Showing papers in "Philosophical Topics in 1981"

Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

Abstract: Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature brings to light the deep sense of crisis within the profession of academic philosophy which is similar to the paralyzing pluralism in contemporary theology and the inveterate indeterminacy of literary criticism. Richard Rorty's provocative and profound meditations impel philosophers to examine the problematic status of their discipline— only to discover that modern European philosophy has come to an end. Rorty strikes a deathblow to modern European philosophy by telling a story about the emergence, development and decline of its primary props: the correspondence theory of truth, the notion of privileged representations and the idea of a self-reflective transcendental subject. Rorty's fascinating tale—his-story —is regulated by three fundamental shifts which he delineates in detail and promotes in principle: the move toward anti-realism or conventionalism in ontology, the move toward the demythologizing of the Myth of the Given or anti-foundationalism in epistemology, and the move toward detranscendentalizing the subject or dismissing the mind as a sphere of inquiry. The chief importance of Rorty's book is that it brings together in an original and intelligible narrative the major insights of the patriarchs of postmodern American philosophy—W. V. Quine, Wilfred Sellars, and Nelson Goodman— and persuasively presents the radical consequences of their views for contemporary philosophy. Rorty credits Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Dewey for having "brought us into a period of 'revolutionary' philosophy" by undermining the prevailing Cartesian and Kantian paradigms and advancing new conceptions of philosophy. And these monumental figures surely inspire Rorty. Yet, Rorty's philosophical debts—the actual sources of his particular anti-Cartesian and antiKantian arguments—are Quine's holism, Sellars' anti-foundationalism, and Goodman's pluralism. In short, despite his adamant attack on analytical philosophy—the last stage of modern European philosophy—Rorty feels most comfortable with the analytical form of philosophical argumentation (shunned by Wittgenstein and Heidegger). From the disparate figures of Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Dewey, Rorty gets a historicist directive: to eschew the quest for certainty and the search for foundations.

Functionalism, Psychology, and the Philosophy of Mind

Abstract: A great deal has been claimed for functionalism; in my view, considerably more than it can or should try to deliver. To overestimate its scope renders it vulnerable to a number of objections which cannot easily or plausibly be evaded,1 so that it is easy to conclude by undere stimating its power and potential in its true and proper domain. In this paper I sketch my own version of the scope and limits of functionalism, arguing both for the promise of its scope and the extent of its limitations. First, though, some ground-clearing: a few preliminary remarks which I hope will be recognized as obvious and trivial, (i) To describe a theory as 'functionalist' is elliptical shorthand; 'being a function' is as such an incomplete predicate. Functions are functions of things: cutting is the function of a knife, herding sheep that of a sheepdog, and seeing ( vide Aristotle) is the job of the optical apparatus. Functions are thus functions of structures, and often of complex structures at that. Further, some structures physically cannot perform certain tasks meringues can't carve joints. It often therefore proves unwise in psychology to concentrate exclusively upon the functional design of the systems examined, because the applicability of many predicates will often depend, as Gunderson puts it,2 not so much on how the robot is programmed but rather upon how the program is roboted. To keep this important, if obvious, point in mind I shall throughout the rest of the paper talk not of 'functionalism' but of 'S-F theory', where 'S-F' stands for 'structural-functional'. This point has implications to which we shall return.

Kant’s Theory of Mathematics Revisited

Abstract: In a number of earlier publications I have outlined an interpretation of Kant' s theories of the mathematical method, space and time, and the analytic-synthetic distinction {at least insofar as this distinction applies within mathematics).l I have also tried to show how these views of Kant'sentered into the structure of his philosophical thought. Since Kant held that the gist of the mathematical method lies in the use of constructions, i.e., in the use of intuitions to represent general concepts, I have also presented an analysis of the meaning of the term \"intuition\" (or, strictly speaking, of its counterparts intuitus and Anschauung) in Kant. This interpretation has prompted a few relatively detailed criticisms. 2 One of the purposes of this article is to return to my interpretation in the light of the criticisms. Naturally, one focal point of my paper will be a discussion of the main texts on which my critics base their allegations. Even more important is the view we have to take of the historical background of Kant's theory. I cannot here recount adequately my interpretation but must be content with a summary. 3 The interpretational basis of my theory is, in a nutshell, as follows: By intuition (Anschauung), Kant meant a representative (\"Vorstellung\") of a particular entity in the human mind. By construction, Kant meant the introduction of such a particular to instantiate a general concept. The gist of the mathematical method apud Kant was the use of such constructions (a modern logician would say \"the use of rules of instantiation\"). A mathematical argument is synthetic if it involves the use of \"auxiliary constructions,\" i.e., the introduction of new particulars over and above those given in the conditions of the argument (sometimes given in the premises and sometimes given in the premises or in the purported conclusion). A mathematical truth is synthetic if it can be established only by such synthetic arguments. Among the consequences of the interpretation are the following:

7. Husserl's Concept of Categorial Intuition

Abstract: La theorie des termes syntaxiques ("est", "et", etc.) chez Husserl et leur fonctionnement dans l'"intuition categorielle". L'intuition categorielle comme "presentification" d'un "fait articule". Les differentes varietes d'absence d'un objet categoriel. La theorie de la "recognition simple". Comparaison des theories de Husserl avec celles de la philosophie analytique: peut-on assumer correctement le probleme de la designabilite des choses sans aborder philosophiquement la question de la "presentification"? Quel concept de la philosophie peut-on tirer de la reflexion phenomenologique sur la "presentification"?.

The Hume Literature of the 1970s

Abstract: particular interest was the large number of books. But we begin by mentioning two books that are examples of what Hume scholarship ought not to be. The first is A. J. Ayer's Hume (1980). Antony Flew, in his own book on Hume (p. 119), comments that Ayer has produced "a work which, remarkably, ap? pears to have found no profit in any of the previous forty years of Hume literature." The second egregious example is John Bricke's Hume's Philosophy of Mind (1980). We can do no better than to repeat Annette Baier's words in her review of Bricke {Ethics, January 1982), pp. 346-47:

Internal Representation: Prologue to a Theory of Intentionality

Abstract: 1 1 am indebted to a number of people for comments and criticism on earlier versions. In particular: P. William Bechtel, J. I. Biro, Alan Donagan, Kathleen Emmett, Donald Gustafson, William G. Lycan, John Martin, W. E. Morris, Manley Thompson, and William Wimsatt. The work began under successive grants from the University of Chicago and the Ford Foundation. It was completed under support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Hume, Language and God

Abstract: Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a classic in philosophy of religion and accordingly has received considerable attention. One portion of the Dialogues , however, has bewildered scholars and is often passed over in silence; I refer to the remarks made by the character Cleanthes in Part III. Part III contains two illustrations which are claimed by Cleanthes to provide obvious grounds for asserting that there is divine design present in the universe. The illustrations, one of which invokes an imaginary voice in the clouds, the other of which asks the reader to envisage a library full of living books, may appear bizarre to a modern audience. It is not at all clear that these fantasies illuminate any interesting or striking similarities between products of human intelligence and works of nature from which the inference to a designer could be drawn; nor is it clear what other bearing these examples, portraying imaginary states of affairs, could have on the design argument. Those few commentators who have addressed these passages directly have been unable to generate an interpretation which consistently explains both of the illustrations and which permits Part III to fit comfortably with the remainder of the Dialogues. To wit, they have suggested that the illustrations appeal to different sense of 'design' (Norman Kemp Smith and George Nathan)1, or that one of the illustrations, but apparently not the other, is an attempt to introduce a new species of inference into the design argument (Nelson Pike)2, or they have completely ignored the occurrence or content of one or the other of the illustrations (Nelson Pike, Stanley Tweyman and P. S. Wadia).3 In this paper I want to suggest that the core of the discussion in Part III is the nature and explanation of verbal communication, and