Combining two central topics in philosophy in the 20th Century, this book considers the ethics and impact of decision-making alongside the philosophy of time. When we make simple decisions, like the decision to wake up at 8 a.m. tomorrow, we make use of a linear model of the future. But when we make open-ended decisions, like the decision to get fitter, or more involved in politics, we presuppose a much more complex model of the future. We project a variety of (...) virtual futures. We can carry out a decision in many different ways at once, which may converge and diverge at different points in time. Using a phenomenological approach, The Many Futures of a Decision explores what we learn about the structure of the future specifically from decision-making. Most theories of decision concentrate on the rationality: the evidence and value assessments that build up grounds for a rational decision. Instead, this book innovatively engages with the nature of the future as a multi-layered decisions project. Through interpretations of the theories of decision in philosophers like Husserl and Heidegger, Schmitt and Habermas, Derrida and Deleuze, along with other decision theories, Lampert develops an original theory of multiple futures."--Bloomsbury Publishing. (shrink)

It is time to update Deleuze and Guattari's contrast between Chess and Go in the ‘Nomadology’ Plateau with a discussion of AlphaGo, the artificial intelligence that revolutionised Go in 2016. I focus less on the political issues in Go nomadology, central as they are, and more on smooth space and time. I explain and speculate on some details in Go strategy, as well as some processes of machine learning. The relations between human Go, computer Go, and smooth-time nomadology remain unsettled, (...) in my view, but many resources for nomadological analysis open up for readers who learn to play, and program, Go. (shrink)

The argument of this book moves through four issues: the logic of determinate negation, the possibility of philosophical criticism, the description of philosophical experience, and the priority of a philosophical intuition. If a system of thought claims, as Hegel's does, to be internally complete and self-justifying, it can reach conclusions only by analysing what is already present in it. So if such a system is to avoid terminating with an empty starting-point, it must consist of an explication of an undetermined (...) origin-point which both provides a justification for denying the adequacy of that starting-point and also provides the content of the first and subsequent advances. However,, negation does not in itself provide advance, just as dispelling an illusion does not necessarily result in knowing any truth. Only a "thing-like" or at least mind-like object is such that to negate it in some respect will leave it a subsisting entity with new properties; but when the objects of pure science are the very thoughts by which the science is proceeding, the negation of one of them would bring the science to a halt. Although a logic of determinate negation cannot be argued for in general, it might still find a special sort of validation within the system in which it is used. And after all to understand any philosophical system is to learn how to work with its concepts to develop a pattern of discourse, and is not in general to translate that system into, and evaluate it by means of, some other system. Of course, even if we attempt an "immanent critique" of Hegel's philosophy, we will still be faced with the problem of whether the justification will appear at the end of the system or at the beginning. But even this problem is avoided if in some sense the beginning is also the end, if philosophical progress is not the deduction of certain propositions from others, but instead the self-explication of a single philosophical experience. Now this philosophical experience whose articulation is science differs from "common" experience by accepting no passively received presuppositions, and this means that philosophy neither describes the world as given nor transforms the given world into something else, but rather recreates the world in its necessity in the realm of pure thought precisely by creating that realm ex nihilo To engage in movements within the philosophical system, then, is not to take up exigencies either from pre-philosophical experience or from pre-Hegelian philosophy, since the ground for this movement is created only by the necessity with which the experience of pure thought is present to the person who engages in it. For this reason, Hegel's notion of dialectical method is non-inferential and "intuitionistic." This controversial claim is argued for in four ways. First, common intuition is normally valued as low-level cognition because of its subjective relativity, and its lack of criteria for verification and of specifically appropriate content, but the "purified" intuition in question would be universally valid, verified by its internal necessity, and content-producing. Second, Hegel approves of Descartes' movement without propositional inferences to an intuition of the cogito. Third, Hegel emphasizes the way in which scientific thought is "observing Reason." Fourth, since subject and object are ultimately equivalent, it cannot be that the knowing subject has to bring rules of inference to its subject-matter; the subject-matter does the developing, the science just moves through it, and the agent who carries out the science is not an individual agent, but in some sense is "beyond [sic] the empirical self". Finally, only if the motivation for dialectical movement is originally intuited can Hegel claim that the first move of Thought is both simple and determinate, both immanent and critical, both negative and progressive. (shrink)

Vesey argues in his introduction that the history of idealism would be worth studying even if it turned out that there is no single sense of "idealism." Just to discover how the term "idea" has evolved in philosophical usage can elucidate the history of philosophy. The majority of the essays in this book focus on a single philosopher or school of philosophy, and so do not raise the problem of defining idealism in general. However, as each author develops a working (...) definition for his own historical purposes, several senses of "idealism" emerge. Most of these writers define idealism as the doctrine that all we can know are our ideas and the meaning of words and sentences, that truth consists of the coherence of our ideas, and that we cannot directly observe external reality as it is in itself Some writers adopt variations on this, either to the effect that objects exist for a subject or to the effect that objects are structured by a subject. Some authors interpret idealism as the view that truth is created by human activity and thought, one identifies idealism with mental monism, and two suggest that any use at all of the word "idea" as a philosophical first principle is enough to constitute an "idealism". There is an implicit attempt to cover most if not all major periods of idealist or allegedly idealist philosophy in this collection, including Greek skepticism, Descartes and Berkeley, Kant and Hegel, Schopenhauer and Marx, Bradley, linguistic relativism, and Wittgenstein. Some articles consider idealism in so far as it raises questions of epistemology and consciousness, others in so far as it raises questions of freedom, action, and will. However, there is no treatment of the role of idealism in mediaeval or modern religious philosophy, and there is no mention of the phenomenology of the lived body, which constitutes so much of the response of twentieth century philosophers to problems of idealism. (shrink)

In Simultaneity and Delay: A Dialectical Theory of Staggered Time, the Canadian philosopher Jay Lampert challenges theories that define time in terms of absolute simultaneity and continuous succession. To counter these theories he introduces an alternative: the dialectic of simultaneity and delay. According to Lampert, this dialectic constitutes a temporal succession that is no longer structured as a continuous line, but that is built out of staggered time-flows and delayed reactions. The bulk of the book consists of an (...) attempt to give a conceptual order to the ‘unsystematic analyses of simultaneity and delay sprinkled through the history of philosophy’ (2). This conceptual analysis leads us through ancient (Plato and Plotinus), medieval (Origen) and late modern issues (Kant, Hegel and Lessing), as well as scientific discussions (Einstein, McTaggart), and culminates in the central chapter of the book, which attempts to show ‘how the problems of the great simultaneity philosophers - Husserl and Bergson - might be solved by the great delay philosophers - Derrida and Deleuze’ (147). In this review, I will focus on three points. 1. The problem of synchronization. 2. The problem of synthesis. 3. Theproblem of localization. (shrink)

We consider a natural-language sentence that cannot be formally represented in a first-order language for epistemic two-dimensional semantics. We also prove this claim in the “Appendix” section. It turns out, however, that the most natural ways to repair the expressive inadequacy of the first-order language render moot the original philosophical motivation of formalizing a priori knowability as necessity along the diagonal.

It is a widely held principle that no one is able to do something that would require the past to have been different from how it actually is. This principle of the fixity of the past has been presented in numerous ways, playing a crucial role in arguments for logical and theological fatalism, and for the incompatibility of causal determinism and the ability to do otherwise. I will argue that, assuming bivalence, this principle is in conflict with standard views about (...) knowledge and the semantics for ‘actually’. I also consider many possible responses to the argument. (shrink)

It is controversial whether Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics is of critical importance for mathematical proofs, or is only concerned with the adequate philosophical interpretation of mathematics. Wittgenstein's remarks on the infinity of prime numbers provide a helpful example which will be used to clarify this question. His antiplatonistic view of mathematics contradicts the widespread understanding of proofs as logical derivations from a set of axioms or assumptions. Wittgenstein's critique of traditional proofs of the infinity of prime numbers, specifically those of (...) Euler and Euclid, not only offers philosophical insight but also suggests substantive improvements. A careful examination of his comments leads to a deeper understanding of what proves the infinity of primes. (shrink)

In his early philosophy as well as in his middle period, Wittgenstein holds a purely syntactic view of logic and mathematics. However, his syntactic foundation of logic and mathematics is opposed to the axiomatic approach of modern mathematical logic. The object of Wittgenstein’s approach is not the representation of mathematical properties within a logical axiomatic system, but their representation by a symbolism that identifies the properties in question by its syntactic features. It rests on his distinction of descriptions and operations; (...) its aim is to reduce mathematics to operations. This paper illustrates Wittgenstein’s approach by examining his discussion of irrational numbers. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Philosopher Philosophy Religion Gods Philosophers and Gods.

Force Fields collects the recent essays of Martin Jay, an intellectual historian and cultural critic internationally known for his extensive work on the history of Western Marxism and the intellectual migration from Germany to America.

Laurence Lampert is well-known for philosophical studies on Nietzsche, Plato, and Leo Strauss. His work is animated by the notion that Nietzsche is the key figure in Strauss's thought and that Strauss is a Nietzschean in disguise. In How Socrates Became Socrates, Lampert brings his work on Nietzsche into conversation with his work on Plato, showing how the "mature" Socrates is himself a Nietzschean avant la lettre, and that this is how Strauss understands him, bringing to completion a (...) decades-long philosophical project in thrilling fashion. (shrink)

Honor walks are ceremonies that purportedly honor organ donors as they make their final journey from the ICU to the OR. In this paper, we draw on Ronald Grimes’ work in ritual studies to examine honor walks as ceremonial rituals that display medico-technological power in a symbolic social drama (Grimes, 1982). We argue that while honor walks claim to honor organ donors, ceremonies cannot primarily honor donors, but can only honor donation itself. Honor walks promote the quasi-religious idea of donation (...) as a “good death,” and mask the ambiguity and discomfort inherent in organ donation to promote greater acceptance by the medical community. While some goods may be achieved through honor walks, particularly for donor families, it is still important to examine the negative work done by this practice. (shrink)

In six compelling chapters, this book recounts conversations that discuss what is ethical, why it does not occur more often, and how can we improve ethical conduct in our personal and public lives. The conversations include Knowing Ethical Principles, Learning How to Apply Principles in Practice, Moral Reminders, Accountability for Conduct, Addressing Structural Problems, and Ethical Vigilance. Major ethical perspectives are discussed in conversational format, as are fascinating ethical dilemmas taken from actual cases to evaluate and improve our ability to (...) identify ethical principles and make decisions that reflect concerns beyond self-interest. (shrink)

Rigidity does interesting philosophical work, with important consequences felt throughout metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and so on. The authors’ aim in this article is to show that rigidity has yet another role to play, with surprising consequences for the problem of free will and determinism, for the phenomenon of rigidity has the upshot that some metaphysically necessary truths are up to us. The significance of this claim is shown in the context of influential arguments against free will. The authors (...) show that some virtually indisputable inference rules employed in formulations of the Consequence Argument, as well as in fatalistic arguments, fail with a variety of counter-examples. Along the way, the authors compare the present arguments to other, similar arguments made in recent years. (shrink)

Es wird gezeigt, dass Wittgenstein in seiner Frühphilosophie ein nicht-axiomatisches Beweisverständnis entwickelt, für das sich das Problem der Begründung der Axiome nicht stellt. Nach Wittgensteins Beweisverständnis besteht der Beweis einer formalen Eigenschaft einer Formel – z.B. der logischen Wahrheit einer prädikatenlogischen Formel oder der Gleichheit zweier arithmetischer Ausdrücke – in der Transformation der Formel in eine andere Notation, an deren Eigenschaften sich entscheiden lässt, ob die zu beweisende formale Eigenschaft besteht oder nicht besteht. Dieses Verständnis grenzt Wittgenstein gegenüber einem axiomatischen (...) Beweisverständnis ab. Sein Beweisverständnis bedingt ein Programm der Grundlegung der Mathematik, das eine Alternative zu den Ansätzen des Logizismus, Formalismus und Konstruktivismus darstellt. Wittgensteins Ansatz steht im Widerspruch zu den Ergebnissen der Metamathematik, da er die Möglichkeit der Formulierung von Entscheidungsverfahren in der Prädikatenlogik und Arithmetik voraussetzt. Um seinem Ansatz gegenüber der traditionellen Metamathematik Recht zu geben, müsste gezeigt werden, dass sein Beweisverständnis im Bereich der Logik und Arithmetik – der traditionellen Metamathematik zum Trotz – realisierbar ist. (shrink)

Normativity and the Will collects fourteen important papers on moral psychology and practical reason by R. Jay Wallace, one of the leading philosophers currently working in these areas.The papers explore the interpenetration of normative and psychological issues in a series of debates that lie at the heart of moral philosophy. Part I, Reason, Desire, and the Will, discusses the nexus linking normativity to motivation, including the relations between desire and reasons, the role of normative considerations in explanations of action, and (...) the normative commitments involved in willing an end. Part II, Responsibility, Identification, and Emotion, looks at questions about the rational capacities presupposed by accountable agency and the psychic factors that both inhibit and enable identification with what we do. It includes an interpretation of the Nietzschean claim that ressentiment is among the sources of modern moral consciousness. Part III, Morality and Other Normative Domains, addresses the structure of moral reasons and moral motivation, and the relations between moral demands and other normative domains. Wallace's treatments of these topics are at once sophisticated and engaging. Taken together, they constitute an advertisement for a distinctive way of pursuing issues in moral psychology and the theory of practical reason. The book articulates and defends a unified framework for thinking about those issues, while offering sustained critical discussions of other influential approaches. It should be of interest to every serious student of moral philosophy. (shrink)