Cet article tente de démontrer la cohérence des contes de Diderot envisagés sous le point de vue d’un programme étho-poétique englobant, au centre duquel se trouve la notion de caractère. Le caractère chez Diderot semble donner un fondement quasi physique, en tout cas naturaliste à la morale, mais il est lui-même miné par des tensions (entre forme et force, être et paraître, fiction et morale etc.) que met en relief l’article. Après une première réflexion sur la critique du jugement moral (...) effectuée par les contes, qui permet de relever les ‘vertus’ du caractere du point de vue de la pensée morale, s’approfondit l’analyse des enjeux littéraires des contes. Il s’avère que plutôt qu’un fondement stable de la morale, le caractère (littéraire), grâce à ses ambivalences mêmes, constitue le médium privilégié de la stratégie esthétique de Diderot en tant qu’elle vise essentiellement à une compromission éthique du lecteur. (shrink)

La notion de génie revêt une importance cruciale dans la pensée de Denis Diderot. En promouvant l'idée nouvelle d'homme de génie, le philosophe encyclopédiste contribua à transformer l'histoire culturelle de l'Europe. Dans son oeuvre, le génie se montre toujours en mouvement : il oscille entre la chaleur de l'enthousiasme et la froideur de l'esprit observateur ; il reflète les lois de la nature tout en les dépassant ; il perturbe toute certitude morale et apparaît, enfin, comme un moteur aussi ambivalent (...) qu'efficace du progrès. Les études rassemblées dans ce volume retracent l'hétérogénéité protéiforme du génie diderotien en mettant en valeur ses enjeux philosophiques, esthétiques, politiques et sociaux."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Rousseaus Verhältnis zu den Institutionen ist zumindest ambivalent, eher paradox: Einerseits gilt er als ein dezidierter Kritiker nicht nur der Institutionen seiner eigenen Zeit, sondern von Institutionalität überhaupt. Andererseits lässt sich kaum leugnen, dass Institutionen eine wichtige Rolle in seinem Denken spielen. Man mag darin eine gewisse Zwangsläufigkeit erkennen: Sofern Rousseau nicht nur kritisieren, sondern aktiv gestalten will, sofern er nicht nur punktuell intervenieren, sondern seinen reformerischen Vorschlägen Beständigkeit verleihen möchte, bleibt er auf Institutionen und Institutionalität angewiesen. Rousseau ist in (...) diesem Sinne kein Utopist: Auch wenn seine Schriften z.T. utopische Züge aufweisen, wenn sich in ihnen die Tendenz zum Ausbruch aus dem von der Gesellschaft gesteckten Rahmen manifestiert, kehren sie doch letztlich immer wieder zu den Institutionen zurück. Dass dies keine Kapitulation vor der Macht des Faktischen bedeutet, sondern ganz im Gegenteil den Realismus eines aufgeklärten Denkens ausmacht, das sich - obgleich eminent kritisch- stets aufs Neue vor institutionelle Herausforderungen stellt, belegen die in diesem Band versammelten Beiträge. (shrink)

The emphasis on duly in Kant's ethics is widely held to constitute a defect. Marcia W. Baron develops and assesses the criticism, which she sees as comprising two objections: that duty plays too large a role, leaving no room for the supererogatory, and that Kant places too much value on acting from duty. Clearly written and cogently argued, Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology takes on the most philosophically intriguing objections to Kant's ethics and subjects them to a rigorous yet (...) sympathetic assessment. (shrink)

Der Band thematisiert Karl Bühlers Idee des Empraktischen, fasst sie aber zugleich weiter, indem nicht nur auf sprachlich-implizites, sondern leiblich-implizites Vollzugshandeln eingegangen wird. Im Empraktischen geht es demzufolge um leiblich-implizite Wissensformen. Das Empraktische ist ein Wissen-Haben im Tun-Können. Empraktisch wissen wir, was wir wissen, solange wir nicht danach gefragt werden. Oder anders ausgedrückt: Empraktisches Wissen ist ein Wissen, das wir solange haben, solange wir es nicht metastufig problematisieren. Selbst die Reflexionswissenschaft Philosophie, deren Tun wesentlich in der Reflexion besteht, funktioniert wie (...) Sport, Sex, Wissenschaft und Kunst auf der Basis des Empraktischen. Der Band thematisiert demzufolge das Empraktische auf zwei Ebenen: auf der Ebene der Philosophie und auf der Ebene der Kunst. (shrink)

La société contemporaine est constamment confrontée aux problèmes religieux. Cependant, la tradition républicaine française abandonne la religion à la sphère privée, comme si elle n'avait pas, par essence, une existence dans la Cité. Il ne s'agit pas pour autant de réduire la religion à sa dimension politique, voire au militantisme fanatique. La critique des réductions illégitimes de la religion est donc la première tâche. Il est aussi impossible de privatiser la religion que de la politiser. La réduire au lien social (...) n'est pas plus satisfaisant, même si c'est une tentation des sociologues. La religion ne se réduit pas davantage à la religiosité du sublime ou de l'idéal démocratique. Contre la notion scabreuse de " religions sans Dieu ", il vaut mieux admettre qu'il existe du religieux diffus sans religion, et garder le terme pour désigner une relation à la transcendance divine (une ou multiple) à la fois et indissolublement singulière et collective. Ainsi, il n'y a pas de religion sans prière individuelle, contrairement à ce que Kant souhaitait. Mais cette prière n'a aucun sens si elle ne s'adosse pas à un message intersubjectif, celui d'une communauté inspirée qui s'inscrit dans la Cité par sa dimension sociale et son histoire. La dimension personnelle de la religion (foi et méditation) s'appuie donc sur le symbolique, le témoignage et la communauté. Pour le philosophe d'aujourd'hui, les religions se présentent comme l'attestation multiple de la présence d'une transcendance divine et d'une vie spirituelle dans la société et dans l'histoire. Mettre la religion entre parenthèses, c'est s'exposer à ne rien comprendre de l'histoire du monde. (shrink)

I introduce an argument for Platonism based on intra-mathematical explanation: the explanation of one mathematical fact by another. The argument is important for two reasons. First, if the argument succeeds then it provides a basis for Platonism that does not proceed via standard indispensability considerations. Second, if the argument fails it can only do so for one of three reasons: either because there are no intra-mathematical explanations, or because not all explanations are backed by dependence relations, or because some form (...) of noneism-the view according to which non-existent entities possess properties and stand in relations-is true. The argument thus forces a choice between nominalism without noneism, intra-mathematical explanation and a backing conception of explanation. You can have any two, but not all three. (shrink)

We develop a new version of the causal theory of spacetime. Whereas traditional versions of the theory seek to identify spatiotemporal relations with causal relations, the version we develop takes causal relations to be the grounds for spatiotemporal relations. Causation is thus distinct from, and more basic than, spacetime. We argue that this non-identity theory, suitably developed, avoids the challenges facing the traditional identity theory.

Justifications and excuses are defenses that exculpate. They are therefore much more like each other than like such defenses as diplomatic immunity, which does not exculpate. But they exculpate in different ways, and it has proven difficult to agree on just what that difference consists in. In this paper I take a step back from justification and excuse as concepts in criminal law, and look at the concepts as they arise in everyday life. To keep the task manageable, I focus (...) primarily on excuses and excusing activities, distinguishing them from justifications as well as from other close relatives, in particular, forgiving and pardoning. I draw upon J.L. Austin’s classic A Plea for Excuses, but expand on his account, suggesting that we offer excuses for reasons besides those he mentions. My hope is that my examination of excuses and excusing activities will help us rethink our views on just how justifications and excuses differ, views which often are worked out without much attention to how these concepts function in everyday life and to the connection between offers of excuses and justifications and the rules of civility. (shrink)

Richard M. Hare (1919 - 2002) is usually acknowledged to be one of the major moral thinkers of the 20th century. After being a Japanese prisoner of war for most of World War II, he completed his education at Oxford, later joining the faculty and becoming a professor. In 1983 he moved to the University of Florida but still kept his ties with Oxford. He had many students, including Peter Singer. At a memorial service for Hare in 2002, Singer ascribed (...) to him three major achievements in moral philosophy, namely “restoring reason to moral argument, distinguishing intuitive and critical levels of moral thinking, and pioneering the development of practical or applied ethics”. (shrink)

In this paper we confront a challenge to truthmaker theory that is analogous to the objections raised by deflationists against substantive theories of truth. Several critics of truthmaker theory espouse a ‘deflationary’ attitude about truthmaking, though it has not been clearly presented as such. Our goal is to articulate and then object to the underlying rationale behind deflationary truthmaking. We begin by developing the analogy between deflationary truth and deflationary truthmaking, and then show how the latter can be found in (...) the work of Dodd, Hornsby, Schnieder, Williamson, and others. These philosophers believe that the ambitions of truthmaker theory are easily satisfied, without recourse to ambitious ontological investigation—hence the analogy with deflationary truth. We argue that the deflationists’ agenda fails: there is no coherent deflationary theory of truthmaking. Truthmaking, once deflated, fails to address the questions at the heart of truthmaking investigation. Truthmaking cannot be had on the cheap. (shrink)

On a voulu montrer dans ce livre que, reflete a travers les miroirs differents que sont les genies philosophiques et politiques de l'epoque, l'idealisme allemand forme une incontestable unite de langage philosophique. A l'interieur de cette grande unite, ou la philosophie ne cesse de se confronter aux plus hauts problemes de l'homme, le clivage entre un idealisme transcendantal et l'idealisme speculatif apparait comme une faille profonde, en ce que la description de la finitude humaine, et par consequent la comprehension des (...) limites de l'homme, est l'objet du premier alors que le rapport d'expression du fini a l'infini est au coeur du second. L'attitude idealiste symbolisee par Hegel a eu de nombreuses consequences. Mais les critiques qui ont ete faites aux successeurs de Hegel ne doivent pas nous faire oublier la presence de l'idealisme allemand. C'est cette presence philosophique que ce livre espere restituer. (shrink)

Almost every contemporary theory of knowledge is a version of fallibilism, yet an adequate statement of fallibilism has not yet been provided. Standard definitions cannot account for fallibilistic knowledge of necessary truths. I consider and reject several attempts to resolve this difficulty before arguing that a belief is an instance of fallibilistic knowledge when it could have failed to be knowledge. This is a fully general account of fallibilism that applies to knowledge of necessary truths. Moreover, it reveals, not only (...) the connection between fallibility and error, but the connection between fallibility and accidental truth as well. (shrink)

Although recent epistemology has been marked by several prominent disagreements – e.g., between foundationalists and coherentists, internalists and externalists – there has been widespread agreement that some form of fallibilism must be correct. According to a rough formulation of this view, it is possible for a subject to have knowledge even in cases where the justification or grounding for the knowledge is compatible with the subject’s being mistaken. In this paper, I examine the motivation for fallibilism before providing a fully (...) general account of the view. I conclude by looking at the two major difficulties for fallibilism: the Gettier problem and the lottery paradox. (shrink)

There have been several recent attempts to account for the special authority of self-knowledge by grounding it in a constitutive relation between an agent's intentional states and her judgments about those intentional states. This constitutive relation is said to hold in virtue of the rationality of the subject. I argue, however, that there are two ways in which we have self-knowledge without there being such a constitutive relation between first-order intentional states and the second-order judgments about them. Recognition of this (...) fact thus represents a significant challenge to the rational agency view. (shrink)

We use a new model of metarepresentational development to predict a cognitive deficit which could explain a crucial component of the social impairment in childhood autism. One of the manifestations of a basic metarepresentational capacity is a ‘ theory of mind ’. We have reason to believe that autistic children lack such a ‘ theory ’. If this were so, then they would be unable to impute beliefs to others and to predict their behaviour. This hypothesis was tested using Wimmer (...) and Perner’s puppet play paradigm. Normal children and those with Down’s syndrome were used as controls for a group of autistic children. Even though the mental age of the autistic children was higher than that of the controls, they alone failed to impute beliefs to others. Thus the dysfunction we have postulated and demonstrated is independent of mental retardation and specific to autism. (shrink)

This chapter describes Card's characterization as an idealization that captures why hate crime legislation seems (at least prima facie) to be a very good idea. The rationale for enhanced penalties is far more compelling if hate crimes are characterized as Card characterizes them. She focuses on hate crimes that are motivated by hatred. Hate crimes today should be viewed as part of an ongoing campaign of intimidation. Card is of course well aware of the position that the legal category of (...) hate crimes and enhanced penalties for hate crimes are called for to counter the message sent by hate crimes; in fact she notes that she was initially "attracted to the idea of penalty enhancement legislation for hate crimes as a way to send a strong social message against racism, sexism, anti‐Semitism, and homophobia". (shrink)

On a voulu montrer dans ce livre que, reflete a travers les miroirs differents que sont les genies philosophiques et politiques de l'epoque, l'idealisme allemand forme une incontestable unite de langage philosophique. A l'interieur de cette grande unite, ou la philosophie ne cesse de se confronter aux plus hauts problemes de l'homme, le clivage entre un idealisme transcendantal et l'idealisme speculatif apparait comme une faille profonde, en ce que la description de la finitude humaine, et par consequent la comprehension des (...) limites de l'homme, est l'objet du premier alors que le rapport d'expression du fini a l'infini est au coeur du second. L'attitude idealiste symbolisee par Hegel a eu de nombreuses consequences. Mais les critiques qui ont ete faites aux successeurs de Hegel ne doivent pas nous faire oublier la presence de l'idealisme allemand. C'est cette presence philosophique que ce livre espere restituer. (shrink)

Epistemic circularity occurs when a subject forms the belief that a faculty F is reliable through the use of F. Although this is often thought to be vicious, externalist theories generally don't rule it out. For some philosophers, this is a reason to reject externalism. However, Michael Bergmann defends externalism by drawing on the tradition of common sense in two ways. First, he concedes that epistemically circular beliefs cannot answer a subject's doubts about her cognitive faculties. But, he argues, subjects (...) don't have such doubts, so epistemically circular beliefs are rarely called upon to play this role. Second, following Thomas Reid, Bergmann argues that we have noninferential, though epistemically circular, knowledge that our faculties are reliable. I argue, however, that Bergmann's view is undermined by doubts a subject should have and that there is no plausible explanation for how we can have noninferential knowledge that our faculties are reliable. (shrink)

In this article, I shall suggest an approach to the justification of normative moral principles which leads, I think, to utilitarianism. The approach is based on asking what moral norms we would each endorse if we had no prior moral commitments. I argue that we would endorse norms that lead to the satisfaction of all our nonmoral values or goals. The same approach leads to a view of utility as consisting of those goals that we would want satisfied. In the (...) second half of the article, I examine the implication of this view for several issues about the nature of utility, such as the use of past and future goals. The argument for utilitarianism is not completed here. The rest of it requires a defense of expected-utility theory, of interpersonal comparison, and of equal consideration. (shrink)

The traditional argument for skepticism relies on a comparison between a normal subject and a subject in a skeptical scenario: because there is no relevant difference between them, neither has knowledge. Externalists respond by arguing that there is in fact a relevant difference—the normal subject is properly situated in her environment. I argue, however, that there is another sort of comparison available—one between a normal subject and a subject with a belief that is accidentally true—that makes possible a new argument (...) for skepticism. Unlike the traditional form of skeptical argument, this new argument applies equally well to both internalist and externalist theories of knowledge. (shrink)

Knowledge is standardly taken to be belief that is both true and justified (and perhaps meets other conditions as well). Timothy Williamson rejects the standard epistemology for its inability to solve the Gettier problem. The moral of this failure, he argues, is that knowledge does not factor into a combination that includes a mental state (belief) and an external condition (truth), but is itself a type of mental state. Knowledge is, according to his preferred account, the most general factive mental (...) state. I argue, however, that Gettier cases pose a serious problem for Williamson’s epistemology: in these cases, thesubject may have a factive mental state that fails to be cognitive. Hence, knowledge cannot be the most general factive mental state. (shrink)