Max De Gaynesford

This paper draws attention to the fact that works of philosophy are often judged by aesthetic criteria. This raises the question of whether philosophical writings may properly be regarded as suitable objects of aesthetic judgement in a strong sense; namely, that judging their worth qua works of philosophy is an aesthetic endeavour. The paper argues in the affirmative with the aid of a Kantian account of aesthetic judgement. Judging a work of philosophy by the means chosen may be regarded as subjecting it to criticism by criteria established within a philosophical aesthetic.

One claim about I, regularly made and almost universally endorsed, is that uses of the term are logically guaranteed to refer successfully (if they refer at all). The claim is only rarely formulated perspicuously or argued for. Such obscurity helps disguise the fact that those who profess to advance the claim actually turn out to support not a logical guarantee at all but merely high security through fortunate coincidence. This is not surprising. For we have no good reason to accept the claim – granted, any use of I is apt to refer successfully; but that can be explained by pragmatic features of its use. And we have some reason to reject the claim – it is notoriously difficult to see how genuine reference and guaranteed success do not exclude each other when considered as properties of the logic of any term.

Ordinarily, what we experience does not jump from one place or time to another—we have to pass through all the intermediate times and places. But in films, what we experience can jump in both dimensions, both separately (remaining in the same space but jumping forward or backward in time; remaining at the same time but jumping across different spaces) and together. This phenomenon has been memorably described in film criticism by Rudolph Arnheim (Film As Art 1933) and it has been deployed philosophically by Suzanne Langer (Feeling and Form 1953) and Colin McGinn (The Power of Movies 2005). But discussion of space-time discontinuity remains hampered by the lack of attunement between film critical and philosophical investigations. Without philosophy, the valuable insights of film criticism lack rigour and have been blunted by conceptual imprecision and confusion; without film criticism, the provocative claims of philosophy lack support, floating free of the evidence that a suitably sharp awareness of the details of particular films alone provides. This paper brings philosophy and film criticism to bear on each other so that we stand to make headway on the issue of film and space-time discontinuity.

John McDowell has set the philosophical world alight with a revolutionary approach to the subject, illuminating old problems with dazzling particularity. In this welcome introduction to his work, Maximilian de Gaynesford puts within comfortable reach of non-specialists McDowell’s demanding writing. The guiding argument of the book is that the apparent variety of McDowell’s interests disguises a core concern with a single basic goal: ‘giving philosophy peace’. Since the dawn of the subject, philosophy has struggled with the question: can our experience of the world give rational support to what we think and say; and if so, how? De Gaynesford analyses McDowell’s densely argued answer to this question in a lucid, balanced and engaging way.

Giorgio Agamben’s claim that the criterion of poetry is the possibility of enjambment helps identify characteristic and deep ways that Beckett’s poems ‘impinge poetically’, particularly the explicitly performative and self-reflective effects they achieve through enjambment-based vacillation between ends and continuities. Conversely, Beckett’s poems help amend Agamben’s overly strong interpretation of the enjambment criterion. It should imply no more than that poetry’s existence depends on the possibility of an absence of lasting accord between sound and sense, and we should acknowledge that enjambment is equally possible for a line if it is preceded by another line. Agamben’s poetry criterion also offers fresh ways to think about the relation between Beckett’s poetry and prose, with implications for his later writings.

What is at stake when J. L. Austin calls poetry ‘non-serious’, and sidelines it in his speech act theory? (I). Standard explanations polarize sharply along party lines: poets (e.g. Geoffrey Hill) and critics (e.g. Christopher Ricks) are incensed, while philosophers (e.g. P. F. Strawson; John Searle) deny cause (II). Neither line is consistent with Austin's remarks, whose allusions to Plato, Aristotle and Frege are insufficiently noted (III). What Austin thinks is at stake is confusion, which he corrects apparently to the advantage of poets (IV). But what is actually at stake is the possibility of commitment and poetic integrity. We should reject what Austin offers (V).

If philosophy and poetry are to illuminate each other, we should first understand their tendencies to mutual antipathy. Examining (and, where possible, correcting) mutual misapprehension is part of this task. J. L. Austin's remarks on poetry offer one such point of entry: they are often cited by poets and critics as an example of philosophy's blindness to poetry (I). These remarks are complex and their purpose obscure—more so than those who take exception to them usually allow or admit (II). But it is reasonable to think that, for all his levity at their expense, what Austin offers poets is exemption from forms of commitment. Since such exemption is precisely what poets and critics have sought, this diagnosis is eirenic (III). This exemption has a price, but it may be affordable (IV).

Debate about the relative weight to be given partial and impartial considerations in practical reasoning is stultified by a marked tendency to polarization in current views about the role played by the first person. This polarization depends on tacit assumptions that are strikingly contemporary, which render practical reasoning incomprehensible, and which the partialist and impartialist both can and should reject. Impartialists need not deny significance to the first person; they would be wrong to do so; even Godwin did not. Partialists need not regard the significance of the first person as dominating; they would be equally wrong to do so.

This paper argues that Henry James’ treatment of balancing in The Golden Bowl—to which Putnam insightfully draws attention—calls for the attunement of philosophy and literary criticism. The process may undermine Putnam’s own reading of the novel, but it also finds new reasons to endorse what his reading was meant to deliver: the confidence that philosophy and thoughtful appreciation of literature have much to contribute to each other, and the conviction that morality can incorporate (Kantian) seriousness about rules alongside (Aristotelian) sensitivity to character and situation.

Putnam is one of the most influential philosophers of recent times, and his authority stretches far beyond the confines of the discipline. However, there is a considerable challenge in presenting his work both accurately and accessibly. This is due to the width and diversity of his published writings and to his frequent spells of radical re-thinking. But if we are to understand how and why philosophy is developing as it is, we need to attend to Putnam's whole career. He has had a dramatic influence on theories of meaning, semantic content, and the nature of mental phenomena, on interpretations of quantum mechanics, theory-change, logic and mathematics, and on what shape we should desire for future philosophy. By presenting the whole of his career within its historical context, de Gaynesford discovers a basic unity in his work, achieved through repeated engagements with a small set of hard problems. By foregrounding this integrity, the book offers an account of his philosophy that is both true to Putnam and helpful to readers of his work.