T. Brian Mooney

Plato and the Love of Individuals

A perennial problem in the philosophy of love has centred around what it is to love persons qua persons. Plato has usually been interpreted as believing that when we love we are attaching ourselves to qualities that inhere in the objects of our love and that these qualities transcend the objects. Vlastos has argued, along with Nussbaum, Price and many others that such an account tells against a true love of persons as unique and irreplaceable individuals. I argue that Plato’s account of love as presented in the Lysis and Symposium is not so easily rejected. My concern is both to show that Plato can meet the objections and that his theory can still offer helpful insights into the understanding of love in our own lives. In particular I will identify two manners of loving persons; one which is context and individual specific, and another which might be termed metaphysical, thereby preserving aspects of the Platonic ascent of love. I will further argue that the two aspects are often non–controversially linked, and that such linking helps explain something of the mysterious nature of love.

Merleau-Ponty on Human Motility and Libet’s Paradox

Abstract In 1979, neuroscientists Libet, Wright, Feinstein and Pearl introduced the “delay-and-antedating” hypothesis/paradox based on the results of an on-going series of experiments dating back to 1964 that measured the neural adequacy [brain wave activity] of “conscious sensory experience”. What is fascinating about the results of this experiment is the implication, especially when considered in the light of Merleau-Ponty’s notions of “intentionality” and the “pre-reflective life of human motility”, that the body, and hence not solely the mind, is a thinking thing. The experiments and conclusions of Libet et al. have attracted considerable academic attention and have been used in the development of psychological theories on automotivism and the adaptive unconscious. Moreover, they have engendered a series of important considerations in respect of the question of free will. This paper outlines the connections between the findings of Libet et al. and Merleau-Ponty’s ontology as presented in the Phenomenology of Perception (1945/1962). It is not our intention to argue that the former amounts to new wine in old bottles, but rather to show counterfactually (since we offer no new scientific data and assume the conclusions of the experiments) that Merleau-Ponty’s ontology provides a theoretical framework which explains the experimental data obtained by Libet et al., and provides further speculative confirmation of the work stemming from neuro-physical research and emerging theories on the adaptive unconscious.

The Dialectical Interchange between Socrates and Agathon: Symposium 198b-201d

In recent years philosophers working within the field of Platonic studies have begun to stress the relationship between form and content in Plato’s works. This ‘revelation’ in its turn has led to a richer understanding of Platonic texts; no longer (or at least not so often) do we find a Socratic argument excised from its dramatic context and syllogistically and analytically examined. Analysis, of course, can never be divorced from philosophy but with respect to the corpus Platonicum philosophical analysis has been supplemented by a sensitivity to the denouement of an argument, in other words, the dramatic context.

Aquinas on Connaturality and Education

Connatural knowledge is knowledge readily acquired by beings possessing a certain nature. For instance, dogs have knowledge of a scent-world exceeding that of human beings, not because humans lack noses, but because dogs are by nature better suited to process olfaction. As various ethicists have argued, possession of the virtues involves a sort of connatural knowing. Here, connatural knowledge emerges as a knowledge by inclination which systematically tracks the specific moral interests we humans possess precisely because we are human. In this essay we explore the importance of connaturality for moral education.

Meaning and Morality

The essays in this volume address the importance of Kovesis work on moral philosophy and concept formation. The essays extend Kovesis insights on moral philosophy into broader areas and compares and contrasts his work with that of key ancient and contemporary thinkers.

Kovesi, Connaturality, and the Metaphysics and Epistemology of Virtues

This chapter sketches a contemporary metaphysics that grounds an account of objective purposes and interests. This account is one way of providing the supplementation that Kovesis account needs. It introduces the notion of connaturality as a way of connecting the metaphysics of purposes with the purposes exemplified in human action and knowing. The authors show here how the purposes revealed at the level of our natures are exemplified in forms of directedness towards objective goods. The habitual connatural knowledge found in intellectual and moral virtues reveals by directed inclinations those interests we have qua human beings and leads us to our distinctively human sort of flourishing. The chapter develops a contemporary analysis of the epistemological notions of know-how and skill that explain why skill is at least in part a refined form of know-how. Keywords:connaturality; epistemological notion; habitual connatural knowledge; Kovesi; metaphysics of virtues; supplementation

Old Wine in New Skins: Aquinas, Just War and Terrorism

The tragic unfolding of world events since September 11, 2001, has added great urgency to practical and theoretical issues arising from the phenomenon of international terrorism. This paper applies a traditional concept of just war theory drawing largely on Aquinas and Augustine to legitimate violent action against groups who are not (or need not be) themselves representatives of states. Traditional just war theory is couched largely in terms of the legitimacy of defensive war directed at polities. New applications of the theory are required to deal with contemporary international terrorism. In presenting a new application of the theory I argue that the purely defensive conception of just war advocated in recent Catholic Church documents and taken up by some contemporary theologians and philosophers is problematic. In dialogue particularly with Joseph Boyle, I maintain that traditional just war theory provides the salient criteria for a politys violent actions against groups that are not themselves, or at least, need not be polities - including actions that may be characterised as punitive rather than purely defensive in nature. The traditional concept of just war is in this respect more coherent.