See Mackie [1] and Nozick [2].
See Grice [3].
See Dudman [4] and [5].
See, for example, Lewis [6] p3, and Appiah [7] pp 164-5.
See Adams [8] Ch1.
Jackson [9] pp 566-7.
Putnam, 1981, Chapter 1.
The sceptical scenario under consideration here is one according to which all sentient beings are permanently brains in a vat, hooked to a computer which just happens to produce in them sensations of exactly the kind we experience. To simplify the discussion, we will further assume that there is nothing else in the world, and that there is no designer of this setup -- it just happened to pop into existence. Like Warfield and Brueckner, I will restrict my attention to this case, and ignore other sceptical scenarios (such as cases of recent and/or temporary envatment).
As it happens, I find it plausible to claim that the BIV term `water' does refer to states of the computer, and that an anti-BIV argument could be based on this assumption (see Tymoczko, 1990 for what I take to be the most promising argument of this kind). Warfield (1998, p. 131) objects to this line of reasoning: «I am not willing to argue that `water' in my language refers to water while `water' in the language of a [BIV] does not because [...] this would require me to offer a priori reasons for thinking that my `water' thoughts are referential.» This, however, misses the point. All that this form of the argument would require is that the BIV's `water' refer to computer states, and that our `water' not refer to computer states.
I use small capitals to refer to concepts.
To be precise, use of Universal Instantiation here requires the further premise `I exist'.
Our brain may be different in this respect, and perhaps the same argument could not be run on brain. One might claim that one's brain is just the concept of «that organ in which my thought processes occur», although I have doubts about whether the BIV's concept organ would count as the same concept as ours.
This would be to treat the argument as an instance of the so-called `McKinsey recipe' (McKinsey, 1991; Boghossian, 1997). One should note, however, that the purported conclusion of these arguments is that one could know a priori that, for example, water exists. I agree that such facts cannot be known a priori. But the conclusion of the anti-BIV argument is considerably weaker.
This paper was written while I was visiting the Research School of Social Sciences (RSSS) at the Australian National University. I wish to thank the RSSS, the Alfred Kordelin Foundation, and the Academy of Finland for making the visit possible. I am also grateful to the following people for comments: Lisa Bortolotti, Philippe Chuard, Nic Damnjanovic, and Stewart Saunders.
This second Equivalence axiom effectively involves conditionalization, since in the light of the first Equivalence axiom it equates to ((p C q)^(q C p)) þ ((p^q) V (~p^~q)).
See David H. Sanford, If P, then Q: Conditionals and the Foundations of Reasoning (London: Routledge, 1989) 14-26.
See, for example, Howard Kahane and Paul Tidman, Logic and Philosophy: A Modern Introduction (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1995) 25.
For the pragmatist tradition, even amongst restricted questions, deliberation can be excessive, because too much deliberation interferes with a successful life; hence, some rashness is necessary for survival. Thus,
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.
(W. James, p. 122.)
Deliberation is for the pragmatist primarily a means of solving particular human problems and it is not carried for its own sake.
Which empirical sciences are privileged as the archetypes to follow depends on the naturalist philosopher.
In summary, Quine's naturalism appears to be the result both of his holism and of the high value he gives to science and to its localist research strategy. Quine's high valuation of science is shown, for example, in Quine's last quote above, where he claims: «science itself,..., is where judgement is properly passed.»
`Creation scientists' who propose an alternative scientific methodology exemplify, though, that these doubts are not psychologically impossible.
Instrumental or means/ends rationality allegedly advices that, if one wants to be rational, and if one wants goal A, then one should look for the justified optimal means, amongst those available to us, to attain or continuously approximate the desirable and sought goal A. Therefore, if A is an impossible and not continuously approximable goal, then there won't be any means available to attain or get close to A, and then A would be means/ends irrational.
These desirable theoretical characteristics could be known only tacitly.
This is a modification of the following quote,
[In a naturalistic epistemology] methods are accepted if they vindicate entrenched theoretical assumptions; and we decide which theories to accept in accordance with accepted methodological standards.
(Hookway, 1990, p. 223.)
By the way, these are two very different cognitive aims, which of the two is the genuine scientific end? That it is important to decide whether the goal of science is truth or prediction, is shown by the on going debates between realists and instrumentalists, for example, L. Laudan claims that truth is an irrational cognitive goal.
Thus, Quine claims that,
We cannot detach ourselves from [our conceptual scheme] and compare it objectively with an unconceptualized reality. Hence it is meaningless, I suggest, to inquire into the absolute correctness of a conceptual scheme as a mirror of reality. Our standard for appraising basic changes of conceptual scheme must be, not a realistic standard of correspondence to reality, but a pragmatic standard. Concepts are language, and the purpose of concepts and of language is efficacy in communication and in prediction. Such is the ultimate duty of language, science and philosophy, and it is in relation to that duty that a conceptual scheme has finally to be appraised. (Quine, 1953, p. 79.) (Emphasis added.)
Hence, even though Quine maintains that we cannot say which conceptual scheme is objectively correct or true (and in this sense none are better), he claims that we can still compare conceptual schemes in terms of their shared aim for efficacy in prediction. In the case of scientific conceptual schemes, this comparison can also be made because Quine believes conceptual schemes also share some basic methodological strategies, such as the hypothetico-deductive method. In other words, Quine believes that all scientific conceptual schemes share some basic methodological and axiological presuppositions, but how does Quine justify this belief of his?
This because, natural selection, being interested only in survival, it had to cut corners to save energy and time.
Or at least, the justified believer should have his beliefs justified by reasons that can be made conscious -after adequate self examination or reflection- that is, the justifying reasons should be capable of becoming conscious.
Assuming the scientific community can reach an agreement about which basic statements are not problematic for the time being.
Popper's position can perhaps be clarified via an ethical analogy, thus imagine a criminal who would causally explain his crime by showing that his action was the result of an emotional process (say, love or benevolence) that in general, and in standard situations leads, to good actions. Would we say that this causal explanation justifies as good his crime? Many of us would find an affirmative answer as counterintuitive. On the other hand, the adage says: to know all, is to forgive all, forgive perhaps, but not justify as good or right.
Cf., Papineau for a reliabilist rule circular justification of induction.
So-called for good reason. In the opening pages of the Second Meditation, Descartes makes it clear that he could not acquire the ideas of thought or sensation from contemplation of bodies (either his own or those of others). He wrote: « ... according to my judgement, the power of self-movement, like the power of sensation or of thought, was quite foreign to the nature of a body; indeed, it was a source of wonder to me that certain bodies were found to contain faculties of this kind.» (R. Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy (ed.) J. Cottingham (Cambridge University Press, 1996) pp. 17 -- 18) On such a view, introspection is presumably the only way in which one might give meaning to one's mental words.
Wittgenstein concedes the possibility of contingently private languages: «[w]e could even imagine human beings who spoke only in monologue» (#243).
In B. Hale & C. Wright A Companion to the Philosophy of Language (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1997)
For example, H-J Glock A Wittgenstein Dictionary (Oxford, Blackwell, 1996), p. 312.
Of course, Wittgenstein is not urging us to yield to this temptation. See also # 315 where Wittgenstein asks «Could someone understand the word `pain', who had never felt pain?»
Craig, op. cit., p. 131.
«Wittgenstein on Privacy» in G. Pitcher (ed.) Wittgenstein (Macmillan, 1966)
Cook (op. cit., p. 300) cites Ayer as a typical defender of the standard view. Ayer writes: «it is logically impossible that one person should literally feel another's pain» (The Problem of Knowledge (Edinburgh, 1956), p. 202.)
Cook, op. cit., pp. 301 -- 2.
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus & Other Essays, trans. Justin O'Brien (New York: Vintage Books, 1955), p. 89.
Richard Taylor, «The Meaning of Life,» Good and Evil, rev. ed. (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2000), p. 329.
«Ecclesiastes,» The Anchor Bible, trans. Choon-Leong Seow (New York: Doubleday, 1997), p. 118. The author of Ecclesiastes remains unknown. Ecclesiastes has traditionally been attributed to Solomon. However, many bible scholars including Seow believe that this is implausible.
Arthur Schopenhauer, «On the Vanity of Existence,» Essays and Aphorisms, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin Books, 1970), p. 54.
See, e.g., Richard Taylor, «The Meaning of Life,» op. cit.
Lawrence J. Schneiderman, Nancy S. Jecker, and Albert R. Jonsen, «Medical Futility: Its Meaning and Ethical Implications,» Annals of Internal Medicine, 112 (1990), p. 950.
Ibid., p. 950.
Ibid., p. 951.
Ibid., p. 951.
Ibid., p. 952.
Ibid., p. 951.
See, e.g., Baruch A. Brody and Amir Halevy, «Is Futility a Futile Concept,» The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 20 (1995), pp. 123-144.
Robert D. Truog, Allan S. Brett and Joel Frader, «The Problem With Futility,» The New England Journal of Medicine, 326 (1992), pp. 1560-1564.
William Lane Craig, «The Absurdity of Life Without God,» The Meaning of Life,
ed. E.D. Klemke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 53-54.
For an in-depth analysis of the external perspective, see Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), esp. pp. 208-231.
Craig, op. cit., p. 40.
Craig, op. cit., p. 44.
Lawrence J. Schneiderman, Nancy S. Jecker, and Albert R. Jonsen, «Medical Futility: Response to Critiques,» Annals of Internal Medicine, 125 (1996), p. 671.
Craig, op. cit., pp. 53-54.
Paul Edwards, «Meaning and Value of Life,» The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967), vol. 4, p. 467.
Kurt Baier, «The Meaning of Life,» The Meaning of Life, ed. E.D. Klemke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 101-132.
Craig, op. cit., p. 40.
Ibid., p. 42.
Taylor, op. cit., p. 325.
Camus, op. cit., p. 3.
C. Stephen Evans, The Philosophy of Despair: Existentialism and the Quest for Hope (London: Probe Books, 1984), p. 65.
Kurt Baier, «Threats of Futility: Is Life Worth Living,» Free Inquiry, 8 (Summer 1988), p. 51.
Ibid., p. 52.
For a detailed discussion of the various methods used to assist in health care decision making, including cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and cost-utility analysis, see Henry M. Levin and Patrick J. McEwan, Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: Methods and Applications (London: Sage Publications, 2001) and Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine, ed. Marthe R. Gold et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). These sources do not discuss medical futility. However, there are some similarities between a futility evaluation and a cost-effectiveness evaluation. One similarity is that both methods employ the concept of «effectiveness» instead of the broader concept of «benefits» used in a cost-benefit analysis.
For other statements supporting that the author concluded that living is worthwhile, see Ecclesiastes 3.12-13 and 11.7.
I would like to express my appreciation to Professors Nick Griffin and David Hitchcock for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
«Skepticism» in The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, edited by J. Greco and E. Sosa, Massachusetts: Blackwell, (1999), p. 35.
A. C. Grayling, «Epistemology», in The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, edited by Nicholas Bunnin and E. P. Tsui-James, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, (1996), p. 51.
This seems true at least of modern forms of skepticism, which is my main concern here. For discussion of the relation of modern skepticism to the Pyrrhonian tradition see, Myles Burnyeat, «Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes Saw and Berkeley Missed,» Philosophical Review, (1982), and Michael Williams, «Scepticism Without Theory», Review of Metaphysics (March 1988): 547-588.
Op. cit., p. 46.
Edmund Gettier's criticism of this definition indicates that there is an additional condition for knowledge, which brings the total to four. «Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?», Analysis, vol. 23, (1963), pp. 121-3. I discuss the Gettier problem below. It is perhaps worth noting that I shall assume here that there are only four necessary conditions for knowledge, although I suppose we cannot rule out the possibility of counterexamples leading to a search for a fifth condition for knowledge.
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, New York: Simon & Schuster, (1948), p. 154.
Cf. L. T. Zagzebski, «The Inescapability of Gettier Problems», Philosophical Quarterly 44, no. 174 (1994), pp. 65-73.
Clearly a complete defense of this argument would require an examination of the traditional (but not uncontroversial) view that justified, true belief is equivalent to knowledge. D. Lewis, for example, questions the necessity of the justification condition in «Elusive Knowledge,» Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74 (1996), pp. 549-67, and H. A. Pritchard argues that knowledge and belief are mutually exclusive in Knowledge and Perception, Oxford: Claredon Press (1950).
I don't expect many will be persuaded by this suggestion for how to use `gettier'. My case should, I hope, improve as we examine more global types of skepticism. However, nothing in the argument that distinguishes various types of skepticism turns on accepting this understanding of `gettier'. Where I use the term `gettier', for instance, one can simply read this as a place-holder for `the philosophical theory which supplements the traditional analysis of `knowledge' in a way which takes account of the Gettier type counter-examples'.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translated by M. Ostwald, Indianapolis: Liberal Arts Press, (1962), 1095a.
«Skepticism», op. cit.
Cf. Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton: Princeton University Press, (1979). But see: T. Triplett «Recent Work on Foundationalism,» American Philosophical Quarterly 27, (1990), pp. 93-116.
This is what Putnam refers to as the minimal principle of noncontradiction, «There is at least one a priori truth,» reprinted in Putnam's Realism and Reason, Philosophical Papers vol. 3 Cambridge Univ. Press, (1983).
Myles Burnyeat in «Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes Saw and Berkeley Missed,» op. cit., argues that this form of skepticism makes its first appearance in Descartes' work.
Wilfrid Sellars, «Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man,» in Science, Perception, and Reality, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., (1963).
I shall often discuss the four types of philosophical skepticism in terms of the strongest formulation of philosophical skepticism discussed, namely, that `knowledge is impossible'. Naturally, these skepticisms might be formulated in a weaker manner as suggested by Grayling's formulation noted above.
Ultimately, it may be wondered to what extent these two types of justificatory skepticism are in fact independent. After all, if we could address the foundational problem of Agrippa's trilemma then we might have an answer to the Cartesian skeptic. Indeed, this is the precisely the strategy Descartes opted for. Conversely, it seems that often the most effective means for undermining responses to the Agrippa skeptic is to point out how evidence for putative axioms are underdetermined by the evidence. However, for our purposes, nothing is lost in distinguishing between these two types of justificatory skepticism.
I thus disagree with Michael Williams (Groundless Belief, Connecticut: Yale University Press, (1977) p. 6):
How does Gettier's problem-the problem of formulating necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge-relate to the dominant concerns of traditional epistemology? On the face of things, only distantly.
On the other hand, readers of an earlier version of this paper pointed out the relevance of an interesting article by Hetherington (1996). Unbeknownst to me, it seems that Hetherington had already noted the skeptical potential of Gettier cases. There are, however, substantive differences in our exposition: First, Hetherington seems to be skeptical about the possibility of reductive definitions of knowledge like the one offered above (see his discussion on pp. 96-7, footnote 12). Second, I believe there is a greater parallelism between Gettier skepticism and Cartesian skepticism than he allows (see especially p.88). Finally, Hetherington exploits a parallel between Cartesian dreaming arguments while the arguments we will look at focus on brain-in-the-vat and evil demon skepticism.
A somewhat analogous distinction is made by Nagel in his The View From Nowhere, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (1986), p. 90:
In the last chapter we discussed skepticism with regard to knowledge. Here I want to introduce another form of skepticism -- not about what we know but about how far our thoughts can reach. I shall defend a form of realism according to which our grasp on the world is limited not only in respect of what we can know but also in respect of what we can conceive. In a very strong sense, the world extends beyond the reach of our minds.
His distinction is not exactly the same as the one discussed here. One difference lies in the fact that Nagel seems to suggest at certain points that the world does in fact transcend our ability to conceptualize it whereas the skepticism here asserts merely that we leave open the possibility of such a transcendence. More importantly, Nagel does not consider the possibility the more radical versions of the idea that our thoughts cannot reach reality in itself. In other words, he may have something similar to the proper-subset version of noetic skepticism in mind here. Further evidence for this is the fact that the chapter from which this quote is taken concentrates on an analogy almost identical to that of Heraclitus' ontogenetic analogy (see below).
The Worlds of the Early Greek Philosophers, edited by J. B. Wilbur and H. J. Allen, (Buffalo: Prometheus Books 1979), p. 72.
The Modularity of Mind, (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1983), pp. 125-6. I would be impressed if the spiders themselves made the arguments -- although I am not sure I would believe the arguments.
Noetic skepticism might be articulated as a biological thesis: there are congenital limitations on the sorts of thoughts that we might think; or as a socio-historical thesis: there are limits to what we can think at this particular point in our cultural development. In the text I concentrate for the most part on the stronger biological thesis.
Stephan Körner, Fundamental Questions in Philosophy, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969).
Clearly, this «ontological» reading of the notion of the things in themselves offered is only one interpretation. The notion of the thing in itself, for example, has also been interpreted along epistemological lines by N. Rescher in «Noumenal Causality», in L. W. Beck edits, The Proceedings of the Third International Kant Congress, Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing, 1972. R. Butts provides an interesting methodological account in Kant and the Double Government Methodology, Boston: Reidel Publishing, 1984. P. F. Strawson suggests that there is no coherent account of the notion of things in themselves to be found in Kant, v. The Bounds of Sense, London: Methuen, 1966. Those that hold to what I am terming the `ontological reading' are numerous (perhaps they even constitute the majority). To cite but a few: R. Solomon, In the Spirit of Hegel, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (1983), pp. 296-7; S. Körner, Kant, New York: Penguin Books, (1955), p. 96; R.C.S. Walker, Kant, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., (1978), pp. 89-90; A. C. Ewing, A Short Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, London: Methuen, (1938), pp. 188-9, D. P. Dryer, Kant's Solution for Verification in Metaphysics, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, (1966), p. 519; J. N. Findlay, Kant and the Transcendental Object, Oxford: Claredon Press, (1981), p. 350; and R. Pippin, Kant's Theory of Form, New Haven: Yale University Press, (1982), p. 203; M. Westphal's «In Defense of the Thing in Itself,» Kant-Studien, (1968), Heft 1, 118-41.
Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp, London: Macmillan, (1929), B 71.
Ibid. B 307-312.
Like noetic skepticism, aletheia skepticism might be articulated as a biological or socio-historical constraint.
Whether Bradley himself qualifies as an aletheia skeptic is a difficult exegetical question. He does say, for example, that the `the chief need of English philosophy is, I think, a skeptical study of first principles...' (Appearance and Reality. 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1969), p. xii). But he seems to allow that feeling might be somewhat revelatory of the ultimate truth of reality (Essays on Truth and Reality, op. cit., p. 159) which seems incompatible with aletheia skepticism.
Essays on Truth and Reality, London, 1914, p.239.
Ibid., p. 223.
Noam Chomsky, Rules and Representations, New York: Cambridge University Press, (1980), pp. 251-2.
As Davidson, for example, has argued in a series of influential papers collected in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (1984).
This sort of position has historical antecedents with F. Schelling's early work.
A. C. Grayling, «Epistemology», op. cit., p. 53.
Williams says («Epistemological Realism and the Basis of Scepticism» Mind, xcvii, no. 387, July 1988, note 10) that the question of whether foundationalism is best seen as a presupposition or a by-product is due to Barry Stroud.
On the other hand, this use of `skepticism' is well within «everyday» usage of the term. It would be appropriate to say, for example, «Barry claims to know that Dawn is at the bar, although I am skeptical.»
See Stroud The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism, op. cit. for details on why the skeptic believes that we have no evidence that we are not brains-in-a-vat.
Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1981), chapter 1. Putnam himself does not target skepticism with this argument but realism. For a critical examination of various attempts along these lines to make in-roads against skepticism see A. Brueckner's «Content Externalism» in Transcendental Arguments, edited by R. Stern, Oxford: Claredon Press, 1999, pp. 229-250.
An overview and review of some of this literature can be found in K. DeRose's «Contextualism: An Explanation and Defence» in The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, edited by J. Greco and E. Sosa, Massachusetts: Blackwell (1999), pp. 187-205.
H. Putnam, Realism with a Human Face, Harvard University Press, (1990).
This skepticism might be a form of socio-historic noetic skepticism: cultural developments have led to the ability to conceive of alternatives to Euclidean geometry.
For simplicity sake I take the set of defeaters of our everyday justificatory practices to be static and univocal. Of course it may well be that the realm of the defeaters is larger or smaller depending on the context of our everyday practices, e.g., the realm of defeaters may be larger where a lot depends on getting the knowledge claim right, as in a murder trial.
In the Meditations (The Philosophical Works of Descartes, volume I, translated by E. S. Haldane, and G. R. T. Ross, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1931), p. 158) Descartes writes:
But when I took anything very simple and easy in the sphere of arithmetic or geometry into consideration, e.g., that two and three together make five, and other things of the sort, were not these present to my mind so clearly as to enable me to affirm that they were true? Certainly if I judged that since such matters could be doubted, this would not have been for any other reason that it came into my mind that perhaps a God might have endowed me with such a nature that I may have been deceived even concerning things which seem to me most manifest. But every time that this preconceived opinion of the sovereign power of a God presents itself to my thought, I am constrained to confess that it is easy to Him if He wishes it, to cause me to err, even in matters in which I believe to have the best evidence.
In this and other passages Descartes comes close to the noetic (or Kantian) idea that it is not that we may simply be mislead about the nature of sensory evidence, but the nature of our minds might prohibit us from grasping the truth. Unlike Kant, Descartes does not seem to grasp that there are two quite separate problems here.
I am thinking in particular of the anti-skeptical arguments inspired by Putnam's seminal discussion, op. cit.
Cf., John McDowell's reply to Davidson' version of a content externalism reply to skepticism. He says that this «...response to the brain-in-a-vat worry works the wrong way round. The response does not calm the fear that our picture leaves our thinking possibly out of touch with the world outside us. It gives us a dizzying sense that our grip on what it is that we believe is not as firm as we thought.» (Mind and World, second edition, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, (1996), p. 117.
Cf. «Introduction» to Mind and World, ibid.
In saying that Davidson's answer is more complete I mean that his response covers more of the types of philosophical skepticism that we have discussed. It should not be taken to mean that Davidson is more successful at refuting the philosophical skeptic, this is another matter entirely.
«The Method of Truth in Metaphysics», reprinted in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, op. cit. and «A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge», in Truth and Interpretation, edited by E. Lepore, Oxford: Blackwell, (1986), pp. 307-19.
Reprinted in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (1984), pp. 183-198.
Both Rorty («The World Well Lost» in The Journal of Philosophy, LXIX (1972), pp. 649-665) and Nagel, op. cit. see this implication of Davidson's argument.
See Fodor and Lepore (1992), pp.23-26.
For a detailed discussion of the difficulties confronting holism, see Fodor and Lepore (1992).
One might argue that the consequences of holism form a sufficient reductio of the position, and thus one need not concern herself with mounting an attack against the holism argument's premises. This strategy will be set to the side in what follows.
I adopt the practice of capitalizing words which are used to denote concepts.
Hereafter, references to Fodor (1998) will appear in the text, and will be given by page
number alone.
See Fodor and Lepore (1992), especially p.31.
Actually, Fodor points out that Jerrold Katz pointed this out to him.
And to which `synonymy' belongs, which makes it unclear how Fodor could swallow Katz' objection to Putnam's notion of a one-criterion concept.
Jonathan Lear and Barry Stroud, «The Disappearing We,» Proceedings of Aristotelian Society, supplemental vol. 58 (1984): 219-42.
Steve Gerrard, «A Philosophy of Mathematics Between Two Camps,» in The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, ed. Hans Sluga and David Stern (New York: Cambridge UP, 1996), 173.
Lear and Stroud, 229-30.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3rd ed., trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1958) paragraph 241.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: Random House, 1958) B 132.
Lear and Stroud, 238.
Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of mathematics, eds. G. E. M. Anscombe, G. H. von Wright, and R. Rhees, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1956) III-75.
A. N. Prior, «Logic, History of: Modern Logic: Frege to the Present,» in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 4: 559-60.
The comparison of Russell to Plato is drawn with respect to the logicism project, i.e. Russell's attempt, along with Whitehead and Frege, to reduce the whole of mathematics to logic. Since the propositions of logic are tautologous, their argument entails that the same is true of mathematical statements. As in Plato's epistemology, the claim is that mathematical statements say nothing at all about the sensible world. Though Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics changed over time, he always repudiated logicism. For more on Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics, see Steve Gerrard's «A Philosophy of Mathematics Between Two Camps,» in The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, eds. Hans Sluga and David Stern (Cambridge UP, 1996) 171-97.