This book presents an original theory of the nature of pictorial representation. The most influential recent theory of depiction, put forward by Nelson Goodman, holds that the relation between depictions and what they represent is entirely conventional. Flint Schier argues to the contrary that depiction involves resemblance to the things depicted, providing a sophisticated defence of our basic intuitions on the subject. Canvassing an attractive theory of 'generativity' rather than resemblance, Dr Schier provides a detailed account of depiction, (...) showing how it illuminates and resolves many of the enigmas of pictorial representation while remaining true to our basic intuitions on the subject. Philosophers, psychologists and art theorists will find this a sophisticated and stimulating treatment of one of the central topics in aesthetics. (shrink)

Despite a wealth of data we still have no clear idea what color experiences represent. In fact, color experiences vary with so many factors that it has been claimed that they do not represent anything at all. The primary challenge for any representational account of color experience is to accommodate the various psychophysical results that demonstrate that color appearance depends not only on the spectral nature of the target but also on the spectral, spatial and figural nature of the surround. (...) A number of theorists have proposed that this dependence is an aspect of the visual system's constancy mechanism. However this does not in and of itself tell us what, if anything, is represented in color experience. Ultimately the answer to this question will be informed by one's theory of representational content. I will argue that adopting a molecular scheme of representation enables the development of an account of the represented object of color experience that can do justice to the psychophysical data. (shrink)

At the centre of the traditional discussion of truth is the question of how truth is defined. Recent research, especially with the development of deflationist accounts of truth, has tended to take truth as an undefined primitive notion governed by axioms, while the liar paradox and cognate paradoxes pose problems for certain seemingly natural axioms for truth. In this book, Volker Halbach examines the most important axiomatizations of truth, explores their properties and shows how the logical results impinge on (...) the philosophical topics related to truth. In particular, he shows that the discussion on topics such as deflationism about truth depends on the solution of the paradoxes. His book is an invaluable survey of the logical background to the philosophical discussion of truth, and will be indispensable reading for any graduate or professional philosopher in theories of truth. (shrink)

(1989). THE CLAIMS OF TRAGEDY: AN ESSAY IN MORAL PSYCHOLOGY AND AESTHETIC THEORY. Philosophical Papers: Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 7-26. doi: 10.1080/05568648909506308.

The polarisation of the embryonic anteroposterior (AP) axis requires the establishment of positional cues with spatial information, and often involves complex intercellular communications, cell adhesion and cell movement. Recent work on several fronts has begun to shed light on how the initial asymmetries are established and maintained. In this review, I discuss the polarisation of the AP axis during Drosophila oogenesis, focusing on the function of the Notch signalling pathway and its relationship to the activation of the epidermal growth factor (...) receptor. I make special reference to some aspects of Notch activity regulation during oogenesis that appear to depart from the canonical pathway. Finally, I hypothesise on possible similarities between these activities of Notch signalling during Drosophila oogenesis and vertebrate somitogenesis. BioEssays 25:781–791, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Flint Schier; VIII*—Hume and the Aesthetics of Agency, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 87, Issue 1, 1 June 1987, Pages 121–136, https://doi.org/.

This paper examines the possibility of finding evidence that phenomenal consciousness is independent of access. The suggestion reviewed is that we should look for isomorphisms between phenomenal and neural activation spaces. It is argued that the fact that phenomenal spaces are mapped via verbal report is no problem for this methodology. The fact that activation and phenomenal space are mapped via different means does not mean that they cannot be identified. The paper finishes by examining how data addressing this theoretical (...) question could be obtained. (shrink)

Logical consequence in first-order predicate logic is defined substitutionally in set theory augmented with a primitive satisfaction predicate: an argument is defined to be logically valid if and only if there is no substitution instance with true premises and a false conclusion. Substitution instances are permitted to contain parameters. Variants of this definition of logical consequence are given: logical validity can be defined with or without identity as a logical constant, and quantifiers can be relativized in substitution instances or not. (...) It is shown that the resulting notions of logical consequence are extensionally equivalent to versions of first-order provability and model-theoretic consequence. Every model-theoretic interpretation has a substitutional counterpart, but not vice versa. In particular, in contrast to the model-theoretic account, there is a trivial intended interpretation on the substitutional account, namely, the homophonic interpretation that does not substitute anything. Applications to free logic, and theories and languages other than set theory are sketched. (shrink)

If Australasian philosophers constitute the kind of group to which a collective identity or broadly shared self-image can plausibly be ascribed, the celebrated history of Australian materialism rightly lies close to its heart. Jack Smart’s chapter in this volume, along with an outstanding series of briefer essays in A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (Forrest 2010; Gold 2010; Koksvik 2010; Lycan 2010; Matthews 2010; Nagasawa 2010; Opie 2010; Stoljar 2010a), effectively describe the naturalistic realism of Australian philosophy (...) of mind. In occasional semi-serious psychogeographic speculation, this long-standing and strongly-felt intellectual attitude has been traced back to the influences of our light, land, or lifestyle (Devitt 1996, x; compare comments by Chalmers and O’Brien in Mitchell, 2006). Australasian work in philosophy of mind and cognition has become more diverse in the last 40 years, but is almost all still marked, in one way or another, by the history of these debates on materialism. (shrink)

Recently a number of authors have responded to the knowl-edge argument by suggesting that Mary could learn about new physi-cal facts upon release (Flanagan, 1992; Mandik, 2001; Stoljar, 2001; Van Gulick, 1985). A key step in achieving this is a demonstration that there are facts that can be known via colour experience that cannot be learnt scientifically. In this paper I develop an account of scientific and visual knowledge on which there is a difference between the knowledge provided by science (...) and that provided by vision. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s Whewell’s Court Lectures contains previously unpublished notes from lectures given by Ludwig Wittgenstein between 1938 and 1941. The volume offers new insight into the development of Wittgenstein’s thought and includes some of the finest examples of Wittgenstein’s lectures in regard to both content and reliability.

This article—mainly referring to the situation in Germany—consists of three parts. In a first section the current presence of neurosciences in the public discourse will be described in order to illuminate the background which is relevant for contemporary educational thinking. The prefix ‘neuro-’ is ubiquitous today and therefore concepts like ‘neuropedagogy’ or ‘neurodidactics’ seem to be in the mainstream of modern thinking. In the second part of the article the perspective changes from the public discourse to the disciplinary discourse; a (...) brief excursus into developmental psychiatry, neuropsychology and modern psychoanalysis will be made in order to demonstrate how the results of neuroscientific research are integrated in their theoretical frameworks. These three disciplines have no difficulty in integrating neuroscientific findings because each of them possesses a systematic core composed of ‘native concepts’. In contrast to them, educational theory has much more difficulty with such integration, as will be shown in the third part of the essay. On the one hand, neuroscientific thinking seems to be able to dominate education rather easily and without great resistance, especially in the fields of early childhood education, instruction and learning—mainly by simplifying educational processes and by reducing the complexity of the educational task to a mere ‘relationship problem’. On the other hand, this attraction of neuroscience in education might be understood as the reflection of a theoretical deficit in educational theory itself, with the significance of affect and emotion not receiving proper attention. (shrink)

Philosophical interest in beautiful moral agency can be traced back at least to Plato. It is an insistent theme of his writings that a virtuous soul is one in which the functions of its various parts are properly discharged, just as in the healthy body all the organs must perform their proper tasks. As health in the body is beautiful (kalon), so is the health of the soul. We here discern the first inkling of a thought which has engrossed the (...) moral and aesthetic imagination ever since: that moral nobility and artistic beauty consist in 'organic unity'. The idea reappears in both the Ethics and Poetics of Aristotle; a good man is a perfectly functioning hierarchy of goals in which his projects co-operate harmoniously under the direction of more general, overarching goods. Just as the most excellent knowledge is of theories which subsume the most diverse instances, so the most excellent goal is one which subsumes many subsidiary projects.' Analogously, the plot of a good tragedy depicts a single action, and all of its parts are contoured to the shape of this one great event. The plot of a well-written tragedy is thus a formal emblem of the wellplanned life. Work and life are noble to the extent that they manifest the handiwork of a virtuous practical intelligence. The most highly realized life is the most beautiful one, and the most excellent artwork is a formal microcosm of the most highly realized life. (shrink)

The attempts to mitigate the unprecedented health, economic, and social disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are largely dependent on establishing compliance to behavioral guidelines and rules that reduce the risk of infection. Here, by conducting an online survey that tested participants’ knowledge about the disease and measured demographic, attitudinal, and cognitive variables, we identify predictors of self-reported social distancing and hygiene behavior. To investigate the cognitive processes underlying health-prevention behavior in the pandemic, we co-opted the dual-process model of thinking (...) to measure participants’ propensities for automatic and intuitive thinking vs. controlled and reflective thinking. Self-reports of 17 precautionary behaviors, including regular hand washing, social distancing, and wearing a face mask, served as a dependent measure. The results of hierarchical regressions showed that age, risk-taking propensity, and concern about the pandemic predicted adoption of precautionary behavior. Variance in cognitive processes also predicted precautionary behavior: participants with higher scores for controlled thinking (measured with the Cognitive Reflection Test) reported less adherence to specific guidelines, as did respondents with a poor understanding of the infection and transmission mechanism of the COVID-19 virus. The predictive power of this model was comparable to an approach (Theory of Planned Behavior) based on attitudes to health behavior. Given these results, we propose the inclusion of measures of cognitive reflection and mental model variables in predictive models of compliance, and future studies of precautionary behavior to establish how cognitive variables are linked with people’s information processing and social norms. (shrink)

To the axioms of Peano arithmetic formulated in a language with an additional unary predicate symbol T we add the rules of necessitation and conecessitation T and axioms stating that T commutes with the logical connectives and quantifiers. By a result of McGee this theory is -inconsistent, but it can be approximated by models obtained by a kind of rule-of-revision semantics. Furthermore we prove that FS is equivalent to a system already studied by Friedman and Sheard and give an analysis (...) of its proof theory. (shrink)

In this paper we try to diagnose one reason why the debate regarding the Hard Problem of consciousness inevitably leads to a stalemate: namely that the characterisation of consciousness assumed by the Hard Problem is unjustified and probably unjustifiable. Following Dennett : 4–6, 1996, Cognition 79:221–237, 2001, J Conscious Stud 19:86, 2012) and Churchland :402–408, 1996, Brainwise: studies in neurophilosophy. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002), we argue that there is in fact no non-question begging argument for the claim that consciousness (...) is a uniquely Hard Phenomenon. That is; there is no non-question begging argument for the claim that consciousness is necessarily in explicable in terms of the structure and function of mental states. Unfortunately the debate has not moved on because the majority of materialists feel the pull of the at least one of, what we call, the ‘key’ intuitions that supposedly support dualism and the existence of a Hard Phenomenon and so try to accommodate them rather than denying them. Although this a possible response to the intuitions it tends to mask the fact that there is in fact no argument for the existence of a Hard Phenomenon. So we end up participating in our own hornswoggling :402–408, 1996) and chasing our tails trying to answer a question we should in fact ignore. We have no reason to think there is a Hard Problem of consciousness because we have no reason to think the Hard Phenomenon exists. (shrink)

We investigate axiomatizations of Kripke's theory of truth based on the Strong Kleene evaluation scheme for treating sentences lacking a truth value. Feferman's axiomatization KF formulated in classical logic is an indirect approach, because it is not sound with respect to Kripke's semantics in the straightforward sense: only the sentences that can be proved to be true in KF are valid in Kripke's partial models. Reinhardt proposed to focus just on the sentences that can be proved to be true in (...) KF and conjectured that the detour through classical logic in KF is dispensable. We refute Reinhardt's Conjecture, and provide a direct axiomatization PKF of Kripke's theory in partial logic. We argue that any natural axiomatization of Kripke's theory in Strong Kleene logic has the same proof-theoretic strength as PKF, namely the strength of the system RA< ωω ramified analysis or a system of Tarskian ramified truth up to ωω. Thus any such axiomatization is much weaker than Feferman's axiomatization KF in classical logic, which is equivalent to the system RA<ε₀ of ramified analysis up to ε₀. (shrink)

According to the disquotationalist theory of truth, the Tarskian equivalences, conceived as axioms, yield all there is to say about truth. Several authors have claimed that the expression of infinite conjunctions and disjunctions is the only purpose of the disquotationalist truth predicate. The way in which infinite conjunctions can be expressed by an axiomatized truth predicate is explored and it is considered whether the disquotationalist truth predicate is adequate for this purpose.

We study operator equations within the Turing machine based framework for computability in analysis. Is there an algorithm that maps pairs to solutions of Tx = u ? Here we consider the case when T is a bounded linear mapping between Hilbert spaces. We are in particular interested in computing the generalized inverse T†u, which is the standard concept of solution in the theory of inverse problems. Typically, T† is discontinuous and hence no computable mapping. However, we will use effective (...) versions of theorems from the theory of regularization to show that the mapping ↦ T†u is computable. We then go on to study the computability of average-case solutions with respect to Gaussian measures which have been considered in information based complexity. Here, T† is considered as an element of an L2-space. We define suitable representations for such spaces and use the results from the first part of the paper to show that ↦ T† is computable. (shrink)

Recently a number of authors have responded to the knowledge argument by suggesting that Mary could learn about new physical facts upon release (Flanagan 1992; Mandik 2001; Stoljar 2001; Van Gulick 1985). A key step in achieving this is a demonstration that there are facts that can be known via color experience that cannot..

 Introduce the intuitions  Accepting that there is no appearance/reality distinction for consciousness means we must deny that consciousness does causal work..

This chapter discusses the complex conditions for the emergence of 19th-century symbolic logic. The main scope will be on the mathematical motives leading to the interest in logic; the philosophical context will be dealt with only in passing. The main object of study will be the algebra of logic in its British and German versions. Special emphasis will be laid on the systems of George Boole and above all of his German follower Ernst Schröder.

The purpose of this article is to explore the potential contribution of Axel Honneth's critical theory of recognition to empirical and normative debates on global justice. I first present, very briefly, an overview of recent theories of global distributive justice. I argue that theorists of distributive justice do not pay enough attention to sources of self-respect and conditions for identity formation, and that they are blind toward the danger of harming people's sense of self even by well-intentioned redistributive policies. Honneth's (...) theory suffers from complementary shortcomings; it is anti-technocratic but largely oblivious to the global nature of many contemporary justice claims. Given this situation, I seek to broaden the theory's scope by outlining transnational extensions of the recognition principles of love, rights and solidarity identified by Honneth. In conclusion, I show how utilizing a broadened conceptualization of the struggle for recognition allows us to better understand the changing logic of justice-oriented foreign policies. (shrink)

When Benno Kerry died at the age of 30 he was already well‐known for his competent and thoroughgoing philosophical criticism of Cantor’s set theory and Frege’s early philosophy of mathematics.Before his death he was working on a theory of limits which was an elaboration of his Habilitationsschrift of 1884 and of which only a first part was published posthumously.This paper gives a survey of Kerry’s basic biographical data, and a first description of his Habilitationsschrift which had been missing for a (...) long time but was found by chance in the Nachlass of the German philosopher Leonard Nelson. (shrink)

On the one hand, the concept of truth is a major research subject in analytic philosophy. On the other hand, mathematical logicians have developed sophisticated logical theories of truth and the paradoxes. Recent developments in logical theories of the semantical paradoxes are highly relevant for philosophical research on the notion of truth. And conversely, philosophical guidance is necessary for the development of logical theories of truth and the paradoxes. From this perspective, this volume intends to reflect and promote deeper interaction (...) and collaboration between philosophers and logicians investigating the concept of truth than has existed so far.Aside from an extended introductory overview of recent work in the theory of truth, the volume consists of articles by leading philosophers and logicians on subjects and debates that are situated on the interface between logical and philosophical theories of truth. The volume is intended for graduate students in philosophy and in logic who want an introduction to contemporary research in this area, as well as for professional philosophers and logicians. (shrink)

The uniform reflection principle for the theory of uniform T-sentences is added to PA. The resulting system is justified on the basis of a disquotationalist theory of truth where the provability predicate is conceived as a special kind of analyticity. The system is equivalent to the system ACA of arithmetical comprehension. If the truth predicate is also allowed to occur in the sentences that are inserted in the T-sentences, yet not in the scope of negation, the system with the reflection (...) schema for these T-sentences assumes the strength of the Kripke-Feferman theory KF, and thus of ramified analysis up to go. (shrink)

Der Phänomenologe Oskar Becker beschäftigte sich zeit seines Lebens mit der Philosophie der Mathematik, insbesondere mit dem Unendlichkeitsproblem und seinen Implikationen für die Ontologie mathematischer Gegenstände. Durch Anwendung der phänomenologischen Methode versuchte er einen intuitiven Zugang zum Unendlichen zu ermöglichen. Während er im mathematischen Grundlagenstreit Position bezog für den Intuitionismus L.E.J. Brouwers und H. Weyls, kritisierte er den Formalismus D. Hilberts heftig. Sein besonderes Interesse galt darüber hinaus der Geschichte insbesondere der antiken Mathematik. Die Beiträge des Bandes behandeln die mathematikphilosophischen (...) und -historischen Interessen Beckers in ihrer ganzen Breite und stellen seine Ansichten in den mathematikphilosophischen, aber auch hermeneutisch-phänomenologischen Kontext ihrer Zeit. In diesem Zusammenhang relevante, bisher ungedruckte Briefwechsel und Einzelbriefe werden hier erstmals veröffentlicht. (shrink)

The purpose of Key Approaches to Biblical Ethics is to address fundamental as well as practical questions of methodology in examining the ethical material of the Bible. Sixteen scholars of international reputation, most of them leaders in the field of biblical ethics, discuss questions of biblical interpretation from the perspectives of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament ethics in close dialogue with one another. In the present volume both established and new approaches to biblical ethics are presented and discussed. The (...) result is a volume of unprecedented scholarly interaction that provides key insights into issues of biblical ethics that play a significant role both for biblical interpretation as well as for methodological questions in Jewish and Christian ethics today. (shrink)