John Stuart Mill’s “liberty of thought and discussion” is both broader and narrower than some current understandings of free speech. On the one hand, Mill is not concerned only with state censorship: he argues against all attempts, official or otherwise, to restrict the range of opinion and public discussion. On the other hand, he seeks to defend uninhibited discussion of general topics, such as those to do with science, morality, religion, and politics. Thus, he opposes a social environment (...) of orthodoxies and heresies, but he does not defend defamatory falsehoods or incitements to violence. Mill’s approach is subtle and philosophically rewarding; it is worth revisiting, updating, and pondering for its implications at a time of contention over free speech issues. (shrink)

"An important contribution to contemporary jurisprudential debate and to legal thought more generally, Just Interpretations is far ahead of currently available work."--Peter Goodrich, author of Oedipus Lex "I was struck repeatedly by the clarity of expression throughout the book. Rosenfeld's description and criticism of the recent work of leading thinkers distinguishes his work within the legal theory genre. Furthermore, his own theory is quite original and provocative."--Aviam Soifer, author of Law and the Company We Keep.

I consider whether Mill intends for us to see the arguments that constitute his defense of the “Liberty of Thought and Discussion” in chapter 2 ofOn Libertyas a part of his larger case for the “harm” or “liberty” principle (LP). Several commentators depict this chapter as a digression that interrupts the flow between his introduction of this principle in the first chapter and his exposition and defense of it in the final three. I will argue instead for (...) a reading ofOn Libertyon which chapter 2 is well integrated with the rest of the essay and is in fact where Mill starts constructing his case for LP. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Liberty of Thought and Expression Autonomy and Individuality Autonomy, Individuality, and Community: The Case of Mormon Polygamy Further Reading.

Human rights theory generally conceptualizes freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief as well as freedom of opinion and expression, as offering absolute protection in what is called the forum internum. At a minimum, this is taken to mean the right to maintain thoughts in one’s own mind, whatever they may be and independently of how others may feel about them. However, if we adopt this stance, it seems to imply that there exists an absolute right to hold (...) psychotic delusions. This article takes the position that this conclusion is ethically problematic from the perspective of psychiatric treatment and the rights of persons with psychosis. The article reflects on this particular challenge and sets forth an understanding of freedom in the forum internum that might apply to situations where for various reasons it is not, necessarily accurate to maintain that persons have an absolute right to their own thoughts. For the purpose of proposing such an understanding, the article engages with current debates within human rights theory and political philosophy and analyzes discussions about psychotic delusions and the way in which involuntary treatment is justified. Based on this analysis, this article in turn conceptualizes freedom in the forum internum as ‘negative liberty’, ‘authenticity’, and ‘capability’. This article suggests that when forum internum is redefined as encompassing a right to certain internal capabilities, the right remains meaningful for persons with psychotic delusions as well. (shrink)

In On the Genesis of Thought and Language, linguist Alexey Koshelev explores fundamental questions of how human concepts arise in a child, why concepts appear in a child before words, the genesis of language, and why there are so many languages. Chapter One introduces the fundamental dichotomy "visual (exogenous) vs. functional (endogenous)" cognitive units; these units are used to give non-verbal definitions of mental representations of various objects, actions, and situations. In particular, definitions of such concepts as GLASS, CHAIR, (...) BANANA, TREE, LAKE, RUN, and some others are given. Chapter Two discusses how children form concepts, hierarchical relationships, and propositions (conceptual 'utterances'). It is shown that the initial units of the child's representation of the world are pre-conceptual cognitive units--mental representations of whole situations. In the course of two consecutive cycles in the child's cognitive development, these units transform into (a) primary notions--object and motor concepts, and (b) binary role relationships. Together, they constitute the elementary language of thought which, in the process of thinking, is used to build conceptual structures--propositions. It is further demonstrated that, immediately after the formation of thought, the child begins to develop his native language in which concrete and motor concepts become initial meanings of nouns and verbs, while propositions become the meanings of the child's expressions. The chapter concludes with a contrastive analysis of the proposed approach and Aristotle's and Chomsky's views on thought and language. Chapter Three analyzes how a community's culture affects its language. It is demonstrated that the progress of a community, the main constituent of the civilizational component of its culture, enhances the development of the content component of language by extending the range of its lexical and grammatical meanings. In the context of this analysis, Daniel Everett's (2008) hypothesis that culture affects language structure is discussed. In the subsequent sections, models of the development of human and social activity are offered. These models comprise three components: Activity (main component), Thought, and Language (auxiliary components that ensure the successful realization of activities). The models are illustrated with examples of some concrete societies. (shrink)

At its core, this exhilarating collection of essays, interviews, and correspondence spanning the years 1988 through 2018, and reaching back a decade or more previous is about the simple concept that ideas matter. And not only that ideas matter. But that ideas in this case, through the lens of two engaged intellectuals mutate, inform, inspire, and ultimately provide more fuel for thought, the actions that follow such thought, and for carrying on, and doing the work.

Consideration of the German philosophy and political history of the past century might well give the impression, and often does give foreign observers the impression, that liberalism, including in particular commitment to the ideal of free thought and expression, is only skin-deep in Germany. Were not Heidegger's disgust at Gerede (which of course really meant the free speech of the Weimar Republic) and Gadamer's defense of "prejudice" and "tradition" more reflective of the true instincts of German philosophy than, (...) say, the Frankfurt School's heavily Anglophone-influenced championing of free thought and expression? Were not the Kaiser and Nazism more telling of Germany's real political nature than the liberalism of the Weimar Republic (a desperate, ephemeral experiment undertaken in reaction to Germany's disastrous defeat in World War I) or the liberalism of (West) Germany since 1945 (in effect forced on the country by the victorious Allies after World War II)? (shrink)

Comparative political theory is at best an embryonic and marginalized endeavor. As practiced in most Western universities, the study of political theory generally involves a rehearsal of the canon of Western political thought from Plato to Marx. Only rarely are practitioners of political thought willing (and professionally encouraged) to transgress the canon and thereby the cultural boundaries of North America and Europe in the direction of genuine comparative investigation. Border Crossings presents an effort to remedy this situation, fully (...) launching a new era in political theory. Thirteen scholars from around the world examine the various political traditions of West, South, and East Asia and engage in a reflective cross-cultural discussion that belies the assumptions of an Asian "essence" and of an unbridgeable gulf between West and non-West. The denial of essential differences does not, however, amount to an endorsement of essential sameness. As viewed and as practiced by contributors to this ground-breaking volume, comparative political theorizing must steer a course between uniformity and radical separation--this is the path of "border crossings.". (shrink)

Philosophers have tended to dismiss John Stuart Mill’s claim that ‘all silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility’. I argue that Mill’s ‘infallibility claim’ is indeed open to many objections, but that, contrary to the consensus, those objections fail to defeat the anti-authoritarian thesis which lies at its core. I then argue that Mill’s consequentialist case for the liberty of thought and discussion is likewise capable of withstanding some familiar objections. My purpose is to suggest that Mill’s (...) anti-authoritarianism and his faith in thought and discussion, when taken seriously, supply the basis for a ‘public interest’ account of ‘freedom of expression as the liberty of thought and discussion’ which is faithful to Mill in spirit, if not to the precise letter. I outline such an account, which – as I say in conclusion – can serve as a valuable safeguard against ad hoc, reactive legislation, and the demands of a spurious communitarianism. (shrink)

The disenchantment of 1848 -- The pessimistic view -- Science, the new god -- The bourgeois world -- The realism of Flaubert -- Optimistic realism -- Russian realism -- Social realism -- Social realism and socialist realism -- The continuing march of science -- The book of despair -- Life in the raw -- The natural history of morality -- Naturalism and moralism -- Painting: the impressionists -- A critique of naturalism -- Human nature in politics -- The natural history (...) of the soul -- The poet as seer -- The mystery of poetry -- A critique of symbolism -- Against the Grain -- The aesthetic ideal -- The decadence -- Some Wilde epigrams -- The influence of Richard Wagner -- Just before the war. (shrink)

It is often held that people have a moral right to believe and say whatever they want. For instance, one might claim that they have a right to believe racist things as long as they keep those thoughts to themselves. Or, one might claim that they have a right to pursue any philosophical question they want as long as they do so with a civil tone. In this paper I object to those claims and argue that no one has such (...) unlimited moral rights. In Part 1 I explore the value of the freedoms of thought and expression. In Part 2 I argue against the unlimited moral right to free expression, focusing in particular on the special obligations and moral constraints that obtain for academics. In Part 3 I argue against the unlimited moral right to free thought. (shrink)

Philosophers from traditions that are not only entirely different but apparently uninfluenced by each other sometimes show remarkable similarities. In the case of Spinoza and Shankara such similarities include the dual-aspect model according to which the apparent pluralism of the world rests on an inadequate perception of its oneness, and the way the overcoming of that inadequacy is conceived as a liberation from the passions and an achievement of immortality. A significant difference between the two, however, is that Spinoza's explanations (...) are epistemologically conceived while Shankara's are conceived ontologically. Not that Spinoza lacked an ontology or Shankara an epistemology, but rather their explanatory approaches emphasize the differences of the worlds within which they wrote. (shrink)

Europe's long sixteenth century—a period spanning the years roughly from the voyages of Columbus in the 1490s to the English Civil War in the 1640s—was an era of power struggles between avaricious and unscrupulous princes, inquisitions and torture chambers, and religious differences of ever more violent fervor. Ideas of Liberty in Early Modern Europe argues that this turbulent age also laid the conceptual foundations of our modern ideas about liberty, justice, and democracy. Hilary Gatti shows how these ideas (...) emerged in response to the often-violent entrenchment of monarchical power and the fragmentation of religious authority, against the backdrop of the westward advance of Islam and the discovery of the New World. She looks at Machiavelli's defense of republican political liberty, and traces how liberty became intertwined with free will and religious pluralism in the writings of Luther, Erasmus, Jean Bodin, and Giordano Bruno. She examines how the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the clash of science and religion gave rise to concepts of liberty as freedom of thought and expression. Returning to Machiavelli and moving on to Jacques Auguste de Thou, Paolo Sarpi, and Milton, Gatti delves into debates about the roles of parliamentary government and a free press in guaranteeing liberties. Drawing on a breadth of canonical and lesser-known writings, Ideas of Liberty in Early Modern Europe reveals how an era stricken by war and injustice gave birth to a more enlightened world. (shrink)

Most recent discussions of John Stuart Mill’s System of Logic (1843) neglect the fifth book concerned with logical fallacies. Mill not only follows the revival of interest in the traditional Aristotelian doctrine of fallacies in Richard Whately and Augustus De Morgan, but he also develops new categories and an original analysis which enhance the study of fallacies within the context of what he calls ‘the philosophy of error’. After an exploration of this approach, the essay relates the philosophy of error (...) to the discussion of truth and error in chapter two of On Liberty (1859) concerned with freedom of thought and discussion. Drawing on Socratic and Baconian perspectives, Mill defends both the traditional study of logic against Jevons, Boole, De Morgan, and others, as well as the study of fallacies as the key to maintaining truth and its dissemination in numerous fields, such as science, morality, politics, and religion. In Mill’s view the study of fallacies also liberates ordinary people to explore the truth and falsity of ideas and, as such, to participate in society and politics and develop themselves as progressive beings. (shrink)

The problem posed in this paper is 'Can those interferences with liberty of expression which are necessary and desirable be indicated in some simple, general way, e.g. in terms of some principle or principles of the kinds with which J. S. Mill sought to delimit the interferences with freedom of action?' It is argued that although J. S. Mill sought to defend 'the fullest freedom of expression', he in fact allowed important interferences of kinds which render the (...) formulation of a principle covering them difficult. Further, it is maintained that the important liberal arguments advanced by the great exponents of liberalism are such that they admit as being necessary, legitimate, and desirable, a wide range and variety of interferences, where these interferences are such that they must be determined in the light of the facts in the concrete situation and not on the basis of some general principle. (shrink)

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are treasured today--as they have been over the centuries--as an inexhaustible source of wisdom. And as one of the three most important expressions of Stoicism, this is an essential text for everyone interested in ancient religion and philosophy. Yet the clarity and ease of the work's style are deceptive. Pierre Hadot, eminent historian of ancient thought, uncovers new levels of meaning and expands our understanding of its underlying philosophy. Written by the Roman emperor for (...) his own private guidance and self-admonition, the Meditations set forth principles for living a good and just life. Hadot probes Marcus Aurelius's guidelines and convictions and discerns the hitherto unperceived conceptual system that grounds them. Abundantly quoting the Meditations to illustrate his analysis, the author allows Marcus Aurelius to speak directly to the reader. And Hadot unfolds for us the philosophical context of the Meditations, commenting on the philosophers Marcus Aurelius read and giving special attention to the teachings of Epictetus, whose disciple he was. The soul, the guiding principle within us, is in Marcus Aurelius's Stoic philosophy an inviolable stronghold of freedom, the "inner citadel." This spirited and engaging study of his thought offers a fresh picture of the fascinating philosopher-emperor, a fuller understanding of the tradition and doctrines of Stoicism, and rich insight on the culture of the Roman empire in the second century. Pierre Hadot has been working on Marcus Aurelius for more than twenty years; in this book he distills his analysis and conclusions with extraordinary lucidity for the general reader. (shrink)

It is argued against McCloskey (1) that the restrictions on freedom of opinion which Mill is alleged to concede are not in fact departures from his general principle; (2) that Mill's infallibility argument is not quite as McCloskey interprets it, but makes the point that it is possible to have rationally grounded opinions only in a society in which free enquiry is encouraged, and that McCloskey's counter-examples fail because they presuppose such a society; (3) that Mill attaches more importance than (...) McCloskey allows to the argument that opinions arc valueless unless rationally held and that his conception of rationality and self-development differs from McCloskey's; (4) that there is a general principle, which McCloskey has not refuted, namely that an atmosphere of free enquiry is hard to maintain, and that any suppression, even one apparently justified, will have the indirect effect of helping to destroy that atmosphere, and is consequently likely to do more harm than good. (shrink)

How has reason, believed since the Enlightenment to be the ally of freedom in the search for a better, more humanly satisfying world, been reduced to a technical rationality that has actually impoverished the bases of human freedom? What might be the options and obligations for sociologists who wish to restore reason to its proper status? -/- Working within the tradition of C. Wright Mills and Jurgen Habermas, Frank Hearn sets out to answer these questions. He surveys the treatment of (...) the relation between reason and freedom in both the classical tradition (especially the writings of Saint-Simon, Comte, Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Freud) and an increasingly significant segment of social thought and criticism (and, for example, in the contrasting visions of Daniel Bell and Christopher Lasch.) He then analyses both the concrete social and historical forms of expression taken by what Mills calls 'rationality without reason' and their impact on individual autonomy and the freedoms associated with democratic politics. Finally, he develops Mills's and Habermas's claims that the cultivation of democratic publics and a critical social theory committed to a vibrant public life are indispensable to the protection and revitalization of the values of reason and freedom and of the practices they entail. -/- This book updates and enriches Mills's influential argument by demonstrating its affinity with critical theory, by showing its contributions to a critical understanding of the classical tradition, and by showing its implications for contemporary social, political, and economic developments. (shrink)

Although there has been growing awareness among historians of ideas of a close relationship between eighteenth-century religious and political argument, there is still no clear understanding of this kind of relationship. Despite its historical plausibility, the transition from religious to political thinking encounters serious logical obstacles stemming mainly from the traditional distinction between spiritual and temporal matters. This distinction, as articulated in the initial attempts to establish religious toleration, would make it untenable to extend arguments in defence of religious (...) class='Hi'>liberty directly to the defence of political liberty. Religious and political liberty cannot be governed by the same rationale, which is man's conscientious relationship to God. Any attempt, therefore, to explain how it was possible to pass from religious to political argument has rather to focus on the, as it were, external characteristics of these two kinds of liberty. It is argued in this article that religious and political liberty appear to be similar in that they both refer to rights that concern the expression of opinions, the so-called ‘intellectual rights’ or ‘rights of mind’. Investigating the meaning of ‘right of private judgement’ shows it to have three dimensions, which refer to the mental process of thinking, to its external manifestation through speech, and to other, non-verbal actions prompted by thought. In relation to fundamental rights could easily be dismissed as irrelevant, could be interpreted as a relapse to a Hobbesian state of nature, while was considered suitable for serving as a basis of a defensible theory of natural rights which could easily cover religious liberty, as well as political liberty, the right to free speech, or the liberty of the press. Unlimited and universal exercise of this type of rights was not only believed not to involve mutual harm, but it was also backed further by an appeal to the public good. (shrink)

This paper challenges the first Gettier counterexample to the tripartite account of knowledge. Noting that 'the man who will get the job' is a description and invoking Donnellan's distinction between their 'referential' and 'attributive' uses, I argue that Smith does not actually believe that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's ignorance about who will get the job shows that the belief cannot be understood referentially, his ignorance of the coins in his pocket (...) shows that it cannot be understood attributively. An explanation for why Smith appeared to have justified true belief is given by distinguishing between 'belief' and 'belief in truth'. Smith believes the sentence 'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket' to be true (he mistakenly believes that Jones will get the job, of whom he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket) (hence his 'belief'), the sentence is true (hence 'truth'), and he has sufficient reason to assent to it (hence his 'justification'). But he does not believe the proposition expressed. Hence he does not know it either. (shrink)

Rousseau is considered to be at once the most modern political thinker of the 18th century and the most ancient in his allegiance to classical republicanism. These essays address the place of liberty in his moral and political philosophy, and the origins, meaning, strength, weakness and significance of his argument.

. Freedom of thought as freedom of expression: Hate crime sentencing enhancement and first amendment theory. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 29-42.

I thank the commentators for their extremely rich and stimulating discussions of Thought and World.1 Their commentaries show that a number of TW’s claims are in need of clarification and defense, and that some of its arguments contain substantial lacunae. I am very pleased to have these flaws called to my attention, and to have an opportunity to try to correct them. Also, I am grateful for the commentators’ endorsements. As is perhaps inevitable in a symposium of this kind, (...) the commentaries contain more questions and objections than expressions of agreement; but even so, each of the com- mentators conveys the impression that he found TW to be worth reading. It is an honor to receive endorsements, even qualified endorsements, from such a distinguished company. (shrink)

Summary A provocative examination of the consequences of Levinas’s and Adorno’s thought for contemporary ethics and political philosophy. This book sets up a dialogue between Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor W. Adorno, using their thought to address contemporary environmental and social-political situations. Eric S. Nelson explores the “non-identity thinking” of Adorno and the “ethics of the Other” of Levinas with regard to three areas of concern: the ethical position of nature and “inhuman” material others such as environments and animals; (...) the bonds and tensions between ethics and religion and the formation of the self through the dynamic of violence and liberation expressed in religious discourses; and the problematic uses and limitations of liberal and republican discourses of equality, liberty, tolerance, and their presupposition of the private individual self and autonomous subject. Thinking with and beyond Levinas and Adorno, this work examines the possibility of an anarchic hospitality and solidarity between material others and sensuous embodied life. “This is an extremely impressive, original, and thorough treatment of two key twentieth-century thinkers and their applicability to the most pressing social and political issues of our time.” — Jeffrey A. Bernstein, author of Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History “This book is an excellent and timely contribution to political and environmental philosophy, located around a nuanced historical and philosophical approach to Levinas and Adorno. It will be of great interest to anyone concerned with these figures or with the current moment.” — Martin Shuster, author of Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity. (shrink)

A common reaction among idealist philosophers to the classical syntactic characterization of proof so crisply articulated by Tarski is an urgent but inchoate Angst that something momentous is missing, an awesome intimation of bereftness. The simple fact is that in many pursuits proof involves an empirical appeal, an operation that Tarski excludes from the domain of proof and assigns to the company of confirmation. In Tarski’s terms, empirical statements never even admit of the predicate true, let alone proved, unless perhaps (...) they hanker after truth or proof in the limit in some dimly understood and always unsuccessful way. Some sources of queasiness about the syntactic account are not hard to pinpoint. On the syntactic account, the injunction “Prove it!” can never be fulfilled, or even well-formedly uttered, in regard to an empirical statement, ┏∅, therefore ∅┓ is valid for any well-formed ∅ in a given first-order language, for any theorem, t, ┏∅, therefore t┓ is an impeccable proof for any well-formed ∅ in the classical languages. It is easy to think, with Bradley, that there is an important and legitimate, if not formally well-articulated sense of proof, characteristic of much of philosophical reasoning and argumentation, which is badly misrepresented by the syntactic conception. The kind of proof often sought after in theology, and sought after and found in the law, and the experimental and social sciences, is not purely syntactic. Idealists, of course, have frequently expressed dissatisfaction with the Tarski conception of truth. We will here extend this skepticism to the Tarski notion of proof. (shrink)

A common reaction among idealist philosophers to the classical syntactic characterization of proof so crisply articulated by Tarski is an urgent but inchoate Angst that something momentous is missing, an awesome intimation of bereftness. The simple fact is that in many pursuits proof involves an empirical appeal, an operation that Tarski excludes from the domain of proof and assigns to the company of confirmation. In Tarski’s terms, empirical statements never even admit of the predicate true, let alone proved, unless perhaps (...) they hanker after truth or proof in the limit in some dimly understood and always unsuccessful way. Some sources of queasiness about the syntactic account are not hard to pinpoint. On the syntactic account, the injunction “Prove it!” can never be fulfilled, or even well-formedly uttered, in regard to an empirical statement, ┏∅, therefore ∅┓ is valid for any well-formed ∅ in a given first-order language, for any theorem, t, ┏∅, therefore t┓ is an impeccable proof for any well-formed ∅ in the classical languages. It is easy to think, with Bradley, that there is an important and legitimate, if not formally well-articulated sense of proof, characteristic of much of philosophical reasoning and argumentation, which is badly misrepresented by the syntactic conception. The kind of proof often sought after in theology, and sought after and found in the law, and the experimental and social sciences, is not purely syntactic. Idealists, of course, have frequently expressed dissatisfaction with the Tarski conception of truth. We will here extend this skepticism to the Tarski notion of proof. (shrink)

It has been argued by many authors that sentences fail to express full-blown propositions: a phenomenon known as semantic underdeterminacy. In some cases, this thesis is accompanied by a conception of thought as fully propositional. This implies that sentences fail to fully express our thoughts. Against this, I argue that many thoughts can be fully expressed by sentences, where by ‘fully expressed’ I mean encoded by a sentence plus minimal contextual information. These are thoughts that may be characterized as (...) less than fully propositional. I provide examples of such thoughts and argue that they plausibly constitute a non-negligible part of our mental life. As I show, these thoughts can be fully expressed by sentences that fail to express full-blown propositions. So it is not the case that sentences even generally fail to fully express our thoughts. (shrink)

This book analyses the use of the crucial concept of 'taste' in the works of five major seventeenth-century French authors, Méré, Saint Evremond, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère and Boileau. It combines close readings of important texts with a thoroughgoing political analysis of seventeenth-century French society in terms of class and gender. Dr Moriarty shows that far from being timeless and universal, the term 'taste' is culture-specific, shifting according to the needs of a writer and his social group. The notion of (...) 'taste' not only helped to shape a new dominant culture, but also registered the conflicts within that culture between a view of taste that presupposted the values of 'polite society' as an exclusive (though not necessarily aristocratic) group, and a view that stressed the value of the classical-humanist tradition as a source of standards ratified by a broader public. this study sheds light not only on the central concept, but also on the individual authors discussed and on the norms of French classical literature in general. (shrink)

Freedom of thought has been lauded in political theory and celebrated in human rights discourse. But what kind of freedom is it? I propose that freedom of thought deserves status as a basic liberty, given the significance of thought to human life, the fundamental importance of freedom of thought in establishing and sustaining crucial rights and freedoms, and the value of being able to develop and experience one’s thoughts without undue influence from others.

J. L. Austin was one of the more influential British philosophers of his time, due to his rigorous thought, extraordinary personality, and innovative philosophical method. According to John Searle, he was both passionately loved and hated by his contemporaries. Like Socrates, he seemed to destroy all philosophical orthodoxy without presenting an alternative, equally comforting, orthodoxy. -/- Austin is best known for two major contributions to contemporary philosophy: first, his ‘linguistic phenomenology’, a peculiar method of philosophical analysis of the concepts (...) and ways of expression of everyday language; and second, speech act theory, the idea that every use of language carries a performative dimension (in the well-known slogan, “to say something is to do something”). Speech act theory has had consequences and import in research fields as diverse as philosophy of language, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law, linguistics, artificial intelligence and feminist philosophy. -/- This article describes Austin’s linguistic method and his speech act theory, and it describes the original contributions he made to epistemology and philosophy of action. It closes by focusing on two main developments of speech act theory─the dispute between conventionalism and intentionalism, and the debate on free speech, pornography, and censorship. (shrink)

The concept of self-ownership was first articulated in anglophone political thought in the decades between the outbreak of the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution. This book traces the emergence and evolution of self-ownership over the course of this period, culminating in a reinterpretation of John Locke's celebrated but widely misunderstood idea that "every Man has a Property in his own Person." Often viewed through the prism of libertarian political thought, self-ownership has its roots in the neo-Roman (...) or republican concept of liberty as freedom from dependence on the will of another. As Lorenzo Sabbadini reveals, seventeenth-century writers believed that the attainment of this status required not only a specific kind of constitution but a particular distribution of property as well. Many regarded the protection of private property as constitutive of liberty, and it is in this context that the vocabulary of self-ownership emerged. Others expressed anxieties about the corrupting effects of excessive concentrations of wealth or even the institution of private property itself. Bringing together canonical republican writers such as John Milton and James Harrington, lesser-known pamphleteers, and Locke, a theorist generally regarded as being at odds with neo-Roman thought, Property, Liberty, and Self-Ownership in Seventeenth-Century England is a bold, innovative study of some of the most influential concepts to emerge from this groundbreaking period of British history. "This book is a major achievement, offering a novel and highly original account of property and liberty in seventeenth-century English republican thought. It is a brilliant piece of scholarship that makes an important contribution to the history of early modern political thought." Markku Peltonen, University of Helsinki. (shrink)

No apology, I imagine, is necessary for the appearance of this translation\nof Marx's "Misere de la Philosophic" On the contrary it is strange\nthat it should not have been published in England before, anu that\nthe translation of his monumental work, the "Capital," tardy as that\nwas, should have yet been made before that of a work which was originally\npublished some twenty years before "Capital" first appeared.\n\n\nIt may be that the translators and editors of the latter work were\nof opinion that in view of (...) the comprehensiveness of "Capital," a\npublication of an English edition of the "Misere de la Philosophic"\nwould be a work of supererogation. Or it may be that they thought\na book so distinctly French—as the "Capital" may be said to be distinctly\nEnglish—and which was, further, exclusively a criticism of a work\nof Proudhon's little known in England—would have slight interest\nfor English readers. On the other hand, the groundwork of the theories\nso fully elaborated in "Capital," apart from its exhaustive analysis\nof the capitalist system of production and distribution, will be\nfound in "Misere." In addition, there are several subjects—notably\nthat of rent—dealt with in this volume which are barely touched upon\nin the single book of " Capital " which has been translated into\nEnglish.\n\n\nMarx's criticism of Proudhon's theory that " the time which is necessary\nto create a commodity indicates exactly its degree of utility," so\nthat " the things of which the production costs the least time are\nthe things which are the most immediately useful," has been matched\nby H. M. Hyndman's crushing refutation of the theory of Final Utility.\nThe subject of rent, too, has been fully dealt with by the latter\nin the same book, " The Economics of Socialism," published, as the\nauthor says, in the hope of furnishing " the rapidly-increasing number\nof students of sociology with a concise and readable statement of\nthe main theories of the scientific school of political economy founded\nby Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels." Neither of these facts, however,\nnecessarily detracts from the value of this older work of Marx's.\nOn the question of rent, after reviewing the Ricardian theory and\nthe many objections which present themselves to that theory, Hyndman\nsays: " It seems, therefore, that a wider definition of the rent\nof land under capitalism is needed than that given by Ricardo, and\nthe following is suggested: — Rent of land is that portion of the\ntotal net revenue which is paid to the landlord for the use of plots\nof land after the average profit on the capital embarked in developing\nsuch land has been deducted." On the question of confiscating rent\nhe says it " would not affect the position of the working portion\nof the community unless the money so obtained were devoted to giving\nthem more amusement, to providing them with better surroundings and\nthe like. ... In fact, the attack upon competitive rents is merely\na capitalist attack. That class sees a considerable income going\noff to a set of people who take no part in the direct exploitation\nof labor; and its representatives are naturally anxious to stop this\nleakage, as they consider it, and to reduce their own taxation for\npublic purposes by appropriating rent to the service of the State.\nThat is all very well for them."\n\n\nOn this point Marx says: " We can understand such economists as Mill,\nCherbulliez, Hilditch and others, demanding that rent should be handed\nover to the State to be used for the remission of taxation. That\nis only the frank expression of the hate which the industrial capitalist\nfeels for the landed proprietor, who appears to him as a useless\nincumbrance, a superfluity in the otherwise harmonious whole of bourgeois\nproduction."\n\n\n" Rent," says Marx, " results from the social relations in which exploitation\nis carried on. It cannot result from the nature, more or less fixed,\nmore or less durable, of land. Rent proceeds from society and not\nfrom the soil."\n\n\nThe criticism of Proudhon's appreciation of gold and silver as the\nfirst manifestation of this theory of " constituted value" should\nbe interesting reading to those admirers of the French Anarchist\nwho yet profess their profound detestation of money and its function.\nSo, too, should his declaration against strikes and combinations\nof workmen. In this we see once more how extremes meet. This declaration\nof Proudhon's would not be out of place in the organ of the Liberty\nand Property Defence League.\n\n\nIn this matter of trade union combination, Marx was scarcely accurate\nin his perception of its development. He clearly did not foresee\nthat the great English trade unions would become fossilised, as it\nwere; and that instead of being a revolutionary force they would\nbecome a reactionary mass, opposing the progress of the mere proletarian\noutside their ranks, as they have done. With the spread of Socialist\nideas among them, however, their exclusive character is being modified,\nand they may even yet take that place in the revolutionary working-class\nmovement which Marx anticipated they would occupy. Given this change\nof attitude, the development must inevitably be along the lines he\npredicted. We are seeing "in face of constantly united capital, the\nmaintenance of the association [becoming] more important and necessary\nfor them than the maintenance of wages," and, further, that the combinations\nof capital are forcing the trade unions to that point where "association\ntakes a political character."\n\n\nIt is scarcely necessary to point out that in this work, written in\n1847, some words have a meaning quite other than that which they\nbear to-day. Thus, for instance, the words "Socialists" and "Socialism,"\nwhere they occur, refer to the utopians—who formulated theories of\na social system independent of the industrial evolution— and to these\ntheories themselves.\n\n\nIn most cases the numerous quotations have been verified and reproduced\nin the original. In some instances, however, they are summaries rather\nthan quotations, and appear ^is translated.\n\n\nA translation jn* necessarily an imperfect presentation of the thoughts,\nideas, and conclusions of the author. In this work I have endeavored\nto adhere as closely as possible to the form and letter, as well\nas the spirit of the original, and to this the indulgent reader is\nasked to ascribe such faults of language as would otherwise merit\nhis censure. (shrink)

This article addresses issues in the philosophy of fiction from the perspective of a relevance theoretic approach to communication: first, how should we understand the notion of ‘voice’ as it is used in the analysis of free indirect style narratives; and, second, in what sense can the person responsible for free indirect representations of fictional characters' thoughts be regarded as a communicator? The background to these questions is the debate about the roles of pretence and attribution in free indirect style. (...) I argue that the role of expressives in sustaining the illusion that fictional characters speak their inner thoughts suggests that ‘voice’ should be understood in two distinct ways. On the one hand, there are cases in which the use of expressive devices leads to the formation of thoughts which are understood to resemble other (attributed) thoughts. On the other hand, there are other cases in which expressives are used as a means of simulating a fictional character's behaviour or style. At the same time, I argue that in order to accommodate free indirect thought representation in a relevance theoretic model of communication, the responsibility for ensuring that the effort of processing the text will be rewarded by optimal relevance must be decoupled from the point of view that is being represented. While the (constructed) author is responsible for orchestrating our interpretation of free indirect thought representations so that the effort of processing will result in optimal relevance, the reader does not necessarily assume this function is being performed by someone who intends to communicate their own thoughts: the relevance of the act of narration may instead lie in the sense of mutuality achieved between reader and character. (shrink)

This paper is dedicated to the relationship between ordinary moral thought and ethical theory in Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics. I suggest that different contents of ordinary moral thought play different roles and are lent different philosophical weight in Sidgwick’s arguments. I start by showing how Sidgwick appeals to certain features of ordinary moral thought, deduced from moral language and experience, both in criticising rival metaethical positions and in establishing his own claims. I then turn to the (...) notion of common-sense morality. After clarifying what Sidgwick means by this expression, I argue that common-sense morality has neither probative value in Sidgwick’s argument for the utilitarian principle nor independent validity, and that its authority is ultimately motivated on utilitarian grounds. Pointing out how different contents of ordinary moral thought play different argumentative roles in the foundation and defence of Sidgwick’s utilitarianism enables to ac- count more comprehensively for Sidgwick’s arguments and moral methodology and provides with a more articulated account of the dialectic between his utilitarian theory and ordinary moral thought. (shrink)

This paper discusses an "expressive constraint" on accounts of thought and language which requires that when a speaker expresses a belief by sincerely uttering a sentence, the utterance and the belief have the same content. It will be argued that this constraint should be viewed as expressing a conceptual connection between thought and language rather than a mere empirical generalization about the two. However, the most obvious accounts of the relation between thought and language compatible with the (...) constraint (giving an independent account of one of either linguistic meaning or thought content and understanding the other in terms of it) both face serious difficulties. Because of this, the following will suggest an alternative picture of the relation between thought and language that remains compatible with the constraint. (shrink)

Thought and World has three main concerns.1 First, it presents and defends a deflationary theory of propositional truth—that is, a deflationary theory of the concept of truth that figures in claims like the proposition that snow is white is true. I have long admired the deflationary theory of truth that Paul Horwich developed in the eighties, but I have also had substantial misgivings about that theory.2 In writing TW I was concerned to formulate an alternative view that enjoys the (...) virtues of Horwich’s theory while lacking its defects. Second, the book presents deflationary accounts of our relational semantic con- cepts—for example, the concept of reference that figures in the proposition the concept of the Evening Star refers to the planet Venus, and the concept of expression that figures in the proposition the concept of a triangle expresses the property triangularity. Third, the book provides an account of our correspondence intuitions. As we all recognize, commonsense semantics includes a concept of semantic correspondence: we are all prepared to say, for example, that the proposition that snow is white corresponds semantically to the state of affairs snow’s being white, and that the proposition that the uni- verse is expanding corresponds semantically to a state of affairs that actually obtains. I wanted to explain the relationship between this concept and the concept of propositional truth, to identify the factors that make the concept useful, and, most importantly, to show that it is possible to extend deflation- ism so as to provide an analysis of the concept. (The concept of correspon- dence stands for a relation between propositions and states of affairs. What I maintain in the book is that this relation can be characterized in deflationary terms. I do not maintain that it is possible to give a deflationary account of.. (shrink)

Contemporary Islam presents Europe in particular with a political and moral challenge: Moderate-progressive Muslims and radical fundamentalist Muslims present differing visions of the relation of politics and religion and, consequently, differing interpretations of freedom of expression. There is evident public concern about Western “political correctness,” when law or policy accommodates censorship of speech allegedly violating religious sensibilities. Referring to the thought of philosopher Baruch Spinoza, and accounting for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Universal Islamic Declaration of (...) Human Rights, and various empirical studies on the religious convictions of Muslims, it is argued here that: (1) sovereign European state powers should be especially cautious of legal censorship of speech allegedly violating Muslim religious sensibilities; and (2) instead of legal moves to censorship, European states should defer to the principle of separation of religion and state (political authority). Further, a reasonable interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence allows that matters of religious difference may be engaged and resolved by appeal to private conscience and ethical judgment, rather than by appeal to public law per se. In so far as they are 1 representative of contemporary scholarship, the interpretative positions of Ziad Elmarsafy, Jacques Derrida, and Nasr Abū Zayd are presented in illustration of this latter point. (shrink)

This paper addresses four issues: 1. What is nonsense? 2. Is nonsense possible? 3. Is nonsense actual? 4. Why do the answers to (1)–(3) matter, if at all? These are my answers: 1. A sentence (or an utterance of one) is nonsense if it fails to have or express content (more on ‘express’, ‘have’, and ‘content’ below). This is a version of a view that can be found in Carnap (1959), Ayer (1936), and, maybe, the early Wittgenstein (1922). The notion (...) I propose abstracts away from their favored (but wrong) theories of what meaning is. It is a notion of nonsense that can be appealed to by all semantic frameworks and all theories of what content is, but structurally it is just like e.g. Carnap’s. Nonsense, as I construe it, is accompanied by illusions of thought (and I think that was part of Carnap’s conception as well). 2. Yes. In particular, I examine three arguments for the impossibility of illusion of thought (which on my construal accompanies linguistic nonsense) and they are all unsound. 3. Yes. There might be a lot of nonsense, both in ordinary and theoretical speech. In particular, it is likely that much of contemporary philosophy consists of nonsense. Empirical work is required to determine just how much. 4. The struggle to avoid nonsense (and achieve meaningfulness) is at least as important as the struggle for truth. The avoidance of nonsense is a precondition not just for having a truth value but also for more important properties such as saying something interesting or kind. (shrink)

According to conventional wisdom, the causes of economic inequality under capitalism are different in kind from those operating in a socialist system. In socialist societies today the distribution of wealth and income is determined by political authority, whereas in capitalism it is thought to arise mainly from the choices of individuals freely transferring goods and services in the competitive market. Robert Nozick's account of the workings of a ‘free society’ expresses this view clearly:There is no central distribution, no person (...) or group entitled to control all the resources, jointly deciding how they are to be doled out. What each person gets, he gets from others who give to him in exchange for something, or as a gift. In a free society, diverse persons control different resources, and new holdings arise out of the voluntary exchange and actions of persons … The total result is the product of many individual decisions which the different individuals involved are entitled to make. (shrink)

The only complete study of Buber as a political thinker. Shed new light upon Buber's I Thou, while also attempting to understand Buber's Zionist thought and activity in a new and fresh manner.