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27HedonismJOHN-MICHAEL KUCZYNSKI. 2016.This book concisely explicates and evaluates four doctrines concerning the nature of moral obligation: hedonism (one's sole moral obligation is to enjoy oneself); egoism (one's sole moral obligation is to serve one's own interests); consequentialism (the ends justify the means), and deontology (the ends do not justify the means).
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26A non-Russellian treatment of the referential-attributive distinctionPragmatics and Cognition 12 (2): 253-294. 2004.Kripke made a good case that “…the phi…” is not semantically ambiguous between referential and attributive meanings. Russell says that “…the phi…” is always to be analyzed attributively. Many semanticists, agreeing with Kripke that “…the phi…” is not ambiguous, have tried to give a Russellian analysis of the referential-attributive distinction: the gross deviations between what is communicated by “…the phi..”, on the one hand, and what Russell’s theory says it literally means, on the other, are …Read more
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25The Raven ParadoxAmazon Digital Services LLC. 2016."All ravens are black" is logically but not confirmationally equivalent with "all non-black things are non-ravens." But this is impossible, given that logical equivalence guarantees confirmational equivalence. In this paper, this paradox is solved
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22All of the Psychological Deviations That Now Exist Have Always ExistedPhilosophypedia. 2017.The modern age has not given rise to any new psychopathologies. But modern social configurations have withdrawn some of the constraints that in times past inhibited the development of latent psychopathology.
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20A Proof of the Partial Anomalousness of the Mental1Southern Journal of Philosophy 36 (4): 491-504. 2010.
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20EmotivismJOHN-MICHAEL KUCZYNSKI. 2016.Emotivism is the doctrine that ethical beliefs are nothing more than projections of emotion. In this concise study, it is shown that emotions themselves embody ethical beliefs and that, for that reason, emotivism implicitly presupposes the truth of a non-emotivism conception of ethical truth and therefore fails.
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19A Theory of Personal IdentityAmazon Digital Services LLC. 2016.According to David Hume, there is nothing to the mind other than the various fleeting events that it hosts. According to commonsense, this is false. But the commonsense view has never been meaningfully elaborated. This short work states an analysis of personal identity that combines Hume's position with the position, so far as there is one, of commonsense, thereby giving much needed substance to the latter.
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19Bureaucrats Make Civilization PossiblePhilosophypedia. 2017.If more than a tiny minority of people were non-bureaucrats, civilization would not be possible.
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19Conventionalism, Relativism, NihilismJOHN-MICHAEL KUCZYNSKI. 2016.It is shown that moral relativism ('morality is culture-specific') and moral conventionalism ('moral laws are agreements among people as to how to behave') both presuppose the truth of moral realism and are therefore false. It is also shown that every attempt to trivialize moral truth or to prove its non-existence is inconsistent with the fact that moral statements have the same truth-conditions as biological statements.
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18A Priori Knowledge and Analytic TruthCreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. 2016.This book answers three questions: (i) What is it for a statement to be analytically true? (ii) What is a priori knowledge? (How does it differ from inherited empirical knowledge? And how does it differ from acquired conceptual (non-empirical) knowledge, such as one's knowledge that not all continuous functions are differentiable?). (iii) Do we have a priori knowledge? It is shown that content-externalism is an 'epistemologicization' of the (logically, not psychologically) innocuous fact that, i…Read more
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17Papers on Formal LogicreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. 2016.This volume brings together some of Dr. Kuczynski's most important work on mathematical logic. The crushing power of Kuczynski's intellect is on full display in these paper, in which he introduces the neophyte to the basic principles of set theory and logic while at the very same time articulating new and important theorems of his own.
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17Do We Think in Words?JOHN-MICHAEL KUCZYNSKI. 2016.This briskly written little book rigorously establishes that in order to be able to use language, it is necessary to be able to think and, consequently, that linguistic ability is not constitutive of cognitive ability. But it is also explained why it is that linguistic ability so greatly enhanced cognitive ability. Wittgenstein's famous Private Language and Rule Following Arguments are assiduously analyzed and decisively refuted. At the same time, so Kuczynski demonstrates, a viable analysis of …Read more
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16Counterfactuals: The Epistemic AnalysisPhilosophia Scientiae 9 83-126. 2005.En temps normal, les contrefactuels sont conçus comme produisant des énoncés portant sur des états de choses, mais des états de choses se trouvant dans des mondes simplement possibles ou alternes. Analysés ainsi, il s’avère que presque tous les contrefactuels sont incohérents. Tout contrefactuel analysé de la sorte exige qu’il y ait un monde métaphysiquement (et pas épistémiquement seulement) possible w où les lois sont les mêmes qu’ici, et où la quasi-totalité des faits sont les mêmes qu’ici. (…Read more
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1530 Laws of LogicJOHN-MICHAEL KUCZYNSKI. 2016.The most important laws of the propositional calculus are clearly and succinctly stated.
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15Basic Principles of Mathematical LogicAmazon Digital Services LLC. 2016.This book concisely states the main laws and precepts of formal logic along with their immediate corollaries. Commentary is kept to a minimum.
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14The Power-Set Theorem and the Continuum Hypothesis: A Dialogue concerning Infinite NumberAmazon Digital Services LLC. 2016.The nature of of Infinite Number is discussed in a rigorous but easy-to-follow manner. Special attention is paid to Cantor's proof that any given set has more subsets than members, and it is discussed how this fact bears on the question: How many infinite numbers are there? This work is ideal for people with little or no background in set theory who would like an introduction to the mathematics of the infinite.
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14Aggregative Properties and Emergent PropertiesAmazon Digital Services LLC. 2016.It is said what aggregative properties are and also what emergent properties are, and examples are given each of kind of property. It is also explained why, even though all emergent properties are aggregative properties, not all aggregative properties are emergent properties. It is further made clear that, strictly speaking, emergence is a property of one's knowledge of a given kind of aggregate, and not of such aggregates themselves, this being why a property that is emergent at one time will, …Read more
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14Neuroses are Encapsulated PsychosesPhilosophypedia. 2017.What we call "neurosis" is psychosis about specific facts, but not about the logical instruments used to judge relations between facts. What we call "psychosis" is psychosis about both facts and the aforementioned logical instruments.
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14What is a Law of Logic?: A DialoguePHILOSOPHYPEDIA. 2016.It is made clear what a law of logic is and why the laws of classical logic are true.
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14What is Bullshit?JOHN-MICHAEL KUCZYNSKI. 2016.It is established that bullshit is institutional truth that is not actual truth.
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13AngerJOHN-MICHAEL KUCZYNSKI. 2016.It is discussed why it is beneficial to let go of anger. To this end, the teachings of the Buddha are discussed.
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13Frege, Logic, and LogicismAmazon Digital Services LLC. 2016.Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) invented the discipline of mathematical logic. In this short work, it is clearly stated what Frege did and did not accomplish
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13Determinism, Indeterminism, and Personal Freedom:John-Michael Kuczynski. 2016.In this fictitious dialogue, it is shown that there are three kinds of freedom, each of which, though non-trivially different from the other two, is identical with the subject's being appropriately constitutive of a causally cohesive structure of some kind or other. Analogues of this point are proven to hold not just of personal freedom, but also of personal identity, and not just of personal identity, but also of objectual identity
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11Determinism, Supervenience, and Probabilistic InferenceAmazon Digital Services LLC. 2016.This volume identifies the different ways in which one event can compel the occurrence of another event and on this basis identifies important facts about the nature of probability and probabilistic inference
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11The Real Reason We Regard Criminality as LowPhilosophypedia. 2017.We may dislike or disapprove of criminals who are genuine doers, as opposed to drifters; but we do not hold them in contempt. We hold them in contempt when, and only when, they are drifters. And in almost cases, that is precisely what they are.
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11What Is Justice?JOHN-MICHAEL KUCZYNSKI. 2016.A case is made that justice is a kind of social proxy for the cause-effect relation. When in a state of nature, man has no one but himself to rely on in his dealings with nature, which, though cruel, is consistent, driven as she is by inviolable physical laws and which, consequently, always rewards an action with an equal and opposite reaction.
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11Half-belief leads to Half-actionPhilosophypedia. 2017.Dishonesty with oneself makes one unable to act. Honesty with oneself makes one able to act.
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11Philosophical Foundations of Psychoanalysis and PsychiatryAmazon Digital Services LLC. 2016.In this work, it is made clear: (1) What it is to rationalize and how rationalization is possible; (2) What it is to repress and how repression is possible; (3) How internal conflict is possible, how it is related to anxiety and other affective states, and how internal conflict causes blindness; (4) Why it is that conceptualized self-awareness is repression-resistant (though not repression-proof) and non-conceptualized self-awareness is not repression-resistant; (5) How rationalization is n…Read more
University of California, Santa Barbara
PhD, 2006
Areas of Specialization
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |