P. M. S. Hacker

Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity

Acknowledgements. Preface. Abbreviations. Analytical Commentary. Part I: Two Fruits upon One Tree: Following a Rule. Part II: Rules and Grammar: Part III: Accord with a Rule: Part IV: Following Rules, Mastery of Techniques and Practices: Part V: Agreement in Definitions, Judgements and Forms of Life: Part VI: Grammar and Necessity: Index.

Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy

In this article I first sketch what I take to be two Quinean arguments for the continuity of philosophy with science. After examining Wittgenstein’s reasons for not accepting the arguments, I conclude that they are ineffective on Wittgenstein’s assumptions. Next, I ask three related questions: (a) Where do Quine’s and Wittgenstein’s philosophical views essentially diverge? (b) Did Wittgenstein have an argument against the continuity of science with philosophy? (c) Did Wittgenstein believe until the end of his philosophical career that scientific results are philosophically irrelevant? It will be seen that all three questions are related with Wittgenstein’s distinction between conceptual and factual issues. I conclude that the opposition between Quinean philosophy and Wittgensteinian philosophy is genuine.

Emotion and cortical-subcortical function: conceptual developments

Biologists have studied the expression of emotions in man and other animals since at least 1806, when Charles Bell published his Anatomy and Physiology of Expression. We trace the main experimental developments since that time, including Darwins investigations into the evolution of innate forms of expression of emotions, as well as those into cognitive versus precognitive forms of expression of emotions. In particular, contemporary studies by neuroscientists into the origins of emotional experiences are detailed, especially emotional responses to faces showing different expressions, on which much research has been carried out. We examine the various claims made by these researchers as to what their experiments show. Our conceptual analysis indicates that there is considerable confusion as to what experimental work to this time indicates about the role of cortical and subcortical structures in the expression of emotions. We attempt to clarify what can and cannot be justified as established concerning the workings of the brain and emotions.

The motor system in neuroscience: a history and analysis of conceptual developments

Neuroscientific reflection on the integrative action of the nervous system was dominated by consideration of the motor system from the time of Aristotle in the 4th century B.C. to that of Sherrington, his contemporaries and proteges in the first-half of the 20th century. We describe the significant discoveries concerning the action of the spinal cord and cortex in motor phenomena during this period. This provides a vivid account of how great neuroscientists, over a period of more than 2000 years, have endeavoured to clarify notions concerning the integrative action of the nervous system in the context of the prevailing philosophical traditions of their times. We examine these traditions as well as the conceptual schemes offered by neuroscientists, especially in relation to the workings of the cortex. It is shown that neuroscientists cleave to this day to a tradition that goes back to Descartes, and that this is the case even for those who explicitly claim to reject such a tradition. The review concludes with what we take to be an appropriate basis for rejecting the Cartesian paradigm that we hope will assist neuroscientists in understanding the integrative action of the nervous system.

Wittgenstein, Carnap and the New American Wittgensteinians

James Conant, a proponent of the ‘New American Wittgenstein’, has argued that the standard interpretation of Wittgenstein is wholly mistaken in respect of Wittgensteins critique of metaphysics and the attendant conception of nonsense. The standard interpretation, Conant holds, misascribes to Wittgenstein Carnapian views on the illegitimacy of metaphysical utterances, on logical syntax and grammar, and on the nature of nonsense. Against this account, I demonstrate that (i) Carnap is misrepresented; (ii) the so–called standard interpretation (in so far as I have contributed to it) is misrepresented; (iii) Wittgensteins views, early and late, are misrepresented. I clarify Wittgensteins conception of logical syntax and of the nonsense that results from transgressing it.

The Intellectual Powers: A Study of Human Nature

Preface Introduction: The Project Prolegomena Chapter 1 Consciousness as the Mark of the Mental 1. Consciousness as a mark of modernity 2. The genealogy of the concept of consciousness 3. The analytic of consciousness 4. The early modern philosophical conception of consciousness 5. The dialectic of consciousness I 6. The contemporary philosophical conception of consciousness 7. The dialectic of consciousness II 8. The illusions of self-consciousness Chapter 2 Intentionality as the Mark of the Mental 1. Intentionality 2. Intentional objects 3. The central sun: the relation of thought to reality 4. The first circle: what do we believe (hope, suspect, etc.)? 5. The second circle: the relation of language to reality 6. The third circle: the relation of thought to language 7. The fourth circle: the epistemology of intentionality 8. The fifth circle: meaning and understanding Chapter 3 Mastery of a Language as the Mark of a Mind 1. A language-using animal 2. Linguistic communication 3. Knowing a language 4. Meaning something 5. Understanding and interpreting 6. Meaning and use 7. The dialectic of understanding: the mystery of understanding new sentences Part I The Cognitive and Doxastic Powers Chapter 4 Knowledge 1. The value of knowledge 2. The grammatical groundwork 3. The semantic field 4. What knowledge is not 5. Certainty 6. Analyses of knowledge 7. Knowledge and ability 8. Knowing how 9. What is knowledge? The role of know in human discourse Chapter 5 Belief 1. The web of belief 2. The grammatical groundwork 3. The surrounding landscape 4. Voluntariness and responsibility for belief 5. Belief and feelings 6. Belief and dispositions 7. Belief and mental states 8. Why believing something cannot be a brain state 9. What is belief? The role of believe in human discourse Chapter 6 Knowledge, Belief and the Epistemology of Belief 1. Knowledge and belief 2. The epistemology of belief 3. Non-standard cases: self-deception and unconscious beliefs Chapter 7 Sensation and Perception 1. The cognitive powers of the senses 2. Sensation 3. Perception and sensation 4. Sensation, feeling and tactile perception Chapter 8 Perception 1. Perceptual organs, the senses and proper sensibles 2. Perceptual powers: cognition and volition 3. The classical causal theory of perception 4. The modern causal theory of perception Chapter 9 Memory 1. Memory as a form of knowledge 2. The objects of memory 3. The faculty and its actualities 4. Forms of memory 5. Further conceptual links and contrasts 6. The dialectic of memory I: the Aristotelian legacy 7. The dialectic of memory II: trace theory Part II The Cogitative Powers Chapter 10 Thought and Thinking 1. Floundering without an overview 2. The varieties of thinking 3. Is thinking an activity? 4. What do we think in? 5. Thought, language and the language of thought 6. Can animals think? 7. The agent, organ and location of thinking 8. Thinking and the inner life Chapter 11 Imagination 1. A cogitative faculty 2. The conceptual network of the imagination 3. Perceiving and imagining 4. Perceptions and imaginations : clarity and vivacity of mental imagery 5. Mental images and imagining 6. Imagination and the will 7. The imaginable, the conceivable and the possible Appendix: Philosophical Analysis and the Way of Words 1. On method 2. Methodological objections and misunderstandings Index

Appearance and reality : a philosophical investigation into perception and perceptual qualities

1. Appearance and Reality 2. Sensation, Perception, and Perceptual Qualities 3. Sensations, Secondary Qualities and Appearances to Normal Observers 4. Secondary Qualities, Dispositions, and Related Conundrums 5. Are Secondary Qualities Relative? 6. In Defence of Appearances.

Perception and memory in neuroscience: a conceptual analysis.

Neuroscientists, in the last half of the 20th century, provided major insights into the cellular and molecular mechanisms associated with seeing and remembering. We first identify some of the most important of these discoveries. This is done along lines familiar to neuroscientists who have read many of the recent books and reviews that provide an overview of neuroscientific discoveries. In general, these emphasize the scientific contributions this discipline has made to our understanding of the mechanisms that give rise to the psychological attributes of humans and other animals. In the next sections, we examine the claims made in these overviews; in particular, those by the standard-bearers of neuroscience, in an attempt to clarify what can and what cannot be justified in these claims. This requires a conceptual analysis of a kind that is unfamiliar to most neuroscientists. Our analysis begins with consideration of the conceptual confusions that ensue when neuroscientists attribute seeing, remembering and other psychological attributes to the brain rather than to the creature whose brain it is. Subsequently, we outline what we take to be the appropriate conceptual scheme for neuroscientists to adopt.

Malcolm on language and rules

In ‘Wittgenstein on Language and Rules’, Professor N. Malcolm took us to task for misinterpreting Wittgensteins arguments on the relationship between the concept of following a rule and the concept of community agreement on what counts as following a given rule. Not that we denied that there are any grammatical connections between these concepts. On the contrary, we emphasized that a rule and an act in accord with it make contact in language. Moreover we argued that agreement in judgments and in definitions is indeed necessary for a shared language. But we denied that the concept of a language is so tightly interwoven with the concept of a community of speakers (and hence with actual agreement) as to preclude its applicabilty to someone whose use of signs is not shared by others. Malcolm holds that ‘This is an unwitting reduction of Wittgensteins originality. That human agreement is necessary for “shared” language is not so striking a thought as that it is essential for language simpliciter .’ Though less striking, we believe that it has the merit of being a true thought. We shall once more try to show both that it is correct, and that it is a correct account of Wittgensteins arguments.

Passing by the Naturalistic Turn: On Quine's Cul-de-Sac

Naturalism, it has been said, is the distinctive development in philosophy over the last thirty years. There has been a naturalistic turn away from the a priori methods of traditional philosophy to a conception of philosophy as continuous with natural science. The doctrine has been extensively discussed and has won considerable following in the USA. This is, on the whole, not true of Britain and continental Europe, where the pragmatist tradition never took root, and the temptations of scientism in philosophy were less alluring.