Showing papers in "The Philosophical Quarterly in 1992"

The fragmentation of reason : preface to a pragmatic theory of cognitive evaluation

Abstract: From Descartes to Popper, philosophers have criticized and tried to improve the strategies of reasoning invoked in science and in everyday life. In recent years leading cognitive psychologists have painted a detailed, controversial, and highly critical portrait of common sense reasoning. Stephen Stich begins with a spirited defense of this work and a critique of those writers who argue that widespread irrationality is a biological or conceptual impossibility.Stich then explores the nature of rationality and irrationality: What is it that distinguishes good reasoning from bad? He rejects the most widely accepted approaches to this question approaches which unpack rationality by appeal to truth, to reflective equilibrium or conceptual analysis. The alternative he defends grows out of the pragmatic tradition in which reasoning is viewed as a cognitive tool. Stich's version of pragmatism leads to a radical epistemic relativism and he argues that the widespread abhorrence of relativism is ill founded.Stephen Stich is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and author of From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science.

The good and the true

Abstract: Notational conventions. Part 1 Metaphysics and content: philosophical theories and metaphysical schemes conceptualism is Kantian informativeness scientism a proposal for a scientific metaphysics. Part 2 The shape of a theory of content: what is a theory of content? unified externalism the explanation of behaviour. Part 3 An evaluative theory of content: the core of a theory intrinsic assessability truth and virtue understanding people word-meaning and opacity.

Fallen Freedom: Kant on Radical Evil and Moral Regeneration.Facing Evil

Abstract: Preface Introduction Part I. Radical Evil: 1. Ivan and Kant 2. Kant's definition of moral evil 3. 'This evil is radical ...' Part II. Moral Regeneration: 4. A 'change of heart' 5. Moral regeneration, human autonomy and divine aid 6. Autonomy and atonement 7. Autonomy and transcendence Notes Select bibliography Index.

Modelling the mind

Abstract: Donald Davidson: Turing's Test Donald Davidson: Representation and Interpretation Adam Morton: Semantics and Subroutines Daniel C. Dennett: The Myth of Original Intentionality K.V. Wilkes: Modelling the Mind Margaret A. Boden: Computer Models of the Mind: Are They Socially Pernicious? Dennis Noble: Biological Explanation and Intentional Behaviour Colin Blakemore: A Mechanistic Approach to Perception and the Human Mind T. Poggio: Vision: the 'Other' Face of AI P.N. Johnson-Laird: Human Thinking and Mental Models Jonathan St B.T. Evans: Deductive Reasoning in Human Information Processing

A Solution to the Problem of Moral Luck

Abstract: Praising, blaming, rewarding and punishing, are, in practice, justified by reference to what the person who is treated in these ways has done; but we soon become worried about the fairness of treating people on the basis of what they do when we see that chance has played a crucial role. How should we treat those whose actions are only different because of the difference made by chance? If, for example, we treat the murderer in the same way as we treat the man who attempts murder then we seem to lack an appropriate response to their different actions; but if we treat them differently, are we justified in doing so because of a difference made by chance? The condition of control,' that is, the idea that a person is only responsible for that which is under his control, is central to the account of responsibility which gives rise to the problem of moral luck. It has seemed both impossible to deny (because it is counter-intuitive to hold a person responsible for what is independent of his control) and impossible to sustain (for reasons which I shall give). However, I shall argue that the condition of control is central only to a particular view of moral agency which seems attractive only because it helps to justify attitudes which we believe are central to morality but which are, in fact, morally wrong. My aim will be to reconcile our conflicting intuitions by accommodating them within a range of reactions to wrong-doing which does not leave us with the problem of moral luck. But first I shall argue that the 'condition of control' is a misnomer and as such it helps us to misconstrue the problem of moral luck. It might be thought that the problem of moral luck arises from situations where chance events can be said to be in some way in conflict with an agent's control, but care is needed if we are to discover the real nature of the problem. A chance event may be said to be in conflict with an agent's control when it takes away control, as it might, for example, in the case of a car which skids on a patch of ice. A driver who recklessly

Upstream/Downstream: Issues in Environmental Ethics.

Abstract: Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Molding of Norms and Environments Donald Scherer 2. On the Rights of Future Generations Ernest Partridge 3. Managing the Future: Public Policy, Scientific Uncertainty, and Global Warming Dale Jamieson 4. Models, Scientific Method, and Environmental Ethics Kristine Shader-Frechette 5. Can Today's International System Handle Transboundary Environmental Problems? Daniel Barstow Magraw and James W. Nickel 6. Takings, Just Compensation, and the Environment Murk Sagoff 7. The Consequences of My Action, Your Action, and the Company's Action Burt Gruzalski 8. Two Types of Cost-Benefit Analysis Alan Gewirth About the Contributors Index

Best Opinion and Intentional States

Abstract: 'It's as if we could grasp the whole use of a word in a flash' And that is just what we say we do. That is to say: we sometimes describe what we do in these words. But there is nothing astonishing, nothing queer, about what happens. It becomes queer when we are led to think that the future development must in some way already be present in the act of grasping the use and yet it isn't present For we say that there isn't any doubt that we understand the word, and on the other hand its meaning lies in its use. (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, para. 197)

An Epistemological Defence of Realism About Necessity

Abstract: Is there a difference, independent of our patterns of thought, between the case in which As uniformly happen to have feature F, and the case in which As necessarily or essentially have feature F? Realists about modality answer Yes, but have been hard pressed to say what the difference is. Those who have addressed the question have said that the latter case consists in the As uniformly having F together with something extra but the specifications of the something extra have made it seem too independent of our thought, a something to which we have no epistemic access, or with which we have no causal commerce. It has been said, for example, to consist in the fact that As in other possible worlds indeed, all other possible worlds likewise have F.' Such answers call forth the objection that if realists about modality are right, there is not the least reason to suppose we are reliable at detecting the cases in which As have F essentially.2 They may also call forth a more radical objection: given an externalist view of content, one may wonder how, given this version of modal realism, we could even say or think that As have F essentially. Alternatively, realists about modality may reject the question itself, holding that the difference between the two cases is brute and unanalysable.3 But the puzzles about epistemology and reference seem to arise here too. If nothing informative can be said about the difference between what it is for As to have F