‘Taking time’ and ‘making sense’: Rowan Williams on the Habits of Theological Imagination

This article argues that Rowan Williams' methodology cannot be fruitfully employed by others without grasping his intellectual habits and the depth of his engagement with Christian tradition. The argument is centred on the themes of ‘taking time’ and ‘making sense’, which run throughout Williams' work, and proceeds in three sections. First, ‘taking time’ implies an attitude of patient humility that frames engagement with all Williams' interlocutors. Second, ‘making sense’, as the primary work of the theologian, depends upon ‘taking time’. Third, Williams' theological style cannot be imitated without the conversion of desire that characterizes Christian discipleship as he describes it.     

Can power be self‐legitimating? Political realism in Hobbes,Weber, and Williams

Political realists seek to provide an alternative to accounts of political legitimacy that are based on moral standards. In this endeavor, they face the challenge of how to interpret the maxim that power cannot be self‐legitimating. In this paper, we argue that work by Bernard Williams sheds light on the possible answers to this challenge. While Williams aligns himself with the realist tradition, his account of legitimacy contains an implicit critique of political realism. This is evident, we show, in his rejections of the views of Thomas Hobbes and Max Weber. Williams is not satisfied with Hobbes because he conflates legitimacy and political order, eliminating space for criticizing power. Weber's view, however, offers a non‐moralist standard of legitimacy that has critical purchase. This critical purchase emerges from the demands made on rulers to uphold the values that underlie their legitimation, combined with the ethic of responsibility. The resulting grounds for criticism are thus consistent with the maxim that power cannot be self‐legitimating—the very maxim that Williams puts at the heart of his realism. By showing that Williams's partial rejection of Hobbes and Weber cannot be sustained only on realist grounds, our analysis clarifies the limits of political realism.     

Knowledge and Power in Plato’s Political Thought

Abstract

Plato justifies the concentration and exercise of power for persons endowed with expertise in political governance. This article argues that this justification takes two distinctly different sets of arguments. The first is what I shall call his ‘ideal political philosophy’ described primarily in the Republic as rule by philosopher‐kings wielding absolute authority over their subjects. Their authority stems solely from their comprehension of justice, from which they make political judgements on behalf of their city‐state. I call the second set of arguments Plato’s ‘practical political philosophy’ underlying his later thought, where absolute rule by philosopher‐kings is undermined by the impure character of all political knowledge. Whereas the complete comprehension of justice sanctions the absolute political power of those with this expertise, partial knowledge of justice disallows for such a large investment of power. Plato’s practical political philosophy argues for a mixed theory of governance fusing the institutions of monarchy with democracy in the best practical city‐state. Thus, Plato comes to realize the insurmountable difficulties of his ideal political thought, preferring a more practical political philosophy instead.     

Crispin Wright on Moral Disagreement

Wright argues that if there are moral disagreements that cannot be attributed to inferential error, ignorance of relevant data or some similar form of deficiency (i.e., what I call 'radical' disagreements), then moral realists are committed to the view that moral truths are evidence-transcendent. Moreover, since he thinks that this view is implausible and that moral disagreements can indeed be radical, he has suggested that we should reject realism here. I indicate how a realist can respond to this challenge, by offering two arguments to the effect that a realist might plausibly hold that moral disagreements can never be found to be radical. However, this is not so much intended to be a defence of moral realism as a critique of Wright's basic strategy, since a similar defence may be provided in support of realism about any (minimally truth-apt) discourse.     

The Explanatory Challenge: Moral Realism Is No Better Than Theism

Many of the arguments for and against robust moral realism parallel arguments for and against theism. In this article, I consider one of the shared challenges: the explanatory challenge. The article begins with a presentation of Harman's formulation of the explanatory challenge as applied to moral realism and theism. I then examine two responses offered by robust moral realists to the explanatory challenge, one by Russ Shafer‐Landau and another by David Enoch. Shafer‐Landau argues that the moral realist can plausibly respond to the challenge in a way unavailable to theists. I argue that Shafer‐Landau's response is implausible as it stands and that once revised, it will apply to theism just as well. I then argue that Enoch's response, to the extent that it is plausible, can be used to defend theism as well.     

Feasibility and Stability in Normative Political Philosophy: The Case of Liberal Nationalism

Arguments from stability for liberal nationalism rely on considerations about conditions for the feasibility or stability of liberal political ideals and factual claims about the circumstances under which these conditions are fulfilled in order to argue for nationalist conclusions. Such reliance on factual claims has been criticised by among others G. A. Cohen in other contexts as ideological reifications of social reality. In order to assess whether arguments from stability within liberal nationalism, especially as formulated by David Miller, are vulnerable to a comparable critique, the rationale for their reliance on factual claims is discussed on the basis of a number of concerns in John Rawls’s political liberalism. The concern with stability in liberal nationalism differs from stability in Rawls’s work, mainly because of the stronger non-ideal or ‘realist’ focus of the former. In so far as the ‘realism’ of arguments from stability for liberal nationalism is recognized, they are not vulnerable to the reification charge. But if the arguments are construed as realist, this at the same time makes for other tensions within liberal nationalism.     

From Metaphysical to Substantive Naturalism: A Case Study

This paper addresses two related questions. First, what is involved in giving a distinctively realist and naturalist construal of an area of discourse, that is, in so much as stating a distinctively realist and naturalist position about, for example, content or value? I defend a condition that guarantees the realism and naturalism of any position satisfying it, at least in the case of positions on content, but perhaps in other cases as well. Second, what sorts of considerations render a distinctively realist and naturalist position more plausible than its irrealist and non-naturalist rivals? The answer here focuses again on theories of content and is wholly negative. I argue that the standard array of arguments offered in support of realist and naturalist theories in fact provide equal support for a host of irrealist and non-naturalist ones. Taken together, these considerations reveal an important gap in the recent philosophical literature on content. The challenge to proponents of putatively realist and naturalist theories is to insure that those theories so much as state distinctively realist and naturalist positions and then to identify arguments that support what is distinctively realist and naturalist about them.

... the deepest motivation for intentional irrealism derives ... from a certain ontological intuition: that there is no place for intentional categories in a physicalistic view of the world; that the intentional can't be naturalized.'' Fodor (1987, p. 97).

``Realists about representational states ... must ... have some view about what it is for a state to be representational ....

Well, what would it be like to have a serious theory of representation? Here there is some consensus to work from. The worry about representation is above all that the semantic (and/or intentional) will prove permanently recalcitrant to integration in the natural order ... ''Fodor (1990, p. 32).

     

Back to the self and the future

The thought-experiment presented by Bernard Williams in ‘The self and the future’ continues to draw the attention of writers in the debate about personal identity. While few of them agree on what implications it has for the debate, almost all agree that those implications are significant ones. Some have even claimed that it has consequences not only for personal identity, but also concerning the viability of thought-experiment as a method. This paper surveys what these consequences might be at both levels—as a substantive contribution to the debate on identity, and as to what it shows about the usefulness of thought-experiments. It argues ultimately that thought-experiments like Williams's do provide a useful philosophical tool as long as we temper our expectations of them, and that it offers some support to a view of personal identity but one which is at odds with Williams's own view.     

Normative roles,conceptual variance,and ardent realism about normativity

ABSTRACT

In Choosing Normative Concepts, Eklund considers a “variance thesis” about our most fundamental (and seemingly most “authoritative”) normative concepts. This thesis raises the threat of an alarming symmetry between different sets of normative concepts. If this symmetry holds, it would be incompatible with “ardent realism” about normativity. Eklund argues that the ardent realist should appeal to the idea of “referential normativity” in response to this challenge. I argue that, even if Eklund is right in his core arguments on this front, many other important challenges for ardent realism remain that also stem from the issues about possible variance in normative concepts that he considers. Following this, I introduce further issues about conceptual variance. These are issues that arise within the context of the framework that Eklund proposes the ardent realist use to confront the variance theses he considers. In particular, the issues concern what normative role as such is, as well as, relatedly, which roles associated with a concept (or predicate) get to count as part of its normative role. The upshot is that issues about conceptual variance in normative domains might be even more challenging for the ardent realist to deal with than Eklund argues.     

Elizabeth Spelman,Gender Realism,and Women

Elizabeth Spelman has famously argued against gender realism (the view that women have some feature in common that makes them women). By and large, feminist philosophers have embraced Spelman's arguments and deemed gender realist positions counterproductive. To the contrary, Mikkola shows that Spelman's arguments do not in actual fact give good reason to reject gender realism in general. She then suggests a way to understand gender realism that does not have the adverse consequences feminist philosophers commonly think gender realist positions have.     

Re-enchanting Realism in Debate with Kyle Stanford

In this article, against the background of a notion of ‘assembled’ truth, the evolutionary progressiveness of a theory is suggested as novel and promising explanation for the success of science. A new version of realism in science, referred to as ‘naturalised realism’ is outlined. Naturalised realism is ‘fallibilist’ in the unique sense that it captures and mimics the self-corrective core of scientific knowledge and its progress. It is argued that naturalised realism disarms Kyle Stanford’s anti-realist ‘new induction’ threats by showing that ‘explanationism’ and his ‘epistemic instrumentalism’ are just two positions among many on a constantly evolving continuum of options between instrumentalism and full-blown realism. In particular it is demonstrated that not only can naturalised realism redefine the terms of realist debate in such a way that no talk of miracles need enter the debate, but it also promises interesting defenses against inductive- and under-determination-based anti-realist arguments.     

The Book of Lord Shang Compared with Machiavelli and Hobbes

This essay argues that political realism is an effective heuristic for understanding The Book of Lord Shang (Shangjun Shu ?????), which it compares to the political thought of Machiavelli and Hobbes. It first lays out the premises of political realism as they emerge from this comparison: the real is the guiding heuristic of political realism; historical change is the fundamental condition; the nature of human beings is selfish but can also form customs favorable to political order. Based on these premises, the essay then discusses the major propositions of political realism: the purpose of central authority is to provide the multitude with the benefits of order and to reward the ruler; the benefits of order warrant the commission of cruel deeds, also called the reason of state in the West; legal and extra-legal actions are the means by which the central authority imposes order and counters contingency; punishment is the primary means to make the laws prevail. The essay closes with considering the question of whether a fully implemented realist order could put an end to historical change.     

The Perceiver's Share: Realism, Scepticism, and Response Dependence

Abstract: Response‐dispositional (RD) properties are standardly defined as those that involve an object's appearing thus or thus to some perceptually well‐equipped observer under specified epistemic conditions. The paradigm instance is that of colour or other such Lockean “secondary qualities”, as distinct from those—like shape and size—that pertain to the object itself, quite apart from anyone's perception. This idea has lately been thought to offer a promising alternative to the deadlocked dispute between hard‐line ‘metaphysical’ realists and subjectivists, projectivists, social constructivists, or hard‐line anti‐realists. A chief source text is Plato's Euthyphro, where the issue is posed in ethical terms: do the gods infallibly approve virtuous acts on account of their divine moral omniscience or are virtuous acts just those the gods approve? Among the areas proposed as amenable to an RD approach are epistemology, ethics, political theory, and philosophy of mathematics. It is claimed that by making due allowance for the involvement of normalised or optimised human responses one can steer a course between the twin poles of an objectivist realism that places truth beyond our cognitive grasp and an epistemic conception that confines truth within the limits of humanly attainable proof, knowledge, or verification. Here I argue—on the contrary—that RD approaches can be shown to offer nothing more than a variant of the same old realist versus anti‐realist dilemma. That is, they work out either as a trivial (tautologous) claim that ‘truth’ simply equates with ‘best judgement’ in the ideal (quasi‐objective) limit or as the claim—advanced by anti‐realists like Michael Dummett—that we cannot form any adequate conception of objective (recognition‐transcendent) truths. After looking at this issue in various contexts of debate, I conclude that one useful (if pyrrhic) outcome is to demonstrate the non‐availability of any middle‐ground stance. We are left with the strictly unavoidable choice between a realist or objectivist approach and one that assimilates truth to the consensus of accredited best opinion. This latter amounts to a roundabout, elaborately qualified version of the anti‐realist case.     

Mill on Happiness: A question of method

There are issues in Reid scholarship as well as the primary texts that seem to suggest that Reid is not a direct realist about visual perception. In this paper, I examine two key issues – colour perception and visible figure – and attempt to defend the direct realism of Reid's theory through an interpretation of ‘directness’ as well as what Reid calls ‘acquired perception’, which is ‘mediate’ in that it requires prior perception of signs, but nonetheless constitutes direct perception.     

IS JOHN ZIZIOULAS AN EXISTENTIALIST IN DISGUISE? RESPONSE TO LUCIAN TURCESCU

This essay responds to Lucian Turcescu's article, “ ‘Person’ versus ‘Individual’, and Other Modern Misreadings of Gregory of Nyssa”, Modern Theology Vol. 18 no. 4 (October, 2002) in which he argues that John Zizioulas's relational ontology of trinitarian personhood is indebted more to modern personalism and existentialism than to the Cappadocian Fathers. Turcescu's focus on Gregory of Nyssa does not warrant the claim that a relational ontology of personhood cannot be found within the thought of the Cappadocian Fathers. More substantively, Turcescu never addresses Zizioulas's interpretation of the Cappadocian affirmation of the monarchy of the Father, which, I argue, is central to Zizioulas's relational ontology insofar as such an ontology attempts to express the realism of divine‐human communion.     

On Devitt’s Defence of Realism

In this paper I question the view that realism must delineate the basic ontological furniture of the world rather than giving arguments in semantic or epistemic terms for the existence of a mind-independent world. I call this view of stating and defending realism the Ontological Defence of Realism (or ODR) and take Devitt’s account of realism as a paradigmatic case of ODR. I argue that ODR cannot block ‘verificationist antirealism’ because the specific (physical) nature of what exists is not enough to secure the mind-independence of what exists and, additionally, every element purported to achieve this, it compromises seriously the idea that realism is primarily an ontological issue. I also stress that ODR is in tension with a plausible realist insight namely the priority of the world over our theorizing. Because of this tension ODR weakens realism in several domains with no good reason. Specifically, I argue that in these domains ODR faces a dilemma: either to reject realism or to take realism to be dependent on a reductive account violating the realist insight. My point is that we should keep realism and ontology distinct and that compliance with the realist insight initiates a better strategy for the defence of realism. I address three possible objections thereby further clarifying my point. I conclude by presenting my view about the relation between ontology and realism.     

FINE'S MCTAGGART,TEMPORAL PASSAGE,AND THE A VERSUS B‐DEBATE

I offer an interpretation and a partial defense of Kit Fine's ‘Argument from Passage’, which is situated within his reconstruction of McTaggart's paradox. Fine argues that existing A‐theoretic approaches to passage are no more dynamic, i.e. capture passage no better, than the B‐theory. I argue that this comparative claim is correct. Our intuitive picture of passage, which inclines us towards A‐theories, suggests more than coherent A‐theories can deliver. In Finean terms, the picture requires not only Realism about tensed facts, but also Neutrality, i.e. the tensed facts not being ‘oriented towards’ one privileged time. However unlike Fine, and unlike others who advance McTaggartian arguments, I take McTaggart's paradox to indicate neither the need for a more dynamic theory of passage nor that time does not pass. A more dynamic theory is not to be had: Fine's ‘non‐standard realism’ amounts to no more than a conceptual gesture. But instead of concluding that time does not pass, we should conclude that theories of passage cannot deliver the dynamicity of our intuitive picture. For this reason, a B‐theoretic account of passage that simply identifies passage with the succession of times is a serious contender.     

Is Iris Murdoch a Closet Existentialist? Some Trouble with Vision,Choice and Exegesis

Abstract: Richard Moran argues that Iris Murdoch is an Existentialist who pretends not to be. His support for this view will be shown to depend on his attempt to assimilate Iris Murdoch's discussion of moral ‘vision’ in the parable of the Mother in Law to Sartre's thought on ‘choice’ and ‘orientation’. Discussing both Moran's Murdoch exegesis and Sartre's Being and Nothingness, I develop the Sartrean view to which Moran hopes to assimilate Murdoch, before pointing out how Moran's assimilation fails. Murdoch's thought that when M is just and loving she sees D ‘as she really is’ cannot be accommodated on Sartre's picture. I develop this point of disagreement between Murdoch and Sartre, and argue that Murdoch has not as Moran claims made a misattribution to Sartre of an unsituated will, but has instead offered a penetrating critique of the central theme of Sartre's epistemology.     

Old Wine in New Bottles

Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) purport to show that robust moral realism, the metaethical view that there are non-natural and mind-independent moral properties and facts that we can know about, is incompatible with evolutionary explanations of morality. One of the most prominent evolutionary debunking arguments is advanced by Sharon Street, who argues that if moral realism were true, then objective moral knowledge is unlikely because realist moral properties are evolutionary irrelevant and moral beliefs about those properties would not be selected for. However, no evolutionary, causal explanation plays an essential role in reaching the argument’s epistemological conclusion. Street’s argument depends on the Benacerraf-Field challenge, which is the challenge to explain the reliability of our moral beliefs about causally inert moral properties. The Benacerraf-Field challenge relies on metaphysically necessary facts about realist moral properties, rather than on contingent Darwinian facts about the origin of our moral beliefs. Attempting to include an essential causal empirical premise yet avoiding recourse to the Benacerraf-Field problem yields an argument that is either self-defeating or of limited scope. Ultimately, evolutionary, causal explanations of our moral beliefs and their consequences do not present the strongest case against robust moral realism. Rather, the question is whether knowledge of casually-inert, mind-intendent properties is plausible at all.     

What Is Realistic Political Philosophy?

In the study of politics, Cambridge is sometimes associated with a school of political philosophical “realism.” This article discusses what realism in political philosophy might mean, by examining first what might count as “unrealistic” political philosophy (looking at Sidgwick and Rawls), and then some recent attempts to identify a more realistic philosophical approach to politics. It argues that realistic political philosophy tends to emerge as a thin account of politics that falls between the stools of either more philosophical (i.e., more idealistic) or less philosophical (i.e., more historical) accounts. It illustrates this in relation to Sidgwick and also Hobbes, who is often held up as the quintessential realist in the history of political philosophy.