G.E.M. Anscombe

How do philosophical accusations of talking nonsense relate to the layperson’s notions of meaning and meaningfulness?  If one were to explain carefully what philosophical nonsense was supposed to be, would one be greeted with incredulity?  How do people react to being accused to talking nonsense themselves?  Is anything analogous to an illusion of meaning recognised in everyday life?  In dream-reports perhaps?  Or in the utterances of schizophrenics or those under the influence of drugs?  Or in certain jokes and hoaxes?  Are contradictions felt to be meaningless?  I argue that, though it is clear that experimental philosophy could shed some light on these questions, their subject matter creates special difficulties.  First, it is more difficult than usual to formulate questions and produce ‘vignettes’ that do not subtly encourage certain responses at the expense of others.  Second, the fact that philosophical nonsense is a metaphilosophical concept ensures that its investigation is going to be more indirect than would be that of knowledge or intention, for example.

In this paper I want to show how Bernard Williams contributed, especially with his 'turn' in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, to overcoming the dichotomy between analytic and continental philosophy, creating a style of reflection in which conceptual analysis is deeply connected with historical awareness. The idea of genealogy, taken from Nietzsche but heavily modified by Williams, then emerged in books such as Shame and Necessity and Truth and Truthfulness, as an efficacious method for reflection in theoretical and practical philosophy.

Here I bewail the slapdash and confusing way in which philosophers bandy about the word ‘incoherent’ (and ‘incoherence’ and ‘incoherently’).  To some it appears to mean: inconsistent; to others: pragmatically self-defeating; and to yet others: nonsensical, i.e. meaningless.  And often one is left guessing.

Philosophers commonly talk of Anscombe's book Intention as a single unified account produced at a particular moment in time. Yet we share a tendency to refer to the text of the second (1963) edition while citing the first (1957) one.  Between these two there also lies the 1958 second impression of the first edition, which already contained some significant alterations noted by Anscombe herself.This paper offers a detailed consideration of the differences between these three publications, as well as her earlier Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society article 'Intention'. In what follows I catalogue the various changes she made with the aim of clarifying whether it makes sense, in light of them, to talk of an early and late Intention. I conclude that while this would be going too far, Anscombe’s views on action description and practical reasoning have changed in ways in which it would be profitable for philosophers of action and moral psychology to track.

Foot argues that there are certain things that all human beings - perhaps all rational agents - need.  This gives a sense in which certain values and disvalues can be called 'objective'.  I suggest that, with certain relatively minor adjustments, her argument can be made cogent but that it cannot be used to show that there are objective answers to questions about what one should do when values conflict.  If Foot's own virtue ethics, utilitarianism, Kantian ethics or any other first-order moral system were to be established as objectively valid, this would require some completely different form of argumentation. 


Almost sixty years ago Philippa Foot published an article that began: To many people it seems that the most notable advance in moral philosophy during the past fifty years or so has been the refutation of naturalism; and they are a little shocked that at this late date such an issue should be reopened. It is easy to understand their attitude: given certain apparently unquestionable assumptions, it would be about as sensible to try to reintroduce naturalism as to try to square the circle. Those who see it like this have satisfied themselves that they know in advance that any naturalistic theory must have a catch in it somewhere, and are put out at having to waste more time exposing an old fallacy. This paper is an attempt to persuade them to look critically at the premises on which their arguments are based. 1 The paper in question was one of a number written by Foot around the time that were highly successful in reopening the issue of naturalism in ethics. Nowadays no one can just take it for granted that naturalism has been refuted, that there is a sharp distinction (or indeed any clear distinction) between fact and value or that it is impossible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. This is not to say that the naturalists have been completely victorious, of course; only that naturalism is today a live option. I shall argue that Foot's paper contains an important insight and an equally important mistake; and that the insight and the mistake are linked. I believe that the thinking behind it has influenced the subsequent course of moral philosophy to a quite remarkable extent and that this has been in some ways beneficial and in some ways harmful – not surprisingly, if I am right in seeing it as containing both truth and error. I do not want to exaggerate the influence of this one paper 2 but I do not know of any other that so neatly encapsulates the coupled insight and mistake. The anti-naturalism that Foot is attacking she characterises as follows: It would not be an exaggeration to say that the whole of moral philosophy, as it is now widely taught, rests on a contrast between statements of fact and evaluations, which runs something like this: The truth or falsity of statements of fact is shewn by means of evidence; and what counts as evidence is laid down in the meaning of the expressions occurring in the statement of fact … It follows that no two people can make the same statement and count completely different things as evidence; in the end one at least of them could be convicted of linguistic ignorance. It also follows that if a man is given good evidence for a factual conclusion he cannot just refuse to accept the conclusion on the ground that in his scheme of things this evidence is not evidence at all. 3 But, on the view she is criticising, [w]ith evaluations, however, it is different. An evaluation is not connected logically with the factual statements on which it is based. One man may say that a thing is good because of some fact about it, and another may refuse to take that fact as any evidence, for nothing is laid down in the meaning of 'good' which connects it with one piece of 'evidence' rather than another. It follows that a moral eccentric could argue to moral conclusions from quite idiosyncratic premises; he could say, for instance, that a man was a good man because he clasped and unclasped his hands and never turned NNE after

This paper argues that there was considerably more philosophy of action in moral theory before 1958 (when Anscombe complained of its lack under the banner 'philosophy of psychology') than there has been since. This is in part because Anscombe influenced the formation of 'virtue theory' as yet another position within normative ethics, and her work contributed to the fashioning of 'moral psychology' as an altogether distinct (and now increasingly empirical) branch of moral philosophy.

This paper looks at philosophical accusations of talking nonsense from the perspective of argumentation theory.  An accusation of this sort, when seriously meant, amounts to the claim that someone believes there is something she means by her utterance when in fact she means nothing whatsoever by it.  Such accusations may indeed be peculiar to philosophy.  They also involve the claim that there can be ILLUSIONS OF ARGUMENTATION, both inter- and intra-personal.  The problem of how one could possibly diagnose such illusions is raised and I suggest that, if there is a way, it will require a therapeutic rather than a polemical approach.  This suggestion is of course made by Wittgenstein and some of his followers but, in my view, it has remained undeveloped.  It often takes the form of a comparison with psychoanalysis.  I note that the more like psychoanalysis it becomes, the less like traditional argumentation, philosophical or otherwise, it will be.

Originally presented at the conference Ethics, Biology and the Representation of Human Behaviour, Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, Venice, 14-15 December 2001 and at the Colloque, La Personne – Corps, Esprit, Valeurs, Université de Genève, 27-29 Mai 2002. In slightly different form this paper was also presented at a seminar held at Trinity College, Oxford – 6th March 2002, and given as a Public Lecture arranged with the support of the Belfast Branch of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, School of Philosophical Studies, Queen’s University, Belfast, Thursday 7th March 2002. Although I no longer hold most of the views expressed in it, I have posted it here because it is a remote ancestor of my book on Hart.

This essay deals with the question whether the anselmian argumento of the Proslogion is or is not an ontological argument. For this purpose, it convenes the position of G. E. M. Anscombe, who maintains that the anselmian argument is not an ontological argument, in the light of a personal interpretation of the text. However she has a pejorative idea about ontological arguments, which became current after Kant. As an alternative to the anscombian position, this essay assumes a non kantian idea about the property of ontological and sustains that the argument of the Proslogion is an ontological argument, according to the nature of its principles.

There are passages in Wittgenstein where he compares his method to psychotherapy and one or two where he seems to suggest that the ‘patient’ has the last word on his ‘illness’ and ‘cure’.  This paper tries to take these seriously, especially in connexion with the idea that victims of philosophical confusion talk nonsense.

Philosophical accusations of talking nonsense made in a polemical spirit are bound to fail, since the only way one can effectively criticise another’s utterance is by attaching some meaning to it.  But if the other acknowledges the possibility that his puzzlement arises from his having been taken in by nonsense, then perhaps a co-operative investigation of this suggestion might be fruitful.  Indeed self-diagnosis ought in principle to be possible.  Ought it not to have happened at least once in the history of philosophy if philosophical nonsense has ever been exposed? 

But there are difficulties.  For example:
a) We must ask whether or not philosophical nonsense, when exposed as such, is supposed to lose all appearance of meaningfulness.  Either answer is problematic.
b) The acknowledged similarity of the methodology under investigation to that of psychoanalysis exposes it to many of the familiar objections to the methodology of psychoanalysis, especially those that draw attention to the misleading influence of suggestion by an authority-figure.
c) The proposal that relentless cross-questioning of a suspected nonsense-talker will eventually lead her to ‘dry up’ (if she really is talking nonsense) seems to involve a version of the so-called Socratic Fallacy.

A central idea in Anscombe's philosophy of action is that of practical knowledge, the formally distinctive knowledge a person has of what she is intentionally doing. Anscombe also discusses 'practical truth', an idea she borrows from Aristotle, and which on her interpretation is a kind of truth whose bearer is not thought or language, but action. What is the relationship between practical knowledge and practical truth? What we might call the 'Simple View' of this relationship holds that practical knowledge is essentially knowledge of practical truth. But the Simple View isn't obviously available, since we have practical knowledge of all of our intentional actions, whereas an action manifests practical truth in Aristotle's sense only if it is a case of doing or living well. I suggest that we distinguish a thicker ethical version and a thinner action-theoretical version of each notion. This allows us to maintain a - complex - version of the Simple View, on which practical knowledge in the thick ethical sense is knowledge of practical truth in the thick ethical sense, and practical knowledge in the thin action-theoretical sense is knowledge of practical truth in the thin action-theoretical sense. Although Anscombe did not make these distinctions explicitly, I argue that she nevertheless commits herself to them in her discussion.

Ongoing discussion of this paper here: https://www.academia.edu/s/cf13d33860?source=link
Philosophy – whether traditional or contemporary – has nothing to say about the human metaphysical predicament, and cannot even offer a basic phenomenology of the human condition. Part of the problem is the ongoing confusion as to what philosophy actually amounts to, and what it can achieve. It is necessary to demystify philosophy, and have it restricted to the discipline of critical thinking, and it should not be thought of as possessing any substantial theoretical content of its own. It is a method, a skillset, a series of techniques, not a repository of various highbrow theories, whether about mind, epistemology, ontology, cosmology, science, or anything else. Metaphysics is an entirely distinct and separate field of inquiry, and concerns the human predicament, and ultimate human fulfilment, and it is to this end that critical thinking skills can usefully be applied. The purpose of this short study is to give some help to those hoping to gain an insight into the metaphysical realms of their being, and who would like some guidance with regard to those formal and academic disciplines supposedly geared to dealing with that very subject.

Requests, offers, invitations, complaints, and greetings are some of the many action types routinely invoked in the description and analysis of interaction. But what is the ontological status of, for instance, a request? In what follows I propose that action is conduct under a description. Thus, for the most part, interaction is organized independently of any action description or categorization of conduct into discrete action types. Instead, participants in interaction draw on the details of the situation in which they find themselves in order to produce conduct that others will recognize and to which they are able to respond in fitted ways. ‘Action’ still plays a key role in the organization of interaction, however, because accountability attaches not to raw conduct but only to conduct under some particular, action formulating description. (Action, interaction, description, conversation analysis, Anscombe)*

This chapter compares the general form and state of moral philosophy during the first half of the twentieth century (§1) to how it stands today (§3). These two overviews serve as the bread of a GEMA-filled sandwich. In §2 I accordingly consider Anscombe's criticisms of 'modern moral philosophy' from Sidgwick to Ross. Anyone in sympathy with the general line of her criticisms, I argue, must concede that the state of moral philosophy was in far better shape in the decades before she wrote her seminal 1958 paper than it has been ever since. Ironically, contemporary moral philosophy has become what it is partly due to Anscombe's own unintended role in influencing (i) the formation of 'virtue theory' as yet another position within normative ethics, and (ii) the fashioning of 'moral psychology' as an altogether distinct-and increasingly empirical-branch of moral philosophy.

I suggest that, although the nonsensicalist challenge (obviously) matters, it has, at least in its Wittgensteinian form, been widely ignored.  On the other hand, those who still adhere to nonsensicalism (mainly Wittgensteinians) have been equally remiss in their failure to examine its presuppositions.

G. E. M. Anscombe interprete di Aristotele e Wittgenstein 1. Elisabeth Anscombe fra Oxford e Cambridge L'oxoniense Peter Strawson, in una intervista rilasciata nel 19931 sostiene che nella filosofia analitica anglofona Oxford ha esercitato il suo dominio negli anni cinquanta e sessanta del Novecento per poi cedere il primato agli statunitensi. Enrico Berti, il quale nell'ormai classico Aristotele nel Novecento2 documenta una vera e propria "appropriazione" di Aristotele da parte delle scuole di Oxford e Cambridge nella prima metà del Novecento, distingue, nella schiera dei filosofi anglosassoni, gli oxoniensi, aristotelici e di formazione classica: J. L. Austin (1911-1960), direttore della collana di traduzioni aristoteliche «Clarendon Aristotle Series» presso la Oxford Press e G. Ryle (1900-1976) 3, storico direttore della rivista «Mind» (incarico ricoperto in seguito dallo stesso Strawson), da quelli cantabrigesi, che hanno risentito particolarmente dell'influenza di Wittgenstein. A proposito della differenza fra la filosofia insegnata ad Oxford e quella insegnata a Cambridge, è illuminante quanto afferma Ryle nella Autobiografia: dopo avere dichiarato la propria insoddisfazzione nei confronti della netta distinzione operata da Wittgenstein fra enunciati scientifici, cioè passibili di essere veri o falsi, e enunciati privi di senso4, nel ricordare il suo incontro con Wittgenstein nel 1929 al congresso annuale della Aristotelian Society5, rimprovera esplicitamente al filosofo viennese di essersi vantato di non aver studiato altri filosofi, neanche Platone ed Aristotele6. Sfugge a queste, pur utili, classificazioni, G. E. M. Anscombe, pensatrice che può essere considerata un vero e proprio "ponte" fra le scuole di Oxford e di Cambridge. La studiosa, nota soprattutto come allieva, editor e interprete delle opere di Wittgenstein, e come filosofa "in proprio" ritenuta fra i principali esponenti della filosofia dell'azione del Novecento, riesce con rigore sia filologico che logico a conciliare l'originaria formazione classica ed aristotelica7, ricevuta ad Oxford, con il metodo del suo maestro Wittgenstein, al quale fu chiamata a succedere sulla cattedra di Cambridge. Sorprende a tal proposito che Berti, il quale rimprovera a Ryle (tutor della Anscombe ad Oxford dal 1937 al 1941)8 di non aver riconosciuto «il primato ontologico della sostanza» caratteristico della metafisica aristotelica, nel citare i lavori dedicati ad Aristotele dalla Anscombe, sostenga che 1 G. Randazzo and P. Strawson, Strawson on Ryle in «Metalogicon», XX, 2007, n. 2, pp. 111-115. 2 Cfr. E. Berti, Aristotele nel Novecento, Bari, Laterza, 2008. La prima edizione del libro è datata 1992. 3 L'accostamento di Ryle ad Austin andrebbe meglio calibrato, dal momento che è lo stesso Ryle a stigmatizzare la sua distanza da Austin: «Con Austin non ci siamo mai presi. Io mi interessavo dei paradossi ed ho bisogno di scrittura e logica, lui si interessava di comunicazione fra le persone, cioè di tutti i discorsi che non sono logici» e non hanno bisogno di una lavagna per essere mostrati. (G. Ryle, Animale Ragionevole e Autobiografia, tr. it. E. Riverso, Roma, Armando, 1977, pp. 223-224). 4 ivi, pp. 88-90. 5 ivi, pp. 210-217. 6 Ricorda Berti (Cfr. Aristotele nel Novecento cit., pp. 134-148) come Ryle invece trattasse Aristotele come un interlocutore alla pari dei suoi colleghi contemporanei e adoperasse alcune sue formule anche senza citarlo, per poterle applicare ai propri ragionamenti filosofici. 7 Così conclude il suo lungo saggio dedicato ad Aristotele: «La situazione presente è unica nella storia della filosofia: la nostra età è fra le più intense di attività filosofica, e anche noi siamo ora nella situazione di poter leggere Aristotele criticamente e, parimenti, con simpatia-evitando sia il

In this paper, I develop and defend an interpretation of Anscombe's philosophy of human action as a philosophy of practical knowledge. This is a philosophy which reframes questions of moral obligation as belonging to the grammar of our talk of human action. But, Anscombe's account of the grammar of human action is not fully in view in her action-theoretic works. In the first part of the paper, I argue that to get her account of the grammar of human action fully into view we need to turn to her view of the spiritual nature of man in her religious writings. In the second part of the paper I offer an interpretation of her view of the spiritual nature of man which shows that, contrary to popular interpretations, hers is a spiritual and not an Aristotelian or neo-Aristotelian philosophy of practical knowledge. I close this paper with a sketch of a spiritual philosophy of practical knowledge which moves along Anscombean lines but abandons talk of God.

Modern philosophical spectators have often found fault with the ways in which miracles were received by the pre-modern peoples of Europe and the Mediterranean. Historians such as Gibbon and philosophers as various as Hume and Lessing criticized the pre-modern world, implicitly or explicitly, for the epistemic significance that it ascribed to miracles. In various ways, these and so many other modern thinkers have suggested that miracles cannot play the role that the pre-modern world gave to them. In this paper I reflect on this notable disparity in the reception of miracles in modern and pre-modern times. The possible terms of its explanation is suggested in the view of Elizabeth Anscombe, who argues that the evidentiary significance that pre-modern people gave to miracles necessarily involves certain theological presuppositions. Supernaturally aberrant phenomena--supposing, contra Hume, that such phenomena really occurs--only constitutes a "sign," Anscombe argues, when one already espouses some theistic framework in light of which such a phenomenal event can be interpreted to be a supernatural sign of attestation or authorization.
Anscombe's view is that of a Catholic philosopher in dialogue--and as I suggest, in some degree of tension--with the magisterial teaching of Vatican I, which describes miracles as "external signs" that independently (and non-circularly) attest the truth of the Gospel and authorize the Church.
The thesis of this paper is that, while there are certain presuppositions involved when miracles (or "supernatural phenomena") are regarded as signs, they are not such as to threaten the externality that Vat. I  ascribes to them. Thus, with an eye to giving an explanation for the disparate modern and premodern receptions of miracles, I draw on the work of the 19th-century German theologian, Matthias Joseph Scheeben, to identify the presuppositions that are sufficient and necessary in order to regard miracles as signs. The crucial presupposition, I propose, that explains the modern/premodern reception disparity is the reality of extrinsic authority. The significance of supernatural events, I suggest, is likely to be ambiguous in the modern, democratic West, because in this cultural circumstance the correlation of power and authority is no longer taken for granted as in other times and places, and the notion of extrinsic authority--an authority not derived from the "consent of the governed"--is generally and presumptively rejected.

RESUMEN: El presente trabajo problematiza la inmoralidad en el derecho y su relación con los absolutos morales. A su vez, la discusión se centrará en dos ejes axiales. La primera dará cuenta del bagaje teórico del fundamento de las acciones humanas y la filosofía práctica. El segundo, analiza la tesis de John Finnis sobre los absolutos morales y su vinculación con las corrientes éticas contemporáneas. 

Palabras clave: Absolutos morales; Ley natural; Uso y abuso; Filosofía moral; John Finnis; razón práctica. 

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the immorality in Law and its relation to moral absolutes. In turn, the discussion will focus on two axle shafts. The first will realize the theoretical background of the basis of human action and practical philosophy. The second
analyze John Finnis’s thesis on moral absolutes and its relation with contemporary ethical models. 

Keywords: Moral absolutes; Natural Law; use and abuse; moral philosophy; John Finnis; practical reason.

This essay gives an account of how traditional morality is best understood and also why it is worth defending (even if some reform is needed) and how this might be done. Traditional morality is first contrasted with supposedly more enlightened forms of morality, such as utilitarianism and liberal Kantianism (i.e., autonomy-centered ethics). The focus here is on certain sacred values that are central to traditional morality and which highlight this contrast and bring out the attractions of traditional morality. Next, this essay explores and offers support for the convergence thesis to which traditional morality, understood as common morality, is committed. This thesis states that although there are diverse moral traditions, insofar as they are in good order we should expect them to converge upon a common or universal morality, even if there remain some differences in the details. The defense of this thesis provides justification for the validity of traditional morality as it suggests an objective basis.

In this paper, Elizabeth Anscombe argues against the claim that Wittgenstein’s grammatical remarks, insofar as they impose a norm on use and reject some sentences as meaningless, would be arbitrary. More precisely, since Wittgenstein seems to say that the meaning of words and particularly grammar rules depend upon us, human beings, and on our practices – since he therefore seems to hold a kind of linguistic idealism (where words create what they refer to) – how can the meaning of words or signs be other than merely arbitrary?

Dans cet article Elizabeth Anscombe s’attaque à l’objection suivant laquelle les remarques grammaticales de Wittgenstein – qui norment les usages et rejettent certaines formulations comme étant des non-sens – seraient arbitraires. Plus précisément, puisque Wittgenstein semble dire que le sens des mots et en particulier les règles de la grammaire dépendent de nous, les humains, et de nos pratiques et donc soutenir un certain idéalisme linguistique (suivant lequel les mots du langage créent les réalités qu’ils désignent) dans quelle mesure le sens des mots ou des signes n’est-il pas purement arbitraire ?

How do philosophical accusations of talking nonsense relate to the layperson’s notions of meaning and meaningfulness?  If one were to explain carefully what philosophical nonsense was supposed to be, would one be greeted with incredulity?  How do people react to being accused of talking nonsense themselves?  Is anything analogous to an illusion of meaning recognised in everyday life?  In dream-reports perhaps?  Or in the utterances of schizophrenics or those under the influence of drugs?  Or in certain jokes and hoaxes?  Are contradictions felt to be meaningless?  I argue that, though it is clear that experimental philosophy could shed some light on these questions, their subject matter creates special difficulties.  First, it is more difficult than usual to formulate questions and produce ‘vignettes’ that do not subtly encourage certain responses at the expense of others.  Second, the fact that philosophical nonsense is a metaphilosophical concept ensures that its investigation is going to be more indirect than would be that of knowledge or intention, for example.

Possiamo inoltre intravedere l'amore per la verità di Anscombe nel modo in cui faceva filosofia. Ella era completamente immune al fascino di risposte facili, frivole, o appariscenti -di modi di pensare in voga -o delle delizie pericolose della costruzione delle teorie. Possedeva, in altre parole, un'onestà intellettuale, che in filosofia si affianca ad una resistenza e una determinazione a guardare in faccia i problemi. In questo era come il suo grande insegnante e amico, Wittgenstein; e il suo atteggiamento verso la filosofia, come quello di Wittgenstein, era un atteggiamento di serietà. Questo non significa che il senso dell'umorismo fosse escluso. Anzi, un certo senso dell'umorismo surreale era caratteristico del suo filosofare" (dal Cap. 9, Testimonianze inedite: Roger Teichmann).

In an earlier paper, 'Peter Geach on nonsense, confusion and sin' 1 , I suggested that what one can say in explanation of one's own actions suffers from a severe limitation: one can shed little light on the question why one acted on one's reasons for an action rather than on one's reasons against that action. In this paper I want to explore this suggestion further. One of my tasks will be to distinguish my question from three standard philosophical questions that have tended to overshadow it: the question of freewill and determinism; that of the relation between fact and value; and that of the possibility of weakness of will. On these I shall, on the whole, maintain a studied agnosticism.

I am planning a history of the concept of philosophical nonsense and naturally difficult historical and exegetical questions have come up.  Charles Pigden has argued that it goes back at least as far as Hobbes and that Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant (on some interpretations) and pragmatists such as William James, as well as numerous Twentieth-Century philosophers make use of it.  In this ‘paper’ I put forward for general discussion such questions as whether Hobbes was the first nonsensicalist, whether Kant was a nonsensicalist at all, which philosophers if any have considered contradictions to be meaningless and whether Wittgenstein thought that his concept of criterion could legitimately be used verificationistically.  I shall continue to add further questions as they occur to me.

Just what positions or actions the Argument From Reason (AFR) justifies one to adopt or perform remains hotly disputed. In this paper I introduce the argument and note some concerns, using the second edition of Lewis’s Miracles and Victor Reppert’s development in C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea. I then sketch out two strategies by which naturalists might be able to defend their position. In the first strategy Naturalism is assumed for the sake of argument and a dilemma is posed, neither horn of which favors Supernaturalism. In the second strategy proponents of the AFR are accused of committing the genetic fallacy. I consider whether Lewis’s argument might dodge this accusation if it is read as a de jure challenge to Naturalism. I draw on Plantinga’s early account of warrant and put his rebuttal to Freud and Marx in Warranted Christian Belief to work against the AFR. After these two strategies are introduced I conclude that while the AFR does not defeat Naturalism simpliciter, it calls attention to the deep rift between natural and supernatural worldviews and sheds light on the supernatural assumptions that underlie much of Western thought.​

Mackie’s claim that in general courage benefits its possessor seems inconsistent with his ‘error theory’ of value.  But how plausible is it in itself?  I suggest that his arguments for the claim fail in the same way as the arguments of those who more explicitly embrace ‘virtue ethics’ fail.  We do not know any way of objectively weighing risks against other considerations, of deciding whether something is ‘worth the risk’.  Since I have no PROOF that there could not be a way, I prefer to speak of ‘ignorance’ rather than ‘error’ here.

I argue that Mackie's thesis about courage and self-interest is neither consistent with his 'error theory' of value nor convincing in itself.  The question of the objectivity of value needs to be distinguished from that of whether one value can objectively outweigh or outrank another.  This is so even when the only values under consideration are self-interested ones.

De senere år har sett en tiltagende interesse for Anscombes handlingsfilosofi og hennes verk, Intention. Én ting Anscombe gjør her er å gjenopplive begrepet om prak-tisk kunnskap: en type kunnskap aktøren spontant kommer i besittelse av gjennom in-tensjonell, villet aktivitet. I det følgende argumenterer jeg for at dette begrepet lar seg analysere innenfor et metafysisk rammeverk der den praktiske kunnskapen i handling er et direkte kausalt produkt av praktisk tenkning snarere enn noe som blir mediert gjennom kognitive prosesser.

In a paper critical of J.L. Austin's theory of speech acts, as presented in HOW TO DO THINS WITH WORDS, Jacques Derrida argues that the indeterminacy of linguistic context renders the classical notion of "communication"--the transmission of intended meaning through language--untenable.  Despite efforts to the contrary, most notably those of John Searle, Derrida's account of the structure of teh locutionary act demonstrates that our utterances and written texts, taken as complex linguistic signs, are structurally incapable of communicating.  This essay offers an alternative approach to the problem by first offering an account of Austin's theory of action and then reinterpreting speech act theory in terms of the component actions.  The result is a position which contends that Austin's use of standard cases and multiple axes of modification to describe intentional actions provides  a functional method for reconstructing communication through speech acts

En quoi consiste l’explication d’une action ? La question, fondamentale pour toute réflexion méthodologique sur les sciences de l’homme, renvoie d’abord à une pratique commune. Dans nos rapports à autrui, il arrive que la compréhension fasse défaut. C’est alors que surgit le besoin d’explication, afin de comprendre la conduite d’autrui ou encore éclairer les autres sur ce que nous faisons.
Qu’est-ce qu’une action intentionnelle ? Les pensées d’un agent causent-elles son comportement ? Comment caractériser le savoir qu’un agent possède de sa propre action ? Quel rapport l’explication d’une action entretient-elle avec
ce savoir ? À quelles conditions est-il possible de comprendre autrui ?
S’appuyant sur l’approche logico-grammaticale de Ludwig Wittgenstein et d’Elizabeth Anscombe, Rémi Clot-Goudard récuse les conceptions faisant des prédicats psychologiques les noms d’états ou d’événements internes aux agents
et connus d’eux seuls. Il fait valoir que le caractère intentionnel des actions doit
se comprendre à partir des règles qui gouvernent leur mode de description et qu’il faut rapporter les intentions au raisonnement pratique et à la  connaissance pratique pour cerner leur force explicative. Il soutient ainsi que la maîtrise des concepts psychologiques est un savoir-faire enté sur l’expressivité naturelle du corps humain et la dimension intrinsèquement sociale et institutionnelle de la vie humaine – invitant ainsi ses lecteurs à se déprendre de l’illusion moderne d’un “sujet désengagé”.

G.E.M. Anscombe’s account of practical knowledge raises
a puzzle for cases of practical error, i.e. cases where, due
to a mistake of mine, I am not in fact doing what I mean to
be doing. It can seem that in such cases, we must both affirm
and deny the presence of practical knowledge. It must
be present, because practical error presupposes that there
is an intentional action in which the mistake occurs, which
in turn presupposes practical knowledge as a formal-causal
condition. At the same time, practical knowledge can’t be
present, because I am not doing what I think I am doing,
and therefore can’t have knowledge of what I am doing. I
discuss and reject various attempts to deal with the problem.
The solution I propose and defend against objections relies
on applying the Aristotelian-Thomistic conceptual framework
of form and matter to intentional action.

In John Perry's wide-ranging "A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality", the classical Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection is simply ignored. Indeed, even those sympathetic to the doctrine sometimes seem to be revising rather than defending it. This essay, after fully stating the classical doctrine, tries to show that (1) it satisfies a cogent theory of identity (developed by Baruch A. Brody) and that (2) rival accounts of one's "own" survival after death do not. Augustine and Aquinas, chief sources of the doctrine, as well as Peter Geach, a current defender, insist that the numerical identity of risen body with the body that dies demands their material continuity. After explicating and supporting their view, the essay concludes that the classical doctrine is logically coherent.