The thesis that in order to genuinely think about a particular object one must be (in some sense) acquainted with that object has been thoroughly explored since it was put forward by Bertrand Russell. Recently, the thesis has come in for mounting criticism. The aim of this paper is to point out that neither the exploration nor the criticism have been sensitive to the fact that the thesis can be interpreted in two different ways, yielding two different principles of (...) class='Hi'>acquaintance. One principle uses the notion of content in distinguishing genuine thinking-about things from a merely derivative kind of thinking-about things. The other principle is quiet about content, focusing instead on a distinction between satisfactional and non-satisfactional means of bringing things into thought. Most work has focused on the first, content-based principle of acquaintance. But criticisms of this principle do not apply straightforwardly to the non-content-based principle. I shall argue that the latter principle merits independent assessment as part of the broader effort to account for genuine thinking about particular objects. In the final section of the paper, I will sketch a roadmap for this assessment. (shrink)

What one is acquainted with has always been important for the rejection or acceptance of any ontological description. Yet the relevance of acquaintance to ontology has not always been clearly stated. Some philosophers have held that they were acquainted with the simple entities of ontological analysis. They also held that if they were not acquainted with such entities, their analysis would be inadequately supported. In this paper I argue that acquaintance with ontological simples cannot be a reason for (...) accepting or rejecting any ontological analysis. At the same time, I examine what I believe to be the relevance of acquaintance to ontological description. (shrink)

While Russell’s concerns in developing the theory of descriptions were primarily with his foundation of logic, he was aware of the epistemological uses of both the theory of denoting concepts and the 1905 theory of deWnite descriptions. At the end of “On Denoting” he suggests that the principle of acquaintance is a “result” of the new theory of denoting. In this paper I examine the relation between the theory of descriptions and the principle of acquaintance, and (...) I reject two suggestions, one that Russell’s view commits him to the position that quantiWers range only over objects of acquaintance, the other that the principle of acquaintance plays a crucial role in the Gray’s Elegy argument. Russell’s earlier theory of denoting concepts went hand in hand with the principle of acquaintance, as Russell made clear in his “Points about Denoting”. So the principle of acquaintance was neither a motivator for the new account nor a special consequence of it. The new account of “On Denoting”, while dispensing with denoting concepts, preserved the connection that the older de-. (shrink)

"Liberty Fund presents the first modern edition of The Principles of Natural and Politic Law, based on the posthumous unified edition of 1763. The unidentified quotes and recurrent borrowings that abound in the second volume have for the first time been identified. The editor, Petter Korkman, writes that it is not an overstatement "to declare that a solid acquaintance with the Principle will provide the reader with essential...background for understanding the moral and political thought of the mature Enlightenment, (...) whether in its European settings or in the newly formed United States.""--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

The acquaintance principle (AP) and the view it expresses have recently been tied to a debate surrounding the possibility of aesthetic testimony, which, plainly put, deals with the question whether aesthetic knowledge can be acquired through testimony—typically aesthetic and non-aesthetic descriptions communicated from person to person. In this context a number of suggestions have been put forward opting for a restricted acceptance of AP. This paper is an attempt to restrict AP even more.

The Acquaintance Principle is the principle according to which judgements concerning the aesthetic value of a work of art proffered by a critic must be based on the critic’s experience(s) or acquaintance with the work itself. The possible exception to this principle would be experiences obtained through other means of transmissibility, related in a particular way to the work in question, that can eventually provide the critic with an adequate basis for judging the artwork. However, (...) recent philosophers claimed that some works of conceptual art show the principle to be false. I argue that, if properly understood, the Acquaintance Principle is a truism, that works of conceptual art do not pose any particular problem to it, and also suggest some implications of the principle. (shrink)

We are all acquainted with persons who seem to have a talent for making things over-complex, persons who invent exceedingly devious explanations for what can be simply explained. Such individuals strike us as hardened violators of Occam's Razor: Entities are not to be multiplied unnecessarily. We shall say briefly that such persons goropise.

The Acquaintance Principle maintains that aesthetic knowledge must be acquired through first-hand experience of the object of knowledge and cannot be transmitted from person to person. This implies that aesthetic knowledge of an object cannot be acquired either from an accurate description of the non- aesthetic features of the object or from reliable testimony of its aesthetic character. The question I address is whether there is any sound argument in support of the Principle. I give scant consideration (...) to the possibility of deriving knowledge from a non- aesthetic description. If this were to be a real possibility, it would certainly disprove the Acquaintance Principle, but its impossibility would not establish it. Furthermore, if the way knowledge were to be derived from a non- aesthetic description were through its enabling a person to imagine the object, a defender of the Acquaintance Principle might simply deem imagining to be a form of first-hand experience. I focus on the possibility of acquiring aesthetic knowledge through reliable testimony because here there is a style of argument that, if correct, would rule out the possibility of knowledge of an item's aesthetic properties being transmitted to someone who lacks the requisite first-hand experience, and the manoeuvre of including imagining under the head of first-hand experience is not available. An argument of this kind is, I believe, the only possible way of establishing the Acquaintance Principle. I try to show that this style of argument fails and that the Acquaintance Principle should be rejected. (shrink)

Making an adequate aesthetic judgment about an object or an aesthetic property requires first-hand experience of that object or property. Many have suggested that this principle is a valid epistemic norm in the epistemology of the aesthetic. However, some recent philosophers have argued that certain works of conceptual art and other counterexamples disprove the principle in question, even suitably modified. In this paper, I argue that these philosophers are mistaken and that, when properly qualified, the acquaintance (...) class='Hi'>principle (in some of its versions) is not threatened by their examples and arguments. (shrink)

What is the relationship between acquaintance and aesthetic judgement? Wollheim’s acquaintance principle (AP) is one answer. Amir Konigsberg—the most recent critic of AP—has produced a number of examples which he claims will require us to restrict AP even further than has previously been suggested. I argue that Konigsberg is mistaken and that his examples do not necessitate any further restrictions on AP. This failure, however, is not the result of some specific flaw in Konigsberg’s argument; rather it (...) is an artefact of a deeper problem at the heart of the current debate over AP (and its successors). I conclude by arguing that this problem—the absence of any satisfactory reformulation of AP itself—has far-reaching consequences for our theorizing in aesthetics. (shrink)

The search for a definition of art has been at the forefront of the debate in the analytical philosophical tradition for at least the last fifty years. If for nearly twenty years the dominant accounts were those offered by proponents of a relational account of art, be it in the form of an institutional or of an intentional/historical theory, by the middle 1980s, aesthetic theories of art started to reappear. What binds together the definitions elaborated by such diverse authors as (...) Monroe Beardsley, Richard Eldridge, Richard Lind, and Nick Zangwill is their having postulated, as the main goal of art, the satisfaction of an aesthetic interest through the production of an experience with a notable aesthetic character... (shrink)

The Acquaintance Principle has been the subject of extensive debate in philosophical aesthetics. In one of the most recent developments, it has become popular to claim that some works of conceptual art are counterexamples to it. It is further claimed that this is a genuinely new problem in the sense that it is a problem even for versions of the Acquaintance Principle modified to deal with previous objections. I argue that this is essentially correct; however, the (...) claim as it stands needs some work. I draw attention to, and defend, two assumptions on which the claim rests but which have so far gone unrecognized. I also address an objection that has recently been made to the claim and threatens to raise further complications for it. In doing this, we arrive at a fuller, more robust version of the initial claim. (shrink)

These essays bring together forty years of work in ontology. Intentionality, negation, universals, bare particulars, tropes, general facts, relations, the myth of the 'myth of the given', are among the topics covered. Bergmann, Quine, Sellars, Russell, Wittgenstein, Hume, Bradley, Hochberg, Dummett, Frege, Plato, are among the philosophers discussed. The essays criticize non-Humean notions of cause; they criticize the notion that besides simple atomic facts there are also negative facts and general facts. They defend a realism of properties as universals, against (...) nominalism; bare particulars; a (qualified) realism with regard to logical form; a Russellian account of relations; and an account of minds and intentionality, which is opposed to materialism, but is also a form of (methodological) behaviourism. In general, the ontology is one of logical atomism and empiricist throughout, rooted in a Principle of Acquaintance. (shrink)

In a recent article, Michael Kremer revisits Russell's "Gray's Elegy" argument—the argument in "On Denoting" in which Russell rejects "the whole distinction of meaning and denotation". Kremer argues that the Gray's Elegy argument is directed not at Frege's distinction between Sinn and Bedeutung but rather at Russell's own theory of "denoting concepts" in his earlier Principles of Mathematics. Furthermore, and more originally, Kremer argues that Russell's views of acquaintance play a central role in the argument. For Kremer, it is (...) because Frege does not share Russell's views of acquaintance that the Gray's Elegy argument succeeds against Russell's own earlier theory but not against Frege's position. (shrink)

The standard, foundationalist reading of Our Knowledge of the External World requires Russell to have a view of perceptual acquaintance that he demonstrably does not have. Russell’s actual purpose in “constructing” physical bodies out of sense-data is instead to show that psychology and physics are consistent. But how seriously engaged was Russell with actual psychology? I show that OKEW makes some non-trivial assumptions about the character of visual space, and I argue that he drew those assumptions from William James’s (...) Principles. This point helps us take a fresh look at the complex relationship between the two men. In light of this surprising background of agreement, I highlight ways their more general approaches to perception finally diverged in ways that put the two at epistemological odds. (shrink)

In a recent article, Michael Kremer revisits Russell's "Gray's Elegy" argument—the argument in "On Denoting" in which Russell rejects "the whole distinction of meaning and denotation". Kremer argues that the Gray's Elegy argument is directed not at Frege's distinction between Sinn and Bedeutung but rather at Russell's own theory of "denoting concepts" in his earlier Principles of Mathematics. Furthermore, and more originally, Kremer argues that Russell's views of acquaintance play a central role in the argument. For Kremer, it is (...) because Frege does not share Russell's views of acquaintance that the Gray's Elegy argument succeeds against Russell's own earlier theory but not against Frege's position. (shrink)

Russell’s theory of memory as acquaintance with the past seems to square uneasily with his definition of acquaintance as the converse of the relation of presentation of an object to a subject. We show how the two views can be made to cohere under a suitable construal of ‘presentation’, which has the additional appeal of bringing Russell’s theory of memory closer to contemporary views on direct reference and object-dependent thinking than is usually acknowledged. The drawback is that memory (...) as acquaintance with the past falls short of fulfilling Russell’s requirement that knowledge by acquaintance be discriminating knowledge – a shortcoming shared by contemporary externalist accounts of knowledge from memory. (shrink)

The acquaintance debate in aesthetics has been traditionally divided between pessimists, who argue that testimony does not provide others with aesthetic knowledge of artworks, and optimists, who hold that acquaintance with an artwork is not a necessary precondition for acquiring aesthetic knowledge. In this paper I propose a reconciliationist solution to the acquaintance debate: while aesthetic knowledge can be had via testimony, aesthetic judgment requires acquaintance with the artwork. I develop this solution by situating it within (...) a virtue aesthetics framework based on Ernest Sosa's virtue epistemology. I go on to apply the solution to the debates on moral testimony and expert testimony. An interesting variant on Gettier cases emerges: cases in which subjects have knowledge, but it has been formed by the wrong competence. (shrink)

My primary aim in this paper is to outline a quasi-realist theory of aesthetic judgement. Robert Hopkins has recently argued against the plausibility of this project because he claims that quasi-realism cannot explain a central component of any expressivist understanding of aesthetic judgements, namely their supposed ‘autonomy’. I argue against Hopkins’s claims by contending that Roger Scruton’s aesthetic attitude theory, centred on his account of the imagination, provides us with the means to develop a plausible quasi-realist account of aesthetic judgement. (...) Finally, I respond to two recent attempts to discredit the validity of the notion of aesthetic autonomy. I claim that both fail adequately to address the underlying non-realist motivations and justifications for maintaining the principle. (shrink)

If, as Richard Wollheim says, the Acquaintance Principle is ‘a well-entrenched principle in aesthetics,’ it would be surprising if there were not something true at which those who have asserted it have been aiming. I argue that the Acquaintance Principle cannot be true on any traditional epistemic interpretation, nor on any usability interpretation of the sort Robert Hopkins has recently suggested. I then argue for an interpretation of the principle that treats acquaintance as (...) the end to which judgments of aesthetic value are the means as opposed to the other way around. (shrink)

Philosophers who hold that the correct ontological analysis of things includes both properties and particulars have often been pressed to "show" the particular. If we are not acquainted with them, it is argued, then we should not suppose that they exist. I argue that, while we do have good and sufficient reasons for supposing there to be particulars, we are not acquainted with them. To suppose that we are acquainted with them is to treat particulars as if they were properties (...) and to fail to realize how radically different particulars are from properties. The relevance of these matters to some considerations of "simplicity" and the principles of empiricism is explored. (shrink)

Frege's theory of indirect contexts and the shift of sense and reference in these contexts has puzzled many. What can the hierarchy of indirect senses, doubly indirect senses, and so on, be? Donald Davidson gave a well-known 'unlearnability' argument against Frege's theory. The present paper argues that the key to Frege's theory lies in the fact that whenever a reference is specified (even though many senses determine a single reference), it is specified in a particular way, so that giving a (...) reference implies giving a sense; and that one must be 'acquainted' with the sense. It is argued that an indirect sense must be 'immediately revelatory' of its reference. General principles for Frege's doctrine of sense and reference are sated, for both direct and indirect quotation, to be understood iteratively. I also discuss Frege's doctrine of tensed and first person statements in the light of my analysis. The views of various other authors are examined. The conclusion is to ascribe to Frege an implicit doctrine of acquaintance similar to that of Russell. (shrink)

What are the legitimate sources of aesthetic belief? Which methods for forming aesthetic belief are acceptable? Although the question is rarely framed explicitly, it is a familiar idea that there is something distinctive about aesthetic matters in this respect. Crudely, the thought is that the legitimate routes to belief are rather more limited in the aesthetic case than elsewhere. If so, this might tell us something about the sorts of facts that aesthetic beliefs describe, about the nature of our aesthetic (...) judgements, or about the responses that ground them. Getting the epistemology right here may help with the metaphysics, the semantics or the philosophical psychology. Investigating the legitimate sources of aesthetic belief may thus teach us something important about the aesthetic realm. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to use the dual resources of the contemporary theory of intentional content and the notion of experiencing something metaphorically as something else, which I have defended in my earlier work, to explain the distinctive character of musical experience. These resources are used to explain Felix Mendelssohn’s point that emotional content in music can be more specific than anything capturable in language; to give an account of the role of metaphor in musical experience that does (...) not generate insoluble puzzles; to formulate a Principle of Acquaintance for the content of musical experience; to give a theory of intentional subjects or ‘personae’ in music, and their significance; to explain two ways of hearing action in music; and to elaborate the significance for musical experience of the fact that perception of music is perception of agency. (shrink)

This article uncovers the logical structure of Russell’s negative facts, which he postulated in his 1919 lectures on logical atomism as a way of accounting for the truth of negative propositions. It is argued that he subsequently abandoned his belief in the existence of negative facts because the latter could not be reconciled with his Principle of Acquaintance, a fundamental corner stone of his logical atomism. A proposed fine tuning of this Principle shows that the postulation of (...) negative facts represents the best solution to the problem of negation which his logical atomism must face. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Carnap’s Construction of the World. The Aufbau and the Emergence of Logical Empiricism by Alan W. RichardsonRolf GeorgeAlan W. Richardson. Carnap’s Construction of the World. The Aufbau and the Emergence of Logical Empiricism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. x + 242. Cloth, $49.95.According to the author, the “received view” of Carnap’s Kantian treatise of 1928, Der Logische Aufbau der Welt, promulgated mostly by Quine (10), takes it (...) to be a continuation of Russell’s “external world program,” an attempt at “providing a systematic reduction of empirical discourse generally to discourse involving only sense data” (21). One of Richardson’s aims is to show that this is wrong: while Carnap holds that our knowledge begins in sensation, our “elementary experiences” are not conscious and thus do not obey Russell’s “principle of acquaintance.” While we have no conscious access to the first elements of cognition, logical constructions based on them lead to sense qualities, phenomenal items, and eventually to physical and even cultural objects.These constructions are also meant to solve the problem of objectivity. According to Carnap, individual streams of experience are not comparable at all, but “certain structural properties agree for all streams of experience” (Aufbau §66, 32), a point that Kant had also made: “In the relation between sensations lies something that is generally valid, even though each sensation has only private validity” (Reflection 653).Richardson describes Carnap’s constructions in a couple of well written and accessible chapters (31–91), one of them an overview, the other a discussion of the problem of objectivity. Then comes the “Kantian Problematic,” (92–116), centered on the synthetic a priori. He repeats Michael Friedman’s now familiar but mistaken point that, due to the limitations of Aristotelian logic, Kant could not have formulated simple statements about order structures: “between any two points there lies another” could not be formulated in any logic he knew, and he therefore had to call in pure intuition to handle mathematical constructions. But he could, and in fact did, make just such claims in the vernacular, which was the sole vehicle for the pellucid formulations of the classical theory of the continuum, from Bolzano to Weyerstrass.The next chapter brings us the heart of Richardson’s concerns, which is to establish neo-Kantian antecedents of the Aufbau. There are some biographical details of doubtful merit. The neo-Kantian Bauch is identified as Carnap’s “dissertation director,” and, in a perhaps unconscious slight to Carnap’s intelligence, as “the philosopher from whom Carnap learned what he knew about Kant” (116). Ten years before Carnap had indeed taken a seminar in the Critique of Pure Reason from Bauch, but perusal of the latter’s work does not encourage the thought that he had much to do with the thesis “Der Raum” (1922). In the event, a German ordinarius did not usually have a hand in the construction of a thesis, and often did not even read it. His job was to accept it on behalf of the university. We now know, for example, that Bauch’s teacher Rickert had an assistant evaluate Heidegger’s Habilitationsschrift never reading it himself. (It passed.)Richardson’s reflection on the neo-Kantian project relies mostly on Cassirer. This points to another problem with the Bauch connection. Bauch was a zealous anti-Semite, and did not think much of Cassirer and the Marburg school in general. He gave up the editorship of Kantstudien in 1916 because of the Jewish presence in the Kant Society, and [End Page 179] founded his own group and journal. Carnap nonetheless chose Kantstudien to publish his dissertation, perhaps to put more distance between himself and Bauch. Space does not permit me to cite Bauch’s vicious remarks about Einstein; he could not have guided Carnap through the discussion of physical space in “Der Raum.”I return to Richardson’s reconstruction. According to the neo-Kantian, objective knowledge is found in mathematical physics, not in uninformed experience. He acknowledges that theoretical physics relies on conventions, and that these conventions go beyond mere experience to provide the mathematical structure necessary for objectivity (131). The responses to the problem this poses... (shrink)

Recently, there has been a renaissance of study on knowledge by acquaintance. One reason for this is that many writers believe acquaintance holds the key to understanding consciousness and our conscious experience of the world. For this reason, research on acquaintance has been primarily focused on perception and self-knowledge. While these questions are undoubtedly important, I believe being overly focused on these issues has prevented a defensible theory of knowledge by acquaintance from being developed. In particular, (...) two questions have largely been ignored in the literature. First, what kind of knowledge is knowledge by acquaintance? If knowledge by acquaintance is supposed to give us special epistemic access to its objects, what are the central epistemic features of it and how do they differ from other kinds of knowledge? Second, can we have knowledge by acquaintance beyond cases of perception and self-knowledge, and if so, how? In this dissertation, I answer both of these questions. In response to the first question, I argue that knowledge by acquaintance is a form of non-propositional discriminatory knowledge. Roughly, discriminatory knowledge is the exercise of a discriminatory capacity to single out a particular object from other objects of its kind. It is non-propositional because the object of the mental act of discriminating is not a proposition or truth. It is important that we understand knowledge by acquaintance in terms of discriminatory knowledge because it allows us to move beyond perceptual knowledge and self-knowledge. In this dissertation, I show how this is possible by showing that we can be acquainted with the natural numbers. This provides an answer to the second question. There is, in principle, no reason why acquaintance should only exist in sensory perception, provided we understand it in terms of discriminatory knowledge. The upshot of this is that my account of knowledge by acquaintance has a breadth and unity not often found in the acquaintance literature. (shrink)

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE BRAIN SELF-REGULATION PARADOX The relationship of consciousness to biology has intrigued mankind thoroughout recorded history. However, little progress has been made not only in understanding these issues but also in raising fundamental questions central to the problem. As Davidson and Davidson note in their introduction, William James suggested, almost a century ago in his Principles of Psychology, that the brain was the organ of mind and be havior. James went so far as to suggest that the remainder (...) of the Principles was but a "footnote" to this central thesis. This volume brings together diverse biobehavioral scientists who are addressing the various aspects of the mindlbrainlbodylbehavior issue. Although some of the authors have previously published together in other volumes, by and large the particular combination of authors and topics selected by the editors makes this volume unique and timely. Unlike the Consciousness and Self-Regulation series (Schwartz & Shapiro, 1976, 1978), also published by Plenum, this volume is devoted entirely to a psychobiological approach to consciousness. Although readers will differ in their interest in specific chapters, the well-rounded investigator who is concerned with the psychobiology of consciousness will want to become intimately acquainted with all the views presented in this volume. As noted by the individual contributors, the topic of this volume stimulates fundamental questions which, on the surface, may appear trivial, yet, on further reflection, turn out to have deep significance. (shrink)

German medical students are not sufficiently introduced to the ethical principles and pitfalls of scientific work. Therefore, a compulsory course on good scientific practice has been developed and implemented into the curriculum of medical students, with the goal to foster scientific integrity and prevent scientific misconduct. Students’ knowledge and attitudes towards GSP were evaluated by a pre-post-teaching questionnaire survey. Most participants initially had startling knowledge gaps in the field. Moreover, they were not acquainted with core institutions on GSP, the office (...) of ombudsperson and the nationally binding guidelines on GSP. The pre-post-teaching comparison showed statistically significant improvement in all areas tested; moreover, after the course participants confided more trust in GSP institutions. Applying ethical rules into practice can be challenging; therefore, students need to learn to work independently with guidelines on GSP and should be introduced to institutions providing further guidance. As our study has shown, students are very willing to pursue a scientific career based on integrity and honesty, however, they lack the knowledge how to do so. In light of our results, we therefore recommend to integrate courses on GSP already at an early time into the mandatory curriculum of medical students. (shrink)

Critical reflection on the importance of shaping disability-friendly - or disability-inclusive - congregations has enjoyed increasing attention in the field of practical theology in recent years. Moreover, the development of disability theology is a testament to the fact that practical theologians and the wider church community have taken serious notice of the realities and experiences of people with disabilities in our time. Nevertheless, even before the task of engaging in theological reflection from a disability perspective commences, it is necessary that (...) theologians acquaint themselves with the various models of disability that shape people's perceptions and ideas about people with disabilities. Guided by the principles of the interpretive task of practical theological investigation and cognizant of the importance of models of disability in shaping perceptions regarding people with disabilities, this article seeks to provide a brief overview of nine of the most dominant models of disability that are prevalent in our time. We shall utilise the typological approach to theoretical analysis in order to outline the basic characteristics of the various models. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Instinct of Nature: Natural Law, Synderesis, and the Moral SenseRobert A. Greene“Instinct is a great matter.”—Sir John FalstaffThis essay traces the evolution of the meaning of the expression instinctus naturae in the discussion of the natural law from Justinian’s Digest through its association with synderesis to Francis Hutcheson’s theory of the moral sense. The introduction of instinctus naturae into Ulpian’s definition of the natural law by Isidore of Seville (...) in the seventh century posed a problem of definition for medieval commentators. Some said that it meant a universal and providential natura naturans; some defined it as the urge to self and species preservation in animals, degenerating in man into sensual and shameful impulses; some advanced the humanistic and paradoxical notion that it referred to a unique exercise of human reason in coming to know the natural law. The contemporaneous revival in the twelfth century of St. Jerome’s puzzling new term “synderesis,” and its gradual definition as the immediate apprehension of the first practical moral principles of the natural law, brought the two terms into proximity and loose association.A half-century later St. Bonaventure made explicit what had remained latent in the thinking of Thomas Aquinas by relocating synderesis in the affective rather than the intellectual part of man’s nature. Accordingly the moral discoveries of synderesis came to be spoken of as not only non-discursive but instinctive in nature—apprehensions for which no reason could be given, apprehensions somehow rooted in affective human experience. During the bilingual early modern period an increasingly secularized, internalized, and reified instinctus [End Page 173] naturae, together with its abbreviated vernacular cognate, “instinct,” came to serve as a substitute and synonym for the obsolescent synderesis. Edward Herbert’s attention to instinctus naturae in his De Veritate (1624), Sir Matthew Hale’s speculations about the place of rational instinct in the natural law, and Francis Hutcheson’s theory of a moral sense all exemplify this semantic legacy.The first entry in Justinian’s Digest has had a disproportionate influence on later speculation about the natural law. It begins a chapter that gives pride of place to general definitions of justice, law, jus naturale and jus gentium, and it is drawn from the writings of the Roman jurisconsult Domitius Ulpianus (d. 223), whose work constitutes forty percent of the Digest. Ulpian defines the natural law, with insistent repetition, as that which nature has taught to, or is common to, all animals:Jus naturale is that which nature has taught to all animals; for it is not a law specific to mankind but is common to all animals—land animals, sea animals, and the birds as well. Out of this comes the union of man and woman [male and female] which we call marriage, and the procreation of children, and their rearing. So we can see that the other animals, wild beasts included, are rightly understood to be acquainted with this law. Jus gentium, the law of the nations, is that which all human peoples observe. That it is not coextensive with natural law can be grasped easily, since this latter is common to all animals whereas jus gentium is common only to human beings among themselves. 1Justinian’s compilers gave Ulpian’s definition striking prominence at the beginning of the Digest and then in the same short chapter quoted the incompatible and more traditional definitions of his contemporaries Gaius and Paulus. They confined the operation of the natural law to mankind and spoke of reason as its source. 2 The compilers had been charged to eliminate just such conflicts; yet here at the very outset they set a conundrum that perplexed commentators [End Page 174] and invited explanation from Isidore of Seville to Hugo Grotius. Their selection of quotations suggests that as lawyers they regarded such general definitions as “for legal purposes no more than ornament to discussion.” 3 For those of a more speculative bent, however, the dilemmas could not have been more fundamental. How was the natural law to be defined in relation to those appetitive and self-preservative urges that man seemed to share with animals? Or did the term law apply only... (shrink)

Thomas Crisp has attempted to revive something akin to Alvin Plantinga’s Principle of Dwindling Probabilities to argue that the historical case for the resurrection of Jesus does not make the posterior probability of the resurrection very high. I argue that Crisp’s argument fails because he is attempting to evaluate a concrete argument in an a priori manner. I show that the same moves he uses would be absurd in other contexts, as applied both to our acquaintance with human (...) beings and to evidence for divine intervention. Crisp’s attempt to relate the evidence for a specific act of God such as the resurrection to generic theism, thereby creating skepticism about the power of the evidence, is symptomatic of a larger problem in the philosophy of religion which I dub “separationism” and which has characterized the work of both advocates of classical apologetics and philosophers of science. (shrink)

The arguments in favor of the Principle of Indifference fail to explain its fruitfulness in science. Using the recent metaphysical concept of Grounding, I devise an explanation that can justify a weak version of the principle and discuss an instance of its application in Quantum mechanics.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:245 THE MINDS OF DAVID HUME1 Providing a theoretical reduction of the mind to a collection of perceptions is one thing; providing merely a lawful description of mental phenomena is another. While the former requires the latter, it is possible to provide a lawful description of mental phenomena that leaves open the question of the nature of the mind. In this paper I shall argue that Hume's conceptual move (...) from the science of man in the Treatise to the science of human nature in the Enquiries consists of a rejection of a theory of mind in favor of a lawful description, and this provides nonstylistic grounds for his 2 disavowal of the Treatise. 1. Meta-Theory One of Hume's tasks in the Treatise of Human Nature is to defend his bundle theory of mind. His stated objective in the Introduction to that work is to "explain the principles of human nature" (T xvi) and discover the "essence of the mind... from careful and exact experiments, and the observation of those particular effects, which result from its different circumstances and situations." (T xvii) In our examination of the Treatise, we shall find that there are systematic connections between his copy theory of ideas and his bundle theory of mind, and that the failure of the latter is sufficient to cast doubt on the former. The method Hume uses in constructing his theory of mind is "experimental," and he provides some remarks on the adequacy of such an experimental theory. It is with these that we shall begin. 246 Hume's meta-theoretical principles are of three kinds: principles governing the acceptability of theoretical terms, a principle of parsimony, and a principle of explanatory completeness. As we shall see, each of these kinds of principles is relevant to considerations of the acceptability and epistemic status of scientific theories. It is clear that Hume accepts an empiricist theory of meaning, and, therefore, that any theoretical terms one employs in a scientific or philosophical theory must have its meaning assigned on the basis of experience, (cf. T 17-25 and E 21-22) This is a minimal condition for the intelligibility of a theory. Although a commitment to an empiricist theory of meaning does not entail that one must be directly acquainted with theoretical objects, it does place several constraints upon the theoretical terms one uses. In his discussion of Spinozism, Hume spells out some of these constraints. In his words: I say then, that since we may suppose, but never conceive a specific difference betwixt an object and impression; any conclusion we form concerning the connexion and repugnance of impressions, will not be known certainly to be applicable to objects; but that on the other hand, whatever conclusions of this kind we form concerning objects, will most certainly be applicable to impressions. The reason is not difficult. As an object is suppos'd to be different from an impression, we cannot be sure, that the circumstance, upon which we found our reasoning, is common to both, supposing we form the reasoning upon the impression. 'Tis still possible, that the object may differ from it in that particular. But when we first form our reasoning concerning the object, 'tis beyond doubt, that the same reasoning must extend to the impression: And that because the 247 quality of the object, upon which the argument is founded, must at least be conceiv'd by the mind; and cou'd not be conceiv'd, unless it were common to an impression; since we have no idea but what is deriv'd from that origin. Thus we may establish it as a certain maxim, that we can never, by any principle, but by an irregular kind of reasoning from experience, discover a connexion or repugnance betwixt objects, which extends not to impressions; tho' the inverse proposition may not be equally true, that all the discoverable relations of impressions are common to objects. (T 241-242) Hume's empiricist theory of meaning places constraints upon the descriptions one can offer of theoretical objects. Although the objects in one's theory need not be immediately observable, they cannot be "specifically different" (different in kind) from impressions, i.e... (shrink)

Imagination has played a major role in theories of numerous aesthetic phenomena: it figures in accounts of the interpretation of art, of our emotional responses to art, and even of what art is, to name but a few topics. But imagination seemingly has a role to play also in aesthetic theorising itself, in particular in aesthetic thought experiments. Thought experiments in general pose an epistemic puzzle: how can a merely imagined scenario yield knowledge? In the paper, I have a look (...) at a special version of this puzzle that some thought experiments in aesthetics occasion. Many thought experiments in aesthetics—e.g. Kendall Walton’s guernica-experiment, or Arthur Danto’s imagined eight-hour long film of the title page of Tolstoy’s War and Peace—involve making judgements regarding the aesthetic properties of merely imagined works of art. But according to a widely accepted principle in aesthetics, one has to be acquainted with a work— seen it, heard it, and so on—in order to be able to judge its aesthetic qualities. But no one has ever seen Danto’s merely imagined film of Tolstoy’s book. So how are we in a position to judge its aesthetic properties? I propose a solution to the puzzle by elaborating on Tamar Gendler’s notion of “quasi-observation,” which she holds to be a common element of thought experimenting. As a coda, I also give a sketch of how aesthetic thought experiments are not only a tool for theorising about art, but often also figure in the production of art. (shrink)

Who should have a right to participate in a polity’s decision-making? Although the answers to this ‘boundary problem’ in democratic theory remain controversial, it is widely believed that the enfranchisement of tourists and children is unacceptable. Yet, the two most prominent inclusion principles in the literature – Robert Goodin’s ‘all (possibly) affected interests’-principle and the ‘all subjected to law’-principle – both enfranchise those groups. Unsurprisingly, democratic theorists have therefore offered several reasons for nonetheless exempting tourists and children from (...) the franchise. In this paper, I argue that their attempts fail. None of the proposed rationales can do the job without having unacceptable implications for the voting rights of other groups. I then develop a new specification of the affected interests-view, one that avoids such problems. According to my life plan-principle, a person is entitled to participate in a polity’s decision-making if and only if its decisions will actually affect her autonomously chosen life plans, or prevent her from developing or revising plans of that kind. I show that this principle straightforwardly avoids enfranchising tourists and children, and thus improves upon its two prominent rivals. The paper ends by considering and rejecting two objections to my new principle. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Isocrates' Use of doxaTakis PoulakosEven though Isocrates presents Antidosis as a thorough defense of his educational program, he says very little about it, choosing instead to offer lavish portraits of his own earlier writings, elaborate arguments in defense of his reputation, and painstaking attacks against his competitors. One of the few passages where he speaks directly and explicitly about his educational views concerns the type of teaching of which (...) he approved. "[T]eachers of philosophy," he remarks in an obvious reference to his own instruction, begin their students' training by acquainting them with "all the forms of discourse in which the mind expresses itself." Past this type of training, he goes on to say,when they have made them familiar and thoroughly conversant with these lessons, they set them at exercises, habituate them to work, and require them to combine in practice the particular things which they have learned, in order that they may grasp them more firmly and bring their theories into closer touch with the occasions for applying them —I say "theories," for no system of knowledge can possibly cover these occasions, since in all cases they elude our science. Yet those who most apply their minds to them and are able to discern the consequences which for the most part grow out of them, will most often meet these occasions in the right way. (184)The passage is important for a number of reasons. First, it makes clear that Isocrates conceives learning not so much in terms of possessing a specialized body of knowledge as in knowing how to apply principles to specific situations. Students will be educated in the art of logos, not only when they have become familiar with "all the forms of discourse,," but, more importantly, when they have learned how to apply principles of the art to practical situations. Second, the passage also makes clear that the proper site for applying the principles of the art of logos is the domain of politics. [End Page 61] Teachers of "philosophy" will guide students to apply their knowledge of the art of logos, not in every situation, but in those situations that deal with contingencies and that call for decisions about future courses of action, whose outcome is unknown and whose consequences are unforeseen. Along with many other sections throughout his writings, the passage above offers one more indication that Isocrates' educational program focuses principally on instruction in political or symbouleutic speaking, political discourse or logos politikos. Finally, as the passage states, the domain of situations addressed by his instruction is on the level of contingency and kairos, a domain belonging to the order of doxa, not the order of epistēmē. His teaching of political discourse relies on a method of adjusting opinions and conjectures to specific cases, on bringing doxa in closer proximity to kairos.The passage above, then, sets the conceptual stage for the type of civic education with which Isocrates associates his teaching throughout the Antidosis: the teaching of logos politicos, not for its own sake, but for the purpose of citizenship and statesmanship, an education in speaking well for the purposes of citizenship and statesmanship. By guiding students in how to apply rhetorical principles to practical situations, how to make choices about future courses of action with an eye to potential consequences, and how to adjust choices made to the demands of changing circumstances, he is in fact preparing students to participate in their city's deliberations as citizens. Should they rise to the occasion and be prepared to address the city's problems by submitting the judgments they formulate to the principles of contingency and timeliness, they may very well become leaders of the city one day, capable statesmen or celebrated citizens of the polis.But the passage also leaves several questions unanswered. To begin with, there is the question of the label "philosophy." Does Isocrates use the term philosophia to "denote his rhetoric" (Too 1995, 193) or to suggest an "implicit denial of rhetoric" (Cahn 1989, 134)? Is this label meant to be an act of "appropriating the term 'philosophy'" (Nehamas 1990, 5) or of positing "a contrasting definition of philosophy" (Timmerman 1998, 157)? Can the... (shrink)

In this paper I examine Russell’s account of memory in both the acquaintance and the neutral monist periods, more specifically, the years from 1910 until 1927, with emphasis on The Problems of Philosophy, Theory of Knowledge, and The Analysis of Mind. I argue that memory is central for understanding how knowledge works, which is the main reason it remained in the focus of Russell’s analysis even after the gradual shift to neutral monism. I propose that memory played a not (...) insignificant role in that shift. While this paper aims to show that Russell’s theory of memory in the acquaintance period faced serious difficulties—mainly related to the commitment to direct realism—I argue that there is a consistent similarity and continuity between the theory of memory in the acquaintance period and that in the neutral monist period. Russell considered a similar type of memory to be paradigmatic and epistemically primary in both periods—a consideration, dictated, no doubt, by his commitment to the principles of Occam’s razor and psychological plausibility. (shrink)

It Has Been Rightly Said That Only A True Philosopher May Give A Practical Shape To Education. Philosophy And Education Go Hand In Hand. Education Depends On Philosophy For Its Guidance While Philosophy Depends On Education For Its Own Formulation. Teaching Methods Are Very Much Concerned With The Philosophy Of Education The Teacher Holds. The Philosophical Systems Of Education Govern The Teacher S Attitude To The Method Of Teaching. With A View To Comprehend The Close Relationship Of Philosophy And Education (...) And Their Great Significance In The Modern Times, The Present Book Philosophy Of Education Has Been Written.The Book Aims At Presenting The Western Isms Of Philosophy As Well As Indian Philosophy Of Education Beginning From The Vedas To The Contemporary Philosophies. It Elucidates The Philosophical Issues And Attempts To Draw The Philosophical Implications Of Every Isms. Invaluable Viewpoints On Education Of Eminent Educators Like Rousseau, Russell, Swami Dayanand, Annie Besant, M.K. Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore And Many Others, And The Influence Of Their Philosophies Have Been Studied In Depth. It Acquaints The Readers With The Varied Aims And Ideals Of Education, Methods And Principles Of Teaching, Role And Influence Of Teachers As Propounded By The Great Philosophers.Written In A Simple Language And Lucid Style, The Book Is Expected To Serve As An Ideal Textbook On The Subject. It Will Prove Indispensable For The Students And Teachers Of Education. Question Bank At The End Of The Book Is An Added Advantage Provided To The Students Which Would Prove Helpful In Preparation For Examination. Even The General Readers Will Find This Book Worth-Reading. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 33 (winter 2013–14): 173–90 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036–01631; online 1913–8032 c:\users\kenneth\documents\type3302\rj 33,2 114 red.docx 2014-01-31 8:29 PM oeviews MODES AND LEVELS OF PERPLEXITY I. Grattan-Guinness Middlesex U. Business School Hendon, London nw4 4bt, uk [email protected] John Ongley and Rosalind Carey. Russell: a Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Pp. ix, 212. isbn: 978-0-8264-9753-6. £45 (hb), (...) £14.99 (pb); us$80 (hb), us$24.95 (pb). i his book is the 41st in a series of guides to the work of various philosophers and philosopher groups, written at a level of readability for students. The authors survey the course of Bertrand Russell’s philosophical career, starting out with his work on logic and mathematics. The main philosophical tools are presented: in logic, they are term, proposition, proposition function, relation, paradox, and first- vis-à-vis higher-order logic. Then, moving on to epistemology, the principal philosophical notions are presented, such as sense-data, facts related to language, Russell’s overriding preference for positivistic philosophies and suspicions of metaphysics, knowledge by acquaintance and by description, theories of truth, logical atomism, percept, events, meaning, and inference in the context of scientific theories. It is nice to have many of the principal components of Russell’s philosophy exhibited together, including the later works An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth and Human Knowledge. The perplexed reader would like to be given precise references for Russell’s assertions on various points, especially when he was so prolific. A cited short item does not need more precision; but the two main chapters that cover the logic and epistemology story often seem to invoke The Principles of Mathematics or Principia Mathematica and yet contain only one precise citation of a longer text in their 64 pages (p. 85). The other chapters of the book are somewhat better in this respect. The index is excellent, though W. V. Quine was missed at pp. 29–30. The table of contents would have benefited from including the titles of the sections. q= 174 Reviews c:\users\kenneth\documents\type3302\rj 33,2 113 red.docx 2014-01-15 10:04 ii Much ground is covered; however, the account is mitigated by the failure to provide a biographical factual survey that should have constituted the opening chapter. Little or no description or explanation is given of, among others, Cambridge University, its mathematical tripos, Russell’s research fellowship in 1895, the philosophical journals Mind and The Monist, Russell’s conversion from neo-Hegelian to positivistic philosophy following G. E. Moore around 1899, the start of personal contacts with Giuseppe Peano in 1900, the gradual involvement of A. N. Whitehead from around 1902, the financial rescue of Principia Mathematica by the grant from the Royal Society in 1909, the serious mistake in Volume 2 detected by Whitehead in 1911 while it was in press, the initial contact with Ludwig Wittgenstein from 1911, Russell’s switch from logic to epistemology in the early 1910s, Whitehead’s intentions for the fourth volume of Principia that was abandoned in 1918, the circumstances of the second edition published in the mid-1920s, Russell’s partial return to serious philosophical writings from the mid-1930s onwards, or the Trinity fellowship from 1944. Presumably the authors have made most of these omissions intentionally ; but the target audience is the loser. The opening “introduction” does mention some of these events and publications ; but its purpose is to provide a preliminary look at some of the main features of Russell’s logic, including the comprehension axiom “that every predicate defines a class” (p. 3), type theory, definite descriptions, “the noclass theory of classes” (p. 10), and the status and role of “analysis”. Why do these features need prologues when the others do not? When they are re-discussed in the later chapters on logic and epistemology, several near-repetitions occur. Furthermore, quantification does not receive sufficient consideration in the book; and the logical connectives and rules of inference none at... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Isocrates' Use of doxaTakis PoulakosEven though Isocrates presents Antidosis as a thorough defense of his educational program, he says very little about it, choosing instead to offer lavish portraits of his own earlier writings, elaborate arguments in defense of his reputation, and painstaking attacks against his competitors. One of the few passages where he speaks directly and explicitly about his educational views concerns the type of teaching of which (...) he approved. "[T]eachers of philosophy," he remarks in an obvious reference to his own instruction, begin their students' training by acquainting them with "all the forms of discourse in which the mind expresses itself." Past this type of training, he goes on to say,when they have made them familiar and thoroughly conversant with these lessons, they set them at exercises, habituate them to work, and require them to combine in practice the particular things which they have learned, in order that they may grasp them more firmly and bring their theories into closer touch with the occasions for applying them —I say "theories," for no system of knowledge can possibly cover these occasions, since in all cases they elude our science. Yet those who most apply their minds to them and are able to discern the consequences which for the most part grow out of them, will most often meet these occasions in the right way. (184)The passage is important for a number of reasons. First, it makes clear that Isocrates conceives learning not so much in terms of possessing a specialized body of knowledge as in knowing how to apply principles to specific situations. Students will be educated in the art of logos, not only when they have become familiar with "all the forms of discourse,," but, more importantly, when they have learned how to apply principles of the art to practical situations. Second, the passage also makes clear that the proper site for applying the principles of the art of logos is the domain of politics. [End Page 61] Teachers of "philosophy" will guide students to apply their knowledge of the art of logos, not in every situation, but in those situations that deal with contingencies and that call for decisions about future courses of action, whose outcome is unknown and whose consequences are unforeseen. Along with many other sections throughout his writings, the passage above offers one more indication that Isocrates' educational program focuses principally on instruction in political or symbouleutic speaking, political discourse or logos politikos. Finally, as the passage states, the domain of situations addressed by his instruction is on the level of contingency and kairos, a domain belonging to the order of doxa, not the order of epistēmē. His teaching of political discourse relies on a method of adjusting opinions and conjectures to specific cases, on bringing doxa in closer proximity to kairos.The passage above, then, sets the conceptual stage for the type of civic education with which Isocrates associates his teaching throughout the Antidosis: the teaching of logos politicos, not for its own sake, but for the purpose of citizenship and statesmanship, an education in speaking well for the purposes of citizenship and statesmanship. By guiding students in how to apply rhetorical principles to practical situations, how to make choices about future courses of action with an eye to potential consequences, and how to adjust choices made to the demands of changing circumstances, he is in fact preparing students to participate in their city's deliberations as citizens. Should they rise to the occasion and be prepared to address the city's problems by submitting the judgments they formulate to the principles of contingency and timeliness, they may very well become leaders of the city one day, capable statesmen or celebrated citizens of the polis.But the passage also leaves several questions unanswered. To begin with, there is the question of the label "philosophy." Does Isocrates use the term philosophia to "denote his rhetoric" (Too 1995, 193) or to suggest an "implicit denial of rhetoric" (Cahn 1989, 134)? Is this label meant to be an act of "appropriating the term 'philosophy'" (Nehamas 1990, 5) or of positing "a contrasting definition of philosophy" (Timmerman 1998, 157)? Can the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Isocrates' Use of doxaTakis PoulakosEven though Isocrates presents Antidosis as a thorough defense of his educational program, he says very little about it, choosing instead to offer lavish portraits of his own earlier writings, elaborate arguments in defense of his reputation, and painstaking attacks against his competitors. One of the few passages where he speaks directly and explicitly about his educational views concerns the type of teaching of which (...) he approved. "[T]eachers of philosophy," he remarks in an obvious reference to his own instruction, begin their students' training by acquainting them with "all the forms of discourse in which the mind expresses itself." Past this type of training, he goes on to say,when they have made them familiar and thoroughly conversant with these lessons, they set them at exercises, habituate them to work, and require them to combine in practice the particular things which they have learned, in order that they may grasp them more firmly and bring their theories into closer touch with the occasions for applying them —I say "theories," for no system of knowledge can possibly cover these occasions, since in all cases they elude our science. Yet those who most apply their minds to them and are able to discern the consequences which for the most part grow out of them, will most often meet these occasions in the right way. (184)The passage is important for a number of reasons. First, it makes clear that Isocrates conceives learning not so much in terms of possessing a specialized body of knowledge as in knowing how to apply principles to specific situations. Students will be educated in the art of logos, not only when they have become familiar with "all the forms of discourse,," but, more importantly, when they have learned how to apply principles of the art to practical situations. Second, the passage also makes clear that the proper site for applying the principles of the art of logos is the domain of politics. [End Page 61] Teachers of "philosophy" will guide students to apply their knowledge of the art of logos, not in every situation, but in those situations that deal with contingencies and that call for decisions about future courses of action, whose outcome is unknown and whose consequences are unforeseen. Along with many other sections throughout his writings, the passage above offers one more indication that Isocrates' educational program focuses principally on instruction in political or symbouleutic speaking, political discourse or logos politikos. Finally, as the passage states, the domain of situations addressed by his instruction is on the level of contingency and kairos, a domain belonging to the order of doxa, not the order of epistēmē. His teaching of political discourse relies on a method of adjusting opinions and conjectures to specific cases, on bringing doxa in closer proximity to kairos.The passage above, then, sets the conceptual stage for the type of civic education with which Isocrates associates his teaching throughout the Antidosis: the teaching of logos politicos, not for its own sake, but for the purpose of citizenship and statesmanship, an education in speaking well for the purposes of citizenship and statesmanship. By guiding students in how to apply rhetorical principles to practical situations, how to make choices about future courses of action with an eye to potential consequences, and how to adjust choices made to the demands of changing circumstances, he is in fact preparing students to participate in their city's deliberations as citizens. Should they rise to the occasion and be prepared to address the city's problems by submitting the judgments they formulate to the principles of contingency and timeliness, they may very well become leaders of the city one day, capable statesmen or celebrated citizens of the polis.But the passage also leaves several questions unanswered. To begin with, there is the question of the label "philosophy." Does Isocrates use the term philosophia to "denote his rhetoric" (Too 1995, 193) or to suggest an "implicit denial of rhetoric" (Cahn 1989, 134)? Is this label meant to be an act of "appropriating the term 'philosophy'" (Nehamas 1990, 5) or of positing "a contrasting definition of philosophy" (Timmerman 1998, 157)? Can the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE RECTITUDE OF INCLINATION NICHOLAS INGHAM, 0.P. Provincial Archives Providence, Rhode Island 0 F THE MOST plausible mainline treatments of the relation of inclination to action and of their combination to moral estimation-Kantian, Classical Utilitarian, and Aristotelian-Thomist--only the third, remarkably enough, provides for the possibility of intrinsic rectitude as regards inclination. For Kant, of course, inclination is not only indifferent to morality but censurable as a criterion for action; (...) indeed, any act done from inclination is, for Kant, pre-moral at best and immoral at worst. Classical Utilitarianism would appear to hold that the desire for pleasure, since it is correct by nature, must also be indefectibly and intrinsically correct. But this is not so, since in any choice situation an inclination toward a given pleasure, right by nature, may be counterbalanced by competing claims, whether these claims themselves arise from other inclinations within the one moral subject or from distinct subjects with differing claims. Hence, Classical Utilitarianism must accept a doctrine of extrinsic correctness as regards the evaluation of any inclination unless the version in question can establish a universally valid overriding principle of right-in which case it is Utilitarianism no longer but some form of deontological ethics. Only in the moral thought of Aristotle and Aquinas do we actually find a plausible case for the rectitude of inclination. And it is therefore surprising that so little attention has been paid this and that so many doctrinal Aristotelian-Thomists seem unaware of it. For many scholars, otherwise well acquainted with the basic philosophical views defended by St. Thomas Aquinas in his 417 418 NICHOLAS INGHAM, O.P. Aristotelian commentaries, remain surprisingly unfamiliar with one of the most interesting parts of his metaphysics of morals: right appetite, inclination, or emotion as an integral part of moral science, moral activity, and reflexive knowledge of the morality of conduct and of disposition.' I should like to set out what seem to me to be the general Aristotelian-Thomist views, as expressed in the commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, and to develop from them a full account of intrinsic, extrinsic, stable, and per se rectitude as regards inclination or appetite. The first step in this development requires us to consider whether a moral science is possible and, if so, of what kind it must be. I Initially both St. Thomas and Aristotle appear to neglect altogether the problem whether there can be moral science as such. In listing the five intellectual virtues (understanding, science, wisdom, prudence, and art) neither mentions a science of right action. Would such a discipline be theoretical? Ordinarily the theoretical sciences in Aristotle and Aquinas perfect only theoretical powers. Does right action fall only under prudence? Prudence ordinarily is taken to be a practical virtue, not one specifically pertaining to the sciences. Three solutions to the difficulty offer themselves at once: first, moral science belongs essentially among ·the theoretical disciplines, even where allowance is made for the inclusion of practical elements in some methodologically defensible way; second, it is science but only in a highly derivative and improper sense and, in fact, is more correctly treated as providing something like a schema for the exercise of the cardinal virtues, especially prudence; third, it is thoroughly scientific in the strict and unqualified sense of the term, yet essentially not a theoretical but a practical discipline. 1 It is surprising how little serious attention seems to have been paid to Aristotle's remark in Ethics VII, 3, 1147a26-28, that, while the immediate conclusion of theoretical reasoning is affirmation, the immediate result of practical reasoning is action. THE RECTITUDE OF INCLINATION 419 The first solution, as one might easily imagine, has been championed by many of the most illustrious commentators. John of St. Thomas appears to hold that moral science is, as such, purely theoretical, even though it has practical application in prudential application.2 Maritain seems to believe that it is the theoretical treatment of a subject matter intrinsically practical in nature.3 Lottin holds that it is speculatively practical-a mixture 2 "Scientia moralis potest dupliciter considerari; uno modo, ut etiam includit prudentiam, alio modo, ut earn excludit et solum versatur circa cognitionem virtutum... (shrink)