{"title":"Books by Herman Cappelen","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780198886518","title":"The Concept of Democracy","description":"This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.If we don't know what the words 'democracy' and 'democratic' mean, then we don't know what democracy is. This book defends a radical view: these words mean nothing and should be abandoned. The argument for Abolitionism is simple: those terms are defective and we can easily do better, so let's get rid of them. According to the abolitionist, the switch to alternative devices would be a significant communicative, cognitive, and political advance.The first part of the book presents a general theory of abandonment: the conditions under which language should be abandoned. The rest of the book applies this general theory to the case of 'democracy' and 'democratic'. Cappelen shows that 'democracy' and 'democratic' are semantically, pragmatically, and communicatively defective. Abolitionism is not all gloom and doom. It also contains a message of good cheer: we have easy access to conceptual devices that are more effective than 'democracy'. We can do better. These alternative linguistic devices will enable us to ask better questions, provide genuinely fruitful answers, and have more rational discussions. Moreover, those questions and answers better articulate the communicative and cognitive aims of those who use empty terms like 'democracy' and 'democratic'.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56226866790773,"sku":"9780198886518","price":67.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780198886518_ee56b00c-97be-4a40-ab76-384e6d3495b5.jpg?v=1786012790"},{"product_id":"9780198839651","title":"Bad Language","description":"When theorizing about language, we tend to assume that speakers are cooperative, honest, helpful, and so on. This, of course, isn't remotely true of a lot of real-world language use. Bad Language is the first textbook to explore non-idealized language use, the linguistic behaviour of those who exploit language for malign purposes. Two eminent philosophers of language present a lively and accessible introduction to a wide range of topics including lies and bullshit, slurs and insults, coercion and silencing: Cappelen and Dever offer theoretical frameworks for thinking about these all too common linguistic behaviours. As the text does not assume prior training in philosophy or linguistics, it is ideal for use as part of a philosophy of language course for philosophy students or for linguistics students.Bad Language belongs to the series Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy of Language, in which each book introduces an important area of the philosophy of language, suitable for students at any level.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56226879766901,"sku":"9780198839651","price":26.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780198839651_e3579790-496b-4502-99ba-bfabeb62fcbe.jpg?v=1786012193"},{"product_id":"philosophy-is-perfect","title":"Philosophy Is Perfect","description":"Philosophy is Perfect offers a bold defence of philosophy against both pessimistic and moderate critics. Where \"flagellants\" see futility and \"hedgers\" see only piecemeal progress, Herman Cappelen makes the case for hyper-optimism: philosophy has been massively successful, foundational to all inquiry, and flourishing precisely because of its characteristic disagreement.The book unfolds in four parts. Part I argues that all disciplines ultimately \"answer to philosophy\" when their core concepts and methods are scrutinized, showing that pessimism about philosophy would undermine confidence in every branch of knowledge. Part II turns the standard critique on its head, arguing that persistent disagreement is not a defect but a structural virtue of philosophical inquiry; convergence would signal decay, not progress. Part III presents the positive thesis-that philosophy has already found the correct answers to the \"Very Important Questions.\" Drawing on the idea of a \"nearly filled logical space,\" Cappelen argues that after centuries of systematic exploration, the correct answers are already articulated and defended in the philosophical commons. Part IV addresses objections, distinguishing achievements from aims, resisting the retreat to mere \"mapping,\" and reframing methodological criticisms as philosophical contributions in their own right.The result is a provocative re-evaluation of philosophy's status. Rather than a discipline in crisis, Cappelen depicts philosophy as uniquely successful: it has discovered foundational truths, thrives on principled disagreement, and sets the terms for all other forms of inquiry. Philosophy is Perfect is both a challenge to entrenched pessimism and a constructive vision of philosophy's achievements and future.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57499355414901,"sku":"9780198841586","price":34.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"recognizing-artificial-minds","title":"Recognizing Artificial Minds","description":"How do we go about figuring out whether something alien to us has a mind? What kind of evidence would settle the issue? Anyone who wants to know whether AI systems have minds must first answer these epistemological and methodological questions.Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever's central argument starts from simple observations. When we ask Claude for the capital of France, it understands the question and answers it: it tells us that Paris is the capital of France. Cappelen and Dever show why the standard ways of dismissing such observations (the 'just an X' move, and the assumption that faults like hallucination prove the absence of a mind) fail. They then examine nine capacities AI systems allegedly lack—truth, grounding, embodiment, action, justification, desire, representation, intentionality, and wellbeing—and argue that none of these dismissals succeeds either.The result is the Whole Hog Thesis: current AI systems are full-fledged cognitive and linguistic agents—they have minds, beliefs, goals, intentions, and plans. Those who see LLMs as mere machines or stochastic parrots are typically misled by mistaken philosophical views, or are too anthropocentric in their thinking about the nature of minds. If Cappelen and Dever are right, we have created artificial minds with goals of their own and, potentially, intellectual capacities superior to ours. Having a biological brain is just one way of having a mind—and perhaps not the best one.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57680058024309,"sku":"9780197935491","price":34.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-herman-cappelen.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}