Kripke CV 2019 Short

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Kripke CV 2019 Short Saul A. Kripke Distinguished Professor in the Programs of Philosophy and Computer Science Saul Kripke Center CUNY Graduate Center 365 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016-4309 Office: 212-817-7483 [email protected] Education • B.A., Summa Cum Laude (Mathematics), Harvard University, 1962 Honorary Degrees • Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, University of Nebraska, 1977 • Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, Johns Hopkins University, 1997 • Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, University of Haifa, Israel, 1998 • Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, University of Pennsylvania, 2005 • Doctor of Humane Letters, honorary degree, University of Bucharest, 2011 Positions Prior to B.A. Degree • Lecturer, Yale University, August, 1961 (month of seminars sponsored by Office of Naval Research, Group Psychology Branch) • Lecturer, Mathematics Department Seminar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1961- 62 Post-Graduate • Society of Fellows, Harvard University, 1963-66 • Lecturer with rank of Assistant Professor, Princeton University (taught Spring terms only, held concurrently with previous position), 1964-66 • Lecturer, Harvard University, 1966-68 • Associate Professor of Philosophy, Rockefeller University, 1966-68 • Professor of Philosophy, Rockefeller University, 1972-76 • McCosh Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University, 1977-98 • Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Ph.D Program in Philosophy and Ph.D Program in Computer Science, The City University of New York, Graduate Center, 2003-present Concurrent (Secondary) Positions • Lecturer with rank of Associate Professor, Princeton University, 1971-72 • Lecturer with rank of Professor, Princeton University, 1972-76 • Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large, Cornell University, 1977-83 Saul A. Kripke / 2 Visiting Positions • Visiting Associate Professor, Cornell University, Fall 1970 • Visiting Mills Professor, University of California, Berkeley, Winter 1972 • Visiting Professor, University of California, Los Angeles, Spring 1972 • John Locke Lecturer, Oxford University, 1973 (Michaelmas Term) • Visiting Professor, Princeton University, Fall 1974 • Visiting Professor, University of California, Los Angeles, Spring 1975 • Visiting Professor, Princeton University, 1976-77 • Visiting Fellow, All Souls’ College, Oxford University, 1977-78 • Visiting Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford University, Summer 1981 • Oscar Ewing Research Scholar, Indiana University, 1981-82 • Visiting Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford University, Summer 1982 • Member of Common Room, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, Summer 1983 • Visiting (Adjunct) Professor, University of Connecticut, Storrs, 1985-86 • Visiting Professor, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway, August 15-22 1991 • Visiting Professor, University of Graz, Austria, June 1993 • Adjunct Professor (unpaid research), University of Connecticut, Storrs, Fall 1993-94 • Visiting Professor, Hebrew University (Jerusalem, Israel), Spring 1999 • Visiting Professor, University of California at Los Angeles, Fall 1999 • Visiting Professor, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, Winter 2000 • Visiting Professor, Hebrew University (Jerusalem, Israel), Spring 2000 • Visiting Professor, Hebrew University (Jerusalem, Israel), Spring 2001 • Visiting Professor, Ph.D Program in Philosophy, The City University of New York, Graduate Center, Spring and Fall 2002 • Visiting Professor, Ph.D Program in Philosophy, The City University of New York, Graduate Center, Spring 2003 Fellowships and Grants Undergraduate • Detur Prize, 1960 • Phi Beta Kappa (awarded junior year), 1961 • Charles J. Wister Prize (‘senior in mathematics with highest record in the field’) • Palfrey Exhibition (‘most distinguished scholar in the senior class who is the recipient of a stipendiary scholarship’), 1962 Postgraduate • Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship (honorary), 1962 • Fulbright Scholar, 1962-63 • National Science Foundation Grant, Summer 1965 • Santayana Fellowship, Harvard University, Summer 1967 • John Guggenheim Fellow, 1968-69 • John Guggenheim Fellow, 1977-78 • Visiting Fellow, All Souls’ College, Oxford University, 1977-78 2 Saul A. Kripke / 3 • National Science Foundation Grant, 1977-1979 (summers) • Visiting Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford University, 1981 • Council of Learned Societies Fellow, 1981-82 • Visiting Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford University, Summer 1982 • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship Grant, 1985-86 • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship Grant, 1990 • Visiting Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford University, 1989-90 Other Academic Honors • Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1978-present • Corresponding Fellow, British Academy, 1985-present • Howard Behrman Award, 1988 • Fellow, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea, 1993-present • Fellow, Norwegian Academy of Sciences, 2000-present • Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy, Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2001 • Fellow, American Philosophical Society, 2005-present Publications A. Books 1. Naming and Necessity, Basil Blackwell (Oxford) and Harvard University Press (Cambridge), 1980, 172 pp. 2nd edn. forthcoming with Blackwell (Oxford). 2. Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Basil Blackwell (Oxford) and Harvard University Press (Cambridge), 1982, x + 150 pp. 3. Philosophical Troubles. Collected Papers. Volume I, Oxford University Press (New York), 2011. Includes six previously unpublished papers: “A Puzzle About Time and Thought,” “Nozick on Knowledge,” “Two Paradoxes of Knowledge,” “The First Person,” “Vacuous Names and Fictional Entities,” and “Unrestricted Exportation and Some Morals for the Philosophy of Language.” 4. Reference and Existence, Oxford University Press (New York), 2013. 5. Logical Troubles, Oxford University Press (New York), forthcoming. B. Papers and Abstracts 1. “A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic,” Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 24(1), 1959, pp. 1- 14. 2. “Distinguished Constituents” (abstract), Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 24(4), 1959, p. 323. 3 Saul A. Kripke / 4 3. “Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic” (abstract), Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 24(4), 1959, pp. 323-324. 4. “The Problem of Entailment” (abstract), Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 24(4), 1959, p. 324. 5. “‘Flexible’ Predicates of Formal Number Theory,” Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 13(4), 1962, pp. 647-650. 6. “The Undecidability of Monadic Modal Quantification Theory,” Zeitschrift fur mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik, Vol. 8, 1962, pp. 113-116. 7. “Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic,” Acta Philosophica Fennica, Vol. 16, 1963, pp. 83- 94. 8. “Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic I. Normal Propositional Calculi,” Zeitschrift fur mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik, Vol. 9, 1963, pp. 67-96. 9. “Transfinite Recursions on Admissible Ordinals, I” (abstract), Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 29(3), 1964, p. 162. 10. “Transfinite Recursions on Admissible Ordinals, II” (abstract), Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 29(3), 1964, p. 162. 11. “Admissible Ordinals and the Analytic Hierarchy” (abstract), Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 29(3), 1964, p. 162. 12. “Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic II. Non-Normal Modal Propositional Calculi,” in The Theory of Models (Proceedings of the 1963 International Symposium at Berkeley), J. W. Addison, L. Henkin, and A. Tarski (eds.), North Holland Publishing Co. (Amsterdam), 1965, pp. 206-220. 13. “Semantical Analysis of Intuitionistic Logic I,” in Formal Systems and Recursive Functions (Proceedings of the Eighth Logic Colloquium at Oxford, July, 1963), J. N. Crossley and M. A. E. Dummett (eds.), North Holland Publishing Co. (Amsterdam), 1963, pp. 92-129. 14. “Transfinite Recursion, Constructible Sets, and Analogues of Cardinals,” in Summaries of Talks Prepared in Connection with the Summer Institute on Axiomatic Set Theory, American Mathematical Society, U.C.L.A. (1967), pp. IV-0-1 through IV-0-12. 15. “On the Application of Boolean-Valued Models to Solutions of Problems in Boolean Algebra,” in Summaries of Talks Prepared in Connection with the Summer Institute on Axiomatic Set Theory, American Mathematical Society, U.C.L.A. (1967), pp. IV-T-1 through IV-T-7. 16. Research Announcement: “Deduction-preserving ‘Recursive Isomorphisms’ between Theories” (with Marian Boykan Pour-El), Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 73, 1967, pp. 145-148. 4 Saul A. Kripke / 5 17. “An Extension of a Theorem of Gaifman-Hales-Solovay,” Fundamenta Mathematicae, Vol. 61, 1967, pp. 29-32. 18. “Deduction-preserving ‘Recursive Isomorphisms’ between Theories” (with Marian Boykan Pour-El), Fundamenta Mathematicae, Vol. 61, 1967, pp. 141-163. 19. “Identity and Necessity,” in Identity and Individuation, Milton K. Munitz (ed.), New York University Press (New York), 1971, pp. 135-164. 20. “Naming and Necessity,” in Semantics of Natural Language, 2nd edn., Donald Davidson and Gilbert Harman (eds.), D. Reidel Publishing Co. (Dordrecht), 1972, pp. 253-355; Addenda pp. 763-769. 21. “Outline of a Theory of Truth,” Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 72(19), 1975, pp. 690-716. 22. “A Theory of Truth I. Preliminary Report” (abstract), Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 41(2), 1976, pp. 556. 23. “A Theory of Truth II. Preliminary Report” (abstract), Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 41(2), 1976, pp. 556-557. 24. “Is There a Problem About Substitutional Quantification?” in Truth and Meaning, Gareth Evans and John McDowell (eds.), Oxford University Press (London), 1976, pp. 325-419. 25. “Speaker’s Reference and
Recommended publications
  • 5. Essence and Natural Kinds: When Science Meets Preschooler Intuition1 Sarah-Jane Leslie
    978–0–19–954696–1 05-Gendler-Hawthorne-c05-drv Gendler (Typeset by SPi) 108 of 346 February 5, 2013 6:20 OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRST PROOF,5/2/2013, SPi 5. Essence and Natural Kinds: When Science Meets Preschooler Intuition1 Sarah-Jane Leslie INTRODUCTION It is common practice in philosophy to “rely on intuitions” in the course of an argument, or sometimes simply to establish a conclusion. One question that is therefore important to settle is: what is the source of these intuitions? Correspondingly: what is their epistemological status? Philosophical discus- sion often proceeds as though these intuitions stem from insight into the nature of things—as though they are born of rational reflection and judicious discernment. If these intuitions do not have some such status, then their role in philosophical theorizing rapidly becomes suspect. We would not, for example, wish to place philosophical weight on intuitions that are in effect the unreflective articulation of inchoate cognitive biases. Developmental psychology has discovered a range of belief sets that emerge in the first few years of life, and which plausibly go beyond the evidence to which the child has had access in that time period. In such cases, it is reasonable to suppose that the belief sets do not derive solely from the child’s rational reflection on her evidence, but rather show something about the way human beings are fundamentally disposed to see the world. (In some cases, the deep-seated dispositions are also shared with non-human animals.) There are many explanations of why we may be fundamentally disposed to see the world in a particular way, only one of which is that metaphysically or scientifically speaking, the world actually is that way.
    [Show full text]
  • Putnam's Theory of Natural Kinds and Their Names Is Not The
    PUTNAM’S THEORY OF NATURAL KINDS AND THEIR NAMES IS NOT THE SAME AS KRIPKE’S IAN HACKING Collège de France Abstract Philosophers have been referring to the “Kripke–Putnam” theory of natural- kind terms for over 30 years. Although there is one common starting point, the two philosophers began with different motivations and presuppositions, and developed in different ways. Putnam’s publications on the topic evolved over the decades, certainly clarifying and probably modifying his analysis, while Kripke published nothing after 1980. The result is two very different theories about natural kinds and their names. Both accept that the meaning of a natural- kind term is not given by a description or defining properties, but is specified by its referents. From then on, Putnam rejected even the label, causal theory of reference, preferring to say historical, or collective. He called his own approach indexical. His account of substance identity stops short a number of objections that were later raised, such as what is called the qua problem. He came to reject the thought that water is necessarily H2O, and to denounce the idea of metaphysical necessity that goes beyond physical necessity. Essences never had a role in his analysis; there is no sense in which he was an essentialist. He thought of hidden structures as the usual determinant of natural kinds, but always insisted that what counts as a natural kind is relative to interests. “Natural kind” itself is itself an importantly theoretical concept, he argued. The paper also notes that Putnam says a great deal about what natural kinds are, while Kripke did not.
    [Show full text]
  • The Univocity of Substance and the Formal Distinction of Attributes: the Role of Duns Scotus in Deleuze's Reading of Spinoza Nathan Widder
    parrhesia 33 · 2020 · 150-176 the univocity of substance and the formal distinction of attributes: the role of duns scotus in deleuze's reading of spinoza nathan widder This paper examines the role played by medieval theologian John Duns Scotus in Gilles Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza’s philosophy of expressive substance; more generally, it elaborates a crucial moment in the development of Deleuze’s philosophy of sense and difference. Deleuze contends that Spinoza adapts and extends Duns Scotus’s two most influential theses, the univocity of being and formal distinction, despite neither appearing explicitly in Spinoza’s writings. “It takes nothing away from Spinoza’s originality,” Deleuze declares, “to place him in a perspective that may already be found in Duns Scotus” (Deleuze, 1992, 49).1 Nevertheless, the historiographic evidence is clearly lacking, leaving Deleuze to admit that “it is hardly likely that” Spinoza had even read Duns Scotus (359n28). Indeed, the only support he musters for his speculation is Spinoza’s obvious in- terests in scholastic metaphysical and logical treatises, the “probable influence” of the Scotist-informed Franciscan priest Juan de Prado on his thought, and the fact that the problems Duns Scotus addresses need not be confined to Christian thought (359–360n28). The paucity of evidence supporting this “use and abuse” of history, however, does not necessarily defeat the thesis. Like other lineages Deleuze proposes, the one he traces from Duns Scotus to Spinoza, and subsequently to Nietzsche, turns not on establishing intentional references by one thinker to his predecessor, but instead on showing how the borrowings and adaptations asserted to create the connec- tion make sense of the way the second philosopher surmounts blockages he faces while responding to issues left unaddressed by the first.
    [Show full text]
  • The Distinction Between Reason and Intuitive Knowledge in Spinoza's
    The Distinction between Reason and Intuitive Knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics Sanem Soyarslan Duke University While both intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva) and reason (ratio) are adequate ways of knowing for Spinoza, they are not equal. Intuitive knowledge has greater power over the passive affects than reason, and appreciating the nature of this superiority is crucial to understanding Spinoza‘s ethical theory. However, due to Spinoza‘s notoriously parsimonious treatment of the distinction between reason and intuitive knowledge in the Ethics, there has been little consensus in the literature regarding the nature of this distinction. Instead, several candidate interpretations have emerged, which can be broadly grouped under two categories: Form Interpretations (FI) and Content Interpretations (CI). According to the FI, which is held by scholars such as Yirmiyahu Yovel1 and Steven Nadler2, reason and intuitive knowledge are different only in terms of their form—that is, the process by which they are attained. Thus, the FI attributes the above epistemic asymmetry entirely to differences in the methods of cognition between intuitive knowledge and reason. By contrast, the CI, embraced by scholars such as Henry Allison3 and Edwin Curley4, holds that the two kinds of adequate knowledge differ not only in terms of their form, but also with regard to their content. More specifically, the CI maintains that reason involves the universal knowledge of the properties of things, whereas intuitive knowledge relates to the essence of things. I agree with the CI that reason and intuitive knowledge differ not only in form but also with respect to their content. Nevertheless, I believe there is an important gap in the CI: namely, although it maintains that adequate knowledge of the essences of things is limited to intuitive knowledge, it fails to flesh out precisely what these essences are taken to be.
    [Show full text]
  • The New Theory of Reference: Kripke, Marcus, and Its Origins
    THE NEW THEORY OF REFERENCE SYNTHESE LIBRARY STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY, LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Managing Editor: JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University Editors: DIRK V AN DALEN, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands DONALD DAVIDSON, University of California, Berkeley THEO A.F. KUIPERS, University ofGroningen, The Netherlands PATRICK SUPPES, Stanford University, California JAN WOLEN-SKI, Jagielionian University, KrakOw, Poland THE NEW THEORY OF REFERENCE: KRIPKE, MARCUS, AND ITS ORIGINS Edited by PAUL W. HUMPHREYS University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, U S.A. and JAMES H. FETZER University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN, US.A . ..... SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS" MEDIA, B.V. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. ISBN 978-0-7923-5578-6 ISBN 978-94-011-5250-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-5250-1 Printed on acid-free paper AII Rights Reserved © 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1998 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1998 No part ofthis publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, inc1uding photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permis sion from the copyright owner. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAUL W. HUMPHREYS and JAMES H. FETZER / Introduction vii PART I: THE APA EXCHANGE 1. QUENTIN SMITH / Marcus, Kripke, and the Origin of the New Theory of Reference 3 2. SCOTT SOAMES / Revisionism about Reference: A Reply to Smith 13 3. QUENTIN SMITH / Marcus and the New Theory of Reference: A Reply to Scott Soames 37 PART II: REPLIES 4. SCOTT SOAMES / More Revisionism about Reference 65 5.
    [Show full text]
  • Concrete Possible Worlds (Final)
    CONCRETE POSSIBLE WORLDS Phillip Bricker 1. INTRODUCTION. Open a book or article of contemporary analytic philosophy, and you are likely to find talk of possible worlds therein. This applies not only to analytic metaphysics, but to areas as diverse as philosophy of language, philosophy of science, epistemology, and ethics. Philosophers agree, for the most part, that possible worlds talk is extremely useful for explicating concepts and formulating theories. They disagree, however, over its proper interpretation. In this chapter, I discuss the view, championed by David Lewis, that philosophers’ talk of possible worlds is the literal truth.1 There exists a plurality of worlds. One of these is our world, the actual world, the physical universe that contains us and all our surroundings. The others are merely possible worlds containing merely possible beings, such as flying pigs and talking donkeys. But the other worlds are no less real or concrete for being merely possible. Fantastic? Yes! What could motivate a philosopher to believe such a tale? I start, as is customary, with modality.2 Truths about the world divide into two sorts: categorical and modal. Categorical truths describe how things are, what is actually the case. Modal truths describe how things could or must be, what is possibly or 1 The fullest statement of Lewis’s theory of possible worlds is contained in his magnum opus, Lewis (1986), On the Plurality of Worlds. Lewis’s view is sometimes called “modal realism.” 2 Historically, it was the attempt to provide semantics for modal logic that catapulted possible worlds to the forefront of analytic philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Kripke's Naming and Necessity: Lecture II
    Kripke’s Naming and Necessity: Lecture II PHIL 83104 October 12, 2011 1. Varieties of descriptivism (end of Lecture I) ....................................................................1 2. Kripke’s arguments against descriptivism (71-90) ...........................................................2 2.1. The modal argument (48-49, 71-77) 2.1.1. Rigidified descriptions 2.1.2. Wide-scoping descriptions 2.2. The semantic argument (78-85) 2.3. The epistemic argument (86-87) 3. Kripke’s alternative picture of reference (91-97) ..............................................................5 4. Identity sentences and the necessary a posteriori (97-105) ..............................................7 4.1. The necessity of identity 4.2. A prioricity and qualitatively identical situations 4.3. Some sources of skepticism about Kripke’s claim 4.3.1. Contingent identities? 4.3.2. The illusion of contingency 4.3.3. Millianism about names 1. VARIETIES OF DESCRIPTIVISM (END OF LECTURE I) We’ve already seen two distinctions Kripke makes between different versions of descriptivism: • The distinction between descriptivist views which let a single description do the work, and those which rely on a cluster of descriptions • The distinctiopn between views according to which a description gives the meaning of a name, and those according to which it merely fixes the reference of the name Here Kripke introduces a third distinction: between circular and non-circular descriptivist views. This distinction is not like the others; it is less a distinction between varieties of descriptivism than a constraint on descriptivist views. What exactly is this constraint? Suppose we identified the meaning of the name “Aristotle” with the meaning of the description “the person called ‘Aristotle’” or “the referent of ‘Aristotle.’” These would be examples of descriptivist views which fail to meet the non-circularity condition, since to determine what object satisfies the description, we must first know which object is the referent of the name in question.
    [Show full text]
  • David Lewis's Place in Analytic Philosophy Scott Soames by The
    David Lewis’s Place in Analytic Philosophy Scott Soames By the early 1970s, and continuing through 2001, David Lewis and Saul Kripke had taken over W.V.O. Quine’s leadership in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic in the English-speaking world. Quine, in turn, had inherited his position in the early 1950s from Rudolf Carnap, who had been the leading logical positivist -- first in Europe, and, after 1935, in America. A renegade positivist himself, Quine eschewed apriority, necessity, and analyticity, while (for a time) adopting a holistic version of verificationism. Like Carnap, he placed philosophical logic and the philosophy of science at the center of philosophy. While not entirely avoiding metaphysics and epistemology, he tried to “naturalize” both. By contrast, Lewis and Kripke embraced the modalities Quine rejected.1 They also had no sympathy for his early verificationism, or his twin flights from intension and intention. As for philosophy of science, it was transforming itself into specialized philosophies of the several sciences, and did not lend itself to unified treatment. Although Lewis had deep interests in scientific issues, and was commendably realist about science in general, science itself was not the center of own distinctive approach to philosophy. Despite similarities in their opposition to Quine, the differences between Lewis and Kripke were large – especially in the semantics and metaphysics of modality. They also had different philosophical styles. Whereas Lewis was a wide-ranging thinker who pieced together a systematic philosophical world view, Kripke gave little thought to system, focusing instead on a few central topics. There is, therefore, no conflict between the two on many of the issues on which Kripke was silent.
    [Show full text]
  • The Case for Contextualism: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context, Vol
    The Case for Contextualism: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context, Vol. 1 Draft of 10/18/08 Keith DeRose [email protected] Chapter 1: Contextualism, Invariantism, Skepticism, and 1 What Goes On in Ordinary Conversation Chapter 2: The Ordinary Language Basis for Contextualism 50 Chapter 3: Assertion, Knowledge, and Context 87 Chapter 4: Single Scoreboard Semantics 138 Chapter 5: “Bamboozled by Our Own Words”: Semantic 165 Blindness and Some Objections to Contextualism Chapter 6: Now You Know It, Now You Don’t: 201 Intellectualism, Contextualism, and Subject-Sensitive Invariantism Chapter 7: Knowledge, Assertion and Action: Contextualism 246 vs. Subject-Sensitive Invariantism References 302 Acknowledgements vii Chapter 1: Contextualism, Invariantism, Skepticism, and 1 What Goes On in Ordinary Conversation 1. Contextualism and the Old Bank Cases 1 2. Cases Involving Speakers in Different Conversations Talking About the Same 4 Subject 3. Contextualism and Invariantism 7 4. “Strength of Epistemic Position,” Comparative Conditionals, and Generic 8 Contextualism 5. Semantic Mechanism? 10 6. Which Claims to Take Seriously and the “Floor” of “Know(s)” 15 7. Is This Epistemology or Philosophy of Language? 20 8. Contextualism Regarding Other Epistemic Terms 22 9. Contextualism is Not a Thesis about the Structure of Knowledge or of Justification 23 10. “Subject” Vs. “Attributor” Contextualism 24 11. Intellectualism and the Distinction between “Classical” and “Subject-Sensitive” 26 Invariantism 12. A Brief History of Contextualism 28 13. Contextualism, Invariantism, and Relevant Alternatives 32 14. Against Contextualist Versions of RA That Tie the Content of Knowledge 37 Attributing Claim Directly to What the Range of Relevant Alternatives Is 15. Against Contrastivism 41 16.
    [Show full text]
  • Aristotle's Definition of Kinêsis: Physics III.1
    Aristotle’s Definition of Kinêsis: Physics III.1 Background In Physics I.7, Aristotle told us that change (coming to be) involved a subject (that persists through the change and a pair of contraries (the two termini of change). One might think that this provides him with a definition of change, since it seems to provide necessary and sufficient conditions. In the case of local change (movement), it would look like this: x moves iff x is at p1 at t1 and x is at p2 at t2 (where p1 ≠ p2, t1 ≠ t2). This would yield the so-called “at-at” theory of motion: to move is to be at one place at one time and at another place at another time. On this theory, moving is just a matter of being at different places at different times (and change in general is just a matter of being in different and incompatible states at different times). But although Aristotle thinks that this does indeed give us necessary and sufficient conditions for change, he does not think that it tells us what change is. This is obvious from the fact that in Physics III.1 he offers a definition of change (kinêsis) that looks very different from this. Why is this? Aristotle does not say. But presumably, the problem with the “at-at” theory is that it leaves out the crucial thing about change—namely, that it is a process or passage from one state to another, or from one place to another. That is, he thinks of change as a continuous not a discrete phenomenon.
    [Show full text]
  • Kripke on Modality
    KRIPKE ON MODALITY Saul Kripke’s published contributions to the theory of modality include both mathematical material (1959a, 1963a, 1963b, and more) and philosophical material (1971, henceforth N&I; 1980, henceforth N&N). Here the latter must be given primary emphasis, but the former will not be entirely neglected. APOSTERIORI NECESSITY Kripke’s overarching philosophical point is that the necessary is not to be confused with the apriori, but preliminary explanations are needed before his contribution can be specified more precisely. To begin with, the linguistics literature (Palmer 1986) distinguishes three flavors of modality: deontic, epistemic/evidential, and dynamic. The pertinent notions of necessity are the obligatory or what must be if obligations are fulfilled, the known or what must be given what is known, and the inevitable in the sense of what cannot fail and could not have failed to be, no matter what. This last is the only notion of necessity of interest in our present context. As Kripke emphasizes, this notion of the necessary and its correlative notion of the contingent are metaphysical concepts. They are as such at least conceptually distinct from the epistemological notions of the apriori and aposteriori and the semantical notions of the analytic and synthetic. Before Kripke this was never completely forgotten, but its importance was arguably grossly underestimated. Prior to Kripke’s work it was the near-unanimous opinion that the analytic is included in the apriori, which in turn is included in the necessary (Quine 1960: 59). It was the majority opinion that these inclusions reverse, making the three classifications coextensive; but there were dissenters, conscious of being in the minority (Kneale and Kneale 1962: 637-639).
    [Show full text]
  • Meditations on First Philosophy in Which Are Demonstrated the Existence of God and the Distinction Between the Human Soul and Body
    Meditations on First Philosophy in which are demonstrated the existence of God and the distinction between the human soul and body René Descartes Copyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017. All rights reserved [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth.—In his title for this work, Descartes is following a tradition (started by Aristotle) which uses ‘first philosophy’ as a label for metaphysics. First launched: July 2004 Last amended: April 2007 Contents First Meditation 1 Second Meditation 3 Third Meditation 9 Fourth Meditation 17 Fifth Meditation 23 Sixth Meditation 27 Meditations René Descartes First Meditation First Meditation: On what can be called into doubt Some years ago I was struck by how many false things I completely those who have deceived us even once. had believed, and by how doubtful was the structure of [The next paragraph presents a series of considerations back and beliefs that I had based on them. I realized that if I wanted forth. It is set out here as a discussion between two people, but that isn’t to establish anything in the sciences that was stable and how Descartes presented it.] likely to last, I needed—just once in my life—to demolish Hopeful: Yet although the senses sometimes deceive us everything completely and start again from the foundations.
    [Show full text]