Ces études débordent le problème du temps chez les Stoïciens et se proposent d’établir que cette question, en apparence modeste, permet d’éclairer, et en même temps commande l’ensemble du système.Au premier abord en effet, la théorie du temps se présente comme une simple section d’un chapitre de la Physique, celui qui traite des Incorporels. Mais déjà la simple interprétation des textes transmis fait voir que cette théorie tient étroitement à d’autres théories, comme celle des incorporels en général, des catégories, de (...) la substance. Abordant ensuite les thèses majeures de la logique et de l’éthique, on s’aperçoit qu’à leur tour elles sont solidaires de la conception du temps qui, dans bien des cas, fait évanouir leur apparence de paradoxe. A cela même, il n’y a rien d’étrange, si l’on se souvient que le stoïcisme, plus que tout autre philosophie antique, constitue un système cohérent. Mais plus particulièrement, le problème du temps a dû former comme le noeud de la réflexion stoïcienne qui vise, contre les lourdes autorités de Platon et d’Aristote, à rétablir dans sa réalité et dans sa dignité, le concret, le sensible, disqualifié comme « sujet à la génération et à la corruption », c’est-à-dire, en un mot, comme « l’être dans le temps ». (shrink)

In response to woozley's paper in "philosophical quarterly" 22 (1972), 303-17, This article argues: (a) that plato's penology in the laws is radically 'reformative'. (b) that his overriding concern is not with blame or guilt or moral responsibility, But with an exact diagnosis and then 'cure' of the criminal's 'unjust' state of mind. (c) that he uses 'hekousios' and 'akousios' in effect in the sense 'prompted by injustice in the soul of the agent' and 'not thus prompted' respectively. (d) that (...) accordingly laws 866a5-867c2, On killing in anger as midway between 'hekousios' and 'akousios' homicide, Should be read not in woozley's manner, As a tentative extension of the area of diminished responsibility, But as a grading of four possible states of mind in a killer: (1) no intention to kill; (2) a brief intention to kill; (3) a long-Standing intention to kill; (4) a full intention to kill, Inspired not by anger but by full 'injustice'--Greed, Lust, Envy etc. (e) finally that on this analysis, Certain terminological distinctions of modern english, Employed by woozley in an attempt to elucidate the passage, Are irrelevant. (edited). (shrink)

Investigates the resolution of contradictions and ambiguous derogations in a code, by means of the imposition of partial orderings. Although formulated as a study in the logic of norms, it provided the initial ideas for work on the logic of theory (or belief) change, developed by the authors in a series of papers by the authors and Peter Gardenfors beginning in 1985.

Sometimes, two unfair distributions cancel out in aggregate. Paradoxically, two distributions each of which is fair in isolation may give rise to aggregate unfairness. When assessing the fairness of distributions, it therefore matters whether we assess transactions piecemeal or focus only on the overall result. This piece illustrates these difficulties for two leading theories of fairness before offering a formal proof that no non-trivial theory guarantees aggregativity. This is not intended as a criticism of any particular theory, but as a (...) datum that must be taken into account in constructing a theory of fairness. (shrink)

This paper argues that the concept and role of ‘institutional racism’ in contemporary discussions of race should be reconsidered. It starts by distinguishing between ‘intrinsic institutional racism’, which holds that institutions are racist in virtue of their constitutive features, and ‘extrinsic institutional racism’, which holds that institutions are racist in virtue of their negative effects. It accepts intrinsic institutional racism, but argues that a ‘disparate impact’ conception of extrinsic conception faces a number of objections, the most serious being that it (...) has no plausible account of what it is that makes extrinsically racist institutions racist. It also argues that claims about the explanatory indispensability of institutional racism are overstated (individual racism is at least as important), critiques structural approaches to racial inequality, and suggests that there is reason to doubt whether institutional reform can provide us with all that morality may require in the racial domain. (shrink)

This paper suggests that empirical educational research has not, on the whole, been treated well by philosophers of education. A variety of criticisms have been offered, ranging from triviality, conceptual confusion and the impossibility of empirically studying normative processes. Furthermore, many of those who criticise, or dismiss, empirical research do so without subjecting any specific examples to careful scholarly scrutiny. It is suggested that both philosophy of education, and the empirical research enterprise, stand to profit if philosophers pay more attention (...) to real cases—and this attention is especially important at present, when research funding is being based on spurious scientistic criteria such as the use of ‘gold standard’ randomised experimental research designs. (shrink)

A record of the words and teachings of Confucius, _The Analects_ is considered the most reliable expression of Confucian thought. However, the original meaning of Confucius's teachings have been filtered and interpreted by the commentaries of Confucianists of later ages, particularly the Neo-Confucianists of the Song dynasty, not altogether without distortion.In this monumental translation by Professor D. C. Lau, an attempt has been made to interpret the sayings as they stand. The corpus of the sayings is taken as an organic (...) whole and the final test of the interpretation rests on the internal consistency it exhibits. In other words, _The Analects_ is read in the light of _The Analects._This results in a truer understanding of Confucius' thought than the traditional interpretation and paves the way for a re-assessment of its importance in the history of Chinese thought and its relevance to the present day world.This volume also contains an introduction to the life and teachings of Confucius, and three appendices on the events in the life of Confucius, on his disciples, and on the composition of _The Analects._. (shrink)

This work provides an interesting, though sometimes rather sweeping, demonstration that the metaphysical problem of the same and the other is also the central problem of literature and literary criticism. The author defends the analogical imagination as the symbolic counterpart of participation in Platonic metaphysics.--D. C. B.

After an exceedingly short treatment of six theories of tragedy, the author concludes that while each has emphasized a necessary component of the tragic, none has really come to grips with its basic "paradox": the fact that while the art of tragedy attempts to explain the mystery of human suffering, such an attempt is doomed to failure.--D. C. B.

Eva Brann writes engagingly on a topic that too frequently is swollen with "flaccid edification" or tired and abstract jargon, whose mere familiarity to the reader elicits his nod. The author early gives notice of her disdain for this conventional rightmindedness: "I defy anyone to produce a present-day effusion on education that does not mean to further students’ creativity; for example, picked utterly at random out of a collection: ‘To create... is the uniquely human attribute'. Now, I would have thought (...) that that was what it was precisely not, and that to become a creator a student should not go to school but to heaven. Similarly with values; it is de rigueur to demand that a ’sense of values’ be instilled. It seems to bother few people that the subversive term value was given currency by Nietzsche to devalue our instilled beliefs and our received morality, so that nothing might be good in itself, but only as someone valued it". Brann also has some harsh words for the urge to restructure society, the encouragement of self-expression, and the project of making students think for themselves. According to Brann, the primary requisite of the teacher’s character should be a "certain proud shamelessness. But it does not become more vivid with more words". Instead, I would suggest that her book exhibits it in deed. (shrink)

This book attacks an assortment of tendencies and assumptions that the author believes endemic to traditional epistemology. Perhaps the main target is what she sees as a tendency to sublimate the concepts of knowledge and belief, whose roles in everyday life are mundane and unsystematic, into rigid abstractions. This tendency is said to show itself in the allegedly false assumptions that propositions are the objects of knowledge and belief, and that there is a definite set of propositions that one knows (...) and another that one believes. One or the other of these assumptions is said to underlie Chisholm’s attempt to state necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge, Prichard’s to distinguish knowledge from belief, Malcolm’s to distinguish a ’strong’ from a ‘weak’ sense of ‘to know’, Moore’s to rebut skepticism by giving examples of things he knows, and Descartes’ to imagine that all his beliefs are false. All make the mistake, Wolgast thinks, of speaking of knowledge or belief in the abstract, without reference to the actual use of language. In particular, Chisholm, Prichard, and Moore fail to realize that the force of ‘I know’ varies from context to context. (shrink)

Mencius, who lived in the 4th century B.C., is second only to Confucius in importance in the Confucian tradition. The _Mencius_ consists of sayings of Mencius and conversations he had with his contemporaries. When read side by side with the _Analects_, the _Mencius_ throws a great deal of light on the teachings of ConfuciusMencius developed many of the ideas of Confucius and at the same time discussed problems not touched upon by Confucius. He drew out the implications of Confucius' moral (...) principles and reinterpreted them for the conditions of his time. As the fullest of the four great Confucian texts, the _Mencius_ has been the required reading amongst Chinese scholars for two thousand years, and it still throws considerable light on the character of the Chinese people. (shrink)

This article discusses the adequacy of Rawls’ theory of justice as a tool for racial justice. It is argued that critics like Charles W Mills fail to appreciate both the insights and limits of the Rawlsian framework. The article has two main parts spread out over several different sections. The first is concerned with whether the Rawlsian framework suffices to prevent racial injustice. It is argued that there are reasons to doubt whether it does. The second part is concerned with (...) whether a Rawlsian framework has the resources to rectify past racial injustice. It is argued that it has more resources to do this than Mills allows. This second part of the article centers on two Rawlsian ideas: ideal theory and the fair equality of opportunity principle. It is argued that ideal theory is essential for the kind of rectificatory work that Mills wants nonideal theory to do, and that where there is a socioeconomic legacy of past injustice, it is hard to see how FEO could be implemented if it did no rectificatory work, a result which means that there is less need to turn to nonideal theory at all. (shrink)

... the topic of 'meaning' is the one topic discussed in philosophy in which there is literally nothing but 'theory' - literally nothing that can be labelled or even ridiculed as the 'common sense view'. Putnam, 'The Meaning of Meaning' This book explores some truths behind the truism that experimentation is a hallmark of scientific activity. Scientists' descriptions of nature result from two sorts of encounter: they interact with each other and with nature. Philosophy of science has, by and large, (...) failed to give an account of either sort of interaction. Philosophers typically imagine that scientists observe, theorize and experiment in order to produce general knowledge of natural laws, knowledge which can be applied to generate new theories and technologies. This view bifurcates the scientist's world into an empirical world of pre-articulate experience and know how and another world of talk, thought and argument. Most received philosophies of science focus so exclusively on the literary world of representations that they cannot begin to address the philosophical problems arising from the interaction of these worlds: empirical access as a source of knowledge, meaning and reference, and of course, realism. This has placed the epistemological burden entirely on the predictive role of experiment because, it is argued, testing predictions is all that could show that scientists' theorizing is constrained by nature. Here a purely literary approach contributes to its own demise. The epistemological significance of experiment turns out to be a theoretical matter: cruciality depends on argument, not experiment. (shrink)

Current thinking and talk about race uses ‘racist’ for virtually everything that goes wrong in the domain of race. This paper examines the relationship between racial justice, racial discrimination and racism to argue for a more pluralistic approach to race-related ills. Such an approach provides the tools we need to understand an important if relatively neglected source of racial injustice, and does much to illuminate some race-related disputes. It starts by arguing that racial justice is a surprisingly limited ideal, and (...) then suggests understanding ‘racial discrimination’ in a minimal way. From there it is argued that while racial discrimination is necessary for racial injustice, the same is not true for racism. (shrink)

Mencius, who lived in the 4th century B.C., is second only to Confucius in importance in the Confucian tradition. The _Mencius_ consists of sayings of Mencius and conversations he had with his contemporaries. When read side by side with the _Analects_, the _Mencius_ throws a great deal of light on the teachings of ConfuciusMencius developed many of the ideas of Confucius and at the same time discussed problems not touched upon by Confucius. He drew out the implications of Confucius' moral (...) principles and reinterpreted them for the conditions of his time. As the fullest of the four great Confucian texts, the _Mencius_ has been the required reading amongst Chinese scholars for two thousand years, and it still throws considerable light on the character of the Chinese people. (shrink)

This volume contains C. D. Broad's Cambridge lectures on Ethics. Broad gave a course of lectures on the subject, intended primarily for Part I of the Moral Sciences Tripos, every academic year from 1933 - 34 up to and in cluding 1952 - 53 (except that he did not lecture on Ethics in 1935 - 36). The course however was frequently revised, and the present version is es sentially that which he gave in 1952 - 53. Broad always wrote out (...) his lectures fully beforehand, and the manuscript on Ethics, although full of revisions, is in a reasonably good state. But his handwriting is small and close and in places difficult to decipher. I therefore fear that some words may have been misread. There was an additional complication. In the summer of 1953 Broad revised and enlarged two sections of the course, namely the section on "Moore's theory" and that on "Naturalistic theories" (both sections occur in Chapter 4). The revised version of the section on Moore is undoubtedly superior to the earlier version, and I have therefore included it. But in my opinion this is not true of the new version of the section on naturalistic theories: although more comprehensive than the earlier version, it is not only repetitive in itself, but also repeats, sometimes almost verbatim, passages which occur elsewhere in the lectures. In brief, the new version is not fully integrated with the rest of the course. (shrink)

In this paper I respond to Robert Taylor's argument that a Rawlsian framework does not support strong affirmative action programs. The paper makes three main arguments. The first disputes Taylor's claim that strong AA would not be needed in ideal conditions. Private racial discrimination, I suggest, might still exist in such conditions, so strong AA might be needed there. The second challenges Taylor's claims that pure procedural justice constrains Rawlsian nonideal theory. I argue that this rests on a fetishizing of (...) pure procedural justice that is absent from Rawls's work. I also show that a revised formulation of Taylor's concern here also fails. My third argument makes a positive Rawlsian case for strong AA in nonideal conditions that builds on a Taylor concession. Taylor suggests that the goal of nonideal theory is to create a world in which ideal theory can be applied. My argument begins by showing that another permissible goal of Rawlsian nonideal theory is to ameliorate injustice. I then argue that Rawls's contractualist framework supports the strongest forms of AA when category 3 interventions are blocked. (shrink)

This article argues that blacks should reject integration on self-protective and solidarity grounds. It distinguishes two aspects of black devaluation: a ‘stigmatization’ aspect that has to do with the fact that blacks are subject to various forms of discrimination, and an aesthetic aspect (‘phenotypic devaluation’) that concerns the aesthetic devaluation of characteristically black phenotypic traits. It identifies four self-worth harms that integration may inflict, and suggests that these may outweigh the benefits of integration. Further, it argues that, while the integrating (...) process may reduce stigmatization, there is less reason to think that it can do the same for phenotypic devaluation. (shrink)