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D Lamb 's Hegel And Modern Philosophy (review)Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 15 44-49. 1987.
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309Transcendental arguments: A plea for modestyGrazer Philosophische Studien 74 (1): 143-161. 2007.A modest transcendental argument is one that sets out merely to establish how things need to appear to us or how we need to believe them to be, rather than how things are. Stroud's claim to have established that all transcendental arguments must be modest in this way is criticised and rejected. However, a different case for why we should abandon ambitious transcendental arguments is presented: namely, that when it comes to establishing claims about how things are, there is no reason to prefer tr…Read more
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17The Logical Foundations of Bradley's Metaphysics: Judgment, Inference, and TruthPhilosophical Review 117 (2): 289-293. 2008.
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80Peirce, Hegel, and the category of secondnessInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 50 (2). 2007.This paper focuses on one of C. S. Peirce's criticisms of G. W. F. Hegel: namely, that Hegel neglected to give sufficient weight to what Peirce calls "Secondness", in a way that put his philosophical system out of touch with reality. The nature of this criticism is explored, together with its relevant philosophical background. It is argued that while the issues Peirce raises go deep, in some respects Hegel's position is closer to his own than he may have realised, whilst in others that criticism…Read more
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22Kantian Ethics: Value, Agency, and ObligationOxford University Press UK. 2015.This volume presents a selection of Robert Stern's work on the theme of Kantian ethics. It begins by focusing on the relation between Kant's account of obligation and his view of autonomy, arguing that this leaves room for Kant to be a realist about value. Stern then considers where this places Kant in relation to the question of moral scepticism, and in relation to the principle of 'ought implies can', and examines this principle in its own right. The papers then move beyond Kant himself to his…Read more
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49IntroductionBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 23 (4): 601-610. 2015.This is an introduction to a special issue of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, on the relation between idealism and pragmatism. It sets out the way in which the two traditions can be related, and then outlines the papers contained in the special issue.
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16G.W.F. Hegel: critical assessments (edited book)Routledge. 1993."Interpreting Hegel means taking a stand on all the philosophical, political and religious problems of our century." Merleau-Ponty G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), arguably the greatest philosopher of the nineteenth century, decisively influenced the direction of all subsequent European thought. He has been interpreted variously as a theist and an atheist, a conservative and a liberal, an essentialist and a proto-existentialist, a rationalist and an irrationalist. In all the areas he covered, Hegel s…Read more
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44The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study. Volume III: From Kant to RawlsJournal of Moral Philosophy 8 (2): 290-292. 2011.
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40A Reply to My CriticsInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 55 (6): 622-654. 2012.Abstract In this paper, I respond to three commentators on my book Understanding Moral Obligation: Kant, Hegel Kierkegaard. Anne Margaret Baxley focuses on my treatment of Kant, Dean Moyar on my treatment of Hegel, and William Bristow on my treatment of Kierkegaard. In this reply, I try to show how the critical points that they raise can be addressed
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S Priest 's Hegel's Critique Of Kant (review)Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 14 32-36. 1986.
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112Moral scepticism and agency: Kant and KorsgaardRatio 23 (4): 453-474. 2010.One argument put forward by Christine Korsgaard in favour of her constructivist appeal to the nature of agency, is that it does better than moral realism in answering moral scepticism. However, realists have replied by pressing on her the worry raised by H. A. Prichard, that any attempt to answer the moral sceptic only succeeds in basing moral actions in non-moral ends, and so is self-defeating. I spell out these issues in more detail, and suggest that both sides can learn something by seeing ho…Read more
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16Hegel, Kant and the Structure of the ObjectRoutledge. 1990.Hegel's holistic metaphysics challenges much recent ontology with its atomistic and reductionist assumptions; Stern offers us an original reading of Hegel and contrasts him with his predecessor, Kant
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W A De Vries's Hegel's Theory Of Mental Activity: An Introduction To Theoretical Spirit (review)Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 20 42-44. 1989.
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449Does ‘ought’ imply ‘can’? And did Kant think it does?Utilitas 16 (1): 42-61. 2004.The aim of this article is twofold. First, it is argued that while the principle of ‘ought implies can’ is certainly plausible in some form, it is tempting to misconstrue it, and that this has happened in the way it has been taken up in some of the current literature. Second, Kant's understanding of the principle is considered. Here it is argued that these problematic conceptions put the principle to work in a way that Kant does not, so that there is an important divergence here which can easily…Read more
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251Transcendental arguments and scepticism: answering the question of justificationOxford University Press. 2000.Robert Stern investigates how scepticism can be countered by using transcendental arguments concerning the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience, language, or thought. He shows that the most damaging sceptical questions concern neither the certainty of our beliefs nor the reliability of our belief-forming methods, but rather how we can justify our beliefs.
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42Constructivism and the Argument from AutonomyIn James Lenman & Yonatan Shemmer (eds.), Constructivism in Practical Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 119. 2012.My aim in this paper is to consider a particular line of criticism that has been used by constructivists to argue against moral realism, which is to claim that if moral realism were true, this would then threaten or undermine our autonomy as agents. I call this the argument from autonomy. I argue that the best way to understand the argument from autonomy is to relate it to the issue of obligatoriness; but that there are a variety of strategies to be explored concerning obligation before it is cl…Read more
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92Peirce on Hegel: Nominalist or RealistTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 41 (1): 65-99. 2005.My aim in this paper is to consider one of Peirce's criticisms of Hegel, namely, that Hegel was a nominalist. Of the various criticisms of Hegel that Peirce offers, this has been little discussed, perhaps because it is puzzling to find Peirce making it at all. For, Peirce also criticises Hegel for his overzealous enthusiasm for Thirdness, where it is then hard to see how Hegel can have both faults: how can anyone who acknowledges the significance of Thirdness in Peirce's sense also fail to be a …Read more
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128Kant's response to skepticismIn John Greco (ed.), The Oxford handbook of skepticism, Oxford University Press. pp. 265. 2008.Within much contemporary epistemology, Kant’s response to skepticism has come to be epitomized by an appeal to transcendental arguments. This form of argument is said to provide a distinctively Kantian way of dealing with the skeptic, by showing that what the skeptic questions is in fact a condition for her being able to raise that question in the first place, if she is to have language, thoughts, or experiences at all. In this way, it is hoped, the game played by the skeptic can be turned again…Read more
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Individual existence and the philosophy of differenceIn Brian Leiter & Michael Rosen (eds.), The Oxford handbook of continental philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2007.
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Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
19th Century Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |