The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed characterisation of some ways in which our preferences reflect our reasons. I will argue that practical reasons can be characterised along two dimensions that influence our preferences: their balance and their weight. This is analogous to a similar characterisation of the way in which probabilities reflect the balance and weight of evidence in epistemology. In this paper, I will illustrate the distinction between the balance and weight of reasons, and show (...) how this is crucial for an adequate account of preference and choice. The upshot is a more complete picture of a particular kind of decision, labelled by Isaac Levi and, more recently, Ruth Chang as ‘hard choices’. These are choices in which one option is better than another in some ways, the other is better than the first in some ways, but neither seems better overall. The distinction between the balance and weight of reasons presents a new way of understanding how hard choices vary by degree and what it is that makes them so hard. (shrink)

A lively topic of debate in decision theory over recent years concerns our understanding of the different risk attitudes exhibited by decision makers. There is ample evidence that risk-averse and risk-seeking behaviours are widespread, and a growing consensus that such behaviour is rationally permissible. In the context of clinical medicine, this matter is complicated by the fact that healthcare professionals must often make choices for the benefit of their patients, but the norms of rational choice are conventionally grounded in a (...) decision maker’s own desires, beliefs and actions. The presence of both doctor and patient raises the question of whose risk attitude matters for the choice at hand and what to do when these diverge. Must doctors make risky choices when treating risk-seeking patients? Ought they to be risk averse in general when choosing on behalf of others? In this paper, I will argue that healthcare professionals ought to adopt a deferential approach, whereby it is the risk attitude of the patient that matters in medical decision making. I will show how familiar arguments for widely held anti-paternalistic views about medicine can be straightforwardly extended to include not only patients’ evaluations of possible health states, but also their attitudes to risk. However, I will also show that this deferential view needs further refinement: patients’ higher-order attitudes towards their risk attitudes must be considered in order to avoid some counterexamples and to accommodate different views about what sort of attitudes risk attitudes actually are. (shrink)

In many situations, people are unsure in their moral judgements. In much recent philosophical literature, this kind of moral doubt has been analysed in terms of uncertainty in one’s moral beliefs. Non-cognitivists, however, argue that moral judgements express a kind of conative attitude, more akin to a desire than a belief. This paper presents a scientifically informed reconciliation of non-cognitivism and moral doubt. The central claim is that attitudinal ambivalence—the degree to which one holds conflicting attitudes towards the same object—can (...) play the role of moral doubt for non-cognitivists. I will demonstrate that ambivalence has all of the features that we would expect it to have in order to play the role of moral doubt. It is gradable, can vary through time, covaries with strength of motivation, and is suitably distinct from the other features of our moral judgements. As well as providing a defence of non-cognitivism, this insight poses a new challenge for the view: deciding how to act under moral ambivalence. (shrink)

This paper presents a unifying diagnosis of a number of important problems facing existing models of rational choice under moral uncertainty and proposes a remedy. I argue that the problems of (i) severely limited scope, (ii) intertheoretic comparisons, and (iii) 'swamping’ all stem from the way in which values are assigned to options in decision rules such as Maximisation of Expected Choiceworthiness. By assigning values to options under a given moral theory by asking something like ‘how much do I desire (...) this option, supposing this theory is true?’ rather than ‘how much value does this theory assign to this option?’ these problems can be avoided, while the appealing features of these accounts can be preserved. This amendment provides a role for the preferences, desires, or goals of rational agents that is curiously absent from the existing discussion of what individuals rationally ought to do when they are uncertain about what they morally ought to do. (shrink)

In my feature article in this issue, ‘Doctors, patients and risk attitudes’, I argue that considerations of both autonomy and beneficence support the practice of healthcare professionals deferring to their patients’ reflectively endorsed risk attitudes when making decisions under uncertainty.1 The commentaries written in response to this article present many interesting criticisms, limitations and applications of the view, and I am grateful to all of the commentators for their engagement with this topic. I cannot possibly do justice to all of (...) the points they have raised in this brief response, so I will address two common themes that appear in a number of the commentaries: first, whether the view I have proposed goes too far or not far enough in deferring to individual patients; and second, the epistemic challenge that would be faced when trying to put this approach into practice. Theoretical accounts of the link between preferences and either well-being or autonomy face a familiar tension: if well-being or autonomy are tied too closely to individuals’ actual preferences, one must contend with examples of preferences that seem obviously bad for a person or disconnected from their status as …. (shrink)

[Stephen Makin] Aristotle draws two sets of distinctions in Metaphysics 9.2, first between non-rational and rational capacities, and second between one way and two way capacities. He then argues for three claims: [A] if a capacity is rational, then it is a two way capacity [B] if a capacity is non-rational, then it is a one way capacity [C] a two way capacity is not indifferently related to the opposed outcomes to which it can give rise I provide explanations of (...) Aristotle's terminology, and of how [A]-[C] should be understood. I then offer a set of arguments which are intended to show that the Aristotelian claims are plausible. \\\ [Nicholas Denyer] In De Caelo 1: 11-12 Aristotle argued that whatever is and always will be true is necessarily true. His argument works, once we grant him the highly plausible principle that if something is true, then it can be false if and only if it can come to be false. For example, assume it true that the sun is and always will be hot. No proposition of this form can ever come to be false. Hence this proposition cannot be false. Hence it is necessarily true, and so too is anything that follows from it. In particular, it is necessarily true that the sun is hot. Moreover, if the sun not only is and always will be hot, but also always has been, then it follows by similar reasoning that the sun not only cannot now fail to be hot, but also never could have failed. Anything everlastingly true is therefore, in the strictest sense of the term, necessarily true. (shrink)

Aristotle draws two sets of distinctions in Metaphysics 9.2, first between non-rational and rational capacities, and second between one way and two way capacities. He then argues for three claims: [A] if a capacity is rational, then it is a two way capacity [B] if a capacity is non-rational, then it is a one way capacity [C] a two way capacity is not indifferently related to the opposed outcomes to which it can give rise I provide explanations of Aristotle's terminology, (...) and of how [A]-[C] should be understood. I then offer a set of arguments which are intended to show that the Aristotelian claims are plausible. \\\ [Nicholas Denyer] In De Caelo 1: 11-12 Aristotle argued that whatever is and always will be true is necessarily true. His argument works, once we grant him the highly plausible principle that if something is true, then it can be false if and only if it can come to be false. For example, assume it true that the sun is and always will be hot. No proposition of this form can ever come to be false. Hence this proposition cannot be false. Hence it is necessarily true, and so too is anything that follows from it. In particular, it is necessarily true that the sun is hot. Moreover, if the sun not only is and always will be hot, but also always has been, then it follows by similar reasoning that the sun not only cannot now fail to be hot, but also never could have failed. Anything everlastingly true is therefore, in the strictest sense of the term, necessarily true. (shrink)

This thesis is comprised of four papers that explore the nature and practical implications of moral doubt. It starts from the observation that the appropriate way to understand and handle moral doubt will depend on the nature of our moral judgements themselves. The first and second papers take a cognitivist view of moral judgements and analyse moral doubt in terms of partial degrees of belief in moral propositions. The first, The Relevance of Belief: Subjective Norms Under Empirical and Moral Uncertainty, (...) argues that this form of moral uncertainty is relevant to our choices and that the norms most directly relevant to choice under moral uncertainty are the action-guiding subjective norms of instrumental rationality. The second, Preference and Commitment Under Moral Uncertainty, proposes a particular way of accommodating moral uncertainty within a decision theoretic model of rational choice, and shows that this has substantial advantages over existing alternatives. The third paper, Attitudinal Ambivalence: Moral Uncertainty for Non-cognitivists, provides an account of moral doubt that is consistent with non-cognitivism, by analysing the phenomenon in terms of ambivalence in one’s moral attitudes. The fourth and final paper, The Balance and Weight of Reasons, draws out some implications of ambivalence, by exploring the way in which the overall weight of reasons are reflected in the preferences of rational agents. (shrink)

[Stephen Makin] Aristotle draws two sets of distinctions in Metaphysics 9.2, first between non-rational and rational capacities, and second between one way and two way capacities. He then argues for three claims: [A] if a capacity is rational, then it is a two way capacity [B] if a capacity is non-rational, then it is a one way capacity [C] a two way capacity is not indifferently related to the opposed outcomes to which it can give rise I provide explanations of (...) Aristotle's terminology, and of how [A]-[C] should be understood. I then offer a set of arguments which are intended to show that the Aristotelian claims are plausible. \\\ [Nicholas Denyer] In De Caelo 1: 11-12 Aristotle argued that whatever is and always will be true is necessarily true. His argument works, once we grant him the highly plausible principle that if something is true, then it can be false if and only if it can come to be false. For example, assume it true that the sun is and always will be hot. No proposition of this form can ever come to be false. Hence this proposition cannot be false. Hence it is necessarily true, and so too is anything that follows from it. In particular, it is necessarily true that the sun is hot. Moreover, if the sun not only is and always will be hot, but also always has been, then it follows by similar reasoning that the sun not only cannot now fail to be hot, but also never could have failed. Anything everlastingly true is therefore, in the strictest sense of the term, necessarily true. (shrink)

[Stephen Makin] Aristotle draws two sets of distinctions in Metaphysics 9.2, first between non-rational and rational capacities, and second between one way and two way capacities. He then argues for three claims: [A] if a capacity is rational, then it is a two way capacity [B] if a capacity is non-rational, then it is a one way capacity [C] a two way capacity is not indifferently related to the opposed outcomes to which it can give rise I provide explanations of (...) Aristotle's terminology, and of how [A]-[C] should be understood. I then offer a set of arguments which are intended to show that the Aristotelian claims are plausible. \\\ [Nicholas Denyer] In De Caelo 1: 11-12 Aristotle argued that whatever is and always will be true is necessarily true. His argument works, once we grant him the highly plausible principle that if something is true, then it can be false if and only if it can come to be false. For example, assume it true that the sun is and always will be hot. No proposition of this form can ever come to be false. Hence this proposition cannot be false. Hence it is necessarily true, and so too is anything that follows from it. In particular, it is necessarily true that the sun is hot. Moreover, if the sun not only is and always will be hot, but also always has been, then it follows by similar reasoning that the sun not only cannot now fail to be hot, but also never could have failed. Anything everlastingly true is therefore, in the strictest sense of the term, necessarily true. (shrink)

Nicholas Makins proposes that doctors should take a deferential attitude towards their patients’ preferences when making decisions, and this includes their risk attitudes.1 He grounds this proposal in the principles of autonomy and beneficence. Makins appears to hold autonomy as a good in and of itself, and so for him it follows that deferring to patients must also be good. He also seems to hold that the satisfaction of personal preferences inevitably leads to improved well-being, and so (...) deferring to patients’ risk attitudes upholds the principle of beneficence. Unfortunately, Makins explicitly avoids defining well-being. His account seems to ignore the possibility of an objective measure of health that could contravene patient preferences, and therefore, challenge a deferential approach. While it is true that medicine is replete with complex decisions and significant uncertainty which require value judgements to navigate, it is not true medicine is purely about satisfying preferences. Patient preferences should always guide clinical decisions, but it seems to me Makins is making the far stronger claim that a doctor should act as a substitute decision-maker of sorts, doing their best to make the decision as if they were the patient themselves. I would contend this is not a good idea, as it would clearly impact a doctor’s …. (shrink)

Essays discuss the evolution of consciousness, self-knowledge, aesthetics, religious ecstasy, ghosts, and dreams.

For over a century we have attempted to understand human aesthetic experience using scientific methods. A typical experiment could be described as reductive and quasi-psychophysical. We vary some aspect of the stimulus and systematically measure some aspect of the aesthetic response. The limitations of this approach can be categorized as problems on the Y axis and the X axis. The most enigmatic components of aesthetic experience include inclination to cry, aesthetic rapture, a sense of the sublime, and intense fascination. However, (...) we cannot evoke these 'hot' aesthetic emotions in the lab, at least not with well controlled stimuli on multiple trials. We thus resort to measuring cold, cognitive preference ratings. There are also problems on the X axis. The reductive psychophysical approach explicitly assumes that there are lawful relations between different stimulus dimensions and preferences. It also tacitly assumes that these dimensions are independent and orthogonal. The second assumption is implausible. Whatever stimulus-preference laws we discover are likely to be twisted and modulated when another dimension is added to the stimuli. This 'gestalt nightmare' has long been recognized, but never resolved. This matters, because human aesthetic faculties are probably tuned to the balance and relationship of parts which make up a whole and are indifferent to the parts presented in isolation. I conclude that the future of scientific aesthetics depends on how successfully we can transcend reductive, quasi-psychophysical approaches. (shrink)

The increasingly lively controversy over scientific realism has become one of the principal themes of recent philosophy. 1 In watching this controversy unfold in the rather technical way currently in vogue, it has seemed to me that it would be useful to view these contemporary disputes against the background of such older epistemological issues as fallibilism, scepticism, relativism, and the traditional realism/idealism debate. This, then, is the object of the present book, which will recon sider the newer concerns about scientific (...) realism in the context of these older philosophical themes. Historically, realism concerns itself with the real existence of things that do not "meet the eye" - with suprasensible entities that lie beyond the reach of human perception. In medieval times, discussions about realism focused upon universals. Recognizing that there are physical objects such as cats and triangular objects and red tomatoes, the medievels debated whether such "abstract objects" as cathood and triangularity and redness also exist by way of having a reality indepen dent of the concretely real things that exhibit them. Three fundamen tally different positions were defended: (1) Nominalism. Abstracta have no independent existence as such: they only "exist" in and through the objects that exhibit them. Only particulars (individual substances) exist. Abstract "objects" are existents in name only, mere thought fictions by whose means we address concrete particular things. (2) Realism. Abstracta have an independent existence as such. (shrink)

This volume is about abstract objects and the ways we refer to them in natural language. Asher develops a semantical and metaphysical analysis of these entities in two stages. The first reflects the rich ontology of abstract objects necessitated by the forms of language in which we think and speak. A second level of analysis maps the ontology of natural language metaphysics onto a sparser domain--a more systematic realm of abstract objects that are fully analyzed. This second level reflects the (...) commitments of real metaphysics. The models for these commitments assign truth conditions to natural language discourse. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

This book argues for the need to put into practice a profound and comprehensive intellectual revolution, affecting to a greater or lesser extent all branches of scientific and technological research, scholarship and education. This intellectual revolution differs, however, from the now familiar kind of scientific revolution described by Kuhn. It does not primarily involve a radical change in what we take to be knowledge about some aspect of the world, a change of paradigm. Rather it involves a radical change in (...) the fundamental, overall intellectual aims and methods of inquiry. At present inquiry is devoted to the enhancement of knowledge. This needs to be transformed into a kind of rational inquiry having as its basic aim to enhance personal and social wisdom. This new kind of inquiry gives intellectual priority to the personal and social problems we encounter in our lives as we strive to realize what is desirable and of value – problems of knowledge and technology being intellectually subordinate and secondary. For this new kind of inquiry, it is what we do and what we are that ultimately matters: our knowledge is but an aspect of our life and being. (shrink)

Contending that only a normative theory of rationality can be adequate to the complexities of the subject, this book explains and defends the view that rationality consists of the intelligent pursuit of appropriate objectives. Rescher considers the mechanics, rationale, and rewards of reason, and argues that social scientists who want to present a theory of rationality while avoiding the vexing complexities of normative deliberations must amend their perspective of the rational enterprise.

The Gorgias ends with Socrates telling an eschatological myth that he insists is a rational account and no mere tale. Using this story, Socrates reasserts the central lessons of the previous discussion. However, it isn’t clear how this story can persuade any of the characters in the dialogue. Those (such as Socrates) who already believe the underlying philosophical lessons don’t appear to require the myth, and those (such as Callicles) who reject these teachings are unlikely to be moved by this (...) far-fetched tale. This raises the question of who the myth is told for and what function it is meant to serve. This chapter argues that the myth is aimed, not at Callicles, but Socrates and those who aspire to follow him. There are uncertainties about the philosophical life that are due to the nature of embodiment, as well as reasons to doubt the connection between happiness and virtue. The myth assists with the former by presenting an image that draws a philosopher away from the goods of the body toward the goods of the soul. The story assists with the latter by presenting an image of cosmic justice, thereby securing happiness in proportion to virtue. (shrink)

In mainstream analytic epistemology, Reformed theology has made its presence prominently felt in Reformed epistemology, the view of religious belief according to which religious beliefs can be properly basic and warranted when formed by the proper functioning of the sensus divinitatis, an inborn capacity or faculty for belief in God that can be prompted to generate certain religious beliefs when presented with things (e.g., certain majestic aspects of creation). A major competitor to Reformed epistemology is Wittgensteinian quasi-fideism, a position drawn (...) from the epistemology of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, according to which some foundational religious commitments are not properly basic beliefs but some kind of apodictic, unshakeable certainties that form part of the structure of one’s rationality and worldview. I argue that the Reformed tradition has contained elements of quasi-fideism at least as far back as Calvin’s account of faith from the Institutes of the Christian Religion, book 3, chapter 2. (shrink)

I will offer a defence of Anselm's Ontological Argument, building on some suggestions made by Prior. The defence offered avoids one of the objections commonly levelled against the Ontological Argument. I will not consider whether the use of this objection involves a misinterpretation of the argument as put forward by Anselm. It might, for example, be held that the argument of Proslogion 2 is programmatic, and points forward to Prosiogion 3, and arguments given by Anselm in his Reply to Gaunilo. (...) In particular it might be denied that Anselm holds that what is greater about what exists in reality is just that it exists in reality. While what I have to say will start from points made by Prior, I do not intend to suggest that Prior holds that there is a defence possible for Anselm's argument such as I will offer. What I have to say involves emphasizing modal notions, and treating Anselm's argument as a modal argument. Thus it comes down to defending Anselm's argument in Proslogion 3 in preference to the Proslogion 2 argument. (shrink)

How can we think about things in the outside world? There is still no widely accepted theory of how mental representations get their meaning. In light of pioneering research, Nicholas Shea develops a naturalistic account of the nature of mental representation with a firm focus on the subpersonal representations that pervade the cognitive sciences.

The uncanny is the weird, the strange, the mysterious, a mingling of the familiar and the unfamiliar. Even Freud, patron of the uncanny, had trouble defining it. Yet the uncanny is everywhere in contemporary culture. In this elegant book, Nicholas Royle takes the reader across literature, film, philosophy, and psychoanalysis as he marks the trace of the uncanny in the modern world. Not an introduction in the usual sense, Nicholas Royle's book is a geography of the uncanny as (...) it manifests itself - and disturbs our thinking - in a range of disciplines. (shrink)

Can findings from psychology and cognitive neuroscience about the neural mechanisms involved in decision-making can tell us anything useful about the commonly-understood mental phenomenon of making voluntary choices? Two philosophical objections are considered. First, that the neural data is subpersonal, and so cannot enter into illuminating explanations of personal level phenomena like voluntary action. Secondly, that mental properties are multiply realized in the brain in such a way as to make them insusceptible to neuroscientific study. The paper argues that both (...) objections would be weakened by the discovery of empirical generalisations connecting subpersonal properties with the personal level. It gives three case studies that furnish evidence to that effect. It argues that the existence of such interrelations are consistent with a plausible construal of the personal-subpersonal distinction. Furthermore, there is no reason to suppose that the notion subpersonal representation relied on in cognitive neuroscience illicitly imports personal-level phenomena like consciousness or normativity, or is otherwise explanatorily problematic. (shrink)

A clearly written, authoritative introduction to Taylor's work.

Nicholas Rescher presents a critical reaction against two currently influential tendencies of thought. On the one hand, he rejects the facile relativism that pervades contemporary social and academic life. On the other hand, he opposes the rationalism inherent in neo-contractarian theory--both in the idealized communicative-contract version promoted in continental European political philosophy by J;urgen Habermas, and in the idealized social contract version of the theory of political justice promoted in the Anglo-American context by John Rawls. Against such tendencies, Rescher's (...) pluralist approach takes a more realistic and pragmatic line, eschewing the convenient recourse of idealization in cognitive and practical matters. Instead of a utopianism that looks to a uniquely perfect order that would prevail under ideal conditions, he advocates incremental improvements within the framework of arrangements that none of us will deem perfect but that all of us "can live with." Such an approach replaces the yearning for an unattainable consensus with the institution of pragmatic arrangements in which the community will acquiesce--not through agreeing on their optimality, but through a shared recognition among the dissonant parties that the available options are even worse. (shrink)

This is the first modern interpretation of Leibniz's comprehensive critique of Locke, the New Essays on Human Understanding. Arguing that the New Essays is controlled by the overriding purpose of refuting Locke's alleged materialism, Jolley establishes the metaphysical and theological motivation of the work on the basis of unpublished correspondence and manuscript material. He also shows the relevance of Leibniz's views to contemporary debates over innate ideas, personal identity, and natural kinds.

This is a book about the meanings of words and how they can combine to form larger meaningful units, as well as how they can fail to combine when the ...

How is consciousness possible? What biological purpose does it serve? And why do we value it so highly? In Soul Dust, the psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, a leading figure in consciousness research, proposes a startling new theory. Consciousness, he argues, is nothing less than a magical-mystery show that we stage for ourselves inside our own heads. This self-made show lights up the world for us and makes us feel special and transcendent. Thus consciousness paves the way for spirituality, and allows (...) us, as human beings, to reap the rewards, and anxieties, of living in what Humphrey calls the "soul niche." Tightly argued, intellectually gripping, and a joy to read, Soul Dust provides answers to the deepest questions. It shows how the problem of consciousness merges with questions that obsess us all--how life should be lived and the fear of death. Resting firmly on neuroscience and evolutionary theory, and drawing a wealth of insights from philosophy and literature..."--Jacket. (shrink)

Authors De Marco and colleagues have presented a new model on the concept of invasiveness, redefining both its technical definition and practical implementation.1 While the authors raise valid critiques regarding the discrepancy in definitions, I cannot help but wonder about the purpose of redefining terms for which little confusion, if any, exists? This commentary seeks to scrutinise the rationale supporting the new model in the absence of significant clinical confusion and to explore the implications for clinical practice. Initially, one may (...) notice there is no mention of clinical relevancy, confusion among patients or whether the discrepancy in terms is causing miscommunication. It seems reasonable that some clinical confusion may exist, but so too does a similar imbalance of terms when speaking technically across the specialties; take depression and its definition as a primary example. While I certainly agree with the illustration of non-invasive prenatal testing being compared with venous blood draws as a disparity in terminology, little evidence suggests confusion concerning the nosology.2 The medical community, including both physicians and patients, recognises that the terminology is specifically used within the …. (shrink)

From Knowledge to Wisdom argues that there is an urgent need, for both intellectual and humanitarian reasons, to bring about a revolution in science and the humanities. The outcome would be a kind of academic inquiry rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to create a better world. Instead of giving priority to solving problems of knowledge, as at present, academia would devote itself to helping us solve our immense, current global problems – climate change, war, poverty, population growth, pollution... (...) of sea, earth and air, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, injustice, tyranny, proliferation of armaments, conventional, chemical, biological and nuclear, depletion of natural resources. The basic intellectual aim of inquiry would be to seek and promote wisdom – wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. This second edition has been revised throughout, has additional material, a new introduction and three new chapters. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to higher-order metaphysics as well as to the contributions to this volume. We discuss five topics, corresponding to the five parts of this volume, and summarize the contributions to each part. First, we motivate the usefulness of higher-order quantification in metaphysics using a number of examples, and discuss the question of how such quantifiers should be interpreted. We provide a brief introduction to the most common forms of higher-order logics used in metaphysics, and indicate a (...) number of questions which can be raised in such systems using logical vocabulary alone. Using a further example, we return to applications of higher-order logics in metaphysics. We also mention key developments in the history of higher-order logic as it pertains to metaphysics. Finally, we mention certain arguments which have been raised against the use of higher-order logic, and some ways of responding to them. (shrink)

In this entertaining and provocative introduction, Royle offers lucid explanations of various key ideas, including deconstruction, undecidability, iterability, differance, aporia, the pharmakon, the supplement, a new enlightenment, and the democracy to come. He also gives attention, however, to a range of less obvious key ideas of Derrida, such as earthquakes, animals and animality, ghosts, monstrosity, the poematic, drugs, gifts, secrets, war, and mourning. Derrida is seen as an extraordinarily inventive thinker, as well as a brilliantly imaginative and often very funny (...) writer. Other critical introductions tend to highlight the specifically philosophical nature and genealogy of his work. Royle's book proceeds in a new and different way, in particular by focusing on the crucial but strange place of literature in Derrida's writings. He thus provides an appreciation and understanding based on detailed reference to Derrida's texts, interwoven with close readings of such writers as Shakespeare, Coleridge, P.B. Shelley, Poe, Emily Brontë, Franz Kafka and Elizabeth Bowen. In doing so, he explores Derrida's consistent view that deconstruction is "a coming-to-terms with literature". He emphasizes the ways in which "literature", for Derrida, is indissociably bound up with other concerns, such as philosophy and psychoanalysis, politics and ethics, responsibility and justice, law and democracy. (shrink)

The concept of an "idea" played a central role in 17th-century theories of mind and knowledge, but philosophers were divided over the nature of ideas. This book examines an important, but little-known, debate on this question in the work of Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes. Looking closely at the issues involved, as well as the particular context in which the debate took place, Jolley demonstrates that the debate has serious implications for a number of major topics in 17th-century philosophy.

I take pseudoscience to be a pretence at science. Pretences are innumerable, limited only by our imagination and credulity. As Stove points out, ‘numerology is actually quite as different from astrology as astrology is from astronomy’ (Stove 1991, 187). We are sure that ‘something has gone appallingly wrong’ (Stove 1991, 180) and yet ‘thoughts…can go wrong in a multiplicity of ways, none of which anyone yet understands’ (Stove 1991, 190). Often all we can do is give a careful description of (...) a way of pretending, a motivation for pretence, a source of pretension. In this chapter I attempt the latter. We will be concerned with the relation of conviction to rational belief. I shall be suggesting that the question of whether an enquiry is a pretence at science can be, in part, a question over the role of conviction in rational belief, and that the answer is to be found in the philosophical problem of the role of values in rational belief. (shrink)

This volume sets out to reverse the neglect.

: In the epistemology of the late Wittgenstein, a central place is given to the notion of the hinge: an arational commitment that provides a foundation of some sort for the rest of our beliefs. Quasi-fideism is an approach to the epistemology of religion that argues that religious belief is on an epistemic par with other sorts of belief inasmuch as religious and non-religious beliefs all rely on hinges. I consider in this paper what it takes to find the appropriate (...) hinge for a quasi-fideist approach to the epistemology of religion. (shrink)