John Hyman

Anscombe defined intentional action in terms of what she called ‘the special question “Why?”’ In the first part of this article, we present four objections to defining intentional action in this way. Then, in the second part, we show that Anscombe’s special question can instead be used to define a much broader category of conduct, namely that for which an agent is responsible. We thereby repurpose one of the most influential ideas in twentieth-century philosophy of action within a novel theory of responsibility.

Être obligé de faire quelque chose implique-t‑il qu’on puisse le faire? Alors que Kant et Reid tenaient ce principe pour une vérité incontestable, le droit romain – d’où il provient – y reconnaissait explicitement des exceptions. La réponse défendue ici repose sur une distinction entre le devoir et l’obligation. Ce n’est pas tant que l’obligation a une plus grande force normative que le devoir, mais bien plutôt qu’ils appartiennent à des sphères distinctes. Le devoir est un concept intellectuel – plus précisément, il constitue la fin de la délibération –, tandis que l’obligation est un concept éthique, qui encadre l’évaluation interpersonnelle de la conduite. C’est pourquoi devoir implique pouvoir alors que l’obligation ne l’implique pas.

_A COMPANION TO WITTGENSTEIN_ The most comprehensive survey of Wittgenstein's thought yet compiled, this volume of fifty newly commissioned essays by leading interpreters of his philosophy is a keynote addition to the _Blackwell Companions to Philosophy_ series. Full of penetrating insights into the life and work of the most important philosopher of the twentieth century, the collection explores the full range of Wittgenstein’s contribution to philosophy. It includes essays on his intellectual development, his work in logic and mathematics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and action, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of religion, and much else. As well as examining Wittgenstein’s contribution to human understanding in detail, the _Companion_ features vital contextual analysis that traces the relationship between his ideas and those of other philosophers and schools of thought, including the Aristotelian and continental philosophical traditions. Authors also address prominent themes that remain current in today’s philosophical debates, explaining Wittgenstein’s continuing legacy alongside his historical significance. Essential reading for scholars of philosophy at all levels, _A Companion to Wittgenstein_ combines engaging commentary with unrivaled academic authority.

We note with sadness the death of two highly respected colleagues, Fabian Dorsch and Peter Kivy. Fabian Dorsch, who was Associate Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Fribourg, died unexpectedly on 21 February at the tragically early age of 42. Fabian was the driving force behind the European Society for Aesthetics, when it was founded in 2008, and was editor of Estetika: the Central European Journal of Aesthetics. An obituary notice can be found here: Peter Kivy, who was Professor Emeritus of Musicology and Philosophy at Rutgers University, and the pre-eminent philosopher of music in his generation, died on 6 May at the age of 82. The American Society of Aesthetics has published an obituary notice by Larry Temkin: An article by Jerrold Levinson in appreciation of Peter Kivy’s work in philosophy of music will appear in the next issue of the BJA.

Ludwig Wittgenstein crossed the second Styx, from living memory to history, during the years since the present century began. He is recognized today as one of the most original and powerful thinkers of the twentieth century, and his work belongs to the body of literature philosophers will read and interpret afresh in each generation, for as long as the European intellectual tradition survives. He wrote nothing in political philosophy or jurisprudence, very little in ethics, and the only sustained record of his philosophical ideas about religion and art consists in notes taken by students at his lectures. The Tractatus was published in 1921. In this book, Wittgenstein argues that the logical form of a proposition is utterly different from its superficial grammatical form. The greatest obstacles to understanding Wittgenstein's philosophy are not any inherent obscurity in his ideas, but the aphoristic style in which he wrote and the introverted character of his thought.

In this article, I oppose the view that knowledge is a species of belief, and argue that belief should be defined in terms of knowledge, instead of the other way round. However, I reject the idea that the concept of knowledge has a primary or basic role or position in our system of mental and logical concepts, because I reject the hierarchical conception of philosophical analysis implicit in this idea. I approach the topic of knowledge and belief from a discussion of Richard Holton’s views about facts and factive verbs.

1. I want to discuss a new area of scientific research called neuro-aesthetics, which is the study of art by neuroscientists. The most prominent champions of neuroaesthetics are V.S. Ramachandran and Semir Zeki, both of whom have both made ambitious claims about their work. Ramachandran says boldly that he has discovered “the key to understanding what art really is”, and that his theory of art can be tested by brain imaging experiments, although he does not describe these experiments, or explain what results the theory predicts (Ramachandran and Hirstein 1999, 17). Zeki, who originally coined the term “neuro-aesthetics”, claims to have laid the foundations for understanding “the biological basis of aesthetic experience”, and to have formulated a “neurobiological definition of art” (Zeki 1999, 2, 22). If these claims are true, we are at the dawn of a new age in the study of art. Up to now, most of the people studying art have been historians, some of whom can read Latin, but hardly any of whom have mastered even the rudiments of brain science. And aesthetics has been in the hands of philosophers, who still disagree among themselves about ideas that were stated in the fourth century BC. Neuroaesthetics is different. As Ramachandran (2000, 19) says: “These ideas have the advantage that, unlike the vague notions of philosophers and art historians, they can be tested experimentally”. So, is neuro-aesthetics the next big thing? I want to assess its prospects, starting with Ramachandran

I read Ernst Gombrich’s wonderful book Art and Illusion in 1981. I’d completed my BA a few months earlier, and I was spending a year in Geneva on a scholarship, before returning to Oxford to begin the BPhil. The topic in philosophy that interested me most at that time was perception, and I was struck by the extent to which Gombrich’s arguments relied on views about visual perception that he had inherited from the Helmholtzian tradition in psychology, and therefore indirectly from Locke and Kant. I thought that arguments in the philosophy of perception exposed serious mistakes and confusions in this tradition, and that they could therefore shed important light on the fascinating questions about pictorial art that Gombrich discussed in his book