Decision-making depends on bringing evidence together with values: decision theory for example employs probabilities and utilities; health economic decisions employ measures such as quality of life. The hypothesis guiding this chapter is that bringing evidence together with values in clinical decision-making requires an exercise of phronesis. Our aim however is not to justify our guiding hypothesis. It is rather to outline an account of phronesis that is in principle fit for the purposes of clinical decision-making if our guiding hypothesis is (...) correct. The chapter has three sections. Section 1 describes the growing gap between evidence and values in clinical decision-making: the missing link, we suggest, required to bridge this gap, is an appropriate account of phronesis. Section 2 provides an initial characterisation of the required account of phronesis via Michael Polanyi’s twin stipulation on the nature of tacit knowledge. Section 3 then fills out the required account using John McDowell’s characterisation of phronesis as a situation specific but at the same time conceptually structured form of practical discernment. A McDowellian account of phronesis, we argue, in satisfying Polanyi’s twin stipulation, provides an in-principle bridge between evidence and values. We conclude with a note on some of the further requirements if the gap is to be bridged not only in principle but in practice too. (shrink)

In addition to the neglect of philosophy by medicine, emphasized in a recent editorial in this journal, there has been an equally important neglect of medicine by philosophy. Philosophy stands to gain from medicine in three respects: in materials, the conceptual difficulties arising in the practice of medicine being key data for philosophical enquiry; in methods, these data, through their problematic character, being ideally suited to the technique of linguistic analysis; and in results, the practical requirements of medicine placing a (...) direct demand for progress on philosophical theory. The future of the relationship between philosophy and medicine depends on the development of a positive two-way trade between them. (shrink)

After presenting a variety of arguments in support of the idea that ordinary names are indexical, I respond to John Perry's recent arguments against the indexicality of names. I conclude by indicating some connections between the theory of names defended here and Wittgenstein's observations on naming, and suggest that the latter may have been misconstrued in the literature.

In Fiction, Truth and Literature, Lamarque and Olsen argue that if a critic claims or attempts to prove that the outlook of a work of literature is true or false, he is not engaging in literary or aesthetic appreciation. This paper argues against this position by adducing cases where literary critics discuss the truth or falsity of a work’s view, when their opinions are obviously relevant to the work’s aesthetic assessment. The paper considers in detail the way factual errors damage (...) a work’s aesthetic standing, and shows that Lamarque and Olsen’s alternative account of the role of propositional truths in literature only looks plausible because it considers a restricted range of examples. Finally, it considers the role intention, date and genre play in discussions of the aesthetic damage done by literal falsehood. (shrink)

The concept of supererogation is an act that it is right to do but not wrong not to do. The moral trinity of the deontic logic excludes such acts from moral theory. A moral theory that is based on duty or obligation unqualified seems inevitably to make all good acts obligations, whether construed from a teleological or deontological point of view. If supererogation is a moral fact, no moral theory can survive without acknowledging it. One way to distinguish supererogation from (...) obligation that is not arbitrary is to draw the line of obligation at death and dismemberment. Such a limit to obligation is often implicit in moral theory. Inclusive obligation requires us all to be heroes all of the time. The moral limit to obligation is one of Hobbes's teachings. Though it is seldom noted in contemporary political and moral theory, it is, for example, implied in Rawls's definition of ‘supererogation.’ In this definition it is said that heroic supererogation would be a duty but for the high cost associated with it. This cost is the risk of life and limb;.it distinguishes supererogation from both benevolence and obligation.A supererogation is a good act with a high cost. The goodness of the act, however determined, must be proportionate to the cost to the agent. If life is risked, life or something deemed no less valuable must be gained. The intention to effect such important goods for others is sufficient for an act to be supererogatory even if it fails.If moral reality is inevitably vague, complex, and incomplete, then it is no surprise that moral theory is that way, too. The challenge is that moral theory be no more vague, complex, and incomplete than necessary and in ways justified by the nature of moral reality. A science, Aristotle advised, can be no more precise than its subject matter permits. (shrink)

A Hilbert-style version of an implicational logic can be represented by a set of axiom schemes and modus ponens or by the corresponding axioms, modus ponens and substitution. Certain logics, for example the intuitionistic implicational logic, can also be represented by axioms and the rule of condensed detachment, which combines modus ponens with a minimal form of substitution. Such logics, for example intuitionistic implicational logic, are said to be D-complete. For certain weaker logics, the version based on condensed detachment and (...) axioms (the condensed version of the logic) is weaker than the original. In this paper we prove that the relevant logic T→, and any logic of which this is a sublogic, is D-complete. (shrink)

This essay examines the profound affinities between Wittgenstein and the historical Socrates. The first five sections argue that similarities between their personalities and circumstances can explain a comparable pattern of philosophical development. The next nine show that many apparently chance similarities between the two men's lives and receptions can be explained by their shared conceptions ofphilosophical method. The last three sections consider the difficulty of practising this method through writing, and examine the solutions which Plato and Wittgenstein adopted.

Institutional theory of law (ITL) reflects both continuity and change of Kelsen's legal positivism. The main alteration results from the way ITL extends Hart's linguistic turn towards ordinary language philosophy (OLP). Hart holds –like Kelsen – that law cannot be reduced to brute fact nor morality, but because of its attempt to reconstruct social practices his theory is more inclusive. By introducing the notion of law as an extra-linguistic institution ITL takes a next step in legal positivism and accounts for (...) the relationship between action and validity within the legal system. There are, however, some problems yet unresolved by ITL. One of them is its theory of meaning. An other is the way it accounts for change and development. Answers may be based on the pragmatic philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, who emphasises the intrinsic relation between the meaning of speech acts and the process of habit formation. (shrink)

My hope has been to persuade readers that Hobbes's mighty thought experiment of the state of nature distorts our conceptual learning because it ignores the second morality. Instead, it inflates the first morality as the whole of morality. This inflation arises from Hobbes's exclusive preoccupation with universalizable reason. As important as universal reason undeniably is, it does not encompass the whole of moral reality. To suppose that it does is to distort moral reality. Like so many Enlightenment figures, Hobbes would (...) have political theory be more like logic than life.To refer once again to the Enlightenment allows me to observe that the drive to universality through reason is a distinctive feature of European civilization. To proceed along this line might lead to the conclusion that the pursuit of the universal is a cultural artifact. It is itself culturally relative. I am in no position to argue that point here at the end of the day, but did not the universal criteria propounded by the Enlightenment prove serviceable in the justification of European imperialism? By the universal standards of the Enlightenment only Europe was civilized.Reason is often a weapon. Alasdair MacIntyre has termed the search for rationality in moral philosophy a masquerade. MacIntyre sees the quest for rationality to be a quest for authority. He cites John Maynard Keynes's observations that “in practice, victory [in moral argument] was with those who could speak with the greatest appearance of clear, undoubting conviction and could best use the accents of infallibility.” Rationality is a weapon. “In moral argument the apparent assertion of principles functions as a mask for expressions of personal preference.” Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1985), pp. 9, 17, and 19. Seasoned participants in academic conferences and learned seminars realize the intensity of involvement in what Sheila Ruth has called “The Hunt.”Sheila Ruth, “Methodocracy, Misogyny, and Bad Faith,” Men's Studies Modified, Dale Spender (ed.) (Oxford: Pergamon, 1981), p. 48. The speaker is the quarry. The others, the auditors are the hunters. Some are accomplished, others are not yet blooded. They wait for the weak point. It's blood. They attack. The inexperienced hunters are enthusiastic. The seasoned hunters take their time. The quarry defends. An arbitrary time limit ends the combat, and after tea it is someone else's turn. Can anyone say that this is the best way to search out alternatives, weigh experience, assess implications, evaluate assertions? My title “The Government of Reason” is deliberately ambiguous. On the one hand it might mean governing according to the light of reason. This was, of course, the avowed aim of the Enlightenment. The conduct of political life would follow the bright line of reason. On the other hand, the title could mean governing reason, taking control of reason and using it as a weapon. Here we may be forgiven for thinking of Michel Foucault on the use of knowledge as power. The ambiguity of the title is meant to reflect the ambiguity of reality where both alternatives have occurred. Only half of the moral realm has been made the subject of political theory. (shrink)

The first half of this article argues that, like judgments as to whether something smells or tastes good, judgments about works of art ultimately depend on an element of subjective response. However, it shows that, unlike gustatory or olfactory judgments, we can argue meaningfully about our experience of works of art because they have _parts<D>. Because works of art have parts these can be patterned by the imagination, and this patterning can be influenced by what is said to us. The (...) second half considers five conditions that must be met before someone is entitled to assert, 'This is a good poem,' rather than simply, 'I like this poem now.' Finally, the last section considers why a report of an ultimately subjective response is disguised in everyday usage as an objective judgment. (shrink)

The construction assumed for the first sentence in this passage is that adopted by Verrall and Headlam, apart from some differences in detail. It seems unlikely that δών can refer to what precedes, as some have thought; for it can hardly be supposed that the poet, who is using speed and economy , would pause to tell us that the great Seer merely ‘sees’ two distinctively coloured birds which ‘have appeared near by in a conspicuous station’ compare Homer's method . (...) Also it would involve us in the doubtful construction Ατρεϊδας έδάη λαγοδαίτας for ‘he knew the . to be the λ.’ ; the nearest parallel to this would appear to be Xen. Anab. 1. 7. 4 οους γνώσεσθε τοùς νθρπονς, where the adjective makes some difference. (shrink)

This is a book review of the book Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy 2: Neglected Themes and Hidden Variations edited by Victor Sōgen Hori and Melissa Anne-Marie Curley, published in 2008 by the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture, Nagoya, Japan.