Calling Solomon’s Bluff: Ethics,Aspect-Perception and the Unity of the Tractatus

In this paper, I consider how we ought to read the aspect-perception passages in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (TLP) in the light of its ethics. I engage with a recent proposal, of Genia Schönbaumsfeld's, that we should replace the TLP account of aspect-perception with that which Wittgenstein puts forward in the Philosophical Investigations (PI). I show that, far from helping us to grasp the ethical vision contained in the TLP, this proposal obscures it. I go on to draw some conclusions from this as to how to read the TLP in its relation to Wittgenstein's other work.     

Internalism About Justification and the Skeptic’s Dilemma

I first argue that the skeptic needs an internalist conception of justification for her argument for skepticism. I then argue that the skeptic also needs to show that we do not have perceptual access to the world if her skepticism is to be a real threat to human knowledge of the world. This, I conclude, puts the skeptic in a dilemma, for internalist conceptions of justification presuppose that we have perceptual access to the world.     

Moral Responsibility and the Irrelevance of Physics: Fischer’s Semi-compatibilism vs. Anti-fundamentalism

The paper argues that it is possible for an incompatibilist to accept John Martin Fischer’s plausible insistence that the question whether we are morally responsible agents ought not to depend on whether the laws of physics turn out to be deterministic or merely probabilistic. The incompatibilist should do so by rejecting the fundamentalism which entails that the question whether determinism is true is a question merely about the nature of the basic physical laws. It is argued that this is a better option for ensuring the irrelevance of physics than the embrace of semi-compatibilism, since there are reasons for supposing that alternate possibilities are necessary for moral responsibility, despite Fischer’s claims to the contrary. There are two distinct reasons for supposing that alternate possibilities might be necessary for moral responsibility—one of which is to do with fairness, the other to do with agency itself. It is suggested that if one focuses on the second of these reasons, Fischer’s arguments for supposing that alternate possibilities are unnecessary for moral responsibility can be met by the incompatibilist. Some possible reasons for denying that alternate possibilities are necessary for the existence of agency are then raised and rejected.

Kant’s,Hegel’s and Cousin’s Perceptions of China and Non-European Cultures: Racialism,Historicism and Universalism,and the Methodology of Comparative Philosophy

The aim of this paper is to discuss some assumptions of comparative philosophy by providing a critical analysis of Hegel’s perception of China and other non-European cultures in relation to Kant’s anthropological works. The main assumption of comparative philosophy is that the temporal-cognitive distance between Plato and Diderot is irrelevant compared to the geographic-cultural distance between Plato and Confucius or Diderot and Dai Zhen. This paper will demonstrate that this culturalist assumption is also a legacy of Hegel’s history of philosophy, whose anthropological basis and historicist framework needs to be deconstructed. Finally, this paper will make reference to Victor Cousin, the French philosopher who introduced German philosophy in France, to show how this thinker’s adaptation of Hegel’s history of philosophy allows us to propose a more inclusive conception of the value of non-European cultures’ intellectual productions and to elaborate, on this basis, a radically non-culturalist framework for comparative philosophy.     

Nonconceptualism,Hume’s Problem,and the Deduction

Lucy Allais seeks to provide a reading of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories which is compatible with a nonconceptualist account of Kant’s theory of intuition. According to her interpretation, the aim of the Deduction is to show that a priori concept application is required for empirical concept application. I argue that once we distinguish the application of the categories from the instantiation of the categories, we see that Allais’s reconstruction of the Deduction cannot provide an answer to Hume’s problem about our entitlement to use a priori concepts when thinking about the objects of empirical intuition. If the Deduction is to provide a response to Hume, Allais’s interpretation must be rejected.     

Conventions,morals and strategy: Greta’s dilemma and the incarceration game

Synthese - I articulate the question of the value of common knowledge, or the question of why common knowledge is preferred to mere widespread knowledge. I argue that common knowledge often enjoys...     

Blind Man’s Bluff: The Basic Belief Apologetic as Anti-skeptical Stratagem

Today we find philosophical naturalists and Christian theists both expressing an interest in virtue epistemology, while starting out from vastly different assumptions. What can be done to increase fruitful dialogue among these divergent groups of virtue-theoretic thinkers? The primary aim of this paper is to uncover more substantial common ground for dialogue by wielding a double-edged critique of certain assumptions shared by `scientific' and `theistic' externalisms, assumptions that undermine proper attention to epistemic agency and responsibility. I employ a responsibilist virtue epistemology to this end, utilizing it most extensively in critique of Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief (2000). Epistemological externalism presages, I also argue, a new demarcation problem, but a secondary aim of the paper is to suggest reasons to think that `responsibilist externalism,' especially as glossed in virtue-theoretic terms, provides its proponents with the ability to adequately address this problem as we find it represented in a potent thought-experiment developed by Barry Stroud.     

Merton’s Melancholia: Margie,Monasticism, and the Religion of Hope

In this second successive essay on Merton’s melancholia, the author argues that the period of Merton’s romantic involvement with Margie Smith reflects a desire on Merton’s part to adopt the religion of hope. The author argues that this period of romantic involvement was especially taxing on Merton. In this period, the author argues that Merton developed a conflicted understanding of the Christian God, which manifested itself in confusion over sexual matters and vocational matters among others. Finally, the author points to numerous instances in which the Roman Catholic Church exacerbated Merton’s existing problems.     

Merton’s Melancholia: Mother,Monasticism, and the Religion of Honor

In this first of several successive articles on Thomas Merton, the author interprets Merton’s vocational call, identity conflicts, and radical asceticism in light of the psychoanalytic study of Donald Capps, Erik Erikson, and Sigmund Freud. The author argues that Merton’s early identity and religious development formed deep conflicts in his psyche. These conflicts remained unconscious and unresolved, leading to disastrous consequences. This article examines Merton’s life until his affair with Margie Smith in 1966.     

On the relationship between reading, listening, and speaking: It’s different for people’s names

Two experiments are reported that tested predictions derived from the framework of face, object, and word recognition proposed by Valentine, Brennen, and Brédart (1996). The findings were as follows: (1) Production of a celebrity’s name in response to seeing the celebrity’s face primed a subsequent familiarity decision to the celebrity’s printed name. The degree of repetition priming observed was as great as that observed when a familiarity decision to the printed name was repeated in the prime and test phases of the experiment. (2) Making a familiarity decision to an auditory presentation of a celebrity’s name primed a familiarity decision to the same celebrity’s name presented visually. The magnitude of cross-modality priming was as great as the magnitude of within-modality repetition priming. This result for people’s names contrasted with the effects observed in lexical decision tasks, in which no reliable cross-modality priming was observed. The results cannot be accounted for by previous models of face and name processing. They show a marked contrast between processing people’s names and processing words. The results support the framework proposed by Valentine et al. (1996). The implications for models of speech production, perception, and reading are discussed, together with the potential of the methodology to elucidate our understanding of proper name processing.     

Scylla and Charybdis: the purist’s dilemma

This paper explores the view that, on Mumford’s account of the purist, to the degree that the purist adopts an aesthetic perspective, he or she doesn’t watch the sport in question, and to the degree that he or she does watch the sport, there is a loss of aesthetic appreciation. The idea that spectators oscillate between partisanship and purism means that the purist is unable to avoid either the Scylla of not actually watching the sport, or the Charybdis of loss of aesthetic appreciation at any given point. Ultimately there seems to be both a sport-shaped hole and an aesthetic-shaped hole in Mumford’s account of the purist. It is argued that oscillation is incapable of dealing with the problem precisely because it is disjunctive in nature and entails the spectator either watching sport from an aesthetic perspective or from a partisan perspective at any given time. An alternative conception of the aesthetic is considered that offers one way of dissolving the purist’s dilemma.     

Role as Norm,Role and Norm: Homer’s Hero,Hesiod’s Just City,and Plato’s Kallipolis

Role as Norm, Role and Norm: Homer’s Hero, Hesiod’s Just City, and Plato’s Kallipolis     

Following the law because it’s the law: obedience,bootstrapping, and practical reason

Voluntarists in the early modern period speak of an agent’s following the law because she was ordered to do so or because it’s the law. Contemporary philosophers tend either to ignore or to dismiss the possibility of justified obedience of this sort – that is, they ignore or dismiss the possibility that something’s being the law could in itself constitute a good reason to act. In this paper, I suggest that this view isn’t taken seriously because of certain widespread beliefs about practical reason – in particular, it’s due to the belief that it’s impossible for reasons to be “bootstrapped” into existence. I argue, though, that a plausible account of practical reasoning should allow that reasons can be bootstrapped into existence, and so there’s no reason to be suspicious about the possibility of a person’s being justified in following the law because it’s the law. I end by suggesting that this conclusion opens up important new avenues of inquiry for philosophers working on topics related to legal obedience.     

Fame,Narcissism, and the Capacity for Intimacy: A Daughter’s Reflection

In a culture in which fame has come to be viewed as the pinnacle of human achievement, it is natural to assume that celebrity status must be deeply gratifying to the person who has achieved it—a source of exceptional and stable self-esteem. In this article, I draw on my experience of my father’s celebrity at the peak of his career as a source of insight into the reality of fame as a psychological phenomenon, highlighting the paradoxical relationship between the larger-than-life public image of the celebrity and the way in which that person actually experiences himself or herself and is experienced by intimate others. I suggest that the drive behind the achievement of fame is typically a feeling of deep personal inadequacy, and a desperate hope that public acclaim will ease this self-doubt. But, in truth, no amount of public admiration can promote genuine feelings of self-acceptance where early parental love has failed to do so. The article then explores why we humans, as a species, are deeply invested in the glorified images of our celebrities, ascribing them godlike qualities, and taking comfort in the illusion that they have achieved an enviable state of grace.     

The refugee’s flight: homelessness,hospitality, and care of the self

This paper argues that the contemporary international refugee regime is grounded in a paradigm of ‘homesickness’, which puts the refugee in an inferior position of the supplicant, whose subjectivity is framed by the regime of fixed belonging. In order to address this situation, we need to challenge the ontological primacy of homesickness and embrace ‘homelessness’, which offers the possibility of rethinking the positions of both refugees and non-refugees in ethical terms. While the responsibility of the non-refugees lies in cultivating an ethos of hospitality, the refugee can take hold of her subjectivity through the practice of care of the self. This paper first examines Nietzsche’s thought on homelessness and compares it with Foucault’s reading of the role of anakhōrēsis in the Hellenistic practice of care of the self. It then suggests how, by building on the project of universal hospitality, we can interpret the figure of the refugee through the prism of an ethic of freedom, anchored in a positive break with the city. From this perspective, the refugee regains her ethico-political agency by cultivating the relationship with her own living self, which offers new avenues for resistance against the dominant paradigm of ‘homesickness’ that governs her subjectivity today.     

Attention,competition, and the parietal lobes: insights from Balint’s syndrome

Simultanagnosia (resulting from occipito-parietal damage) is a profound visual deficit, which impairs the ability to perceive multiple items in a visual display, while preserving the ability to recognise single objects. Here we demonstrate in a patient presenting with Balint’s syndrome that this deficit may result from an extreme form of competition between objects which makes it difficult for attention to be disengaged from an object once it has been selected.