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Not a difference of opinion: Wittgenstein and Turing on contradictions in mathematics Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Wim Vanrie
In his 1939 Cambridge Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein proclaims that he is not out to persuade anyone to change their opinions. I seek to further our understanding of this point by investigating an exchange between Wittgenstein and Turing on contradictions. In defending the claim that contradictory calculi are mathematically defective, Turing suggests that applying such a calculus
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On having control over our actions Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Doug Hardman
In this essay, I investigate the longstanding philosophical problem of whether we have control over our actions in a deterministic world. In working through a range of everyday situations in which this problem could arise, I come to the realisation that determinism has no bearing on whether we have control over our actions, because having control over our actions and determinism only make sense under
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Hadot's later Wittgenstein: A critique Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Michael Hymers
Pierre Hadot is best known as a historian of ancient philosophy and for advocating the relevance of ancient thinking for contemporary lives. What is less well known is that he was one of the first French philosophers to take a serious interest in the work of Wittgenstein, publishing between 1959 and 1962 two essays on the Tractatus and two on the Philosophical Investigations, since republished as Wittgenstein
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The role of pragmatic considerations during mathematical derivation in the applicability of mathematics Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-12-20 José Antonio Pérez-Escobar
The conditions involved in the applicability of mathematics in science are the subject of ongoing debates. One of the best-received approaches is the inferential account, which involves structural mappings and pragmatic considerations in a three-step model. According to the inferential account, these pragmatic considerations happen in the immersion and interpretation stages, but not during derivation
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A Response to Dehnel's ‘Defending Wittgenstein’ Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-12-20 Samuel J. Wheeler
This is a reply to ‘Defending Wittgenstein’, Piotr Dehnel's critique of my article, ‘Defending Wittgenstein's Remarks on Cantor from Putnam’. I first show that my position is much more in agreement with Felix Mühlhölzer than Dehnel takes it to be, and that his criticism of me is nothing more than a failure to recognize this. I then show how Dehnel incorrectly reads Wittgenstein as rejecting set theory
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Hertz's legacy in Tractarian metaphysics1 Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-09-28 Martin Schmidt
The influence of Heinrich Hertz's The Principles of Mechanics on Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus has been studied for decades, but it has never become a mainstream topic in the Wittgensteinian literature. This paper focusses on Tractarian notions of objects, elementary facts and elementary sentences and discusses their similarities with Hertz's concepts of mass, its constituents
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Reply to Sullivan: Idealism and limits Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-09-22 Oliver Thomas Spinney
In this discussion I argue that Peter Sullivan is wrong to suggest that Wittgenstein's position in the Philosophical Investigations involves a commitment to transcendental idealism. I show that Sullivan's interpretation involves holding that transcendental idealism was employed by Wittgenstein in the attempt to combat a Platonist mythology. I show, through a detailed appraisal of Wittgenstein's discussion
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Return of the evil genius Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-09-21 Doug Hardman
In this essay, I consider whether it makes sense to say that our cognitive capacities—remembering, imagining, intending, hoping, expecting and so on—manifest as inner, subpersonal processes. Given whether something makes sense is a grammatical rather than theoretical or empirical issue, it cannot be explained but can only be better understood by describing and reflecting on situations in which it arises
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Cora Diamond on the concept of ethics Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-09-21 Barnaby Burleigh
Is ethics about anything? Cora Diamond has famously argued that ethics lacks a subject matter by providing a variety of examples of ethical discourse, which, she claims, are ethically significant without being about anything ethical. They do not have a moral subject matter, but are nonetheless instances of moral thinking. This raises the question what it means for a piece of discourse to be moral.
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On Wittgenstein's remarks about the standard metre Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-08-01 Kai Michael Büttner
In a notorious passage from his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein writes that one can state of the standard metre neither that it is one metre long, nor that it is not one metre long. While many commentators have rejected this claim, it has been commonly assumed that Wittgenstein himself endorsed it. In a recently published article, Thomas Müller not only provides a novel argument against
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Holistic similarities between Quine and Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-07-26 Rena Beatrice Goldstein
W.V. Quine and Ludwig Wittgenstein have been compared with regard to the analytic/synthetic distinction, propositions known a priori or a posteriori, mathematical and logical necessity and naturalism, amongst other topics. Following Pieranna Garavaso and Danièle Moyal-Sharrock, I compare how Quine and Wittgenstein conceptualize a system of beliefs. Overlooked is Wittgenstein's description of the role
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Some concerns about the idea of basic moral certainty: A critical response to Samuel Laves Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-06-29 Jordi Fairhurst
Pleasants has developed the idea of basic moral certainties. Analogous to Wittgenstein's basic empirical certainties, they are best described as universal moral certainties which are natural and nonpropositional, and show unreflectively in the way we act. A clear-cut example is the wrongness of killing innocent human beings. Philosophers have levelled three damaging criticisms against Pleasants' proposal
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Some anecdotes about Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-06-19 Neil O'Hara
This brief notice records anecdotes about Wittgenstein gathered from Br. Herbert Kaden OSB.
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Schlick and Wittgenstein on games and ethics Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-06-13 Andreas Vrahimis
In conversations with Schlick and Waismann from June to December 1930, Wittgenstein began to turn his attention to the topic of games. This topic also centrally concerned Schlick. In his earliest philosophical output, Schlick had relied on the results of evolutionary biology in setting out an account of the emergence of the human species' ability to play [Spiel] as a prerequisite for the genesis of
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‘On the necessity of identity and Tarski's T-schema’—A response to Davood Hosseini Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-06-13 Alex Blum
The paper defends my position on Kripke in ‘The Necessity of Identity and Tarski's T-schema’, which was recently criticized in this journal by Davood Hosseini.
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Crossing pictures of ‘determination’ in Wittgenstein's remarks on rule-following Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-05-16 Philip Bold
In PI 189, Wittgenstein's interlocutor asks, ‘But are the steps then not determined by the algebraic formula?’. Wittgenstein responds, ‘The question contains a mistake’. What is the mistake contained in the interlocutor's question? Wittgenstein's elaboration is neither explicit nor its intended upshot transparent. In this paper, I offer a reading on which the interlocutor's question arises from illicitly
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Tarski's T-schema and necessity of identity Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-05-15 Davood Hosseini
Blum (Philosophical Investigations 46, 2023, 264) argues that Tarski's T-schema and the thesis of the necessity of identity are mutually inconsistent. It is argued that his argument fails.
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The vices of naturalist neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-05-04 David Carr
While the modern revival of virtue ethics largely looks back to Aristotle, most, if not all, versions of this trend continue to be much indebted to and/or based upon specific mid-twentieth-century neo-naturalist and descriptivist critiques of prevailing antinaturalist trends of that time: specifically, upon Anscombe's critique of the ethics of duty and utility and of the so-called modern moral ought
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On the existence of moral certainties: The case of the pisa-suaves Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-03-15 Enrico Galli
Recently, José María Ariso and Samuel Laves have critically debated whether killing innocent and non-threatening people [=WK] is a universal moral certainty. One of the main topics of their discussion concerns the case of the pisa-suaves, children born in the context of the Colombian civil war who grew up with the FARC guerrillas. While Laves argues that such children hold WK, Ariso rejects his claim
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Defending Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2023-02-15 Piotr Dehnel
Samuel J. Wheeler defends Wittgenstein's criticism of Cantor's set theory against the objections raised by Hilary Putnam. Putnam claims that Wittgenstein's dismissal of the basic tenets of this set theory concerning the noncountability of the set of real numbers was unfounded and ill-conceived. In Wheeler's view, Putnam's charges result from his failure to grasp Wittgenstein's intention and, in particular
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Elements of the Philosophy of ‘Right’ Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-12-08 Jonathan Westphal
In the following paper, I discuss the adjectival uses of the English word ‘right’, in ethical and nonethical settings. I distinguish four distinct but related uses. In the central use, which includes the typical ethical applications, what is right is what conforms to a norm, or rule. The emphasis can be on the norm itself, or on the conforming to the norm. The view I offer is not original. It is to
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Dogtooth and Wittgenstein's builders: A future in language? Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-11-15 Daniel Simons
This article grows out of the conviction that (some) films can philosophise. It looks to juxtapose the film Dogtooth and Wittgenstein's builders' example, such that they are seen as philosophising in similar ways over similar issues. Both strike me as probing the possibility—or denial—of a future with language. Using Stanley Cavell and Rush Rhees' responses to Wittgenstein's builders, I register the
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Wittgenstein on Miscalculation and the Foundations of Mathematics Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-11-04 Samuel J. Wheeler
In Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein notes that he has ‘not yet made the role of miscalculating clear’ and that ‘the role of the proposition: “I must have miscalculated”…is really the key to an understanding of the “foundations” of mathematics.’ In this paper, I hope to get clear on how this is the case. First, I will explain Wittgenstein's understanding of a ‘foundation’ for
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Rhees and the distinction between religion and science Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-11-03 John Kinsey
A sharp distinction between religion and science is, it is argued here, implicit in Rush Rhees's thought. This distinction is, moreover, underpinned by a view of philosophy as purely descriptive, which Rhees shares with Wittgenstein. The first half of this paper criticises both the distinction and this view of philosophy. The second half is constructive rather than critical. A pattern of reasoning
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Peter Hacker on forms of representation: A critical evaluation Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-10-31 Hektor K. T. Yan
P. M. S. Hacker's tetralogy on human nature (2007–2021) is a recent contribution to philosophical anthropology. In this work, the expression ‘form of representation’ appears at crucial points of discussion. This paper begins with an exposition and analysis of this notion, followed by a look at how it is utilised in the discussion of knowledge, the mind, and other emotive and moral concepts. It then
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General truths and the danger of relativism in contextual ethics Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-10-13 Duncan Richter
This paper aims at explaining and defending some of Cora Diamond's thinking about the role of a kind of guides to thinking about ethics. Aids to thinking of this type can take a very general form but can also be applied in context-sensitive ways. Maria Balaska has raised the question whether Diamond manages to avoid relativism. Oskari Kuusela also criticises Diamond, focussing on whether talk of human
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Cheryl Misak, Frank Ramsey A Sheer Excess of Powers Oxford University Press, xxxvi + 500 pp., £25.00 hb Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-10-12 Martin Gustafsson
Cheryl Misak's Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers has already gained a lot of attention and well-deserved praise. It is the first comprehensive Ramsey biography, and its level of ambition is remarkable. As Misak writes in the preface, she has ‘tried to satisfy all the parties interested in Ramsey for one reason or another’ (p. xxx). His personal life and intellectual achievements are covered in
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Peter Winch and the idea of immanent transcendence Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-10-08 Peter Vogt
The idea of immanent transcendence is constitutive for Winch's philosophy of religion and his ethics. Winch's philosophy of religion insists on the ‘immanent’ dimension of religion. His ethics insists on the ‘transcendent’ dimension of ethics. In this sense, both religion and ethics embody a perspective ‘beyond’ this world and yet must have practical consequences in this world. Transcendence without
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The origin of the fourfold (Geviert). Heidegger's concept of world in his later philosophy and Plato's concept of kosmos in the Gorgias (507e–508a) Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-10-06 Cătălin Enache
The paper discusses the parallels between late Heidegger's view of the world as a fourfold unity of earth, heavens, the divine and the mortal (the Geviert), and a passage in Plato's Gorgias (507e–508a) where the world (kosmos) is conceived of in a similar way. It is argued, first, that the Gorgias passage is not an isolated remark but rather a point where a number of important Platonic insights come
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Understanding Wittgenstein's positive philosophy through language-games: Giving philosophy peace Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-10-06 Andrey Pukhaev
A significant discrepancy in Wittgenstein's studies is whether Philosophical Investigations contains any trace of positive philosophy, notwithstanding the author's apparent anti-theoretic position. This study argues that the so-called ‘Chapter on philosophy’ in the Investigations §§89–133 contains negative and positive vocabulary and the use of various voices through which Wittgenstein employs his
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The weight of Wittgenstein's standard metre Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-09-22 Thomas Müller
Paragraph 50 of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations famously says that there is one thing of which one can neither state that it is 1 m long nor that it isn't: the standard metre in Paris. Consensus appears to be that (1) exegetically speaking, Wittgenstein affirms this claim, and (2) systematically, whether or not one agrees with it, the practice of using a material artefact as a measurement
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Grammar and analyticity: Wittgenstein and the logical positivists on logical and conceptual truth Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-09-16 Kai Michael Büttner
Wittgenstein's conception of logical and conceptual truth is often thought to rival that of the logical positivists. This paper argues that there are important respects in which these conceptions complement each other. Analyticity, in the positivists' sense, coincides, not with Wittgenstein's notion of a grammatical proposition, but rather with his notion of a tautology. Grammatical propositions can
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Why avowals must be assertions Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-09-07 Ning Fan
In Philosophical Investigations §244, Wittgenstein suggests that we understand avowals (first-person psychological utterances) as manifestations or expressions of the speaker's mental states. An interesting philosophical theory, called expressivism, then develops from this Wittgensteinian idea. However, neo-expressivists disagree with simple expressivists on whether avowals are at the same time assertions
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The Sense of Scriptural Authority Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-08-23 H. Jong Kim
Starting with the puzzlement M O.C. Drury and Rush Rhees felt about Wittgenstein's admonition that believers ought not to pick and choose among the passages of the bible, this paper seeks to clarify the sense of scriptural authority in the Judeo-Christian traditions. This paper argues that (1) picking and choosing, imposing certain criteria external to the Scripture, is grammatically constitutive of
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Wittgenstein on string figures as mathematics: A modern ethnological approach to the limits of empiricism Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-08-16 Andrew English
Wittgenstein’s ‘ethnological approach’ to the philosophy of mathematics, in particular his discussion of calculation as an experiment and the limits of empiricism in mathematics, is presented against three interrelated backdrops: (1) James’ critique of Spencer’s evolutionary empiricism, specifically regarding necessary truths; (2) the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, led by Haddon
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Against ‘Against Slagle's Reading’ Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-08-10 Jim Slagle
Serdal Tümkaya has argued that my critique of eliminative materialism makes several missteps. He argues that eliminativism should be taken as a methodology not a settled conclusion, and the final product may well retain some folk psychology concepts. I respond that methodological eliminativism does avoid self-defeat but does not pose a problem for the folk psychologist. Plus, insofar as eliminativism
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David Cockburn Wittgenstein Human Beings and Conversation (London: Anthem Press, 2022) Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-08-07 Camilla Kronqvist
Reading through David Cockburn's Wittgenstein, Human Beings and Conversation, a quote by Wittgenstein is continuously on my mind. Entrenched in a discussion of the philosophy of mathematics, in the manuscript later published as Philosophical Remarks, he writes, I myself still find my way of philosophizing new, & it keeps striking me so afresh, & that is why I have to repeat myself so often. It will
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Necessity of identity and Tarski's T-schema Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-08-02 Alex Blum
It is argued that Tarski's T-schema and the thesis of the necessity of identity cannot both be true.
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Corrigendum to “Theolologicophilolological Investigations: Is Wittgenstein's Tractatus a Modernist Work?” Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-07-28
Robert V. (2021). Theolologicophilolological Investigations: Is Wittgenstein's Tractatus a Modernist Work?: University of Chicago Press. On the Front Cover, Table of Contents Page, and on p. 274, the title “Theologico-Philological Investigations: Is Wittgenstein's Tractatus a Modernist Work?” was incorrect. The title has been changed to, “Theolologicophilolological Investigations: Is Wittgenstein's
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Anscombe's and von Wright's non-causalist response to Davidson's challenge Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-07-22 Christian Kietzmann
Donald Davidson established causalism, i.e. the view that reasons are causes and that action explanation is causal explanation, as the dominant view within contemporary action theory. According to his “master argument”, we must distinguish between reasons the agent merely has and reasons she has and which actually explain what she did, and the only, or at any rate the best, way to make the distinction
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Wittgenstein on logical truth and bipolarity Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-07-08 Oliver Thomas Spinney
I provide a motivation for Wittgenstein's holding to the view that a necessary condition of an item's possessing a sense is its being capable of truth and capable of falsehood. I argue that Wittgenstein adopted the relevant view in order to defend an approach to the determination of logical truth on which the subject matter of a proposition is irrelevant to our making such a determination. This approach
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Investigative Ordinary Language Philosophy Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-07-08 Doug Hardman, Phil Hutchinson
In this paper, we explicate the method of Investigative Ordinary Language Philosophy (IOLP). The term was coined by John Cook to describe the unique philosophical approach of Frank Ebersole. We argue that (i) IOLP is an overlooked yet valuable philosophical method grounded in our everyday experiences and concerns; and (ii) as such, Frank Ebersole is an important but neglected figure in the history
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Why ‘Is’ Must Entail ‘Ought’ Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-05-25 Ardon Lyon
I argue below for the view that non-moral truths entail moral ones. I first argue that moral claims do have truth values which are objectively true or false. I then argue that this objectivism does not entail non-relativism. I produce a simple possible worlds argument for the entailment view. I then give some examples where p entails q but many intelligent people have thought it does not, and where
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Wittgenstein's New Way of Talking to Himself Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-05-03 CJ Higgins
A lack of consensus persists as to whom exactly the dialogues of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations are between: Wittgenstein and an interlocutor? Or perhaps a variety of interlocutors, none of whom can be identified with Wittgenstein himself? I argue here that this lack of consensus is possibly due to an ambiguity in the ordinary concept of “talking to oneself,” and that a new concept of
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Review of James C. Klagge, Wittgenstein's Artillery: Philosophy as Poetry , the MIT Press, 2021, Xii + 258 Pp. Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-04-28 Duncan Richter
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Wittgenstein’s 1929–30 inquiries into probability Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-04-14 Florian Franken Figueiredo
In Wittgenstein’s manuscripts dating from 1929 and 1930, there are a number of entries on the notion of probability. In this paper, I explore Wittgenstein’s manuscripts between October 1929 and March 1930 and demonstrate, first, that Wittgenstein completely rejects the assumption that probability statements are based on an a priori principle. Second, I argue that the standard interpretation, which
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Against Slagle’s Reading of Eliminative Materialism on Self-Defeating Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-04-12 Serdal Tümkaya
Jim Slagle claims that eliminative materialism (EM) denies some of the mind’s self-evident properties, such as intentionality, qualia and the view that beliefs are real or veridical. I, herein, will argue that what EM denies is actually the folk psychological notion of belief, not belief as such. The Churchlands construe propositional belief as merely one kind of representation in the larger representational
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Knowledge of Oneself and of Others: Aquinas, Wittgenstein and Rembrandt☆ Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-03-02 John Haldane
Current discussions of self-knowledge focus on awareness of mental states, but a more ancient concern is with knowing one’s nature and with living well in light of that. Pursuit of this Socratic imperative has been associated with a tradition of self-identification contributed to by Plato, Plotinus, Augustine and Descartes. Their ideas are distinguished and discussed, but another perspective is developed
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The concept of relation and the explanation of the phenomenon of Entanglement Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-02-12 Aldo Stella, Tiziano Cantalupi, Giancarlo Ianulardo
We investigate from a philosophical point of view the concept of relation that is used to explain the physical phenomenon of Entanglement. If the concept of relation is understood in the ordinary sense of the mono-dyadic construct, which requires a middle term between the two extremes, it is aporetic and, thus, incapable of explaining the phenomenon. To the contrary, we propose to think the relation
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Wittgenstein's Account of Music and its Comparison to Language: Understanding, Experience and Rules Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-02-05 Marco Marchesin
In this article, I discuss Wittgenstein’s conception of music, musical understanding and the sense of comparing music to language. I argue that for Wittgenstein, musical understanding is describable as a specific kind of experience that is public and sharable. I then reject any formalist view, which asserts that musical understanding is exclusively an ability to follow a set of established rules. Second
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Non-Propositional Regulation Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-01-30 Giuseppe Lorini, Stefano Moroni
When thinking about how human behaviour is regulated, one generally imagines a regulation consisting of norms linguistically expressed in sentences: that is, “sentential deontic regulation”. However, this notion of regulation is reductive because there are (non-deontic and) non-sentential forms of regulation. In this article, we do not restrict our investigation to (non-deontic and) non-sentential
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Manufacturing the placebo effect Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-01-30 Doug Hardman
In the context of modern medicine, the placebo effect is a troublesome and controversial phrase. In this paper, I use investigative ordinary language philosophy to try to get clear on what it means. In so doing, I uncover three points. (i) The placebo effect makes sense in research but not clinical practice. (ii) To make the phrase make sense in clinical practice, we must manufacture a situation in
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Rule-Following and Objective Spirit Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-01-08 Thomas J. Spiegel
This paper deals with Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox, focussing on the infinite rule-regress as featured in Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. I argue that one of the most salient and popular proposed solutions (championed by John McDowell), which argues that rule-following is grounded in “custom,” “practice” or “form of life, remains unsatisfactory because part of this proposal
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Investigating “Man’s Relation to Reality”: Peter Winch, the Vanishing Shed and Metaphysics after Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations Pub Date : 2022-01-05 Olli Lagerspetz
Peter Winch believed that the central task of philosophy was to investigate ‘the force of the concept of reality’ in human practices. This involved creative dialogue with critical metaphysics. In ‘Ceasing to Exist’, Winch considered what it means to judge that something unheard-of has happened. Referring to Wittgenstein, Winch argued that judgments concerning reality must relate our observations to