This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Discovering a Defensible Kind of Philosophical Writing Imitators vs. Constitution‐Painters The Necessary and Sufficient Criterion of Philosophical Writing.

J. Angelo Corlett’s new book, Interpreting Plato Socratically continues the critical discussion of the Platonic Question where Corlett’s book, Interpreting Plato’s Dialogues concluded. New arguments in favor of the Mouthpiece Interpretation of Plato’s works are considered and shown to be fallacious, as are new objections to some competing approaches to Plato’s works. The Platonic Question is the problem of how to approach and interpret Plato’s writings most of which are dialogues. How, if at all, can Plato’s beliefs, (...) doctrines, theories and such be extracted from dialogues where there is no direct indication from Plato that his own views are even to be found therein? Most philosophers of Plato attempt to decipher from Plato’s texts seemingly all manner of ideas expressed by Socrates which they then attribute to Plato. They seek to ascribe to Plato particular views about justice, art, love, virtue, knowledge, and the like because, they believe, Socrates is Plato’s mouthpiece through the dialogues. But is such an approach justified? What are the arguments in favor of such an approach? Is there a viable alternative approach to Plato’s dialogues? In this rigorous account of the dominant approach to Plato’s dialogues, there is no room left for reasonable doubt about the problematic reasons given for the notion that Plato’s dialogues reveal either Plato’s or Socrates’ beliefs, doctrines or theories about substantive philosophical matters. Corlett’s approach to Plato’s dialogues is applied to a variety of passages throughout Plato’s works on a wide range of topics concerning justice. In-depth discussions of themes such as legal obligation, punishment and compensatory justice are clarified and with some surprising results. Plato’s works serve as a rich source of philosophical thinking about such matters. A central question in today’s Platonic studies is whether Socrates, or any other protagonist in the dialogues, presents views that the author wanted to assert or defend. Professor Corlett offers a detailed defense of his view that the role of Socrates is to raise questions rather than to provide the author’s answers to them. This defense is timely as intellectual historians consider the part played by Academic scholars centuries after Plato in systematizing Platonism. J. J. Mulhern, University of Pennsylvania. (shrink)

The dialogue has disappeared as a mode of writing philosophy, and philosophers who study Plato today often ignore the form in which Plato’s work appears in favor of reconstructing and analyzing arguments thought to be conveyed by the content of the dialogues. A distinguished classicist here offers an approach to understanding Plato that tries to do full justice to the form of Platonic philosophy, appreciated against the background of Greek literature and history, while also giving proper due to (...) the important philosophic content of the dialogues. The book deals in turn with Plato’s relation to and portraits of Socrates, the literary and philosophical character of the dialogues, and the modes of argumentation employed in the dialogues as well as some of their major themes. (shrink)

How is this history of philosophy different from all others? 1. It's neighter very long (like Copleston's twelve-volume tome, which is a clear and helpful reference work but pretty dull reading) nor very short (like many skimpy one-volume summaries) just long enough. 2. It's available in separate volumes but eventually in one complete work (after the four volumes - Ancient, Medieval, Modern, Contemporary - are produced in paperbound editions, a one-volume clothbound will be published). 3. It focuses on the "big (...) ideas" that have influenced present people and present times. 4. It includes relevant biographical data, proportionate to its importance for each thinker. 5. It is not just history but philosophy. Its aim is not merely to record facts (of life or opinion) but to stimulate philosophizing, controversy, argument. 6. It aims above all at understanding, at what the old logic called the "first act of the mind" rather than the third: the thing computers and many "analytic philosophers" cannot understand. 7. It uses ordinary language and logic, not academic jargon or symbolic logic. 8. It is commonsensical (and therefore is sympathetic to commonsense philosophers like Aristotle). 9. It is "existential" in that it sees philosophy as something to be lived and tested. (shrink)

The primary method of evaluation in philosophy courses (both undergraduate and graduate) is usually some form of research paper or essay. There is an assumption, however, that the only kind of essay that philosophy students need to learn how to write is the argumentative essay. Indeed, philosophy instructors often consider other forms of writing less significant. This workshop intends to break down these introducing participants to a variety of essay styles, and to other forms of practical part of undergraduate philosophy (...) coursework. The goal of this workshop is to encourage instructors to create more purposeful and creative writing assignments in their own future courses. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:92 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY is a great deal to blame for the wrongheaded views that got about in the ancient world concerning this gifted Alexandrian thinker; and in the whole business there is more than a hint of clash between Eastern and Western temperament. When, in dealing with modern critics of Origen, he roundly castigates the scholarly ghettoism that goes on, one is in complete sympathy. Kerr for instance (...) gets scolded for not quoting De Lubac. Lutheran scholars and Catholic, Germans perhaps and French, will tend to approach Origen with preformed conclusions. They have too often written within an exceedingly limited scholarly tradition. Fair enough. People have not any excuse for ignoring one another's contributions. Evidences of this sort of thing, with conspicuous faults on both sides (Lutheran and Catholic, that is) are not far to seek, God knows. One is not so happy however when the faint suggestion is made, particularly in the appendix, that it is only to students with the proper dispositions that Origen will yield up his message. That one must believe with Origen, so to speak. It may be the enthusiasm of the moment, or the undue influence of Origen's own attitude to holy writ; but this could be a disastrous line of argument. It comes perilously near to the reasons Julian the Apostate gave for excluding Christians from the Hellenist schools. And it smacks too much of Hellenistic ideas about doctrine for the multitude and for the initiate. Incidentally Crouzel argues that Origen, contrary to the accepted beliefs about him, was singularly free of this sort of thing. Some of his supposedly esoteric doctrines are found in the most popular of his compositions, and vice versa. In all it is a book calculated to set students of Origen thinking, and searching. DENIS MEEIIAN Valyermo Priory Duns Scotus, Philosophical Writings: A Selection. Edited and translated by Allan Wolter, O.F.M. (The Nelson Philosophical Texts; Edinburgh: Nelson, 1962. Pp. xxiii + 198. Latin text and translation, 162 parallel pages. SOs., $6.50.) Minor, sometimes indirect, causes have kept the name of John Duns Scotus in the minds of many philosophers of the twentieth century. The dependence of Gerard Manly Hopkins' notion of inscape on Duns Scotus' doctrine on intuitive cognition and individuation is a case in point. Another and more direct instance is that of the concurrence of some modern theories on free will with the exposition of Scotus. Those whose interest in Duns Scotus has been piqued by some allusion invariably ask the question, where can one get something in English by the man? The answer still is, the man has had quite a few expositors but not many translators. The latest of such expositions is Duns Scotus: The Basic Principles of His Philosophy, B. Bonansea's translation of an Italian work by E. Bettoni. The only complete work of Duns Scotus in English translation is his small opus presenting a demonstration of the existence of God: The De Primo Principio of John Duns Scotus, (St. Bonaventure, N. Y.: 1949), translated by Evan Roche, O.F.M. Allan Wolter is presently engaged in producing a new translation with more extensive notes, since the original translation is out of print. A small selection from Scotus' Oxford Commentary is contained in Richard McKeon's Selections from Medieval Philosophers, Vol. II. The reason for the scarcity of translations has been the lack of a definitive edition of BOOK REVIEWS 93 Scotus's works. No one wanted to undertake an extensive translation from insufficiently edited texts, especially when a definitive text was thought to be imminent. A commission was appointed thirty-six years ago to do for John Duns Scotus what had been done so magnificently for his Franciscan predecessor, St. Bonaventure. The first definitive edition of the opera ornnia of a Scholastic in the period of Scholastic revival was published by Franciscan scholars at Quaracchi near Florence: the Opera Ornnia Sancti Bonaventurae (1882-1901) in nine volumes. The same scholars, under the leadership of E. Longpr~, O.F.M., turned their attention to the works of Scotus. The problems facing the commission were admittedly much greater. Manuscripts had to be gathered, authenticated, compared. Work went slowly... (shrink)

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) left a voluminous legacy of writings. Despite his influence on the early modern period, his correspondence, manuscripts, and publications in natural philosophy remain scattered throughout many disparate editions. In this volume, Newton's principal philosophical writings are for the first time collected in a single place. They include excerpts from the Principia and the Opticks, his famous correspondence with Boyle and with Bentley, and his equally significant correspondence with Leibniz, which is often ignored in (...) favor of Leibniz's later debate with Samuel Clarke. Newton's exchanges with Leibniz place their different understandings of natural philosophy in sharp relief. The volume also includes 'De Gravitatione', offered here in a corrected translation, which is crucial for understanding Newton's relation to his great predecessor Descartes. In a historical and philosophical introduction, Andrew Janiak examines Newton's philosophical positions and his relations to canonical figures in early modern philosophy. (shrink)

Republic IX 583c-585a presents something surprisingly unusual in ancient accounts of pleasure and pain: an argument in favour of the view that there are three relevant hedonic states: pleasure, pain, and an intermediate. The argument turns on the proposal that a person's evaluation of their current state may be misled by a comparison with a prior or subsequent state. The argument also refers to `pure' and anticipated pleasures. The brief remarks in the Republic may appear cursory or clumsy in comparison (...) with the Philebus , but this appearance is misleading. Rather, they are part of a neat dialectical argument against a potentially troubling set of opponents. Socrates' use of a topological analogy at 584d3-585a7 rounds off this section by clarifying and illustrating his position, preparing the ground for the final explanation of the pleasantness of the philosophical life at 585a-587c. (shrink)

Brief yet also comprehensive, Think with Socrates: An Introduction to Critical Thinking uses the methods, ideas, and life of Socrates as a model for critical thinking. It offers a more philosophical, historical, and accessible introduction than longer textbooks while still addressing all of the key topics in logic and argumentation. Applying critical thinking to the Internet, mass media, advertising, personal experience, expert authority, the evaluation of sources, writing argumentative essays, and forming a worldview, Think with Socrates resonates with today's (...) students and teaches them how to apply their skills to the real world. At the same time, it also covers the ancient intellectual roots and history of the field, placing critical thinking in its larger context to help students appreciate its perennial value. Author Paul Herrick incorporates original sources from newspapers, a variety of media, and philosophical writing, along with engaging "interludes" featuring selections from Plato's dialogues. A Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/herrick offers resources for students and instructors. (shrink)

What good is logic? -- Seventeen ways this book is different -- The two logics -- All of logic in two pages : an overview -- The three acts of the mind -- I. The first act of the mind : understanding -- Understanding : the thing that distinguishes man from both beast and computer -- Concepts, terms and words -- The problem of universals -- The comprehension and extension of terms -- II. Terms -- Classifying terms -- Categories -- (...) Predicables -- Division -- III. Material fallacies -- Fallacies of language -- Fallacies of diversion -- Fallacies of oversimplification -- Fallacies of argumentation -- Inductive fallacies -- Procedural fallacies -- Metaphysical fallacies -- Short story : love is a fallacy -- IV. Definition -- The nature of definition -- The rules of definition -- The kinds of definition -- The limits of definition -- V. Second act of the mind : judgment -- Judgments, propositions, and sentences -- What is truth? -- The four kinds of categorical propositions -- Logical form -- Euler's circles -- Tricky propositions -- The distribution of terms -- VI. Changing propositions -- Immediate inference -- Conversion -- Obversion -- Contraposition -- VII. Contradiction -- What is contradiction? -- The square of opposition -- Existential import -- Tricky propositions on the square -- Some practical uses of the square of opposition -- VIII. The third act of the mind : reasoning -- What does reason mean? -- The ultimate foundations of the syllogism -- How to detect arguments -- Arguments vs. explanations -- Truth and validity -- IX. Different kinds of arguments -- Three meanings of because -- The four causes -- A classification of arguments -- Simple argument maps -- Deductive and inductive arguments -- Combining deduction and induction : socratic method -- X. Syllogisms -- The structure and strategy of the syllogism -- The skeptics objection to the syllogism -- The empiricist's objection to the syllogism -- Demonstrative syllogisms -- How to construct convincing syllogisms -- XI. Checking syllogisms for validity -- By Euler's circles -- By Aristotle's six rules -- Barbara Celarent : mood and figure -- Venn diagrams -- XII. More difficult syllogisms -- Enthymemes : abbreviated syllogisms -- Sorites : chain syllogisms -- Epicheiremas : multiple syllogisms -- Complex argument maps -- XIII. Compound syllogisms -- Hypothetical syllogisms -- Reductio ad absurdum arguments -- The practical syllogism : arguing about means and ends -- Disjunctive syllogisms -- Conjunctive syllogisms -- Dilemmas -- XIV. Induction -- What is induction? -- Generalization -- Causal induction : Mill's methods -- Scientific hypotheses -- Statistical probability -- Arguments from analogy -- A fortiori and a minore arguments -- XV. Some practical applications of logic -- How to write a logical essay -- How to write a socratic dialogue -- How to have a socratic debate -- How to use socratic method on difficult people -- How to read a book socratically -- XVI. Some philosophical applications of logic -- Logic and theology -- Logic and metaphysics -- Logic and cosmology -- Logic and philosophical anthropology -- Logic and epistemology -- Logic and ethics. (shrink)

Chapter 1 examines both what is Plato’s fundamental moral problem and how to read the Platonic dialogues as philosophical works. Concerning the former aspect, it is observed that Plato articulates the basic moral question, “What is the good life?” into two different problems: an epistemological one, “How ought we to live?” and a normative one, “How can we know how ought we to live?” Respecting the way Plato’s writings have to be interpreted, the so-called doctrinal approach is followed, (...) i.e., the most important doctrines are formulated by the principal speaker of the dialogue, while the other characters present several steps relevant for the argument. In conclusion, both Plato’s and Aristotle’s ways of interpreting Socrates’ theories are taken into account. (shrink)

Sir Isaac Newton left a voluminous legacy of writings. Despite his influence on the early modern period, his correspondence, manuscripts, and publications in natural philosophy remain scattered throughout many disparate editions. In this volume, Newton's principal philosophical writings are for the first time collected in a single place. They include excerpts from the Principia and the Opticks, his famous correspondence with Boyle and with Bentley, and his equally significant correspondence with Leibniz, which is often ignored in (...) class='Hi'>favor of Leibniz's later debate with Samuel Clarke. Newton's exchanges with Leibniz place their different understandings of natural philosophy in sharp relief. The volume also includes 'De Gravitatione', offered here in a corrected translation, which is crucial for understanding Newton's relation to his great predecessor Descartes. In a historical and philosophical introduction, Andrew Janiak examines Newton's philosophical positions and his relations to canonical figures in early modern philosophy. (shrink)

The book reconstructs the history of Western ethics. The approach chosen focuses the endless dialectic of moral codes, or different kinds of ethos, moral doctrines that are preached in order to bring about a reform of existing ethos, and ethical theories that have taken shape in the context of controversies about the ethos and moral doctrines as means of justifying or reforming moral doctrines. Such dialectic is what is meant here by the phrase ‘moral traditions’, taken as a name for (...) threads of moral discourse, made in turn of other interwoven threads, including transmission of shared codes, appeals to reform of prevailing custom, rational argument about the justification of some precept on the basis of some shared general teaching or principle, and rational argument about the ultimate basis for principles and justification of authoritative teaching. That is, the approach adopted to the reading of ethical texts depends on a firm belief in the fact that philosophers hardly created any ethical doctrine out of nothing. The main point this book tries to highlight is how different philosophical theories emerged and followed each other as a result of attempts at accounting for what was going on in the world of moral traditions. Changes were propelled by controversies between different schools, and highly abstract arguments were the unintended effects of moves made by controversialists forced to transform (and occasionally to turn upside down) their own doctrines in order to face the challenge posed by other arguments. This is the reason why the book examines not only texts that already enjoy pride of place in the history of philosophy (Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), but also other texts usually treated in the histories of religions (the Bible, the Talmud, the Quran), and others considered to be much less philosophical (Plutarchus, Pufendorf). -/- 1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism. Two different traditions of morality in VI-V century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates answer to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy. Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistence in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The chapter illustrates then the relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater familias, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexis, or ‘disposition’. Prudence, or better practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with bouleusis or deliberation is examined, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a way of life. The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. -/- 4. Epicurus and ethics as self-care. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of a science of well-being aiming, more than at pleasure as in the popular view, at reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. Cicero is treated, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is chosen as the best example of what the Stoic tradition could yield, an art of living based on sophisticated introspection, in turn aimed at making a kind of cognitive therapy possible, dismantling obnoxious passions at their root by systematically correcting false representations. -/- 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism. A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torā (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Leviticus is stressed as the turning point when emphasis mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, is combined with the legal tradition, yielding the change in sensibility of the Second Temple time. Philo of Alexandria is described as one of the three leading figures – together with Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Yeshua – at the apex the emergence of the mentioned new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, two eventually identical precepts whose meaning is arguably more sober and sensible than the long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine has made us believe and no novelty vis-à-vis so-called Ancient-Testament teachings. -/- 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism. The first section examines the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirqé Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deòt, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexeis and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was ‘the tool by which the world was built’; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous , but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure Judaism. The third section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manichaeism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. The last section summarizes the turbulent history of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and a few topics from the Stoic-Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua had been influenced by cynic preachers, is a proof of the necessity felt by Christian preachers to translate the original ‘Christian’ teaching into a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where an early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 8. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism. The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. Al-Farabi wrote an enjoyable remake of the Platonic Republic, arguing that the citizen’s virtues were the basis on which the political building needs to rest. The secular lawgiver is enlightened by the light of reason in his everyday practice of governance, but room is made for the Prophet as the voice of revealed truth that confirms and completes the rational truth that philosophy may afford. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 9. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelian ethics. The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place a first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed just less striking traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Torah and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirké Avot could be translated. -/- 10. Thomas Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian morality and Aristotelian ethics. In the first section the fresh start is described of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium. In a first phase, Anselm and Peter Abelard built on a Platonic and Augustinian legacy. In this phase. remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. Aquinas’s ethics is a theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract a self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave "pure nature" incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones, such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too demanding and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Ia-IIae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas could reduce the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethic, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is not ethical ‘absolutism’, as both traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularist enemies of dogmatic morality tend to believe. It is instead an ethic of prudential judgment. Exceptions to this approach – or better results of logical fallacies – are such claims as the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of "intrinsically evil acts", claims that simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences Thomas did not live long enough to draw or was not consistent enough to dare to draw. -/- 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry. The first topic illustrated is the discussion about the notion of pura natura, namely the human condition after the original sin and before divine revelation. The core notion was already there in Aquinas but was later developed by Caietanus (Thomas de Vio) with a number of interesting implications: firstly a view of human nature as such much more positive than Augustine’s and his followers’ view, including both Calvinists and Jansenists; secondly, the implication that the philosopher’s morality, as opposed to the Christian’s morality, is a quite respectable kind of morality; thirdly, that theocracy and prosecution of the unfaithful lacked justification, with more far-fetching consequences than Aquinas himself had dared to draw. The second topic is casuistry, a new name for a comparatively older way of thinking, which was already there in late Stoicism and Cicero as well as in the Talmudic literature. This is an approach aimed at yielding probable enough solutions for doubtful cases even in absence of completely safe staring points. The genre developed from medieval reference books for confessors and became by the sixteenth-century a sophisticated tool-box for dealing with various fields of applied ethics. Francisco Vitoria, the main authority of Baroque Scholasticism, was a controversial figure, among the proponents of the new discipline of casuistry and a consistent proponent of more separation between the religious and the civil authority, stricter limits to the legitimacy of war, innate rights of non-Christian nations in the New World based on the notion of pura natura, providing a standard of ‘natural’ goodness, previous to revelation, on which the Indian nations were judged to live in a naturally good condition, provided with the institutions of family, justice, and religion had accordingly a right to full respect by Christian sovereigns. Bartolomé de Las Casas, arguing along similar lines, was the leader of a historical battle in defence of the rights of the Indios. -/- 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living. A short description of one of the Renaissance Phyrronism, one of the classical philosophies revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Montaigne combines the sceptical epistemology with an understanding of ethics – indeed of philosophy as a whole – in terms of an art of living inspired by two basic ideas, sagesse, that is, practical wisdom as the only kind of rationality available after theology, science, and tradition have declared bankrupt, and an aesthetic ideal of self-transformation through the art of writing and introspection. -/- 13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism. The chapter illustrates first the vicissitudes of Augustinianism newly born after the late medieval triumph of Thomist Aristotelianism in the alternative Protestant and Catholic versions processed by the Calvinists and the Jansenists. Then it illustrates the doctrines of Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal’s best disciple, on the impossibility of introspection, on the ubiquity of self-deception, on the incurably evil character of the passion of love, and on the two moralities, the one of the man of the world, the morality of honesty which is indispensable for granting peace and order but devoid of any true value for eternal salvation, since the same external behaviour may be prompted by opposite motivations, and the morality of charity, the only true one but also useless to society. The third topic is Pierre Malebranche’s view of self-deception as a ubiquitous phenomenon accounting for human action and responsibility and his reformulated theory of self-love, no less ubiquitous than for Nicole and yet not as incurably evil, given the distinction between morally indifferent and even necessary amour de soi and vicious amour proper, a distinction on which the whole of Rousseau’s moral and political theory rests. -/- 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality. The chapter is dedicated to the discovery of the idea of a ‘new moral science’. Hugo Grotius is discussed first highlighting the real character of his project, much closer to the Thomist idea of a natural law accessible to non-corrupted human reason when human beings are living in a state of pura natura. Then Hobbes’s combination of scepticism, voluntarism, and conventionalism is described and both the continuity with Grotius’s new science, in the search for non-revealed rational morality, and the break with him, in the adoption of voluntarism and refusal of an intellectualist view of natural law, are illustrated. Pufendorf’s work is illustrated as a synthesis of the two previous attempts and the – up to Schneewind underestimated – paradigmatic example of the new science of morality. -/- 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism. The chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology – and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown, elaborated on Cumberland’s (and Malebranche’s, as well as Leibniz’s) strategy for finding a third way between intellectualist view and voluntarist view of the laws of nature. The result of their elaboration was a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number possible sets of laws on a maximizing criterion, and God’s maximandum is happiness for his creatures. The chapter notices also how such a solution aimed at solving at once the problem of evil and that of the foundation of moral obligation by proving how God’s choice was justified as far as it was the one minimising the amount of suffering in the world. 16. Richard Price and intuitionism. The chapter describes first the doctrines of the Cambridge Platonists, an example of hyper-rationalist reaction to Calvinism. Secondly it describes the sophisticated and universally ignored – from Sidgwick to Anscombe –version of what was later labelled ‘ethical intuitionism’ – showing how it escapes familiar objections and misrepresentations of intuitionism – from Mill to Rawls – in grounding its argument on transcendental arguments while carefully avoiding recourse to introspection and psychological evidence, which has been taken as a too easy target by critics of intuitionism. Thirdly, the chapter discusses Whewell’s ‘philosophy of morality’, as opposed to ‘systematic morality’, not unlike Kant’s distinction between a pure and an empirical moral philosophy. Whewell worked out a systematization of traditional normative ethics as a first step before its rational justification; he believed that the point in the philosophy of morality is justifying a few rational truths about the structure of morality such as to rule hedonism, eudemonism, and consequentialism; yet a system of positive morality cannot be derived solely from such rational truths but requires consideration of the ongoing dialectics between idea and fact in historically given moralities. Whewell’s intuitionism turns out closer to Kantian ethics than commentators have made us believe until now, and quite different from what Sidgwick meant by intuitionism. -/- 17. Adam Smith and the morality of role-switch. The chapter describes first, Hutcheson’s attempt at basing the ‘new science’ of natural law on different bedrock than Pufendorf and the English Platonists, namely a moral sense, a faculty whose existence is assumed to be proved on an empirical basis. The second step is a reconstruction of Hume’s rejoinder in terms of a new science of man including morality on an ‘experimental’ basis, that is, a ‘Newtonian’ hypothetical-deductive approach, distinguished from Hutcheson’s allegedly uncritical descriptive approach to human nature. The third step is a reconstruction of Adam Smith theory of morality understood as emerging from a spontaneous interplay of exchanges of situations (the most basic meaning of the word ‘sympathy’ as construed by this author). -/- 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to the doctrines of Jeremy Bentham. The Enlightenment spirit that suggested the idea of a new morality, free from religion, is illustrated. The notion of utility is illustrated as well as the subsequent formulations of the principle of utility. The idea of felicific calculus is discussed, showing how its inner difficulties prompted several reformulations of the principle of utility in order to avoid undesirable implications of proposed formulations. The role of the thesis of spontaneous convergence between interest and duty is discussed, showing how it left numberless questions open, and the distinction between the virtues of prudence, justice and beneficence is described as a way out of the deadlocks of classical utilitarianism. After Bentham, Mill’s reformed utilitarianism is reconstructed, showing how it is a kind of mixed system – as closer to common sense as it gives up Bentham’s claims to consistency and simplicity – resulting as unintended consequences from the controversies in which Mill was too keen to engage. The hidden agenda of the controversy between Utilitarianism and Intuitionism, going beyond the image of the battle between Prejudice and Reason, is described, showing how both competing philosophical outlooks turn out to be more research programs than self-contained doctrinal bodies, and such programs appear to be implemented, and indeed radically transformed while in progress thanks to their enemies no less than to their supporters. -/- 19. Immanuel Kant, practical reason and judgment. The chapter argues that Kant took from Moses Mendelssohn the idea of a distinction between geometry of morals and a practical ethic. He was drastically misunderstood by his followers precisely on this point. He had learned from the sceptics and the Jansenists the lesson that men are prompted to act by deceptive ends, and he was aware that human actions are also empirical phenomena, where laws like the laws of Nature may be detected. His practical ethics made room for judgment as a holistic procedure for assessing the saliency of relevant moral qualities in one given situation; this procedure yields the same results as the geometry of morals does for abstract cases but does so immediately and without balancing conflicting duties with each other, since what makes for the salient quality of a situation is perceived from the very beginning. Kant's practical philosophy is richer than the received image, making room for an ‘empirical moral philosophy’ or moral anthropology including treatment of commerce, needs, value and price, happiness and well-being; the overall social theory and philosophy of history is less different from Adam Smith's than the received image makes believe; the paradox of happiness is central to Kant's philosophy; a distinction between happiness and well-being is clearly drawn; the distinction plays a basic role in establishing a link between the economic and the moral life. -/- 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the critique of abstract universalism. The chapter describes first the Romantic movement and the implications some of its concerns, rescuing passions, community, tradition, the individual as the bearer of a unique destiny, and the longing for organic unity between the individual, mankind and nature. Hegel’s contribution is discussed then, highlighting how, on the one hand, he shared a number of these concerns and on the other he had more rationalist leanings. The notion of morality is the pivotal point of the reconstruction, highlighting how Hegel construes this notion as a key to his own diagnosis of the malaise of modernity – the separation of individual and Gemeinschaft – and how his attack on Kant turns around this very idea. -/- 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment. The chapter illustrates first the idea of deconstruction of the back-world of values. Nietzsche claims to be legitimate heir of the French moralists, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, in so far as he allegedly carries out to its deepest implications their discovery of what lies behind traditional naïve belief in the existence of an objective realm of values just waiting for description by the philosopher. The two exemplars form which genealogy draws inspiration are the classical philologist’s historical reconstructions of lost meanings and the chemist’s decomposition of elements. Then the genealogy of the notions of good and evil carried out in the first dissertation of Genealogy of morals is illustrated with its paradoxical conclusion that will to power is in fact the only ‘genuine’ kind of goodness. The third point illustrated is the dialectic of ascetism and self-realization with its ambiguous outcome. The suggested interpretation of such outcome is that Nietzsche’s normative ethics is a kind of virtue ethics taking an aesthetic ideal as a normative standard -/- 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism. The chapter discusses the ideas of common sense and common-sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences to reach, also in ethics, the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the a priori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of a naïve positivist starting-point, Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus, Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations. Then it reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore’s early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. I stress the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of rather diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. I add a comparison with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different way, one that manages to pave decisive objections in a more plausible way. I end by suggesting that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more ambiguous phenomenon than the received view would make us believe, and that the wheat (or some other gluten-free grain) of this tradition, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, should be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused and mutually incompatible legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. -/- 23. Edmund Husserl and the a-priori of action. The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl’s project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the a priori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy carried out in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach’s theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that basically sketches the very ideas ‘discovered’ later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section is dedicated to Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of ‘values’ – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler who claimed to Husserl’s legitimate heirs. -/- 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism. The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of ‘good’, its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with ‘emotive’ meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell’s ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of a rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson’s theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. Last of all, the discussion from the Forties about Hume’s law is described, mentioning Karl Popper’s argument and Richard Hare’s early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics. The chapter discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. A short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current is given trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot’s and Peter Geach’s critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre’s grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly unavoidable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism. The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick’s and Moore’s fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine definitely refuted. A glimpse at this uproarious process is given through two examples. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of Utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This results in preference utilitarianism combined with a ‘Kantian’ version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare’s two-level preference utilitarianism where act utilitarianism plays the function of eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of action-guiding practical device. -/- 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy. The post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named ‘Rehabilitation of practical philosophy’ is described. Among the actors of such rehabilitation there were a few of Heidegger’s most brilliant disciples, and Hans-Georg Gadamer is chosen as a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle’s lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger’s lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the central role of the notion of phronesis. -/- 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics. Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This started, instead than the rehabilitation of prudence, with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. An examination of his argument is some detail is offered, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’s elaboration on Apel’s theory. -/- 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics. Rawls’s distinction between a “political” and a “metaphysical” approach to one central part of ethical theory, namely the theory of justice, is interpreted as a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and neo-casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter, namely that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls’ view never will be close – on the basic criteria for judgment. -/- 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics. The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin’s new casuistry. -/- . (shrink)

Adam Smith studied under Francis Hutcheson at the University of Glasgow, befriended David Hume while lecturing on rhetoric and jurisprudence in Edinburgh, was elected Professor of Logic, Professor of Moral Philosophy, Vice-rector, and eventually Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and, along with Hutcheson, Hume, and a few others, went on to become one of the chief figures of the astonishing period of learning known as the Scottish Enlightenment.He is the author of two books: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (...) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. TMS brought Smith considerable acclaim during his lifetime and was quickly considered one of the great works of moral theory. It deeply impressed Immanuel Kant, for example, who called Smith his ‘ Liebling ' or ‘favourite', and Charles Darwin, who in his Descent of Man endorsed and accepted several of Smith's ‘striking' conclusions. TMS went through fully six revised editions during Smith's lifetime.Since the nineteenth century, Smith's fame has largely rested on his Wealth of Nations, which must be considered one of the most important works of the millennium: its argument for free trade, its explanation of the price mechanism and the division of labor, its qualified defense of market economies, and its powerful criticisms of mercantilist economic theories are now standard fare in economics courses, not to mention the basis of a large portion of today's worldwide economic policy. And its account of human nature is now classic.Both The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations reveal Smith's impressively broad learning, but he wrote and lectured on a number of other subjects as well. This anthology collects, for the first time in one volume, not only generous selections from each of Smith's books but also substantial selections from his other work, including his lectures on jurisprudence, his history and philosophy of science, his criticism and belles lettres, and his philosophy of language. It also includes two important letters from Hume, as well as Smith's account of Hume's death.James R. Otteson is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Alabama. He has published on Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment, political philosophy, and the history of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

The philosophy of John Macmurray is only now receiving the attention it deserves. It is in the contemporary climate of dissatisfaction with individualism that Macmurray's emphasis on the relations of persons has come to the fore. Moreover, Macmurray's recognition of the central importance of acknowledging human embodiment is being favourably received by a wide range of fields, which includes philosophers, theologians and psychologists.Macmurray's overriding concern is to present an adequate account of the person and of personal relationships. Nevertheless, he is (...) an eclectic writer, whose work addresses concerns in education, science and art, which all stem from his understanding of human agency. In addition, this leads Macmurray into a discussion of the ethics of personal and political relations and a critique of otherworldly religion. Hence, Macmurray's philosophy is informed by fairly unconventional religious beliefs. (shrink)

William Kneale famously noted that "it is obviously trifling to tell [a man] that Socrates was called Socrates" . Leaving aside some debatable details in Kneale's example, it would indeed seem trivial to tell someone that, say, Socrates bears "Socrates."The reason why this sort of communication strikes us as eminently uninformative has occasionally been treated as the symptom of a semantic phenomenon—more precisely, as evidence in favor of nominal descriptive approaches to the semantic behavior of proper names such as (...) "Socrates." According to these approaches, it is obviously trifling to tell someone that Socrates bears "Socrates" because the descriptive condition of bearing "Socrates" is part of the meaning of "Socrates" in some semantically significant sense of "meaning." The aim of this essay is to present a novel counter-argument against nominal descriptivism, and to defend a nondescriptivist explanation of cases such as . In particular, it is argued that nominal descriptivism is independently untenable, since it yields incorrect logical verdicts, and even disregarding its independent inadequacy, nominal descriptivism does not provide an analysis of the peculiar status of preferable to the treatment proposed in what follows. (shrink)

This long-awaited study of the most enigmatic figure of Greek philosophy reclaims Socrates' ground-breaking originality. Written by a leading historian of Greek thought, it argues for a Socrates who, though long overshadowed by his successors Plato and Aristotle, marked the true turning point in Greek philosophy, religion and ethics. The quest for the historical figure focuses on the Socrates of Plato's earlier dialogues, setting him in sharp contrast to that other Socrates of later dialogues, where he is used as a (...) mouthpiece for Plato's often anti-Socratic doctrine. At the heart of the book is the paradoxical nature of Socratic thought. But the paradoxes are explained, not explained away. The book highlights the tensions in the Socratic search for the answer to the question 'How should we live?' Conceived as a divine mandate, the search is carried out through elenctic argument, and dominated by an uncompromising rationalism. The magnetic quality of Socrates' personality is allowed to emerge throughout the book. Clearly and forcefully written, philosophically sophisticated but entirely accessible to non-specialists, this book will be of major importance and interest to all those studying ancient philosophy and the history of Western thought. (shrink)

In contrast to the abundance of discussion of Plato’s portrayal of the Socratic elenchos, relatively little work has been done on the elenchos as it appears in Xenophon. The reason is obvious: Xenophon makes much less use of the elenchus than Plato and what he does offer is not as interesting philosophically. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to look more closely at Xenophon’s portrait. It provides a corrective to the excessively intellectualizing portrait of the elenchus found in Plato’s writings, (...) and exhibits an educational quality that is characteristic of ancient Greek attitudes but not always stressed in treatments of Socrates. In the introduction to Bandini and Dorion 2000-2010, cxviii-clxxxii, Louis-André Dorion offers a probing analysis of the term elenchos as used by Xenophon and a broad survey of the elenchoi in Xenophon’s Socratic writings. Although Xenophon’s Socrates sometimes uses argumentation reminiscent of his Platonic cousin, this is only a minor part of his over-all conversational repertoire. Education is accomplished not by interrogation but by the direct and open communication of doctrine and by the practice of virtue (askēsis: see Mem. i 2.23, ii 1.1). Rather than employing the elenchos, Xenophon’s Socrates generally spends his time offering abundant useful advice to his friends. According to Dorion, Xenophon’s scant use of the elenchos is a result of his deep skepticism about its educational value. As a result of this skepticism, Xenophon creates an alternative portrait of Socrates in which interrogation plays a much smaller role. Dorion is certainly right to note that the elenchos is far less important for Xenophon than for Plato, but his conclusion is somewhat extreme. Although Xenophon does not focus on the Socratic elenchos, he does offer some portraits of it and he does not contest Plato’s fuller portrait of it either. This is because the elenchos does have some value for Xenophon, even if this value differs from what we may assume is its value in the Platonic portrait. As Morrison 1994 has shown, the elenchos serves a valuable role in selecting or preparing students for more substantive lessons. It can also play a valuable role in training for and acting in political affairs. And the elenchos can serve an educational role in another way, by contributing directly to the acquisition of virtue (sophrosune) by the interlocutor. I shall trace these significant roles of the elenchos for Xenophon. (shrink)

It is a commonplace of modern criticism that every text is to be located within a complex network of cultural practices and material. Students of the ancient world may sometimes feel at a disadvantage; we simply do not have as much information as we would like in order to contextualize thoroughly. This has been especially true in the study of Platonic dialogues. The meagre remains of the writings of the sophists against whom Plato measured himself and of the art (...) to which he refers entail that analysis of Plato is often confined to the structure of his philosophy. Of course, the requirements of Plato's arguments must always be assigned primary importance; the relative lack of information about Plato's cultural context has not prevented detailed exposition of his method and achievements. Occasionally, however, a kindly fate allows us to set a dialogue, or part of it, in its appropriate material and ideological context and to create an interface between literary, philosophical, and archaeological evidence. Such evidence may not alter our evaluation of Plato's arguments on the analytic level, but it can enrich our appreciation of his literary artistry and recapture for us some of the resonance that his work would have had for a contemporary audience. (shrink)

This chapter examines a common objection to the philosophy of religion, namely, that it has not sufficiently embraced the injunction of Socrates to follow the argument where it leads. Although a general version of this charge is unfair, one emerging view in the field, which I call religious Mooreanism, nonetheless risks running contrary to the Socratic injunction. According to this view, many people can quickly, easily, and reasonably deflect all known philosophical challenges to their core religious outlooks, including (...) class='Hi'>arguments from evil. This chapter argues that, in addition to being in tension with the Socratic injunction, religious Mooreanism is less plausible than traditional Mooreanism and in any case has not been adequately defended. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading and Writing PlatoCharles L. GriswoldThe Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues, by Ruby Blondell; 452 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, $55.00Plato's Dialectic at Play: Argument, Structure, and Myth in theSymposium, by Kevin Corrigan and Elena Glazov-Corrigan; 266 pp. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004, $25.00Questioning Platonism: Continental Interpretations of Plato, by Drew Hyland; ix & 202 pp. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004, $44.00The (...) People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics, by Debra Nails; 414 pp. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002, $75.00.Why did Plato write dialogues? How should his dialogues be read (does the literary form matter, for example, to our getting at the heart of what Plato is saying)? These questions are now familiar in contemporary Plato scholarship, and their answers—which undoubtedly are interconnected—are the subject of lively and fascinating exploration. Any doubt that Platonic studies flourishes would quickly be put to rest by the four books under review here.It was once thought that attention to the "dramatic dimension" of Plato's literary-philosophical productions was the province of two much despised schools of thought: "the Straussians," and "the Continentals." The first of these was viewed as advocating a dangerous combination of esotericism (the idea that somehow Plato's meaning is not on the surface of the dialogues, but concealed in them, as though they were a cryptogram), elitism (the idea that the true Plato is only available to [End Page 205] "the few"—such as the Straussians, according to themselves anyhow), and unphilosophical and dilettantish meanderings about this or that literarily cast "teaching." Straussian hermeneutics was thought to open the way to unprincipled appeals to irony whenever it suited the interpreter, so that any text could end up saying pretty much whatever the interpreter wished for it to say, including the opposite of what the surface of the dialogue appeared to say. And further, it was thought (perhaps in a manner at odds with the "unprincipled interpretation" charge) that the Straussians' mode of "taking into account" the dramatic context—and in particular their contextualization of claims made in the dialogues such that this or that claim gets "explained" as a rhetorical gesture addressed by character X to character Y in context Z, a gesture whose content and validity, so to speak, are limited to that exchange—robs the dialogue of its philosophical content. Hence the worry that Straussian hermeneutics leads to skepticism about the possibility of philosophy itself—philosophy understood precisely in the way that it is regularly spoken of in the Platonic dialogues, namely as the effort to transcend perspective and partiality and to grasp through argument the essence of the matter as such. To cap it off, there is the background suspicion that Straussians are politically conservative, in a way that is somehow connected with their interpretation of Plato.There is more than a kernel of truth in the view that Straussians have insisted on the hermeneutic importance of the dialogue form, taking their cue from Strauss's own remarks in such texts as The City and Man. He did argue that Plato's meaning is not on the surface (and thus in some sense is esoteric), that it was intended by Plato to be available to "the few" while not debunking the beliefs of "the many," and that Plato is an ironist. There is also warrant for the worries about unprincipled interpretation, as well as about the reduction of philosophy to a sort of literary sensibility substituting for genuine philosophical argument (where, after all, are Strauss's arguments for any philosophical position, whether or not about a Platonic "teaching"?). And it is by and large true, so far as I can tell, that his self-identified followers are politically conservative (in the contemporary American sense), and in a way somehow tied to their interpretation of Plato.I myself find Strauss's interpretation of Plato to be deeply problematic both in its substance and its method (I put aside the issue of the political conservatism of Strauss's followers, a "teaching" I also find objectionable). And while I join the authors of the four... (shrink)

I argue that it was not Plato's intention in his Socratic dialogues to provide a biography of Socrates. Rather, his intention was to describe and defend the philosophical life against its critics. The Socratic dialogues are "unhappy encounters" between Socrates, defender of the life of philosophy, and those who do not comprehend or who reject that life.

This article considers the nonviolent commitment of philosophy, arguing that “methodological nonviolence” is a normative ideal guiding philosophical practice and that rational dialogue is connected with nonviolence. The paper presents a transcendental argument about the form of nonviolent communication. Even when philosophers argue in favor of justified violence, they make such arguments within a nonviolent practice. The argument is grounded in historical references to ways that philosophers have clarified the philosophical commitment to methodological nonviolence, the ideal (...) unity of means and ends, and the ideal community of inquiry, which is a model of positive peace. While Socrates is treated as a paradigmatic example of methodological nonviolence, Tolstoy’s work is presented as a crucial historical turning point from implicit methodological nonviolence to the more explicit forms that may be found in the works of Jane Addams, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. (shrink)

Ideal for courses in ancient philosophy or ancient and medieval philosophy, The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy, Volume I: Pre-Socratics through Descartes covers the same material as the first half (chapters 1-13) of author Norman Melchert's longer volume, The Great Conversation. Tracing the exchange of ideas among history's key philosophers, the book demonstrates that while constructing an argument or making a claim, one philosopher almost always has others in mind. The sixth edition features coverage of Taoism; key terms, (...) boldfaced throughout and listed at chapter ends; brief and provocative quotations that stimulate thought and provoke questions; a new section on how to read philosophy; and a new appendix--Writing a Philosophy Paper. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Philosopher’s Seduction: Hume and the Fair SexVicki J. SappFollowing the failed reception of his Treatise David Hume turned to writing essays and published these in various editions throughout his career. Among the first offerings were essays addressing “the female reader,” “the ladies,” or “the fair sex” in that current habit which Jonathan Swift labelled “fair-sexing it.” Hume’s Victorian editors T. H. Green and T. H. Grose classified and (...) commented upon these woman-appeal essays “apparently designed to attract the attention of ladies, and marked by the mannerisms of what was then a fashionable literature,” concluding that these “can hardly have been much to their writer’s taste, and... mingle strangely with a series of discussions on the British Constitution.” 1 Green and Grose refer to the fact that Hume gradually eliminated his woman-appeal essays from the editions; today, we find these “literary” texts safely removed from the “moral and political” frame and anthologized as “Essays Withdrawn and Unpublished” in the two modern editions of Hume’s essays. 2Following Hume’s apparent cue, the critical tradition has paid little heed to the woman-appeal essays except in those cases where kind neglect has given over to insult or factionalism. From the former category we find contemporary readers such as M. A. Box who in his rhetorical analysis of Hume’s opus echoes earlier judgments of these essays as frivolous, mercenary, essentially devoid of substantive or stylistic worth—and most certainly unphilosophical. In the latter case, scattered commentators from the 1970s and 1980s reflecting those decades’ gynocritical trend built cases for Hume’s “sexism” (primarily) or “feminism” (most notably the philosopher Annette Baier). And Jerome Christensen has attended to Hume’s female reader in his [End Page 1] elaborate theoretical play with Hume’s gender as a metaphor for his literary ambitions. 3What is curious is that each of the above readers has passed over the woman-appeal essays in favor of Hume’s “serious” writing (for example, Treatise, Book III, Part II, sect. xii, “Of Chastity and Modesty”) or his letters, even though the rejected woman-appeal essays are obviously rich sources for a study of Hume’s gender perspectives. It is true that in “Of Chastity and Modesty” Hume offers what is perhaps his best evidence of society’s conventional as opposed to metaphysical foundations, in his argument that the laws of chastity governing female education and behavior are certainly “notions... founded on the public interest,” that is, patriarchal property interest. In the woman-appeal essays Hume actually works out, by illustration, the gender-biased foundational intricacies of his social contract philosophy, especially the importance of education to the regulation of society: “As publick praise and blame encrease our esteem for justice; so private education and instruction contribute to the same effect.... For these reasons [parents] are induc’d to inculcate on their children, from the earliest infancy, the principles of probity, and teach them to regard the observance of these rules, by which society is maintain’d, as worthy and honourable, and their violation as base and infamous.” 4The rejected woman-appeal essays include titles that bespeak a focus on gender, education, and social formation (“Of Love and Marriage,” “Of Moral Prejudice”), as well as titles that appear more public or scholarly: “Of Essay Writing,” “Of the Study of History.” In spite of their topical neutrality or marginally “political” tone, these latter two I identify as Hume’s core woman-appeal essays. In them Hume brings the female reader into the spotlight, inviting her into a dialogue with the male philosopher-essayist; she is to share in a sort of Humean Utopia of gender-mixed educated, genteel company servicing the ends of true philosophy in the marriage of intellection and experience. As overt appeals to “women of Sense and Education” featuring some gestures towards gender equality, these essays, one suspects, were doomed to eventual rejection by both Hume and a subsequent critical tradition prone to the kneejerk devaluation of woman-appeal.I offer here evidence that the rejected essays do have “philosophical” merit as they take up or dramatize core ideas of Treatise philosophy. These essays also feature some... (shrink)

The main task of chapter 3 is to consider how Socrates regards virtues. To start with, the aporetic character of Plato’s early dialogues is recalled. Then, it is investigated why Socrates refuses to define virtues in moral terms and rather prefers non-moral terms. Finally, a careful consideration of how Socrates evaluates some virtues and how he defines them is offered.

Putnam’s style is rarely discussed in the secondary literature. In this paper I provide one approach to the kind of writing that philosophy becomes in Putnam’s hands. I focus on Putnam’s argumentative pluralism and, more specifically, the practical form that pluralism takes in Putnam’s commitment to the essay form. I argue that Putnam’s use of the essay form is a crucial expression of his pluralism. Looking at some ancestors of the Putnam essay, I pay attention to the specific hybrid qualities (...) of the philosophical paper. I make a connection between the live tensions at work within the essay form and Putnam’s vigorous resistance to dichotomies in philosophy. I suggest that Putnam’s philosophical resistance to such dichotomies can be understood as the practice of a certain kind of irony. My primary example is Putnam’s work on the fact/value dichotomy. I suggest that Putnam’s irony might present an alternative to the dominant conception of irony in contemporary American philosophy: that of Richard Rorty. (shrink)

My title is deliberately provocative, since I want to challenge both the chronology and the philosophical interpretation generally accepted for the dialogues called Socratic. I am not primarily interested in questions of chronology, or even in Plato's intellectual ‘development’. But the chronological issues are clear-cut, and it will be convenient to deal with them first. My aim in doing so will be to get at more interesting questions concerning philosophical content and literary design. Interpreters should perhaps think more (...) often about such questions as: Why did Plato write dialogues after all? Why does a little dialogue like the Laches have such a stellar cast, with so many major figures from Athenian history? Why does Plato re-create the schoolboy atmosphere of the Charmides and Lysis? Why does he compose such a large and vivid fencing-match between Socrates and the long-dead Protagoras, in a conversation supposed to have taken place before Plato himself was born? The view which I wish to challenge tends to assume that Plato's motivation in such dialogues was primarily historical: to preserve and defend the memory of Socrates by representing him as faithfully as possible. From this it would seem to follow that the philosophic content of these dialogues must be Socrates' own philosophy, which Plato has piously preserved somewhat in the way that Arrian has preserved the teachings of Epictetus. The counterpart assumption tends to be that when Plato ceases to write as an historian he writes like any other philosopher: using Socrates as a mouthpiece to express whatever philosophical doctrines Plato himself holds at the time of writing. (shrink)

Lindsay Judson and Vassilis Karasmanis present a selection of philosophical papers by an outstanding international team of scholars, assessing the legacy and continuing relevance of Socrates's thought 2,400 years after his death. The topics of the papers include Socratic method; the notion of definition; Socrates's intellectualist conception of ethics; famous arguments in the Euthyphro and Crito; and aspects of the later portrayal and reception of Socrates as a philosophical and ethical exemplar, by Plato, the Sceptics, (...) and in the early Christian era. Contributors include Lesley Brown, David Charles, John Cooper, Michael Frede, Terence Irwin, Charles Kahn, Vassilis Karasmanis, Carlo Natali, Vasilis Politis, Dory Scaltsas, Gerhard Seel, and C. C. W. Taylor. (shrink)

When one first encounters Nietzsche’s or Wittgenstein’s writings, one is generally surprised by their style of writing which seems to depart from the philosophical norm of structured argumentation. And when one attempts to compare Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, their styles seem to be an important common feature. But is this claim only superficial or does it have deeper philosophical roots? This chapter aims to show that Nietzsche and Wittgenstein share a common concern with style that is rooted in (...) core philosophical issues, especially their critique of metaphysics and their revaluation of the relation between philosophy and poetry. The argument is divided into three parts: the first part focuses on style as a tool for criticism in order to show how Nietzsche and Wittgenstein use stylistic criticism against traditional (systematic) philosophy; the second part shows how this criticism leads to a revaluation of the relation between philosophy and poetry; the third and final part argues that the aphoristic writing they each practise is a way of finding a philosophical style that embraces the poetic rather than rejects it. (shrink)

This book expands the known canon by presenting arguments and concepts from women philosophers, from all periods of the history of philosophy, from antiquity to the present day. The collaborative collection is an undertaking that emerged from intensive discussions on how to expand the philosophical canon, which formed the conclusion of the Libori Summer School 2019. This Libori Summer School, the third in a row, was held to enhance the study of texts written by women philosophers from Antiquity (...) up to now and intended to give opportunity to young scholars to connect and to build networks. -/- Presenting such a collection is even more urgent today because a diversification of the canon has long been called for. Nevertheless, to date there is little explicit material available for this purpose. To make this book suitable for both academics and students, it is structured in such a way that readers can use excerpts and individual chapters from it that suit their needs, be it in moral philosophy, politics, or phenomenology, etc. Containing chapters on women such as Suor Juana, Emilie Du Châtelet, and Nisia Floresta and supplemented by contextualization, namely by some brief biographical information and by the systematic integration of her argument into the debates of the respective periods, this book is an important resource highlighting the achievements and value of women in philosophy and calling for a further diversification of the canon. (shrink)

The twelve contributors to this volume embody the best in ancient philosophical scholarship from America and Europe. Each author presents a carefully-wrought argument that adds substantially to the literature in their chosen topics.Carlo Natali’s “Socrates’ Dialectic in Xenophon’s Memorabilia” argues for the internal coherence of Xenophon’s conceptions of dialegesthai and dialektikos, and shows how Xenophon portrays elenchos as one method among several Socrates used to encourage his interlocutors to become better citizens. In the eclectic “If You Know What Is (...) Best, You Do It,” Gerhard Seel argues for a weak form of moral intellectualism, the possibility of a deontological Socratic ethics, and for the restriction of “Socratic” knowledge to meta-ethical claims. Charles H. Kahn briefly shows how Plato wrestled with the popular acceptance of hedonism. The strange acceptance of hedonism in the Protagoras is said to be neither straightforwardly ironical nor exactly a thesis Plato himself outright rejected at that time. Terrence Irwin, in “Socrates and Euthyphro,” examines the difference between “god-beloved” and “pious” in terms of a. (shrink)

Moorean arguments are a popular and powerful way to engage highly revisionary philosophical views, such as nihilism about motion, time, truth, consciousness, causation, and various kinds of skepticism (e.g., external world, other minds, inductive, global). They take, as a premise, a highly plausible first-order claim (e.g., cars move, I ate breakfast before lunch, it’s true that some fish have gills) and conclude from it the falsity of the highly revisionary philosophical thesis. Moorean arguments can be used (...) against nihilists in ethics (error theorists), too. Recently, error theorists have recognized Moorean arguments as a powerful challenge and have tried to meet it. They’ve argued that moral Moorean premises seem highly credible to us, but aren’t, by offering various debunking explanations. These explanations all appeal to higher-order evidence—evidence of error in our reasoning. I argue that drawing attention to higher-order evidence is a welcome contribution from error theorists, but that the higher-order evidence actually counts further against error theoretic arguments—including their debunking explanations—and further in favor of Moorean arguments and the commonsense views they support. Along the way I answer a few prominent objections to Moorean arguments: that they are objectionably question-begging, rely on categorizing some facts as “Moorean Facts”, and that reports of one’s credence in a proposition bears no interesting relation to that proposition’s credibility. (shrink)

LOGIC‭ & ‬ARGUMENTATION‭ (‬VOLUME‭ ‬5) The first section deals with different ways,‭ ‬approaches or methods of the doing of philosophy or the methodology of philosophizing or the discourse and socio-cultural practice of the Western tradition of philosophy. -/- I then insert a number of articles and post concerning the fact that Philosophy in the Western World concentrates on the History of the Western Tradition of philosophical ideas,‭ ‬complaints that it is white,‭ ‬male and Euro-centered and that it has become (...) too academic,‭ ‬professional and institutionalized. -/- The subsequent sections deal with the topics of Logic and a number of notions‭ ‬related to‭ ‘‬logic‭’‬.‭ ‬The logic referred to are those that are relevant to philosophy or the doing of philosophizing.‭ ‬Truth,‭ ‬meaning,‭ ‬arguments and argumentation are then dealt with.‭ ‬This leads to another section on logic and finally reasoning is mentioned as the coming together of most of the previous sections. -/- If you wish to think and write about multi-dimensional things like the‭ ‘‬world‭’‬,‭ ‬embodied persons,‭ ‬consciousness,‭ ‬human thinking etc,‭ ‬you should at least think multi-dimensional and many levelled.‭ ‬Attempting to investigate,‭ ‬reflect on and‭ ‬describe the nature and functioning of these multi-dimensional,‭ ‬many-levelled‭ ‬entities in a one-dimensional,‭ ‬verbal,‭ ‬linear manner surely is irrational and do not make sense‭? ‬Visual Argument Mapping is one of these multi-dimensional,‭ ‬many-levelled tools.‭ (‬See Appendix‭). (shrink)

Tzachi Zamir is Professor of English and General & Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he directs the Amirim Interdisciplinary Honors Programme in the Humanities. Just Literature: Philosophical Criticism and Justice is his fifth book, continuing the exploration of the relationship between philosophy and literature begun in Double Vision: Moral Philosophy and Shakespearean Drama (2007) and developed in Ascent: Philosophy and Paradise Lost (2017). Aside from his complex and innovative work in this field, he is best-known (...) for establishing the first systematic philosophical aesthetics of the art form of acting in Acts: Theater, Philosophy, and the Performing Self (2014). Just Literature is part of Routledge’s New Literary Theory series, published in the Routledge Focus format. Routledge Focus, like Palgrave Pivot and Emerald Points, is a fairly recent development in academic publishing, featuring short monographs whose publication is expedited in order to be able to provide commentary on or analysis of current events or topical issues. I am not sure about the value of the expedition for academic work, but I am in favour of the format, which is about half the length of a standard monograph and encourages clear, concise, and focused writing. Zamir introduces his unique approach to the overlap of literary studies and philosophy as being a response to the codependence of the aesthetic and epistemic values of literature, expressed in the following three claims: (1) exemplary literature enables insights by means of experiential pathways; (2) aesthetic value and epistemic or cognitive value are often interlinked; and (3) criticism becomes philosophical when it bridges the gap between emotion and insight. The purpose of Just Literature is twofold, to introduce philosophical criticism and to employ philosophical criticism to achieve a better understanding of the concept of justice. The monograph consists of an introduction, five chapters divided into two parts, a coda, and an appendix. The parts are divided by theory and practice, with the first sketching philosophical criticism in more detail than the introduction (Chapter 1) and introducing justice as a concept (Chapter 2). Part II applies this theory to practice, extrapolating the relationships between justice on the one hand and attachment (Chapter 3), pity (Chapter 4), and mercy (Chapter 5) on the other. The coda presents a pithy and memorable conclusion by means of a personal anecdote, recalling the author’s use of the same device in his second monograph, Ethics and the Beast: A Speciesist Argument for Animal Liberation (2007). (shrink)

In Philosophical Fragments the pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus explored the question: What is required in order to go beyond Socratic recollection of eternal ideas already possessed by the learner? Written as an afterword to this work, Concluding Unscientific Postscript is on one level a philosophical jest, yet on another it is Climacus's characterization of the subjective thinker's relation to the truth of Christianity. At once ironic, humorous, and polemical, this work takes on the "unscientific" form of a mimical-pathetical-dialectical (...) compilation of ideas. Whereas the movement in the earlier pseudonymous writings is away from the aesthetic, the movement in Postscript is away from speculative thought. Kierkegaard intended Postscript to be his concluding work as an author. The subsequent "second authorship" after The Corsair Affair made Postscript the turning point in the entire authorship. Part One of the text volume examines the truth of Christianity as an objective issue, Part Two the subjective issue of what is involved for the individual in becoming a Christian, and the volume ends with an addendum in which Kierkegaard acknowledges and explains his relation to the pseudonymous authors and their writings. The second volume contains the scholarly apparatus, including a key to references and selected entries from Kierkegaard's journals and papers. (shrink)

In Chapter IV of his Schreiben und Denken , the Austrian linguist Hanspeter Ortner distinguishes and describes ten writing strategies (“Schreibstrategien”). One of them is “syncretistic writing”. 1 A simple application of Ortner’s defi nition and description of syncretistic writing to the genesis of the Philosophical Investigations (PI) makes clear that the PI can be said to be of syncretistic origin. 2 Wittgenstein’s writing of the PI 3 can be characterized by Ortner’s eight features of syncretistic: his writing (1) (...) hops all over the place (“Sprunghaftigkeit”); (2) combines disparate elements from his writings (“Verbindung von weit Auseinanderliegendem”); (3) is semantically open, under-determined and under-determining (“Unterdeterminiertheit und semantische Offenheit”); (4) postpones gestalt-formation/ elaboration (“Aufschub der Gestaltbildung”); (5) invites and offers many opportunities for creative ideas (“viele Chancen für und Einladungen an den kreativen Einfall”); (6) gives freedom to choose the points of departure and reference (“Freiheit bei der Wahl des/der Startpunktes/e und des/der Gesichtspunktes/e”); (7) is hierarchically under-determined (“hierarchische Unterbestimmtheit”); (8) works side-by-side with the already “fi nished” and the newly begun, which implies long text building processes and parallel operations (“lange ‘Bauzeit’ und Nebeneinander von Fertiggestelltem und Neubegonnenem”). 4 -/- In the following, I will try to show in more detail how the genesis of the PI is characterized by these eight features. First, the writings that constitute the PI’s genesis are characterized by a strong discrepancy between the sequence of remarks in their textual order and the sequence of remarks in their physical order. Texts are put together from chronologically and argumentatively dispersed units. One example is Wittgenstein’s rearrangement of remarks from an earlier dictation (TS 208) into a new text in 1930 (TS 209, published by Rush Rhees as Philosophical Remarks ). In this new text, he abandoned both the original argumentative order and the chronological order and did not necessarily obey the criteria of consistency and coherence, not even on linguistic levels such as demonstrative reference. The work that -/- emerges is seen by many as an unordered agglomerate of remarks, although I have argued that this view can be challenged. 5 The second example is the revision and rearrangement of the so-called Big Typescript (TS 213) in 1933-34, which is paradigmatic in its triple use of (1) the text in the typescript, (2) the handwritten revisions of it in the typescript, and (3) text in other manuscripts. In his edition of the Philosophical Grammar (1969), Rush Rhees has tried to take this complicated network of revisions into account and to follow it painstakingly and faithfully; by looking at the manuscript sources for this edition 6 one realizes how much “hopping all over the place” was going on in the originals. Thirdly, MS 142, the “Urfassung” of the PI, was produced in 1936-37 from remarks stemming from different places in manuscripts and typescripts and various loci of discourse. MS 157b, 13v, contains a list of references to pages in TS 213 from which parts of the text were to be taken to write the “philosophy chapter” of this fi rst PI version; other sources include MS 140 (last page), MS 152, MS 156a, MS 156b and MS 157a, all yielding materials, lists and drafts for the text of MS 142. The fi nal example is TS 228: in the later stages of the PI genesis, Wittgenstein selected about 400 remarks from this typescript to include in TS 227, the typescript used as the printer’s copy for the PI. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a novel philosophical methodology, fiction writing. Much has been made, in philosophy, of the relationship between fiction and thought experiments, but this literature focuses predominantly on completed pieces of fiction: Fully fledged and polished published pieces. In this paper I focus on how the process of writing fiction, especially speculative fiction such as science fiction and fantasy, not just the outcomes of this process, can be viewed as a distinctive philosophical methodology. This (...) will be bound up in arguing for two claims: (1) The process of writing short speculative fiction is essentially a process of argumentation. (2) The distinctive benefit of writing fiction as opposed to writing analytic philosophy is that the starting points need not be justified. These two claims -- which may seem like they are in tension with each other -- will each serve to justify two overall conclusions about the writing of fiction -- the very process whereby short stories or novels are created. The first is that this process is a legitimate philosophical methodology, sharing many relevant features with traditional analytical argument building and conceptual analysis. The second is that it is distinctive philosophical methodology, in that it can provide us with insights that would not be gained via other means. (shrink)

What evidence and what arguments can be produced in support of the controversial suggestion, first made by Leo Strauss now over 65 years ago, that most earlier philosophers wrote esoterically and, what is more, that they did so, not merely from fear of persecution, but with an eye to enhancing their pedagogical effectiveness? I argue here that the inherent paradoxes of philosophical education combined with the inherent shortcomings of writing led many earlier thinkers to see the pedagogical necessity (...) of something like the Socratic method. And esoteric writing - a rhetoric of riddling concealment - is the closest literary approximation to the Socratic method. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Pregnancy: Before and After McFall, Shimp, and Thomson's Ailing Violinist Pro‐Choice Does Not Mean Pro‐Abortion Notes.

Letters to the editor (LTEs) are a versatile short-format forum with unique characteristics to allow for cross-pollination of different kinds of philosophical reflection about medicine. Philosophical LTEs have both benefits and possible drawbacks. We draw on a case study to warn against misuse through “CV inflation,” where low-quality ideas may favor a scholar’s publishing metrics more than scholarly debate. Factual inaccuracies in LTEs have implications for authors, publishing, and indexing, and we argue for prudence by editors and (...) restraint by scholars, inviting them to focus on quality, rather than the quantity of LTEs published. When writing LTEs, rigor, readability, and relevance are needed. (shrink)

The fact that we still group all his predecessors together as ‘presocratics’ indicates that Socrates significantly changed the character of philosophy. Yet it is not easy to determine exactly what change Socrates made, much less why. Socrates himself left no record of his thoughts, so we have to refer to the writings of the three authors who knew him. But in the Clouds Aristophanes depicts ‘Socrates’ as a ‘sophist’ who taught cosmology as well as rhetoric, i.e. as a ‘presocratic’. (...) In his Memorabilia Xenophon merely declares that Socrates did not investigate the nature of all things or the cosmos. To find out when and why Socrates turned to study the human things, we have to put together three retrospective statements he gives about his development as a philosopher in Plato’s dialogues. Working on the basis of the supposed chronology of composition, scholars have not done so. (shrink)

MANY READERS HAVE TAKEN THE ELEATIC STRANGER to represent a later stage of Plato’s philosophical development because the arguments or doctrines the Stranger presents in the Sophist appear to be better than those Socrates articulates in earlier dialogues. In particular, in the Sophist Plato shows the Stranger answering two questions Socrates proved unable to resolve in two of his conversations the day before. In the Theaetetus Socrates admitted that he had long been perplexed by the fact of false (...) opinion; he was not able to explain how it was possible. Likewise, in the Cratylus Socrates and his interlocutors were not able to determine satisfactorily the relation between names and the things to which they refer. Through his teaching about the idea of the other, the Stranger shows not only how false opinion is possible but also why names do not always correspond to the kinds or ideas of things. More generally, in the course of his account of previous thought the Stranger presents a fundamental critique of the teaching of “friends of the forms” like Socrates. When we examine the definition of the sophist to which the Stranger comes at the end of the dialogue, however, we find reasons to question the adequacy of his teaching and, consequently, his superiority to Socrates. If philosophy consists in knowledge—of the whole or merely of self— we are forced to conclude, neither the Stranger nor Socrates is a philosopher. Each or even both might appear, therefore, to be a pretender—or sophist. If, on the other hand, philosophy consists in the search for knowledge by means of a dialectical sorting of things according to kinds, Socrates and the Stranger represent two different, although related types. (shrink)

Socratic Testimonies offers a well-structured introduction to the study of Socrates by way of exploring some of the main writings about him from Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Plato. In this second edition, the translations have been revised and annotated by the author. An extensive bibliography of modern works on Socrates is included. The selections are accompanied by extensive and detailed annotations that clarify names and terms with which the reader many not be familiar. Intended as an introductory text for undergraduate (...) students, Socratic Testimonies will help students gain an appreciation of the importance of the philosophical legacy and traditions associated with Socrates. (shrink)

Socrates, Sports, and Students involves a philosophical justification for the inclusion of physical education in the school system. This book will appeal to physical educators and administrators interested in justifying their activity, as well as philosophers and professors in the areas of education and sport.

Since its publication in 1994, Richard McKirahan's _Philosophy Before Socrates_ has become the standard sourcebook in Presocratic philosophy. It provides a wide survey of Greek science, metaphysics, and moral and political philosophy, from their roots in myth to the philosophers and Sophists of the fifth century. A comprehensive selection of fragments and testimonia, translated by the author, is presented in the context of a thorough and accessible discussion. An introductory chapter deals with the sources of Presocratic and Sophistic texts and (...) the special problems of interpretation they present. In its second edition, this work has been updated and expanded to reflect important new discoveries and the most recent scholarship. Changes and additions have been made throughout, the most significant of which are found in the chapters on the Pythagoreans, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles, and the new chapter on Philolaus. The translations of some passages have been revised, as have some interpretations and discussions. A new Appendix provides translations of three Hippocratic writings and the Derveni papyrus. (shrink)

This comment on Frodeman and Briggle’s Socrates Tenured raises questions about the project of applying philosophy or philosophical skills to wicked problems such as terrorism. By definition, these problems cannot be solved by appeal to principles, but involve conflicting values and goals. The societal problems to which the book refers are of this kind. The argument of the book vacillates between recognizing this and asserting some sort of special disciplinary authority for philosophy in the face of these problems. Examples (...) illustrate the dilemma. (shrink)

This article aims at reconstructing the logic and assessing the force of Socrates' argument against Protagoras' 'Measure Doctrine' at Theaetetus 171a–c. I examine and criticise some influential interpretations of the passage, according to which, e.g., Socrates is guilty of ignoratio elenchi by dropping the essential Protagorean qualifiers or successfully proves that md is self-refuting provided the missing qualifiers are restored by the attentive reader. Having clarified the meaning of MD, I analyse in detail the broader section 170a–171d and argue, against (...) an extensive scholarly consensus, that it contains two slightly different formulations of the same argument, and not two distinct arguments, that Socrates does not highlight his own strategy at 171a–c as especially clever, and that his argument successfully shows that md turns out to be untenable for Protagoras himself when submitted to scrutiny in dialectical contexts, without aiming at proving its absolute falsehood. Finally, I clarify the philosophical import of the final image of Protagoras' momentary return from the underworld. (shrink)

Thomas Brown, Professor of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh, was among the most prominent and widely read British philosophers of the first half of the nineteenth century. An influential interpreter of both Hume and Reid, Brown provided a bridge between the Scottish school of 'Common Sense' and the later positivism of John Stuart Mill and others. The selections in this volume illustrate Brown’s original ideas about mental science, cause and effect, emotions and ethics. They are preceded by an introduction situating Brown’s (...) career and writings in their intellectual and historical context. (shrink)