P. F. Strawson

The purpose of this brief paper is to elucidate the concept of the person as a member of a communal or civil society. It will try to answer the question as to what makes a person a person, and the corollary question as to how the person should be related to communal society.

Thomas Nagel in ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ suggests that we don’t yet have much idea of how mental entities could be identical with physical ones (though he wisely stops short of accusing physicalists of not meaning ANYTHING WHATSOEVER by their identity-claims).  Colin McGinn goes further by suggesting that we may forever remain in this state of ignorance and incomprehension because of the inherent limitations of the human intellect.  I argue that the mere possibility that McGinn is right shows that it is over-hasty to conclude from philosophy’s failure to solve its problems that there must be something wrong with the problems themselves.  I also try to relate Nagel’s and McGinn’s view to David Stove’s response to philosophy’s apparent failure to make much progress.  He seems pessimistic about whether we will ever fully understand what is wrong with some philosophical claims.

In “On Denoting” Bertrand Russell uses the phrase “the present King of France” as an example of a denoting phrase that does not actually refer to an existent object. This is opposed to phrases that denote to existent objects, such as “the present queen of England”, or denote ambiguously, like “that man”. Russell shows with his theory of denoting that propositions containing a non-denoting phrase still has a definite truth-value. That is, the proposition, “the present King of France is bald” is false. Russell manages this by first asserting that our referring phrases contain hidden existential premises and then by translating the English propositions into symbolic logic.
P. F. Strawson responds to this, claiming that non-denoting phrases are neither true nor false. It is only when a phrase successfully denotes an object that one can say whether or not the use of the phrase was true or false. Russell responds to his criticisms almost dismissively, asserting he and Strawson are not using terms the same way. I will briefly explain Russell’s theory as it applies to the proposition “the present King of France is bald” and how it is false. Then I will describe Strawson’s arguments against Russell as well as Russell’s rebuttal. Finally, I will show how, while Russell is ultimately correct logically, one aspect of Strawson’s idea on usage is correct.

This paper critically examines three key works of analytic Kantianism: C. I. Lewis, Mind and the World Order, P. F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense, and Wilfrid Sellars, Science and Metaphysics, focussing on their respective approaches to Kant’s Transcendental Deduction.

斯特劳逊 （Strawson）的语义预设概念在语义学和语言哲学研究上颇有建树。尽管如此，语义预设概念一直遭受来自各方面的批判。概要说来，对语义预设概念之批判主要来自两个方面：其一，试图抽去语义预设概念的逻辑基础，即非真值概念 (the notion of truthvaluelessness)，从而达到间接地拒斥语义预设概念之目的。其二，直接批判语义预设概念本身。他们或者论证此概念在理论上不自恰或微不足道，或者断定即使此概念本身在理论上自恰，但实为一空洞无物之概念。因为我们根本找任何一个语义预设的具体例证。所以，语义预设概念不具任何真正的哲学意义。它只是一个当代神话，理应拒斥。

玻尔(S. Ber)和莱肯(W. Lycan)对语义预设概念的批判集中代表了以上两个方面。据我所知，迄今不曾有人对他们的批判予以全面和公正的反驳，以致于许多人人云亦云，使得他们的论点至今颇有影响。给予玻尔和莱恩的批判以全面反驳乃本文初衷。于此相关，我以为很有必要澄清对语义预设概念的诸多误解，从而确立一个理论上自恰，实际上可行，和确有实质性内容的语义预设概念。基于以上考虑，我对语义预设概念批判之反驳包括正 反两个方面。在第二节，我试图建立一个自恰，完备，非庸俗的语义预设概念。基于这一概念，第三节对玻尔和莱恩反对语义预设的两个核心批判予以全面反驳。第四节着重辩护非真值概念。本文的最后结论是：各种批判并未损伤斯特劳逊的语义预设概念的精髓。语 义预设概念非但不是一个当代神话，而且具有重大哲学意义。

Este artículo trata de elaborar una nueva teoría y taxonomía
de las emociones básicas implicadas en las atribuciones
de responsabilidad a partir de los trabajos de
Peter F. Strawson y Robert J. Wallace, entre otros. Por
ello en un primer lugar se aborda de forma crítica la
obra de dichos autores, para más adelante construir a
partir de ella una propuesta original que define con precisión
con qué sentimientos atribuimos responsabilidad
y hasta qué punto es moral dicha atribución emotiva. Se
trata pues de estudiar el juego al que siempre estamos
ya jugando de dar y pedir responsabilidades mediante
emociones con las que juzgamos moralmente las acciones
propias y ajenas.

This article aims to elaborate a new theory and taxonomy
of the reactive attitudes present in adscriptions of
moral responsibility, taking as a starting point the ones
developed by Peter F. Strawson, Robert J. Wallace and
other authors. To this aim, after a critical study of the
work of these philosophers, I will try to work out a new
account of the emotions with which we attribute responsibility,
reviewing the moral scope of such emotive adscription.
The final aim of those pages is, therefore, studying
the game we’re always already playing of asking
and being asked for responsibility through emotions
with which we make moral judgments of both our own
and other people’s actions.

In this paper, I argue that regret should be considered one of the reactive emotions insofar as it is a self-reactive attitude. First, I consider what it is for something to be a reactive attitude. I contend that reactive attitudes are emotions towards a subject concerning the subject’s responsibility for something of normative import (but not necessarily of moral import). In the case of regret, I argue, the subject responds to herself as responsible for something (possibly or actually) sub-optimal. In addition, regret is distinguished from other emotions like shame in that regret always involves some desire (even if only a faint one) to have behaved differently. The first condition is the condition of responsibility; the second is that of revision. Emotion theorists routinely exclude one or both of these conditions when describing regret. I think that this is a mistake. First, it is widely accepted that remorse is a reactive attitude whereby one feels responsible for some negative outcome of their actions and, as a result, wishes to right the wrong. In addition, remorse is often considered a species of the larger class, regret. If regret is not itself a reactive attitude, the burden is on the opposition to explain how this can be so while remorse is a reactive attitude. Second, I argue that the explanation cannot be simply that remorse involves responsibility and revision whereas regret does not, because all previous descriptions of regret absent these conditions are inadequate. I show this by illustrating the criteria laid out by scholars and providing counter-examples to these descriptions. The counter-examples satisfy the criteria given by emotion theorists who deny the two criteria I wish to add, and these examples are clearly instances of other emotions (and not instances of regret). From here, I acknowledge that, by adding the two criteria and considering regret a reactive attitude, there are some cases commonly referred to as regret that will be excluded. I argue that such instances are rightfully excluded, and that our reference to regret in such instances is metaphorical, hyperbolic, or simply mistaken. Finally, I review recent findings in neuroscience (mainly various instances of fMRI studies) that suggest regret does indeed involve some sense of responsibility and a desire for revision.

This paper argues that there is no such thing as knowledge for its own sake. Since knowledge is currently the dominant economic resource it is important for the specialist to broaden his mind in order to develop within himself the humanistic attitude that will enable him to use his knowledge for good rather than for evil purposes.
I

Contemporary orthodoxy affirms that singular terms cannot be predicates and that, therefore, ‘is’ is ambiguous as between predication and identity. Recent attempts to treat names as predicates do not challenge this orthodoxy. The orthodoxy was built into the structure of modern formal logic by Frege. It is defended by arguments which I show to be unsound. I provide a semantical account of atomic sentences which draws upon Mill’s account of predication, connotation and denotation. I show that singular terms may be predicates, that it is highly implausible that there is an ‘is’ of identity in natural languages, and that modern formal logic is deficient in that it cannot recognise propositions, including singular existentials, in which singular terms are predicates, or inferences which depend upon the logical role rather than the logical category of expressions.

The second essay of the Genealogy of Morality (GM II) is proclaimed by Nietzsche to be the "long history of the origins of responsibility," but the immediate context in which this claim is made, coupled with GM II's broader aims and themes, makes interpreting this claim immensely difficult. For one thing, Nietzsche endorses an ideal of responsibility in relation to the sovereign individual, but the rest of the essay is concerned with providing an account of the origins of conscience, bad conscience, and guilt-that is, an account of moral capacities that most humans possess. More problematically, this account appears to be inconsistent with Nietzsche's persistent and emphatic denial of free will and moral responsibility throughout his other works. I first consider and critique two kinds of strategies employed in the literature for addressing these issues. I then propose a Strawsonian reading of GM II which I think does a better job of solving them. I contend that GM II analyzes the idea of "responsibility" naturalistically in terms of the practice of holding oneself and others responsible, as constituted by what Nietzsche calls the "reactive affects," namely guilt. As for P.F. Strawson, a consequence of this is that libertarian free will is not a condition of responsible agency.

This article notices a trend in work done by philosophers who build on P. F. Strawson's account of the reactive attitudes; it looks as though philosophers supplement Strawson with (or claim that Strawson has underlying commitments to) a more robust ethical program in order to address questions concerning the moral appropriateness of the reactive attitudes. I argue feminist care ethics can serve as a promising moral supplement to Strawson. Then, I diagnose a problem in Strawsonnamely, the assumption that members of moral communities will express all three kinds of reactive attitudes (toward the self, directly toward others, and indirectly on behalf of others). Once we consider these three expressions from a feminist perspective, it becomes clear that while some may express indignation on behalf of others and guilt toward themselves, many will not express resentment directly toward others for good reasons under oppressive conditions.

O presente volume reúne uma série de ensaios com um propósito comemorativo dos 50 anos de publicação da obra The Bounds of Sense, de Peter F. Strawson, por sua reconhecida contribuição para uma interpretação crítica e propositiva da Crítica da razão
pura de Kant

En este artículo analizaré la concepción de la responsabilidad moral propuesta por P.F. Strawson en "Libertad y resentimiento". Argumentaré que dicha concepción resulta pertinente para pensar algunos aspectos de la actual pandemia de COVID-19, en particular, aquellos referidos a la cooperación entre individuos y su dimensión afectiva.

There is stock argument against libertarianism: that the indeterminism it postulates makes human choice a matter of chance and this is no better as a basis for practical rationality and moral responsibility than the most rigid determinism.  I suggest that a similar problem arises on deterministic assumptions: although human choice is no longer a matter of mere chance, it remains arbitrary since whatever explains a person’s choice to act on the reasons for an action rather than those against, it is not a matter of reasons that were reasons FOR THAT PERSON.  The explanatory gap is closed in the wrong way for the impression of sheer arbitrariness to be cancelled.  I discuss (via a digression on F. H. Bradley) whether Davidson’s ‘anomalous monism’ would, if correct, necessitate any modification to this conclusion.  I also ask how the problem addressed in this paper relates to Galen Strawson’s rejection of the possibility of complete autonomy or self-determination.

Purpose: There is a widespread recognition that biomedical explanations offer benefits to those diagnosed with a mental disorder. Recent research points out that such explanations may nevertheless have stigmatizing effects. In this study, this 'mixed blessing' (Haslam and Kvaale 2015) account of biomedical explanations is investigated in a case of philosophical interest: Tourette Syndrome. Method: We conducted a vignette survey with 221 participants in which we first assessed quantitative attributions of blame as well as the desire for social distance for behavior associated with Tourette Syndrome. Results: In our study, it is confirmed that in the case of biomedical explanations, less blame is attributed than in the case of psychosocial explanations. When presented with a mixed (or an epigenetic) explanation stressing an entanglement of biological and psychosocial factors this did not increase blame attribution. The desire for social distance is unaffected by the type of explanation but the participants' free text feedback indicates this might obfuscate an underlying dilemma between stigma and blame revealed in recent research. Conclusion: There seems to be potential for blame reduction in explanations where biological and psychosocial factors are entangled. However, dynamic, 'epigenetic', explanations require further qualitative research to be performed as well as a philosophical framework to account for the 'mixed blessings' account.

Alors qu’il occupe une chaire de philosophie à l’Université de Tunis, Michel Foucault, dans sa correspondance d’avril 1967, précise : « J’ai suspendu toute écriture pour regarder d’un peu près Wittgenstein et les analystes anglais », en espérant y trouver les« style et niveau d’analyse que je cherchais en pataugeant cet hiver » (Dits et Écrits, Gallimard tome I, 1994, p. 30). De fait, nous trouvons dans la boîte 43 des Archives Foucault 23 dossiers concernant la philosophie analytique. Ces dossiers comprennent 313 fiches classées sous 257 titres. L’ampleur de ces notes de lecture atteste que Michel Foucault considère comme partie prenante d’un même paradigme de la philosophie analytique aussi bien le positivisme logique du cercle de Vienne, autour de Carnap principalement, mais aussi de Schlick et Neurath, que les philosophes du langage ordinaire de l’école d’Oxford, en l’occurrence Searle, Austin, Strawson et Ryle. Michel Foucault consacre également des dossiers, dans le même ensemble, aux interlocuteurs majeurs des philosophes analytiques, principalement Charles Morris, Russel et Wittgenstein, et secondairement Frege et Moore. S’y adjoignent aussi de nombreux dossiers thématiques (« Avowals », « Assertion et croyance », « Truth », « sémantique », « Langage et culture », « Events et propositions », « Langage ordinaire », « La causalité », « Langues formalisées ») dont les contenus s’entrecroisent aves les dossiers auteurs, tout en montrant l’intérêt de Michel Foucault pour d’autres philosophes analytiques.

Nous présentons, sur le site Foucault-Fiches de lecture la liste téléchargeable des références bibliographiques prises en compte par Foucault d’une note de lecture à l’autre, aboutissant à une Bibliographie générale des ouvrages et articles lus, annotés, et traduits partiellement de l’anglais par Michel Foucault à propos de la philosophie analytique. Préalablement, nous commençons notre parcours virtuel en présentant des exemples de la manière dont Foucault insère les références dans ses fiches, tout en montrant comment, à partir de la référence bibliographique, sa lecture ouvre à des questions de nature pragmatique concernant la nominalisation et l’acte de définir sous forme de traductions.

voir le contenu de l'exposition virtuelle  via l'URL http://eman-archives.org/Foucault-fiches/exhibits/show/j-guilhaumou-philo-analytique


Tags: langage, logique, Philosophie analytique

According to one version of reason-responsive compatibilism, the role of moral sentiments is limited to explaining what is required for holding an agent responsible. In contrast with this, the role of reason responsiveness is to explain what moral capacities are required for an agent to be responsible, one who is a legitimate or fair target of our moral sentiments. More specifically, according to this view, moral sense is not required for rational self- control or reason responsiveness. There is, therefore, no requirement that the responsible agent has some capacity to feel moral sentiment. Contrary to this view, I argue that a responsible agent must be capable of holding herself and others responsible. Failing this, an agent’s powers of rational self-control will be both limited and impaired. In so far as holding responsible requires moral sense, it follows that being responsible also requires moral sense. Moral sense is, therefore, a condition of responsible agency.

Este artigo narra a história de uma divergência, e por meio
dela apresenta algumas diferenças entre as filosofias destes dois
grandes filósofos contemporâneos, P. F. Strawson (1919-2006) e
W. V. Quine (1909-2000). O objeto declarado da divergência de
que aqui tratamos foi a tese da eliminabilidade dos termos
singulares, rejeitada por Strawson e defendida por Quine. Como
seguidamente acontece em divergências filosóficas, também esta
tinha raízes mais profundas, nas concepções de filosofia e nos
projetos filosóficos em que cada um se engajou. Como essa é uma
situação filosófica recorrente, e como o desvelamento das raízes
mais profundas de divergências declaradas pode ser esclarecedor
para todos (uma espécie de moral da história), e como, ainda, a
divergência particular protagonizada por Quine e Strawson ecoa
diversas outras da história da filosofia, vale a pena rever alguns
detalhes desse vai e vem dialético de Strawson e Quine a respeito
de termos singulares.

I examine in this paper the experience of "resentment" in Chinese and European ethical thinking, particularly in early Confucian ethics and in Nietzsche's genealogy of ressentiment. Self-cultivation is articulated in the Analects in light of issues of recognition and resentment. In contrast to European discourses of recognition and resentment, the compilers of the Analects recognized the pervasiveness of resentment under certain social conditions and the ethical demand to counter it both within oneself and in relation to others. In early Confucian ethics, resentment is understood in a variety of senses. Overcoming resentment in oneself and in others is a primary element of becoming a genuinely exemplary or noble person in the ethical sense; the ignoble person by contrast is fixated on his or her own limited and self-interested concerns. Whereas contemporary Western ethical theory typically assumes that symmetry and equality are the primary means of overcoming resentment, I examine how the asymmetrical recognition of the priority of the other appears necessary for overcoming resentment in the Analects. Early Confucian ethics integrates a nuanced and realistic moral psychology of resentment and the ethical self-cultivation necessary for dismantling it in promoting a condition of humane benevolence. Benevolence is oriented toward others even as it is achieved in the care of the self and self-cultivation.
摘要本文檢視中國與歐洲倫理思想對「憤」的體驗，尤其是早期儒家倫理中的「憤」與尼采對「憤」的系列討論。《論語》在闡釋認知與「憤」的議題時談到修身。相對於歐洲對認知與「憤」的討論，《論語》的編輯者已經意識到「憤」在特定社會條件下的普遍性，以及自我在內心之中及在與他者互動時與「憤」對抗的倫理需求。早期儒家倫理對「憤」有種種不同層面的理解。就倫理層面而言，克服在自我內心中以及對他者的「憤」是成為真正的模範或聖人的首要條件；相對而言，小人將自己侷限在利己的思維中。當代西方倫理理論通常假設克服「憤」的主要方法是對稱和平等。本文探討在《論語》中，以他者為優先的不對稱認知在克服「憤」時何以有其必要。為提升人性的仁，早期儒家倫理將具細微差別和現實的，「憤」的道德心理學，和將「憤」去除時所需要的，合乎道德的修身加以整合。仁的對象是他者，即便仁是因關心自我和修身而達到的。

Frege proposed his doctrine of unsaturatedness as a solution to the problems of the unity of the proposition and the unity of the sentence. I show that Frege’s theory is mystical, ad hoc, ineffective, paradoxical and entails that singular terms cannot be predicates. I explain the traditional solution to the problem of the unity of the sentence, as expounded by Mill, which invokes a syncategorematic sign of predication and the connotation and denotation of terms. I streamline this solution, bring it up to date and contrast the resulting conventionalist account with Frege’s unsaturatedness account. I argue that the conventionalist account provides a clear and intelligible solution to the problem of the unity of the sentence which is free of the defects of Frege’s account. I suggest that the problem of the unity of the proposition is spurious. I recommend that the notion of unsaturatedness be extruded from serious debate.

The article seeks a rapprochement between pragmatic and semantic theories of language by returning to a breaking point in the history of philosophy, the middle of the twentieth century, when these theoretical models began to evolve into distinct schools of thought. Philosophical accounts of this period explore various and intertwined dependencies between semantics and context; however, they only implicitly examine the potential of sounds and bodily ges- tures in bringing descriptive clarity to the modes and limits of such de- pendencies. The article first investigates the way W. V. Quine conceptualized linguistic reference by combining behavioral models of language acquisition with more systematic explorations of syntax. It then turns to P. F. Strawson’s revisionary accounts of Kantian philosophy which reassess the silent strains of empiricism in Kant’s framework in order to identify possible grounds of recon- ciliation between pragmatic and semantic theories of language. Sound and gesture, two aspects that supplement language and give it an embodied feeling, are suggested as possible devices for formalizing intersections between context and semantic-oriented approaches. Poems by Wallace Stevens are used to think about the endurance of reference and how this endurance can find more compelling demonstration through an investigation of language as an embodied phenomenon.

Ding und Begriff stellen den Kern von Peter F. Strawsons Philosophie dar:Worauf beziehen wir uns in unserem alltäglichen Denken und Sprechen undunter welchen Bedingungen können wir uns darauf beziehen? Mit dieserFrage, wie wir die Welt begrifflich erfassen, sind eine Reihe vonProblemstellungen metaphysisch-ontologischer, epistemologischer, logischerund sprachphilosophischer Natur verbunden. An sie knüpfen die hierversammelten Beiträge an. Die systematische Auseinandersetzung mitStrawsons Themen zeigt einige Schwächen seiner Positionen auf, weist aberauch Wege zu möglichen Lösungen und bettet Strawsons Philosophierendadurch in aktuelle Debatten ein.

Strawsons "Individuals" gilt als Versuch der Rehabilitierung der Metaphysik. Während Sinn und Möglichkeit metaphysischer Untersuchungen im Anschluss an den linguistic turn in weiten Kreisen in Frage gestellt wurden, glaubte Strawson, im Rahmen analytischen Philosophierens metaphysische Einsichten gewinnen zu können. In meinem Aufsatz arbeite heraus, dass Strawsons deskriptive Metaphysik erstens nicht nur zu doxastischen, sondern zu ontologischen Ergebnissen führt, dazu zweitens keine Existenzbeweise benötigt und dass drittens die ontologischen Ergebnisse dennoch, aber nur indirekt, antiskeptisch nutzbar gemacht werden können.

IS THE NOTION OF SEMANTIC PRESUPPOSITION EMPTY?
Xinli Wang
in Dialogos 73 (1999), pp. 61-91.

This paper is an attempt to clarify the notion of semantic presupposition and to refute Böer and Lycan's critique of that notion. I present a feasible and coherent formal definition of semantic presupposition after examining several popular definitions of the notion. In terms of my definition, two central arguments against semantic presup¬position presented by Böer and Lycan are analyzed and responded to with care. The conclusion is that the notion of semantic presupposition is not empty but rather is philo¬sophically interesting and fruitful.