Interpretive Puzzles Research Articles

Kierkegaard on belief and credence

AbstractKierkegaard's pseudonym Johannes Climacus famously defines faith as a risky “venture” that requires “holding fast” to “objective uncertainty.” Yet puzzlingly, he emphasizes that faith requires resolute conviction and certainty. Moreover, Climacus claims that all beliefs about contingent propositions about the external world “exclude doubt” and “nullify uncertainty,” but also that uncertainty is “continually present” in these very same beliefs. This paper argues that these apparent contradictions can be resolved by interpreting Climacus as a belief‐credence dualist. That is, Climacus holds that beliefs and credences (i.e., degrees of belief) are two irreducibly distinct types of mental states. Beliefs are resolutions that close inquiry, thereby excluding doubt and reflecting subjective certainty by disregarding the possibility of error. Credences, by contrast, reflect assessments of evidential probabilities, thereby encoding a recognition of “objective uncertainty” by acknowledging the possibility of error. In addition to solving a vexing interpretive puzzle and showing how Kierkegaard anticipates contemporary views about the nature of belief and credence, this paper demonstrates that Kierkegaard developed a sophisticated account of the nature of belief, doubt, and certainty that merits serious philosophical consideration.

The Quotation of Jer. 31.15 in Mt. 2.18 within Christological Patterning of Matthew’s Nativity According to the Joseph Story

The quotation of Jer. 31:15 in Mt. 2:18 has proven to be an interpretive puzzle through its otherwise unattested form of Jer. 31:15 and the seemingly unclear relationship of the quotation to its context in Matthew. Marten J. J. Menken has argued that Matthew quotes a text of Jer. 31:15 that is combined with Gen. 37:35 but that this composite citation does not have interpretive significance for Matthew. When viewed in the context of a series of lexical and thematic parallels between Matthew’s nativity and the Joseph story, it may be understood, however, as a composite citation occurring in the composition of Matthew for christological purposes. These may include presenting Jesus as participating in his people’s history, implicit response to expectations of a Josephite messiah, and portraying Jesus as saving his people by giving them life. Such use in Matthew of the Joseph story through Jeremiah suggests further need for the study of multilayered use of texts in the New Testament and related literature.

Fiction And Content in Hume’s Labyrinth

Abstract In the ‘Appendix’ to the Treatise, Hume claims that he has discovered a ‘very considerable’ mistake in his earlier discussion of the self. Hume's expression of the problem is notoriously opaque, leading to a vast scholarly debate as to exactly what problem he identified in his earlier account of the self. I propose a new solution to this interpretive puzzle. I argue that a tension generated by Hume's conceptual scepticism about real ‘principles of union’ and his account of fictions of the imagination is the defect identified in the ‘Appendix’.

Blixens humor

One of the things I enjoy most about books by Ivan Z. Sørensen is that I always learn something, even though he is writing about a topic (Karen Blixen) that I imagine I know very well. Blixen's sense of humor is certainly distinctive and can function as an antidote to the dark angst that is something of an occupational hazard when dealing with Scandinavian literature. One of Blixen's earliest critics, Robert Langbaum, noted this quality in her tales and chose to title his monograph on her The Gayety of Vision (1964). A book about Blixen's humor is long overdue, and it seems likely that the topic is not yet exhausted.As is well known, Blixen wrote her tales both in English and in Danish, and the Danish texts are the clear focus of this book. Obviously, humor, especially puns, are closely connected to language, and so jokes that work in one language might not work in another. Thus, I had never noticed before that there was a fart joke embedded in the introduction of the prostitute Lise in “Samtale om Natten i København” (Converse at Night in Copenhagen) that does not exist at all in the English version (p. 8). Indeed, it is amusing to consider how very naughty many of Blixen's jokes are. In return, I can offer a joke (not nearly as naughty) from the English version of “Roads Round Pisa” that does not translate: “In Denmark everybody has thick ankles and wrists, and the higher up you go, the thicker they are” (Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales, Vintage, 1991, 181). Perhaps it is just as well that this jab at her countrymen (they're a bit thick) does not translate into Danish.The purpose of Sørensen's book is not to provide an inventory of Blixen's jokes, though he certainly offers up quite a few. Rather, along with Harald Høffding, Sørensen considers the nature of humor, both “stor” (great) and “lille” (small), then with a nod to Kierkegaard, looks at how that relates to irony. A fair amount has been written on Kierkegaard and Blixen, but Sørensen's views in this context are well worth considering. On the way, Sørensen provides one of the best comparisons between Hans Christian Andersen and Blixen that I have seen. In addition, someone has finally been able to explain to me the Spinoza reference in “Heloise,” which I puzzled over unsuccessfully for my own book, Understanding Isak Dinesen (2002). Høffding, whose work Karen Blixen knew, sees Spinoza as an inspiration for viewing life from the perspective of eternity, thus transcending both tragedy and comedy (p. 71).About halfway through his book, Sørensen strays from the main topic of humor, but that does not make the book any less interesting. Sørensen's chapter on Blixen and Brandes is the most thorough treatment of that relationship yet. Sørensen then turns his attention to Blixen and Shakespeare and, among other things, performs a detailed reading of the tale “Alkmene” from The Winter's Tale. A bold statement is made: “Det er påfaldende at i næsten alle analyser of ‘Alkmene’ er Perdita-henvisningen enten overset, forbigået eller ubetydeliggjort!” (p. 104) [It is striking that in almost all the analyses of ‘Alkmene,’ the Perdita references are either overlooked, passed by, or made unimportant!]. This statement is a bit of an exaggeration, but that is perhaps because Sørensen has missed a few analyses of the tale, including my own. In the final chapter, Sørensen takes up where Lynn Wilkinson left off in her article on Hannah Arendt and Isak Dinesen (“Hannah Arendt on Isak Dinesen: Between Storytelling and Theory,” Comparative Literature 56, no. 1, 2004) and provides us with even more food for thought.In an Afterword, Sørensen tells the story of how Judith Thurman received an assignment to write her acclaimed biography of Isak Dinesen. This includes a letter from Michael Denneny to Sørensen describing what happened. This is a delight to Dinesen buffs like me.Ivan Sørensen knows Blixen's tales like the back of his hand, and he is extremely well-versed in the cultural figures to whom she responded. In addition to the solving of various interpretive puzzles, these comparisons are where the real value of this book lie.

The Narrator’s Words are Not the Last Word: Four Perspectives on the Gold Calf Episode

ABSTRACT The traditional interpretation of the golden calf episode takes the narrator’s picture to be the whole story. By uncovering the different ways in which Moses, Aaron, the Israelites, and the neighboring tribes think about the episode, I show that the narrator’s picture is just one of several perspectives offered by the text. Relying solely on the narrator leaves the reader with interpretive puzzles and unsavory lessons. My interpretation shows the episode to be more nuanced than the tradition recognizes, resolves these puzzles, and replaces the repugnant lessons with reasonable ones.

Frege on the Fruitfulness of Definitions

What, in Frege’s view, makes definitions fruitful? In Grundlagen §70, Frege offers an answer: Unfruitful definitions are definitions that “could just as well be omitted and leave no link missing in the chain of our proofs”. The §70 passage, however, poses an interpretive puzzle as its characterization of fruitfulness appears to conflict with other conditions that Frege imposes on definitions, namely, eliminability and conservativeness. It appears that the only way to resolve this conflict is to attribute to Frege a notion of fruitfulness that is trivially satisfied and, hence, poorly motivated. I argue that this worry is misplaced. This is because Frege distinguishes between two roles of definitions, namely, between definitions qua explanations of concepts (analytic definitions), and definitions qua resources of a proof system (logical definitions). I use this distinction to argue that a fruitful definition, for Frege, is a definition that plays both roles, and that to play both roles, the definition has to be used in the proof of sentences containing the term so defined. Starting from §70, I develop and defend this reading of Frege’s notion of fruitful definition.

Division, Syllogistic, and Science in Prior Analytics I.31

In the first book of the Prior Analytics, Aristotle sets out, for the first time in Greek philosophy, a logical system. After this, Aristotle compares this method with Plato’s method of division, a procedure designed to find essences of natural kinds through systematic classification. This critical comparison in APr I.31 raises an interpretive puzzle: how can Aristotle reasonably juxtapose two methods that differ so much in their aims and approach? What can be gained by doing so? Previous interpreters have failed to show how this comparison is legitimate or what important point Aristotle is making. The goal of this paper is to resolve the puzzle. In resolving this puzzle we not only learn more about the relationship between division and the syllogistic in Aristotle. We will also learn something about the motivation for the syllogistic itself, by seeing the role that it plays in his philosophy of science.

Completeness, Self-Sufficiency, and Intimacy in Seneca’s Account of Friendship

Examining Seneca’s account of friendship produces an interpretative puzzle: if the good of the Stoic sage is already both complete and self-sufficient, how can friendship be a good? I reject the solution that friendship is simply a preferred indifferent instead of a good and argue that though Seneca’s account can consistently explain both why friendship’s nature as a good does not threaten the completeness or the self-sufficiency of the sage, Stoic friends must choose between intimate friendships that leave them vulnerable or impersonal friendships that lack intimacy but do not undermine their happiness. The consistent Stoic must choose the latter, but I argue that this conflict shows why we ought to reject the Stoic model of friendship.

Thomas Hobbes and ‘gently instilled’ conscience

ABSTRACT This article engages with a key interpretive puzzle in Hobbes’s political thought – his seemingly contradictory view of liberty of conscience – and argues that Hobbes theorizes civic education as a powerful tool to confront and refashion prevailing views of conscience in early modernity. While influential accounts have recovered more ‘tolerant’ arguments in Hobbes’s political thought, recent revisionist accounts have argued that Hobbes does not merely advocate for the compulsion of outward conformity but also subjects’ inward persuasion. Yet this nuanced attention to the sovereign’s role in cultivating obedient, peaceful subjects does not attend fully to his shaping of the consciences of his subjects. Situating Hobbes in the early modern discourse on casuistry, as well as political debates on educational reform, reveals that the sovereign can and should try to shape the consciences of subjects, specifically returning to a view of conscience as a kind of ‘knowing with’ others. Reframing Hobbes’s project of civic education as a strategy to ‘gently instill’ the consciences of subjects does not merely shed light on the interpretive puzzle of Hobbes’s ambivalence towards toleration but also draws attention to one of the most powerful and arguably underappreciated ways to overcome the threat of conscience to sovereignty.

The Living and the Monumental on the Anaglypha Traiani

Of the many interpretive puzzles presented by the so-called Anaglypha Traiani, a pair of Roman imperial reliefs today located in the Curia Julia, one special curiosity is their depiction of a tree,...

Astell, friendship, and relational autonomy

AbstractMary Astell's theory of friendship is rich and interesting: it presents the reader with an interpretive puzzle that addresses the nature and roles of virtue and love in friendship, among other things. Recently, Jacqueline Broad and Nancy Kendrick have tackled this puzzle. Broad offers a loosely Aristotelian interpretation, and Kendrick offers an anti‐Aristotelian Christian Platonist interpretation. However, neither fully discharges the apparent tensions within Astell's account, nor do they address what I take to be the most significant result of Astell's theory. I offer a third interpretation that both makes sense of Astell's account and incorporates aspects of both Broad and Kendrick's views. With this account in hand, I turn to the upshot of Astell's theory of friendship, a nascent view of relational autonomy that emerges from friendship. Astell's theory of friendship is fascinating because relational autonomy was not formally theorized until hundreds of years later.

Iblis, Abraham, and Teleological Suspensions

Abstract In this essay, I shall scold a Jinn, recommend a position in Islamic theology to my Muslim neighbors, explore a famous dilemma recounted in Genesis, and participate in a debate occasioned by an interpretive puzzle in Kierkegaard studies. I investigate two opposed ways of understanding the phrase, ‘the teleological suspension of the ethical’, offer some critical remarks on the interpretation of that phrase in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, and defend a range of considerations that speak in favor of one of the options over the other. Finally, I show how one may invoke my preferred interpretation to confront the puzzle common to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theology presented by the story of Abraham and the binding of Isaac and also how a related strategy can be invoked to address the story of Iblis and the puzzle peculiar to Islamic theology to which it gives rise.

Rule Following, Anxiety, and Authenticity

Abstract This paper argues that the problematic of rule following in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and Heidegger's analysis of anxiety in Being and Time have analogous structures. Working through these analogies helps our interpretation of both of these authors. Contrasting sceptical and anti-sceptical readings of Wittgenstein helps us to resolve an interpretive puzzle about what an authentic response to anxiety looks like for Heidegger. And considering the importance of anxiety to Heidegger's conception of authenticity allows us to locate in Wittgenstein's later philosophy a covert appeal to something resembling Heideggerian authenticity.

Spinoza on Composition, Monism, and Beings of Reason

In this paper, I argue that Spinoza holds a perspectivalist view of mereological composition, a form of anti-realism. The paper has two parts: In the first half of the paper, I introduce interpretive puzzles for the standard realist reading of Spinoza’s mereology. In the second half of the paper, I discuss Spinoza’s positive view on mereological composition and present a perspectivalist reading that avoids the interpretive puzzles.

Expanding the Narrative: The Reception of Ignatius of Antioch in Britain, ca. 1200–1700

Recent studies of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch have helpfully located seventeenth-century Ignatian scholarship in its ecclesial and political context. Of particular importance, these new works have demonstrated that seventeenth-century British analysis of the genuineness of Ignatius's letters coincided with debates about British ecclesial government and the English Civil War. This essay contributes to such studies by expanding the discussion in three ways. The first two ways extend the study of Ignatian reception backward from the seventeenth century. First, the article observes that the study of the middle recension (the earliest form of Ignatius's letters) can be found in late medieval English theological writings and manuscripts. Second, it addresses how, simultaneously, four Ignatian letters which record a correspondence between Ignatius, John the Elder, and the Virgin Mary were read in Britain. These letters highlight Ignatius's piety and apostolic links. Finally, this essay widens the scholarly narrative of seventeenth-century Ignatian studies by observing that seventeenth-century interpreters drew on late medieval citations of Ignatius and that they were concerned with Ignatius's piety as well as the interpretive puzzles in his letters.

Nietzsche on the Origin of Conscience and Obligation

Abstract The second essay of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality (GM) offers a naturalistic and developmental account of the emergence of conscience, a faculty uniquely responsive to remembering and honoring obligations. This article attempts to solve an interpretive puzzle that is invited by the second essay's explanation of nonmoral obligation, prior to the capacity to feel guilt. Ostensibly, Nietzsche argues that the conscience and our concept of obligation originated within contractual (“creditor-debtor”) relations, when creditors punished delinquent debtors (GM II:5). However, this interpretation, which I call the contractualist reading, is incoherent and subject to an insoluble bootstrapping problem. I argue instead that Nietzsche provides two accounts of nonmoral obligation in the second essay, and that the conscience originated in the morality of custom to track rule prohibitions (“I will nots” [GM II:3]), which Nietzsche conceives of as involuntary or reciprocal obligations that, unlike contractual debts, do not require the making of promises.

Humanity as a Duty to Oneself

This paper analyses the thorny interpretative puzzle surrounding the connection between humanity and the good will. It discusses this puzzle: if the good will is the only good without qualification, why does Kant claim that humanity is something possessing an absolute value? It explores the answers to this question within Kantian scholarship; answers that emanate from a commitment to the human capacity for freedom and morality and to actual obedience to the moral law. In its final analysis, it endorses Richard Dean’s good will reading as the most reflective of Kant’s ethics. It claims that in order for a person to reach the moral ideal of acting rightly and giving priority to moral law, he must always honour his duties to himself. Accordingly, it argues that before a person can be deemed as an object of respect, he must first respect the right of humanity in his own person.

Attitudinal Pleasure in Plato’s Philebus

AbstractThis paper addresses two interpretive puzzles in Plato’s Philebus. The first concerns the claim, endorsed by both interlocutors, that the most godlike of lives is a pleasureless life of pure thinking. This appears to run afoul of the verdict of the earlier so-called ‘Choice of Lives’ argument that a mixed life is superior to either of its ‘pure’ rivals. A second concerns Socrates’ discussion of false pleasure, in which he appears to be guilty of rank equivocation. I argue that we can solve both puzzles by attributing to Plato an account of pleasure as a species of intentional attitude.

Plato on Incorrect and Deceptive Pleasures

Abstract In the Philebus, Socrates argues that pleasure, like judgment, can be “false” (pseudēs). Most scholars who discuss this claim restrict their interpretation to Socrates’ first argument that pleasure can be “false”, where Socrates uses pseudēs as a synonym of “incorrect” (ouk orthēs) (37a–40e). As a result, scholars have failed to recognize that in the next argument (41a–42c) Socrates uses pseudēs to pick out a different problem with pleasure: in certain circumstances, a pleasure can deceptively appear to a subject to be larger or smaller than it really is. As Socrates explicitly distinguishes between these two problems with pleasure, he is guilty of neither confusion nor intentional equivocation in his application of the predicate pseudēs. The distinction also resolves many longstanding interpretive puzzles, including the relationship between mixed and “false” pleasures and why Socrates describes the pleasures of sight, hearing, smell and learning as both pure and “true” (alētheis).

Frege’s Unification

What makes certain definitions fruitful? And how can definitions play an explanatory role? The purpose of this paper is to examine these questions via an investigation of Frege’s treatment of definitions. Specifically, I pursue this issue via an examination of Frege’s views about the scientific unification of logic and arithmetic. In my view, what interpreters have failed to appreciate is that logicism is a project of unification, not reduction. For Frege, unification involves two separate steps: (1) an account of the content expressed by arithmetical claims and (2) the justification of that content. The distinction between these steps allows us to see that there are two notions of definition at play in Frege’s logicist work, viz., one concerned with conceptual analysis, the other concerned with the construction of gap-free proof. I then use this discussion to explain how Frege employs his definitions to defend an epistemological thesis about arithmetic, and to clarify Grundlagen’s fruitfulness condition of definitions, and thereby address two interpretive puzzles from the recent literature.