Ontology room

Ontology room
Norman, from Illinois university, gave a talk at source room this afternoon. He aimed at formulating a theory to resolve the conflict between ontological utterance and ordinary denials. He showed several current theories aiming at the same resolution, like illeminativism, compatibilism and the like, who hold some very surprising claims about the ontological issue, such as there is not tables, cups and the like ordinary objects.
He develops a notion of onxistence to solve the existence puzzle. Extremely philosophical approach.

A summary of proposal writting

The purpose of a thesis proposal is to clarify candidate's basic academic project of the following research. It basically consists of identification of academic problem which the author dedicates to resolve, description of academic context against which the project will work, and summaries of separate chapters as the more detailed plan deriving from the original problem identified in the first part. More briefly, it comprises of formulation of problem, contextualization of background and the summarization of contents in chapters. The more concrete the proposal is, the easier the future work will be. AS a fact of matter, the most important part would have been established up in research proposal in many cases and what left for the following research is just to add some specific supporting information in order to make the thesis more persuasive and comprehensive. 

The formulation of problem is generally considered as the most crucial part of proposal because it involves the core of the research and therefore refers to its potential academic value, that is, its potential contribution to the academic sphere. In fact, it is not easy to identify a specific problem in an area whether you support or attack some theory or opinion. One neither could nor ought to expect to build up a compelling theory immediately. So, what one need to do at least is to identify the potential value of the problem. 

This will lead us to the contextualization of background which is the basic job that a researcher will have to dedicate to. It is by the contextualization that you can find the real valuable problems in this area and show the value to examiners. However, as anyone will note, the most challenging aspect in this part is that one will have to collect and read numerous materials from the ocean of knowledge. 

Once the former two parts are completed, the third part and even the following writing would much easier. 

May I will work out an excellent proposal for my future thesis in the following one and a half years. 

Fifth week on toleration

Fifth week on toleration
On Dworkin

Mill's defense of liberty
Assignment

Individuality
Absoluteness of liberty lies in context of coercion
Self regarding conduct: not affect others at all
Wollheim's interpretation, Ree's interpretation
Distinction between effects
Count or discount some effect
Interests ; social representative
Morality dependent distress
Tule out some kind of effect

Given Wollheim is right, is there other utilitarian god reason
dislike is disapproval, no reason for intervention

Sled regarding conduct
Other regarding conduct
Two classes of conduct with different effects
Driving force behind is the point rather than the identification of class
Condition of moral approval

Reason for intervene is the focus rather there is alien conduct
Morally
Self safety, such A's suicide
Paternalism

Harm other

Dworkin
Personal preference: what I should or want to do
External preference: what I want someone else to do. My preference relating to other person.
Mix preference: sort out the dominant aspect, hard to sort

Good utilitarian reason to exclude
Government public policy

Classical utilitarian: hedonism, maximize the pleasure
Preference utilitarian: maximize satisfaction of desire

Double counting
Fairness
Every count only one

Utilitarian Fundamental commitment
Some count more than others
Racist
Count for equally
Contents of preference
Value of pleasure, disvalue of pain
The content of pleasure relates to what the preference is
Neutral position

Content is irrelevant
Each person A's a container of pleasure
Happiness cannot be transferred to others
Amount of pleasure count A's equal
Intensity of pleasure
All sources of happiness should be taken into account

Utility principle
Compatible to other absolute rules
Standard of evaluating conducts
Tell how to act in particular context

Hare
Intuitive level of moral thinking: following conventional rules
Critical level: when simple rules come into conflict

Indirect utilitarian

Act utilitarian
Rule utilitarian

David
Extensionally equivalent
1. Always keep your promises
2. Always keep your promises except situation A, B, c....

Never interfere with any self regarding conduct
How could you know the rule will be the best rule in particular case.
Actually, some self regarding conduct wil be ruled out for causing great distress even that is morality dependent distress.

Movement of society
Switch between intuitive and critical periods, the former with agreement while the later with disagreement.
Absolute rule is only acceptable from utilitarian perspective.

Sidgwick
Benard Williams

How to write a proposal

How to write a proposal

4 march Hansen
10 march tan, lim, Neil

Project proposal
Clarity of object
20-30 pages
Specific topic

Purpose
Aboutness explanation

1.
Formulation of problem
Clear, precise, relevant

Specific Problem you are going to attack or to solve
Why a Valuable topic
Review of current contribution

New perspective
Difference
Get the points, particular

2.
Contextualization
Contextualize the problem: relevant existing positions

Qualification of yourself to achieve it
Context
Not limited to one opponent
History
Understandable
Argument
Not vague
Clarify The target you attack or support

Framework first
Do not go into details first
Assess
Most central part
Direction of research

Do not change topic easily
Choose topic deliberately
Real drive for a topic
Interest relates to creativity
Ability

Original questions
Just show some potential originality

Do it Lonelily by yourself
Read more

Persuade your supervisor first, the the examiners.

3.
Discussion of methodology
How to solve these set problems
Approach of philosophy
What you expect in your project
Steps you need to get the conclusion.

4.
Summary of chapters
Derive from the formulation
Plan of each step
Keep things in control

How to judge the relevance of readings
Focus on the central topics

5.
Bibliography
Footnotes

use theory of language

Today Hansen introduced the use theory of language. Before doing this, he reviewed the inferential theory, propositional theory. These theories works on a interpretation of the meaning of language. The inferential theory claims that the meaning of words originate from the reference to respective objects while the propositional theory asserts that the meaning of language is based on the compositional structure of sentence. However, Waittgenstein claims that the meaning of langue derives from the practice of language in social interaction. The play of language is alike the play of a game which is ruled by it rules. Each move in this game is judged by the rule of the game.

Utilitarianism

Although I hear and use the word of utilitarianism very frequently in my study, I dear not to say I have a clear comprehension of it. As a matter of fact, Utilitarianism is a very complicated philosophical perspective in western tradition. However, what I know about it are mainly from discussion in secondary materials. That is to say I did not have a particular research on the area. Now I found it is urgent for me to do it because the deeper I engage in the political philosophy debates, the more necessary for me to know it better. As one can imagine, there are many variants of utilitarianism in the history from its origin to contemporary debate. It is certainly not easy for one to draw out a specific outline of the perspective. Fortunately, my supervisor is an specialized scholar in this area. So I have more good access to know the most important contributions of this school. As my pre-supervisor said, neglecting utilitarianism which is the most influential school in modern philosophy just indicates one's ignorance of knowledge. I must take utilitarianism seriously. In fact, there are many utilitarians around me. But I need a philosophical interpretation of it.

Mill's distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding actions

Mill's distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding actions
This distinction in on liberty is crucially important. However, there are variant versions of interpretation of it. The article I read today discussed the issue. Some critics assert there is no pure self regarding action because any action will indeed have effect upon others. So some defenders argue that the point is not whether an action has effect on others but whether affect the interest of others. If an action does not affect other's interest it cannot be considered as other regarding. But the author of this paper, Richard Wollheim, disagree this kind of defense because he thinks this kind of interpretation is inclined to fall into relativism for their account of interest that interest is derivable from socially recognized custom. Then Wollheim develops his own interpretation. He asserts that the condemnation of some behavior is not really based on moral beliefs but only on preference of individual, described by Mill as aberration of moral feeling. Wollheim's argument goes like this: A conducts an action which has an effect C on person B without harm to any others. If the negative effect on B is derived from B's preference, then B is holding non moral belief. Even B holds a moral belief which must be a false belief. There is nothing with A's action. That is, A's action is a self regarding action.