Ebook Download Spinoza

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Ebook Download Spinoza SPINOZA: A LIFE PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Steven Nadler | 430 pages | 23 Apr 2001 | CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS | 9780521002936 | English | Cambridge, United Kingdom Spinoza: A Life PDF Book Refresh and try again. His attitude was change through calm reason and patience. Oh, well. The Ethics and all other works, apart from the Descartes' Principles of Philosophy and the Theologico-Political Treatise , were published after his death in the Opera Posthuma , edited by his friends in secrecy to avoid confiscation and destruction of manuscripts. Book review The Philosophy of Spinoza. Retrieved 14 July Whitehead Bertrand Russell G. Da leggere! Manfred Walther unter Mitarbeit v. His way of living was exceedingly modest and retired; often he did not leave his room for many days together. Macherey, Pierre , Ottima divulgazione. He does not limit his discussion to the Ethics. He was likewise almost incredibly frugal; his expenses sometimes amounted only to a few pence a day. They understand that there is no afterlife, no post-mortem realm of reward and punishment, no world-to-come. The Washington Post. Third, it appears likely that Spinoza had already taken the initiative to separate himself from the Talmud Torah congregation and was vocally expressing his hostility to Judaism itself. Wikiquote has quotations related to: Baruch Spinoza. Influence the influencers. See more. To the question "What is? The New Republic. Quine G. It will put a great deal of what follows into perspective. Spinoza: A Life Writer Critical legal studies Comparative law Economic analysis Legal norms International legal theory Legal history Philosophy of law Sociology of law. Main article: Ethics Spinoza. Preview — Spinoza by Steven Nadler. Very good, versatile biography of a philosopher who is often thought to be a monk. Reprinted in Frankfurt, H. This is measured, careful writing about a figure Nadler obviously admires. He discusses the Sabatti Zvi incident a false Jewish Messiah who appealed to many people during Spinoza's lifetime and Spinoza's possible knowledge of it. Lloyd, Genevieve , He describes the efforts the Jewish community made to win acceptance in Amsterdam, the place of Spinoza's family in the Jewish community, and the rabbis and leaders of the community. Quaternary of the Levant presents up-to-date research achievements from a region that displays unique interactions Retrieved 30 November Cognitivism Moral realism Ethical naturalism Ethical non-naturalism Ethical subjectivism Ideal observer theory Divine command theory Error theory Non-cognitivism Emotivism Expressivism Quasi-realism Universal prescriptivism Moral universalism Value monism — Value pluralism Moral relativism Moral nihilism Moral rationalism Ethical intuitionism Moral skepticism. If you want to study Spinoza, this is the first book i'd advise you to read. See also: Pantheism controversy. If you are attracted to Spinoza's thought and wisdom, reading his biography is a must. Your email address will never be sold or distributed to a third party for any reason. According to German philosopher Karl Jaspers — , when Spinoza wrote Deus sive Natura Latin for 'God or Nature' , Spinoza meant God was natura naturans nature doing what nature does; literally, 'nature naturing' , not natura naturata nature already created; literally, 'nature natured'. The quote from the book which captured me was the first sentence: "On March 30, , Spain committed one of those acts of great self-destructive folly to which superpowers are prone: it expelled its Jews. I did enjoy it but to a large extent it was a history of Dutch Jewry more that a history of Spinoza. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Lists with This Book. Only knowledge of God provides the best response to the world around them. Current selection is: Paperback. Portal Category. Los Angeles Times. Non solo: racconta la situazione degli ebrei in Spagna e Portogallo, l'Olanda del ' Select Option. As philosopher and Spinoza biographer Steven Nadler puts it: "No doubt he was giving utterance to just those ideas that would soon appear in his philosophical treatises. Yet they have rarely taken into account the fact that the Jewish community in Amsterdam was very broad-minded and that its social and political leaders the parnassim were businessmen rather than rabbis. Therefore, according to Jaspers, the pantheist formula "One and All" would apply to Spinoza only if the "One" preserves its transcendence and the "All" were not interpreted as the totality of finite things. It is because, as I see it, Spinoza basically got it right: about human nature, religion, reason, politics and a good life. Despite the severity of the excommunication, it was apparently undertaken with some reluctance. At age 23, Baruch Spinoza, born and raised in the Orthodox Jewish community of 17th century Amsterdam, yeshiva-educated, is excommunicated and cursed by his community for unknown deeds, in one of the I've already started reading Rebecca Goldstein's for comparison purposes , which is reinforcing my belief that it's a cliche, or should be, that a Jew of Orthodox background who fancies himself a free thinker will be drawn to the mystique surrounding this philosopher. So I entered this book with trepidation. He died at the age of 44 in from a lung illness, perhaps tuberculosis or silicosis exacerbated by the inhalation of fine glass dust while grinding lenses. Popkin, R. His account of the nature of reality then seems to treat the physical and mental worlds as intertwined, causally related, and deriving from the same Substance. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. Spinoza, however, differed sharply from the Stoics in one important respect: He utterly rejected their contention that reason could defeat emotion. Da leggere! The work opposed Descartes' philosophy of mind—body dualism and earned Spinoza recognition as one of Western philosophy 's most important thinkers. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Amsterdam and Rotterdam operated as important cosmopolitan centres where merchant ships from many parts of the world brought people of various customs and beliefs. Cancel Submit. But if what you're hoping for is a juicy look at Spinoza's inner life, the pathos he and those around him must have experienced before, during, and after his excommunication, his final good-bye with his family, or inner conflicts and regrets on both sides, this is not the book. Spinoza: A Life Reviews This wide-ranging study examines the role of the dream in medieval culture with reference to philosophical, legal and theological writings as well as literary and autobiographical works. His masterwork is the treatise Ethics Spinoza: A Life. And if the mark of a personal being is that it is one towards which we can entertain personal attitudes, then we should note too that Spinoza recommends amor intellectualis dei the intellectual love of God as the supreme good for man 5p Very worthwhile to read. ABC News. Main article: Spinozism. Send me an email when my question is answered. He directly contests and denies dualism. He gives the reader a good feel for the revolutionary nature of Spinoza's thought and shows how and why Spinoza departed from the traditional religious belief of his day. They understand that there is no afterlife, no post-mortem realm of reward and punishment, no world-to-come. Excellent biography. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down, and cursed be he when he rises up; cursed be he when he goes out, and cursed be he when he comes in. I learned a lot. There is actually very little known about Spinoza himself. This volume describes Spinoza was an avid letter writer. More filters. Some of this material is well-known, others of it is less so. Cambridge University Press. See more details at Online Price Match. In , Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi published a condemnation of Spinoza's pantheism, after Gotthold Lessing was thought to have confessed on his deathbed to being a " Spinozist ", which was the equivalent in his time of being called an atheist. In Santayana's autobiography, he characterized Spinoza as his "master and model" in understanding the naturalistic basis of morality. As philosopher and Spinoza biographer Steven Nadler puts it: "No doubt he was giving utterance to just those ideas that would soon appear in his philosophical treatises. Humans presume themselves to have free will , he argues, which is a result of their awareness of appetites that affect their minds, while being unable to understand the reasons why they desire what they desire and act as they do. Biography portal Philosophy portal. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality, [90] namely a single, fundamental substance meaning "that which stands beneath" rather than "matter" that is the basis of the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications, that all things are determined by Nature to exist and cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause-and-effect is understood only in part. Spinoza adopted the Latin name Benedictus de Spinoza, [50] began boarding with Van den Enden, and began teaching in his school. Steven Nadler is the William H. Preface, in French, by Gilles Deleuze, available here: " He searched for the true God through the power of the intellect, outside the constraining and repressive atmosphere of 17th century organised religion. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Spinoza: A Life Read Online One of the most enlightening biographies. Spinoza's God does not have free will 1p32c1 , he does not have purposes or intentions 1 appendix , and Spinoza insists that "neither intellect nor will pertain to the nature of God" 1p17s1. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality, [90] namely a single, fundamental substance meaning "that which stands beneath" rather than "matter" that is the basis of the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications, that all things are determined by Nature to exist and cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause-and-effect is understood only in part.
Recommended publications
  • Ethical Intuitionism: a Structural Critique
    J Value Inquiry (2016) 50:631–647 DOI 10.1007/s10790-016-9547-8 Ethical Intuitionism: A Structural Critique Danny Frederick1 Published online: 8 February 2016 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 1 Introduction Recent years have seen attempts by many philosophers to rehabilitate, with some modifications, a traditional doctrine of ethical intuitionism (henceforward ‘‘intu- itionism’’). Contemporary intuitionists claim that moral knowledge consists of those propositions that are known by intellectual reflection (intuition), by moral observation or by moral emotion, or which are capable of being cogently inferred from propositions which are items of moral knowledge. Some intuitionists, such as Michael Huemer, admit only intuition (of particular or of general propositions) as a non-inferential source of moral knowledge; but others, such as Robert Audi, allow also moral observation and moral emotion. I offer a critique of contemporary intuitionist theories that depends upon their common structure: analysis of the abstract features of the approach show it to be an inadequate account of moral knowledge. I use Huemer and Audi as representative intuitionists. The differences between their views, and between their views and those of other intuitionists, are incidental at the level of generality of my argument. In section 2, I outline the contemporary intuitionist approach to moral knowledge. In sections 3, 4 and 5, I show that the problem of inter-cultural conflict undermines the claims that moral intuition, moral observation and moral emotion, respectively, are sources of non-inferential moral knowledge. I also explain the inadequacy of the intuitionist attempt to solve the problem by invoking bias or intellectual or moral failings.
    [Show full text]
  • Infinite Ethics
    INFINITE ETHICS Nick Bostrom Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University [Published in Analysis and Metaphysics, Vol. 10 (2011): pp. 9-59] [This is the final version. Earlier versions: 2003, 2005, 2008, 2009] www.nickbostrom.com ABSTRACT Aggregative consequentialism and several other popular moral theories are threatened with paralysis: when coupled with some plausible assumptions, they seem to imply that it is always ethically indifferent what you do. Modern cosmology teaches that the world might well contain an infinite number of happy and sad people and other candidate value-bearing locations. Aggregative ethics implies that such a world contains an infinite amount of positive value and an infinite amount of negative value. You can affect only a finite amount of good or bad. In standard cardinal arithmetic, an infinite quantity is unchanged by the addition or subtraction of any finite quantity. So it appears you cannot change the value of the world. Modifications of aggregationism aimed at resolving the paralysis are only partially effective and cause severe side effects, including problems of “fanaticism”, “distortion”, and erosion of the intuitions that originally motivated the theory. Is the infinitarian challenge fatal? 1. The challenge 1.1. The threat of infinitarian paralysis When we gaze at the starry sky at night and try to think of humanity from a “cosmic point of view”, we feel small. Human history, with all its earnest strivings, triumphs, and tragedies can remind us of a colony of ants, laboring frantically to rearrange the needles of their little ephemeral stack. We brush such late-night rumination aside in our daily life and analytic 1 philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Skepticism Foundationalism and the New Fuzziness: the Role of Wide Reflective Equilibrium in Legal Theory Robert Justin Lipkin
    Cornell Law Review Volume 75 Article 2 Issue 4 May 1990 Beyond Skepticism Foundationalism and the New Fuzziness: The Role of Wide Reflective Equilibrium in Legal Theory Robert Justin Lipkin Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Robert Justin Lipkin, Beyond Skepticism Foundationalism and the New Fuzziness: The Role of Wide Reflective Equilibrium in Legal Theory , 75 Cornell L. Rev. 810 (1990) Available at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol75/iss4/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Law Review by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BEYOND SKEPTICISM, FOUNDATIONALISM AND THE NEW FUZZINESS: THE ROLE OF WIDE REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM IN LEGAL THEORY Robert Justin Liphint TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .............................................. 812 I. FOUNDATIONALISM AND SKEPTICISM ..................... 816 A. The Problem of Skepticism ........................ 816 B. Skepticism and Nihilism ........................... 819 1. Theoretical and PracticalSkepticism ................ 820 2. Subjectivism and Relativism ....................... 821 3. Epistemic and Conceptual Skepticism ................ 821 4. Radical Skepticism ............................... 822 C. Modified Skepticism ............................... 824 II. NEW FOUNDATIONALISM
    [Show full text]
  • Kant, Skepticism, and Moral Sensibility
    Kant, Skepticism, and Moral Sensibility by Owen Ware A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Philosophy University of Toronto Copyright c 2010 by Owen Ware � Abstract Kant, Skepticism, and Moral Sensibility Owen Ware Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Philosophy University of Toronto 2010 In contrast to his rationalist predecessors, Kant insists that feeling has a pos- itive role to play in moral life. But the exact nature of this role is far from clear. As much as Kant insists that moral action must proceed from a feeling of respect, he maintains with equal insistence that the objective basis of acting from duty must come from practical reason alone, and that when we act from duty we must exclude sensibility from the determining grounds of choice. In what way, then, is respect for the law a feeling? And what place does this feeling have—if any—in Kant’s ethics? The aim of my dissertation is to answer these questions, in part through a close engagement with Kant’s second Critique. I provide a close reading of his claim that our recognition of the moral law must effect both painful and pleasurable feelings in us, and I argue that these feelings, for Kant, are meant to explain how the moral law can figure into the basis of a maxim. By showing why our recognition of the law must be painful from the perspective of self-love, but pleasurable from the perspective of practical reason, Kant is able to show how our desires can acquire normative direction.
    [Show full text]
  • Common Sense, Political Realism, Skepticism, In: a Decade of Transformation, IWM Junior Visiting Fellows Conferences, Vol
    IWM Junior Visiting Fellows Conferences, Vol. VIII/2 © 1999 by the author Readers may redistribute this article to other individuals for noncommercial use, provided that the text and this note remain intact. This article may not be reprinted or redistributed for commercial use without prior written permission from the author. If you have any questions about permissions, please contact Klaus Nellen at IWM, Spittelauer Laende 3, A - 1090 Vienna, Fax +(431) 31358-30, e-mail <[email protected]>. Preferred Citation: Voina-Motoc, Iulia, Moral-Rule and Rule of Law in International Politics: Common Sense, Political Realism, Skepticism, in: A Decade of Transformation, IWM Junior Visiting Fellows Conferences, Vol. 8: Vienna 1999 Moral Rule and Rule of Law in International Politics: Common Sense, Political Realism, Skepticism Iulia Voina-Motoc Can a state be moral? The question does violence to common opinion-arousing re- actions which might be attached to irony. Wouldn't it prove better for the speech on ethics in international relations to be included in a history of utopia? The notion of morals in an oversimplified acceptance as it is implied in this sentence is that of the religions of salvation or of Kantian autonomy applied to states after World War I. Accordingly, one can understand how deeply and generally prevalent are the postulates of political realism when applied to international relations today, thus amounting to reductionist assertions of the definition of morals. Taking into account the association between political realism and empiricism, one also can understand the massive refusal of political philosophy to analyze politics beyond the state borders.
    [Show full text]
  • Other Moral Theories : Subjectivism, Relativism, Emotivism, Intuitionism, Etc
    INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS 30 Other Moral Theories: Subjectivism, Relativism, Emotivism, Intuitionism, etc. 1 Jan Franciszek Jacko Metaethics includes moral theories that contain assumptions which answer some metaphysical and epistemological questions about moral goods and values. The metaphysical questions (such as What are, and how do moral goods and values exist?) are about the nature and existence of moral goods and values. Epistemological questions (such as Can we know moral goods and values? If so, what are the sources of knowledge about them?) regard sources of knowledge about moral goods, values and criteria of moral evaluations.2 Assumptions of ethical subjectivism, relativism, decisionism, emotivism and intuitionism are exemplary answers to these questions. We call their answers “normative assumptions.” There are at least three good reasons to ask and answer such questions. First, without answering them, moral judgments remain ambiguous. For example, if I say, “Action X is wrong,” the judgement has several meanings. To specify its sense, I should clarify my normative assumptions. For example, I can assume metaphysical subjectivism (anti-realism) or realism in metaethics. According to the former assumption, my above judgment about X is not about reality; it is about my or someone’s opinion. In this case, the exact meaning of this judgement is: someone evaluates X as morally wrong. If I assume the counter-assumption of metaphysical realism (anti-subjectivism), I mean that it is true that X has the property of moral wrongness. Second, these assumptions are conductive to peculiar practices. To specify the practice, which follows from moral judgments, one has to determine some normative assumptions.
    [Show full text]
  • Objectivity and Intersubjectivity in Moral Philosophy
    Objectivity and Intersubjectivity in Moral Philosophy The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:40046415 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA OBJECTIVITY AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY IN MORAL PHILOSOPHY A DISSERTATION PRESENTED BY PAUL JULIAN TO THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE SUBJECT OF PHILOSOPHY HARVARD UNIVERSITY CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS JANUARY 2017 © 2017 Paul Julian All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Selim Berker Paul Julian OBJECTIVITY AND INTERSUBJECTIVITY IN MORAL PHILOSOPHY ABSTRACT Many people believe that morality is objective. My dissertation explores whether we have good grounds for this belief, and whether we should find it troubling if we do not. I defend negative answers to both questions. The first two chapters aim to undermine claims that we have good grounds to believe that morality is objective. The third chapter makes the case that moral normativity is essentially intersubjective, and no less respectable for that fact. Chapter 1 poses a skeptical challenge for several promising rationales for moral objectivity. I argue that we can undermine rational confidence in these views by reflecting on the unreliability of the processes that lead us to find the views plausible, and so worth defending, in the first place.
    [Show full text]
  • Moral Theories Course Leader
    PHIL 101: Conceptual Foundations of Bioethics: Moral Theories Course Leader: Stavroula Tsinorema Semester: 1st (7 ECTS) Course Type: Required Objectives: The aims of this course unit are (a) to bring students in contact with the theoretical basis of Bioethics, through training in the methodologies and analytical tools of moral reasoning, (b) to provide them with the basic categories which show the conceptual links between the frameworks of moral philosophy and normative bioethical reasoning, (c) to equip them with the appropriate theoretical frameworks in order to be able to investigate critically and, where possible, to resolve specific moral problems deriving in biomedical research, its application in clinical contexts, health care and environmental policy. The overall aim is to enable students to develop core skills for the conduct of normative analysis and reasoning in Bioethics. Content: The normative resources for moral argument and justification in Bioethics are found in moral philosophy and philosophical theories of ethics. This course unit will survey some of the principle philosophical approaches in addressing a number of bioethical controversies and bring appropriate perspectives from ethical theories to bear on case studies in Bioethics. Topics include: 1) Philosophical ethics and its relation to Bioethics. 2) Classical approaches. Ethics and metaphysics. Ontological approaches to ethics. 3) Modern classical approaches to ethics. Theories of Scottish Enlightenment. Moral sentiments and the ethics of work: David Hume and Adam Smith. 4) Immanuel Kant: The ethics of form. 5) Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism. 6) Contemporary moral theories: - Contractarian and constructivist theories. John Rawls, Jurgen Habermas, Onora O’ Neill Postgraduate Prospectus 17 - Virtue ethics, ethics of care, feminism, communitarianism 7) Theories of a deflatory kind and moral scepticism.
    [Show full text]
  • RICHARD HARE 07 Hare 1226 15/11/2004 10:29 Page 117
    07 Hare 1226 15/11/2004 10:29 Page 116 RICHARD HARE 07 Hare 1226 15/11/2004 10:29 Page 117 Richard Mervyn Hare 1919–2002 RICHARD HARE left behind at his death a long essay titled ‘APhilosophical Autobiography’, which has since been published.1 Its opening is striking: I had a strange dream, or half-waking vision, not long ago. I found myself at the top of a mountain in the mist, feeling very pleased with myself, not just for having climbed the mountain, but for having achieved my life’s ambition, to find a way of answering moral questions rationally. But as I was preening myself on this achievement, the mist began to clear, and I saw that I was surrounded on the mountain top by the graves of all those other philosophers, great and small, who had had the same ambition, and thought they had achieved it. And I have come to see, reflecting on my dream, that, ever since, the hard-working philo- sophical worms had been nibbling away at their systems and showing that the achievement was an illusion. Yet his imagination could also be less modest: a gaggle of moral philoso- phers is trapped beneath the earth in a smoke-filled chamber; they talk at cross purposes, and refuse to take the way out into the open air that he alone has discovered. It was his ambition to have united elements from Aristotle, Kant, and Mill in a logically cogent way that solved the funda- mental problems of ethics (though with unfinished business); and he usu- ally believed himself to have achieved this.
    [Show full text]
  • ARISTOTLE and the IMPORTANCE of VIRTUE in the CONTEXT of the POLITICS and the NICOMACHEAN ETHICS and ITS RELATION to TODAY Kyle Brandon Anthony Bucknell University
    Bucknell University Bucknell Digital Commons Honors Theses Student Theses 2010 ARISTOTLE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF VIRTUE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE POLITICS AND THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS AND ITS RELATION TO TODAY Kyle Brandon Anthony Bucknell University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/honors_theses Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Anthony, Kyle Brandon, "ARISTOTLE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF VIRTUE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE POLITICS AND THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS AND ITS RELATION TO TODAY" (2010). Honors Theses. 21. https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/honors_theses/21 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses at Bucknell Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Bucknell Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1 What does it mean to live a good life? 7 The virtuous life 8 Ethical virtue 13 Bravery as an ethical virtue 20 Justice 22 Chapter 2 The Politics and the ideal polis 28 Development of a polis 29 Features of an ideal polis 32 What does it mean to be a citizen of a polis? 40 Aristotle’s views on education 42 Social groups in a polis who are not recognized as citizens 45 Non-ideal political systems 51 Chapter 3 Connections between the Politics and the Ethics 57 Chapter 4 Difficulties in applying Aristotle’s theories to a modern setting 68 Conclusion Where do we go from here? 87 Bibliography 89 iv Acknowledgements First off, I have to thank God, as He helped me endure this project and gave me the courage to press on when I became frustrated, angry, and ready to quit.
    [Show full text]
  • Is, Ought, and Objectivity in Hume's Social Science Stephen G
    Bryn Mawr College Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College Political Science Faculty Research and Scholarship Political Science 1980 "Cool Reflexion" and the Criticism of Values: Is, Ought, and Objectivity in Hume's Social Science Stephen G. Salkever Bryn Mawr College, [email protected] Let us know how access to this document benefits ouy . Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/polisci_pubs Part of the Political Science Commons Custom Citation Salkever, Stephen G. "'Cool Reflexion' and the Criticism of Values: Is, Ought, and Objectivity in Hume's Social Science." American Political Science Review 74 (1980): 70-77. This paper is posted at Scholarship, Research, and Creative Work at Bryn Mawr College. http://repository.brynmawr.edu/polisci_pubs/17 For more information, please contact [email protected]. "Cool Reflexion"and the Criticismof Values: Is, Ought,and Objectivityin Hume's SocialScience STEPHENG. SALKEVER Bryn MawrCollege Is the fact/value distinction incompatiblewith the possibility of a social science which is both objectiveand evaluative(or normative)?Does support of the latterrequire rejection of the former and vice versa? This article presents an indirect argument against the incompatibilityof the fact/value distinction and an objectively evaluativesocial science. My procedureis to show that David Hume, whose is/ought distinction is the locus classicusof the fact/value distinction, is committed both to the view that valuescannot be derivedfrom facts and to the view that social science is not (and should not be) value-neutral.Furthermore, Hume's position is free from any logical flaws. My conclusion is that it is false to say that the fact/value distinction entails a value-neutralsocial science, and that it is thereforeutterly unnecessaryfor criticsof such a science to waste their time attemptingto "bridgethe gap" betweenfacts and values.
    [Show full text]
  • HOW to STAND up for NON-COGNITIVISTS John O'leary-Hawthorne and Huw Price Is Non-Cognitivism Compatible with Minimalism About
    Published in The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74(1996) 275-292. HOW TO STAND UP FOR NON-COGNITIVISTS John O’Leary-Hawthorne and Huw Price Is non-cognitivism compatible with minimalism about truth? A contemporary argument claims not, and therefore that moral realists, for example, should take heart from the popularity of semantic minimalism. The same is said to apply to cognitivism about other topics—conditionals, for example—for the argument depends only on the fact that ordinary usage applies the notions of truth and falsity to utterances of the kind in question. Given this much, minimalism about truth is said to leave no room for the view that the utterances concerned are non-cognitive in nature.1 In this paper we want to derail this fast-track route to cognitivism. We want to show that with a proper understanding of what is essential to non-cognitivism, the position turns out to be largely untouched by the adoption of any of a range of minimalist views about truth. The issue as to the nature of non-cognitivism is crucial, however, and we begin in §I below by defending a broader characterisation of the position than is common in contemporary literature. The nature of minimalism also calls for clarification, and in §II we distinguish two importantly different strands which are both prominent in contemporary debates. Against this background, we go on to explore two possible strategies for standing up for non-cognitivism in the face of minimalism. One of these strategies has been propounded in a recent paper by Frank Jackson, Graham Oppy and Michael Smith.2 It turns on the idea that minimalism about truth is quite compatible with a non-minimalism about truth-aptness, and that the latter can be used to ground non-cognitivism.
    [Show full text]