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.Comment: This is a stub entry. Please add your comments below to help us expand it
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.
MacDonald, Margaret. The Language of Political Theory
1941, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 41, pp. 91-112.
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Added by: Veronica CibotaruAbstract:
This article questions fundamental concepts in political philosophy and political theory, as well as the method of political philosophy and philosophy more generally. While acknowledging that concepts such as contract, higher self, or organism do not refer within political theories to anything real but function as metaphors, MacDonald nonetheless emphasizes the importance of reflecting on the reasons for and the effects of their use. This way of thinking can constitute an essential part of philosophical method.
MacDonald’s thesis is that such concepts arise in response to puzzles of social life, among which the most fundamental is perhaps the question, “Why should human beings live with others of their own kind at all?” According to MacDonald, however, there is no general answer to these puzzles that could be applied to all social situations and that would entail political obligations normative for every context. This constitutes an important implicit critique of classical political theories.
As MacDonald argues, “as rational and responsible citizens we can never hope to know once and for all what our political duties are. And so we can never go to sleep.” The impossibility of offering a universal theory of political duties thus implies the requirement of constant ethical and political vigilance.
Comment: This can provide students with a useful critical perspective on classical political theories, such as the theory of the social contract. At the same time, it can encourage them to reflect on the method of philosophy and to take a fresh look at the classical analytic understanding of it as linguistic analysis.
Machery, Edouard, et al. Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style
2004, Cognition 92, B1-B12
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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael GreerAbstract:
Theories of reference have been central to analytic philosophy, and two views, the descriptivist view of reference and the causal-historical view of reference, have dominated the field. In this research tradition, theories of reference are assessed by consulting one's intuitions about the reference of terms in hypothetical situations. However, recent work in cultural psychology has shown systematic differences between East Asians and Westerners, and some work indicates that this extends to intuitions about philosophical cases. In light of these findings on cultural differences, two experiments were conducted which explored intuitions about reference in Westerners and East Asians. Both experiments indicate that, for certain central cases, Westerners are more likely than East Asians to report intuitions that are consistent with the causal-historical view. These results constitute prima facie evidence that semantic intuitions vary from culture to culture, and that paper argues that this fact raises questions about the nature of the philosophical enterprise of developing a theory of reference.Comment (from this Blueprint): In "Naming and Necessity," one of the most celebrated philosophical works of the XXth century philosophy, Saul Kripke presents a series of thought experiments meant to discredit the description theory of proper names. For a long time, many in the profession believed that Kripke’s intuitions about these cases are universally shared. Machery and colleagues challenge this orthodoxy by presenting the results of two experiments, in which they asked American and Hong Kongese populations about their intuitions regarding Kripke’s cases.
Machery, Edouard, Stich, Stephen. Demographic Differences in Philosophical Intuition. A reply to Joshua Knobe
2022, Review of Philosophy and Psychology
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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael GreerAbstract:
In a recent paper, Joshua Knobe (2019) offers a startling account of the metaphilosophical implications of findings in experimental philosophy. We argue that Knobe’s account is seriously mistaken, and that it is based on a radically misleading portrait of recent work in experimental philosophy and cultural psychology.Comment (from this Blueprint): The authors of the paper are the leaders of the recently concluded “Geography of philosophy project”, which studies “diversity in people’s conceptions of understanding, wisdom, and knowledge around the world, and seek to promote cross-cultural research in cognitive science.” In this response piece, they accuse Knobe of cherry-picking the results to support his conclusion. They supply an impressive list of 100 papers that have found diversity in philosophical intuitions across demographic groups. In addition to claiming that Knobe’s view is false, they also argue that taking it seriously may have harmful consequences for the way philosophy is practiced.
Mackenzie, Catriona. Embodied agents, narrative selves
2014, Philosophical Explorations 17 (2), pp. 154-171
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Added by: Maria Jimena Clavel VazquezAbstract:
Recent work on diachronic agency has challenged the predominantly structural or synchronic approach to agency that is characteristic of much of the literature in contemporary philosophical moral psychology. However, the embodied dimensions of diachronic agency continue to be neglected in the literature. This article draws on phenomenological perspectives on embodiment and narrative conceptions of the self to argue that diachronic agency and selfhood are anchored in embodiment. In doing so, the article also responds to Diana Meyers' recent work on corporeal selfhood.Comment: available in this Blueprint
Mackenzie, Catriona, Jackie Leach Scully. Moral imagination, disability and embodiment
2007, Journal of Applied Philosophy 24(4), pp. 335-351
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Added by: Maria Jimena Clavel VazquezAbstract:
In this paper we question the basis on which judgements are made about the ‘quality’ of the lives of people whose embodied experience is anomalous, specifically in cases of impairments. In moral and political philosophy it is often assumed that, suitably informed, we can overcome epistemic gaps through the exercise of moral imagination: ‘putting ourselves in the place of others’, we can share their points of view. Drawing on phenomenology and theories of embodied cognition, and on empirical studies, we suggest that there are barriers to imagining oneself differently situated, or imagining being another person, arising in part from the way imagination is constrained by embodied experience. We argue that the role of imagination in moral engagement with others is to expand the scope of our sympathies rather than to enable us to put ourselves in the other's place. We argue for explicit acknowledgement that our assessments of others’ QOL are likely to be shaped by the specifics of our own embodiment, and by the assumptions we make as a consequence about what is necessary for a good quality of life.Comment: available in this Blueprint
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.
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