cause–effect relation holds, we cannot perceive any necessary connection
between cause and effect, or any power in the cause that brings about the
effect. We observe only that an event of one type (e.g., drinking water) occurs
prior to and contiguously with an event of another type (quenching thirst).
Moreover, we notice that events of the two types have exhibited a constant
conjunction; i.e., whenever an event of the first type has occurred in the past
it has been followed by one of the second type. We cannot discover any necessary
connection or causal power a posteriori; we can only establish priority,
contiguity, and constant conjunction up to the present. If we infer that this
constant conjunction will persist in future cases, we are making another
inference from observed to unobserved cases. To use causality as a basis for
justifying inference from the observed to the probability, prior problem of
induction 745 745 unobserved would
again invovle a circular argument. Hume concludes skeptically that there can be
no rational or logical justification of inferences from the observed to the
unobserved – i.e., inductive or non-demonstrative inference. Such inferences
are based on custom and habit. Nature has endowed us with a proclivity to
extrapolate from past cases to future cases of a similar kind. Having observed
that events of one type have been regularly followed by events of another type,
we experience, upon encountering a case of the first type, a psychological
expectation that one of the second type will follow. Such an expectation does
not constitute a rational justification. Although Hume posed his problem in
terms of homely examples, the issues he raises go to the heart of even the most
sophisticated empirical sciences, for all of them involve inference from
observed phenomena to unobserved facts. Although complex theories are often
employed, Hume’s problem still applies. Its force is by no means confined to
induction by simple enumeration. Philosophers have responded to the problem of
induction in many different ways. Kant invoked synthetic a priori principles.
Many twentieth-century philosophers have treated it as a pseudo-problem, based
on linguistic confusion, that requires dissolution rather than solution. Carnap
maintained that inductive intuition is indispensable. Reichenbach offered a
pragmatic vindication. Goodman has recommended replacing Hume’s “old riddle”
with a new riddle of induction that he has posed. Popper, taking Hume’s
skeptical arguments as conclusive, advocates deductivism. He argues that
induction is unjustifiable and dispensable. None of the many suggestions is
widely accepted as correct. CAUSATION,
GRUE PARADOX, HUME, SKEPTICISM, UNIFORMITY OF NATURE. W.C.S.
problem of other minds,
the question of what rational basis a person can have for the belief that other
persons are similarly conscious and have minds. Every person, by virtue of
being conscious, is aware of her own state of consciousness and thus knows she
has a mind; but the mental states of others are not similarly apparent to her.
An influential attempt to solve this problem was made by philosophical
behaviorists. According to Ryle in The Concept of Mind (1949), a mind is not a
ghost in the physical machine but (roughly speaking) an aggregate of
dispositions to behave intelligently and to respond overtly to sensory
stimulation. Since the behavior distinctive of these mentalistic dispositions
is readily observable in other human beings, the so-called problem of other
minds is easily solved: it arose from mere confusion about the concept of mind.
Ryle’s opponents were generally willing to concede that such dispositions
provide proof that another person has a “mind” or is a sentient being, but they
were not willing to admit that those dispositions provide proof that other
people actually have feelings, thoughts, and sensory experiences. Their
convictions on this last matter generated a revised version of the otherminds
problem; it might be called the problem of other-person experiences. Early
efforts to solve the problem of other minds can be viewed as attempts to solve
the problem of other-person experiences. According to J. S. Mill’s Examination
of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy (1865), one can defend one’s conviction
that others have feelings and other subjective experiences by employing an argument
from analogy. To develop that analogy one first attends to how one’s own
experiences are related to overt or publicly observable phenomena. One might
observe that one feels pain when pricked by a pin and that one responds to the
pain by wincing and saying “ouch.” The next step is to attend to the behavior
and circumstances of others. Since other people are physically very similar to
oneself, it is reasonable to conclude that if they are pricked by a pin and
respond by wincing and saying “ouch,” they too have felt pain. Analogous
inferences involving other sorts of mental states and other sorts of behavior
and circumstances add strong support, Mill said, to one’s belief in
other-person experiences. Although arguments from analogy are generally
conceded to provide rationally acceptable evidence for unobserved phenomena,
the analogical argument for other-person experiences was vigorously attacked in
the 1960s by philosophers influenced by Wittgenstein’s Philosophical
Investigations (1953). Their central contention was that anyone employing the
argument must assume that, solely from her own case, she knows what feelings
and thoughts are. This assumption was refuted, they thought, by Wittgenstein’s
private language argument, which proved that we learn what feelings and
thoughts are only in the process of learning a publicly understandable language
containing an appropriate psychological vocabulary. To understand this latter
vocabulary, these critics said, one must be able to use its ingredient words
correctly problem of other minds problem of other minds 746 746 in relation to others as well as to
oneself; and this can be ascertained only because words like ‘pain’ and
‘depression’ are associated with behavioral criteria. When such criteria are
satisfied by the behavior of others, one knows that the words are correctly
applied to them and that one is justified in believing that they have the
experiences in question. The supposed problem of other-person experiences is
thus “dissolved” by a just appreciation of the preconditions for coherent
thought about psychological states. Wittgenstein’s claim that, to be
conceivable, “an inner process stands in need of external criteria,” lost its
hold on philosophers during the 1970s. An important consideration was this: if
a feeling of pain is a genuine reality different from the behavior that
typically accompanies it, then so-called pain behavior cannot be shown to
provide adequate evidence for the presence of pain by a purely linguistic
argument; some empirical inductive evidence is needed. Since, contrary to
Wittgenstein, one knows what the feeling of pain is like only by having that
feeling, one’s belief that other people occasionally have feelings that are
significantly like the pain one feels oneself apparently must be supported by
an argument in which analogy plays a central role. No other strategy seems
possible. BEHAVIORISM, PHILOSOPHY OF
MIND, PRIVATE LANGUAGE ARGUMENT, WITTGENSTEIN. B.A.
problem of the criterion,
a problem of epistemology, arising in the attempt both to formulate the
criteria and to determine the extent of knowledge. Skeptical and non-skeptical
philosophers disagree as to what, or how much, we know. Do we have knowledge of
the external world, other minds, the past, and the future? Any answer depends
on what the correct criteria of knowledge are. The problem is generated by the
seeming plausibility of the following two propositions: (1) In order to
recognize instances, and thus to determine the extent, of knowledge, we must
know the criteria for it. (2) In order to know the criteria for knowledge
(i.e., to distinguish between correct and incorrect criteria), we must already
be able to recognize its instances. According to an argument of ancient Greek
Skepticism, we can know neither the extent nor the criteria of knowledge
because (1) and (2) are both true. There are, however, three further
possibilities. First, it might be that (2) is true but (1) false: we can
recognize instances of knowledge even if we do not know the criteria of
knowledge. Second, it might be that (1) is true but (2) false: we can identify
the criteria of knowledge without prior recognition of its instances. Finally,
it might be that both (1) and (2) are false. We can know the extent of
knowledge without knowing criteria, and vice versa. Chisholm, who has devoted
particular attention to this problem, calls the first of these options
particularism, and the second methodism. Hume, a skeptic about the extent of
empirical knowledge, was a methodist. Reid and Moore were particularists; they
rejected Hume’s skepticism on the ground that it turns obvious cases of
knowledge into cases of ignorance. Chisholm advocates particularism because he
believes that, unless one knows to begin with what ought to count as an
instance of knowledge, any choice of a criterion is ungrounded and thus
arbitrary. Methodists turn this argument around: they reject as dogmatic any
identification of instances of knowledge not based on a criterion. SKEPTICISM. M.St. problem of the single
case.PROBABILITY, PROPENSITY. problem of the speckled hen, a problem propounded
by Ryle as an objection to Ayer’s analysis of perception in terms of
sense-data. It is implied by this analysis that, if I see a speckled hen (in a
good light and so on), I do so by means of apprehending a speckled sense-datum.
The analysis implies further that the sense-datum actually has just the number
of speckles that I seem to see as I look at the hen, and that it is immediately
evident to me just how many speckles this is. Thus, if I seem to see many speckles
as I look at the hen, the sense-datum I apprehend must actually contain many
speckles, and it must be immediately evident to me how many it does contain.
Now suppose it seems to me that I see more than 100 speckles. Then the datum I
am apprehending must contain more than 100 speckles. Perhaps it contains 132 of
them. The analysis would then imply, absurdly, that it must be immediately
evident to me that the number of speckles is exactly 132. One way to avoid this
implication would be to deny that a sense-datum of mine could contain exactly
132 speckles – or any other large, determinate number of them – precisely on
the ground that it could never seem to me that I was seeing exactly that many
speckles. A possible drawback of this approach is that it involves committing
oneself to the claim, which some philosophers have found problem of the
criterion problem of the speckled hen 747
747 self-contradictory, that a sense-datum may contain many speckles
even if there is no large number n such that it contains n speckles. PERCEPTION, VAGUENESS. R.Ke.
proceduralism.JURISPRUDENCE. process philosophy.WHITEHEAD. process–product
ambiguity, an ambiguity that occurs when a noun can refer either to a process
(or activity) or to the product of that process (or activity). E.g., ‘The
definition was difficult’ could mean either that the activity of defining was a
difficult one to perform, or that the definiens (the form of words proposed as
equivalent to the term being defined) that the definer produced was difficult to
understand. Again, ‘The writing absorbed her attention’ leaves it unclear
whether it was the activity of writing or a product of that activity that she
found engrossing. Philosophically significant terms that might be held to
exhibit process–product ambiguity include: ‘analysis’, ‘explanation’,
‘inference’, ‘thought’. P.Mac. process theology, any theology strongly
influenced by the theistic metaphysics of Whitehead or Hartshorne; more
generally, any theology that takes process or change as basic characteristics
of all actual beings, including God. Those versions most influenced by
Whitehead and Hartshorne share a core of convictions that constitute the most
distinctive theses of process theology: God is constantly growing, though
certain abstract features of God (e.g., being loving) remain constant; God is
related to every other actual being and is affected by what happens to it;
every actual being has some self-determination, and God’s power is reconceived
as the power to lure (attempt to persuade) each actual being to be what God
wishes it to be. These theses represent significant differences from ideas of
God common in the tradition of Western theism, according to which God is
unchanging, is not really related to creatures because God is not affected by what
happens to them, and has the power to do whatever it is logically possible for
God to do (omnipotence). Process theologians also disagree with the idea that
God knows the future in all its details, holding that God knows only those
details of the future that are causally necessitated by past events. They claim
these are only certain abstract features of a small class of events in the near
future and of an even smaller class in the more distant future. Because of
their understanding of divine power and their affirmation of creaturely
self-determination, they claim that they provide a more adequate theodicy.
Their critics claim that their idea of God’s power, if correct, would render
God unworthy of worship; some also make this claim about their idea of God’s
knowledge, preferring a more traditional idea of omniscience. Although
Whitehead and Hartshorne were both philosophers rather than theologians,
process theology has been more influential among theologians. It is a major
current in contemporary American Protestant theology and has attracted the
attention of some Roman Catholic theologians as well. It also has influenced
some biblical scholars who are attempting to develop a distinctive process
hermeneutics. PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION,
WHITEHEAD. J.A.K. Proclus.COMMENTARIES ON PLATO, HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY,
NEOPLATONISM. Prodicus.SOPHISTS. production theory, the economic theory dealing
with the conversion of factors of production into consumer goods. In
capitalistic theories that assume ideal markets, firms produce goods from three
kinds of factors: capital, labor, and raw materials. Production is subject to
the constraint that profit (the difference between revenues and costs) be
maximized. The firm is thereby faced with the following decisions: how much to
produce, what price to charge for the product, what proportions to combine the
three kinds of factors in, and what price to pay for the factors. In markets
close to perfect competition, the firm will have little control over prices so
the decision problem tends to reduce to the amounts of factors to use. The
range of feasible factor combinations depends on the technologies available to
firms. Interesting complications arise if not all firms have access to the same
technologies, or if not all firms make accurate responses concerning
technological changes. Also, if the scale of production affects the feasible
technologies, the firms’ decision process must be subtle. In each of these
cases, imperfect competition will result. Marxian economists think that the concepts
used in this kind of production theory have a normative component. In reality,
a large firm’s capital tends to be owned by a rather small, privileged class of
non-laborers and labor is treated as a commodity like any other factor. This
might proceduralism production theory 748
748 lead to the perception that profit results primarily from capital
and, therefore, belongs to its owners. Marxians contend that labor is primarily
responsible for profit and, consequently, that labor is entitled to more than
the market wage. PERFECT COMPETITION,
PHILOSOPHY OF ECONOMICS. A.N. productive reason.THEORETICAL REASON.
professional ethics, a term designating one or more of (1) the justified moral
values that should govern the work of professionals; (2) the moral values that
actually do guide groups of professionals, whether those values are identified
as (a) principles in codes of ethics promulgated by professional societies or
(b) actual beliefs and conduct of professionals; and (3) the study of
professional ethics in the preceding senses, either (i) normative
(philosophical) inquiries into the values desirable for professionals to
embrace, or (ii) descriptive (scientific) studies of the actual beliefs and
conduct of groups of professionals. Professional values include principles of
obligation and rights, as well as virtues and personal moral ideals such as
those manifested in the lives of Jane Addams, Albert Schweitzer, and Thurgood
Marshall. Professions are defined by advanced expertise, social organizations,
society-granted monopolies over services, and especially by shared commitments
to promote a distinctive public good such as health (medicine), justice (law),
or learning (education). These shared commitments imply special duties to make
services available, maintain confidentiality, secure informed consent for
services, and be loyal to clients, employers, and others with whom one has
fiduciary relationships. Both theoretical and practical issues surround these
duties. The central theoretical issue is to understand how the justified moral
values governing professionals are linked to wider values, such as human
rights. Most practical dilemmas concern how to balance conflicting duties. For
example, what should attorneys do when confidentiality requires keeping information
secret that might save the life of an innocent third party? Other practical
issues are problems of vagueness and uncertainty surrounding how to apply
duties in particular contexts. For example, does respect for patients’ autonomy
forbid, permit, or require a physician to assist a terminally ill patient
desiring suicide? Equally important is how to resolve conflicts of interest in
which self-seeking places moral values at risk.
APPLIED ETHICS, BIOETHICS. M.W.M. programming language.COMPUTER THEORY. programs,
modal logic of.DYNAMIC LOGIC. projectible predicate.GRUE PARADOX.
projection.HEIDEGGER. projectivism.MORAL PSYCHOLOGY. prolepsis.EPICUREANISM,
HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY. proof.PROOF THEORY. proof, finitary.HILBERT’S PROGRAM.
proof, indirect.REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM. proof by recursion, also called proof by
mathematical induction, a method for conclusively demonstrating the truth of
universal propositions about the natural numbers. The system of (natural)
numbers is construed as an infinite sequence of elements beginning with the
number 1 and such that each subsequent element is the (immediate) successor of
the preceding element. The (immediate) successor of a number is the sum of that
number with 1. In order to apply this method to show that every number has a
certain chosen property it is necessary to demonstrate two subsidiary
propositions often called respectively the basis step and the inductive step.
The basis step is that the number 1 has the chosen property; the inductive step
is that the successor of any number having the chosen property is also a number
having the chosen property (in other words, for every number n, if n has the
chosen property then the successor of n also has the chosen property). The
inductive step is itself a universal proposition that may have been proved by
recursion. The most commonly used example of a theorem proved by recursion is
the remarkable fact, known before the time of Plato, that the sum of the first
n odd numbers is the square of n. This proposition, mentioned prominently by
Leibniz as requiring and having demonstrative proof, is expressed in universal
form as follows: for every number n, the sum of the first n odd numbers is n2.
1 % 12, (1 ! 3) % 22, (1 ! 3 ! 5) % 32, and so on. Rigorous formulation of a
proof by recursion productive reason proof by recursion 749 749 often uses as a premise the proposition
called, since the time of De Morgan, the principle of mathematical induction:
every property belonging to 1 and belonging to the successor of every number to
which it belongs is a property that belongs without exception to every number.
Peano (1858–1932) took the principle of mathematical induction as an axiom in
his 1889 axiomatization of arithmetic (or the theory of natural numbers). The
first acceptable formulation of this principle is attributed to Pascal. DE MORGAN, OMEGA, PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS.
J.Cor. proof-theoretic reflection principles.REFLECTION PRINCIPLES. proof
theory, a branch of mathematical logic founded by David Hilbert in the 1920s to
pursue Hilbert’s Program. The foundational problems underlying that program had
been formulated around the turn of the century, e.g., in Hilbert’s famous
address to the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris (1900). They
were closely connected with investigations on the foundations of analysis
carried out by Cantor and Dedekind; but they were also related to their
conflict with Kronecker on the nature of mathematics and to the difficulties of
a completely unrestricted notion of set or multiplicity. At that time, the
central issue for Hilbert was the consistency of sets in Cantor’s sense. He
suggested that the existence of consistent sets (multiplicities), e.g., that of
real numbers, could be secured by proving the consistency of a suitable,
characterizing axiomatic system; but there were only the vaguest indications on
how to do that. In a radical departure from standard practice and his earlier
hints, Hilbert proposed four years later a novel way of attacking the
consistency problem for theories in Über die Grundlagen der Logik und der
Arithmetik (1904). This approach would require, first, a strict formalization
of logic together with mathematics, then consideration of the finite syntactic
configurations constituting the joint formalism as mathematical objects, and
showing by mathematical arguments that contradictory formulas cannot be
derived. Though Hilbert lectured on issues concerning the foundations of
mathematics during the subsequent years, the technical development and
philosophical clarification of proof theory and its aims began only around
1920. That involved, first of all, a detailed description of logical calculi
and the careful development of parts of mathematics in suitable systems. A
record of the former is found in Hilbert and Ackermann, Grundzüge der
theoretischen Logik (1928); and of the latter in Supplement IV of Hilbert and
Bernays, Grundlagen der Mathematik II (1939). This presupposes the clear
distinction between metamathematics and mathematics introduced by Hilbert. For
the purposes of the consistency program metamathematics was now taken to be a
very weak part of arithmetic, so-called finitist mathematics, believed to
correspond to the part of mathematics that was accepted by constructivists like
Kronecker and Brouwer. Additional metamathematical issues concerned the
completeness and decidability of theories. The crucial technical tool for the
pursuit of the consistency problem was Hilbert’s e-calculus. The
metamathematical problems attracted the collaboration of young and quite brilliant
mathematicians (with philosophical interests); among them were Paul Bernays,
Wilhelm Ackermann, John von Neumann, Jacques Herbrand, Gerhard Gentzen, and
Kurt Schütte. The results obtained in the 1920s were disappointing when
measured against the hopes and ambitions: Ackermann, von Neumann, and Herbrand
established essentially the consistency of arithmetic with a very restricted
principle of induction. That limits of finitist considerations for consistency
proofs had been reached became clear in 1931 through Gödel’s incompleteness
theorems. Also, special cases of the decision problem for predicate logic
(Hilbert’s Entscheidungsproblem) had been solved; its general solvability was
made rather implausible by some of Gödel’s results in his 1931 paper. The actual
proof of unsolvability had to wait until 1936 for a conceptual clarification of
‘mechanical procedure’ or ‘algorithm’; that was achieved through the work of
Church and Turing. The further development of proof theory is roughly
characterized by two complementary tendencies: (1) the extension of the
metamathematical frame relative to which “constructive” consistency proofs can
be obtained, and (2) the refined formalization of parts of mathematics in
theories much weaker than set theory or even full second-order arithmetic. The
former tendency started with the work of Gödel and Gentzen in 1933 establishing
the consistency of full classical arithmetic relative to intuitionistic
arithmetic; it led in the 1970s and 1980s to consistency proofs of strong subsystems
of secondorder arithmetic relative to intuitionistic theories of constructive
ordinals. The latter tendency reaches back to Weyl’s book Das Kontinuum (1918)
and culminated in the 1970s by showing proof-theoretic reflection principles
proof theory 750 750 that the
classical results of mathematical analysis can be formally obtained in
conservative extensions of first-order arithmetic. For the metamathematical
work Gentzen’s introduction of sequent calculi and the use of transfinite
induction along constructive ordinals turned out to be very important, as well
as Gödel’s primitive recursive functionals of finite type. The methods and
results of proof theory are playing, not surprisingly, a significant role in
computer science. Work in proof theory has been motivated by issues in the
foundations of mathematics, with the explicit goal of achieving epistemological
reductions of strong theories for mathematical practice (like set theory or
second-order arithmetic) to weak, philosophically distinguished theories (like
primitive recursive arithmetic). As the formalization of mathematics in strong
theories is crucial for the metamathematical approach, and as the programmatic
goal can be seen as a way of circumventing the philosophical issues surrounding
strong theories, e.g., the nature of infinite sets in the case of set theory,
Hilbert’s philosophical position is often equated with formalism – in the sense
of Frege in his Über die Grundlagen der Geometrie (1903–06) and also of
Brouwer’s inaugural address Intuitionism and Formalism (1912). Though such a
view is not completely unsupported by some of Hilbert’s polemical remarks
during the 1920s, on balance, his philosophical views developed into a
sophisticated instrumentalism, if that label is taken in Ernest Nagel’s
judicious sense (The Structure of Science, 1961). Hilbert’s is an
instrumentalism emphasizing the contentual motivation of mathematical theories;
that is clearly expressed in the first chapter of Hilbert and Bernays’s
Grundlagen der Mathematik I (1934). A sustained philosophical analysis of
proof-theoretic research in the context of broader issues in the philosophy of
mathematics was provided by Bernays; his penetrating essays stretch over five
decades and have been collected in Abhandlungen zur Philosophie der Mathematik
(1976). CONSISTENCY, FORMALIZATION,
GÖDEL’s INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS, HILBERT’s PROGRAM, METAMATHEMATICS. W.S.
propensity, an irregular or non-necessitating causal disposition of an object
or system to produce some result or effect. Propensities are usually conceived
as essentially probabilistic in nature. A die may be said to have a propensity
of “strength” or magnitude 1 /6 to turn up a 3 if thrown from a dice box, of
strength 1 /3 to turn up, say, a 3 or 4, etc. But propensity talk is arguably
appropriate only when determinism fails. Strength is often taken to vary from 0
to 1. Popper regarded the propensity notion as a new physical or metaphysical
hypothesis, akin to that of forces. Like Peirce, he deployed it to interpret
probability claims about single cases: e.g., the probability of this radium
atom’s decaying in 1,600 years is 1 /2. On relative frequency interpretations,
probability claims are about properties of large classes such as relative
frequencies of outcomes in them, rather than about single cases. But
single-case claims appear to be common in quantum theory. Popper advocated a
propensity interpretation of quantum theory. Propensities also feature in
theories of indeterministic or probabilistic causation. Competing theories
about propensities attribute them variously to complex systems such as chance
or experimental set-ups or arrangements (a coin and tossing device), to
entities within such set-ups (the coin itself), and to particular trials of
such set-ups. Long-run theories construe propensities as dispositions to give
rise to certain relative frequencies of, or probability distributions over,
outcomes in long runs of trials, which are sometimes said to “manifest” or
“display” the propensities. Here a propensity’s strength is identical to some
such frequency. By contrast, single-case theories construe propensities as
dispositions of singular trials to bring about particular outcomes. Their
existence, not their strength, is displayed by such an outcome. Here
frequencies provide evidence about propensity strength. But the two can always
differ; they converge with a limiting probability of 1 in an appropriate long
run. CAUSATION, DETERMINISM,
DISPOSITION, PEIRCE, PROBABILITY, QUANTUM MECHANICS. D.S. proper class.CLASS.
properly basic relief.EVIDENTIALISM, PLANTINGA. proper names, causal theory
of.CAUSAL THEORY OF PROPER NAMES. proper sensibles.ARISTOTLE. proper
symbol.SYNCATEGOREMATA. properties of terms, doctrine of.SHERWOOD. property,
roughly, an attribute, characteristic, feature, trait, or aspect. propensity
property 751 751 Intensionality. There
are two salient ways of talking about properties. First, as predicables or
instantiables. For example, the property red is predicable of red objects; they
are instances of it. Properties are said to be intensional entities in the
sense that distinct properties can be truly predicated of (i.e., have as
instances) exactly the same things: the property of being a creature with a
kidney & the property of being a creature with a heart, though these two
sets have the same members. Properties thus differ from sets (collections,
classes); for the latter satisfy a principle of extensionality: they are
identical if they have the same elements. The second salient way of talking
about properties is by means of property abstracts such as ‘the property of
being F’. Such linguistic expressions are said to be intensional in the
following semantical (vs. ontological) sense: ‘the property of being F’ and
‘the property of being G’ can denote different properties even though the
predicates ‘F’ and ‘G’ are true of exactly the same things. The standard
explanation (Frege, Russell, Carnap, et al.) is that ‘the property of being F’
denotes the property that the predicate ‘F’ expresses. Since predicates ‘F’ and
‘G’ can be true of the same things without being synonyms, the property
abstracts ‘being F’ and ‘being G’ can denote different properties. Identity
criteria. Some philosophers believe that properties are identical if they
necessarily have the same instances. Other philosophers hold that this
criterion of identity holds only for a special subclass of properties – those
that are purely qualitative – and that the properties for which this criterion
does not hold are all “complex” (e.g., relational, disjunctive, conditional, or
negative properties). On this theory, complex properties are identical if they
have the same form and their purely qualitative constituents are identical.
Ontological status. Because properties are a kind of universal, each of the standard
views on the ontological status of universals has been applied to properties as
a special case. Nominalism: only particulars (and perhaps collections of
particulars) exist; therefore, either properties do not exist or they are
reducible (following Carnap et al.) to collections of particulars (including
perhaps particulars that are not actual but only possible). Conceptualism:
properties exist but are dependent on the mind. Realism: properties exist
independently of the mind. Realism has two main versions. In rebus realism: a
property exists only if it has instances. Ante rem realism: a property can
exist even if it has no instances. For example, the property of being a man
weighing over ton has no instances; however, it is plausible to hold that this
property does exist. After all, this property seems to be what is expressed by
the predicate ‘is a man weighing over a ton’. Essence and accident. The
properties that a given entity has divide into two disjoint classes: those that
are essential to the entity and those that are accidental to it. A property is
essential to an entity if, necessarily, the entity cannot exist without being
an instance of the property. A property is accidental to an individual if it is
possible for the individual to exist without being an instance of the property.
Being a number is an essential property of nine; being the number of the
planets is an accidental property of nine. Some philosophers believe that all
properties are either essential by nature or accidental by nature. A property
is essential by nature if it can be an essential property of some entity and,
necessarily, it is an essential property of each entity that is an instance of
it. The property of being self-identical is thus essential by nature. However,
it is controversial whether every property that is essential to something must
be essential by nature. The following is a candidate counterexample. If this
automobile backfires loudly on a given occasion, loudness would seem to be an
essential property of the associated bang. That particular bang could not exist
without being loud. If the automobile had backfired softly, that particular
bang would not have existed; an altogether distinct bang – a soft bang – would
have existed. By contrast, if a man is loud, loudness is only an accidental
property of him; he could exist without being loud. Loudness thus appears to be
a counterexample: although it is an essential property of certain particulars,
it is not essential by nature. It might be replied (echoing Aristotle) that a
loud bang and a loud man instantiate loudness in different ways and, more
generally, that properties can be predicated (instantiated) in different ways.
If so, then one should be specific about which kind of predication
(instantiation) is intended in the definition of ‘essential by nature’ and
‘accidental by nature’. When this is done, the counterexamples might well
disappear. If there are indeed different ways of being predicated
(instantiated), most of the foregoing remarks about intensionality, identity
criteria, and the ontological status of properties should be refined
accordingly. ESSENTIALISM,
INTENSIONALITY, RELATION. G.B. property property 752 752 property, accidental proposition 753
property, accidental.RELATION. property, Cambridge.CAMBRIDGE CHANGE. property,
consequential.SUPERVENIENCE. property, extrinsic.RELATION. property,
hereditary.RELATION. property, impredicative.TYPE THEORY. property,
intrinsic.RELATION. property, non-predicative.TYPE THEORY. property,
phenomenal.QUALIA. property, predicative.TYPE THEORY. proportionality,
principle of.CAJETAN.
proposition, an abstract
object said to be that to which a person is related by a belief, desire, or
other psychological attitude, typically expressed in language containing a
psychological verb (‘think’, ‘deny’, ‘doubt’, etc.) followed by a thatclause.
The psychological states in question are called propositional attitudes. When I
believe that snow is white I stand in the relation of believing to the
proposition that snow is white. When I hope that the protons will not decay,
hope relates me to the proposition that the protons will not decay. A
proposition can be a common object for various attitudes of various agents:
that the protons will not decay can be the object of my belief, my hope, and your
fear. A sentence expressing an attitude is also taken to express the associated
proposition. Because ‘The protons will not decay’ identifies my hope, it
identifies the proposition to which my hope relates me. Thus the proposition
can be the shared meaning of this sentence and all its synonyms, in English or
elsewhere (e.g., ‘die Protonen werden nicht zerfallen’). This, in sum, is the
traditional doctrine of propositions. Although it seems indispensable in some
form – for theorizing about thought and language, difficulties abound. Some
critics regard propositions as excess baggage in any account of meaning. But
unless this is an expression of nominalism, it is confused. Any systematic
theory of meaning, plus an apparatus of sets (or properties) will let us
construct proposition-like objects. The proposition a sentence S expresses
might, e.g., be identified with a certain set of features that determines S’s
meaning. Other sentences with these same features would then express the same
proposition. A natural way to associate propositions with sentences is to let
the features in question be semantically significant features of the words from
which sentences are built. Propositions then acquire the logical structures of
sentences: they are atomic, conditional, existential, etc. But combining the
view of propositions as meanings with the traditional idea of propositions as
bearers of truthvalues brings trouble. It is assumed that two sentences that
express the same proposition have the same truth-value (indeed, that sentences
have their truth-values in virtue of the propositions they express). Yet if
propositions are also meanings, this principle fails for sentences with
indexical elements: although ‘I am pale’ has a single meaning, two utterances
of it can differ in truth-value. In response, one may suggest that the
proposition a sentence S expresses depends both on the linguistic meaning of S
and on the referents of S’s indexical elements. But this reveals that
proposition is a quite technical concept – and one that is not motivated simply
by a need to talk about meanings. Related questions arise for propositions as
the objects of (propositional) attitudes. My belief that I am pale may be true,
yours that you are pale false. So our beliefs should take distinct propositional
objects. Yet we would each use the same sentence, ‘I am pale’, to express our
belief. Intuitively, your belief and mine also play similar cognitive roles. We
may each choose the sun exposure, clothing, etc., that we take to be
appropriate to a fair complexion. So our attitudes seem in an important sense
to be the same – an identity that the assignment of distinct propositional
objects hides. Apparently, the characterization of beliefs (e.g.) as being
propositional attitudes is at best one component of a more refined, largely
unknown account. Quite apart from complications about indexicality,
propositions inherit standard difficulties about meaning. Consider the beliefs
that Hesperus is a planet and that Phosphorus is a planet. It seems that someone
might have one but not the other, thus that they are attitudes toward distinct
propositions. This difference apparently reflects the difference in meaning
between the sentences ‘Hesperus is a planet’ and ‘Phosphorus is a planet’. The
principle would be that non-synonymous sentences express distinct propositions.
But it is unclear what makes for a difference in meaning. Since the sentences
agree in logico-grammatical structure and in the refer 753 proposition, maximal propositional
opacity 754 ents of their terms, their specific meanings must depend on some
more subtle feature that has resisted definition. Hence our concept of
proposition is also only partly defined. (Even the idea that the sentences here
express the same proposition is not easily refuted.) What such difficulties
show is not that the concept of proposition is invalid but that it belongs to a
still rudimentary descriptive scheme. It is too thoroughly enmeshed with the
concepts of meaning and belief to be of use in solving their attendant problems.
(This observation is what tends, through a confusion, to give rise to
skepticism about propositions.) One may, e.g., reasonably posit structured
abstract entities – propositions – that represent the features on which the
truth-values of sentences depend. Then there is a good sense in which a
sentence is true in virtue of the proposition it expresses. But how does the
use of words in a certain context associate them with a particular proposition?
Lacking an answer, we still cannot explain why a given sentence is true.
Similarly, one cannot explain belief as the acceptance of a proposition, since
only a substantive theory of thought would reveal how the mind “accepts” a
proposition and what it does to accept one proposition rather than another. So
a satisfactory doctrine of propositions remains elusive. ABSTRACT ENTITY, INDEXICAL, INTENTIONALITY,
MEANING, PROPERTY. S.J.W. proposition, maximal.TOPICS. propositional
act.PROPOSITION. propositional attitude.PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, PROPOSITION.
propositional calculus.FORMAL LOGIC. propositional connective.SENTENTIAL
CONNECTIVE. propositional content.CIRCULAR REASONING. propositional function,
an operation that, when applied to something as argument (or to more than one
thing in a given order as arguments), yields a truth-value as the value of that
function for that argument (or those arguments). This usage presupposes that
truth-values are objects. A function may be singulary, binary, ternary, etc. A
singulary propositional function is applicable to one thing and yields, when so
applied, a truth-value. For example, being a prime number, when applied to the
number 2, yields truth; negation, when applied to truth, yields falsehood. A
binary propositional function is applicable to two things in a certain order
and yields, when so applied, a truth-value. For example, being north of when
applied to New York and Boston in that order yields falsehood. Material
implication when applied to falsehood and truth in that order yields truth. The
term ‘propositional function’ has a second use, to refer to an operation that,
when applied to something as argument (or to more than one thing in a given
order as arguments), yields a proposition as the value of the function for that
argument (or those arguments). For example, being a prime number when applied
to 2 yields the proposition that 2 is a prime number. Being north of, when
applied to New York and Boston in that order, yields the proposition that New
York is north of Boston. This usage presupposes that propositions are objects. In
a third use, ‘propositional function’ designates a sentence with free
occurrences of variables. Thus, ‘x is a prime number’, ‘It is not the case that
p’, ‘x is north of y’ and ‘if p then q’ are propositional functions in this
sense. C.S. propositional justification.EPISTEMOLOGY. propositional
knowledge.EPISTEMOLOGY. propositional object.PROPOSITION. propositional
opacity, failure of a clause to express any particular proposition (especially
due to the occurrence of pronouns or demonstratives). If having a belief about
an individual involves a relation to a proposition, and if a part of the
proposition is a way of representing the individual, then belief
characterizations that do not indicate the believer’s way of representing the
individual could be called propositionally opaque. They do not show all of the
propositional elements. For example, ‘My son’s clarinet teacher believes that
he should try the bass drum’ would be propositionally opaque because ‘he’ does
not indicate how my son John’s teacher represents John, e.g. as his student, as
my son, as the boy now playing, etc. This characterization of the example is
not appropriate if propositions are as Russell conceived them, sometimes
containing the individuals themselves as constituents, because then the
propositional constituent (John) has been referred to. Generally, a
characterization of a propositional
754 attitude is propositionally opaque if the expressions in the
embedded clause do not refer to the propositional constituents. It is
propositionally transparent if the expressions in the embedded clause do so
refer. As a rule, referentially opaque contexts are used in propositionally
transparent attributions if the referent of a term is distinct from the
corresponding propositional constituent.
DE DICTO, KNOWLEDGE DE RE, PROPOSITION, REFERENTIALLY TRANSPARENT. T.M.
propositional operator.SENTENTIAL CONNECTIVE. propositional
representation.COGNITIVE SCIENCE. propositional theory of meaning.MEANING.
propositional verb.PROPOSITION. proprietates terminorum (Latin, ‘properties of
terms’), in medieval logic from the twelfth century on, a cluster of semantic
properties possessed by categorematic terms. For most authors, these properties
apply only when the terms occur in the context of a proposition. The list of
such properties and the theory governing them vary from author to author, but
always include (1) suppositio. Some authors add (2) appellatio (‘appellating’,
‘naming’, ‘calling’, often not sharply distinguishing from suppositio), the
property whereby a term in a certain proposition names or is truly predicable
of things, or (in some authors) of presently existing things. Thus
‘philosophers’ in ‘Some philosophers are wise’ appellates philosophers alive
today. (3) Ampliatio (‘ampliation’, ‘broadening’), whereby a term refers to
past or future or merely possible things. The reference of ‘philosophers’ is
ampliated in ‘Some philosophers were wise’. (4) Restrictio (‘restriction’,
‘narrowing’), whereby the reference of a term is restricted to presently existing
things (‘philosophers’ is so restricted in ‘Some philosophers are wise’), or
otherwise narrowed from its normal range (‘philosophers’ in ‘Some Greek
philosophers were wise’). (5) Copulatio (‘copulation’, ‘coupling’), which is
the type of reference adjectives have (‘wise’ in ‘Some philosophers are wise’),
or alternatively the semantic function of the copula. Other meanings too are
sometimes given to these terms, depending on the author. Appellatio especially
was given a wide variety of interpretations. In particular, for Buridan and
other fourteenth-century Continental authors, appellatio means ‘connotation’.
Restrictio and copulatio tended to drop out of the literature, or be treated
only perfunctorily, after the thirteenth century. SUPPOSITIO. P.V.S. proprioception.PERCEPTION.
proprium, one of Porphyry’s five predicables, often translated as ‘property’ or
‘attribute’; but this should not be confused with the broad modern sense in
which any feature of a thing may be said to be a property of it. A proprium is
a nonessential peculiarity of a species. (There are no propria of individuals
or genera generalissima, although they may have other uniquely identifying
features.) A proprium necessarily holds of all members of its species and of
nothing else. It is not mentioned in a real definition of the species, and so
is not essential to it. Yet it somehow follows from the essence or nature
expressed in the real definition. The standard example is risibility (the
ability to laugh) as a proprium of the species man. The real definition of
‘man’ is ‘rational animal’. There is no mention of any ability to laugh.
Nevertheless anything that can laugh has both the biological apparatus to
produce the sounds (and so is an animal) and also a certain wit and insight
into humor (and so is rational). Conversely, any rational animal will have both
the vocal chords and diaphragm required for laughing (since it is an animal,
although the inference may seem too quick) and also the mental wherewithal to
see the point of a joke (since it is rational). Thus any rational animal has
what it takes to laugh. In short, every man is risible, and conversely, but
risibility is not an essential feature of man.
ESSENTIALISM, PORPHYRY, PREDICABLES. P.V.S. prosyllogism.POLYSYLLOGISM.
Protagoras.SOPHISTS. protasis.COUNTERFACTUALS. Protestant ethic.WEBER.
Protestant principle.TILLICH. protocol statement, one of the statements that
constitute the foundations of empirical knowledge. The term was introduced by
proponents of foundationalism, who were convinced that in order to avoid the
most radical skepticism, one propositional operator protocol statement 755 755 must countenance beliefs that are
justified but not as a result of an inference. If all justified beliefs are
inferentially justified, then to be justified in believing one proposition P on
the basis of another, E, one would have to be justified in believing both E and
that E confirms P. But if all justification were inferential, then to be
justified in believing E one would need to infer it from some other proposition
one justifiably believes, and so on ad infinitum. The only way to avoid this
regress is to find some statement knowable without inferring it from some other
truth. Philosophers who agree that empirical knowledge has foundations do not
necessarily agree on what those foundations are. The British empiricists
restrict the class of contingent protocol statements to propositions describing
the contents of mind (sensations, beliefs, fears, desires, and the like). And
even here a statement describing a mental state would be a protocol statement
only for the person in that state. Other philosophers, however, would take
protocol statements to include at least some assertions about the immediate
physical environment. The plausibility of a given candidate for a protocol
statement depends on how one analyzes non-inferential justification. Some
philosophers rely on the idea of acquaintance. One is non-inferentially
justified in believing something when one is directly acquainted with what
makes it true. Other philosophers rely on the idea of a state that is in some
sense self-presenting. Still others want to understand the notion in terms of
the inconceivability of error. The main difficulty in trying to defend a
coherent conception of non-inferential justification is to find an account of
protocol statements that gives them enough conceptual content to serve as the
premises of arguments, while avoiding the charge that the application of
concepts always brings with it the possibility of error and the necessity of
inference. EPISTEMOLOGY,
FOUNDATIONALISM. R.A.F. protothetic.LAWS OF THOUGHT, LEsNIEWSKI. prototype
theory, a theory according to which human cognition involves the deployment of
“categories” organized around stereotypical exemplars. Prototype theory differs
from traditional theories that take the concepts with which we think to be
individuated by means of boundary-specifying necessary and sufficient
conditions. Advocates of prototypes hold that our concept of bird, for
instance, consists in an indefinitely bounded conceptual “space” in which
robins and sparrows are central, and chickens and penguins are peripheral –
though the category may be differently organized in different cultures or
groups. Rather than being all-ornothing, category membership is a matter of
degree. This conception of categories was originally inspired by the notion,
developed in a different context by Wittgenstein, of family resemblance.
Prototypes were first discussed in detail and given empirical credibility in
the work of Eleanor Rosch (see, e.g., “On the Internal Structure of Perceptual
and Semantic Categories,” 1973).
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, WITTGENSTEIN. J.F.H.
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph (1809–65), French socialist theorist and father of
anarchism. He became well known following the publication of What Is Property?
(1840), the work containing his main ideas. He argued that the owner of the
means of production deprives the workers of a part of their labor: “property is
theft.” In order to enable each worker to dispose of his labor, capital and
largescale property must be limited. The need to abolish large-scale private
property surpassed the immediate need for a state as a controlling agent over
chaotic social relationships. To this end he stressed the need for serious
reforms in the exchange system. Since the economy and society largely depended
on the credit system, Proudhon advocated establishing popular banks that would
approve interest-free loans to the poor. Such a mutualism would start the transformation
of the actual into a just and nonexploited society of free individuals. Without
class antagonism and political authorities, such a society would tend toward an
association of communal and industrial collectivities. It would move toward a
flexible world federation based on self-management. The main task of social
science, then, is to make manifest this immanent logic of social processes.
Proudhon’s ideas influenced anarchists, populists (Bakunin, Herzen), and
syndicalists (Jaurès). His conception of self-management was an important
inspiration for the later concept of soviets (councils). He criticized the
inequalities of the contemporary society from the viewpoint of small producers
and peasants. Although eclectic and theoretically rather naive, his work
attracted the serious attention of his contemporaries and led to a strong
attack by Marx in The Holy Family and The Poverty of Philosophy. G.Fl.
protothetic Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph 756
756 provability predicate.GÖDEL’S INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS. prudence.ETHICS.
pseudohallucination, a non-deceptive hallucination. An ordinary hallucination
might be thought to comprise two components: (i) a sensory component, whereby
one experiences an image or sensory episode similar in many respects to a
veridical perceiving except in being non-veridical; and (ii) a cognitive
component, whereby one takes (or is disposed to take) the image or sensory
episode to be veridical. A pseudohallucination resembles a hallucination, but
lacks this second component. In experiencing a pseudohallucination, one
appreciates that one is not perceiving veridically. The source of the term
seems to be the painter Wassily Kandinsky, who employed it (in 1885) to
characterize a series of apparently drug-induced images experienced and pondered
by a friend who recognized them, at the very time they were occurring, not to
be veridical. Kandinsky’s account is discussed by Jaspers (in his General
Psychopathology, 1916), and thereby entered the clinical lore.
Pseudohallucinations may be brought on by the sorts of pathological condition
that give rise to hallucinations, or by simple fatigue, emotional adversity, or
loneliness. Thus, a driver, late at night, may react to non-existent objects or
figures on the road, and immediately recognize his error. PERCEPTION. J.F.H.
pseudo-overdeterminism.CAUSATION. pseudorandomness.COMPUTER THEORY.
psychoanalysis.FREUD. psycholinguistics, an interdisciplinary research area
that uses theoretical descriptions of language taken from linguistics to
investigate psychological processes underlying language production, perception,
and learning. There is considerable disagreement as to the appropriate
characterization of the field and the major problems. Philosophers discussed
many of the problems now studied in psycholinguistics before either psychology
or linguistics were spawned, but the self-consciously interdisciplinary field
combining psychology and linguistics emerged not long after the birth of the
two disciplines. (Meringer used the adjective ‘psycholingisch-linguistische’ in
an 1895 book.) Various national traditions of psycholinguistics continued at a
steady but fairly low level of activity through the 1920s and declined somewhat
during the 1930s and 1940s because of the antimentalist attitudes in both
linguistics and psychology. Psycholinguistic researchers in the USSR, mostly
inspired by L. S. Vygotsky (Thought and Language, 1934), were more active
during this period in spite of official suppression. Numerous quasi-independent
sources contributed to the rebirth of psycholinguistics in the 1950s; the most
significant was a seminar held at Indiana University during the summer of 1953
that led to the publication of Psycholinguistics: A Survey of Theory and
Research Problems (1954), edited by C. E. Osgood and T. A. Sebeok – a truly
interdisciplinary book jointly written by more than a dozen authors. The
contributors attempted to analyze and reconcile three disparate approaches:
learning theory from psychology, descriptive linguistics, and information
theory (which came mainly from engineering). The book had a wide impact and led
to many further investigations, but the nature of the field changed rapidly
soon after its publication with the Chomskyan revolution in linguistics and the
cognitive turn in psychology. The two were not unrelated: Chomsky’s positive
contribution, Syntactic Structures, was less broadly influential than his
negative review (Language, 1959) of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior. Against
the empiricist-behaviorist view of language understanding and production, in
which language is merely the exhibition of a more complex form of behavior,
Chomsky argued the avowedly rationalist position that the ability to learn and
use language is innate and unique to humans. He emphasized the creative aspect
of language, that almost all sentences one hears or produces are novel. One of
his premises was the alleged infinity of sentences in natural languages, but a
less controversial argument can be given: there are tens of millions of
five-word sentences in English, all of which are readily understood by speakers
who have never heard them. Chomsky’s work promised the possibility of
uncovering a very special characteristic of the human mind. But the promise was
qualified by the disclaimer that linguistic theory describes only the
competence of the ideal speaker. Many psycholinguists spent countless hours
during the 1960s and 1970s seeking the traces of underlying competence beneath
the untidy performances of actual speakers. During the 1970s, as Chomsky
frequently revised his theories of syntax and semantics in significant ways,
and numerous alternative linprovability predicate psycholinguistics 757 757 guistic models were under
consideration, psychologists generated a range of productive research problems
that are increasingly remote from the Chomskyan beginnings. Contemporary
psycholinguistics addresses phonetic, phonological, syntactic, semantic, and
pragmatic influences on language processing. Few clear conclusions of
philosophical import have been established. For example, several decades of
animal research have shown that other species can use significant portions of
human language, but controversy abounds over how central those portions are to
language. Studies now clearly indicate the importance of word frequency and
coarticulation, the dependency of a hearer’s identification of a sound as a
particular phoneme, or of a visual pattern as a particular letter, not only on
the physical features of the pattern but on the properties of other patterns
not necessarily adjacent. Physically identical patterns may be heard as a d in
one context and a t in another. It is also accepted that at least some of the
human lignuistic abilities, particularly those involved in reading and speech
perception, are relatively isolated from other cognitive processes. Infant
studies show that children as young as eight months learn statistically
important patterns characteristic of their natural language – suggesting a
complex set of mechanisms that are automatic and invisible to us. CHOMSKY, COGNITIVE SCIENCE, GRAMMAR,
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. R.E.G. psychological behaviorism.BEHAVIORISM.
psychological certainty.CERTAINTY. psychological continuity.PERSONAL IDENTITY.
psychological egoism.EGOISM. psychological eudaimonism.EUDAIMONISM. psychological
hedonism.HEDONISM. psychological immediacy.IMMEDIACY. psychological
solipsism.SOLIPSISM. psychologism.HUSSERL. psychology, analytical.JUNG.
psychology, autonomy of.PHILOSOPHY OF PSYCHOLOGY. psychology,
philosophical.PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. psychology, philosophy of.PHILOSOPHY OF
PSYCHOLOGY. psychophysical identity.PHYSICALISM. psychophysical
parallelism.PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. psychophysics.FECHNER. psychosemantic
theory.PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. public good.COMMON GOOD, PHILOSOPHY OF ECONOMICS,
SOCIAL CHOICE THEORY. Pufendorf, Samuel (1632–94), German historian and
theorist of natural law. Pufendorf was influenced by both Grotius and Hobbes.
He portrayed people as contentious and quarrelsome, yet as needing one
another’s company and assistance. Natural law shows how people can live with
one another while pursuing their own conflicting projects. To minimize
religious disputes about morals, Pufendorf sought a way of deriving laws of
nature from observable facts alone. Yet he thought divine activity essential to
morality. He opened his massive Latin treatise On the Law of Nature and of
Nations (1672) with a voluntarist account of God’s creation of the essence of
mankind: given that we have the nature God gave us, certain laws must be valid
for us, but only God’s will determined our nature. As a result, our nature
indicates God’s will for us. Hence observable facts about ourselves show us
what laws God commands us to obey. Because we so obviously need one another’s
assistance, the first law is to increase our sociability, i.e. our willingness
to live together. All other laws indicate acts that would bring about this end.
In the course of expounding the laws he thought important for the development
of social life to the high cultural level our complex nature points us toward,
Pufendorf analyzed all the main points that a full legal system must cover. He
presented the rudiments of laws of marriage, property, inheritance, contract,
and international relations in both war and peace. He also developed the
Grotian theory of personal rights, asserting for the first time that rights are
pointless unless for each right there are correlative duties binding on others.
Taking obligation as his fundamental concept, he developed an
imporpsychological behaviorism Pufendorf, Samuel 758 758 punishment Putnam, Hilary 759 tant
distinction between perfect and imperfect duties and rights. And in working out
a theory of property he suggested the first outlines of a historical sociology
of wealth later developed by Adam Smith. Pufendorf’s works on natural law were
textbooks for all of Europe for over a century and were far more widely read
than any other treatments of the subject.
DUTY, GROTIUS, HOBBES, NATURAL LAW. J.B.S. punishment, a distinctive
form of legal sanction, distinguished first by its painful or unpleasant nature
(to the offender), and second by the ground on which the sanction is imposed,
which must be because the offender offended against the norms of a society.
None of these three attributes is a strictly necessary condition for proper use
of the word ‘punishment’. There may be unpleasant consequences visited by
nature upon an offender such that he might be said to have been “punished
enough”; the consequences in a given case may not be unpleasant to a particular
offender, as in the punishment of a masochist with his favorite form of
self-abuse; and punishment may be imposed for reasons other than offense
against society’s norms, as is the case with punishment inflicted in order to
deter others from like acts. The “definitional stop” argument in discussions of
punishment seeks to tie punishment analytically to retributivism. Retributivism
is the theory that punishment is justified by the moral desert of the offender;
on this view, a person who culpably does a wrongful action deserves punishment,
and this desert is a sufficient as well as a necessary condition of just
punishment. Punishment of the deserving, on this view, is an intrinsic good
that does not need to be justified by any other good consequences such
punishment may achieve, such as the prevention of crime. Retributivism is not
to be confused with the view that punishment satisfies the feelings of vengeful
citizens nor with the view that punishment preempts such citizens from taking
the law into their own hands by vigilante action – these latter views being
utilitarian. Retributivism is also not the view (sometimes called “weak” or
“negative” retributivism) that only the deserving are to be punished, for
desert on such a view typically operates only as a limiting and not as a justifying
condition of punishment. The thesis known as the “definitional stop” says that
punishment must be retributive in its justification if it is to be punishment
at all. Bad treatment inflicted in order to prevent future crime is not
punishment but deserves another name, usually ‘telishment’. The dominant
justification of non-retributive punishment (or telishment) is deterrence. The
good in whose name the bad of punishing is justified, on this view, is
prevention of future criminal acts. If punishment is inflicted to prevent the
offender from committing future criminal acts, it is styled “specific” or
“special” deterrence; if punishment is inflicted to prevent others from
committing future criminal acts, it is styled “general” deterrence. In either
case, punishment of an action is justified by the future effect of that
punishment in deterring future actors from committing crimes. There is some
vagueness in the notion of deterrence because of the different mechanisms by
which potential criminals are influenced not to be criminals by the example of
punishment: such punishment may achieve its effects through fear or by more
benignly educating those would-be criminals out of their criminal desires. ETHICS, JUSTICE, PHILOSOPHY OF LAW,
TELISHMENT. M.S.M. pure concept.KANT. pure reason.KANT. purpose.INTENTION.
purposive explanation.PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. Purva Mimamsa. SEE MIMAMSA.
Putnam, Hilary (b.1926), American philosopher who has made significant
contributions to the philosophies of language, science, and mind, and to
mathematical logic and metaphysics. He completed his Ph.D. in 1951 at the
University of California (Los Angeles) and has taught at Northwestern,
Princeton, MIT, and Harvard. In the late 1950s he contributed (with Martin
Davis and Julia Robinson) to a proof of the unsolvability of Hilbert’s tenth
problem (completed in 1970 by Yuri Matiyasevich). Rejecting both Platonism and
conventionalism in mathematics, he explored the concepts of mathematical truth
and logical necessity on the assumption that logic is not entirely immune from
empirical revision – e.g., quantum mechanics may require a rejection of
classical logic. In the 1950s and 1960s he advanced functionalism, an original
theory of mind in which human beings are conceived as Turing machines (computers)
and mental states are functional (or
759 computational) states. While this theory is presupposed by much
contemporary research in cognitive science, Putnam himself (in Representation
and Reality, 1988) abandoned the view, arguing that genuine intentionality
cannot be reduced to computational states because the content of beliefs is (a)
determined by facts external to the individual and (b) individuatable only by
interpreting our belief system as a whole (meaning holism). Putnam’s criticism
of functionalism relies on the “new theory of reference” – sometimes called the
“causal” or “direct” theory – that he and Kripke (working independently)
developed during the late 1960s and early 1970s and that is today embraced by
many philosophers and scientists. In “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’ ” (1975) Putnam
claims that the reference of natural kind terms like ‘water’ is determined by
facts about the world – the microphysical structure of water (H2O) and the
linguistic practices of speakers – and not by the internal mental states of
speakers. Early in his career, Putnam championed scientific realism, rejecting
conventionalism and arguing that without a realist commitment to theoretical
entities (e.g., electrons) the success of science would be a “miracle.” In 1976
he famously abandoned metaphysical realism in favor of “internal realism,”
which gives up commitment to mind-independent objects and relativizes ontology
to conceptual schemes. In a series of model-theoretic arguments, Putnam
challenged the metaphysical realist assumption that an epistemically ideal
theory might be false, claiming that it requires an implausibly “magical”
theory of reference. To the same end, he sought to demonstrate that we are not
“brains in a vat” and that radical skepticism is incoherent (Reason, Truth and
History, 1981). More recently, he has emphasized conceptual relativity in his
attack on metaphysical realism’s commitment to “one true theory” and, in his
Dewey Lectures (1994), has defended direct perceptual realism, showing his allegiance
to everyday “realism.” There is growing appreciation of the underlying unity in
Putnam’s work that helps correct his reputation for “changing his mind.” He has
consistently sought to do justice both to the “real world” of common sense and
science and to distinctly human ways of representing that world. In the 1990s
his energies were increasingly directed to our “moral image of the world.”
Leading a revival of American pragmatism, he has attacked the fact–value
dichotomy, articulating a moral view that resists both relativism and
authoritarianism. Putnam’s influence now extends beyond philosophers and
scientists, to literary theorists, cognitive linguists, and theologians. CAUSAL THEORY OF PROPER NAMES, FUNCTIONALISM,
MEANING, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. D.L.A. Pyrrhonian
Skepticism.SKEPTICISM, SKEPTICS. Pyrrho of Elis (c.365–c.270 B.C.), Greek
philosopher, regarded as the founder of Skepticism. Like Socrates, he wrote
nothing, but impressed many with provocative ideas and calm demeanor. His
equanimity was admired by Epicurus; his attitude of indifference influenced
early Stoicism; his attack on knowledge was taken over by the skeptical
Academy; and two centuries later, a revival of Skepticism adopted his name.
Many of his ideas were anticipated by earlier thinkers, notably Democritus. But
in denying the veracity of all sensations and beliefs, Pyrrho carried doubt to
new and radical extremes. According to ancient anecdote, which presents him as
highly eccentric, he paid so little heed to normal sensibilities that friends
often had to rescue him from grave danger; some nonetheless insisted he lived
into his nineties. He is also said to have emulated the “naked teachers” (as
the Hindu Brahmans were called by Greeks) whom he met while traveling in the
entourage of Alexander the Great. Pyrrho’s chief exponent and publicist was
Timon of Phlius (c.325–c.235 B.C.). His bestpreserved work, the Silloi
(“Lampoons”), is a parody in Homeric epic verse that mocks the pretensions of
numerous philosophers on an imaginary visit to the underworld. According to
Timon, Pyrrho was a “negative dogmatist” who affirmed that knowledge is
impossible, not because our cognitive apparatus is flawed, but because the
world is fundamentally indeterminate: things themselves are “no more” cold than
hot, or good than bad. But Timon makes clear that the key to Pyrrho’s
Skepticism, and a major source of his impact, was the ethical goal he sought to
achieve: by training himself to disregard all perception and values, he hoped
to attain mental tranquility. ACADEMY,
DEMOCRITUS, EPICUREANISM, SKEPTICS, STOICISM. S.A.W. Pythagoras (570?–495?
B.C.), the most famous of the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. He emigrated
from the island of Samos (off Asia Minor) to Croton (southern Italy) in 530.
There he Pyrrhonian Skepticism Pythagoras 760
760 founded societies based on a strict way of life. They had great
political impact in southern Italy and aroused opposition that resulted in the
burning of their meeting houses and, ultimately, in the societies’
disappearance in the fourth century B.C. Pythagoras’s fame grew exponentially
with the pasage of time. Plato’s immediate successors in the Academy saw true
philosophy as an unfolding of the original insight of Pythagoras. By the time
of Iamblichus (late third century A.D.), Pythagoreanism and Platonism had
become virtually identified. Spurious writings ascribed both to Pythagoras and
to other Pythagoreans arose beginning in the third century B.C. Eventually any
thinker who saw the natural world as ordered according to pleasing mathematical
relations (e.g., Kepler) came to be called a Pythagorean. Modern scholarship
has shown that Pythagoras was not a scientist, mathematician, or systematic
philosopher. He apparently wrote nothing. The early evidence shows that he was
famous for introducing the doctrine of metempsychosis, according to which the
soul is immortal and is reborn in both human and animal incarnations. Rules
were established to purify the soul (including the prohibition against eating
beans and the emphasis on training of the memory). General reflections on the
natural world such as “number is the wisest thing” and “the most beautiful,
harmony” were preserved orally. A belief in the mystical power of number is
also visible in the veneration for the tetractys (tetrad: the numbers 1–4,
which add up to the sacred number 10). The doctrine of the harmony of the
spheres – that the heavens move in accord with number and produce music – may
go back to Pythagoras. It is often assumed that there must be more to
Pythagoras’s thought than this, given his fame in the later tradition. However,
Plato refers to him only as the founder of a way of life (Republic 600a9). In
his account of pre-Socratic philosophy, Aristotle refers not to Pythagoras
himself, but to the “so-called Pythagoreans” whom he dates in the fifth
century. ARCHYTAS, PHILOLAUS. C.A.H.
Pythagoreanism.PYTHAGORAS. Pythagoreanism Pythagoreanism 761 761 quale.QUALIA. qualia (singular: quale),
those properties of mental states or events, in particular of sensations and
perceptual states, which determine “what it is like” to have them. Sometimes
‘phenomenal properties’ and ‘qualitative features’ are used with the same
meaning. The felt difference between pains and itches is said to reside in
differences in their “qualitative character,” i.e., their qualia. For those who
accept an “actobject” conception of perceptual experience, qualia may include
such properties as “phenomenal redness” and “phenomenal roundness,” thought of
as properties of sense-data, “phenomenal objects,” or portions of the visual
field. But those who reject this conception do not thereby reject qualia; a
proponent of the adverbial analysis of perceptual experience can hold that an
experience of “sensing redly” is so in virtue of, in part, what qualia it has,
while denying that there is any sense in which the experience itself is red.
Qualia are thought of as non-intentional, i.e., non-representational, features
of the states that have them. So in a case of “spectrum inversion,” where one
person’s experiences of green are “qualitatively” just like another person’s
experiences of red, and vice versa, the visual experiences the two have when
viewing a ripe tomato would be alike in their intentional features (both would be
of a red, round, bulgy surface), but would have different qualia. Critics of
physicalist and functionalist accounts of mind have argued from the possibility
of spectrum inversion and other kinds of “qualia inversion,” and from such
facts as that no physical or functional description will tell one “what it is
like” to smell coffee, that such accounts cannot accommodate qualia. Defenders
of such accounts are divided between those who claim that their accounts can
accommodate qualia and those who claim that qualia are a philosophical myth and
thus that there are none to accommodate.
PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, QUALITIES. S.Sho. qualisign.PEIRCE. qualitative
identity.IDENTITY. qualitative predicate, a kind of predicate postulated in
some attempts to solve the grue paradox. (1) On the syntactic view, a
qualitative predicate is a syntactically more or less simple predicate. Such
simplicity, however, is relative to the choice of primitives in a language. In
English, ‘green’ and ‘blue’ are primitive, while ‘grue’ and ‘bleen’ must be
introduced by definitions (‘green and first examined before T, or blue
otherwise’, ‘blue and first examined before T, or green otherwise’,
respectively). In other languages, ‘grue’ and ‘bleen’ may be primitive and
hence “simple,” while ‘green’ and ‘blue’ must be introduced by definitions
(‘grue and first examined before T, or bleen otherwise’, ‘bleen and first
examined before T, or grue otherwise’, respectively). (2) On the semantic view,
a qualitative predicate is a predicate to which there corresponds a property
that is “natural” (to us) or of easy semantic access. The quality of greenness
is easy and natural; the quality of grueness is strained. (3) On the
ontological view, a qualitative predicate is a predicate to which there
corresponds a property that is woven into the causal or modal structure of
reality in a way that gruesome properties are not. GRUE PARADOX, PROPERTY. D.A.J. qualities,
properties or characteristics. There are three specific philosophical senses.
(1) Qualities are physical properties, logical constructions of physical
properties, or dispositions. Physical properties, such as mass, shape, and
electrical charge, are properties in virtue of which objects can enter into
causal relations. Logical constructions of physical properties include
conjunctions and disjunctions of them; being 10 # .02 cm long is a disjunctive
property. A disposition of an object is a potential for the object to enter
into a causal interaction of some specific kind under some specific condition;
e.g., an object is soluble in water if and only if it would dissolve were it in
enough pure water. (Locke held a very complex theory of powers. On Locke’s
theory, the dispositions of objects are a kind of power and the human will is a
kind of power. However, the human will is not part of 762 Q 762 the modern notion of disposition.) So,
predicating a disposition of an object implies a subjunctive conditional of the
form: if such-and-such were to happen to the object, then so-and-so would
happen to it; that my vase is fragile implies that if my vase were to be hit
sufficiently hard then it would break. (Whether physical properties are
distinct from dispositions is disputed.) Three sorts of qualities are often
distinguished. Primary qualities are physical properties or logical
constructions from physical properties. Secondary qualities are dispositions to
produce sensory experiences of certain phenomenal sorts under appropriate
conditions. The predication of a secondary quality, Q, to an object implies
that if the object were to be perceived under normal conditions then the object
would appear to be Q to the perceivers: if redness is a secondary quality, then
that your coat is red implies that if your coat were to be seen under normal
conditions, it would look red. Locke held that the following are secondary
qualities: colors, tastes, smells, sounds, and warmth or cold. Tertiary
qualities are dispositions that are not secondary qualities, e.g. fragility.
(Contrary to Locke, the color realist holds that colors are either primary or
tertiary qualities; so that x is yellow is logically independent of the fact
that x looks yellow under normal conditions. Since different spectral
reflectances appear to be the same shade of yellow, some color realists hold
that any shade of yellow is a disjunctive property whose components are
spectral reflectances.) (2) Assuming a representative theory of perception, as
Locke did, qualities have two characteristics: qualities are powers (or
dispositions) of objects to produce sensory experiences (sensedata on some
theories) in humans; and, in sensory experience, qualities are represented as
intrinsic properties of objects. Instrinsic properties of objects are
properties that objects have independently of their environment. Hence an exact
duplicate of an object has all the intrinsic properties of the original, and an
intrinsic property of x never has the form,
x-stands-in-suchand-such-a-relation-to-y. Locke held that the primary qualities
are extension (size), figure (shape), motion or rest, solidity
(impenetrability), and number; the primary qualities are correctly represented
in perception as intrinsic features of objects, and the secondary qualities
(listed in (1)) are incorrectly represented in perception as intrinsic features
of objects. (Locke seems to have been mistaken in holding that number is a
quality of objects.) Positional qualities are qualities defined in terms of the
relative positions of points in objects and their surrounding: shape, size, and
motion and rest. Since most of Locke’s primary qualities are positional, some
non-positional quality is needed to occupy positions. On Locke’s account,
solidity fulfills this role, although some have argued (Hume) that solidity is
not a primary quality. (3) Primary qualities are properties common to and
inseparable from all matter; secondary qualities are not really qualities in
objects, but only powers of objects to produce sensory effects in us by means
of their primary qualities. (This is another use of ‘quality’ by Locke, where
‘primary’ functions much like ‘real’ and real properties are given by the
metaphysical assumptions of the science of Locke’s time.) Qualities are
distinct from representations of them in predications. Sometimes the same
quality is represented in different ways by different predications: ‘That is
water’ and ‘That is H2O’. The distinction between qualities and the way they
are represented in predications opens up the Lockean possibility that some
qualities are incorrectly represented in some predications. Features of predications
are sometimes used to define a quality; dispositions are sometimes defined in
terms of subjunctive conditionals (see definition of ‘secondary qualities’ in
(1)), and disjunctive properties are defined in terms of disjunctive
predications. Features of predications are also used in the following
definition of ‘independent qualities’: two qualities, P and Q, are independent
if and only if, for any object x, the predication of P and of Q to x are
logically independent (i.e., that x is P and that x is Q are logically
independent); circularity and redness are independent, circularity and
triangularity are dependent. (If two determinate qualities, e.g., circularity
and triangularity, belong to the same determinable, say shape, then they are
dependent, but if two determinate qualities, e.g., squareness and redness,
belong to different determinables, say shape and color, they are
independent.) DISPOSITION, PROPERTY,
QUALIA. E.W.A. quality.SYLLOGISM. quantification, the application of one or
more quantifiers (e.g., ‘for all x’, ‘for some y’) to an open formula. A
quantification (or quantified) sentence results from first forming an open
formula from a sentence by replacing expressions belonging to a certain class
of expressions in the sentences by variables (whose substituends are quality
quantification 763 763 the expressions
of that class) and then prefixing the formula with quantifiers using those
variables. For example, from ‘Bill hates Mary’ we form ‘x hates y’, to which we
prefix the quantifiers ‘for all x’ and ‘for some y’, getting the quantification
sentence ‘for all x, for some y, x hates y’ (‘Everyone hates someone’). In
referential quantification only terms of reference may be replaced by
variables. The replaceable terms of reference are the substituends of the
variables. The values of the variables are all those objects to which reference
could be made by a term of reference of the type that the variables may
replace. Thus the previous example ‘for all x, for some y, x hates y’ is a
referential quantification. Terms standing for people (‘Bill’, ‘Mary’, e.g.)
are the substituends of the variables ‘x’ and ‘y’. And people are the values of
the variables. In substitutional quantification any type of term may be
replaced by variables. A variable replacing a term has as its substituends all
terms of the type of the replaced term. For example, from ‘Bill married Mary’
we may form ‘Bill R Mary’, to which we prefix the quantifier ‘for some R’,
getting the substitutional quantification ‘for some R, Bill R Mary’. This is
not a referential quantification, since the substituends of ‘R’ are binary
predicates (such as ‘marries’), which are not terms of reference. Referential
quantification is a species of objectual quantification. The truth conditions
of quantification sentences objectually construed are understood in terms of
the values of the variable bound by the quantifier. Thus, ‘for all v, fv’ is
true provided ‘fv’ is true for all values of the variable ‘v’; ‘for some v, fv’
is true provided ‘fv’ is true for some value of the variable ‘v’. The truth or
falsity of a substitutional quantification turns instead on the truth or
falsity of the sentences that result from the quantified formula by replacing
variables by their substituends. For example, ‘for some R, Bill R Mary’ is true
provided some sentence of the form ‘Bill R Mary’ is true. In classical logic
the universal quantifier ‘for all’ is definable in terms of negation and the
existential quantifier ‘for some’: ‘for all x’ is short for ‘not for some x not’.
The existential quantifier is similarly definable in terms of negation and the
universal quantifier. In intuitionistic logic, this does not hold. Both
quantifiers are regarded as primitive.
FORMAL LOGIC, PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC. C.S. quantificational shift fallacy.FORMAL
FALLACY. quantification theory, elementary.FORMAL LOGIC. quantifier.FORMAL
LOGIC, PLURALITIVE LOGIC. quantifier elimination.UNIVERSAL INSTANTIATION.
quantifier shift fallacy.FORMAL FALLACY. quantifying in, use of a quantifier
outside of an opaque construction to attempt to bind a variable within it, a
procedure whose legitimacy was first questioned by Quine. An opaque
construction is one that resists substitutivity of identity. Among others, the
constructions of quotation, the verbs of propositional attitude, and the
logical modalities can give rise to opacity. For example, the position of ‘six’
in: (1) ‘six’ contains exactly three letters is opaque, since the substitution
for ‘six’ by its codesignate ‘immediate successor of five’ renders a truth into
a falsehood: (1H) ‘the immediate successor of five’ contains exactly three
letters. Similarly, the position of ‘the earth’ in: (2) Tom believes that the
earth is habitable is opaque, if the substitution of ‘the earth’ by its
codesignate ‘the third planet from the sun’ renders a sentence that Tom would
affirm into one that he would deny: (2H) Tom believes that the third planet
from the sun is habitable. Finally, the position of ‘9’ (and of ‘7’) in: (3)
Necessarily (9 ( 7) is opaque, since the substitution of ‘the number of major
planets’ for its codesignate ‘9’ renders a truth into a falsehood: (3H)
Necessarily (the number of major planets ( 7). Quine argues that since the
positions within opaque constructions resist substitutivity of identity, they cannot
meaningfully be quantified. Accordingly, the following three quantified
sentences are meaningless: (1I) (Ex) (‘x’ ( 7), (2I) (Ex) (Tom believes that x
is habitable), quantificational shift fallacy quantifying in 764 764 (3I) (Ex) necessarily (x ( 7). (1I),
(2I), and (3I) are meaningless, since the second occurrence of ‘x’ in each of
them does not function as a variable in the ordinary (nonessentialist)
quantificational way. The second occurrence of ‘x’ in (1I) functions as a name
that names the twenty-fourth letter of the alphabet. The second occurrences of
‘x’ in (2I) and in (3I) do not function as variables, since they do not allow
all codesignative terms as substituends without change of truth-value. Thus,
they may take objects as values but only objects designated in certain ways,
e.g., in terms of their intensional or essential properties. So, short of
acquiescing in an intensionalist or essentialist metaphysics, Quine argues, we
cannot in general quantify into opaque contexts. INTENSIONALITY, MEANING, SUBSTITUTIVITY SALVA
VERITATE. R.F.G. quantity.MAGNITUDE, SYLLOGISM. quantum logic, the logic of
which the models are certain non-Boolean algebras derived from the mathematical
representation of quantum mechanical systems. (The models of classical logic
are, formally, Boolean algebras.) This is the central notion of quantum logic
in the literature, although the term covers a variety of modal logics,
dialogics, and operational logics proposed to elucidate the structure of
quantum mechanics and its relation to classical mechanics. The dynamical
quantities of a classical mechanical system (position, momentum, energy, etc.)
form a commutative algebra, and the dynamical properties of the system (e.g.,
the property that the position lies in a specified range, or the property that
the momentum is greater than zero, etc.) form a Boolean algebra. The transition
from classical to quantum mechanics involves the transition from a commutative
algebra of dynamical quantities to a noncommutative algebra of so-called
observables. One way of understanding the conceptual revolution from classical
to quantum mechanics is in terms of a shift from the class of Boolean algebras
to a class of non-Boolean algebras as the appropriate relational structures for
the dynamical properties of mechanical systems, hence from a Boolean classical
logic to a non-Boolean quantum logic as the logic applicable to the fundamental
physical processes of our universe. This conception of quantum logic was
developed formally in a classic 1936 paper by G. Birkhoff and J. von Neumann
(although von Neumann first proposed the idea in 1927). The features that
distinguish quantum logic from classical logic vary with the formulation. In
the Birkhoff–von Neumann logic, the distributive law of classical logic fails,
but this is by no means a feature of all versions of quantum logic. It follows
from Gleason’s theorem (1957) that the non-Boolean models do not admit
two-valued homomorphisms in the general case, i.e., there is no partition of
the dynamical properties of a quantum mechanical system into those possessed by
the system and those not possessed by the system that preserves algebraic
structure, and equivalently no assignment of values to the observables of the
system that preserves algebraic structure. This result was proved independently
for finite sets of observables by S. Kochen and E. P. Specker (1967). It
follows that the probabilities specified by the Born interpretation of the
state function of a quantum mechanical system for the results of measurements
of observables cannot be derived from a probability distribution over the
different possible sets of dynamical properties of the system, or the different
possible sets of values assignable to the observables (of which one set is
presumed to be actual), determined by hidden variables in addition to the state
function, if these sets of properties or values are required to preserve
algebraic structure. While Bell’s theorem (1964) excludes hidden variables
satisfying a certain locality condition, the Kochen-Specker theorem relates the
non-Booleanity of quantum logic to the impossibility of hidden variable
extensions of quantum mechanics, in which value assignments to the observables
satisfy constraints imposed by the algebraic structure of the observables. BOOLEAN ALGEBRA, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE,
QUANTUM MECHANICS. J.Bub quantum mechanics, also called quantum theory, the
science governing objects of atomic and subatomic dimensions. Developed
independently by Werner Heisenberg (as matrix mechanics, 1925) and Erwin
Schrödinger (as wave mechanics, 1926), quantum mechanics breaks with classical
treatments of the motions and interactions of bodies by introducing probability
and acts of measurement in seemingly irreducible ways. In the widely used
Schrödinger version, quantum mechanics associates with each physical system a
time-dependent function, called the state function (alternatively, the state
vector or Y function). The evolution of the system is represented quantity
quantum mechanics 765 765 quantum mechanics
quantum mechanics 766 by the temporal transformation of the state function in
accord with a master equation, known as the Schrödinger equation. Also
associated with a system are “observables”: (in principle) measurable
quantities, such as position, momentum, and energy, including some with no good
classical analogue, such as spin. According to the Born interpretation (1926),
the state function is understood instrumentally: it enables one to calculate,
for any possible value of an observable, the probability that a measurement of
that observable would find that particular value. The formal properties of
observables and state functions imply that certain pairs of observables (such
as linear momentum in a given direction, and position in the same direction)
are incompatible in the sense that no state function assigns probability 1 to
the simultaneous determination of exact values for both observables. This is a
qualitative statement of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (alternatively,
the indeterminacy principle, or just the uncertainty principle).
Quantitatively, that principle places a precise limit on the accuracy with
which one may simultaneously measure a pair of incompatible observables. There
is no corresponding limit, however, on the accuracy with which a single
observable (say, position alone, or momentum alone) may be measured. The
uncertainty principle is sometimes understood in terms of complementarity, a
general perspective proposed by Niels Bohr according to which the connection
between quantum phenomena and observation forces our classical concepts to
split into mutually exclusive packages, both of which are required for a
complete understanding but only one of which is applicable under any particular
experimental conditions. Some take this to imply an ontology in which quantum
objects do not actually possess simultaneous values for incompatible
observables; e.g., do not have simultaneous position and momentum. Others would
hold, e.g., that measuring the position of an object causes an uncontrollable
change in its momentum, in accord with the limits on simultaneous accuracy
built into the uncertainty principle. These ways of treating the principle are
not uncontroversial. Philosophical interest arises in part from where the
quantum theory breaks with classical physics: namely, from the apparent
breakdown of determinism (or causality) that seems to result from the
irreducibly statistical nature of the theory, and from the apparent breakdown
of observer-independence or realism that seems to result from the fundamental
role of measurement in the theory. Both features relate to the interpretation
of the state function as providing only a summary of the probabilities for
various measurement outcomes. Einstein, in particular, criticized the theory on
these grounds, and in 1935 suggested a striking thought experiment to show
that, assuming no action-at-a-distance, one would have to consider the state
function as an incomplete description of the real physical state for an
individual system, and therefore quantum mechanics as merely a provisional
theory. Einstein’s example involved a pair of systems that interact briefly and
then separate, but in such a way that the outcomes of various measurements
performed on each system, separately, show an uncanny correlation. In 1951 the
physicist David Bohm simplified Einstein’s example, and later (1957) indicated
that it may be realizable experimentally. The physicist John S. Bell then
formulated a locality assumption (1964), similar to Einstein’s, that constrains
factors which might be used in describing the state of an individual system,
so-called hidden variables. Locality requires that in the EinsteinBohm
experiment hidden variables not allow the measurement performed on one system
in a correlated pair immediately to influence the outcome obtained in measuring
the other, spatially separated system. Bell demonstrated that locality (in
conjunction with other assumptions about hidden variables) restricts the
probabilities for measurement outcomes according to a system of inequalities
known as the Bell inequalities, and that the probabilities of certain quantum
systems violate these inequalities. This is Bell’s theorem. Subsequently
several experiments of the Einstein-Bohm type have been performed to test the
Bell inequalities. Although the results have not been univocal, the consensus
is that the experimental data support the quantum theory and violate the
inequalities. Current research is trying to evaluate the implications of these
results, including the extent to which they rule out local hidden variables.
(See J. Cushing and E. McMullin, eds., Philosophical Consequences of Quantum
Theory, 1989.) The descriptive incompleteness with which Einstein charged the
theory suggests other problems. A particularly dramatic one arose in
correspondence between Schrödinger and Einstein; namely, the “gruesome”
Schrödinger cat paradox. Here a cat is confined in a closed chamber containing
a radioactive atom with a fifty-fifty chance of decaying in the next hour. If
the atom decays it triggers a relay that causes a hammer to fall and smash a
glass vial holding a quantity of 766
prussic acid sufficient to kill the cat. According to the Schrödinger equation,
after an hour the state function for the entire atom ! relay ! hammer ! glass
vial ! cat system is such that if we observe the cat the probability for
finding it alive (dead) is 50 percent. However, this evolved state function is
one for which there is no definite result; according to it, the cat is neither
alive nor dead. How then does any definite fact of the matter arise, and when?
Is the act of observation itself instrumental in bringing about the observed
result, does that result come about by virtue of some special random process,
or is there some other account compatible with definite results of
measurements? This is the so-called quantum measurement problem and it too is
an active area of research. DETERMINISM,
EINSTEIN, FIELD THEORY, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, RELATIVITY. A.F. quasi-indicator,
Castañeda’s term for an expression used to ascribe indexical reference to a
speaker or thinker. If John says “I am hungry” it is incorrect to report what
he said with ‘John claims that I am hungry’, since ‘I’, being an indexical,
expresses speaker’s reference, not John’s. However, ‘John claims that John is
hungry’ fails to represent the indexical element of his assertion. Instead, we
use ‘John claims that he himself is hungry’, where ‘he himself’ is a
quasiindicator depicting John’s reference to himself qua self. Because of its
subjective and perspectival character, we cannot grasp the exact content of
another’s indexical reference, yet quasi-indexical representations are possible
since we confront the world through generically the same indexical modes of
presentation. If these modes are irreducible, then quasi-indicators are
indispensable for describing the thoughts and experiences of others. As such,
they are not equivalent to or replaceable by any antecedents occurring outside
the scope of psychological verbs to which they are subordinated. CASTAÑEDA, GUISE THEORY, INDEXICAL, SCOPE.
T.K. quasi-quotes.CORNERS. quaternio terminorum.SYLLOGISM. quiddity.AVICENNA,
ESSENTIALISM. Quine, W(illard) V(an) O(rman) (b.1908), American philosopher and
logician, renowned for his rejection of the analytic–synthetic distinction and
for his advocacy of extensionalism, naturalism, physicalism, empiricism, and
holism. Quine took his doctorate in philosophy at Harvard in 1932. After four
years of postdoctoral fellowships, he was appointed to the philosophy faculty
at Harvard in 1936. There he remained until he retired from teaching in 1978.
During six decades Quine published scores of journal articles and more than
twenty books. His writings touch a number of areas, including logic, philosophy
of logic, set theory, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of
science, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Among his most influential
articles and books are “New Foundations for Mathematical Logic” (1936), “Two
Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951), “Epistemology Naturalized” (1969), and Word and
Object (1960). In “New Foundations” he develops a set theory that avoids
Russell’s paradox without relying on Russell’s theory of types. Rather,
following Ernst Zermelo, Quine drops the presumption that every membership
condition determines a set. The system of “New Foundations” continues to be
widely discussed by mathematicians. “Two Dogmas” sets out to repudiate what he
sees as two dogmas of logical empiricism. The first is the so-called
analytic–synthetic distinction; the second is a weak form of reductionism to
the effect that each synthetic statement has associated with it a unique set of
confirming experiences and a unique set of infirming experiences. Against the
first dogma, Quine argues that none of the then-current attempts to
characterize analyticity (e.g., “a statement is analytic if and only if it is
true solely in virtue of its meaning”) do so with sufficient clarity, and that
any similar characterization is likewise doomed to fail. Against the second
dogma, Quine argues that a more accurate account of the relation between the
statements of a theory and experience is holistic rather than reductionistic,
that is, only as a corporate body do the statements of a theory face the
tribunal of experience. Quine concludes that the effects of rejecting these two
dogmas of empiricism are (1) a blurring of the supposed boundary between
speculative metaphysics and natural science and (2) a shift toward pragmatism.
In “Epistemology Naturalized” Quine argues in favor of naturalizing
epistemology: old-time epistemology (first philosophy) has failed in its
attempt to ground science on something firmer than science and should,
therefore, be replaced by a scientific account of how we acquire our overall
theory of the world and why it works so well. quasi-indicator Quine, W(illard)
V(an) O(rman) 767 767 In Word and
Object, Quine’s most famous book, he argues in favor of (1) naturalizing
epistemology, (2) physicalism as against phenomenalism and mind–body dualism,
and (3) extensionality as against intensionality. He also (4) develops a
behavioristic conception of sentence-meaning, (5) theorizes about language
learning, (6) speculates on the ontogenesis of reference, (7) explains various
forms of ambiguity and vagueness, (8) recommends measures for regimenting
language so as to eliminate ambiguity and vagueness as well as to make a
theory’s logic and ontic commitments perspicuous (“to be is to be the value of
a bound variable”), (9) argues against quantified modal logic and the essentialism
it presupposes, (10) argues for Platonic realism in mathematics, (11) argues
for scientific realism and against instrumentalism, (12) develops a view of
philosophical analysis as explication, (13) argues against analyticity and for
holism, (14) argues against countenancing propositions, and (15) argues that
the meanings of theoretical sentences are indeterminate and that the reference
of terms is inscrutable. Quine’s subsequent writings have largely been devoted
to summing up, clarifying, and expanding on themes found in Word and
Object. ANALYTIC –SYNTHETIC DISTINCTION,
EMPIRICISM, EXTENSIONALISM, HOLISM, NATURALISM, NATURALISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY,
PHYSICALISM. R.F.G. quinque voces.PREDICABLES. quinque voces quinque voces
768 768 Rabad.IBN DAUD. racetrack
paradox.ZENO’S PARADOXES. racism, hostility, contempt, condescension, or
prejudice, on the basis of social practices of racial classification, and the
wider phenomena of social, economic, and political mistreatment that often
accompany such classification. The most salient instances of racism include the
Nazi ideology of the “Aryan master race,” American chattel slavery, South
African apartheid in the late twentieth century, and the “Jim Crow” laws and
traditions of segregation that subjugated African descendants in the Southern
United States during the century after the American Civil War. Social theorists
dispute whether, in its essence, racism is a belief or an ideology of racial
inferiority, a system of social oppression on the basis of race, a form of
discourse, discriminatory conduct, or an attitude of contempt or heartlessness
(and its expression in individual or collective behavior). The case for any of
these as the essence of racism has its drawbacks, and a proponent must show how
the others can also come to be racist in virtue of that essence. Some deny that
racism has any nature or essence, insisting it is nothing more than changing
historical realities. However, these thinkers must explain what makes each
reality an instance of racism. Theorists differ over who and what can be racist
and under what circumstances, some restricting racism to the powerful, others
finding it also in some reactions by the oppressed. Here, the former owe an
explanation of why power is necessary for racism, what sort (economic or
political? general or contextual?), and in whom or what (racist individuals?
their racial groups?). Although virtually everyone thinks racism objectionable,
people disagree over whether its central defect is cognitive (irrationality,
prejudice), economic/prudential (inefficiency), or moral (unnecessary
suffering, unequal treatment). Finally, racism’s connection with the ambiguous
and controversial concept of race itself is complex. Plainly, racism
presupposes the legitimacy of racial classifications, and perhaps the
metaphysical reality of races. Nevertheless, some hold that racism is also
prior to race, with racial classifications invented chiefly to explain and help
justify the oppression of some peoples by others. The term originated to designate
the pseudoscientific theories of racial essence and inferiority that arose in
Europe in the nineteenth century and were endorsed by Germany’s Third Reich.
Since the civil rights movement in the United States after World War II, the
term has come to cover a much broader range of beliefs, attitudes,
institutions, and practices. Today one hears charges of unconscious, covert,
institutional, paternalistic, benign, anti-racist, liberal, and even reverse
racism. Racism is widely regarded as involving ignorance, irrationality,
unreasonableness, injustice, and other intellectual and moral vices, to such an
extent that today virtually no one is willing to accept the classification of
oneself, one’s beliefs, and so on, as racist, except in contexts of self-reproach.
As a result, classifying anything as racist, beyond the most egregious cases,
is a serious charge and is often hotly disputed. JUSTICE, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, SOCIAL
PHILOSOPHY. J.L.A.G. radical translation.INDETERMINACY OF TRANSLATION. Ramanuja
(1017?–1137?), Indian philosopher who founded the Visistadvaita tradition. His
theistic system provides the theoretical basis for Bhakti devotional Hinduism.
His most important writings are the Sribhafya (a commentary on the
Brahma-Sutras of Badarayana that presents an interpretation competitive to
Shankara’s), the Gita-Bhacya (a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita), and the
Vedarthasamgraha (a commentary on the Upanishads). He rejects natural theology,
offers a powerful criticism of Advaita Vedanta, and presents a systematic
articulation of devotional theism.
VISISTADVAITA VEDANTA. K.E.Y. ramified type theory.TYPE THEORY. Ramist
movement.RAMUS. Ramsey, Frank Plumpton (1903–30), influential 769 R 769 British philosopher of logic and
mathematics. His primary interests were in logic and philosophy, but decades
after his untimely death two of his publications sparked new branches of
economics, and in pure mathematics his combinatorial theorems gave rise to
“Ramsey theory” (Economic Journal 1927, 1928; Proc. London Math. Soc., 1928).
During his lifetime Ramsey’s philosophical reputation outside Cambridge was
based largely on his architectural reparation of Whitehead and Russell’s
Principia Mathematica, strengthening its claim to reduce mathematics to the new
logic formulated in Volume 1 – a reduction rounded out by Wittgenstein’s
assessment of logical truths as tautologous. Ramsey clarified this logicist
picture of mathematics by radically simplifying Russell’s ramified theory of
types, eliminating the need for the unarguable axiom of reducibility (Proc.
London Math. Soc., 1925). His philosophical work was published mostly after his
death. The canon, established by Richard Braithwaite (The Foundations of
Mathematics . . . , 1931), remains generally intact in D. H. Mellor’s edition
(Philosophical Papers, 1990). Further writings of varying importance appear in
his Notes on Philosophy, Probability and Mathematics (M. C. Galavotti, ed.,
1991) and On Truth (Nicholas Rescher and Ulrich Majer, eds., 1991). As an
undergraduate Ramsey observed that the redundancy account of truth “enables us
to rule out at once some theories of truth such as that ‘to be true’ means ‘to
work’ or ‘to cohere’ since clearly ‘p works’ and ‘p coheres’ are not equivalent
to ‘p’.” Later, in the canonical “Truth and Probability” (1926), he readdressed
to knowledge and belief the main questions ordinarily associated with truth,
analyzing probability as a mode of judgment in the framework of a theory of
choice under uncertainty. Reinvented and acknowledged by L. J. Savage
(Foundations of Statistics, 1954), this forms the theoretical basis of the
currently dominant “Bayesian” view of rational decision making. Ramsey cut his
philosophical teeth on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus. His
translation appeared in 1922; a long critical notice of the work (1923) was his
first substantial philosophical publication. His later role in Wittgenstein’s
rejection of the Tractatus is acknowledged in the foreword to Philosophical
Investigations (1953). The posthumous canon has been a gold mine. An example:
“Propositions” (1929), reading the theoretical terms (T, U, etc.) of an
axiomatized scientific theory as variables, sees the theory’s content as
conveyed by a “Ramsey sentence” saying that for some T, U, etc., the theory’s
axioms are true, a sentence in which all extralogical terms are observational.
Another example: “General Propositions and Causality” (1929), offering in a
footnote the “Ramsey test” for acceptability of conditionals, i.e., add the
if-clause to your ambient beliefs (minimally modified to make the enlarged set
self-consistent), and accept the conditional if the then-clause follows. BAYESIAN RATIONALITY, PROBABILITY, TRUTH.
R.J. Ramsey-eliminability.BETH’S DEFINABILITY THEOREM. Ramsey sentence.PHILOSOPHY
OF MIND, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. Ramsey test.RAMSEY. Ramus, Petrus, in French,
Pierre de La Ramée (1515–72), French philosopher who questioned the authority
of Aristotle and influenced the methods and teaching of logic through the
seventeenth century. In 1543 he published his Dialecticae institutiones libri
XV, and in 1555 reworked it as Dialectique – the first philosophical work in
French. He was appointed by François I as the first Regius Professor of the
University of Paris, where he taught until he was killed in the St.
Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572. Ramus doubted that we can apodictically
intuit the major premises required for Aristotle’s rational syllogism. Turning
instead to Plato, Ramus proposed that a “Socratizing” of logic would produce a
more workable and fruitful result. As had Agricola and Sturm, he reworked the
rhetorical and liberal arts traditions’ concepts of “invention, judgment, and
practice,” placing “method” in the center of judgment. Proceeding in these
stages, we can “read” nature’s “arguments,” because they are modeled on natural
reasoning, which in turn can emulate the reasoning by which God creates. Often
his results were depicted graphically in tables (as in chapter IX of Hobbes’s
Leviathan). When carefully done they would show both what is known and where
gaps require further investigation; the process from invention to judgment is
continuous. Ramus’s works saw some 750 editions in one century, fostering the
“Ramist” movement in emerging Protestant universities and the American
colonies. He influenced Bacon, Hobbes, Milton, Methodism, Cambridge Platonism,
and Alsted in Europe, and Hooker and Congregationalism in Puritan America.
Inconsistencies make him less than a major figure in the history
Ramsey-eliminability Ramus, Petrus 770
770 of logic, but his many works and their rapid popularity led to
philosophical and educational efforts to bring the world of learning to the
“plain man” by using the vernacular, and by more closely correlating the rigor
of philosophy with the memorable and persuasive powers of rhetoric; he saw this
goal as Socratic. C.Wa. randomness.PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. range.RELATION.
Rashdall, Hastings (1858–1924), English historian, theologian, and personal
idealist. While acknowledging that Berkeley needed to be corrected by Kant,
Rashdall defended Berkeley’s thesis that objects only exist for minds. From
this he concluded that there is a divine mind that guarantees the existence of
nature and the objectivity of morality. In his most important philosophical work,
The Theory of Good and Evil (1907), Rashdall argued that actions are right or
wrong according to whether they produce well-being, in which pleasure as well
as a virtuous disposition are constituents. Rashdall coined the name ‘ideal
utilitarianism’ for this view.
UTILITARIANISM. J.W.A. rational choice theory.DECISION THEORY.
rationalism, the position that reason has precedence over other ways of
acquiring knowledge, or, more strongly, that it is the unique path to
knowledge. It is most often encountered as a view in epistemology, where it is
traditionally contrasted with empiricism, the view that the senses are primary
with respect to knowledge. (It is important here to distinguish empiricism with
respect to knowledge from empiricism with respect to ideas or concepts; whereas
the former is opposed to rationalism, the latter is opposed to the doctrine of
innate ideas.) The term is also encountered in the philosophy of religion,
where it may designate those who oppose the view that revelation is central to
religious knowledge; and in ethics, where it may designate those who oppose the
view that ethical principles are grounded in or derive from emotion, empathy,
or some other non-rational foundation. The term ‘rationalism’ does not
generally designate a single precise philosophical position; there are several
ways in which reason can have precedence, and several accounts of knowledge to
which it may be opposed. Furthermore, the very term ‘reason’ is not altogether
clear. Often it designates a faculty of the soul, distinct from sensation,
imagination, and memory, which is the ground of a priori knowledge. But there
are other conceptions of reason, such as the narrower conception in which
Pascal opposes reason to “knowledge of the heart” (Pensées, section 110), or
the computational conception of reason Hobbes advances in Leviathan I.5. The
term might thus be applied to a number of philosophical positions from the
ancients down to the present. Among the ancients, ‘rationalism’ and
‘empiricism’ especially denote two schools of medicine, the former relying
primarily on a theoretical knowledge of the hidden workings of the human body,
the latter relying on direct clinical experience. The term might also be used
to characterize the views of Plato and later Neoplatonists, who argued that we
have pure intellectual access to the Forms and general principles that govern
reality, and rejected sensory knowledge of the imperfect realization of those
Forms in the material world. In recent philosophical writing, the term ‘rationalism’
is most closely associated with the positions of a group of seventeenth-century
philosophers, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and sometimes Malebranche. These
thinkers are often referred to collectively as the Continental rationalists,
and are generally opposed to the socalled British empiricists, Locke, Berkeley,
and Hume. All of the former share the view that we have a non-empirical and
rational access to the truth about the way the world is, and all privilege
reason over knowledge derived from the senses. These philosophers are also
attracted to mathematics as a model for knowledge in general. But these common
views are developed in quite different ways. Descartes claims to take his
inspiration from mathematics – not mathematics as commonly understood, but the
analysis of the ancients. According to Descartes, we start from first
principles known directly by reason (the cogito ergo sum of the Meditations),
what he calls intuition in his Rules for the Direction of the Mind; all other
knowledge is deduced from there. A central aim of his Meditations is to show
that this faculty of reason is trustworthy. The senses, on the other hand, are
generally deceptive, leading us to mistake sensory qualities for real qualities
of extended bodies, and leading us to the false philosophy of Aristotle and to
Scholasticism. Descartes does not reject the senses altogether; in Meditation
VI he argues that the senses are most often correct in circumstances concerning
the preservation of life. Perhaps paradoxically, experiment is important to
Descartes’s scientific randomness rationalism 771 771 work. However, his primary interest is
in the theoretical account of the phenomena experiment reveals, and while his
position is unclear, he may have considered experiment as an auxiliary to
intuition and deduction, or as a second-best method that can be used with
problems too complex for pure reason. Malebranche, following Descartes, takes
similar views in his Search after Truth, though unlike Descartes, he emphasizes
original sin as the cause of our tendency to trust the senses. Spinoza’s model
for knowledge is Euclidean geometry, as realized in the geometrical form of the
Ethics. Spinoza explicitly argues that we cannot have adequate ideas of the
world through sensation (Ethics II, propositions 16–31). In the Ethics he does
see a role for the senses in what he calls knowledge of the first and knowledge
of the second kinds, and in the earlier Emendation of the Intellect, he
suggests that the senses may be auxiliary aids to genuine knowledge. But the
senses are imperfect and far less valuable, according to Spinoza, than
intuition, i.e., knowledge of the third kind, from which sensory experience is
excluded. Spinoza’s rationalism is implicit in a central proposition of the
Ethics, in accordance with which “the order and connection of ideas is the same
as the order and connection of things” (Ethics II, proposition 7), allowing one
to infer causal connections between bodies and states of the material world
directly from the logical connections between ideas. Leibniz, too, emphasizes
reason over the senses in a number of ways. In his youth he believed that it
would be possible to calculate the truth-value of every sentence by
constructing a logical language whose structure mirrors the structure of
relations between concepts in the world. This view is reflected in his mature
thought in the doctrine that in every truth, the concept of the predicate is
contained in the concept of the subject, so that if one could take the
God’s-eye view (which, he concedes, we cannot), one could determine the truth
or falsity of any proposition without appeal to experience (Discourse on
Metaphysics, section 8). Leibniz also argues that all truths are based on two
basic principles, the law of non-contradiction (for necessary truths), and the
principle of sufficient reason (for contingent truths) (Monadology, section
31), both of which can be known a priori. And so, at least in principle, the
truth-values of all propositions can be determined a priori. This reflects his
practice in physics, where he derives a number of laws of motion from the
principle of the equality of cause and effect, which can be known a priori on
the basis of the principle of sufficient reason. But, at the same time,
referring to the empirical school of ancient medicine, Leibniz concedes that
“we are all mere Empirics in three fourths of our actions” (Monadology, section
28). Each of the so-called Continental rationalists does, in his own way,
privilege reason over the senses. But the common designation ‘Continental
rationalism’ arose only much later, probably in the nineteenth century. For
their contemporaries, more impressed with their differences than their common
doctrines, the Continental rationalists did not form a single homogeneous school
of thought. A PRIORI, EMPIRICISM,
INTUITION. D.Garb. rationalism, Continental.RATIONALISM. rationalism,
moral.MORAL SENSE THEORY. rationality. In its primary sense, rationality is a
normative concept that philosophers have generally tried to characterize in
such a way that, for any action, belief, or desire, if it is rational we ought
to choose it. No such positive characterization has achieved anything close to
universal assent because, often, several competing actions, beliefs, or desires
count as rational. Equating what is rational with what is rationally required
eliminates the category of what is rationally allowed. Irrationality seems to
be the more fundamental normative category; for although there are conflicting
substantive accounts of irrationality, all agree that to say of an action,
belief, or desire that it is irrational is to claim that it should always be
avoided. Rationality is also a descriptive concept that refers to those
intellectual capacities, usually involving the ability to use language, that
distinguish persons from plants and most other animals. There is some dispute
about whether some non-human animals, e.g., dolphins and chimpanzees, are
rational in this sense. Theoretical rationality applies to beliefs. An
irrational belief is one that obviously conflicts with what one should know.
This characterization of an irrational belief is identical with the psychiatric
characterization of a delusion. It is a personrelative concept, because what
obviously conflicts with what should be known by one person need not obviously
conflict with what should be known by another. On this account, any belief that
is not irrational counts as rational. Many positive characterizations of
rational beliefs have rationalism, Continental rationality 772 772 been proposed, e.g., (1) beliefs that
are either self-evident or derived from self-evident beliefs by a reliable
procedure and (2) beliefs that are consistent with the overwhelming majority of
one’s beliefs; but all of these positive characterizations have encountered
serious objections. Practical rationality applies to actions. For some
philosophers it is identical to instrumental rationality. On this view,
commonly called instrumentalism, acting rationally simply means acting in a way
that is maximally efficient in achieving one’s goals. However, most
philosophers realize that achieving one goal may conflict with achieving
another, and therefore require that a rational action be one that best achieves
one’s goals only when these goals are considered as forming a system. Others
have added that all of these goals must be ones that would be chosen given
complete knowledge and understanding of what it would be like to achieve these
goals. On the latter account of rational action, the system of goals is chosen
by all persons for themselves, and apart from consistency there is no external
standpoint from which to evaluate rationally any such system. Thus, for a
person with a certain system of goals it will be irrational to act morally.
Another account of rational action is not at all person-relative. On this
account, to act rationally is to act on universalizable principles, so that
what is a reason for one person must be a reason for everyone. One point of
such an account is to make it rationally required to act morally, thus making
all immoral action irrational. However, if to call an action irrational is to
claim that everyone would hold that it is always to be avoided, then it is
neither irrational to act immorally in order to benefit oneself or one’s
friends, nor irrational to act morally even when that goes against one’s system
of goals. Only a negative characterization of what is rational as what is not
irrational, which makes it rationally permissible to act either morally or in
accordance with one’s own system of goals, as long as these goals meet some
minimal objective standard, seems likely to be adequate. EPISTEMOLOGY, ETHICS, PRACTICAL REASONING,
THEORETICAL REASON. B.Ge. rationality, epistemic.IRRATIONALITY. rationality,
instrumental.RATIONALITY. rationality, practical.RATIONALITY. rationality,
theoretical.RATIONALITY. rationalization, (1) an apparent explanation of a
person’s action or attitude by appeal to reasons that would justify or
exculpate the person for it – if, contrary to fact, those reasons were to
explain it; (2) an explanation or interpretation made from a rational
perspective. In sense (1), rationalizations are pseudo-explanations, often
motivated by a desire to exhibit an item in a favorable light. Such
rationalizations sometimes involve self-deception. Depending on one’s view of
justification, a rationalization might justify an action – by adducing
excellent reasons for its performance – even if the agent, not having acted for
those reasons, deserves no credit for so acting. In sense (2) (a sense
popularized in philosophy by Donald Davidson), rationalizations of intentional
actions are genuine explanations in terms of agents’ reasons. In this sense, we
provide a rationalization for – or “rationalize” – Robert’s shopping at Zed’s
by identifying the reason(s) for which he does so: e.g., he wants to buy an
excellent kitchen knife and believes that Zed’s sells the best cutlery in town.
(Also, the reasons for which an agent acts may themselves be said to
rationalize the action.) Beliefs, desires, and intentions may be similarly
rationalized. In each case, a rationalization exhibits the rationalized item
as, to some degree, rational from the standpoint of the person to whom it is
attributed. RATIONALITY, REASONS FOR
ACTION, SELF-DECEPTION. A.R.M. rational number.MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS. rational
psychology, the a priori study of the mind. This was a large component of
eighteenthand nineteenth-century psychology, and was contrasted by its
exponents with empirical psychology, which is rooted in contingent experience.
The term ‘rational psychology’ may also designate a mind, or form of mind,
having the property of rationality. Current philosophy of mind includes much
discussion of rational psychologies, but the notion is apparently ambiguous. On
one hand, there is rationality as intelligibility. This is a minimal coherence,
say of desires or inferences, that a mind must possess to be a mind. For
instance, Donald Davidson, many functionalists, and some decision theorists
believe there are principles of rationality of this sort that constrain the
appropriate attribution of beliefs and desires to a person, so that a mind must
meet such constraints if it is to have beliefs and desires. On another pole,
there is rationality as justification. For someone’s psychology to have this
property is for that psychology to be as rationality, epistemic rational
psychology 773 773 reason requires it
to be, say for that person’s inferences and desires to be supported by proper
reasons given their proper weight, and hence to be justified. Rationality as
justification is a normative property, which it would seem some minds lack. But
despite the apparent differences between these two sorts of rationality, some
important work in philosophy of mind implies either that these two senses in
fact collapse, or at least that there are intervening and significant senses,
so that things at least a lot like normative principles constrain what our
psychologies are. PHILOSOPHY OF MIND.
J.R.M. rational reconstruction, also called logical reconstruction, translation
of a discourse of a certain conceptual type into a discourse of another
conceptual type with the aim of making it possible to say everything (or
everything important) that is expressible in the former more clearly (or
perspicuously) in the latter. The best-known example is one in Carnap’s Der
Logische Aufbau der Welt. Carnap attempted to translate discourse concerning
physical objects (e.g., ‘There is a round brown table’) into discourse
concerning immediate objects of sense experience (‘Color patches of
such-and-such chromatic characteristics and shape appear in such-and-such a
way’). He was motivated by the empiricist doctrine that immediate sense
experience is conceptually prior to everything else, including our notion of a
physical object. In addition to talk of immediate sense experience, Carnap
relied on logic and set theory. Since their use is difficult to reconcile with
strict empiricism, his translation would not have fully vindicated empiricism
even if it had succeeded. DEFINITION,
LOGICAL POSITIVISM, PHENOMENALISM. T.Y. ratio recta.INDIRECT DISCOURSE. ratio
scale.MAGNITUDE. ravens paradox.CONFIRMATION. Rawls, John (b.1921), American
philosopher widely recognized as one of the leading political philosophers of
the twentieth century. His A Theory of Justice (1971) is one of the primary
texts in political philosophy. Political Liberalism (1993) revises Rawls’s
theory to make his conception of justice compatible with liberal pluralism, but
leaves the core of his conception intact. Drawing on the liberal and democratic
social contract traditions of Locke, Rousseau, and Kant, Rawls argues that the
most reasonable principles of justice are those everyone would accept and agree
to from a fair position. Since these principles determine the justice of
society’s political constitution, economy, and property rules (its “basic
structure”), Rawls takes a fair agreement situation to be one where everyone is
impartially situated as equals. In this so-called original position everyone is
equally situated by a hypothetical “veil of ignorance.” This veil requires
individuals to set aside their knowledge of their particular differences,
including knowledge of their talents, wealth, social position, religious and
philosophical views, and particular conceptions of value. Rawls argues that in
the hypothetical original position everyone would reject utilitarianism,
perfectionism, and intuitionist views. Instead they would unanimously accept
justice as fairness. This conception of justice consists mainly of two
principles. The first principle says that certain liberties are basic and are
to be equally provided to all: liberty of conscience, freedom of thought,
freedom of association, equal political liberties, freedom and integrity of the
person, and the liberties that maintain the rule of law. These are basic
liberties, because they are necessary to exercise one’s “moral powers.” The two
moral powers are, first, the capacity to be rational, to have a rational
conception of one’s good; and second, the capacity for a sense of justice, to
understand, apply, and act from requirements of justice. These powers
constitute essential interests of free and equal moral persons since they
enable each person to be a free and responsible agent taking part in social cooperation.
Rawls’s second principle of justice, the difference principle, regulates
permissible differences in rights, powers, and privileges. It defines the
limits of inequalities in wealth, income, powers, and positions that may exist
in a just society. It says, first, that social positions are to be open to all
to compete for on terms of fair equality of opportunity. Second, inequalities
in wealth, income, and social powers and positions are permissible only if they
maximally benefit the least advantaged class in society. The difference
principle implies that a just economic system distributes income and wealth so
as to make the class of least advantaged persons better off than they would be
under any alternative economic system. This principle is to be consistent with
the “priority” of the first principle, which requires that equal basic
liberties cannot be traded for other benefits. The least advanrational
reconstruction Rawls, John 774 774
Ray, John reality 775 taged’s right to vote, for example, cannot be limited for
the sake of improving their relative economic position. Instead, a basic
liberty can be limited only for the sake of maintaining other basic liberties.
Rawls contends that, taking the two principles of justice together, a just
society maximizes the worth to the least advantaged of the basic liberties
shared by all (Theory, p. 205). The priority of basic liberty implies a liberal
egalitarian society in which each person is ensured adequate resources to
effectively exercise her basic liberties and become independent and
self-governing. A just society is then governed by a liberal-democratic
constitution that protects the basic liberties and provides citizens with
equally effective rights to participate in electoral processes and influence legislation.
Economically a just society incorporates a modified market system that
extensively distributes income and wealth – either a “property-owning
democracy” with widespread ownership of means of production, or liberal
socialism. CONTRACTARIANISM, JUSTICE,
KANT, LIBERALISM, RIGHTS, UTILITARIANISM. S.Fr. Ray, John (1627–1705), English
naturalist whose work on the structure and habits of plants and animals led to
important conclusions on the methodology of classification and gave a strong
impetus to the design argument in natural theology. In an early paper he argued
that the determining characteristics of a species are those transmitted by
seed, since color, scent, size, etc., vary with climate and nutriment.
Parallels from the animal kingdom suggested the correct basis for
classification would be structural. But we have no knowledge of real essences.
Our experience of nature is of a continuum, and for practical purposes kinships
are best identified by a plurality of criteria. His mature theory is set out in
Dissertatio Brevis (1696) and Methodus Emendata (1703). The Wisdom of God
Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691 and three revisions) was a
best-selling compendium of Ray’s own scientific learning and was imitated and
quarried by many later exponents of the design argument. Philosophically, he
relied on others, from Cicero to Cudworth, and was superseded by Paley. M.A.St.
Razi, al.AL-RazI. reactive attitude.STRAWSON. real assent.NEWMAN. real
definition.DEFINITION. real distinction.FUNDAMENTUM DIVISIONIS. real
essence.ESSENTIALISM. realism, direct.DIRECT REALISM. realism,
internal.PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. realism, metaphysical.ARMSTRONG, METAPHYSICAL
REALISM. realism, modal.LEWIS, DAVID. realism, moral.MORAL REALISM. realism,
naive.PERCEPTION. realism, perceptual.PERCEPTION. realism,
scientific.PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE; SELLARS, WILFRID. realism, Scotistic.DUNS
SCOTUS. realism ante rem.PROPERTY. realism in rebus.PROPERTY. reality, in
standard philosophical usage, how things actually are, in contrast with their
mere appearance. Appearance has to do with how things seem to a particular
perceiver or group of perceivers. Reality is sometimes said to be
twoway-independent of appearance. This means that appearance does not determine
reality. First, no matter how much agreement there is, based on appearance,
about the nature of reality, it is always conceivable that reality differs from
appearance. Secondly, appearances are in no way required for reality: reality
can outstrip the range of all investigations that we are in a position to make.
It may be that reality always brings with it the possibility of appearances, in
the counterfactual sense that if there were observers suitably situated, then
if conditions were not conducive to error, they would have experiences of
such-and-such a kind. But the truth of such a counterfactual seems to be
grounded in the facts of reality. Phenomenalism holds, to the contrary, that
the facts of reality can be explained by such counterfactuals, but phe 775 reality principle reasons for action 776
nomenalists have failed to produce adequate non-circular analyses. The concept
of reality on which it is two-wayindependent of experience is sometimes called
objective reality. However, Descartes used this phrase differently, to effect a
contrast with formal or actual reality. He held that there must be at least as
much reality in the efficient and total cause of an effect as in the effect
itself, and applied this principle as follows: “There must be at least as much
actual or formal reality in the efficient and total cause of an idea as
objective reality in the idea itself.” The objective reality of an idea seems
to have to do with its having representational content, while actual or formal
reality has to do with existence independent of the mind. Thus the quoted
principle relates features of the cause of an idea to the representational
content of the idea. Descartes’s main intended applications were to God and
material objects. DESCARTES. G.Fo. reality
principle.FREUD. realizability, multiple.FUNCTIONALISM. realization.PHILOSOPHY
OF MIND. realization, physical.REDUCTION. real mathematics.HILBERT’S PROGRAM.
real number.MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS. real proposition.HILBERT’S PROGRAM.
reason.PRACTICAL REASON, THEORETICAL REASON. reason, all-things-considered.REASONS
FOR ACTION. reason, evidential.EPISTEMOLOGY. reason, exciting.HUTCHESON.
reason, explaining.REASONS FOR ACTION. reason, justifying.HUTCHESON. reason,
normative.REASONS FOR ACTION. reason, objective.REASONS FOR ACTION. reason,
overriding.REASONS FOR ACTION. reason, practical.KANT, PRACTICAL REASON.
reason, principle of sufficient.LEIBNIZ. reason, productive.THEORETICAL REASON.
reason, pure.KANT. reason, subjective.REASONS FOR ACTION. reason,
theoretical.THEORETICAL REASON. reasoning.CIRCULAR REASONING, KANT, PRACTICAL
REASONING. reasoning, circular.CIRCULAR REASONING. reasoning,
demonstrative.INFERENCE. reasons externalism.EXTERNALISM. reasons for action,
considerations that call for or justify action. They may be subjective or
objective. A subjective reason is a consideration an agent understands to
support a course of action, whether or not it actually does. An objective
reason is one that does support a course of action, regardless of whether the
agent realizes it. What are cited as reasons may be matters either of fact or
of value, but when facts are cited values are also relevant. Thus the fact that
cigarette smoke contains nicotine is a reason for not smoking only because
nicotine has undesirable effects. The most important evaluative reasons are
normative reasons – i.e., considerations having (e.g.) ethical force. Facts
become obligating reasons when, in conjunction with normative considerations,
they give rise to an obligation. Thus in view of the obligation to help the
needy, the fact that others are hungry is an obligating reason to see they are
fed. Reasons for action enter practical thinking as the contents of beliefs,
desires, and other mental states. But not all the reasons one has need motivate
the corresponding behavior. Thus I may recognize an obligation to pay taxes,
yet do so only for fear of punishment. If so, then only my fear is an
explaining reason for my action. An overriding reason is one that takes
precedence over all others. It is often claimed that moral reasons override all
others objectively, and should do so subjectively as well. Finally, one may
speak of an all-things-considered reason – one that after due consideration is
taken as finally determinative of what shall be done. 776
PRACTICAL REASON, REASONS FOR BELIEF. H.J.M. reasons for belief,
roughly, bases of belief. The word ‘belief’ is commonly used to designate both
a particular sort of psychological state, a state of believing, and a
particular intentional content or proposition believed. Reasons for belief
exhibit an analogous duality. A proposition, p, might be said to provide a
normative reason to believe a proposition, q, for instance, when p bears some
appropriate warranting relation to q. And p might afford a perfectly good
reason to believe q, even though no one, as a matter of fact, believes either p
or q. In contrast, p is a reason that I have for believing q, if I believe p
and p counts as a reason (in the sense above) to believe q. Undoubtedly, I have
reason to believe countless propositions that I shall never, as it happens,
come to believe. Suppose, however, that p is a reason for which I believe q. In
that case, I must believe both p and q, and p must be a reason to believe q –
or, at any rate, I must regard it as such. It may be that I must, in addition,
believe q at least in part because I believe p. Reasons in these senses are
inevitably epistemic; they turn on considerations of evidence,
truth-conduciveness, and the like. But not all reasons for belief are of this
sort. An explanatory reason, a reason why I believe p, may simply be an
explanation for my having or coming to have this belief. Perhaps I believe p
because I was brainwashed, or struck on the head, or because I have strong
non-epistemic motives for this belief. (I might, of course, hold the belief on
the basis of unexceptionable epistemic grounds. When this is so, my believing p
may both warrant and explain my believing q.) Reflections of this sort can lead
to questions concerning the overall or “all-things-considered” reasonableness
of a given belief. Some philosophers (e.g., Clifford) argue that a belief’s
reasonableness depends exclusively on its epistemic standing: my believing p is
reasonable for me provided it is epistemically reasonable for me; where belief
is concerned, epistemic reasons are overriding. Others, siding with James, have
focused on the role of belief in our psychological economy, arguing that the
reasonableness of my holding a given belief can be affected by a variety of
non-epistemic considerations. Suppose I have some evidence that p is false, but
that I stand to benefit in a significant way from coming to believe p. If that
is so, and if the practical advantages of my holding p considerably outweigh
the practical disadvantages, it might seem obvious that my holding p is
reasonable for me in some all-embracing sense.
PASCAL, REASONS FOR ACTION. J.F.H. reasons internalism.EXTERNALISM.
rebirth, wheel of.BUDDHISM, SAMSARA. recognition, rule of.JURISPRUDENCE.
recollection.PLATO, SURVIVAL. reconstruction.RATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION.
reconstruction, logical.RATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION. reconstruction,
rational.RATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION. Rectification of Names.CHENG MING.
recurrence, eternal.ETERNAL RETURN. recursion, definition by.DEFINITION.
recursion, proof by.PROOF BY RECURSION. recursive function theory, a relatively
recent area of mathematics that takes as its point of departure the study of an
extremely limited class of arithmetic functions called the recursive functions.
Strictly speaking, recursive function theory is a branch of higher arithmetic
(number theory, or the theory of natural numbers) whose universe of discourse
is restricted to the nonnegative integers: 0, 1, 2, etc. However, the
techniques and results of the newer area do not resemble those traditionally associated
with number theory. The class of recursive functions is defined in a way that
makes evident that every recursive function can be computed or calculated. The
hypothesis that every calculable function is recursive, which is known as
Church’s thesis, is often taken as a kind of axiom in recursive function
theory. This theory has played an important role in modern philosophy of
mathematics, especially when epistemological issues are studied. CHURCH’S THESIS, COMPUTABILITY, PHILOSOPHY OF
MATHEMATICS, PROOF BY RECURSION. J.Cor. redintegration, a psychological
process, similar to reasons for belief redintegration 777 777 or involving classical conditioning, in
which one feature of a situation causes a person to recall, visualize, or
recompose an entire original situation. On opening a pack of cigarettes, a
person may visualize the entire process, including striking the match, lighting
the cigarette, and puffing. Redintegration is used as a technique in behavior
therapy, e.g. when someone trying to refrain from smoking is exposed to
unpleasant odors and vivid pictures of lungs caked with cancer, and then
permitted to smoke. If the unpleasantness of the odors and visualization
outweighs the reinforcement of smoking, the person may resist smoking.
Philosophically, redintegration is of interest for two reasons. First, the
process may be critical in prudence. By bringing long-range consequences of
behavior into focus in present deliberation, redintegration may help to protect
long-range interests. Second, redintegration offers a role for visual images in
producing behavior. Images figure in paradigmatic cases of redintegration. In
recollecting pictures of cancerous lungs, the person may refrain from
smoking. COGNITIVE PSYCHOTHERAPY,
CONDITIONING. G.A.G. reducibility, axiom of.TYPE THEORY. reduct, Craig.CRAIG’S
INTERPOLATION THEOREM. reductio ad absurdum. (1) The principles (A / - A) / -A
and (-A / A) / A. (2) The argument forms ‘If A then B and not-B; therefore,
not-A’ and ‘If not-A then B and not-B; therefore, A’ and arguments of these
forms. Reasoning via such arguments is known as the method of indirect proof.
(3) The rules of inference that permit (i) inferring not-A having derived a
contradiction from A and (ii) inferring A having derived a contradiction from
not-A. Both rules hold in classical logic and come to the same thing in any
logic with the law of double negation. In intuitionist logic, however, (i)
holds but (ii) does not. DOUBLE
NEGATION, MATHEMATICAL INTUITIONISM. G.F.S. reduction, the replacement of one
expression by a second expression that differs from the first in prima facie
reference. So-called reductions have been meant in the sense of uniformly
applicable explicit definitions, contextual definitions, or replacements
suitable only in a limited range of contexts. Thus, authors have spoken of
reductive conceptual analyses, especially in the early days of analytic
philosophy. In particular, in the sensedatum theory (talk of) physical objects
was supposed to be reduced to (talk of) sense-data by explicit definitions or
other forms of conceptual analysis. Logical positivists talked of the reduction
of theoretical vocabulary to an observational vocabulary, first by explicit
definitions, and later by other devices, such as Carnap’s reduction sentences.
These appealed to a test condition predicate, T (e.g., ‘is placed in water’),
and a display predicate, D (e.g., ‘dissolves’), to introduce a dispositional or
other “non-observational” term, S (e.g., ‘is water-soluble’): (Ex) [Tx / (Dx /
Sx]), with ‘/’ representing the material conditional. Negative reduction
sentences for non-occurrence of S took the form (Ex) [NTx / (NDx / - Sx)]. For
coinciding predicate pairs T and TD and -D and ND Carnap referred to bilateral
reduction sentences: (Ex) [Tx / (Dx S Sx)]. Like so many other attempted
reductions, reduction sentences did not achieve replacement of the “reduced”
term, S, since they do not fix application of S when the test condition, T,
fails to apply. In the philosophy of mathematics, logicism claimed that all of
mathematics could be reduced to logic, i.e., all mathematical terms could be
defined with the vocabulary of logic and all theorems of mathematics could be
derived from the laws of logic supplemented by these definitions. Russell’s
Principia Mathematica carried out much of such a program with a reductive base
of something much more like what we now call set theory rather than logic,
strictly conceived. Many now accept the reducibility of mathematics to set
theory, but only in a sense in which reductions are not unique. For example,
the natural numbers can equally well be modeled as classes of equinumerous sets
or as von Neumann ordinals. This non-uniqueness creates serious difficulties,
with suggestions that set-theoretic reductions can throw light on what numbers
and other mathematical objects “really are.” In contrast, we take scientific
theories to tell us, unequivocally, that water is H20 and that temperature is
mean translational kinetic energy. Accounts of theory reduction in science
attempt to analyze the circumstance in which a “reducing theory” appears to
tell us the composition of objects or properties described by a “reduced
theory.” The simplest accounts follow the general pattern of reduction: one
provides “identity statements” or “bridge laws,” with at least the form of
explicit definitions, for all terms in the reducibility, axiom of reduction
778 778 reduced theory not already
appearing in the reducing theory; and then one argues that the reduced theory
can be deduced from the reducing theory augmented by the definitions. For
example, the laws of thermodynamics are said to be deducible from those of
statistical mechanics, together with statements such as ‘temperature is mean
translational kinetic energy’ and ‘pressure is mean momentum transfer’. How
should the identity statements or bridge laws be understood? It takes empirical
investigation to confirm statements such as that temperature is mean
translational kinetic energy. Consequently, some have argued, such statements
at best constitute contingent correlations rather than strict identities. On
the other hand, if the relevant terms and their extensions are not mediated by
analytic definitions, the identity statements may be analogized to identities
involving two names, such as ‘Cicero is Tully’, where it takes empirical
investigation to establish that the two names happen to have the same referent.
One can generalize the idea of theory reduction in a variety of ways. One may
require the bridge laws to suffice for the deduction of the reduced from the
reducing theory without requiring that the bridge laws take the form of
explicit identity statements or biconditional correlations. Some authors have
also focused on the fact that in practice a reducing theory T2 corrects or
refines the reduced theory T1, so that it is really only a correction or
refinement, T1*, that is deducible from T2 and the bridge laws. Some have
consequently applied the term ‘reduction’ to any pair of theories where the
second corrects and extends the first in ways that explain both why the first
theory was as accurate as it was and why it made the errors that it did. In
this extended sense, relativity is said to reduce Newtonian mechanics. Do the
social sciences, especially psychology, in principle reduce to physics? This
prospect would support the so-called identity theory (of mind and body), in
particular resolving important problems in the philosophy of mind, such as the
mind–body problem and the problem of other minds. Many (though by no means all)
are now skeptical about the prospects for identifying mental properties, and
the properties of other special sciences, with complex physical properties. To
illustrate with an example from economics (adapted from Fodor), in the right
circumstances just about any physical object could count as a piece of money.
Thus prospects seem dim for finding a closed and finite statement of the form
‘being a piece of money is . . .’, with only predicates from physics appearing
on the right (though some would want to admit infinite definitions in providing
reductions). Similarly, one suspects that attributes, such as pain, are at best
functional properties with indefinitely many possible physical realizations.
Believing that reductions by finitely stable definitions are thus out of reach,
many authors have tried to express the view that mental properties are still
somehow physical by saying that they nonetheless supervene on the physical
properties of the organisms that have them. In fact, these same difficulties
that affect mental properties affect the paradigm case of temperature, and
probably all putative examples of theoretical reduction. Temperature is mean
translational temperature only in gases, and only idealized ones at that. In
other substances, quite different physical mechanisms realize temperature.
Temperature is more accurately described as a functional property, having to do
with the mechanism of heat transfer between bodies, where, in principle, the
required mechanism could be physically realized in indefinitely many ways. In most
and quite possibly all cases of putative theory reduction by strict identities,
we have instead a relation of physical realization, constitution, or
instantiation, nicely illustrated by the property of being a calculator
(example taken from Cummins). The property of being a calculator can be
physically realized by an abacus, by devices with gears and levers, by ones
with vacuum tubes or silicon chips, and, in the right circumstances, by
indefinitely many other physical arrangements. Perhaps many who have used
‘reduction’, particularly in the sciences, have intended the term in this sense
of physical realization rather than one of strict identity. Let us restrict
attention to properties that reduce in the sense of having a physical
realization, as in the cases of being a calculator, having a certain
temperature, and being a piece of money. Whether or not an object counts as
having properties such as these will depend, not only on the physical
properties of that object, but on various circumstances of the context.
Intensions of relevant language users constitute a plausible candidate for
relevant circumstances. In at least many cases, dependence on context arises
because the property constitutes a functional property, where the relevant
functional system (calculational practices, heat transfer, monetary reduction
reduction 779 779 systems) are much
larger than the propertybearing object in question. These examples raise the
question of whether many and perhaps all mental properties depend ineliminably
on relations to things outside the organisms that have the mental
properties. EXPLANATION, PHILOSOPHY OF
SCIENCE, SUPERVENIENCE, UNITY OF SCIENCE. P.Te. reduction,
phenomenological.HUSSERL. reduction base.REDUCTION. reductionism.REDUCTION.
reductionism, explanatory.METHODOLOGICAL HOLISM. reduction sentence, for a
given predicate Q3 of space-time points in a first-order language, any
universal sentence S1 of the form: (x) [Q1x / (Q2x / Q3 x)], provided that the
predicates Q1 and Q2 are consistently applicable to the same space-time points.
If S1 has the form given above and S2 is of the form (x) [Q4x / (Q5 / - Q6)]
and either S1 is a reduction sentence for Q3 or S2 is a reduction sentence for
-Q3, the pair {S1, S2} is a reduction pair for Q3. If Q1 % Q4 and Q2 % - Q5,
the conjunction of S1 and S2 is equivalent to a bilateral reduction sentence
for Q3 of the form (x) [Q1 / (Q3 S Q2)]. These concepts were introduced by
Carnap in “Testability and Meaning,” Philosophy of Science (1936–37), to modify
the verifiability criterion of meaning to a confirmability condition where
terms can be introduced into meaningful scientific discourse by chains of
reduction pairs rather than by definitions. The incentive for this modification
seems to have been to accommodate the use of disposition predicates in
scientific discourse. Carnap proposed explicating a disposition predicate Q3 by
bilateral reduction sentences for Q3. An important but controversial feature of
Carnap’s approach is that it avoids appeal to nonextensional conditionals in
explicating disposition predicates.
CARNAP, REDUCTION, VERIFICATIONISM. I.L. reductive
naturalism.NATURALISM. redundancy theory of truth.TRUTH. reference.MEANING,
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, THEORY OF DESCRIPTIONS. reference, causal-historical
theory of.PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. reference, description theory of.PHILOSOPHY
OF LANGUAGE. reference, direct.CAUSAL THEORY OF PROPER NAMES. reference,
historical theory of.PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. reference, inscrutability
of.INDETERMINACY OF TRANSLATION. reference, new theory of.PUTNAM. reference
class.PROBABILITY. referential.REFERENTIALLY TRANSPARENT. referentially
transparent. An occurrence of a singular term t in a sentence ‘. . . t . . .’
is referentially transparent (or purely referential) if and only if the
truth-value of ‘. . . t . . .’ depends on whether the referent of t satisfies
the open sentence ‘. . . x . . .’; the satisfaction of ‘. . . x . . .’ by the
referent of t would guarantee the truth of ‘. . . t . . .’, and failure of this
individual to satisfy ‘. . . x . . .’ would guarantee that ‘. . . t . . .’ was
not true. ‘Boston is a city’ is true if and only if the referent of ‘Boston’
satisfies the open sentence ‘x is a city’, so the occurrence of ‘Boston’ is
referentially transparent. But in ‘The expression “Boston” has six letters’,
the length of the word within the quotes, not the features of the city Boston,
determines the truth-value of the sentence, so the occurrence is not
referentially transparent. According to a Fregean theory of meaning, the reference
of any complex expression (that is a meaningful unit) is a function of the
referents of its parts. Within this context, an occurrence of a referential
term t in a meaningful expression ‘. . . t . . .’ is referentially transparent
(or purely referential) if and only if t contributes its referent to the
reference of ‘. . . t . . .’. The expression ‘the area around Boston’ refers to
the particular area it does because of the referent of ‘Boston’ (and the
reference or extension of the function expressed by ‘the area around x’). An
occurrence of a referential term t in a meaningful expression ‘. . . t . . .’
is referentially opaque if and only if it is not referentially transparent.
Thus, if t has a referentially opaque occurrence in a sentence ‘. . . t . . .’,
then the truth-value of ‘. . . t . . .’ depends on something reduction,
phenomenological referentially transparent 780 780 other than whether the referent of t
satisfies ‘. . . x . . .’. Although these definitions apply to occurrences of
referential terms, the terms ‘referentially opaque’ and ‘referentially
transparent’ are used primarily to classify linguistic contexts for terms as
referentially opaque contexts. If t occurs purely referentially in S but not in
C(S), then C ( ) is a referentially opaque context. But we must qualify this:
C( ) is a referentially opaque context for that occurrence of t in S. It would
not follow (without further argument) that C( ) is a referentially opaque
context for other occurrences of terms in sentences that could be placed into
C( ). Contexts of quotation, propositional attitude, and modality have been
widely noted for their potential to produce referential opacity. Consider: (1)
John believes that the number of planets is less than eight. (2) John believes
that nine is less than eight. If (1) is true but (2) is not, then either ‘the
number of planets’ or ‘nine’ has an occurrence that is not purely referential,
because the sentences would differ in truth-value even though the expressions
are co-referential. But within the sentences: (3) The number of planets is less
than eight. (4) Nine is less than eight. the expressions appear to have purely
referential occurrence. In (3) and (4), the truth-value of the sentence as a
whole depends on whether the referent of ‘The number of planets’ and ‘Nine’
satisfies ‘x is less than eight’. Because the occurrences in (3) and (4) are
purely referential but those in (1) and (2) are not, the context ‘John believes
that ( )’ is a referentially opaque context for the relevant occurrence of at
least one of the two singular terms. Some argue that the occurrence of ‘nine’
in (2) is purely referential because the truth-value of the sentence as a whole
depends on whether the referent, nine, satisfies the open sentence ‘John
believes that x is less than eight’. Saying so requires that we make sense of
the concept of satisfaction for such sentences (belief sentences and others)
and that we show that the concept of satisfaction applies in this way in the
case at hand (sentence (2)). There is controversy about whether these things
can be done. In (1), on the other hand, the truth-value is not determined by
whether nine (the referent of ‘the number of planets’) satisfies the open
sentence, so that occurrence is not purely referential. Modal contexts raise
similar questions. (5) Necessarily, nine is odd. (6) Necessarily, the number of
planets is odd. If (5) is true but (6) is not, then at least one of the
expressions does not have a purely referential occurrence, even though both
appear to be purely referential in the non-modal sentence that appears in the
context ‘Necessarily, ———’. Thus the context is referentially opaque for the
occurrence of at least one of these terms. On an alternative approach,
genuinely singular terms always occur referentially, and ‘the number of
planets’ is not a genuinely singular term. Russell’s theory of definite
descriptions, e.g., provides an alternative semantic analysis for sentences
involving definite descriptions. This would enable us to say that even simple
sentences like (3) and (4) differ considerably in syntactic and semantic
structure, so that the similarity that suggests the problem, the seemingly
similar occurrences of co-referential terms, is merely apparent. DE DICTO, QUANTIFYING IN, SUBSTITUTIVITY
SALVA VERITATE. T.M. referential occurrence.QUANTIFYING IN. referential
opacity.REFERENTIALLY TRANSPARENT. referential quantification.QUANTIFICATION.
referential theory of meaning.MEANING, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. reflection
principles, two varieties of internal statements related to correctness in
formal axiomatic systems. (1) Proof-theoretic reflection principles are
formulated for effectively presented systems S that contain a modicum of
elementary number theory sufficient to arithmetize their own syntactic notions,
as done by Kurt Gödel in his 1931 work on incompleteness. Let ProvS (x) express
that x is the Gödel number of a statement provable in S, and let nA be the
number of A, for any statement A of S. The weakest reflection principle
considered for S is the collection Rfn(S) of all statements of the form ProvS
(nA) P A, which express that if A is provable from S then A (is true). The
proposition ConS expressing the consistency of S is a consequence of Rfn(S)
(obtained by taking A to be a disprovable statement). Thus, by Gödel’s second
referential occurrence reflection principles 781 781 incompleteness theorem, Rfn(S) is
stronger than S if S is consistent. Reflection principles are used in the
construction of ordinal logics as a systematic means of overcoming
incompleteness. (2) Set-theoretic reflection principles are formulated for
systems S of axiomatic set theory, such as ZF (Zermelo-Fraenkel). In the
simplest form they express that any property A in the language of S that holds
of the universe of “all” sets, already holds of a portion of that universe
coextensive with some set x. This takes the form A P (Dx)A(x) where in A(x) all
quantifiers of A are relativized to x. In contrast to proof-theoretic
reflection principles, these may be established as theorems of ZF. GÖDEL’S INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS, ORDINAL
LOGIC, SET THEORY. S.Fe. reflective equilibrium, as usually conceived, a
coherence method for justifying evaluative principles and theories. The method
was first described by Goodman, who proposed it be used to justify deductive
and inductive principles. According to Goodman (Fact, Fiction and Forecast,
1965), a particular deductive inference is justified by its conforming with
deductive principles, but these principles are justified in their turn by conforming
with accepted deductive practice. The idea, then, is that justified inferences
and principles are those that emerge from a process of mutual adjustment, with
principles being revised when they sanction inferences we cannot bring
ourselves to accept, and particular inferences being rejected when they
conflict with rules we are unwilling to revise. Thus, neither principles nor
particular inferences are epistemically privileged. At least in principle,
everything is liable to revision. Rawls further articulated the method of
reflective equilibrium and applied it in ethics. According to Rawls (A Theory
of Justice, 1971), inquiry begins with considered moral judgments, i.e.,
judgments about which we are confident and which are free from common sources
of error, e.g., ignorance of facts, insufficient reflection, or emotional
agitation. According to narrow reflective equilibrium, ethical principles are
justified by bringing them into coherence with our considered moral judgments
through a process of mutual adjustment. Rawls, however, pursues a wide
reflective equilibrium. Wide equilibrium is attained by proceeding to consider
alternatives to the moral conception accepted in narrow equilibrium, along with
philosophical arguments that might decide among these conceptions. The
principles and considered judgments accepted in narrow equilibrium are then
adjusted as seems appropriate. One way to conceive of wide reflective
equilibrium is as an effort to construct a coherent system of belief by a
process of mutual adjustment to considered moral judgments and moral principles
(as in narrow equilibrium) along with the background philosophical, social
scientific, and any other relevant beliefs that might figure in the arguments
for and against alternative moral conceptions, e.g., metaphysical views
regarding the nature of persons. As in Goodman’s original proposal, none of the
judgments, principles, or theories involved is privileged: all are open to
revision. COHERENTISM, RAWLS. M.R.D.
reflexive.RELATION. reformed epistemology.EXISTENTIALISM, PLANTINGA. regional
supervenience.SUPERVENIENCE. regress.INFINITE REGRESS ARGUMENT, VICIOUS
REGRESS. regress argument.EPISTEMIC REGRESS ARGUMENT, INFINITE REGRESS
ARGUMENT. regression analysis, a part of statistical theory concerned with the
analysis of data with the aim of inferring a linear functional relationship
between assumed independent (“regressor”) variables and a dependent
(“response”) variable. A typical example involves the dependence of crop yield
on the application of fertilizer. For the most part, higher amounts of
fertilizer are associated with higher yields. But typically, if crop yield is
plotted vertically on a graph with the horizontal axis representing amount of
fertilizer applied, the resulting points will not fall in a straight line. This
can be due either to random (“stochastic”) fluctuations (involving measurement
errors, irreproducible conditions, or physical indeterminism) or to failure to
take into account other relevant independent variables (such as amount of rainfall).
In any case, from any resulting “scatter diagram,” it is possible
mathematically to infer a “best-fitting” line. One method is, roughly, to find
the line that minimizes the average absolute distance between a line and the
data points collected. More commonly, the average of the squares of these
distances is minimized (this is the “least squares” method). If more than one
independent variable is suspected, the theory of multiple regression, which
takes into account mulreflective equilibrium regression analysis 782 782 tiple regressors, can be applied: this
can help to minimize an “error term” involved in regression. Computers must be
used for the complex computations typically encountered. Care must be taken in
connection with the possibility that a lawlike, causal dependence is not really
linear (even approximately) over all ranges of the regressor variables (e.g.,
in certain ranges of amounts of application, more fertilizer is good for a
plant, but too much is bad).
CURVEFITTING PROBLEM. E.Ee. regressor variable.REGRESSION ANALYSIS.
regularity theory of causation.CAUSATION. regulative principle.KANT.
Reichenbach, Hans (1891–1953), German philosopher of science and a major leader
of the movement known as logical empiricism. Born in Hamburg, he studied
engineering for a brief time, then turned to mathematics, philosophy, and
physics, which he pursued at the universities of Berlin, Munich, and Göttingen.
He took his doctorate in philosophy at Erlangen (1915) with a dissertation on
mathematical and philosophical aspects of probability, and a degree in
mathematics and physics by state examination at Göttingen (1916). In 1933, with
Hitler’s rise to power, he fled to Istanbul, then to the University of
California at Los Angeles, where he remained until his death. Prior to his
departure from Germany he was professor of philosophy of science at the
University of Berlin, leader of the Berlin Group of logical empiricists, and a
close associate of Einstein. With Carnap he founded Erkenntnis, the major journal
of scientific philosophy before World War II. After a short period early in his
career as a follower of Kant, Reichenbach rejected the synthetic a priori,
chiefly because of considerations arising out of Einstein’s general theory of
relativity. He remained thereafter champion of empiricism, adhering to a
probabilistic version of the verifiability theory of cognitive meaning. Never,
however, did he embrace the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle; indeed, he
explicitly described his principal epistemological work, Experience and
Prediction (1938), as his refutation of logical positivism. In particular, his
logical empiricism consisted in rejecting phenomenalism in favor of
physicalism; he rejected phenomenalism both in embracing scientific realism and
in insisting on a thoroughgoing probabilistic analysis of scientific meaning
and scientific knowledge. His main works span a wide range. In Probability and
Induction he advocated the frequency interpretation of probability and offered
a pragmatic justification of induction. In his philosophy of space and time he
defended conventionality of geometry and of simultaneity. In foundations of
quantum mechanics he adopted a three-valued logic to deal with causal
anomalies. He wrote major works on epistemology, logic, laws of nature,
counterfactuals, and modalities. At the time of his death he had almost
completed The Direction of Time, which was published posthumously (1956). CARNAP, LOGICAL POSITIVISM, PHILOSOPHY OF
SCIENCE, PROBLEM OF INDUCTION, VIENNA CIRCLE. W.C.S. Reid, Thomas (1710–96),
Scottish philosopher, a defender of common sense and critic of the theory of
impressions and ideas articulated by Hume. Reid was born exactly one year
before Hume, in Strachan, Scotland. A bright lad, he went to Marischal College
in Aberdeen at the age of twelve, studying there with Thomas Blackwell and
George Turnbull. The latter apparently had great influence on Reid. Turnbull
contended that knowledge of the facts of sense and introspection may not be
overturned by reasoning and that volition is the only active power known from
experience. Turnbull defended common sense under the cloak of Berkeley. Reid
threw off that cloak with considerable panache, but he took over the defense of
common sense from Turnbull. Reid moved to a position of regent and lecturer at
King’s College in Aberdeen in 1751. There he formed, with John Gregory, the
Aberdeen Philosophical Society, which met fortnightly, often to discuss Hume.
Reid published his Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common
Sense in 1764, and, in the same year, succeeded Adam Smith in the chair of
moral philosophy at Old College in Glasgow. After 1780 he no longer lectured
but devoted himself to his later works, Essays on the Intellectual Powers
(1785) and Essays on the Active Powers (1788). He was highly influential in
Scotland and on the Continent in the eighteenth century and, from time to time,
in England and the United States thereafter. Reid thought that one of his major
contributions was the refutation of Hume’s theory of impressions and ideas.
Reid probably was convinced in his teens of the truth of Berkeley’s doctrine
that what the mind is immediately aware of is always some idea, but his later
study of Hume’s Treatise convinced him that, contrary to regressor variable
Reid, Thomas 783 783 Berkeley, it was
impossible to reconcile this doctrine, the theory of ideas, with common sense.
Hume had rigorously developed the theory, Reid said, and drew forth the
conclusions. These, Reid averred, were absurd. They included the denial of our
knowledge of body and mind, and, even more strikingly, of our conceptions of
these things. The reason Reid thought that Hume’s theory of ideas led to these
conclusions was that for Hume, ideas were faded impressions of sense, hence, sensations.
No sensation is like a quality of a material thing, let alone like the object
that has the quality. Consider movement. Movement is a quality of an object
wherein the object changes from one place to another, but the visual sensation
that arises in us is not the change of place of an object, it is an activity of
mind. No two things could, in fact, be more unalike. If what is before the mind
is always some sensation, whether vivacious or faded, we should never obtain
the conception of something other than a sensation. Hence, we could never even
conceive of material objects and their qualities. Even worse, we could not
conceive of our own minds, for they are not sensations either, and only
sensations are immediately before the mind, according to the theory of ideas.
Finally, and even more absurdly, we could not conceive of past sensations or
anything that does not now exist. For all that is immediately before the mind
is sensations that exist presently. Thus, we could not even conceive of
qualities, bodies, minds, and things that do not now exist. But this is absurd,
since it is obvious that we do think of all these things and even of things
that have never existed. The solution, Reid suggested, is to abandon the theory
of ideas and seek a better one. Many have thought Reid was unfair to Hume and
misinterpreted him. Reid’s Inquiry was presented to Hume by Dr. Blair in
manuscript form, however, and in reply Hume does not at all suggest that he has
been misinterpreted or handled unfairly. Whatever the merits of Reid’s
criticism of Hume, it was the study of the consequences of Hume’s philosophy
that accounts for Reid’s central doctrine of the human faculties and their
first principles. Faculties are innate powers, among them the powers of
conception and conviction. Reid’s strategy in reply to Hume is to build a
nativist theory of conception on the failure of Hume’s theory of ideas. Where
the theory of ideas, the doctrine of impressions and ideas, fails to account
for our conception of something, of qualities, bodies, minds, past things,
nonexistent things, Reid hypothesizes that our conceptions originate from a
faculty of the mind, i.e., from an innate power of conception. This line of
argument reflects Reid’s respect for Hume, whom he calls the greatest metaphysician
of the age, because Hume drew forth the consequences of a theory of conception,
which we might call associationism, according to which all our conceptions
result from associating sensations. Where the associationism of Hume failed,
Reid hypothesized that conceptions arise from innate powers of conception that
manifest themselves in accordance with original first principles of the mind.
The resulting hypotheses were not treated as a priori necessities but as
empirical hypotheses. Reid notes, therefore, that there are marks by which we
can discern the operation of an innate first principle, which include the early
appearance of the operation, its universality in mankind, and its
irresistibility. The operations of the mind that yield our conceptions of qualities,
bodies, and minds all bear these marks, Reid contends, and that warrants the
conclusion that they manifest first principles. It should be noted that Reid
conjectured that nature would be frugal in the implantation of innate powers,
supplying us with no more than necessary to produce the conceptions we
manifest. Reid is, consequently, a parsimonious empiricist in the development
of his nativist psychology. Reid developed his theory of perception in great
detail and his development led, surprisingly, to his articulation of
non-Euclidean geometry. Indeed, while Kant was erroneously postulating the a
priori necessity of Euclidean space, Reid was developing non-Euclidean geometry
to account for the empirical features of visual space. Reid’s theory of perception
is an example of his empiricism. In the Inquiry, he says that sensations, which
are operations of the mind, and impressions on the organs of sense, which are
material, produce our conceptions of primary and secondary qualities.
Sensations produce our original conceptions of secondary qualities as the
causes of those sensations. They are signs that suggest the existence of the
qualities. A sensation of smell suggests the existence of a quality in the
object that causes the sensation, though the character of the cause is
otherwise unknown. Thus, our original conception of secondary qualities is a
relative conception of some unknown cause of a sensation. Our conception of
primary qualities differs not, as Locke suggested, because of some resemblance
between the sensation and the quality (for, as Berkeley noted, there is no
resemblance between a sensation and quality), but because our original conReid,
Thomas Reid, Thomas 784 784 ceptions
of primary qualities are clear and distinct. The sensation is a sign that
suggests a definite conception of the primary quality, e.g. a definite
conception of the movement of the object, rather than a mere conception of
something, we know not what, that gives rise to the sensation. These
conceptions of qualities signified by sensations result from the operations of
principles of our natural constitution. These signs, which suggest the
conception of qualities, also suggest a conception of some object that has
them. This conception of the object is also relative, in that it is simply a
conception of a subject of the qualities. In the case of physical qualities,
the conception of the object is a conception of a material object. Though
sensations, which are activities of the mind, suggest the existence of
qualities, they are not the only signs of sense perception. Some impressions on
the organs of sense, the latter being material, also give rise to conceptions
of qualities, especially to our conception of visual figure, the seen shape of
the object. But Reid can discern no sensation of shape. There are, of course,
sensations of color, but he is convinced from the experience of those who have
cataracts and see color but not shape that the sensations of color are
insufficient to suggest our conceptions of visual figure. His detailed account
of vision and especially of the seeing of visual figure leads him to one of his
most brilliant moments. He asks what sort of data do we receive upon the eye
and answers that the data must be received at the round surface of the eyeball
and processed within. Thus, visual space is a projection in three dimensions of
the information received on the round surface of the eye, and the geometry of
this space is a non-Euclidean geometry of curved space. Reid goes on to derive
the properties of the space quite correctly, e.g., in concluding that the
angles of a triangle will sum to a figure greater than 180 degrees and thereby
violate the parallels postulate. Thus Reid discovered that a non-Euclidean
geometry was satisfiable and, indeed, insisted that it accurately described the
space of vision (not, however, the space of touch, which he thought was
Euclidean). From the standpoint of his theory of perceptual signs, the example
of visual figure helps to clarify his doctrine of the signs of perception. We
do not perceive signs and infer what they signify. This inference, Reid was
convinced by Hume, would lack the support of reasoning, and Reid concluded that
reasoning was, in this case, superfluous. The information received on the
surface of the eye produces our conceptions of visual figure immediately.
Indeed, these signs pass unnoticed as they give rise to the conception of
visual figure in the mind. The relation of sensory signs to the external things
they signify originally is effected by a first principle of the mind without
the use of reason. The first principles that yield our conceptions of qualities
and objects yield convictions of the existence of these things at the same
time. A question naturally arises as to the evidence of these convictions. First
principles yield the convictions along with the conceptions, but do we have
evidence of the existence of the qualities and objects we are convinced exist?
We have the evidence of our senses, of our natural faculties, and that is all
the evidence possible here. Reid’s point is that the convictions in questions
resulting from the original principles of our faculties are immediately
justified. Our faculties are, however, all fallible, so the justification that
our original convictions possess may be refuted. We can now better understand
Reid’s reply to Hume. To account for our convictions of the existence of body,
we must abandon Hume’s theory of ideas, which cannot supply even the conception
of body. We must discover both the original first principles that yield the
conception and conviction of objects and their qualities, and first principles
to account for our convictions of the past, of other thinking beings, and of
morals. Just as there are first principles of perception that yield convictions
of the existence of presently existing objects, so there are first principles
of memory that yield the convictions of the existence of past things,
principles of testimony that yield the convictions of the thoughts of others,
and principles of morals that yield convictions of our obligations. Reid’s
defense of a moral faculty alongside the faculties of perception and memory is
striking. The moral faculty yields conceptions of the justice and injustice of
an action in response to our conception of that action. Reid shrewdly notes
that different people may conceive of the same action in different ways. I may
conceive of giving some money as an action of gratitude, while you may consider
it squandering money. How we conceive of an action depends on our moral
education, but the response of our moral faculty to an action conceived in a
specific way is original and the same in all who have the faculty. Hence
differences in moral judgment are due, not to principles of the moral faculty,
but to differences in how we conceive of our actions. This doctrine of a moral
faculty again provides a counterpoint to the moral philosophy of Hume, for,
according Reid, Thomas Reid, Thomas 785
785 to Reid, judgments of justice and injustice pertaining to all
matters, including promises, contracts, and property, arise from our natural
faculties and do not depend on anything artificial. Reid’s strategy for
defending common sense is clear enough. He thinks that Hume showed that we
cannot arrive at our convictions of external objects, of past events, of the
thoughts of others, of morals, or, for that matter, of our own minds, from
reasoning about impressions and ideas. Since those convictions are a fact,
philosophy must account for them in the only way that remains, by the
hypothesis of innate faculties that yield them. But do we have any evidence for
these convictions? Evidence, Reid says, is the ground of belief, and our
evidence is that of our faculties. Might our faculties deceive us? Reid answers
that it is a first principle of our faculties that they are not fallacious. Why
should we assume that our faculties are not fallacious? First, the belief is
irresistible. However we wage war with first principles, the principles of
common sense, they prevail in daily life. There we trust our faculties whether
we choose to or not. Second, all philosophy depends on the assumption that our
faculties are not fallacious. Here Reid employs an ad hominem argument against
Hume, but one with philosophical force. Reid says that, in response to a total
skeptic who decides to trust none of his faculties, he puts his hand over his
mouth in silence. But Hume trusted reason and consciousness, and therefore is
guilty of pragmatic inconsistency in calling the other faculties into doubt.
They come from the same shop, Reid says, and he who calls one into doubt has no
right to trust the others. All our faculties are fallible, and, therefore, we
must, to avoid arbitrary favoritism, trust them all at the outset or trust
none. The first principles of our faculties are trustworthy. They not only
account for our convictions, but are the ground and evidence of those
convictions. This nativism is the original engine of justification. Reid’s
theory of original perceptions is supplemented by a theory of acquired
perceptions, those which incorporate the effects of habit and association, such
as the perception of a passing coach. He distinguishes acquired perceptions
from effects of reasoning. The most important way our original perceptions must
be supplemented is by general conceptions. These result from a process whereby
our attention is directed to some individual quality, e.g., the whiteness of a
piece of paper, which he calls abstraction, and a further process of
generalizing from the individual quality to the general conception of the
universal whiteness shared by many individuals. Reid is a sophisticated
nominalist; he says that the only things that exist are individual, but he
includes individual qualities as well as individual objects. The reason is that
individual qualities obviously exist and are needed as the basis of
generalization. To generalize from an individual we must have some conception
of what it is like, and this conception cannot be general, on pain of
circularity or regress, but must be a conception of an individual quality,
e.g., the whiteness of this paper, which it uniquely possesses. Universals,
though predicated of objects to articulate our knowledge, do not exist. We can
think of universals, just as we can think of centaurs, but though they are the
objects of thought and predicated of individuals that exist, they do not
themselves exist. Generalization is not driven by ontology but by utility. It
is we and not nature that sort things into kinds in ways that are useful to us.
This leads to a division-of-labor theory of meaning because general conceptions
are the meanings of general words. Thus, in those domains in which there are
experts, in science or the law, we defer to the experts concerning the general
conceptions that are the most useful in the area in question. Reid’s theory of
the intellectual powers, summarized briefly above, is supplemented by his
theory of our active powers, those that lead to actions. His theory of the
active powers includes a theory of the principles of actions. These include
animal principles that operate without understanding, but the most salient and
philosophically important part of Reid’s theory of the active powers is his
theory of the rational principles of action, which involve understanding and
the will. These rational principles are those in which we have a conception of
the action to be performed and will its performance. Action thus involves an
act of will or volition, but volitions as Reid conceived of them are not the
esoteric inventions of philosophy but, instead, the commonplace activities of
deciding and resolving to act. Reid is a libertarian and maintains that our
liberty or freedom refutes the principle of necessity or determinism. Freedom
requires the power to will the action and also the power not to will it. The principle
of necessity tells us that our action was necessitated and, therefore, that it
was not in our power not to have willed as we did. It is not sufficient for
freedom, as Hume suggested, that we act as we will. We must also have the Reid,
Thomas Reid, Thomas 786 786 power to
determine what we will. The reason is that willing is the means to the end of
action, and he who lacks power over the means lacks power over the end. This
doctrine of the active power over the determinations of our will is founded on
the central principle of Reid’s theory of the active powers, the principle of
agent causation. The doctrine of acts of the will or volitions does not lead to
a regress, as critics allege, because my act of will is an exercise of the most
basic kind of causality, the efficient causality of an agent. I am the
efficient cause of my acts of will. My act of will need not be caused by an
antecedent act of will because my act of will is the result of my exercise of
my causal power. This fact also refutes an objection to the doctrine of liberty
– that if my action is not necessitated, then it is fortuitous. My free actions
are caused, not fortuitous, though they are not necessitated, because they are
caused by me. How, one might inquire, do we know that we are free? The doubt
that we are free is like other skeptical doubts, and receives a similar reply,
namely, that the conviction of our freedom is a natural and original conviction
arising from our faculties. It occurs prior to instruction and it is irresistible
in practical life. Any person with two identical coins usable to pay for some
item must be convinced that she can pay with the one or the other; and, unlike
the ass of Buridan, she readily exercises her power to will the one or the
other. The conviction of freedom is an original one, not the invention of
philosophy, and it arises from the first principles of our natural faculties,
which are trustworthy and not fallacious. The first principles of our faculties
hang together like links in a chain, and one must either raise up the whole or
the links prove useless. Together, they are the foundation of true philosophy,
science, and practical life, and without them we shall lead ourselves into the
coalpit of skepticism and despair. AGENT
CAUSATION, EMPIRICISM, HUME, IMMEDIACY, PERCEPTION, SCOTTISH COMMON SENSE
PHILOSOPHY. K.L. reify.HYPOSTASIS.
Reimarus, Hermann Samuel
(1694–1768), German philosopher, born in Hamburg and educated in philosophy and
theology at Jena. For most of his life he taught Oriental languages at a high
school in Hamburg. The most important writings he published were a treatise on
natural religion, Abhandlungen von den vornehmsten Wahrheiten der natürlichen
Religion (1754); a textbook on logic, Vernunftlehre (1756); and an interesting
work on instincts in animals, Allgemeine Betrachtungen über die Triebe der
Tiere (1760). However, he is today best known for his Apologie oder
Schutzschrift für die vernünftigen Verehrer Gottes (“Apology for or Defense of
the Rational Worshipers of God”), posthumously published in 1774–77. In it,
Reimarus reversed his stance on natural theology and openly advocated a deism
in the British tradition. The controversy created by its publication had a
profound impact on the further development of German theology. Though Reimarus
always remained basically a follower of Wolff, he was often quite critical of
Wolffian rationalism in his discussion of logic and psychology. WOLFF. M.K. Reinhold, Karl Leonhard
(1743–1819), Austrian philosopher who was both a popularizer and a critic of
Kant. He was the first occupant of the chair of critical philosophy established
at the University of Jena in 1787. His Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie
(1786/87) helped to popularize Kantianism. Reinhold also proclaimed the need
for a more “scientific” presentation of the critical philosophy, in the form of
a rigorously deductive system in which everything is derivable from a single
first principle (“the principle of consciousness”). He tried to satisfy this
need with Elementarphilosophie (“Elementary Philosophy” or “Philosophy of the
Elements”), expounded in his Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen
Vorstellungsvermögens (“Attempt at a New Theory of the Human Faculty of
Representation,” 1789), Beyträge zur Berichtigung bisheriger Missverständnisse
der Philosophen I (“Contributions to the Correction of the Prevailing
Misunderstandings of Philosophers,” 1790), and Ueber das Fundament des
philosophischen Wissens (“On the Foundation of Philosophical Knowledge,” 1791).
His criticism of the duality of Kant’s starting point and of the ad hoc
character of his deductions contributed to the demand for a more coherent
exposition of transcendental idealism, while his strategy for accomplishing
this task stimulated others (above all, Fichte) to seek an even more
“fundamental” first principle for philosophy. Reinhold later became an
enthusiastic adherent, first of Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre and then of
Bardili’s “rational realism,” before finally adopting a novel “linguistic”
approach to philosophical problems.
FICHTE, KANT, NEOKANTIANISM. D.Br. reify Reinhold, Karl Leonhard
787 787 reism, also called concretism,
the theory that the basic entities are concrete objects. Reism differs from
nominalism in that the problem of universals is not its only motivation and
often not the principal motivation for the theory. Three types of reism can be
distinguished. (1) Brentano held that every object is a concrete or individual
thing. He said that substances, aggregates of substances, parts of substances, and
individual properties of substances are the only things that exist. There is no
such thing as the existence or being of an object; and there are no
non-existent objects. One consequence of this doctrine is that the object of
thought (what the thought is about) is always an individual object and not a
proposition. For example, the thought that this paper is white is about this
paper and not about the proposition that this paper is white. Meinong attacked
Brentano’s concretism and argued that thoughts are about “objectives,” not
objects. (2) Kotarbigski, who coined the term ‘reism’, holds as a basic
principle that only concrete objects exist. Although things may be hard or
soft, red or blue, there is no such thing as hardness, softness, redness, or
blueness. Sentences that contain abstract words are either strictly meaningless
or can be paraphrased into sentences that do not contain any abstract words.
Kotarbinski is both a nominalist and a materialist. (Brentano was a nominalist
and a dualist.) (3) Thomas Garrigue Masaryk’s concretism is quite different
from the first two. For him, concretism is the theory that all of a person’s
cognitive faculties participate in every instance of knowing: reason, senses,
emotion, and will. BRENTANO,
KOTARBIGSKI, MEINONG. A.P.M. relation, a two-or-more-place property (e.g.,
loves or between), or the extension of such a property. In set theory, a
relation is any set of ordered pairs (or triplets, etc., but these are
reducible to pairs). For simplicity, the formal exposition here uses the
language of set theory, although an intensional (property-theoretic) view is
later assumed. The terms of a relation R are the members of the pairs
constituting R, the items that R relates. The collection D of all first terms
of pairs in R is the domain of R; any collection with D as a subcollection may
also be so called. Similarly, the second terms of these pairs make up (or are a
subcollection of) the range (counterdomain or converse domain) of R. One
usually works within a set U such that R is a subset of the Cartesian product
U$U (the set of all ordered pairs on U). Relations can be: (1) reflexive (or
exhibit reflexivity): for all a, aRa. That is, a reflexive relation is one
that, like identity, each thing bears to itself. Examples: a weighs as much as
b; or the universal relation, i.e., the relation R such that for all a and b,
aRb. (2) symmetrical (or exhibit symmetry): for all a and b, aRb P bRa. In a
symmetrical relation, the order of the terms is reversible. Examples: a is a
sibling of b; a and b have a common divisor. Also symmetrical is the null
relation, under which no object is related to anything. (3) transitive (or
exhibit transitivity): for all a, b, and c, (aRb & bRc) P aRc. Transitive
relations carry across a middle term. Examples: a is less than b; a is an
ancestor of b. Thus, if a is less than b and b is less than c, a is less than
c: less than has carried across the middle term, b. (4) antisymmetrical: for
all a and b, (aRb & bRa) P a % b. (5) trichotomous, connected, or total (trichotomy):
for all a and b, aRb 7 bRa 7 a % b. (6) asymmetrical: aRb & bRa holds for
no a and b. (7) functional: for all a, b, and c, (aRb & aRc) P b % c. In a
functional relation (which may also be called a function), each first term
uniquely determines a second term. R is non-reflexive if it is not reflexive,
i.e., if the condition (1) fails for at least one object a. R is non-symmetric
if (2) fails for at least one pair of objects (a, b). Analogously for
non-transitive. R is irreflexive (aliorelative) if (1) holds for no object a
and intransitive if (3) holds for no objects a, b, and c. Thus understands is
non-reflexive since some things do not understand themselves, but not
irreflexive, since some things do; loves is nonsymmetric but not asymmetrical;
and being a cousin of is non-transitive but not intransitive, as being mother
of is. (1)–(3) define an equivalence relation (e.g., the identity relation
among numbers or the relation of being the same age as among people). A class
of objects bearing an equivalence relation R to each other is an equivalence
class under R. (1), (3), and (4) define a partial order; (3), (5), and (6) a
linear order. Similar properties define other important classifications, such
as lattice and Boolean algebra. The converse of a relation R is the set of all
pairs (b, a) such that aRb; the comreism relation 788 788 plement of R is the set of all pairs
(a, b) such that –aRb (i.e. aRb does not hold). A more complex example will
show the power of a relational vocabulary. The ancestral of R is the set of all
(a, b) such that either aRb or there are finitely many cI , c2, c3, . . . , cn
such that aRcI and c1Rc2 and c2Rc3 and . . . and cnRb. Frege introduced the
ancestral in his theory of number: the natural numbers are exactly those objects
bearing the ancestral of the successor-of relation to zero. Equivalently, they
are the intersection of all sets that contain zero and are closed under the
successor relation. (This is formalizable in second-order logic.) Frege’s idea
has many applications. E.g., assume a set U, relation R on U, and property F.
An element a of U is hereditarily F (with respect to R) if a is F and any
object b which bears the ancestral of R to a is also F. Hence F is here said to
be a hereditary property, and the set a is hereditarily finite (with respect to
the membership relation) if a is finite, its members are, as are the members of
its members, etc. The hereditarily finite sets (or the sets hereditarily of
cardinality ‹ k for any inaccessible k) are an important subuniverse of the
universe of sets. Philosophical discussions of relations typically involve
relations as special cases of properties (or sets). Thus nominalists and
Platonists disagree over the reality of relations, since they disagree about
properties in general. Similarly, one important connection is to formal
semantics, where relations are customarily taken as the denotations of
(relational) predicates. Disputes about the notion of essence are also
pertinent. One says that a bears an internal relation, R, to b provided a’s
standing in R to b is an essential property of a; otherwise a bears an external
relation to b. If the essential–accidental distinction is accepted, then a
thing’s essential properties will seem to include certain of its relations to other
things, so that we must admit internal relations. Consider a point in space,
which has no identity apart from its place in a certain system. Similarly for a
number. Or consider my hand, which would perhaps not be the same object if it
had not developed as part of my body. If it is true that I could not have had
other parents – that possible persons similar to me but with distinct parents
would not really be me – then I, too, am internally related to other things,
namely my parents. Similar arguments would generate numerous internal relations
for organisms, artifacts, and natural objects in general. Internal relations
will also seem to exist among properties and relations themselves. Roundness is
essentially a kind of shape, and the relation larger than is essentially the
converse of the relation smaller than. In like usage, a relation between a and
b is intrinsic if it depends just on how a and b are; extrinsic if they have it
in virtue of their relation to other things. Thus, higher-than intrinsically relates
the Alps to the Appalachians. That I prefer viewing the former to the latter
establishes an extrinsic relation between the mountain ranges. Note that this
distinction is obscure (as is internal-external). One could argue that the Alps
are higher than the Appalachians only in virtue of the relation of each to
something further, such as space, light rays, or measuring rods. Another issue
specific to the theory of relations is whether relations are real, given that
properties do exist. That is, someone might reject nominalism only to the
extent of admitting one-place properties. Although such doctrines have some
historical importance (in, e.g., Plato and Bradley), they have disappeared.
Since relations are indispensable to modern logic and semantics, their
inferiority to one-place properties can no longer be seriously entertained.
Hence relations now have little independent significance in philosophy. ESSENTIALISM, IDENTITY, METAPHYSICS, POSSIBLE
WORLDS, SET THEORY, SPACE. S.J.W. relationalism.FIELD THEORY. relational logic,
the formal study of the properties of and operations on (binary) relations that
was initiated by Peirce between 1870 and 1882. Thus, in relational logic, one
might examine the formal properties of special kinds of relations, such as transitive
relations, or asymmetrical ones, or orderings of certain types. Or the focus
might be on various operations, such as that of forming the converse or
relative product. Formal deductive systems used in such studies are generally
known as calculi of relations. RELATION.
G.F.S. relational semantics.KRIPKE SEMANTICS. relationism.PHILOSOPHY OF
SCIENCE. relative identity.IDENTITY. relative threshold.FECHNER. relative
time.TIME. relational value.VALUE. relationalism relational value 789 789 relativism, the denial that there are
certain kinds of universal truths. There are two main types, cognitive and
ethical. Cognitive relativism holds that there are no universal truths about
the world: the world has no intrinsic characteristics, there are just different
ways of interpreting it. The Greek Sophist Protagoras, the first person on
record to hold such a view, said, “Man is the measure of all things; of things
that are that they are, and of things that are not that they are not.” Goodman,
Putnam, and Rorty are contemporary philosophers who have held versions of
relativism. Rorty says, e.g., that “ ‘objective truth’ is no more and no less
than the best idea we currently have about how to explain what is going on.”
Critics of cognitive relativism contend that it is self-referentially
incoherent, since it presents its statements as universally true, rather than
simply relatively so. Ethical relativism is the theory that there are no
universally valid moral principles: all moral principles are valid relative to
culture or individual choice. There are two subtypes: conventionalism, which
holds that moral principles are valid relative to the conventions of a given
culture or society; and subjectivism, which maintains that individual choices
are what determine the validity of a moral principle. Its motto is, Morality
lies in the eyes of the beholder. As Ernest Hemingway wrote, “So far, about
morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is
immoral is what you feel bad after.” Conventionalist ethical relativism
consists of two theses: a diversity thesis, which specifies that what is
considered morally right and wrong varies from society to society, so that
there are no moral principles accepted by all societies; and a dependency
thesis, which specifies that all moral principles derive their validity from
cultural acceptance. From these two ideas relativists conclude that there are
no universally valid moral principles applying everywhere and at all times. The
first thesis, the diversity thesis, or what may simply be called cultural
relativism, is anthropological; it registers the fact that moral rules differ
from society to society. Although both ethical relativists and non-relativists
typically accept cultural relativism, it is often confused with the normative
thesis of ethical relativism. The opposite of ethical relativism is ethical
objectivism, which asserts that although cultures may differ in their moral
principles, some moral principles have universal validity. Even if, e.g., a
culture does not recognize a duty to refrain from gratuitous harm, that
principle is valid and the culture should adhere to it. There are two types of
ethical objectivism, strong and weak. Strong objectivism, sometimes called
absolutism, holds that there is one true moral system with specific moral
rules. The ethics of ancient Israel in the Old Testament with its hundreds of
laws exemplifies absolutism. Weak objectivism holds that there is a core
morality, a determinate set of principles that are universally valid (usually
including prohibitions against killing the innocent, stealing, breaking of
promises, and lying). But weak objectivism accepts an indeterminate area where
relativism is legitimate, e.g., rules regarding sexual mores and regulations of
property. Both types of objectivism recognize what might be called application
relativism, the endeavor to apply moral rules where there is a conflict between
rules or where rules can be applied in different ways. For example, the ancient
Callactians ate their deceased parents but eschewed the impersonal practice of
burying them as disrespectful, whereas contemporary society has the opposite
attitudes about the care of dead relatives; but both practices exemplify the
same principle of the respect for the dead. According to objectivism, cultures
or forms of life can fail to exemplify an adequate moral community in at least
three ways: (1) the people are insufficiently intelligent to put constitutive
principles in order; (2) they are under considerable stress so that it becomes
too burdensome to live by moral principles; and (3) a combination of (1) and
(2). Ethical relativism is sometimes confused with ethical skepticism, the view
that we cannot know whether there are any valid moral principles. Ethical
nihilism holds that there are no valid moral principles. J. L. Mackie’s error
theory is a version of this view. Mackie held that while we all believe some
moral principles to be true, there are compelling arguments to the contrary.
Ethical objectivism must be distinguished from moral realism, the view that
valid moral principles are true, independently of human choice. Objectivism may
be a form of ethical constructivism, typified by Rawls, whereby objective
principles are simply those that impartial human beings would choose behind the
veil of ignorance. That is, the principles are not truly independent of
hypothetical human choices, but are constructs from those choices. ETHICAL OBJECTIVISM, ETHICS, MORAL
EPISTEMOLOGY, MORAL REALISM, SKEPTICISM. L.P.P. relativism, cultural.RELATIVISM.
relativism, ethical.RELATIVISM. relativism relativism, ethical 790 790 relativism, scientific.THEORY-LADEN.
relativity, a term applied to Einstein’s theories of electrodynamics (special
relativity, 1905) and gravitation (general relativity, 1916) because both hold
that certain physical quantities, formerly considered objective, are actually
“relative to” the state of motion of the observer. They are called “special”
and “general” because, in special relativity, electrodynamical laws determine a
restricted class of kinematical reference frames, the “inertial frames”; in
general relativity, the very distinction between inertial frames and others
becomes a relative distinction. Special relativity. Classical mechanics makes
no distinction between uniform motion and rest: not velocity, but acceleration
is physically detectable, and so different states of uniform motion are
physically equivalent. But classical electrodynamics describes light as wave
motion with a constant velocity through a medium, the “ether.” It follows that
the measured velocity of light should depend on the motion of the observer
relative to the medium. When interferometer experiments suggested that the
velocity of light is independent of the motion of the source, H. A. Lorentz proposed
that objects in motion contract in the direction of motion through the ether
(while their local time “dilates”), and that this effect masks the difference
in the velocity of light. Einstein, however, associated the interferometry
results with many other indications that the theoretical distinction between
uniform motion and rest in the ether lacks empirical content. He therefore
postulated that, in electrodynamics as in mechanics, all states of uniform
motion are equivalent. To explain the apparent paradox that observers with
different velocities can agree on the velocity of light, he criticized the idea
of an “absolute” or frame-independent measure of simultaneity: simultaneity of
distant events can only be established by some kind of signaling, but experiment
suggested that light is the only signal with an invariant velocity, and
observers in relative motion who determine simultaneity with light signals
obtain different results. Furthermore, since objective measurement of time and
length presupposes absolute simultaneity, observers in relative motion will
also disagree on time and length. So Lorentz’s contraction and dilatation are
not physical effects, but consequences of the relativity of simultaneity,
length, and time, to the motion of the observer. But this relativity follows
from the invariance of the laws of electrodynamics, and the invariant content
of the theory is expressed geometrically in Minkowski spacetime. Logical
empiricists took the theory as an illustration of how epistemological analysis
of a concept (time) could eliminate empirically superfluous notions (absolute
simultaneity). General relativity. Special relativity made the velocity of
light a limit for all causal processes and required revision of Newton’s theory
of gravity as an instantaneous action at a distance. General relativity
incorporates gravity into the geometry of space-time: instead of acting
directly on one another, masses induce curvature in space-time. Thus the paths
of falling bodies represent not forced deviations from the straight paths of a
flat space-time, but “straightest” paths in a curved space-time. While
space-time is “locally” Minkowskian, its global structure depends on
mass-energy distribution. The insight behind this theory is the equivalence of
gravitational and inertial mass: since a given gravitational field affects all
bodies equally, weight is indistinguishable from the inertial force of
acceleration; freefall motion is indistinguishable from inertial motion. This
suggests that the Newtonian decomposition of free fall into inertial and
accelerated components is arbitrary, and that the freefall path itself is the
invariant basis for the structure of space-time. A philosophical motive for the
general theory was to extend the relativity of motion. Einstein saw special
relativity’s restricted class of equivalent reference frames as an
“epistemological defect,” and he sought laws that would apply to any frame. His
inspiration was Mach’s criticism of the Newtonian distinction between
“absolute” rotation and rotation relative to observable bodies like the “fixed
stars.” Einstein formulated Mach’s criticism as a fundamental principle: since
only relative motions are observable, local inertial effects should be
explained by the cosmic distribution of masses and by motion relative to them.
Thus not only velocity and rest, but motion in general would be relative.
Einstein hoped to effect this generalization by eliminating the distinction
between inertial frames and freely falling frames. Because free fall remains a
privileged state of motion, however, non-gravitational acceleration remains
detectable, and absolute rotation remains distinct from relative rotation.
Einstein also thought that relativity of motion would result from the general
covariance (coordinate-independence) of his theory – i.e., that general
equivalence of coordinate systems meant general equivalence relativism,
scientific relativity 791 791 of
states of motion. It is now clear, however, that general covariance is a
mathematical property of physical theories without direct implications about
motion. So general relativity does not “generalize” the relativity of motion as
Einstein intended. Its great accomplishments are the unification of gravity and
geometry and the generalization of special relativity to space-times of
arbitrary curvature, which has made possible the modern investigation of
cosmological structure. EINSTEIN, FIELD
THEORY, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, SPACE-TIME. R.D. relativity, general.RELATIVITY.
relativity, perceptual.PERCEPTION. relativity, special.RELATIVITY. relativity,
theory of.RELATIVITY. relativity of knowledge.MANNHEIM. relevance logic, any of
a range of logics and philosophies of logic united by their insistence that the
premises of a valid inference must be relevant to the conclusion. Standard, or
classical, logic contains inferences that break this requirement, e.g., the
spread law, that from a contradiction any proposition whatsoever follows.
Relevance logic had its genesis in a system of strenge Implikation published by
Wilhelm Ackermann in 1956. Ackermann’s idea for rejecting irrelevance was taken
up and developed by Alan Anderson and Nuel Belnap in a series of papers between
1959 and Anderson’s death in 1974. The first main summaries of these researches
appeared under their names, and those of many collaborators, in Entailment: The
Logic of Relevance and Necessity (vol. 1, 1975; vol. 2, 1992). By the time of
Anderson’s death, a substantial research effort into relevance logic was under
way, and it has continued. Besides the rather vague unity of the idea of
relevance between premises and conclusion, there is a technical criterion often
used to mark out relevance logic, introduced by Belnap in 1960, and applicable
really only to propositional logics (the main focus of concern to date): a
necessary condition of relevance is that premises and conclusion should share a
(propositional) variable. Early attention was focused on systems E of
entailment and T of ticket entailment. Both are subsystems of C. I. Lewis’s
system S4 of strict implication and of classical truth-functional logic (i.e.,
consequences in E and T in ‘P’ are consequences in S4 in ‘ ’ and in classical
logic in ‘/’). Besides rejection of the spread law, probably the most notorious
inference that is rejected is disjunctive syllogism (DS) for extensional
disjunction (which is equivalent to detachment for material implication): A 7
B,ÝA , B. The reason is immediate, given acceptance of Simplification and
Addition: Simplification takes us from A & ÝA to each conjunct, and Addition
turns the first conjunct into A 7 B. Unless DS were rejected, the spread law
would follow. Since the late 1960s, attention has shifted to the system R of
relevant implication, which adds permutation to E, to mingle systems which
extend E and R by the mingle law A P (A P A), and to contraction-free logics,
which additionally reject contraction, in one form reading (A P (A P B)) P (A P
B). R minus contraction (RW) differs from linear logic, much studied recently
in computer science, only by accepting the distribution of ‘&’ over ‘7’,
which the latter rejects. Like linear logic, relevance logic contains both
truth-functional and non-truth-functional connectives. Unlike linear logic,
however, R, E, and T are undecidable (unusual among propositional logics). This
result was obtained only in 1984. In the early 1970s, relevance logics were
given possible-worlds semantics by several authors working independently. They
also have axiomatic, natural deduction, and sequent (or consecution)
formulations. One technical result that has attracted attention has been the
demonstration that, although relevance logics reject DS, they all accept
Ackermann’s rule Gamma: that if A 7 B and ÝA are theses, so is B. A recent
result occasioning much surprise was that relevant arithmetic (consisting of
Peano’s postulates on the base of quantified R) does not admit Gamma. IMPLICATION, MODAL LOGIC. S.L.R. relevant
alternative.CONTEXTUALISM. reliabilism, a type of theory in epistemology that
holds that what qualifies a belief as knowledge or as epistemically justified
is its reliable linkage to the truth. David Armstrong motivates reliabilism
with an analogy between a thermometer that reliably indicates the temperature
and a belief that reliably indicates the truth. A belief qualifies as
knowledge, he says, if there is a lawlike connection in nature that guarantees
that the belief is true. A cousin of the nomic sufficiency account is the
counterfactual approach, proposed by Dretske, Goldman, and Nozick. A typical
formulation of this approach says that a belief qualifies relativity, general
reliabilism 792 792 as knowledge if
the belief is true and the cognizer has reasons for believing it that would not
obtain unless it were true. For example, someone knows that the telephone is
ringing if he believes this, it is true, and he has a specific auditory
experience that would not occur unless the telephone were ringing. In a
slightly different formulation, someone knows a proposition if he believes it,
it is true, and if it were not true he would not believe it. In the example, if
the telephone were not ringing, he would not believe that it is, because he
would not have the same auditory experience. These accounts are guided by the
idea that to know a proposition it is not sufficient that the belief be
“accidentally” true. Rather, the belief, or its mode of acquisition, must
“track,” “hook up with,” or “indicate” the truth. Unlike knowledge, justified
belief need not guarantee or be “hooked up” with the truth, for a justified
belief need not itself be true. Nonetheless, reliabilists insist that the
concept of justified belief also has a connection with truth acquisition.
According to Goldman’s reliable process account, a belief’s justificational
status depends on the psychological processes that produce or sustain it.
Justified beliefs are produced by appropriate psychological processes,
unjustified beliefs by inappropriate processes. For example, beliefs produced
or preserved by perception, memory, introspection, and “good” reasoning are justified,
whereas beliefs produced by hunch, wishful thinking, or “bad” reasoning are
unjustified. Why are the first group of processes appropriate and the second
inappropriate? The difference appears to lie in their reliability. Among the
beliefs produced by perception, introspection, or “good” reasoning, a high
proportion are true; but only a low proportion of beliefs produced by hunch,
wishful thinking, or “bad” reasoning are true. Thus, what qualifies a belief as
justified is its being the outcome of a sequence of reliable belief-forming
processes. Reliabilism is a species of epistemological externalism, because it
makes knowledge or justification depend on factors such as truth connections or
truth ratios that are outside the cognizer’s mind and not necessarily
accessible to him. Yet reliabilism typically emphasizes internal factors as
well, e.g., the cognitive processes responsible for a belief. Process
reliabilism is a form of naturalistic epistemology because it centers on
cognitive operations and thereby paves the way for cognitive psychology to play
a role in epistemology. EPISTEMOLOGY,
NATURALISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY, PERCEPTION. A.I.G. religion, natural.NATURAL
RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. religion, philosophy of.NATURAL RELIGION,
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. reminiscence.PLATO. Renouvier, Charles (1815–1903),
French philosopher influenced by Kant and Comte, the latter being one of his
teachers. Renouvier rejected many of the views of both these philosophers,
however, charting his own course. He emphasized the irreducible plurality and
individuality of all things against the contemporary tendencies toward absolute
idealism. Human individuality he associated with indeterminism and freedom. To
the extent that agents are undetermined by other things and self-determining,
they are unique individuals. Indeterminism also extends to the physical world
and to knowledge. He rejected absolute certitude, but defended the universality
of the laws of logic and mathematics. In politics and religion, he emphasized
individual freedom and freedom of conscience. His emphasis on plurality,
indeterminism, freedom, novelty, and process influenced James and, through
James, American pragmatism. FREE WILL
PROBLEM. R.H.K. replacement, axiom of.SET THEORY. representation, mental.COGNITIVE
SCIENCE. representationalism.RORTY. representational scheme.GÖDEL’S
INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS. representational theory of art.MIMESIS.
representational theory of memory.MEMORY. representation theorem.MAGNITUDE.
representative realism.PERCEPTION. repression.FREUD. republicanism,
classical.CLASSICAL REPUBLICANISM. rerum natura (Latin, ‘the nature of
things’), metaphysics. The phrase can also be used more narrowly to mean the
nature of physical reality, and often it presupposes a naturalistic view of all
religion, natural rerum natura 793 793
reality. Lucretius’s epic poem De rerum natura is an Epicurean physics,
designed to underpin the Epicurean morality. A.P.M. res cogitans.DESCARTES. res
extensa.DESCARTES. residues, method of.MILL’S METHODS. respondent
conditioning.BEHAVIORISM. response variable.REGRESSION ANALYSIS.
responsibility, a condition that relates an agent to actions of, and
consequences connected to, that agent, and is always necessary and sometimes
sufficient for the appropriateness of certain kinds of appraisals of that
agent. Responsibility has no single definition, but is several closely
connected specific concepts. Role responsibility. Agents are identified by
social roles that they occupy, say parent or professor. Typically duties are associated
with such roles – to care for the needs of their children, to attend classes
and publish research papers. A person in a social role is “responsible for” the
execution of those duties. One who carries out such duties is “a responsible
person” or “is behaving responsibly.” Causal responsibility. Events, including
but not limited to human actions, cause other events. The cause is
“responsible” for the effect. Causal responsibility does not imply
consciousness; objects and natural phenomena may have causal responsibility.
Liability responsibility. Practices of praise and blame include constraints on
the mental stance that an agent must have toward an action or a consequence of
action, in order for praise or blame to be appropriate. To meet such constraints
is to meet a fundamental necessary condition for liability for praise or blame
– hence the expression ‘liability responsibility’. These constraints include
such factors as intention, knowledge, recklessness toward consequences, absence
of mistake, accident, inevitability of choice. An agent with the capability for
liability responsibility may lack it on some occasion – when mistaken, for
example. Capacity responsibility. Practices of praise and blame assume a level
of intellectual and emotional capability. The severely mentally disadvantaged
or the very young, for example, do not have the capacity to meet the conditions
for liability responsibility. They are not “responsible” in that they lack
capacity responsibility. Both morality and law embody and respect these
distinctions, though law institutionalizes and formalizes them. Final or
“bottom-line” assignment of responsibility equivalent to indeed deserving
praise or blame standardly requires each of the latter three specific kinds of
responsibility. The first kind supplies some normative standards for praise or
blame. CAUSATION, DIMINISHED CAPACITY,
FREE WILL, HART, INTENTION, MENS REA. R.A.Sh. responsibility,
diminished.DIMINISHED CAPACITY. restricted quantification.FORMAL LOGIC.
restrictio.PROPRIETATES TERMINORUM. resultance, a relation according to which
one property (the resultant property, sometimes called the consequential
property) is possessed by some object or event in virtue of (and hence as a
result of) that object or event possessing some other property or set of
properties. The idea is that properties of things can be ordered into connected
levels, some being more basic than and giving rise to others, the latter
resulting from the former. For instance, a figure possesses the property of
being a triangle in virtue of its possessing a collection of properties,
including being a plane figure, having three sides, and so on; the former
resulting from the latter. An object is brittle (has the property of being
brittle) in virtue of having a certain molecular structure. It is often claimed
that moral properties like rightness and goodness are resultant properties: an
action is right in virtue of its possessing other properties. These examples
make it clear that the nature of the necessary connection holding between a
resultant property and those base properties that ground it may differ from
case to case. In the geometrical example, the very concept of being a triangle
grounds the resultance relation in question, and while brittleness is
nomologically related to the base properties from which it results, in the
moral case, the resultance relation is arguably neither conceptual nor
causal. CONSTITUTION, NATURALISM,
SUPERVENIENCE. M.C.T. resultant attribute.SUPERVENIENCE. res cogitans resultant
attribute 794 794 retributive
justice.JUSTICE, PUNISHMENT. retributivism.PUNISHMENT.
retrocausation.CAUSATION. return, eternal.ETERNAL RETURN. revelation.PHILOSOPHY
OF RELIGION. revisionary metaphysics.METAPHYSICS. Rhazes.AL-RAZI. Richard
Kilvington.KILVINGTON. Richard Rufus, also called Richard of Cornwall (d.
c.1260), English philosopher-theologian who wrote some of the earliest
commentaries on Aristotle in the Latin West. His commentaries were not cursory
summaries; they included sustained philosophical discussions. Richard was a
master of arts at Paris, where he studied with Alexander of Hales; he was also
deeply influenced by Robert Grosseteste. He left Paris and joined the
Franciscan order in 1238; he was ordained in England. In 1256, he became regent
master of the Franciscan studium at Oxford; according to Roger Bacon, he was
the most influential philosophical theologian at Oxford in the second half of
the thirteenth century. In addition to his Aristotle commentaries, Richard
wrote two commentaries on Peter Lombard’s Sentences (c.1250, c.1254). In the
first of these he borrowed freely from Robert Grosseteste, Alexander of Hales,
and Richard Fishacre; the second commentary was a critical condensation of the
lectures of his younger contemporary, St. Bonaventure, presented in Paris.
Richard Rufus was the first medieval proponent of the theory of impetus; his
views on projectile motion were cited by Franciscus Meyronnes. He also
advocated other arguments first presented by Johannes Philoponus. Against the
eternity of the world, he argued: (1) past time is necessarily finite, since it
has been traversed, and (2) the world is not eternal, since if the world had no
beginning, no more time would transpire before tomorrow than before today. He
also argued that if the world had not been created ex nihilo, the first cause
would be mutable. Robert Grosseteste cited one of Richard’s arguments against
the eternity of the world in his notes on Aristotle’s Physics. In theology,
Richard denied the validity of Anselm’s ontological argument, but, anticipating
Duns Scotus, he argued that the existence of an independent being could be
inferred from its possibility. Like Duns Scotus, he employs the formal
distinction as an explanatory tool; in presenting his own views, Duns Scotus cited
Richard’s definition of the formal distinction. Richard stated his
philosophical views briefly, even cryptically; his Latin prose style is
sometimes eccentric, characterized by interjections in which he addresses
questions to God, himself, and his readers. He was hesitant about the value of
systematic theology for the theologian, deferring to biblical exposition as the
primary forum for theological discussion. In systematic theology, he emphasized
Aristotelian philosophy and logic. He was a well-known logician; some scholars
believe he is the famous logician known as the Magister Abstractionum. Though
he borrowed freely from his contemporaries, he was a profoundly original
philosopher. ALEXANDER OF HALES,
BONAVENTURE, GROSSETESTE, PETER LOMBARD. R.W. Richard’s paradox.SEMANTIC
PARADOXES. Rickert, Heinrich.NEO-KANTIANISM. Ricoeur, Paul (b.1913), French
hermeneuticist and phenomenologist who has been a professor at several French
universities as well as the University of Naples, Yale University, and the University
of Chicago. He has received major prizes from France, Germany, and Italy. He is
the author of twenty-some volumes translated in a variety of languages. Among
his best-known books are Freedom and Nature: The Voluntary and the Involuntary;
Freud and Philosophy: An Essay of Interpretation; The Conflict of
Interpretations: Essay in Hermeneutics; The Role of the Metaphor:
Multi-Disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, Time and
Narrative; and Oneself as Another. His early studies with the French
existentialist Marcel resulted in a book-length study of Marcel’s work and
later a series of published dialogues with him. Ricoeur’s philosophical
enterprise is colored by a continuing tension between faith and reason. His
long-standing commitments to both the significance of the individual and the
Christian faith are reflected in his hermeneutical voyage, his commitment to
the Esprit movement, and his interest in the writings of Emmanuel Mounier. This
latter point is also seen in his claim of the inseparability of action and
disretributive justice Ricoeur, Paul 795
795 course in our quest for meaning. In our comprehension of both
history and fiction one must turn to the text to understand its plot as guideline
if we are to comprehend experience of any reflective sort. In the end there are
no metaphysical or epistemological grounds by which meaning can be verified,
and yet our nature is such that possibility must be present before us. Ricoeur
attempts his explanation through a hermeneutic phenomenology. The very
hermeneutics of existence that follows is itself limited by reason’s
questioning of experience and its attempts to transcend the limit through the
language of symbols and metaphors. Freedom and meaning come to be realized in
the actualization of an ethics that arises out of the very act of existing and
thus transcends the mere natural voluntary distinction of a formal ethic. It is
clear from his later work that he rejects any form of foundationalism including
phenomenology as well as nihilism and easy skepticism. Through a sort of
interdependent dialectic that goes beyond the more mechanical models of
Hegelianism or Marxism, the self understands itself and is understood by the
other in terms of its suffering and its moral actions. HEGEL, HERMENEUTICS, HUSSERL, MARCEL,
PHENOMENOLOGY. J.Bi. Riemann, G. F. B.NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY. right,
absolute.RIGHTS. right, prima facie.RIGHTS. right action.ETHICS. rightness,
objective.OBJECTIVE RIGHTNESS. rightness, subjective.OBJECTIVE RIGHTNESS. right
of nature.HOBBES. rights, advantageous positions conferred on some possessor by
law, morals, rules, or other norms. There is no agreement on the sense in which
rights are advantages. Will theories hold that rights favor the will of the
possessor over the conflicting will of some other party; interest theories
maintain that rights serve to protect or promote the interests of the
right-holder. Hohfeld identified four legal advantages: liberties, claims,
powers, and immunities. The concept of a right arose in Roman jurisprudence and
was extended to ethics via natural law theory. Just as positive law, the law
posited by human lawmakers, confers legal rights, so the natural law confers
natural rights. Rights are classified by their specific sources in different sorts
of rules. Legal rights are advantageous positions under the law of a society.
Other species of institutional rights are conferred by the rules of private
organizations, of the moral code of a society, or even of some game. Those who
identify natural law with the moral law often identify natural rights with
moral rights, but some limit natural rights to our most fundamental rights and
contrast them with ordinary moral rights. Others deny that moral rights are
natural because they believe that they are conferred by the mores or positive
morality of one’s society. One always possesses any specific right by virtue of
possessing some status. Thus, rights are also classified by status. Civil
rights are those one possesses as a citizen; human rights are possessed by
virtue of being human. Presumably women’s rights, children’s rights, patients’
rights, and the rights of blacks as such are analogous. Human rights play very
much the same role in ethics once played by natural rights. This is partly
because ontological doubts about the existence of God undermine the acceptance
of any natural law taken to consist in divine commands, and epistemological
doubts about self-evident moral truths lead many to reject any natural law
conceived of as the dictates of reason. Although the Thomistic view that
natural rights are grounded on the nature of man is often advocated, most moral
philosophers reject its teleological conception of human nature defined by
essential human purposes. It seems simpler to appeal instead to fundamental
rights that must be universal among human beings because they are possessed
merely by virtue of one’s status as a human being. Human rights are still
thought of as natural in the very broad sense of existing independently of any
human action or institution. This explains how they can be used as an
independent standard in terms of which to criticize the laws and policies of
governments and other organizations. Since human rights are classified by
status rather than source, there is another species of human rights that are
institutional rather than natural. These are the human rights that have been
incorporated into legal systems by international agreements such as the
European Convention on Human Rights. It is sometimes said that while natural
rights were conceived as purely negative rights, such as the right not to be
arbitrarily imprisoned, human rights are conceived more broadly to include
positive social and economic rights, such as the Riemann, G. F. B. rights
796 796 right to social security or to
an adequate standard of living. But this is surely not true by definition.
Traditional natural law theorists such as Grotius and Locke spoke of natural
rights as powers and associated them with liberties, rather than with claims
against interference. And while modern declarations of human rights typically
include social and economic rights, they assume that these are rights in the
same sense that traditional political rights are. Rights are often classified
by their formal properties. For example, the right not to be battered is a
negative right because it imposes a negative duty not to batter, while the
creditor’s right to be repaid is a positive right because it imposes a positive
duty to repay. The right to be repaid is also a passive right because its content
is properly formulated in the passive voice, while the right to defend oneself
is an active right because its content is best stated in the active voice.
Again, a right in rem is a right that holds against all second parties; a right
in personam is a right that holds against one or a few others. This is not
quite Hart’s distinction between general and special rights, rights of everyone
against everyone, such as the right to free speech, and rights arising from
special relations, such as that between creditor and debtor or husband and
wife. Rights are conceptually contrasted with duties because rights are
advantages while duties are disadvantages. Still, many jurists and philosophers
have held that rights and duties are logical correlatives. This does seem to be
true of claim rights; thus, the creditor’s right to be repaid implies the
debtor’s duty to repay and vice versa. But the logical correlative of a liberty
right, such as one’s right to park in front of one’s house, is the absence of
any duty for one not to do so. This contrast is indicated by D. D. Raphael’s
distinction between rights of recipience and rights of action. Sometimes to say
that one has a right to do something is to say merely that it is not wrong for
one to act in this way. This has been called the weak sense of ‘a right’. More
often to assert that one has a right to do something does not imply that
exercising this right is right. Thus, I might have a right to refuse to do a
favor for a friend even though it would be wrong for me to do so. Finally, many
philosophers distinguish between absolute and prima facie rights. An absolute
right always holds, i.e., disadvantages some second party, within its scope; a
prima facie right is one that holds unless the ground of the right is outweighed
by some stronger contrary reason. DUTY,
HOHFELD, NATURAL LAW, PHILOSOPHY OF LAW, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. C.We. rights,
Hohfeldian.HOHFELD. rights, imperfect.GROTIUS. rights, legal.RIGHTS. rights,
natural.RIGHTS. rights, perfect.RIGHTS. rigid designator.MEANING. rigorism, the
view that morality consists in that single set of simple or unqualified moral
rules, discoverable by reason, which applies to all human beings at all times.
It is often said that Kant’s doctrine of the categorical imperative is rigoristic.
Two main objections to rigorism are (1) some moral rules do not apply
universally – e.g., ‘Promises should be kept’ applies only where there is an
institution of promising; and (2) some rules that could be universally kept are
absurd – e.g., that everyone should stand on one leg while the sun rises.
Recent interpreters of Kant defend him against these objections by arguing,
e.g., that the “rules” he had in mind are general guidelines for living well,
which are in fact universal and practically relevant, or that he was not a
rigorist at all, seeing moral worth as issuing primarily from the agent’s
character rather than adherence to rules. R.C. rigorous duty.DUTY. ring of
Gyges, a ring that gives its wearer invisibility, discussed in Plato’s Republic
(II, 359b– 360d). Glaucon tells the story of a man who discovered the ring and
used it to usurp the throne to defend the claim that those who behave justly do
so only because they lack the power to act unjustly. If they could avoid paying
the penalty of injustice, Glaucon argues, everyone would be unjust. PLATO, SOCRATES. W.J.P. robot.COMPUTER
THEORY. role responsibility.RESPONSIBILITY. Rorty, Richard (b.1931), American
philosopher, notable for the breadth of his philosophical and cultural
interests. He was educated at the University of Chicago and Yale and has taught
at rights, Hohfeldian Rorty, Richard 797
797 Wellesley, Princeton, the University of Virginia, and Stanford. His
early work was primarily in standard areas of analytic philosophy such as the
philosophy of mind, where, for example, he developed an important defense of
eliminative materialism. In 1979, however, he published Philosophy and the
Mirror of Nature, which was both hailed and denounced as a fundamental critique
of analytic philosophy. Both the praise and the abuse were often based on
misconceptions, but there is no doubt that Rorty questioned fundamental
presuppositions of many Anglo-American philosophers and showed affinities for
Continental alternatives to analytic philosophy. At root, however, Rorty’s
position is neither analytic (except in its stylistic clarity) nor Continental
(except in its cultural breadth). His view is, rather, pragmatic, a
contemporary incarnation of the distinctively American philosophizing of James,
Peirce, and Dewey. On Rorty’s reading, pragmatism involves a rejection of the
representationalism that has dominated modern philosophy from Descartes through
logical positivism. According to representationalism, we have direct access
only to ideas that represent the world, not to the world itself. Philosophy has
the privileged role of determining the criteria for judging that our
representations are adequate to reality. A main thrust of Philosophy and the
Mirror of Nature is to discredit representationalism, first by showing how it
has functioned as an unjustified presupposition in classical modern
philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Kant, and second by showing how
analytic philosophers such as Wilfrid Sellars and Quine have revealed the
incoherence of representationalist assumptions in contemporary epistemology.
Since, on Rorty’s view, representationalism defines the epistemological project
of modern philosophy, its failure requires that we abandon this project and,
with it, traditional pretensions to a privileged cognitive role for philosophy.
Rorty sees no point in seeking a non-representationalist basis for the
justification or the truth of our knowledge claims. It is enough to accept as
justified beliefs those on which our epistemic community agrees and to use
‘true’ as an honorific term for beliefs that we see as “justified to the hilt.”
Rorty characterizes his positive position as “liberal ironism.” His liberalism
is of a standard sort, taking as its basic value the freedom of all
individuals: first, their freedom from suffering, but then also freedom to form
their lives with whatever values they find most compelling. Rorty distinguishes
the “public sphere” in which we all share the liberal commitment to universal
freedom from the “private spheres” in which we all work out our own specific
conception of the good. His ironism reflects his realization that there is no
grounding for public or private values other than our deep (but contingent)
commitment to them and his appreciation of the multitude of private values that
he does not himself happen to share. Rorty has emphasized the importance of
literature and literary criticism – as opposed to traditional philosophy – for
providing the citizens of a liberal society with appropriate sensitivities to
the needs and values of others. ANALYTIC
PHILOSOPHY; CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY; PRAGMATISM; QUINE; SELLARS, WILFRID. G.G.
Roscelin de Compiègne (c.1050–c.1125), French philosopher and logician who
became embroiled in theological controversy when he applied his logical teachings
to the doctrine of the Trinity. Since almost nothing survives of his written
work, we must rely on hostile accounts of his views by Anselm of Canterbury and
Peter Abelard, both of whom openly opposed his positions. Perhaps the most
notorious view Roscelin is said to have held is that universals are merely the
puffs of air produced when a word is pronounced. On this point he opposed views
current among many theologians that a universal has an existence independent of
language, and somehow is what many different particulars are. Roscelin’s
aversion to any proposal that different things can be some one thing is
probably what led him in his thinking about the three persons of God to a
position that sounded suspiciously like the heresy of tritheism. Roscelin also
evidently held that the qualities of things are not entities distinct from the
subjects that possess them. This indicates that Roscelin probably denied that
terms in the Aristotelian categories other than substance signified anything
distinct from substances. Abelard, the foremost logician of the twelfth
century, studied under Roscelin around 1095 and was undoubtedly influenced by
him on the question of universals. Roscelin’s view that universals are
linguistic entities remained an important option in medieval thought. Otherwise
his positions do not appear to have had much currency in the ensuing
decades. ABSTRACT ENTITY, METAPHYSICS.
M.M.T. Rosenzweig, Franz (1886–1929), German phiRoscelin de Compiègne Rosenzweig,
Franz 798 798 losopher and Jewish
theologian known as one of the founders of religious existentialism. His early
relation to Judaism was tenuous, and at one point he came close to converting
to Christianity. A religious experience in a synagogue made him change his mind
and return to Judaism. His chief philosophic works are a two-volume study,
Hegel and the State (1920), and his masterpiece, The Star of Redemption (1921).
Rosenzweig’s experience in World War I caused him to reject absolute idealism
on the ground that it cannot account for the privacy and finality of death.
Instead of looking for a unifying principle behind existence, Rosenzweig starts
with three independent realities “given” in experience: God, the self, and the
world. Calling his method “radical empiricism,” he explains how God, the self,
and the world are connected by three primary relations: creation, revelation,
and redemption. In revelation, God does not communicate verbal statements but
merely a presence that calls for love and devotion from worshipers. EXISTENTIALISM, JEWISH PHILOSOPHY. K.See.
Rosmini-Serbati, Antonio (1797–1855), Italian philosopher, Catholic priest,
counselor to Pope Pius IX, and supporter of the supremacy of the church over
civil government (Neo-Guelphism). Rosmini had two major concerns: the objectivity
of human knowledge and the synthesis of philosophical thought within the
tradition of Catholic thought. In his Nuovo saggio sull’origine delle idee
(“New Essay on the Origin of Ideas,” 1830), he identifies the universal a
priori intuitive component of all human knowledge with the idea of being that
gives us the notion of a possible or ideal being. Everything in the world is
known by intellectual perception, which is the synthesis of sensation and the
idea of being. Except for the idea of being, which is directly given by God,
all ideas derive from abstraction. The objectivity of human knowledge rests on
its universal origin in the idea of being. The harmony between philosophy and
religion comes from the fact that all human knowledge is the result of divine
revelation. Rosmini’s thought was influenced by Augustine and Aquinas, and
stimulated by the attempt to find a solution to the contrasting needs of
rationalism and empiricism. P.Gar. Ross, W(illiam) D(avid) (1877–1971), British
Aristotelian scholar and moral philosopher. Born in Edinburgh and educated at
the University of Edinburgh and at Balliol College, Oxford, he became a fellow
of Merton College, then a fellow, tutor, and eventually provost at Oriel
College. He was vice-chancellor of Oxford University (1941–44) and president of
the British Academy (1936–40). He was knighted in 1938 in view of national
service. Ross was a distinguished classical scholar: he edited the Oxford
translations of Aristotle (1908–31) and translated the Metaphysics and the
Ethics himself. His Aristotle (1923) is a judicious exposition of Aristotle’s
work as a whole. Kant’s Ethical Theory (1954) is a commentary on Kant’s The
Groundwork of Ethics. His major contribution to philosophy was in ethics: The
Right and the Good (1930) and Foundations of Ethics(1939). The view he
expressed there was controversial in English-speaking countries for ten years
or so. He held that ‘right’ and ‘good’ are empirically indefinable terms that
name objective properties the presence of which is known intuitively by persons
who are mature and educated. We first cognize them in particular instances,
then arrive at general principles involving them by “intuitive induction.” (He
thought every ethical theory must admit at least one intuition.) The knowledge
of moral principles is thus rather like knowledge of the principles of
geometry. ‘Right’ (‘dutiful’) applies to acts, in the sense of what an agent
brings about (and there is no duty to act from a good motive, and a right act
can have a bad motive); ‘morally good’ applies primarily to the desires that
bring about action. He castigated utilitarianism as absorbing all duties into
enhancing the wellbeing of everyone affected, whereas in fact we have strong
special obligations to keep promises, make reparation for injuries, repay
services done, distribute happiness in accord with merit, benefit individuals
generally (and he concedes this is a weighty matter) and ourselves (only in
respect of knowledge and virtue), and not injure others (normally a stronger
obligation than that to benefit). That we have these “prima facie” duties is
self-evident, but they are only prima facie in the sense that they are actual
duties only if there is no stronger conflicting prima facie duty; and when
prima facie duties conflict, what one ought to do is what satisfies all of them
best – although which this is is a matter of judgment, not self-evidence. (He
conceded, however, in contrast to his general critique of utilitarianism, that
public support of these prima facie principles with their intuitive strength
can be justified on utilitarian grounds.) To meet various counterexamples Ross
introduced complications, such as that a promise is not binding if
disRosmini-Serbati, Antonio Ross, W(illiam) D(avid) 799 799 charge of it will not benefit the
promisee (providing this was an implicit understanding), and it is less binding
if made long ago or in a casual manner. Only four states of affairs are good in
themselves: desire to do one’s duty (virtue), knowledge, pleasure, and the distribution
of happiness in accordance with desert. Of these, virtue is more valuable than
any amount of knowledge or pleasure. In Foundations of Ethics he held that
virtue and pleasure are not good in the same sense: virtue is “admirable” but
pleasure only a “worthy object of satisfaction” (so ‘good’ does not name just
one property). DUTY, ETHICS, MORAL
EPISTEMOLOGY, SELF-EVIDENCE. R.B.B. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–78),
Swiss-born French philosopher, essayist, novelist, and musician, best known for
his theories on social freedom and societal rights, education, and religion.
Born in Geneva, he was largely self-educated and moved to France as a teenager.
Throughout much of his life he moved between Paris and the provinces with
several trips abroad (including a Scottish stay with Hume) and a return visit
to Geneva, where he reconverted to Protestantism from his earlier conversion to
Catholicism. For a time he was a friend of Diderot and other philosophes and
was asked to contribute articles on music for the Encyclopedia. Rousseau’s work
can be seen from at least three perspectives. As social contract theorist, he
attempts to construct a hypothetical state of nature to explain the current
human situation. This evolves a form of philosophical anthropology that gives
us both a theory of human nature and a series of pragmatic claims concerning
social organization. As a social commentator, he speaks of both practical and
ideal forms of education and social organization. As a moralist, he continually
attempts to unite the individual and the citizen through some form of universal
political action or consent. In Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of
Inequality Among Mankind (1755), Rousseau presents us with an almost idyllic
view of humanity. In nature humans are first seen as little more than animals
except for their special species sympathy. Later, through an explanation of the
development of reason and language, he is able to suggest how humans, while
retaining this sympathy, can, by distancing themselves from nature, understand
their individual selves. This leads to natural community and the closest thing
to what Rousseau considers humanity’s perfect moment. Private property quickly
follows on the division of labor, and humans find themselves alienated from each
other by the class divisions engendered by private property. Thus man, who was
born in freedom, now finds himself in chains. The Social Contract or Principles
of Political Right (1762) has a more ambitious goal. With an account of the
practical role of the legislator and the introduction of the concept of the
general will, Rousseau attempts to give us a foundation for good government by
presenting a solution to the conflicts between the particular and the
universal, the individual and the citizen, and the actual and the moral.
Individuals, freely agreeing to a social pact and giving up their rights to the
community, are assured of the liberties and equality of political citizenship
found in the contract. It is only through being a citizen that the individual
can fully realize his freedom and exercise his moral rights and duties. While
the individual is naturally good, he must always guard against being dominated
or dominating. Rousseau finds a solution to the problems of individual freedoms
and interests in a superior form of moral/political action that he calls the
general will. The individual as citizen substitutes “I must” for “I will,”
which is also an “I shall” when it expresses assent to the general will. The
general will is a universal force or statement and thus is more noble than any
particular will. In willing his own interest, the citizen is at the same time
willing what is communally good. The particular and the universal are united.
The individual human participant realizes himself in realizing the good of all.
As a practical political commentator Rousseau knew that the universal and the
particular do not always coincide. For this he introduced the idea of the
legislator, which allows the individual citizen to realize his fulfillment as
social being and to exercise his individual rights through universal consent.
In moments of difference between the majority will and the general will the
legislator will instill the correct moral/political understanding. This will be
represented in the laws. While sovereignty rests with the citizens, Rousseau
does not require that political action be direct. Although all government
should be democratic, various forms of government from representative democracy
(preferable in small societies) to strong monarchies (preferable in large
nation-states) may be acceptable. To shore up the unity and stability of
individual societies, Rousseau suggests a sort of civic religion to which all
citizens subscribe and in which all members Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Jean-Jacques 800 800 participate. His
earlier writings on education and his later practical treatises on the
governments of Poland and Corsica reflect related concerns with natural and
moral development and with historical and geographical considerations. SOCIAL CONTRACT. J.Bi. Royce, Josiah
(1855–1916), American philosopher best known for his pragmatic idealism, his
ethics of loyalty, and his theory of community. Educated at Berkeley, at Johns
Hopkins, and in Germany, he taught philosophy at Harvard from 1882. Royce held
that a concept of the absolute or eternal was needed to account for truth,
ultimate meaning, and reality in the face of very real evil in human
experience. Seeking to reconcile individuals with the Absolute, he postulated,
in The World and the Individual (1899,1901), Absolute Will and Thought as an
expression of the concrete and differentiated individuality of the world. Royce
saw the individual self as both moral and sinful, developing through social
interaction, community experience, and communal and self-interpretation. Self
is constituted by a life plan, by loyalty to an ultimate goal. Yet
selflimitation and egoism, two human sins, work against achievement of
individual goals, perhaps rendering life a senseless failure. The self needs
saving and this is the message of religion, argues Royce (The Religious Aspects
of Philosophy, 1885; The Sources of Religious Insight, 1912). For Royce, the
instrument of salvation is the community. In The Philosophy of Loyalty (1908),
he develops an ethics of loyalty to loyalty, i.e., the extension of loyalty
throughout the human community. In The Problem of Christianity (1913), Royce
presents a doctrine of community that overcomes the individualism–collectivism
dilemma and allows a genuine blending of individual and social will. Community
is built through interpretation, a mediative process that reconciles two ideas,
goals, and persons, bringing common meaning and understanding. Interpretation
involves respect for selves as dynamos of ideas and purposes, the will to interpret,
dissatisfaction with partial meanings and narrowness of view, reciprocity, and
mutuality. In this work, the Absolute is a “Community of Interpretation and
Hope,” in which there is an endlessly accumulating series of interpretations
and significant deeds. An individual contribution thus is not lost but becomes
an indispensable element in the divine life. Among Royce’s influential students
were C. I. Lewis, William Ernest Hocking, Norbert Wiener, Santayana, and T. S.
Eliot. J.A.K.K. Rufus, Richard.RICHARD RUFUS. rule, primary.HART. rule,
secondary.HART. rule of addition.DISJUNCTION INTRODUCTION. rule of
conjunction.CONJUNCTION INTRODUCTION. rule of detachment.LOTTERY PARADOX. rule
of double negation.DOUBLE NEGATION. rule of inference.LOGISTIC SYSTEM. rule of
law, the largely formal or procedural properties of a well-ordered legal
system. Commonly, these properties are thought to include: a prohibition of
arbitrary power (the lawgiver is also subject to the laws); laws that are
general, prospective, clear, and consistent (capable of guiding conduct); and
tribunals (courts) that are reasonably accessible and fairly structured to hear
and determine legal claims. Contemporary discussions of the rule of law focus
on two major questions: (1) to what extent is conformity to the rule of law
essential to the very idea of a legal system; and (2) what is the connection
between the rule of law and the substantive moral value of a legal system? PHILOSOPHY OF LAW, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. P.S.
rule of recognition.HART, JURISPRUDENCE. rule of simplification.CONJUNCTION
ELIMINATION. rule of total evidence.INDUCTION. rule
utilitarianism.UTILITARIANISM. Ruling Argument.MEGARIANS. Russell, Bertrand
(Arthur William) (1872–1970), British philosopher, logician, social reformer,
and man of letters, one of the founders of analytic philosophy. Born into an
aristocratic political family, Russell always divided his interests between
politics and philosophy. Orphaned at four, he was brought up by his
grandmother, Royce, Josiah Russell, Bertrand (Arthur William) 801 801 who educated him at home with the help
of tutors. He studied mathematics at Cambridge from 1890 to 1893, when he
turned to philosophy. At home he had absorbed J. S. Mill’s liberalism, but not
his empiricism. At Cambridge he came under the influence of neo-Hegelianism,
especially the idealism of McTaggart, Ward (his tutor), and Bradley. His
earliest logical views were influenced most by Bradley, especially Bradley’s
rejection of psychologism. But, like Ward and McTaggart, he rejected Bradley’s
metaphysical monism in favor of pluralism (or monadism). Even as an idealist,
he held that scientific knowledge was the best available and that philosophy
should be built around it. Through many subsequent changes, this belief about
science, his pluralism, and his anti-psychologism remained constant. In 1895,
he conceived the idea of an idealist encyclopedia of the sciences to be
developed by the use of transcendental arguments to establish the conditions
under which the special sciences are possible. Russell’s first philosophical
book, An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry (1897), was part of this project,
as were other (mostly unfinished and unpublished) pieces on physics and
arithmetic written at this time (see his Collected Papers, vols. 1–2). Russell
claimed, in contrast to Kant, to use transcendental arguments in a purely
logical way compatible with his anti-psychologism. In this case, however, it
should be both possible and preferable to replace them by purely deductive arguments.
Another problem arose in connection with asymmetrical relations, which led to
contradictions if treated as internal relations, but which were essential for
any treatment of mathematics. Russell resolved both problems in 1898 by
abandoning idealism (including internal relations and his Kantian methodology).
He called this the one real revolution in his philosophy. With his Cambridge
contemporary Moore, he adopted an extreme Platonic realism, fully stated in The
Principles of Mathematics (1903) though anticipated in A Critical Exposition of
the Philosophy of Leibniz (1900). Russell’s work on the sciences was by then
concentrated on pure mathematics, but the new philosophy yielded little
progress until, in 1900, he discovered Peano’s symbolic logic, which offered
hope that pure mathematics could be treated without Kantian intuitions or
transcendental arguments. On this basis Russell propounded logicism, the claim
that the whole of pure mathematics could be derived deductively from logical
principles, a position he came to independently of Frege, who held a similar
but more restricted view but whose work Russell discovered only later. Logicism
was announced in The Principles of Mathematics; its development occupied
Russell, in collaboration with Whitehead, for the next ten years. Their results
were published in Principia Mathematica (1910–13, 3 vols.), in which detailed
derivations were given for Cantor’s set theory, finite and transfinite
arithmetic, and elementary parts of measure theory. As a demonstration of
Russell’s logicism, Principia depends upon much prior arithmetization of
mathematics, e.g. of analysis, which is not explicitly treated. Even with these
allowances much is still left out: e.g., abstract algebra and statistics.
Russell’s unpublished papers (Papers, vols. 4–5), however, contain logical
innovations not included in Principia, e.g., anticipations of Church’s
lambda-calculus. On Russell’s extreme realism, everything that can be referred
to is a term that has being (though not necessarily existence). The combination
of terms by means of a relation results in a complex term, which is a
proposition. Terms are neither linguistic nor psychological. The first task of
philosophy is the theoretical analysis of propositions into their constituents.
The propositions of logic are unique in that they remain true when any of their
terms (apart from logical constants) are replaced by any other terms. In 1901
Russell discovered that this position fell prey to self-referential paradoxes.
For example, if the combination of any number of terms is a new term, the
combination of all terms is a term distinct from any term. The most famous such
paradox is called Russell’s paradox. Russell’s solution was the theory of
types, which banned self-reference by stratifying terms and expressions into
complex hierarchies of disjoint subclasses. The expression ‘all terms’, e.g.,
is then meaningless unless restricted to terms of specified type(s), and the
combination of terms of a given type is a term of different type. A simple
version of the theory appeared in Principles of Mathematics (appendix A), but
did not eliminate all the paradoxes. Russell developed a more elaborate version
that did, in “Mathematical Logic as Based on the Theory of Types” (1908) and in
Principia. From 1903 to 1908 Russell sought to preserve his earlier account of
logic by finding other ways to avoid the paradoxes – including a well-developed
substitutional theory of classes and relations (posthumously published in
Essays in Analysis, 1974, and Papers, vol. 5). Other costs of type theory for
Russell’s logicism included the vastly increased complexity of the resulting
sysRussell, Bertrand (Arthur William) Russell, Bertrand (Arthur William)
802 802 tem and the admission of the
problematic axiom of reducibility. Two other difficulties with Russell’s
extreme realism had important consequences: (1) ‘I met Quine’ and ‘I met a man’
are different propositions, even when Quine is the man I met. In the
Principles, the first proposition contains a man, while the second contains a
denoting concept that denotes the man. Denoting concepts are like Fregean
senses; they are meanings and have denotations. When one occurs in a
proposition the proposition is not about the concept but its denotation. This
theory requires that there be some way in which a denoting concept, rather than
its denotation, can be denoted. After much effort, Russell concluded in “On
Denoting” (1905) that this was impossible and eliminated denoting concepts as
intermediaries between denoting phrases and their denotations by means of his
theory of descriptions. Using firstorder predicate logic, Russell showed (in a
broad, though not comprehensive range of cases) how denoting phrases could be
eliminated in favor of predicates and quantified variables, for which logically
proper names could be substituted. (These were names of objects of acquaintance
– represented in ordinary language by ‘this’ and ‘that’. Most names, he
thought, were disguised definite descriptions.) Similar techniques were applied
elsewhere to other kinds of expression (e.g. class names) resulting in the more
general theory of incomplete symbols. One important consequence of this was
that the ontological commitments of a theory could be reduced by reformulating
the theory to remove expressions that apparently denoted problematic entities.
(2) The theory of incomplete symbols also helped solve extreme realism’s
epistemic problems, namely how to account for knowledge of terms that do not
exist, and for the distinction between true and false propositions. First, the
theory explained how knowledge of a wide range of items could be achieved by
knowledge by acquaintance of a much narrower range. Second, propositional
expressions were treated as incomplete symbols and eliminated in favor of their
constituents and a propositional attitude by Russell’s multiple relation theory
of judgment. These innovations marked the end of Russell’s extreme realism,
though he remained a Platonist in that he included universals among the objects
of acquaintance. Russell referred to all his philosophy after 1898 as logical
atomism, indicating thereby that certain categories of items were taken as
basic and items in other categories were constructed from them by rigorous
logical means. It depends therefore upon reduction, which became a key concept
in early analytic philosophy. Logical atomism changed as Russell’s logic
developed and as more philosophical consequences were drawn from its
application, but the label is now most often applied to the modified realism
Russell held from 1905 to 1919. Logic was central to Russell’s philosophy from
1900 onward, and much of his fertility and importance as a philosopher came
from his application of the new logic to old problems. In 1910 Russell became a
lecturer at Cambridge. There his interests turned to epistemology. In writing a
popular book, Problems of Philosophy (1912), he first came to appreciate the
work of the British empiricists, especially Hume and Berkeley. He held that
empirical knowledge is based on direct acquaintance with sense-data, and that
matter itself, of which we have only knowledge by description, is postulated as
the best explanation of sense-data. He soon became dissatisfied with this idea
and proposed instead that matter be logically constructed out of sensedata and
unsensed sensibilia, thereby obviating dubious inferences to material objects
as the causes of sensations. This proposal was inspired by the successful
constructions of mathematical concepts in Principia. He planned a large work,
“Theory of Knowledge,” which was to use the multiple relation theory to extend
his account from acquaintance to belief and inference (Papers, vol. 7).
However, the project was abandoned as incomplete in the face of Wittgenstein’s
attacks on the multiple relation theory, and Russell published only those
portions dealing with acquaintance. The construction of matter, however, went
ahead, at least in outline, in Our Knowledge of the External World (1914),
though the only detailed constructions were undertaken later by Carnap. On
Russell’s account, material objects are those series of sensibilia that obey
the laws of physics. Sensibilia of which a mind is aware (sense-data) provide
the experiential basis for that mind’s knowledge of the physical world. This
theory is similar, though not identical, to phenomenalism. Russell saw the
theory as an application of Ockham’s razor, by which postulated entities were
replaced by logical constructions. He devoted much time to understanding modern
physics, including relativity and quantum theory, and in The Analysis of Matter
(1927) he incorporated the fundamental ideas of those theories into his
construction of the physical world. In this book he abandoned sensibilia as
fundamental constituents of the world in favor Russell, Bertrand (Arthur
William) Russell, Bertrand (Arthur William) 803 803 of events, which were “neutral” because
intrinsically neither physical nor mental. In 1916 Russell was dismissed from
Cambridge on political grounds and from that time on had to earn his living by
writing and public lecturing. His popular lectures, “The Philosophy of Logical
Atomism” (1918), were a result of this. These lectures form an interim work,
looking back on the logical achievements of 1905–10 and emphasizing their
importance for philosophy, while taking stock of the problems raised by
Wittgenstein’s criticisms of the multiple relation theory. In 1919 Russell’s
philosophy of mind underwent substantial changes, partly in response to those
criticisms. The changes appeared in “On Propositions: What They Are and How
They Mean” (1919) and The Analysis of Mind (1921), where the influence of
contemporary trends in psychology, especially behaviorism, is evident. Russell
gave up the view that minds are among the fundamental constituents of the
world, and adopted neutral monism, already advocated by Mach, James, and the
American New Realists. On Russell’s neutral monism, a mind is constituted by a
set of events related by subjective temporal relations (simultaneity,
successiveness) and by certain special (“mnemic”) causal laws. In this way he
was able to explain the apparent fact that “Hume’s inability to perceive
himself was not peculiar.” In place of the multiple relation theory Russell
identified the contents of beliefs with images (“imagepropositions”) and words
(“word-propositions”), understood as certain sorts of events, and analyzed
truth (qua correspondence) in terms of resemblance and causal relations. From
1938 to 1944 Russell lived in the United States, where he wrote An Inquiry into
Meaning and Truth (1940) and his popular A History of Western Philosophy
(1945). His philosophical attention turned from metaphysics to epistemology and
he continued to work in this field after he returned in 1944 to Cambridge,
where he completed his last major philosophical work, Human Knowledge: Its
Scope and Limits (1948). The framework of Russell’s early epistemology
consisted of an analysis of knowledge in terms of justified true belief (though
it has been suggested that he unintentionally anticipated Edmund Gettier’s
objection to this analysis), and an analysis of epistemic justification that
combined fallibilism with a weak empiricism and with a foundationalism that
made room for coherence. This framework was retained in An Inquiry and Human
Knowledge, but there were two sorts of changes that attenuated the
foundationalist and empiricist elements and accentuated the fallibilist
element. First, the scope of human knowledge was reduced. Russell had already
replaced his earlier Moorean consequentialism about values with subjectivism.
(Contrast “The Elements of Ethics,” 1910, with, e.g., Religion and Science,
1935, or Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954.) Consequently, what had
been construed as self-evident judgments of intrinsic value came to be regarded
as non-cognitive expressions of desire. In addition, Russell now reversed his
earlier belief that deductive inference can yield new knowledge. Second, the
degree of justification attainable in human knowledge was reduced at all
levels. Regarding the foundation of perceptual beliefs, Russell came to admit
that the object-knowledge (“acquaintance with a sensedatum” was replaced by
“noticing a perceptive occurrence” in An Inquiry) that provides the
non-inferential justification for a perceptual belief is buried under layers of
“interpretation” and unconscious inference in even the earliest stages of
perceptual processes. Regarding the superstructure of inferentially justified
beliefs, Russell concluded in Human Knowledge that unrestricted induction is
not generally truthpreserving (anticipating Goodman’s “new riddle of
induction”). Consideration of the work of Reichenbach and Keynes on probability
led him to the conclusion that certain “postulates” are needed “to provide the
antecedent probabilities required to justify inductions,” and that the only
possible justification for believing these postulates lies, not in their
self-evidence, but in the resultant increase in the overall coherence of one’s
total belief system. In the end, Russell’s desire for certainty went unsatisfied,
as he felt himself forced to the conclusion that “all human knowledge is
uncertain, inexact, and partial. To this doctrine we have not found any
limitation whatever.” Russell’s strictly philosophical writings of 1919 and
later have generally been less influential than his earlier writings. His
influence was eclipsed by that of logical positivism and ordinary language
philosophy. He approved of the logical positivists’ respect for logic and
science, though he disagreed with their metaphysical agnosticism. But his
dislike of ordinary language philosophy was visceral. In My Philosophical
Development (1959), he accused its practitioners of abandoning the attempt to
understand the world, “that grave and important task which philosophy
throughout the ages has hitherto pursued.”
FREGE, LOGICAL CONSTRUCTION, Russell, Bertrand (Arthur William) Russell,
Bertrand (Arthur William) 804 804
LOGICISM, PERCEPTION, SET-THEORETIC PARADOXES, SET THEORY, THEORY OF
DESCRIPTIONS, TYPE THEORY, WHITEHEAD. N.G. & D.B.M. Russell’s
paradox.SET-THEORETIC PARADOXES. Russian nihilism, a form of nihilism, a
phenomenon mainly of Russia in the 1860s, which, in contrast to the general
cultural nihilism that Nietzsche later criticized (in the 1880s) as a
“dead-end” devaluing of all values, was futureoriented and “instrumental,”
exalting possibility over actuality. Russian nihilists urged the “annihilation”
– figurative and literal – of the past and present, i.e., of realized social
and cultural values and of such values in process of realization, in the name
of the future, i.e., for the sake of social and cultural values yet to be
realized. Bakunin, as early as 1842, had stated the basic nihilist theme: “the
negation of what exists . . . for the benefit of the future which does not yet
exist.” The bestknown literary exemplar of nihilism in Russia is the character
Bazarov in Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons (1862). Its most articulate
spokesman was Dmitri Pisarev (1840–68), who shared Bazarov’s cultural
anti-Romanticism, philosophical anti-idealism, and unquestioned trust in the
power of natural science to solve social and moral problems. Pisarev
proclaimed, “It is precisely in the [spread-eagled, laboratory] frog that the
salvation . . . of the Russian people is to be found.” And he formulated what
may serve as the manifesto of Russian nihilism: “What can be broken should be
broken; what will stand the blow is fit to live; what breaks into smithereens
is rubbish; in any case, strike right and left, it will not and cannot do any
harm.” RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY. G.L.K.
Russian philosophy, the philosophy produced by Russian thinkers, both in Russia
and in the countries to which they emigrated, from the mideighteenth century to
the present. There was no Renaissance in Russia, but in the early eighteenth
century Peter the Great, in opening a “window to the West,” opened Russia up to
Western philosophical influences. The beginnings of Russian speculation date
from that period, in the dialogues, fables, and poems of the anti-Enlightenment
thinker Gregory Skovoroda (1722–94) and in the social tracts, metaphysical
treatises, and poems of the Enlightenment thinker Alexander Radishchev
(1749–1802). Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century the most original
and forceful Russian thinkers stood outside the academy. Since then, both in
Russia and in Western exile, a number of the most important Russian
philosophers – including Berdyaev and Lev Shestov (1866– 1938) – have been
university professors. The nineteenth-century thinkers, though universityeducated,
lacked advanced degrees. The only university professor among them, Peter Lavrov
(1823–1900), taught mathematics and science rather than philosophy (during the
1850s). If we compare Russian philosophy to German philosophy of this period,
with its galaxy of university professors – Wolff, Kant, Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, Dilthey – the contrast is sharp. However, if we compare Russian
philosophy to English or French philosophy, the contrast fades. No professors
of philosophy appear in the line from Francis Bacon through Hobbes, Locke,
Berkeley, Hume, Bentham, and J. S. Mill, to Spencer. And in France Montaigne,
Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau, and Comte were all non-professors. True to their
non-professional, even “amateur” status, Russian philosophers until the late
nineteenth century paid little attention to the more technical disciplines:
logic, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science. They
focused instead on philosophical anthropology, ethics, social and political
philosophy, philosophy of history, and philosophy of religion. In Russia, more
than in any other Western cultural tradition, speculation, fiction, and poetry
have been linked. On the one hand, major novelists such as Tolstoy and
Dostoevsky, and major poets such as Pasternak and Brodsky, have engaged in
wide-ranging philosophical reflection. On the other hand, philosophers such as
Skovoroda, Alexei Khomyakov (1804–60), and Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900) were
gifted poets, while thinkers such as Herzen, Konstantin Leontyev (1831–91), and
the anti-Leninist Marxist Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928) made their literary
mark with novels, short stories, and memoirs. Such Russian thinkers as Vasily
Rozanov (1856–1919) and Shestov, although they wrote no belles lettres, were
celebrated in literary circles for their sparkling essayistic and aphoristic
styles. Certain preoccupations of nineteenth-century Russian thinkers –
especially Pyotr Chaadaev (1794–1856) during the 1820s and 1830s, the
Slavophiles and Westernizers during the 1840s and 1850s, and the Populists
during the 1860s and 1870s – might appear to be distinctive but in fact were
not. The controversial questions of Russia’s relation to Western Europe and of
Russell’s paradox Russian philosophy 805
805 Russia’s “special path” to modernity have their counterparts in the
reflections of thinkers in Spain (“Spain and Europe”), Germany (the Sonderweg –
a term of which the Russian osobyi put’ is a translation), and Poland (“the
Polish Question”). The content of Russian philosophy may be characterized in
general terms as tending toward utopianism, maximalism, moralism, and
soteriology. To take the last point first: Hegelianism was received in Russia
in the 1830s not only as an allembracing philosophical system but also as a
vehicle of secular salvation. In the 1860s Darwinism was similarly received, as
was Marxism in the 1890s. Utopianism appears at the historical and
sociopolitical level in two of Solovyov’s characteristic doctrines: his early
“free theocracy,” in which the spiritual authority of the Roman pope was to be
united with the secular authority of the Russian tsar; and his later ecumenical
project of reuniting the Eastern (Russian Orthodox) and Western (Roman
Catholic) churches in a single “universal [vselenskaia] church” that would also
incorporate the “Protestant principle” of free philosophical and theological
inquiry. Maximalism appears at the individual and religious level in Shestov’s
claim that God, for whom alone “all things are possible,” can cause what has
happened not to have happened and, in particular, can restore irrecoverable
human loss, such as that associated with disease, deformity, madness, and
death. Maximalism and moralism are united at the cosmic and
“scientific-technological” level in Nikolai Fyodorov’s (1829–1903) insistence
on the overriding moral obligation of all men (“the sons”) to join the common
cause of restoring life to “the fathers,” those who gave them life rather than,
as sanctioned by the “theory of progress,” pushing them, figuratively if not literally,
into the grave. Certain doctrinal emphases and assumptions link Russian
thinkers from widely separated points on the political and ideological
spectrum: (1) Russian philosophers were nearly unanimous in dismissing the
notorious CartesianHumean “problem of other minds” as a nonproblem. Their
convictions about human community and conciliarity (sobornost’), whether
religious or secular, were too powerful to permit Russian thinkers to raise
serious doubts as to whether their moaning and bleeding neighbor was “really”
in pain. (2) Most Russian thinkers – the Westernizers were a partial exception
– viewed key Western philosophical positions and formulations, from the
Socratic “know thyself” to the Cartesian cogito, as overly individualistic and
overly intellectualistic, as failing to take into account the wholeness of the
human person. (3) Both such anti-Marxists as Herzen (with his “philosophy of
the act”) and Fyodorov (with his “projective” common task) and the early
Russian Marxists were in agreement about the unacceptability of the “Western”
dichotomy between thought and action. But when they stressed the unity of
theory and practice, a key question remained: Who is to shape this unity? And
what is its form? The threadbare MarxistLeninist “philosophy” of the Stalin
years paid lip service to the freedom involved in forging such a unity. Stalin
in fact imposed crushing restraints upon both thought and action. Since 1982,
works by and about the previously abused or neglected religious and speculative
thinkers of Russia’s past have been widely republished and eagerly discussed.
This applies to Fyodorov, Solovyov, Leontyev, Rozanov, Berdyaev, Shestov, and
the Husserlian Shpet, among others.
BAKUNIN, BERDYAEV, HERZEN, LENIN, PLEKHANOV, RUSSIAN NIHILISM, SOLOVYOV.
G.L.K. Ryle, Gilbert (1900–76), English analytic philosopher known especially
for his contributions to the philosophy of mind and his attacks on
Cartesianism. His best-known work is the masterpiece The Concept of Mind
(1949), an attack on what he calls “Cartesian dualism” and a defense of a type
of logical behaviorism. This dualism he dubs “the dogma of the Ghost in the
Machine,” the Machine being the body, which is physical and publicly
observable, and the Ghost being the mind conceived as a private or secret arena
in which episodes of sense perception, consciousness, and inner perception take
place. A person, then, is a combination of such a mind and a body, with the
mind operating the body through exercises of will called “volitions.” Ryle’s
attack on this doctrine is both sharply focused and multifarious. He finds that
it rests on a category mistake, namely, assimilating statements about mental
processes to the same category as statements about physical processes. This is
a mistake in the logic of mental statements and mental concepts and leads to
the mistaken metaphysical theory that a person is composed of two separate and
distinct (though somehow related) entities, a mind and a body. It is true that
statements about the physical are statements about things and their changes.
But statements about the mental Ryle, Gilbert Ryle, Gilbert 806 806 are not, and in particular are not
about a thing called “the mind.” These two types of statements do not belong to
the same category. To show this, Ryle deploys a variety of arguments, including
arguments alleging the impossibility of causal relations between mind and body
and arguments alleging vicious infinite regresses. To develop his positive view
on the nature of mind, Ryle studies the uses (and hence the logic) of mental
terms and finds that mental statements tell us that the person performs
observable actions in certain ways and has a disposition to perform other
observable actions in specifiable circumstances. For example, to do something
intelligently is to do something physical in a certain way and to adjust one’s
behavior to the circumstances, not, as the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine
would have it, to perform two actions, one of which is a mental action of
thinking that eventually causes a separate physical action. Ryle buttresses
this position with many acute and subtle analyses of the uses of mental terms.
Much of Ryle’s other work concerns philosophical methodology, sustaining the
thesis (which is the backbone of The Concept of Mind) that philosophical
problems and doctrines often arise from conceptual confusion, i.e., from
mistakes about the logic of language. Important writings in this vein include
the influential article “Systematically Misleading Expressions” and the book
Dilemmas (1954). Ryle was also interested in Greek philosophy throughout his
life, and his last major work, Plato’s Progress, puts forward novel hypotheses
about changes in Plato’s views, the role of the Academy, the purposes and uses
of Plato’s dialogues, and Plato’s relations with the rulers of Syracuse. BEHAVIORISM, CATEGORY, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND,
WITTGENSTEIN. J.W.M. Ryle, Gilbert Ryle, Gilbert 807 807 S5.MODAL LOGIC. Saadiah Gaon (882–942),
Jewish exegete, philosopher, liturgist, grammarian, and lexicographer. Born in the
Fayyum in Egypt, Saadiah wrote his first Hebrew dictionary by age twenty. He
removed to Tiberias, probably fleeing the backlash of his polemic against the
Karaite (biblicist, anti-Talmudic) sect. There he mastered the inductive
techniques of semantic analysis pioneered by Muslim MuÅtazilites in defending
their rationalistic monotheism and voluntaristic theodicy. He learned
philologically from the Masoretes and liturgical poets, and philosophically
from the MuÅtazilite-influenced Jewish metaphysician Daud al-Muqammif of Raqqa
in Iraq, and Isaac Israeli of Qayrawan in Tunisia, a Neoplatonizing physician,
with whom the young philosopher attempted a correspondence. But his sense of
system, evidenced in his pioneering chronology, prayerbook, and scheme of tropes,
and nurtured by Arabic versions of Plato (but seemingly not much Aristotle),
allowed him to outgrow and outshine his mentors. He came to prominence by
successfully defending the traditional Hebrew calendar, using astronomical,
mathematical, and rabbinic arguments. Called to Baghdad, he became Gaon
(Hebrew, ‘Eminence’) or head of the ancient Talmudic academy of Pumpedita, then
nearly defunct. His commentaries on rabbinic property law and his letters to
Jewish communities as far away as Spain refurbished the authority of the
academy, but a controversy with the Exilarch, secular head of Mesopotamian
Jewry, led to his deposition and six years in limbo, deprived of his judicial
authority. He delved into scientific cosmology, translated many biblical books into
Arabic with philosophic commentaries and thematic introductions, and around 933
completed The Book of Critically Chosen Beliefs and Convictions, the first
Jewish philosophical summa. Unusual among medieval works for a lengthy
epistemological introduction, its ten Arabic treatises defend and define
creation, monotheism, human obligation and virtue, theodicy, natural
retribution, resurrection, immortality and recompense, Israel’s redemption, and
the good life. Saadiah argues that no single good suffices for human happiness;
each in isolation is destructive. The Torah prepares the optimal blend of the
appetitive and erotic, procreative, civilizational, ascetic, political,
intellectual, pious, and tranquil. Following al-Rhazi (d. 925 or 932), Saadiah
argues that since destruction always overcomes organization in this world,
sufferings will always outweigh pleasures; therefore (as in rabbinic and
MuÅtazilite theodicy) God must be assumed to right the balances in the
hereafter. Indeed, justice is the object of creation – not simply that the
righteous be rewarded but that all should earn their deserved requital: the
very light that is sown for the righteous is the fire that torments the wicked.
But if requital and even recompense must be earned, this life is much more than
an anteroom. Authenticity becomes a value in itself: the innocent are not told
directly that their sufferings are a trial, or their testing would be invalid.
Only by enduring their sufferings without interference can they demonstrate the
qualities that make them worthy of the highest reward. Movingly reconciled with
the Exilarch, Saadiah ended his life as Gaon. His voluntarism, naturalism, and
rationalism laid philosophical foundations for Maimonides, and his inductive
exegesis became a cornerstone of critical hermeneutics. JEWISH PHILOSOPHY. L.E.G. sage.SHENG. Saint
Petersburg paradox, a puzzle about gambling that motivated the distinction
between expected return and expected utility. Daniel Bernoulli published it in
a St. Petersburg journal in 1738. It concerns a gamble like this: it pays $2 if
heads appears on the first toss of a coin, $4 if heads does not appear until
the second toss, $8 if heads does not appear until the third toss, and so on.
The expected return from the gamble is (½)2 ! (¼)4 ! (1 /8)8 ! . . . , or 1 ! 1
! 1 ! ..., i.e., it is infinite. But no one would pay much for the gamble. So
it seems that expected returns do not govern rational preferences. Bernoulli
argued that expected utilities govern rational preferences. He also held that
the utility of wealth is proportional to the log of the amount of wealth. Given
his assumptions, the gamble has finite 808 S
808 expected utility, and should not be preferred to large sums of
money. However, a twentieth-century version of the paradox, attributed to Karl
Menger, reconstructs the gamble, putting utility payoffs in place of monetary
payoffs, so that the new gamble has infinite expected utility. Since no one
would trade much utility for the new gamble, it also seems that expected utilities
do not govern rational preferences. The resolution of the paradox is under
debate. DECISION THEORY, EMPIRICAL
DECISION THEORY. P.We. Saint-Simon, Comte de, title of Claude-Henri de Rouvroy
(1760–1825), French social reformer. An aristocrat by birth, he initially
joined the ranks of the enlightened and liberal bourgeoisie. His Newtonian
Letters to an Inhabitant of Geneva (1803) and Introduction to Scientific Works
of the Nineteenth Century (1808) championed Condorcet’s vision of scientific
and technological progress. With Auguste Comte, he shared a positivistic
philosophy of history: the triumph of science over metaphysics. Written in
wartime, The Reorganization of European Society (1814) urged the creation of a
European parliamentary system to secure peace and unity. Having moved from
scientism to pacifism, Saint-Simon moved further to industrialism. In 1817,
under the influence of two theocratic thinkers, de Maistre and Bonald,
Saint-Simon turned away from classical economic liberalism and repudiated laissez-faire
capitalism. The Industrial System (1820) drafts the program for a hierarchical
state, a technocratic society, and a planned economy. The industrial society of
the future is based on the principles of productivity and cooperation and led
by a rational and efficient class, the industrialists (artists, scientists, and
technicians). He argued that the association of positivism with unselfishness,
of techniques of rational production with social solidarity and
interdependency, would remedy the plight of the poor. Industrialism prefigures
socialism, and socialism paves the way for the rule of the law of love, the
eschatological age of The New Christianity (1825). This utopian treatise, which
reveals Saint-Simon’s alternative to reactionary Catholicism and Protestant
individualism, became the Bible of the Saint-Simonians, a sectarian school of
utopian socialists. J.-L.S. Sakti, in Hindu thought, force, power, or energy,
personified as the divine consort of the god Siva. Sakti is viewed as the
feminine active divine aspect (as contrasted with the masculine passive divine
aspect), which affects the creation, maintenance, and dissolution of the
universe, and possesses intelligence, will, knowledge, and action as modes.
K.E.Y. Saktism.SAKTI. salva veritate.SUBSTITUTIVITY SALVA VERITATE. samadhi,
Sanskrit term meaning ‘concentration’, ‘absorption’, ‘superconscious state’,
‘altered state of consciousness’. In India’s philosophical tradition this term
was made famous by its use in the Yoga system of Patañjali (second century
B.C.). In this system the goal was to attain the self’s freedom, so that the
self, conceived as pure consciousness in its true nature, would not be limited
by the material modes of existence. It was believed that through a series of
yogic techniques the self is freed from its karmic fetters and liberated to its
original state of self-luminous consciousness, known as samadhi. The Indian
philosophical systems had raised and debated many epistemological and
metaphysical questions regarding the nature of consciousness, the concept of
mind, and the idea of the self. They also wondered whether a yogi who has
attained samadhi is within the confines of the conventional moral realm. This
issue is similar to Nietzsche’s idea of the transvaluation of values. NIETZSCHE. D.K.C. samanantara-pratyaya, in
Buddhism, a causal term meaning ‘immediately antecedent (anantara) and similar
(sama) condition’. According to Buddhist causal theory, every existent is a
continuum of momentary events of various kinds. These momentary events may be
causally connected to one another in a variety of ways; one of these is denoted
by the term samanantarapratyaya. This kind of causal connection requires that
every momentary event have, as a necessary condition for its existence, an
immediately preceding event of the same kind. So, e.g., among the necessary
conditions for the occurrence of a moment of sensation in some continuum must
be the occurrence of an immediately preceding moment of sensation in that same
continuum. P.J.G. samatha, in Buddhism, tranquillity or calm. The term is used
to describe both one kind of meditational practice and the states of
consciousness produced by it. To cultivate tranquillity or calmness is to
reduce the mind’s level of affect and, Saint-Simon samatha 809 809 finally, to produce a state of
consciousness in which emotion is altogether absent. This condition is taken to
have salvific significance because emotional disturbance of all kinds is
thought to hinder clear perception and understanding of the way things are;
reduction of affect therefore aids accurate cognition. The techniques designed
to foster this reduction are essentially concentrative. JHANA, VIPASSANA. P.J.G. Samhita.VEDAS.
Samkara.SHAGKARA. samsara (Sanskrit, ‘going around’), in Hindu thought, the
ceaseless rounds of rebirth that constitute the human predicament. Samsara
speaks of the relentless cycle of coming and going in transmigration of the
soul from body to body in this and other worlds. It is the manifestation of
karma, for one’s deeds bear fruition in the timing, status, form, and nature of
the phenomenal person in future lives. Ordinary individuals have little
prospect of release and in some systems the relationship among karma, rebirth,
and samsara is a highly mechanical cosmic law of debt and credit which affirms
that human deeds produce their own reward or punishment. For theists the Deity
is the ultimate controller of samsara and can break the cycle, adjust it, or,
by the god’s kindness or grace, save one from future births regardless of one’s
actions. AVATAR. R.N.Mi. Sanches,
Francisco (c.1551–1623), Portugueseborn philosopher and physician. Raised in
southern France, he took his medical degree at the University of Montpellier.
After a decade of medical practice he was professor of philosophy at the
University of Toulouse and later professor of medicine there. His most
important work, Quod nihil scitur(That Nothing Is Known, 1581), is a classic of
skeptical argumentation. Written at the same time that his cousin, Montaigne,
wrote the “Apology for Raimund Sebond,” it devastatingly criticized the
Aristotelian theory of knowledge. He began by declaring that he did not even
know if he knew nothing. Then he examined the Aristotelian view that science
consists of certain knowledge gained by demonstrations from true definitions.
First of all, we do not possess such definitions, since all our definitions are
just arbitrary names of things. The Aristotelian theory of demonstration is
useless, since in syllogistic reasoning the conclusion has to be part of the
evidence for the premises. E.g., how can one know that all men are mortal
unless one knows that Socrates is mortal? Also, anything can be proven by
syllogistic reasoning if one chooses the right premises. This does not produce real
knowledge. Further we cannot know anything through its causes, since one would
have to know the causes of the causes, and the causes of these, ad infinitum.
Sanches also attacked the Platonic theory of knowledge, since mathematical
knowledge is about ideal rather than real objects. Mathematics is only
hypothetical. Its relevance to experience is not known. True science would
consist of perfect knowledge of a thing. Each particular would be understood in
and by itself. Such knowledge can be attained only by God. We cannot study
objects one by one, since they are all interrelated and interconnected. Our
faculties are also not reliable enough. Hence genuine knowledge cannot be
attained by humans. What we can do, using “scientific method” (a term first
used by Sanches), is gather careful empirical information and make cautious
judgments about it. His views were well known in the seventeenth century, and
may have inspired the “mitigated skepticism” of Gassendi and others. SKEPTICISM. R.H.P. sanction, anything whose
function is to penalize or reward. It is useful to distinguish between social
sanctions, legal sanctions, internal sanctions, and religious sanctions. Social
sanctions are extralegal pressures exerted upon the agent by others. For
example, others might distrust us, ostracize us, or even physically attack us,
if we behave in certain ways. Legal sanctions include corporal punishment,
imprisonment, fines, withdrawal of the legal rights to run a business or to
leave the area, and other penalties. Internal sanctions may include not only
guilt feelings but also the sympathetic pleasures of helping others or the
gratified conscience of doing right. Divine sanctions, if there are any, are
rewards or punishments given to us by a god while we are alive or after we die.
There are important philosophical questions concerning sanctions. Should law be
defined as the rules the breaking of which elicits punishment by the state?
Could there be a moral duty to behave in a given way if there were no social
sanctions concerning such behavior? If not, then a conventionalist account of
moral duty seems unavoidable. And, to what extent does the combined effect of
external and internal sanctions make rational egoism (or prudence or
self-interest) coincide with morality? B.W.H. Samhita sanction 810 810 Sankara.SHANKARA. Sankhya-Yoga, a
system of Hindu thought that posits two sorts of reality, immaterial (purusha)
and material (prakrti). Prakrti, a physical stuff composed of what is lightweight
and finegrained (sattva), what is heavy and coarse (tamas), and what is active
(rajas), is in some sense the source of matter, force, space, and time. Sankhya
physical theory explains the complex by reference to the properties of its
components. The physical universe everlastingly oscillates between states in
which the three elements exist unmixed and states in which they mingle; when
they mingle, they compose physical bodies some of which incarnate bits of
purusha. When the basic elements mingle, transmigration occurs. Pursha is
inherently passive, and mental properties belong only to the composite of
prakrti and purusha, leading critics to ask what, when the physical elements
are separated, individuates one mind from another. The answer is that one bit
of purusha has one transmigratory history and another bit has another history.
Critics (e.g., Nyaya-Vaishesika philosophers) were not satisfied with this
answer, which allowed no intrinsic distinctions between bits of non-incarnate
purusha. The dialectic of criticism led to Advaita Vedanta (for which all
purusha distinctions are illusory) and other varieties of Vedanta (Dvaita and
Visistadvaita) for which minds have inherent, not merely embodied,
consciousness. Sankhya claims that there can be no emergent properties
(properties not somehow a reshuffling of prior properties), so the effect must
in some sense preexist in the cause.
HINDUISM. K.E.Y. Santayana, George (1863–1952), SpanishAmerican
philosopher and writer. Born in Spain, he arrived in the United States as a
child, received his education at Harvard, and rose to professor of philosophy
there. He first came to prominence for his view, developed in The Sense of
Beauty (1896), that beauty is objectified pleasure. His The Life of Reason (5
vols., 1905), a celebrated expression of his naturalistic vision, traces human
creativity in ordinary life, society, art, religion, and science. He denied
that his philosophy ever changed, but the mature expression of his thought, in
Skepticism and Animal Faith (1923) and The Realms of Being (4 vols., 1927–40),
is deliberately ontological and lacks the phenomenological emphasis of the
earlier work. Human beings, according to Santayana, are animals in a material
world contingent to the core. Reflection must take as its primary datum human
action aimed at eating and fleeing. The philosophy of animal faith consists of
disentangling the beliefs tacit in such actions and yields a realism concerning
both the objects of immediate consciousness and the objects of belief.
Knowledge is true belief rendered in symbolic terms. As symbolism, it
constitutes the hauntingly beautiful worlds of the senses, poetry, and
religion; as knowledge, it guides and is tested by successful action. Santayana
had been taught by William James, and his insistence on the primacy of action suggests
a close similarity to the views of Dewey. He is, nevertheless, not a pragmatist
in any ordinary sense: he views nature as the fully formed arena of human
activity and experience as a flow of isolated, private sentience in this alien
world. His deepest sympathy is with Aristotle, though he agrees with Plato
about the mind-independent existence of Forms and with Schopenhauer about the
dimness of human prospects. His mature four-realm ontology turns on the
distinction between essence and matter. Essences are forms of definiteness.
They are infinite in number and encompass everything possible. Their eternity
makes them causally inefficacious: as possibilities, they cannot accomplish
their own actualization. Matter, a surd and formless force, generates the
physical universe by selecting essences for embodiment. Truth is the realm of
being created by the intersection of matter and form: it is the eternal record
of essences that have been, are being, and will be given actuality in the
history of the world. Spirit or consciousness cannot be reduced to the motions
of the physical organism that give rise to it. It is constituted by a sequence
of acts or intuitions whose objects are essences but whose time-spanning,
synthetic nature renders them impotent. Organic selectivity is the source of
values. Accordingly, the good of each organism is a function of its nature.
Santayana simply accepts the fact that some of these goods are incommensurable
and the tragic reality that they may be incompatible, as well. Under favorable
circumstances, a life of reason or of maximal harmonized satisfactions is
possible for a while. The finest achievement of human beings, however, is the
spiritual life in which we overcome animal partiality and thus all valuation in
order to enjoy the intuition of eternal essences. Santayana identifies such
spirituality with the best that religion and sound philosophy can offer. It
does not help us escape finitude and death, but enables us Sankara Santayana,
George 811 811 in this short life to
transcend care and to intuit the eternal. Santayana’s exquisite vision has
gained him many admirers but few followers. His system is a self-consistent and
sophisticated synthesis of elements, such as materialism and Platonism, that
have hitherto been thought impossible to reconcile. His masterful writing makes
his books instructive and pleasurable, even if many of his characteristic views
engender resistance among philosophers. J.La. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, broadly,
the claim that one’s perception, thought, and behavior are influenced by one’s
language. The hypothesis was named after Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897– 1941) and
his teacher Edward Sapir (1884– 1939). We may discern different versions of
this claim by distinguishing degrees of linguistic influence, the highest of
which is complete and unalterable determination of the fundamental structures
of perception, thought, and behavior. In the most radical form, the hypothesis
says that one’s reality is constructed by one’s language and that differently
structured languages give rise to different realities, which are
incommensurable. LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY,
PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM. T.Y. Sartre, Jean-Paul
(1905–80), French philosopher and writer, the leading advocate of
existentialism during the years following World War II. The heart of his
philosophy was the precious notion of freedom and its concomitant sense of
personal responsibility. He insisted, in an interview a few years before his
death, that he never ceased to believe that “in the end one is always
responsible for what is made of one,” only a slight revision of his earlier,
bolder slogan, “man makes himself.” To be sure, as a student of Hegel, Marx,
Husserl, and Heidegger – and because of his own physical frailty and the
tragedies of the war – Sartre had to be well aware of the many constraints and
obstacles to human freedom, but as a Cartesian, he never deviated from
Descartes’s classical portrait of human consciousness as free and distinct from
the physical universe it inhabits. One is never free of one’s “situation,”
Sartre tells us, though one is always free to deny (“negate”) that situation
and to try to change it. To be human, to be conscious, is to be free to
imagine, free to choose, and responsible for one’s lot in life. As a student,
Sartre was fascinated by Husserl’s new philosophical method, phenomenology. His
first essays were direct responses to Husserl and applications of the
phenomenological method. His essay on The Imagination in 1936 established the
groundwork for much of what was to follow: the celebration of our remarkable
freedom to imagine the world other than it is and (following Kant) the way that
this ability informs all of our experience. In The Transcendence of the Ego
(1937) he reconsidered Husserl’s central idea of a “phenomenological reduction”
(the idea of examining the essential structures of consciousness as such) and
argued (following Heidegger) that one cannot examine consciousness without at
the same time recognizing the reality of actual objects in the world. In other
words, there can be no such “reduction.” In his novel Nausea (1938), Sartre
made this point in a protracted example: his bored and often nauseated narrator
confronts a gnarled chestnut tree in the park and recognizes with a visceral
shock that its presence is simply given and utterly irreducible. In The
Transcendence of the Ego Sartre also reconsiders the notion of the self, which
Husserl (and so many earlier philosophers) had identified with consciousness.
But the self, Sartre argues, is not “in” consciousness, much less identical to
it. The self is out there “in the world, like the self of another.” In other
words, the self is an ongoing project in the world with other people; it is not
simply self-awareness or self-consciousness as such (“I think, therefore I
am”). This separation of self and consciousness and the rejection of the self
as simply self-consciousness provide the framework for Sartre’s greatest
philosophical treatise, L’être et le néant (Being and Nothingness, 1943). Its
structure is unabashedly Cartesian, consciousness (“being-for-itself” or pour
soi) on the one side, the existence of mere things (“being-in-itself” or en
soi) on the other. (The phraseology comes from Hegel.) But Sartre does not fall
into the Cartesian trap of designating these two types of being as separate
“substances.” Instead, Sartre describes consciousness as “nothing’ – “not a
thing” but an activity, “a wind blowing from nowhere toward the world.” Sartre
often resorts to visceral metaphors when developing this theme (e.g., “a worm
coiled in the heart of being”), but much of what he is arguing is familiar to
philosophical readers in the more metaphor-free work of Kant, who also warned
against the follies (“paralogisms”) of understanding consciousness as itself a
(possible) object of consciousness rather than as the activity of constituting
the objects of consciousness. (As the lens of a camera can never see itself –
and in a mirror only sees a reflection of itself – conSapir-Whorf hypothesis
Sartre, Jean-Paul 812 812 sciousness
can never view itself as consciousness and is only aware of itself – “for
itself” – through its experience of objects.) Ontologically, one might think of
“nothingness” as “no-thing-ness,” a much less outrageous suggestion than those
that would make it an odd sort of a thing. It is through the nothingness of
consciousness and its activities that negation comes into the world, our
ability to imagine the world other than it is and the inescapable necessity of
imagining ourselves other than we seem to be. And because consciousness is
nothingness, it is not subject to the rules of causality. Central to the
argument of L’être et le néant and Sartre’s insistence on the primacy of human
freedom is his insistence that consciousness cannot be understood in causal
terms. It is always self-determining and, as such, “it always is what it is
not, and is not what it is” – a playful paradox that refers to the fact that we
are always in the process of choosing. Consciousness is “nothing,” but the self
is always on its way to being something. Throughout our lives we accumulate a
body of facts that are true of us – our “facticity” – but during our lives we
remain free to envision new possibilities, to reform ourselves and to
reinterpret our facticity in the light of new projects and ambitions – our
“transcendence.” This indeterminacy means that we can never be anything, and
when we try to establish ourselves as something particular – whether a social
role (policeman, waiter) or a certain character (shy, intellectual, cowardly) –
we are in “bad faith.” Bad faith is erroneously viewing ourselves as something
fixed and settled (Sartre utterly rejects Freud and his theory of the
unconscious determination of our personalities and behavior), but it is also
bad faith to view oneself as a being of infinite possibilities and ignore the
always restrictive facts and circumstances within which all choices must be
made. On the one hand, we are always trying to define ourselves; on the other
hand we are always free to break away from what we are, and always responsible
for what we have made of ourselves. But there is no easy resolution or
“balance” between facticity and freedom, rather a kind of dialectic or tension.
The result is our frustrated desire to be God, to be both in-itself and
for-itself. But this is not so much blasphemy as an expression of despair, a
form of ontological original sin, the impossibility of being both free and what
we want to be. Life for Sartre is yet more complicated. There is a third basic
ontological category, on a par with the being-in-itself and being-for-itself
and not derivative of them. He calls it “being-for-others.” To say that it is
not derivative is to insist that our knowledge of others is not inferred, e.g.
by some argument by analogy, from the behavior of others, and we ourselves are
not wholly constituted by our self-determinations and the facts about us.
Sartre gives us a brutal but familiar everyday example of our experience of
being-for-others in what he calls “the look” (le regard). Someone catches us
“in the act” of doing something humiliating, and we find ourselves defining
ourselves (probably also resisting that definition) in their terms. In his
Saint Genet (1953), Sartre describes such a conversion of the ten-year-old Jean
Genet into a thief. So, too, we tend to “catch” one another in the judgments we
make and define one another in terms that are often unflattering. But these
judgments become an essential and ineluctible ingredient in our sense of
ourselves, and they too lead to conflicts indeed, conflicts so basic and so
frustrating that in his play Huis clos (No Exit, 1943) Sartre has one of his
characters utter the famous line, “Hell is other people.” In his later works,
notably his Critique of Dialectical Reason (1958–59), Sartre turned
increasingly to politics and, in particular, toward a defense of Marxism on
existentialist principles. This entailed rejecting materialist determinism, but
it also required a new sense of solidarity (or what Sartre had wistfully
called, following Heidegger, Mitsein or “being with others”). Thus in his later
work he struggled to find a way of overcoming the conflict and insularity or
the rather “bourgeois” consciousness he had described in Being and Nothingness.
Not surprisingly (given his constant political activities) he found it in
revolutionary engagement. Consonant with his rejection of bourgeois selfhood,
Sartre turned down the 1964 Nobel prize for literature. CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY, EXISTENTIALISM, MARXISM,
PHENOMENOLOGY. R.C.So. sat/chit/ananda, also saccidananda, three Sanskrit terms
combined to refer to the Highest Reality as ‘existence, intelligence, bliss’.
The later thinkers of Advaita Vedanta, such as Shankara, used the term to
denote the Absolute, Brahman, a state of oneness of being, of pure
consciousness and of absolute value or freedom. These are not to be taken as
attributes or accidents that qualify Brahman but terms that express its
essential nature as experienced by human beings. Sat (being, existence) is also
satyam (truth), affirming that Brahman is experienced as being itself, not a
being over against another. Chit is pure consciousness, sat/chit/ananda
sat/chit/ananda 813 813 consciousness
without object, and ananda is the experience of unlimited freedom and universal
potentiality as well as satisfaction and the bliss that transcends both all
that is pleasurable in the world and release from the bondage of samsara. Hindu
theists understand sat/chit/ananda as the qualities of the supreme god. ADVAITA, BRAHMAN, VEDANTA. R.N.Mi.
satisfaction, an auxiliary semantic notion introduced by Tarski in order to
give a recursive definition of truth for languages containing quantifiers.
Intuitively, the satisfaction relation holds between formulas containing free
variables (such as ‘Building(x) & Tall(x)’) and objects or sequences of
objects (such as the Empire State Building) if and only if the formula “holds
of” or “applies to” the objects. Thus, ‘Building(x) & Tall(x)’, is
satisfied by all and only tall buildings, and ‘-Tall(x1) & Taller(x1, x2)’
is satisfied by any pair of objects in which the first object (corresponding to
‘x1’) is not tall, but nonetheless taller than the second (corresponding to
‘x2’). Satisfaction is needed when defining truth for languages with sentences
built from formulas containing free variables, because the notions of truth and
falsity do not apply to these “open” formulas. Thus, we cannot characterize the
truth of the sentences ‘Dx (Building(x) & Tall(x))’ (‘Some building is
tall’) in terms of the truth or falsity of the open formula ‘Building(x) &
Tall(x)’, since the latter is neither true nor false. But note that the
sentence is true if and only if the formula is satisfied by some object. Since
we can give a recursive definition of the notion of satisfaction for (possibly
open) formulas, this enables us to use this auxiliary notion in defining
truth. SEMANTIC PARADOXES, TARSKI,
TRUTH. J.Et. satisfaction conditions.SEARLE. satisfiable, having a common
model, a structure in which all the sentences in the set are true; said of a
set of sentences. In modern logic, satisfiability is the semantic analogue of
the syntactic, proof-theoretic notion of consistency, the unprovability of any
explicit contradiction. The completeness theorem for first-order logic, that all
valid sentences are provable, can be formulated in terms of satisfiability:
syntactic consistency implies satisfiability. This theorem does not necessarily
hold for extensions of first-order logic. For any sound proof system for
secondorder logic there will be an unsatisfiable set of sentences without there
being a formal derivation of a contradiction from the set. This follows from
Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. One of the central results of model theory for
first-order logic concerns satisfiability: the compactness theorem, due to
Gödel in 1936, says that if every finite subset of a set of sentences is
satisfiable the set itself is satisfiable. It follows immediately from his
completeness theorem for first-order logic, and gives a powerful method to prove
the consistency of a set of sentences.
COMPACTNESS THEOREM, COMPLETENESS, GÖDEL’S INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS,
MODEL THEORY, PROOF THEORY. Z.G.S. satisfice, to choose or do the good enough
rather than the most or the best. ‘Satisfice’, an obsolete variant of
‘satisfy’, has been adopted by economist Herbert Simon and others to designate
nonoptimizing choice or action. According to some economists, limitations of
time or information may make it impossible or inadvisable for an individual,
firm, or state body to attempt to maximize pleasure, profits, market share,
revenues, or some other desired result, and satisficing with respect to such
results is then said to be rational, albeit less than ideally rational.
Although many orthodox economists think that choice can and always should be
conceived in maximizing or optimizing terms, satisficing models have been
proposed in economics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy. Biologists have
sometimes conceived evolutionary change as largely consisting of “good enough” or
satisficing adaptations to environmental pressures rather than as proceeding
through optimal adjustments to such pressures, but in philosophy, the most
frequent recent use of the idea of satisficing has been in ethics and rational
choice theory. Economists typically regard satisficing as acceptable only where
there are unwanted constraints on decision making; but it is also possible to
see satisficing as entirely acceptable in itself, and in the field of ethics,
it has recently been argued that there may be nothing remiss about moral
satisficing, e.g., giving a good amount to charity, but less than one could
give. It is possible to formulate satisficing forms of utilitarianism on which
actions are morally right (even) if they contribute merely positively and/or in
some large way, rather than maximally, to overall net human happiness.
Bentham’s original formulation of the principle of utility and Popper’s
negative utilitarianism are both examples of satisficing utilitarianism in this
sense – and it should be noted that satisficing utilitarianism has the putative
advantage over satisfaction satisfice 814
814 optimizing forms of allowing for supererogatory degrees of moral
excellence. Moreover, any moral view that treats moral satisficing as
permissible makes room for moral supererogation in cases where one optimally
goes beyond the merely acceptable. But since moral satisficing is less than
optimal moral behavior, but may be more meritorious than certain behavior that
(in the same circumstances) would be merely permissible, some moral satisficing
may actually count as supererogatory. In recent work on rational individual
choice, some philosophers have argued that satisficing may often be acceptable
in itself, rather than merely second-best. Even Simon allows that an
entrepreneur may simply seek a satisfactory return on investment or share of
the market, rather than a maximum under one of these headings. But a number of
philosophers have made the further claim that we may sometimes, without
irrationality, turn down the readily available better in the light of the
goodness and sufficiency of what we already have or are enjoying. Independently
of the costs of taking a second dessert, a person may be entirely satisfied
with what she has eaten and, though willing to admit she would enjoy that extra
dessert, turn it down, saying “I’m just fine as I am.” Whether such examples
really involve an acceptable rejection of the (momentarily) better for the good
enough has been disputed. However, some philosophers have gone on to say, even
more strongly, that satisficing can sometimes be rationally required and
optimizing rationally unacceptable. To keep on seeking pleasure from food or
sex without ever being thoroughly satisfied with what one has enjoyed can seem
compulsive and as such less than rational. If one is truly rational about such
goods, one isn’t insatiable: at some point one has had enough and doesn’t want
more, even though one could obtain further pleasure. The idea that satisficing
is sometimes a requirement of practical reason is reminiscent of Aristotle’s
view that moderation is inherently reasonable – rather than just a necessary
means to later enjoyments and the avoidance of later pain or illness, which is
the way the Epicureans conceived moderation. But perhaps the greatest advocate
of satisficing is Plato, who argues in the Philebus that there must be measure
or limit to our (desire for) pleasure in order for pleasure to count as a good
thing for us. Insatiably to seek and obtain pleasure from a given source is to
gain nothing good from it. And according to such a view, satisficing moderation
is a necessary precondition of human good and flourishing, rather than merely
being a rational restraint on the accumulation of independently conceived
personal good or well-being. DECISION
THEORY, HEDONISM, RATIONALITY, UTILITARIANISM. M.A.Sl. saturated.FREGE.
Saussure, Ferdinand de (1857–1913), Swiss linguist and founder of the school of
structural linguistics. His work in linguistics was a major influence on the
later development of French structuralist philosophy, as well as structural
anthropology, structuralist literary criticism, and modern semiology. He
pursued studies in linguistics largely under Georg Curtius at the University of
Leipzig, along with such future Junggrammatiker (neogrammarians) as Leskien and
Brugmann. Following the publication of his important Mémoire sur le système
primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-européenes (1879), Saussure left
for Paris, where he associated himself with the Société Linguistique and taught
comparative grammar. In 1891, he returned to Switzerland to teach Sanskrit,
comparative grammar, and general linguistics at the University of Geneva. His
major work, the Course in General Linguistics (1916), was assembled from students’
notes and his original lecture outlines after his death. The Course in General
Linguistics argued against the prevalent historical and comparative
philological approaches to language by advancing what Saussure termed a
scientific model for linguistics, one borrowed in part from Durkheim. Such a
model would take the “social fact” of language (la langue) as its object, and
distinguish this from the variety of individual speech events (la parole), as
well as from the collectivity of speech events and grammatical rules that form
the general historical body of language as such (le langage). Thus, by
separating out the unique and accidental elements of practiced speech, Saussure
distinguished language (la langue) as the objective set of linguistic elements and
rules that, taken as a system, governs the language use specific to a given
community. It was the systematic coherency and generality of language, so
conceived, that inclined Saussure to approach linguistics principally in terms
of its static or synchronic dimension, rather than its historical or diachronic
dimension. For Saussure, the system of language is a “treasury” or “depository”
of signs, and the basic unit of the linguistic sign is itself two-sided, having
both a phonemic component (“the signifier”) and a semantic component (“the
signified”). He terms saturated Saussure, Ferdinand de 815 815 the former the “acoustical” or “sound”
image – which may, in turn, be represented graphically, in writing – and the latter
the “concept” or “meaning.” Saussure construes the signifier to be a
representation of linguistic sounds in the imagination or memory, i.e., a
“psychological phenomenon,” one that corresponds to a specifiable range of
material phonetic sounds. Its distinctive property consists in its being
readily differentiated from other signifiers in the particular language. It is
the function of each signifier, as a distinct entity, to convey a particular
meaning – or “signified” concept – and this is fixed purely by conventional
association. While the relation between the signifier and signified results in
what Saussure terms the “positive” fact of the sign, the sign ultimately
derives its linguistic value (its precise descriptive determination) from its
position in the system of language as a whole, i.e., within the paradigmatic
and syntagmatic relations that structurally and functionally differentiate it.
Signifiers are differentially identified; signifiers are arbitrarily associated
with their respective signified concepts; and signs assume the determination
they do only through their configuration within the system of language as a
whole: these facts enabled Saussure to claim that language is largely to be
understood as a closed formal system of differences, and that the study of
language would be principally governed by its autonomous structural
determinations. So conceived, linguistics would be but a part of the study of
social sign systems in general, namely, the broader science of what Saussure
termed semiology. Saussure’s insights would be taken up by the subsequent
Geneva, Prague, and Copenhagen schools of linguistics and by the Russian
formalists, and would be further developed by the structuralists in France and
elsewhere, as well as by recent semiological approaches to literary criticism,
social anthropology, and psychoanalysis.
MEANING, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, STRUCTURALISM, THEORY OF SIGNS. D.Al.
scalar implicature.IMPLICATURE. scepticism.SKEPTICISM. Schadenfreude.VALUE.
Scheler, Max (1874–1928), German phenomenologist, social philosopher, and
sociologist of knowledge. Born in Munich, he studied in Jena; when he returned
to Munich in 1907 he came in contact with phenomenology, especially the realist
version of the early Husserl and his Munich School followers. Scheler’s first
works were phenomenological studies in ethics leading to his ultimate theory of
value: he described the moral feelings of sympathy and resentment and wrote a
criticism of Kantian formalism and rationalism, Formalism in Ethics and a
Non-Formal Ethics of Value (1913). During the war, he was an ardent nationalist
and wrote essays in support of the war that were also philosophical criticisms
of modern culture, opposed to “Anglo-Saxon” naturalism and rational
calculation. Although he later embraced a broader notion of community, such
criticisms of modernity remained constant themes of his writings. His
conversion to Catholicism after the war led him to apply phenomenological
description to religious phenomena and feelings, and he later turned to themes
of anthropology and natural science. The core of Scheler’s phenomenological
method is his conception of the objectivity of essences, which, though
contained in experience, are a priori and independent of the knower. For
Scheler, values are such objective, though non-Platonic, essences. Their
objectivity is intuitively accessible in immediate experience and feelings, as
when we experience beauty in music and do not merely hear certain sounds.
Scheler distinguished between valuations or value perspectives on the one hand,
which are historically relative and variable, and values on the other, which
are independent and invariant. There are four such values, the hierarchical
organization of which could be both immediately intuited and established by
various public criteria like duration and independence: pleasure, vitality,
spirit, and religion. Corresponding to these values are various personalities
who are not creators of value but their discoverers, historical disclosers, and
exemplars: the “artist of consumption,” the hero, the genius, and the saint. A
similar hierarchy of values applies to forms of society, the highest of which
is the church, or a Christian community of solidarity and love. Scheler
criticizes the leveling tendencies of liberalism for violating this hierarchy,
leading to forms of resentment, individualism, and nationalism, all of which
represent the false ordering of values.
HUSSERL, KANT, NATURALISM, PHENOMENOLOGY. J.Bo. Schelling, Friedrich
Wilhelm Joseph (1775– 1854), German philosopher whose metamorscalar implicature
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph 816
816 phoses encompass the entire history of German idealism. A Schwabian,
Schelling first studied at Tübingen, where he befriended Hölderlin and Hegel.
The young Schelling was an enthusiastic exponent of Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre
and devoted several early essays to its exposition. After studying science and
mathematics at Leipzig, he joined Fichte at Jena in 1798. Meanwhile, in such
writings as Philosophische Briefe über Dogmatismus und Kritizismus (“Philosophical
Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism,” 1795), Schelling betrayed growing doubts
concerning Fichte’s philosophy (above all, its treatment of nature) and a
lively interest in Spinoza. He then turned to constructing a systematic
Naturphilosophie (philosophy of nature) within the context of which nature
would be treated more holistically than by either Newtonian science or
transcendental idealism. Of his many publications on this topic, two of the
more important are Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur (“Ideas concerning a
Philosophy of Nature,” 1797) and Von der Weltseele (“On the World-Soul,” 1798).
Whereas transcendental idealism attempts to derive objective experience from an
initial act of free self-positing, Schelling’s philosophy of nature attempts to
derive consciousness from objects. Beginning with “pure objectivity,” the
Naturphilosophie purports to show how nature undergoes a process of unconscious
self-development, culminating in the conditions for its own
self-representation. The method of Naturphilosophie is fundamentally a priori:
it begins with the concept of the unity of nature and accounts for its
diversity by interpreting nature as a system of opposed forces or “polarities,”
which manifest themselves in ever more complex levels of organization (Potenzen).
At Jena, Schelling came into contact with Tieck, Novalis, and the Schlegel
brothers and became interested in art. This new interest is evident in his
System des transzendentalen Idealismus (1800), which describes the path from
pure subjectivity (self-consciousness) to objectivity (the necessary positing
of the Not-I, or of nature). The most innovative and influential portion of
this treatise, which is otherwise closely modeled on Fichte’s
Wissenschaftslehre, is its conclusion, which presents art as the concrete
accomplishment of the philosophical task. In aesthetic experience the identity
between the subjective and the objective, the ideal and the real, becomes an
object to the experiencing I itself. For Schelling, transcendental idealism and
Naturphilosophie are two complementary sides or subdivisions of a larger, more
encompassing system, which he dubbed the System of Identity or Absolute
Idealism and expounded in a series of publications, including the Darstellung
meines Systems der Philosophie (“Presentation of My System of Philosophy,”
1801), Bruno (1802), and Vorlesungen über die Methode des akademischen Studiums
(“Lectures on the Method of Academic Study,” 1803). The most distinctive
feature of this system is that it begins with a bald assertion of the unity of
thought and being, i.e., with the bare idea of the self-identical “Absolute,”
which is described as the first presupposition of all knowledge. Since the
identity with which this system commences transcends every conceivable
difference, it is also described as the “point of indifference.” From this
undifferentiated or “indifferent” starting point, Schelling proceeds to a
description of reality as a whole, considered as a differentiated system within
which unity is maintained by various synthetic relationships, such as substance
and attribute, cause and effect, attraction and repulsion. Like his philosophy
of nature, Schelling’s System of Identity utilizes the notion of various
hierarchically related Potenzen as its basic organizing principle. The obvious
question concerns the precise relationship between the “indifferent” Absolute
and the real system of differentiated elements, a question that may be said to
have set the agenda for Schelling’s subsequent philosophizing. From 1803 to
1841 Schelling was in Bavaria, where he continued to expound his System of
Identity and to explore the philosophies of art and nature. The most
distinctive feature of his thought during this period, however, was a new
interest in religion and in the theosophical writings of Boehme, whose
influence is prominent in the Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der
menschlichen Freiheit (“Philosophical Investigations concerning the Nature of
Human Freedom,” 1809), a work often interpreted as anticipating existentialism.
He also worked on a speculative interpretation of human history, Die Weltalter,
which remained unpublished, and lectured regularly on the history of
philosophy. In 1841 Schelling moved to Berlin, where he lectured on his new
philosophy of revelation and mythology, which he now characterized as “positive
philosophy,” in contradistinction to the purely “negative” philosophy of Kant,
Fichte, and Hegel. Some scholars have interpreted these posthumously published
lectures as representing the culmination both of Schelling’s own protracted
philosophical development and of German idealism as a whole. FICHTE, HEGEL, KANT. D.Br. Schelling,
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph 817 817 schema.THEMA. schemata.KANT. schematic
form.LOGICAL FORM. scheme, also schema (plural: schemata), a metalinguistic
frame or template used to specify an infinite set of sentences, its instances,
by finite means, often taken with a side condition on how its blanks or
placeholders are to be filled. The sentence ‘Either Abe argues or it is not the
case that Abe argues’ is an instance of the excluded middle scheme for English:
‘Either . . . or it is not the case that . . .’, where the two blanks are to be
filled with one and the same (well-formed declarative) English sentence. Since
first-order number theory cannot be finitely axiomatized, the mathematical
induction scheme is used to effectively specify an infinite set of axioms: ‘If
zero is such that . . . and the successor of every number such that . . . is also
such that . . . , then every number is such that . . .’, where the four blanks
are to be filled with one and the same arithmetic open sentence, such as ‘it
precedes its own successor’ or ‘it is finite’. Among the best-known is Tarski’s
scheme T: ‘. . . is a true sentence if and only if . . .’, where the second
blank is filled with a sentence and the first blank by a name of the
sentence. CONVENTION T, LOGICAL FORM,
METALANGUAGE, OPEN FORMULA, PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS, TARSKI. J.Cor. Schiller,
Johann Christoph Friedrich von (1759– 1805), German poet, dramatist, and
philosopher. Along with his colleagues Reinhold and Fichte, he participated in
systematically revising Kant’s transcendental idealism. Though Schiller’s
bestknown theoretical contributions were to aesthetics, his philosophical
ambitions were more general, and he proposed a novel solution to the problem of
the systematic unity, not merely of the critical philosophy, but of human
nature. His most substantial philosophical work, Briefe über die äesthetische
Erziehung des Menschen (“Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man,” 1794/95),
examines the relationship between natural necessity and practical freedom and
addresses two problems raised by Kant: How can a creature governed by natural
necessity and desire ever become aware of its own freedom and thus capable of
autonomous moral action? And how can these two sides of human nature – the
natural, sensuous side and the rational, supersensuous one – be reconciled? In
contradistinction both to those who subordinate principles to feelings
(“savages”) and to those who insist that one should strive to subordinate
feelings to principles (“barbarians”), Schiller posited an intermediary realm
between the sphere of nature and that of freedom, as well as a third basic
human drive capable of mediating between sensuous and rational impulses. This
third impulse is dubbed the “play impulse,” and the intermediary sphere to
which it pertains is that of art and beauty. By cultivating the play impulse
(i.e., via “aesthetic education”) one is not only freed from bondage to
sensuality and granted a first glimpse of one’s practical freedom, but one also
becomes capable of reconciling the rational and sensuous sides of one’s own
nature. This idea of a condition in which opposites are simultaneously
cancelled and preserved, as well as the specific project of reconciling freedom
and necessity, profoundly influenced subsequent thinkers such as Schelling and
Hegel and contributed to the development of German idealism. FICHTE, IDEALISM, KANT, NEO-KANTIANISM,
SCHELLING. D.Br. Schlegel, Friedrich von (1772–1829), German literary critic
and philosopher, one of the principal representatives of German Romanticism. In
On the Study of Greek Poetry (1795), Schlegel laid the foundations for the
distinction of classical and Romantic literature and a pronounced consciousness
of literary modernity. Together with his brother August Wilhelm, he edited the
Athenaeum (1798–1800), the main theoretical organ of German Romanticism, famous
for its collection of fragments as a new means of critical communication.
Schlegel is the originator of the Romantic theory of irony, a non-dialectical
form of philosophizing and literary writing that takes its inspiration from
Socratic irony and combines it with Fichte’s thought process of affirmation and
negation, “self-creation” and “self-annihilation.” Closely connected wih
Schlegel’s theory of irony is his theory of language and understanding
(hermeneutics). Critical reflection on language promotes an ironic awareness of
the “necessity and impossibility of complete communication” (Critical
Fragments, No. 108); critical reflection on understanding reveals the amount of
incomprehensibility, of “positive not-understanding” involved in every act of
understanding (On Incomprehensibility, 1800). Schlegel’s writings were
essential for the rise of historical consciousness in German Romanticism. His
On Ancient and Modern Literature (1812) is reputed to represent the first
literary history in a modern and broadly comparative fashion. His Philosophy of
History (1828), together with his Philosophy of Life (1828) schema Schlegel,
Friedrich von 818 818 and Philosophy
of Language (1829), confront Hegel’s philosophy from the point of view of a
Christian and personalistic type of philosophizing. Schlegel converted to
Catholicism in 1808. FICHTE. E.Beh.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1768–1834), German philosopher, a “critical realist”
working among post-Kantian idealists. In philosophy and science he presupposed
transcendental features, noted in his dialectic lectures, and advocated
integrative but historically contingent, empirical functions. Both develop,
but, contra Hegel, not logically. Schleiermacher was a creator of modern
general hermeneutics; a father of modern theological and religious studies; an
advocate of women’s rights; the cofounder, with Humboldt, of the University at
Berlin (1808–10), where he taught until 1834; and the classic translator of
Plato into German. Schleiermacher has had an undeservedly minor place in histories
of philosophy. Appointed chiefly to theology, he published less philosophy,
though he regularly lectured, in tightly argued discourse, in Greek philosophy,
history of philosophy, dialectic, hermeneutics and criticism, philosophy of
mind (“psychology”), ethics, politics, aesthetics, and philosophy of education.
From the 1980s, his collected writings and large correspondence began to appear
in a forty-volume critical edition and in the larger Schleiermacher Studies and
Translations series. Brilliant, newly available pieces from his twenties on
freedom, the highest good, and values, previously known only in fragments but
essential for understanding his views fully, were among the first to appear.
Much of his outlook was formed before he became prominent in the early Romantic
circle (1796–1806), distinguishable by his markedly religious, consistently
liberal views. HERMENEUTICS. T.N.T.
Schlick, Moritz.VIENNA CIRCLE. Scholasticism, a set of scholarly and
instructional techniques developed in Western European schools of the late
medieval period, including the use of commentary and disputed question.
‘Scholasticism’ is derived from Latin scholasticus, which in the twelfth
century meant the master of a school. The Scholastic method is usually
presented as beginning in the law schools – notably at Bologna – and as being
then transported into theology and philosophy by a series of masters including
Abelard and Peter Lombard. Within the new universities of the thirteenth
century the standardization of the curriculum and the enormous prestige of
Aristotle’s work (despite the suspicion with which it was initially greeted)
contributed to the entrenchment of the method and it was not until the
educational reforms of the beginning of the sixteenth century that it ceased to
be dominant. There is, strictly speaking, no such thing as Scholasticism. As
the term was originally used it presupposed that a single philosophy was taught
in the universities of late medieval Europe, but there was no such philosophy.
The philosophical movements working outside the universities in the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and the “neo-Scholastics” of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries all found such a presupposition
useful, and their influence led scholars to assume it. At first this generated
efforts to find a common core in the philosophies taught in the late medieval
schools. More recently it has led to efforts to find methods characteristic of
their teaching, and to an extension of the term to the schools of late
antiquity and of Byzantium. Both among the opponents of the schools in the
seventeenth century and among the “neoScholastics,” ‘Scholasticism’ was
supposed to designate a doctrine whose core was the doctrine of substance and
accidents. As portrayed by Descartes and Locke, the Scholastics accepted the
view that among the components of a thing were a substantial form and a number
of real accidental forms, many of which corresponded to perceptible properties
of the thing – its color, shape, temperature. They were also supposed to have
accepted a sharp distinction between natural and unnatural motion. NEO-SCHOLASTICISM. C.G.Norm. Scholastic
method.SCHOLASTICISM. School of Laws.CHINESE LEGALISM. School of Names, also called,
in Chinese, ming chia, a loosely associated group of Chinese philosophers of
the Warring States period (403– 221 B.C.), also known as pien che
(Dialecticians or Sophists). The most famous were Hui Shih and Kung-sun Lung
Tzu. Though interested in the relation between names and reality, the Sophists
addressed such issues as relativity, perspectivism, space, time, causality,
essentialism, universalism, and particularism. Perhaps more important than
their subject matter, however, was their methodology. As their name suggests,
the Sophists Schleiermacher, Friedrich School of Names 819 819 delighted in language games and logical
puzzles. They used logic and rational argument not only as a weapon to defeat
their philosophical opponents but as a tool to sharpen rational argumentation
itself. Paradoxes such as ‘I go to Yüeh today but arrive yesterday’ and ‘A
white horse is not a horse’ continue to stimulate philosophical discussion
today. Yet frustrated Confucian, Taoist, and Legalist contemporaries chided
Sophists for wasting their time on abstractions and puzzles, and for succumbing
to intellectualism for its own sake. As Confucianism emerged to become the
state ideology, the School of Names disappeared sometime in the early Han
dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 220); having been in important measure co-opted by the
leading interpreter of Confucianism of the period, Hsün Tzu. CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, HSÜN TZU, KUNG-SUN LUNG
TZU. R.P.P. & R.T.A. Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788–1860), German philosopher.
Born in Danzig and schooled in Germany, France, and England during a
welltraveled childhood, he became acquainted through his novelist mother with
Goethe, Schlegel, and the brothers Grimm. He studied medicine at the University
of Göttingen and philosophy at the University of Berlin; received the doctorate
from the University of Jena in 1813; and lived much of his adult life in
Frankfurt, where he died. Schopenhauer’s dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of
the Principle of Sufficient Reason (1813), lays the groundwork for all of his
later philosophical work. The world of representation (equivalent to Kant’s
phenomenal world) is governed by “the principle of sufficient reason”: “every
possible object . . . stands in a necessary relation to other objects, on the
one hand as determined, on the other as determining” (The World as Will and
Representation). Thus, each object of consciousness can be explained in terms
of its relations with other objects. The systematic statement of Schopenhauer’s
philosophy appeared in The World as Will and Representation (1818). His other
works are On Vision and Colors (1815), “On the Will in Nature” (1836),
conjoined with “On the Foundation of Morality” in The Two Fundamental Problems
of Ethics (1841); the second edition of The World as Will and Representation,
which included a second volume of essays (1844); an enlarged and revised
edition of On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (1847);
and Parerga and Paralipomena, a series of essays (1851). These are all
consistent with the principal statement of his thought in The World as Will and
Representation. The central postulate of Schopenhauer’s system is that the
fundamental reality is will, which he equates with the Kantian thing-in-itself.
Unlike Kant, Schopenhauer contends that one can immediately know the
thing-in-itself through the experience of an inner, volitional reality within
one’s own body. Every phenomenon, according to Schopenhauer, has a comparable
inner reality. Consequently, the term ‘will’ can extend to the inner nature of
all things. Moreover, because number pertains exclusively to the phenomenal
world, the will, as thing-initself, is one. Nevertheless, different types of
things manifest the will to different degrees. Schopenhauer accounts for these
differences by invoking Plato’s Ideas (or Forms). The Ideas are the universal
prototypes for the various kinds of objects in the phenomenal world. Taken
collectively, the Ideas constitute a hierarchy. We usually overlook them in
everyday experience, focusing instead on particulars and their practical
relationships to us. However, during aesthetic experience, we recognize the
universal Idea within the particular; simultaneously, as aesthetic beholders,
we become “the universal subject of knowledge.” Aesthetic experience also
quiets the will within us. The complete silencing of the will is, for
Schopenhauer, the ideal for human beings, though it is rarely attained. Because
will is the fundamental metaphysical principle, our lives are dominated by
willing – and, consequently, filled with struggle, conflict, and dissatisfaction.
Inspired by Buddhism, Schopenhauer contends that all of life is suffering,
which only an end to desire can permanently eliminate (as opposed to the
respite of aesthetic experience). This is achieved only by the saint, who
rejects desire in an inner act termed “denial of the will to live.” The saint
fully grasps that the same will motivates all phenomena and, recognizing that
nothing is gained through struggle and competition, achieves “resignation.”
Such a person achieves the ethical ideal of all religions – compassion toward
all beings, resulting from the insight that all are, fundamentally, one. KANT, PLATO. K.M.H. Schröder-Bernstein
theorem, the theorem that mutually dominant sets are equinumerous. A set A is
said to be dominated by a set B if and only if each element of A can be mapped
to a unique element of B in such a way that no two elements of A are mapped to
the same element of B (posSchopenhauer, Arthur Schröder-Bernstein theorem
820 820 sibly with some elements of B
left over). Intuitively, if A is dominated by B, then B has at least as many
members as A. Given this intuition, one would expect that if A is dominated by
B and B is dominated by A, then A and B are equinumerous (i.e., A can be mapped
to B as described above with no elements of B left over). This is the
Schröder-Bernstein theorem. Stated in terms of cardinal numbers, the theorem
says that if k m l and l m k, then k % l. Despite the simplicity of the
theorem’s statement, its proof is non-trivial.
SET THEORY. P.Mad. Schrödinger, Erwin (1887–1961), Austrian physicist
best known for five papers published in 1926, in which he discovered the
Schrödinger wave equation and created modern wave mechanics. For this
achievement, he was awarded the Nobel prize in physics (shared with Paul Dirac)
in 1933. Like Einstein, Schrödinger was a resolute but ultimately unsuccessful
critic of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger
defended the view (which he derived from Boltzmann) that theories should give a
picture, continuous in space and time, of the real processes that produce
observable phenomena. Schrödinger’s realistic philosophy of science played an
important role in his discovery of wave mechanics. Although his physical
interpretation of the psi function was soon abandoned, his approach to quantum
mechanics survives in the theories of Louis de Broglie and David Bohm. QUANTUM MECHANICS. M.C. Schrödinger cat
paradox.QUANTUM MECHANICS. Schrödinger equation.QUANTUM MECHANICS. Schulze, Gottlob
Ernst (1761–1833), German philosopher today known mainly as an acute and
influential early critic of Kant and Reinhold. He taught at Wittenberg,
Helmstedt, and Göttingen; one of his most important students was Schopenhauer,
whose view of Kant was definitely influenced by Schulze’s interpretation.
Schulze’s most important work was his Aenesidemus, or “On the Elementary
Philosophy Put Forward by Mr. Reinhold in Jena. Together with a Defense of
Skepticism” (1792). It fundamentally changed the discussion of Kantian
philosophy. Kant’s earliest critics had accused him of being a skeptic like
Hume. Kantians, like Reinhold, had argued that critical philosophy was not only
opposed to skepticism, but also contained the only possible refutation of
skepticism. Schulze tried to show that Kantianism could not refute skepticism,
construed as the doctrine that doubts the possibility of any knowledge
concerning the existence or non-existence of “things-in-themselves,” and he
argued that Kant and his followers begged the skeptic’s question by
presupposing that such things exist and causally interact with us. Schulze’s
Aenesidemus had a great impact on Fichte and Hegel, and it also influenced
neoKantianism. M.K. science, philosophy of.PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. scientia
media.MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE. scientia universalis.LEIBNIZ. scientific
behaviorism.BEHAVIORISM. scientific determinism.DETERMINISM. scientific
realism, the view that the subject matter of scientific research and scientific
theories exists independently of our knowledge of it, and that the goal of
science is the description and explanation of both observable and unobservable
aspects of the world. Scientific realism is contrasted with logical empiricism
and social constructivism. Early arguments for scientific realism simply stated
that, in light of the impressive products and methods of science, realism is
the only philosophy that does not make the success of science a miracle.
Formulations of scientific realism focus on the objects of theoretical
knowledge: theories, laws, and entities. One especially robust argument for
scientific realism (due to Putnam and Richard Boyd) is that the instrumental
reliability of scientific methodology in the mature sciences (such as physics,
chemistry, and some areas of biology) can be explained adequately only if we
suppose that theories in the mature sciences are at least approximately true
and their central theoretical terms are at least partially referential (Putnam
no longer holds this view). More timid versions of scientific realism do not
infer approximate truth of mature theories. For example, Ian Hacking’s “entity
realism” (1983) asserts that the instrumental manipulation of postulated
entities to produce further effects gives us legitimate grounds for ontological
commitment to theoretical entities, but not to laws or theories. Paul
Humphreys’s “austere realism” (1989) states that only theoretical commitment to
unobserved structures or dispositions could Schrödinger, Erwin scientific
realism 821 821 explain the stability
of observed outcomes of scientific inquiry. Distinctive versions of scientific
realism can be found in works by Richard Boyd (1983), Philip Kitcher (1993),
Richard Miller (1987), William Newton-Smith (1981), and J. D. Trout (1998).
Despite their differences, all of these versions of realism are distinguished –
against logical empiricism – by their commitment that knowledge of unobservable
phenomena is not only possible but actual. As well, all of the arguments for
scientific realism are abductive; they argue that either the approximate truth
of background theories or the existence of theoretical entities and laws
provides the best explanation for some significant fact about the scientific
theory or practice. Scientific realists address the difference between real
entities and merely useful constructs, arguing that realism offers a better
explanation for the success of science. In addition, scientific realism
recruits evidence from the history and practice of science, and offers
explanations for the success of science that are designed to honor the dynamic
and uneven character of that evidence. Most arguments for scientific realism
cohabit with versions of naturalism. Anti-realist opponents argue that the
realist move from instrumental reliability to truth is question-begging.
However, realists reply that such formal criticisms are irrelevant; the
structure of explanationist arguments is inductive and their principles are a
posteriori. EXPLANATION, METAPHYSICS,
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM. J.D.T. scientific
relativism.THEORY-LADEN. scope, the “part” of the sentence (or proposition) to
which a given term “applies” under a given interpretation of the sentence. If
the sentence ‘Abe does not believe Ben died’ is interpreted as expressing the
proposition that Abe believes that it is not the case that Ben died, the scope
of ‘not’ is ‘Ben died’; interpreted as “It is not the case that Abe believes
that Ben died,” the scope is the rest of the sentence, i.e., ‘Abe believes Ben
died’. In the first case we have narrow scope, in the second wide scope. If
‘Every number is not even’ is interpreted with narrow scope, it expresses the
false proposition that every number is non-even, which is logically equivalent
to the proposition that no number is even. Taken with wide scope it expresses
the truth that not every number is even, which is equivalent to the truth that
some number is non-even. Under normal interpretations of the sentences,
‘hardened’ has narrow scope in ‘Carl is a hardened recidivist’, whereas
‘alleged’ has wide scope in ‘Dan is an alleged criminal’. Accordingly, ‘Carl is
a hardened recidivist’ logically implies ‘Carl is a recidivist’, whereas ‘Dan
is an alleged criminal’, being equivalent to ‘Allegedly, Dan is a criminal’,
does not imply ‘Dan is a criminal’. Scope considerations are useful in analyzing
structural ambiguity and in understanding the difference between the
grammatical form of a sentence and the logical form of a proposition it
expresses. In a logically perfect language grammatical form mirrors logical
form, there is no scope ambiguity, and the scope of a given term is uniquely
determined by its context. AMBIGUITY;
CONVERSE; CONVERSE, OUTER AND INNER; RELATION; STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY. J.Cor.
scope ambiguity.AMBIGUITY. scope of operators.AMBIGUITY, SCOPE. Scotistic
realism.DUNS SCOTUS. Scottigena.ERIGENA. Scottish common sense philosophy, a
comprehensive philosophical position developed by Reid in the latter part of
the eighteenth century. Reid’s views were propagated by a succession of
Scottish popularizers, of whom the most successful was Dugald Stewart. Through
them common sense doctrine became nearly a philosophical orthodoxy in Great
Britain during the first half of the nineteenth century. Brought to the United
States through the colleges in Princeton and Philadelphia, common sensism continued
to be widely taught until the later nineteenth century. The early Reidians
Beattie and Oswald were, like Reid himself, read in Germany by Kant and others;
and Reid’s views were widely taught in post-Napoleonic France. The archenemy
for the common sense theorists was Hume. Reid saw in his skepticism the
inevitable outcome of Descartes’s thesis, accepted by Locke, that we do not
perceive external objects directly, but that the immediate object of perception
is something in the mind. Against this he argued that perception involves both
sensation and certain intuitively known general truths or principles that
together yield knowledge of external objects. He also argued that there are
many other intuitively known general principles, including moral principles,
available to all normal humans. As a result he scientific relativism Scottish
common sense philosophy 822 822
thought that whenever philosophical argument results in conclusions that run
counter to common sense, the philosophy must be wrong. Stewart made some
changes in Reid’s acute and original theory, but his main achievement was to
propagate it through eloquent classes and widely used textbooks. Common
sensism, defending the considered views of the ordinary man, was taken by many
to provide a defense of the Christian religious and moral status quo. Reid had
argued for free will, and presented a long list of self-evident moral axioms.
If this might be plausibly presented as part of the common sense of his time,
the same could not be said for some of the religious doctrines that Oswald
thought equally self-evident. Reid had not given any rigorous tests for what
might count as selfevident. The easy intuitionism of later common sensists was
a natural target for those who, like J. S. Mill, thought that any appeal to
self-evidence was simply a way of justifying vested interest. Whewell, in both
his philosophy of science and his ethics, and Sidgwick, in his moral theory,
acknowledged debts to Reid and tried to eliminate the abuses to which his
method was open. But in doing so they transformed common sensism beyond the
limits within which Reid and those shaped by him operated. HUME, MOORE, REID, SIDGWICK. J.B.S. Scotus,
John Duns.DUNS SCOTUS. script.COGNITIVE SCIENCE. sea battle.ARISTOTLE.
Searle, John R. (b.1932),
American philosopher of language and mind (D. Phil., Oxford) influenced by
Frege, Wittgenstein, and J. L. Austin; a founder of speech act theory and an
important contributor to debates on intentionality, consciousness, and
institutional facts. Language.
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