Positive Thesis Research Articles

The Legitimacy of Law: A Response to Critics*

AbstractIn this paper, the author responds to the claim that his critique of legal positivism, based on an account of adjudication in South Ahica, misses its target because it ignores, first, the positivist thesis of judicial discretion and, secondly, the fact that positivism offers no account of judicial obligation. He argues that these theses expose a tension in positivism between its commitments to liberal individualism and to the supremacy of positive law, a tension which can be resolved only by situating positivism in its true context, the Hobbesian argument for the legitimacy of law. Following Dworkin, he advocates the practice‐oriented common law tradition, one that makes the legitimacy of law a matter of standards already implicit in law which are best revealed in adjudication.

The promise and pitfalls of integrated strategy instruction.

I t is immeasurably easier to oppose and criticize proposals such as that offered by Ellis than it is to propose instructional models in the first instance. Presenting a positive thesis is always an arduous task. Bearing this in mind, I will attempt to offer criticism as well as some direction for ways in which the integrated strategy instruction (ISI) model might be improved. In this way, it is hoped that the criticisms discussed here will also offer an element of a positive thesis. Before detailing more critical remarks, it should be noted that there is much to praise in Ellis's ISI model. The ISI model holds considerable promise for transporting strategy instruction from the resource room to the content area classroom. This transfer, coupled with the general aim of integrating strategy instruction across various curricular areas, is much needed. Ellis has set important and ambitious goals for the ISI model. In a broad sense, it would be difficult to argue against their merit. Ellis carefully details the means of achieving the preceding goals. Here there is much to praise, as well. Ellis relies on current cognitive research on strategy instruction to describe appropriate instructional techniques. Furthermore, the cognitive strategies found in ISI are generally well supported by contemporary research. Thus, much of the following criticism applies to what is not addressed in the ISI model, rather than what Ellis proposes. There are few sins of commission in Ellis's discussion of ISI. There are, however, several important sins of ommission, and the discussion now turns to an examination of the less venial of these.

Anthropology and Historiography of Science

Whether history or anthropology is the most fundamental social science remains still a controversial and undecided issue. For a proper understanding of this instructive controversy, the presuppositions of these two disciplines need to be critically and philosophically reviewed. Otherwise the true perspective of the controversy remains undisclosed and therefore unintelligible. A close and comprehensive understanding of language as the basic form of the life-world provides the cues necessary to show correctly the complementary relation between anthropology and history. That synchronic or sociological and diachronic or historical perspectives of science are mutually supportive ways of representing the same social activities has been persuasively argued in this book. Chattopadhyaya has pointedly examined in this connection the conflicting views of Sartre and Levi-Strauss. Also, he has selectively drawn upon, critically assessed, and brought the theories of Husserl, Heidegger, Popper, Quine, and Kuhn to bear upon the problem. The author's conclusion centers around his own concept of human universals. The positive thesis of the book rejects the trichotomy of three cultures: scientific, humanistic, and technological. That this view is not a theoretical creature but a historical and cultural finding has been plausibly reasoned by Chattopadhyaya. The main trend of his reasoning clearly shows that the gulf between analytic philosophers and phenomenologists is either imaginary or highly exaggerated. In this specific case, the author, a student of Popper, perceptively aruges to the effect that if theorizations is primarily problem-oriented rather than “school-based,” one can see one's way to rational solution in the convergent light of different but affine human or cultural origins. But his presentation and assessment of the views and arguments of Husseri, Popper, Quine and Kuhn are likely to prove controversial.

The positivist thesis in fifteenth‐century legal theory and practice

(1990). The positivist thesis in fifteenth‐century legal theory and practice. The Journal of Legal History: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 29-39.

THE METHODOLOGICAL ADEQUACY OF LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH ON CRIME*

This paper argues that the increasing dominance in contemporary criminology of the longitudinal or cohort study is not justified on methodological grounds, that this research design has taken criminological theory in unproductive directions, has produced illusory substantive findings, and has promoted policy conclusions of doubtful utility. In addition, it is noted that longitudinal research is very expensive and therefore has high opportunity costs, costs that have not been properly evaluated. The positive thesis is that many of the apparent benefits of longitudinal research can be obtained by carefully designed and reasonably conceptualized cross‐sectional studies, at substantially reduced cost.

Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions?

In the first part of this paper (§§ 2 and 4) I rule out the possibility of truth conditions for the indicative conditional 'If A, B' which are a truth function of A and B. In the second part (§ 6) I rule out the possibility that such a conditional has truth conditions which are not a truth function of A and B; I rule out accounts which appeal, for example, to a stronger-than-truth-functional "connection" between antecedent and consequent, which may or may not be framed in terms of a relation between possible worlds, in stating what has to be the case for 'If A, B' to be true. I conclude, therefore, that the mistake philosophers have made, in trying to understand the conditional, is to assume that its function is to make a statement about how the world is (or how other possible worlds are related to it), true or false, as the case may be. Along the way (§§ 3 and 5) I develop a positive account of what it is to believe, or to be more or less confident, that if A, B, in terms oi which an adequate logic oi conditionals can be developed. The argument against truth conditions is independent oi this positive account oi the conditional, as I show that any truth-conditional account has counterintuitive consequences, as well as clashing with my positive thesis. But the positive account prevents the paper from merely having created a paradox, or a vacuum. The paper is inspired by Ernest Adams' book, The Logic 01 Corulitionals? My positive thesis is a less technical variant

Why we Believe in Other Minds

One does not hear very much about the problem of other minds these days. It is not that the problem has been solved, but, I think, that its intractability has sapped its interest. It is time for a new approach, one not beholden to the traditional analogical argument or neo-traditional criteriological arguments. That is what I undertake here. Let me prepare the way for my positive thesis by explaining why all traditional thinking that sets the problem as one of justified inference from the first-person case (i.e., all traditional thinking) must fail. The problem of other minds is normally posed this way: on what basis do I infer that various organisms I observe are conscious, and is this inference justified? Each stressed word contains a hefty assumption which usually goes unchallenged and indeed unnoticed. First is the assumption that each individual, as a sort of information-processing atom, goes from non-belief to belief about the existence of other consciousnesses. Second is the assumption that the process by which this transition is effected is inference. Now, these two assumptions can both be true even if the inference involved is faulty; in that case nobody would know of other minds, even though there would now be some understanding of the process which creates belief in other minds. However, since such a process that culminated in unwarranted belief would be vain and unlikely we all suppose pre-theoretically that we know there are other minds philosophers write as if our retention of the belief depends on the soundness of the inference. In all this, the purely causal question, By what process reasonable or not do we come to believe in other minds?, is ignored. All three assumptions are wrong, but it is easiest to create a presumption against them corporately by concentrating on the second one. It is rather unlikely that anyone infers the existence of other minds for the simple reason that creatures incapable of inference, at least of complicated inference, believe in them or hold beliefs that entail the existence

Infallibility

It has often been charged that the doctrine of papal infallibility is either false or incoherent. These charges stem, I believe, from a misunderstanding of the logical character of infallible papal utterances, a misunderstanding shared alike by friends and foes of the doctrine. In this paper, I shall argue that the doctrine is both coherent and correct. I devote section I to uncovering some of the sources of this misunderstanding and thereby defending what might be called my negative thesis, namely, that infallible papal utterances are not statements. In section II, I continue defending my negative thesis, not now as an end in itself, but rather as a means of advancing my positive thesis that infallible papal utterances are declarations and have the same logic as other declarations. The latter thesis requires a discussion of the difference between statements and declarations. Section III contains a formal speech act analysis of successful and non-defective statements and declarations with some additional explanatory notes. In section IV, I speak rather generally about the task of philosophical theology in the light of the results and procedures of sections I–III.

On Taking Liberties with Will

The thesis recently advanced by Mr J. P. Day that ‘Desire (or Will) is irrelevant to Freedom’ is an arresting, even contrary one. And one's first reaction to it may not be unlike Hobbes's on first reading Euclid: ‘“By G—”, sayd he (he would now and then sweare an emphaticall oath by way of emphasis) “This is impossible”’. However, it is hoped to give reason for finding several of Day's propositions somewhat less compelling than Hobbes was to find the propositions of Euclidean geometry. His thesis has and intends implications of ‘great practical importance’. He is concerned with the threat posed to individual liberty by collectivist legislation— though one may be allowed to share this concern without accepting his characterization of the threat. He is also concerned to rebut the claim of tyrannical regimes that they ‘do not really diminish liberty, because they do not really prevent people from doing anything they really want to do’— though again, one may share the concern without finding the rebuttal adequate. Finally, his thesis is intended to offer the possibility of resolving in a ‘higher synthesis’ the contradiction between an ‘Empiricist and Positivist thesis’ and a ‘Rationalist and Idealist antithesis’—but the would-be synthesis succumbs to its own antithesis, taking the form of an anachronisticlaissez fairemetaphysic. The criticisms to be advanced in this paper stem in part from Day's use of defective argument, and of assertion in place of argument; in part from uneasiness with the assimilation of ‘Desire’ and ‘Will’; but above all from a conviction that a satisfactory account of ‘freedom’ and ‘wanting’ cannot be given without close acquaintance with the various ‘behaviours’ with which the language of ‘freedom’ and ‘wanting’ is actually associated. The basic objection is to Day's employment of a still prevalent semantic procedure which permits the content of behavioural concepts to be arbitrarily determined and treats them as if they were autonomous mental constructs: failings often associated with logical atomism and methodological individualism. The result is to erode and distort the connexion between language and life, and place conceptual content at the mercy of a logic rendered capricious by the inadequacy of the material at its disposal and by misplaced confidence in what it can expect to achieve.

The Future

Years ago, there was a popular song whose refrain went thus:Che sàrà, sàrà,Whatever will be, will be,The future’s not ours to see,Che sàrà, sàrà.The first line of this refrain is the motto of the noble house to which Bertrand Russell belonged; it serves to express a view of time that has been set forth by Russell in many of his writings, but the view is one widely held long before Russell lived and now held by many people independently of him. We should not be misled by the tautological appearance of the sentence ‘Whatever will be, will be’; in the song it is a way of putting forward a positive thesis, which may fairly be called a philosophical thesis, even though people who hold it are often little practised in systematic philosophical reflection. We may call it the thesis that there is a definite or determinate future. A book may lie open at one page, but it has a definite text from first page to last, irrespective of this; many people think in this way of the book of human history.We should distinguish between the definiteness or determinacy of the future and its being causally determined by the present and past. If there are causes that now exist or have already existed from which the future can issue only in one way, then the future is clearly determinate ; but the converse does not hold. The metaphor of the book may help us again; even if the text of later pages is not determined by the text of earlier pages, there may nevertheless be a completely fixed text on those pages which we have not yet turned over.

What sort of measurement is psychophysical measurement?

THE thesis of this article has both a negative and a positive aspect. The negative one holds that psychophysical measurement is not of a character closely analogous to either fundamental or derived physical measurement. Whatever loudness may be, I endeavor to establish that it probably is not a measure much like mass or energy or density. In brief, the reason is that psychophysical measures do not exhibit any fixed relation to physical measures and most likely not to one another when examined over individuals. This is reflected in the absence of any structure to the units of psychophysical measures. The positive thesis is that man—and any other organism—is, among other things, a measuring device, in function not unlike a spring balance or a voltmeter, which is capable of transforming many kinds of physical attributes into a common measure in the central nervous system. According to this view, the task of psychophysics is to unravel the nature of that device. The difficulty in doing so stems from several facts: as compared with manmade, special-purpose devices, higher organisms are both complex and flexible measuring devices; their overall behavior does not clearly suggest the nature of the receding of signals; some responses depend on peculiar nonlinear processing of the sensory information; and each individual within a species is calibrated somewhat differently. To flesh out and make this view reasonably clear, we must know something of physical measurement and of psychophysics. Since the details of the nature of physical measurement, especially the abstract theory, are probably not very familiar

Professor Geach and the Gods of the Heathen

In several essays published recently, Professor Geach argues against the thesis that ‘God’, in its Christian use, is a proper name and produces considerations in favour of ‘God’ being a ‘descriptive, predicable, term’; a nomen naturae in Aquinas's vocabulary: a ‘concept’ in Frege's sense (Begriffswort). I have no dispute with Geach concerning ‘God’ not being a proper name, but there seems to me to be a serious difficulty in one argument which he uses to establish his positive thesis. This argument appears in all the essays mentioned; I give the appropriate quotations:(i) ‘Only because of this (i.e. “God” being a descriptive predicable term) can the heathen say that his idol is God and the Christian contradict him and both be using “God” in the same sense: if “God” were a proper name it would be a logically impossible, not a lying, wicked act, to predicate it of sticks and stones (Ia q 13 art. 10).’(ii) ‘When St Augustine and his companions landed in England they found the English paying latria to Woden, Thor, and other imaginary beings to each of whom they applied the word “God” and the missionaries taught them not to apply this word any more to Woden and Thor and the rest, but solely to the Blessed Trinity.… This makes it clear that in the mind of the Church the word “God” is not a proper name, as the word “Woden” was meant to be, but a descriptive term, true of the blessed Trinity and not true of Woden.’(iii) ‘The name “God” as thus introduced is regarded by Aquinas, not as a proper name, but as a general term (nomen naturae) so far as its mode of significance goes … Aquinas rejects the idea that “God” is necessarily used equivocally by polytheists and by monotheists: he holds the view that the polytheists may be using the word “God” in the same sense when he says his idol is God, as the missionary when he says that the idol is not God but a senseless block.’