Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Bradley and His Regress

  • Among the Riddles of Existence

    Among the riddles of existence are the riddles that are artifacts of the attempts of thinkers to unravel the riddle of existence. This is one way into philosophy. It is the way of G. E. Moore. What riddled him was not the world so much as the strange things philosophers such as F. H. Bradley…

  • F. H. Bradley on the Non-Intentionality of Pleasure and Pain

    This is a re-do of a post from 13 April 2009. The addenda are new. …………………………………… I have argued at length for the non-intentionality of some conscious states.  Here is an entry that features an uncommonly good comment thread. None of the opposing comments made on the various posts inclined me to modify my view.  …

  • Two Ways into Philosophy

    Among the riddles of existence are the artifacts of the attempts of thinkers to unravel the riddle of existence. What started G. E. Moore philosophizing was not so much the world as the puzzling things people such as F. H. Bradley said about it.  That too is a way into philosophy, if an inauthentic one.…

  • A. E. Taylor on F. H. Bradley on Religion

    Here at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical

  • Frege’s Horse Paradox, Bradley’s Regress, and the Problem of Predication

    The concept horse is not a concept.  Thus spoke Frege, paradoxically.  Why does he say such a thing?  Because the subject expression 'the concept horse' refers to an object.  It names an object.  Concepts and objects on his scheme are mutually exclusive. No concept is an object and conversely.   Only objects can be named.…

  • On J. P. Moreland’s Theory of Existence

    What follows is largely a summary and restatement of points I make in "The Moreland-Willard-Lotze Thesis on Being," Philosophia Christi, vol. 6, no. 1, 2004, pp. 27-58.  It is a 'popular' or 'bloggity-blog' version of a part of that lengthy technical article.  First I summarize my agreements with J. P. Moreland.   Then I explain…

  • Vallicella on Orilia on Bradley’s Regress

    The other day I was pleased to receive an e-mail message from Francesco Orilia whom I hadn't heard from in several years.  He inquired about some correspondence we engaged in back in the spring of 2004.  I thought it had evaporated into the aether, but the Wayback Machine came to the rescue.  I reproduce it…

  • Is the Difference Between a Fact and Its Constituents a Brute Difference?

    Note to Steven Nemes:  Tell me if you find this totally clear, and if not, point out what is unclear.  Tell me whether you accept my overall argument. The day before yesterday in conversation Steven Nemes presented a challenge  I am not sure I can meet.  I have maintained (in my book, in published articles,…

  • Fregean Propositions, Unmereological Compositions, and Bradley’s Regress

    Steven Nemes writes and I respond in blue: I know you're in a bit of a mereology phase at the moment, but I figured I'd shoot this by you. Mereology is the theory of parts and wholes.  Now propositions, whether Fregean or Russellian, are wholes of parts.  So mereology is not irrelevant to questions about…

  • Richard Gaskin on the Unity of the Proposition

    The following is my contribution to a symposium on Richard Gaskin's The Unity of the Proposition. The symposium, together with Gaskin's replies, is scheduled to  appear in the December 2009 issue of Dialectica. GASKIN ON THE UNITY OF THE PROPOSITION William F. Vallicella While studying Richard Gaskin’s The Unity of the Proposition (Oxford 2008), the word…

  • A. E. Taylor on F. H. Bradley on Religion

    The following quotations are from A. E. Taylor's "F. H. Bradley" which is an account of his relation with the great philosopher, an account published in Mind, vol. XXXIV, no. 133 (January 1925), pp. 1-12. A. E. Taylor is an important philosopher in his own right whose works, unfortunately, are little read nowadays. Bradley as…

  • F. H. Bradley on the Non-Intentionality of Pleasure and Pain

     I have argued at length for the non-intentionality of some conscious states.  None of the opposing comments made on the various posts inclined me to modify my view.  The agreement of Peter Lupu, however, fortified me in my adherence to it.  I was especially pleased recently to stumble upon a passage by the great F.…

  • Bradley’s Regress as the Metaphysical Ground of the Unity of the Proposition: Notes on Gaskin

    Having recently returned from the Geneva conference on Bradley's regress, I have much to ruminate upon and digest.  I'll start my ruminations with some comments on Richard Gaskin's work.  In an earlier post I suggested that we ought to make a tripartite distinction among vicious, benign (harmless), and virtuous (helpful) infinite regresses. To put it…

  • Bradley’s Regress and the ‘Adicity’ of Compresence: Is it Dyadic, Triadic, or N-Adic?

    This is an addendum to Trope Theory Meets Bradley's Regress.  In that paper I touched upon the question whether the compresence relation is dyadic or not, but did not delve into the matter in any depth.  Now I will say a little more with the help of George Molnar's excellent discussion in Powers: A Study…

  • Trope Theory Meets Bradley’s Regress

    This is the paper I am scheduled to present at the Bradley Conference at the University of Geneva in early December, warts and all. No doubt it needs more work.  So comments and criticism are welcome. Trope Theory Meets Bradley's Regress William F. Vallicella 1. Introduction One of the perennial tasks of ontology is that of…