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39Sameness and DifferenceSocial Research: An International Quarterly 62 (3): 685-689. 1995.The idea of a fundamental difference between humans and animals may be used to justify subordinating animals to human interests. The presupposition that may need to be examined is that the moral relation to animals must be based on some fundamental property. Much of the discussion concerning animal awareness is framed in Cartesian terms, suggesting that a different perspective might be helpful in improving human-animal relationships and understanding.
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3Moral Differences and Distances: Some QuestionsIn Lilli Alanen, Sara Heinämaa & Thomas Wallgren (eds.), Commonality and particularity in ethics, St. Martin's Press. pp. 197--223. 1997.
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192Logical Syntax in Wittgenstein's TractatusPhilosophical Quarterly 55 (218). 2005.P.M.S. Hacker has argued that there are numerous misconceptions in James Conant's account of Wittgenstein's views and of those of Carnap. I discuss only Hacker's treatment of Conant on logical syntax in the _Tractatus. I try to show that passages in the _Tractatus which Hacker takes to count strongly against Conant's view do no such thing, and that he himself has not explained how he can account for a significant passage which certainly appears to support Conant's reading
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IntegrityIn Lawrence C. Becker & Charlotte B. Becker (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Ethics, Garland Publishing. pp. 2--863. 1992.
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35General Propositional Form?In José L. Zalabardo (ed.), Wittgenstein's Early Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 151. 2012.
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589The Importance of Being HumanRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 29 35-62. 1991.I want to argue for the importance of the notion human being in ethics. Part I of the paper presents two different sorts of argument against treating that notion as important in ethics. A. Here is an example of the first sort of argument. What makes us human beings is that we have certain properties, but these properties, making us members of a certain biological species, have no moral relevance. If, on the other hand, we define being human in terms which are not tied to biological classificatio…Read more
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129Criticising from “Outside”Philosophical Investigations 36 (1): 114-132. 2013.I look at a disagreement between Elizabeth Anscombe, on the one hand, and Peter Winch and Ilham Dilman, on the other, about whether it is legitimate to call something an error that counts as knowledge within some alien system of belief; and I look also at the question what Wittgenstein's view was. I try to show that our understanding of what is real cannot be adequately elucidated if we consider only its role within language-games, and I argue that an important element in our thinking about what…Read more
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274What if x isn't the number of sheep? Wittgenstein and Thought-Experiments in EthicsPhilosophical Papers 31 (3): 227-250. 2002.Wittgensteinian ethics, it may be thought, is committed to detailed examination of realistically described cases, and hence to eschewing the abstract hypothetical cases, many of them quite bizarre, found in much contemporary moral theorizing. I argue that bizarre cases may be helpful in thinking about ethics, and that there is nothing in Wittgenstein's approach to philosophy that would go against this. I examine the case of the ring of Gyges from the Republic; and I consider also some contempora…Read more
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135Literature and Moral Understanding. A Philosophical Essay on Ethics, Aesthetics, Education, and CulturePhilosophical Books 35 (1): 70-73. 1994.
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10Intention and intentionality: essays in honour of G. E. M. Anscombe (edited book)Cornell University Press. 1979.
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38Wittgenstein, Anscombe, and What Can Only Be TrueIn Danièle Moyal-Sharrock, Volker Munz & Annalisa Coliva (eds.), Mind, Language and Action: Proceedings of the 36th International Wittgenstein Symposium, De Gruyter. pp. 105-118. 2015.
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21Ethics, imagination and the method of Wittgenstein's TractatusIn Alice Crary & Rupert J. Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein, Routledge. pp. 149-173. 2000.
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37Addressing Russell Resolutely?Philosophical Topics 42 (2): 13-43. 2014.This essay is concerned with the question whether there is anything left of the Tractatus criticisms of Frege and Russell, if the principles on which those criticisms are apparently based are “thrown away.” I consider two examples of Tractarian arguments that criticize Russell, both of which may appear to rest on the context principle. I discuss only briefly Wittgenstein’s argument against Russell on the theory of types, but I look in detail at his criticism of Russell on generality. I show how …Read more
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19Rules: Looking in the right placeIn Dayton Z. Phillips & Peter G. Winch (eds.), Wittgenstein, Blackwell. 1989.
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11Injustice and animalsIn Carl Elliott (ed.), Slow Cures and Bad Philosophers: Essays on Wittgenstein, Medicine, and Bioethics, Duke University Press. pp. 118--148. 2001.
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11Wittgenstein, mathematics, and ethics: Resisting the attractions of realismIn Hans D. Sluga & David G. Stern (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, Cambridge University Press. pp. 226--260. 1996.
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14Henry James, moral philosophers, moralismIn Garry Hagberg & Walter Jost (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Literature, Wiley-blackwell. 2007.
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63The Skies of Dante and Our Skies: A Response to Ilham DilmanPhilosophical Investigations 35 (3-4): 187-204. 2012.The philosophical image of a “universe of discourse” can be misleading in the suggestions it carries about how to read Wittgenstein and how to approach the topic of the relation between language and reality. That is what I try to show by examining Ilham Dilman's discussion of medieval cosmology. I sketch an alternative account of the relation between medieval beliefs about the heavens and our astronomical beliefs, and I consider in detail the disagreement between the two accounts
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5Criss-cross philosophyIn Erich Ammereller & Eugen Fisher (eds.), Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations, Routledge. pp. 201--220. 2004.
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