This paper is in two parts. I begin the first part by presenting a brief resume of an account of Hume's Section “Of Personal Identity” which I offered at length in a paper first published twenty years ago. I shall then try to respond to some criticisms of my interpretation of that Section. The authors of these criticisms consider that Hume's account of personal identity is less sceptical and more defensible than I suggested it is. The purpose of responding to these criticisms is not, I trust, that of protecting an ego: this would be an objective that would be uniquely inappropriate in such a context. It is rather to look again at some difficult but important problems in Humean exegesis. In the second part of the paper I turn to some criticisms that are commonly levelled against Hume, and which I have been inclined to subscribe to myself in the past. I do not think that a proper assessment of these criticisms depends upon accepting or rejecting the reading of Hume that I have tried to defend in the first part, so the two parts of the paper are largely independent of each other. I now incline to believe, however, that the criticisms I shall deal with in the second part are criticisms to which Hume has, or could find, quite plausible answers.

In this article, I discuss two approaches to the phenomenon of gesture, constituted by the existential dimension of embodiment, intersubjectivity, affectivity, and language: while Martin Heidegger states that human bodily movement as a whole should be understood as gesture in contrast to the spatial movement of things, Vilém Flusser integrates under this notion a multitude of human practices and activities that common sense hesitates to call gestures. The dilemma of the phenomenology of gesture consists in this tension between the plural concreteness of gestural appearances and the irrepressible temptation to identify a unitary layer that would allow them to hold together.

Recent interpretations of Locke's primary/secondary quality distinction have tended to emphasize Locke's relationship to the corpuscularian science of his time, especially to that of Boyle. Although this trend may have corrected the unfortunate tendency to view Locke in isolation from his scientific contemporaries, it nevertheless has resulted in some over- simplifications and distortions of Locke's general enterprise. As everyone now agrees, Locke was attempting to provide a philosophical foundation for English corpuscularianism and one must therefore look not only at the current scientific hypotheses but also at the nature of the philosophical foundation Locke was attempting to erect. In particular, Locke made an attempt, based on epistemological principles, to give a philosophical justification of atomistic corpuscularianism. Moreover, he was not content to give this justification post hoc—the epistemological foundation was prior to, and determined the framework for, the details of the correct scientific theory. Locke's epistemology made legitimate an atomistic theory, one making crucial use of the notion of solidity in the definition of the elementary particles, although it did not prejudge the details of this theory.

ABSTRACT: Recent evolutionary thinking suggests that morality may have three distinct roots, corresponding to the three “master concepts” in the history of philosophical ethics: sympathy, virtue, and duty. Evolutionary biologists are nearly unanimous in the view that there are two distinct mechanisms that can generate altruism in other animal species, and there is increasing recognition that there must be a third mechanism at work among humans. Altruism in the biological sense is not the same thing as morality, but it is a precursor to morality. An examination of such precursors can help us gain a deeper understanding of morality proper.

This paper argues that individual rational judgment, of the kind required for rational justification in empirical knowledge or morals, is in fundamental part socially and historically based, although this is consistent with realism about the objects of empirical knowledge and with strict objectivity about basic moral principles. To judge fully rationally that one judges, and thus to justify one’s judgment rationally, requires recognizing one’s inherent fallibility and hence our mutual interdependence for assessing our own and each others’ judgments and their justification. This provides a pragmatic account of rational justification which dispatches the distinction between “rational” and “historical” knowledge.

In 1972, one of Michelangelo's earliest and best-known Pietàs was attacked by an evident lunatic. Fifteen times it was struck with a ninepound hammer; the Madonna's arm was broken in several places, her nose was knocked off, and her eye and veil were badly chipped. Immediately after the assault, and before knowing precisely what was needed to be replaced, the Director of the Vatican Museum, Redig de Campos, decided that integral restoration was called for.

Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge was published in 1710, when he was only twenty-five. The public silence that greeted it stunned him. Even the ridicule that he had anticipated was initially confined to private circles. No doubt this mortifying experience reinforced his belief “that whatever doctrine contradicts vulgar and settled opinion” must “be introduced with great caution into the world”. It had, indeed, been for this reason that he had “omitted all mention of the non-existence of matter in the title-page, dedication, preface, and introduction to” his performance. In this way he hoped that “the notion of [immaterialism] might steal unawares on the reader, who possibly would never have meddled with a book that he had known contained such paradoxes”.

Motivations can often conflict. Suppose it is six o'clock and I want a drink; suppose also that I know that it would be unwise or inappropriate in my present circumstances to drink. In cases like this I feel a struggle inside me. For Plato and for Aristotle, such struggles were an important part of moral experience, and on their description and analysis depends much of Plato's and Aristotle's moral psychology. It is not well enough appreciated that, in this respect, Aristotle was an uncritical follower of Plato. If we understand Plato's theory and how little Aristotle departed from it, we will be able to make better sense of some difficult passages, especially De Anima III.11, and we will even be able to solve the conundrum of the ‘sphere’ which has teased scholars for two thousand years.

La connaissance est traditionnellement envisagée comme un processus mettant en rapport un sujet et un objet. Le processus peut être doublement orienté selon que l'on considère la réception de l'information par l e sujet, ou la représentation de l'objet qui peut avoir différentes modalités, parmi lesquelles je compte l'assertion de quelque chose quant à l'objet. Je schématise ces deux orientations de la façon suivante:

(1) I (O,S) = K1

(2) R (S,O) = K2

Prendre connaissance d'un manuel de mathématiques, être ébloui par une lumière vive, n'est pas identique à résoudre un problème de mathématiques, ou à savoir que la voiture qui vient en face n'a pas mis ses feux de croisement. Il y a bien lieu de distinguer deux types de connaissances: K1 et K2; je ne me préoccuperai pas de la question générale de l'identité des éléments de chacune et j'utiliserai les mêmes symboles S et O.

This paper critiques Jesse Prinz’s rejection of Adam Smith’s model of impartial spectatorship as a viable corrective to empathic bias. I argue that Prinz’s case is unconvincing, insofar as it rests on an underdeveloped account of Smith’s view of critical self-regulation. By presenting a more detailed and attentive reading of Smithean impartial spectatorship, and exploring Smith’s compelling account of structural supports for sympathetic engagement, this paper demonstrates how Smith’s work is able to constructively engage with contemporary concerns regarding empathy’s role in guiding moral behaviour.

According to A. John Simmons's anarchist scepticism, there is no duty to obey the law as things stand, as legal obligations have legitimacy only when voluntarily incurred by most or many citizens. However, an alternative, pluralist position is suggested by Simmons's sensitivity to the diversity of reasons and to the possibility of unresolved conflict. It shows that the grounds of legitimate authority are plural, and include distributive justice. Also, even voluntarily incurred obligations can be defeated by conflicting reasons, as when we are duty bound to an unjust regime.

I will argue that Davidson's account of pure intending can be construed as a first-person-based judgement-dependent account of intention. For Davidson, pure intending to do φ is to make an all-out judgement that φing is desirable. On this anti-reductionist account, intention is treated as an irreducible state of the subject. I will draw a comparison between this account and Wright's and I will show that Davidson's account can be viewed as a non-reductionist judgement-dependent account along the lines suggested by Wright. I then explain how this account can help deal with various perplexities in Davidson's later view of meaning and mental content.

Kant claims that we demand the agreement of others when making judgements of taste. I argue that this claim is part of an explanation of how the phenomenology of familiar aesthetic judgements supports his contention that judgements of taste are universal. Kant's aesthetic theory is plausible only if we reject the widespread contention that this demand is normative. I offer a non-normative reading of Kantian judgements of taste based on a close reading of the Analytic and Deduction, then argue against the three prominent normative interpretations, which force us to attribute to Kant a position that he did not accept.

Why did Mill draw such a firm line between nature and society, and what did he mean by the claim that only permanent or necessary truths could be gleaned in nature? Why are the laws of production able to transcend the social realm and thereby attain a higher epistemological standing? Was Mill the first (and possibly the last) to make this distinction, or does it conform with a long tradition within the history of economic thought?

A recurrent theme in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writings is his struggles with the problem of scholarly inaction. Commentators have given much attention to “The American Scholar” but less to his remarks about the “pale scholar.” In this paper, I focus on the latter and argue that understanding the evolving nature of Emerson’s views about what counts for action could not only deepen our understanding of his philosophy and its orientation toward the conduct of life but also explain why, according to Emerson, there seems to be no reconciliation between “the theory and practice of life.”