EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY最新文献

{"title":"Guises of Despair","authors":"Béatrice Han-Pile","doi":"10.1111/ejop.13072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.13072","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In ‘Is Hope A Secular Virtue?’ (2024), Bob Stern and I argued that despairing involves being unable to stop desiring something we deem of great value while believing that this good can neither be obtained, nor return on its own. We characterised despair as one of the two vices hope sits between as a virtue (the opposite vice being unwarranted optimism) because (a) despair is bad for the agent, (b) it deprives the agent of their agency and (c) it involves an inappropriate use of our epistemic abilities. I argue here that despair is multifaceted and focus on a second guise of despair, ‘Despair from Loss’ (DFL). DFL involves believing that something we deem of great value has been lost, and that this good can neither be retrieved, nor return on its own. I turn to literary works to explore various aspects of DFL, namely loss of the highest good (in Oscar Wilde's De Profundis), loss of the evaluative framework from which the very possibility of the good makes sense (in Jack London's Martin Eden) and what I call ‘ontological’ loss: the loss of our pre-reflective abilities to relate fittingly to self, others and world (in Jean Améry's At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities). I discuss whether our previous arguments (a)-(c) still hold against DFL and conclude that for the most part, they do. I end by pointing towards a possible third guise of despair, ‘Despair from Ethical Failures of Agency’, namely the despair that may result from acting under the guise of the bad or, to a lesser extent, from failing to act under the guise of the good. [Correction added on 5 October 2026, after first online publication: ‘Abstract’ section was added to this version.]</p>","PeriodicalId":46958,"journal":{"name":"EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","volume":"34 3","pages":"801-820"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ejop.13072","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149259541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Guises of Despair","authors":"Béatrice Han-Pile","doi":"10.1111/ejop.13072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.13072","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In ‘Is Hope A Secular Virtue?’ (2024), Bob Stern and I argued that despairing involves being unable to stop desiring something we deem of great value while believing that this good can neither be obtained, nor return on its own. We characterised despair as one of the two vices hope sits between as a virtue (the opposite vice being unwarranted optimism) because (a) despair is bad for the agent, (b) it deprives the agent of their agency and (c) it involves an inappropriate use of our epistemic abilities. I argue here that despair is multifaceted and focus on a second guise of despair, ‘Despair from Loss’ (DFL). DFL involves believing that something we deem of great value has been lost, and that this good can neither be retrieved, nor return on its own. I turn to literary works to explore various aspects of DFL, namely loss of the highest good (in Oscar Wilde's De Profundis), loss of the evaluative framework from which the very possibility of the good makes sense (in Jack London's Martin Eden) and what I call ‘ontological’ loss: the loss of our pre-reflective abilities to relate fittingly to self, others and world (in Jean Améry's At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities). I discuss whether our previous arguments (a)-(c) still hold against DFL and conclude that for the most part, they do. I end by pointing towards a possible third guise of despair, ‘Despair from Ethical Failures of Agency’, namely the despair that may result from acting under the guise of the bad or, to a lesser extent, from failing to act under the guise of the good. [Correction added on 5 October 2026, after first online publication: ‘Abstract’ section was added to this version.]</p>","PeriodicalId":46958,"journal":{"name":"EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","volume":"34 3","pages":"801-820"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ejop.13072","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149259542","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Recognitive Volitional Practices and the Ontology of the Will1","authors":"Wayne Martin","doi":"10.1111/ejop.70032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.70032","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Recognitive volitional practices are practices in which a person is recognised as having a will in a matter. Different ways of understanding the will presuppose or project different kinds of recognitive volitional practices – and vice versa. In the history of philosophical treatments of the will, it has generally been assumed that its mode of being is psychological; the will is understood to be some kind of power of the mind. An alternative would be to understand the mode of being of the will as recognitive, such that the existence of a will as a will makes essential reference to the practices in which it is recognised. These ideas are explored with reference to three recognitive volitional practices: one implicated in a 2016 atrocity in Japan; one from baptismal practices in an ancient Coptic community in Upper Egypt; one from a celebrated scene in American cinema. A conditional proof is offered in support of the hypothesis that the will enjoys a recognitive mode of being. The hypothesis is explored in connection with the ongoing struggle for more inclusive forms of legal recognition, particularly for persons living with disabilities.</p>","PeriodicalId":46958,"journal":{"name":"EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","volume":"34 3","pages":"833-847"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ejop.70032","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149258850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Forgiveness: Owed but Not Demanded?","authors":"Robert Stern","doi":"10.1111/ejop.70077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.70077","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The aim of this paper is to consider the relation between forgiveness and reasons for forgiveness. On the one hand, it is plausible to think that we have reasons to forgive, which in some cases are sufficient to require the wronged party to forgive the wrongdoer. But on the other hand, it is also plausible to see forgiveness as gratuitous in some sense, as something freely given at the discretion of the forgiver – and so what K. E. Løgstrup called an ‘unforeseen event’. However, this then seems to lead to an aporia: for how can the wronged person be <i>required</i> to forgive the suitably repentant wrongdoer on the one hand, and yet on the other hand be seen as giving that forgiveness <i>at their discretion</i>? To address this difficulty, I will try to show how Løgstrup's conception of obligations as ‘demands without a demander’ can make this possible, and so can resolve the aporia. I will also suggest that if this is correct, it causes problems for Stephen Darwall's influential account of obligations as based on the second-personal authority of a demander.</p>","PeriodicalId":46958,"journal":{"name":"EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","volume":"34 3","pages":"786-800"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149258845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Forgiveness: Owed but Not Demanded?","authors":"Robert Stern","doi":"10.1111/ejop.70077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.70077","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The aim of this paper is to consider the relation between forgiveness and reasons for forgiveness. On the one hand, it is plausible to think that we have reasons to forgive, which in some cases are sufficient to require the wronged party to forgive the wrongdoer. But on the other hand, it is also plausible to see forgiveness as gratuitous in some sense, as something freely given at the discretion of the forgiver – and so what K. E. Løgstrup called an ‘unforeseen event’. However, this then seems to lead to an aporia: for how can the wronged person be <i>required</i> to forgive the suitably repentant wrongdoer on the one hand, and yet on the other hand be seen as giving that forgiveness <i>at their discretion</i>? To address this difficulty, I will try to show how Løgstrup's conception of obligations as ‘demands without a demander’ can make this possible, and so can resolve the aporia. I will also suggest that if this is correct, it causes problems for Stephen Darwall's influential account of obligations as based on the second-personal authority of a demander.</p>","PeriodicalId":46958,"journal":{"name":"EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","volume":"34 3","pages":"786-800"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149258849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Marcuse By Jacob McNultyNew York: Routledge, 2025. 284 pp. ISBN: 9781032308722","authors":"Todd Hedrick","doi":"10.1111/ejop.70117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.70117","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46958,"journal":{"name":"EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","volume":"34 3","pages":"892-896"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149258937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reason and the Good in Leibniz, Kant and Hegel: Theodicies of Freedom By Alex EnglanderCambridge University Press, 2026. 304 pp. ISBN: 9781009442596","authors":"Dylan Shaul","doi":"10.1111/ejop.70116","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.70116","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46958,"journal":{"name":"EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","volume":"34 3","pages":"881-887"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149258238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Robert Stern on Presuppositionlessness, Freedom and Willkür in Hegel's Philosophy","authors":"Stephen Houlgate","doi":"10.1111/ejop.70037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.70037","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Bob Stern and I were friends for over forty years, having met as students in the early 1980s.&lt;sup&gt;1&lt;/sup&gt; We were also close allies philosophically, in particular sharing many views about Hegel. We agree, for example, that Hegel is a conceptual realist and that his philosophical method involves an important moment of &lt;i&gt;passivity&lt;/i&gt; — of letting thought determine itself. We also agree that in this latter respect Hegel comes close to Martin Luther.&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yet, unsurprisingly, we disagree on some issues too: I have always been interested in the transitions in Hegel's system from one concept to another, but Stern showed little interest in them and was not convinced they always work. In this essay, I will revisit two other disagreements between us. I will first consider the different justifications we provide for the “presuppositionless” character of Hegel's logic. This will then lead into a discussion of Hegel's concept of &lt;i&gt;Willkür&lt;/i&gt; (often translated as “arbitrariness”).&lt;sup&gt;3&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a review of my book, &lt;i&gt;Hegel on Being&lt;/i&gt; (2022), Stern writes: “I am happy to agree with Houlgate that Hegel does intend his method to be presuppositionless, and we also broadly agree about what this means” (Stern, &lt;span&gt;2023b&lt;/span&gt;, p. 321). We agree, too, that “some prior commitments are compatible with presuppositionlessness”. Hegel's logic presupposes, for example, that we are committed to investigating &lt;i&gt;thought&lt;/i&gt;, rather than, say, perception.&lt;sup&gt;4&lt;/sup&gt; Yet Stern and I both insist that such logic “cannot assume anything about the methods of thinking, because these are part of what an investigation of thought should inquire into” (Stern, &lt;span&gt;2009&lt;/span&gt;, p. 230). Indeed, Stern notes, the Hegelian logician needs to give up “a lot that other philosophers might think they can take for granted” — for example, “that various logical laws hold” (Stern, &lt;span&gt;2023b&lt;/span&gt;, p. 321). For both of us, therefore, although Hegel's logic has hermeneutic preconditions, it rests on no &lt;i&gt;systematic&lt;/i&gt; assumptions about thought — no governing principles, not even dialectic.&lt;sup&gt;5&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Stern and I also agree that Hegel's &lt;i&gt;phenomenology&lt;/i&gt; justifies the presuppositionless study of thought by undermining our basic assumptions about ourselves and the world — by “bringing about a despair regarding the so-called natural conceptions, thoughts, and opinions” (PhS, p. 53). Hans Friedrich Fulda argues, however, that there is another way into Hegel's logic. Phenomenology justifies the science of logic to “unscientific consciousness”; but it is not the prerequisite for all entry into that science, “for it is supposed to be possible to begin science in subjective cognition with the immediate resolve [&lt;i&gt;Entschluß&lt;/i&gt;] to think purely” (Fulda, &lt;span&gt;1975&lt;/span&gt;, pp. 52–3, my translation).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I share Fulda's view that this “resolve”, or decision, provides a second, more direct, way into Hegel's logic.&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt; It does so by fulfilling a demand","PeriodicalId":46958,"journal":{"name":"EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","volume":"34 3","pages":"848-858"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ejop.70037","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149258466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Where Are You in the Conduct of Your Life as a Rational Agent?","authors":"A.W. Moore","doi":"10.1111/ejop.70059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.70059","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In Robert Stern's Presidential Address for the Aristotelian Society he exploits some of Iris Murdoch's work to address an aporia connected to the idea of free benevolent agency: benevolence seems to preclude choice about what to do, whereas free agency seems to require it. This is related to a more general aporia connected to the idea of rational agency: if you act rationally, the sheer rationality of what you do seems not to leave any room, or at least not the room that you might have wished for, for your own distinctive contribution to what you do. Stern's resolution of this aporia is to locate your distinctive contribution to what you do, not in your actually doing it, but in your attending to the reasons for doing it. I argue that there are problems with this resolution, one of which is that it is couched in ‘realist’ terms. I present an anti-realist alternative that draws on Bernard Williams' notion of a thick ethical concept. I explore similarities and dissimilarities between Stern's resolution and this alternative, and I counter an objection to the alternative, namely that it simply begs a critical question. I conclude that, while the alternative is not enough to refute Stern's position, it is a genuine alternative that deserves consideration.</p>","PeriodicalId":46958,"journal":{"name":"EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","volume":"34 3","pages":"872-880"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ejop.70059","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149258476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Karl Marx and the Actualization of Philosophy By Christoph SchuringaCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025. 205 pp. ISBN: 9781009304849","authors":"Sabina Vaccarino Bremner","doi":"10.1111/ejop.70107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.70107","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46958,"journal":{"name":"EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY","volume":"34 3","pages":"888-891"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149258243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}