In this paper, I present a solution to the Doomsday argument based on a third type of solution, by contrast to, on the one hand, the Carter-Leslie view and, on the other hand, the Eckhardt et al. analysis. I begin by strengthening both competing models by highlighting some variations of their original models, which renders them less vulnerable to several objections. I then describe a third line of solution, which incorporates insights from both Leslie and Eckhardt’s models and fits more adequately with the human situation corresponding to DA. I argue then that this two-sided analogy casts new light on the reference class problem. This leads finally to a novel formulation of the argument that could well be more plausible than the original one.

“Merleau-Ponty’s Corpus” attempts to answer the following question: How is it possible for us today to develop a viable political theory and practice without Modernist epistemological foundations? The answer to this question is sought in the body of Merleau-Ponty’s work, in the balance of a philosophy that comes between Modernism and Postmodernism, in a body of work that must be regarded as continuous and not as fragmented into distinct periods that focus first on perception, then on language, and finally on politics.

When Richard Rorty passed away in June of 2007, we lost a philosopher who contributed to a major number of philosophical currents, a thinker who, with his writing, managed to be at a height of an epoch. This interview was conducted during the year 2005–2006, and it has not been published in English. I publish it now as a way of honoring one of the most interesting philosophers of recent years.

G. E. M. Anscombe’s view that agents know what they are doing “without observation” has been met with skepticism and the charge of confusion and falsehood. Simultaneously, some commentators think that Anscombe has captured an important truth about the first-personal character of an agent’s awareness of her actions. This paper attempts an explanation and vindication of Anscombe’s view. The key to the vindication lies in focusing on the role of practical knowledge in an agent’s knowledge of her actions. Few commentators, with the exception of Moran (2004) and Hursthouse (2000), have gotten the emphasis right. The key to a proper interpretation of Anscombe’s views is to explain her claims within the context of her teleological theory of action. The result is a theory ofintentional action that makes self-knowledge of one’s own actions the norm.

This paper explores the prospects for safety-based theories of knowledge in the light of some recent objections.

Reliabilism is invoked by a standard causal response to the slow switching argument for incompatibilism about mental content externalism and privileged access. Though the response in question is negative, in that it only establishes that, given such an epistemology, externalism does not rule privileged access out, the appeal to reliabilism involves an assumption about the reliability of introspection, an assumption that in turn grounds a simple argument for the positive conclusion that reliabilism itself implies privileged access. This paper offers a two-part defense of that conclusion: the reliabilist account of privileged access is defended both againstarguments in favor of the rival content inheritance strategy and against an argument turning on empirical considerations concerning the individuation of the belief-producing process of introspection.

John Hick attempts to justify evil’s existence by claiming it is necessary for the process of “soul-making,” which allows for the development of a more valuable type of moral character than a world without evil. Hick’s theodicy has ramifications for ethics as well as philosophy of religion. His theodicy commits him to a conception of virtue theory that significantly departs from the ethical theories held by many theists. An explication of Hick’s ethical theory and comparison with relevant aspects of Thomas Aquinas’s ethical theory showshow Hick’s ethical theory makes this departure. At stake in this paper is whether Hick’s ethical theory and account of the virtue of love make his theodicy less plausible.

I consider an alleged example of a non-transitive causal chain, on the basis of which J. Lee has argued that causation is non-transitive. I show that his analysis of the example rests on too coarse-grained an approach to causal relata. I develop a fine-grained analysis of events which owes much to Dretske’s notion of an allomorphic event, and I use this analysis to show that in the example all the genuine causal chains are indeed transitive. It emerges that when fine-grained analyses of events are possible, causal contexts are aIlomorphicaIly sensitive.

The ontological argument--first proposed by St. Anselm and subsequently deveIoped by Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel and Marx--furnishes a key to understanding the relationship between thought and reality. In this article we shall focus on Hegel’s attitude towards the ontological argument as set out in his Science of Logic, where it appears as a paradigm of the relationship between thought and reality. It should be remarked, moreover, that our choice of the subject was not random and that it was seIected for the reason that belief in God is a preeminent social reality, inasmuch as faith in God creates His existence. Therefore, an investigation of the concept of God is an inquiry into the most profound recesses of human consciousness.The great opponents of the ontological argument, from Hume down to our day--and even Kant--have based their arguments upon the fundamental empiricist assertion that existential judgments are not analytical. In this paper we attempt to defend the ontological argument against its opponents.

In this article I attempt to survey work on Hobbes within the period from 1975 to 1989. The text is restricted almost exclusively to work in English on topics in moral and political philosophy. The bibliography is more comprehensive, including work on other aspects of Hobbes’ philosophy and work written in a variety of other languages.The central questions on which the text focuses are these: what psychological assumptions underlie Hobbes’ moral and political conclusions? in particular, what roles do egoism, the striving for self-preservation, and the desire for glory play in his system? to what extent is Hobbes committcd to the claim that the state of nature is a war or all against all? does that war stem from human rationality or from human irrationality? does Hobbes view morality as entirely a human invention, a creation of the state? if people had the psychology Hobbes assumes in justifying the institution of a sovereign, would they be able to institute one? to what extent does Hobbes regard rebellion as justifiable?I devote an attention some people may find excessive to recent works by Greg Kavka and Jean Hampton. I share Gautier’s view that they will prove landmarks in Hobbes scholarship. But I do try also to pay attention to other interesting work by authors like Richard Tuck, Tom Sorell, and David Johnston, and I have many criticisms to make of Kavka and Hampton.

This paper argues that a fact which constitutes part of a subject’s being justified in adopting an action or a belief at a particular time need not be part of what induced the subject to adopt that action or belief but it must be something to which the subject had immediate access. It argues that similar points hold for justification of the involuntary acquisition of a belief and for the justification of continuing a belief (actively or dispositionally.)

Kantian ethics is both very much alive and very much under attack in recent moral philosophy, and so I propose to review some of the discussion, though I must say in advance that my review will have to be incomplete and oversimplified in various ways.

This paper outIines an account of rational action. It distinguishes three species of reasons: motivating reasons, evidential reasons, and normative reasons. It also contends that there is a univocal notion of reason common to the notions of motivating reasons, evidential reasons, and normative reasons. Given this thesis, the paper explains how we can have a unified theory of reasons for action. It also explains the role of values in rational action. It sketches an affective approach to value that contrasts with prominent desire-satisfaction approaches.

Alfred Mele has recentIy attempted to direct attention to a neglected species of irrational belief which he calls ‘incontinent belief’. He has devoted a paper and an entire chapter (chapter eight) of his book, Irrationality (Oxford University Press, 1987) to explaining its logical possibility. In what follows, I will appeal to familiar facts about the difference between belief and action to make a case that it is entirely unproblematic that incontinent belief is logically possible. In the process, I will call into question the philosophical intercst of incontinent belief. If what I say is correct, incontinent belief does not warrant the attention of philosophers of mind.

Recent views on practical rationality harmonize well with a fundamentally Kantian conception of the foundations of morality. Rationality in practical thinking is not a matter of valid reasoning, or of foIlowing maximization principles. From an agent-centered perspective, it consists in observing certain standards of consistency. In themselves, these standards lack the force of duties, hence there can be no irresolvable conflict between rationality and morality. Furthermore, the Kantian test of universalization for maxims of action may be scen as adapting agent-centered standards of consistency to the task of specifying moral duties, so that objective rationality and morality are one and the same.

Williams claims that the only particular moral truths, and perhaps the only moral truths of any kind, are nonobjective, i.e., culture-bound. For Lovibond we have moral truths when an assertion-condition is satisfied, and that is determined by the voice of the relevant moral authority as embodied in the institutions of the sittlich morality. According to MacIntyre one must speak from within a living tradition for which there can be no external rational grounding. However, if my criticisms of traditional philosophical ethics are sound, such relativist and historicist views are unjustified, and the project of seeking a rationally grounded morality is perfectly in order.

John Haugeland, in Artiftcial Intelligence: The Very Idea, predicts that it will not be possible to create systems whieh understand discourse about people unless those systems share certain characteristics of people, specifically what he calls “ego involvement”. I argue that he has failed to establish this. In fact, I claim that his argument fails at two points. First, he has not established that it is impossible to understand ego involvement without simulating the processes which underlie it. Second, even if the first point be granted, the conclusion does not follow, for it is possible to simulate ego involvement without having it.

There is a puzzle that is faced by every philosophical account of rational belief, rational strategy, rational planning or whatever. I describe this puzzle, examine Richard Fumerton’s proposed solution to it and then go on to sketch my own preferred solution.