ABSTRACT: In this paper, I first lay out a definition of perfectionism drawing mainly upon the works of Cora Diamond and Stanley Cavell. Secondly, I introduce the notion of “expressive rationality” and show how it contributes to expanding the scope of pragmatism beyond its original boundaries. I then proceed to examine pragmatism and perfectionism as competing alternative accounts of moral experience, through a discussion of Coetzee’s novel The Lives of Animals. In so doing, I intend to show that pragmatism and perfectionism constitute two necessary and irreducible approaches to moral experience, pointing towards two diverging and yet irreducibly joined spheres of moral life.

ABSTRACT : Alfred Fouillée’s doctrine of ideas-forces is historically and intellectually analogous to William James’s philosophy of the will. Nevertheless, Fouillée’s criticisms of pragmatism appear to be close to a Peircean view which emphasizes the resistance of the real and the clarification of conceptions. That Peirce overtly acknowledged Fouillée’s influence only on his own tychism is quite misleading.

ABSTRACT: This article evaluates the strategies used by Christian philosophers to counter the invasion of Spinozist ideas between 1680 and 1720. The analysis of these refutations reveals a significant evolution in the way they unfolded. I wish to show that the argument from finality, or God’s design, was the favored strategy against Spinoza that was selected in the end. This article aims to understand the reasons for this choice, and why the Catholic Church waited more than twenty years after Spinoza’s death to get organized and refute him directly.

ABSTRACT: In an article on Plato’s Symposium entitled “Sorcerer Love” Luce Irigaray attempts a retrieval of the teaching of Diotima of Mantinea on Eros. Finding a stark contrast between the two halves of Diotima’s speech in the Symposium she speculates that the doctrine of Eros contained in the first half of the speech may well represent the teaching of the historical Diotima on which the Platonic ‘metaphysics’ of the second half are super-imposed. While finding much to admire in Irigaray’s account, the author suggests that the two halves of the speech can be read as a unity and that Irigaray’s insights can be accommodated within Platonism.

ABSTRACT: I argue that Socrates employs both elenchus and the method of hypothesis in the examination of the slave. I show that the elenchus is a necessary step of the inquiry. Being reduced to ignorance, Socrates tacitly uses the method of hypothesis to move the slave from ignorance to correct opinion. I tease this out from the questions Socrates asks. Although the method of hypothesis begins from a question distinct from elenchus, the solution to the problem leads the slave to answer the original question. The examination shows that the two methods can be employed in a sustained inquiry.

ABSTRACT: Jeremy Waldron argues that the historical ownership rights of Aboriginal peoples can be superseded, yet acknowledges that programs of historically grounded compensation are justifiable in the absence of widespread redistribution. This article argues that existing states lack social justice programs of the requisite kind, and that they will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Moreover, even the best-designed programs will be far more ambiguous than Waldron encourages us to recognize, given the unavoidability of inheritance-based inequalities. The article argues that philosophers should pay special attention to political context when evaluating the claims of socially vulnerable populations such as Aboriginal peoples.

ABSTRACT: In this paper, I carry out an application of the debate between simulationism and theory theory to the issue of episodic memory. I first criticize the approach favored by the theory theory. Then I advance a simulationist conception of the relationship between the phenomenology of episodic memory and its specific kind of self-consciousness. On my view, subjectivity belongs to the very content of episodic memory, not as an element of its content, but as the perspective it gives to the content that makes the simulation of past experience possible. In support of that view, I provide an analysis inspired by J. Perry of the semantics of de se thought. It gives the remembering subject a non-representational presence in the mnesic content.

ABSTRACT: As Smith freed moral philosophy from former control bodies (the Church, the state), the Scottish philosopher opened the field for a scientific political economy. In his Adam Smith. Philosophie et économie (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1990, p. 45), Jean Mathiot asked : «Should then one wonder that his [Smith’s] audacious stand became the historical grounding stone for political economy, then bringing recognition as an objectively-grounded field of knowledge?» Mathiot’s text and thought have been little debated to this day; this essay is meant to fill that gap, in particular with regard to the history of Smith’s reception in France. Mathiot sought to understand better the “impartial spectator” using a new character whom he claimed Smith was implicitly sketching, and whom he called “the impartial laborer”. To Mathiot’s mind, from the Theory of moral sentiments (1759) to the Wealth of Nations (1776), the link is nothing else than Smith’s own philosophy.

ABSTRACT: There are conventional norms of reasoning. That is, we have conventions about which patterns of reasoning we encourage or disapprove of.

ABSTRACT: Whereas relevance in scientific explanations is usually discussed as if it was a single problem, several criteria of relevance will be distinguished in this paper. Emphasis is laid upon the notion of intra-scientific relevance, which is illustrated using explanation of the law of areas as an example. Traditional accounts of explanation, such as the causal and unificationist accounts, are analyzed against these criteria of relevance. Particularly, it will be shown that these accounts fail to indicate which explanations fulfill the condition of intra-scientific relevance. Finally, the significance of this latter criterion is emphasized, and the epistemic benefits of explanations that fulfill it are highlighted.

ABSTRACT: With a view to suggesting the possible relevance of Aristotelian thought to current notions of complexity and self-organization, studies Aristotle’s notions of teleology and final causation. After a sketch of the historical process by which such notions were finally rejected in the science of Galileo and Newton, attention is drawn to some contemporary trends in philosophy of science that argue for a return to some (modified) versions of the notion of final causation (I. Prigogine, R. Thom, S. Rosen). These arguments are illustrated by the example of Bénard cells, and the theories of Schneider, Kay, and D. Sagan.

ABSTRACT : Many philosophers and psychologists think that moral norms have a different nature as rules from convention: while we are obliged to respect moral norms because of what they are in themselves, our respect for conventions depends on our attitude toward a particular social context. I question this distinction between moral norms and conventions and argue that conventions depend on social context because the context structures the agents’ expectations, sets reference points for the assessment of gains and losses, and helps the observer to infer the presence and the seriousness of harms.

ABSTRACT: Love is a broad mental phenomenon, its objects not restricted to thinking beings. Yet most philosophical theories of love focus on some case of interpersonal intimacy. Such theories ignore a wide range of relevant instances and thus fail to capture what is distinctive of love generally. I explore a straightforward alternative hypothesis that deserves a hearing but has been discussed less often: Love consists in intense desire for and delight in its objects. The account is defended against various objections, among them the claim that caring concern is what is most characteristic or central in loving.

ABSTRACT: In this paper, I am interested in the ethics of everyday sexual agency: specifically, in moral questions about when, how, and why we identify ourselves as particular kinds of sexual agents. Given that sexual self-identifications involve a complex combination of individual and social processes, a framework which does justice to these processes would help make room for an analysis of the ethics of sexual self-identification. I introduce the concept of sexual authenticity as useful in these contexts, where such authenticity involves two main aspects: taking up sexual identifications as our ownmost and giving accounts of them to and with others.

ABSTRACT: Ever since Hume raised the problem of induction, many philosophers have tried to solve this problem; however, there still is no solution that has won wide acceptance among philosophers. According to Wilfrid Sellars, the reason is mainly that these philosophers have tried to justify induction by theoretical reasoning rather than by practical reasoning. In this paper I offer a sort of Sellarsian proposal. On the basis of the instrumental principle and the constructivist view of the concept of epistemic justification, I argue that it is reasonable to accept induction.

ABSTRACT: Substance is the central idea in Spinoza’s philosophy, but it is not always clear which view of substance he adopts. Is substance the totality of nature or everything that exists or is it not? In taking a fresh look at his view of substance, I will first demonstrate that he takes both views. Secondly, I will show that each view does not contradict the other. Thirdly, I will see what consequences each view has for other ideas in his philosophy. Finally, I will explain the relationship between the two views.

ABSTRACT: Brandom argues that functionalism must ultimately fail because it will not be able to explain how we can holistically update our beliefs solely in terms of abilities possessed by non-linguistic things. In this paper I respond to this argument by arguing that non-linguistic animals encounter and overcome an analogous sort of holistic updating problem. I will also try to demystify holism and de-intellectualize language use/reasoning.

ABSTRACT: In this paper, I distinguish between two families of theories which view moral norms as either “inputs” or “outputs.” I argue that the most plausible version of each model can ultimately be seen as the two sides of the same model, which I call Moderate Nativism. The difference between these two apparently antagonistic models is one of perspective rather than content: while the Input model explains how emotional dispositions constrain the historical evolution of moral norms, the Output model explains how these same dispositions naturally give rise to corresponding moral judgments in individuals.