We must return to the transmitted reading, which is beyond objection. The persons referred to in want to establish that passivity, the experiencing of desire, grief, and the like, is a thing of the body and not of the soul, which, they maintain, is The climactic structure makes it plain enough that what is in dispute and has to be proved is that the soul is , and that what is assumed for the proof is that it is . It (...) is, therefore, wrong to change the text so as to make those engaging in the proof try to argue from instead of the other way round. (shrink)

What are the relationships between doubt and truth, thinking and writing in Montaigne’s Essais? We usually see Montaigne’s doubt through the lens of ancient schools of Scepticism and yet he notes that the Pyrrhonians ‘ne peuvent exprimer leur generale conception en aucune maniere de parler’: these philosophers describe their doubtful thought in negative affirmations but these are affirmations – ‘propositions affirmatives’ – all the same. This thesis approaches Montaigne’s doubt differently: I investigate the Essais not as an attempt to indicate (...) or describe doubtful, ‘double et divers’ thought but as a tool for thinking doubtfully in writing. Montaigne’s literary use of language is therefore central to my analysis. Irony, ambiguity, the practices of rewriting and overwriting, the ‘polyphony’ of cited authors who advocate different positions: these afford ways of thinking that sustain duality and doubt. I focus on Montaigne’s engagement with Seneca and Plutarch, ancient authors who are, superficially, unrelated to doubt: the Essais constitute a particular form of humanistic engagement with ancient texts, concerned with practices and forms of writing as much as, if not more than, with philosophical concepts. These ‘dogmatic’ authors – they defend philosophical positions of certainty – were, counter-intuitively, seen by Montaigne to have a ‘forme d’escrire douteuse et irresolue’. This doubtful ‘forme’ shaped Montaigne’s own and it was, I argue, in working with and on these authors – reading, writing, and thinking with them – that he constructed a way of writing doubtful in both form and thought: a text that is double, unresolved, ambiguous, and yet ‘truthful’ in its capacity to perform and make legible the complex, multiple nature of his thought and his thinking. (shrink)

The period after the repulse of Xerxes' invasion is one of the more obscure in Greek history, and this is particularly true of the eclipse of Themistokles and the history of the Peloponnese in the seventies and sixties. On the period of Themistokles' ostracism before the flight which led him to Persia Thucydides says only that he was ostracized and lived at Argos while also travelling to the rest of the Peloponnese. Other writers add a few details to Thucydides' account (...) on other aspects of the ostracism, but tell us even less on the sojourn in Argos. Diodoros and Plutarch merely tell us that he lived there in exile while Nepos informs us that Themistokles' virtuous and dignified life in Argos aroused resentment. Now Themistokles did not remain inactive in exile. The Spartans had some good reason to wish to remove him from Argos. The activities which aroused the Spartans' distrust are probably referred to by Thucydides' remark that Themistokles journeyed to the rest of the Peloponnese. It is usually concluded that Themistokles was involved in the creation of an anti-Spartan coalition and that a major part of this policy may have been the establishment of democratic governments in and the synoecism of the cities of Elis and Mantineia. But we lack any clear evidence on Themistokles' actions in this period and the hypothesis rests principally on deductions from two brief passages. The first is from Herodotos and records that in 479 b.c. the Mantineian and Eleian contingents arrived too late to take part in the battle of Plataia and on their return both cities banished their commanders. (shrink)

The belief that primitive men lived like beasts and that civilisation developed out of these brutal origins is found in numerous ancient authors, both Greek and Latin. It forms part of certain theories about the beginnings of culture current in late antiquity. These are notoriously difficult to trace to their sources, but they already existed in some form in the fifth century b.c. One idea common to these theories is that of progress, and for this reason a fragment of Xenophanes (...) is sometimes cited as their remote prototype: ‘The gods did not reveal all things to men from the beginning; instead, by seeking, men discover what is better in time’. Mainly on the strength of this fragment, Ludwig Edelstein devoted the first chapter of his book The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity to Xenophanes, and W. K. C. Guthrie has even declared that there is good reason to attribute to him a fuller account of progress, one that would include details found in later authors who speak of the early life of mankind. One of these details is the statement that the life of primitive men was ‘brutal’ or ‘beastlike’ . In these authors the implication of that term varies from ‘unschooled in the basic crafts’ to ‘inhumanly violent and bloodthirsty’. In one sense or the other it is repeatedly encountered in ancient references to this subject. Accounts of primitive brutishness which make use of the word θηριώδης (or θηριωδς can be found in the Suppliants of Euripides, in the Hippocratic treatise On Ancient Medicine, in three passages of Diodorus, one of which is thought by some to contain Democritean doctrine, in four passages of Isocrates, in a fragment from a satyr-play Sisyphus which the ancient sources attribute variously to Euripides and to Critias, in a fragment of Athenion, in a second-century inscription, in Plutarch, in Tatian, in Themistius, and in a scholion to Euripides. (shrink)

Platonic love is a concept that has profoundly shaped Western literature, philosophy and intellectual history for centuries. First developed in the Symposium and the Phaedrus, it was taken up by subsequent thinkers in antiquity, entered the theological debates of the Middle Ages, and played a key role in the reception of Neoplatonism and the etiquette of romantic relationships during the Italian Renaissance. In this wide-ranging reference work, a leading team of international specialists examines the Platonic distinction between higher and lower (...) forms of eros, the role of the higher form in the ascent of the soul and the concept of Beauty. They also treat the possibilities for friendship and interpersonal love in a Platonic framework, as well as the relationship between love, rhetoric and wisdom. Subsequent developments are explored in Plutarch, Plotinus, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Eriugena, Aquinas, Ficino, della Mirandola, Castiglione and the contra amorem tradition. (shrink)

This University of Münster dissertation deals with the problem of how to interpret the coming-into-being of the world as described in the Timaeus: does Plato really mean that the world was generated or is his account merely a mythical expression of the composition of a world which is eternal? Scheffel shows how this issue has divided both ancient and modern interpreters: Aristotle, Vlastos, and Hackforth, for example, taking the former view; Xenocrates and the Academy, A. E. Taylor, Cherniss, and Cornford (...) taking the latter. In this book Scheffel argues for the "Aristotelian" view and develops the positions of Vlastos and Hackforth. In a preparatory section he briefly presents two ancient proponents of his position, Aristotle and Plutarch, noting that Plato's Laws does not support Plutarch's conception of an evil soul animating the unordered chaos of the Timaeus. In the main part of the book Scheffel comments on the text of the Timaeus, organizing his exposition into chapters on "The Exposition of the Cosmogony," "The Concept of Space in the Timaeus," "The Doctrine of Movement in the Timaeus," "The Concept of Soul in the Timaeus," "The Platonic Distinction between First and Second Causes." Some subordinate issues are also discussed, in particular that of the possible contradiction between the eternal soul of the Phaedrus and the generated soul of the Timaeus. Scheffel's final position on the main issue is that Plato in the Timaeus means that the world is generated, not in time, but in an "einmalige überzeitliche Formungsakt" by the demiurge. This is perhaps not all that distant from the old position which concluded that to be generated outside time is to be causally dependent in some non-temporal way on the eternal. Scheffel does not appear, however, to have thought out what an "einmalige überzeitliche Formungsakt" might turn out to be. His argument is not always very convincing and this is unlikely to be the last word on an interesting and important problem.--D.O. (shrink)

A good illustration of the interpretation of ancient philosophy argued for by P. Hadot in the book reviewed above is provided by the Roman Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus, the teacher of Epictetus. In the present work A. Jagu supplies a rather brief introduction to Musonius, a French translation of ancient texts reporting Musonius' views, and comprehensive indices. The translation is accurate and reads well. Jagu's notes on the texts are copious, showing Musonius' orthodoxy by referring to the early Stoics and (...) his influence on Epictetus and Clement of Alexandria. Musonius himself wrote nothing, but his opinions were recorded by pupils, in particular by a certain Lucius. The Christian John Stobaeus, in compiling his anthology, incorporated excerpts from Lucius' work, thus saving it partially from oblivion. This means that as far as our evidence for Musonius is concerned, we are largely at the mercy of Lucius' understanding of his master and of Stobaeus' conventional moralistic interests. These factors account for the almost total absence of material concerning logic and physics and the preservation of fairly trivial discussions concerning, for example, food, clothing, furniture, and even beards! More central issues are also touched on--marriage, children, education, should women do philosophy?, exile, etc. If then what survives relates almost exclusively to ethics, it is clear that in any case Musonius subordinated logic and physics to ethics as did classical Stoicism. Apart from what derived from Lucius, a small amount of evidence concerning Musonius and originating elsewhere is preserved in Stobaeus, Plutarch and some other authors, but it does little more than give a somewhat different impression of Musonius than does Lucius. This book, especially the notes, will be of use not only to those interested in Stoic philosophy and its history but also to students of Roman society and politics of the first century A.D., in which Musonius played a prominent role.--Dominic J. O'Meara, Université de Fribourg. (shrink)

In several studies on the interpretation of the term politeuma, Patrick Sänger argues that it has three basic meanings: ‘political act’, ‘citizenry’ or ‘active citizenry’, and ‘polity’ and thus ‘state’, sometimes having the connotation ‘constitution’. Although the interpretation of the word can be traced back at least to Aristotle, it is generally acknowledged that its basic meanings can be found as well in Hellenistic and Roman literature, sometimes even used side by side. Taking into account the epoch in which (...) class='Hi'>Plutarch wrote his work and the wide chronological period that it covers, it can be expected that Plutarch might be a very illustrative guide for the use of the term politeuma. The word occurs in fact 75 times throughout his work. In most cases, it is used only once or twice in a single biography or in a piece of the Moralia. There are, however, three exceptions to this global pattern: the Lives of Lycurgus and Numa, which concentrate 12 occurrences; those of Agis/Cleomenes and Tiberius/Gaius Gracchus with 13; finally, and from the Moralia, the An seni respublica gerenda sit, with 5 passages. This paper discusses the way Plutarch combines text and context, namely the way the concept of politeuma works in the context in which it is used throughout the Lives and the Moralia. En varios estudios sobre la interpretación del término politeuma, Patrick Sänger sostiene que tiene tres significados básicos: a) “acto político”, b) “la ciudadanía” o conjunto de ciudadanos activos”, y c) “sistema de gobierno” y, por lo tanto, “estado”, muchas veces con la connotación de “constitución”. Aunque la interpretación de la palabra suele remontarse hasta Aristóteles, generalmente, se reconoce que sus significados básicos pueden hallarse también en las Literaturas Helenística y Romana, a veces, incluso utilizados uno junto a otro. Teniendo en cuenta la época en la que Plutarco escribió su obra y el vasto período de tiempo que abarca, podemos considerarlo una guía muy ilustrativa sobre el uso del término politeuma. La palabra se registra 75 veces a lo largo de su obra. En la mayoría de los casos se la utiliza sólo una o dos veces en alguna biografía individual dentro de Moralia. Sin embargo, hay tres excepciones a este patrón general: las Vitae de Licurgo y Numa, incluyendo la Comparatio, que concentran 12 ocurrencias, aquellas de Agis/Cleomenes y Tiberio/Cayo Graco con 13 y, finalmente, en An seni respublica gerenda sit dentro de Moralia, en 5 pasajes. En el presente artículo discutimos el modo en que Plutarco combina texto y contexto y cómo funciona el término politeuma según su contexto en las Vitae y en Moralia. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Theopompos Not Theophrastos:Correcting an Attribution in Plutarch Demosthenes 14.4Brad L. CookModern reconstructions of Theopompos' presentation of Demosthenes are based on five passages, all of which are found in Plutarch's Demosthenes.1 Of these passages, two are favorable to the orator and two are starkly negative, with the fifth being neutral.2 In the negative passages Theopompos attacked the orator with such harshness, branding him unstable, unjust, and unworthy, that (...) the two favorable passages are often overshadowed in modern reconstructions of Theopompos' opinion of Demosthenes.3 Moreover, some scholars, both in the past and again recently, go one step further and argue that one of the favorable texts, Demosthenes 14.4 (F 327), should be attributed to Theophrastos. I argue that the attribution to Theophrastos in this passage is the mistake of a meddlesome scribe in one manuscript and that the reading "Theopompos" of most manuscripts should be accepted. This means that what little survives of Theopompos' opinion of the orator remains complex and not simply negative. The changes made to the other positive text, Demosthenes 18.2 (F 328), I hope to deal with on another occasion.In Demosthenes 14.4 (F 327), Demosthenes stands up to defy the cruel whim of the Athenian mob:[End Page 537]And, in addition,4 Theopompos recounts that when the Athenians were proposing him for a certain prosecution then, when he would not listen, made a commotion, he rose and said "As a counsellor, o men of Athens, even if you don't want to, you will use me; but as a false accuser, not even if you want to."The difficulty with this passage is that not all the manuscripts attribute the statement to Theopompos. The primary dissenting manuscript is Madrid 4685 (14th c.), previously known as Codex Matritensis 55 and commonly cited as N.5 Modern editions of Plutarch follow N and print "," whereas works on Theopompos follow the other manuscripts and print "." This disagreement has not received thorough examination in recent publications.6 A brief review of the arguments [End Page 538] for and against the reading of N, considering first the intrinsic character of the manuscript and then its standing in the manuscript tradition will indicate that we should reject the reading of N and keep the attribution to Theopompos.Every known manuscript and every printed text of Demosthenes 14.4 read "" until 1880. In that year Charles Graux published his examination of N and its reading in Demosthenes 14.4 of "."7 N consists of two parts. The first part contains Nikias–Crassus (the Nikias is from 24.2), Alcibiades–Coriolanus, Demosthenes–Cicero, and Agesilaos–Pompey.8 This first part of N has many readings that are distinct from the other manuscripts, and Graux argued that these readings are superior to those of the other manuscripts, especially in the Demosthenes–Cicero.9 Graux therefore not only accepted "." in Demosthenes 14.4 because of the readings in N but also supported "" by claiming that Theopompos was always hostile to Demosthenes and would never say anything favorable to him; thus Graux saw the reading "" in the other manuscripts as an error in transmission.10 [End Page 539]Response to the Madrid manuscript and Graux's high opinion of it was generally favorable.11 Several scholars, however, rejected Graux's unrestrained praise of N and argued that among the many improved readings there were interpolations.12 Gudeman complained that the scribe of N, a "semilearned librarius," was particularly intrusive with proper names and altered and interpolated the received text. Gudeman listed some of these intrusions in Demosthenes and Cicero; of note are Demosthenes 5.7, 10.3, and 23.6 as well as Cicero 36.7.13 In Demosthenes 5.7 Plutarch attributes a certain detail to Hermippos. N has a semieducated but incorrect gloss on Hermippos, calling him. But the Hermippos here is certainly Hermippos of Smyrna of the third century B.C., a writer of Lives, not the homonymous fifth–century poet.14 In [End Page 540] Demosthenes 10.2 Plutarch quotes Ariston of Chios who records an anecdote of Theophrastos about the orator. At Demosthenes 10.3 Plutarch continues, ""; N replaces with. But... (shrink)

This paper argues that the emendation ὑπερερῶν for ms. ὑπερoρῶν in Them. 2. 3, although rejected by many editors and commentators, should be accepted. The manuscripts have Themistokles ‘despising’ practical studies, that is studies which promoted ‘intelligence and action’. But this makes little sense in context and disrupts the logic of the whole chapter, which presupposes a contrast between real education, which Themistokles rejects, and practical activities, on which he concentrates and for which he was suited by nature. It is (...) much more plausible that Themistokles is presented as having ‘an excessive love’ for practical studies. Indeed, this combination – rejection of true education and enthusiasm for practical training – characterises several other subjects of Plutarch, while erotic metaphors are used to describe Themistokles’ obsession with practical success in the next chapter. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One of the many philosophical issues discussed throughout Plutarch's Quaestiones convivales has to do with the origin and inner structure of the universe, i.e., cosmological discussions. It would be impossible to discuss in detail every passage of the treatise that deals with cosmological issues. Therefore, I chose to limit my analysis to the concepts of chance, fate, ‘what depends on us ’, and providence. My purpose is to explain these concepts in the QC and to extract from them (...) a cosmological doctrine. RESUMO Entre os vários problemas filosóficos discutidos ao longo das Quaestiones Convivales de Plutarco, um deles tem que ver com a origem e com a estrutura do universo, isto é, discussões de cariz cosmológico. Seria impossível comentar em detalhe todas as passagens do tratado sobre questões cosmológicas. Por isso, preferi limitar a análise aos conceitos de acaso, destino, 'o que depende de nós' eprovidência. O meu objetivo é explicar estes conceitos nas QC e deles inferir uma doutrina cosmológica. (shrink)

While perhaps best known for his Lives, Plutarch also wrote philosophical dialogues that constitute a major intellectual legacy from the first century A.D. This collection presents two important short works from his writings in moral philosophy. They reveal Plutarch at his best--informative, sympathetic, rich in narrative--and are accompanied by an extensive commentary that situates Plutarch and his views on marriage in their historical context.

An expansive, yet succinct, analysis of the Philosophy of Religion – from metaphysics through theology. Organized into two sections, the text first examines truths concerning what is possible and what is necessary. These chapters lay the foundation for the book’s second part – the search for a metaphysical framework that permits the possibility of an ultimate explanation that is correct and complete. A cutting-edge scholarly work which engages with the traditional metaphysician’s quest for a true ultimate explanation of the most (...) general features of the world we inhabit Develops an original view concerning the epistemology and metaphysics of modality, or truths concerning what is possible or necessary Applies this framework to a re-examination of the cosmological argument for theism Defends a novel version of the Leibnizian cosmological argument. (shrink)

The objective probability of every physical event is fixed by prior physical events and laws alone. (This thesis is sometimes expressed in terms of explanation: In tracing the causal history of any physical event, one need not advert to any non-physical events or laws. To the extent that there is any explanation available for a physical event, there is a complete explanation available couched entirely in physical vocabulary. We prefer the probability formulation, as it should be acceptable to any physicalist, (...) though some reject the explanation formulation.) (3) Causal Exclusion. (shrink)

Many philosophers are persuaded by familiar arguments that free will is incompatible with causal determinism. Yet, notoriously, past attempts to articulate how the right type of indeterminism might secure the capacity for autonomous action have generally been regarded as either demonstrably inadequate or irremediably obscure. This volume gathers together the most significant recent discussions concerning the prospects for devising a satisfactory indeterministic account of freedom of action. These essays give greater precision to traditional formulations of the problems associated with indeterministic (...) accounts and to the range of theoretical avenues for pursuing resolutions. The first four essays set out different challenges (from both compatibilists and those skeptical of the possibility of free will) to the adequacy of standard indeterministic theories. The next seven essays meet one or more of these challenges. Each of the fundamental types of approach--simple indeterminism, causal indeterminism, and agent causation--is represented in these novel and sophisticated proposals. The collection finishes with two essays that debate whether compatibilism entails that freedom of choice is a comparatively rare phenomenon within an individual's life. Eloquently presenting some of the most compelling and accessible arguments surrounding this central philosophical issue, Agents, Causes, and Events makes a valuable contribution to courses in free will/action theory and metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper addresses ways of arguing fors ome form of economic democracy from within a broadly Rawlsian framework. Firstly, one can argue that a right to participate in economic decision-making should be added to the Rawlsian list of basic liberties, protected by the first principle of justice. Secondly,I argue that a society which institutes forms of economic democracy will be more likely to preserve a stable and just basic structure over time, by virtue of the effects of economic democratization on (...) the development of an active, democratic character among citizens. Thirdly, I argue that a proper understanding of the demands of the difference principle shows that justice demands more than ex post redistribution, but also requires the ex ante redistribution of power and authority in economic life. This connects to Rawls’s discussion of the badness of inequality, and to his endorsement of a “property-owning democracy”. -/- My conclusion is that, even if we may doubt the success of this first Rawlsian argument,the second and third arguments are both successful, and together establish a strong Rawlsian case forseeing economic democratization as a requirement of justice. (shrink)

Philosophers and cognitive scientists of perception by custom have investigated individual sense modalities in relative isolation from each other. However, perceiving is, in a number of respects, multimodal. The traditional sense modalities should not be treated as explanatorily independent. Attention to the multimodal aspects of perception challenges common assumptions about the content and phenomenology of perception, and about the individuation and psychological nature of sense modalities. Multimodal perception thus presents a valuable opportunity for a case study in mature interdisciplinary cognitive (...) science. This chapter aims to raise these issues against the background of unimodal approaches in the study of perception. It presents some of the central empirical findings concerning multimodality, and it explains the philosophical implications of these findings. Foremost, it aims to encourage and open avenues for future research. (shrink)

Cross-modal perceptual illusions occur when a stimulus to one modality impacts perceptual experience associated with another modality. Unlike synaesthesia, cross-modal illusions are intelligible as results of perceptual strategies for dealing with sensory stimulation to multiple modalities, rather than as mere quirks. I argue that understanding cross-modal illusions reveals an important flaw in a widespread conception of the senses, and of their role in perceptual experience, according to which understanding perception and perceptual experience is a matter of assembling independently viable stories (...) about vision, audition, olfaction, and the rest. (shrink)

Twentieth-century analytic philosophy was dominated by positivist antimetaphysics and neo-Humean deflationary metaphysics, and the nature of explanation was reconceived in order to fit these agendas. Unsurprisingly, the explanatory value of theist was widely discredited. I argue that the long-overdue revival of moralized, broadly neo-Aristotelian metaphysics and an improved perspective on modal knowledge dramatically changes the landscape. In this enriched context, there is no sharp divide between physics and metaphysics, and the natural end of the theoretician’s quest for a unified explanation (...) of the universe is God, an absolutely necessary, transcendent, and personal source of all contingent reality. (shrink)

An analysis of how Adorno's "pure" philosophy can be seen to provide a justification of the rationality required by critical theory.

While much has been written about the functional profile of intentions, and about their normative or rational status, comparatively little has been said about the subjective authority of intention. What is it about intending that explains the ‘hold’ that an intention has on an agent—a hold that is palpable from her first-person perspective? I argue that several prima facie appealing explanations are not promising. Instead, I maintain that the subjective authority of intention can be explained in terms of the inner (...) structure of intention. In adopting an intention the agent comes to see herself as criticizable depending on whether she executes the intention. This allows us to explain in first-personal terms why the agent becomes disposed to act and deliberate in ways that are characteristic of intention. As intention-formation involves profound changes to reflexive evaluative attitudes, this is the ‘Self-Evaluation’ view of the subjective authority of intention. (shrink)

It is tempting to hold that perceptual experience amounts to a co-conscious collection of visual, auditory, tactual, gustatory, and olfactory episodes. If so, each aspect of perceptual experience on each occasion is associated with a specific modality. This paper, however, concerns a core variety of multimodal perceptual experience. It argues that there is perceptually apparent intermodal feature binding. I present the case for this claim, explain its consequences for theorizing about perceptual experience, and defend it against objections. I maintain that (...) just as one thing may perceptually appear at once to jointly bear several features associated with the same sense modality, one thing also may perceptually appear at once to jointly bear features associated with different sense modalities. For instance, just as something may visually appear at once to be both red and round, or to have a red part and a green part, something may multimodally perceptually appear at once to be both bright and loud, or to have a red part and a rough part. The main lesson, I argue, is that perceiving is not just co-consciously seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling at the same time. And perceptual phenomenal character is not on each occasion exhausted by that which is distinctive to or associated with a given modality, along with that which accrues thanks to simple co-consciousness. Not all ways of perceiving are modality specific. I defend this account against three main objections: that singular content theorists avoid my conclusions; that apparent infusion of perceptible features is required for perceptually apparent binding but does not occur intermodally; and that the diversity of objects across modalities makes perceptually apparent intermodal binding rare. (shrink)

This is an Element surveying the most important literature using game theory and evolutionary game theory to shed light on questions in the philosophy of biology. There are two branches of literature that the book focuses on. It begins with a short introduction to game theory and evolutionary game theory. It then turns to working using signaling games to explore questions related to communication, meaning, language, and reference. The second part of the book addresses prosociality - strategic behavior that contributes (...) to the successful functioning of social groups - using the prisoner's dilemma, stag hunt, and bargaining games. (shrink)

I argue that sounds are best conceived not as pressure waves that travel through a medium, nor as physical properties of the objects ordinarily thought to be the sources of sounds, but rather as events of a certain kind. Sounds are particular events in which a surrounding medium is disturbed or set into wavelike motion by the activities of a body or interacting bodies. This Event View of sounds provides for a uni- ?ed perceptual account of several pervasive sound phenomena, (...) including transmission through barriers, constructive and destructive interference, and echoes. (shrink)

One familiar affirmative answer to this question holds that these facts suffice to entail that Descartes' picture of the human mind must be mistaken. On Descartes' view, our mind or soul (the only essential part of ourselves) has no spatial location. Yet it directly interacts with but one physical object, the brain of that body with which it is, 'as it were, intermingled,' so as to 'form one unit.' The radical disparity posited between a nonspatial mind, whose intentional and conscious (...) properties are had by no physical object, and a spatial body, all of whose properties are had by no mind, has prompted some to conclude that, pace Descartes, causal interaction between the two is impossible. Jaegwon Kim has recently given a new twist to this old line of thought.(1) In the present essay, I will use Kim's argument as a springboard for motivating my own favored picture of the metaphysics of mind and body and then discussing how an often vilified account of freedom of the will may be realized within it. (shrink)

In this paper I am going to argue that we should take actions to be prime. This will involve clarifying what it means to claim that actions are prime. I will consider Williamson's construal of actions as prime in a way that parallels his treatment of knowledge. I will argue that we need to be careful about treating our actions in the way suggested because of an internal relation between the success condition of an action and the action itself; a (...) parallel relation does not hold for most cases of knowledge. (shrink)

Pessimists hold that human life is fundamentally a condition of suffering which cannot attain transcendent meaning. According to pessimistic nihilism, life’s lack of transcendent meaning gives us reason to regret our existence. Life-affirming nihilism insists that we can and should affirm life in the absence of transcendent meaning. Yet both of these strains struggle to articulate what practical reasons might compel us to regret or affirm our inability to transcend the immanent conditions of the human predicament in the first place. (...) I suggest that we catch sight of these practical reasons when we shift our attention from the value of transcendent meaning to the desire for temporal transcendence expressed by strong attachments such aslove and devotion. In short, we want the things we love to last forever, and they can’t. This makes human life tragic, but it does not settle the question of what sort of meaning it might have or lack. (shrink)

The Cyrenaics assert that (1) particular pleasure is the highest good, and happiness is valued not for its own sake, but only for the sake of the particular pleasures that compose it; (2) we should not forego present pleasures for the sake of obtaining greater pleasure in the future. Their anti-eudaimonism and lack of future-concern do not follow from their hedonism. So why do they assert (1) and (2)? After reviewing and criticizing the proposals put forward by Annas, Irwin and (...) Tsouna, I offer two possible reconstructions. In the first reconstruction, I explain claim (1) as follows: happiness has no value above and beyond the value of the particular pleasures that compose it. Also, there is no "structure" to happiness. The Cyrenaics are targeting the thesis that happiness involves having the activities of one's life forming an organized whole, the value of which cannot be reduced to the value of the experiences within that life. I explain claim (2) as follows: a maximally pleasant life is valuable, but the best way to achieve it is to concentrate heedlessly on the present. In the second reconstruction, the good is radically relativized to one's present preferences. The Cyrenaics assert that we desire some particular pleasure, e.g., the pleasure that results from having this drink now. Thus, our telos -- which is based upon our desires -- is this particular pleasure, not (generic) 'pleasure' or the maximization of pleasure over our lifetime. As our desires change, so does our telos. I conclude that the scanty texts we have do not allow us to decide conclusively between these reconstructions, but I give some reasons to support the second over the first. (shrink)

Over the past several decades, a large number of publications have claimed that there are important similarities between mindfulness and phenomenology, with a particular emphasis on the epoché and phenomenological reduction. We argue that these comparisons trade on a rather superficial and often misleading presentation of phenomenology. The epoché-reduction is treated either as a matter of bracketing our 'theoretical baggage' so as to allow for a full disclosure and precise description of the objects of experience, or as a matter of (...) bracketing our preoccupation with and absorption in worldly affairs so as to allow for a close attention to subjective acts. Both interpretations mischaracterize the proper scope of phenomenology, namely the subject-object (mind-world) correlation. Furthermore, both miss the theoretical, systematic, and (most importantly) philosophical character of phenomenology. We suggest that, in the end, comparisons between phenomenology and Buddhism would be better off focusing on Buddhist philosophy, rather than Buddhist meditative practice. (shrink)

This article challenges the individualism and neutrality of modern moral conscience. It looks to the history of the concept to excavate an older tradition that takes conscience to be social and morally responsive, while arguing that dominant contemporary justifications of conscience in terms of integrity are inadequate without reintroducing these social and moral traits. This prompts a rethinking of the nature and value of conscience: first, by demonstrating that a morally-responsive conscience is neither a contradiction in terms nor a political (...) absurdity; second, by suggesting how a morally-responsive conscience can be informed by the social world without being a mere proxy for social power or moribund tradition. (shrink)

It is commonplace for both philosophers and cognitive scientists to express their allegiance to the "unity of consciousness". This is the claim that a subject’s phenomenal consciousness, at any one moment in time, is a single thing. This view has had a major influence on computational theories of consciousness. In particular, what we call single-track theories dominate the literature, theories which contend that our conscious experience is the result of a single consciousness-making process or mechanism in the brain. We argue (...) that the orthodox view is quite wrong: phenomenal experience is not a unity, in the sense of being a single thing at each instant. It is a multiplicity, an aggregate of phenomenal elements, each of which is the product of a distinct consciousness-making mechanism in the brain. Consequently, cognitive science is in need of a multi-track theory of consciousness; a computational model that acknowledges both the manifold nature of experience, and its distributed neural basis. (shrink)

Although connectionism is advocated by its proponents as an alternative to the classical computational theory of mind, doubts persist about its _computational_ credentials. Our aim is to dispel these doubts by explaining how connectionist networks compute. We first develop a generic account of computation—no easy task, because computation, like almost every other foundational concept in cognitive science, has resisted canonical definition. We opt for a characterisation that does justice to the explanatory role of computation in cognitive science. Next we examine (...) what might be regarded as the “conventional” account of connectionist computation. We show why this account is inadequate and hence fosters the suspicion that connectionist networks aren’t genuinely computational. Lastly, we turn to the principal task of the paper: the development of a more robust portrait of connectionist computation. The basis of this portrait is an explanation of the representational capacities of connection weights, supported by an analysis of the weight configurations of a series of simulated neural networks. (shrink)

This paper advances the thesis that sensory concepts have as a semantic component the first-person indexical. It is argued that the private nature of our access to our own sensations forces, in our talking about them, an indexical reference to the inner states of the speaker in lieu of publicly accessible properties by which reference is usually fixed. Indexicals, such as ‘here’, can be understood despite ignorance of their referent. Such is the case with sensory terms. Furthermore, the thesis that (...) sensory terms are indexical has considerable explanatory power. I give two examples: firstly, I argue that clashes of intuition over Block's ‘inverted spectrum’ thought experiment can be explained by appeal to semantic properties of indexicals. Secondly, I argue that multiple realisability intuitions can be shown to be consistent with the view that sensations are type-identical with brain states. (shrink)

Deliberative or discursive models of democracy have recently enjoyed a revival in both political theory and policy practice. Against the picture of democracy as a procedure for aggregating and effectively meeting the given preference of individuals, deliberative theory offers a model of democracy as a forum through which judgements and preferences are formed and altered through reasoned dialogue between free and equal citizens. Much in the recent revival of deliberative democracy, especially that which comes through Habermas and Rawls, has Kantian (...) roots. Deliberative institutions are embodiments of the free public use of reason that Kant takes to define the enlightenment project. Within the Kantian model the public use of reason is incompatible with the use of rhetoric. While this paper rejects strong rhetorical criticisms of deliberative democracy which render all communication strategic, it argues that rhetorical studies of deliberation have highlighted features of deliberation which point to significant weaknesses in Kantian approaches to it. Two features are of particular importance: the role of testimony and judgements of credibility in deliberation; and the role of appeal to emotions in public discourse. Both from the Kantian perspective are potential sources of heteronomy. However, the appeal to testimony and emotion are features of public deliberation that cannot and should not be eliminated. For those committed to the enlightenment values that underlie the deliberative model of democracy the question is whether these rhetorical features of deliberation are incompatible with those values. The paper argues that they are compatible. It does so by defending an Aristotelian account of rhetoric in public deliberation which denies the Platonic contrast between reasoned discourse and rhetoric which the Kantian model inherits. (shrink)

This essay will canvass recent philosophical accounts of human agency that deploy a notion of “self” (or “agent”) causation. Some of these accounts try to explicate this notion, whereas others only hint at its nature in contrast with the causality exhibited by impersonal physical systems. In these latter theories, the authors’ main argumentative burden is that the apparent fundamental differences between persona and impersonal causal activity strongly suggest mind-body dualism. I begin by noting two distinct, yet not commonly distinguished, philosophical (...) motivations for pursuing an agent-causal account of human agency. In the course of discussing the account developed by some philosophers in response to these consideration, I reconsider both the linkage of agent causation with mind-body dualism and its sharp cleavage from impersonal (or “event”) causation. (shrink)

In its restless metamorphosis, the environmental movement captures ideas and transforms them into principles, guidelines and points of leverage. Sustainability is one such idea, now being reinterpreted in the aftermath of the 1992 Rio Conference. So too is the precautionary principle. Like sustainability, the precautionary principle is neither a well defined principle nor a stable concept. It has become the repository for a jumble of adventurous beliefs that challenge the status quo of political power, ideology and civil rights. Neither concept (...) has much coherence other than it is captured by the spirit that is challenging the authority of science, the hegemony of cost-benefit analysis, the powerlessness of victims of environmental abuse, and the unimplemented ethics of intrinsic natural rights and inter-generational equity. It is because the mood of the times needs an organising idea that the precautionary principle is getting a fair wind. However, unless its advocates sharpen up their understanding of the term, the precautionary principle may not establish the influence it deserves. Its future looks promising but it is not assured. (shrink)

The most important clarification we bring in our reply to commentators concerns the problem of the “explanatory gap”: that is, the gulf that separates physical processes in the brain from the experienced quality of sensations. By adding two concepts (bodiliness and grabbiness) that were not stressed in the target article, we strengthen our claim and clarify why we think we have solved the explanatory gap problem, – not by dismissing qualia, but, on the contrary, by explaining why sensations have a (...) “feel” and why “feels” feel the way they do. We additionally clarify our views on: internal representations (we claim internal representations cannot explain why sensation has a feel), on behaviorism (we are not behaviorists), on perception and action (we believe there can be perception without action), and on the brain (we believe the brain does do something important in perception). (shrink)

Over the last several years, a number of philosophers have advanced formal versions of certain traditional arguments for the incompatibility of human freedom with causal determinism and for the incompatibility of human freedom with infallible divine foreknowledge. Common to all of these is some form of a principle governing the transfer of a species of alethic necessity (TPN). More recently, a few clear and compelling counterexamples to TNP (and a variant of it) have begun to surface in the literature. These (...) attacks on TNP are developed along somewhat different lines (and were apparently worked out independently of each other). I will show that despite the differences in presentation, however, all of the compelling counterexamples that have been offered turn on a common (and overlooked) basic feature. Once this feature is recognized, I suggest, one is naturally led to restrict the principle in a way that renders it immune to these counterexamples. (I further argue that the restriction I suggest has independent justification.) I then go on to consider two further attempts to show the invalidity of TNP for power necessity, ones that would not be forestalled by my restriction on TNP, and I argue that they are unsuccessful. In a final section, I compare my modified version of TNP for power necessity with a principle suggested in Ginet (1990). (shrink)

Rights to compensation are much invoked and much disputed in recent liberal debates. The disputes are generally about supposed fundamental rights to compensation, whose recognition and legal enactment would transform some lives. For example, special treatment in education or employment are claimed as compensation for past denials of equal opportunity; special consideration for Third World countries in aid and trade terms is claimed as compensation for the injustices of the colonial past. We can make ready sense of the idea of (...) legal rights to compensation. Legal rights to compensation guarantee recompense for damage suffered. The damage for which compensation is given may or may not be produced by wrongdoing; it may also be negligent or accidental or due to natural causes. In law, compensation is not always contingent upon the victim having suffered injury as well as harm, nor upon saddling a wrong-doer with the costs of compensation. Insurance policies standardly cover damage due to accident and neglect. Legal rights to compensation may provide for payments to victims of violent crime, to those whose property is requisitioned or damaged, to victims of libel or malpractice, and even to victims of natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes. Legal rights to compensation are a standard way of dealing with the predicament of those who become victims, whether of others' action, of their own negligence, or of natural catastrophe. None of this shows that there are fundamental rights to compensation. Legal rights to compensation may lack moral grounding: and if they are morally grounded, they may rest not on fundamental rights to compensation, but on background positions in which rights are derivative or inessential. (shrink)

I have no comment to make on the aesthetic merits of these verses. I have put them at the head of my discussion because they happen to introduce a cluster of concepts connected with forgiveness: pride, love, hate, God, friendship, goodwill, eternity, offence, condemnation, resentment, blame. We may think that some, but not all, of these have essential connections with the concept in which we are interested. And we may, of course, think that the list is incomplete. Other obvious candidates (...) spring to mind: pity, for example, repentance, compassion, punishment and pardoning. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to articulate further what may be called an agency theory of self-knowledge. Many theorists have stressed how important agency is to self- knowledge, and much work has been done drawing connections between the two notions.² However, it has not always been clear what _epistemic_ advantage agency gives us in this area and why it does so. I take it as a constraint on an adequate account of how a subject knows her own mental states (...) and acts, that it construe the known mental states and acts realistically and as independent of their self-ascription, and that it deliver genuine epistemic standing to the knower. The main task of the paper will, then, be to explore how our having rational agency with respect to our mental states may be able to secure genuine epistemic warrant for our self-ascriptions of states or acts independent of the ascriptions. This task will be carried out by focussing on the question of what account we should give of our knowledge of what I call our acts of judging. In the remainder of this section, I will do a little to clarify what is meant by that question. Section 2 will attempt to introduce us to elements of the best way to approach the question by considering some alternative strategies. Section 3 is devoted to forming some idea of what _kind_ of warrant we are looking for when considering how agency might give us self-knowledge. Section 4 aims to present a suggestion as to how agency gives us the kind of warrant identified over our acts of judging. Section 5 deals with some objections. (shrink)

In this editorial, we argue that midwives should focus on climate change, a link which has been underexplored.

Holland argues that environmental deliberation should return to classical questions about the nature of the good life, understood as the worthwhile life. Holland's proposal contrasts with the revived hedonist conception of the good life which has been influential on environmentalism. The concept of the worthwhile life needs to be carefully distinguished from those of the happy life and the dutiful life. Holland's account of the worthwhile life captures the narrative dimension of human well-being which is revealed but inadequately addressed by (...) hedonic research. Environmental concerns are better understood from a non-hedonist perspective. An Aristotelian version of this perspective also offers the institutional focus which Holland suggests is required in environmental deliberation. (shrink)

ObjectivePatient involvement is used to describe the inclusion of patients as active participants in healthcare decision-making and research. This study aimed to investigate incoming year 1 medical (MBChB) students’ attitudes and opinions regarding patient involvement in this context.MethodsWe established a staff–student partnership to formulate the design of an online research survey, which included Likert scale questions and three short vignette scenarios designed to probe student attitudes towards patient involvement linked to existing legal precedent. Incoming year 1 medical students (n=333) were (...) invited to participate in the survey before formal teaching commenced.ResultsSurvey data (49 participants) indicate that students were broadly familiar with, and supportive of, patient involvement in medical treatment. There was least support for patient involvement in conducting (23.9%), contributing to (37.0%) or communicating research (32.6%), whereas there was unanimous support for patients choosing treatment from a selection of options (100%).ConclusionIncoming members of the medical profession demonstrate awareness of the need to actively involve patients in healthcare decision-making but are unfamiliar with the utility and value of such involvement in research. Further empirical studies are required to examine attitudes to patient involvement in healthcare. (shrink)

Maclntyre's refurbishing of Aristotelian ethics aims to restore both intelligibility and rationality to moral discourse. In After Virtue he concentrates on showing how intelligible action requires that lives be led within institutional and cultural traditions. But he does not offer a developed account of practical reason which could provide grounds for seeking some rather than other intelligible continuations of lives and traditions. Despite Maclntyre's criticisms of Kant's ethics, a Kantian account of practical reasoning may complement his account of intelligibility. An (...) appropriate interpretation of Kantian ethics is outlined, which escapes Maclntyre's criticisms, allows both for the universal character of basic moral principles and for the historical variability of intelligible action, and which makes moral worth or virtue the centre of the moral life. The refurbishing of Aristotelian ethics may be achieved by a Kantian completion. (shrink)

Cet article traite de la fabrication des héroïnes en Grèce ancienne. Le traité « Vertus de Femmes » (Gunaikon Aretai, Mulierum Virtutes) de Plutarque propose des exemples de femmes ayant fait preuve d’arété dans leur vie. L’étude des quelques histoires permet de comprendre les caractéristiques de cette valeur féminine : les actes de bravoure, les leçons de courage, le consentement, les bons conseils, la résistance au tyran… Les femmes sont louées par la cité, mais la reconnaissance publique ne se traduit (...) jamais dans le domaine politique. La construction de l’héroïsme en Grèce ancienne est en rapport direct avec les coutumes et les valeurs de ces sociétés anciennes. Cet article relève à la fois de l’histoire du genre et de l’histoire du politique. (shrink)

The distinction between the space of reasons and the realm of law captures two familiar ways of making events intelligible, by reference to reasons or to natural laws, respectively. I describe a third way of making events intelligible, by explaining them in terms of an agent’s being motivated to do certain things. Explanations of this sort do not involve appealing to reasons for which the agent acts, nor to natural laws under which the event falls. To explain an event in (...) this way is to place it in the space of motivations. I outline the relation between the space of motivations and the space of reasons, and suggest that the space of motivations may serve as a common ground between the positions defended by McDowell and Dreyfus in their recent debate. (shrink)

Socrates has an implicit argument for his afterlife story that concludes the Gorgias, with two key premises. One is at 527a–c, where he summarizes the ethical position he has been arguing for through most of the dialogue, regarding the intrinsic goodness of justice, the intrinsic badness of injustice, and the desirability of rehabilitative punishments. The second occurs at 507e–508a, where Socrates asserts that the universe is held together by justice. This argument explains why Socrates regards his story as a logos, (...) not merely a muthos. It also helps us understand the nature of the rewards and punishments in his story. (shrink)