Our goal here is to help identify the contextualist’s most worthy competitor to relativism. Recently, some philosophers of language and linguists have argued that, while there are contextualist-friendly semantic theories of deontic modals that fit with the relativist’s challenge data, the best such theories are not Lewis-Kratzer-style semantic theories. If correct, this would be important: It would show that the theory that has for many years enjoyed the status of the default view of modals in English and other languages is (...) in need of revision. Here we defend the default view by showing how a Kratzer-style semantics is able to make available readings of the relevant utterances that fit with the pretheoretical judgments opponents purport it cannot fully capture. Having established this, we turn to considering the more theoretical grounds proponents have offered for preferring their rival contextualist views. Here the question is to what extent such grounds favor semantic over what Korta and Perry call “near-side pragmatic” explanations of our judgments. In particular, we argue that our favored readings figure in near-side pragmatic explanations of those judgments that possess the methodological and theoretical advantages of systematicity and unity at least as well as, if not to a greater extent than, those of opponents who argue for their revised semantic theories on the basis of these advantages. (shrink)

The contributions in the first part Re-modelling logic of this volume take account of formal logic in the theory of rational argumentation.

These rhetorical texts by Apuleius, second-century Latin writer and author of the famous novel Metamorphoses or Golden Ass, have not been translated into English since 1909. They are some of the very few Latin speeches surviving from their century, and constitute important evidence for Latin and Roman North African social and intellectual culture in the second century AD, a period where there is increasing interest amongst classicists and ancient historians. They are the work of a talented writer who is being (...) increasingly viewed as the major literary artist of his time in Latin. (shrink)

This study brings light to the concepts of State and Government in the thought of Marsilio de Padua pointing out to profoundly modern institutions present in the reflection of this medieval philosopher. We attempt to show that Marsilio de Padua reflects based on Aristotle´s categories, but proposes a State and Government conception different from that common place of medieval politics as he insists on the need of the popular consent as a criterion of political legitimacy. -/- O estudo explicita os (...) conceitos de Estado e de Governo no pensamento de Marsílio de Pádua apontando as intuições profundamente modernas presentes na reflexão desse filósofo medieval. Procuramos mostrar que Marsílio reflete com categorias aristotélicas, mas propõe uma concepção de Estado e de Governo que se distancia do lugar comum da reflexão política medieval ao insistir na necessidade do consentimento dos súditos como critério de legitimidade política. (shrink)

Recent challenges to Kratzer’s canonical contextualist semantics for modal expressions are united by a shared methodological practice: Each requires the assessment of the truth or warrant of a sentence in a scenario. The default evidential status accorded these judgments is a constraining one: It is assumed that, to be plausible, a semantic hypothesis must vindicate the reported judgments. Fully assessing the extent to which these cases do generate data that puts pressure on the canonical semantics, then, requires an understanding of (...) this methodological practice. Here I argue that not all assessments are fit to play this evidential role. To play it, we need reason to think that speakers’ assessments can be reasonably expected to be reliable. Minimally, having such grounds requires that assessments are given against the background of non-defectively characterized points of evaluation. Assessing MacFarlane’s central challenge case to contextualism about deontic modals in light of this constraint shows that his judgments do not have the needed evidential significance. In addition, new experimental data shows that once the needed scenario is characterized non-defectively, none of the resulting range of cases provides data that cannot be accommodated by a Kratzer-style contextualism. (shrink)

Genealogía y lógica de la ratio imperial romana -- Racionalización ética judía y religión de salvación cristiana -- La revolución teológica de Pablo y sus consecuencias -- Teología política imperial y militancia cristiana -- La teología trinitaria y el destino de la teología imperial -- Hilario, Ambrosio y el camino del catolicismo en Occidente -- Mal y salvación: Augstín de Hipona.

In Discourse Contextualism, Alex Silk defends a new contextualist account of expressions at the centre of recent debates over contextualism versus relativism, namely, gradable adjectives, taste predicates and epistemic and deontic modals ).1 1 The first part of the book, which lays out the view and shows how it explains the phenomena at issue in those debates, focuses on the case of epistemic modals. The second part of the book extends that account with Discourse Contextualist treatments of the remaining expressions. (...) Discourse Contextualism is truly impressive in its scope, fully engaging with the relevant literature in linguistics, philosophy of language and meta-ethics. It is clearly written, carefully argued and makes a very significant contribution to the literature on the debates over contextualism, relativism and expressivism. No short review could possibly do justice to Silk’s book in its entirety. Here, I focus on its most fleshed out case study, that of epistemic modals. But the whole book will be required reading for anyone engaged in any of these debates. (shrink)

RésuméLa notion de système joue un rôle essentiel en physique. Les difficulté actuelles de la physique théorique résident en grande partie dans cette notion même. A chaque étape du développement de la physique il a fallu imaginer un processus nouveau pour effacer partiellement la coupure introduite dans la description de l'univers par la considération d'un système. Nous examinons ici le dernier procédé ou théorie fonctionnelle du corpuscule, qui consiste à se servir, pour la représentation du corpuscule, d'une image plus complète (...) que celles utilisées jusqu'ici, celle d'une fonction u d'un espace fonctionnel séparable. (shrink)

On s'occupe de la logique quantique depuis 1935 et pendant cette période beaucoup de résultats ont été obtenus, encore me suis-je abstenu de mentionner les résultats obtenus ces dernières années par les logiciens dans ce domaine. Certains de ces résultats ont un intérêt direct pour les théories physiques. En particulier on voit de quelles conditions impératives on doit tenir compte quand on effectue un changement de théorie pour passer à une théorie meilleure. L'exemple de la théorie fonctionnelle des corpuscules est (...) significatif. (shrink)

In the early 1950s Arthur Prior wrote The Craft of Formal Logic. The manuscript of some 220,000 words remains as a whole unpublished. Some of it has appeared, transformed, in Prior’s Formal Logic and in Prior’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles. P. T. Geach and A. J. P. Kenny here provide us five chapters of the original Craft, commenting that they "make up a self-contained account of the traditional doctrine of propositions and terms". The appendix gives us the full table of (...) contents of the original Craft. Comparing the present book to Prior’s Logic and the Basis of Ethics, the editors comment, wisely, that "Prior is not concerned to decide for us these controverted questions of logical doctrine. He may be compared to an experienced judge summing up in a complicated civil action: the case for each side is clearly and fairly presented...". (shrink)