Papers by Steve Jovanović
Hobbesian scholar Jean Hampton finds Hobbes’s two explicit accounts of conflict, grounded in rati... more Hobbesian scholar Jean Hampton finds Hobbes’s two explicit accounts of conflict, grounded in rationality and the passions, flawed. She infers a third account based on shortsightedness that she claims Hobbes implies, but does not explicitly state, to show that the requisite violence in the state of nature to justify the institution of an absolute sovereign is possible. Mark Murphy finds Hampton’s attempt lacking and advances a related account by adducing impulsiveness in Hobbesian psychology. But upon closer scrutiny, his version of the shortsightedness account, too, seems implausible. Each account of conflict, rooted in rationality, passions, shortsightedness, and impulsiveness, lacks the explanatory resources needed to credibly account for the violence that Hobbes believes individuals can escape by instituting government without undermining the very possibility of escape. I hope to show this by critically evaluating the accounts in light of the textual and argumentative evidence.
This essay is a personal reflection on and reconceptualization of Soren Kierkegaard’s religious k... more This essay is a personal reflection on and reconceptualization of Soren Kierkegaard’s religious knight of faith as a passionate secular idealist whose movements can inspire as much awe in humanists as does Abraham in Christians.
Is ethical conduct man’s ultimate purpose, or could there be a higher aim for which ethical deman... more Is ethical conduct man’s ultimate purpose, or could there be a higher aim for which ethical demands could be suspended? This essay explores Kierkegaard’s paradoxical notion of faith and the interplay between universal duty (as ethics) and absolute duty to obey God’s will.
Drafts by Steve Jovanović
The problem of induction remains a central methodological problem in the philosophy of science, a... more The problem of induction remains a central methodological problem in the philosophy of science, as it is a fundamental feature of the scientific method as articulated by Aristotle, later reconceptualized by Bacon, and further developed to the present day. In this essay, I explicate and assess Aristotle and Bacon's conceptions of induction using an updated list of criteria based on Peter Medawar's criticisms of Bacon. Then I sketch an outline for a possible theory of induction not contingent upon flashes of insight, but the application of classification, deductive logic, and construction.
Hegel largely focuses on transpersonal factors that drive history. I press Hegel for the opposite... more Hegel largely focuses on transpersonal factors that drive history. I press Hegel for the opposite, for his conception of the individual "I." I trace the emergence of this "I" through Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, and find a tripartite soul: the transcendental, empirical, and social "I," a rich model of subjectivity that embraces criticism and is amenable to both linguistic and theistic interpretations.
In this essay, I elucidate the evolution of Wittgenstein's thought on ethics as one representativ... more In this essay, I elucidate the evolution of Wittgenstein's thought on ethics as one representative of those topics in Russell's "mystical region" about which we are forbidden to speak to a more mature and diverse view of language as a tool not just for making scientific propositional statements about reality, but for innumerable other aims by language-users within a linguistic community.
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Papers by Steve Jovanović
Drafts by Steve Jovanović