Table Of ContentANALYSIS AND METAPHYSICS
PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES
IN PHILOSOPHY
Editors:
WILFRID SELLARS, University of Pittsburgh
KEITH LEHRER, University of Arizona
Board of Consulting Editors:
JONATHAN BENNETT, University of British Columbia
ALAN GIBBARD, University of Pittsburgh
ROBERT STALNAKER, Cornell University
ROBER T G. TURNBULL, Ohio State University
VOLUME 4
RODERICK CHISHOLM (1916- )
(photograph by Fred Feldman)
ANALYSIS
AND METAPHYSICS
Essays in Honor of R. M. Chisholm
Edited by
KEITH LEHRER
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
DORDRECHT-HOLLAND / BOSTON-U.S.A.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Analysis and metaphysics.
(philosophical studies series in philosophy; v. 4)
Includes bibliographies and index.
CONTENTS: Taylor, R. A tribute. - Epistemology:
Cornman, J. W. Chisholm on sensing and perceiving. Ross, J. F. Testi
monial evidence. Lehrer, K. Reason and consistency. Keirn, R. Epistemic
values and epistemic viewpoints. [etc.]
1. Knowledge, Theory of - Addresses, essays, lectures. 2.
Metaphysics - Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Ethics - Addresses,
essays, lectures. 4. Chisholm, Roderick M. I. Chisholm, Roderick
M. II. Lehrer, Keith.
BDl61.A5 1975 110 75-5500
ISBN-13: 978-90-277-1193-9 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-010-9098-8
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-010-9098-8
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland
Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico
by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc.
306 Dartmouth Street, Boston,
Mass. 02116, U.S.A.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 1975 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1975
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm,
or any other means, without written permission from the publisher
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH IX
RICHARD TAYLOR / A Tribute 1
PART I. EPISTEMOLOGY
JAMES W. CORNMAN / Chisholm on Sensing and Perceiving 11
JAMES F. ROSS / Testimonial Evidence 35
KEITH LEHRER / Reason and Consistency 57
ROBERT KEIM / Epistemic Values and Epistemic Viewpoints 75
MARSHA HANEN / Confirmation, Explanation and Acceptance 93
JOHN V. CANFIELD / 'I Know that 1 Am in Pain' is Senseless 129
THOMAS J. STEEL / Knowledge and the Self-Presenting 145
PART II. METAPHYSICS
RICHARD CARTWRIGHT / Scattered Objects 153
TIMOTHY J. DUGGAN / Hume on Causation 173
RICHARD B. ARNAUD / Brentanist Relations 189
MAJOR L. JOHNSON, JR. / Events as Recurrables 209
PART III. ETHICS
J. T. STEVENSON / On Doxastic Responsibility . 229
FRED FELDMAN / World Utilitarianism 255
JAMES W. LAMB / Some Definitions for the Theory of Rules 273
JOHN DONNELLY / Suicide: Some Epistemological Con-
siderations 283
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF R. M. CHISHOLM 299
INDEX OF NAMES 309
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 314
PREFACE
AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
This collection of essays in honor of Roderick M. Chisholm is the work
of his former students. The book was conceived and the original con
tributors invited by Richard Taylor. We restricted the contributors to
former students of Chisholm as a special tribute to his acknowledged
genius as a teacher of philosophy. The profundity of his contributions to
epistemology and metaphysics are acknowledged throughout the phil
osophical world. Those who have been present at his lectures and semi
nars, who have been incited to philosophical cerebration by the clarity
and precision of his exposition, know that his impact on contemporary
philosophy far exceeds the influence of the written word. It is, we think,
appropriate that his students should reserve for themselves the privilege
of honoring Chisholm in this way as his 60th birthday draws near.
The tribute paid to Chisholm in Taylor's essay conveys a personal
impression. I shall, consequently, refrain from personal reminiscence
here, and instead, mention some of the highlights of an illustrious life.
Chisholm was born on November 27, 1916 in North Attleboro, Massachu
setts. He married Eleanor F. Parker in 1943 and raised three children
with her. He received an A.B. from Brown in 1938, a Ph. D. from Harvard
in 1942, and served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946.
After the war, Chisholm was Barnes Foundation Professor of Phil
osophy at the University of Pennsylvania and the Barnes Foundation in
Semester 1,1946-47 and Assistant Professor at the University ofPenw;yl
vania during Semester II. He then returned to Brown University, where
he was Chairman from 1951-1964, and is current Professor of Philosophy
and Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities. Though he has
remained faithful to his Alma Mater since 1947, he has frequently visited
elsewhere: Harvard in 1950, 1960, and 1969, University of Southern
California in 1955, Karl-Franzens-Universitat as Fulbright Professor
in 1959-60, Princeton University in 1961-62, University of California at
Sanata Barbara in 1964, University of Alberta at Calgary in 1965, Uni
versity of Illinois at Urbana in 1966, University of Chicago in 1967, and
x PREFACE
the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1970. Karl-Franzens
Universitiit, Graz, Austria, awarded Chisholm the Honorary Degree,
Doctor of Philosophy honoris causae, June, 1972. This degree was awarded
partly in recognition of Chisholm's contribution to the study of Austrian
Philosophy, in particular that of Brentano and Meinong.
Other honors Chisholm has received include election as Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1958, President of the
Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in 1968,
President of the Metaphysical Society of American in 1972-73, Chairman
of the Council for Philosophical Studies since 1972, Executive Director
of the Franz Brentano Foundation since 1970, President of the Fourth
Interamerican Congress of Philosophy in 1957, and Secretary of the
Sociedad Interamericana de Filosofia in 1946-47. He has served in
editorial roles for Philosophy andPhenomenological Research, The American
Philosophical Quarterly, Metaphilosophy, and The Southwestern Journal
of Philosophy. He has been Carus Lecturer, American Philosophical As
sociation, in 1967 and, in the same year, Nellie Wallace Lecturer, Oxford
University in Hilary Term.
The foregoing is not intended to be an exhaustive list of the professional
activities or honors Chisholm has received. There are, for example, the
many, too numerous to list, short seminars and institutes Chisholm has
richly enhanced by his participation. The brilliance with which he has
pinpointed error, his own as well as others, and found the precise formula
tion needed to correct the error are remembered moments of enlighten
ment. With cherished memories of such occasions, we present this volume
to our teacher, Roderick M. Chisholm.
I am personally indebted to the Center for Advanced Study in
Behavioral Sciences for the secretarial services they prov~ded for me
and to Vincent Lazara for composing the name and subject indexes.
KEITH LEHRER
RICHARD T AYLOR
A TRIBUTE
Roderick Chisholm's intellectual stature needs no testimonials. His
greatness as a teacher, and particularly as an inspiration to graduate
students, is less well known. I am going to write of this, placing my re
marks in the setting of a particular time and place that it was one of my
greatest fortunes to belong to. I am sure that no student or colleague,
during that time, knew Chisholm better than I. Certainly none was more
profoundly influenced by him. That setting now belongs very much to the
past. I have had no association with Chisholm for over a decade, and my
own philosophical thinking has taken directions in which he would
probably find it impossible still to recognize any of his influence. It is for
this reason that I shall express myself in the manner appropriate to
historical narrative.
I want to describe that setting, not to indulge in nostalgia, but because
it was, I think, unique. The vestiges of it that survive here and there are,
precisely, vestiges. It began abruptly, without anyone noticing that any
thing very unusual was starting, and it ended just as abruptly, again
without anyone quite appreciating that fact at the time. The period en
compasses the decade of the 'fifties', beginning a little before and extending
a little beyond.
Chisholm arrived at Brown University on approximately the day I did,
in the fall of 1947, he as an assistant professor who had already made some
brilliant contributions to philosophy, and I as an unfathomably ignorant
graduate student. It is a commentary on what his arrival heralded that it
had occurred to no one to provide any kind of office for him and he, so
far as I know, did not notice this. The philosophy department was then
housed in an ancient and ugly little building, all served by one telephone,
which was adequate. Philosophers then had a higher purpose than to sit
around in offices and use telephones.
Chisholm's impact on the place was quick and devastating. A foretaste
of it came when he stepped into a group in which an advanced graduate
student, about to get his doctorate, was holding forth and, as casually as
Keith Lehrer (ed.). Analysis and Metaphysics, 1-8. All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 1975 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland
2 RICHARD TAYLOR
if announcing the time of day, demolished the entire framework of that
man's philosophical scheme of things with about three perfectly chosen
observations. Soon afterwards we saw something very much like this
happen again, in a colloquium, but this time what was demolished was the
philosophical scheme of a philosopher of long standing who was quite
rightly considered eminent. Such performances, without the slightest hint of
polemicism, always soft-spoken and always with the same result, became
commonplace. The comparison with Socrates is, in retrospect, inevitable.
I fell completely under this philosopher's spell, with only the slightest
inkling of the effect it was going to have on my life. Yet oddly I do not
recall ever writing any paper for him, or any examination. I certainly must
have written many of these, but they were the least important part of my
philosophical education. It would be hard to imagine Chisholm reading
such things anyway. What we all learned from him was a way of thinking;
and oral discourse, and response, was its natural mode of expression. We
learned what a philosophical question is, and what counts as an answer -
or what would count, if we ever got it. Chisholm did not expect questions
to be couched within the presuppositions of any point of view. He had no
use for formal symbolism, considering skill at the use of this to be, more
often than not, an excuse for getting off the subject. His scorn was even
heavier for those whose discourse was larded with terms and examples
borrowed from physics, or other respectable branches oflearning in which
the speaker was almost certainly incompetent.
I think I remember the first philosophical question I ever asked
Chisholm. I was embarrassed to raise it, and waited until after class to do
so, for it seemed only to expose my naivete. I asked what it was that was
supposed to be, as he expressed it, 'true'; that is, whether it was the chalk
marks on the blackboard, sounds, or what. He did not answer the ques
tion. He did not even comment on it. He only smiled, eloquently convey
ing that I had asked a rather good question. I never learned the answer.
Perhaps it does not exist. But I think my philosophical education began at
about that point.
Chisholm could detect instantly, and put in its true perspective, the
pompous, the dogmatic, the merely polemical, and the phony. When as a
newcomer he presented his first paper to the faculty and students, he had
scarcely gotten into it when all his colleagues began trying, unmercifully,
to tear him, and indeed each other as well, to shreds. The speaker was not
