tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77305334662651948192012-02-06T00:38:15.623-05:00OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.comBlogger1721100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-65862539050148826132012-01-27T09:40:00.006-05:002012-01-27T11:24:42.243-05:00

1/27/2012On What Matters, Ch 10, Oxford University Press 2011In this chapter author goes about showing that Kant's conception of determinism is too strict to allow for free choice, or rather choices made based on reasons. For Kant, morality is possible only if free will is, and free will is not within the world of space-time, because that is the world where determinism reigns (pg258-9). The most

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-48762133996310304912012-01-20T11:44:00.006-05:002012-01-23T21:51:24.576-05:00

1/20/2012On What Matters, Ch 10, Oxford University Press 2011In this chapter author explores the concept that Kant has about respect for the dignity of rational beings. This is different from the concept that all rational beings are good-- some (most/many) aren't. But all rational beings deserve respect because they have dignity. Author's point is that respect for rational beings does not get us

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-69883060880164431902012-01-06T10:47:00.001-05:002012-01-20T11:44:51.678-05:00

1/6/2012On What Matters, Ch 9, Oxford University Press 2011This chapter is an examination of Kant's contention, under the Humanity Principle, that it is wrong to treat persons "merely as a means". On the face of it, it is ok to treat someone 'as a means', but perhaps not 'merely' as such. Author suggests as well that there is a distinction between 'doing something to someone to achieve some aim'

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-27198731895070352042011-04-22T08:03:00.003-05:002011-04-22T08:50:36.716-05:00

04/22/2011Book Chapter from All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to find Meaning in a Secular Age, Free Press, 2011This is the final chapter in a book that attempts to find meaning in a world of post-modern technological progress. Authors talk about two kinds of sacredness, or spheres of life that deserve reverence: physis and poietics. Physis involves a mass communal experience and '

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-9472788608857821162011-04-01T08:00:00.001-05:002011-04-01T08:00:12.593-05:00

04/01/2011Unpublished paperThe primary question of this paper is a launching point for a discussion about Augustine's troubles with the human will. The question involves why we humans are not naturally given to cooperation-- we are often uncooperative, and even when we do cooperate it is sometimes for ulterior motives, or long-term selfishness. The problem here is part of a general one: why are

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-5859184254014350962011-03-18T09:46:00.006-05:002011-03-18T15:15:10.378-05:00

03/18/2011This book chapter is a brief walk-through of the arguments author put forward in the book Aristotle on the Human Good. Author goes through the many issues around the structure of Aristotle's metaethical concepts, starting with the question of whether eudaimonia is inclusive of all intrinsic goods or if it is a singular-dominant intrinsic good. Author begins with considering the idea

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-49591798671048030982011-02-25T09:31:00.008-05:002011-11-29T23:54:35.990-05:00

02/25/2011This paper advances the thesis that Aristotle considered eudaimonia to be an inclusive concept of a mixture between the political virtues and the activity of contemplation. Further, the practical/political virtues and contemplation are goods-in-themselves and take part in eudaimonia because they are constitutive of it, not because they are instrumental for eudaimonia.Author begins by

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-43547708852808420352011-02-11T08:42:00.005-05:002011-11-29T23:53:42.593-05:00

02/11/2011Philosophical Review, Vol 117 No 1, 2008This paper discusses the ostensibly contradictory position by Aristotle that in the Nichomachean Ethics happiness consists in contemplation (the exercise of theoretic reason) and, also, that happiness consists in the exercise of the political virtues. Author's position is that Aristotle takes a dualistic approach to happiness, one activity of a

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-64531214332691550702011-01-13T22:35:00.006-05:002011-01-14T10:12:42.076-05:00

01/14/2011Unpublished ManuscriptThis is a book chapter about Aquinas' apparent paradox regarding human nature and happiness. The trouble can be summed up as follows:P1. All humans desire their perfect good (happiness that is perfectly satisfying)P2. Human nature is sufficient to attain perfectly satisfying happinessC1. It's within human nature to attain its perfectly satisfying happinessP3.

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-67724135231638316862010-12-17T08:37:00.008-05:002010-12-31T11:28:12.627-05:00

12/17/2010The Philosophical Review, Vol 50, No 1 Jan 1991This paper ties to defend the view that humans are rational ultimate ends-seekers against two objections from Elizabeth Anscombe. The view is Aristotle's but more refined by Aquinas, and it is, roughly, that all human activity aims at some (one) ultimate end. Anscombe's objections are given on the first page: first, human actions might

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-43873308508978092232010-12-10T09:47:00.007-05:002010-12-12T20:31:53.031-05:00

12/10/2010Skepticism and Naturalism Ch 2, Columbia University Press, 1985Author starts this chapter by talking about two dimensions of analysis of human behavior, the first being humans' natural inclination to talk about moral attitudes, free will, judgments, actions, and beliefs, and the other being the purely objective, morally 'skeptical', approach to the world which takes physical causes and

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-2303263113408300072010-12-03T10:05:00.010-05:002010-12-03T14:30:04.229-05:00

12/03/2010Skepticism and Naturalism Ch 3, Columbia University Press, 1985This book chapter discusses the mind-body problem, specifically the 'Identity Thesis' that mental events are identical to physical ones. Author puts the discussion within the context of what author considers to be a dialogue between skeptics and naturalists. Author prefaces the discussion on the identity thesis with a

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-84686483907262628572010-11-12T08:52:00.015-05:002010-11-19T12:22:11.887-05:00

11/12/2010The Journal of Philosophy, Vol CVI, No 10 Oct 2009Author uses section I to develop what author calls the Initial Argument: that there is an asymmetry between the following two reports:1) I see a dark discoloration on the back of my hand2) I feel a jabbing pain in the back of my handThe first is a perceptual report using linguistic categories and is considered 'extramental', verifiable,

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-60565315374364157122010-11-05T09:01:00.004-05:002010-11-05T10:07:50.762-05:00

11/05/2010Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties: The Woodbridge Lectures 1983, Ch 4 Columbia University Press, 1985This chapter or paper is about the conflict between nominalism and realism. The battle is over the reality of abstract objects.Part 1 of this chapter talks about the perfectly natural way in which people talk about concepts, propositions and thoughts as though they were real

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-59490345557840875252010-10-29T08:08:00.007-05:002010-10-29T08:08:00.331-05:00

10/29/2010The Philosophical Papers of Alan Donagan Vol 1 Historical Understanding and the History of Philosophy, Ch 12. Malpas, Eds. University of Chicago Press, 1994In this paper Author tries to revive Bertrand Russell's realist theory of universals. Author lays it out using Russell's own language from Problems of Philosophy: 'I am in my room' has a relation 'in' that connects me with my room.

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-55310419096593381862010-10-22T06:50:00.003-05:002010-10-31T21:47:06.071-05:00

10/22/2010The Collected Philosophical Papers of GEM Anscombe, Vol 3: Ethics, Religion and Politics Ch 7 University of Minnesota Press, 1981 (Reprinted from pamphlet, Oxford 1957)This paper takes a stance against Oxford's granting Harry Truman an honorary degree. Author considers Truman to be a villain, or at least unworthy of an honor. Author first starts with a series of fact-statements or

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-32774378717952107442010-10-15T10:06:00.009-05:002010-10-29T11:23:14.255-05:00

10/15/2010Ethics, Thomson & Dworkin Eds, Harper & Row 1968This paper seeks to dispute the so-called principle of double effect, which posits a moral difference between actively doing x and passively allowing x to happen (when you could have stopped it). The example that author uses throughout the entire paper is one of a woman who is in labor but has reached complications and will die unless a

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-13807313391351444042010-09-24T01:54:00.008-05:002010-09-30T00:14:23.486-05:00

09/24/2010The Theory of Morality ch 5, University of Chicago Press, 1979This chapter attempts to deal with possible inconsistency in the moral system author has laid out in the previous three chapters. Author is less concerned about consistency between all the different precepts, since undoubtedly he mis-formulated some of them in a way that would generate moral conflict. The larger question

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-68530260975153208642010-09-10T22:39:00.002-05:002010-09-29T21:48:04.878-05:00

9/10/2010The Theory of Morality, Ch 4 University of Chicago Press, 1979This chapter deals with intentions and culpability. Relying on the discussion from section 2.2 of chapter 2, author reminds us that one can perform an impermissible action yet be inculpable, or conversely be culpable after performing a permissible one. This is because actions are intensional, opaque to substitution of

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-21018236472122575162010-08-20T21:36:00.007-05:002010-09-16T22:39:31.967-05:00

08/20/2010The Theory of Morality Ch 3, University of Chicago Press, 1979In this chapter author lays out the duties to oneself, duties to others in a non-institutional format, and finally duties to others through institutions, including both contractual and generic civil society duties. These are all precepts of the first-order, that is, regarding what it is permissible, impermissible, and

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-20079326967714034162010-08-06T10:22:00.012-05:002010-08-20T09:28:29.643-05:00

08/06/2010The Theory of Morality Ch 2, University of Chicago Press 1979This chapter promises to lay bare the presuppositions of Judeo-Christian conceptions of the world and of human agency. Author starts with discounting exotic thought-experiment contrasts, e.g. how would human morality work in a world with very different metaphysics, or if humans had different powers (like mind-reading) (

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-184186674569633102010-07-30T07:38:00.009-05:002010-08-06T11:17:02.998-05:00

07/30/2010The Theory of Morality Ch 1 (The Concept of a Theory of Morality), University of Chicago Press, 1979Author beings his book by tracing the history of moral principles aside from social mores, that is a separation between a societies laws (and customs) and moral principles. Author begins the discussion with the Stoics, who talked about a division between living in accordance with 'Nature

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-57074279416740642342010-07-09T10:15:00.002-05:002010-07-09T11:26:20.584-05:00

07/09/2010The New York Times Magazine, April 6 2010This popular article discusses the basics of environmental economics and the major approaches to legislation for the environment. Author focuses on the threat of global warming, coal burning and carbon emissions in examples of how legislation might work. Author first reviews the core of environmental economics, which is another factor in the

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-79294937051755077192010-06-25T08:00:00.005-05:002010-06-25T10:09:08.462-05:00

06/25/2010The Journal of Philosophy, November 2009This clearly written article takes on an old problem in philosophy: the trouble with perversity and human will. Author starts with a discussion of Kant's conception that it wasn't possible for a human to have a wicked will, that is, something that has a 'clear-eyed opposition' to moral law. Yet this is countered by St Augustine, who claims to

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-62670731261077310962010-06-18T09:44:00.006-05:002010-06-18T16:20:24.783-05:00

06/18/2010The New York Review, May 13 2010This is a relatively scholarly article written by a well-known constitutional democracy philosopher regarding the Citizens United v Federal Election Commission case that was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States by a 5-4 decision in January 2010. The decision in the case generally reversed a longstanding tradition of restricting or barring

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-83229963145533895192010-06-11T09:02:00.003-05:002010-06-11T09:02:00.158-05:00

06/11/2010The Hastings Center Report, Vol 11, No 6 Dec 1981This article may be dated but is still relevant today. It discusses the phenomenon of mistrust for the government, or specifically for administration and for benefit dispensaries, and also focuses on the traditional divide between equality and equity, which author argues people have begun to see as the same social concept.Author begins

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-23474138920957436132010-05-28T12:46:00.001-05:002010-06-04T14:42:29.532-05:00

05/28/2010Paper delivered for panel discussionThis is a review of the Roy Sorenson book Seeing Dark Things, which is a book that espouses the causal theory of perception and the nature of shadows and silhouettes. Author takes the opportunity to discuss Sorenson's main points, but also disagrees with them and elaborates his own position in the review.The first example author discusses is the

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-74644655489030921762010-05-21T10:54:00.004-05:002010-05-21T11:30:19.362-05:00

05/21/2010Ideas and Mechanism: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy Ch 9, Princeton University PressThis paper attempts to show that Spinoza's theory of a human mind isn't close to what we understand a human mind to be, especially something considered in Descartes as a thing capable of conscious representation of objects, real or imaginary. Author begins by contrasting Spinoza's conception of minds

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-85094964851709835862010-05-14T10:37:00.005-05:002010-05-21T11:31:34.362-05:00

05/14/2010Ch 7 of The Philosophical Papers of Alan Donagan Vol 1 Historical Understanding and the History of Philosophy, University of Chicago PressThis paper is an attempt to show that, although Spinoza was an avowed monist, many of his positions seemed to embrace much of the dualist belief system and seem at odds with what a fully endorsed monist position might be. Author compares this odd

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-42844122833243737592010-02-12T11:15:00.004-05:002010-02-12T12:24:07.143-05:00

02/12/2010This paper is mainly a statement that 'If there are any moral rights at all, the right of humans to be free is a natural right'. The freedom granted as a right means that others mustn't coerce or restrain s from acting so long as s's actions aren't coercing, restraining, or 'designed to injure' others. (pg77) Most of there rest of the paper is a clarification of what it is for there

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-18369680489357159682010-02-05T08:54:00.002-05:002010-02-05T08:54:00.291-05:00

02/05/2010Journal of Moral Philosophy Vol 7 (2010)This paper seeks to establish the plausibility of the view that humanity shares a deep common moral reasoning faculty. The first observation is that philosophers often utilize moral intuitions about hypothetical examples to come up with consensus around a moral precept. Author argues that claiming this is moral knowledge also presumes there is

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-21907425570269208932010-01-29T09:00:00.003-05:002010-01-29T10:38:27.361-05:00

01/29/2010Philosophy of Education 2001, Suzanne Rice ed.This article explores two different kinds of legal rights against the backdrop of the supreme court decision Wisconsin v Yoder, a case about a child's rights to modern education rather than an Amish one. Wisconsin v Yoder involves the case of Barbara, who is taken out of modern-day schools by her parents for 9th and 10th grade, where they

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-45555247671448512222010-01-22T08:32:00.012-05:002010-01-22T16:55:39.102-05:00

01/22/2010Essay 10, Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy, Oxford University Press 1984In this essay originally published in 1973, author does a careful reading of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice, in particular the principle that 'liberty can only be limited for the sake of liberty'. Author first outlines the fundamental parts of Rawls' argument:The Main Idea: the principles of justice rely on

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-27418520645669703452009-12-18T09:30:00.004-05:002009-12-18T11:53:06.606-05:00

12/18/2009The New York Review of Books, Vol 44, No 5 March 27, 1997This is a brief filed by 6 philosophers (Dworkin, Nagel, Nozick, Rawls, Scanlon, Thomson) with the US Supreme Court in support of assisted suicide, as there were two cases before the court relating to it. Dworkin wrote an introduction and in Slate Magazine there followed an exchange of letters between Michael McConnell and

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-62077269926478258292009-12-11T10:41:00.012-05:002009-12-12T09:16:01.893-05:00

12/11/2009Sovereign Virtue, Harvard University Press, 2000, Ch 14This is a chapter reviewing two strands of judicial interpretation of the rights enumerated in the US Constitution (and its amendments). The two topics that are used to reveal the tension between these interpretations are homosexuality and the right-to-die. Author argues that the 14th amendment is the 'most abstract source of

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-24568614161278601492009-11-20T08:58:00.005-05:002009-11-20T10:08:10.064-05:00

11/20/2009Analysis, Vol 69 No 2 April 2009This article attempts to change the conception of a belief as a propositional attitude. 'Propositionalists', as author calls them, believe that believing is primarily a relation between a believer and a proposition. Author also considers Fodor a propositionalist even though he gives a three-part relation, a believer, a sentential expression, and a

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-39052751534892691542009-11-13T09:08:00.003-05:002009-11-13T09:59:33.391-05:00

11/13/2009Chapter from The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Henry Hardy ed., Alfred Knoph pub, 1991This chapter gives an account of author's (autobiographical) progression from believing in one true ideal for the human condition to believing in a relativistic plurality of objective values. Author wants to avoid isolationist or absolute relativism, where the two parties can't come to understand each

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-81604135856887637982009-11-06T09:36:00.007-05:002009-11-09T14:04:47.786-05:00

11/06/2009UnpublishedThis paper explores the indicative conditional and the material conditional. Author starts with this 'old familiar question' and thinks that Stalnaker's answer is nearly correct: the conditional "if p then q" is true if 'the consequent is true, not necessarily in the world as it is, but in the world as it would be if the antecedent were true'.Author gives the case of

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-19082516000535548702009-10-29T22:44:00.008-05:002010-01-24T22:01:24.026-05:00

10/30/2009Unpublished book chapterThis is a chapter in a book about Gandhi-- this chapter seeks to locate Gandhi's policy of non-violence in a classical context of the three aspects of being: violence, non-violence, and non-action. Author argues that this is an important three-part substance that involves domination of one substance (non-violence) over the other two, rather than flat-out

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-61256050892766994782009-10-16T10:54:00.004-05:002009-10-16T11:21:06.504-05:00

10/16/2009New York Review of Books Vol 56 No 15 Oct 8, 2009This is a review of Appiah's "Experiments in Ethics", which is cast as an attempt to take seriously the challenge to ethics coming from the psychologists. Author is critical of Appiah's seemingly facile attempt to grapple with the problems. He claims that Appiah alternates between taking the psychologists' "case against character" or the

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-91715417135546855322009-10-09T09:23:00.001-05:002009-10-09T09:51:19.877-05:00

10/09/2009The New York Review of Books Vol 56 No 16 10/22/2009This is an article in the popular press about the history of astronomy, its importance in the ancient world, and the places it currently occupies in science. The thesis is that astronomy was developed as a science much earlier than other studies like physics or biology, probably because the movements of the stars and planets followed

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-17290074234168270142009-10-02T08:03:00.003-05:002009-10-02T10:32:45.884-05:00

10/02/2009DRAFTThis paper tries to sort out the complexities and possible contradictions that Augustine finds himself in when trying to combat both Manicheanism and also Pelagians. Author lays out the difficulty:-The Manichees believed that good and evil were two forces in the universe, essentially that god had an evil equal. Augustine needed to establish there was only one god, a good one. But

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-3216979401239177552009-09-24T21:45:00.005-05:002009-09-24T23:41:14.428-05:00

09/25/2009American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol 9 No 1 Jan 1972This paper attempts to show that one can make a moral judgment and yet not have a prescriptive attitude toward that judgment. It defines 'internalism' as the theory that acceptance of a moral judgment implies having a favorable/unfavorable attitude toward the content of the judgment. Author considers philosophers such as Stevenson

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-84332478207772912922009-09-18T23:43:00.001-05:002009-10-30T11:14:43.817-05:00

09/18/2009Facts & Values, Ch 3 Yale Press 1963This paper explores the rhetorical device of 'persuasive definition', which is the act of giving a new conceptual meaning to a word without changing its 'emotive meaning'-- its connotative or affective meaning. Author contends that this is common in philosophy and that it is a misleading device. Author uses an example of "cultured", originally

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-13973826317410613452009-09-04T10:51:00.000-05:002009-09-04T11:38:27.274-05:00

09/04/2009The Philosophy of Time, Oxford Readings in Philosophy, Poidevin & MacBeath, edsThis is a reprint of an old (1908) essay that seeks to show two things: first that time is essentially a matter of past, present and future, and second that these notions are contradictory. Since they contradict, time can't be real. Author starts by making a distinction between two positions of time, the,

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-87061020636364804282009-08-28T00:14:00.004-05:002009-08-28T11:27:27.457-05:00

08/28/2009Truth and Other Enigmas, Harvard University Press 1978This article gives a lengthy explication of McTaggart's argument for there being a contradiction in time. Author reconstructs the argument:a) an event M is past, present or futureb) an event M is before, at the same time as, or after another event NCrucial here is that the facts of kind a) cannot be reducible to facts of kind b).

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-2209308093270310422009-08-14T07:28:00.003-05:002009-08-14T10:43:22.395-05:00

08/14/2009Monthly Review, July-August 2008This article tries to give some general scientific background for understanding the human causes of global warming, and rebut a series of arguments made by Alexander Cockburn that anthropogenic global warming is a myth. The evidence for human-made global warming presented by author is fairly straightforward: when the sun's rays hit the earth, some is

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-9943396546247639542009-07-31T00:08:00.006-05:002009-07-31T14:28:05.174-05:00

07/31/2009Unpublished paperThis article starts with a particular problem found in Augustine's Confessions, regarding measurement of time. The idea goes as follows:-What is past no longer exists, so it can't be measured, what is future has yet to exist, so it too can't be measured. And the present has no extension, so it also can't be measured.Author points out this is a different problem from

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-14678825675497602522009-07-24T00:17:00.001-05:002009-07-24T00:17:00.504-05:00

07/24/2009New York Times, July 19 2009This is a magazine article for the popular press dealing with the ways to assign value to public health. The article concludes that health care rationing already takes place and that instead we should enter into a conscious public conversation about how to find value with health-care dollars.The article starts with an example of a drug that had been

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-53524404129175531072009-07-17T23:37:00.000-05:002009-07-27T08:00:08.135-05:00

07/17/2009The Augustinian Tradition, G Matthews ed. University of California Press, 1999 Ch 6This paper tries to give a satisfactory account of St Augustine's concept of the primal sin of Adam & Eve and of the angels who turned against God. For Augustine, primal sin had to be voluntary, which meant it had to be a free act of will. The difficulty here is that a free act of will to sin suggests a

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-59127688190875156612009-07-10T08:03:00.005-05:002009-07-10T09:58:50.629-05:00

07/10/2009The New York Review of Books, March 26, 2009This is a book review of three books, one reprint from Niebuhr 'The Irony of American History', and one from Andrew Bacevich 'The Limits of Power', and finally from James Traub 'The Freedom Agenda'. The reviews are fairly straightforward and largely summarize the main theses. Many of the points are put into the context of being vindicated by

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-85390395212769618572009-07-03T08:57:00.003-05:002009-07-03T10:34:48.191-05:00

07/03/2009The Journal of Philosophy, Vol 60 Num 12 Dec 2008This paper discusses the various problems with specifying what it is for something to be innate and a proposed meta-analysis (Clutter or Cluster) of the concept. The analysis starts with the 'minimal condition' which is that something that is innate is not learned, and what is learned is not innate. (pg721). Examples of this are Plato's

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-68696350684274310322009-06-26T09:54:00.002-05:002009-06-26T11:38:46.592-05:00

06/26/2009The Case For Modern Man, Harper & Brothers 1956, Ch 6This is a review of Niebuhr's main philosophies regarding the human condition. The discussion takes the form of a detailed exposition of Niebuhr's philosophy, and then a longer refutation of it. Niebuhr's main points are as follows:-Humanity is trapped between ideal infinity and its finite nature, creating the defining emotion of

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-73643851788184746232009-06-19T04:05:00.000-05:002009-06-19T07:41:13.005-05:00

06/19/2009The Irony of American History, Ch 7 University of Chicago Press, 2008This chapter (written in 1951) discusses the prospects of the US in relation to itself and other nations. 1. Author first points out that the US was isolationist for a long time until WWII, where the US realized that technology had connected the world enough so that it couldn't 'be secure in an insecure world' (pg131)

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-89737832637020968892009-06-12T07:56:00.004-05:002009-06-16T11:00:50.556-05:00

06/12/2009The Cambridge Companion to William James, Ch 5, RA Putnam ed, 1997This article is an overview of James' commitments to utilitarianism and pragmatism and how it provided the basis for James' view of religion. Author also suggests an alternate strategy of argumentation that he believes might have been more effective, using the same basic commitments. According to author, there are two

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-53262144720272986502009-06-05T09:44:00.004-05:002009-06-19T15:38:35.570-05:00

06/05/2009Lectures and Essays, 2nd edition, Macmillan & Co 1886This paper inveighs against belief with insufficient evidence, calling it wrong in the moral/ethical sense, not just the epistemological. Author starts with a lengthy example of a shipowner who has some reason to believe his ship isn't seaworthy but nevertheless convinces himself to let her sail; on the seas she does down and the

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-11855949692079996772009-05-29T07:30:00.005-05:002009-05-29T09:29:26.657-05:00

05/29/2009The Cambridge Companion to William James, Ch 4, RA Putnam ed, 1997Though mostly an overview, this paper argues that the WK Clifford quoted in James' Will to Believe was largely misrepresented by James, in particular regarding the willingness of someone who guides her beliefs only with sufficient evidence to act without enough of it. James seems to cast Clifford as staunchly opposed to

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-8462214388995802932009-05-22T09:16:00.002-05:002009-05-22T11:29:01.698-05:00

05/22/2009Essays In Popular Philosophy, Ch 1 Longmans Green & Co 1911This well-known paper is about the permissibility of belief in religion, probably considered now to be a stand-in for belief in the divine. The main argument is that when you are forced to make a momentous choice where there is some credibility for either option, making either choice is beyond rebuke. Author first spends time

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-84215404450135579822009-05-15T09:47:00.003-05:002009-05-15T14:03:02.737-05:00

05/15/2009Renewing Philosophy, Harvard Press 1992 Ch 9This chapter tries to establish Dewey's defense of democracy as an argument for social morality. Author beings by quoting Bernard Williams when it comes to giving a justification of moral claims-- forget trying to convince someone to be moral and instead try to justify the concepts and particulars to someone already committed to being moral.

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-46708071436715466892009-05-08T21:28:00.003-05:002009-05-10T14:40:47.076-05:00

05/08/2009Naturalism & The Human Spirit, ch 1 Columbia University Press, 1944This paper is more polemical and rhetorical than many current philosophy papers usually are. The main point is to defend naturalism from criticism leveled by 'supernaturalists'. Author argues against what he considers to be the orthodox position that moral virtue is only acquired through supernatural means, instead

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-12265853780610811302009-05-01T09:42:00.006-05:002009-05-01T11:37:33.687-05:00

05/01/2009The Philosophy of John Dewey, Ch 13, Schilpp ed., 1951This is a general review of Dewey's work on religion and also of the work of his students and followers; the conclusion is that they are more extreme than Dewey was. Author first tries to give a state-of-religion overview and then takes some time to develop the concept of religion as a human activity whose explanation should be '

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-56298512673182050492009-04-24T09:48:00.003-05:002009-05-09T21:26:40.778-05:00

04/24/2009Yale University Press, 1934This final chapter focuses mainly on the distinction that religions draw between two realms of living, the supernatural and the natural, or the sacred and the profane. The biggest current threat to religion, author claims, is the growing participation and involvement that humans have with those profane/natural realms of life: an involvement in science,

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-79898480867407010282009-04-17T09:50:00.004-05:002009-04-17T11:11:50.933-05:00

04/17/2009Yale University Press, 1934This chapter 'Faith and Its Object' seeks to establish the problem with religion's claiming factual knowledge about the world based on supernatural truths or revelations. The early pages show the rift between scientific knowledge about the world and the tenets of theological belief (author wants to show a tension not between 'science' and 'religion' but

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-5439115722243424262009-04-10T11:39:00.001-05:002009-04-10T16:23:19.432-05:00

04/10/2009Yale University Press, 1934This chapter tries to create an adjective 'religious' that is distinct from 'religion'. The first discussion is about how diverse and varied the practice of religion is (pg4-6) and how, once placed in the cultural and historical context, it isn't obvious that the current cultural context is the correct one. Yet to try to give a theory of religion so that it

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-21937917051955632252009-04-03T09:57:00.004-05:002009-04-03T11:18:20.894-05:00

04/03/2009Analysis Vol 57 No 2 April 1997This is a reply to Mele's previous article 'Underestimating self-control...' where authors lay out a strong case for the unintelligiblity of synchronic actional self-control. One of Mele's arguments was that it was very difficult to formulate exactly what the 'truism' of intentional aciton is: is it really that 'whenever people do something intentionall,

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-60451443126264761562009-03-27T10:21:00.005-05:002009-03-27T11:28:00.579-05:00

03/27/2009Frog & Toad: Analysis Vol 56 No 2 April 1996Underestimating self-control: Analysis Vol 57 No 2 April 1997Kennett & Smith:This paper is written about the philosophical problem of self-control, specifically synchronic resistance, which is considered here by the authors as 'not to do what we most want to do' at the same time as we want to do it. This is separate from diachronic

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-48831478470570823202009-03-18T08:01:00.000-05:002009-03-18T17:08:07.383-05:00

03/20/2009The New York Review of Books Vol 55 No 14 Sept 25, 2008A short article for the popular press, the first section discusses the 4 tensions author sees between religion and science, then the second section talks about how we can live without the concept of a deity.Importantly, author doesn't see a tension in how religion has historically made pronouncements on how natural events work (e.g.

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-44649988453129625852009-03-13T10:57:00.005-05:002009-03-13T11:43:35.506-05:00

03/13/2009The New Republic, Feb 4 2009This is a book review of two attempts to show how belief in god and evolution are compatible, one by Giberson "Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution" and other by Miller "Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul". Author believes that these attempts are flawed, as are all attempts to try to have science and religion

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-26518536706098529142009-03-06T12:14:00.003-05:002009-03-06T12:32:46.559-05:00

03/06/2009Scientific American, March 2009An article in a popular science magazine that gives a history and modern understanding on quantum physics and its relation to the theory of special relativity. The screwiest thing about quantum physics is its 'nonlocality', meaning that particles manage to affect each other without being next to each other, that is, without being local and having no

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-37331607559449761202009-02-27T00:15:00.001-05:002009-02-27T15:40:28.594-05:00

02/27/2009Analysis, Vol 66 No 1 Jan 2006This article gives an argument for the truth-value of future-tense sentences like 'I'm meeting with Johnson tomorrow.'  Author's intention is to show that future events can make current ones about it true or false when uttered, though we have to wait until the future happens to determine which.  He considers this the 'common sense view' that 'preserves

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-43847438719178599442009-02-20T09:55:00.001-05:002009-02-20T09:55:00.483-05:00

02/20/2009Analysis, Vol 62 No 1 2002This paper tries to undo the common problem of 'the present' as having no substance, no extension. St Agustine is quoted as framing the problem: the past just happened, the future is yet to happen. Anytime you look at a divisible section of time, some part is the future, some the past-- the present has no length. Author argues this is a fallacy of

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-4311640871685462142009-02-13T10:49:00.008-05:002009-03-06T12:12:17.077-05:00

02/13/2009Journal of Philosophy, Vol 55 No 8 August 2008This paper attempts to show that bees are natural zombies and lay out a kind of consciousness test for animals 'lower' on the phylogenetic scale from humans. The argument turns as follows: the phenomenon of blindsight can reasonably establish beliefs or proto-belief-like cognitive schemes without consciousness. Bees share analogous

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-16159758607847645172009-02-06T19:28:00.001-05:002009-02-06T14:30:46.371-05:00

02/06/2009In this paper author attacks the logical pluralism of Beall and Restall, which tries to admit to classical, constructionist and situational logics as all equally valid. Author categorizes their argument as follows:1. Validity (V) is defined as: (V) A conclusion 'A' follows from premises iff in any case the premises are true is also a case when A is true. (here cases are 'worlds' or '

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-81951454923415614632009-01-30T09:52:00.011-05:002010-01-03T18:23:56.608-05:00

01/30/2009Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 55 1981-2, also reprinted as chapter 1 in Action, Reason, and ValueIn this paper author tried to give a rendering of the progress that has been made in the philosophy of human action since Aristotle. Author first admits Rorty's point that the content of philosophy is often influenced by whatever is currently

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-71336001680991499602009-01-23T21:49:00.008-05:002009-02-06T14:32:41.390-05:00

01/23/2009rough draft of paper given May 1, 2008This is a paper that attempts to connect proof theory and the pragmatic semantics of inference to the philosophical notions of metaphysical necessity, analyticity, and a priori knowledge (pg2). The paper begins by reviewing the origins of author's particular brand of pragmatism, birthed by Wittgenstein's 'meaning is use' injunction but interpreted

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-61625406027780761622008-12-19T11:32:00.003-05:002009-01-03T13:01:21.423-05:00

12/19/2008Edition with Introduction by John E SmithThe selections from chapter 2 and is about the problem of the composition and identity of a community. Author first seeks to establish that there are genuine creations of a community that reflect intelligence but cannot be reduced to the creations of any of the individuals, e.g. customs, language, religion. Author claims that the appropriate

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-20661153724418281682008-12-12T11:25:00.006-05:002008-12-12T12:23:12.477-05:00

12/12/2008Paper given in 1998The paper tries to establish the mutual dependence of language and thought, more aptly conceptualization. When comparing with a form of conceptual atomism (Fodor), author distinguishes between having a concept which is 'simply to discriminate objects or properties of one sort or another' and 'plac[ing] objects in[to] a category' (pg2), the latter being the approach

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-48717581660346978552008-12-05T11:40:00.004-05:002008-12-05T15:36:57.012-05:00

12/05/2008Essays on Actions and Events, Ch 11 Clarendon Press 1980In this essay author lays out the support for the theory of anamalous monism, which is needed because he wants to make the following triad consistent:1) At least some mental events interact causally with physical events.2) Where there is causality, there is a description of deterministic lawfulness.3) There are no strict

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-76001912872174171572008-11-21T11:40:00.008-05:002009-01-30T16:02:11.752-05:00

11/21/2008Essays on Actions and Events, Ch 5 Clarendon Press 1980A landmark essay that begins with a distinction between having an intention and forming an intention. Author gives the first take on his idea of acting with an intention: you act for a reason. The difference is brought out in the following examples: (pg83-85)1) His reason for boarding a plane marked 'London' was that he wanted to

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-72836389221030201892008-11-14T11:47:00.003-05:002008-11-14T12:16:49.807-05:00

11/14/2008Essays on Actions and Events, Ch 2 Clarendon Press 1980A reprinting of a paper where author tries to deal with the logical problem of weakness of the will in intentional actions. Davidson first decides this is the same as incontinence (pg21-2), and gives a definition: (pg22)A acts incontinently iff: A does x intentionally; A believes that y is open to him; A judges that, all things

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-28333130271605978542008-11-07T11:26:00.003-05:002008-11-07T12:33:06.939-05:00

11/07/2008Journal of Philosophy, Vol 60 No 23 1963An oldie where the main argument is that reasons for action are causes for action. Reasons 'rationalize' action by showing: (pg685)a) a pro-attitude toward actions of a certain kindb) believing one's actions are of this kindThese two combine to form a 'primary reason' for why an agent performed an action. (pg686) The paper then describes how to

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-20667025531767406562008-10-31T11:04:00.007-05:002009-01-03T13:02:42.597-05:00

10/31/2008This paper starts with a discussion of the classical Humean description of action, as being a belief and a desire put together in a particular causal way to produce an action. Author argues that there is actually another piece to this story, that the agent so doing is instrumentally rational. So, put this way we have:a desire for an end + a means-ends belief + instrumental rationality

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-4120649852621389862008-10-23T18:34:00.006-05:002009-01-03T13:04:31.222-05:00

10/24/2008New York Times, October 12, 2008An article in the secular media about a few examples of teachers in public schools and publicly funded educational institutions being restricted by the administration from wearing buttons that endorse candidates. Author describes the potential US Constitutional issues here regarding free speech, refers to the supreme court case of Tinker v Des Moines

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-50934387671864194042008-10-17T00:01:00.000-05:002008-10-16T23:58:38.821-05:00

10/17/2008Nous, vol 41 number 4 2007This paper explores how affect plays a role in evaluating moral responsibility. Here the debate is framed in a way to shed some light on an age-old debate between compatibilism and incompatibilism in moral theory. Compatibilism is the theory that moral agency is compatible with a deterministic universe. Incompatibilism is the opposite: moral agency doesn't

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-60051666177079775852008-10-10T09:32:00.003-05:002008-10-10T09:55:16.451-05:00

10/10/2008unpublished paperThis paper is mostly an exploration of what innocence means, how it can be lost, and then what would have to happen for it to be regained, or perhaps just surpassed. Author begins by giving 5 different accounts of innocence:1. Lack of knowledge of evil2. Absence of sin or moral wrongdoing3. Lack of awareness of moral complexity4. Lack of an experience of moral

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-18318920038798505412008-10-03T10:19:00.002-05:002008-10-03T11:14:29.484-05:00

10/03/2008Unpublished ManuscriptThis chapter mainly deals with the problem of reduction of complex systems. Author argues for a language that 'tracks the diversity' in holistic behavior versus behavior of the parts. There are many kinds of reduction, from Kim's ontological reductionism to epistemic and methodological reduction. Author takes the position that a reduction that entails 'a "

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-1350317277644005532008-09-26T10:09:00.002-05:002008-09-26T11:28:51.151-05:00

09/26/2008Journal of Philosophy, March 2008This is a paper that suggests that any way of reducing colors to physical or dispositional properties will give more modal properties to color than they should have. Author begins the paper with an analogy to Benacerraf's work on numbers, arguing they are primitive and not reducible to sets. The problem with reduction that Benacerraf reveals is that

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-14560823672309462432008-09-18T23:56:00.001-05:002008-09-19T00:15:38.869-05:00

09/19/2008The Journal of Philosophy, Vol 60 No 3 March 2008This paper tries to dispose of the contentious drive for a theory of art and instead replace it with a Theory of the Arts, meaning a theory of painting, sculpture, theatre, and so on. Author offers his simple analysis:An item is a work of Art iff it is produced by a kind of activity that is an Art FormAuthor takes some time to give a

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-61877316276375713352008-09-12T09:04:00.004-05:002008-09-12T10:41:51.650-05:00

09/12/2008The Journal of Value Inquiry 33, 1999This is a relatively short paper written to defend Mental State Welfare theories against the Experience Machine. The first part of the paper brings out the intuitions about what someones welfare is: it has to affect the individual for it to affect her well-being. (pg381-2) Author then quotes Nozick's Experience Machine argument, but claims that the

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-90209648621882954792008-09-05T08:39:00.002-05:002008-09-05T10:00:04.641-05:00

09/05/2008Pacific Philosophical Quarterly #88 (2007)This paper tries to show that a version of Mental State Welfarism can account for the thesis that we have legitimate non-experiential goals. Author calls this Compatibility, and because a form of MSW (Mental State Welfarism) includes desires for objective accomplishments, it does not follow that if this form of MSW is true that we would plug

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-25764064051095594062008-08-29T08:57:00.008-05:002008-08-29T13:46:56.612-05:00

08/29/2008Journal of Philosophy, Feb 2008This is a paper about how achieving realistic beliefs and having a reality-oriented attitude is not just important for true happiness, but also somewhat conceptually necessary. Author argues against two skeptical arguments, one being a common-sense view that 'sometimes it's better not-to-know than to-know' and the other is the social-science work by Shelly

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-51761936404347036342008-08-15T08:57:00.003-05:002008-08-15T10:13:31.539-05:00

08/15/2008London Review of Books, June 19 2008This is a review of two books collecting the works of Wilfrid Sellars. Author describes the three main points to Sellars' systematic philosophy. The first is that science is the descriptor of reality. The problem with this claim is that we don't live in the world described by science; we live in a world of a manifest image. Instead of denying this

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08/01/2008Information Clearing House.info Zmedia Institute Talk, June 2007This is a relatively informal discussion from author that was originally a talk given. The paper has one crucial argument: debate and policy decisions in the US are made once specific assumptions have already been made, one of which is that the United States of America owns the world.Author starts with a discussion about

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-27427137823387736622008-07-18T10:34:00.003-05:002008-07-18T11:18:40.205-05:00

07/18/2008Journal of Philosophy, Vol 60 No 2, Feb 2008This paper explores the thesis of mind-independent, situation-dependent properties of external objects. First, some distinctions:Intrinsic property- a property of an object that does not depend on the object's relations to other individuals distinct from itself (pg55-6).Situation-dependent property- a property of an object that it has by

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-23451986211382949162008-07-11T16:41:00.003-05:002008-07-18T18:01:30.501-05:00

07/11/2008No. 07-290, June 26, 2008This is a supreme court decision that has been summarized far better elsewhere, I'm sure. However, it does serve to go over the main arguments in broad strokes. Author delivers the opinion of the court. At issue is a hand-gun ban in DC which, in the court's opinion, violates the 2nd Amendment:"A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-70022929401661674282008-06-27T09:18:00.003-05:002008-06-27T10:43:45.991-05:00

06/27/2008The Journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, Vol 38 No 145 July 1963This is a relatively short paper that reviews Austin's lectures about performatives and constatives, and his attempt to establish a new tri-fold system of categorization between locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. First, author summarizes Austin's discussion of performative speech-acts like 'I

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-1454919132073020552008-06-20T08:20:00.003-05:002008-06-20T09:55:23.843-05:00

06/20/2008Philosophical Review, Vol 117 No 2 2008This is a prolonged skeptical discussion about introspection and the notion of the infallibility of current conscious experience. The paper has more of a conversational style rather than present any logical arguments in an explicit format. Author first points out that most of the skeptics up until now have not questioned current conscious

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06/13/2008Kiteley, Murray - Verbs of SpeechThis is a short discussion on Austin's How To Do Things With Words, where he introduces the category of 'performatives'. Also mentioned was the fact that once a present-tense verb performative is made into a past-tense verb, it can have a truth value and thus wouldn't be a performative.Danto, Arthur - A Note on Expressions of the Referring SortAuthor

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-83725482950286493192008-06-06T06:14:00.006-05:002008-06-09T17:23:19.391-05:00

06/06/2008The Concept of Mind Ch 3, Penguin Books 1966This is the third chapter in a famous book where author's main concern is arguing that the use of 'mind' as opposed to 'matter' is a category-mistake, similar to thinking that 'a pair of gloves' is something extra one also buys when one buys 'one left-handed glove and one right-handed glove'. In previous chapters, author takes care to lay out

OwenFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12325133501531229450noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7730533466265194819.post-3821431579325823092008-05-30T10:12:00.004-05:002008-06-06T16:49:09.139-05:00

05/30/2008The Innate Mind Vol 3, ch 2 Oxford Press 2007 Carruthers, Laurence, Stich, eds.This is an extended reply to an objection, leveled recently about the concept of innateness, that it is hopelessly confused, confounding, and that it should be jettisoned in the realm of cognitive science (Griffiths). Author replies that this argument is inconclusive and proposes conditions for innateness

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