How to Do Things Without Words: A Theory of Declarations

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. Smit ◽  
Filip Buekens
Keyword(s):  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
New States ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Theoretical Import

Declarations like “this meeting is adjourned” make certain facts the case by representing them as being the case. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the mechanism whereby the utterance of a declaration can bring about a new state of affairs. In this paper, we use the incentivization account of institutional facts to address this issue. We argue that declarations can serve to bring about new states of affairs as their utterance have game theoretical import, typically in virtue of the utterer signaling a commitment to act in an incentive-changing way.

What Is an Institution?

2007 ◽  
pp. 5-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Searle
Keyword(s):  
Physical Structure ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Collective Intentionality ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Institutional Fact ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Creation ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Typical Point

The author claims that an institution is any collectively accepted system of rules (procedures, practices) that enable us to create institutional facts. These rules typically have the form of X counts as Y in C, where an object, person, or state of affairs X is assigned a special status, the Y status, such that the new status enables the person or object to perform functions that it could not perform solely in virtue of its physical structure, but requires as a necessary condition the assignment of the status. The creation of an institutional fact is, thus, the collective assignment of a status function. The typical point of the creation of institutional facts by assigning status functions is to create deontic powers. So typically when we assign a status function Y to some object or person X we have created a situation in which we accept that a person S who stands in the appropriate relation to X is such that (S has power (S does A)). The whole analysis then gives us a systematic set of relationships between collective intentionality, the assignment of function, the assignment of status functions, constitutive rules, institutional facts, and deontic powers.

Metaphysical Grounding

Philosophy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Raven
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
Phenomenal Character ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Metaphysical Grounding ◽  
In Virtue Of

Metaphysical ground is supposed to be a distinctive metaphysical kind of determination. It is or underwrites constitutive explanations. These explanations answer questions asking in virtue of what something is so. For example, suppose that an act is pious just in case it is loved by the gods. Following Socrates, one might still ask whether an act is pious because the gods love it or whether it is loved by the gods because it is pious. This may be interpreted as a question of ground. Then, one answer is that what the gods love grounds what is pious. And an alternative answer is that what is pious grounds what the gods love. Either way, Socrates’s question concerns what something’s being pious consists in, or what it holds in virtue of, or what grounds it. Once one has the notion of ground, one will likely find it involved in many of philosophy’s big questions. In ethics, the question might be whether an action’s maximizing goodness grounds its rightness. In epistemology, the question might be whether a process producing a belief grounds its justification. In language, the question might whether what a speaker means in uttering a sentence grounds its meaning. In law, the question might be whether social and institutional facts ground the legal facts. In metaphysics, the question might be whether physical facts ground all the rest. In mind, the question might be whether a representation’s content grounds its phenomenal character. The list could go on. The extraordinary range and ambition of these questions of ground explains continued interest in them. But only recently have some philosophers viewed these questions as concerning ground as such. This growing self-consciousness is moving more philosophers to view ground as a topic worthy of study. Much of the recent literature on ground has focused on exploring its structure (Structure) and its connections to other notions (Connections). These explorations spring from the hope that clarifying ground will help clarify the big questions it helps express. Some of the literature on ground explores these applications to the big questions (Applications). But there are also skeptics who challenge ground’s grand pretensions. Some of these skeptics doubt ground’s usefulness for clarifying the big questions. Other skeptics doubt that ground is even intelligible. This has led to a vigorous debate over whether ground deserves the attention it receives (Skepticism and Anti-Skepticism).

scholarly journals Bradley's Regress, Russell's States of Affairs, and Some General Remarks on the Problem

2008 ◽  
pp. 249-264
Author(s):  
Holger Leerhoff
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Ontological Category ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Ontological Pluralism ◽  
Regress Argument ◽  
Compelling Argument ◽  
Bradley’S Regress ◽  
State Of Affairs

In this paper, I will give a presentation of Bradley's two main arguments against the reality of relations. Whereas one of his arguments is highly specific to Bradley's metaphysical background, his famous regress argument seems to pose a serious threat not only for ontological pluralism, but especially for states of affairs as an ontological category. Amongst the proponents of states-of-affairs ontologies two groups can be distinguished: One group holds states of affairs to be complexes consisting of their particular and universal constituents alone, the other holds that there has to be a "unifying relation" of some sort to establish the unity of a given state of affairs. Bradley's regress is often conceived to be a compelling argument against the first and for the latter. I will argue that the latter approaches have no real advantage over the simpler theories—neither in the light of Bradley's regress nor in other respects.

Obligating Reasons, Moral Laws, and Moral Dispositions

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Obligations ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
In Virtue Of

Moral obligations rest on circumstances (events, states of affairs, etc.). But what are these obligating reasons and in virtue of what are they such reasons? Nomological conceptions define such reasons in terms of moral laws. I argue that one such conception cannot be correct and that others do not support the familiar and plausible view that obligating reasons are pro tanto (or contributory) reasons, either because they entail that this view is false or else because they cannot explain – or even help to explain – how it could be true. I also argue that a particular dispositional conception of obligating reasons does support this view of obligating reasons by enabling an explanation of how it could be true. Moreover, my arguments show that the dispositional moral metaphysic on which this conception is predicated can do something that nomological alternatives cannot: explain why obligating reasons and moral obligations are pro tanto reasons and obligations.

scholarly journals PURE TIME PREFERENCE IN INTERTEMPORAL WELFARE ECONOMICS

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 441-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Paul Kelleher
Keyword(s):  
Real Number ◽  
Time Preference ◽  
Welfare Economics ◽  
Mathematical Function ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Philosophical Account ◽  
Theoretical Question ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Decisive Objection

Abstract:Several areas of welfare economics seek to evaluate states of affairs as a function of interpersonally comparable individual utilities. The aim is to map each state of affairs onto a vector of individual utilities, and then to produce an ordering of these vectors that can be represented by a mathematical function assigning a real number to each. When this approach is used in intertemporal contexts, a central theoretical question concerns the rate of pure time preference, i.e. the evaluative weight to be applied to utility coming at different times. This article criticizes the standard philosophical account of pure time preference, arguing that it ascribes to economists a methodological commitment they need not accept. The article then evaluates three further objections to pure time preference, concluding that it might still be defensible under certain circumstances. I close by articulating a final argument that, if sound, would constitute a decisive objection to pure time preference as it currently figures in much intertemporal welfare economics.

scholarly journals Kognitionsverber og kontrasten mellem indikativ- og infinitivkomplement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasper Boye ◽  
Anders Andersen ◽  
Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Corpus Studies ◽  
State Of Affairs

Many Danish cognition verbs take both indicative and infinitive complements. We examine what the contrast between the two complement types codes. The literature offers two answers. One is that the contrast has to do with coreferentiality: if the cognition verb’s primary argument is coreferential with the primary argument of the complement, the complement tends to be infinitive; if not, the complement must be indicative. The other answer concerns the contrast between propositions and states-of-affairs: the indicative complement designates a proposition, the infinitive complement a state-of-affairs. Corpus studies support both answers. They also support an analysis of indicatives as proposition markers. But infinitives cannot – straightforwardly – be analysed as state-of-affairs markers.

scholarly journals Another Look at Aspect in Thai

MANUSYA ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-86
Author(s):  
Pranee Kullavanijaya ◽  
Walter Bisang
Keyword(s):  
Initial Boundary ◽  
The State ◽  
Theory Approach ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Selection Theory ◽  
Aspect Markers ◽  
State Of Affairs

The aim of the paper is twofold. The first aim is to analyse aspect in Thai in the framework of the selection-theory approach developed by Breu and Sasse (1991). The second aim is to study all possible co-occurrenc;es of each of the three aspect markers: lεεw, kamlaƞ, yùu with the four classes of verbs and with the verbs occurring with other strategies within the five classes of states of affairs. It was found that the selectional approach chosen helped explaining the inceptive-stative state of affairs in Thai clearly. It also pointed out that the Thai aspectuality focused on the initial boundary and terminative boundary of the state of affairs. It is here that combinations of the three aspect markers occur. The study shows that they have certain rules of co-occurances.

On Necessary Gratuitous Evils

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Michael James Almeida
Keyword(s):  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Possible World ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Gratuitous Evil ◽  
Moral Perfection ◽  
Standard Position ◽  
State Of Affairs

The standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil makes the prevention of gratuitous evil a necessary condition on moral perfection. I argue that, on any analysis of gratuitous evil we choose, the standard position on moral perfection and gratuitous evil is false. It is metaphysically impossible to prevent every gratuitously evil state of affairs in every possible world. No matter what God does—no matter how many gratuitously evil states of affairs God prevents—it is necessarily true that God coexists with gratuitous evil in some world or other. Since gratuitous evil cannot be eliminated from metaphysical space, the existence of gratuitous evil presents no objection to essentially omnipotent, essentially omniscient, essentially morally perfect, and necessarily existing beings.

Weak Universal Egoism as a Non-ethical System

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-509
Author(s):  
George R. Carlson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Ethical Egoism ◽  
Ethical System ◽  
Collective Goods ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
State Of Affairs

In his “Two Kinds of Moral Reasoning; Ethical Egoism as a Moral Theory”, Jesse Kalin defines ethical egoism as “the position that a person ought, all things considered, to do an action if and only if that action is in his overall self-interest”, by which he means that each person is ‘rationally justified in’ or ‘has conclusive reasons for’ acting thus, and not that ‘it is good', or that ‘it is desirable', or that ‘it conduces to any intrinsically desirable state of affairs', for each to act only self-interestedly.In this way, Kalin seeks to formulate an egoism which he takes to be rational, insofar as, in the interests of consistency, the egoist holds a principle applicable to all, and yet is not committed, ex hypothesi, to valuing collective goods or states of affairs which would tend to compromise his own interests (e.g. everyone's actually acting egoistically).

Reasons and Beliefs

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 179-196
Author(s):  
Matteo Morganti ◽  
Attila Tanyi ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasons ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
State Of Affairs

The present paper identifies a challenge for a certain view of practical reasons, according to which practical reasons (both normative and motivating) are states of affairs. The problem is that those who endorse such a view seem forced to maintain both (a) that the contents of beliefs are states of affairs and (b) that the conception according to which the contents of beliefs are states of affairs is outlandish. The suggestion is put forward that, by distinguishing the content of a belief (as a proposition) from its object (as a state of affairs), the conflict between (a) and (b) can be neutralized.

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