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, Contributed by: Quentin PharrPublisher’s Note: Plato's Sun-Like Good is a revolutionary discussion of the Republic's philosopher-rulers, their dialectic, and their relation to the form of the good. With detailed arguments Sarah Broadie explains how, if we think of the form of the good as 'interrogative', we can re-conceive those central reference-points of Platonism in down-to-earth terms without loss to our sense of Plato's philosophical greatness. The book's main aims are: first, to show how for Plato the form of the good is of practical value in a way that we can understand; secondly, to make sense of the connection he draws between dialectic and the form of the good; and thirdly, to make sense of the relationship between the form of the good and other forms while respecting the contours of the sun-good analogy and remaining faithful to the text of the Republic itself.
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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael GreerAbstract: A core insight of some important second wave feminist writings is that, in order to qualify as truly ‘feminist’, a movement has to be politically radical. For example, there is a powerful articulation of this theme, to mention one noteworthy site, in the work of bell hooks. A guiding preoccupation of hooks’ thought, as far back as the early eighties, is to underline the pernicious and intellectually flawed character of the supposedly ‘feminist’ postures of ‘bourgeois white women’ in the U.S. whose efforts are directed toward the politically superficial goal of claiming the social privileges of bourgeois white men. hooks shows that there is no way to ‘overcome barriers that separate women from one another’ without ‘confronting the reality of racism’. She describes how the forms of gender-based subordination experienced by privileged white women are inextricable from racist and classist social mechanisms that elevate these women above women who are non-white and poor, and how the sexist obstacles that poor and non-white women encounter are in turn permeated by racism and classism. hooks concludes that if ‘feminism’ is to be dedicated to identifying and resisting sexist oppression, it needs to – in her words – ‘direct our attention to systems of domination and the interrelatedness of sex, race and class oppression.
Comment (from this Blueprint): In this 2018 article Alice Crary launches a critique against analytic feminists for employing what she terms a "neutral conception of reason," which pretends that the best form of reason is one free from feelings, biases, and value, as if one may employ reason from a "view from nowhere." To the contrary, Crary thinks there is no view from nowhere, and that feminist philosophy's insistence on the important of lived experience is synonymous with it's recognition that reasoning is done from a particular social location and is always-already "ethically" valenced: one's lived experiences and affects saturate one's ethically-loaded point of view, and this is recruited for feminist ends! To illustrate this point, Crary considers Miranda Fricker's 2007 book Epistemic Injustice, which we see elsewhere on this reading list. According to Fricker's neutral conception of reason, testimonial epistemic injustice is remedied by neutralizing stereotypical prejudice in one's judgments of credibility. On Crary's reading, however, there is no neutral space of reason. Crary argues for a methodological radicalism (as opposed to what she terms Fricker's methodological conservativism) which begins with ethically-loaded perspectives on the world. Indeed, she thinks this is how we can make sense of the consciousness-raising Fricker is interested in: Crary points out that "in order to get the patterns of [problematic] behaviour constitutive of [...] abuse adequately into focus, we need to look upon the social world from a particular ethically-loaded perspective" (57).
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Added by: Jie GaoSummary: Drawing on literature from the dual-processing tradition in psychology, this paper tries to explain why contemplation of an imaginary particular may have cognitive and motivational effects that differ from those evoked by an abstract description of the same content, and hence, why thought experiments may be effective devices for conceptual reconfiguration. It suggests that by presenting content in a suitably concrete way, thought experiments recruit representational schemas that were otherwise inactive, thereby evoking responses that may run counter to those evoked by alternative presentations of relevantly similar content.
Comment: In this interesting paper, Gendler elucidates the role and nature of intuition in the light of current philosophical practice. It is a good material for teaching on philosophical intuitions and experimental philosophy.
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Added by: Giada FratantonioAbstract: According to Conceptualism, philosophy is an independent discipline that can be pursued from the armchair because philosophy seeks truths that can be discovered purely on the basis of our understanding of expressions and the concepts they express. In his recent book, The Philosophy of Philosophy, Timothy Williamson argues that while philosophy can indeed be pursued from the armchair, we should reject any form of Conceptualism. In this paper, we show that Williamson's arguments against Conceptualism are not successful, and we sketch a way to understand understanding that shows that there is a clear sense in which we can indeed come to know the answers to (many) philosophical questions purely on the basis of understanding.
Comment: The author argues, contra Williamson, for the role of understanding as a way of gaining knowledge and providing answer to lots of philosophical questions. Good to use as a further reading for postgraduate courses in epistemology of understanding, as well as philosophical methodology.
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Added by: Anne-Marie McCallion
Introduction: Is philosophy like plumbing? I have made this comparison a number of times when I have wanted to stress that philosophising is not just grand and elegant and difficult, but is also needed. It is not optional. The idea has caused mild surprise, and has sometimes been thought rather undignified. The question of dignity is a very interesting one, and I shall come back to it at the end of this article. But first, I would like to work the comparison out a bit more fully.
Comment: This text offers an accessible and vibrant discussion of meta-philosophical concerns regarding the nature and purpose of philosophical enquiry. It raises questions about what philosophy is, and what philosophy is for. No prior knowledge is assumed, and the text would make for a fruitful starting point – or introductory reading to – the topic of metaphilosophy or philosophical methods. It will be particularly useful for sparking interest in philosophical methods and demonstrating to students the purpose and value of asking meta-philosophical questions. Very suitable for students that are new to philosophy, for example in a first year History of Philosophy module.
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Added by: Björn FreterPublisher's Note: Why should anybody take an interest in philosophy? Is it just another detailed study like metallurgy? Or is it similar to history, literature and even religion: a study meant to do some personal good and influence our lives? In her last published work, Mary Midgley addresses provocative questions, interrogating the various forms of our current intellectual anxieties and confusions and how we might deal with them. In doing so, she provides a robust, yet not uncritical, defence of philosophy and the life of the mind. This defence is expertly placed in the context of contemporary debates about science, religion, and philosophy. It asks whether, in light of rampant scientific and technological developments, we still need philosophy to help us think about the big questions of meaning, knowledge, and value.
Comment: An accessible text that could serve well as an alternative introduction to philosophical methodology.
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Added by: Anne-Marie McCallion
Abstract: The complaints which I wish to make are concerned primarily with prose, not with poetry, and primarily with novels, not with drama; and they are brief, simplified, abstract, and possibly insular. They are not to be construed as implying any precise picture of "the function of the writer." It is the function of the writer to write the best book he knows how to write. These remarks have to do with the background to present-day literature, in Liberal democracies in general and Welfare States in particular, in a sense in which this must be the concern of any serious critic.
Comment: This text offers a vibrant reflection on the different writing styles within philosophy and literature throughout the centuries. It would be useful for courses which touch upon the subject of philosophical style, meta-philosophy or philosophical methods, as well as – more broadly – discussions which pertain to the importance of contextualising philosophy and situating thinkers within their surrounding political environments. Though this text is clearly written, it requires a good amount of background knowledge of the authors cited within the text and as such is probably best suited to intermediate or advanced students.
Comment: This text is an excellent companion text for reading Plato's Republic - especially Books 5 and 6. It provides clear interpretations of the various metaphors and analogies that Plato presents in those books, and it provides one of the most important new interpretations of Plato's conception of philosopher-rulers, the Form of the Good, and philosophical dialectic. This text is primarily for those students who are looking to dive into the relevant debates associated with these books in the Republic. Accordingly, it requires some understanding of some of Plato's other dialogues, as well as some understanding of philosophical and mathematical methodologies as conceived by Plato.