Contemporary Anglo-American Philosophy Research Articles

The hard problem of ‘pure’ consciousness: Sāṃkhya dualist ontology

AbstractThis article addresses the theme of ‘death and immortality’ from the perspective of consciousness, and takes as its starting point a root text of Hindu philosophy, the Sāṃkhyakārikā by Īśvarakṛṣṇa (c. fourth century ce). The text posits a dualist ontology in which consciousness is separate and autonomous from a material reality that includes body and mind. The goal is to be ontologically situated in a ‘pure’ consciousness (non-objective), which signifies existential liberation. There are mundane ways to understand this claim, such as referring to cognitive states that produce affective dissociation, or more radical interpretations, such as a post-death state. This article explores the question of what Sāṃkhya's consciousness is like: it is said to be immortal, plural, individuated, and contentless. What is the motivation for and implication of engagement with a system that describes an existential freedom that may only be known in a dualist reality or after death? And how can Sāṃkhya's concepts be brought into conversation with contemporary investigations into mind–body questions? Sāṃkhya rationality counters the argument of eternal oblivion or of consciousness as an illusion confined to the brain. Yet there are resonances with Chalmers's notion of consciousness as fundamental. This article concludes that contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of religion can be enhanced by adding Sāṃkhya thought to its purview.

Non-Fictions and Narrative Truths

This paper starts from the fact that the study of narrative in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy is almost exclusively the study of fictional narrative. It returns to an earlier debate in which Hayden White argued that “historiography is a form of fiction-making.” Although White’s claims are hyperbolical, the paper argues that he was correct to stress the importance of the claim that fiction and non-fiction use “the same techniques and strategies.” A distinction is drawn between properties of narratives that are simply properties of narratives and properties of narratives that play a role in forming readers’ beliefs about the world. Using this distinction, it is shown that it is an important feature of non-fictions that they are narratives; it is salutary to recognise non-fictions as being more like fictions than they are like the events they represent.

The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics by Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb

Reviewed by: The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics by Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb Amy Gilbert Richards LIPSCOMB, Benjamin J. B. The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. xxx + 326 pp. Cloth, $27.95 In The Women Are Up to Something, Lipscomb demonstrates in form and content the inextricable link between philosophical theory and personal story and character. The book tells two stories: "first, a story [End Page 148] about four women, their overlapping friendships, and their struggle to establish themselves as philosophers in an often-hostile context; second, a story about two conflicting approaches to ethics." These two stories connect through the role these women played in the development of the second of the conflicting approaches—a challenge to the mid-twentieth-century Oxbridge orthodoxy in metaethics, what Lipscomb later calls a "minority report." Chapter 1 centers on the fact–value divide. The consequence of this divide for ethics lies in its banishment of all evaluative terms from the realm of possible facts, thereby demoting them to matters of "opinion." Lipscomb here offers a genealogy of the divide. He also introduces the insight that will become the seed of the minority report: The picture of the world offered by the fact-value divide is just that, a picture. Bringing to light the deep background pictures that undergird our understanding of the world is one of the most difficult intellectual tasks. But the picture rooted in the fact–value divide includes the claim that the divide itself is simply a "fact"—not a picture at all, and therefore not contestable. Lipscomb labels this view "the Dawkins' sublime." The next three chapters continue the work of stage-setting. Chapter 2 immerses us in the Oxford of the women's undergraduate years—an Oxford temporarily but dramatically altered by World War II, where female students made up a much larger percentage of the undergraduate population than was usual, and where professors were in a new way open to mentoring women. Chapter 3 briefly recounts all four childhoods, lived in the aftermath of the first World War. Chapter 4 returns to Oxford and narrates the graduate degrees of the four women. It also offers a perceptive primer on the history of analytic ethics, culminating in the state of the field at the point when the women were on the cusp of entering it—the precise shape of the approach to ethics the women would eventually abjure. Each of the next four chapters traces the development of the mature philosophy of one of the four women—in order: Murdoch, Anscombe, Foot, and Midgley. Despite deep differences among their philosophical and theological outlooks, they all four came to defend a version of the thesis, commonplace in ancient and medieval philosophy, that there are things that are good for human beings qua human being, that our moral lives are largely a matter of seeing and responding—well or poorly—to these elements of the human good that are given as part of our nature. In other words, there are facts about values. We in crucial ways discover rather than invent morality. The last chapter serves as an epilogue to both stories: It traces the ways in which the writing and lives of these four women produced a decisive change in the landscape of Anglo-American philosophy. Lipscomb notes which strains in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy owe their existence to the minority report. Figures like Korsgaard feature as contemporary representatives of an ethics grounded in the fact–value [End Page 149] divide. Figures like MacIntyre and Hursthouse feature as inheritors of the philosophical legacy of the book's heroines. In this final chapter Lipscomb also offers brief portraits of the later life and death of each of the women in turn. At the end of the final portrait, the book rounds to a poetic close—not offering a final philosophical statement but reflecting on the fruits of friendship and the power of its legacy for those who come after. It is difficult to pin down Lipscomb's precise philosophical...

Judaism's Distinct Perspectives on the Meaning of Life

ABSTRACT In contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, there has been substantial debate between religious and secular theorists about what would make life meaningful, with a large majority of the religious philosophers having drawn on Christianity. In this article, in contrast, I draw on Judaism, with the aims of articulating characteristically Jewish approaches to life's meaning, which is a kind of intellectual history, and of providing some support for them relative to familiar Christian and Islamic approaches (salient in the Tanakh, the New Testament, and the Qur'an), which is a more philosophical enterprise. Sometimes I point out that dominant views in contemporary philosophy favor a Jewish approach to meaning relative to rivals, e.g., insofar as Judaism contends that a merely earthly life can be meaningful. Other times I suggest that Judaism provides reason to doubt dominant views in recent analytic philosophy, e.g., to the extent that the former posits a people, not merely a person, as a bearer of meaning.

Die Idee des Schaminstinkts in Kants anthropologischen Schriften

Abstract This paper corrects a historical injustice that has been perpetrated against Kant for some time now. Mostly on good grounds, Kantian ethics have been accused of neglecting the role played by the emotions in moral deliberation and in morally informed action. However, the contemporary moral philosophers who have put forth such a claim tend to bypass textual sources, on the one hand, and to downplay the role played by the anthropological writings on Kant’s practical philosophy as a whole, on the other. Relying on highly relevant pre-critical texts in which Kant sketches future argumentative patterns and discusses the role of negative emotions like shame on the improvement of the human species, I address a mistaken conclusion about Kantian ethics as a whole that is common in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. Finally, I raise some paradoxical conclusions that follow from Kant’s argument, once its implicit premises have been brought to light.

The Self as Activity

This paper aims to defend a dialectical account of selfhood in the context of the contemporary debates on personal identity in Anglo-American philosophy. I interpret Reductionism and Non-Reductionism—the two dominant positions in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy—as forming something analogous to an antinomy. Reductionists argue that the self is merely an identity that is reducible to a set of facts, while Non-Reductionists argue that the self is a separate entity beyond any set of facts. I argue that a comprehensive view of the self requires aspects from both of these positions. The self, then, should be understood as an ongoing activity that relates the various features of one’s identity together.

The problem of evil and the grammar of God

SummaryIn the contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of religion the problem of evil is one of the most widely discussed questions. In the context of these discussions, many prominent philosophers of religion have tried to offer a plausible – or, at least, a possible – explanation why an omnipotent and perfectly good being allows evil in the world and is also morally justified in doing that. There are also philosophers and theologians who think that this way of thinking is seriously misguided. In my paper I will deal with some ethical, theological/metaphysical and meta-philosophical arguments that have been offered against conceptual frameworks used in the discussion of theodicy. In particular, I will pay attention to affinities and differences between the ways D. Z. Phillips and Brian Davies have criticized contemporary forms of theodicy. I will also analyse the relation between their thought by taking up the question of the nature and aim of philosophy of religion.

The Vindication of St. Thomas: Thomism and Contemporary Anglo-American Philosophy

The Vindication of St. Thomas: Thomism and Contemporary Anglo-American Philosophy

Phenomenology, Meaning, and Measure

§1. Thinking PhenomenologicallyIt is a privilege to have been read so generously by two such capable and distinguished philosophers.1 I owe Thomas Sheehan and Maxime Doyon a great debt, not only for doing me the honor of participating in this exchange, but for participating as phenomenologists, as philosophers who value what that particular approach to philosophical questions can contribute and who care about its future enough to open it up to dialogue with philosophical movements quite foreign to it. The essays that constitute Normativity and Phenomenology in Husserl and Heidegger were originally written for many different occasions, but all were motivated by the same question: What does it mean to practice phenomenology today? Before addressing some of the issues raised by Doyon and Sheehan, then, it might be useful to say a word or two about the philosophical situation in which that question arises.My book presents itself under the aegis of two classics of Husserl and Heidegger, but while I try to be faithful to the texts themselves (as Theodore Kisiel once put it), I also engage those thinkers through questions that they themselves did not raise, or did not raise in quite the way I do. This is because I want to explore a potential in their work to speak to currents in philosophy that did not exist, or were not a force to be reckoned with, when they were writing-above all, the analytic philosophy that has come to dominate our philosophical world. I don't believe that analytic philosophy has some sort of divine right to call the shots about what real philosophy is, but I'm thoroughly convinced that unless phenomenology engages in constructive dialogue with analytic philosophy it will die out.I can't claim to have made much progress on that front. Too set in my ways to translate the genuine insights of analytic philosophy into a form that would enable a productive engagement with I nevertheless take a stab at it here and there in a book that is otherwise devoted to uncovering an internal relation between the thought of the two philosophers invoked in its title. Nevertheless, I see signs everywhere-both on the side of those interested in an Husserlian version of phenomenology and on the side of those who follow a more Heideggerian line-that a fruitful dialogue with analytic philosophy is happening. This is not a dialogue between two camps, Analytic Philosophy and Continental Philosophy. Whatever may be meant by continental philosophy, it is certainly not equivalent to phenomenology, and it is only with the latter that I am concerned here. And I am well aware that the impulse to critical dialogue does not always run in both directions. Institutionally, there is little motivation for analytic philosophers to care much about what phenomenologists are saying. But this only means that phenomenologists must make their work indispensable to those who do not initially think it necessary to investigate the phenomenological aspects of the questions they are interested in. The alternative is to continue to talk only to another until, squeezed out by the institutions in which we now find ourselves, there is no leftto talk to.It is partly for this reason that I have highlighted the role of normativity in the writings of Husserl and Heidegger. The initial reaction to my claim that what is central to phenomenology is neither an investigation into consciousness nor a renewal of the ancient problematic of being, but rather an inquiry into the normatively structured space of meaning is often of incredulity. Neither Husserl nor Heidegger makes normativity, in my sense, a sustained theme of investigation, no matter how much (as I argue) the issue pervades their thinking on the things they do take up-notably, the problem of intentionality. It appears, in the words of recent reviewer of my book,2 that I am importing one of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy's buzzwords into and to this I plead guilty. …

Explanation in philosophy and the limits of precision

A look at the beginning of philosophy and a consideration of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy show that precision of presentation is a commendable and widely pursued goal. There is a trade-off, however, between precision and richness of presentation. As precision gets sharpened, impoverishment of subject matter advances, often without recognition of the price that is paid for precision. A precise way of illustrating the trade-off in question is to take a precise meteorological model, consider how little it tells us about the weather, enrich the model, and see how precision loses its edge. The works of Heidegger and Rawls are mentioned as exemplars of balance between precision and richness.

Melancholy and happiness

This paper explores an under-theorised phenomenon – the experience of melancholy as an enhancer of happiness. Drawing from philosophy and literature, I define melancholy as an experience that combines the pleasure of feeling sad with sober self-reflection. Despite expectations to the contrary, two potentially positive outcomes of melancholy are identified – insightful pensiveness, and emotional connectedness with loss and pain. These outcomes can enhance happiness as understood in key texts of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, and, consistent with findings in psychology, also have important implications for wider debates in social policy and welfare practice. First, the pensiveness associated with melancholy can make unique contributions to personal insights, and help develop and fulfill ‘authentic happiness’ and ‘informed desires’. These contributions oppose hedonist accounts of happiness, but are conducive to enhancing happiness properly understood. Second, melancholy can also provide a psychologically safe arena for experiencing loss and pain, where a person can more positively accept the limits of the human condition. This acceptance enhances her happiness, as she is better able to live ‘in the moment’ and so derive satisfaction from her presently-orientated activities and commitments.

Two Dogmas of Reductionism: On the Irreducibility of Self-Consciousness and the Impossibility of Neurophilosophy

Two fundamental assumptions have become dogma in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of consciousness: that everything about consciousness can be explained in physical terms, and that neuroscience provides the uniquely authoritative methodology for approaching the essential questions. But there has never yet been a successful physical explanation of subjective first-person experience, and reductionism fails to account adequately for thought, reason, and a full range of objects proper to philosophy. Tracking the deep divide within the analytic tradition, I bring a ‘continental’ (German) perspective to bear on recent work from Nagel and Chalmers which shows the reductionist neuroscientific agenda to be incapable of completion, for systematic reasons. Physicalism can explain only structure, function, and mechanism; but self-consciousness is always already embodied and embedded in multiple contexts beyond the structures and functions of brain activity. Consciousness needs to account for itself, to itself, on the terms in which it experiences itself. No explanation of the form provided by ‘neurophilosophy’ is adequate to the most fundamental and essential phenomena of selfconsciousness, and neurophilosophy can never philosophically explain or justify itself on its own terms and by its own methodology. These are insuperable limitations for any explanation aspiring to be comprehensive, and such problems have brought contemporary antireductionists in the English-speaking world back around to positions which strongly resemble the ontology and phenomenology of German-language philosophers, particularly Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger.

Gadamer and the Legacy of German Idealism (review)

Reviewed by: Gadamer and the Legacy of German Idealism Christian Lotz Kristin Gjesdal. Gadamer and the Legacy of German Idealism. Modern European Philosophy. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xvii + 235. Cloth, $90.00. To be sure, Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophy has received increased attention in recent philosophical debates. For although older confrontations, such as Gadamer's debate with Habermas, have receded in the background, scholars such as John McDowell, Cristina Lafont, Ruth Sonderegger, Albrecht Wellmer, and Günther Figal have revitalized some of Gadamer's main philosophical insights and demonstrated the importance of hermeneutics for contemporary philosophy. In addition, the newly-founded Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics has helped to give this recent attention a new academic forum for fresh and vibrant work on Gadamer. Kristin Gjesdal's book fits neatly into this newly-discovered interest in Gadamer's philosophy, especially since it focuses on important, but less frequently discussed, historical sources of Gadamer's philosophy and their systematic impact on both hermeneutics in general and a theory of interpretation in particular. Gjesdal's book is lucidly written, paying much attention to the underlying arguments that are implied in Gadamer's critical and often reductive accounts of philosophers who belong to the tradition of "German Idealism." However, having said this, the title of her book is misleading: though the reader might expect an extensive discussion of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, the author focuses mainly on the sources of Gadamer's thinking in Kant and Schleiermacher, and only to a much smaller extent on Hegel. Moreover, Gjesdal's style is thoroughly critical, which is especially visible in the last part of the book, where she argues that Schleiermacher's version of hermeneutics is able to correct some of Gadamer's misgivings. [End Page 131] The book is divided into six chapters, the first three of which deal mainly with Gadamer's appropriation of aesthetics and his philosophy of art as a paradigm for his theory of understanding. Chapter 4 deals with Gadamer's relationship to Hegel; chapters 5 and 6 with Schleiermacher. The last chapters offer a partly destructive critique of Gadamer, especially his understanding of Schleiermacher. Gjesdal argues that Gadamer's attempt to reduce "the standard of validity in interpretation to a quasi-Cartesian, formalist type of rationality" fails, and thus she rejects Gadamer's claim "that the reference to individuality is simply another configuration of aesthetic consciousness" (171). Accordingly, the author tries to correct Gadamer's hermeneutics by re-introducing a "critical-reflective attitude, appealing to standards of validity" (183). It is fascinating to see how the author "rediscovers" this point, previously made by Habermas and Apel in early debates with Gadamer, from the perspective of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics. In this way, she follows in the footsteps of Manfred Frank's work on Schleiermacher by offering a critical standpoint for a hermeneutic theory of interpretation attacking Gadamer's claim that hermeneutical experience is identical with historical self-transformation (185). Schleiermacher's hermeneutics is superior to Gadamer's theory, according to Gjesdal, because it enables us to see the "normativity in understanding" (199) and because it offers a standpoint from which the transgressive and rational nature of understanding can be understood. As a consequence, Gadamer's "aestheticising model of understanding" should be corrected, according to the author. This thesis makes her approach to Gadamer especially attractive to contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, particularly if it is open to European philosophy. According to the author, because of his misappropriation of Romantic philosophy and Romantic aesthetics (though she never refers to early Romantic aesthetics in Schlegel and Hölderlin), Gadamer also fails to offer an understanding of modern art. Gjesdal argues for this claim by pointing to Gadamer's critique of the modern museum as art without a world and as alienated "aesthetic consciousness." As she argues, Gadamer's return to the unifying force of art as world disclosure, and his rejection of modern aesthetics, does not seem to offer much help in understanding the modernity of art (80). However, although she briefly points to Adorno's and Benjamin's aesthetics and gives a brief sketch of Gadamer's (mis)appropriation of Celan, her discussion of this important aspect ultimately...

A Confucian Perspective on Abortion

This essay seeks to introduce representative beliefs, attitudes, policies, and practices from the Confucian tradition concerning the ethical aspects of abortion and bring these into productive engagement with some of the best and most influential philosophical accounts of abortion available in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. The essay begins with a discussion of the ethical dimensions of abortion and a critical review of two of the best and most influential contemporary Western accounts; it then moves on to describe and discuss an alternative Confucian approach. The aims are to demonstrate the resources within the Confucian tradition for providing a distinctive philosophical account of abortion and to show that comparative work has the potential to augment, amend, and ultimately enrich our understanding of this morally challenging aspect of human life.

“Asking makes a difference …” Das Bittgebet bei Thomas von Aquin in der neueren Diskussion

Die Auseinandersetzung mit der Praxis des Bittgebets stellt keine Randthematik bei der Reflexion des theistischen Glaubens dar, sondern ist von erheblicher systematischer und existentieller Bedeutung. Eine rege Debatte über die Sinnhaftigkeit des Bittgebets ist gegenwärtig in der angelsächsischen Religionsphilosophie in Gang. Die Untersuchung präsentiert und würdigt kritisch die aktuellen Entwürfe zum Bittgebet von Eleonore Stump und Keith Ward. Beide Autoren erachten die traditionelle Konzeption des Bittgebets bei Thomas von Aquin für unbefriedigend und entwickeln ihre eigenen Entwürfe in Absetzung vom Aquinaten. Da weder Stump noch Ward eine detaillierte Analyse des Bittgebets bei Thomas vorlegen, wird dieses in einem ersten Schritt vorgestellt. In einem zweiten Schritt erfolgt die Auseinandersetzung mit den von Stump und Ward vorgebrachten Einwänden. Abschließend werden Stärken und Schwächen des thomanischen Entwurfs erhoben.

Aristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations (review)

Reviewed by: Aristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations Marina Berzins McCoy Aristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations. Scott Schreiber . Albany: SUNY Press, 2003. pp. 240. $68.50, hardcover; $22.95, paperback. Scott Schreiber's Aristotle on False Reasoning is the first full-length English commentary on Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations in the last century. Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations is a text that has received relatively little attention in the last century of scholarship, despite a revival of interest in other aspects of Aristotle's work concerned with the nature of good argument and rhetoric. (The 1995 French translation and commentary by Loius-Andre Dorion is a notable exception.) Schreiber finds the primary reason [End Page 92] for inattention to this text to lie in the tendency of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy to resolve problems in reasoning through linguistic clarification (xiv). Aristotle's claim that some errors are due to language while others lie outside the realm of linguistic error is not one to which contemporary analytic philosophy has been particularly sympathetic. The Sophistical Refutations has been neglected in light of contemporary logic. Schreiber's book attempts to return to Aristotle's project on his own philosophical terms, in order to better understand why Aristotle classified errors in reasoning as he did. Schreiber's approach is to examine each of the twelve types of false reasoning that Aristotle lays out in the Sophistical Refutations, with particular attention to Aristotle's examples, in order to understand the principles behind the overall system. Schreiber argues that Aristotle had good reason for separating errors due to language from those outside of language: Aristotle's classification of error is tied to his notion of the resolution of false arguments. To understand how to resolve a sophistical argument, we must first understand how it could have been believed to be true. Since Aristotle's aim in the Sophistical Refutations is to show why certain sorts of arguments are deceptive to some who hear them, his method of explaining errors is less a pure examination of their logical errors than of how such erroneous arguments can deceive. Aristotle is concerned with two types of problems with sophistical argument: first, why such an argument is false; and second, why it might appear to be true. Schreiber shows that most commentators have not given sufficient attention to the second of these concerns in their attempts to understand Aristotle's taxonomy. As Schreiber puts it, "Examples of false reasoning are unified into groups and differentiated into subgroups not by the nature of the confusions that they engender but by the different ways that confusion is cleared up" (54). False reasoning is due not only to mistakes in logic, but also to mistaken beliefs about language and reality. Careful examination of Aristotle's thinking allows us to see the importance of beliefs about the world in good and bad argument. For the most part, Schreiber's examinations of Aristotle's examples are lucid and helpful in understanding both the particular example at hand as well as the general picture of Aristotle's classifications. Schreiber continually returns to the importance of Aristotle's own view of language and argument in contrast to the approaches of contemporary linguistics and logic. For example, while some twentieth-century scholars have attempted to explain Aristotle's distinction between homonymy and amphiboly in terms of the contemporary distinction between semantics and syntax, [End Page 93] Aristotle seems to distinguish the two according to whether a general predicate signifies many particulars regardless of context, or in a propositional context (31). In the end, Schreiber does not think that the categories of homonymy and amphiboly can be completely distinct, even on Aristotle's own grounds, but still finds the categories useful. Schreiber is also careful to provide criticism of Aristotle's categories when warranted, both defending Aristotle against his contemporary critics when he thinks they have misunderstood him, and pointing out genuine weaknesses in Aristotle's arguments. Schreiber's book is clearly intended as a response to the contemporary Anglo-American reading of Aristotle. Much of the book assumes at least some familiarity with the ways in...

Naturalized Historicism and Hegelian Ethics

Allen Wood's treatment of Hegel's ethics is one of the deeper, more informed and thorough treatments of the subject to come along in any language. Wood treats Hegel as offering something like an ethical theory in the sense in which ethical theory is done in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. Different themes - happiness, freedom, self-actualization - are treated in terms of how they fit into Hegel's own view and how they compare with alternative accounts (particularly, Kantian and utilitarian accounts). The usual treatment of Hegel's thought is almost always the opposite, following Hegel's own exposition of his ideas.It is not due to accident, failure of nerve or slavish devotion to the text that most commentators closely follow Hegel's own exposition. In Hegel's case, this has a definite logic to it, since Hegel claims the really significant body of what we would call his “arguments” for his position are supposed to be found in his serial dialectical exposition of his ideas. Each new development is supposed to follow dialectically from the preceding one. Thus, if Hegel is right about what he says, then one should not be able to find any arguments on his part for his views outside of his dialectical exposition of them. To expound Hegel's reasons for holding his views quite naturally leads to the idea that we must expound them in the order he gave them.

A Dialogic Interpretation of Hume's Dialogues

A Dialogic Interpretation of Hume's Dialogues William Lad Sessions For all ofits prominence in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of religion, Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion continues to provoke divergent readings, especially as regards its author's intentions and beliefs. Most writers today, following Norman Kemp Smith's masterful analysis, accept some version ofwhat I will call "the standard interpretation": Hume aimed to discredit religion—natural and revealed religion alike, but especially the "experimental theism" represented by Cleanthes' so-called "design argument." Hence, the sceptic "Philo represents Hume's views onreligiousbelief,"even though Cleanthes (occasionally) and Demea(rarely) also speakfor Hume.1 But a significant minority have given divergentinterpretations: some have held that Pamphilus, the narrator of the Dialogues, is Hume;2 some have given credence to Hume's remark in a letter that "I make Cleanthes the Hero of the Dialogue";3 others think that none of the characters represent Hume, at least not consistently, either because the characters represent types, not individuals,4 or because none are "wholly consistent, completely clear-headed, and unmuddled throughout,"5 or because "it is the whole of the dialogue which represents Hume."6 One interpreter has even gone so far as to declare that "I shall take it that Hume in the Dialogues is any speaker who appears tobe makingagood philosophical point,"7 whichis tantamount to identifying Hume with any self-assured philosophical reader of the Dialogues] My chief purpose in this essay is not to take issue with these interpretations, nor to propose a novel interpretation of the text—though I will do both—but rather to promote a different kind of interpretation altogether: what I will call a "dialogic" interpretation, since it views the literary form as contributory and indeed essential to the philosophical message.8 Still, the particular dialogic interpretation I propose may be of interest. On it, the Dialogues are not chiefly a diatribe against theism, much less a polemic against all (theistic or Christian) religion. Rather, the book at its most searching level is a careful rational examination of"true" vs. "false" religion, with the virtues ofthe former commended even as the vices ofthe latter are condemned. In short, Hume gives us an eighteenth century discussion ofreligiousfaith in relation to human Volume XVII Number 1 15 WILLIAM LAD SESSIONS reason, a discussion wherein reason is not automatically the enemy of faith (in all its guises). More specifically, Philo's and Cleanthes' apparent disagreements on the results and utility ofnatural theology mask a more fundamental and considerably more important harmony in their views concerning "the proper office ofreligion."9 Contrary to the standardinterpretation, they fundamentally agree on the nature and value of natural piety, which is the other component of natural religion besides natural theology.10 In the end, then, Pamphilus is not wrong to judge that Cleanthes' principles "approach still nearer to the truth" than Philo's, and not merely for reasons of filial piety (he is, after all, Cleanthes' house-guest, his loyal student, and his "adopted son"). No doubt Philo does tend to "win" his skirmishes in natural theology with Cleanthes (not to mention those with Demea!), but though Philo triumphs tactically, Cleanthes is the victor in the wider war for Pamphilus' heart and mind: critical scepticism may be a useful safeguard for careful thinkers against the "superstition" endemic to "false" and harmful piety, butitsutilityislimited; Philo's prophylaxisis muchless effective than Cleanthes' empirical theism at the vitally important task of inculcating and nurturing "true" natural piety in a young person such as Pamphilus. However, before supporting this controversial view of the Dialogues, I need to make clearer the nature, limits and value of a dialogic interpretation, by way of contrast with the more common approaches. I. Standard Hermenéutica Most philosophical interpretations of the Dialogues share several assumptions—or perhaps one should say "presumptions." First, they all focus on the propositions, beliefs, and arguments expressed by characters in the Dialogues—their claims, assertions, speculations, suggestions, rejections, replies, reasons, rebuttals, and the like—and they seek to extract from the discussion those expressed or implied beliefs and arguments which current interpreters believe most worthy of continuing philosophical adherence, development, demolition, or at least discussion. Literary...

Moral philosophy and political problems.

LAR WORSE THAN CALLING a political philosopher's conclusions wrong is accusing his method of being misconceived. Since this accusation is intended to undercut the very enterprise in which a philosopher is engaged, it precludes consideration of the substance of his particular arguments. In this brief article, I want to pursue several such undercutting criticisms directed against the method of contemporary Anglo-American political and moral philosophy. I shall begin by considering those made by Philip Abbott in Philosophers and the Abortion Question.' I shall then turn to a series of criticisms that suggest that acontextualist accounts of our moral principles given by analytic philosophy provide no support for further moral or political argument. Abbott identified philosophic method too narrowly by its reliance upon hypothetical microexamples employed to test the moral validity of our intuitions or to aid us in justifying our moral preferences and principles. A broader and more accurate characterization of analytic moral philosophy would focus not on the use of microexamples, but rather, on the attempt to resolve by moral reasoning particular contemporary political and moral controversies. The attempt to bring moral reasons to bear upon political problems separates moral philosophy from philosophical analysis that stops at the clarification of concepts and from analyses of the political reasons for preferring one resolution to a moral conflict over another. Clarification of concepts is often a necessary prelude to the task of resolving a moral argument, and finding a politically prudential solution need not be unprincipled. But the emphasis of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy is upon the resolution of contemporary moral problems by applying, refining, and rendering consistent our moral intuitions.

How to do things with images

The object of this essay is to show how concepts and theories which have been developed within contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of language can be applied, more or less directly, to the study of what are usually called "images". Though I shall confine myself to the case of magazine advertising images, I think my analysis is generalizable to other varieties of images. Undertaking the wholesale transfer of concepts and theories from philosophy of language permits an analysis of images at least as interesting and probably more precise or intersubjectively verifiable than the image analysis which has come out of recent Franco-Italian semiology and semiotics. Thus, I shall take Roland Barthes' essay, "Rhetoric of the ImageT' as a point of contrast for what I am going to say. An outstanding and influential essay, it is a sustained meditation on a single advertisement for Panzani products (see illustration). To facilitate comparison I shall refer to this same advertisement in the course of