Nietzsche's influence upon European philosophy has been, and continues to be, profound. Indeed, recent years have seen Nietzsche scholarship become the battleground for debates over philosophical method between the analytic and continental traditions. This fresh introduction to Nietzsche's philosophical work provides students new to Nietzsche with an excellent framework for understanding the central concerns of his philosophical and cultural writings and why Nietzsche's ideas continue to spark controversy in philosophy and in allied disciplines. The book is divided into three parts. (...) In the first section "Nietzsche Against the Tradition", the author shows why Nietzsche rejects wholesale certain components of the Western philosophical and religious traditions and examines the implications of rejecting them. Those components are considered under the headings of morality, religion and nihilism. In the second part "Nietzsche and the Tradition", the author explores Nietzsche's ambivalent and sophisticated reflections on some of the central topics in the Western philosophical tradition. These include Nietzsche's criticisms of metaphysics, his analysis of truth and knowledge, and his reflections on the self and consciousness. In the final section "Nietzsche Beyond the Tradition", Welshon discusses some of the ways in which Nietzsche does, or is thought to, transcend the Western philosophical tradition with chapters on the will to power, politics and education, artistry and the flourishing life. The book provides readers with balanced, clear analysis and is ideally suited as a companion resource for students tackling Nietzsche's challenging prose style. (shrink)

An Essay on Metaphysics is one of the finest works of the great Oxford philosopher R. G. Collingwood : in it he considers the nature of philosophy, especially of metaphysics, and puts forward his original and influential theories of absolute presuppositions, causation, and the logic of question and answer. Three fascinating unpublished pieces by Collingwood have been added for this revised edition: they illuminate and amplify the ideas of the Essay, to which they are closely related. The editor Rex Martin (...) contributes a substantial introduction telling the story of the composition of all these works, discussing their major themes, and setting them in the context of Collingwood's philosophy as a whole. (shrink)

In the first section of this paper, I articulate Jaegwon Kim's argument against emergent down ward causation. In the second section, I canvas four responses to Kim's argument and argue that each fails. In the third section, I show that emergent downward causation does not, contra Kim, entail overdetermination. I argue that supervenience of emergent upon base properties is not sufficient for nomological causal relationsbetween emergent and base properties. What sustains Kim's argument is rather the claim that emergent properties realized (...) by base properties can have no causal powers distinct from those base properties. I argue that this is false. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article traces shifts in Heidegger's stance toward metaphysics after fundamental ontology and argues that these shifts reflect changes in his conceptions of ontological difference and temporality that pave the way for his mature thought.

The sentence that comprises 5.31.5 in Caesar's Bellum Gallicum has long been felt to be problematic. It was deleted entirely by H. Meusel. A. Klotz posited a lacuna after quare. Others sought smaller adjustments. Yet, the defence of the text as transmitted also drew advocates and the debate quietened. The current Teubner edition, by W. Hering in 1987, prints the transmitted text and does not acknowledge the debate in the apparatus criticus. I propose a new solution, one that reinterprets the (...) sentence in context and requires a small textual change from et to nec. I will first set the context and identify problems with the conventional understanding of 5.31.5. (shrink)

In his well known proposition that pleasures differ qualitatively, Mill seems to be arguing three principal points. ‘Mental’ pleasures as a kind are intrinsically ‘more desirable and more valuable’ than ‘bodily pleasures’ . This estimation of pleasure, Mill says, is such as to rule out the claim that it ‘should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.’ Indeed, he continued, the ‘superiority in quality’ might be ‘so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account’ . The (...) ‘test of quality and the rule for measuring it against quantity,’ Mill says, is ‘the preference’ of experienced judges . ‘[T]he judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final’. (shrink)

`The first and only book to explore, at once, the field of my work and its limits, with both the intimacy and distance required: doubling and shadowing. It gives me great pleasure to find something that, beyond commentary, sees what I see and at the same time what I am unable to see' - Jean Baudrillard Baudrillard is a controversial figure. His work tends to fascinate and infuriate readers in equal numbers. Yet there is no doubting his importance to the (...) key debates in culture and theory of the last ten years. A prolific author, readers sometimes find it difficult to tease out the consistencies in Baudrillard's arguments. This book seeks to redress the balance. It aims to go beyond his writings on consumer objects, the Gulf War and America, to identify the fundamental logic that underpins his writings. It does this through a series of close readings of his main texts, paying particular attention to the form and internal coherence of his arguments. The book contends that, just as Baudrillard himself grapples with the problems of how to criticize self-defining systems, so we cannot simply hold Baudrillard up against external standards but must seek to judge him on his own terms. Jean Baudrillard: A Defence of the Real will be an indispensable text for all those interested in social theory who want a general introduction to Baudrillard's work. (shrink)

Proust reminds us many times in the pages of In Search of Lost Time that there is no such thing as a singular or unchanging self.1 When viewing the novel as a whole, this point is most evident in the journey of Marcel, the narrator, who has to become a myriad of Marcels before he reaches the library of the Guermantes and the discovery of what he must write about. But the theme is also prevalent in a more intimate reading (...) of the novel's many vignettes. Swann, for instance, cannot understand the torment he has gone through for a woman who wasn't his type precisely because he has ceased to be the Swann who desired Odette. Rather, the newfound subjectivity he inhabits at the end of Swann in Love takes him back to an... (shrink)

In "Nietzsche's Perspectivism", Steven Hales and Rex Welshon offer an analytic approach to Nietzsche's important idea that truth is perspectival. Drawing on Nietzsche's entire published corpus, along with manuscripts he never saw to press, they assess the different perspectivisms at work in Nietzsche's views with regard to truth, logic, causality, knowledge, consciousness, and the self. They also examine Nietzsche's perspectivist ontology of power and the attendant claims that substances and subjects are illusory while forces and alliances of power constitute the (...) only reality. Hales and Welshon present Nietzsche's treatment of perspectivism as both more complex and more fruitful than the common view of it as a doctrine that truth is not objective. Neither a metaphor nor a methodology, perspectivism emerges as a protean concept akin to a unifying theme; an alternative to the absolutism that recurs in science, philosophy, and religion; and a technique for revealing the unimagined possibilities open to every individual. (shrink)

This volume examines Rawls's theory of international justice as worked out in his controversial last book, The Law of Peoples.

This article examines William Rothman’s recent essay on Vertigo , ‘Scottie’s Dream, Judy’s Plan, Madeleine’s Revenge’, and particularly his suggestion that in a crucial scene towards the end of the film the character Judy deliberately puts on jewellery in order that Scottie becomes aware that she was the actress who played Madeleine. We look at why Rothman was previously unable to see this in the film, why Judy is unable directly to tell Scottie and why for Rothman a deep truth (...) of the film is this inability of Judy to tell Scottie. In order to address these issues, this article looks at art historian Michael Fried’s notion of “absorption”, and particularly that interpretation of it offered by Lacanian cultural theorist Joan Copjec in ‘The Invention of Crying and the Antitheatrics of the Act’ in her collection Imagine There’s No Woman: Ethics and Sublimation. (shrink)

This important new introduction to Nietzsche's philosophical work provides readers with an excellent framework for understanding the central concerns of his philosophical and cultural writings. It shows how Nietzsche's ideas have had a profound influence on European philosophy and why, in recent years, Nietzsche scholarship has become the battleground for debates between the analytic and continental traditions over philosophical method. The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, the author discusses morality, religion and nihilism to show why (...) Nietzsche rejects certain components of the Western philosophical and religious traditions as well as the implications of this rejection. In the second part, the author explores Nietzsche's ambivalent and sophisticated reflections on some of philosophy's biggest questions. These include his criticisms of metaphysics, his analysis of truth and knowledge, and his reflections on the self and consciousness. In the final section, Welshon discusses some of the ways in which Nietzsche transcends, or is thought to transcend, the Western philosophical tradition, with chapters on the will to power, politics, and the flourishing life. (shrink)

Slavoj Žižek is the most popular and discussed philosopher in the world today. His prolific writings – across philosophy, psychoanalysis, political and social theory, film, music and religion – always engage and provoke. The power of his ideas, the breadth of his references, his capacity for playfulness and confrontation, his willingness to change his mind and his refusal fundamentally to alter his argument – all have worked to build an extraordinary international readership as well as to elicit much critical reaction. (...) _The Žižek Dictionary _brings together leading Žižek commentators from across the world to present a companion and guide to Žižekian thought. Each of the 60 short essays examines a key term and, crucially, explores its development across Žižek’s work and how it fits in with other concepts and concerns. The dictionary will prove invaluable both to readers coming to Žižek for the first time and to those already embarked on the Žižekian journey. (shrink)

Slavoj Žižek is the most popular and discussed philosopher in the world today. His prolific writings – across philosophy, psychoanalysis, political and social theory, film, music and religion – always engage and provoke. The power of his ideas, the breadth of his references, his capacity for playfulness and confrontation, his willingness to change his mind and his refusal fundamentally to alter his argument – all have worked to build an extraordinary international readership as well as to elicit much critical reaction. (...) _The Žižek Dictionary _brings together leading Žižek commentators from across the world to present a companion and guide to Žižekian thought. Each of the 60 short essays examines a key term and, crucially, explores its development across Žižek’s work and how it fits in with other concepts and concerns. The dictionary will prove invaluable both to readers coming to Žižek for the first time and to those already embarked on the Žižekian journey. (shrink)

An argument is developed for the conclusion that certain neurological conditions and disorders are directly relevant for understanding the self?'s embodiment and the ownership of conscious experience enjoyed by such an embodied self. Since these neurological conditions and disorders provide evidence that there can be shifts of, and compromises to, ownership, they help identify neural substrates and realizers of such ownership. However, even if recent neuroimaging and neuropsychological nominees for neural substrates of ownership unity are core realizers of ownership, they (...) are not its total realizers. Implications of the distinction between core and total realizers are discussed. (shrink)

The most compelling evidence for Epstein et al.'s central thesis that adult second language acquisition is constrained by the innate cognitive structures that constrain native language acquisition would be evidence of poverty of the stimulus. Although there are studies that point to such evidence, Epstein et al.'s primary form of argumentation, targetlike performance by second-language acquiring adults, is much less convincing.

An analysis and assessment of Nietzsche's metapsychology. Nietzsche is neither a dualist nor a physical reductionist about the mind. Instead, he is best interpreted as thinking that the mind is embodied and embedded in a larger natural and social environment with which it is dynamically engaged.

This article explores the recurrent global claim by indigenous peoples for their spiritual concerns to be taken seriously and given appropriate effect in public policy. The secular liberal state's commitment to ideals of religious neutrality and equal treatment of all faiths and none is clearly tested to the degree it privileges traditional indigenous religion in the name of fostering indigenous culture. This dilemma has been acutely raised in New Zealand where Maori metaphysical concerns—the appeasement of taniwha (spiritual monsters) and the (...) evils of mingling the mauri (life-force) of human and non-human species in genetic engineering—have been subjected to judicial scrutiny. Quite apart from issues of justiciability, the legal acknowledgment of indigenous spirituality raises questions about the continued secularity of the state. This essay traverses the varying responses to indigenous spirituality, especially criticisms that such recognition constitutes government countenancing of primitive superstition, a fostering of paganism or naked religious favouritism. (shrink)

This essay is an analysis of a series of writings by the Australian intellectual historian Ian Hunter on the subject of 'theory'. It examines the methodological issues raised by attempting to write a history of theory. The essay particularly seeks to analyse the various aporias at stake in Hunter's project: between the empirical and the transcendental, between history and the event, and between theory and 'empirical' history.

On the Genealogy of Morality (GM hereafter) analyzes an enormous range of topics. Its pacing is erratic, shifting instantaneously from patient strolls through arcane scholarly topics to breathless gallops through large intellectual districts at such high speed that attending to any one topic is nearly impossible. It refers to obscure 18th and 19th century intellectuals most 21st century readers have never heard of, along with figures from the ancient world many readers will only have heard of in other contexts, and (...) even some figures many of us are likely to think should not be mentioned in a book of philosophy. Despite these challenges and difficulties, GM is expansive, enlightening, entertaining, probing, and devastating. (shrink)

The procedure I will follow in this paper requires a brief initial note of explanation. Collingwood’s texts are opaque at two points. First, he does not make clear what precisely he meant by the claim that metaphysics is a historical discipline. The prevailing interpretation—which I dispute—has been that he had in mind a similarity or identity of certain methods of inquiry or explanation. Second, and more seriously, he does not make clear the relationship of his two main treatises on metaphysics. (...) They were written and published only seven years apart and one feels there ought to be some connection, if only that of explicit rejection, between them. Their connection is problematic; for they appear, on the surface, very different. Rather like the relationship of Plato’s Laws to his Republic. But Collingwood himself is almost completely noncommittal on how they stand, each to the other. He apparently saw in them some sort of continuity. But beyond this we have no sense of what he took their relationship to be. (shrink)

‘On the “Subject” of Žižek’ is a three-part review essay looking at two recent texts on Žižek’s political interventions: Sean Homer’s Slavoj Žižek and Radical Politics, which takes up Žižek’s writings on the Balkan Wars, and Adam’s Kotsko’s series of web posts on Žižek on the refugee “crisis” in Europe. As well, it examines Zizek’s 2016 book on Islamic terrorism and the same “crisis”, Against the Double Blackmail: Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbours. Through a close reading of (...) Žižek’s text, the review asks what is the proper philosophical response to these contemporary events. It proposes that critics of Žižek’s intellectual interventions fail properly to grasp his Hegelian method, which at once is to propose solutions and to think the limits and conditions of possibility of such solutions. It ultimately suggests that such solutions are their own failure, which are intended to lead to a better thinking of our situation – a thinking, consistent with Žižek’s Hegelian method, that could not have been arrived directly, but only through and as the failure of previous solutions. (shrink)

In the late 1990s, Rosalind Krauss, one of the principal theorists of post-modernism in the arts, began using the term "post-medium" in her work. It was a nod to the American "ordinary language" philosopher Stanley Cavell, who had been thinking through a concept of medium in art for 30 years. Today with the decline of post-modernism, Stanley Cavell has emerged as one of the most important figures for thinking again about the visual arts, film and theatre. Stanley Cavell and the (...) Arts looks at Cavell's extensive writings on a wide variety of artforms and at a number of writers (Michael Fried, William Rothman) influenced by his work. Over a 50-year career, Cavell wrote about visual art, photography, classical music, Shakespeare, the plays of Samuel Beckett and perhaps most notably Hollywood cinema. Stanley Cavell and the Arts offers an overview of Cavell's writings on the arts, situating them within his wider philosophical practice, analysing in detail his treatment of particular art forms and looking at the work of those he has deeply shaped. (shrink)

The paper develops a theory of human rights under three main headings: that ways of acting or of being treated require effective normative justification, that they must have authoritative political endorsement or acknowledgement, and that they must be maintained by conforming conduct and, where need be, by governmental enforcement. The paper, then, applies this notion of human rights to two main cases: as constitutional rights within individual states (the case primarily contemplated within the UN's Universal Declaration), and as international human (...) rights maintained by confederations of states or by looser international coalitions. (shrink)

Democratic societies tolerate intolerance, but that obligation finds its limit when the security of its citizens is jeopardized or its institutions of liberty are imperiled. Similarly, universities tolerate intolerance, but that obligation finds its limit when threatened by weaponized intolerance advocates who disenfranchise and denigrate community members and imperil academic norms and professional standards of conduct. Then, just as democratic societies must protect their threatened citizens and safeguard their imperiled institutions of liberty, so universities must protect their threatened community members (...) and safeguard their imperiled norms and standards. I argue for these conclusions by establishing a conflict between what the First Amendment legally permits university community members to express and what the norms of the university and the professional standards that structure academic freedom require from university community members. I argue that given the First Amendment, universities are legally obliged to tolerate even weaponized intolerance in campus public forums even if not in the classroom. I then recommend three responses to weaponized intolerance on campus that are consistent with the First Amendment: denunciation and protest, provision of safe space, and affirmation of academic values, norms, and standards. I reject three frequently encountered responses to weaponized intolerance as inconsistent with the First Amendment: heckler’s vetoes, student speech codes, and speaker bans. And I argue that one response—disruptive protest that falls short of a heckler’s veto—is legally permissible for students and faculty members but is ruled out for faculty members by academic norms and professional standards. (shrink)

The underdetermination of intentional explanation by motor behavior complicates inferences drawn from preserved artifacts in the archaeological record to intentions in their production. Without knowledge of a producer's intentions, inferences drawn from those intentions to required cognitive abilities for having those intentions is also complicated.

Quite an appealing book, Peter Kail’s Simply Nietzsche introduces Nietzsche’s thought by reviewing his published work from BT to EH. Simply Nietzsche is neither a long nor a laborious read. Nor does it invest much time in minutely carved debates about understanding this or that passage or alleged inconsistencies between Nietzsche’s various claims. Rather, Simply Nietzsche displays the virtues of a good introduction. In direct and transparent prose, it guides the reader new to Nietzsche through many of his most important (...) arguments, displays how seemingly disparate claims are elements of a whole, and reveals what is most notable, novel, and peculiar about those claims and that whole. Some will complain that topics... (shrink)

This important new introduction to Nietzsche's philosophical work provides readers with an excellent framework for understanding the central concerns of his philosophical and cultural writings. It shows how Nietzsche's ideas have had a profound influence on European philosophy and why, in recent years, Nietzsche scholarship has become the battleground for debates between the analytic and continental traditions over philosophical method. The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, the author discusses morality, religion and nihilism to show why (...) Nietzsche rejects certain components of the Western philosophical and religious traditions as well as the implications of this rejection. In the second part, the author explores Nietzsche's ambivalent and sophisticated reflections on some of philosophy's biggest questions. These include his criticisms of metaphysics, his analysis of truth and knowledge, and his reflections on the self and consciousness. In the final section, Welshon discusses some of the ways in which Nietzsche transcends, or is thought to transcend, the Western philosophical tradition, with chapters on the will to power, politics, and the flourishing life. (shrink)

We offer thoughts on Shadmehr and Ahmed's foundational assumption that behavioral intensity (vigor) is proportional to the perceived value of outcomes driving behavior (incentives). The assumption is reasonable considering classical motivational thought and scholarship in related literatures but called into question by an influential contemporary theory of motivation by Brehm. Brehm's theory suggests that the assumption is warranted in some, but not all, performance circumstances. Furthermore, proportionality between vigor and value might be generated through a deliberative goal-setting process rather than (...) through intrinsic neural linkages. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.