In Hellenistic philosophy, one can find contrasting evaluations of the argumentative use of merely conceivable states of affairs. On the one hand, Epicureans discard any proposal that has no plausibility from the point of view of someone in possession of the relevant expertise. On the other hand, Sceptics regularly invoke views which one might conceivably hold, irrespective of the view’s epistemic credentials or whether or not it has or has ever had actual proponents. Since thought experiments often introduce scenarios involving (...) merely conceivable but non-actual states of affairs, the positions of Epicureans and Sceptics regarding conceivability can be transposed into different attitudes towards the method of thought experiments. (shrink)

Locke was a libertarian: he believed in human freedom. To be sure, his conception of freedom was different from that of many philosophers who call themselves libertarians. Some such philosophers maintain that an agent is free only if her action is uncaused; whereas Locke thought that all actions have causes, including the free ones. Some libertarians hold that no action is free unless it proceeds from a volition that is itself free; whereas Locke argued that free volition, as opposed to (...) free action, is an impossibility. On the other hand, Locke agrees with the typical professed libertarian that free actions depend on volitions - or, as he often puts it, that an agent is free only with respect to the actions she wills, to those that are voluntary. And he also refuses to make voluntariness sufficient for freedom, whereby a free action is merely one that is willed. The free agent, Locke insists, must also be able or have been able to do something other than she does or did. Thus both Locke and the libertarian professor require indifference as well as spontaneity for freedom. But Locke’s freedom is not contra-causal; and he denies that it extends to volition. In this paper I want to focus on just this last component of Locke’s view of freedom: that freedom in willing, far from being required for free agency, is not even possible. I call this ‘the thesis of volitional determinism’. Locke presents an argument for this thesis in the Essay, but scholars have never paid much attention to it: I want to examine it. (shrink)

This book analyzes recent artistic and activist projects in order to conceptualize the new roles and goals of a critical theory and practice of art and photography. Vered Maimon argues that current artistic and activist practices are no longer concerned with the "politics of representation" and the critique of the spectacle, but with a "politics of rights" and the performative formation of shared yet highly contested public domains. The book thus offers a critical framework in which to rethink the (...) artistic, the activist, and the political under globalization. The primary focus is on the ways contemporary artists and activists examine political citizenship as a paradox where subjects are struggling to acquire rights whose formulation rests on attributes they allegedly don't have; while the universal political validity of these rights presupposes precisely the abstraction of every form of difference, rights for all. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, contemporary art, photography theory, visual culture, cultural studies, critical theory, political theory, human rights, and activism. (shrink)

Do human beings ever act freely, and if so what does freedom mean? Is everything that happens antecedently caused, and if so how is freedom possible? Is it right, even for God, to punish people for things that they cannot help doing? This volume presents the famous seventeenth-century controversy in which Thomas Hobbes and John Bramhall debate these questions and others. The complete texts of their initial contributions to the debate are included, together with selections from their subsequent replies to (...) one another and from other works of Hobbes, in a collection that offers an illuminating commentary on issues still of concern to philosophers today. The volume is completed by a historical and philosophical introduction that explains the context in which the debate took place. (shrink)

Pyrrhonian inquiry responds to the hope of intellectual tranquillity, and aims at the achievement and maintenance of said tranquillity. According to the Tranquillity Charge, philosophical inquiry aims at the truth; hence, insofar as Pyrrhonian inquiry aims at tranquillity, it does not qualify as philosophical inquiry. Furthermore, Pyrrhonian philanthropy rests on the Partisan Premise, i.e. the claim that all philosophers aim at the removal of psychological disturbance. I show that the origin-story of Pyrrhonism evades the Tranquillity Charge, and that the Partisan (...) Premise is not as partisan as it seems. Unlike previous attempts, my reconstruction preserves all tranquillity-related features of Sextan Pyrrhonism. (shrink)

This paper was first presented at the London Medical Group's Annual Conference entitled Death: the last taboo held in February 1980. Dr Vere comments on the evidence of research done by him and his colleagues on the pain and discomfort suffered by patients who are dying and are in hospital. He contrasts this with the situation in hospices, analyses the differences, and attributes much of the unnecessary pain suffered in hospitals to attitudes of staff, as well as to a reluctance (...) by relatives to allow patients with terminal pain to die at home. He deprecates the tendency in hospitals to separate 'curing' and 'caring' and suggests that sometimes the best help involves 'doing' less, not more. (shrink)

We focus on the question of how expertise as conceived by the Stoics interacts with the content of impressions. In Section 1, we situate the evidence concerning expert perception within the Stoic account of cognitive development. In Section 2, we argue that the content of rational impressions, and notably of expert impressions, is not exhausted by the relevant propositions. In Section 3, we argue that expert impressions are a subtype of kataleptic impressions which achieve their level of clarity and distinctness (...) due to the contribution of expertise. In Section 4, we argue that the expertise in living well not only allows the wise person to assent correctly but also affects the content of her impressions. We suggest that these two models – one’s attitude toward an impression being informed by expertise, and one’s impressions being affected by expertise – might characterize distinct stages of cognitive development. Stoic wisdom is not only a matter of the way one assents to one’s impressions but also a matter of the condition of one’s soul and, consequently, of the kinds of impressions one even entertains. Expertise offers a model of how cognitive and discriminatory improvement through practice and effort can transform the non-wise into the wise. A reading on which the content of impressions is not exclusively propositional illuminates a further aspect of this transformation. If the same propositions are accessible through impressions with different non-propositional content, we can account for cases in which the novice and the expert entertain the same proposition. (shrink)

This symposium comprises five papers on Locke's theory of sense perception. The authors are John Rogers, Gideon Yaffe, Lex Newman, Tom Lennon, and Martha Bolton. There are also comments on the papers, both individually and as a group, by Vere Chappell. In addition to Locke's view of perception, the papers deal with the nature of Lockean ideas and with the question whether Locke is committed to skepticism regarding the external world. The authors (and the commentator) disagree in their readings of (...) Locke on these issues, but most maintain--and some argue--that he holds a representative theory of perception, and that he is not an external-world skeptic. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Descartes's Uses of the Word “Substance” Individual Substances in the Meditations and Objections and Replies Descartes and Aristotle Modes and Attributes: Tropes Two Further Points About Substances in the Meditations Substance in the Synopsis of the Meditations Substance in the Fourth Replies Substance in the Principles The Most General Things Uni‐Generic Attributes Attributes in General Substance in Descartes's Later Works Conclusion Acknowledgments References and Further Reading.

This text is the introduction to V. Amit & N. B. Salazar, Pacing Mobilities. Timing, Intensity, Tempo & Duration of Human Movements, New York/Oxford, Berghahn, 2020, 202 p. It is also available on Berghahn publisher website.

This article aims to deepen and extend theoretical understanding of mobility by exploring some of the mechanisms by which it operates. It introduces the concept and practices of ‘tacking’ as a frame for examining the creative processes of navigation and improvisation through which people approach and reflect on the irregularities and uncertainties of their everyday rounds, enacted or otherwise narrated as spatial biography – lives conceived in mobile-spatial terms. ‘Tacking’ also travels beyond this frame of reference, i.e. it is ‘good (...) to think with’ across different substantive contexts of social interaction. Tacking suggests ongoing adjustment and modification that respond to shifting circumstances and may create new facts on the ground, which elicit further adjustments. (shrink)

In this special issue, our goal is to ... show that the distinguished history of philosophical reflection on attention, insofar as the Western tradition is concerned, has at least some of its roots in Classical Greek and Roman philosophy. This is offered as a partial corrective to historical overviews of the Western discourse, which rarely reach further back than René Descartes. Furthermore, we wish to emphasize that ancient treatments of attention are especially concerned with its role in the context of (...) ethics and human agency. Even when they take their departure from an analysis of selective perceptual attention, their intention is not only to account for this phenomenon as part of a naturalistic science of the mind but also to motivate the view that the capacity to focus or to shift our attention is indispensable to human flourishing. Moral training is to a large extent conceived of as a matter of acquiring and sustaining the mental strength required for maintaining an attentive state of mind while resisting the interference of competing stimuli. -/- TABLE OF CONTENTS Pauliina Remes: From Natural Tendencies to Perceptual Interests and Motivation in Plato’s Timaeus Voula Tsouna: The Epicurean Notion of epibolê Katerina Ierodiakonou: The Stoic Provenance of the Notion of Prosochê Charles Brittain: A Stoic Ethics for Attention (Seneca Letter 56) Lenka Karfíková: Attention in Augustine. (shrink)

The evidence concerning the existence of Epicurean gods has invited ever-growing attention, and has resulted in discussions of increasing sophistication. I aim to provide a roadmap to this controversy, and to argue for the following three claims. First, in the debate concerning ‘realist’ and ‘idealist’ readings of the Epicurean thesis that gods exist, there is no principled way of deciding which one to favour without having to compromise on some aspect of a minimally Epicurean position. Second, positing an innate disposition (...) to form the concept of god is not going to carry the day for an ‘idealist’ reading, though it does capture an important insight about the ethical orientation of the Epicurean theory. Third, in accor- dance with this ethical orientation, we have reason to suspect that Epicurus was genuinely uninterested in what the correct ontological position might be. (shrink)

Do human beings ever act freely, and if so what does freedom mean? Is everything that happens antecedently caused, and if so how is freedom possible? Is it right, even for God, to punish people for things that they cannot help doing? This volume presents the famous seventeenth-century controversy in which Thomas Hobbes and John Bramhall debate these questions and others. The complete texts of their initial contributions to the debate are included, together with selections from their subsequent replies to (...) one another and from other works of Hobbes, in a collection that offers an illuminating commentary on issues still of concern to philosophers today. The volume is completed by a historical and philosophical introduction that explains the context in which the debate took place. (shrink)

This new volume in the successful Oxford Readings in Philosophy series presents a selection of the best recent articles on the main topics in Locke's philosophy. These include: innate ideas, ideas and perception, primary and secondary qualities, free will, substance, personal identity, language, essence, knowledge, and belief. The authors include some of the world's leading Locke scholars, and their essays exemplify the best - and most accessible - recent scholarship on Locke, making the volume essential for students and specialists.

Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. The essays in this volume provide a systematic survey of Locke's philosophy informed by the most recent scholarship. They cover (...) Locke's theory of ideas, his philosophies of body, mind, language, and religion, his theory of knowledge, his ethics, and his political philosophy. There are also chapters on Locke's life and subsequent influence. New readers and non-specialists will find this the most convenient, accessible guide to Locke currently available. (shrink)

LOCKE'S DISCUSSION OF ORGANISMS AND PERSONS IN "ESSAY" II.XXVI HAS LED GEACH AND OTHERS TO ATTRIBUTE THE THESIS OF RELATIVE IDENTITY TO HIM; THAT X IS NEVER IDENTICAL WITH Y "TOUT COURT" BUT ONLY RELATIVE TO SOME SORTAL PROPERTY F: X IS THE SAME F AS Y. I ARGUE THAT THIS ATTRIBUTION RESTS ON A MISUNDERSTANDING OF LOCKE'S POSITION. LOCKE INDEED HOLDS THAT AN OLD TREE MAY BE THE SAME OAK AS THE SEEDLING FROM WHICH IT GREW, WHEREAS THE PARTICLES (...) COMPOSING THE TREE AND THE SEEDLING ARE DIFFERENT MASSES OF MATTER. BUT HE ALSO HOLDS THAT PLANTS AND MASSES OF MATTER ARE DISTINCT ENTITIES TO START WITH, EVEN IF THEY OCCUPY THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME. AND SIMILARLY WITH PERSONS AND MEN. THE RESULT IS A COPIOUS ONTOLOGY, BUT THERE IS NO REASON TO THINK THAT LOCKE WOULD OR SHOULD HAVE BEEN BOTHERED BY THAT. (shrink)

Compatibilism is the doctrine that the doctrine of determinism is logically consistent with the doctrine of libertarianism. Determinism is the doctrine that every being and event is brought about by causes other than itself. Libertarianism is the doctrine that some human actions are free. Was Descartes a compatibilist? There is no doubt that he was a libertarian: his works are full of professions of freedom, human as well as divine. And though he held that God has no cause other than (...) himself, Descartes thought that everything apart from God is externally caused: he was a determinist with respect to the created universe. So it appears, assuming him consistent with himself, that Descartes must have been a compatibilist. And indeed, there are passages in his writings in which he appears explicitly to affirm that he is. Since both Descartes’s libertarianism and his determinism are complex doctrines, however, his view of the relation between them is complex as well. (shrink)

The concept of vocal charisma has changed in the past decades from something that people have to something that people do, thereby stimulating research on how vocal charisma can be created and improved. Broadening the perspective on vocal charisma beyond the speaker’s performance itself to the context of the speech, we conducted acoustic-prosodic analyses of public speeches of two prominent Israelian politicians – Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz. The speech material consisted of 311–516 prosodic phrases per politician from the election (...) campaigns 2019–2020 and, crucially, was balanced so as to include an equal number of pre- and post-election speeches. Results show a superiority of Netanyahu over Gantz in almost all facets of vocal charisma, although Gantz caught up over time. Moreover, unlike Gantz, Netanyahu showed a strong adaptation of his vocal charisma patterns to before- and after-election contexts. Scrutinizing this versatility difference, an additional perception experiment with 42 listeners and excerpts from the two politicians’ speeches was carried out. Results show that Netanyahu’s speech excerpts were, unlike those of Gantz, mainly rated as more charismatic in those contexts in which they were performed. Gantz’ post-election speech excerpts, by contrast, were primarily rated as not fitting into that context, i.e., as unfolding their charisma better in a pre-election context. Moreover, listeners also rated Netanyahu as overall more charismatic than Gantz. The combined production and perception evidence suggests the relevance of context in the evaluation and interpretation of vocal charisma signals. (shrink)

Professor Duncan Vere lays before us the idealised guidelines used for recruiting volunteers on which to try and test new medicines. He points out that if these were followed rigidly, few, if any volunteers would be found for this vital work. Inducements are used, but the size of these determines whether society deems it right or wrong. However, the aim is to help and advise volunteers of the need for such tests and the risks involved and therefore the information leaflet (...) reprinted as part of the article indicates how the drug testers are attempting to encourage volunteers in as ethical a way as possible. To abandon human tests with new drugs may be unethical. A balance is sought. (shrink)

In Principles I. 53, Descartes states what appears to be an important metaphysical principle: P1: Each substance has one principal property, which constitutes its nature and essence, and to which all its other properties are referred (AT VIIIA 25; CSM I 210).1 Marleen Rozemond calls this Descartes's "Attributes Premise", and it leads directly, as she points out, to Cartesian Dualism, the doctrine that a human mind and a human body, even when they belong to the same human being, are distinct (...) substances (Rozemond forthcoming). (shrink)

Considering the absence of any ancient systematic approach to the reading of the novel, this paper turns to ancient dream hermeneutics as a valuable field of reference that can provide the theoretical framework for studying the ancient novel within its own cultural context. In introducing dream interpretation as one of the ancient novel's creative sources, this essay focuses on Apuleius' Metamorphoses. It explores the dream logic in Apuleius' novel by turning to such authorities as Heraclitus, Plato, Cicero, Artemidorus, and Macrobius, (...) whose characterization of the phenomenon of dreaming sheds light on specific narratological trtaits of the Metamorphoses. It argues that the lower dream category, the insomnium , provides a notion of textuality that can clarify the traditional status of the Metamorphoses as a marginal work of art. In contrast to divinely sent symbolic dreams, it is primarily the insomnium—conceived as a by-product of the lower functions of the soul—that lends psychological force to Apuleius' fiction. (shrink)