-
404Ineffability and nonsenseAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 77 (1). 2003.[A. W. Moore] Criteria of ineffability are presented which, it is claimed, preclude the possibility of truths that are ineffable, but not the possibility of other things that are ineffable—not even the possibility of other things that are non-trivially ineffable. Specifically, they do not preclude the possibility of states of understanding that are ineffable. This, it is argued, allows for a reappraisal of the dispute between those who adopt a traditional reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and …Read more
-
8Points of ViewOxford University Press UK. 1997.'superb' -Tom Stoneham, Oxford MagazineA. W. Moore argues in this bold and unusual book that it is possible to think about the world from no point of view. His argument involves discussion of a very wide range of fundamental philosophical issues, including the nature of persons, the subject-matter of mathematics, realism and anti-realism, value, the inexpressible, and God. The result is a powerful critique of our own finitude. 'imaginative, original, and ambitious' Robert Brandom, Times Literary…Read more
-
303A note on Kant's first antinomyPhilosophical Quarterly 42 (169): 480-485. 1992.An interpretation of Kant's first antinomy is defended whereby both its thesis and its antithesis depend on a common basic principle that Kant endorses, namely that there cannot be an ‘infinite contingency’, by which is meant a contingent fact about how an infinite region of space or time is occupied. The greatest problem with this interpretation is that Kant explicitly declines to apply counterparts of the temporal arguments in the antinomy to the world’s future, even though, if the interpretat…Read more
-
280Bird on Kant's Mathematical AntinomiesKantian Review 16 (2): 235-243. 2011.This essay is concerned with Graham Bird’s treatment, in The Revolutionary Kant, of Kant’s mathematical antinomies. On Bird’s interpretation, our error in these antinomies is to think that we can settle certain issues about the limits of physical reality by pure reason whereas in fact we cannot settle them at all. On the rival interpretation advocated in this essay, it is not true that we cannot settle these issues. Our error is to presuppose that the concept of the unconditioned has application…Read more
-
181One WorldEuropean Journal of Philosophy 24 (4): 934-945. 2016.This essay appeared as a contribution to a special issue of European Journal of Philosophy to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of P. F. Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense. In that book Strawson asks whether we should agree with Kant's claim, in his Critique of Pure Reason, that there can be only one world. What Kant means by this claim is that the four-dimensional realm that we inhabit must constitute the whole of empirical reality. Strawson gives reasons for challenging this claim. …Read more
-
167Apperception and the Unreality of TenseIn Christoph Hoerl & Teresa McCormack (eds.), Time and memory: issues in philosophy and psychology, Oxford University Press. pp. 375-391. 2001.The aim of this essay is to characterize the issue whether tense is real. Roughly, this is the issue whether, given any tensed representation, its tense corresponds in some suitably direct way to some feature of reality. The task is to make this less rough. Eight characterizations of the issue are considered and rejected, before one is endorsed. On this characterization, the unreality of tense is equivalent to the unity of temporal reality. The issue whether tense is real, so characterized, is t…Read more
-
59Was the author of the Tractatus a transcendental idealist?In Peter M. Sullivan & Michael D. Potter (eds.), Wittgenstein's Tractatus: history and interpretation, Oxford University Press. pp. 239. 2013.
-
1Wittgenstein and infinityIn Oskari Kuusela & Marie McGinn (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, Oxford University Press. 2011.
-
56Wittgenstein and transcendental idealismIn Guy Kahane, Edward Kanterian & Oskari Kuusela (eds.), Wittgenstein and His Interpreters: Essays in Memory of Gordon Baker, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 174--199. 2007.
-
3The transcendental doctrine of methodIn Paul Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge University Press. 2010.
-
368Transcendental idealism in Wittgenstein, and theories of meaningPhilosophical Quarterly 35 (139): 134-155. 1985.This essay involves exploration of certain repercussions of Bernard Williams’ view that there is, in Wittgenstein’s later work, a transcendental idealism akin to that found in the Tractatus—sharing with it the feature that it cannot be satisfactorily stated. It is argued that, if Williams is right, then Wittgenstein’s later work precludes a philosophically substantial theory of meaning; for such a theory would force us to try to state the idealism. In a postscript written for the reprint of the …Read more
-
13The Infinite: Third EditionRoutledge. 2018.This third edition of The Infinite includes a new part 'Infinity Superseded' which contains two new chapters refining Moore's ideas through a re-examination of the ideas of Spinoza, Hegel, and Nietzsche. Much of this is heavily influenced by the work of Deleuze. There is also a new technical appendix on still unresolved issues about different infinite sizes.
-
75The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of ThingsCambridge University Press. 2011.This book is concerned with the history of metaphysics since Descartes. Taking as its definition of metaphysics 'the most general attempt to make sense of things', it charts the evolution of this enterprise through various competing conceptions of its possibility, scope, and limits. The book is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with the early modern period, the late modern period in the analytic tradition, and the late modern period in non-analytic traditions. In its unusually wide …Read more
-
103
-
48Points of ViewClarendon Press. 1997.A. W. Moore argues in this bold and unusual book that it is possible to think about the world from no point of view. His argument involves discussion of a very wide range of fundamental philosophical issues, including the nature of persons, the subject-matter of mathematics, realism and anti-realism, value, the inexpressible, and God. The result is a powerful critique of our own finitude. 'imaginative, original, and ambitious' Robert Brandom, Times Literary Supplement.
-
17Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline (edited book)Princeton University Press. 2006.What can--and what can't--philosophy do? What are its ethical risks--and its possible rewards? How does it differ from science? In Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, Bernard Williams addresses these questions and presents a striking vision of philosophy as fundamentally different from science in its aims and methods even though there is still in philosophy "something that counts as getting it right." Written with his distinctive combination of rigor, imagination, depth, and humanism, the boo…Read more
-
50Meaning and reference (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1993.This volume presents a selection of the most important writings in the debate on the nature of meaning and reference which started one hundred years ago with Frege's classic essay "On Sense and Reference." Contributors include Bertrand Russell, P.F. Strawson, W.V. Quine, Donald Davidson, John McDowell, Michael Dummett, Hilary Putnam, Saul Kripke, David Wiggins, and Gareth Evans. The aim of this series is to bring together important recent writings in major areas of philosophical inquiry, selecte…Read more
-
31Language, World, and Limits: Essays in the Philosophy of Language and MetaphysicsOxford University Press. 2019.A.W. Moore presents eighteen of his philosophical essays, written since 1986, on representing how things are. He sketches out the nature, scope, and limits of representation through language, and pays particular attention to linguistic representation, states of knowledge, the character of what is represented, and objective facts or truths.
-
74Kantian humility: Our ignorance of things in themselvesPhilosophical Review 110 (1): 117-120. 2001.Kant once wrote, “Many historians of philosophy... let the philosophers speak mere nonsense.... They cannot see beyond what the philosophers actually said to what they really meant to say.’ Rae Langton begins her book with this quotation. She concludes it, after a final pithy summary of the position that she attributes to Kant, with the comment, “That, it seems to me, is what Kant said, and meant to say”. In between are some two hundred pages of admirably clear, tightly argued exegesis, suppleme…Read more
-
80Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in ThemselvesPhilosophical Review 110 (1): 117. 2001.Kant once wrote, “Many historians of philosophy... let the philosophers speak mere nonsense.... They cannot see beyond what the philosophers actually said to what they really meant to say.’ Rae Langton begins her book with this quotation. She concludes it, after a final pithy summary of the position that she attributes to Kant, with the comment, “That, it seems to me, is what Kant said, and meant to say”. In between are some two hundred pages of admirably clear, tightly argued exegesis, suppleme…Read more
-
20Kant and the Problem of God. By Gordon E. M. MichalsonJr.. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. Pp.xi, 196. £50, $66.95 , $28.95 . ISBN 0-631-21219-1 , ISBN 0-631-21220-5 (review)Kantian Review 4 155-158. 2000.
-
55Kant and the historical turn: Philosophy as critical interpretation - by Karl AmeriksPhilosophical Books 49 (2): 149-150. 2008.
-
82Immanuel Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics that Will Be Able to Come Forward as ScienceTopoi 33 (1): 277-283. 2014.It is only two years since Immanuel Kant published his monumental Critique of Pure Reason.As part of entering into the spirit of this ‘untimely review’, I shall pretend that only the first edition of the Critique exists. This has a bearing on some claims that I shall make about differences between the content of the Prolegomena and that of the Critique. Despite its formidable difficulty, that book has already generated intense interest in the philosophical community. Those who are still struggli…Read more
-
62Gilles Deleuze's Philosophy of Time: A Critical Introduction and Guide – By James Williams (review)Euopean Journal of Philosophy 21 (S2). 2013.
-
67Erratum: Aspects of the infinite in KantMind 97 (387). 1988.The wrong version of my article ‘Aspects of the Infinite in Kant’ was printed in the last issue of Mind (pp. 205–23). I should like to correct an error that thereby appeared on page 207. In A430–2/B458–60 of the Critique of Pure Reason Kant does not deny that what is (mathematically) infinite should be what I called an actual measurable totality—if, by its measure, we mean ‘the multiplicity of given units which it contains’. His point is simply that what makes it infinite cannot be the fact that…Read more
-
144Reason, freedom and Kant: An exchangeKantian Review 12 (1): 113-133. 2007.According to Kant, being purely rational or purely reasonable and being autonomously free are one and the same thing. But how can this be so? How can my innate capacity for pure reason ever motivate me to do anything, whether the right thing or the wrong thing? What I will suggest is that the fundamental connection between reason and freedom, both for Kant and in reality, is precisely our human biological life and spontaneity of the will, a conjunctive intrinsic structural property of our animal…Read more
Areas of Interest
Continental Philosophy |
European Philosophy |