Scientific naturalism--basing beliefs on empirical evidence--has now triumphed in every field of inquiry except moral philosophy. There it is still thought appropriate to cite otherworldly standards known by divine revelation or moral intuition. In Grounded Ethics Max Hocutt argues that, since there is no transcendent reality on which to base the claims of ethics, normative truth must be sought in the desires of individuals and the conventions of societies.Hocutt begins wi...

With this issue we initiate the policy of expanding the scope of Tulane Studies in Philosophy to include, in addition to the work of members of the department, contributions from philosophers who have earned advanced degrees from Tulane and who are now teaching in other colleges and universities. The Editor THE LOGIC OF OUR LANGUAGE ROBERT L. ARRINGTON Wittgenstein wrote in the Tractatus that "logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. " 1 In line with his suggestion...

Due to the unprecedented interest which the announcement of the topic of epistemology evoked from contributors, two annual volumes will be devoted to it. This volume accordingly is entitled Epistemology I, and the next volume will be entitled Epistemology II. The Editor KNOWING IN THE STRONG SENSE PETER M. BURKHOLDER Professor Norman Malcolm has defended what he calls "the strong sense" of "know." 1 It is one of the propositional senses; i.e. what is said to be known, in this sense, is an ...

The Autonomy of Reason reflects Wolff’s determination to get out of Kant’s system what is good and to get out of Kant’s system for good. Readers will certainly benefit from Wolff’s two decades of intense study of Kant. Wolff does not see his task as one of either historical exegesis or philosophical criticism. In the place of both Wolff proposes a “philosophical reconstruction” of the text.

This antiquarian volume contains a detailed treatise on logic and the theory of 'Inquiry', as a development of ideas regarding the nature of logical theory that were first presented in Studies in Logical Theory.The present work is marked in particular by application of the earlier ideas to interpretation of the forms and formal relations that constitute the standard material of the logical tradition.Inquiry is one of the most essential skills in th...

Human beings have the unique ability to view the world in a detached way: We can think about the world in terms that transcend our own experience or interest, and consider the world from a vantage point that is, in Nagel's words, "nowhere in particular". At the same time, each of us is a particular person in a particular place, each with his own "personal" view of the world, a view that we can recognize as just one aspect of the whole. How do we reconcile these two standpoints--intellectua...

When After Virtue first appeared in 1981, it was recognized as a significant and potentially controversial critique of contemporary moral philosophy. Newsweek called it “a stunning new study of ethics by one of the foremost moral philosophers in the English-speaking world.” Since that time, the book has been translated into more than fifteen foreign languages and has sold over one hundred thousand copies. Now, twenty-five years later, the University of Notre Dame Press is...

Prolegomenon (plural "prolegomena") refers to any critical introduction or essay at the start of a book.Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics is one of the shorter works by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. It was published in 1783, two years after the first edition of his Critique of Pure Reason.Prolegomena contains an overview and defense of the Critique's main conclusions, sometimes by arguments Kant had not used in the Critique. Kant characterizes his more accessible approach here ...

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55), one of the most original thinkers of the nineteenth century, wrote widely on religious, psychological, and literary themes. This book shows how Kierkegaard developed his views in emphatic opposition to prevailing opinions. It describes his reaction to the ethical and religious theories of Kant and Hegel, and it also contrasts his position with doctrines advanced by men like Feuerbach and Marx. Kierkegaard's seminal diagnosis of the human condition, which emphas...

An invaluable introduction to the leading French intellectual of the twentieth centuryThe Wisdom of Sartre offers key excerpts from the eloquent French writer, playwright, and philosopher's masterpiece, Being and Nothingness. From this collection, readers will discover the strongest themes in his early philosophical work: an ontological account of what it means to be human, and the role of perception, knowledge, and consciousness in the practical ...

Published in 1785, Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals ranks alongside Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as one of the most profound and influential works in moral philosophy ever written. In Kant's own words, its aim is to identify and corroborate the supreme principle of morality, the categorical imperative. He argues that human beings are ends in themselves, never to be used by anyone merely as a means, and that universal and unconditional obligatio...