The Southern Journal of Philosophy

The Surprise Exam Paradox continues to perplex and torment despite the many solutions that have been offered. This paper proposes to end the intrigue once and for all by refuting one of the central pillars of the Surprise Exam Paradox, the “No Friday Argument,” which concludes that an exam given on the last day of the testing period cannot be a surprise. This refutation consists of three arguments, all of which are borrowed from the literature: the “Unprojectible Announcement Argument,” the “Wright & Sudbury Argument,” and the “Epistemic Blindspot Argument.” The reason that the Surprise Exam Paradox has persisted this long is not because any of these arguments is problematic. On the contrary, each of them is correct. The reason that it has persisted so long is because each argument is only part of the solution. The correct solution requires all three of them to be combined together. Once they are, we may see exactly why the No Friday Argument fails and therefore why we have a solution to the Surprise Exam Paradox that should stick.

Aristotle claims at Eudemian Ethics 1.2 that everyone who can live according to his own choice should adopt some goal for the good life, which he will keep in view in all his actions, for not to have done so is a sign of folly. This is an opinion shared by other ancients as well as some moderns. Others believe, however, that this view is false to the human condition, and provide a number of objections: (1) you can’t plan love; (2) nor life’s surprises; (3) planning a whole life is of no use since the world changes too much; (4) as do our values; and (5) planning a life is something only dreary people would do. The aim of this paper is to examine these objections, as part of a broader attempt to defend the relevance of a eudaimonistic approach to the question of how to live well.

Robert Stalnaker has argued that mathematical information is information about the sentences and expressions of mathematics. I argue that this metalinguistic account is open to a variant of Alonzo Church’s translation objection and that Stalnaker’s attempt to get around this objection is not successful. If correct, this tells not only against Stalnaker’s account of mathematical truths, but against any metalinguistic account of truths that are both necessary and informative.

Philip Kitcher has advanced an epistemology of science that purports to be naturalistic. For Kitcher, this entails that his epistemology of science must explain the correctness of belief-regulating norms while endorsing a realist notion of truth. This paper concerns whether or not Kitcher’s epistemology of science is naturalistic on these terms. I find that it is not but that by supplementing the account we can secure its naturalistic standing.

It is argued here that the question of whether compatibilism is true is irrelevant to metaphysical questions about the nature of humandecision-making processes—for example, the question of whether or not humans have free will—except in a very trivial and metaphysicallyuninteresting way. In addition, it is argued that two other questions—namely, the conceptual-analysis question of what free will is and thequestion that asks which kinds of freedom are required for moral responsibility—are also essentially irrelevant to metaphysical questionsabout the nature of human beings.

Criticism of Hegel has been a central preoccupation of “postmodern” philosophy, from critical theory and deconstruction to Lacanianpsychoanalytic theory and Foucauldian “archaeology.” One of the most frequent criticisms is that Hegel’s invocation of “absolute knowledge”installs him in a position of authorial arrogance, of God-like authority, leaving the reader in a position of subservience to the Sage’s perfectwisdom. The argument of this article is that this sort of criticism is profoundly ironic, since Hegel’s construction of the role of the Sage possessing absolute knowledge is in fact an elaborate mask covering over a radical project of disappearance of the author by which itbecomes the reader who is left to author the text. The article explores Hegel’s commitment to his own death as an author in his invention of anew method of demonstration, his epistemology, his philosophy of language, his theory of desire, and even in the seemingly least likelyplace of all, his portrait of “absolute knowledge.”

Vigilantes are a staple of popular culture, from Charles Bronson’s 1974 classic Death Wish, and its parade of sequels, to the latest batch ofBatman films. Outside of the fictional sphere, society continues to wrestle with vigilantism, notably in the current debates over the prudence and ethics of the Minuteman civilian border patrol group. And though vigilantism has been the subject of speculation and debate among criminologists, historians, and legal scholars, it has unfortunately been given scant attention by philosophers. Surely a topic of such prominence in popular culture, and continued relevance in real life, is ripe for treatment by applied ethicists. In this paper I seek to formulate a definition of vigilantism and then argue that there are conditions under which vigilantism is not only permissible but, at least for some, obligatory.

By revisiting Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, I mount a Hegelian defense of same-sex marriage rights. I first argue that Hegel’s account of theIdea of freedom articulates both the necessity of popular shifts in the determinations of the institutions of right, as well as the duty to struggle to progressively actualize freedom through them. I then contend that Hegel, by grounding marriage in free consent, clears the path for expanding this ethical institution to include all monogamous couples. Lastly, I close by sketching the specifically Hegelian reasons we ought to actively struggle to expand the institution of marriage.

If we adopt a virtue approach to epistemology, what form should the intellectual virtues take? In this paper, I argue that the proper structure of the intellectual virtues should be one that follows the tradition of internalism in epistemology. I begin by giving a general characterization of virtue epistemology and then define internalism within that framework. Arguing for internalism, I first consider the thought experiment of the new evil demon and show how externalist accounts of intellectual virtue, though constructed to accommodate our intuitions in such cases, cannot fully do so. I further argue that only adopting an internalist structure of the virtues will provide intellectual virtues that appropriately mirror the structure of the classical moral virtues. Finally, I argue that only an internalist structure of the virtues can explain why the intellectual virtues are valuable in themselves.