D Goldstick
Biographic Data
| ID | 1138804 |
|---|---|
| NAME | D Goldstick |
| GIVEN NAMES | D |
| FAMILY NAME | Goldstick |
| SIGNATURE | GOLDSTICK D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6513-0346 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1972 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Is the World a Dialectical Place
Universal interconnection and universal change are what call for the dialectical method of inquiry. Superdeterminism requires that the changes coming to anything result, in part, from causes within it, but its perseverance nonetheless will mean these are temporarily counteracted: so every phenomenon is contradictory. Nor can change remain unchangingly incremental: at a threshold, quantity will be transformed into quality. Neither can the supersed…
Names and existence
In practice, the inquiry into whether Socrates/William Tell/Robin Hood really existed hinges on the origin of the causal sequence leading up to the present use of the name employed for the personage in question, even though the occurrence of a Kripkean ‘baptism’ is not a logical consequence of most assertions employing that name, but only an ‘implication’ like the sort that makes examples of Moore's paradox (e.g. 'It is raining, but I have no ide…
Can a Thought's Whole Subject-Matter Be Itself? The Case of Pain
Even if it cannot be found elsewhere, it does at least appear that logical infallibility, or incorrigibility, can be found in the belief that one is, or is not, in pain, as well as in the Cogito. But how could the existence of a (true) belief and the existence of the fact believed be the same existence? An answer is proposed. Sometimes a belief can be a desire
Moral Responsibility and Character Formation
Freedom-determinism compatibilism says a deed is correctly censurable if and only if it flows from a bad character, irrespective of what caused that character. In the relevant sense, the doer could have done otherwise whenever with a better character s/he would have. But commonsense considers that unavoidable early brutalizing experiences can at least mitigate blame. The reconciliation is that when a partly formed bad character causes early choic…
Marx, Marxism, Ethics
In Defence of David Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Perception
There are no qualia. The phenomenological difference between seeing and visualizing something is that the propositions which the experient begins to believe in the first case are only entertained in the second. We can know what it's like to be a bat by knowing that their echolocation informs them non-inferentially of the shapes, sizes, and directional distances away of nearby surfaces. The terms for secondary qualities like colours, though, are n…
What Is It Like To
Philosophers speak of ‘what it’s like to’ have an experience without taking account of how semantically various the phrase is. ‘Blindsight’ visual perception lacks detail
Does Epistemic “Ought” Imply “Can”
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Reason, truth, and reality
Cans and Ifs: Ability to Will and Ability to Act
The ‘Two Hats’ Problem in Consequentialist Ethics
A largely deontological conscience will probably optimize consequences. But Bernard Williams objects to the ‘imposed and illusory dissociation’, if one therefore embraces indirect consequentialism, of ‘the theorist in oneself from the self whose dispositions are being theorized’. Admittedly the strategy is painful, and a counsel of imperfection at best. But it need not be psychologically impossible, inconsistent, or even self-deceptive, given eth…
Interests
De manière générale, les désirs sont aux intérêts ce que les croyances sont aux vérités. Étant admis que ce qui est conforme à vos intérêts est ce que vous désireriez, tout compte fait, si vous étiez en possession d'une information telle au sujet de ses effets potentiels qu'aucune information additionnelle sur ces effets ne modifierait vos désirs, la conclusion selon laquelle vous désirez déjà, tout compte fait, favoriser vos intéràts peut être t…
On Lenin
Justified Belief
A “hypothetical imperative” tells what to do to get a certain result. Equivalently, it says what is the “right” thing to do to achieve that result. Insofar as achieving that result is the sole end in view, wondering what is the right thing to do to achieve it just is: wondering what to do. Insofar as it is the sole end in view, deciding what is the right thing to do to achieve it is simply deciding what to do. Something's being the right thing to…
Cognitive Reason
Distributive justice and utility
Could God Make a Contradiction True
Was Thomas Aquinas the first major Western philosopher to distinguish systematically between things it would be contradictory to deny and other things? He certainly was willing to give his authority to the proposition that whatever is logically impossible (as we say in modern terminology) ‘does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence’. In the later Middle Ages, scholastic philosophers came virtually to equate achievable by divine power an…
"A New Old Meaning of "Ideology
If there were a list of subjects about which it seems that there is definitely no more to be said-or that even if there were, nobody would want to hear it anyway-then surely the topics of ideology, in general, and ideology in Marxist theory, in particular, would have to rank very near the top. Diffusing outwards from Western Marxism's postwar preoccupation with the mechanisms of capitalist hegemony, the concept has now become virtually ubiquitous…
Truer”
When can one say that a new theory is truer than the old one it contradicts, even though neither is absolutely true? We are primarily concerned with the case in which the conflicting theories offer answers to the same questions, and so we do not introduce considerations of “logical width”. We propose that part of the new theory is truer than part of the old one when the former part gets right whatever the latter part got right while the former do…
Secondary Qualities
Objectivity and Moral Commitment in the World-View of Marx and Engels
The Leninist Theory of Perception
In the standard English-language reference work, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul Edwards (New York and London, 1967), we find the following blunt statement on the subject of "orthodox Marxism's" theory of knowledge:Its epistemology is naive representationism.The use of the word "naive" will alert the reader to the unsurprising fact that the reference here is a definitely unfriendly one. More interesting is the way in which this cha…
Why is There Something Rather than Nothing
Reply to Professor Rollin
Analytic A Posteriori Truth
"A New Old Meaning of "Ideology
If there were a list of subjects about which it seems that there is definitely no more to be said-or that even if there were, nobody would want to hear it anyway-then surely the topics of ideology, in general, and ideology in Marxist theory, in particular, would have to rank very near the top. Diffusing outwards from Western Marxism's postwar preoccupation with the mechanisms of capitalist hegemony, the concept has now become virtually ubiquitous…
Truer”
When can one say that a new theory is truer than the old one it contradicts, even though neither is absolutely true? We are primarily concerned with the case in which the conflicting theories offer answers to the same questions, and so we do not introduce considerations of “logical width”. We propose that part of the new theory is truer than part of the old one when the former part gets right whatever the latter part got right while the former do…
Cognitive Reason
What Is It Like To
Philosophers speak of ‘what it’s like to’ have an experience without taking account of how semantically various the phrase is. ‘Blindsight’ visual perception lacks detail
The ‘Two Hats’ Problem in Consequentialist Ethics
A largely deontological conscience will probably optimize consequences. But Bernard Williams objects to the ‘imposed and illusory dissociation’, if one therefore embraces indirect consequentialism, of ‘the theorist in oneself from the self whose dispositions are being theorized’. Admittedly the strategy is painful, and a counsel of imperfection at best. But it need not be psychologically impossible, inconsistent, or even self-deceptive, given eth…
The Leninist Theory of Perception
In the standard English-language reference work, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul Edwards (New York and London, 1967), we find the following blunt statement on the subject of "orthodox Marxism's" theory of knowledge:Its epistemology is naive representationism.The use of the word "naive" will alert the reader to the unsurprising fact that the reference here is a definitely unfriendly one. More interesting is the way in which this cha…
Analytic A Posteriori Truth
Hume's “Circularity” Charge against Inductive Reasoning
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Reply to Professor Rollin
Why is There Something Rather than Nothing
The Leninist Theory of Perception
In the standard English-language reference work, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul Edwards (New York and London, 1967), we find the following blunt statement on the subject of "orthodox Marxism's" theory of knowledge:Its epistemology is naive representationism.The use of the word "naive" will alert the reader to the unsurprising fact that the reference here is a definitely unfriendly one. More interesting is the way in which this cha…
Objectivity and Moral Commitment in the World-View of Marx and Engels
Secondary Qualities
Truer”
When can one say that a new theory is truer than the old one it contradicts, even though neither is absolutely true? We are primarily concerned with the case in which the conflicting theories offer answers to the same questions, and so we do not introduce considerations of “logical width”. We propose that part of the new theory is truer than part of the old one when the former part gets right whatever the latter part got right while the former do…
"A New Old Meaning of "Ideology
If there were a list of subjects about which it seems that there is definitely no more to be said-or that even if there were, nobody would want to hear it anyway-then surely the topics of ideology, in general, and ideology in Marxist theory, in particular, would have to rank very near the top. Diffusing outwards from Western Marxism's postwar preoccupation with the mechanisms of capitalist hegemony, the concept has now become virtually ubiquitous…
Could God Make a Contradiction True
Was Thomas Aquinas the first major Western philosopher to distinguish systematically between things it would be contradictory to deny and other things? He certainly was willing to give his authority to the proposition that whatever is logically impossible (as we say in modern terminology) ‘does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence’. In the later Middle Ages, scholastic philosophers came virtually to equate achievable by divine power an…
Distributive justice and utility
Cognitive Reason
Justified Belief
A “hypothetical imperative” tells what to do to get a certain result. Equivalently, it says what is the “right” thing to do to achieve that result. Insofar as achieving that result is the sole end in view, wondering what is the right thing to do to achieve it just is: wondering what to do. Insofar as it is the sole end in view, deciding what is the right thing to do to achieve it is simply deciding what to do. Something's being the right thing to…
On Lenin
The ‘Two Hats’ Problem in Consequentialist Ethics
A largely deontological conscience will probably optimize consequences. But Bernard Williams objects to the ‘imposed and illusory dissociation’, if one therefore embraces indirect consequentialism, of ‘the theorist in oneself from the self whose dispositions are being theorized’. Admittedly the strategy is painful, and a counsel of imperfection at best. But it need not be psychologically impossible, inconsistent, or even self-deceptive, given eth…
Interests
De manière générale, les désirs sont aux intérêts ce que les croyances sont aux vérités. Étant admis que ce qui est conforme à vos intérêts est ce que vous désireriez, tout compte fait, si vous étiez en possession d'une information telle au sujet de ses effets potentiels qu'aucune information additionnelle sur ces effets ne modifierait vos désirs, la conclusion selon laquelle vous désirez déjà, tout compte fait, favoriser vos intéràts peut être t…
Cans and Ifs: Ability to Will and Ability to Act
Reason, truth, and reality
Does Epistemic “Ought” Imply “Can”
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
What Is It Like To
Philosophers speak of ‘what it’s like to’ have an experience without taking account of how semantically various the phrase is. ‘Blindsight’ visual perception lacks detail
In Defence of David Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Perception
There are no qualia. The phenomenological difference between seeing and visualizing something is that the propositions which the experient begins to believe in the first case are only entertained in the second. We can know what it's like to be a bat by knowing that their echolocation informs them non-inferentially of the shapes, sizes, and directional distances away of nearby surfaces. The terms for secondary qualities like colours, though, are n…
Moral Responsibility and Character Formation
Freedom-determinism compatibilism says a deed is correctly censurable if and only if it flows from a bad character, irrespective of what caused that character. In the relevant sense, the doer could have done otherwise whenever with a better character s/he would have. But commonsense considers that unavoidable early brutalizing experiences can at least mitigate blame. The reconciliation is that when a partly formed bad character causes early choic…
Marx, Marxism, Ethics
Names and existence
In practice, the inquiry into whether Socrates/William Tell/Robin Hood really existed hinges on the origin of the causal sequence leading up to the present use of the name employed for the personage in question, even though the occurrence of a Kripkean ‘baptism’ is not a logical consequence of most assertions employing that name, but only an ‘implication’ like the sort that makes examples of Moore's paradox (e.g. 'It is raining, but I have no ide…
Can a Thought's Whole Subject-Matter Be Itself? The Case of Pain
Even if it cannot be found elsewhere, it does at least appear that logical infallibility, or incorrigibility, can be found in the belief that one is, or is not, in pain, as well as in the Cogito. But how could the existence of a (true) belief and the existence of the fact believed be the same existence? An answer is proposed. Sometimes a belief can be a desire
Philosophy (18 works) · Epistemology (15 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (5 works) · Mathematics (5 works) · Sociology (5 works)