Proof, Knowledge, and Scepticism: Essays in Ancient Philosophy III By Jonathan Barnes Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 720, £85, HB ISBN: 9780199577538

Abstract

that behaviour, whether or not it is also 'causally determined'. An animal without the appropriate language cannot attribute beliefs or desires to others, nor even to herself, since she cannot be assessing the terms under which their (her) behaviour would be sensible (pace modern ethologists' suggestion that at least some non-human animals have 'a theory of mind', and so can recognize what other creatures do or do not know). Charlton comes close (188) to Richard Rorty's suggestion that even to attribute feelings to such an animal is only to express our determination to treat that animal in a certain way, for no very obvious reason: 'the moral prohibitions [against hurting babies 'and the better looking sorts of animals'] are expressions of a sense of community based on the imagined possibility of conversation, and the attribution of feelings is little more than a reminder of these prohibitions' (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton University Press 1979), 190). This is probably not what Charlton himself intends. In conclusion, 'our world is one of change, time and causation, in which we act on purpose and for reasons' (209), and (too) 'much philosophy in modern times has been devoted to depriving our world of these features, and trying to reconcile us to this impoverishment' (209). Charlton by contrast insists that 'nothing is more important than that the world contains conscious beings, and that we ourselves are not just conscious but intelligent' (211). His own intelligence is clear, and even those who might be inclined to disagree with him in detail must find their own intelligence challengedand perhaps enhancedby his bracing attention to past philosophies, to grammar, and to the purported puzzles of metaphysics.