We study shared intentions in what we call “loose groups”. These are groups that lack a codified organizational structure, and where the communication channels between group members are either unreliable or not completely open. We start by formulating two desiderata for shared intentions in such groups. We then argue that no existing account meets these two desiderata, because they assume either too strong or too weak an epistemic condition, that is, a condition on what the group members know and believe (...) about what the others intend, know, and believe. We propose an alternative, pooled knowledge, and argue that it allows formulating conditions on shared intentions that meet the two desiderata. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to analyse the mathematical practices leading to Rafael Bombelli’s L’algebra (1572). The context for the analysis is the Italian algebra practiced by abbacus masters and Renaissance mathematicians of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. We will focus here on the semiotic aspects of algebraic practices and on the organisation of knowledge. Our purpose is to show how symbols that stand for underdetermined meanings combine with shifting principles of organisation to change the character of algebra.

As an academic discipline, Religious Studies has sought to differentiate itself from Theology both in focus and methodology. Scholars have broadened their research to include sacred traditions outs...

SummaryThe outbreak of war in 1914 found Britain unprepared for a lengthy conflict. British science and industry were particularly ill-prepared to meet the demands of static warfare. Within two years, however, mobilization had made appreciable strides, and, as Britain's munitions industries moved from crisis to confidence, Britain's chemical industry was transformed by an arsenal of ‘garrison chemists’, with skills either born of necessity or borrowed from overseas. At the same time, Britain's chemical leadership traced a path that led them from (...) voluntarist to corporate methods, from private to public initiatives, and from individual to collective behaviours. This paper suggests four key stages in this mobilization, and hints at the significance of the war for the emergence of new sub-disciplines, for the careers of chemists, for academic-government relations in research, and for the image, status, and international position of British chemistry on the threshold of the postwar world. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to clarify and assess Dennett’s opinion about the relevance of the phenomenological tradition to contemporary cognitive science, focussing on the very idea of a phenomenological investigation. Dennett can be credited with four major claims on this topic: (1) Two kinds of phenomenological investigations must be carefully distinguished: autophenomenology and heterophenomenology; (2) autophenomenology is wrong, because it fails to overcome what might be called the problem of phenomenological scepticism; (3) the phenomenological tradition mainly derived from Husserl (...) is based on an autophenomenological conception of phenomenology, and, consequently, can be of no help to contemporary cognitive science; (4) however, heterophenomenology is indispensable for obtaining an adequate theory of consciousness. In response to Dennett’s analysis, the paper develops two main counterclaims: (1) Although the traditional conception of phenomenology does indeed fit Dennett’s notion of autophenomenology, his sceptical arguments fail to rule out at least the possibility of a modified version of this traditional conception, such as the one defended in Roy et al. (Naturalizing Phenomenology, 1999); (2) the distinction between autophenomenology and heterophenomenology is at any rate misconceived, because, upon closer analysis, heterophenomenology proves to include the essential characteristics of autophenomenology. (shrink)

At the beginning of his essay "On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex," E. R. Dodds tells us what prompted him to write it. As Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford, he served as an examiner in the annual undergraduate honors trials, and as such posed the following question: "In what sense, if in any, does the Oedipus Rex attempt to justify the ways of God to man?"1 He divided the responses into three categories. The first of these, the (...) largest group, held that the play demonstrates that the universe is just, and that Oedipus received the punishment he deserved. The second group regarded the play as demonstrating that man lacks free will and is "like a puppet in the hands of the gods." The third group... (shrink)

Why do things happen as they do in the universe of Oedipus Tyrannus, consisting of the play itself coupled with the myth that surrounds and informs it? Why is Oedipus fated to kill his father and marry his mother? What part does Oedipus play in his own destruction? What role do divinities play? And what of human free will? In what follows I consider the power of curses, prophecy, prayer, fate, the gods, and human self-determination as they serve to effect (...) the action.Generally accepted is the notion that the Greek audience knew the Oedipus myth before entering the theater. Sophocles's use of dramatic irony depends on this. But where does the myth begin? Sophocles starts in medias res with the plague, but the myth... (shrink)

L’article s’attache à poser et définir le problème de la pertinence de la théorie de l’accointance de Russell pour le débat contemporain sur la conscience phénoménale, ainsi qu’à en entreprendre l’examen. Il avance deux hypothèses principales. La première est que, d’un point de vue théorique, ce problème recouvre principalement la question de savoir s’il convient de défendre une conception intentionnaliste de la nature de la conscience phénoménale. La seconde est qu’une partie importante du débat contemporain, correspondant au camp de ceux (...) qui se réclament d’une approche non représentationaliste de la conscience phénoménale et qui est illustré de façon centrale par le travail du philosophe Ned Block, répondent négativement à une telle question et reconnaissent donc du même coup, quoique de manière principalement implicite, que ce qui est en fait pertinent dans la théorie de l’accointance russellienne c’est que son auteur en soit venu à la rejeter en 1919. (shrink)

My first goal is to question a received view about the development of Analytical Philosophy. According to this received view Analytical Philosophy is born out of a Linguistic Turn establishing the study of language as the foundation of the discipline; this primacy of language is then overthrown by the return of the study of mind as philosophia prima through a second Cognitive Turn taken in the mid-sixties. My contention is that this picture is a gross oversimplification and that the Cognitive (...) Turn should better be seen as an extension of the Linguistic one. Indeed, if the Cognitive Turn gives explicit logical priority to the study of mind over the study of language, one of its central features is to see the mind as a representational system offering no substantial difference with a linguistic one. However, no justification is offered for the fundamental assimilation of the nature of a mental representation with that of a linguistic symbol supporting this picture of the mind, although the idea that a system of mental representations is identical in structure with a system of linguistic symbols has been argued over and over. I try to demonstrate this point through a close critical examination of Fodor's paradigmatic notion of 'double reduction.' My second claim is that the widespread contemporary assimilation of a mental representation with a symbol of a linguistic kind is no more than a prejudice. Finally I indicate that this prejudice cannot survive a rigorous critical examination. (shrink)

‘Since the Great War began’, Professor David Orme Masson told a Melbourne audience in September 1915, ‘two statements have been made, and so frequently repeated that today they are commonplace. The first is that the result…depends on…men and more men, munitions and yet more munitions. The second is that this is a war of chemists and engineers—a war of applied science’. To Britain's assistance in this war of invention and applied science came more than 120 Australian scientists, whose particular technical (...) skills were urgently needed by the expanding munitions industries. However, their contribution to the Imperial cause and to Allied victory has been overshadowed by the heroism of ANZAC troops in Gallipoli and in France. This paper begins the task of assessing the importance of their work for Britain, and the significance of their wartime experiences for post-war Australia, as viewed through the lives of the men and their organizing genius, A. E. Leighton. (shrink)

On Race and Racism in America offers a variety of perspectives on American Philosophy's relative blindness to issues of race.