Space perception and William James's metaphysical presuppositions

William James's overtly philosophical work may be more continuous with his psychological work than is sometimes thought. His Essays in Radical Empiricism can be understood as an explicit statement of the absolute presupposition that formed the basis of Jamesian psychology: that direct experience is primary and has to be taken at face value. An examination of James's theory of space perception suggests that, even in his early work, he presupposed the primacy of direct experience, and that later changes in his account of space perception can be understood as making his view more consistent with this presupposition. In his earlier view of space perception, James argued that sensations were directly experienced as spatial, though he accepted that spatial relations between sensations may be constructed by higher order thought. In his later view, however, James argued that spatial relations were just as directly experienced as sensations. The work of T. H. Green may have prompted James to recognize the full consequence of his ideas and to realize that taking experience at face value required that spatial relations be thought of as intrinsic to experience rather than the result of intellectual construction.     

Aristotle's Ethics Retranslated

Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics. Translation (with historical introduction) by Christopher Rowe, philosophical introduction and commentary by Sarah Broadie.     

Aristotle's Aesthetic Ethics

It is sometimes asked whether virtue ethics can be assimilated by Kantianism or utilitarianism, or if it is a distinct position. A look at Aristotle's ethics shows that it certanly can be distinct. In particular, Aristotle presents us with an ethics of aesthetics in contrast to the more standard ethics of cognition: A virtuous agent identifies the right actions by their aesthetic qualities. Moreover, the agent's concern with her own aesthetic character gives us a key to the important role the emotions play for Aristotle, which further distinguishes him from the other two theories we have mentioned.     

论亚里士多德的善

善是存在的本体。它是幸福。最完美的幸福是沉思。对于这种活动,人们不能够言说（称赞）。善是好。好是主体的私意的表达。这意味着善依据于主体的自愿、私意,并能够带来欢乐。善是真它陈述了现象的关系。真仅仅关注现象而不是作为存在的真正的善因此,真的善其实并不真。     

Function, Intuition and Ends in Aristotle's Ethics

This essay attempts to show why deliberation is not of ends for Aristotle, not only because deliberation is concerned with means, but because ends are grasped by wish. Such wishing, I argue, is a form of rational intuition that is non-discursive and analogous to seeing and therefore not at all like the discursive thought involved in deliberation. Such a reading also helps shed light on the nature of contemplation and therefore on happiness in Aristotle.     

亚里士多德伦理学的两个起点:Endoxa与良好的教养

本文从亚里士多德<尼各马可伦理学>I.4,1095a30-b9关于研究方法的论述入手,讨论亚里士多德伦理学在理论和实践上的两个起点--endoxa和良好的教养.前者与亚里士多德的辩证法结合保证伦理学可以达到知识,而后者则是伦理实践者成为好人的必要条件.在此分析的基础上,我得出了亚里士多德实践哲学的两个基本特征--认知乐观主义与"实践悲观主义",而亚里士多德以伦理学为基础的政治哲学则提供了将认知与实践统一起来,从而消除"实践悲观主义"的途径.     

Rawls and the metaphysical tradition

Abstract

Political philosophers, like all philosophers, can be divided into roughly two camps. There are those who are principally metaphysical in their conclusions; feeling that there is something in the nature of things to find or locate to settle the disputes commonly considered to be political disputes, and those others who explicitly reject that type of formulation. Placing the work of John Rawls into one of these categories is, I think, rather challenging; crudely, Rawls can be seen as having made noises of both sorts. The attempt to situate Rawls’s A Theory of Justice both within and beyond the grand metaphysical tradition lies at the center of this paper’s ambitions. This paper also aims to reflect, more generally, on the strengths and weaknesses of Rawls’s Theory. While it will be argued that John Rawls’s early conception of justice is, for the most part, admirable, it will be shown that firstly, Rawls does not fully leave behind the metaphysical inclination that he, as a self-declared non-metaphysical philosopher, is adamant on setting aside, and secondly, although this is very much related to the first point, Rawls’s theory of justice is too heavily grounded in and dependent on the truth of liberalism and thus fails to be adequately mindful of historicism. An examination of the metaphysical flavors in the early articulation of Rawls’s Theory is significant for two main reasons (1) such an examination compels us to ask whether or not Rawls’s Theory was successful, given what we assume were Rawls’s non-metaphysical ambitions, and (2) that the legacy of John Rawls should probably be better off, philosophically speaking (ceterus paribus and by our present lights), if metaphysics were absent in his Theory.