Mark Glouberman

The typically dismissive treatment of Bradleian idealism, to the extent that it is based on philosophical criticism rather than historical bias, suffers from a failure to distinguish Bradley's negative views from his positive doctrines. But the intermingling of the two plays havoc in Bradley's own presentation, so that proper interpretation requires a particularly aggressive approach to the texts. Specifically, in denying a real multiplicity of facts, Bradley, though he may seem to be, is not attacking the commonsense belief that there are many and disparate facts. His claim, as is confirmed by an examination of the analysis of judgement in The principles of logic, is that the facts ordinarily recognized are not those of the bona fide fact-pluralist, e.g. Mill. By getting Bradley's position straight, it becomes possible to tell an illuminating story about the early formation of ?analytic? philosophy, with its often bewildering faith in the ontological significance of logic

To what extent is conceptual analysis under strict semantic control? In an effort to show that conceptual structure transcends the linguistic dimension proper, the tensions within, and between, several current treatments of the concept red are revealed and explored. It is argued that certain extra-semantic factors — factors, broadly speaking, which concern the manner in which a concept applier interacts with the world as an extralinguistic agent - provide a backdrop against which conceptual analysis guided by language in a strict sense must be deepened and tested.

Although Western culture draws substantively on Athens and Jerusalem, hostility tends to be shown towards Jerusalem from the philosophical wing. I attempt to correct the imbalance. Philosophy, I argue, arose in the Greek context because of a problem of self‐confidence. ‘Philosophical rationality’ cannot therefore be taken as normative for rationality generally. The contrast between the Jerusalemite and the Athenian views of self and of the contrasting estimates and explanations of the efficacy of the self’s agency is developed through an examination of the main documents of pre‐classical and classical Greece, and the Bible

Though, in view of Descartes' challenge to the epistemological credentials of "reason" early in the Meditations, one expects him to resist the claim that the professedly invulnerable cogito argument works through the suppressed premise "Everything that thinks, exists," interpreters have been hard-pressed to convert comprendre here into pardonner. Loath to convict Descartes of confusing a psychological point about inferential process with a logical one about the conditions for validity, many are driven to implausible construals, for example, the ingenious performative construal, on which "cogito" does not express a premise. In this fast-paced study Jerrold Katz, calling on his Chomsky-inspired theorising about natural languages, offers a via media. At the core is the thesis that validity is not always a matter of logical form--hence a rejection of the view whose contemporary prestige derives from Frege. According to Katz, the validity of analytic entailments is a function not of logical form but of the senses of the contributing linguistic elements. The cogito argument, Katz maintains, falls into this class. Thus, comprendre avec pardonner: Descartes is not being evasive when he holds that there is an argumentational move from "cogito" to "sum" while denying that the argument, as presented, is enthymematic.

SummaryLeft wing interpreters of Kant's transcendental idealism argue that the doctrine must be excised in order to disclose the viable philosophical content of the first Critique. For right wing interpreters, this leaves a Hamlet without the prince. I chart and defend a middle path. Transcendental idealism, while essential to Kant's position, renders that position philosophically indefensible. Constant misinterpretation of the doctrine results from a failure to appreciate the inter‐theoretic relations between Kant's conceptualisation of sense‐involving experience and the output of ‘Cartesian theory of error'

SummaryBecause it is not generally appreciated that Hume's analysis of the causal tie as radically contingent or ‘irrational’ is bound up with his specialised theory of cognition, its historical position is widely misconceived. Even a rationalist like Spinoza would agree that if, as Hume maintains, the causal tie holds between items each of which is‘ adequately’ grasped independently of the other, i.e. between what Spinoza calls ‘substances’, then the tie is indeed irrational. Also, Kant does not attempt to show that the causal tie, as Hume sees it, is not irrational. His anti‐Humean result is based on the prior denial Humean causal fundaments are available in experiential cognition as we know it.RésuméLa position historique de Hume est généralement mal comprise parce qu'on ne voit pas que son analyse de la relation causale comme étant radicalement contingente ou »irrationnelle« est liée à sa théorie particulière de la connaissance. Même un rationaliste tel que Spinoza accorderait que la causalité est en effet irrationnelle si elle relie, ainsi que le prétend Hume, deux choses saisies indépendamment, c'est‐à‐dire deux substances selon Spinoza. Même Kant ne cherche pas à démontrer que le lien causal tel que Hume le voit n'est pas irrationnel. Son résultat anti‐humien est basé sur la négation préalable que le fondement de la causalité puisse être tiré de la connaissance expérimentale.ZusammenfassungWeil man im allgemeinen nicht berilcksichtigt, dass Humes Analyse der kausalen Verknüpfung als einer radikal kontingenten oder »irrationalen« Relation mit seiner besonderen erkennt‐nistheoretischen Position verbunden ist, wird deren historische Bedeutung oft missverstanden. Sogar ein Rationalist wie Spinoza würde zugestehen, dass die Verknüpfung irrational sein muss, wenn sie zwischen Substanten irn Sinne Spinozas, d.h. zwischen Dingen bestehen soll, die unabhängig voneinander adäquat erfasst werden, wie Hume das behauptet. Auch Kant versucht nicht zu zeigen, dass eine Kausalverknüpfung, so wie Hume sie auffasst, nicht irrational sei. Denn er bestreitet ja gerade, dass kausale Grundlagen auf Grund gewöhnlicher Erfahrung überhaupt gefunden werden können

Unhappy with a recent submission of mine, a referee for a journal specialising in the history of philosophy wagged a finger at what he or she called my ‘hermeneutical principles’. Though I am no stranger to the collegial woodshed, my initial reaction was nonetheless one of surprise. For had I then been asked about interpretive methodology I would have scoffed. The construer’s best course, I would have said, is to nose about the texts until some rough shape begins to emerge from the murk, and to inch forward in an effort to block in details, frequently doubling back for more nosing about. Isn’t this —fill, back, adjust, refill, back again, re-adjust—a counsel of anti-method?

Does the character called “God” make an essential contribution to the [Hebrew] Bible? So far as religion and religiosity are concerned, the Bible minus the character called “God” is not theoretically incomplete. In other words, the Bible is not at core a theological document. From this it does not however follow that the deity of the Bible is theoretically otiose. The character called “God” plays a role that is indispensable for anthropological reasons. The self-definition and self-understanding of men and women who define and understand themselves as you and I do cannot be accomplished without at least implicit appeal to that role. The key to the theoretical disposition of the Bible is an appreciation of the fact that it is expressly designed to counteract pagan-type views about the nature of men and women and about their position in the wider scheme of things.

Throughout the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant locates his position relative to those of his predecessors and near contemporaries. Save for Spinoza, all the ‘greats’ of the early modern canon put in appearances. But while Kant’s idiom is respectful—Hume is referred to as ‘celebrated’ ; Berkeley is characterised as ‘good’ ; both Locke and Leibniz are called ‘illustrious’ —this ‘language of good will’ recalls Mark Antony’s ‘honourable man’. In fact, the debt Kant acknowledges to the prior toilers is largely negative: the earlier thinkers adhere to views whose correction or rejection enabled Kant to win through to the truth.

The Bible ridicules idolaters for bowing down to sticks and stones. Since idolaters worship what the sticks and stones stand for, not the sticks and stones themselves, isn’t the biblical position confused? At the basis of the Bible’s consistent refusal to observe the preceding distinction are found the conceptual underpinnings of its critique of idolatry. Men and women alone among creatures are inspired with God’s breath. Men and women alone among creatures, that is, are like God. They alone among creatures are persons. Since mere pieces of nature cannot understand prayers, entreaties, etc., and hence cannot respond in the personal way, idolatrous practices are incoherent. But while it is true that (sub-person) elements of nature cannot enter into inter-personal relations, idolatry has a sequel: the scientific interrogation of nature, an interrogation which has been magnificently effective in eliciting responses. Elijah’s dramatic confrontation with the Baalites is a stylized version of the clash between the biblical view of men and women as in an irreducible respect non-natural, and the naturalizing scientific view. On the Carmel, the prophets of the Baal are soundly defeated. Must those who inherit from them lose too? That is a live question. Read closely, the story of Elijah implies that those behind the Bible would defend the view of human distinctiveness against the renascent idolatry.

Unhappy with a recent submission of mine, a referee for a journal specialising in the history of philosophy wagged a finger at what he or she called my ‘hermeneutical principles’. Though I am no stranger to the collegial woodshed, my initial reaction was nonetheless one of surprise. For had I then been asked about interpretive methodology I would have scoffed. The construer’s best course, I would have said, is to nose about the texts until some rough shape begins to emerge from the murk, and to inch forward in an effort to block in details, frequently doubling back for more nosing about. Isn’t this —fill, back, adjust, refill, back again, re-adjust—a counsel of anti-method?

For placing the contrast of certainty and uncertainty at the philosophical center, Descartes is charged with Michael Dummett with mistakenly subordinating the study of language and meaning to epistemology. But Dummett's knowledge-theoretic reading of the certainty/uncertainty duality is as erroneous as the tradition it inherits is long. The Cartesian demand for certainty and critique of uncertainty in mature writings like the Meditations has a definite semantic character. Cartesian uncertainty, construed aright, anticipates Dummett's putatively original idea of a non-reductive yet non-realist semantics for standard factual claims asserted on the basis of sense-evidence. There is an internal relation, in Descartes' philosophy, between a repudiation of uncertainty and a repudiation of a non-realist conception of the world.