scholarly journals The distinct existences argument revisited

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Barz
Keyword(s):  
Hume’S Principle ◽  
Frank Jackson ◽  
David Armstrong ◽  
False Claim

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to take a fresh look at a discussion about the distinct existences argument that took place between David Armstrong and Frank Jackson more than 50 years ago. I will try to show that Armstrong’s argument can be successfully defended against Jackson’s objections (albeit at the price of certain concessions concerning Armstrong’s view on the meaning of psychological terms as well as his conception of universals). Focusing on two counterexamples that Jackson put forward against Hume’s principle (which is central to Armstrong’s argument), I will argue that they are either compatible with Hume’s principle, or imply a false claim. I will also look at several other considerations that go against Hume’s principle, such as, for example, Kripke’s origin essentialism and counterexamples from aposteriori necessity.

‘Looks Red’ and Dangerous Talk

Philosophy ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 70 (274) ◽  
pp. 545-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. J. C. Smart
Keyword(s):  
Frank Jackson ◽  
David Armstrong ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Do So

This paper is partly to get rid of some irritation which I have felt at the quite common tendency of philosophers to elucidate (for example) ‘is red’ in terms of ‘looks red’. For a relatively recent example see, for example, Frank Jackson and Robert Pargetter, ‘An Objectivist′s Guide to Subjectivism about Colour’. However rather than try to make a long list of references, I would rather say ‘No names, no pack drill’. I have even been disturbed to find the use of the words ‘looks red’ that I am opposing ascribed to me by Keith Campbell in his useful article ‘David Armstrong and Realism about Colour’. I am not saying that such talk is necessarily wrong. Talk of ‘looks red’ may be a way of harmlessly referring to the behavioural discriminations with respect to colour of a human percipient. Where it is dangerous, at least to those of us who wish to argue for a broadly physicalist account of the mind, is that it may have concealed overtones of reference to epiphenomenal and irreducibly psychic properties of experiences. Moreover even if it does not do so it may be fence sitting on this issue and liable to misinterpretation.

Philosophical and Conceptual Analysis

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. King
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Physical State ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Frank Jackson ◽  
David Chalmers ◽  
Paradox Of Analysis ◽  
Relevant Notion

This article examines the main lines of contemporary thinking about analysis in philosophy. It first considers G. E. Moore’s statement of the paradox of analysis. It then reviews a number of accounts of analysis that address the paradox of analysis, including the account offered by Ernest Sosa 1983 and others by Felicia Ackerman (1981, 1986, 1991); the latter gives an account of analysis on which properties are the objects of analysis. It also discusses Jeffrey C. King’s (1998, 2007) accounts of philosophical analysis, before turning to views of analysis that are not aimed at addressing the paradox of analysis, including those associated with David Lewis, Frank Jackson, and David Chalmers. In particular, it comments on Lewis’s argument that conceptual analysis is simply a means for picking out the physical state that occupies a certain role, where formulating what that role is constitutes a conceptual analysis of the relevant notion.

scholarly journals Consciência e fenômenos mentais inconscientes: as visões de David Armstrong e John Searle

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tárik De Athayde Prata
Keyword(s):  
John Searle ◽  
David Armstrong

O artigo examina as concepções de consciência, bem como as concepções de fenômenos mentais inconscientes, de David Armstrong e John Searle. Enquanto Armstrong entende a consciência como decorrente de uma percepção de segunda ordem, de modo que um fenômeno inconsciente é apenas um fenômeno mental que não é percebido, Searle entende a consciência como um estado global, o que torna sua visão do inconsciente mais complicada. Estados mentais inconscientes não passam de padrões de atividade neuronal, padrões que são capazes de causar estados mentais conscientes nas circunstâncias adequadas. Porém, enquanto a teoria de Armstrong é perfeitamente coerente, a visão de Searle se mostra inconsistente, pois a eficácia causal que ele atribui aos fenômenos inconscientes é incompatível com o papel fundamental que ele atribui à consciência no domínio dos fenômenos mentais.

The anatytic conception of truth and the foundations of arithmetic

2000 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Apostoli
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Logical Truth ◽  
Numerical Identity ◽  
Hume’S Principle ◽  
Contextual Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Axiomatic Set Theory ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Second Order Logic ◽  
Foundations Of Arithmetic

Until very recently, it was thought that there couldn't be any current interest in logicism as a philosophy of mathematics. Indeed, there is an old argument one often finds that logicism is a simple nonstarter just in virtue of the fact that if it were a logical truth that there are infinitely many natural numbers, then this would be in conflict with the existence of finite models. It is certainly true that from the perspective of model theory, arithmetic cannot be a part of logic. However, it is equally true that model theory's reliance on a background of axiomatic set theory renders it unable to match Frege's Theorem, the derivation within second order logic of the infinity of the number series from the contextual “definition” of the cardinality operator. Called “Hume's Principle” by Boolos, the contextual definition of the cardinality operator is presented in Section 63 of Grundlagen, as the statement that, for any concepts F and G,the number of F s = the number of G sif, and only if,F is equinumerous with G.The philosophical interest in Frege's Theorem derives from the thesis, defended for example by Crispin Wright, that Hume's principle expresses our pre-analytic conception of assertions of numerical identity. However, Boolos cites the very fact that Hume's principle has only infinite models as grounds for denying that it is logically true: For Boolos, Hume's principle is simply a disguised axiom of infinity.

Confabulations about People and Their Limbs, Present or Absent

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hirstein
Keyword(s):  
False Memory ◽  
The Family ◽  
Capgras Syndrome ◽  
The Brain ◽  
False Claim

This article examines the neurobiological aspects of confabulations. It explains that confabulation is a false memory report and that to confabulate is to make unintentionally an ill-grounded, and hence probably false, claim that one should know is ill-grounded. Confabulation is caused by damage to some perceptual or mnemonic process in the posterior of the brain and damage to some prefrontal process that monitors and can manipulate and/or correct the output of that perceptual or mnemonic process. This article evaluates the application of this two-factor theory to the analysis of Capgras syndrome and anosognosia, the two oddest members of the family of confabulation syndromes.

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