Modality, morality and belief are among the most controversial topics in philosophy today, and few philosophers have shaped these debates as deeply as Ruth Barcan Marcus. Inspired by her work, a distinguished group of philosophers explore these issues, refine and sharpen arguments and develop new positions on such topics as possible worlds, moral dilemmas, essentialism, and the explanation of actions by beliefs. Together, this collection honors one of the most rigorous and iconoclastic of philosophical pioneers.
Modality, morality and belief are among the most controversial topics in philosophy today, and few philosophers have shaped these debates as deeply as...
Modality, morality and belief are among the most controversial topics in philosophy today, and few philosophers have shaped these debates as deeply as Ruth Barcan Marcus. Inspired by her work, a distinguished group of philosophers explore these issues, refine and sharpen arguments and develop new positions on such topics as possible worlds, moral dilemmas, essentialism, and the explanation of actions by beliefs. Together, this collection honors one of the most rigorous and iconoclastic of philosophical pioneers.
Modality, morality and belief are among the most controversial topics in philosophy today, and few philosophers have shaped these debates as deeply as...
Vague words, like "tall," "rich," and "old," lack clear boundaries of application: no clear line divides the tall people from the above average, or the old people from the middle-aged. Because they lack clear boundaries, these ordinary words cause logical and semantic problems in various disciplines including philosophy, decision theory, and the law. Philosophers and linguists have proposed several theories of vagueness to handle these difficulties, but none has been widely accepted. Raffman contends that virtually all previous treatments of vagueness have made two crucial mistakes: they...
Vague words, like "tall," "rich," and "old," lack clear boundaries of application: no clear line divides the tall people from the above average, or th...
Taking a novel approach to a longstanding problem in the philosophy of art, Diana Raffman provides the first cognitivist theory of the nature of ineffable, or verbally inexpressible, musical knowledge. In the process she also sheds light on central issues in the theory of mind.
Raffman invokes recent theory in linguistics and cognitive psychology to provide an account of the content and etiology of musical knowledge that "can not be put into words." Within the framework of Lerdahl and Jackendoff's generative theory of music perception, she isolates three kinds of ineffability...
Taking a novel approach to a longstanding problem in the philosophy of art, Diana Raffman provides the first cognitivist theory of the nature of in...
