David H. Sanford

Contraries and Subcontraries

(1) On the presupposition that something exists which satisfies the subject term, any two corresponding categorical statements of the forms A and E are contraries. (2) Two statements are contraries if and only if they cannot both be true, but can both be false. (3) On the presupposition that something exists which satisfies the subject term, any two corresponding categorical statements of the forms I and 0 are subcontraries. (4) Two statements are subcontraries if and only if they cannot both be false, but can both be true.

Nostalgia for the ordinary: Comments on papers by Unger and Wheeler

The furniture of the earth includes no furniture, according to Peter Unger and Samuel C. Wheeler, III. There are no tables, chairs, or footstools. There is no planet Earth, for that matter. Neither are there sticks or stones, logs or boulders. Unger restricts his denials of existence in the paper under discussion to ordinary inanimate objects, but both he and Wheeler are clearly inclined also to deny the existence of all plants and all animals including persons. Although both Wheeler and Unger use sorites arguments in their attempts to prove that there are no ordinary things, there is a great difference between their arguments. This difference can be expressed by invoking the simple metaphysical contrast between Appearance and Reality. Wheeler and Unger both think that the apparent exis tence of ordinary things is merely apparent. Unger argues that Ap pearance convicts itself of incoherence. His beliefs about reality are mainly negative: tables do not really exist, stones do not really exist, and so forth. On the question how Reality should be positively described, Unger can remain agnostic. Wheeler apparently agrees with Unger that ordinary beliefs about Appearance are internally inconsistent. Unlike Unger, however, he has strong views about the positive nature of the Real, on what is required for genuine causation, genuine properties, genuine kinds, and genuine reference to things in the world. Wheelers main reason for rejecting Appearance as a sham and illusion is that he supposes there to be a conflict between the Real and the Apparent.

USES AND ABUSES OF FUZZINESS IN PHILOSOPHY: A SELECTIVE SURVEY OF HOW RECENT PHILOSOPHICAL LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS TREAT VAGUENESS

This is a selective summary of work done by philosophers on the concept of vagueness (or fuzziness) accompanied by a selective annotated bibliography organized topically. The main topics covered are: the sorites paradox, the semantic technique of supervaluations, the definition of first-order and higher-order borderline cases by means of a determinacy operator, arguments that the existence of vagueness precludes the coherence of observational predicates, such as color terms, and arguments (“The Problem of the Many”) that the existence of vagueness precludes the existence of ordinary things. Attempts to meet these last two arguments often encounter the problem of inappropriate precision, the problem of importing inappropriately high degrees of exactness into theoretical treatments of inexactness.

Armstrong’s Theory of Perception

Almost everything D. M. Armstrong published in the first decade of his publishing career (1954-1963) was about the philosophy of perception. Some of his most recent writings are also in this area. Although the first section of this essay, which discusses Armstrong’s purposes for distinguishing immediate from mediate perception and also provides an introduction to his central views about the nature of perception, begins by considering his first three books in the order of their publication, I will not persist in a chronological treatment of Armstrong’s writings nor attempt to survey his contributions item by item.

Notes on Logics of Vagueness and Some Applications

Spatial representations of vague predicates indicate that logics of vagueness should retain classical theorems. This can be accomplished either by super-valuations or by non-truth-functional multivalued semantics. These approaches can be combined. Logics of vagueness are usefu l in dealing with arguments concerning infinity, arguments which purport to show the inconsistency of our ordinary concepts, and the distinction between simple and complex predicates.

Hume and the Problem of Causation.

idea because the term also revives the ‘custom’ or disposition to call up ideas of other particular instances. (1997, 103) Garrett calls the set of particular instances to which the relevant term refers its ‘revival set’ (1997, 103). The contrast here is with Locke, for whom abstract ideas are formed, as the name suggests, by a process of abstraction: we form a single abstract idea – cat, say –