The Human A Priori: Essays on How We

Make Sense in Philosophy, Ethics, and

Mathematics A. W. Moore
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-human-a-priori-essays-on-how-we-make-sense-in
-philosophy-ethics-and-mathematics-a-w-moore/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Essays on Ethics and Culture Sabina Lovibond

https://ebookmass.com/product/essays-on-ethics-and-culture-
sabina-lovibond/

Language, World, and Limits: Essays in the Philosophy

of Language and Metaphysics A.W. Moore

https://ebookmass.com/product/language-world-and-limits-essays-
in-the-philosophy-of-language-and-metaphysics-a-w-moore/

Performing Nuclear Weapons: How Britain Made Trident

Make Sense Paul Beaumont

https://ebookmass.com/product/performing-nuclear-weapons-how-
britain-made-trident-make-sense-paul-beaumont/

Gödel's Theorem: A Very Short Introduction A. W. Moore

https://ebookmass.com/product/godels-theorem-a-very-short-
introduction-a-w-moore/
Gödel's Theorem: A Very Short Introduction A. W. Moore

https://ebookmass.com/product/godels-theorem-a-very-short-
introduction-a-w-moore-2/

Living Religion: Embodiment, Theology, and the

Possibility of a Spiritual Sense James W. Jones

https://ebookmass.com/product/living-religion-embodiment-
theology-and-the-possibility-of-a-spiritual-sense-james-w-jones/

A Plea for Natural Philosophy: And Other Essays

Penelope Maddy

https://ebookmass.com/product/a-plea-for-natural-philosophy-and-
other-essays-penelope-maddy/

The World We Make: A Novel (The Great Cities #2) N. K.

Jemisin

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-world-we-make-a-novel-the-
great-cities-2-n-k-jemisin/

Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the new
science of the human past David Reich

https://ebookmass.com/product/who-we-are-and-how-we-got-here-
ancient-dna-and-the-new-science-of-the-human-past-david-reich/
The Human A Priori
The Human A Priori
Essays on How We Make Sense in
Philosophy, Ethics, and Mathematics

A. W. MOORE
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© A. W. Moore 2023
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023930736
ISBN 978–0–19–287141–1
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192871411.001.0001
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
For Andrew
 Contents

Preface ix
Publisher’s Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1

PART I. THE NATURE, SCOPE, AND LIMITS OF

A PRIORI SENSE-MAKING
1. Armchair Knowledge: Some Kantian Reflections (2023) 23
2. On the Necessity of the Categories (written jointly with Anil
Gomes and Andrew Stephenson, 2022) 44
3. What Descartes Ought to have Thought about Modality (2019)
and Postscript 77
4. Varieties of Sense-Making (2013) 94

P A R T I I . H O W WE M A K E S E N S E I N P H I L O S O P H Y
5. Sense-Making from a Human Point of View (2017) 107
6. Not to be Taken at Face Value (2009) 117
7. Carving at the Joints (2012) 127
8. The Concern with Truth, Sense, et al.—Androcentric or
Anthropocentric? (2020) 135

PART III. HOW WE M AKE S ENSE IN ETHICS

9. A Kantian View of Moral Luck (1990) 149
10. On There Being Nothing Else to Think, or Want, or Do (1996) 171
11. Conative Transcendental Arguments and the Question Whether
There Can Be External Reasons (1999) 189
12. Maxims and Thick Ethical Concepts (2006) 210
13. Quasi-Realism and Relativism (2002) 226
14. From a Point of View (2012) 233
viii 

15. Williams, Nietzsche, and the Meaninglessness of

Immortality (2006) 241

P A RT I V . HO W W E M A K E S E N S E I N M A T HEM A T I C S
16. On the Right Track (2003) 259
17. Wittgenstein and Infinity (2011) 273
18. Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy of Mathematics (2017) 291
19. A Problem for Intuitionism: The Apparent Possibility of
Performing Infinitely Many Tasks in a Finite Time (1989–90) 306
20. More on ‘The Philosophical Significance of Gödel’s
Theorem’ (1999) 320

Bibliography 337
Index 353
 Preface

These essays are reprinted with relatively minor amendments. Many of the
amendments are purely cosmetic. Some, such as the addition of some cross-
references and the introduction of some standardization, are for the sake of the
volume. In a few cases I have corrected what I now see as simple philosophical or
exegetical mistakes. I have made no attempt to eliminate repetition from one essay
to another: this is partly to accentuate interconnections between the essays, partly
to ensure that each essay remains self-contained. As far as the interconnections
are concerned, I shall try to elucidate these in the Introduction.
Three cases deserve special comment. Essay 2 is co-authored. It arose from an
exegetical disagreement about Kant that I found I had with two friends and former
students, Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson. The disagreement came to light
during a course on Kant that Anil and I gave at the Oxford University Department
for Continuing Education. Not only had each of us previously been unaware of
this disagreement; each of us would previously have been inclined to regard the
matter as uncontentious. Anil discussed our disagreement with Andrew, whose
position was the same as his, and before long the three of us became embroiled in a
fascinating trialogue in which we came to appreciate that the matter was both
exegetically and philosophically much less straightforward than any of us had
previously thought. Anil and Andrew were prompted to write a joint essay in
defence of their position. After I had read their essay, and after we had engaged in
further discussion of the issues, it evolved into what appears here, which is to say
an essay by all three of us in which we moot an intermediate position that had not
originally been on any of our radars—a real case of thesis, antithesis, and synthe-
sis. I am very grateful to Anil and Andrew both for the stimulation provided by
working on this essay together and for their permission to reproduce it in this
volume. For reasons that I shall try to clarify in the Introduction, it very nicely
captures one of the main threads that links the whole volume together.
Essay 3 has a new postscript. This essay was originally written for a conference
to mark the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Jim Conant’s wonderful
essay ‘The Search for Logically Alien Thought: Descartes, Kant, Frege, and the
Tractatus’. It engages with Jim’s discussion in that essay of Descartes. In the
volume that grew out of the conference, which is where my own essay first
appeared, there is a response by Jim. The purpose of my postscript is to correct
a basic misunderstanding of my position on Jim’s part (albeit a misunderstanding
that occurs within the context of yet further wonderful work in which he both
develops and disrupts some of the main contentions of his own original essay).
x 

As it happens, for reasons that I shall again try to clarify in the Introduction, this
material too very nicely captures the thread that I mentioned above that links this
volume together.
Finally, Essay 10 is the essay that has undergone the greatest revision. When
I returned to it to consider it for inclusion in this volume I found much to
dissatisfy me. Its imperfections were due partly to the fact that it ended with a
statement of ideas which, though I had already defended them and would go on to
develop them elsewhere, I did no more than state in this context. The result was
hurried and—I now realize—bemusing. The revised version is a little less hurried,
and I hope a little less bemusing. This was not however the only source of Essay
10’s imperfections. Another was that, so far from capturing the thread to which
I have referred, it cut across it. This too is something that I shall try to clarify in the
Introduction. But I have made no attempt to remove this imperfection since, in its
own way, it helps to draw attention to that thread. In fact I shall use some of what
is at issue here to structure the Introduction and to indicate what the thread is.
I thank Peter Momtchiloff, philosophy editor at Oxford University Press, for
his advice, encouragement, and support. I also thank the editors and publishers of
the volumes in which these essays first appeared for permission to reprint them.
 Publisher’s Acknowledgements

Essay 2, ‘The Necessity of the Categories’, written jointly with Anil Gomes and Andrew
Stephenson, was originally published in The Philosophical Review, 131 (2022): 129–68.

Essay 3, ‘What Descartes Ought to Have Thought About Modality’, was originally pub-
lished in Sofia Miguens (ed.), The Logical Alien: Conant and His Critics (Harvard UP 2019).
Copyright © 2020 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used by permission. All
rights reserved.
Essay 4, ‘Varieties of Sense-Making’, was originally published in Midwest Studies in
Philosophy, 37 (2013): 1–10.

Essay 5, ‘Sense-Making from a Human Point of View’, was originally published in

Giuseppina d’Oro and Søren Overgaard (eds), The Cambridge Companion to
Philosophical Methodology (Cambridge UP 2017): 44–55.

Essay 6, ‘Not to be Taken at Face Value’, was originally published in Analysis, 69/1 (2009):
116–125.
Essay 7, ‘Carving at The Joints’, was originally published in the London Review of Books,
34/16 (30 August 2012): 21–23.
Essay 8, ‘The Concern With Truth, Sense, et al.—Androcentric or Anthropocentric?’, was
originally published in Angelaki 25/1–2 (2020).
Essay 9, ‘A Kantian View of Moral Luck’, was originally published in Philosophy, Vol. 65,
no. 253 (1990): 297–321.
Essay 10, ‘On There Being Nothing Else to Think, or Want, or Do’, was originally published
in Sabina Lovibond and S. G. Williams (eds), Essays for David Wiggins: Identity, Truth and
Value (Blackwell 1996): 165–84.

Essay 11, ‘Conative Transcendental Arguments and the Question Whether There Can Be
External Reasons’, was originally published in Robert Stern (ed.), Transcendental
Arguments: Problems and Prospects (OUP 1999): 271–92.

Essay 12, ‘Maxims and Thick Ethical Concepts’, was originally published in Ratio,
19 (2006): 129–147.

Essay 13, ‘Quasi-Realism and Relativism’, was originally published in Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, Vol. 65, No. 1 (2002): 150–56.
Essay 14, ‘From a Point of View’, was originally published in Philosophical Quarterly,
Vol. 62, No. 247 (April 2012): 392–8.
xii  ’  

Essay 15, ‘Williams, Nietzsche, and the Meaninglessness of Immortality’, was originally
published in Mind, Volume 115, Issue 458 (2006): 311–30.
Essay 16, ‘On the Right Track’, was originally published in Mind, Volume 112, Issue 446
(2003): 307–22.
Essay 17, ‘Wittgenstein and Infinity’, was originally published in Oskari Kuusela and Marie
McGinn (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein (Oxford UP 2011): 105–21.
Essay 18, ‘Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy of Mathematics’, was originally published in
Hans-Johann Glock and John Hyman (eds), A Companion to Wittgenstein (Blackwell
2017): 319–31.
Essay 19, ‘A Problem for Intuitionism: The Apparent Possibility of Performing Infinitely
Many Tasks in a Finite Time’, was originally published in Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 90/1 (1989‒90): 17–34.

Essay 20, ‘More on “The Philosophical Significance of Gödel’s Theorem”’, was originally
published in Grazer Philosophische Studien, 55/1 (1999): 103–126.

Permissions to republish are gratefully acknowledged.

 Introduction

Part of the rationale for collecting these essays together is that they are all
concerned, in one way or another, with the a priori. But there is a more funda-
mental and more distinctive unifying theme: the essays all reckon, again in one
way or another, with what I see as something ineliminably anthropocentric in our
systematic pursuit of a priori sense-making.
I shall not try to provide a precise definition of the a priori. Given the range of
these essays, and given the extent to which their concern with the a priori is a
matter of unspoken background presupposition rather than direct engagement, it
suits my purposes to allow as much latitude as possible in how the term is to be
understood. This includes latitude in how its very domain is to be understood:
does the term apply to truths? to states of knowledge? to concepts? to modes of
investigation? to justifications for what is believed? possibly even to features of
reality? It is largely to accommodate this latitude that I have elected, in this
Introduction, to use the blanket term ‘sense-making’ as the complement of ‘a
priori’. For ‘sense-making’ can itself be understood in a suitably wide variety of
ways. And even if it does not capture all of what has been classified by philo-
sophers as ‘a priori’, its own classification as ‘a priori’ allows for extension to other
cases: for instance, a truth may be said to be a priori if it can be known as a result
of a priori sense-making. All that really matters, for current purposes, is that
if something can be classified as ‘sense-making’, and if it manages to do whatever
it is intended to do independently of experience, then it can also be classified as
‘a priori’.
Just as I shall refrain from trying to provide a precise definition of the a priori,
so too I shall refrain from trying to provide a precise definition of the anthropo-
centric. Again all that really matters, for current purposes, is that the term
indicates what is from a human point of view, and that ‘human’ in turn is to be
understood in relation to Homo sapiens. This reference to Homo sapiens might
have been thought to go without saying. But it deserves to be made explicit, if only
because of a non-biological understanding of the term ‘human’ that we find, at
least arguably, and at least sometimes, in Kant. On that understanding the term
denotes finite rationality.¹ Interestingly, this makes the concept of the human itself
a priori—though, more interestingly still, there is an argument due to Michael

¹ See e.g. Kant (1996a), 4: 428 ff. and Kant (1996d), 6: 26 ff.

The Human A Priori: Essays on How We Make Sense in Philosophy, Ethics, and Mathematics. A. W. Moore,
Oxford University Press. © A. W. Moore 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192871411.003.0001
2    

Thompson that the concept of the human is a priori anyway, even when it is
understood biologically.² This raises some fascinating issues that are clearly
pertinent to what I have identified as the unifying theme of these essays. Even
so, I mention them principally to set them aside. For the question whether or not
the concept of the human is itself a priori is strictly orthogonal to the question
whether or not what is a priori is bound up with the human in the way I am
claiming. Either answer to the first question is compatible with either answer to
the second.
In order to give an initial indication of why I see the connection that I do
between the a priori and the human, I am going to present something that I will
call ‘the Basic Model’. In the Basic Model, there is some subject S who is in
possession of some concept c which is integral to some a priori sense-making that
S achieves, but there is also something radically parochial about S’s possession of c.
A simple example would be a subject who, by virtue of possessing the concept of a
wife, deduces a priori that there are at least as many women and girls as there are
wives. The a priority of S’s deduction is in no way compromised by the fact that
there is a complicated network of highly contingent social structures and values
that support the institution of marriage and that serve as a precondition of any
subject’s possessing any such concept in the first place. The Basic Model is therefore
already enough to indicate how the a priori can be grounded in the parochial. It is
not a huge leap from there to the thought that the a priori can be grounded in
peculiarities of an entire species; nor from there to the thought that there can be a
priori sense-making that may appropriately be said to be from the point of view of
that species; nor from there to the thought that we humans and what accrues from
our systematic pursuit of a priori sense-making are a case in point.
I mentioned in the Preface that Essay 10 has what I now see as an important
imperfection whereby it cuts across one of the main threads that links together
this volume as a whole. In the bulk of what follows in this Introduction I shall say a
little about each of the essays in the order in which they occur; but first I want to
amplify on what I had in mind when I made that comment about Essay 10, and
to draw on some related material in Essay 12, since this will help to clarify the
Basic Model.
Essay 10 is concerned with an idea that occurs in David Wiggins’s work: the
idea of there being nothing else to think.³ In that essay I explore a way of
construing this idea whereby the claim that there is nothing else to think but
that p is equivalent to the claim that it is true that p. This in turn involves the
following subsidiary idea: if it is true that p, then anyone who does not think that p
pays a price. But what is it not to think that p? It is easy to assume, and in the essay
I in effect did assume, that not thinking that p must take one of three forms:

² Thompson (2004).
³ For a fascinating discussion of this idea, and of other related ideas, see Diamond (2019).
  3

thinking the opposite; being self-consciously agnostic about the matter; or not
even considering the matter, possibly not even being in a position to consider it.
But even at the time of writing the essay I was aware of what many people, Bernard
Williams in particular, would regard as an important fourth possibility. I gesture
towards this possibility in footnote 29 of the essay, albeit only to register my
disagreement with Williams. However, as I indicate in a parenthesis within that
footnote added for the reprint, I have subsequently arrived at a more sympathetic
view of what Williams has in mind.
To understand what Williams does have in mind we can exploit some of the
material that I present in Essay 12. I there offer a distinction between what I call a
‘disengaged’ grasp of a concept and an ‘engaged’ grasp of it—a distinction which
I fudge in footnote 29 of Essay 10 when I talk of ‘having’ a thought, and which for
that matter I fudge in Essay 10 as a whole when I talk of ‘thinking’ that something
is the case. This distinction applies when a concept is what Williams would call a
‘thick’ concept, that is a concept with both a factual aspect and an evaluative
aspect. An example is the concept of infidelity: if I claim that you have been
unfaithful, then I say something straightforwardly false if you have not in fact gone
back on any relevant agreement; but I also thereby censure you. Another example,
albeit one in which the evaluative aspect is somewhat subtler, is that which I used
to illustrate the Basic Model: the concept of a wife. To grasp a thick concept in the
disengaged way is to be able to recognize when the concept would correctly be
applied, to be able to understand others when they apply it, and so forth. To grasp
such a concept in the engaged way is not only to be able to do these things but also
to be prepared to apply it oneself and hence to share whatever beliefs, concerns,
and values give application of the concept its point. Talk of ‘having’ a thought, or
even of ‘thinking’ something, and other related talk, can then be understood in
two corresponding ways: in the engaged way whereby it requires having an
engaged grasp of all the relevant concepts; and in the disengaged way whereby it
does not. And if ‘thinking’ that p is understood in the engaged way, then there is
indeed a fourth form that not thinking that p can take: namely, ‘considering’ the
matter, where this is understood in the disengaged way, and possibly even
‘recognizing’ that it is true that p, where this too is understood in the disengaged
way, but not oneself being prepared to apply one of the relevant concepts
and thus not oneself thinking that p. Moreover, all of this may be completely
self-conscious. One may not think that p because one repudiates the concept in
question as somehow pernicious. The reason why this poses a particular threat to
my project in Essay 10 is that, if the concept is somehow pernicious, then the idea
that one pays a price for not thinking that p when it is true that p is clearly
compromised: the very perniciousness of the concept may mean that one is better
off not thinking that p, because one is better off not thinking in such terms at all.
The relevance of all of this to the Basic Model should be clear. I couched the
Basic Model in terms of ‘sense-making’, a term whose versatility I have already
4    

heralded, and in terms of ‘possession’ of a concept, a term on which I did not

expand. Importantly, the distinction between the engaged way of understanding a
term and the disengaged way of doing so apply to both of these. In particular, both
can be understood in the engaged way. And if they are, then the instance of the
Basic Model that I gave concerning wives turns out to be just one of a whole family
of instances that involve thick concepts. For there is certainly something parochial
about anyone’s possession of a thick concept, so understood; and such possession
can certainly be integral to a priori sense-making, so understood. In what follows
I shall frequently return to the Basic Model.
Now there are often thought to be three great exemplars of the systematic
pursuit of a priori sense-making: philosophy, ethics, and mathematics. The essays
in Parts II, III, and IV deal respectively with each of these. The essays that precede
them in Part I deal with the very nature of a priori sense-making and introduce the
anthropocentrism. Much of the attention throughout is devoted to the work of
other philosophers. But, even when it is, I take it to be of more than exegetical
interest. One of the lessons that I take to emerge, either in opposition to the views
of these other philosophers or by invocation of their views, is that we humans
achieve nothing of real significance in philosophy, ethics, or mathematics except
from a human point of view. In itself this does not force us to conclude that there
is anything ineliminably anthropocentric about our systematic pursuit of a priori
sense-making. After all, it may be that none of these three disciplines is the
systematic pursuit of a priori sense-making that it is taken to be. This is not in
fact my own conclusion, although it would be striking enough if it were the only
alternative. My own conclusion is that philosophy, ethics, and mathematics each
betoken what may reasonably be called ‘the human a priori’.

1. Part I: The Nature, Scope, and Limits

of A Priori Sense-Making

Given what I have said so far, Kant might be expected to figure in these essays as a
hero. Is he not the great champion of the human a priori? One of his primary
metaphysical projects is, after all, to account for a certain kind of a priori sense-
making; and the way in which he does so is by appeal to experience-independent
cognitive resources which we humans have and which, for all we know, only we
humans have. Not only are these integral to the a priori sense-making in question,
they are integral to it in a way that makes it entirely appropriate to say that such
sense-making is from a human point of view—possibly even from a peculiarly
human point of view.⁴

⁴ Cf. Kant (1998), A26/B42.

  5

In many ways Kant does figure in these essays as a hero. He is the focus of each
of the first two essays. Nevertheless, the principal lesson of Essay 1 is that there is
something badly wrong with Kant’s own vision of the human a priori. This vision
has three critical components:

(Necessity) When we make a priori sense of things from our human point of
view, we make sense of them as necessarily being a certain way.⁵
(Dependence) Things’ being that way is dependent on that point of view.
(Inescapability) We cannot make sense of things except from that point of view.

But there is an incoherence in supposing that we can acknowledge all three of

these. For to acknowledge Dependence is to acknowledge a contingency in things’
being that way. And, given Necessity, this is to make sense of things from other
than our human point of view (which presumably means, in this context, from no
point of view at all). But this is what Inescapability says we cannot do.
In the penultimate section of Essay 1 I argue that a significant part of Kant’s
problem is the nature of the experience-independent cognitive resources that he
invokes to explain our a priori sense-making. He includes aspects of how we think.
But he also includes aspects of how we receive material to think about. And he
does the latter in such a way that he also includes aspects of that very material,
specifically its spatiality and temporality. By the time he has done all of this he is
committed to Dependence. Had he only included aspects of how we think, any
anthropocentrism that this involves would not have infected the subject matter of
our thoughts and would not have compromised the necessity in how we make
sense of things as being. We can appreciate this by reconsidering the Basic Model.
However parochial the fact that a given subject thinks in terms of wives, to revert
to that example, this subject is in a position to see that there must be fewer of them
than there are women and girls.⁶
I said that, had Kant only included aspects of how we think in the resources that
he invokes to explain our a priori sense-making, ‘any anthropocentrism that this
involves’ would not have infected the subject matter of our thoughts. But what
anthropocentrism does this involve? Is it akin to the anthropocentrism involved in
the other resources that he invokes, that is to say in the spatiality and the
temporality that are operative in how we receive material to think about? In
their case, although Kant thinks they are part of our human point of view, and
although he thinks we can know this, this is the limit of what he thinks we can

⁵ This is not to be confused with the thesis labelled ‘Necessity’ in Essay 2.

⁶ In the final section of Essay 1 I moot another way in which the problem could be averted, albeit a
way that would take us even further from Kant’s own position. We could develop a conception of a
priori sense-making that allows for contingency in how things are thereby made sense of as being. But
I shall not now dwell on the many further issues that this raises.
6    

know. We cannot, in Kant’s view, know whether they are part of the point of view
of other finite sense-makers (if such there be) nor for that matter whether they are
part of the point of view of all possible finite sense-makers.⁷ The issue is whether
he adopts an analogous circumspection concerning the resources that are opera-
tive in how we think, or whether, in their case, he reckons that we can know more:
specifically, that they are part of the point of view of all possible finite sense-
makers. This is the issue that Anil Gomes, Andrew Stephenson, and I address in
Essay 2.⁸ We end up mooting a second-order circumspection on Kant’s part
whereby the answer is neither—although there are reasons of principle why
Kant had better not explicitly endorse this position.⁹
In Essay 3 attention shifts to Kant’s predecessor Descartes. Descartes likewise
sees an anthropocentrism in our a priori sense-making. And he likewise embraces
a version of Necessity. Both of these are manifest when, in making a priori sense of
things, we at the same time make sense of them as necessarily being a certain way.
For, on Descartes’s conception, for things necessarily to be a certain way is for the
denial that things are that way to ‘conflict with our human concepts’.¹⁰
Not only is there a version of Necessity at work here, though. There is also what
appears to be a Kantian predicament in the offing, as we see when Descartes pits
his conception of necessity against his conception of God. For he is reluctant
to say that any necessity in how things are is necessity even for God. This is in
large part because he believes that ‘every basis of truth . . . depends on [God’s]
omnipotence’,¹¹ from which it follows that even those things that are necessarily a
certain way are ultimately that way only because God decrees that they are. From
this in turn it follows, or rather it seems to follow—I shall return to the signifi-
cance of this qualification shortly—that the necessity in question is at most a
necessity for us, a necessity resting on a deeper contingency about our human
point of view and the play of our concepts there. This is not the contingency of
Dependence: the link here is between our human point of view and the necessity
itself, not between our human point of view and what the necessity attaches to. But
it makes for similar trouble. And it does mean that, if an analogue of Inescapability
is at work in Descartes, as it plausibly is, then the apparent Kantian predicament
to which I have referred is a real one.
In fact, however, it is the burden of Essay 3 to argue that it is merely apparent.
Descartes is at perfect liberty to deny that what I said seems to follow does follow;
and he is at perfect liberty to insist that the necessity in question is indeed

⁷ Kant (1998), A27/B43 and B72.

⁸ For those who have read my Preface and are curious to know what our disagreement was, I can add
that I originally thought that I could defend the former of these exegetical alternatives, while Gomes and
Stephenson originally thought that they could defend the latter.
⁹ Some readers familiar with other work of mine, on inexpressibility, may see the stamp of that work
on this conclusion. They would be wrong to do so. The silence required of Kant here has nothing to do
with inexpressibility. It is silence on an issue that I take myself to have just expressed.
¹⁰ Descartes (1984b), ‘Second Set of Replies’, p. 107. ¹¹ Descartes (1991), p. 359.
  7

necessity even for God. He can do these things by doing what his a priori
reflections on these issues mean that he should only ever have been doing—
albeit, for reasons that I have indicated, he is sometimes diffident about doing—
namely, heeding the analogue of Inescapability and resting content with making
sense of things from our human point of view. This makes any claim that the
necessity in question is necessity even for God harmlessly anthropocentric. It does
nothing to gainsay the fact that even those things that are necessarily a certain way
are ultimately that way only because God decrees that they are. In saying that they
are necessarily that way we are saying only that it would conflict with our human
concepts to deny that that is how they are. (We are also alluding to our means of
coming to know that that is how they are.) In its own way, then, Essay 3 clearly
develops the theme of the human a priori. In a brief postscript to the essay
I correct a misunderstanding of the essay due to James Conant that precisely
fails to recognize this.
Of the four essays in Part I, Essay 4 is the one that is least obviously about the a
priori. It is targeted at what is commonly dubbed ‘the new atheism’. I use the essay
to explore a conception of theistic sense-making for which the new atheism makes
no allowance. As it happens I believe that this conception significantly overlaps
with my broad conception of a priori sense-making; I also believe that, where it
does, there is something fundamentally anthropocentric about it. So, although
none of this is explicit in Essay 4, it does mean that the essay is not the incongruity
which it may appear to be. Even so, the significance of the essay for the volume as a
whole lies elsewhere. I have included it because of the way in which it draws
attention to kinds of sense-making that are not characteristic of the natural
sciences. My hope is that it thereby serves as a helpful prelude to Parts II, III,
and IV. For I do not believe that we can properly grasp the anthropocentric
element in philosophy, ethics, or mathematics until we have come to appreciate
how deeply the sense-making involved in each of these differs from that involved
in the natural sciences (whose systematic pursuit can reasonably include the
aspiration to abandon the human point of view¹²). Part of the force of what is
to come in the remaining essays, therefore—as of Essay 4 itself—is an anti-
scientism.

2. Part II: How We Make Sense in Philosophy

Such anti-scientism is to the fore in Part II. Of the three disciplines around which
the essays in this volume are structured—philosophy, ethics, and mathematics—it
is philosophy that is in greatest danger of falling prey to scientism. In Essay 5

¹² This is something that I argue in A. W. Moore (1997), esp. ch. 4.

8    

I take as my starting point the view famously defended by Bernard Williams as

a safeguard against this danger: that philosophy is a humanistic discipline.
I consider some of the implications of this view. However, to the extent that
Essay 5 is written in opposition to anyone, it is written in opposition, not to those
philosophers, typically within the analytic tradition, who think on scientistic
grounds that we can abandon the human point of view when practising philoso-
phy, but to those philosophers, typically not within the analytic tradition, who
think that we can do so on the very different grounds that ‘we’ do not have to
understand ‘ourselves’ as human beings at all and should embrace what is
sometimes called ‘the post-human’. If philosophers of the former kind are in too
much thrall of the natural sciences, then philosophers of the latter kind are in too
little thrall, it seems to me, of their own humanity. The sheer fact that they adopt
such a stance indicates that they have a greater aversion to philosophical conser-
vatism than they have to philosophical loss of identity. And while I am certainly
conscious of the dangers of philosophical conservatism—to the extent that I agree
that we should be ready to embrace the post-human—nevertheless there is
something so important about our humanity that the dangers of philosophical
loss of identity strike me as being altogether graver.
It is in Essays 6 and 7 that my opposition to philosophers of the former kind—
those who think on scientistic grounds that we can abandon the human point of
view when practising philosophy—is most evident. Each of these essays is targeted
at a book by a philosopher in the analytic tradition. The target in Essay 6 is The
Philosophy of Philosophy by Timothy Williamson; the target in Essay 7 is Writing
the Book of the World by Theodore Sider.¹³ And each of these books is a defence of
what I see as just such a scientistic conception of philosophy—or rather, in the case
of Sider’s book, of metaphysics, although I take metaphysics to be a subdiscipline of
philosophy that is in relevant respects typical of the discipline as a whole.
My opposition takes a somewhat different form in each of these two essays. In
Essay 6 it takes a more piecemeal form. I there focus on a few characteristic
examples of how Williamson’s scientistic conception of philosophy manifests
itself, and I try to indicate in each case why I see things differently. It is worth
noting that one of the clearest ways in which it manifests itself is in the doubt that
Williamson casts, not on the view that philosophical sense-making is fundamen-
tally anthropocentric, but rather on the view that it is fundamentally a priori.
(Williamson is in general suspicious of the significance that philosophers attach to
the a priori. He is even suspicious of the significance that they attach to it in
connection with mathematics. Some of what I say in Essay 6 is a foretaste of some
of what is to come in Part IV.) In trying to counteract Williamson’s conception of
philosophy I thus have my work doubly cut out.

¹³ Williamson (2007) and Sider (2011), respectively.

  9

In Essay 7 my opposition takes a more systematic form. Sider sees metaphysics

as continuous with physics; and he devotes some of his book to practising
metaphysics, some of it to the meta-metaphysical task of reflecting on what he
is thereby doing. Significantly, however, he acknowledges that some such reflec-
tion is already part of metaphysics itself. For he sees metaphysicians as standing in
a similar relation to physicists as meta-metaphysicians stand to them (metaphys-
icians). More specifically, he sees metaphysicians as reckoning with the propriety
and worth of what physicists are doing. The significance of this, as I urge in Essay 7,
is that there can be no reckoning with the propriety and worth of anything except
from a point of view that allows for due evaluation. In particular, there can be no
reckoning with the propriety and worth of what physicists are doing except
from a point of view that allows for due evaluation of various human endeav-
ours, which is to say a human point of view. Sider’s acknowledgement that such
reflection is part of metaphysics therefore constitutes a crucial concession to
anyone who shares my conviction that there is something ineliminably
anthropocentric about metaphysics in particular, and about philosophy in
general. Not that Sider would agree. He would deny that the evaluation in
question is linked to a point of view in the way I claim. He has to deny this:
the alternative poses far too much of a threat, if indeed it does not deal a fatal
blow, to his vision of metaphysics as continuous with physics. But then so much
the worse, I say, for that vision.
The target in Essay 8 is the work of another philosopher, although this time a
philosopher less easily classified either as an analytic philosopher or as a non-
analytic philosopher: Pamela Sue Anderson. I believe that she errs in the opposite
direction. Much of my opposition in the three previous essays has been to the view
that philosophy can escape the human. Anderson advances reasons for opposing
the view that philosophy can escape the gendered human. In particular she argues
that some of my own philosophical work betrays my masculinity. I disagree,
although I acknowledge that she thereby raises some very important issues
about the relation between philosophy and the masculine, between philosophy
and the feminine, and between philosophy and the human. Towards the end of
Essay 8 I try to reinforce a recurring theme of all the essays in Part II by insisting
that it is the third of these—the relation between philosophy and the human—that
is overwhelmingly the most significant.

3. Part III: How We Make Sense in Ethics

The essays in Part III are concerned with ethics. Of the three disciplines—
philosophy, ethics, and mathematics—this is the one that is liable to provoke
least resistance to the thought that it is fundamentally anthropocentric. On
the other hand, it is also the one that is liable to provoke most resistance to the
10    

thought that it is fundamentally a priori. There is accordingly a kind of shift of

onus in these essays compared with those in Part II.
The first four essays of Part III direct us once again to Kant. One of the many
reasons why Kant is significant in this context is that he is, in the respect to which
I have just adverted, an outlier. On Kant’s view, ethics is not fundamentally
anthropocentric, but it is fundamentally a priori. In so far as Kant is a champion
of the human a priori, this is because of his views about a priori sense-making of
the theoretical kind that is characteristic of philosophy and mathematics, not
because of his views about a priori sense-making of the practical kind that is
characteristic of ethics. The latter, for Kant, is at root neither more nor less than an
exercise of pure reason. As such it can be implemented by any being whose
faculties include reason, be the rest of that being’s constitution as it may. This
means that it is not only a priori in a way that does not involve its being
anthropocentric; it is a priori in a way that precludes its being anthropocentric.
One of my aims in these four essays is to consider some of what makes the
opposed idea that ethics is fundamentally anthropocentric so attractive, and to
explore how much of Kant’s commitment to the a priority of ethics could survive
its assimilation. Given what I have said so far, the answer is obviously not all of it.
But it is not obviously not any of it. The upshot of these four essays is neither a
simple defence of that commitment nor a simple attack on it, but rather, in
keeping with the volume as a whole, a non-Kantian reconsideration of a priori
sense-making as itself, even in its practical form, inextricably bound up with the
human.
In Essay 9 I consider some of the consequences of Kant’s view that, even though
ethics is not fundamentally anthropocentric, there is something fundamentally
anthropocentric, possibly even peculiarly anthropocentric, about the way in which
its demands appear to us as obligations. The fact that we are not just rational
beings, but rational animals—with all the needs, desires, and drives that this
entails—means that we are not always inclined to do what it would be purely
rational to do. Hence, as Kant himself points out, what we would willingly do if we
were purely rational appears in the guise of what we ought to do.¹⁴ And when we
do not do it, there are issues that arise, and that create a certain awkwardness for
Kant, about what kind of a failing this is, about what kind of control we have over
what we do instead, and about what kind of relationship there is between such
control—or lack of control—and our blameworthiness. St Paul takes an extreme
view in his letter to the Romans: ‘[W]hat I do is the wrong which is against my
will; and if what I do is against my will, clearly it is no longer I who am the agent,
but sin that has its lodging in me.’¹⁵ Kant is under pressure to say something
similar. But it is pressure that he resists. (This is the primary reason for the

¹⁴ E.g. Kant (1996a), 4: 449. ¹⁵ Romans 7: 19–20.

  11

awkwardness to which I referred.) On Kant’s view, if I incur blame for doing

something other than what I ought to do, then there is no question but that
I myself am the agent.
In exploring all of this, I am playing out a curious variation on the theme of
Essay 3 concerning Descartes, in as much as I am directing attention, not at the
content of any of our a priori insights, but at the kind of necessity that attaches to
them from our human point of view. There is even a hint of something else from
Essay 3: the idea that we can do greatest justice to the resultant position by
adhering resolutely to the human point of view and not trying to make sense of
any of this except from there. No matter how much justice we do to the resultant
position, however, it will still contain elements that are mysterious, counter-
intuitive, or both, for instance the idea, which is related to the pressure that
Kant is under malgré lui to align himself with St Paul, that there is no such
thing as a totally free act of wrong-doing. It will also contain elements, as I finish
the essay by briefly expounding, that reflect further discomfort on Kant’s part with
what St Paul says. In particular, Kant will not want to join St Paul in saying that a
person’s blameworthiness for doing something other than what they ought to do
can be annulled by divine grace. For just as it goes against the Kantian grain to say
that someone can incur blame as a result of something that sin does, so too it goes
against the Kantian grain to say that someone can forego blame as a result of
something that God does. For non-Christians this may seem a relatively arcane
matter. But for Christians and non-Christians alike it serves as a reminder of the
purity that Kant sees in our practical sense-making—while some of the other
elements in the resultant position serve as a reminder of the messiness that he
encounters in his attempt to make sense of that purity from our human point
of view.
But what about the question that I flagged above, about how much of what Kant
sees in our practical sense-making can survive if the purity is removed, that is if
such sense-making is itself reckoned to be from our human point of view? One
thing seems clear. Whatever survives, we shall encounter a similar messiness, if
not a much greater messiness, in trying to make sense of it from our human point
of view. What is not clear is whether this matters. Once we have relinquished the
view that our practical or ethical sense-making is an exercise of pure reason, we
shall be less beholden to the particular notions of freedom, control, wrong-doing,
and such like that made for mystery and counterintuitiveness in the messiness that
Kant himself encountered. The messiness that we encounter is liable to strike us as
simply the messiness of life. In fact there are some important lessons to be learned
here about how the combination of the a priori with the human is always
vulnerable to the interference with the a priori by the human. That is, there are
some important lessons to be learned about how the attempt to make a priori
sense of things from a human point of view has its own distinctive ways of meeting
with failure.
12    

Essays 10 and 11 are likewise concerned with the kind of necessity that attaches
to the ethical from our human point of view. Neither essay defends the view that
ethics is an arena for the human a priori. Neither, come to that, defends the view
that ethics is an arena for any kind of a priori. But both portray the necessity in
question as having some affinity with the kind of necessity that characterizes our a
priori sense-making, and both combine that with an indication of how such
necessity has the special force that it has from a human point of view. I have
already discussed the flaw in Essay 10, and the way in which this flaw, once
perceived as such, puts us in mind of the Basic Model and thereby prepares us for
the possibility of the human a priori. The significant point here, however, is that
Essay 10 manages to prepare us for that possibility anyway. The crucial work is
done by something that I refer to in Essay 10 as ‘the Basic Idea’—where that label,
incidentally, does not betoken any special connection with what I have been
calling ‘the Basic Model’. The Basic Idea is that human beings are finite, but
have an aspiration to be infinite.¹⁶ It is this that allows the necessity to have the
special force that it has from our human point of view; for the necessity is precisely
to be explained in terms of certain marks of the infinitude to which, according to
the Basic Idea, we aspire. Not that the details of the account (which are in any case
very sketchy in Essay 10) are what really matter in this context. Much more
important and much more fundamental than the Basic Idea itself—be the truth of
the Basic Idea as it may, and indeed be the interpretation of the Basic Idea as it
may—is the broader idea of some shared conative state among human beings that
influences our sense of necessity. If there is any such state, then there is scope for it
likewise to influence our a priori sense-making and to prepare the way once again
for a kind of human a priori.
That same broader idea plays a similarly crucial role, and a similarly relevant
role, in Essay 11—where the necessity has a new guise, as the necessity that
animates a kind of transcendental argument. More specifically, I argue in Essay
11 that, just as there may be transcendental arguments of a Kantian kind for the
conclusion that things are thus and so, proceeding via the intermediate conclusion
that it is necessary for us to believe that things are thus and so, so too there may be
‘conative’ variants of these transcendental arguments for the desirability that
things are thus and so, proceeding via the intermediate conclusion that it is
necessary for us to desire that things are thus and so (in some suitably broad
sense of ‘desire’). And it is the necessity of our desiring that things are thus and so
that exemplifies the broader idea: there is a conative state which, on the one hand,
we all have because we cannot help having it, and which, on the other hand,
influences our sense of necessity, including the very necessity of our having it.
Much of Essay 11 is concerned with tracing these elaborate interconnections.

¹⁶ Cf. Cavell (1979), p. 109; and Conant (1991b), p. 634.

  13

Neither Essay 10 nor Essay 11 is primarily about Kant. In fact Essay 10, as
I have already indicated, is primarily about David Wiggins, whose related idea of
there being only one thing that one can think about a given issue is an idea that he
would distance from anything peculiarly Kantian, or indeed from anything to do
with the a priori.¹⁷ Nevertheless, both essays have clear Kantian resonances. And,
in so far as they depart from Kant in what room they leave for an understanding of
the ethical as a priori, they do so precisely by allowing aspects of our humanity
back in. This they do by taking seriously the idea that we humans all share a
conative state that shapes all our ethical deliberations, a priori and empirical alike.
The fourth of the essays in this quartet is like the first in being more straight-
forwardly about Kant. And it is pivotal to the volume as a whole. For it is here, in
Essay 12, that we find the most graphic illustration of the Basic Model. (This is
why I had occasion to refer to Essay 12 earlier in the Introduction.) It is here too
that we most directly confront the question of how much of Kant’s own commit-
ment to the a priority of ethics could survive assimilation of the idea that ethics is
fundamentally anthropocentric. Ethics, for Kant, is an exercise of pure reason. But
even Kant acknowledges that ethics is applicable to issues that can be framed only
in terms of concepts whose possession depends on highly contingent social
structures. (It had better be applicable to such issues, if the exercise of pure reason
in question is to be suitably practical.) Kant has no qualms, for example, about
drawing ethical conclusions about the marriage contract.¹⁸ And such applicability
is already an illustration of the Basic Model. For precisely what it involves is a
priori sense-making that is achieved through the implementation of concepts
whose possession is radically parochial. But now comes the twist. It would be
possible to maintain a broadly Kantian view of ethics, while nevertheless departing
from Kant himself and embracing the view that ethics is fundamentally anthropo-
centric, by conceiving of ethics as concerned not only with issues about how to
respect whatever concepts we possess but also with issues about what concepts to
possess in the first place—and, in particular, about what thick concepts to possess in
the engaged way. On this extended conception of ethics—I say some more about
the conception and about its rationale in the final section of Essay 12—ethics
would involve negotiating certain basic facts of human nature that determine what
concepts we are so much as capable of possessing. (This is not unrelated to Kant’s
own concession that the exercise of pure reason that constitutes ethics sometimes
involves negotiating certain basic facts of human nature that determine what we
are capable of willing.¹⁹) Ethical sense-making could then reasonably be viewed as
a prime example of sense-making that is both fundamentally a priori and funda-
mentally anthropocentric.

¹⁷ See Wiggins (1996). ¹⁸ Kant (1996c), 6: 279–80. ¹⁹ E.g. Kant (1996a), 4: 423–4.
14    

The remaining three essays in Part III are more concerned with the
anthropocentric than with the a priori. But they are concerned with the anthropo-
centric in a way that connects importantly with what has gone before and
continues to have implications for the human a priori.
Essay 13 is a critique of Simon Blackburn’s meta-ethical ‘quasi-realism’,
whereby ethical claims, though they are expressive of our conative states, also
admit of truth or falsity. In this essay I argue that, despite Blackburn’s insistence to
the contrary, he is committed to a relativism akin to what we have just witnessed
in Essay 12. Moreover, I do so in a way that directly relates back to the discussion
of Descartes in Essay 3. For Descartes’s conception of necessity and Blackburn’s
conception of desirability are variations on a single theme: each adverts to what we
are implicitly saying about ourselves when we make some claim about the notion
in question. On Descartes’s conception of necessity, when we make some claim
about how it is necessary for things to be, we are implicitly saying that it would
conflict with certain concepts that we human beings possess for things not to be
that way. On Blackburn’s conception of desirability, when we make some claim
about how it is desirable for things to be, we are implicitly saying that it would
conflict with certain conative states that we human beings have for things not to be
that way. The reason why I take Blackburn to be committed to a kind of relativism
is that I take it to follow from this that, had our conative states been relevantly
different, which I believe his own quasi-realism compels him to say they could
have been, then we would, quite rightly, have counted different things desirable.
Interestingly, however, there is no reason to think that Descartes is committed
to an analogous relativism. For, as I argue in Essay 3, there is not the same
compulsion for Descartes to say that our concepts could have been relevantly
different. Be that as it may, the label ‘anthropocentric’ looks entirely appropriate
in both cases. (Not that Blackburn need demur. The relativism that he eschews, as
the Cartesian case shows, is a separate matter.)
In Essay 14 I turn to Derek Parfit’s very different meta-ethical views and
reproach him for precisely failing to advert to, in fact for failing to respect, some
of what we are implicitly saying about ourselves when we make ethical claims—or,
in his extended discussion of these issues, when we make normative claims more
generally. These claims, I urge, are irreducibly from some point of view: in making
them we are implicitly saying something about our occupancy of that point of
view. (This places me closer to Blackburn than to Parfit.) And, although there is
nothing in Essay 14 to suggest that ‘we’ here means ‘we human beings’—the reach
of the pronoun in any specific case may be either wider or, more probably,
narrower—there is still something fundamental about the human at stake, if
only because making ethical sense of things is itself an essential part of being
human. For that matter, there is something fundamental about the human at stake
in the very idea that making ethical sense of things involves making sense of things
from some point of view, because we—however wide or narrow the reach of that
  15

pronoun—cannot make sense of things from any point of view that human beings
are incapable of occupying. This is reminiscent of the way in which Essay 12
allowed for a conception of ethics as anthropocentric. What mattered in that case
were the constraints imposed on our ethical sense-making by the fact that our
ethical sense-making needs to involve concepts that human beings are capable of
possessing.
The final essay in Part III, Essay 15, is concerned with one very radical version
of the idea that making ethical sense of things involves making sense of them from
some point of view, a version that can be found in Nietzsche. This is the idea that
making ethical sense of things involves making sense of them from ever different
points of view. Not that this is the main focus of Essay 15. The main focus of Essay
15 is something quite different: Bernard Williams’s argument for the meaning-
lessness of immortality. Nietzsche’s relevance to this lies in an argument that I give
to the effect that he (Nietzsche) can be seen as an unexpected ally of Williams, in
as much as even to acknowledge our immortality, let alone to rejoice in it, would,
on a Nietzschean conception, and contrary perhaps to appearances, thwart this
continual making of new ethical sense of things from new points of view.
This indicates one of many ways in which the human a priori needs to reckon
with our very finitude (a reckoning that assumes even greater significance if we
accept what I called in Essay 10 ‘the Basic Idea’: that human beings are finite, but
have an aspiration to be infinite). This in turn is a good cue for the next section,
where attention shifts from ethical sense-making to mathematical sense-making.
For if the latter is an example of the human a priori, then it too must indicate how
the human a priori needs to reckon with our finitude. This is because one of the
most elemental tasks that we confront, when we engage in mathematical sense-
making, is to make sense, in particular, of the infinite; and this requires that we
leverage our finite resources to achieve a grasp of that which precisely cannot be
grasped by any straightforward use of any finite resources. Each essay in Part IV is
concerned, to a greater or lesser extent, with what it takes for us to do this.

4. Part IV: How We Make Sense in Mathematics

I said above that, of the three disciplines—philosophy, ethics, and mathematics—

ethics is the one that is liable to provoke least resistance to the thought that it is
fundamentally anthropocentric and most to the thought that it is fundamentally a
priori. Mathematics is its polar opposite in this respect. Certainly there is liable to
be great resistance to the thought that mathematics is fundamentally anthropo-
centric. The essays in Part IV go some way towards motivating the view that even
so, in some sense, it is.
This is not the crude relativist view that, when we humans claim that, say, twice
two is four, what we mean is that twice two is four for us although it may have
16    

some other value for other beings. It is rather the view that, when we humans
claim that twice two is four, even if what we claim holds both universally and
necessarily, there are nevertheless some facts of human nature that not only enable
us to make such sense of things but that enable such sense to be made of things at
all. One exponent of this view is Kant. Kant would certainly deny that twice two
may have some value other than four for other beings. But he does hold that, when
we humans claim that twice two is four, we are making use of concepts that have
been formed ‘through successive addition of units in time’;²⁰ and he also holds, as
we noted earlier, that time is a feature of our human point of view. So any being
that did not share this point of view and that knew nothing of it would not be able
to make such sense of things. What this means is that the question of what twice
two is would not so much as arise for such a being. It does not mean that the
question would arise and somehow receive an alien answer. Nor does it mean that
the sense-making involved in answering the question is anything less than a priori:
it really just casts mathematical sense-making as an instance of the Basic Model.
Call the view that mathematics is anthropocentric in this way the Anthropocentric
View. I tried to indicate earlier why I think that Kant himself, by assigning time
the role that he does in his own version of the Anthropocentric View, lapses into
incoherence. But ‘his own version of the Anthropocentric View’ is the key phrase.
The structure of the Anthropocentric View, and in particular the casting of
mathematical sense-making as an instance of the Basic Model, is not in itself
problematical. Kant’s critical error is to include in the experience-independent
cognitive resources that he invokes to explain our mathematical sense-making
aspects of what we think about, not just aspects of how we think. Had he done
only the latter, he would have avoided any such incoherence. To the extent,
therefore, that we can construe the experience-independent resources that equip
us to engage in mathematics as a matter of how we think, not a matter of what we
think about, we too shall avoid any such incoherence. This gives us scope to adopt
an acceptable alternative to Kant’s version of the Anthropocentric View. On what
I take to be the most attractive version, mathematics consists in developing,
refining, consolidating, and implementing the very experience-independent cog-
nitive resources that equip us to engage in it. Mathematics is a formation of
mathematical concepts. But the concepts, once formed, exhibit a rigid interrelated-
ness that is made not a whit less rigid by whatever peculiarly human sensibilities
and faculties were integral to their formation. Not only is twice two four: twice two
must be four, always, everywhere, and for everyone.²¹
This view is essentially Wittgensteinian. Wittgenstein regards mathematics as a
formation of mathematical concepts.²² He also has an acute sense of how the

²⁰ Kant (2002a), 4: 283.

²¹ This once again calls to mind the discussion of Descartes in Essay 3.
²² E.g. Wittgenstein (1978), pt IV, §§29–33.
  17

human is at work in sustaining our use of mathematical language.²³ Wittgenstein

accordingly features prominently in Part IV. The first three essays in this part
consist of more or less direct exegesis of his work—albeit, in the case of Essay 16,
through the lens of Crispin Wright’s discussion and appropriation of it.
Essay 16 includes a brief discussion of (Wright’s tentative defence of )
Wittgenstein’s argument against the possibility of a private language; but its
primary focus is Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of mathematics, which is also
the subject matter of Essay 18. In between, Essay 17 provides an overview of
Wittgenstein’s treatment of the infinite. In all three essays I try, however sublim-
inally, to motivate Wittgenstein’s version of the Anthropocentric View. One of the
issues that I address in Essay 16 is that of how to avoid allowing self-conscious
awareness of the anthropocentrism at stake to instil in us needless sceptical
worries about whether our mathematical sense-making is as robust as it should
be. In Essay 17 I address the more specific issue, adumbrated in my remarks at the
end of the previous section, of how to avoid allowing that same self-consciousness
to instil in us needless sceptical worries about whether our mathematical treat-
ment of the infinite is as robust as it should be. I suggest that Wittgenstein himself
does not always succeed in this respect. For he is led by these reflections into what
I see as unacceptable fussing about standard mathematical accounts of the infinite.
In fact he is led into outright disdain of them. This theme is pursued in Essay 18,
where I place Wittgenstein’s scepticism about these accounts in a broader context.
In particular, one thing that I do in Essay 18 is to highlight a tension that there
appears to be between Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics and his philoso-
phy of philosophy. Wittgenstein’s philosophy of philosophy, familiarly, casts
philosophy as a therapeutic exercise aimed at combating various confusions to
which our mishandling of our own ways of making sense of things exposes
us. There is no need, on this conception, for philosophers to reform how we
make sense of things: indeed they had better not do so, for they simply run the
risk of generating more such confusion if they do. It is in this connection that
Wittgenstein says that philosophy ‘leaves everything as it is’²⁴—to which he
immediately adds, in amplification, ‘It also leaves mathematics as it is.’ The
apparent tension lies in the fact that his philosophy of mathematics seems not
to respect this precept. Not only in his reflections on the infinite but elsewhere in
his philosophy of mathematics, we find Wittgenstein taking continual philosoph-
ical exception to actual mathematical practice, and thereby to actual mathematical
sense-making. (Another example will occur in Essay 20, on Gödel’s theorem.)
To be sure, there is an obvious get-out clause for Wittgenstein: when he insists
that philosophers had better not interfere with our ways of making sense of things,
there is a tacit restriction to our legitimate ways of making sense of things. It is

²³ E.g. Wittgenstein (1967a), pt I, §§240–2, and pt II, pp. 226–7; and Wittgenstein (1978), pt I, §142.
²⁴ Wittgenstein (1967a), pt I, §124.
18    

entirely possible that the ways that mathematicians have of making sense of
things are not always legitimate, but are sometimes corrupted, say by mathemat-
icians’ view of the nature of their own discipline.²⁵ Whenever this is the case,
mathematical sense-making is precisely ripe for philosophical interference on a
Wittgensteinian conception.
But, for reasons that I try to make clear in Essay 18, I do not myself believe that
this get-out clause ultimately prevents the apparent tension between
Wittgenstein’s philosophy of philosophy and his philosophy of mathematics
from being real. And I end the essay by saying (albeit without elaborating) that
I take the principal fault to lie with his philosophy of philosophy. Given what
I have said so far in this Introduction, this may come as a surprise. Have I not been
suggesting the very opposite: that the principal fault lies rather with his philosophy
of mathematics?
Not exactly. The point is this. Even when some mathematical way of making
sense of things is legitimate, there may be an alternative that has certain practical
advantages. Suppose there is. The fact remains that the sheer legitimacy of the
original way of making sense of things means that Wittgenstein’s philosophy of
philosophy requires philosophers simply to accede to it. And that seems to me
unduly conservative. True, there is a risk that adopting the alternative will
generate new philosophical confusion. But there is a risk that retaining the original
will do that too. Indeed precisely one of the practical advantages of the alternative
may be that it is less susceptible than the original to being mishandled in a way that
throws us into confusion. And if that is the case, then not only is it entirely
reasonable to advocate for the alternative, it is entirely reasonable to do so on
philosophical grounds.²⁶ And this returns us to the main theme of this volume. For
deciding which of the two ways of making sense of things is less susceptible to
being mishandled in that way will require sensitivity to the various human
sensibilities and faculties that are involved in our implementing each of them.
The final two essays in Part IV are concerned with specific applications of the
Wittgensteinian version of the Anthropocentric View. But the starting point of
Essay 19 is provided by a non-Wittgensteinian version of the view, closer in many
ways to what we find in Kant: namely, the view endorsed by intuitionists whereby
the facts of human nature that enable mathematical issues to arise in the way in
which they do are facts about our experience of the pure structure of time. Quite
how closely or distantly this is related to Kant’s view is an issue that I touch on
very briefly in §4 of the essay: perhaps distantly enough for intuitionists to avoid
some of problems that afflict Kant himself. For, rather than casting time as the
subject matter of our mathematical sense-making, they can arguably be seen as
doing something more innocuous: casting temporally informed concepts as

²⁵ Cf. Wittgenstein (1967a), pt I, §254.

²⁶ For further discussion see A. W. Moore (forthcoming), esp. §5.
  19

among the primary tools of our mathematical sense-making. Nevertheless, intu-

itionists do confront a problem, which it is the main burden of Essay 19 to address.
The problem is that their view completely loses its force if we allow ourselves to
apply the concept of the infinite in a certain way. To solve this problem, and thus
to prevent ourselves from applying the concept of the infinite in that way, what we
need to do, I argue, is to pit such applications of the concept against the
Wittgensteinian version of the Anthropocentric View and, more specifically, to
pit them against some of the lessons of Essay 17.
Finally, in Essay 20, I apply the Wittgensteinian version of the Anthropocentric
View to consideration of the philosophical significance of Gödel’s theorem, in the
context of a discussion of Michael Dummett’s essay on the same topic.²⁷ Not that
Essay 20 is unreservedly Wittgensteinian. In the final section of the essay I discuss
some of Wittgenstein’s own remarks on Gödel’s theorem, in the course of which
he recoils from one standard way of stating the theorem. This way of stating the
theorem is as follows: given any sound axiomatization of arithmetic, there are
arithmetical truths that the axiomatization cannot be used to prove. Wittgenstein
advocates a relativization of mathematical truth to some axiomatization which
makes this way of stating the theorem inappropriate.²⁸ While I am more sympa-
thetic to what Wittgenstein is doing here than most commentators, I nevertheless
urge that this is another example of unacceptable meddling with actual mathem-
atical sense-making. The bulk of Essay 20, however, is devoted to arguing that we
can make best philosophical sense of Gödel’s theorem in broadly Wittgensteinian
terms. In particular, it is in broadly Wittgensteinian terms that we can make best
philosophical sense of what is involved in our advancing from acceptance of some
axiomatization A of arithmetic to acceptance of the consistency of A, and thereby
to acceptance of certain arithmetical truths that A cannot be used to prove.
The forces that are at work here are the forces that are at work in the very
formation of all the relevant mathematical concepts, such as the concept of a
natural number, the concept of addition, and the concept of consistency. And they
depend, as I try to indicate in Essay 20, on shared human reactions. Gödel’s
theorem can thus be seen as a further illustration of the Anthropocentric View—
as it can, therewith, of the human a priori.

²⁷ Dummett (1978c). ²⁸ Wittgenstein (1978), pt I, app. III, esp. §8.

 PART I
T H E NA T U R E , S C O P E , A N D L I M I T S
OF A PRIORI SENSE-MAKING
 1
Armchair Knowledge
Some Kantian Reflections

Abstract
This essay considers a puzzle associated with ‘armchair knowledge’, that is to say,
knowledge that is not warranted by experience. The puzzle is that each of the
following claims seems true although they also seem mutually incompatible: there
is armchair knowledge; some armchair knowledge, if such there be, concerns what
is beyond the subject; and armchair knowledge does not involve any appeal to any
particular encounter with anything beyond the subject. The Kantian solution to
this puzzle, namely transcendental idealism, is a view whereby some of what the
subject has knowledge of has a form that depends on the subject. After discussion
of the scope and limits of this solution, it is argued both that it is the only available
solution when the armchair knowledge in question is synthetic and that it is
incoherent, from which it is concluded that there is no such thing as synthetic
armchair knowledge. But this is all on the assumption that the armchair know-
ledge in question is knowledge of what is necessary. In the final section of the essay
consideration is given to other solutions to the puzzle that may be available if the
knowledge in question is knowledge of what is contingent.

1. A Kantian View of Armchair Knowledge

One of the oldest of philosophical puzzles is to account for what I shall call
‘armchair knowledge’. By ‘armchair knowledge’ I mean knowledge that is inde-
pendent of experience, in the sense that it is not warranted by experience. The
rationale for the label is clear enough: a subject¹ who has such knowledge could
have had it while remaining seated in an armchair.² I might just as well have used

¹ There will be frequent references in this essay to the ‘subject’. For remarks that are very pertinent
to my use of this term see Kant (2000), 5: 401.
² That is, the subject could have had it while remaining seated in an armchair granted possession of the
concepts involved: it is not precluded that the subject had to leave the armchair to acquire those concepts
in the first place (cf. Kant (1998), B3). And it is important that the armchair should be nothing more than
an inessential prop: one thing that a subject could know while remaining seated in an armchair is how
comfortable the armchair is, but this, I hardly need say, is not an example of what I have in mind. (In the
first and the most famous discussion of armchair knowledge in Western philosophy—a discussion that
predates armchairs—the only significant prop involved is some sand: see Plato (1961d), 82b–85b.)

The Human A Priori: Essays on How We Make Sense in Philosophy, Ethics, and Mathematics. A. W. Moore,
Oxford University Press. © A. W. Moore 2023. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192871411.003.0002
24    

the more familiar label ‘a priori knowledge’. But ‘a priori knowledge’ is sometimes
applied more broadly—not just to knowledge that is independent of experience,
but to knowledge that could have been independent of experience.³ I hope that my
use of the less familiar label, along with my stipulative definition of it, helps to
avoid confusion on that score.⁴ I also hope that it helps to highlight a crucial
feature of such knowledge, or at least what appears to be a crucial feature of such
knowledge: it does not involve any appeal to any particular encounter with
anything beyond the subject.
The puzzle to which I have referred arises from the fact that not only does there
appear to be such knowledge, but some of it appears to concern what is beyond the
subject. For how can it?—given that what is beyond the subject is irrelevant to it in
that way. The puzzle is exacerbated by the fact that some of the knowledge in
question appears to concern, not just some of what is beyond the subject, but all of
what is beyond the subject; indeed, not just all of what is beyond the subject, but all
of what could possibly be beyond the subject.⁵
To repeat, the puzzle arises because each of the following appears to be the case:

(i) there is armchair knowledge;

(ii) some armchair knowledge, if such there be, concerns what is beyond the
subject;
and
(iii) armchair knowledge does not involve any appeal to any particular
encounter with anything beyond the subject.

Some philosophers think that the puzzle can be solved by denying the appear-
ances. Thus certain empiricists simply deny (i). Other empiricists accept (i), but
deny (ii): they hold that all armchair knowledge concerns the subject’s command
of language, or the subject’s conceptual repertoire, or something of the sort.
Certain Platonists accept (i) and (ii), but deny (iii): they hold that armchair

³ Thus my own knowledge that every natural number is the sum of four squares is based on an
appeal to authority. So it is not included in what I am calling ‘armchair knowledge’. But it is included in
what, on this broad usage, would be called ‘a priori knowledge’, since it is knowledge of a mathematical
truth that could in principle have been independent of experience. A further complication is that the
term ‘a priori’ is also sometimes applied, not to knowledge, but to truths: those that, in my terms, are
potential items of armchair knowledge, in other words those that are knowable independently of
experience (cf. Kant (1996b), 5: 31, and Frege (1980), §3). A yet further complication, which will prove
to be pertinent in §6, is that the term ‘a priori’ is also sometimes applied to non-propositional entities,
such as concepts.
⁴ For a second possible advantage of my use of the less familiar label—pertaining this time to the fact
that ‘a priori knowledge’ is sometimes applied, not more broadly, but more narrowly—see n. 57 below,
together with the accompanying text.
⁵ Cf. Kant (1998), B3–4.
   25

knowledge is acquired through, and involves appeal to, acquaintance with one or
more Platonic idea or universal.⁶
But there are also philosophers who think that the puzzle can be solved without
denying the appearances. They accept (i), (ii), and (iii). The way in which they
solve the puzzle is by espousing some version of idealism, whereby some of what
the subject has knowledge of, including, in this version, some of what is beyond
the subject, has a form—a range of essential features—that depends on the subject.
The armchair knowledge in question pertains to this form. Thus some of it is
knowledge to the effect that whatever has the form is of such and such a kind;
some of it is knowledge to the effect that whatever is of such and such a kind has
the form. This means that it does indeed concern what is beyond the subject; for
the form is the form of what is beyond the subject. But it also means that the
knowledge does not involve any appeal to any particular encounter with anything
beyond the subject, precisely because the form to which the knowledge pertains
depends on the subject.
This is Kant’s view.⁷ Its attractions are not confined to the fact that it can
be used to account for armchair knowledge of what is beyond the subject. It
can also be used, if Kant is right, to account for (some) knowledge of what is
necessary—Kant’s own view being that all armchair knowledge, simply qua
armchair knowledge, is knowledge of what is necessary.⁸ Indeed it can be used
to account for (some) knowledge of what is necessary as necessary. Thus if some
of the armchair knowledge in question is knowledge to the effect that whatever has
the given form is of such and such a kind, then some of it is also, in Kant’s view,
knowledge to the effect that whatever has the given form must be of such and such
a kind. How to account for knowledge of what is necessary, as necessary, is
another old philosophical puzzle. The puzzle this time arises from the sheer
fact that we, finite contingent creatures that we are, can have epistemic access to
all the ways things might have been. Many philosophers think that they can
solve this puzzle, or at least that they can begin to solve it, by finding a
grounding for necessity in contingency, where finding a grounding for necessity
in contingency is more than simply discovering, with respect to some apparent
necessity, that there is a contingency underpinning it—so that it no longer
appears necessary. Doing that is not especially remarkable, nor does it have any
great philosophical purchase. In fact it is an important part of growing up.

⁶ For the label ‘Platonist’ cf. Plato (1961a), 73–6. Whatever the exact nature of the relationship
between this view and Plato, the fact that there is such a relationship helps to explain why W. D. Hart is
emboldened to say, in Hart (1988), p. 158, that ‘we are all of us empiricists in our bones (even, or
especially, Plato)’. Whether or not the view can be attributed to Plato, it can certainly be attributed to
Russell: see Russell (1959), ch. 10.
⁷ Kant (1998), Bxvi.
⁸ See again the material in Kant (1998), B3–4, cited in n. 5; see also Axv and Bxii. I shall not, for the
time being, query Kant’s view that all armchair knowledge is knowledge of what is necessary, although
in section 7 I shall explore some of the implications of rejecting this view.
26    

Finding a grounding for necessity in contingency is doing something more

delicate than that: it is discovering, with respect to some apparent necessity,
that there is a contingency underpinning it without disrupting the appearance of
necessity. This, if it can be done at all, does have philosophical purchase. And it
is what Kant tries to do.⁹
Kant espouses a version of idealism whereby that part of the subject’s
armchair knowledge which pertains to the given form is knowledge from a
particular point of view.¹⁰ And a point of view, by its very nature, admits of
alternatives. So the fact that there is knowledge from this point of view is the
relevant contingency, the contingency in which the relevant necessity is
grounded. But Kant does not think that the necessity is thereby compromised.
For he does not think that there is anything in his idealism to preclude the
subject’s continuing to have, and continuing to exercise, knowledge from the
given point of view: it is just that such knowledge cannot itself include acknow-
ledgement of the idealism.
This explains why Kant’s idealism is, in his own terminology, ‘transcendental’
idealism rather than ‘empirical’ idealism. Kant uses these two terms to register a
distinction between two views about the nature of space and time.¹¹ For our
purposes, however, it will help to extend his usage and to work with a broader
distinction. Let us refer to the dependence posited by the idealist—the depend-
ence of the form of what the subject has knowledge of on the subject—as the
i-dependence. Then we can construe transcendental idealism as idealism in
which the i-dependence is not itself included in whatever has this form; and
we can construe empirical idealism as idealism in which it is.¹² The reason
why Kant’s idealism is transcendental is that it assigns contingency to the
i-dependence (for it allows that there might not have been any such subject,
nor therefore any such form depending on any such subject), and this contin-
gency, simply qua contingency, must transcend the necessity attendant on
whatever has the form in question.¹³

⁹ On a popular reading of Descartes, it is what he tries to do too—by taking the necessity of any
given necessary truth, say that twice four is eight, to lie in the contingent fact that human beings are
incapable of grasping any other possibilities. If this is Descartes’s strategy, however, then all that he
succeeds in doing is providing a very graphic illustration of why finding a grounding for necessity in
contingency is such a delicate matter. For if it really is necessary that twice four is eight, then there are no
other possibilities, hence no other possibilities for human beings to be incapable of grasping. I should
add, however, that I am not persuaded that the popular reading of Descartes is correct, certainly not as a
reading of his fully considered view: see Essay 3 in this volume, which is in turn indebted to Bennett
(1994).
¹⁰ See Kant (2000), 5: 403. Cf. also Kant (1996a), 4: 452. ¹¹ See Kant (1998), A369.
¹² I have elsewhere construed the two doctrines slightly differently: see A. W. Moore (1997), p. 116,
and (2012), ch. 5, appendix. But the differences, which are tailored to the demands of their specific
contexts, are relatively insignificant.
¹³ We can extract, from these considerations, a general test for whether any given idealism is
transcendental or empirical. Let TI be some version of transcendental idealism; let EI be some version
of empirical idealism; let FTI be the form involved in the i-dependence that is posited in TI; and let FEI
   27

2. The Distinction between Analytic Armchair

Knowledge and Synthetic Armchair Knowledge,
and Two Associated Questions

Now Kant famously distinguishes between two kinds of armchair knowledge: that
which is analytic and that which is synthetic. This distinction is related to another
that he draws, between intuitions and concepts. Intuitions are products of
the subject’s receptivity: there is something passive about them. Concepts are
products of the subject’s spontaneity: there is something active about them. It is by
means of intuitions that the subject is given various objects of knowledge. It is
by means of concepts that the subject thinks about these objects, as thus given.¹⁴
Any knowledge, at least if it has what Kant calls ‘content’,¹⁵ must make use of
both. It must involve an exercise of concepts, whereby something is thought. But
these concepts must in turn relate ultimately to intuitions, whereby what is
thought has whatever content it has.¹⁶ What distinguishes analytic knowledge is
that, in this case, the exercise of concepts does all the relevant work: the subject
knows, simply by appeal to the concepts involved, and in particular by analysis of
them, that what is being thought is true. By contrast, in the case of synthetic
knowledge, the subject also appeals to the intuitions involved.¹⁷
Does it follow that no analytic armchair knowledge testifies to (ii), in other
words that no armchair knowledge that is analytic concerns what is beyond the
subject? It looks as though it does follow, because it looks as though what analytic
armchair knowledge concerns, on this view—and here we are reminded of the
empiricist view that I flagged in §1—is the subject’s conceptual repertoire. In fact,
however, I do not think that we are forced to say this. There is a perfectly good

be the form involved in the i-dependence that is posited in EI. Then, whereas an exposition and/or
defence of TI is bound to reckon with the distinction between what transcends FTI and what has FTI, an
exposition and/or defence of EI need not reckon with any such distinction concerning FEI. Moreover,
there are family resemblances between claims about what transcends FTI and claims about what has FTI
whereby it is natural to use the same language to express them—albeit not with exactly the same
meaning—not least because we are liable to lack independent linguistic resources to talk about what
transcends FTI. This means that, in practice, an exposition and/or defence of TI is liable, sooner or later,
to include a claim that is to be deemed true when construed as a claim about what transcends FTI but as
false when construed as a claim about what has FTI. (Paradigm cases include various claims that Kant
considers whose truth is sensitive to the ambiguity in the expression ‘outside us’ that he notes in Kant
(1998), A373.) The same is not true of an exposition and/or defence of EI. Here it might be objected
that Berkeleian idealism, which is empirical if any idealism is, counts as transcendental by this
(admittedly inconclusive) test because it does involve such equivocation, in particular where phrases
such as ‘perceiver-independent’ are concerned: see e.g. Berkeley (1962), pp. 200–1. To pursue this
matter is far beyond the scope of this essay, although it is worth noting that any problem about the
application of this test to Berkeleian idealism may be a problem with Berkeleian idealism rather than a
problem with the test.
¹⁴ Kant (1998), A19/B33.
¹⁵ Kant (1998), A51/B75. The significance of this qualification will be clear in due course.
¹⁶ Kant (1998), A50–1/B74–5.
¹⁷ Kant (1998), A47/B64–5, B73, and Kant (2002a), §2. (But see below, n. 49, for some complications
in this connection.)
28    

sense of ‘concern’ in which the subject’s analytic armchair knowledge that all
vixens are female, say, concerns vixens, not the subject’s concept of a vixen, nor
any other part of the subject’s conceptual repertoire. There is a perfectly good
sense of ‘concern’, in other words, in which it concerns what is beyond the subject.
Indeed, my own view is that Kant allows for analytic armchair knowledge that
lacks content, that is to say, analytic armchair knowledge in which the concepts
involved do not relate to intuitions,¹⁸ and that even knowledge of this kind can, in
the relevant sense of ‘concern’, concern what is beyond the subject. An example
might be the subject’s knowledge that things in themselves are things irrespective
of how they are given to us, knowledge which concerns things in themselves.¹⁹
But whether or not we adopt this attenuated sense of ‘concern’ and say that
some analytic armchair knowledge concerns what is beyond the subject, two
associated questions arise. We can begin to appreciate the force of these questions
by noting that, to whatever extent it is appropriate to say that some analytic
armchair knowledge concerns what is beyond the subject, to that extent it is
likewise appropriate to regard such knowledge as part of the original puzzle—
the puzzle that Kant tries to solve by invoking transcendental idealism, or rather,
the puzzle part of which Kant tries to solve by invoking transcendental idealism.
For, although Kant holds that transcendental idealism is needed to solve the
puzzle with respect to synthetic armchair knowledge,²⁰ he also holds that it is
needed to solve the puzzle only with respect to synthetic armchair knowledge.²¹
And, whatever his reasons for holding this, they were not apparent in anything
I said in the previous section. The two questions are these.

(1) Would Kant allow that transcendental idealism can be invoked to solve the
puzzle with respect to analytic armchair knowledge too, even if it does not
have to be?
(2) What is it about synthetic armchair knowledge that makes Kant think that
transcendental idealism must be invoked to solve the puzzle with respect to it?

3. Invoking Transcendental Idealism to Account for Analytic

Armchair Knowledge

Let us begin with question (1). Kant certainly thinks that the puzzle with respect to
analytic armchair knowledge can be solved without recourse to transcendental

¹⁸ This is what I had in mind in n. 15. For arguments against the view that Kant would acknowledge
any such knowledge see Kreis 2023, esp. §6. I remain unpersuaded.
¹⁹ See e.g. Kant (1998), A258–60/B314–15. Note that the distinction between knowledge and cognition
that many Kantian exegetes draw is very pertinent to what I am suggesting here and may help to make
what I am suggesting appear less exegetically contentious: see A. W. Moore (2012), ch. 5 n. 13.
²⁰ See Kant (1998), B41 and A92/B124–5. ²¹ See e.g. Kant (2002a), §5.
   29

idealism. It is enough, Kant thinks, to note that the subject can have such
knowledge just by analysing the concepts involved.²² In effect, then, Kant is saying
that, even if analytic armchair knowledge does concern what is beyond the subject,
the sense in which it does so is sufficiently attenuated—it really just comes down
to the fact that the concepts involved apply to what is beyond the subject²³—that
there is no need, in accounting for such knowledge, to relate the form of what
the subject has knowledge of to the subject in any way, still less to acknowledge the
i-dependence, still less to acknowledge the i-dependence in such a way that some
of the subject’s knowledge is to be seen as knowledge from a particular point of
view that admits of alternatives.
There is no need to do this. But the question is whether Kant would have any
quarrel with a philosopher who, perhaps in an attempt to give a unified account of
all armchair knowledge, does do this. Thus imagine a philosopher who urges that
the form of what is beyond the subject, which depends on the subject and to which
the subject’s armchair knowledge pertains, is not confined to those of its essential
features that Kant famously fastens on—its spatio-temporality, its subjection to
causal laws, et cetera—but extends to all those of its essential features that are in
any way conceptual, such as the feature of being, if a vixen, female; and that the
contingency of the i-dependence is no less a mark of the subject’s general
conceptualization of things than it is of the subject’s spatio-temporal intuition
of them. Such a philosopher does not have to disagree with Kant’s claim that, in
order to have analytic armchair knowledge, the subject need only analyse the
concepts involved: this extension of Kant’s transcendental idealism might be
intended as an explication of that claim, not as a challenge to it. So to repeat:
would Kant have any quarrel with such a philosopher?
In fact he would. For Kant holds that the subject can have thoughts concerning
things in themselves. I earlier suggested that some analytic armchair knowledge
could serve as an example; but, even if that suggestion is open to dispute, there are
uncontentious examples, such as the thought that we are free.²⁴ And a philosopher
who holds that the subject’s conceptualization of things contributes as much to the
contingency of the i-dependence as the subject’s spatio-temporal intuition of
things must, in Kant’s view, hold that the subject’s thinking, no less than the
subject’s intuiting, is always of appearances rather than of things in themselves.
But to say that Kant would have a quarrel with such a philosopher is not to say
that he would be justified in having it. The question remains what error, in Kant’s
own terms, such a philosopher would be committing; and why Kant is not forced

²² Kant (1998), A7/B11.

²³ And it comes down to this, of course, only when the concepts involved do apply to what is beyond
the subject. The subject’s knowledge that mermaids have fishes’ tails is arguably another example of
analytic armchair knowledge and can arguably be said, in the same attenuated sense of ‘concern’, to
concern mermaids. Cf. Kant (1998), A290–2/B346–9.
²⁴ Kant (1998), Bxxvi–xxx.
30    

to conclude, again in his own terms, albeit against his own conviction, that the
subject’s thinking is always of appearances rather than of things in themselves. We
can put it this way: when Kant argues from the existence of armchair knowledge
concerning what is beyond the subject to the truth of transcendental idealism, at
what point in his argument does he make crucial appeal to the fact that the
armchair knowledge is synthetic and what, in his own terms, would preclude
someone’s extending the argument to armchair knowledge that is analytic?
This question is surprisingly unstraightforward. To be sure, there are, in Kant’s
presentation of his argument, frequent appeals to the fact that the armchair
knowledge is synthetic.²⁵ But if the argument were reworked to eliminate these
appeals, it is not obvious what would prevent it from continuing to meet with
success; or rather, it is not obvious what would prevent it from continuing to meet
with whatever success it meets with in the first place.²⁶
Here are two responses that Kant might give at this point. First, he might say
that his own argument for transcendental idealism is an inference to the best
explanation (in fact, an inference to the only possible explanation) and that what
would prevent it from meeting with the same success if extended to analytic
armchair knowledge is the fact that, although it would still count as an inference
to an explanation—of how we can have such knowledge—it would no longer
count as an inference to the best explanation, because the simpler explanation
involving nothing but the subject’s analysis of the concepts involved would still be
available. Second, he might say that, not only does he want to allow for thoughts
about things in themselves, which the extended version of the argument would
rule out, but he is obliged to allow for thoughts about things in themselves,
‘otherwise there would follow the absurd proposition that there is an appearance
without anything that appears’.²⁷
Neither of these responses is entirely satisfactory however. The first may beg
crucial questions about the relative virtues of rival explanations. Why do the unity
and the power of an explanation that applies to all armchair knowledge not count
for more than the simplicity of an explanation that applies only to analytic
armchair knowledge? To be sure, there would be an obvious answer to this
question if the first response were buttressed by the second. But the second may
beg crucial questions of its own about the coherence of Kant’s transcendental
idealism: if the extended version of his argument leads to a contradiction, it may
be a contradiction to which Kant is destined, eventually, to be led anyway.
These are enormous issues. I shall say no more about them at this juncture
(though I shall return to the issue of the coherence of transcendental idealism in
section 5). Instead I want to take a slight detour that will bring us back to
question (2).

²⁵ See e.g. Kant (1998), ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’, §8.

²⁶ See e.g. the summary of the argument in Kant (1998), Bxvi–xviii. ²⁷ Kant (1998), Bxxvi.
   31

4. Invoking Transcendental Idealism to Account for Synthetic

Armchair Knowledge

We have seen that one of the attractions of Kant’s transcendental idealism is that
it accounts for (some) knowledge of what is necessary, as necessary, by locating
a grounding for the necessity in contingency. But there are views other than
transcendental idealism, indeed views that are not versions of idealism at all,
that have title to the same claim. Consider, for instance, the view according to
which the subject’s knowledge that vixens are female consists in command of a
particular rule of representation, namely the rule that prohibits counting a
creature as a vixen without also counting that creature as female. As before,
there is an issue about whether such knowledge can be said to concern what is
beyond the subject, in however attenuated a sense, or whether it is better described
as concerning the subject’s conceptual repertoire or something of that sort. Be that
as it may, there is certainly a sense in which it is knowledge of a contingency. For
there might never have been any such rule (at least not if rules are conceived as
social institutions, which is how I am conceiving them in this essay). The point,
however, is that the necessity concerned is not thereby compromised. If there had
never been any such rule, vixens would not have failed to be female. Rather, what
sex vixens are would not have been an issue for anyone: no one would have
thought in those terms. Vixens would not have failed to be female, because vixens
must be female. And this ‘must’ is as hard as it either can or need be.²⁸
Now any view of this kind—any Wittgensteinian view, as I shall say²⁹—would
be a variant of Kant’s view of analytic armchair knowledge. There would be
differences, to be sure. Indeed there would be differences large enough for it to
count as a rival view.³⁰ But there would also be a clear family resemblance which
there assuredly would not be where Kant’s view of synthetic armchair knowledge
is concerned. And, in exploring why not, we shall be helped on our way towards
addressing question (2).³¹
On a Wittgensteinian view, there is a clear sense in which, given any item of
knowledge to which the view applies, such as the knowledge that vixens are
female, sheer familiarity with the concepts involved ensures that one can see the
truth of what is known. (This is not because one can derive the truth of what is
known from familiarity with the concepts involved. The order of derivation, in so
far as there is one, is rather the reverse: one does not count as familiar with the

²⁸ Cf. Wittgenstein (1978), pt VI, §49, and McDowell (1993), pp. 282 ff.
²⁹ But I shall make no attempt to justify the exegesis here. For discussion see A. W. Moore (2019b), §1.
³⁰ For discussion of why it would count as a rival view, possibly even to the extent of having no truck
with the notion of analyticity, and for some relevant references to Wittgenstein, see again A. W. Moore
(2019b), §1.
³¹ Some of what follows, both in this section and the next, is based on A. W. Moore (2016), which is
in turn a response to Baiasu (2016). I am grateful to Sorin Baiasu for the stimulus provided by his
excellent essay.
32    

concepts involved unless one has command of the relevant rule.) But on Kant’s
view of synthetic armchair knowledge, there is no clear sense in which, given any
item of knowledge to which the view applies, sheer familiarity with the concepts
involved ensures that one can see the truth of what is known; precisely not. Kant
insists that one cannot see the truth of what is known, in such a case, without
appeal to the intuitions involved.
What Kant would accept, even in such a case, is that sheer familiarity with the
concepts involved ensures that one can see how things must be for what is known
to be true. In other words, it ensures that one can see, not the truth of what is
known, but the truth conditions of what is known. This is in contrast to sheer
familiarity with the logical form of what is known, which leaves the truth
conditions of what is known undetermined.³² This in turn explains why, if one
wanted to show that what is known is not an analytic truth, one could not avail
oneself of any analogue of a procedure that would be available to show that what is
known is not a logical truth. If one wanted to show that what is known is not a
logical truth, one could specify a false proposition with the same logical form. If
one wanted to show that what is known is not an analytic truth, by contrast, one
would have to reckon with alternatives to that very truth. And this of course
means that, as far as the concepts involved are concerned, there had better be
alternatives to that very truth. Suppose, for instance, that the truth in question is
that the sum of the angles in a triangle is equal to two right angles. Then there had
better be alternatives in which the sum of the angles in a triangle is something
other than two right angles. If no such alternative existed—if no such alternative
existed, mind, not just if no such alternative were realized—then no such alterna-
tive would remain to be ruled out by anyone familiar with the concepts involved.
And then there would be a sense, a clear sense, in which sheer familiarity with the
concepts involved would ensure that one could see the truth of what is known.
But now we are in sight of an answer to question (2), about why Kant thinks
that transcendental idealism is needed to solve the original puzzle with respect to
synthetic armchair knowledge. On Kant’s view, synthetic armchair knowledge,
qua synthetic, is knowledge of a truth that admits of alternatives in the way just
outlined; but, qua armchair, it is knowledge of a truth that in some sense admits
of no alternatives. It is knowledge, somehow, both of a contingency and of a
necessity. Now so too, as we have seen, is the subject’s knowledge that vixens are
female, on the Wittgensteinian view. The difference is that, in the Wittgensteinian
case, there does not even appear to be any conflict between the contingency and
the necessity: the necessity attaches to the known truth itself, that vixens are

³² Here and subsequently in this paragraph, I am prescinding from the fact that, strictly speaking,
there is no such thing as ‘the’ logical form of what is known: if what is known is a conjunction, for
example, then, even so, it has as one of its logical forms simply ‘p’. Properly formulating the main point
that I wish to make in this paragraph, so as to take this fact into account, would involve (tendentious)
considerations about complete logical analysis that need not detain us now.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 – Az azonban bizonyos, hogy azok a tojások, amelyeket mi
találtunk, olyan frissek voltak, mintha éppen akkor tojták volna őket.
Frissek! Amint lecipeltük őket a csónak felé, az egyik néger fickó
elejtette az egyik tojást és összetört. Hogy összeszidtam a
nyomorultat! De olyan édes volt a tojás, még csak szaga sem volt és
az anyja már vagy négyszáz éve halott volt!
– De nagyon is eltérek elbeszélésem tárgyától. Egész napunkat
azzal töltöttük, hogy a mocsárban ástunk és ástunk, hogy sértetlenül
hozzájuthassunk a tojásokhoz, nyakig sárosak voltunk, én meg
szörnyen dühöngtem. Amennyire én tudom, ezek voltak az egyedüli
tojások, amelyeket teljesen épségben sikerült idáig kiásni. Később
elmentem és megnéztem azokat a tojásokat, amelyeket a British
Múzeumban őriznek. Mind össze volt törve és csak
összeragasztották őket, mint holmi mozaikot, de még így is
hiányoznak belőlük nagy darabok. Az enyémek kifogástalan
állapotban voltak és én ki akartam fújni őket hazatérésem után. Ilyen
körülmények között igazán érthető, hogy nem bírtam haragommal,
amikor az a szamár szerecsen három óra nehéz munkájának
gyümölcsét eltörte a sziklán, egyszerűen azért, mert egy százlábú
megcsípte a lába ujját. – Alaposan megvertem.
A vágottképű ember pipát húzott ki a zsebéből.
Átnyújtottam a dohányzacskómat.
Szórakozottan megtöltötte a pipáját.
– Mi történt a többi tojással? Hazahozta őket?
– Ez éppen a különös a történetben. Még három másik tojásom
volt. Kifogástalanul friss tojások. Nos, a csónakba raktuk őket és én
visszamentem a sátorba, hogy kávét főzzek. A két szerecsent lent
hagytam a parton, az egyik még mindig a csípés miatt sopánkodott,
a másik pedig segített neki ebben. Eszembe sem jutott, hogy a két
nyomorult visszaél majd helyzetemmel, de azt hiszem, a százlábú
csípésének mérge és a verés, amelyet tőlem kapott, egészen
megzavarta az egyiket – egy kicsit mindig hirtelenharagú volt – és
végül is sikerült rábeszélnie társát.
 – Emlékszem, ott ültem a sátorban, csöndesen pipáztam és egy
kis spirituszlámpán, amelyet mindig magamnál hordtam útjaimon,
kávét forraltam és csak úgy mellékesen a mocsár szépségeit
bámultam a naplemente rőtvörös fényében. Egészen fekete és vörös
volt minden, mondhatom igazán festő ecsetjére volt méltó a látvány.
– És alig ötven méternyire mögöttem ott állott a két átkozott
szerecsen. Figyelmet sem fordítottak a természet szépségeire,
hanem összeesküvést szőttek ellenem. Azt főzték ki sötét
agyvelejükben, hogy megszöknek a csónakkal és engemet
otthagynak a puszta szigeten, ócska vászonsátrammal, alig
háromnapi élelemmel, egy csepp ivóvíz nélkül. Egyszerre csak
kiáltást hallottam és mire visszafordulok, már bent ültek a kis
lélekvesztőben – igazán túlzás lett volna csónaknak nevezni – és
már vagy húsz méternyire voltak a parttól. Nyomban tisztában
voltam a helyzettel. Puskám a sátorban hevert és még hozzá nem is
volt golyóspuska, hanem csak sörétes. Persze, a gazemberek ezzel
eleve tisztában voltak. De a nadrágzsebemben ott volt kis
revolverem, amelyet sohasem hagytam el és miközben a part felé
rohantam, kirántottam a zsebemből.
– Azonnal gyertek vissza! – kiáltottam utánuk parancsolóan.
– Valamit visszakiáltottak, amit nem hallottam és széles vigyor ült
ki annak a négernek az arcára, akit megvertem. A másikat vettem
célba, mert az sértetlen volt és ő kezelte az evezőt, de a lövés nem
talált. Csak kacagtak rajtam. Mindazonáltal nem éreztem magamat
még vertesnek. Tudtam, csak hidegvéremet kell megőriznem. Ujból
céloztam és lőttem és most már nem nevetett többé, hanem felugrott
üléséből. A harmadik lövésem fejen találta és a következő
pillanatban holtan bukott ki a csónakból, magával víve az evezőt is a
mélybe. Pompás lövés volt, egy olyan kis revolverből negyven
méterre! Többé nem is bukkant fel a víz felszínére. Nem tudom,
lövésem ölte-e meg, vagy pedig csak megsebesült és aztán a vízbe
fult. Még egyszer ráparancsoltam a másik fickóra, hogy azonnal
térjen vissza, de ő csak összehúzódzkodott a lélekvesztő mélyén és
nem is válaszolt. Kilőttem utána revolverem minden töltényét, de
nem találtam el egyszer sem.
 – Nagy szamárnak éreztem magam, annyit mondhatok. Ott
álltam azon a rohadt, fekete parton, mögöttem a mocsár, előttem a
végtelen tenger síma tükre, és az átkozott csónak csöndesen kifelé
tartott az óceán végtelenjén. Mondhatom, nem kíméltem
Dawsonékat és a múzeumokat és minden ostoba régiséggyüjtőt, de
hiába kiabáltam az után a néger után, csak nem jött vissza, míg
végre is teljesen berekedtem.
– Igazán nem maradt más hátra, mint hogy utána ússzam és
megkíséreljem szerencsémet a cápákkal. Így aztán kinyitottam
vadászkésemet, fogaim közé kaptam, pillanat alatt ledobtam a
ruhámat és begázoltam a tengerbe. Mihelyt a vízben voltam,
nyomban elvesztettem szem elől a lélekvesztőt, de úgy számítottam,
hogy mégis utól tudom érni. Azt reméltem, hogy az átkozott néger
nem tudja majd elkormányozni a csónakot és így majd csak sodródni
fog. Egyszerre ismét feltünt a horizont síkján, délnyugati irányban.
Ekkor már esteledni kezdett és lassanként feltüntek a csillagok az
égbolton. Nincs az az úszóbajnok, aki gyorsabb lett volna nálamnál,
de lábaim és karjaim hamarosan kifáradtak.
– Mindazonáltal egészen közel jutottam a csónakhoz, még
mielőtt a csillagok egészen felragyogtak volna. Amint sötétedett,
mindenféle foszforeszkáló dolgokat láttam a tengerben. Időnként
egészen beleszédültem. Végül is nem tudtam már megkülönböztetni
a csillagokat a foszforeszkáló tárgyaktól és nem tudtam, hogy a
fejemen úszom-e, vagy a sarkaimon. A lélekvesztő fekete volt, mint
a bűn és a kis hullámok, amelyeket orra a tengerben hasított,
ragyogtak, mint a folyékony arany.
– Amikorra utólértem, annyira kifáradtam, hogy nem volt annyi
erőm sem, hogy fel tudtam volna mászni a csónakba. Persze első
dolgom volt megtudni, hogy mi történt a négerrel. A csónak orrában
feküdt összegubbaszkodva, úgyhogy a lélekvesztő fara egészen
kiemelkedett a vízből. A csónak végébe húztam és lenyomtam a
vízbe, azt remélve, hogy erre mégis csak felébred. Azután
kezemben a nyitva tartott késsel nagynehezen felhúzódzkodtam a
csónakba, készen várva minden pillanatban a támadást. De a néger
még csak meg sem mozdult. Így azután ott ültem az apró
lélekvesztő farában a foszforeszkáló tengeren sodródva, várva, hogy
valami történjék.
– Egy idő multán nevén szólítottam a fickót, de nem kaptam
választ. Így ültünk azután órákon át kettesben a csónakban.
– Azt hiszem, egyszer-kétszer el is szundítottam. Amikor
felébredtem, felkelt a nap és láttam, hogy a néger halott és teste
egészen püffedt és vörös. A három tojás és a csontok ott hevertek a
csónak közepén, mellettük állott a vizeskulacs, valami kis kávé,
néhány darab piskóta és egy kanna spiritusz. Nem volt evezőm, sőt
semmi olyasféle sem, amit evezőként lehetett volna használni, így
aztán ölbetett kezekkel voltam kénytelen nézni, hogyan sodor
magával a tenger árja. Halottszemlét tartottam a néger felett s azt az
ítéletet hoztam, hogy valami ismeretlen kígyó, skorpió, vagy
százlábú gyilkolta meg. Ítéletem meghozatala után holttestét
bedobtam a tengerbe.
– Ennek elvégzése után egy korty vizet ittam, megettem néhány
piskótát és körülnéztem a síma tengeren. Azt hiszem, aki olyan
alacsonyról néz körül, nem láthat nagyon messzire, én legalább is
nem láttam semerre Madagaszkárt, sem semmi más nyomát a
szárazföldnek. Délnyugati irányban egy percre megpillantottam egy
vitorlát, amint délfelé haladt, de maga a hajótest soha sem tünt fel a
horizont felett.
– Hirtelen arra eszméltem, hogy a nap delelőjén áll és izzó
sugaraival szinte felforralja agyvelőmet. Először úgy próbáltam
védekezni a napszúrás veszedelme ellen, hogy minduntalan be-
bemártottam a fejem a tenger vizébe, de aztán eszembe jutott az a
régi ujság, amelybe szerszámaimat csomagoltam elindulásom előtt,
így aztán végigfeküdtem a csónak fenekén, magamra borítottam a
„Cape Argus“-t és attól kezdve nem bántottak többé a nap sugarai.
– Csodálatosak ezek az ujságok! Életemben még egyet sem
olvastam végig egészen addig a pillanatig, de különös dolgok
történnek az emberrel, amikor olyan egyedül van, mint én voltam.
Azt hiszem, vagy húszszor olvastam el a „Cape Argus“ minden
sorát, miközben a nap forró sugarai valósággal leolvasztották még a
festéket is a kis lélekvesztő orráról és oldalairól.
– Tíz napig sodort magával a tenger árja – folytatta a vágottképű
ember. – Ugy-e nem sokat jelent, amikor az ember csak így mesél
róla? Egyik nap olyan volt, mint a másik. Kivéve a reggeleket és az
estéket még csak ki se pillantottam ujságpapírsátram alól, olyan
pokoli volt a hőség. Az első napokban még csak vitorlát sem láttam
feltünni a horizonton, amelyeket pedig láttam, azok nem vettek
tudomást rólam. A hatodik éjjelen történt, hogy alig félmérföldnyire
tőlem hajó haladt el, amelynek minden ablakából fény sugárzott a
fekete tengerre. Egészen olyan volt, mint valami óriási
szentjánosbogár. Felálltam a csónakban, úgy kiabáltam és
üvöltöttem utána.
– A második napon feltörtem az egyik aepyornis tojást,
megkóstoltam és boldog voltam, hogy ehetőnek találtam. A szaga
ugyan nem volt a legjobb, de ezzel nem azt akarom mondani, hogy a
tojás volt rossz, csak éppen valamennyire a kacsatojás ízére
emlékeztetett. Az egyik oldalán egy gömbölyű foltot találtam, amely
vagy tizenöt centiméter átmérőjű lehetett s ezen a folton, mintha
vékony vérér vonult volna végig és egy fehér, létraszerű rajzot
fedeztem fel. Akkor még fogalmam sem volt róla, hogy mi lehet a
különös dolog, aztán meg nem is voltam nagyon válogatós. A tojás
eltartott három napig a piskóták és a víz segítségével. Időnként
nyers kávészemeket is ettem, mert tudtam, hogy milyen
nagyszerűen erősíti az emberi szervezetet a nyers kávé.
– A második tojást, körülbelül a nyolcadik napon törtem fel és
egészen elborzadtam.
A vágottképű ember elhallgatott elbeszélésében.
– Igen – mondotta. – Fejlődésben volt.
– El tudom képzelni, hogy el se akarja hinni. Még én is úgy
voltam vele, pedig ott volt előttem a dolog, hiszen a tojás vagy
négyszáz évig feküdt a fekete, hideg mocsár mélyén. De tévedésről
szó sem lehetett. Ott volt előttem – hogy is hívják csak? – az embrió
nagy fejével és görbe hátával, a szíve ott lüktetett a torkában és a
tojás fehérje már egészen ráncos volt és a vékonyka
pergamentszerű réteg, mely a tojás fehérje és héja között volt,
minduntalan meg-megremegett. Ott álltam a legnagyobb, kihalt
madár óriás tojásait költögetve egy kis lélekvesztőben az Indiai
óceán kellős közepén! Ha az öreg Dawson tudta volna! Igazán
megérte volna még neki is négyévi fizetésemet. Mit gondol maga a
dologról?
– Akárhogy állt is az ügy, kénytelen voltam megenni az undorító
dolgot, kénytelen voltam még a legkisebb falatokat is kikaparni,
mielőtt megpillantottam volna a kis sziget partját, pedig mondhatom,
egyik-másik falat igazán rettenetes volt. A harmadik tojáshoz hozzá
sem nyultam. A nap felé tartottam, de a héjja túlvastag volt ahhoz,
hogy meglássam, mi játszódik le belsejében, bár azt képzeltem,
hogy hallom benne a vér lüktetését, de lehet, hogy ez csak a fülem
zúgása volt, mint amit az ember akkor szokott hallani, ha kagylót tart
a füléhez.
– Végül mégis csak feltünt valami szárazföld előttem. Éppen a
kelő nap alatt tünt fel váratlanul, egészen közel hozzám. A tenger
árja feléje sodort és vagy félmérföldnyire jártunk már csak a parttól,
amikor az áramlat egyszerre megfordult. Minden erőm
megfeszítésével vadul evezni kezdtem kezeimmel és az aepyornis
tojás darabkáival, hogy elérjem a szigetet. Nagynehezen partra is
jutottam. A megszokott apró kis korallzátony volt, talán négy mérföld
lehetett a kerülete, néhány fa is nőtt rajta, a közepén forrás
csörgedezett és a kis laguna tele volt hallal. A tojást magammal
vittem a partra és jó messze a tengertől, ahol az ár már nem érhette
el, kitettem a napra, hogy megadjak minden lehetőséget a számára,
azután partra vontam a kis lélekvesztőt.
– Amikor végeztem ezzel, bekóboroltam a szigetet. Fantasztikus,
hogy milyen unalmas tud lenni egy ilyen korallzátony. Abban a
pillanatban, amikor forrásra találtam, már el is tünt minden
érdeklődésem. Gyerekkoromban azt képzeltem, hogy semmi sem
lehet pompásabb és kalandosabb, mint Robinson Crusoe életét élni,
de az a sziget olyan unalmas volt, mint valami prédikációs könyv.
Ehető dolgok után kutattam és elgondolkodtam, de mondhatom,
halálos unalom vett rajtam erőt, még mielőtt az első nap végetért
volna. Szerencsémet igazolja, hogy még aznap, amikor partra
szálltam, az időjárás egyszerre megváltozott. Égiháború vonult végig
a kis szigeten és a tengeren olyan rettenetes hullámok voltak, hogy
a kis lélekvesztőben igazán ott kellett volna vesznem.
– A csónak alján aludtam, a tojás szerencsére jóval feljebb volt a
homokban és az első dolog, amire emlékszem, az volt, mintha száz
apró kavics pattogott volna egyszerre a csónakon és egy hullám
csapott volna keresztül rajtam. Azt álmodtam éppen, hogy
Antananarivóban vagyok és felültem és odaszóltam Intoshinak, hogy
megkérdezzem a lánytól, mi a fene történt, azután önkéntelenül
kinyujtottam a kezemet, hogy megkeressem a gyufát az
éjjeliszekrényen. Csak akkor jutott eszembe, hogy tulajdonképpel hol
is vagyok. Foszforeszkáló hullámok rohantak felém, mintha csak be
akarnának kapni, de ezektől eltekintve koromsötét volt körülöttem
minden. A felhők olyan alacsonyan jártak, hogy szinte attól féltem,
beléjük verem a fejemet és az eső úgy zuhogott, mintha egyszerre
szakadt volna meg az ég minden csatornája. Egy óriási hullám
közeledett felém fenyegetőleg, mint valami tüzes kígyó és én
elfutottam előle. Azután eszembe jutott a kanoe és visszarohantam a
partra, de a hullám addigra már magával ragadta az óceán mélyébe
a kis lélekvesztőt. Azután eszembe jutott a tojás és feléje
tapogatóztam a sötétben. Semmi baja nem történt és még a
legvadabb hullámok sem tudtak a közelébe jutni. Leültem a tojás
mellé, hogy legalább valami társaságom legyen. Úristen, micsoda
éjszaka is volt az!
– Reggelre nyoma sem volt többé a viharnak. A parton apró kis
fadarabkák hevertek, hogy úgy mondjam lélekvesztőm csontváza,
de ez legalább valami munkát adott nekem, mert két borda együtt
maradt a borzalmas éjszaka dacára is s ebből azután valami
vihartető félét eszkábáltam össze magamnak.
– És aznap délelőtt a tojás kikelt.
 – Kikelt uram, mialatt fejem rajta nyugodott és én nyugodtan
aludtam. Egyszerre csak azt éreztem, hogy valami mozog mellettem.
Fölültem, láttam, hogy a tojás vége fel van törve és egy különös kis
barna fej néz rám kíváncsian.
– Úristen! – kiáltottam fel – Üdvözöllek, – azzal nagynehezen
kimászott a tojásból.
Eleinte barátságos, kedves kis fickó volt, akkora lehetett, mint
egy jól megtermett tyúk és egészben véve olyan volt, mint a legtöbb
más fiatal madár, csak persze nagyobb volt. Piszkosbarna pehely
borította és alig volt tolla. El se tudom mondani, hogy megörültem
neki. Mondhatom, Robinson Crusoe sem érezhette magát
elhagyatottabnak szigetén, mint én, mielőtt barátom kikelt volna a
tojásból. De most aztán már érdekes társam akadt. Rámnézett,
szemével hunyorgatott egyet, ahogy a csirkék szoktak, menten
csipogni kezdett és a földön csipegetett, minthogyha nem négyszáz
évvel elkésve kelt volna ki tojásából.
– Örülök, hogy üdvözölhetlek, Péntek! – szólítottam meg, mert
azt természetesen már régen elhatároztam, hogy Pénteknek fogom
keresztelni, ha kibújik a tojásból. Eleinte aggodalmaim voltak, hogy
lesz-e mivel táplálnom, de amikor egy kis nyers halat adtam neki,
amit rögtön bekapott és ismét kitátotta a csőrét, hogy adjak még,
megnyugodtam. Igazán örültem, hogy nem volt válogatós, mert az
adott körülmények között ebben az esetben igazán kénytelen lettem
volna végül is megenni őt.
– El sem tudja képzelni, milyen érdekes madár volt az az
aepyornis-csirke. Kezdettől fogva nem tágított a sarkamtól. Ott állott
mellettem és úgy nézte, hogy halászok a lagunában és én persze
elfeleztem vele mindent, amit fogtam. És nagyon értelmes is volt. A
parton különös alakú, kis zöld dolgok voltak, egészen olyanok, mint
a hámozott uborka, de Péntek csak egyszer próbálkozott meg
eggyel, amikor rosszul lett tőle, soha többé rájuk sem nézett.
– És hogy nőtt! Szinte szemmelláthatólag lett egyre nagyobb és
nagyobb. Én sohasem voltam társaságba járó ember s így aztán
csöndes és barátságos viselkedése nagyon megfelelt nekem. Közel
két éven át a legnagyobb boldogságban éltünk a szigeten. Nem
voltak üzleti gondjaim, mert tudtam, hogy fizetésem közben egyre
gyülik Dawsonéknál. Egyszer-másszor feltünt egy-egy vitorla a távoli
horizonton, de soha hajó nem jött a közelünkbe. Azzal szórakoztam,
hogy a szigetet kagylókkal, kövekkel, kavicsokkal díszítgettem,
úgyhogy a végén a part mentén mindenütt ott állott nagy betükkel,
hogy Aepyornis Sziget, mint ahogy odahaza a vasúti állomásoknál a
vasúti őrök, síma fehérkavicsokból rakják ki az állomás nevét.
Amikor ezzel a munkával végeztem, mindenféle matematikai és
geometriai képleteket raktam ki kagylóból és kavicsból és a
legkülönbözőbb rajzokat készítettem hasonló módon.
– Amikor belefáradtam ebbe a munkába is, lefeküdtem és
elnéztem, hogy jár-kel a különös madár és hogy növekszik egyre
nagyobbra és nagyobbra. Eszembe jutott, milyen vagyont
kereshetek majd vele, ha valaha sikerül elkerülnöm a szigetről.
Nagyon meg is szépült az óriás madár, szép kék tollai nőttek a
dereka táján, hátul pedig óriási zöld tollak borították. Sokat törtem a
fejemet, vajjon Dawsonéknak joguk van-e a madárhoz, vagy sem?
Amikor vihar szántott végig a tengeren és az esős évszakban ott
kuporogtunk egymás mellett a kis fedél alatt, amelyet az öreg
lélekvesztőből készítettem, hazugságokat meséltem neki régi
barátaimról. Amikor a viharok elültek, mindig körbejártuk együtt a
szigetet, hogy megnézzük nem vetettek-e valamit partra a hullámok.
Azt lehet mondani, hogy egyenesen idillikus életet éltünk és hogy ha
dohányom is lett volna, egyenesen a mennyországban éreztem
volna magamat.
– A második év vége felé történt, hogy paradicsomi életünknek
egyszerre vége szakadt. Péntek akkor már vagy öt méter magas
lehetett, nagy feje széles és baltaszerű volt, két nagy, sárgakarikás
barna szeme pedig egészen közel állott egymáshoz, akár az ember
szemei és nem pislantottak kétfelé, mint a csirkéé. Tollazata
gyönyörű volt, – nem olyan félgyászszerű, mint a struccéi, – hanem
inkább olyan, mint a kazuáré, már ami a szint és finomságot illeti.
– És ekkor történt, hogy egyszerre képzelődő kezdett lenni,
szemtelenkedett és természete egyre undokabbá vált.
 – Végre is elkövetkezett az idő, amikor kevesebb szerencsével
járt mindennapi halászatom és ettől kezdve különös, habozó
léptekkel járt nyomomban. Azt hittem, talán megint tengeri uborkát
evett, vagy valami más ilyen dolgot, de most nem a gyomrával volt
baja, hanem egyszerűen nem volt megelégedve velem. Én is éhes
voltam és amikor végre nagynehezen fogtam egy halat, magam
akartam megenni. Aznap reggel, úgy látszik, mind a ketten
ballábunkkal léphettünk ki képzeletbeli ágyunkból, mert abban a
pillanatban, hogy kirántottam a halat, Péntek nyomban lecsapott rá,
mert úgy látszik, hogy magában már ő is elvégezte, hogy a halat
egyedül fogja elfogyasztani.
Kénytelen voltam az orrára koppintani.
– Úristen! Erre nekem támadt…
– Ezt neki köszönhetem – mutatott az ember a csúnya sebre,
amely arcát eléktelenítette. – Azután megrugott. Olyan volt, mint
hogyha egy igásló talált volna teliben. Nagynehezen
föltápászkodtam és miután láttam, hogy még egyáltalán nem tekinti
befejezettnek az ügyet, eszeveszetten rohanni kezdtem, karjaimmal
takarva el arcomat. De ő azokkal a hosszú lábaival gyorsabban
futott, mint a legsebesebb versenyló és egyre-másra
gőzkalapácsszerű rugásokkal halmozott el, miközben baltafejével
minduntalan le-lecsapott a fejemre. A laguna felé vettem utamat és
nem nyugodtam addig, amíg nyakig benne nem ültem.
– Péntek a víz partján megállott, mert gyűlölte benedvesíteni a
lábát és szídni kezdett a partról. A hangja olyan volt, mint a páváé,
csak még rekedtebb és mondhatom, egyáltalán nem volt kellemes
hallgatni. Föl és alá sétált a laguna mentén és megvallom, nem
valami jól éreztem magam ennek az átkozott őslénynek a felügyelete
alatt. A fejem és az arcom csupa vér volt és… nos a testem csupa
sárga és kék folt. Elhatároztam, hogy átúszom a lagunát és egy
darabig egyedül hagyom, amíg el nem símulnak az ügy hullámai. A
túlparton felmásztam a legmagasabb pálmafára és volt időm
elgondolkozni a dolgok felett. Azt hiszem, semmin nem sértődtem
meg annyira, soha odáig és soha azóta, mint ennek az állatnak a rút
hálátlanságán. Igazán több voltam neki, mintha a testvére lettem
volna, hiszen én költöttem ki a tojásból és én neveltem fel. Egy ilyen
óriási, nyurgalábú, divatból kiment madár! És én, a büszke emberi
nem egyik tagja! Az évezredek örököse és a többi ehhez hasonló
mondás mind az eszembe jutott egyszerre.
– Azt reméltem, hogy egy idő után ő maga is ebben a színben
fogja látni a dolgokat és meg fogja bánni magatartását. Azt
reméltem, hogy ha sikerül majd néhány szép halat fognom és azután
egyszerre, mintha csak véletlenül történne, elmennék mellette és
megkínálnám vele, Péntek mégis csak eszére térne. Jó időbe telt,
míg megtanultam, hogy egy kihalt madárféle mennyire nem tud és
nem akar felejteni és megbocsájtani.
– Ez csak igazán rosszakarat volt?
– El se mondom, mi mindennel próbálkoztam, hogy megnyerjem
a madár jóindulatát. De nem is tudnám elmondani. Még most is elönt
a szégyen, ha eszembe jut, hogy mennyi visszautasításban és
mennyi gőgös lenézésben volt részem ennek az átkozott madárnak
a részéről. Megpróbálkoztam az erőszakkal is. Biztos távolságról
korálldarabokat vágtam hozzá, de ő egyszerűen csak lenyelte
azokat. Célbavettem vadászkésemmel, de majdnem elvesztettem
még azt is, ha mindjárt egy kicsit nagy is volt ahhoz, hogy lenyelje.
Megpróbáltam kiéhez tetni, fölhagytam a halászattal, de ő
egyszerűen lement a partra és az apály idején férgeket fogott.
Életem felét nyakig a laguna vizében töltöttem, másik felét pedig
fönt, a pálmafák tetején. Egyszer eltévesztettem megszokott fámat
és véletlenül egy alacsonyabbra találtam fölmászni. Amikor Péntek
ezt észrevette, rögtön ott termett és mondhatom, karácsonyt
ünnepelt puszta combjaimon.
– A dolog kezdett kibírhatatlanná válni. Nem tudom, próbált-e
már ön pálmafa tetején aludni? Mondhatom, nekem a
legborzalmasabb álmaim voltak odafönn. És aztán képzelje csak a
szégyent! Ott volt ez a kihalt, madár, amely úgy járkált az én
szigetemen, mint valami elvarázsolt herceg és én még csak lábamat
sem tehettem szilárd talajra. Sokszor bizony kínomban sírva
fakadtam. Egyenesen a szemébe vágtam, hogy egyáltalán nem
akarom, hogy egy elhagyott szigeten egy átkozott anakronizmus
hajszoljon egész nap. Megmondtam neki, hogy menjen és csipkedje
a saját korának tengerészeit. De ő egyszerűen hátat fordított nekem.
– Ronda, nyakigláb madár!
– Szégyellek csak rágondolni is, mennyi ideig éltem ezt az életet.
Már rég megöltem volna, ha tudtam volna, hogyan. De végül mégis
csak rájöttem, hogy bánhatok el vele. Még Délamerikában tanultam
meg a módját. Összefontam horgászó zsinegeimet, még tengeri
növények indáit is kevertem közbe, úgyhogy a végén, vagy tíz-
tizenkét méter hosszú, erős kötél boldog tulajdonosának
mondhattam magamat. A kötél végére két koráll darabot kötöttem.
Persze, sokáig tartott, míg munkámmal elkészültem, mert
minduntalan hol a lagunába kellett menekülnöm, hol egy fa tetejére
másznom, ahogyan éppen a helyzet hozta magával.
– Amikor elkészült végre a kötél, gyorsan megforgattam a fejem
fölött és elengedtem Péntek felé. Először elhibáztam, de
másodszorra a kötél mégis csak gyönyörűen lábai köré csavarodott
és a következő pillanatban Péntek már a földön hevert. Persze, nem
a szárazföldről dobtam feléje a bolát, hanem derékig a laguna
vizében álltam, ahol tudtam, hogy nem fog megtámadni, de abban a
pillanatban, amikor a földön volt, már kinn is voltam a vízből és
késemmel elkezdtem a nyakát fűrészelni…
– Még most sem szeretek rágondolni. Már akkor is gyilkosnak
éreztem magamat, bár akkor haragom még fennen lobogott.
Istenem, amikor ott álltam fölötte és láttam, hogy vérzik a fehér
homokon és hogy rángatóznak halálküzdelmében óriás lábai és
hosszú nyaka…
– Nem jó még csak rágondolni sem!
– Ezzel a tragikus befejezéssel az egyedüllét átka szakadt
egyszerre rám. Édes Istenem! El sem tudja képzelni, hogy hiányzott
nekem az a madár. Ott álltam holttesténél és valósággal
meggyászoltam. Összeborzadtam, amikor körülnéztem a végtelenül
csöndes, teljesen elhagyott puszta szigeten. Eszembe jutott, milyen
mulatságos, kedves madár is volt, amikor kikelt a tojásból és
eszembe jutott az a sok kedves tréfám is, amivel mulattatott, mielőtt
megváltozott volna.
– Eszembe jutott, hogy csak meg kellett volna sebesítenem és
aztán ápolás közben bizonyosan mégis csak jobb belátásra ébredt
volna. Ha akármilyen eszközöm is lett volna, amivel sírt tudtam volna
ásni, eltemettem volna. Valahogyan egészen emberinek éreztem
Pénteket, De miután erre gondolni sem lehetett és nem akartam
mégsem megenni, a lagunába dobtam és a kis halak tisztára rágták
csontjait. Még csak egy tollát sem tartottam meg emlékül.
– Azután egy szép napon valami hóbortos fickó, aki fejébe vette,
hogy megnézi, megvan-e még a szigetem, kikötött jachtjával.
– Éppen jókor jött, mert már igazán torkig voltam az egyedülléttel
és már csak afölött haboztam, hogy kisétáljak-e egyszerűen a
tengerbe és zárjam le így az ügyet, vagy pedig én is egyek azokból
a zöld dolgokból…
– A csontokat egy Winslow nevezetű embernek adtam el, egy
ritkaságkereskedőnek a British Múzeum környékén és Winslow azt
mondja, hogy ő rögtön továbbadta őket az öreg Hawersnek. Úgy
látszik, Hawers egyáltalán nem vette észre, hogy a csontok
tulságosan nagyok ahhoz, hogy struccéi lehetnének, így aztán csak
halála után jöttek rá az emberek. Nevet is adtak neki, úgy hívták,
hogy Aepyornis… Hogy is hívták csak?
– Aepyornis vastus, – segítettem rajta. Furcsa, hogy egy barátom
éppen a multkoriban beszélt róla. Amikor először bukkantak egy
aepyornisra, amelynek a csípőcsontja vagy egy méter hosszú volt,
azt hitték, hogy ennél nagyobbat már igazán el se lehet képzelni, így
azután elnevezték Aepyornis Maximusnak. Azután valaki más talált
egy másfélméteres csípőcsontot és ezt azután elnevezték Aepyornis
Titannak. Csak azután találták meg, az öreg Hawers halála után,
hagyatékában a maga vastus-át, de aztán még egy vastissimus is
előkerült.
 – Winslow is mondta ezt nekem, – jegyezte meg a vágottképű
ember – mégis csak különös, hogy ilyesvalami történhetik az
emberrel. Vagy nem?
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CSODÁLATOS
TÖRTÉNETEK ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S.

copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in
these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it
in the United States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of
this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept
and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and
may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the
terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of
the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as
creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research.
Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given
away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with
eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject
to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
 PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree
to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from
the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in
paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people
who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a
few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic
works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.
See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with
Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the
collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in
the United States and you are located in the United States, we do
not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing,
performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the
work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of
course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™
mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely
sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name
associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of
this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its
attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without
charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the
United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms
of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying,
performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this
work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes
no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in
any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must
appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™
work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or
with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is
accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived

from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a
notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright
holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the
United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must
comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through
1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted

with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted
with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of
this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project

Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a
part of this work or any other work associated with Project
Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you
provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work
in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in
the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that
s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all