Blake Roeber, Northern Illinois University Contextualists maintain that the truth-values of knowledge attributions vary from conversational context to conversational context. In one conversational context, a knowledge attribution may express a true proposition; in another conversational context, the same attribution may express a false proposition. Almost invariably, contextualists defend their position as necessary for preserving our […]

Elisabeta Sarca, Boston University I. Leibniz against Trans-World Identity For Leibniz, even though whatever happens to an individual substance is certain to happen (since everything is included in its notion), if the contrary were to occur, that would not be impossible in itself, but only ex hypothesi, given the actual sequence of events. Of the […]

Winner of the Gerritt and Edith Schipper Undergraduate Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Paper at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association Sean Armil, University of Florida In this paper, I will examine John Martin Fischer’s rejection of the Maxim that “ought” implies “can.” He is motivated to reject the Maxim because of an […]

Presidential Address of the 54th Annual Meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association, 2008 Ronald L. Hall, Stetson University Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, I was a philosophy major at Stetson. I was wide- eyed, eager, and certainly impressionable. I recall a special impression from this period in my life that indelibly […]

Jonathan Scott Miller, Bowling Green State University The neuroscientists Andrew Newberg and Eugene d’Aquili have developed, over the course of several decades of research, an influential model of what happens in the brain during mystical experiences.  Their model of mystical experiences is often brought up in scientific discussions of religion and mysticism. D’Aquili and Newberg […]

Can We Truly Love That Which Is Fleeting? The Problem of Time in Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization Brian Lightbody, Brock University Can We Truly Love That Which Is Fleeting? The Problem of Time in Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization In Civilization and its Discontents, Freud contends that the best way to diagnosis the social ills of […]

Winner of the Outstanding Graduate Paper Award at the 55th Annual Meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association Ryan Lake, University of Miami Is it permissible to punish people for crimes that they haven’t committed yet? Intuitively such a practice seems grossly unjust to say the least. Before committing a crime, a person is still innocent […]

Jason Waller, Purdue University Introduction: The Attribute Problem Spinoza defines attribute at E1d4 as “what the intellect perceives of a substance, as constituting its essence.” Spinoza then argues (at E1p10) that each attribute must be conceived “through itself.” That is, each attribute is conceptually independent. One can clearly and distinctly conceive of Thought without Extension […]

Richard Vulich, University of California Irvine On some interpretations of it, Frege’s sharpness requirement is problematic. “Sharpness” is a property had by either terms or concepts which the terms stand for. A term or concept is sharp just in case it is objectively truth-evaluable, that is to say, just in case the extension of the term […]

Scott Kimbrough, Jacksonville University An emerging movement called “experimental philosophy” provides a new angle on the venerable debate about moral responsibility and determinism. Philosophers claiming that moral responsibility is incompatible with determinism (“incompatibilists”) generally insist that common sense is on their side, that the concept of moral responsibility employed by ordinary people requires an ability […]