James Cargile

The Surprise Test Paradox

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Pascal's Wager

A. Pascals statement of his wager argument is couched in terms of the theory of probability and the theory of games, and the exposition is unclear and unnecessarily complicated. The following is a ‘creative’ reformulation of the argument designed to avoid some of the objections which have been or might be raised against the original.

Real and Nominal Definitions

Defining is either giving the meaning of words or other linguistic things, which is called “nominal definition” or clarifying a given meaning, which is a proposition or property or relation, by showing it to be a compound of other propositions or properties or relations, which is called “real definition”.

On the burden of proof

The phrase ‘burden of proof’ or ‘onus probandi’ originally referred to something determined by a judge in a legal proceeding. Some claims would be accepted as true by the court, and other relevant claims would require proving. The burden of doing this proving could be assigned to one or another party by the judge. Success or failure to meet this burden could be determined by the judge or the jury, as could consequences of success or failure.

Tense and Existence

There are two familiar conceptions of the nature of time. A. The ‘dynamic’ conception, according to which not all times are equally real. One version of this conception has it that only one time, the present, is real, the others either once existed or will exist, but do not at present exist. B. The ‘block universe’ or ‘static’ conception, associated with the slogan that all times are equally real.

On "Alexander's" Dictum

The dictum “To exist is to have causal powers” is discussed sympathetically by Plato in The Sophist 246E‐248A. The question what this slogan means in Plato’s language, is a challenge for a scholar. To ask what it means in our common language risks raising a complex question. The idea of causal power is of folk origin and is deeply connected with the idea of agency. It is not the sledgehammer that causes the rock to crumble, but John Henry or his rival, the steam drill. The intrusion of agency can be reduced by shifting the focus from “causal power” to “causal role”, but this further clouds an already vague criterion. As an ontological criterion, the requirement of causal power has been primarily invoked in modern times, by materialists. This tends to proceed from the assumption that standard material objects pass easily. This is unwarranted for more than one reason. When we try to imagine examples of causal power, three competing metaphysical theories differ over the initial candidates. Many dualists and materialists may agree (hastily, it will be argued later) that material objects unproblematically have causal powers, just by virtue of having mass. Exotic entities of microphysics may pose problems, but these include problems for the very meaning of the classification of “material” or “physical”. Or consider the space in my office. Many would incline to the view that in this space there are points, lines, circles, triangles, etc. They would agree that there is in my office more than one rectangle with area greater than 200 square feet, but no circle with area that large. They would agree that there are as many points in the space in my office as there are in Grand Central Station, etc. These would be points of physical space and physical points of space (why not?). But they have no mass and assigning them causal powers would call for a different approach from the one followed for massive things. Just how it would be made out is not

On Russell's Argument Against Resemblance Nominalism

Russell famously argued that Resemblance Nominalism leads to a vicious infinite regress in attempting to avoid admitting universals. Saying that a number of things are white only in that they resemble a particular white thing leaves a number of resemblances to that white thing, each of them constituting the holding of the same relation to the paradigm, qualifying that resemblance relation as a universal. Trying to dismiss that new universal by appeal to resemblances between those first resemblances only leads to a new universal of resemblance, and so on. It is argued here that this does not arise for a properly formulated resemblance theory, which only requires one complex relation among the many particulars we deal with, a complex relation which is not multiply instantiated and thus not a universal.

Comments on “The Priority of Human Interests”

There are, apparently, people who think that a dog’s life is as valuable as a human’s, who would hold that if it is a choice between saving a human being or saving a dog but not both, there is no prima facie basis for preferring the human. One can even imagine someone extending this attitude to insects or plants. And there is no a priori reason to assume that such people are unlikely to be converted by argument. It is logically possible that someone might be led reluctantly to such a position by the fallacy of affirming the consequent, and give it up with relief when his mistake is pointed out. But on a posteriori grounds I am pessimistic about the prospects for discussions with such thinkers.

What is a Natural Property

In Principia Ethica Moore held that the meaning of the word ‘good’ is a simple, unanalysable, non-natural property. Several features of this claim might be questioned. It might be questioned whether there are properties at all, and whether, even if there are, they are ever the meanings of words. Again, it might be questioned whether the word ‘good’ expresses a property, even assuming that some other words do. Moore considers this latter question, but not the former (in Principia Ethica ). The two questions may seem connected by the fact that a negative answer to the first trivially leads to a negative answer for the second. But this triviality should be a caution to us. Otherwise we may confuse nominalism with ethical non-cognitivism or ‘anti-realism’.

Proposition and Tense

McTaggart assumed (1) that propositions cannot change in truth value and (2) if (a) there is real change, then (b) events must acquire the absolute property of being present and then lose this property. He held that {1,2b} is an inconsistent set and thus inferred ∼2a—that there is no real change. The B theory rejects 2 and the A theory rejects 1. I accept 1, 2, 2a, and consequently, 2b, and argue that this is consistent. There is an absolute property of presentness, but we can never predicate this property without producing an assertion in which that property is “chronologized.” If at t, we attribute presentness, we thereby attribute presentness-att. We can grasp the existence of an absolute property which we are unable to attribute absolutely. Kant discusses a formulation of what he calls “the principle of contradiction”: “It is impossible that anything should be and at the same time not be” [ 1]. He objects that the term “impossible” is redundant, and more importantly, that the principle “as a purely logical principle, must not be limited in its application by time; and the beforementioned formula runs therefore counter to its very nature.” Kant is not saying that the formula is not a necessary truth. Nor is he saying that there are no things such that they could at one time be and at another time not be, so that the formula for such things would require the temporal qualification he finds objectionable in a logical law. It is just that for such things as propositions, as intended in classical logic, we say simply that no such thing can be both true and not true, without needing any such qualification as “at the same time”. Temporally qualifying the principle of contradiction may suggest that it is about things that change truth value over time. Of course, the principle is about absolutely everything, including itself, and including sentences or “propositions” which change truth value over time. But it could be held that the principle does not require temporal qualification even for one who believes that propositions change truth value. It is a defensible view that “Nothing is both red and not red” is not refuted by the existence of a wall which is at one time red and at another, not. Similarly for all properties, whether or not they are “chronologized.” Still, Kant’s point has a stylistic basis. Received September 29, 1998; revised March 1, 2000 PROPOSITION AND TENSE 251 The formulation he criticizes suggests (even though it may not entail) the attitude that propositions, as properly intended in the classical rule that no proposition is both true and false, are of a nature such that we should add the qualifier “at the same time.” We may consider whether this is true. An example of something which might seem capable of being true at one time and false at another is: A. The sundial is illuminated at present. There may be a notion of “proposition” such that some such is associated with the sentence A in certain uses and, like the sentence, changes in truth value. But let us consider the proposition in the classical sense, as the entire content of what is said in aparticular use of A. Suppose someone uses A to make a statement at noon on Monday. At noon on Tuesday he asserts the sentence A again, in reference to the very same sundial, to the very same audience. We can keep the circumstances as similar as we like, except that there is a day separating the two assertions. The proposition conveyed by asserting the sentence A on Monday is MA, the one on Tuesday is TA. Question: Is MA = T ? Someone who holds there is such a property as being present should feel some pressure to conclude that MA = TA. It would seem that both attribute the very same property, being illuminated at present, to the very same thing, the sundial. One could hold that in spite of this, they differ in content. But then it should be a problem to explain how they differ, for those who hold that there is a property of being present and thus a property of being both present and illuminated. Consider the following: B. This case of the sundial’s being illuminated is present. Could this sentence B be used on Monday to make the same assertion as MA? What information would be conveyed by asserting one that would not be conveyed by asserting the other? One suggestion (due to an anonymous referee) is that use of “this case” signals that a direct reference by ostension is being made, and this is information not signaled by the use of A. On this account, the content of MA is conveyed by MA*: The sundial’s illumination has the property of presentness, whereas the content of MB is conveyed by MB*: Whatever case of the sundial’s illumination that is being demonstrated or ostended has the property of presentness. The suggestion is that A could be used to refer to a case of a sundial being illuminated when the dial was not in the near vicinity and not being ostended, for example, if the speaker and audience were in the United States and the dial were in Egypt, while B could not properly be so used. On the contrary, B could just as successfully be used to refer, from the vantage of the U.S., to a dial in Egypt. There would need to be some prior understanding that a sundial in Egypt is under discussion, perhaps concerned with various important consequences triggered by the exposure of that dial to light. Having described the results of a number of cases of illuminating the dial, perhaps by moving it outside or