This symposium comprises five papers on Locke's theory of sense perception. The authors are John Rogers, Gideon Yaffe, Lex Newman, Tom Lennon, and Martha Bolton. There are also comments on the papers, both individually and as a group, by Vere Chappell. In addition to Locke's view of perception, the papers deal with the nature of Lockean ideas and with the question whether Locke is committed to skepticism regarding the external world. The authors (and the commentator) disagree in their readings of (...) Locke on these issues, but most maintain--and some argue--that he holds a representative theory of perception, and that he is not an external-world skeptic. (shrink)

LOCKE'S DISCUSSION OF ORGANISMS AND PERSONS IN "ESSAY" II.XXVI HAS LED GEACH AND OTHERS TO ATTRIBUTE THE THESIS OF RELATIVE IDENTITY TO HIM; THAT X IS NEVER IDENTICAL WITH Y "TOUT COURT" BUT ONLY RELATIVE TO SOME SORTAL PROPERTY F: X IS THE SAME F AS Y. I ARGUE THAT THIS ATTRIBUTION RESTS ON A MISUNDERSTANDING OF LOCKE'S POSITION. LOCKE INDEED HOLDS THAT AN OLD TREE MAY BE THE SAME OAK AS THE SEEDLING FROM WHICH IT GREW, WHEREAS THE PARTICLES (...) COMPOSING THE TREE AND THE SEEDLING ARE DIFFERENT MASSES OF MATTER. BUT HE ALSO HOLDS THAT PLANTS AND MASSES OF MATTER ARE DISTINCT ENTITIES TO START WITH, EVEN IF THEY OCCUPY THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME. AND SIMILARLY WITH PERSONS AND MEN. THE RESULT IS A COPIOUS ONTOLOGY, BUT THERE IS NO REASON TO THINK THAT LOCKE WOULD OR SHOULD HAVE BEEN BOTHERED BY THAT. (shrink)

Locke was a libertarian: he believed in human freedom. To be sure, his conception of freedom was different from that of many philosophers who call themselves libertarians. Some such philosophers maintain that an agent is free only if her action is uncaused; whereas Locke thought that all actions have causes, including the free ones. Some libertarians hold that no action is free unless it proceeds from a volition that is itself free; whereas Locke argued that free volition, as opposed to (...) free action, is an impossibility. On the other hand, Locke agrees with the typical professed libertarian that free actions depend on volitions - or, as he often puts it, that an agent is free only with respect to the actions she wills, to those that are voluntary. And he also refuses to make voluntariness sufficient for freedom, whereby a free action is merely one that is willed. The free agent, Locke insists, must also be able or have been able to do something other than she does or did. Thus both Locke and the libertarian professor require indifference as well as spontaneity for freedom. But Locke’s freedom is not contra-causal; and he denies that it extends to volition. In this paper I want to focus on just this last component of Locke’s view of freedom: that freedom in willing, far from being required for free agency, is not even possible. I call this ‘the thesis of volitional determinism’. Locke presents an argument for this thesis in the Essay, but scholars have never paid much attention to it: I want to examine it. (shrink)

Do human beings ever act freely, and if so what does freedom mean? Is everything that happens antecedently caused, and if so how is freedom possible? Is it right, even for God, to punish people for things that they cannot help doing? This volume presents the famous seventeenth-century controversy in which Thomas Hobbes and John Bramhall debate these questions and others. The complete texts of their initial contributions to the debate are included, together with selections from their subsequent replies to (...) one another and from other works of Hobbes, in a collection that offers an illuminating commentary on issues still of concern to philosophers today. The volume is completed by a historical and philosophical introduction that explains the context in which the debate took place. (shrink)

This is a list of journal articles and chapters of hooks on locke's philosophy, published in the last fifty years or so. The subjects covered are those treated by locke in the Essay concerning Human Understanding, i.e. metaphysics, theory of knowledge, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and ethics. The bibliography was produced with the help of a computer, using the INFOL-2 program and RNF text processor. There are 202 distinct items. These are first listed chronologically, then alphabetically; then eight (...) lists of items on special topics, selected from the master list, are given. The special topics are Innate Ideas, Primary and Secondary Qualities, Substance, Personal Identity, language, Essence, Knowledge, and locke and Leibniz. (shrink)

The article pays homage to the leading authority of 20th century Hungarian music aesthetics, József Ujfalussy, by connecting his heritage to more recent research on the problems of musical time and notably to the study pursued by Raymond Monelle. Rather than a perennial invariant, Monelle interpreted musical time as a historically changing phenomenon constituting implicitly the basic levels of musical semantics, as they have developed throughout the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras. The present study focuses on the last of these (...) paradigms, claiming that the Romantic experience of musical time has dominated both the production and the reception of music culture up to this day. The Romantic musical experience is based on a latent ‘framework contract’ between composition and audience, which drives the meanings attached to the experience of musical temporality. This latent agreement warrants a need for conventional compositional forms and simultaneously the insufficiency thereof. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Descartes's Uses of the Word “Substance” Individual Substances in the Meditations and Objections and Replies Descartes and Aristotle Modes and Attributes: Tropes Two Further Points About Substances in the Meditations Substance in the Synopsis of the Meditations Substance in the Fourth Replies Substance in the Principles The Most General Things Uni‐Generic Attributes Attributes in General Substance in Descartes's Later Works Conclusion Acknowledgments References and Further Reading.

Pyrrhonian inquiry responds to the hope of intellectual tranquillity, and aims at the achievement and maintenance of said tranquillity. According to the Tranquillity Charge, philosophical inquiry aims at the truth; hence, insofar as Pyrrhonian inquiry aims at tranquillity, it does not qualify as philosophical inquiry. Furthermore, Pyrrhonian philanthropy rests on the Partisan Premise, i.e. the claim that all philosophers aim at the removal of psychological disturbance. I show that the origin-story of Pyrrhonism evades the Tranquillity Charge, and that the Partisan (...) Premise is not as partisan as it seems. Unlike previous attempts, my reconstruction preserves all tranquillity-related features of Sextan Pyrrhonism. (shrink)

Locke was a libertarian: he believed in human freedom. To be sure, his conception of freedom was different from that of many philosophers who call themselves libertarians. Some such philosophers maintain that an agent is free only if her action is uncaused; whereas Locke thought that all actions have causes, including the free ones. Some libertarians hold that no action is free unless it proceeds from a volition that is itself free; whereas Locke argued that free volition, as opposed to (...) free action, is an impossibility. On the other hand, Locke agrees with the typical professed libertarian that free actions depend on volitions - or, as he often puts it, that an agent is free only with respect to the actions she wills, to those that are voluntary. And he also refuses to make voluntariness sufficient for freedom, whereby a free action is merely one that is willed. The free agent, Locke insists, must also be able or have been able to do something other than she does or did. Thus both Locke and the libertarian professor require indifference as well as spontaneity for freedom. But Locke’s freedom is not contra-causal; and he denies that it extends to volition. In this paper I want to focus on just this last component of Locke’s view of freedom: that freedom in willing, far from being required for free agency, is not even possible. I call this ‘the thesis of volitional determinism’. Locke presents an argument for this thesis in the Essay, but scholars have never paid much attention to it: I want to examine it. (shrink)

The evidence concerning the existence of Epicurean gods has invited ever-growing attention, and has resulted in discussions of increasing sophistication. I aim to provide a roadmap to this controversy, and to argue for the following three claims. First, in the debate concerning ‘realist’ and ‘idealist’ readings of the Epicurean thesis that gods exist, there is no principled way of deciding which one to favour without having to compromise on some aspect of a minimally Epicurean position. Second, positing an innate disposition (...) to form the concept of god is not going to carry the day for an ‘idealist’ reading, though it does capture an important insight about the ethical orientation of the Epicurean theory. Third, in accor- dance with this ethical orientation, we have reason to suspect that Epicurus was genuinely uninterested in what the correct ontological position might be. (shrink)

Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. The essays in this volume provide a systematic survey of Locke's philosophy informed by the most recent scholarship. They cover (...) Locke's theory of ideas, his philosophies of body, mind, language, and religion, his theory of knowledge, his ethics, and his political philosophy. There are also chapters on Locke's life and subsequent influence. New readers and non-specialists will find this the most convenient, accessible guide to Locke currently available. (shrink)

It has been argued that Pyrrhonists will have trouble acquiescing in the religious practices of their compatriots, since those practices depend on beliefs that are supposedly eliminated by suspension of judgement. According to this objection ..., the Sceptic’s religious behaviour will be inescapably disingenuous. As a way out of this predicament, some interpreters have suggested that the sort of religion that Sextus was familiar with did not require the kind of belief that is subjected to Sceptical examination. This, however, acquits (...) Sextus of the charge of insincerity at the price of taking religious behaviour to be a culturally contingent exception to, rather than a standard case of, Pyrrhonian conduct. Another worry concerns the fixity of Sextus’ philosophical agenda. The argument in PH 3 concludes that, if one goes by what dogmatic philosophers have to say, one will be forced to think that god is inconceivable. By contrast, the first part of the M 9 section on theology argues not for suspension of judgement across the board, but only for the more modest claim that several noteworthy explanations of the emergence of religious belief are unsatisfactory. Insofar as this is the case, M 9 fails to live up to the standard set by PH 3, a failure due either to authorial incompetence or to a difference in philosophical objective. If that is the case, then the two discussions cannot be read as successful examples of the same philosophical outlook. In this paper, I argue for a comprehensive reading of Sextus’ take on religious matters that responds to these worries. In the first half of the paper, I present the two caveats as formulating a uniform agenda concerning theology (Section 1) which is further consistent with the Pyrrhonian stance as presented in PH 1 (Section 2). I show not only that Sextan Sceptics are able to engage in ordinary religious practices, but also that they can do so whether or not their cultural environment takes these practices to depend on holding dogmatic beliefs. In the second half of the paper, I argue by way of a detailed analysis that both PH 3 and M 9 are intended to motivate suspension of judgement about highly specific dogmatic tenets, and while their sources and targets might change, their intended outcome remains the same. The argument in PH 3, often understood as a sort of ‘master argument’ aimed at disarming a broad theistic consensus, depends in fact on peculiar commitments concerning the nature of inquiry (Section 3). The conceptual section of M 9 incorporates explicitly dogmatic—and quite plausibly Epicurean—material in order to argue for suspension of judgement about yet another issue, namely, the question of the natural or conventional origin of the concept of god (Section 4). (shrink)

This new volume in the successful Oxford Readings in Philosophy series presents a selection of the best recent articles on the main topics in Locke's philosophy. These include: innate ideas, ideas and perception, primary and secondary qualities, free will, substance, personal identity, language, essence, knowledge, and belief. The authors include some of the world's leading Locke scholars, and their essays exemplify the best - and most accessible - recent scholarship on Locke, making the volume essential for students and specialists.

In Hellenistic philosophy, one can find contrasting evaluations of the argumentative use of merely conceivable states of affairs. On the one hand, Epicureans discard any proposal that has no plausibility from the point of view of someone in possession of the relevant expertise. On the other hand, Sceptics regularly invoke views which one might conceivably hold, irrespective of the view’s epistemic credentials or whether or not it has or has ever had actual proponents. Since thought experiments often introduce scenarios involving (...) merely conceivable but non-actual states of affairs, the positions of Epicureans and Sceptics regarding conceivability can be transposed into different attitudes towards the method of thought experiments. (shrink)

We focus on the question of how expertise as conceived by the Stoics interacts with the content of impressions. In Section 1, we situate the evidence concerning expert perception within the Stoic account of cognitive development. In Section 2, we argue that the content of rational impressions, and notably of expert impressions, is not exhausted by the relevant propositions. In Section 3, we argue that expert impressions are a subtype of kataleptic impressions which achieve their level of clarity and distinctness (...) due to the contribution of expertise. In Section 4, we argue that the expertise in living well not only allows the wise person to assent correctly but also affects the content of her impressions. We suggest that these two models – one’s attitude toward an impression being informed by expertise, and one’s impressions being affected by expertise – might characterize distinct stages of cognitive development. Stoic wisdom is not only a matter of the way one assents to one’s impressions but also a matter of the condition of one’s soul and, consequently, of the kinds of impressions one even entertains. Expertise offers a model of how cognitive and discriminatory improvement through practice and effort can transform the non-wise into the wise. A reading on which the content of impressions is not exclusively propositional illuminates a further aspect of this transformation. If the same propositions are accessible through impressions with different non-propositional content, we can account for cases in which the novice and the expert entertain the same proposition. (shrink)

Compatibilism is the doctrine that the doctrine of determinism is logically consistent with the doctrine of libertarianism. Determinism is the doctrine that every being and event is brought about by causes other than itself. Libertarianism is the doctrine that some human actions are free. Was Descartes a compatibilist? There is no doubt that he was a libertarian: his works are full of professions of freedom, human as well as divine. And though he held that God has no cause other than (...) himself, Descartes thought that everything apart from God is externally caused: he was a determinist with respect to the created universe. So it appears, assuming him consistent with himself, that Descartes must have been a compatibilist. And indeed, there are passages in his writings in which he appears explicitly to affirm that he is. Since both Descartes’s libertarianism and his determinism are complex doctrines, however, his view of the relation between them is complex as well. (shrink)

This book analyzes recent artistic and activist projects in order to conceptualize the new roles and goals of a critical theory and practice of art and photography. Vered Maimon argues that current artistic and activist practices are no longer concerned with the "politics of representation" and the critique of the spectacle, but with a "politics of rights" and the performative formation of shared yet highly contested public domains. The book thus offers a critical framework in which to rethink the artistic, (...) the activist, and the political under globalization. The primary focus is on the ways contemporary artists and activists examine political citizenship as a paradox where subjects are struggling to acquire rights whose formulation rests on attributes they allegedly don't have; while the universal political validity of these rights presupposes precisely the abstraction of every form of difference, rights for all. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, contemporary art, photography theory, visual culture, cultural studies, critical theory, political theory, human rights, and activism. (shrink)

Locke was a libertarian: he believed in human freedom. To be sure, his conception of freedom was different from that of many philosophers who call themselves libertarians. Some such philosophers maintain that an agent is free only if her action is uncaused; whereas Locke thought that all actions have causes, including the free ones. Some libertarians hold that no action is free unless it proceeds from a volition that is itself free; whereas Locke argued that free volition, as opposed to (...) free action, is an impossibility. On the other hand, Locke agrees with the typical professed libertarian that free actions depend on volitions - or, as he often puts it, that an agent is free only with respect to the actions she wills, to those that are voluntary. And he also refuses to make voluntariness sufficient for freedom, whereby a free action is merely one that is willed. The free agent, Locke insists, must also be able or have been able to do something other than she does or did. Thus both Locke and the libertarian professor require indifference as well as spontaneity for freedom. But Locke’s freedom is not contra-causal; and he denies that it extends to volition. In this paper I want to focus on just this last component of Locke’s view of freedom: that freedom in willing, far from being required for free agency, is not even possible. I call this ‘the thesis of volitional determinism’. Locke presents an argument for this thesis in the Essay, but scholars have never paid much attention to it: I want to examine it. (shrink)

This article aims to deepen and extend theoretical understanding of mobility by exploring some of the mechanisms by which it operates. It introduces the concept and practices of ‘tacking’ as a frame for examining the creative processes of navigation and improvisation through which people approach and reflect on the irregularities and uncertainties of their everyday rounds, enacted or otherwise narrated as spatial biography – lives conceived in mobile-spatial terms. ‘Tacking’ also travels beyond this frame of reference, i.e. it is ‘good (...) to think with’ across different substantive contexts of social interaction. Tacking suggests ongoing adjustment and modification that respond to shifting circumstances and may create new facts on the ground, which elicit further adjustments. (shrink)

This collection of recent articles by leading scholars is designed to illuminate one of the greatest and most influential philosophical books of all time. It includes incisive commentary on every major theme and argument in the Meditations, and will be valuable not only to philosophers but to historians, theologians, literary scholars, and interested general readers.