What are these Familiar Words Doing Here?

2019 ◽  
pp. 39-55
Author(s):  
A.W. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Common Sense View ◽  
Linguistic Behaviour ◽  
Sceptical View

This essay is concerned with six linguistic moves that we commonly make, each of which is considered in turn. These are: stating rules of representation; representing things categorically; mentioning expressions; saying truly or falsely how things are; saying vaguely how things are; and stating rules of rules of representation. A common-sense view is defended of what is involved in our doing each of these six things against a much more sceptical view emanating from the idea that linguistic behaviour is fundamentally messy. Both the fifth move and the sixth move involve vague concepts, and much of the essay is concerned with developing an approach to various problems and puzzles that attach to such concepts, most notably the sorites paradoxes.

Transcendental Philosophy and Its Specific Demands

1998 ◽  
pp. 100-107
Author(s):  
Manfred Gawlina
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Common Sense View ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Ultimate Ground

One needs specific initiation into the classics of transcendental philosophy (Kant’s "Criticism," Descartes’s "Metaphysics," and Fichte’s "Doctrine of Science") because all say farewell to the common sense view of things. The three types of transcendental thinking converge in conceiving rational autonomy as the ultimate ground for justification. Correspondingly, the philosophical pedagogy of all three thinkers is focused on how to seize and make that very autonomy (or active self-determination) intellectually and existentially available. In the concrete way of proceeding, however, the three models diverge. Descartes expects one to become master of oneself and "the world" by methodologically suspending his judgement on what cannot qualify itself to be undoubtable. Kant leads us to the point where we can triangulate universal conditions of the possibility of knowledge through individually acquiring the competence to judge the legitimacy of encountered propositional claims. Finally, Fichte confronts us with the idea of the identity of self-consciousness and objectivity.

Notes on the Volterra Equations

1960 ◽  
Vol 92 (8) ◽  
pp. 582-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. R. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Model ◽  
Steady State ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Volterra Equations ◽  
Density Dependent ◽  
Common Sense View ◽  
Ecological Theories ◽  
Conditions Of Stability ◽  
Prey Populations

According to one of the popular ecological theories, populations are self-governing systems, which maintain themselves in existence by utilizing “density-dependent factors”, whose effect becomes more intense as the population increases and less intense as it decreases. This theory is connected with a mathematical model developed by V. A. Bailey and A.J. Nicholson, 1935, to represent the results of the interaction of predator and prey populations. According to the theory, as expressed verbally, a disturbance of the conditions of stability – the “steady state” – produces oscillations which tend to re-establish the stable conctition. In fact, however, when numbers are inserted in the equations, the population values, at the end of one or more cycles – which increase in amplitude if there are more than one – fall below unity, which, on a common sense view may be considered to mean the extermination of the prey, followed by that of its predator or parasite.

scholarly journals What Moral Character is and is Not

2017 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-274
Author(s):  
Marie I. George
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Moral Character ◽  
Summa Theologiae ◽  
Common Sense View ◽  
Average Person ◽  
The Common ◽  
Do So

Louise Mitchell discusses character in “Integrity and virtue: The forming of good character” ( The Linacre Quarterly 82, no. 2: 149–169). I argue that she is mistaken in identifying character as a potency and that it is rather the sum of one's moral habits and dispositions. I establish this by showing that if one correctly applies the division Aristotle presents in the text that Mitchell relies on, it follows that character belongs in the category of habit. I further support this conclusion by considering how people commonly speak of moral character. I then show that the text from the Summa Theologiae Mitchell relies on concerns sacramental character and not moral character; moreover, if we apply the reasoning contained there to moral character, we are again led to see that it should be categorized as a habit. Lastly, I explain that a human being's potency for character lies in the soul's rational powers. Summary I defend the common-sense view that moral character is the sum of one's moral habits and dispositions in response to Louise Mitchell who maintains that moral character is a potency. I do so by applying Aristotle's threefold division of things that exist in the soul—namely, potency, habit, and emotion—and also by examining how Aristotle speaks about character and how the average person speaks about character. In addition, I show why humans are the only animals that have the potential to develop character, and how this potential lies in the rational faculties of our soul.

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