No morality, no self : Anscombe's radical skepticism / James Doyle.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Doyle, James, 1963 November 18- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Anscombe, G. E. M. (Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret).

Anscombe, G. E. M.

Ethics--Philosophy.

Ethics.

Self (Philosophy).

Skepticism.

Physical Description:

xi, 238 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, [2018]

Summary:

It is becoming increasingly apparent that Elizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001), long known as a student, friend and translator of Wittgenstein, was herself one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. No Morality, No Self examines her two best-known papers, in which she advanced her most amazing theses. In 'Modern Moral Philosophy' (1958), she claimed that the term moral, understood as picking out a special, sui generis category, is literally senseless and should therefore be abandoned. In 'The First Person' (1975), she maintained that the word 'I' is not a referring expression: in other words, its function in the language is not to pick out the speaker, or 'the self' - or any entity whatsoever. Both papers are considered influential, and are frequently cited; but their main claims, and many of their arguments, have been widely misunderstood. In this book James Doyle shows that once various errors of interpretation have been cleared away, the claims can be seen to be far more plausible, and the arguments far more compelling, than even her defenders have realized. Philosophers often seek attention by making startling claims which are subsequently revealed as little more than commonplaces wrapped in hyperbole. Doyle's book makes it clear that here, in her greatest papers, Anscombe achieves something vanishingly rare in philosophy: a persuasive case for genuinely unsettling and profound conclusions. The two lines of argument, seemingly so disparate, are also shown to be connected by Anscombe's deep opposition to the Cartesian picture of the mind.-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Part One. No morality: "Modern moral philosophy" (1958): Virtue ethics, eudaimonism, and the Greeks

The invention of 'morality' and the possibility of consequentialism

The misguided project of vindicating morality

The futility of seeking the extension of a word with no intension

What's really wrong with the vocabulary of morality?

Assessing "Modern moral philosophy"

Part Two: No self: "the first person" (1975): The circularity problem for accounts of 'I' as a device of self-reference

Is the fundamental reference rule for 'I' the key to explaining first person self-reference?

Rumfitt's solution to the circularity problem

Can we make sense of a nonreferential account of 'I'?

Strategies for saving 'I' as a singular term: domesticating FP and deflating reference

Epilogue: The anti-cartesian basis of Anscombe's scepticism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674976504

0674976509

OCLC:

976405845