Danny Frederick

This is a collection of nineteen essays in the tradition of critical rationalism (as advocated by Karl Popper). All but one of the essays is previously unpublished and the one previously published paper has undergone significant revisions. The first four essays tackle topics in the philosophy of science, the first being an exposition of Popper's views, the others discussing falsifiability, truth, the aim of science, and ceteris-paribus law-statements. Five essays follow concerned with Reason, reasoning and reasons, in which faulty conceptions of theoretical and practical reason are criticised, the nature and uses of argument are discussed, and the rationality of debate, agreement and disagreement are explained. Next, there are two papers on economics, one of which is a substantial critique of the so-called subjective theory of value, the other a brief discussion of entrepreneurial insight. The last section of the book contains a miscellany of eight critical essays in which some errors of contemporary philosophers are exposed regarding issues including the interpretation of Popper’s work, the Gettier problem, no-platforming, open-mindedness, homosexual equality, tolerance, philosophical heuristics and the conduct of debate.

John Searle, in several articles and books, has contended that institutions incorporating status functions with deontic powers are created by collective acceptance. I argue that collective acceptance can create new status functions with deontic powers only if other status functions with deontic powers already exist, so that collective acceptance can create new institutions only if other institutions are presupposed. So, the claim that institutions depend upon collective acceptance involves a vicious infinite regress. I provide an example to show how an institution of slavery could be created by individual acceptances plus mutual belief about those acceptances. I consider whether an institution could be created by individual acceptances without mutual belief about those acceptances; but my conclusion is largely negative. I contend that the emergence of a new institution presupposes an existing institutional context and I explain how infinite regress can be avoided.

I consider cases in which risk or ignorance create barriers to our discovery of what we ought to do. I argue that neither expected utility theory, nor the maximin principle, nor a timid gambling temperament, is relevant to discovering what we ought to do in one-off or infrequently recurring types of decisions involving risk, or to decisions involving ignorance. I argue, contra Kolodny and MacFarlane, that the miners case does not require us to give up any classical logical principle in order to avoid contradiction. I reject Graham’s claim that the appearance of contradiction depends upon a confusion between acting rightly and not being blameworthy. In the cases of risk and ignorance discussed, we cannot know what we ought to do; and any way of deciding what we shall do is objectively arbitrary even if it reflects our gambling temperament. Subjective probability and the subjective ought should be repudiated.

Susan Haack criticises the US courts' use of Karl Popper's epistemology in discriminating acceptable scientific testimony. She claims that acceptable testimony should be reliable and that Popper's epistemology is useless in discriminating reliability. She says that Popper's views have been found acceptable only because they have been misunderstood and she indicates an alternative epistemology which she says can discriminate reliable theories. However, her account of Popper's views is a gross and gratuitous misrepresentation. Her alternative epistemology cannot do what she claims for it. The courts should not be concerned with reliability and, insofar as they use the term 'reliability,' it should be construed in a procedural rather than a substantive sense. Since Popper's epistemology gives something like a characterisation of science at its best, the courts should continue to invoke Popper's theories in their discrimination of acceptable testimony.

In ‘Aeon’ magazine (2 August 2017), Professor Paul Russell claims that tolerance demands that criticism of ideologies be permitted; but it also demands that criticism of natural identities be suppressed. He says that the Left’s failure to distinguish ideological from non-ideological identities has led identity politics into intolerance. I argue that Russell’s position is self-contradictory, implying that his (ideological) liberal identity both should and should not be open to criticism. Tolerance must be extended to criticism of non-ideological identities. Laws against ‘hate speech’ are incompatible with tolerance.

This book uses the concepts of freedom, indeterminism, and fallibilism to solve, in a unified way, problems of free will, knowledge, reasoning, rationality, personhood, ethics and politics. Presenting an overarching theory of human freedom, Frederick argues for an account of free will as the capacity for undetermined acts. Knowledge, rationality, and reasoning, both theoretical and practical, as well as personhood, morality and political authority, are all shown to be dependent at their roots on indeterminism and fallibility, and to be connected to individual freedom. Thought-provoking and original, Frederick’s theory of freedom examines a broad spectrum of issues, from the distinction between persons and other animals, to the purpose of the state and political authority. Offering a bold and succinct conspectus of the philosophy of freedom, this book makes surprising connections between perennial issues across the field of philosophy.

Dummett defines a ‘predicate’ as that which combines with one or more singular terms to form a sentence. His account of ‘singular term’ is syntactical, involving three necessary conditions. He discusses a fourth, ‘Aristotelian’, criterion before propounding a criterion of predicate quantification which he claims to be superior to it. He tentatively proposes that the three necessary conditions plus the criterion of predicate quantification yield sufficient conditions for being a singular term. I show that Dummett’s necessary conditions fail with regard to referentially opaque contexts, negative existentials and wide-scope negations, and that he overlooks an important class of predicative expressions that satisfy his three supposedly necessary conditions for singular terms, namely, those that may appear either as adjectives or as nouns. I argue that Dummett cannot use the ‘Aristotelian’ criterion without circularity; and that, in any case, the ‘Aristotelian’ criterion fails dramatically. I also show that his criterion of predicate quantification fails with regard to expressions for colours. I end by casting doubts on the adequacy of any purely syntactical approach.

Theft is win-lose: the thief gains benefits at the expense of the victim. War is lose-lose: no-one comes out better off. Trade is win-win: both parties gain. Altercations are lose-lose. When a person talks about ‘winning the argument,’ she is talking about winning a debate and she sees debate as win-lose. But if we partake of debates with an open mind, they can be win-win: even without agreeing, each party may learn. Unfortunately, contemporary philosophers seem to see debate as win-lose in which a ‘justified’ dogmatist triumphs.

It is an article of almost religious faith in the United Kingdom that the National Health Service is far superior to a competitive market in health care services. In this brief and informal paper I show that the opposite is true. In contrast to market provision, the existence of the National Health Service entails the following. First, consumer sovereignty is virtually destroyed, since what services the consumer receives and how much he pays (through taxation) are determined by the government of the day in consultation with vested and ideological interests. Second, a person may be denied a life-saving service despite having contributed more than his fair share to National Health Service over the course of his working life. Third, people often spend less on health care than they would like to spend, because any additional contributions (via increased taxes) are not linked to any benefit specifically for the person who makes them. Fourth, provision of services free at the point of need which is not linked to what a person pays encourages a wasteful misuse of resources. Fifth, absence of competition between health care providers leads to high cost and poor quality of service and a tendency to produce a standardised service rather than a tailored one; and government attempts to address this problem usually make it worse. Sixth, people’s freedom to engage in particular activities or lifestyles is likely to be curtailed because the costs of those activities are artificially socialised. I also point out that issues of inequality or poverty are much better addressed by means other than a nationalised health service.

A central problem of political philosophy is that of explaining how a state could have the moral authority to enforce laws, promulgate laws which citizens are thereby obliged to obey, give new duties to citizens and levy taxes. Many rival solutions to this problem of political authority have been offered by contemporary and recent philosophers but none has obtained wide acceptance. The current debate takes no cognisance of George Berkeley’s ‘Passive Obedience’, in which he defends the exceptionless duty of not using force to resist the state and offers a rule-consequentialist account of morality which indicates an explanation of political authority as grounded in the social connectedness of human beings. I expound, criticise and develop Berkeley’s explanation to provide a promising solution to the problem of political authority. The solution impugns the political authority of all existing states as well as the duty of passive obedience.

This book tells part of the story of my life in a succession of anecdotes, or ‘Danecdotes,’ as a friend called them. It generally focuses on the unusual and thereby offers material for reflection. I often include some more or less philosophical reflections within the anecdotes; and such reflections often raise further questions too. The book may be considered as a contribution to ‘the philosophy of everyday life.’ The anecdotes are autobiographical and are presented in approximately chronological order. However, the book is not an autobiography. Large segments of my life have been excluded, particularly those concerning my sex life and intimate relationships. So, although the book is highly personal, it is not so personal as to be uncomfortable, either for me, or for my sexual partners, or for my intimate friends, or for my family, or for the educated reader. The topics covered include growing up in the old Notting Hill slums (long since demolished), attendance (and non-attendance) at a comprehensive school in Shepherd's Bush, cohabitation, working in a rough pub in Notting Hill, my life as an aggressive drunk, beer festivals, my on-off academic career, work as a management consultant, workplace bullying, my career as a management accountant, excelling under pressure, fall into depression, anxiety and bruxism, attempts to regain sanity, and philosophical reflections on life, work, management, morals, politics, metaphysics, God, and how to discover oneself. The pdf is available for free download from my Acaademia page. The paperback is available from Amazon at cost-price.

The authors of the papers in A Simple Matter of Justice? reject something they label “heterosexism.” Their writing is obscure, but it seems they desire a state-regimented conformity, with state-approved roles for gays, for lesbians and for others, with state hand-outs and other privileges for all manner of favoured groups, and with no possibility of anyone indulging in the pleasures of “commercial consumerism.” None of the authors appears concerned with the demand that, provided he/she does not violate anyone’s rights, the state should not put any barriers in the way of the sexually active citizen. The Geography of Perversion is a dull and ponderous history of European ideas about male homosexual behaviour, which in places seems to be little more than lists of what various people said. It is appallingly written in grandiloquent language larded with daft Marxist clichés.

The UK School Curriculum and Assessment Authority proposes a set of values to which everyone can subscribe, which can provide schools with a secure basis for the provision of spiritual, moral, social and cultural education. The proposal is misguided. The code would be determined by political negotiation, which would bring the whole idea of moral education into disrepute, and it would be an impediment to moral advancement, which requires trial and error experimentation. Imposing a code on all state schools would be political indoctrination; and in a pluralistic society any non-vacuous statement of values will meet with objections from some sections of society. Further, the proposed statement of values is open to objections on moral and other grounds. The aims of the proposal would be best met by privatising schools. Given vested-interest opposition to privatisation, the most realistic option is to alter the Local Management of Schools regime to allow schools to innovate in moral teaching and training, to strengthening parental choice, and to increase competition between schools.

I explain what haecceities are and the role they play in our thought and talk about specific individual things, whether those things are concrete or abstract. Everything that can be referred to by using a singular term has a haecceity. I distinguish between singular terms and general terms, on the one hand, and subject terms and predicate terms, on the other. I distinguish three types of sentence: singular predications; general predications; and singular quantifications. I show how singular predications can be eliminated without loss of content, provided we have singular quantifications as well as general predications. This should not be confused with Quine’s “elimination of singular terms.” I say a few words about propositions.