McDowell, Williams, and Intuitionism

2021 ◽  
pp. 178-196
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dancy
Keyword(s):  
Bernard Williams ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Dispositional Account ◽  
The Common ◽  
Priority View ◽  
The Way

This paper is concerned with a disagreement between Bernard Williams and John McDowell. It starts by asking what form a dispositional account of value should take. A no-priority view could hold that value is a disposition to elicit a certain response, and the response is to the object as disposed to elicit just that response. But a different no-priority view could talk of meriting a response and responding in the way merited. The response is explained as an instance of things being as they rationally ought to be. The paper debates the merits of such a view, and then turns to ask how much truth there is in the common claim that McDowell is an intuitionist.

Causality Then and Now

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-177
Author(s):  
Karen Harding
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Mechanical Model ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Way

Ate appearances deceiving? Do objects behave the way they do becauseGod wills it? Ate objects impetmanent and do they only exist becausethey ate continuously created by God? According to a1 Ghazlli, theanswers to all of these questions ate yes. Objects that appear to bepermanent are not. Those relationships commonly tefemed to as causalare a result of God’s habits rather than because one event inevitably leadsto another. God creates everything in the universe continuously; if Heceased to create it, it would no longer exist.These ideas seem oddly naive and unscientific to people living in thetwentieth century. They seem at odds with the common conception of thephysical world. Common sense says that the universe is made of tealobjects that persist in time. Furthermore, the behavior of these objects isreasonable, logical, and predictable. The belief that the univetse is understandablevia logic and reason harkens back to Newton’s mechanical viewof the universe and has provided one of the basic underpinnings ofscience for centuries. Although most people believe that the world is accutatelydescribed by this sort of mechanical model, the appropriatenessof such a model has been called into question by recent scientificadvances, and in particular, by quantum theory. This theory implies thatthe physical world is actually very different from what a mechanicalmodel would predit.Quantum theory seeks to explain the nature of physical entities andthe way that they interact. It atose in the early part of the twentieth centuryin response to new scientific data that could not be incorporated successfullyinto the ptevailing mechanical view of the universe. Due largely ...

scholarly journals Philosophy as Synchronic History

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
DANIEL STOLJAR
Keyword(s):  
Causal Explanation ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Philosophical Progress ◽  
The Way

Abstract Bernard Williams argues that philosophy is in some deep way akin to history. This article is a novel exploration and defense of the Williams thesis (as I call it)—though in a way anathema to Williams himself. The key idea is to apply a central moral from what is sometimes called the analytic philosophy of history of the 1960s to the philosophy of philosophy of today, namely, the separation of explanation and laws. I suggest that an account of causal explanation offered by David Lewis may be modified to bring out the way in which this moral applies to philosophy, and so to defend the Williams thesis. I discuss in detail the consequences of the thesis for the issue of philosophical progress and note also several further implications: for the larger context of contemporary metaphilosophy, for the relation of philosophy to other subjects, and for explaining, or explaining away, the belief that success in philosophy requires a field-specific ability or brilliance.

Voices of Spectators and Audience Power

Pólemos ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Biet
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationship ◽  
The Other ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Dramatic Action ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The Way

AbstractTheatre and law are not so different. Generally, researchers work on the art of theatre, the rhetoric of the actors, or the dramaturgy built from law cases or from the questions that the law does not completely resolve. Trials, tragedies, even comedies are close: everybody can see the interpenetration of them on stage and in the courts. We know that, and we know that the dramas are made with/from/of law, we know that the art the actors are developing is not so far from the art of the lawyers, and conversely. In this paper, I would like to have a look at the action of the audience, at the session itself and at the way the spectators are here to evaluate and judge not only the dramatic action, not only the art of the actors, not only the text of the author, but also the other spectators, and themselves too. In particular, I will focus on the “common judgment” of the audience and on its judicial, aesthetic and social relationship. The spectators have been undisciplined, noisy, unruled, during such a long period that theatre still retains some prints of this behaviour, even if nowadays, the social and aesthetic rule is to be silent. But uncertainty, inattention, distraction, contradiction, heterogeneity are the notions which characterise the session, and the judgments of the spectators still depend on them. So, what was and what is the voice of the audience? And with what sort of voice do spectators give their judgments?

The Positive State

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-137
Author(s):  
Judith N. Shklar
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Industrial Capitalism ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Positive Rights ◽  
The Common ◽  
Positive State ◽  
The Way

In this chapter Shklar identifies the problems that arise with the development of industrial capitalism. She traces the emergence of social obligations to fellow citizens and the new concerns this raised, paying particular attention to the way the English idealist T.H. Green addressed these issues. She discusses the thinking behind the new welfare state and the rising popularity of social norms and obligations, often also expressed in terms of “the common good,” “positive rights,” and “the obligation to be just.”

scholarly journals From romantic jealousy to sympathetic joy: Monogamy, polyamory, and beyond

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Relational Identity ◽  
Romantic Jealousy ◽  
Serial Monogamy ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Way

This paper explores how the extension of contemplative qualities to intimate relationships can transform human sexual/emotional responses and relationship choices. The paper reviews contemporary findings from the field of evolutionary psychology on the twin origins of jealousy and monogamy, argues for the possibility to transform jealousy into sympathetic joy (or compersion), addresses the common objections against polyamory (or nonmonogamy), and challenges the culturally prevalent belief that the only spiritually correct sexual options are either celibacy or (lifelong or serial) monogamy. To conclude, it is suggested that the cultivation of sympathetic joy in intimate bonds can pave the way to overcome the problematic dichotomy between monogamy and polyamory, grounding individuals in a radical openness to the dynamic unfolding of life that eludes any fixed relational identity or structure.

scholarly journals The Definite and Indefinite Articles of Spanish (or Castilian) Language in Context

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-127
Author(s):  
Sonia Montero Gálvez
Keyword(s):  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Indefinite Article ◽  
The Common ◽  
Communicative Context ◽  
The Way

The present paper addresses the contrast between the definite article (el/la/los/las) and the indefinite article (un/a/os/as) from a cognitive approach that not only poses a single meaning for each kind of article, but also highlights the pragmatic (or contextual) aspects that underlie that meaning and establish the use of one form or another. The article’s meaning is shaped by the way we conceptualize the reference: the definite article implies an inclusive reference characterized by the uniqueness of the referent, while the indefinite article implies an exclusive reference characterized by the lack of uniqueness. The possibility to choose one or other way depends on contextual aspects related to the common knowledge shared by the interlocutors, the communicative context (linguistic and situational) and the space (physical or mental) where the referent is located.

scholarly journals Litteratur og politik

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (104) ◽  
pp. 148-165
Author(s):  
Frederik Tygstrup ◽  
Isak Winkel Holm
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
Representational Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Poetics ◽  
The Common ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Way

Literature and PoliticsLiterature is political by representing the world. The production of literature is a contribution to a general cultural poetics where images of reality are constructed and circulated. At the same time, the practice of literature is institutionalized in such a way that the form and function of the images of reality it produces are conceived and used in a distinctive way. In this article, we suggest distinguishing between a general cultural poetics and a specific literary poetics by using Ernst Cassirer’s neo-Kantian concept of »symbolic forms«. We argue that according to this view, the political significance of literary representational practices resides in the way they activate a common cultural repertoire of historical symbolic forms while at the same time deviating from the common ways of treating these forms.

The Loyalist Response to the Queen Caroline Agitations

1995 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Fulcher
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
Main Line ◽  
Radical Politics ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
Common Thread ◽  
Reform Politics ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Way

It is curious that the unprecedented agitations in support of the rights of Caroline of Brunswick in 1820–21 have been represented as an “affair.” The word seems first to have been used by G. M. Trevelyan and was promptly seized on by Elie Halevy in his 1923 Histoire du peuple anglais au XIXe siècle. The labeling of this popular ebullience as an “affair” has consequently framed the development of its now not inconsiderable historiography. The episode was initially explained as a diversion from some main line of historical development, be it whiggish or Marxisant. More recently, historians have rescued the agitations from this condescension by showing how the radicals identified the king and the government's treatment of the queen as oppression and corruption at work. Since the common thread running through both whig and Marxisant accounts had been a concentration on the effects of the agitations on reform and radical politics, those attempting to put the episode back fully into their narratives emphasized the same factors. This time, however, it was to show that the agitations were not a diversion from the main line of reform politics. What follows is a further contribution to the process of giving greater attention to the queen's cause when telling the story of mass politics in this period, but one which concentrates on other neglected contexts and phenomena important for the explanation of this popular explosion. In the light of this, it may be necessary to change the way we refer to this episode.

Personality

2016 ◽  
pp. 98-101
Author(s):  
Jonathan Leicester
Keyword(s):  
Personality Traits ◽  
Direct Effect ◽  
Need For Closure ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
The Real ◽  
Occupational Roles ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Way

The chapter opens by questioning the role of personality traits in causing behaviour, and decides to work with the common assumption that they have an important role. There is an account of the search for the real units or traits of personality. Some of the traits and dispositions, selected for their particularly direct effect on belief, for example, strong need for closure, are briefly described. There is a comment on the way long-standing occupational roles can sometimes modify personality.

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