I have no comment to make on the aesthetic merits of these verses. I have put them at the head of my discussion because they happen to introduce a cluster of concepts connected with forgiveness: pride, love, hate, God, friendship, goodwill, eternity, offence, condemnation, resentment, blame. We may think that some, but not all, of these have essential connections with the concept in which we are interested. And we may, of course, think that the list is incomplete. Other obvious candidates (...) spring to mind: pity, for example, repentance, compassion, punishment and pardoning. (shrink)

Additional arguments for sense‐data begin by defending the claim that perceptual sensations are psychological individuals, examples being phosphenes, after‐images, and the ‘ringings’ of ‘tinnitus’. Five arguments for sense‐data follow. First, that since corresponding to every veridical visual field is a possible non‐veridical visual field of sensations, the latter merely needs a different and regular outer cause to be deemed veridical. Second, since bodily sensation experience is extremely strong evidence for the existence of a matching sensation cause, the experience of ‘ringing’ (...) must be strong evidence that a ‘ringing’ sensation is its cause, and this holds in the veridical hearing of a ringing sound. Third, that it is inconceivable that one has a truly visual experience of a red visual field, and absolutely nothing red‐looking be there before one had noticed. Fourth, that the experience of sound might have had a different developmental history, in which first there was merely experience of auditory sensation, and then over millennia such experience gradually found itself caused by regular outer phenomena, thereby constituting the hearing of sound. And a fifth argument that resembles the first argument. (shrink)

Maurizio Lazzarato is an Italian sociologist and philosopher who lives and works in France. He collaborated on collective works with important figures like Antonio Negri and Yann Moulier-Boutang in the 1990s and has been a frequent contributor to the journal Multitudes in which the same two intellectuals were also leading voices. During the same period, he was closely involved as a theorist and activist in the long and inventive struggle of the intermittents du spectacle, French cultural workers defending a social (...) security regime that took particular account of their unstable employment and the way in which their creativity overflowed their periods of paid activity. This involvement fed into a broader... (shrink)

This new textbook is an exceptionally clear and concise introduction to the philosophy of action, suitable for students interested in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of social sciences. Moya begins by considering the problem of agency: how are we to understand the distinction between actions and happenings, between actions we perform and things that happen to us? Moya outlines and examines a range of philosophical responses to this problem. He also develops his own original view, treating the analysis (...) of meaningful action as the basis for understanding the distinctive interplay of agency, intention and commitment. Subsequent chapters examine recent attempts to integrate our understanding of action with the view of the world provided by the natural sciences. The work of Donald Davidson is examined in detail. Moya also discusses the views of many other authors who have contributed to recent debates in the philosophy of action, including Anscombe, Churchland, Harman, Hornsby, Goldman and O'Shaughnessy. (shrink)

This paper is intended to meet some objections that Vermazen has raised about the treatment of the regress-problem in the author's book on the philosophy of action. This problem is shown to involve a skeptical claim about the very existence of actions as distinct from happenings. It is argued, against Vermazen's contention, that only one version of the problem is at work in that book and that, while Danto's basic actions, McCann's volitions and O'Shaughnessy's and Hornsby's tryings do not (...) solve, after analysis, that version of the problem, the author's proposal does in fact provide a solution to it. (shrink)

In his discussion note ‘J. J. C. Smart, Materialism and Occam's Razor’ Peter Glassen argues that it was inconsistent of me both to assert that realism is true and that Occam's razor is a reason for the materialist thesis. Glassen says that Occam's razor ‘ is not a physical thing, state or process at all ’. A little further down on the same page he uses the phrase ‘material or physical thing, state, or process’. It is possible, therefore, that Glassen (...) regards the distinction between ‘material’ and ‘physical’ as unimportant in the present context. I think however that one way of replying to Glassen turns on this distinction. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to seek a reconciliation between two apparently conflicting views of mine. I have argued (for example, Smart, 1963) for realism about theoretical entities, for example electrons, protons, photons, possibly space-time points, perhaps the ‘Y’-wave of Schrödinger’s equation and so on. Quine has also plausibly argued that we should believe in mathematical entities, since in physics we quantify over them no less than over electrons and protons. I except cases in which in physics the (...) existential quantifications are part of merely pretence discourse. Perhaps in spherical astronomy talk of the celestial sphere should be treated in this way. Alternatively the celestial sphere could be thought of realistically as a sphere whose centre is that of the earth while the stars and planets are thought of (or correlated with) points or small areas on the sphere’s surface in their lines of sight. I am not concerned in this paper to delimit fact from fiction in scientific discourse. The settlement of borderline disputes can wait for another occasion. My main argument for scientific realism is the cosmic coincidence argument. Would it not be a cosmic coincidence if the world were merely as if there were electrons, protons, etc?1. (shrink)

Robert Boyle, one of the most important intellectuals of the seventeenth century, was a gifted experimenter, an exceptionally able philosopher, and a dedicated Christian. In Boyle’s two _Excellencies_, _The Excellency of Theology Compared with Natural Philosophy_ and _About The Excellency and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis_, he explains and justifies his new philosophy of science while reconciling it with Christian theology. These pioneering works of early science and theology are now available in a modernized and accessible new edition. This Broadview (...) edition brings spelling and punctuation into line with current conventions and includes notes and references to set the works in their historical and philosophical context. The appendices include works by Boyle’s predecessors in the philosophy of science, other philosophical writings by Boyle, and an appendix of the other figures mentioned in the texts. (shrink)

We can contrast rationalising explanations of the form S φs because p with those of the form S φs because S believes that p. According the Common Kind View, the two sorts of explanation are the same. The Disjunctive View denies this. This paper sets out to elucidate the sense in which the Common Kind Theorist asserts, but the Disjunctivist denies, that the two explanations are the same. I suggest that, in the light of the distinction between kinds of explanation (...) and particular explanations, the relevant sameness thesis is ambiguous, thus giving us two distinct versions of the Common Kind View. I then argue that the only direct arguments for Disjunctivism available in the literature fail because they only succeed in undermining one version of the Common Kind View. I finish, however, by providing a fresh argument for the Disjunctive View which aims to undermine both versions of its competitor. (shrink)

It is now common to distinguish Metaphysical from Epistemological Disjunctivism. It is equally common to suggest that it is at least not obvious that the latter requires a commitment to the former: at the very least, a suitable bridge principle will need to be identified which takes one from the latter to the former. This paper identifies a plausible-looking bridge principle that takes one from the version of Epistemological Disjunctivism defended by John McDowell and Duncan Pritchard, which I label Reflective (...) Epistemological Disjunctivism, or (RED), to Metaphysical Disjunctivism. Moreover, it identifies a modification the proponent of (RED) could, and should, make to the Internalist component of their theory, and argues that the commitment to Metaphysical Disjunctivism remains, even if such a modification is made. The upshot is that the commitment to Metaphysical Disjunctivism on the part of (RED) is shown to be particularly robust. (shrink)

Here is a surprisingly neglected question in contemporary epistemology: what is it for an agent to believe that p in response to a normative reason for them to believe that p? On one style of answer, believing for the normative reason that q factors into believing that p in the light of the apparent reason that q, where one can be in that kind of state even if q is false, in conjunction with further independent conditions such as q’s being (...) a normative reason to believe that p. The primary objective of this paper is to demonstrate that that style of answer cannot be right, because we must conceive of believing for a normative reason as constitutively involving a kind of rationality-involving relation that can be instantiated at all only if there is a known fact on the scene, which the agent treats as a normative reason. A secondary objective, achieved along the way, is to demonstrate that in their Prime Time Errol Lord and Kurt Sylvan do not succeed in undermining the factoring picture in general, only a simple-minded version of it. (shrink)

Two essays on utilitarianism, written from opposite points of view, by J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams. In the first part of the book Professor Smart advocates a modern and sophisticated version of classical utilitarianism; he tries to formulate a consistent and persuasive elaboration of the doctrine that the rightness and wrongness of actions is determined solely by their consequences, and in particular their consequences for the sum total of human happiness. In Part II Bernard Williams offers a sustained (...) and vigorous critique of utilitarian assumptions, arguments and ideals. He finds inadequate the theory of action implied by utilitarianism, and he argues that utilitarianism fails to engage at a serious level with the real problems of moral and political philosophy, and fails to make sense of notions such as integrity, or even human happiness itself. This book should be of interest to welfare economists, political scientists and decision-theorists. (shrink)

Advances in the understanding of genetics have led to the belief that it may become possible to use genetic engineering to manipulate the DNA of humans at the embryonic stage to produce certain desirable traits. Although this currently cannot be done on a large scale, many people nevertheless object in principle to such practices. Most often, they argue that genetic enhancements would harm the children who were engineered, cause societal harms, or that the risks of perfecting the procedures are too (...) high to proceed. However, many of these same people do not have serious objections to what is called ‘genetic planning’ procedures (such as the selection of sperm donors with desirable traits) that essentially have the same ends. The author calls the view that genetic engineering enhancements are impermissible while genetic planning enhancements are permissible the ‘popular view’, and argues that the typical reasons people give for the popular view fail to distinguish the two practices. This paper provides a principle that can salvage the popular view, which stresses that offspring from genetic engineering practices have grounds for complaint because they are identical to the pre-enhanced embryo, whereas offspring who are the result of genetic planning have no such grounds. (shrink)