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From the arguments presented in this paper I trust that we are in a position to see that Bayesian decision theory is inadequate both from the descriptive and normative standpoints. As a descriptive theory it is just false. As a normative theory we can say that there is a presumption in favour of the view that it is not irrational to value certainty as such (because this is in accord with ordinary intuition) and that no argument has been presented — and there seems little prospect of such an argument being presented — that would force us to abandon that presumption. That is, from the normative standpoint Bayesian decision theory is prima facie implausible. We have located the problem for Bayesianism in one of its rationality postulates, viz., the Sure-Thing Principle. Of course, this paper does not go very far in suggesting what is to supplant Bayesian decision theory as a theory of rational decision making. Nonetheless, I take the arguments in this paper to present a compelling reason for embarking on such a program.

It is no part of my purpose in this paper to advocate Minimal Foundationalism. In fact I believe there to be strong objections to any form of foundationalism, and I feel that some kind of coherence or contextualist theory will provide a more adequate general orientation in epistemology. Will and Lehrer are to be commended for providing, in their different ways, important insights into some possible ways of developing a nonfoundationalist epistemology. Nevertheless if foundationalism is to be successfully disposed of it must be attacked in its most defensible, not in its most vulnerable, form. Although Will and Lehrer reveal weaknesses in historically important forms of foundationalism, it has been my aim in this paper to show that their arguments leave untouched the more modest and less vulnerable form I have called ‘Minimal Foundationalism’, a form approximated to by the most prominent contemporary versions of the position. It is to be hoped that those who are interested in clearing the decks for an epistemology without foundations will turn their critical weapons against such modest and careful foundationalists as Chisholm, Danto, and Quinton

In his recent bookExplaining Behavior, Fred Dretske has outlined a naturalized theory of intentionality. Several philosophers, including Dretske himself, view his theory as lending credence to the claim that mental state content should be construed widely. In this paper I argue that careful analysis of his theory reveals that this view is mistaken. In Dretske's theory, the notion of the function of a state plays a central role in the determination of content. It will be my contention that this notion of function cannot be used in Dretske's theory to distinguish between the wide construal of the content of an intentional state and the narrow or individualistic construal. This inability of his notion of function to discriminate between wide content and individualistic content undermines any claim that Dretske's theory endorses wide content. Instead, we are lead to the conclusion that Dretske's theory entails pervasive content indeterminacy.

In the debate about the nature and identity of possible worlds, philosophers have neglected the parallel questions about the nature and identity of moments of time. These are not questions about the structure of time in general, but rather about the internal structure of each individual time. Times and worlds share the following structural similarities: both are maximal with respect to propositions (at every world and time, either por ∼pis true, for every p); both are consistent; both are closed (every modal consequence of a proposition true at a world is also true at that world, and every tense-theoretic consequence of a proposition true at a time is also true at that time); just as there is a unique actual world, there is a unique present moment; and just as a proposition is necessarily true iff true at all worlds, a proposition is eternally true iff true at all times. In this paper, I show that a simple extension of my theory of worlds yields a theory of times in which the above structural similarities between the two are consequences.

The main point of this paper has been to show that the concept of evaluative incompleteness deserves consideration. In addition, I have suggested that it is plausible to accept that certain states of affairs in fact are evaluatively incomplete. But I have not sought to prove that this is so; indeed, I do not know how such proof might be given. Just which states of affairs, if any, are evaluatively incomplete is an extremely vexed question, and it is not one to which I have attempted to supply any systematic answer. My aim has been merely to point out that it is arguable that certain states of affairs are evaluatively incomplete — a fact that ought not to be overlooked due to an unquestioning acceptance of (II) and a fact which, certainly, ought not to be ruled out by fiat due to an adherence to definitions and assumptions which imply that (II) is false.

In The First Person Chisholm takes the primary form of belief to be belief about oneself. He argues that his account of indirect attribution makes it possible to explain belief about objects other than oneself. In this paper I have argued that this account either fails to explain plausible cases of belief about a particular object or it is circular. Chisholm has not shown, therefore, that we can attribute properties to others only indirectly by directly attributing properties to ourselves.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that Grünbaum's purported defense of Hempel's thesis of the symmetry of explanation and prediction is fundamentally inadequate by virtue of the fact that Grünbaum adopts an extended and revised version of the thesis pertaining to scientific understanding in general in lieu of the original and restricted version advanced by Hempel pertaining to scientific explanation in particular. When Hempel's thesis rather than Grünbaum's revision is recognized as the relevant object of criticism, it becomes clear that Grünbaum has not demonstrated that Hempel ab omni naevo vindicates. Indeed, when correctly understood, it becomes clear that Bromberger's criticisms, especially, support the sound conclusion that the relationship between explanations and predictions is sometimes symmetrical yet sometimes asymmetrical, i.e., the relationship that obtains is non-symmetrical.

I have attempted to show that many attributive adjectives can be dealt with within the framework of first-order predicate calculus by the method suggested in this paper. I've also supplied independent reasons for the claim that attributive adjectives that are not responsive to this method require a formal treatment different from the one that the adjectives successfully dealt with by that method require. Thus, if the method I've argued for is sound, then the scope of first-order predicate calculus was shown to be wider than assumed by several logicians. This I take to be of interest from a logical point of view.

My goal in this paper was to argue that consequentialism should be construed as the view that the better a state of affairs the better the action that produces it and the more moral reason there is to perform that action. I call this view ‘BETTER’. I tried to show that treating this rather than a claim about the right as crucial to consequentialism had significant advantages. Finally, I demonstrated the relevance of my account to the issue of whether consequentialism is correct. It doesn't provide a conclusive answer to that question (we should be suspicious if it did) but allows us to see it in a new light and hopefully, suggests new and fruitful ways to tackle it.

The exchange is almost complete. I have argued that if we wish to view the free will problem in a non-question-begging way, we should frame the problem in more radical terms than we usually do. If we frame the problem this way, then we discover a compelling reason for rejecting all of the familiar “isms” in favor of my non-realism thesis. This thesis holds that “free choice” has a coherent meaning just in case it is treated as a subjective term; thus, if we try to view “free choice” as denoting classes of entities that themselves possess the characteristic of freeness, it is logically inconsistent. My thesis is supported by a certain metaphilosophical view. I admit that this metaphilosophical view — which tries to ‘locate’ everything ‘where it belongs’ — is neither provable nor refutable. But if my argument in this paper is correct, when we assert any of the positions that presuppose the coherence of “free will” (Hard Determinism, Soft Determinism, Libertarianism, Incompatibilism, Compatibilism), we should add the fact that we have adopted a metaphilosophical view that supports these. Since these metaphilosophies are non-truth-tracking views, our joint declaration of our lower level free will theory and its supporting metaphilosophy will sound Pickwickian (e.g., “I believe that Libertarianism is true and I support that view with the metaphilosophical thesis that the most important role of philosophy is not to track truth, but to create an intellectual climate best for improving the human condition.”) If I have shown that my opponents are forced to such declarations, I will be satisfied.

In contemporary work, the distinction between the proposition expressed by a sentence and its psychological significance is usually motivated by a familiar kind of counterfactual argument; and the discussion of these issues usually centers around the role of external factors in determining the meaning of our words. My primary goal in this paper has been to show that a similar, though not identical, distinction between two aspects of meaning can be developed entirely on the basis of considerations internal to language users — their cognitive limitations. To make this point, I have focused on symbols introduced through stipulative definitions. In a language containing such symbols, certain expressions and their definitional reductions will seem to differ in psychological significance for creatures with limited intellects, and so in any aspect of meaning that is supposed to correlate with psychological significance; but it seems also that there is some important aspect of meaning that they share.

In short, the situation regarding language and the passage of time is this. A person may consistently hold either of the two views concerning time's special treatment in our ordinary language, LP and LNP, provided that that person holds the appropriate view from among several semantical views available. Each of these different semantical views, in turn, can be consistently maintained in such a way that it is not susceptible to arguments from the other side, provided that these arguments do not appeal to metaphysical considerations. But of course advocates of either The Linguistic Argument For SPT or The Linguistic Argument Against SPT may not appeal to metaphysical claims in defense of either LNP or LP, since these allegedly linguistic theses are to be used in arguments designed to prove just such metaphysical claims. Moreover, if the different parties to the dispute between LP and LNP do appeal to metaphysical considerations, then they may be able to develop non-circular, non-question-begging arguments for their respective linguistic theses. What those metaphysical considerations might be, and what arguments might be developed from them, are important topics to be considered, but I will not consider them here. The point of this paper has been to show that those who wish to debate the question of whether time passes cannot settle the debate merely by discussing linguistic matters.

In this paper I have argued that Feferman's theorem does not signify the existence of skeptic-satisfying consistency proofs. However, my argument for this is much different than other arguments (most particularly Resnik's) for the same claim. The argument that I give arises form an analysis of the notion of ‘expression’, according to which the specific character of that notion is seen as varying from one context of application (of a result of arithmetic metamathematics) to another.

In this paper I have not argued in support of a Marxist science of history. In fact, I do not believe Marx claimed to have developed a science of history, though this has not been argued here. My aim has been solely to provide an examination of Popper's critique of Marx. I believe I have shown that:1.Even if one accepts Popper's critique of Marx, most of Marx's economics remain immune from this criticism.2.Marx did not hold many of the tenets of historicism.3.Popper has failed to show that there cannot be laws of social development.4.Popper has failed to show that we cannot know laws of social development.5.Marx does not confuse trends and laws in the way that Popper suggests and makes basic to this critique of historicism.

I have tried to accomplish two tasks in this paper. The first, and more important, is to free my defense of the mind-body identity theory against the property objection from reliance on there being categories. The second is to argue that if there are categories, Rosenbaum's objections pose no threat to principle (II), or its more plausible relative, (IV). I believe I have finished both tasks. This significantly strengthens my reasons for accepting some form of the identity theory. Of course, deciding whether it is reasonable enough to accept is a much more difficult task. But if what I have argued elsewhere is correct, that task is also completed. We should, at least at present, accept what I call the ‘neutral’ or nonreductive identity theory.

Though it has become a commonplace that probabilistic contexts are intentional, the precise sense in which this is true has never, to my knowledge, been stated. By making use of a relatively non-controversial set of distinctions regarding the grades of modal involvement, I am able to state more exactly than has been done previously the grade of intensionality which probability statements have prima facie. The distinctions I employ are, with certain qualifications, those introduced by Quine in his wellknown paper, ‘Three Grades of Modal Involvement.’ By means of paraphrases, I am able to show that probability statements exemplify what Quine calls the third grade of modal involvement. Consequently, they are intensional in a way not acceptable to the majority of extensionalists.

In this paper I attempt a new approach to an old technical term: ‘becoming’. I show how the theory that becoming is coming-to-be could be supported by a semantic derivation of the nominalization ‘becoming’ from its verbal counterpart, by investigating the properties of the present progressive constructions in which ‘becoming’ as a verbal appears. My theory denies that dates, or qualitative change, play an essential role in the analysis of becoming.

Locke denied that ideas of secondary qualities resemble their causes. It has been suggested that Locke denied this because he accepted a mechanical corpuscular hypothesis about the constitution of objects. This paper shows that this and other usual explanations of Locke's denial are mistaken. Further, it suggests an alternative relationship between the scientific account and Locke's philosophical views, and finally it provides Locke's real justification for his claim that ideas of secondary qualities do not resemble their causes.

The principal aim of the present paper has been the presentation of a semantical foundation for an important species of deontic logic (viz., the conditional variety). This semantical approach to the problem is essentially new and has the advantage of providing a complex of conceptual machinery by means of which this branch of applied logic can be placed upon a more rigorous and solid foundation. Above all, it makes available a logically rigorous criterion of acceptability for deontic principles by means of which questions in this sphere can be treated and resolved upon other than intuitive grounds.