Abstract: In discussions about the ethics of enhancement, it is often claimed that the concept of ‘human nature’ has no helpful role to play. There are two ideas behind this thought. The first is that nature, human nature included, is a mixed bag. Some parts of our nature are good for us and some are bad for us. The ‘mixed bag’ idea leads naturally to the second idea: the fact that something is part of our nature is, by itself, normatively inert. The Inert View claims that nothing normative follows from the mere fact that some trait is a part of our nature. If the Inert View is correct, then appeals to the value or importance of human nature in debates about enhancement are indeed misplaced. We argue that the Inert View is wrong, and that a certain concept of human nature – which we refer to as ‘human form’ – does have an important role to play in debates about enhancement.

Abstract: The role normative ethics has in guiding action is unclear. Once moral theorists hoped that they could devise a decision procedure that would enable agents to solve difficult moral problems. Repeated attacks by anti-theorists seemingly dashed this hope. Although the dispute between moral theorists and anti-theorists rages no longer, no decisive victor has emerged. To determine how we ought to make moral decisions, I argue, we must first examine how we do decide in moral situations. Intuitionism correctly captures the essence of the moral element in such situations, finding itself located somewhere between moral theory and anti-theory. In order that intuitionism may constitute an improvement over predecessors in normative ethics we must proceed with awareness of the limits imposed by the still dominant framework of modern moral theory. I argue that the deliberatively open system of intuitionism, interlocked in practice with prudential considerations, allows us to constructively move normative ethics beyond those limits.

Abstract: Atheists in general need share no particular political or metaphysical views, but atheists of the most modern, Western, militant sort, escaping from a merely nihilistic mind-set, are usually humanists of an especially triumphalist kind. In this paper I offer a critical analysis and partial history of their claims, suggesting that they are members of a distinctively Christian heretical sect, formed in reaction to equally heretical forms of monotheistic idolatry.

Abstract: Hume and Smith advance different answers to the question of whether sympathy can ever be the foundation of the moral order. They hold contradictory views of sympathy, called here ‘the Fellow-Feeling Paradox’. For Hume, fellow-feeling tends to reverberate in society, leading to the socialization of the individual and even mob (collective) psychology. Hence, sympathy cannot be the foundation of the moral order. In contrast, for Smith, fellow-feeling develops into critical judgment of the emotions/actions, leading to individual moral autonomy even self-command. Hence, sympathy can be the foundation of the moral order. This paper provides a resolution of the two answers.

Abstract: Divine command theories of metaethics are commonly rejected on the basis of the Euthyphro problem. In this paper, I argue that the Euthyphro can be raised for all forms of moral realism. I go on to argue that this does not matter as the Euthyphro is not really a problem after all. I then briefly outline some of the attractions of a divine command theory of metaethics. I suggest that given one of the major reasons for rejecting such an analysis has been found to be unsound divine command theories deserve to be taken more seriously in contemporary metaethics.

Abstract: This article concerns arguments for the impossibility of contact action and, subsequently, the use of force fields to render intelligible apparent cases of contact action. I argue that instead of unraveling the mystery of contact action, fields only deepen the mystery. Further, I show that there is a confusion underlying arguments for the impossibility of contact and present an analysis of contact, based upon Korner's treatment of empirical continuity, which restores intelligibility to apparent cases of contact action

Abstract: The role of hypothetical acts, as opposed to actual acts, has been neglected in understanding the nature of what is required by the Respect for Persons formulation of the Categorical Imperative in concrete moral relations between persons. This had led to a failure to understand fully the way and the extent to which the Categorical Imperative may be present in all such relations with others as encapsulated in an appropriate attitude towards others that may refer to hypothetical acts, as well as actual acts. The result is an underestimation of the direct relevance and moral efficacy of the Categorical Imperative.

Abstract: My goal in this paper is to elucidate a problematic feature of Newton's metaphysics of absolute space. Specifically, I argue that Newton's theory has the untenable consequence that God depends on space for His existence and is therefore not an independent entity. I argue for this conclusion in stages. First, I show that Newton believed that space was an entity and that God and space were ontologically distinct entities. Part of this involves arguing that Newton denies that space is a divine attribute. I then show that Newton endorsed a principle according to which the existence of space is a necessary condition for the existence of any other entity. Following this, I discuss the ways in which this makes God depend on space for His existence and the reasons why this is unacceptable for traditional conceptions of God. Specifically, I show that it is incompatible with the orthodox position that God be entirely independent and self-determining. Finally, I offer two considerations which, I hope, make the problem seem less serious than it first appears. The first consideration has to do with Newton's polemical context and the second has to do with the nature of his theological thought.

Abstract: During the period roughly of the 1950s Oxford was generally regarded as the most important center of philosophy in the world, the one where the most interesting philosophical activity was going on. It was indeed so distinctive that the very name ‘Oxford Philosophy’ meant not just the philosophy that happened to be practiced in Oxford but a special kind of philosophy that gave a central importance to the study of language as the major topic of philosophical investigation. It is not an exaggeration to describe this period as a golden age of Oxford Philosophy. Quite by coincidence, my initial stay in Oxford from 1952–1959 happened to be during the high watermark of Oxford Philosophy.

Abstract: There is a decided consensus that Kantian ethics yields an absolutist case against torture – that torture is morally wrong and absolutely so. I argue that while there is a Kantian case against torture, Kantian ethics does not clearly entail absolutism about torture. I consider several arguments for a Kantian absolutist position concerning torture and explain why none are sound. I close by clarifying just what the Kantian case against torture is. My contention is that while Kantian ethics does not support a variety of moral absolutism about torture, it does suggest a strong version of legal absolutism.

Abstract: Polemics are a sort of critique typically suffused with inimical emotions and passions. But how are these emotions and passions to be construed? Neither authorial expression nor actual arousal properly account for their role in polemics. Rather, the polemicist must stage an unequal battle between a polemical self and the polemical target vis-a-vis an anticipated audience, skilfully handling, through his or her words, the emotions ascribed to each of them.

Abstract: David Lewis's Principal Principle (PP) states that our credence in a single case follows from the general probability of all such cases. Against this stands the Challenge Argument (CA) – to show that the inference is justified. Recent (1) law-to-chance, (2) Bayesian, and (3) propensity theories of probability take up the challenge – but, I argue, fall short. Rather, we should understand (4) propensity via Aristotle's analysis of spontaneity (5) and probabilistic reasoning via the Anti-PP and (6) the practice of bundling one offs, where (7) forced bad-odds one offs illuminate how extensive a role luck plays in our lives

Abstract: «Философский журнал» продолжает публиковать тексты, написанные в рамках совместного проекта Института философии РАН и московской городской библиотеки им. Ф.М. Достоевского «Анатомия философии: как работает текст», целью которого является вхождение академической философии в публичное пространство России, русскоязычного мира за рубежами нашей страны. За два года работы проекта в Интернете размещено более шестидесяти видеозаписей лекций и бесед по актуальным проблемам философии, в специальной рубрике «Анатомия философии», открытой с 2015 г. в «Философском журнале», опубликовано шестнадцать академических статей, два иллюстрированных информационных материала вышли в 2015 г. в журнале «Философские науки». При поддержке РГНФ до конца 2016 г. издательством «Языки славянских культур» будет издана девятисотстраничная книга «Анатомия философии: как работает текст», содержащая тридцать восемь научных статей и иллюстрированная пятьюстами двадцатью цветными фотографиями, на которых запечатлены философы за работой и лица их слушателей. Проект представляет собой видеои фотолетопись философской, интеллектуальной жизни Москвы начала XXI столетия. По итогам работы второго цикла проекта – тематических лекций «Творчество Фридриха Ницше в историко-философском контексте» – подготовлен к изданию трехъязычный сборник статей «Фридрих Ницше: наследие и проект». Цель книги – рассказать о проблемном поле ницшеведения первой четверти XXI столетия. Три десятка авторитетных философов из четырнадцати стран, работающих в ведущих университетах и научно-исследовательских центрах России, Европы и Америки, обсуждают на его страницах влияние творчества The Philosophy Journal 2016, Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 158–160 DOI: 10.21146/2072-0726-2016-9-4-158-160 Философский журнал 2016. Т. 9. No 4. С. 158–160 УДК 101.1

Abstract: It’s big, it’s very big – over a thousand pages on the history of analytic philosophy, consisting of 34 chapters, arranged into 3 parts, covering themes and episodes from the 19 century precursors of analytic philosophy to the present day. Bolzano to Brandom almost covers it. Part I is entitled ‘Origins of Analytic Philosophy’, Part II ‘The Development of Analytic Philosophy’ and Part III ‘Themes in the History of Analytic Philosophy’. There are also 4 introductory chapters by the editor, which will be especially useful to the novice, on the nature of our discipline and its historiography, including a 73-page chronology of analytic philosophy, which starts in 1781with the publication of the 1 edition of Kant’sCritique of Pure Reason and terminates in 2013 with the publication of the Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy. (Health warning: I must confess at this point I have found reading and reflecting upon Beaney’s chronology to be curiously compelling, to the point of distraction, because it just calls out to you to spot for absences, which no doubt is part of the point. I’ll come back to the matter.) The 34 authors of the other entries include many authoritative figures whose work on the history of analytic philosophy is well known but there are welcome new faces offering new perspectives too. The entries differ somewhat in the level at which they are written. Some will serve well as entry points into the issues they discuss for a relative novice, whilst others are more demanding and presuppose considerably more background on the part of their reader. Nonetheless, because of the extraordinary range of the entries, there is pretty much sure to be something here for everyone. Well, almost. I havewhat, for want of a label, might be described as left and right wing reservations that I’d like to share with you. Histories of analytic philosophy have often (understandably) focused upon developments in the philosophy of logic and language. It’s an especially welcome feature of this volume that it also includes bespoke chapters on how analytic philosophers have applied their trade to meta-ethics, normative ethics, aesthetics and politics. Here’s the left wing reservation. It’s a little disappointing that there aren’t also chapters on what analytic philosophers have had to say about religion or about feminism, areas where there has been a great deal of analytic activity.

Abstract: The demands of morality ought to be intelligible. However they are not always readily intelligible. Thus it is easy to see why we need good sense and courage, and why we should seek to live at peace with our neighbours. But moral necessity is not always that transparent. Furthermore the intelligibility we seek is perhaps not always of this kind. This paper illustrates these difficulties by considering certain basic and unshakable convictions we share about homicide and sexuality, two topics we tend to think badly about. And it explores a significant similarity in the moral philosophies of Anscombe and Kant

Abstract: The aim of this article is twofold. First, I want to offer an introduction of and a comparison between three accounts of philistinism. Secondly, I show how the phenomenon of philistinism, a failure to speak for oneself, helps to develop an original perspective on Wittgenstein's moral thought. It is often claimed that Wittgenstein's personal ethics were quite unorthodox because he repeatedly seems to have supported destruction, war and slavery. I argue that, in the light of my discussion of philistinism, the remarks upon which such conclusions are based should be read differently.

Abstract: A few months ago the news of the publication of Heidegger’s Black Notebooks (so-called as they are bound in black waxcloth) came as a bombshell.2 Crucial citations were circulated both in Germany and France prior to their publication suggesting that Heidegger’s philosophywas inherentlyantisemitic.TheNouvelObservateur referred toune nouvelle ‘affaire’ Heidegger;3 Die Zeit to ‘the poisoned heritage’4 and Die Neue Züricher Zeitung to a ‘veiled philosophical antisemitism’.5 Even those not familiar with Heidegger’s work know at least one thing about him: that he was a Nazi. Why should we then be so scandalized to learn that Heidegger was also an antisemite? After all that is part of what defines the National Socialist ideology which Heidegger so readily endorsed. There have been endless debates about how to understand Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism. From the outset these discussions centred not only on Heidegger,

Abstract: sibility. But it is arguable that the implicit appeal to our intuitions often does figure in philosophical argument, and constitutes evidence for Centrality. To take one example, in his discussion of veridical hallucination and non-standard causal chains, David Lewis is plausibly read as appealing to intuitions about which causal processes issue in hallucinations, when he considers cases involving a ‘nonstandard causal process’ linking an object before the subject’s eyes to a subsequent visual experience. Our intuitions about these cases are taken by Lewis to support the need to add a further sufficient condition into the analysis of seeing. More could be said also about the method of reflective equilibrium used in assessing normative questions. An important passage from Nelson Goodman’s Fact Fiction and Forecast – one which is cited by Cappelen, but not then further explored in any detail – contains the key proposal: ‘A rule is amended if it yields an inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejected if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend’ (italics in the original). I do not know how to read the uses of ‘unwilling’ in this passage except as connected with appeals to our intuitions, when reasoned argument reaches an end. Despite the reservations I have about some features of Cappelen’s overall argument, I find this an interesting work about the nature of philosophical methodology, focusing onmatters that are deserving of careful study. While there is some repetition of points and occasional backtracking, the cases he considers generate many points of interest, and on the whole the careful approach is to be commended. The enterprise is an original one, and the book raises important issues, about which we need to develop a deeper understanding.

Abstract: of her book. Once the relevance and character of the sublime experience has been established, Brady defends the view – which has been criticized from different angles – that the experience of sublime nature possesses a specific kind of value. This is grounded precisely in the way it makes us aware, through the feelings proper to the sublime, of a particular relationship between us, as human and moral beings, and nature. She does not defend the strong view that experiences of sublime nature radically transform us from a moral point of view. But she certainly thinks that the specific sort of awareness of our relationship to nature that we gain through the experience of sublime nature possesses both moral and cognitive value: it expands our perceptual abilities as well as our moral awareness. And by doing so it may prompt respectful attitudes towards nature both as a particular appreciated environment and as a whole.

Abstract: Bryan Magee's recent paper ‘Clarity in Philosophy’ argues that instead of focusing on clarity at the sentence level, writers should emphasize formulating their ideas clearly before any writing takes place. In part using text-analysis of three well-known philosophers, I will uphold Magee's assertion that clear writing is not necessary in order to be considered a great philosopher. On the other hand, I will challenge his ideas regarding the relationship between language and cognition by reflecting on ways in which writing aids the development of ideas.

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed a great spurt of research activity on Kant’s natural science. Kant scholars have long appreciated the central role that Kant’s reflections on natural science play in the overall economy of Kant’s theoretical and also practical philosophy.1 What is distinctively new in this recent trend is the attention paid to the historico-philosophical context for Kant’s natural science, and the very nuanced influences that both Newton’s natural philosophy and Leibniz’s dynamics exercised on him. The present edited collection of Kant’s essays on natural science by Eric Watkins is a marvelous addition to The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. It comprises sixteen essays, and brings to the English-speaking world the very first English translation of Kant’s Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (1746–9) as well as translations of many other less well-known essays about the age of the Earth (1754), the causes of earthquakes (1756), the theory of winds (1756), and the volcanoes on the Moon (1785), among others. The volume offers also new English translations, with extensive notes and very informative introductions, of classical texts such as Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755), and Physical Geography (1802), among others, spanning across both Kant’s pre-Critical and Critical period. What clearly emerges from this edited collection is Kant’s systematic engagement with a surprising variety of scientific topics throughout his career. In what follows, I concentrate my attention very selectively to three pre-Critical texts – True Estimation, Universal Natural History, and On Fire – to highlight one particular theme emerging from Kant’s natural science and its lasting impact on Kant’s mature work: namely, Kant’s reflection on the nature of the repulsive force.

Abstract: Are or should the assumptions, methods, and aims of philosophy be scientific or humanistic? I take Quine to represent the view that if philosophy is done as it should be, it is scientific. A contrary view is that philosophy rightly pursued is humanistic. I consider Williams' defense of it. My aim in this paper is to show that each view is partly right and partly wrong and to propose an alternative that includes what I take to be right and excludes what I take to be wrong in both views.

Abstract: I dispute a widespread contrast between the sciences and the humanities that undervalues the latter compared to the former. This contrast assumes that science is more valuable than the humanities because it is more useful, an assumption I reject on the grounds that (a) science is not more useful than the humanities and (b) the value of usefulness, being instrumental, depends on the non-instrumental value of what it's usefulness for. I conclude that science is not made more valuable than the humanities either by its instrumental or by its non-instrumental value.

Abstract: Philosophical development of Leibniz's view that time is merely earlier–later order is necessary because neither Leibniz nor modern followers sufficiently answered the Newtonian charge that order does not give quantity. Logically, order is transitive, quantity, as in distance, is not. Quantity, as well as order, is naturally assumed in Newton's absolute time, so that to declare the mere relative order sufficient is to have to show how quantity can arise for it. The modern theory of the continuum, perfectly applicable to Newton's absolute, does not show this but assumes quantity. The development given here shows how interval, instant and simultaneity can be logically developed from Leibniz's insight

Abstract: Because of the communicative function of propositions, Logic is a moral science about what ought to be said. The association with morality derives from the connection between Logic and Truth, and the social value of speaking the truth. Propositions are used rather than mentioned sentences, and so are not the platonically abstract objects they have often been taken to be. Instead they are social objects formed by a community's employment of language. So it is the public use of sentences that settles what they mean, and thereby their logic. The matter has a particular relevance to Graham Priest's non-classical views.

Abstract: В общественном сознании бытует представление, согласно которому причина отставания исламского мира от Запада заключается в подчинении на мусульманском Востоке светского начала религиозному, науки – религии. В академических кругах имеет хождение точка зрения, согласно которой в угасании потенциала рационализма у мусульман и погружении в исламский мистицизм (суфизм) немалую роль сыграл крупнейший исламский теолог, философ и факих-правовед ал-Газали ’Абу Хамид. Обычно те, кто считает ал-Газали антирационалистом, стоявшим на антифилософских позициях, ссылаются на его труд «Избавляющий от заблуждений» (ал-Мункиз мин ад-далал), где он пишет, что на всех философах лежит клеймо неверия. Статья посвящена иному подходу к оценке отношения ал-Газали к философии и рационализму в целом. Рассмотрены доводы, ставящие под сомнение утверждения о связи его деятельности с ослаблением и упадком рационализма в исламском мире. Согласно этому подходу, ал-Газали критиковал не разум и рациональное, а критиковал претензии на абсолютизацию разума. Ал-Газали продолжил рационалистическую линию исламской теологии (калам) в лице ашаризма и арабо-мусульманского перипатетизма, нашедшего наиболее полное выражение в учении Авиценны. Ал-Газали разрабатывал свое учение с опорой на ряд основных положений философии Авиценны. Ключевые слова: ал-Газали, мистицизм, суфизм, философия, Авиценна