C. James

Alexius Meinong's Theory of Objects is known to the Anglo-American philosophical community almost exclusively through Bertrand Russell's criticism of the theory in "On Denoting" and later works, and even though certain recent writers have urged that the interpretive tradition intitated by Russell is importantly in error, no interpretation designed to present Meinongianism as a coherent genuine alternative to the Russellian tradition in semantics has yet been offered. This study contributes to such an alternative interpretation, employing a combination of historical and philosophical arguments. ;The introduction aspires to set the discussion in the broader context of two general approaches to semantics: the atomistic picture of Russell among others, and the holistic picture of Quine, Wittgenstein, and Rorty, among others. The author insinuates that Meinong's views are best understood and defended against the background of a holistic approach. ;The first chapter offers a synoptic view of Russell's Theory of Descriptions. The author argues that throughout his career Russell presupposed the very semantical views he claimed to have found objectionable in Meinong, views here dubbed the Naive Theory of Meaning. The discussion falls into three broad parts: a demonstration of the presence of the Naive Theory in Russell's early Principles of Mathematics; a discussion of the persistence of the Naive Theory in "On Denoting," directed against Russell's claim that that theory was eliminated by the Theory of Descriptions; and an examination of the later entanglement of the Naive Theory with the notion of acquaintance in the writings after "On Denoting." An appendix to the chapter refutes objections and dismisses alternatives to the interpretation offered here. ;The second chapter employs extended exegetical arguments to demonstrate that Meinong's Theory of Objects not only does not embody the Naive Theory of Meaning, but is grounded in an explicit and categorical rejection of that theory. It is explained that Meinong's notion of Aussersein is not, as Russell appeared to suppose, an ontological category, and an alternative is presented on which it appears as an ontologically neutral linguistic category. It is suggested, futhermore, that such an interpretation is consistent with holism and inconsistent with atomism. An appendix to the chapter refutes two carefully selected alternative interpretations of Meinong's theory. ;The third chapter lays down conditions, grounded in the exegesis of the second chapter, that a view must satisfy in order to be called Meinongian. The resulting range of views is clarified and an objection concerning the consequences for quantification theory considered in detail. Though any of several responses to the objection are considered viable, it is argued that the most powerfully is one that involves mirroring as closely as possible the paradigmatic philosophical interpretation of quantification theory that derives from W. V. O. Quine. It is further argued that such mirroring results in an interpretation involving only a small departure from Quinean doctrine, namely the suspension of the classical rule of existential generalization and its replacement with an analogous rule typical of sytems of free logic, and that such an interpretation is suitable for Meinongianism. An appendix to the chapter presents a sketch of a formal model appropriate for the claims made in the body of the chapter.

In this book, James M. Cahalan examines gender issues in the writings and in the lives of a dozen notable Irish authors and their fictional characters. Covering literature from the late nineteenth century to the present, he seeks to close the gender gap in Irish literary history by pairing similar works of fiction by both men and women. The author addresses, for instance, how women writers' characterizations of men compare with men's representations of women. Sensitive to other distinctions such as class and region, Cahalan reveals differences in perceptions of shared subjects—such as politic and autobiography—to illuminate a series of "double visions." Contents include readings of the Aran Islands narratives of Emily Lawle s and Liam O'Flaherty; the comic fictions and serious careers of Somerville and Ross and James Joyce; the coming-of-age novels of Edna O'Brien and John McGahern and Brian Moore; and "Troubles" novels by four authors—Jennifer Johnston and Bernard MacLaver ty, and Julia O'Faolain and William Trevor. The book's introduction is a far-ranging critique of feminist criticism and gender issues in Irish cultural history, while the conclusion touches on several other recent Irish novels and films.

“Rhetoric is the counterpart of logic,” claimed Aristotle. “Rhetoric is the first part of logic rightly understood,” Martin Heidegger concurred. “Rhetoric is the universal form of human communication,” opined Hans-Georg Gadamer. But in _Deep Rhetoric_, James Crosswhite offers a groundbreaking new conception of rhetoric, one that builds a definitive case for an understanding of the discipline as a philosophical enterprise beyond basic argumentation and is fully conversant with the advances of the New Rhetoric of Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca. Chapter by chapter, _Deep Rhetoric_ develops an understanding of rhetoric not only in its philosophical dimension but also as a means of guiding and conducting conflicts, achieving justice, and understanding the human condition. Along the way, Crosswhite restores the traditional dignity and importance of the discipline and illuminates the twentieth-century resurgence of rhetoric among philosophers, as well as the role that rhetoric can play in future discussions of ontology, epistemology, and ethics. At a time when the fields of philosophy and rhetoric have diverged, Crosswhite returns them to their common moorings and shows us an invigorating new way forward.

The central thesis of this book is that the argument that probability is insufficient to handle uncertainty in artificial intelligence (AI) is metaphysical in nature. Piscopo calls this argument against probability the non-adequacy claim and provides this summary of it [which first appeared in (Piscopo and Birattari 2008)]:Probability theory is not suitable to handle uncertainty in AI because it has been developed to deal with intrinsically stochastic phenomena, while in AI, uncertainty has an epistemic nature. (Piscopo (3))Piscopo uses the term “metaphysical” in the Popperian sense: the non-adequacy claim is metaphysical (rather than scientific) since it cannot be disproved (much less established) by observation or experiment.In Chapter 2, Piscopo recounts some of the relevant history and issues in philosophy of science. There is little that is controversial here. One problem is that when addressing the question of how a particular probabilistic model is tested, Piscopo limits herself..