Bernard Williams
Summary | Bernard Arthur Owen Williams (1929–2003) was an English philosopher, born in Essex, who studied Classics at Oxford and went on to hold academic posts in Oxford, London, Cambridge, Berkeley, and Oxford again. His work covers an unusually wide range. He was known as a sharp critic of the drive towards theory in moral philosophy, and in particular of what he called ‘the morality system’ as exemplified by Kantianism and utilitarianism. Many of his contributions set the agenda for subsequent debates, including his views on personal identity, the truth-directedness of beliefs, ethical consistency, internalism about reasons, the importance of the emotions to morality, thick concepts, how reflection can destroy knowledge, the possibility of an absolute conception of reality, the relativism of distance, toleration, integrity, moral luck, practical necessity, the importance of shame, the tedium of immortality, the idea of equality, political realism, and the liberalism of fear. Williams advocated a conception of philosophy as a humanistic discipline, arguing that philosophy needed to draw on other human sciences in order to achieve what it set out to achieve, which was to make sense of humanity. His own work includes a study of ethical ideas in Homeric Greece and a genealogy of truthfulness. He also wrote about how philosophy could profit from engagement with its own history, and himself offered readings of the Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Sidgwick, Collingwood, and Wittgenstein. |
Key works | Williams’ most important books are: Morality (1972), a concise introduction to moral philosophy which doubles as an introduction to Williams’ distinctive take on it, and to which he added a preface in 1993; Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry (1978), an influential study of Descartes that also includes some of Williams’ most important epistemological writings; Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), the locus classicus of Williams’ ideas in ethics; Shame and Necessity (1993), a book based on the 1989 Sather Lectures that showcases Williams’ abilities as a Classical scholar and examines what we can learn from comparing our modern ethical ideas with those of the ancient Greek world; and Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (2002), a vindicatory genealogy of truthfulness – and in particular of the twin virtues of truth which Williams labels Accuracy and Sincerity – that also reflects on the genealogical method itself and on the connection of truthfulness to trust, historiography, authenticity, liberal politics, and sense-making. His contribution to Utilitarianism: For and Against (1973) is also among his most influential publications. Many of Williams’ key ideas are only to be found in his articles, however. Three anthologies – Problems of the Self (1973), Moral Luck (1981), and Making Sense of Humanity (1995) – were published during his lifetime. Three more – In the Beginning was the Deed: Realism and Morality in Political Argument (2005), The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy (2006), and Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline (2006) – followed posthumously. The collections On Opera (2006) and Essays and Reviews: 1959–2002 (2014) contain many more occasional pieces that nevertheless also shed light on Williams’ views on such topics as pessimism and why philosophy needs history. |
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- P. F. Strawson (394)
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- Logical Empiricism (590)
- 20th Century Analytic Philosophy, Misc (348)
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