Gilbert Harman

Judith Thomson

Do moral questions have objective answers? In this great debate, Gilbert Harman explains and argues for relativism, emotivism, and moral scepticism. In his view, moral disagreements are like disagreements about what to pay for a house; there are no correct answers ahead of time, except in relation to one or another moral framework. Independently, Judith Jarvis Thomson examines what she takes to be the case against moral objectivity, and rejects it; she argues that it is possible to find out the correct answers to some moral questions. In her view, some moral disagreements are like disagreements about whether the house has a ghost. Harman and Thomson then reply to each other. This important, lively accessible exchange will be invaluable to all students of moral theory and meta-ethics.

Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity

Explaining Value is a selection of the best of Gilbert Harman's shorter writings in moral philosophy. The thirteen essays, originally published between 1967 and 1999, are divided into four sections, which focus in turn on moral relativism, values and valuing, character traits and virtue ethics, and ways of explaining aspects of morality. An indication of the breadth of interest of the book can be given by mentioning a few of the compelling questions which Harman discusses: What accounts for the existence of basic moral disagreements? Why do most people think it is worse to injure someone than to fail to save them from injury? Why do many people think it is morally permissible to treat animals in ways we would not treat people? What is it to value something and what is it to value something intrinsically? How much of morality can or should be explained in terms of human flourishing, or the possession of virtuous character traits? How do people come to be moral? Harman's distinctive approach to moral philosophy has provoked much interest; this volume offers a fascinating conspectus of his most important work in the area.

and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy

Explaining Value

Critical Essays

On Noam Chomsky

An Introduction to Ethics

The Nature of Morality

Originally published in 1990. This study argues that scepticism is an intelligible view and that the issue scepticism raises is whether or not certain sceptical hypotheses are as plausible as the ordinary views we accept. It discusses psychological concepts, definitions of knowledge, belief and hypothetic inference (inference to the best explanation). Starting from Is skepticism a problem for epistemology, the book takes us through the argument for the possibility of scepticism, including looking at sense data and considering memory and perception."

Skepticism and the Definition of Knowledge

Ernest Lepore

This Companion brings together a team of leading figures in contemporary philosophy to provide an in-depth exposition and analysis of Quine’s extensive influence across philosophy’s many subfields, highlighting the breadth of his work, and revealing his continued significance today. Provides an in-depth account and analysis of W.V.O. Quine’s contribution to American Philosophy, and his position as one of the late twentieth-century’s most influential analytic philosophers Brings together newly-commissioned essays by leading figures within contemporary philosophy Covers Quine’s work across philosophy of logic, philosophy of language, ontology and metaphysics, epistemology, and more Explores his work in relation to the origins of analytic philosophy in America, and to the history of philosophy more broadly Highlights the breadth of Quine’s work across the discipline, and demonstrates the continuing influence of his work within the philosophical community

A Companion to W. V. O. Quine

This book is a philosophical introduction to ethics. It differs from existing texts by focusing on a basic philosophical problem about morality, its apparent immunity from observational testing. Other texts either ignore this issue altogether, in order to concentrate on interesting but largely nonphilosophical discussions of moral problems, or treat the issue as only one of several highly technical questions in something called 'meta-ethics.'

In this selection of Gilbert Harman's shorter writings in moral philosophy, the essays are divided into four sections, focusing on moral relativism, values and valuing, character traits and virtue ethics, and ways of explaining aspects of morality.

Explaining Value and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy

D. Davidson

Semantics of Natural Language

Sanjeev Kulkarni

A thought-provoking look at statistical learning theory and its role in understanding human learning and inductive reasoning A joint endeavor from leading researchers in the fields of philosophy and electrical engineering, An Elementary Introduction to Statistical Learning Theory is a comprehensive and accessible primer on the rapidly evolving fields of statistical pattern recognition and statistical learning theory. Explaining these areas at a level and in a way that is not often found in other books on the topic, the authors present the basic theory behind contemporary machine learning and uniquely utilize its foundations as a framework for philosophical thinking about inductive inference. Promoting the fundamental goal of statistical learning, knowing what is achievable and what is not, this book demonstrates the value of a systematic methodology when used along with the needed techniques for evaluating the performance of a learning system. First, an introduction to machine learning is presented that includes brief discussions of applications such as image recognition, speech recognition, medical diagnostics, and statistical arbitrage. To enhance accessibility, two chapters on relevant aspects of probability theory are provided. Subsequent chapters feature coverage of topics such as the pattern recognition problem, optimal Bayes decision rule, the nearest neighbor rule, kernel rules, neural networks, support vector machines, and boosting. Appendices throughout the book explore the relationship between the discussed material and related topics from mathematics, philosophy, psychology, and statistics, drawing insightful connections between problems in these areas and statistical learning theory. All chapters conclude with a summary section, a set of practice questions, and a reference sections that supplies historical notes and additional resources for further study. An Elementary Introduction to Statistical Learning Theory is an excellent book for courses on statistical learning theory, pattern recognition, and machine learning at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It also serves as an introductory reference for researchers and practitioners in the fields of engineering, computer science, philosophy, and cognitive science that would like to further their knowledge of the topic.

Gilbert Harman

About

Books

Join the club