On the metaphysical presuppositions of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

Conclusion In what precedes, I have argued that Aristotle does not, in his ethics, commit three metaphysical errors sometimes imputed to him: he does not define the good as a fact; he does not claim that human beings move by nature towards their telos; he does not claim, in the ergon argument, that human beings are fixed rather than versatile. Instead, I have shown, he does the opposite in each case: he argues that the good cannot be defined as a fact; he claims that human beings move towards their telos only if they have virtue and virtue is not by nature; he locates, in the human ergon, that which is responsible for human versatility. Finally, I have shown by example that the metaphysical commitments of Aristotle's account of human happiness are not as controversial as they seem.If all of this is true, then perhaps the disorder that has existed in ethics since the enlightenment has been misdiagnosed. Perhaps it is not due to an unhappy choice between end-neutral emotivism on the one hand and Aristotle's bad metaphysics on the other. Perhaps instead it is due, at least in part, to a too hasty rejection of Aristotle's ethics on the grounds of a rejection of his biology.     

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.     

The pessimistic induction,the flight to reference and the metaphysical zoo

Scientific realism says of our best scientific theories that (1) most of their important posits exist and (2) most of their central claims are approximately true. Antirealists sometimes offer the pessimistic induction in reply: since (1) and (2) are false about past successful theories, they are probably false about our own best theories too. The contemporary debate about this argument has turned (and become stuck) on the question, Do the central terms of successful scientific theories refer? For example, Larry Laudan offers a list of successful theories that employed central terms that failed to refer, and Philip Kitcher replies with a view about reference in which the central terms of such theories did sometimes refer. This article attempts to break this stalemate by proposing a direct version of the pessimistic induction, one that makes no explicit appeal to a substantive notion or theory of reference. While it is premature to say that this argument succeeds in showing that realism is probably false, the direct pessimistic induction is not subject to any kind of reference-based objection that might cripple a weaker, indirect version of the argument. Any attempt to trounce the direct pessimistic induction with a theory of reference fails.     

Imagery and argumentation in apologetics: a case study

This essay explores aspects of the relationship between imagery and thought in the work of the English apologist G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), focusing on the language and imagery of energy and of vision in his work. It attempts to assess both the strengths and the weaknesses of the ways in which imagery and other aspects of this writer's use of language relate to his argumentation. It also explores the possibility that Chesterton's work can shed light on one of the philosophical dimensions of apologetics, namely, apologists’ attempts to present concepts that cannot be explicitly stated, as part of a defence of Christianity. In considering this issue, it brings Chesterton's use of imagery into dialogue with certain images in the work of the philosopher Mary Midgley and the apologist C.S. Lewis. Finally, it draws certain tentative conclusions concerning the role of imagery in relation to argumentation, within the field of apologetics.     

Logical space and metaphysical systems

The paper applies the theory presented in “A Formal Ontology of Situations” (this journal, vol. 41 (1982), no. 4) to obtain a typology of metaphysical systems by interpreting them as different ontologies of situations. Four are treated in some detail: Hume's diachronic atomism, Laplacean determinism, Hume's synchronic atomism, and Wittgenstein's logical atomism. Moreover, the relation of that theory to the “situation semantics” of Perry and Barwise is discussed.     

Debunking arguments and metaphysical laws

Philosophical Studies - I argue that one’s views about which “metaphysical laws” obtain—including laws about what is identical with what, about what is reducible to what,...     

Reichenbach's metaphysical picture

Conclusion To recapitulate, then, for Reichenbach probability is the foundation of both metaphysics and epistemology. Metaphysically, probability is fundamental because it is the probability relations among the sequences of events in the world that gives rise to causality, time, and space. Epistemologically, probability is fundamental because empirical knowledge is simply knowledge of probabilities. Even knowledge of observation sentences is considered to be probabilistic knowledge by Reichenbach (EP, pp. 183–188), because Reichenbach's fallibilism leads him to hold that no observation sentence is absolutely incorrigible, and with the advance of scientific knowledge we need to inquire into the probability that our singular observation judgments may be in error.My aim here has not been to argue that Reichenbach succeeded in his magnificent attempt any more than Carnap succeeded in his. But I hope to have convinced you that is was one of the most magnificent attempts by any empiricist philosopher of this or of any other century, and I believe that the effort to understand it and to master its details will as richly repay us as the much greater effort which has been devoted to the study of Carnap's work has already repayed us.     

Development,Ethics, and the Ethics of Development

This article investigates three things: (1) what development might be, (2) how development and ethics might be related, and (3) what an ethics of development might look like. First, I show how if we move away from an essentialist metaphysics of being to a possibilist-functionalist metaphysics of becoming in our understanding of development, we can reconceptualize ethics as self-directed ontogeny. Thus, ethics turns out to be a part of development. Secondly, I sketch out the possibility of an ethics of development, showing how it should be based on three desiderata: (1) sustainability, promoting the long-term existence of the maximum human and non-human biodiversity, (2) democracy, promoting human-human relationships that are bidirectional and, to the extent possible, non-imposing, and (3) non-ethnocentrism, promoting true modernity; a modernity not predicated on a non-existent abstract universality but on concrete syncretism. The ultimate aim of this ethics of development is the optimization of individual and collective subjectivity and agency across time.     

Quantum metaphysical indeterminacy and worldly incompleteness

Synthese - An influential theory has it that metaphysical indeterminacy occurs just when reality can be made completely precise in multiple ways. That characterization is formulated by employing...     

Hegel and Deleuze on the metaphysical interpretation of the calculus

The aim of this paper is to explore the uses made of the calculus by Gilles Deleuze and G. W. F. Hegel. I show how both Deleuze and Hegel see the calculus as providing a way of thinking outside of finite representation. For Hegel, this involves attempting to show that the foundations of the calculus cannot be thought by the finite understanding, and necessitate a move to the standpoint of infinite reason. I analyse Hegel’s justification for this introduction of dialectical reason by looking at his responses to Berkeley’s criticisms of the calculus. For Deleuze, instead, I show that the differential must be understood as escaping from both finite and infinite representation. By highlighting the sub-representational character of the differential in his system, I show how the differential is a key moment in Deleuze’s formulation of a transcendental empiricism. I conclude by dealing with some of the common misunderstandings that occur when Deleuze is read as endorsing a modern mathematical interpretation of the calculus.     

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.