¿Es posible decidir en qué creer? Respondiendo desde Franz Brentano a la discusión Williams-Cottingham

2021 ◽  
pp. 43-63
Author(s):  
Felipe Guerrero

Bernard Williams, en su artículo “Deciding to believe”, caracteriza la creencia como estructuralmente dirigida hacia la verdad, i.e., no está en nuestras manos la decisión de creer, justamente porque nosotros no somos quienes generamos la verdad. John Cottingham, en cambio, responde años después a este artículo exhibiendo que, en el pensamiento de Descartes, es posible conjugar tanto la libertad de elegir qué creer, como una cierta prescripción que hace tender a la voluntad hacia lo claro y distinto, la que viene dada en tanto el espíritu es un ens creatum. En el marco de esta discusión se pretende, frente a Descartes, afirmar que en la doctrina de Brentano las nociones de “objeto secundario” y “objeto primario” permiten pensar las exigencias expuestas por Williams, ya no recurriendo al argumento de la divinidad, sino encontrando esa tensión en la estructura íntima de la propia conciencia.

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark P. Jenkins
Keyword(s):  

1962 ◽  
Vol 17 (7) ◽  
pp. 504-506
Author(s):  
Edward J. Sussman
Keyword(s):  

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Bernier

Virtually all schools of Buddhism do not accept a permanent, substantial self, and see everything as non-self (anatta). In the first part of this article I recall some arguments traditionally given in support of this perspective. Descartes’ cogito argument contradicts this, by suggesting that we know infallibly that the self, understood as a substantial enduring entity, does exist. The German aphorist Lichtenberg has suggested that all Descartes could claim to have established was the impersonal ‘There is thinking’ (Es denkt), which would support the perspective of non-self. Bernard Williams has argued that Lichtenberg’s impersonal version of the cogito is conceptually incoherent, which would entail that the Buddhist perspective of non-self is also incoherent. I propose to defend the coherence of the Buddhist perspective of non-self against Williams’s argument.


Author(s):  
Cleo Hanaway-Oakley

This chapter situates Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of film in its historical context through analysing its key insights—the reciprocal and embodied nature of film spectatorship—in the light of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century philosophy and psychology, charting Merleau-Ponty’s indebtedness to thinkers as diverse as Henri Bergson, Max Wertheimer, Hugo Münsterberg, Rudolf Arnheim, Victor Freeburg, Sergei Eisenstein, and Siegfried Kracauer. The historical Bergson is differentiated from the Deleuzian Bergson we ordinarily encounter in film studies, and Merleau-Ponty’s fondness for gestalt models of perception is outlined with reference to the competing ‘persistence of vision’ theory of film viewing. The chapter ends with a consideration of some of the ways in which James Joyce could have encountered early phenomenology, through the work of the aforementioned philosophers and psychologists and the ideas of Gabriel Marcel, Franz Brentano, William James, and Edmund Husserl.


Author(s):  
Simon Kirchin

This chapter introduces the distinction between thin and thick concepts and then performs a number of functions. First, two major accounts of thick concepts—separationism and nonseparationism—are introduced and, in doing so, a novel account of evaluation is indicated. Second, each chapter is outlined as is the general methodology, followed, third, by a brief history of the discussion of thick concepts, referencing Philippa Foot, Hilary Putnam, Gilbert Ryle, and Bernard Williams among others. Fourth, a number of relevant contrasts are introduced, such as the fact–value distinction and the difference between concepts, properties, and terms. Lastly, some interesting and relevant questions are raised that, unfortunately, have to be left aside.


1999 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Jay Wallace

AbstractThis paper explores the question whether utilitarianism is compatible with the autonomy of the moral agent. The paper begins by considering Bernard Williams' famous complaint that utilitarianism cannot do justice to the personal projects and commitments constitutive of character. Recent work (by Peter Railton among others) has established that a utilitarian agent need not be free of such personal projects and commitments, and could even affirm them morally at the level of second"order reflection. But a different and more subtle problem confronts this approach: the use of utilitarian principles to justify the cultivation of personal projects and attachments undermines the autonomy to support this objection, according to which autonomy is a matter of acting in a way one can reflectively endorse.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172110184
Author(s):  
Ben Cross

In this article, I aim to bring apocalypticism and radical realism into conversation, with a view to their mutual interest in prefigurative politics. On one hand, radical realists may worry that an apocalyptic approach to prefigurative politics may be marred by wishful thinking. On the other hand, radical realists can (and sometimes do) acknowledge that wishful thinking is sometimes desirable. I argue that an apocalyptic approach to prefigurative politics suggests one way of guarding against the dangers of wishful thinking, while allowing space for its potential benefits; prefigurativists have reason to pay at least some attention to what Bernard Williams calls ‘The First Political Question’. I will argue for this claim with reference to the case of Omar Aziz, a Syrian activist who played a pivotal role in the construction of local councils in the aftermath of the 2011 protests.


Author(s):  
DANIEL STOLJAR

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.


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