Lasse Thomassen, University of Essex On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction and The Liberating Power of Symbols stand at each end of Jürgen Habermas’s attempt to develop a theory of communicative action, universal pragmatics, and discourse ethics. On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction is a collection of preliminary studies of communicative action and universal pragmatics […]

Presidential Address of the 51st Annual Meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association, 2005 Jim Perry, Hillsborough Community College Antonyms are words that mean opposite or even contradictory things. “Open” and “shut” are antonyms, as are “up” and “down.” What interests me this evening is auto-antonyms, words that mean the opposite of themselves, such as “sanction,” […]

Presidential Address of the 50th Annual Meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association Shelley M. Park, University of Central Florida Good evening. I hope you have enjoyed your time today and are looking forward to tomorrow’s events as well, as am I. On behalf of all of us, let me extend my thanks to Vice President […]

Presidential Address of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association Ron Cooper, Central Florida Community College A couple of years ago a student in my ethics class stopped by my office about half-way through the semester. Rachel was a very bright young woman—quiet and reserved, but her test scores were quite high. She […]

Winner of the Outstanding Graduate Paper Award at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association Osvil Acosta-Morales, University of Miami Consider the claim that insofar as our interests are epistemic, what should guide our belief formation and revision is a strict adherence to the available evidence. The idea is that we should believe […]

Winner of the Edith and Gerrit Schipper Undergraduate Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Paper at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association Gustavo de L.T. Oliveira, New College of Florida Introduction With the development of scientific investigation, both the structure of the universe and its laws were being discovered. With the dramatic advances of […]

Daniel Callcut, University of North Florida Introduction Bernard Williams has explored how various personal ideals–ideals of self-fulfillment or of romantic love–can come into conflict with and threaten to undermine morality’s authority over thought and conduct. One of his central aims was to show that the paramount normative standing traditionally accorded to morality is more precarious […]

Michael Roess, Eckerd College It has been well established that the pursuit of knowledge is an inescapably social activity. This is not only because we live in a world with others but also because, as Francis Bacon noticed, our inability to observe ourselves blinds us to the assumptions we use in inquiry. We become aware […]

Demonstrative Reference: It’s Not What You Think Robert Seltzer, Nova Southeastern University I. Introduction Kent Bach has proposed a version of a so-called “intention-based” semantic theory for demonstratives, theories which became popular through the later writings of David Kaplan, specifically in his “Afterthoughts” (1989). I’ll present some examples of demonstrative reference (some familiar, some not), […]

John M. Valentine, Savannah College of Art and Design The paper is a critique of the so-called visually-indistinguishable-pairs argument which first appeared in Arthur Danto’s article, “The Artworld,” in 1964 (202-212). In section 1.1, I present a summary of the argument. In 1.2, I explore the concept of the aesthetic and the issue of whether […]