Search

By James R. Otteson Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiii, 338. $70.00 cloth, $26.00 paperback. As James Otteson points out in the introduction to Adam Smith's Market Place [...]

The literature on Hume's approach to tragedy and the various observations that have been made concerning the parallel he draws between natural and artistic beauty, on one side, and moral beauty, on the other is considered. Some suggestions are provided for areas where further research into Hume's aesthetics might prove both interesting and useful.

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6245.2010.01403_3.x Byline: TIMOTHY M. COSTELLOE (1) Author Affiliation: (1)Department of PhilosophyThe College of William and Mary

This essay examines Hume's treatment of money in light of his view of the imagination. It begins with his claim that money is distinct from wealth, the latter arising, according to vulgar reasoning, from the power of acquisition that it represents, or, understood philosophically, from the labor that produces it. The salient features that Hume identifies with the imagination are then put forth, namely its power to combine ideas creatively and the principle of easy transition that characterizes its movement among them. Two issues that these features explain are then discussed: first, why people take value to lie in the material of which money is made, and, second, why they assign value to what they take money to represent, namely, wealth. In both cases, the imagination creates a new relation, an illusion or fiction, that cannot be traced directly to experience. In the case of money, the faculty conjoins what is intangible (the power of acquisition) with the physical qualities of specie; in the case of property it produces a causal relation that connects persons with objects to constitute stable possession that constitutes ownership. Hume also appeals to the imagination to explain the rules of property that subsequently develop (present possession, occupation, prescription, and transference). The essay concludes by emphasizing that being based on the imagination is not in itself indicative of any instability in either money or property and the practices they enshrine, a feature they share with other phenomena (such as the self and continued existence) that Hume also traces to the same faculty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parallels and differences between Hume's essay 'Of the Standard of Taste' and Kant's Antinomy of Taste are discussed. Topics include Kant's conception of antinomy, common sense in relation to Hume's antinomy of taste, solutions to the antinomy according to Kant and Hume, criticism, critical philosophy and the regulative use of reason.

The benefits and the disadvantages that a theater would bring to Geneva are described in Rousseau's moral philosophy. This philosophy deals with the conflict between the simplicity of nature and the artifice of civilization.

The article presents a discussion on aesthetics and apolaustics. The term aesthetics, referring both to the knowledge derived from sense perception and the faculty that makes it possible, is attributed to German Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, while Immanuel Kant uses aesthetic judgement, necessary and universal referring to states of pleasure. Apolaustic means devoted to enjoyment. Aesthetics now focuses on the apolaustic experience of value and categories used to name it, including beauty.

This paper examines the role of the imagination in Hume's epistemology. There specific powers of the imagination are identified -- the imagistic, conceptual, and productive -- as well as three corresponding kinds of fictions based on the degree of belief contained in each class of ideas the imagination creates. These are generic fictions, real and mere fictions, and necessary, fictions, respectively. Through these manifestations, it is emphasized, Hume presents the imagination both as the positive force behind human creativity and a subversive presence that transforms experience while at once making it possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of an ‘animal holocaust’ by way of J.M. Coetzee's The Lives of Animals, and asks whether the Nazi treatment of the Jews can be legitimately compared to modern factory farming. While certain parallels make the comparison appealing, it is argued, only the holocaust can be described as ‘evil.’ The phenomena share another feature, however, namely, the capacity of perpetrators to render victims ‘invisible.’ This leaves the moral dimension of the comparison in tact since it shows defenders and critics of an ‘animal holocaust’ to be talking about different things: the comparison is offensive for many because it levels degrees of moral value attributed to human and animal life, respectively, while for others it articulates the challenge of bringing non-human sentient beings into the same moral universe as their human counterparts. The paper concludes by asking whether such moral progress can ever render the death of human beings and animals similar in kind. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the concept of “sociology” and the logical limits which, it is argued, are imposed upon its practice by the nature of the subject matter it investigates. This thesis is developed, first, by examining Michael Oakeshott’s distinction between “technical” and “practical” knowledge, and his concept of “abridgment”. The view of human action which follows from this is then applied to sociological practice in order to show how the latter involves a unique sort of abridgment. Then, drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy, it is argued that sociological inquiry has its own form of investigation which is most accurately termed “description”. Finally, Harvey Sacks' notion of “primitive, natural science” is critically examined as an account of social science which approximates most closely to the one being articulated here. The weakness of Sacks’ account, it is suggested, can be explained by his failure to appreciate the Oakeshottian insights about human action with which the argument began. The paper concludes by drawing out some implications of the proposed thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to document the connection between aspects of George Herbert Mead's social psychology and Adam Smith's `Theory of Moral Sentiments'. How the legitimacy of the connection is established; Parallel drawn between Mead and Smith on the universal facts of human nature and the moral community.

Opinion. Presents the author's view of Alfred Schutz account of musical interaction and temporality which appears to capture a component of everyday expression. How Schutz uses the musical performance as a way of illustrating mutual tuning-in relationship; How the mechanics of making music takes place by means of tangible objects that have a measurable essence; Comments of Wittgenstein on genuine duration.