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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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12Preferring 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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70Empowering Our Military Conscience: Transforming Just War Theory and Military Moral Education (edited book)Ashgate. 2010.Responding to increasing global anxiety over the ethics education of military personnel, this volume illustrates the depth, rigour and critical acuity of Professional Military Ethics Education (PMEE) with contributions by distinguished ethical theorists. It refreshes our thinking about the axioms of just war orthodoxy, the intellectual and political history of just war theorizing, and the justice of recent military doctrines and ventures. The volume also explores a neglected moral dimension of w…Read more
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343Talking about objects requires talking with objects, presenting objects in speech to identify a term's referent. I say This figure is a circle while handing you a ring. The ring is a prop, a perceptual object referenced by an extra-sentential event to identify the extension of a term, its director ('This figure'). Props operate in speech acts and their products, not in sentences. Intra-sentential objects we talk with are displays. Displayed objects needn't be words but must be like words, percep…Read more
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560Jus Ante BellumIn George R. Lucas (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Military Ethics, Routledge. pp. 54-68. 2015.Critical analysis of development of concept of jus ante bellum
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709Quotation appositionPhilosophical Quarterly 49 (197): 514-519. 1999.Analyses of quotation have assumed that quotations are referring expressions while disagreeing over details. That assumption is unnecessary and unacceptable in its implications. It entails a quasi-Parmenidean impossibility of meaningfully denying the meaningfulness or referential function of anything uttered, for it implies that: 'Kqxf' is not a meaningful expression 'The' is not a referring expression are, if meaningful, false. It also implies that ill formed constructions like: 'The' is 't…Read more
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295Review of Abortion and Moral Theory (review)Philosophical Review 93 (1): 97. 1984.Criticism of a moral theorizing that disparages common moral thought for violating presumed a priori principles. Argues for questioning alleged principles.
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589Synonymy Without AnalyticityInternational Philosophical Preprint Exchange. 1994.Analyticity is a bogus explanatory concept, and is so even granting genuine synonomy. Definitions can't explain the truth of a statement, let alone its necessity and/or our a priori knowledge of it. The illusion of an explanation is revealed by exposing diverse confusions: e.g., between nominal, conceptual and real definitions, and correspondingly between notational, conceptual, and objectual readings of alleged analytic truths, and between speaking a language and operating a calculus. The putat…Read more
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363critical analysis of logical form of predications of truth vs predications of fact
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14The significance of senseCornell University Press. 1972.Univocalist analyses of the modal auxiliary verbs ('ought'/'must'/'can') and the adjective 'right'/'wrong'
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713Identity: Logic, ontology, epistemologyPhilosophy 73 (2): 179-193. 1998.The identity "relation" is misconceived since the syntax of "=" is misconceived as a relative term. Actually, "=" is syncategorematic; it forms (true) sentences with a nonpredicative syntax from pairs of (coreferring) flanking names, much as "&" forms (true) conjunctive sentences from pairs of (true) flanking sentences. In the conaming structure, nothing is predicated of the subject, other than, implicitly, its being so conamed. An identity sentence has both an objectual reading as a necessity a…Read more
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651Understanding 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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768Regulating 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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495Applying 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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1994Professional Military Ethics Education (PMEE) must transmit and promote military professionalism, so it must continuously.
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1871Constraining 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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796The 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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7805Understanding 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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323Speciesism defended against common misrepresentations of what people actually believe about human moral status.
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Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Language |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |