Ruth Weintraub

In this paper I offer solutions to two problems which our moral practice engenders for expressivism, the meta-ethical doctrine according to which ethical statements aren't propositional, susceptible of truth and falsity, but, rather, express the speaker's non-cognitive attitudes. First, the expressivist must show that arguments which are valid when interpreted propositionally are valid when construed expressivistically, and vice versa. The second difficulty is the Frege-Geach problem. Moral arguments employ atomic sentences, negations, disjunctions, etc., and, by expressivist lights, the meaning of a moral sentence depends on the attitude that it expresses. Since one's attitude varies as one asserts a claim, or negates it, or cites it as a disjunct, etc., the meaning of the relevant phrase changes as well, so the argument equivocates. (Formal proofs are provided in appendices to the paper.)

I consider a seemingly attractive strategy for grappling with the mind-body problem. It is often thought that materialists are committed to spatially locating mental events, whereas dualists are barred from so doing. The thought naturally arises, then, that reasons for or against the spatiality of the mental may be wielded to adjudicate between the different positions in the mind-body dispute. Showing that mental events are spatially located, it may be thought, is ipso facto showing the truth of materialism. Conversely, it seems, if we can show that mental events are not spatially located, we will have refuted materialism. The strategy looks promising because it reduces a very abstruse problem to a much more tractable one. Unfortunately, I will argue, it can’t be implemented.

Descartes’ circle has been extensively discussed, and I do not wish to add another paper to that literature. Rather, I use the circle to facilitate our understanding of two types of scepticism and the proper attitude to them. Descartes’ text is especially apt for this purpose, because a case can be made for attributing to him both types. Although I will touch on the interpretative question, that is not my main aim. My contention is that one brand - whether or not it is the one that Descartes favoured - should be taken very seriously, and Descartes’ failure to respond to it non circularly cannot be met with equanimity.

The postulation by the “epistemic” theory of vagueness of a cut-off point between heaps and non-heaps has made it seem incredible. Surely, the critics argue, a vague predicate doesn’t divide the universe into a set and its complement. I argue in response that an objection of a similar kind can be leveled against most theories of vagueness. The only two which avoid it are untenable. The objection is less compelling than it initially seems. However, even when this obstacle is removed, the epistemic theory is not yet vindicated.

In this paper, I consider some ways in which the Copy Principle and Hume’s nominalism impinge on one another, concluding that the marriage is not a happy one. I argue for the following claims. First, Hume’s argument against indeterminate ideas isn’t cogent even if the Copy Principle is accepted. But this does not vindicate Locke: the imagistic conception of ideas, presupposed by the Copy Principle, will force Locke to accept something like Hume’s view of the way general terms function, the availability of abstract ideas notwithstanding. Second, Hume’s discussion of nominalism provides support for the “old Hume” interpretation, which takes the Copy Principle to be a criterion of meaningfulness, as against the “new Hume” reading, according to which it constrains what we can know. Finally, nominalism forces Hume to adopt a more complicated theory of ideas.

Hume is sometimes thought to provide a ‘naturalistic’ response to the sceptic. I consider two ways in which this response may be construed. According to the first, the fact that we are psychologically determined to hold a belief provides it with justification. According to the second, ‘natural’ beliefs provide limits within which reason can legitimately be employed, limits which the sceptic transgresses when he attempts to defend his position. Both versions of the naturalistic response to scepticism, I will argue, aren't plausible. And they aren't, at least not predominantly, Hume's.

Hume's Copy Principle, which accords precedence to impressions over ideas, is restricted to simple perceptions. Yet in all the conceptual analyses Hume conducts by attempting to fit an impression to a (putative) idea, he never checks for simplicity. And this seems to vitiate the analyses: we cannot conclude from the lack of a preceding impression that a putative idea is bogus, unless it is simple. In this paper I criticise several attempts to account for Hume's seemingly cavalier attitude, and offer one of my own.

This article considers two arguments that purport to show that inductive reasoning is unjustified: the argument adduced by Sextus Empiricus and the (better known and more formidable) argument given by Hume in the Treatise. While Sextus’ argument can quite easily be rebutted, a close examination of the premises of Hume’s argument shows that they are seemingly cogent. Because the sceptical claim is very unintuitive, the sceptical argument constitutes a paradox. And since attributions of justification are theoretical, and the claim that they are never (or seldom) true isn’t preposterous, the correct response to the paradox may well be to admit that the sceptic has exposed our error in making them.

It seems obvious that our beliefs are logically imperfect in two ways: they are neither deductively closed nor logically consistent. But this common-sense truism has been judged erroneous by some philosophers in the light of various arguments. In defence of common sense I consider and rebut interpretative arguments for logical perfection and show that the assumption espoused by common sense is theoretically superior, and capable - unlike its rival - of accounting for the informativeness of mathematics. Finally, I suggest that common sense opens the way to genuine disputes about the correct logic.

Fallibilism is an attractive epistemological position, avoiding the Scylla of rationalism, and the Charybdis of scepticism. Acknowledging, on the one hand, human imperfection, yet claiming that science and rational inquiry are possible. Fallibilism is a thesis, but equally importantly – an epistemological recommendation. that we should never be absolutely sure of anything. My aim in this paper is to drive a wedge between the thesis and the recommendation. The (eminently plausible) doctrine, I shall argue, cannot be used to ground the epistemological prescription for caution.

Suppose Jones pulls the trigger at t1, releasing a bullet which hits Smith, who dies, as a result of the wound, at t2. If we suppose the killing lasts for as long as it takes Jones to pull the trigger, we implausibly accept that the killing is over before Smith dies. If we say, instead, that the killing is over only when Smith is dead, we must suppose - equally implausibly - that Jones can still be killing Smith when he (Jones) is already otherwise engaged or even dead. I aim both to explain our intuitions and correct them.

Hume’s famous argument against the credibility of testimony about miracles invokes two premises: 1) The reliability of the witness (the extent to which he is informed and truthful) must be compared with the intrinsic probability of the miracle. 2) The initial probability of a miracle is always small enough to outweigh the improbability that the testimony is false (even when the witness is assumed to be reliable). I defend the first premise of the argument, showing that Hume’s argument can be applied to purported observations of miracles, as well. I then show that Hume failed to provide an adequate support for his second premise. A more cogent defence can be provided for a weaker premise. The resultant argument has, consequently, a less sweeping conclusion than Hume’s

After defending the pluralistic approach to the interpretation of probability statements, I argue that the correctness of objective probability statements is not to be explained in terms of objective probabilities attached to propositions. Such an explanation will enable us to uphold an intuitively appealing connection between probability and action only in indeterministic contexts, whereas the objectivity of probability statements doesn’t depend on the truth of indeterminism. I show how objective probability statements can be interpreted without ascribing objective probabilities to propositions. Finally, I draw a cautionary conclusion about the prospects for providing a probabilistic analysis of causation.

There are very few philosophical issues which are so intimately associated with one single philosopher as is the problem of induction with Hume. This paper argues against this received opinion. It shows that Hume was neither the first to think induction problematic, nor the originator of the argument he adduced in support of the (sceptical) position. It then explains his (more modest) contribution. Its primary concern, however, is not historical. By considering Hume’s contribution to the problem of induction, it is argued, we can come to a better understanding of this recalcitrant problem.

Do we really know the things we think we know? Are any of our beliefs reasonable? Scepticism gives a pessimistic reply to these important epistemological questions - we don't know anything; none of our beliefs are reasonable. But can such a seemingly paradoxical claim be more than an intellectual curiousity? And if it is, can it be refuted? Ruth Weintraub answers yes to both these questions. The sceptical challenge is a formidable one, and should be confronted, not dismissed. The theoretical and practical difficulties it presents - in that the sceptical life cannot be lived, and the doctrine seems self-defeating - are in fact superficial, according to Ruth Weintraub. Her study looks at the sceptical arguments of Descartes, Hume and the ancient Greek sceptic, Sextus Empiricus. The author argues that by drawing on philosophy, rather than science, the sceptical challenge can be answered. _The Sceptical Challenge_ is a bold and original response to scepticism; it represents a new way of looking at the field for philosophers of epistemology

Hume’s familiar sceptical argument against induction brands as irrational our practice of generalising from observed regularities because of its reliance on the assumption that nature is uniform, an assumption which is unjustifiable. The argument which I wish to consider focuses instead on the observed regularities that are required if we are legitimately to extrapolate from experience. According to Hume, the paradigm type of inductive reasoning involves a constant conjunction. But in fact we do not encounter such invariable uniformities: our experience is, almost invariably, irregular. So setting aside Hume’s sceptical qualms about the very attempt to form expectations about the hitherto unobserved, how can we justify our ignoring such irregularities? My conclusion is that, even if the principle of uniformity can be justified, our practice is irrational by Hume’s lights. This is a new Humean critique of our “causal reasoning,” for, although Hume does not present it, the ingredients are all his.

According to the received view, Hume is a much more rigorous and consistent concept-empiricist than Locke. Hume is supposed to have taken as a starting point Locke's meaning-empiricism, and worked out its full radical implications. Locke, by way of contrast, cowered from drawing his theory's strange consequences. The received view about Locke's and Hume's concept-empiricism is mistaken, I shall argue. Hume may be more uncompromising (although he too falters), but he is not more rigorous than Locke. It is not because of (intellectual) timidity that Locke does not draw Hume's conclusions from his empiricism. It is, rather, because of his much sounder method.

Hume’s three principles of association, we are led to believe from the way Hume introduces them, are supposed to account for the formation of complex ideas out of simple ones. But the account he gives, I show, is pretty poor. But Hume, in fact, has an additional issue in mind: accounting for thoughts we have with ideas we already possess, e.g.: the way one idea brings to one’s conscious mind an idea previously formed and now lying dormant, so to speak. The answer Hume gives to this question, I argue, is quite passable.