Many philosophers categorise judgment as a type of action. On the face of it, this claim is at odds with the seeming fact that judging a certain proposition is not something you can do voluntarily. I argue that we can resolve this tension by recognising a category of non-voluntary action. An action can be non-voluntary without being involuntary. The notion of non-voluntary action is developed by appeal to the claim that judging has truth as a constitutive goal. This claim, when (...) combined with a conception of judging as a way of settling a question, explains both why judging is genuinely agential, and why it is nevertheless non-voluntary. (shrink)

On the face of it, some of our knowledge is of moral facts (for example, that this promise should not be broken in these circumstances), and some of it is of non-moral facts (for example, that the kettle has just boiled). But, some argue, there is reason to believe that we do not, after all, know any moral facts. For example, according to J. L. Mackie, if we had moral knowledge (‘‘if we were aware of [objective values]’’), ‘‘it would have (...) to be by some special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else’’(1977,p.38).But wehavenosuchspecialfaculty.So,wehavenomoralknowledge. Following Mackie, let us distinguish two questions: Q1: Assuming that we have moral knowledge, how do we have it? Q2: Do we in fact have any moral knowledge? In response to the first question, I argue that if we have moral knowledge, we have some of it in the same way we have knowledge of our immediate environment: by perception. Many people think that this answer leads to moral skepticism, because they think that we obviously cannot have moral knowledge by perception. But I will argue that this is incorrect. The plan for the paper is as follows. In Sections 2–4, I work up to my answer to Q1 by considering rivals. In Section 5, I explain what marks my answer to Q1 as a distinctive view, and defend it. In Section 6, I briefly discuss how this answer to Q1 affects what we say in response to Q2. (shrink)

(2003). The World as Representation: Schopenhauer's Arguments for Transcendental Idealism. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 57-87.

There are three interconnected goals of this paper. The first is to articulate and motivate a view of the methodology for doing metaphysics that is broadly phenomenological in the sense of Husserl circa the Logical Investigations. The second is to articulate an argument for the importance of studying the history of philosophy when doing metaphysics that is in accordance with this methodology. The third is to confront this methodology with a series of objections and determine how well it fares in (...) light of them. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article présente une critique de la position dite de l’ «ironie morale», une position philosophique passablement répandue dans la culture intellectuelle con temporaine et dont la caractéristique centrale est de mettre en question de façon radicale le concept de vérité morale. En m’appuyant sur la lecture de Foucault pro posée par Robert Réal Fillion, je dégage les présuppositions qui sont au cœur de la position en question. Je souligne ensuite ses implications pragmatiques; en acceptant le gambit épistémologique, crucial (...) en l’occurrence, selon lequel toutes les affirmations d’ordre moral sont en dernière analyse des descriptions fausses, nous renonçons en fait à notre capacité de juger d’une manière signifiante qu’un état de choses, une ligne de conduite, etc., est qualitivement supérieur à un autre. La question ici posée est donc la suivante: étant admis que la conception ironique de la moralité implique cette perte considérable, les raisons fournies en sa faveur sont-elles suffisamment bonnes pour étayer une attitude aussi forte et aussi radicale à l’endroit de la moralité et de la vérité? Ma thèse est qu’elles ne le sont pas et qu’en réalité on s’abuse en acceptant pour nécessaire et inévitable cette conception débilitante de la moralité. Les raisons sur la foi desquelles cette conclusion est admise semblent inattaquables à première vue, mais il se révèle à y regarder de plus près qu’elles sont non concluantes et inadéquates, ou qu’elles requièrent à tout le moins une révision sérieuse. (shrink)

This article addresses the world's contemporary crisis of care, despite the abundance of information about distant others, by exploring motivations for caring and the rok of imagination. The ethical significance of caring is found in performance. Applying Victor Vroom's expectancy theory, caring performances are viewed as extensions of rational expectations regarding the efficacy of actions. The imagination creates these positive or negative expectations regarding the ability to effectively care. William James s notion of the will to believe offers a unique (...) twist on rational expectations in that he regards humans as having the capacity to work within uncertainty to take decisive action. Applying this idea to caring performance is, this artick argues that peopk can have the will to care, beyond strict rational calculations or limits of social norms. Historically, caring has been associated with the imagination s ability to empathize, but the will to care offers another rok for the imagination in envisioning effective action. Given the significance of the imagination for ethical behavior, this artick explores the implications for cultivating care in terms of what educating for care might hok like. The work of feminist care ethicists, particularly Nel Noddings, is discussed, and contemporary case examples of caring performances are investigated. (shrink)

Despite the fact about colour, that it is one of the most obvious and conspicuous features of the world, there is a vast number of different theories about colour, theories which seem to be proliferating rather than decreasing. How is it possible that there can be so much disagreement about what colours are? Is it possible that these different theorists are not talking about the same thing? Could it be that more than one of them is right? Indeed some theorists, (...) e.g. Leo M. Hurvich, D. L. McAdam and K. Nassau, say that the term ‘colour’ is used to identify a range of different properties, e.g. pigments, properties of light, and sensations. Such a view has its attractions, but it raises the question of what it is that unites these various concepts – what is it that would make them all concepts of colour? What is it that justifies using the same terms, ‘yellow’, ‘blue’, ‘pink’, mauve’, and so on?This paper aims to address this question, arguing that its answer supports the conclusion that the best theory of colour is a form of anti‐realism: the Illusory theory of colours. There are two parts to this thesis, one negative, the other positive. The negative part is that there are no colours, as they are ordinarily conceived. The positive part is that, nevertheless, the world is such that ‘it is as if there are such colours’. Such a theory has important implications. One is that it doesn’t fall neatly into the usual taxonomy of philosophical theories. In particular, it does not deserve the label ‘eliminativist’. Another is that it allows some space for the views expressed by Hurvich, McAdam and Nassau, but not quite in the sense that they intend. (shrink)

I argue that motivational internalism should not be driving metaethics. I first show that many arguments for motivational internalism beg the question by resting on an illicit appeal to internalist assumptions about the nature of reasons. Then I make a distinction between weak internalism and the weakest form of internalism. Weak internalism allows that agents fail to act according to their normative judgments when they are practically irrational. I show that when we clarify the notion of practical irrationality it does (...) not support motivational internalism. Weakest internalism only claims that agents are irrational if they entirely lack motivation to do what they judge they ought to. I do not argue against weakest internalism, but I argue that it is not an important view. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Peirce's account of association and his view that it is the only force which exists within the intellect. I look to the British Associationists, especially Hume, for the background. From there, Peirce's theory of attention becomes important for explaining the formation of associations. Finally, I argue that resemblance and contiguity are reduced to association by utility motivated by the individual's interests. Placing association in a general theory of the individual's interests is important for understanding the (...) habits and critical self-control that are essential for the ultimate aim of the growth of concrete reasonableness. (shrink)

What is the contrary of pleasure? “Pain” is one common answer. This paper argues that pleasure instead has two natural contraries: unpleasure and hedonic indifference. This view is defended by drawing attention to two often-neglected concepts: the formal relation of polar opposition and the psychological state of hedonic indifference. The existence of mixed feelings, it is argued, does not threaten the contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure.

Peter Singer has argued for a radical anti-intuitionism on the basis of recent empirical research into the psychological and evolutionary origins of moral intuition. There is, however, a gap between the putative genealogy of moral intuition that Singer offers and his desired methodological claim. I explore three ways to bridge the gap, and argue that the promising way is to construe the genealogy as a debunking genealogy. I sketch an account of how debunking arguments work, and then show that this (...) causes problems for Singer, since utilitarianism itself is liable to be debunked. Finally, I suggest how we can take lessons for ethics from the empirical work, but that the result is a far more restricted kind of anti-intuitionism than Singer was hoping for. (shrink)

A theory of sacralization is offered in which the sacred emerges from the collision of temptation and tradition. It is proposed that when innate or acquired desires to behave in one way conflict with socially acquired and/or mediated drives to behave in another way, actors ascribe sacredness to the objects of their action as a means of reconciling the difference between their desired and actual behavior toward those objects. After establishing the sacred as a theoretical construct, the theory is sketched (...) and then fleshed out with a more formal specification. The foundational assumptions and mechanisms of the theory are then empirically substantiated as a first step toward validating the theory, and a handful of predictions deduced from the theory are assessed. (shrink)

The self is a common yet unclear theme in addiction studies. William James's model of self provides a framework to explore the experience of self. His model details the subjective and objective constituents, the sense of self‐continuity through time, and the ephemeral and plural nature of the changing self. This exploration yields insights into the self that can be usefully applied to subjective experiences with psychoactive drugs of addiction. Results of this application add depth to the common understanding of self (...) in addiction, acknowledge the importance of feelings and choice in the sense of self created in addiction experiences, and affirm the values salient to these interior experiences in addiction. These results suggest meaning derived from those values, and provide important background knowledge for the nurse interacting with these clients. (shrink)

How best to introduce philosophical ideas? Is the best and only way by studying the history of philosophy and its rational arguments and discussions? But can literature, usually hived off from philosophy, be used instead and can this be as effective as rational argument? This paper explores these questions. First it considers a text which introduces philosophy through the analysis of literature, in particular James Joyce's 'Araby', arguing that the traditional analytic approach employed by the text, by concentrating on epistemology, (...) obscures other philosophical insights offered by Joyce. It then turns to French philosophy and literature and suggests that Sartre, Beauvoir and Camus by 'blurring' the analytic distinction between philosophy and literature have much to offer to the grasping and understanding of philosophical ideas and principles. (shrink)

There is a considerable effort in current theorizing about psychological phenomena to eliminate minds and selves as a vestige of folk theories. The pertinent strategies are quite varied and may focus on experience, cognition, interests, responsibility, behavior and the scientific explanation of these phenomena or what they purport to identify. The minimal function of the notion of self is to assign experience to a suitable entity and to fix such ascription in a possessive as well as a predicative way. It (...) is usually argued that Hume formulated an empiricist account of experience that obviated the need for reference to selves; and recent arguments mustered by Derek Parfit claim to show how to preserve experience, interest, responsibility usually assigned selves and persons without invoking any such entities. The argument here advanced demonstrates that Hume actually concedes the minimal use of the notion of self, that there appear to be no convincing grounds for eliminating it, that there are critical uses for the notion that render it ineliminable, that admission is neutral regarding the nature of selves, and that Parfit''s arguments in particular fail. There appear, therefore, to be no empiricist or materialist grounds for the eliminative move. A large recent literature that favors various eliminative strategies is canvassed and shown to be inadequate to its task and unlikely (for principled reasons) to be able to achieve its eliminative objective. (shrink)

In the first Enquiry, Hume takes the experience of exerting force against a solid body to be a key ingredient of the vulgar idea of power, so that the vulgar take that experience to provide us with an impression of power. Hume provides two arguments against the vulgar on this point: the first concerning our other applications of the idea of power and the second concerning whether that experience yields certainty about distinct events. I argue that, even if we accept (...) Hume’s conception of the vulgar’s approach, neither of Hume’s arguments succeeds. The first argument can be resisted either by using the very arguments Hume provides concerning other causal representations or by simply rejecting Hume’s strict empiricism. The second argument can be resisted on epistemological grounds: there is no reason to think that an experience of a maximally-strong metaphysical connection would provide a maximally-strong epistemological connection. Unlike some recent neo-Anscombean responses to the second argument, my response does not require challenging Hume’s view that causal relations are strictly necessary. Though I do not attempt to translate the resilience of the vulgar view into contemporary terms, the failure of Hume’s arguments challenges one of the long-standing motivations for Humean approaches to causation. (shrink)

A characteristically Humean pattern of explanation starts by claiming that we have a certain kind of feeling in response to some objects and then takes our having such feelings to provide an explanation of how we come to think of those objects as having some feature that we would not otherwise be able to think of them as having. This core pattern of explanation is what leads Simon Blackburn to dub Hume ‘the first great projectivist.’ This paper critically examines the (...) philosophical and textual basis for interpreting Hume as a causal projectivist. I argue that projectivist interpretations of Hume's account of causation are motivated by two convictions: that beliefs about causation, according to Hume, are not just beliefs about regularity relations and that believing that two events are necessarily connected, according to Hume, is not merely having a belief about something that occurs in one's mind. I suggest that the latter conviction is worth revisiting, both for textual and philosophical reasons. (shrink)

Abstract In an engaging and ingenious paper, Irvine (1993) purports to show how the resolution of Braess? paradox can be applied to Newcomb's problem. To accomplish this end, Irvine forges three links. First, he couples Braess? paradox to the Cohen?Kelly queuing paradox. Second, he couples the Cohen?Kelly queuing paradox to the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD). Third, in accord with received literature, he couples the PD to Newcomb's problem itself. Claiming that the linked models are ?structurally identical?, he argues that Braess solves (...) Newcomb's problem. This paper shows that Irvine's linkage depends on structural similarities?rather than identities?between and among the models. The elucidation of functional disanalogies illuminates structural dissimilarities which sever that linkage. I claim that the Cohen?Kelly queuing paradox cloaks a fine structure that decouples it from both Braess? paradox and the PD (Marinoff, 1996a). I further assert that the putative reduction of the PD to a Newcomb problem (e.g. Brams, 1975; Lewis, 1979) is seriously flawed. It follows that Braess? paradox does not solve Newcomb's problem via the foregoing and herein sundered chain. I conclude by substantiating a stronger claim, namely that Braess'paradox cannot solve Newcomb's problem at all. (shrink)

It is a commonplace in both the popular imagination and the philosophical literature that hope has a special kind of motivational force. This commonplace underwrites the conviction that hope alone is capable of bolstering us in despairinducing circumstances, as well as the strategy of appealing to hope in the political realm. In section 1, I argue that, to the contrary, hope’s motivational essence is not special or unique—it is simply that of an endorsed desire. The commonplace is not entirely mistaken, (...) however, because standard ways of expressing hope do have motivational influence that is different in kind from that of desire. In sections 2 through 4, I examine one of these ways of expressing hope, fantasizing, and argue that fantasies can present us with reasons to modify our goals and projects in multiple ways. (shrink)

Although ‘modern’ mental health care comprises a variety of theoretical approaches and practices, the supposed identification of ‘mental illness’ can be understood as being made on the basis of a specific conception of subjectivity that is characteristic of ‘modernity’. This is to say that any perceived ‘deviation’ from this characteristically ‘modern self’ is seen as a possible ‘sign’ of ‘mental illness’, given a ‘negative determination’, and conceptualized in terms of a ‘deficiency’ or a ‘lack’; accordingly, the ‘ideal’‘therapeutic’ aim of ‘modern’ (...) mental health care can be understood as the ‘rectification’ of that ‘deficiency’ through a ‘re-instatement’ of the ‘modern self’. Although contemporary mental health care is increasingly becoming influenced by the so-called ‘death’ of the ‘modern self’, this paper will suggest that it is the work of the 20th century French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, that is able to provide mental health care with a coherent determination of a ‘post-modern self’. However, a Deleuzian account of subjectivity stands in stark contrast to ‘modernity’s’ conception of subjectivity and, as such, this paper will attempt to show how this ‘post-modern’ subjectivity challenges many of the assumptions of ‘modern’ mental health care. Moreover, acknowledging the complexity and the perceived difficulty of Deleuze’s work, this paper will provide an account of subjectivity that can be understood as ‘Deleuzian’ in its orientation, rather than ‘Deleuze’s theory of subjectivity’, and therefore, this paper also seeks to stimulate further research and discussion of Deleuze’s work on subjectivity, and how that work may be able to inform, and possibly even reform, the theoretical foundations and associated diagnostic and therapeutic practices of psychiatry, psychotherapy, and mental health nursing. (shrink)

Alexius Meinong's specific use of the term "self-presentation" had a significant influence on modern epistemology and philosophical psychology. To show that there are remarkable parallels between Meinong's account of the self-presentation of experiences and Lehrer's account of the exemplarization of experiences is one of this paper's main objectives. Another objective is to put forward some comments and critical remarks to Lehrer's approach. One of the main problems can be expressed by the following: The process of using a particular experience as (...) a sample, that is, an exemplar that we use to stand for and refer to a plurality of experiences, Lehrer calls "exemplarization". As concrete experiences are multifarious (red and round, for example), how can we single out a specific sort of experiences (the red ones) by the process of exemplarization when we use such a multifarious experience as a sample? (shrink)

Music is at the centre of what it means to be human – it is the sounds of human bodies and minds moving in creative, story-making ways. We argue that music comes from the way in which knowing bodies (Merleau-Ponty) prospectively explore the environment using habitual 'patterns of action' which we have identified as our innate ‘communicative musicality’. To support our argument, we present short case studies of infant interactions using micro analyses of video and audio recordings to show the (...) timings and shapes of intersubjective vocalisations and body movements of adult and child while they improvise shared narratives of meaning. Following a survey of the history of discoveries of infant abilities, we propose that the gestural narrative structures of voice and body seen as infants communicate with loving caregivers are the building blocks of what become particular cultural instances of the art of music, and of dance, theatre and other temporal arts. Children enter into a musical culture where their innate communicative musicality can be encouraged and strengthened through sensitive, respectful, playful, culturally informed teaching in companionship. The central importance of our abilities for music as part of what sustains our well-being is supported by evidence that communicative musicality strengthens emotions of social resilience to aid recovery from mental stress and illness. Drawing on the experience of the first author as a counsellor, we argue that the strength of one person’s communicative musicality can support the vitality of another’s through the application of skilful techniques that encourage an intimate, supportive, therapeutic, spirited companionship. Turning to brain science, we focus on hemispheric differences and the affective neuroscience of Jaak Panksepp. We emphasise that the psychobiological purpose of our innate musicality grows from the integrated rhythms of energy in the brain for prospective, sensation-seeking affective guidance of vitality of movement. We conclude with a Coda that recalls the philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment, which built on the work of Heraclitus and Spinoza. This view places the shared experience of sensations of living – our communicative musicality – as inspiration for rules of logic formulated in symbols of language. (shrink)

The case of embryo research provides insight into the challenges for historians and philosophers of science who want to engage social issues, and even more challenges in engaging society. Yet there are opportunities in doing so. History and philosophy of science research demonstrates that the public impression of embryos does not fit with our scientific understanding. In cases where there are competing understandings of the phenomena and public impacts, we have to negotiate social responses. Historians and philosophers of science can (...) both inform and learn from engaging in the process, by helping to recognize underlying assumptions and by demonstrating changing ideas over time and what factors have caused the changes. (shrink)

The author discusses why the philosophy of the subject has been important\nto postmodernists. The author commences with a discussion on the\nintellectual background of postmodernism and its relations with other\nkinds of philosophy and with history. This paper concludes with a\ndiscussion about Michel Foucault's views on education and training\nand what impact this had on development of policy in New Zealand.

“Legalism” is defined as requiring that all matters of legal regulation and controversy ought so far as possible to be conducted in accordance with predetermined rules of considerable generality and clarity. Thus there may be moral limits on governments which ban them from acting on the substantive moral merits of situations with which they have to deal. This is most important in public law, but also applies in private law, e.g., in cases involving property. Hume, Kant, and Hayek are examined (...) in respect of their case for legalism; Alexy and Finnis also reviewed. Autonomy is the foundation for legalism, and justifies “ethical positivism,” in T. Campbell's phrase. Critical legal studies (Unger, Kelman, Kennedy et al.) however challenge legalism's premises. But the “critical” arguments against reification merely raise, they do not settle, the issue about the politics of legalism and the desirability of legal dogmatics. With all faults, legalism is a prerequisite of free government. (shrink)

This article critically examines the contemporary resurgence of empiricism (or “neo-empiricism”) in philosophy, psychology, neuropsychology, and artificial intelligence. This resurgence is an important and positive development. It is the first time that this centuries-old empiricist approach to cognition is precisely formulated in the context of cognitive science and neuroscience. Moreover, neo-empiricists have made several findings that challenge amodal theories of concepts and higher cognition. It is argued, however, that the theoretical foundations of and the empirical evidence for neo-empiricism are not (...) as strong as is usually claimed by its proponents. The empirical evidence for and against neo-empiricism is discussed in detail. (shrink)

This paper takes issue with Derek Sankey's: ‘Minds, Brains, and Differences in Personal Understanding’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 39 (2007), pp. 543–558 on the questions of the post-pedagogical classroom and the forms of knowledge. I then try to show that a theory of meaning framed in terms of normative pragmatics is better able than the brain science Sankey relies on to account for the concept of a person or self; the central educational concept of personal understanding; the relation between being (...) a person and membership of the species Homo sapiens; the role of mental images in meaningfulness; the functioning of figurative language; and the Gadamerian notion of understanding as constitutive of the self. It is necessary on the way to answer Sankey's criticisms of correctness, a concept on which any normative theory must rely. (shrink)

Two conservative theorists, F. A. Hayek and Michael Oakeshott, have advanced theories of law with important and plausible central theses focusing on the rule of law. The author argues, however, that in each case the theorist ‐ or at least some of his followers on the contemporary British and American political scene ‐ have wrongly inferred strong conclusions from these theories which are inimical to the welfare state. In conclusion, the author points to possible ways of reconciling rule of law (...) to social justice. (shrink)

Robert H. Holden, in ‘The Public University's Unbearable Defiance of Being’ (2009, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41:5, pp. 575–591) argues that the public university ought to welcome the infusion of relevant beliefs, including religious ones, in carrying out its research and teaching responsibilities. In this paper, I examine whether he has shown that some opinions are suppressed, whether he has shown that other views are hegemonic, the central argument that lies behind his thinking, and then consider the educational consequences of (...) his position. (shrink)

Jim Mackenzie; Evers & Walker and Forms of Knowledge, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 19, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 199–209, https://doi.org/10.

In the Introduction to Self to Self, J. David Velleman claims that 'the word "self" does not denote any one entity but rather expresses a reflexive guise under which parts or aspects of a person are presented to his own mind' (Velleman 2006, 1). Velleman distinguishes three different reflexive guises of the self: the self of the person's self-image, or narrative self-conception; the self of self-sameness over time; and the self as autonomous agent. Velleman's account of each of these different (...) guises of the self is complex and repays close philosophical attention. The first aim of this paper is therefore to provide a detailed analysis of Velleman's view. The second aim is more critical. While I am in agreement with Velleman about the importance of distinguishing the different aspects of selfhood, I argue that, even on his own account, they are more interrelated than he acknowledges. I also analyse the role of the concept of 'bare personhood' in Velleman's approach to selfhood and question whether this concept can function, as he wants it to, to bridge the gap between a naturalistic analysis of reasons for action and Kantian moral reasons. (shrink)

In this paper I look at two connections between natural philosophy and theology in the late 17th century. In the last quarter of the century there was an interesting development of an argument, earlier but sketchier versions of which can be found in classical philosophers and in Descartes. The manoeuvre in question goes like this: first, prove that there must, necessarily, be a being which is, in some sense of "greater", greater than humans. Second, sketch a proof that such a (...) being is necessary. Move from the fact that there must be at least one such being to the conclusion that there is precisely one such being. Raise the question: could this necessary being be matter, the entire material universe, or must it be God? Produce an argument from natural philosophy to show that matter cannot be the required necessary being. Either explicitly or implicitly run the obvious disjunctive syllogism and conclude with a few remarks about the foolishness of atheism. The argument, which has classical roots, found a number of 17th-century exponents. Cudworth provided the most important version, and Locke, Bentley and Clarke adapted Cudworth's version with varying success. The argument touches on natural philosophy in two ways. First, the basis of the argument invites consideration of a problem in the philosophy of science - the relation between micro properties and macro properties - which was seen clearly enough in some contexts but which was overlooked in others, particularly when the theological aspect was uppermost. The second point of contact involves a direct application of a scientific result - the existence of a vacuum - to the theological issue. (shrink)

: This essay breaks new ground in defending the view that contemporary care-based ethics and early Confucian ethics share some important common ground. Luo also introduces the notion of relational virtue in an attempt to bridge a conceptual gap between relational caring ethics and agent-based virtue ethics, and to make the connections between the ethics of care and Confucian ethics philosophically clearer and more defensible.

Abstract: In this article I consider Bernard Williams's argument against the possibility of external reasons for action and his claim that the only reasons for action are therefore internal. Williams's argument appeals to David Hume's claim that reason is the slave of the passions, and to the idea that reasons are capable of motivating the agent who has them. I consider two responses to Williams's argument, by John McDowell and by Stephen Finlay. McDowell claims that even if Hume is right, (...) there might nevertheless be external reasons. Finlay also claims that external reasons exist but, rejecting the connection between reasons and motivation, claims that they don't matter—that is, aren't motivationally significant for the agent whose reasons they are. Although I reject aspects of McDowell's and Finlay's arguments, I argue that external reasons do exist and in particular that any agent has an external reason to satisfy the preconditions of his or her agency. (shrink)

(2013). Spinoza and the Cosmological Argument According to Letter 12. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 57-77. doi: 10.1080/09608788.2012.696052.