Abstract: The paper sets out and discusses James Frederick Ferrierâs interpretation of Berkeleyâs immaterialism. In two dense papers (1842, 1847), against the prevailing Reidean historiography, Ferrier rejects the claim that Berkeley subscribes to the way of ideas and thus to the basis tenets of representationalism. Far from defending subjective idealism, Berkeley holds some form of direct realism. In his Institutes of Metaphysic (1854), Ferrier goes further and draws on Berkeleyâs master argument to venture his own metaphysical views.
Abstract: Drawing mainly on An Essay on Philosophical Method (1933) and on The New Leviathan (1942), this paper sets out R. G. Collingwoodâs main arguments against G. E. Mooreâs appeal to common sense. According to The New Leviathan, the recourse to common sense as a safeguard against scepticism or idealism leads to âscientific persecutionâ and âobscurantismâ. That view might be considered as excessive. However, after a close examination of the structure of the argument from common sense, Collingwoodâs critique appears to be relevant. This does not prevent him from using the notion of common sense, understood as a set of basic beliefs. There is no contradiction here, provided that we distinguish the notion of common sense from the argument from common sense.
Abstract: According to Cudworth, the controversy concerning freedom and necessity between Hobbes and Bramhall can be decided to the detriment of Hobbesâs necessitarianism, if one relies on a good theory of practical deliberation. The principal thesis of this article is that this theory is dispositional. To be free is not to control oneâs own volitions directly and at leisure, but it is, at a more profound level than that of the causal train of psychological states, to make an effort to develop dispositions that render the soul capable of aiming at the good. The article shows that this conception of moral freedom, which is very different from Lockeâs characterisation of freedom, and which gains by being compared, rather than opposed, to Descartesâ conception, has its source in Plotinus. The dispositional theory makes it possible to get around an objection that the followers of Hume still raise today against the authority of reason in the field of ethics.
