Hannah Ginsborg
Biographic Data
| ID | 1054686 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hannah Ginsborg |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hannah |
| FAMILY NAME | Ginsborg |
| SIGNATURE | GINSBORG H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Berkeley |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8863-4611 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 49 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
History of Philosophy as a Source of Meaning
Going on as one ought: Kripke and Wittgenstein on the normativity of meaning
Kripke's thesis that meaning is normative is typically interpreted, following Boghossian, as the thesis that meaningful expressions allow of true or warranted use. I argue for an alternative interpretation centered on Wittgenstein's conception of the normativity involved in “knowing how to go on” in one's use of an expression. Meaning is normative for Kripke because it justifies claims, not to be saying something true, but to be going on as one o…
Reason in Nature: New Essays on Themes from John Mcdowell
Wittgenstein on Going On
In a famous passage from the Philosophical Investigations , Wittgenstein describes a pupil who has been learning to write out various sequences of numbers in response to orders such as “+1” (for the natural numbers) and “+2” (for the series 0, 2, 4, 6, 8...). He has shown himself competent for numbers up to 1000, but when we have him continue the “+2” sequence beyond 1000, he writes the numerals 1004, 1008, 1012. As Wittgenstein describes the cas…
Interesseloses Wohlgefallen Und Allgemeinheit Ohne Begriffe (§§ 1–9)
In Defence of the One-Act View: Reply to Guyer
I defend my ‘one-act’ interpretation of Kant’s account of judgments of beauty against recent criticisms by Paul Guyer. Guyer’s text-based arguments for his own ‘two-acts’ view rely on the assumption that a claim to the universal validity of one’s pleasure presupposes the prior existence of the pleasure. I argue that pleasure in the beautiful claims its own universal validity, thus obviating the need to distinguish two independent acts of judging.…
Two Debates about Absolute Music
Mark Evan Bonds makes a distinction between two concepts of absolute music: as repertory, and as ‘regulative concept’. This paper explores the distinction, and distinguishes further two debates associated with these two concepts: one about the value of absolute music in the repertory sense, the other about the extent to which music is ‘absolute’ in the sense of lacking expressive or representational content. It ends with a proposal about how refl…
Synopsis
Synopsis Hannah Ginsborg The fourteen essays in this book deal with a variety of interpretive and philosophical issues raised by the Critique of Judgement.1 While each essay addresses a particular topic of discussion associated with Kant’s aesthetics, theory of cognition, or philosophy of biology, the essays collectively are animated by two overarching aims. The first is to offer a reading of the third Critique which presents it as a unified phil…
Replies to My Critics
I am grateful to the commentators for their sympathetic and thoughtful attention to my work. The questions and objections they raise go to the heart of my project, and, while it has been rewarding to work through them, it has not been easy to respond to them. For reasons of space, I have not been able to address every point raised, but I have tried to respond to those which I find most challenging. One distinctive feature of my interpretation of …
Two Kinds of Mechanical Inexplicability in Kant and Aristotle
This essay distinguishes two senses in which organisms are mechanically inexplicable for Kant. Mechanical inexplicability in the first sense is common to organisms and artefacts, and consists in their exhibiting regularities irreducible to the regularities of matter. Mechanical inexplicability in the second sense is peculiar to organisms, consisting in the reciprocal causal dependence of an organism’s parts. This distinction corresponds to two st…
The Normativity of Nature: Essays on Kant's Critique of Judgement
Hannah Ginsborg presents fourteen essays which establish Kant's 'Critique of Judgement' as a central contribution to the understanding of human cognition. The papers bring out the significance of Kant's philosophical notion of judgment, and use it to address interpretive issues in Kant's aesthetics, theory of knowledge, and philosophy of biology
Kant's Perceiver
Primitive Normativity and Skepticism about Rules
In his Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke develops a skeptical argument against the possibility of meaning. 1 Suppose that all your previous uses of the word "plus" and of the "1" sign have involved numbers less than 57.You are now asked "what is 68 plus 57?" and you answer "125."But a skeptic proposes the hypothesis that by the word "plus," or the "1" sign, you previously meant not addition, but quaddition, where x quus y is…
Reasons for Belief
Davidson claims that nothing can count as a reason for a belief except another belief. This claim is challenged by McDowell, who holds that perceptual experiences can count as reasons for beliefs. I argue that McDowell fails to take account of a distinction between two different senses in which something can count as a reason for belief. While a non-doxastic experience can count as a reason for belief in one of the two senses, this is not the sen…
Kant and the Problem of Experience
As most of its readers are aware, the Critique of Pure Reason is primarily concerned not with empirical, but with a priori knowledge. For the most part, the Kant of the first Critique tends to assume that experience, and the knowledge that is based on it, is unproblematic. The problem with which he is concerned is that of how we can be capable of substantive knowledge independently of experience. At the same time, however, the notion of experienc…
Critique of the Power of Judgment
Book Review| July 01 2002 Critique of the Power of Judgment Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment. Edited by Paul Guyer. Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. lii, 423. Hannah Ginsborg Hannah Ginsborg Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2002) 111 (3): 429–435. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-111-3-429 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share…
Critique of the Power of Judgment
Kant on Understanding Organisms as Natural Purposes
This paper explains why Kant thinks that organisms must be regarded as purposes, and how this can be done while respecting their status as natural products rather than artifacts. Kant’s premise that organisms are mechanically inexplicable is interpreted as the claim that biological regularities are irreducible to regularities in the behavior of matter as such (attraction and repulsion). His conclusion that they are purposive is interpreted as the…
Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls
The essays in this volume offer an approach to the history of moral and political philosophy that takes its inspiration from John Rawls. All the contributors are philosophers who have studied with Rawls and they offer this collection in his honour. The distinctive feature of this approach is to address substantive normative questions in moral and political philosophy through an analysis of the texts and theories of major figures in the history of…
On the Key to Kant's Critique of Taste
The Normativity of Nature: Essays on Kant's Critique of Judgement
Hannah Ginsborg presents fourteen essays which establish Kant's 'Critique of Judgement' as a central contribution to the understanding of human cognition. The papers bring out the significance of Kant's philosophical notion of judgment, and use it to address interpretive issues in Kant's aesthetics, theory of knowledge, and philosophy of biology
Kant and the Problem of Experience
As most of its readers are aware, the Critique of Pure Reason is primarily concerned not with empirical, but with a priori knowledge. For the most part, the Kant of the first Critique tends to assume that experience, and the knowledge that is based on it, is unproblematic. The problem with which he is concerned is that of how we can be capable of substantive knowledge independently of experience. At the same time, however, the notion of experienc…
On the Key to Kant's Critique of Taste
Reasons for Belief
Davidson claims that nothing can count as a reason for a belief except another belief. This claim is challenged by McDowell, who holds that perceptual experiences can count as reasons for beliefs. I argue that McDowell fails to take account of a distinction between two different senses in which something can count as a reason for belief. While a non-doxastic experience can count as a reason for belief in one of the two senses, this is not the sen…
In Defence of the One-Act View: Reply to Guyer
I defend my ‘one-act’ interpretation of Kant’s account of judgments of beauty against recent criticisms by Paul Guyer. Guyer’s text-based arguments for his own ‘two-acts’ view rely on the assumption that a claim to the universal validity of one’s pleasure presupposes the prior existence of the pleasure. I argue that pleasure in the beautiful claims its own universal validity, thus obviating the need to distinguish two independent acts of judging.…
Critique of the Power of Judgment
On the Key to Kant's Critique of Taste
Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls
The essays in this volume offer an approach to the history of moral and political philosophy that takes its inspiration from John Rawls. All the contributors are philosophers who have studied with Rawls and they offer this collection in his honour. The distinctive feature of this approach is to address substantive normative questions in moral and political philosophy through an analysis of the texts and theories of major figures in the history of…
Kant on Understanding Organisms as Natural Purposes
This paper explains why Kant thinks that organisms must be regarded as purposes, and how this can be done while respecting their status as natural products rather than artifacts. Kant’s premise that organisms are mechanically inexplicable is interpreted as the claim that biological regularities are irreducible to regularities in the behavior of matter as such (attraction and repulsion). His conclusion that they are purposive is interpreted as the…
Critique of the Power of Judgment
Book Review| July 01 2002 Critique of the Power of Judgment Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment. Edited by Paul Guyer. Translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. lii, 423. Hannah Ginsborg Hannah Ginsborg Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2002) 111 (3): 429–435. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-111-3-429 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share…
Critique of the Power of Judgment
Reasons for Belief
Davidson claims that nothing can count as a reason for a belief except another belief. This claim is challenged by McDowell, who holds that perceptual experiences can count as reasons for beliefs. I argue that McDowell fails to take account of a distinction between two different senses in which something can count as a reason for belief. While a non-doxastic experience can count as a reason for belief in one of the two senses, this is not the sen…
Kant and the Problem of Experience
As most of its readers are aware, the Critique of Pure Reason is primarily concerned not with empirical, but with a priori knowledge. For the most part, the Kant of the first Critique tends to assume that experience, and the knowledge that is based on it, is unproblematic. The problem with which he is concerned is that of how we can be capable of substantive knowledge independently of experience. At the same time, however, the notion of experienc…
Primitive Normativity and Skepticism about Rules
In his Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke develops a skeptical argument against the possibility of meaning. 1 Suppose that all your previous uses of the word "plus" and of the "1" sign have involved numbers less than 57.You are now asked "what is 68 plus 57?" and you answer "125."But a skeptic proposes the hypothesis that by the word "plus," or the "1" sign, you previously meant not addition, but quaddition, where x quus y is…
Kant's Perceiver
Two Kinds of Mechanical Inexplicability in Kant and Aristotle
This essay distinguishes two senses in which organisms are mechanically inexplicable for Kant. Mechanical inexplicability in the first sense is common to organisms and artefacts, and consists in their exhibiting regularities irreducible to the regularities of matter. Mechanical inexplicability in the second sense is peculiar to organisms, consisting in the reciprocal causal dependence of an organism’s parts. This distinction corresponds to two st…
The Normativity of Nature: Essays on Kant's Critique of Judgement
Hannah Ginsborg presents fourteen essays which establish Kant's 'Critique of Judgement' as a central contribution to the understanding of human cognition. The papers bring out the significance of Kant's philosophical notion of judgment, and use it to address interpretive issues in Kant's aesthetics, theory of knowledge, and philosophy of biology
Two Debates about Absolute Music
Mark Evan Bonds makes a distinction between two concepts of absolute music: as repertory, and as ‘regulative concept’. This paper explores the distinction, and distinguishes further two debates associated with these two concepts: one about the value of absolute music in the repertory sense, the other about the extent to which music is ‘absolute’ in the sense of lacking expressive or representational content. It ends with a proposal about how refl…
Synopsis
Synopsis Hannah Ginsborg The fourteen essays in this book deal with a variety of interpretive and philosophical issues raised by the Critique of Judgement.1 While each essay addresses a particular topic of discussion associated with Kant’s aesthetics, theory of cognition, or philosophy of biology, the essays collectively are animated by two overarching aims. The first is to offer a reading of the third Critique which presents it as a unified phil…
Replies to My Critics
I am grateful to the commentators for their sympathetic and thoughtful attention to my work. The questions and objections they raise go to the heart of my project, and, while it has been rewarding to work through them, it has not been easy to respond to them. For reasons of space, I have not been able to address every point raised, but I have tried to respond to those which I find most challenging. One distinctive feature of my interpretation of …
In Defence of the One-Act View: Reply to Guyer
I defend my ‘one-act’ interpretation of Kant’s account of judgments of beauty against recent criticisms by Paul Guyer. Guyer’s text-based arguments for his own ‘two-acts’ view rely on the assumption that a claim to the universal validity of one’s pleasure presupposes the prior existence of the pleasure. I argue that pleasure in the beautiful claims its own universal validity, thus obviating the need to distinguish two independent acts of judging.…
Interesseloses Wohlgefallen Und Allgemeinheit Ohne Begriffe (§§ 1–9)
Wittgenstein on Going On
In a famous passage from the Philosophical Investigations , Wittgenstein describes a pupil who has been learning to write out various sequences of numbers in response to orders such as “+1” (for the natural numbers) and “+2” (for the series 0, 2, 4, 6, 8...). He has shown himself competent for numbers up to 1000, but when we have him continue the “+2” sequence beyond 1000, he writes the numerals 1004, 1008, 1012. As Wittgenstein describes the cas…
Going on as one ought: Kripke and Wittgenstein on the normativity of meaning
Kripke's thesis that meaning is normative is typically interpreted, following Boghossian, as the thesis that meaningful expressions allow of true or warranted use. I argue for an alternative interpretation centered on Wittgenstein's conception of the normativity involved in “knowing how to go on” in one's use of an expression. Meaning is normative for Kripke because it justifies claims, not to be saying something true, but to be going on as one o…
Reason in Nature: New Essays on Themes from John Mcdowell
History of Philosophy as a Source of Meaning
Epistemology (16 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (7 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Theology and Philosophy of Evil (5 works) · Analytic philosophy (4 works) · Contemporary philosophy (4 works)