In Memoriam: Jaakko Hintikka (1929-2015)

Our condolences go out to the surviving family and colleagues of world-renowned Finnish philosopher and logician, Dr. Jaakko Hintikka, who has passed away.

His obituary is linked here, in Finnish.

Having taught at Florida State University, Stanford, the University of Helsinki, and the Academy of Finland, Dr. Hintikka ended his career as a professor emeritus at Boston University.

Over his career, Dr. Hintikka made great contributions to mathematical logic, philosophical logic, the philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, language theory, and the philosophy of science. He is credited as the main architect of game-theoretical semantics and of the interrogative approach to inquiry. Dr. Hintikka is also revered as one of the main architects of distributive normal forms, possible-worlds semantics, tree methods, infinitely deep logics, and the present-day theory of inductive generalization.

To celebrate Dr. Hintikka’s long life and career, we’ve made free a small collection of his articles.

Photo Credit: Australasian Association of Philosophy

---

Existence and Predication from Aristotle to Frege

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research | Volume 73, Issue 2, September 2006

 

Quine’s ultimate presuppositions

Theoria | Volume 65, Issue 1, April 1999

 

Wittgenstein on being and time

Theoria | Volume 62, Issue 1-2, April 1996

 

The Games of Logic and the Games of Inquiry

Dialectica | Volume 49, Issue 2-4, June 1995

 

On proper (popper?) and improper uses of information in epistemology

Theoria | Volume 59, Issue 1-3, April 1993

 

Overcoming “Overcoming Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language” Through Logical Analysis of Language

Dialectica | Volume 45, Issue 2-3, September 1991

 

Metaphor and the Varieties of Lexical Meaning*

Dialectica | Volume 44, Issue 1-2, June 1990

 

Kant on Existence, Predication, and the Ontological Argument

Dialectica | Volume 35, Issue 1, June 1981

 

Language-Games

Dialectica |Volume 31, Issue 3-4, December 1977

 

Partially Ordered Quantifiers vs. Partially Ordered Ideas

Dialectica | Volume 30, Issue 1, March 1976

 

Quine vs. Peirce?

Dialectica | Volume 30, Issue 1, March 1976

 

The Prospects for Convention T

Dialectica | Volume 30, Issue 1, March 1976

 

The Question of?: A Comment on Urs Egli

Dialectica | Volume 30, Issue 1, March 1976

 

Comment on Professor Bergström

Theoria | Volume 41, Issue 1, April 1975

 

Quantifiers vs. Quantification Theory

Dialectica | Volume 27, Issue 3-4, December 1973

 

‘Prima facie’ obligations and iterated modalities

Theoria | Volume 36, Issue 3, December 1970

 

“Knowing oneself” and other problems in epistemic logic

Theoria | Volume 32, Issue 1, April 1966

 

Distributive Normal Forms and Deductive Interpolation

Mathematical Logic Quarterly | Volume 10, Issue 13-17, 1964

 

Modality and Quantification

Theoria | Volume 27, Issue 3, December 1961

 

*Written by Jaakko Hintikka and Gabriel Sandu

Congratulations 2012 Philosopher’s Annual winners!

“The Liberal Arts and their Spirits” by Nikolas Gysis

Each year, The Philosopher’s Annual faces the daunting task of selecting the 10 best articles in philosophy published that year. For 2012, they’ve chosen three articles from journals published by Wiley: Davide Enoch, Levi Spectre, and Talia Fisher’s article “Statistical Evidence, Sensitivity, and the Legal Value of Knowledge”  published in Philosophy and Public Affairs; Sarah Moss’s article “On the Pragmatics of Counterfactuals” published in Noûs; and  Jennifer Nagel’s article “Intuitions and Experiments: A Defense of the Case Method in Epistemology” published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.

Congratulations to David Enoch, Levi Spectre, Talia Fisher, Sarah Moss, Jennifer Nagel and to all the 2012 award winners!

Free Virtual Collection: Philosophy Yesterday and Today

In celebration of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy, we have put together two collections of content from our philosophy books and journals inspired by the conference symposia. These articles look back on the hugely influential philosophy of Ancient Greece, and look forward to current trends in epistemology.

Ancient Greek Philosophy

This section, inspired by the symposium “The Relevance of Ancient Greek Philosophy Today,” contains articles and book chapters on Plato, Artistotle, and Socrates, and covers topics from Greek political thought to Greek theater.

Current Trends in Epistemology

Epistemology – the theory of knowledge – lies at the heart of all philosophy. Inspired by the symposium “Current Trends in Epistemology,” chaired by Noûs editor Ernest Sosa,  this collection seeks to tie epistemology into current issues from education to engineering.

 

Video Abstract: The Epistemology of Religious Diversity in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion

This video abstract accompanies the Philosophy Compass article The Epistemology of Religious Diversity in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion by Amir Dastmalchian.

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy

Read the second issue of Thought: A Journal of Philosophy for free!

Thought, edited by Crispin Wright, John Divers and Carrie Jenkins and published on behalf of the Northern Institute of Philosophy, is dedicated to the publication of short (less than 4,500 words), original, philosophical papers in the areas of epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, philosophy of math, and philosophy of mind.

The editors of Thought hope to expose the readers of Thought to the most central and significant issues and positions in contemporary philosophy that fall under its remit. To that end, all readers are encouraged to continue the discussion in the new Thought Blog, which provides a forum for readers of and contributors to the journal to discuss the latest papers.

Read Thought‘s second issue here, and then register for the Thought Blog to share your thoughts!

50th Anniversary of the Southern Journal of Philosophy

The Southern Journal of Philosophy is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2012! To commemorate this milestone and to honor all of those who have sustained this distinctive forum for the past half-century, each of the issues in this year’s volume has been specially commissioned, guest-edited, and dedicated to a timely topic from one of the areas in which the SJP regularly publishes (analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, and history of philosophy):

•  50.1: “Epistemic Coherentism,” ed. Ted Poston
• 50.2: “Continental Philosophy: What and Where Will It Be?” ed. Ted Toadvine
• 50.3: “Newton and Newtonianism,” ed. Mary Domski
• 50.4: “Relativism about Value,” eds. Max Kölbel and Dan Zeman

Together, these issues will offer a “state of the discipline” look at key debates in contemporary philosophy.To be alerted when new issues publish, visit the SJP homepage and click “Get New Content Alerts” from the top left Journal Tools menu.

Alien Intelligence and Plant Intelligence

 As NPR reports, planets are being discovered that might support life.  These new and exciting celestial spheres are more-or-less suitable for the emergence of life: the temperature, gravity, and elemental make-up of such planets can create selection pressures that range the gamut from mild to pretty-much-inhospitable.  One such discovery is especially noteworthy: Kepler 22-B (named after the telescope) is in the ‘goldilocks’ zone.  In this zone, the size of the planet and its proximity to its star create the right sort of conditions to support flowing water.

The BBC (picked up by Slate) go on to make the link between the discovery of such planets and astral systems, and SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.  With the discovery of more and more of these potentially-hospitable earth-twins, SETI gains a more plausible target to turn its arrays.  With the discovery of more and more of such planets, it is more likely (though I am hesitant to use this term here) that we may discover intelligent life.  Another variable in the Drake Equation starts its climb up in the cardinal numbers.

But wait! What is intelligent life?  The ability to broadcast galactic radio-waves?  Drake, at least, keeps that a separate variable, a tier that only a select group of intelligent critters will ever reach.  But that really seems to operationalize our search for intelligent life.  What if, being impatient, we send a probe (‘Make it so Number One’, etc.) to Kepler 22-B and discover strange, barely congealed bioluminescent areas – would we be right in attributing it with intelligence?  Might our current conceptions of it be too broad? – too exclusive?