Le modèle causaliste en théorie de l'action a pour point de départ l'idée que les rationalisations sont des explications causales de l'action, c'est-à-dire que les énoncés à propos des croyances et des pro-attitudes qui ont motivé un agent à accomplir une certaine action expriment les antécédents causaux de cette action. Pour reprendre un des exemples classiques, le meurtre de César par Brutus a été causé par le désir que Brutus avait de prendre le pouvoir et par sa croyance que la seule façon d'y parvenir était d'éliminer César. Bien qu'intuitive, cette position soulève immédiatement un problème du fait que les états intentionnels, en raison de leur contenu propositionnel, ne s'imposent pas d'office comme appartenant au règne des choses physiques et de la causalité. Comment, en effet, des entités d'ordre mental peuvent-elles interagir avec les entités complètement différentes que sont les événements physiques? Et même, plus largement, comment un événement mental peut-il avoir une quelconque efficace causale sur un événement physique ou sur un autre événement mental? Une réponse bien connue à cette difficulté est le monisme anomal de Davidson, selon lequel il n'y a pas d'obstacle à ce que le mental soit en relation causale avec le physique puisque les occurrences d'événements mentaux sont identiques à des occurrences d'événements physiques. Toutefois cette approche, qui, comme bien d'autres, mise sur une stratégie matérialiste pour ne pas isoler le mental du physique, en a conduit plus d'un à douter de l'indispensabilité du mental.

One cannot determine whether a book is a work of political philosophy merely by glancing at its contents. Heidegger's Being and Time is a case in point. It offers no discussion of the topics which are commonly thought to constitute political philosophy—the state, the nature of law, human rights, and so on. But particular themes such as these reflect in large part the actual conditions which prevailed at certain times and places, fourth-century Athens and seventeenth-century England, for example, so they must not be thought to constitute an outline of the eternal problems of political philosophy. When a philosopher embarks upon a new line of thought at a different time and under novel circumstances, he may find himself instituting a new vocabulary for the problems of the human community.

Peut-on s'entendre en matière d'esthétique? Y a-t-il une objectivité possible des jugements dans ce domaine marginal de la philosophie? La question du sens commun dans la Critique de la faculté de juger, semble, aux dires de certains, mener directement à cette problématique contemporaine. Nous ne reprendrons pas ici les multiples articles et ouvrages sur le sensus communis parus dans la dernière décennie à la suite de l'impact conceptuel du thème de la rationalité communicationnelle. Notre intention est plutôt, au-delà de la “dérive” du célèbre paragraphe 40 vers une idée plus actuelle (et aussi plus banale) de “consensus”, de repérer les tensions entre le versant transcendantal et le versant empirique du sens commun qui surgissent significativement à l'occasion de cette dérive. Avant d'aborder le sens esthétique défini dans la troisième Critique et de le confronter aux interprétations qui nous semblent plus déterminantes comme celles de L. Ferry de J.-F. Lyotard ou de J. Habermas nous voudrions d'abord examiner l'usage général de cette notion dans l'histoire de la philosophie précritique pour vérifier ensuite la spécificitÉ qu'elle acquiert chez Kant.

In “Moral Responsibility for Dreams,” Harvey Mullane maintains that although there is something inappropriate about blaming people for their dreams, this is because we do not have very direct control over our dreams: but although this is the case, it is not the case that we have no control over them. We can work at having the right dreams, or not having the wrong ones, as we can work at blushing and not blushing and at loving our neighbour: and therefore presumably (although he does not say this) there must be a sense in which or a degree to which we can be responsible for what we dream. There are a number of aspects of this question, and of Mullane's treatment of it, which I would like to explore further.

Voluntary Abortion involves the preventable destruction of an unformed or partly formed human organism. It is disagreement about the moral significance of this fact which sustains the controversy over abortion. This disagreement derives from a dispute about the sanctity, or morally protected position, of the destroyed organism, which in turn results from conflicting opinions about the basis or criterion of sanctity rather than any uncertainty over how they may apply. The thesis of this paper is that this last disagreement about the criterion of moral sanctity cannot be settled by rational, i.e. non-circular, argument; and hence, that there is no rational method of resolving the controversy over the morality of abortion.

In 1772, Kant outlined the new problem of his critical period in terms of four possible “ways” of understanding the agreement of knowledge with its object. This study expands Kant’s terse descriptions of these ways, examining why he rejected them. Apart from clarifying the historical context in which Kant saw his own achievement (the Fifth Way), the chief benefits of exploring the historical background of Way Two, in particular, are that it (1) explains the puzzling intuitus originarius/intellectus archetypus dichotomy, and (2) casts doubt on the received idea that Kant broke with the traditional theocentric model of cognition.

In light of recent legal decisions affording more than two parents to Canadian children, we consider whether there is any moral reason for limiting the number of parents a child can have to two. We look at several traditional arguments for this position and find that they fail to justify it. We also consider an argument inspired by Brighouse and Swift’s work on the goods of parenting and find that while it brings up important points, it is not strong enough to support a limit of just two parents. We conclude with some thoughts about how else the notion of parenthood could be helpfully separated from traditional notions.

In this paper, I critically discuss Charles Taylor’s employment of the concept of ontology by shining a spotlight on a shift in emphasis from an anthropocentric to a non-anthropocentric viewpoint in his more recent writings on ontology. I also argue that Stephen White’s characterization of Taylor’s ‘weak’ ontology, while revealing, only partly explains Taylor’s position, as White’s interpretation leaves no room for the metaphysical thrust in Taylor’s thought. Drawing attention to a Taylor left out of White’s Taylor, I ultimately seek to show why Taylor’s distinctive mode of argumentation is not consonant with White’s weak-ontological approach.

According to ‘strong cognitivism’, all reasons for action are rooted in normative features that the motivated subject (explicitly or implicitly) takes objects to have (or lack) independently of her attitudes towards these objects. My main concern in this paper is to argue against strong cognitivism, that is, to establish the view that conative attitudes do provide subjects with reasons for action. My central argument to this effect is a top-down one that proceeds by an analysis of the complex phenomenon of caring and derives a conclusion regarding the (motivational and normative) nature of more basic mental phenomena—particular desires.

Plato is not serious when he has Socrates deduce that poetry must be mostly narrative with just a little dialogue. Not only is the argumentation purposely flawed, but he also has Socrates purposely obfuscate a key distinction. He then has Socrates pretend to be confused by his own obfuscation. By forcing us to work our way through the thickets of his faulty argumentation, Plato gives us the opportunity to become more deeply involved with the underlying issues and to discover his theme: a good person is one who is stoically indifferent to both bad fortune and good fortune.

This paper suggests that reference to phenomenal qualities is best understood as involving iconicity, that is, a passage from sign-vehicle to object that exploits a similarity between the two. This contrasts with a version of the ‘phenomenal concept strategy’ that takes indexicality to be central. However, since it is doubtful that phenomenal qualities are capable of causally interacting with anything, indexical reference seems inappropriate. While a theorist like David Papineau is independently coming to something akin to iconicity, I think some of the awkwardness that plagues his account would be remedied by transitioning to a more inclusive philosophy of signs.

Recently the discussion surrounding the conceivability thesis has been less about the link between conceivability and possibility per se and more about the requirements of a successful physicalist program. But before entering this debate it is necessary to consider whether conceivability provides us with even prima facie justification for our modal beliefs. I argue that two methods of conceiving—imagining that p and telling a story about p—can provide us with such justification, but only if certain requirements are met. To make these arguments, I consider those of Paul Tidman, whose position I use as a foil.