But Findlay's remark, like so much that has been written on the subject of time in the present century, was provoked in the first place by McTaggart's ...

Divided into two parts, the first concentrates on the logical properties of propositions, their relation to facts and sentences, and the parallel objects of commands and questions. The second part examines theories of intentionality and discusses the relationship between different theories of naming and different accounts of belief.

The John Locke Lectures for 1955-6 delivered at the University of Oxford.

This book was designed primarily as a textbook; though the author hopes that it will prove to be of interests to others beside logic students. Part I of this book covers the fundamentals of the subject the propositional calculus and the theory of quantification. Part II deals with the traditional formal logic and with the developments which have taken that as their starting-point. Part III deals with modal, three-valued, and extensional systems.

In The Abuse of Beauty, art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto explains how the notion of beauty as anathema to art arose and flourished and offers a new way of looking at art and beauty. He draws on the thought of artists, critics, and philosophers such as Rimbaud, Fry, Matisse, and Greenberg, to reposition beauty as one of many modes -- along with sexuality, sublimity, disgust, and horror -- through which the human sensibility expresses itself. 20 black-and-white illustrations are (...) included. (shrink)

Now in its third edition, _Narration and Knowledge_ is a classic work exploring the nature of historical knowledge and its reliance on narrative. Analytical philosopher Arthur C. Danto introduces the concept of "narrative sentences," in which an event is described with reference to later events and discusses why such sentences cannot be understood until the later event happens. Danto compares narrative and scientific explanation and explores the legitimacy of historical laws. He also argues that history is an autonomous and (...) humanist discipline incapable of being reduced to scientific descriptions. Lydia Goehr's new introduction illustrates Danto's main arguments by questioning her very role, first, as an introducer of a book that has not yet been read by readers and, second, as an interpreter of a book written forty years ago. Frank Ankersmit's conclusion revisits the initial impact of the publication of _Narration and Knowledge_ and considers its enduring legacy. (shrink)

This is the first volume compiling English translations of Leibniz's journal articles on natural philosophy, presenting a selection of 26 articles, only three of which have appeared before in English translation. It also includes in full Leibniz's public controversies with De Catelan, Papin, and Hartsoeker. The articles include work in optics, on the fracture strength of materials, and on motion in a resisting medium, and Leibniz's pioneering applications of his calculus to these issues by construing them as mini-max and inverse (...) tangent problems. Other topics covered by the articles include: criticisms of the Cartesian estimate of motive force and Leibniz's proposal of a different way of estimating force to replace it; a proposed theory of celestial motions and gravitation, and derivation of the inverse square law; challenge problems concerning the isochronous curve and the catenary; a sample of work on gaming theory; and Leibniz's critique of atomism. (shrink)

Could there be an implicature whose content is not propositional? Grice's canon is somewhat ambivalent on this question, but such figures as Sperber & Wilson, Davis, and Lepore & Stone presume that there cannot be, and argue that this causes glaring failures within the Gricean programme. Building on work by McDowell and Buchanan, I argue that, on the contrary, the notion of non-propositional implicature is very much worth investigating. I show how the notion has promise to illuminate the content of (...) many sorts of complex utterance—from the cases of verbal irony, metaphorical usage, slurring, insinuation, and (some kinds of) humour, to various others which involve expressive or evaluative content. (shrink)

This paper considers four lines of objection to the efficacy or worth of Grice's cancellability test for conversational implicatures – the coherence objection, the entailment objection, the sarcasm objection, and the ambiguity objection. I argue that the test survives these objections relatively unscathed; and hence conclude that the cancellability test is still a significant, useful, reliable indicator at the semantics/pragmatics interface.

This book discusses and aims to clarify the issue of describing conduct and character as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. The book states that one of the main factors that have made this issue obscure is the illusion of some anti-naturalists that purely logical considerations can settle it. It clearly defines the limitations of the discussions: it is not concerned with the ‘other things’ people use to define conduct and character. The book attempts to consider the issue (...) from the purely logician point of view and suggests to the naturalists and anti-naturalists how their positions may be freed from logical faults. The book also introduces the ‘logic of ethics’, which is not a special kind or branch of logic, but rather an application of it. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that questions about the semantics of rigid designation are commonly and illicitly run together with distinct issues, such as questions about the metaphysics of essence and questions about the theoretical legitimacy of the possible-worlds framework. I discuss in depth two case studies of this phenomenon – the first concerns the relation between rigid designation and reference, the second concerns the application of the notion of rigidity to general terms. I end by drawing out some conclusions (...) about the relations between rigid designation, semantic frameworks, reference, and essence. (shrink)

I plot accounts of slurs on a [semanticist – non-semanticist] spectrum, and then I give some original arguments in favor of semanticist approaches. Two core, related pro-semanticist considerations which animate this work are: first, that the pejorative dimension of a slur is non-cancellable; and, second, that ignorance of the pejorative dimension should be counted as ignorance of literal, linguistic meaning, as opposed to a mistake about conditions for appropriate usage. I bolster these considerations via cases in which slurs are embedded (...) within complex constructions, in which cases the pejorative dimension of a slur gets ensnared within the compositional semantic machinery. (shrink)

This brief introduction to a special issue of Disputatio succinctly summarizes John Perry’s pluri-propositionalist reflexive framework and notes some potential applications to varieties of context-sensitivity.

A ‘multiple-proposition phenomenon’ is a putative counterexample to the widespread implicit assumption that a simple indicative sentence semantically expresses at most one proposition. Several philosophers and linguists have recently developed hypotheses concerning this notion. The guiding questions motivating this research are: Is there an interesting and homogenous semantic category of MP phenomena? If so, what is the import? Do MP theories have any relevance to important current questions in the study of language? I motivate an affirmative answer to, and then (...) argue that MP theorizing is quite relevant to debates at the semantics/ pragmatics interface. (shrink)

Two distinctions within the category of designators -- Further defining the central theses -- Structure and rigidity -- Structure and naming -- Interlude: interim review and a look ahead -- Referential uses of denoting expressions -- Complex referring expressions -- Summary, overview, and general morals.

"Popular summaries of existentialism and Sartre's ideas have ensured a wide currency for such words as 'absurdity', 'nothingness', 'engagement', 'shame', and 'anguish'. But for Sartre, each of these words embodies a precise philosophical concept which he applies and explores further in his fiction and plays. Synthesized in 'Being and Nothingness' and 'Critique of Dialectical Reason', these concepts comprise a fully articulated philosophical system which, as Arthur C. Danto argues, in its vision and scope, logical responsibility and human relevance, takes (...) its place among the greatest of philosophical achievements. This book offers a synoptic and sympathetic reconstruction of the Sartrean system and in particular Sartre's analysis of the nature of language, consciousness, knowledge, self, and values." --Descripción del editor. (shrink)

Experts discuss the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of genetic testing in determining eligibility for life insurance. Insurance companies routinely use an individual's medical history and family medical history in determining eligibility for life insurance; this is part of the process of medical underwriting. Insurers have also long used genetic information, often derived from family history, in underwriting. But rapid advances in gene identification and genetic testing are changing the way we look at genetic information. Should the (...) results of genetic testing (which might identify a predisposition toward disease not related to medical history) be available to life insurance medical underwriters? Few if any life insurers currently require genetic testing, but there are no laws or regulations prohibiting its use. Genetics and Life Insurance examines the complex economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of genetic information in life insurance underwriting. The contributors are legal scholars, representatives of the life insurance industry (including an actuary and an insurance physician), a geneticist, a genetic counselor, a philosopher, and a consumer advocate. They explore all aspects of an issue that has only recently drawn the attention of policymakers and the public. The book opens with a report on the results of a public opinion poll on genetics and life insurance. Succeeding chapters present the insurer perspective, a discussion of the economics of risk selection in life insurance, background information on the process of underwriting, a scientific analysis of genetic risks and mortality rates, a philosophical discussion of fairness and genetic underwriting, the viewpoints of consumers and genetics counselors, a comparison of different international policy approaches to the issue, and a legal analysis of antitrust implications when insurers collaborate in setting standards for medical underwriting. In the final chapter the editor addresses various policy options, examining the pros and cons of each one and assessing their political feasibility. (shrink)

The overall subject of the essays in _The Body/Body Problem_ is the traditional one of what our ultimate makeup is, as creatures with minds and bodies. The central thesis is that we are beings who represent—and misrepresent—actual and possible worlds. Addressing philosophical questions of mental representation, Danto presents his distinctive approach to some of the most enduring topics in philosophy. He is concerned with the nature of description, the status of the external world, action theory, the philosophy of history, and (...) the philosophical status of psychoanalytic explanation. Representation is a central concept in philosophy, says Danto, with differences among philosophers arising in the ways they account for how representations connect to the world or to the individuals possessing them, and how they connect with one another to form systems of beliefs, feelings, and attitudes. In these essays Danto's own voice, with his arguments and speculations, provides rich philosophical pleasures that will endure, to borrow from Santayana, "under whatever sky." Arthur C. Danto is one of the most original and multitalented philosophers writing today, a thinker whose interests traverse the boundaries of traditional understandings of philosophy. Best known for his contributions to the philosophy of art and aesthetics, Danto is also esteemed for his work in the history of philosophy, the philosophy of history, philosophical psychology, and action theory. These two volumes, each with an introduction by the author, contain essays spanning more than twenty-five years that have been selected to highlight the inseparability of philosophy and art in Danto's work. Together they present the thinking of Arthur C. Danto at his very best. (shrink)

There is a considerable sub-literature, stretching back over 35 years, addressed to the question: Precisely which general terms ought to be classified as rigid designators? More fundamentally: What should we take the criterion for rigidity to be, for general terms? The aim of this paper is to give new grounds for the old view that if a general term designates the same kind in all possible worlds, then it should be classified as a rigid designator. The new grounds in question (...) have to do with excavating the connection between rigid designation and semantic structure. Other original contributions of the present work consist in developing responses to some objections to this approach to rigid designation. (shrink)

Historian Arthur Herman traces the roots of declinism and shows how major thinkers, past and present, have contributed to its development as a coherent ideology of cultural pessimism. From Nazism to the Sixties counterculture, from Britain's Fabian socialists to America's multiculturalists, and from Dracula and Freud to Robert Bly and Madonna, this work examines the idea of decline in Western history and sets out to explain how the conviction of civilization's inevitable end has become a fixed part of the (...) modern Western imagination. Through a series of biographical portraits spanning the 19th and 20th centuries, the author traces the roots of declinism and aims to show how major thinkers of the past and present, including Nietzsche, DuBois, Sartre, and Foucault, have contributed to its development as a coherent ideology of cultural pessimism. (shrink)

This book shows that the notion of the constitutive a priori provides a compelling way to understand some of the most significant lessons learned in twentieth-century philosophy. It demonstrates how the constitutive a priori orientation integrates and consolidates certain epochal insights of Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine, Kripke, and Kaplan.