Mark Glouberman

For placing the contrast of certainty and uncertainty at the philosophical center, Descartes is charged with Michael Dummett with mistakenly subordinating the study of language and meaning to epistemology. But Dummett's knowledge-theoretic reading of the certainty/uncertainty duality is as erroneous as the tradition it inherits is long. The Cartesian demand for certainty and critique of uncertainty in mature writings like the Meditations has a definite semantic character. Cartesian uncertainty, construed aright, anticipates Dummett's putatively original idea of a non-reductive yet non-realist semantics for standard factual claims asserted on the basis of sense-evidence. There is an internal relation, in Descartes' philosophy, between a repudiation of uncertainty and a repudiation of a non-realist conception of the world.

The notion of a particular is what makes the Bible (the reference is to the Hebrew Scriptures) an original position in philosophy. (Particulars are self-contained spatio-temporal entities, and hence, though present in the system that is nature, are not essentially parts of it.) The early chapters of Genesis develop a comprehensive (anti-pagan) conceptualization of reality that gives particularity its due. Whether particularity can be secured without a fully extra-natural anchorage (i.e., without God) is a live issue. As the case may be, the philosophy of the Bible is not a footnote, not even a substantial footnote, to Plato. Plato’s metaphysical discourse cannot handle the particular. An irreducibly different, ontological, discourse is needed for that. Having conceived the new notion (the act of conception is dramatized in the theophany of Genesis 12), Abraham, the philosopher of the paper’s title, ‘called…on the name of the Lord’ (Genesis 21:33) to the men and women of the world. The particularity of God, I explain, not God’s numerical uniqueness, is the essence of monotheism

En soulignant la position ressemblante du Dieu dans le système de Descartes et de Berkeley comme sujet de connaissance optimale, c'est à dire ' certain', et le rôle de la notion cartésienne de ‛certitude’ en définissant la nature de la vérité scientifique, on peut nettement transformer la théorie réalistique cartésienne en théorie idéalistique berkelienne. L'élimination une équivoque dans la conception de certitude de Descartes est crucial à cette transformation. Sans cette équivoque, la distinction cartésienne non-berkelienne entre la sensation et la perception ne peut être défendu. Cette interprétation est évidemment en conflict avec le point de vue standard sur l'attitude de Descartes, comme rationaliste, concernant les sens, mais malgré cela, le texte y apportent un sérieux soutien

Does the character called “God” make an essential contribution to the [Hebrew] Bible? So far as religion and religiosity are concerned, the Bible minus the character called “God” is not theoretically incomplete. In other words, the Bible is not at core a theological document. From this it does not however follow that the deity of the Bible is theoretically otiose. The character called “God” plays a role that is indispensable for anthropological reasons. The self-definition and self-understanding of men and women who define and understand themselves as you and I do cannot be accomplished without at least implicit appeal to that role. The key to the theoretical disposition of the Bible is an appreciation of the fact that it is expressly designed to counteract pagan-type views about the nature of men and women and about their position in the wider scheme of things.

The notion of individuation has both a semantic and an ontological face. More exactly, the claim can be defended that individuation has a proprietary linguistic or conceptual aspect as distinct from an ontological one. Ontologists such as W. V. Quine would credit neither the possibility of such a divergence nor the intelligibility of its proposal. The ontology of a language, for Quine, is inseparable from its individuative resources, mechanisms such as identity, pluralization, pronouns, and so forth. I aim here to pick apart the ontological from the semantic aspect of individuation at one place where they interact, thereby to show that the distinction, far from being a mere abstraction lacking explanatory leverage, is vital for achieving an adequate characterization of the representational powers of language. I begin by attempting to put the issue into some kind of perspective, a didactic move prudent in virtue of the brassiness of the subsequent tacks.

In a recent 5‐to‐4 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada denied to Harvard University a patent on a genetically modified mouse. In their reasoning, the majority Justices, concerned obviously about the implications of granting the patent for the human case, argue that higher organisms (mammals) are not “compositions of matter” in the sense intended by the Canadian Patent Act. But if a mouse is not a composition of matter, what—indeed, what on earth—is it? As the minority Justices complain, the majority decision smacks of dubious metaphysics and theology. Appealing to a quite unlikely source, the Bible, I show that the distinction between mice and men can be defended without introducing problematic metaphysical and question‐begging theological materials. I also show, en route, that the biblical position on the special status of men and women is not inconsistent with evolutionary theory. Granting a patent on the mouse (as was done in the U.S.A.) is compatible with denying it to human organisms.

Unhappy with a recent submission of mine, a referee for a journal specialising in the history of philosophy wagged a finger at what he or she called my ‘hermeneutical principles’. Though I am no stranger to the collegial woodshed, my initial reaction was nonetheless one of surprise. For had I then been asked about interpretive methodology I would have scoffed. The construer’s best course, I would have said, is to nose about the texts until some rough shape begins to emerge from the murk, and to inch forward in an effort to block in details, frequently doubling back for more nosing about. Isn’t this —fill, back, adjust, refill, back again, re-adjust—a counsel of anti-method?