THESAVRVS GRICEIANVM

Hilbert, David (1862–1943), German mathematician and philosopher of mathematics. Born in Königsberg, he also studied and served on the faculty there, accepting Weber’s chair in mathematics at Göttingen in 1895. He made important contributions to many different areas of mathematics and was renowned for his grasp of the entire discipline. His more philosophical work was divided into two parts. The focus of the first, which occupied approximately ten years beginning in the early 1890s, was the foundations of geometry and culminated in his celebrated Grundlagen der Geometrie (1899). This is a rich and complex work that pursues a variety of different projects simultaneously. Prominent among these is one whose aim is to determine the role played in geometrical reasoning by principles of continuity. Hilbert’s interest in this project was rooted in Kantian concerns, as is confirmed by the inscription, in the Grundlagen, of Kant’s synopsis of his critical philosophy: “Thus all human knowledge begins with intuition, goes from there to concepts and ends with ideas.” Kant believed that the continuous could not be represented in intuition and must therefore be regarded as an idea of pure reason – i.e., as a device playing a purely regulative role in the development of our geometrical knowledge (i.e., our knowledge of the spatial manifold of sensory experience). Hilbert was deeply influenced by this view of Kant’s and his work in the foundations of geometry can be seen, in large part, as an attempt to test it by determining whether (or to what extent) pure geometry can be developed without appeal to principles concerning the nature of the continuous. To a considerable extent, Hilbert’s work confirmed Kant’s view – showing, in a manner more precise than any Kant had managed, that appeals to the continuous can indeed be eliminated from much of our geometrical reasoning. The same basic Kantian orientation also governed the second phase of Hilbert’s foundational work, where the focus was changed from geometry to arithmetic and analysis. This is the phase during which Hilbert’s Program was developed. This project began to take shape in the 1917 essay “Axiomatisches Denken.” (The 1904 paper “Über die Grundlagen der Logik und Arithmetik,” which turned away from geometry and toward arithmetic, does not yet contain more than a glimmer of the ideas that would later become central to Hilbert’s proof theory.) It higher order Hilbert, David 381 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 381 reached its philosophically most mature form in the 1925 essay “Über das Unendliche,” the 1926 address “Die Grundlagen der Mathematik,” and the somewhat more popular 1930 paper “Naturerkennen und Logik.” (From a technical as opposed to a philosophical vantage, the classical statement is probably the 1922 essay “Neubegründung der Mathematik. Erste Mitteilung.”) The key elements of the program are (i) a distinction between real and ideal propositions and methods of proof or derivation; (ii) the idea that the so-called ideal methods, though, again, playing the role of Kantian regulative devices (as Hilbert explicitly and emphatically declared in the 1925 paper), are nonetheless indispensable for a reasonably efficient development of our mathematical knowledge; and (iii) the demand that the reliability of the ideal methods be established by real (or finitary) means. As is well known, Hilbert’s Program soon came under heavy attack from Gödel’s incompleteness theorems (especially the second), which have commonly been regarded as showing that the third element of Hilbert’s Program (i.e., the one calling for a finitary proof of the reliability of the ideal systems of classical mathematics) cannot be carried out. See also GÖDEL’S INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS, HILBERT’s PROGRAM, PROOF THEORY. M.D. Hilbert’s Program, a proposal in the foundations of mathematics, named for its developer, the German mathematician-philosopher David Hilbert, who first formulated it fully in the 1920s. Its aim was to justify classical mathematics (in particular, classical analysis and set theory), though only as a Kantian regulative device and not as descriptive science. The justification thus presupposed a division of classical mathematics into two parts: the part (termed real mathematics by Hilbert) to be regulated, and the part (termed ideal mathematics by Hilbert) serving as regulator. Real mathematics was taken to consist of the meaningful, true propositions of mathematics and their justifying proofs. These proofs – commonly known as finitary proofs – were taken to be of an especially elementary epistemic character, reducing, ultimately, to quasi-perceptual intuitions concerning finite assemblages of perceptually intuitable signs regarded from the point of view of their shapes and sequential arrangement. Ideal mathematics, on the other hand, was taken to consist of sentences that do not express genuine propositions and derivations that do not constitute genuine proofs or justifications. The epistemic utility of ideal sentences (typically referred to as ideal propositions, though, as noted above, they do not express genuine propositions at all) and proofs was taken to derive not from their meaning and/or evidentness, but rather from the role they play in some formal algebraic or calculary scheme intended to identify or locate the real truths. It is thus a metatheoretic function of the formal or algebraic properties induced on those propositions and proofs by their positions in a larger derivational scheme. Hilbert’s ideal mathematics was thus intended to bear the same relation to his real mathematics as Kant’s faculty of pure reason was intended to bear to his faculty of understanding. It was to be a regulative device whose proper function is to guide and facilitate the development of our system of real judgments. Indeed, in his 1925 essay “Über das Unendliche,” Hilbert made just this point, noting that ideal elements do not correspond to anything in reality but serve only as ideas “if, following Kant’s terminology, one understands as an idea a concept of reason which transcends all experience and by means of which the concrete is to be completed into a totality.” The structure of Hilbert’s scheme, however, involves more than just the division of classical mathematics into real and ideal propositions and proofs. It uses, in addition, a subdivision of the real propositions into the problematic and the unproblematic. Indeed, it is this subdivision of the reals that is at bottom responsible for the introduction of the ideals. Unproblematic real propositions, described by Hilbert as the basic equalities and inequalities of arithmetic (e.g., ‘3 ( 2’, ‘2 ‹ 3’, ‘2 ! 3 % 3 ! 2’) together with their sentential (and certain of their bounded quantificational) compounds, are the evidentially most basic judgments of mathematics. They are immediately intelligible and decidable by finitary intuition. More importantly, they can be logically manipulated in all the ways that classical logic allows without leading outside the class of real propositions. The characteristic feature of the problematic reals, on the other hand, is that they cannot be so manipulated. Hilbert gave two kinds of examples of problematic real propositions. One consisted of universal generalizations like ‘for any non-negative integer a, a ! 1 % 1 ! a’, which Hilbert termed hypothetical judgments. Such propositions are problematic because their denials do not bound the search for counterexamples. Hence, the instance of the (classical) law of excluded middle that is obtained by disjoining it with its denial Hilbert’s Program Hilbert’s Program 382 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 382 is not itself a real proposition. Consequently, it cannot be manipulated in all the ways permitted by classical logic without going outside the class of real propositions. Similarly for the other kind of problematic real discussed by Hilbert, which was a bounded existential quantification. Every such sentence has as one of its classical consequents an unbounded existential quantification of the same matrix. Hence, since the latter is not a real proposition, the former is not a real proposition that can be fully manipulated by classical logical means without going outside the class of real propositions. It is therefore “problematic.” The question why full classical logical manipulability should be given such weight points up an important element in Hilbert’s thinking: namely, that classical logic is regarded as the preferred logic of human thinking – the logic of the optimally functioning human epistemic engine, the logic according to which the human mind most naturally and efficiently conducts its inferential affairs. It therefore has a special psychological status and it is because of this that the right to its continued use must be preserved. As just indicated, however, preservation of this right requires addition of ideal propositions and proofs to their real counterparts, since applying classical logic to the truths of real mathematics leads to a system that contains ideal as well as real elements. Hilbert believed that to justify such an addition, all that was necessary was to show it to be consistent with real mathematics (i.e., to show that it proves no real proposition that is itself refutable by real means). Moreover, Hilbert believed that this must be done by finitary means. The proof of Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem in 1931 brought considerable pressure to bear on this part of Hilbert’s Program even though it may not have demonstrated its unattainability. See also BROUWER, GÖDEL’S INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS, HILBERT, PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS. M.D. Hinayana Buddhism. See BUDDHISM. Hinduism, the group of religious and philosophical traditions of India that accept the doctrinal authority of the Vedas and Upanishads, comprising the schools Mimamsa, Sankhya-Yoga, Nyaya-Vaishesika, and Vedanta (six in number, with the connection within pairs of schools, indicated by hyphenation, based on historical and conceptual linkages). Most of the standard issues in Greco-European philosophy receive independent discussion in classical Indian thought. Perhaps the closest Indian term to ‘philosophy’ is darsana (seeing); the goal of philosophy is typically taken to be not simply understanding, but enlightenment (moksha), which involves escape from the reincarnation cycle and from karma. All of the orthodox schools formally accept the doctrines that the individual Atman beginninglessly transmigrates from body to body unless it attains enlightenment and that in each lifetime the Atman acts and hence accumulates consequences of its actions that will accrue to it in future lifetimes (karma), though some schools (notably Advaita Vedanta) hold metaphysical views that radically alter any meaning that the doctrines of transmigration and karma can have. The “seeing” typically involves embracing the content of the sacred texts and being transformed by it. In the same general cultural and intellectual context as Hinduism, Carvaka rejects any such notion of philosophy, and Jainism, Buddhism, and some varieties of Hinduism reject monotheism though all but Carvaka accept some sort of religious perspective and center on some notion of enlightenment. Metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and ethics are richly represented in Hinduism. As is typical in Greco-European philosophy, apart from (e.g.) some of the medieval Scholastics and contemporary symbolic logicians, study of deductive inference and probability is not sharply distinguished from epistemology, though in Hinduism it is typically marked off from psychological considerations. There are debates about the success of natural theology, with versions (e.g.) of teleological and contingency arguments and discussions of the problem of evil, the latter typically being related to a consideration of justice and karma. Monotheistic views typically regard the world as everlastingly dependent on Brahman rather than as having been created after a period in which nothing dependent existed or as a condition of there being time at all. Typically, the universe is seen as oscillating between states in which atoms have come together into bodies that provide embodiment for transmigrating souls and states in which atoms come apart and souls remain inactive. Disputes occur concerning the nature of persons and personal identity, pluralism versus monism, and a personal Deity versus an Absolute. Advaita Vedanta apparently holds that it is logically impossible for B to depend upon A and for B also to be an individual distinct from A, Hinayana Buddhism Hinduism 383 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 383 whereas the other varieties of Vedanta hold (in different ways) that dependence does not rule out distinct individuality. The former assumption is compatible with (though it does not entail) monism and the latter allows for (but does not require) monotheism. There are pluralistic (thus non-monistic) schools that are not monotheistic. Schools differ about whether the variety of conscious and self-conscious states belongs intrinsically to souls or only to soul-body composites; those holding the former view think of persons or minds as transmigrating from life to life, whereas those holding the latter view have a thinner notion of the traveler. There are debates among schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism over whether a substantival or an event or state account of persons and objects is more defensible. For some schools, immaterial souls and material atoms exist both beginninglessly and independently. For others they exist beginninglessly and dependently. For still others, no such things exist at all. Epistemology, logic, and philosophy of language flourish. Questions concerning evidence are discussed along the lines of what counts as a valid source of knowledge (e.g., perception, inference, testimony). Indian grammarians developed techniques of reducing complex expressions to simple ones and developed a use–mention distinction. Mimamsa philosophers were concerned with the logical analysis of prescriptions. Vaishesika thinkers were concerned to classify the meanings of words, offering the categories of substance, quality, action, universal, ultimate difference, inherence, and absence, and found the result of both logical and ontological significance. Ethics is also richly represented, typically within a perspective in which the highest good (moksha, enlightenment) is viewed as escape from the beginningless cycle of rebirth and the clutches of karma, with the content of the highest good being very diversely conceived. Sometimes enlightenment is conceived as involving retention of personal identity, sometimes as involving loss thereof; sometimes a view is held that denies that there is anything to preserve. Thus moral philosophy is typically done in the light of explicitly religious, or at least metaphysical, doctrines. The Carvaka perspectives, at least as interpreted by their opponents, either accept hedonism or eschew ethics entirely. For some metaphysical and religious views, morality has to do only with those activities that one must engage in or refuse to engage in to achieve an enlightenment that contains no moral component and perhaps involves nothing along the lines of one’s identity as a person; in such contexts, moral values serve religious values that themselves contain no moral element. In other perspectives, the status of persons is such that their continued existence as distinct persons is required in order for enlightenment to occur and moral elements enter intrinsically into the nature of the highest good. The classical Hindu philosopher typically in effect accepts some such proposition as the following: The Hindu scriptures contain the truth about the nature of what is ultimately real, about the nature of the human self, and about how to obtain the highest good. Some critics – including Indian unorthodox materialists – argue that there cannot be any genuine philosophy in Hinduism. (Similar questions are raised concerning Jewish, Christian, and Muslim medieval philosophers.) The acceptance of the indicated proposition does not tell one what the truth about ultimate reality, the self, or the highest good is; various quite different accounts of these matters are presented within the Hindu scriptures. This creates a problem: since the texts are authoritative their teachings must be true. Inconsistent propositions cannot be true; showing that your opponent’s views are self-contradictory is a refutation within philosophical Hinduism as much as in Anglo-American analytic circles. Hence the teachings of the texts must be consistent, and so not everything in them can be read literally. In sum, it is not obvious what in the authoritative texts is to be read literally and what non-literally, but since patently contradictory doctrines are offered if one reads everything literally, something must be read non-literally (or as provisional, the best that some people can understand until they become more capable). Thus if one accepts the indicated proposition one must decide which of the textual accounts is the right one – the one ex hypothesi intended by the texts to be taken as their literal doctrine. Deciding this typically is not a matter of simple exegesis. Thus one must decide what grounds are required in order to establish that it is one rather than another of these views that is intended literally. Often the de facto answer is that the intended view is the true view, with the issue as to which view is true being decided in substantial part by reference to reason and experience and by “how the argument goes.” Further, the views presented in the authoritative text, once one has decided what they literally are, will likely have various philosophical implications. (For example, perhaps surprisingly, Ramanuja’s theory of perceptual error relates intimately to his views Hinduism Hinduism 384 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 384 on the divine attributes.) Some of these implications may seem false, and if this happens there is a modus tollens consideration that leads to asking again what the text really means. But even if no such consideration arises, the philosophical implications of a position are likely themselves to need explication if they are to be clearly understood. In Hinduism philosophy typically is done in a commentarial setting, though (as in European medieval contexts) once the commentator is doing philosophy he often goes on to topics very far indeed from the views discussed in the texts. Of course, the more wide-ranging a commentary is, the less unnatural it is that a commentary on that commentary be even more wide-ranging; thus a relatively independent philosophical tradition arises. The result is a very considerable body of philosophical literature and tradition in India that can be approached without assuming anything about the indicated proposition, one way or another. See also ATMAN, BRAHMAN, KARMA, UPANISHADS, VEDAS. K.E.Y. Hintikka, Jaakko (b.1929), Finnish philosopher with contributions to logic, philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, linguistics and philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and history of philosophy. His work on distributive normal forms and model set techniques yielded an improved inductive logic. Model sets differ from Carnap’s state-descriptions in being partial and not complete descriptions of “possible worlds.” The techniques simplified metatheoretical proofs and led to new results in e.g. probability theory and the semantic theory of information. Their main philosophical import nevertheless is in bridging the gap between proof theory and model theory. Model sets that describe several possible “alternative” worlds lead to the possible worlds semantics for modal and intensional logics. Hintikka has used them as a foundation for the logic of propositional attitudes (epistemic logic and the logic of perception), and in studies on individuation, identification, and intentionality. Epistemic logic also provides a basis for Hintikka’s logic of questions, in which conclusiveness conditions for answers can be defined. This has resulted in an interrogative model of inquiry in which knowledge-seeking is viewed as a pursuit of conclusive answers to initial “big” questions by strategically organized series of “small” questions (put to nature or to another source of information). The applications include scientific discovery and explanation. Hintikka’s independence-friendly logic gives the various applications a unified basis. Hintikka’s background philosophy and approach to formal semantics and its applications is broadly Kantian with emphasis on seeking-andfinding methods and the constitutive activity of the inquirer. Apart from a series of studies inspired by Kant, he has written extensively on Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Frege, and Wittgenstein. Hintikka’s academic career has been not only in Finland, chiefly at the University of Helsinki, but (especially) in the United States, where he has held professorships at Stanford, Florida State, and (currently) Boston University. His students and co-workers in the Finnish school of inductive logic and in other areas include Leila Haaparanta (b.1954), Risto Hilpinen (b.1943), Simo Knuuttila (b.1946), Martin Kusch (b.1959), Ilkka Niiniluoto (b.1946), Juhani Pietarinen (b.1938), Veikko Rantala (b.1933), Gabriel Sandu (b.1954), Matti Sintonen (b.1951), and Raimo Tuomela (b.1940). See also EROTETIC LOGIC, HINTIKKA SET, INDUCTIVE LOGIC, MODEL THEORY, POSSIBLE WORLDS, PROOF THEORY. M.T.S. Hintikka set, also called model set, downward saturated set, a set (of a certain sort) of well-formed formulas that are all true under a single interpretation of their non-logical symbols (named after Jaakko Hintikka). Such a set can be thought of as a (partial) description of a logically possible state of affairs, or possible world, full enough to make evident that the world described is indeed possible. Thus it is required of a Hintikka set G that it contain no atomic formula and its negation, that A, B 1 G if A 8 B 1 G, that A 1 G or B 1 G if A 7 B 1 G, and so forth, for each logical constant. See also POSSIBLE WORLDS, SET THEORY. G.F.S. Hippias of Elis. See SOPHISTS. Hippocrates (fifth century B.C.), semilegendary Greek physician from Cos. Some sixty treatises survive under his name, but it is doubtful whether he was the author of any of them. The Hippocratic corpus contains material from a wide variety of standpoints, ranging from an extreme empiricism that rejected all grand theory (On Ancient Medicine) to highly speculative theoretical physiology (On the Nature of Man, On Regimen). Many treatises were concerned with the accurate observation and classification of diseases (EpiHintikka, Jaakko Hippocrates 385 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 385 demics) rather than treatment. Some texts (On the Art) defended the claims of medicine to scientific status against those who pointed to its inaccuracies and conjectural status; others (Oath, On Decorum) sketch a code of professional ethics. Almost all his treatises were notable for their materialism and rejection of supernatural “explanations”; their emphasis on observation; and their concern with the isolation of causal factors. A large number of texts are devoted to gynecology. The Hippocratic corpus became the standard against which later doctors measured themselves; and, via Galen’s rehabilitation and extension of Hippocratic method, it became the basis for Western medicine for two millennia. R.J.H. historical determinism. See MARXISM. historicality. See PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. historical jurisprudence. See JURISPRUDENCE. historical materialism. See ENGELS. historical theory of reference. See PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. historicism, the doctrine that knowledge of human affairs has an irreducibly historical character and that there can be no ahistorical perspective for an understanding of human nature and society. What is needed instead is a philosophical explication of historical knowledge that will yield the rationale for all sound knowledge of human activities. So construed, historicism is a philosophical doctrine originating in the methodological and epistemological presuppositions of critical historiography. In the mid-nineteenth century certain German thinkers (Dilthey most centrally), reacting against positivist ideals of science and knowledge, rejected scientistic models of knowledge, replacing them with historical ones. They applied this not only to the discipline of history but to economics, law, political theory, and large areas of philosophy. Initially concerned with methodological issues in particular disciplines, historicism, as it developed, sought to work out a common philosophical doctrine that would inform all these disciplines. What is essential to achieve knowledge in the human sciences is to employ the ways of understanding used in historical studies. There should in the human sciences be no search for natural laws; knowledge there will be interpretive and rooted in concrete historical occurrences. As such it will be inescapably perspectival and contextual (contextualism). This raises the issue of whether historicism is a form of historical relativism. Historicism appears to be committed to the thesis that what for a given people is warrantedly assertible is determined by the distinctive historical perspective in which they view life and society. The stress on uniqueness and concrete specificity and the rejection of any appeal to universal laws of human development reinforce that. But the emphasis on cumulative development into larger contexts of our historical knowledge puts in doubt an identification of historicism and historical relativism. The above account of historicism is that of its main proponents: Meinecke, Croce, Collingwood, Ortega y Gasset, and Mannheim. But in the twentieth century, with Popper and Hayek, a very different conception of historicism gained some currency. For them, to be a historicist is to believe that there are “historical laws,” indeed even a “law of historical development,” such that history has a pattern and even an end, that it is the central task of social science to discover it, and that these laws should determine the direction of political action and social policy. They attributed (incorrectly) this doctrine to Marx but rightly denounced it as pseudo-science. However, some later Marxists (Lukács, Korsch, and Gramsci) were historicists in the original nonPopperian sense as was the critical theorist Adorno and hermeneuticists such as Gadamer. See also COLLINGWOOD, CROCE, DILTHEY, ENGELS, PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. K.N. historicity. See PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. history, philosophy of. See PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.

Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679), English philosopher whose writings, especially the English version of Leviathan (1651), strongly influenced all of subsequent English moral and political philosophy. He also wrote a trilogy comprising De Cive (1642; English version, Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society, 1651), De Corpore (On the Body, 1655), and De Homine (On Man, 1658). Together with Leviathan (the revised Latin version of which was published in 1668), these are his major philosophical works. However, an early draft of his thoughts, The Elements of Law, Natural and Political(also known as Human Nature and De Corpore Politico), was published without permission in 1650. Many of the misinterpretations of Hobbes’s views on human nature come historical determinism Hobbes, Thomas 386 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 386 from mistaking this early work as representing his mature views. Hobbes was influential not only in England, but also on the Continent. He is the author of the third set of objections to Descartes’s Meditations. Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-politicus was deeply influenced by Hobbes, not only in its political views but also in the way it dealt with Scripture. Hobbes was not merely a philosopher; he was mathematical tutor to Charles II and also a classical scholar. His first published work was a translation of Thucydides (1628), and among his latest, about a half-century later, were translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Hobbes’s philosophical views have a remarkably contemporary sound. In metaphysics, he holds a strong materialist view, sometimes viewing mental phenomena as epiphenomenal, but later moving toward a reductive or eliminative view. In epistemology he held a sophisticated empiricism, which emphasized the importance of language for knowledge. If not the originator of the contemporary compatibilist view of the relationship between free will and determinism (see The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance, 1656), he was one of the primary influences. He also was one of the most important philosophers of language, explicitly noting that language is used not only to describe the world but to express attitudes and, performatively, to make promises and contracts. One of Hobbes’s outstanding characteristics is his intellectual honesty. Though he may have been timid (he himself claims that he was, explaining that his mother gave birth to him because of fright over the coming of the Spanish Armada), his writing shows no trace of it. During more than half his long lifetime he engaged in many philosophical controversies, which required considerably more courage in Hobbes’s day than at present. Both the Roman Catholic church and Oxford University banned the reading of his books and there was talk not only of burning his books but of burning Hobbes himself. An adequate interpretation of Hobbes requires careful attention to his accounts of human nature, reason, morality, and law. Although he was not completely consistent, his moral and political philosophy is remarkably coherent. His political theory is often thought to require an egoistic psychology, whereas it actually requires only that most persons be concerned with their own self-interest, especially their own preservation. It does not require that most not be concerned with other persons as well. All that Hobbes denies is an undifferentiated natural benevolence: “For if by nature one man should love another (that is) as man, there could no reason be returned why every man should not equally love every man, as being equally man.” His argument is that limited benevolence is not an adequate foundation upon which to build a state. Hobbes’s political theory does not require the denial of limited benevolence, he indeed includes benevolence in his list of the passions in Leviathan: “Desire of good to another, BENEVOLENCE, GOOD WILL, CHARITY. If to man generally, GOOD NATURE.” Psychological egoism not only denies benevolent action, it also denies action done from a moral sense, i.e., action done because one believes it is the morally right thing to do. But Hobbes denies neither kind of action. But when the words [’just’ and ‘unjust’] are applied to persons, to be just signifies as much as to be delighted in just dealing, to study how to do righteousness, or to endeavor in all things to do that which is just; and to be unjust is to neglect righteous dealing, or to think it is to be measured not according to my contract, but some present benefit. Hobbes’s pessimism about the number of just people is primarily due to his awareness of the strength of the passions and his conviction that most people have not been properly educated and disciplined. Hobbes is one of the few philosophers to realize that to talk of that part of human nature which involves the passions is to talk about human populations. He says, “though the wicked were fewer than the righteous, yet because we cannot distinguish them, there is a necessity of suspecting, heeding, anticipating, subjugating, self-defending, ever incident to the most honest and fairest conditioned.” Though we may be aware of small communities in which mutual trust and respect make law enforcement unnecessary, this is never the case when we are dealing with a large group of people. Hobbes’s point is that if a large group of people are to live together, there must be a common power set up to enforce the rules of the society. That there is not now, nor has there ever been, any large group of people living together without such a common power is sufficient to establish his point. Often overlooked is Hobbes’s distinction between people considered as if they were simply animals, not modified in any way by education or discipline, and civilized people. Though obviously an abstraction, people as animals are fairly well exemplified by children. “Unless you Hobbes, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas 387 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 387 give children all they ask for, they are peevish, and cry, aye and strike their parents sometimes; and all this they have from nature.” In the state of nature, people have no education or training, so there is “continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man, [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” But real people have been brought up in families; they are, at least to some degree, civilized persons, and how they will behave depends on how they are brought up. Hobbes does not say that society is a collection of misfits and that this is why we have all the trouble that we do – a position congenial to the psychological egoist. But he does acknowledge that “many also (perhaps most men) either through defect of mind, or want of education, remain unfit during the whole course of their lives; yet have they, infants as well as those of riper years, a human nature; wherefore man is made fit for society not by nature, but by education.” Education and training may change people so that they act out of genuine moral motives. That is why it is one of the most important functions of the sovereign to provide for the proper training and education of the citizens. In the current debate between nature and nurture, on the question of behavior Hobbes would come down strongly on the side of nurture. Hobbes’s concept of reason has more in common with the classical philosophical tradition stemming from Plato and Aristotle, where reason sets the ends of behavior, than with the modern tradition stemming from Hume where the only function of reason is to discover the best means to ends set by the passions. For Hobbes, reason is very complex; it has a goal, lasting selfpreservation, and it seeks the way to this goal. It also discovers the means to ends set by the passions, but it governs the passions, or tries to, so that its own goal is not threatened. Since its goal is the same in all people, it is the source of rules applying to all people. All of this is surprisingly close to the generally accepted account of rationality. We generally agree that those who follow their passions when they threaten their life are acting irrationally. We also believe that everyone always ought to act rationally, though we know that few always do so. Perhaps it was just the closeness of Hobbes’s account of reason to the ordinary view of the matter that has led to its being so completely overlooked. The failure to recognize that the avoidance of violent death is the primary goal of reason has distorted almost all accounts of Hobbes’s moral and political philosophy, yet it is a point on which Hobbes is completely clear and consistent. He explicitly says that reason “teaches every man to fly a contra-natural dissolution [mortem violentam] as the greatest mischief that can arrive to nature.” He continually points out that it is a dictate of right reason to seek peace when possible because people cannot “expect any lasting preservation continuing thus in the state of nature, that is, of war.” And he calls temperance and fortitude precepts of reason because they tend to one’s preservation. It has not generally been recognized that Hobbes regarded it as an end of reason to avoid violent death because he often talks of the avoidance of death in a way that makes it seem merely an object of a passion. But it is reason that dictates that one take all those measures necessary for one’s preservation; peace if possible, if not, defense. Reason’s dictates are categorical; it would be a travesty of Hobbes’s view to regard the dictates of reason as hypothetical judgments addressed to those whose desire for their own preservation happens to be greater than any conflicting desire. He explicitly deplores the power of the irrational appetites and expressly declares that it is a dictate of reason that one not scorn others because “most men would rather lose their lives (that I say not, their peace) than suffer slander.” He does not say if you would rather die than suffer slander, it is rational to do so. Hobbes, following Aristotle, regards morality as concerned with character traits or habits. Since morality is objective, it is only those habits that are called good by reason that are moral virtues. “Reason declaring peace to be good, it follows by the same reason, that all the necessary means to peace be good also; and therefore that modesty, equity, trust, humanity, mercy (which we have demonstrated to be necessary to peace), are good manners or habits, that is, virtues.” Moral virtues are those habits of acting that the reason of all people must praise. It is interesting to note that it is only in De Homine that Hobbes explicitly acknowledges that on this account, prudence, temperance, and courage are not moral virtues. In De Cive he distinguishes temperance and fortitude from the other virtues and does not call them moral, but he does not explicitly deny that they are moral virtues. But in De Homine, he explicitly points out that one should not “demand that the courage and prudence of the private man, if useful only to himself, be praised or held as a virtue by states or by any other men whatsoever to whom these same are not useful.” That morality is determined by reason and that reason has as its goal self-preservation seems to Hobbes, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas 388 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 388 lead to the conclusion that morality also has as its goal self-preservation. But it is not the selfpreservation of an individual person that is the goal of morality, but of people as citizens of a state. That is, moral virtues are those habits of persons that make it rational for all other people to praise them. These habits are not those that merely lead to an individual’s own preservation, but to the preservation of all; i.e., to peace and a stable society. Thus, “Good dispositions are those that are suitable for entering into civil society; and good manners (that is, moral virtues) are those whereby what was entered upon can be best preserved.” And in De Cive, when talking of morality, he says, “The goodness of actions consist[s] in this, that it [is] in order to peace, and the evil in this, that it [is] related to discord.” The nature of morality is a complex and vexing question. If, like Hobbes, we regard morality as applying primarily to those manners or habits that lead to peace, then his view seems satisfactory. It yields, as he notes, all of the moral virtues that are ordinarily considered such, and further, it allows one to distinguish courage, prudence, and temperance from the moral virtues. Perhaps most important, it provides, in almost self-evident fashion, the justification of morality. For what is it to justify morality but to show that reason favors it? Reason, seeking self-preservation, must favor morality, which seeks peace and a stable society. For reason knows that peace and a stable society are essential for lasting preservation. This simple and elegant justification of morality does not reduce morality to prudence; rather it is an attempt, in a great philosophical tradition stemming from Plato, to reconcile reason or rational self-interest and morality. In the state of nature every person is and ought to be governed only by their own reason. Reason dictates that they seek peace, which yields the laws of nature, but it also allows them to use any means they believe will best preserve themselves, which is what Hobbes calls The Right of Nature. Hobbes’s insight is to see that, except when one is in clear and present danger, in which case one has an inalienable right to defend oneself, the best way to guarantee one’s longterm preservation is to give up one’s right to act on one’s own decisions about what is the best way to guarantee one’s long-term preservation and agree to act on the decisions of that single person or group who is the sovereign. If all individuals and groups are allowed to act on the decisions they regard as best, not accepting the commands of the sovereign, i.e., the laws, as the overriding guide for their actions, the result is anarchy and civil war. Except in rare and unusual cases, uniformity of action following the decision of the sovereign is more likely to lead to long-term preservation than diverse actions following diverse decisions. And this is true even if each one of the diverse decisions, if accepted by the sovereign as its decision, would have been more likely to lead to long-term preservation than the actual decision that the sovereign made. This argument explains why Hobbes holds that sovereigns cannot commit injustice. Only injustice can properly be punished. Hobbes does not deny that sovereigns can be immoral, but he does deny that the immorality of sovereigns can properly be punished. This is important, for otherwise any immoral act by the sovereign would serve as a pretext for punishing the sovereign, i.e., for civil war. What is just and unjust is determined by the laws of the state, what is moral and immoral is not. Morality is a wider concept than that of justice and is determined by what leads to peace and stability. However, to let justice be determined by what the reason of the people takes to lead to peace and stability, rather than by what the reason of the sovereign decides, would be to invite discord and civil war, which is contrary to the goal of morality: a stable society and peace. One can create an air of paradox by saying that for Hobbes it is immoral to attempt to punish some immoral acts, namely, those of the sovereign. Hobbes is willing to accept this seeming paradox for he never loses sight of the goal of morality, which is peace. To summarize Hobbes’s system: people, insofar as they are rational, want to live out their natural lives in peace and security. To do this, they must come together into cities or states of sufficient size to deter attack by any group. But when people come together in such a large group there will always be some that cannot be trusted, and thus it is necessary to set up a government with the power to make and enforce laws. This government, which gets both its right to govern and its power to do so from the consent of the governed, has as its primary duty the people’s safety. As long as the government provides this safety the citizens are obliged to obey the laws of the state in all things. Thus, the rationality of seeking lasting preservation requires seeking peace; this in turn requires setting up a state with sufficient power to keep the peace. Anything that threatens the stability of the state is to be avoided. As a practical matter, Hobbes took God and religion very seriously, for he thought they provided some of the strongest motives for action. Half of Leviathan is devoted to trying to show that Hobbes, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas 389 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 389 his moral and political views are supported by Scripture, and to discredit those religious views that may lead to civil strife. But accepting the sincerity of Hobbes’s religious views does not require holding that Hobbes regarded God as the foundation of morality. He explicitly denies that atheists and deists are subject to the commands of God, but he never denies that they are subject to the laws of nature or of the civil state. Once one recognizes that, for Hobbes, reason itself provides a guide to conduct to be followed by all people, there is absolutely no need to bring in God. For in his moral and political theory there is nothing that God can do that is not already done by reason. See also CONTRACTARIANISM, NATURAL LAW, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. B.Ge. Hohenheim, Theophrastus Bombastus von. See PARACELSUS. Hohfeld, Wesley Newcomb (1879–1918), American jurist who taught at Stanford and Yale. His main contribution to legal and moral theory was his identification of eight fundamental legal conceptions: One person X has a legal duty to a second person Y to do some act A when the law requires X to do A for Y. X has a legal privilege (or liberty) in face of Y to do A when X has no legal duty to Y not to do A. X has a legal right (or claim) against Y that Y do A when Y has a legal duty to X to do A. X has a legal no-right against Y that Y not do A when Y has a legal liberty in face of X to do A. X has a legal power over Y to effect some legal consequence C for Y when there is some voluntary action of X that will bring about C for Y. X has a legal disability in face of Y to effect C when there is no action X can perform that will bring about C for Y. X has a legal liability in face of Y to effect C when Y has a legal power to effect C for X. X has a legal immunity against Y from C when Y has no legal power over X to effect C. Moral philosophers have adapted Hohfeld’s terminology to express analogous moral conceptions. In jurisprudence or ethics, these fundamental conceptions provide something like atoms into which all more complex legal or moral relationships can be analyzed. In logic, these conceptions reveal pairs of correlatives, such as a claim of X against Y and a duty of Y to X, each of which implies the other, and pairs of opposites, such as a duty of X to Y and a liberty of Y in face of X, which are contradictories. In the theory of rights, his distinctions between liberties, claims, powers, and immunities are often used to reveal ambiguities in the language of rights or to classify species of rights. See also DUTY, ETHICS, RIGHTS. C.We. Holbach, Paul-Henri-Dietrich d’. See D’HOLBACH. Hölderlin, Johann Christian Friedrich (1770– 1843), German poet, novelist, and dramatist. He studied at Tübingen, where he befriended Schelling and Hegel, and at Jena, where he met Schiller and Fichte. Since Hölderlin never held an academic position or published any of his philosophical writings, his influence on philosophy was primarily through his personality, conversations, and letters. He is widely viewed as the author of the so-called “Oldest System-Program of German Idealism,” a fragment that culminates in an exaltation of poetry and a call for a new “mythology of reason.” This theme is illustrated in the novel Hyperion (1797/99), which criticizes the subjective heroism of ethical idealism, emphasizes the sacred character of nature, and attempts to conflate religion and art as “overseers of reason.” In his veneration of nature and objections to Fichte’s treatment of the “Not-I,” Hölderlin echoed Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. In his Hellenism and his critique of the “philosophy of reflection” (see Ueber Sein und Urteil [“On Being and Judgment”]) he anticipated and influenced Hegel. In Hölderlin’s exaltation of art as alone capable of revealing the nature of reality, he betrayed a debt to Schiller and anticipated Romanticism. However, his view of the poet possesses a tragic dimension quite foreign to Schelling and the younger Romantics. The artist, as the interpreter of divine nature, mediates between the gods and men, but for this very reason is estranged from his fellows. This aspect of Hölderlin’s thought influenced Heidegger. D.Br. holism, any of a wide variety of theses that in one way or another affirm the equal or greater reality or the explanatory necessity of the whole of some system in relation to its parts. In philosophy, the issues of holism (the word is more reasonably, but less often, spelled ‘wholism’) have appeared Hohenheim, Theophrastus Bombastus von holism 390 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 390 traditionally in the philosophy of biology, of psychology, and especially of the human sciences. In the context of description, holism with respect to some system maintains that the whole has some properties that its parts lack. This doctrine will ordinarily be trivially true unless it is further held, in the thesis of descriptive emergentism, that these properties of the whole cannot be defined by properties of the parts. The view that all properties of the wholes in question can be so defined is descriptive individualism. In the context of explanation, holism with respect to some object or system maintains either (1) that the laws of the more complex cases in it are not deducible by way of any composition laws or laws of coexistence from the laws of the less complex cases (e.g., that the laws of the behavior of people in groups are not deducible by composition laws or laws of coexistence from the laws of solitary behavior), or (2) that all the variables that constitute the system interact with each other. This denial of deducibility is known also as metaphysical or methodological holism, whereas affirming the deducibility is methodological individualism. In a special case of explanatory holism that presupposes descriptive emergentism, holism is sometimes understood as the thesis that with respect to some system the whole has properties that interact “back” with the properties of its parts. In the philosophy of biology, any of these forms of holism may be known as vitalism, while in the philosophy of psychology they have been called Gestalt doctrine. In the philosophy of the social sciences, where ‘holism’ has had its most common use in philosophy, the many issues have often been reduced to that of metaphysical holism versus methodological individualism. This terminology reflected the positivists’ belief that holism was non-empirical in postulating social “wholes” or the reality of society beyond individual persons and their properties and relations (as in Durkheim and other, mostly Continental, thinkers), while individualism was non-metaphysical (i.e., empirical) in relying ultimately only on observable properties in describing and explaining social phenomena. More recently, ‘holism’ has acquired additional uses in philosophy, especially in epistemology and philosophy of language. Doxastic or epistemic holism are theses about the “web of belief,” usually something to the effect that a person’s beliefs are so connected that their change on any topic may affect their content on any other topic or, perhaps, that the beliefs of a rational person are so connected. Semantic or meaning holism have both been used to denote either the thesis that the meanings of all terms (or sentences) in a language are so connected that any change of meaning in one of them may change any other meaning, or the thesis that changes of belief entail changes of meaning. See also KÖHLER, METHODOLOGICAL HOLISM, PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, SEMANTIC HOLISM. L.A. holism, confirmational. See PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. holism, doxastic. See HOLISM. holism, epistemic. See HOLISM. holism, methodological. See METHODOLOGICAL HOLISM. holism, semantic. See SEMANTIC HOLISM. holistic system. See COMPUTER THEORY. hologram, the image of an object in three dimensions created and reproduced by the use of lasers. Holography is a method for recording and reproducing such images. Holograms are remarkable in that, unlike normal photographs, every part of them contains the complete image but in reduced detail. Thus a small square cut from a hologram can still be laser-illuminated to reveal the whole scene originally holographed, albeit with loss of resolution. This feature made the hologram attractive to proponents of the thesis of distribution of function in the brain, who argued that memories are like holograms, not being located in a single precise engram – as claimed by advocates of localization of function – but distributed across perhaps all of the cortex. Although intriguing, the holographic model of memory storage failed to gain acceptance. Current views favor D. O. Hebb’s “cell assembly” concept, in which memories are stored in the connections between a group of neurons. See also CONNECTIONISM, PERCEPTION. T.H.L. homoeomerity. See HOMOEOMEROUS. homoeomerous (from Greek homoiomeres, ‘of like parts’), having parts, no matter how small, that share the constitutive properties of the whole. The derivative abstract noun is ‘homoeomery’. The Greek forms of the adjective and of its corholism, confirmational homoeomerous 391 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 391 responding privative ‘anhomoeomerous’ are used by Aristotle to distinguish between (a) nonuniform parts of living things, e.g., limbs and organs, and (b) biological stuffs, e.g., blood, bone, sap. In spite of being composed of the four elements, each of the biological stuffs, when taken individually and without admixtures, is through-and-through F, where F represents the cluster of the constitutive properties of that stuff. Thus, if a certain physical volume qualifies as blood, all its mathematically possible subvolumes, regardless of size, also qualify as blood. Blood is thus homoeomerous. By contrast, a face or a stomach or a leaf are anhomoeomerous: the parts of a face are not a face, etc. In Aristotle’s system, the homoeomery of the biological stuffs is tied to his doctrine of the infinite divisibility of matter. The distinction is prefigured in Plato (Protagoras 329d). The term ‘homoeomerous’ is stricter in its application than the ordinary terms ‘homogeneous’ and ‘uniform’. For we may speak of a homogeneous entity even if the properties at issue are identically present only in samples that fall above a certain size: the color of the sea can be homogeneously or uniformly blue; but it is not homoeomerously blue. The adjective homoiomeres, -es, and the noun homoiomereia also occur – probably tendentiously, under the influence of Aristotle’s usage – in our ancient sources for a pre-Aristotelian philosopher, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, with reference to the constituent “things” (chremata) involved in the latter’s scheme of universal mixture. Moreover, the concept of homoeomery has played a significant role outside ancient Greek philosophy, notably in twentieth-century accounts of the contrast between mass terms and count terms or sortals. See also ANAXAGORAS, ARISTOTLE, COUNT NOUN, SORTAL PREDICATE. A.P.D.M. homoeomery. See HOMOEOMEROUS. homoiousian. See HOMOOUSIOS. homological. See SET-THEORETIC PARADOXES. homomorphism, in model theory, a structurepreserving mapping from one structure to another. A structure consists of a domain of objects together with a function specifying interpretations, with respect to that domain, of the relation symbols, function symbols, and individual symbols of a given language. Relations, functions, and individuals in different structures for a language L correspond to one another if they are interpretations of the same symbol of L. To call a mapping “structure-preserving” is to say (1) that if objects in the first structure bear a certain relation to one another, then their images in the second structure (under the mapping) bear the corresponding relation to one another, (2) that the value of a function for a given object (or ntuple of objects) in the first structure has as its image under the mapping the value of the corresponding function for the image of the object (or n-tuple of images) in the second structure, and (3) that the image in the second structure of an object in the first is the corresponding object. An isomorphism is a homomorphism that is oneto-one and whose inverse is also a homomorphism. See also MODEL THEORY. R.Ke. homonymy. See AMBIGUITY. homoousian. See HOMOOUSIOS. homoousios (Greek, ‘of the same substance’), a concept central to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, enshrined in the Nicene Creed of A.D. 381. It attests that God the Son (and by extension the Spirit) is of one and the same being or substance (ousia) as the Father. Reflecting the insistence of Athanasius against Arianism that Christ is God’s eternal, coequal Son and not a creature, the Nicene homoousios is also to be differentiated from a rival formula, homoiousios (Greek, ‘of similar substance’), which affirms merely the Son’s likeness in being to God. Though notoriously and superficially an argument over one Greek iota, the issue was philosophically profound and theologically crucial whether or not Jesus of Nazareth incarnated God’s own being, revealed God’s own truth, and mediated God’s own salvation. See also TRINITARIANISM. A.E.L. homuncular functionalism. See FUNCTIONALISM. homunculus (from Latin, ‘little man’), a miniature adult held to inhabit the brain (or some other organ) who perceives all the inputs to the sense organs and initiates all the commands to the muscles. Any theory that posits such an internal agent risks an infinite regress (sometimes called the homunculus fallacy), since we can ask whether there is a little man in the little man’s head, responsible for his perception and action, and so on. Many familiar views of the mind and its activities seem to require a homunculus. For instance, models of visual perception that posit an inner picture as its product homoromery homunculus 392 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 392 apparently require a homunculus to look at the picture, and models of action that treat intentions as commands to the muscles apparently require a homunculus to issue the commands. It is never an easy matter to determine whether a theory is committed to the existence of a homunculus that vitiates the theory, and in some circumstances, homunculi can be legitimately posited at intermediate levels of theory: “Homunculi are bogeymen only if they duplicate entire the talents they are rung in to explain. If one can get a team or committee of relatively ignorant, narrow-minded, blind homunculi to produce the intelligent behavior of the whole, this is progress” (Dennett, Brainstorms, 1978). Theories (in philosophy of mind or artificial intelligence or cognitive science) that posit such teams of homunculi have been called homuncular functionalism by William Lycan. D.C.D. Horkheimer, Max (1895–1973), German philosopher, the leading theorist of the first generation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Both as director of the Institute for Social Research and in his early philosophical essays published in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, Horkheimer set the agenda for the collaborative work of the Frankfurt School in the social sciences, including analyses of the developments of state capitalism, the family, modern culture, and fascism. His programmatic essays on the relation of philosophy and the social sciences long provided the philosophical basis for Frankfurt School social criticism and research and have profoundly influenced Habermas’s reformulation of Frankfurt School critical theory. In these essays, such as “The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research” (1931), Horkheimer elaborated a cooperative relation between philosophy and the social sciences through an interdisciplinary historical materialism. His “Traditional and Critical Theory” (1937) develops the distinction between “critical” and “traditional” theories in terms of basic goals: critical theories aim at emancipating human beings rather than describing reality as it is now. In the darkest days of World War II Horkheimer began collaborating with Adorno on The Dialectic of Enlightenment (1941), in which they see the origins of modern reason and autonomy in the domination of nature and the inner self. This genealogy of modern reason argues that myth and enlightenment are inseparably “entwined,” a view proposed primarily to explain the catastrophe in which Europe found itself. While Horkheimer thought that a revised notion of Hegelian dialectics might lead beyond this impasse, he never completed this positive project. Instead, he further developed the critique of instrumental reason in such works as Eclipse of Reason (1947), where he argues that modern institutions, including democracy, are under the sway of formal and instrumental rationality and the imperatives of self-preservation. While he did little new work after this period, he turned at the end of his life to a philosophical reinterpretation of religion and the content of religious experience and concepts, developing a negative theology of the “completely Other.” His most enduring influence is his clear formulation of the epistemology of practical and critical social inquiry oriented to human emancipation. See also CRITICAL THEORY, FRANKFURT SCHOOL. J.Bo. hormic psychology. See MCDOUGALL. Ho Yen (d.A.D. 249), Chinese philosopher, an early leader of the Neo-Taoist movement. Ho Yen brought into currency the idea of “non-being” (wu) in explaining the tao and the origin of being. Without limit and inexhaustible, the tao constitutes the totality of all there is. Formless and nameless, it is a creative vital energy (ch’i) that through a process of differentiation produces heaven and earth and the myriad creatures. Ho Yen is also famous for his view that the sage does not have emotions (ch’ing). This is because the sage is exceptionally endowed with pure ch’ienergy, which precludes emotional disturbance. Ethically, this further translates into a critique of hypocrisy and the abuse of power that Ho Yen considered the bane of Chinese society. See also CH’ING, NEO-TAOISM. A.K.L.C. hsiao, Chinese team meaning ‘filial piety’. Hsiao refers both to a virtue and to acts manifesting that virtue. Originally, hsiao had to do with the proper performance of one’s parents’ funeral rituals and sacrifices to one’s ancestors. Later, hsiao came to encompass the proper treatment of one’s parents while they are alive. Hsiao is fundamental to Confucianism in that showing proper respect for one’s parents is thought to be related to respect for legitimate political authority. See also CONFUCIANISM, LI2. B.W.V.N. hsien, in Chinese philosophy, divine “immortals” or “transcendents” – spiritual beings who have attained the tao and are characterized by transcendence and immortality; a central ideal in Horkheimer, Max hsien 393 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 393 religious Taoism. The idea has its roots in ancient Chinese religion; in its mature form, it signifies a being constituted by the purest and most potent form of vital energy (ch’i), which renders him/ her beyond the limitations of mundane life. Thus, hsien are often characterized by the power of flight. In poetry and philosophic discourse, hsien evokes fulfillment and freedom, especially from desire and the vagaries of human striving. In religious Taoism, there is an important debate whether immortality can be achieved through effort. Various methods that fall under the general rubrics of “internal alchemy” (nei-tan) and “external alchemy” (wai-tan) have been devised to bring about the perfected state. See also CH’I, TAOISM. A.K.L.C. Hsi K’ang (A.D.223–62), Chinese philosopher, a key representative of Neo-Taoism. Hsi K’ang’s philosophy centers on the concept of tzu-jan – naturalness or, literally, what is of itself so – which depicts the inherent order of the Taoist universe. Nature conforms to “necessary principles” (pi-jan chih li); individuals receive an energy endowment (ch’i) at birth of varying richness that defines their nature and capacity. While endowment is inborn, self-cultivation directed at dispelling self-interest can substantially enhance one’s physical and spiritual well-being. In ethics and politics, Hsi K’ang thus advocates going beyond the orthodox teachings of Confucianism (ming-chiao), which emphasize learning, conformity, and tradition. Hsi is also famous for his musical theory that “sounds do not have sorrow or joy” (sheng wu ai-lo): while sounds are naturally produced, emotions involve subjective and cognitive reactions. See also CH’I, NEO-TAOISM. A.K.L.C. hsin1, Chinese term meaning ‘heart’, ‘mind’, ‘feeling’. Generally, the hsin is both the physical organ we call the heart, and the faculty of appetition, cognition, and emotion, but the precise nature and proper role of hsin is one of the fundamental issues dividing Chinese philosophers. Mencius speaks of “four hearts,” associating a particular virtue and set of emotional and cognitive capacities with each. Chuang Tzu suggests that we “fast” (chai), rather than cultivate, the hsin, letting ourselves be guided instead by the ch’i. Hsün Tzu holds that the hsin should control and sublimate the desires. In Neo-Confucianism, the hsin is conceived as a fully developed moral sense, present in every human, whose proper functioning is obscured by selfish desires. NeoConfucians differ over whether hsin is identical with principle (li) and nature (hsing). See also CONFUCIANISM, LI1, MENCIUS, NEO-CONFUCIANISM. B.W.V.N. hsin2, Chinese term meaning ‘trust’, ‘faith’, ‘trustworthiness’, ‘honest’. In early texts, hsin is the mutual trust of sincerity between worshiper and spirit. The Chinese character for this word consists of two elements representing ‘person’ and ‘speech’, and this provides a reliable guide to its root sense: being true to one’s word. Hsin became one of the cardinal Confucian virtues: trustworthiness or honesty (but only in service to what is right). In Buddhist contexts, hsin can mean ‘faith’ in the religious sense, e.g., the Pure Land School’s practice of faith in Amitabha Buddha. This influenced Neo-Confucianism and is manifested in their faith in a perfect, innate moral faculty. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, NEO-CONFUCIANISM. P.J.I. hsing, Chinese philosophical term generally agreed to be derived from ‘sheng’ (life, growth), and usually translated as ‘nature’. In its earliest use as a term distinct from ‘sheng’, it probably referred to the tendency or direction of development that a thing will realize if unobstructed (e.g. it is the hsing of a sprout to grow into a fullgrown plant and the hsing of water to flow downward), and the hsing of human beings is also supposed to be their proper course of development. The concept hsing probably entered philosophical discourse with the development of the school of thought associated with Yang Chu (fifth–fourth century B.C.), which regarded the hsing of human beings as the tendency to live a life of a certain span in good health and with sensory desires appropriately satisfied. It subsequently became a central concept in Confucian thought, though understood differently by different Confucian thinkers. Mencius (fourth century B.C.) regarded the moral way of life as a full realization of the hsing of human beings, which is constituted by the direction of development indicated by certain incipient moral inclinations of the heart/mind (hsin); hsing is good in that it has a moral direction. Hsün Tzu (third century B.C.) regarded the moral way of life as a transformation of the hsing of human beings, which comprises primarily self-regarding desires human beings have by birth; hsing is evil in that unregulated pursuit of satisfaction of such desires leads to strife and disorder. Different views of hsing continued to evolve; but ever since the view that Mencius was the true transmitter of Confucius’s teachings became established, Hsi K’ang hsing 394 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 394 largely through the efforts of Chu Hsi (1130– 1200), the idea that the hsing of human beings is good has been a central tenet of Confucian thought. See also CONFUCIANISM. K.-l.S. hsing-erh-shang, in Chinese philosophy, formless or metaphysical. In part one of the I-Ching (the Book of Changes) there is a statement that what is hsing-erh-shang is called tao (the Way), and what is hsing-er-hsia (with form) is called ch’i, a concrete thing. In the Chinese way of thinking, tao and ch’i are understood to be inseparable from each other; as tao is both transcendent and immanent, it permeates things, and things must not be cut off and alienated from their metaphysical origin. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY. S.-h.L. hsing-ming, in Chinese philosophy, “forms and names,” an important philosophical concept associated with Legalism and the Huang–Lao School (the school of the Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu), which flourished during the Warring States period and the early Han dynasty (third– second century B.C.). The narrower meaning of the term has to do with a system of law and punishment, designed especially to keep state officials in check. More broadly, hsing-ming points to a vision of order, in which all “names” (ming) should correspond to their underlying “form” (hsing) or reality. Applied to politics, this suggests that the ruler must discern the workings of the cosmos, ensure that officials perform their assigned duties, and allow the people to prosper in the perceived natural order of things. See also CHINESE LEGALISM. A.K.L.C. Hsiung Shih-li (1885–1968), Chinese contemporary New Confucian philosopher. He was a revolutionary when young and later studied Wei-shih (Vijnanavada, ‘Consciousness-Only’) philosophy at the China Buddhist Institute under Ou-yang Ching-wu (1871–1943). But, dissatisfied, he developed his New Wei-shih philosophy of creativity based on the insights he derived from the I-Ching. He became influential and had Mou Tsung-san, T’ang Chün-i, and Hsü Fu-kuan among his disciples. After the Communist takeover in 1949, he still rejected materialism, but embraced a radical social philosophy that was not shared by most of his former disciples. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, HSÜ FUKUAN, I-CHING, T’ANG CHÜN-I. S.-h.L. hsü, Chinese term meaning ‘void’, ‘vacuity’, ‘the tenuous’. Hsü is not the absence of all things but a state in which things lack distinctions. For Chuang Tzu, hsü is the ideal state of mind, in which the mind is receptive to all things, perceives clearly, and responds effortlessly, as a clean mirror reflects the images before it. Hsün Tzu develops this ideal, characterizing a mind that is hsü (tenuous), unified and still. Extending later Taoist views, Neo-Confucians regard hsü as the original, inchoate state of the cosmos, out of which all things continually emerge and into which they eventually dissolve. Neo-Confucians distinguish hsü from the Buddhist concept k’ung (emptiness), which they see as denying the ultimate reality of the world. See also NEO-CONFUCIANISM. P.J.I. Hsü Fu-kuan (1903–82), Chinese intellectual and historian who served directly under Chiang Kai-shek at one time, but became a critic of the Nationalist government after it moved to Taiwan in 1949. He founded Democratic Review, the influential magazine that spread the ideas of contemporary New Confucians. He also started the Department of Chinese at Tunghai University in 1955 and invited Mou Tsung-san to join the staff to form another center of New Confucianism other than New Asia College in Hong Kong. He characterized his own position as between academic studies and politics, and between historical scholarship and philosophical understanding. His magnum opus was the three-volume History of Han Thought; his works on Chinese literature and art were also widely quoted. See also CH’IEN MU, HSIUNG SHIH-LI, T’ANG CHÜN-I. S.-h.L. Hsü Hsing (c.315 B.C.), Chinese philosopher, a member of the Tillers or Agriculture School (Nung Chia). The Tillers believed that in antiquity Shen Nung, the Divine Farmer, had ruled without reward, punishment, or administration over a decentralized utopia of small communities where all, including the ruler, lived by their own labor. Accordingly, Hsü Hsing attacked contemporary rulers who did not plow the fields but rather lived off the labor of others. He also sought to stabilize grain prices by controlling supply: grain would be stored in good years and distributed in bad ones. R.P.P. & R.T.A. Hsün Tzu (third century B.C.), a tough-minded Confucian philosopher best known for his opposition to Mencius’s conception of the inherent goodness of human nature. For Hsün Tzu, the essential nature of human beings is bad in the sense of possessing a problematical motivational hsing-erh-shang Hsün Tzu 395 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 395 structure: every human seeks to satisfy his/her desires; unless guided by li (propriety) and i (rightness), these desires inevitably lead to conflict especially in view of the scarcity of goods and the native human tendency toward partiality for one’s own benefits and for those of one’s close relations. Significantly, the li or rules of proper behavior perform three basic functions: delimiting, supportive, and ennobling. The first draws the boundaries of proper conduct; the second provides channels for satisfaction of desires within these boundaries; and the third provides sources for ennobling personal character in accordance with jen (benevolence) and i (rightness). Hsün Tzu is also noted for emphasizing law as a supplement to li (rules of proper conduct); the need of argumentation to resolve ethical disagreement; the importance of clarity of mind, as opposed to pi (obscuration) in the pursuit of ethical knowledge; and the importance of Confucian classics in character education. See also MENCIUS. A.S.C. Huai Nan Tzu, an ancient Chinese syncretic compendium of knowledge. It was compiled by an academy of scholars residing under the patronage of one of the most prominent literary figures of the age, Liu An, Prince of Huai Nan, and presented to the imperial court of Emperor Wu in about 140 B.C. The twenty treatises that make up the text include technical tracts on astronomy, topography, and calendrics, as well as original reconfigurations of the ideas and beliefs that flourished in the formative period of classical Chinese philosophy. In many ways, it is a Han dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 220) summary of existing knowledge, and like most Chinese documents it is practical and prescriptive. As a political document, it is syncretic, blending Confucian, Legalist, and Taoist precepts to recommend a kind of practicable Taoist alternative to political centralism. R.P.P. & R.T.A

Huang–Lao (Chinese, ‘School of the Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu’), an eclectic school (c. third century B.C.) purportedly based on the teachings of the mythic Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu, advocating a kind of Realpolitik Taoism stressing reliance on methods of ruling (e.g., rewards and punishments) and the power of political and social structures. Huang–Lao sought to establish a perfectly organized state, which tzu jan (naturally) runs smoothly, in which the ruler reigns (not rules) through wu wei (non-action). Huang–Lao’s mystical side concerns its claim that only the ruler can attain the unifying vision needed for such organization and that this vision is achieved through the practice of stillness and hsü (tenuousness). P.J.I. Huang Tsung-hsi (1610–95), Chinese philosopher and historian. A student of Liu Tsung-chou (1578–1645), the last great Neo-Confucian philosopher in the Ming dynasty, he compiled Ming-ju-hsüeh-an and Sung-Yüan-hsüeh-an, important anthologies and critical accounts of the Neo-Confucianists of the Ming dynasty and Sung and Yüan dynasties. He also wrote Ming-i-taifang-lu (“Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince”), in which he denounced the system of government working only for the selfish interest of the ruler. This work exerted great influence in the last days of the Chinese empire. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, CHU HSI, WANG YANGMING. S.-h.L. Hu Hung, also called Wu-feng (1100–55), Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher and an important figure in the Hunan School. According to him, hsin (mind/heart) is the outward manifestation of hsing (human nature); one must first understand the nature of jen (humanity) before one can practice moral cultivation. Professor Mou Tsung-san believed that Hu Hung succeeded Chou Tun-yi, Chang Tsai, and Ch’eng Hao, representing a third line of thought other than those of Ch’eng–Chu and Lu–Wang. See also CHANG TSAI, CH’ENG HAO, CHOU TUN-YI, CHU HSI, NEO-CONFUCIANISM. S.-h.L. Hui Shih (c.380–305 B.C.), Chinese philosopher, prime minister of the state of Wei, and a leading member of the School of Names (ming chia, also referred to as pien che, the Dialecticians or Sophists). As a friend and debating partner of the Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu, Hui Shih parried Chuang Tzu’s poetic, rhapsodic, and meditationbased intuitions with sophisticated logic and analytic rigor. An advocate of the Mohist idea of impartial concern for others (chien ai) and an opponent of war, he is most famous for his Ten Paradoxes, collected in the Chuang Tzu. Though Hui Shih’s explanations are no longer extant, paradoxes such as “I go to Yüeh today but arrived yesterday” and “The south has no limit yet has a limit” raise issues of relativity and perspectivism with respect to language, values, and concepts such as space and time. See also CHUANG TZU. R.P.P. & R.T.A. humanism, a set of presuppositions that assigns to human beings a special position in the scheme Huai Nan Tzu humanism 396 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 396 of things. Not just a school of thought or a collection of specific beliefs or doctrines, humanism is rather a general perspective from which the world is viewed. That perspective received a gradual yet persistent articulation during different historical periods and continues to furnish a central leitmotif of Western civilization. It comes into focus when it is compared with two competing positions. On the one hand, it can be contrasted with the emphasis on the supernatural, transcendent domain, which considers humanity to be radically dependent on divine order. On the other hand, it resists the tendency to treat humanity scientifically as part of the natural order, on a par with other living organisms. Occupying the middle position, humanism discerns in human beings unique capacities and abilities, to be cultivated and celebrated for their own sake. The word ‘humanism’ came into general use only in the nineteenth century but was applied to intellectual and cultural developments in previous eras. A teacher of classical languages and literatures in Renaissance Italy was described as umanista (contrasted with legista, teacher of law), and what we today call “the humanities,” in the fifteenth century was called studia humanitatis, which stood for grammar, rhetoric, history, literature, and moral philosophy. The inspiration for these studies came from the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Latin texts; Plato’s complete works were translated for the first time, and Aristotle’s philosophy was studied in more accurate versions than those available during the Middle Ages. The unashamedly humanistic flavor of classical writings had a tremendous impact on Renaissance scholars. Here, one felt no weight of the supernatural pressing on the human mind, demanding homage and allegiance. Humanity – with all its distinct capacities, talents, worries, problems, possibilities – was the center of interest. It has been said that medieval thinkers philosophized on their knees, but, bolstered by the new studies, they dared to stand up and to rise to full stature. Instead of devotional Church Latin, the medium of expression was the people’s own language – Italian, French, German, English. Poetical, lyrical self-expression gained momentum, affecting all areas of life. New paintings showed great interest in human form. Even while depicting religious scenes, Michelangelo celebrated the human body, investing it with instrinsic value and dignity. The details of daily life – food, clothing, musical instruments – as well as nature and landscape – domestic and exotic – were lovingly examined in paintings and poetry. Imagination was stirred by stories brought home by the discoverers of new lands and continents, enlarging the scope of human possibilities as exhibited in the customs and the natural environments of strange, remote peoples. The humanist mode of thinking deepened and widened its tradition with the advent of eighteenth-century thinkers. They included French philosophes like Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau, and other European and American figures – Bentham, Hume, Lessing, Kant, Franklin, and Jefferson. Not always agreeing with one another, these thinkers nevertheless formed a family united in support of such values as freedom, equality, tolerance, secularism, and cosmopolitanism. Although they championed untrammeled use of the mind, they also wanted it to be applied in social and political reform, encouraging individual creativity and exalting the active over the contemplative life. They believed in the perfectibility of human nature, the moral sense and responsibility, and the possibility of progress. The optimistic motif of perfectibility endured in the thinking of nineteenth- and twentiethcentury humanists, even though the accelerating pace of industrialization, the growth of urban populations, and the rise in crime, nationalistic squabbles, and ideological strife leading to largescale inhumane warfare often put in question the efficacy of humanistic ideals. But even the depressing run of human experience highlighted the appeal of those ideals, reinforcing the humanistic faith in the values of endurance, nobility, intelligence, moderation, flexibility, sympathy, and love. Humanists attribute crucial importance to education, conceiving of it as an all-around development of personality and individual talents, marrying science to poetry and culture to democracy. They champion freedom of thought and opinion, the use of intelligence and pragmatic research in science and technology, and social and political systems governed by representative institutions. Believing that it is possible to live confidently without metaphysical or religious certainty and that all opinions are open to revision and correction, they see human flourishing as dependent on open communication, discussion, criticism, and unforced consensus. See also ENCYCLOPEDIA, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. K.K. humanism, civic. See CLASSICAL REPUBLICANISM. humanism, civic humanism, civic 397 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 397 human nature, a quality or group of qualities, belonging to all and only humans, that explains the kind of being we are. We are all two-footed and featherless, but ‘featherless biped’ does not explain our socially significant characteristics. We are also all both animals and rational beings (at least potentially), and ‘rational animal’ might explain the special features we have that other kinds of beings, such as angels, do not. The belief that there is a human nature is part of the wider thesis that all natural kinds have essences. Acceptance of this position is compatible with many views about the specific qualities that constitute human nature. In addition to rationality and embodiment, philosophers have said that it is part of our nature to be wholly selfinterested, benevolent, envious, sociable, fearful of others, able to speak and to laugh, and desirous of immortality. Philosophers disagree about how we are to discover our nature. Some think metaphysical insight into eternal forms or truths is required, others that we can learn it from observation of biology or of behavior. Most have assumed that only males display human nature fully, and that females, even at their best, are imperfect or incomplete exemplars. Philosophers also disagree on whether human nature determines morality. Some think that by noting our distinctive features we can infer what God wills us to do. Others think that our nature shows at most the limits of what morality can require, since it would plainly be pointless to direct us to ways of living that our nature makes impossible. Some philosophers have argued that human nature is plastic and can be shaped in different ways. Others hold that it is not helpful to think in terms of human nature. They think that although we share features as members of a biological species, our other qualities are socially constructed. If the differences between male and female reflect cultural patterns of child rearing, work, and the distribution of power, our biologically common features do not explain our important characteristics and so do not constitute a nature. See also EMBODIMENT, ESSENTIALISM, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. J.B.S. human rights. See RIGHTS. human sciences. See WEBER. Humboldt, Wilhelm von (1767–1835), German statesman, scholar, and educator, often regarded as the father of comparative linguistics. Born in Potsdam, Wilhelm, with his younger brother Alexander, was educated by private tutors in the “enlightened” style thought suitable for future Prussian diplomats. This included classical languages, history, philosophy, and political economy. After his university studies in law at Frankfurt an der Oder and Göttingen, his career was divided among assorted diplomatic posts, writing on a broad range of topics, and (his first love) the study of languages. His broad-ranging works reveal the important influences of Herder in his conception of history and culture, Kant and Fichte in philosophy, and the French “Ideologues” in linguistics. His most enduring work has proved to be the Introduction (published in 1836) to his massive study of the Kawi language spoken on Java. Humboldt maintained that language, as a vital and dynamic “organism,” is the key to understanding both the operations of the human mind and the distinctive differences characteristic of various national cultures. Every language possesses a distinctive inner form that shapes, in a way reminiscent of Kant’s more general categories, the subjective experiences, the worldview, and ultimately the institutions of a given nation and its culture. While all later comparative linguists are indebted to both his empirical studies and his theoretical insights, such philosophers of culture as Dilthey and Cassirer acknowledge him as establishing language as a central concern for the human sciences. J.P.Su. Hume, David (1711–76), Scottish philosopher and historian who may be aptly considered the leading neo-skeptic of the early modern period. Many of Hume’s immediate predecessors (Descartes, Bayle, and Berkeley) had grappled with important elements of skepticism. Hume consciously incorporated many of these same elements into a philosophical system that manages to be both skeptical and constructive. Born and educated in Edinburgh, Hume spent three years (1734–37) in France writing the penultimate draft of A Treatise of Human Nature. In middle life, in addition to writing a wide-ranging set of essays and short treatises and a long History of England, he served briefly as companion to a mad nobleman, then as a military attaché, before becoming librarian of the Advocates Library in Edinburgh. In 1763 he served as private secretary to Lord Hertford, the British ambassador in Paris; in 1765 he became secretary to the embassy there and then served as chargé d’affaires. In 1767–68 he served in Lonhuman nature Hume, David 398 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 398 don as under-secretary of state for the Northern Department. He retired to Edinburgh in 1769 and died there. Hume’s early care was chiefly in the hands of his widowed mother, who reported that young David was “uncommon wake-minded” (i.e., uncommonly acute, in the local dialect of the period). His earliest surviving letter, written in 1727, indicates that even at sixteen he was engaged in the study that resulted in the publication (1739) of the first two volumes of A Treatise of Human Nature. By the time he left college (c.1726) he had a thorough grounding in classical authors, especially Cicero and the major Latin poets; in natural philosophy (particularly that of Boyle) and mathematics; in logic or theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and moral philosophy; and in history. His early reading included many of the major English and French poets and essayists of the period. He reports that in the three years ending about March 1734, he read “most of the celebrated Books in Latin, French & English,” and also learned Italian. Thus, although Hume’s views are often supposed to result from his engagement with only one or two philosophers (with either Locke and Berkeley, or Hutcheson or Newton), the breadth of his reading suggests that no single writer or philosophical tradition provides the comprehensive key to his thought. Hume’s most often cited works include A Treatise of Human Nature (three volumes, 1739–40); an Abstract (1740) of volumes 1 and 2 of the Treatise; a collection of approximately forty essays (Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, first published, for the most part, between 1741 and 1752); An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748); An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751); The Natural History of Religion (1757); a six-volume History of England from Roman times to 1688 (1754–62); a brief autobiography, My Own Life (1777); and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1778). Hume’s neo-skeptical stance manifests itself in each of these works. He insists that philosophy “cannot go beyond experience; and any hypothesis, that pretends to discover the ultimate original qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as presumptuous and chimerical.” He says of the Treatise that it “is very sceptical, and tends to give us a notion of the imperfections and narrow limits of the human understanding.” But he goes well beyond the conventional recognition of human limitations; from his skeptical starting place he projects an observationally based science of human nature, and produces a comprehensive and constructive account of human nature and experience. Hume begins the Treatise with a discussion of the “elements” of his philosophy. Arguing that it is natural philosophers (scientists) who should explain how sensation works, he focuses on those entities that are the immediate and only objects present to the mind. These he calls “perceptions” and distinguishes into two kinds, “impressions” and “ideas.” Hume initially suggests that impressions (of which there are two kinds: of sensation and of reflection) are more forceful or vivacious than ideas, but some ideas (those of memory, e.g.) do sometimes take on enough force and vivacity to be called impressions, and belief also adds sufficient force and vivacity to ideas to make them practically indistinguishable from impressions. In the end we find that impressions are clearly distinguished from ideas only insofar as ideas are always causally dependent on impressions. Thomas Reid charged that the allegedly representative theory of perception found in Descartes and Locke had served as a philosophical Trojan horse leading directly to skeptical despair. Hume was fully aware of the skeptical implications of this theory. He knew well those sections of Bayle and Locke that reveal the inadequacy of Descartes’s attempts to prove that there is an external world, and also appreciated the force of the objections brought by Bayle and Berkeley against the primary–secondary quality distinction championed by Locke. Hume adopted the view that the immediate objects of the mind are always “perceptions” because he thought it correct, and in spite of the fact that it leads to skepticism about the external world. Satisfied that the battle to establish absolutely reliable links between thought and reality had been fought and lost, Hume made no attempt to explain how our impressions of sensation are linked to their entirely “unknown causes.” He instead focused exclusively on perceptions qua objects of mind: As to those impressions, which arise from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly inexplicable by human reason, and ‘twill always be impossible to decide with certainty, whether they arise immediately from the object, or are produc’d by the creative power of the mind, or are deriv’d from the author of our being. Nor is such a question any way material to our present purpose. We may draw inferences from the coherence of our perceptions, whether they be true or Hume, David Hume, David 399 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 399 false; whether they represent nature justly, or be mere illusions of the senses. Book I of the Treatise is an effort to show how our perceptions cohere to form certain fundamental notions (those of space and time, causal connection, external and independent existence, and mind) in which, skeptical doubts notwithstanding, we repose belief and on which “life and action entirely depend.” According to Hume, we have no direct impressions of space and time, and yet the ideas of space and time are essential to our existence. This he explains by tracing our idea of space to a “manner of appearance”: by means of two senses, sight and touch, we have impressions that array themselves as so many points on a contrasting background; the imagination transforms these particulars of experience into a “compound impression, which represents extension” or the abstract idea of space itself. Our idea of time is, mutatis mutandis, accounted for in the same way: “As ‘tis from the disposition of visible and tangible objects we receive the idea of space, so from the succession of ideas and impressions we form the idea of time.” The abstract idea of time, like all other abstract ideas, is represented in the imagination by a “particular individual idea of a determinate quantity and quality” joined to a term, ‘time’, that has general reference. Hume is often credited with denying there is physical necessity and that we have any idea of necessary connection. This interpretation significantly distorts his intent. Hume was convinced by the Cartesians, and especially by Malebranche, that neither the senses nor reason can establish that one object (a cause) is connected together with another object (an effect) in such a way that the presence of the one entails the existence of the other. Experience reveals only that objects thought to be causally related are contiguous in time and space, that the cause is prior to the effect, and that similar objects have been constantly associated in this way. These are the defining, perceptible features of the causal relation. And yet there seems to be more to the matter. “There is,” he says, a “NECESSARY CONNECTION to be taken into consideration,” and our belief in that relation must be explained. Despite our demonstrated inability to see or prove that there are necessary causal connections, we continue to think and act as if we had knowledge of them. We act, for example, as though the future will necessarily resemble the past, and “wou’d appear ridiculous” if we were to say “that ‘tis only probable the sun will rise to-morrow, or that all men must dye.” To explain this phenomenon Hume asks us to imagine what life would have been like for Adam, suddenly brought to life in the midst of the world. Adam would have been unable to make even the simplest predictions about the future behavior of objects. He would not have been able to predict that one moving billiard ball, striking a second, would cause the second to move. And yet we, endowed with the same faculties, can not only make, but are unable to resist making, this and countless other such predictions. What is the difference between ourselves and this putative Adam? Experience. We have experienced the constant conjunction (the invariant succession of paired objects or events) of particular causes and effects and, although our experience never includes even a glimpse of a causal connection, it does arouse in us an expectation that a particular event (a “cause”) will be followed by another event (an “effect”) previously and constantly associated with it. Regularities of experience give rise to these feelings, and thus determine the mind to transfer its attention from a present impression to the idea of an absent but associated object. The idea of necessary connection is copied from these feelings. The idea has its foundation in the mind and is projected onto the world, but there is nonetheless such an idea. That there is an objective physical necessity to which this idea corresponds is an untestable hypothesis, nor would demonstrating that such necessary connections had held in the past guarantee that they will hold in the future. Thus, while not denying that there may be physical necessity or that there is an idea of necessary connection, Hume remains a skeptic about causal necessity. Hume’s account of our belief in future effects or absent causes – of the process of mind that enables us to plan effectively – is a part of this same explanation. Such belief involves an idea or conception of the entity believed in, but is clearly different from mere conception without belief. This difference cannot be explained by supposing that some further idea, an idea of belief itself, is present when we believe, but absent when we merely conceive. There is no such idea. Moreover, given the mind’s ability to freely join together any two consistent ideas, if such an idea were available we by an act of will could, contrary to experience, combine the idea of belief with any other idea, and by so doing cause ourselves to believe anything. Consequently, Hume concludes that belief can only be a “different MANNER of conceiving an object”; it is a livelier, Hume, David Hume, David 400 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 400 firmer, more vivid and intense conception. Belief in certain “matters of fact” – the belief that because some event or object is now being experienced, some other event or object not yet available to experience will in the future be experienced – is brought about by previous experience of the constant conjunction of two impressions. These two impressions have been associated together in such a way that the experience of one of them automatically gives rise to an idea of the other, and has the effect of transferring the force or liveliness of the impression to the associated idea, thereby causing this idea to be believed or to take on the lively character of an impression. Our beliefs in continuing and independently existing objects and in our own continuing selves are, on Hume’s account, beliefs in “fictions,” or in entities entirely beyond all experience. We have impressions that we naturally but mistakenly suppose to be continuing, external objects, but analysis quickly reveals that these impressions are by their very nature fleeting and observer-dependent. Moreover, none of our impressions provides us with a distinctive mark or evidence of an external origin. Similarly, when we focus on our own minds, we experience only a sequence of impressions and ideas, and never encounter the mind or self in which these perceptions are supposed to inhere. To ourselves we appear to be merely “a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.” How do we, then, come to believe in external objects or our own selves and self-identity? Neither reason nor the senses, working with impressions and ideas, provide anything like compelling proof of the existence of continuing, external objects, or of a continuing, unified self. Indeed, these two faculties cannot so much as account for our belief in objects or selves. If we had only reason and the senses, the faculties championed by, respectively, the rationalists and empiricists, we would be mired in a debilitating and destructive uncertainty. So unfortunate an outcome is avoided only by the operation of an apparently unreliable third faculty, the imagination. It, by means of what appear to be a series of outright mistakes and trivial suggestions, leads us to believe in our own selves and in independently existing objects. The skepticism of the philosophers is in this way both confirmed (we can provide no arguments, e.g., proving the existence of the external world) and shown to be of little practical import. An irrational faculty, the imagination, saves us from the excesses of philosophy: “Philosophy wou’d render us entirely Pyrrhonian,” says Hume, were not nature, in the form of the imagination, too strong for it. Books II and III of the Treatise and the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals reveal Hume’s concern to explain our moral behavior and judgments in a manner that is consistent with his science of human nature, but which nonetheless recognizes the irreducible moral content of these judgments. Thus he attempted to rescue the passions from the ad hoc explanations and negative assessments of his predecessors. From the time of Plato and the Stoics the passions had often been characterized as irrational and unnatural animal elements that, given their head, would undermine humankind’s true, rational nature. Hume’s most famous remark on the subject of the passions, “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions,” will be better understood if read in this context (and if it is remembered that he also claims that reason can and does extinguish some passions). In contrast to the long-standing orthodoxy, Hume assumes that the passions constitute an integral and legitimate part of human nature, a part that can be explained without recourse to physical or metaphysical speculation. The passions can be treated as of a piece with other perceptions: they are secondary impressions (“impressions of reflection”) that derive from prior impressions and ideas. Some passions (pride and humility, love and hatred) may be characterized as indirect; i.e., they arise as the result of a double relation of impressions and ideas that gives them one form of intentional character. These passions have both assignable causes (typically, the qualities of some person or some object belonging to a person) and a kind of indirect object (the person with the qualities or objects just mentioned); the object of pride or humility is always oneself, while the object of love or hatred is always another. The direct passions (desire, aversion, hope, fear, etc.) are feelings caused immediately by pleasure or pain, or the prospect thereof, and take entities or events as their intentional objects. In his account of the will Hume claims that while all human actions are caused, they are nonetheless free. He argues that our ascriptions of causal connection have all the same foundation, namely, the observation of a “uniform and regular conjunction” of one object with another. Given that in the course of human affairs we observe “the same uniformity and regular operation of natural principles” found in the physical world, and that this uniformity results in an expectation of exactly the sort produced by physHume, David Hume, David 401 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 401 ical regularities, it follows that there is no “negation of necessity and causes,” or no liberty of indifference. The will, that “internal impression we feel and are conscious of when we knowingly give rise to” any action or thought, is an effect always linked (by constant conjunction and the resulting feeling of expectation) to some prior cause. But, insofar as our actions are not forcibly constrained or hindered, we do remain free in another sense: we retain a liberty of spontaneity. Moreover, only freedom in this latter sense is consistent with morality. A liberty of indifference, the possibility of uncaused actions, would undercut moral assessment, for such assessments presuppose that actions are causally linked to motives. Morality is for Hume an entirely human affair founded on human nature and the circumstances of human life (one form of naturalism). We as a species possess several notable dispositions that, over time, have given rise to morality. These include a disposition to form bonded family groups, a disposition (sympathy) to communicate and thus share feelings, a disposition – the moral sense – to feel approbation and disapprobation in response to the actions of others, and a disposition to form general rules. Our disposition to form family groups results in small social units in which a natural generosity operates. The fact that such generosity is possible shows that the egoists are mistaken, and provides a foundation for the distinction between virtue and vice. The fact that the moral sense responds differently to distinctive motivations – we feel approbation in response to well-intended actions, disapprobation in response to ill-intended ones – means that our moral assessments have an affective but nonetheless cognitive foundation. To claim that Nero was vicious is to make a judgment about Nero’s motives or character in consequence of an observation of him that has caused an impartial observer to feel a unique sentiment of disapprobation. That our moral judgments have this affective foundation accounts for the practical and motivational character of morality. Reason is “perfectly inert,” and hence our practical, actionguiding moral distinctions must derive from the sentiments or feelings provided by our moral sense. Hume distinguishes, however, between the “natural virtues” (generosity, benevolence, e.g.) and the “artificial virtues” (justice, allegiance, e.g.). These differ in that the former not only produce good on each occasion of their practice, but are also on every occasion approved. In contrast, any particular instantiation of justice may be “contrary to the public good” and be approved only insofar as it is entailed by “a general scheme or system of action, which is advantageous.” The artificial virtues differ also in being the result of contrivance arising from “the circumstances and necessities of life.” In our original condition we did not need the artificial virtues because our natural dispositions and responses were adequate to maintain the order of small, kinshipbased units. But as human numbers increased, so too did the scarcity of some material goods lead to an increase in the possibility of conflict, particularly over property, between these units. As a consequence, and out of self-interest, our ancestors were gradually led to establish conventions governing property and its exchange. In the early stages of this necessary development our disposition to form general rules was an indispensable component; at later stages, sympathy enables many individuals to pursue the artificial virtues from a combination of self-interest and a concern for others, thus giving the fully developed artificial virtues a foundation in two kinds of motivation. Hume’s Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals represent his effort to “recast” important aspects of the Treatise into more accessible form. His Essays extend his human-centered philosophical analysis to political institutions, economics, and literary criticism. His best-selling History of England provides, among much else, an extended historical analysis of competing Whig and Tory claims about the origin and nature of the British constitution. Hume’s trenchant critique of religion is found principally in his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Natural History of Religion, and Dialogues. In an effort to curb the excesses of religious dogmatism, Hume focuses his attention on miracles, on the argument from design, and on the origin of the idea of monotheism. Miracles are putative facts used to justify a commitment to certain creeds. Such commitments are often maintained with a mind-numbing tenacity and a disruptive intolerance toward contrary views. Hume argues that the widely held view of miracles as violations of a law of nature is incoherent, that the evidence for even the most likely miracle will always be counterbalanced by the evidence establishing the law of nature that the miracle allegedly violates, and that the evidence supporting any given miracle is necessarily suspect. His argument leaves open the possibility that violations of the laws of nature may have occurred, but shows that beliefs about such events lack the force of evidence needed to jusHume, David Hume, David 402 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 402 tify the arrogance and intolerance that characterizes so many of the religious. Hume’s critique of the argument from design has a similar effect. This argument purports to show that our well-ordered universe must be the effect of a supremely intelligent cause, that each aspect of this divine creation is well designed to fulfill some beneficial end, and that these effects show us that the Deity is caring and benevolent. Hume shows that these conclusions go well beyond the available evidence. The pleasant and well-designed features of the world are balanced by a good measure of the unpleasant and the plainly botched. Our knowledge of causal connections depends on the experience of constant conjunctions. Such connections cause the vivacity of a present impression to be transferred to the idea associated with it, and leave us believing in that idea. But in this case the effect to be explained, the universe, is unique, and its cause unknown. Consequently, we cannot possibly have experiential grounds for any kind of inference about this cause. On experiential grounds the most we can say is that there is a massive, mixed effect, and, as we have through experience come to believe that effects have causes commensurate to them, this effect probably does have a commensurately large and mixed cause. Furthermore, as the effect is remotely like the products of human manufacture, we can say “that the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence.” There is indeed an inference to be drawn from the unique effect in question (the universe) to the cause of that effect, but it is not the “argument” of the theologians nor does it in any way support sectarian pretension or intolerance. The Natural History of Religion focuses on the question of the origin of religion in human nature, and delivers a thoroughly naturalistic answer: the widespread but not universal belief in invisible and intelligent power can be traced to derivative and easily perverted principles of our nature. Primitive peoples found physical nature not an orderly whole produced by a beneficent designer, but arbitrary and fearsome, and they came to understand the activities of nature as the effect of petty powers that could, through propitiating worship, be influenced to ameliorate their lives. Subsequently, the same fears and perceptions transformed polytheism into monotheism, the view that a single, omnipotent being created and still controls the world and all that transpires in it. From this conclusion Hume goes on to argue that monotheism, apparently the more sophisticated position, is morally retrograde. Monotheism tends naturally toward zeal and intolerance, encourages debasing, “monkish virtues,” and proves itself a danger to society: it is a source of violence and a cause of immorality. In contrast, polytheism, which Hume here regards as a form of atheism, is tolerant of diversity and encourages genuine virtues that improve humankind. From a moral point of view, at least this one form of atheism is superior to theism. See also BUNDLE THEORY, CAUSATION, EMPIRICISM, ETHICS, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, PROBLEM OF INDUCTION, SKEPTICISM. D.F.N. humors. See GALEN. Hu Shih (1891–1962), Chinese philosopher and historian and a famous liberal intellectual in contemporary China. He studied at Columbia University under Dewey, and brought pragmatism to China. He was the Chinese ambassador to the United States during World War II and later headed the Academia Sinica in Taipei. A versatile writer, he helped to initiate the vernacular movement in Chinese literature; published his Ancient History of Chinese Philosophy in 1919, the first history of Chinese philosophy written from a modern point of view; and advocated wholesale Westernization or modernization of China. A reformist committed to the democratic ideal, he remained an anti-Communist throughout his life. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, LIANG SOU-MING. S.-h.L

Husserl, Edmund (1859–1938), German philosopher and founder of phenomenology. Born in Prossnits (now Proste v jov in the Czech Republic), he studied science and philosophy at Leipzig, mathematics and philosophy at Berlin, and philosophy and psychology at Vienna and Halle. He taught at Halle (1887–1901), Göttingen (1901– 16), and Freiburg (1916–28). Husserl and Frege were the founders of the two major twentiethcentury trends. Through his work and his influence on Russell, Wittgenstein, and others, Frege inspired the movement known as analytic philosophy, while Husserl, through his work and his influence on Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others, established the movement known as phenomenology. Husserl began his academic life as a mathematician. He studied at Berlin with Kronecker and Weierstrass and wrote a dissertation in mathematics at Vienna. There, influenced by Brentano, his interests turned toward philosohumors Husserl, Edmund 403 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 403 phy and psychology but remained related to mathematics. His habilitation, written at Halle, was a psychological-philosophical study of the concept of number and led to his first book, The Philosophy of Arithmetic (1891). Husserl distinguishes between numbers given intuitively and those symbolically intended. The former are given as the objective correlates of acts of counting; when we count things set out before us, we constitute groups, and these groups can be compared with each other as more and less. In this way the first few numbers in the number series can be intuitively presented. Although most numbers are only symbolically intended, their sense as numbers is derived from those that are intuitively given. During 1890–1900 Husserl expanded his philosophical concerns from mathematics to logic and the general theory of knowledge, and his reflections culminated in his Logical Investigations (1900–01). The work is made up of six investigations preceded by a volume of prolegomena. The prolegomena are a sustained and effective critique of psychologism, the doctrine that reduces logical entities, such as propositions, universals, and numbers, to mental states or mental activities. Husserl insists on the objectivity of such targets of consciousness and shows the incoherence of reducing them to the activities of mind. The rest of the work examines signs and words, abstraction, parts and wholes, logical grammar, the notion of presentation, and truth and evidence. His earlier distinction between intuitive presentation and symbolic intention is now expanded from our awareness of numbers to the awareness of all sorts of objects of consciousness. The contrast between empty intention and fulfillment or intuition is applied to perceptual objects, and it is also applied to what he calls categorial objects: states of affairs, relationships, causal connections, and the like. Husserl claims that we can have an intellectual intuition of such things and he describes this intuition; it occurs when we articulate an object as having certain features or relationships. The formal structure of categorial objects is elegantly related to the grammatical parts of language. As regards simple material objects, Husserl observes that we can intend them either emptily or intuitively, but even when they are intuitively given, they retain sides that are absent and only cointended by us, so perception itself is a mixture of empty and filled intentions. The term ‘intentionality’ refers to both empty and filled, or signitive and intuitive, intentions. It names the relationship consciousness has toward things, whether those things are directly given or meant only in their absence. Husserl also shows that the identity of things is given to us when we see that the object we once intended emptily is the same as what is actually given to us now. Such identities are given even in perceptual experience, as the various sides and aspects of things continue to present one and the same object, but identities are given even more explicitly in categorial intuition, when we recognize the partial identity between a thing and its features, or when we directly focus on the identity a thing has with itself. These phenomena are described under the general rubric of identitysynthesis. A weakness in the first edition of Logical Investigations was the fact that Husserl remained somewhat Kantian in it and distinguished sharply between the thing as it is given to us and the thing-in-itself; he claimed that in his phenomenology he described only the thing as it is given to us. In the decade 1900–10, through deeper reflection on our experience of time, on memory, and on the nature of philosophical thinking, he overcame this Kantian distinction and claimed that the thing-in-itself can be intuitively given to us as the identity presented in a manifold of appearances. His new position was expressed in Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy (1913). The book was misinterpreted by many as adopting a traditional idealism, and many thinkers who admired Husserl’s earlier work distanced themselves from what he now taught. Husserl published three more books. Formal and Transcendental Logic (1929) was written right after his retirement; Cartesian Meditations (1931), which appeared in French translation, was an elaboration of some lectures he gave in Paris. In addition, some earlier manuscripts on the experience of time were assembled by Edith Stein and edited by Heidegger in 1928 as Lectures on the Phenomenology of Inner Time-Consciousness. Thus, Husserl published only six books, but he amassed a huge amount of manuscripts, lecture notes, and working papers. He always retained the spirit of a scientist and did his philosophical work in the manner of tentative experiments. Many of his books can be seen as compilations of such experiments rather than as systematic treatises. Because of its exploratory and developmental character, his thinking does not lend itself to doctrinal summary. Husserl was of Jewish ancestry, and after his death his papers were in danger from the Nazi regime; they were covertly taken out of Germany by a Belgian scholar, Herman Husserl, Edmund Husserl, Edmund 404 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 404 Leo Van Breda, who, after World War II, established the Husserl Archives at Louvain. This institution, with centers at Cologne, Freiburg, Paris, and New York, has since supervised the critical edition of many volumes of Husserl’s writings in the series Husserliana. Husserl believes that things are presented to us in various ways, and that philosophy should be engaged in precise description of these appearances. It should avoid constructing large-scale theories and defending ideologies. It should analyze, e.g., how visual objects are perceived and how they depend on our cognitive activity of seeing, focusing, moving about, on the correlation of seeing with touching and grasping, and so on. Philosophy should describe the different ways in which such “regions of being” as material objects, living things, other persons, and cultural objects are given, how the past and the present are intended, how speech, numbers, time and space, and our own bodies are given to us, and so on. Husserl carries out many such analyses himself and in all of them distinguishes between the object given and the subjective conscious activity we must perform to let it be given. The phenomenological description of the object is called noematic analysis and that of the subjective intentions is called noetic analysis. The noema is the object as described phenomenologically, the noesis is the corresponding mental activity, also as described by phenomenology. The objective and the subjective are correlative but never reducible to one another. In working out such descriptions we must get to the essential structures of things. We do so not by just generalizing over instances we have experienced, but by a process he calls “free variation” or “imaginative variation.” We attempt in our imagination to remove various features from the target of our analysis; the removal of some features would leave the object intact, but the removal of other features would destroy the object; hence, when we come upon the latter we know we have hit on something essential to the thing. The method of imaginative variation thus leads to eidetic intuition, the insight that this or that feature belongs to the eidos, the essence, of the thing in question. Eidetic intuition is directed not only toward objects but also toward the various forms of intentionality, as we try to determine the essence of perception, memory, judging, and the like. Husserl thinks that the eidetic analysis of intentionality and its objects yields apodictic truths, truths that can be seen to be necessary. Examples might be that human beings could not be without a past and future, and that each material perceptual object has sides and aspects other than those presented at any moment. Husserl admits that the objects of perceptual experience, material things, are not given apodictically to perception because they contain parts that are only emptily intended, but he insists that the phenomenological reflection on perceptual experience, the reflection that yields the statement that perception involves a mixture of empty and filled intentions, can be apodictic: we know apodictically that perception must have a mixture of empty and filled intentions. Husserl did admit in the 1920s that although phenomenological experience and statements could be apodictic, they would never be adequate to what they describe, i.e., further clarifications of what they signify could always be carried out. This would mean, e.g., that we can be apodictically sure that human beings could not be what they are if they did not have a sense of past and future, but what it is to have a past and future always needs deeper clarification. Husserl has much to say about philosophical thinking. He distinguishes between the “natural attitude,” our straightforward involvement with things and the world, and the “phenomenological attitude,” the reflective point of view from which we carry out philosophical analysis of the intentions exercised in the natural attitude and the objective correlates of these intentions. When we enter the phenomenological attitude, we put out of action or suspend all the intentions and convictions of the natural attitude; this does not mean that we doubt or negate them, only that we take a distance from them and contemplate their structure. Husserl calls this suspension the phenomenological epoché. In our human life we begin, of course, in the natural attitude, and the name for the processs by which we move to the phenomenological attitude is called the phenomenological reduction, a “leading back” from natural beliefs to the reflective consideration of intentions and their objects. In the phenomenological attitude we look at the intentions that we normally look through, those that function anonymously in our straightforward involvement with the world. Throughout his career, Husserl essayed various “ways to reduction” or arguments to establish philosophy. At times he tried to model the argument on Descartes’s methodical doubt; at times he tried to show that the world-directed sciences need the further supplement of phenomenological reflection if they are to be truly scientific. One of the special features of the natural attiHusserl, Edmund Husserl, Edmund 405 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 405 tude is that it simply accepts the world as a background or horizon for all our more particular experiences and beliefs. The world is not a large thing nor is it the sum total of things; it is the horizon or matrix for all particular things and states of affairs. The world as noema is correlated to our world-belief or world-doxa as noesis. In the phenomenological attitude we take a distance even toward our natural being in the world and we describe what it is to have a world. Husserl thinks that this sort of radical reflection and radical questioning is necessary for beginning philosophy and entering into what he calls pure or transcendental phenomenology; so long as we fail to question our world-belief and the world as such, we fail to reach philosophical purity and our analyses will in fact become parts of worldly sciences (such as psychology) and will not be philosophical. Husserl distinguishes between the apophantic and the ontological domains. The apophantic is the domain of senses and propositions, while the ontological is the domain of things, states of affairs, relations, and the like. Husserl calls “apophantic analytics” the science that examines the formal, logical structures of the apophantic domain and “formal ontology” the science that examines the formal structures of the ontological domain. The movement between focusing on the ontological domain and focusing on the apophantic domain occurs within the natural attitude, but it is described from the phenomenological attitude. This movement establishes the difference between propositions and states of affairs, and it permits scientific verification; science is established in the zigzag motion between focusing on things and focusing on propositions, which are then verified or falsified when they are confirmed or disconfirmed by the way things appear. Evidence is the activity of either having a thing in its direct presence or experiencing the conformity or disconformity between an empty intention and the intuition that is to fulfill it. There are degrees of evidence; things can be given more or less fully and more or less distinctly. Adequation occurs when an intuition fully satisfies an empty intention. Husserl also makes a helpful distinction between the passive, thoughtless repetition of words and the activity of explicit judging, in which we distinctly make judgments on our own. Explicit thinking can itself fall back into passivity or become “sedimented” as people take it for granted and go on to build further thinking upon it. Such sedimented thought must be reactivated and its meanings revived. Passive thinking may harbor contradictions and incoherences; the application of formal logic presumes judgments that are distinctly executed. In our reflective phenomenological analyses we describe various intentional acts, but we also discover the ego as the owner or agent behind these acts. Husserl distinguishes between the psychological ego, the ego taken as a part of the world, and the transcendental ego, the ego taken as that which has a world and is engaged in truth, and hence to some extent transcends the world. He often comments on the remarkable ambiguity of the ego, which is both a part of the world (as a human being) and yet transcends the world (as a cognitive center that possesses or intends the world). The transcendental ego is not separable from individuals; it is a dimension of every human being. We each have a transcendental ego, since we are all intentional and rational beings. Husserl also devoted much effort to analyzing intersubjectivity and tried to show how other egos and other minds, other centers of conscious and rational awareness, can be presented and intended. The role of the body, the role of speech and other modes of communication, and the fact that we all share things and a world in common are important elements in these analyses. The transcendental ego, the source of all intentional acts, is constituted through time: it has its own identity, which is different from that of the identity of things or states of affairs. The identity of the ego is built up through the flow of experiences and through memory and anticipation. One of Husserl’s major contributions is his analysis of time-consciousness and its relation to the identity of the self, a topic to which he often returns. He distinguishes among the objective time of the world, the inner time of the flow of our experiences (such as acts of perception, judgments, and memories), and a third, still deeper level that he calls “the consciousness of inner time.” It is this third, deepest level, the consciousness of inner time, that permits even our mental acts to be experienced as temporal. This deepest level also provides the ultimate context in which the identity of the ego is constituted. In one way, we achieve our conscious identity through the memories that we store and recall, but these memories themselves have to be stitched together by the deepest level of temporality in order to be recoverable as belonging to one and the same self. Husserl observes that on this deepest level of the consciousness of inner time, we never have a simple atomic present: what we come to as ultimate is a moving form Husserl, Edmund Husserl, Edmund 406 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 406 that has a retention of the immediate past, a protention of that which is coming, and a central core. This form of inner time-consciousness, the form of what Husserl calls “the living present,” is prior even to the ego and is a kind of apex reached by his philosophical analysis. One of the important themes that Husserl developed in the last decade of his work is that of the life-world or Lebenswelt. He claims that scientific and mathematical abstraction has roots in the prescientific world, the world in which we live. This world has its own structures of appearance, identification, evidence, and truth, and the scientific world is established on its basis. One of the tasks of phenomenology is to show how the idealized entities of science draw their sense from the life-world. Husserl claims, e.g., that geometrical forms have their roots in the activity of measuring and in the idealization of the volumes, surfaces, edges, and intersections we experience in the life-world. The sense of the scientific world and its entities should not be placed in opposition to the life-world, but should be shown, by phenomenological analysis, to be a development of appearances found in it. In addition, the structures and evidences of the lifeworld itself must be philosophically described. Husserl’s influence in philosophy has been very great during the entire twentieth century, especially in Continental Europe. His concept of intentionality is understood as a way of overcoming the Cartesian dualism between mind and world, and his study of signs, formal systems, and parts and wholes has been valuable in structuralism and literary theory. His concept of the life-world has been used as a way of integrating science with wider forms of human activity, and his concepts of time and personal identity have been useful in psychoanalytic theory and existentialism. He has inspired work in the social sciences and recently his ideas have proved helpful to scholars in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. See also BRENTANO, INTENTIONALITY, KANT, PHENOMENOLOGY. R.So. Hutcheson, Francis (1694–1746), Scottish philosopher who was the chief exponent of the early modern moral sense theory and of a similar theory postulating a sense of beauty. He was born in Drumalig, Ireland, and completed his theological training in 1717 at the University of Glasgow, where he later taught moral philosophy. He was a Presbyterian minister and founded an academy for Presbyterian youth in Dublin. Sparked by Hobbes’s thesis, in Leviathan (1651), that human beings always act out of selfinterest, moral debate in the eighteenth century was preoccupied with the possibility of a genuine benevolence. Hutcheson characterized his first work, An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), as a defense of the nonegoistic moral sense theory of his more immediate predecessor, Shaftesbury, against the egoism of Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733). His second work, An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections with Illustrations on the Moral Sense (1728), explores the psychology of human action, apparently influenced by Butler’s classification of the passions (in his Sermons, 1726). Hutcheson asserts the existence of several “internal” senses – i.e., capacities for perceptual responses to concepts (such as one’s idea of Nero’s character), as opposed to perceptions of physical objects. Among these internal senses are those of honor, sympathy, morality, and beauty. Only the latter two, however, are discussed in detail by Hutcheson, who develops his account of each within the framework of Locke’s empiricist epistemology. For Hutcheson, the idea of beauty is produced in us when we experience pleasure upon thinking of certain natural objects or artifacts, just as our idea of moral goodness is occasioned by the approval we feel toward an agent when we think of her actions, even if they in no way benefit us. Beauty and goodness (and their opposites) are analogous to Lockean secondary qualities, such as colors, tastes, smells, and sounds, in that their existence depends somehow on the minds of perceivers. The quality the sense of beauty consistently finds pleasurable is a pattern of “uniformity amidst variety,” while the quality the moral sense invariably approves is benevolence. A principal reason for thinking we possess a moral sense, according to Hutcheson, is that we approve of many actions unrelated or even contrary to our interests – a fact that suggests not all approval is reason-based. Further, he argues that attempts to explain our feelings of approval or disapproval without referring to a moral sense are futile: our reasons are ultimately grounded in the fact that we simply are constituted to care about others and take pleasure in benevolence (the quality of being concerned about others for their own sakes). For instance, we approve of temperance because overindulgence signifies selfishness, and selfishness is contrary to benevolence. Hutcheson also finds that the ends promoted by the benevolent person have a tendency to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Thus, since he regards Hutcheson, Francis Hutcheson, Francis 407 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 407 being motivated by benevolence as what makes actions morally good, Hutcheson’s theory is a version of motive utilitarianism. On Hutcheson’s moral psychology, we are motivated, ultimately, not by reason alone, but by desires that arise in us at the prospect of our own or others’ pleasure. Hutcheson formulates several quantitative maxims that purport to relate the strength of motivating desires to the degrees of good, or benefit, projected for different actions – an analysis that anticipates Bentham’s hedonic calculus. Hutcheson was also one of the first philosophers to recognize and make use of the distinction between exciting, or motivating, reasons and justifying reasons. Exciting reasons are affections, or desires, ascribed to an agent as motives that explain particular actions. Justifying reasons derive from the approval of the moral sense and serve to indicate why a certain action is morally good. The connection between these two kinds of reasons has been a source of considerable debate. Contemporary critics included John Balguy (1686–1748), who charged that Hutcheson’s moral theory renders virtue arbitrary, since it depends on whatever human nature God happened to give us, which could just as well have been such as to make us delight in malice. Hutcheson discussed his views in correspondence with Hume, who later sent Hutcheson the unpublished manuscript of his own account of moral sentiment (Book III of A Treatise of Human Nature). As a teacher of Adam Smith, Hutcheson helped shape Smith’s widely influential economic and moral theories. Hutcheson’s major works also include A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (originally published in Latin in 1742) and A System of Moral Philosophy (1755). See also BENTHAM, HUME, MORAL SENSE THEORY, SMITH. E.S.R. Huygens, Christiaan (1629–95), Dutch physicist and astronomer who ranked among the leading experimental scientists of his time and influenced many other thinkers, including Leibniz. He wrote on physics and astronomy in Latin (Horologium Oscillatorium, 1673; De Vi Centrifuga, 1703) and in French for the Journal des Scavans. He became a founding member of the French Academy of Sciences. Huygens ground lenses, built telescopes, discovered the rings of Saturn, and invented the pendulum clock. His most popular composition, Cosmotheoros (1699), inspired by Fontenelle, praises a divine architect and conjectures the possible existence of rational beings on other planets. J.-L.S. Hwajaeng-non. See KOREAN PHILOSOPHY. hyle, ancient Greek term for matter. Aristotle brought the word into use in philosophy by contrast with the term for form, and as designating one of the four causes. By hyle Aristotle usually means ‘that out of which something has been made’, but he can also mean by it ‘that which has form’. In Aristotelian philosophy hyle is sometimes also identified with potentiality and with substrate. Neoplatonists identified hyle with the receptacle of Plato. See also ARISTOTLE, FORM, HYLOMORPHISM, METAPHYSICS, SUBSTANCE. P.Wo. hylomorphism, the doctrine, first taught by Aristotle, that concrete substance consists of form in matter (hyle). The details of this theory are explored in the central books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Zeta, Eta, and Theta). See also ARISTOTLE, FORM, HYLE, SUBSTANCE. P.Wo. hylozoism (from Greek hyle, ‘matter’, and zoe, ‘life’), the doctrine that matter is intrinsically alive, or that all bodies, from the world as a whole down to the smallest corpuscle, have some degree or some kind of life. It differs from panpsychism though the distinction is sometimes blurred – in upholding the universal presence of life per se, rather than of soul or of psychic attributes. Inasmuch as it may also hold that there are no living entities not constituted of matter, hylozoism is often criticized by theistic philosophers as a form of atheism. The term was introduced polemically by Ralph Cudworth, the seventeenth-century Cambridge Platonist, to help define a position that is significantly in contrast to soul–body dualism (Pythagoras, Plato, Descartes), reductive materialism (Democritus, Hobbes), and Aristotelian hylomorphism. So understood, hylozoism had many advocates in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, among both scientists and naturalistically minded philosophers. In the twentieth century, the term has come to be used, rather unhelpfully, to characterize the animistic and naive-vitalist views of the early Greek philosophers, especially Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, and Empedocles – who could hardly count as hylozoists in Cudworth’s sophisticated sense. See also ARTIFICIAL LIFE, CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS, HYLOMORPHISM, PANPSYCHISM. A.P.D.M. Hypatia (c.370–415), Greek Neoplatonist philosopher who lived and taught in Alexandria. She was brutally murdered by a Christian mob Huygens, Christiaan Hypatia 408 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 408 because of her associations with the city’s prefect, who was in conflict with its aggressive archbishop, Cyril. She is said to have written commentaries on certain mathematical works, but the only certain trace of her literary activity is in her father Theon’s commentary on book 3 of Ptolemy’s Almagest, which Theon says is Hypatia’s redaction. Hypatia appears to have been a very popular philosophy teacher. She presumably professed a standard Neoplatonist curriculum, using mathematics as a ladder to the intelligible world. A good sense of her views can be gained from the essays, hymns, and letters of her pupil Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais and an eclectic man of letters. Hypatia’s modern fame can be traced back to the anticlericalism of the Enlightenment; see, e.g., chapter 47 of Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1778). The most influential representation of her appeared in Charles Kingsley’s didactic historical novel Hypatia or New Foes with an Old Face (1853). The facts that – according to ancient report – Hypatia was not only a brilliant person, but a beautiful one who aroused the erotic passion of (at least) one student, and that she was stripped naked before being slaughtered, seem to have contributed to the revival of interest in her. See also NEOPLATONISM. I.M. hypostasis (from Latin, ‘substance’), the process of regarding a concept or abstraction as an independent or real entity. The verb forms ‘hypostatize’ and ‘reify’ designate the acts of positing objects of a certain sort for the purposes of one’s theory. It is sometimes implied that a fallacy is involved in so describing these processes or acts, as in ‘Plato was guilty of the reification of universals’. The issue turns largely on criteria of ontological commitment. See also METAPHYSICS, ONTOLOGICAL COMMITMENT. C.F.D. hypostatize. See HYPOSTASIS. hypothetical consent. See CONTRACTARIANISM. hypothetical construct. See OPERATIONALISM. hypothetical imperative. See KANT. hypothetical syllogism. See SYLLOGISM. hypothetico-deductive method, a method of testing hypotheses. Thought to be preferable to the method of enumerative induction, whose limitations had been decisively demonstrated by Hume, the hypothetico-deductive (H-D) method has been viewed by many as the ideal scientific method. It is applied by introducing an explanatory hypothesis resulting from earlier inductions, a guess, or an act of creative imagination. The hypothesis is logically conjoined with a statement of initial conditions. The purely deductive consequences of this conjunction are derived as predictions, and the statements asserting them are subjected to experimental or observational test. More formally, given (H • A) P O, H is the hypothesis, A a statement of initial conditions, and O one of the testable consequences of (H • A). If the hypothesis is ‘all lead is malleable’, and ‘this piece of lead is now being hammered’ states the initial conditions, it follows deductively that ‘this piece of lead will change shape’. In deductive logic the schema is formally invalid, committing the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. But repeated occurrences of O can be said to confirm the conjunction of H and A, or to render it more probable. On the other hand, the schema is deductively valid (the argument form modus tollens). For this reason, Karl Popper and his followers think that the H-D method is best employed in seeking falsifications of theoretical hypotheses. Criticisms of the method point out that infinitely many hypotheses can explain, in the H-D mode, a given body of data, so that successful predictions are not probative, and that (following Duhem) it is impossible to test isolated singular hypotheses because they are always contained in complex theories any one of whose parts is eliminable in the face of negative evidence. See also CURVE-FITTING PROBLEM, DUHEM, TESTABILITY. R.E.B.

Iamblichus. See COMMENTARIES ON PLATO, NEOPLATONISM. Ibn Bajja, Abu Bakr, in Latin, Avempace (d.1139), Spanish Islamic philosopher who was exceptionally well regarded by later Arabic authorities. During a career as a government official and vizier he wrote important treatises on philosophy but appears to have left most of them unfinished. One of them provides an important theory of the conjunction of the intellect with the human, based in part on notions of progressive abstraction of specific forms and the universality of the Active Intellect. Another offers a political philosophy grounded in assumptions about a representative of the virtuous city who exists within a hostile, erring city as a solitary or aberrant “weed.” P.E.W. Ibn Daud, Abraham, also called Rabad (c.1110– 80), Spanish Jewish historian and astronomer, a philosophic precursor of Maimonides. Born in Córdova and schooled by a beloved uncle, Baruch Albalia, in Jewish and Greco-Arabic learning, he fled the Almohad invasion of 1146, settling in Christian Toledo, where he was martyred. His Sefer ha-Qabbalah (1161; translated by Gerson Cohen as The Book of Tradition, 1967) finds providential continuity in Jewish intellectual history. His Emunah Ramah (1161; translated by Norbert Samuelson as The Exalted Faith, 1986) was written in Arabic but preserved in Hebrew. It anchors Jewish natural theology and ethics in Avicennan metaphysics, mitigated by a voluntaristic account of emanation and by the assertion that God created matter. Ibn Daud saves human freedom by holding that God knows undetermined events as possible. He defends prophecy as an outpouring of the Active Intellect – or of God – on those whose natures and circumstances permit their inspiration. Prophetic miracles are perfectly natural alterations of the familiar characters of things. See also AVICENNA. L.E.G. Ibn Gabirol, Solomon, in Latin, Avicebron (c.1020–c.1057), Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet, the author (in Arabic) of The Source of Life, a classic of Neoplatonic thought. This work was written without any explicit Jewish associations, and was preserved only in a twelfth-century Latin translation, the Fons vitae. Consequently, its author was assumed until the last century to be Muslim or Christian. Jewish Neoplatonists and mystics until the Renaissance were familiar with the work and its author, and its influence was felt in Christian Scholastic circles as well. Ibn Gabirol’s philosophy is also reflected in his epic Hebrew poem “The Royal Crown,” which merges the personal and religious feelings of the poet with a verse summary of his metaphysical and astronomical beliefs. The Fons vitae is a prolix and often inconsistent treatise, but exhibits radical creativity. The influence of Proclus and of the first Jewish Neoplatonist, the tenth-century Isaac Israeli, is also evident. Ibn Gabirol superimposes on the traditional Neoplatonic triad of universal substances, the Intellect, Soul, and Nature, another set of creative and more fundamental hypostases, the One, Divine Will, and Form and Matter. In one of his most radical formulations, this primordial Form and Matter are thought to suffuse not only the entire world that proceeds from them, but to be found within the One itself, Matter being identified with the divine essence, Form with Divine Will. Matter here emerges as prior and more essential to the divine being than Form; God by implication is identified primarily with potentiality and becoming, a point not lost upon the mystics. See also JEWISH PHILOSOPHY. A.L.I. Ibn Khaldun, ‘Abdurrahman (1332–1406), Arab historian, scholar, and politician, the first thinker to articulate a comprehensive theory of historiography and philosophy of history in his Muqaddima (final revision 1402), the introductory volume to his Universal History (Kitab al-’ibar, 1377–82). Born and raised in Tunis, he spent the politically active first part of his life in northwestern Africa and Muslim Spain. He moved to Cairo in 1382 to pursue a career as professor of Maliki law and judge. Ibn Khaldun created in the Muqaddima (English translation by F. Rosenthal, 1967) what he called an “entirely original science.” He established a scientific methodology for historiogra410 I phy by providing a theory of the basic laws operating in history so that not only could the occurrences of the past be registered but also “the how and why of events” could be understood. Historiography is based on the criticism of sources; the criteria to be used are inherent probability of the historical reports (khabar; plural: akhbar) – to be judged on the basis of an understanding of significant political, economic, and cultural factors – and their conformity with reality and the nature of the historical process. The latter he analyzed as the cyclical (every three generations, c.120 years) rise and decline of human societies (‘umran) insofar as they exhibit a political cohesiveness (‘afabiya) in accepting the authority of a dynastic head of state. Ibn Khaldun’s sources were the actual course of Islamic history and the injunctions about political and social behavior found in the Greek/Persian/Arab mirrors for princes and wisdom literature, welded together by an Aristotelian teleological realism/empiricism; by contrast, he was critical of the metaphysical Platonic utopias of thinkers like al-Farabi. His influence is to be felt in later Arab authors and in particular in Ottoman historiography. In the West, where he has been intensely studied since the eighteenth century, he has been variously seen as the founder of sociology, economic history, and other modern theories of state. (See A. Al-Azmeh, Ibn Khaldun, 1989.) See also ARABIC PHILOSOPHY. D.Gu. Ibn Rushd. See AVERROES. Ibn Sina. See AVICENNA. Ibn Tufayl, Abu Bakr (d.1186), Spanish Islamic philosopher who played an important role in promoting the philosophical career of Averroes. His own contribution, however, is a famous philosophical fantasy, Hayy ibn Yaqzan – an account of a solitary autodidact who grows up on a deserted island yet discovers by his own unaided efforts a philosophical (Aristotelian) explanation of the world and of divine truths. Later, having finally come in contact with human civilization, this character also recognizes the necessity of religious law and regulation for that other, essentially imperfect, society, although he holds himself personally above this requirement. The work attracted considerable attention in late seventeenth-century Europe following its publication in 1671. See also ARABIC PHILOSOPHY. P.E.W. I-Ching (“Book of Changes”), a Chinese divination manual that may have existed in some form as early as the seventh century B.C. It was not philosophically significant until augmented by a group of appendices, the “Ten Wings,” around 200 B.C. The book has tremendously influenced Chinese thought since the Han dynasty, for at least two reasons. First, it provided a cosmology that systematically grounded certain ideas, particularly Confucian ethical claims, in the nature of the cosmos. Second, it presented this cosmology through a system of loosely described symbols that provided virtually limitless interpretive possibilities. In order to “read” the text properly, one needed to be a certain kind of person. In this way, the I-Ching accommodated both intuitionism and self-cultivationism, two prominent characteristics of early Chinese thought. At the same time, the text’s endless interpretive possibilities allowed it to be used in widely different ways by a variety of thinkers. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, CONFUCIANISM. P.J.I. icon. See PEIRCE. id. See FREUD. idea, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whatever is immediately before the mind when one thinks. The notion of thinking was taken in a very broad sense; it included perception, memory, and imagination, in addition to thinking narrowly construed. In connection with perception, ideas were often (though not always – Berkeley is the exception) held to be representational images, i.e., images of something. In other contexts, ideas were taken to be concepts, such as the concept of a horse or of an infinite quantity, though concepts of these sorts certainly do not appear to be images. An innate idea was either a concept or a general truth, such as ‘Equals added to equals yield equals’, that was allegedly not learned but was in some sense always in the mind. Sometimes, as in Descartes, innate ideas were taken to be cognitive capacities rather than concepts or general truths, but these capacities, too, were held to be inborn. An adventitious idea, either an image or a concept, was an idea accompanied by a judgment concerning the non-mental cause of that idea. So, a visual image was an adventitious idea provided one judged of that idea that it was caused by something outside one’s mind, presumably by the object being seen. Ibn Rushd idea 411 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 411 See also BERKELEY, DESCARTES, HUME, LOCKE, PERCEPTION. G.S.P. idea, clear and distinct. See DESCARTES. idea, innate. See IDEA. idealism, the philosophical doctrine that reality is somehow mind-correlative or mind-coordinated – that the real objects constituting the “external world” are not independent of cognizing minds, but exist only as in some way correlative to mental operations. The doctrine centers on the conception that reality as we understand it reflects the workings of mind. Perhaps its most radical version is the ancient Oriental spiritualistic or panpsychistic idea, renewed in Christian Science, that minds and their thoughts are all there is – that reality is simply the sum total of the visions (or dreams?) of one or more minds. A dispute has long raged within the idealist camp over whether “the mind” at issue in such idealistic formulas was a mind emplaced outside of or behind nature (absolute idealism), or a nature-pervasive power of rationality of some sort (cosmic idealism), or the collective impersonal social mind of people in general (social idealism), or simply the distributive collection of individual minds (personal idealism). Over the years, the less grandiose versions of the theory came increasingly to the fore, and in recent times virtually all idealists have construed “the minds” at issue in their theory as separate individual minds equipped with socially engendered resources. There are certainly versions of idealism short of the spiritualistic position of an ontological idealism that (as Kant puts it at Prolegomena, section 13, n. 2) holds that “there are none but thinking beings.” Idealism need certainly not go so far as to affirm that mind makes or constitutes matter; it is quite enough to maintain (e.g.) that all of the characterizing properties of physical existents resemble phenomenal sensory properties in representing dispositions to affect mind-endowed creatures in a certain sort of way, so that these properties have no standing without reference to minds. Weaker still is an explanatory idealism which merely holds that an adequate explanation of the real always requires some recourse to the operations of mind. Historically, positions of the generally idealistic type have been espoused by numerous thinkers. For example, Berkeley maintained that “to be [real] is to be perceived” (esse est percipi). And while this does not seem particularly plausible because of its inherent commitment to omniscience, it seems more sensible to adopt “to be is to be perceivable” (esse est percipile esse). For Berkeley, of course, this was a distinction without a difference: if something is perceivable at all, then God perceives it. But if we forgo philosophical reliance on God, the matter looks different, and pivots on the question of what is perceivable for perceivers who are physically realizable in “the real world,” so that physical existence could be seen – not so implausibly – as tantamount to observability-in-principle. The three positions to the effect that real things just exactly are things as philosophy or as science or as “common sense” takes them to be – positions generally designated as Scholastic, scientific, and naive realism, respectively – are in fact versions of epistemic idealism exactly because they see reals as inherently knowable and do not contemplate mind-transcendence for the real. Thus, the thesis of naive (“commonsense”) realism that ‘External things exist exactly as we know them’ sounds realistic or idealistic according as one stresses the first three words of the dictum or the last four. Any theory of natural teleology that regards the real as explicable in terms of value could to this extent be counted as idealistic, in that valuing is by nature a mental process. To be sure, the good of a creature or species of creatures (e.g., their well-being or survival) need not be something mind-represented. But nevertheless, goods count as such precisely because if the creatures at issue could think about it, they would adopt them as purposes. It is this circumstance that renders any sort of teleological explanation at least conceptually idealistic in nature. Doctrines of this sort have been the stock-in-trade of philosophy from the days of Plato (think of the Socrates of the Phaedo) to those of Leibniz, with his insistence that the real world must be the best possible. And this line of thought has recently surfaced once more in the controversial “anthropic principle” espoused by some theoretical physicists. Then too it is possible to contemplate a position along the lines envisioned in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre (The Science of Knowledge), which sees the ideal as providing the determining factor for the real. On such a view, the real is not characterized by the science we actually have but by the ideal science that is the telos of our scientific efforts. On this approach, which Wilhelm Wundt characterized as “ideal-realism” (Idealrealismus; see his Logik, vol. 1, 2d ed., 1895), the knowledge that achieves adequation to the real idea, clear and distinct idealism 412 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 412 (adaequatio ad rem) by adequately characterizing the true facts in scientific matters is not the knowledge actually afforded by present-day science, but only that of an ideal or perfected science. Over the years, many objections to idealism have been advanced. Samuel Johnson thought to refute Berkeley’s phenomenalism by kicking a stone. He conveniently forgot that Berkeley goes to great lengths to provide for stones – even to the point of invoking the aid of God on their behalf. Moore pointed to the human hand as an undeniably mind-external material object. He overlooked that, gesticulate as he would, he would do no more than induce people to accept the presence of a hand on the basis of the handorientation of their experience. Peirce’s “Harvard Experiment” of letting go of a stone held aloft was supposed to establish Scholastic realism because his audience could not control their expectation of the stone’s falling to earth. But an uncontrollable expectation is still an expectation, and the realism at issue is no more than a realistic thought-exposure. Kant’s famous “Refutation of Idealism” argues that our conception of ourselves as mindendowed beings presupposes material objects because we view our mind-endowed selves as existing in an objective temporal order, and such an order requires the existence of periodic physical processes (clocks, pendula, planetary regularities) for its establishment. At most, however, this argument succeeds in showing that such physical processes have to be assumed by minds, the issue of their actual mind-independent existence remaining unaddressed. (Kantian realism is an intraexperiential “empirical” realism.) It is sometimes said that idealism confuses objects with our knowledge of them and conflates the real with our thought about it. But this charge misses the point. The only reality with which we inquirers can have any cognitive commerce is reality as we conceive it to be. Our only information about reality is via the operation of mind – our only cognitive access to reality is through the mediation of mind-devised models of it. Perhaps the most common objection to idealism turns on the supposed mind-independence of the real: “Surely things in nature would remain substantially unchanged if there were no minds.” This is perfectly plausible in one sense, namely the causal one – which is why causal idealism has its problems. But it is certainly not true conceptually. The objector has to specify just exactly what would remain the same. “Surely roses would smell just as sweet in a minddenuded world!” Well . . . yes and no. To be sure, the absence of minds would not change roses. But roses and rose fragrance and sweetness – and even the size of roses – are all factors whose determination hinges on such mental operations as smelling, scanning, measuring, and the like. Mind-requiring processes are needed for something in the world to be discriminated as a rose and determined to bear certain features. Identification, classification, property attribution are all required and by their very nature are all mental operations. To be sure, the role of mind is here hypothetical. (“If certain interactions with duly constituted observers took place, then certain outcomes would be noted.”) But the fact remains that nothing could be discriminated or characterized as a rose in a context where the prospect of performing suitable mental operations (measuring, smelling, etc.) is not presupposed. Perhaps the strongest argument favoring idealism is that any characterization of the real that we can devise is bound to be a mind-constructed one: our only access to information about what the real is is through the mediation of mind. What seems right about idealism is inherent in the fact that in investigating the real we are clearly constrained to use our own concepts to address our own issues – that we can learn about the real only in our own terms of reference. But what seems right about realism is that the answers to the questions we put to the real are provided by reality itself – whatever the answers may be, they are substantially what they are because it is reality itself that determines them to be that way. See also BERKELEY, FICHTE, HEGEL, KANT, METAPHYSICS. N.R. idealism, Critical. See KANT. idealism, transcendental. See KANT. ideal language, a system of notation that would correct perceived deficiencies of ordinary language by requiring the structure of expressions to mirror the structure of that which they represent. The notion that conceptual errors can be corrected and philosophical problems solved (or dissolved) by properly representing them in some such system figured prominently in the writings of Leibniz, Carnap, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Frege, among others. For Russell, the ideal, or “logically perfect,” language is one in which grammatical form coincides with logical form, there are no vague or ambiguous expresidealism, Critical ideal language 413 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 413 sions, and no proper names that fail to denote. Frege’s Begriffsschrift is perhaps the most thorough and successful execution of the ideal language project. Deductions represented within this system (or its modern descendants) can be effectively checked for correctness. See also CARNAP, FORMAL LANGUAGE, LOGICAL FORM, RUSSELL. S.T.K. ideal market, a hypothetical market, used as a tool of economic analysis, in which all relevant agents are perfectly informed of the price of the good in question and the cost of its production, and all economic transactions can be undertaken with no cost. A specific case is a market exemplifying perfect competition. The term is sometimes extended to apply to an entire economy consisting of ideal markets for every good. See also PERFECT COMPETITION, PHILOSOPHY OF ECONOMICS. A.N. ideal mathematics. See HILBERT’S PROGRAM. ideal observer, a hypothetical being, possessed of various qualities and traits, whose moral reactions (judgments or attitudes) to actions, persons, and states of affairs figure centrally in certain theories of ethics. There are two main versions of ideal observer theory: (a) those that take the reactions of ideal observers as a standard of the correctness of moral judgments, and (b) those that analyze the meanings of moral judgments in terms of the reactions of ideal observers. Theories of the first sort – ideal observer theories of correctness – hold, e.g., that judgments like ‘John’s lying to Brenda about her father’s death was wrong (bad)’ are correct provided any ideal observer would have a negative attitude toward John’s action. Similarly, ‘Alison’s refusal to divulge confidential information about her patient was right (good)’ is correct provided any ideal observer would have a positive attitude toward that action. This version of the theory can be traced to Adam Smith, who is usually credited with introducing the concept of an ideal observer into philosophy, though he used the expression ‘impartial spectator’ to refer to the concept. Regarding the correctness of moral judgments, Smith wrote: “That precise and distinct measure can be found nowhere but in the sympathetic feelings of the impartial and well-informed spectator” (A Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759). Theories of a second sort – ideal observer theories of meaning – take the concept of an ideal observer as part of the very meaning of ordinary moral judgments. Thus, according to Roderick Firth (“Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1952), moral judgments of the form ‘x is good (bad)’, on this view, mean ‘All ideal observers would feel moral approval (disapproval) toward x’, and similarly for other moral judgments (where such approvals and disapprovals are characterized as felt desires having a “demand quality”). Different conceptions of an ideal observer result from variously specifying those qualities and traits that characterize such beings. Smith’s characterization includes being well informed and impartial. However, according to Firth, an ideal observer must be omniscient; omnipercipient, i.e., having the ability to imagine vividly any possible events or states of affairs, including the experiences and subjective states of others; disinterested, i.e., having no interests or desires that involve essential reference to any particular individuals or things; dispassionate; consistent; and otherwise a “normal” human being. Both versions of the theory face a dilemma: on the one hand, if ideal observers are richly characterized as impartial, disinterested, and normal, then since these terms appear to be moral-evaluative terms, appeal to the reactions of ideal observers (either as a standard of correctness or as an analysis of meaning) is circular. On the other hand, if ideal observers receive an impoverished characterization in purely non-evaluative terms, then since there is no reason to suppose that such ideal observers will often all agree in their reactions to actions, people, and states of affairs, most moral judgments will turn out to be incorrect. See also ETHICAL OBJECTIVISM, ETHICS, RELATIVISM. M.C.T. ideal proposition. See HILBERT’s PROGRAM. ideal type. See MOSCA, WEBER. ideal utilitarianism. See RASHDALL, UTILITARIANISM. ideas of practical reason. See KANT. ideas of pure reason. See KANT. ideas of reflection. See LOCKE. ideas of sensation. See LOCKE. idea theory of meaning. See MEANING. ideational theory of meaning. See PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. ideal market ideational theory of meaning 414 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 414 identity, the relation each thing bears just to itself. Formally, a % b Q EF(Fa P Fb); informally, the identity of a and b implies and is implied by their sharing of all their properties. Read from left to right, this biconditional asserts the indiscernibility of identicals; from right to left, the identity of indiscernibles. The indiscernibility of identicals is not to be confused with a metalinguistic principle to the effect that if a and b are names of the same object, then each may be substituted for the other in a sentence without change of truth-value: that may be false, depending on the semantics of the language under discussion. Similarly, the identity of indiscernibles is not the claim that if a and b can be exchanged in all sentential contexts without affecting truth-value, then they name the same object. For such intersubstitutability may arise when the language in question simply lacks predicates that could discriminate between the referents of a and b. In short, the identity of things is not a relation among names. Identity proper is numerical identity, to be distinguished from exact similarity (qualitative identity). Intuitively, two exactly similar objects are “copies” of each other; still they are two, hence not identical. One way to express this is via the notions of extrinsic and intrinsic properties: exactly similar objects differ in respect of the former only. But we can best explain ‘instrinsic property’ by saying that a thing’s intrinsic properties are those it shares with its copies. These notions appear virtually interdefinable. (Note that the concept of an extrinsic property must be relativized to a class or kind of things. Not being in San Francisco is an extrinsic property of persons but arguably an intrinsic property of cities.) While qualitative identity is a familiar notion, its theoretical utility is unclear. The absolute notion of qualitative identity should, however, be distinguished from an unproblematic relative notion: if some list of salient properties is fixed in a given context (say, in mechanics or normative ethics), then the exactly similar things, relative to that context, are those that agree on the properties listed. Both the identity of indiscernibles and (less frequently) the indiscernibility of identicals are sometimes called Leibniz’s law. Neither attribution is apt. Although Leibniz would have accepted the former principle, his distinctive claim was the impossibility of exactly similar objects: numerically distinct individuals cannot even share all intrinsic properties. Moreover, this was not, for him, simply a law of identity but rather an application of his principle of sufficient reason. And the indiscernibility of identicals is part of a universal understanding of identity. What distinguishes Leibniz is the prominence of identity statements in his metaphysics and logical theory. Although identity remains a clear and basic logical notion, identity questions about problematic kinds of objects raise difficulties. One example is the identification of properties, particularly in contexts involving reduction. Although we know what identity is, the notion of a property is unclear enough to pose systematic obstacles to the evaluation of theoretically significant identity statements involving properties. Other difficulties involve personal identity or the possible identification of numbers and sets in the foundations of mathematics. In these cases, the identity questions simply inherit – and provide vivid ways of formulating – the difficulties pertaining to such concepts as person, property, or number; no rethinking of the identity concept itself is indicated. But puzzles about the relation of an ordinary material body to its constituent matter may suggest that the logician’s analysis of identity does not cleanly capture our everyday notion(s). Consider a bronze statue. Although the statue may seem to be nothing besides its matter, reflection on change over time suggests a distinction. The statue may be melted down, hence destroyed, while the bronze persists, perhaps simply as a mass or perhaps as a new statue formed from the same bronze. Alternatively, the statue may persist even as some of its bronze is dissolved in acid. So the statue seems to be one thing and the bronze another. Yet what is the bronze besides a statue? Surely we do not have two statues (or statuelike objects) in one place? Some authors feel that variants of the identity relation may permit a perspicuous description of the relation of statue and bronze: (1) tensed identity: Assume a class of timebound properties – roughly, properties an object can have at a time regardless of what properties it has at other times. (E.g., a statue’s shape, location, or elegance.) Then a % t b provided a and b share all timebound properties at time t. Thus, the statue and the bronze may be identical at time t 1 but not at t 2. (2) relative identity: a and b may be identical relative to one concept (or predicate) but not to another. Thus, the statue may be held to be the same lump of matter as the bronze but not the same object of art. identity identity 415 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 415 In each case, only detailed study will show whether the variant notion can at once offer a natural description of change and qualify as a viable identity concept. (Strong doubts arise about (2).) But it seems likely that our everyday talk of identity has a richness and ambiguity that escapes formal characterization. See also ESSENTIALISM, IDENTITY OF INDISCERNIBLES, PERSONAL IDENTITY, PROPERTY, TIME. S.J.W. identity, ‘is’ of. See IS. identity, psychophysical. See PHYSICALISM. identity, theoretical. See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. identity of indiscernibles, any of a family of principles, important members of which include the following: (1) If objects a and b have all properties in common, then a and b are identical. (2) If objects a and b have all their qualitative properties in common, then a and b are identical. (3) If objects a and b have all their non-relational qualitative properties in common, then a and b are identical. Two questions regarding these principles are raised: Which, if any, are true? If any are true, are they necessarily true? Discussions of the identity of indiscernibles typically restrict the scope of the principle to concrete objects. Although the notions of qualitative and non-relational properties play a prominent role in these discussions, they are notoriously difficult to define. Intuitively, a qualitative property is one that can be instantiated by more than one object and does not involve being related to another particular object. It does not follow that all qualitative properties are non-relational, since some relational properties, such as being on top of a brown desk, do not involve being related to some particular object. (1) is generally regarded as necessarily true but trivial, since if a and b have all properties in common then a has the property of being identical with b and b has the property of being identical with a. Hence, most discussions focus on (2) and (3). (3) is generally regarded as, at best, a contingent truth since it appears possible to conceive of two distinct red balls of the same size, shade of color, and composition. Some have argued that elementary scientific particles, such as electrons, are counterexamples to even the contingent truth of (3). (2) appears defensible as a contingent truth since, in the actual world, objects such as the red balls and the electrons differ in their relational qualitative properties. It has been argued, however, that (2) is not a necessary truth since it is possible to conceive of a world consisting of only the two red balls. In such a world, any qualitative relational property possessed by one ball is also possessed by the other. Defenders of the necessary truth of (2) have argued that a careful examination of such counterexamples reveals hidden qualitative properties that differentiate the objects. See also IDENTITY, INDIVIDUATION, LEIBNIZ, PROPERTY, SUBSTANCE. A.C. identity of persons. See PERSONAL IDENTITY. identity theory. See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. identity thesis. See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. ideographic. See WINDELBAND. ideology, generally a disparaging term used to describe someone else’s political views which one regards as unsound. This use derives from Marx’s employment of the term to signify a false consciousness shared by the members of a particular social class. For example, according to Marx, members of the capitalist class share the ideology that the laws of the competitive market are natural and impersonal, that workers in a competitive market are paid all that they can be paid, and that the institutions of private property in the means of production are natural and justified. See also MARXISM, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. J.P.St. ideo-motor action, a theory of the will according to which “every representation of a movement awakens in some degree the actual movement which is its object” (William James). Proposed by physiologist W. B. Carpenter, and taught by Lotze and Renouvier, ideo-motor action was developed by James. He rejected the regnant analysis of voluntary behavior, which held that will operates by reinstating “feelings of innervation” (Wundt) in the efferent nerves. Deploying introspection and physiology, James showed that feelings of innervation do not exist. James advanced ideo-motor action as the psychological basis of volition: actions tend to occur automatically when thought, unless inhibited by a contrary idea. Will consists in fixing attention on a identity, ‘is’ of ideo-motor action 416 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 416 desired idea until it dominates consciousness, the execution of movement following automatically. James also rejected Bain’s associationist thesis that pleasure or pain is the necessary spring of action, since according to ideo-motor theory thought of an action by itself produces it. James’s analysis became dogma, but was effectively attacked by psychologist E. L. Thorndike (1874– 1949), who proposed in its place the behavioristic doctrine that ideas have no power to cause behavior, and argued that belief in ideo-motor action amounted to belief in sympathetic magic. Thus did will leave the vocabulary of psychology. See also JAMES, VOLITION. T.H.L. idols of the cave. See BACON, FRANCIS. idols of the marketplace. See BACON, FRANCIS. idols of the mind. See BACON, FRANCIS. idols of the theater. See BACON, FRANCIS. idols of the tribe. See BACON, FRANCIS. iff, an abbreviation for ‘if and only if’ that is used as if it were a single propositional operator (connective). Another synonym for ‘iff’ is ‘just in case’. The justification for treating ‘iff’ as if it were a single propositional connective is that ‘P if and only if Q’ is elliptical for ‘P if Q, and P only if Q’, and this assertion is logically equivalent to ‘P biconditional Q’. See also BICONDITIONAL. R.W.B. ignoratio elenchi. See INFORMAL FALLACY. Il’in, Ivan Aleksandrovich (1883–1954), Russian philosopher and conservative legal and political theorist. He authored an important two-volume commentary on Hegel (1918), plus extensive writings in ethics, political theory, aesthetics, and spirituality. Exiled in 1922, he was known for his passionate opposition to Bolshevism, his extensive proposals for rebuilding a radically reformed Russian state, church, and society in a post-Communist future, and his devout Russian Orthodox spirituality. He is widely regarded as a master of Russian language and a penetrating interpreter of the history of Russian culture. His collected works are currently being published in Moscow. See also RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY. P.T.G. illation. See INDUCTION. illative. See INDUCTION. illative sense. See NEWMAN. illicit process of the major. See SYLLOGISM. illicit process of the minor. See SYLLOGISM. illocutionary act. See SPEECH ACT THEORY. illocutionary force. See PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, SPEECH ACT THEORY. illocutionary force potential. See SPEECH ACT THEORY. illusion, argument from. See PERCEPTION. image theory of meaning. See MEANING. image theory of memory. See MEMORY. imagination, the mental faculty sometimes thought to encompass all acts of thinking about something novel, contrary to fact, or not currently perceived; thus: “Imagine that Lincoln had not been assassinated,” or “Use your imagination to create a new design for roller skates.” ‘Imagination’ also denotes an important perception-like aspect of some such thoughts, so that to imagine something is to bring to mind what it would be like to perceive it. Philosophical theories of imagination must explain its apparent intentionality: when we imagine, we always imagine something. Imagination is always directed toward an object, even though the object may not exist. Moreover, imagination, like perception, is often seen as involving qualia, or special subjective properties that are sometimes thought to discredit materialist, especially functionalist, theories of mind. The intentionality of imagination and its perceptual character lead some theories to equate imagination with “imaging”: being conscious of or perceiving a mental image. However, because the ontological status of such images and the nature of their properties are obscure, many philosophers have rejected mental images in favor of an adverbial theory on which to imagine something red is best analyzed as imagining “redly.” Such theories avoid the difficulties associated with mental images, but must offer some other way to account for the apparent intentionality of imagination as well as its perceptual character. Imagination, in the hands of Husserl and Sartre, becomes a particularly apt subject for phenomenology. It is also cited as a faculty that idols of the cave imagination 417 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 417 separates human thought from any form of artificial intelligence. Finally, imagination often figures prominently in debates about possibility, in that what is imaginable is often taken to be coextensive with what is possible. See also CONCEIVABILITY, IDEA, INTENTIONALITY, PERCEPTION, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. L.-M.R. imaging. See IMAGINATION. immanence, a term most often used in contrast to ‘transcendence’ to express the way in which God is thought to be present in the world. The most extreme form of immanence is expressed in pantheism, which identifies God’s substance either partly or wholly with the world. In contrast to pantheism, Judaism and Christianity hold God to be a totally separate substance from the world. In Christianity, the separateness of God’s substance from that of the world is guaranteed by the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Aquinas held that God is in the world as an efficient cause is present to that on which it acts. Thus, God is present in the world by continuously acting on it to preserve it in existence. Perhaps the weakest notion of immanence is expressed in eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury deism, in which God initially creates the world and institutes its universal laws, but is basically an absentee landlord, exercising no providential activity over its continuing history. See also DEISM, NATURAL RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, TRANSCENDENCE. W.L.R. immanent causation. See AGENT CAUSATION. immaterial. See DISEMBODIMENT. immaterialism, the view that objects are best characterized as mere collections of qualities: “a certain colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple” (Berkeley, Principles, 1). So construed, immaterialism anticipates by some two hundred years a doctrine defended in the early twentieth century by Russell. The negative side of the doctrine comes in the denial of material substance or matter. Some philosophers had held that ordinary objects are individual material substances in which qualities inhere. The account is mistaken because, according to immaterialism, there is no such thing as material substance, and so qualities do not inhere in it. Immaterialism should not be confused with Berkeley’s idealism. The latter, but not the former, implies that objects and their qualities exist if and only if they are perceived. See also BERKELEY, IDEALISM, PHENOMENALISM. G.S.P. immediacy, presence to the mind without intermediaries. The term ‘immediate’ and its cognates have been used extensively throughout the history of philosophy, generally without much explanation. Descartes, e.g., explains his notion of thought thus: “I use this term to include everything that is within us in a way that we are immediately aware of it” (Second Replies). He offers no explanation of immediate awareness. However, when used as a primitive in this way, the term may simply mean that thoughts are the immediate objects of perception because thoughts are the only things perceived in the strict and proper sense that no perception of an intermediary is required for the person’s awareness of them. Sometimes ‘immediate’ means ‘not mediated’. (1) An inference from a premise to a conclusion can exhibit logical immediacy because it does not depend on other premises. This is a technical usage of proof theory to describe the form of a certain class of inference rules. (2) A concept can exhibit conceptual immediacy because it is definitionally primitive, as in the Berkeleian doctrine that perception of qualities is immediate, and perception of objects is defined by the perception of their qualities, which is directly understood. (3) Our perception of something can exhibit causal immediacy because it is not caused by intervening acts of perception or cognition, as with seeing someone immediately in the flesh rather than through images on a movie screen. (4) A belief-formation process can possess psychological immediacy because it contains no subprocess of reasoning and in that sense has no psychological mediator. (5) Our knowledge of something can exhibit epistemic immediacy because it is justified without inference from another proposition, as in intuitive knowledge of the existence of the self, which has no epistemic mediator. A noteworthy special application of immediacy is to be found in Russell’s notion of knowledge by acquaintance. This notion is a development of the venerable doctrine originating with Plato, and also found in Augustine, that understanding the nature of some object requires that we can gain immediate cognitive access to that object. Thus, for Plato, to understand the nature imaging immediacy 418 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 418 of beauty requires acquaintance with beauty itself. This view contrasts with one in which understanding the nature of beauty requires linguistic competence in the use of the word ‘beauty’ or, alternatively, with one that requires having a mental representation of beauty. Russell offers sense-data and universals as examples of things known by acquaintance. To these senses of immediacy we may add another category whose members have acquired special meanings within certain philosophical traditions. For example, in Hegel’s philosophy if (per impossibile) an object were encountered “as existing in simple immediacy” it would be encountered as it is in itself, unchanged by conceptualization. In phenomenology “immediate” experience is, roughly, bracketed experience. See also BERKELEY, EPISTEMOLOGY, IDEA, INFERENTIAL KNOWLEDGE, PERCEPTION, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. T.V. immediate inference. See INFERENCE. immortality. See DISEMBODIMENT, SOUL. impartiality, a state or disposition achieved to the degree that one’s actions or attitudes are not influenced in a relevant respect by which members of a relevant group are benefited or harmed by one’s actions or by the object of one’s attitudes. For example, a basketball referee and that referee’s calls are impartial when the referee’s applications of the rules are not affected by whether the calls help one team or the other. A fan’s approval of a call lacks impartiality if that attitude results from the fan’s preference for one team over the other. Impartiality in this general sense does not exclude arbitrariness or guarantee fairness; nor does it require neutrality among values, for a judge can be impartial between parties while favoring liberty and equality for all. Different situations might call for impartiality in different respects toward different groups, so disagreements arise, for example, about when morality requires or allows partiality toward friends or family or country. Moral philosophers have proposed various tests of the kind of impartiality required by morality, including role reversibility (Kurt Baier), universalizability (Hare), a veil of ignorance (Rawls), and a restriction to beliefs shared by all rational people (Bernard Gert). See also ETHICS, HARE, RAWLS, UNIVERSALIZABILITY. W.S.-A. imperative, categorical. See KANT. imperative, hypothetical. See KANT. imperfect duty. See DUTY, KANT. imperfect rights. See GROTIUS. implication, a relation that holds between two statements when the truth of the first ensures the truth of the second. A number of statements together imply Q if their joint truth ensures the truth of Q. An argument is deductively valid exactly when its premises imply its conclusion. Expressions of the following forms are often interchanged one for the other: ‘P implies Q’, ‘Q follows from P’, and ‘P entails Q’. (‘Entailment’ also has a more restricted meaning.) In ordinary discourse, ‘implication’ has wider meanings that are important for understanding reasoning and communication of all kinds. The sentence ‘Last Tuesday, the editor remained sober throughout lunch’ does not imply that the editor is not always sober. But one who asserted the sentence typically would imply this. The theory of conversational implicature explains how speakers often imply more than their sentences imply. The term ‘implication’ also applies to conditional statements. A material implication of the form ‘if P, then Q’ (often symbolized ‘P P Q’ or ‘P / Q’) is true so long as either the if-clause P is false or the main clause Q is true; it is false only if P is true and Q is false. A strict implication of the form ‘if P, then Q’ (often symbolized ‘P Q’) is true exactly when the corresponding material implication is necessarily true; i.e., when it is impossible for P to be true when Q is false. The following valid forms of argument are called paradoxes of material implication: Q. Therefore, P / Q. Not-P. Therefore, P / Q. The appearance of paradox here is due to using ‘implication’ as a name both for a relation between statements and for statements of conditional form. A conditional statement can be true even though there is no relation between its components. Consider the following valid inference: Butter floats in milk. Therefore, fish sleep at night / butter floats in milk. Since the simple premise is true, the conditional conclusion is also true despite the fact that the nocturnal activities of fish and the comparative densities of milk and butter are completely unreimmediate inference implication 419 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 419 lated. The statement ‘Fish sleep at night’ does not imply that butter floats in milk. It is better to call a conditional statement that is true just so long as it does not have a true if-clause and a false main clause a material conditional rather than a material implication. Strict conditional is similarly preferable to ‘strict implication’. Respecting this distinction, however, does not dissolve all the puzzlement of the so-called paradoxes of strict implication: Necessarily Q. Therefore, P Q. Impossible that P. Therefore, P Q. Here is an example of the first pattern: Necessarily, all rectangles are rectangles. Therefore, fish sleep at night all rectangles are rectangles. ‘All rectangles are rectangles’ is an example of a vacuous truth, so called because it is devoid of content. ‘All squares are rectangles’ and ‘5 is greater than 3’ are not so obviously vacuous truths, although they are necessary truths. Vacuity is not a sharply defined notion. Here is an example of the second pattern: It is impossible that butter always floats in milk yet sometimes does not float in milk. Therefore, butter always floats in milk yet sometimes does not float in milk fish sleep at night. Does the if-clause of the conclusion imply (or entail) the main clause? On one hand, what butter does in milk is, as before, irrelevant to whether fish sleep at night. On this ground, relevance logic denies there is a relation of implication or entailment. On the other hand, it is impossible for the if-clause to be true when the main clause is false, because it is impossible for the if-clause to be true in any circumstances whatever. See also COUNTERFACTUALS, FORMAL LOGIC, IMPLICATURE, PRESUPPOSITION, RELEVANCE LOGIC. D.H.S. implication, paradoxes of. See IMPLICATION. implication, strict. See IMPLICATION. implicature, a pragmatic relation different from, but easily confused with, the semantic relation of entailment. This concept was first identified, explained, and used by H. P. Grice (Studies in the Way of Words, 1989). Grice identified two main types of implicature, conventional and conversational. A speaker is said to conversationally implicate a proposition P in uttering a given sentence, provided that, although P is not logically implied by what the speaker says, the assumption that the speaker is attempting cooperative communication warrants inferring that the speaker believes p. If B says, “There is a garage around the corner” in response to A’s saying, “I am out of gas,” B conversationally implicates that the garage is open and has gas to sell. Grice identifies several conversational maxims to which cooperative speakers may be expected to conform, and which justify inferences about speakers’ implicatures. In the above example, the implicatures are due to the Maxim of Relevance. Another important maxim is that of Quantity (“Make your contribution as informative as is required”). Among implicatures due to the Maxim of Quantity are scalar implicatures, wherein the sentence uttered contains an element that is part of a quantitative scale. Utterance of such a sentence conversationally implicates that the speaker does not believe related propositions higher on the scale of informativeness. For instance, speakers who say, “Some of the zoo animals escaped,” implicate that they do not believe that most of the zoo animals escaped, or that all of the zoo animals escaped. Unlike conversational implicatures, conventional implicatures are due solely to the meaning of the sentence uttered. A sentence utterance is said by Grice to conventionally implicate a proposition, p, if the meaning of the sentence commits the speaker to p, even though what the sentence says does not entail p. Thus, uttering “She was poor but she was honest” implicates, but does not say, that there is a contrast between poverty and honesty. See also PRESUPPOSITION. M.M. implicit definition. See BETH’s DEFINABILITY THEOREM, DEFINITION. imposition, a property of terms resulting from a linguistic convention to designate something. Terms are not mere noises but significant sounds. Those designating extralinguistic entities, such as ‘tree’, ‘stone’, ‘blue’, and the like, were classified by the tradition since Boethius as terms of first imposition; those designating other terms or other linguistic items, such as ‘noun’, ‘declension’, and the like, were classified as terms of second imposition. The distinction between terms of first and second imposition belongs to the realm of written and spoken language, while the parallel distinction between terms of first and second implication, paradoxes of imposition 420 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 420 intention belongs to the realm of mental language: first intentions are, broadly, thoughts about trees, stones, colors, etc.; second intentions are thoughts about first intentions. See also INTENTIONALITY, METALANGUAGE. I.Bo. impredicative definition, the definition of a concept in terms of the totality to which it belongs. Russell, in the second (1925) edition of Principia Mathematica, introduced the term ‘impredicative’, prohibiting this kind of definition from the conceptual foundations of mathematics, on the grounds that they imply formal logical paradoxes. The impredicative definition of the set R of all sets that are not members of themselves in Russell’s paradox leads to the self-contradictory conclusion that R is a member of itself if and only if it is not a member of itself. To avoid antinomies of this kind in the formalization of logic, Russell first implemented in his ramified type theory the vicious circle principle, that no whole may contain parts that are definable only in terms of that whole. The limitation of ramified type theory is that without use of impredicative definitions it is impossible to quantify over all mathematical objects, but only over all mathematical objects of a certain order or type. Without being able to quantify over all real numbers generally, many of the most important definitions and theorems of classical real number theory cannot be formulated. Russell for this reason later abandoned ramified in favor of simple type theory, which avoids the logical paradoxes without outlawing impredicative definition by forbidding the predication of terms of any type (object, property and relation, higher-order properties and relations of properties and relations, etc.) to terms of the same type. See also DEFINITION, PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS, QUANTIFICATION, SET-THEORETIC PARADOXES, TYPE THEORY. D.J. impredicative property. See TYPE THEORY. impression. See HUME. improper symbol. See SYNCATEGOREMATA. inclusive disjunction. See DISJUNCTIVE PROPOSITION. incoherence, self-referential. See SELF-REFERENTIAL INCOHERENCE. incommensurability, in the philosophy of science, the property exhibited by two scientific theories provided that, even though they may not logically contradict one another, they have reference to no common body of data. Positivist and logical empiricist philosophers of science like Carnap had long sought an adequate account of a theoryneutral language to serve as the basis for testing competing theories. The predicates of this language were thought to refer to observables; the observation language described the observable world or (in the case of theoretical terms) could do so in principle. This view is alleged to suffer from two major defects. First, observation is infected with theory – what else could specify the meanings of observation terms except the relevant theory? Even to perceive is to interpret, to conceptualize, what is perceived. And what about observations made by instruments? Are these not completely constrained by theory? Second, studies by Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and others argued that in periods of revolutionary change in science the adoption of a new theory includes acceptance of a completely new conceptual scheme that is incommensurable with the older, now rejected, theory. The two theories are incommensurable because their constituent terms cannot have reference to a theory-neutral set of observations; there is no overlap of observational meaning between the competitor theories; even the data to be explained are different. Thus, when Galileo overthrew the physics of Aristotle he replaced his conceptual scheme – his “paradigm” – with one that is not logically incompatible with Aristotle’s, but is incommensurable with it because in a sense it is about a different world (or the world conceived entirely differently). Aristotle’s account of the motion of bodies relied upon occult qualities like natural tendencies; Galileo’s relied heavily upon contrived experimental situations in which variable factors could be mathematically calculated. Feyerabend’s even more radical view is that unless scientists introduce new theories incommensurable with older ones, science cannot possibly progress, because falsehoods will never be uncovered. It is an important implication of these views about incommensurability that acceptance of theories has to do not only with observable evidence, but also with subjective factors, social pressures, and expectations of the scientific community. Such acceptance appears to threaten the very possibility of developing a coherent methodology for science. See also PARADIGM, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, THEORETICAL TERM. R.E.B. incompatibilism. See FREE WILL PROBLEM. impredicative definition incompatibilism 421 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 421 incompleteness. See COMPLETENESS. incompleteness theorem. See GöDEL’s INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS. incomplete symbol. See LOGICAL CONSTRUCTION, RUSSELL, SYNCATEGOREMATA, THEORY OF DESCRIPTIONS. incompossible. See COMPOSSIBLE. inconsistent triad, (1) most generally, any three propositions such that it cannot be the case that all three of them are true; (2) more narrowly, any three categorical propositions such that it cannot be the case that all three of them are true. A categorical syllogism is valid provided the three propositions that are its two premises and the negation (contradiction) of its conclusion are an inconsistent triad; this fact underlies various tests for the validity of categorical syllogisms, which tests are often called “methods of” inconsistent triads. See also ANTILOGISM, SYLLOGISM. R.W.B. incontinence. See AKRASIA. incorrigibility. See PRIVILEGED ACCESS. indenumerable. See INFINITY. independence. See DEPENDENCE. independence, logical. See INDEPENDENCE RESULTS. independence, probabilistic. See PROBABILITY. independence, statistical. See PROBABILITY. independence results, proofs of non-deducibility. Any of the following equivalent conditions may be called independence: (1) A is not deducible from B; (2) its negation - A is consistent with B; (3) there is a model of B that is not a model of A; e.g., the question of the non-deducibility of the parallel axiom from the other Euclidean axioms is equivalent to that of the consistency of its negation with them, i.e. of non-Euclidean geometry. Independence results may be not absolute but relative, of the form: if B is consistent (or has a model), then B together with - A is (or does); e.g. models of non-Euclidean geometry are built within Euclidean geometry. In another sense, a set B is said to be independent if it is irredundant, i.e., each hypothesis in B is independent of the others; in yet another sense, A is said to be independent of B if it is undecidable by B, i.e., both independent of and consistent with B. The incompleteness theorems of Gödel are independence results, prototypes for many further proofs of undecidability by subsystems of classical mathematics, or by classical mathematics as a whole, as formalized in ZermeloFraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (ZF ! AC or ZFC). Most famous is the undecidability of the continuum hypothesis, proved consistent relative to ZFC by Gödel, using his method of constructible sets, and independent relative to ZFC by Paul J. Cohen, using his method of forcing. Rather than build models from scratch by such methods, independence (consistency) for A can also be established by showing A implies (is implied by ) some A* already known independent (consistent). Many suitable A* (Jensen’s Diamond, Martin’s Axiom, etc.) are now available. Philosophically, formalism takes A’s undecidability by ZFC to show the question of A’s truth meaningless; Platonism takes it to establish the need for new axioms, such as those of large cardinals. (Considerations related to the incompleteness theorems show that there is no hope even of a relative consistency proof for these axioms, yet they imply, by way of determinacy axioms, many important consequences about real numbers that are independent of ZFC.) With non-classical logics, e.g. second-order logic, (1)–(3) above may not be equivalent, so several senses of independence become distinguishable. The question of independence of one axiom from others may be raised also for formalizations of logic itself, where many-valued logics provide models. See also FORCING, GÖDEL’s INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS, SET THEORY. J.Bur. indeterminacy argument. See SKEPTICISM. indeterminacy of translation, a pair of theses derived, originally, from a thought experiment regarding radical translation first propounded by Quine in Word and Object (1960) and developed in his Ontological Relativity (1969), Theories and Things (1981), and Pursuit of Truth (1990). Radical translation is an imaginary context in which a field linguist is faced with the challenge of translating a hitherto unknown language. Furthermore, it is stipulated that the linguist has no access to bilinguals and that the language to be translated is historically unrelated to that of the linguist. Presumably, the only data the linguist has to go on are the observable behaviors of incompleteness indeterminacy of translation 422 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 422 native speakers amid the publicly observable objects of their environment. (1) The strong thesis of indeterminacy, indeterminacy of translation of theoretical sentences as wholes, is the claim that in the context of radical translation a linguist (or linguists) could construct a number of manuals for translating the (natives’) source language into the (linguists’) target language such that each manual could be consistent with all possible behavior data and yet the manuals could diverge with one another in countless places in assigning different target-language sentences (holophrastically construed) as translations of the same source-language sentences (holophrastically construed), diverge even to the point where the sentences assigned have conflicting truth-values; and no further data, physical or mental, could single out one such translation manual as being the uniquely correct one. All such manuals, which are consistent with all the possible behavioral data, are correct. (2) The weak thesis of indeterminacy, indeterminacy of reference (or inscrutability of reference), is the claim that given all possible behavior data, divergent target-language interpretations of words within a source-language sentence could offset one another so as to sustain different targetlanguage translations of the same source-language sentence; and no further data, physical or mental, could single out one such interpretation as the uniquely correct one. All such interpretations, which are consistent with all the possible behavioral data, are correct. This weaker sort of indeterminacy takes two forms: an ontic form and a syntactic form. Quine’s famous example where the source-language term ‘gavagai’ could be construed either as ‘rabbit’, ‘undetached rabbit part’, ‘rabbithood’, etc. (see Word and Object), and his proxy function argument where different ontologies could be mapped onto one another (see Ontological Relativity, Theories and Things, and Pursuit of Truth), both exemplify the ontic form of indeterminacy of reference. On the other hand, his example of the Japanese classifier, where a particular three-word construction of Japanese can be translated into English such that the third word of the construction can be construed with equal justification either as a term of divided reference or as a mass term (see Ontological Relativity and Pursuit of Truth), exemplifies the syntactic form of indeterminacy of reference. See also MEANING, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. R.F.G. indeterminacy principle. See QUANTUM MECHANICS. indeterminate. See VAGUENESS. index. See PEIRCE. indexical, a type of expression whose semantic value is in part determined by features of the context of utterance, and hence may vary with that context. Among indexicals are the personal pronouns, such as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘it’; demonstratives, such as ‘this’ and ‘that’; temporal expressions, such as ‘now’, ‘today’, ‘yesterday’; and locative expressions, such as ‘here’, ‘there’, etc. Although classical logic ignored indexicality, many recent practitioners, following Richard Montague, have provided rigorous theories of indexicals in the context of formal semantics. Perhaps the most plausible and thorough treatment of indexicals is by David Kaplan (b.1933; a prominent American philosopher of language and logic whose long-unpublished “Demonstratives” was especially influential; it eventually appeared in J. Almog, J. Perry, and H. Wettstein, eds., Themes from Kaplan, 1988). Kaplan argues persuasively that indexical singular terms are directly referential and a species of rigid designator. He also forcefully brings out a crucial lesson to be learned from indexicals, namely, that there are two types of meaning, which Kaplan calls “content” and “character.” A sentence containing an indexical, such as ‘I am hungry’, can be used to say different things in different contexts, in part because of the different semantic contributions made by ‘I’ in these contexts. Kaplan calls a term’s contribution to what is said in a context the term’s content. Though the content of an indexical like ‘I’ varies with its context, it will nevertheless have a single meaning in the language, which Kaplan calls the indexical’s character. This character may be conceived as a rule of function that assigns different contents to the indexical in different contexts. See also PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, TOKEN-REFLEXIVE. M.M. Indian philosophy. See BUDDHISM, HINDUISM, JAINISM. indicator, logical. See LOGICAL INDICATOR. indicator word. See LOGICAL INDICATOR. indifference, liberty of. See FREE WILL PROBLEM, HUME. indifference, principle of. See PRINCIPLE OF INDIFFERENCE. indeterminacy principle indifference, principle of 423 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 423 indirect consequentialism. See BUTLER. indirect discourse, also called oratio obliqua, the use of words to report what others say, but without direct quotation. When one says “John said, ‘Not every doctor is honest,’ “ one uses the words in one’s quotation directly – one uses direct discourseto make an assertion about what John said. Accurate direct discourse must get the exact words. But in indirect discourse one can use other words than John does to report what he said, e.g., “John said that some physicians are not honest.” The words quoted here capture the sense of John’s assertion (the proposition he asserted). By extension, ‘indirect discourse’ designates the use of words in reporting beliefs. One uses words to characterize the proposition believed rather than to make a direct assertion. When Alice says, “John believes that some doctors are not honest,” she uses the words ‘some doctors are not honest’ to present the proposition that John believes. She does not assert the proposition. By contrast, direct discourse, also called oratio recta, is the ordinary use of words to make assertions. See also INTENSIONALITY, QUANTIFYING IN, REFERENTIALLY TRANSPARENT. T.M. indirect intention. See INTENTION. indirect knowledge. See BASING RELATION. indirect passions. See HUME. indirect proof. See REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM. indirect sense. See OBLIQUE CONTEXT. indirect speech act. See SPEECH ACT THEORY. indiscernibility of identicals, the principle that if A and B are identical, there is no difference between A and B: everything true of A is true of B, and everything true of B is true of A; A and B have just the same properties; there is no property such that A has it while B lacks it, or B has it while A lacks it. A tempting formulation of this principle, ‘Any two things that are identical have all their properties in common’, verges on nonsense; for two things are never identical. ‘A is numerically identical with B’ means that A and B are one and the same. A and B have just the same properties because A, that is, B, has just the properties that it has. This principle is sometimes called Leibniz’s law. It should be distinguished from its converse, Leibniz’s more controversial principle of the identity of indiscernibles. A contraposed form of the indiscernibility of identicals – call it the distinctness of discernibles – reveals its point in philosophic dialectic. If something is true of A that is not true of B, or (to say the same thing differently) if something is true of B that is not true of A, then A and B are not identical; they are distinct. One uses this principle to attack identity claims. Classical arguments for dualism attempt to find something true of the mind that is not true of anything physical. For example, the mind, unlike everything physical, is indivisible. Also, the existence of the mind, unlike the existence of everything physical, cannot be doubted. This last argument shows that the distinctness of discernibles requires great care of application in intentional contexts. See also IDENTITY, INTENSIONALITY. D.H.S. individual. See METAPHYSICS. individualism. See POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. individualism, descriptive. See HOLISM. individualism, methodological. See METHODOLOGICAL HOLISM. individuation, (1) in metaphysics, a process whereby a universal, e.g., cat, becomes instantiated in an individual – also called a particular e.g., Minina; (2) in epistemology, a process whereby a knower discerns an individual, e.g., someone discerns Minina. The double understanding of individuation raises two distinct problems: identifying the causes of metaphysical individuation, and of epistemological individuation. In both cases the causes are referred to as the principle of individuation. Attempts to settle the metaphysical and epistemological problems of individuation presuppose an understanding of the nature of individuality. Individuality has been variously interpreted as involving one or more of the following: indivisibility, difference, division within a species, identity through time, impredicability, and non-instantiability. In general, theories of individuation try to account variously for one or more of these. Individuation may apply to both substances (e.g., Minina) and their features (e.g., Minina’s fur color), generating two different sorts of theories. The theories of the metaphysical individuation of substances most often proposed identify six types of principles: a bundle of features (Russell); space indirect consequentialism individuation 424 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 424 and/or time (Boethius); matter (Aristotle); form (Averroes); a decharacterized, sui generis component called bare particular (Bergmann) or haecceity (Duns Scotus); and existence (Avicenna). Sometimes several principles are combined. For example, for Aquinas the principle of individuation is matter under dimensions (materia signata). Two sorts of objections are often brought against these views of the metaphysical individuation of substances. One points out that some of these theories violate the principle of acquaintance,since they identify as individuators entities for which there is no empirical evidence. The second argues that some of these theories explain the individuation of substances in terms of accidents, thus contradicting the ontological precedence of substance over accident. The two most common theories of the epistemological individuation of substances identify spatiotemporal location and/or the features of substances as their individuators; we know a thing as an individual by its location in space and time or by its features. The objections that are brought to bear against these theories are generally based on the ineffectiveness of those principles in all situations to account for the discernment of all types of individuals. The theories of the metaphysical individuation of the features of substances fall into two groups. Some identify the substance itself as the principle of individuation; others identify some feature(s) of the substance as individuator(s). Most accounts of the epistemological individuation of the features of substances are similar to these views. The most common objections to the metaphysical theories of the individuation of features attempt to show that these theories are either incomplete or circular. It is argued, e.g., that an account of the individuation of features in terms of substance is incomplete because the individuation of the substance must also be accounted for: How would one know what tree one sees, apart from its features? However, if the substance is individuated by its features, one falls into a vicious circle. Similar points are made with respect to the epistemological theories of the individuation of features. Apart from the views mentioned, some philosophers hold that individuals are individual essentially (per se), and therefore that they do not undergo individuation. Under those conditions either there is no need for a metaphysical principle of individuation (Ockham), or else the principle of individuation is identified as the individual entity itself (Suárez). See also BUNDLE THEORY, IDENTITY, METAPHYSICS, PRINCIPIUM INDIVIDUATIONIS. J.J.E.G. indubitability. See PRIVILEGED ACCESS. induction, (1) in the narrow sense, inference to a generalization from its instances; (2) in the broad sense, any ampliative inference – i.e., any inference where the claim made by the conclusion goes beyond the claim jointly made by the premises. Induction in the broad sense includes, as cases of particular interest: argument by analogy, predictive inference, inference to causes from signs and symptoms, and confirmation of scientific laws and theories. The narrow sense covers one extreme case that is not ampliative. That is the case of mathematical induction, where the premises of the argument necessarily imply the generalization that is its conclusion. Inductive logic can be conceived most generally as the theory of the evaluation of ampliative inference. In this sense, much of probability theory, theoretical statistics, and the theory of computability are parts of inductive logic. In addition, studies of scientific method can be seen as addressing in a less formal way the question of the logic of inductive inference. The name ‘inductive logic’ has also, however, become associated with a specific approach to these issues deriving from the work of Bayes, Laplace, De Morgan, and Carnap. On this approach, one’s prior probabilities in a state of ignorance are determined or constrained by some principle for the quantification of ignorance and one learns by conditioning on the evidence. A recurrent difficulty with this line of attack is that the way in which ignorance is quantified depends on how the problem is described, with different logically equivalent descriptions leading to different prior probabilities. Carnap laid down as a postulate for the application of his inductive logic that one should always condition on one’s total evidence. This rule of total evidence is usually taken for granted, but what justification is there for it? Good pointed out that the standard Bayesian analysis of the expected value of new information provides such a justification. Pure cost-free information always has non-negative expected value, and if there is positive probability that it will affect a decision, its expected value is positive. Ramsey made the same point in an unpublished manuscript. The proof generalizes to various models of learning uncertain evidence. A deductive account is sometimes presented indubitability induction 425 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 425 where induction proceeds by elimination of possibilities that would make the conclusion false. Thus Mill’s methods of experimental inquiry are sometimes analyzed as proceeding by elimination of alternative possibilities. In a more general setting, the hypothetico-deductive account of science holds that theories are confirmed by their observational consequences – i.e., by elimination of the possibilities that this experiment or that observation falsifies the theory. Induction by elimination is sometimes put forth as an alternative to probabilistic accounts of induction, but at least one version of it is consistent with – and indeed a consequence of – probabilistic accounts. It is an elementary fact of probability that if F, the potential falsifier, is inconsistent with T and both have probability strictly between 0 and 1, then the probability of T conditional on not-F is higher than the unconditional probability of T. In a certain sense, inductive support of a universal generalization by its instances may be a special case of the foregoing, but this point must be treated with some care. In the first place, the universal generalization must have positive prior probability. (It is worth noting that Carnap’s systems of inductive logic do not satisfy this condition, although systems of Hintikka and Niiniluoto do.) In the second place, the notion of instance must be construed so the “instances” of a universal generalization are in fact logical consequences of it. Thus ‘If A is a swan then A is white’ is an instance of ‘All swans are white’ in the appropriate sense, but ‘A is a white swan’ is not. The latter statement is logically stronger than ‘If A is a swan then A is white’ and a complete report on species, weight, color, sex, etc., of individual A would be stronger still. Such statements are not logical consequences of the universal generalization, and the theorem does not hold for them. For example, the report of a man 7 feet 11¾ inches tall might actually reduce the probability of the generalization that all men are under 8 feet tall. Residual queasiness about the foregoing may be dispelled by a point made by Carnap apropos of Hempel’s discussion of paradoxes of confirmation. ‘Confirmation’ is ambiguous. ‘E confirms H’ may mean that the probability of H conditional on E is greater than the unconditional probability of H, in which case deductive consequences of H confirm H under the conditions set forth above. Or ‘E confirms H’ may mean that the probability of H conditional on E is high (e.g., greater than .95), in which case if E confirms H, then E confirms every logical consequence of H. Conflation of the two senses can lead one to the paradoxical conclusion that E confirms E & P and thus P for any statement, P. See also CONFIRMATION, MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION, MILL’s METHODS, PROBLEM OF INDUCTION. B.Sk. induction, eliminative. See INDUCTION. induction, intuitive. See ROSS. induction, mathematical. See MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION. induction, new riddle of. See GRUE PARADOX. induction, problem of. See PROBLEM OF INDUCTION. inductive clause. See MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION. inductive definition. See DEFINITION. inductive explanation. See COVERING LAW MODEL. inductive justification. See JUSTIFICATION. inductive probability. See PROBABILITY. inductivism, a philosophy of science invented by Popper and P. K. Feyerabend as a foil for their own views. According to inductivism, a unique a priori inductive logic enables one to construct an algorithm that will compute from any input of data the best scientific theory accounting for that data. See also ALGORITHM, DUHEM, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. B.Sk. infallibility. See PRIVILEGED ACCESS. inference, the process of drawing a conclusion from premises or assumptions, or, loosely, the conclusion so drawn. An argument can be merely a number of statements of which one is designated the conclusion and the rest are designated premises. Whether the premises imply the conclusion is thus independent of anyone’s actual beliefs in either of them. Belief, however, is essential to inference. Inference occurs only if someone, owing to believing the premises, begins to believe the conclusion or continues to believe the conclusion with greater confidence than before. Because inference requires a subject who has beliefs, some requirements of (an ideally) acceptable inference do not apply to abstract arguments: one must believe the premises; one must believe that the premises support the conclusion; neither of these beliefs induction, eliminative inference 426 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 426 may be based on one’s prior belief in the conclusion. W. E. Johnson called these the epistemic conditions of inference. In a reductio ad absurdum argument that deduces a self-contradiction from certain premises, not all steps of the argument will correspond to steps of inference. No one deliberately infers a contradiction. What one infers, in such an argument, is that certain premises are inconsistent. Acceptable inferences can fall short of being ideally acceptable according to the above requirements. Relevant beliefs are sometimes indefinite. Infants and children infer despite having no grasp of the sophisticated notion of support. One function of idealization is to set standards for that which falls short. It is possible to judge how nearly inexplicit, automatic, unreflective, lessthan-ideal inferences meet ideal requirements. In ordinary speech, ‘infer’ often functions as a synonym of ‘imply’, as in ‘The new tax law infers that we have to calculate the value of our shrubbery’. Careful philosophical writing avoids this usage. Implication is, and inference is not, a relation between statements. Valid deductive inference corresponds to a valid deductive argument: it is logically impossible for all the premises to be true when the conclusion is false. That is, the conjunction of all the premises and the negation of the conclusion is inconsistent. Whenever a conjunction is inconsistent, there is a valid argument for the negation of any conjunct from the other conjuncts. (Relevance logic imposes restrictions on validity to avoid this.) Whenever one argument is deductively valid, so is another argument that goes in a different direction. (1) ‘Stacy left her slippers in the kitchen’ implies (2) ‘Stacy had some slippers’. Should one acquainted with Stacy and the kitchen infer (2) from (1), or infer not-(1) from not-(2), or make neither inference? Formal logic tells us about implication and deductive validity, but it cannot tell us when or what to infer. Reasonable inference depends on comparative degrees of reasonable belief. An inference in which every premise and every step is beyond question is a demonstrative inference. (Similarly, reasoning for which this condition holds is demonstrative reasoning.) Just as what is beyond question can vary from one situation to another, so can what counts as demonstrative. The term presumably derives from Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. Understanding Aristotle’s views on demonstration requires understanding his general scheme for classifying inferences. Not all inferences are deductive. In an inductive inference, one infers from an observed combination of characteristics to some similar unobserved combination. ‘Reasoning’ like ‘painting’, and ‘frosting’, and many other words, has a process–product ambiguity. Reasoning can be a process that occurs in time or it can be a result or product. A letter to the editor can both contain reasoning and be the result of reasoning. It is often unclear whether a word such as ‘statistical’ that modifies the words ‘inference’ or ‘reasoning’ applies primarily to stages in the process or to the content of the product. One view, attractive for its simplicity, is that the stages of the process of reasoning correspond closely to the parts of the product. Examples that confirm this view are scarce. Testing alternatives, discarding and reviving, revising and transposing, and so on, are as common to the process of reasoning as to other creative activities. A product seldom reflects the exact history of its production. In An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, J. S. Mill says that reasoning is a source from which we derive new truths (Chapter 14). This is a useful saying so long as we remember that not all reasoning is inference. See also DEDUCTION, IMPLICATION, INDUCTION. D.H.S. inference rule. See LOGISTIC SYSTEM. inference to the best explanation, an inference by which one concludes that something is the case on the grounds that this best explains something else one believes to be the case. Paradigm examples of this kind of inference are found in the natural sciences, where a hypothesis is accepted on the grounds that it best explains relevant observations. For example, the hypothesis that material substances have atomic structures best explains a range of observations concerning how such substances interact. Inferences to the best explanation occur in everyday life as well. Upon walking into your house you observe that a lamp is lying broken on the floor, and on the basis of this you infer that the cat has knocked it over. This is plausibly analyzed as an inference to the best explanation; you believe that the cat has knocked over the lamp because this is the best explanation for the lamp’s lying broken on the floor. The nature of inference to the best explanation and the extent of its use are both controversial. Positions that have been taken include: (a) that it is a distinctive kind of inductive reasoning; (b) inference rule inference to the best explanation 427 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 427 that all good inductive inferences involve inference to the best explanation; and (c) that it is not a distinctive kind of inference at all, but is rather a special case of enumerative induction. Another controversy concerns the criteria for what makes an explanation best. Simplicity, cognitive fit, and explanatory power have all been suggested as relevant merits, but none of these notions is well understood. Finally, a skeptical problem arises: inference to the best explanation is plausibly involved in both scientific and commonsense knowledge, but it is not clear why the best explanation that occurs to a person is likely to be true. See also ABDUCTION, EXPLANATION, INDUCTION, INFERENCE, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. J.G. inferential justification. See FOUNDATIONALISM. inferential knowledge, a kind of “indirect” knowledge, namely, knowledge based on or resulting from inference. Assuming that knowledge is at least true, justified belief, inferential knowledge is constituted by a belief that is justified because it is inferred from certain other beliefs. The knowledge that 7 equals 7 seems non-inferential. We do not infer from anything that 7 equals 7 – it is obvious and self-evident. The knowledge that 7 is the cube root of 343, in contrast, seems inferential. We cannot know this without inferring it from something else, such as the result obtained when multiplying 7 times 7 times 7. Two sorts of inferential relations may be distinguished. ‘I inferred that someone died because the flag is at half-mast’ may be true because yesterday I acquired the belief about the flag, which caused me to acquire the further belief that someone died. ‘I inferentially believe that someone died because the flag is at halfmast’ may be true now because I retain the belief that someone died and it remains based on my belief about the flag. My belief that someone died is thus either episodically or structurally inferential. The episodic process is an occurrent, causal relation among belief acquisitions. The structural basing relation may involve the retention of beliefs, and need not be occurrent. (Some reserve ‘inference’ for the episodic relation.) An inferential belief acquired on one basis may later be held on a different basis, as when I forget I saw a flag at half-mast but continue to believe someone died because of news reports. That “How do you know?” and “Prove it!” always seem pertinent suggests that all knowledge is inferential, a version of the coherence theory. The well-known regress argument seems to show, however, that not all knowledge can be inferential, which is a version of foundationalism. For if S knows something inferentially, S must infer it correctly from premises S knows to be true. The question whether those premises are also known inferentially begins either an infinite regress of inferences (which is humanly impossible) or a circle of justification (which could not constitute good reasoning). Which sources of knowledge are non-inferential remains an issue even assuming foundationalism. When we see that an apple is red, e.g., our knowledge is based in some manner on the way the apple looks. “How do you know it is red?” can be answered: “By the way it looks.” This answer seems correct, moreover, only if an inference from the way the apple looks to its being red would be warranted. Nevertheless, perceptual beliefs are formed so automatically that talk of inference seems inappropriate. In addition, inference as a process whereby beliefs are acquired as a result of holding other beliefs may be distinguished from inference as a state in which one belief is sustained on the basis of others. Knowledge that is inferential in one way need not be inferential in the other. See also FOUNDATIONALISM, INFERENCE, PRACTICAL REASONING. W.A.D. infima species (Latin, ‘lowest species’), a species that is not a genus of any other species. According to the theory of classification, division, and definition that is part of traditional or Aristotelian logic, every individual is a specimen of some infima species. An infima species is a member of a genus that may in turn be a species of a more inclusive genus, and so on, until one reaches a summum genus, a genus that is not a species of a more inclusive genus. Socrates and Plato are specimens of the infima specis human being (mortal rational animal), which is a species of the genus rational animal, which is a species of the genus animal, and so on, up to the summum genus substance. Whereas two specimens of animal – e.g., an individual human and an individual horse – can differ partly in their essential characteristics, no two specimens of the infima species human being can differ in essence. See also ARISTOTLE, ESSENTIALISM, GENUS GENERALISSIMUM, TREE OF PORPHYRY. W.E.M. infinitary logic, the logic of expressions of infinite length. Quine has advanced the claim that firstorder logic (FOL) is the language of science, a position accepted by many of his followers. Howinferential justification infinitary logic 428 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 428 ever, many important notions of mathematics and science are not expressible in FOL. The notion of finiteness, e.g., is central in mathematics but cannot be expressed within FOL. There is no way to express such a simple, precise claim as ‘There are only finitely many stars’ in FOL. This and related expressive limitations in FOL seriously hamper its applicability to the study of mathematics and have led to the study of stronger logics. There have been various approaches to getting around the limitations by the study of so-called strong logics, including second-order logic (where one quantifies over sets or properties, not just individuals), generalized quantifiers (where one adds quantifiers in addition to the usual ‘for all’ and ‘there exists’), and branching quantifiers (where notions of independence of variables is introduced). One of the most fruitful methods has been the introduction of idealized “infinitely long” statements. For example, the above statement about the stars would be formalized as an infinite disjunction: there is at most one star, or there are at most two stars, or there are at most three stars, etc. Each of these disjuncts is expressible in FOL. The expressive limitations in FOL are closely linked with Gödel’s famous completeness and incompleteness theorems. These results show, among other things, that any attempt to systematize the laws of logic is going to be inadequate, one way or another. Either it will be confined to a language with expressive limitations, so that these notions cannot even be expressed, or else, if they can be expressed, then an attempt at giving an effective listing of axioms and rules of inference for the language will fall short. In infinitary logic, the rules of inference can have infinitely many premises, and so are not effectively presentable. Early work in infinitary logic used cardinality as a guide: whether or not a disjunction, conjunction, or quantifier string was permitted had to do only with the cardinality of the set in question. It turned out that the most fruitful of these logics was the language with countable conjunctions and finite strings of first-order quantifiers. This language had further refinements to socalled admissible languages, where more refined set-theoretic considerations play a role in determining what counts as a formula. Infinitary languages are also connected with strong axioms of infinity, statements that do not follow from the usual axioms of set theory but for which one has other evidence that they might well be true, or at least consistent. In particular, compact cardinals are infinite cardinal numbers where the analogue of the compactness theorem of FOL generalizes to the associated infinitary language. These cardinals have proven to be very important in modern set theory. During the 1990s, some infinitary logics played a surprising role in computer science. By allowing arbitrarily long conjunctions and disjunctions, but only finitely many variables (free or bound) in any formula, languages with attractive closure properties were found that allowed the kinds of inductive procedures of computer science, procedures not expressible in FOL. See also COMPACTNESS THEOREM, COMPLETENESS, GÖDEL’S INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS, INFINITY, SECOND-ORDER LOGIC. J.Ba. infinite, actual. See ARISTOTLE. infinite analysis, doctrine of. See LEIBNIZ. infinite regress argument, a distinctively philosophical kind of argument purporting to show that a thesis is defective because it generates an infinite series when either (form A) no such series exists or (form B) were it to exist, the thesis would lack the role (e.g., of justification) that it is supposed to play. The mere generation of an infinite series is not objectionable. It is misleading therefore to use ‘infinite regress’ (or ‘regress’) and ‘infinite series’ equivalently. For instance, both of the following claims generate an infinite series: (1) every natural number has a successor that itself is a natural number, and (2) every event has a causal predecessor that itself is an event. Yet (1) is true (arguably, necessarily true), and (2) may be true for all that logic can say about the matter. Likewise, there is nothing contrary to logic about any of the infinite series generated by the suppositions that (3) every free act is the consequence of a free act of choice; (4) every intelligent operation is the result of an intelligent mental operation; (5) whenever individuals x and y share a property F there exists a third individual z which paradigmatically has F and to which x and y are somehow related (as copies, by participation, or whatnot); or (6) every generalization from experience is inductively inferable from experience by appeal to some other generalization from experience. What Locke (in the Essay concerning Human Understanding) objects to about the theory of free will embodied in (3) and Ryle (in The Concept of Mind) objects to about the “intellectualist leginfinite, actual infinite regress argument 429 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 429 end” embodied in (4) can therefore be only that it is just plain false as a matter of fact that we perform an infinite number of acts of choice or operations of the requisite kinds. In effect their infinite regress arguments are of form A: they argue that the theories concerned must be rejected because they falsely imply that such infinite series exist. Arguably the infinite regress arguments employed by Plato (in the Parmenides) regarding his own theory of Forms and by Popper (in the Logic of Scientific Discovery) regarding the principle of induction proposed by Mill, are best construed as having form B, their objections being less to (5) or (6) than to their epistemic versions: (5*) that we can understand how x and y can share a property F only if we understand that there exists a third individual (the “Form” z) which paradigmatically has F and to which x and y are related; and (6*) that since the principle of induction must itself be a generalization from experience, we are justified in accepting it only if it can be inferred from experience by appeal to a higherorder, and justified, inductive principle. They are arguing that because the series generated by (5) and (6) are infinite, the epistemic enlightenment promised by (5*) and (6*) will forever elude us. When successful, infinite regress arguments can show us that certain sorts of explanation, understanding, or justification are will-o’-thewisps. As Passmore has observed (in Philosophical Reasoning) there is an important sense of ‘explain’ in which it is impossible to explain predication. We cannot explain x’s and y’s possession of the common property F by saying that they are called by the same name (nominalism) or fall under the same concept (conceptualism) any more than we can by saying that they are related to the same form (Platonic realism), since each of these is itself a property that x and y are supposed to have in common. Likewise, it makes no sense to try to explain why anything at all exists by invoking the existence of something else (such as the theist’s God). The general truths that things exist, and that things may have properties in common, are “brute facts” about the way the world is. Some infinite regress objections fail because they are directed at “straw men.” Bradley’s regress argument against the pluralist’s “arrangement of given facts into relations and qualities,” from which he concludes that monism is true, is a case in point. He correctly argues that if one posits the existence of two or more things, then there must be relations of some sort between them, and then (given his covert assumption that these relations are things) concludes that there must be further relations between these relations ad infinitum. Bradley’s regress misfires because a pluralist would reject his assumption. Again, some regress arguments fail because they presume that any infinite series is vicious. Aquinas’s regress objection to an infinite series of movers, from which he concludes that there must be a prime mover, involves this sort of confusion. See also EPISTEMIC REGRESS ARGUMENT, INFINITY, VICIOUS REGRESS. R.D.B. infinity, in set theory, the property of a set whereby it has a proper subset whose members can be placed in one-to-one correspondence with all the members of the set, as the even integers can be so arranged in respect to the natural numbers by the function f(x) = x/2, namely: Devised by Richard Dedekind in defiance of the age-old intuition that no part of a thing can be as large as the thing, this set-theoretical definition of ‘infinity’, having been much acclaimed by philosophers like Russell as a model of conceptual analysis that philosophers were urged to emulate, can elucidate the putative infinity of space, time, and even God, his power, wisdom, etc. If a set’s being denumerable – i.e., capable of having its members placed in one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers – can well appear to define much more simply what the infinity of an infinite set is, Cantor exhibited the real numbers (as expressed by unending decimal expansions) as a counterexample, showing them to be indenumerable by means of his famous diagonal argument. Suppose all the real numbers between 0 and 1 are placed in one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers, thus: Going down the principal diagonal, we can construct a new real number, e.g., .954 . . . , not found in the infinite “square array.” The most important result in set theory, Cantor’s theorem, is denied its full force by the maverick followers infinity infinity 430 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 430 of Skolem, who appeal to the fact that, though the real numbers constructible in any standard axiomatic system will be indenumerable relative to the resources of the system, they can be seen to be denumerable when viewed from outside it. Refusing to accept the absolute indenumerability of any set, the Skolemites, in relativizing the notion to some system, provide one further instance of the allure of relativism. More radical still are the nominalists who, rejecting all abstract entities and sets in particular, might be supposed to have no use for Cantor’s theorem. Not so. Assume with Democritus that there are infinitely many of his atoms, made of adamant. Corresponding to each infinite subset of these atoms will be their mereological sum or “fusion,” namely a certain quantity of adamant. Concrete entities acceptable to the nominalist, these quantities can be readily shown to be indenumerable. Whether Cantor’s still higher infinities beyond F1 admit of any such nominalistic realization remains a largely unexplored area. Aleph-zero or F0 being taken to be the transfinite number of the natural numbers, there are then F1 real numbers (assuming the continuum hypothesis), while the power set of the reals has F2 members, and the power set of that F3 members, etc. In general, K2 will be said to have a greater number (finite or transfinite) of members than K1 provided the members of K1 can be put in one-to-one correspondence with some proper subset of K2 but not vice versa. Skepticism regarding the higher infinities can trickle down even to F0, and if both Aristotle and Kant, the former in his critique of Zeno’s paradoxes, the latter in his treatment of cosmological antinomies, reject any actual, i.e. completed, infinite, in our time Dummett’s return to verificationism, as associated with the mathematical intuitionism of Brouwer, poses the keenest challenge. Recognition-transcendent sentences like ‘The total number of stars is infinite’ are charged with violating the intersubjective conditions required for a speaker of a language to manifest a grasp of their meaning. See also CONTINUUM PROBLEM, SET THEORY. J.A.B. infinity, axiom of. See SET THEORY. informal fallacy, an error of reasoning or tactic of argument that can be used to persuade someone with whom you are reasoning that your argument is correct when really it is not. The standard treatment of the informal fallacies in logic textbooks draws heavily on Aristotle’s list, but there are many variants, and new fallacies have often been added, some of which have gained strong footholds in the textbooks. The word ‘informal’ indicates that these fallacies are not simply localized faults or failures in the given propositions (premises and conclusion) of an argument to conform to a standard of semantic correctness (like that of deductive logic), but are misuses of the argument in relation to a context of reasoning or type of dialogue that an arguer is supposed to be engaged in. Informal logic is the subfield of logical inquiry that deals with these fallacies. Typically, informal fallacies have a pragmatic (practical) aspect relating to how an argument is being used, and also a dialectical aspect, pertaining to a context of dialogue – normally an exchange between two participants in a discussion. Both aspects are major concerns of informal logic. Logic textbooks classify informal fallacies in various ways, but no clear and widely accepted system of classification has yet become established. Some textbooks are very inventive and prolific, citing many different fallacies, including novel and exotic ones. Others are more conservative, sticking with the twenty or so mainly featured in or derived from Aristotle’s original treatment, with a few widely accepted additions. The paragraphs below cover most of these “major” or widely featured fallacies, the ones most likely to be encountered by name in the language of everyday educated conversation. The genetic fallacy is the error of drawing an inappropriate conclusion about the goodness or badness of some property of a thing from the goodness or badness of some property of the origin of that thing. For example, ‘This medication was derived from a plant that is poisonous; therefore, even though my physician advises me to take it, I conclude that it would be very bad for me if I took it.’ The error is inappropriately arguing from the origin of the medication to the conclusion that it must be poisonous in any form or situation. The genetic fallacy is often construed very broadly making it coextensive with the personal attack type of argument (see the description of argumentum ad hominem below) that condemns a prior argument by condemning its source or proponent. Argumentum ad populum (argument to the people) is a kind of argument that uses appeal to popular sentiments to support a conclusion. Sometimes called “appeal to the gallery” or “appeal to popular pieties” or even “mob appeal,” this kind of argument has traditionally been portrayed as fallacious. However, there infinity, axiom of informal fallacy 431 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 431 need be nothing wrong with appealing to popular sentiments in argument, so long as their evidential value is not exaggerated. Even so, such a tactic can be fallacious when the attempt to arouse mass enthusiasms is used as a substitute to cover for a failure to bring forward the kind of evidence that is properly required to support one’s conclusion. Argumentum ad misericordiam (argument to pity) is a kind of argument that uses an appeal to pity, sympathy, or compassion to support its conclusion. Such arguments can have a legitimate place in some discussions – e.g., in appeals for charitable donations. But they can also put emotional pressure on a respondent in argument to try to cover up a weak case. For example, a student who does not have a legitimate reason for a late assignment might argue that if he doesn’t get a high grade, his disappointed mother might have a heart attack. The fallacy of composition is the error of arguing from a property of parts of a whole to a property of the whole – e.g., ‘The important parts of this machine are light; therefore this machine is light.’ But a property of the parts cannot always be transferred to the whole. In some cases, examples of the fallacy of composition are arguments from all the parts to a whole, e.g. ‘Everybody in the country pays her debts. Therefore the country pays its debts.’ The fallacy of division is the converse of that of composition: the error of arguing from a property of the whole to a property of its parts – e.g., ‘This machine is heavy; therefore all the parts of this machine are heavy.’ The problem is that the property possessed by the whole need not transfer to the parts. The fallacy of false cause, sometimes called post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this), is the error of arguing that because two events are correlated with one another, especially when they vary together, the one is the cause of the other. For example, there might be a genuine correlation between the stork population in certain areas of Europe and the human birth rate. But it would be an error to conclude, on that basis alone, that the presence of storks causes babies to be born. In general, however, correlation is good, if sometimes weak, evidence for causation. The problem comes in when the evidential strength of the correlation is exaggerated as causal evidence. The apparent connection could just be coincidence, or due to other factors that have not been taken into account, e.g., some third factor that causes both the events that are correlated with each other. The fallacy of secundum quid (neglecting qualifications) occurs where someone is arguing from a general rule to a particular case, or vice versa. One version of it is arguing from a general rule while overlooking or suppressing legitimate exceptions. This kind of error has also often been called the fallacy of accident. An example would be the argument ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of speech; therefore it is my right to shout “Fire” in this crowded theater if I want to.’ The other version of secundum quid, sometimes also called the fallacy of converse accident, or the fallacy of hasty generalization, is the error of trying to argue from a particular case to a general rule that does not properly fit that case. An example would be the argument ‘Tweetie [an ostrich] is a bird that does not fly; therefore birds do not fly’. The fault is the failure to recognize or acknowledge that Tweetie is not a typical bird with respect to flying. Argumentum consensus gentium (argument from the consensus of the nations) is a kind that appeals to the common consent of mankind to support a conclusion. Numerous philosophers and theologians in the past have appealed to this kind of argument to support conclusions like the existence of God and the binding character of moral principles. For example, ‘Belief in God is practically universal among human beings past and present; therefore there is a practical weight of presumption in favor of the truth of the proposition that God exists’. A version of the consensus gentium argument represented by this example has sometimes been put forward in logic textbooks as an instance of the argumentum ad populum (described above) called the argument from popularity: ‘Everybody believes (accepts) P as true; therefore P is true’. If interpreted as applicable in all cases, the argument from popularity is not generally sound, and may be regarded as a fallacy. However, if regarded as a presumptive inference that only applies in some cases, and as subject to withdrawal where evidence to the contrary exists, it can sometimes be regarded as a weak but plausible argument, useful to serve as a provisional guide to prudent action or reasoned commitment. Argumentum ad hominem (literally, argument against the man) is a kind of argument that uses a personal attack against an arguer to refute her argument. In the abusive or personal variant, the character of the arguer (especially character for veracity) is attacked; e.g., ‘You can’t believe what Smith says – he is a liar’. In evaluating testimony (e.g., in legal cross-examination), attacking an arguer’s character can be legitimate in some cases. Also in political debate, character can be a legitimate issue. However, ad hominem arguinformal fallacy informal fallacy 432 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 432 ments are commonly used fallaciously in attacking an opponent unfairly – e.g., where the attack is not merited, or where it is used to distract an audience from more relevant lines of argument. In the circumstantial variant, an arguer’s personal circumstances are claimed to be in conflict with his argument, implying that the arguer is either confused or insincere; e.g., ‘You don’t practice what you preach’. For example, a politician who has once advocated not raising taxes may be accused of “flip-flopping” if he himself subsequently favors legislation to raise taxes. This type of argument is not inherently fallacious, but it can go badly wrong, or be used in a fallacious way, for example if circumstances changed, or if the alleged conflict was less serious than the attacker claimed. Another variant is the “poisoning the well” type of ad hominem argument, where an arguer is said to have shown no regard for the truth, the implication being that nothing he says henceforth can ever be trusted as reliable. Yet another variant of the ad hominem argument often cited in logic textbooks is the tu quoque (you-too reply), where the arguer attacked by an ad hominem argument turns around and says, “What about you? Haven’t you ever lied before? You’re just as bad.” Still another variant is the bias type of ad hominem argument, where one party in an argument charges the other with not being honest or impartial or with having hidden motivations or personal interests at stake. Argumentum ad baculum (argument to the club) is a kind of argument that appeals to a threat or to fear in order to support a conclusion, or to intimidate a respondent into accepting it. Ad baculum arguments often take an indirect form; e.g., ‘If you don’t do this, harmful consequences to you might follow’. In such cases the utterance can often be taken as a threat. Ad baculum arguments are not inherently fallacious, because appeals to threatening or fearsome sanctions – e.g., harsh penalties for drunken driving – are not necessarily failures of critical argumentation. But because ad baculum arguments are powerful in eliciting emotions, they are often used persuasively as sophistical tactics in argumentation to avoid fulfilling the proper requirements of a burden of proof. Argument from authority is a kind of argument that uses expert opinion (de facto authority) or the pronouncement of someone invested with an institutional office or title (de jure authority) to support a conclusion. As a practical but fallible method of steering discussion toward a presumptive conclusion, the argument from authority can be a reasonable way of shifting a burden of proof. However, if pressed too hard in a discussion or portrayed as a better justification for a conclusion than the evidence warrants, it can become a fallacious argumentum ad verecundiam (see below). It should be noted, however, that arguments based on expert opinions are widely accepted both in artificial intelligence and everyday argumentation as legitimate and sound under the right conditions. Although arguments from authority have been strongly condemned during some historical periods as inherently fallacious, the current climate of opinion is to think of them as acceptable in some cases, even if they are fallible arguments that can easily go wrong or be misused by sophistical persuaders. Argumentum ad judicium represents a kind of knowledge-based argumentation that is empirical, as opposed to being based on an arguer’s personal opinion or viewpoint. In modern terminology, it apparently refers to an argument based on objective evidence, as opposed to somebody’s subjective opinion. The term appears to have been invented by Locke to contrast three commonly used kinds of arguments and a fourth special type of argument. The first three types of argument are based on premises that the respondent of the argument is taken to have already accepted. Thus these can all be called “personal” in nature. The fourth kind of argument – argumentum ad judicium – does not have to be based on what some person accepts, and so could perhaps be called “impersonal.” Locke writes that the first three kinds of arguments can dispose a person for the reception of truth, but cannot help that person to the truth. Only the argumentum ad judicium can do that. The first three types of arguments come from “my shamefacedness, ignorance or error,” whereas the argumentum ad judicium “comes from proofs and arguments and light arising from the nature of things themselves.” The first three types of arguments have only a preparatory function in finding the truth of a matter, whereas the argumentum ad judicium is more directly instrumental in helping us to find the truth. Argumentum ad verecundiam (argument to reverence or respect) is the fallacious use of expert opinion in argumentation to try to persuade someone to accept a conclusion. In the Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) Locke describes such arguments as tactics of trying to prevail on the assent of someone by portraying him as irreverent or immodest if he does not readily yield to the authority of some learned informal fallacy informal fallacy 433 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 433 opinion cited. Locke does not claim, however, that all appeals to expert authority in argument are fallacious. They can be reasonable if used judiciously. Argumentum ad ignorantiam (argument to ignorance) takes the following form: a proposition a is not known or proved to be true (false); therefore A is false (true). It is a negative type of knowledge-based or presumptive reasoning, generally not conclusive, but it is nevertheless often non-fallacious in balance-of-consideration cases where the evidence is inconclusive to resolve a disputed question. In such cases it is a kind of presumption-based argumentation used to advocate adopting a conclusion provisionally, in the absence of hard knowledge that would determine whether the conclusion is true or false. An example would be: Smith has not been heard from for over seven years, and there is no evidence that he is alive; therefore it may be presumed (for the purpose of settling Smith’s estate) that he is dead. Arguments from ignorance ought not to be pressed too hard or used with too strong a degree of confidence. An example comes from the U.S. Senate hearings in 1950, in which Senator Joseph McCarthy used case histories to argue that certain persons in the State Department should be considered Communists. Of one case he said, “I do not have much information on this except the general statement of the agency that there is nothing in the files to disprove his Communist connections.” The strength of any argument from ignorance depends on the thoroughness of the search made. The argument from ignorance can be used to shift a burden of proof merely on the basis of rumor, innuendo, or false accusations, instead of real evidence. Ignoratio elenchi (ignorance of refutation) is the traditional name, following Aristotle, for the fault of failing to keep to the point in an argument. The fallacy is also called irrelevant conclusion or missing the point. Such a failure of relevance is essentially a failure to keep closely enough to the issue under discussion. Suppose that during a criminal trial, the prosecutor displays the victim’s bloody shirt and argues at length that murder is a horrible crime. The digression may be ruled irrelevant to the question at issue of whether the defendant is guilty of murder. Alleged failures of this type in argumentation are sometimes quite difficult to judge fairly, and a ruling should depend on the type of discussion the participants are supposed to be engaged in. In some cases, conventions or institutional rules of procedure – e.g. in a criminal trial – are aids to determining whether a line of argumentation should be judged relevant or not. Petitio principii (asking to be granted the “principle” or issue of the discussion to be proved), also called begging the question, is the fallacy of improperly arguing in a circle. Circular reasoning should not be presumed to be inherently fallacious, but can be fallacious where the circular argument has been used to disguise or cover up a failure to fulfill a burden of proof. The problem arises where the conclusion that was supposed to be proved is presumed within the premises to be granted by the respondent of the argument. Suppose I ask you to prove that this bicycle (the ownership of which is subject to dispute) belongs to Hector, and you reply, “All the bicycles around here belong to Hector.” The problem is that without independent evidence that shows otherwise, the premise that all the bicycles belong to Hector takes for granted that this bicycle belongs to Hector, instead of proving it by properly fulfilling the burden of proof. The fallacy of many questions (also called the fallacy of complex question) is the tactic of packing unwarranted presuppositions into a question so that any direct answer given by the respondent will trap her into conceding these presuppositions. The classical case is the question, “Have you stopped beating your spouse?” No matter how the respondent answers, yes or no, she concedes the presuppositions that (a) she has a spouse, and (b) she has beaten that spouse at some time. Where one or both of these presumptions are unwarranted in the given case, the use of this question is an instance of the fallacy of many questions. The fallacy of equivocation occurs where an ambiguous word has been used more than once in an argument in such a way that it is plausible to interpret it in one way in one instance of its use and in another way in another instance. Such an argument may seem persuasive if the shift in the context of use of the word makes these differing interpretations plausible. Equivocation, however, is generally seriously deceptive only in longer sequences of argument where the meaning of a word or phrase shifts subtly but significantly. A simplistic example will illustrate the gist of the fallacy: ‘The news media should present all the facts on anything that is in the public interest; the public interest in lives of movie stars is intense; therefore the news media should present all the facts on the private lives of movie stars’. This argument goes from plausible premises to an implausible conclusion by trading on the ambiguity of ‘public interest’. In one sense informal fallacy informal fallacy 434 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 434 it means ‘public benefit’ while in another sense it refers to something more akin to curiosity. Amphiboly (double arrangement) is a type of traditional fallacy (derived from Aristotle’s list of fallacies) that refers to the use of syntactically ambiguous sentences like ‘Save soap and waste paper’. Although the logic textbooks often cite examples of such sentences as fallacies, they have never made clear how they could be used to deceive in a serious discussion. Indeed, the example cited is not even an argument, but simply an ambiguous sentence. In cases of some advertisements like ‘Two pizzas for one special price’, however, one can see how the amphiboly seriously misleads readers into thinking they are being offered two pizzas for the regular price of one. Accent is the use of shifting stress or emphasis in speech as a means of deception. For example, if a speaker puts stress on the word ‘created’ in ‘All men were created equal’ it suggests (by implicature) the opposite proposition to ‘All men are equal’, namely ‘Not all men are (now) equal’. The oral stress allows the speaker to covertly suggest an inference the hearer is likely to draw, and to escape commitment to the conclusion suggested by later denying he said it. The slippery slope argument, in one form, counsels against some contemplated action (or inaction) on the ground that, once taken, it will be a first step in a sequence of events that will be difficult to resist and will (or may or must) lead to some dangerous (or undesirable or disastrous) outcome in the end. It is often argued, e.g., that once you allow euthanasia in any form, such as the withdrawal of heroic treatments of dying patients in hospitals, then (through erosion of respect for human life), you will eventually wind up with a totalitarian state where old, feeble, or politically troublesome individuals are routinely eliminated. Some slippery slope arguments can be reasonable, but they should not be put forward in an exaggerated way, supported with insufficient evidence, or used as a scare tactic. See also CIRCULAR REASONING, FORMAL FALLACY, IMPLICATURE, INFORMAL LOGIC, PRAGMATIC CONTRADICTION, VALID. D.W. informal logic, also called practical logic, the use of logic to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments as they occur in contexts of discourse in everyday conversations. In informal logic, arguments are assessed on a case-by-case basis, relative to how the argument was used in a given context to persuade someone to accept the conclusion, or at least to give some reason relevant to accepting the conclusion. See also CIRCULAR REASONING, FORMAL FALLACY, IMPLICATURE, INFORMAL FALLACY, PRAGMATIC CONTRADICTION, VALID. D.W. information-theoretic semantics. See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. information theory, also called communication theory, a primarily mathematical theory of communication. Prime movers in its development include Claude Shannon, H. Nyquist, R. V. L. Hartley, Norbert Wiener, Boltzmann, and Szilard. Original interests in the theory were largely theoretical or applied to telegraphy and telephony, and early development clustered around engineering problems in such domains. Philosophers (Bar-Hillel, Dretske, and Sayre, among others) are mainly interested in information theory as a source for developing a semantic theory of information and meaning. The mathematical theory has been less concerned with the details of how a message acquires meaning and more concerned with what Shannon called the “fundamental problem of communication” – reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message (that already has a meaning) selected at another point. Therefore, the two interests in information – the mathematical and the philosophical – have remained largely orthogonal. Information is an objective (mind-independent) entity. It can be generated or carried by messages (words, sentences) or other products of cognizers (interpreters). Indeed, communication theory focuses primarily on conditions involved in the generation and transmission of coded (linguistic) messages. However, almost any event can (and usually does) generate information capable of being encoded or transmitted. For example, Colleen’s acquiring red spots can contain information about Colleen’s having the measles and graying hair can carry information about her grandfather’s aging. This information can be encoded into messages about measles or aging (respectively) and transmitted, but the information would exist independently of its encoding or transmission. That is, this information would be generated (under the right conditions) by occurrence of the measles-induced spots and the age-induced graying themselves – regardless of anyone’s actually noticing. This objective feature of information explains its potential for epistemic and semantic development by philosophers and cognitive scientists. For example, in its epistemic dimension, a single (event, message, or Colleen’s spots) that contains informal logic information theory 435 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 435 (carries) the information that Colleen has the measles is something from which one (mom, doctor) can come to know that Colleen has the measles. Generally, an event (signal) that contains the information that p is something from which one can come to know that p is the case – provided that one’s knowledge is indeed based on the information that p. Since information is objective, it can generate what we want from knowledge – a fix on the way the world objectively is configured. In its semantic dimension, information can have intentionality or aboutness. What is happening at one place (thermometer reading rising in Colleen’s mouth) can carry information about what is happening at another place (Colleen’s body temperature rising). The fact that messages (or mental states, for that matter) can contain information about what is happening elsewhere, suggests an exciting prospect of tracing the meaning of a message (or of a thought) to its informational origins in the environment. To do this in detail is what a semantic theory of information is about. The mathematical theory of information is purely concerned with information in its quantitative dimension. It deals with how to measure and transmit amounts of information and leaves to others the work of saying what (how) meaning or content comes to be associated with a signal or message. In regard to amounts of information, we need a way to measure how much information is generated by an event (or message) and how to represent that amount. Information theory provides the answer. Since information is an objective entity, the amount of information associated with an event is related to the objective probability (likelihood) of the event. Events that are less likely to occur generate more information than those more likely to occur. Thus, to discover that the toss of a fair coin came up heads contains more information than to discover this about the toss of a coin biased (.8) toward heads. Or, to discover that a lie was knowingly broadcast by a censored, state-run radio station, contains less information than that a lie was knowingly broadcast by a non-censored, free radio station (say, the BBC). A (perhaps surprising) consequence of associating amounts of information with objective likelihoods of events is that some events generate no information at all. That is, that 55 % 3125 or that water freezes at 0oC. (on a specific occasion) generates no information at all – since these things cannot be otherwise (their probability of being otherwise is zero). Thus, their occurrence generates zero information. Shannon was seeking to measure the amount of information generated by a message and the amount transmitted by its reception (or about average amounts transmissible over a channel). Since his work, it has become standard to think of the measure of information in terms of reductions of uncertainty. Information is identified with the reduction of uncertainty or elimination of possibilities represented by the occurrence of an event or state of affairs. The amount of information is identified with how many possibilities are eliminated. Although other measures are possible, the most convenient and intuitive way that this quantity is standardly represented is as a logarithm (to the base 2) and measured in bits (short for how many binary digits) needed to represent binary decisions involved in the reduction or elimination of possibilities. If person A chooses a message to send to person B, from among 16 equally likely alternative messages (say, which number came up in a fair drawing from 16 numbers), the choice of one message would represent 4 bits of information (16 % 24 or log2 16 % 4). Thus, to calculate the amount of information generated by a selection from equally likely messages (signals, events), the amount of information I of the message s is calculated I(s) % logn. If there is a range of messages (s1 . . . sN) not all of which are equally likely (letting (p (si) % the probability of any si’s occurrence), the amount of information generated by the selection of any message si is calculated I(si) % log 1/p(si) % –log p(si) [log 1/x % –log x] While each of these formulas says how much information is generated by the selection of a specific message, communication theory is seldom primarily interested in these measures. Philosophers are interested, however. For if knowledge that p requires receiving the information that p occurred, and if p’s occurrence represents 4 bits of information, then S would know that p occurred only if S received information equal to (at least) 4 bits. This may not be sufficient for S to know p – for S must receive the right amount of information in a non-deviant causal way and S must be able to extract the content of the information – but this seems clearly necessary. Other measures of information of interest in communication theory include the average information, or entropy, of a source, information theory information theory 436 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 436 I(s) % 9p(si) $ I(si), a measure for noise (the amount of information that person B receives that was not sent by person A), and for equivocation (the amount of information A wanted or tried to send to B that B did not receive). These concepts from information theory and the formulas for measuring these quantities of information (and others) provide a rich source of tools for communication applications as well as philosophical applications. See also COMPUTER THEORY, EPISTEMOLOGY, PERCEPTION. F.A. informed consent, voluntary agreement in the light of relevant information, especially by a patient to a medical procedure. An example would be consent to a specific medical procedure by a competent adult patient who has an adequate understanding of all the relevant treatment options and their risks. It is widely held that both morality and law require that no medical procedures be performed on competent adults without their informed consent. This doctrine of informed consent has been featured in case laws since the 1950s, and has been a focus of much discussion in medical ethics. Underwritten by a concern to protect patients’ rights to self-determination and also by a concern with patients’ well-being, the doctrine was introduced in an attempt to delineate physicians’ duties to inform patients of the risks and benefits of medical alternatives and to obtain their consent to a particular course of treatment or diagnosis. Interpretation of the legitimate scope of the doctrine has focused on a variety of issues concerning what range of patients is competent to give consent and hence from which ones informed consent must be required; concerning how much, how detailed, and what sort of information must be given to patients to yield informed consent; and concerning what sorts of conditions are required to ensure both that there is proper understanding of the information and that consent is truly voluntary rather than unduly influenced by the institutional authority of the physician. See also ETHICS. J.R.M. Ingarden, Roman Witold (1893–1970), the leading Polish phenomenologist, who taught in Lvov and Cracow and became prominent in the English-speaking world above all through his work in aesthetics and philosophy of literature. His Literary Work of Art (German 1931, English 1973) presents an ontological account of the literary work as a stratified structure, including word sounds and meanings, represented objects and aspects, and associated metaphysical and aesthetic qualities. The work forms part of a larger ontological project of combating the transcendental idealism of his teacher Husserl, and seeks to establish the essential difference in structure between minddependent ‘intentional’ objects and objects in reality. Ingarden’s ontological investigations are set out in his The Controversy over the Existence of the World (Polish 1947/48, German 1964–74, partial English translation as Time and Modes of Being, 1964). The work rests on a tripartite division of formal, material, and existential ontology and contains extensive analyses of the ontological structures of individual things, events, processes, states of affairs, properties and relations. It culminates in an attempted refutation of idealism on the basis of an exhaustive account of the possible relations between consciousness and reality. See also PHENOMENOLOGY. B.Sm. inherent value. See VALUE. innate idea. See IDEA. innatism. See CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS. inner converse. See CONVERSE, OUTER AND INNER. in rebus realism. See METAPHYSICAL REALISM. inscrutability of reference. See INDETERMINACY OF TRANSLATION. insolubilia, sentences embodying a semantic antinomy such as the liar paradox. Insolubilia were used by late medieval logicians to analyze self-nullifying sentences, the possibility that all sentences imply that they are true, and the relation between spoken, written, and mental language. At first, theorists focused on nullification to explicate a sentence like ‘I am lying’, which, when spoken, entails that the speaker “says nothing.” Bradwardine suggested that such sentences signify that they are at once true and false, prompting Burley to argue that all sentences imply that they are true. Roger Swineshead used insolubilia to distinguish between truth and correspondence to reality; while ‘This sentence is false’ is itself false, it corresponds to reality, while its contradiction, ‘This sentence is not false,’ does not, although the latter is also false. Later, Wyclif used insolubilia to describe the senses in which a sentence can be true, which led to his belief in informed consent insolubilia 437 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 437 the reality of logical beings or entities of reason, a central tenet of his realism. Pierre d’Ailly used insolubilia to explain how mental language differs from spoken and written language, holding that there are no mental language insolubles, but that spoken and written language lend themselves to the phenomenon by admitting a single sentence corresponding to two distinct mental sentences. See also BURLEY, D’AILLY, OXFORD CALCULATORS, SEMANTIC PARADOXES, WYCLIF. S.E.L. instantiation. See PROPERTY. instantiation, universal. See UNIVERSAL INSTANTIATION. institution. (1) An organization such as a corporation or college. (2) A social practice such as marriage or making promises. (3) A system of rules defining a possible form of social organization, such as capitalist versus Communist principles of economic exchange. In light of the power of institutions to shape societies and individual lives, writers in professional ethics have explored four main issues. First, what political and legal institutions are feasible, just, and otherwise desirable (Plato, Republic; Rawls, A Theory of Justice)? Second, how are values embedded in institutions through the constitutive rules that define them (for example, “To promise is to undertake an obligation”), as well as through regulatory rules imposed on them from outside, such that to participate in institutions is a value-laden activity (Searle, Speech Acts, 1969)? Third, do institutions have collective responsibilities or are the only responsibilities those of individuals, and in general how are the responsibilities of individuals, institutions, and communities related? Fourth, at a more practical level, how can we prevent institutions from becoming corrupted by undue regard for money and power (MacIntyre, After Virtue, 1981) and by patriarchal prejudices (Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family, 1989)? See also PHILOSOPHY OF LAW, PROFESSIONAL ETHICS, RESPONSIBILITY. M.W.M. institutional theory of art, the view that something becomes an artwork by virtue of occupying a certain position within the context of a set of institutions. George Dickie originated this theory of art (Art and the Aesthetic, 1974), which was derived loosely from Arthur Danto’s “The Artworld” (Journal of Philosophy, 1964). In its original form it was the view that a work of art is an artifact that has the status of candidate for appreciation conferred upon it by some person acting on behalf of the art world. That is, there are institutions – such as museums, galleries, and journals and newspapers that publish reviews and criticism – and there are individuals who work within those institutions – curators, directors, dealers, performers, critics – who decide, by accepting objects or events for discussion and display, what is art and what is not. The concept of artifactuality may be extended to include found art, conceptual art, and other works that do not involve altering some preexisting material, by holding that a use, or context for display, is sufficient to make something into an artifact. This definition of art raises certain questions. What determines – independently of such notions as a concern with art – whether an institution is a member of the art world? That is, is the definition ultimately circular? What is it to accept something as a candidate for appreciation? Might not this concept also threaten circularity, since there could be not only artistic but also other kinds of appreciation? See also AESTHETICS, EXPRESSION THEORY OF ART. S.L.F. instrumental conditioning. See CONDITIONING. instrumentalism, in its most common meaning, a kind of anti-realistic view of scientific theories wherein theories are construed as calculating devices or instruments for conveniently moving from a given set of observations to a predicted set of observations. As such the theoretical statements are not candidates for truth or reference, and the theories have no ontological import. This view of theories is grounded in a positive distinction between observation statements and theoretical statements, and the according of privileged epistemic status to the former. The view was fashionable during the era of positivism but then faded; it was recently revived, in large measure owing to the genuinely perplexing character of quantum theories in physics. ’Instrumentalism’ has a different and much more general meaning associated with the pragmatic epistemology of Dewey. Deweyan instrumentalism is a general functional account of all concepts (scientific ones included) wherein the epistemic status of concepts and the rationality status of actions are seen as a function of their role in integrating, predicting, and controlling our concrete interactions with our experienced world. There is no positivistic distinction instantiation instrumentalism 438 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 438 between observation and theory, and truth and reference give way to “warranted assertability.” See also DEWEY, METAPHYSICAL REALISM, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, THEORETICAL TERM. C.F.D. instrumental rationality. See RATIONALITY. instrumental sign. See SEMIOSIS. instrumental value. See VALUE. insufficient reason. See PRINCIPLE OF INSUFFICIENT REASON. intelligible world. See KANT. intension, the meaning or connotation of an expression, as opposed to its extension or denotation, which consists of those things signified by the expression. The intension of a declarative sentence is often taken to be a proposition and the intension of a predicate expression (common noun, adjective) is often taken to be a concept. For Frege, a predicate expression refers to a concept and the intension or Sinn (“sense”) of a predicate expression is a mode of presentation distinct from the concept. Objects like propositions or concepts that can be the intension of terms are called intensional objects. (Note that ‘intensional’ is not the same word as ‘intentional’, although the two are related.) The extension of a declarative sentence is often taken to be a state of affairs and that of a predicate expression to be the set of objects that fall under the concept which is the intension of the term. Extension is not the same as reference. For example, the term ‘red’ may be said to refer to the property redness but to have as its extension the set of all red things. Alternatively properties and relations are sometimes taken to be intensional objects, but the property redness is never taken to be part of the extension of the adjective ‘red’. See also EXTENSIONALISM, INTENSIONALITY, INTENSIONAL LOGIC, MEANING. D.N. intension, compositional. See LEWIS, DAVID. intensionality, failure of extensionality. A linguistic context is extensional if and only if the extension of the expression obtained by placing any subexpression in that context is the same as the extension of the expression obtained by placing in that context any subexpression with the same extension as the first subexpression. Modal, intentional, and direct quotational contexts are main instances of intensional contexts. Take, e.g., sentential contexts. The extension of a sentence is its truth or falsity (truth-value). The extension of a definite description is what it is true of: ‘the husband of Xanthippe’ and ‘the teacher of Plato’ have the same extension, for they are true of the same man, Socrates. Given this, it is easy to see that ‘Necessarily, . . . was married to Xanthippe’ is intensional, for ‘Necessarily, the husband of Xanthippe was married to Xanthippe’ is true, but ‘Necessarily, the teacher of Plato was married to Xanthippe’ is not. Other modal terms that generate intensional contexts include ‘possibly’, ‘impossibly’, ‘essentially’, ‘contingently’, etc. Assume that Smith has heard of Xanthippe but not Plato. ‘Smith believes that . . . was married to Xanthippe’ is intensional, for ‘Smith believes that the husband of Xanthippe was married to Xanthippe’ is true, but ‘Smith believes that the teacher of Plato was married to Xanthippe’ is not. Other intentional verbs that generate intensional contexts include ‘know’, ‘doubt’, ‘wonder’, ‘fear’, ‘intend’, ‘state’, and ‘want’. ‘The fourth word in “. . . “ has nine letters’ is intensional, for ‘The fourth word in “the husband of Xanthippe” has nine letters’ is true but ‘the fourth word in “the teacher of Plato” has nine letters’ is not. See also EXTENSIONALISM, MEANING, QUANTIFYING IN, REFERENTIALLY TRANSPARENT. T.Y. intensional logic, that part of deductive logic which treats arguments whose validity or invalidity depends on strict difference, or identity, of meaning. The denotation of a singular term (i.e., a proper name or definite description), the class of things of which a predicate is true, and the truth or falsity (the truth-value) of a sentence may be called the extensions of these respective linguistic expressions. Their intensions are their meanings strictly so called: the (individual) concept conveyed by the singular term, the property expressed by the predicate, and the proposition asserted by the sentence. The most extensively studied part of formal logic deals largely with inferences turning only on extensions. One principle of extensional logic is that if two singular terms have identical denotations, the truth-values of corresponding sentences containing the terms are identical. Thus the inference from ‘Bern is the capital of Switzerland’ to ‘You are in Bern if and only if you are in the capital of Switzerland’ is valid. But this is invalid: ‘Bern is the capital of Switzerland. Therefore, you believe that you are in Bern if and only if you believe that you are in the capital of Switzerland.’ For one may lack the belief instrumental rationality intensional logic 439 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 439 that Bern is the capital of Switzerland. It seems that we should distinguish between the intensional meanings of ‘Bern’ and of ‘the capital of Switzerland’. One supposes that only a strict identity of intension would license interchange in such a context, in which they are in the scope of a propositional attitude. It has been questioned whether the idea of an intension really applies to proper names, but parallel examples are easily constructed that make similar use of the differences in the meanings of predicates or of whole sentences. Quite generally, then, the principle that expressions with the same extension may be interchanged with preservation of extension of the containing expression, seems to fail for such “intensional contexts.” The range of expressions producing such sensitive contexts includes psychological verbs like ‘know’, ‘believe’, ‘suppose’, ‘assert’, ‘desire’, ‘allege’, ‘wonders whether’; expressions conveying modal ideas such as necessity, possibility, and impossibility; some adverbs, e.g. ‘intentionally’; and a large number of other expressions – ’prove’, ‘imply’, ‘make probable’, etc. Although reasoning involving some of these is well understood, there is not yet general agreement on the best methods for dealing with arguments involving many of these notions. See also MODAL LOGIC. C.A.A. intensive magnitude. See MAGNITUDE. intention, (1) a characteristic of action, as when one acts intentionally or with a certain intention; (2) a feature of one’s mind, as when one intends (has an intention) to act in a certain way now or in the future. Betty, e.g., intentionally walks across the room, does so with the intention of getting a drink, and now intends to leave the party later that night. An important question is: how are (1) and (2) related? (See Anscombe, Intention, 1963, for a groundbreaking treatment of these and other basic problems concerning intention.) Some philosophers see acting with an intention as basic and as subject to a three-part analysis. For Betty to walk across the room with the intention of getting a drink is for Betty’s walking across the room to be explainable (in the appropriate way) by her desire or (as is sometimes said) pro-attitude in favor of getting a drink and her belief that walking across the room is a way of getting one. On this desire-belief model (or wantbelief model) the main elements of acting with an intention are (a) the action, (b) appropriate desires (pro-attitudes) and beliefs, and (c) an appropriate explanatory relation between (a) and (b). (See Davidson, “Actions, Reasons, and Causes” in Essays on Actions and Events, 1980.) In explaining (a) in terms of (b) we give an explanation of the action in terms of the agent’s purposes or reasons for so acting. This raises the fundamental question of what kind of explanation this is, and how it is related to explanation of Betty’s movements by appeal to their physical causes. What about intentions to act in the future? Consider Betty’s intention to leave the party later. Though the intended action is later, this intention may nevertheless help explain some of Betty’s planning and acting between now and then. Some philosophers try to fit such futuredirected intentions directly into the desire-belief model. John Austin, e.g., would identify Betty’s intention with her belief that she will leave later because of her desire to leave (Lectures on Jurisprudence, vol. I, 1873). Others see futuredirected intentions as distinctive attitudes, not to be reduced to desires and/or beliefs. How is belief related to intention? One question here is whether an intention to A requires a belief that one will A. A second question is whether a belief that one will A in executing some intention ensures that one intends to A. Suppose that Betty believes that by walking across the room she will interrupt Bob’s conversation. Though she has no desire to interrupt, she still proceeds across the room. Does she intend to interrupt the conversation? Or is there a coherent distinction between what one intends and what one merely expects to bring about as a result of doing what one intends? One way of talking about such cases, due to Bentham (An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789), is to say that Betty’s walking across the room is “directly intentional,” whereas her interrupting the conversation is only “obliquely intentional” (or indirectly intentional). See also ACTION THEORY, PRINCIPLE OF DOUBLE EFFECT. M.E.B. intention, direct. See INTENTION. intention, first. See IMPOSITION. intention, indirect. See INTENTION. intention, oblique. See INTENTION. intention, second. See IMPOSITION. intentional fallacy, the (purported) fallacy of holding that the meaning of a work of art is fixed by the artist’s intentions. (Wimsatt and Beardsintensive magnitude intentional fallacy 440 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 440 ley, who introduced the term, also used it to name the [purported] fallacy that the artist’s aims are relevant to determining the success of a work of art; however, this distinct usage has not gained general currency.) Wimsatt and Beardsley were formalists; they held that interpretation should focus purely on the work of art itself and should exclude appeal to biographical information about the artist, other than information concerning the private meanings the artist attached to his words. Whether the intentional fallacy is in fact a fallacy is a much discussed issue within aesthetics. Intentionalists deny that it is: they hold that the meaning of a work of art is fixed by some set of the artist’s intentions. For instance, Richard Wollheim (Painting as an Art) holds that the meaning of a painting is fixed by the artist’s fulfilled intentions in making it. Other intentionalists appeal not to the actual artist’s intentions, but to the intentions of the implied or postulated artist, a construct of criticism, rather than a real person. See also AESTHETIC FORMALISM, AESTHETICS, INTENTION. B.Ga. intentionality, aboutness. Things that are about other things exhibit intentionality. Beliefs and other mental states exhibit intentionality, but so, in a derived way, do sentences and books, maps and pictures, and other representations. The adjective ‘intentional’ in this philosophical sense is a technical term not to be confused with the more familiar sense, characterizing something done on purpose. Hopes and fears, for instance, are not things we do, not intentional acts in the latter, familiar sense, but they are intentional phenomena in the technical sense: hopes and fears are about various things. The term was coined by the Scholastics in the Middle Ages, and derives from the Latin verb intendo, ‘to point (at)’ or ‘aim (at)’ or ‘extend (toward)’. Phenomena with intentionality thus point outside of themselves to something else: whatever they are of or about. The term was revived by the nineteenth-century philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano, who claimed that intentionality defines the distinction between the mental and the physical; all and only mental phenomena exhibit intentionality. Since intentionality is an irreducible feature of mental phenomena, and since no physical phenomena could exhibit it, mental phenomena could not be a species of physical phenomena. This claim, often called the Brentano thesis or Brentano’s irreducibility thesis, has often been cited to support the view that the mind cannot be the brain, but this is by no means generally accepted today. There was a second revival of the term in the 1960s and 1970s by analytic philosophers, in particular Chisholm, Sellars, and Quine. Chisholm attempted to clarify the concept by shifting to a logical definition of intentional idioms, the terms used to speak of mental states and events, rather than attempting to define the intentionality of the states and events themselves. Intentional idioms include the familiar “mentalistic” terms of folk psychology, but also their technical counterparts in theories and discussions in cognitive science, ‘X believes that p,’ and ‘X desires that q’ are paradigmatic intentional idioms, but according to Chisholm’s logical definition, in terms of referential opacity (the failure of substitutivity of coextensive terms salva veritate), so are such less familiar idioms as ‘X stores the information that p’ and ‘X gives high priority to achieving the state of affairs that q’. Although there continue to be deep divisions among philosophers about the proper definition or treatment of the concept of intentionality, there is fairly widespread agreement that it marks a feature – aboutness or content – that is central to mental phenomena, and hence a central, and difficult, problem that any theory of mind must solve. See also BRENTANO, FOLK PSYCHOLOGY, QUANTIFYING IN, REFERENTIALLY TRANSPARENT. D.C.D. intentional object. See BRENTANO. intentional species. See AQUINAS, ARISTOTLE. interchangeability salva veritate. See SUBSTITUTIVITY SALVA VERITATE. internalism, epistemological. See EPISTEMOLOGY. internalism, motivational. See MOTIVATIONAL INTERNALISM. internalism, reasons. See EXTERNALISM. internal necessity. See NECESSITY. internal negation. See NEGATION. internal realism. See PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. internal reason. See EXTERNALISM. internal relation. See RELATION. intentionality internal relation 441 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 441 interoception. See PERCEPTION. interpersonal utility. See UTILITARIANISM. interpretant. See PEIRCE. interpretation. See MODAL LOGIC. interpretation, non-standard. See FORMAL SEMANTICS. interpretation, standard. See FORMAL SEMANTICS. interpretive system. See OPERATIONALISM. intersection. See SET THEORY. intersubjectivity. See MERLEAU-PONTY. intersubstitutivity salva veritate. See SUBSTITUTIVITY SALVA VERITATE. interval scale. See MAGNITUDE. intervening variable, in psychology, a state of an organism or person postulated to explain behavior and defined in terms of its causes and effects rather than its intrinsic properties. A food drive, conceived as an intervening variable, may be defined in terms of the number of hours without food (causes) and the strength or robustness of efforts to secure it (effects) rather than in terms of hungry feeling (intrinsic property). There are at least three reasons for postulating intervening variables. First, time lapse between stimulus and behavior may be large, as when an animal eats food found hours earlier. Why didn’t the animal eat when it first discovered food? Perhaps at the time of discovery, it had already eaten, so food drive was reduced. Second, the same animal or person may act differently in the same sort of situation, as when we eat at noon one day but delay until 3 p.m. the next. Again, this may be because of variation in food drive. Third, behavior may occur in the absence of external stimulation, as when an animal forages for food. This, too, may be explained by the strength of the food drive. Intervening variables have been viewed, depending on the background theory, as convenient fictions or as psychologically real states. See also THEORETICAL TERM. G.A.G. intrapersonal utility. See UTILITARIANISM. intrinsic desire. See EXTRINSIC DESIRE. intrinsic property. See RELATION. intrinsic relation. See RELATION. intrinsic value. See VALUE. introjection. See FREUD. introspection. See AWARENESS. intuition, a non-inferential knowledge or grasp, as of a proposition, concept, or entity, that is not based on perception, memory, or introspection; also, the capacity in virtue of which such cognition is possible. A person might know that 1 ! 1 % 2 intuitively, i.e., not on the basis of inferring it from other propositions. And one might know intuitively what yellow is, i.e., might understand the concept, even though ‘yellow’ is not definable. Or one might have intuitive awareness of God or some other entity. Certain mystics hold that there can be intuitive, or immediate, apprehension of God. Ethical intuitionists hold both that we can have intuitive knowledge of certain moral concepts that are indefinable, and that certain propositions, such as that pleasure is intrinsically good, are knowable through intuition. Self-evident propositions are those that can be seen (non-inferentially) to be true once one fully understands them. It is often held that all and only self-evident propositions are knowable through intuition, which is here identified with a certain kind of intellectual or rational insight. Intuitive knowledge of moral or other philosophical propositions or concepts has been compared to the intuitive knowledge of grammaticality possessed by competent users of a language. Such language users can know immediately whether certain sentences are grammatical or not without recourse to any conscious reasoning. See also A PRIORI, EPISTEMOLOGY. B.R. intuition, eidetic. See HUSSERL. intuition, sensible. See KANT. intuitionism, ethical. See ETHICS. intuitionism, mathematical. See MATHEMATICAL INTUITIONISM. intuitionism, Oxford school of. See PRICHARD. intuitionist logic. See FORMAL LOGIC, PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC. interoception intuitionist logic 442 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 442 intuitions. See PREANALYTIC. intuitive induction. See ROSS. inversion, spectrum. See QUALIA. inverted qualia. See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, QUALIA. invisible hand. See SMITH, SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. involuntary euthanasia. See EUTHANASIA. inwardness. See TAYLOR, CHARLES. Ionian philosophy, the characteristically naturalist and rationalist thought of Greek philosophers of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. who were active in Ionia, the region of ancient Greek colonies on the coast of Asia Minor and adjacent islands. First of the Ionian philosophers were the three Milesians. See also MILESIANS, PRESOCRATICS. A.P.D.M. iota operator. See Appendix of Special Symbols. I-proposition. See SYLLOGISM. Irigaray, Luce (b.1930), French feminist philosopher and psychoanalyst. Her earliest work was in psychoanalysis and linguistics, focusing on the role of negation in the language of schizophrenics (Languages, 1966). A trained analyst with a private practice, she attended Lacan’s seminars at the École Normale Supérieure and for several years taught a course in the psychoanalysis department at Vincennes. With the publication of Speculum, De l’autre femme(Speculum of the Other Woman) in 1974 she was dismissed from Vincennes. She argues that psychoanalysis, specifically its attitude toward women, is historically and culturally determined and that its phallocentric bias is treated as universal truth. With the publication of Speculum and Ce Sexe qui n’en est pas un (This Sex Which Is Not One) in 1977, her work extends beyond psychoanalysis and begins a critical examination of philosophy. Influenced primarily by Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, her work is a critique of the fundamental categories of philosophical thought: one/many, identity/difference, being/non-being, rational/irrational, mind/body, form/matter, transcendental/sensible. She sets out to show the concealed aspect of metaphysical constructions and what they depend on, namely, the unacknowledged mother. In Speculum, the mirror figures as interpretation and criticism of the enclosure of the Western subject within the mirror’s frame, constituted solely through the masculine imaginary. Her project is one of constituting the world – and not only the specular world – of the other as woman. This engagement with the history of philosophy emphasizes the historical and sexual determinants of philosophical discourse, and insists on bringing the transcendental back to the elements of the earth and embodiment. Her major contribution to philosophy is the notion of sexual difference. An Ethics of Sexual Difference (1984) claims that the central contemporary philosophical task is to think through sexual difference. Although her notion of sexual difference is sometimes taken to be an essentialist view of the feminine, in fact it is an articulation of the difference between the sexes that calls into question an understanding of either the feminine or masculine as possessing a rigid gender identity. Instead, sexual difference is the erotic desire for otherness. Insofar as it is an origin that is continuously differentiating itself from itself, it challenges Aristotle’s understanding of the arche as solid ground or hypokeimenon. As aition or first cause, sexual difference is responsible for something coming into being and is that to which things are indebted for their being. This indebtedness allows Irigaray to formulate an ethics of sexual difference. Her latest work continues to rethink the foundations of ethics. Both Towards a Culture of Difference (1990) and I Love To You (1995) claim that there is no civil identity proper to women and therefore no possibility of equivalent social and political status for men and women. She argues for a legal basis to ground the reciprocity between the sexes; that there is no living universal, that is, a universal that reflects sexual difference; and that this lack of a living universal leads to an absence of rights and responsibilities which reflects both men and women. She claims, therefore, that it is necessary to “sexuate” rights. These latest works continue to make explicit the erotic and ethical project that informs all her work: to think through the dimension of sexual difference that opens up access to the alliances between living beings who are engendered and not fabricated, and who refuse to sacrifice desire for death, power, or money. See also FREUD, HEGEL, HEIDEGGER, NIETZSCHE, POSTMODERN. P.Bi. irrationality, unreasonableness. Whatever it entails, irrationality can characterize belief, desire, intention, and action. intuitions irrationality 443 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 443 Irrationality is often explained in instrumental, or goal-oriented, terms. You are irrational if you (knowingly) fail to do your best, or at least to do what you appropriately think adequate, to achieve your goals. If ultimate goals are rationally assessable, as Aristotelian and Kantian traditions hold, then rationality and irrationality are not purely instrumental. The latter traditions regard certain specific (kinds of) goals, such as human well-being, as essential to rationality. This substantialist approach lost popularity with the rise of modern decision theory, which implies that, in satisfying certain consistency and completeness requirements, one’s preferences toward the possible outcomes of available actions determine what actions are rational and irrational for one by determining the personal utility of their outcomes. Various theorists have faulted modern decision theory on two grounds: human beings typically lack the consistent preferences and reasoning power required by standard decision theory but are not thereby irrational, and rationality requires goods exceeding maximally efficient goal satisfaction. When relevant goals concern the acquisition of truth and the avoidance of falsehood, epistemic rationality and irrationality are at issue. Otherwise, some species of non-epistemic rationality or irrationality is under consideration. Species of non-epistemic rationality and irrationality correspond to the kind of relevant goal: moral, prudential, political, economic, aesthetic, or some other. A comprehensive account of irrationality will elucidate epistemic and non-epistemic irrationality as well as such sources of irrationality as weakness of will and ungrounded belief. See also DECISION THEORY, JUSTIFICATION, RATIONALITY. P.K.M. irredundant. See INDEPENDENCE RESULTS. irreflexive. See RELATION. irrelevant conclusion, fallacy of. See INFORMAL FALLACY. is, third person singular form of the verb ‘be’, with at least three fundamental senses that philosophers distinguish according to the resources required for a proper logical representation. The ‘is’ of existence (There is a unicorn in the garden: Dx (Ux8Gx)) uses the existential quantifier. The ‘is’ of identity (Hesperus is Phosphorus: j % k) employs the predicate of identity. The ‘is’ of predication (Samson is strong: Sj) merely juxtaposes predicate symbol and proper name. Some controversy attends the first sense. Some (notably Meinong) maintain that ‘is’ applies more broadly than ‘exists,’ the former producing truths when combined with ‘deer’ and ‘unicorn’ and the latter producing truths when combined with ‘deer’ but not ‘unicorn’. Others (like Aquinas) take ‘being’ (esse) to denote some special activity that every existing object necessarily performs, which would seem to imply that with ‘is’ they attribute more to an object than we do with ‘exists’. Other issues arise in connection with the second sense. Does Hesperus is Phosphorus, for example, attribute anything more to the heavenly body than its identity with itself? Consideration of such a question led Frege to conclude that names (and other meaningful expressions) of ordinary language have a “sense” or “mode of presenting” the object to which they refer that representations within our standard, extensional logical systems fail to expose. The distinction between the ‘is’ of identity and the ‘is’ of predication parallels Frege’s distinction between object and concept: words signifying objects stand to the right of the ‘is’ of identity and those signifying concepts stand to the right of the ‘is’ of predication. Although it seems remarkable that so many deep and difficult philosophical concepts should link to a single short and commonplace word, we should perhaps not read too much into that observation. Some languages divide the various roles played by English’s compact copula among several constructions, and others use the corresponding word for other purposes. See also EXISTENTIAL IMPORT, IDENTITY, QUALITIES. S.T.K. Isaac Israeli. See JEWISH PHILOSOPHY. Isagoge. See PORPHYRY. Islamic Neoplatonism, a Neoplatonism constituting one of several philosophical tendencies adopted by Muslim philosophers. Aristotle was well known and thoroughly studied among those thinkers in the Islamic world specifically influenced by ancient Greek philosophy; Plato less so. In part both were understood in Neoplatonic terms. But, because the Enneads came to be labeled mistakenly the Theology of Aristotle, the name of ‘Plotinus’ had no significance. A similar situation befell the other ancient Neoplatonists. The Theology and other important sources of Neoirredundant Islamic Neoplatonism 444 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 444 platonic thinking were, therefore, often seen as merely the “theological” speculations of the two major Greek philosophical authorities – mainly Aristotle: all of this material being roughly equivalent to something Islamic Neoplatonists called the “divine Plato.” For a few Islamic philosophers, moreover, such as the critically important al-Farabi, Neoplatonism had little impact. They followed a tradition of philosophical studies based solely on an accurate knowledge of Aristotle plus the political teachings of Plato without this “theology.” In the works of less avowedly “philosophical” thinkers, however, a collection of falsely labeled remnants of ancient Neoplatonism – bits of the Enneads, pieces of Proclus’s Elements of Theology (notably the Arabic version of the famous Liber de causis), and various pseudo-epigraphic doxographies full of Neoplatonic ideas – gave rise to a true Islamic Neoplatonism. This development followed two distinct paths. The first and more direct route encompassed a number of tenth-century authors who were attracted to Neoplatonic theories about God’s or the One’s complete and ineffable transcendence, about intellect’s unity and universality, and about soul as a hypostatic substance having continual existence in a universal as well as a particular being, the latter being the individual human soul. These doctrines held appeal as much for their religious as for their philosophical utility. A second form of Neoplatonism arose in the intellectual elements of Islamic mysticism, i.e., Sufism. There, the influence of Plotinus’s concept of the ecstatic confrontation and ultimate union with the One found a clear, although unacknowledged, echo. In later periods, too, the “divine Plato” enjoyed a revival of importance via a number of influential philosophers, such as Suhrawardi of Aleppo (twelfth century) and Mulla Fadra (seventeenth century), who were interested in escaping the narrow restrictions of Peripatetic thought. See also ARABIC PHILOSOPHY, NEOPLATONISM, SUFISM. P.E.W. Islamic philosophy. See ARABIC PHILOSOPHY. Isocrates (436–338 B.C.), Greek rhetorician and teacher who was seen as the chief contemporary rival of Plato. A pupil of Socrates and also of Gorgias, he founded a school in about 392 that attracted many foreign students to Athens and earned him a sizable income. Many of his works touch on his theories of education; Against the Sophists and On the Antidosis are most important in this respect. The latter stands to Isocrates as the Apology of Plato stands to Socrates, a defense of his life’s work against an attack not on his life, but on his property. The aim of his teaching was good judgment in practical affairs, and he believed his contribution to Greece through education more valuable than legislation could possibly be. He repudiated instruction in theoretical philosophy, and insisted on distinguishing his teaching of rhetoric from the sophistry that gives clever speakers an unfair advantage. In politics he was a Panhellenic patriot, and urged the warring Greek city-states to unite under strong leadership and take arms against the Persian Empire. His most famous work, and the one in which he took the greatest pride, was the Panegyricus, a speech in praise of Athens. In general, he supported democracy in Athens, but toward the end of his life complained bitterly of abuses of the system. P.Wo. isolation argument. See EPISTEMOLOGY. isomorphism. See CATEGORICITY, HOMOMORPHISM, KÖHLER. is–ought distinction. See FACT–VALUE DISTINCTION. is–ought problem. See FACT–VALUE DISTINCTION. Israeli, Isaac. See JEWISH PHILOSOPHY. iterated modality. See ALETHIC MODALITIES. iterative hierarchy. See SET THEORY. I-Thou relationship. See BUBER.

Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich (1743–1819), German man of letters, popular novelist, and author of several influential philosophical works. His Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza (1785) precipitated a dispute with Mendelssohn on Lessing’s alleged pantheism. The ensuing Pantheismusstreit (pantheism controversy) focused attention on the apparent conflict between human freedom and any systematic, philosophical interpretation of reality. In the appendix to his David Hume über den Glauben, oder Idealismus und Realismus (“David Hume on Belief, or Idealism and Realism,” 1787), Jacobi scrutinized the new transcendental philosophy of Kant, and subjected Kant’s remarks concerning “things-in-themselves” to devastating criticism, observing that, though one could not enter the critical philosophy without presupposing the existence of things-in-themselves, such a belief is incompatible with the tenets of that philosophy. This criticism deeply influenced the efforts of post-Kantians (e.g., Fichte) to improve transcendental idealism. In 1799, in an “open letter” to Fichte, Jacobi criticized philosophy in general and transcendental idealism in particular as “nihilism.” Jacobi espoused a fideistic variety of direct realism and characterized his own standpoint as one of “nonknowing.” Employing the arguments of “Humean skepticism,” he defended the necessity of a “leap of faith,” not merely in morality and religion, but in every area of human life. Jacobi’s criticisms of reason and of science profoundly influenced German Romanticism. Near the end of his career he entered bitter public controversies with Hegel and Schelling concerning the relationship between faith and knowledge. See also KANT. D.Br. Jainism, an Indian religious and philosophical tradition established by Mahavira, a contemporary of the historical Buddha, in the latter half of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth century B.C. The tradition holds that each person (jiva) is everlasting and indestructible, a self-conscious identity surviving as a person even in a state of final enlightenment. It accepts personal immortality without embracing any variety of monotheism. On the basis of sensory experience it holds that there exist mind-independent physical objects, and it regards introspective experience as establishing the existence of enduring selves. It accepts the doctrines of rebirth and karma and conceives the ultimate good as escape from the wheel of rebirth. It rejects all violence as incompatible with achieving enlightenment. See also BUDDHISM. K.E.Y. James, William (1842–1910), American philosopher, psychologist, and one of the founders of pragmatism. He was born in New York City, the oldest of five children and elder brother of the novelist Henry James and diarist Alice James. Their father, Henry James, Sr., was an unorthodox religious philosopher, deeply influenced by the thought of Swedenborg, some of which seeped into William’s later fascination with psychical research. The James family relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, but the father insisted on his children obtaining a European education, and prolonged trips to England and the Continent were routine, a procedure that made William multilingual and extraordinarily cosmopolitan. In fact, a pervasive theme in James’s personal and creative life was his deep split between things American and European: he felt like a bigamist “coquetting with too many countries.” As a person, James was extraordinarily sensitive to psychological and bodily experiences. He could be described as “neurasthenic” – afflicted with constant psychosomatic symptoms such as dyspepsia, vision problems, and clinical depression. In 1868 he recorded a profound personal experience, a “horrible fear of my own existence.” In two 1870 diary entries, James first contemplates suicide and then pronounces his belief in free will and his resolve to act on that belief in “doing, suffering and creating.” Under the influence of the then burgeoning work in experimental psychology, James attempted to sustain, on empirical grounds, his belief in the self as Promethean, as self-making rather than as a playing out of inheritance or the influence of social context. This bold and extreme doctrine of individuality is bolstered by his attack on both the neo-Hegelian and associationist doctrines. He held that both approaches miss the empirical reality of relations as affec446 J 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 446 tively experienced and the reality of consciousness as a “stream,” rather than an aspect of an Absolute or simply a box holding a chain of concepts corresponding to single sense impressions. In 1890, James published his masterpiece, The Principles of Psychology, which established him as the premier psychologist of the Euro-American world. It was a massive compendium and critique of virtually all of the psychology literature then extant, but it also claimed that the discipline was in its infancy. James believed that the problems he had unearthed could only be understood by a philosophical approach. James held only one academic degree, an M.D. from Harvard, and his early teaching at Harvard was in anatomy and physiology. He subsequently became a professor of psychology, but during the writing of the Principles, he began to teach philosophy as a colleague of Royce and Santayana. From 1890 forward James saw the fundamental issues as at bottom philosophical and he undertook an intense inquiry into matters epistemological and metaphysical; in particular, “the religious question” absorbed him. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy was published in 1897. The lead essay, “The Will to Believe,” had been widely misunderstood, partly because it rested on unpublished metaphysical assumptions and partly because it ran aggressively counter to the reigning dogmas of social Darwinism and neo-Hegelian absolutism, both of which denigrated the personal power of the individual. For James, one cannot draw a conclusion, fix a belief, or hold to a moral or religious maxim unless all suggestions of an alternative position are explored. Further, some alternatives will be revealed only if one steps beyond one’s frame of reference, seeks novelty, and “wills to believe” in possibilities beyond present sight. The risk taking in such an approach to human living is further detailed in James’s essays “The Dilemma of Determinism” and “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” both of which stress the irreducibility of ambiguity, the presence of chance, and the desirability of tentativeness in our judgments. After presenting the Gifford Lectures in 1901– 02, James published his classic work, The Varieties of Religious Experience, which coalesced his interest in psychic states both healthy and sick and afforded him the opportunity to present again his firm belief that human life is characterized by a vast array of personal, cultural, and religious approaches that cannot and should not be reduced one to the other. For James, the “actual peculiarities of the world” must be central to any philosophical discussion of truth. In his Hibbert Lectures of 1909, published as A Pluralistic Universe, James was to represent this sense of plurality, openness, and the variety of human experience on a wider canvas, the vast reach of consciousness, cosmologically understood. Unknown to all but a few philosophical correspondents, James had been assiduously filling notebooks with reflections on the mind–body problem and the relationship between meaning and truth and with a philosophical exploration and extension of his doctrine of relations as found earlier in the Principles. In 1904–05 James published a series of essays, gathered posthumously in 1912, on the meaning of experience and the problem of knowledge. In a letter to François Pillon in 1904, he writes: “My philosophy is what I call a radical empiricism, a pluralism, a ‘tychism,’ which represents order as being gradually won and always in the making.” Following his 1889 essay “On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology” and his chapter on “The Stream of Thought” in the Principles, James takes as given that relations between things are equivalently experienced as the things themselves. Consequently, “the only meaning of essence is teleological, and that classification and conception are purely teleological weapons of the mind.” The description of consciousness as a stream having a fringe as well as a focus, and being selective all the while, enables him to take the next step, the formulation of his pragmatic epistemology, one that was influenced by, but is different from, that of Peirce. Published in 1907, Pragmatism generated a transatlantic furor, for in it James unabashedly states that “Truth happens to be an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events.” He also introduces the philosophically notorious claim that “theories” must be found that will “work.” Actually, he means that a proposition cannot be judged as true independently of its consequences as judged by experience. James’s prose, especially in Pragmatism, alternates between scintillating and limpid. This quality led to both obfuscation of his intention and a lulling of his reader into a false sense of simplicity. He does not deny the standard definition of truth as a propositional claim about an existent, for he writes “woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience; they will lead him nowhere or else make false connexions.” Yet he regards this structure as but a prologue to the creative activJames, William James, William 447 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 447 ity of the human mind. Also in Pragmatism, speaking of the world as “really malleable,” he argues that man engenders truths upon reality. This tension between James as a radical empiricist with the affirmation of the blunt, obdurate relational manifold given to us in our experience and James as a pragmatic idealist holding to the constructing, engendering power of the Promethean self to create its own personal world, courses throughout all of his work. James was chagrined and irritated by the quantity, quality, and ferocity of the criticism leveled at Pragmatism. He attempted to answer those critics in a book of disparate essays, The Meaning of Truth (1909). The book did little to persuade his critics; since most of them were unaware of his radically empirical metaphysics and certainly of his unpublished papers, James’s pragmatism remained misunderstood until the publication of Perry’s magisterial two-volume study, The Thought and Character of William James (1935). By 1910, James’s heart disease had worsened; he traveled to Europe in search of some remedy, knowing full well that it was a farewell journey. Shortly after returning to his summer home in Chocorua, New Hampshire, he died. One month earlier he had said of a manuscript (posthumously published in 1911 as Some Problems in Philosophy), “say that by it I hoped to round out my system, which is now too much like an arch only on one side.” Even if he had lived much longer, it is arguable that the other side of the arch would not have appeared, for his philosophy was ineluctably geared to seeking out the novel, the surprise, the tychistic, and the plural, and to denying the finality of all conclusions. He warned us that “experience itself, taken at large, can grow by its edges” and no matter how laudable or seductive our personal goal, “life is in the transitions.” The Works of William James, including his unpublished manuscripts, have been collected in a massive nineteen-volume critical edition by Harvard University Press (1975–88). His work can be seen as an imaginative vestibule into the twentieth century. His ideas resonate in the work of Royce, Unamuno, Niels Bohr, Husserl, M. Montessori, Dewey, and Wittgenstein. See also DEWEY, PEIRCE, PRAGMATISM. J.J.M. James-Lange theory, the theory, put forward by William James and independently by C. Lange, a Danish anatomist, that an emotion is the felt awareness of bodily reactions to something perceived or thought (James) or just the bodily reactions themselves (Lange). According to the more influential version (James, “What Is an Emotion?” Mind, 1884), “our natural way of thinking” mistakenly supposes that the perception or thought causes the emotion, e.g., fear or anger, which in turn causes the bodily reactions, e.g., rapid heartbeat, weeping, trembling, grimacing, and actions such as running and striking. In reality, however, the fear or anger consists in the bodily sensations caused by these reactions. In support of this theory, James proposed a thought experiment: Imagine feeling some “strong” emotion, one with a pronounced “wave of bodily disturbance,” and then subtract in imagination the felt awareness of this disturbance. All that remains, James found, is “a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception,” a cognition lacking in emotional coloration. Consequently, it is our bodily feelings that emotionalize consciousness, imbuing our perceptions and thoughts with emotional qualities and endowing each type of emotion, such as fear, anger, and joy, with its special feeling quality. But this does not warrant James’s radical conclusion that emotions or emotional states are effects rather than causes of bodily reactions. That conclusion requires the further assumption, which James shared with many of his contemporaries, that the various emotions are nothing but particular feeling qualities. Historically, the James-Lange theory led to further inquiries into the physiological and cognitive causes of emotional feelings and helped transform the psychology of emotions from a descriptive study relying on introspection to a broader naturalistic inquiry. See also EMOTION. R.M.G. Jansenism, a set of doctrines advanced by European Roman Catholic reformers, clergy, and scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, characterized by a predestinarianism that emphasized Adam’s fall, irresistible efficacious grace, limited atonement, election, and reprobation. Addressing the issue of free will and grace left open by the Council of Trent (1545–63), a Flemish bishop, Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638), crystallized the seventeenth-century Augustinian revival, producing a compilation of Augustine’s anti-Pelagian teachings (Augustinus). Propagated by Saint Cyran and Antoine Arnauld (On Frequent Communion, 1643), adopted by the nuns of Port-Royal, and defended against Jesuit attacks by Pascal (Provincial Letters, 1656–57), Jansenism pervaded Roman Catholicism from Utrecht to Rome for over 150 years. Condemned James-Lange theory Jansenism 448 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 448 by Pope Innocent X (Cum Occasione, 1653) and crushed by Louis XIV and the French clergy (the 1661 formulary), it survived outside France and rearmed for a counteroffensive. Pasquier Quesnel’s (1634–1719) “second Jansenism,” condemned by Pope Clement XI (Unigenitus, 1713), was less Augustinian, more rigorist, and advocated Presbyterianism and Gallicanism. J.-L.S. Japanese philosophy, philosophy in Japan, beginning with Buddhist thought and proceeding to academic “philosophy” (tetsugaku), which emerged in Japan only during the Meiji Restoration period beginning in 1868. Among representatives of traditional Japanese Buddhist philosophical thought should be mentioned Saicho (767–822) of Tendai; Kukai (774–835) of Shingon; Shinran (1173–1262) of Jodo Shinshu; Dogen (1200–53) of Soto Zen; and Nichiren (1222–82) of Nichiren Buddhism. During the medieval period a duty-based warrior ethic of loyalty and self-sacrifice emerged from within the Bushido tradition of the Samurai, developed out of influences from Confucianism and Zen. Also, the Zen-influenced path of Geido or way of the artist produced an important religio-aesthetic tradition with ideas of beauty like aware (sad beauty), yugen (profundity), ma (interval), wabi (poverty), sabi (solitariness), and shibui (understatement). While each sect developed its own characteristics, a general feature of traditional Japanese Buddhist philosophy is its emphasis on “impermanence” (mujo), the transitoriness of all non-substantial phenomena as expressed through the aesthetic of perishability in Geido and the constant remembrance of death in the warrior ethic of Bushido. Much of twentieth-century Japanese philosophy centers around the development of, and critical reaction against, the thought of Nishida Kitaro (1870–1945) and the “Kyoto School” running through Tanabe Hajime, Nishitani Keiji, Hisamatsu Shin’ichi, Takeuchi Yoshinori, Ueda Shizuteru, Abe Masao, and, more peripherally, Watsuji Tetsuro, Kuki Shuzo, and D. T. Suzuki. The thought of Nishida is characterized by the effort to articulate an East-West philosophy and interfaith dialogue within a Buddhist framework of “emptiness” (ku) or “nothingness” (mu). In his maiden work, A Study of Good (1911), Nishida elaborates a theory of “pure experience” (junsui keiken) influenced especially by William James. Like James, Nishida articulates “pure experience” as an immediate awareness in the stream of consciousness emerging prior to subject– object dualism. Yet it is widely agreed that Nishida reformulates “pure experience” in light of his own study of Zen Buddhism. Throughout his career Nishida continuously reworked the idea of “pure experience” in terms of such notions as “self-awareness,” “absolute will,” “acting intuition,” “absolute nothingness,” and the “social-historical world.” From the Acting to the Seeing (1927) signifies a turning point in Nishida’s thought in that it introduces his new concept of basho, the “place” of “absolute Nothingness” wherein the “true self” arises as a “selfidentity of absolute contradictions.” Nishida’s penultimate essay, “The Logic of Place and a Religious Worldview” (1945), articulates a theory of religious experience based upon the “self-negation” of both self and God in the place of Nothingness. In this context he formulates an interfaith dialogue between the Christian kenosis (self-emptying) and Buddhist sunyata (emptiness) traditions. In Religion and Nothingness (1982), Nishitani Keiji develops Nishida’s philosophy in terms of a Zen logic wherein all things at the eternalistic standpoint of Being are emptied in the nihilistic standpoint of Relative Nothingness, which in turn is emptied into the middle way standpoint of Emptiness or Absolute Nothingness represented by both Buddhist sunyata and Christian kenosis. For Nishitani, this shift from Relative to Absolute Nothingness is the strategy for overcoming nihilism as described by Nietzsche. Hisamatsu Shin’ichi interprets Japanese aesthetics in terms of Nishida’s Self of Absolute Nothingness in Zen and the Fine Arts (1971). The encounter of Western philosophy with Zen Nothingness is further developed by Abe Masao in Zen and Western Thought (1985). Whereas thinkers like Nishida, Nishitani, Hisamatsu, Ueda, and Abe develop a Zen approach based upon the immediate experience of Absolute Nothingness through the “self-power” (jiriki) of intuition, Philosophy as Metanoetics (1986) by Tanabe Hajime instead takes up the stance of Shinran’s Pure Land Buddhism, according to which Nothingness is the transforming grace of absolute “Other-power” (tariki) operating through faith. Watsuji Tetsuro’s Ethics (1937), the premier work in modern Japanese moral theory, develops a communitarian ethics in terms of the “betweenness” (aidagara) of persons based on the Japanese notion of self as ningen, whose two characters reveal the double structure of personhood as both individual and social. Kuki Shuzo’s The Structure of Iki (1930), often regarded as the most creative work in modern Japanese aesthetJapanese philosophy Japanese philosophy 449 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 449 ics, analyzes the Edo ideal of iki or “chic” as having a threefold structure representing the fusion of the “amorousness” (bitai) of the Geisha, the “valor” (ikuji) of the Samurai, and the “resignation” (akirame) of the Buddhist priest. Marxist thinkers like Tosaka Jun (1900–45) have developed strong ideological critiques of the philosophy articulated by Nishida and the Kyoto School. In summary, the outstanding contribution of modern Japanese philosophy has been the effort to forge a synthesis of Eastern and Western values within the overall framework of an Asian worldview. See also BUDDHISM, CONFUCIANISM. S.O. Jaspers, Karl Theodor (1883–1969), German psychologist and philosopher, one of the main representatives of the existentialist movement (although he rejected ‘existentialism’ as a distortion of the philosophy of existence). From 1901 until 1908 Jaspers studied law and medicine at the universities of Heidelberg, Munich, Berlin, and Göttingen. He concluded his studies with an M.D. (Homesickness and Crime) from the University of Heidelberg (where he stayed until 1948). From 1908 until 1915 he worked as a voluntary assistant in the psychiatric clinic, and published his first major work (Allgemeine Psychopathologie, 1913; General Psychopathology, 1965). After his habilitation in psychology (1913) Jaspers lectured as Privatdocent. In 1919 he published Psychologie der Weltanschauung (“Psychology of Worldviews”). Two years later he became professor in philosophy. Because of his personal convictions and marriage with Gertrud Mayer (who was Jewish) the Nazi government took away his professorship in 1937 and suppressed all publications. He and his wife were saved from deportation because the American army liberated Heidelberg a few days before the fixed date of April 14, 1945. In 1948 he accepted a professorship from the University of Basel. As a student, Jaspers felt a strong aversion to academic philosophy. However, as he gained insights in the fields of psychiatry and psychology, he realized that both the study of human beings and the meaning of scientific research pointed to questions and problems that demanded their own thoughts and reflections. Jaspers gave a systematic account of them in his three-volume Philosophie (1931; with postscript, 1956; Philosophy, 1969–71), and in the 1,100 pages of Von der Wahrheit (On Truth, 1947). In the first volume (“Philosophical World-orientation”) he discusses the place and meaning of philosophy with regard to the human situation in general and scientific disciplines in particular. In the second (“Clarification of Existence”), he contrasts the compelling modes of objective (scientific) knowledge with the possible (and in essence non-objective) awareness of being in self-relation, communication, and historicity, both as being oneself presents itself in freedom, necessity, and transcendence, and as existence encounters its unconditionality in limit situations (of death, suffering, struggle, guilt) and the polar intertwining of subjectivity and objectivity. In the third volume (“Metaphysics”) he concentrates on the meaning of transcendence as it becomes translucent in appealing ciphers (of nature, history, consciousness, art, etc.) to possible existence under and against the impact of stranding. His Von der Wahrheit is the first volume of a projected work on philosophical logic (cf. Nachlaß zur philosophischen Logik, ed. H. Saner and M. Hänggi, 1991) in which he develops the more formal aspects of his philosophy as “periechontology” (ontology of the encompassing, des Umgreifenden, with its modes of being there, consciousness, mind, existence, world, transcendence, reason) and clarification of origins. In both works Jaspers focuses on “existential philosophy” as “that kind of thinking through which man tries to become himself both as thinking makes use of all real knowledge and as it transcends this knowledge. This thinking does not recognize objects, but clarifies and enacts at once the being of the one who thinks in this way” (Philosophische Autobiographie, 1953). In his search for authentic existence in connection with the elaboration of “philosophical faith” in reason and truth, Jaspers had to achieve a thorough understanding of philosophical, political, and religious history as well as an adequate assessment of the present situation. His aim became a world philosophy as a possible contribution to universal peace out of the spirit of free and limitless communication, unrestricted open-mindedness, and unrelenting truthfulness. Besides a comprehensive history of philosophy (Die groben Philosophen I, 1957; II and III, 1981; The Great Philosophers, 2 vols., 1962, 1966) and numerous monographs (on Cusanus, Descartes, Leonardo da Vinci, Schelling, Nietzsche, Strindberg, van Gogh, Weber) he wrote on subjects such as the university (Die Idee der Universität, 1946; The Idea of the University, 1959), the spiritual situation of the age (Die geistige Situation der Zeit, 1931; Man in the Modern Age, 1933), the meaning of history (Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte, 1949; The Origin and Goal of History, Jaspers, Karl Theodor Jaspers, Karl Theodor 450 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 450 1953, in which he developed the idea of an “axial period”), the guilt question (Die Schuldfrage, 1946; The Question of German Guilt, 1947), the atomic bomb (Die Atombombe und die Zukunft des Menschen, 1958; The Future of Mankind, 1961), German politics (Wohin treibt die Bundesrepublik? 1966; The Future of Germany, 1967). He also wrote on theology and religious issues (Die Frage der Entymythologisierung. Eine Diskussion mit Rudolf Bultmann, 1954; Myth and Christianity, 1958; Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, 1962; Philosophical Faith and Revelation, 1967). See also EXISTENTIALISM, METAPHYSICS. W.D. Jean Poinsot. See JOHN OF SAINT THOMAS. jen, Chinese philosophical term, important in Confucianism, variously translated as ‘kindness’, ‘humanity’, or ‘benevolence’. Scholars disagree as to whether it has the basic meaning of an attribute distinctive of certain aristocratic clans, or the basic meaning of kindness, especially kindness of a ruler to his subjects. In Confucian thought, it is used to refer both to an all-encompassing ethical ideal for human beings (when so used, it is often translated as ‘humanity’, ‘humaneness’, or ‘goodness’), and more specifically to the desirable attribute of an emotional concern for all living things, the degree and nature of such concern varying according to one’s relation to such things (when so used, it is often translated as ‘benevolence’). Later Confucians explain jen in terms of one’s being of one body with all things, and hence one’s being sensitive and responsive to their well-being. In the political realm, Confucians regard jen as ideally the basis of government. A ruler with jen will care about and provide for the people, and people will be attracted to the ruler and be inspired to reform themselves. Such a ruler will succeed in bringing order and be without rivals, and will become a true king (wang). See also CONFUCIANISM. K.-l.S. jen hsin. See TAO-HSIN, JEN-HSIN. jen-yü. See T’IEN LI, JEN-YÜ. Jevons, William Stanley (1835–82), British economist, logician, and philosopher of science. In economics, he clarified the idea of value, arguing that it is a function of utility. Later theorists imitated his use of the calculus and other mathematical tools to reach theoretical results. His approach anticipated the idea of marginal utility, a notion basic in modern economics. Jevons regarded J. S. Mill’s logic as inadequate, preferring the new symbolic logic of Boole. One permanent contribution was his introduction of the concept of inclusive ‘or’, with ‘or’ meaning ‘either or, or both’. To aid in teaching the new logic of classes and propositions, Jevons invented his “logical piano.” In opposition to the confidence in induction of Mill and Whewell, both of whom thought, for different reasons, that induction can arrive at exact and necessary truths, Jevons argued that science yields only approximations, and that any perfect fit between theory and observation must be grounds for suspicion that we are wrong, not for confidence that we are right. Jevons introduced probability theory to show how rival hypotheses are evaluated. He was a subjectivist, holding that probability is a measure of what a perfectly rational person would believe given the available evidence. See also INDUCTION, PROBABILITY, UTILITARIANISM. R.E.B. Jewish philosophy. The subject begins with Philo Judaeus (c.20 B.C.–A.D. 40) of Alexandria. Applying Stoic techniques of allegory, he developed a philosophical hermeneutic that transformed biblical persons and places into universal symbols and virtues; retaining the Hebrew Bible’s view of a transcendent God, Philo identified Plato’s world of ideas with the mind or word of God, construing it as the creative intermediary to the world. This logos doctrine influenced Christian theology strongly, but had little effect upon Jewish thought. Rabbinic Judaism was indifferent and probably hostile to all expressions of Greek philosophy, Philo’s writings included. The tradition of philosophical theology that can be traced to Philo took hold in Judaism only in the ninth century, and only after it became accepted in the Islamic world, which Jews then inhabited. Saadiah Gaon (882–942) modeled his philosophical work The Book of Critically Chosen Beliefs and Convictions on theological treatises written by Muslim free will theologians. Unlike them, however, and in opposition to Jewish Karaites, Saadiah rejected atomistic occasionalism and accepted the philosophers’ view of a natural order, though one created by God. Saadiah’s knowledge of Greek philosophy was imperfect and eclectic, yet he argued impressively against the notion of infinite duration, in order to affirm the necessity of believing in a created universe and hence in a Creator. Saadiah accepted the historicity of revelation at Sinai and the validity of Jewish law on more dogmatic grounds, though Jean Poinsot Jewish philosophy 451 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 451 he developed a classification of the commandments that distinguished between them on grounds of greater and lesser rationality. Isaac Israeli (850–950), while a contemporary of Saadiah’s, was as different from him as East (Baghdad for Saadiah) is from West (for Israeli, Qayrawan, North Africa). Israeli showed no interest in theology, and was attracted to Neoplatonism and the ideas advanced by the first Muslim philosopher, al-Kindi. The strictly philosophical and essentially Neoplatonic approach in Jewish philosophy reached a high point with the Fons Vitae of Solomon Ibn Gabirol (1020–57). He followed Israeli in emphasizing form and matter’s priority over that of the universal mind or noûs. This heralds the growing dominance of Aristotelian concepts in medieval Jewish philosophy, in all but political thought, a dominance first fully expressed, in Spain, in The Exalted Faith of Abraham Ibn Daud (c.1110–80). Many of the themes and perspectives of Neoplatonism are here retained, particularly that of emanation and the return of the soul to its source via intellectual conjunction, as well as the notion of the unknowable and strict unity of God; but the specific structures of Neoplatonic thought give way to those of Aristotle and his commentators. This mix of approaches was perfected by the Muslim falasifa al-Farabi (872–950) and Avicenna (980– 1037), who became the main authorities for most Jewish philosophers through the twelfth century, competing afterward with Averroes (1126–98) for the minds of Jewish philosophers. Judah Ha-Levi (1075–1141), in The Kuzari, also written in Spain, fought this attraction to philosophy with an informed critique of its Aristotelian premises. But Moses Maimonides (1138–1204), in his Guide to the Perplexed, written in Egypt and destined to become the major work of medieval Jewish philosophy, found little reason to fault the philosophers other than for accepting an eternal universe. His reservations on this subject, and his reticence in discussing some other tenets of Jewish faith, led many to suspect his orthodoxy and to seek esoteric meanings in all his philosophical views, a practice that continues today. Whatever his philosophical allegiance, Maimonides viewed Judaism as the paradigmatic philosophical religion, and saw the ideal philosopher as one who contributes to the welfare of his community, however much personal happiness is to be found ultimately only in contemplation of God. Gersonides (1288–1344), living in Provence, responded fully to both Maimonides’ and Averroes’ teachings, and in his Wars of the Lord denied the personal providence of popular faith. These sorts of assertions led Hasdai Crescas (1340–1410) to attack the philosophers on their own premises, and to offer a model of divine love instead of intelligence as the controlling concept for understanding oneself and God. Modern Jewish philosophy begins in Germany with Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86), who attempted philosophically to remove from Judaism its theocratic and politically compelling dimensions. Hermann Cohen (1842–1918) further emphasized, under the influence of Kant and Hegel, what he perceived as the essentially ethical and universal rational teachings of Judaism. Martin Buber (1878–1965) dramatically introduced an existential personalism into this ethicist reading of Judaism, while Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) attempted to balance existential imperatives and ahistorical interpretations of Judaism with an appreciation for the phenomenological efficacy of its traditional beliefs and practices. The optimistic and universal orientation of these philosophies was severely tested in World War II, and Jewish thinkers emerged after that conflict with more assertive national philosophies. See also BUBER, CRESCAS, GERSONIDES, MAIMONIDES, PHILO JUDAEUS, SAADIAH. A.L.I. jhana, a term used by Theravada Buddhists meaning ‘pondering’ or ‘contemplation’ and often translated into English as ‘meditation’. This is one of many terms used to describe both techniques of meditation and the states of consciousness that result from the use of such techniques. Jhana has a specific technical use: it denotes a hierarchically ordered series of four (or sometimes five) states of consciousness, states produced by a gradual reduction in the range of affective experience. The first of these states is said to include five mental factors, which are various kinds of affect and cognitive function, while the last consists only of equanimity, a condition altogether free from affect. See also SAMATHA, VIPASSANA. P.J.G. Joachim of Floris (c.1132/35–1202), Italian mystic who traveled to the Holy Land and, upon his return, became a Cistercian monk and abbot. He later retired to Calabria, in southern Italy, where he founded the order of San Giovanni in Fiore. He devoted the rest of his life to meditation and the recording of his prophetic visions. In his major works Liber concordiae Novi ac Veteri Testamenti (“Book of the Concordances between the New and the Old Testament,” 1519), Expositio jhana Joachim of Floris 452 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 452 in Apocalypsim (1527), and Psalterium decem chordarum (1527), Joachim illustrates the deep meaning of history as he perceived it in his visions. History develops in coexisting patterns of twos and threes. The two testaments represent history as divided in two phases ending in the First and Second Advent, respectively. History progresses also through stages corresponding to the Holy Trinity. The age of the Father is that of the law; the age of the Son is that of grace, ending approximately in 1260; the age of the Spirit will produce a spiritualized church. Some monastic orders like the Franciscans and Dominicans saw themselves as already belonging to this final era of spirituality and interpreted Joachim’s prophecies as suggesting the overthrow of the contemporary ecclesiastical institutions. Some of his views were condemned by the Lateran Council in 1215. P.Gar. Johannes Philoponus (c.490–575), Greek philosopher and theologian, who worked in Alexandria (philoponus, ‘workaholic’, just a nickname). A Christian from birth, he was a pupil of the Platonist Ammonius, and is the first Christian Aristotelian. As such, he challenged Aristotle on many points where he conflicted with Christian doctrine, e.g. the eternity of the world, the need for an infinite force, the definition of place, the impossibility of a vacuum, and the necessity for a fifth element to be the substance of the heavens. Johannes composed commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories, Prior and Posterior Analytics, Meteorologics, and On the Soul; and a treatise Against Proclus: On the Eternity of the World. There is dispute as to whether the commentaries exhibit a change of mind (away from orthodox Aristotelianism) on these questions. J.M.D. John Damascene. See JOHN OF DAMASCUS. John of Damascus, Saint, also called John Damascene and Chrysorrhoas (Golden Speaker) (c.675–c.750), Greek theologian and Eastern church doctor. Born of a well-to-do family in Damascus, he was educated in Greek, Arabic, and Islamic thought. He attained a high position in government but resigned under the antiChristian Caliph Abdul Malek and became a monk about 700, living outside Jerusalem. He left extensive writings, most little more than compilations of older texts. The Iconoclastic Synod of 754 condemned his arguments in support of the veneration of images in the three Discourses against the Iconoclasts (726–30), but his orthodoxy was confirmed in 787 at the Second Council of Nicaea. His Sources of Knowledge consists of a Dialectic, a history of heresies, and an exposition of orthodoxy. Considered a saint from the end of the eighth century, he was much respected in the East and was regarded as an important witness to Eastern Orthodox thought by the West in the Middle Ages. J.Lo. John of Saint Thomas, also known as John Poinsot (1589–1644), Portuguese theologian and philosopher. Born in Lisbon, he studied at Coimbra and Louvain, entered the Dominican order (1610), and taught at Alcalá de Henares, Piacenza, and Madrid. His most important works are the Cursus philosophicus (“Course of Philosophy,” 1632–36), a work on logic and natural philosophy; and the Cursus theologicus (“Course of Theology,” 1637–44), a commentary on Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. John considered himself a Thomist, but he modified Aquinas’s views in important ways. The “Ars Logica,” the first part of the Cursus philosophicus, is the source of much subsequent Catholic teaching in logic. It is divided into two parts: the first deals with formal logic and presents a comprehensive theory of terms, propositions, and reasoning; the second discusses topics in material logic, such as predicables, categories, and demonstration. An important contribution in the first is a comprehensive theory of signs that has attracted considerable attention in the twentieth century among such philosophers as Maritain, Yves Simon, John Wild, and others. An important contribution in the second part is the division of knowledge according to physical, mathematical, and metaphysical degrees, which was later adopted by Maritain. John dealt with metaphysical problems in the second part of the Cursus philosophicus and in the Cursus theologicus. His views are modifications of Aquinas’s. For example, Aquinas held that the principle of individuation is matter designated by quantity; John interpreted this as matter radically determined by dimensions, where the dimensions are indeterminate. In contrast to other major figures of the Spanish Scholasticism of the times, John did not write much in political and legal theory. He considered ethics and political philosophy to be speculative rather than practical sciences, and adopted a form of probabilism. Moreover, when in doubt about a course of action, one may simply adopt any pertinent view proposed by a prudent moralist. See also AQUINAS, PEIRCE, SEMIOSIS. J.J.E.G. Johannes Philoponus John of Saint Thomas 453 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 453 John of Salisbury (c.1120–80), English prelate and humanist scholar. Between 1135 and 1141 he studied dialectic with Peter Abelard and theology with Gilbert of Poitiers in Paris. It is possible that during this time he also studied grammar, rhetoric, and part of the quadrivium with William of Conches at the Cathedral School of Chartres. After 1147 he was for a time a member of the Roman Curia, secretary to Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, and friend of Thomas Becket. For his role in Becket’s canonization, Louis VII of France rewarded him with the bishopric of Chartres in 1176. Although John was a dedicated student of philosophy, it would be misleading to call him a philosopher. In his letters, biographies of Anselm and Becket, and Memoirs of the Papal Court (1148– 52), he provides, in perhaps the best medieval imitation of classical Latin style, an account of some of the most important ideas, events, and personalities of his time. Neither these works nor his Polycraticus and Metalogicon, for which he is most celebrated, are systematic philosophical treatises. The Polycraticus is, however, considered one of the first medieval treatises to take up political theory in any extended way. In it John maintains that if a ruler does not legislate in accordance with natural moral law, legitimate resistance to him can include his assassination. In the Metalogicon, on the other hand, John discusses, in a humanist spirit, the benefits for a civilized world of philosophical training based on Aristotle’s logic. He also presents current views on the nature of universals, and, not surprisingly, endorses an Aristotelian view of them as neither extramental entities nor mere words, but mental concepts that nevertheless have a basis in reality insofar as they are the result of the mind’s abstracting from extramental entities what those entities have in common. G.S. Johnson, W(illiam) E(rnest) (1858–1931), British philosopher who lectured on psychology and logic at Cambridge University. His Logic was published in three parts: Part I (1921); Part II, Demonstrative Inference: Deductive and Inductive (1922); and Part III, The Logical Foundations of Science (1924). He did not complete Part IV on probability, but in 1932 Mind published three of its intended chapters. Johnson’s other philosophical publications, all in Mind, were not abundant. The discussion note “On Feeling as Indifference” (1888) deals with problems of classification. “The Logical Calculus” (three parts, 1892) anticipates the “Cambridge” style of logic while continuing the tradition of Jevons and Venn; the same is true of treatments of formal logic in Logic. “Analysis of Thinking” (two parts, 1918) advances an adverbial theory of experience. Johnson’s philosophic influence at Cambridge exceeded the influence of these publications, as one can see from the references to him by John Neville Keynes in Studies and Exercises in Formal Logic and by his son John Maynard Keynes in A Treatise on Probability. Logic contains original and distinctive treatments of induction, metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and philosophical logic. Johnson’s theory of inference proposes a treatment of implication that is an alternative to the view of Russell and Whitehead in Principia Mathematica. He coined the term ‘ostensive definition’ and introduced the distinction between determinates and determinables. See also DETERMINABLE, INFERENCE. D.H.S. John the Scot. See ERIGENA. joint method of agreement and difference. See MILL’s METHODS. ju. See CONFUCIANISM. Juan Chi (210–63), Chinese Neo-Taoist philosopher. Among his extant writings the most important are Ta-Chuang lun (“Discourse on the Chuang Tzu”) and Ta-jen hsien-sheng chuan (“Biography of Master Great Man”). The concept of naturalness (tzu-jan) underpins Juan’s philosophy. The “great man” is devoid of self-interest, completely at ease with his own nature and the natural order at large. In contrast, orthodox tradition (mingchiao) suppresses openness and sincerity to secure benefit. Politically tzu-jan envisages a selfgoverning pristine state, a Taoist version of anarchism. However, the “great man” furnishes a powerful symbol not because he plots to overthrow the monarchy or withdraws from the world to realize his own ambition, but because he is able to initiate a process of healing that would revitalize the rule of the tao. See also NEO-TAOISM. A.K.L.C. judgment. See AKRASIA, FACULTY PSYCHOLOGY, KANT. Jung, Carl Gustav (1875–1961), Swiss psychologist and founder of analytical psychology, a form of psychoanalysis that differs from Freud’s chiefly by an emphasis on the collective character of the unconscious and on archetypes as its privileged contents. Jung, like Freud, was deeply influJohn of Salisbury Jung, Carl Gustav 454 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 454 enced by philosophy in his early years. Before his immersion in psychiatry, he wrote several essays of explicitly philosophical purport. Kant was doubtless the philosopher who mattered most to Jung, for whom archetypes were conceived as a priori structures of the human psyche. Plato and Neoplatonists, Schopenhauer and especially Nietzsche (to whose Zarathustra he devoted a seminar of several years’ duration) were also of critical importance. Jung was a close reader of James, and his Psychological Types (1921) – in addition to an extended discussion of nominalism versus realism – contains a detailed treatment of Jamesian typologies of the self. Jung considered the self to be an amalgamation of an “ectopsyche” – consisting of four functions (intuition, sensation, feeling, and thinking) that surround an ego construed not as a singular entity but as a “complex” of ideas and emotions – and an “endosphere” (i.e., consciousness turned inward in memory, affect, etc.). The personal unconscious, which preoccupied Freud, underlies the endosphere and its “invasions,” but it is in turn grounded in the collective unconscious shared by all humankind. The collective unconscious was induced by Jung from his analysis of dream symbols and psychopathological symptoms. It is an inherited archive of archaic-mythic forms and figures that appear repeatedly in the most diverse cultures and historical epochs. Such forms and figures – also called archetypes – are considered “primordial images” preceding the “ideas” that articulate rational thought. As a consequence, the self, rather than being autonomous, is embedded in a prepersonal and prehistoric background from which there is no effective escape. However, through prolonged psychotherapeutically guided “individuation,” a slow assimilation of the collective unconscious into daily living can occur, leading to an enriched and expanded sense of experience and selfhood. See also FREUD, JAMES, NIETZSCHE. E.S.C. jung, ju, Chinese terms that express the Confucian distinction between honor and shame or disgrace. The locus classicus of the discussion is found in Hsün Tzu’s works. While the distinction between jung (honor) and ju (disgrace, shame) pertains to the normal, human conditions of security and danger, harm and benefit, it is crucial to distinguish honor as derived from mere external recognition and honor justly deserved, and to distinguish shame or disgrace due to circumstance, as in poverty, from that due to one’s own ethical misconduct. The chün-tzu (paradigmatic individual) should be content with the shame due to circumstance but not with shame justly deserved because of misconduct. The key issue is shame or honor justly deserved from the point of view of jen (benevolence) and yi (rightness), and not shame or honor resting on contingencies beyond one’s control. See also HSÜN TZU. A.S.C. jurisprudence, the science or knowledge of law; thus, in its widest sense, the study of the legal doctrines, rules, and principles of any legal system. More commonly, however, the term designates the study not of the actual laws of particular legal systems, but of the general concepts and principles that underlie a legal system or that are common to all such systems (general jurisprudence). Jurisprudence in this sense, sometimes also called the philosophy of law, may be further subdivided according to the major focus of a particular study. Examples include historical jurisprudence (a study of the development of legal principles over time, often emphasizing the origin of law in custom or tradition rather than in enacted rules), sociological jurisprudence (an examination of the relationship between legal rules and the behavior of individuals, groups, or institutions), functional jurisprudence (an inquiry into the relationship between legal norms and underlying social interests or needs), and analytical jurisprudence (an investigation into the meaning of, and conceptual connections among, legal concepts). Within analytical jurisprudence the most substantial body of thought focuses on the meaning of the concept of law itself (legal theory) and the relationship between that concept and the concept of morality. Legal positivism, the view that there is no necessary connection between law and morality, opposes the natural law view that no sharp distinction between these concepts can be drawn. The former view is sometimes thought to be a consequence of positivism’s insistence that legal validity is determined ultimately by reference to certain basic social facts: “the command of the sovereign” (John Austin), the Grundnorm (Hans Kelsen), or “the rule of recognition” (H. L. A. Hart). These different positivist characterizations of the basic, law-determining fact yield different claims about the normative character of law, with classical positivists (e.g., John Austin) insisting that legal systems are essentially coercive, whereas modern positivists (e.g., Hans Kelsen) maintain that they are normative. Disputes within legal theory often generate or arise out of disputes about theories of adjudicajung, ju jurisprudence 455 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 455 tion, or how judges do or should decide cases. Mechanical jurisprudence, or formalism, the theory that all cases can be decided solely by analyzing legal concepts, is thought by many to have characterized judicial decisions and legal reasoning in the nineteenth century; that theory became an easy target in the twentieth century for various forms of legal realism, the view that law is better determined by observing what courts and citizens actually do than by analyzing stated legal rules and concepts. Recent developments in the natural law tradition also focus on the process of adjudication and the normative claims that accompany the judicial declaration of legal rights and obligations. These normative claims, natural law theorists argue, show that legal rights are a species of political or moral rights. In consequence, one must either revise prevailing theories of adjudication and abandon the social-fact theory of law (Ronald Dworkin), or explore the connection between legal theory and the classical question of political theory: Under what conditions do legal obligations, even if determined by social facts, create genuine political obligations (e.g., the obligation to obey the law)? Other jurisprudential notions that overlap topics in political theory include rule of law, legal moralism, and civil disobedience. The disputes within legal theory about the connection between law and morality should not be confused with discussions of “natural law” within moral theory. In moral theory, the term denotes a particular view about the objective status of moral norms that has produced a considerable literature, extending from ancient Greek and Roman thought, through medieval theological writings, to contemporary ethical thought. Though the claim that one cannot sharply separate law and morality is often made as part of a general natural law moral theory, the referents of the term ‘natural law’ in legal and moral theory do not share any obvious logical relationship. A moral theorist could conclude that there is no necessary connection between law and morality, thus endorsing a positivist view of law, while consistently advocating a natural law view of morality itself; conversely, a natural law legal theorist, in accepting the view that there is a connection between law and morality, might nonetheless endorse a substantive moral theory different from that implied by a natural law moral theory. See also LEGAL REALISM, NATURAL LAW, PHILOSOPHY OF LAW, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, RIGHTS. P.S. jury nullification, a jury’s ability, or the exercise of that ability, to acquit a criminal defendant despite finding facts that leave no reasonable doubt about violation of a criminal statute. This ability is not a right, but an artifact of criminal procedure. In the common law, the jury has sole authority to determine the facts, and the judge to determine the law. The jury’s findings of fact cannot be reviewed. The term ‘nullification’ suggests that jury nullification is opposed to the rule of law. This thought would be sound only if an extreme legal positivism were true – that the law is nothing but the written law and the written law covers every possible fact situation. Jury nullification is better conceived as a form of equity, a rectification of the inherent limits of written law. In nullifying, juries make law. To make jury nullification a right, then, raises problems of democratic legitimacy, such as whether a small, randomly chosen group of citizens has authority to make law. See also JURISPRUDENCE, LEGAL POSITIVISM, NATURAL LAW, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. R.A.Sh. jury theorem. See CONDORCET. jus ad bellum. See JUST WAR THEORY. jus in bello. See JUST WAR THEORY. justice, each getting what he or she is due. Formal justice is the impartial and consistent application of principles, whether or not the principles themselves are just. Substantive justice is closely associated with rights, i.e., with what individuals can legitimately demand of one another or what they can legitimately demand of their government (e.g., with respect to the protection of liberty or the promotion of equality). Retributive justice concerns when and why punishment is justified. Debate continues over whether punishment is justified as retribution for past wrongdoing or because it deters future wrongdoing. Those who stress retribution as the justification for punishment usually believe human beings have libertarian free will, while those who stress deterrence usually accept determinism. At least since Aristotle, justice has commonly been identified both with obeying law and with treating everyone with fairness. But if law is, and justice is not, entirely a matter of convention, then justice cannot be identified with obeying law. The literature on legal positivism and natural law theory contains much debate about jury nullification justice 456 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 456 whether there are moral limits on what conventions could count as law. Corrective justice concerns the fairness of demands for civil damages. Commutative justice concerns the fairness of wages, prices, and exchanges. Distributive justice concerns the fairness of the distribution of resources. Commutative justice and distributive justice are related, since people’s wages influence how much resources they have. But the distinction is important because it may be just to pay A more than B (because A is more productive than B) but just that B is left with more after-tax resources (because B has more children to feed than A does). In modern philosophy, however, the debate about just wages and prices has been overshadowed by the larger question of what constitutes a just distribution of resources. Some (e.g., Marx) have advocated distributing resources in accordance with needs. Others have advocated their distribution in whatever way maximizes utility in the long run. Others have argued that the fair distribution is one that, in some sense, is to everyone’s advantage. Still others have maintained that a just distribution is whatever results from the free market. Some theorists combine these and other approaches. See also ETHICS, KANT, RIGHTS, UTILITARIANISM. B.W.H. justice as fairness. See RAWLS. justification, a concept of broad scope that spans epistemology and ethics and has as special cases the concepts of apt belief and right action. The concept has, however, highly varied application. Many things, of many different sorts, can be justified. Prominent among them are beliefs and actions. To say that X is justified is to say something positive about X. Other things being equal, it is better that X be justified than otherwise. However, not all good entities are justified. The storm’s abating may be good since it spares some lives, but it is not thereby justified. What we can view as justified or unjustified is what we can relate appropriately to someone’s faculties or choice. (Believers might hence view the storm’s abating as justified after all, if they were inclined to judge divine providence.) Just as in epistemology we need to distinguish justification from truth, since either of these might apply to a belief in the absence of the other, so in ethics we must distinguish justification from utility: an action might be optimific but not justified, and justified but not optimific. What is distinctive of justification is then the implied evaluation of an agent (thus the connection, however remote, with faculties of choice). To say that a belief is (epistemically) justified (apt) or to say that an action is (ethically) justified (“right” – in one sense) is to make or imply a judgment on the subject and how he or she has arrived at that action or belief. Often a much narrower concept of justification is used, one according to which X is justified only if X has been or at least can be justified through adducing reasons. Such adducing of reasons can be viewed as the giving of an argument of any of several sorts: e.g., conclusive, prima facie, inductive, or deductive. A conclusive justification or argument adduces conclusive reasons for the possible (object of) action or belief that figures in the conclusion. In turn, such reasons are conclusive if and only if they raise the status of the conclusion action or belief so high that the subject concerned would be well advised to conclude deliberation or inquiry. A prima facie justification or argument adduces a prima facie reason R (or more than one) in favor of the possible (object of) action or belief O that figures in the conclusion. In turn, R is a prima facie reason for O if and only if R specifies an advantage or positive consideration in favor of O, one that puts O in a better light than otherwise. Even if R is a prima facie reason for O, however, R can be outweighed, overridden, or defeated by contrary considerations RH. Thus my returning a knife that I promised to return to its rightful owner has in its favor the prima facie reason that it is my legal obligation and the fulfillment of a promise, but if the owner has gone raving mad, then there may be reasons against returning the knife that override, outweigh, or defeat. (And there may also be reasons that defeat a positive prima facie reason without amounting to reasons for the opposite course. Thus it may emerge that the promise to return the knife was extracted under duress.) A (valid) deductive argument for a certain conclusion C is a sequence of thoughts or statements whose last member is C (not necessarily last temporally, but last in the sequence) and each member of which is either an assumption or premise of the argument or is based on earlier members of the sequence in accordance with a sound principle of necessary inference, such as simplification: from (P & Q) to P; or addition: from P to (P or Q); or modus ponens: from P and (P only if Q) to Q. Whereas the premises of a deductive argument necessarily entail the conclusion, which cannot possibly fail to be true when the justice as fairness justification 457 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 457 premises are all true, the premises of an inductive argument do not thus entail its conclusion but offer considerations that only make the conclusion in some sense more probable than it would be otherwise. From the premises that it rains and that if it rains the streets are wet, one may deductively derive the conclusion that the streets are wet. However, the premise that I have tried to start my car on many, many winter mornings during the two years since I bought it and that it has always started, right up to and including yesterday, does not deductively imply that it will start when I try today. Here the conclusion does not follow deductively. Though here the reason provided by the premise is only an inductive reason for believing the conclusion, and indeed a prima facie and defeasible reason, nevertheless it might well be in our sense a conclusive reason. For it might enable us rightfully to conclude inquiry and/or deliberation and proceed to (action or, in this case) belief, while turning our attention to other matters (such as driving to our destination). See also EPISTEMOLOGY, ETHICS, SKEPTICISM. E.S. justification, conclusive. See JUSTIFICATION. justification, deductive. See JUSTIFICATION. justification, epistemic. See EPISTEMOLGY. justification, inductive. See JUSTIFICATION. justification, inferential. See FOUNDATIONALISM. justification, propositional. See EPISTEMOLOGY. justification by faith, the characteristic doctrine of the Protestant Reformation that sinful human beings can be justified before God through faith in Jesus Christ. ‘Being justified’ is understood in forensic terms: before the court of divine justice humans are not considered guilty because of their sins, but rather are declared by God to be holy and righteous in virtue of the righteousness of Christ, which God counts on their behalf. Justification is received by faith, which is not merely belief in Christian doctrine but includes a sincere and heartfelt trust and commitment to God in Christ for one’s salvation. Such faith, if genuine, leads to the reception of the transforming influences of God’s grace and to a life of love, obedience, and service to God. These consequences of faith, however, are considered under the heading of sanctification rather than justification. The rival Roman Catholic doctrine of justification – often mislabeled by Protestants as “justification by works” – understands key terms differently. ‘Being just’ is understood not primarily in forensic terms but rather as a comprehensive state of being rightly related to God, including the forgiveness of sins, the reception of divine grace, and inner transformation. Justification is a work of God initially accomplished at baptism; among the human “predispositions” for justification are faith (understood as believing the truths God has revealed), awareness of one’s sinfulness, hope in God’s mercy, and a resolve to do what God requires. Salvation is a gift of God that is not deserved by human beings, but the measure of grace bestowed depends to some extent on the sincere efforts of the sinner who is seeking salvation. The Protestant and Catholic doctrines are not fully consistent with each other, but neither are they the polar opposites they are often made to appear by the caricatures each side offers of the other. See also PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. W.Has. justification by works. See JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. justifying reason. See HUTCHESON. just in case. See IFF. just war theory, a set of conditions justifying the resort to war (jus ad bellum) and prescribing how war may permissibly be conducted (jus in bello). The theory is a Western approach to the moral assessment of war that grew out of the Christian tradition beginning with Augustine, later taking both religious and secular (including legalist) forms. Proposed conditions for a just war vary in both number and interpretation. Accounts of jus ad bellum typically require: (1) just cause: an actual or imminent wrong against the state, usually a violation of rights, but sometimes provided by the need to protect innocents, defend human rights, or safeguard the way of life of one’s own or other peoples; (2) competent authority: limiting the undertaking of war to a state’s legitimate rulers; (3) right intention: aiming only at peace and the ends of the just cause (and not war’s attendant suffering, death, and destruction); (4) proportionality: ensuring that anticipated good not be outweighed by bad; (5) last resort: exhausting peaceful alternatives before going to war; and (6) probability of success: a reasonable prospect that war will succeed. Jus in bello justification, conclusive just war theory 458 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 458 requires: (7) proportionality: ensuring that the means used in war befit the ends of the just cause and that their resultant good and bad, when individuated, be proportionate in the sense of (4); and (8) discrimination: prohibiting the killing of noncombatants and/or innocents. Sometimes conditions (4), (5), and (6) are included in (1). The conditions are usually considered individually necessary and jointly sufficient for a fully just war. But sometimes strength of just cause is taken to offset some lack of proportion in means, and sometimes absence of right intention is taken to render a war evil though not necessarily unjust. Most just war theorists take jus ad bellum to warrant only defensive wars. But some follow earlier literature and allow for just offensive wars. Early theorists deal primarily with jus ad bellum, later writers with both jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Recent writers stress jus in bello, with particular attention to deterrence: the attempt, by instilling fear of retaliation, to induce an adversary to refrain from attack. Some believe that even though large-scale use of nuclear weapons would violate requirements of proportionality and discrimination, the threatened use of such weapons can maintain peace, and hence justify a system of nuclear deterrence. See also POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. R.L.H.

Kabala

Kala, in Indian thought, time. The universe frequently is seen as forever oscillating between order and chaos. Thus the goal of human existence, religiously conceived, tends to involve escape from time. Jainism views time as immaterial, beginningless, and continuous (without parts), distinguishing between time as perceived (in divisions of units of our temporal measurement) and time as it inherently is (unitless). For Sankhya-Yoga, there is no time distinct from atoms, and the minimum temporal unit is the duration of an atom’s transverse of its own spatial unit. For Nyaya-Vaishesika, time is a particular substance that exists independently and appears to have parts only because we perceive it through noticing distinct changes. Advaita Vedanta takes time to be only phenomenal and apparent. Visistadvaita Vedanta takes time to be an inert substance dependent on Brahman, coordinate with prakrti (material stuff), and beginningless. K.E.Y. kalam, an Arabic term denoting a form of religious and theological discourse. The word itself literally means ‘argue’ or ‘discuss’; although often translated as ‘theology’ or ‘dialectical theology’, the Muslim usage does not correspond exactly. In origin kalam was an argumentative reaction to certain perceived doctrinal deviations on key issues – e.g., the status of the sinner, the justice of God, attributes of God. Thus themes and content in kalam were normally historically specific and not generally speculative. Later, in a formal confrontation with philosophy, the predominantly dialectical mode of reasoning employed until the twelfth century was replaced by full use of syllogistic methods. Ultimately, the range of speculation grew until, in the sophisticated compendiums of the major authorities, kalam became intellectually speculative as well as doctrinally defensive. In a major development, one school of kalam – the Ash‘arites – adopted an atomistic theory that rejected the necessity of immediate or proximate causation, arguing instead that patterns perceived in nature are merely the habitual actions of God as he constantly re-creates and refashions the universe. See also ARABIC PHILOSOPHY. P.E.W. K’ang Yu-wei (1858–1927), Chinese scholar who pushed for radical reforms under Emperor Kuan-hsü and was forced into exile. He belonged to the modern-script school with respect to studies of the Spring and Autumn Annals, and believed that Confucius was only borrowing the names and authority of the ancient sage-emperors to push for reform in his own days. K’ang gave expression to utopian ideals in his book Ta-tung (Great Unity). Among his disciples were T’an Ssut’ung (1865–98) and Liang Ch’i-ch’ao (1873– 1929). He became a reactionary in his old age and refused to accept the fact that China had become a republic. See also CONFUCIUS, LIANG CH’I-CH’AO. S.-h.L. Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804), preeminent German philosopher whose distinctive concern was to vindicate the authority of reason. He believed that by a critical examination of its own powers, reason can distinguish unjustifiable traditional metaphysical claims from the principles that are required by our theoretical need to determine ourselves within spatiotemporal experience and by our practical need to legislate consistently with all other rational wills. Because these principles are necessary and discoverable, they defeat empiricism and skepticism, and because they are disclosed as simply the conditions of orienting ourselves coherently within experience, they contrast with traditional rationalism and dogmatism. Kant was born and raised in the eastern Prussian university town of Königsberg (today Kaliningrad), where, except for a short period during which he worked as a tutor in the nearby countryside, he spent his life as student and teacher. He was trained by Pietists and followers of Leibniz and Wolff, but he was also heavily influenced by Newton and Rousseau. In the 1750s his theoretical philosophy began attempting to show how metaphysics must accommodate as certain the fundamental principles underlying modern science; in the 1760s his 460 K 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 460 practical philosophy began attempting to show (in unpublished form) how our moral life must be based on a rational and universally accessible self-legislation analogous to Rousseau’s political principles. The breakthrough to his own distinctive philosophy came in the 1770s, when he insisted on treating epistemology as first philosophy. After arguing in his Inaugural Dissertation (On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World, 1770) both that our spatiotemporal knowledge applies only to appearances and that we can still make legitimate metaphysical claims about “intelligible” or non-spatiotemporal features of reality (e.g., that there is one world of substances interconnected by the action of God), there followed a “silent decade” of preparation for his major work, the epoch-making Critique of Pure Reason (first or “A” edition, 1781; second or “B” edition, with many revisions, 1787; Kant’s initial reaction to objections to the first edition dominate his short review, Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, 1783; the full title of which means ‘preliminary investigations for any future metaphysics that will be able to present itself as a science’, i.e., as a body of certain truths). This work resulted in his mature doctrine of transcendental idealism, namely, that all our theoretical knowledge is restricted to the systematization of what are mere spatiotemporal appearances. This position is also called formal or Critical idealism, because it criticizes theories and claims beyond the realm of experience, while it also insists that although the form of experience is ideal, or relative to us, this is not to deny the reality of something independent of this form. Kant’s earlier works are usually called pre-Critical not just because they precede his Critique but also because they do not include a full commitment to this idealism. Kant supplemented his “first Critique” (often cited just as “the” Critique) with several equally influential works in practical philosophy – Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Critique of Practical Reason (the “second Critique,” 1788), and Metaphysics of Morals (consisting of “Doctrine of Justice” and “Doctrine of Virtue,” 1797). Kant’s philosophy culminated in arguments advancing a purely moral foundation for traditional theological claims (the existence of God, immortality, and a transcendent reward or penalty proportionate to our goodness), and thus was characterized as “denying knowledge in order to make room for faith.” To be more precise, Kant’s Critical project was to restrict theoretical knowledge in such a way as to make it possible for practical knowledge to reveal how pure rational faith has an absolute claim on us. This position was reiterated in the Critique of Judgment (the “third Critique,” 1790), which also extended Kant’s philosophy to aesthetics and scientific methodology by arguing for a priori but limited principles in each of these domains. Kant was followed by radical idealists (Fichte, Schelling), but he regarded himself as a philosopher of the Enlightenment, and in numerous shorter works he elaborated his belief that everything must submit to the “test of criticism,” that human reason must face the responsibility of determining the sources, extent, and bounds of its own principles. The Critique concerns pure reason because Kant believes all these determinations can be made a priori, i.e., such that their justification does not depend on any particular course of experience (‘pure’ and ‘a priori’ are thus usually interchangeable). For Kant ‘pure reason’ often signifies just pure theoretical reason, which determines the realm of nature and of what is, but Kant also believes there is pure practical reason (or Wille), which determines a priori and independently of sensibility the realm of freedom and of what ought to be. Practical reason in general is defined as that which determines rules for the faculty of desire and will, as opposed to the faculties of cognition and of feeling. On Kant’s mature view, however, the practical realm is necessarily understood in relation to moral considerations, and these in turn in terms of laws taken to have an unconditional imperative force whose validity requires presuming that they are addressed to a being with absolute freedom, the faculty to choose (Willkür) to will or not to will to act for their sake. Kant also argues that no evidence of human freedom is forthcoming from empirical knowledge of the self as part of spatiotemporal nature, and that the belief in our freedom, and thus the moral laws that presuppose it, would have to be given up if we thought that our reality is determined by the laws of spatiotemporal appearances alone. Hence, to maintain the crucial practical component of his philosophy it was necessary for Kant first to employ his theoretical philosophy to show that it is at least possible that the spatiotemporal realm does not exhaust reality, so that there can be a non-empirical and free side to the self. Therefore Kant’s first Critique is a theoretical foundation for his entire system, which is devoted to establishing not just (i) what the most general necessary principles for the spaKant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel 461 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 461 tiotemporal domain are – a project that has been called his “metaphysics of experience” – but also (ii) that this domain cannot without contradiction define ultimate reality (hence his transcendental idealism). The first of these claims involves Kant’s primary use of the term ‘transcendental’, namely in the context of what he calls a transcendental deduction, which is an argument or “exposition” that establishes a necessary role for an a priori principle in our experience. As Kant explains, while mathematical principles are a priori and are necessary for experience, the mathematical proof of these principles is not itself transcendental; what is transcendental is rather the philosophical argument that these principles necessarily apply in experience. While in this way some transcendental arguments may presume propositions from an established science (e.g., geometry), others can begin with more modest assumptions – typically the proposition that there is experience or empirical knowledge at all – and then move on from there to uncover a priori principles that appear required for specific features of that knowledge. Kant begins by connecting metaphysics with the problem of synthetic a priori judgment. As necessary, metaphysical claims must have an a priori status, for we cannot determine that they are necessary by mere a posteriori means. As objective rather than merely formal, metaphysical judgments (unlike those of logic) are also said to be synthetic. This synthetic a priori character is claimed by Kant to be mysterious and yet shared by a large number of propositions that were undisputed in his time. The mystery is how a proposition can be known as necessary and yet be objective or “ampliative” or not merely “analytic.” For Kant an analytic proposition is one whose predicate is “contained in the subject.” He does not mean this “containment” relation to be understood psychologically, for he stresses that we can be psychologically and even epistemically bound to affirm non-analytic propositions. The containment is rather determined simply by what is contained in the concepts of the subject term and the predicate term. However, Kant also denies that we have ready real definitions for empirical or a priori concepts, so it is unclear how one determines what is really contained in a subject or predicate term. He seems to rely on intuitive procedures for saying when it is that one necessarily connects a subject and predicate without relying on a hidden conceptual relation. Thus he proposes that mathematical constructions, and not mere conceptual elucidations, are what warrant necessary judgments about triangles. In calling such judgments ampliative, Kant does not mean that they merely add to what we may have explicitly seen or implicitly known about the subject, for he also grants that complex analytic judgments may be quite informative, and thus “new” in a psychological or epistemic sense. While Kant stresses that non-analytic or synthetic judgments rest on “intuition” (Anschauung), this is not part of their definition. If a proposition could be known through its concepts alone, it must be analytic, but if it is not knowable in this way it follows only that we need something other than concepts. Kant presumed that this something must be intuition, but others have suggested other possibilities, such as postulation. Intuition is a technical notion of Kant, meant for those representations that have an immediate relation to their object. Human intuitions are also all sensible (or sensuous) or passive, and have a singular rather than general object, but these are less basic features of intuition, since Kant stresses the possibility of (nonhuman) non-sensible or “intellectual” intuition, and he implies that singularity of reference can be achieved by non-intuitive means (e.g., in the definition of God). The immediacy of intuition is crucial because it is what sets them off from concepts, which are essentially representations of representations, i.e., rules expressing what is common to a set of representations. Kant claims that mathematics, and metaphysical expositions of our notions of space and time, can reveal several evident synthetic a priori propositions, e.g., that there is one infinite space. In asking what could underlie the belief that propositions like this are certain, Kant came to his Copernican revolution. This consists in considering not how our representations may necessarily conform to objects as such, but rather how objects may necessarily conform to our representations. On a “pre-Copernican” view, objects are considered just by themselves, i.e., as “things-in-themselves” (Dinge an sich) totally apart from any intrinsic cognitive relation to our representations, and thus it is mysterious how we could ever determine them a priori. If we begin, however, with our own faculties of representation we might find something in them that determines how objects must be – at least when considered just as phenomena (singular: phenomenon), i.e., as objects of experience rather than as noumena (singular: noumenon), i.e., things-inthemselves specified negatively as unknown and beyond our experience, or positively as knowable in some absolute non-sensible way – which Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel 462 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 462 Kant insists is theoretically impossible for sensible beings like us. For example, Kant claims that when we consider our faculty for receiving impressions, or sensibility, we can find not only contingent contents but also two necessary forms or “pure forms of intuition”: space, which structures all outer representations given us, and time, which structures all inner representations. These forms can explain how the synthetic a priori propositions of mathematics will apply with certainty to all the objects of our experience. That is, if we suppose that in intuiting these propositions we are gaining a priori insight into the forms of our representation that must govern all that can come to our sensible awareness, it becomes understandable that all objects in our experience will have to conform with these propositions. Kant presented his transcendental idealism as preferable to all the alternative explanations that he knew for the possibility of mathematical knowledge and the metaphysical status of space and time. Unlike empiricism, it allowed necessary claims in this domain; unlike rationalism, it freed the development of this knowledge from the procedures of mere conceptual analysis; and unlike the Newtonians it did all this without giving space and time a mysterious status as an absolute thing or predicate of God. With proper qualifications, Kant’s doctrine of the transcendental ideality of space and time can be understood as a radicalization of the modern idea of primary and secondary qualities. Just as others had contended that sensible color and sound qualities, e.g., can be intersubjectively valid and even objectively based while existing only as relative to our sensibility and not as ascribable to objects in themselves, so Kant proposed that the same should be said of spatiotemporal predicates. Kant’s doctrine, however, is distinctive in that it is not an empirical hypothesis that leaves accessible to us other theoretical and non-ideal predicates for explaining particular experiences. It is rather a metaphysical thesis that enriches empirical explanations with an a priori framework, but begs off any explanation for that framework itself other than the statement that it lies in the “constitution” of human sensibility as such. This “Copernican” hypothesis is not a clear proof that spatiotemporal features could not apply to objects apart from our forms of intuition, but more support for this stronger claim is given in Kant’s discussion of the “antinomies” of rational cosmology. An antinomy is a conflict between two a priori arguments arising from reason when, in its distinctive work as a higher logical faculty connecting strings of judgments, it posits a real unconditioned item at the origin of various hypothetical syllogisms. There are antinomies of quantity, quality, relation, and modality, and they each proceed by pairs of dogmatic arguments which suppose that since one kind of unconditioned item cannot be found, e.g., an absolutely first event, another kind must be posited, e.g., a complete infinite series of past events. For most of the other antinomies, Kant indicates that contradiction can be avoided by allowing endless series in experience (e.g., of chains of causality, of series of dependent beings), series that are compatible with – but apparently do not require – unconditioned items (uncaused causes, necessary beings) outside experience. For the antinomy of quantity, however, he argues that the only solution is to drop the common dogmatic assumption that the set of spatiotemporal objects constitutes a determinate whole, either absolutely finite or infinite. He takes this to show that spatiotemporality must be transcendentally ideal, only an indeterminate feature of our experience and not a characteristic of things-in-themselves. Even when structured by the pure forms of space and time, sensible representations do not yield knowledge until they are grasped in concepts and these concepts are combined in a judgment. Otherwise, we are left with mere impressions, scattered in an unintelligible “multiplicity” or manifold; in Kant’s words, “thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.” Judgment requires both concepts and intuitions; it is not just any relation of concepts, but a bringing together of them in a particular way, an “objective” unity, so that one concept is predicated of another – e.g., “all bodies are divisible” – and the latter “applies to certain appearances that present themselves to us,” i.e., are intuited. Because any judgment involves a unity of thought that can be prefixed by the phrase ‘I think’, Kant speaks of all representations, to the extent that they can be judged by us, as subject to a necessary unity of apperception. This term originally signified self-consciousness in contrast to direct consciousness or perception, but Kant uses it primarily to contrast with ‘inner sense’, the precognitive manifold of temporal representations as they are merely given in the mind. Kant also contrasts the empirical ego, i.e., the self as it is known contingently in experience, with the transcendental ego, i.e., the self thought of as the subject of structures of intuiting and thinking that are necessary throughout experience. Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel 463 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 463 The fundamental need for concepts and judgments suggests that our “constitution” may require not just intuitive but also conceptual forms, i.e., “pure concepts of the understanding,” or “categories.” The proof that our experience does require such forms comes in the “deduction of the objective validity of the pure concepts of the understanding,” also called the transcendental deduction of the categories, or just the deduction. This most notorious of all Kantian arguments appears to be in one way harder and in one way easier than the transcendental argument for pure intuitions. Those intuitions were held to be necessary for our experience because as structures of our sensibility nothing could even be imagined to be given to us without them. Yet, as Kant notes, it might seem that once representations are given in this way we can still imagine that they need not then be combined in terms of such pure concepts as causality. On the other hand, Kant proposed that a list of putative categories could be derived from a list of the necessary forms of the logical table of judgments, and since these forms would be required for any finite understanding, whatever its mode of sensibility is like, it can seem that the validity of pure concepts is even more inescapable than that of pure intuitions. That there is nonetheless a special difficulty in the transcendental argument for the categories becomes evident as soon as one considers the specifics of Kant’s list. The logical table of judgments is an a priori collection of all possible judgment forms organized under four headings, with three subforms each: quantity (universal, particular, singular), quality (affirmative, negative, infinite), relation (categorical, hypothetical, disjunctive), and modality (problematic, assertoric, apodictic). This list does not map exactly onto any one of the logic textbooks of Kant’s day, but it has many similarities with them; thus problematic judgments are simply those that express logical possibility, and apodictic ones are those that express logical necessity. The table serves Kant as a clue to the “metaphysical deduction” of the categories, which claims to show that there is an origin for these concepts that is genuinely a priori, and, on the premise that the table is proper, that the derived concepts can be claimed to be fundamental and complete. But by itself the list does not show exactly what categories follow from, i.e., are necessarily used with, the various forms of judgment, let alone what their specific meaning is for our mode of experience. Above all, even when it is argued that each experience and every judgment requires at least one of the four general forms, and that the use of any form of judgment does involve a matching pure concept (listed in the table of categories: reality, negation, limitation; unity, plurality, totality; inherence and subsistence, causality and dependence, community; possibility – impossibility, existence –non-existence, and necessity–contingency) applying to the objects judged about, this does not show that the complex relational forms and their corresponding categories of causality and community are necessary unless it is shown that these specific forms of judgment are each necessary for our experience. Precisely because this is initially not evident, it can appear, as Kant himself noted, that the validity of controversial categories such as causality cannot be established as easily as that of the forms of intuition. Moreover, Kant does not even try to prove the objectivity of the traditional modal categories but treats the principles that use them as mere definitions relative to experience. Thus a problematic judgment, i.e., one in which “affirmation or negation is taken as merely possible,” is used when something is said to be possible in the sense that it “agrees with the formal conditions of experience, i.e., with the conditions of intuition and of concepts.” A clue for rescuing the relational categories is given near the end of the Transcendental Deduction (B version), where Kant notes that the a priori all-inclusiveness and unity of space and time that is claimed in the treatment of sensibility must, like all cognitive unity, ultimately have a foundation in judgment. Kant expands on this point by devoting a key section called the analogies of experience to arguing that the possibility of our judging objects to be determined in an objective position in the unity of time (and, indirectly, space) requires three a priori principles (each called an “Analogy”) that employ precisely the relational categories that seemed especially questionable. Since these categories are established as needed just for the determination of time and space, which themselves have already been argued to be transcendentally ideal, Kant can conclude that for us even a priori claims using pure concepts of the understanding provide what are only transcendentally ideal claims. Thus we cannot make determinate theoretical claims about categories such as substance, cause, and community in an absolute sense that goes beyond our experience, but we can establish principles for their spatiotemporal specifications, called schemata, namely, the three Analogies: “in all change of appearance substance is permanent,” “all alterations take place in conformity with the law of the connection of cause and Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel 464 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 464 effect,” and “all substances, insofar as they can be perceived to coexist in space, are in thoroughgoing reciprocity.” Kant initially calls these regulative principles of experience, since they are required for organizing all objects of our empirical knowledge within a unity, and, unlike the constitutive principles for the categories of quantity and quality (namely: “all intuitions [for us] are extensive magnitudes,” and “in all appearances the real that is an object of sensation has intensive magnitude, that is, a degree”), they do not characterize any individual item by itself but rather only by its real relation to other objects of experience. Nonetheless, in comparison to mere heuristic or methodological principles (e.g., seek simple or teleological explanations), these Analogies are held by Kant to be objectively necessary for experience, and for this reason can also be called constitutive in a broader sense. The remainder of the Critique exposes the “original” or “transcendental” ideas of pure reason that pretend to be constitutive or theoretically warranted but involve unconditional components that wholly transcend the realm of experience. These include not just the antinomic cosmological ideas noted above (of these Kant stresses the idea of transcendental freedom, i.e., of uncaused causing), but also the rational psychological ideas of the soul as an immortal substance and the rational theological idea of God as a necessary and perfect being. Just as the pure concepts of the understanding have an origin in the necessary forms of judgments, these ideas are said to originate in the various syllogistic forms of reason: the idea of a soul-substance is the correlate of an unconditioned first term of a categorical syllogism (i.e., a subject that can never be the predicate of something else), and the idea of God is the correlate of the complete sum of possible predicates that underlies the unconditioned first term of the disjunctive syllogism used to give a complete determination of a thing’s properties. Despite the a priori origin of these notions, Kant claims we cannot theoretically establish their validity, even though they do have regulative value in organizing our notion of a human or divine spiritual substance. Thus, even if, as Kant argues, traditional proofs of immortality, and the teleological, cosmological, and ontological arguments for God’s existence, are invalid, the notions they involve can be affirmed as long as there is, as he believes, a sufficient non-theoretical, i.e., moral argument for them. When interpreted on the basis of such an argument, they are transformed into ideas of practical reason, ideas that, like perfect virtue, may not be verified or realized in sensible experience, but have a rational warrant in pure practical considerations. Although Kant’s pure practical philosophy culminates in religious hope, it is primarily a doctrine of obligation. Moral value is determined ultimately by the nature of the intention of the agent, which in turn is determined by the nature of what Kant calls the general maxim or subjective principle underlying a person’s action. One follows a hypothetical imperative when one’s maxim does not presume an unconditional end, a goal (like the fulfillment of duty) that one should have irrespective of all sensible desires, but rather a “material end” dependent on contingent inclinations (e.g., the directive “get this food,” in order to feel happy). In contrast, a categorical imperative is a directive saying what ought to be done from the perspective of pure reason alone; it is categorical because what this perspective commands is not contingent on sensible circumstances and it always carries overriding value. The general formula of the categorical imperative is to act only according to those maxims that can be consistently willed as a universal law – something said to be impossible for maxims aimed merely at material ends. In accepting this imperative, we are doubly self-determined, for we are not only determining our action freely, as Kant believes humans do in all exercises of the faculty of choice; we are also accepting a principle whose content is determined by that which is absolutely essential to us as agents, namely our pure practical reason. We thus are following our own law and so have autonomy when we accept the categorical imperative; otherwise we fall into heteronomy, or the (free) acceptance of principles whose content is determined independently of the essential nature of our own ultimate being, which is rational. Given the metaphysics of his transcendental idealism, Kant can say that the categorical imperative reveals a supersensible power of freedom in us such that we must regard ourselves as part of an intelligible world, i.e., a domain determined ultimately not by natural laws but rather by laws of reason. As such a rational being, an agent is an end in itself, i.e., something whose value is not dependent on external material ends, which are contingent and valued only as means to the end of happiness – which is itself only a conditional value (since the satisfaction of an evil will would be improper). Kant regards accepting the categorical imperative as tantamount to respecting rational nature as an end in itself, and to willing as if we were legislating a kingdom of ends. This is to will that the world become a “systematic Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel 465 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 465 union of different rational beings through common laws,” i.e., laws that respect and fulfill the freedom of all rational beings. Although there is only one fundamental principle of morality, there are still different types of specific duties. One basic distinction is between strict duty and imperfect duty. Duties of justice, of respecting in action the rights of others, or the duty not to violate the dignity of persons as rational agents, are strict because they allow no exception for one’s inclination. A perfect duty is one that requires a specific action (e.g. keeping a promise), whereas an imperfect duty, such as the duty to perfect oneself or to help others, cannot be completely discharged or demanded by right by someone else, and so one has considerable latitude in deciding when and how it is to be respected. A meritorious duty involves going beyond what is strictly demanded and thereby generating an obligation in others, as when one is extraordinarily helpful to others and “merits” their gratitude. See also EPISTEMOLOGY, ETHICS, IDEALISM, METAPHYSICS, RATIONALISM, TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENT. K.A. Kao Tzu (fifth–fourth century B.C.), Chinese thinker and philosophical adversary of Mencius (4th century B.C.). He is referred to in the Meng Tzu (Book of Mencius). A figure of the same name appeared in the Mo Tzu as a (probably younger) contemporary of Mo Tzu (fifth century B.C.), but it is unclear if the two were the same individual. As presented in the Meng Tzu, Kao Tzu held that human nature (hsing) is morally neutral, and that living morally requires learning rightness (yi) from sources (such as philosophical doctrines) outside the heart/mind (hsin), and shaping one’s way of life accordingly. These ideas are opposed to Mencius’s belief that the heart/mind has incipient moral inclinations from which rightness can be derived, and that living morally involves one’s fully developing such inclinations. Ever since the view that Mencius was the true transmitter of Confucius’s teachings became established, largely through the efforts of Chu Hsi (1130–1200), Confucians have distanced themselves from Kao Tzu’s position and even criticized philosophical opponents for holding positions similar to Kao Tzu’s. See also CONFUCIANISM, MENCIUS. K.-l.S. karma, in Indian thought, the force whereby right and wrong actions bring benefits and punishments in this or a future existence. This occurs not arbitrarily, but by law. The conditions of birth (one’s sex, caste, circumstances of life) are profoundly affected by one’s karmic “bank account.” A typical Buddhist perspective is that the state of the non-conscious world at any given time is largely determined by the total karmic situation that then holds. For all of the Indian perspectives that accept the karma-and-transmigration perspective, religious enlightenment, the highest good, includes escape from karma. Were it absolutely impossible to act without karmic consequences, obviously such escape would be impossible. (Suicide is viewed as merely ending the life of one’s current body, and typically is viewed as wrong, so that the cosmic effect of one’s suicide will be more punishment.) Thus non-theistic views hold that one who has achieved a pre-enlightenment status – typically reached by meditation, alms-giving, ascetic discipline, or the achieving of esoteric knowledge – can act so as to maintain life without collecting karmic consequences so long as one’s actions are not morally wrong and are done disinterestedly. In theistic perspectives, where moral wrongdoing is sin and acting rightly is obedience to God, karma is the justice of Brahman in action and Brahman may pardon a repentant sinner from the results of wrong actions and place the forgiven sinner in a relation to Brahman that, at death, releases him or her from the transmigratory wheel. See also BRAHMAN, BUDDHISM. K.E.Y. karmic. See KARMA. katastematic pleasure. See EPICUREANISM. Kepler, Johannes (1571–1630), German mathematical astronomer, speculative metaphysician, and natural philosopher. He was born in Weil der Stadt, near Stuttgart. He studied astronomy with Michael Maestlin at the University of Tübingen, and then began the regular course of theological studies that prepared him to become a Lutheran pastor. Shortly before completing these studies he accepted the post of mathematician at Graz. “Mathematics” was still construed as including astronomy and astrology. There he published the Mysterium cosmographicum (1596), the first mjaor astronomical work to utilize the Copernican system since Copernicus’s own De revolutionibus half a century before. The Copernican shift of the sun to the center allowed Kepler to propose an explanation for the spacing of the planets (the Creator inscribed the successive planetary orbits in the five regular polyhedra) and for their motions (a sun-centered driving force diminishing with disKao Tzu Kepler, Johannes 466 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 466 tance from the sun). In this way, he could claim to have overcome the traditional prohibition against the mathematical astronomer’s claiming reality for the motion he postulates. Ability to explain had always been the mark of the philosopher. Kepler, a staunch Lutheran, was forced to leave Catholic Graz as bitter religious and political disputes engulfed much of northern Europe. He took refuge in the imperial capital, Prague, where Tycho Brahe, the greatest observational astronomer of the day, had established an observatory. Tycho asked Kepler to compose a defense of Tycho’s astronomy against a critic, Nicolaus Ursus, who had charged that it was “mere hypothesis.” The resulting Apologia (1600) remained unpublished; it contains a perceptive analysis of the nature of astronomical hypothesis. Merely saving the phenomena, Kepler argues, is in general not sufficient to separate two mathematical systems like those of Ptolemy and Copernicus. Other more properly explanatory “physical” criteria will be needed. Kepler was allowed to begin work on the orbit of Mars, using the mass of data Tycho had accumulated. But shortly afterward, Tycho died suddenly (1601). Kepler succeeded to Tycho’s post as Imperial Mathematician; more important, he was entrusted with Tycho’s precious data. Years of labor led to the publication of the Astronomia nova (1609), which announced the discovery of the elliptical orbit of Mars. One distinctive feature of Kepler’s long quest for the true shape of the orbit was his emphasis on finding a possible physical evaluation for any planetary motion he postulated before concluding that it was the true motion. Making the sun’s force magnetic allowed him to suppose that its effect on the earth would vary as the earth’s magnetic axis altered its orientation to the sun, thus perhaps explaining the varying distances and speeds of the earth in its elliptical orbit. The full title of his book makes his ambition clear: A New Astronomy Based on Causes, or A Physics of the Sky. Trouble in Prague once more forced Kepler to move. He eventually found a place in Linz (1612), where he continued his exploration of cosmic harmonies, drawing on theology and philosophy as well as on music and mathematics. The Harmonia mundi (1618) was his favorite among his books: “It can wait a century for a reader, as God himself has waited six thousand years for a witness.” The discovery of what later became known as his third law, relating the periodic times of any two planets as the ratio of the 3 /2 power of their mean distances, served to confirm his long-standing conviction that the universe is fashioned according to ideal harmonic relationships. In the Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae (1612), he continued his search for causes “either natural or archetypal,” not only for the planetary motions, but for such details as the size of the sun and the densities of the planets. He was more convinced than ever that a physics of the heavens had to rest upon its ability to explain (and not just to predict) the peculiarities of the planetary and lunar motions. What prevented him from moving even further than he did toward a new physics was that he had not grasped what later came to be called the principle of inertia. Thus he was compelled to postulate not only an attractive force between planet and sun but also a second force to urge the planet onward. It was Newton who showed that the second force is unnecessary, and who finally constructed the “physics of the sky” that had been Kepler’s ambition. But he could not have done it without Kepler’s notion of a quantifiable force operating between planet and sun, an unorthodox notion shaped in the first place by an imagination steeped in Neoplatonic metaphysics and the theology of the Holy Spirit. See also NEWTON. E.M. Kerry’s paradox. See FREGE. Keynes, John Maynard (1883–1946), English economist and public servant who revolutionized economic theory and the application of economic theory in government policy. His most philosophically important works were The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) and A Treatise on Probability (1921). Keynes was also active in English philosophical life, being well acquainted with such thinkers as Moore and Ramsey. In the philosophy of probability, Keynes pioneered the treatment of propositions as the bearers of probability assignments. Unlike classical subjectivists, he treated probabilities as objective evidential relations among propositions. These relations were to be directly epistemically accessible to an intuitive faculty. An idiosyncratic feature of Keynes’s system is that different probability assignments cannot always be compared (ordered as equal, less than, or greater than one another). Keynesian economics is still presented in introductory textbooks and it has permanently affected both theory and practice. Keynes’s economic thought had a number of philosophically Kerry’s paradox Keynes, John Maynard 467 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 467 important dimensions. While his theorizing was in the capitalistic tradition, he rejected Smith’s notion of an invisible hand that would optimize the performance of an economy without any intentional direction by individuals or by the government. This involved rejection of the economic policy of laissez-faire, according to which government intervention in the economy’s operation is useless, or worse. Keynes argued that natural forces could deflect an economy from a course of optimal growth and keep it permanently out of equilibria. In the General Theory he proposed a number of mechanisms for adjusting its performance. He advocated programs of government taxation and spending, not primarily as a means of providing public goods, but as a means of increasing prosperity and avoiding unemployment. Political philosophers are thereby provided with another means for justifying the existence of strong governments. One of the important ways that Keynes’s theory still directs much economic theorizing is its deep division between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Keynes argued, in effect, that microeconomic analysis with its emphasis on ideal individual rationality and perfect competition was inadequate as a tool for understanding such important macrophenomena as employment, interest, and money. He tried to show how human psychological foibles and market frictions required a qualitatively different kind of analysis at the macro level. Much current economic theorizing is concerned with understanding the connections between micro- and macrophenomena and micro- and macroeconomics in an attempt to dissolve or blur the division. This issue is a philosophically important instance of a potential theoretical reduction. See also PHILOSOPHY OF ECONOMICS, PROBABILITY. A.N. Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye (1813–55), Danish writer whose “literature,” as he called it, includes philosophy, psychology, theology and devotional literature, fiction, and literary criticism. Born to a well-to-do middle class family, he consumed his inheritance while writing a large corpus of books in a remarkably short time. His life was marked by an intense relationship with a devout but melancholy father, from whom he inherited his own bent to melancholy, with which he constantly struggled. A decisive event was his broken engagement from Regine Olsen, which precipitated the beginning of his authorship; his first books are partly an attempt to explain, in a covert and symbolic way, the reasons why he felt he could not marry. Later Kierkegaard was involved in a controversy in which he was mercilessly attacked by a popular satirical periodical; this experience deepened his understanding of the significance of suffering and the necessity for an authentic individual to stand alone if necessary against “the crowd.” This caused him to abandon his plans to take a pastorate, a post for which his theological education had prepared him. At the end of his life, he waged a lonely, public campaign in the popular press and in a magazine he founded himself, against the Danish state church. He collapsed on the street with the final issue of this magazine, The Instant, ready for the printer, and was carried to a hospital. He died a few weeks later, affirming a strong Christian faith, but refusing to take communion from the hands of a priest of the official church. Though some writers have questioned whether Kierkegaard’s writings admit of a unified interpretation, he himself saw his literature as serving Christianity; he saw himself as a “missionary” whose task was to “reintroduce Christianity into Christendom.” However, much of this literature does not address Christianity directly, but rather concerns itself with an analysis of human existence. Kierkegaard saw this as necessary, because Christianity is first and foremost a way of existing. He saw much of the confusion about Christian faith as rooted in confusion about the nature of existence; hence to clear up the former, the latter must be carefully analyzed. The great misfortune of “Christendom” and “the present age” is that people “have forgotten what it means to exist,” and Kierkegaard sees himself as a modern Socrates sent to “remind” others of what they know but have forgotten. It is not surprising that the analyses of human existence he provides have been of great interest to non-Christian writers as well. Kierkegaard frequently uses the verb ‘to exist’ (at existere) in a special sense, to refer to human existence. In this sense God is said not to exist, even though God has eternal reality. Kierkegaard describes human existence as an unfinished process, in which “the individual” (a key concept in his thought) must take responsibility for achieving an identity as a self through free choices. Such a choice is described as a leap, to highlight Kierkegaard’s view that intellectual reflection alone can never motivate action. A decision to end the process of reflection is necessary and such a decision must be generated by passion. The passions that shape a person’s self are referred to by Kierkegaard as the individual’s “inwardness” or “subjectivity.” The most signifiKierkegaard, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye 468 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 468 cant passions, such as love and faith, do not merely happen; they must be cultivated and formed. The process by which the individual becomes a self is described by Kierkegaard as ideally moving through three stages, termed the “stages on life’s way.” Since human development occurs by freedom and not automatically, however, the individual can become fixated in any of these stages. Thus the stages also confront each other as rival views of life, or “spheres of existence.” The three stages or spheres are the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. A distinctive feature of Kierkegaard’s literature is that these three lifeviews are represented by pseudonymous “characters” who actually “author” some of the books; this leads to interpretive difficulties, since it is not always clear what to attribute to Kierkegaard himself and what to the pseudonymous character. Fortunately, he also wrote many devotional and religious works under his own name, where this problem does not arise. The aesthetic life is described by Kierkegaard as lived for and in “the moment.” It is a life governed by “immediacy,” or the satisfaction of one’s immediate desires, though it is capable of a kind of development in which one learns to enjoy life reflectively, as in the arts. What the aesthetic person lacks is commitment, which is the key to the ethical life, a life that attempts to achieve a unified self through commitment to ideals with enduring validity, rather than simply momentary appeal. The religious life emerges from the ethical life when the individual realizes both the transcendent character of the true ideals and also how far short of realizing those ideals the person is. In Concluding Unscientific Postscript two forms of the religious life are distinguished: a “natural” religiosity (religiousness “A”) in which the person attempts to relate to the divine and resolve the problem of guilt, relying solely on one’s natural “immanent” idea of the divine; and Christianity (religiousness “B”), in which God becomes incarnate as a human being in order to establish a relation with humans. Christianity can be accepted only through the “leap of faith.” It is a religion not of “immanence” but of “transcendence,” since it is based on a revelation. This revelation cannot be rationally demonstrated, since the incarnation is a paradox that transcends human reason. Reason can, however, when the passion of faith is present, come to understand the appropriateness of recognizing its own limits and accepting the paradoxical incarnation of God in the form of Jesus Christ. The true Christian is not merely an admirer of Jesus, but one who believes by becoming a follower. The irreducibility of the religious life to the ethical life is illustrated for Kierkegaard in the biblical story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac to obey the command of God. In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard (through his pseudonym Johannes de Silentio) analyzes this act of Abraham’s as involving a “teleological suspension of the ethical.” Abraham’s act cannot be understood merely in ethical terms as a conflict of duties in which one rationally comprehensible duty is superseded by a higher one. Rather, Abraham seems to be willing to “suspend” the ethical as a whole in favor of a higher religious duty. Thus, if one admires Abraham as “the father of faith,” one admires a quality that cannot be reduced to simply moral virtue. Some have read this as a claim that religious faith may require immoral behavior; others argue that what is relativized by the teleological suspension of the ethical is not an eternally valid set of moral requirements, but rather ethical obligations as these are embedded in human social institutions. Thus, in arguing that “the ethical” is not the highest element in existence, Kierkegaard leaves open the possibility that our social institutions, and the ethical ideals that they embody, do not deserve our absolute and unqualified allegiance, an idea with important political implications. In accord with his claim that existence cannot be reduced to intellectual thought, Kierkegaard devotes much attention to emotions and passions. Anxiety is particularly important, since it reflects human freedom. Anxiety involves a “sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy”; it is the psychological state that precedes the basic human fall into sin, but it does not explain this “leap,” since no final explanation of a free choice can be given. Such negative emotions as despair and guilt are also important for Kierkegaard; they reveal the emptiness of the aesthetic and the ultimately unsatisfactory character of the ethical, driving individuals on toward the religious life. Irony and humor are also seen as important “boundary zones” for the stages of existence. The person who has discovered his or her own “eternal validity” can look ironically at the relative values that capture most people, who live their lives aesthetically. Similarly, the “existential humorist” who has seen the incongruities that necessarily pervade our ethical human projects is on the border of the religious life. Kierkegaard also analyzes the passions of faith Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye 469 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 469 and love. Faith is ultimately understood as a “willing to be oneself” that is made possible by a transparent, trusting relationship to the “power that created the self.” Kierkegaard distinguishes various forms of love, stressing that Christian love must be understood as neighbor love, a love that is combined and is not rooted in any natural relationship to the self, such as friendship or kinship, but ultimately is grounded in the fact that all humans share a relationship to their creator. Kierkegaard is well known for his critique of Hegel’s absolute idealism. Hegel’s claim to have written “the system” is ridiculed for its pretensions of finality. From the Dane’s perspective, though reality may be a system for God, it cannot be so for any existing thinker, since both reality and the thinker are incomplete and system implies completeness. Hegelians are also criticized for pretending to have found a presuppositionless or absolute starting point; for Kierkegaard, philosophy begins not with doubt but with wonder. Reflection is potentially infinite; the doubt that leads to skepticism cannot be ended by thought alone but only by a resolution of the will. Kierkegaard also defends traditional Aristotelian logic and the principle of non-contradiction against the Hegelian introduction of “movement” into logic. Kierkegaard is particularly disturbed by the Hegelian tendency to see God as immanent in society; he thought it important to understand God as “wholly other,” the “absolutely different” who can never be exhaustively embodied in human achievement or institutions. To stand before God one must stand as an individual, in “fear and trembling,” conscious that this may require a break with the given social order. Kierkegaard is often characterized as the father of existentialism. There are reasons for this; he does indeed philosophize existentially, and he undoubtedly exercised a deep influence on many twentieth-century existentialists such as Sartre and Camus. But the characterization is anachronistic, since existentialism as a movement is a twentieth-century phenomenon, and the differences between Kierkegaard and those existentialists are also profound. If existentialism is defined as the denial that there is such a thing as a human essence or nature, it is unlikely that Kierkegaard is an existentialist. More recently, the Dane has also been seen as a precursor of postmodernism. His rejection of classical foundationalist epistemologies and employment of elusive literary techniques such as his pseudonyms again make such associations somewhat plausible. However, despite his rejection of the system and criticism of human claims to finality and certitude, Kierkegaard does not appear to espouse any form of relativism or have much sympathy for “anti-realism.” He has the kind of passion for clarity and delight in making sharp distinctions that are usually associated with contemporary “analytic” philosophy. In the end he must be seen as his own person, a unique Christian presence with sensibilities that are in many ways Greek and premodern rather than postmodern. He has been joyfully embraced and fervently criticized by thinkers of all stripes. He remains “the individual” he wrote about, and to whom he dedicated many of his works. See also CAMUS, EXISTENTIALISM, HEGEL, POSTMODERN, SARTRE. C.S.E. Kilvington, Richard, surname also spelled Kilmington, Chillington (1302/05–61), English philosopher, theologian, and ecclesiastic. He was a scholar associated with the household of Richard de Bury and an early member of the Oxford Calculators, important in the early development of physics. Kilvington’s Sophismata (early 1320s) is the only work of his studied extensively to date. It is an investigation of puzzles regarding change, velocity and acceleration, motive power, beginning and ceasing, the continuum, infinity, knowing and doubting, and the liar and related paradoxes. His approach is peculiar insofar as all these are treated in a purely logical or conceptual way, in contrast to the mathematical “calculations” used by Bradwardine, Heytesbury, and other later Oxford Calculators to handle problems in physics. Kilvington also wrote a commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences and questions on Aristotle’s On Generation and Corruption, Physics, and Nicomachean Ethics. See also OXFORD CALCULATORS. P.V.S. Kilwardby, Robert (d.1279), English philosopher and theologian. He apparently studied and perhaps taught at the University of Paris, later joining the Dominicans and perhaps lecturing at Oxford. He became archbishop of Canterbury in 1272 and in 1277 condemned thirty propositions, among them Aquinas’s position that there is a single substantial form in a human being. Kilwardby resigned his archbishopric in 1278 and was appointed to the bishopric of Santa Rufina in Italy, where he died. Kilwardby wrote extensively and had considerable medieval influence, especially in philosophy of language; but it is now unusually difficult to determine which works are authentically his. De Ortu Scientiarum advanced a sophisticated Kilvington, Richard Kilwardby, Robert 470 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 470 account of how names are imposed and a detailed account of the nature and role of logic. In metaphysics he insisted that things are individual and that universality arises from operations of the soul. He wrote extensively on happiness and was concerned to show that some happiness is possible in this life. In psychology he argued that freedom of decision is a disposition arising from the cooperation of the intellect and the will. C.G.Norm. Kim, Jaegwon (b.1934), Korean-American philosopher, writing in the analytic tradition, author of important works in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. Kim has defended a “fine-grained” conception of events according to which an event is the possessing of a property by an object at a time (see “Causation, Nomic Subsumption, and the Concept of Event,” 1973; this and other papers referred to here are collected in Supervenience and Mind, 1993). This view has been a prominent rival of the “coarse-grained” account of events associated with Davidson. Kim’s work on the concept of supervenience has been widely influential, especially in the philosophy of mind (see “Supervenience as a Philosophical Concept,” 1990). He regards supervenience (or, as he now prefers, “property covariation”) as a relation holding between property families (mental properties and physical properties, for instance). If A-properties supervene on B-properties, then, necessarily, for any A-property, a, if an object, o, has a, there is some B-property, b, such that o has b, and (necessarily) anything that has b has a. Stronger or weaker versions of supervenience result from varying the modal strength of the parenthetical ‘necessarily’, or omitting it entirely. Although the notion of supervenience has been embraced by philosophers who favor some form of “non-reductive physicalism” (the view that the mental depends on, but is not reducible to, the physical), Kim himself has expressed doubts that physicalism can avoid reduction (“The Myth of Nonreductive Materialism,” 1989). If mental properties supervene on, but are distinct from, physical properties, then it is hard to see how mental properties could have a part in the production of physical effects – or mental effects, given the dependence of the mental on the physical. More recently, Kim has developed an account of “functional reduction” according to which supervenient properties are causally efficacious if and only if they are functionally reducible to properties antecedently accepted as causally efficacious (Mind in a Physical World, 1998). Properties, including properties of conscious experiences, not so reducible are “epiphenomenal.” See also DAVIDSON, EVENT, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, REDUCTION, SUPERVENIENCE. J.F.H. Kindi, al-. See AL-KINDi. kinesis. See ARISTOTLE. kinetic pleasure. See EPICUREANISM. kingdom of ends. See KANT. KK-thesis, the thesis that knowing entails knowing that one knows, symbolized in propositional epistemic logic as Kp P KKp, where ‘K’ stands for knowing. According to the KK-thesis, the (propositional) logic of knowledge resembles the modal system S4. The KK-thesis was introduced into epistemological discussion by Hintikka in Knowledge and Belief (1962). He calls the KKthesis a “virtual implication,” a conditional whose negation is “indefensible.” A tacit or an explicit acceptance of the thesis has been part of many philosophers’ views about knowledge since Plato and Aristotle. If the thesis is formalized as Kap P KaKap, where ‘Ka’ is read as ‘a knows that’, it holds only if the person a knows that he is referred to by ‘a’; this qualification is automatically satisfied for the first-person case. The validity of the thesis seems sensitive to variations in the sense of ‘know’; it has sometimes been thought to characterize a strong concept of knowledge, e.g., knowledge based on (factually) conclusive reasons, or active as opposed to implicit knowledge. If knowledge is regarded as true belief based on conclusive evidence, the KKthesis entails that a person knows that p only if his evidence for p is also sufficient to justify the claim that he knows that p; the epistemic claim should not require additional evidence. See also EPISTEMOLOGY. R.Hi. Kleist, Heinrich von (1771–1811), German philosopher and literary figure whose entire work is based on the antinomy of reason and sentiment, one as impotent as the other, and reflects the Aufklärung crisis at the turn of the century. In 1799 he resigned from the Prussian army. Following a reading of Kant, he lost faith in a “life’s plan” as inspired by Leibniz’s, Wolff’s, and Shaftesbury’s rationalism. He looked for salvation in Rousseau but concluded that sentiment Kim, Jaegwon Kleist, Heinrich von 471 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 471 revealed itself just as untrustworthy as reason as soon as man left the state of original grace and realized himself to be neither a puppet nor a god (see Essay on the Puppet Theater, 1810). The Schroffenstein Family, Kleist’s first play (1802), repeats the Shakespearian theme of two young people who love each other but belong to warring families. One already finds in it the major elements of Kleist’s universe: the incapacity of the individual to master his fate, the theme of the tragic error, and the importance of the juridical. In 1803, Kleist returned to philosophy and literature and realized in Amphitryon (1806) the impossibility of the individual knowing himself and the world and acting deliberately in it. The divine order that is the norm of tragic art collapses, and with it, the principle of identity. Kleistian characters, “modern” individuals, illustrate this normative chaos. The Broken Jug (a comedy written in 1806) shows Kleist’s interest in law. In his two parallel plays, Penthesilea and The Young Catherine of Heilbronn, Kleist presents an alternative: either “the marvelous order of the world” and the theodicy that carries Catherine’s fate, or the sublime and apocryphal mission of the Christlike individual who must redeem the corrupt order. Before his suicide in 1811, Kleist looked toward the renaissance of the German nation for a historical way out of this metaphysical conflict. See also LEIBNIZ, SHAFTESBURY, WOLFF. G.Ra. knower, paradox of the. See DEONTIC PARADOXES. knowledge, tacit. See EPISTEMOLOGY. knowledge, causal theory of. See EPISTEMOLOGY, NATURALISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY. knowledge, direct. See BASING RELATION. knowledge, indirect. See BASING RELATION. knowledge, inferential. See INFERENTIAL KNOWLEDGE. knowledge, propositional. See EPISTEMOLOGY. knowledge, relativity of. See MANNHEIM.

knowledge by acquaintance, knowledge of objects by means of direct awareness of them. The notion of knowledge by acquaintance is primarily associated with Russell (The Problems of Philosophy, 1912). Russell first distinguishes knowledge of truths from knowledge of things. He then distinguishes two kinds of knowledge of things: knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Ordinary speech suggests that we are acquainted with the people and the physical objects in our immediate environments. On Russell’s view, however, our contact with these things is indirect, being mediated by our mental representations of them. He holds that the only things we know by acquaintance are the content of our minds, abstract universals, and, perhaps, ourselves. Russell says that knowledge by description is indirect knowledge of objects, our knowledge being mediated by other objects and truths. He suggests that we know external objects, such as tables and other people, only by description (e.g., the cause of my present experience). Russell’s discussion of this topic is quite puzzling. The considerations that lead him to say that we lack acquaintance with external objects also lead him to say that, strictly speaking, we lack knowledge of such things. This seems to amount to the claim that what he has called “knowledge by description” is not, strictly speaking, a kind of knowledge at all. Russell also holds that every proposition that a person understands must be composed entirely of elements with which the person is acquainted. This leads him to propose analyses of familiar propositions in terms of mental objects with which we are acquainted. See also PERCEPTION, RUSSELL. R.Fe. knowledge by description. See KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE. knowledge de dicto. See KNOWLEDGE DE RE. knowledge de re, knowledge, with respect to some object, that it has a particular property, or knowledge, of a group of objects, that they stand in some relation. Knowledge de re is typically contrasted with knowledge de dicto, which is knowledge of facts or propositions. If persons A and B know that a winner has been declared in an election, but only B knows which candidate has won, then both have de dicto knowledge that someone has won, but only B has de re knowledge about some candidate that she is the winner. Person B can knowingly attribute the property of being the winner to one of the candidates. It is generally held that to have de re knowledge about an object one must at least be in some sense familiar with or causally connected to the object. knower, paradox of the knowledge de re 472 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 472 A related concept is knowledge de se. This is self-knowledge, of the sort expressed by ‘I am —— ’. Knowledge de se is not simply de re knowledge about oneself. A person might see a group of people in a mirror and notice that one of the people has a red spot on his nose. He then has de dicto knowledge that someone in the group has a red spot on his nose. On most accounts, he also has de re knowledge with respect to that individual that he has a spot. But if he has failed to recognize that he himself is the one with the spot, then he lacks de se knowledge. He doesn’t know (or believe) what he would express by saying “I have a red spot.” So, according to this view, knowledge de se is not merely knowledge de re about oneself. See also DE DICTO. R.Fe. knowledge de se. See KNOWLEDGE DE RE. knowledge, tacit. See EPISTEMOLOGY. Köhler, Wolfgang (1887–1967), German and American (after 1935) psychologist who, with Wertheimer and Koffka, founded Gestalt psychology. Köhler made two distinctive contributions to Gestalt doctrine, one empirical, one theoretical. The empirical contribution was his study of animal thinking, performed on Tenerife Island from 1913 to 1920 (The Mentality of Apes, 1925). The then dominant theory of problem solving was E. L. Thorndike’s (1874–1949) associationist trial-and-error learning theory, maintaining that animals attack problems by trying out a series of behaviors, one of which is gradually “stamped in” by success. Köhler argued that trial-and-error behavior occurred only when, as in Thorndike’s experiments, part of the problem situation was hidden. He arranged more open puzzles, such as getting bananas hanging from a ceiling, requiring the ape to get a (visible) box to stand on. His apes showed insight – suddenly arriving at the correct solution. Although he demonstrated the existence of insight, its nature remains elusive, and trial-and-error learning remains the focus of research. Köhler’s theoretical contribution was the concept of isomorphism, Gestalt psychology’s theory of psychological representation. He held an identity theory of mind and body, and isomorphism claims that a topological mapping exists between the behavioral field in which an organism is acting (cf. Lewin) and fields of electrical currents in the brain (not the “mind”). Such currents have not been discovered. Important works by Köhler include Gestalt Psychology (1929), The Place of Value in a World of Facts (1938), Dynamics in Psychology (1940), and Selected Papers (1971, ed. M. Henle). See also FIGURE–GROUND. T.H.L. Ko Hung (fourth century A.D.), Chinese Taoist philosopher, also known as the Master Who Embraced Simplicity (Pao-p’u tzu). Ko Hung is a pivotal figure in the development of Taoism. His major work, the Pao-p’u tzu, emphasizes the importance of moral cultivation as a necessary step to spiritual liberation. In this Ko is often said to have synthesized Confucian concerns with Taoist aspirations. He champions the use of special drugs that would purify the body and spirit in the quest for Taoist transcendence. A firm believer in the existence of immortals (hsien) and the possibility of joining the ranks of the perfected, Ko experimented with different methods that fall under the rubric of “external alchemy” (wai-tan), which merits attention also in the history of Chinese science. See also HSIEN. A.K.L.C. Korean philosophy, philosophy in traditional Korea. Situated on the eastern periphery of the Asian mainland and cut off by water on three sides from other potential countervailing influences, Korea, with its more than two millennia of recorded history and a long tradition of philosophical reflection, was exposed from early on to the pervasive influence of China. The influences and borrowings from China – among the most pervasive of which have been the three major religiophilosophic systems of the East, Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism – were, in time, to leave their indelible marks on the philosophical, cultural, religious, linguistic, and social forms of Korean life. These influences from the Asian continent, which began to infiltrate Korean culture during the Three Kingdoms era (57 B.C. to A.D. 558), did not, however, operate in a vacuum. Even in the face of powerful and pervasive exogenous influences, shamanism – an animistic view of man and nature – remained the strong substratum of Korean culture, influencing and modifying the more sophisticated religions, philosophies, and ideologies that found entry into Korea during the last two thousand years. Originally a philosophical formula for personal salvation through the renunciation of worldly desire, Buddhism, in the course of propagation from its point of origin, had absorbed enough esoteric deities and forms of worship to constitute a new school, Mahayana, and it was this type of Buddhism that found ready acceptance in Korea. Its beliefs were, at the plebeian level, furknowledge de se Korean philosophy 473 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 473 ther mixed with native shamanism and integrated into a shamanistic polytheism. The syncretic nature of Korean Buddhism manifests itself at the philosophical level in a tendency toward a reconciliatory synthesis of opposing doctrines. Korean Buddhism produced a number of monk-philosophers, whose philosophical writings were influential beyond the boundaries of Korea. Wonhyo (617–86) of Silla and Pojo Chinul (1158–1210) of Koryo may be singled out as the most original and representative of those Buddhist philosophers. As Buddhism became more entrenched, a number of doctrinal problems and disputes began to surface. The most basic and serious was the dispute between the Madhyamika and Vijnaptimatrata-vadin schools of thought within Mahayana Buddhism. At the metaphysical level the former tended to negate existence, while the latter affirmed existence. An epistemological corollary of this ontological dispute was a dispute concerning the possibility of secular truth as opposed to transcendental truth. The former school denied its possibility, while the latter affirmed it. No mediation between these two schools of thought, either in their country of origin, India, or Korea, seemed possible. It was to this task of reconciling these two opposed schools that Wonhyo dedicated himself. In a series of annotations and interpretations of the Buddhist scriptures, particularly of the Taeseung Kishin-non (“The Awakening of Faith in Mahayana”), he worked out a position that became subsequently known as Hwajaengnon – a theory of reconciliation of dispute. It consisted in essence of seeing the two opposed schools as two different aspects of one mind. Wonhyo’s Hwajaeng-non, as the first full-scale attempt to reconcile the opposing doctrines in Mahayana Buddhism, was referred to frequently in both Chinese and Japanese Buddhist exegetical writings. The same spirit of reconciliation is also manifest later during the Koryo dynasty (918–1392) in Chinul’s Junghae-ssangsu, in which the founder of Korean Son Buddhism attempts a reconciliation between Kyo-hak (Scriptural school of Buddhism) and Son-ga (Meditation school of Buddhism), which were engaged in a serious confrontation with each other. Although many of its teachings were derivations from Mahayana Buddhist metaphysics, the Son school of Buddhism emphasized the realization of enlightenment without depending upon scriptural teachings, while the Scriptural school of Buddhism emphasized a gradual process of enlightenment through faith and the practice of understanding scriptures. Himself a Son master, Chinul provided a philosophical foundation for Korean Son by incorporating the doctrines of Scriptural Buddhism as the philosophical basis for the practices of Son. Chinul’s successful synthesis of Kyo and Son served as the basis for the development of an indigenous form of Son Buddhism in Korea. It is primarily this form of Buddhism that is meant when one speaks of Korean Buddhism today. Ethical self-cultivation stands at the core of Confucianism. Confucian theories of government and social relationships are founded upon it, and the metaphysical speculations have their place in Confucianism insofar as they are related to this overriding concern. The establishment in A.D. 372 of Taehak, a state-oriented Confucian institute of higher learning in the kingdom of Kokuryo, points to a well-established tradition of Confucian learning already in existence on the Korean peninsula during the Three Kingdoms era. Although Buddhism was the state religion of the Unified Silla period (668–918), Confucianism formed its philosophical and structural backbone. From 682, when a national academy was established in the Unified Silla kingdom as a training ground for high-level officials, the content of formal education in Korea consisted primarily of Confucian and other related Chinese classics; this lasted well into the nineteenth century. The preeminence of Confucianism in Korean history was further enhanced by its adoption by the founders of the Choson dynasty (1392–1910) as the national ideology. The Confucianism that flourished during the Choson period was Neo-Confucianism, a philosophical synthesis of original Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism achieved by the Chinese philosopher Chu Hsi in the twelfth century. During the five hundred years of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, a number of Korean scholars succeeded in bringing Neo-Confucian philosophical speculation to new heights of originality and influence both at home and abroad. Yi Hwang (better known by his pen name T’oegye, 1501– 70) and his adversary Yi I (Yulgok, 1536–84) deserve special mention. T’oegye interpreted the origin of the four cardinal virtues (benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and knowledge) and the seven emotions (pleasure, anger, sorrow, joy, love, hate, and desire) in such a way as to accord priority to the principle of reason I over the principle of material force Ki. T’oegye went a step further than his Sung mentor Chu Hsi by claiming that the prinKorean philosophy Korean philosophy 474 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 474 ciple of reason includes within itself the generative power for matter. This theory was criticized by Yulgok, who claimed that the source of generative power in the universe lay in the matter of material force itself. The philosophical debate carried on by these men and its implications for ethics and statecraft are generally considered richer in insight and more intricate in argumentation than that in China. T’oegye’s ideas in particular were influential in spreading NeoConfucianism in Japan. Neo-Confucian philosophical speculation in the hands of those lesser scholars who followed T’oegye and Yulgok, however, became overly speculative and impractical. It evolved, moreover, into a rigid national orthodoxy by the middle of the seventeenth century. Dissatisfaction with this intellectual orthodoxy was further deepened by Korea’s early encounter with Christianity and Western science, which had been reaching Korea by way of China since the beginning of the seventeenth century. Coupled with the pressing need for administrative and economic reforms subsequent to the Japanese invasion (1592–97), these tendencies gave rise to a group of illustrious Confucian scholars who, despite the fact that their individual lives spanned a 300-year period from 1550 to 1850, were subsequently and collectively given the name Silhak. Despite their diverse interests and orientations, these scholars were bound by their devotion to the spirit of practicality and utility as well as to seeking facts grounded in evidence in all scholarly endeavors, under the banner of returning to the spirit of the original Confucianism. Chong Yag-yong (1762–1836), who may be said to be the culmination of the Silhak movement, was able to transform these elements and tendencies into a new Confucian synthesis. See also BUDDHISM, CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, CONFUCIANISM, JAPANESE PHILOSOPHY, NEOCONFUCIANISM. Y.K. Kotarbigski, Tadeusz (1886–1981), Polish philosopher, cofounder, with Lukasiewicz and Lesniewski, of the Warsaw Center of Logical Research. His broad philosophical interests and humanistic concerns, probity, scholarship, and clarity in argument, consequent persuasiveness, and steadfast championship of human rights made him heir to their common mentor Kasimir Twardowski, father of modern Polish philosophy. In philosophical, historical, and methodological works like his influential Elements of Theory of Knowledge, Formal Logic, and Scientific Methodology (1929; mistitled Gnosiology in English translation), he popularized the more technical contributions of his colleagues, and carried on Twardowski’s objectivist and “anti-irrationalist” critical tradition, insisting on accuracy and clarity, holding that philosophy has no distinctive method beyond the logical and analytical methods of the empirical and deductive sciences. As a free-thinking liberal humanist socialist, resolved to be “a true compass, not a weathervane,” he defended autonomous ethics against authoritarianism, left or right. His lifelong concern with community and social practice led him to develop praxiology as a theory of efficacious action. Following Lesniewsi’s “refutation” of Twardowski’s Platonism, Kotarbigski insisted on translating abstractions into more concrete terms. The principal tenets of his “reist, radical realist, and imitationist” rejection of Platonism, phenomenalism, and introspectionism are (1) pansomatism or ontological reism as modernized monistic materialism: whatever is anything at all (even a soul) is a body – i.e., a concrete individual object, resistant and spatiotemporally extended, enduring at least a while; (2) consequent radical realism: no object is a “property,” “relation,” “event,” “fact,” or “abstract entity” of any other kind, nor “sense-datum,” “phenomenon,” or essentially “private mental act” or “fact” accessible only to “introspection”; (3) concretism or semantic reism and imitationism as a concomitant “nominalist” program – thus, abstract terms that, hypostatized, might appear to name “abstract entities” are pseudo-names or onomatoids to be eliminated by philosophical analysis and elucidatory paraphrase. Hypostatizations that might appear to imply existence of such Platonic universals are translatable into equivalent generalizations characterizing only bodies. Psychological propositions are likewise reducible, ultimately to the basic form: Individual So-and-so experiences thus; Such-and-such is so. Only as thus reduced can such potentially misleading expressions be rightly understood and judged true or false. See also POLISH LOGIC. E.C.L. ko wu, chih chih, Chinese philosophical terms used in the Ta-hsüeh (Great Learning) to refer to two related stages or aspects of the self-cultivation process, subsequently given different interpretations by later Confucian thinkers. ‘Ko’ can mean ‘correct’, ‘arrive at’ or ‘oppose’; ‘wu’ means ‘things’. The first ‘chih’ can mean ‘expand’ or ‘reach out’; the second ‘chih’ means ‘knowledge’. Chu Hsi (1130–1200) took ‘ko wu’ to mean arrivKotarbigski, Tadeusz ko wu, chih chih 475 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 475 ing at li (principle, pattern) in human affairs and ‘chih chih’ to mean the expansion of knowledge; an important part of the self-cultivation process involves expanding one’s moral knowledge by examining daily affairs and studying classics and historical documents. Wang Yang-ming (1472– 1529) took ‘ko wu’ to mean correcting the activities of one’s heart/mind (hsin), and ‘chih chih’ the reaching out of one’s innate knowledge (liang chih); an important part of the self-cultivation process involves making fully manifest one’s innate knowledge by constantly watching out for and eliminating distortive desires. K.-l.S. Krause, Karl Christian Friedrich (1781–1832), German philosopher representative of a tendency to develop Kant’s views in the direction of pantheism and mysticism. Educated at Jena, he came under the influence of Fichte and Schelling. Taking his philosophical starting point as Fichte’s analysis of self-consciousness, and adopting as his project a “spiritualized” systematic elaboration of the philosophy of Spinoza (somewhat like the young Schelling), he arrived at a position that he called panentheism. According to this, although nature and human consciousness are part of God or Absolute Being, the Absolute is neither exhausted in nor identical with them. To some extent, he anticipated Hegel in invoking an “end of history” in which the finite realm of human affairs would reunite with the infinite essence in a universal moral and “spiritual” order. See also FICHTE, PANTHEISM, SCHELLING. J.P.Su. Krebs. See NICHOLAS OF CUSA. Kripke, Saul A(aron) (b.1940), American mathematician and philosopher, considered one of the most deeply influential contemporary figures in logic and philosophy. While a teenager, he formulated a semantics for modal logic (the logic of necessity and possibility) based on Leibniz’s notion of a possible world, and, using the apparatus, proved completeness for a variety of systems (1959, 1963). Possible world semantics (due in part also to Carnap and others) has proved to be one of the most fruitful developments in logic and philosophy. Kripke’s 1970 Princeton lectures, Naming and Necessity (1980), were a watershed. The work primarily concerns proper names of individuals (e.g., ‘Aristotle’) and, by extension, terms for natural kinds (‘water’) and similar expressions. Kripke uses his thesis that any such term is a rigid designator – i.e., designates the same thing with respect to every possible world in which that thing exists (and does not designate anything else with respect to worlds in which it does not exist) – to argue, contrary to the received Fregean view, that the designation of a proper name is not semantically secured by means of a description that gives the sense of the name. On the contrary, the description associated with a particular use of a name will frequently designate something else entirely. Kripke derives putative examples of necessary a posteriori truths, as well as contingent a priori truths. In addition, he defends essentialism – the doctrine that some properties of things are properties that those things could not fail to have (except by not existing) – and uses it, together with his account of natural-kind terms, to argue against the identification of mental entities with their physical manifestations (e.g., sensations with specific neural events). In a sequel, “A Puzzle about Belief” (1979), Kripke addresses the problem of substitution failure in sentential contexts attributing belief or other propositional attitudes. Kripke’s interpretation of the later Wittgenstein as a semantic skeptic has also had a profound impact (Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, 1980, 1982). His semantic theory of truth (“Outline of a Theory of Truth,” 1975) has sparked renewed interest in the liar paradox (‘This statement is false’) and related paradoxes, and in the development of non-classical languages containing their own truth predicates as possible models for natural language. In logic, he is also known for his work in intuitionism and on his theory of transfinite recursion on admissible ordinals. Kripke, McCosh Professor of Philosophy (emeritus) at Princeton, frequently lectures on numerous further significant results in logic and philosophy, but those results have remained unpublished. See also A PRIORI, CAUSAL THEORY OF PROPER NAMES, MEANING, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, WITTGENSTEIN. N.S. Kripke semantics, a type of formal semantics for languages with operators A and B for necessity and possibility (‘possible worlds semantics’ and ‘relational semantics’ are sometimes used for the same notion); also, a similar semantics for intuitionistic logic. In a basic version a framefor a sentential language with A and B is a pair (W,R) where W is a non-empty set (the “possible worlds”) and R is a binary relation on W – the relation of “relative possibility” or “accessibility.” A model on the frame (W,R) is a triple (W,R,V), Krause, Karl Christian Friedrich Kripke semantics 476 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 476 where V is a function (the “valuation function”) that assigns truth-values to sentence letters at worlds. If w 1 W then a sentence AA is true at world w in the model (W,R,V) if A is true at all worlds v 1 W for which wRv. Informally, AA is true at world w if A is true at all the worlds that would be possible if w were actual. This is a generalization of the doctrine commonly attributed to Leibniz that necessity is truth in all possible worlds. A is valid in the model (W,R,V) if it is true at all worlds w 1 W in that model. It is valid in the frame (W,R) if it is valid in all models on that frame. It is valid if it is valid in all frames. In predicate logic versions, a frame may include another component D, that assigns a non-empty set Dw of objects (the existents at w) to each possible world w. Terms and quantifiers may be treated either as objectual (denoting and ranging over individuals) or conceptual (denoting and ranging over functions from possible worlds to individuals) and either as actualist or possibilist(denoting and ranging over either existents or possible existents). On some of these treatments there may arise further choices about whether and how truth-values should be assigned to sentences that assert relations among non-existents. The development of Kripke semantics marks a watershed in the modern study of modal systems. In the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s a number of axiomatizations for necessity and possibility were proposed and investigated. Carnap showed that for the simplest of these systems, C. I. Lewis’s S5, AA can be interpreted as saying that A is true in all “state descriptions.” Answering even the most basic questions about the other systems, however, required effort and ingenuity. In the late fifties and early sixties Stig Kanger, Richard Montague, Saul Kripke, and Jaakko Hintikka each formulated interpretations for such systems that generalized Carnap’s semantics by using something like the accessibility relation described above. Kripke’s semantics was more natural than the others in that accessibility was taken to be a relation among mathematically primitive “possible worlds,” and, in a series of papers, Kripke demonstrated that versions of it provide characteristic interpretations for a number of modal systems. For these reasons Kripke’s formulation has become standard. Relational semantics provided simple solutions to some older problems about the distinctness and relative strength of the various systems. It also opened new areas of investigation, facilitating general results (establishing decidability and other properties for infinite classes of modal systems), incompleteness results (exhibiting systems not determined by any class of frames), and correspondence results (showing that the frames verifying certain modal formulas were exactly the frames meeting certain conditions on R). It suggested parallel interpretations for notions whose patterns of inference were known to be similar to that of necessity and possibility, including obligation and permission, epistemic necessity and possibility, provability and consistency, and, more recently, the notion of a computation’s inevitably or possibly terminating in a particular state. It inspired similar semantics for nonclassical conditionals and the more general neighborhood or functional variety of possible worlds semantics. The philosophical utility of Kripke semantics is more difficult to assess. Since the accessibility relation is often explained in terms of the modal operators, it is difficult to maintain that the semantics provides an explicit analysis of the modalities it interprets. Furthermore, questions about which version of the semantics is correct (particularly for quantified modal systems) are themselves tied to substantive questions about the nature of things and worlds. The semantics does impose important constraints on the meaning of modalities, and it provides a means for many philosophical questions to be posed more clearly and starkly. See also FORMAL SEMANTICS, MODAL LOGIC, NECESSITY, POSSIBLE WORLDS. S.T.K. Kristeva, Julia (b.1941), Bulgarian-born French linguist, practicing psychoanalyst, widely influential social theorist, and novelist. The centerpiece of Kristeva’s semiotic theory has two correlative moments: a focus on the speaking subject as embodying unconscious motivations (and not simply the conscious intentionality of a Husserlian transcendental ego) and an articulation of the signifying phenomenon as a dynamic, productive process (not a static sign-system). Kristeva’s most systematic philosophical work, La Révolution du langage poétique (1974), brings her semiotics to mature expression through an effective integration of psychoanalysis (Freud and Lacan), elements of linguistic models (from Roman Jakobson to Chomskyan generative grammar) and semiology (from Saussure to Peirce and Louis Hjelmslev), and a literary approach to text (influenced by Bakhtin). Together the symbolic and the semiotic, two dialectical and irreconcilable modalities of meaning, constitute the signifying process. The symbolic designates the systematic rules governing denotative and propositional speech, while the Kristeva, Julia Kristeva, Julia 477 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 477 semiotic isolates an archaic layer of meaning that is neither representational nor based on relations among signs. The concept of the chora combines the semiotic, translinguistic layer of meaning (genotext) with a psychoanalytic, drive-based model of unconscious sound production, dream logic, and fantasy life that defy full symbolic articulation. Drawing on Plato’s non-unified notion of the maternal receptacle (Timaeus), the chora constitutes the space where subjectivity is generated. Drives become “ordered” in rhythmic patterns during the pre-Oedipal phase before the infant achieves reflexive capacity, develops spatial intuition and time consciousness, and posits itself as an enunciating subject. Ordered, but not according to symbolic laws, semiotic functions arise when the infant forms associations between its vocal gesticulations and sensorimotor development, and patterns these associations after the mother’s corporeal modulations. The semiotic chora, while partly repressed in identity formation, links the subject’s preverbal yet functional affective life to signification. All literary forms – epic narrative, metalanguage, contemplation or theoria and text-practice – combine two different registers of meaning, phenotext and genotext. Yet they do so in different ways and none encompasses both registers in totality. The phenotext refers to language in its function “to communicate” and can be analyzed in terms of syntax and semantics. Though not itself linguistic, the genotext reveals itself in the way that “phonematic” and “melodic devices” and “syntactic and logical” features establish “semantic” fields. The genotext isolates the specific mode in which a text sublimates drives; it denotes the “process” by which a literary form generates a particular type of subjectivity. Poetic language is unique in that it largely reveals the genotext. This linkage between semiotic processes, genotext, and poetic language fulfills the early linguistic project (1967–73) and engenders a novel post-Hegelian social theory. Synthesizing semiotics and the destructive death drive’s attack against stasis artfully restores permanence to Hegelian negativity. Poetic mimesis, because it transgresses grammatical rules while sustaining signification, reactivates the irreducible negativity and heterogeneity of drive processes. So effectuating anamnesis, poetry reveals the subject’s constitution within language and, by holding open rather than normalizing its repressed desire, promotes critical analysis of symbolic and institutionalized values. Later works like Pouvoirs de l’horreur (1980), Etrangers à nous-mêmes (1989), Histoires d’amour (1983), and Les Nouvelles maladies de l’âme (1993) shift away from collective political agency to a localized, culturally therapeutic focus. Examining xenophobic social formations, abjection and societal violence, romantic love, grief, women’s melancholic poison in patriarchy, and a crisis of moral values in the postmetaphysical age, they harbor forceful implications for ethics and social theory. See also BAKHTIN, FEMINISM, FREUD, POSTMODERN, SEMIOTICS, STRUCTURALISM. P.Hu. Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich (1842–1921), Russian geographer, geologist, naturalist, and philosopher, best remembered for his anarchism and his defense of mutual aid as a factor of evolution. Traveling extensively in Siberia on scientific expeditions (1862–67), he was stimulated by Darwin’s newly published theory of evolution and sought, in the Siberian landscape, confirmation of Darwin’s Malthusian principle of the struggle for survival. Instead Kropotkin found that underpopulation was the rule, that climate was the main obstacle to survival, and that mutual aid was a far more common phenomenon than Darwin recognized. He soon generalized these findings to social theory, opposing social Darwinism, and also began to espouse anarchist theory. See also ANARCHISM, DARWINISM, RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY. P.T.G. Kuan Tzu, also called Kuan Chung (d.645 B.C.), Chinese statesman who was prime minister of Ch’i and considered a forefather of Legalism. He was traditionally albeit spuriously associated with the Kuan Tzu, an eclectic work containing Legalist, Confucian, Taoist, five phases, and Huang–Lao ideas from the fourth to the second centuries B.C. As minister, Kuan Tzu achieved peace and social order through the hegemonic system (pa), wherein the ruling Chou king ratified a collective power-sharing arrangement with the most powerful feudal lords. R.P.P. & R.T.A. Kuhn, Thomas S(amuel) (1922–96), American historian and philosopher of science. Kuhn studied at Harvard, where he received degrees in physics (1943, 1946) and a doctorate in the history of science (1949). He then taught history of science or philosophy of science at Harvard (1951–56), Berkeley (1956–64), Princeton (1964–79), and M.I.T. (1979–91). Kuhn traced his shift from physics to the history and philosophy of science to a moment in 1947 when he was Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich Kuhn, Thomas S(amuel) 478 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 478 asked to teach some science to humanities majors. Searching for a case study to illuminate the development of Newtonian mechanics, Kuhn opened Aristotle’s Physics and was astonished at how “simply wrong” it was. After a while, Kuhn came to “think like an Aristotelian physicist” and to realize that Aristotle’s basic concepts were totally unlike Newton’s, and that, understood on its own terms, Aristotle’s Physics was not bad Newtonian mechanics. This new perspective resulted in The Copernican Revolution (1957), a study of the transformation of the Aristotelian geocentric image of the world to the modern heliocentric one. Pondering the structure of these changes, Kuhn produced his immensely influential second book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). He argued that scientific thought is defined by “paradigms,” variously describing these as disciplinary matrixes or exemplars, i.e., conceptual world-views consisting of beliefs, values, and techniques shared by members of a given community, or an element in that constellation: concrete achievements used as models for research. According to Kuhn, scientists accept a prevailing paradigm in “normal science” and attempt to articulate it by refining its theories and laws, solving various puzzles, and establishing more accurate measurements of constants. Eventually, however, their efforts may generate anomalies; these emerge only with difficulty, against a background of expectations provided by the paradigm. The accumulation of anomalies triggers a crisis that is sometimes resolved by a revolution that replaces the old paradigm with a new one. One need only look to the displacement of Aristotelian physics and geocentric astronomy by Newtonian mechanics and heliocentrism for instances of such paradigm shifts. In this way, Kuhn challenged the traditional conception of scientific progress as gradual, cumulative acquisition of knowledge. He elaborated upon these themes and extended his historical inquiries in his later works, The Essential Tension (1977) and Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity (1978). See also PARADIGM, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. R.Ar. k’un. See CH’IEN, K’UN. kung, szu, a Chinese distinction corresponding to the opposition between “public” and “private” interests, a key feature of Confucian and Legalist ethics. The distinction is sometimes expressed by other terms suggestive of distinction between impartiality and partiality, as in the Mo Tzu, or the Neo-Confucian distinction between Heavenly principle (t’ien-li) and selfish desires. For the Confucians, private and personal concerns are acceptable only insofar as they do not conflict with the rules of propriety (li) and righteousness (i). Partiality toward one’s personal relationships is also acceptable provided that such partiality admits of reasonable justification, especially when such a concern is not incompatible with jen or the ideal of humanity. This view contrasts with egoism, altruism, and utilitarianism. See also CHINESE LEGALISM, CONFUCIANISM. A.S.C. K’ung Ch’iu. See CONFUCIUS. Kung Fu-tzu. See CONFUCIUS. Kung-sun Lung Tzu (fl. 300 B.C.), Chinese philosopher best known for his dialogue defending the claim “A white horse is not a horse.” Kung-sun probably regarded his paradox only as an entertaining exercise in disputation (pien), and not as philosophically illuminating. Nonetheless, it may have had the serious effect of helping to bring disputation into disrepute in China. Numerous interpretations of the “white horse” dialogue have been proposed. One recent theory is that Kung-sun Lung Tzu is assuming that ‘white horse’ refers to two things (an equine shape and a color) while ‘horse’ refers only to the shape, and then simply observing that the whole (shape and color) is not identical with one of its parts (the shape). See also PIEN. B.W.V.N. K’ung Tzu. See CONFUCIUS. Kuo Hsiang (died A.D. 312), Chinese thinker of the Hsüan Hsüeh (Mysterious Learning) School. He is described, along with thinkers like Wang Pi, as a Neo-Taoist. Kuo helped develop the notion of li (pattern) as the underlying structure of the cosmos, of which each thing receives an individual fen (allotment). All things are “one” in having such “natural” roles to play, and by being tzu jan (spontaneous), can attain a mystical oneness with all things. For Kuo, the fen of human beings included standard Confucian virtues. Kuo is credited with editing the current edition of the Chuang Tzu and composing what is now the oldest extant commentary on it. See also NEOTAOISM. P.J.I. Kyo-hak Buddhism. See KOREAN PHILOSOPHY. Kyoto School. See JAPANESE PHILOSOPHY. k’un Kyoto School 479 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 479 Labriola, Antonio (1843–1904), Italian Marxist philosopher who studied Hegel and corresponded with Engels for several years (Lettere a Engels, 1949). His essays on Marxism appeared first in French in the collection Essais sur la conception matérialiste de l’histoire (“Essays on the Materialist Conception of History,” 1897). Another influential work, Discorrendo di socialismo e di filosofia (“Talks about Socialism and Philosophy,” 1897), collects ten letters to Georges Sorel on Marxism. Labriola did not intend to develop an original Marxist theory but only to give an accurate exposition of Marx’s thought. He believed that socialism would inevitably ensue from the inner contradictions of capitalist society and defended Marx’s views as objective scientific truths. He criticized revisionism and defended the need to maintain the orthodoxy of Marxist thought. His views and works were publicized by two of his students, Sorel in France and Croce in Italy. In the 1950s Antonio Gramsci brought new attention to Labriola as an example of pure and independent Marxism. See also MARXISM, SOREL. P.Gar. Lacan, Jacques (1901–81), French practitioner and theorist of psychoanalysis. Lacan developed and transformed Freudian theory and practice on the basis of the structuralist linguistics originated by Saussure. According to Lacan, the unconscious is not a congeries of biological instincts and drives, but rather a system of linguistic signifiers. He construes, e.g., the fundamental Freudian processes of condensation and displacement as instances of metaphor and metonymy. Lacan proposed a Freudianism in which any traces of the substantial Cartesian self are replaced by a system of symbolic functions. Contrary to standard views, the ego is an imaginary projection, not our access to the real (which, for Lacan, is the unattainable and inexpressible limit of language). In accord with his theoretical position, Lacan developed a new form of psychoanalytic practice that tried to avoid rather than achieve the “transference” whereby the analysand identifies with the mature ego of the analyst. Lacan’s writings (e.g., Écrits and the numerous volumes of his Séminaires) are of legendary difficulty, offering idiosyncratic networks of allusion, word play, and paradox, which some find rich and stimulating and others irresponsibly obscure. Beyond psychoanalysis, Lacan has been particularly influential on literary theorists and on poststructuralist philosophers such as Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze. See also FOUCAULT, FREUD. G.G. Laffitte, Pierre (1823–1903), French positivist philosopher, a disciple of Comte and founder (1878) of the Revue Occidentale. Laffitte spread positivism by adopting Comte’s format of “popular” courses. He faithfully acknowledged Comte’s objective method and religion of humanity. Laffitte wrote Great Types of Humanity (1875–76). In Positive Ethics (1881), he distinguishes between theoretical and practical ethics. His Lectures on First Philosophy (1889–95) sets forth a metaphysics, or a body of general and abstract laws, that attempts to complete positivism, to resolve the conflict between the subjective and the objective, and to avert materialism. See also COMTE, LOGICAL POSITIVISM. J.-L.S. La Forge, Louis de (1632–66), French philosopher and member of the Cartesian school. La Forge seems to have become passionately interested in Descartes’s philosophy in about 1650, and grew to become one of its most visible and energetic advocates. La Forge (together with Gérard van Gutschoven) illustrated the 1664 edition of Descartes’s L’homme and provided an extensive commentary; both illustrations and commentary were often reprinted with the text. His main work, though, is the Traité de l’esprit de l’homme (1665): though not a commentary on Descartes, it is “in accordance with the principles of René Descartes,” according to its subtitle. It attempts to continue Descartes’s program in L’homme, left incomplete at his death, by discussing the mind and its union with the body. In many ways La Forge’s work is quite orthodox; he carefully follows Descartes’s opinions on the nature of body, the nature of soul, etc., as they appear in the extant writings to which he had access. But with others in the Cartesian school, La Forge’s work contributed to the establishment of the doctrine of occasionalism as 480 L 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 480 Cartesian orthodoxy, a doctrine not explicitly found in Descartes’s writings. See also DESCARTES, OCCASIONALISM. D.Garb. Lambda-abstraction. See COMBINATORY LOGIC, LAMBDA-CALCULUS. lambda-calculus, also l-calculus, a theory of mathematical functions that is (a) “logic-free,” i.e. contains no logical constants (formula-connectives or quantifier-expressions), and (b) equational, i.e. ‘%’ is its sole predicate (though its metatheory refers to relations of reducibility between terms). There are two species, untyped and typed, each with various subspecies. Termhood is always inductively defined (as is being a type-expression, if the calculus is typed). A definition of being a term will contain at least these clauses: take infinitely many variables (of each type if the calculus is typed) to be terms; for any terms t and s (of appropriate type if the calculus is typed), (ts) is a term (of type determined by that of t and s if the calculus is typed); for any term t and a variable u (perhaps meeting certain conditions), (lut) is a term (“of” type determined by that of t and u if the calculus is typed). (ts) is an application-term; (lut) is a l-term, the labstraction of t, and its l-prefix binds all free occurrences of u in t. Relative to any assignment a of values (of appropriate type if the calculus is typed) to its free variables, each term denotes a unique entity. Given a term (ts), t denotes a function and (ts) denotes the output of that function when it is applied to the denotatum of s, all relative to a. (lut) denotes relative to a that function which when applied to any entity x (of appropriate type if the calculus is typed) outputs the denotatum of t relative to the variant of a obtained by assigning u to the given x. Alonzo Church introduced the untyped l-calculus around 1932 as the basis for a foundation for mathematics that took all mathematical objects to be functions. It characterizes a universe of functions, each with that universe as its domain and each yielding values in that universe. It turned out to be almost a notational variant of combinatory logic, first presented by Moses Schonfinkel (1920, written up and published by Behmann in 1924). Church presented the simplest typed l calculus in 1940. Such a calculus characterizes a domain of objects and functions, each “of” a unique type, so that the type of any given function determines two further types, one being the type of all and only those entities in the domain of that function, the other being the type of all those entities output by that function. In 1972 Jean-Yves Girard presented the first second-order (or polymorphic) typed l-calculus. It uses additional type-expressions themselves constructed by second-order l-abstraction, and also more complicated terms constructed by labstracting with respect to certain type-variables, and by applying such terms to type-expressions. The study of l-calculi has deepened our understanding of constructivity in mathematics. They are of interest in proof theory, in category theory, and in computer science. See also CATEGORY THEORY, COMBINATORY LOGIC, PROOF THEORY. H.T.H. lambda-operator. See LAMBDA-CALCULUS. lambda-term. See COMBINATORY LOGIC, LAMBDACALCULUS. Lambert, Johann Heinrich (1728–77), German natural philosopher, logician, mathematician, and astronomer. Born in Mulhouse (Alsace), he was an autodidact who became a prominent member of the Munich Academy (1759) and the Berlin Academy (1764). He made significant discoveries in physics and mathematics. His most important philosophical works were Neues Organon (“New Organon, or Thoughts on the Investigation and Induction of Truth and the Distinction Between Error and Appearances,” 1764) and Anlage zur Architectonic (“Plan of an Architectonic, or Theory of the Simple and Primary Elements in Philosophical and Mathematical Knowledge,” 1771). Lambert attempted to revise metaphysics. Arguing against both German rationalism and British empiricism, he opted for a form of phenomenalism similar to that of Kant and Tetens. Like his two contemporaries, he believed that the mind contains a number of basic concepts and principles that make knowledge possible. The philosopher’s task is twofold: first, these fundamental concepts and principles have to be analyzed; second, the truths of science have to be derived from them. In his own attempt at accomplishing this, Lambert tended more toward Leibniz than Locke. M.K. La Mettrie, Julien Offroy de (1707–51), French philosopher who was his generation’s most notorious materialist, atheist, and hedonist. Raised in Brittany, he was trained at Leiden by Hermann Boerhaave, an iatromechanist, whose works he translated into French. As a Lockean sensationalist who read Gassendi and followed Lambda-abstraction La Mettrie, Julien Offroy de 481 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 481 the Swiss physiologist Haller, La Mettrie took nature to be life’s dynamic and ultimate principle. In 1745 he published Natural History of the Soul, which attacked Cartesian dualism and dispensed with God. Drawing from Descartes’s animal-machine, his masterpiece, Man the Machine(1747), argued that the organization of matter alone explains man’s physical and intellectual faculties. Assimilating psychology to mechanistic physiology, La Mettrie integrated man into nature and proposed a materialistic monism. An Epicurean and a libertine, he denied any religious or rational morality in Anti-Seneca (1748) and instead accommodated human behavior to natural laws. Anticipating Sade’s nihilism, his Art of Enjoying Pleasures and Metaphysical Venus (1751) eulogized physical passions. Helvétius, d’Holbach, Marx, Plekhanov, and Lenin all acknowledged a debt to his belief that “to write as a philosopher is to teach materialism.” J.-L.S. Lange, Friedrich Albert (1828–75), German philosopher and social scientist. Born at Wald near Solingen, he became a university instructor at Bonn in 1851, professor of inductive logic at Zürich in 1870, and professor at Marburg in 1873, establishing neo-Kantian studies there. He published three books in 1865: Die Arbeiterfrage (The Problem of the Worker), Die Grundlegung der mathematischen Psychologie (The Foundation of Mathematical Psychology), and J. S. Mills Ansichten über die sociale Frage und die angebliche Umwälzung der Socialwissenschaftlichen durch Carey (J. S. Mill’s Views of the Social Question and Carey’s Supposed Social-Scientific Revolution). Lange’s most important work, however, Geschichte des Materialismus (History of Materialism), was published in 1866. An expanded second edition in two volumes appeared in 1873–75 and in three later editions. The History of Materialism is a rich, detailed study not only of the development of materialism but of then-recent work in physical theory, biological theory, and political economy; it includes a commentary on Kant’s analysis of knowledge. Lange adopts a restricted positivistic approach to scientific interpretations of man and the natural world and a conventionalism in regard to scientific theory, and also encourages the projection of aesthetic interpretations of “the All” from “the standpoint of the ideal.” Rejecting reductive materialism, Lange argues that a strict analysis of materialism leads to ineliminable idealist theoretical issues, and he adopts a form of materio-idealism. In his Geschichte are anticipations of instrumental fictionalism, pragmatism, conventionalism, and psychological egoism. Following the skepticism of the scientists he discusses, Lange adopts an agnosticism about the ultimate constituents of actuality and a radical phenomenalism. His major work was much admired by Russell and significantly influenced the thought of Nietzsche. History of Materialism predicted coming sociopolitical “earthquakes” because of the rise of science, the decline of religion, and the increasing tensions of “the social problem.” Die Arbeiterfrage explores the impact of industrialization and technology on the “social problem” and predicts a coming social “struggle for survival” in terms already recognizable as Social Darwinism. Both theoretically and practically, Lange was a champion of workers and favored a form of democratic socialism. His study of J. S. Mill and the economist Henry Carey was a valuable contribution to social science and political economic theory. See also JAMES-LANGE THEORY, NEOKANTIANISM. G.J.S. language, artificial. See FORMAL LANGUAGE, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. language, natural. See FORMAL LANGUAGE, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. language, philosophy of. See PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. language game. See WITTGENSTEIN. language of thought. See MEANING, MENTALESE, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. Lao Tzu (sixth century B.C.), Chinese philosopher traditionally thought to be a contemporary of Confucius and the author of the Tao Te Ching (“Classic of tao and te“). Most contemporary scholars hold that “Lao Tzu” is a composite of legendary early sages, and that the Tao Te Ching is an anthology, a version of which existed no earlier than the third century B.C. The Tao Te Ching combines paradoxical mysticism with hardheaded political advice (Han Fei Tzu wrote a commentary on it) and a call to return to a primitive utopia, without the corrupting accoutrements of civilization, such as ritual (li), luxury items, and even writing. In its exaltation of spontaneous action and denigration of Confucian virtues such as jen, the text is reminiscent of Chuang Tzu, but it is distinctive both for its style (which is lapidary to the point of obscurity) and its political orienLange, Friedrich Albert Lao Tzu 482 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 482 tation. Translations of the Tao Te Ching are based on either the Wang Pi text or the recently discovered Ma-wang-tui text. See also NEO-TAOISM, TAOISM. B.W.V.N. La Peyrère, Isaac (1596–1676), French religious writer, a Calvinist of probable Marrano extraction and a Catholic convert whose messianic and anthropological work (Men Before Adam, 1656) scandalized Jews, Catholics, and Protestants alike. Anticipating both ecumenism and Zionism, The Recall of the Jews (1643) claims that, together, converted Jews and Christians will usher in universal redemption. A threefold “salvation history” undergirds La Peyrère’s “Marrano theology”: (1) election of the Jews; (2) their rejection and the election of the Christians; (3) the recall of the Jews. J.-L.S. Laplace, Pierre Simon de (1749–1827), French mathematician and astronomer who produced the definitive formulation of the classical theory of probability. He taught at various schools in Paris, including the École Militaire; one of his students was Napoleon, to whom he dedicated his work on probability. According to Laplace, probabilities arise from our ignorance. The world is deterministic, so the probability of a possible event depends on our limited information about it rather than on the causal forces that determine whether it shall occur. Our chief means of calculating probabilities is the principle of insufficient reason, or the principle of indifference. It says that if there is no reason to believe that one of n mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive possible cases will obtain rather than some other, so that the cases are equally possible, then the probability of each case is 1/n. In addition, the probability of a possible event equivalent to a disjunction of cases is the number of cases favorable to the event divided by the total number of cases. For instance, the probability that the top card of a well-shuffled deck is a diamond is 13/52.Laplace’s chief work on probability is Théorie analytique des probabilités(Analytic Theory of Probabilities, 1812). See also PROBABILITY. P.We. La Ramée, Pierre. See RAMUS. large numbers, law of. See BERNOULLI’s THEOREM. latent content. See FREUD. Latin American philosophy, the philosophy of Latin America, which is European in origin and constitutes a chapter in the history of Western philosophy. Pre-Columbian indigenous cultures had developed ideas about the world that have been interpreted by some scholars as philosophical, but there is no evidence that any of those ideas were incorporated into the philosophy later practiced in Latin America. It is difficult to characterize Latin American philosophy in a way applicable to all of its 500-year history. The most one can say is that, in contrast with European and Anglo-American philosophy, it has maintained a strong human and social interest, has been consistently affected by Scholastic and Catholic thought, and has significantly affected the social and political institutions in the region. Latin American philosophers tend to be active in the educational, political, and social lives of their countries and deeply concerned with their own cultural identity. The history of philosophy in Latin America can be divided into four periods: colonial, independentist, positivist, and contemporary. Colonial period (c.1550–c.1750). This period was dominated by the type of Scholasticism officially practiced in the Iberian peninsula. The texts studied were those of medieval Scholastics, primarily Aquinas and Duns Scotus, and of their Iberian commentators, Vitoria, Soto, Fonseca, and, above all, Suárez. The university curriculum was modeled on that of major Iberian universities (Salamanca, Alcalá, Coimbra), and instructors produced both systematic treatises and commentaries on classical, medieval, and contemporary texts. The philosophical concerns in the colonies were those prevalent in Spain and Portugal and centered on logical and metaphysical issues inherited from the Middle Ages and on political and legal questions raised by the discovery and colonization of America. Among the former were issues involving the logic of terms and propositions and the problems of universals and individuation; among the latter were questions concerning the rights of Indians and the relations of the natives with the conquerors. The main philosophical center during the early colonial period was Mexico; Peru became important in the seventeenth century. Between 1700 and 1750 other centers developed, but by that time Scholasticism had begun to decline. The founding of the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico in 1553 inaugurated Scholastic instruction in the New World. The first teacher of philosophy at the university was Alonso de la Vera Cruz (c.1504–84), an Augustinian and disciple of Soto. He composed several didactic treatises on La Peyrère, Isaac Latin American philosophy 483 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 483 logic, metaphysics, and science, including Recognitio summularum (“Introductory Logic,” 1554), Dialectica resolutio (“Advanced Logic,” 1554), and Physica speculatio (“Physics,” 1557). He also wrote a theologico-legal work, the Speculum conjugiorum (“On Marriage,” 1572), concerned with the status of precolonial Indian marriages. Alonso’s works are eclectic and didactic and show the influence of Aristotle, Peter of Spain, and Vitoria in particular. Another important Scholastic figure in Mexico was the Dominican Tomás de Mercado (c.1530–75). He produced commentaries on the logical works of Peter of Spain and Aristotle and a treatise on international commerce, Summa de tratos y contratos (“On Contracts,” 1569). His other sources are Porphyry and Aquinas. Perhaps the most important figure of the period was Antonio Rubio (1548–1615), author of the most celebrated Scholastic book written in the New World, Logica mexicana (“Mexican Logic,” 1605). It underwent seven editions in Europe and became a logic textbook in Alcalá. Rubio’s sources are Aristotle, Porphyry, and Aquinas, but he presents original treatments of several logical topics. Rubio also commented on several of Aristotle’s other works. In Peru, two authors merit mention. Juan Pérez Menacho (1565–1626) was a prolific writer, but only a moral treatise, Theologia et moralis tractatus (“Treatise on Theology and Morals”), and a commentary on Aquinas’s Summa theologiae remain. The Chilean-born Franciscan, Alfonso Briceño (c.1587–1669), worked in Nicaragua and Venezuela, but the center of his activities was Lima. In contrast with the Aristotelian-Thomistic flavor of the philosophy of most of his contemporaries, Briceño was a Scotistic Augustinian. This is evident in Celebriores controversias in primum sententiarum Scoti (“On Scotus’s First Book of the Sentences,” 1638) and Apologia de vita et doctrina Joannis Scotti (“Apology for John Scotus,” 1642). Although Scholasticism dominated the intellectual life of colonial Latin America, some authors were also influenced by humanism. Among the most important in Mexico were Juan de Zumárraga (c.1468–1548); the celebrated defender of the Indians, Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474–1566); Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora (1645–1700); and Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz (1651–95). The last one is a famous poet, now considered a precursor of the feminist movement. In Peru, Nicolás de Olea (1635–1705) stands out. Most of these authors were trained in Scholasticism but incorporated the concerns and ideas of humanists into their work. Independentist period (c.1750–c.1850). Just before and immediately after independence, leading Latin American intellectuals lost interest in Scholastic issues and became interested in social and political questions, although they did not completely abandon Scholastic sources. Indeed, the theories of natural law they inherited from Vitoria and Suárez played a significant role in forming their ideas. But they also absorbed non-Scholastic European authors. The rationalism of Descartes and other Continental philosophers, together with the empiricism of Locke, the social ideas of Rousseau, the ethical views of Bentham, the skepticism of Voltaire and other Encyclopedists, the political views of Condorcet and Montesquieu, the eclecticism of Cousin, and the ideology of Destutt de Tracy, all contributed to the development of liberal ideas that were a background to the independentist movement. Most of the intellectual leaders of this movement were men of action who used ideas for practical ends, and their views have limited theoretical value. They made reason a measure of legitimacy in social and governmental matters, and found the justification for revolutionary ideas in natural law. Moreover, they criticized authority; some, regarding religion as superstitious, opposed ecclesiastical power. These ideas paved the way for the later development of positivism. The period begins with the weakening hold of Scholasticism on Latin American intellectuals and the growing influence of early modern philosophy, particularly Descartes. Among the first authors to turn to modern philosophy was Juan Benito Díaz de Gamarra y Dávalos (1745–83) in Mexico who wrote Errores del entendimiento humano (“Errors of Human Understanding,” 1781) and Academias filosóficas (“Philosophical Academies,” 1774). Also in Mexico was Francisco Javier Clavijero (1731–87), author of a book on physics and a general history of Mexico. In Brazil the turn away from Scholasticism took longer. One of the first authors to show the influence of modern philosophy was Francisco de Mont’Alverne (1784– 1858) in Compêndio de filosofia (1883). These first departures from Scholasticism were followed by the more consistent efforts of those directly involved in the independentist movement. Among these were Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), leader of the rebellion against Spain in the Andean countries of South America, and the Mexicans Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753– 1811), José María Morelos y Paván (1765– 1815), and José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi Latin American philosophy Latin American philosophy 484 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 484 (1776–1827). In Argentina, Mariano Moreno (1778–1811), Juan Crisóstomo Lafimur (d. 1823), and Diego Alcorta (d. 1808), among others, spread the liberal ideas that served as a background for independence. Positivist period (c.1850–c.1910). During this time, positivism became not only the most popular philosophy in Latin America but also the official philosophy of some countries. After 1910, however, positivism declined drastically. Latin American positivism was eclectic, influenced by a variety of thinkers, including Comte, Spencer, and Haeckel. Positivists emphasized the explicative value of empirical science while rejecting metaphysics. According to them, all knowledge is based on experience rather than theoretical speculation, and its value lies in its practical applications. Their motto, preserved on the Brazilian flag, was “Order and Progress.” This positivism left little room for freedom and values; the universe moved inexorably according to mechanistic laws. Positivism was a natural extension of the ideas of the independentists. It was, in part, a response to the needs of the newly liberated countries of Latin America. After independence, the concerns of Latin American intellectuals shifted from political liberation to order, justice, and progress. The beginning of positivism can be traced to the time when Latin America, responding to these concerns, turned to the views of French socialists such as Saint-Simon and Fourier. The Argentinians Esteban Echevarría (1805–51) and Juan Bautista Alberdi (1812–84) were influenced by them. Echevarría’s Dogma socialista (“Socialist Dogma,” 1846) combines socialist ideas with eighteenth-century rationalism and literary Romanticism, and Alberdi follows suit, although he eventually turned toward Comte. Alberdi is, moreover, the first Latin American philosopher to worry about developing a philosophy adequate to the needs of Latin America. In Ideas (1842), he stated that philosophy in Latin America should be compatible with the economic, political, and social requirements of the region. Another transitional thinker, influenced by both Scottish philosophy and British empiricism, was the Venezuelan Andrés Bello (1781–1865). A prolific writer, he is the most important Latin American philosopher of the nineteenth century. His Filosofía del entendimiento (“Philosophy of Understanding,” 1881) reduces metaphysics to psychology. Bello also developed original ideas about language and history. After 1829, he worked in Chile, where his influence was strongly felt. The generation of Latin American philosophers after Alberdi and Bello was mostly positivistic. Positivism’s heyday was the second half of the nineteenth century, but two of its most distinguished advocates, the Argentinian José Ingenieros (1877–1925) and the Cuban Enrique José Varona (1849–1933), worked well into the twentieth century. Both modified positivism in important ways. Ingenieros left room for metaphysics, which, according to him, deals in the realm of the “yet-to-be-experienced.” Among his most important books are Hacia una moral sin dogmas (“Toward a Morality without Dogmas,” 1917), where the influence of Emerson is evident, Principios de psicologia (“Principles of Psychology,” 1911), where he adopts a reductionist approach to psychology, and El hombre mediocre (“The Mediocre Man,” 1913), an inspirational book popular among Latin American youths. In Conferencias filosóficas (“Philosophical Lectures,” 1880–88), Varona went beyond the mechanistic explanations of behavior common among positivists. In Mexico the first and leading positivist was Gabino Barreda (1818–81), who reorganized Mexican education under President Juárez. An ardent follower of Comte, Barreda made positivism the basis of his educational reforms. He was followed by Justo Sierra (1848–1912), who turned toward Spencer and Darwin and away from Comte, criticizing Barreda’s dogmatism. Positivism was introduced in Brazil by Tobias Barreto (1839–89) and Silvio Romero (1851– 1914) in Pernambuco, around 1869. In 1875 Benjamin Constant (1836–91) founded the Positivist Society in Rio de Janeiro. The two most influential exponents of positivism in the country were Miguel Lemos (1854–1916) and Raimundo Teixeira Mendes (1855–1927), both orthodox followers of Comte. Positivism was more than a technical philosophy in Brazil. Its ideas spread widely, as is evident from the inclusion of positivist ideas in the first republican constitution. The most prominent Chilean positivists were José Victorino Lastarria (1817–88) and Valentín Letelier (1852–1919). More dogmatic adherents to the movement were the Lagarrigue brothers, Jorge (d. 1894), Juan Enrique (d. 1927), and Luis (d. 1953), who promoted positivism in Chile well after it had died everywhere else in Latin America. Contemporary period (c.1910–present). Contemporary Latin American philosophy began Latin American philosophy Latin American philosophy 485 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 485 with the demise of positivism. The first part of the period was dominated by thinkers who rebelled against positivism. The principal figures, called the Founders by Francisco Romero, were Alejandro Korn (1860–1936) in Argentina, Alejandro Octavio Deústua (1849–1945) in Peru, José Vasconcelos (1882–1959) and Antonio Caso (1883–1946) in Mexico, Enrique Molina (1871– 1964) in Chile, Carlos Vaz Ferreira (1872–1958) in Uruguay, and Raimundo de Farias Brito (1862–1917) in Brazil. In spite of little evidence of interaction among these philosophers, their aims and concerns were similar. Trained as positivists, they became dissatisfied with positivism’s dogmatic intransigence, mechanistic determinism, and emphasis on pragmatic values. Deústua mounted a detailed criticism of positivistic determinism in Las ideas de orden y de libertad en la historia del pensamiento humano (“The Ideas of Order and Freedom in the History of Human Thought,” 1917–19). About the same time, Caso presented his view of man as a spiritual reality that surpasses nature in La existencia como economía, como desinterés y como caridad (“Existence as Economy, Disinterestedness, and Charity,” 1916). Following in Caso’s footsteps and inspired by Pythagoras and the Neoplatonists, Vasconcelos developed a metaphysical system with aesthetic roots in El monismo estético (“Aesthetic Monism,” 1918). An even earlier criticism of positivism is found in Vaz Ferreira’s Lógica viva (“Living Logic,” 1910), which contrasts the abstract, scientific logic favored by positivists with a logic of life based on experience, which captures reality’s dynamic character. The earliest attempt at developing an alternative to positivism, however, is found in Farias Brito. Between 1895 and 1905 he published a trilogy, Finalidade do mundo (“The World’s Goal”), in which he conceived the world as an intellectual activity which he identified with God’s thought, and thus as essentially spiritual. The intellect unites and reflects reality but the will divides it. Positivism was superseded by the Founders with the help of ideas imported first from France and later from Germany. The process began with the influence of Étienne Boutroux (1845–1921) and Bergson and of French vitalism and intuitionism, but it was cemented when Ortega y Gasset introduced into Latin America the thought of Scheler, Nicolai Hartmann, and other German philosophers during his visit to Argentina in 1916. The influence of Bergson was present in most of the founders, particularly Molina, who in 1916 wrote La filosofía de Bergson (“The Philosophy of Bergson”). Korn was exceptional in turning to Kant in his search for an alternative to positivism. In La libertad creadora (“Creative Freedom,” 1920–22), he defends a creative concept of freedom. In Axiología (“Axiology,” 1930), his most important work, he defends a subjectivist position. The impact of German philosophy, including Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the neo-Kantians, and of Ortega’s philosophical perspectivism and historicism, were strongly felt in the generation after the founders. The Mexican Samuel Ramos (1897–1959), the Argentinians Francisco Romero (1891–1962) and Carlos Astrada (1894–1970), the Brazilian Alceu Amoroso Lima (1893–1982), the Peruvian José Carlos Mariátegui (1895–1930), and others followed the Founders’ course, attacking positivism and favoring, in many instances, a philosophical style that contrasted with its scientistic emphasis. The most important of these figures was Romero, whose Theory of Man (1952) developed a systematic philosophical anthropology in the context of a metaphysics of transcendence. Reality is arranged according to degrees of transcendence, the lowest of which is the physical and the highest the spiritual. The bases of Ramos’s thought are found in Ortega as well as in Scheler and N. Hartmann. Ramos appropriated Ortega’s perspectivism and set out to characterize the Mexican situation in Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico (1962). Some precedent existed for the interest in the culturally idiosyncratic in Vasconcelos’s Raza cósmica (“Cosmic Race,” 1925), but Ramos opened the doors to a philosophical awareness of Latin American culture that has been popular ever since. Ramos’s most traditional work, Hacia un nuevo humanismo (“Toward a New Humanism,” 1940), presents a philosophical anthropology of Orteguean inspiration. Astrada studied in Germany and adopted existential and phenomenological ideas in El juego existential (“The Existential Game,” 1933), while criticizing Scheler’s axiology. Later, he turned toward Hegel and Marx in Existencialismo y crisis de la filosofía (“Existentialism and the Crisis of Philosophy,” 1963). Amoroso Lima worked in the Catholic tradition and his writings show the influence of Maritain. His O espírito e o mundo (“Spirit and World,” 1936) and Idade, sexo e tempo (“Age, Sex, and Time,” 1938) present a spiritual view of human beings, which he contrasted with Marxist and existentialist views. Mariátegui is the most distinguished representative of MarxLatin American philosophy Latin American philosophy 486 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 486 ism in Latin America. His Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (“Seven Essays on the Interpretation of Peruvian Reality,” 1928) contains an important statement of social philosophy, in which he uses Marxist ideas freely to analyze the Peruvian sociopolitical situation. In the late 1930s and 1940s, as a consequence of the political upheaval created by the Spanish Civil War, a substantial group of peninsular philosophers settled in Latin America. Among the most influential were Joaquín Xirau (1895– 1946), Eduardo Nicol (b.1907), Luis Recaséns Siches (b.1903), Juan D. García Bacca (b.1901), and, perhaps most of all, José Gaos (1900–69). Gaos, like Caso, was a consummate teacher, inspiring many students. Apart from the European ideas they brought, these immigrants introduced methodologically more sophisticated ways of doing philosophy, including the practice of studying philosophical sources in the original languages. Moreover, they helped to promote Pan-American communication. The conception of hispanidad they had inherited from Unamuno and Ortega helped the process. Their influence was felt particularly by the generation born around 1910. With this generation, Latin American philosophy established itself as a professional and reputable discipline, and philosophical organizations, research centers, and journals sprang up. The core of this generation worked in the German tradition. Risieri Frondizi (Argentina, 1910–83), Eduardo García Máynez (Mexico, b.1908), Juan Llambías de Azevedo (Uruguay, 1907–72), and Miguel Reale (Brazil, b.1910) were all influenced by Scheler and N. Hartmann and concerned themselves with axiology and philosophical anthropology. Frondizi, who was also influenced by Anglo-American philosophy, defended a functional view of the self in Substancia y función en el problema del yo (“The Nature of the Self,” 1952) and of value as a Gestalt quality in Qué son los valores? (“What is Value?” 1958). Apart from these thinkers, there were representatives of other traditions in this generation. Following Ramos, Leopoldo Zea (Mexico, b.1912) stimulated the study of the history of ideas in Mexico and initiated a controversy that still rages concerning the identity and possibility of a truly Latin American philosophy. Representing existentialism was Vicente Ferreira da Silva (Brazil, b.1916), who did not write much but presented a vigorous criticism of what he regarded as Hegelian and Marxist subjectivism in Ensaios filosóficos (“Philosophical Essays,” 1948). Before he became interested in existentialism, he had been interested in logic, publishing the first textbook of mathematical logic written in Latin America – Elementos de lógica matemática (“Elements of Mathematical Logic,” 1940). A philosopher whose interest in mathematical logic moved him away from phenomenology is Francisco Miró Quesada (Peru, b.1918). He explored rationality and eventually the perspective of analytic philosophy. Owing to the influence of Maritain, several members of this generation adopted a NeoThomistic or Scholastic approach. The main figures to do so were Oswaldo Robles (b.1904) in Mexico, Octavio Nicolás Derisi (b.1907) in Argentina, Alberto Wagner de Reyna (b.1915) in Peru, and Clarence Finlayson (1913–54) in Chile and Colombia. Even those authors who worked in this tradition addressed issues of axiology and philosophical anthropology. There was, therefore, considerable thematic unity in Latin American philosophy between 1940 and 1960. The overall orientation was not drastically different from the preceding period. The Founders used French vitalism against positivism, and the following generation, with Ortega’s help, took over the process, incorporating German spiritualism and the new ideas introduced by phenomenology and existentialism to continue in a similar direction. As a result, the phenomenology of Scheler and N. Hartmann and the existentialism of Heidegger and Sartre dominated philosophy in Latin America between 1940 and 1960. To this must be added the renewed impetus of neoScholasticism. Few philosophers worked outside these philosophical currents, and those who did had no institutional power. Among these were sympathizers of philosophical analysis, and those who contributed to the continuing development of Marxism. This situation has begun to change since 1960, substantially as a result of a renewed interest in Marxism, the progressive influence of analytic philosophy, and the development of a new philosophical current called the philosophy of liberation. Moreover, the question raised by Zea in the 1940s concerning the identity and possibility of a Latin American philosophy remains a focus of attention and controversy. And, more recently, there has been interest in such Continental philosophers as Foucault, Habermas, and Derrida, in neopragmatists like Rorty, and in feminist philosophy. Socialist thought is not new to Latin America. In this century, Emilio Frugoni (1880–1969) in Uruguay and Mariátegui in Peru, among others, adopted a Marxist perspecLatin American philosophy Latin American philosophy 487 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 487 tive, although a heterodox one. But only in the last three decades has Marxism been taken seriously in Latin American academic circles. Indeed, until recently Marxism was a marginal philosophical movement in Latin America. The popularity of the Marxist perspective has made possible its increasing institutionalization. Among its most important thinkers are Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez (Spain, b.1915), Vicente Lombardo Toledano (b.1894) and Eli de Gortari (b.1918) in Mexico, and Caio Prado Júnior (1909–86) in Brazil. In contrast to Marxism, philosophical analysis arrived late in Latin America and, owing to its technical and academic character, has not yet influenced more than a relatively small number of Latin American philosophers. Nonetheless, and thanks in part to its high theoretical caliber, analysis has become one of the most forceful philosophical currents in the region. The publication of journals with an analytic bent such as Crítica in Mexico, Análisis Filosófico in Argentina, and Manuscrito in Brazil, the foundation of the Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Filosófico (SADAF) in Argentina and the Sociedad Filosófica Iberoamericana (SOFIA) in Mexico, and the growth of analytic publications in high-profile journals of neutral philosophical orientation, such as Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía,indicate that philosophical analysis is well established in Latin America. The main centers of analytic activity are Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Campinas and São Paulo in Brazil. The interests of Latin American analysts center on questions of ethical and legal philosophy, the philosophy of science, and more recently cognitive science. Among its most important proponents are Genaro R. Carrió (b.1922), Gregorio Klimovsky (b.1922), and Tomás Moro Simpson (b.1929) in Argentina; Luis Villoro (Spain, b. 1922) in Mexico; Francisco Miró Quesada in Peru; Roberto Torretti (Chile, b.1930) in Puerto Rico; Mario Bunge (Argentina, b.1919), who works in Canada; and Héctor-Neri Castañeda (Guatemala, 1924–91). The philosophy of liberation is an autochthonous Latin American movement that mixes an emphasis on Latin American intellectual independence with Catholic and Marxist ideas. The historicist perspective of Leopoldo Zea, the movement known as the theology of liberation, and some elements from the national-popular Peronist ideology prepared the ground for it. The movement started in the early 1970s with a group of Argentinian philosophers, who, owing to the military repression of 1976–83 in Argentina, went into exile in various countries of Latin America. This early diaspora created permanent splits in the movement and spread its ideas throughout the region. Although proponents of this viewpoint do not always agree on their goals, they share the notion of liberation as a fundamental concept: the liberation from the slavery imposed on Latin America by imported ideologies and the development of a genuinely autochthonous thought resulting from reflection on the Latin American reality. As such, their views are an extension of the thought of Ramos and others who earlier in the century initiated the discussion of the cultural identity of Latin America. J.J.E.G. lattice theory. See BOOLEAN ALGEBRA. law, bridge. See REDUCTION. law, natural. See NATURAL LAW. law, philosophy of. See PHILOSOPHY OF LAW. lawlike generalization, also called nomological (or nomic), a generalization that, unlike an accidental generalization, possesses nomic necessity or counterfactual force. Compare (1) ‘All specimens of gold have a melting point of 1,063o C’ with (2) ‘All the rocks in my garden are sedimentary’. (2) may be true, but its generality is restricted to rocks in my garden. Its truth is accidental; it does not state what must be the case. (1) is true without restriction. If we write (1) as the conditional ‘For any x and for any time t, if x is a specimen of gold subjected to a temperature of 1,063o C, then x will melt’, we see that the generalization states what must be the case. (1) supports the hypothetical counterfactual assertion ‘For any specimen of gold x and for any time t, if x were subjected to a temperature of 1,063o C, then x would melt’, which means that we accept (1) as nomically necessary: it remains true even if no further specimens of gold are subjected to the required temperature. This is not true of (2), for we know that at some future time an igneous rock might appear in my garden. Statements like (2) are not lawlike; they do not possess the unrestricted necessity we require of lawlike statements. Ernest Nagel has claimed that a nomological statement must satisfy two other conditions: it must deductively entail or be deductively entailed by other laws, and its scope of prediction must exceed the known evidence for it. See also CAUSAL LAW. R.E.B. lawlike statement. See LAWLIKE GENERALIZATION. lattice theory lawlike statement 488 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 488 law of double negation. See DOUBLE NEGATION. law of eternal return. See COMPUTER THEORY. law of identity. See IDENTITY. law of large numbers. See BERNOULLI’s THEOREM. law of nature. See NATURAL LAW, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. law of succession. See CAUSAL LAW. law of trichotomy. See CHOICE SEQUENCE, RELATION. laws of thought, laws by which or in accordance with which valid thought proceeds, or that justify valid inference, or to which all valid deduction is reducible. Laws of thought are rules that apply without exception to any subject matter of thought, etc.; sometimes they are said to be the object of logic. The term, rarely used in exactly the same sense by different authors, has long been associated with three equally ambiguous expressions: the law of identity (ID), the law of contradiction (or non-contradiction; NC), and the law of excluded middle (EM). Sometimes these three expressions are taken as propositions of formal ontology having the widest possible subject matter, propositions that apply to entities per se: (ID) every thing is (i.e., is identical to) itself; (NC) no thing having a given quality also has the negative of that quality (e.g., no even number is non-even); (EM) every thing either has a given quality or has the negative of that quality (e.g., every number is either even or non-even). Equally common in older works is use of these expressions for principles of metalogic about propositions: (ID) every proposition implies itself; (NC) no proposition is both true and false; (EM) every proposition is either true or false. Beginning in the middle to late 1800s these expressions have been used to denote propositions of Boolean Algebra about classes: (ID) every class includes itself; (NC) every class is such that its intersection (“product”) with its own complement is the null class; (EM) every class is such that its union (“sum”) with its own complement is the universal class. More recently the last two of the three expressions have been used in connection with the classical propositional logic and with the socalled protothetic or quantified propositional logic; in both cases the law of non-contradiction involves the negation of the conjunction (‘and’) of something with its own negation and the law of excluded middle involves the disjunction (‘or’) of something with its own negation. In the case of propositional logic the “something” is a schematic letter serving as a place-holder, whereas in the case of protothetic logic the “something” is a genuine variable. The expressions ‘law of non-contradiction’ and ‘law of excluded middle’ are also used for semantic principles of model theory concerning sentences and interpretations: (NC) under no interpretation is a given sentence both true and false; (EM) under any interpretation, a given sentence is either true or false. The expressions mentioned above all have been used in many other ways. Many other propositions have also been mentioned as laws of thought, including the dictum de omni et nullo attributed to Aristotle, the substitutivity of identicals (or equals) attributed to Euclid, the socalled identity of indiscernibles attributed to Leibniz, and other “logical truths.” The expression “laws of thought” gained added prominence through its use by Boole (1815–64) to denote theorems of his “algebra of logic”; in fact, he named his second logic book An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854). Modern logicians, in almost unanimous disagreement with Boole, take this expression to be a misnomer; none of the above propositions classed under ‘laws of thought’ are explicitly about thought per se, a mental phenomenon studied by psychology, nor do they involve explicit reference to a thinker or knower as would be the case in pragmatics or in epistemology. The distinction between psychology (as a study of mental phenomena) and logic (as a study of valid inference) is widely accepted. See also CONVENTIONALISM, DICTUM DE OMNI ET NULLO, PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC, SET THEORY. J.Cor. leap of faith. See KIERKEGAARD. least squares method. See REGRESSION ANALYSIS. Lebensphilosophie, German term, translated as ‘philosophy of life’, that became current in a variety of popular and philosophical inflections during the second half of the nineteenth century. Such philosophers as Dilthey and Eucken (1846– 1926) frequently applied it to a general philosophical approach or attitude that distinguished itself, on the one hand, from the construction of comprehensive systems by Hegel and his followers and, on the other, from the tendency of empiricism and early positivism to reduce law of double negation Lebensphilosophie 489 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 489 human experience to epistemological questions about sensations or impressions. Rather, a Lebensphilosophie should begin from a recognition of the variety and complexity of concrete and already meaningful human experience as it is “lived”; it should acknowledge that all human beings, including the philosopher, are always immersed in historical processes and forms of organization; and it should seek to understand, describe, and sometimes even alter these and their various patterns of interrelation without abstraction or reduction. Such “philosophies of life” as those of Dilthey and Eucken provided much of the philosophical background for the conception of the social sciences as interpretive rather than explanatory disciplines. They also anticipated some central ideas of phenomenology, in particular the notion of the Life-World in Husserl, and certain closely related themes in Heidegger’s version of existentialism. See also DILTHEY, HUSSERL, VERSTEHEN. J.P.Su. Lebenswelt. See HUSSERL. legal disability. See HOHFELD. legal duty. See HOHFELD. legal ethics. See ETHICS. legal formalism. See JURISPRUDENCE. legal immunity. See HOHFELD. Legalism, Chinese. See CHINESE LEGALISM. legal liability. See HOHFELD. legal moralism, the view (defended in this century by, e.g., Lord Patrick Devlin) that law may properly be used to enforce morality, including notably “sexual morality.” Contemporary critics of the view (e.g., Hart) expand on the argument of Mill that law should only be used to prevent harm to others. See also MILL, J. S.; PHILOSOPHY OF LAW; POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. P.S. legal no-right. See HOHFELD. legal positivism, a theory about the nature of law, commonly thought to be characterized by two major tenets: (1) that there is no necessary connection between law and morality; and (2) that legal validity is determined ultimately by reference to certain basic social facts, e.g., the command of the sovereign (John Austin), the Grundnorm (Hans Kelsen), or the rule of recognition (Hart). These different descriptions of the basic law-determining facts lead to different claims about the normative character of law, with classical positivists (e.g., John Austin) insisting that law is essentially coercive, and modern positivists (e.g., Hans Kelsen) maintaining that it is normative. The traditional opponent of the legal positivist is the natural law theorist, who holds that no sharp distinction can be drawn between law and morality, thus challenging positivism’s first tenet. Whether that tenet follows from positivism’s second tenet is a question of current interest and leads inevitably to the classical question of political theory: Under what conditions might legal obligations, even if determined by social facts, create genuine political obligations (e.g., the obligation to obey the law)? See also JURISPRUDENCE, PHILOSOPHY OF LAW. P.S. legal power. See HOHFELD. legal principle. See DWORKIN. legal privilege. See HOHFELD. legal realism, a theory in philosophy of law or jurisprudence broadly characterized by the claim that the nature of law is better understood by observing what courts and citizens actually do than by analyzing stated legal rules and legal concepts. The theory is also associated with the thoughts that legal rules are disguised predictions of what courts will do, and that only the actual decisions of courts constitute law. There are two important traditions of legal realism, in Scandinavia and in the United States. Both began in the early part of the century, and both focus on the reality (hence the name ‘legal realism’) of the actual legal system, rather than on law’s official image of itself. The Scandinavian tradition is more theoretical and presents its views as philosophical accounts of the normativity of law based on skeptical methodology – the normative force of law consists in nothing but the feelings of citizens or officials or both about or their beliefs in that normative force. The older, U.S. tradition is more empirical or sociological or instrumentalist, focusing on how legislation is actually enacted, how rules are actually applied, how courts’ decisions are actually taken, and so forth. U.S. legal realism in its contemporary form is known as critical legal studies. Its argumentation is both empirical (law as experienced to be and Lebenswelt legal realism 490 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 490 as being oppressive by gender, race, and class) and theoretical (law as essentially indeterminate, or interpretative – properties that prime law for its role in political manipulation). See also CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES, JURISPRUDENCE, LEGAL POSITIVISM, PHILOSOPHY OF LAW. R.A.Sh. legal right. See HOHFELD, RIGHTS. legal rule. See DWORKIN. legisign. See PEIRCE. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646–1716), German rationalist philosopher who made seminal contributions in geology, linguistics, historiography, mathematics, and physics, as well as philosophy. He was born in Leipzig and died in Hanover. Trained in the law, he earned a living as a councilor, diplomat, librarian, and historian, primarily in the court of Hanover. His contributions in mathematics, physics, and philosophy were known and appreciated among his educated contemporaries in virtue of his publication in Europe’s leading scholarly journals and his vast correspondence with intellectuals in a variety of fields. He was best known in his lifetime for his contributions to mathematics, especially to the development of the calculus, where a debate raged over whether Newton or Leibniz should be credited with priority for its discovery. Current scholarly opinion seems to have settled on this: each discovered the basic foundations of the calculus independently; Newton’s discovery preceded that of Leibniz; Leibniz’s publication of the basic theory of the calculus preceded that of Newton. Leibniz’s contributions to philosophy were known to his contemporaries through articles published in learned journals, correspondence, and one book published in his lifetime, the Theodicy (1710). He wrote a book-length study of Locke’s philosophy, New Essays on Human Understanding, but decided not to publish it when he learned of Locke’s death. Examination of Leibniz’s papers after his own death revealed that what he published during his lifetime was but the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps the most complete formulation of Leibniz’s mature metaphysics occurs in his correspondence (1698–1706) with Burcher De Volder, a professor of philosophy at the University of Leyden. Leibniz therein formulated his basic ontological thesis: Considering matters accurately, it must be said that there is nothing in things except simple substances, and, in them, nothing but perception and appetite. Moreover, matter and motion are not so much substances or things as they are the phenomena of percipient beings, the reality of which is located in the harmony of each percipient with itself (with respect to different times) and with other percipients. In this passage Leibniz asserts that the basic individuals of an acceptable ontology are all monads, i.e., immaterial entities lacking spatial parts, whose basic properties are a function of their perceptions and appetites. He held that each monad perceives all the other monads with varying degrees of clarity, except for God, who perceives all monads with utter clarity. Leibniz’s main theses concerning causality among the created monads are these: God creates, conserves, and concurs in the actions of each created monad. Each state of a created monad is a causal consequence of its preceding state, except for its state at creation and any of its states due to miraculous divine causality. Intrasubstantial causality is the rule with respect to created monads, which are precluded from intersubstantial causality, a mode of operation of which God alone is capable. Leibniz was aware that elements of this monadology may seem counterintuitive, that, e.g., there appear to be extended entities composed of parts, existing in space and time, causally interacting with each other. In the second sentence of the quoted passage Leibniz set out some of the ingredients of his theory of the preestablished harmony, one point of which is to save those appearances that are sufficiently well-founded to deserve saving. In the case of material objects, Leibniz formulated a version of phenomenalism, based on harmony among the perceptions of the monads. In the case of apparent intersubstantial causal relations among created monads, Leibniz proposed an analysis according to which the underlying reality is an increase in the clarity of relevant perceptions of the apparent causal agent, combined with a corresponding decrease in the clarity of the relevant perceptions of the apparent patient. Leibniz treated material objects and intersubstantial causal relations among created entities as well-founded phenomena. By contrast, he treated space and time as ideal entities. Leibniz’s mature metaphysics includes a threefold classifilegal right Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 491 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 491 cation of entities that must be accorded some degree of reality: ideal entities, well-founded phenomena, and actual existents, i.e., the monads with their perceptions and appetites. In the passage quoted above Leibniz set out to distinguish the actual entities, the monads, from material entities, which he regarded as well-founded phenomena. In the following passage from another letter to De Volder he formulated the distinction between actual and ideal entities: In actual entities there is nothing but discrete quantity, namely, the multitude of monads, i.e., simple substances. . . . But continuous quantity is something ideal, which pertains to possibles, and to actuals, insofar as they are possible. Indeed, a continuum involves indeterminate parts, whereas, by contrast, there is nothing indefinite in actual entities, in which every division that can be made, is made. Actual things are composed in the manner that a number is composed of unities, ideal things are composed in the manner that a number is composed of fractions. The parts are actual in the real whole, but not in the ideal. By confusing ideal things with real substances when we seek actual parts in the order of possibles and indeterminate parts in the aggregate of actual things, we entangle ourselves in the labyrinth of the continuum and in inexplicable contradictions. The labyrinth of the continuum was one of two labyrinths that, according to Leibniz, vex the philosophical mind. His views about the proper course to take in unraveling the labyrinth of the continuum are one source of his monadology. Ultimately, he concluded that whatever may be infinitely divided without reaching indivisible entities is not something that belongs in the basic ontological category. His investigations of the nature of individuation and identity over time provided premises from which he concluded that only indivisible entities are ultimately real, and that an individual persists over time only if its subsequent states are causal consequences of its preceding states. In refining the metaphysical insights that yielded the monadology, Leibniz formulated and defended various important metaphysical theses, e.g.: the identity of indiscernibles – that individual substances differ with respect to their intrinsic, non-relational properties; and the doctrine of minute perceptions – that each created substance has some perceptions of which it lacks awareness. In the process of providing what he took to be an acceptable account of well-founded phenomena, Leibniz formulated various theses counter to the then prevailing Cartesian orthodoxy, concerning the nature of material objects. In particular, Leibniz argued that a correct application of Galileo’s discoveries concerning acceleration of freely falling bodies of the phenomena of impact indicates that force is not to be identified with quantity of motion, i.e., mass times velocity, as Descartes held, but is to be measured by mass times the square of the velocity. Moreover, Leibniz argued that it is force, measured as mass times the square of the velocity, that is conserved in nature, not quantity of motion. From these results Leibniz drew some important metaphysical conclusions. He argued that force, unlike quantity of motion, cannot be reduced to a conjunction of modifications of extension. But force is a central property of material objects. Hence, he concluded that Descartes was mistaken in attempting to reduce matter to extension and its modifications. Leibniz concluded that each material substance must have a substantial form that accounts for its active force. These conclusions have to do with entities that Leibniz viewed as phenomenal. He drew analogous conclusions concerning the entities he regarded as ultimately real, i.e., the monads. Thus, although Leibniz held that each monad is absolutely simple, i.e., without parts, he also held that the matter–form distinction has an application to each created monad. In a letter to De Volder he wrote: Therefore, I distinguish (1) the primitive entelechy or soul, (2) primary matter, i.e., primitive passive power, (3) monads completed from these two, (4) mass, i.e., second matter . . . in which innumerable subordinate monads come together, (5) the animal, i.e., corporeal substance, which a dominating monad makes into one machine. The second labyrinth vexing the philosophical mind, according to Leibniz, is the labyrinth of freedom. It is fair to say that for Leibniz the labyrinth of freedom is fundamentally a matter of how it is possible that some states of affairs obtain contingently, i.e., how it is possible that some propositions are true that might have been false. There are two distinct sources of the problem of contingency in Leibniz’s philosophy, one theological, and the other metaphysical. Each source may be grasped by considering an argument that appears to have premises to which Leibniz was predisposed and the conclusion that every state of affairs that obtains, obtains necessarily, and hence that there are no contingent propositions. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 492 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 492 The metaphysical argument is centered on some of Leibniz’s theses about the nature of truth. He held that the truth-value of all propositions is settled once truth-values have been assigned to the elementary propositions, i.e., those expressed by sentences in subject-predicate form. And he held that a sentence in subject-predicate form expresses a true proposition if and only if the concept of its predicate is included in the concept of its subject. But this makes it sound as if Leibniz were committed to the view that an elementary proposition is true if and only if it is conceptually true, from which it seems to follow that an elementary proposition is true if and only if it is necessarily true. Leibniz’s views concerning the relation of the truthvalue of non-elementary propositions to the truth-value of elementary propositions, then, seem to entail that there are no contingent propositions. He rejected this conclusion in virtue of rejecting the thesis that if an elementary proposition is conceptually true then it is necessarily true. The materials for his rejection of this thesis are located in theses connected with his program for a universal science (scientia universalis). This program had two parts: a universal notation (characteristica universalis), whose purpose was to provide a method for recording scientific facts as perspicuous as algebraic notation, and a formal system of reasoning (calculus ratiocinator) for reasoning about the facts recorded. Supporting Leibniz’s belief in the possibility and utility of the characteristica universalis and the calculus ratiocinator is his thesis that all concepts arise from simple primitive concepts via concept conjunction and concept complementation. In virtue of this thesis, he held that all concepts may be analyzed into their simple, primitive components, with this proviso: in some cases there is no finite analysis of a concept into its primitive components; but there is an analysis that converges on the primitive components without ever reaching them. This is the doctrine of infinite analysis, which Leibniz applied to ward off the threat to contingency apparently posed by his account of truth. He held that an elementary proposition is necessarily true if and only if there is a finite analysis that reveals that its predicate concept is included in its subject concept. By contrast, an elementary proposition is contingently true if and only if there is no such finite analysis, but there is an analysis of its predicate concept that converges on a component of its subject concept. The theological argument may be put this way. There would be no world were God not to choose to create a world. As with every choice, as, indeed, with every state of affairs that obtains, there must be a sufficient reason for that choice, for the obtaining of that state of affairs – this is what the principle of sufficient reason amounts to, according to Leibniz. The reason for God’s choice of a world to create must be located in God’s power and his moral character. But God is allpowerful and morally perfect, both of which attributes he has of necessity. Hence, of necessity, God chose to create the best possible world. Whatever possible world is the best possible world, is so of necessity. Hence, whatever possible world is actual, is so of necessity. A possible world is defined with respect to the states of affairs that obtain in it. Hence, whatever states of affairs obtain, do so of necessity. Therefore, there are no contingent propositions. Leibniz’s options here were limited. He was committed to the thesis that the principle of sufficient reason, when applied to God’s choice of a world to create, given God’s attributes, yields the conclusion that this is the best possible world – a fundamental component of his solution to the problem of evil. He considered two ways of avoiding the conclusion of the argument noted above. The first consists in claiming that although God is metaphysically perfect of necessity, i.e., has every simple, positive perfection of necessity, and although God is morally perfect, nonetheless he is not morally perfect of necessity, but rather by choice. The second consists in denying that whatever possible world is the best, is so of necessity, relying on the idea that the claim that a given possible world is the best involves a comparison with infinitely many other possible worlds, and hence, if true, is only contingently true. Once again the doctrine of infinite analysis served as the centerpiece of Leibniz’s efforts to establish that, contrary to appearances, his views do not lead to necessitarianism, i.e., to the thesis that there is no genuine contingency. Much of Leibniz’s work in philosophical theology had as a central motivation an effort to formulate a sound philosophical and theological basis for various church reunion projects – especially reunion between Lutherans and Calvinists on the Protestant side, and ultimately, reunion between Protestants and Catholics. He thought that most of the classical arguments for the existence of God, if formulated with care, i.e., in the way in which Leibniz formulated them, succeeded in proving what they set out to prove. For example, Leibniz thought that Descartes’s version of the ontological argument established the existence of a perfect being, with one crucial proviso: that an absolutely perfect being is possible. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 493 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 493 Leibniz believed that none of his predecessors had established this premise, so he set out to do so. The basic idea of his purported proof is this. A perfection is a simple, positive property. Hence, there can be no demonstration that there is a formal inconsistency in asserting that various collections of them are instantiated by the same being. But if there is no such demonstration, then it is possible that something has them all. Hence, a perfect being is possible. Leibniz did not consider in detail many of the fundamental epistemological issues that so moved Descartes and the British empiricists. Nonetheless, Leibniz made significant contributions to the theory of knowledge. His account of our knowledge of contingent truths is much like what we would expect of an empiricist’s epistemology. He claimed that our knowledge of particular contingent truths has its basis in sense perception. He argued that simple enumerative induction cannot account for all our knowledge of universal contingent truths; it must be supplemented by what he called the a priori conjectural method, a precursor of the hypothetico-deductive method. He made contributions to developing a formal theory of probability, which he regarded as essential for an adequate account of our knowledge of contingent truths. Leibniz’s rationalism is evident in his account of our a priori knowledge, which for him amounted to our knowledge of necessary truths. Leibniz thought that Locke’s empiricism did not provide an acceptable account of a priori knowledge, because it attempted to locate all the materials of justification as deriving from sensory experience, thus overlooking what Leibniz took to be the primary source of our a priori knowledge, i.e., what is innate in the mind. He summarized his debate with Locke on these matters thus: Our differences are on matters of some importance. It is a matter of knowing if the soul in itself is entirely empty like a writing tablet on which nothing has as yet been written (tabula rasa), . . . and if everything inscribed there comes solely from the senses and experience, or if the soul contains originally the sources of various concepts and doctrines that external objects merely reveal on occasion. The idea that some concepts and doctrines are innate in the mind is central not only to Leibniz’s theory of knowledge, but also to his metaphysics, because he held that the most basic metaphysical concepts, e.g., the concepts of the self, substance, and causation, are innate. Leibniz utilized the ideas behind the characteristica universalis in order to formulate a system of formal logic that is a genuine alternative to Aristotelian syllogistic logic and to contemporary quantification theory. Assuming that propositions are, in some fashion, composed of concepts and that all composite concepts are, in some fashion, composed of primitive simple concepts, Leibniz formulated a logic based on the idea of assigning numbers to concepts according to certain rules. The entire program turns on his concept containment account of truth previously mentioned. In connection with the metatheory of this logic Leibniz formulated the principle: “eadem sunt quorum unum alteri substitui potest salva veritate” (“Those things are the same of which one may be substituted for the other preserving truth-value”). The proper interpretation of this principle turns in part on exactly what “things” he had in mind. It is likely that he intended to formulate a criterion of concept identity. Hence, it is likely that this principle is distinct from the identity of indiscernibles, previously mentioned, and also from what has come to be called Leibniz’s law, i.e., the thesis that if x and y are the same individual then whatever is true of x is true of y and vice versa. The account outlined above concentrates on Leibniz’s mature views in metaphysics, epistemology, and logic. The evolution of his thought in these areas is worthy of close study, which cannot be brought to a definitive state until all of his philosophical work has been published in the edition of the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin. See also DESCARTES, IDENTITY OF INDISCERNIBLES, LOCKE, POSSIBLE WORLDS, RATIONALISM, SPINOZA. R.C.Sl. Leibniz’s law. See IDENTITY, LEIBNIZ. lekton (Greek, ‘what can be said’), a Stoic term sometimes translated as ‘the meaning of an utterance’. Lekta differ from utterances in being what utterances signify: they are said to be what the Greek grasps and the non-Greek speaker does not when Greek is spoken. Moreover, lekta are incorporeal, which for the Stoics means they do not, strictly speaking, exist, but only “subsist,” and so cannot act or be acted upon. They constitute the content of our mental states: they are what we assent to and endeavor toward and they “correspond” to the presentations given to rational animals. The Stoics acknowledged lekta for predicates as well as for sentences (including questions, oaths, and imperatives); axiomata or Leibniz’s law lekton 494 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 494 propositions are lekta that can be assented to and may be true or false (although being essentially tensed, their truth-values may change). The Stoics’ theory of reference suggests that they also acknowledged singular propositions, which “perish” when the referent ceases to exist. See also PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, PROPOSITION, STOICISM. V.C. lemmata. See COMMENTARIES ON PLATO. Lenin, Vladimir Ilich (1870–1924), Russian political leader and Marxist theorist, a principal creator of Soviet dialectical materialism. In Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1909), he attacked Russian contemporaries who sought to interpret Marx’s philosophy in the spirit of the phenomenalistic positivism of Avenarius and Mach. Rejecting their position as idealist, Lenin argues that matter is not a construct from sensations but an objective reality independent of consciousness; because our sensations directly copy this reality, objective truth is possible. The dialectical dimension of Lenin’s outlook is best elaborated in his posthumous Philosophical Notebooks (written 1914–16), a collection of reading notes and fragments in which he gives close attention to the Hegelian dialectic and displays warm sympathy toward it, though he argues that the dialectic should be interpreted materialistically rather than idealistically. Some of Lenin’s most original theorizing, presented in Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) and State and Revolution (1918), is devoted to analyzing the connection between monopoly capitalism and imperialism and to describing the coming violent replacement of bourgeois rule by, first, the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and, later, stateless communism. Lenin regarded all philosophy as a partisan weapon in the class struggle, and he wielded his own philosophy polemically in the interests of Communist revolution. As a result of the victory of the Bolsheviks in November 1917, Lenin’s ideas were enshrined as the cornerstone of Soviet intellectual culture and were considered above criticism until the advent of glasnost in the late 1980s. With the end of Communist rule following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, his influence declined precipitously. See also MARXISM, RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY. J.P.Sc. Leopold, Friedrich. See NOVALIS. Lequier, Jules (1814–62), French philosopher, educated in Paris, whose works were not published in his lifetime. He influenced Renouvier, who regarded Lequier as his “master in philosophy.” Through Renouvier, he came to the attention of James, who called Lequier a “philosopher of genius.” Central to Lequier’s philosophy is the idea of freedom understood as the power to “create,” or add novelty to the world. Such freedom involves an element of arbitrariness and is incompatible with determinism. Anticipating James, Lequier argued that determinism, consistently affirmed, leads to skepticism about truth and values. Though a devout Roman Catholic, his theological views were unorthodox for his time. God cannot know future free actions until they occur and therefore cannot be wholly immutable and eternal. Lequier’s views anticipate in striking ways some views of James, Bergson, Alexander, and Peirce, and the process philosophies and process theologies of Whitehead and Hartshorne. R.H.K. Leroux, Pierre (1797–1871), French philosopher reputed to have introduced the word socialisme in France (c.1834). He claimed to be the first to use solidarité as a sociological concept (in his memoirs, La Grève de Samarez [The Beach at Samarez], 1863). The son of a Parisian café owner, Leroux centered his life work on journalism, both as a printer (patenting an advanced procedure for typesetting) and as founder of a number of significant serial publications. The Encyclopédie Nouvelle (New Encyclopedia, 1833–48, incomplete), which he launched with Jean Reynaud (1806–63), was conceived and written in the spirit of Diderot’s magnum opus. It aspired to be the platform for republican and democratic thought during the July Monarchy (1830–48). The reformer’s influence on contemporaries such as Hugo, Belinsky, J. Michelet, and Heine was considerable. Leroux fervently believed in Progress, unlimited and divinely inspired. This doctrine he took to be eighteenth-century France’s particular contribution to the Enlightenment. Progress must make its way between twin perils: the “follies of illuminism” or “foolish spiritualism” and the “abject orgies of materialism.” Accordingly, Leroux blamed Condillac for having “drawn up the code of materialism” by excluding an innate Subject from his sensationalism (“Condillac,” Encyclopédie Nouvelle). Cousin’s eclecticism, state doctrine under the July Monarchy and synonym for immobility (“Philosophy requires no further development; it is complete as is,” Leroux wrote sarcastically in 1838, echoing Cousin), was a lemmata Leroux, Pierre 495 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 495 constant target of his polemics. Having abandoned traditional Christian beliefs, Leroux viewed immortality as an infinite succession of rebirths on earth, our sense of personal identity being preserved throughout by Platonic “reminiscences” (De l’Humanité [Concerning Humanity], 1840). See also CONDILLAC, COUSIN, ENLIGHTENMENT. D.A.G. Lesniewski, Stanislaw (1886–1939), Polish philosopher-logician, cofounder, with Lukasiewicz and Kotarbigski, of the Warsaw Center of Logical Research. He perfected the logical reconstruction of classical mathematics by Frege, Schröder, Whitehead, and Russell in his synthesis of mathematical with modernized Aristotelian logic. A pioneer in scientific semantics whose insights inspired Tarski, Les’niewski distinguished genuine antinomies of belief, in theories intended as true mathematical sciences, from mere formal inconsistencies in uninterpreted calculi. Like Frege an acute critic of formalism, he sought to perfect one comprehensive, logically true instrument of scientific investigation. Demonstrably consistent, relative to classical elementary logic, and distinguished by its philosophical motivation and logical economy, his system integrates his central achievements. Other contributions include his ideographic notation, his method of natural deduction from suppositions and his demonstrations of inconsistency of other systems, even Frege’s revised foundations of arithmetic. Fundamental were (1) his 1913 refutation of Twardowski’s Platonistic theory of abstraction, which motivated his “constructive nominalism”; and (2) his deep analyses of Russell’s paradox, which led him to distinguish distributive from collective predication and (as generalized to subsume Grelling and Nelson’s paradox of self-reference) logical from semantic paradoxes, and so (years before Ramsey and Gödel) to differentiate, not just the correlatives object language and metalanguage, but any such correlative linguistic stages, and thus to relativize semantic concepts to successive hierarchical strata in metalinguistic stratification. His system of logic and foundations of mathematics comprise a hierarchy of three axiomatic deductive theories: protothetic, ontology, and mereology. Each can be variously based on just one axiom introducing a single undefined term. His prototheses are basic to any further theory. Ontology, applying them, complements protothetic to form his logic. Les’niewski’s ontology develops his logic of predication, beginning (e.g.) with singular predication characterizing the individual so-and-so as being one (of the one or more) such-and-such, without needing classabstraction operators, dispensable here as in Russell’s “no-class theory of classes.” But this, his logic of nouns, nominal or predicational functions, etc., synthesizing formulations by Aristotle, Leibniz, Boole, Schröder, and Whitehead, also represents a universal theory of being and beings, beginning with related individuals and their characteristics, kinds, or classes distributively understood to include individuals as singletons or “one-member classes.” Les’niewski’s directives of definition and logical grammar for his systems of protothetic and ontology provide for the unbounded hierarchies of “open,” functional expressions. Systematic conventions of contextual determinacy, exploiting dependence of meaning on context, permit unequivocal use of the same forms of expression to bring out systematic analogies between homonyms as analogues in Aristotle’s and Russell’s sense, systematically ambiguous, differing in semantic category and hence significance. Simple distinctions of semantic category within the object language of the system itself, together with the metalinguistic stratification to relativize semantic concepts, prevent logical and semantic paradoxes as effectively as Russell’s ramified theory of types. Lesniewski’s system of logic, though expressively rich enough to permit Platonist interpretation in terms of universals, is yet “metaphysically neutral” in being free from ontic commitments. It neither postulates, presupposes, nor implies existence of either individuals or abstractions, but relies instead on equivalences without existential import that merely introduce and explicate new terms. In his “nominalist” construction of the endless Platonic ladder of abstraction, logical principles can be elevated step by step, from any level to the next, by definitions making abstractions eliminable, translatable by definition into generalizations characterizing related individuals. In this sense it is “constructively nominalist,” as a developing language always open to introduction of new terms and categories, without appeal to “convenient fictions.” Les’niewski’s system, completely designed by 1922, was logically and chronologically in advance of Russell’s 1925 revision of Principia Mathematica to accommodate Ramsey’s simplification of Russell’s theory of types. Yet Les’niewski’s premature death, the ensuing disruption of war, which destroyed his manuscripts and disLesniewski, Stanislaw Lesniewski, Stanislaw 496 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 496 persed survivors such as Sobocigski and Lejewski, and the relative inaccessibility of publications delayed by Les’niewski’s own perfectionism have retarded understanding of his work. See also POLISH LOGIC. E.C.L. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1729–81), German philosopher, critic, and literary figure whose philosophical and theological work aimed to replace the so-called possession of truth by a search for truth through public debate. The son of a Protestant minister, he studied theology but gave it up to take part in the literary debate between Gottsched and the Swiss Bodmer and Breitinger, which dealt with French classicism (Boileau) and English influences (Shakespeare for theater and Milton for poetry). His literary criticism (Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend [“Letters on the New Literature”], 1759–65), his own dramatic works, and his theological-philosophical reflections were united in his conception of a practical Aufklärung, which opposed all philosophical or religious dogmatism. Lessing’s creation and direction of the National German Theater of Hamburg (1767–70) helped to form a sense of German national identity. In 1750 Lessing published Thoughts on the Moravian Brothers, which contrasted religion as lived by this pietist community with the ecclesiastical institution. In 1753–54 he wrote a series of “rehabilitations” (Rettugen) to show that the opposition between dogmas and heresies, between “truth” and “error,” was incompatible with living religious thought. This position had the seeds of a historical conception of religion that Lessing developed during his last years. In 1754 he again attempted a deductive formulation, inspired by Spinoza, of the fundamental truths of Christianity. Lessing rejected this rationalism, as substituting a dogma of reason for one of religion. To provoke public debate on the issue, be published H. S. Reimarus’s Fragments of an Anonymous Author (1774–78), which the Protestant hierarchy considered atheistic. The relativism and soft deism to which his arguments seemed to lead were transformed in his Education of Mankind (1780) into a historical theory of truth. In Lessing’s view, all religions have an equal dignity, for none possesses “the” truth; they represent only ethical and practical moments in the history of mankind. Revelation is assimilated into an education of mankind and God is compared to a teacher who reveals to man only what he is able to assimilate. This secularization of the history of salvation, in which God becomes immanent in the world, is called pantheism (“the quarrel of pantheism”). For Lessing, Judaism and Christianity are the preliminary stages of a third gospel, the “Gospel of Reason.” The Masonic Dialogues (1778) introduced this historical and practical conception of truth as a progress from “thinking by oneself” to dialogue (“thinking aloud with a friend”). In the literary domain Lessing broke with the culture of the baroque: against the giants and martyrs of baroque tragedy, he offered the tragedy of the bourgeois, with whom any spectator must be able to identify. After a poor first play in 1755 – Miss Sara Sampson – which only reflected the sentimentalism of the time, Lessing produced a model of the genre with Emilia Galotti (1781). The Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767– 68) was supposed to be influenced by Aristotle, but its union of fear and pity was greatly influenced by Moses Mendelssohn’s theory of “mixed sensations.” Lessing’s entire aesthetics was based not on permanent ontological, religious, or moral rules, but on the spectator’s interest. In Laokoon (1766) he associated this aesthetics of reception with one of artistic production, i.e., a reflection on the means through which poetry and the plastic arts create this interest: the plastic arts by natural signs and poetry through the arbitrary signs that overcome their artificiality through the imitation not of nature but of action. Much like Winckelmann’s aesthetics, which influenced German classicism for a considerable time, Lessing’s aesthetics opposed the baroque, but for a theory of ideal beauty inspired by Plato it substituted a foundation of the beautiful in the agreement between producer and receptor. See also MENDELSSOHN. G.Ra. Leucippus (fl. c.440 B.C.), Greek pre-Socratic philosopher credited with founding atomism, expounded in a work titled The Great World-system. Positing the existence of atoms and the void, he answered Eleatic arguments against change by allowing change of place. The arrangements and rearrangements of groups of atoms could account for macroscopic changes in the world, and indeed for the world itself. Little else is known of Leucippus. It is difficult to distinguish his contributions from those of his prolific follower Democritus. See also ANCIENT ATOMISM. D.W.G. level. See TYPE THEORY. Levi ben Gershom. See GERSONIDES. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim Levi ben Gershom 497 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 497 Levinas, Emmanuel (1906–95), Lithuanian-born French philosopher. Educated as an orthodox Jew and a Russian citizen, he studied philosophy at Strasbourg (1924–29) and Freiburg (1928– 29), introduced the work of Husserl and Heidegger in France, taught philosophy at a Jewish school in Paris, spent four years in a German labor camp (1940–44), and was a professor at the universities of Poitiers, Nanterre, and the Sorbonne. To the impersonal totality of being reduced to “the same” by the Western tradition (including Hegel’s and Husserl’s idealism and Heidegger’s ontology), Levinas opposes the irreducible otherness of the human other, death, time, God, etc. In Totalité et Infini: Essai sur l’extériorité (1961), he shows how the other’s facing and speaking urge philosophy to transcend the horizons of comprehension, while Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence (1974) concentrates on the self of “me” as one-for-the-other. Appealing to Plato’s form of the Good and Descartes’s idea of the infinite, Levinas describes the asymmetrical relation between the other’s “highness” or “infinity” and me, whose self-enjoyment is thus interrupted by a basic imperative: Do not kill me, but help me to live! The fact of the other’s existence immediately reveals the basic “ought” of ethics; it awakens me to a responsibility that I have never been able to choose or to refuse. My radical “passivity,” thus revealed, shows the anachronic character of human temporality. It also refers to the immemorial past of “Him” whose “illeity” is still otherwise other than the human other: God, or the Good itself, who is neither an object nor a you. Religion and ethics coincide because the only way to meet with God is to practice one’s responsibility for the human other, who is “in the trace of God.” Comprehensive thematization and systematic objectification, though always in danger of reducing all otherness, have their own relative and subordinate truth, especially with regard to the economic and political conditions of universal justice toward all individuals whom I cannot encounter personally. With and through the other I meet all humans. In this experience lies the origin of equality and human rights. Similarly, theoretical thematization has a positive role if it remains aware of its ancillary or angelic role with regard to concern for the other. What is said in philosophy betrays the saying by which it is communicated. It must therefore be unsaid in a return to the saying. More than desire for theoretical wisdom, philosophy is the wisdom of love. See also HEIDEGGER, HUSSERL. A.T.P. Lewin, Kurt (1890–1947), German and American (after 1932) psychologist, perhaps the most influential of the Gestalt psychologists in the United States. Believing traditional psychology was stuck in an “Aristotelian” class-logic stage of theorizing, Lewin proposed advancing to a “Galilean” stage of field theory. His central field concept was the “life space, containing the person and his psychological environment.” Primarily concerned with motivation, he explained locomotion as caused by life-space objects’ valences, psychological vectors of force acting on people as physical vectors of force act on physical objects. Objects with positive valence exert attractive force; objects with negative valence exert repulsive force; ambivalent objects exert both. To attain theoretical rigor, Lewin borrowed from mathematical topology, mapping life spaces as diagrams. For example, this represented the motivational conflict involved in choosing between pizza and hamburger: Life spaces frequently contain psychological barriers (e.g., no money) blocking movement toward or away from a valenced object. Lewin also created the important field of group dynamics in 1939, carrying out innovative studies on children and adults, focusing on group cohesion and effects of leadership style. His main works are A Dynamic Theory of Personality (1935), Principles of Topological Psychology (1936), and Field Theory in Social Science (1951). See also KÖHLER, MOTIVATIONAL EXPLANATION. T.H.L. Lewis, C(larence) I(rving) (1883–1964), American philosopher who advocated a version of pragmatism and empiricism, but was nonetheless strongly influenced by Kant. Lewis was born in Massachusetts, educated at Harvard, and taught at the University of California (1911–20) and Harvard (1920–53). He wrote in logic (A Survey of Symbolic Logic, 1918; Symbolic Logic, 1932, coauthored with C. H. Langford), in epistemology (Mind and the World Order, 1929; An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation, 1946), and in Levinas, Emmanuel Lewis, C(larence) I(rving) 498 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 498 ethical theory (The Ground and Nature of the Right, 1965; Our Social Inheritance, 1957). General views. Use of the senses involves “presentations” of sense experiences that signalize external objects. Reflection upon the relations of sense experiences to psychological “intensions” permits our thoughts to refer to aspects of objective reality. Consequently, we can experience those non-presented objective conditions. Intensions, which include the mind’s categories, are meanings in one ordinary sense, and concepts in a philosophical sense. When judging counts as knowing, it has the future-oriented function and sole value of guiding action in pursuit of what one evaluates as good. Intensions do not fundamentally depend upon being formulated in those linguistic phrases that may express them and thereby acquire meaning. Pace Kant, our categories are replaceable when pragmatically unsuccessful, and are sometimes invented, although typically socially instilled. Kant also failed to realize that any a priori knowledge concerns only what is expressed by an “analytic truth,” i.e., what is knowable with certainty via reflection upon intensions and permits reference to the necessary inclusion (and exclusion) relations between objective properties. Such inclusion/exclusion relationships are “entailments” expressible by a use of “if . . . then . . .” different from material implication. The degree of justification of an empirical judgment about objective reality (e.g., that there is a doorknob before one) and of any beliefs in consequences that are probable given the judgment, approximates to certainty when the judgment stands in a relationship of “congruence” to a collection of justified judgments (e.g., a collection including the judgments that one remembers seeing a doorknob a moment before, and that one has not just turned around). Lewis’s empiricism involves one type of phenomenalism. Although he treats external conditions as metaphysically distinct from passages of sense experience, he maintains that the process of learning about the former does not involve more than learning about the latter. Accordingly, he speaks of the “sense meaning” of an intension, referring to an objective condition. It concerns what one intends to count as a process that verifies that the particular intension applies to the objective world. Sense meanings of a statement may be conceived as additional “entailments” of it, and are expressible by conjunctions of an infinite number of statements each of which is “the general form of a specific terminating judgment” (as defined below). Lewis wants his treatment of sense meaning to rule out Berkeley’s view that objects exist only when perceived. Verification of an objective judgment, as Kant realized, is largely specified by a non-social process expressed by a rule to act in imaginable ways in response to imaginable present sense experiences (e.g. seeing a doorknob) and thereupon to have imaginable future sense experiences (e.g. feeling a doorknob). Actual instances of such passages of sense experience raise the probability of an objective judgment, whose verification is always partial. Apprehensions of sense experiences are judgments that are not reached by basing them on grounds in a way that might conceivably produce errors. Such apprehensions are “certain.” The latter term may be employed by Lewis in more than one sense, but here it at least implies that the judgment is rationally credible and in the above sense not capable of being in error. So such an apprehension is “datal,” i.e., rationally employed in judging other matters, and “immediate,” i.e., formed noninferentially in response to a presentation. These presentations make up “the (sensory) given.” Sense experience is what remains after everything that is less than certain in one’s experience of an objective condition is set aside. Lewis thought some version of the epistemic regress argument to be correct, and defended the Cartesian view that without something certain as a foundation no judgment has any degree of justification. Technical terminology. Presentation: something involved in experience, e.g. a visual impression, in virtue of which one possesses a non-inferential judgment that it is involved. The given: those presentations that have the content that they do independently of one’s intending or deciding that they have it. Terminating: decisively and completely verifiable or falsifiable in principle. (E.g., where S affirms a present sense experience, A affirms an experience of seeming to initiate an action, and E affirms a future instance of sense experience, the judgment ‘S and if A then E’ is terminating.) The general form of the terminating judgment that S and if A then E: the conditional that if S then (in all probability) E, if A. (An actual judgment expressed by this conditional is based on remembering passages of sense experience of type S/A/E and is justified thanks to the principle of induction and the principle that seeming to remember Lewis, C(larence) I(rving) Lewis, C(larence) I(rving) 499 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 499 an event makes the judgment that the event occurred justified at least to some degree. These statements concern a connection that holds independently of whether anyone is thinking and underlies the rationality of relying to any degree upon what is not part of one’s self.) Congruence: the relationship among statements in a collection when the following conditional is true: If each had some degree of justification independently of the remaining ones, then each would be made more justified by the conjoint truth of the remaining ones. (When the antecedent of this conditional is true, and a statement in the collection is such that it is highly improbable that the remaining ones all be true unless it is true, then it is made very highly justified.) Pragmatic a priori: those judgments that are not based on the use of the senses but on employing a set of intensions, and yet are susceptible of being reasonably set aside because of a shift to a different set of intensions whose employment is pragmatically more useful (roughly, more useful for the attainment of what has intrinsic value). Valuation: the appraising of something as having value or being morally right. (What has some value that is not due to its consequences is what has intrinsic value, e.g., enjoyable experiences of self-realization in living rationally. Other evaluations of what is good are empirical judgments concerning what may be involved in actions leading to what is intrinsically good. Rational reflection permits awareness of various moral principles.) See also ANALYTIC–SYNTHETIC DISTINCTION; A PRIORI; CERTAINTY; FOUNDATIONALISM; PHENOMENALISM; PRAGMATISM; SELLARS, WILFRID. R.K.S. Lewis, C(live) S(taples) (1898–1963), English literary critic, novelist, and Christian apologist. Born in Belfast, Lewis took three first-class degrees at Oxford, became a tutor at its Magdalen College in 1925, and assumed the chair of medieval and Renaissance studies at Cambridge in 1954. While his tremendous output includes important works on medieval literature and literary criticism, he is best known for his fiction and Christian apologetics. Lewis combined a poetic sense and appreciation of argument that allowed him to communicate complex philosophical and theological material to lay audiences. His popular writings in the philosophy of religion range over a variety of topics, including the nature and existence of God (Mere Christianity, 1952), miracles (Miracles, 1947), hell (The Great Divorce, 1945), and the problem of evil (The Problem of Pain, 1940). His own conversion to Christianity as an adult is chronicled in his autobiography (Surprised by Joy, 1955). In defending theism Lewis employed arguments from natural theology (most notably versions of the moral and teleological arguments) and arguments from religious experience. Also of philosophical interest is his defense of moral absolutism in The Abolition of Man (1943). See also PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. W.J.Wo. Lewis, David K. (b.1941), American philosopher influential in many areas. Lewis received the B.A. in philosophy from Swarthmore in 1962 and the Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard in 1967. He has been a member of the philosophy department at U.C.L.A. (1966–70) and Princeton (1970–). In philosophy of mind, Lewis is known principally for “An Argument for the Identity Theory” (1966), “Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications” (1972), and “Mad Pain and Martian Pain” (1980). He argues for the functionalist thesis that mental states are defined by their typical causal roles, and the materialist thesis that the causal roles definitive of mental states are occupied by physical states. Lewis develops the view that theoretical definitions in general are functionally defined, applying the formal concept of a Ramsey sentence. And he suggests that the platitudes of commonsense or folk psychology constitute the theory implicitly defining psychological concepts. In philosophy of language and linguistics, Lewis is known principally for Convention (1969), “General Semantics” (1970), and “Languages and Language” (1975). His theory of convention had its source in the theory of games of pure coordination developed by von Neumann and Morgenstern. Roughly, conventions are arbitrary solutions to coordination problems that perpetuate themselves once a precedent is set because they serve a common interest. Lewis requires it to be common knowledge that people prefer to conform to a conventional regularity given that others do. He treats linguistic meanings as compositional intensions. The basic intensions for lexical constituents are functions assigning extensions to indices, which include contextual factors and a possible world. An analytic sentence is one true at every index. Languages are functions from sentences to meanLewis, C(live) S(taples) Lewis, David K. 500 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 500 ings, and the language of a population is the one in which they have a convention of truthfulness and trust. In metaphysics and modal logic, Lewis is known principally for “Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic” (1968) and On the Plurality of Worlds (1986). Based on its theoretical benefits, Lewis argues for modal realism: other possible worlds and the objects in them are just as real as the actual world and its inhabitants. Lewis develops a non-standard form of modal logic in which objects exist in at most one possible world, and for which the necessity of identity fails. Properties are identified with the set of objects that have them in any possible world, and propositions as the set of worlds in which they are true. He also develops a finergrained concept of structured properties and propositions. In philosophical logic and philosophy of science, Lewis is best known for Counterfactuals (1973), “Causation” (1973), and “Probabilities of Conditionals and Conditional Probabilities” (1976). He developed a formal semantics for counterfactual conditionals that matches their truth conditions and logic much more adequately than the previously available material or strict conditional analyses. Roughly, a counterfactual is true if its consequent is true in every possible world in which its antecedent is true that is as similar overall to the actual world as the truth of the antecedent will allow. Lewis then defended an analysis of causation in terms of counterfactuals: c caused e if e would not have occurred if c had not occurred or if there is a chain of events leading from e to c each member of which is counterfactually dependent on the next. He presents a reductio ad absurdum argument to show that conditional probabilities could not be identified with the probabilities of any sort of conditional. Lewis has also written on visual experience, events, holes, parts of classes, time travel, survival and identity, subjective and objective probability, desire as belief, attitudes de se, deontic logic, decision theory, the prisoner’s dilemma and the Newcomb problem, utilitarianism, dispositional theories of value, nuclear deterrence, punishment, and academic ethics. See also CAUSATION, CONDITIONAL, FUNCTIONALISM, MEANING, POSSIBLE WORLDS. W.A.D. lexical ambiguity. See AMBIGUITY. lexical ordering, also called lexicographic ordering, a method, given a finite ordered set of symbols, such as the letters of the alphabet, of ordering all finite sequences of those symbols. All finite sequences of letters, e.g., can be ordered as follows: first list all single letters in alphabetical order; then list all pairs of letters in the order aa, ab, . . . az; ba . . . bz; . . . ; za . . . zz. Here pairs are first grouped and alphabetized according to the first letter of the pair, and then within these groups are alphabetized according to the second letter of the pair. All sequences of three letters, four letters, etc., are then listed in order by an analogous process. In this way every sequence of n letters, for any n, is listed. Lexical ordering differs from alphabetical ordering, although it makes use of it, because all sequences with n letters come before any sequence with n ! 1 letters; thus, zzt will come before aaab. One use of lexical ordering is to show that the set of all finite sequences of symbols, and thus the set of all words, is at most denumerably infinite. See also INFINITY. V.K. li1, Chinese term meaning ‘pattern’, ‘principle’, ‘good order’, ‘inherent order’, or ‘to put in order’. During the Han dynasty, li described not only the pattern of a given thing, event, or process, but the underlying grand pattern of everything, the deep structure of the cosmos. Later, Hua-yen Buddhists, working from the Mahayana doctrine that all things are conditioned and related through past causal relationships, claimed that each thing reflects the li of all things. This influenced Neo-Confucians, who developed a metaphysics of li and ch’i (ether), in which all things possess all li (and hence they are “one” in some deep sense), but because of the differing quality of their ch’i, things manifest different and distinct characteristics. The hsin (heart/mind) contains all li (some insist it is li) but is obscured by “impure” ch’i; hence we understand some things and can learn others. Through self-cultivation, one can purify one’s ch’i and achieve complete and perfect understanding. See also NEO-CONFUCIANISM, TAOISM. P.J.I. li2, Chinese term meaning ‘rite’, ‘ritual’, ‘etiquette’, ‘ritual propriety’. In its earliest use, li refers to politico-religious rituals such as sacrifices to ancestors or funerals. Soon the term came to encompass matters of etiquette, such as the proper way to greet a guest. In some texts the li include even matters of morality or natural law. Mencius refers to li as a virtue, but it is unclear lexical ambiguity li2 501 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 501 how it is distinct from his other cardinal virtues. Emphasis upon li is one of the distinctive features of Confucianism. Critics charge that this emphasis is a conflation of the natural with the conventional or simply naive traditionalism. Others claim that the notion of li draws attention to the subtle interdependence of morality and convention, and points the way to creating genuine communities by treating “the secular as sacred.” See also CONFUCIANISM, MOHISM, TAOISM. B.W.V.N. li3, Chinese term meaning ‘profit’ or ‘benefit’, and probably with the basic meaning of ‘smooth’ or ‘unimpeded’. Mo Tzu (fourth century B.C.) regarded what brings li (benefit) to the public as the criterion of yi (rightness), and certain other classical Chinese texts also describe yi as the basis for producing li. Confucians tend to use ‘li’ pejoratively to refer to what profits oneself or social groups (e.g., one’s family) to which one belongs, and contrast li with yi. According to them, one should ideally be guided by yi rather than li, and in the political realm, a preoccupation with li will lead to strife and disorder. See also CONFUCIANISM, MOHISM. K.-l.S. liability responsibility. See RESPONSIBILITY. Liang Ch’i-ch’ao (1873–1929), Chinese scholar and writer. A disciple of K’ang Yu-wei, the young Liang was a reformist unsympathetic to Sun Yatsen’s revolutionary activities. But after the republic was founded, he embraced the democratic ideal. He was eager to introduce ideas from the West to reform the Chinese people. But after a tour of Europe he had great reservations about Western civilization. His unfavorable impressions touched off a debate between science and metaphysics in 1923. His scholarly works include studies of Buddhism and of Chinese thought in the last three hundred years. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, K’ANG YU-WEI, SUN YAT-SEN. S.-h.L. liang-chih, Chinese term commonly rendered as ‘innate knowledge of the good’, although that translation is quite inadequate to the term’s range of meanings. The term first occurs in Mencius but becomes a key concept in Wang Yangming’s philosophy. A coherent explication of liang-chih must attend to the following features. (1) Mencius’s liang-chih (sense of right and wrong) is the ability to distinguish right from wrong conduct. For Wang “this sense of right and wrong is nothing but the love [of good] and the hate [of evil].” (2) Wang’s liang-chih is a moral consciousness informed by a vision of jen or “forming one body” with all things in the universe. (3) The exercise of liang-chih involves deliberation in coping with changing circumstances. (4) The extension of liang-chih is indispensable to the pursuit of jen. See also MENCIUS. A.S.C. Liang Sou-ming (1893–1988), Chinese philosopher branded as the last Confucian. He actually believed, however, that Buddhist philosophy was more profound than Confucian philosophy. Against those advocating Westernization, Liang pointed out that Western and Indian cultures went to two extremes; only the Chinese culture took a middle course. But it was immature, and must learn first from the West, then from India. After the Communist takeover, he refused to denounce traditional Chinese culture. He valued human-heartedness, which he felt was neglected by Western science and Marxism. He was admired overseas for his courage in standing up to Mao Tse-tung. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, HU SHIH, MAO TSE-TUNG. S.-h.L. Li Ao (fl. A.D. 798), Chinese philosopher who learned Buddhist dialects and developed a theory of human nature (hsing) and feelings (ch’ing) more sophisticated than that of Han Yü, his teacher. He wrote a famous article, “Fu-hsing shu” (“Essay on returning to Nature”), which exerted profound influence on Sung-Ming Neo-Confucian philosophers. According to him, there are seven feelings: joy, anger, pity, fear, love, hate, and desire. These feelings tend to obscure one’s nature. Only when the feelings do not operate can one’s nature gain its fulfillment. The sage does possess the feelings, but he remains immovable; hence in a sense he also has never had such feelings. See also HAN Yü, NEO-CONFUCIANISM. S.-h.L. liar cycle. See SEMANTIC PARADOXES. liar paradox. See SEMANTIC PARADOXES. liberalism, a political philosophy first formulated during the Enlightenment in response to the growth of modern nation-states, which centralize governmental functions and claim sole authority to exercise coercive power within their boundaries. One of its central theses has long been that a government’s claim to this authority is justified only if the government can show those who live under it that it secures their libli3 liberalism 502 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 502 erty. A central thesis of contemporary liberalism is that government must be neutral in debates about the good human life. John Locke, one of the founders of liberalism, tried to show that constitutional monarchy secures liberty by arguing that free and equal persons in a state of nature, concerned to protect their freedom and property, would agree with one another to live under such a regime. Classical liberalism, which attaches great value to economic liberty, traces its ancestry to Locke’s argument that government must safeguard property. Locke’s use of an agreement or social contract laid the basis for the form of liberalism championed by Rousseau and most deeply indebted to Kant. According to Kant, the sort of liberty that should be most highly valued is autonomy. Agents enjoy autonomy, Kant said, when they live according to laws they would give to themselves. Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) set the main themes of the chapter of liberal thought now being written. Rawls asked what principles of justice citizens would agree to in a contract situation he called “the original position.” He argued that they would agree to principles guaranteeing adequate basic liberties and fair equality of opportunity, and requiring that economic inequalities benefit the least advantaged. A government that respects these principles secures the autonomy of its citizens by operating in accord with principles citizens would give themselves in the original position. Because of the conditions of the original position, citizens would not choose principles based on a controversial conception of the good life. Neutrality among such conceptions is therefore built into the foundations of Rawls’s theory. Some critics argue that liberalism’s emphasis on autonomy and neutrality leaves it unable to account for the values of tradition, community, or political participation, and unable to limit individual liberty when limits are needed. Others argue that autonomy is not the notion of freedom needed to explain why common forms of oppression like sexism are wrong. Still others argue that liberalism’s focus on Western democracies leaves it unable to address the most pressing problems of contemporary politics. Recent work in liberal theory has therefore asked whether liberalism can accommodate the political demands of religious and ethnic communities, ground an adequate conception of democracy, capture feminist critiques of extant power structures, or guide nation-building in the face of secessionist, nationalist, and fundamentalist claims. See also KANT, LOCKE, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, RAWLS, ROUSSEAU, SOCIAL CONTRACT. P.J.W. liberal theory of the state. See LOCKE, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. libertarianism, metaphysical. See FREE WILL PROBLEM. libertarianism, political. See POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. liberty. See FREE WILL PROBLEM, HOHFELD, JURISPRUDENCE, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. liberty of indifference. See FREE WILL PROBLEM, HUME. liberty of spontaneity. See FREE WILL PROBLEM, HUME. liberty of the ancients. See CONSTANT. liberty of the moderns. See CONSTANT. liberty right. See RIGHTS. liberum arbitrium, Latin expression meaning ‘free judgment’, often used to refer to medieval doctrines of free choice or free will. It appears in the title of Augustine’s seminal work De libero arbitrio voluntatis (usually translated ‘On the Free Choice of the Will’) and in many other medieval writings (e.g., Aquinas, in Summa theologiae I, asks “whether man has free choice [liberum arbitrium]”). For medieval thinkers, a judgment (arbitrium) “of the will” was a conclusion of practical reasoning – “I will do this” (hence, a choice or decision) – in contrast to a judgment “of the intellect” (“This is the case”), which concludes theoretical reasoning. See also FREE WILL PROBLEM, PRACTICAL REASONING. R.H.K. Li Chi (“Record of Rites”), Chinese Confucian treatise, one of the three classics of li (rites, rules of proper conduct). For Confucian ethics, the treatise is important for its focus on the reasoned justification of li, the role of virtues in human relationships, and the connection between personal cultivation and the significance of the rites of mourning and sacrifices. Perhaps even more important, the Li Chi contains two of the basic Four Books of Confucian ethics: The Great Learning (Ta Hsüeh) and The Doctrine of the Mean (Chung Yung). It also contains a brief essay on learning liberal theory of the state Li Chi 503 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 503 that stresses its interaction with ethical teaching. See also CONFUCIANISM. A.S.C. li-ch’i, technical term in Chinese Neo-Confucianism primarily used in the context of speculative cosmology, metaphysics, and ontology for accounting for changing phenomena and their ethical significance. Li is often rendered as ‘principle’, ‘order’, ‘pattern’, or ‘reason’; ch’i as ‘material force’, ‘ether’, or ‘energy’. Recent NeoConfucian scholarship provides no clear guide to the li-ch’i distinction. In ethical contexts, however, the distinction is used to explain the origin of human good and evil. In its pure state, ch’i is inseparable from li, in the sense of compliance with the Confucian ethical norm that can be reasonably justified. In its impure state, ch’i presumably explains the existence of human evils. This perplexing distinction remains a subject of scholarly inquiry. See also CH’I, LI1, NEO-CONFUCIANISM. A.S.C. Lieh Tzu, also called Lieh Yu-K’ou (440?–360? B.C.), Chinese Taoist philosopher whose name serves as the title of a work of disputed date. The Lieh Tzu, parts (perhaps most) of which were written as late as the third or fourth century A.D., is primarily a Taoist work but contains one chapter reflecting ideas associated with Yang Chu. However, whereas the original teachings of Yang Chu emphasized one’s duty to preserve bodily integrity, health, and longevity, a task that may require exercise and discipline, the Yang Chu chapter advocates hedonism as the means to nourish life. The primary Taoist teaching of the Lieh Tzu is that destiny trumps will, fate conquers effort. R.P.P. & R.T.A. life, the characteristic property of living substances or things; it is associated with either a capacity for mental activities such as perception and thought (mental life) or physical activities such as absorption, excretion, metabolism, synthesis, and reproduction (physical life). Biological or carbon-based lifeis a natural kind of physical life that essentially involves a highly complex, selfregulating system of carbon-based macromolecules and water molecules. Silicon-based life is wholly speculative natural kind of physical life that essentially involves a highly complex, selfregulating system of silicon-based macromolecules. This kind of life might be possible, since at high temperatures silicon forms macromolecules with chemical properties somewhat similar to those of carbon-based macromolecules. Living organisms have a high degree of functional organization, with a regulating or controlling master part, e.g., a dog’s nervous system, or the DNA or nucleus of a single-celled organism. Mental life is usually thought to be dependent or supervenient upon physical life, but some philosophers have argued for the possibility at least of purely spiritual mental life, i.e., souls. The above characterization of biological life appropriately implies that viruses are not living things, since they lack the characteristic activities of living things, with the exception of an attenuated form of reproduction. See also ARTIFICIAL LIFE, ORGANISM. J.Ho. & G.Ro. life space. See LEWIN. life world. See HUSSERL. light of nature. See DESCARTES. li-i-fen-shu, a Chinese phrase meaning ‘Principle is one while duties or manifestations are many’. Chang Tsai (1020–77) wrote the essay “The Western Inscription” in which he said that all people were his brothers and sisters. Ch’eng Yi’s (1033–1107) disciple Yang Shih (1053–1135) suspected Chang Tsai of teaching the Mohist doctrine of universal love. Ch’eng Yi then coined the phrase to clarify the situation: Chang Tsai was really teaching the Confucian doctrine of graded love – while principle (li) is one, duties are many. Chu Hsi (1130–1200) further developed the idea into a metaphysics by maintaining that principle is one while manifestations are many, just as the same moon shines over different rivers. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, CHU HSI. S.-h.L. limited variety, principle of. See MILL’s METHODS. limiting case, an individual or subclass of a given background class that is maximally remote from “typical” or “paradigm” members of the class with respect to some ordering that is not always explicitly mentioned. The number zero is a limiting case of cardinal number. A triangle is a limiting case of polygon. A square is a limiting case of rectangle when rectangles are ordered by the ratio of length to width. Certainty is a limiting case of belief when beliefs are ordered according to “strength of subjective conviction.” Knowledge is a limiting case of belief when beliefs are ordered according “adequacy of objective grounds.” A limiting case is necessarily a case (member) of the background class; in contrast a li-ch’i limiting case 504 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 504 borderline case need not be a case and a degenerate case may clearly fail to be a case at all. See also BORDERLINE CASE, DEGENERATE CASE. J.Cor. linear order. See RELATION. linguistic analysis. See ANALYSIS. linguistic competence. See PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. linguistic determinism. See LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY. linguistic performance. See PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. linguistic philosophy. See ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY. linguistic relativity, the thesis that at least some distinctions found in one language are found in no other language (a version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis); more generally, the thesis that different languages utilize different representational systems that are at least in some degree informationally incommensurable and hence non-equivalent. The differences arise from the arbitrary features of languages resulting in each language encoding lexically or grammatically some distinctions not found in other languages. The thesis of linguistic determinism holds that the ways people perceive or think about the world, especially with respect to their classificatory systems, are causally determined or influenced by their linguistic systems or by the structures common to all human languages. Specifically, implicit or explicit linguistic categorization determines or influences aspects of nonlinguistic categorization, memory, perception, or cognition in general. Its strongest form (probably a straw-man position) holds that linguistically unencoded concepts are unthinkable. Weaker forms hold that concepts that are linguistically encoded are more accessible to thought and easier to remember than those that are not. This thesis is independent of that of linguistic relativity. Linguistic determinism plus linguistic relativity as defined here implies the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. See also SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS. W.K.W. linguistics, philosophy of. See PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. linguistic semantics. See PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. linguistic theory of logical truth. See CONVENTIONALISM. literal meaning. See MEANING. literary theory, a reasoned account of the nature of the literary artifact, its causes, effects, and distinguishing features. So understood, literary theory is part of the systematic study of literature covered by the term ‘criticism’, which also includes interpretation of literary works, philology, literary history, and the evaluation of particular works or bodies of work. Because it attempts to provide the conceptual foundations for practical criticism, literary theory has also been called “critical theory.” However, since the latter term has been appropriated by neo-Marxists affiliated with the Frankfurt School to designate their own kind of social critique, ‘literary theory’ is less open to misunderstanding. Because of its concern with the ways in which literary productions differ from other verbal artifacts and from other works of art, literary theory overlaps extensively with philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and the other human sciences. The first ex professo theory of literature in the West, for centuries taken as normative, was Aristotle’s Poetics. On Aristotle’s view, poetry is a verbal imitation of the forms of human life and action in language made vivid by metaphor. It stimulates its audience to reflect on the human condition, enriches their understanding, and thereby occasions the pleasure that comes from the exercise of the cognitive faculty. The first real paradigm shift in literary theory was introduced by the Romantics of the nineteenth century. The Biographia Literaria (1817) of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, recounting the author’s conversion from Humean empiricism to a form of German idealism, defines poetry not as a representation of objective structures, but as the imaginative self-expression of the creative subject. Its emphasis is not on the poem as a source of pleasure but on poetry as a heightened form of spiritual activity. The standard work on the transition from classical (imitation) theory to Romantic (expression) theory is M. H. Abrams’s The Mirror and the Lamp (1953). In the present century theory has assumed a place of prominence in literary studies. In the first half of the century the works of I. A. Richards – from his early positivist account of linear order literary theory 505 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 505 poetry in books like Science and Poetry (1926) to his later idealist views in books like The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936) – sponsored the practice of the American New Critics. The most influential theorist of the period is Northrop Frye, whose formalist manifesto, Anatomy of Criticism (1957), proposed to make criticism the “science of literature.” The introduction of Continental thought to the English-speaking critical establishment in the 1960s and after spawned a bewildering variety of competing theories of literature: e.g., Russian formalism, structuralism, deconstruction, new historicism, Marxism, Freudianism, feminism, and even the anti-theoretical movement called the “new pragmatism.” The best summary account of these developments is Frank Lentricchia’s After the New Criticism (1980). Given the present near-chaos in criticism, the future of literary theory is unpredictable. But the chaos itself offers ample opportunities for philosophical analysis and calls for the kind of conceptual discrimination such analysis can offer. Conversely, the study of literary theory can provide philosophers with a better understanding of the textuality of philosophy and of the ways in which philosophical content is determined by the literary form of philosophical texts. See also AESTHETICS, PHILOSOPHY OF LITERATURE. L.H.M. literature, philosophy of. See PHILOSOPHY OF LITERATURE. Liu Shao-ch’i (1898–1969), Chinese Communist leader. A close ally of Mao Tse-tung, he was purged near the end of his life when he refused to follow Mao’s radical approach during the Cultural Revolution, became an ally of the practical Teng Hsiao-ping, and was branded the biggest Capitalist Roader in China. In 1939 he delivered in Yenan the influential speech “How to Be a Good Communist,” published in 1943 and widely studied by Chinese Communists. As he emphasized self-discipline, there appeared to be a Confucian dimension in his thought. The article was banned during the Cultural Revolution, and he was accused of teaching reactionary Confucianism in the revolutionary camp. He was later rehabilitated. See also MAO TSE-TUNG. S.-h.L. Liu Tsung-chou, also called Ch’i-shan (1578– 1645), Chinese philosopher commonly regarded as the last major figure in Sung–Ming Neo-Confucianism. He opposed all sorts of dualist thoughts, including Chu Hsi’s philosophy. He was also not happy with some of Wang Yangming’s followers who claimed that men in the streets were all sages. He shifted the emphasis from rectification of the mind to sincerity of the will, and he gave a new interpretation to “watchful over the self” in the Doctrine of the Mean. Among his disciples was the great intellectual historian Huang Tsung-hsi. See also CHU HSI, HUANG TSUNG-HSI, HU HUNG, NEO-CONFUCIANISM, WANG YANG-MING. S.-h.L. Llull, Ramon. See LULL. Lobachevsky, Nikolai. See NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY. locality assumption. See QUANTUM MECHANICS. Locke, John (1632–1704), English philosopher and proponent of empiricism, famous especially for his Essay concerning Human Understanding (1689) and for his Second Treatise of Government, also published in 1689, though anonymously. He came from a middle-class Puritan family in Somerset, and became acquainted with Scholastic philosophy in his studies at Oxford. Not finding a career in church or university attractive, he trained for a while as a physician, and developed contacts with many members of the newly formed Royal Society; the chemist Robert Boyle and the physicist Isaac Newton were close acquaintances. In 1667 he joined the London households of the then Lord Ashley, later first Earl of Shaftesbury; there he became intimately involved in discussions surrounding the politics of resistance to the Catholic king, Charles II. In 1683 he fled England for the Netherlands, where he wrote out the final draft of his Essay. He returned to England in 1689, a year after the accession to the English throne of the Protestant William of Orange. In his last years he was the most famous intellectual in England, perhaps in Europe generally. Locke was not a university professor immersed in the discussions of the philosophy of “the schools” but was instead intensely engaged in the social and cultural issues of his day; his writings were addressed not to professional philosophers but to the educated public in general. The Essay. The initial impulse for the line of thought that culminated in the Essay occurred early in 1671, in a discussion Locke had with some friends in Lord Shaftesbury’s apartments in literature, philosophy of Locke, John 506 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 506 London on matters of morality and revealed religion. In his Epistle to the Reader at the beginning of the Essay Locke says that the discussants found themselves quickly at a stand by the difficulties that arose on every side. After we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course, and that before we set ourselves upon enquiries of that nature it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were or were not fitted to deal with. Locke was well aware that for a thousand years European humanity had consulted its textual inheritance for the resolution of its moral and religious quandaries; elaborate strategies of interpretation, distinction, etc., had been developed for extracting from those disparate sources a unified, highly complex, body of truth. He was equally well aware that by his time, more than a hundred years after the beginning of the Reformation, the moral and religious tradition of Europe had broken up into warring and contradictory fragments. Accordingly he warns his readers over and over against basing their convictions merely on say-so, on unexamined tradition. As he puts it in a short late book of his, The Conduct of the Understanding, “We should not judge of things by men’s opinions, but of opinions by things.” We should look to “the things themselves,” as he sometimes puts it. But to know how to get at the things themselves it is necessary, so Locke thought, “to examine our own abilities.” Hence the project of the Essay. The Essay comes in four books, Book IV being the culmination. Fundamental to understanding Locke’s thought in Book IV is the realization that knowledge, as he thinks of it, is a fundamentally different phenomenon from belief. Locke holds, indeed, that knowledge is typically accompanied by belief; it is not, though, to be identified with it. Knowledge, as he thinks of it, is direct awareness of some fact – in his own words, perception of some agreement or disagreement among things. Belief, by contrast, consists of taking some proposition to be true – whether or not one is directly aware of the corresponding fact. The question then arises: Of what sorts of facts do we human beings have direct awareness? Locke’s answer is: Only of facts that consist of relationships among our “ideas.” Exactly what Locke had in mind when he spoke of ideas is a vexed topic; the traditional view, for which there is a great deal to be said, is that he regarded ideas as mental objects. Furthermore, he clearly regarded some ideas as being representations of other entities; his own view was that we can think about nonmental entities only by being aware of mental entities that represent those non-mental realities. Locke argued that knowledge, thus understood, is “short and scanty” – much too short and scanty for the living of life. Life requires the formation of beliefs on matters where knowledge is not available. Now what strikes anyone who surveys human beliefs is that many of them are false. What also strikes any perceptive observer of the scene is that often we can – or could have – done something about this. We can, to use Locke’s language, “regulate” and “govern” our belief-forming capacities with the goal in mind of getting things right. Locke was persuaded that not only can we thus regulate and govern our belief-forming capacities; we ought to do so. It is a God-given obligation that rests upon all of us. Specifically, for each human being there are some matters of such “concernment,” as Locke calls it, as to place the person under obligation to try his or her best to get things right. For all of us there will be many issues that are not of such concernment; for those cases, it will be acceptable to form our beliefs in whatever way nature or custom has taught us to form them. But for each of us there will be certain practical matters concerning which we are obligated to try our best – these differing from person to person. And certain matters of ethics and religion are of such concern to everybody that we are all obligated to try our best, on these matters, to get in touch with reality. What does trying our best consist of, when knowledge – perception, awareness, insight – is not available? One can think of the practice Locke recommends as having three steps. First one collects whatever evidence one can find for and against the proposition in question. This evidence must consist of things that one knows; otherwise we are just wandering in darkness. And the totality of the evidence must be a reliable indicator of the probability of the proposition that one is considering. Second, one analyzes the evidence to determine the probability of the proposition in question, on that evidence. And last, one places a level of confidence in the proposition that is proportioned to its probability on that satisfactory evidence. If the proposition is highly probable on that evidence, one believes it very firmly; if it only is quite probable, one Locke, John Locke, John 507 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 507 believes it rather weakly; etc. The main thrust of the latter half of Book IV of the Essay is Locke’s exhortation to his readers to adopt this practice in the forming of beliefs on matters of high concernment – and in particular, on matters of morality and religion. It was his view that the new science being developed by his friends Boyle and Newton and others was using exactly this method. Though Book IV was clearly seen by Locke as the culmination of the Essay, it by no means constitutes the bulk of it. Book I launches a famous attack on innate ideas and innate knowledge; he argues that all our ideas and knowledge can be accounted for by tracing the way in which the mind uses its innate capacities to work on material presented to it by sensation and reflection (i.e., self-awareness). Book II then undertakes to account for all our ideas, on the assumption that the only “input” is ideas of sensation and reflection, and that the mind, which at birth is a tabula rasa (or blank tablet), works on these by such operations as combination, division, generalization, and abstraction. And then in Book III Locke discusses the various ways in which words hinder us in our attempt to get to the things themselves. Along with many other thinkers of the time, Locke distinguished between what he called natural theology and what he called revealed theology. It was his view that a compelling, demonstrative argument could be given for the existence of God, and thus that we could have knowledge of God’s existence; the existence of God is a condition of our own existence. In addition, he believed firmly that God had revealed things to human beings. As he saw the situation, however, we can at most have beliefs, not knowledge, concerning what God has revealed. For we can never just “see” that a certain episode in human affairs is a case of divine revelation. Accordingly, we must apply the practice outlined above, beginning by assembling satisfactory evidence for the conclusion that a certain episode really is a case of divine revelation. In Locke’s view, the occurrence of miracles provides the required evidence. An implication of these theses concerning natural and revealed religion is that it is never right for a human being to believe something about God without having evidence for its truth, with the evidence consisting ultimately of things that one “sees” immediately to be true. Locke held to a divine command theory of moral obligation; to be morally obligated to do something is for God to require of one that one do that. And since a great deal of what Jesus taught, as Locke saw it, was a code of moral obligation, it follows that once we have evidence for the revelatory status of what Jesus said, we automatically have evidence that what Jesus taught as our moral obligation really is that. Locke was firmly persuaded, however, that revelation is not our only mode of access to moral obligation. Most if not all of our moral obligations can also be arrived at by the use of our natural capacities, unaided by revelation. To that part of our moral obligations which can in principle be arrived at by the use of our natural capacities, Locke (in traditional fashion) gave the title of natural law. Locke’s own view was that morality could in principle be established as a deductive science, on analogy to mathematics: one would first argue for God’s existence and for our status as creatures of God; one would then argue that God was good, and cared for the happiness of God’s creatures. Then one would argue that such a good God would lay down commands to his creatures, aimed at their overall happiness. From there, one would proceed to reflect on what does in fact conduce to human happiness. And so forth. Locke never worked out the details of such a deductive system of ethics; late in his life he concluded that it was beyond his capacities. But he never gave up on the ideal. The Second Treatise and other writings. Locke’s theory of natural law entered intimately into the theory of civil obedience that he developed in the Second Treatise of Government. Imagine, he said, a group of human beings living in what he called a state of nature – i.e., a condition in which there is no governmental authority and no private property. They would still be under divine obligation; and much (if not all) of that obligation would be accessible to them by the use of their natural capacities. There would be for them a natural law. In this state of nature they would have title to their own persons and labor; natural law tells us that these are inherently our “possessions.” But there would be no possessions beyond that. The physical world would be like a gigantic English commons, given by God to humanity as a whole. Locke then addresses himself to two questions: How can we account for the emergence of political obligation from such a situation, and how can we account for the emergence of private property? As to the former, his answer is that we in effect make a contract with one another to institute a government for the Locke, John Locke, John 508 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 508 elimination of certain deficiencies in the state of nature, and then to obey that government, provided it does what we have contracted with one another it should do and does not exceed that. Among the deficiencies of the state of nature that a government can be expected to correct is the sinful tendency of human beings to transgress on other persons’ properties, and the equally sinful tendency to punish such transgressions more severely than the law of nature allows. As to the emergence of private property, something from the world at large becomes a given person’s property when that person “mixes” his or her labor with it. For though God gave the world as a whole to all of us together, natural law tells us that each person’s labor belongs to that person himself or herself – unless he or she freely contracts it to someone else. Locke’s Second Treatise is thus an articulate statement of the so-called liberal theory of the state; it remains one of the greatest of such, and proved enormously influential. It should be seen as supplemented by the Letters concerning Toleration (1689, 1690, 1692) that Locke wrote on religious toleration, in which he argued that all theists who have not pledged civil allegiance to some foreign power should be granted equal toleration. Some letters that Locke wrote to a friend concerning the education of the friend’s son should also be seen as supplementing the grand vision. If we survey the way in which beliefs are actually formed in human beings, we see that passion, the partisanship of distinct traditions, early training, etc., play important obstructive roles. It is impossible to weed out entirely from one’s life the influence of such factors. When it comes to matters of high “concernment,” however, it is our obligation to do so; it is our obligation to implement the three-step practice outlined above, which Locke defends as doing one’s best. But Locke did not think that the cultural reform he had in mind, represented by the appropriate use of this new practice, could be expected to come about as the result just of writing books and delivering exhortations. Training in the new practice was required; in particular, training of small children, before bad habits had been ingrained. Accordingly, Locke proposes in Some Thoughts concerning Education (1693) an educational program aimed at training children in when and how to collect satisfactory evidence, appraise the probabilities of propositions on such evidence, and place levels of confidence in those propositions proportioned to their probability on that evidence. See also BERKELEY, EPISTEMOLOGY, ETHICS, EVIDENTIALISM, HUME, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. N.P.W. locutionary act. See SPEECH ACT THEORY. logic, combinatory. See COMBINATORY LOGIC. logic, default. See DEFAULT LOGIC. logic, deontic. See DEONTIC LOGIC. logic, deviant. See PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC. logic, dynamic. See DYNAMIC LOGIC. logic, epistemic. See EPISTEMIC LOGIC. logic, erotetic. See EROTETIC. logic, formal. See FORMAL LOGIC. logic, free. See FREE LOGIC. logic, higher-order. See FORMAL LOGIC, PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC, SECOND-ORDER LOGIC. logic, infinitary. See INFINITARY LOGIC. logic, informal. See INFORMAL FALLACY, INFORMAL LOGIC. logic, intensional. See INTENSIONAL LOGIC. logic, many-valued. See MANY-VALUED LOGIC. logic, mathematical. See FORMAL LOGIC. logic, modal. See MODAL LOGIC. logic, non-monotonic. See NON-MONOTONIC LOGIC. logic, ordinal. See ORDINAL LOGIC. logic, philosophy of. See PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC. logic, pluralitive. See PLURALITIVE LOGIC. logic, Polish. See POLISH LOGIC. logic, predicate. See FORMAL LOGIC. logic, quantum. See QUANTUM LOGIC. logic, relational. See RELATIONAL LOGIC. locutionary act logic, relational 509 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 509 logic, second-order. See SECOND-ORDER LOGIC. logic, symbolic. See FORMAL LOGIC. logic, tense. See TENSE LOGIC. logic, terminist. See TERMINIST LOGIC. logic, three-valued. See MANY-VALUED LOGIC. logical atomism. See RUSSELL. logical behaviorism. See BEHAVIORISM, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. logical certainty. See CERTAINTY. logical consequence, a proposition, sentence, or other piece of information that follows logically from one or more other propositions, sentences, or pieces of information. A proposition C is said to follow logically from, or to be a logical consequence of, propositions P1, P2, . . . , if it must be the case that, on the assumption that P1, P2, . . . , Pn are all true, the proposition C is true as well. For example, the proposition ‘Smith is corrupt’ is a logical consequence of the two propositions ‘All politicians are corrupt’ and ‘Smith is a politician’, since it must be the case that on the assumption that ‘All politicians are corrupt’ and ‘Smith is a politician’ are both true, ‘Smith is corrupt’ is also true. Notice that proposition C can be a logical consequence of propositions P1, P2, . . . , Pn, even if P1, P2, . . . , Pn are not actually all true. Indeed this is the case in our example. ‘All politicians are corrupt’ is not, in fact, true: there are some honest politicians. But if it were true, and if Smith were a politician, then ‘Smith is corrupt’ would have to be true. Because of this, it is said to be a logical consequence of those two propositions. The logical consequence relation is often written using the symbol X, called the double turnstile. Thus to indicate that C is a logical consequence of P1, P2, . . . , Pn, we would write: P1, P2, . . . , Pn X C or: P X C where P stands for the set containing the propositions p1, P2, . . . , Pn. The term ‘logical consequence’ is sometimes reserved for cases in which C follows from P1, P2, . . . , Pn solely in virtue of the meanings of the socalled logical expressions (e.g., ‘some’, ‘all’, ‘or’, ‘and’, ‘not’) contained by these propositions. In this more restricted sense, ‘Smith is not a politician’ is not a logical consequence of the proposition ‘All politicians are corrupt’ and ‘Smith is honest’, since to recognize the consequence relation here we must also understand the specific meanings of the non-logical expressions ‘corrupt’ and ‘honest’. See also DEDUCTION, IMPLICATION, LOGICAL FORM, PROOF THEORY. J.Et. logical constant, a symbol, such as the connectives -, 8, /, or S or the quantifiers D or E of elementary quantification theory, that represents logical form. The contrast here is with expressions such as terms, predicates, and function symbols, which are supposed to represent the “content” of a sentence or proposition. Beyond this, there is little consensus on how to understand logical constancy. It is sometimes said, e.g., that a symbol is a logical constant if its interpretation is fixed across admissible valuations, though there is disagreement over exactly how to construe this “fixity” constraint. This account seems to make logical form a mere artifact of one’s choice of a model theory. More generally, it has been questioned whether there are any objective grounds for classifying some expressions as logical and others not, or whether such a distinction is (wholly or in part) conventional. Other philosophers have suggested that logical constancy is less a semantic notion than an epistemic one: roughly, that a is a logical constant if the semantic behavior of certain other expressions together with the semantic contribution of a determine a priori (or in some other epistemically privileged fashion) the extensions of complex expressions in which a occurs. There is also considerable debate over whether particular symbols, such as the identity sign, modal operators, and quantifiers other than D and E, are, or should be treated as, logical constants. See also LOGICAL FORM, MODEL THEORY. G.F.S. logical construction, something built by logical operations from certain elements. Suppose that any sentence, S, containing terms apparently referring to objects of type F can be paraphrased without any essential loss of content into some (possibly much more complicated) sentence, Sp, containing only terms referring to objects of type G (distinct from F): in this case, objects of type F may be said to be logical constructions out of objects of type G. The notion originates with Russell’s concept of an “incomplete symbol,” which he introduced in connection with his thelogic, second order logical construction 510 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 510 ory of descriptions. According to Russell, a definite description – i.e., a descriptive phrase, such as ‘the present king of France’, apparently picking out a unique object – cannot be taken at face value as a genuinely referential term. One reason for this is that the existence of the objects seemingly referred to by such phrases can be meaningfully denied. We can say, “The present king of France does not exist,” and it is hard to see how this could be if ‘the present king of France’, to be meaningful, has to refer to the present king of France. One solution, advocated by Meinong, is to claim that the referents required by what ordinary grammar suggests are singular terms must have some kind of “being,” even though this need not amount to actual existence; but this solution offended Russell’s “robust sense of reality.” According to Russell, then, ‘The F is G’ is to be understood as equivalent to (something like) ‘One and only one thing Fs and that thing is G’. (The phrase ‘one and only one’ can itself be paraphrased away in terms of quantifiers and identity.) The crucial feature of this analysis is that it does not define the problematic phrases by providing synonyms: rather, it provides a rule, which Russell called “a definition in use,” for paraphrasing whole sentences in which they occur into whole sentences in which they do not. This is why definite descriptions are “incomplete symbols”: we do not specify objects that are their meanings; we lay down a rule that explains the meaning of whole sentences in which they occur. Thus definite descriptions disappear under analysis, and with them the shadowy occupants of Meinong’s realm of being. Russell thought that the kind of analysis represented by the theory of descriptions gives the clue to the proper method for philosophy: solve metaphysical and epistemological problems by reducing ontological commitments. The task of philosophy is to substitute, wherever possible, logical constructions for inferred entities. Thus in the philosophy of mathematics, Russell attempted to eliminate numbers, as a distinct category of objects, by showing how mathematical statements can be translated into (what he took to be) purely logical statements. But what really gave Russell’s program its bite was his thought that we can refer only to objects with which we are directly acquainted. This committed him to holding that all terms apparently referring to objects that cannot be regarded as objects of acquaintance should be given contextual definitions along the lines of the theory of descriptions: i.e., to treating everything beyond the scope of acquaintance as a logical construction (or a “logical fiction”). Most notably, Russell regarded physical objects as logical constructions out of sense-data, taking this to resolve the skeptical problem about our knowledge of the external world. The project of showing how physical objects can be treated as logical constructions out of sense-data was a major concern of analytical philosophers in the interwar period, Carnap’s Der Logische Aufbau der Welt (“The Logical Structure of the World,” 1928) standing as perhaps its major monument. However, the project was not a success. Even Carnap’s construction involves a system of space-time coordinates that is not analyzed in sense-datum terms and today few, if any, philosophers believe that such ambitious projects can be carried through. See also DEFINITION, REDUCTION, RUSSELL, SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM, THEORY OF DESCRIPTIONS. M.W. logical dependence. See DEPENDENCE. logical empiricism. See LOGICAL POSITIVISM. logical fiction. See LOGICAL CONSTRUCTION. logical form, the form obtained from a proposition, a set of propositions, or an argument by abstracting from the subject matter of its content terms or by regarding the content terms as mere placeholders or blanks in a form. In a logically perfect language the logical form of a proposition, a set of propositions, or an argument is determined by the grammatical form of the sentence, the set of sentences, or the argument-text expressing it. Two sentences, sets of sentences, or argument-texts are said to have the same grammatical form, in this sense, if a uniform one-toone substitution of content words transforms the one exactly into the other. The sentence ‘Abe properly respects every agent who respects himself’ may be regarded as having the same grammatical form as the sentence ‘Ben generously assists every patient who assists himself’. Substitutions used to determine sameness of grammatical form cannot involve change of form words such as ‘every’, ‘no’, ‘some’, ‘is’, etc., and they must be category-preserving, i.e., they must put a proper name for a proper name, an adverb for an adverb, a transitive verb for a transitive verb, and so on. Two sentences having the same grammatical form have exactly the same form words distributed in exactly the same pattern; and although they of course need not, and usually do not, have the same content words, they do have logical dependence logical form 511 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 511 exactly the same number of content words. The most distinctive feature of form words, which are also called syncategorematic terms or logical terms, is their topic neutrality; the form words in a sentence are entirely independent of and are in no way indicative of its content or topic. Modern formal languages used in formal axiomatizations of mathematical sciences are often taken as examples of logically perfect languages. Pioneering work on logically perfect languages was done by George Boole (1815–64), Frege, Giuseppe Peano (1858–1952), Russell, and Church. According to the principle of logical form, an argument is (formally) valid or invalid in virtue of logical form. More explicitly, every two arguments in the same form are both valid or both invalid. Thus, every argument in the same form as a valid argument is valid and every argument in the same form as an invalid argument is invalid. The argument form that a given argument fits (or has) is not determined solely by the logical forms of its constituent propositions; the arrangement of those propositions is critical because the process of interchanging a premise with the conclusion of a valid argument can result in an invalid argument. The principle of logical form, from which formal logic gets its name, is commonly used in establishing invalidity of arguments and consistency of sets of propositions. In order to show that a given argument is invalid it is sufficient to exhibit another argument as being in the same logical form and as having all true premises and a false conclusion. In order to show that a given set of propositions is consistent it is sufficient to exhibit another set of propositions as being in the same logical form and as being composed exclusively of true propositions. The history of these methods traces back through non-Cantorian set theory, non-Euclidean geometry, and medieval logicians (especially Anselm) to Aristotle. These methods must be used with extreme caution in languages such as English that fail to be logically perfect as a result of ellipsis, amphiboly, ambiguity, etc. For example, ‘This is a male dog’ implies ‘This is a dog’ but ‘This is a brass monkey’ does not imply ‘This is a monkey’, as would be required in a logically perfect language. Likewise, of two propositions commonly expressed by the ambiguous sentence ‘Ann and Ben are married’ one does and one does not imply the proposition that Ann is married to Ben. Quine and other logicians are careful to distinguish, in effect, the (unique) logical form of a proposition from its (many) schematic forms. The proposition (A) ‘If Abe is Ben, then if Ben is wise Abe is wise’ has exactly one logical form, which it shares with (B) ‘If Carl is Dan, then if Dan is kind Carl is kind’, whereas it has all of the following schematic forms: (1) If P then if Q then R; (2) If P then Q; (3) P. The principle of form for propositions is that every two propositions in the same logical form are both tautological (logically necessary) or both non-tautological. Thus, although propositions A and B are tautological there are non-tautological propositions that fit the three schematic forms just mentioned. Failure to distinguish logical form from schematic form has led to fallacies. According to the principle of logical form quoted above every argument in the same logical form as an invalid argument is invalid, but it is not the case that every argument sharing a schematic form with an invalid argument is invalid. Contrary to what would be fallaciously thought, the conclusion ‘Abe is Ben’ is logically implied by the following two propositions taken together, ‘If Abe is Ben, then Ben is Abe’ and ‘Ben is Abe’, even though the argument shares a schematic form with invalid arguments “committing” the fallacy of affirming the consequent. See also AMBIGUITY, FORMAL LOGIC, LAWS OF THOUGHT, LOGICAL SYNTAX, TAUTOLOGY. J.Cor. logical form, principle of. See LOGICAL FORM. logical grammar. See GRAMMAR. logical graph. See PEIRCE. logical immediacy. See IMMEDIACY. logical implication. See IMPLICATION. logical independence. See INDEPENDENCE RESULTS. logical indicator, also called indicator word, an expression that provides some help in identifying the conclusion of an argument or the premises offered in support of a conclusion. Common premise indicators include ‘for’, ‘because’, and ‘since’. Common conclusion indicators include ‘so’, ‘it follows that’, ‘hence’, ‘thus’, and ‘therefore’. Since Tom sat in the back of the room, he could not hear the performance clearly. Therefore, he could not write a proper review. ’Since’ makes clear that Tom’s seat location is offered as a reason to explain his inability to hear the performance. ‘Therefore’ indicates that the logical form, principle of logical indicator 512 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 512 proposition that Tom could not write a proper review is the conclusion of the argument. T.J.D. logically perfect language. See LOGICAL FORM, SCOPE. logically proper name. See RUSSELL. logical mechanism. See COMPUTER THEORY. logical necessity. See NECESSITY. logical notation, symbols designed to achieve unambiguous formulation of principles and inferences in deductive logic. Such notations involve some regimentation of words, word order, etc., of natural language. Some schematization was attempted even in ancient times by Aristotle, the Megarians, the Stoics, Boethius, and the medievals. But Leibniz’s vision of a universal logical language began to be realized only in the past 150 years. The notation is not yet standardized, but the following varieties of logical operators in propositional and predicate calculus may be noted. Given that ‘p’, ‘q’, ‘r’, etc., are propositional variables, or propositions, we find, in the contexts of their application, the following variety of operators (called truth-functional connectives). Negation: ‘-p’, ‘Ýp’, ‘p - ’, ‘p’ ’. Conjunction: ‘p • q’, ‘p & q’, ‘p 8 q’. Weak or inclusive disjunction: ‘p 7 q’. Strong or exclusive disjunction: ‘p V q’, ‘p ! q’, ‘p W q’. Material conditional (sometimes called material implication): ‘p / q’, ‘p P q’. Material biconditional (sometimes called material equivalence): ‘p S q’, ‘p Q q’. And, given that ‘x’, ‘y’, ‘z’, etc., are individual variables and ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’, etc., are predicate letters, we find in the predicate calculus two quantifiers, a universal and an existential quantifier: Universal quantification: ‘(x)Fx’, ‘(Ex)Fx’, ‘8xFx’. Existential quantification: ‘(Ex)Fx’, ‘(Dx)Fx’, ‘7xFx’. The formation principle in all the schemata involving dyadic or binary operators (connectives) is that the logical operator is placed between the propositional variables (or propositional constants) connected by it. But there exists a notation, the so-called Polish notation, based on the formation rule stipulating that all operators, and not only negation and quantifiers, be placed in front of the schemata over which they are ranging. The following representations are the result of application of that rule: Negation: ‘Np’. Conjunction: ‘Kpq’. Weak or inclusive disjunction: ‘Apq’. Strong or exclusive disjunction: ‘Jpq’. Conditional: ‘Cpq’. Biconditional: ‘Epq’. Sheffer stroke: ‘Dpq’. Universal quantification: ‘PxFx’. Existential quantifications: ‘9xFx’. Remembering that ‘K’, ‘A’, ‘J’, ‘C’, ‘E’, and ‘D’ are dyadic functors, we expect them to be followed by two propositional signs, each of which may itself be simple or compound, but no parentheses are needed to prevent ambiguity. Moreover, this notation makes it very perspicuous as to what kind of proposition a given compound proposition is: all we need to do is to look at the leftmost operator. To illustrate, ‘p7 (q & r) is a disjunction of ‘p’ with the conjunction ‘Kqr’, i.e., ‘ApKqr’, while ‘(p 7 q) & r’ is a conjunction of a disjunction ‘Apq’ with ‘r’, i.e., ‘KApqr’. ‘- p P q’ is written as ‘CNpq’, i.e., ‘if Np, then q’, while negation of the whole conditional, ‘-(p P q)’, becomes ‘NCpq’. A logical thesis such as ‘((p & q) P r) P ((s P p) P (s & q) P r))’ is written concisely as ‘CCKpqrCCspCKsqr’. The general proposition ‘(Ex) (Fx P Gx)’ is written as ‘PxCFxGx’, while a truth-function of quantified propositions ‘(Ex)Fx P (Dy)Gy’ is written as ‘CPxFx9yGy’. An equivalence such as ‘(Ex) Fx Q - (Dx) - Fx’ becomes ‘EPxFxN9xNFx’, etc. Dot notation is way of using dots to construct well-formed formulas that is more thrifty with punctuation marks than the use of parentheses with their progressive strengths of scope. But dot notation is less thrifty than the parenthesis-free Polish notation, which secures well-formed expressions entirely on the basis of the order of logical operators relative to truth-functional compounds. Various dot notations have been devised. The convention most commonly adopted is that punctuation dots always operate away from the connective symbol that they flank. It is best to explain dot punctuation by examples: (1) ‘p 7 (q - r)’ becomes ‘p 7 .q P - r’; (2) ‘(p 7 q) P - r’ becomes ‘p 7 q. P - r’; (3) ‘(p P (q Q r)) 7 (p 7 r)’ becomes ‘p P. q Q r: 7. p 7r’; (4) ‘(- pQq)•(rPs)’ becomes ‘-p Q q . r Q s’. logically perfect language logical notation 513 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 513 Note that here the dot is used as conjunction dot and is not flanked by punctuation dots, although in some contexts additional punctuation dots may have to be added, e.g., ‘p.((q . r) P s), which is rewritten as ‘p : q.r. P s’. The scope of a group of n dots extends to the group of n or more dots. (5) ‘- p Q (q.(r P s))’ becomes ‘- p. Q : q.r P s’; (6)‘- pQ((q . r) Ps)’ becomes ‘~p. Q: q.r.Ps’; (7) ‘(- p Q (q . r)) P s’ becomes ‘- p Q. q.r: P s’. The notation for modal propositions made popular by C. I. Lewis consisted of the use of ‘B’ to express the idea of possibility, in terms of which other alethic modal notions were defined. Thus, starting with ‘B p’ for ‘It is possiblethat p’ we get ‘- B p’ for ‘It is not possible that p’ (i.e., ‘It is impossible that p’), ‘- B - p’ for ‘It is not possible that not p’ (i.e., ‘It is necessary that p’), and ‘B - p’ for ‘It is possible that not p’ (i.e., ‘It is contingent that p’ in the sense of ‘It is not necessary that p’, i.e., ‘It is possible that not p’). Given this primitive or undefined notion of possibility, Lewis proceeded to introduce the notion of strict implication, represented by ‘ ’ and defined as follows: ‘p q .% . - B (p. -q)’. More recent tradition finds it convenient to use ‘A’, either as a defined or as a primitive symbol of necessity. In the parenthesis-free Polish notation the letter ‘M’ is usually added as the sign of possibility and sometimes the letter ‘L’ is used as the sign of necessity. No inconvenience results from adopting these letters, as long as they do not coincide with any of the existing truthfunctional operators ‘N’, ‘K’, ‘A’, ‘J’, ‘C’, ‘E’, ‘D’. Thus we can express symbolically the sentences ‘If p is necessary, then p is possible’ as ‘CNMNpMp’ or as ‘CLpMp’; ‘It is necessary that whatever is F is G’ as ‘NMNPxCFxGx’ or as ‘LPxCFxGx’; and ‘Whatever is F is necessarily G’ as ‘PxCFxNMNGx’ or as PxCFxLGx; etc. See also IMPLICATION, MODAL LOGIC, WELL-FORMED FORMULA, Appendix of Special Symbols. I.Bo. logical paradoxes. See SET-THEORETIC PARADOXES. logical positivism, also called positivism, a philosophical movement inspired by empiricism and verificationism; it began in the 1920s and flourished for about twenty or thirty years. While there are still philosophers who would identify themselves with some of the logical positivists’ theses, many of the central docrines of the theory have come under considerable attack in the last half of this century. In some ways logical positivism can be seen as a natural outgrowth of radical or British empiricism and logical atomism. The driving force of positivism may well have been adherence to the verifiability criterion for the meaningfulness of cognitive statements. Acceptance of this principle led positivists to reject as problematic many assertions of religion, morality, and the kind of philosophy they described as metaphysics. The verifiability criterion of meaning. The radical empiricists took genuine ideas to be composed of simple ideas traceable to elements in experience. If this is true and if thoughts about the empirical world are “made up” out of ideas, it would seem to follow that all genuine thoughts about the world must have as constituents thoughts that denote items of experience. While not all positivists tied meaning so clearly to the sort of experiences the empiricists had in mind, they were convinced that a genuine contingent assertion about the world must be verifiable through experience or observation. Questions immediately arose concerning the relevant sense of ‘verify’. Extreme versions of the theory interpret verification in terms of experiences or observations that entail the truth of the proposition in question. Thus for my assertion that there is a table before me to be meaningful, it must be in principle possible for me to accumulate evidence or justification that would guarantee the existence of the table, which would make it impossible for the table not to exist. Even this statement of the view is ambiguous, however, for the impossibility of error could be interpreted as logical or conceptual, or something much weaker, say, causal. Either way, extreme verificationism seems vulnerable to objections. Universal statements, such as ‘All metal expands when heated’, are meaningful, but it is doubtful that any observations could ever conclusively verify them. One might modify the criterion to include as meaningful only statements that can be either conclusively confirmed or conclusively disconfirmed. It is doubtful, however, that even ordinary statements about the physical world satisfy the extreme positivist insistence that they admit of conclusive verification or falsification. If the evidence we have for believing what we do about the physical world consists of knowledge of fleeting and subjective sensation, the possibility of hallucination or deception by a malevolent, powerful being seems to preclude the possibility of any finite sequence of sensations conclusively establishing the existence or absence of a physical object. logical paradoxes logical positivism 514 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 514 Faced with these difficulties, at least some positivists retreated to a more modest form of verificationism which insisted only that if a proposition is to be meaningful it must be possible to find evidence or justification that bears on the likelihood of the proposition’s being true. It is, of course, much more difficult to find counterexamples to this weaker form of verificationism, but by the same token it is more difficult to see how the principle will do the work the positivists hoped it would do of weeding out allegedly problematic assertions. Necessary truth. Another central tenet of logical positivism is that all meaningful statements fall into two categories: necessary truths that are analytic and knowable a priori, and contingent truths that are synthetic and knowable only a posteriori. If a meaningful statement is not a contingent, empirical statement verifiable through experience, then it is either a formal tautology or is analytic, i.e., reducible to a formal tautology through substitution of synonymous expressions. According to the positivist, tautologies and analytic truths that do not describe the world are made true (if true) or false (if false) by some fact about the rules of language. ‘P or not-P’ is made true by rules we have for the use of the connectives ‘or’ and ‘not’ and for the assignments of the predicates ‘true’ and ‘false’. Again there are notorious problems for logical positivism. It is difficult to reduce the following apparently necessary truths to formal tautologies through the substitution of synonymous expressions: (1) Everything that is blue (all over) is not red (all over). (2) All equilateral triangles are equiangular triangles. (3) No proposition is both true and false. Ironically, the positivists had a great deal of trouble categorizing the very theses that defined their view, such as the claims about meaningfulness and verifiability and the claims about the analytic–synthetic distinction. Reductionism. Most of the logical positivists were committed to a foundationalist epistemology according to which all justified belief rests ultimately on beliefs that are non-inferentially justified. These non-inferentially justified beliefs were sometimes described as basic, and the truths known in such manner were often referred to as self-evident, or as protocol statements. Partly because the positivists disagreed as to how to understand the notion of a basic belief or a protocol statement, and even disagreed as to what would be good examples, positivism was by no means a monolithic movement. Still, the verifiability criterion of meaning, together with certain beliefs about where the foundations of justification lie and beliefs about what constitutes legitimate reasoning, drove many positivists to embrace extreme forms of reductionism. Briefly, most of them implicitly recognized only deduction and (reluctantly) induction as legitimate modes of reasoning. Given such a view, difficult epistemological gaps arise between available evidence and the commonsense conclusions we want to reach about the world around us. The problem was particularly acute for empiricists who recognized as genuine empirical foundations only propositions describing perceptions or subjective sensations. Such philosophers faced an enormous difficulty explaining how what we know about sensations could confirm for us assertions about an objective physical world. Clearly we cannot deduce any truths about the physical world from what we know about sensations (remember the possibility of hallucination). Nor does it seem that we could inductively establish sensation as evidence for the existence of the physical world when all we have to rely on ultimately is our awareness of sensations. Faced with the possibility that all of our commonplace assertions about the physical world might fail the verifiability test for meaningfulness, many of the positivists took the bold step of arguing that statements about the physical world could really be viewed as reducible to (equivalent in meaning to) very complicated statements about sensations. Phenomenalists, as these philosophers were called, thought that asserting that a given table exists is equivalent in meaning to a complex assertion about what sensations or sequences of sensations a subject would have were he to have certain other sensations. The gap between sensation and the physical world is just one of the epistemic gaps threatening the meaningfulness of commonplace assertions about the world. If all we know about the mental states of others is inferred from their physical behavior, we must still explain how such inference is justified. Thus logical positivists who took protocol statements to include ordinary assertions about the physical world were comfortable reducing talk about the mental states of others to talk about their behavior; this is logical behaviorism. Even some of those positivists who thought empirical propositions had to be reduced ultimately to talk about sensations were prepared to translate talk about the mental states of others into talk about their behavior, which, ironically, would in turn get translated right back into talk about sensation. logical positivism logical positivism 515 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 515 Many of the positivists were primarily concerned with the hypotheses of theoretical physics, which seemed to go far beyond anything that could be observed. In the context of philosophy of science, some positivists seemed to take as unproblematic ordinary statements about the macrophysical world but were still determined either to reduce theoretical statements in science to complex statements about the observable world, or to view theoretical entities as a kind of convenient fiction, description of which lacks any literal truth-value. The limits of a positivist’s willingness to embrace reductionism are tested, however, when he comes to grips with knowledge of the past. It seems that propositions describing memory experiences (if such “experiences” really exist) do not entail any truths about the past, nor does it seem possible to establish memory inductively as a reliable indicator of the past. (How could one establish the past correlations without relying on memory?) The truly hard-core reductionists actually toyed with the possibility of reducing talk about the past to talk about the present and future, but it is perhaps an understatement to suggest that at this point the plausibility of the reductionist program was severely strained. See also ANALYTIC–SYNTHETIC DISTINCTION, BEHAVIORISM, EMPIRICISM, FOUNDATIONALISM, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, VERIFICATIONISM, VIENNA CIRCLE. R.A.F. logical predicate. See LOGICAL SUBJECT. logical priority. See DEPENDENCE. logical probability. See PROBABILITY. logical product, a conjunction of propositions or predicates. The term ‘product’ derives from an analogy that conjunction bears to arithmetic multiplication, and that appears very explicitly in an algebraic logic such as a Boolean algebra. In the same way, ‘logical sum’ usually means the disjunction of propositions or predicates, and the term ‘sum’ derives from an analogy that disjunction bears with arithmetic addition. In the logical literature of the nineteenth century, e.g. in the works of Peirce, ‘logical product’ and ‘logical sum’ often refer to the relative product and relative sum, respectively. In the work of George Boole, ‘logical sum’ indicates an operation that corresponds not to disjunction but rather to the exclusive ‘or’. The use of ‘logical sum’ in its contemporary sense was introduced by John Venn and then adopted and promulgated by Peirce. ‘Relative product’ was introduced by Augustus De Morgan and also adopted and promulgated by Peirce. R.W.B. logical reconstruction. See RATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION. logical subject, in Aristotelian and traditional logic, the common noun, or sometimes the intension or the extension of the common noun, that follows the initial quantifier word (‘every’, ‘some’, ‘no’, etc.) of a sentence, as opposed to the grammatical subject, which is the entire noun phrase including the quantifier and the noun, and in some usages, any modifiers that may apply. The grammatical subject of ‘Every number exceeding zero is positive’ is ‘every number’, or in some usages, ‘every number exceeding zero’, whereas the logical subject is ‘number’, or the intension or the extension of ‘number’. Similar distinctions are made between the logical predicate and the grammatical predicate: in the above example, ‘is positive’ is the grammatical predicate, whereas the logical predicate is the adjective ‘positive’, or sometimes the property of being positive or even the extension of the word ‘positive’. In standard first-order logic the logical subject of a sentence under a given interpretation is the entire universe of discourse of the interpretation. See also GRAMMAR, LOGICAL FORM, SUBJECT, UNIVERSE OF DISCOURSE. J.Cor. logical sum. See LOGICAL PRODUCT. logical syntax, description of the forms of the expressions of a language in virtue of which the expressions stand in logical relations to one another. Implicit in the idea of logical syntax is the assumption that all – or at least most – logical relations hold in virtue of form: e.g., that ‘If snow is white, then snow has color’ and ‘Snow is white’ jointly entail ‘Snow has color’ in virtue of their respective forms, ‘If P, then Q’, ‘P’, and ‘Q’. The form assigned to an expression in logical syntax is its logical form. Logical form may not be immediately apparent from the surface form of an expression. Both (1) ‘Every individual is physical’ and (2) ‘Some individual is physical’ apparently share the subjectpredicate form. But this surface form is not the form in virtue of which these sentences (or the propositions they might be said to express) stand in logical relations to other sentences (or propositions), for if it were, (1) and (2) would have the same logical relations to all sentences (or propological predicate logical syntax 516 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 516 sitions), but they do not; (1) and (3) ‘Aristotle is an individual’ jointly entail (4) ‘Aristotle is physical’, whereas (2) and (3) do not jointly entail (4). So (1) and (2) differ in logical form. The contemporary logical syntax, devised largely by Frege, assigns very different logical forms to (1) and (2), namely: ‘For every x, if x is an individual, then x is physical’ and ‘For some x, x is an individual and x is physical’, respectively. Another example: (5) ‘The satellite of the moon has water’ seems to entail ‘There is at least one thing that orbits the moon’ and ‘There is no more than one thing that orbits the moon’. In view of this, Russell assigned to (5) the logical form ‘For some x, x orbits the moon, and for every y, if y orbits the moon, then y is identical with x, and for every y, if y orbits the moon, then y has water’. See also GRAMMAR, LOGICAL FORM, THEORY OF DESCRIPTIONS. T.Y. logical system. See FORMAL SEMANTICS, LOGISTIC SYSTEM. logical table of judgments. See KANT. logical truth, linguistic theory of. See CONVENTIONALISM. logicism, the thesis that mathematics, or at least some significant portion thereof, is part of logic. Modifying Carnap’s suggestion (in “The Logicist Foundation for Mathematics,” first published in Erkenntnis, 1931), this thesis is the conjunction of two theses: expressibility logicism: mathematical propositions are (or are alternative expressions of) purely logical propositions; and derivational logicism: the axioms and theorems of mathematics can be derived from pure logic. Here is a motivating example from the arithmetic of the natural numbers. Let the cardinality-quantifiers be those expressible in the form ‘there are exactly . . . many xs such that’, which we abbreviate ¢(. . . x),Ü with ‘. . .’ replaced by an Arabic numeral. These quantifiers are expressible with the resources of first-order logic with identity; e.g. ‘(2x)Px’ is equivalent to ‘DxDy(x&y & Ez[Pz S (z%x 7 z%y)])’, the latter involving no numerals or other specifically mathematical vocabulary. Now 2 ! 3 % 5 is surely a mathematical truth. We might take it to express the following: if we take two things and then another three things we have five things, which is a validity of second-order logic involving no mathematical vocabulary: EXEY ([(2x) Xx & (3x)Yx & ÝDx(Xx & Yx)] / (5x) (Xx 7 Yx)). Furthermore, this is provable in any formalized fragment of second-order logic that includes all of first-order logic with identity and secondorder ‘E’-introduction. But what counts as logic? As a derivation? As a derivation from pure logic? Such unclarities keep alive the issue of whether some version or modification of logicism is true. The “classical” presentations of logicism were Frege’s Grundgesetze der Arithmetik and Russell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica. Frege took logic to be a formalized fragment of secondorder logic supplemented by an operator forming singular terms from “incomplete” expressions, such a term standing for an extension of the “incomplete” expression standing for a concept of level 1 (i.e. type 1). Axiom 5 of Grundgesetze served as a comprehension-axiom implying the existence of extensions for arbitrary Fregean concepts of level 1. In his famous letter of 1901 Russell showed that axiom to be inconsistent, thus derailing Frege’s original program. Russell and Whitehead took logic to be a formalized fragment of a ramified full finite-order (i.e. type w) logic, with higher-order variables ranging over appropriate propositional functions. The Principia and their other writings left the latter notion somewhat obscure. As a defense of expressibility logicism, Principia had this peculiarity: it postulated typical ambiguity where naive mathematics seemed unambiguous; e.g., each type had its own system of natural numbers two types up. As a defense of derivational logicism, Principia was flawed by virtue of its reliance on three axioms, a version of the Axiom of Choice, and the axioms of Reducibility and Infinity, whose truth was controversial. Reducibility could be avoided by eliminating the ramification of the logic (as suggested by Ramsey). But even then, even the arithmetic of the natural numbers required use of Infinity, which in effect asserted that there are infinitely many individuals (i.e., entities of type 0). Though Infinity was “purely logical,” i.e., contained only logical expressions, in his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (p. 141) Russell admits that it “cannot be asserted by logic to be true.” Russell then (pp. 194–95) forgets this: “If there are still those who do not admit the identity of logic and mathematics, we may challenge them to indicate at what point in the successive definitions and deductions of Principia Mathematica they consider that logic ends and mathematics begins. It will then be obvious that any answer is arbitrary.” The answer, “Section 120, in which Infinity is first assumed!,” is not arbitrary. In Principia Russell and Whitehead logical system logicism 517 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 517 say of Infinity that they “prefer to keep it as a hypothesis” (Vol. 2, p. 203). Perhaps then they did not really take logicism to assert the above identity, but rather a correspondence: to each sentence f of mathematics there corresponds a conditional sentence of logic whose antecedent is the Axiom of Infinity and whose consequent is a purely logical reformulation of f. In spite of the problems with the “classical” versions of logicism, if we count so-called higherorder (at least second-order) logic as logic, and if we reformulate the thesis to read ‘Each area of mathematics is, or is part of, a logic’, logicism remains alive and well. See also FREGE, GÖDEL’S INCOMPLETENESS THEOREMS, PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS, SET THEORY. H.T.H. logic of discovery. See ABDUCTION. logic of validation. See ABDUCTION. logistic system, a formal language together with a set of axioms and rules of inference, or what many today would call a “logic.” The original idea behind the notion of a logistic system was that the language, axioms, rules, and attendant concepts of proof and theorem were to be specified in a mathematically precise fashion, thus enabling one to make the study of deductive reasoning an exact science. One was to begin with an effective specification of the primitive symbols of the language and of which (finite) sequences of symbols were to count as sentences or wellformed formulas. Next, certain sentences were to be singled out effectively as axioms. The rules of inference were also to be given in such a manner that there would be an effective procedure for telling which rules are rules of the system and what inferences they license. A proof was then defined as any finite sequence of sentences, each of which is either an axiom or follows from some earlier line(s) by one of the rules, with a theorem being the last line of a proof. With the subsequent development of logic, the requirement of effectiveness has sometimes been dropped, as has the requirement that sentences and proofs be finite in length. See also ALGORITHM, INFINITARY LOGIC, PROOF THEORY. G.F.S. logocentric. See DECONSTRUCTION. logoi. See DECONSTRUCTION, LOGOS. logos(plural: logoi) (Greek, ‘word’, ‘speech’, ‘reason’), term with the following main philosophical senses. (1) Rule, principle, law. E.g., in Stoicism the logos is the divine order and in Neoplatonism the intelligible regulating forces displayed in the sensible world. The term came thus to refer, in Christianity, to the Word of God, to the instantiation of his agency in creation, and, in the New Testament, to the person of Christ. (2) Proposition, account, explanation, thesis, argument. E.g., Aristotle presents a logos from first principles. (3) Reason, reasoning, the rational faculty, abstract theory (as opposed to experience), discursive reasoning (as opposed to intuition). E.g., Plato’s Republic uses the term to refer to the intellectual part of the soul. (4) Measure, relation, proportion, ratio. E.g., Aristotle speaks of the logoi of the musical scales. (5) Value, worth. E.g., Heraclitus speaks of the man whose logos is greater than that of others. R.C. Lombard, Peter. See PETER LOMBARD. Longinus (late first century A.D.), Greek literary critic, author of a treatise On the Sublime (Peri hypsous). The work is ascribed to “Dionysius or Longinus” in the manuscript and is now tentatively dated to the end of the first century A.D. The author argues for five sources of sublimity in literature: (a) grandeur of thought and (b) deep emotion, both products of the writer’s “nature”; (c) figures of speech, (d) nobility and originality in word use, and (e) rhythm and euphony in diction, products of technical artistry. The passage on emotion is missing from the text. The treatise, with Aristotelian but enthusiastic spirit, throws light on the emotional effect of many great passages of Greek literature; noteworthy are its comments on Homer (ch. 9). Its nostalgic plea for an almost romantic independence and greatness of character and imagination in the poet and orator in an age of dictatorial government and somnolent peace is unique and memorable. See also AESTHETICS, ARISTOTLE. D.Ar. loop, closed. See CYBERNETICS. loop, open. See CYBERNETICS. lottery paradox, a paradox involving two plausible assumptions about justification which yield the conclusion that a fully rational thinker may justifiably believe a pair of contradictory propositions. The unattractiveness of this conclusion has led philosophers to deny one or the other of the assumptions in question. The paradox, which is due to Henry Kyburg, is generated as follows. Suppose I am contemplating a fair lotlogic of discovery lottery paradox 518 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 518 tery involving n tickets (for some suitably large n), and I justifiably believe that exactly one ticket will win. Assume that if the probability of p, relative to one’s evidence, meets some given high threshold less than 1, then one has justification for believing that p (and not merely justification for believing that p is highly probable). This is sometimes called a rule of detachment for inductive hypotheses. Then supposing that the number n of tickets is large enough, the rule implies that I have justification for believing (T1) that the first ticket will lose (since the probability of T1 (% (n † 1)/n) will exceed the given high threshold if n is large enough). By similar reasoning, I will also have justification for believing (T2) that the second ticket will lose, and similarly for each remaining ticket. Assume that if one has justification for believing that p and justification for believing that q, then one has justification for believing that p and q. This is a consequence of what is sometimes called “deductive closure for justification,” according to which one has justification for believing the deductive consequences of what one justifiably believes. Closure, then, implies that I have justification for believing that T1 and T2 and . . . Tn. But this conjunctive proposition is equivalent to the proposition that no ticket will win, and we began with the assumption that I have justification for believing that exactly one ticket will win. See also CLOSURE, JUSTIFICATION. A.B. Lotze, Rudolf Hermann (1817–81), German philosopher and influential representative of post-Hegelian German metaphysics. Lotze was born in Bautzen and studied medicine, mathematics, physics, and philosophy at Leipzig, where he became instructor, first in medicine and later in philosophy. His early views, expressed in his Metaphysik (1841) and Logik (1843), were influenced by C. H. Weisse, a former student of Hegel’s. He succeeded J. F. Herbart as professor of philosophy at Göttingen, where he served from 1844 until shortly before his death. Between 1856 and 1864, he published, in three volumes, his best-known work, Mikrocosmus. Logik (1874) and Metaphysik (1879) were published as the first two parts of his unfinished three-volume System der Philosophie. While Lotze shared the metaphysical and systematic appetites of his German idealist predecessors, he rejected their intellectualism, favoring an emphasis on the primacy of feeling; believed that metaphysics must fully respect the methods, results, and “mechanistic” assumptions of the empirical sciences; and saw philosophy as the never completed attempt to raise and resolve questions arising from the inevitable pluralism of methods and interests involved in science, ethics, and the arts. A strong personalism is manifested in his assertion that feeling discloses to us a relation to a personal deity and its teleological workings in nature. His most enduring influences can be traced, in America, through Royce, Santayana, B. P. Bowne, and James, and, in England, through Bosanquet and Bradley. See also IDEALISM, PERSONALISM. J.P.Su. love, ethics of. See DIVINE COMMAND ETHICS. Löwenheim-Skolem theorem, the result that for any set of sentences of standard predicate logic, if there is any interpretation in which they are all true, there there is also an interpretation whose domain consists of natural numbers and in which they are all true. Leopold Löwenheim proved in 1915 that for finite sets of sentences of standard predicate logic, if there is any interpretation in which they are true, there is also an interpretation that makes them true and where the domain is a subset of the domain of the first interpretation, and the new domain can be mapped one-to-one onto a set of natural numbers. Löwenheim’s proof contained some gaps and made essential but implicit use of the axiom of choice, a principle of set theory whose truth was, and is, a matter of debate. In fact, the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem is equivalent to the axiom of choice. Thoralf Skolem, in 1920, gave a more detailed proof that made explicit the appeal to the axiom of choice and that extended the scope of the theorem to include infinite sets of sentences. In 1922 he gave an essentially different proof that did not depend on the axiom of choice and in which the domain consisted of natural numbers rather than being of the same size as a set of natural numbers. In most contemporary texts, Skolem’s result is proved by methods later devised by Gödel, Herbrand, or Henkin for proving other results. If the language does not include an identity predicate, then Skolem’s result is that the second domain consists of the entire set of natural numbers; if the language includes an identity predicate, then the second domain may be a proper subset of the natural numbers. (See van Heijenoort, From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic 1879–1931, 1967, for translations of the original papers.) The original results were of interest because they showed that in many cases unexpected interpretations with smaller infinite domains Lotze, Rudolf Hermann Löwenheim-Skolem theorem 519 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 519 than those of the initially given interpretation could be constructed. It was later shown – and this is the Upward Löwenheim-Skolem theorem – that interpretations with larger domains could also be constructed that rendered true the same set of sentences. Hence the theorem as stated initially is sometimes referred to as the Downward Löwenheim-Skolem theorem. The theorem was surprising because it was believed that certain sets of axioms characterized domains, such as the continuum of real numbers, that were larger than the set of natural numbers. This surprise is called Skolem’s paradox, but it is to be emphasized that this is a philosophical puzzle rather than a formal contradiction. Two main lines of response to the paradox developed early. The realist, who believes that the continuum exists independently of our knowledge or description of it, takes the theorem to show either that the full truth about the structure of the continuum is ineffable or at least that means other than standard first-order predicate logic are required. The constructivist, who believes that the continuum is in some sense our creation, takes the theorem to show that size comparisons among infinite sets is not an absolute matter, but relative to the particular descriptions given. Both positions have received various more sophisticated formulations that differ in details, but they remain the two main lines of development. See also SET THEORY. R.E.G. lower functional calculus. See FORMAL LOGIC. Lucretius (99 or 94–55 B.C.), Roman poet, author of On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura), an epic poem in six books. Lucretius’s emphasis, as an orthodox Epicurean, is on the role of even the most technical aspects of physics and philosophy in helping to attain emotional peace and dismiss the terrors of popular religion. Each book studies some aspect of the school’s theories, while purporting to offer elementary instruction to its addressee, Memmius. Each begins with an ornamental proem and ends with a passage of heightened emotional impact; the argumentation is adorned with illustrations from personal observation, frequently of the contemporary Roman and Italian scene. Book 1 demonstrates that nothing exists but an infinity of atoms moving in an infinity of void. Opening with a proem on the love of Venus and Mars (an allegory of the Roman peace), it ends with an image of Epicurus as conqueror, throwing the javelin of war outside the finite universe of the geocentric astronomers. Book 2 proves the mortality of all finite worlds; Book 3, after proving the mortality of the human soul, ends with a hymn on the theme that there is nothing to feel or fear in death. The discussion of sensation and thought in Book 4 leads to a diatribe against the torments of sexual desire. The shape and contents of the visible world are discussed in Book 5, which ends with an account of the origins of civilization. Book 6, about the forces that govern meteorological, seismic, and related phenomena, ends with a frightening picture of the plague of 429 B.C. at Athens. The unexpectedly gloomy end suggests the poem is incomplete (also the absence of two great Epicurean themes, friendship and the gods). See also EPICUREANISM. D.Ar. Lu Hsiang-shan (1139–93), Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher, an opponent of Chu Hsi’s metaphysics. For Lu the mind is quite sufficient for realizing the Confucian vision of the unity and harmony of man and nature (t’ien-jen ho-i). While Chu Hsi focused on “following the path of study and inquiry,” Lu stressed “honoring the moral nature (of humans).” Lu is a sort of metaphysical idealist, as evident in his statement, “The affairs of the universe are my own affairs,” and in his attitude toward the Confucian classics: “If in our study we know the fundamentals, then all the Six Classics [the Book of Odes, Book of History, Book of Rites, Book of Changes, the Chou-li, and the Spring and Autumn Annals] are my footnotes.” The realization of Confucian vision is ultimately a matter of self-realization, anticipating a key feature of Wang Yang-ming’s philosophy. See also NEO-CONFUCIANISM. A.S.C. Luis de Molina. See MOLINA. Lukács, Georg (1885–1971), Hungarian Marxist philosopher best known for his History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics (1923). In 1918 he joined the Hungarian Communist Party and for much of the remainder of his career had a controversial relationship with it. For several months in 1919 he was People’s Commissar for Education in Béla Kun’s government, until he fled to Vienna and later moved to Berlin. In 1933 he fled Hitler and moved to Moscow, remaining there until the end of World War II, when he returned to Budapest as a university professor. In 1956 he was Minister of Culture in Imre Nagy’s short-lived government. This led to lower functional calculus Lukacs, Georg 520 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 520 a brief exile in Rumania. In his later years he returned to teaching in Budapest and was much celebrated by the Hungarian government. His Collected Works are forthcoming in both German and Hungarian. He is equally celebrated for his literary criticism and his reconstruction of the young Marx’s thought. For convenience his work is often divided into three periods: the pre-Marxist, the Stalinist, and the post-Stalinist. What unifies these periods and remains constant in his work are the problems of dialectics and the concept of totality. He stressed the Marxist claim of the possibility of a dialectical unity of subject and object. This was to be obtained through the proletariat’s realization of itself and the concomitant destruction of economic alienation in society, with the understanding that truth was a still-to-be-realized totality. (In the post–World War II period this theme was taken up by the Yugoslavian praxis theorists.) The young neo-Kantian Lukács presented an aesthetics stressing the subjectivity of human experience and the emptiness of social experience. This led several French philosophers to claim that he was the first major existentialist of the twentieth century; he strongly denied it. Later he asserted that realism is the only correct way to understand literary criticism, arguing that since humanity is at the core of any social discussion, form depends on content and the content of politics is central to all historical social interpretations of literature. Historically Lukács’s greatest claim to fame within Marxist circles came from his realization that Marx’s materialist theory of history and the resultant domination of the economic could be fully understood only if it allowed for both necessity and species freedom. In History and Class Consciousness he stressed Marx’s debt to Hegelian dialectics years before the discovery of Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Lukács stresses his Hegelian Marxism as the correct orthodox version over and against the established Engels-inspired Soviet version of a dialectics of nature. His claim to be returning to Marx’s methodology emphasizes the primacy of the concept of totality. It is through Marx’s use of the dialectic that capitalist society can be seen as essentially reified and the proletariat viewed as the true subject of history and the only possible salvation of humanity. All truth is to be seen in relation to the proletariat’s historical mission. Marx’s materialist conception of history itself must be examined in light of proletarian knowledge. Truth is no longer given but must be understood in terms of relative moments in the process of the unfolding of the real union of theory and praxis: the totality of social relations. This union is not to be realized as some statistical understanding, but rather grasped through proletarian consciousness and directed party action in which subject and object are one. (Karl Mannheim included a modified version of this theory of social-historical relativism in his work on the sociology of knowledge.) In Europe and America this led to Western Marxism. In Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union it led to condemnation. If both the known and the knower are moments of the same thing, then there is a two-directional dialectical relationship, and Marxism cannot be understood from Engels’s one-way movement of the dialectic of nature. The Communist attack on Lukács was so extreme that he felt it necessary to write an apologetic essay on Lenin’s established views. In The Young Hegel: Studies in the Relations between Dialectics and Economics (1938), Lukács modified his views but still stressed the dialectical commonality of Hegel and Marx. In Lukács’s last years he unsuccessfully tried to develop a comprehensive ethical theory. The positive result was over two thousand pages of a preliminary study on social ontology. See also MARXISM, PRAXIS. J.Bi. Lukasiewicz, Jan (1878–1956), Polish philosopher and logician, the most renowned member of the Warsaw School. The work for which he is best known is the discovery of many-valued logics, but he also invented bracket-free Polish notation; obtained original consistency, completeness, independence, and axiom-shortening results for sentential calculi; rescued Stoic logic from the misinterpretation and incomprehension of earlier historians and restored it to its rightful place as the first formulation of the theory of deduction; and finally incorporated Aristotle’s syllogisms, both assertoric and modal, into a deductive system in his work Aristotle’s Syllogistic from the Standpoint of Modern Formal Logic. Reflection on Aristotle’s discussion of future contingency in On Interpretation led Lukasiewicz in 1918 to posit a third truth-value, possible, in addition to true and false, and to construct a formal three-valued logic. Where in his notation Cpq denotes ‘if p then q’, Np ‘not p’, Apq ‘either p or q’, and Kpq ‘both p and q’, the system is defined by the following matrices (½ is the third truthvalue): Lukasiewicz, Jan Lukasiewicz, Jan 521 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 521 Apq is defined as CCpqq, and Kpq as NANpNq. The system was axiomatized by Wajsberg in 1931. Lukasiewicz’s motivation in constructing a formal system of three-valued logic was to break the grip of the idea of universal determinism on the imagination of philosophers and scientists. For him, there was causal determinism (shortly to be undermined by quantum theory), but there was also logical determinism, which in accordance with the principle of bivalence decreed that the statement that J.L. would be in Warsaw at noon on December 21 next year was either true or false now, and indeed had been either true or false for all time. In three-valued logic this statement would take the value ½, thus avoiding any apparent threat to free will posed by the law of bivalence. See also MANY-VALUED LOGIC, POLISH LOGIC. S.Mc. Lull, Raymond, also spelled Raymond Lully, Ramon Llull (c.1232–1316), Catalan Christian mystic and missionary. A polemicist against Islam, a social novelist, and a constructor of schemes for international unification, Lull is best known in the history of philosophy for his quasialgebraic or combinatorial treatment of metaphysical principles. His logic of divine and creaturely attributes is set forth first in an Ars compendiosa inveniendi veritatem (1274), next in an Ars demonstrativa (1283–89), then in reworkings of both of these and in the Tree of Knowledge, and finally in the Ars brevis and the Ars generalis ultima (1309–16). Each of these contains tables and diagrams that permit the reader to calculate the interactions of the various principles. Although his dates place him in the period of mature Scholasticism, the vernacular language and the Islamic or Judaic construction of Lull’s works relegate him to the margin of Scholastic debates. His influence is to be sought rather in late medieval and Renaissance cabalistic or hermetic traditions. See also CABALA, SCHOLASTICISM. M.D.J. lumen naturale. See DESCARTES. Lun Yu. See CONFUCIUS. Lü-shih ch’un-ch’iu, a Chinese anthology of late Warring States (403–221 B.C.) philosophical writings. It was compiled by a patron, Lü Pu-wei, who became chancellor of the state of Ch’in in about 240 B.C. As the earliest example of the encyclopedic genre, and often associated with the later Huai Nan Tzu, it includes the full spectrum of philosophical schools, and covers topics from competing positions on human nature to contemporary farming procedures. An important feature of this work is its development of correlative yin–yang and five-phases vocabulary for organizing the natural and human processes of the world, positing relations among the various seasons, celestial bodies, tastes, smells, materials, colors, geographical directions, and so on. See also HUAI NAN TZU; WU-HSING; YIN, YANG. R.P.P. & R.T.A. Luther, Martin (1483–1546), German religious reformer and leader of the Protestant Reformation. He was an Augustinian friar and unsystematic theologian from Saxony, schooled in nominalism (Ockham, Biel, Staupitz) and trained in biblical languages. Luther initially taught philosophy and subsequently Scripture (Romans, Galatians, Hebrews) at Wittenberg University. His career as a church reformer began with his public denunciation, in the 95 theses, of the sale of indulgences in October 1517. Luther produced three incendiary tracts: Appeal to the Nobility, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and The Freedom of a Christian Man (1520), which prompted his excommunication. At the 1521 Diet of Worms he claimed: “I am bound by the Scripture I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against my conscience. Here I stand, may God help me.” Despite his modernist stance on the primacy of conscience over tradition, the reformer broke with Erasmus over free will (De servo Arbitrio, 1525), championing an Augustinian, antihumanist position. His crowning achievement, the translation of the Bible into German (1534/45), shaped the modern German language. On the strength of a biblical-Christocentric, anti-philosophical theology, he proclaimed justification by faith alone and the priesthood of all believers. He unfolded a theologia crucis, reformed the Mass, acknowledged only two sacraments (baptism and the Eucharist), advocated consubstantiation instead of transubstantiation, and propounded the Two Kingdoms theory in church–state relations. Lull, Raymond Luther, Martin 522 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 522 See also JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH, TRANSUBSTANTIATION. J.-L.S. Lyceum, (1) an extensive ancient sanctuary of Apollo just east of Athens, the site of public athletic facilities where Aristotle taught during the last decade of his life; (2) a center for philosophy and systematic research in science and history organized there by Aristotle and his associates; it began as an informal group and lacked any legal status until Theophrastus, Aristotle’s colleague and principal heir, acquired land and buildings there c.315 B.C. By a principle of metonymy common in philosophy (cf. ‘Academy’, ‘Oxford’, ‘Vienna’), the name ‘Lyceum’ came to refer collectively to members of the school and their methods and ideas, although the school remained relatively non-doctrinaire. Another ancient label for adherents of the school and their ideas, apparently derived from Aristotle’s habit of lecturing in a portico (peripatos) at the Lyceum, is ‘Peripatetic’. The school had its heyday in its first decades, when members included Eudemus, author of lost histories of mathematics; Aristoxenus, a prolific writer, principally on music (large parts of two treatises survive); Dicaearchus, a polymath who ranged from ethics and politics to psychology and geography; Meno, who compiled a history of medicine; and Demetrius of Phaleron, a dashing intellect who wrote extensively and ruled Athens on behalf of foreign dynasts from 317 to 307. Under Theophrastus and his successor Strato, the school produced original work, especially in natural science. But by the midthird century B.C., the Lyceum had lost its initial vigor. To judge from meager evidence, it offered sound education but few new ideas; some members enjoyed political influence, but for nearly two centuries, rigorous theorizing was displaced by intellectual history and popular moralizing. In the first century B.C., the school enjoyed a modest renaissance when Andronicus oversaw the first methodical edition of Aristotle’s works and began the exegetical tradition that culminated in the monumental commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. A.D. 200). See also ACADEMY, ANDRONICUS OF RHODES, ARISTOTLE, COMMENTARIES ON ARISTOTLE, STRATO OF LAMPSACUS. S.A.W. Lyotard, Jean-François (1924–98), French philosopher, a leading representative of the movement known in the English-speaking world as post-structuralism. Among major post-structuralist theorists (Gilles Deleuze [1925–97], Derrida, Foucault), Lyotard is most closely associated with postmodernism. With roots in phenomenology (a student of Merleau-Ponty, his first book, Phenomenology [1954], engages phenomenology’s history and engages phenomenology with history) and Marxism (in the 1960s Lyotard was associated with the Marxist group Socialisme ou Barbarie, founded by Cornelius Castoriadis [1922–97] and Claude Lefort [b.1924]), Lyotard’s work has centered on questions of art, language, and politics. His first major work, Discours, figure (1971), expressed dissatisfaction with structuralism and, more generally, any theoretical approach that sought to escape history through appeal to a timeless, universal structure of language divorced from our experiences. Libidinal Economy (1974) reflects the passion and enthusiasm of the events of May 1968 along with a disappointment with the Marxist response to those events. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979), an occasional text written at the request of the Quebec government, catapulted Lyotard to the forefront of critical debate. Here he introduced his definition of the postmodern as “incredulity toward metanarratives”: the postmodern names not a specific epoch but an antifoundationalist attitude that exceeds the legitimating orthodoxy of the moment. Postmodernity, then, resides constantly at the heart of the modern, challenging those totalizing and comprehensive master narratives (e.g., the Enlightenment narrative of the emancipation of the rational subject) that serve to legitimate its practices. Lyotard suggests we replace these narratives by less ambitious, “little narratives” that refrain from totalizing claims in favor of recognizing the specificity and singularity of events. Many, including Lyotard, regard The Differend (1983) as his most original and important work. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations and Kant’s Critique of Judgment, it reflects on how to make judgments (political as well as aesthetic) where there is no rule of judgment to which one can appeal. This is the différend, a dispute between (at least) two parties in which the parties operate within radically heterogeneous language games so incommensurate that no consensus can be reached on principles or rules that could govern how their dispute might be settled. In contrast to litigations, where disputing parties share a language with rules of judgment to consult to resolve their dispute, différends defy resolution (an example might be the conflicting Lyceum Lyotard, Jean-François 523 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 523 claims to land rights by aboriginal peoples and current residents). At best, we can express différends by posing the dispute in a way that avoids delegitimating either party’s claim. In other words, our political task, if we are to be just, is to phrase the dispute in a way that respects the difference between the competing claims. In the years following The Differend, Lyotard published several works on aesthetics, politics, and postmodernism; the most important may well be his reading of Kant’s third Critique in Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime (1991). See also DERRIDA, FOUCAULT, POSTMODERN, STRUCTURALISM. A.D.S

McCosh, James (1811–94), Scottish philosopher, a common sense realist who attempted to reconcile Christianity with evolution. A prolific writer, McCosh was a pastor in Scotland and a professor at Queen’s College, Belfast, before becoming president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). In The Intuitions of the Mind (1860) he argued that while acts of intelligence begin with immediate knowledge of the self or of external objects, they also exhibit intuitions in the spontaneous formation of self-evident convictions about objects. In opposition to Kant and Hamilton, McCosh treated intuitions not as forms imposed by minds on objects, but as inductively ascertainable rules that minds follow in forming convictions after perceiving objects. In his Examination of Mr. J. S. Mill’s Philosophy (1866) McCosh criticized Mill for denying the existence of intuitions while assuming their operation. In The Religious Aspects of Evolution (1885) McCosh defended the design argument by equating Darwin’s chance variations with supernatural design. J.W.A. McDougall, William (1871–1938), British and American (after 1920) psychologist. He was probably the first to define psychology as the science of behavior (Physiological Psychology, 1905; Psychology: The Science of Behavior, 1912) and he invented hormic (purposive) psychology. By the early twentieth century, as psychology strove to become scientific, purpose had become a suspect concept, but following Stout, McDougall argued that organisms possess an “intrinsic power of self-determination,” making goal seeking the essential and defining feature of behavior. In opposition to mechanistic and intellectualistic psychologies, McDougall, again following Stout, proposed that innate instincts (later, propensities) directly or indirectly motivate all behavior (Introduction to Social Psychology, 1908). Unlike more familiar psychoanalytic instincts, however, many of McDougall’s instincts were social in nature (e.g. gregariousness, deference). Moreover, McDougall never regarded a person as merely an assemblage of unconnected and quarreling motives, since people are “integrated unities” guided by one supreme motive around which others are organized. McDougall’s stress on behavior’s inherent purposiveness influenced the behaviorist E. C. Tolman, but was otherwise roundly rejected by more mechanistic behaviorists and empiricistically inclined sociologists. In his later years, McDougall moved farther from mainstream thought by championing Lamarckism and sponsoring research in parapsychology. Active in social causes, McDougall was an advocate of eugenics (Is America Safe for Democracy?, 1921). T.H.L. Mach, Ernst(1838–1916), Austrian physicist and influential philosopher of science. He was born in Turas, Moravia, now part of the Czech Republic, and studied physics at the University of Vienna. Appointed professor of mathematics at Graz in 1864, he moved in 1867 to the chair of physics at Prague, where he came to be recognized as one of the leading scientists in Europe, contributing not only to a variety of fields of physics (optics, electricity, mechanics, acoustics) but also to the new field of psychophysics, particularly in the field of perception. He returned to Vienna in 1895 to a chair in philosophy, designated for a new academic discipline, the history and theory of inductive science. His writings on the philosophy of science profoundly affected the founders of the Vienna Circle, leading Mach to be regarded as a progenitor of logical positivism. His best-known work, The Science of Mechanics (1883), epitomized the main themes of his philosophy. He set out to extract the logical structure of mechanics from an examination of its history and procedures. Mechanics fulfills the human need to abridge the facts about motion in the most economical way. It rests on “sensations” (akin to the “ideas” or “sense impressions” of classical empiricism); indeed, the world may be said to consist of sensations (a thesis that later led Lenin in a famous polemic to accuse Mach of idealism). Mechanics is inductive, not demonstrative; it has no a priori element of any sort. The divisions between the sciences must be recognized to be arbitrary, a matter of convenience only. The sciences must be regarded as descriptive, not as explanatory. Theories may appear to explain, but the underlying entities they postulate, like atoms, for example, are no more than aids to prediction. To suppose them to represent 525 M 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:41 AM Page 525 reality would be metaphysical and therefore idle. Mach’s most enduring legacy to philosophy is his enduring suspicion of anything “metaphysical.” See also LOGICAL POSITIVISM, VIENNA CIRCLE. E.M. Machiavelli, Niccolò (1469–1527), the Italian political theorist commonly considered the most influential political thinker of the Renaissance. Born in Florence, he was educated in the civic humanist tradition. From 1498 to 1512, he was secretary to the second chancery of the republic of Florence, with responsibilities for foreign affairs and the revival of the domestic civic militia. His duties involved numerous diplomatic missions both in and outside Italy. With the fall of the republic in 1512, he was dismissed by the returning Medici regime. From 1513 to 1527 he lived in enforced retirement, relieved by writing and occasional appointment to minor posts. Machaivelli’s writings fall into two genetically connected categories: chancery writings (reports, memoranda, diplomatic writings) and formal books, the chief among them The Prince (1513), the Discourses (1517), the Art of War (1520), Florentine Histories (1525), and the comic drama Mandragola (1518). With Machiavelli a new vision emerges of politics as autonomous activity leading to the creation of free and powerful states. This vision derives its norms from what humans do rather than from what they ought to do. As a result, the problem of evil arises as a central issue: the political actor reserves the right “to enter into evil when necessitated.” The requirement of classical, medieval, and civic humanist political philosophies that politics must be practiced within the bounds of virtue is met by redefining the meaning of virtue itself. Machiavellian virtù is the ability to achieve “effective truth” regardless of moral, philosophical, and theological restraints. He recognizes two limits on virtù: (1) fortuna, understood as either chance or as a goddess symbolizing the alleged causal powers of the heavenly bodies; and (2) the agent’s own temperament, bodily humors, and the quality of the times. Thus, a premodern astrological cosmology and the anthropology and cyclical theory of history derived from it underlie his political philosophy. History is seen as the conjoint product of human activity and the alleged activity of the heavens, understood as the “general cause” of all human motions in the sublunar world. There is no room here for the sovereignty of the Good, nor the ruling Mind, nor Providence. Kingdoms, republics, and religions follow a naturalistic pattern of birth, growth, and decline. But, depending on the outcome of the struggle between virtù and fortuna, there is the possibility of political renewal; and Machiavelli saw himself as the philosopher of political renewal. Historically, Machiavelli’s philosophy came to be identified with Machiavellianism (also spelled Machiavellism), the doctrine that the reason of state recognizes no moral superior and that, in its pursuit, everything is permitted. Although Machiavelli himself does not use the phrase ‘reason of state’, his principles have been and continue to be invoked in its defense. See also POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. A.J.P. Machiavellianism. See MACHIAVELLI. machine state. See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. machine state functionalism. See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. Mach’s principle. See PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. MacIntyre, Alasdair (b.1929), British-American philosopher and eminent contemporary representative of Aristotelian ethics. He was born in Scotland, educated in England, and has taught at universities in both England and (mainly) the United States. His early work included perceptive critical discussions of Marx and Freud as well as his influential A Short History of Ethics. His most discussed work, however, has been After Virtue (1981), an analysis and critique of modern ethical views from the standpoint of an Aristotelian virtue ethics. MacIntyre begins with the striking unresolvability of modern ethical disagreements, which he diagnoses as due to a lack of any shared substantive conception of the ethical good. This lack is itself due to the modern denial of a human nature that would provide a meaning and goal for human life. In the wake of the Enlightenment, MacIntyre maintains, human beings are regarded as merely atomistic individuals, employing a purely formal reason to seek fulfillment of their contingent desires. Modern moral theory tries to derive moral values from this conception of human reality. Utilitarians start from desires, arguing that they must be fulfilled in such a way as to provide the greatest happiness (utility). Kantians start from reason, arguing that our commitment to rationality requires recognizing the rights of others to the same goods that we desire for ourselves. MacIntyre, however, mainMachiavelli, Niccolò MacIntyre, Alasdair 526 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:41 AM Page 526 tains that the modern notions of utility and of rights are fictions: there is no way to argue from individual desires to an interest in making others happy or to inviolable rights of all persons. He concludes that Enlightenment liberalism cannot construct a coherent ethics and that therefore our only alternatives are to accept a Nietzschean reduction of morality to will-to-power or to return to an Aristotelian ethics grounded in a substantive conception of human nature. MacIntyre’s positive philosophical project is to formulate and defend an Aristotelian ethics of the virtues (based particularly on the thought of Aquinas), where virtues are understood as the moral qualities needed to fulfill the potential of human nature. His aim is not the mere revival of Aristotelian thought but a reformulation and, in some cases, revision of that thought in light of its history over the last 2,500 years. MacIntyre pays particular attention to formulating concepts of practice (communal action directed toward a intrinsic good), virtue (a habit needed to engage successfully in a practice), and tradition (a historically extended community in which practices relevant to the fulfillment of human nature can be carried out). His conception of tradition is particularly noteworthy. His an effort to provide Aristotelianism with a historical orientation that Aristotle himself never countenanced; and, in contrast to Burke, it makes tradition the locus of rational reflection on and revision of past practices, rather than a merely emotional attachment to them. MacIntyre has also devoted considerable attention to the problem of rationally adjudicating the claims of rival traditions (especially in Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 1988) and to making the case for the Aristotelian tradition as opposed to that of the Enlightenment and that of Nietzscheanism (especially in Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry, 1990). See also AQUINAS, ARISTOTLE, ETHICS, KANT, LIBERALISM, VIRTUE ETHICS. G.G. McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis (1866–1925), English philosopher, the leading British personal idealist. Aside from his childhood and two extended visits to New Zealand, McTaggart lived in Cambridge as a student and fellow of Trinity College. His influence on others at Trinity, including Russell and Moore, was at times great, but he had no permanent disciples. He began formulating and defending his views by critically examining Hegel. In Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic (1896) he argued that Hegel’s dialectic is valid but subjective, since the Absolute Idea Hegel used it to derive contains nothing corresponding to the dialectic. In Studies in Hegelian Cosmology (1901) he applied the dialectic to such topics as sin, punishment, God, and immortality. In his Commentary on Hegel’s Logic (1910) he concluded that the task of philosophy is to rethink the nature of reality using a method resembling Hegel’s dialectic. McTaggart attempted to do this in his major work, The Nature of Existence (two volumes, 1921 and 1927). In the first volume he tried to deduce the nature of reality from self-evident truths using only two empirical premises, that something exists and that it has parts. He argued that substances exist, that they are related to each other, that they have an infinite number of substances as parts, and that each substance has a sufficient description, one that applies only to it and not to any other substance. He then claimed that these conclusions are inconsistent unless the sufficient descriptions of substances entail the descriptions of their parts, a situation that requires substances to stand to their parts in the relation he called determining correspondence. In the second volume he applied these results to the empirical world, arguing that matter is unreal, since its parts cannot be determined by determining correspondence. In the most celebrated part of his philosophy, he argued that time is unreal by claiming that time presupposes a series of positions, each having the incompatible qualities of past, present, and future. He thought that attempts to remove the incompatibility generate a vicious infinite regress. From these and other considerations he concluded that selves are real, since their parts can be determined by determining correspondence, and that reality is a community of eternal, perceiving selves. He denied that there is an inclusive self or God in this community, but he affirmed that love between the selves unites the community producing a satisfaction beyond human understanding. See also HEGEL, IDEALISM. J.W.A. Madhva (1238–1317), Indian philosopher who founded Dvaita Vedanta. His major works are the Brahma-Sutra-Bhafya (his commentary, competitive with Shankara’s and Ramanuja’s, on the Brahma-Sutras of Badarayana); the Gita-Bhafya and Gitatatparya (commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita); the Anu-Vyakhyana (an extension of the Brahma-Sutra-Bhafya including a general critique of Advaita Vedanta); the Pramapa Laksana, an account of his epistemology; and the TattvaSajkhyana, a presentation of his ontology. He McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis Madhva 527 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:41 AM Page 527 distinguishes between an independent Brahman and a dependent world of persons and bodies and holds that each person has a distinct individual essence. See also ADVAITA, VEDANTA. K.E.Y. Madhyamika (Sanskrit, ‘middle way’), a variety of Mahayana Buddhism that is a middle way in the sense that it neither claims that nothing at all exists nor does it embrace the view that there is a plurality of distinct things. It embraces the position in the debate about the nature of things that holds that all things are “empty.” Madhyamika offers an account of why the Buddha rejected the question of whether the enlightened one survives death, saying that none of the four answers (affirmative, negative, affirmative and negative, neither affirmative nor negative) applies. The typically Buddhist doctrine of codependent arising asserts that everything that exists depends for its existence on something else; nothing (nirvana aside) at any time does or can exist on its own. From this doctrine, together with the view that if A cannot exist independent of B, A cannot be an individual distinct from B, Madhyamika concludes that in offering causal descriptions (or spatial or temporal descriptions) we assume that we can distinguish between individual items. If everything exists dependently, and nothing that exists dependently is an individual, there are no individuals. Thus we cannot distinguish between individual items. Hence the assumption on which we offer causal (or spatial or temporal) descriptions is false, and thus those descriptions are radically defective. Madhyamika then adds the doctrine of an ineffable ultimate reality hidden behind our ordinary experience and descriptions and accessible only in esoteric enlightenment experience. The Buddha rejected all four answers because the question is raised in a context that assumes individuation among items of ordinary experience, and since that assumption is false, all of the answers are misleading; each answer assumes a distinction between the enlightened one and other things. The Madhyamika seems, then, to hold that to be real is to exist independently; the apparent objects of ordinary experience are sunya (empty, void); they lack any essence or character of their own. As such, they are only apparently knowable, and the real is seamless. Critics (e.g., Yogacara Mahayana Buddhist philosophers) deny that this view is coherent, or even that there is any view here at all. In one sense, the Madhyamika philosopher Nagarjuna himself denies that there is any position taken, maintaining that his critical arguments are simply reductions to absurdity of views that his opponents hold and that he has no view of his own. Still, it seems clear in Nagarjuna’s writings, and plain in the tradition that follows him, that there is supposed to be something the realization of which is essential to becoming enlightened, and the Madhyamika philosopher must walk the (perhaps non-existent) line between saying two things: first, that final truth concerns an ineffable reality and that this itself is not a view, and second, that this represents what the Buddha taught and hence is something different both from other Buddhist perspectives that offer a mistaken account of the Buddha’s message and from nonBuddhist alternatives. See also BUDDHISM, NAGARJUNA. K.E.Y. magnitude, extent or size of a thing with respect to some attribute; technically, a quantity or dimension. A quantity is an attribute that admits of several or an infinite number of degrees, in contrast to a quality (e.g., triangularity), which an object either has or does not have. Measurement is assignment of numbers to objects in such a way that these numbers correspond to the degree or amount of some quantity possessed by their objects. The theory of measurement investigates the conditions for, and uniqueness of, such numerical assignments. Let D be a domain of objects (e.g., a set of physical bodies) and L be a relation on this domain; i.e., Lab may mean that if a and b are put on opposite pans of a balance, the pan with a does not rest lower than the other pan. Let ; be the operation of weighing two objects together in the same pan of a balance. We then have an empirical relational system E % ‹ D, L, ; (. One can prove that, if E satisfies specified conditions, then there exists a measurement function mapping D to a set Num of real numbers, in such a way that the L and ; relations between objects in D correspond to the m and ! relations between their numerical values. Such an existence theorem for a measurement function from an empirical relational system E to a numerical relational system, N % ‹ Num, m ! (, is called a representation theorem. Measurement functions are not unique, but a uniqueness theorem characterizes all such functions for a specified kind of empirical relational system and specified type of numerical image. For example, suppose that for any measurement functions f, g for E there exists real number a ( 0 such that for any x in D, f(x) % ag(x). Then it is said that the measurement is on a ratio scale, Madhyamika magnitude 528 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 528 and the function s(x) % ax, for x in the real numbers, is the scale transformation. For some empirical systems, one can prove that any two measurement functions are related by f % ag ! b, where a ( 0 and b are real numbers. Then the measurement is on an interval scale, with the scale transformation s(x) % ax ! b; e.g., measurement of temperature without an absolute zero is on an interval scale. In addition to ratio and interval scales, other scale types are defined in terms of various scale transformations; many relational systems have been mathematically analyzed for possible applications in the behavioral sciences. Measurement with weak scale types may provide only an ordering of the objects, so quantitative measurement and comparative orderings can be treated by the same general methods. The older literature on measurement often distinguishes extensive from intensive magnitudes. In the former case, there is supposed to be an empirical operation (like ; above) that in some sense directly corresponds to addition on numbers. An intensive magnitude supposedly has no such empirical operation. It is sometimes claimed that genuine quantities must be extensive, whereas an intensive magnitude is a quality. This extensive versus intensive distinction (and its use in distinguishing quantities from qualities) is imprecise and has been supplanted by the theory of scale types sketched above. See also OPERATIONALISM, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. R.L.C. Mahabharata. See BHAGAVAD GITA. Mahavira, title (‘Great Hero’) of Vardhamana Jnatrputra (sixth century B.C.), Indian religious leader who founded Jainism. He is viewed within Jainism as the twenty-fourth and most recent of a series of Tirthankaras or religious “ford-makers” and conquerors (over ignorance) and as the establisher of the Jain community. His enlightenment is described in the Jaina Sutras as involving release of his inherently immortal soul from reincarnation and karma and as including his omniscience. According to Jaina tradition, Vardhamana Jnatrputra was born into a warrior class and at age thirty became a wandering ascetic seeking enlightenment, which he achieved at age forty-two. See also JAINISM. K.E.Y. Mahayana Buddhism. See BUDDHISM. maieutic. See SOCRATES. Maimon, Salomon (1753–1800), Lithuanianborn German Jewish philosopher who became the friend and protégé of Moses Mendelssohn and was an acute early critic and follower of Kant. His most important works were the Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie. Mit einem Anhang über die symbolische Erkenntnis (“Essay on Transcendental Philosophy. With an Appendix on Symbolic Cognition,” 1790), the Philosophisches Wörterbuch (“Philosophical Dictionary,” 1791) and the Versuch einer neuen Logik oder Theorie des Denkens (“Attempt at a New Logic or Theory of Thought,” 1794). Maimon argued against the “thing-in-itself” as it was conceived by Karl Leonhard Reinhold and Gottlieb Ernst Schulze. For Maimon, the thing-in-itself was merely a limiting concept, not a real object “behind” the phenomena. While he thought that Kant’s system was sufficient as a refutation of rationalism or “dogmatism,” he did not think that it had – or could – successfully dispose of skepticism. Indeed, he advanced what can be called a skeptical interpretation of Kant. On the other hand, he also argued against Kant’s sharp distinction between sensibility and understanding and for the necessity of assuming the idea of an “infinite mind.” In this way, he prepared the way for Fichte and Hegel. However, in many ways his own theory is more similar to that of the neoKantian Hermann Cohen. See also JEWISH PHILOSOPHY, NEO-KANTIANISM. M.K. Maimonides, Latinized name of Moses ben Maimon (1135–1204), Spanish-born Jewish philosopher, physician, and jurist. Born in Córdova, Maimonides and his family fled the forced conversions of the Almohad invasion in 1148, living anonymously in Fez before finding refuge in 1165 in Cairo. There Maimonides served as physician to the vizier of Saladin, who overthrew the Fatimid dynasty in 1171. He wrote ten medical treatises, but three works secured his position among the greatest rabbinic jurists: his Book of the Commandments, cataloguing the 613 biblical laws; his Commentary on the Mishnah, expounding the rational purposes of the ancient rabbinic code; and the fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah, a codification of Talmudic law that retains almost canonical authority. His Arabic philosophic masterpiece The Guide to the Perplexed mediates between the Scriptural and philosophic idioms, deriving a sophisticated negative theology by subtly decoding biblical anthropomorphisms. It defends divine creation against al-Farabi’s and Avicenna’s eternalism, while rejecting efforts to demonstrate creation Mahabharata Maimonides 529 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 529 apodictically. The radical occasionalism of Arabic dialectical theology (kalam) that results from such attempts, Maimonides argues, renders nature unintelligible and divine governance irrational: if God creates each particular event, natural causes are otiose, and much of creation is in vain. But Aristotle, who taught us the very principles of demonstration, well understood, as his resort to persuasive language reveals, that his arguments for eternity were not demonstrative. They project, metaphysically, an analysis of time, matter, and potentiality as they are now and ignore the possibility that at its origin a thing had a very different nature. We could allegorize biblical creation if it were demonstrated to be false. But since it is not, we argue that creation is more plausible conceptually and preferable theologically to its alternative: more plausible, because a free creative act allows differentiation of the world’s multiplicity from divine simplicity, as the seemingly mechanical necessitation of emanation, strictly construed, cannot do; preferable, because Avicennan claims that God is author of the world and determiner of its contingency are undercut by the assertion that at no time was nature other than it is now. Maimonides read the biblical commandments thematically, as serving to inform human character and understanding. He followed al-Farabi’s Platonizing reading of Scripture as a symbolic elaboration of themes best known to the philosopher. Thus he argued that prophets learn nothing new from revelation; the ignorant remain ignorant, but the gift of imagination in the wise, if they are disciplined by the moral virtues, especially courage and contentment, gives wing to ideas, rendering them accessible to the masses and setting them into practice. In principle, any philosopher of character and imagination might be a prophet; but in practice the legislative, ethical, and mythopoeic imagination that serves philosophy finds fullest articulation in one tradition. Its highest phase, where imagination yields to pure intellectual communion, was unique to Moses, elaborated in Judaism and its daughter religions. Maimonides’ philosophy was pivotal for later Jewish thinkers, highly valued by Aquinas and other Scholastics, studied by Spinoza in Hebrew translation, and annotated by Leibniz in Buxtorf’s 1629 rendering, Doctor Perplexorum. See also JEWISH PHILOSOPHY. L.E.G. Maistre, Joseph-Marie de. See DE MAISTRE. major premise. See SYLLOGISM. major term. See SYLLOGISM. Malcolm, Norman (1911–90), American philosopher who was a prominent figure in post– World War II analytic philosophy and perhaps the foremost American interpreter and advocate of Wittgenstein. His association with Wittgenstein (vividly described in his Ludwig Wittgenstein, A Memoir, 1958) began when he was a student at Cambridge (1938–40). Other influences were Bouwsma, Malcolm’s undergraduate teacher at the University of Nebraska, and Moore, whom he knew at Cambridge. Malcolm taught for over thirty years at Cornell, and after his retirement in 1978 was associated with King’s College, London. Malcolm’s earliest papers (e.g., “The Verification Argument,” 1950, and “Knowledge and Belief,” 1952) dealt with issues of knowledge and skepticism, and two dealt with Moore. “Moore and Ordinary Language” (1942) interpreted Moore’s defense of common sense as a defense of ordinary language, but “Defending Common Sense” (1949) argued that Moore’s “two hands” proof of the external world involved a misuse of ‘know’. Moore’s proof was the topic of extended discussions between Malcolm and Wittgenstein during the latter’s 1949 visit in Ithaca, New York, and these provided the stimulus for Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. Malcolm’s “Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations” (1954) was a highly influential discussion of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, and especially of his “private language argument.” Two other works of that period were Malcolm’s Dreaming (1958), which argued that dreams do not have genuine duration or temporal location, and do not entail having genuine experiences, and “Anselm’s Ontological Arguments” (1960), which defended a version of the ontological argument. Malcolm wrote extensively on memory, first in his “Three Lectures on Memory,” published in his Knowledge and Certainty (1963), and then in his Memory and Mind (1976). In the latter he criticized both philosophical and psychological theories of memory, and argued that the notion of a memory trace “is not a scientific discovery . . . [but] a product of philosophical thinking, of a sort that is natural and enormously tempting, yet thoroughly muddled.” A recurrent theme in Malcolm’s thought was that philosophical understanding requires getting to the root of the temptations to advance some philosophical doctrine, and that once we do so we will see the philosophical doctrines as Maistre, Joseph-Marie de Malcolm, Norman 530 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 530 confused or nonsensical. Although he was convinced that dualism and other Cartesian views about the mind were thoroughly confused, he thought no better of contemporary materialist and functionalist views, and of current theorizing in psychology and linguistics (one paper is entitled “The Myth of Cognitive Processes and Structures”). He shared with Wittgenstein both an antipathy to scientism and a respect for religion. He shared with Moore an antipathy to obscurantism and a respect for common sense. Malcolm’s last published book, Nothing Is Hidden (1986), examines the relations between Wittgenstein’s earlier and later philosophies. His other books include Problems of Mind (1971), Thought and Knowledge (1977), and Consciousness and Causality (1984), the latter coauthored with Armstrong. His writings are marked by an exceptionally lucid, direct, and vivid style. See also BOUWSMA, MOORE, ORDINARY LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY, WITTGENSTEIN. S.Sho. Malebranche, Nicolas (1638–1715), French philosopher and theologian, an important but unorthodox proponent of Cartesian philosophy. Malebranche was a priest of the Oratory, a religious order founded in 1611 by Cardinal Bérulle, who was favorably inclined toward Descartes. Malebranche himself became a Cartesian after reading Descartes’s physiological Treatise on Man in 1664, although he ultimately introduced crucial modifications into Cartesian ontology, epistemology, and physics. Malebranche’s most important philosophical work is The Search After Truth (1674), in which he presents his two most famous doctrines: the vision in God and occasionalism. He agrees with Descartes and other philosophers that ideas, or immaterial representations present to the mind, play an essential role in knowledge and perception. But whereas Descartes’s ideas are mental entities, or modifications of the soul, Malebranche argues that the ideas that function in human cognition are in God – they just are the essences and ideal archetypes that exist in the divine understanding. As such, they are eternal and independent of finite minds, and make possible the clear and distinct apprehension of objective, neccessary truth. Malebranche presents the vision in God as the proper Augustinian view, albeit modified in the light of Descartes’s epistemological distinction between understanding and sensation. The theory explains both our apprehension of universals and mathematical and moral principles, as well as the conceptual element that, he argues, necessarily informs our perceptual acquaintance with the world. Like Descartes’s theory of ideas, Malebranche’s doctrine is at least partly motivated by an antiskepticism, since God’s ideas cannot fail to reveal either eternal truths or the essences of things in the world created by God. The vision in God, however, quickly became the object of criticism by Locke, Arnauld, Foucher, and others, who thought it led to a visionary and skeptical idealism, with the mind forever enclosed by a veil of divine ideas. Malebranche is also the best-known proponent of occasionalism, the doctrine that finite created beings have no causal efficacy and that God alone is a true causal agent. Starting from Cartesian premises about matter, motion, and causation – according to which the essence of body consists in extension alone, motion is a mode of body, and a causal relation is a logically necessary relation between cause and effect – Malebranche argues that bodies and minds cannot be genuine causes of either physical events or mental states. Extended bodies, he claims, are essentially inert and passive, and thus cannot possess any motive force or power to cause and sustain motion. Moreover, there is no necessary connection between any mental state (e.g. a volition) or physical event and the bodily motions that usually follow it. Such necessity is found only between the will of an omnipotent being and its effects. Thus, all phenomena are directly and immediately brought about by God, although he always acts in a lawlike way and on the proper occasion. Malebranche’s theory of ideas and his occasionalism, as presented in the Search and the later Dialogues on Metaphysics (1688), were influential in the development of Berkeley’s thought; and his arguments for the causal theory foreshadow many of the considerations regarding causation and induction later presented by Hume. In addition to these innovations in Cartesian metaphysics and epistemology, Malebranche also modified elements of Descartes’s physics, most notably in his account of the hardness of bodies and of the laws of motion. In his other major work, the Treatise on Nature and Grace (1680), Malebranche presents a theodicy, an explanation of how God’s wisdom, goodness, and power are to be reconciled with the apparent imperfections and evils in the world. In his account, elements of which Leibniz borrows, Malebranche claims that God could have created a more perfect world, one without the defects that plague this world, but that this would have Malebranche, Nicolas Malebranche, Nicolas 531 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 531 involved greater complexity in the divine ways. God always acts in the simplest way possible, and only by means of lawlike general volitions; God never acts by “particular” or ad hoc volitions. But this means that while on any particular occasion God could intervene and forestall an apparent evil that is about to occur by the ordinary courses of the laws of nature (e.g. a drought), God would not do so, for this would compromise the simplicity of God’s means. The perfection or goodness of the world per se is thus relativized to the simplicity of the laws of that world (or, which is the same thing, to the generality of the divine volitions that, on the occasionalist view, govern it). Taken together, the laws and the phenomena of the world form a whole that is most worthy of God’s nature – in fact, the best combination possible. Malebranche then extends this analysis to explain the apparent injustice in the distribution of grace among humankind. It is just this extension that initiated Arnauld’s attack and drew Malebranche into a long philosophical and theological debate that would last until the end of the century. See also ARNAULD, BERKELEY, OCCASIONALISM. S.N. Mani. See MANICHAEANISM. Manichaeanism, also Manichaeism, a syncretistic religion founded by the Babylonian prophet Mani (A.D. 216–77), who claimed a revelation from God and saw himself as a member of a line that included the Buddha, Zoroaster, and Jesus. In dramatic myths, Manichaeanism posited the good kingdom of God, associated with light, and the evil kingdom of Satan, associated with darkness. Awareness of light caused greed, hate, and envy in the darkness; this provoked an attack of darkness on light. In response the Father sent Primal Man, who lost the fight so that light and darkness were mixed. The Primal Man appealed for help, and the Living Spirit came to win a battle, making heaven and earth out of the corpses of darkness and freeing some capured light. A Third Messenger was sent; in response the power of darkness created Adam and Eve, who contained the light that still remained under his sway. Then Jesus was sent to a still innocent Adam who nonetheless sinned, setting in motion the reproductive series that yields humanity. This is the mythological background to the Manichaean account of the basic religious problem: the human soul is a bit of captured light, and the problem is to free the soul from darkness through asceticism and esoteric knowledge. Manichaeanism denies that Jesus was crucified, and Augustine, himself a sometime Manichaean, viewed the religion as a Docetic heresy that denies the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity in a real human body. The religion exhibits the pattern of escape from embodiment as a condition of salvation, also seen in Hinduism and Buddhism. See also AUGUSTINE, BUDDHISM, HINDUISM. K.E.Y. manifest content. See FREUD. manifold. See KANT. Mannheim, Karl (1893–1947), Hungarian-born German social scientist best known for his sociology of knowledge. Born in Budapest, where he took a university degree in philosophy, he settled in Heidelberg in 1919 as a private scholar until his call to Frankfurt as professor of sociology in 1928. Suspended as a Jew and as foreign-born by the Nazis in 1933, he accepted an invitation from the London School of Economics, where he was a lecturer for a decade. In 1943, Mannheim became the first professor of sociology of education at the University of London, a position he held until his death. Trained in the Hegelian tradition, Mannheim defies easy categorization: his mature politics became those of a liberal committed to social planning; with his many studies in the sociology of culture, of political ideologies, of social organization, of education, and of knowledge, among others, he founded several subdisciplines in sociology and political science. While his Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction (1940) expressed his own commitment to social planning, his most famous work, Ideology and Utopia (original German edition, 1929; revised English edition, 1936), established sociology of knowledge as a scientific enterprise and simultaneously cast doubt on the possibility of the very scientific knowledge on which social planning was to proceed. As developed by Mannheim, sociology of knowledge attempts to find the social causes of beliefs as contrasted with the reasons people have for them. Mannheim seemed to believe that this investigation both presupposes and demonstrates the impossibility of “objective” knowledge of society, a theme that relates sociology of knowledge to its roots in German philosophy and social theory (especially Marxism) and earlier in the thought of the idéologues of the immediate post–French Revolution decades. L.A.

Mansel, Henry Longueville (1820–71), British philosopher and clergyman, a prominent defender of Scottish common sense philosophy. Mansel was a professor of philosophy and ecclesiastical history at Oxford, and the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Much of his philosophy was derived from Kant as interpreted by Hamilton. In Prolegomena Logica (1851) he defined logic as the science of the laws of thought, while in Metaphysics(1860) he argued that human faculties are not suited to know the ultimate nature of things. He drew the religious implications of these views in his most influential work, The Limits of Religious Thought (1858), by arguing that God is rationally inconceivable and that the only available conception of God is an analogical one derived from revelation. From this he concluded that religious dogma is immune from rational criticism. In the ensuing controversy Mansel was criticized by Spenser, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95), and J. S. Mill. J.W.A. many questions, fallacy of. See INFORMAL FALLACY. many-valued logic, a logic that rejects the principle of bivalence: every proposition is true or false. However, there are two forms of rejection: the truth-functional mode (many-valued logic proper), where propositions may take many values beyond simple truth and falsity, values functionally determined by the values of their components; and the truth-value gap mode, in which the only values are truth and falsity, but propositions may have neither. What value they do or do not have is not determined by the values or lack of values of their constituents. Many-valued logic has its origins in the work of Lukasiewicz and (independently) Post around 1920, in the first development of truth tables and semantic methods. Lukasiewicz’s philosophical motivation for his three-valued calculus was to deal with propositions whose truth-value was open or “possible” – e.g., propositions about the future. He proposed they might take a third value. Let 1 represent truth, 0 falsity, and the third value be, say, ½. We take Ý (not) and P (implication) as primitive, letting v(ÝA) % 1 † v(A) and v(A P B) % min(1,1 † v(A)!v(B)). These valuations may be displayed: Lukasiewicz generalized the idea in 1922, to allow first any finite number of values, and finally infinitely, even continuum-many values (between 0 and 1). One can then no longer represent the functionality by a matrix; however, the formulas given above can still be applied. Wajsberg axiomatized Lukasiewicz’s calculus in 1931. In 1953 Lukasiewicz published a four-valued extensional modal logic. In 1921, Post presented an m-valued calculus, with values 0 (truth), . . . , m † 1 (falsity), and matrices defined on Ý and v (or): v(ÝA) % 1 ! v(A) (modulo m) and v(AvB) % min (v(A),v(B)). Translating this for comparison into the same framework as above, we obtain the matrices (with 1 for truth and 0 for falsity): The strange cyclic character of Ý makes Post’s system difficult to interpret – though he did give one in terms of sequences of classical propositions. A different motivation led to a system with three values developed by Bochvar in 1939, namely, to find a solution to the logical paradoxes. (Lukasiewicz had noted that his three-valued system was free of antinomies.) The third value is indeterminate (so arguably Bochvar’s system is actually one of gaps), and any combination of values one of which is indeterminate is indeterminate; otherwise, on the determinate values, the matrices are classical. Thus we obtain for Ý and P, using 1, ½, and 0 as above: In order to develop a logic of many values, one needs to characterize the notion of a thesis, or logical truth. The standard way to do this in manyvalued logic is to separate the values into designated and undesignated. Effectively, this is to reintroduce bivalence, now in the form: Every proposition is either designated or undesignated. Thus in Lukasiewicz’s scheme, 1 (truth) is the only designated value; in Post’s, any initial segment 0, . . . , n † 1, where n‹m (0 as truth). In general, one can think of the various designated values as types of truth, or ways a proposition may be true, and the undesignated ones as ways it can be false. Then a proposition is a thesis if and Mansel, Henry Longueville many-valued logic 533 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 533 only if it takes only designated values. For example, p P p is, but p 7 Ýp is not, a Lukasiewicz thesis. However, certain matrices may generate no logical truths by this method, e.g., the Bochvar matrices give ½ for every formula any of whose variables is indeterminate. If both 1 and ½ were designated, all theses of classical logic would be theses; if only 1, no theses result. So the distinction from classical logic is lost. Bochvar’s solution was to add an external assertion and negation. But this in turn runs the risk of undercutting the whole philosophical motivation, if the external negation is used in a Russell-type paradox. One alternative is to concentrate on consequence: A is a consequence of a set of formulas X if for every assignment of values either no member of X is designated or A is. Bochvar’s consequence relation (with only 1 designated) results from restricting classical consequence so that every variable in A occurs in some member of X. There is little technical difficulty in extending many-valued logic to the logic of predicates and quantifiers. For example, in Lukasiewicz’s logic, v(E xA) % min {v(A(a/x)): a 1. D}, where D is, say, some set of constants whose assignments exhaust the domain. This interprets the universal quantifier as an “infinite” conjunction. In 1965, Zadeh introduced the idea of fuzzy sets, whose membership relation allows indeterminacies: it is a function into the unit interval [0,1], where 1 means definitely in, 0 definitely out. One philosophical application is to the sorites paradox, that of the heap. Instead of insisting that there be a sharp cutoff in number of grains between a heap and a non-heap, or between red and, say, yellow, one can introduce a spectrum of indeterminacy, as definite applications of a concept shade off into less clear ones. Nonetheless, many have found the idea of assigning further definite values, beyond truth and falsity, unintuitive, and have instead looked to develop a scheme that encompasses truthvalue gaps. One application of this idea is found in Kleene’s strong and weak matrices of 1938. Kleene’s motivation was to develop a logic of partial functions. For certain arguments, these give no definite value; but the function may later be extended so that in such cases a definite value is given. Kleene’s constraint, therefore, was that the matrices be regular: no combination is given a definite value that might later be changed; moreover, on the definite values the matrices must be classical. The weak matrices are as for Bochvar. The strong matrices yield (1 for truth, 0 for falsity, and u for indeterminacy): An alternative approach to truth-value gaps was presented by Bas van Fraassen in the 1960s. Suppose v(A) is undefined if v(B) is undefined for any subformula B of A. Let a classical extension of a truth-value assignment v be any assignment that matches v on 0 and 1 and assigns either 0 or 1 whenever v assigns no value. Then we can define a supervaluation w over v: w(A) % 1 if the value of A on all classical extensions of v is 1, 0 if it is 0 and undefined otherwise. A is valid if w(A) % 1 for all supervaluations w (over arbitrary valuations). By this method, excluded middle, e.g., comes out valid, since it takes 1 in all classical extensions of any partial valuation. Van Fraassen presented several applications of the supervaluation technique. One is to free logic, logic in which empty terms are admitted. See also FREE LOGIC, VAGUENESS. S.L.R. Mao Tse-tung (1893–1976), Chinese Communist leader, founder of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. He believed that Marxist ideas must be adapted to China. Contrary to the Marxist orthodoxy, which emphasized workers, Mao organized peasants in the countryside. His philosophical writings include On Practice (1937) and On Contradiction (1937), synthesizing dialectical materialism and traditional Chinese philosophy. In his later years he departed from the gradual strategy of his On New Democracy (1940) and adopted increasingly radical means to change China. Finally he started the Cultural Revolution in 1967 and plunged China into disaster. See also CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, LIANG SOU-MING, LIU SHAO-CH’I. S.-h.L. Marburg School. See NEO-KANTIANISM. Marcel, Gabriel (1889–1973), French philosopher and playwright, a major representative of French existential thought. He was a member of the Academy of Political and Social Science of the Institute of France. Musician, drama critic, and lecturer of international renown, he authored thirty plays and as many philosophic essays. He considered his principal contribution to be that of a philosopher-dramatist. Together, his dramatic and philosophic works cut a path for Mao Tse-tung Marcel, Gabriel 534 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 534 the reasoned exercise of freedom to enhance the dignity of human life. The conflicts and challenges of his own life he brought to the light of the theater; his philosophic works followed as efforts to discern critically through rigorous, reasoned analyses the alternative options life offers. His dramatic masterpiece, The Broken World, compassionately portrayed the devastating sense of emptiness, superficial activities, and fractured relationships that plague the modern era. This play cleared a way for Marcel to transcend nineteenth-century British and German idealism, articulate his distinction between problem and mystery, and evolve an existential approach that reflectively clarified mysteries that can provide depth and meaningfulness to human life. In the essay “On the Ontological Mystery,” a philosophic sequel to The Broken World, Marcel confronted the questions “Who am I? – Is Being empty or full?” He explored the regions of body or incarnate being, intersubjectivity, and transcendence. His research focused principally on intersubjectivity clarifying the requisite attitudes and essential characteristics of I-Thou encounters, interpersonal relations, commitment and creative fidelity – notions he also developed in Homo Viator (1945) and Creative Fidelity (1940). Marcel’s thought balanced despair and hope, infidelity and fidelity, self-deception and a spirit of truth. He recognized both the role of freedom and the role of fundamental attitudes or prephilosophic dispositions, as these influence one’s way of being and the interpretation of life’s meaning. Concern for the presence of loved ones who have died appears in both Marcel’s dramatic and philosophic works, notably in Presence and Immortality. This concern, coupled with his reflections on intersubjectivity, led him to explore how a human subject can experience the presence of God or the presence of loved ones from beyond death. Through personal experience, dramatic imagination, and philosophic investigation, he discovered that such presence can be experienced principally by way of inwardness and depth. “Presence” is a spiritual influx that profoundly affects one’s being, uplifting it and enriching one’s personal resources. While it does depend on a person’s being open and permeable, presence is not something that the person can summon forth. A conferral or presence is always a gratuitous gift, coauthored and marked by its signal benefit, an incitement to create. So Marcel’s reflection on interpersonal communion enabled him to conceive philosophically how God can be present to a person as a life-giving and personalizing force whose benefit is always an incitement to create. See also BUBER, EXISTENTIALISM, PHILOSOPHY OF LITERATURE. K.R.H. Marcus, Ruth Barcan (b.1921), American philosopher best known for her seminal work in philosophical logic. In 1946 she published the first systematic treatment of quantified modal logic, thereby turning aside Quine’s famous attack on the coherence of combining quantifiers with alethic operators. She later extended the first-order formalization to second order with identity (1947) and to modalized set theory (1963). Marcus’s writings in logic either inaugurated or brought to the fore many issues that have loomed large in subsequent philosophical theorizing. Of particular significance are the Barcan formula (1946), the theorem about the necessity of identity (1963), a flexible notion of extensionality (1960, 1961), and the view that ordinary proper names are contentless directly referential tags (1961). This last laid the groundwork for the theory of direct reference later advanced by Kripke, Keith Donnellan, David Kaplan, and others. No less a revolutionary in moral theory, Marcus undermined the entire structure of standard deontic logic in her paper on iterated deontic modalities (1966). She later (1980) argued against some theorists that moral dilemmas are real, and against others that moral dilemmas need neither derive from inconsistent rules nor imply moral anti-realism. In her series of papers on belief (1981, 1983, 1990), Marcus repudiates theories that identify beliefs with attitudes to linguistic or quasi-linguistic items. She argues instead that for an agent A to believe that p is for A to be disposed to behave as if p obtains (where p is a possible state of affairs). Her analysis mobilizes a conception of rational agents as seeking to maintain global coherence among the verbal and non-verbal indicators of their beliefs. During much of Marcus’s career she served as Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. She has also served as chair of the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association and president of its Central Division, president of the Association of Symbolic Logic, and president of the Institut International de Philosophie. See also BELIEF, CAUSAL THEORY OF PROPER NAMES, MODAL LOGIC, MORAL DILEMMA, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC, QUINE. D.R. & W.S.-A. Marcus, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Ruth Barcan 535 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 535 Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 121–80), Roman emperor (from 161) and philosopher. Author of twelve books of Meditations (Greek title, To Himself), Marcus Aurelius is principally interesting in the history of Stoic philosophy (of which he was a diligent student) for his ethical self-portrait. Except for the first book, detailing his gratitude to his family, friends, and teachers, the aphorisms are arranged in no order; many were written in camp during military campaigns. They reflect both the Old Stoa and the more eclectic views of Posidonius, with whom he holds that involvement in public affairs is a moral duty. Marcus, in accord with Stoicism, considers immortality doubtful; happiness lies in patient acceptance of the will of the panentheistic Stoic God, the material soul of a material universe. Anger, like all emotions, is forbidden the Stoic emperor: he exhorts himself to compassion for the weak and evil among his subjects. “Do not be turned into ‘Caesar,’ or dyed by the purple: for that happens” (6.30). “It is the privilege of a human being to love even those who stumble” (7.22). Sayings like these, rather than technical arguments, give the book its place in literary history. See also HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY, STOICISM. D.Ar. Marcuse, Herbert (1898–1979). German-born American political philosopher who reinterpreted the ideas of Marx and Freud. Marcuse’s work is among the most systematic and philosophical of the Frankfurt School theorists. After an initial attempt to unify Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger in an ontology of historicity in his habilitation on Hegel’s Ontology and the Theory of Historicity (1932), Marcuse was occupied during the 1930s with the problem of truth in a critical historical social theory, defending a contextindependent notion of truth against relativizing tendencies of the sociology of knowledge. Marcuse thought Hegel’s “dialectics” provided an alternative to relativism, empiricism, and positivism and even developed a revolutionary interpretation of the Hegelian legacy in Reason and Revolution (1941) opposed to Popper’s totalitarian one. After World War II, Marcuse appropriated Freud in the same way that he had appropriated Hegel before the war, using his basic concepts for a critical theory of the repressive character of civilization in Eros and Civilization (1955). In many respects, this book comes closer to presenting a positive conception of reason and Enlightenment than any other work of the Frankfurt School. Marcuse argued that civilization has been antagonistic to happiness and freedom through its constant struggle against basic human instincts. According to Marcuse, human existence is grounded in Eros, but these impulses depend upon and are shaped by labor. By synthesizing Marx and Freud, Marcuse holds out the utopian possibility of happiness and freedom in the unity of Eros and labor, which at the very least points toward the reduction of “surplus repression” as the goal of a rational economy and emancipatory social criticism. This was also the goal of his aesthetic theory as developed in The Aesthetic Dimension (1978). In One Dimensional Man (1964) and other writings, Marcuse provides an analysis of why the potential for a free and rational society has never been realized: in the irrationality of the current social totality, its creation and manipulation of false needs (or “repressive desublimation”), and hostility toward nature. Perhaps no other Frankfurt School philosopher has had as much popular influence as Marcuse, as evidenced by his reception in the student and ecology movements. See also CRITICAL THEORY, FRANKFURT SCHOOL. J.Bo. marginal utility. See UTILITARIANISM. Mariana, Juan de (1536–1624), Spanish Jesuit historian and political philosopher. Born in Talavera de la Reina, he studied at Alcalá de Henares and taught at Rome, Sicily, and Paris. His political ideas are contained in De rege et regis institutione (“On Kingship,” 1599) and De monetae mutatione (“On Currency,” 1609). Mariana held that political power rests on the community of citizens, and the power of the monarch derives from the people. The natural state of humanity did not include, as Vitoria held, government and other political institutions. The state of nature was one of justice in which all possessions were held in common, and cooperation characterized human relations. Private property is the result of technological advances that produced jealousy and strife. Antedating both Hobbes and Rousseau, Mariana argued that humans made a contract and delegated their political power to leaders in order to eliminate injustice and strife. However, only the people have the right to change the law. A monarch who does not follow the law and ceases to act for the citizens’ welfare may be forcibly removed. Tyrannicide is thus justifiable under some circumstances. See also CONTRACTARIANISM, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. J.J.E.G. Marcus Aurelius Mariana, Juan de 536 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 536 Maritain, Jacques (1882–1973), French Catholic philosopher whose innovative interpretation of Aquinas’s philosophy made him a central figure in Neo-Thomism. Bergson’s teaching saved him from metaphysical despair and a suicide pact with his fiancée. After his discovery of Aquinas, he rejected Bergsonism for a realistic account of the concept and a unified theory of knowledge, aligning the empirical sciences with the philosophy of nature, metaphysics, theology, and mysticism in Distinguish to Unite or The Degrees of Knowledge (1932). Maritain opposed the skepticism and idealism that severed the mind from sensibility, typified by the “angelism” of Descartes’s intuitionism. Maritain traced the practical effects of angelism in art, politics, and religion. His Art and Scholasticism (1920) employs ancient and medieval notions of art as a virtue and beauty as a transcendental aspect of being. In politics, especially Man and the State (1961), Maritain stressed the distinction between the person and the individual, the ontological foundation of natural rights, the religious origins of the democratic ideal, and the importance of the common good. He also argued for the possibility of philosophy informed by the data of revelation without compromising its integrity, and an Integral Humanism (1936) that affirms the political order while upholding the eternal destiny of the human person. See also AQUINAS, NEOTHOMISM. D.W.H. Markov process. See STOCHASTIC PROCESS. Marsilio dei Mainardine. See MARSILIUS OF PADUA. Marsilius of Inghen (c.1330–96), Dutch philosopher and theologian. Born near Nijmegen, Marsilius studied under Buridan, taught at Paris for thirty years, then, in 1383, moved to the newly founded University of Heidelberg, where he and Albert of Saxony established nominalism in Germany. In logic, he produced an Ockhamist revision of the Tractatus of Peter of Spain, often published as Textus dialectices in early sixteenthcentury Germany, and a commentary on Aristotle’s Prior Analytics. He developed Buridan’s theory of impetus in his own way, accepted Bradwardine’s account of the proportions of velocities, and adopted Nicholas of Oresme’s doctrine of intension and remission of forms, applying the new physics in his commentaries on Aristotle’s physical works. In theology he followed Ockham’s skeptical emphasis on faith, allowing that one might prove the existence of God along Scotistic lines, but insisting that, since natural philosophy could not accommodate the creation of the universe ex nihilo, God’s omnipotence was known only through faith. J.Lo. Marsilius of Padua, in Italian, Marsilio dei Mainardini (1275/80–1342), Italian political theorist. He served as rector of the University of Paris between 1312 and 1313; his anti-papal views forced him to flee Paris (1326) for Nuremberg, where he was political and ecclesiastic adviser of Louis of Bavaria. His major work, Defensor pacis (“Defender of Peace,” 1324), attacks the doctrine of the supremacy of the pope and argues that the authority of a secular ruler elected to represent the people is superior to the authority of the papacy and priesthood in both temporal and spiritual affairs. Three basic claims of Marsilius’s theory are that reason, not instinct or God, allows us to know what is just and conduces to the flourishing of human society; that governments need to enforce obedience to the laws by coercive measures; and that political power ultimately resides in the people. He was influenced by Aristotle’s ideal of the state as necessary to foster human flourishing. His thought is regarded as a major step in the history of political philosophy and one of the first defenses of republicanism. P.Gar. Martineau, James (1805–1900), English philosopher of religion and ethical intuitionist. As a minister and a professor, Martineau defended Unitarianism and opposed pantheism. In A Study of Religion (1888) Martineau agreed with Kant that reality as we experience it is the work of the mind, but he saw no reason to doubt his intuitive conviction that the phenomenal world corresponds to a real world of enduring, causally related objects. He believed that the only intelligible notion of causation is given by willing and concluded that reality is the expression of a divine will that is also the source of moral authority. In Types of Ethical Theory (1885) he claimed that the fundamental fact of ethics is the human tendency to approve and disapprove of the motives leading to voluntary actions, actions in which there are two motives present to consciousness. After freely choosing one of the motives, the agent can determine which action best expresses it. Since Martineau thought that agents intuitively know through conscience which motive is higher, the core of his ethical theory is a ranking of the thirteen principal motives, the highest of which is reverence. See also INTUITIONISM. J.W.A. Maritain, Jacques Martineau, James 537 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 537 Marx, Karl (1818–83), German social philosopher, economic theorist, and revolutionary. He lived and worked as a journalist in Cologne, Paris, and Brussels. After the unsuccessful 1848 revolutions in Europe, he settled in London, doing research and writing and earning some money as correspondent for the New York Tribune. In early writings, he articulated his critique of the religiously and politically conservative implications of the then-reigning philosophy of Hegel, finding there an acceptance of existing private property relationships and of the alienation generated by them. Marx understood alienation as a state of radical disharmony (1) among individuals, (2) between them and their own life activity, or labor, and (3) between individuals and their system of production. Later, in his masterwork Capital (1867, 1885, 1894), Marx employed Hegel’s method of dialectic to generate an internal critique of the theory and practice of capitalism, showing that, under assumptions (notably that human labor is the source of economic value) found in such earlier theorists as Adam Smith, this system must undergo increasingly severe crises, resulting in the eventual seizure of control of the increasingly centralized means of production (factories, large farms, etc.) from the relatively small class of capitalist proprietors by the previously impoverished non-owners (the proletariat) in the interest of a thenceforth classless society. Marx’s early writings, somewhat utopian in tone, most never published during his lifetime, emphasize social ethics and ontology. In them, he characterizes his position as a “humanism” and a “naturalism.” In the Theses on Feuerbach, he charts a middle path between Hegel’s idealist account of the nature of history as the selfunfolding of spirit and what Marx regards as the ahistorical, mechanistic, and passive materialist philosophy of Feuerbach; Marx proposes a conception of history as forged by human activity, or praxis, within determinate material conditions that vary by time and place. In later Marxism, this general position is often labeled dialectical materialism. Marx began radically to question the nature of philosophy, coming to view it as ideology, i.e., a thought system parading as autonomous but in fact dependent on the material conditions of the society in which it is produced. The tone of Capital is therefore on the whole less philosophical and moralistic, more social scientific and tending toward historical determinism, than that of the earlier writings, but punctuated by bursts of indignation against the baneful effects of capitalism’s profit orientation and references to the “society of associated producers” (socialism or communism) that would, or could, replace capitalist society. His enthusiastic predictions of immanent worldwide revolutionary changes, in various letters, articles, and the famous Communist Manifesto (1848; jointly authored with his close collaborator, Friedrich Engels), depart from the generally more hypothetical character of the text of Capital itself. The linchpin that perhaps best connects Marx’s earlier and later thought and guarantees his enduring relevance as a social philosopher is his analysis of the role of human labor power as a peculiar type of commodity within a system of commodity exchange (his theory of surplus value). Labor’s peculiarity, according to him, lies in its capacity actively to generate more exchange value than it itself costs employers as subsistence wages. But to treat human beings as profit-generating commodities risks neglecting to treat them as human beings. See also MARXISM, POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, PRAXIS. W.L.M. Marxism, the philosophy of Karl Marx, or any of several systems of thought or approaches to social criticism derived from Marx. The term is also applied, incorrectly, to certain sociopolitical structures created by dominant Communist parties during the mid-twentieth century. Karl Marx himself, apprised of the ideas of certain French critics who invoked his name, remarked that he knew at least that he was not a Marxist. The fact that his collaborator, Friedrich Engels, a popularizer with a greater interest than Marx in the natural sciences, outlived him and wrote, among other things, a “dialectics of nature” that purported to discover certain universal natural laws, added to the confusion. Lenin, the leading Russian Communist revolutionary, near the end of his life discovered previously unacknowledged connections between Marx’s Capital (1867) and Hegel’s Science of Logic (1812–16) and concluded (in his Philosophical Notebooks) that Marxists for a half-century had not understood Marx. Specific political agendas of, among others, the Marxist faction within the turn-of-the-century German Social Democratic Party, the Bolshevik faction of Russian socialists led by Lenin, and later governments and parties claiming allegiance to “Marxist-Leninist principles” have contributed to reinterpretations. For several decades in the Soviet Union and countries allied with it, a broad agreement concernMarx, Karl Marxism 538 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 538 ing fundamental Marxist doctrines was established and politically enforced, resulting in a doctrinaire version labeled “orthodox Marxism” and virtually ensuring the widespread, wholesale rejection of Marxism as such when dissidents taught to accept this version as authentic Marxism came to power. Marx never wrote a systematic exposition of his thought, which in any case drastically changed emphases across time and included elements of history, economics, and sociology as well as more traditional philosophical concerns. In one letter he specifically warns against regarding his historical account of Western capitalism as a transcendental analysis of the supposedly necessary historical development of any and all societies at a certain time. It is thus somewhat paradoxical that Marxism is often identified as a “totalizing” if not “totalitarian” system by postmodernist philosophers who reject global theories or “grand narratives” as inherently invalid. However, the evolution of Marxism since Marx’s time helps explain this identification. That “orthodox” Marxism would place heavy emphasis on historical determinism – the inevitability of a certain general sequence of events leading to the replacement of capitalism by a socialist economic system (in which, according to a formula in Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program, each person would be remunerated according to his/her work) and eventually by a communist one (remuneration in accordance with individual needs) – was foreshadowed by Plekhanov. In The Role of the Individual in History, he portrayed individual idiosyncrasies as accidental: e.g., had Napoleon not existed the general course of history would not have turned out differently. In Materialism and Empiriocriticism, Lenin offered epistemological reinforcement for the notion that Marxism is the uniquely true worldview by defending a “copy” or “reflection” theory of knowledge according to which true concepts simply mirror objective reality, like photographs. Elsewhere, however, he argued against “economism,” the inference that the historical inevitability of communism’s victory obviated political activism. Lenin instead maintained that, at least under the repressive political conditions of czarist Russia, only a clandestine party of professional revolutionaries, acting as the vanguard of the working class and in its interests, could produce fundamental change. Later, during the long political reign of Josef Stalin, the hegemonic Communist Party of the USSR was identified as the supreme interpreter of these interests, thus justifying totalitarian rule. So-called Western Marxism opposed this “orthodox” version, although the writings of one of its foremost early representatives, Georg Lukacs, who brilliantly perceived the close connection between Hegel’s philosophy and the early thought of Marx before the unpublished manuscripts proving this connection had been retrieved from archives, actually tended to reinforce both the view that the party incarnated the ideal interests of the proletariat (see his History and Class Consciousness) and an aesthetics favoring the art of “socialist realism” over more experimental forms. His contemporary, Karl Korsch, in Marxism as Philosophy, instead saw Marxism as above all a heuristic method, pointing to salient phenomena (e.g., social class, material conditioning) generally neglected by other philosophies. His counsel was in effect followed by the Frankfurt School of critical theory, including Walter Benjamin in the area of aesthetics, Theodor Adorno in social criticism, and Wilhelm Reich in psychology. A spate of “new Marxisms” – the relative degrees of their fidelity to Marx’s original thought cannot be weighed here – developed, especially in the wake of the gradual rediscovery of Marx’s more ethically oriented, less deterministic early writings. Among the names meriting special mention in this context are Ernst Bloch, who explored Marxism’s connection with utopian thinking; Herbert Marcuse, critic of the “one-dimensionality” of industrial society; the Praxis school (after the name of their journal and in view of their concern with analyzing social practices) of Yugoslav philosophers; and the later Jean-Paul Sartre. Also worthy of note are the writings, many of them composed in prison under Mussolini’s Italian Fascist rule, of Antonio Gramsci, who stressed the role of cultural factors in determining what is dominant politically and ideologically at any given time. Simultaneous with the decline and fall of regimes in which “orthodox Marxism” was officially privileged has been the recent development of new approaches, loosely connected by virtue of their utilization of techniques favored by British and American philosophers, collectively known as analytic Marxism. Problems of justice, theories of history, and the questionable nature of Marx’s theory of surplus value have been special concerns to these writers. This development suggests that the current unfashionableness of Marxism in many circles, due largely to its understandable but misleading identification with the aforementioned regimes, is itself only a temporary phenomenon, even if Marxism Marxism 539 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 539 future Marxisms are likely to range even further from Marx’s own specific concerns while still sharing his commitment to identifying, explaining, and criticizing hierarchies of dominance and subordination, particularly those of an economic order, in human society. See also CRITICAL THEORY, FRANKFURT SCHOOL, LUKACS, MARX, PRAXIS, PRAXIS SCHOOL. W.L.M. mass noun. See COUNT NOUN. master argument. See MEGARIANS. material adequacy, the property that belongs to a formal definition of a concept when that definition characterizes or “captures” the extension (or material) of the concept. Intuitively, a formal definition of a concept is materially adequate if and only if it is neither too broad nor too narrow. Tarski advanced the state of philosophical semantics by discovering the criterion of material adequacy of truth definitions contained in his convention T. Material adequacy contrasts with analytic adequacy, which belongs to definitions that provide a faithful analysis. Defining an integer to be even if and only if it is the product of two consecutive integers would be materially adequate but not analytically adequate, whereas defining an integer to be even if and only if it is a multiple of 2 would be both materially and analytically adequate. See also CONVENTION T, DEFINITION, FORMAL SEMANTICS, TARSKI, TRUTH. J. Cor. material cause. See ARISTOTLE. material conditional. See COUNTERFACTUALS, IMPLICATION. material equivalence. See EQUIVALENCE. material implication. See IMPLICATION. material implication, paradoxes of. See IMPLICATION. materialism. See METAPHYSICS, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. materialism, Australian. See SMART. materialism, central state. See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. materialism, dialectical. See MARX, PLEKHANOV. materialism, emergent. See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. materialism, historical. See ENGELS. materialism, non-reductive. See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. material mode. See METALANGUAGE. material supposition. See SUPPOSITIO. mathematical analysis, also called standard analysis, the area of mathematics pertaining to the so-called real number system, i.e. the area that can be based on an axiom set whose intended interpretation (standard model) has the set of real numbers as its domain (universe of discourse). Thus analysis includes, among its many subbranches, elementary algebra, differential and integral calculus, differential equations, the calculus of variations, and measure theory. Analytic geometry involves the application of analysis to geometry. Analysis contains a large part of the mathematics used in mathematical physics. The real numbers, which are representable by the ending and unending decimals, are usefully construed as (or as corresponding to) distances measured, relative to an arbitrary unit length, positively to the right and negatively to the left of an arbitrarily fixed zero point along a geometrical straight line. In particular, the class of real numbers includes as increasingly comprehensive proper subclasses the natural numbers, the integers (positive, negative, and zero), the rational numbers (or fractions), and the algebraic numbers (such as the square root of two). Especially important is the presence in the class of real numbers of non-algebraic (or transcendental) irrational numbers such as pi. The set of real numbers includes arbitrarily small and arbitrarily large, finite quantities, while excluding infinitesimal and infinite quantities. Analysis, often conceived as the mathematics of continuous magnitude, contrasts with arithmetic (natural number theory), which is regarded as the mathematics of discrete magnitude. Analysis is often construed as involving not just the real numbers but also the imaginary (complex) numbers. Traditionally analysis is expressed in a second-order or higher-order language wherein its axiom set has categoricity; each of its models is isomorphic to (has the same structure as) the standard model. When analysis is carried out in a first-order language, as has been increasingly the case since the 1950s, categoricity is impossible and it has nonstandard mass noun mathematical analysis 540 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 540 models in addition to its standard model. A nonstandard model of analysis is an interpretation not isomorphic to the standard model but nevertheless satisfying the axiom set. Some of the nonstandard models involve objects reminiscent of the much-despised “infinitesimals” that were essential to the Leibniz approach to calculus and that were subject to intense criticism by Berkeley and other philosophers and philosophically sensitive mathematicians. These non-standard models give rise to a new area of mathematics, non-standard analysis, within which the fallacious arguments used by Leibniz and other early analysts form the heuristic basis of new and entirely rigorous proofs. See also CALCULUS, CATEGORICITY, PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS. J.Cor. mathematical constructivism. See PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS. mathematical function, an operation that, when applied to an entity (set of entities) called its argument(s), yields an entity known as the value of the function for that argument(s). This operation can be expressed by a functional equation of the form y % f(x) such that a variable y is said to be a function of a variable x if corresponding to each value of x there is one and only one value of y. The x is called the independent variable (or argument of the function) and the y the dependent variable (or value of the function). (Some definitions consider the relation to be the function, not the dependent variable, and some definitions permit more than one value of y to correspond to a given value of x, as in x2 ! y2 % 4.) More abstractly, a function can be considered to be simply a special kind of relation (set of ordered pairs) that to any element in its domain relates exactly one element in its range. Such a function is said to be a one-to-one correspondence if and only if the set {x,y} elements of S and {z,y} elements of S jointly imply x % z. Consider, e.g., the function {(1,1), (2,4), (3,9), (4,16), (5,25), (6,36)}, each of whose members is of the form (x,x2) – the squaring function. Or consider the function {(0,1), (1,0)} – which we can call the negation function. In contrast, consider the function for exclusive alternation (as in you may have a beer or glass of wine, but not both). It is not a one-to-one correspondence. For, 0 is the value of (0,1) and of (1,0), and 1 is the value of (0,0) and of (1,1). If we think of a function as defined on the natural numbers – functions from Nn to N for various n (most commonly n % 1 or 2) – a partial function is a function from Nn to N whose domain is not necessarily the whole of Nn (e.g., not defined for all of the natural numbers). A total function from Nn to N is a function whose domain is the whole of Nn (e.g., all of the natural numbers). See also FUNCTIONALISM, TELEOLOGY. F.A. mathematical induction, a method of definition and a method of proof. A collection of objects can be defined inductively. All members of such a collection can be shown to have a property by an inductive proof. The natural numbers and the set of well-formed formulas of a formal language are familiar examples of sets given by inductive definition. Thus, the set of natural numbers is inductively defined as the smallest set, N, such that: (B) 0 is in N and (I) for any x in N the successor of x is in N. (B) is the basic clause and (I) the inductive clause of this definition. Or consider a propositional language built on negation and conjunction. We start with a denumerable class of atomic sentence symbols ATOM = {A1, A2, . . .}. Then we can define the set of well-formed formulas, WFF, as the smallest set of expressions such that: (B) every member of ATOM is in WFF and (I) if x is in WFF then (- x) is in WFF and if x and y are in WFF then (x & y) is in WFF. We show that all members of an inductively defined set have a property by showing that the members specified by the basis have that property and that the property is preserved by the induction. For example, we show that all WFFs have an even number of parentheses by showing (i) that all ATOMs have an even number of parentheses and (ii) that if x and y have an even number of parentheses then so do (- x) and (x & y). This shows that the set of WFFs with an even number of parentheses satisfies (B) and (I). The set of WFFs with an even number of parentheses must then be identical to WFF, since – by definition – WFF is the smallest set that satisfies (B) and (I). Ordinary proof by mathematical induction shows that all the natural numbers, or all members of some set with the order type of the natural numbers, share a property. Proof by transfinite induction, a more general form of proof by mathematical induction, shows that all members of some well-ordered set have a certain property. A set is well-ordered if and only if every non-empty subset of it has a least element. The natural numbers are well-ordered. It is a consequence of the axiom of choice that every set can be well-ordered. Suppose that a set, X, is well-ordered and that P is the subset of X whose mathematical constructivism mathematical induction 541 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 541 members have the property of interest. Suppose that it can be shown for any element x of X, if all members of X less that x are in P, then so is x. Then it follows by transfinite induction that all members of X have the property, that X % P. For if X did not coincide with P, then the set of elements of x not in P would be non-empty. Since X is well-ordered, this set would have a least element, x*. But then by definition, all members of X less than x* are in P, and by hypothesis x* must be in P after all. See also INDUCTION, PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS, PROOF THEORY. B.Sk. mathematical intuitionism, a twentieth-century movement that reconstructs mathematics in accordance with an epistemological idealism and a Kantian metaphysics. Specifically, Brouwer, its founder, held that there are no unexperienced truths and that mathematical objects stem from the a priori form of those conscious acts which generate empirical objects. Unlike Kant, however, Brouwer rejected the apriority of space and based mathematics solely on a refined conception of the intuition of time. Intuitionistic mathematics. According to Brouwer, the simplest mathematical act is to distinguish between two diverse elements in the flow of consciousness. By repeating and concatenating such acts we generate each of the natural numbers, the standard arithmetical operations, and thus the rational numbers with their operations as well. Unfortunately, these simple, terminating processes cannot produce the convergent infinite sequences of rational numbers that are needed to generate the continuum (the nondenumerable set of real numbers, or of points on the line). Some “proto-intuitionists” admitted infinite sequences whose elements are determined by finitely describable rules. However, the set of all such algorithmic sequences is denumerable and thus can scarcely generate the continuum. Brouwer’s first attempt to circumvent this – by postulating a single intuition of an ever growing continuum – mirrored Aristotle’s picture of the continuum as a dynamic whole composed of inseparable parts. But this approach was incompatible with the set-theoretic framework that Brouwer accepted, and by 1918 he had replaced it with the concept of an infinite choice sequence. A choice sequence of rational numbers is, to be sure, generated by a “rule,” but the rule may leave room for some degree of freedom in choosing the successive elements. It might, e.g., simply require that the n ! 1st choice be a rational number that lies within 1/n of the nth choice. The set of real numbers generated by such semideterminate sequences is demonstrably non-denumerable. Following his epistemological beliefs, Brouwer admitted only those properties of a choice sequence which are determined by its rule and by a finite number of actual choices. He incorporated this restriction into his version of set theory and obtained a series of results that conflict with standard (classical) mathematics. Most famously, he proved that every function that is fully defined over an interval of real numbers is uniformly continuous. (Pictorially, the graph of the function has no gaps or jumps.) Interestingly, one corollary of this theorem is that the set of real numbers cannot be divided into mutually exclusive subsets, a property that rigorously recovers the Aristotelian picture of the continuum. The clash with classical mathematics. Unlike his disciple Arend Heyting, who considered intuitionistic and classical mathematics as separate and therefore compatible subjects, Brouwer viewed them as incompatible treatments of a single subject matter. He even occasionally accused classical mathematics of inconsistency at the places where it differed from intuitionism. This clash concerns the basic concept of what counts as a mathematical object. Intuitionism allows, and classical mathematics rejects, objects that may be indeterminate with respect to some of their properties. Logic and language. Because he believed that mathematical constructions occur in prelinguistic consciousness, Brouwer refused to limit mathematics by the expressive capacity of any language. Logic, he claimed, merely codifies already completed stages of mathematical reasoning. For instance, the principle of the excluded middle stems from an “observational period” during which mankind catalogued finite phenomena (with decidable properties); and he derided classical mathematics for inappropriately applying this principle to infinitary aspects of mathematics. Formalization. Brouwer’s views notwithstanding, in 1930 Heyting produced formal systems for intuitionistic logic (IL) and number theory. These inspired further formalizations (even of the theory of choice sequences) and a series of proof-theoretic, semantic, and algebraic studies that related intuitionistic and classical formal systems. Stephen Kleene, e.g., interpreted IL mathematical intuitionism mathematical intuitionism 542 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 542 mathematical logic Maxwell, James Clerk 543 and other intuitionistic formal systems using the classical theory of recursive functions. Gödel, who showed that IL cannot coincide with any finite many-valued logic, demonstrated its relation to the modal logic, S4; and Kripke provided a formal semantics for IL similar to the possible worlds semantics for S4. For a while the study of intuitionistic formal systems used strongly classical methods, but since the 1970s intuitionistic methods have been employed as well. Meaning. Heyting’s formalization reflected a theory of meaning implicit in Brouwer’s epistemology and metaphysics, a theory that replaces the traditional correspondence notion of truth with the notion of constructive proof. More recently Michael Dummett has extended this to a warranted assertability theory of meaning for areas of discourse outside of mathematics. He has shown how assertabilism provides a strategy for combating realism about such things as physical objects, mental objects, and the past. See also BROUWER, CHOICE SEQUENCE, PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS, SET THEORY. C.J.P. mathematical logic. See FORMAL LOGIC. mathematical space. See SPACE. mathematical structuralism, the view that the subject of any branch of mathematics is a structure or structures. The slogan is that mathematics is the science of structure. Define a “natural number system” to be a countably infinite collection of objects with one designated initial object and a successor relation that satisfies the principle of mathematical induction. Examples of natural number systems are the Arabic numerals and an infinite sequence of distinct moments of time. According to structuralism, arithmetic is about the form or structure common to natural number systems. Accordingly, a natural number is something like an office in an organization or a place in a pattern. Similarly, real analysis is about the real number structure, the form common to complete ordered fields. The philosophical issues concerning structuralism concern the nature of structures and their places. Since a structure is a one-over-many of sorts, it is something like a universal. Structuralists have defended analogues of some of the traditional positions on universals, such as realism and nominalism. See also MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION, PEANO POSTULATES, PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS. S.Sha. mathematics, philosophy of. See PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS. matrix mechanics. See QUANTUM MECHANICS. matter. See METAPHYSICS. matter, prime. See HYLOMORPHISM. matter, principle of the conservation of. See PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. maxim. See KANT. maximal consistent set, in formal logic, any set of sentences S that is consistent – i.e., no contradiction is provable from S – and maximally so – i.e., if T is consistent and S 0 T, then S % T. It can be shown that if S is maximally consistent and s is a sentence in the same language, then either s or - s (the negation of s) is in S. Thus, a maximally consistent set is complete: it settles every question that can be raised in the language. See also COMPLETENESS, SET THEORY. P.Mad. maximal proposition. See TOPICS. maximin strategy, a strategy that maximizes an agent’s minimum gain, or equivalently, minimizes his maximum loss. Writers who work in terms of loss thus call such a strategy a minimax strategy. The term ‘security strategy’, which avoids potential confusions, is now widely used. For each action, its security level is its payoff under the worst-case scenario. A security strategy is one with maximal security level. An agent’s security strategy maximizes his expected utility if and only if (1) he is certain that “nature” has his worst interests at heart and (2) he is certain that nature will be certain of his strategy when choosing hers. The first condition is satisfied in the case of a two-person zero-sum game where the payoff structure is commonly known. In this situation, “nature” is the other player, and her gain is equal to the first player’s loss. Obviously, these conditions do not hold for all decision problems. See also DECISION THEORY, GAME THEORY. B.Sk. Maxwell, James Clerk (1831–79), Scottish physicist who made pioneering contributions to the theory of electromagnetism, the kinetic theory of gases, and the theory of color vision. His work on electromagnetism is summarized in his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873). In 1871 he 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 543 maya Mead, George Herbert 544 became Cambridge University’s first professor of experimental physics and founded the Cavendish Laboratory, which he directed until his death. Maxwell’s most important achievements were his field theory of electromagnetism and the discovery of the equations that bear his name. The field theory unified the laws of electricity and magnetism, identified light as a transverse vibration of the electromagnetic ether, and predicted the existence of radio waves. The fact that Maxwell’s equations are Lorentz-invariant and contain the speed of light as a constant played a major role in the genesis of the special theory of relativity. He arrived at his theory by searching for a “consistent representation” of the ether, i.e., a model of its inner workings consistent with the laws of mechanics. His search for a consistent representation was unsuccessful, but his papers used mechanical models and analogies to guide his thinking. Like Boltzmann, Maxwell advocated the heuristic value of model building. Maxwell was also a pioneer in statistical physics. His derivation of the laws governing the macroscopic behavior of gases from assumptions about the random collisions of gas molecules led directly to Boltzmann’s transport equation and the statistical analysis of irreversibility. To show that the second law of thermodynamics is probabilistic, Maxwell imagined a “neat-fingered” demon who could cause the entropy of a gas to decrease by separating the faster-moving gas molecules from the slower-moving ones. See also PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, RELATIVITY. M.C. maya, a term with various uses in Indian thought; it expresses the concept of Brahman’s power to act. One type of Brahmanic action is the assuming of material forms whose appearance can be changed at will. Demons as well as gods are said to have maya, understood as power to do things not within a standard human repertoire. A deeper sense refers to the idea that Brahman has and exercises the power to sustain everlastingly the entire world of conscious and non-conscious things. Monotheistically conceived, maya is the power of an omnipotent and omniscient deity to produce the world of dependent things. This power typically is conceived as feminine (Sakti) and various representations of the deity are conceived as male with female consorts, as with Vishnu and Siva. Without Sakti, Brahman would be masculine and passive and no created world would exist. By association, maya is the product of created activity. The created world is conceived as dependent, both a manifestation of divine power and a veil between Brahman and the devotee. Monistically conceived, maya expresses the notion that there only seems to be a world composed of distinct conscious and nonconscious things, and rather than this seeming multiplicity there exists only ineffable Brahman. Brahman is conceived as somehow producing the illusion of there being a plurality of persons and objects, and enlightenment (moksha) is conceived as seeing through the illusion. Monotheists, who ask who, on the monistic view, has the qualities requisite to produce illusion and how an illusion can see through itself, regard enlightenment (moksha) as a matter of devotion to the Brahman whom the created universe partially manifests, but also veils, whose nature is also revealed in religious experience. See also BRAHMAN. K.E.Y. Mead, George Herbert (1863–1931), American philosopher, social theorist, and social reformer. He was a member of the Chicago school of pragmatism, which included figures such as James Hayden Tufts and John Dewey. Whitehead agreed with Dewey’s assessment of Mead: “a seminal mind of the very first order.” Mead was raised in a household with deep roots in New England puritanism, but he eventually became a confirmed naturalist, convinced that modern science could make the processes of nature intelligible. On his path to naturalism he studied with the idealist Josiah Royce at Harvard. The German idealist tradition of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel (who were portrayed by Mead as Romantic philosophers in Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century) had a lasting influence on his thought, even though he became a confirmed empiricist. Mead is considered the progenitor of the school of symbolic interaction in sociology, and is best known for his explanation of the genesis of the mind and the self in terms of language development and role playing. A close friend of Jane Addams (1860–1935), he viewed his theoretical work in this area as lending weight to his progressive political convictions. Mead is often referred to as a social behaviorist. He employed the categories of stimulus and response in order to explain behavior, but contra behaviorists such as John B. Watson, Mead did not dismiss conduct that was not observed by others. He examined the nature of self-consciousness, whose development is depicted in Mind, Self, and Society, from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. He also addressed 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 544 behavior in terms of the phases of an organism’s adjustment to its environment in The Philosophy of the Act. His reputation as a theorist of the social development of the self has tended to eclipse his original work in other areas of concern to philosophers, e.g., ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of science. Influenced by Darwin, Mead sought to understand nature, as well as social relationships, in terms of the process of emergence. He emphasized that qualitatively new forms of life arise through natural and intelligible processes. When novel events occur the past is transformed, for the past has now given rise to the qualitatively new, and it must be seen from a different perspective. Between the arrival of the new order – which the novel event instigates – and the old order, there is a phase of readjustment, a stage that Mead describes as one of sociality. Mead’s views on these and related matters are discussed in The Philosophy of the Present. Mead never published a book-length work in philosophy. His unpublished manuscripts and students’ notes were edited and published as the books cited above. See also PHILOSOPHY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, PRAGMATISM. M.Ab. mean, doctrine of the. See ARISTOTLE, CHUNG-YUNG. meaning, the conventional, common, or standard sense of an expression, construction, or sentence in a given language, or of a non-linguistic signal or symbol. Literal meaning is the non-figurative, strict meaning an expression or sentence has in a language by virtue of the dictionary meaning of its words and the import of its syntactic constructions. Synonymy is sameness of literal meaning: ‘prestidigitator’ means ‘expert at sleight of hand’. It is said that meaning is what a good translation preserves, and this may or may not be literal: in French ‘Où sont les neiges d’antan?’ literally means ‘Where are the snows of yesteryear?’ and figuratively means ‘nothing lasts’. Signal-types and symbols have non-linguistic conventional meaning: the white flag means truce; the lion means St. Mark. In another sense, meaning is what a person intends to communicate by a particular utterance – utterer’s meaning, as Grice called it, or speaker’s meaning, in Stephen Schiffer’s term. A speaker’s meaning may or may not coincide with the literal meaning of what is uttered, and it may be non-linguistic. Non-literal: in saying “we will soon be in our tropical paradise,” Jane meant that they would soon be in Antarctica. Literal: in saying “that’s deciduous,” she meant that the tree loses its leaves every year. Non-linguistic: by shrugging, she meant that she agreed. The literal meaning of a sentence typically does not determine exactly what a speaker says in making a literal utterance: the meaning of ‘she is praising me’ leaves open what John says in uttering it, e.g. that Jane praises John at 12:00 p.m., Dec. 21, 1991. A not uncommon – but theoretically loaded – way of accommodating this is to count the context-specific things that speakers say as propositions, entities that can be expressed in different languages and that are (on certain theories) the content of what is said, believed, desired, and so on. On that assumption, a sentence’s literal meaning is a context-independent rule, or function, that determines a certain proposition (the content of what the speaker says) given the context of utterance. David Kaplan has called such a rule or function a sentence’s “character.” A sentence’s literal meaning also includes its potential for performing certain illocutionary acts, in J. L. Austin’s term. The meaning of an imperative sentence determines what orders, requests, and the like can literally be expressed: ‘sit down there’ can be uttered literally by Jane to request (or order or urge) John to sit down at 11:59 a.m. on a certain bench in Santa Monica. Thus a sentence’s literal meaning involves both its character and a constraint on illocutionary acts: it maps contexts onto illocutionary acts that have (something like) determinate propositional contents. A context includes the identity of speaker, hearer, time of utterance, and also aspects of the speaker’s intentions. In ethics the distinction has flourished between the expressive or emotive meaning of a word or sentence and its cognitive meaning. The emotive meaning of an utterance or a term is the attitude it expresses, the pejorative meaning of ‘chiseler’, say. An emotivist in ethics, e.g. C. L. Stevenson (1908–79), holds that the literal meaning of ‘it is good’ is identical with its emotive meaning, the positive attitude it expresses. On Hare’s theory, the literal meaning of ‘ought’ is its prescriptive meaning, the imperative force it gives to certain sentences that contain it. Such “noncognitivist” theories can allow that a term like ‘good’ also has non-literal descriptive meaning, implying nonevaluative properties of an object. By contrast, cognitivists take the literal meaning of an ethical term to be its cognitive meaning: ‘good’ stands for an objective property, and in asserting “it is good” one literally expresses, not an attitude, but a true or false judgment. mean, doctrine of the meaning 545 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 545 ’Cognitive meaning’ serves as well as any other term to capture what has been central in the theory of meaning beyond ethics, the “factual” element in meaning that remains when we abstract from its illocutionary and emotive aspects. It is what is shared by ‘there will be an eclipse tomorrow’ and ‘will there be an eclipse tomorrow?’. This common element is often identified with a proposition (or a “character”), but, once again, that is theoretically loaded. Although cognitive meaning has been the preoccupation of the theory of meaning in the twentieth century, it is difficult to define precisely in non-theoretical terms. Suppose we say that the cognitive meaning of a sentence is ‘that aspect of its meaning which is capable of being true or false’: there are non-truth-conditional theories of meaning (see below) on which this would not capture the essentials. Suppose we say it is ‘what is capable of being asserted’: an emotivist might allow that one can assert that a thing is good. Still many philosophers have taken for granted that they know cognitive meaning (under that name or not) well enough to theorize about what it consists in, and it is the focus of what follows. The oldest theories of meaning in modern philosophy are the seventeenth-to-nineteenth-century idea theory (also called the ideational theory) and image theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of words in public language derives from the ideas or mental images that words are used to express. As for what constitutes the representational properties of ideas, Descartes held it to be a basic property of the mind, inexplicable, and Locke a matter of resemblance (in some sense) between ideas and things. Contemporary analytic philosophy speaks more of propositional attitudes – thoughts, beliefs, intentions – than of ideas and images; and it speaks of the contents of such attitudes: if Jane believes that there are lions in Africa, that belief has as its content that there are lions in Africa. Virtually all philosophers agree that propositional attitudes have some crucial connection with meaning. A fundamental element of a theory of meaning is where it locates the basis of meaning, in thought, in individual speech, or in social practices. (i) Meaning may be held to derive entirely from the content of thoughts or propositional attitudes, that mental content itself being constituted independently of public linguistic meaning. (‘Constituted independently of’ does not imply ‘unshaped by’.) (ii) It may be held that the contents of beliefs and communicative intentions themselves derive in part from the meaning of overt speech, or even from social practices. Then meaning would be jointly constituted by both individual psychological and social linguistic facts. Theories of the first sort include those in the style of Grice, according to which sentences’ meanings are determined by practices or implicit conventions that govern what speakers mean when they use the relevant words and constructions. A speaker’s meaning is explained in terms of certain propositional attitudes, namely the speaker’s intentions to produce certain effects in hearers. To mean that it is raining is to utter or to do something (not necessarily linguistic) with the intention (very roughly) of getting one’s hearer to believe that it is raining. Theories of speaker’s meaning have been elaborated by Grice and by Schiffer. David Lewis has proposed that linguistic meaning is constituted by implicit conventions that systematically associate sentences with speakers’ beliefs rather than with communicative intentions. The contents of thought might be held to be constitutive of linguistic meaning independently of communication. Russell, and Wittgenstein in his early writings, wrote about meaning as if the key thing is the propositional content of the belief or thought that a sentence (somehow) expresses; they apparently regarded this as holding on an individual basis and not essentially as deriving from communication intentions or social practices. And Chomsky speaks of the point of language as being “the free expression of thought.” Such views suggest that ‘linguistic meaning’ may stand for two properties, one involving communication intentions and practices, the other more intimately related to thinking and conceiving. By contrast, the content of propositional attitudes and the meaning of overt speech might be regarded as coordinate facts neither of which can obtain independently: to interpret other people one must assign both content to their beliefs/intentions and meaning to their utterances. This is explicit in Davidson’s truth-conditional theory (see below); perhaps it is present also in the post-Wittgensteinian notion of meaning as assertability conditions – e.g., in the writings of Dummett. On still other accounts, linguistic meaning is essentially social. Wittgenstein is interpreted by Kripke as holding in his later writings that social rules are essential to meaning, on the grounds that they alone explain the normative aspect of meaning, explain the fact that an expression’s meaning determines that some uses are correct or others incorrect. Another way in which meaning meaning 546 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 546 meaning may be essentially social is Putnam’s “division of linguistic labor”: the meanings of some terms, say in botany or cabinetmaking, are set for the rest of us by specialists. The point might extend to quite non-technical words, like ‘red’: a person’s use of it may be socially deferential, in that the rule which determines what ‘red’ means in his mouth is determined, not by his individual usage, but by the usage of some social group to which he semantically defers. This has been argued by Tyler Burge to imply that the contents of thoughts themselves are in part a matter of social facts. Let us suppose there is a language L that contains no indexical terms, such as ‘now’, ‘I’, or demonstrative pronouns, but contains only proper names, common nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, logical words. (No natural language is like this; but the supposition simplifies what follows.) Theories of meaning differ considerably in how they would specify the meaning of a sentence S of L. Here are the main contenders. (i) Specify S’s truth conditions: S is true if and only if some swans are black. (ii) Specify the proposition that S expresses: S means (the proposition) that some swans are black. (iii) Specify S’s assertability conditions: S is assertable if and only if blackswan-sightings occur or black-swan-reports come in, etc. (iv) Translate S into that sentence of our language which has the same use as S or the same conceptual role. Certain theories, especially those that specify meanings in ways (i) and (ii), take the compositionality of meaning as basic. Here is an elementary fact: a sentence’s meaning is a function of the meanings of its component words and constructions, and as a result we can utter and understand new sentences – old words and constructions, new sentences. Frege’s theory of Bedeutung or reference, especially his use of the notions of function and object, is about compositionality. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein explains compositionality in his picture theory of meaning and theory of truth-functions. According to Wittgenstein, a sentence or proposition is a picture of a (possible) state of affairs; terms correspond to non-linguistic elements, and those terms’ arrangements in sentences have the same form as arrangements of elements in the states of affairs the sentences stand for. The leading truth-conditional theory of meaning is the one advocated by Davidson, drawing on the work of Tarski. Tarski showed that, for certain formalized languages, we can construct a finite set of rules that entails, for each sentence S of the infinitely many sentences of such a language, something of the form ‘S is true if and only if . . .’. Those finitely statable rules, which taken together are sometimes called a truth theory of the language, might entail ‘ “(x) (Rx P Bx)” is true if and only if every raven is black’. They would do this by having separately assigned interpretations to ‘R’, ‘B’, ‘P’, and ‘(x)’. Truth conditions are compositionally determined in analogous ways for sentences, however complex. Davidson proposes that Tarski’s device is applicable to natural languages and that it explains, moreover, what meaning is, given the following setting. Interpretation involves a principle of charity: interpreting a person N means making the best possible sense of N, and this means assigning meanings so as to maximize the overall truth of N’s utterances. A systematic interpretation of N’s language can be taken to be a Tarski-style truth theory that (roughly) maximizes the truth of N’s utterances. If such a truth theory implies that a sentence S is true in N’s language if and only if some swans are black, then that tells us the meaning of S in N’s language. A propositional theory of meaning would accommodate compositionality thus: a finite set of rules, which govern the terms and constructions of L, assigns (derivatively) a proposition (putting aside ambiguity) to each sentence S of L by virtue of S’s terms and constructions. If L contains indexicals, then such rules assign to each sentence not a fully specific proposition but a ‘character’ in the above sense. Propositions may be conceived in two ways: (a) as sets of possible circumstances or “worlds” – then ‘Hesperus is hot’ in English is assigned the set of possible worlds in which Hesperus is hot; and (b) as structured combinations of elements – then ‘Hesperus is hot’ is assigned a certain ordered pair of elements ‹M1,M2(. There are two theories about M1 and M2. They may be the senses of ‘Hesperus’ and ‘(is) hot’, and then the ordered pair is a “Fregean” proposition. They may be the references of ‘Hesperus’ and ‘(is) hot’, and then the ordered pair is a “Russellian” proposition. This difference reflects a fundamental dispute in twentieth-century philosophy of language. The connotation or sense of a term is its “mode of presentation,” the way it presents its denotation or reference. Terms with the same reference or denotation may present their references differently and so differ in sense or connotation. This is unproblematic for complex terms like ‘the capital of Italy’ and ‘the city on the Tiber’, which refer to Rome via different connotations. Controversy arises over simple terms, such as proper meaning meaning 547 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 547 names and common nouns. Frege distinguished sense and reference for all expressions; the proper names ‘Phosphorus’ and ‘Hesperus’ express descriptive senses according to how we understand them – [that bright starlike object visible before dawn in the eastern sky . . .], [that bright starlike object visible after sunset in the western sky . . .]; and they refer to Venus by virtue of those senses. Russell held that ordinary proper names, such as ‘Romulus’, abbreviate definite descriptions, and in this respect his view resembles Frege’s. But Russell also held that, for those simple terms (not ‘Romulus’) into which statements are analyzable, sense and reference are not distinct, and meanings are “Russellian” propositions. (But Russell’s view of their constituents differs from present-day views.) Kripke rejected the “Frege-Russell” view of ordinary proper names, arguing that the reference of a proper name is determined, not by a descriptive condition, but typically by a causal chain that links name and reference – in the case of ‘Hesperus’ a partially perceptual relation perhaps, in the case of ‘Aristotle’ a causal-historical relation. A proper name is rather a rigid designator: any sentence of the form ‘Aristotle is . . . ‘ expresses a proposition that is true in a given possible world (or set of circumstances) if and only if our (actual) Aristotle satisfies, in that world, the condition ‘ . . . ‘. The “Frege-Russell” view by contrast incorporates in the proposition, not the actual referent, but a descriptive condition connotated by ‘Aristotle’ (the author of the Metaphysics, or the like), so that the name’s reference differs in different worlds even when the descriptive connotation is constant. (Someone else could have written the Metaphysics.) Some recent philosophers have taken the rigid designator view to motivate the stark thesis that meanings are Russellian propositions (or characters that map contexts onto such propositions): in the above proposition/meaning ‹M1,M2(, M1 is simply the referent – the planet Venus – itself. This would be a referential theory of meaning, one that equates meaning with reference. But we must emphasize that the rigid designator view does not directly entail a referential theory of meaning. What about the meanings of predicates? What sort of entity is M2 above? Putnam and Kripke also argue an anti-descriptive point about natural kind terms, predicates like ‘(is) gold’, ‘(is a) tiger’, ‘(is) hot’. These are not equivalent to descriptions – ’gold’ does not mean ‘metal that is yellow, malleable, etc.’ – but are rigid designators of underlying natural kinds whose identities are discovered by science. On a referential theory of meanings as Russellian propositions, the meaning of ‘gold’ is then a natural kind. (A complication arises: the property or kind that ‘widow’ stands for seems a good candidate for being the sense or connotation of ‘widow’, for what one understands by it. The distinction between Russellian and Fregean propositions is not then firm at every point.) On the standard sense-theory of meanings as Fregean propositions, M1 and M2 are pure descriptive senses. But a certain “neo-Fregean” view, suggested but not held by Gareth Evans, would count M1 and M2 as object-dependent senses. For example, ‘Hesperus’ and ‘Phosphorus’ would rigidly designate the same object but have distinct senses that cannot be specified without mention of that object. Note that, if proper names or natural kind terms have meanings of either sort, their meanings vary from speaker to speaker. A propositional account of meaning (or the corresponding account of “character”) may be part of a broader theory of meaning; for example: (a) a Grice-type theory involving implicit conventions; (b) a theory that meaning derives from an intimate connection of language and thought; (c) a theory that invokes a principle of charity or the like in interpreting an individual’s speech; (d) a social theory on which meaning cannot derive entirely from the independently constituted contents of individuals’ thoughts or uses. A central tradition in twentieth-century theory of meaning identifies meaning with factors other than propositions (in the foregoing senses) and truth-conditions. The meaning of a sentence is what one understands by it; and understanding a sentence is knowing how to use it – knowing how to verify it and when to assert it, or being able to think with it and to use it in inferences and practical reasoning. There are competing theories here. In the 1930s, proponents of logical positivism held a verification theory of meaning, whereby a sentence’s or statement’s meaning consists in the conditions under which it can be verified, certified as acceptable. This was motivated by the positivists’ empiricism together with their view of truth as a metaphysical or non-empirical notion. A descendant of verificationism is the thesis, influenced by the later Wittgenstein, that the meaning of a sentence consists in its assertability conditions, the circumstances under which one is justified in asserting the sentence. If justification and truth can diverge, as they appear to, then a meaning meaning 548 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 548 sentence’s assertability conditions can be distinct from (what non-verificationists see as) its truth conditions. Dummett has argued that assertability conditions are the basis of meaning and that truth-conditional semantics rests on a mistake (and hence also propositional semantics in sense [a] above). A problem with assertability theories is that, as is generally acknowledged, compositional theories of the assertability conditions of sentences are not easily constructed. A conceptual role theory of meaning (also called conceptual role semantics) typically presupposes that we think in a language of thought (an idea championed by Fodor), a system of internal states structured like a language that may or may not be closely related to one’s natural language. The conceptual role of a term is a matter of how thoughts that contain the term are dispositionally related to other thoughts, to sensory states, and to behavior. Hartry Field has pointed out that our Fregean intuitions about ‘Hesperus’ and ‘Phosphorus’ are explained by those terms’ having distinct conceptual roles, without appeal to Fregean descriptive senses or the like, and that this is compatible with those terms’ rigidly designating the same object. This combination can be articulated in two ways. Gilbert Harman proposes that meaning is “wide” conceptual role, so that conceptual role incorporates not just inferential factors, etc., but also Kripke-Putnam external reference relations. But there are also two-factor theories of meaning, as proposed by Field among others, which recognize two strata of meaning, one corresponding to how a person understands a term – its narrow conceptual role, the other involving references, Russellian propositions, or truth-conditions. As the language-of-thought view indicates, some concerns about meaning have been taken over by theories of the content of thoughts or propositional attitudes. A distinction is often made between the narrow content of a thought and its wide content. If psychological explanation invokes only “what is in the head,” and if thought contents are essential to psychological explanation, there must be narrow content. Theories have appealed to the “syntax” or conceptual roles or “characters” of internal sentences, as well as to images and stereotypes. A thought’s wide content may then be regarded (as motivated by the Kripke-Putnam arguments) as a Russellian proposition. The naturalistic reference-relations that determine the elements of such propositions are the focus of causal, “informational” and “teleological” theories by Fodor, Dretske, and Ruth Millikan. Assertability theories and conceptual role theories have been called use theories of meaning in a broad sense that marks a contrast with truthconditional theories. On a use theory in this broad sense, understanding meaning consists in knowing how to use a term or sentence, or being disposed to use a term or sentence in response to certain external or conceptual factors. But ‘use theory’ also refers to the doctrine of the later writings of Wittgenstein, by whom theories of meaning that abstract from the very large variety of interpersonal uses of language are declared a philosopher’s mistake. The meanings of terms and sentences are a matter of the language games in which they play roles; these are too various to have a common structure that can be captured in a philosopher’s theory of meaning. Conceptual role theories tend toward meaning holism, the thesis that a term’s meaning cannot be abstracted from the entirety of its conceptual connections. On a holistic view any belief or inferential connection involving a term is as much a candidate for determining its meaning as any other. This could be avoided by affirming the analytic–synthetic distinction, according to which some of a term’s conceptual connections are constitutive of its meaning and others only incidental. (‘Bachelors are unmarried’ versus ‘Bachelors have a tax advantage’.) But many philosophers follow Quine in his skepticism about that distinction. The implications of holism are drastic, for it strictly implies that different people’s words cannot mean the same. In the philosophy of science, meaning holism has been held to imply the incommensurability of theories, according to which a scientific theory that replaces an earlier theory cannot be held to contradict it and hence not to correct or to improve on it – for the two theories’ apparently common terms would be equivocal. Remedies might include, again, maintaining some sort of analytic–synthetic distinction for scientific terms, or holding that conceptual role theories and hence holism itself, as Field proposes, hold only intrapersonally, while taking interpersonal and intertheoretic meaning comparisons to be referential and truth-conditional. Even this, however, leads to difficult questions about the interpretation of scientific theories. A radical position, associated with Quine, identifies the meaning of a theory as a whole with its empirical meaning, that is, the set of actual and possible sensory or perceptual situations that would count as verifying the theory as a whole. This can be seen as a successor to the verificationist theory, with theory replacing statement or sentence. Articulations of meaning meaning meaning 549 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 549 internal to a theory would then be spurious, as would virtually all ordinary intuitions about meaning. This fits well Quine’s skepticism about meaning, his thesis of the indeterminacy of translation, according to which no objective facts distinguish a favored translation of another language into ours from every apparently incorrect translation. Many constructive theories of meaning may be seen as replies to this and other skepticisms about the objective status of semantic facts. See also FORMAL SEMANTICS, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, SEMANTIC HOLISM, SPEECH ACT THEORY, VERIFICATIONISM. B.L. meaning, conceptual role theory of. See MEANING. meaning, descriptive. See EMOTIVISM, MEANING. meaning, dispositional theory of. See MEANING. meaning, emotive. See EMOTIVISM, MEANING. meaning, focal. See ARISTOTLE. meaning, idea theory of. See MEANING. meaning, ideational theory of. See PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. meaning, image theory of. See MEANING. meaning, picture theory of. See MEANING, WITTGENSTEIN. meaning, referential theory of. See MEANING, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. meaning, speaker’s. See MEANING. meaning, truth-conditional theory of. See MEANING. meaning, use theory of. See MEANING, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE. meaning, verifiability theory of. See MEANING, PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, VERIFICATIONISM. meaning holism. See HOLISM. meaning postulate, a sentence that specifies part or all of the meaning of a predicate. Meaning postulates would thus include explicit, contextual, and recursive definitions, reduction sentences for dispositional predicates, and, more generally, any sentences stating how the extensions of predicates are interrelated by virtue of the meanings of those predicates. For example, any reduction sentence of the form (x) (x has f / (x is malleable S x has y)) could be a meaning postulate for the predicate ‘is malleable’. The notion of a meaning postulate was introduced by Carnap, whose original interest stemmed from a desire to explicate sentences that are analytic (“true by virtue of meaning”) but not logically true. Where G is a set of such postulates, one could say that A is analytic with respect to G if and only if A is a logical consequence of G. On this account, e.g., the sentence ‘Jake is not a married bachelor’ is analytic with respect to {’All bachelors are unmarried’}. See also ANALYTIC– SYNTHETIC DISTINCTION, MEANING, REDUCTION SENTENCE. G.F.S. measurement. See MAGNITUDE. measurement, theory of. See MAGNITUDE. mechanical jurisprudence. See JURISPRUDENCE. mechanism, logical. See COMPUTER THEORY. mechanistic explanation, a kind of explanation countenanced by views that range from the extreme position that all natural phenomena can be explained entirely in terms of masses in motion of the sort postulated in Newtonian mechanics, to little more than a commitment to naturalistic explanations. Mechanism in its extreme form is clearly false because numerous physical phenomena of the most ordinary sort cannot be explained entirely in terms of masses in motion. Mechanics is only one small part of physics. Historically, explanations were designated as mechanistic to indicate that they included no reference to final causes or vital forces. In this weak sense, all present-day scientific explanations are mechanistic. The adequacy of mechanistic explanation is usually raised in connection with living creatures, especially those capable of deliberate action. For example, chromosomes lining up opposite their partners in preparation for meiosis looks like anything but a purely mechanical process, and yet the more we discover about the process, the more mechanistic it turns out to be. The mechanisms responsible for meiosis arose through variation and selection and cannot be totally understood without reference to the evolutionary process, but meiosis as it takes place at any one time appears to be a purely mechanistic physicochemical meaning, conceptual role theory of mechanistic explanation 550 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 550 process. Intentional behavior is the phenomenon that is most resistant to explanation entirely in physicochemical terms. The problem is not that we do not know enough about the functioning of the central nervous system but that no matter how it turns out to work, we will be disinclined to explain human action entirely in terms of physicochemical processes. The justification for this disinclination tends to turn on what we mean when we describe people as behaving intentionally. Even so, we may simply be mistaken to ascribe more to human action than can be explained in terms of purely physicochemical processes. See also BEHAVIORISM, EXPLANATION, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. D.L.H. mediate inference. See INFERENCE. medical ethics. See ETHICS.

Medina, Bartolomeo (1527–80), Spanish Dominican theologian who taught theology at Alcalá and then at Salamanca. His major works are commentaries on Aquinas’s Summa theologica. Medina is often called the father of probabilism but scholars disagree on the legitimacy of this attribution. Support for it is contained in Medina’s commentary on Aquinas’s Prima secundae (1577). Medina denies that it is sufficient for an opinion to be probable that there are apparent reasons in its favor and that it is supported by many people. For then all errors would be probable. Rather, an opinion is probable if it can be followed without censure and reproof, as when wise persons state and support it with excellent reasons. Medina suggests the use of these criteria in decisions concerning moral dilemmas (Suma de casos morales [“Summa of Moral Questions”], 1580). P.Gar. Megarians, also called Megarics, a loose-knit group of Greek philosophers active in the fourth and early third centuries B.C., whose work in logic profoundly influenced the course of ancient philosophy. The name derives from that of Megara, the hometown of Euclid (died c.365 B.C.; unrelated to the later mathematician), who was an avid companion of Socrates and author of (lost) Socratic dialogues. Little is recorded about his views, and his legacy rests with his philosophical heirs. Most prominent of these was Eubulides, a contemporary and critic of Aristotle; he devised a host of logical paradoxes, including the liar and the sorites or heap paradoxes. To many this ingenuity seemed sheer eristic, a label some applied to him. One of his associates, Alexinus, was a leading critic of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, whose arguments he twitted in incisive parodies. Stilpo (c.380–c.300 B.C.), a native of Megara, was also famous for disputation but best known for his apatheia (impassivity). Rivaling the Cynics as a preacher of self-reliance, he once insisted, after his city and home were plundered, that he lost nothing of his own since he retained his knowledge and virtue. Zeno the Stoic was one of many followers he attracted. Most brilliant of the Megarians was Diodorus, nicknamed Cronus or “Old Fogey” (fl. 300 B.C.), who had an enormous impact on Stoicism and the skeptical Academy. Among the first explorers of propositional logic, he and his associates were called “the dialecticians,” a label that referred not to an organized school or set of doctrines but simply to their highly original forms of reasoning. Diodorus defined the possible narrowly as what either is or will be true, and the necessary broadly as what is true and will not be false. Against his associate Philo, the first proponent of material implication, he maintained that a conditional is true if and only if it is neverthe case that its antecedent is true and its consequent false. He argued that matter is atomic and that time and motion are likewise discrete. With an exhibitionist’s flair, he demonstrated that meaning is conventional by naming his servants “But” and “However.” Most celebrated is his Master (or Ruling) Argument, which turns on three propositions: (1) Every truth about the past is necessary; (2) nothing impossible follows from something possible; and (3) some things are possible that neither are nor will be true. His aim was apparently to establish his definition of possibility by showing that its negation in (3) is inconsistent with (1) and (2), which he regarded as obvious. Various Stoics, objecting to the implication of determinism here, sought to uphold a wider form of possibility by overturning (1) or (2). Diodorus’s fame made him a target of satire by eminent poets, and it is said that he expired from shame after failing to solve on the spot a puzzle Stilpo posed at a party. See also ACADEMY, ARISTOTLE, CYNICS, SOCRATES, SORITES PARADOX, STOICISM. S.A.W. Meinong, Alexius (1853–1920), Austrian philosopher and psychologist, founder of Gegenstandstheorie, the theory of (existent and nonexistent intended) objects. He was the target of Russell’s criticisms of the idea of non-existent objects in his landmark essay “On Denoting” (1905). mediate inference Meinong, Alexius 551 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 551 Meinong, after eight years at the Vienna Gymnasium, enrolled in the University of Vienna in 1870, studying German philology and history and completing a dissertation (1874) on Arnold von Brescia. After this period he became interested in philosophy as a result of his critical selfdirected reading of Kant. At the suggestion of his teacher Franz Brentano, he undertook a systematic investigation of Hume’s empiricism, culminating in his first publications in philosophy, the Hume-Studien I, II (1878 and 1882). In 1882, Meinong was appointed Professor Extraordinarius at the University of Graz (receiving promotion to Ordinarius in 1889), where he remained until his death. At Graz he established the first laboratory for experimental psychology in Austria, and was occupied with psychological as well as philosophical problems throughout his career. The Graz school of phenomenological psychology and philosophical semantics, which centered on Meinong and his students, made important contributions to object theory in philosophical semantics, metaphysics, ontology, value theory, epistemology, theory of evidence, possibility and probability, and the analysis of emotion, imagination, and abstraction. Meinong’s object theory is based on a version of Brentano’s immanent intentionality thesis, that every psychological state contains an intended object toward which the mental event (or, in a less common terminology, a mental act) is semantically directed. Meinong, however, rejects Brentano’s early view of the immanence of the intentional, maintaining that thought is directed toward transcendent mind-independent existent or non-existent objects. Meinong distinguishes between judgments about the being (Sein) of intended objects of thought, and judgments about their “so-being,” character, or nature (Sosein). He claims that every thought is intentionally directed toward the transcendent mind-independent object the thought purports to be “about,” which entails that in at least some cases contingently non-existent and even impossible objects, for instance Berkeley’s golden mountain and the round square, must be included as non-existent intended objects in the object theory semantic domain. Meinong further maintains that an intended object’s Sosein is independent of its Sein or ontological status, of whether or not the object happens to exist. This means, contrary to what many philosophers have supposed, that non-existent objects can truly possess the constitutive properties predicated of them in thought. Meinong’s object theory evolved over a period of years, and underwent many additions and revisions. In its mature form, the theory includes the following principles: (1) Thought can freely (even if falsely) assume the existence of any describable object (principle of unrestricted free assumption, or unbeschränkten Annahmefreiheit thesis); (2) Every thought is intentionally directed toward a transcendent, mind-independent intended object (modified intentionality thesis); (3) Every intended object has a nature, character, Sosein, “how-it-is,” “so-being,” or “being thus-and-so,” regardless of its ontological status (independence of Sosein from Sein thesis); (4) Being or non-being is not part of the Sosein of any intended object, nor of an object considered in itself (indifference thesis, or doctrine of the Aussersein of the homeless pure object); (5) There are two modes of being or Sein for intended objects: (a) spatiotemporal existence and (b) Platonic subsistence (Existenz/Bestand thesis); (6) There are some intended objects that do not have Sein at all, but neither exist nor subsist (objects of which it is true that there are no such objects). Object theory, unlike extensionalist semantics, makes it possible, as in much of ordinary and scientific thought and language, to refer to and truly predicate properties of non-existent objects. There are many misconceptions about Meinong’s theory, such as that reflected in the objection that Meinong is a super-Platonist who inflates ontology with non-existent objects that nevertheless have being in some sense, that object theory tolerates outright logical inconsistency rather than mere incompatibility of properties in the Soseine of impossible intended objects. Russell, in his reviews of Meinong’s theory in 1904–05, raises the problem of the existent round square, which seems to be existent by virtue of the independence of Sosein from Sein, and to be non-existent by virtue of being globally and simultaneously both round and square. Meinong’s response involves several complex distinctions, but it has been observed that to avoid the difficulty he need only appeal to the distinction between konstitutorisch or nuclear and ausserkonstitutorisch or extranuclear properties, adopted from a suggestion by his student Ernst Mally (1878–1944), according to which only ordinary nuclear properties like being red, round, or ten centimeters tall are part of the Sosein of any object, to the exclusion of categorical or extranuclear properties like being existent, determinate, possible, or impossible. This avoids counterexamples like the existent round square, because it limits the independence of Sosein from Sein exclusively to nuclear properties, Meinong, Alexius Meinong, Alexius 552 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 552 implying that neither the existent nor the nonexistent round square can possibly have the (extranuclear) property of being existent or nonexistent in their respective Soseine, and cannot be said truly to have the properties of being existent or non-existent merely by free assumption and the independence of Sosein from Sein. See also BRENTANO, EXTENSIONALISM, FORMAL SEMANTICS, INTENTIONALITY, METAPHYSICS. D.J. Meister Eckhart. See ECKHART. Melanchthon, Philip. See SYNERGISM. meliorism (from Latin melior, ‘better’), the view that the world is neither completely good nor completely bad, and that incremental progress or regress depend on human actions. By creative intelligence and education we can improve the environment and social conditions. The position is first attributed to George Eliot and William James. Whitehead suggested that meliorism applies to God, who can both improve the world and draw sustenance from human efforts to improve the world. See also JAMES, WHITEHEAD. L.P.P. Melissus of Samos (fl. mid-fifth century B.C.), Greek philosopher, traditionally classified as a member of the Eleatic School. He was also famous as the victorious commander in a preemptive attack by the Samians on an Athenian naval force (441 B.C.). Like Parmenides – who must have influenced Melissus, even though there is no evidence the two ever met – Melissus argues that “what-is” or “the real” cannot come into being out of nothing, cannot perish into nothing, is homogeneous, and is unchanging. Indeed, he argues explicitly (whereas Parmenides only implies) that there is only one such entity, that there is no void, and that even spatial rearrangement (metakosmesis) must be ruled out. But unlike Parmenides, Melissus deduces that what-is is temporally infinite (in significant contrast to Parmenides, regardless as to whether the latter held that what-is exists strictly in the “now” or that it exists non-temporally). Moreover, Melissus argues that what-is is spatially infinite (whereas Parmenides spoke of “bounds” and compared what-is to a well-made ball). Significantly, Melissus repeatedly speaks of “the One.” It is, then, in Melissus, more than in Parmenides or in Zeno, that we find the emphasis on monism. In a corollary to his main argument, Melissus argues that “if there were many things,” each would have to be – per impossibile – exactly like “the One.” This remark has been interpreted as issuing the challenge that was taken up by the atomists. But it is more reasonable to read it as a philosophical strategist’s preemptive strike: Melissus anticipates the move made in the pluralist systems of the second half of the fifth century, viz., positing a plurality of eternal and unchanging elements that undergo only spatial rearrangement. See also ELEATIC SCHOOL, PARMENIDES, PRE-SOCRATICS. A.P.D.M. memory, the retention of, or the capacity to retain, past experience or previously acquired information. There are two main philosophical questions about memory: (1) In what does memory consist? and (2) What constitutes knowing a fact on the basis of memory? Not all memory is remembering facts: there is remembering one’s perceiving or feeling or acting in a certain way – which, while it entails remembering the fact that one did experience in that way, must be more than that. And not all remembering of facts is knowledge of facts: an extremely hesitant attempt to remember an address, if one gets it right, counts as remembering the address even if one is too uncertain for this to count as knowing it. (1) Answers to the first question agree on some obvious points: that memory requires (a) a present and (b) a past state of, or event in, the subject, and (c) the right sort of internal and causal relations between the two. Also, we must distinguish between memory states (remembering for many years the name of one’s first-grade teacher) and memory occurrences (recalling the name when asked). A memory state is usually taken to be a disposition to display an appropriate memory occurrence given a suitable stimulus. But philosophers disagree about further specifics. On one theory (held by many empiricists from Hume to Russell, among others, but now largely discredited), occurrent memory consists in images of past experience (which have a special quality marking them as memory images) and that memory of facts is read off such image memory. This overlooks the point that people commonly remember facts without remembering when or how they learned them. A more sophisticated theory of factual memory (popular nowadays) holds that an occurrent memory of a fact requires, besides a past learning of it, (i) some sort of present mental representation of it (perhaps a linguistic one) and (ii) continuous storage between then and now of a representation of it. But condition (i) may not be Meister Eckhart memory 553 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 553 conceptually necessary: a disposition to dial the right number when one wants to call home constitutes remembering the number (provided it is appropriately linked causally to past learning of the number) and manifesting that disposition is occurrently remembering the fact as to what the number is even if one does not in the process mentally represent that fact. Condition (ii) may also be too strong: it seems at least conceptually possible that a causal link sufficient for memory should be secured by a relation that does not involve anything continuous between the relevant past and present occurrences (in The Analysis of Mind, Russell countenanced this possibility and called it “mnemic causation”). (2) What must be added to remembering that p to get a case of knowing it because one remembers it? We saw that one must not be uncertain that p. Must one also have grounds for trusting one’s memory impression (its seeming to one that one remembers) that p? How could one have such grounds except by knowing them on the basis of memory? The facts one can know not on the basis of memory are limited at most to what one presently perceives and what one presently finds self-evident. If no memory belief qualifies as knowledge unless it is supported by memory knowledge of the reliability of one’s memory, then the process of qualifying as memory knowledge cannot succeed: there would be an endless chain, or loop, of facts – this belief is memory knowledge if and only if this other belief is, which is if and only if this other one is, and so on – which never becomes a set that entails that any belief is memory knowledge. On the basis of such reasoning a skeptic might deny the possibility of memory knowledge. We may avoid this consequence without going to the lax extreme of allowing that any correct memory impression is knowledge; we can impose the (frequently satisfied) requirement that one not have reasons specific to the particular case for believing that one’s memory impression might be unreliable. Finally, remembering that p becomes memory knowledge that p only if one believes that p because it seems to one that one remembers it. One might remember that p and confidently believe that p, but if one has no memory impression of having previously learned it, or one has such an impression but does not trust it and believes that p only for other reasons (or no reason), then one should not be counted as knowing that p on the basis of memory. See also EPISTEMOLOGY, PERCEPTION, SKEPTICISM. C.G. memory, image theory of. See MEMORY. memory, occurrent. See MEMORY. memory, representational theory of. See MEMORY. Mencius, also known as Meng-tzu, Meng K’o (fl. fourth century B.C.), Chinese Confucian philosopher, probably the single most influential philosopher in the Chinese tradition. His sayings, discussions, and debates were compiled by disciples in the book entitled Meng-tzu. Mencius is best known for his assertion that human nature is good but it is unclear what he meant by this. At one point, he says he only means that a human can become good. Elsewhere, though, he says that human nature is good just as water flows downward, implying that humans will become good if only their natural development is unimpeded. Certainly, part of what is implied by the claim that human nature is good is Mencius’s belief that all humans have what he describes as four “hearts” or “sprouts” – benevolence (jen), righteousness (yi), ritual propriety (li), and wisdom (chih). The term ‘sprout’ seems to refer to an incipient emotional or behavioral reaction of a virtuous nature. Mencius claims, e.g., that any human who saw a child about to fall into a well would have a spontaneous feeling of concern, which is the sprout of benevolence. Although all humans manifest the sprouts, “concentration” (ssu) is required in order to nurture them into mature virtues. Mencius is not specific about what concentration is, but it probably involves an ongoing awareness of, and delight in, the operation of the sprouts. The result of the concentration and consequent delight in the operation of the sprouts is the “extension” (t’ui, ta, chi) or “filling out” (k’uo, ch’ung) of the incipient reactions, so that benevolence, for instance, comes to be manifested to all suffering humans. Nonetheless, Mencius maintains the belief, typical of Confucianism, that we have greater moral responsibility for those tied to us because of particular relationships such as kinship. Mencius is also Confucian in his belief that the virtues first manifest themselves within the family. Although Mencius is a self-cultivationist, he also believes that one’s environment can positively or negatively affect one’s moral development, and encourages rulers to produce social conditions conducive to virtue. He admits, however, that there are moral prodigies who have flourished despite deleterious circumstances. memory, image theory of Mencius 554 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 554 Mencius’s virtue ethic is like Aristotle’s in combining antinomianism with a belief in the objectivity of specific moral judgments, but his de-emphasis of intellectual virtues and emphasis upon benevolence are reminiscent of Joseph Butler. Mencius differs from Butler, however, in that although he thinks the Confucian way is the most profitable, he condemns profit or self-love as a motivation. Mencius saw himself as defending the doctrines of Confucius against the philosophies of other thinkers, especially Mo Tzu and Yang Chu. In so doing, he often goes beyond what Confucius said. See also CHUANG TZU, CONFUCIANISM, FOUR BOOKS, HSÜN TZU. B.W.V.N. Mendel, Gregor (1822–84), Austrian botanist and discoverer of what are now considered the basic principles of heredity. An Augustinian monk who conducted plant-breeding experiments in a monastery garden in Brünn (now Brno, Czech Republic), Mendel discovered that certain characters of a common variety of garden pea are transmitted in a strikingly regular way. The characters with which he dealt occur in two distinct states, e.g., pods that are smooth or ridged. In characters such as these, one state is dominant to its recessive partner, i.e., when varieties of each sort are crossed, all the offspring exhibit the dominant character. However, when the offspring of these crosses are themselves crossed, the result is a ratio of three dominants to one recessive. In modern terms, pairs of genes (alleles) separate at reproduction (segregation) and each offspring receives only one member of each pair. Of equal importance, the recessive character reappears unaffected by its temporary suppression. Alleles remain pure. Mendel also noted that the pairs of characters that he studied assort independently of each other, i.e., if two pairs of characters are followed through successive crosses, no statistical correlations in their transmission can be found. As genetics developed after the turn of the century, the simple “laws” that Mendel had set out were expanded and altered. Only a relatively few characters exhibit two distinct states, one dominant to the other. In many, the heterozygote exhibits an intermediate state. In addition, genes do not exist in isolation from each other but together on chromosomes. Only those genes that reside on different pairs of chromosomes assort in total independence of each other. During his research, Mendel corresponded with Karl von Nägeli (1817–91), a major authority in plant hybridization. Von Nägeli urged Mendel to cross varieties of the common hawkweed. When Mendel took his advice, he failed to discover the hereditary patterns that he had found in garden peas. In 1871 Mendel ceased his research to take charge of his monastery. In 1900 Hugo de Vries (1848–1935) stumbled upon several instances of three-to-one ratios while developing his own theory of the origin of species. No sooner did he publish his results than two young biologists announced independent discovery of what came to be known as Mendel’s laws. The founders of modern genetics abandoned attempts to work out the complexities of embryological development and concentrated just on transmission. As a result of several unfortunate misunderstandings, early Mendelian geneticists thought that their theory of genetics was incompatible with Darwin’s theory of evolution. Eventually, however, the two theories were merged to form the synthetic theory of evolution. In the process, R. A. Fisher (1890–1962) questioned the veracity of Mendel’s research, arguing that the only way that Mendel could have gotten data as good as he did was by sanitizing it. Present-day historians view all of the preceding events in a very different light. The science of heredity that developed at the turn of the century was so different from anything that Mendel had in mind that Mendel hardly warrants being considered its father. The neglect of Mendel’s work is made to seem so problematic only by reading later developments back into Mendel’s original paper. Like de Vries, Mendel was interested primarily in developing a theory of the origin of species. The results of Mendel’s research on the hawkweed brought into question the generalizability of the regularities that he had found in peas, but they supported his theory of species formation through hybridization. Similarly, the rediscovery of Mendel’s laws can be viewed as an instance of multiple, simultaneous discovery only by ignoring important differences in the views expressed by these authors. Finally, Mendel certainly did not mindlessly organize and report his data, but the methods that he used can be construed as questionable only in contrast to an overly empirical, inductive view of science. Perhaps Mendel was no Mendelian, but he was not a fraud either. See also DARWINISM. D.L.H. Mendelian genetics. See MENDEL. Mendelssohn, Moses (1729–86), German philosopher known as “the Jewish Socrates.” He began as a Bible and Talmud scholar. After movMendel, Gregor Mendelssohn, Moses 555 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 555 ing to Berlin he learned Latin and German, and became a close friend of Lessing, who modeled the Jew in his play Nathan the Wise after him. Mendelssohn began writing on major philosophical topics of the day, and won a prize from the Berlin Academy in 1764. He was actively engaged in discussions about aesthetics, psychology, and religion, and offered an empirical, subjectivist view that was very popular at the time. His most famous writings are Morgenstunden (Morning Hours, or Lectures on the Existence of God, 1785), Phaedon (Phaedo, or on the Immortality of the Soul, 1767), and Jerusalem (1783). He contended that one could prove the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. He accepted the ontological argument and the argument from design. In Phaedo he argued that since the soul is a simple substance it is indestructible. Kant criticized his arguments in the first Critique. Mendelssohn was pressed by the Swiss scientist Lavater to explain why he, as a reasonable man, did not accept Christianity. At first he ignored the challenge, but finally set forth his philosophical views about religion and Judaism in Jerusalem, where he insisted that Judaism is not a set of doctrines but a set of practices. Reasonable persons can accept that there is a universal religion of reason, and there are practices that God has ordained that the Jews follow. Mendelssohn was a strong advocate of religious toleration and separation of church and state. His views played an important part in the emancipation of the Jews, and in the Jewish Enlightenment that flowered in Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century. See also JEWISH PHILOSOPHY. R.H.P. Meng K’o. See MENCIUS. Meng-tzu. See MENCIUS. mens rea, literally, guilty mind, in law Latin. It is one of the two main prerequisites (along with actus reus) for prima facie liability to criminal punishment in Anglo-American legal systems. To be punishable in such systems, one must not only have performed a legally prohibited action, such as killing another human being; one must have done so with a culpable state of mind, or mens rea. Such culpable mental states are of three kinds: they are either motivational states of purpose, cognitive states of belief, or the non-mental state of negligence. To illustrate each of these with respect to the act of killing: a killer may kill either having another’s death as ultimate purpose, or as mediate purpose on the way to achieving some further, ultimate end. Alternatively, the killer may act believing to a practical certainty that his act will result in another’s death, even though such death is an unwanted side effect, or he may believe that there is a substantial and unjustified risk that his act will cause another’s death. The actor may also be only negligent, which is to take an unreasonable risk of another’s death even if the actor is not aware either of such risk or of the lack of justification for taking it. Mens rea usually does not have to do with any awareness by the actor that the act done is either morally wrong or legally prohibited. Neither does mens rea have to do with any emotional state of guilt or remorse, either while one is acting or afterward. Sometimes in its older usages the term is taken to include the absence of excuses as well as the mental states necessary for prima facie liability; in such a usage, the requirement is helpfully labeled “general mens rea,” and the requirement above discussed is labeled “special mens rea.” See also DIMINISHED CAPACITY, ETHICS, INTENTION. M.S.M. mental content, causal theory of. See SKEPTICISM. mental distinction. See FUNDAMENTUM DIVISIONIS. Mentalese, the language of thought (the title of a book by Fodor, 1975) or of “brain writing” (a term of Dennett’s); specifically, a languagelike medium of representation in which the contents of mental events are supposedly expressed or recorded. (The term was probably coined by Wilfrid Sellars, with whose views it was first associated.) If what one believes are propositions, then it is tempting to propose that believing something is having the Mentalese expression of that proposition somehow written in the relevant place in one’s mind or brain. Thinking a thought, at least on those occasions when we think “wordlessly” (without formulating our thoughts in sentences or phrases composed of words of a public language), thus appears to be a matter of creating a short-lived Mentalese expression in a special arena or work space in the mind. In a further application of the concept, the process of coming to understand a sentence of natural language can be viewed as one of translating the sentence into Mentalese. It has often been argued that this view of understanding only postpones the difficult questions of meaning, for it leaves unanswered the question of how Mentalese expressions come to have the meanings Meng K’o Mentalese 556 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 556 they do. There have been frequent attempts to develop versions of the hypothesis that mental activity is conducted in Mentalese, and just as frequent criticisms of these attempts. Some critics deny there is anything properly called representation in the mind or brain at all; others claim that the system of representation used by the brain is not enough like a natural language to be called a language. Even among defenders of Mentalese, it has seldom been claimed that all brains “speak” the same Mentalese. See also PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE; PHILOSOPHY OF MIND; SELLARS, WILFRID. D.C.D. mentalism, any theory that posits explicitly mental events and processes, where ‘mental’ means exhibiting intentionality, not necessarily being immaterial or non-physical. A mentalistic theory is couched in terms of belief, desire, thinking, feeling, hoping, etc. A scrupulously non-mentalistic theory would be couched entirely in extensional terms: it would refer only to behavior or to neurophysiological states and events. The attack on mentalism by behaviorists was led by B. F. Skinner, whose criticisms did not all depend on the assumption that mentalists were dualists, and the subsequent rise of cognitive science has restored a sort of mentalism (a “thoroughly modern mentalism,” as Fodor has called it) that is explicitly materialistic. See also BEHAVIORISM, COGNITIVE SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. D.C.D. mental representation. See COGNITIVE SCIENCE. Mercier, Désiré-Joseph (1851–1926), Belgian Catholic philosopher, a formative figure in NeoThomism and founder of the Institut Supérieur de Philosophie (1889) at Louvain. Created at the request of Pope Leo XIII, Mercier’s institute treated Aquinas as a subject of historical research and as a philosopher relevant to modern thought. His approach to Neo-Thomism was distinctive for its direct response to the epistemological challenges posed by idealism, rationalism, and positivism. Mercier’s epistemology was termed a criteriology; it intended to defend the certitude of the intellect against skepticism by providing an account of the motives and rules that guide judgment. Truth is affirmed by intellectual judgment by conforming itself not to the thing-in-itself but to its abstract apprehension. Since the certitude of judgment is a state of the cognitive faculty in the human soul, Mercier considered criteriology as psychology; see Critériologie générale ou Théorie générale de la certitude (1906), Origins of Contemporary Psychology (trans. 1918), and Manual of Scholastic Philosophy (trans. 1917–18). See also AQUINAS, NEO-THOMISM. D.W.H. mereological essentialism. See HAECCEITY. mereological sum. See MEREOLOGY. mereology (from Greek meros, ‘part’), the mathematical theory of parts; specifically, Lesniewski’s formal theory of parts. Typically, a mereological theory employs notions such as the following: proper part, improper part, overlapping (having a part in common), disjoint (not overlapping), mereological product (the “intersection” of overlapping objects), mereological sum (a collection of parts), mereological difference, the universal sum, mereological complement, and atom (that which has no proper parts). Formal mereologies are axiomatic systems. Lesniewski’s mereology and Goodman’s formal mereology (which he calls the Calculus of Individuals) are compatible with nominalism, i.e., no reference is made to sets, properties, or other abstract entities. Lesniewski hoped that his mereology, with its many parallels to set theory, would provide an alternative to set theory as a foundation for mathematics. Fundamental and controversial implications of Lesniewski’s and Goodman’s theories include their extensionality and collectivism. Extensional theories imply that for any individuals, x and y, x % y provided x and y have the same proper parts. One reason extensionality is controversial is that it rules out an object’s acquiring or losing a part, and therefore is inconsistent with commonsense beliefs such as that a car has a new tire or that a table has lost a sliver of wood. A second reason for controversy is that extensionality is incompatible with the belief that a statue and the piece of bronze of which it is made have the same parts and yet are diverse objects. Collectivism implies that any individuals, no matter how scattered, have a mereological sum or constitute an object. Moreover, according to collectivism, assembling or disassembling parts does not affect the existence of things, i.e., nothing is created or destroyed by assembly or disassembly, respectively. Thus, collectivism is incompatible with commonsense beliefs such as that when a watch is disassembled, it is destroyed, or that when certain parts are assembled, a watch is created. Because the aforementioned formal theories shun modality, they lack the resources to express mentalism mereology 557 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 557 meritarian Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 558 the thesis that a whole has each of its parts necessarily. This thesis of mereological essentialism has recently been defended by Roderick Chisholm. See also ESSENTIALISM, EXTENSIONALISM, METAPHYSICS, SET THEORY. J.Ho. & G.Ro. meritarian, one who asserts the relevance of individual merit, as an independent justificatory condition, in attempts to design social structures or distribute goods. ‘Meritarianism’ is a recently coined term in social and political philosophy, closely related to ‘meritocracy’, and used to identify a range of related concerns that supplement or oppose egalitarian, utilitarian, and contractarian principles and principles based on entitlement, right, interest, and need, among others. For example, one can have a pressing need for an Olympic medal but not merit it; one can have the money to buy a masterpiece but not be worthy of it; one can have the right to a certain benefit but not deserve it. Meritarians assert that considerations of desert are always relevant and sometimes decisive in such cases. What counts as merit, and how important should it be in moral, social, and political decisions? Answers to these questions serve to distinguish one meritarian from another, and sometimes to blur the distinctions between the meritarian position and others. Merit may refer to any of these: comparative rank, capacities, abilities, effort, intention, or achievement. Moreover, there is a relevance condition to be met: to say that highest honors in a race should go to the most deserving is presumably to say that the honors should go to those with the relevant sort of merit – speed, e.g., rather than grace. Further, meritarians may differ about the strength of the merit principle, and how various political or social structures should be influenced by it. See also ETHICS, JUSTICE. L.C.B. meritocracy, in ordinary usage, a system in which advancement is based on ability and achievement, or one in which leadership roles are held by talented achievers. The term may also refer to an elite group of talented achievers. In philosophical usage, the term’s meaning is similar: a meritocracy is a scheme of social organization in which essential offices, and perhaps careers and jobs of all sorts are (a) open only to those who have the relevant qualifications for successful performance in them, or (b) awarded only to the candidates who are likely to perform the best, or (c) managed so that people advance in and retain their offices and jobs solely on the basis of the quality of their performance in them, or (d) all of the above. See also JUSTICE, MERITARIAN. L.C.B. meritorious duty. See KANT. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1908–61), French philosopher described by Paul Ricoeur as “the greatest of the French phenomenologists.” MerleauPonty occupied the chair of child psychology and pedagogy at the Sorbonne and was later professor of philosophy at the Collège de France. His sudden death preceded completion of an important manuscript; this was later edited and published by Claude Lefort under the title The Visible and the Invisible. The relation between the late, unfinished work and his early Phenomenology of Perception (1945) has received much scholarly discussion. While some commentators see a significant shift in direction in his later thought, others insist on continuity throughout his work. Thus, the exact significance of his philosophy, which in his life was called both a philosophy of ambiguity and an ambiguous philosophy, retains to this day its essential ambiguity. With his compatriot and friend, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty was responsible for introducing the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl into France. Impressed above all by the later Husserl and by Husserl’s notion of the life-world (Lebenswelt), Merleau-Ponty combined Husserl’s transcendental approach to epistemological issues with an existential orientation derived from Heidegger and Marcel. Going even further than Heidegger, who had himself sought to go beyond Husserl by “existentializing” Husserl’s Transcendental Ego (referring to it as Dasein), MerleauPonty sought to emphasize not only the existential (worldly) nature of the human subject but, above all, its bodily nature. Thus his philosophy could be characterized as a philosophy of the lived body or the body subject (le corps propre). Although Nietzsche called attention to the all-importance of the body, it was MerleauPonty who first made the body the central theme of a detailed philosophical analysis. This provided an original perspective from which to rethink such perennial philosophical issues as the nature of knowledge, freedom, time (temporality), language, and intersubjectivity. Especially in his early work, Merleau-Ponty battled against absolutist thought (“la pensée de l’absolu”), stressing the insurmountable ambiguity and contingency of all meaning and truth. An archopponent of Cartesian rationalism, he was an early and ardent spokesman for that position now called antifoundationalism. 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 558 Merleau-Ponty’s major early work, the Phenomenology of Perception, is best known for its central thesis concerning “the primacy of perception.” In this lengthy study he argued that all the “higher” functions of consciousness (e.g., intellection, volition) are rooted in and depend upon the subject’s prereflective, bodily existence, i.e., perception (“All consciousness is perceptual, even the consciousness of ourselves”). MerleauPonty maintained, however, that perception had never been adequately conceptualized by traditional philosophy. Thus the book was to a large extent a dialectical confrontation with what he took to be the two main forms of objective thinking – intellectualism and empiricism – both of which, he argued, ignored the phenomenon of perception. His principal goal was to get beyond the intellectual constructs of traditional philosophy (such as sense-data) and to effect “a return to the phenomena,” to the world as we actually experience it as embodied subjects prior to all theorizing. His main argument (directed against mainline philosophy) was that the lived body is not an object in the world, distinct from the knowing subject (as in Descartes), but is the subject’s own point of view on the world; the body is itself the original knowing subject (albeit a nonor prepersonal, “anonymous” subject), from which all other forms of knowledge derive, even that of geometry. As a phenomenological (or, as he also said, “archaeological”) attempt to unearth the basic (corporeal) modalities of human existence, emphasizing the rootedness (enracinement) of the personal subject in the obscure and ambiguous life of the body and, in this way, the insurpassable contingency of all meaning, the Phenomenology was immediately and widely recognized as a major statement of French existentialism. In his subsequent work in the late 1940s and the 1950s, in many shorter essays and articles, Merleau-Ponty spelled out in greater detail the philosophical consequences of “the primacy of perception.” These writings sought to respond to widespread objections that by “grounding” all intellectual and cultural acquisitions in the prereflective and prepersonal life of the body, the Phenomenology of Perception results in a kind of reductionism and anti-intellectualism and teaches only a “bad ambiguity,” i.e., completely undermines the notions of reason and truth. By shifting his attention from the phenomenon of perception to that of (creative) expression, his aim was to work out a “good ambiguity” by showing how “communication with others and thought take up and go beyond the realm of perception which initiated us to the truth.” His announced goal after the Phenomenology was “working out in a rigorous way the philosophical foundations” of a theory of truth and a theory of intersubjectivity (including a theory of history). No such large-scale work (a sequel, as it were, to the Phenomenology) ever saw the light of day, although in pursuing this project he reflected on subjects as diverse as painting, literary language, Saussurian linguistics, structuralist anthropology, politics, history, the human sciences, psychoanalysis, contemporary science (including biology), and the philosophy of nature. Toward the end of his life, however, MerleauPonty did begin work on a projected large-scale manuscript, the remnants of which were published posthumously as The Visible and the Invisible. A remarkable feature of this work (as Claude Lefort has pointed out) is the resolute way in which Merleau-Ponty appears to be groping for a new philosophical language. His express concerns in this abortive manuscript are explicitly ontological (as opposed to the more limited phenomenological concerns of his early work), and he consistently tries to avoid the subject (consciousness)–object language of the philosophy of consciousness (inherited from Husserl’s transcendental idealism) that characterized the Phenomenology of Perception. Although much of Merleau-Ponty’s later thought was a response to the later Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty sets himself apart from Heidegger in this unfinished work by claiming that the only ontology possible is an indirect one that can have no direct access to Being itself. Indeed, had he completed it, Merleau-Ponty’s new ontology would probably have been one in which, as Lefort has remarked, “the word Being would not have to be uttered.” He was always keenly attuned to “the sensible world”; the key term in his ontological thinking is not so much ‘Being’ as it is ‘the flesh’, a term with no equivalent in the history of philosophy. What traditional philosophy referred to as “subject” and “object” were not two distinct sorts of reality, but merely “differentiations of one sole and massive adhesion to Being [Nature] which is the flesh.” By viewing the perceiving subject as “a coiling over of the visible upon the visible,” Merleau-Ponty was attempting to overcome the subject–object dichotomy of modern philosophy, which raised the intractable problems of the external world and other minds. With the notion of the flesh he believed he could finally overcome the solipsism of modern philosophy and had discovered the basis for a genuine intersubjectivity (conceived of as basically an intercorporeity). Merleau-Ponty, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 559 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 559 Mersenne, Marin metalanguage 560 Does ‘flesh’ signify something significantly different from ‘body’ in Merleau-Ponty’s earlier thought? Did his growing concern with ontology (and the question of nature) signal abandonment of his earlier phenomenology (to which the question of nature is foreign)? This has remained a principal subject of conflicting interpretations in Merleau-Ponty scholarship. As illustrated by his last, unfinished work, Merleau-Ponty’s oeuvre as a whole is fragmentary. He always insisted that true philosophy is the enemy of the system, and he disavowed closure and completion. While Heidegger has had numerous disciples and epigones, it is difficult to imagine what a “Merleau-Ponty school of philosophy” would be. This is not to deny that Merleau-Ponty’s work has exerted considerable influence. Although he was relegated to a kind of intellectual purgatory in France almost immediately upon his death, the work of his poststructuralist successors such as Foucault and Jacques Derrida betrays a great debt to his previous struggles with philosophical modernity. And in Germany, Great Britain, and, above all, North America, Merleau-Ponty has continued to be a source of philosophical inspiration and the subject of extensive scholarship. Although his work does not presume to answer the key questions of existence, it is a salient model of philosophy conceived of as unremitting interrogation. It is this questioning (“zetetic”) attitude, combined with a non-dogmatic humanism, that continues to speak not only to philosophers but also to a wide audience among practitioners of the human sciences (phenomenological psychology being a particularly noteworthy example). See also CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY, EXISTENTIALISM, PHENOMENOLOGY, SUBJECT– OBJECT DICHOTOMY. G.B.M. Mersenne, Marin (1588–1648), French priest who compiled massive works on philosophy, mathematics, music, and natural science, and conducted an enormous correspondence with such figures as Galileo, Descartes, and Hobbes. He translated Galileo’s Mechanics and Herbert of Cherbury’s De Veritate and arranged for publication of Hobbes’s De Cive. He is best known for gathering the objections published with Descartes’s Meditations. Mersenne served a function in the rise of modern philosophy and science that is today served by professional journals and associations. His works contain attacks on deists, atheists, libertines, and skeptics; but he also presents mitigated skepticism as a practical method for attaining scientific knowledge. He did not believe that we can attain knowledge of inner essences, but argued – by displaying it – that we have an immense amount of knowledge about the material world adequate to our needs. Like Gassendi, Mersenne advocated mechanistic explanations in science, and following Galileo, he proposed mathematical models of material phenomena. Like the Epicureans, he believed that mechanism was adequate to save the phenomena. He thus rejected Aristotelian forms and occult powers. Mersenne was another of the great philosopher-priests of the seventeenth century who believed that to increase scientific knowledge is to know and serve God. See also DESCARTES, EPICUREANISM. R.A.W. Merton School. See OXFORD CALCULATORS. metaethical relativism. See RELATIVISM. metaethics. See ETHICS. metalanguage, in formal semantics, a language used to describe another language (the object language). The object language may be either a natural language or a formal language. The goal of a formal semantic theory is to provide an axiomatic or otherwise systematic theory of meaning for the object language. The metalanguage is used to specify the object language’s symbols and formation rules, which determine its grammatical sentences or well-formed formulas, and to assign meanings or interpretations to these sentences or formulas. For example, in an extensional semantics, the metalanguage is used to assign denotations to the singular terms, extensions to the general terms, and truth conditions to sentences. The standard format for assigning truth conditions, as in Tarski’s formulation of his “semantical conception of truth,” is a T-sentence, which takes the form ‘S is true if and only if p.’ Davidson adapted this format to the purposes of his truth-theoretic account of meaning. Examples of T-sentences, with English as the metalanguage, are ‘ “La neige est blanche” is true if and only if snow is white’, where the object langauge is French and the homophonic (Davidson) ‘“Snow is white” is true if and only if snow is white’, where the object language is English as well. Although for formal purposes the distinction between metalanguage and object language must be maintained, in practice one can use a langauge to talk about expressions in the very same language. One can, in Carnap’s terms, shift 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 560 from the material mode to the formal mode, e.g. from ‘Every veterinarian is an animal doctor’ to ‘ “Veterinarian” means “animal doctor”.’ This shift is important in discussions of synonymy and of the analytic–synthetic distinction. Carnap’s distinction corresponds to the use–mention distinction. We are speaking in the formal mode – we are mentioning a linguistic expression – when we ascribe a property to a word or other expression type, such as its spelling, pronunciation, meaning, or grammatical category, or when we speak of an expression token as misspelled, mispronounced, or misused. We are speaking in the material mode when we say “Reims is hard to find” but in the formal mode when we say “ ‘Reims’ is hard to pronounce.” See also PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, TYPE– TOKEN DISTINCTION, USE–MENTION DISTINCTION. K.B. metalogic. See PROOF THEORY. metamathematics, the study and establishment, by restricted (and, in particular, finitary) means, of the consistency or reliability of the various systems of classical mathematics. The term was apparently introduced, with pejorative overtones relating it to ‘metaphysics’, in the 1870s in connection with the discussion of non-Euclidean geometries. It was introduced in the sense given here, shorn of negative connotations, by Hilbert (see his “Neubegründung der Mathematik. Erste Mitteilung,” 1922), who also referred to it as Beweistheorie or proof theory. A few years later (specifically, in the 1930 papers “Über einige fundamentale Begriffe der Metamathematik” and “Fundamentale Begriffe der Methodologie der deduktiven Wissenschaften. I”) Tarski fitted it with a somewhat broader, less restricted sense: broader in that the scope of its concerns was increased to include not only questions of consistency, but also a host of other questions (e.g. questions of independence, completeness and axiomatizability) pertaining to what Tarski referred to as the “methodology of the deductive sciences” (which was his synonym for ‘metamathematics’); less restricted in that the standards of proof were relaxed so as to permit other than finitary – indeed, other than constructive – means. On this broader conception of Tarski’s, formalized deductive disciplines form the field of research of metamathematics roughly in the same sense in which spatial entities form the field of research in geometry or animals that of zoology. Disciplines, he said, are to be regarded as sets of sentences to be investigated from the point of view of their consistency, axiomatizability (of various types), completeness, and categoricity or degree of categoricity, etc. Eventually (see the 1935 and 1936 papers “Grundzüge des Systemenkalkül, Erster Teil” and “Grundzüge der Systemenkalkül, Zweiter Teil”) Tarski went on to include all manner of semantical questions among the concerns of metamathematics, thus diverging rather sharply from Hilbert’s original syntactical focus. Today, the terms ‘metatheory’ and ‘metalogic’ are used to signify that broad set of interests, embracing both syntactical and semantical studies of formal languages and systems, which Tarski came to include under the general heading of metamathematics. Those having to do specifically with semantics belong to that more specialized branch of modern logic known as model theory, while those dealing with purely syntactical questions belong to what has come to be known as proof theory (where this latter is now, however, permitted to employ other than finitary methods in the proofs of its theorems). See also CATEGORICITY, COMPLETENESS, CONSISTENCY, MODEL THEORY, PROOF THEORY. M.D. metaphilosophy, the theory of the nature of philosophy, especially its goals, methods, and fundamental assumptions. First-order philosophical inquiry includes such disciplines as epistemology, ontology, ethics, and value theory. It thus constitutes the main activity of philosophers, past and present. The philosophical study of firstorder philosophical inquiry raises philosophical inquiry to a higher order. Such higher-order inquiry is metaphilosophy. The first-order philosophical discipline of (e.g.) epistemology has the nature of knowledge as its main focus, but that discipline can itself be the focus of higher-order philosophical inquiry. The latter focus yields a species of metaphilosophy called metaepistemology. Two other prominent species are metaethics and metaontology. Each such branch of metaphilosophy studies the goals, methods, and fundamental assumptions of a first-order philosophical discipline. Typical metaphilosophical topics include (a) the conditions under which a claim is philosophical rather than non-philosophical, and (b) the conditions under which a first-order philosophical claim is either meaningful, true, or warranted. Metaepistemology, e.g., pursues not the nature of knowledge directly, but rather the conditions under which claims are genuinely epistemetalogic metaphilosophy 561 4065m-r.qxd 08/02/1999 7:42 AM Page 561 mological and the conditions under which epistemological claims are either meaningful, or true, or warranted. The distinction between philosophy and metaphilosophy has an analogue in the familiar distinction between mathematics and metamathematics. Questions about the autonomy, objectivity, relativity, and modal status of philosophical claims arise in metaphilosophy. Questions about autonomy concern the relationship of philosophy to such disciplines as those constituting the natural and social sciences. For instance, is philosophy methodologically independent of the natural sciences? Questions about objectivity and relativity concern the kind of truth and warrant available to philosophical claims. For instance, are philosophical truths characteristically, or ever, made true by mind-independent phenomena in the way that typical claims of the natural sciences supposedly are? Or, are philosophical truths unavoidably conventional, being fully determined by (and thus altogether relative to) linguistic conventions? Are they analytic rather than synthetic truths, and is knowledge of them a priori rather than a posteriori? Questions about modal status consider whether philosophical claims are necessary rather than contingent. Are philosophical claims necessarily true or false, in contrast to the contingent claims of the natural sciences? The foregoing questions identify major areas of controversy in contemporary metaphilosophy. See also ANALYTIC–SYNTHETIC DISTINCTION, A PRIORI, EPISTEMOLOGY, MEANING. P.K.M