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The Ethics of RedistributionLiberty Fund. 1952.After reading this insightful and charming classic, no one can believe that there are any arguments left for the redistributionist. De Jouvenel devastates every claim for either logic or morality in their position... --Henry G. Manne, Dean, School of Law, George Mason University In this concise and elegant work, first published in 1952, Bertrand de Jouvenel purposely ignores the economic evidence that redistributional efforts sap incentives and are economically destructive. Rather, he stresses t…Read more
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The Cultural Contradictions of CapitalismThe Journal of Aesthetic Education 6 (1/2): 11. 1972.
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The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the TimesSophia Perennis. 1953.The Reign of Quantity gives a concise but comprehensive view of the present state of affairs in the world, as it appears from the point of view of the 'ancient wisdom', formerly common both to the East and to the West, but now almost entirely lost sight of. The author indicates with his fabled clarity and directness the precise nature of the modern deviation, and devotes special attention to the development of modern philosophy and science, and to the part played by them, with their accompanying…Read more
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Alienation: from the past to the futureGreenwood Press. 1978.
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Can Liberalism Last? Demographic Demise and the Future of LiberalismSocial Philosophy and Policy. forthcoming.
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Ideas Have ConsequencesUniversity of Chicago Press. 1948.
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RessentimentMarquette University Press. 1994.This monograph constitutes a response to the criticisms of Christianity outlined in Nietzsche's GENEOLOGY OF MORALS, in which Nietzsche argues that Christianity is a "slave revolt" of the weak--an attempt by the impotent to bring down the vitality of the capable nobility. Scheler's response is multi-faceted but centers on Nietzsche's failure to understand the nature of Christian love. Christianity is not a destructive enterprise trying to bring everyone down to the same low level of its impotent…Read more
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Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?Zero Books. 2009.After 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system - a situation that the bank crisis of 2008, far from ending, actually compounded. The book analyses the development and principal features of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework. Using examples from politics, films, fiction, work and education, it argues that capitalist realism colours all areas of contemporary experience. But it will also show that, because of a number o…Read more
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Longtermists claim that what we ought to do is mainly determined by how our actions might affect the very long-run future. A natural objection to longtermism is that these effects may be nearly impossible to predict -- perhaps so close to impossible that, despite the astronomical importance of the far future, the expected value of our present actions is mainly determined by near-term considerations. This paper aims to precisify and evaluate one version of this epistemic objection to longtermism.…Read more
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The Paradox of Sufficient ReasonPhilosophical Review Recent Issues 125 (3): 397-430. 2016.It can be shown by means of a paradox that, given the Principle of Sufficient Reason, there is no conjunction of all contingent truths. The question is, or ought to be, how to interpret that result: _Quid sibi velit?_ A celebrated argument against PSR due to Peter van Inwagen and Jonathan Bennett in effect interprets the result to mean that PSR entails that there are no contingent truths. But reflection on parallels in philosophy of mathematics shows it can equally be interpreted either as a pro…Read more
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First-Order Modal LogicKluwer Academic Publishers. 1998.
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A New Introduction to Modal LogicRoutledge. 1996.This long-awaited book replaces Hughes and Cresswell's two classic studies of modal logic: _An Introduction to Modal Logic_ and _A Companion to Modal Logic_. _A New Introduction to Modal Logic_ is an entirely new work, completely re-written by the authors. They have incorporated all the new developments that have taken place since 1968 in both modal propositional logic and modal predicate logic, without sacrificing tha clarity of exposition and approachability that were essential features of the…Read more
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Transcendental 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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Transcendental argumentsMetaphilosophy 3 (1). 1972.
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Transcendental argumentsJournal of Philosophy 65 (9): 241-256. 1968.
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Kant and the Principle of Sufficient ReasonReview of Metaphysics 74 (3). 2021.Leibniz, and many following him, saw the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) as pivotal to a scientific (demonstrated) metaphysics. Against this backdrop, Kant is expected to pay close attention to PSR in his reflections on the possibility of metaphysics, which is his chief concern in the Critique of Pure Reason. It is far from clear, however, what has become of PSR in the Critique. On one reading, Kant has simply turned it into the causal principle of the Second Analogy. On a different reading…Read more
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Ansichten der SubjektivitätSuhrkamp. 2012.Als »Subjektphilosophie« hat man das neuzeitliche Denken insgesamt charakterisiert. Diese Auszeichnung verdankt das Subjekt der verwegenen Hoffnung, es eigne sich zum ultimativen Prinzip der Wissensbegründung. Das Interesse an einer Aufklärung seiner Struktur wurde dadurch jedoch in den Hintergrund gedrängt. Diese Struktur steht im Zentrum von Manfred Franks jüngstem Buch, das einen Blick auf die moderne Geschichte der Subjekttheorien mit Analysen der inneren Beschaffenheit und der Zeitlichkeit …Read more
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Auswege aus dem Deutschen IdealismusSuhrkamp. 2007.
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Free logicStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2021.
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Transcendental Arguments and RealismIn Hans-Johann Glock (ed.), Strawson and Kant, Oxford University Press. pp. 205--218. 2003.
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Stroud, Hegel, Heidegger: A Transcendental ArgumentInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism. 2018._ Source: _Page Count 25 This is a pre-print. Please cite only the revised published version. This paper presents an original, ambitious, truth-directed transcendental argument for the existence of an ‘external world’. It begins with a double-headed starting-point: Stroud’s own remarks on the necessary conditions of language in general, and Hegel’s critique of the “fear of error.” The paper argues that the sceptical challenge requires a particular critical concept of thought as that which may di…Read more
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Berkeley's master argumentPhilosophical Review 83 (1): 55-69. 1974.
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Does Conceivability Entail Metaphysical Possibility?Ratio 28 (1): 1-13. 2015.In this paper, we argue that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’, which is the view that ideal primary positive conceivability entails primary metaphysical possibility, is self-defeating. To this end, we outline two reductio arguments against ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’. The first reductio shows that, from supposing that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’ is true, it follows that conceivability both is and is not conclusive evidence for possibility. The second reductio shows that, from supposing that ‘Weak Modal Ration…Read more
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Forgetting memory skepticismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (2): 253-263. 2020.Memory skepticism denies our memory beliefs could have any notable epistemic good. One route to memory skepticism is to challenge memory’s epistemic trustworthiness, that is, its functioning in a way necessary for it to provide epistemic justification. In this paper we develop and respond to this challenge. It could threaten memory in such a way that we altogether lack doxastic attitudes. If it threatens memory in this way, then the challenge is importantly self-defeating. If it does not threate…Read more
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Doubts about Descartes' indubitability: The cogito as intuition and inferencePhilosophical Forum 41 (4): 389-412. 2010.Kirsten Besheer has recently considered Descartes’ doubting appropriately in the context of his physiological theories in the spirit of recent important re-appraisals of his natural philosophy. However, Besheer does not address the notorious indubitability and its source that Descartes claims to have discovered. David Cunning has remarked that Descartes’ insistence on the indubitability of his existence presents “an intractable problem of interpretation” in the light of passages that suggest …Read more
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The Indubitability of the CogitoPacific Philosophical Quarterly 81 (4): 363-384. 2000.Why does Descartes give some propositions, most notably cogito, a privileged epistemic status? In the first part of the paper I consider, and reject, the standard account of the indubitability of cogito championed by, among others, Hintikka, Ayer, Slezak, and Frankfurt. After examining what I call the Cartesian regress, I invoke the fiction of a self-blind individual, close to the one originally introduced by Shoemaker, to give an alternative account of the indubitability of cogito. I argue that…Read more
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Descartes's cogito reexaminedPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 14 (2): 212-220. 1953.THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER IS TO REEXAMINE THE ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF THE "COGITO" ARGUMENT, TO NOTE SOME WELL-KNOWN CRITICISMS MADE OF IT, AND TO SUGGEST A FAIRER EVALUATION OF THE CARTESIAN CONTRIBUTION. THE INTERPRETATION OFFERED IS THAT THE "COGITO" IS AN IMPLICATION, TO BE SURE, BUT ONE THAT IS EXPERIENCED RATHER THAN CONCLUDED FROM AN INFERENCE. THUS THE "COGITO" IS SEEN TO HAVE AN EXPERIENTIAL BASIS AND A NUMBER OF TRADITIONAL CRITICISMS ARE SHOWN TO BE INVALIDATED IN THE LIGHT OF THIS INTE…Read more
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The Kinds of Things: A Theory of Personal Identity Based on Transcendental ArgumentOpen Court Publishing Company. 1996.The main contribution of this work is to develop the account of material constitution presented in Spatially Coinciding Objects (Ratio 24, 1982) and a series of related articles. This account was merely ‘analytical’ in that it applied generously to ‘putative’ examples of distinct entities (individuals, pluralities and masses of stuff) in the same place at the same time. The account herein is ‘critical’ in that it seeks justification for recognizing the existence of entities constituted in addi…Read more
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Descartes's diagonal deductionBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 34 (March): 13-36. 1983.
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