scholarly journals Grice and Kant on Maxims and Categories

Philosophia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Schamberger ◽  
Lars Bülow
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Transcendental Argument

AbstractApart from a passing reference to Kant, Grice never explains in his writings how he came to discover his conversational maxims. He simply proclaims them without justification. Yet regardless of how his ingenious invention really came about, one might wonder how the conversational maxims can be detected and distinguished from other sorts of maxims. We argue that the conversational maxims can be identified by the use of a transcendental argument in the spirit of Kant. To this end, we introduce Grice’s account of conversational maxims and categories and compare it briefly with Kant’s thoughts on categories. Subsequently, we pursue a thought experiment concerning what would happen if speakers constantly broke one or another of the maxims. It seems that it would not be possible for children to recognize a significant number of lexical meanings under such circumstances. Hence, the conversational maxims are rules whose occasional application is a necessary condition of language and conversation.

Heidegger

2021 ◽  
pp. 241-296
Author(s):  
Guy Elgat
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Being And Time ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Transcendental Argument

This chapter argues that Martin Heidegger can be read as providing a synthesis of sorts of the views considered in the previous chapters. Specifically, it focuses on Heidegger’s analysis of Being-guilty in his Being and Time and argues that while for Heidegger we are indeed not causa sui, as the naturalists hold, we are nevertheless guilty as such or are characterized by ontological guilt, as the metaphysicians hold, and this is because for Heidegger, not being causa sui is a condition of our ontological guilt. Moreover, it is our Being-guilty that makes our factical or empirical guilt possible. After introducing some of the main concepts and themes of Heidegger’s discussion, the chapter turns to reconstruct Heidegger’s transcendental argument to the effect that our Being-guilty is a necessary condition of the possibility of factical guilt. It then turns to discuss Heidegger’s concepts of the call of conscience and of wanting-to-have-a-conscience.

Morality and the Nature of Law

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Einar Himma
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Legal Validity ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
Conceptual Relationships ◽  
Conceptual Relationship ◽  
Conceptual Possibility

This book is concerned with explicating the conceptual relationships between law and morality. In particular, it explores the conceptual relationship between morality and the criteria that determine what counts as law in a given society (i.e. the criteria of legal validity). Is it a necessary condition for the existence of a legal system that it includes moral criteria of legal validity? Is it even possible for a legal system to have moral criteria of legal validity? The book considers the views of natural law theorists ranging from Blackstone to Dworkin and rejects them, arguing that it is not conceptually necessary that the criteria of legal validity include moral norms. Further, it rejects the exclusive positivist view, arguing instead that it is conceptually possible for the criteria of validity to include moral norms. In the process of considering such questions, this book considers Joseph Raz’s views concerning the nature of authority and Scott Shapiro’s views about the guidance function of law, which have been thought to repudiate the conceptual possibility of moral criteria of legal validity. The book, then, articulates a thought experiment that shows that it is possible for a legal system to have such criteria and concludes with a chapter that argues that any legal system, like that of the United States, which affords final authority over the content of the law to judges who are fallible with respect to the requirements of morality is a legal system with purely source-based criteria of validity.

Mendelssohn, Kant, and Idealism

2020 ◽  
pp. 167-202
Author(s):  
Paul Guyer
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Refutation Of Idealism ◽  
Empirical Realism

After examining the dispute between Mendelssohn and Kant over the ideality of time in 1770, this chapter argues that Kant’s addition of a “Refutation of Idealism” to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1787 is a response to Mendelssohn’s treatment of idealism in his 1785 Morning Hours. Both defend the position that Kant calls empirical realism, but only Kant defends it by means of a transcendental argument that knowledge of external objects is a necessary condition of empirical self-knowledge, although only within the framework of transcendental idealism. Mendelssohn accepts that human experience can never tell us how things are in themselves, but does not accept Kant’s outright denial of the non-spatiality and non-temporality of things in themselves.

TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENTS AND INTERPERSONAL UTILITY COMPARISONS

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Rossi
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Know How ◽  
Interpersonal Comparability ◽  
Interpersonal Utility Comparisons ◽  
Orthodox View

According to the orthodox view, it is impossible to know how different people's preferences compare in terms of strength and whether they are interpersonally comparable at all. Against the orthodox view, Donald Davidson (1986, 2004) argues that the interpersonal comparability of preferences is a necessary condition for the correct interpretation of other people's behaviour. In this paper I claim that, as originally stated, Davidson's argument does not succeed because it is vulnerable to several objections, including Barry Stroud's (1968) objection against all transcendental arguments of a ‘strong’ kind. However, I argue that Davidson's strategy can still achieve results of anti-sceptical significance. If we reformulate Davidson's argument as a ‘modest’ transcendental argument and if we embrace an ‘internal’ account of epistemic justification, it is in fact possible to have at least justified beliefs about how different people's preferences compare in terms of strength and about their interpersonal comparability.

Transcendental Arguments

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derk Pereboom
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
External World ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Christine Korsgaard ◽  
Or Practice ◽  
Refutation Of Idealism

This article explores Immanuel Kant’s transcendental argument in philosophy. According to Kant, a transcendental argument begins with a compelling first premise about our thought, experience, knowledge, or practice, and then reasons to a conclusion that is a substantive and unobvious presupposition and necessary condition of the truth of this premise, or as he sometimes puts it, of the possibility of this premise’s being true. Transcendental arguments are typically directed against skepticism of some kind. For example, Kant’s Transcendental Deduction targets Humean skepticism about the applicability of a priori metaphysical concepts, and his Refutation of Idealism takes aim at skepticism about an external world. The article first considers the nature of transcendental arguments before analysing a number of specific transcendental arguments, including Kant’s Transcendental Deduction and Refutation of Idealism. It also discusses contemporary arguments, such as those forwarded by P. F. Strawson and and Christine Korsgaard, together with their problems and prospects.

Stroud, Hegel, Heidegger: A Transcendental Argument

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-191
Author(s):  
Kim Davies
Keyword(s):  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
External World ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Objective World ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World

This paper presents an original, ambitious, truth-directed transcendental argument for the existence of an ‘external world’. It begins with a double-headed starting-point: Stroud’s own remarks on the necessary conditions of language in general, and Hegel’s critique of the “fear of error.” The paper argues that the sceptical challenge requires a particular critical concept of thought as that which may diverge from reality, and that this concept is possible only through reflection on situations of error, in which how things are thought (or experienced) to be diverges from how things really are with independent items in an objective world. The existence of such a world is therefore a necessary condition of the possibility of scepticism: such scepticism is therefore false. I defend the argument against objections from Stroud’s sceptic and others. Drawing on Heidegger, the paper concludes by indicating that the chain of necessary conditions includes practical engagement with the world.

The Infancy of Solar-Type Stars and its Relevance for the Origin of Life

1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 267-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thierry Montmerle
Keyword(s):  
Main Sequence ◽  
Solar Nebula ◽  
Circumstellar Disks ◽  
T Tauri Stars ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Sequence Evolution ◽  
T Tauri ◽  
Solar Type ◽  
Optical Domain ◽  
The Origin Of Life

AbstractFor life to develop, planets are a necessary condition. Likewise, for planets to form, stars must be surrounded by circumstellar disks, at least some time during their pre-main sequence evolution. Much progress has been made recently in the study of young solar-like stars. In the optical domain, these stars are known as «T Tauri stars». A significant number show IR excess, and other phenomena indirectly suggesting the presence of circumstellar disks. The current wisdom is that there is an evolutionary sequence from protostars to T Tauri stars. This sequence is characterized by the initial presence of disks, with lifetimes ~ 1-10 Myr after the intial collapse of a dense envelope having given birth to a star. While they are present, about 30% of the disks have masses larger than the minimum solar nebula. Their disappearance may correspond to the growth of dust grains, followed by planetesimal and planet formation, but this is not yet demonstrated.

Universal ESEM

1993 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 786-787
Author(s):  
G.D. Danilatos
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscope ◽  
Scanning Electron Microscope ◽  
High Vacuum ◽  
Natural Extension ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Environmental Scanning ◽  
Detection Systems ◽  
Small Gain ◽  
Detection Medium ◽  
Scanning Electron

The environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) has evolved as the natural extension of the scanning electron microscope (SEM), both historically and technologically. ESEM allows the introduction of a gaseous environment in the specimen chamber, whereas SEM operates in vacuum. One of the detection systems in ESEM, namely, the gaseous detection device (GDD) is based on the presence of gas as a detection medium. This might be interpreted as a necessary condition for the ESEM to remain operational and, hence, one might have to change instruments for operation at low or high vacuum. Initially, we may maintain the presence of a conventional secondary electron (E-T) detector in a "stand-by" position to switch on when the vacuum becomes satisfactory for its operation. However, the "rough" or "low vacuum" range of pressure may still be considered as inaccessible by both the GDD and the E-T detector, because the former has presumably very small gain and the latter still breaks down.

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