McKinsey Axiom is the modal formula LMA $\to$ MLA which has some elusive semantic properties. The canonicity and compactness of the axiom are the problems historically important in the development of our understanding of intensional logic. These problems, however, were unsolved for years in modal logic. Recently, Robert Goldblatt showed that the McKinsey Axiom is not canonical. Then the remaining task is to solve the problem of the compactness of the axiom. The major result in this dissertation is a proof in S 4 showing that the McKinsey Axiom is not compact. The dissertation also contains a variation of Goldblatt's proof and a demonstration that the model constructed by Goldblatt for showing that the McKinsey Axiom is not canonical is not suitable for showing that the McKinsey Axiom is not compact / acase@tulane.edu

The dissertation surveys the history of Western philosophy to determine the balance preserved between conceptual and primordial knowing. Ten major thinkers are investigated: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Whitehead and Lonergan Conceptual knowing deals with the universal and the necessary, the world of certainty and apodictic truth. Platonic essential definition and dialectical argument illustrate it, as well as Aristotle's definition of science, Aquinas' adaptation of what model to theology, and Descartes' preoccupation with clear ideas and an indubitable basis Primordial knowing is particular, and resistant to precise formulation. The artist and the poet exemplify it. It is deeply personal knowing, religious knowing, experiential knowing. Plato's myths are an example, and Aristotelian and Thomistic intuition and wisdom. It appears later in Kantian and Hegelian esthetics, and Whiteheadian intuition After presenting a heuristic definition of conceptual and primordial knowing in the Introduction, the dissertation examines each of the ten philosophers to see what they contribute to an understanding of either kind of knowing, and what balance they strike between the two. The Conclusion offers a final definition of the two kinds of knowing, and consolidates the results of the historical investigation. The dissertation ends by proposing a new science of knowing This work is timely because a vast shift in Western thought is taking place, from the conceptual to the primordial. In philosophy it is best seen in Polanyi's stress on tacit knowing; in popular culture, in the wave of Eastern cults and modes of thought. The project would at once ground this shift in Western thought, and guard against the overraction of a mindless irrationalism / acase@tulane.edu

'An Internalist Theory of Practical Reasons' is a qualified defense of Bernard Williams' claim that some motivational element, or 'desire' in the broadest sense, is a necessary condition of reasons for action. The dissertation has two main parts In the first part I narrow down Williams' internalist theory by giving it a specific interpretation, and by explaining how and why so many of his critics have misinterpreted it (this involves developing a twelve part classification of contemporary theories which fall under the rubric of 'internalism,' but which are logically independent of one another). I then identify and explicate Williams' two main arguments against externalism: that external reasons claims lack explanatory power, and that they violate the ought-implies-can principle. Before defending internalism against challenges by neo-Aristotelian and value-based accounts of practical reasons, I develop a more robust version of Williams' theory In the second part of the dissertation I begin by distinguishing internalist from instrumental theories of reasons. I then provisionally defend an instrumental theory by showing how, despite common objections, instrumentalists can provide a non-instrumental justification for adherence to principles that are constitutive of rationality, and are thus presupposed by the existence of reasons. Examples of such principles include the requirements that preference orderings be transitive and complete. Finally, I argue that internalists but not instrumentalists have the conceptual resources to acknowledge an important class of norm-based, non-teleological reasons which explain why many people contribute to the production of collective goods, even when the costs of contribution exceed the expected benefits. I conclude that internalism shares many of the theoretical virtues of instrumentalism, but that it lacks its principal vices / acase@tulane.edu

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acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu