David Sanford

McTaggart argues that the A series, which orders events with reference to past, present, and future, involves an inescapable contradiction. The significant difference between the earlier version of his argument (Mind, 1908) and the version in The Nature of Existence, Volume II, Chapter 33 (1927), has often gone unnoticed. His arguments are all invalid; the conclusion can be rejected without rejecting any premiss. It is therefore unnecessary to adopt any philosophical thesis about time (e.g., that some token-reflexive analysis of tensed statements is adequate) to avoid McTaggart's final conclusion that time is unreal.

Examples of sensory illusion show the failure of the attempt of traditional sense-datum theory to account for something's phenomenally appearing to be F by postulating the existence of a sense-datum that is actually F. the Muller-Lyer Illusion cannot be explained by postulating two sensibly presented lines that actually have the lengths the physical lines appear to have. Illusions due to color contrast cannot be explained by postulating sense-data that actually have the colors the physical samples appear to have.

In several works on modality, G. H. von Wright presents tree structures to explain possible worlds. Worlds that might have developed from an earlier world are possible relative to it. Actually possible worlds are possible relative to the world as it actually was at some point. Many logically consistent worlds are not actually possible. Transitions from node to node in a tree structure are probabilistic. Probabilities are often more useful than similarities between worlds in treating counterfactual conditionals.

The primary objects of hearing are sounds: everything we hear we hear by hearing a sound. (This claim differs from Berkeley’s that we hear only sounds and from Aristotle’s that we only hear sounds.) Colored regions are primary objects of sight, and pressure resistant regions are primary objects of perception by touch. By definition, the primary objects of perception are physical. The properties of the primary objects of perception are exactly the properties sense-datum theories attribute to sense-data. Indirect Realism holds that awareness of sense-data (or something similar) mediates our perception of primary objects. Direct Realism denies this. The question when the perception of a primary object, such as parts of the surfaces of a hat and coat, is thereby the perception of a non-primary object, such as a person, is independent of the disagreement between Direct and Indirect Realism.

Sam signaled a turn by extending his arm out the window. Difficulties in explaining the asymmetry of the by-relation in such examples by reference to acceptable and unacceptable counterfactual conditionals are explored by Hugh McCann in "The Trouble with Level-Generation" ("Mind", October 1982). I refine and defend the following alternative account of one-way dependence of y on x: not only is x necessary for y, but something else, independent from x, is also necessary for y; but there is nothing independent from y such that it and y are each necessary for x.

To accommodate vague statements and predicates, I propose an infinite-valued, non-truth-functional interpretation of logic on which the tautologies are exactly the tautologies of classical two-valued logic. iI introduce a determinacy operator, analogous to the necessity operator in alethic modal logic, to allow the definition of first-order and higher-order borderline cases. On the interpretation proposed for determinacy, every statement corresponding to a theorem of modal system T is a logical truth, and I conjecture that every logical truth on the interpretation corresponds to a theorem of T. the interpretation is extended to predicate logic. A borderline case of a predicate 'F’ is neither determinately F nor determinately not-F. Traditional sorites arguments are seen to fall apart early in their gradual stepwise passage from truth to falsity.

In "Causes and "If P, Even If X, still Q," Philosophy 57 (July 1982), Ted Honderich cites my "The Direction of Causation and the Direction of Conditionship," journal of Philosophy 73 (April 22, 1976) as an example of an account of causal priority that lacks the proper character. After emending Honderich's description of the proper character, I argue that my attempt to account for one-way causation in terms of one-way causal conditionship does not totally lack it. Rather than emphasize the singularity of an effect, as Honderich does, I emphasize the multiplicity of independent factors in a causal circumstance.

Everything red is colored, and all squares are polygons. A square is distinguished from other polygons by being four-sided, equilateral, and equiangular. What distinguishes red things from other colored things? This has been understood as a conceptual rather than scientific question. Theories of wavelengths and reflectance and sensory processing are not considered. Given just our ordinary understanding of color, it seems that what differentiates red from other colors is only redness itself. The Cambridge logician W. E. Johnson introduced the terms determinate and determinable to apply to examples such as red and colored. Chapter XI, of Johnson's Logic, Part I (1921), “The Determinate and the Determinable,” is the main text for discussion of this distinction

Naive mereology studies ordinary conceptions of part and whole. Parts, unlike portions, have objective boundaries and many things, such as dances and sermons have temporal parts. In order to deal with Mark Heller's claim that temporal parts "are ontologically no more or less basic than the wholes that they compose," we retell the story of Laplace's Genius, here named "Swifty." Although Swifty processes lots of information very quickly, his conceptual repertoire need not extend beyond fundamental physics. So we attempt to follow Swifty's progress in the acquisition of ordinary concepts such as 'table'. (Puzzles of precision and intrusion appear along the way.) Swifty has to understand what tables are before understanding what temporal portions of tables are. This is one reason for regarding tables as ontologically prior to table portions. intrusion appear along the way.)

A primary purpose of argument is to increase the degree of reasonable confidence that one has in the truth of the conclusion. A question begging argument fails this purpose because it violates what W. E. Johnson called an epistemic condition of inference. Although an argument of the sort characterized by Robert Hoffman in his response (Analysis 32.2, Dec 71) to Richard Robinson (Analysis 31.4, March 71) begs the question in all circumstances, we usually understand the charge that an argument is question begging with reference to the beliefs of the person, or the sort of person, to whom the argument is directed.

I revise J L Mackie's first account of casual direction by replacing his notion of "fixity" by a newly defined notion of "sufficing" that is designed to accommodate indeterminism. Keeping Mackie's distinction between casual order and casual direction, I then consider another revision that replaces "fixity" with "one-way conditionship". In response to the charge that all such accounts of casual priority beg the question by making an unjustified appeal to temporal priority, i maintain that one-way conditionship explains rather that assumes objective temporal dependence as well as objective casual dependence.

Many philosophic arguments concerned with infinite series depend on the mutual inconsistency of statements of the following five forms: (1) something exists which has R to something; (2) R is asymmetric; (3) R is transitive; (4) for any x which has R to something, there is something which has R to x; (5) only finitely many things are related by R. Such arguments are suspect if the two-place relation R in question involves any conceptual vagueness or inexactness. Traditional sorites arguments show that a statement of form (4) can fail to be true even though it has no clear counter-example. Conceptual vagueness allows a finite series not to have any definite first member. I consider the speculative possibilities that there have been only finitely many non-overlapping hours although there has been no first hour and that space and time are only finitely divisible even though there are no smallest spatial or temporal intervals.

If there are vague numbers, it would be easier to use numbers as semantic values in a treatment of vagueness while avoiding precise cut-off points. When we assign a particular statement a range of values (less than 1 and greater than 0) there is no precise sharp cut-off point that locates the greatest lower bound or the least upper bound of the interval, I should like to say. Is this possible? “Vague Numbers” stands for awareness of the problem. I do not present a serious theory of vague numbers. I sketch some reasons for using a many-value semantics. These reasons refer to my earlier treatments of determinacy and definitions of higher-order borderline cases. I also sketch how definitions of independence use the determinacy operator. The distinction between actually assigned values and values whose assignments are acceptable helps avoid unwanted precise cut-off points.

Although the truth value (falsity) of "Henry knows that (dogs live in trees and beavers chew wood)" remains unchanged no matter what sentence is substituted in it for "beavers chew wood", we want not to regard the second as a truth functional component (tfc) of the first. Many definitions of "tfc" (e.g., Quine's) fail to insure satisfaction of the following principle: if p is a component of r which is in turn a component of q, then p is a tfc of q if and only if 1) p is also a tfc of r, and 2) r is also a tfc of q.

The central text of this article is Thomas Reid’s response to Berkeley’s argument for distinguishing tangible from visual shape. Reid is right to hold that shape words do not have different visual and tangible meanings. We might also perceive shape, moreover, with senses other than touch and sight. As Reid also suggests, the visual perception of shape does not require perception of hue or brightness. Contrary to treatments of the Molyneux problem by H. P. Grice and Judith Jarvis Thomson, I argue that breakdowns of a certain kind between tangible and visible shape are conceivable.

Myles Brand and Marshall Swain advocate the principle that if A is the set of conditions individually necessary and jointly sufficient for the occurrence of B, then if C is a set of conditions individually necessary for the occurrence of B, every member of C is a member of A. I agree with John Barker and Risto Hilpinen who each argue that this principle is not true for causal necessity and sufficiency, but I disagree with their claim that it is true for logical necessity and sufficiency. The original appeal of the principle may be due to confusing two kinds of totality: to say that when every member of set A obtains, then every condition necessary for E obtains is not to say that every condition necessary for E is a member of A. All the authors mentioned believe that causal necessity precludes logical necessity. I deny this on the basis of an example from kinematics. Hume has not refuted definitions of causation in terms of logically necessary and sufficient conditions, nor have Brand and Swain.

Anastylosis is the reconstruction of a monument using the original fragments and filling in the missing parts with an easily distinguishable modern material. This long review of "The Fragmentation of Reason; Preface to a Pragmatic Theory of Cognitive Evaluation" (MIT, 1990) by Stephen P Stich reconstructs, while preserving their original shapes, the conceptions of reason, truth, and rationality that Stich attempts to shatter. The review agrees with Stich's Chapter 3 which is itself highly critical of some philosophical views about evolution and rationality, and it disagrees with each of the other five chapters. Fanciful stories about food accompany and illustrate some of these disagreements.

This article answers John Biro's "Knowability, Believability, and Begging the Question: a Reply to Sanford" in "Metaphilosophy" 15 (1984). Biro and I agree that of two argument instances with the same form and content, one but not the other can beg the question, depending on other factors. These factors include actual beliefs, or so I maintain (against Biro) with the help of some analysed examples. Brief selections from Archbishop Whatley and J S Mill suggest that they also regard reference to actual beliefs as essential to explaining begging the question.