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| bernard williams shame and necessity: Shame and Necessity Bernard Williams, 1993 The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Shame and Necessity Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, 1993-01-01 We tend to suppose that the ancient Greeks had primitive ideas of the self, of responsibility, freedom, and shame, and that now humanity has advanced from these to a more refined moral consciousness. Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life. We are more like the ancients than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we properly grasp our most important differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery. The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours. Williams explains how it is that when the ancients speak, they do not merely tell us about themselves, but about ourselves. Shame and Necessity gives a new account of our relations to the Greeks, and helps us to see what ethical ideas we need in order to live in the modern world. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Shame and Necessity , 2016 We tend to suppose that the ancient Greeks had primitive ideas of the self, of responsibility, freedom, and shame, and that now humanity has advanced from these to a more refined moral consciousness. Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life. We are more like the ancients than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we properly grasp our most important differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery. The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours. Williams explains how it is that when the ancients speak, they do not merely tell us about themselves, but about ourselves. In a new foreword A.A. Long explores the impact of this volume in the context of Williams's stunning career. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy Bernard Williams, 2011-04 Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is widely held to be his most important book and is a classic of contemporary philosophy It is assigned on many reading lists on courses on moral philosophy and ethics Ranks alongside Routledge Classics such as Alasdair MacIntyre’s Short History of Ethics and Iris Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good. Our edition includes a very useful commentary by Adrian Moore at the end of the book New foreword by Jonathan Lear |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Truth and Truthfulness Bernard Williams, 2010-07-28 What does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? No philosopher is better suited to answer these questions than Bernard Williams. Writing with his characteristic combination of passion and elegant simplicity, he explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine. Modern culture exhibits two attitudes toward truth: suspicion of being deceived (no one wants to be fooled) and skepticism that objective truth exists at all (no one wants to be naive). This tension between a demand for truthfulness and the doubt that there is any truth to be found is not an abstract paradox. It has political consequences and signals a danger that our intellectual activities, particularly in the humanities, may tear themselves to pieces. Williams's approach, in the tradition of Nietzsche's genealogy, blends philosophy, history, and a fictional account of how the human concern with truth might have arisen. Without denying that we should worry about the contingency of much that we take for granted, he defends truth as an intellectual objective and a cultural value. He identifies two basic virtues of truth, Accuracy and Sincerity, the first of which aims at finding out the truth and the second at telling it. He describes different psychological and social forms that these virtues have taken and asks what ideas can make best sense of them today. Truth and Truthfulness presents a powerful challenge to the fashionable belief that truth has no value, but equally to the traditional faith that its value guarantees itself. Bernard Williams shows us that when we lose a sense of the value of truth, we lose a lot both politically and personally, and may well lose everything. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: The Sense of the Past Bernard Williams, 2009-02-09 Before his death in 2003, Bernard Williams planned to publish a collection of historical essays, focusing primarily on the ancient world. This posthumous volume brings together a much wider selection, written over some forty years. His legacy lives on in this masterful work, the first collection ever published of Williams's essays on the history of philosophy. The subjects range from the sixth century B.C. to the twentieth A.D., from Homer to Wittgenstein by way of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Sidgwick, Collingwood, and Nietzsche. Often one would be hard put to say which part is history, which philosophy. Both are involved throughout, because this is the history of philosophy written philosophically. Historical exposition goes hand in hand with philosophical scrutiny. Insights into the past counteract blind acceptance of present assumptions. In his touching and illuminating introduction, Myles Burnyeat writes of these essays: They show a depth of commitment to the history of philosophy seldom to be found nowadays in a thinker so prominent on the contemporary philosophical scene. The result celebrates the interest and importance to philosophy today of its near and distant past. The Sense of the Past is one of three collections of essays by Bernard Williams published by Princeton University Press since his death. In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument, selected, edited, and with an introduction by Geoffrey Hawthorn, and Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, selected, edited, and with an introduction by A. W. Moore, make up the trio. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline Bernard Williams, 2009-02-09 What can--and what can't--philosophy do? What are its ethical risks--and its possible rewards? How does it differ from science? In Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, Bernard Williams addresses these questions and presents a striking vision of philosophy as fundamentally different from science in its aims and methods even though there is still in philosophy something that counts as getting it right. Written with his distinctive combination of rigor, imagination, depth, and humanism, the book amply demonstrates why Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. Spanning his career from his first publication to one of his last lectures, the book's previously unpublished or uncollected essays address metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, as well as the scope and limits of philosophy itself. The essays are unified by Williams's constant concern that philosophy maintain contact with the human problems that animate it in the first place. As the book's editor, A. W. Moore, writes in his introduction, the title essay is a kind of manifesto for Williams's conception of his own life's work. It is where he most directly asks what philosophy can and cannot contribute to the project of making sense of things--answering that what philosophy can best help make sense of is being human. Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline is one of three posthumous books by Williams to be published by Princeton University Press. In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument was published in the fall of 2005. The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy is being published shortly after the present volume. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Naked Krista K. Thomason, 2018 Shame is a Jekyll-and-Hyde emotion--it can be morally valuable, but it also has a dark side. Thomason presents a philosophically rigorous and nuanced account of shame that accommodates its harmful and helpful aspects. Thomason argues that despite its obvious drawbacks and moral ambiguity, shame's place in our lives is essential. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: The Shape of Athenian Law S. C. Todd, 1995 Unlike its predecessors, this systematic survey of the law of Athens is based on explicit discussion of how the subject might be studies, incorporating topics such as the democratic political system and social structure. Technical and legal terms are explained in a comprehensive glossary. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Human Morality Samuel Scheffler, 1992 'An immensely rich book.... The book is extremely careful, resourceful, and reasonable. It is essential reading for everyone interested in ethics.' -Mind |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Nietzsche's Great Politics Hugo Drochon, 2018-04-03 A superb case of deep intellectual renewal and the most important book to have been written about [Nietzsche] in the past few years.—Gavin Jacobson, New Statesman Nietzsche's impact on the world of culture, philosophy, and the arts is uncontested, but his political thought remains mired in controversy. By placing Nietzsche back in his late-nineteenth-century German context, Nietzsche's Great Politics moves away from the disputes surrounding Nietzsche's appropriation by the Nazis and challenges the use of the philosopher in postmodern democratic thought. Rather than starting with contemporary democratic theory or continental philosophy, Hugo Drochon argues that Nietzsche's political ideas must first be understood in light of Bismarck's policies, in particular his Great Politics, which transformed the international politics of the late nineteenth century. Nietzsche's Great Politics shows how Nietzsche made Bismarck's notion his own, enabling him to offer a vision of a unified European political order that was to serve as a counterbalance to both Britain and Russia. This order was to be led by a good European cultural elite whose goal would be to encourage the rebirth of Greek high culture. In relocating Nietzsche's politics to their own time, the book offers not only a novel reading of the philosopher but also a more accurate picture of why his political thought remains so relevant today. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Outside Ethics Raymond Geuss, 2009-01-10 Outside Ethics brings together some of the most important and provocative works by one of the most creative philosophers writing today. Seeking to expand the scope of contemporary moral and political philosophy, Raymond Geuss here presents essays bound by a shared skepticism about a particular way of thinking about what is important in human life--a way of thinking that, in his view, is characteristic of contemporary Western societies and isolates three broad categories of things as important: subjective individual preferences, knowledge, and restrictions on actions that affect other people (restrictions often construed as ahistorical laws). He sets these categories in a wider context and explores various human phenomena--including poetry, art, religion, and certain kinds of history and social criticism--that do not fit easily into these categories. As its title suggests, this book seeks a place outside conventional ethics. Following a brief introduction, Geuss sets out his main concerns with a focus on ethics and politics. He then expands these themes by discussing freedom, virtue, the good life, and happiness. Next he examines Theodor Adorno's views on the relation between suffering and knowledge, the nature of religion, and the role of history in giving us critical distances from existing identities. From here he moves to aesthetic concerns. The volume closes by looking at what it is for a human life to have gaps--to be incomplete, radically unsatisfactory, or a failure. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: A Free Will Michael Frede, 2012-12 As readers will quickly discover, the quality of the text that [Frede] has bequeathed fully matches the brilliance and incisiveness for which all his work is admired. From the foreword by David Sedley |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Nietzsche: The Gay Science Friedrich Nietzsche, 2001-08-23 Nietzsche wrote The Gay Science, which he later described as 'perhaps my most personal book', when he was at the height of his intellectual powers, and the reader will find in it an extensive and sophisticated treatment of the philosophical themes and views which were most central to Nietzsche's own thought and which have been most influential on later thinkers. These include the death of God, the problem of nihilism, the role of truth, falsity and the will-to-truth in human life, the doctrine of the eternal recurrence, and the question of the proper attitude to adopt toward human suffering and toward human achievement. This volume presents the work in a new translation by Josefine Nauckhoff, with an introduction by Bernard Williams that elucidates the work's main themes and discusses their continuing philosophical importance. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Presocratics James Warren, 2014-12-05 The earliest phase of philosophy in Europe saw the beginnings of cosmology and rational theology, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethical and political theory. It saw the development of a wide range of radical and challenging ideas: from Thales' claim that magnets have souls and Parmenides' account that there is only one unchanging existent to the development of an atomist theory of the physical world. This general account of the Presocratics introduces the major Greek philosophical thinkers from the sixth to the middle of the fifth century BC. It explores how we might go about reconstructing their views and understanding the motivation and context for their work as well as highlighting the ongoing philosophical interest of their often surprising claims. Separate chapters are devoted to each of the major Presocratic thinkers, including Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Leucippus and Democritus, and an introductory chapter sets the scene by describing their intellectual world and the tradition through which their philosophy has been transmitted and interpreted. With a useful chronology and guide to further reading, the book is an ideal introduction for the student and general reader. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: The Greeks and the Irrational Eric R. Dodds, 2004-06-16 In this philosophy classic, which was first published in 1951, E. R. Dodds takes on the traditional view of Greek culture as a triumph of rationalism. Using the analytical tools of modern anthropology and psychology, Dodds asks, Why should we attribute to the ancient Greeks an immunity from 'primitive' modes of thought which we do not find in any society open to our direct observation? Praised by reviewers as an event in modern Greek scholarship and a book which it would be difficult to over-praise, The Greeks and the Irrational was Volume 25 of the Sather Classical Lectures series. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Utilitarianism J. J. C. Smart, Bernard Williams, 1973 A serious and controversial work in which the authors contribute essays from opposite points of view on utilitarian assumptions, arguments and ideals. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: The Tenth Man Graham Greene, 1985 During World War II a group of men is held prisoner by the Germans, who determine that three of them must die. This is the story of how one of those men trades his wealth for his life--and lives to pay for his act in utterly unexpected ways. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity David Sedley, 2008-01-16 The world is configured in ways that seem systematically hospitable to life forms, especially the human race. Is this the outcome of divine planning or simply of the laws of physics? Ancient Greeks and Romans famously disagreed on whether the cosmos was the product of design or accident. In this book, David Sedley examines this question and illuminates new historical perspectives on the pantheon of thinkers who laid the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Versions of what we call the creationist option were widely favored by the major thinkers of classical antiquity, including Plato, whose ideas on the subject prepared the ground for Aristotle's celebrated teleology. But Aristotle aligned himself with the anti-creationist lobby, whose most militant members—the atomists—sought to show how a world just like ours would form inevitably by sheer accident, given only the infinity of space and matter. This stimulating study explores seven major thinkers and philosophical movements enmeshed in the debate: Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, the atomists, Aristotle, and the Stoics. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: The Makropoulos Secret Karel Čapek, 1925 |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: The Rational and the Moral Order Kurt Baier, 1995 'The Rational and the Moral Order' is a significant book providing a comprehensive theory of morality. The opening chapter is simply marvellous. Baier provides a cogent response to Hume's conundrums on practical reasoning: logical entailment, he argues, is not the correct model of the relation between reasons and that for which they are reasons. Indeed, the giving of reasons is, in part, a social enterprise, and there is no necessary connection between rationality and self-interest. Just as the giving of reasons is a social enterprise taught to succeeding generations, so too is the moral enterprise, for a moral order is a social order of some sort. It is a social order that encourages a critical stance toward, and permits the correction of, its mores. Moral precepts can be sound or unsound, and yet can be relative to a moral order. In the concluding chapter Baier shows how his theoretical framework can be used to confront some of the moral problems people face, problems which have also exercised contemporary philosophers. Though there are many philosophers who believe that killing is worse than letting anyone die, there are few that defend the view other than by raw intuition. Baier deploys the resources of his theory of morality in support of this widely shared but poorly defended viewpoints. Along the way, Baier deals with virtually all the problems that have taxed moral philosophers for a very long time -- rationality, responsibility, morality's relation to law, the good life, prisoner's dilemma, moral motivation, and others. The Rational and the Moral Order is careful, insightful, and convincing. --Theodore M. Benditt, University of Alabama |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: The Art of Living Alexander Nehamas, 2000-03 In this wide-ranging, brilliantly written account, Nehamas provides an incisive reevaluation of Socrates' place in the Western philosophical tradition and shows the importance of Socrates for Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: A New Stoicism Lawrence C. Becker, 2017-08-29 What would stoic ethics be like today if stoicism had survived as a systematic approach to ethical theory, if it had coped successfully with the challenges of modern philosophy and experimental science? A New Stoicism proposes an answer to that question, offered from within the stoic tradition but without the metaphysical and psychological assumptions that modern philosophy and science have abandoned. Lawrence Becker argues that a secular version of the stoic ethical project, based on contemporary cosmology and developmental psychology, provides the basis for a sophisticated form of ethical naturalism, in which virtually all the hard doctrines of the ancient Stoics can be clearly restated and defended. Becker argues, in keeping with the ancients, that virtue is one thing, not many; that it, and not happiness, is the proper end of all activity; that it alone is good, all other things being merely rank-ordered relative to each other for the sake of the good; and that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Moreover, he rejects the popular caricature of the stoic as a grave figure, emotionally detached and capable mainly of endurance, resignation, and coping with pain. To the contrary, he holds that while stoic sages are able to endure the extremes of human suffering, they do not have to sacrifice joy to have that ability, and he seeks to turn our attention from the familiar, therapeutic part of stoic moral training to a reconsideration of its theoretical foundations. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: The Subject of Virtue James Laidlaw, 2014 A clearly written, sophisticated summary of and prospectus for a flourishing current field of anthropological research. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: The Fragility of Goodness Martha C. Nussbaum, 2001-01-15 This book is a study of ancient views about 'moral luck'. It examines the fundamental ethical problem that many of the valued constituents of a well-lived life are vulnerable to factors outside a person's control, and asks how this affects our appraisal of persons and their lives. The Greeks made a profound contribution to these questions, yet neither the problems nor the Greek views of them have received the attention they deserve. This book thus recovers a central dimension of Greek thought and addresses major issues in contemporary ethical theory. One of its most original aspects is its interrelated treatment of both literary and philosophical texts. The Fragility of Goodness has proven to be important reading for philosophers and classicists, and its non-technical style makes it accessible to any educated person interested in the difficult problems it tackles. This edition, first published in 2001, features a preface by Martha Nussbaum. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and Philosophy Christopher Gill, 2023 This study explores conceptions of personality and the self in three key areas of ancient Greek thought: epic; tragedy; and philosophy. It is an original contribution to the history of ideas about the self, and combines this with new interpretations of Greek literature and philosophy. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Morality Bernard Williams, 2012-03-29 In Morality Bernard Williams confronts the problems of writing moral philosophy, and offers a stimulating alternative to more systematic accounts which seem nevertheless to have left all the important issues somewhere off the page. Williams explains, analyses and distinguishes a number of key positions, from the purely amoral to notions of subjective or relative morality, testing their coherence before going on to explore the nature of 'goodness' in relation to responsibilities and choice, roles, standards, and human nature. A classic in moral philosophy. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Eye for an Eye William Ian Miller, 2005-12-19 This book is a historical and philosophical meditation on paying back and buying back, that is, it is about retaliation and redemption. It takes the law of the talion - eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth - seriously. In its biblical formulation that law states the value of my eye in terms of your eye, the value of your teeth in terms of my teeth. Eyes and teeth become units of valuation. But the talion doesn't stop there. It seems to demand that eyes, teeth, and lives are also to provide the means of payment. Bodies and body parts, it seems, have a just claim to being not just money, but the first and precisest of money substances. In its highly original way, the book offers a theory of justice, not an airy theory though. It is about getting even in a toughminded, unsentimental, but respectful way. And finds that much of what we take to be justice, honor, and respect for persons requires, at its core, measuring and measuring up. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Valuing Emotions Michael Stocker, Elizabeth Hegeman, 1996-09-13 This 1996 book is the result of a uniquely productive union of philosophy, psychoanalysis and anthropology, and explores the complexity and importance of emotions. Michael Stocker places emotions at the very centre of human identity, life and value. He lays bare how our culture's idealisation of rationality pervades the philosophical tradition and leads those who wrestle with serious ethical and philosophical problems into distortion and misunderstanding. Professor Stocker shows how important are the social and emotional contexts of ethical dilemmas and inner conflicts, and he challenges philosophical theories that try to overgeneralise and over-simplify by leaving out the particulars of each situation. In offering a realistic account of emotions and an in-depth analysis of how psychological factors affect judgments of all kind, this book will interest a broad range of readers across the disciplines of philosophy and psychology. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Aristotle and Xenophon on Democracy and Oligarchy Aristotle, Xenophon, 2010-10-28 This collection contains: Aristotle's The Constitution of Athens Xenophon's The Politeia of the Spartans The Constitution of the Athenians ascribed to Xenophon the Orator The Boeotian Constitution from the Oxyrhynchus Historian In bringing together, translating, and annotating these constitutional documents from ancient Greece thirty five years ago, J. M. Moore produced an authoritative work of the highest scholarship. An explanatory essay by classics scholar Kurt A. Raaflaub expands this indispensable collection. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Reading Sartre Jonathan Webber, 2010-10-04 Reading Sartre is an indispensable resource for students of phenomenology, existentialism, ethics and aesthetics, and anyone interested in the relationship between phenomenology and analytic philosophy. Specially commissioned chapters examine Sartre’s achievements, and consider his importance to contemporary philosophy. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Politics Recovered Matt Sleat, 2018-03-13 Is political theory political enough? Or does a tendency toward abstraction, idealization, moralism, and utopianism leave contemporary political theory out of touch with real politics as it actually takes place, and hence unable to speak meaningfully to or about our world? Realist political thought, which has enjoyed a significant revival of interest in recent years, seeks to avoid such pitfalls by remaining attentive to the distinctiveness of politics and the ways its realities ought to shape how we think and act in the political realm. Politics Recovered brings together prominent scholars to develop what it might mean to theorize politics “realistically.” Intervening in philosophical debates such as the relationship between politics and morality and the role that facts and emotions should play in the theorization of political values, the volume addresses how a realist approach aids our understanding of pressing issues such as global justice, inequality, poverty, political corruption, the value of democracy, governmental secrecy, and demands for transparency. Contributors open up fruitful dialogues with a variety of other realist approaches, such as feminist theory, democratic theory, and international relations. By exploring the nature and prospects of realist thought, Politics Recovered shows how political theory can affirm reality in order to provide meaningful and compelling answers to the fundamental questions of political life. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Neoplatonism Pauliina Remes, 2014-12-05 Although Neoplatonism has long been studied by classicists, until recently most philosophers saw the ideas of Plotinus et al as a lot of religious/magical mumbo-jumbo. Recent work however has provided a new perspective on the philosophical issues in Neoplatonism and Pauliina Remes new introduction to the subject is the first to take account of this fresh research and provides a reassessment of Neoplatonism's philosophical credentials. Covering the Neoplatonic movement from its founder, Plotinus (AD 204-70) to the closure of Plato's Academy in AD 529 Remes explores the ideas of leading Neoplatonists such as Porphyry, lamblichus, Proclus, Simplicius and Damascius as well as less well-known thinkers. Situating their ideas alongside classical Platonism, Stoicism, and the neo-Pythagoreans as well as other intellectual movements of the time such as Gnosticism, Judaism and Christianity, Remes provides a valuable survey for the beginning student and non-specialist. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Realism in Political Theory Rahul Sagar, Andrew Sabl, 2018-10-08 Over the past decade, an intellectual movement known as realism has challenged the reigning orthodoxy in political theory and political philosophy. Realists take issue with what they see as the excessive moralism and utopianism associated with prominent philosophers like John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and G.A. Cohen; but what they would put in its place has not always been clear. The contributors to this volume seek to bring realism into a new phase, constructive rather than merely combative. To this end they examine three distinct kinds of realism. The first seeks to place questions of feasibility at the center of political theory and philosophy; the second seeks to reorient our interpretations of key works in the canon; the third seeks new interpretations or specifications of prominent ideologies such as liberalism, radicalism, and republicanism such that they no longer rely on abstract or systematic philosophic systems. Contributors include: David Estlund, Edward Hall, Alison McQueen, Terry Nardin, Philip Pettit, Janosch Prinz, Enzo Rossi, Andrew Sabl, Rahul Sagar, and Matt Sleat. The chapters originally published as a special issue of Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Man and the Word Himerius, 2007-10-30 This important book by a superior scholar makes Himerius' speeches accessible for the first time in English. —Timothy Barnes, author of Constantine and Eusebius |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Tragedy, the Greeks and Us Simon Critchley, 2019-03-28 We might think we are through with the past, but the past isn't through with us. Tragedy permits us to come face to face with the things we don't want to know about ourselves, but which still make us who we are. It articulates the conflicts and contradictions that we need to address in order to better understand the world we live in. A work honed from a decade's teaching at the New School, where 'Critchley on Tragedy' is one of the most popular courses, Tragedy, the Greeks and Us is a compelling examination of the history of tragedy. Simon Critchley demolishes our common misconceptions about the poets, dramatists and philosophers of Ancient Greece - then presents these writers to us in an unfamiliar and original light. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: In the Beginning Was the Deed Bernard Williams, 2009-02-09 Bernard Williams is remembered as one of the most brilliant and original philosophers of the past fifty years. Widely respected as a moral philosopher, Williams began to write about politics in a sustained way in the early 1980s. There followed a stream of articles, lectures, and other major contributions to issues of public concern--all complemented by his many works on ethics, which have important implications for political theory. This new collection of essays, most of them previously unpublished, addresses many of the core subjects of political philosophy: justice, liberty, and equality; the nature and meaning of liberalism; toleration; power and the fear of power; democracy; and the nature of political philosophy itself. A central theme throughout is that political philosophers need to engage more directly with the realities of political life, not simply with the theories of other philosophers. Williams makes this argument in part through a searching examination of where political thinking should originate, to whom it might be addressed, and what it should deliver. Williams had intended to weave these essays into a connected narrative on political philosophy with reflections on his own experience of postwar politics. Sadly he did not live to complete it, but this book brings together many of its components. Geoffrey Hawthorn has arranged the material to resemble as closely as possible Williams's original design and vision. He has provided both an introduction to Williams's political philosophy and a bibliography of his formal and informal writings on politics. Those who know the work of Bernard Williams will find here the familiar hallmarks of his writing--originality, clarity, erudition, and wit. Those who are unfamiliar with, or unconvinced by, a philosophical approach to politics, will find this an engaging introduction. Both will encounter a thoroughly original voice in modern political theory and a searching approach to the shape and direction of liberal political thought in the past thirty-five years. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: The Epistemic Life of Groups Michael S. Brady, Miranda Fricker, 2016-03-03 Social epistemology has been flourishing in recent years, expanding and making connections with political philosophy, virtue epistemology, philosophy of science, and feminist philosophy. The philosophy of the social world too is flourishing, with burgeoning work in the metaphysics of the social world, collective responsibility, group action, and group belief. The new philosophical vista now more clearly presenting itself is collective epistemology—the epistemology of groups and institutions. Groups engage in epistemic activity all the time—whether it be the active collective inquiry of scientific research groups or crime detection units, or the evidential deliberations of tribunals and juries, or the informational efforts of the voting population in general—and yet in philosophy there is still relatively little epistemology of groups to help explore these epistemic practices and their various dimensions of social and philosophical significance. The aim of this book is to address this lack, by presenting original essays in the field of collective epistemology, exploring these regions of epistemic practice and their significance for Epistemology, Political Philosophy, Ethics, and the Philosophy of Science. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Bernard Williams Mark Jenkins, 2014-12-18 From his earliest work on personal identity to his last on the value of truthfulness, the ideas and arguments of Bernard Williams - in the metaphysics of personhood, in the history of philosophy, but especially in ethics and moral psychology - have proved sometimes controversial, often influential, and always worth studying. This book provides a comprehensive account of Williams's many significant contributions to contemporary philosophy. Topics include personal identity, various critiques of moral theory, practical reasoning and moral motivation, truth and objectivity, and the relevance of ancient Greece to modern life. It not only positions Williams among these important philosophical topics, but also with regard to the views of other philosophers, including prominent forerunners such as Hume and Nietzsche and contemporary thinkers such as, Nagel, McDowell, MacIntyre and Taylor. The fragmentary nature of Williams's work is addressed and recurring themes and connections within his work are brought to light. |
| bernard williams shame and necessity: Descartes Bernard Williams, 2014-09-15 Descartes has often been called the 'father of modern philosophy'. His attempts to find foundations for knowledge, and to reconcile the existence of the soul with the emerging science of his time, are among the most influential and widely studied in the history of philosophy. This is a classic and challenging introduction to Descartes by one of the most distinguished modern philosophers. Bernard Williams not only analyzes Descartes' project of founding knowledge on certainty, but uncovers the philosophical motives for his search. With acute insight, he demonstrates how Descartes' Meditations are not merely a description but the very enactment of philosophical thought and discovery. Williams covers all of the key areas of Descartes' thought, including God, the will, the possibility of knowledge, and the mind and its place in nature. He also makes profound contributions to the theory of knowledge, metaphysics and philosophy generally. With a new foreword by John Cottingham. |
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BERNARD WILLIAMS: Shame and Necessity. (Sather Classical ... - J…
shame-responses are importantly different from guilt, and are more sustainedly characteristic of Greek culture than of our Christianised culture, but also that to see …
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Shame and Necessity. Bernard Williams. With a New Foreword by A.A. Long. University of California Press Berkeley · Los Angeles · London. Contents. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. Preface. …
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Shame & Necessity (Paper): 57 (Sather Classical Lectures) Bernard Williams's Shame and Necessity is a work of philosophy about what we could learn from the ancient …
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Shame and Necessity. Bernard Williams. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. xii+254 p. Cloth $25.00. The last two centuries have seen three main reactions to Greek …
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Shame and Necessity http://content.cdlib.org.oca.ucsc.edu/xtf/view?docId=ft4t1nb2fb&chunk.... 1 of 131 11/13/2007 9:45 PM Preferred Citation: Williams, Bernard.
BERNARD WILLIAMS: Shame and Necessity. (Sather Classical
shame-responses are importantly different from guilt, and are more sustainedly characteristic of Greek culture than of our Christianised culture, but also that to see shame as more concerned with the individual's identity, looking to 'what I am', and to the standards set both by society and the self, rather than with acts and their effects
Shame and Necessity - GBV
Shame and Necessity. Bernard Williams. With a New Foreword by A.A. Long. University of California Press Berkeley · Los Angeles · London. Contents. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. Preface. Foreword to the 2008 Edition. The Liberation of Antiquity. Centres of Agency. Recognising Responsibility. Shame and Autonomy. Necessary Identities.
Bernard Williams Shame And Necessity - library.tacaids.go.tz
Shame & Necessity (Paper): 57 (Sather Classical Lectures) Bernard Williams's Shame and Necessity is a work of philosophy about what we could learn from the ancient Greeks. The book addresses moral concerns as well as issues of identity and
BOOK REVIEWS 619 Shame and Necessity. Bernard Williams
Shame and Necessity. Bernard Williams. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. xii+254 p. Cloth $25.00. The last two centuries have seen three main reactions to Greek ethi-cal thought. One is what Bernard Williams calls "progressivism," which says that modern ethics is more refined and mature than its ancient counterpart.
Bernard Williams Shame And Necessity - d8.mopa.bpoc.org
Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life.
SYLLABUS for Bernard Williams’ Ethical Philosophy Room 7395 …
he main themes in the ethical philosophy of Bernard Williams, one of the leading moral philosophers of his generation. These themes range across normative ethics and meta-ethics, including: the nature of practical reasons and their relation to motivation; critique of utilitarianism; critique of Kantianism; the method of genealogical e.
Bernard Williams Shame And Necessity .pdf
This article will explore the advantages of Bernard Williams Shame And Necessity books and manuals for download, along with some popular platforms that offer these resources. One of the significant advantages of Bernard Williams Shame And Necessity books and manuals for download is the cost-saving aspect.
Bernard Williams Shame And Necessity (2024) - archive.ncarb.org
This ebook delves into the complex interplay between shame and necessity in the ethical philosophy of Bernard Williams, a prominent figure in 20th-century moral philosophy. Williams' work challenges traditional moral frameworks, particularly
Bernard Williams Shame And Necessity
1. How does Williams' concept of shame differ from other philosophical approaches to shame, such as those of Adam Smith or Alasdair MacIntyre? Williams emphasizes the interplay between shame and necessity, highlighting the influence of external factors and the role of moral luck.
BERNARD WILLIAMS: COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY May 2000 …
Faculty Lecture 16, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, 1996. [Lecture delivered 1995] Shame, Guilt and the Structure of Punishment. Festschrift for the Margrit Egner-Stiftung Prize 1997, Zurich.
Williams’s Defense of Shame as a Moral Emotion - #100UniTS
Section 1 examines four reasons most commonly adduced to support the claim that guilt is superior to shame, both psychologically and morally: a) While guilt expresses a concern for others shame is a self-centered and selfish emotion. b) While guilt …
Shame and Self-Abasement: Bernard Williams, Kant and J.M.
Necessity. Williams’s view on shame might be classied as ‘genealogical’ in two ways. Bordering on a psychoanalytic model, his analysis of primary forms of shame explores the gradual shaping of the emotion in the indi-vidual psyche, beginning with the direct experience of nakedness and
Psychoanalysis and the Idea of a Moral Psychology: Memorial to Bernard …
The aim of Shame and Necessity is not merely to argue for a revised understanding of the psychological life of the ancient Greeks, but for a revaluation of our own moral emotions. In particular, Williams argues that the value of shame as an emotion needs to be revised upwards, the value of guilt revised downwards.
Necessary Identities: From Bernard Williams to Feminist Critique
This paper explores the fruitful concept of necessary identity, put forward by Bernard Williams in Shame and Neces-sity (1993) in order to explain a peculiar kind of social identity. Firstly, we will investigate the foundation of this concept, by analyzing …
Moral Obligation as a Conclusive Reason: On Bernard Williams
Bernard Williams’ critique of the morality system, as illustrated in his reading of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, is intended to show both that real moral conicts can arise, and that a moral obligation is merely one reason among others and can be defeated by the thick concepts of a shared ethical life.
Deliberation and Natural Slavery - JSTOR
Press, 1995), pp. 233-58 (esp. 254-57); Bernard Williams, Shame and Necessity (Ber keley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 103-29 (esp. pp. 110-15). For an alter native point of view, that Aristotle's theory of natural slavery is both consistent and a vast moral improvement upon its predecessors, see W.W. Fortenbaugh, "Aristotle on
TORTURE, NECESSITY AND EXISTENTIAL POLITICS - SSRN
Torture, Necessity and Existential Politics Christopher Kutz1 “[I]f there is something worse than accepting slavery, it consists in defending it.”2 –Bernard Williams, Shame and Necessity I. Introduction: The costs of rights Rights have costs: that is their point. The cost of rights is in the coin of foregone welfare gains.
Contingency, Confidence, and Liberalism in the Political Thought
Abstract: This paper offers a systematic examination of the political thought of Bernard. Williams by explaining the relation between his political realism and critical assessment of modern moral philosophy and discussing how his work illuminates the debates about.
Allyn Fives ‘Moral obligation as a conclusive reason: On Bernard ...
ABSTRACT: Bernard Williams’ critique of the morality system, as illustrated in his reading of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon , is intended to show both that real moral conflicts can arise, and that a moral obligation is merely
