Abstract Politeness has long been hypothesized as an antidote to faction. An influential early modern version of that hypothesis rested on two claims: a moral psychological thesis that overweening pride catalyzes faction and a political thesis that politeness ameliorates faction by muting expressions of that overweening pride. Interpretations differ as to David Hume's relationship to this double‐barreled “Politeness Hypothesis.” I offer a new account of his stance that delimits the role of pride both in Hume's discussion of the psychological mechanism generating faction and in his remarks linking politeness to the amelioration of faction. I also draw on Hume's genealogical account of the circumstances or preconditions of politeness in monarchy and commerce to highlight his important modification of the political thesis: because politeness flourishes only when dangerous factions are already muted, Hume is skeptical that politeness alone can quell faction, although politeness may augment the effectiveness of other measures to moderate faction.

Abstract Foucault states that escaping from Hegel “requires knowing to what extent Hegel, insidiously perhaps, is close to us; it requires knowing what remains Hegelian in that which allows us to think against Hegel, and measuring to what extent our maneuvers against him are perhaps a ruse he has set for us, at the end of which he awaits us, motionless and elsewhere”. With the recent publication of Foucault's Diplôme d'Études Supérieures thesis, La constitution d'un transcendental historique dans la Phénoménologie de l'esprit de Hegel , we can now gauge just how much the “historical a priori” of Foucault's The Order of Things (1966) owes to the younger Foucault's conception of “the historical transcendental”, and to what extent, if any, the mature Foucault was able to escape Hegel's clutches.

Abstract This article highlights a shift in Hannah Arendt's intellectual development regarding the will during the 1960s, traced into the early 1970s when she focused on thinking, willing, and judging. I argue that this change was driven by reactions to her report on Adolf Eichmann's 1961 trial in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963). By taking this change into account, I question the tendency to overlook her development in favor of extended analyses of thinking and judging, often neglecting willing. My argument underscores, accordingly, the necessity of agreeing on factual truths before engaging in interpretative disputes. The argument has three parts. First, I examine Martin Heidegger's influence on Arendt's thought, particularly his hermeneutical phenomenology as seen in her 1953 lecture, “Understanding and Politics.” Second, I explore the issue of factual truth and its threat to a shared world, as highlighted in the exchange between Arendt and critics of the Eichmann report, along with her 1967 essay, “Truth and Politics.” Finally, I discuss Arendt's concept of the will, focusing on the distinction between the life of the mind and the world of appearances in her later works, “Thinking” and “Willing” (1973–1974).

Abstract When I am unable to drive due to a road blockade, there seems to be a morally relevant difference between a case in which the road is blocked by workers and a case in which the road is blocked by a landslide. Many political philosophers tried to capture this pretheoretical judgment at a more abstract level through the formulation of a concept of freedom. They argue that one is unfree when one's inability is casually or morally brought about by others but merely unable when one's inability is brought about by oneself or nature. The causality view of freedom holds that I am unfree to drive because the workers are causally responsible for the blockade, whereas the responsibility view of freedom holds that to determine whether I am unfree, we should ask whether the workers are morally responsible for the blockade. Each view has some strengths and weaknesses. I capture their strengths and avoid their weaknesses by suggesting a novel interpretation of moral responsibility as answerability , according to which we are answerable for all our actions in virtue of the fact that our actions reflect our evaluative judgments. This interpretation allows for a plausible resolution of the disagreement between these views.

Abstract The pivotal problem any interpretation of Cartesian modality has to cope with is how to reconcile Descartes's claim that God freely created the eternal truths with his contention that the eternal truths are necessarily true. In this article, the author argues for a Frankfurt‐style solution to the puzzle, according to which Cartesian divine free agency does not require the ability to do otherwise.

Abstract This article reinterprets Levinas's account of ethical subjectivity by centering the temporality of the pas encore (“not yet”) and drawing on new materials in Œuvres complètes . I argue that, in Totality and Infinity , eros and ethics are internally continuous: eros generates a responsible not yet of time, secured by fecundity and oriented to the Third. Unpublished notebooks and drafts show Levinas grounding subjectivity in the hopeful openness of the present and discerning in erotic life a hidden orientation toward the future—the not‐yet that gives a yet‐to‐come , a surplus that becomes responsibility. On this basis, time appears not primarily as projection toward a distant horizon but as an ethical delay within the present, a not yet that resists closure. The dossier of Totality and Infinity clarifies the links among enjoyment, Desire, fecundity, and mortality, and explains why the phrase from Entre Nous —“the future of death in the present of love”—becomes legible only in light of this background. The result is a distinct account of erotic temporality: love's time is a responsible not yet that opens the present for the Other and, through fecundity, widens into the time of the Third.

Abstract It is widely believed that transcendental philosophy is incompatible with naturalism. Historically, the decline of the former has coincided with the rise of the latter, or so the story goes. I contend that we must revise this story. To show this, I shed some much‐needed light on a quite neglected historical case in which transcendental philosophy and naturalism are harmoniously combined, namely Stanley Cavell's distinctive view of ordinary language philosophy. First, I explain in what sense Cavell's approach embodies a form of transcendentalism that transforms Kant's original project. I then examine the naturalism that Cavell's approach, unlike Kant's, integrates, and argue that it dovetails with the approach's transcendental ambitions. Finally, I indicate briefly why Cavell's naturalized transcendentalism is worthy of attention from both transcendentalists and naturalists.

Abstract In various passages, Kant makes some version of the claim that it would be absurd for there to be appearances without something that appears (the Absurdity Claim). This may be read as—and indeed Kant seems at times to present it as—an argument for the existence of nonsensible reality. I assess the relevant passages and argue that the Absurdity Claim is per se metaphysically sterile. While some passages where it appears are indicative of some commitment on Kant's part to the existence of nonsensible reality, this commitment is not argued for through the Absurdity Claim. Rather, it is already entailed in Kant's choice of the word “appearance” to refer to empirical objects. I thus attempt to bring to light the reasons that lead Kant to this choice, reasons that involve Kant's views on affection and the origin of experience.