Showing papers in "Review of Metaphysics in 2011"

The matter of events

Abstract: IN THIS PAPER, I aim to develop a framework for thinking about matters of temporal ontology that enables us to understand a distinction between two categories of time-occupiers; a distinction often characterized as that between processes and accomplishments. After broadly characterizing this distinction, I argue that existing attempts to explain and understand this distinction fail. I maintain that the route to understanding this distinction is to further develop an analogy between spatial and temporal notions suggested in a number of places in the literature; for example by Alexander Mourelatos and Barry Taylor. (1) When this analogy is satisfactorily developed, it is possible to explain what correctness there is in existing attempts to characterize this distinction, and to explain some further puzzling issues within temporal ontology. I conclude by commenting briefly on a possible source of concern about the analogy. I In Metaphysics, [THETA] 6 Aristotle draws a distinction between what he calls energeia and kinesis. (2) The distinction between energeia and kinesis has standardly been interpreted as a distinction between active occurrences which contain an end or purpose in themselves, and those that do not. In the translation of W.D. Ross, some actions, like "making thin," "have a limit." (3) Making thin is "not an action, at least not a complete one (for it is not an end)." (4) This type of occurrence can be contrasted with one like "seeing" or "understanding"; a type of movement "in which the end is present." (5) Aristotle, in this translation, goes on to say: "Of these processes, we must call the one set movements [kinesis] and the other actualities [energeia]. For every movement is incomplete--making thin, learning, walking, building; these are movements, and incomplete movements." (6) In characterizing the notion of the completeness of movements in contrast to actualities, Aristotle suggests that the unfolding of an incomplete movement does not entail that a complete movement has occurred, though the occurrence of an actuality does: "At the same time we are seeing and have seen, are understanding and have understood, are thinking and have thought; but it is not true that at the same time we are learning and have learnt, or are being cured and have been cured." (7) The nature of Aristotle's own distinction between movements and actualities is a matter of controversy in Aristotle scholarship about which I make no commitment here. (8) But the idea that there is a distinction within the category of things which unfold over time--a distinction that concerns the ways that those things occupy time--and that something like this distinction is bequeathed to us by Aristotle's remarks in the Metaphysics and the Nicomachean Ethics, is a familiar one. (9) In the 20th century philosophical literature, the establishment of focus on the idea that there is a distinction between the ways that things occupy periods of time is associated with the work of Gilbert Ryle, Zeno Vendler, and Anthony Kenny. (10) Building on the discussion in Ryle, Vendler distinguishes between verbs that are capable of taking the continuous tense and those which are not. (11) I might intelligibly answer the question "What are you doing?" with "I am running" or "I am walking," but not "I am knowing that p" or "I am believing that p." The latter verbs, he says, are statives; they single out a standing condition or a state, a way that someone or something is or can be. Like particular material objects, states such as knowledge and belief do not have temporal duration in the sense of having temporal parts or successive temporal phases over which they unfold. Running and walking, by contrast, are things that exist by developing or unfolding over a period of time. Given that such things exist by unfolding, it is not possible to--for example--merely walk at an instant of time, without doing so over some period of time. …

The Hermeneutic Circle versus Dialogue

Abstract: AT THE START OF HIS ACCOUNT of hermeneutic experience, Gadamer quotes Heidegger's Being and Time: "Our first, last and constant task is never to allow our fore-having, fore-sight and fore-conception to be presented to us by fancies and popular conceptions, but rather to make the scientific theme secure by working out these fore-structures in terms of the things themselves." (1) Both Heidegger and Gadamer stress the extent to which understanding is part of our practical immersion in our world. For Heidegger, fore-having, foresight, and fore-conception constitute fore-structures of understanding, while Gadamer refers to fore-meanings and fore-projections. Both sets of terms signify our practical preunderstanding and ongoing engagement with the things themselves, for which we might also try to articulate more explicit interpretations. Yet, if the fore-structure of understanding already reflects an engagement with and preunderstanding of "the things themselves," how can we work these fore-structures out in terms of them? How can we come to recognize that fancies and popular conceptions have presented these fore-structures to us or distinguish between fancies and popular conceptions and the things themselves? Gadamer claims to take his answer to this question from Heidegger and to appeal, like him, to the hermeneutic circle. However, in this paper, I want to argue that Gadamer takes the question more seriously than Heidegger does and supplements recourse to the hermeneutic circle with an appeal to dialogue. I also want to explore some concerns about this supplement. Gadamer conceives of understanding as a dialogue in which we test our fore-meanings against those of others and come to a consensus with others about a subject matter (Sache). Yet, what if dialogue just as easily reinforces or even exaggerates our fore-meanings? And what if consensus is as easily to be feared as sought? I Being and Time revises the German hermeneutic tradition by conceiving of understanding not primarily as a rule-bound procedure for the correct comprehension of texts, but rather as our practical capacity to cope with the world. (2) Indeed, Heidegger's paradigmatic cases of understanding are not texts, but activities, such as opening doors and hammering. In these activities, we do not first see the door or a hammer and then discover its properties. Instead, understanding is, first of all, knowing how--whether knowing how to hammer, knowing how to do what I am doing, or knowing how to be. For Heidegger, we make this sort of knowing how explicit in an interpretation by understanding something as something in the context of our ongoing projects and purposes, as part of a set of functional interrelationships. We see the thing as something, a hammer, a door, and so on. As Heidegger puts this point, "That which is disclosed in understanding--that which is understood--is already accessible in such a way that its 'as which' can be made to stand out explicitly. The 'as' makes up the structure of the explicitness of something that is understood. It constitutes the interpretation." (3) In Heidegger's terminology, the context of purposes, projects, and interrelations that allows us to interpret something as something constitutes the fore-structure of understanding, composed of fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception. Fore-having signals our immersion in the practical activities that constitute the arena for our interpretation. Our fore-sight indicates the perspective this immersion opens up for us, while our fore-conception fixes the range of possible meanings of that which we are trying to grasp. (4) To be sure, this fore-structure does not precede interpretation; it is rather part of it insofar as interpretations realize and articulate the possibilities that are disclosed in understanding as aspects of the activities in which we are engaged. Yet, if interpretations already involve an understanding of that which they are interpreting, how do they add to or, indeed, possibly correct our store of knowledge? …

Future Contingents and the Battle Tomorrow

Abstract: WHEN, roughly twenty-five hundred years ago, Aristotle famously wondered about tomorrow's sea battle, he presented us with a splendid problem, a problem neither easily dismissed nor easily solved, one that even now continues to be a valuable source of philosophical insight. In Aristotle's picture, "If one man affirms that an event of a given character will take place and another denies it, it is plain that the statement of one will correspond to reality while the other will hot." (1) We will not here be concerned with the issues raised by inquiring whether statements correspond to reality. (2) We focus instead on the initial portion of the quotation, interpreting the latter portion to say that two agents have, at a particular time and place, made conflicting assertions about the future, the assertion of each being the denial of the other. Thus understood, the problem arises because, given the truth of the assertion at the time it is asserted, it seems, as Aristotle puts it, that "nothing takes place fortuitously-either in the present or in the future, and there are no real alternatives," (3) because "that of which someone has truly said that it will be cannot fail to take place; and of that which takes place, it was always true to say that it would be." "Yet," Aristotle continues, "this view leads to an impossible conclusion of each being the denial of the other." (4) On our view, if determinism were everywhere and always true, the difficulty with which we are concerned would simply disappear. If it was determined that a certain battle was going to occur on the sea between Aphetae and Artemisium, then the prior claim that it will occur was, and always had been, settled true. (5) If determinism were everywhere and always true, there is no loss in giving up the potentiality of the future. As Aristotle has seen, however, if that which is asserted truly "cannot fail to take place," then "we lose the potentiality in either direction." (6) The potentiality of the future, as we understand it, commits us to a real indeterminism rather than the merely epistemic variety. Real or objective indeterminism tells us of a future of possibilities, where each among several incompatible possibilities has the potential to eventuate--though of course only at the expense of canceling the other outcomes that were formerly possible. In this way, Aristotle put the problem of indeterminism in terms of language directed toward the future. We concur in this strategy. Although over-worrying about language often leads philosophers astray, in this case, in order to understand the metaphysics of objective indeterminism, it is essential to be able to answer the following question: What features must a language have to be adequate for use by speakers inhabiting an indeterministic world? It is for this reason that our essay concentrates on the language of indeterminism. Indeed, we consider the question sufficiently tricky to require deploying some of the techniques of formal metaphysics and formal logic that have been developed only in the last half century or so. (7) Here is the linguistic situation: Two agents make contradictory assertions about the future. At the time the assertions are made, the future is not settled. In this case we know that Eurybiades, the Spartan, wanted to retreat in the face of the Persians; while Themistocles, to encourage Eurybiades to engage, threatened to withdraw the Athenian fleet to Sicily. Suppose that on the second of the three days, Themistocles says to Eurybiades, (*) There will be a sea battle tomorrow, while Eurybiades says to Themistocles There will not be a sea battle tomorrow. It is when we concern ourselves with sentences whose truth or falsity depends upon a not yet settled future, a future in which both alternatives are real possibilities based in present fact such that each excludes the other, though neither is yet determined, that the difficulty arises. …

Aristotle on the Virtues of Rhetoric

Abstract: WITHOUT THE SKILLS OF PERSUASION, a politician might be a dangerous bumbler, a loose cannon. Speaking well, speaking convincingly to the purpose at hand, is among the central political skills. As Aristotle characterizes it, rhetoric--the art of finding the most available means of persuasion--is essential to civil and civilized social and political life. "It appears," Aristotle says, that although "rhetoric is an offshoot of the study of dialectic, it also involves a practical understanding of ethics in connection with politics." (1) It requires the exercise of a range of intellectual abilities-understanding, cleverness, calculation, deliberation, good sense--in artfully directed reasoning. Genetically described, these intellectual virtues can in principle be successfully exercised independently of the character virtues. So described, they are capable of being misdirected and misused: a rhetorician can give clever arguments for a bad cause; he can calculatively and deliberately act harmfully. There is a norm for these intellectual abilities to be rightly as well as successfully exercised, particularly in the practical matters. As Aristotle puts it, virtue involves doing the right thing at the right time, in the fight way and for the fight reason. Speaking persuasively-rightly and reasonably saying the right things in the right way at the right time--is a central part of acting rightly. The phronimos--the man of practical wisdom--typically participates in public life. He engages in the deliberative activities of the Assembly; he serves on the Courts and his evaluative judgments are models of praise and blame. In being a model of virtue, the phronimos is a model of all the skills that virtue requires, including those of finding the right words and arguments in the process of deliberation. Since the techniques of public deliberation are the models of all forms of deliberation, the man of practical wisdom must acquire the habits--the hexeis--that are engaged in rhetorical persuasion. (2) His use of rhetoric must fuse his intellectual abilities with his character virtues. His desires--the desires that prompt and direct his use of rhetoric--are (in)formed by true understanding; and his understanding of the issues at stake in persuasion is formed by appropriately formed desires. (3) Because doing things for the right reason involves thinking of them in the right way, under the right description, there is a sense in which speaking appropriately pervades all well-formed action. The phronimos knows how to distinguish indignant speech from hate speech and when to call a spade a spade. To be sure, the virtuous person, the person of practical wisdom, does not explicitly deliberate about whether what he says constitutes abusive insult or honest plain speaking. The techniques of rhetoric--getting words right, giving appropriate arguments, examples, analogies--should become second nature, implicit in the best, most successful thought and speech. They are among the skills of persuasive practical reasoning. As Cicero, quoting Scaevola, summarizes the matter eloquently: This ... art [rhetoric] has constantly flourished above all others in every free state, especially in those which have enjoyed peace and tranquility.... What is so striking, so astonishing, is that the tumults of the people, the religious feelings of judges, the gravity of the senate, should be swayed by speech ... to raise the afflicted, to bestow security, to deliver from dangers, to maintain men in the rights of citizenship? ... For it is by this one gift that we are most distinguished from brute animals, that we converse together, and can express our thoughts by speech. Who, therefore, would not justly make this an object of admiration, and think it worthy of his utmost exertions, to surpass mankind themselves in that single excellence by which they claim their superiority over brutes? …

“Liber est Causa Sui”: Thomas Aquinas and the Maxim “The Free is the Cause of Itself”

Abstract: THOMAS AQUINAS FREQUENTLY uses the maxim liber est causa sui--a sentence most easily translated as "The free is the cause of itself." (1) Thomas usually cites this maxim, which he takes from the first book of Aristotle's Metaphysics, when he needs to show that something, or someone, is free. It plays a key role as a premise in his De veritate argument that men have free decision (liberum arbitrium). The purpose of this paper is to ask how we should understand liber est causa sui when we read these words in Thomas's writings. There is a radical meaning associated with the words causa sui: Descartes would later use this phrase to describe God's causing of his own being. Does Thomas mean that what is free causes or creates itself? Modern sensibilities about freedom incline in this direction, linking freedom with self-creation. This radical meaning, though, can easily be accused of contradiction: how could anything cause itself?. In the first section of this paper, I will show that Thomas does not intend us to understand the maxim as involving self-creation of any sort: as he himself often says, Nihil est causa sui. Thomas's meaning of causa sui is more limited: what is free does something for itself, but it does not make itself exist. In fact, Thomas makes clear in several explanatory notes that the free is not the cause of itself in being, but the cause of itself in acting: the free thing acts "out of" itself (ex se) or "from" itself (a se). This basic notion of a free agent as one whose actions flow from himself is well established, and the notion of acting "from oneself" continues to be relevant in today's debates on the meaning of freedom. Several libertarians have tried to capture it by their discussions of "agent causality." (2) In the second and most substantial part of this paper, however, I will argue that Thomas intended us to understand something more than agent causality or acting "from oneself" when he cited this maxim. I am convinced that Thomas's meaning when citing this maxim includes Aristotle's meaning in writing it. When Aristotle wrote the words Thomas quotes, he did not primarily mean that the free being caused itself to act; instead, he meant that the free being acted for the sake of an end that was its own--it acted "for its own sake." I will argue that passages in which Thomas cites the maxim--particularly De veritate 24.1--must be understood to include two senses of causa sui, not just one. When Thomas applies the words causa sui to something, he does not simply mean that its actions are from itself or a se; he also intends to signify that its actions are "for its own sake" or propter se. Understanding the meaning behind Thomas's liber est causa sui is helpful for several reasons. A good interpretation of Thomas's causa sui can help us understand what Thomas means by his well-known claim that reason--not will, power, or agency--is the root of freedom. (3) Moreover, it is helpful in determining the extent to which Thomas's teachings on freedom have an Aristotelian basis. Lastly, claims about the causality of the free agent have always been prominent in debates over human free will. Some notion of causing one's own actions has always seemed necessary to combat determinism, and so notions of agent causality are frequently proposed, and their meaning is constantly being explored. At the same time, such agent causality is consistently accused of being merely a contradictory causa sui in disguise--and, indeed, some self-contradiction remains in many libertarian points of view. (4) Reflection on the meaning behind Thomas's maxim helps us see where he stands in this perennial debate, and may be of some use in sorting out an apparently perennial confusion. I Did Thomas Intend the Radical Meaning of "Causa Sui"? When Thomas writes that liber est causa sui, does he mean that the free being causes itself to exist in some way? This is, after all, an understanding of the phrase causa sui that is well established in the philosophical tradition. …

Thomas Aquinas, Esse Intentionale, and the Cognitive as Such

Abstract: IT IS POPULAR AMONG AQUINAS SCHOLARS to present esse intentionale as the mode of being that distinguishes cognizant from noncognizant beings. St. Thomas says something is cognizant just in case it is able to possess, in addition to its own form, the form of some other thing. (1) When I am actually knowing, I possess the form of the thing known. The form of the thing known has a mode of "being in the knower"--which mode of being is the distinguishing mark of the cognitive as such--and many scholars say this distinguishing mode of being is esse intentionale. In this paper, I argue against this reading of this part of Aquinas's doctrine of knowledge. Thomas does not feature esse intentionale as the mark of the cognitive, but rather assigns it more of a subordinate status. The view that esse intentionale is the definitive mark of the cognitive does not properly highlight the way it features for Thomas as something of a junior partner to the more fundamental esse immateriale. Here I wish to question a popular line of reasoning for reading Aquinas as saying that esse intentionale is the mark of the cognitive. In what follows, I take John Haldane's work as offering a view representative of this sort of reasoning. I raise some problems for maintaining that Thomas held this view, both from within Haldane's approach specifically and from Thomas' texts more generally. In the first section of the paper, I show why Thomas might be thought to present esse intentionale as the defining mark of knowledge as such. In the second section, I raise a problem specifically for Haldane's reading of the texts, but also, I think, a more general problem for any view that takes Aquinas as saying esse intentionale is uniquely mental. In the third section I highlight an often overlooked distinction Aquinas makes between modes of intentional being. This distinction shows that Thomas is concerned with allowing esse intentionale to exist extramentally as such in an "imperfect" being. In section four, I sketch a picture of cognition that includes such extramental being, although this sketch goes only part of the way toward achieving a plausible and perspicuous description of Thomas's metaphysics of cognition. In the concluding section, I describe why and how the present reading best fits with the largely acknowledged, broader reading of Thomas as being thoroughly unconcerned with a Cartesian problematic. I Thomas says something is cognizant just in case it is able to possess, in addition to its own form, the form of some other thing. (2) The form of the thing known has a mode of "being in the knower," a representational mode which is the distinguishing mark of the cognitive as such. John Haldane stands with many scholars who say this distinguishing mode of being is esse intentionale. (3) In this section I present what I take to be the strongest case for their reading. Throughout Haldane's various presentations, it is always clear why he thinks Thomas holds that esse intentionale is the mark of the cognitive. The primary reason is that esse intentionale is the bearer of the feature of representation or intentionality: a cognitive being represents, or is "about," some other thing, while a noncognitive being cannot represent or be about anything else. This feature of "aboutness" is what Thomas means by the knower's possessing the form "of another thing": the form possessed is itself "of another." (4) It is intrinsically representative of something other than itself. For Haldane, the cognitive mode of being, the mode that is "intrinsically representational," is esse intentionale: (5) species in esse intentionali represents an extramental form in esse naturali, and as such, esse intentionale is the representational mode of being proper to cognizance. (6) On this view, the distinction between the cognizant and the noncognizant is the same as the distinction between the representational esse intentionale and the nonrepresentational esse naturale. …

Aquinas' Moral Typology of Peace and War

Abstract: THOMAS AQUINAS' FAMOUS TREATMENT of just war (Summa Theologiae II-II, question 40) is set within a sequence of questions on theological charity. This placement has elicited two quite different assessments, one laudatory, the other critical. According to the first, this linkage with charity was intended to support a presumption against war, and in so doing Aquinas discreetly voiced an affinity with Christian pacifism. (1) According to the second, the exigencies of just war would have been better served had Aquinas discussed this topic in connection with the cardinal virtue of justice. (2) Arguing against both views, this article explores how the Dominican master articulated a distinctive moral vision whereby the maintenance of peace between independent nations was viewed as the horizon for just war. I Miller does not explicitly discuss what reasons might have led Aquinas to place his treatment of war" in the Summa section on theological charity. He does however maintain that Aquinas' overall strategy was to establish a tight connection between just war and the exigencies of Christian charity. Questioning the interpretation of James Turner Johnson, who takes justice to be "the horizon around which [Aquinas'] inquiry proceeded" (3) Miller counters that "the value of nonviolence, not the virtue of justice, generates the intellectual clearing within which [Aquinas] develops his inquiry." (4) The pacifist objections that figure at the head of question 40, article 1 are thus meant as reminders that, for Aquinas as read by Miller, just war must remain qualified "by considerations of charity," such that it will reflect "the commitments that ought to inform a Christian approach to war." (5) Was it the aim of subordinating justice to the exigencies of charity that led Aquinas to examine the problem of just war within the Summa section on theological caritas, as Miller contends? The textual evidence in fact gives little support to this thesis. To the contrary, it was the dynamics of unjust war, rather than the exigencies of just war, that prompted Aquinas to take up the moral problem of war within the context of charity. In so doing his goal was to demonstrate how wrongful war, along with other conflict-causing vices such as discord and schism, stands opposed to the communion of charity. Of itself, this negative reason for including bellum among the sins against charity provides scant support for the claim that just war must in some special way (over and above what is required of any human act) be measured by the demands of Christian charity. Nor, for that matter, does this placement indicate that just war should itself be viewed positively as an act of charity, say to aid the innocent in their hour of need, if necessary by the sacrifice of one's own life. While neither implication is expressly excluded (charity as a principle of just-war restraint, or inversely a principle empowering the use of force to protect the innocent from harm), it must be emphasized that it was not just war, but rather its opposite, unjust war, that dictated the inclusion of the former within the treatise on charity. (6) In fact there is every indication that when Aquinas initially formulated his design for this section of the Summa (at the beginning of II-II, question 29), he was not even thinking of just war. His goal was rather to elucidate how the "fruits of the Spirit," (7) with charity at their head, and including peace, are contravened by a set of conflict-causing vices. In the process of enumerating these sins, he eventually took up the problem of (wrongful) war, and then realized, somewhat belatedly, that this sin could not be discussed without offering some comment on its opposite, bellum iustum. This is borne out by a comparison with the sequence of prologues in the quaestiones on charity. In the first formulation, the prologue to question 34, Aquinas mentions only two sins in opposition to peace, namely discord and schism. …

Hutcheson, Smith, and Utilitarianism

Abstract: IN 1787, fifty years after having been a student of Moral Philosophy under Francis Hutcheson at the University of Glasgow, in his letter accepting the office of Lord Rector at the same university, Adam Smith still recalled and eulogized his former professor citing the exemplary dedication "to which the abilities and virtues of the never to be forgotten Dr. Hutcheson had given a superior degree of illustration." (1) From an author who rarely expresses his feelings, this gratuitous praise should not be overlooked. Yet, as Charles Griswold complains in his Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment, "further philosophical study of Smith's relation to Hutcheson... would be very welcome." (2) Indeed, despite the abundant academic literature about the Scottish Enlightenment, scholarly interest has been more focused on the relationship between the moral philosophies of Hume and Smith than on Hutcheson's specific influence on his most outstanding disciple, isolating them, in a theoretical exercise, from Hume's unquestionable contribution to Smithean thought. There might be several, very understandable, reasons for this omission. First among these, and possibly the most important, is Smith's categorical rejection of the foundations of Hutcheson's ethical system, in which benevolence is the only existing virtue and the moral sense the faculty by which we perceive it. (3) In fact, in their Introduction to Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments (henceforth TMS), the editors D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie say that: Among contemporary thinkers Hume had the greatest influence on the formation of Smith's ethical theory .... Second in order of importance is the influence of Hutcheson, whose teaching directed Smith's general approach to moral philosophy .... The particular doctrines of the TMS, however, owe little to Hutcheson's actual theory, which Smith probably took to be superseded by Hume's more complex account. (4) Nonetheless, Hutcheson's influence on Smith should not be dismissed so quickly. John Rae, in contrast to this last opinion, asserts that: The most powerful and enduring influence [Smith] came under at Glasgow was undoubtedly that of Hutcheson.... No other man, indeed, whether teacher or writer, did so much to awaken Smith's mind or give a bent to his ideas. He is sometimes considered a disciple of Hume and sometimes a disciple of Quesnay; if he was any man's disciple, he was Hutcheson's. (5) Blackstone adds: "There is in fact little in Hume's moral philosophy that cannot be traced to Hutcheson. Smith, a pupil of Hutcheson at the University of Glasgow, was strongly influenced by Hutcheson in the development of both his moral philosophy and economic theory." (6) Whatever the case, it is at least symptomatic that, despite Smith's complete refutation of the main pillars of Hutcheson's theory, and even in writings where he criticizes him, he always refers to Hutcheson in highly laudatory terms. (7) Moreover, it should not be forgotten that, on the one hand, Smith was Hutcheson's student long before he met Hume, and hence he received first-hand knowledge of his moral ideas; and on the other, that not a few of his statements of economic and political theories proceed from his mentor's work. (8) Consequently, to track Hutcheson's presence in Smith's TMS and to identify which of Smith's moral notions have their germs and inspiration in his teacher's lectures may not be an altogether worthless endeavor. Moreover, showing how the pupil reoriented these ideas in order to give a completely different account of morality might also shed some light on contemporary ethics. Specifically, my thesis is that Smith took from Hutcheson's system some, let us say, secondary elements and developed them in an unexpected direction, which increasingly distanced him from the canonical Scottish sentimentalist tradition. Naturally, all this happened within a context where David Hume was a fundamental "third voice" working on the topic. …

William James’s Pluralism

Abstract: IN THIS ESSAY I WANT TO EXAMINE William James's pluralism, which, alongside his more well known doctrines of pragmatism and radical empiricism, came to dominate his philosophical outlook from roughly the mid-1890s until the end of his life. More exactly, I want to identify and examine some of the various senses in which James was a pluralist, which include, but are not limited to, the pluralistic-melioristic and, ultimately, panpsychic religious worldview that he defended in such later works as Pragmatism (1907) and A Pluralistic Universe (1909). Although a fair amount has been written on the latter subject, to date there has yet to appear a comprehensive study of James's pluralism and the place that it occupies in his philosophy. (1) While it is not my intention to undertake such a project here, I hope that the present essay sheds some new light on this rich, complex, and understudied area of James's thought. Understanding James's pluralism is a matter of no small importance, if for no other reason than that James himself came to regard "the problem of the one and the many," or the conflict between monism and pluralism in metaphysics, as the most important and far reaching of all philosophical dilemmas. (2) Yet, James was not only a pluralist in his metaphysics, but also, as we shall see, in such areas as epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of religion. (3) Indeed, I hope to show that these last-mentioned types of pluralism are distinct from the sense in which James most often used the term: namely, as a shorthand for his metaphysical pluralism, which includes both his "each-form" view of the world (we might call this, more specifically, his commitment to ontological pluralism) and his pluralistic, melioristic, and panpsychic religious worldview (hereafter, James's pluralistic religious worldview). (4) The relationship between James's pluralism and his other major philosophical doctrines, pragmatism and radical empiricism, is a complicated one, particularly the relationship between pluralism and radical empiricism. (5) It is fairly uncontroversial, I think, to say that the metaphysical doctrine that James calls "pluralism" shares a number of common features with his radical empiricism. This connection is hardly self-evident, though, in the case of the other senses of pluralism that I shall discuss, and is further complicated by the fact that what James meant by the terms "radical empiricism" and "pluralism" evolved considerably from 1897 until his death in 1910. With the exception of his metaphysical pluralism, I shall assume no special connection between James's post-1904 radical empiricism (which includes the essays collected in Essays in Radical Empiricism) and his defense of pluralistic views in the other, above-mentioned areas of his philosophy. This may strike some specialist readers as a problematic assumption, but I believe that a careful consideration of the textual evidence supports it. In any event, I shall try to make the case that what these different Jamesian senses of pluralism have in common is not necessarily an underlying commitment to metaphysical doctrines such as radical empiricism or ontological pluralism, but rather a principled antireductionism that recognizes the fact of pluralism in these different philosophical domains. (6) Put somewhat differently, I shall offer a basically nonmetaphysical interpretation of James's pluralistic epistemological, ethical, and religious views, which I believe are distinct from his metaphysical doctrine of pluralism. As we shall see, James's philosophy is pluralistic in a number of different senses, and not merely in its conception of the fundamental nature of reality. The essay is organized as follows: In the first section I discuss the complex and sometimes confusing relationship between James's pluralism and radical empiricism. What I try to show here is that James's use of the term "pluralism" is quite varied, ranging from his general formulation in the Preface to The Will to Believe (1897), to his equation of pluralism with practical religion and polytheism in The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), to his increasingly technical metaphysical speculations in such works as Pragmatism (1907), A Pluralistic Universe (1909), and the posthumously published Some Problems of Philosophy (1910). …

Greek Essence and Islamic Tolerance: Al-Farabi, Al-Ghazali, Ibn Rush'd

Abstract: THE PERIOD FROM AL-FARABI to Ibn Rush'd is arguably the time of the greatest philosophical debate, ff not achievement, within Islamic thought. Whether Islamic reflection on revealed law can accept the Greek notion of essence is central to this debate and to the question of tolerance; indeed, the various positions taken with regard to essence determine the nature and limits of political tolerance. The most tolerant position is the complete political rejection of essence and religion in Al-Farabi's second-best option of democracy. Least tolerant is Al-Ghazali's religiously motivated rejection of essence. The philosophical affirmation of essence by Al-Farabi (his preferred position) and Ibn Rush'd allows for toleration of religion as an inferior but necessary way of life for most human beings. Since both Al-Farabi's democracy and his political regime based on essence achieve varying degrees of tolerance by subordinating religion, the choice is between tolerance and the superiority of religion; that is, all agree that it is not possible to reconcile the supremacy of religion with a broad political tolerance. I Al-Farabi. Al-Farabi (870-950 A.D.) consciously adopts the Greek notion of essence. It is "Greek" inasmuch as he sees Plato and Aristotle as having one philosophy, precisely because essence is that which unifies human intellects. According to Al-Farabi, the question of tolerance, like the questions of politics in general, centers on the natural differences among human beings in their ability to grasp essence. (1) Very few--only philosophers--attain essence; most people are limited to images of intelligible reality: Most men, either by nature or by habit, are unable to comprehend and cognize those things; and these are the men for whom one ought to represent the manner in which the principles of the beings, their ranks of order, the Active Intellect, and the supreme rulership, exist through things that are imitations of them. (2) Since essence is one, philosophers must be in agreement with each other; since images can only be like but never be the essence, there is no one, true image, and the necessary plurality of images means that nonphilosophers can never reach the consensus of philosophers. (3) The particularity, mutability, and contingency of images can only produce an approximation of the unity rooted in the universality, immutability, and necessity of essence. Religion, for Al-Farabi, is therefore an imitation of philosophy because it never reaches beyond images of essence; it is an imaginative depiction that can be like but never be the essential reality that the philosopher knows: Now when one acquires knowledge of the beings or receives instruction in them, if he perceives their ideas themselves with his intellect, and his assent to them is by means of certain demonstration, the science that comprises these cognitions is philosophy. But if they are known by imagining them through similitudes that imitate them, and assent to what is imagined of them is caused by persuasive methods, then the ancients call what comprises these cognitions religion. And if those intelligibles themselves are adopted, and persuasive methods are used, then the religion comprising them is called popular, generally accepted, and external philosophy. Therefore, according to the ancients, religion is an imitation of philosophy. (4) Philosophy is one because essence is one, but religions are necessarily many because there is no one, true image. The philosopher is naturally fit to rule because he grasps both essence and images--what happiness is and what is like happiness. (5) The natural inability of the vast majority of human beings to know essences forces the philosopher not only to tolerate the existence of religions but to rule the multitude through religion. Tolerance of religion follows upon the almost universal limitation of human beings to imaginative knowledge. …

Hegel, Recognition, and Religion

Abstract: HEGEL SUGGESTS, on more than a few occasions, that a complete appraisal of our ability to discursively represent the world should terminate in the realization that God is the proper object of science. He likewise suggests that our knowledge claims about what we take objective reality to be are instantiations of the self-thinking processes through which the divine mind purveys the selfsame reality as a manifestation of itself. Why else would the absolute Idea with which the Logic culminates, and which denotes the apex of our conceptual and inferential powers, be homologous to the noesis noesoes of Aristotle? (1) Thus it comes as no surprise that Hegel has been impugned by his critics for overstepping what Kant sets down as the lawful boundaries of our theoretical cognitive capacities. (2) Indeed, so long as he is seen as an out-and-out metaphysician--in roughly the same way as his contemporaries saw Spinoza--otherwise opposing positions along the philosophical spectrum will occupy common territory in rebuking his speculative excesses. But as some of the most interesting (and most controversial) contemporary scholarship has tried to demonstrate, a traditionalist metaphysical approach to Hegel is not the only viable one. English-language commentators such as Terry Pinkard, Robert Pippin, and Paul Redding maintain that Hegel is genuinely post-Kantian in the sense that he does not espouse a precritical metaphysics--and so is nonmetaphysical at least in that regard. Instead, he continues the critical project of delineating the logico-semantic conditions of the normativity of human rationality by building on Kant's programmatic postulate that "reason has insight only into what it itself produces according to its own design." (3) The post-Kantian reading of Hegel, in this context, singles out his theory of recognition for special consideration insofar as it supplies the hermeneutical vantage point for understanding what normativity entails. Hegel's God-talk, it turns out, would not amount to much philosophically unless it is viewed through the lens of his recognitive paradigm of human rationality. Statements about God are potentially meaningful, therefore, only if they conform to patterns of conceptualization to which we can legitimately give our consent through the way we become rational beings in relations of mutual recognition. At stake in Hegel's theory of recognition is, basically, freedom as the process of practical self-interpretation according to norms to which we collectively adhere. (4) Since this requires being attentive to different forms of socio-historical life that are the embodiments of what Hegel terms "Spirit," the fullest articulation of which is the ethical domain of objective Spirit, freedom involves mapping out the normative structures that constitute the totality of mutually recognitive relations (which define the spheres of the family, civil society, and the modern state). And since freedom made concrete via mutually recognitive relations is the common good, the intelligibility of Hegel's God-talk depends on explaining how absolute Spirit--whose general theme is the divine in art, religion, and philosophy--overlaps with, and is even the corollary of, the self-interpretive moves of objective Spirit. This deflationary approach is the one taken by Pinkard, according to whom Hegel's God-talk functions as the symbolic nexus for identifying the ultimate concern of actualizing freedom through the subordinate concerns of specific socio-historical circumstances. (5) It is relatively easy to see, from this revisionist perspective, why God-talk is divested of any strong metaphysical commitments on Hegel's part. Pippin's assessment is similar. Though acknowledging the obvious influence that Christianity exerts on Hegel, Pippin contends that his conception of freedom, rather than being expressive of the Christian defense of free will that stems from the voluntarism of Paul and Augustine, has as its primary support non-Christian sources such as Aristotle and Spinoza. …

Aristotle on the Philosophical Elements of Historia

Abstract: IN THE POETICS, Aristotle briefly compares historical works with mimetic compositions. (1) He remarks that the former "speak of" (legei) events that have actually happened (ta genomena), whereas the latter of "events as they might happen (hoia an genoito) or are possible according to probability or necessity." (2) The historian represents a multiplicity of facts whose relations are, at times, purely temporal: they follow one another or take place at the same time as others. (3) The poet, on the other hand, imitates unitary actions whose parts are connected by causal relations. (4) The culmination of this comparison is the famous statement that "poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history, for poetry speaks more of universals, whereas history of particulars." (5) The picture of history that emerges from Aristotle's treatise on poetry has been widely criticized. (6) Specifically, two related points have been called into question. The first is the thesis that historia deals with particulars, which, the critique goes, is based on a misinterpretation of the nature and value of the works produced by the Greek historians. The second is the philosopher's sharp distinction between history and poetry, which fails to appreciate the kinship between the two disciplines. On this critical reading, far from being different in kind, they differ at best in degree. Thus Ste. Croix observes that it is likely that Aristotle was familiar with Thucydides' work, and that, if he had been consistent with his own tenets "he ought not to have written off history as dealing only with particulars." (7) Rather, he should have acknowledged that there is no "essential difference" between poetic plots and Thucydides' History. (8) More recently Martin Ostwald writes that the above mentioned passage of Poetics 9 "shows a rather deplorable blindness to historiography. If we were to take Aristotle literally, the only kind of historical writing he would recognize as such would be the kind of annalistic historical writings practiced in his own times ... [that] tend to list events but do nothing to relate them to one another. What Aristotle says here is certainly not applicable to Herodotus or Thucydides .... It seems to me that the activity of the historian involves the relation of events in terms of 'what is probable or necessary' just as much as does the activity of the tragic poet." (9) This paper argues that these criticisms originate from a misinterpretation of Aristotle's position. (10) A careful reading of the relevant passages of the Poetics, on the one hand (section 2), and the analysis of his broad conception of historia as a preliminary inquiry that leads to the philosophical investigation of causes and principles on the other (section 3), show that he did not confine history to the realm of particulars. Rather, he acknowledged that it has some connection with universality, and to that extent, that it partakes in the philosophical nature of poetry. At the same time, however, he also provided valid indications to the effect that, despite their affinity, historia and poietike differ in kind, because they are defined by different functions (erga). For this reason he correctly holds that poetry is more philosophical than history, even as he acknowledges that historical works contain a poetic element (section 4). The paper opens with a brief section devoted to the philosopher's view of poetry, which is the term of comparison for the entire discussion of history. I The philosophical nature of poetry. Aristotle holds that poetry is more philosophical than history because it speaks more of universals, not that it is philosophy or that it expresses universals tout court. (11) Philosophia (12) is the highest form of knowledge that moves from what is first for us to what is first in itself, that is to say, from sensible to intelligible objects. (13) It presupposes that something is the case (to hoti) (14) and articulates the why and the cause of those facts (to dioti kai ten aitian). …

In Defense of Free Will: A Critique of Benjamin Libet

Abstract: ACCORDING TO THE NEUROBIOLOGIST Benjamin Libet, we are incapable of positive free voluntary acts; these, or rather, their mere conscious semblance, are, according to his view, sheer effects of cerebral causes Notwithstanding this, free will is not impossible; it can exist in the form of "negative free will," that is, of a veto of voluntary movements Libet states his position in the following manner: I have taken an experimental approach to the question of whether we have free will Freely voluntary acts are preceded by a specific electrical change in the brain (the "readiness potential," RP) that begins 550 msec before the act Human subjects became aware of intention to act 350-400 msec after RP starts, but 200 msec before the motor act The volitional process is therefore initiated unconsciously But the conscious function could still control the outcome; it can veto the act Free will is therefore not excluded (1) In spite of his "experimental approach to the question of whether we have free will," Libet's theses are primarily philosophical ones: the notion of free will, the distinction of "positive voluntary actions" from a vetoing or controlling power of free will, and many others cannot be known by empirical tests per se, but only by philosophical reflection on their outcome and by properly philosophical methods of knowledge (2) Given their fundamentally philosophical character, there are many ways in which philosophy can tackle the issues and claims Libet raises in organizing and interpreting his famous tests with free will that result in his denial that we possess positive free will and in his simultaneous claim that we do or at least might possess "negative free will," namely a free veto power (3) One of these ways consists in simply asking whether we have cognitive evidence of possessing positive free will If we can find, as I intend to show in this essay, that there is not just one but, rather, various ways by which we can gain evident knowledge about human persons' possessing both "positive" and "negative" free will, and if this evidence is sound and founded on rational cognitions of things themselves, Libet's attack on positive free will is thereby refuted In other words, if we can substantiate authentic philosophical evidences that we possess "positive free will," we will refute, in the strongest possible way, its merely hypothetical denial by Libet; for no matter what way we have to answer his objections and reflect on his test results in detail, a cogent refutation of his hypothetical objections will be guaranteed by the knowledge that we indeed possess free will, a knowledge we can gain, I shall seek to show in this paper, along different routes Thus, abstracting from Libet's experiments, which he himself believes to allow only for hypothetical conclusions, and focusing on purely philosophical evidence for free will that is not merely hypothetical and therefore surpasses in evidence all his merely empirical and at best probable theories, is a perfectly legitimate form of criticism against Libet and is the main purpose of the following reflections Following the attempt to complete this primary task of the present paper, we will also analyze the various meanings of the distinction between positive and negative free will that Libet introduces and show that asserting the one while denying the other entails a logical contradiction When we speak of a free act, we mean first that a given act is caused by the person himself who possesses the power of free will, and not by any material or spiritual cause outside of him, neither by chains of electrical and chemical causes in the brain, nor by society and education, nor by God, who would predetermine and force--or determine in a softer way without experienced coercion--a person to act in a certain manner The person himself as cause of free acts refers, furthermore, to the person as conscious agent who engenders a free act consciously through an inner "fiat" (which is not to deny that the originally conscious act can give rise to different senses of superconscious or also subconscious will, of which we do not always have conscious, let alone reflexive, awareness) …

Metaphysics: A Traditional Mainstay of Philosophy in Need of Radical Rethinking

Abstract: INCREASINGLY MANY CONTEMPORARY philosophers accept metaphysics as essential to philosophy, and address metaphysical issues. This is a significant and welcome development, but it raises the pressing question of what, exactly, metaphysics is taken to be. Is there a definition or at least a general characterization of metaphysics that does justice to the long, important, but also chaotic history of inquiry that has had this designation? It appears that, at least in analytic philosophy, there is not. Instead, most analytic philosophers proceed on the usually tacit assumption that the only way to distinguish metaphysics from other areas of philosophical inquiry is to do the following two things: first, to introduce a purely extensional definition of the term metaphysics, so that metaphysics becomes the set of all philosophical approaches, past and present, to which this term has been applied; and second, to embrace one of those approaches, rejecting or ignoring all the others. This is deeply inadequate, chiefly because it situates all members of the set of approaches on the same level, the level at which the focus is on beings or entities. As will be argued below, however, philosophy, and indeed metaphysics, requires theories not only of beings but also, on a deeper (indeed, on the deepest) level, theories of Being. That metaphysics must address Being is explicitly recognized by Thomas Aquinas, but post-Aquinian metaphysicians make no such specific inclusions. Indeed, not until Heidegger is Being again thematized--but Heidegger, as is well known, denies that his thinking is metaphysical. To be sure, Heidegger falls prey to selfmisunderstanding, in that he explicitly undertakes "a transformational recovering (Verwindung) of the essence of metaphysics," adding: "... in this transformational recovering, the enduring truth of the metaphysics that has seemingly been rejected returns explicitly as the now appropriated essence of metaphysics." (1) Be that as it may, the radical rethinking of metaphysics advocated here centrally involves including Being within the subject matter of metaphysical inquiry, albeit, as will be shown below, within a theoretical framework that totally dissociates itself from Heidegger's understanding and practising of thinking. What follows is divided into six sections. Section I characterizes the complex status of metaphysics at present, arguing that metaphysics requires rethinking because it is currently misconceived (by most analytic philosophers) or misinterpreted (by many continental philosophers). Section II shows what becomes of metaphysics if the current misconceptions and misinterpretations are avoided; most centrally, metaphysics then becomes, once again, an inquiry whose scope includes Being. The failure of traditional ontology to thematize Being will be shown in Section III, and the comparable failure of analytic metaphysics, in Section IV. Section V shows how Heidegger restates the question of Being, and Section VI closes the essay with some concluding remarks. (2) I A striking phenomenon in contemporary philosophy is that the most radical critics--not to say enemies--of traditional metaphysics are no longer the traditionally best-known critics, especially Kant (to some extent), empiricists, logical positivists, and pragmatists. Instead, contemporary critics may be divided into those who do not say what they mean by metaphysics, instead relying tacitly on misconceptions, that is, they call their inquiries metaphysical (but their metaphysical domain is far narrower than is the domain of traditional metaphysics) and those who do say what they mean, but in doing so misinterpret metaphysics and consequently reject what they call metaphysics, but the metaphysics they reject is not traditional metaphysics, at least not in its entirety. Most analytic philosophers are in the first group, whereas at least a significant number of continental philosophers are in the second. …

The Nazis and the German Metaphysical Tradition of Voluntarism

Abstract: GEORGE SANTAYANA, a one-time Harvard professor, possessed an intimate knowledge of German philosophy and wrote a book originally entitled Egotism in Germany (1915). In this work, he expresses concern about some of the trends in German philosophy and tries to warn others about the dangers lurking in its ideas for the sake of world peace. The work shows particular concern about the spirit of self-assertion and the metaphysical conceit that induces philosophers like Fichte and Hegel to exalt the German nation and find no higher tribunal of right and wrong beyond the egotistic prejudices of their state. (1) He sees danger in the post-Kantian tendency to reduce everything in life to the mere prejudices of pure subjectivity or the exertion of force and to lose all sense of external authority, whether it is found in an objective world, a heaven of ideas, or the revelation of God. (2) He calls Gottfried Leibniz the first German philosopher because he followed this egoistic voluntarism, seeing each individual enclosed within a self-constrained circle and driven by inward forces. (3) Arthur Schopenhauer developed the theme further, emphasizing the "will to live" as the one metaphysical truth. Friedrich Nietzsche soon converted Schopenhauer's idea into the "will to power," living beyond reason and morality, throwing childish tantrums throughout his life, and showing the end result of an egoistic, voluntaristic philosophy, led by ceaseless and capricious cravings. (4) Santayana thinks these philosophers have oversimplified the multifaceted nature of humanity and provide a pretext for German militarism in their egotism or will to power. (5) No example serves his point and shows his prescience better than the later work of Martin Heidegger, who finds the metaphysical essence of the German spirit in voluntarism and joins the Nazis through his own personal belief in this emphasis upon power. (6) Gottfried Leibniz. Both Santayana and Heidegger think of Gottfried Leibniz as providing the impetus toward voluntarism in German metaphysics. While Leibniz works within the intellectualist or rationalist tradition, viewing the world and our reason as a reflection of divine wisdom, he provides a pretext for voluntarism by letting God withdraw from creation and giving to each "monad" its own autonomy or force (entelechy). This concept is much different from the typical view of theism within the intellectualist tradition, where God relates to the world through ongoing, providential dealings--holding, sustaining, and perfecting its existence as the one true power of life and the basis of its unity. Instead, Leibniz thinks of God establishing a harmony in the act of creation and then leaving the world by making each monad fit within the experience of all others and act according to the best possible plan for all involved. (7) "Every individual substance of this universe expresses in its concept the universe into which it has entered." (8) Thus, the universe develops its harmony and purpose without receiving any outside interference to violate the internal principle of power, without God intervening, and without objects pushing or pulling, interacting or influencing each other. (9) Leibniz remains committed to theism and rationalism throughout his presentation, but it does not take a great deal of imagination to see how an atheist might take the forces of nature in Leibniz's system and allow them to interact with one another in an autonomous and secular state of affairs, letting God withdraw completely from the process and developing a voluntaristic view of life as a power play between irrational forces. This Nazi-like concept could develop from Leibniz, given the right set of circumstances and a few necessary changes to the overall theistic ideology. II Arthur Schopenhauer. The most noteworthy philosopher in making the transition is Arthur Schopenhauer. He thinks of the will as the key to understanding the innermost mechanism of our being, and through this understanding, the innermost nature of the world around us. …