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35I will discuss the so-called “Master Argument” attributed to Diodorus Cronos in the light of some contemporary speculations on indexicals. In one version, this argument goes as follows: Premise 1. The past, relative to any time t, is necessary. Premise 2. The impossible cannot follow from the possible. Therefore.
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931Any intelligent discussion of terrorism must demarcate its subject matter, for the term ‘terrorism’ is differently understood and where there is no accord on its meaning there is little chance for agreement on its application or normative status. The best course is to sketch a morally neutral definition that classifies as ‘terrorist’ as many widely-agreed upon cases as possible. Definitions that explicitly render terrorism illegitimate make classification contentious, and it is more informative …Read more
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13Doxastic Freedom: A Compatibilist AlternativeAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 26 (1): 31-41. 1989.
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6Let me begin with definition. Many observers have pointed out that despite the fact that for over three decades, “terrorism” has been deemed a threat to the civilized world, to democratic values, or to “our way of life,” and despite the fact that our country is now engaged in a “war on terror,” there is no universally agreed upon definition of terrorism—not even the various agencies within the U.S. Government are agreed—and, hence, there is no clarity about what we are warring against.
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25Perfection and modality: Charles Hartshorne's ontological proof (review)International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 7 (2). 1976.
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49Lucey's Agnosticism: The Believer's Reply (review)International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 18 (1/2). 1985.
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23The terrorism of 'terrorism'In James P. Sterba (ed.), Terrorism and International Justice, Oxford University Press. pp. 47--66. 2003.
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84Indexicality and self-awarenessIn Uriah Kriegel & Kenneth Williford (eds.), Self-Representational Approaches to Consciousness, Mit Press. pp. 379--408. 2006.Self-awareness is commonly expressed by means of indexical expressions, primarily, first- person pronouns like
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60The Incompatibility of Omniscience and Intentional Action: A Reply to David P. HuntReligious Studies 30 (1). 1994.In "Omniprescient Agency" (Religious Studies 28, 1992) David P. Hunt challenges an argument against the possibility of an omniscient agent. The argument—my own in "Agency and Omniscience" (Religious Studies 27, 1991)—assumes that an agent is a being capable of intentional action, where, minimally, an action is intentional only if it is caused, in part, by the agent's intending. The latter, I claimed, is governed by a psychological principle of "least effort," viz., that no one intends without an…Read more
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1413Evaluating ReligionIn Jonathan L. Kvanvig (ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion: Volume 2, Oxford University Press Uk. 2009.This paper examines the nature of religion. A definition of religion is proposed, and a major rival interpretation -- that of John Hick -- is examined and rejected. It is then explained how religions can be evaluated.
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82Self-Determination and International OrderThe Monist 89 (2): 356-370. 2006.Towards the end of the first world war, a “principle of self-determination” was proposed as a foundation for international order. In the words of its chief advocate, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, it specified that the “settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relationship” is to be made “upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned and not upon the basis of the material interest o…Read more
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5Castañeda: System, Substance, and StyleIn Adriano Palma (ed.), Castañeda and His Guises: Essays on the Work of Hector-Neri Castañeda, De Gruyter. pp. 47-66. 2014.
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31Quasi-indexical attitudesSorites 11 24-40. 1999.Indexicals are inevitably autobiographical, even when we are not talking about ourselves. For example, if you hear me say, "That portrait right there is beautiful," you can surmise not only that I ascribe beauty to an object of my immediate awareness but also something about my spatial relation to it. Again, if I praise you directly within earshot of others by using the words, "You did that very well!," my concern need not be to cause them to think the exact thought I have; they might not be in …Read more
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12According to Hector-Neri Castañeda, indexical reference is our most basic means of identifying the objects and events we experience and think about. Its tokens reveal our own part in the process by denoting what are "referred to as items present in experience" (Castañeda 1981, 285-6). If you hear me say, "Take that box over there and set it next to this box here," you learn something about my orientation towards the referents in a way that is not conveyed by, "Take the red box and set it next to…Read more
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99Ability and cognition: A defense of compatibilismPhilosophical Studies 63 (August): 231-43. 1991.The use of predicate and sentential operators to express the practical modalities -- ability, control, openness, etc. -- has given new life to a fatalistic argument against determinist theories of responsible agency. A familiar version employs the following principle: the consequences of what is unavoidable (beyond one's control) are themselves unavoidable. Accordingly, if determinism is true, whatever happens is the consequence of events in the remote past, or, of such events together with the …Read more
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I Terrorism & Counter-Terrorism/SemanticsIn Georg Meggle (ed.), Ethics of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism, Ontos. pp. 3--9. 2005.
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6The Ontological Significance Of VariablesMetaphysica 3 (1). 2002.The use of single letters in displaying patterns, functions, generalizations, and unknowns, dominates mathematical expression, and for that reason, appears in every domain of theoretical and technical discourse employing even the slightest bit of mathematical language. These variables, as they have come to be called, are the very mark of abstract power and precision, ingenious tools for expressing functionality and valid formulae and, thereby, for providing solutions to types of problems as well…Read more
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1Terrorism, as a form of politically motivated violence, is as ancient as organized warfare itself, emerging as soon as one society, pitted against another in the quest for land, resources, or domination, was moved by a desire for vengeance or found advantages in military operations against noncombatants or other ‘soft’ targets. It is sanctioned and glorified in holy scriptures and has been part of the genesis of states and the expansion of empires from the inception of recorded history. The Unit…Read more
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52Devine on Defining ReligionFaith and Philosophy 6 (2): 207-214. 1989.Philip E. Devine has presented insightful proposals for defining religion in his essay “On the Definition of Religion” (Faith and Philosophy, July 1986). But despite his illuminating discussion, particularly the treatment of borderline cases, his account fails to distinguish religion as a process or goal-oriented activity from religion as a body of doctrine, and is mistaken (or perhaps unclear) in its proposal that religion per se is committed to the existence of superhuman agents. These deficie…Read more
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71Peirce and the autonomy of abductive reasoningErkenntnis 37 (1). 1992.Essential to Peirce's distinction among three kinds of reasoning, deduction, induction and abduction, is the claim that each is correlated to a unique species of validity irreducible to that of the others. In particular, abductive validity cannot be analyzed in either deductive or inductive terms, a consequence of considerable importance for the logical and epistemological scrutiny of scientific methods. But when the full structure of abductive argumentation — as viewed by the mature Peirce — is…Read more
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Philosophy of Action |
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