Philosophical Enquiries

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Open Access
Francis Bacon and the Pragmatic Theory of Forms
(1964) Cameron, Evan Wm.
A summary of Francis Bacon's ontology of nature followed by a pragmatic reading of his theory of 'Forms', concluding that Bacon construed the mark of a true form to be its usefulness (or, as he put it when insisting upon the necessity of usefulness to the very being of a form, 'These two directions, the one active and the other contemplative, are one and the same thing; and what in operation is most useful, that in knowledge is most true.').
Open Access
A Prescriptive Criterion for Distinguishing Analytic from Synthetic Judgments
(1964) Cameron, Evan Wm.
An essay confirming, in defiance of an opinion shared by many philosophers after Quine, that we may indeed, as Kant suggested, distinguish analytic from synthetic judgments but only by attending to how students could be taught how to use them (and the words and phrases of which they consist), and therewith how to use them differently, rather than by attempting to describe how differently they appear.
Open Access
Kant and the Ontological Argument
(1965) Cameron, Evan Wm.
An essay reaffirming Kant's criticism of the ontological argument for the existence of God – a conjecture conceived in the 11th century by Anselm of Canterbury and defended in the mid-20th century by Charles Hartshorne and Norman Malcolm.
Open Access
God, Kant and the Transcendental Object: an Investigation into the Kantian Critique of the Ontological Argument
(1965) Cameron, Evan Wm.
An address to the 4th International Kant Congress, Mainz, Germany, 8 April 1974 on the nature and consequences of Kant's remarks within his Critique of Pure Reason on the notions of 'God' and the 'Transcendental Object', a text of which was published later the same year within the proceedings of the Congress as pages 347-355 of the Akten des 4 International Kant Kongresses, Mainz 6 10 April 1974, Teil II.1 (Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter, 1974).
Open Access
Randomness and Mr. Goodman's Paradox
(1967) Cameron, Evan Wm.
Viable inductions can only be drawn from unbiased samples. A predicate like Nelson Goodman's 'Grue', therefore, cannot be used within inductions, for the temporal nature of its definition ensures that any sampling of objects that we could encounter would be biased with respect to it. The supposed 'grue paradox' is therefore neither paradoxical nor relevant to how we make viable inductions.
Open Access
Pudovkin's Precept, Part 1: the 'Basic Method' of Filmmaking
(1967) Cameron, Evan Wm.
In 1926, Vsevolod Pudovkin, a not-so-young Russian of thirty-two making his first movie of feature length, articulated within a brief manual for filmmakers how to solve the fundamental problem of film design by describing how to select and order the parts of a movie (its shots, scenes and sequences) to ensure that viewers can perceive coherently and with least effort the events that they encounter by means of them. How did he do it? How, indeed, could anyone have done it, much less an inexperienced filmmaker, accomplishing a feat of a kind unprecedented within commentaries by others upon any other art? To answer those questions is to comprehend not only the rudiments of how filmmakers make movies but the distinctive nature of the art of filmmaking itself. Within the lectures on 'Pudovkin's Precept . . .' available within the Evan Wm. Cameron Collection, I address those questions in order and with increasing refinement, unpacking in Part 1 how filmmakers came commonly to comprehend and use what Pudovkin said – the most significant prescription in the history of filmmaking.
Open Access
On the Inductive Structure of Works of Art (Oral Examination Abstract)
(1970) Cameron, Evan Wm.
Extended abstract of the author's dissertation 'On the Inductive Structure of Works of Art', summarising its logical and artistic enquiries, as used by the members of the examining committee of the Graduate School of Boston University before whom it was defended in May of 1970.
Open Access
On the Inductive Structure of Works of Art (Part II)
(1970) Cameron, Evan Wm.
Part II (of the two parts) of the dissertation of May 1970 within which author unpacks and defends the conjecture that works of art must be structured to be playable as inductive games if they are to be experienced powerfully – the core construal upon which his subsequent discussions of the nature, scope and limits of screenwriting were to rest. [Part II encompasses Chapter II of the thesis wherein the root structures of the narrative and non-narrative arts are examined, confirming the suggestion, followed by its Conclusion and Bibliography.]
Open Access
On the Inductive Structure of Works of Art (Part I)
(1970) Cameron, Evan Wm.
Part I (of two parts) of the dissertation of May 1970 within which author unpacks and defends the conjecture that works of art must be structured to be playable as inductive games if they are to be experienced powerfully – the core construal upon which his subsequent discussions of the nature, scope and limits of screenwriting were to rest. [Part I encompasses the Abstract and Preface of the thesis, and Chapter I with appendices – a formal excursion into pertinent aspects of probability theory and inductive logic.]
Open Access
On the Inductive Structure of Works of Art (Summary)
(1970) Cameron, Evan Wm.
A summary of the discussion and conclusions of the author's dissertation 'On the Inductive Structure of Works of Art', submitted and defended in May of 1970, comprising a revision of Chapter II amended at beginning and end to encompass material from the Introduction and Conclusion of the thesis, designed to enable readers to grasp the nature and consequences of its core conjecture – that works of art must be structured to be playable as inductive games if they are to be experienced powerfully – without attending to the logical and mathematical enquiries of Chapter I.
Open Access
Pudovkin's Precept, Part 2: 'This Method of Temporal Concentration'
(1977) Cameron, Evan Wm.
In 1926, Vsevolod Pudovkin, a not-so-young Russian of thirty-two making his first movie of feature length, articulated within a brief manual for filmmakers how to solve the fundamental problem of film design by describing how to select and order the parts of a movie (its shots, scenes and sequences) to ensure that viewers can perceive coherently and with least effort the events that they encounter by means of them. How did he do it? How, indeed, could anyone have done it, much less an inexperienced filmmaker, accomplishing a feat of a kind unprecedented within commentaries by others upon any other art? To answer those questions is to comprehend not only the rudiments of how filmmakers make movies but the distinctive nature of the art of filmmaking itself. Within the lectures on 'Pudovkin's Precept . . .' available within the Evan Wm. Cameron Collection, I address those questions in order and with increasing refinement, unpacking in Part 2 how the precept, when understood as comprehensibly as Pudovkin would have wished, imposes additional requirements upon the making of movies intended to be 'works of art' – constraints within which too few filmmakers have been able and willing to work.
Open Access
Psychopathology, Personal Identity and David Hume
(1978) Cameron, Evan Wm.
Consider our idea of 'personal identity'. Of what simple ideas is it compounded, and from what impressions are they derived? David Hume was unable to answer the questions to his own satisfaction, and yet he could have answered them, I think, and many more, had he considered the implications of an off-hand remark that he made early on within his Treatise of Human Nature: " . . . in madness . . . our ideas may approach to our impressions" (page 2), for what is 'madness', succinctly, but a loss of personal identity? Hume's Treatise of Human Nature is mistitled, for it remains unconcerned with the possible abnormalities of the mind. I suggest within this essay, however, that had Hume considered the possibilities of abnormality implicit in his theory of the normal mind, he could not only have solved the problem of personal identity but established with remarkable accuracy the foundations of psychopathology as well.
Open Access
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Induction? Flip a Coin, Twice if Needed
(1980) Cameron, Evan Wm.
A simple solution to Hume's problem of induction, pragmatically construed.
Open Access
Kant at the La Ciotat Station: the Arrival of the Lumière's Train
(1981) Cameron, Evan Wm.
In 1787 Immanuel Kant published a second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason. Within a new preface he reaffirmed an identity that his critics had failed to comprehend: we and God encounter things differently rather than different things. A century later Louis Lumière, by the first public screening of a movie, exemplified a comparable identity that a good many nonfilmmakers have ever since failed to comprehend: we see differently by means of movies the same things that stood before the camera as the film was exposed rather than different things. I sketch within this essay the consequences of those identities for logic and filmmaking, foremost among them that identity claims, carefully construed, are irrefutable, disposing of impotent counterarguments.
Open Access
How to Measure an Ideology
(1984) Cameron, Evan Wm.
A primer on the rudiments of the tough task of theorizing for film 'theorists' unable to distinguish theories from ideologies.
Open Access
Nelson Goodman's 'Theory of Symbols': an Exposition and Critique
(1985) Cameron, Evan Wm.
Notes in outline form for a presentation on 13 February 1985 to the 'Media, Mind and Society' seminar of David R. Olson, Co-Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology of the University of Toronto, on the 'Theory of Symbols' of Nelson Goodman's Languages of Art [1968] and Ways of Worldmaking [1978].
Open Access
Kant and Aesthetics: an Introduction
(1986) Cameron, Evan Wm.
A brief introduction to Kant's Third Critique as presented in November 1986 at the request of Professor Seth Feldman to the undergraduate students enrolled within his 'Introduction to Fine Arts' course of the Fine Arts Cultural Studies programme, required at the time of all first-year students entering the Faculty of Fine Arts, York University, Toronto, Ontario.
Open Access
Pudovkin's Precept, Part 3: Bringing Movies to Kant's 'Transcendental Unity of Apperception'
(1987) Cameron, Evan Wm.
In 1926, Vsevolod Pudovkin, a not-so-young Russian of thirty-two making his first movie of feature length, articulated within a brief manual for filmmakers how to solve the fundamental problem of film design by describing how to select and order the parts of a movie (its shots, scenes and sequences) to ensure that viewers can perceive coherently and with least effort the events that they encounter by means of them. How did he do it? How, indeed, could anyone have done it, much less an inexperienced filmmaker, accomplishing a feat of a kind unprecedented within commentaries by others upon any other art? To answer those questions is to comprehend not only the rudiments of how filmmakers make movies but the distinctive nature of the art of filmmaking itself. Within the lectures on 'Pudovkin's Precept . . .' available within the Evan Wm. Cameron Collection, I address those questions in order and with increasing refinement, unpacking in Part 3 how Pudovkin was able to do what he did only by unwittingly bringing Kant's transcendental constraint of apperceptive unity to bear upon the making of movies, confirming that respect for the constraints of the self-conscious perceptual integrity of observers is the primal precondition of achievement within every art.
Open Access
McLuhan's Method: the Mad Hatter at Tea with Austin and Wittgenstein
(1989) Cameron, Evan Wm.
What was McLuhan doing? How was he doing it? Was it important? Within this essay I try to answer those questions by linking what he said and did, and how he did it, with the ways and means of the seemingly dissimilar philosophical project of Austin and Wittgenstein.
Open Access
Pudovkin's Precept [Summary]: Pudovkin, Kant and the Transcendental Unity of Apperception
(1990) Cameron, Evan Wm.
In 1926, Vsevolod Pudovkin solved the fundamental problem of film design by showing filmmakers how to select and order the parts of a movie (its shots, scenes and sequences of them) to ensure that viewers can perceive coherently and with least effort the events that they encounter by means of it. He did so by unwittingly bringing Kant's transcendental constraint of apperceptive unity to bear upon it, confirming with unprecedented elegance and power that respect for the constraints of the self-conscious perceptual integrity of observers is the primal precondition of authentic art. Within this address, I summarise Pudovkin's achievement and its Kantian context, condensing the story told within Parts 1-3 of the lectures on 'Pudovkin's Precept' available within the Evan Wm. Cameron Collection.