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Cover Ourselves with a Mask to Uncover Who We Are: the Rules and the Rationale Behind Avatar Creation in Second Life
Get PDFDoes Metaphysical Nihilism Pose a Threat to Genuine Modal Realism?
No full textGenuine modal realism (GMR) holds that whatever is possibile is the case at some possible world and that possible worlds are maximal mereological sums of things that are spatiotemporally interrelated. Metaphysical nihilism (MN) holds that there is a world empty of concrete entities. GMR and MN contradict. A particularly strong argument for MN is the substraction argument (SA). This paper examines to what extent this argument poses a threat to GMR and by which means GMR can possibily be defended. I will lay out two basic strategies to do this and show that both of them face severe problems. Nevertheless, I will point to a prima facie possible way to defend GMR, namely by adopting a claim recently made by E. J. Lowe (2002): some abstract entities exist necessarily and concrete entities are a necessary condition for their existence
Knowledge Without Observation, Identity and Falsifiability
No full textIn Intention, GEM Anscombe suggests that there is a form of knowledge, given as “knowledge without observation”. This paper will aim to characterise this form of knowledge in terms of two necessary (but not sufficient) conditions – that the subject who knows and the object of knowledge are necessarily identical, and that the claim made as knowledge is falsifiable.In the course of the paper, the necessary identity claim will lead to a substantial claim about the way knowledge is given in knowledge without observation. This substantial claim is that in knowledge without observation the sensations given to the subject in experience cannot be separated from the knowledge claimed by the subject. That is, in non-observational knowledge, the sensation given simply is the knowledge claim. This will be compared to observational knowledge, where I will aim to suggest that the sensations given in experience are separable from the knowledge claimed.The claim of the falsifiability of knowledge claims will draw out Anscombe’s connection to the later Wittgenstein’s work in the Philosophical Investigations, and will in particular focus on the difference Wittgenstein draws between expressions of pain and knowledge claims regarding sensations. This condition will suggest that it is a necessary condition for any knowledge claim that it can be falsified by an outside observer.I will draw on Anscombe’s corpus of work on sensation and intentional action to develop these conditions, and will aim to conclude that her later work on the use of the first person pronoun in The First Person is a continuation of the work she began on intentional action and bodily self-knowledge in Intention and On Sensations of Position
What is, according to Peirce, the method of science? Is it the only way to fix belief?
Get PDFIn this paper, I explore Peirce\u27s claim that the method of science is the only way to permanently fix, or settle belief. Peirce considers four different methods of forming beliefs: The method of tenacity, the method of authority, the a priori method, and the method of science. Peirce argues that the first three methods of forming beliefs cannot fix belief because they are inconsistent with what Peirce calls the hypothesis of reality- the hypothesis that there is an external world independent of human opinion. Peirce argues that methods that are inconsistent with this hypothesis form beliefs that are subject to doubt, and cannot therefore fix belief. The method of science is however consistent with the hypothesis of reality and therefore can fix belief.I argue that Peirce is correct that the method of science is the only way to fix belief if one accepts the pragmatist theory of belief. Whilst one could object to Peirce that the hypothesis of reality is not certainly true, Peirce would not be swayed by such sceptical doubts, and he gives us positive reasons to reject them
Nature’s million-fuelèd bonfire: Thoughts on honest poetic contemplation
Get PDFChristian poetry has often concentrated on the beauty of the natural world, ignoring the competition and struggle which are factors integral to evolution. Struggle in nature, however, may lead to God’s ends for his creatures and it is this that Christopher Southgate seeks to explore by examining the work of poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Louis MacNeice and R. S. Thomas. He suggests that this kind of honest contemplation allows us to view the struggles in the natural world in counterpoint with the sense of God’s depth of engagement with all suffering; as such it represents a search for divine glory. To seek to glimpse this glory requires us to view nature through three complementary lenses: what the world discloses of its creator (gloria mundi); the gift – made possible by the character of the creation – of the Incarnate Christ and his self-surrender (gloria crucis); and the song of the new creation, in which creaturely flourishing will be attained without creaturely struggle (gloria in excelsis)
The Anonymous Community: Investigating the Use of Yik Yak Amongst University Students in St Andrews
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A Soft Defence of Mathematical Platonism
No full textIn this paper, I provide a soft defence of the Platonist conception of mathematics, which posits mathematical objects as having substantial and necessary meaning independent of human constructions or compulsions. I defend the Platonist account of mathematics against two interpretations of Wittgenstein\u27s theory of mathematics. The first interpretation, which I term the \u27Independent Instantiation\u27 interpretation, maintains that mathematical claims only have meaning within a linguistic framework, and thus correspond to no generalizable essences. The second, the "Psychological Predilection" interpretation, argues that humans are psychologically, rather than socially compelled to accept mathematical claims, but still rejects any metaphysical necessity in mathematics. I accuse the first interpretation of committing the genetic fallacy and failing to account for our ability to apply mathematics in new ways. The second interpretation I claim to be neither true nor false, but nonsensical by Wittgenstein\u27s own standards, leaving us to find criteria other than truth for choosing a theory of mathematics
