Value Theory, Miscellaneous

본 논문은 에드문트 후설의 전기 윤리학과 후기 윤리학의 변모를 살펴보며, 특히 후기 윤리학을 특징짓는 사랑가치의 본능적 지향성에 주목한다. 이러한 과정에서 본 논문은 ‘본능과 충동’이 후설의 전기 윤리학에서와는 달리 후기 윤리학에서 그 윤리적 규범성을 부여 받게 되는 근본적인 이유를 추적하며, 그를 후설 그 자신의 지향성 개념에 대한 이해의 심화에서 찾고자 한다. 이를 통해 후설에게서 본능적 지향성은 초월론적 대상구성 그 자체를 가능하게 하는 초월론적 조건으로서 여타의 감각적인 충동들과 구별된다는 점이 밝혀진다. 또한 본능적 지향성은 그러한 구성작업에 의해 가능해지는 습성적 삶의 전개 양상을 규제하는 (...) 목적성으로 기능한다는 점에서, 인간의 능동적인 실천적 삶의 궁극적 목적인 행복의 이념을 제시한다. 그럼으로써 본능의 충족은 실천적 참인 행복한 삶의 필요조건으로서 드러난다. (shrink)

Work has always been a significant source of ethical questions, philosophical reflection, and political struggle. Although the future of work in a sense is always at stake, the issue is particularly relevant right now, in light of the advent of advanced AI systems and the collective experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has reinvigorated philosophical discussion and interest in the study of the future of work. The purpose of this survey article is to provide an overview of the emerging philosophical (...) field that engages with the future of work, with a special focus on equality and justice, and to outline a research agenda that can help the field to develop further. Section 2 provides some historical context for the current surge in interest in the topic. Then, we discuss what work is and whether there is a philosophy of work (Section 3). The four main sub-debates we then turn to concern the value of work (Section 4), distributive justice and work (Section 5), productive justice (Section 6), and institutional reforms prompted by changes in how work is organized (Section 7). The final section discusses the importance of the distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory in philosophical investigations into the future of work. (shrink)

Upon introspection, we judge that suffering feels bad. I argue there is no appearance-reality gap when it comes to introspective judgments about simple, intrinsic, nonrepresentational phenomenal states like itches, tingling, and suffering's feeling bad. On constitutivism about phenomenal introspection, there is no appearance-reality gap here because these judgments are literally constituted by the phenomenal states they are about. As a result, we are directly acquainted with the intrinsic properties of experience in having these judgments. Reflecting on our direct acquaintance with (...) intrinsic badness, we can know that our suffering instantiates this judgment-independent evaluative property. (shrink)

Dĩ nhiên ngàn đời xưa nay cây vẫn như vậy. Nhưng cái sự quen thuộc ngàn đời vẫn có nhiều thứ có thể làm người quan sát thấy thú vị, đáng học hỏi và hiểu thêm ra vài điều giá trị.

Politics never became a central intellectual interest of Murdoch’s, but she produced one important and visionary political essay in the ‘50’s, several popular writings on political matters, and a significant chapter in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals that echoes throughout that book. In the 1958 “House of Theory,” she sees the welfare state as having almost entirely failed to address the deeper problems of capitalist society, including a failure to create the conditions for values she saw as central to (...) the socialist tradition—equality, absence of exploitation, meaningful work, and a sense of community. In Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, Murdoch abandons the idea that moral ideals provide a guide to constructing a good society. She retains from her earlier work that the individual-moral domain is governed by perfectionism, but society cannot be. ‘Society must be thought of as a bad job to be made the best of’, for example, through the liberal idea of rights. Murdoch had a lifelong engagement with Marxism as a philosophy, introduced to her as a member of the Communist Party in the late ‘30’s and ‘40’s, and continuing through her subsequent long Labour period, and even when she moved to the Right in the Thatcher era. Marx and Marxism were always part of her mental universe, and she continued to work out what she agreed and disagreed with in it. (shrink)

We can evaluate laws as better or worse relative to different normative standards. One might lament the fact that a law violates human rights or, in a different register, marvel at its ease of application. A question in legal philosophy is whether some standards for evaluating laws are fixed by—or grounded in—the very nature of law. I take Raz’s discussion of the distinctively legal virtues, those that fall under the rubric of the “Rule of Law” such as clarity, generality, and (...) non-retroactivity, as my starting point for exploring a very general puzzle about the relationship between law’s essence and its virtue. -/- The claim that there are some virtues that laws have qua laws invites a comparison between law and other “goodness-fixing kinds.” A kind is goodness-fixing if what it is to be a member of the kind fixes a standard for evaluating instances as better or worse. For example, if an object belongs to the kind CLOCK, whether it keeps time accurately provides a basis for evaluating it as better or worse as a clock. Furthermore, the relevant normative fact—if a clock does not keep time accurately, it is a bad clock—is at least partly explainable in terms of the nature of clocks (clocks are things that are supposed to be keep time accurately). Hence, for any goodness-fixing kind, K, that sets a standard, S, for evaluating Ks as Ks, we can ask: (1) How does the nature of Ks explain S? (2) Does being a K depend on meeting a minimum threshold of S-relative goodness? In the case of law and its constitutive standard defined by the Rule-of-Law virtues, these questions lack settled answers. Although Raz offers some discussion, I argue that his answers have the surprising upshot of rendering law sui generis relative to other goodness-fixing kinds, and that preserving continuity with other goodness-fixing kinds involves revising the general picture. (shrink)

This thesis is concerned with a relaxed form of normative realism. Relaxed realists accept the existence of mind-independent normative truths, properties, and facts, but argue that normative truths do not have truthmakers and that normative properties and facts are not metaphysically robust. The thesis develops relaxed realism by responding to various objections and challenges. The first paper argues that relaxed realists can answer questions about normative language without their theory collapsing into one of the familiar theories in the literature or (...) becoming implausible. More specifically, contrary to Michael Ridge (2019), it argues that relaxed realists can embrace an inferentialist account of normative terms without their theory collapsing into naturalism or quasi-realism. The second paper offers an account of normative belief specifically designed for relaxed realists. It argues that relaxed realists can explain normative belief through a functionalist theory of mind. This proposal not only provides relaxed realists with an explicit explanation of normative belief but also distinguishes it from related theories, notably quasi-realist theories. In doing so, it addresses a previously unresolved dilemma raised by Ridge (2019) and Böddeling (2020) concerning the relaxed realist’s view of normative belief. The third paper clarifies and defends relaxed realism. It justifies the claim that normative truths do not have truthmakers by arguing that these truths are true not because of the existence of truthmaking entities but simply because of the way things are normatively. The fourth paper examines the kind of relaxed realist theory that Scanlon (2014) defends within a “domain-centered view” of existence and truth. The article highlights how this view makes relaxed realism more viable by defending it against objections based on substantive domain-independent ideas, such as the idea that all (synthetic) truths must have truthmakers. Additionally, it presents a distinct argument, different from the one presented in the third paper, to justify the claim that normative truths do not have truthmakers. (shrink)

In Plato’s Philebus, Socrates’ second account of ‘false’ pleasure (41d-42c) outlines a form of illusion: pleasures that appear greater than they are. I argue that these pleasures are perceptual misrepresentations. I then show that they are the grounds for a methodological critique of hedonism. Socrates identifies hedonism as a judgment about the value of pleasure based on a perceptual misrepresentation of size, witnessed paradigmatically in the ‘greatest pleasures’.

Justin Garson introduces the distinction between two views on Madness we encounter again and again throughout history: Madness as dysfunction, and Madness as strategy. On the latter view, Madness serves some purpose for the person experiencing it, even if it’s simultaneously harmful. The strategy view makes intelligible why Madness often holds a certain allure – even when it’s prima facie terrifying. Moreover, if Madness is a strategy in Garson’s metaphorical sense – if it serves a purpose – it makes sense (...) to use consciously chosen strategies for living with Madness that doesn’t necessarily aim to annihilate or repress it as far as possible. In this paper, we use our own respective stories as case studies. We have both struggled to resist the allure of Madness, and both ended up embracing a kind of Pyrrhonian scepticism about reality instead of clinging to sane reality. (shrink)

This paper seeks critically to elucidate Hume’s views on pleasure and the good, in particular his evaluative hedonism, and to show that evaluative hedonism is in certain respects at least as significant a component of his philosophical ethics as sentimentalism. The first section explains his notion of pleasure, and how it is, in an important sense, prior to desire. The following two sections show how this conception of pleasure and its relation to desire leads Hume to accept evaluative hedonism, as (...) well as a form of psychological hedonism, and to give pleasure a key role in his metaethics. The paper ends, as do both the Treatise and the second Enquiry, with the distinction—a false one, according to Hume—between virtues and natural abilities, and an attempt to bring out the implicit challenge Hume is making to non-hedonist accounts of value, especially those that postulate “moral” value. (shrink)

Iritări cotidiene -- Actualităţi, inactualităţi -- Mici exerciţii de memorie -- Despre patosul real al interogaţiei religioase -- Neliniști (politice) -- Bazarul naţional -- Privitor ca la teatru -- Unele perplexităţi.

This book looks at the core life concepts and shared values that historically and culturally define the quality of "being Japanese." Among these are reverence, love of nature, group loyalty, hierarchical respect, passion for detail, belief in learning, formality, and acceptance of change. How can Western analogues of these Japanese virtues help us improve our own societies and cultivate inner strength, mindfulness, and long-lasting relationships at home and the workplace? This stimulating exploration of an alternative ethics and humanism is a (...) provocative workbook for "decluttering the spirit. (shrink)

Challenges, possibilities, and opportunitie for re-founding the tradition of philosophical personalism today.

A critical note on Paul Guyer’s A Philosopher Looks at Architecture (2021). In his book, Paul Guyer proposes that the Vitruvian triad of venustas, utilitas, and firmitas represents central goals and normative values of architecture – ideals that architects should realize and success criteria regarding their realization – that persist through time, place, cultural settings, and other contextual parameters. Indeed, the triad presents sufficiently abstract goals that many disparate views in architectural theory may be subsumed under the triad as distinctive (...) ways of explaining how architecture may be beautiful, functional, or structurally sound. These are significant thematic values by which we experience and judge architecture (as are also useful in gauging other human pursuits), and which architects draw on in their creative acts. There is much to recommend this broad picture of the triad as architectural ideals. That said, I suggest two difficulties for Guyer’s claim as to the centrality of these values, relative to architectural success regardless of Vitruvian goal-satisfaction; and to non-persistence across architectural cultures. (shrink)

The etiological account of teleological function is beset by several difficulties, which I propose to solve by grafting onto the etiological theory a subordinated goal-contribution clause. This approach enables us to ascribe neither too many teleofunctions nor too few; to give a unitary, one-clause analysis that works just as well for teleological functions derived from Darwinian evolution, as for those derived from human intention; and finally, to save the etiological theory from falsification, by explaining how, in spite of appearances, the (...) theory can allow for evolutionary function loss. (shrink)

After 50 years of debate, the ethics of aggregation has reached a curious stalemate, with both sides arguing that only their theory treats people as equals. I argue that, on the issue of equality, both sides are wrong. From the premise that “each counts for one,” we cannot derive the conclusion that “more count for more”—or its negation. The familiar arguments from equality to aggregation presuppose more than equality: the Kamm/Scanlon “Balancing Argument” rests on what social choice theorists call “(Positive) (...) Responsiveness,” Kamm’s “Aggregation Argument” assumes that “equal” lives are fungible, and Hsieh et al. have it that spreading goods broadly best approximates equality. In each case, the crucial premise is not equality itself but a further idea that Taurek, I argue, can safely reject. I conclude with a conjecture: there is no theory-neutral argument that settles the question of whether the numbers count. (shrink)

This article is concerned with a puzzle that arises from three initially plausible assumptions that form an inconsistent triad: (1) Epistemic reasons are normative reasons (normativism); (2) reasons are normative only if conformity with them is good (the reasons/value-link); (3) conformity with epistemic reasons need not be good (the nihilist assumption). I start by defending the reasons/value-link, arguing that normativists need to reject the nihilist assumption. I then argue that the most familiar view that denies the nihilist assumption – epistemic (...) teleology – is untenable. Finally, I consider two alternative ways of accounting for the goodness of conformity with epistemic reasons: it may be good because it accords with the virtue of reasons-responsiveness, and it may be good because it is good to conform with normative reasons as such. I argue that both of these conceptions avoid the problems of epistemic teleology and merit serious consideration as potential solutions to the puzzle. (shrink)

Pareto principles are at the core of ethics and decision theory. The Strong Pareto principle says that if one thing is better than another for someone and at least as good for everyone else, then the one is overall better than the other. But a host of famous figures express it differently, with ‘not worse’ in place of ‘at least as good.’ In the presence of parity (or incommensurability), this results in a strictly stronger Pareto principle, which I call Super‐Strong (...) Pareto. Super‐Strong Pareto, however, yields cyclic betterness and is therefore false. I point out a number of influential arguments—concerning population ethics, collective action problems, and decision‐making in the face of parity and uncertainty—that crucially rely on Super‐Strong Pareto and are therefore unsound. I then turn to the most influential argument against the possibility of parity—Broome's collapsing argument—and argue that it likewise relies on Super‐Strong Pareto reasoning and is therefore question‐begging. Finally, I turn to the much‐neglected question of how to justify Strong Pareto. The answer I arrive at, which emphasizes tie‐breaking, yields a striking insight, namely that Super‐Strong Pareto amounts to the denial of insensitivity to mild sweetening. That is what makes it problematic in the presence of parity. (shrink)

What sense could it make to describe your life as ‘unlivable’? What is it not only to be alive but to have a life that you live or lead? I answer by developing a social understanding of the pursuit of meaning in life. True to other uses of ‘meaning,’ I propose, meaning in a life is communicative. If you experience your life as ‘unlivable,’ recovery can lie in this communicative dynamic: you regain the experience of leading your life by letting (...) others remind you of meanings you have communicated to them in leading it. My argument develops an analogy between two dimensions in which you project an investment – a care, concern, love, or the like – when you form an intention or plan. Intrapersonally, you project your investment as communicatively intelligible to your own future self at ‘plan’s end.’ Interpersonally, you project it as communicatively intelligible to others who might come to love this thing that you love simply because you love it, as an expression of love for you. The normativity of meaning in your life puts rational pressure on you not only to abandon investments that you cannot communicate but to experience the meaning in investments that you retain. (shrink)

This paper sketches an emotion-aware model of environmental ethics education. The proposal draws on insights from feminists scholars, moral sentimentalism, as well as work in the pedagogy of discomfort traditions. It identifies and defends four core elements of climate change ethic, noting how they shed new light on the aims and challenges of environmental ethics education.

Frank Mathwig prägt die theologische Ethik in der Schweiz seit vielen Jahren mit. Pointiert und diskussionsfreudig bringt er die reformierte kirchliche Stimme in die öffentliche Debatte ein: in den Medien, in wissenschaftlichen Texten, in der akademischen Lehre und als Mitglied nationaler Gremien und politischer Kommissionen. In der Festgabe für Frank Mathwig sind publizierte und unveröffentlichte Beiträge aus seinem vielfältigen Schaffen versammelt. Neben grundsätzlichen Reflexionen zur theologischen Ethik und zum Verhältnis von Kirche und theologischer Ethik sind Texte zu aktuellen Themen wie (...) assistierter Suizid, Migration, Menschenrechte, Ehe und Familie und Grund- und Anwendungsfragen der Bioethik im Band enthalten. (shrink)

Charlotte Witt covers a remarkable amount of ground in this concise and elegantly written book. Coming in at under 150 pages, she artfully weaves together Aristotle’s theory of functions with contemporary work on cultural transmission and apprenticeship, ideas about self-creation with theories of aspiration and transformative experience, and reflections on the relationships among social norms and games with thoughts about social roles and the nature of hierarchy. At the heart of it is an elaboration and defense of a thoroughly externalist (...) account of social normativity. Witt takes skilled experts, especially artisans like chefs and carpenters, as paradigm cases for theorizing about social normativity. She uses them to argue that the ultimate source of many normative obligations is found not in the acquiescence, attitudes, or any other features internal to those on whom those obligations fall. Rather, the demands are rooted in the world itself, and flow from specific circumstances, especially from the constraints those circumstances impose on different actors in virtue of the tasks they need to perform. The result is a view that depicts social normativity not just as external to individuals but also unavoidably role specific; what is right for a chef is not necessarily right for a carpenter, and what makes for a good nurse might make for a poor drill sergeant. Witt’s presentation of this package of ideas is both careful and austere, and it makes for a wonderfully thought provoking read. Social Goodness: On the Ontology of Social Norms will reward the careful attention of anyone interested in social ontology, especially the metaphysical foundations of normativity, the nature of social norms, and the relationship between social roles and the self. (shrink)

How does good combine with bad? Most creatures are neither so blessed as to only enjoy good nor so cursed as to only suffer bad. Rather, the good and bad they receive throughout their lives combine to produce their overall quality of life. But it’s not just whole lives that have combined good and bad. Many stretches within contain both positive and negative occurrences whose value is joined to form the overall quality of that span of time. In a single (...) morning someone might wake up, brush their teeth, stub their toe groggily lumbering down the stairs, and have a sip of coffee that’s tasty but so hot they burn their tongue. These events are good and bad for them to various degrees, and their value comes together to form an overall value for them of that morning. A single moment, even, can have combined value from distinct pockets of good and bad that occur simultaneously. The tastiness of the coffee is good, but the pain of the heat is bad. They combine to form an overall value of the sipping moment – negative if the pain outweighed the flavor. Thus, wellbeing and illbeing combine. But how? How can someone rightly chastise themselves for sipping the overly hot coffee when it was, in fact, good because it was tasty? To pose the question starkly, a life can be bad, even so bad to not be worth living, and yet it can have many instances of good, where these goods are, in themselves, pure of any negativity. But how can good make something bad? (shrink)

現代における重要テーマをめぐって重ねてきた言葉たちを結晶化した対談集。対談者:戸谷洋志、小松原織香、山口尚、永井玲衣.

Employers sometimes use personality tests in hiring or specifically look for candidates with certain personality traits such as being social, outgoing, active, and extraverted. Therefore, they hire based on personality, specifically extraversion in part at least. The question arises whether this practice is morally permissible. We argue that, in a range of cases, it is not. The common belief is that, generally, it is not permissible to hire based on sex or race, and the wrongness of such hiring practices is (...) based on two widely accepted principles: the Relevance Principle and the Fairness Principle. The Relevance Principle states that hiring should be based on what is relevant to job performance, while the Fairness Principle states that hiring should be based on features that individuals can control. Since hiring based on sex or race violates these principles, it is wrong. However, we argue that, in a range of cases, hiring based on extraversion also violates these principles, and assuming the validity of the Relevance and the Fairness Principles, it follows that personality discrimination is morally wrong in those cases. (shrink)

In this first systematic reconstruction of the concept of human flourishing, Eri Mountbatten-O'Malley addresses the central problems with the treatment of the concept in psychology, education, policy and science. He develops a sophisticated methodology of conceptual analysis and makes the case for paying closer attention to complex human contexts, purposes and uses. Re-humanizing current research on the concept that is technicalized and detached from ordinary uses, this volume takes the 'human' in conceptions of human flourishing seriously.

This Element provides an exploration of antinatalism, the view that assigns a negative value to reproduction. It includes the history of Western philosophy, an analysis of the concept of antinatalism, and outlines a normative view defending antinatalism.

Throughout the text of the _Han Feizi_, we see opposition to traditional (and often Confucian) perspectives on a wide range of state activities, both internally and externally. This antipathy towards the traditional morally-based criteria for justifying state actions extends to the questions of when, how, and if to wage war. In what we may today think of as reasoning akin to Western conceptions of political realism, Han Fei argues that considerations of morality have no place, either in questions of war (...) and peace or, indeed, in broader questions of politics more generally. This is not, though, to say that Han Fei is uninterested in broader questions of when ware and peace are justified. However, such justifications are based not to be justified by appeal to moral concerns. Rather, the fundamental question to be answered is how the strength, security, and flourishing of the state would be affected by warfare. By viewing questions of war and peace from the perspective of state consequentialism, Han Fei believes that we can ascertain the answers to questions not only about when and if to engage in warfare, but also to questions of what particular actions can be justified within the context of war. (shrink)

This collection reconsiders the notion of life and conceptualizes those forms of life which have been excluded from modern philosophy, such as post-Anthropocene life, the life of non-human animals and the life of inorganic objects"-- Provided by publisher.

Dans son choix grec, la philosophie a pensé la vie, mais non pas vivre ; et le religieux, qui prenait en charge la question du vivre, est aujourd'hui en retrait. De là que vivre soit laissé en friche, abandonné au prêche ou bien au truisme ; et que prospèrent le Développement Personnel et le marché du Bonheur vendant vivre comme du ± tout positif?.00Or vivre est paradoxal, s'étendant du vital au vivant. Il est à la fois la condition de toutes (...) les conditions : être en vie ; et l'aspiration de toutes nos aspirations : vivre enfin! Nous sommes en vie, mais nous n'accédons pas pour autant à vivre. Car la vie d'elle-même rabat la vie. De là que nous puissions être nostalgiques de la vie au sein même de la vie - ou que ± la vraie vie est absente?.00Or, c'est à travers cette inanité même de ± la vie? que nous pourrons voir transparaître à l'envers l'inouï de vivre débordant le déjà vécu et l'ouvrant à de l'± in-vécu?, quitte à s'y heurter à de l'invivable ; et, puisque vivre n'est, au fond, qu'ouvrir des possibles, nous pourrons alors rouvrir des possibles dans nos vies, au lieu de les laisser s'étioler.00Car répéter qu'il faut ± cueillir le jour?, ± profiter de la vie?, n'a pas prise sur la vie. Traçons donc plutôt, pour nous y repérer, une carte de ces possibles intensifs entre lesquels décider vivre.00Vivre y reparaît alors dans sa ressource, dans son essor, dans son ± matin?, dégagé de ce qui l'enlisait, au fil des jours, et l'emmurait.00Telle est la ± transparence du matin?, en amont de tous les enseignements de la morale.0F. J. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant gilt zu Recht als einer der wichtigsten Philosophen in der Geschichte der westlichen Philosophie. In dieser Einführung werden – neben einem Seitenblick auf seine Biografie und seinen intellektuellen Werdegang – die bedeutendsten Werke seiner kritischen Periode vorgestellt und anhand ihrer Schlüsselbegriffe erklärt. Außerdem wird Kants Neuansatz in der Philosophie aus einer zentralen Idee verständlich gemacht: der Idee, dass nicht nur das menschliche Handeln, sondern alle leitenden menschlichen Weltbezüge «normativ» strukturiert sind.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1899 Edition.

Do the ethical features of an artwork bear on its aesthetic value? This movie endorses misogyny, that song is a civil rights anthem, the clay constituting this statue was extracted with underpaid labor—are facts like these the proper bases for aesthetic evaluation? I argue that this debate has suffered from a false presupposition: that if the answer is yes (for at least some such ethical features), such considerations feature as pro tanto contributions to an artwork's overall aesthetic value, i.e., as (...) merits or flaws which make something have more or less overall aesthetic value. As the case of ethically laden, aesthetic evaluation makes clear, however, good aesthetic judgement is irreducibly multi-dimensional, e.g., "the movie has an engaging soundtrack, tasteful camera work, and takes a misogynistically prurient perspective on its female lead.'' Such a "non-summative" judgement refuses to reduce those various dimensions of aesthetic value to a single aggregate aesthetic evaluation, like "it's a 6/10" or "it's a pretty good movie!" I defend both the modest claim that such non-summative evaluations are not mistaken and the extremist claim that summative (i.e., unidimensional) aesthetic evaluation is defective by considering other domains of normative assessment in which summing seems inappropriate, notably including evaluations of people's character. (shrink)

In the light of a study of the di erence between political actors and ordinary citizens as language users, and based on three moral arguments (consequence-based, recognition-based, and complicity-based), we propose that democratic representatives have an imperfect duty to use gender-fair-language in their public communication. In the case of members of the executive, such as ministries, prime ministries, and presidents, such an imperfect duty could also be justi ed on democratic grounds. Their choice of using a gender-unfair language, we argue, (...) can cast doubts on the fundamental democratic commitment to respect the agency of all present and future citizens as potential participants in the law-making process. (shrink)

This is a collection of essays on Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinian themes that appeared between 1996 and 2019. It is divided into three parts, with a common trajectory laid out in a substantial introduction. The first part links meaning, necessity and normativity. It defends and modifies Wittgenstein’s claim that the idea of a ‘grammatical rule’ holds the key to understanding linguistic meaning and its connection to necessary propositions. The second part elucidates the connections between meaning, concepts and thought in Wittgenstein and (...) beyond. It shows how he laid the grounds for a sound understanding of four contested issues—radical interpretation, concepts, nonsense and the scope and limits of animal thought. The third part provides a qualified defence of Wittgenstein’s influential yet extremely controversial idea that philosophical problems are conceptual, and thereby rooted in confusions concerning the meanings of and semantic relations between linguistic expressions. Against irrationalist interpretations, Glock demonstrates that Wittgenstein’s method is argumentative rather than therapeutic. The essays reconstruct Wittgenstein’s writings in a way that identifies the often cryptic problems and arguments in his work. This sets them apart from a currently popular trend of therapeutic interpretations, as in the ‘New Wittgenstein’ school. By contrast to other critics of such interpretations, Glock acknowledges that they are to a limited extent warranted by some aspects of Wittgenstein’s work, e.g. concerning the notion of nonsense or what he calls ‘the myth of mere method’. At the same time the essays convincingly criticize these aspects and show that they are not presupposed by the more important lessons that Wittgenstein still has to teach. The collection brings out the abiding relevance of Wittgenstein’s reflections to contemporary debates on central themes such as the importance of normativity, the foundations of meaning and necessity, the nature of concepts, the possibility of animal thought and the proper method of philosophy. (shrink)

I argue against pessimistic readings of the Buddhist tradition on which unawakened beings invariably have lives not worth living due to a preponderance of suffering (duḥkha) over well-being.