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Casey, Gerard
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Casey, Gerard
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Casey, Gerard
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Now showing 1 - 10 of 33
- PublicationTeaching Philosophy to the Gifted YoungThis paper begins by raising the question of whether we should introduce philosophy to the gifted young. Having sketched some of the problems associated with such an introduction, the paper proposes some procedures to make such an introduction possible with as little pain as possible and makes some concrete suggestions to enhance the experience of the philosophical neophyte.
429Scopus© Citations 1 - PublicationArtificial Intelligence and WittgensteinThe association of Wittgenstein’s name with the notion of artificial intelligence is bound to cause some surprise both to Wittgensteinians and to people interested in artificial intelligence. After all, Wittgenstein died in 1951 and the term artificial intelligence didn’t come into use until 1956 so that it seems unlikely that one could have anything to do with the other. However, establishing a connection between Wittgenstein and artificial intelligence is not as insuperable a problem as it might appear at first glance. While it is true that artificial intelligence as a quasi-distinct discipline is of recent vintage, some of its concerns, especially those of a philosophical nature, have been around for quite some time. At the birth of modern philosophy we find Descartes wondering whether it would be possible to create a machine that would be phenomenologically indistinguishable from man.
655 - Publication"Which is to be Master?": The indefensibility of political representationGovernment, the systematic exercise of command by some over others backed by the allegedly legitimate use of violence, requires justification. All government is predicated upon a distinction between rulers and ruled. Who should occupy the position of ruler and who the position of the ruled is a perennial problem. In the contemporary world, representative democracy is the only plausible contender for the role of justified government. The key to the justification and popular acceptance of democracy as a (or the) legitimate form of government is the idea of representation, the idea being that in a representative democracy, the people, in some way, rule themselves and thus bridge the gap between the ruler and ruled. However, if a satisfactory account of representation is not forthcoming, the justificatory status of representative democracy becomes problematic.
590 - PublicationNatural reason : A Study of the Notions of Inference, Assent, Intuition, and First Principles in the Philosophy of John Henry Cardinal NewmanNatural Reason is an examination of the religious epistemology of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Although his epistemology was developed primarily to defend the rationality of religious belief, it is, nevertheless, pertinent to problems of belief in general. The theme of the work is that Newman’s central epistemological notions conceal crucial ambiguities. These are the result of his inheriting an inadequate philosophical tradition whose limitations make it exceedingly difficult for him to give systematic expression to this thought. The clarification of these ambiguities will allow Newman’s thought to reveal itself in all its brilliance.
720 - PublicationFeser on Rothbard as a philosopherIn 'Rothbard as a philosopher' (Feser 2006) Edward Feser harshly criticises the philosophical abilities of Murray Rothbard. According to Feser, Rothbard seems unable to produce arguments that doesn't commit obvious fallacies or produces arguments that fail to address certain obvious objections. His criticism centres on what he regards as Rothbard's principal argument for the thesis of self-ownership. In this paper, I attempt to show that Feser's criticism fails of it purpose and that Rothbard is very far from being the epitome of philosophical ineptitude that Feser takes him to be.
135 - PublicationAn Elementary Grammar of Rights and the LawRights are many and diverse. They are jural rather than material entities that subsist in a society of rational beings and relate essentially to property, in the limiting case, one’s property in oneself. Law is the product of social evolution and exists to vindicate rights. The conditions for the emergence of law are embodiment, scarcity, rationality and sociability. The context for the emergence of law is dispute resolution. The characteristics of such a customarily evolved law are its severely limited scope, its negativity, and its horizontality. A legal system (or systems) based on the principles of customarily evolved law could answer the needs of social order, namely, the vindication of rights, without permitting the paternalistic interferences with liberty characteristic of contemporary legal systems.
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