Reprinted in Aristotle's Ethics, edited by T. Irwin, Garland Press, 1995; revised in Essays on Aristotle's Rhetoric, edited by A. Rorty, University of California Press, 1996.

ONE question asked about the relationship between feelings and emotion is whether feelings are a feature necessary to constitute emotion. Answers vary from James's assertion that they are so central as to be emotion, to Bedford's and Solomon's insistence that they are irrelevant to emotion. More moderate answers, however, have emerged, views in which feelings have a place with regard to emotion--at least some of the time. Assuming that feelings do have some status with regard to emotion, a further question (...) is to be asked. When feelings are a feature relevant to emotion, what is their status with regard to the features of the complex that are said to be emotion? (shrink)

When characterizing ta pathē in the Eudemian Ethics Aristotle claims that they are usually accompanied by perceptual pleasure or pain. He says: λέγω δ πάθη μν τ τοιατα, θυμν όβον αδ πιθυμίαν, λως ος πεται ώς π τ πολ ασθητικ ήδον ἢ λύπη καθ' ατά. By affections I mean such things as anger, fear, shame, desire – in general anything which, as such, gives rise usually to perceptual pleasure and pain.

When characterizing ta pathē in the Eudemian Ethics Aristotle claims that they are usually accompanied by perceptual pleasure or pain. He says: λέγω δ πάθη μν τ τοιατα, θυμν όβον αδ πιθυμίαν, λως ος πεται ώς π τ πολ ασθητικ ήδον ἢ λύπη καθ' ατά. By affections I mean such things as anger, fear, shame, desire – in general anything which, as such, gives rise usually to perceptual pleasure and pain.

In this article, from the 2009 Oxford University Press collection Epistemic Value, I criticize existing accounts of epistemic normativity by Alston, Goldman, and Sosa, and then offer a new view.

"Biophilia" is the term coined by Edward O. Wilson to describe what he believes is humanity's innate affinity for the natural world. In his landmark book Biophilia, he examined how our tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes might be a biologically based need, integral to our development as individuals and as a species. That idea has caught the imagination of diverse thinkers. The Biophilia Hypothesis brings together the views of some of the most creative scientists of our time, (...) each attempting to amplify and refine the concept of biophilia. The variety of perspectives -- psychological, biological, cultural, symbolic, and aesthetic -- frame the theoretical issues by presenting empirical evidence that supports or refutes the hypothesis. Numerous examples illustrate the idea that biophilia and its converse, biophobia, have a genetic component: fear, and even full-blown phobias of snakes and spiders are quick to develop with very little negative reinforcement, while more threatening modern artifacts -- knives, guns, automobiles -- rarely elicit such a response people find trees that are climbable and have a broad, umbrella-like canopy more attractive than trees without these characteristics people would rather look at water, green vegetation, or flowers than built structures of glass and concrete The biophilia hypothesis, if substantiated, provides a powerful argument for the conservation of biological diversity. More important, it implies serious consequences for our well-being as society becomes further estranged from the natural world. Relentless environmental destruction could have a significant impact on our quality of life, not just materially but psychologically and even spiritually. (shrink)

The notion that metaphorical statements are strictly false suggests that all statements, even those that seemed ‘literal’, are false, as none can ‘literally’ reflect reality. Statements about what we perceive or could perceive rely on evoking sensory images of such ‘visibles’, even though we have no direct access to what others, may perceive. In addition to what is visible, we must also deal with ‘invisibilia’ (both the fantasms that respectable moderns now reject and the realities that lie beyond or before (...) all sentient experience). Talking about such distant or long-ago realities must always be ‘metaphorical’, as they cannot have any of the merely ‘subjective’ properties of experience, nor do they explain those latter properties. Is there some way of confirming the brute conviction that there is a ‘real and intelligible world’, and that we can find it out or describe it ‘literally’? May ‘Reason’ be a route to understanding? But this too is an illusion: we seem never in practice to escape contradictions and had perhaps better turn again to consider the worlds of experience to which we are confined. What we experience is conditioned by our imagination: whether that metaphorical imagination points beyond experience remains uncertain. (shrink)

A Chinese translation of an essay entitled "Paradox in Perspective: A Liar’s Guide to Humor".

The prelims comprise: Half‐Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments Abbreviations.

Stephen Schiffer presents a groundbreaking account of meaning and belief, and shows how it can illuminate a range of crucial problems regarding language, mind, knowledge, and ontology. He introduces the new doctrine of 'pleonastic propositions' to explain what the things we mean and believe are. He discusses the relation between semantic and psychological facts, on the one hand, and physical facts, on the other; vagueness and indeterminacy; moral truth; conditionals; and the role of propositional content in information acquisition and (...) explanation. This radical new treatment of meaning will command the attention of everyone who works on fundamental questions about language, and will attract much interest from other areas of philosophy. (shrink)

What is it for marks or sounds to have meaning, and what is it for someone to mean something in producing them? Answering these and related questions, Schiffer explores communication, speech acts, convention, and the meaning of linguistic items in this reissue of a seminal work on the foundations of meaning. A new introduction takes account of recent developments and places his theory in a broader context.

In this foundational work on the theory of linguistic and mental representation, Stephen Schiffer surveys all the leading theories of meaning and content in the philosophy of language and finds them lacking. He concludes that there can be no correct, positive philosophical theory or linguistic or mental representation and, accordingly advocates the deflationary "no-theory theory of meaning and content." Along the way he takes up functionalism, the nature of propositions and their suitability as contents, the language of thought and (...) other sententialist theories of belief, intention based semantics, and related issues in ontology. Stephen Schiffer is Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

Among philosophers of science there seems to be a general consensus that understanding represents a species of knowledge, but virtually every major epistemologist who has thought seriously about understanding has come to deny this claim. Against this prevailing tide in epistemology, I argue that understanding is, in fact, a species of knowledge: just like knowledge, for example, understanding is not transparent and can be Gettiered. I then consider how the psychological act of "grasping" that seems to be characteristic of understanding (...) differs from the sort of psychological act that often characterizes knowledge. Zagzebski's account Kvanvig's account Two problems Comanche cases Unreliable sources of information The upper-right quadrant So is understanding a species of knowledge? A false choice. (shrink)

This book is a compilation of the answers given by 100 of the top Kant-scholars around the world to three questions: (1) In your opinion, which of Kant’s ideas have universal and enduring value? (2) What, in your opinion, was Kant’s main mistake? and (3) Do we understand Kant better than 100 years ago? The original (mostly English or German) versions of the replies can be read on the web page called "International Kant Interview".

This is a Spanish translation of an essay that offers a systematic exposition and partial defense of Kant's philosophy of prayer. "Does Kant even HAVE a philosophy of prayer?" you may ask. Read on...and you'll see!

This translation of an English essay that was subsequently published in the Journal of Humanities Therapy 8.2 (December 2017), pp.75-111, was published in the proceedings of the 2017 Bk21+ International Conference on Philosophical Counseling and Therapy.

In Section Two of Second Piece of Religion, Immanuel Kant presents a step‐by‐ step assessment of the biblical account of salvation, starting with the Genesis narrative, proceeding from there to the life and teachings of Jesus, and concluding with his death and resurrection as the source of a new freedom. The main text of the Second Piece then ends with a summary interpretation of the rational meaning of biblical symbols regarding the struggle between good and evil. Kant gives an account (...) of the metaphorical description of the struggle between evil and good‐a description that portrays the struggle through the symbolism of two external powers (Satan and God). The chapter focuses separately on several equally important themes Kant emphasizes in the development of the second experiment. (shrink)

Section IV of the First Piece of Religion accomplishes the first major task of Immanuel Kant's first experiment by explaining what bare reason justifies us to say about the essential condition of human nature. The second half of Section IV fulfils the corresponding mandate of Kant's second experiment by assessing how closely the traditional Christian understanding of evil conforms to this rational standard. After examining these two aspects of his conclusion, this chapter demonstrates how the bulk of Kant's “General Comment”‐the (...) portion that was labeled “Section V” in R1 previews his subsequent argument that a true religion is one that empowers us to overcome the problem that evil poses for human nature. This basic precept of Kantian religion is: ignorance of the exact method God may have of making up for our moral deficiencies is not only acceptable, but “unavoidable”. (shrink)

In this chapter, Immanuel Kant's account of the history of the true (universal) church has a clear progression. It moves from a discussion of Jesus’ radical break with all that was nonuniversal in Judaism, to the tendency of Christians down through the ages to shape their faith into something just as nonuniversal as Judaism. Kant's account concludes with reflections on why we have good reason to be optimistic for the future, because Kant's own interpretation of pure moral religion portrays the (...) message of the coming of God's kingdom in symbolic terms that can be applicable to all good‐hearted people. Kant also focuses on the shortcomings not of Judaism, but of Christianity itself, when interpreted as just another historical faith‐particularly in the hands of biblical scholars. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Half‐Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments Abbreviations.

In this chapter, Immanuel Kant's focus is on how members of a (true) church should interpret their Scripture. Not surprisingly, Kant's position on this issue is unequivocal: Scriptures must be given a moral interpretation, if they are to have any relevance to a true church. The first mark of a true church is its universality; through it, a church is grounded in pure religious faith. Kant asks us to choose: (a) Will we interpret religious faith as an attempt to satisfy (...) God by obeying nonmoral precepts, motivated by fear of punishment for service withheld and/or by hope of reward for service rendered? Or (b) Will we interpret faith as a form of assurance based on the practical hope that God will bless those who, though still imperfect, have the sincere conviction to walk the path of continual moral improvement in their lifestyle?. (shrink)

In this chapter, Immanuel Kant turns his attention back to the theme that was his earlier focus: the biblical scholars who tend to obscure the natural religion that lies at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. First, he argues that viewing unphilosophical clergy as spiritual guides is bound to promote delusory ways of being religious. Then, Kant claims that true service of God must be guided not by clergy but by conscience. According to Kant, the church leaders portray their preferred tradition (...) in a way that enables them to control people toward nonmoral ends. He states the same basic point in terms of the distinction between virtue and “godliness”. Properly interpreting the latter term, holds the key to unlocking the mystery of how religion can serve as a path to realizing the former, universal human duty. Yet misinterpreting this same term leads straight to idolatry. (shrink)

We all started out as evil. Immanuel Kant describes and attempts to solve three specific difficulties that arise out of the fact that we are all inevitably corrupted by evil. This chapter presents Kant's treatment of these difficulties as corresponding to three traditional problems in Christian theology: sanctification, eternal security, and justification. That the first difficulty relates to the doctrine of sanctification (how a Christian, following conversion, can become holy) is evident when Kant describes this difficulty in terms of the (...) contrast between human imperfection and God's holiness. Kant provides an overview of how rational religion can come to terms with a practical need: we must be able to access divine grace in some form in order to have a reasonable hope of being sanctified, assured of an eternal destiny with God, and justified in spite of our past evil. (shrink)

In this chapter, Immanuel Kant explains the crucial role played by biblical scholars: true religion must be universal, yet the dogmas that define a historical faith are not naturally universal. He attempts to defend the role of biblical scholars as both necessary and legitimate. Kant then turns to an analysis of why biblical theologians nevertheless tend to have a negative effect on church life and why the traditional linkage between Christianity and Judaism only exacerbates this problem. He relates both the (...) “convoy” metaphor and his redefinition of faith, as grounded in one of two possible principles, to his earlier distinction between true service and pseudoservice. Kant also explores different aspects of how churches tend to be unsuccessful in such efforts and how such failures can be avoided. The chapter concludes with comments on a more affirmative topic, where Kant conveys a principle to assist visible churches in avoiding religious delusion. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant's Fourth Piece Religion has two main parts that further develop the distinction between two “experiments”. Part One titled “On the Service of God in a Religion Generally” has sections dealing with natural religion and scholarly religion, and the four sections of Part Two titled “On the Pseudoservice of God in a Statutory Religion” focus on themes that alternate between the first and second experiments. Given the importance of immortality to Kant's conception of the highest good, one should not (...) be surprised that, after he interprets Jesus’ gospel as being thoroughly consistent with his moral theory, he devotes a new paragraph to demonstrating that Jesus also acknowledged the “natural” (rational) need for moral persons who have lived this life in a way that requires numerous “sacrifices of happiness” to be able to look forward to a better situation in the afterlife. (shrink)

The seven numbered sections in Division One of the Third Piece of Religion present a systematic argument regarding the founding, the establishment, and the implementation of an ethical community. This chapter first examines Immanuel Kant's argument that the idea of such a community has objective reality because it arises out of a universal human duty. Next, it is shown that how he argues that the inability of human beings to fulfil this duty independently, thereby giving rise to the need to (...) assume that God is the community's ultimate founder. What this means is that the ethical community must be a church (an ethical community under God's guidance) in order to succeed. The chapter discusses Kant's claim that the true church inevitably begins with an appeal to revelation even though it is a rational reality. It concludes with an analysis of Kant's account of different types of churches. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant's first way of answering the main question of the First Piece in Religion‐whether human beings are good or evil by nature‐has been to examine the necessary conditions for being human, insofar as these relate “to our capacity for desire”, the rational faculty that governed Kant's considerations in CPrR. As creatures of desire who are “condemned to be free” in the way we use our volition, we are animals who must choose a rational principle to govern our desires. Our (...) original predisposition to good is not a “contingent” possibility; rather, it is necessary for the very possibility of our nature that we desire to remain alive, to compare ourselves with others, and to respect the moral law. This predisposition therefore functions as the first aspect of what (in the three Critiques) Kant would have called the transcendental boundary defining his topic. (shrink)

What makes religion not only possible but necessary for a meaningful human life is the fact that human nature is meant for good but ends up being mired in evil. Religion's task is to solve this problem. We might portray reason as “bumping its head” on the inexorable limits of necessary ignorance when it attempts to answer the two questions: where does moral evil come from? and how can we overcome its powerful influence on us? Immanuel Kant regards good and (...) evil as equal and opposite rational principles. Kant focuses on two key questions: (1) must an example of the archetype be fully human? and (2) could we also rightly regard such an archetype as divine? This chapter also examines the answers Kant proposes along with side comments he makes on various other issues in Christology. (shrink)

Empirical evidence suggests that human nature tends to be corrupt from the very outset of our moral life. In Sections II and III of the First Piece of Religion, Immanuel Kant approaches this theme of the corruption of human goodness in a more direct way. Although our predisposition is good, he argues that all human beings must have a propensity or original inclination that points us in the opposite direction. In Section II, he argues that, if it exists, then its (...) status must be more than just that of an accidental or optional feature of human experience; this propensity must be inevitable. Section III explains how even people who appear to be good may be concealing an evil heart, if we understand the concept of evil in a philosophically appropriate manner. Human evil arises as a perversion of an originally good predisposition. (shrink)

Twenty years ago, people thought only cranks or sentimentalists could be seriously concerned about the treatment of non-human animals. However, since then philosophers, scientists and welfarists have raised public awareness of the issue; and they have begun to lay the foundations for an enormous change in human practice. This book is a record of the development of 'animal rights' through the eyes of one highly-respected and well-known thinker. This book brings together for the first time Stephen R.L. Clark's major (...) essays in one volume. Written with characteristic clarity and persuasion, Animals and Their Moral Standing will be essential reading for both philosophers and scientists, as well as the general reader concerned by the debates over animal rights and treatment. (shrink)

‘What does the brain have to do with learning?’Prima facie, this may seem like a strange thing for anyone to say, especially educational scholars, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. There are, however, valid objections to injecting various and sundry neuroscientific considerations piecemeal into the vast field of education. These objections exist in a variety of dimensions. After providing a working definition for educational neuroscience, identifying the ‘mindbrain’ as the proper object of study thereof, I discuss, dispel or dismiss some of (...) these objections prior to presenting my motivations, aims, and prospects for this new area of educational research. I then briefly outline a positive case for educational neuroscience in terms of theories, methods, and collaborations, and conclude with a brief discussion of some challenges, results, and implications thereof. Naturally, the following considerations are but my own, some of which may be shared to some extent by others working in this area, as the case may be. (shrink)

I defend the claim that understanding is the goal of explanation against various persistent criticisms, especially the criticism that understanding is not truth-connected in the appropriate way, and hence is a merely psychological state. Part of the reason why understanding has been dismissed as the goal of explanation, I suggest, is because the psychological dimension of the goal of explanation has itself been almost entirely neglected. In turn, the psychological dimension of understanding—the Aha! experience, the sense that a certain explanation (...) “feels right”, and so on—has been conspicuously overemphasized. I try to correct for both of these exaggerations. Just as the goal of explanation includes a richer psychological—including phenomenological—dimension than is generally acknowledged, so too understanding has a stronger truth connection than is generally acknowledged.Keywords: Understanding; Explanation; Philosophy of science; Epistemology. (shrink)

According to ‘orthodox’ epistemology, it has recently been said, whether or not a true belief amounts to knowledge depends exclusively on truth-related factors: for example, on whether the true belief was formed in a reliable way, or was supported by good evidence, and so on. Jason Stanley refers to this as the ‘intellectualist’ component of orthodox epistemology, and Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath describe it as orthodox epistemology’s commitment to a ‘purely epistemic’ account of knowledge — that is, an account (...) of knowledge where only truth-related factors figure in whether or not a person knows. In the first part of this paper I try to clarify the intellectualist thesis and to distinguish what I take to be its two main strains. In the remainder of the paper I then take a more critical turn and argue that even if, as a matter of fact, traditional epistemology has endorsed intellectualism in both of its strains, this is a mistake on the part of the tradition. At least one way of understanding intellectualism should be rejected and its practicalist counterpart should be accepted instead. (shrink)

In Part One of Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, Kant repeatedly refers to a “proof” that human nature has a necessary and universal “evil propensity,” but he provides only obscure hints at its location. Interpreters have failed to identify such an argument in Part One. After examining relevant passages, summarizing recent attempts to reconstruct the argument, and explaining why these do not meet Kant's stated needs, I argue that the elusive proof must have a transcendental form (called quasi‐transcendental (...) because Kant never uses “transcendental” in Religion). With deceptive simplicity, the section titles of Part One, viewed as components in an architechtonic system of religion, constitute steps in just such a proof. (shrink)