Princeton Monographs in Philosophy

Gideon Yaffe is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. This is the first comprehensive interpretation of John Locke's solution to one of philosophy's most enduring problems: free will and the nature of human agency. Many assume that Locke defines freedom as merely the dependency of conduct on our wills. And much contemporary philosophical literature on free agency regards freedom as a form of self-expression in action. Here, Gideon Yaffe shows us that Locke conceived free agency not just as the freedom to express oneself, but as including also the freedom to transcend oneself and act in accordance with "the good." For Locke, exercising liberty involves making choices guided by what is good, valuable, and important. Thus, Locke's view is part of a tradition that finds freedom in the imitation of God's agency. Locke's free agent is the ideal agent. Yaffe also examines Locke's understanding of volition and voluntary action. For Locke, choices always involve self-consciousness. The kind of self-consciousness to which Locke appeals is intertwined with his conception of personal identity. And it is precisely this connection between the will and personal identity that reveals the special sense in which our voluntary actions can be attributed to us and the special sense in which we are active with respect to them. Deftly written and tightly focused, Liberty Worth the Name will find readers far beyond Locke studies and early modern British philosophy, including scholars interested in free will, action theory, and ethics. "Liberty Worth the Name uses Locke's texts as a means of exploring with great acuity the various ways in which human selfhood and agency depend upon each other."---James A. Harris, Times Literary Supplement "Liberty Worth the Name is an excellent book which displays great subtlety and sophistication in its analyses of the issues. Yaffe is a master of the contemporary literature in the philosophy of action; his book is informed throughout by a deep knowledge of the current positions and debates. . . . [His] study will surely stimulate a revival of interest in a largely neglected and undervalued area of Locke's thought."---Nicholas Jolley, Philosophy in Review "This is, quite simply, the best work on Locke's theory of agency; it is a significant contribution both to Locke studies and to the theory of action. It is clearly and elegantly written, the arguments are set out in clear and cogent fashion, and the discussion of the details of Locke's texts is always conducted with an eye squarely fixed on the general philosophical import of the basic issues which those texts are addressing. It is an excellent piece of work."-Edwin McCann, University of Southern California "This is a first-rate piece of work. Yaffe's discussion is engaging, lucid, and almost entirely persuasive throughout. The issue of free will remains a lively one in both philosophical research and teaching."-Paul Guyer, University of Pennsylvania, author of Kant and the Experience of Freedom

Alfred R. Mele, the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University, is the author of Irrationality, Springs of Action, and Autonomous Agents. He is the editor of The Philosophy of Action and coeditor of Mental Causation. Self-deception raises complex questions about the nature of belief and the structure of the human mind. In this book, Alfred Mele addresses four of the most critical of these questions: What is it to deceive oneself? How do we deceive ourselves? Why do we deceive ourselves? Is self-deception really possible? Drawing on cutting-edge empirical research on everyday reasoning and biases, Mele takes issue with commonplace attempts to equate the processes of self-deception with those of stereotypical interpersonal deception. Such attempts, he demonstrates, are fundamentally misguided, particularly in the assumption that self-deception is intentional. In their place, Mele proposes a compelling, empirically informed account of the motivational causes of biased beliefs. At the heart of this theory is an appreciation of how emotion and motivation may, without our knowing it, bias our assessment of evidence for beliefs. Highlighting motivation and emotion, Mele develops a pair of approaches for explaining the two forms of self-deception: the "straight" form, in which we believe what we want to be true, and the "twisted" form, in which we believe what we wish to be false. Underlying Mele's work is an abiding interest in understanding and explaining the behavior of real human beings. The result is a comprehensive, elegant, empirically grounded theory of everyday self-deception that should engage philosophers and social scientists alike. "An engaging and accessible read. . . . What is particularly compelling about Mele's analysis of self-deception is that it demonstrates, in contrast with many accounts . . ., that we have relatively little control over many of the beliefs that are most important to us. . . . The book gives rise to many fascinating questions about human nature.""---Julie E. Kirsch, Ethics "An engaging and accessible read for both those who have and those who have not previously thought extensively about self-deception. . . . What is particularly compelling about Mele's analysis of self-deception is that it demonstrates, in contrast with many accounts of self-deception that purport to demonstrate the opposite, that we have relatively little control over many of the beliefs that are most important to us--beliefs that concern the objects of our desires. . . . [T]he book gives rise to many fascinating questions concerning human nature."---Julie E. Kirsch, Ethics "Self-Deception Unmasked provides an accessible, digestible, sophisticated, and up-to-date discussion of Mele's valuable contributions to our understanding of self-deception."---Paul Sheldon Davies, Philosophia "This book presents a fine-grained, distinctive, and highly plausible account of self-deception in an engaging and concrete style. Mele's book is also the most psychologically informed philosophical treatment of the topic I know of."-Robert Audi, University of Nebraska

Jaegwon Kim is William Herbert Perry Faunce Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. His previous books include Mind in a Physical World, Philosophy of Mind, and Supervenience and Mind. Contemporary discussions in philosophy of mind have largely been shaped by physicalism, the doctrine that all phenomena are ultimately physical. Here, Jaegwon Kim presents the most comprehensive and systematic presentation yet of his influential ideas on the mind-body problem. He seeks to determine, after half a century of debate: What kind of (or "how much") physicalism can we lay claim to? He begins by laying out mental causation and consciousness as the two principal challenges to contemporary physicalism. How can minds exercise their causal powers in a physical world? Is a physicalist account of consciousness possible? The book's starting point is the "supervenience" argument (sometimes called the "exclusion" argument), which Kim reformulates in an extended defense. This argument shows that the contemporary physicalist faces a stark choice between reductionism (the idea that mental phenomena are physically reducible) and epiphenomenalism (the view that mental phenomena are causally impotent). Along the way, Kim presents a novel argument showing that Cartesian substance dualism offers no help with mental causation. Mind-body reduction, therefore, is required to save mental causation. But are minds physically reducible? Kim argues that all but one type of mental phenomena are reducible, including intentional mental phenomena, such as beliefs and desires. The apparent exceptions are the intrinsic, felt qualities of conscious experiences ("qualia"). Kim argues, however, that certain relational properties of qualia, in particular their similarities and differences, are behaviorally manifest and hence in principle reducible, and that it is these relational properties of qualia that are central to their cognitive roles. The causal efficacy of qualia, therefore, is not entirely lost. According to Kim, then, while physicalism is not the whole truth, it is the truth near enough. "In this compact and readable book, Jaegwon Kim provides an overview of his considered position on the mind-body problem, updating and refining several familiar arguments as well as introducing newer material to round out his map of the terrain. The position 'near enough' to physicalism endorsed at the end holds that, with the exception of the intrinsic features of phenomenal states, mental properties are physically reducible via functional analysis."---D. Gene Witmer, Mind "This is an excellent book by one of the world's best philosophers working on the metaphysics of mind. Nobody who is interested in the mind-body problem . . . should miss the opportunity to study this book carefully."---Jesper Kallestrup, Philosophical Quarterly "Kim's Physicalism, or Something Near Enough presents philosophy at its best. The arguments contained in it are interesting and stimulating, and the discussion of opposed views is fair and highly productive. I enjoyed reading this book. It deserves to be read by anyone interested in the metaphysics of consciousness and mind."---Yaron Senderowicz, Pragmatics & Cognition "Physicalism: Or Something Near Enough is vintage Kim, and well worth reading for anyone interested in physicalism in the philosophy of mind."---Thomas W. Smythe, Philosophical Psychology "This is a fine volume that clarifies, defends, and moves beyond the views that Kim presented in Mind in a Physical World. Chapter by chapter, it is philosophically interesting and engagingly written."-Karen Bennett, Princeton University

Raymond Geuss is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Idea of a Critical Theory and History and Illusion in Politics. Much political thinking today, particularly that influenced by liberalism, assumes a clear distinction between the public and the private, and holds that the correct understanding of this should weigh heavily in our attitude to human goods. It is, for instance, widely held that the state may address human action in the ''public'' realm but not in the ''private.'' In Public Goods, Private Goods Raymond Geuss exposes the profound flaws of such thinking and calls for a more nuanced approach. Drawing on a series of colorful examples from the ancient world, he illustrates some of the many ways in which actions can in fact be understood as public or private. The first chapter discusses Diogenes the Cynic, who flouted conventions about what should be public and what should be private by, among other things, masturbating in the Athenian marketplace. Next comes an analysis of Julius Caesar's decision to defy the Senate by crossing the Rubicon with his army; in doing so, Caesar asserted his dignity as a private person while acting in a public capacity. The third chapter considers St. Augustine's retreat from public life to contemplate his own, private spiritual condition. In the fourth, Geuss goes on to examine recent liberal views, questioning, in particular, common assumptions about the importance of public dialogue and the purportedly unlimited possibilities humans have for reaching consensus. He suggests that the liberal concern to maintain and protect, even at a very high cost, an inviolable ''private sphere'' for each individual is confused. Geuss concludes that a view of politics and morality derived from Hobbes and Nietzsche is a more realistic and enlightening way than modern liberalism to think about human goods. Ultimately, he cautions, a simplistic understanding of privacy leads to simplistic ideas about what the state is and is not justified in doing. " A brief and scintillating exploration. . . . Lively and provocative, it contains . . . an impressive assortment of ideas, arguments, and themes. . . . Too few philosophical works are a great pleasure to read. This is one of them."---Richard Kraut, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "Both edifying and disquieting. . . . Geuss's expositional skills make his tour through the classical world as enlightening as the conceptual distinctions which are its official destination."---Leif Wenar, Ethics "This book makes it possible to hope once again that philosophy could become political . . . by using its own resources of genealogical investigation, analytic criticism, and conceptual reflection."---Christoph Menke, Die Zeit "A finely written and persuasive criticism of a pervasive current assumption."---James Warren, Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews "Public Goods, Private Goods is philosophically interesting, remarkably subtle, and analytically acute. Moreover, its conclusions are compellingly argued and important."-Daniel Brudney, University of Chicago "The fund of information Geuss brings into his discussion of the ancients, and the verve and charm with which it is all presented, make the central chapters of this book particularly engaging. The section on Diogenes the Cynic is very interesting, the presentation is lively and vigorous, and what Geuss has to say will be news for an English-speaking audience. Much the same is true with the section on Caesar. And the account of Augustine's search for himself is, again, striking and full of interest."-John M. Cooper, Princeton University

Stephen Mulhall is Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at New College, Oxford. His recent books include On Film and Inheritance and Originality: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Kierkegaard. Did post-Enlightenment philosophers reject the idea of original sin and hence the view that life is a quest for redemption from it? In Philosophical Myths of the Fall, Stephen Mulhall identifies and evaluates a surprising ethical-religious dimension in the work of three highly influential philosophers--Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. He asks: Is the Christian idea of humanity as structurally flawed something that these three thinkers aim simply to criticize? Or do they, rather, end up by reproducing secular variants of the same mythology? Mulhall argues that each, in different ways, develops a conception of human beings as in need of redemption: in their work, we appear to be not so much capable of or prone to error and fantasy, but instead structurally perverse, living in untruth. In this respect, their work is more closely aligned to the Christian perspective than to the mainstream of the Enlightenment. However, all three thinkers explicitly reject any religious understanding of human perversity; indeed, they regard the very understanding of human beings as originally sinful as central to that from which we must be redeemed. And yet each also reproduces central elements of that understanding in his own thinking; each recounts his own myth of our Fall, and holds out his own image of redemption. The book concludes by asking whether this indebtedness to religion brings these philosophers' thinking closer to, or instead forces it further away from, the truth of the human condition. "Mulhall's re-opening of issues of fall and redemption is not so much a re-construction of a specific answer as it is a re-articulation of the germane questions and a re-thinking of possible responses. Mulhall simultaneously puts into question the adequacy of the philosophical myths and raises the prospect of reconsidering the Christian account."---Thomas Hibbs, First Things "This book is extremely intelligent, genuinely original, and very well written. Mulhall's suggestion that Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein 'want to preserve a recognizable version of the Christian conception of human nature' is very intriguing indeed, and he develops it splendidly."-Richard Rorty, Stanford University, author of Philosophy and Social Hope

Ted Cohen is a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago and the author of Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters. In Thinking of Others, Ted Cohen argues that the ability to imagine oneself as another person is an indispensable human capacity--as essential to moral awareness as it is to literary appreciation--and that this talent for identification is the same as the talent for metaphor. To be able to see oneself as someone else, whether the someone else is a real person or a fictional character, is to exercise the ability to deal with metaphor and other figurative language. The underlying faculty, Cohen argues, is the same--simply the ability to think of one thing as another when it plainly is not. In an engaging style, Cohen explores this idea by examining various occasions for identifying with others, including reading fiction, enjoying sports, making moral arguments, estimating one's future self, and imagining how one appears to others. Using many literary examples, Cohen argues that we can engage with fictional characters just as intensely as we do with real people, and he looks at some of the ways literature itself takes up the question of interpersonal identification and understanding. An original meditation on the necessity of imagination to moral and aesthetic life, Thinking of Others is an important contribution to philosophy and literary theory. "Ted Cohen's little philosophical essay on how metaphor gets us to think of others was tremendous."---James Wood, NewYorker.com "This is really philosophy at its best: clearly written and free from jargon, sophisticated yet unpretentious, and highly engaging."---Jeanette Bicknell, Philosophy in Review "Cohen has given us, in wonderfully readable and analytically acute form, an unforgettable study of a complexly interwoven set of linguistic, perceptual, and imaginative abilities that not only make us who we are, but make us who we are together."---Garry L. Hagberg, Mind "Ted Cohen's work on metaphor is well known in the profession, so it comes as no surprise to us that he has now written a splendid book on the subject."---Peter Kivy, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism "The important, intriguing subject of this small book by Cohen--one's capacity to understand others--is full of perplexing puzzles. Through careful analysis of interesting examples, Cohen makes readers wonder about some of the major impasses in mutual understanding between people with different religious perspectives, with different racial and social experiences, and even with allegiances to different baseball teams."---S.A. Mason, Choice "[W]hy not invest in Cohen's book? I assure you it will return handsome dividends, even in the present economy."---Peter Kivy, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism "Thinking of Others represents a performance of a most unusual sort, creating an uncommon relation to its reader and differing beginning to end from other books that might seem to share its subjects. Ted Cohen's book-so full of interesting thoughts and fascinating texts, and all presented in so charming a manner-is a notable contribution."-Stanley Cavell, professor emeritus, Harvard University "The body of work on metaphor, narrative, and jokes that Ted Cohen has produced over the years is one of the most impressive achievements of analytic aesthetics. His writing exhibits levels of wit, warmth, and conversational accessibility that are the envy of the rest of us. Thinking of Others explores the close analogies between the insight and intimacy we obtain from metaphorical identifications like 'Juliet is the sun' and the insight and intimacy we obtain by imagining ourselves into the shoes of another or the shoes of our own future self. For Cohen, the terms on which we live with large- and small-scale works of art are tightly bound up with those on which we live with each other and with ourselves; his book is as much a contribution to ethics as to aesthetics."-David

Andrei Marmor is the Maurice Jones Jr. Professor of Law and a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. His books include Law in the Age of Pluralism and Interpretation and Legal Theory. Social conventions are those arbitrary rules and norms governing the countless behaviors all of us engage in every day without necessarily thinking about them, from shaking hands when greeting someone to driving on the right side of the road. In this book, Andrei Marmor offers a pathbreaking and comprehensive philosophical analysis of conventions and the roles they play in social life and practical reason, and in doing so challenges the dominant view of social conventions first laid out by David Lewis. Marmor begins by giving a general account of the nature of conventions, explaining the differences between coordinative and constitutive conventions and between deep and surface conventions. He then applies this analysis to explain how conventions work in language, morality, and law. Marmor clearly demonstrates that many important semantic and pragmatic aspects of language assumed by many theorists to be conventional are in fact not, and that the role of conventions in the moral domain is surprisingly complex, playing mostly an auxiliary and supportive role. Importantly, he casts new light on the conventional foundations of law, arguing that the distinction between deep and surface conventions can be used to answer the prevalent objections to legal conventionalism. Social Conventions is a much-needed reappraisal of the nature of the rules that regulate virtually every aspect of human conduct. "This is certainly an important addition to this rather narrow body of academic scholarship." "Social Conventions is an important contribution to scholars from at least two disciplines--philosophy and law. . . . [T]his book should interest anyone wanting to gain a better and deeper understanding of human linguistic and moral behavior."---Dana Riesenfeld, Pragmatics Cognition "This timely monograph should stimulate further philosophical studies of conventions in general and of their various manifestations in human affairs."---Kevin Toh, Ethics "This book will be of great philosophical interest, especially to social and legal philosophers. Marmor's view is original and represents an important alternative to the dominant (Lewisian) conception of social conventions. He sketches his theory on a large canvas and applies it to several different areas of social life. He writes with admirable clarity, directness, and simplicity."-Gerald Postema, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill "This book develops and applies a general theory of social conventions, then employs it to answer questions about the role of convention in language, morality, and law. Marmor's conclusions are noteworthy not only for the light they shed on the conventions found in these areas, but also for the claim that some linguistic and moral phenomena deemed conventional by other writers do not, in fact, have this status."-Christopher McMahon, University of California, Santa Barbar

Richard Raatzsch holds the chair for practical philosophy at the European Business School in Wiesbaden, Germany. This book is a concise philosophical meditation on Iago and the nature of evil, through the exploration of the enduring puzzle found in Shakespeare's Othello. What drives Iago to orchestrate Othello's downfall? Instead of treating Iago's lack of motive as the play's greatest weakness, The Apologetics of Evil shows how this absence of motive is the play's greatest strength. Richard Raatzsch determines that Iago does not seek a particular end or revenge for a discrete wrong; instead, Iago is governed by a passion for intriguing in itself. Raatzsch explains that this passion is a pathological version of ordinary human behavior and that Iago lacks the ability to acknowledge others; what matters most to him is the difference between himself and the rest of the world. The book opens with a portrait of Iago, and considers the nature and moral significance of the evil that he represents. Raatzsch addresses the boundaries dividing normality and pathology, conceptualizing evil as a pathological form of the good or ordinary. Seen this way, evil is conceptually dependent on the ordinary, and Iago, as a form of moral monster, is a kind of nonbeing. Therefore, his actions might be understood and defended, even if they cannot be justified. In a brief epilogue, Raatzsch argues that literature's presentation of what is monstrous or virtuous can constitute an understanding of these concepts, not merely illustrate them. "What is evil? What are its forms? How is it motivated? These are questions of the greatest human significance and Raatzsch's treatment of them is sensitive, imaginative, and broadly based. This book brings together different lines of argument from epistemology, moral philosophy, and philosophy of mind in a highly compact and supercharged, yet fully comprehensible form. The result packs an enormous intellectual punch."-Raymond Geuss, University of Cambridge "This original, deeply felt, clearly written, and well-argued book combines Shakespearean analysis, moral philosophy, psychology, and philosophy of literature-all in a succinct, unified, and impressive way."-Richard Eldridge, Swarthmore College

Robert J. Fogelin is professor of philosophy and the Sherman Fairchild Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at Dartmouth College. His many books include Wittgenstein, Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification, Walking the Tightrope of Reason, and A Defense of Hume on Miracles (Princeton). Taking Wittgenstein at His Word is an experiment in reading organized around a central question: What kind of interpretation of Wittgenstein's later philosophy emerges if we adhere strictly to his claims that he is not in the business of presenting and defending philosophical theses and that his only aim is to expose persistent conceptual misunderstandings that lead to deep philosophical perplexities? Robert Fogelin draws out the therapeutic aspects of Wittgenstein's later work by closely examining his account of rule-following and how he applies the idea in the philosophy of mathematics. The first of the book's two parts focuses on rule-following, Wittgenstein's "paradox of interpretation," and his naturalistic response to this paradox, all of which are persistent and crucial features of his later philosophy. Fogelin offers a corrective to the frequent misunderstanding that the paradox of interpretation is a paradox about meaning, and he emphasizes the importance of Wittgenstein's often undervalued appeals to natural responses. The second half of the book examines how Wittgenstein applies his reflections on rule-following to the status of mathematical propositions, proofs, and objects, leading to remarkable, demystifying results. Taking Wittgenstein at His Word shows that what Wittgenstein claims to be doing and what he actually does are much closer than is often recognized. In doing so, the book underscores fundamental--but frequently underappreciated--insights about Wittgenstein's later philosophy. "This is a superb book. . . . Taking Wittgenstein at his word, as Fogelin has done, is a far, far deeper thing than taking him at face value."---Anat Biletzki, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "[Taking Wittgenstein at His Word] is a thought-provoking study that gives those interested in Wittgenstein much to ponder. For that reason, I feel I can confidently recommend TWHW, both to those just beginning to explore Wittgenstein's work and to serious scholars."---Joshua McNutt, Dialogue "Robert Fogelin is absolutely right to take Wittgenstein's methodological statements seriously and to focus on the primary texts rather than to be guided by fashionable interpretations. Fogelin's reading is perceptive and sensible, the key concepts around which he organizes his interpretation are judiciously chosen, and the book is clearly written."-Severin Schroeder, Reading University

Axel Honneth is professor of social philosophy at Goethe University and director of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main. His many books include Pathologies of Reason, Reification, The Struggle for Recognition, and The Critique of Power. This is a penetrating reinterpretation and defense of Hegel's social theory as an alternative to reigning liberal notions of social justice. The eminent German philosopher Axel Honneth rereads Hegel's Philosophy of Right to show how it diagnoses the pathologies of the overcommitment to individual freedom that Honneth says underlies the ideas of Rawls and Habermas alike. Honneth argues that Hegel's theory contains an account of the psychological damage caused by placing too much emphasis on personal and moral freedom. Although these freedoms are crucial to the achievement of justice, they are insufficient and in themselves leave people vulnerable to loneliness, emptiness, and depression. Hegel argues that people must also find their freedom or "self-realization" through shared projects. Such projects involve the three institutions of ethical life--family, civil society, and the state--and provide the arena of a crucial third kind of freedom, which Honneth calls "communicative" freedom. A society is just only if it gives all of its members sufficient and equal opportunity to realize communicative freedom as well as personal and moral freedom. "Axel Honneth's book is stimulating, insightful, philosophically interesting, and analytically sophisticated. Its main contribution lies in its sympathetic, philosophically acute reconstruction of Hegel's position on individual freedom, which is made with an eye to lending it contemporary relevance. The book succeeds admirably and makes a great contribution to the English-language literature on Hegel."-Fred Neuhouser, Barnard College

Robert J. Fogelin is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and the Sherman Fairchild Professor in the Humanities at Dartmouth College. His previous books include Wittgenstein, Hume's Skepticism, and Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification. Since its publication in the mid-eighteenth century, Hume's discussion of miracles has been the target of severe and often ill-tempered attacks. In this book, one of our leading historians of philosophy offers a systematic response to these attacks. Arguing that these criticisms have--from the very start--rested on misreadings, Robert Fogelin begins by providing a narrative of the way Hume's argument actually unfolds. What Hume's critics (and even some of his defenders) have failed to see is that Hume's primary argument depends on fixing the appropriate standards of evaluating testimony presented on behalf of a miracle. Given the definition of a miracle, Hume quite reasonably argues that the standards for evaluating such testimony must be extremely high. Hume then argues that, as a matter of fact, no testimony on behalf of a religious miracle has even come close to meeting the appropriate standards for acceptance. Fogelin illustrates that Hume's critics have consistently misunderstood the structure of this argument--and have saddled Hume with perfectly awful arguments not found in the text. He responds first to some early critics of Hume's argument and then to two recent critics, David Johnson and John Earman. Fogelin's goal, however, is not to "bash the bashers," but rather to show that Hume's treatment of miracles has a coherence, depth, and power that makes it still the best work on the subject. "What a joy to read a philosophy book that is graceful, clear, and short. . . . Fogelin writes with the simplicity and immediacy of a distinguished mind. . . . [I]mpressively conceived and executed."---Mark Sainsbury, Times Literary Supplement "This book provides a subtle reading of Hume; it is both engaging and well argued; and, it makes a useful addition to the recent literature concerning both Hume's argument and testimony in general."---Dan O'Brien, Philosophy in Review "Fogelin's defense of Hume on miracles is both engaging and illuminating. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in Hume or in the topic of testimonial evidence for miracles."-Don Garrett, New York University "We are very much in need of Fogelin's response to the recent abuse heaped on Hume's argument. His book is elegant without being imprecise, well argued without being overly complex, and a pleasure to read."-David Owen, University of Arizona

Michael N. Forster is professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. His books include Wittgenstein on the Arbitrariness of Grammar (Princeton), Hegel's Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit, and Hegel and Skepticism. This book puts forward a much-needed reappraisal of Immanuel Kant's conception of and response to skepticism, as set forth principally in the Critique of Pure Reason. It is widely recognized that Kant's theoretical philosophy aims to answer skepticism and reform metaphysics--Michael Forster makes the controversial argument that those aims are closely linked. He distinguishes among three types of skepticism: "veil of perception" skepticism, which concerns the external world; Humean skepticism, which concerns the existence of a priori concepts and synthetic a priori knowledge; and Pyrrhonian skepticism, which concerns the equal balance of opposing arguments. Forster overturns conventional views by showing how the first of these types was of little importance for Kant, but how the second and third held very special importance for him, namely because of their bearing on the fate of metaphysics. He argues that Kant undertook his reform of metaphysics primarily in order to render it defensible against these types of skepticism. Finally, in a critical appraisal of Kant's project, Forster argues that, despite its strengths, it ultimately fails, for reasons that carry interesting broader philosophical lessons. These reasons include inadequate self-reflection and an underestimation of the resources of Pyrrhonian skepticism. "In this precise, lively work, Forster establishes the significance of skepticism in the motivation, development, and formulation of Kant's thought. He examines three varieties of skepticism: 'veil of perception skepticism' concerning the external world, which he interprets as secondary for Kant despite its priority in previous literature; 'Humean skepticism' concerning the possibility of a priori knowledge; and 'Pyrrhonian skepticism,' employing a 'zetetic method' of equipollence and antinomies in order to suspend judgment. . . . Forster concludes, however, that Kant's reliance on transcendental arguments and transcendental idealism reintroduces the skeptical problems they were meant to resolve through inadequate self-reflection and radical skepticism's revenge on Kant's incorporation of its moderate variant."---E. S. Nelson, University of Massachusetts Lowell, for, CHOICE "[N]o one interested in the basic issues of Kant's theoretical philosophy can afford to neglect Forster's elegantly written (and produced) book, and it should prove particularly valuable for stimulating discussion in courses on Kant's first Critique."---Paul Guyer, Philosophical Review "The message is persuasive and ingeniously conveyed in an enjoyable and refreshing book. I recommend Kant and Skepticism to Kant scholars, those interested in skepticism, and those interested in Hegel's criticisms of Kant."---Craig French, Heythrop Journal "I highly recommend this book to those working on Kant's philosophy, the general history of modern skepticism, or the influence of Pyrrhonism on modern thought."---Diego E. Machuca, Philosophy in Review "Kant and Skepticism is an excellent book that is well worth thinking about long and hard, and will also, I predict, be a much discussed contribution to Kant studies in the foreseeable future."---Robert Hanna, Philosophical Quarterly "[T]he reviewer suspects that his fellow Anglophones will find Forster's book interesting, challenging, and enlightening, but probably something short of heretical. . . . The great strength of Kant and Skepticism is that it neatly slices one set of issues from the complex whole of the first Critique, allowing Forster and the reader with him to assess a particular, extremely important question about Kant's philosophy."---Ted Kinnaman, Kant-Studien "This book gives a clear and lucid account of Kant's relation to skepticism, both in its historical development and in it

Stephen Darwall is John Dewey Collegiate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. He has written widely on the history and the foundations of ethics, and is the author of Impartial Reason, The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought': 1640-1740, and Philosophical Ethics. He is also Associate Editor of Ethics. What kind of life best ensures human welfare? Since the ancient Greeks, this question has been as central to ethical philosophy as to ordinary reflection. But what exactly is welfare? This question has suffered from relative neglect. And, as Stephen Darwall shows, it has done so at a price. Presenting a provocative new "rational care theory of welfare," Darwall proves that a proper understanding of welfare fundamentally changes how we think about what is best for people. Most philosophers have assumed that a person's welfare is what is good from her point of view, namely, what she has a distinctive reason to pursue. In the now standard terminology, welfare is assumed to have an "agent-relative normativity." Darwall by contrast argues that someone's good is what one should want for that person insofar as one cares for her. Welfare, in other words, is normative, but not peculiarly for the person whose welfare is at stake. In addition, Darwall makes the radical proposal that something's contributing to someone's welfare is the same thing as its being something one ought to want for her own sake, insofar as one cares. Darwall defends this theory with clarity, precision, and elegance, and with a subtle understanding of the place of sympathetic concern in the rich psychology of sympathy and empathy. His forceful arguments will change how we understand a concept central to ethics and our understanding of human bonds and human choices. "Darwall sets a new standard for discussion. . . . [He] is notably clear and noble about the sources of his claims, and he has an immensely illuminative way with the history of ethics."---A.E. Wengraf, Philosophical Inquiry "Anyone who cares for ethics and conceptual analysis has good reasons to engage with the close reasoning in this book."---Richard J. Arneson, Ethics "I warmly recommend the book. Darwall's prose is as elegant and captivating as ever, and anyone with an interest in welfare, metaethics, or moral psychology will find useful things."---Jonas Olson, Economics and Philosophy "This book proposes a new view on a central topic in contemporary ethics. It covers a great deal of ground in a short space but also has a clear core: an analysis of the key ethical concept of welfare that is both different from and more promising than those already proposed. This is the most interesting analysis of welfare on offer."-Thomas Hurka, author of Virtue, Vice, and Value and Perfectionism "Darwall is a highly respected figure in analytic ethics, admired by many for both the quality of his analysis and argumentation and for the clarity of his writing-virtues that are on ample display here. The book is a pleasure to read. Anyone interested in the particular topics he covers will benefit from his treatment of them. This is particularly true of his careful analysis of the several forms of empathy and sympathy, and his recursive account of virtue."-Wayne Sumner, author of Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics and The Moral Foundation of Rights

Aryeh Botwinick is professor of political science at Temple University. He is the author of Skepticism, Belief, and the Modern; Postmodernism and Democratic Theory; and Skepticism and Political Participation. The English philosopher Michael Oakeshott (1901-1990) is known as a conservative who rejected philosophically ambitious rationalism and the grand political ideologies of the twentieth century on the grounds that no human ideas have ultimately reliable foundations. Instead, he embraced tradition and habit as the guides to moral and political life. In this book, Aryeh Botwinick presents an original account of Oakeshott's skepticism about foundations, an account that newly reveals the unity of his thought. Botwinick argues that, despite Oakeshott's pragmatic conservatism, his rejection of all-embracing intellectual projects made him a friend to liberal individualism and an ally of what would become postmodern antifoundationalism. Oakeshott's skepticism even extended paradoxically to skepticism about skepticism itself and is better described as a "generalized agnosticism." Properly conceived and translated, this agnosticism ultimately evolves into mysticism, which becomes a bridge linking philosophy and religion. Botwinick explains and develops this strategy of interpretation and then shows how it illuminates and unifies the diverse strands of Oakeshott's thought in the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, epistemology, political theory, philosophy of personal identity, philosophy of law, and philosophy of history. "During a time when the fragility of things is so palpable, Aryeh Botwinick's re-engagement with the work of Michael Oakeshott is invaluable. He shows us how Oakeshott's skepticism turns sharply back upon itself, how he draws us toward a tacit dimension that is itself both real and fragile, and how, once human anger against the complexity of skepticism is overcome, this stance can provide a live medium from which a generous ethic emerges. Botwinick reads Oakeshott in relation to Hobbes, Wittgenstein, Levinas, and Heidegger, as he also periodically reads Oakeshott against himself. A timely and illuminating study."-William E. Connolly, author of A World of Becoming "The literature on Oakeshott tends to emphasize the independence of his thought and the problem of how to classify him, a problem that Aryeh Botwinick neatly sidesteps by taking an entirely different line. Oakeshott turns out to be in agreement or dialogue with a range of other thinkers, including Nietzsche and Arendt. This is a fresh and rewarding approach that provides a new perspective on Oakeshott's thought and its significance."-Oliver Leaman, University of Kentucky

Robert B. Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought and in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. His books include Hegel's Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life and Henry James and Modern Moral Life. In the most influential chapter of his most important philosophical work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel makes the central and disarming assertions that "self-consciousness is desire itself" and that it attains its "satisfaction" only in another self-consciousness. Hegel on Self-Consciousness presents a groundbreaking new interpretation of these revolutionary claims, tracing their roots to Kant's philosophy and demonstrating their continued relevance for contemporary thought. As Robert Pippin shows, Hegel argues that we must understand Kant's account of the self-conscious nature of consciousness as a claim in practical philosophy, and that therefore we need radically different views of human sentience, the conditions of our knowledge of the world, and the social nature of subjectivity and normativity. Pippin explains why this chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology should be seen as the basis of much later continental philosophy and the Marxist, neo-Marxist, and critical-theory traditions. He also contrasts his own interpretation of Hegel's assertions with influential interpretations of the chapter put forward by philosophers John McDowell and Robert Brandom. "Pippin, one of the finest contemporary scholars on Kant and post-Kantian German idealism, presents here two essays that focus on two of Hegel's claims--that self-consciousness is desire itself, and that it finds its satisfaction only in others. . . . Pippin's essays provide a skillful interpretation of one of the most important parts of Hegel's corpus, and illuminate Phenomenology of Spirit as well as historical and contemporary interpretations of Hegel's account of self-consciousness." "This book should appeal to readers interested in the Phenomenology of Spirit, especially graduate students and researches who wish to understand the contemporary significance of Hegel's account of self-consciousness for McDowell and Brandom. Pippin has provided a lucid reading of these very dense passages. Regardless of whether one agrees with Pippin's reading, it will prove difficult for Hegel scholars to ignore."---Corey McCall, Philosophy in Review "Pippin's overall interpretation is clear, insightful, and an important contribution to both Hegel scholarship and philosophical understandings of self-consciousness in general. It will be an important book for those interested in Hegel or self-consciousness."---Joseph Arel, European Legacy "Hegel on Self-Consciousness is the best treatment of the subject in English, French, or German-it is also clear, short, and to the point. It will very likely serve as a basic text in a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses. Pippin is one of the most widely read philosophers of our time."-Terry P. Pinkard, Georgetown University "Pippin is one of the leading Hegel interpreters working today. Readers interested in Hegel-be they philosophers, literary theorists, or intellectual historians-will greatly benefit from this book. Pippin's insight into Hegel's philosophy is highly impressive, and the depth of his thought is evident in his analysis of the connection Hegel discovers between desire and self-consciousness."-Sally Sedgwick, University of Illinois, Chicago

Richard Foley is professor of philosophy and vice chancellor for strategic planning at New York University. He is the author of Intellectual Trust in Oneself and Others, Working Without a Net: A Study of Egocentric Epistemology, and The Theory of Epistemic Rationality. A woman glances at a broken clock and comes to believe it is a quarter past seven. Yet, despite the broken clock, it really does happen to be a quarter past seven. Her belief is true, but it isn't knowledge. This is a classic illustration of a central problem in epistemology: determining what knowledge requires in addition to true belief. In this provocative book, Richard Foley finds a new solution to the problem in the observation that whenever someone has a true belief but not knowledge, there is some significant aspect of the situation about which she lacks true beliefs--something important that she doesn't quite "get." This may seem a modest point but, as Foley shows, it has the potential to reorient the theory of knowledge. Whether a true belief counts as knowledge depends on the importance of the information one does or doesn't have. This means that questions of knowledge cannot be separated from questions about human concerns and values. It also means that, contrary to what is often thought, there is no privileged way of coming to know. Knowledge is a mutt. Proper pedigree is not required. What matters is that one doesn't lack important nearby information. Challenging some of the central assumptions of contemporary epistemology, this is an original and important account of knowledge. "[Foley's] book impressively combines breadth, succinctness, and readability. It will profit both professional philosophers and advanced students in epistemology." "This book is an illustrative and erudite contribution to the field of epistemology. Foley departs from the typical rational objective and presents an intuitive account of knowledge and true belief."---Diana Karbonowska, European Legacy "This highly original book will be of interest to both epistemologists and philosophers from other sub-disciplines whose work engages with the theory of knowledge. Thought provoking and well argued, it is well worth the reader's time."---Lisa Warenski, Mind "This engaging and imaginative book proposes an original and strikingly simple account of propositional knowledge, and offers an ingenious, many-sided argument for preferring it to alternatives already abroad. It makes many interesting and unexpected moves along the way."-Ernest Sosa, Rutgers University "Going against the grain, Foley argues that knowledge does not require justified belief and that the pedigree of a true belief has nothing to do with whether it counts as knowledge. His impressive defense of this view is a singular achievement. He shows that his account can easily accommodate cases that might appear problematic, and that it offers more intuitive explanations for a variety of epistemic phenomena than available alternatives. Beautifully written, carefully argued, and a pleasure to read, this book will be required reading for everyone in epistemology."-Hilary Kornblith, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Michael Theunissen is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin. He is the author of many books, including Vorentwürfe von Moderne: Antike Melancholie und die Acedia des Mitterlalter and Negative Theologie der Zeit. The literature on Kierkegaard is often content to paraphrase. By contrast, Michael Theunissen articulates one of Kierkegaard's central ideas, his theory of despair, in a detailed and comprehensible manner and confronts it with alternatives. Understanding what Kierkegaard wrote on despair is vital not only because it illuminates his thought as a whole, but because his account of despair in The Sickness unto Death is the cornerstone of existentialism. Theunissen's book, published in German in 1993, is widely regarded as the best treatment of the subject in any language. Kierkegaard's Concept of Despair is also one of the few works on Kierkegaard that bridge the gap between the Continental and analytic traditions in philosophy. Theunissen argues that for Kierkegaard, the fundamental characteristic of despair is the desire of the self "not to be what it is." He sorts through the apparently chaotic text of The Sickness unto Death to explain what Kierkegaard meant by the "self," how and why individuals want to flee their selves, and how he believed they could reconnect with their selves. According to Theunissen, Kierkegaard thought that individuals in despair seek to deny their authentic selves to flee particular aspects of their character, their past, or the world, or in order to deny their "mission." In addition to articulating and evaluating Kierkegaard's concept of despair, Theunissen relates Kierkegaard's ideas to those of Heidegger, Sartre, and other twentieth-century philosophers. "This is the first book to undertake a sustained, straightforward, analytically rigorous reconstruction of a central pillar of Kierkegaard's thought, his understanding of despair. It provides an extremely useful framework for future analytic work on Kierkegaard. What Theunissen seeks to do is precisely the kind of project Kierkegaard scholars ought to be undertaking. The book will be of great interest to philosophers, theologians, and intellectual historians who are interested in existentialism, Christian thought, and ethical theory more generally."-Frederick Neuhouser, Barnard College, Columbia University, author of Actualizing Freedom: Foundations of Hegel's Social Theory

Simon Keller is associate professor of philosophy at Victoria University, Wellington. He is the author of The Limits of Loyalty. We are partial to people with whom we share special relationships--if someone is your child, parent, or friend, you wouldn't treat them as you would a stranger. But is partiality justified, and if so, why? Partiality presents a theory of the reasons supporting special treatment within special relationships and explores the vexing problem of how we might reconcile the moral value of these relationships with competing claims of impartial morality. Simon Keller explains that in order to understand why we give special treatment to our family and friends, we need to understand how people come to matter in their own rights. Keller first presents two main accounts of partiality: the projects view, on which reasons of partiality arise from the place that people take within our lives and our commitments, and the relationships view, on which relationships themselves contain fundamental value or reason-giving force. Keller then argues that neither view is satisfactory because neither captures the experience of acting well within special relationships. Instead, Keller defends the individuals view, on which reasons of partiality arise from the value of the individuals with whom our relationships are shared. He defends this view by saying that we must accept that two people, whether friend or stranger, can have the same value, even as their value makes different demands upon people with whom they share different relationships. Keller explores the implications of this claim within a wider understanding of morality and our relationships with groups, institutions, and countries. "[T]his is an excellent and engaging book." "Simon Keller's slim but lively book Partiality is a novel and original attempt to provide a justification for limited partiality within an otherwise impartial moral theory."---Michael Gibb, Oxford Journals "Keller's treatment of partiality is original and valuable for getting a clearer picture on one's own commitments, both in the social and the philosophical meaning."---Simon Derpmann, Ethical Theory and Moral Practise "Keller's engaging book makes an important contribution to a critical issue in ethical theory. He presents a tremendously succinct presentation of the views."-Diane Jeske, University of Iowa "Partiality is about the nature and source of our reasons for partiality-a central but controversial area of the moral domain. Keller develops a novel account of these reasons, nested in an elegant taxonomy of rival perspectives and illustrated by a series of terrific examples that effectively distill the distinctive arguments under consideration. Partiality is exceptionally clear and stimulating, and I am confident it will quickly be recognized as one of the most significant books on its topic."-Sarah Stroud, McGill University

Galen Strawson is professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. His many books include Freedom and Belief and Selves: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics. John Locke's theory of personal identity underlies all modern discussion of the nature of persons and selves-yet it is widely thought to be wrong. In this book, Galen Strawson argues that in fact it is Locke's critics who are wrong, and that the famous objections to his theory are invalid. Indeed, far from refuting Locke, they illustrate his fundamental point. Strawson argues that the root error is to take Locke's use of the word "person" as merely a term for a standard persisting thing, like "human being." In actuality, Locke uses "person" primarily as a forensic or legal term geared specifically to questions about praise and blame, punishment and reward. This point is familiar to some philosophers, but its full consequences have not been worked out, partly because of a further error about what Locke means by the word "conscious." When Locke claims that your personal identity is a matter of the actions that you are conscious of, he means the actions that you experience as your own in some fundamental and immediate manner. Clearly and vigorously argued, this is an important contribution both to the history of philosophy and to the contemporary philosophy of personal identity. "[E]legant and provocative. . . . There is no denying that the case he makes in this short but compelling book is a powerful one."---Barry Dainton, Times Literary Supplement "This book will appeal to Locke scholars and those interested in Locke's account of personal identity." "Clearly and vigorously argued, this is an important contribution both to the history of philosophy and to the contemporary philosophy of personal identity." "This book is a pleasure to read. It is written in Strawson's characteristically brilliant style, and it is brimming with interesting ideas about Locke and about responsibility. It can be safely said that anyone thinking about Locke should read it."---Paul F Snowdon, Mind "Galen Strawson proposes an original and provocative interpretation of Locke's treatment of personal identity. Strawson makes his case with characteristic depth, insight, ingenuity, and clarity. This engagingly written work should be of great interest to historians of modern philosophy and to all philosophers working on personal identity."-Don Garrett, New York University "This is an important book and a very fine piece of work. It is bound to attract a great deal of attention."-Gideon Yaffe, University of Southern California

Pamela Hieronymi is professor of philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. An innovative reassessment of philosopher P. F. Strawson's influential "Freedom and Resentment" P. F. Strawson was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century, and his 1962 paper "Freedom and Resentment" is one of the most influential in modern moral philosophy, prompting responses across multiple disciplines, from psychology to sociology. In Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals, Pamela Hieronymi closely reexamines Strawson's paper and concludes that his argument has been underestimated and misunderstood. Line by line, Hieronymi carefully untangles the complex strands of Strawson's ideas. After elucidating his conception of moral responsibility and his division between "reactive" and "objective" responses to the actions and attitudes of others, Hieronymi turns to his central argument. Strawson argues that, because determinism is an entirely general thesis, true of everyone at all times, its truth does not undermine moral responsibility. Hieronymi finds the two common interpretations of this argument, "the simple Humean interpretation" and "the broadly Wittgensteinian interpretation," both deficient. Drawing on Strawson's wider work in logic, philosophy of language, and metaphysics, Hieronymi concludes that his argument rests on an implicit, and previously overlooked, metaphysics of morals, one grounded in Strawson's "social naturalism." In the final chapter, she defends this naturalistic picture against objections. Rigorous, concise, and insightful, Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals sheds new light on Strawson's thinking and has profound implications for future work on free will, moral responsibility, and metaethics. The book also features the complete text of Strawson's "Freedom and Resentment." "Hieronymi is an expert guide to the twists and turns of Strawson's 'Freedom and Resentment,' arguably the single most influential paper on free will and moral responsibility. The book is an important contribution to our understanding of Strawson, and will become an essential reference for philosophers."-Sarah Buss, coeditor of Contours of Agency "This is an exciting and groundbreaking book that has the potential to reshape our understanding of the nature of morality and our practices of holding one another responsible."-Angela M. Smith, coeditor of The Nature of Moral Responsibility