Allan GIBBARD's Books

Meaning and Normativity

By: Allan Gibbard

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What does talk of meaning mean? All thinking consists in natural happenings in the brain. Talk of meaning though, has resisted interpretation in terms of anything that is clearly natural, such as linguistic dispositions. This, Kripke's Wittgenstein suggests, is because the concept of meaning is normative, on the 'ought' side of Hume's divide between is and ought. Allan Gibbard's previous books Wise Choices, Apt Feelings and Thinking How to Live treated normative discourse as a natural phenomenon, but not as describing the world naturalistically. His theory is a form of expressivism for normative concepts, holding, roughly, that normative statements express states of planning. This new book integrates his expressivism for normative language with a theory of how the meaning of meaning could be normative. The result applies to itself: metaethics expands to address key topics in the philosophy of language, topics which in turn include core parts of metaethics. An upshot is to lessen the contrast between expressivism and nonnaturalism: in their strongest forms, the two converge in all their theses. Still, they differ in the explanations they give. Nonnaturalists' explanations mystify, whereas expressivists render normative thinking intelligible as something to expect from beings like us, complexly social products of natural selection who talk with each other.

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327

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OUP Oxford

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ISBN 10

0191664448

ISBN 13

9780191664441

Reconciling Our Aims

In Search of Bases for Ethics

By: Allan Gibbard

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Reconciling Our Aims

In Search of Bases for Ethics

By: Allan Gibbard

In these three Tanner lectures, distinguished ethical theorist Allan Gibbard explores the nature of normative thought and the bases of ethics. The volume also includes critiques by Michael Bratman, John Broom and F.M. Kamm, along with Gibbard's responses.

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225

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Oxford University Press

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ISBN 10

0195370422

ISBN 13

9780195370423

Thinking How to Live

By: Allan GIBBARD,Allan Gibbard

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Thinking How to Live

By: Allan GIBBARD,Allan Gibbard

Philosophers have long suspected that thought and discourse about what we ought to do differ in some fundamental way from statements about what is. But the difference has proved elusive, in part because the two kinds of statement look alike. Focusing on judgments that express decisions--judgments about what is to be done, all things considered--Allan Gibbard offers a compelling argument for reconsidering, and reconfiguring, the distinctions between normative and descriptive discourse--between questions of "ought" and "is." Gibbard considers how our actions, and our realities, emerge from the thousands of questions and decisions we form for ourselves. The result is a book that investigates the very nature of the questions we ask ourselves when we ask how we should live, and that clarifies the concept of "ought" by understanding the patterns of normative concepts involved in beliefs and decisions. An original and elegant work of metaethics, this book brings a new clarity and rigor to the discussion of these tangled issues, and will significantly alter the long-standing debate over "objectivity" and "factuality" in ethics. Table of Contents: I. Preliminaries 1. Introduction: A Possibility Proof 2. Intuitionism as Template: Emending Moore II. The Thing to Do 3. Planning and Ruling Out: The "Frege-Geach" Problem 4. Judgment, Disagreement, Negation 5. Supervenience and Constitution 6. Character and Import III. Normative Concepts 7. Ordinary Oughts: Meaning and Motivation 8. Normative Kinds: Patterns of Engagement 9. What to Say about the Thing to Do: The Expressivistic Turn and What it Gains Us IV. Knowing What to Do 10. Explaining with Plans 11. Knowing What to Do 12. Ideal Response Concepts 13. Deep Vindication and Practical Confidence 14. Impasse and Dissent References Index This is a remarkable book. It takes up a central and much-discussed problem - the difference between normative thought (and discourse) and "descriptive" thought (and discourse). It develops a compelling response to that problem with ramifications for much else in philosophy. But perhaps most importantly, it brings new clarity and rigor to the discussion of these tangled issues. It will take some time to come to terms with the details of Gibbard's discussion. It is absolutely clear, however, that the book will reconfigure the debate over objectivity and "factuality" in ethics. --Gideon Rosen, Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University Gibbard,/author> writes elegantly, and the theory he develops is innovative, philosophically sophisticated, and challenging. Gibbard defends his theory vigorously and with admirable intellectual honesty. --David Copp, Professor of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University

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321

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Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674037588

ISBN 13

9780674037588

Wise Choices, Apt Feelings

A Theory of Normative Judgment

By: Allan Gibbard

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Wise Choices, Apt Feelings

A Theory of Normative Judgment

By: Allan Gibbard

This treatise explores what is at issue in narrowly moral questions, and in questions of rational thought and conduct in general. It helps to explain why normative thought and talk so pervade human life, and why our highly social species might have evolved to be gripped by these questions. The author asks how, if his theory is right, we can interpret our normative puzzles, and thus proceed toward finding answers to them.

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362

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OUP Oxford

Published Date

ISBN 10

0198249845

ISBN 13

9780198249849

Reconciling Our Aims

In Search of Bases for Ethics

By: Allan Gibbard

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Reconciling Our Aims

In Search of Bases for Ethics

By: Allan Gibbard

In these three Tanner lectures, distinguished ethical theorist Allan Gibbard explores the nature of normative thought and the bases of ethics. In the first lecture he explores the role of intuitions in moral thinking and offers a way of thinking about the intuitive method of moral inquiry that both places this activity within the natural world and makes sense of it as an indispensable part of our lives as planners. In the second and third lectures he takes up the kind of substantive ethical inquiry he has described in the first lecture, asking how we might live together on terms that none of us could reasonably reject. Since working at cross purposes loses fruits that might stem from cooperation, he argues, any consistent ethos that meets this test would be, in a crucial way, utilitarian. It would reconcile our individual aims to establish, in Kant's phrase, a "kingdom of ends." The volume also contains an introduction by Barry Stroud, the volume editor, critiques by Michael Bratman (Stanford University), John Broome (Oxford University), and F. M. Kamm (Harvard University), and Gibbard's responses.

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225

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Oxford University Press

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ISBN 10

0190451556

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9780190451554

Wise Choices, Apt Feelings

A Theory of Normative Judgment

By: Allan Gibbard

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Wise Choices, Apt Feelings

A Theory of Normative Judgment

By: Allan Gibbard

This book examines some of the deepest questions in philosophy: What is involved in judging a belief, action, or feeling to be rational? What place does morality have in the kind of life it makes most sense to lead? How are we to understand claims to objectivity in moral judgments and in judgments of rationality? When we find ourselves in fundamental disagreement with whole communities, how can we understand our disagreement and cope with it? To shed light on such issues, Allan Gibbard develops what he calls a “norm-expressivistic analysis” of rationality. He refines this analysis by drawing on evolutionary theory and experimental psychology, as well as on more traditional moral and political philosophy. What emerges is an interpretation of human normative life, with its quandaries and disputes over what is rational and irrational, morally right and morally wrong. Judgments of what it makes sense to do, to think, and to feel, Gibbard argues, are central to shaping the way we live our lives. Gibbard does not hesitate to take up a wide variety of possible difficulties for his analysis. This sensitivity to the true complexity of the subject matter gives his treatment a special richness and depth. The fundamental importance of the issues he addresses and the freshness and suggestiveness of the account he puts forward, along with his illuminating treatment of aspects of sociobiology theory, will ensure this book a warm reception from philosophers, social scientists, and others with a serious interest in the nature of human thought and action.

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364

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Harvard University Press

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ISBN 10

0674263774

ISBN 13

9780674263772

Thinking How to Live

By: Allan GIBBARD,Allan Gibbard

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Thinking How to Live

By: Allan GIBBARD,Allan Gibbard

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321

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Harvard University Press

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0674037588

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9780674037588

A Luxury of the Understanding

On the Value of True Belief

By: Allan Hazlett

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A Luxury of the Understanding

On the Value of True Belief

By: Allan Hazlett

Allan Hazlett challenges the philosophical assumption of the value of true belief. He critiques the view that true belief is better for us than false belief, and the view that truth is "the aim of belief". An alternative picture is provided, on which the fact that some people love truth is all there is to "the value of true belief".

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317

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Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199674809

ISBN 13

9780199674800

Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory

By: Allan M. Feldman,Roberto Serrano

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Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory

By: Allan M. Feldman,Roberto Serrano

This book covers the main topics of welfare economics — general equilibrium models of exchange and production, Pareto optimality, un certainty, externalities and public goods — and some of the major topics of social choice theory — compensation criteria, fairness, voting. Arrow's Theorem, and the theory of implementation. The underlying question is this: "Is a particular economic or voting mechanism good or bad for society?" Welfare economics is mainly about whether the market mechanism is good or bad; social choice is largely about whether voting mechanisms, or other more abstract mechanisms, can improve upon the results of the market. This second edition updates the material of the first, written by Allan Feldman. It incorporates new sections to existing first-edition chapters, and it includes several new ones. Chapters 4, 6, 11, 15 and 16 are new, added in this edition. The first edition of the book grew out of an undergraduate welfare economics course at Brown University. The book is intended for the undergraduate student who has some prior familiarity with microeconomics. However, the book is also useful for graduate students and professionals, economists and non-economists, who want an overview of welfare and social choice results unburdened by detail and mathematical complexity. Welfare economics and social choice both probably suffer from ex cessively technical treatments in professional journals and monographs.

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401

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Springer Science & Business Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

038729368X

ISBN 13

9780387293684

Song Interpretation in 21st-Century Pop Music

By: Ralf von Appen,André Doehring,Allan F. Moore

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Song Interpretation in 21st-Century Pop Music

By: Ralf von Appen,André Doehring,Allan F. Moore

Existing books on the analysis of popular music focus on theory and methodology, and normally discuss parts of songs briefly as examples. The impression often given is that songs are being chosen simply to illuminate and exemplify a theoretical position. In this book the obverse is true: songs take centre stage and are given priority. The authors analyse and interpret them intensively from a variety of theoretical positions that illuminate the song. Thus, methods and theories have to prove their use value in the face of a heterogeneous, contemporary repertoire. The book brings together researchers from very different cultural backgrounds and encourages them to compare their different hearings and to discuss the ways in which they make sense of specific songs. All songs analysed are from the new millennium, most of them not older than three years. Because the most widely popular styles are too often ignored by academics, this book aims to shed light on how million sellers work musically. Therefore, it encompasses a broad palette, highlighting mainstream pop (Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Lucenzo, Amy McDonald), but also accounting for critically acclaimed ’indie’ styles (Fleet Foxes, Death Cab for Cutie, PJ Harvey), R&B (Destiny’s Child, Janelle Monae), popular hard rock (Kings of Leon, Rammstein), and current electronic music (Andrés, Björk). By concentrating on 13 well-known songs, this book offers some model analyses that can very easily be studied at home or used in seminars and classrooms for students of popular music at all academic levels.

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283

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Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1317052684

ISBN 13

9781317052685

Moral Discourse and Practice

Some Philosophical Approaches

By: Stephen L. Darwall,Allan Gibbard,Peter Albert Railton

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Moral Discourse and Practice

Some Philosophical Approaches

By: Stephen L. Darwall,Allan Gibbard,Peter Albert Railton

What are ethical judgments about? And what is their relation to practice? How can ethical judgment aspire to objectivity? The past two decades have witnessed a resurgence of interest in metaethics, placing questions such as these about the nature and status of ethical judgment at the very center of contemporary moral philosophy.Moral Discourse and Practice: Some Philosophical Approaches is a unique anthology which collects important recent work, much of which is not easily available elsewhere, on core metaethical issues. Naturalist moral realism, once devastated by the charge of "naturalistic fallacy," has been reinvigorated, as have versions of moral realism that insist on the discontinuity between ethics and science. Irrealist, expressivist programs have also developed with great subtlety, encouraging the thought that a noncognivist account may actually be able to explain ethical judgments' aspirations to objectivity. Neo-Kantian constructivist theories have flourished as well, offering hope that morality can be grounded in a plausible conception of reasonable conduct. Together, the positions advanced in the essays collected here address these recent developments, constituting a rich array of approaches to contemporary moral philosophy's most fundamental debates. An extensive introduction by Darwall, Gibbard, and Railton is also included, making this volume the most comprehensive and up-to-date work of its kind. Moral Discourse is ideally suited for use in courses in contemporary ethics, ethical theory, and metaethics.

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422

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Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195107497

ISBN 13

9780195107494

The Epistemology of Desire and the Problem of Nihilism

By: Allan Hazlett

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The Epistemology of Desire and the Problem of Nihilism

By: Allan Hazlett

Most people have wondered whether anything really matters, some have temporarily thought that nothing really matters, and some philosophers have defended the view that nothing really matters. However, if someone thinks that nothing matters--if they are a "nihilist about value"--then it seems that it is irrational for them to care about anything. It seems that nihilism about value mandates total indifference. This is the "problem of nihilism" Allan Hazlett addresses in The Epistemology of Desire and the Problem of Nihilism. Hazlett argues that the problem of nihilism arises because desire--and thus caring--is a species of evaluation that admits of irrationality. This contradicts the influential Humean view that desire does not admit of irrationality, which has a ready solution to the problem of nihilism: since desire does not admit of irrationality, it cannot be irrational to care about something that you believe does not matter. However, following G.E. Anscombe, Hazlett argues that desire has the same relationship to goodness as belief has to truth: just as truth is the accuracy condition for belief, goodness is the accuracy condition for desire. This reveals desire as an appropriate target of epistemological inquiry, in the same way that belief is an appropriate target of epistemological inquiry. Desires can amount to knowledge (in the same way that beliefs can amount to knowledge) and, crucially for the problem of nihilism, desire admits of irrationality (in the same way that belief admits of irrationality). Nevertheless, although it is obviously irrational to believe something that you believe is not true, Hazlett argues that it is not irrational to desire something you believe is not good, despite the fact that goodness is the accuracy condition for desire. This provides a solution to the problem of nihilism, and shows that nihilism about value can coherently be combined with the anti-Humean view that desire is a species of evaluation.

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193

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0198889844

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9780198889847

First and Last Editions

England's Second-Hand Bookshops

By: Gordon Allan

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First and Last Editions

England's Second-Hand Bookshops

By: Gordon Allan

This book, which is a mixture of fact, anecdote and quotation, describes the author's meandering exploration of some of the best of England's provincial second-hand bookshops, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the Isles of Scilly. Judged by the contents of the author's bookshelves, he has a strong but highly selective interest in sport, with rugby union, cricket and bowls foremost, and the odd place allowed to football and golf. There are biographies and autobiographies from Bernard Shaw to Alan Ross; a dozen volumes by W. H. Hudson, greatest of naturalists; travels with Henry James and Paul Theroux and Edwin Muir; books on cinema Westerns; essays by Ford Madox Ford and Edward Thomas; a novel or two; and a little poetry. The bulk of these books are dependent, to a greater or lesser extent, on fact, suggesting, correctly, that their owner is a journalist.

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Liverpool University Press

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ISBN 10

1836241690

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9781836241690

The Soils of Aotearoa New Zealand

By: Allan E. Hewitt,Megan R. Balks,David J. Lowe

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The Soils of Aotearoa New Zealand

By: Allan E. Hewitt,Megan R. Balks,David J. Lowe

This book offers an introduction to the soils of Aotearoa New Zealand, structured according to the New Zealand soil classification system. Starting with an overview of the importance and distribution of New Zealand soils, it subsequently provides essential information on each of the 15 New Zealand soil orders in separate chapters. Each chapter, illustrated with diagrams and photographs in colour, includes a summary of the main features of the soils in the order, their genesis and relationships with landscapes, their key properties including examples of physical and chemical characteristics, and their classification, use, and management. The book then features a chapter on soils in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica and concludes by considering New Zealand soils in a global context, soil-formation pathways, and methods used in New Zealand to evaluate soils and assist in land-management decisions. Information about how to access detailed information via links to the Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research website is also included.

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332

Publisher

Springer Nature

Published Date

ISBN 10

3030647633

ISBN 13

9783030647636

Material Constitution

A Reader

By: Michael Rea

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Material Constitution

A Reader

By: Michael Rea

The only anthology available on material constitution, this book collects important recent work on well known puzzles in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. The extensive, clearly written introduction helps to make the essays accessible to a wide audience.

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409

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1461639190

ISBN 13

9781461639190

Sagesse des choix, justesse des sentiments

une théorie du jugement normatif

By: Allan Gibbard

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Sagesse des choix, justesse des sentiments

une théorie du jugement normatif

By: Allan Gibbard

Les philosophes de la morale l'oublient trop souvent : nous passons une bonne partie de notre temps, dans la vie ordinaire, à parler morale, à discuter de ce qui est bien ou mal, convenable ou inadéquat. Dans Sagesse des choix, justesse des sentiments, Allan Gibbard propose de poser la question morale dans des termes entièrement nouveaux : quels sont les sentiments que, dans ces discussions, nous jugeons adéquats ou justes ? Et comment se combinent les jugements, souvent divergents, que les humains portent sur les croyances, les actes, les sentiments des membres de leur communauté et de leur espèce ? La question du jugement moral devient ici affaire de langage, non plus analyse logique ou cognitive des énoncés moraux, mais examen attentif et systématique des pratiques collectives et conversationnelles du discours normatif. En associant une théorie de la rationalité collective et une analyse subtile des enjeux du discours normatif, Sagesse des choix, justesse des sentiments s'inscrit au cœur des débats de la philosophie morale américaine.

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460

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Presses Universitaires de France - PUF

Published Date

ISBN 10

2130477615

ISBN 13

9782130477617

Walter Matthau

Allan Hunter

By: Allan Hunter

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Walter Matthau

Allan Hunter

By: Allan Hunter

Chronicles the improbable rise to stardom of actor Walter Matthau, from his tough childhood in New York to his "overnight" success in "The Odd Couple

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Page Count

208

Publisher

St Martins Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0312855192

ISBN 13

9780312855192

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