Online research in philosophy

In Guide 2.32 Maimonides notes that just as there are three opinions concerning prophecy (as discussed earlier in 2:13), so are there three opinions concerning cosmogony. Scholars have tended to assume that Maimonides, despite what he says, must have seen some more important correspondence between the two sets of opinions than their number. I argue that although for Maimonides what the two sets of opinions have in common is indeed their number, what he wishes to direct the careful reader's attention to is that the number of opinions in both cases is actually two rather than three.

We discuss the cable guy paradox, both as an object of interest in its own right and as something which can be used to illuminate certain issues in the theories of rational choice and belief. We argue that a crucial principle—The Avoid Certain Frustration (ACF) principle—which is used in stating the paradox is false, thus resolving the paradox. We also explain how the paradox gives us new insight into issues related to the Reflection principle. Our general thesis is that principles that base your current opinions on your current opinions about your future opinions need not make reference to the particular times in the future at which you believe you will have those opinions, but they do need to make reference to the particular degrees of belief you believe you will have in the future.

In The Philosophy of Manners Peter Johnson makes a compelling case for manners as a subject for investigation by modern moral philosophy. He examines manners as 'little virtues', explaining their distinctive conceptual characteristics and charting their intricate detail and relationships with each other. In demonstrating why manners are important to our mutual expectations, Johnson reveals a terrain which modern moral philosophy has left largely unmapped. Through a critical examination of the ethics of John Rawls and Alasdair MacIntyre, Johnson shows how the nature of manners constitutes a philosophical problem both for liberalism and its critics. Taking the recent revival of virtue ethics as its broad starting point, The Philosophy of Manners discusses the 'little virtues' as they are treated in the Aristotelian and Kantian traditions of writing on ethics. Original features of the book include discussions of nameless virtues, the logical intricacy of the 'little virtues' which compose manners, and the nature of their orchestration by the more substantial virtues and moral concerns. The aim throughout is to give manners a philosophically defensible place in the moral life - a place which neither inflates nor understates their importance. --an examination of why manners are essential to moral literacy and an ethical society --the first work of its kind - no other ethical investigation concentrates on manners --relevant to the recent revival of interest in virtue ethics and any course in contemporary ethics --will provoke argument and disagreement.

The question of manners is important in David Hume’s examination of human nature primarily because of the weight he assigns to the so-called ‘social virtues’. Man is, for Hume, a being that naturally tends to form societies, and the study of human nature is, after all, the study of human sociability, which finds its expression in manners. The present paper shows Hume as a participant in the seventeenth and eighteenth-century discussion about the concept of politeness, a concept which oscillated between the domain of manners and morals and the domain of art. The examination of Hume’s ideal of polite manners illustrates the way his classicist taste pervaded the appreciation both of works of art and of social comportment.

Many otherwise enlightened people often dismiss etiquette as a trivial subject or—worse yet—as nothing but a disguise for moral hypocrisy or unjust social hierarchies. Such sentiments either mistakenly assume that most manners merely frame the “real issues” of any interpersonal exchange or are the ugly vestiges of outdated, unfair social arrangements. But in On Manners, Karen Stohr turns the tables on these easy prejudices, demonstrating that the scope of manners is much broader than most people realize and that manners lead directly to the roots of enduring ethical questions. Stohr suggests that though manners are mostly conventional, they are nevertheless authoritative insofar as they are a primary means by which we express moral attitudes and commitments and carry out important moral goals.

Drawing primarily on Aristotle and Kant and with references to a wide range of cultural examples—from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm—the author ultimately concludes that good manners are essential to moral character.

Copyright ©2010–2015 all rights reserved. Jonathan Bennett [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . . . . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer omissions are reported between brackets in normal-sized type.—All the quotations from Latin writers were given in the original in Latin.—The Lord Somers to whom this work is addressed was the Lord Chancellor of England, the most highly placed official in the legal system.—This work is the first of the five Treatises in Shaftesbury’s Characteristics of men, manners, opinions, and times.

Between the two men there is perhaps little to choose on the point of principle, since Berkeley implicitly justifies the subordination of truth to supposed ...

Shaftesbury publie son oeuvre majeure, Characteristics of men, manners, opinions, times en 1711. Son intérêt pour les questions esthétiques apparaît dans leurs relations avec le concept de ressemblance. Puisque l'art produit sa propre théorie de l'imitation, on ne saurait le réduire aux domaines des philosophies naturelle et morale. Shaftesbury publishes his most important work in 1711: Characteristics of men, manners, opinions, times. His interest in aesthetical matters can be seen in his dealings with the word of likeness. The argument that art produces its own theory of imitation prevents any reduction to natural or moral philosophy.

Shaftesbury's Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times was first published in 1711. It ranges widely over ethics, aesthetics, religion, the arts (painting, literature, architecture, gardening), and ancient and modern history, and aims at nothing less than a new ideal of the gentleman. Together with Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Addison and Steele's Spectator, it is a text of fundamental importance for understanding the thought and culture of Enlightenment Europe. This volume presents a new edition of the text together with an introduction, explanatory notes and a guide to further reading.