2012 South Central Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy Abstracts
Tom Holden (University of California, Santa Barbara)
“Hobbes on the Function of Evaluative Speech”
What are human beings doing when they make evaluative judgments and interpret the world
in value-laden terms? As Hobbes sees it, our evaluative interpretations of the world are some sort of systematic
expression of our own appetites and aversions-of the fact that we are attracted to certain things and recoil
from others. It is not that objects, actions, and characters are intrinsically valuable, but that we value them.
It is not that we are discovering or detecting value, but that we are conferring it in accordance with our own
conative attitudes and impulses.
This much is plain enough, and settled law among Hobbes's interpreters. But how,
in detail, do our evaluative judgments connect to our appetites and aversions on Hobbes's theory? There are
two traditional readings. According to the reductivist interpretation (Gauthier, Hampton, and Martinich),
Hobbes holds that an evaluative judgment is simply another way of asserting something about our subjective
states of desire or aversion. According to the error theorist interpretation (Tuck and Darwall), Hobbes holds
that, while our evaluative judgments are actually prompted and controlled by our subjective appetites and
aversions, they also involve the mistaken ascription of an objective value to the things that we desire and
an objective disvalue to the things to which we are averse.
I want to propose an alternative understanding of Hobbes on our practice of evaluative
judgment, one that side-steps various textual and systematic problems that bedevil the two traditional
interpretations. My contention is that the traditional readings lay too much emphasis on the question of
what we are saying when we employ evaluative vocabularies, and too little emphasis on what we are doing.
They see Hobbes as primarily concerned to offer a semantics for our evaluative vocabularies-an account of
the reference of evaluative terms, or of the truth-conditions for statements employing such terms-whereas
his main interest is in fact in the pragmatic function of evaluative language, in the practical force or
utility of speech acts employing such words. My proposal is that, contrary to the two traditional readings,
for Hobbes, the role of evaluative language is not to describe our appetites or the objects of our appetites,
but rather to prescribe practical attitudes and courses of action: to command, counsel, urge, plead,
petition, or commend. In each kind of case our evaluative utterance is an attempt to shape practice, and
its role is not to represent the way the world is, but to legislate action within it. I do not claim that
Hobbes was as clear as one would like on the full implications of this prescriptivist approach to evaluative
language. But I do claim that this interpretation fares much better with the texts than either of the
traditional readings, and that in emphasizing the practical function of evaluative language, it captures
the central message of Hobbes's metaphysics of value.
Marie Jayasekera (Colgate University)
“Descartes on the Analogy between the Divine and Human Will”
In the Fourth Meditation, Descartes says, "it is above all in virtue of the will
that I understand myself to bear in some way the image and likeness of God [imaginem quandam et similitudinem
Dei]" (AT VII 57; CSM II 40). Although he immediately goes on to detail several ways in which the
human will is unlike the divine will (its knowledge, power, object), Descartes is unclear about what
accounts for the resemblance.
One might worry that if there is any sense to be made of this analogy between the human and divine will--
something that Bernard Williams challenges by saying that Descartes' view of will as limitless is not fully
intelligible (Pure Enquiry, 159)--the analogy is "deeply problematic" because it seems to be in
tension with Descartes' commitment to certain essential features of the divine nature that do not
characterize human beings--most problematically, simplicity and indifference (Cf. Schmaltz CJP 2000: 86
on eternal truths), I begin this paper by addressing this worry.
The rest of the paper develops and motivates a new account of the analogy. In the
second section, I identify a significant feature that both the divine and human will share--an infinite scope
(CSMK 141-42, CSM 1: 204). I argue that possessing a will with an infinite scope amounts to possessing a
certain ability, and this ability is what the will consists in: for humans, it is the ability to choose any
(conceivable) possible object of any other will. Thus, this conception of the commonality between the divine
and human will helps illuminate perplexing aspects of Descartes' Fourth Meditation definition of the will.
In the third section, I discuss two significant differences in this ability to choose between God and humans--
the nature and determination of choice. In the fourth section, by comparing the analogy with Descartes' analogy
between divine and created substance, I argue that these differences support the analogy rather than undermining
it. I conclude the paper with some brief remarks about implications for understanding Descartes' position on
freedom.
Josh Wood, Texas A&M University
“Nisus in Leibniz, Berkeley, and Hume”
My project concerns Leibniz's controversial thesis that nisus is "present
everywhere in matter" (Loemker 1989: 435). This is primarily a metaphysical thesis, but it also
has an important epistemological component. Berkeley criticizes this thesis in his De Motu,
Alciphron, and Siris. Hume criticizes the same thesis in his Treatise and Enquiry. My aim is
to clarify Leibniz's view as well as to distill the criticisms brought against it by Berkeley
and Hume. What I believe we find is that Leibniz's position is more sophisticated than Berkeley
and Hume suggest.
The metaphysical aspect of Leibniz's thesis concerns his view that mechanical
and geometrical principles cannot yield "all the truths about corporeal things" (441). Leibniz
believes that some features of matter can only be explained by nisus, or what he sometimes refers
to as 'force,' 'endeavour,' and 'active power.' Hence Leibniz rejects the assumption, which is
consistent with mechanical and geometrical principles, that matter is inherently inactive. This
assumption, as Leibniz often suggests, is "contrary to the nature of things." Both Berkeley and
Hume share Leibniz's view that attributes such as extension and figure fail to explain what
underlies causal relations among material objects. However, Berkeley and Hume resist the
metaphysical conclusion that Leibniz adopts: there must be a force or active principle
inherent in material substance. Berkeley argues that such a thesis is either meaningless
or a spurious product of abstraction. Hume argues that this thesis either fails to track our
ordinary attributions of causal power or entails an absurd view of material objects.
These are interesting arguments, but they miss their mark. The reason is that Berkeley and
Hume have misunderstood the epistemological component of Leibniz's thesis.
Leibniz contends that nisus "can be understood distinctly" (441)
and is "fully intelligible" (454). He denies that nisus can be grasped by means of
"sense perceptions" and "imagination" (501). According to Leibniz, nisus is a "metaphysical
principle perceptible only by the mind" (441); and, he writes elsewhere, it is "grasped…
by the understanding [intellectu]" (501). More narrowly, Leibniz holds that this "primitive
force…corresponds to the soul" (436); and that it must be thought of "in terms similar to
the concept which we have of souls" (454). Berkeley should agree with the epistemological
component of Leibniz's thesis, since Leibniz here advances a view that is identical to his
own: the concept of active power is intelligible and is so in virtue of reflection on the
activity of the mind. But neither Berkeley nor Hume takes Leibniz to hold this view. Rather
they take Leibniz to hold a "vulgar," or at least naively anthropomorphic, view that traces
the concept of causal power to the familiar experience of effort. And they take Leibniz to
hold a view according to which material objects heave and strain in the same way we do when
pushing a stalled automobile. However, proper emphasis on the epistemological component of
Leibniz's thesis enables us to distinguish his remarks about nisus from the "vulgar" concept
of power attributed to him by Berkeley and Hume.
John Whipple, University of Illinois, Chicago
“Discours Exoterique in Leibniz’s Essais de Theodicée: Moral and Physical Evil”
If God creates and conserves a world that contains moral evil and physical evil,
must one say that God wills evil? Throughout much of his career Leibniz seeks to avoid this conclusion. By
appealing to a distinction between antecedent and consequent will he claims that God merely permits moral
and physical evil as part of the best overall plan for the universe. This account typically includes the
claim that God permits these evils in order to draw greater goods from them. In the Essais de Theodicée,
however, Leibniz claims that God permits moral evil not as a means to a greater good but only as a sine qua non
condition of creating the best possible world. Physical evil, on the other hand, is willed as a means to
obtaining a greater good. These claims are puzzling because they constitute a departure from Leibniz’s
longstanding tendency to provide symmetric treatments of moral and physical evil, and he does not provide any
explicit philosophical grounding for the distinction between permitting moral evil and willing physical evil.
In this paper I explain the interpretive puzzle and examine several strategies for
addressing it. I focus on two questions: (1) does Leibniz have the resources to provide a principled
ground for the distinction between willing physical evil and permitting moral evil, and (2) could the move
from symmetric to asymmetric treatments of moral and physical evil be more a feature of Leibniz’s discours
exoterique than a substantive change in his philosophical theology? With respect to (1), I argue that
Leibniz does not have the resources to provide an unproblematic ground for the claim that God wills
physical evil but merely permits moral evil. With respect to (2), I argue that his modified treatments of
moral and physical evil are motivated by claims Bayle makes in the Dictionnaire Historique et Critique.
Bayle emphasizes the maxim non facienda sunt mala, ut eveniant bona. A straightforward reading of
this maxim suggests that it would be problematic to claim that God permits sin in order to derive a greater good.
In the Essais de Theodicée Leibniz straightforwardly affirms this maxim. However, in his private notes
on Bayle Leibniz takes a more nuanced approach, affirming only a restricted form of the maxim-—one that is
consistent with treating moral and physical evil symmetrically. It is likely that these remarks represent
Leibniz’s considered view. Bayle’s remarks in the Dictionnaire do not lead Leibniz to
substantially revise his position but they do reveal several ways in which his position could be seriously
misunderstood. Leibniz presents his view in the Essais de Theodicée in a way that is designed to
preclude these misunderstandings. This presentation comes at a price to the extent that it obscures
certain aspects of his considered view. This is a price that Leibniz is willing to pay in order to avoid
more significant misunderstandings of his position. Leibniz utilizes discours exoterique to help his
readers attain a close approximation of the truth.
Samuel Rickless, University of
California, San Diego
“Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity”
Locke's theory of personal identity has generated no end of controversy. There is
disagreement over how to understand the theory and also over whether and, if so, how it can overcome
objections that have been raised against it. For many years, it was assumed that Locke adopts an actual
consciousness criterion of personal identity: that X is the same person as Y if and only if X and Y are
conscious of the same action or thought. This theory appears vulnerable to two objections, a charge of
circularity rendered famous by Joseph Butler, and the Gallant Officer counterexample rendered even more famous
by Thomas Reid. Some scholars agree that one or both of these criticisms succeeds, and that the only way to
keep to the spirit (if not the letter) of Locke's theory is to adopt a criterion of personal identity that
relies on the ancestral of the actual consciousness relation. Other scholars, inspired by Locke's claim that
"person" is a "forensick" term, claim that Locke adopts a moralized "appropriation" or
"susceptibility-to-punishment" criterion of personal identity, and that this criterion, properly understood,
withstands Butler's and Reid's objections.
In this talk, I defend an account of Locke's criterion that has been either
improperly assimilated to the actual memory criterion or wrongly dismissed as irremediably circular. This is the
potential consciousness criterion: that X is the same person as Y if and only if X and Y can be conscious of
the same action or thought. I argue that although Locke does not clearly distinguish between the actual
consciousness criterion and the potential consciousness criterion, it is both more accurate and more
charitable to attribute the latter criterion to Locke. I also explain how the criterion avoids both
Butler's objection and Reid's objection.
Jessica Gordon-Roth, Washington and Lee
University
“A New Substance Reading of Locke on Persons”
What Locke says about persons and diachronic identity in Book II, Ch. XXVII of the Essay launched the modern
debate over persons and their persistence conditions. However, what Locke says about the persistence conditions of persons seems to be
in tension with Locke's definition of "person"-and this apparent tension leaves the reader wondering whether Locke thinks persons are
substances or modes.
The current trend in the secondary literature is to claim that persons are modes. This marks a significant departure
from the substance readings of the past. I argue elsewhere that there is compelling evidence that Lockean persons are particular substances
if we examine Locke's definition of "person" in light of what he says about substance, power and agency in other parts of the Essay.
In this paper I take as my starting point that persons are particular substances. I then argue that when we place Locke's claim that sameness
of substance is neither necessary nor sufficient for sameness of person in its proper context, it becomes clear that there is no tension between
this claim and Lockean persons being particular substances. Moreover, Locke's treatment of persons is in keeping with his treatment of an
archetypal substance: man. Finally, I argue that Locke can think persons are substances without violating the place-time-kind principle.
That being said, I don't take it that Locke's ontological picture is as fully developed as many commentators assume, and contend that
many questions about Locke's picture of persons remain. I argue against Alston/Bennett and Bolton's (2012) claim that Locke restricts his use
of "substance" to mean only "simple substance" in the "Identity and Diversity" chapter, and the assumption that Locke's distinction between
simple and compounded substances is the key to resolving the apparent tension between Locke's definition of "person" and the persistence
conditions Locke gives for persons. The latter marks a significant difference between my view and that of Rickless.
Benjamin Hill, University of
Western Ontario
“A Better Argument for Content Externalism in Locke”
Content externalism has been attributed to Lockean simple ideas of sense largely on
the basis of II.xxx.2, II.xxxi.2, II.xxxii.14-16, and IV.iv.4. These are passages in which Locke defends the
reality, adequacy, and truth of our simple ideas of sense. In recent years this argument has been challenged
by Walter Ott, rightly so in my judgment. The crux of the problem with this argument is that there is nothing
to suggest that the causal relation Locke was appealing to here was a reference-fixing relation.
In this paper I provide a different argument for the content externalist interpretation
of Locke's simple ideas of sense. Instead of focusing on Locke's claims about their reality, I focus on their
obscurity. In II.xxix.2-3 Locke clearly asserts that simple ideas of sense may be obscure. My contention is
that this could only be possible if Locke accepted externalist identity and re-identification conditions for
simple ideas of sense.
The argument is as follows: Because simple ideas are simple by their very natures,
there is only one phenomenological dimension along which they may change, namely that simple appearance.
But the possibility of obscure simple ideas of sense requires that a single idea present varying appearances,
clear in one case and obscure in another. This severs the connection between the identity of the idea and its
appearance. Then, it is argued that because of other commitments, Locke cannot adopt various alternative
accounts of the identity and re-identification conditions that would be compatible with content internalism.
I consider four alternative accounts of grounding the identity conditions of ideas: qualitative identity
(which is a non-starter); being rightly called by same name (which violates Locke's principle of signification);
being tied together by some principle of association (which contravenes Locke's understanding of associations);
and an account that appeals to the continuity of the act of perception, such that they are objects of the same
act of perception. The last account is the most interesting and the most "Lockean" in spirit, but it is argued
that for Locke (a) the sameness of an object of perception is a necessary condition for the sameness of an
act of perception and (b) that this account is incompatible with Locke's considered views on memory. So,
the only option left to Locke would be to have the identity of the idea in question be fixed by the power
in the object, which is an externalist account of the identity of simple ideas of sense. Thus we have an
argument for attributing content externalism to Locke that identifies a reference-fixing relationship between
external powers and simple ideas of sense. And this can then be used to motivate reading Locke's comments
about the reality, adequacy, and truth of simple ideas of sense in terms of a reference-fixing causal
relationship. (Responding to Ott's historically-based criticisms of the content externalist interpretation
itself falls outside the ambit of this paper, but could be addressed in discussion.)
Melissa Frankel, Carlton University,
Ottawa
“Berkeley on Divine Archetypes and the Rejection of Scepticism”
In his Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (3D), Berkeley writes that
he "acknowledge[s] a twofold state of things, the one ectypal or natural, the other archetypal and eternal[.]
The former was created in time; the latter existed from everlasting in the mind of God" (3D 254).
On a straightforward reading, Berkeley is claiming here that finite minds perceive ectypal ideas that are
copies of, or meant to represent, divine ideas. That is, this passage seems to commit Berkeley to an
indirect theory of perception. But this is troubling because Berkeley thinks that it is precisely by
being committed to a direct theory of perception that he undermines the possibility of scepticism.
Noting that indirect perception opens up the possibility of being mistaken about whether or not our
ideas accurately represent their objects, he writes:
What a jest is it for a philosopher to question the existence of sensible things, till he hath it proved to
him from the veracity of God: or to pretend our knowledge in this point falls short of intuition or
demonstration? I might as well doubt of my own being, as of the being of those things I actually see and feel.
(3D 230)
In this paper, I consider three attempts to reconcile Berkeley's references to
divine archetypes with his rejection of scepticism, and argue that none of them are wholly successful.
First, commentators have suggested that the references to divine archetypes are to be discounted as
either ill-considered or passing remarks. But I point out that such references can be found in quite a
few places in the text, rendering this suggestion problematic. Second, one might think that whereas
Berkeley's rejection of scepticism is bound up with his rejection of material archetypes, nonetheless
he can allow for divine archetypes. Specifically, Berkeley's charge that materialism leads to scepticism
seems to follow from his likeness principle, that ideas can only be like other ideas (and hence not like
material archetypes.) Prima facie, this principle does not rule out ideas being like divine archetypes,
which are, after all, ideas. But I argue that in fact, the reasoning that Berkeley provides for the
likeness principle can be generalized to show that ideas cannot be like divine archetypes. Finally,
one might reject the standard interpretation of divine archetypes in favour of a view on which divine
and human ideas are numerically identical. But this view is in danger of being inconsistent with the
references to archetypes, which have it that those are 'eternal' while ectypes are 'created in time.'
In light of these unsuccessful attempts at reconciliation, I propose that we switch attention from the
object of perception (the idea) to the act of perception. I argue that by focusing on the passivity of
human perception and the active nature of divine perception, it is possible to both save the sense in
which divine archetypes are in fact archetypal, while also resolving the tension between Berkeley's
commitment to archetypes and his rejection of scepticism.
Dario Perinetti, Université du Quebec à Montréal
“Perceptions and Objects in Hume’s Treatise”
Hume's views on representation in the Treatise are a fundamental source of disagreement among interpreters.
For it follows from Hume's scepticism (for which there is ample textual evidence) that we cannot explain the representational purport of
ideas by appealing to their relation to unknowable external objects. But then, Hume's scepticism appears to commit him to the implausible
claim that perceptions and objects are identical and so, too, to the idealist thesis that the world is composed of nothing but perceptions.
Now, this (dogmatic) idealism is inconsistent both with Hume's scepticism about metaphysical commitments and with the ordinary distinction
between perceptions and objects that founds our sense of reality. For that reason, some interpreters have systematically ignored the
textual evidence in favor of the 'implausible' view in favor of an interpretation of Hume as a realist about representation.
In this paper, I shall argue that though Hume is indeed a sceptic and not a realist about representation, his
scepticism does not commit him to the implausible view. Hume sees the very possibility of perceiving a present object as dependent on
inferences from past experience. The argument will involve two parts: a first negative part will be devoted to sustain a thorough
skeptical reading of Hume on representation. I will argue (a) that neither impressions nor ideas, all by themselves, have the capacity
to represent objects, and (b) that Hume thought that perceptions and objects are the same kind of thing or, to put it otherwise, that
the terms "perception" and "object" are coextensive. The positive part will involve explaining how, in spite of his claim that
perceptions and objects are the same kind of thing, Hume can give an account of the ordinary distinction between perceptions and
objects, the one that is necessary for our basic sense of reality.
In the course of this explanation, I shall show, that the distinction between perceptions and objects results from attributing
to the same kind of thing perceptions different sets of relations. On the one hand, when the relations considered are those that
are exclusively dependent on the content of the perceptions, the perceptions are considered qua perceptions. When, on the other
hand, the perceptions are considered according to relations depending on the manner and order of presentation of perceptions,
the perceptions are considered qua objects. I shall also argue that the relations that make possible our treating perceptions as
objects are the ones that like causation are crucially dependent on our having past experience. One puzzling consequence of the
reading I advance is that, for Hume, it is necessary to already have beliefs in order to see objects.
Ken Winkler, Yale University
“Causal Realism and Hume’s Revisions of the Enquiry”
My paper contributes to a continuing debate concerning Hume’s understanding of
causation. Did Hume affirm the existence of objective necessary connections—of powers in objects that come
to more than regularities or constant conjunctions? I believe that a short footnote, added by Hume to
the second (1750) edition of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, undercuts a good deal of the
textual evidence that commentators have brought forward in support of a positive or “realist” answer.
My aim in the paper is to place the footnote in a context that has been largely neglected by these
commentators and their critics: the careful, continuing, and interlocking revisions Hume made to the
Enquiry over its early lifetime. Commentators who interpret Hume as a causal realist commonly claim that
in the Enquiry (first published in 1748), Hume moved beyond the immature formulations, characteristic of
his earlier Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), that suggest he held a non-realist, or less-than-decidedly
realist, point of view. I argue that Hume’s revisions of the Enquiry indicate that as the book matured,
its author moved deliberately closer to a non-realist formulation of his views, rather than farther away from it.