【Philosophy】African philosophy cannot be a thing
This essay unpacks several arguments about the metaphilosophic nature of African philosophy and charts a way through the problems these arguments enco... [more]
【Philosophy】Fusion Philosophy and Epistemic Injustice
I use the concept of epistemic injustice to think through the practice and methodology of comparative, or fusion, philosophy. I make two related claim... [more]
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Sets and classes as many
In this paper the view is developed that classes should not be understood as individuals, but, rather, as 'classes as many' of individuals. To correlate classes with individuals 'labelling' and 'colabelling' functions are introduced and sets identif
Semantics for the logic of essence
This paper provides a possible worlds semantics for the system of the author's previous paper 'The logic of essence'. The basic idea behind the semantic is that a statement should be taken to be true in virtue of the nature of certain objects just in c
Unreal Friends
It has become quite common for people to develop `personal' relationships nowadays, exclusively via extensive correspondence across the Net. Friendships, even romantic love relationships, are apparently, flourishing. But what kind of relations really are
Mach's phenomenalism and the British reception of mendelism
The assimilation of Mendel's paper into Britain look place in an Edwardian social context. This paper concentrates on the interplay of empirical and philosophical issues in this reception. A feature of the British reception of mendelism, not duplicated e
Mendelism: from hybrids and trade to a science
In this paper I explore the historical context in which news of the rediscovery of Mendel's laws was received in England. This exploration leads me to the Cambridge zoologist, William Bateson, to his exploitation of the prestige and support of the Royal
Preferences in their place
In at least some of their forms, Cost-Benefit techniques for the evaluation of environmental projects and policies treat the preferences of citizens as the sole determinants of the value of outcomes. There are two salient ways in which this supposition mi
Darwinian ethics and error
Suppose that the human tendency to think of certain actions and omissions as morally required - a notion that surely lies at the heart of moral discourse - is a trait that has been naturally selected for. Many have thought that from this premise we can ju
Adaptation and moral realism
Conventional wisdom has it that evolution makes a sham of morality, even if morality is an adaptation. I disagree. I argue that our best current adaptationist theory of meaning offers objective truth conditions for signaling systems of all sorts. The obje
The engagement of religion and biology: A case study in the mediating role of metaphor in the sociob
I claim that explanations of human behaviour by Edward O. Wilson and Charles Lumsden are constituted by a religiously functioning metaphysics: emergent materialism. The constitutive effects are identified using six criteria, beginning with a metaphorical
Functional complexity in organisms: Parts as proxies
The functional complexity, or the number of functions, of organisms has figured prominently in certain theoretical and empirical work in evolutionary biology. Large-scale trends in functional complexity and correlations between functional complexity and o
Richard Rorty: Philosophy by other means
Richard Rorty's argumentative strategy variously termed pragmatist, postmodernist, and postphilosophical is examined in some detail in the context of his treatment of philosophical issues in general and of the views of other philosophers in particular, f
Women, evil, and gray zones (Resistance in coercive institutions)
Gray zones, which develop wherever oppression is severe and lasting, are inhabited by victims of evil who become complicit in perpetrating on others the evils that threaten to engulf themselves. Women, who have inhabited many gray zones, present challenge
Ethics naturalized: Feminism's contribution to moral epistemology
A survey of Western feminist ethics over the past thirty years reveals considerable diversity; nonetheless, much recent work in this area is characterized by its adoption of a naturalistic approach. Such an approach is similar to that found in contemporar
Henkin quantifiers and the definability of truth
Henkin quantifiers have been introduced in Henkin (1961). Walkoe (1970) studied basic model-theoretical properties of an extension L-1 (H) of ordinary first-order languages in which every sentence is a first-order sentence prefixed with a Henkin quantifie
Fuzzy health, illness, and disease
The notions of health, illness, and disease are fuzzy-theoretically analyzed. They present themselves as non-Aristotelian concepts violating basic principles of classical logic. A recursive scheme for defining the controversial notion of disease is propos