Volume 100, Issue 1

Abstract: Recent interpretations of the opening exchange between Socrates and Gorgias in Plato’s Gorgias have tended to focus on the question of whether the rhetorician believes that justice and injustice are the subject matter of rhetoric. This paper argues that Gorgias is interested in the just and the unjust only insofar as being a persuasive speaker on these topics is a prerequisite for the successful exercise of power in the political domain. Although Gorgias’ orientation by power and overestimation of the power of speech have been noted by many interpreters, my intention is to clarify Gorgias’ claims for the power of rhetoric and explain the significance of these claims for one important aspect of Plato’s broader condemnation of sophistry.

Abstract: In his essay against Eberhard, Kant denies that there are innate concepts. Several scholars take Kant’s statement at face value. They claim that Kant did not endorse concept innatism, that the categories are not innate concepts and that Kant’s views on innateness are significantly different from Leibniz’s. This paper takes issue with those claims. It argues that Kant’s views on the origin of intellectual concepts are remarkably similar to Leibniz’s. Given two widespread notions of innateness, the dispositional notion and the input/output notion, intellectual concepts are innate for Kant no less than for Leibniz.

Abstract: In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason , Kant claims that rational beings should want to have no inclinations. But in Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason , he asserts that the inclinations are good in themselves. While many commentators hold that Kant simply wrote hyperbolically in the Groundwork and the second Critique , I argue Kant was sincere, and changed his mind about the worth of the inclinations between the second Critique and the Religion . This is because he changed his mind about the source of immorality: whereas in the Groundwork and Critique of Practical Reason Kant took our inclinations to be tempters, starting in “Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy” and concluding in the Religion , he posited a self-imposed propensity to evil as the source of immorality. Kant’s reason for changing his mind about the source of immorality was partly theological: if our inclinations were to blame for immorality, then God would also be to blame for creating us with them. The only way God could not be to blame is if our immorality were self-imposed. But Kant also concluded that looking for theoretical explanations of our immorality – whether theological or naturalistic – was itself problematic: such explanations ended up exonerating us for our immorality. Because they had this effect, I contend that Kant saw the offering of such exculpating theoretical explanations as itself motivated by immorality. This understanding of Kant makes sense of the approaches he takes in both “Miscarriage” and Religion .

Abstract: This article counters the dominant misinterpretations of the British idealists’ readings of Plato, thereby fundamentally undermining the current historiography of Plato’s modern reception in the English-speaking world. Section one introduces the topic, before section two explores the British idealists’ celebration of Plato. Section three argues against the fundamental assumption of the current historiography: that the British idealists were dogmatic Neo-Platonic Hegelians. Rather, while the British idealists recognised Plato’s sometimes dogmatic formulations of the forms, they saw greater philosophical value in his “searching” texts. They appreciated the provisional, inchoate character of human conceptualisations of the forms and emphasised our responsibility to test them. Section four highlights the British idealists’ recognition of Plato’s literary turn. Section five demonstrates that, contrary to the received view of Plato scholars, the British idealists themselves were egalitarians who prioritised personal virtue, decentralised debate and local self-determination. I conclude that the British idealists interpreted Plato in ways that differed significantly from Jowett and the current historiography.