Arguing that our attachment to Aristotelian modes of discourse makes a revision of their conceptual foundations long overdue, the author proposes the consideration of unacknowledged factors that play a central role in argument itself. These are in particular the subjective imprint and the dynamics of argumentation. Their inclusion in a four-dimensional framework and the focus on thesis validity allow for a more realistic view of our discourse practice. Exhaustive analyses of fascinating historical and contemporary arguments are provided. These range from (...) Columbus’s advocacy of the Western Passage to India, over the trial of King Louis XVI during the French Revolution, to today’s highly charged controversies surrounding euthanasia and embryo research. Excavating foundational issues such as the purpose of argument itself and the contested role of argument as a generator of knowledge, the book culminates in a discussion of the relationship between rationality and reasonableness and criticizes the restrictions of ‘rational’ argument relying on fixed logical, economic or cultural criteria that in reality are mutable. Here, a true, open argument requires the infusion of Paul Lorenzen’s principle of ‘transsubjectivity’, which recognizes but transcends the partiality of the individual and which can be seen in the pragmatic and expanding consensus that humanity can control itself to safeguard the future of a fragile, damaged world. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo defenderá la tesis de que es posible identificar los cimientos de la filosofía de la libertad desarrollada a partir de Kant en el pensamiento y la obra de Rousseau, en especial en su concepción de la relación esencial entre libertad y humanidad. Por medio de una metodología hermenéutica y crítica, el análisis estará concentrado en dilucidar el sentido histórico y filosófico de la concepción antropológica consolidada por Rousseau principalmente en sus dos primeros Discursos, para demostrar que la (...) libertad adquiere en ellos la significación inaudita de ser el principio que configura la humanidad del hombre y su destino. Se pondrá en evidencia también que esta nueva idea de humanidad sienta la base común desde la que parte el pensamiento filosófico posterior. En tal sentido, la argumentación mostrará la significación decisiva de la obra de Rousseau en relación con la conciencia moderna de la libertad.This paper will demonstrate that it is possible to identify the foundations of the philosophy of freedom that began with Kant in the work of Rousseau, specifically in his vision of an essential relationship between freedom and humanity. By means of a critical and hermeneutical method, the analysis focuses on elucidating the historical and philosophical meaning of the anthropological conception consolidated in his first two Discourses. The aim is to show that freedom acquires the unprecedented significance of becoming the principle of humanity and the ground that determines humankind's destiny. The results of this study suggest that this idea of humanity, defined by freedom, sets the basis for subsequent philosophical thinking and evidence the decisive importance of Rousseau for the modern consciousness of freedom. (shrink)

This essay centralizes and explores Ernst Cassirer’s concept of style. Although it does not emerge as much as the concept of form or symbol in Cassirer’s corpus, style plays a major—if intrinsic—role throughout the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. I shall examine how Cassirer’s conception of style is derived from Goethe’s theory of art and why it is fundamental to Cassirer’s theory of knowledge. Style is considered the defining feature of the cultural sciences, as well as the sign of the anthropological (...) character of the natural sciences, and, more generally, as the creative principle underlying all objectivity. I argue that it is therefore justified to read style as the fundamental yet variable expression of our symbolic relation to reality. Indeed, style refers neither to an abstract principle nor to a predetermined truth: it is a formative force actualizing itself in the incessant diversification of its forms. In so doing, Cassirer’s underexamined concept of style proves highly relevant in our times of epistemic and cultural pluralism. (shrink)

Kantian constitutivists, like Velleman and Korsgaard, argue that there are norms internal to individual agency. Yet as Gilbert and others have argued there may be norms internal to shared agency as well. Might political principles of justice be norms of this second kind? I turn to the history of philosophy for an answer, focusing on Rousseau’s classic work the Social Contract. Rousseau is much better known as a social contract theorist – but I argue that he is also a constitutivist (...) about group agency. This means he is a thinker for whom success or failure in realizing the demands of justice is nothing other than success or failure in acting together. Unjust regimes, e.g. despotic ones, are ones whose members fail to genuinely act together. Interpretively, this approach has the advantage of explaining away the appearance of totalitarian tendencies in Rousseau’s thinking (‘the general will is always right’). Philosophically, it has the advantage of revealing in Rousseau’s writings what I believe is a unique type of social contract theory, resolutely non-hypothetical and normatively robust. In the closing sections, I revisit the oft-raised question of Rousseau’s relation to Rawls in light of the interpretation of the former proposed here. (shrink)

El artículo reactualiza y defiende la potencialidad filosófica de La metamorfosis de las plantas, de Johann Wolfgang Goethe. A partir de la reflexión sobre sus claves conceptuales se desplegarán, a continuación, otros momentos de talante epistemológico relativos a su reflexión sobre la naturaleza, entre otros: la morfología como teoría de la forma, su comprensión de la ciencia como experiencia viva de los fenómenos y su reivindicación de la metamorfosis del científico.

En el presente trabajo me propongo analizar la caracterización de la violencia civil tal y como aparece desarrollada por Kant en la Crítica de la facultad de juzgar y en el opúsculo de 1798 “Replanteamiento de la cuestión sobre si el género humano se halla en continuo progreso hacia lo mejor”. En primer lugar defiendo la necesidad de atender expresamente al carácter normativo-prescriptivo del enjuiciamiento teleológico tal y como aparece expuesto en la tercera Crítica, esto con la finalidad expresa de (...) mostrar cuál es el alcance de dicha modalidad judicativa en la comprensión de la naturaleza en términos teleológicos. En un segundo momento desarrollo una interpretación del papel que desempeña la violencia civil dentro de la comprensión teleológica de la naturaleza como instancia propiciadora de cultura. Y, finalmente, argumento que para Kant no toda violencia civil está justificada ni admite ser integrada de manera legítima dentro del “relato teleológico” de la naturaleza cuando dicho relato es referido hacia acontecimientos futuros; en este último caso, la única violencia legítima es aquella que tiene como objetivo expreso potenciar socialmente las libertades individuales. (shrink)