It is tempting to analyse causality in terms of just one of the indicators of causal relationships, e.g., mechanisms, probabilistic dependencies or independencies, counterfactual conditionals or agency considerations. While such an analysis will surely shed light on some aspect of our concept of cause, it will fail to capture the whole, rather multifarious, notion. So one might instead plump for pluralism: a different analysis for a different occasion. But we do not seem to have lots of different kinds of cause—just one eclectic notion. The resolution of this conundrum, I think, requires us to accept that our causal beliefs are generated by a wide variety of indicators, but to deny that this variety of indicators yields a variety of concepts of cause. This focus on the relation between evidence and causal beliefs leads to what I call epistemic causality. Under this view, certain causal beliefs are appropriate or rational on the basis of observed evidence; our notion of cause can be understood purely in terms of these rational

In 1922, Thoraf Skolem published a paper titled "Some remarks on Axiomatized Set Theory". The paper presents a new proof of... This dissertation focuses almost exclusively on the first half of this project -- i.e., the half which tries to expose an initial tension between Cantor's theorem and the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem. I argue that, even on quite naive understandings of set theory and model theory, there is no such tension. Hence, Skolem's Paradox is not a genuine paradox, and there is very little reason to worry about (or even to investigate) the more extreme consequences that are supposed to follow from this paradox. The heart of my...

This paper was begun in the mid 1980's -- I will try to find out exactly when sometime. The last time that I worked at all on the text was in 1988. This is essentially the 1988 draft, with some minor formatting changes. I have never published the paper because it seems to me to need more thought.

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this dissertation I address both questions of application and questions of constitution. The primary aim of this chapter is to begin by addressing the question of what it means for judgments to be objective or subjective. One common use of the notions of objectivity and subjectivity is to demarcate kinds of judgment (or thought or belief). On such a usage, prototypically objective judgments concern matters of empirical and mathematical fact such as the moon has no atmosphere and two and two are four. In contrast, prototypically subjective judgments concern matters of value and preference such as Mozart is better than Bach and vanilla ice cream with ketchup is disgusting. I offer these examples not to take sides on whether such judgments actually are objective or subjective, but only to call attention to a typical way of using "objective" and "subjective". The question arises as to what it means in this context to call these respective judgments "objective" and "subjective". Some have proposed that the difference hinges on truth. Objective judgments are absolutely true, whereas the truth of subjective judgments is relative to the person making the judgment: my judgments are true for me, your judgments are true for you. You and I can each utter "vanilla tastes great" but in your mouth this may constitute a truth and in my mouth it may constitute a falsehood. Subjective judgments are subject relative. Some philosophers have noted an analogy between this kind of subject relativity and a kind that obtains for indexical expressions. You and I can both utter "I am here" and thereby express different propositions. Some philosophers have construed indexicality as an instance of subjectivity and some others have even gone so far as to argue that subjectivity just is indexicality....

I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. Bertrand Russell, Autobiography, vol. 1, Prologue. The Quine/Putnam indispensability argument is regarded by many as the chief argument for the existence of platonic objects. We argue that this argument cannot establish what its proponents intend. The form of our argument is simple. Suppose indispensability to science is the only good reason for believing in the existence of platonic objects. Either the dispensability of mathematical objects to science can be demonstrated and, hence, there is no good reason for believing in the existence of platonic objects, or their dispensability cannot be demonstrated and, hence, there is no good reason for believing in the existence of mathematical objects which are genuinely platonic. Therefore, indispensability, whether true or false, does not support platonism. Mathematical platonists claim that at least some of the objects

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