-
14Platos Republic: A BiographyAtlantic Monthly Press. 2006.Plato is perhaps the most significant philosopher who has ever lived and The Republic , composed in Athens in about 375 BC, is widely regarded as his most famous dialogue. Its discussion of the perfect city — and the perfect mind — laid the foundations for Western culture and, for over two thousand years, has been the cornerstone of Western philosophy. As the distinguished Cambridge professor Simon Blackburn points out, it has probably sustained more commentary, and been subject to more radical …Read more
-
77Humanity's natural facePhilosophical Explorations 3 (3). 2000.In my article I summarize a 'Humean' view of deliberation, and in particular deliberation with an ethical aspect. I regard Hume as having paved the way for a 'naturalistic' account of these things, avoiding Kantian fantasies of agency that dominate much current work. Contrary to what is often supposed, the Humean story gives a satisfactory account of dutiful or principled motivations, and a rich account of the ways in which different aspects of character are selected as 'useful or agreeable to o…Read more
-
11The Presidential Address: The Steps from Doing to SayingProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 110 (1pt1). 2010.In this paper I consider recent developments in neo-pragmatism, and in particular the degree of convergence between such approaches and those placing greater emphasis on truth and truth-makers. I urge that although a global pragmatism has its merits, it by no means closes the space for a more Wittgensteinian, finer-grained, approach to the diversity of functions served by modal, causal, moral, or other modes of thought
-
3Playing Hume's HandIn D. Z. Phillips & Timothy Tessin (eds.), Religion and Hume's Legacy, St. Martin's Press, Scholarly and Reference Division. 1999.
-
108A very short essay on religionThink 11 (32): 33-36. 2012.My impression is that the fire-breathing atheists about whom we hear so much – the celebrated quartet of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Dan Dennett – think of religious commitments in terms of mistaken or at least hopelessly improbable and therefore irrational ontology. Believers think that something exists, but the overwhelmingly probable truth is that it does not. I may be wrong that this is what they think, but whether they do so or not, I am sure others do. Yet this i…Read more
-
2Goodman's paradoxIn Peter Achinstein (ed.), Studies in the philosophy of science, Published By Basil Blackwell With the Cooperation of the University of Pittsburg. pp. 128--42. 1969.
-
2The flight to realityIn Rosalind Hursthouse, Gavin Lawrence & Warren Quinn (eds.), Virtues and Reasons: Philippa Foot and Moral Theory: Essays in Honour of Philippa Foot, Clarendon Press. pp. 35--56. 1995.
-
741Moral Relativism and Moral ObjectivityPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 58 (1): 195-198. 1998.
-
260Ethics: a very short introductionOxford University Press. 2001.In this clear introduction to ethics Simon Blackburn tackles the major moral questions surrounding birth, death, happiness, desire and freedom, showing us how ...
-
57. TemptationIn Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self-Love, Princeton University Press. pp. 132-162. 2014.
-
74Lust: The Seven Deadly SinsOup Usa. 2004.Lust, says Simon Blackburn, is furtive, headlong, always sizing up opportunities. It is a trail of clothing in the hallway, the trashy cousin of love. But be that as it may, the aim of this delightful book is to rescue lust "from the denunciations of old men of the deserts, to deliver it from the pallid and envious confessor and the stocks and pillories of the Puritans, to drag it from the category of sin to that of virtue." Blackburn, author of such popular philosophy books as Think and Being G…Read more
-
18Comments on Gibbard’s Thinking How to LivePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (3): 699-706. 2006.University of Cambridge.
-
7Securing the nots: moral epistemology for the quasi-realistIn Walter Sinnott-Armstrong & Mark Timmons (eds.), Moral knowledge?: new readings in moral epistemology, Oxford University Press. pp. 82--100. 1996.
-
398. Integrity, Sincerity, AuthenticityIn Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self-Love, Princeton University Press. pp. 163-186. 2014.
-
469Quasi-Realism no FictionalismIn Mark Eli Kalderon (ed.), Fictionalism in Metaphysics, Oxford University Press. pp. 322--338. 2005.
-
163How to Read HumeGranta. 2008.Simon Blackburn. 1985. Garrett, Don. Cognition and Commitment in Hume's Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Gaskin, J.C. A. Hume's Philosophy of Religion, 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988. Holden, T.The Architecture ...
-
201. The Self: Iris Murdoch and Uncle WilliamIn Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self-Love, Princeton University Press. pp. 12-34. 2014.
-
66Précis of Ruling PassionsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (1): 122-135. 2002.Ruling Passions is about human nature. It is an invitation to see human nature a certain way. It defends this way of looking at ourselves against competitors, including rational choice theory, modern Kantianism, various applications of evolutionary psychology, views that enchant our natures, and those that disenchant them in the direction of relativism or nihilism. It is a story centred upon a view of human ethical nature, which it places amongst other facets of human nature, as just one of the …Read more
-
40The Emergence of Probability By Ian Hacking Cambridge University Press, 1975, 209 pp., £5.50 (review)Philosophy 51 (198): 476-. 1976.
-
-
University of North Carolina, Chapel HillDistinguished Research Professor (Part-time)
Cambridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland