An interview with Ed Casey where we discuss the intersections of his philosophical work with current political issues, including the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Among the most popular strategies for justifying political obligations are those that appeal to the principle of fairness. These theories face the challenge, canonically articulated by Robert Nozick, of explaining how it is that persons are obligated to schemes when they receive goods that they do not ask for but cannot reject. John Simmons offers one defense of the principle of fairness, arguing that people could be bound by obligations of fairness if they voluntarily accept goods produced by a cooperative (...) scheme. Simmons, however, thinks that such a theory will do little work in justifying political obligations, since virtually no one voluntarily accepts state goods. This paper attempts to advance just such a theory by arguing that states are in fact genuine cooperative schemes and that Simmons is overly pessimistic in his appraisal of whether the majority of citizens accept the goods provided by their states. (shrink)

Apparently the Western philosophical tradition has (wrongly) preferred speech over writing – so claims Jacques Derrida. In this paper, I consider whether utilitarianism involves such a preference. There are at least two arguments against the claim.

This paper examines Descartes' problematic relational theory of motion, especially when viewed within the context of his dynamics, the Cartesian natural laws. The work of various commentators on Cartesian motion is also surveyed, with particular emphasis placed upon the recent important texts of Garber and Des Chene. In contrast to the methodology of most previous interpretations, however, this essay employs a modern "spacetime" approach to the problem. By this means, the role of dynamics in Descartes' theory, which has often been (...) neglected in favor of kinematic factors, is shown to be central to finding a solution to the puzzle of Cartesian motion. (shrink)

This essay explores the possibility of constructing a structural realist interpretation of spacetime theories that can resolve the ontological debate between substantivalists and relationists. Drawing on various structuralist approaches in the philosophy of mathematics, as well as on the theoretical complexities of general relativity, our investigation will reveal that a structuralist approach can be beneficial to the spacetime theorist as a means of deflating some of the ontological disputes regarding similarly structured spacetimes.

This essay explores the vexed issue of individual corporeal substance in Descartes' natural philosophy. Although Descartes' often referred to individual material objects as separate substances, the constraints on his definitions of matter and substance would seem to favor the opposite view; namely, that there exists only one corporeal substance, the plenum. In contrast to this standard interpretation, however, it will be demonstrated that Descartes' hypotheses make a fairly convincing case for the existence of individual material substances; and the key to (...) this new found individuation is a long neglected set of passages in the Principles of Philosophy. (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between monads and space in Kant’s early pre-critical work, with special attention devoted to the question of ubeity, a Scholastic doctrine that Leibniz describes as “ways of being somewhere”. By focusing attention on this concept, evidence will be put forward that supports the claim, held by various scholars, that the monad-space relationship in Kant is closer to Leibniz’ original conception than the hypotheses typically offered by the later Leibniz-Wolff school. In addition, Kant’s monadology, in conjunction (...) with God’s role, also helps to shed light on further aspects of his system that are broadly Leibnizian, such as monadic activity and the unity of space. (shrink)

This essay explores Kant’s concept of absolute space in the Metaphysical Foundations from the perspective of the development of the relationist interpretation of bodily interactions in the center-of-mass reference frame, a strategy that Huygens had originally pioneered and which Mach also endorsed. In contrast to the interpretations of Kant that stress a non-relationist, Newton-inspired orientation in his critical period work, it will be argued that the content and function of Kant’s utilization of this reference frame strategy places him much closer (...) to Huygens’ relationism than the absolute notions of space and motion favored by Newton and Euler. (shrink)

This essay examines Hobbes’ philosophy of space, with emphasis placed on the variety of interpretations that his concept of imaginary space has elicited from commentators. The process by which the idea of space is acquired from experience, as well as the role of nominalism, will be offered as important factors in tracking down the elusive content of Hobbes’ conception of imaginary space.

I interpret George Eliot as objecting to John Locke in Middlemarch – more specifically, his theory of ideas – by means of her account of Dorothea’s experiences of Edward Casaubon at dinner.

The natural interpretation is that Dorothea’s early impressions of Edward Casaubon, in terms of John Locke, are illusory. But I draw attention to Joseph Raz’s suggestion that it is the status of Locke which is mistaken, though I favour the natural interpretation.

This paper identifies three positions on the relationship between language and experience, the third of which I was not acquainted with before from my reading. It seems absurd.

Perceptual experience is often said to be transparent; that is, when we have a perceptual experience we seem to be aware of properties of the objects around us, and never seem to be aware of properties of the experience itself. This is a introspective fact. It is also often said that we can infer a metaphysical fact from this introspective fact, e.g. a fact about the nature of perceptual experience. A transparency theory fills in the details for these two facts, (...) and bridges the gap between them. We have three aims: to scrutinize Michael Tye’s transparency theory :137–151, 2002; Consciousness revisited: materialism without phenomenal concepts, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2009; Philos Stud 170:39–57, 2014a), introduce a new transparency theory, and advance a meta-theoretical hypothesis about the interest, and import, of transparency theories. (shrink)

Very little attention has been paid towards examining John Rawls’s liberal principle of legitimacy as a self-standing theory. Nevertheless, it offers a highly original way of thinking about state legitimacy. In this paper, I will offer a sketch of what such an account might look like. At its heart is the idea that the legitimacy of the state resides not in the consent of the governed, nor in the state’s conformity with the appropriate principles of justice, but rather in citizens’ (...) endorsement of the state and its underlying constitutional principles on the basis of their own comprehensive conceptions of justice. Such an account offers a stable middle ground between popular alternatives, and has a way of not just solving, but dissolving, the problem of legitimacy. (shrink)

According to comparativism, degrees of belief are reducible to a system of purely ordinal comparisons of relative confidence. (For example, being more confident that P than that Q, or being equally confident that P and that Q.) In this paper, I raise several general challenges for comparativism, relating to (i) its capacity to illuminate apparently meaningful claims regarding intervals and ratios of strengths of belief, (ii) its capacity to draw enough intuitively meaningful and theoretically relevant distinctions between doxastic states, and (...) (iii) its capacity to handle common instances of irrationality. (shrink)

This essay examines the metaphysical foundation of Leibniz’s theory of space against the backdrop of the subtantivalism/relationism debate and at the ontological level of material bodies and properties. As will be demonstrated, the details of Leibniz’ theory defy a straightforward categorization employing the standard relationism often attributed to his views. Rather, a more careful analysis of his metaphysical doctrines related to bodies and space will reveal the importance of a host of concepts, such as the foundational role of God, the (...) holism of both geometry and the material world’s interconnections, and the viability and adequacy of a property theory in characterizing his natural philosophy of space. (shrink)

This essay utilizes the work of the comedy group, Monty Python, as a means of introducing basic concepts in Existentialism, especially as it pertains to the writings of Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus.

This essay examines the music of Radiohead as a means of introducing various elementary concepts and theories in the philosophy of music.

H.L.A. Hart objects to John Rawls’s liberty principle by drawing attention to how our legal system accepts the restriction of liberty to protect against other harms than liberty-deprivation, such as by laws against slander, libel, and publications which grossly infringe privacy. What is the solution for John Rawls, faced with this criticism? One solution is, by the reflective equilibrium method, to justify abandoning the judgment that these actions are immoral.

This article investigates the problem of the identity of the parts of space in Newton’s natural philosophy, as well as the holistic or structuralist nature of Newton’s ontology of space. Additionally, this article relates the lessons reached in this historical and philosophical investigation to analogous debates in contemporary space-time ontology. While previous contributions, by Nerlich, Huggett, and others, have proven to be informative in evaluating Newton’s claims, it will be argued that the underlying goals of Newton’s views have largely eluded (...) prior analysis and that Newton’s approach is similar, and lends support, to several current structuralist trends in the conception of space-time ontology. (shrink)

In his The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera describes how he was fired from his job and secretly wrote astrology columns. I register a puzzle that various readers should feel about this information, owing to the distinctive style of Kundera: how can this be kept a secret? I also propose solutions.

There are other problems for John Rawls’s philosophy that can be extracted from Henry Sidgwick’s discussion of the priority of freedom, apart from the problem H.L.A. Hart focuses on. This paper considers one such problem – that it is an empirical issue whether a sane adult is better off more free, rather than something to be assumed – and presents one Rawlsian solution.

Are John Rawls’s most noticeable methodological contributions, reflective equilibrium and the original position, consistent with each other? I draw attention to a worry that they stand in inconsistent relationships to the claim that ought implies can: it can only be the case that we ought to do something if we can do it.

This paper explores the Cartesian physics of circular motion, in particular, the long-standing puzzle concerning the possible role of a circular inertial concept in Descartes' theories. Although some commentators have claimed that Descartes' famous "rotating sling" examples favor a rotational component of "striving" towards motion, and that this aspect of his project constitutes a form of inertial thinking, it will be argued that a much stronger case for a Cartesian brand of rotational inertial motion can be constructed from a little-known (...) correspondence, the letter to Ciermans, dated 1638. (shrink)

[The version of this paper published by Oxford online in 2019 was not copy-edited and has some sense-obscuring typos. I have posted a corrected (but not the final published) version on this site. The version published in print in 2020 has these corrections.] Which is more fundamental, assertion or testimony? Should we understand assertion as basic, treating testimony as what you get when you add an interpersonal addressee? Or should we understand testimony as basic, treating mere assertion -- assertion without (...) testimony -- as what you get when you subtract that interpersonal relation? In this chapter, I’ll argue for the subtractive approach and for the more general thesis that its treatment of the interpersonal element in assertion makes understanding that interpersonal element the key to understanding how assertion expresses belief. My theory of belief-expression in assertion treats it as internalizing the transmission of belief in testimony. How we understand that internalizing move depends on how we conceptualize the interpersonal element in testimony. Since what I’ll call the Command Model does not give us the conceptual resources to make this move, we should adopt an alternative that I’ll call the Custodial Model, on which a testifier aims not to convince her addressee but to reason with him – to give him reasons to believe what she tells him grounded in her trustworthiness in thus attempting to influence him. The subtractive approach to assertion thus rests on a key distinction between the aims of reasoning and persuasion. (shrink)

This is a one-page handout presenting some objections nationalists might or do make to John Rawls's original position method.

I identify two seemingly good reasons for obscure writing, one to do with avoiding plagiarism or near-plagiarism (which I have identified before), and the other to do with avoiding attracting readers who prefer accessible writing but nevertheless have no space for you in the structure of roles they envisage.

This is a one page handout presenting objections from Gluckman's book Politics, Law, and Ritual in Tribal Society.

This paper proposes (once again) that a controversy has been omitted from Robert Graves’s account of how the Greek myths became an established part of the British education system. I address a question from the secondary literature on Bruno Latour: why can’t we see this controversy? Two reasons are speculatively identified.

This is a one page handout, which specifies four uses of the social organism analogy in British structural-functionalist anthropology and contrasts these uses with uses in analytic political philosophy.

This paper presents a Davidsonian perspective on Derek Parfit’s disagreements with Nietzsche. I have actually gone further, too far perhaps, and tried to imitate Davidson’s attractive essayistic style.

The philosopher and builder Ludwig Wittgenstein remarks that architecture is more difficult than philosophy. He suggests an exhaustion criterion for how difficult a discipline is: a field is more difficult the more exhausting it is. I make a case against this claim. There was once a demand to prevent the Greek myths from establishing themselves in the curriculum by means of “our own rival myths.” It is difficult to compete with a renowned Greek myth, but if one does produce a (...) rival, it may well not be exhausting to do so. (shrink)

An explanation for why the Bisa do not perform a traditional dance to express their identity is all-or-nothing reasoning: “We would have to water it down for this audience and that is not a Bisa dance.”.

This brief paper considers what to say about someone who responds to Saul Kripke’s writing by saying, “He uses ‘I’. That sounds subjective.” What to say about such an inference?! The main response I offer is that philosophy is partly about challenging, not encouraging, mistaken inferences.

According to the preference-centric approach to understanding partial belief, the connection between partial beliefs and preferences is key to understanding what partial beliefs are and how they’re measured. As Ramsey put it, the ‘degree of a belief is a causal property of it, which we can express vaguely as the extent to which we are prepared to act on it’ The Foundations of Mathematics and Other Logical Essays, Routledge, Oxon, pp 156–198, 1931). But this idea is not as popular as (...) it once was. Nowadays, the preference-centric approach is frequently dismissed out-of-hand as behaviouristic, unpalatably anti-realist, and/or prone to devastating counterexamples. Cases like Eriksson and Hájek’s :183–213, 2007) preferenceless Zen monk and Christensen’s :356–376, 2001) other roles argument have suggested to many that any account of partial belief that ties them too closely to preferences is irretrievably flawed. In this paper I provide a defence of preference-centric accounts of partial belief. (shrink)

This paper presents two reasons for writing philosophy fast: to succeed in certain competitions; and to realize new and better ideas.

Which moral judgments should one pay attention to in building a moral philosophy? Thomas Kelly and Sarah McGrath object to John Rawls’s suggestion to not rely on judgments heavily bound up with one’s own interests. I propose a solution in response to the objection.

This paper responds to Thomas Kelly and Sarah McGrath’s worry that there can be evil reflective equilibrium. I propose that some of John Rawls’s restrictions on moral judgments we can enter into the procedure serve to protect against evil reflective equilibrium.

A brief handout summarizing Andrew Lang's criticisms of Frazer.

This essay presents an alternative to contemporary substantivalist and relationist interpretations of quantum gravity hypotheses by means of an historical comparison with the ontology of space in the seventeenth century. Utilizing differences in the spatial geometry between the foundational theory and the theory derived from the foundational, in conjunction with nominalism and platonism, it will be argued that there are crucial similarities between seventeenth century and contemporary theories of space, and that these similarities reveal a host of underlying conceptual issues (...) that the substantival/relational dichotomy fails to distinguish. (shrink)

Why is there a norm of reciprocity in certain societies – the recipient of a gift should give a gift in return? Or what is its function? Sir James Frazer provides an unobvious answer to the function of such a norm in one society: it serves to establish who is alive.

This paper presents a paradox of the concept of the right wing, because it groups together significantly different political philosophies, in terms of premises and conclusions – ones that recommend a minimal state and ones oriented towards preserving the traditions of a community. It also presents a meta-paradox: everyone has noticed this and yet it is my paradox!

This paper presents a puzzle that occurred to me while reading Milan Kundera defining graphomania: a mania for writing books for an unknown public. I also present a solution.

Robert Nozick declares that scanning complex wholes is not easy. Presumably few people exhibited the skill before Nozick, but I propose another explanation for why few people exhibit it than difficulty. Focusing specifically on scanning for inconsistencies, papers conveying them won’t look impressive to certain evaluators.

J.G. Frazer tells us about a last resort technique which Cambodian hunters use when they have caught nothing in their nets. The “technique” is they act as if they themselves have got caught in the net. Frazer explains this as the consequence of magical thinking, but I propose a different explanation.

Parts of the Victorian middle class were troubled by how Victorian society was both highly evolved and contained savage parts. I propose a solution to the paradox they faced.

In this paper, I present a way in which John Rawls’s original position thought experiment can be brought closer to nationalism. The social science laws can be taken from a nation’s heritage.

Milan Kundera is now perhaps the greatest living philosopher, but he suffers from logical problems. One might propose that since he is a person who works primarily in the medium of fiction, one should not be too harsh on him, rather find ways to make him more logical. The result may be rather chaste.

Max Gluckman introduces us to if-I-were-a-horse arguments, but what is wrong with them? In this paper, I draw attention to an objection built-in to the terminology.

In the Principles of Philosophy, Descartes attempts to explicate the well-known phenomena of varying bodily size through an appeal to the concept of "solidity," a notion that roughly corresponds to our present-day concept of density. Descartes' interest in these issues can be partially traced to the need to define clearly the role of matter in his natural laws, a problem particularly acute for the application of his conservation principle. Specifically, since Descartes insists that a body's "quantity of motion," defined as (...) the product of its "size" and speed, is conserved in all material interactions, it is imperative that he explain how solidity influences the magnitude of this force. As a means of resolving this problem, Descartes postulated an idealized condition of "perfect solidity" which correlates a body's "agitation" force (a forerunner of Newton's concept of non-accelerating, or "inertial" motion) with the interplay of its volume, surface area, and composition of minute particles. This essay explores this often misunderstood aspect of Descartes' physics, as well as the special function of idealized conditions in his collision rules. Contrary to those commentators who regard "perfect solidity" as a stipulation on bodily impact, this notion, it will be argued, is primarily concerned with the internal composition of macroscopic bodies, and only indirectly with their collision characteristics. Along the way, many of Descartes' hypotheses will be shown to display a level of sophistication and intricacy that, despite their essential incompatibility, belie several of the common misconceptions of Cartesian science. (shrink)