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47II*—Social Properties and their BasisProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 85 (1): 23-46. 1985.David-Hillel Ruben; II*—Social Properties and their Basis, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 85, Issue 1, 1 June 1985, Pages 23–46, https://doi.or.
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11Epistemological EmpiricismThe Monist 59 (3): 392-403. 1976.The empiricist theory of epistemological warrant is not without its attractions. If our beliefs are to be more than “hypothetical”, if they are to be beliefs about our world, then surely at some point our beliefs must be warranted by and anchored to the world by our experience. If our beliefs were not so anchored by our experience, then—to switch metaphors now with C.I. Lewis—“… the whole system of such would provide no better assurance of anything in it than that which attaches to the contents …Read more
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822Traditions and True SuccessorsSocial Epistemology 27 (1). 2013.What constitutes numerically one and the same tradition diachronically, at different times? This question is the focus of often violent dispute in societies. Is it capable of a rational resolution? Many accounts attempt that resolution with a diagnosis of ambiguity of the disputed concept-Islam, Marxism, or democracy for example. The diagnosis offered is in terms of vagueness, namely the vague criteria for sameness or similarity of central beliefs and practices.
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34Explanation (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1993.The aim of this series is to bring together important recent writings in major areas of philosophical inquiry, selected from a variety of sources, mostly periodicals, which may not be conveniently available to the university student or the general reader. The editor of each volume contributes an introductory essay on the items chosen and on the questions with which they deal. A selective bibliography is appended as a guide to further reading. This volume presents a selection of the most importan…Read more
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18Our Knowledge of the External World: a Marxist Perspectiveder 16. Weltkongress Für Philosophie 2 1138-1145. 1983.This paper, an extract from my Marxism and Materialism: Studies in Marxist Theory of Knowledge, discusses the epistemological status of philosophical realism. I take realism to be a necessary part of what Marx meant by 'materialism'. I argue that there are no valid, non-question-begging, decuctive arguments for the truth of realism; nor does empirical science inductively 'confirm' realism, in any technical sense of 'confirmation'. I argue that the relationship between realism and science is one …Read more
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572Beyond Supervenience and ConstructionJournal of Social Ontology 1 (1): 121-141. 2014.If reduction of the social to the physical fail, what options remain for understanding their relationship? Two such options are supervenience and constructivism. Both are vitiated by a similar fault. So the choices are limited: reduction after all, or emergence.
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246Warnock on rulesPhilosophical Quarterly 22 (89): 349-354. 1972.A discussion of Geoffrey Warnock's views on the analysis of rules.
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552Con-reasons as causesIn Constantine Sandis (ed.), New Essays on the Explanation of Action, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 62--74. 2009.Book synopsis: This collection of previously unpublished essays presents the newest developments in the thought of international scholars working on the explanation of action. The contributions focus on a wide range of interlocking issues relating to agency, deliberation, motivation, mental causation, teleology, interprative explanation and the ontology of actions and their reasons. Challenging numerous current orthodoxies, and offering positive suggestions from a variety of different perspectiv…Read more
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22Marxism and Materialism: A Study in Marxist Theory of KnowledgeScience and Society 44 (3): 360-363. 1977.
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57The Ontology of ExplanationIn Fred D'Agostino & I. C. Jarvie (eds.), Freedom and Rationality, Reidel. pp. 67--85. 1989.In an explanation, what does the explaining and what gets explained? What are the relata of the explanation relation? Candidates include: people, events, facts, sentences, statements, and propositions.
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5Karl MarxRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 44 65-79. 1999.Although it was, until recently, unfashionable in certain circles to say this, Marx was not a philosopher in any interesting sense. He was a social theorist. As social theory, I am thinking primarily of two areas : the methodology of social inquiry, and its metaphysical presuppositions, and normative philosophy.
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170A conditional theory of tryingPhilosophical Studies 173 (1): 271-287. 2016.What I shall do in this paper is to propose an analysis of ‘Agent P tries to A’ in terms of a subjunctive conditional, that avoids some of the problems that beset most alternative accounts of trying, which I call ‘referential views’. They are so-named because on these alternative accounts, ‘P tries to A’ entails that there is a trying to A by P, and therefore the expression ‘P’s trying to A’ can occur in the subject of a sentence and be used to refer to a particular, namely an act or event of tr…Read more
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27From Rousseau to Lenin: Studies in Ideology and SciencePhilosophical Quarterly 23 (93): 377. 1973.
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344Review: H ow We Act: Causes, Reasons, and Intentions (review)Mind 114 (455): 734-737. 2005.A review of Berent Enc's How We Act: Causes, Reasons, and Intentions.
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202Causal Scepticism or Invisible CementRatio (Misc.) 24 (2): 161. 1982.I defend the view, hardly original with me, that there is no evidence, deductive or non-deductive, for any of our causal beliefs, that does not already assume that there are some causal connections, and hence that there is no way in which experience on its own, or with causalität-free principles, can support the structure of out causal knowledge. The deductive case is perhaps obvious. In the case of non-deductive arguments, I consider how experience of constant conjunctions, together with the em…Read more
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22Mental Overpopulation and the Problem of ActionJournal of Philosophical Research 20 511-524. 1995.
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42Varieties of Social Explanation: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social SciencePhilosophical Review 102 (1): 120. 1993.
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9MarxismIn Ernest Sosa (ed.), A Companion to Metaphysics, Blackwell. 1994.Book synopsis: A Companion to Metaphysics provides a survey of the whole of metaphysics and includes articles by many of the most distinguished scholars in the field.
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12Review of Peter Achinstein: The nature of explanation (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37 (3): 377-384. 1986.
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38II_– _David-Hillel RubenAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 71 (1): 229-246. 1997.One of the essential distinctions in action theory is that between activity and passivity. I address this distinction in this article.
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44Realism in the Social SciencesIn Hilary Lawson & Lisa Appignanesi (eds.), Dismantling Truth, Weidenfeld. 1989.To what extend do the standard tests for realism, say in the philosophy of mind, apply to the social sciences?
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Birkbeck, University of LondonDepartment of PhilosophyEmeritus Professor, Honorary Research Fellow
London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Social Science |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |
Philosophy of Social Science |