The global skeptic, who claims to not know anything, is often met by the self-contradiction objection, which claims that if they can establish their own position then they must have knowledge of at least that conclusion. I consider a response to this problem from Francisco Sanches, a 16th-century global skeptic. Sanches’ response is unique in that it concedes the charge of self-contradiction, but argues that self-contradiction does not impede an argument for global skepticism. I first establish that Sanches’ response to (...) the objection differs from that of ancient global skeptics. Then I reconstruct Sanches’ argument, using the underdetermination principle to show that a successful argument for global skepticism does not lead to knowledge of any proposition. Finally, I show how such an argument can be useful to a global skeptic nonetheless, arguing that, if accepted, it gives one a reason to suspend judgment on the question of knowledge. (shrink)

For twenty years, D. H. Mellor has promoted an influential defence of a view of time he first called the ‘tenseless’ view, but now associates with what he calls the ‘B-theory.’ It is his defence of this view, not the view itself, which is generally taken to be novel. It is organized around a forcefully presented attack on rival views which he claims to be a development of McTaggart's celebrated argument that the ‘A-series’ is contradictory. I will call this attack (...) ‘Mellor's McTaggart.’ Although it has received much critical attention, it has not been well understood. For one thing, it has changed over the years in a way that is little appreciated. Whereas Mellor's original version amounts to a dilemma each horn of which contains a single strand of argument, later statements of the first horn contain a second strand of argument unannounced. I shall be concerned to disentangle these strands. I shall also show them to have been largely anticipated by Gareth Evans. However, my main aim is not the clarification of Mellor's McTaggart, but its refutation. I shall show that there is a rival to Mellor's view of time against which the first horn of the dilemma begs the question both as originally presented, and as supplemented. This rival is a ‘Priorean’ version of the ‘presentist’ doctrine that only what is present exists. Although Prior himself gave McTaggart's own argument short shrift, in refuting Mellor's development of it I do not merely resurrect Prior's moves. Mellor's McTaggart introduces specifically semantic considerations. It focuses not as McTaggart did on presentness and futurity etc., but on the truth-values of tokens of propositions in which presentness and futurity etc. are ascribed. Consequently, its refutation requires an answer, from the perspective of a presentist metaphysics, to a question which came to the fore only after Prior's death. The question is this: How should semantic theory be developed in the light of the need for a theory of linguistic understanding? Though Evans flirted with the issue of how this question should be answered from a presentist perspective, the answer he articulates is wrong. I shall do no more than sketch the correct answer. That is all a refutation of Mellor's McTaggart requires. (shrink)

I reply to the most important criticisms made by Chignell of my ‘Kant's Refutation of Idealism’. I also introduce a new consideration which brings out more fully the power of Kant's argument.

John Taylor complains that the "Kalam" cosmological argument gives the appearance of being a swift and simple demonstration of the existence of a Creator of the universe, whereas in fact a convincing argument involving the premiss that the universe began to exist is very difficult to achieve. But Taylor's proffered defeaters of the premisses of the philosophical arguments for the beginning of the universe are themselves typically undercut due to Taylor's inadvertence to alternatives open to the defender of the "Kalam" (...) arguments. With respect to empirical confirmation of the universe's beginning Taylor is forced into an anti-realist position on the Big Bang theory, but without sufficient warrant for singling out the theory as non-realistic. Therefore, despite the virtue of simplicity of form, the "Kalam" cosmological argument has not been defeated by Taylor's all too swift refutation. (shrink)

According to the Classical Pessimistic Induction (CPI), otherwise positive features like predictive and explanatory success actually cast doubt on theories that display them. After all, they negatively correlate with truth. From this historical track record, it is inferred that current best theories are probably not (even approximately) true. The CPI is often wielded against realists about science, but others like Hume (1757), Pareto (1935), and Hájek (2007) extend it to philosophical theories more generally. In this paper, I unveil a priori (...) refutations that defang the CPI in all its guises. To date, treatments of this topic typically assume the following: if the historical proportion of false theories increases, then it has increasingly negative bearing against realism. I show that this assumption is false. I identify three types of problems for the CPI, each attaching to some interpretation or other. The first problem is that the CPI violates a universal adequacy condition on the confirmation relation that restricts the relationship between entailment and disconfirmation. The second problem is that the induction’s target hypotheses preclude the track record from instantiating a list of epistemically significant properties that empirical information is supposed to afford. The third problem is that it is constitutively impossible for the CPI to have random samples; this implies that even the use of randomization procedures cannot help. In sum: my refutation is novel, accessible by pure reflection, and quite general. (shrink)

LetL be any modal or tense logic with the finite model property. For eachm, definer L (m) to be the smallest numberr such that for any formulaA withm modal operators,A is provable inL if and only ifA is valid in everyL-model with at mostr worlds. Thus, the functionr L determines the size of refutation Kripke models forL. In this paper, we will give an estimation ofr L (m) for some linear modal and tense logicsL.

A general theory of refutation systems is given. Some applications (concerning maximality and minimality in lattices of logics) are also discussed.

Interpreters of Kant’s Refutation of Idealism face a dilemma: it seems to either beg the question against the Cartesian sceptic or else offer a disappointingly Berkeleyan conclusion. In this article I offer an interpretation of the Refutation on which it does not beg the question against the Cartesian sceptic. After defending a principle about question-begging, I identify four premises concerning our representations that there are textual reasons to think Kant might be implicitly assuming. Using those assumptions, I offer (...) a reconstruction of Kant’s Refutation that avoids the interpretative dilemma, though difficult questions about the argument remain. (shrink)

This short paper states a new objection against “spectrum arguments” for nontransitive betterness. It is shown that defenders of such arguments must reject one of two very plausible principles.

Amid the many complex and radical philosophical debates, one of the most fascinating and widely discussed issues among scholars and philosophy enthusiasts is the intellectual confrontation between al-Ghazālī and Ibn Rushd. The most prominent philosophical dispute between the two revolves around three major metaphysical problems: the eternity of the world, God’s knowledge of particular events, and the denial of bodily resurrection. Both thinkers offer different interpretations of Qur’anic texts through a philosophical lens. Interestingly, although both belong to the same Islamic (...) intellectual tradition, their opposing arguments have generated deep and enduring controversy. This study employs a descriptive research method, specifically a library-based approach, focusing on literature that discusses the philosophical thoughts of al-Ghazālī and Ibn Rushd. Within this method, processes of classification, data analysis, and conclusion drawing are carried out. Accordingly, the research also utilizes comparative, analytical, and synthetic methods to obtain a comprehensive understanding of their metaphysical perspectives. As a result, the debate between the two continues to be passed down and colors the study of Islamic philosophy, including having consequences in the context of philosophical themes. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur remarks that the Prolegomena’s “victory over psychologism” remains an essential feature of Husserl’s phenomenology. Warning against “the subjective illusion that mixes up concepts, numbers, essences, logical structures, etc., with the individual psychological operations which intend them,” he writes: “One can even say that the logicism of the Prolegomena is a permanent protective parapet around transcendental idealism.” In a discipline that focuses on our individual, first person experience, that, in fact, initially referred to itself as a “descriptive psychology,” phenomenology’s (...) battle with psychologism may seem surprising. The point, however, is not to rule out psychological descriptions, but rather to free them from psychologism. At issue in the first chapter is the objectivity of phenomenology’s accounts of our acts and experiences—i.e., their utility in the project of securing the possibility of objective knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, I highlight the significance of practices of _refutation_ in philosophical inquiry, that is, practices of showing that a claim, person or theory is wrong. I present and contrast two prominent approaches to philosophical refutation: refutation in ancient Greek dialectic (_elenchus_), in its Socratic variant as described in Plato’s dialogues, and as described in Aristotle’s logical texts; and the practice of providing counterexamples to putative definitions familiar from twentieth century analytic philosophy, focusing on the so-called Gettier (...) problem. Moreover, I discuss Lakatos’ method of proofs and refutations, as it offers insightful observations on the dynamics between arguments, refutations, and counterexamples. Overall, I argue that dialectic, in particular in its Socratic variant, is especially suitable for the philosophical purpose of questioning the obvious, as it invites reflection on one’s own doxastic commitments and on the tensions and inconsistencies within one’s set of beliefs. By contrast, the counterexample-based approach to philosophical refutation can give rise to philosophical theorizing that is overly focused on hairsplitting disputes, thus becoming alienated from the relevant human experiences. Insofar as philosophical inquiry treads the fine line between questioning the obvious while still seeking to say something significant about human experiences, perhaps a certain amount of what Lakatos describes as ‘monster-barring’—a rejection of overly fanciful, artificial putative counterexamples—has its place in philosophical argumentation. (shrink)

In his 1972 paper “A Short Refutation Ethical Egoism,” Richmond Campbell purports to refute ethical egoism via a simple reductio. Although his argument has received critical attention, it has not been satisfactorily answered. In this paper I answer it, for reasons that go well beyond my immediate topic. Campbell’s argument calls for an answer partly because, as I show, if it succeeds against ethical egoism, then variations of it refute many other normative ethical theories, such as act utilitarianism.

John R. Searle criticized the sense-datum theory of perception, particularly A. J. Ayer’s version of it (Searle, 2015). According to Searle, (i) Ayer subscribes to the view that physical objects are not directly perceived but mind-dependent sense-data (Searle, 2015). Following this, Searle says, (ii) Ayer committed the conclusion of the “Bad Argument”: “any argument that attempts to treat the perceptual experience as an actual or possible object of experience” (Searle, 2015). This paper revisits (i) and (ii). It will show that (...) while (i) and (ii) are compatible with the sense-datum theory in general, it has some reservations when it applies to Ayer’s version of it. Hence, Searle’s refutation of Ayer warrants reconsideration. (shrink)

There is discussion among critics about the authenticity of Pseudo-Aristotle’s account on Melissus in the De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia, and especially about the refutation of mixture that he attributes to the latter. For there is no clue in the other testimonies and in the fragments that the Eleatic made such a refutation. In this article, I aim to show that the argument as it is presented is not genuinely Melissean, but inspired by some of Aristotle’s considerations on colour-mixture (...) in the De sensu. I then claim that taking this source into account solves many of the difficulties inherent to this demonstration against mixture, and reveals something on Pseudo-Aristotle’s doxographical approach. (shrink)

We present a setting in which the search for a proof of B or a refutation of B can be carried out simultaneously: in contrast, the usual approach in automated deduction views proving B or proving ¬B as two, possibly unrelated, activities. Our approach to proof and refutation is described as a two-player game in which each player follows the same rules. A winning strategy translates to a proof of the formula and a counter-winning strategy translates to a (...) refutation of the formula. The game is described for multiplicative and additive linear logic. A game theoretic treatment of the multiplicative connectives is intricate and our approach to it involves two important ingredients. First, labeled graph structures are used to represent positions in a game and, second, the game playing must deal with the failure of a given player and with an appropriate resumption of play. This latter ingredient accounts for the fact that neither player might win. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Duncan Pritchard’s (2011, pp. 278-284; 2021, pp. 1120-1122; 2025, pp. 56-58) refutation of epistemic relativism and presents an objection to it. This refutation presupposes that epistemic relativism would be true in case there were rationally irresolvable deep disagreements. Pritchard’s refutation, thus, amounts to an argument purporting to show that all deep disagreements are rationally resolvable. Our objection, in turn, aims to show that the examples of rationally resolvable deep disagreement Pritchard presents have particular features (...) that, while making them rationally resolvable, not all deep disagreement has. In order for these examples to be representative of all deep disagreements we need to accept a particularly strong notion of rationality. Pritchard’s (2011) notion of a truth-seeker presupposes a strong notion of rationality that could play that role. In recent papers, in contrast, Pritchard (2023, pp. 305-308; 2025, p. 53) makes use of a weaker rationality notion in characterizing deep disagreements. Both these alternatives prove to be problematic for Pritchard’s refutation. On the one hand, if the notion of rationality used to characterize deep disagreements secures their rational resolvability, it will already presuppose the falsehood of epistemic relativism. On the other hand, if the refutation treads on a weaker rationality notion, it will simply fail to give reasons to think that all deep disagreements can be rationally resolved. Be that as it may, we claim that Pritchard’s work allows us to identify a subset of deep disagreements that have a particular structure that makes them rationally resolvable. (shrink)

SummaryThis paper attempts to develop an interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism which is based upon his critique of transcendental realism. It is argued that given Kant's transcendental distinction, all non‐ or pre‐critical philosophies, even Berkeleian phenomenalism are transcendentally realistic. This paradoxical result is used as the basis for an analysis of Kant's resolution of the mathematical antinomies, wherein this resolution is seen both as an “indirect proof” of transcendental idealism and as a refutation of transcendental realism. Finally, it is (...) claimed that Kant's idealism, at least insofar as it is established by means of a refutation of transcendental realism, is methodological rather than metaphysical, viz. it involves a claim about how the sensible world is to be considered in transcendental reflection, not a claim about the “real nature” of this world.RésuméCet article essaye de développer une interprétation de l'idéalisme transcendental de Kant, interprétation basée sur sa critique du réalisme transcendental. L'auteur montre que, si l'on accepte la distinction transcendentale de Kant, toutes les philosophies non critiques et précritiques sont transcendentalement réalistes, y compris le phénoménalisme de Berkeley. A partir de ce résultat paradoxal, il analyse la manière dont Kant résoud les antinomies mathématiques: cette résolution apparaît à la fois comme preuve indirecte de l'idéalisme transcendental et comme une réfutation du réalisme transcendental. L'auteur est finalement d'avis que l'idéalisme de Kant, du moins lorsqu'il est justifié par une réfutation du réalisme transcendental, est plus méthodologique que métaphysique, c'est‐à‐dire qu'il déclare comment le monde sensible doit être considéré dans la réflexion transcendentale et non quelle est la véritable nature de ce monde.ZusammenfassungEs wird versucht, eine Interpretation von Kants transzendentalem Idealismus zu entwickeln, die auf seiner Kritik am transzendentalen Realismus — verstanden als derjenige Standpunkt, der systematisch Erscheinung und Ding an sich verwechselt — beruht. Es wird argumentiert, dass — einmal Kants transzendentale Unterscheidung angenommen — aile früheren, vorkritischen Systeme der Philosophie einschliesslich Berkeleys Phänomenalismus transzendental realistisch sind. Dieses paradoxale Ergebnis wird als Basis für eine Analyse von Kants Auflösung der mathematischen Antinomien verwendet, wobei dièse Auflösung sowohl als ein indirekter Beweis für den transzendentalen Idealismus als auch als eine Widerlegung des transzendentalen Realismus gedeutet wird. Es wird schliesslich nahegelegt, dass Kants Idealismus, sofern wenigstens als er sich auf Widerlegung des transzendentalen Realismus abstützt, mehr ein rnethodologischer als ein metaphysischer Idealismus ist. Er statuiert eher über die Art, wie die Sinneswelt in einer transzendentalen Reflexion betrachtet werden soll, als über die Frage, wie die Welt wirklich beschaffen sei. (shrink)

The author replies to ronald suter's "russell's 'refutation' of meinong in 'on denoting'," "philosophy and phenomenological research," june, 1967. suter's interpretation of one of russell's arguments is criticized on exegetical grounds, and his defense of another argument is rebutted on logical grounds. meinong's thesis is presented as the thesis that all statements of a certain form are true. it is argued that all of russell's arguments are attempts to pose counter-examples to this single view. meinong is defended against russell's (...) counter-examples. (shrink)

An essential feature of Wittgenstein's early philosophy of logic is the conjecture of a positive solution to the question of whether logical truth in first-order logic is decidable (Entscheidungsproblem). It is often argued that the proofs of a negative solution to the Entscheidungsproblem presented in the 1930s refuted Wittgenstein's early conception of logic. However, we argue Wittgenstein's philosophy of logic does not share the principles assumed by the proof strategies of those undecidability proofs. Thus, the undecidability proofs do not refute (...) Wittgenstein's philosophy of logic based on its own convictions. Therefore, we provide a purely logical refutation of Wittgenstein's early philosophy of logic that does not depend on assumptions that he does not accept. Wittgenstein claimed that the logical properties of first-order logic are decidable based on patterns in a suitable notation for first-order logic. We explain why this conviction is mistaken. (shrink)

Complete deductive systems are constructed for the non-valid (refutable) formulae and sequents of some propositional modal logics. Thus, complete syntactic characterizations in the sense of Lukasiewicz are established for these logics and, in particular, purely syntactic decision procedures for them are obtained. The paper also contains some historical remarks and a general discussion on refutation systems.

Vasubandhu’s arguments against atomism in Viṃśikā stanzas 12–13 are not strong enough to disprove that atoms are simple partless substances. However, if we take the special composition question into consideration, Viṃśikā stanza 13ab can be regarded as an objection to so-called series-style answers, which results in an undesirable conclusion for the opponents, i.e. the Vaibhāṣikas. A step back to a simple bonding answer is not a good choice for the Vaibhāṣikas in responding to this objection because the simple bonding answer (...) leads to other difficulties and because some notions in Vaibhāṣika atomic theory entail multigrade relations in the material aggregates of atoms. Hence, the objection to series-style answers still makes sense in the refutation of Buddhist atomism through the claim that atoms are not proper parts of a material aggregate. (shrink)

G. E. Moore’s The Refutation of Idealism falls into two main parts: the analysis of “esse is percipi,” which Moore claimed was the key premise of all Idealist arguments to the conclusion that reality is spiritual; and the discussion of sensations. I am here only concerned with the latter. This, on its critical side, took a position of Bradley’s as its target and, in its turn, drew objections from Strong and Ducasse. The following explores these disputes about sensory experience (...) which revolved around the second part of Moore’s Refutation. (shrink)

Generating a puzzle of the right kind requires a special kind of natural history or account as background. It is a history of the nature of things. In many cases, the same kind of thing is noted in such a record. But the same nature will be found to be present here and absent there, or found varying in degrees. A thing can have only one invariable nature. A description of many is paradoxical. It offers up a puzzle to solve, (...) to which many more are added. Building a natural history creates a great puzzle about a small area of study. The narrative is, therefore, a refutation of familiar claims to knowledge. It is important that the experiments refute the existing evidence and not a hypothesis. We adduce other (experimental) evidence that creates puzzles in an old-fashioned, self-consistent natural history. We preserve the puzzle in a journal. Solved puzzles are breakthroughs in finding a hidden model or latent schematism that makes sense of all the weird evidence. (shrink)

This chapter is entitled “Decolonial Feminism, Civil Rights Refutation of ‘Colonial Mentality’”. Through primary observations, intellectual pursuits and conversations with Nigerian feminist allies such as the Afrobeat legend Sandra Izsadore, I define decolonial feminism as a praxis borne from resistance to the continued pervasion of gender-racialised colonial discrimination in a regional context that has long since dismantled the perpetrating architecture of colonialism. Françoise Vergès [(2021), A Decolonial Feminism, Trans. Bohrer, A., London: Pluto Press, p. 10] expresses poignantly what it (...) means to be a decolonial feminist, stating that it is an embodied experiential praxis, dissuaded by nihilistic “empty ideologies” because it is to affirm the fidelity of the material and cultural conditions of struggle of the women in the Global South who have proceeded us in their fortitude and resistance. In this respect, decolonial feminism “means recognizing that the offensive against women that is now openly justified and acknowledged by state leaders is not simply an expression of a brazen, masculine dominance, but a manifestation of the destructive violence generated by capitalism” (ibid.). Consequently, decolonial feminism calls for the building of alliances across colonial difference, and in Black music cultures such vivacity nourished and inspirited the feminine soul of Afrobeat enabling its revolutionary mobilisation, by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. This chapter identifies and explores principal areas of mobilisation which are specifically pertinent to aspect of my wider case studied theme, in respect to an analysis of decolonial feminist influence on Afrobeat. (shrink)

In this paper, I show that Aristotle’s refutation of the Eleatic argument in Physics I.8 is based on the idea that a thing at the starting point of coming to be is composite and is made up of what underlies and a priva­tion. In doing so, I clarify how the concept of accidentality as used in his solution should be understood in relation to the composite nature of what comes to be. I also suggest an explanation of why Aristotle’s (...) discus­sion of the Eleatic dilemma in Physics I.8, unlike his discussion in the previous chapter, is not clear. (shrink)

In this chapter, I provide an overview and argument to the effect that reasoning, including scientific and mathematical inquiry, is inherently both dialogical and dynamic. That is to say, reasoning is social and interactive, and requires an account of history that is not captured by an absolutist and monological account of proofs. I begin by considering the role of dialogue in logic, beginning first with a short analysis of Brandom’s account of dialogue, before discussing the history of logic, and recent (...) approaches to logical games in the work of Jaako Hintikka and Lorenzen. There, I argue that a distinct approach is required where assertion and denial, dialogical response and testing, are central to the dynamics of reasoning and the creation of new knowledge. It is in this light that I go on to discuss the specific role of dialogue in mathematical proofs, with particular attention to the work of Imre Lakatos. Lakatos’ [1] approach to inquiry is understood to operate as a kind of dialogue between “prover” and “refuter”, where a conjecture is considered by means of proof attempts and tests in the form of refutation attempts, disproofs and counter-examples. Such “proofs that do not prove” are part and parcel with the development of inquiry, until a conclusive proof or refutation of the conjecture is reached. I go on to provide a discussion of the broader approach to dialogues, with particular reference to the interactional work of Ginzburg (e.g. [2]). I will discuss a number of constraints over dialogues taking interaction, rather than rules, to be a priori, such that co-operative interactions may be understood to form the basis of the kinds of approaches to inquiry previously discussed. I will also briefly turn to considering how this approach fares in relation to providing a way of accounting for “reasons”, which does not fall into the trap of important criticisms in feminist and post-colonialist theory. I show that the dialogical approach being advocated here is capable of providing a way of moving beyond such criticisms, with particular attention to the role of emotion in interactive reasoning processes as allowing responses to be “framed” adequately. I finish by drawing together the discussion, arguing that interactions may subsequently give rise to propositional meaning under constraints of coherence, convergence, and symmetry. (shrink)

In Language, Logic, and Experience, Michael Luntley successfully employs a Kantian-style transcendental argument to refute Michael Dummett’s anti-realist view that we are incapable of grasping “recognition-transcendent” truth-conditions. But he also contends that his own purified version of antirealism is immune to thi s sort of attack. This version is purified because it is concerned solely with the question of whether a given statement possesses a determinate truth value, and thus with whether the reality it is about exists determinately. I show (...) that Kant’s original version of the argument (in the “Transcendental Analytic”) does in fact amount to a refutation of Luntleyan anti-realism. In particular, it demonstrates that the determinate existence of all past and present naturalistic states and events is a necessary condition of thought. Since Luntleyan anti-realism entails that many such states and events are indeterminate, it must be rejected. (shrink)

I will discuss Kant 's arguments in these section in three parts. In Part I, I will try to show how we can make sense of the obviously close relations in theme and content between the Refutation of Idealism and the two version of the Fourth Paralogism, as well as the second Postulate of Empirical Thought. This will serve as a kind of introduction, since on a cursory first reading, the connections might be far from apparent. In the process, (...) I will try to isolate a few basic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:192 HUME'S REFUTATION OF — WOLLASTON? Recently while rereading Book III of Hume's Treatise I was struck by an anomaly in the text that I had never noticed before. It consists in the juxtaposition of two arguments Hume offers regarding the source of the moral qualities of our actions. At first I dismissed Hume's arrangement of these arguments as being of little consequence — one of them appears (...) in a footnote — but the more I thought about the juxtaposition the more it intrigued and puzzled me. Expecting that it must have been noted by other readers I checked through the literature to find some discussion of it. Since after a long search I have failed to uncover anything, and believing the point, which relates to Hume's central view concerning morality, to be of some interest, I have decided to write this brief paper. Two passages from § 1, entitled "Moral Distinctions not deriv'd from Reason," of Part I, Book III, are involved. Hume begins the section by arguing that, because of the limited scope of its capacities, reason cannot distinguish between right and wrong or, as he puts it, between virtue and vice, and therefore that it is a mistake to speak of actions as being reasonable or unreasonable. Since Hume's views on this question are well-known and since they are not directly relevant to the point of my paper, I shall not pursue them further, but turn directly to the issue at hand. After having stated his argument at the beginning of § 1 and reached the conclusion that "actions may be laudable or blameable, but they cannot be reasonable or unreasonable," Hume turns to answer an objection that might be made against him by a rationalist ethicist. He writes: 193 But perhaps it may be said, that tho' no will or action can be immediately contradictory to reason, yet we may find such a contradiction in some of the attendants of the action, that is, in its causes or effects (T 459). Pursuing this objection, Hume first considers the causes of our actions. He acknowledges that we can be led astray in what we do in two ways; by making mistakes of fact, first, about the nature of some object we desire (e.g., thinking some fruit delicious when it really is not) and, second, about the means we should employ to gain the object (e.g., attempting to pluck the fruit when it is beyond our reach). Although these errors cause us to act in ways that may be termed unreasonable in a "figurative and improper way of speaking" (T 459), they cannot be the source of any immorality in what we do because they are committed involuntarily and innocently. A person who falls into such errors and acts on them is "more to be lamented than blam'd" (T 459). To conclude his answer to the rationalistic objection he has raised, Hume turns next to the issue of whether the immorality of our actions can be explained in terms of the unreasonableness of any of their effects. In a memorable passage he denies that the fact that false judgments are the effects of our actions can be the source of immorality in what we do. As to those judgments which are the effects of our actions, and which, when false, give occasion to pronounce the actions contrary to truth and reason; we may observe, that our actions never cause any judgment, either true or false, in ourselves, and that 'tis only on others they have such an influence. 'Tis certain, that an action, on many occasions, may give rise to false conclusions in others; and that a 194 person, who thro' a window sees any lewd behaviour of mine with my neighbour's wife, may be so simple as to imagine she is certainly my own. In this respect my action resembles somewhat a lye or falshood; only with this difference, which is material, that I perform not the action with any intention of giving rise to a false judgment in another, but merely to satisfy my lust and passion. It causes, however, a mistake and false judgment by accident; and the falshood... (shrink)

G. E. Moore’s famous “Refutation of Idealism” and related essays, like “Hume’s Philosophy” in his Philosophical Studies, signaled the rise of a passionate belief. That is, we cannot use less obviously lucid and acceptable claims or arguments to defeat propositions that are most clear and most obviously true by our plainest human standards. The plurality of material objects in material space is assured for us by the high degree of clarity and assuredness of our propositions about hands, trees, meals, (...) clocks, clouds, and rainfall. The soundness of belief in matter, time, space, and the plurality of material objects is upheld by such ordinary and obviously true propositions about the familiar. And the massive number of such commonsensical propositions makes the task of idealists and skeptics supremely unpromising. (shrink)

R. Abelson argues that the identity theory is false because it is possible to have an infinite number of thoughts (e.G. Of natural numbers) while the number of possible brain states is finite. The refutation fails because it conflates the logical possibility of having infinite thoughts with the actual ability to have them. The latter depends on many contingent facts, One of which may be the number of possible brain states.

The purpose of the paper is to make a few remarks on the following aspects of refutation rules: a characteristic property of a logic, elegant and constructive completeness proofs. In particular a new constructive completeness proof for the provability logic G is given.

We offer a critical overview of two sorts of proof systems that may be said to characterize classical propositional logic indirectly (and non-standardly): refutation systems, which prove sound and complete with respect to classical contradictions, and rejection systems, which prove sound and complete with respect to the larger set of all classical non-tautologies. Systems of the latter sort are especially interesting, as they show that classical propositional logic can be given a paraconsistent characterization. In both cases, we consider Hilbert-style (...) systems as well as Gentzen-style sequent calculi and natural-deduction formalisms. (shrink)

In a previous article, Professor abelson contended that the mind-Body identity theory was 'mathematically impossible' inasmuch as the number of possible mental states of a finite thinking organism are infinite, While the number of possible bodily states of such an organism are necessarily finite. I argue that this refutation does not succeed because although it is true that a finite brain can have only a finite number of brain states, Abelson had not demonstrated that there was a limitation on (...) what type of brain state could be generated by a finite brain. Thus, For instance, Although the number of natural numbers that such a brain could think of was necessarily finite, This in itself did not militate against the possibility of the brain producing a brain state corresponding to any natural number, Out of a possible infinite set, That can be thought of. (shrink)

A certain ‘pragmatist’ view of concept possession has defined the mainstream of Anglophone philosophy of language/mind for decades: namely, that to have the concept C is to be able to distinguish Cs from non‐Cs, and/or to recognize the validity of certain C‐involving inferences. The present paper offers three arguments why no such account could be viable. An alternative ‘Cartesian’ view is outlined, according to which having C is being able to think about Cs ‘as such’. Some consequences of the proposed (...) paradigm shift are briefly considered. (shrink)

A 'self-refutation argument' is any argument which aims at showing that a certain thesis is self-refuting. This study was the first book-length treatment of ancient self-refutation and provides a unified account of what is distinctive in the ancient approach to the self-refutation argument, on the basis of close philological, logical and historical analysis of a variety of sources. It examines the logic, force and prospects of this original style of argumentation within the context of ancient philosophical debates, (...) dispelling various misconceptions concerning its nature and purpose and elucidating some important differences which exist both within the ancient approach to self-refutation and between that approach, as a whole, and some modern counterparts of it. In providing a comprehensive account of ancient self-refutation, the book advances our understanding of influential and debated texts and arguments from philosophers like Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, the Academic sceptics, the Pyrrhonists and Augustine. (shrink)

Kant’s aim in the Refutation of Idealism is to show that the temporal determination of inner experience presupposes outer experience. Commentators have rightly noted the extraordinarily compressed character of Kant's argument, and numerous gaps in the argument have been pointed out. In this paper I focus on two of these gaps and provide a reconstruction of Kant's argument that closes them.

In the ‘Refutation of Idealism’ chapter of the first Critique, Kant argues that the conditions required for having certain kinds of mental episodes are sufficient to guarantee that there are ‘objects in space’ outside us. A perennially influential way of reading this compressed argument is as a kind of causal inference: in order for us to make justified judgements about the order of our inner states, those states must be caused by the successive states of objects in space outside (...) us. Here I consider the best recent versions of this reading, and argue that each suffers from apparently fatal flaws. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the role of Kant’s refutation of materialism in his understanding of the Enlightenment, meant to be the necessary condition that allows human beings to express their proper dignity, i.e. to cultivate the urge for and the vocation of free thought. Sketching the main moments of the German struggle against the threat of materialism, the paper places Kant’s refutation within this tradition, and reconstructs the steps of his critique from the very beginning of his reflection (...) – still dealing with the main topics of Wolff’s metaphysic – up to the definitive refutation he develops on the basis of the transcendental idealism of the first Critique. The shift from the «obscure reasons» pointed out in the Dreams, that allow a refutation of materialism on moral grounds, to the statement of the meaninglessness of the question in a transcendental perspective reveals that the attempt to find a solution to the problem of materialism – most of all in its psychological meaning –represents a neverending challenge within Kant’s reflection. (shrink)