Strengths of Mealey's target article are its implementation of results from game-theoretic analyses and its potential links with other formal developments. In recent dynamic decision/choice models, reduced salience of avoidance tendencies, said to typify primary sociopaths, has quantifiable consequences for response latencies and choices. Also, formal models of stress effects on information processing predict selected effects of hypoarousability.

F. H. Bradley did not write extensively or systematically on the philosophy of religion, and much of what he did write has the character of either tentative speculation or the pre-emptive rebuttal of potential misinterpretations that might threaten his general philosophical position. ‘I admit that on this subject I never had much to say’ he warns. But such a remark should not discourage us from considering his views on this topic, since the disclaimer is typically Bradleian, and more reflective of (...) his high standards for what is required in order to claim to have something to say about some matter than of any genuine lack of opinion. On closer inspection we find that he has, scattered throughout his work, a great many important things to say about this subject. (shrink)

We study modal logics in the setting of varieties of modal algebras. Any variety of modal algebras generated by a finite algebra — such, a variety is called tabular — has only finitely many subvarieties, i.e. is of finite height. The converse does not hold in general. It is shown that the converse does hold in the lattice of varieties of K4-algebras. Hence the lower part of this lattice consists of tabular varieties only. We proceed to show that there is (...) a continuum of pretabular varieties of K4-algebras — those are the non-tabular varieties all of whose proper subvarieties are tabular — in contrast with Maksimova's result that there are only five pretabular varieties of S4-algebras. (shrink)

The veiled recession frame has served several times in the literature to provide examples of modal logics failing to have certain desirable properties. Makinson [4] was the first to use it in his presentation of a modal logic without the finite model property. Thomason [5] constructed a (rather complicated) logic whose Kripke frames have an accessibility relation which is reflexive and transitive, but which is satisfied by the (non-transitive) veiled recession frame, and hence incomplete. In Van Benthem [2] the frame (...) was an essential tool to find simple examples of incomplete logics, axiomatized by a formula in two proposition letters of degree 2, or by a formula in one proposition letter of degree 4 (the degree of a modal formula is the maximal number of nested occurrences of the necessity operator in ). In [3] we showed that the modal logic determined by the veiled recession frame is incomplete, and besides that, is an immediate predecessor of classical logic (or, more precisely, the modal logic axiomatized by the formula pp), and hence is a logic, maximal among the incomplete ones. Considering the importance of the modal logic determined by the veiled recession frame, it seems worthwhile to ask for an axiomatization, and in particular, to answer the question if it is finitely axiomatizable. In the present paper we find a finite axiomatization of the logic, and in fact, a rather simple one consisting of formulas in at most two proposition letters and of degree at most three. (shrink)

This paper argues that a strong thesis of divine providence, whereby God is understood as in complete control of all things, entails pantheism, the thesis that the universe is not ontologically distinct from God. In normal discourse, we distinguish a plan from, on the one hand, the state of affairs which realizes that plan—its execution or expression—and, on the other hand, the person or group whose plan it is. However, with respect to an omnipotent God who displays complete providence, neither (...) of these two distinctions holds. We cannot separate person from plan, or plan from world, and in consequence, neither can we separate person from world, ergo pantheism. Accordingly, the argument of this paper comes in two parts maintaining, first, the impossibility of distinguishing between God’s plan and its execution and, second, the impossibility of distinguishing God himself from his plan. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Wittgenstein is correct when he says of the Standard Metre stick that we can neither say that it is or is not a metre in length – despite what our intuitions may tell us to the contrary. Specifically, the paper deals with Kripke's criticism of Wittgenstein's claim in Naming And Necessity and with Salmon's attempt to arbitrate between the two views. I conclude that, not only is Wittgenstein correct, but that both Kripke and Salmon (...) (and possibly the majority of philosophers) simply do not understand the concept of measurement. (shrink)

The paper argues that Donnellan’s distinction between the referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions, whilst a genuine feature of language, does not count against Russell’s Theory of Descriptions where Russell’s theory is regarded as a theory of the semantics of descriptions and not the pragmatics of individual uses on a particular occasion. The argument I shall present is simple but decisive and ought to resolve once and for all the debate about the significance of Donnellan’s distinction for Russell’s theory, (...) provided of course that Russell’s theory really does concern the semantics of definite descriptions rather than their use on particular occasions. (shrink)

There exist important deductive systems, such as the non-normal modal logics, that are not proper subjects of classical algebraic logic in the sense that their metatheory cannot be reduced to the equational metatheory of any particular class of algebras. Nevertheless, most of these systems are amenable to the methods of universal algebra when applied to the matrix models of the system. In the present paper we consider a wide class of deductive systems of this kind called protoalgebraic logics. These include (...) almost all (non-pathological) systems of prepositional logic that have occurred in the literature. The relationship between the metatheory of a protoalgebraic logic and its matrix models is studied. The following results are obtained for any finite matrix model U of a filter-distributive protoalgebraic logic : (I) The extension U of is finitely axiomatized (provided has only finitely many inference rules); (II) U has only finitely many extensions. (shrink)

This book presents a history of the volitional theory of causation—the philosophical proposal that volition, or will, of the same or broadly the same stamp as that which we experience in our own deliberate and voluntary doings, should be taken as the basis for all causality. Few today know much about the volitional theory of causation, and even fewer have given it any serious attention. But if current opinion regards this suggestion as an unusual one, of minor importance, the historical (...) record shows otherwise, revealing that it is a theory which has been proposed and developed again and again throughout the modern era. Its obscurity is only a recent phenomenon. Starting at the beginning of the Early Modern period and progressing right up modern times, the historical discussion takes in both supporters and critics, as well as both famous and less well-known figures, to tell the story of a long-running debate which contemporary history of philosophy has forgotten. (shrink)