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Oxford: Oxford University Press. xx, 236 pagesISBN (hardback): 0-19-927248-4. 825.00 (paper).Journal of the Musical Arts in Africa Volume 4 2007, 71–74

This paper examines the discussion of the kinds in Plato’s Sophist. The kinds are posited as ways of allowing for the possibility of speaking about negation and difference. In order to claim that certain kinds of activities speak falsely, it is necessary to illustrate that speaking of what is not does not involve a logical contradiction. This discussion also has important consequences for a view of the arts that is representational in essence.

Includes bibliographical references, This thesis examines the idea of the second-personal reason, as advocated by Stephen Darwall in his influential book, The Second-Person Standpoint. A second-personal reason is a reason that exists not in the world, nor in a single individual's mind, but in the relationship between two (or more) people: second-personal reasons are reasons given to a first person by a second. The idea of second-personality is gaining ground in contemporary Metaethics - as well as in Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind - and this thesis aims to give a novel presentation of Darwall's Second-Personal metaethic that makes clear just why it is so popular. As I will present it, Darwall's Second-Personal account is a fresh kind of metaethic that promises to give us the 'best of both worlds', enjoying all the benefits of traditional metaethics, such as Realism and Neo-Kantianism, while simultaneously overcoming their respective defects. However, I go on to argue that Darwall's Second-Personal account ultimately fails. Contrary to initial appearances, Darwall's Second-Personal account does not present any significant advances, and, whatever advantages it does appear to possess, it possesses only by virtue of its covert, illicit appeal to Realism. In particular, I argue that we have no grounds for believing that there are indeed such things as second-personal reasons in the first place. After all, who are you to tell me what to do? In response to this criticism, I offer a new, different reading of Darwall's Second-Personal account, according to which it is not to be read as one amongst other metaethics, such as Realism or Neo-Kantianism. It is, rather, to be read as an entirely different approach to Metaethics. Taking my inspiration from Gilbert Ryle, I cash this out in terms of the Second-Personal account's reacting to the category-mistakenness of traditional Metaethics, by reconceiving moral reasons as belonging to a different kind of category altogether. When we understand morality correctly, as belonging to its proper category, then it follows that moral reasons are indeed second-personal. They are moral reasons of our own.

This essay argues against contemporary theorists who claim that the concept of Absurdity that flourished in Western Europe in the 1940s is now of purely historical interest. It is argued instead that while it is important to locate the concept of Absurdity in an appropriate historical context, people living in the early twenty-first century are, in fact, living within an historical period that makes the experience, and thus the concept, of Absurdity relevant again. While Absurdity in the 1940s involved a loss of certainty due to the role the Second World War played in undermining secular and religious beliefs, Absurdity in the twenty-first century involves a loss of certainty due to intense exposure to alternative points of view. This loss of certainty means that when one's typical point of view is brought into relief by an atypical perspective, one struggles to reaffirm one's typical perspective. This robust clash of perspectives strikes at the heart of the way in which we understand the world and ourselves, forming part of the experience that has come to be known as Absurdity. If the analysis of Absurdity that is offered in this essay is correct, then Absurdity is best understood as a personal epistemological condition, rather than a universal metaphysical condition that affects all people simply in virtue of their being human.