I read Ernst Gombrich’s wonderful book Art and Illusion in 1981. I’d completed my BA a few months earlier, and I was spending a year in Geneva on a scholarship, before returning to Oxford to begin the BPhil. The topic in philosophy that interested me most at that time was perception, and I was struck by the extent to which Gombrich’s arguments relied on views about visual perception that he had inherited from the Helmholtzian tradition in psychology, and therefore indirectly (...) from Locke and Kant. I thought that arguments in the philosophy of perception exposed serious mistakes and confusions in this tradition, and that they could therefore shed important light on the fascinating questions about pictorial art that Gombrich discussed in his book. (shrink)

in Proceedings of the 29th International Wittgenstein Symposium, Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky.

I shall be mainly concerned with the question ‘What is personal propositional knowledge?’. This question is obviously quite narrowly focused, in three respects. In the first place, there is impersonal as well as personal knowledge. Second, a distinction is often drawn between propositional knowledge and practical knowledge. And third, as well as asking what knowledge is, it is also possible to ask whether and how knowledge of various kinds can be acquired: causal knowledge, a priori knowledge, moral knowledge, and so (...) on. I shall dwell briefly on each of these three points. First, there is the distinction between personal and impersonal knowledge – in other words, between the psychological concept of knowledge and the social one.1 We use the concept of knowledge to describe the cognitive condition of individuals; but we also use it to describe the progress of scientific and historical research. So for example we can speak or enquire about the state of knowledge in a particular field of biology or history. And if we do so, we are evidently not concerned with what anyone in particular knows about, say, the genetics of fruit flies or the career of Charlemagne, but rather with what the scientific or academic community knows. Needless to say, there is a close connection between personal and impersonal knowledge. But ‘It is known that p’ does not simply mean ‘Someone or other. (shrink)

In the Meno, Socrates asks why knowledge is a better guide to acting the right way than true belief. The answer he proposes is ingenious, but it fails to solve the puzzle, and some recent attempts to solve it also fail. I shall argue that the puzzle cannot be solved as long as we conceive of knowledge as a kind of belief, or allow our conception of knowledge to be governed by the contrast between knowledge and belief.

One of the most exciting developments in philosophy in the last fifty years is the resurgence in the philosophy of action. The concept of action now occupies a central place in ethics, metaphysics and jurisprudence. This collection of original essays, by some of the most astute and influential philosophers working in this area, covers the entire range of the philosophy of action. Topics covered include the nature of actions themselves; how the concepts of act, agent, cause and event are related (...) to each other; self-knowledge, emotion, autonomy and freedom in human life; and the place of the concept of action in criminal law. The volume concludes with a major essay by one of America's leading authorities in the philosophy of law on 'the 3.5 billion dollar question': was the destruction of the World Trade Center one event or two? (shrink)

This collection of thirty yoga and mindfulness tools will help support those in recovery from addiction of all kinds. Thirty accessible, pointed teachings offer inspiration, comfort, and solidarity in the moment, helping us cultivate a powerful and purposeful life in recovery, and to create a new design for living. Each chapter focuses on a quality-such as vigilance, acceptance, accountability, among others-and delves into how to manifest it in your recovery journey. Brian Hyman, a yoga teacher and recovery activist, understands (...) deeply what people need to maintain sobriety and strengthen recovery-and knows that those who struggle with addiction also often need support with other mental health challenges, like obsession, anxiety, depression. He uses yogic philosophy, mindfulness teachings, personal anecdotes, and secular wisdom to illuminate each quality and the role it plays in helping us create the life we want. The practices--which include inquiry questions, meditations, awareness exercises, breathing practices, yoga nidra, among others--will quiet the mind in difficult moments, support us as we establish meaningful relationships, and reinforce the power that recovery offers us. Hyman offers resources and additional reading suggestions in the back matter. Based on Hyman's popular online course, this book is essential reading for people of all ages in recovery-along with their family members and friends, and anyone in a health care profession who works with those struggling with addiction of any kind. Hyman includes a list of recovery organizations and a reading list in the back matter. (shrink)

theory of knowledge defended in Timothy Williamson's book Knowledge and its Limits is compared here with the theory defended in the author's articles ‘How Knowledge Works ’ and ‘ Knowledge and Self- Knowledge ’. It is argued that there are affinities between these theories, but that the latter has considerably more explanatory power.

Human agency has four irreducibly different dimensions -- psychological, ethical, intellectual, and physical -- which the traditional idea of a will tended to conflate. Twentieth-century philosophers criticized the idea that acts are caused by 'willing' or 'volition', but the study of human action continued to be governed by a tendency to equate these dimensions of agency, or to reduce one to another. Cutting across the branches of philosophy, from logic and epistemology to ethics and jurisprudence, Action, Knowledge, and Will defends (...) comprehensive theories of action and knowledge, and shows how thinking about agency in four dimensions deepens our understanding of human conduct and its causes. (shrink)

The Selfseeker presents a coherent organic and dialectical epistemology to underpin the science of the environmental movement. Stressing the subjective as well as the objective, empsychon theory returns to the ancient Greek approach which was forgotten after Plato. At once organic and rigorously scientific, The Selfseeker is essential reading for anyone seriously interested in environmental questions and who cares for the future of planet Earth.

John Hyman explores central problems in philosophy of action and the theory of knowledge, and connects these areas of enquiry in a new way. His approach to the dimensions of human action culminates in an original analysis of the relation between knowledge and rational behaviour, which provides the foundation for a new theory of knowledge itself.

There continues to be a debate on whether addiction is best understood as a brain disease or a moral condition. This debate, which may influence both the stigma attached to addiction and access to treatment, is often motivated by the question of whether and to what extent we can justly hold addicted individuals responsible for their actions. In fact, there is substantial evidence for a disease model, but the disease model per se does not resolve the question of voluntary control. (...) Recent research at the intersection of neuroscience and psychology suggests that addicted individuals have substantial impairments in cognitive control of behavior, but this "loss of control" is not complete or simple. Possible mechanisms and implications are briefly reviewed. (shrink)

In this article, I oppose the view that knowledge is a species of belief, and argue that belief should be defined in terms of knowledge, instead of the other way round. However, I reject the idea that the concept of knowledge has a primary or basic role or position in our system of mental and logical concepts, because I reject the hierarchical conception of philosophical analysis implicit in this idea. I approach the topic of knowledge and belief from a discussion (...) of Richard Holton’s views about facts and factive verbs. (shrink)

Introduction The editors of this volume hope that it will prove useful for the study of philosophy in the Middle Ages by virtue of the comprehensiveness of ...

Under what circumstances can we hold someone responsible for what they do?

Introduction The editors of this volume hope that it will prove useful for the study of philosophy in the Middle Ages by virtue of the comprehensiveness of ...

I argue that itches, tickles, aches and pains—sensations of all sorts—are generally in the places where we say they are. So, for example, if I say that I have an itch in the big toe on my left foot, then, by and large, that is the very place where the itch is. James denied this in the 1890s; Russell and Broad denied it in the 1920s; Wittgenstein and Ryle denied it in the 1940s; Lewis and Armstrong denied it in the (...) 1960s; and since then various kinds of materialists have denied it. But if itches etc. are states of the sensitive parts of bodies, then it is true. (shrink)

This paper is about the semantic structure of verbal and deverbal noun phrases. The focus is on noun phrases which describe actions, perceptions, sensations and beliefs. It is commonly thought that actions are movements of parts of the agent’s body which we typically describe in terms of their effects, and that perceptions are slices of sensible experience which we typically describe in terms of their causes. And many philosophers hold that sensations and beliefs are states of the central nervous system (...) which we generally describe in terms of their typical causes and effects. For example ‘Brutus’s killing of Caesar’ is thought to describe a movement of a part of Brutus’s body – e.g. the thrust of an arm – in terms of one of its effects, namely, Caesar’s death. And ‘ Hyman ’s visual perception of a table in front of him’ is thought to describe the visual experience I’m having right now in terms of its cause. The object of the paper is to show that these doctrines misrepresent the semantic structure of verbal and deverbal noun phrases. (shrink)

Many of today's ads work by arousing the viewer's emotions. Although emotion-arousing ads are widely used and are commonly thought to be effective, their careless use produces a side-effect: the psychoactive ad. A psychoactive ad is any emotion-arousing ad that can cause a meaningful, well-defined group of viewers to feel extremely anxious, to feel hostile toward others, or to feel a loss of self-esteem. We argue that, because some ill-conceived psychoactive ads can cause harm, ethical issues must arise during their (...) production. Current pretesting methods cannot identify the potentially psychoactive ads; therefore, we offer some tentative guidelines for reducing the number of viewers harmed by psychoactive ads. (shrink)

Recent work on dispositions offers a new solution to the long-running dispute about whether explanations of intentional action are causal explanations. The dispute seemed intractable because of a lack of percipience about dispositions and a commitment to Humean orthodoxies about causation on both sides.

Professor Jessica Utts and I were given the task of evaluating the program on "Anomalous Mental Phenomena" carried out at SRI International (formerly the Stanford Research Institute) from 1973 through 1989 and continued at SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) from 1992 through 1994. We were asked to evaluate this research in terms of its scientific value. We were also asked to comment on its potential utility for intelligence applications.

Théorie économique élaborée dans les années 1960, l'hypothèse d'instabilité financière postule que le système capitaliste est instable par essence : toute phase d'équilibre apparent ne fait qu'encourager les acteurs du marché à prendre davantage de risques, qui provoquent de nouvelles crises. Décriée à l'époque, cette analyse est aujourd'hui considérée comme l'une des plus à même d'expliquer la crise actuelle. Elle offre une première approche passionnante d’une oeuvre dense, jusqu’à présent méconnue en France.

Each of the essays included in this volume illuminates an aspect of law, reflecting an unorthodox perception of jurisprudence which combines interests in philosophy, legal theory, criminology, legal history, political and constitutional theory and the history of ideas. This work will broaden the jurisprudential scope of practitioners' professional concerns, but help academics enhance their knowledge of the wealth of information for their own studies.