James E. Tomberlin

Contrary-to-Duty Imperatives and Conditional Obligation

Evidently, deontic logicians agree with Russell; and, as Butler forewarned, morality is thereby menaced. Since its inception a little over fifty years ago with Ernst Mallys Grundgesetze des Sollens: Elemente der Logik des Willens [ 12], deontic logic has been supplied with a wealth of puzzles-usually referred to as deontic paradoxes in the literature.1 True, the majority of these paradoxes evaporate comfortably enough under close scrutiny2 and yet, some-most notably, the Contrary-toDuty Imperative Paradox and certai^n strengthened versions of the Good Samaritan Paradox-threaten recalcitrance. Of these troublesome cases, my plan, in the present paper, is to focus on the Contrary-to-Duty Imperative Paradox; accordingly, I want to examine how various systems of deontic logic fare against this fascinating puzzle. But which systems of deontic logic, exactly? Because of the large number of available systems, together with understandable space limitations, I am forced to be selective. So forced, I have selected three systems for examination; quite by design, each is representative of the by now highly fashionable conditional obligation approach in deontic logic; although, as we shall see, there are important differences among the three. In particular, for our systems of conditional obligation, I will take up van Fraassens dyadic system [17], Motts monadic system [13],

Hector-Neri Castañeda

One.- Self-Profile.- I. De Re: My Search for Philosophy.- 1. Family and Ecological Background.- 2. Sunday School: My Philosophico-Theological Crisis.- 3. Public Schools: My First Educational Crisis.- 4. Expulsion from the Normal School: My Second Educational Crisis.- 5. Exilio from Highschool.- 6. The Costa Rican Experience: A Grammatological Crisis.- 7. The 1944 Revolution of Guatemala.- 8. University of Minnesota: Philosophical Training and My First Professional Crisis.- 9. Return to Guatemala: My Major Professional Crisis.- 10. Paradisiacal-Hellish Year at Oxford: A Minor Philosophical Crisis.- 11. Philosophizing in the United States.- 12. Promenading Outside the Ivory Tower: u and Its Professional Services.- 13. Wandering Outside the Ivory Tower: Dean of Latino Affairs.- II. De Dicto: My Philosophical Search.- A. Diachronic Capsule.- 1. The Subjective/Objective Tension.- 2. God, Morality, and the Unity of Practical Reasoning.- 3. Language as the Depository of World, Self, and Experience.- 4. Wittgensteins Anti-Private Language Arguments.- 5. Reference, the Language of Other Minds, and Guise Theory.- 6. Overall View of My Philosophical Constructions.- 7. My Concern with the History of Philosophy.- B. Self, Thinking, and Reality.- 1. Exegesis of the Anti-Private Language Situation.- 2. Realism, the Past, Sameness, and Phenomenological Linguistics.- 3. Metaphysical Internalism and the Holistic Indivisible Noumenon.- 4. The Metaphysical Dimension of Semantic Vocabulary.- 5. Five Dimensions of Certainty.- 6. Gross Individual Guises.- 7. The Multifarious Ontological Semiotics of the First-Person Pronoun.- 8. The I-Manifold and Semantic Denotation vs Doxastic Denotation.- 9. The Problem of Sameness in the I-Network.- 10. Self-Consciousness and First-Person Reference.- 11. Indexical Reference and Indexical Guises.- 12. Indicators, David Kaplans Direct Reference, and Indexical Subjectivity.- 13. Perception, Direct Reference, and Perceptual Guises.- 14. Intentional Action and Indexical Reference.- 15. The Causation of Intentional Action.- 16. The Grammar of Indexical (Experiential) Reference.- 17. Ontological Exegesis of Indexical Reference.- 18. The Non-Worldliness of Indexical Guises and Other Minds.- 19. The Transcendental Prefix and Experience.- Two.- Casta?edas Ontology.- Mind and Guise: Castanedas Philosophy of Mind in the World Order.- Castanedas Philosophy of Language.- Castanedas Theory of Knowing.- Thinking-to-Be and Thinking-to-Do: Some Remarks on Casta?eda on Believing and Intending.- Good Samaritans and Castanedas System of Deontic Logic.- Casta?edas Theory of Deontic Meaning and Truth.- Casta?eda Theory of Morality.- Casta?eda on Plato, Leibniz, and Kant.- Replies.- Three.- Philosophical Bibliography of Hector-Neri Casta?Eda.- Index Of Names.- Index Of Subjects.

Belief, Self-Ascription, and Ontology

The present essay continues my examination of alternative accounts of the psychological attitudes -believing, desiring, intending, and the like. In [94] I addressed Castafiedas unique guise theoretic proposal as set out in his [14], [15], [16], and elsewhere. My [97] and [98] treat the novel version of two-schemism developed by Boer and Lycan ([7], [54], and [55]). And I critique the intriguing self-ascription theories of Brand ([8], [9]) and Lewis ([52], [53]) in Tomberlin [96] and [99], respectively. Here my plan is to focus on the important but very different form of self-ascription impressively articulated in Chisholm [30], [31], and [32].1

Philosophical analysis : a defense by example

Preface.- Part I: Origins of Analytic Philosophy.- Part II: Analyses of Belief, Knowledge and Sensation: Ancient, Modern and Contemporary.- Part III: Analysis of Mind and Language.- Part IV: Analysis of Modalities.- Index of Names.

Troubles with actualism

Actualism, as we shall understand it here, is minimally the view that there are no objects that do not actually exist.1 Shifting emphasis slightly, it is the view that there are no philosophical problems whose solution calls for or requires an ontological commitment to non-actual objects. Relative to this characterization, our aim in the present essay is to pose a challenge to the actualists ontological stance, to test the actualists ability to deal with several apparently straightforward examples. We confine our attention to three problem cases. Case One. Jones, we may suppose, has recently taken up nouvelle cuisine with its laudable emphasis on fresh and unusual ingredients. One weekend, in seclusion, he opts to prepare for himself the remarkable squab salad with wild mushrooms and quail eggs concocted by Jean Banchet for his renowned restaurant Le FranCais. For his preparation, Jones decides, why not utilize wild mushrooms he gathered from the nearby woods yesterday? A splendid creation, he observes upon dining. But alas, some time later Jones, still home alone and many miles from the nearest person, is rendered comatose. Several of the wild mushrooms were highly toxic and Jones, utterly alone and physically incapable of conveying his plight and summoning emergency treatment, faces certain death. In this situation it seems clear that both (1) and (2) are true.

Identity, intensionality, and intentionality

Identity, it has been remarked, is a rather elementary concept, and so it may be. I surmise however that we shall never possess a steady comprehension of this notion until it is satisfactorily explained how one may entertain thoughts concerning a certain object without ever engaging these very thoughts about another object, when a modicum of common sense demands that these objects are one and the same. From Dame Janes Philosophical Notebook

Singular Terms, Quantification, and Ontology I

A central working assumption of the present essay is that at least most of us embrace actualism -the view that there neither are nor could have been objects that do not actually exist.1 Relative to this assumption, my aim is to determine what sort of quantification theory should accompany the actualist ontological stance. To facilitate matters, I shall confine the discussion to just three principal approaches to quantificational logic: Substitutional Quantification. By this view, a universal generalization (VX)B is true if and only if all of its substitution-instances are true, and an existential generalization (3X)B is true just in case at least one of its substitution-instances is true. In addition, the variables of substitutional quantification will have substituends but perhaps no values; that is, B(T/X) may be true and a genuine substitution-instance of (VX)B and (3X)B even though T is nonrefer-

Deontic Paradox and Conditional Obligation

The present essay continues my examination of the fashionable conditional obligation approach for dealing with the various paradoxes of deontic logic. In [id] and [zz] I evaluated the conditional obligation systems of van Fraassen [z7], Mott [v1], and Al-hibri [i] negatively against the Contrary-To-Duty Imperative Paradox and the Knower Paradox, respectively. And I critique Feldmans [I i] ingenious agent-and-time relativized version of conditional obligation in [z5]. Here my plan is to focus on the intriguing system of conditional obligation set out in David Lewis [1 5]. I shall argue that his treatment succumbs to the Knower Pardox and (by implication) to the Contrary-To-Duty Imperative Paradox.

Perception and Possibilia

Actualism, as I will understand it here, is minimally the view that there are no objects that do not actually exist.1 By this view, there are no philosophical problems whose solution calls for or requires an ontological commitment to non-actual objects. To his credit, William G. Lycan has seriously challenged this ontological stance. In particular, as regards perception, he has set out and defended a position that the best account of qualia invokes possibilia: phenom-

On the Plurality of Worlds.

Preface. 1. A Philosophers Paradise. The Thesis of Pluraliry of Worlds. Modal Realism at Work: Modality. Modal Realism at Work: Closeness. Modal Realism at Work: Content. Modal Realism at Work: Properties. Isolation. Concreteness. Plenitude. Actuality. 2. Paradox in Paradise? Everything is Actual? All Worlds in One? More Worlds Than There Are? How Can We Know? A Road to Scepticism? A Road to Indifference? Arbitrariness Lost? The Incredulous Stare. 3. Paradise on the Cheap? The Ersatzist Program. Linguistic Ersatzism. Pictorial Ersatzism. Magical Ersatzism. 4. Counterparts or Double Lives? Good Questions and Bad. Against Overlap. Against Trans-World Individuals. Against Haecceitism. Against Constancy. Works Cited. Index.