VOLUME 4(2) • 2005
QUINE, INDETERMINACY OF TRANSLATION AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
ABSTRACT. Quine presents the indeterminacy thesis and the inscrutability-of-reference thesis not as part of a greater reductio but as theses that he outright endorses. If we reflect carefully on the use of language, we will realize that it is not sufficiently rich as to guarantee anything like uniqu..
QUINE ON TRUTH, MEANING AND ANALYTICITY
ABSTRACT. Quine treats logical truths as very high-level generalizations and notes that the point of the truth idiom is blind truth ascription. Quine denies that there is an interesting or useful bifurcation into very general sorts of points that apply to analytic sentences and very general sorts of..
THE ELUSIVE NATURE OF MUSICAL TRUTH
ABSTRACT. Music cannot represent things in the way painting can; when music attempts to depict sounds, it becomes what it is depicting, by virtue of being a sound itself. Even if music can represent things in some way, the representational element is irrelevant to the appreciation of the work. All t..
THE FABLE OF THE DRAGON-TYRANT
ABSTRACT. Stories about aging have traditionally focused on the need for graceful accommodation. The recommended solution to diminishing vigor and impending death was resignation coupled with an effort to achieve closure in practical affairs and personal relationships. Given that nothing could be do..
TEORIA LEGATURILOR ESTE COMPATIBILA CU PARTICULARELE INDISCERNABILE DISTINCTE
ABSTRACT. The Bundle Theory neither entails nor is committed to (PII); not only is the Bundle Theory compatible with the falsity of (PII), it can be used to refute (PII). The version of the Bundle Theory here developed does not identify particulars with bundles of universals. But it is faithful to t..
REALISM, REFERENCE AND GRUE (WHY METAPHYSICAL REALISM CANNOT SOLVE THE GRUE PARADOX)
ABSTRACT. Although metaphysical realism affords objective kinds, it cannot afford an objectivist solution to the grue paradox. Since a subjectivist solution to the grue paradox has such powerful non-realist consequences, a MRist may well wish to avoid those consequences (one must afford an objective..
SINN, BEDEUTUNG AND THE PARADOX OF ANALYSIS
ABSTRACT. An analysis should not be regarded as simply trying to capture our pre-existing conceptions, although our ordinary understanding does act as a constraint. The aim of analysis is to extend or refine rather than replace our ordinary conceptions, for particular purposes. What makes an analysi..
GRAMATICA SI MULTIMI (II)
ABSTRACT. We obtain a better definition of the natural number after considering a more elementary case where the language of Set Theory is insufficient to complete an important definition. That set-theoretic language is far removed from the ordinary language of number of things, and even sets of the..
EXPERIENCES, SUBJECTS, AND CONCEPTUAL SCHEMES
ABSTRACT. According to reductionism about persons, there are no souls or Cartesian Egos, and our existence consists in the existence of a body and a related sequence of mental events. According to reductionism about reasons, there are no irreducibly normative truths, and when we have some reason for..
ANALITIC/SINTETIC
ABSTRACT. There are two distinct clear analytic/synthetic distinctions. The class of "analytic" truths, at any rate as the term has been used in this century, has been supposed to be the class of those which were necessary for reasons of logic in a wide sense. There seems no need to restrict the ter..
IN DEFENSE OF POSTHUMAN DIGNITY
ABSTRACT. This paper distinguishes two common fears about the posthuman and argues for the importance of a concept of dignity that is inclusive enough to also apply to many possible posthuman beings. Recognizing the possibility of posthuman dignity undercuts an important objection against human enha..
SECOND PHILOSOPHY
ABSTRACT. The Second Philosopher has various methods of finding out about the world, beginning with observation, and as she builds and tests and modifies her theories, she also studies, tests and refines those methods themselves. She has seen, in her day, implementations of various bad procedures fo..