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12Non-Personal MindsRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 53 185-209. 2003.Persons are creatures with a range of personal capacities. Most known to us are also people, though nothing in observation or biological theory demands that all and only people are persons, nor even that persons, any more than people, constitute a natural kind. My aim is to consider what non-personal minds are like. Darwin's Earthworms are sensitive, passionate and, in their degree, intelligent. They may even construct maps, embedded in the world they perceive around them, so as to be able to co…Read more
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12Metaphors and RealitiesInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 32 (1): 30-44. 2023.The notion that metaphorical statements are strictly false suggests that all statements, even those that seemed ‘literal’, are false, as none can ‘literally’ reflect reality. Statements about what we perceive or could perceive rely on evoking sensory images of such ‘visibles’, even though we have no direct access to what others, may perceive. In addition to what is visible, we must also deal with ‘invisibilia’ (both the fantasms that respectable moderns now reject and the realities that lie beyo…Read more
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12XIV*—On Wishing there were UnicornsProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 90 (1): 247-266. 1990.Stephen R. L. Clark; XIV*—On Wishing there were Unicorns, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 90, Issue 1, 1 June 1990, Pages 247–266, https://doi.o.
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11Supernatural Explanations and InspirationsEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9 (3): 49-63. 2017.I propose, in partial response to the rich essays by Millican & Thornhill-Miller and Salamon that religious traditions are too diverse to be represented either by a cosmological core or even an ethical. Religious sensibility is more often inspirational than explanatory, does not always require a transcendent origin of all things, and does not always support the sort of humanistic values preferred in the European Enlightenment. A widely shared global religion is more likely to be eclectic than ca…Read more
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11Plotinus on Intellect – Eyjólfur Kjalar EmilssonPhilosophical Quarterly 59 (235): 357-359. 2009.
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11Value Judgments: How to Reason About Value JudgmentsRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 24 173-190. 1988.When opinion polls are conducted on some urgent matter of the day those polled are permitted to declare themselves ‘Don't Knows’. It is usually a minority who are so ill-disposed as to forget their civic duty to have an opinion on each and every subject, and they can usually expect to be rebuked as fence-sitters or slugabeds. People confronted by the demand that they take sides can generally produce a ‘view’ which they maintain against all-comers without the slightest attempt to seek out confirm…Read more
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10Understanding Faith: Religious Belief and its Place in SocietyImprint Academic. 2009.A philosophical discussion of religion and its place in society. The book will examine the nature of faith and of the attacks upon it; considering both external and internal criticism - from non-believers and between believers. Having clarified the character of faith and considered its intellectual status, and its relation to scientific, moral, artistic and philosophical modes of thought; the book will then address a number of issues of contemporary public interest where religious faith is at is…Read more
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10The Covenant with All Living CreaturesIn Mark J. Cartledge & David Mills (eds.), Covenant Theology: Contemporary Approaches, . 2002.Philosophers are usually expected to argue only from premises acceptable to a secular audience, in ways that require no special commitment beyond that to the value of argument itself. As a philosopher, I see no particular reason to deny myself the opportunity to argue from other, more `sectarian', premises, in ways now unfamiliar to an unbelieving nation. In so doing I may (as theistical philosophers often do) sound more traditional than many theologians
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10God and Greek Philosophy; The Philosophy in Christianity (review)Ancient Philosophy 13 (1): 255-258. 1993.
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9XV*—God, Good and EvilProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 77 (1): 247-264. 1977.Stephen R. L. Clark; XV*—God, Good and Evil, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 77, Issue 1, 1 June 1977, Pages 247–264, https://doi.org/10.1093/ar.
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9Animal Rights - Daniel A. Dombrowski: The Philosophy of Vegetarianism. Pp. iv+188. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984. $20.00 (paper, 9.95) (review)The Classical Review 37 (2): 224-225. 1987.
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8Aristotle's Man: Speculations Upon Aristotelian AnthropologyOxford University Press. 1975.Words have determinable sense only within a complex of unstated assumptions, and all interpretation must therefore go beyond the given material. This book addresses what is man's place in the Aristotelian world. It also describes man's abilities and prospects in managing his life, and considers how far Aristotle's treatment of time and history licenses the sort of dynamic interpretation of his doctrines that have been given. The ontological model that explains much of Aristotle's conclusions and…Read more
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8Late antique epistemology: other ways to truth (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2009.Late Antique Epistemology explores the techniques used by late antique philosophers to discuss truth. Non-rational ways to discover truth, or to reform the soul, have usually been thought inferior to the philosophically approved techniques of rational argument, suitable for the less philosophically inclined, for children, savages or the uneducated. Religious rituals, oracles, erotic passion, madness may all have served to waken courage or remind us of realities obscured by everyday concerns. Wha…Read more
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7Abstract Morality, Concrete CasesRoyal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series 22 35-53. 1987.Practitioners of disciplines whose problems are debated by moral philosophers regularly complain that the philosophers are engaged in abstract speculation, divorced from ‘real-life’ consequences and responsibilities, that it is the practitioners (doctor, research scientist, politician) who must take the decisions, and that they cannot (and should not) act in accordance with strict abstract logic.
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7God, Religion and Reality. 2017."In this engaging study Professor Clark sets out to show that there are good philosophical reasons for theism, and Christian theism in particular. He travels the breadth of our intellectual engagement with the world, from ethics to scientific knowledge, and his journey is vigorously argued, fresh, lively and readable. He explores the assumptions which underpin our philosophical and everyday thinking alike, examines the construction of the arguments used to support them, and tests the sturdiness …Read more
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7A parliament of soulsOxford University Press. 1990.This second volume in the Limits and Renewals trilogy is an attempt to restate a traditional philosophy of mind, drawing on philosophical and poetical resources that are often neglected in modern and postmodern thought, and emphasizing the moral and political implications of differing philosophies of mind and value. Clark argues that without the traditional concept of the soul, we have little reason to believe that rational thought and individual autonomy are either possible or desirable. The pa…Read more
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7Plotinus: myth, metaphor and philosophical practiceUniversity of Chicago Press. 2016.A study of Plotinus's use of myth and metaphor, with special attention to the historical context and therapeutic use of his work.
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7Civil peace and sacred orderOxford University Press. 1989.This book is an ambitious and challenging restatement of traditional political philosophy. The first of a three-volume series, Limits and Renewals, the book is concerned with the nature of political society, particularly with the errors and faulty arguments that have been used to support a "liberal modernist" view of the state and our political system. Clark argues that political modernism, which is determinedly secular and untraditional, has been a destructive influence on religion and our unde…Read more
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6Objective values, final causes: Stoics, Epicureans, and PlatonistsElectronic Journal of Analytic Philosophy 3. 1995.
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University of BristolHonorary Research Fellow
Liverpool, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Philosophical Traditions |