In the history of philosophy, Arthur Schopenhauer’s system appears to bethe first one which is concerned with Christian as well as Buddhist saintsand claims that there is an association between them. In recent research,this association has been the source of many special problems,but it actually has never been discussed in general why this association is so important, or why it was necessary for Schopenhauer to relate to Buddhistor Hinduist as well as to Christian saints. Moreover, this issue seems toreveal other (...) problems which are topics in recent discussion. The paper addresses these problems and argues for a descriptive interpretation of Schopenhauer's concept of the denial of the Will-to-live. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Saying No Will‐to‐Life: Affirmation and Denial A Summary of Schopenhauer's Argument for the Denial of the Will Nietzsche's Projects The Schopenhauerian Basis to Nietzsche's Pessimism Diagnosing Nihilism Diagnosing Asceticism The Appeal of Nietzsche's Values Notes References Further Reading.

ABSTRACT Schopenhauer's argument against suicide has served as a punching bag for many modern-day commentators. Dale Jacquette, Sandra Shapshay, and David Hamlyn all argue that the premises of this argument or its conclusion are inconsistent with Schopenhauer's wider metaphysical and ethical project. This paper defends Schopenhauer from these charges. Along the way, it examines the relations between suicide, death by voluntary starvation, negation of the will, compassion, and Schopenhauer's critiques of cynicism and stoicism. The (...) paper concludes that there may be gaps in Schopenhauer's system, but not where the aforementioned commentators tried to locate them. (shrink)

With its pessimistic vision and bleak message of world-denial, it has often been difficult to know how to engage with Schopenhauer's philosophy. Schopenhauer's arguments have seemed flawed and his doctrines marred by inconsistencies; his very pessimism almost too flamboyant to be believable. Yet a way of redrawing this engagement stands open, Sophia Vasalou argues, if we attend more closely to the visionary power of Schopenhauer's work. The aim of this book is to place the aesthetic character (...) of Schopenhauer's standpoint at the heart of the way we read his philosophy and the way we answer the question: why read Schopenhauer - and how? Approaching his philosophy as an enactment of the sublime with a longer history in the ancient philosophical tradition, Vasalou provides a fresh way of assessing Schopenhauer's relevance in critical terms. This book will be valuable for students and scholars with an interest in post-Kantian philosophy and ancient ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:POMPONAZZI'S CRITIQUE OF AQUCNAS'S ARGUMENTS FOR THE :IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL JOHN L. TRELOAR, S.J. Marquette University Milwaukee, Wisconsin I. lntJroWi.wtion IN 'JiHE COURSE of hls discussion on the immortality of the soul, Pietro Pomponazzi systematically critiques the Pfatonic, Avel'IJ'IOist, and Thomistic positions concerning this perennial problem iin the philosophy of human nature. Pomponiazzi's Tractatrus de irnrmortalitate animae 1 is inteirestin!g from three methodological standpoints: (1) the criteria Pomponazzi (...) uses to ev:aluate the various positions, (2) Pomponazzi 's attempt to redefine the probtlem of immortality in fo:gica;l terms, and (8) his analysis of previous positions. In this Renaissance treatise one finds an excellent example of the infliuence of method on the dev:elopment of an idea. This article wiihl eX'amine and ev:aluate Pomponazzi's analy,s:i.s of Thomas A:quiinas's aJ.'gument for the immortality of the soul showing how Pomponazzi''S irefo:rnnula;bion puts the Thomistic argument in a context completely differoort fmm whait Thomas himself intended. Although this ipaper treats a historical pr01blem, its mai:i.n oibject is to show how the fo:tmulation of phifosophical critema and,questions influences how one handles a topic 1 and 1 The standard Latin text of the Tractatus is: Petrus Pomponatus, Tractatus de immortalitate animae, ed. Gianfranco Morra (Bologna: Nanni and Fiammeghi, 1954). The English translations used in this article are from Ernst Cassirer et al., eds. The Renaissance Philosophy of Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948). A complete translation of the Tractatus by William Henry Hay II, revised by John Herman Randall, Jr., and annotated by Paul Oskar Kristeller, appears on pp. 280-381. 458 454 JOHN L. TRELOAR, S.J, what one says about prewous solutions to a problem. This article, then, studies a rphi1osophica1l methodology as much as it arppraises Pomrponazzi and Aquinas.2 Eady in the Tractatus de immortalitate animae Pomponazzi 'es'tia;bJishes the dual cr1iter:ia for judging the adequacy of au p!i.'evious arguments ]or the immortaJl~ty of the,soul. First, "Leaving aside revefaition and miracles, and remaining entirely within natmal limits," 3 what can be said concerrning the immortality of the soul? Second, "what... was Aristotle's opin~on on the same question "?4 These criteria function as the limiting conditions that determine the adequacy of any argument :for immortality; Pomponazzi employs these criteria riJgm~ously to test whether previious a1rguments are adeqU'ate. Pomponazzi's attempt to l'edefine immo:rtality in strictly 1ogicail terms also influences his critique of pl'evious authoi's :and his own generail condusions. He picks u:p Fieino'.s notion that the human being is of an ambiguous nature, that is, part spirit 1and pa:rt oorpore1 al.5 This, of course, is new neither with Ficino nor with Pomponazzi, for the concept of a twofold nature goes hack at least as ia1· as Plwto. Plomponazzi',s use of 1this concept of a twofold nature, however, is unique. He casts the whole 2 In his book Renaissance Thought and Its Sources (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), Paul Oskar Kristeller says, "Among the many problems and concepts that have occupied the thinkers of the past, and especially those of the Renaissance, the doctrine of immortality seems especially remote from the discussions and concerns of our time" (p. 181). He argues in this essay that, "The problem is still with us, and we may hope that it may yet lead to new answers that are more in accordance with our knowledge and our sensibilities than those transmitted to us by the thinkers of the past, especially those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries" (p. 196). s "Primum scilicet, quid, revelationibus et miraculis semotis, persistendoque pure infra limites naturales, hac in re sentis." Immortalitate, p. 36 (p. 281). All references to the Traatatus de immortalitate animae will appear in this form. The first page reference is to the Latin text and the page number in parentheses is to the English translation cited above. 4 "Alterum vero, quamnam sententiam Aristotelis in eadem materiam fuisse censes." Imrnortalitate, p. 36 (p. 281). 5 See Marsilius Ficino, " Five Questions Concerning the... (shrink)

In a bold series of pronouncements, Arthur Schopenhauer maintains that the Kantian thing-in-itself is Will. The division between the world as Will and representation, with its impressive array of implications, is Schopenhauer's most important and distinctive contribution to metaphysics. To understand what Schopenhauer means by ‘Will’ as opposed to the empirical ‘will’, and his reasons for identifying thing-in-itself with Will, we must look in detail at two related arguments by which Schopenhauer proposes to link (...) these concepts. The arguments appear in the first and second editions of Schopenhauer's masterwork, The World as Will and Representation. The differences between the two versions appear to represent a change in his thinking about the most persuasive way to demonstrate the nature of thing-in-itself. The arguments are reconstructed for the sake of comparison, and critically evaluated in light of a variety of objections. While Schopenhauer's first, analogical, argument is inconclusive, his second argument offers a highly defensible inference identifying thing-in-itself as Will. (shrink)

This paper gives an account of the argument of Schopenhauer's essay On the Freedom of the Human Will, drawing also on his other works. Schopenhauer argues that all human actions are causally necessitated, as are all other events in empirical nature, hence there is no freedom in the sense of liberum arbitrium indifferentiae. However, our sense of responsibility or agency (being the ) is nonetheless unshakeable. To account for this Schopenhauer invokes the Kantian distinction between empirical and (...) intelligible characters. The paper highlights divergences between Schopenhauer and Kant over the intelligible character, which for Schopenhauer can be neither rational nor causal. It raises the questions whether the intelligible character may be redundant to Schopenhauer's position, and whether it can coherently belong to an individual agent, suggesting that for Schopenhauer a more consistent position would have been to deny freedom of will to the individual. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Schopenhauer's Pessimism and the Unconditioned Good MARK MIGOTTI SCHOPENHAUERTOOK PESSIMISMtO be a profound doctrine that had long been accepted by the majority of humanity, albeit usually in the allegorical form given to it by one or another religious creed. Accordingly, he credited himself, not with the discovery of pessimism, but with the provision of a satisfactory philosophical exposition and defense of its claims. It was, he contended, only (...) within the context of his philosophy, animated by the "single thought" that "the world is the self-knowledge of the will,"' that the ultimate significance of pessimism and the arguments demonstrating its inescapability can be brought to light. If, nevertheless, he sometimes appears to protest too much, to defend pessimism as if it were a striking and novel affair, he would have attributed this to the fact that he was, unfortunately, writing in the midst of one of the most naively optimistic cultures known to world history. 2 The philosophical reception of Schopenhauer's pessimism since the publication of The World as Will and Representation in 1818 would, one suspects, have been taken by him as further evidence of modern Western philosophy's optimistic somnambulance. For while other, comparably fundamental aspects of his thought--for example, his theories of action, of the self, and his criticisms of Kant--have received a welcome amount of fruitful, critical attention, his I would like to thank John Atwell, David Schmidtz, Susan Haack, Rudolf Makkreel and, especially,two anonymous referees, for prompting me to make substantial improvements to an earlier draft of this paper. ' Arthur Schopenhauer, Der handschrifllicher Nachlass 1, ed. Arthur Hiibscher (Frankfurt-amMain : Kramer, 1967),462; Manuscript Remains 1, trans. E. F.J. Payne(NewYork: Berg Publishing, 1988), 512. 'See, for example, Arthur Schopenhauer, D/e Welt als Wille und VorsteUung II. In Arthur Schopenhauer. Ziircher Ausgabe, ed. Arthur Hiibscher et. al. (Zurich: DiogenesVerlag, 1977),w 4:721, 732-33; The World as Will and Representation II, trans. E. F. J. Payne(New York: Dover Press, 1969),615, 625-26. Future references to this work willbe made within the text, by the abbreviation WW followed by section number, German edition volume and page number and English translation page number. [643] 644 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER ~995 pessimism has not. Amongst enthusiastic followers it has sometimes been swallowed more or less whole, but from more independent-minded readers it has generally met with disdainful mockery or well-intentioned neglect.3 The aim of this paper is to help rectify' this imbalance. In the first of its four sections, I present an account of Schopenhauerian pessimism that can claim a good measure of textual support, and the essential features of which are found often enough in the secondary literature to warrant calling it the mainstream interpretation.4 In section 2 I show that, as critics have charged, the arguments for pessimism on this interpretation suffer from a pair of fatal ambiguities, and in section 3 I sketch an alternative argument for pessimism, one not so obviously open to the sort of knock-down refutation to which the first argument succumbs. In the paper's final section l explore further the philosophical consequences of this alternative argument for pessimism. 3Gyorg'yLukacs, "Schopenhauer," chapter ~,section 4 of The Destruction of Reason, trans. Peter Palmer (London: Merlin Press, 1979), 19~-243, isthe locusclassicusof an attitude of superior scorn. Bryan Magee, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (Oxford: "the Clarendon Press, 1983), z3-14, D. W. Hamlyn, Schopentmuer (London: Routledge, z98o), *43, Michael Fox, "Schopenhauer on Death, Suicide, and Renunciation." in Schopenhauer: His Philosophical Achievement, ed. Michael Fox (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 198o), ]47-7o, and David Cartwrigh*, "Schopenhauer on Suffering, Death, Guilt, and the Consolation of Metaphysics,"in Schopenhauer: New Essays in Hotwr ofHis 2ooth Birthday, ed. Eric yon der Luft (Lewiston,NY: Edwin Mellen Press, t988), 66, all incline to the viewthat it was temperament, not argument, that drove Schopenhauer to pessimism, while Patrick Gardiner, Schopenhatwr (London: Penguin Books, ]963), does not discuss pessimism by name. Not even Nietzsche, the deepest and most astute of Schopenhauer'scritics,can resistbarbs of the following sort: "Schopenhauer, although a pessimist, in ]act played the flute... (shrink)

The final part of Schopenhauer’s argument in The World as Will and Representation concerns “affirmation and negation of the will”. He argues, with a fervor that borders on the religious, that “negation of the will” is a condition of unique value, the only state that enables “true salvation, redemption from life and from suffering”. Some commentators have asserted without qualification that this condition is his “highest good.” However, Schopenhauer in fact claims that there cannot be a (...) highest good, because 'good' is always relative to sstisfaction of a will, and there is no possible final satisfaction of the will. It is only figuratively the will-lessness is the highest good. The article examines the coherence of Schopenhauer's position. Because of the relation of 'good' to willing, he appears reluctant to call will-lessness 'good' at all, despite rating it a state of superior value. The article suggests that Schopenhauer should either abandon his univocal account of 'good' as related to willing, or accept that things can be good in relation to different kinds of willing, namely egoistic and non-egoistic willing. It is argued that the latter resolution if preferable. (shrink)

In the first Critique, Kant attempts to prove what we can call the "Principle of Intensive Magnitudes," according to which every possible object of experience will possess a determinate "degree" of reality. Curiously, Kant argues for this principle by inferring from a psychological premise about internal sensations (they have intensive magnitudes) to a metaphysical thesis about external objects (they also have intensive magnitudes). Most commentators dismiss the argument as a failure. In this article I give a reconstruction of (...) Kant's argument that attempts to rehabilitate the argument back into his broader transcendental theory of experience. I argue that we can make sense of the argument's central inference by appeal to Kant's theory of empirical intuition and by an analysis of the way in which Kant thinks sensory matter constitutes our most basic representations of objects. (shrink)

(2003). The World as Representation: Schopenhauer's Arguments for Transcendental Idealism. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 57-87.

Cultural history's recent treatments of Sieyès’ political theory have understood his political writings in their convergences with and divergences from Rousseau's political theory. By sketching a thoroughgoing analogy between the ecclesiological arguments in Malebranche's Entretiens sur la Métaphysique et sur la Religion (1688) and the arguments that Sieyès offers on the floor of the National Assembly concerning the nature of representation, I suggest that we should recontextualize Sieyès’ speeches vis-à-vis the broader discourse of the ‘general will,’ which was theological (...) at its root. That is, the arguments Sieyès offers for the sovereignty of the National Assembly, separately and in combination, appear to have been shaped by a malebranchiste ecclesiology that grew out of the particular context of the Jansenist challenge to the Church. This argument has ramifications not just for our understanding of Sieyès and revolutionary political theory but also for what have been called the “religious origins of the French Revolution.” ☆ I am grateful to Bill Sewell, Dale Van Kley, Michael Sonenscher, Chris Brooke, and Sam James, for their careful readings and insightful comments at various stages of this project. More generally, I am thankful for the thoughts of the participants of the Cambridge conference in Political Thought and Intellectual History (March 2010). Finally, I thank the anonymous reviewers of History of European Ideas for their comments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 564-565 [Access article in PDF] Samuel J. Kerstein. Kant's Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 226. Cloth, $60.00. Summed up in a sentence, this book is both a critical examination of Kant's claim to have derived a supreme moral principle and a limited defense of Kant's project that appears to depart (...) significantly from Kant's own approach. Methodologically, a large portion of this book is devoted to analyzing various key concepts and claims about the nature of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason and testing them against "everyday" moral intuitions via numerous examples and counterexamples.Kerstein begins by distinguishing between the tasks of deduction and derivation of a supreme moral principle, whereby a deduction is understood as an argument for the existence of a supreme moral principle, and a derivation simply assumes this conditionally and goes on to argue that a particular principle and no other can claim the title. Kerstein waives the discussion of whether Kant succeeds in giving a deduction and hence satisfactorily refutes moral skepticism. His focus in the book is on the derivation proposed primarily in Groundwork I and II that if there is a supreme moral principle, then it must be that law expressed in his formulations of the Categorical Imperative (hereafter "CI"). Kerstein addresses Bruce Aune's "traditional" reading of Kant's derivation, wherein the argument utterly fails because Kant allegedly infers a relatively substantive command ("Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will to be universal law") from a purely formal, higher order, and hence relatively empty one ("Conform your actions to universal law"). He then devotes a chapter each to two recent, influential defenses of Kant's derivation that seek his argument outside the Groundwork. Kerstein addresses Henry Allison's attempt to rescue the derivation via an account of agency rooted in Kant's notion of transcendental freedom, elaborated in the second Critique. Kerstein rejects Allison's reconstruction on the grounds that it remains too abstract to generate the degree of specificity arrived at in Kant's Groundwork universalization formulation. Chapter Three examines Christine Korsgaard's alternative reconstruction of Kant's argument that focuses on the formulation of humanity ("Act so as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of any other, always as an end and never as a means only"). He rejects her interpretation because, again, the move from the abstract command to conform to universal law to the substantive formulation about humanity as a universally recognizable unconditional good fails. From the former, more abstract claim, he argues, it does not follow that there is a universally recognizable unconditional good, let alone that this good is humanity in itself (and not, say, utility [happiness], or even some intrinsic value unrelated to humanity, both of which Kant rejects as candidates for the unconditionally good).In his own reconstruction, Kerstein dissolves the criticism of the traditional reading of Kant's Groundwork derivation of the formula of universal law by simply denying that Kant [End Page 564] argues directly from the more generic principle to the specific versions of the CI (91ff). Instead he suggests that Kant's argument is less direct, made by way of laying out a set of criteria that any supreme principle must meet, and showing how the CI meets them while no other candidates can. In the second half of the book he takes a painstaking and critical look at a total of eight criteria, each of which Kant holds to be necessary and together are jointly sufficient for establishing the CI as "the supreme norm for the evaluation of the moral permissability and requiredness of an action, but not of its moral value" (165). This statement includes Kerstein's most controversial and interesting reconstructive claim, namely his denial that moral worth attaches only to actions done in accordance with duty as determined by the test... (shrink)

Searle proposes an argument in order to prove the existence of universals and thereby solve the problem of universals: From every meaningful general term P(x) follows a tautology Vx[P(x) v -P(x)], which entails the existence of the corresponding universal P. To be convincing, this argument for existence must be valid, it must presume true premises and it must be free of any informal fallacy. First, the validity of the argument for existence in its non-modal interpretation will (...) be proven with the help of the formal deductive system F. Secondly, it will be shown that a self-contradictory tautology concept is employed, which renders the premises meaningless. Consequently, the inconsistency will be emended through redefinition and the argument's ensuing correctness will be demonstrated. Finally, it will be shown that the argument for existence presupposes the existence of universals in its premise and hence begs the question. (shrink)

My interpretation of the argument, then, fully generalized, is this:To do one's own is to act in such a way as to aim for each having his own.For each to have his own is justice(h) and to act in such a way as to aim for justice(h) is justice(d).Therefore, the having of one's own is justice(h) and the doing of one's own is justice(d).The advantage of this view is that it, unlike that of Vlastos, does not need to supply (...) problematic premisses, such as (S2), in order to render Plato's argument valid. Moreover, I have argued that there is good reason to suppose that a proper reading of Plato's first premiss contains a notion that Vlastos' interpretation had to supply in an additional premiss (S1). One aspect of what I have argued is the correct understanding of Plato's argument does need to be supplied, however, namely, that for one to do one's own one must accomplish one's beneficent aims. Although it is true that Plato only talks of the rulers' aims in the law courts, I think there is good reason to supply the accomplishment condition, for without it, Plato leaves open two possibilities that would embarass his view. First, without this added condition, we could have a case where A did his own with reference to B and C, yet B and C did not have their own as a result of A 's action. Secondly, there could be a case where A did his own, and B and C had their own as a result of A's doing something, yet B and C would not have their own as a result of A's doing his own with reference to B and C.The reason Plato does not consider these problems, I think, is because he would not have considered cases in which his rulers had beneficent aims, but were ineffective in achieving them purposefully. The guarantee of justice in Plato's just state is that it would be administrated by rulers who are both utterly beneficent and utterly efficient. Under these conditions, all will have their own, for all will do their own. This implication, I have argued, is all we need to protect Plato's utopian state from the potential for πλεoνεξία, and it is all we need to provide a valid reading of the argument from 433E6–434A1. (shrink)

Pessimism is, roughly, the view that life is not worth living. In chapter 46 of the second volume of The World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer provides an oft-neglected argument for this view. The argument is that a life is worth living only if it does not contain any uncompensated evils; but since all our lives happen to contain such evils, none of them are worth living. The now standard interpretation of this argument (endorsed by (...) Kuno Fischer and Christopher Janaway) proceeds from the claim that the value—or rather valuelessness—of life’s goods makes compensation impossible. But this interpretation is neither philosophically attractive nor faithful to the text. In this paper, I develop and defend an alternative interpretation (suggested by Wilhelm Windelband and Mark Migotti) according to which it is instead the actual temporal arrangement of life’s goods and evils that makes compensation impossible. (shrink)

Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of the Will bears many striking similarities with Buddhist philosophy. The denial of the Will, which is the only route to salvation and true happiness for Schopenhauer, results in nothing. Schopenhauer also recommends us to face this nothingness squarely, so to speak, and not to flee from it or put it under myths or “meaningless words” such as “Brahma” or “Nirvana.” This is completely different from the Buddhist point of view. The Will, for the (...) Buddhist, is not there from the beginning. Nothing escapes Emptiness, including the Schopenhauerian Will itself. (shrink)

In 1997, Rusmir Mahmutćehajić, one of Bosnia’s leading public intellectuals, was scheduled to lecture on Bosnia at Stanford University but was unexpectedly denied an entry visa by American authorities. This book, first published in Bosnia in 1998, is an expanded version of that lecture. It is an indictment of the partition of Bosnia, formalized in 1995 by the Dayton Accord. It is also a plea for Bosnia’s communities to reject ethnic segregation and restore mutual trust. For the first time, English-speaking (...) readers can hear this important voice of dissent from within Bosnia-Herzegovina. Mahmutćehajić argues for the history and reality of a Bosnia-Herzegovina based upon a model of “unity in diversity.” He shows that ethnic and religious cultures have coexisted in Bosnia for centuries. Partitioning of Bosnia, therefore, should have been unthinkable except that a multi-ethnic, multi-faith Bosnia stood squarely in the way of Croatian and Serbian leaders determined to enact their own nationalist programs. The decisive moment came when the international community accepted the Serb-Croat argument that ancient ethnic hatreds were endemic to Bosnia. At that point, ethnic segregation became not only acceptable but desirable. With the complicity of Western powers, Serbs and Croats proceeded to carve out ethnically cleansed states. Mahmutćehajić examines the reasons why Western liberal democracies have regarded with sympathy the struggles of Serbia and Croatia for national recognition, while viewing Bosnia’s multicultural society with suspicion. As one of Bosnia's former political leaders in the early peace talks, he describes with authority how the parties were often physically aligned during formal talks, with Bosniak negotiators on one side of the table and everybody else—Serb, Croat, and international representatives—on the other. In the end, justice was subverted and the final solution justified on the basis of an intractable “conflict of civilizations." Mahmutćehajić confronts the religious dimension of the Bosnian dilemma with refreshing honesty. As a Bosniak committed to interreligious dialogue, he calls for more than simple toleration among Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians. He remembers that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all share the same deity, and it is this common transcendent perspective that should open the door to the acceptance and celebration of religious diversity. Only in this way will Bosnia reclaim its unique civilization. _The Denial of Bosnia_ has dire implications for the future of a Europe searching for a viable post–Cold War order. Will Europe accept ethnic segregation as a solution to the contradictions of ethnic diversity or find a way to protect and build upon this diversity? Bosnia, though currently divided and shaken to its foundations, could become a model for European progress. The greatest danger is for Bosnia to be declared just another ethnoreligious entity, in this case a “Muslim State” ghettoized inside of Europe. If protected and allowed to develop, however, Bosnia too could find a place in the new European order. (shrink)

In this paper I shall examine creation and annihilation in time rather than solipsism of the moment. The argument will focus upon a difficulty raised by the creationist's qualification of the solipsist's denial of past and future. The solipsist maintains that the words "past" and "future" have no object of reference; hence, statements denying their existence, like such statements as "Fairies do not exist" and "Santa Claus does not exist," convey the idea that there simply are no (...) existents to which the subject terms refer. At no point can we accuse the solipsist of making the absurd claim that some existents do not exist, and yet that is precisely the claim which the creationist makes; for his subject term refers to some existent—something which does exist or did exist—and then he denies the existence of that existent. Indeed, he cannot express himself without granting existence, on the one hand, and denying it, on the other, so that he appears at the very outset to be involved in a contradiction. If the following argument is correct, it will prove that the contradiction is not merely apparent but real, and that the creationist is confronted by it as soon as he says what he wants to say in whatever idiom he chooses to say it. (shrink)

In this paper, I will reconstruct Hume's argument for the ontological (in the sense of rigid existential) independence of simple properties in A Treatise of Human Nature , Book 1 (1739). According to my reconstruction, the main premises of the argument are the real distinctness of every perception of a simple property, Hume's Separability Principle and his Conceivability Principle. In my view, Hume grounds the real distinctness of every perception of a simple property in his atomistic theory (...) of sense perception and his Copy Principle. I will also show why Hume's argument should be seen as relevant nowadays. David Lewis and his followers in metaphysics continue Hume's line of thinking in this respect, which is opposed by power ontologists (Brian Ellis, Stephen Mumford), for example. (shrink)

Schopenhauer’s stance on suicide focuses on the possibility of achieving freedom from suffering through the denial of the individual will-to-life. Ultimately, Schopenhauer argues that suicide fails to achieve this freedom, primarily because it is an act of will that confirms, rather than denies, the will-to-life. Suicide, he argues, is a kind of contradiction in that it involves the individual will’s willfully seeking to exterminate itself as a way of escaping the wretchedness of willing. While Schopenhauer (...) explicitly states that one possesses the individual right to commit suicide in order to attempt to obtain freedom from suffering, and even admits that he can understand why one would attempt to do so, he denies that there is any possibility that this freedom may be actualized. To take one’s life indicates a lack of awareness of the futility of the individual will and the experience of the wholeness and totality of will-in-itself. One has the freedom to destroy oneself, but one’s freedom to free oneself from suffering is an illusion. If one concurs with Schopenhauer that suicide should be understood as a futile escape from the freedom of suffering, one cannot deny the brilliant insights of his argument. His is, one the one hand, a brilliant articulation of the function of suicide—placing the act squarely within what one would intuit as its primary purpose . On the other hand, given Schopenhauer’s philosophical framework, it negates that possibility and precludes consideration of any others. (shrink)

There is a story related concerning Bertrand Russell that makes what I hope is anelegant introduction to the following paper. It is said that as a young man LordRussell, while out for a walk, became, in the course of his meditations, perfectlyconvinced of the validity of the ontological argument for the existence of God.Alas, he did not have a notebook handy and by the time he returned to his studyto write down his discovery found that he had completely lost (...) the train of thoughtwhich had led to so remarkable a conclusion . In the followingpaper I will attempt nothing so grand as the retrieval of Russell‟s lost insight. Iwill however, be attempting a recuperation of another kind. To be brief, I will beasking what the ontological argument meant to its originator, Anselm ofCanterbury, as well as how it might be significant for contemporary discussionsconcerning the so-called “negative theology.” Here I refer in particular to theongoing debate between Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion to which, asMarion himself has recognized, Anselm‟s thought has a vital contribution tomake. (shrink)

The concept of death is of special importance in Schopenhauer''s metaphysics of appearance and Will. Death for Schopenhauer is the aim and purpose of life, that toward which life is directed, and the denial of the individual will to life. Despite his profound pessimism, Schopenhauer vehemently rejects suicide as an unworthy affirmation of the will to life by those who seek to escape rather than seek nondiscursive knowledge of Will in suffering. The only manner of (...) self-destruction Schopenhauer finds philosophically acceptable is the ascetic saint''s death by starvation. Here the individual will to life is so completely mastered as to refuse even the most basic desire for nourishment, and thereby passes into nonexistence in complete renunciation of the individual will. Schopenhauer''s attitude toward suicide nevertheless embodies an inconsistency. If, as Schopenhauer believes, the aim of life is death, and death is an unreal aspect of the world as appearance, then there appears to be no justification why the philosopher should not rush headlong into it - not to affirm the will to life in an abject effort to avoid suffering, but in order to fulfill life''s purpose by ending it for distinctly philosophical reasons immediately upon arriving at an understanding of the appearance-reality distinction. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 564-565 [Access article in PDF] Samuel J. Kerstein. Kant's Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 226. Cloth, $60.00. Summed up in a sentence, this book is both a critical examination of Kant's claim to have derived a supreme moral principle and a limited defense of Kant's project that appears to depart (...) significantly from Kant's own approach. Methodologically, a large portion of this book is devoted to analyzing various key concepts and claims about the nature of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason and testing them against "everyday" moral intuitions via numerous examples and counterexamples.Kerstein begins by distinguishing between the tasks of deduction and derivation of a supreme moral principle, whereby a deduction is understood as an argument for the existence of a supreme moral principle, and a derivation simply assumes this conditionally and goes on to argue that a particular principle and no other can claim the title. Kerstein waives the discussion of whether Kant succeeds in giving a deduction and hence satisfactorily refutes moral skepticism. His focus in the book is on the derivation proposed primarily in Groundwork I and II that if there is a supreme moral principle, then it must be that law expressed in his formulations of the Categorical Imperative (hereafter "CI"). Kerstein addresses Bruce Aune's "traditional" reading of Kant's derivation, wherein the argument utterly fails because Kant allegedly infers a relatively substantive command ("Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will to be universal law") from a purely formal, higher order, and hence relatively empty one ("Conform your actions to universal law"). He then devotes a chapter each to two recent, influential defenses of Kant's derivation that seek his argument outside the Groundwork. Kerstein addresses Henry Allison's attempt to rescue the derivation via an account of agency rooted in Kant's notion of transcendental freedom, elaborated in the second Critique. Kerstein rejects Allison's reconstruction on the grounds that it remains too abstract to generate the degree of specificity arrived at in Kant's Groundwork universalization formulation. Chapter Three examines Christine Korsgaard's alternative reconstruction of Kant's argument that focuses on the formulation of humanity ("Act so as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of any other, always as an end and never as a means only"). He rejects her interpretation because, again, the move from the abstract command to conform to universal law to the substantive formulation about humanity as a universally recognizable unconditional good fails. From the former, more abstract claim, he argues, it does not follow that there is a universally recognizable unconditional good, let alone that this good is humanity in itself (and not, say, utility [happiness], or even some intrinsic value unrelated to humanity, both of which Kant rejects as candidates for the unconditionally good).In his own reconstruction, Kerstein dissolves the criticism of the traditional reading of Kant's Groundwork derivation of the formula of universal law by simply denying that Kant [End Page 564] argues directly from the more generic principle to the specific versions of the CI (91ff). Instead he suggests that Kant's argument is less direct, made by way of laying out a set of criteria that any supreme principle must meet, and showing how the CI meets them while no other candidates can. In the second half of the book he takes a painstaking and critical look at a total of eight criteria, each of which Kant holds to be necessary and together are jointly sufficient for establishing the CI as "the supreme norm for the evaluation of the moral permissability and requiredness of an action, but not of its moral value" (165). This statement includes Kerstein's most controversial and interesting reconstructive claim, namely his denial that moral worth attaches only to actions done in accordance with duty as determined by the test... (shrink)

This paper aims to clarify Schopenhauer’s a priori argument for pessimism and, to an extent, rescue it from standard objections in secondary literature. I argue that if we separate out the various strands of Schopenhauer’s pessimism, we hit upon problems and counterexamples stemming from psychology. For example, instances where striving does not appear to equate to suffering, which puts pressure on the Schopenhauerian claim that human life, qua instantiation of the will, is painful. Schopenhauer’s sensitivity to the complexities (...) of human psychology means that he may be able to stave off such concerns. However, this reveals that true force of Schopenhauer’s argument lies in the manner in which he combines an a priori formulation with empirical observation. I conclude that, though not unproblematic, Schopenhauer’s argument in its most refined forms offers a deep articulation of the human condition, and warrants serious consideration. (shrink)

This paper seeks to illuminate Schopenhauer’s notion of the negation or denial of the will by investigating the figure of the saint within his philosophy. We argue that various discussions in Schop...

Schopenhauer asserts that ‘the will, which is objectified in human life as it is in every appearance, is a striving without aim and without end’. The article rejects some recent readings of this claim, and offers the following positive interpretation: however many specific aims of my specific desires I manage to attain, none is a final aim, in the sense that none terminates my ‘willing as a whole’, none turns me into a non-willing being. To understand Schopenhauer’s claim we (...) must recognize his central contrast between happiness and will-lessness. Happiness is the satisfaction of individual desire, but no act of will that succeeds in satisfying individual desire is the attainment of a final aim, in that none brings about a conscious state in which the subject experiences no more unfulfilled desires. Such a state is the ultimate goal of existence, in Schopenhauer’s view, but happiness does not provide a route along which it can be attained. (shrink)

In The Sources of Normativity, Christine Korsgaard affirms that Enlightenment morality is true: humanity is valuable. To many of us few claims seem more obvious. Yet Enlightenment thinkers such as Kant do not limit themselves to affirming that humanity is valuable. They appeal to reason in an effort to establish it. They try to show that, in some sense, we are rationally compelled to recognize the value of humanity. Korsgaard joins in this effort. She champions the claim that unless we (...) take humanity to be valuable, we condemn ourselves to complete practical skepticism, i.e., to the view that we have no reason to do anything at all.Korsgaard discusses two arguments that, she believes, support this claim. The first she attributes directly to Kant in a series of influential papers on his ethics. The second argument, which she calls a ‘fancy new model’ of the first, she constructs under her own name in The Sources of Normativity. I will defend the view that neither of these arguments succeeds. In doing so, I will not be trying to show that we are mistaken in believing humanity to be valuable. (shrink)

In The Sources of Normativity, Christine Korsgaard affirms that Enlightenment morality is true: humanity is valuable. To many of us few claims seem more obvious. Yet Enlightenment thinkers such as Kant do not limit themselves to affirming that humanity is valuable. They appeal to reason in an effort to establish it. They try to show that, in some sense, we are rationally compelled to recognize the value of humanity. Korsgaard joins in this effort. She champions the claim that unless we (...) take humanity to be valuable, we condemn ourselves to complete practical skepticism, i.e., to the view that we have no reason to do anything at all.Korsgaard discusses two arguments that, she believes, support this claim. The first she attributes directly to Kant in a series of influential papers on his ethics. The second argument, which she calls a ‘fancy new model’ of the first, she constructs under her own name in The Sources of Normativity. I will defend the view that neither of these arguments succeeds. In doing so, I will not be trying to show that we are mistaken in believing humanity to be valuable. (shrink)

Schopenhauer's prize essay On the Freedom of Will is one of the classics of Western philosophy, dealing with the question of free will versus determinism. His treatment of the problem of free will is by no means obsolete, containing penetrating reflections relevant to contemporary discussion. The argument of the essay is clearly and rigorously presented, and reveals many basic features of Schopenhauer's thought. As such, it forms a useful introduction to Schopenhauer's philosophy in (...) general. Equally, the essay can be studied with profit independently of Schopenhauer's metaphysical views. This new edition of the sole English translation of this classic text contains and expanded bibliography, index and preface in which the translator comments on recent scholarship on Schopenhauer. The translator's introduction puts the essay into the context of Schopenhauer's general philosophy and suggests some possible criticisms of his position. (shrink)

Galen Strawson’s Basic Argument is that because self-creation is required to be truly morally responsible and self-creation is impossible, it is impossible to be truly morally responsible for anything. I contend that the Basic Argument is unpersuasive and unsound. First, I argue that the moral luck debate shows that the self-creation requirement appears to be contradicted and supported by various parts of our commonsense ideas about moral responsibility, and that this ambivalence undermines the only reason that Strawson gives (...) for the self-creation requirement. Second, I argue that the self-creation requirement is so demanding that either it is an implausible requirement for a species of true moral responsibility that we take ourselves to have or it is a plausible requirement of a species of true moral responsibility that we have never taken ourselves to have. Third, I explain that Strawson overgeneralizes from instances of constitutive luck that obviously undermine moral responsibility to all kinds of constitutive luck. (shrink)

"I suspect that this will become the book on Schopenhauer's metaphysics for many years to come, and will be required reading for any serious student of Schopenhauer's thought."--David E. Cartwright, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater.

Royce's Argument for the Absolute w.j. MANDER IN 188 5 IN THE PENULTIMATE CHAPTER of his first book, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy, Josiah Royce put forward an argument for Absolute Idealism based on the possibility of error. He considered the argument a most important one and returned to it on numerous occasions after that, slightly recasting it each time,' but never, he later claimed, really leaving it behind. Nor was he alone in his opinion of it; (...) well received by his contemporaries, such as William James, the argument did much to establish the young Royce's reputation. 9 Like the Absolute Idealism which it was designed to support, Royce's once- famous argument is now largely forgotten, yet there is no real justification for this save fashion, for it deals in a fresh and imaginative way with a subject matter still very much discussed in the literature. The purpose of this study is to recon- sider Royce's argument and to assess its validity. I shall examine it in some detail below, but first let me give a very brief summary of Royce's case keeping as close as possible to his own original presentation of it. The argument occurs in the following places, references to which will be abbreviated by the letters in brackets: The Religious Aspect of Philosophy , Chap. XI; The spirit of Modern Philosophy , Ch. XI; "The Implications of self-Consciousness," reprinted in his Studies.. (shrink)

I seek to explicate the ways in which the soul is deemed immaterial in two main strands of Islamic philosophy, and then consider some arguments for the immateriality of the soul. To do so, I first overview Avicenna’s theory of the spiritual incipience (al-ḥudūth al-rūḥānī) of the soul and his version of substance dualism. I will then discuss Mullā Ṣadrā’s view of the physical incipience (al-ḥudūth al-jismānī) of the soul and how the soul emerges and develops towards immateriality on (...) his account. I then overview and discuss five of the most important arguments presented by these two great Muslim philosophers in favor of the immateriality of the soul. To do so, I will also point out some of the main contemporary physicalistic views of the nature of mind and mental states. I will then argue that arguments for the immateriality of the soul – dealt with here – do not indeed target or challenge any significant versions of contemporary physicalism. Moreover, these arguments involve conflations of epistemological or ontological issues. (shrink)

In On Revolution and other writings, Arendt expresses her enthusiasm for the council system, a bottom-up political structure based on local councils that are open to all citizens and so allow them to participate in government. This aspect of her thought has been sharply criticized – ‘a curiously unrealistic commitment’ (Margaret Canovan), ‘a naiveté’ (Albrecht Wellmer) – or, more often, simply ignored. How, her readers generally wonder, could Arendt in all seriousness advocate the council system as an alternative to parliamentary (...) democracy? In this paper, I will pursue two distinct but related aims. First, I want to show that Arendt’s ideal of council politics is an integral element of her thought. It is connected to – indeed, follows from – some of her most central notions, namely her concept of freedom, her valuation of ‘public happiness’ and her distinction between opinion and interest. Second, I want to defend the ideal in the face of the criticisms that have been levelled against it. I seek to show that it is a cogent and pertinent proposition, not ‘a curiously unrealistic commitment’. (shrink)

This dissertation shows how the problem of the will is at the very heart of Heidegger's thought---not only explicitly in his post-turn critique of the technological "will to will" and in his intimations of Nicht-Wollen or Gelassenheit---but in the twistings and turnings of the development of his thought-path as a whole. ;In Chapter 1, in the course of laying out the interpretive terms of the investigation, I also begin with a consideration of the "debate" between the two (...) great 19th century philosophers of the will: Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Chapter 2 interprets the problem of the will in Being and Time as the "unsaid" problematic which the early Heidegger is working through and around. Chapter 3 deals with the turbulent turning through an embrace of the will---most infamously in his call for self-assertion and sacrifice to the Nazi state---in the transitional period of the 1930's. ;Chapters 4 and 6 examine many of the major themes of the later Heidegger's thought in light of this problematic---the former explicating his critique of the rise of the will through the history of metaphysics which culminates in the extreme epoch of the technological will to will, and the latter interpreting his many compelling intimations of non-willing ways of dwelling, letting things be, poetic creation, and thoughtful co-respondence to Being. Chapter 5 considers the complexities of the transition from the will to non-willing, focussing in particular on the enigmatic question of how to "will non-willing." ;Chapter 7 doubles back to turn the light of Heidegger's critique of the will back on those moments or aspects of his later thought which retain "residues of will." Chapter 8 then attempts to carry forward a critical appreciation for Heidegger's---and now our own---way of maintaining the problem of the will and the possibility of non-willing. (shrink)

There are certain metaphysical theories which present a view of the world and of the position of human-beings within it which have seemed attractive or at least impressive to many irrespective of the arguments that are marshalled in their favour. That is certainly true of Schopenhauer. His identification of the inner nature of reality with the will, and the conclusions which he drew from this as regards the nature of human-beings and their place in the world, have seemed striking (...) and perhaps even illuminating to many thinkers, not all of whom have been philosophers in the most obvious sense and not all of whom have had much concern for the underlying argument that led Schopenhauer to his conclusions. It is in this way too, perhaps, that certain of Schopenhauer's ideas have become well known—his emphasis on the will to live, his pessimism and his views on suicide, and his thoughts about human nature and about sex that have been seen as something of an anticipation of Freud. In recent times attention has also been directed to his influence on Wittgenstein. In all these respects, however, it is Schopenhauer's ideas that have been influential, rather than the argument that underlies them. Indeed it is sometimes said that Schopenhauer was not a very systematic thinker at all. If that seems true it is so in the sense that Kant too has seemed to some unsystematic in the details of his argument. That does not mean that the main structure of the argument is not clear. So it is with Schopenhauer. (shrink)

Alan Gewirth's _Reason and Morality_, in which he set forth the Principle of Generic Consistency, is a major work of modern ethical theory that, though much debated and highly respected, has yet to gain full acceptance. Deryck Beyleveld contends that this resistance stems from misunderstanding of the method and logical operations of Gewirth's central argument. In this book Beyleveld seeks to remedy this deficiency. His rigorous reconstruction of Gewirth's argument gives its various parts their most compelling formulation and (...) clarifies its essential logical structure. Beyleveld then classifies all the criticisms that Gewirth's argument has received and measures them against his reconstruction of the argument. The overall result is an immensely rich picture of the argument, in which all of its complex issues and key moves are clearly displayed and its validity can finally be discerned. The comprehensiveness of Beyleveld's treatment provides ready access to the entire debate surrounding the foundational argument of _Reason and Morality_. It will be required reading for all who are interested in Gewirth's theory and deontological ethics and will be of central importance to moral and legal theorists. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Schopenhauer and the Nature of Philosophy by Jonathan HeadJudith NormanJonathan Head. Schopenhauer and the Nature of Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2021. Pp. xviii + 183. Hardback, $95.00.It is a bit strange to read an overview of Schopenhauer's philosophy that does not center on the obvious and attention-grabbing idea of will, but Jonathan Head has brought a fresh and welcome perspective to the topic by focusing (...) instead on Schopenhauer's notion of philosophy itself. This perspective enables Head to paint a more sympathetic picture of Schopenhauer than is often the case—more coherent in his systematic pretensions, more consistent in his philosophical project over the long course of his writings, and (perhaps most surprisingly) more solicitous for the welfare of his readers.Head's thesis is that Schopenhauer analyzed ('diagnosed' might be a better word) the human need for metaphysics and constructed his own philosophy carefully to address this need. "The need for metaphysics," Head explains, "is a natural desire that all human beings have for explanation and consolation, in the face of the recognition of pessimistic truths regarding the world we live in" (xiv), specifically recognition of the "wrongness of the world" (51) and "the illusory nature of the principle of individuation" (70). Several quite specific metaphilosophical insights and methods arise from this seemingly straightforward statement. [End Page 528] For one thing, Head points out that explanation and consolation are rather different goals for philosophy, uniting theoretical and practical concerns in a way that might not be expected from a self-declared Kantian. But he argues for this dual functionality by tracing the notion of "better consciousness" from Schopenhauer's earliest writings to its evolution into a "denial of the will," a form of consciousness with directly salvific consequences (interestingly, according to Head, not just for the individual but intergenerationally), now rooted in a metaphysics of will.The second and more philosophically fruitful peculiarity about Schopenhauer's diagnosis of the human "need for metaphysics" is the manner in which it arises from "the recognition of pessimistic truths" (xiv). There is a lot packed into the notion of recognition here. Schopenhauer has a distinctive philosophical method that grounds philosophical thinking in intuitive apprehension of basic truths. And, as Head argues, while this intuition functions as the ground for truth-seeking, it also hampers philosophy as a discursive discipline, since the concepts in which truth claims are presented cannot capture or communicate the unique proximity to truth characteristic of intuition. Thus, philosophical truths cannot be communicated directly, and the function of philosophical texts is to inspire an intuitive insight on the part of the readers so that they are able to see for themselves what the philosophy purports to say. (Stoicism, for instance, is for Schopenhauer an admirable but ultimately limited philosophical perspective in that it develops a system that relies exclusively on reason without promoting a grounding intuition.) Head argues that insight into the basic nature of the will is the intuition that Schopenhauer spins his philosophy around.This has both metaphysical and metaphilosophical implications. As for the former, it means that metaphysics is possible as a discipline, even in the wake of (and while by and large respecting) the limits Kant imposed on epistemology. Metaphysics has an empirical aspect, relying on empirical cognitive sources to provide a worldview for which it provides a key. Head emphasizes the irreducibility of this "objective" perspective, for offering both understanding as well as consolation (namely, knowledge that we have cognitive resources that other creatures do not). But Head argues that Schopenhauer gives primacy to the (compatible and complementary) subjective standpoint, and in particular our (quasi-speculative) intuition into the thing-in-itself via insight into our own basic essence as will. This peek into a nonrepresentational reality provides the reader with a guiding intuition (and the text with a central thought) that has an "inbuilt [implicitly] inferential structure" (72) from which an extraordinarily fruitful set of implications follows for constructing a metaphysics of will.The implications for metaphilosophy are no less interesting, and the central claim of Head's text is that Schopenhauer carefully constructed his central work, The World as Will and Representation, to guide... (shrink)

Agent-causal theories of free will, which rely on a non-reductionist account of the agent, have traditionally been associated with libertarianism. However, some authors have recently argued in favor of compatibilist agent-causal accounts. In this essay, I will show that such accounts cannot avoid serious problems of implausibility or incoherence. A careful analysis of the implications of non-reductionist views of the agent (event-causal or agent-causal as they may be) reveals that such views necessarily imply either the denial of (...) the principle of supervenience or the assumption of bottom-level indeterminism. I will contend that the former alternative comes at a high cost, while the latter is quite plausible. Therefore, providing that they accept the condition of the truth of indeterminism, non-reductionist accounts of the agent do not have to contradict our scientific worldview. Interestingly, while they should be taken seriously by anyone who is concerned with the passivity of the agent’s role under a reductionist scenario, non-reductivist accounts end up contributing an extra incompatibilist argument to the free will debate. (shrink)

There are certain metaphysical theories which present a view of the world and of the position of human-beings within it which have seemed attractive or at least impressive to many irrespective of the arguments that are marshalled in their favour. That is certainly true of Schopenhauer. His identification of the inner nature of reality with the will, and the conclusions which he drew from this as regards the nature of human-beings and their place in the world, have seemed striking (...) and perhaps even illuminating to many thinkers, not all of whom have been philosophers in the most obvious sense and not all of whom have had much concern for the underlying argument that led Schopenhauer to his conclusions. It is in this way too, perhaps, that certain of Schopenhauer's ideas have become well known—his emphasis on the will to live, his pessimism and his views on suicide, and his thoughts about human nature and about sex that have been seen as something of an anticipation of Freud. In recent times attention has also been directed to his influence on Wittgenstein. In all these respects, however, it is Schopenhauer's ideas that have been influential, rather than the argument that underlies them. Indeed it is sometimes said that Schopenhauer was not a very systematic thinker at all. If that seems true it is so in the sense that Kant too has seemed to some unsystematic in the details of his argument. That does not mean that the main structure of the argument is not clear. So it is with Schopenhauer. (shrink)

Alan Gewirth's Reason and Morality , in which he set forth the Principle of Generic Consistency, is a major work of modern ethical theory that, though much debated and highly respected, has yet to gain full acceptance. Deryck Beyleveld contends that this resistance stems from misunderstanding of the method and logical operations of Gewirth's central argument. In this book Beyleveld seeks to remedy this deficiency. His rigorous reconstruction of Gewirth's argument gives its various parts their most compelling formulation (...) and clarifies its essential logical structure. Beyleveld then classifies all the criticisms that Gewirth's argument has received and measures them against his reconstruction of the argument. The overall result is an immensely rich picture of the argument, in which all of its complex issues and key moves are clearly displayed and its validity can finally be discerned. The comprehensiveness of Beyleveld's treatment provides ready access to the entire debate surrounding the foundational argument of Reason and Morality . It will be required reading for all who are interested in Gewirth's theory and deontological ethics and will be of central importance to moral and legal theorists. (shrink)

Could an object have only mass and no other property? In giving an affirmative answer to this question, Jonathan Schaffer (2003, pp. 136-8) proposes what he calls ‘the subtraction argument’ for ‘the possibility of free mass’. In what follows, we aim to assess the cogency of this argument in comparison with an argument of the same general form which has also been termed a subtraction argument, namely, Thomas Baldwin’s (1996) subtraction argument for metaphysical nihilism, which (...) is the claim that there might have been no concrete objects. The comparison will be instructive because Baldwin’s argument has been the subject of considerable recent debate (of particular relevance for current purposes are Paseau 2002, Authors 2005, and Paseau 2006), and the lesson of this debate seems to be that subtraction arguments, such as Baldwin’s and Schaffer’s, are faced with a dilemma: either they are invalid or they fail to be suasive. We outline how Baldwin’s argument can be reformulated so as to avoid both horns of this dilemma, and we then argue that Schaffer’s argument cannot so avoid the dilemma. (shrink)

The linear sequence specification of a gene product is not provided by the target DNA sequence alone but by the mechanisms of gene expressions. The main actors of these mechanisms, proteins and functional RNAs, relay environmental information to the genome with important consequences to sequence selection and processing. This `postgenomic' reality has implications for our understandings of development not as predetermined by genes but as an epigenetic process. Critics of genetic determinism have long argued that the activity of `genes' and (...) hence their contribution to the phenotype depends on intra- and extraorganismal `environmental' elements. As will be shown here, even the mere physical existence of a `gene' is dependent on its phenotypic context. (shrink)

The winning entry in a competition held by the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences, Schopenhauer's 1839 essay brought its author international recognition. Its brilliant and elegant treatments of free will and determinism elevated it to a classic of Western philosophy, and its penetrating reflections still remain relevant. Schopenhauer makes a distinction between freedom of acting (which he endorses) and the freedom of willing (which he refutes) in a clear and rigorous treatment that reveals many basic features of his (...) philosophy. A useful introduction to Schopenhauer for students of philosophy and religion. (shrink)

The transcendental argument for God’s existence (“TAG”) claims that the existence of the Triune God is a metaphysically necessary precondition for the most basic features of human life and experience. Philosopher Sean Choi has recently argued that TAG is best understood as having the following argument pattern: (1) p, (2) Necessarily, if p, then G (God exists), and therefore (3) G. In this note, I pose a dilemma argument for the proponent of the transcendental argument (understood (...) this way). My hope is that the dilemma argument will spur further development and clarification of exactly what the transcendental argument is. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Self as Will Knowledge as the ‘Quieter of the Will’ Resignation Contemplation Two Conceptions of Contemplation: Diversion and Reflection The Paradox of Reflection References.

I provide a manipulation-style argument against classical compatibilism—the claim that freedom to do otherwise is consistent with determinism. My question is simple: if Diana really gave Ernie free will, why isn't she worried that he won't use it precisely as she would like? Diana's non-nervousness, I argue, indicates Ernie's non-freedom. Arguably, the intuition that Ernie lacks freedom to do otherwise is stronger than the direct intuition that he is simply not responsible; this result highlights the importance of the (...) denial of the principle of alternative possibilities for compatibilist theories of responsibility. Along the way, I clarify the dialectical role and structure of “manipulation arguments”, and compare the manipulation argument I develop with the more familiar Consequence Argument. I contend that the two arguments are importantly mutually supporting and reinforcing. The result: classical compatibilists should be nervous—and if PAP is true, all compatibilists should be nervous. (shrink)

In the preface to this book Stephen Toulmin recalls how Wittgenstein's later work appeared to his English students "as unique and extraordinary as the Tractatus had appeared to Moore." "Meanwhile," he recalls, "for our own part, we struck Wittgenstein as intolerably stupid, and he was sometimes in despair about getting us to grasp what he was talking about." Toulmin suggests that this "mutual incomprehension" was due to a "culture clash: the clash between a Viennese thinker whose whole mind had been (...) formed in a post-Kantian environment, and an audience of students who came to him with attitudes and preoccupations shaped by the neo-Humean empiricism of Moore, Russell and their associates." Engel's book is meant primarily to show that Wittgenstein's thought grows out of the Kantian philosophy, but not that it is simply derived from Kant. Rather, according to Engel, Wittgenstein was the first to see the full value of the insights of Kant and Schopenhauer. Engel bases his argument on the Blue Book. According to Engel the argument of the Blue Book comprehends two divergent theories of the origin of metaphysics. These two theories are represented in Engel's book by Ayer and Lazerowitz. For Ayer metaphysics is grounded in the inherently deceptive character of language; and the way to overcome metaphysics is but to be attentive to language. Lazerowitz, on the other hand, attempts to explain why it is that language is deceptive. Lazerowitz's argument as presented by Engel requires as a premise the proposition that the deceptions of language are not that intrinsically difficult to see through, or that metaphysical arguments are obviously "innovations." And therefore the origin of metaphysics must be sought outside of the structure of language. Lazerowitz locates the root of metaphysics in the passions, specifically, in fear--in the fear of change which is ultimately the fear of death. Engel sees each of these positions as in its way legitimate but essentially partial. Wittgenstein's thought is thus more profound than that which is derived from it. It is precisely this awareness of the necessity for both kinds of explanation that Wittgenstein, according to Engel, inherited from the tradition of Kantian metaphysics: in the first Critique's seeking both to account for the impossibility of metaphysics while, at the same time, arguing for the necessity of metaphysics as a natural disposition or arguing for the necessity of a "will to metaphysics." While Engel's argument is not as clear or thorough as it ought to be, his thesis, that Wittgenstein's work is not simply a "repudiation of our philosophical tradition, but rather is its proper twentieth-century continuation," is--in the main--convincing. The book is worth reading.--J. W. S. (shrink)

There are different Bayesian measures to calculate the degree of confirmation of a hypothesis H in respect of a particular piece of evidence E. Zalabardo (Analysis 69:630–635, 2009) is a recent attempt to defend the likelihood-ratio measure (LR) against the probability-ratio measure (PR). The main disagreement between LR and PR concerns their sensitivity to prior probabilities. Zalabardo invokes intuitive plausibility as the appropriate criterion for choosing between them. Furthermore, he claims that it favours the ordering of pairs evidence/hypothesis generated by (...) LR. We will argue, however, that the intuitive non-numerical example provided by Zalabardo does not show that prior probabilities do not affect the degree of confirmation. On account of this, we conclude that there is no compelling reason to endorse LR qua measure of degree of confirmation. On the other side, we should not forget some technicalities which still benefit PR. (shrink)