Showing papers in "Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume in 2006"

I—Sally Haslanger WHAT GOOD ARE OUR INTUITIONS?

Abstract: In debates over the existence and nature of social kinds such as ‘race’ and ‘gender’, philosophers often rely heavily on our intuitions about the nature of the kind. Following this strategy, philosophers often reject social constructionist analyses, suggesting that they change rather than capture the meaning of the kind terms. However, given that social constructionists are often trying to debunk our ordinary (and ideology-ridden?) understandings of social kinds, it is not surprising that their analyses are counterintuitive. This article argues that externalist insights from the critique of the analytic/synthetic distinction can be extended to justify social constructionist analyses.

Nietzsche on Free will, autonomy and the sovereign individual

Abstract: In some texts Nietzsche vehemently denies the possibility of free will; in others he seems to positively countenance its existence. This paper distinguishes two different notions of free will. Agency free will is intrinsically tied to the question of agency, what constitutes an action as opposed to a mere doing. Deserts free will is intrinsically tied to the question of desert, of who does and does not merit punishment and reward. It is shown that we can render Nietzsche's prima facie conflicting assertions regarding free will compatible by interpreting him as rejecting deserts free will while accepting the possibility of agency free will. It is argued that Nietzsche's advances an original form of compatibilism which takes agency free will to be a rare achievement rather than a natural endowment.

II—Jennifer Saul: Gender and Race

Abstract: Sally Haslanger's ‘What Good Are Our Intuitions? Philosophical Analysis and Social Kinds’ is, among other things, a part of the theoretical underpinning for analyses of race and gender concepts that she discusses far more fully elsewhere. My reply focuses on these analyses of race and gender concepts, exploring the ways in which the theoretical work done in this paper and others can or cannot be used to defend these analyses against certain objections. I argue that the problems faced by Haslanger's analyses are in some ways less serious, and in some ways more serious, than they may at first appear. Along the way, I suggest that ordinary speakers may not in fact have race and gender concepts and I explore the ramifications of this claim.

I—John Hawthorne & Karson Kovakovich DISJUNCTIVISM

Abstract: We examine some well-known disjunctivist projects in the philosophy of perception, mainly in a critical vein. Our discussion is divided into four parts. Following some introductory remarks, we examine in part two the link between object-dependent contents and disjunctivism. In part three, we explore the disjunctivist's use of discriminability facts as a basis for understanding experience. In part four, we examine an interesting argument for disjunctivism that has been offered by Michael Martin.

I–Thomas Hurka

Abstract: Using Bernard Suits's brilliant analysis ( contra Wittgenstein) of playing a game, this paper examines the intrinsic value of game-playing. It argues that two elements in Suits's analysis make success in games difficult, which is one ground of value, while a third involves choosing a good activity for the property that makes it good, which is a further ground. The paper concludes by arguing that game-playing is the paradigm modern (Marx, Nietzsche) as against classical (Aristotle) value: since its goal is intrinsically trivial, its value is entirely one of process rather than product, journey rather than destination.

II—Scott Sturgeon REFLECTIVE DISJUNCTIVISM

Abstract: The paper aims to do five things: sketch the backbone of disjunctivism about visual experience, explore the view of our title, defend a version of that view from two objections, press two more objections of my own, and sketch a more radical variety of disjunctivism which avoids much of the bother.

II—John Tasioulas

Abstract: This paper contends that play, not achievement, is the primary intrinsic good internal to game-playing, and supports a relational, as opposed to formal, conception of achievement.

I—Andy Clark: Cognitive Complexity and the Sensorimotor Frontier

Abstract: What is the relation between perceptual experience and the suite of sensorimotor skills that enable us to act in the very world we perceive? The relation, according to ‘sensorimotor models’ (O'Regan and Noe 2001, Noe 2004) is tight indeed. Perceptual experience, on these accounts, is enacted via skilled sensorimotor activity, and gains its content and character courtesy of our knowledge of the relations between (typically) movement and sensory stimulation. I shall argue that this formulation is too extreme, and that it fails to accommodate the substantial firewalls, dis-integrations, and special-purpose streamings that form the massed strata of human cognition. In particular, such strong sensorimotor models threaten to obscure the computationally potent insensitivity of key information-processing events to the full subtleties of embodied cycles of sensing and moving.

I—Lloyd Humberstone

Abstract: This paper assembles examples and considerations bearing on such questions as the following. Are statements to the effect that someone is too young (for instance) or that someone is old enough always to be understood in terms of someone's being too young or too old for such-and-such—for example, for them to join a particular organization? And when a ‘such-and-such’ has been specified, is it always at least tacitly modal in force—in the case just given, too young or old enough to be able to join the organization? These questions are explored by means of a critical examination of the (affirmative) answers given to them by Eric Nelson in a 1980 paper on the subject, with part of the intention being to rescue Nelson's thoughtful discussion from the oblivion into which it appears to have fallen, judging by more recent contributions on the subject by semanticists.

II—Christopher Janaway

Abstract: This paper aims to distinguish a conception of‘free will’that Nietzsche opposes (that of the pure agent unaffected by contingencies of character and circumstance) and one that he supports. In Human, All Too Human Nietzsche propounds the ‘total unfreedom’ of the will. But by the time of Beyond Good and Evil and the Genealogy he is more concerned (a) to trace the affective psychological states underlying beliefs in both free will and ‘unfree will’, (b) to suggest that the will might become free in certain individuals, a matter of having a consistent strong character, self-knowledge, and ability to create values. The paper explores the kind of autonomy required in agents who would‘revalue’existing values.

II—Naomi Eilan ON THE ROLE OF PERCEPTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN EXPLAINING THE GOALS AND MECHANISMS OF VISION: A CONVERGENCE ON ATTENTION?

Abstract: The strong sensorimotor account of perception gives self-induced movements two constitutive roles in explaining visual consciousness. The first says that self-induced movements are vehicles of visual awareness, and for this reason consciousness ‘does not happen in the brain only’. The second says that the phenomenal nature of visual experiences is consists in the action-directing content of vision. In response I suggest, first, that the sense in which visual awareness is active should be explained by appeal to the role of attention in visual consciousness, rather than self-induced movements; and second, that the sense in which perceptual consciousness does not happen in the brain only should be explained by appeal to the relational nature of perceptual consciousness, appeal to which also shows why links with action cannot exhaust phenomenal content.