581.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Ann Pirruccello
“Gravity” in the Thought of Simone Weil
abstract |
view |
rights & permissions
Simone Weil’s concept of gravity (la pesanteur) has received attention from philosophers and interested readers at least since the 1947 publication of La Pesanteur et fa grâce. “Gravity” is a key concept in Weil’s moral and spiritual psychology, and despite the attention Weil’s writings have received, there is ample need for a study that draws together Weil’s scattered references to gravity and demonstrates their cohesion. This article develops a treatment of gravity that seeks to clarify one of the major scientific analogies Weil uses to develop her notion of moral gravity. It is hoped that this approach will furnish a point of departure for interpreting Weil’s obscure and often fragmentary remarks on gravity. In addition, something important can be said about both the difficulties and the promise of Weil’s analogy, and this article offers a few critical comments towards that end.
|
|
|
582.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Jerrold J. Katz
Analyticity, Necessity, and the Epistemology of Semantics
abstract |
view |
rights & permissions
Contemporary philosophy standardly accepts Frege’s conceptions of sense as the determiner of reference and of analyticity as (necessary) truth in virtue of meaning. This paper argues that those conceptions are mistaken. It develops referentially autonomous notions of sense and analyticity and applies them to the semantics of natural kind terms. The arguments of Donnellan, Putnam, and Kripke concerning natural kind terms are widely taken to refute internalist and rationalist theories of meaning. This paper shows that the counter-intuitive consequences about the reference of natural kind tenns depend as much on Frege’s conceptions of sense and analyticity as on what such theories of meaning say about the senses of natural kind tenns. Rather than refuting the internalist and rationalist theories of meaning, the arguments of Donnellan, Putnam, and Kripke are best recast as refutations of their own Fregean assumptions. The paper also shows how autonomous notions of sense and analyticity enable us to reconstruct such theories, formulate an internalist/rationalist account of semantic knowledge, and preserve Donnellan’s, Putnam’s, and Kripke’s insights about reference.
|
|
|
583.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Theodore Sider
A New Grandfather Paradox?
abstract |
view |
rights & permissions
In a 1994 Scientific American article, physicist David Deutsch and philosopher Michael Lockwood give a defense of the possibility of time travel based on the “Many Worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics. They motivate their appeal to the Many Worlds interpretation by arguing that the standard formulation of the paradox of time travel in terms of ability is misguided, presenting their own version of the paradox based on an “autonomy principle”, and arguing that this paradox should be resolved by appeal to the Many Worlds interpretation. But whatever the merits of their solution, it is unmotivated, for their new version of the paradox turns out on closer scrutiny to be nothing more than the original ability version of the paradox in disguise.
|
|
|
584.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Robert Brandom
Replies
|
|
|
585.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
David E. Cooper
The Ethics of Culture
|
|
|
586.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Charles Taliaferro
Possibilities in Philosophy of Mind
abstract |
view |
rights & permissions
This paper seeks to overturn the claim that Cartesian arguments for dualism based on the conceivable separation of person and body lack warrant, since it is just as conceivable that persons are identical with their bodies as it is that persons and their bodies are distinct. If the thesis of the paper is cogent, then it is not as easy to imagine person-body identity as many anti-Cartesians suppose.
|
|
|
587.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Keith Campbell
Physicalism; the Philosophical Foundations
|
|
|
588.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Richard Feldman
Review Essay
|
|
|
589.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Gideon Rosen
Who Makes the Rules Around Here?
|
|
|
590.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Recent Publications
|
|
|
591.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Crawford L. Elder
Natural Kinds
|
|
|
592.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
G. J. Mattey
The Problem of the Criterion
|
|
|
593.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
J. David Velleman
How to Share an Intention
abstract |
view |
rights & permissions
Existing accounts of shared intention (by Bratman, Searle, and others) do not claim that a single token of intention can be jointly framed and executed by multiple agents; rather, they claim that multiple agents can frame distinct, individual intentions in such a way as to qualify as jointly intending something. In this respect, the existing accounts do not show that intentions can be shared in any literal sense. This article argues that, in failing to show how intentions can be literally shared, these accounts fail to resolve what seems problematic in the notion of shared intention. It then offers an account in which the problem of shared intention is resolved, because intention can indeed be literally shared. This account is derived from Margaret Gilbert’s notion of a “pool of wills,” to which it applies Searle’s definition of intention.
|
|
|
594.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Robert Brandom
Précis of Making It Explicit
|
|
|
595.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
T. L. S. Sprigge
Consciousness and the Mind of God
|
|
|
596.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
John McDowell
Brandom on Representation and Inference
|
|
|
597.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Jay F. Rosenberg
Brandom’s Making It Explicit:
A First Encounter
|
|
|
598.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Randolph Clarke
Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments
|
|
|
599.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Lawrence Foster
The Morality of Pluralism
|
|
|
600.
|
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research:
Volume >
57 >
Issue: 1
Diane Jeske
Friendship, Virtue, and Impartiality
abstract |
view |
rights & permissions
The two dominant contemporary moral theories, Kantianism and utilitarianism, have difficulty accommodating our commonsense understanding of friendship as a relationship with significant moral implications. The difficulty seems to arise from their underlying commitment to impartiality, to the claim that all persons are equally worthy of concern. Aristotelian accounts of friendship are partialist in so far as they defend certain types of friendship by appeal to the claim that some persons, the virtuous, are in fact more worthy of concern than are other persons. This article argues that we can preserve the underlying impartiality of Kantianism and utilitarianism, while also preserving a certain partiality with respect to our friends: the partiality of commonsense only seems objectionable if we fail to understand the true grounds, nature, and implications of such partiality. Neo-Aristotelian partiality should be rejected in favor of commonsense partiality.
|
|
|