Originally published in Proceedings of the British Academy 60 (1974), 339-359.

v. 1. Del sistema de la libertad en Fichte al primado de la teología en Schelling -- v. 2. La hegemonía del pensamiento de Hegel.

Esta obra es un viaje por el camino recorrido por la filosofía trascendente, que pone de relieve la pervivencia de conceptos como "sujeto", "crítica" o "reflexión". El núcleo fundamental del libro está en el estudio de la situación terminal a la que conduce el planteamiento fenomenológico husserliano y en el hallazgo de nuevos ámbitos de trascendentalidad. Puede advertirse cómo la vieja filosofía de sujeto-conciencia llega a transformarse y girar, para dar cabida a nuevos temas: la corporeidad, la intersubjetividad, el lenguaje, (...) que tradicionalmente habían sido silenciados o infravalorados. (shrink)

Throughout the history of philosophy there has been a sustained interest in the concepts of knowledge, truth and meaning; interest in the concepts of error, falsity and nonsense, on the other hand, has been intermittent and spasmodic. Error, for example, has suffered at the expense of knowledge to such an extent that sometimes its very existence has been denied, or it has been explained away as being merely the absence of or privation of knowledge; many theories of truth are so (...) constructed that no place can be found for falsity, and theories about what constitutes making sense pay, on the whole, little heed to what constitutes nonsense. In this paper I hope to do something to redress the balance so far as error is concerned. My remarks are prompted by the hope that, just as we may best understand health through the study of disease, so a consideration of error or failure may throw light on knowledge or success. It is clearly not very informative to say of error, falsity and nonsense that they are merely the absence of knowledge, truth and sense; indeed it is just as laconic as a proposed medical definition of disease as the absence of health. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that moral virtue is sometimes causally necessary both for theistic belief and for nonbelief. I then argue for some further connectionsbetween these results and the Calvinist view, recently revived in the philosophy of religion, according to which theistic belief is typically warranted and all those who dissent from such belief persist in their nonbelief because of sin. Specifically, I maintain that the virtue of belief militates against its being warranted, and that the virtue of nonbelief (...) renders the Calvinist generalization concerning nonbelief and sin implausible. (shrink)

One of the strangest of the many strange habits of philosophers, which mark them out as the Ishmaels of the scientific world, is their refusal to agree as to the precise meaning of the words they use. No philosopher, it seems, is bound by the definitions given by predecessors or contemporaries of even the most central terms: each has to define his terms for himself. The resulting situation certainly lends itself to ridicule and caricature, as in the legend of the (...) theological disputants who arrived after long argument at the conclusion that when the one said ‘God’ he meant what the other meant when he said ‘Devil.’ Still it is probable that this idiosyncrasy of philosophers has some real ground in the special nature of the task on which they are engaged, and is not a mere exhibition of aimless malice or sheer incompetence. Whether that is so or not, one of the consequences of this situation is that the titles of philosophic discourses are apt to be singularly unilluminating: as an indication of the problem to be raised they are, to say the least, highly ambiguous. How the reader may understand the title of this paper I do not know; but the question which I had in mind in choosing it was this. (shrink)

In order to understand the rise of runaway solutions in the radiation reaction problem a mechanical model is used. An alternative demonstration of Daboul’s theorem, through Hurwitz’s criterion, is given. The origin of runaway solutions in electrodynamics is discussed. They arise when the particle has a negative mechanical mass or when approximations are used in the equation of motion. In the 1-dimensional mechanical model an exact and linear equation of motion for the particle is obtained, the corresponding exact solution is (...) again runaway when the mechanical mass is negative. The exact solution is not runaway when the mechanical mass is positive. However, the use of approximations leads to an equation of motion which has runaway solutions. It is exhibited that the use of approximations in the 3-dimensional mechanical model is completely necessary because the general equation of motion for the particle is non-linear. The analysis of this case proceeds in a very similar way to the one carried out in electrodynamics. This means that the number of dimensions also plays an important role in the analysis. (shrink)

The present state of ethical theory and practice is disquieting. Objectivism, in all its varieties, is unconvincing, and subjectivism, hedonic or emotive, is intellectually incredible and socially intolerable. No one is ethically content—except the dogmatist and the sceptic, who act willy nilly with the exponents of “might-cum-persuasion makes right.” Can we find a happier middle region between these inhospitable poles? Perhaps the very limitations of human valuation will provide the ground that ethics requires. Let us begin by considering the conditions (...) which must hold if ethical action is to be possible: 1. Only if the agent can provide a justifying reason for his choice of action can he claim to act ethically. For ethical action is a species of purposive action, and to act purposively entails the ability to give justifying reasons for one's choice of action. . Thus ethical action presupposes putatively grounded ethical judgment. 2. Justifying reasons must be acknowledgeable by all competent judges, i.e. by all persons who are acquainted with all relevant knowledge of the nature and consequences of the alternative courses of action, allow as far as possible for congenital, cultural and idiosyncratic bias, are capable of sane and serious reflection, and are able to make survey of their experience and to draw conclusions from it. For the judgment “the action A is ethically preferable to its alternatives B ” entails “A ought to be done” which in turn entails “every competent judge is capable of acknowledging the ground of the judgment ‘A is ethically preferable to B’ and consequently would be able to set himself to perform A as an ethical act, .” We can assure ourselves of this requirement of acknowledgeability by observing that whenever we resolve, and not merely settle, an ethical disagreement, we have achieved not only a factual, predictive, valuational and attitudinal agreement between the disputants, but a joint acknowledgment of the ground of the ethical judgment. Without this, the agreement could not be said to be ethical, whether the judgment be right or wrong or neither, but merely an agreement to disagree, ethically. Unless ethical disagreement is in principle resolvable, ethical judgment is impossible, for we should be unable to claim that our choice ought to be acted upon. (shrink)

Amongst Kant's lesser known early writings is a short treatise with the curious title Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Explained by Dreams of Metaphysics, in which, with considerable acumen and brilliance, and not a little irony, Kant exposes the empty pretensions of his contemporary, the Swedish visionary and Biblical exegete, Emanuel Swedenborg, to have access to a spirit world, denied other mortals. Despite his efforts, it must be feared, however, that Kant did not, alas, succeed in laying the spirit of Swedenborg (...) himself to rest once and for all, for there has arisen in our own day, and within philosophy itself, a movement of thought, if such it can be called, which, like that of Swedenborg, is founded upon an unbridled and unhealthy exercise of the imagination, and apparently believes that philosophical problems can be discussed and resolved by the elaboration of fantastical, and at times repulsive, examples; if we require a name for this contemporary pretence at philosophy, we could take as our model the Italian word for science fiction, fantascienza, and call it ‘fantaphilosophy’: it is my aim to show that this fantaphilosophy is a phantom philosophy. (shrink)

A study of moral values is a study of the values relevant to character and conduct. Since conduct consists of actions and character is exhibited in and inferred from actions, the phrase “values relevant to actions” would perhaps suffice. The term “values” needs little amplification. But it is necessary to observe that there are on the face of it two sets of values relevant to actions, namely those which actions themselves possess, so that we differentiate them as good and bad (...) actions—a differentiation which may be made by a spectator in regard to a process in which he himself takes no part; those asserted implicitly by an agent in his action considered as an interference with the course of events. In the most obvious and typical cases this second set of values attach themselves, not to actions, but tothe environment of action as modifiable by it; in particular, to states or events which action may help to maintain or bring about. Thus the act of tidying a room implies a preference under the given circumstances for a tidy rather than an untidy room. (shrink)

In these days, when, if the words of constitutions can be trusted, sovereign Parliaments based on manhood or adult suffrage are rapidly extending their sway over the greater part of the world, there is surely no conception more deserving of the attention of the political theorist than that of Representation. There was a time when government for most men meant monarchy, when ruler meant king or king's minister. To-day for most men ruler means Parliament or ministers responsible to Parliament, and (...) government means representative government. In those former times the political theorist would naturally take the king or prince for his centre-piece, and devote himself to expounding the nature and attributes of the office. “For from the prince, as from a well spring, cometh the flood of all that is good or evil upon the people” . In our own day he would perhaps do well to devote himself first and mainly to reflection on the meaning of this term representation, standing as it does for something which is taken by general consent to constitute the distinctive feature of the normal modern type of government. He may run the risk of speaking merely for his own day; but he should at least be sure of remaining near the centre of his subject. (shrink)

Hanlester Network v. Shalala ) marks the first test of the application of the Medicare-Medicaid anti-kickback statute to physician self-referral joint ventures. The most recent development in this ongoing litigation was the April 6, 1995 decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, holding the Hanlester Network vicariously liable for its marketing vice president's knowing and willful violation of the antikickback statute. The vice president had offered to pay physician-investors in order to induce their referrals of program-related business.The Hanlester Network (...) was a California general partnership comprised of corporations, clinical laboratories, and individual investors. In April 1987, it entered into a management agreement on behalf of the clinical laboratories with SmithKline BioScience Laboratories. (shrink)