Cora Diamond. Philosophy in a Realistic Spirit. An interview by Silver Bronzo (original) (raw)

Cora Diamond's Moral Philosophy

D.Phil dissertation Parts of Part 1. of this dissertation are developed in: * "Contours and Barriers: What is it to Draw the Limits of Moral Language?" Parts Part 2. of this dissertation are developed in two papers: * "A Splitting 'Mind-Ache': An Anscombean Challenge to Kantian Self-Legislation" * "Self-Legislation and Other Figurative Dramas" . General description: Part 1. explains essential features of Cora Diamond’s philosophical methods, and explains what it takes to draw the limits of moral language--the language trough which moral reality is reflected. Based on that account I then argue that imaginative and figurative thinking--thinking grounded in metaphors and images--has an essential role in moral and religious understanding. Figurative language is not just a helpful guide to the understanding of some moral phenomena, but is constitutive of them. In Part 2. I show this in the case of the Kantian idea of self-legislation and in Part 3. in the case of Anselm’s idea of God as reflected in his Ontological Proof.

Cora Diamond and the Ethical Imagination

British Journal of Aesthetics, 2012

In much of her writing, Cora Diamond stresses the role of the imagination in awakening the sense of our humanity. She subtly unthreads the operations of the ethical imagination in literature, but deplores its absence in philosophy. Borrowing the notion of 'deflection' from Cavell, Diamond sees ethical understanding 'present only in a diminished and distorted way in philosophical argumentation' (2008, 57). She does, however, herself make a philosophical, if idiosyncratic, use of the imagination in her appeal to it for a 'transitional' understanding of nonsensical Tractarian remarks. I begin by delineating and endorsing Diamond's humanistic view of the creative imagination; I then argue against her opportunistic use of the imagination in her interpretation of the Tractatus and her condemnation of philosophical ethics.

Cora Diamond and the Moral Imagination

Nordic Wittgenstein Review, 2016

Over several decades, Cora Diamond has articulated a distinctive way of thinking about ethics. Prompted by a recent critique of Diamond, we elucidate some of the main themes of her work, and reveal their power to reconfigure and deepen moral philosophy. In concluding, we suggest that Diamond's moral philosophical practice can be seen as one plausible way of fleshing out what Wittgenstein might have meant by his dictum that "ethics is transcendental".

Essay Review: Cora Diamond on Ethics (edited by Maria Balaska)

Essay Review: Cora Diamond on Ethics (edited by Maria Balaska), 2023

"Cora Diamond on Ethics" is now the second collection of essays entirely dedicated to Cora Diamond's moral thought. Thoughtfully arranged by Maria Balaska, it brings together eleven original contributions, including a new essay by Diamond.

Cora Diamond on “Wittgenstein’s ‘Unbearable Conflict’”

2021

This paper is a response to Cora Diamond’s “Wittgenstein’s Unbearable Conflict.” I expand and elaborate on Diamond’s diagnosis of the break in Wittgenstein’s thinking described in Philosophical Investigations, §§ 106-107. I agree with Diamond that this occurred soon after his return to philosophy in the late 1920s, and involved a liberating rejection of a self-imposed metaphysical dogmatism. I argue for a later date for the break she describes, in November 1929, and connect this to Wittgenstein’s ethical thinking at the time, both in his manuscript notebooks and in the Lecture on Ethics.

Wittgenstein and the moral life : essays in honor of Cora Diamond

2007

Cora Diamond has played a leading role in the reception and elaboration of Wittgenstein's philosophy. Diamond's contribution to Wittgenstein scholarship is distinguished by her striking and widely discussed suggestions about continuity between Wittgenstein's early and later writings. Her work in ethics, in important respects shaped by her study of Wittgenstein, has been similarly influential. The essays in this volume, by a number of distinguished philosophers, including Stanley Cavell, James Conant, John McDowell, Hilary Putnam, and Martha Nussbaum, explore groundbreaking interpretations of Wittgenstein's philosophy and attempt to demonstrate its significance for ethics, using Diamond's writings on these topics as a springboard and inspiration. The book begins with essays that address Diamond's work on Wittgenstein, defending and further developing her work both on the Tractatus and on Wittgenstein's later thought. Additional essays take up Diamond's...