Philosophy

hilosophers have arrived at a definition of philosophy as the interrogation of its very own meaning and possibility. "What I seek under the name of philosophy," writes Husserl, "as the goal and the field of my labor, I know naturally. And yet I do not know it. Has this 'knowledge' ever been sufficient for any true thinker? Has philosophy ever ceased to be a riddle to him in his life as a philosopher?"-But this problem, this astonishment before one's self, and the unhabituated and unhabitual vision which is its result, are precisely philosophy...-Merleau-Ponty, "Philosophy as Interrogation" What he expresses cannot, therefore, be the translation of a clearly defined thought, since such clear thoughts are those that have already been said within ourselves or by others. "Conception" cannot precede "execution". Before expression, there is nothing but a vague fever, and only the work itself, completed and understood, will prove there was something rather than nothing to be found there.-Merleau-Ponty, "Cezanne's Doubt" Nothing of important can really be said simply-simply and safely; and by 'safely' I mean so as to ensure that the whole intuited apprehension striving to find itself, to discover what it is in words, is duly served, and not thwarted. It takes a context, often a subtly and potently creative one, to do that.-F. R. Leavis But the soul of each manifestly thirsts for, from the other, something which there are no words to describe, and divines that which it seeks, and traces obscurely the footsteps of its obscure desire.-Aristophanes, Plato's Symposium

Perceivers perceive the world differently where we have no good reason to favor any one perception over the others. On offer are three responses. Either all of those perceivers are correct (despite their representations seeming mutually incompatible) or none are (despite it seeming there must be a fact of the matter) or only some are (despite it seeming arbitrary). Call this "the problem of perceptual difference," though of course the problem concerns too judgments that are nonperceptual.

The dominant view about the nature of aesthetic value holds it to be response-dependent. We believe that the dominance of this view owes largely to some combination of the following prevalent beliefs: 1. The belief that challenges brought against response-dependent accounts in other areas of philosophy are less challenging when applied to responsedependent accounts of aesthetic value. 2. The belief that aesthetic value is instrumental and that responsedependence about aesthetic value alone accommodates this purported fact. 3. The belief that response-dependence about aesthetic value alone accommodates the widely acknowledged anthropocentricity of aesthetic value. 4. The belief that response-dependence about aesthetic value alone accommodates aesthetic normativity. We argue that each of these beliefs is false, and that the dominance of responsedependent accounts of aesthetic value is therefore largely without foundation.

" (1971) was first published more than 30 years ago. Since the publication of Thomson's paper, the morality of abortion has remained the most discussed topic in practical ethics. Thomson's paper has led the way in that discussion, easily being the most discussed and the most influential of the many papers published on the topic. There's a simple reason for this: Thomson's paper is the best and most important paper ever written on the morality of abortion. I think, though, that despite its influence and the amount of discussion surrounding it, despite the fact that most professional philosophers have taught the paper numerous times, it is generally misread. Indeed, along with most everyone else, I have generally misread it. One reason the paper is generally misread is because it is deceptively difficult. The breeziness of Thomson's writing masks the complexity of her arguments. Another reason is that the examples she employs in her arguments are all such that they might serve as analogies, misleading reader after reader to treat her arguments as arguments by analogy. 1

For Heidegger, modern humans find themselves in a dangerous situation. The technological era that is upon us proffers not only threats associated with the atom bomb, but, even more pernicious, the dangers of the essence of technology itself. The essence of technology gathers humans, claiming them to "order the self-revealing as standingreserve." 1 Having been gathered in this way, it is more difficult for humans to approach things as anything but resources to be appropriated for the purpose of creating ever more easily accessible and utilizable reserves. This gathering claim on humans is known as Enframing or Gestell. Gestell is a danger to things as such, which are not mere standingreserve, waiting for humans to order them. That is, enframing challenges humans to treat things as standing-reserve instead of considering them on their own terms. Furthermore, the prevalence of Gestell endangers human nature by obfuscating the fact that humans can also comport themselves toward things differently and, accordingly, play a role in the revealing of things that does not reduce them to standing-reserve. These comprise the two dangers of technology that Heidegger describes in The Question Concerning Technology: (1) that everything might be reduced to standing-reserve and (2) humans might not be able to purposively realize their role in revealing (which, in part, constitutes their nature) what is because other possible ways of revealing are obstructed by the essence of technology.

Hannah Arendt brings the traditionally ontological practice of phenomenology into social and political philosophy. She does this in two ways: by employing phenomenological methods in her approach to examining the world around her and by showing how phenomenology is related to ethical life through her description of thinking. In this article, I explore the first of these ways by locating Arendt’s methods in relation to Martin Heidegger’s definition of phenomenology, as given in the Being and Time. Arendt’s usage of phenomenological methods is clear in her examinations of banal evil and modern judicial systems. These topics lead to a discussion of how thinking, for Arendt, is a phenomenological activity that has bearing on ethical life. I turn to Arendt’s essay, “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship” to clarify how phenomenology, as characteristic of the thinking Arendt prescribes, is ethically important.