Michael P. Levine

This is a timely and stimulating collection of essays on the importance of Freudian thought for analytic philosophy, investigating its impact on mind, ethics, sexuality, religion and epistemology. Marking a clear departure from the long-standing debate over whether Freudian thought is scientific or not, _The Analytic Freud_ expands the framework of philosophical inquiry, demonstrating how fertile and mutually enriching the relationship between philosophy and psychoanalysis can be. The essays are divided into four clear sections, addressing the implications of Freud for philosophy of mind, ethics, sexuality and civilisation. The authors discuss the problems psychoanalysis poses for contemporary philosophy as well as what philosophy can learn from Freud's legacy and undeniable influence. For instance, _The Analytic Freud_ discusses the problems presented by pyschoanalytic theories of the mind for the philosophy of language; the issues which current theories of mind and meaning raise for psychoanalytic accounts of emotion, metaphor, the will and self-deception; the question whether psychoanalytic theory is essential in understanding sexuality, love, humour and the tensions which arise out of personal relationships. _The Analytic Freud_ is a critical and thorough examination of Freudian and post-Freudian theory, adding a welcome and significant dimension to the debate between psychoanalysis and contemporary philosophy.

HUME’S ARGUMENT AGAINST JUSTIFIED BELIEF IN MIRACLES CANNOT BE PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD APART FROM HIS ANALYSIS OF CAUSATION. IT IS ARGUED THAT HUME’S POSITION HAS NEVER BEEN CORRECTLY INTERPRETED BECAUSE ITS CONNECTION WITH HIS MORE GENERAL METAPHYSICS HAS NEVER BEEN ADEQUATELY EXAMINED. TO UNDERSTAND HUME’S VIEW ON MIRACLES THE FOLLOWING QUESTION MUST BE ANSWERED: WHY DID HUME THINK THAT ONE COULD JUSTIFIABLY BELIEVE THAT AN "EXTRAORDINARY" EVENT HAD OCCURRED, BUT THAT ONE COULD "NEVER" JUSTIFIABLY BELIEVE A "MIRACLE" HAD OCCURRED? THIS BOOK OFFERS A SUSTAINED TREATMENT OF THAT QUESTION. IT IS ALSO ARGUED THAT IT MAKES NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE WHETHER HUME’S CENTRAL ARGUMENT IS INTERPRETED AS AN "A PRIORI" OR AN "A POSTERIORI" ARGUMENT; AND THAT HIS ARGUMENT IS APPLICABLE BOTH TO BELIEF BASED ON TESTIMONY AND DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF A MIRACLE. IN PART II THE CENTRAL QUESTION ADDRESSED IS WHETHER OR NOT ANYONE CAN JUSTIFIABLY BELIEVE A MIRACLE TO HAVE OCCURRED GIVEN A CONTEMPORARY EPISTEMOL

In this paper, we argue that revisionary theories about the nature and extent of Hume's scepticism are mistaken. We claim that the source of Hume's pervasive scepticism is his empiricism. As earlier readings of Hume's Treatise claim, Hume was a sceptic – and a radical one. Our position faces one enormous problem. How is it possible to square Hume's claims about normative reasoning with his radical scepticism? Despite the fact that Hume thinks that causal (inductive) reasoning is irrational, he explicitly claims that one can and should make normative claims about beliefs being ‘reasonable’. We show that even though Hume thinks that our causal (inductive) beliefs are rationally unjustified, there is nonetheless a ‘relative’ sense of justification available to Hume and that he relies on this ‘relative’ sense in those places where he makes normative claims about what we ought to believe.

The War on Terror has exposed deep problems within contemporary political practice. It has demonstrated the moral fragility of liberal democracy. Much critical literature on the topic is devoted to uncovering the sources of this fragility. In this paper, we accept the general thrust of much of this literature, but turn our attention to the practical upshot of the criticism. A common feature of the literature is that, when it comes to offering remedies of the problems it identifies, what is offered is ‘diagnosis without treatment’. The negation of a problem is regarded as a solution. For example, if the problem is that the USA is not acting as a good international citizen, the solution is that it begins to act as such. This is like a doctor diagnosing gout and recommending to the patient that they reduce the level of uric acid in their big toe. We argue that diagnosis without treatment is endemic in literature on the War on Terror and the ills of liberal democracy. We divide this literature into five categories and examine representative works in each. At the end of the paper, we describe what is required to avoid offering yet more diagnosis without treatment.

Why does the paradox play such a crucial role in Kierkegaard's notion of truth as subjectivity? Richard Schacht explains it as follows: Eternal happiness is possible for a man only if it is possible for him to relate himself to God. A man, however, is a being who exists in time; and it would not be possible for such a being to enter into a ‘God-relationship’ if God had not also at some point existed in time. Through the ‘leap of faith’ in which one affirms the proposition that God did exist in time, one is able to enter a ‘God-relationship’ and thereby attains ‘an eternal happiness’

After presenting a paradigm of natural law taken from Cicero and Aquinas, I discuss aspects of Maimonides' ethical theory that appear to conflict with doctrines of natural law. My conclusion will be that Maimonides' adaptation of the Aristotelian metaphysic and doctrine of the "Golden Mean" produced a teleological ethic that is reconcilable with his view that certain moral and legal injunctions are revealed. A doctrine of natural law is compatible with the ethical doctrines that Maimonides held. The thesis I pursue is antithetical to Marvin Fox's (1972:V) contention that "in Judaism there is no natural law doctrine, and in principle there cannot be.".

Discussions of immortality have tended to focus on the nature of personal identity and, in a related way, the mind/body problem. Who is that is going to survive, and is it possible to survive bodily destruction? There has been far less discussion of what immortality would be like; e.g. the nature of heaven. Richard Swinburne, however, has recently discussed ‘heaven’, and has constructed a novel theodicy fundamentally based on his conception of what heaven is like. I shall criticize both his conception of heaven – a conception he claims is consonant with the classical theistic one of Aquinas – and also his theodicy. I will argue that his theodicy reintroduces the problem of evil in connection with his idea of heaven – and does nothing to resolve it

Extract: Clearly, academic life takes place at the intersection of many social practices. If MacIntyre is right, the role-specific virtues of academic life should be understood in terms of these practices.2 Academic virtues are those excellences required to obtain the internal goods of the social practices constituting academic life. And the social practices of academic life are sustained, competitive and cooperative attempts to achieve a set of academic goals and realize academic forms of excellence. They are also sustained attempts to expand and improve conceptions of these goals and forms of excellence. They emerge out of traditions—for instance the tradition of scientific argument— and must be understood in terms of these traditions. MacIntyre argues that this preliminary account of virtues in relation to social practices needs to be deepened in two ways: connecting it to the unity of an individual’s life on the one hand and to a coherent historical tradition on the other. Virtues are not just any set of traits delivering the internal goods of social practices, but those that serve to make coherent a person’s life and her place in an on-going tradition. They are crucial to lending meaning to one’s life and its struggles.

Bayesian analyses are prominent among recent and allegedly novel interpretations of Hume’s argument against the justified belief in miracles. However, since there is no consensus on just what Hume’s argument is any Bayesian analysis will beg crucial issues of interpretation. Apart from independent philosophical arguments—arguments that would undermine the relevance of a Bayesian analysis to the question of the credibility of reports of the miraculous—no such analysis can, in principle, prove that no testimony can (or cannot) establish the credibility of a miracle. Bayesian analyses of Hume’s argument are not analyses of Hume’s argument at all—but superfluous representations of it.

HUME THOUGHT THAT WE CANNOT BE JUSTIFIED IN BELIEVING AN EVENT E TO HAVE OCCURRED GIVEN E’S CHARACTERIZATION OF A VIOLATION OF A LAW OF NATURE. HE CLAIMS THAT HE IS USING AN ARGUMENT SIMILAR TO JOHN TILLOTSON’S AGAINST TRANSUBSTANTIATION. A COMPARISON OF HUME’S ARGUMENT WITH TILLOTSON’S CAN HELP IN ANSWERING THE QUESTION OF WHETHER ONE CAN BE JUSTIFIED IN BELIEVING IN A MIRACLE. THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF BOTH TESTIMONY FOR, AND FIRSTHAND EXPERIENCE OF, AN ALLEGED MIRACLE IS CONSIDERED. I EXAMINE THE ARGUMENT AGAINST TRANSUBSTANTIATION HUME PRESENTS AS TILLOTSON’S AND THEN CONSIDER HOW HUME’S ARGUMENT MAY BE "OF A LIKE NATURE" TO THE ARGUMENT HE ATTRIBUTES TO TILLOTSON. TILLOTSON’S ACTUAL ARGUMENT IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE ONE HUME PRESENTS IN HIS NAME

While some may argue that universities are in a state of crisis, others claim that we are living in a post-university era; a time after universities. If there was a battle for the survival of the institution it is over and done with. The buildings still stand. Students enrol and may attend lectures, though most do not. But virtually nothing real remains. What some mistakenly take to be a university is, in actuality, an “uncanny” spectral presence. The encompassing ethico-philosophical question is this: what is it about spectral space and the feeling of absence with regard to the university that is important to understand? The Spectral University is characterized by the absence of what used to give the university its constitutive form and structure; of what is essential to the university as an important place of learning and growth. What is gone is the ability to pursue the academic virtues.

This paper explores the grounds upon which moral judgment of a person's beliefs is properly made. The beliefs in question are non-moral beliefs and the objects of moral judgment are individual instances of believing. We argue that instances of believing may be morally wrong on any of three distinct grounds: (i) by constituting a moral hazard, (ii) by being the result of immoral inquiry, or (iii) by arising from vicious inner processes of belief formation. On this way of articulating the basis of moral judgment of belief it becomes clear that rational and epistemic norms do not exhaust the kinds of normative judgment properly made of a person's state of believing. We argue that there are instances of believing that are both rational and true and yet morally wrong.