This volume, edited by Roxana Baiasu, Graham Bird and A. W. Moore, consists of thirteen papers, w... more This volume, edited by Roxana Baiasu, Graham Bird and A. W. Moore, consists of thirteen papers, which are grouped thematically into four parts: "Perception", "Sciences", "Limits" and "Time". The anthology aims not only to reveal new approaches to Kantian metaphysics and, in particular, to Kant's conception of space and time, but also to combine continental (European) and analytic (Anglo-American) interpretations of these topics. The volume relates these approaches to contemporary debates on cognition and perception, non-conceptualism, recent issues in the sciences, and the limits of knowledge. The fi rst part, Perception, has four chapters. The fi rst two chapters focus on interpretations of space and time in relation to the Kantian notions of intuition and concept by connecting these notions to contemporary debates on non-conceptual content. The last two chapters deal with post-Kantian approaches to perception, discussing spatial awareness and normativity in perception. The second
... as attempts to derive a from the axioms of ZF; and, if we carried on in these attempts, thoug... more ... as attempts to derive a from the axioms of ZF; and, if we carried on in these attempts, though fully aware of Gddel's Theorem, then what we would be failing to register would be non-protomathematical facts about how we (happen to) operate when engaging in proto-mathematics ...
This volume on Quine includes 25 critical essays by contemporary philosophers such as William P.A... more This volume on Quine includes 25 critical essays by contemporary philosophers such as William P.Alston, Ulrich Gahde, Geoffrey Hellman, Hao Wang and Charles Parsons and Quine's answers to these critics. The text also includes a bibliography of Quine's works and discusses his views on the philosophy of logic, methodology, logical theory, theory of language, ontology and epistemology and includes a biographical essay.
Are there any ineffable truths? I am reminded, in addressing this question, of Donald Davidson's ... more Are there any ineffable truths? I am reminded, in addressing this question, of Donald Davidson's reaction to a similar question that he poses in his celebrated essay on the idea of a conceptual scheme: 1 could there be a language whose sentences were untranslatable into any of ours? 'It is tempting,' Davidson writes, to take a very short line indeed: nothing, it may be said, could count as evidence that some form of activity could not be interpreted in our language that was not at the same time evidence that that form of activity was not speech behaviour. If this were right, we probably ought to hold that a form of activity that cannot be interpreted as language in our language is not speech behaviour. Putting matters this way is unsatisfactory, however, for it comes to little more than making translatability into a familiar tongue a criterion of languagehood. As fiat, the thesis lacks the appeal of self-evidence; if it is a truth, as I think it is, it should emerge as the conclusion of an argument. 2
LET us take for granted that there is a distinction to be drawn between using an expression and m... more LET us take for granted that there is a distinction to be drawn between using an expression and mentioning it. And let us say that an expression is employed when it is put to any kind of service. Then I shall assume each of the following: that using an expression (in the relevant quasi-technical sense) involves employing it in such a way as to exploit (one of) its meaning(s); and that mentioning an expression involves employing it together with certain other linguistic devices which are themselves being used to demonstrate (or "to point to") some aspect of this employment. These assumptions take their cue from Donald Davidson's paper [1] (cf. also [3], p. 21 and [5]). Davidson there says that quotation marks are used to refer to expressions by demonstrating particular tokens of them. I have deliberately said something much looser than this. For one thing, as Davidson acknowledges, quotation marks are not the only device which enable us to mention expressions. Also, for reasons which will emerge, I prefer not to commit myself on the question of just what is being demonstrated when such devices are used.
This is how Bernard Williams represents what he takes to be a fundamental continuity between the ... more This is how Bernard Williams represents what he takes to be a fundamental continuity between the Tractatus and Wittgenstein's later work.'He argues that there is, in Wittgenstein's progression of thought, a common element of transcendental idealism, 2 which arises ...
There are criteria of ineffability whereby, even if the concept of ineffability can never serve t... more There are criteria of ineffability whereby, even if the concept of ineffability can never serve to modify truth, it can sometimes (non-trivially) serve to modify other things, specifically understanding. This allows for a reappraisal of the dispute between those who adopt a traditional reading of Wittgenstein's Tractatus and those who adopt the new reading recently championed by Diamond, Conant, and others. By maintaining that what the nonsense in the Tractatus is supposed to convey is ineffable understanding, rather than ineffable truth, we can do considerable justice to each of these readings. We can also do considerable justice to the Tractatus. 1. See Lewis (1986), Section 2.3. 2. I am assuming, for these purposes, that a truth is nothing but a true proposition. I am also assuming that there are at least three possible worlds. If there were only two, and if truths sliced logical space no more thinly than sets of possible worlds, then there would be only two truths.
My title is a quotation from Davidson's essay ‘On Saying That’. And although my concerns are ... more My title is a quotation from Davidson's essay ‘On Saying That’. And although my concerns are at some remove from his, they do connect at one significant point. We (non-philosophers as well as philosophers) find ourselves under the continual pressure of theory to deny that ordinary familiar semantic features of ordinary familiar words equip them to serve certain ordinary familiar functions. One of Davidson's aims is to resist that pressure as far as the function of reporting indirect speech is concerned. In similar vein I want to look at some common things that we do with words and show how we can hold fast to a simple common-sense view of what we are doing despite the doubts to which reflection is apt to give rise. In fact I want to look at six things we do with words, six linguistic moves we make. These six moves are related in a number of important ways. Even so, they are really the subjects of six separate essays (six separate sketchy essays at that), and I am well aware ...
It is only two years since Immanuel Kant published his monumental Critique of Pure Reason. Despit... more It is only two years since Immanuel Kant published his monumental Critique of Pure Reason. Despite its formidable difficulty, that book has already generated intense interest in the philosophical community. Those who are still struggling to come to terms with its dense and subtle argumentation, or who may not even have started to read it yet but who know from the furore that it has created that it needs to be high on their ‘to read’ list, might easily despair at the prospect of having now to contend with another volume on the same broad range of subjects by the same author. This prospect is not, however, as daunting as it seems. In fact, it should afford some solace, at least if we are to believe claims that Kant makes on behalf of his new book. For he says that it can be used ‘as a general synopsis’ of his system (4: 380), and that, through it, he will redress a ‘just’ complaint targeted at his earlier book ‘with regard to a certain obscurity’ (4: 261). Not that Kant wants us to think of his new book as a mere popularization of the earlier one. For one thing, it is ‘not for the use of apprentices, but of future teachers’ (4: 255). More importantly, Kant wants us to think of the various excursions in his new book as ‘preparatory exercises’ for the earlier one (4: 261). Thus whereas much of the Critique consisted in systematic metaphysics, here there is a proportionally greater focus on questions about the very possibility of systematic metaphysics and about what its scope and limits are. In this respect, if not perhaps in respect of its aesthetic appeal, the title of the new book—Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science—is well chosen. There is very little of doctrinal substance in the Prolegomena, however, that we have not already seen in the Critique. The Critique itself was a very self-conscious work. It was already much concerned with the possibility, scope, and limits of its own undertakings. What we do find, in those parts of this new book that recapitulate themes already present in the Critique, are important differences of approach and methodology, interesting shifts of emphasis, and reformulations of ideas that Kant takes to have been widely misunderstood. For example, in the Critique he addressed the question of the possibility of metaphysics in a way that was largely ‘synthetic’. That is, he constructed something that was recognizably an answer to this question by assembling ‘elements’ of reason and using ‘the laws of its pure use’ (4: 274). In the Prolegomena he addresses the question in a way that is more ‘analytic’: he takes for granted that we
This volume, edited by Roxana Baiasu, Graham Bird and A. W. Moore, consists of thirteen papers, w... more This volume, edited by Roxana Baiasu, Graham Bird and A. W. Moore, consists of thirteen papers, which are grouped thematically into four parts: "Perception", "Sciences", "Limits" and "Time". The anthology aims not only to reveal new approaches to Kantian metaphysics and, in particular, to Kant's conception of space and time, but also to combine continental (European) and analytic (Anglo-American) interpretations of these topics. The volume relates these approaches to contemporary debates on cognition and perception, non-conceptualism, recent issues in the sciences, and the limits of knowledge. The fi rst part, Perception, has four chapters. The fi rst two chapters focus on interpretations of space and time in relation to the Kantian notions of intuition and concept by connecting these notions to contemporary debates on non-conceptual content. The last two chapters deal with post-Kantian approaches to perception, discussing spatial awareness and normativity in perception. The second
... as attempts to derive a from the axioms of ZF; and, if we carried on in these attempts, thoug... more ... as attempts to derive a from the axioms of ZF; and, if we carried on in these attempts, though fully aware of Gddel's Theorem, then what we would be failing to register would be non-protomathematical facts about how we (happen to) operate when engaging in proto-mathematics ...
This volume on Quine includes 25 critical essays by contemporary philosophers such as William P.A... more This volume on Quine includes 25 critical essays by contemporary philosophers such as William P.Alston, Ulrich Gahde, Geoffrey Hellman, Hao Wang and Charles Parsons and Quine's answers to these critics. The text also includes a bibliography of Quine's works and discusses his views on the philosophy of logic, methodology, logical theory, theory of language, ontology and epistemology and includes a biographical essay.
Are there any ineffable truths? I am reminded, in addressing this question, of Donald Davidson's ... more Are there any ineffable truths? I am reminded, in addressing this question, of Donald Davidson's reaction to a similar question that he poses in his celebrated essay on the idea of a conceptual scheme: 1 could there be a language whose sentences were untranslatable into any of ours? 'It is tempting,' Davidson writes, to take a very short line indeed: nothing, it may be said, could count as evidence that some form of activity could not be interpreted in our language that was not at the same time evidence that that form of activity was not speech behaviour. If this were right, we probably ought to hold that a form of activity that cannot be interpreted as language in our language is not speech behaviour. Putting matters this way is unsatisfactory, however, for it comes to little more than making translatability into a familiar tongue a criterion of languagehood. As fiat, the thesis lacks the appeal of self-evidence; if it is a truth, as I think it is, it should emerge as the conclusion of an argument. 2
LET us take for granted that there is a distinction to be drawn between using an expression and m... more LET us take for granted that there is a distinction to be drawn between using an expression and mentioning it. And let us say that an expression is employed when it is put to any kind of service. Then I shall assume each of the following: that using an expression (in the relevant quasi-technical sense) involves employing it in such a way as to exploit (one of) its meaning(s); and that mentioning an expression involves employing it together with certain other linguistic devices which are themselves being used to demonstrate (or "to point to") some aspect of this employment. These assumptions take their cue from Donald Davidson's paper [1] (cf. also [3], p. 21 and [5]). Davidson there says that quotation marks are used to refer to expressions by demonstrating particular tokens of them. I have deliberately said something much looser than this. For one thing, as Davidson acknowledges, quotation marks are not the only device which enable us to mention expressions. Also, for reasons which will emerge, I prefer not to commit myself on the question of just what is being demonstrated when such devices are used.
This is how Bernard Williams represents what he takes to be a fundamental continuity between the ... more This is how Bernard Williams represents what he takes to be a fundamental continuity between the Tractatus and Wittgenstein's later work.'He argues that there is, in Wittgenstein's progression of thought, a common element of transcendental idealism, 2 which arises ...
There are criteria of ineffability whereby, even if the concept of ineffability can never serve t... more There are criteria of ineffability whereby, even if the concept of ineffability can never serve to modify truth, it can sometimes (non-trivially) serve to modify other things, specifically understanding. This allows for a reappraisal of the dispute between those who adopt a traditional reading of Wittgenstein's Tractatus and those who adopt the new reading recently championed by Diamond, Conant, and others. By maintaining that what the nonsense in the Tractatus is supposed to convey is ineffable understanding, rather than ineffable truth, we can do considerable justice to each of these readings. We can also do considerable justice to the Tractatus. 1. See Lewis (1986), Section 2.3. 2. I am assuming, for these purposes, that a truth is nothing but a true proposition. I am also assuming that there are at least three possible worlds. If there were only two, and if truths sliced logical space no more thinly than sets of possible worlds, then there would be only two truths.
My title is a quotation from Davidson's essay ‘On Saying That’. And although my concerns are ... more My title is a quotation from Davidson's essay ‘On Saying That’. And although my concerns are at some remove from his, they do connect at one significant point. We (non-philosophers as well as philosophers) find ourselves under the continual pressure of theory to deny that ordinary familiar semantic features of ordinary familiar words equip them to serve certain ordinary familiar functions. One of Davidson's aims is to resist that pressure as far as the function of reporting indirect speech is concerned. In similar vein I want to look at some common things that we do with words and show how we can hold fast to a simple common-sense view of what we are doing despite the doubts to which reflection is apt to give rise. In fact I want to look at six things we do with words, six linguistic moves we make. These six moves are related in a number of important ways. Even so, they are really the subjects of six separate essays (six separate sketchy essays at that), and I am well aware ...
It is only two years since Immanuel Kant published his monumental Critique of Pure Reason. Despit... more It is only two years since Immanuel Kant published his monumental Critique of Pure Reason. Despite its formidable difficulty, that book has already generated intense interest in the philosophical community. Those who are still struggling to come to terms with its dense and subtle argumentation, or who may not even have started to read it yet but who know from the furore that it has created that it needs to be high on their ‘to read’ list, might easily despair at the prospect of having now to contend with another volume on the same broad range of subjects by the same author. This prospect is not, however, as daunting as it seems. In fact, it should afford some solace, at least if we are to believe claims that Kant makes on behalf of his new book. For he says that it can be used ‘as a general synopsis’ of his system (4: 380), and that, through it, he will redress a ‘just’ complaint targeted at his earlier book ‘with regard to a certain obscurity’ (4: 261). Not that Kant wants us to think of his new book as a mere popularization of the earlier one. For one thing, it is ‘not for the use of apprentices, but of future teachers’ (4: 255). More importantly, Kant wants us to think of the various excursions in his new book as ‘preparatory exercises’ for the earlier one (4: 261). Thus whereas much of the Critique consisted in systematic metaphysics, here there is a proportionally greater focus on questions about the very possibility of systematic metaphysics and about what its scope and limits are. In this respect, if not perhaps in respect of its aesthetic appeal, the title of the new book—Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science—is well chosen. There is very little of doctrinal substance in the Prolegomena, however, that we have not already seen in the Critique. The Critique itself was a very self-conscious work. It was already much concerned with the possibility, scope, and limits of its own undertakings. What we do find, in those parts of this new book that recapitulate themes already present in the Critique, are important differences of approach and methodology, interesting shifts of emphasis, and reformulations of ideas that Kant takes to have been widely misunderstood. For example, in the Critique he addressed the question of the possibility of metaphysics in a way that was largely ‘synthetic’. That is, he constructed something that was recognizably an answer to this question by assembling ‘elements’ of reason and using ‘the laws of its pure use’ (4: 274). In the Prolegomena he addresses the question in a way that is more ‘analytic’: he takes for granted that we
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