As a young lecturer in philosophy and the eldest son of a prominent Jewish family, Alan Montefiore faced two very different understandings of his identity: the more traditional view that an identity such as his carried with it, as a matter of given fact, certain duties and obligations, and an opposing view, emphasized by his studies in philosophy, according to which there can be no rationally compelling move from statements of fact—whatever the alleged facts may be—to "judgments of value." (...) According to this second view, individuals must in the end take responsibility for determining their own values and obligations. In this book, Montefiore looks back on his attempts to understand the nature of this conflict and the misunderstandings it may engender. In the process, he illustrates through personal experience the practical implications of a characteristically philosophical issue. Montefiore finally settles on the following: while everyone has to accept that facts, including those of their own situation, are whatever they may be, both the "traditional" assumption that individuals must recognize certain values and obligations as rooted in those very facts, and the contrary view that individuals are ultimately responsible for determining their own values, are deeply embedded in differing conceptions of society and its relation to its members. Montefiore then examines the misunderstandings between those for whom identity constitutes in effect a conceptual bridge connecting the facts of who and what a person may be to the value commitments incumbent upon them, and those for whom the very idea of such a bridge can be nothing but a confusion. Using key examples from the notoriously vexed case of Jewish identity and from his own encounters with its conflicting meanings and implications, Montefiore depicts the practical significance of the differences between these worldviews, particularly for those who hove to negotiate them. (shrink)

Athlete after athlete in this book found discipline, hope, and inspiration on the playing field, rising above their circumstances. Filled with first-hand accounts from stars who exemplify the idea of enduring at all costs, Rising Above will serve as a must-read source of inspiration for kids and sports fans of all ages.

Eleven leading contemporary French philosophers give here more or less direct presentations and exemplifications of their work. All the essays, with one exception, were specifically written for this volume and for an English-speaking readership - the exception is the first publication anywhere of Jacques Derrida's defence of his thèse d'e;tat in 1980, based on his published works. As a collection the essays convey the style, tone and preoccupations, as well as the range and diversity, of French philosophical thinking as it (...) is being practised today. They will stimulate and inform the rapidly growing interest in this area outside France. (shrink)

The eighth Congrès des Sociétés de Philosophic de Langue Française at Toulouse, which, I should perhaps explain, was the first gathering of its sort to which I have been, was just about as unlike a Joint Session as an English philosopher might well have imagined it to be. Many of the differences arose naturally from the simple facts that French philosophy is very unlike British and that philosophers in France are greeted with banquets, civic receptions, concerts and other hospitable entertainments (...) when they meet together in congress. But there are other differences too. For one thing, the contributions are not only as a rule very different in content; they are also different in form. A general theme is set with a certain number of sub–headings. Then anybody who wishes may submit a “communication,” having if possible at least some appearance of relevance to the titular theme–though if this is not possible, it doesn't seem to matter very much as it may be included all the same. Obviously enough, if some share of the available space and time is to be given to every philosopher who wants it, , nobody is going to get very much. The result of all this is to be seen for this year in the Acts of the Congress L'Homme et son prochain , where hardly any of the no less than 76 contributors has more than four pages to himself. In the circumstances it would have been wholly surprising if such Acts had turned out to be anything other than a mainly tedious assortment of mostly undistinguished fragments, which is not, I fear, likely to prove of much interest to any reader of this Survey; which is a pity, as it is not only the receptions and the outings that make this Congress worth attending. (shrink)

The Political Responsibility of Intellectuals addresses the many problems in defining the relationship of intellectuals to the society in which they live. In what respects are they responsible for, and to, that society? Should they seek to act as independent arbiters of the values explicitly or implicity espoused by those around them? Should they seek to advise those in public life about the way in which they should act, or should they withdraw from any form of political involvement? And how (...) should their preoccupations with truth and language find practical expression? The contributors to this volume seek to provide tentative answers to these questions. They come from a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from economics to linguistics and sociology to philosophy, and are drawn from both America and Eastern and Western Europe. The volume is given a particular interest by recent political upheavals in Eastern Europe, where many intellectuals have been confronted with sharply practical, sometimes dramatic, choices about their role in the political arena. (shrink)

Integrity is one of the most hotly debated topics in applied philosophy today. In this new work, men and women of varied practical and theoretical experience engage in rigorous debate in an effort to better understand the specific demands of integrity in their respective professions.

The Political Responsibility of Intellectuals addresses the many problems in defining the relationship of intellectuals to the society in which they live. In what respects are they responsible for, and to, that society? Should they seek to act as independent arbiters of the values explicitly or implicity espoused by those around them? Should they seek to advise those in public life about the way in which they should act, or should they withdraw from any form of political involvement? And how (...) should their preoccupations with truth and language find practical expression? The contributors to this volume seek to provide tentative answers to these questions. They come from a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from economics to linguistics and sociology to philosophy, and are drawn from both America and Eastern and Western Europe. The volume is given a particular interest by recent political upheavals in Eastern Europe, where many intellectuals have been confronted with sharply practical, sometimes dramatic, choices about their role in the political arena. (shrink)

The relation between moral philosophy and moral practice is itself philosophically controversial. nor is there any one determinate formula through which to express the relations between the basic principles of morality and of rationality itself. the concepts of the moral and the political are both 'essentially contestable' and so too is the nature of their relations; that is, their analysis is itself of moral and political import. nevertheless, in periods of overall stability, this contestability may hardly be apparent. all this, (...) and its connection with philosophy's fundamental commitment to questioning and self-awareness has a deep significance for moral (and political) education. (shrink)

Rorty makes a number of broadly convergent distinctions between different types of philosopher or philosophy. His own expressed view - or apparent view - that what he calls abnormal or edifying discourse is parasitically dependent on a prior acceptation of the norms of normality is fundamentally, even ‘foundationally’, correct. Any too reckless or too persistently sustained defiance of these norms or of this dependence is bound to involve a refusal of various orders of responsibility; including perhaps both moral and political (...) responsibilities. There can, of course, be no straightforward proof that Rorty’s texts, stimulating and fruitful as they indisputably are, involve any of these irresponsibilities; indeed, he would no doubt accept the gist of much of the argument which seeks to make them explicit. It is nevertheless worrying to find him saying the things that he does say about the allegedly unbridgeable differences between ‘continental’ and ‘analytic’ philosophy; and·. though he might reply that one should not here take what he says as being the expression of a view on a matter of so-called fact, the factual inaccuracies of the views that he might ‘normally’ be taken to be expressing here are only too likely to be more misleading than fruitful, more harmful than harmless. (shrink)

Alan Montefiore explains how Kant's moral philosophy fits into and depends on the wider sweep of his work.

Alan Montefiore; Philosophy and Moral (and Political) Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 13, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 21–32, https://doi.o.

In this article, Alan Montefiore asks whether anyone could deliberately do something they knew to be wrong. He suggests, interestingly, that on this question we tend to divide into two groups, groups that hold fundamentally different perspectives on wrong-doing. The two groups muddle along unaware of the rift between them. Here, Alan Montefiore draws the rift to our attention.

_Integrity in the Private and Public Domains_ explores the issue of public and private integrity in politics, the media, health, science, fund-raising, the economy and the public sector. Over twenty essays by well-known figures such as Amelie Rorty, David Vines, the late Hugo Gryn, Alan Montefiore and Hilary Lawson present a compelling insight into debates over integrity today. A key chapter of the book concerns the highly publicised donation to Oxford University by Gert-Rudolf Flick, an issue which attracted wide (...) media attention by raising questions of fund-raising and the holocaust. (shrink)

First published in 1975, this is a book of general intellectual interest about the role of the university in contemporary society and that of university teachers in relation to their subjects, their students, and their wider political commitments. Alan Montefiore offers preliminary analyses of the family of concepts most often invoked in discussions of these problems, taking the central dispute to be between those who hold a 'liberal' view of the university and those who regard this notion as illusory, (...) dishonest or undesirable. Six academics, representing, discuss issues of substantive conflict in light of Montefiore's initial distinctions. The volume is of particular interest to students of political and social philosophy, and political and educational theory. It is also intended for a wider readership among those who care about the political status of the universities and recognize the importance and difficulty of the problems involved in this. (shrink)

This book collects essays by Alan Montefiore on the role philosophy plays in the formation of the self, and how philosophical questions regarding the nature of reason, truth, and identity inform ethics and politics. It offers a comprehensive overview of Montefiore's influential, non-dogmatic philosophical voice. Throughout his 70-year career, Montefiore sought to bridge the analytic/continental divide and develop a new way of thinking about philosophy. He defines philosophy as the search for a higher-order understanding of whatever the situation or (...) activity in which one may be involved or engaged, an understanding which may be achieved and expressed by and in a variety of different forms of philosophical persuasion, and which may serve to shed new light on particular problems. The book's essays, half of which are previously unpublished, are divided into two thematic sections. The first focuses on the nature of philosophy, while the second addresses the relationship between philosophy and moral and political responsibilities. Philosophy and the Human Paradox will be of interest to philosophers and students who work on ethics, Kantian and post-Kantian continental philosophy, and political philosophy. (shrink)

Le dispositif: un texte de Louis Marin sur la pluralité du sens , où « langage ordinaire » renvoie au discours du « peuple » qui ne saitpas discerner la « raison des effets » de sens dans son discours; Marin l'a écrit en anglais, d'ailleurs émaillé ou doublé de fiançais, Montefiore n'en posséde qu'une traduction, et c'est elle qu'il retraduit en anglais — traduction de traduction avec l' original seulement en fin de parcours. L'analyse de Montefiore, lisant Marin lisant (...) Pascal, porte sur la force du discours et les forces d'une langue, illocutoires, mais non moins politiques dans ce français-là : si l'on peut en philosophic, entre science et littérature, rendre tout d'une langue à l'autre, n'est-il pas pourtant inevitable que les choses feel different ? (shrink)

Originally published in 1958, this book shows how a systematic consideration of what exactly may be meant by calling anything 'good', inevitably leads on to the more general and fundamental problem of the relations between value-judgments and statements of fact. It does on to explain some of the difficult and far-reaching issues which this problem involves. The book is intended as an introduction for students interested in finding out the nature and point of modern methods of philosophic analysis when applied (...) to problems of moral philosophy. (shrink)

This is the first collection of papers covering the main trends in moral British philosophy in the 20th century. It has three sections. Roots, Theories and Applications. The articles are signed by: C. Kirwan, Jim MacAdam,Rom Harre, Catherine Audard, Roger Crisp, David McNaughton, Onora O'Neill, John Lucas, Bernard Williams.