[lit-ideas] Re: Stuart Hampshire
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2004 16:44:20 EDT
R. Paul forwards from
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Professor Sir Stuart Hampshire (Filed: 15/06/2004)
Sir Stuart Hampshire, the philosopher who died on Sunday [June 13 2004]
aged 89, was one of the
anti-rationalist Oxford thinkers, others being Isaiah Berlin and Bernard
Williams, who gave a new direction to moral and political thought in the
post-war era.
---- Isn't it "anti-rationalist" thinker a bit too much for someone who
tried to conceptualise things like "intentions" -- and 'reasons' behind one's
actions and expressions?
Inspired by his study of the philosophy of Spinoza, Hampshire developed a
description of the conditions necessary for human action, suggesting that
human
freedom can best be understood by examining the distinction between the
declaration of what one intends to do and a prediction of what one is likely
to
do given one's genetic and social conditioning.
---- That is, the idea,
"I will go" ---> "prediction"
"I shall go" ---> intention.
Unfortunately, the will/shall distinction is lost in some idiolects.
In his Ethics, Spinoza had argued that the individual could not be
considered
"free" if he was motivated only by causes of which he remained unaware.
Genuine
freedom, Spinoza suggested, comes only when we learn self-consciously to
recognise the influence of our baser passions over our natures. Only then
can we
strive for the peace of mind that comes through an impartial attachment to
reason.
---- So if you smoke a cigarette, you only understand what you are doing if
you KNOW what physiological process tobacco has in your organism -- and in the
case of an addiction, what it has _badly_ done with it.
Stuart Newton Hampshire was born on October 1 1914
--- [in Lincolnshire, England -- not sure what town. Or was the city of
Lincoln itself?]
and was educated at Repton
and at Balliol College, Oxford, ... In 1963 he went to Princeton University
and in 1964 became chairman of the
philosophy department. In 1970 he was elected Warden of Wadham College,
Oxford,
succeeding Sir Maurice Bowra, and from 1984 to 1990 was professor of
philosophy
at Stanford University.
--- where he met Nancy Cartwright? -- and married her?
Hampshire used to dine with Grice at least once a week while they were
colleagues at Oxford. An interesting point is that they would both attend J. L.
Austin's 'saturday mornings' -- Hamphire not so frequently -- but an EARLIER
group instituted by Berlin -- that would meet at All Souls on Thursdays, along
with Austin, Hare, and a few others. This "Thursday evening group" can be
regarded as the antecedent of the more famous 'saturday mornings' one.
Cheers,
JL
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