Although the participants in the initial situation of justice in John Rawls’ Theory of Justice choose principles of justice only, their choices have implications for other moral concerns. The only check on the self-interest of the participants is that there be unanimous acceptance of the principles. But, since animals are not participants, it is possible that principles will be adopted which confiict with what Rawls calls“duties of compassion and humanity” toward animals. This is a consequence of the initial situation’s (...) assumption that principles of justice can be determined independently of other moral considerations. We question this assumption, and show that satisfactory modifications of Rawls’ initial situation undermine its contractarian basis and require the rejection of exclusively self-interested participants. (shrink)

That negative precepts play the critical role in the generalization principle is a consequence of the relationship of negative to affirmative precepts, i.e. that the negative give the essential negative condition for observing the affirmative precept. This relationship in turn is based on the nature of: 1) the negative precept which obliges to inaction and consequently demands action in order to violate it; 2) the affirmative precept which obliges to action and can be violated by inaction. Since action requires agency, (...) and agency involves more responsibility than does the non-agency present in violating affirmative percepts, we conclude that violating negative precepts demands more responsibility and consequently that they oblige more than do affirmative precepts. To emphasize this critical role of agency I shall conclude with an example proposed by Michael Tooley: Imagine a machine which contains two children, John and Mary. If one pushes a button, John will be killed, but Mary will emerge unharmed. If one does not push the button, John will emerge unharmed, but Mary will be killed. In the first case one kills John, while in the second case one merely lets Mary die. Does one seriously wish to say that the action of intentionally refraining from pushing the button is morally preferable to the action of pushing it, even though exactly one person will perish in either case?20Tooley's judgment on this example indicates that the outcome - in either case one person will perish - is the sole moral determinant (intentions do not enter this case) and that agency of pushing the button is of no moral significance. Yet, if you, the reader, stood before this machine and tried to decide what you should do, the fact of your agency in pushing the button would control your decision. Consider pushing the button. What reason could you have for that action? That otherwise Mary would die. But who can say that Mary's life is more valuable than John's? That Mary will die is no valid reason for pushing the button. But what of saving Mary's life? You can't do that without yourself actively killing John. But if you don't, Mary will die. This is true, but she will not die from your agency, and this is critical to your choice. What a machine may or may not do may or may not be under your control. What you do is under your control, and you may not do evil, not even that good may come of it. Consequently, you would be forced to say: “the decision of intentionally refraining from pushing the button is morally preferable to the action of pushing it even though exactly one person perishes in either case”. (shrink)

If S is any well-formed and significant question or command having the form "...the phi...", Russell's Theory of Descriptions entails (i) that S is syntactically ambiguous, and (ii) that there is at least one disambiguation of S that is syntactically ill-formed. Given that each of (i) and (ii) is false, so is the Theory of Descriptions.

Traces the development of the idea of experience (Greek peira, empeiria) in Greek thought, from its origins in the Presocratics, through Aristotle and subsequent Peripatetics (Theophrastus, Alexander of Aphrodisias), to Galen. Particular emphasis is placed on the ideas of the medical school of the Empirics, who based their theory and practice on experience and memory. This experience-based epistemology can be traced back to the “epistemic modesty” characteristic of Archaic Greek thought. Some passages in Avicenna, redolent of Sufism, which react to (...) perceived shortcomings in the Aristotelian theory of cognition and demonstration (especially the ineffability of individuals) may have been influenced by the medical Empirist tradition. This emphasis on experience, shared by Archaic Greek thought, medical Empirism, and by certain aspects of Buddhism, may have influenced Islamic Sufism, and hence the thought of Avicenna and his successors. (shrink)

The essence of Kant’s conception of God is that God is constitutively, as opposed to causally, responsible for spatiotemporal existence: God is responsible for the world not by creating it but by grounding it. And, so Kant holds, God grounds it by virtue of being identical with it (or, more precisely, with its noumenal substrate: see below), with the qualification that, in being identical with it, he infuses it with his own rationality, this being manifested as natural law.

How can a persisting object change whilst remaining the same object? Lewis, who frames this as the problem of temporary intrinsics, presents us with the perdurance solution: objects persist by having temporal parts which may have differing properties. And in doing so he characterises the opposing view as persisting but not by having temporal parts – a view he calls endurance. But this dichotomous picture of Lewis, although now widely embraced, misses out the orthodox historic view – a view I (...) call temporal holism: objects persist by having temporal parts to which they are ontologically prior. (In the perduring solution, by contrast, the temporal parts are ontologically prior.) This paper sets out this temporal holist solution and makes clear its differences from perdurantist and endurantist solutions. Although temporal holism has a long and illustrious history, this history has not been explicitly recognised. I begin the task of recognising this history in this paper, in order to make clear the nature of temporal holism, and to show that it is a long-established, well supported and distinctive position. The paper sets out, too, how temporal holism solves other ontological problems so that, despite its current neglect, temporary holism has the potential to greatly enrich contemporary philosophical debates. (shrink)

It is made clear what discursive knowledge is and how we acquire it, and some age-old skeptical views are shown to be incoherent. It is shown that all knowledge is to some degree inferential. At the same time, it is shown that there are three quite distinct senses in which empirical knowledge can be inferential. It is proved that we have a priori knowledge, and also that knowledge of non-empirical truths is needed to acquire empirical knowledge. Finally, it is clearly (...) explained what prediction is, what explanation is, how the two differ, and how they are similar. (shrink)

This book concisely explicates and evaluates four doctrines concerning the nature of moral obligation: hedonism (one's sole moral obligation is to enjoy oneself); egoism (one's sole moral obligation is to serve one's own interests); consequentialism (the ends justify the means), and deontology (the ends do not justify the means).

It is concisely explained how to conquer OCD.

Neuroses are secondary mental illnesses, it being their purpose to contain psychoses.

Obsessive fears are unconscious desires. The woman who is obsessively afraid that her phone is tapped actually wants her phone to be tapped; that is, she wants someone to pay attention to her. A neurotic fear of such and such is actually an unconscious desire for such and such, this being the topic of this brutally honest exchange.

Some illnesses, e.g. OCD and schizophrenia, corrupt the activity mediated by one's basic psychological framework but do not corrupt that framework itself. But some illnesses, e.g. psychopathy, corrupt that framework itself. Thus, whereas OCD and schizophrenia are structure-internal mental illnesses, psychopathy is a structural mental illness. Structure-internal mental illnesses can be alleviated, but structural mental illnesses cannot.

This article argues that the immediate critical responses to the blockbuster film Barbie (Greta Gerwig, 2023), which diverged along ideological lines, fail to account for the extent to which the film undercuts the very ideological divisions that sustain them. Rather than or in addition to presenting a left-wing or right-wing critique of contemporary gender roles, the film positions this contest within the vexed relationship between the ideal and the real. This metaphysical quandary is what propels the protagonists on a Buddhist-inspired (...) quest for authentic selfhood, a selfhood characterized by both the effacement of the discrete self (the Buddhist concept of anatman) and the eclipse of monumentalized cultural and commercial idols, like Barbie, that organize and disseminate ideology. (shrink)

Does the conceit in question expand awareness or narrow it? If it narrows it, then it is pathological. It if expands it, it is non-pathological.

The theorems of the propositional calculus and the predicate calculus are stated, and the analogous principles of Boolean Algebra are identified. Also, the primary principles of modal logic are stated, and a procedure is described for identifying their Boolean analogues.

The most basic laws and principles of the Predicate Calculus, also known as Quantification Theory, are stated, as clearly and concisely as possible.

Les sciences empiriques font des suppositions qu'elles ne sont pas elles-mêmes capables de justifier. La philosophie justifie ces hypothèses; C'est son travail.

The bureaucrat's intellectual configuration is identical with the psychopath's.

Sometimes, when a given person and/or his scholarly work are boring, it is intentional: that person is deliberately being boring so that nobody bothers to scrutinize, or therefore discover, the emptiness of either him or his work.

It is explained what it is for a statement to be logically true and it is thereby explained what it is for a statement to be formally true. It is also explained how logical truth differs from formal truth. Further, it is explained what a system of logic is. Finally, the nature of entailment is explained and, in particular, it is explained how formal entailment differs from analytic entailment.

Granting that there is more substance to the idea that we lack freedom than there is to the idea we know nothing about the external world, neither idea has much substance; and the appeal of both ideas, especially of the latter—and doubly especially of the two taken in conjunction---is that they give bureaucrats an excuse to be bureaucrats—to be people who do not know anything and are therefore under no obligation to do anything.

Nach David Hume ist das Konzept der Kausalität und Wahrscheinlichkeit in Begriffen von Ähnlichkeit und Wiederholung zu verstehen. In diesem Buch wird gezeigt, dass Sie in Bezug auf das Konzept der Kontinuität zu verstehen sind. Eine logische Folge ist, dass es keine legitime Grundlage für Skepsis hinsichtlich der Legitimität der induktiven Folgerung gibt. Ein weiterer ist, dass Anti-Realismus über theoretische Entitäten ist undenkbar.

Lack of coordination is an expression of internal conflict.

The essence of psychosis is alienatedness from the truth, and the essence of psychopathy is alienatedness from moral truth. According to Marx, truth and morality from culture to culture and from epoch to epoch, the only epoch- and culture-invariant thing about them being, in Marx's view, that they are always so much self-serving propaganda. Thus, Marxism, in its insistence on the non-existence (or, what is the same, the relativity) of truth and morality, is nothing more than an exhortation to be (...) psyochotic and psychopathic; and the supposedly unsuccessful Marxist reovlutions in Russian, China, and Cambodia were, in fact, successful--that is to say, they successfully implemented the psychotic psychopathy that is the very heart of Marxism. (shrink)

In being paranoid, one is consciously afraid of something that one unconsciously desires; and in many cases, what is unconsciously desired is to remain within the safe confines of an autistic bubble.

Doing is about having ideals. Merely reacting isn't. Therefore people who lack integrity can react but cannot act.

This book states, illustrates, and evaluates the main points of Russell's Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. This book also contains a thorough exposition of the fundamentals of set theory, including Cantor's groundbreaking investigations into the theory of transfinite numbers. Topics covered include: *Cardinal number (Frege's analysis) *Cardinal number (von Neumann's analysis) *Ordinal number *Isomorphism *Mathematical induction *Limits and continuity *The arithmetic of transfinites *Set-theoretic definitions of "point" and "instant" *An analysis of cardinal n, for arbitrary n, that, unlike the analyses put (...) forth by Russell and von *Neumann, is not merely adequate but de rigueur. *Cogent analyses of hitherto unsolved paradoxes of set-theory and logic, e.g. the Liar Paradox and Russell's Paradox. (shrink)

It is made clear what knowledge is and how we acquire it. It is also explained how we can have knowledge of the future, the past, the possible, the imperceptible, and the non-existent. The Gettier problem is solved, and it is proved that we have a priori knowledge, as well as knowledge of non-trivial but purely analytic truths.

Wittgenstein believed linguistic competence to be the very essence of cognitive competence. This is shown to be false and the main fallacy in Wittgenstein's argument is identified.

If more than a tiny minority of people were non-bureaucrats, civilization would not be possible.

The greater the extent to which a given system rewards the absence of merit, the greater the incentive that people within that system have to perpetuate that system. People who are falsely rewarded have a double stake in the perpetuation of whatever it is that falsely rewarded them. First, without that system and all of the lies surrounding it, such people lose their wealth and their social status. Second, without that system, such people lose their self-respect. The more a given (...) person is overvalued, the more likely it is that his social status and self-image depend on specific institutions and, therefore, the more likely it is that he does not those institutions to be replaced or even improved. (shrink)

We may dislike or disapprove of criminals who are genuine doers, as opposed to drifters; but we do not hold them in contempt. We hold them in contempt when, and only when, they are drifters. And in almost cases, that is precisely what they are.

At his death in 1945, the influential German philosopher Ernst Cassirer left manuscripts for the fourth and final volume of his magnum opus, _The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms_. John Michael Krois and Donald Phillip Verene have edited these writings and translated them into English for the first time, bringing to completion Cassirer's major treatment of the concept of symbolic form. Ernst Cassirer believed that all the forms of representation that human beings use—language, myth, art, religion, history, science—are symbolic, (...) and the concept of symbolic forms was the basis of his thinking on these subjects. In this volume, which contains one text written in 1928 and another in about 1940, Cassirer presents the metaphysics that is implicit in his epistemology and phenomenology of culture. The earlier text grounds the philosopher's conception of symbolic forms on a notion of human nature that makes a general distinction between Geist and life. In the later text, he discusses Basis Phenomena, an original concept not mentioned in any of his previous works, and he compares his own viewpoint with those of other modern philosophers, notably Bergson and Heidegger. (shrink)

Intended for philosophically minded psychologists and psychologically minded philosophers, this book identifies the ways that psychology has hobbled itself by adhering too strictly to empiricism, this being the doctrine that all knowledge is observation-based. In the first part of this two-part work, it is shown that empiricism is false. In the second part, the psychology-relevant consequences of this fact are identified. Five of these are of special importance. First, whereas some psychopathologies (e.g. obsessive-compulsive disorder) corrupt the activity mediated by one’s (...) psychological architecture, others (e.g. sociopathy) corrupt that architecture itself. Second, the basic tenets of psychoanalysis are coherent. Third, all propositional attitudes are beliefs. Fourth, selves are minds that self-evaluate. Fifth, it is by giving our thoughts a perceptible form that we enable ourselves to evaluate them, and it is by expressing ourselves in language and art that we give our thoughts a perceptible form. (shrink)

(2013). Introduction: Methodology, systemic risk, and the economics profession. Journal of Economic Methodology: Vol. 20, Methodology, Systemic Risk, and the Economics Profession, pp. 1-5. doi: 10.1080/1350178X.2013.774842.

This briskly written little book rigorously establishes that in order to be able to use language, it is necessary to be able to think and, consequently, that linguistic ability is not constitutive of cognitive ability. But it is also explained why it is that linguistic ability so greatly enhanced cognitive ability. Wittgenstein's famous Private Language and Rule Following Arguments are assiduously analyzed and decisively refuted. At the same time, so Kuczynski demonstrates, a viable analysis of the relationship between language and (...) thought can be understood in terms of the shortcomings of these two arguments. (shrink)

The United States is not communist: We have a market-economy. But that economy is embedded in a larger culture whose outlook is largely Marxist in nature, and this constricts and also sterilizes commercial activity in the United States.

The behavior of individuals who compose an institution tends to mirror the behavior of that institution as a whole. This short work illustrates this principle.

A series of sharp, deep answers to hard-hitting questions about psychopathy, with embedded link to the author real-timing it.

Key terms of analytic philosophy defined.

It is shown that moral values are constitutive of the scientific process and therefore, contrary to the traditional view, not incidental to it.

The same person who claims to be a relativist about musical beauty—who claims that all musical works are equally ‘valid’ and beautiful---adores certain musical works while detesting others. And the same person who claims to be a relativist about personal beauty—who claims that all people are beautiful, if only ‘on the inside’---finds certain people intensely attractive and finds others equally intensely repellent. And the same person who is guilty of the one hypocrisy is almost always guilty of the other. So (...) we are dealing with two hypocrisies---two ‘open secrets’, each of which has a social justification while lacking an alethic or logical justification---that parallel each other. And that is because the one hypocrisy is really just a proxy for the other: relativism about musical beauty—which is just an absurd purely philosophical position---is really just a proxy for relativism about female beauty—which is not an absurd philosophical position, but a deeply important social protocol that is rooted in the depths of female psychology. (shrink)

There is no difference between autonomy and non-psychopathy or, equivalently, between psychopathy and non-autonomy. Or rather, there is a difference, but it is tenuous, in that someone who is non-autonomous is non-psychopathic only as long the institution that hosts him is non-psychopathic. So his non-psychopathy, being borrowed, is both weak and ultimately devoid of reality.

Paranoias are unconscious desires that are represented in consciousness as fears. In being paranoid, one unconsciously desires what one consciously fears.

Freud divided people in three libidinal types: narcissist (doer), obsessional (thinker), and libidinal (lover). Kirk (narcissist), Spock (obsessional) and McCoy (libidinal) complemented each other, giving the show depth and balance.