Philosophy - Current Issue

Volume 83 Issue 02

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:00:00 GMT

Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02

Philosophy is the journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, which was founded in 1925 to build bridges between specialist philosophers and a wider educated public. The journal continues to fulfil a dual role: it is one of the leading academic journals of philosophy, but it also serves the philosophical interests of specialists in other fields (law, language, literature and the arts, medicine, politics, religion, science, education, psychology, history) and those of the general reader. Contributors are required to avoid needless technicality of language and presentation. Each issue contains an editorial on a topic of philosophical or public interest, and a 'New Books' section. The institutional subscription includes two supplements . Recent contributors have included Michael Dummett, Noam Chomsky, Jurgen Habermas, David Wiggins and Mary Warnock.

Editorial: The Archbishop and the Law

Editorial

Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 157-158

Abstract

Notes on Contributors

Editorial

Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 159-160

Abstract

How We Trust One Another

Research Articles
Oswald Hanfling,
Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 161-177

Abstract
How is the possibility of promising to be explained without circularity? Appeal is made to the role of natural inclinations in linguistic behaviour, which presupposes truth telling and promise keeping, and also to the social functions of human language which go beyond signalling and transmitting information and which are prior to any explicit conventions. Although promises are broken and lies told, we all have the right to feel resentment when these things happen.

Knowledge of Necessity: Logical Positivism and Kripkean Essentialism

Research Articles
Stephen K. McLeod,
Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 179-191

Abstract
By the lights of a central logical positivist thesis in modal epistemology, for every necessary truth that we know, we know it a priori and for every contingent truth that we know, we know it a posteriori. Kripke attacks on both flanks, arguing that we know necessary a posteriori truths and that we probably know contingent a priori truths. In a reflection of Kripke's confidence in his own arguments, the first of these Kripkean claims is far more widely accepted than the second. Contrary to received opinion, the paper argues, the considerations Kripke adduces concerning truths purported to be necessary a posteriori do not disprove the logical positivist thesis that necessary truth and a priori truth are co-extensive.

Studying Perception

Research Articles
Olli Lagerspetz,
Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 193-211

Abstract
Empirical studies of perception must use the logic of everyday non-technical conceptions of perception as their unquestioned background. This is because the phenomena to be studied are defined and individuated on the basis of such basic understanding. Thus the methods of neurobiology exclude reductionist accounts from the outset, implicitly if not explicitly. It is further argued that the concepts of neural and mental representation, while not confused per se, presuppose a general picture where perception as a whole is viewed in the light of teleology. References are made to discussions by Bennett and Hacker, Paul Churchland, and Peter Winch.

False Emotions

Research Articles
Tony Milligan,
Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 213-230

Abstract
This article sets out an account of false emotions and focuses upon the example of false grief. Widespread but short-lived mourning for well known public figures involves false grief on the part of at least some mourners. What is false about such grief is not any straightforward pretence but rather the inappropriate antecendents of the state in question and/or the desires that the relevant state involves. False grief, for example, often involves a desire for the experience itself, and this can be satisfied. By contrast, real grief is utterly without hope. (We cannot have the deceased back again.) However, because false emotions involve some desire, they can be motivating and may lead us to engage in actions and efforts of discernment that can result in the emergence of the real emotion that they mimic. For this reason, they are not always unwelcome.

What's Wrong With Megalopsychia?

Research Articles
Alexander Sarch,
Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 231-253

Abstract
This paper looks at two accounts of Aristotle's views on the virtue of megalopsychia. The first, defended by Christopher Cordner, commits Aristotle to two claims about the virtuous person that might seem unpalatable to modern readers. The second account, defended by Roger Crisp, does not commit Aristotle to these claims. Some might count this as an advantage of Crisp's account. However, I argue that Cordner's account, not Crisp's, is actually the better interpretation of Aristotle. Nonetheless, this does not ultimately spell trouble for Aristotle, since, as I argue, the claims that Cordner's account commits Aristotle to are, on closer inspection, not really problematic.

The Complexity of Wittgenstein's Methods

Research Articles
Rom Harré,
Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 255-265

Abstract
In claiming to draw out an inconsistency between Wittgenstein's declarations on method and his actual practice, John Cook argues that Wittgenstein retained a radical distinction between material things (bricks) and immaterial things (spooks). I argue that on the contrary Wittgenstein showed in detail how this dichotomy is to be rejected in favour of a spectrum of more or less know', Cook claims that Wittgenstein depended on philosophers' distinctions rather than a surview of vernacular uses. I argue that it was the expression/description distinction that Wittgenstein used to make sense of the grammar of know'.

Booknotes

Book Reviews

Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 267-269

Abstract

Reviews Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline By Bernard Williams, selected, edited and with an introduction by A.W. Moore Princeton University Press, 2006: pp. xx + 227.

Book Reviews
Alan Montefiore,
Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 271-275

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Reviews Truth, Thought, Reason: Essays on Frege By Tyler Burge Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2005, pp. 419 + xii.

Book Reviews
Alan Millar,
Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 275-279

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Review Tradition, Rationality, and Virtue: The Thought of Alasdair MacIntyre By Thomas D. D'Andrea Ashgate, 2006

Book Reviews
Daniel B. Gallagher,
Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 279-283

Abstract

Books Received

Books Received

Philosophy, Volume 83 Issue 02 , pp 285-288

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