Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline

Preface by Patricia Williams vii Introduction by A.W.Moore xi PART ONE: Metaphysics and Epistemology CHAPTER ONE: Tertullian's Paradox (1955) 3 CHAPTER TWO: Metaphysical Arguments (1957) 22 CHAPTER THREE: Pleasure and Belief (1959) 34 CHAPTER FOUR: Knowledge and Reasons (1972) 47 CHAPTER FIVE: Identity and Identities (1995) 57 PART TWO: Ethics CHAPTER SIX: The Primacy of Dispositions (1987) 67 CHAPTER SEVEN: The Structure of Hare's Theory (1988) 76 CHAPTER EIGHT: Subjectivism and Toleration (1992) 86 CHAPTER NINE: The Actus Reus of Dr.Caligari (1994) 97 CHAPTER TEN: Values, Reasons, and the Theory of Persuasion (1996) 109 CHAPTER ELEVEN: Moral Responsibility and Political Freedom (1997) 119 CHAPTER TWELVE: Tolerating the Intolerable (1999) 126 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Human Prejudice (unpublished) 135 PART THREE: The Scope and Limits of Philosophy CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Political Philosophy and the Analytical Tradition (1980) 155 CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Philosophy and the Understanding of Ignorance (1995) 169 CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline (2000) 180 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: What Might Philosophy Become? (unpublished) 200 Bernard Williams: Complete Philosophical Publications 215

Bernard Williams was Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy, Cambridge University (1967-1979), Monroe Deutsch Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley (1988-2003), and White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, Oxford University (1990-1996), and was a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford until his death in 2003. A. W. Moore is Professor of Philosophy at Oxford and the author of "The Infinite, Points of View," and "Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty".

[Williams emphasized] the role of the local and the historical, the need for philosophy to 'sound right.' One ends Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline wishing that he had another decade both to do the sort of philosophy that 'sounds right' and to tell us more about what made it sound so. -- Alan Ryan New York Review of Books Editor A.W. Moore ... has certainly done the scholarly world a service... Williams is a virtuoso practitioner and questioner of philosophy. His task is both positive and negative: positive in that he seeks to carve out a place for distinctively philosophical contributions to human knowledge and well-being (where these contributions are indeed peculiarly philosophical and not scientific), and negative in that he is concerned with the limited nature of these contributions. Choice [Williams's books] reveal just how challenging, and how enjoyable, really imaginative philosophy can be. -- Simon Blackburn New Republic