Roger Teichmann | University of Oxford (original) (raw)

Papers by Roger Teichmann

Topoi: The Formation of the Moral Point of View - The legacy of Bernard Williams 20 years after his passing (ed. Falcato & Cadilha), 2023

In chapter four of Truth and Truthfulness Bernard Williams presents an account of assertion that ... more In chapter four of Truth and Truthfulness Bernard Williams presents an account of assertion that relies heavily on the 'psychological' notions of belief and intention. In chapter five his definition of lying similarly relies on such notions. For Williams, insofar as there are norms governing assertion as such or norms broken by lying as such, these norms relate to saying what you think to be true, as distinct from saying what is true. I argue that this 'psychologized' account of assertion (and lying) is for various reasons mistaken. A consequence of Williams's approach is that 'Shall I tell the truth here?' is presented as a much more open question for an agent than it possibly can be. Only by adverting to the language-game presupposed by that question's having any sense at all can we arrive at a fair picture of when and how the answer 'No' might be reasonable.

Sec. 1: Knowledge and Assertion. Sec. 2: Knowledge and Action.

Logos and Life: Essays on Mind, Action, Language and Ethicsand , 2022

Two interrelated theses propounded by Williams are, first, the claim that practical deliberation ... more Two interrelated theses propounded by Williams are, first, the claim that practical deliberation is ‘radically first-personal’, and second, the claim that a person has reason to φ only insofar as φ-ing connects appropriately with his ‘motivational set’. I criticise each of these claims in turn. Practical deliberation can yield conclusions about what another person should (or must) do, and it is part of practical rationality to be able to accept such conclusions as applied to oneself, sometimes on the authority of another. As to the second claim, the key argument given for it in Williams’ ‘Internal and External Reasons’ turns out to rest on a dubious causalism about intentional action, as well as on a general principle that fails to hold even of efficient causation, viz. ‘If it could be the case that p without X’s φ-ing, then in the case where X does φ the fact that p can’t by itself explain why X φs’. The failure of the two interconnected claims vitiates the argument of chapter three of Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, in which Williams criticises philosophical attempts (e.g. Aristotle’s) to locate the foundations of ethics in notions of human well-being.

Logos and Life: Essays on Mind, Action, Language and Ethics, 2022

The criteria for a learner's understanding the words of a language include acting appropriately. ... more The criteria for a learner's understanding the words of a language include acting appropriately. In the case of Anscombean modals (e.g., 'You have to j'), these actions include whatever is specified in the modal statement (e.g., j-ing). Teaching language means instilling not just abilities, but inclinations, to do certain things. With non-learners there is a default presumption of linguistic competence, and this explains how an adult can be said to understand 'You have to j' while being generally disinclined to respond appropriately, i.e., by j-ing. (Dishonesty.) It's possible for it to become normal for the members of some societal group to fail to respond appropriately to modal statements; such a situation may be one of conceptual and practical confusion, with the sort of corresponding bad faith alleged by Anscombe in connection with the 'moral ought'. Since understanding modal statements is manifested in forms of voluntary action, the internalist view that one only has reason to obey a rule if doing so is conducive to the satisfaction of one's desires turns out to be incoherent.

Logos and Life: Essays on Mind, Action, Language and Ethics, 2022

In ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, Anscombe characterises the virtue of justice by reference to two fe... more In ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, Anscombe characterises the virtue of justice by reference to two features of the just person: (a) that of having a standing intention not ‘to commit or participate in any unjust actions for fear of any consequences, or to obtain any advantage, for himself or anyone else’; and (b) that of being someone who ‘quite excludes’ certain types of action from consideration (viz. intrinsically unjust ones). I investigate what (a) and (b) together amount to and entail. The investigation covers a number of issues, including the nature of moral dilemmas, the relevance or irrelevance of motive to the question whether an act manifests a given virtue (e.g. justice), backward-looking reasons and practical wisdom (phronesis), and the idea of moral bedrock, or moral ‘hinge propositions’. I conclude with a tentative endorsement of the view that there are intrinsically unjust kinds of act, i.e. acts which are always and everywhere unjust.

Logos and Life: Essays on Mind, Action, Language and Ethics (Anthem Press), 2022

In Intention, Anscombe characterises intentional actions as "the actions to which a certain sense... more In Intention, Anscombe characterises intentional actions as "the actions to which a certain sense of the question 'Why?' is given application". Some philosophers have seen Anscombe's reference to "Why?", and to other workings of language, as heuristic devices only. I argue that, on the contrary, we should see the enquiry-and-response dialogue, and related dialogues, as essential foci of the sort of investigation Anscombe is undertaking, one which looks to a certain kind of language-game and the human purpose or purposes which lie behind it. This approach can be fruitfully extended to other questions in the philosophy of action and of mind.

The Anscombean Mind (ed.Haddock & Wiseman) 174-186; and Logos and Life 201-214, 2021

Traditional (and recent) metaphysics is characterised by claims of necessity. If Wittgenstein was... more Traditional (and recent) metaphysics is characterised by claims of necessity. If Wittgenstein was right, such claims are often linguistic rules, or 'grammatical remarks', dressed up as statements about the World. I examine what this thought might amount to, given that linguistic rules are expressible using Anscombean modals ('You have to', ';You can', etc.) - modals governing certain *actions*: assertion, inference, description, and so on. Among other things, this approach sheds light on two infamous philosophical issues: realism about possible worlds and the Sorites Paradox. The status of logic, and of truth, come under investigation; standard approaches to the issues just mentioned show a misunderstanding of these.

Wittgenstein and Other Philosophers (ed. Khani & Kemp, Routledge, forthcoming), 2023

Wittgenstein’s influence on Elizabeth Anscombe, both personal and philosophical, was profound. On... more Wittgenstein’s influence on Elizabeth Anscombe, both personal and philosophical, was profound. One thing she learnt from him was that a philosophical work could be of value even if its conclusions were wrong or dubious, on account of its raising (and trying to address) important questions. Such value she would have ascribed to the Tractatus, in which the significance of the sense/nonsense distinction is such a central theme. I explore how Anscombe steered between two models of what nonsense is, looking particularly at her article on the reality of the past and connecting my discussion with so-called ‘resolute readings’ of earlier and later Wittgenstein.

Logos and Life: Essays on Mind, Action, Language and Ethics (Anthem Press), 2022

Rational choice theory is undermined by the phenomenon of backward-looking reasons for action, a ... more Rational choice theory is undermined by the phenomenon of backward-looking reasons for action, a phenomenon it is unable to account for. It would seem to follow that much of classical economics is rendered untenable.

Logos and Life: Essays on Mind, Action, Language and Ethics (Anthem Press), 2022

Wittgenstein's remark in section 304 of the Investigations that a sensation "is not a something, ... more Wittgenstein's remark in section 304 of the Investigations that a sensation "is not a something, but not a nothing either" has often been connected with his critique of the "picture of an inner process", and there is a temptation to read "something" as meaning "something private". I argue that his remark should be taken more at face value, and that we can understand its purport via a consideration of the notion of consisting in. I explore this multi-faceted notion and its connection with (an extended version of) the Context Principle, beginning with the case of certain "propositional attitudes" and moving on to sensations. Wittgenstein was right to think it a philosophical prejudice to say that X's being in pain, say, must consist in, be constituted by, something. * * * "And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a nothing."-Not at all. It is not a something, but not a nothing either! […] The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts-which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or anything else you please. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations §304

Logos and Life: Essays on Mind, Action, Language and Ethics (Anthem Press), 2022

More light is thrown on the voluntary/involuntary distinction by considerations concerning actual... more More light is thrown on the voluntary/involuntary distinction by considerations concerning actual or possible reasons than by ones concerning possible-doing-otherwise (or possible prevention), or by ones concerning causal powers, of the agent or of mental states. An example of Anscombe's of the "physiologically involuntary" shows how being voluntary under a description can be a matter, not of anything true at the time, but of the background circumstances, whose relevance can be seen in answers given by the agent to various "Why?" questions. The notion of possible prevention is relevant because of the way in which answers to "Why didn't you prevent/stop that?" can reflect on a person's general orientation of will. The sense in which someone's actions themselves embody a weighing of practical reasons is discussed; as is the force and function of "It didn't occur to me" as an explanation of not-doing (including not-preventing).

Logos and Life: Essays on Mind, Action, Language and Ethics (Anthem Press), 2022

Can we lose our concepts? A case like 'phlogiston' invites a positive answer, though the senseful... more Can we lose our concepts? A case like 'phlogiston' invites a positive answer, though the sensefulness of 'There is no phlogiston' gives us pause. But concepts are about more than just 'extension-determination'; hence Diamond's examination of putative loss of moral concepts does point to a possible phenomenon. That loss of concepts could be regrettable seems to make room for the thought that having certain concepts could likewise be regrettable. Anscombe's critique of the concept of 'moral obligation' appears to be suggesting this, but it presents a dilemma: do the relevant words and phrases have a 'special sense' or are they senseless? Either answer is acceptable, I argue; roughly speaking, confused use makes for confused meaning. Objections coming from a certain picture of the autonomy of grammar fail. A diagnosis of 'confused use' can lead naturally to our seeing speakers as caught up in a species of dishonesty or inauthenticity, and also to our referring to the 'kind of nonsense' being talked. This last phrase seems to fall foul of the sort of consideration Diamond raised when discussing nonsense in the Tractatus. However, the case of 'secondary sense' shows us how we can understand this reference to 'kinds of nonsense'. Concept Loss Concepts can persist, can evolve, can change beyond recognition. But can they simply

The Oxford Magazine, No. 433, 2021

Former Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption has recently expressed the view that a reasonable re... more Former Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption has recently expressed the view that a reasonable response to some of the laws passed in furtherance of the UK government’s lockdown policy would be to ignore, i.e. disobey them. This is because of what he regards as the despotic and unjust nature of those laws. There is an interesting question whether we owe obedience to bad laws passed by a legitimate government, and maybe the answer to that is ‘It depends how bad they are’. In what follows I want to amplify Lord Sumption’s claim by raising the issue of whether certain kinds of bad laws, in particular lockdown laws, actually undermine the legitimacy and authority of government.

Aristotelian Naturalism (ed. M. Hahnel), Springer, 2020

Despite Wittgenstein's not having written much that can be called moral philosophy, and despite w... more Despite Wittgenstein's not having written much that can be called moral philosophy, and despite what he did say about ethics being very far from Aristotelian in flavour, there are deep analogies between his later conception of philosophy and Aristotle's approach to ethics. In this paper I explore these analogies. One theme that emerges concerns the sense in which the activity of doing philosophy is itself of ethical significance.

What is it for the same word or expression (written, spoken, or otherwise produced) to occur in t... more What is it for the same word or expression (written, spoken, or otherwise produced) to occur in two different contexts? One is inclined to say that the word " rat " does not occur in " Socrates loved Plato, " but it is harder to justify this statement than might be thought. This issue lies in the midst of a tangle of issues, a number of which are investigated in an important but little-discussed article of Anscombe's, in which she considers the question whether the Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations can be read as proposing a " micro-reductionist " theory of language: i.e., a theory which states non-circular conditions for any given sound's (or shape's) having a meaning. Anscombe answers the question negatively; and indeed there are obstacles faced by any such theory of language. Our investigation turns out to have implications not only within philosophy of language, but also within (for example) philosophy of psychology.

• English version of 'Le plaisir est-il un bien?', in Elizabeth Anscombe et le Philosophie Contemporaine (ed. M. Pavlopoulos & V. Aucouturier), Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne., 2014

Given that people take pleasure in doing things that are bad, as well as in things that are good ... more Given that people take pleasure in doing things that are bad, as well as in things that are good or neutral, we cannot say that pleasure is as such, or intrinsically, good (*pace* the utilitarians). Nevertheless, 'Because it's pleasant (fun, etc.)' gives, or can give, what Anscombe calls a desirability characterisation, in answer to the question 'Why are you doing that?' - and this fact points the way to an enquiry into what it might mean to call pleasure a good.

Ryle on Mind and Language (ed. D. Dolby), Palgrave Macmillan 2014

A bias against the past is a feature of our Zeitgeist, and has a number of manifestations. One of... more A bias against the past is a feature of our Zeitgeist, and has a number of manifestations. One of these is the dominant model of rational agency as geared towards producing effects or outcomes, a model which cannot make sense of the cogency of backward-looking reasons for action. I discuss the nature of such reasons, and the way of perceiving and understanding the past which goes with them. This mode of understanding the past is one of the things that gives substance to the idea that the past has a reality lacked by the future, a reality which among other things makes the past a possible object of contemplation (as in the study of history). Such contemplation is a crucial component of eudaimonia.

The Philosophical Quarterly, 1998

If one tries to describe a ‘tenseless language’, one ends up either by describing a mere set of s... more If one tries to describe a ‘tenseless language’, one ends up either by describing a mere set of symbols – something that is no language at all – or by describing a language that is not really tenseless. This fact undermines those versions of the 'tenseless' view of time which claim that tenseless truth-conditions can be given for tensed statements.

conference papers by Roger Teichmann

In a number of his writings, Ryle warns us of the ill consequences of regarding knowing how as a ... more In a number of his writings, Ryle warns us of the ill consequences of regarding knowing how as a species of knowing that. Philosophers have too often, he thinks, taken propositional knowledge as a model for the knowledge of techniques, procedures and practices. Ryle was a great anti-reductionist, a great pluralist; so it comes as no surprise to find that he did not regard knowing how and knowing that as together exhausting the types of knowledge. In 'On Forgetting the Difference between Right and Wrong' (FDRW) 1 , he argues that moral knowledge, or certain important species of moral knowledge, represent a third kind of knowledge, one that cannot be reduced to either or both of the other two. The reason for this is that a person who learns what Ryle summarizes as 'the difference between right and wrong' is someone who learns to care about and take seriously such things as telling the truth, resisting certain temptations, and so on. And this is why, as he writes, 'it is ridiculous to say one has forgotten the difference between right and wrong. To have been taught the difference is to have been brought to appreciate the difference, and this appreciation is not just a competence to label correctly or just a capacity to do things efficiently. It includes an inculcated caring, a habit of taking certain sorts of things seriously.' The concept of forgetting is out of place here, Ryle suggests, because we think of forgetting as losing something, e.g. some 'equipment', rather than as changing in some way: