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Articles 1 - 30 of 43
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Eliminativism, Dialetheism And Moore's Paradox, John N. Williams
Eliminativism, Dialetheism And Moore's Paradox, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
John Turri gives an example that he thinks refutes what he takes to be “G. E. Moore's view” that omissive assertions such as “It is raining but I do not believe that it is raining” are “inherently ‘absurd'”. This is that of Ellie, an eliminativist who makes such assertions. Turri thinks that these are perfectly reasonable and not even absurd. Nor does she seem irrational if the sincerity of her assertion requires her to believe its content. A commissive counterpart of Ellie is Di, a dialetheist who asserts or believes that: Since any adequate explanation of Moore's paradox must handle …
Moore’S Paradox In Belief And Desire, John N. Williams
Moore’S Paradox In Belief And Desire, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Is there a Moore’s paradox in desire? I give a normative explanation of the epistemic irrationality, and hence absurdity, of Moorean belief that builds on Green and Williams’ normative account of absurdity. This explains why Moorean beliefs are normally irrational and thus absurd, while some Moorean beliefs are absurd without being irrational. Then I defend constructing a Moorean desire as the syntactic counterpart of a Moorean belief and distinguish it from a ‘Frankfurt’ conjunction of desires. Next I discuss putative examples of rational and irrational desires, suggesting that there are norms of rational desire. Then I examine David Wall’s groundbreaking …
Further Reflection On True Successors And Traditions, John N. Williams
Further Reflection On True Successors And Traditions, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
David-Hillel Ruben’S 'Traditions And True Successors': A Critical Reply, John N. Williams
David-Hillel Ruben’S 'Traditions And True Successors': A Critical Reply, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
Moore’S Paradox And The Priority Of Belief Thesis, John Williams
Moore’S Paradox And The Priority Of Belief Thesis, John Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Moore’s paradox is the fact that assertions or beliefs such as Bangkok is the capital of Thailand but I do not believe that Bangkok is the capital of Thailand or Bangkok is the capital of Thailand but I believe that Bangkok is not the capital of Thailand are ‘absurd’ yet possibly true. The current orthodoxy is that an explanation of the absurdity should first start with belief, on the assumption that once the absurdity in belief has been explained then this will translate into an explanation of the absurdity in assertion. This assumption gives explanatory priority to belief over assertion. …
The Completeness Of The Pragmatic Solution To Moore's Paradox In Belief: A Reply To Chan, John Williams
The Completeness Of The Pragmatic Solution To Moore's Paradox In Belief: A Reply To Chan, John Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Moore’s paradox in belief is the fact that beliefs of the form ‘p and I do not believe that p’ are ‘absurd’ yet possibly true. Writers on the paradox have nearly all taken the absurdity to be a form of irrationality. These include those who give what Timothy Chan calls the ‘pragmatic solution’ to the paradox. This solution turns on the fact that having the Moorean belief falsifies its content. Chan, who also takes the absurdity to be a form of irrationality, objects to this solution by arguing that it is circular and thus incomplete. This is because it must …
Generalization And Induction: Misconceptions, Clarifications And A Classification Of Induction, Eric W. K. Tsang, John N. Williams
Generalization And Induction: Misconceptions, Clarifications And A Classification Of Induction, Eric W. K. Tsang, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
In “Generalizing Generalizability in Information Systems Research,” Lee and Baskerville (2003) try to clarify generalization and classify it into four types. Unfortunately, their account is problematic. We propose repairs. Central among these is our balance-of-evidence argument that we should adopt the view that Hume’s problem of induction has a solution, even if we do not know what it is. We build upon this by proposing an alternative classification of induction. There are five types of generalization: (1) theoretical, (2) within-population, (3) cross-population, (4) contextual, and (5) temporal, with theoretical generalization being across the empirical and theoretical levels and the rest …
Generalization And Induction: More Misconceptions And Clarifications, Eric W. K. Tsang, John N. Williams
Generalization And Induction: More Misconceptions And Clarifications, Eric W. K. Tsang, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
In ‘Generalization and Induction: Misconceptions, Clarifications, and a Classification of Induction’, we comment on Lee and Baskerville’s (2003) paper ‘Generalizing Generalizability in Information Systems Research’, which attempts to clarify the concept of generalization and classify it into four types. Our commentary discusses the misconceptions in their paper and proposes an alternative classification of induction. Their response ‘Conceptualizing Generalizability: New Contributions and a Reply’ perpetuates their misconceptions and create new ones. The purpose of this rejoinder is to highlight the major problems both in their original paper and in their reply and to provide further clarifications. Lee and Baskerville’s so-called ‘new …
Further Reflection On True Successors And Traditions, John Williams
Further Reflection On True Successors And Traditions, John Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
The Completeness Of The Pragmatic Solution To Moore's Paradox In Belief: A Reply To Chan, John N. Williams
The Completeness Of The Pragmatic Solution To Moore's Paradox In Belief: A Reply To Chan, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Moore’s paradox in belief is the fact that beliefs of the form ‘p and I do not believe that p’ are ‘absurd’ yet possibly true. Writers on the paradox have nearly all taken the absurdity to be a form of irrationality. These include those who give what Timothy CHAN calls the ‘pragmatic solution’ to the paradox. This solution turns on the fact that having the Moorean belief falsifies its content. CHAN, who also takes the absurdity to be a form of irrationality, objects to this solution by arguing that it is circular and thus incomplete. This is because it must …
Moore-Paradoxical Assertion, Fully Conscious Belief And The Transparency Of Belief, John N. Williams
Moore-Paradoxical Assertion, Fully Conscious Belief And The Transparency Of Belief, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
I offer a novel account of the absurdity of Moore-paradoxical assertion in terms of an interlocutor’s fully conscious beliefs. This account starts with an original argument for the principle that fully conscious belief collects over conjunction. The argument is premised on the synchronic unity of consciousness and the transparency of belief.
Moore’S Paradox And The Priority Of Belief Thesis, John Williams
Moore’S Paradox And The Priority Of Belief Thesis, John Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
The Surprise Exam Paradox: Disentangling Two Reductios, John N. Williams
The Surprise Exam Paradox: Disentangling Two Reductios, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
One tradition of solving the surprise exam paradox, started by Robert Binkley and continued by Doris Olin, Roy Sorensen and Jelle Gerbrandy, construes surprise epistemically and relies upon the oddity of propositions akin to G. E. Moore's paradoxical 'p and I don't believe that p.' Here I argue for an analysis that evolves from Olin's. My analysis is different from hers or indeed any of those in the tradition because it explicitly recognizes that there are two distinct reductios at work in the student's paradoxical argument against the teacher. The weak reductio is easy to fault. Its invalidity determines the …
Belief-In And Belief In God, John N. Williams
Belief-In And Belief In God, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Of all the examples of ‘belief-in’, belief in God is both the most mysterious and the most challenging. Indeed whether and how an apologist can make a case for the intellectual respectability of theistic belief, depends upon the nature of this ‘belief-in’. I shall attempt to elucidate this matter by an analysis of the relation of ‘belief-in’ to ‘belief-that’ and by treating belief in God as a special case of ‘belief-in’.
Moorean Absurdity And The Intentional 'Structure' Of Assertion, John N. Williams
Moorean Absurdity And The Intentional 'Structure' Of Assertion, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
Justifying Circumstances And Moore-Paradoxical Beliefs: A Response To Brueckner, John N. Williams
Justifying Circumstances And Moore-Paradoxical Beliefs: A Response To Brueckner, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
In 2004, I explained the absurdity of Moore-paradoxical belief via the syllogism (Williams 2004): (1) All circumstances that justify me in believing that p are circumstances that tend to make me believe that p. (2) All circumstances that tend to make me believe that p are circumstances that justify me in believing that I believe that p. (3) All circumstances that justify me in believing that p are circumstances that justify me in believing that I believe that p.
Using The Economic Concept Of A 'Merit Good' To Justify The Teaching Of Ethics Across The University Curriculum, Mark Nowacki, Wilfried Ver Eecke
Using The Economic Concept Of A 'Merit Good' To Justify The Teaching Of Ethics Across The University Curriculum, Mark Nowacki, Wilfried Ver Eecke
John N. WILLIAMS
Philosophers often lament the limited role that philosophy plays in the intellectual formation of the average university student. Once central to university life—there was a time when the study of philosophy defined what it meant to be a student of the liberal arts—philosophy as a subject of study has become marginalized. It is a painful reality that in many universities philosophy has been reduced to the status of a fluffy elective, a course of study to be conscientiously avoided by the more "practical" and "hard nosed" students bent upon success in the pragmatic worlds of business and politics. Only classical …
Wittgensteinian Accounts Of Moorean Absurdity, John N. Williams
Wittgensteinian Accounts Of Moorean Absurdity, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
Moorean Absurdity And Conscious Belief, John N. Williams
Moorean Absurdity And Conscious Belief, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
Moorean Absurdities And Higher Order Beliefs, John N. Williams
Moorean Absurdities And Higher Order Beliefs, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
Externalism And Knowledge Of Comparative Content, Yoo Guan Tan
Externalism And Knowledge Of Comparative Content, Yoo Guan Tan
John N. WILLIAMS
Concepts are the constituents of thoughts, which in turn, are the contents of propositional attitudes. They are also what the predicates of our language express. According to a tradition going back to Plato, questions about comparative content – questions of the form Is concept F the same as concept G? – are purely about relations of ideas, and so are answerable a priori. This does not mean that no experience at all is necessary to answer such questions, for experience may be needed to grasp their content. Call a piece of information about Fs extraneous if it is not required …
Punishment: The Supposed Justifications Revisited, John N. Williams
Punishment: The Supposed Justifications Revisited, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Review of Punishment: The Supposed Justifications Revisited by Ted Honderich, Pluto Press, 2006, ISBN: 9780745321318
Moore's Paradoxes And Iterated Belief, John N. Williams
Moore's Paradoxes And Iterated Belief, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
I give an account of the absurdity of Moorean beliefs of the omissive form (om) p and I don’t believe that p, and the commissive form (com) p and I believe that not-p, from which I extract a definition of Moorean absurdity. I then argue for an account of the absurdity of Moorean assertion. After neutralizing two objections to my whole account, I show that Roy Sorensen’s own account of the absurdity of his ‘iterated cases’ (om1) p and I don’t believe that I believe that p, and (com1) p and I believe that I believe that not-p, is unsatisfactory. …
Confucius, Mencius And The Notion Of True Succession, John N. Williams
Confucius, Mencius And The Notion Of True Succession, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
Wittgenstein, Moorean Absurdity And Its Disappearance From Speech, John N. Williams
Wittgenstein, Moorean Absurdity And Its Disappearance From Speech, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
G. E. Moore famously observed that to say, "I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don't believe that I did" would be "absurd." Why should it be absurd of me to say something about myself that might be true of me? Moore suggested an answer to this, but as I will show, one that fails. Wittgenstein was greatly impressed by Moore's discovery of a class of absurd but possibly true assertions because he saw that it illuminates "the logic of assertion". Wittgenstein suggests a promising relation of assertion to belief in terms of the idea that one "expresses …
The Absurdities Of Moore's Paradoxes, John N. Williams
The Absurdities Of Moore's Paradoxes, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
Moorean Absurdity And Expressing Belief, John N. Williams
Moorean Absurdity And Expressing Belief, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
Wittgenstein, Moorean Absurdity And Its Disappearance From Speech, John N. Williams
Wittgenstein, Moorean Absurdity And Its Disappearance From Speech, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
G. E. Moore famously observed that to say, I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don't believe that I did would be absurd. Why should it be absurd of me to say something about myself that might be true of me? Moore suggested an answer to this, but as I will show, one that fails. Wittgenstein was greatly impressed by Moore's discovery of a class of absurd but possibly true assertions because he saw that it illuminates the logic of assertion. Wittgenstein suggests a promising relation of assertion to belief in terms of the idea that one expresses …
Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Christiaan Jordaan
Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Christiaan Jordaan
John N. WILLIAMS
Although the term “cosmopolitan-communitarian debate” never really caught on, a national-global fault line remains prominent in debates about global justice. “Dialogic cosmopolitanism” holds the promise of bridging this alleged fault line by accepting many of the communitarian criticisms against cosmopolitanism and following what can be described as a communitarian path to cosmopolitanism. This article identifies and describes four key elements that distinguish dialogic cosmopolitanism: a respect for difference; a commitment to genuine dialogue; an open, hesitant and self-problematising attitude on the part of the moral subject; and an undertaking to expand the boundaries of moral concern to the point of …
Inconsistency And Contradiction, John N. Williams
Inconsistency And Contradiction, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Inconsistency and contradiction are important concepts. Unfortunately, they are easily confused. A proposition or belief which is inconsistent is one which is self- contradictory and vice-versa. Moreover two propositions or beliefs which are contradictories are inconsistent with each other. Nonetheless it is a mistake to suppose that inconsistency is the same as contradiction.