Research
 
IN PRESS Review of John Russell Roberts, A Metaphysics for the Mob: The Philosophy of George Berkeley, to appear in Philosophical Review. WORK IN PROGRESS “Berkeley’s Argument for Idealism.” Ancestors of this paper were presented at UC Santa Barbara in May 2006 and at the Third Biennial Margaret Wilson Conference at UC San Diego in June 2006. “The Relation Between Anti-Abstractionism and Idealism in Berkeley’s Metaphysics.” Presented at the Southwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy at UCSD, February 2007; to be presented at a session of the International Berkeley Society at the Eastern Division Meeting of the APA, December 2007. Berkeley’s Argument for Idealism (monograph) George Berkeley is famous for his embrace of four theses: (i) idealism, the view that physical objects are nothing but collections of ideas (first announced in A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710)), (ii) immaterialism, the view that there is no such thing as material substance, (iii) anti-abstractionism, the view that abstract ideas are impossible, and (iv) the likeness principle, the thesis that an idea can be like nothing but an idea. Although the structure of Berkeley’s world view is fairly well understood, it remains a matter of controversy why he takes idealism to be true. While some hold that Berkeley’s argument rests on immaterialism, others hold that the argument rests on anti-abstractionism, and yet others hold that the argument rests on the likeness principle. In this book, I argue that Berkeley’s argument rests neither on immaterialism nor on the likeness principle. I also argue that Berkeley distinguishes between two kinds of abstraction, “singling” abstraction and “generalizing” abstraction, and that his argument for idealism depends on the impossibility of singling abstraction (but not on the impossibility of generalizing abstraction). The heart of the argument, which does not appear in full until the publication of Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713), rests on the distinction between mediate and immediate perception (a distinction that plays a crucial role in An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709)), and in particular on the thesis that everything that is perceived by means of the senses is immediately perceived. Ultimately, as I show, the argument is sophisticated but fallacious. Its failure explains (at least in part) why so few of Berkeley’s contemporaries and successors embraced idealism, and why materialism has been ascendant ever since. “The Failure of Pragmatic Descriptivism” “The Moral Status of Enabling Harm” WORK IN PREPARATION Locke (monograph, under contract with Blackwell, part of the Great Minds Series, edited by Steven Nadler) Locke is one of the most important figures in the history of western philosophy. Along with Descartes, he is largely responsible for setting the terms of numerous debates that engaged his immediate philosophical successors and that remain live to this day. His metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy, and even his philosophy of language (though, interestingly, not his epistemology), continue to inspire contemporary scholars of these fields. It is impossible to consider the problem of personal identity over time, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, the question of free will, the content of natural rights, the justification for the state, and the meaning of natural kind terms without turning first to Locke’s thoughts on these matters. It is also impossible to understand the development of western philosophy after Locke without understanding the theory of ideas that is central to every aspect of his work. The point of this book is to introduce and examine the most important of Locke’s philosophical contributions in these areas, with particular emphasis on his two great masterpieces, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and the Second Treatise on Government. “Qualities.” (To appear in The Routledge Companion to Seventeenth Century Philosophy, edited by Dan Kaufman.) An overview of prominent seventeenth century views about the nature of qualities of substances, with special emphasis on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Philosophers to be discussed include Galileo, Descartes, Locke, and Boyle. “Will and Motivation.” (To appear in The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century, edited by Peter Anstey.) An overview of prominent seventeenth century British philosophers’ views on the nature of voluntary action and freedom of action. Philosophers to be discussed include Bramhall, Hobbes, Cudworth, and Locke. PUBLICATIONS Access to some of the papers listed below requires a personal or university subscription to Blackwell Synergy, JSTOR, Lexis-Nexis, and other commercial databases. If access is blocked, please contact me and I will be glad to email you a copy of the relevant paper. “Is Locke’s Theory of Knowledge Inconsistent?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (2008): 83-104. “The Right to Privacy Unveiled.” San Diego Law Review 44:1 (2007): 773-799. “Plato’s Parmenides.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. August 2007. Plato’s Forms in Transition: A Reading of the Parmenides (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, December 2006) There is a mystery at the heart of Plato’s Parmenides. In the first part, Parmenides criticizes what is widely regarded as Plato’s mature theory of forms, and, in the second, he promises to explain how the forms can be saved from these criticisms. Ever since the dialogue was written, scholars have struggled to determine how the two parts of the work fit together. Did Plato mean us to abandon, keep, or modify the theory of forms, on the strength of Parmenides’ criticisms? In order to answer this question, I provide a careful reconstruction of every argument in the dialogue. I conclude that Plato’s main aim was to argue that the theory of forms should be modified by allowing that forms can have contrary properties. To grasp this is to solve the mystery of the Parmenides and understand its crucial role in Plato’s philosophical development. “Locke’s Polemic Against Nativism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Lex Newman (Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 33-66. “Binding Arguments and Hidden Variables,” (with Jonathan Cohen) Analysis 67 (2007): 65-71. “Polygamy and Same-Sex Marriage: A Response to Calhoun,” San Diego Law Review 42:3 (2005): 1043-1048. “A Synthetic Approach to Legal Adjudication,” San Diego Law Review 42:2 (2005): 519-532. “The Coherence of Orthodox Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence,” George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal 15 (2005): 261-296. “The Cartesian Fallacy Fallacy,” Noûs 39 (2005): 309-336. “From the Good Will to the Formula of Universal Law,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 (2004): 554-577. “Warfield’s New Argument for Incompatibilism” (with Dana K. Nelkin), Analysis 62 (2002): 104-107. “Review Essay: Liberty Worth the Name: Locke on Free Agency (Gideon Yaffe),” Locke Studies (2001): 235-255. “Religious Arguments and the Duty of Civility,” Public Affairs Quarterly 15 (2001): 133-154. “How to Solve Blum’s Paradox” (with Dana K. Nelkin), Analysis 61 (2001): 91-94. “Miranda, Dickerson, and the Problem of Actual Innocence,” Criminal Justice Ethics 19 (2000): 53-55. “Locke on the Freedom to Will,” The Locke Newsletter 31 (2000): 43-67. “How Parmenides Saved the Theory of Forms,” Philosophical Review 107 (1998): 501-554. “The Semantic Function of Chained Pronouns,” Analysis 58 (1998): 297-304. “Socrates’ Moral Intellectualism,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (1998): 355-367. “The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing,” Philosophical Review 106 (1997): 555-575. “Locke on Primary and Secondary Qualities,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 78 (1997): 297-319. 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