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32The Synonymy AntinomyIn A. Kanamori (ed.), Proceedings of the 20th World Conress of Philosophy, Vol VI , Analytic Philosophy and Logic, Philosophy Document Center. pp. 67-88. 2000.Logical form has semantic import. Logical sentences (GG: Greeks are Greeks) and their synonym interceptions (GH: Greeks are Hellenes) state the same fact but different truths with different explanations. Terms retain objectual reference but its role in explaining truth is preempted by syntax or synonymy. Church’s Test exposes puzzles. QMi sentences (GmG: ‘Greeks’ means Greeks), and QTi sentences (p≡it is true that p≡“p” is true) are metalogical necessities, true by syntax. Their int…Read more
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9Preferring Punishment of Criminals Over Provisions for VictimsIn Diane Sank & David I. Caplan (eds.), To Be a Victim: Encounters with Crime and Injustice, Plenum. pp. 409-421. 1991.The past two centuries have been an extraordinary era for criticism and reform of institutions and social practices. Unprecedented egalitarian and humanitarian movements have arisen to protest and improve the condition of victims of every variety of evil, personal and impersonal, natural and social. The beneficiaries of these movements belong to all manner of groups: racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, the poor, the insane, the orphaned, the handicapped, the homosexual, the young, the elde…Read more
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10Analyzing Love, by Robert Brown (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (1): 244-245. 1991.review of Analyzing Love
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517How Mathematics Isn’t LogicRatio 12 (3): 279-295. 1999.View more Abstract If logical truth is necessitated by sheer syntax, mathematics is categorially unlike logic even if all mathematics derives from definitions and logical principles. This contrast gets obscured by the plausibility of the Synonym Substitution Principle implicit in conceptions of analyticity: synonym substitution cannot alter sentence sense. The Principle obviously fails with intercepting: nonuniform term substitution in logical sentences. ‘Televisions are televisions’ and ‘TVs ar…Read more
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131Anthology introduction Intro to Empowering Our Military Conscience
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286Translation, Quotation and TruthThe Paideia Archive, 20th World Congress of Philosophy. 1998.critique of Church's Translation Test
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541ConditionsJournal of Philosophy 65 (12): 355-364. 1968.Critique of prevailing textbook conception of sufficient conditions and necessary conditions as a truth functional relation of material implication (p->q)/(~q->~p). Explanation of common sense conception of condition as correlative of consequence, involving dependence. Utility of this conception exhibited in resolving puzzles regarding ontology, truth, and fatalism.
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650Understanding Blackmun's Argument: The Reasoning in Roe v. WadeIn J. Garfield & P. Hennessy (eds.), Abortion: Moral and Legal Perspectives, University of Massachusetts. 1984.Critical analysis of Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision
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767Regulating Police Use of Deadly ForceIn N. Bowie & F. Elliston (eds.), Ethics, Public Policy and Criminal Justice, Oelgeschalger, Gunn & Hain. pp. 93--109. 1982.What should be a police department's policies and regulations on the use of deadly force? What is the relevance for this of the state law on capital punishment?
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3228Philosophy on HumanityIn R. L. Perkins (ed.), Abortion: Pro and Con, Schenkman. 1974.critical analysis of moral status of human beings. Argues that humans have special moral status simply by being members of our species
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494Applying Ethical Theory: Caveats from a Case StudyIn David M. Rosenthal & Fadlou Shehadi (eds.), Applied ethics and ethical theory, University of Utah Press. 1988.abortion argument and fact-value distinction
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1990Professional Military Ethics Education (PMEE) must transmit and promote military professionalism, so it must continuously.
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1864Constraining condemningEthics 108 (3): 489-501. 1998.Our culture is conflicted about morally judging and condemning. We can't avoid it altogether, yet many layfolk today are loathe to do it for reasons neither they nor philosophers well understand. Their resistance is often confused (by themselves and by theorists) with some species of antiobjectivism. But unlike a nonobjectivist, most people think that (a) for us to judge and condemn is generally (objectively) morally wrong , yet (b) for God to do so is (objectively) proper, and (c) so too for ce…Read more
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791The Paradox of TranslationIn B. . Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk & M. Thelen (eds.), Translation and Meaning, Hogeschool Zuyd. 2008.Critique of Alonzo Church's Translation Test. Church's test is based on a common misconception of the grammar of (so-called) quotations. His conclusion (that metalogical truths are actually contingent empirical truths) is a reductio of that conception. Chruch's argument begs the question by assuming that translation must preserve reference despite altering logical form of statements whose truth is explained by their form.
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7797Understanding the abortion argumentPhilosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1): 67-95. 1971.critical analyses of the arguments and attitudes favoring the various popular datings of the inception of a human being's life
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322Speciesism defended against common misrepresentations of what people actually believe about human moral status.
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1389Understanding RetributionCriminal Justice Ethics 2 (2): 19-38. 1983.Critical analysis of wide variety of conceptions and justifications of retribution and punishment. Emphasis is on pivotal role of condemnation
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630Socratic ScepticismMetaphilosophy 24 (4): 344-362. 1993.The Socratic Paradox (that only Socrates is wise, and only because only he recognizes our lack of wisdom) is explained, elaborated and defended. His philosophical scepticism is distinguished from others (Pyrrhonian, Cartesian, Humean, Kripkean Wittgenstein, etc.): the doubt concerns our understanding of our beliefs, not our justification for them; the doubt is a posteriori and inductive, not a priori. Post-Socratic philosophy confirms this scepticism: contra-Descartes, our ideas are not transpar…Read more
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459Post-Fregean theorists use 'quotation' to denote indifferently both colloquially called quotations (repetitions of prior utterances) and what I call 'displays': 'Rot' means red. Colloquially, quotation is a strictly historical property, not semantic or syntactic. Displays are semantically and syntactically distinctive sentential elements. Most displays are not quotations. Pure echo quotations (Cosmological arguments involve "an unnecessary shuffle") aren't displays. Frege-inspired formal languag…Read more
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3816Are the Police Necessary?In E. Viano & J. Reiman (eds.), The Police in Society, D.c. Heath. 1975.critical analysis of need for police
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1005Neither M. Walzer's collectivist conception of the "moral equality" of combatants, nor its antithetical individualist conceptions of responsibility are compatible with the ethos of military professionalism and its conception(s) of the responsibility of military professionals for service in an unjust war.
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348Errata: A reply to AbbottPolitical Theory 6 (3): 337-344. 1978.A lengthy inventory of misreadings and other errors in Phillip Abbott's critique of recent essays on abortion by analytic philosophers.
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688The Synonymy AntinomyIn A. Kanamori (ed.), Proceedings of the 20th World Conress of Philosophy, Vol VI , Analytic Philosophy and Logic, Philosophy Document Center. pp. 67-88. 2000.Resolution of Frege's Puzzle by denying that synonym substitution in logical truths preserves sentence sense and explaining how logical form has semantic import. Intensional context substitutions needn't preserve truth, because intercepting doesn't preserve sentence meaning. Intercepting is nonuniformly substituting a pivotal term in syntactically secured truth. Logical sentences and their synonym interceptions share factual content. Semantic content is factual content in synthetic predications,…Read more
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1248Review of Robert Brown, Analyzing Love (review)Philosophy and Phenomonological Research 51 (1): 244-45. 1991.
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358Identity SyntaxIn T. Rockmore (ed.), Proceedings of the 20th World Congress of Philosophy, Vol II Metaphysics, Philosophy Document Center. pp. 171-186. 1999.Like '&', '=' is no term; it represents no extrasentential property. It marks an atomic, nonpredicative, declarative structure, sentences true solely by codesignation. Identity (its necessity and total reflexivity, its substitution rule, its metaphysical vacuity) is the objectual face of codesignation. The syntax demands pure reference, without predicative import for the asserted fact. 'Twain is Clemens' is about Twain, but nothing is predicated of him. Its informational value is in its 'metaile…Read more
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383Preferring Punishment of Criminals Over Provisions for VictimsIn Diane Sank & David I. Caplan (eds.), To Be a Victim: Encounters with Crime and Injustice, Plenum. 1991.Victims of crime have long been victimized by our criminal justice system. Why? And why has the movement to rectify this been so late coming?
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927People espousing human moral equality encompassing every conspecific have been unumbrageous being labeled ‘speciesists’ and likened to Nazis and Klansmen, despite the insult’s being indefensible, and, if meant seriously, enraging. Perhaps their equanimity is unruffled because anti-speciesist acquaintances are remarkably chummier with them than with real racists. Anti-speciesists confuse two questions: (1) Is the bare fact of an individual’s being a human in itself a reason for us humans to deal …Read more
Decatur, Georgia, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Language |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |