What the Fall of Angels Tells Us about the Essence of Morality

The article describes two concepts of the sources of morality present in the evolutionist traditions (Evolution of Ethics and the Veneer Theory). Then, a modal argument against the evolutionist theory of morality is presented, based on the history of the fall of angels present in classical theism. This story is taken in the article as a possible example of the actions of individuals who operate outside of any evolutionary and social context, and of those whose ontic constitution excludes the possession of emotions. In this way, an attempt is made to present the essential features of anyone that is subject to moral evaluation, thus concluding that morality in its essence cannot be defined in biological and evolutionary terms.

Descartes, Kant, and Swinburne on Human Soul

This paper addresses two issues in Richard Swinburne’s book Are We Bodies or Souls? I interpret Swinburne’s modal argument as an example of a priori synthetic knowledge. Swinburne’s thesis that every person possesses “thisness” is compared with Kant’s distinction between the empirical character and the intelligible character.

The modal argument improved

The modal argument against materialism, in its most standard form, relies on a compatibility thesis to the effect that the physical truths are compatible with the absence of consciousness. I propose an alternative modal argument that relies on an incompatibility thesis: The existence of consciousness is incompatible with the proposition that the physical truths provide (in a sense to be clarified) a complete description of reality. I show that everyone who accepts the premises of the standard modal argument must accept the premises of the revised modal argument, but not vice versa.

Why the Epistemic Value of Fictional Literature Does Not Depend Crucially on Its Fictionality

Mitchell Greenʼs conception of the thesis of Literary Cognitivism states that literary fiction can be a source of knowledge that depends crucially on its being fictional. By a modal argument the authors show that the criterion of fictionality cannot be crucial to the epistemic value of literary fiction. Rather, it lays in a certain kind of distance, e.g. a temporal, cultural, or interpersonal one. This will be motivated by drawing parallels to Gadamerʼs hermeneutics, especially his conception of fusion of horizons. In doing so, we agree with Green’s characterisation of knowledge that can be gained from engaging with literary fiction, but present a different approach to the source of this knowledge. At the same time, this approach enables us to extend the epistemic value of literary fiction both quantitatively and qualitatively.

A Semantic Analysis of Personal Names in Datooga Society

Naming can sometimes be associated with particular situations or someone’s birth. This study intends to find out the association between Datooga names and socio-cultural backgrounds. The study employs a qualitative research approach, in which case the collected data was subjected to descriptive analysis. Data have been collected from Datooga speaking students studying at the Dar es Salaam University College of Education, through Interviews and Questionnaire. The analysis is based on the Kripke’s three arguments in naming as described by Speaks (2007). The theory explains how naming is achieved with reference to the modal argument, the semantic argument and the epistemic argument. The findings of the study have revealed that in the Datooga society, naming is associated with different phenomena particularly time of birth and prevailing situations, traditions, norms and customs.

Lowe’s New Ontological Argument

In ‘A New Modal Version of the Ontological Argument,’ E. J. Lowe has presented a version of the ontological argument that does not, like other versions of the modal argument, make use of a ‘possibility’ premise. (e.g. ‘It is possible for a perfect being to exist’.) Three of the premises of this carefully formulated argument are: some necessary abstract beings exist; all abstract beings are dependent beings; all dependent beings depend for their existence on independent beings. This chapter is an examination of the ‘interplay’ between these three premises and a defense of the author’s conviction that the second of them is false.

Quality and Content

The papers presented in this volume cover topics, such as the “phenomenal concept strategy,” to defend materialism from anti-materialist intuitions, the doctrine of representationalism about phenomenal character, the modal argument against materialism, the nature of demonstrative thought, and cognitive phenomenology. On the one hand, I argue that the phenomenal concept strategy cannot work and that representationalism has certain fatal flaws, at least if it’s to be joined to a materialist metaphysics. On the other, I defend materialism from the modal argument, arguing that it relies on a questionable conflation of semantic and metaphysical issues. I also provide a naturalistic theory of demonstrative thought, criticizing certain philosophical arguments involving that notion in the process. I argue as well that the peculiarly subjective nature of secondary qualities provides a window into the nature of the relation between phenomenal character and intentional content, and conclude that relation involves a robust notion of acquaintance.

Análise das objeções ao significado dos nomes próprios na teoria matalinguística

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2015v19n3p405In this paper I examine the three known objections to metalinguistic semantic theory of proper names: the objection of generalization, the objection of circularity, and the objection arising from Kripke’s modal argument. I’m trying to demonstrate that these objections are not conclusive as refutation or rejection of metalinguistic theory. I argue that this is a not a theory of reference but rather of the meaning or semantic value of proper names. Thus, the semantic value of a proper name “N” is “The bearer of ‘N’.” In this approach the significance of this proper name unifies all the possibilities for its referential use and allow us to defend that the name itself is an expression of language, despite arguments to the contrary.