What does it mean to be disadvantaged? Is it possible to compare different disadvantages? What should governments do to move their societies in the direction of equality, where equality is to be understood both in distributional and social terms? Linking rigorous analytical philosophical theory with broad empirical studies, including interviews conducted for the purpose of this book, Wolff and de-Shalit show how taking theory and practice together is essential if the theory is to be rich enough to be applied to (...) the real world, and policy systematic enough to have purpose and justification. The book is in three parts. Part 1 presents a pluralist analysis of disadvantage, modifying the capability theory of Sen and Nussbaum to produce the 'genuine opportunity for secure functioning' view. This emphasises risk and insecurity as a central component of disadvantage. Part 2 shows how to identify the least advantaged in society even on a pluralist view. The authors suggest that disadvantage 'clusters' in the sense that some people are disadvantaged in several different respects. Thus identifying the least advantaged is not as problematic as it appears to be. Conversely, a society which has 'declustered disadvantaged' - in the sense that no group lacks secure functioning on a range of functionings - has made considerable progress in the direction of equality. Part 3 explores how to decluster disadvantage, by paying special attention to 'corrosive disadvantages' - those disadvantages which cause further disadvantages - and 'fertile functionings' - those which are likely to secure other functionings. In sum this books presents a refreshing new analysis of disadvantage, and puts forward proposals to help governments improve the lives of the least advantaged in their societies, thereby moving in the direction of equality. (shrink)

Since the 1940s Americans and Britons have come to enjoy an era of rising material abundance. Yet this has been accompanied by a range of social and personal disorders, including family breakdown, addiction, mental instability, crime, obesity, inequality, economic insecurity, and declining trust.Avner Offer argues that well-being has lagged behind affluence in these societies, because they present an environment in which consistent choices are difficult to achieve over different time ranges and in which the capacity for personal and social (...) commitment is undermined by the flow of novelty. His approach draws on economics and social science, makes use of the latest cognitive research, and provides a detailed and reasoned critique of modern consumer society, especially the assumption that freedom of choice necessarily maximizes individual and social well-being.The book falls into three parts. Part one analyses the ways in which economic resources map on to human welfare, why choice is so intractable, and how commitment to people and institutions is sustained. It argues that choice is constrained by prior obligation and reciprocity. The second section then applies these conceptual arguments to comparative empirical studies of advertising, of eating and obesity, and of the production and acquisition of appliances and automobiles. Finally, in part three, Offer investigates social and personal relations in the USA and Britain, including inter-personal regard, the rewards and reversals of status, the social and psychological costs of inequality, and the challenges posed to heterosexual love and to parenthood by the rise of affluence. (shrink)

The basic conflict: an initial characterization -- The main arguments against ordinary language philosophy -- Must philosophers rely on intuitions? -- Contextualism and the burden of knowledge -- Contextualism, anti-contextualism, and knowing as being in a position to give assurance -- Conclusion: skepticism and the dialectic of (semantically pure) "knowledge" -- Epilogue: ordinary language philosophy, Kant, and the roots of antinomial thinking.

Since the 1940s Americans and Britons have come to enjoy an era of rising material abundance. Yet this has been accompanied by a range of social and personal disorders, including family breakdown, addiction, mental instability, crime, obesity, inequality, economic insecurity, and declining trust. Avner Offer argues that well-being has lagged behind affluence in these societies, because they present an environment in which consistent choices are difficult to achieve over different time ranges and in which the capacity for personal and (...) social commitment is undermined by the flow of novelty. His approach draws on economics and social science, makes use of the latest cognitive research, and provides a detailed and reasoned critique of modern consumer society, especially the assumption that freedom of choice necessarily maximizes individual and social well-being. The book falls into three parts. Part one analyses the ways in which economic resources map on to human welfare, why choice is so intractable, and how commitment to people and institutions is sustained. It argues that choice is constrained by prior obligation and reciprocity. The second section then applies these conceptual arguments to comparative empirical studies of advertising, of eating and obesity, and of the production and acquisition of appliances and automobiles. Finally, in part three, Offer investigates social and personal relations in the USA and Britain, including inter-personal regard, the rewards and reversals of status, the social and psychological costs of inequality, and the challenges posed to heterosexual love and to parenthood by the rise of affluence. (shrink)

En las sociedades islámicas medievales, las convenciones culturales y las normas sociales tenían un papel importante en la educación, pero los pensadores musulmanes también prestaron atención a las diferencias individuales entre los estudiantes y a la necesidad de ajustar tanto el contenido de la enseñanza como los métodos educativos al contexto familiar de esos estudiantes, así como a sus habilidades personales, sus inclinaciones y sus aspiraciones. Esto pudo deberse no sólo a la herencia de los "árabes preislámicos y del Islam (...) temprano" como sugirió S. D. Goitein, sino también a la influencia cultural extranjera (por ejemplo, griega), especialmente en el ámbito del pensamiento educativo. En principio, podría parecer que el kuttab ofrecería menos atención individualizada a los que allí estudiaban que otras instituciones educativas. Sin embargo, los ulemas, en general, tenían en mente al estudiante individual cuando discutían asuntos de educación elemental, tales como el currículum, la edad de admisión del niño, la selección de métodos educativos apropiados, los juegos de los niños, la compañía de otros niños, la selección de una profesión para el niño y la participación del padre en la educación formal. (shrink)

Avner Baz presents a critique of the working practices of analytic philosophy in recent decades. He challenges the assumptions on which the philosophical 'method of cases' rests, and he presents a pragmatist conception of language on which the method of cases as used both 'armchair' and 'experimental' philosophers is fundamentally misguided.

Adam Smith rejected Mandeville's invisible-hand doctrine of 'private vices, publick benefits'. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments his model of the 'impartial spectator' is driven not by sympathy for other people, but by their approbation. The innate capacity for sympathy makes approbation credible. Approbation needs to be authenticated, and in Smith's model authentication relies on innate virtue, which is not realistic. An alternative model of 'regard' makes use of signalling and is more pragmatic. Modern versions of the invisible hand in (...) rational choice theory and neo- liberalism are shown to be radical departures from the ethical legacy of Enlightenment and utilitarian economics, and are not consistent with Adam Smith's own position. (shrink)

‘Rabbi’ is the title of Jewish scholars and teachers. Yet, in the sixteenth century, the word was sometimes employed in Christian discourse, when Christian scholars referred to their Christian peers as rabbis. How could non-Jews be called rabbis? This article explores the meaning of the term ‘rabbi’ in sixteenth-century intra-Christian polemics and discourse. It shows how the image of the ‘rabbi’, a figure of (negative) intellectual authority, penetrated the speech of Christian intellectuals and polemicists. It suggests that this ‘rabbinic’ figure (...) was not necessarily Jewish. Although ‘rabbi’ is a Jewish term – the incarnation of Jewish intellectual life – the term also denotes Jesus as well as his opponents, the Pharisees. Thus, polemical ‘rabbinising’ of Christian scholars potentially involved very different images of scholarly authority. (shrink)

Book jacket: From postmodernist and post-philosophical quarters we now hear that philosophy is at the end of its rope, that modern philosophy is just another modernist product which has outlived its usefulness. Whatever the precise merits of the various postmodernist critiques, they have certainly compelled many philosophers to take notice, and to concede that their enterprise has reached an impasse. The essays in this volume mark a new stage in the debate. Though divergent in their philosophical -- or post-philosophical -- (...) standpoints, the authors all share the view that philosophy is at a fateful juncture. Postmodernism, pragmatism, feminism, and historicism are some of the tendencies scrutinized in this wide-ranging symposium on the past, present, and many possible futures of the 'institution of philosophy.'. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Facing heretofore unknown waves of new immigrants, the Israeli Government and the mayor of Jerusalem issued a comprehensive development programme, including rapid and massive construction. Cities with historical and aesthetic uniqueness, particularly Jerusalem, are likely to lose their special features and beauty. A question is raised: how can an argument in favour of conservation of the special beauties of such cities be advanced in light of the urgent need to supply shelter and jobs for their inhabitants? The paper has (...) two aims: to analyse the reasons for environmental ethics'failure to discuss urban preservation so far, and to put forward a rationale for urban preservation. The latter derives from the political wisdom of King Solomon and from the notion of anthropocentric intrinsic value. (shrink)

The philosophical “method of cases” has been the subject of intense discussion. In a recent paper, Frank Jackson attempts to vindicate the method by proposing that it is underwritten by the “representational view of language.” Jackson's proposal is potentially very significant. For if it is true, then the method of cases stands, but quite possibly also falls, with the representational view of language as characterized by Jackson. The aim of this paper is to question the philosophical method of cases by (...) showing that it does in fact presuppose a particular view of language that is at the very least questionable, both philosophically and empirically. (shrink)

When viewed as a question of distributive justice the evaluation of workfare typically reflects exclusively on the distribution of income: do the physically capable have a justified claim for state support, or is it fair to demand from those who do work to subsidise this support? Rarely is workfare appraised in terms of how it affects other parties such as employers or other workers, and on the structural effects the pattern of incentives it generates brings about, or as an issue (...) of distributive justice related to a more extensive range of objects of distribution such as access to pleasing jobs. -/- We propose to evaluate workfare by looking at its effects more broadly: (1) we discuss and dismiss on empirical grounds the two most common arguments in favour of workfare, namely that workfare develops self-reliance among participants and it is more economical in the use of altruism among taxpayers. (2) We suggest that workfare focuses on work as a burden and as a means to income, ignoring other beneficial aspects that are conducive to the worker’s self expression. These other benefits are distributed unevenly between two main groups: the privileged well off and the disadvantaged. (3) we argue that workfare functions as a mechanism to preserve these privileges to one class of workers at the expense of another. Or, to put it the other way, the payment of unconditional welfare to the long term unemployed might be justified as one method of mitigating unjustified privileges. (shrink)

In the concluding lines of Part Three of The Claim of Reason, Stanley Cavell writes: ‘If the moralist is the human being who best grasps the human position, teaches us what our human position is, better than we know, in ways we cannot escape but through distraction and muddle, then our first task in subjecting ourselves to judgment is to tell the moralist from the moralizer’. Cavell then proceeds to characterize the moralizer as one who is ‘speaking in the name (...) of a position one does not occupy, confronting others in positions of which one will not imagine the acknowledgement’. Beginning with an exposition of Cavell’s notion of ‘moral position’, I will offer an interpretation of the distinction he draws between the moralist and the moralizer; I will then explain how the moral philosopher’s use of morally significant words may come to resemble the moralizer’s; and then I will argue that contemporary English-speaking moral philosophy as represented by the recent debates concerning ‘moral testimony’, or ‘moral deference’, has been failing its moralist aspirations, and that, by Cavell’s lights, the morality reflected in those debates is, in essence, that of the moralizer. (shrink)

In ‘Aesthetics Problems of Modern Philosophy’ Stanley Cavell proposes, first, that Kant's characterization of judgments of beauty may be read as a Wittgensteinian grammatical characterization, and, second, that the philosophical appeal to ‘what we say and mean’ partakes of the grammar of judgment of beauty. I argue first that the expression of the dawning of an aspect partakes of the grammar of judgments of beauty as characterized by Kant, and may also be seen—on a prevailing way of thinking about concepts (...) and how they relate to their instances—to have the same kind of significance that judgments of beauty have according to Kant. And then I argue that there are good reasons for being suspicious of the prevailing conception of concepts, and therefore good reasons for being suspicious of the proposed understanding of the significance of aspect perception—an understanding that has attracted many readers of Wittgenstein's remarks on aspects. This leads me to suggest that it is actually the philosophical appeal to ordinary language that has the kind of significance that the Kantian picture attributes to judgments of beauty and to the seeing of aspects. In this way, I offer a way to vindicate Cavell's second proposal. (shrink)

In Mind and World and related works, John McDowell attempts to offer us an understanding of the relation between our experience of the world and our wording of it. In arguing for this understanding, McDowell sees himself as engaged in a Wittgensteinian exorcism of a philosophical puzzlement; and his aim is to recover for us a truly satisfying way of conceiving of the relation between our words and our world. Taking my bearing from Stanley Cavell's reading of Wittgenstein, in which, (...) as I argue, the notion of 'the point of an utterance' plays a central role, I develop a criticism of McDowell on two levels. First, I try to show that McDowell fails to lead his words - 'experience', 'seeing', 'judging', 'claiming', and others - back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. His use of these words is still controlled by a particular picture of our relation to the world, rather than by our everyday criteria. Second, I argue that the picture controlling McDowell's account of our wording of our world is one in which the question concerning the point of putting something into words is being repressed. McDowell proposes that our experience 'contains claims', in the sense that it provides us with the very same content that a claim, or a judgment, might have. I argue that, given the philosophical work that McDowell intends such formulations to perform, the 'innocent' understanding that he aims to recover for us betokens a failure to attend to the conditions that allow our words to express, or otherwise carry, any determinate content.Not: 'How can I describe what I see?' but 'What does one call "description of what is seen"'? (Wittgenstein). Wittgenstein (1980a), remark 981. (shrink)

My plan in this article is to begin by raising the question of the point of judgements of beauty, and then to examine Kant's account of beauty in the third Critique from the perspective opened up by that question. Having raised the question of the point, I will argue, first, that there is an implied answer to it in Kant's text, and, second, that the answer is ultimately unsatisfying in that it falsely assumes that there is a ‘need’, or ‘task’, (...) or ‘purpose’, that we all necessarily share, to conceptualize all that encounters us in our experience, and fit it into one unified and comprehensive system. It is only against this assumption of our transcendental cognitive interest that Kant can so much as seem to have a real story to tell about where the value that we claim for things in calling them ‘beautiful’ derives from. This, in effect, means that to the extent that Kant offers us any answer at all to the question of the point of judgements of beauty, that answer testifies to his general neglect of the question of the point of judgements. And my purpose is to draw attention to that neglect, and to begin to assess its significance for Kant's transcendental project in general and for his conception of beauty in particular. (shrink)

This paper develops particular Strausian-like themes on the formation and structure of the Cartesian problematic. Particularly, my interest is to link the Cartesian ‘invention’ of consciousness (or ‘the mental’) in the philosophy of mind with the issues of representation and ‘the problem of the external world’ in epistemology. The Cartesian novelty becomes clear by comparing Cartesian scepticism with Greek classical scepticism. I end with some speculative clinical (i.e., psychiatric) suggestions on possible roots of the Cartesian invention. Keywords: Consciousness, Externalization, Dualism, (...) Self-World CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)