•  90
    Harre and Madden's multifarious account of natural necessity
    Philosophy of Science 49 (4): 616-632. 1982.
    In this paper, I critically examine Harre and Madden's attempt, largely as it occurs in their Causal Powers, to secure for causes and laws of nature a kind of necessity which although consistent with commonsensical empiricism and anti-idealistic philosophy of science nevertheless runs counter to the humean-positivistic tradition, which denies the existence of any distinctively "natural" or causal necessity. In the course of the paper, I reveal the multifarious nature of their account and show th…Read more
  •  28
    Even though there do seem to be moves towards interdisciplinary rapprochement in most of the essays collected here, I am not sure that the editor's goal of "breaking down the absoluteness of the relativist/antirealist positions of the literary camp and the objectivist/realist positions of the scientific one" is accomplished. Analytically inclined philosophers may well find it eye-opening to discover first hand what Levine details in his excellent essay: that the literary theorists proceed by ass…Read more
  •  28
    Beginning with Proofs in Introductory Logic
    Teaching Philosophy 3 (2): 169-172. 1979.
  •  27
    Early Analytical Philosophy (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 52 (1): 182-183. 1998.
    This is a collection of ten contemporary essays on the eponymous early analytic philosophers. It grew out of a 1992 conference held in honor of Leonard Linsky. The Burge and B. Linsky essays have appeared elsewhere. There is a short index and a list of the works cited.
  •  22
    The Quest for Reality (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 54 (3): 687-689. 2001.
    In this book, Stroud argues that we have no good reason for subjectivism about colorsfor believing that colors are not part of the objective, mind-independent, real world. The book is not succinctly argued, nor is it intended to be, given its epigraph from Wittgenstein: This is how philosophers should salute each other: Take your time! The books leisurely, discursive, and explicitly undogmatic treatment makes for a fascinating and pleasant read.
  •  22
    Observation, Experiment, and Hypothesis in Modern Physical Science (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 40 (2): 365-366. 1986.
    This book, as the Preface reports, is the first of a series from the Johns Hopkins Center for the History and Philosophy of Science. The essays in this book were invited from both historians of and philosophers of science on the general theme of "testing of hypotheses in modern physics by observation and experiment," accordingly none has been previously published.
  •  22
    Moreland, J. P. Universals (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 56 (2): 445-446. 2002.
  •  19
    Hume’s Defence of Causal Inference (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 52 (4): 988-989. 1999.
    This book not only defends the thesis that Hume is not a skeptic with respect to causal inferences, it locates this defense within a broader defense of empiricism.
  •  16
    Frontiers in Semiotics (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 41 (3): 612-614. 1988.
    John Deely--the guiding spirit of this volume, based on the number and strategic placement of his essays and from his major contribution to the "Editors' Preface"--maintains that this collection of twenty-three essays presents a successor discipline to philosophy. This alleged successor discipline is the American and Eastern-European semiotic tradition, with its locus at the Research Center for Language and Semiotic Studies at Indiana University under Thomas A. Sebeok.
  •  11
    The Correspondence Theory of Truth: An Essay on the Metaphysics of Predication (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 57 (1): 167-168. 2003.
    Newman takes it as a given that truth involves some sort of correspondence between either sentences or propositions and something else in the nature of things. Furthermore, he holds that to have a viable correspondence theory of truth one must provide a metaphysical discussion of these topics: “ How sentences correspond to the world. How propositions correspond to the world. The nature of propositions. The nature of facts”. The subtitle’s mention of predication reveals the author’s view that fac…Read more
  •  8
    Language, Thought, and Logic: Essays in Honour of Michael Dummett (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 53 (3): 701-702. 2000.
    As is perhaps appropriate for a festschrift by philosophers who worked with Dummett, the eleven essays in this volume touch on a wide range of subjects.
  •  7
    Beginning with Proofs in Introductory Logic
    Teaching Philosophy 3 (2): 169-172. 1979.
  •  1
    Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 54 (4): 945-945. 2001.
    There are nine chapters: Chapter 1 introduces an analogy between philosophy and sherry-making to show that the historical tradition flavors the new analytic one. It then takes note of the difficulty of any general definition of analytic philosophy, and thus introduces the book’s methodology: examining the positions of some notable analytic philosophers so that the reader can grasp the family resemblance concept of analytic philosophy. Chapter 2 deals primarily with the role of Russell’s logic, t…Read more
  •  1
    Universals (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 56 (2): 445-445. 2002.
    Despite announcing that this introduction to the nominalism–realism dialectic is pitched at “upper level undergraduates, graduate students and professional philosophers” —a seemingly unrealistically broad audience—the book succeeds admirably in its first two chapters and quite well in the remaining five chapters. There is not too much that would be difficult for students and what there is could easily be explained. For everyone, including professional philosophers, the book provides a clear taxo…Read more