Joseph Almog

We contrast two Universe-outlooks and universality-sources. The first—localism—runs bottom-up and is in the vein of modern iterative set theory, generating ever more sets but all limited unities and barring an ur-Universe taken as a primary—the prime-object/unity. This contrasts with an absolutely infinite Universe-first outlook, globalism, inspired by some remarks on Cantor but later exiled by Zermelo. The metaphysics is now all top-down, and all sets (e.g. large cardinals) are regarded as generated fragments. The role of the (Godel-central) reflection principle is dissected.?

This chapter focuses on Keith Donnellan’s innovative 1966 paper “Reference and Definite Descriptions.” It suggests that it was in this paper that the now so influential “direct reference” semantic turn originated. It considers Kripe’s analysis of Donnellan, and suggests, contra Kripke, that Donnellan’s notion of referential use is designed to be of semantic significance. Indeed in 1966, Donnellan was submitting in the late sections of his paper, as he was analogizing with Russell’s notion of logically proper names, that referential uses may well be the ground zero of semantic (logical) reference. This is in contrast to Frege’s ground zero of semantics, the notion of denotation.

This chapter defends a position that is both dualistic (recognizing the distinctness and the difference in nature between mental and physical events) and materialistic (in the sense of positing a natural or essential _ connection_ between the two types of phenomena). It insists that our common sense (or ‘marketplace’ view embraces both a duality and a necessary connection intuition, unlike either substance dualism or philosophical materialism. On this chapter's view, there can be (contra Hume) necessary connections between distinct existences, whenever the distinct existences have _ correlative_ or _ coordinated_ natures. The chapter provides examples from mathematics of correlated natures linking distinct numbers or sets to one another, or sets to non-sets (such as singleton sets and their members). The correlated natures of biological species and their individual members provides another example. The chapter argues that since there is only one cosmos, the nature of each type and token must be correlated with that of the generative process responsible for its coming into being, providing just the sort of necessary connection between mental and physical phenomena required by common sense.

This book articulates and defends Descartes's dual key project: the separation of human mind and body as distinct substances and their integration into a single human being. The central challenge faced by Descartes's dualism is the prove too much/prove too little dilemma: too keen a separation of mind and body gets in the way of reuniting them into a full bloodied real human subject, whereas emphasizing the primality of the full human being is not enough to preserve the distinctness of mind and body as separate complete substances. The book approaches the Cartesian project in two stages. The first stage concerns the nature of the real distinction between mind and body. The first chapter examines the conceivability arguments that give Descartes's dualism its epistemological bite. The arguments from possibility, conceivability and whatness (or essence) deploy structurally similar considerations to establish the numerical and existential distinction of mind and body. Throughout this book it is assumed that mind and body necessarily coexist. The reconstruction of the real distinction between mind and body respects the assumption of modal inseparability by representing a sense of separate existence weaker than the genuine possibility of disjointed existence. The quest is for conceivable coherent stories depicting the existence of mind without body that, though not really possible, are nevertheless consistent with what the mind is. Conceivability and possibility are mediated by essence, which is responsible for providing the conceptual ‘fix’ on the entity that survives through conceivability scenarios. Essence is understood in conceivability‐free terms: it takes precedence over what is genuinely conceivable of a given item. At the second stage of the Cartesian conception of man, the challenge posed by the mind/body integration into a single human being is to preserve the four major assumptions that emerge out of the discussion of real distinction: (i) complete subjecthood, (ii) modal inseparability, (iii) conceivable existential separability, (iv) whatness (essence) separability. The question concerns the embedding of the mind and body into the real human being whose mind and body they are. Satisfying the demands of the second stage requires changing the conception of essence in (iv) whatness separability from generic essence (mind as ‘thinking thing’, body as ‘extended thing’) to robust essence (the mind's essence consists of being the mind of a man, similarly for body). This is done by contrasting a classical, separatist dualist reading of Descartes's project with an integrationist dualist interpretation. The merits of integrationist dualism over the eventually rejected separatist dualism concern its ability to deal with the problem of real subjecthood, endurance and change in time. The core of the integrationist approach is the primacy of the human being, in terms of which both the existence/identity conditions and the essence of mind/body are given. A categorical conception of substance is sketched, in contrast to an existential conception of substance as ability to exist on its own. By the end of the second chapter, the conception of generic essence has been scrapped. The operative conception is one of robust essences, weaved around the specific human being to whom mind and body belong by their nature. This move recommends the revisiting of the ‘real distinction’ presented in the first chapter. According to that conception, whatness‐consistency is the basis for conceivability claims about mind/body distinctness. The robust notion of essence answers to the problem of ‘conceivability illusions’ such as the apparent conceiving of disembodied minds and mind‐man swaps. This perspective allows the appraisal of the ability of integrative dualism to handle the prove too much/prove too little dilemma. It is argued that integrative dualism safeguards the interdependence of mind, body, and man without levelling over the status of mind and body as distinct complete substances. The dilemma is thus rendered innocuous. The book concludes with a final look at Descartes’d primal question (‘what am I?’) and raises the question of the logical form of such what‐am‐I assertions. Beyond the question of Descartes, this book argues for a particular kind of metaphysics dealing in full bloodied enduring objects rather than ontological abstractions sub species aeternitate. Existence in time and resistance to reduction/definition are the marks of the real subject of metaphysics. Properly conducted metaphysical enquiry should explore the nature, essence, and being though time of unstinted real entities antecedently given in the ordinary world. The order of investigation dictates the blueprints for conceivability: the question of what may be conceived of each real subject is subsequent to the determination of what the real subject is.

This anthology of essays on the work of David Kaplan, a leading contemporary philosopher of language, sprang from a conference, "Themes from Kaplan," organized by the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University. The book contains sixteen papers by such distinguished contributors as Robert M. Adams, Roderick Chisholm, Nathan Salmon, and Scott Soames, and includes Kaplan's hitherto uncollected paper, "Demonstratives," which has for twenty years been one of the most influential pieces in the philosophy of language. These essays examine a broad range of themes related to Kaplan's work; some address his work directly, while others are independent discussions of issues provoked by Kaplan's thought.

In this compact, engaging, and long-awaited work, UCLA philosopher Joseph Almog closely decodes the French philosopher's argument for distinguishing between the human mind and body while maintaining simultaneously their essential integration in a human being. He argues that Descartes constructed a solution whereby the trio of Human Mind, Body, and Being are essentially interdependent yet remain each a genuine individual subject. Almog's reading not only steers away from the most popular interpretations of Descartes, but also represents a scholar coming to grips directly with Descartes himself. In doing so, Almog creates a work that Cartesian scholars will value, and that will also prove indispensable to philosophers of language, ontology, and the metaphysics of mind.

In “Is semantics possible?” Putnam connected two themes: the very possibility of semantics (as opposed to formal model theory) for natural languages and the proper semantic treatment of common nouns. Putnam observed that abstract semantic accounts are modeled on formal languages model theory: the substantial contribution is rules for logical connectives (given outside the models), whereas the lexicon (individual constants and predicates) is treated merely schematically by the models. This schematic treatment may be all that is needed for an account of validity in a formal setting, but it does not help to understand how proper and common nouns function in reality (not in models). Putnam then initiated the empirical study of such nouns to indicate, (i), that the popular Frege-Carnap account of them as (“disguised” compound) predicates is empirically incorrect, and, (ii), that they offer a new paradigm for a naturalistic semantics of natural languages. We take Putnam’s program a couple of steps further. First, we investigate the semantics of common nouns and argue that they refer (to kinds), rather than apply by satisfaction/truth to a designation/denotation. Second, we point to general results about semantics as a theory whose fulcrum is the reference relation rather than satisfaction in models and validity across them.

In his Meditations, Rene Descartes asks, "what am I?" His initial answer is "a man." But he soon discards it: "But what is a man? Shall I say 'a rational animal'? No: for then I should inquire what an animal is, what rationality is, and in this way one question would lead down the slope to harder ones." Instead of understanding what a man is, Descartes shifts to two new questions: "What is Mind?" and "What is Body?" These questions develop into Descartes's main philosophical preoccupation: the Mind-Body distinction. How can Mind and Body be independent entities, yet joined--essentially so--within a single human being? If Mind and Body are really distinct, are human beings merely a "construction"? On the other hand, if we respect the integrity of humans, are Mind and Body merely aspects of a human being and not subjects in and of themselves? For centuries, philosophers have considered this classic philosophical puzzle. Now, in this compact, engaging, and long-awaited work UCLA philosopher Joseph Almog closely decodes the French philosopher's argument for distinguishing between the human mind and body while maintaining simultaneously their essential integration in a human being. He argues that Descartes constructed a solution whereby the trio of Human Mind, Body, and Being are essentially interdependent yet remain each a genuine individual subject. Almog's reading not only steers away from the most popular interpretations of Descartes, but also represents a scholar coming to grips directly with Descartes himself. In doing so, Almog creates a work that Cartesian scholars will value, and that will also prove indispensable to philosophers of language, ontology, and the metaphysics of mind.