This volume presents a selection of the most influential recent discussions of the crucial metaphysical question: What is it for one event to cause another? The subject of causation bears on many topics, such as time, explanation, mental states, the laws of nature, and the philosophy of science. Contributors include J.L Mackie, Michael Scriven, Jaegwon Kim, G.E.M. Anscombe, G.H. von Wright, C.J. Ducasse, Wesley C. Salmon, David Lewis, Paul Horwich, Jonathan Bennett, Ernest Sosa, and Michael Tooley.
This volume presents a selection of the most influential recent discussions of the crucial metaphysical question: What is it for one event to cause an...
A Virtue Epistemology presents a new approach to some of the oldest and most gripping problems of philosophy, those of knowledge and skepticism. Ernest Sosa argues for two levels of knowledge, the animal and the reflective, each viewed as a distinctive human accomplishment. By adopting a kind of virtue epistemology in line with the tradition found in Aristotle, Aquinas, Reid, and especially Descartes, he presents an account of knowledge which can be used to shed light on different varieties of skepticism, the nature and status of intuitions, and epistemic normativity.
A Virtue Epistemology presents a new approach to some of the oldest and most gripping problems of philosophy, those of knowledge and skepticism. Ernes...
This volume includes a series of essays about the nature of belief and desire, the status of normative judgment, and the relevance of the views we take on both these topics to the accounts we give of our nature as free and responsible agents. The long awaited collection comprises some of the most influential of Michael Smith's essays written over a period of fifteen years and will be of interest to students in philosophy and psychology.
This volume includes a series of essays about the nature of belief and desire, the status of normative judgment, and the relevance of the views we tak...
This work presents a version of the correspondence theory of truth based on Wittgenstein's Tractatus and Russell's theory of truth and discusses related metaphysical issues such as predication, facts, and propositions. Like Russell and one prominent interpretation of the Tractatus, it assumes a realist view of universals and argues that facts as real entities are not needed. It will intrigue teachers and advanced students of philosophy interested in the conception of truth and in the metaphysics related to the correspondence theory of truth.
This work presents a version of the correspondence theory of truth based on Wittgenstein's Tractatus and Russell's theory of truth and discusses relat...
In Living Without Free Will, Derk Pereboom argues that our best scientific theories indeed have the consequence that factors beyond our control produce all of the actions we perform, and that because of this, we are not morally responsible for any of them. He seeks to defend the view that morality, meaning, and value remain intact even if we are not morally responsible, and furthermore, that adopting this perspective would provide significant benefit for our lives.
In Living Without Free Will, Derk Pereboom argues that our best scientific theories indeed have the consequence that factors beyond our control produc...
Vague expressions, such as "heap," "red" and "child," proliferate throughout natural languages, and an increasing amount of philosophical attention is being directed at theories of the logic and semantics associated with them. In this book Rosanna Keefe explores the questions of what we should want from theories of vagueness and how we should compare them. Her powerful and original study will be of interest to readers in philosophy of language and of mind, philosophical logic, epistemology and metaphysics.
Vague expressions, such as "heap," "red" and "child," proliferate throughout natural languages, and an increasing amount of philosophical attention is...
Rules proliferate; some are kept with a bureaucratic stringency bordering on the absurd, while others are manipulated and ignored in ways that injure our sense of justice. Under what conditions should we make exceptions to rules, and when should they be followed despite particular circumstances? The two dominant models in the current literature on rules are the particularist account and that which sees the application of rules as normative. Taking a position that falls between these two extremes, Alan Goldman is the first to provide a systematic framework to clarify when we need to follow...
Rules proliferate; some are kept with a bureaucratic stringency bordering on the absurd, while others are manipulated and ignored in ways that injure ...
Current approaches to the question of our position in time--such as those seen in disputes between tensed and tenseless theories, and between realist and anti-realist treatments of past and future--misconstrue the relation between metaphysics and ethics, and the way to characterize the kind of sense which tensed language has. In this original and thought-provoking study, David Cockburn argues that the notion of "reasons for emotion" must have a central place in any account of meaning, and that the present should have no priority in our understanding of tense.
Current approaches to the question of our position in time--such as those seen in disputes between tensed and tenseless theories, and between realist ...