H.G. Callaway

• Ph.D., in philosophy
• Thinking at Temple University

This is my expository and critical review of Paul Gochet's book on Quine's philosophy from 1987. I chiefly dispute Gochet on Quine's doctrine of ontological commitment. It was published, under the Editorship of Henri Lauener, in the Swiss journal of the philosophy of knowledge, Dialectica, 42, 1, 1988, pp. 45-58

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between semantic contextualism and philosophical pluralism. Semantic contextualism is understood here as a philosophical approach to linguistic meaning and interpretation and an intuitively plausible ground or rationale of a moderate anti-formalism—one which attempts to make good use of formal methods w...

Meaning without Analyticity draws upon the author’s essays and articles, over a period of 20 years, focused on language, logic and meaning. The book explores the prospect of a non-behavioristic theory of cognitive meaning which rejects the analytic-synthetic distinction, Quinean behaviorism, and the logical and social-intellectual excesses of extre...

This paper focuses on abduction as explicit or readily formulatable inference to possible explanatory hypotheses--as contrasted with inference to conceptual innovations or abductive logic as a cycle of hypotheses, deduction of consequences and inductive testing. Inference to an explanation is often a matter of projection or extrapolation of element...

This paper argues that the influence of language on science, philosophy and other field is mediated by communicative practices. Where communications is more restrictive, established linguistic structures exercise a tighter control over innovations and scientifically motivated reforms of language. The viewpoint here centers on the thesis that argume...

This book details the author’s theoretical approach to the “hard problem” of consciousness. According to the book-jacket description, “The goal is to solve the hard problem: to explain the wondrous, eerie fact of ‘phenomenal consciousness’.” In posing the problem, in the “Prologue,” the author quotes philosopher Jerry Fodor: “We don’t know, even to...

In his recent book, Other Minds, philosopher Peter Godfrey–Smith starts with an epigraph from William James (1890) on the need for continuity in accounts of the origin of consciousness (Godfrey–Smith, 2016a, p. vii). Godfrey–Smith approaches the evolution of consciousness by “thinking about different sorts of animals” and “the long spans and succes...

This is the text of the Introduction to H.G. Callaway (2024) Functional Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind, Intentional Realism is Cognitive Psychology.

How the Politics of resentment sets limits to globalization.

The present volume focuses on contemporary theories, debates and discussions concerning empirical semantics and functionalism in the philosophy of language and mind. While chiefly keeping to original sources, the book also aims to include a wide range of philosophical and scientific thinking. Many of the ideas and themes advanced in the book were f...

This book is about language, mind and consciousness. It traces lines of relevance from the philosophy of language to the philosophy of mind, and focuses on central contributors to disciplines of the cognitive sciences. Philosophers receiving particular attention include W.V. Quine, Donald Davidson, Hilary Putnam, Daniel Dennett and Jerry Fodor. The...

This is a fascinating and well written book—a philosophy book suited to the general, educated reader. The author, Peter Godfrey-Smith, is a Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a Professor of the history and philosophy of science at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has also extensively explore...

The Republican Party of the Gilded Age struggled with, and, often fell into rank corruption and bossism, 1 and the "party of Lincoln" became the party of big business. However, the friendship of Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt represented the reform side of the party--attempting to rise above its failings while preserving its accomplishmen...

This draft is part of a longer paper still unfinished. I aim to get some feedback on the relation and contrast of MacIntyre and Boghossian on relativism and justification. Both philosophers are critics of relativism of justification. The contrast of interest in this short draft concerns the accounts given of objectivity --MacIntyre's relational con...

Corruption, on larger or smaller scales, and in all its varieties, whether involving minor office holders and political operatives or those who control great wealth and power over millions, grows out of favoritism and lack of moral self-restraint. It grows into and by means of illicit networks of clientelism, and it may eventuate in effectively und...

This paper examines Dennett’s conceptions of intentionality and consciousness—focused on his concept of the intentional stance (Dennett, 1987,1991b). It chiefly proceeds from a series of critical remarks due to Putnam (Putnam, 1999). Dennett has written extensively on the philosophy of mind; his work includes many scholarly and scientific contribut...

This Paper examines Daniel Dennett on intentionality and consciousness-focused on Dennett's intentional stance. It proceeds in light of a series of critical remarks due to Hilary Putnam. Dennett has written extensively on the philosophy of mind; his work includes many scholarly contributions and several successful and popular books. He has attracte...

This chapter defends a distinction, developed below, between characteristic and supportive, political and organizational structures or systems of relations, contributing to oligarchy-illegitimate rule by a self-selecting few-and democratic networks of actors and participants. 1 The distinction is highly relevant to the oft encountered claim of the...

Freedom of Speech and the Consent of the governed.

His new book, A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF CONSERVATISM, appears in the Bloomsbury Studies in the Aristotelian Tradition. Hörcher aims to understand, elucidate and develop political conservatism in the long Aristotelian-Stoic tradition. He emphasizes the role of character formation for statesmanship and political actors, the constraints implied by spe...

The first chapter of Jerry Fodor's Psychosemantics emphasized that common-sense psychology works remarkably well; and it argues against the philosophical view that the generalizations employed must be either trivial or false. Fodor attempts to account for the possibility of exceptions to psychological generalizations, and the consistency of this wi...

This paper examines the meaning and evidential role of reports of introspection in cognitive psychology. A theory of scientific introspection aims to detail the nature, scope and limits of reports of subjective experience in science. Introspective reports best function as experimental data when combined with objective methods of stimulus control an...

The "use" theory of meaning arose from the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. On this approach, language and meaning are public affairs and learnable from public sources. Wittgenstein's teaching to "look for the use" of language was partly aimed in criticism of Cartesianism and similar doctrines of modern epistemology-down to the early work of Bert...

This paper explores the contrast between functionalism in the contemporary philosophy of mind, often formulated as "Turing machine functionalism," based on the computer model, and the functional psychology which arose in the wake of Darwinism and the theory of biological evolution. 1 A commonality is versions of the theme of "multiple realizability...

In his 2018 book, Identity, the Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, Stanford University politi­cal scientist Francis Fukuyama addresses themes which might more properly be considered matters of political philosophy and the philosophy of law: How are we to navigate between traditional, ethnic, unitary conceptions of the nation on the...

The papers assembled in this book originated from, and span, the recent decades of intensive economic globalization and international interaction-up to the present period of the commercialized, digital world-accompanied by American and international crisis. High hopes of the benefits of trade expansion, international cooperation, growing prosperity...

In the analytic philosophy of language, it is traditional and standard to distinguish linguistic acts, "speech acts," "statements" or "utterances," from objects of reference which may be involved and from the propositional content of what is said, or of a statement made, a question posed, an command issued, etc. 1 We have for consideration 1) the u...

Preface The papers assembled in Essays in Radical Empiricism chiefly date from the late work of William James, 1904-1907-the single exception being the final 1884 essay "Absolutism and Empiricism." James conceived a plan for a book in 1907 and placed a collection of his essays in an envelope carrying the title "Essays in Radical Empiricism," maki...

This paper examines and evaluates the notion of "pure experience" found in the late philosophical writings of psychologist and philosopher William James. In his later writings, James largely put aside the scientific naturalism emphasized in his Principles of Psychology (1890) in order to examine philosophical presuppositions of natural science and...

This paper focuses on moral, legal and constitutional issues arising from debates and political conflicts centered on identity, human dignity, recognition and identity politics. In his 2018 book, Identity, the Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, Stanford University political scientist Francis Fukuyama addresses themes which may prope...

This paper draws on recent work on face recognition to provide details and empirical context for outlining a functional approach to consciousness and its contents. Human beings are able to detect and recognize a given face, distinct from an extensive gallery of others, usually in less than a second. The process occurs accurately and with little or...

In the opening chapter of his Principles of Psychology, William James reflects on an argument by analogy, premised on the fact that a machine, such as a clock, will produce correct results when it is in good working order, and produce incorrect results if it is out of order, though both kinds of results equally follow a causally determined sequence...

In the opening chapter of the Principles of Psychology, William James reflects on an argument by analogy to the effect that a machine, such as a clock, will produce correct results when it is in good working order, and produce incorrect results if it is out of order, though both kinds of results equally follow a causally determined sequence depende...

This paper briefly explains and offers criticism of the so-called "Iron law of oligarchy." According to the classical formulation due to Robert Michels (1876-1936) in his study of political parties, oligarchy arise out of efficient and effective organization itself which privileges leadership positions. The thesis has been subject to long and varie...

Theories of linguistic meaning have been a major influence in twentieth century philosophy. This is due, in part, to the assumption that meaning is the crucial and interesting thing about language. To know the meaning of an expression is to understand it, and since understanding is central to philosophy in many different ways, it should be no surpr...

POWER The essay "Power" was first published in Emerson's 1860 book of essays, The Conduct of Life. It there follows the more famous essay "Fate." Having rejected passive fatalism in the opening essay, Emerson leaves the reader in no doubt on the existence of distinctively human powers. Human powers always have their limits, and if "we thought men w...

The great danger and flaw of over-concentration of political and economic power in the large-scale Madisonian, federal republic is the emergence of pernicious political factionalism. In the absence of a perceived emergency or special conditions of duress or external threat, factionalism arises directly from intensive competition for control of fede...

This paper sketches a critique of moral and epistemic relativism in political-ethical theory. It draws on recent arguments of Paul Boghossian. The arguments are posed in the context of the salient distinction between cultural pluralism and more recent versions of it-in the form of late twentieth-century multiculturalism. From the perspective of pol...

Questo lavoro prende le mosse da uno studio (Callaway 1992, pp. 239-240) sul ruolo del conflitto nell’origine dell’adesione a particolari opzioni di valore, ovvero sulla sua funzione di modello sociologico pervasivo nello sviluppo di valori di gruppo unificanti, in grado di trasformare conflitti, o differenze personali, in conflitti collettivi su l...

This is a short draft paper based on readings from George Packer, Francis Fukuyama and others concerning "Just America" and Identity politics. Additional sources and discussion requested.

This is the second chapter of H.G. Callaway and Guy W. Stroh, American Ethics, A Source Book from Edwards to Dewey, covering the period of the American Enlightenment and the founding of constitutional government. The published chapter has been amended by annotations and additions to the texts.

On the title page of Emerson’s Society and Solitude1 (with “society” receiving preeminence of place), the reader is informed that the book consists of “twelve chapters.” The distinctness of the chapters is emphasized in, and over, the unity of the book in the original 1870 edition. The customary running header for the book title goes missing, a...

Abstract This paper defends a distinction, to be sketched and developed below, between characteristic and supportive structures contributing to oligarchy—illegitimate rule by a self-selecting few—and democratic networks of actors and participants. The cogency of the distinction is highly relevant to the oft encounter claim of the “inevitability of...

This paper draws on recent work on face recognition to provide details and empirical context for outlining a functional approach to consciousness and its contents. Human beings are able to detect and recognize a given face, distinct from an extensive gallery of others, usually in less than a second. The process occurs accurately and with little or...

In his new book, IDENTITY, THE DEMAND FOR DIGNITY AND THE POLITICS OF RESENTMENT, Stanford University political scientist Francis Fukuyama addresses themes which might more properly be considered matters of political and legal philosophy. In particular, though he affirms the importance of the concepts of human dignity and identity, more or less as...

Bibliography for Lincoln Steffens' The Shame of the Cities and the Philosophy of Corruption and Reform

This is the Preface and Table of Contents for my new book, H.G. Callaway 2020, Lincoln Steffens', The Shame of the Cities and the Philosophy of Corruption and Reform.

This is the Introduction to my 2020 study edition of Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities, and the Philosophy of Corruption and Reform.

This is the Preface and Table of Contents of my forthcoming book, Lincoln Steffens' The Shame of the Cities and the Philosophy of Corruption and Reform, due out in January 2020.

This is the cover imagine of my new Book on Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities and the Philosophy of Corruption and Reform.

Modern western history exhibits three great episodes of commercial and political globalization. “Globalization” means the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by expansion of trade, free flow of capital and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets. (Compare “globalism” (1943): a national policy of treating...

We are currently witnessing a renewal of broad public interest in the life and career of Alexander Hamilton – justly famed as an American founder. This volume examines the possible present-day significance of the man, noting that this is not the first revival of interest in the statesman. Hamilton was a major background figure in the GOP politics o...

Alexander Hamilton is best known to Americans and perhaps to people around the world, by that handsome, familiar portrait which graces the $10 bill. This prominence on American currency has everything to do with Hamilton's work as the first Secretary of the Treasury under President Washington. The reverse side of the $10 bill shows the impressive N...

This book presents the author’s many and varied contributions to the revival and re-evaluation of American pragmatism. The assembled critical perspective on contemporary pragmatism in philosophy emphasizes the American tradition of cultural pluralism and the requirements of American democracy. Based partly on a survey of the literature on interest-...

The aim of this paper is to defend a famous quotation from Martin Luther King, stating that " The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. " The quotation is inscribed on the King Memorial in Washington, D.C. and President Obama had it woven into a rug for the Oval Office in the White House. The quotation has become something...

The author’s prior book, a very Aristotelian look at Dewey’s Metaphysics (1988), starts from criticism of the idea of freedom as autonomy. That theme persists, along with an Aristotelian flavoring in the present account of Dewey. “Autonomy as a model of freedom,” Boisvert says, “leads in practice to separation from others, not toward democratic com...

This paper explores the scientific viability of the concept of causality—by questioning a central element of the distinction between " fundamental " and non-fundamental physics. It will be argued that the prevalent emphasis on fundamental physics involves formalistic and idealized partial models of physical regularities abstracting from and idealiz...

According to physicist Steven Weinberg, General Relativity, which originated as Einstein's theory of spacetime and gravity, is now widely regarded as an " effective field theory. " It is useful in application to distances much larger than 10-33 cm and particle energies much smaller than the equivalent of the mass of 10 19 protons. Interpreted in th...

This is my Introduction to my recent book devoted to Edmund Burke and the American crisis of the late 18th century. Part of my theme and purpose is to invite comparisons, since the American crisis can be plausibly viewed as arising from the first great episode of Western globalization--connected with the European settlement of the New World.

The papers collected in the present volume arose from a 2009 seminar organized by the Society of Legal Scholars and the University of Birmingham, and convened at the Law Society’s Hall in Bristol, England. The seminar, “Judges and Jurists: Reflections on the House of Lords,” commemorated the centenary of the Society; and it chiefly focused on the t...

This paper explores the scientific viability of the concept of causality—by questioning a central element of the distinction between " fundamental " and non-fundamental physics. It will be argued that the prevalent emphasis on fundamental physics involves formalistic and idealized partial models of physical regularities abstracting from and idealiz...

This paper sketches a critique of moral and epistemic relativism in political-ethical theory; drawing on recent arguments of Paul Boghossian. The arguments are posed in the context of the salient distinction between cultural pluralism and more recent versions of it—in the form of late 20th century multiculturalism. From the perspective of political...

Abstract This paper explores the relationship between semantic contextualism and philosophical pluralism. Semantic contextualism is understood here as a philosophical approach to linguistic meaning and interpretation and an intuitively plausible ground or rationale of a moderate anti-formalism—one which attempts to make good use of formal methods w...

This is a new, critical edition of Arthur S. Eddington's 1928 book, The Nature of the Physical World, presently in press. Eddington was one of the most important British scientists of this times, and the first major expositor of Einstein's work to the English-speaking world. At the time which he wrote the book, he was also familiar with the major a...

This is my Introduction to the reprint of Eddington's 1927 Gifford Lectures which I annotated and published in 2014. The Introduction gives an overview of Eddington's life and work and engages with chief themes of the book in both expository and critical ways.

This paper focuses on abduction as explicit or readily formulatable inference to possible explanatory hypotheses—as contrasted with inference to conceptual innovations or abductive logic as a cycle of hypothesis, deduction of consequences and inductive testing. Inference to an explanation is often a matter of projection or extrapolation of elements...

This is my draft opening for a critical edition of A.S. The Nature of the Physical World. The plan is to annotate the entire book and write a new Introduction. The result will be supplemented with an extensive bibliography, based on Eddington's sources and more recent materials, and a new index. The objective is a contemporary re-evaluation of Eddi...

This is my draft of the 4th chapter of Eddington, titled "The Running-Down of the Universe," which concerns the relationship of time to entropy.

Focused on five prominent scholars of international law, and casting light on the related institutions which frequently engaged them, the present book provides insight into chief currents of international law during the last decades of the twentieth century. Spanning the gap, in some degree, between Anglo-American and continental approaches to inte...

This paper aims to develop a deeper conception of law, especially international law, in the early republic--and in early American republican thought. It draws primarily on the work of the Philadelphia lawyer and politician, Alexander James Dallas, who wrote his (1814) Exposition of the Causes and Character of the war to defend and explain America's...

Abstract The War of 1812 has been called America’s second War of Independence. This paper takes up that view, and it aims to elucidate the war objectives and geopolitical perspective of the Madisonian Republicans who launched the War in June of 1812. Given that the Revolutionary War was America’s anti-colonial war, which successfully removed Great...

This was the somewhat shorter conference paper from which the later, similarly named publication developed.

In his final book, The Revolt of the Elites (1996), American social historian and social critic Christopher Lasch draws upon and recommends Jonathan Edwards for his “challenge to complacency and pride,” and in criticism of religion narrowly conceived as “a source of intellectual and emotional security.” According to Lasch, “Edwards’ view of God bea...

This paper focuses on John Witherspoon (1723-1794) and the religious background of the American conception of religious liberty and church-state separation, as found in the First Amendment. Witherspoon was strongly influenced by debates and conflicts concerning liberty of conscience and the independence of the congregations in his native Scotland;...

Alison L. LaCroix is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, where she specializes in legal history, federalism, constitutional law and questions of jurisdiction. She has written a fine, scholarly volume on the intellectual origins of American federalism. LaCroix holds the JD degree (Yale, 1999) and a Ph.D. in history (H...

Alexander James Dallas' An Exposition of the Causes and Character of the War was written as part of an effort by the then US government to explain and justify its declaration of war in 1812. However publication coincided with the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War. The Exposition is especially interesting for the insight it pr...

In a naturalistic approach, this chapter explores the tradition conception of grace, thus the reference to "natural grace." A chief idea is that natural grace is closely related to locality and particular conditions and moral traditions of up-bringing, education and socialization: actualization in a specific social and moral environment.

In 'Memories and Portraits, Explorations in American Thought', philosopher H. G. Callaway embeds his distinctive contextualism and philosophical pluralism within strands of history and autobiography - spanning three continents. Starting in Philadelphia, and reflecting on the meaning of home in American thought, he offers a philosophically inspired...

This paper explores the relationship between semantic contextualism and philosophical pluralism. Semantic contextualism is understood here as a philosophical approach to linguistic meaning and interpretation and an intuitively plausible ground or rationale of a moderate anti-formalism—one which attempts to make good use of formal methods where they...

ABSTRACT: American philosopher William James (1842-1910) traveled to Oxford, England and Manchester College in 1908. Between 4 May and 28 May, he deliver the Hibbert Lectures, which were originally published in 1909 as A Pluralistic Universe. This was to be the last major book James published during his life time. Manchester College had been founde...

American historian Daniel Walker Howe is emeritus Professor of History at both UCLA and Oxford. His prior books are indicative of the focus in the present volume, which basically functions to revise long habitual conceptions of the Jacksonian era. He published The Politi­cal Culture of the American Whigs in 1979 and The Making of the American Self:...

This concise, well written and often convincing book of 9 short chapters is designed to defend “the intuitive view that there is a way things are that is independent of human opinion, and that we are capable of arriving at belief about how things are that is objectively reason able” and thus “binding on anyone capable of appreciating the relevant e...

Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur M. War and the American Presidency. New York: W.W. Norton Co., 2004. This book collects and focuses recent writings of Arthur Schlesinger on the themes of its title. In its short Foreword and seven concise essays, the book aims to explore, in some contrast with the genre of “instant history,” the relationship between Pres...

This is the Introduction I wrote for my edited edition of R.W. Emerson's 1870 book, Society and Solitude, published in 2008. The work is particularly interesting, because it formulates Emerson's late philosophy at the time just after the American Civil War of 1861-1865. The title themes involve Emerson's objective of reconciliation of social engage...