Macdonald, Cynthia. Externalism and first-person authority
1995, Synthese 104 (1):99-122.
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Added by: Giada FratantonioAbstract: In this paper, the author explores the relation between content externalism, i.e., the idea that the content of our thought is determines by factors of the environment, and first-person authority, i.e., the idea that subjects are authoritive with respect to the content of their own intentional states. The author develps an account of first-person authoritive that results being compatible with externalism.Comment: It is good as a further reading on the topic of content/semantic externalism.
Macdonald, Margaret. The Language of Fiction
1954, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 28 (1):165-196.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirAbstract: The opening sentence of Jane Austen's novel Emma is a sentence from fiction. Emma is a work in which the author tells a story of characters, places and incidents almost all of which she has invented. I shall mean by " fiction " any similar work. For unless a work is largely, if not wholly, composed of what is invented, it will not correctly be called " fiction ". One which contains nothing imaginary may be history, science, detection, biography, but not fiction. I want to ask some questions about how an author uses words and sentences in fiction. But my interest is logical, not literary. I shall not discuss the style or artistic skill of any storyteller. Mine is the duller task of trying to understand some of the logic of fictional language; to determine the logical character of its expressions. How do they resemble and differ from those in other contexts? What are they understood to convey? Are they, e.g., true or false statements? If so, of or about what are they true or false? If not, what other function do they perform? How are they connected? These are the questions I shall chiefly discuss.
MacDonald, Margaret. Verification and Understanding
1934, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 34(1): 143–156
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Added by: Viviane Fairbank, Contributed by: Viviane FairbankAbstract:
The object of this paper is to discuss one or two points arising out of the view held by certain modern philosophers that the whole meaning of a proposition is given in a set of conditional propositions about the experiences which would verify it. Or, as C. S. Peirce said, that " the rational meaning of every propo- sition lies in the future." And for these philosophers to say that the proposition is true is just to say that if I get into certain situations I do have the prescribed experiences which verify the proposition. A proposition (or arrangement of signs)t which cannot be so verified is either tautological, e.g., the "propositions" of logic and mathematics, or it is just metaphysical nonsense. Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects, and if we fancy we have any other we are deceiving ourselves with empty.... Now it may be true that the scientist does tend to identify what he understands with the means of its verification, but it is also true that verification is usually employed in science and elsewhere, not to establish the meaning of propositions, but to prove them true. This, I think, is the usual meaning of the word "verification" and a confusion between these two quite different uses of the word by positivist philosophers leads to certain paradoxical results.Comment: MacDonald's discussion and critique of the verificationist theory of meaning is clear and concise, touching on work by C.I. Lewis, Peirce, and Whitehead. It would be suitable as assigned reading for any introductory course that includes logical positivism and related issues.
MacDonald, Margaret. Necessary Propositions
1940, Analysis, 7(2): 45–51
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Added by: Viviane Fairbank, Contributed by: Viviane FairbankAbstract:
I should like to make a few comments on a recent article on necessary propositions by Mr. Norman Malcolm. Not so much because of anything specifically said by Mr. Malcolm as because his article expresses a prevalent view. Mr. Malcolm rejects what may be called the 'metaphysical' view of these propositions, viz. that they describe a special realm of necessary facts known by a kind of interior 'looking' called intuition or self-evidence. But the main concern of his paper is to reject also the later positivist view that they are 'really' verbal..., that they are rules of grammar or commands to use words in certain ways.Comment: In this short paper, MacDonald presents some objections to prominent views of logical necessity. The arguments are clear but require contextual knowledge of what was being discussed philosophically at the time, so some background would be useful.
Mackenzie, Catriona (ed.), Stoljar, Natalie (ed.). Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Automony, Agency, and the Social Self
2000, Oxford University Press.
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Added by: Clotilde TorregrossaPublisher's Note: This collection of original essays explores the social and relational dimensions of individual autonomy. Rejecting the feminist charge that autonomy is inherently masculinist, the contributors draw on feminist critiques of autonomy to challenge and enrich contemporary philosophical debates about agency, identity, and moral responsibility. The essays analyze the complex ways in which oppression can impair an agent's capacity for autonomy, and investigate connections, neglected by standard accounts, between autonomy and other aspects of the agent, including self-conception, self-worth, memory, and the imagination.Comment: All but one of the papers in this volume are writtn by underrepresented authors.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.. Are Women Human?: and other international dialogues
2006, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Bart SchultzAbstract: More than half a century after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defined what a human being is and is entitled to, Catharine MacKinnon asks: Are women human yet? If women were regarded as human, would they be sold into sexual slavery worldwide; veiled, silenced, and imprisoned in homes; bred, and worked as menials for little or no pay; stoned for sex outside marriage or burned within it; mutilated genitally, impoverished economically, and mired in illiteracy--all as a matter of course and without effective recourse?Comment: An excellent collection of essays by MacKinnon that includes some of her critiques of Foucauldian social constructionism.
Macklin, Ruth. Cloning and Public Policy
2002, In Justine Burley & John Harris (eds.), A companion to genethics. Blackwell. pp. 206-215.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktAbstract: It seemed like only minutes after a team of Scottish scientists announced, in late February 1997, that they had successfully cloned a sheep, that governmental officials and private citizens throughout the world called for a ban on cloning human beings. The rush to legislate or issue executive orders was so swift, it is reasonable to wonder why the news that a mammal had been cloned ignited such a stampede to prohibit, even criminalize, attempts to clone humans. These events raise a series of separate, yet related questions. Why does the prospect of cloning human beings incite such strong reactions? What reasons have been proposed for enacting national laws or international conventions to prohibit cloning? Can these prohibitions be justified by sound ethical arguments? Before attempting to answer these questions, let us look first at the responses that called for public policy measures to ban human cloning.
Maclean, Anne. The Elimination of Morality: Reflections on Utilitarianism and Bioethics
1993, Routledge.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktPublisher's Note: The Elimination of Morality poses a fundamental challenge to the dominant conception of medical ethics. In this controversial and timely study, Anne Maclean addresses the question of what kind of contribution philosophers can make to the discussion of medico-moral issues and the work of health care professionals. She establishes the futility of bioethics by challenging the conception of reason in ethics which is integral to the utilitarian tradition. She argues that a philosophical training confers no special authority to make pronouncements about moral issues, and proposes that pure utilitarianism eliminates the essential ingredients of moral thinking. Maclean also exposes the inadequacy of a utilitarian account of moral reasoning and moral life, dismissing the claim that reason demands the rejection of special obligations. She argues that the utilitarian drive to reduce rational moral judgment to a single form is ultimately destructive of moral judgment as such. This vital discussion of the nature of medical ethics and moral philosophy will be important reading for anyone interested in the fields of health care ethics and philosophy.
Macpherson, Fiona. Ambiguous Figures and the Content of Experience
2006, Noûs 40 (1):82-117
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktAbstract: Representationalism is the position that the phenomenal character of an experience is either identical with, or supervenes on, the content of that experience. Many representationalists hold that the relevant content of experience is nonconceptual. I propose a counterexample to this form of representationalism that arises from the phenomenon of Gestalt switching, which occurs when viewing ambiguous figures. First, I argue that one does not need to appeal to the conceptual content of experience or to judgements to account for Gestalt switching. I then argue that experiences of certain ambiguous figures are problematic because they have different phenomenal characters but that no difference in the nonconceptual content of these experiences can be identified. I consider three solutions to this problem that have been proposed by both philosophers and psychologists and conclude that none can account for all the ambiguous figures that pose the problem. I conclude that the onus is on representationalists to specify the relevant difference in content or to abandon their position.
Macpherson, Fiona. Novel Colours and the Content of Experience
2003, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 84 (2003), 43-66.
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Simon Prosser
Abstract: I propose a counterexample to naturalistic representational theories of phenomenal character. The counterexample is generated by experiences of novel colours reported by Crane and Piantanida. I consider various replies that a representationalist might make, including whether novel colours could be possible colours of objects and whether one can account for novel colours as one would account for binary colours or colour mixtures. I argue that none of these strategies is successful and therefore that one cannot fully explain the nature of the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences using a naturalistic conception of representation
Comment: Further reading, raises an interesting objection to intentionalism/representationalism
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