The Metaphysics of Perspective

This essay first appeared as a contribution to a symposium on Barry Stroud’s book The Quest for Reality. Stroud is deeply sceptical in that book about whether we can successfully undertake what he calls ‘the philosophical quest for reality’. This essay is an attempt to defend the idea that we can successfully undertake such a quest. One way of doing this, it is proposed, would be by arguing that any fact can be represented from no point of view. The essay exploits various analogies between tense and colour—among other resources—to rebut reservations that Stroud might be expected to have about this proposal.

One or Two Dogmas of Objectivism

This essay first appeared as a critical notice of Thomas Nagel’s The Last Word. Though the essay evidences broad sympathy with the spirit of Nagel’s book, its main burden is to query the letter of the book. Nagel’s defence of the view that there are certain beliefs and ways of thinking that are not from any point of view, or that are ‘objective’ in his own terms, is criticized on the grounds that it is too facile. It is also criticized for not being pitted against a critique of beliefs and ways of thinking that are from some point of view, or that are ‘subjective’ in his terms.

Transcendental Idealism in Wittgenstein, and Theories of Meaning

This essay involves exploration of certain repercussions of Bernard Williams’ view that there is, in Wittgenstein’s later work, a transcendental idealism akin to that found in the Tractatus—sharing with it the feature that it cannot be satisfactorily stated. It is argued that, if Williams is right, then Wittgenstein’s later work precludes a philosophically substantial theory of meaning; for such a theory would force us to try to state the idealism. In a postscript written for the reprint of the essay, reasons are given for thinking that Williams is not right: Wittgenstein’s later work actually helps us to repudiate as ill-conceived all those questions whose answers invite us to embrace any such idealism. But the main thesis of the essay remains intact. Indeed the idea that Wittgenstein’s later work precludes a philosophically substantial theory of meaning is reinforced.

How Significant is the Use/Mention Distinction?

It is argued that the use/mention distinction, if it is to be a clear-cut one, cannot have the significance that it is usually thought to have. For that significance attaches to the distinction between employing an expression in order to draw attention to, or to talk about, some aspect of the world, as determined by the expression’s meaning, and employing it in order to draw attention to, or to talk about, the expression itself—and this distinction is not a clear-cut one. In the final section of the essay this argument is extended to cast doubt on a rather glib appeal to the use/mention distinction that is frequently made in the philosophy of language.

Ineffability and Religion

It is argued that, although there are no ineffable truths, the concept of ineffability nevertheless does have application—to certain states of knowledge. Towards the end of the essay this idea is related to religion: it is argued that the language that results from attempting (unsuccessfully) to put ineffable knowledge into words is very often of a religious kind. An example of this is given at the very end of the essay. This example concerns the Euthyphro question: whether what is right is right because God wills it, or whether God wills it because it is right.

The Bounds of Nonsense

This essay is about the distinction between sense and nonsense, or more strictly the distinction between truth-valued propositions and nonsensical pseudo-propositions, in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Two questions that are raised are: whether ‘truth-valued’ in ‘truth-valued propositions’ is pleonastic; and whether ‘nonsensical’ in ‘nonsensical pseudo-propositions’ is pleonastic. Neither question, it is conceded, has much exegetical or philosophical significance. But there is an associated question that does: namely, whether we have any understanding of what it is for something to be a pseudo-proposition without a truth-value independently of what it is for something to be a proposition with one. It is urged that, for Wittgenstein, we do not: a pseudo-proposition without a truth-value is an item that appears, falsely, to be a proposition with one. In an appendix the question is raised whether Kant would have done well to say something similar about empty thoughts.

One World

This essay first appeared as a contribution to a special issue of European Journal of Philosophy to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of P.F. Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense. In that book Strawson asks whether we should agree with Kant’s claim, in his Critique of Pure Reason, that there can be only one world. What Kant means by this claim is that the four-dimensional realm that we inhabit must constitute the whole of empirical reality. Strawson gives reasons for challenging this claim. This essay raises the question whether, even if Strawson is right, we may nevertheless have reason to believe that there can be only one world on a broader understanding of ‘world’. The aim is as much to clarify the issue as to settle it, although an attempt is made to motivate the view that there can indeed be only one world on this broader understanding.

Apperception and the Unreality of Tense

The aim of this essay is to characterize the issue whether tense is real. Roughly, this is the issue whether, given any tensed representation, its tense corresponds in some suitably direct way to some feature of reality. The task is to make this less rough. Eight characterizations of the issue are considered and rejected, before one is endorsed. On this characterization, the unreality of tense is equivalent to the unity of temporal reality. The issue whether tense is real, so characterized, is then related to Kant’s deduction of the categories in his Critique of Pure Reason. It is argued that Kant’s deduction does not provide the argument for the unreality of tense that it may appear to. The conclusion drawn at the end of the essay is that the unreality of tense cannot be argued for—not because tense is real, but because, even if it is unreal, its unreality is basic.

The Bounds of Sense

This essay was written for a special issue of Philosophical Topics on the links between Kant and analytic philosophy. It explores these links through consideration of: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus; the logical positivism endorsed by Ayer; and the (very different) variation on that theme endorsed by Quine. It is argued that in all three cases we see analytic philosophers trying to attain and express a general philosophical understanding of why the bounds of sense should be drawn where they should—but thereby confronting the aporia, which Kant too confronted, that it is impossible to do this without transgressing those very bounds. It is suggested in conclusion that the problem is in trying to attain and express such an understanding; in other words, that such an understanding is attainable, but not expressible.

Introduction

The introduction begins with an overview of all the essays in the collection. It highlights a tension among them: a thesis that surfaces at various points in the essays in Part I is that some things are ineffable, while a thesis that surfaces at various points in the essays in Part II is that nothing is ineffable. The essays in Part III, deriving their inspiration from the early work of Wittgenstein, indicate how this tension is to be resolved. We can construe the first of these theses as a thesis about states of knowledge or understanding, and the second as a thesis about facts or truths. An outline is then given of the contribution that each essay makes to this Keywords