The first work to offer a comprehensive pragmatist anthropology focusing on sensibility, habits, and human experience as contingently yet irreversibly enlanguaged.

The category of “former friend” is familiar, yet the nature of this relationship type remains underexplored. Aristotle, for example, poses but does not answer the question of what constitute appropriate relations between former friends. To elucidate post-friendship expectations, I promote an account of friendship according to which some of our most significant friendships participate in a type of intimacy characterized by having normative standing to interpret each other in a constitutive manner, which I call the “co-interpretation view” of friendship. Unchecked (...) powers of co-interpretation, however, invite and allow for violations of each friend’s personhood, so I draw on Kantian resources to guide the co-interpretation view and render it more plausible. These Kantian resources help to establish relevant expectations for co-interpretation between friends. This positions me to provide an account of appropriate expectations between former friends, which I analyze in three types of post-friendship circumstance: when the friendship has faded but the parties still share a general outlook; when the friendship has become damaging for the friends but not due to viciousness; and, when the friendship ruptures due to vicious behaviors. (shrink)

Although the literature on Nietzsche is now voluminous one area where there has surprisingly been very little research concerns Nietzsche on the passions. This essay aims to correct this neglect. My focus is on illuminating Nietzsche on the passions in relation to his primary teaching on self-cultivation. To illuminate his position, I focus attention on examining his relation to Stoic teaching on the passions. If for Nietzsche the Christian mind-set involves a disturbing pathological excess of feeling, the Stoic way of (...) living results for him in a petrified of life devoid of movement and growth. After a consideration of his relation to Stoic teaching I then examine his relation to Spinoza on the emotions or affects. Whilst I acknowledge the affinities between the two thinkers and their criticisms of Stoic teaching, I maintain that it is an error to seek to construe Nietzsche and Spinoza as having an identical teaching on the passions. In the final section of the essay, I provide an appreciation of Nietzsche’s recommendation that instead of demonising the passions in the manner of the Christian psyche and its legacy, or extirpating our passions as recommended by the Stoics, we need to learn how to transform them into joys or delights. (shrink)

It is important for the theory of knowledge to understand the factors involved in the generation of the capacities of knowledge. In the history of modern philosophy, knowledge is generally held to originate in either one or two sources, and the debates about these sources between philosophers have concerned their existence, or legitimacy. Furthermore, some philosophers have advocated scepticism about the human capacity to understand the origins of knowledge altogether. However, the developmental aspects of knowledge have received relatively little attention (...) both by past philosophers and in current philosophical discussions. This dissertation provides a historical approach to this developmental problem of knowledge by interpreting the developmental theories of knowledge of Maine de Biran (1766–1824) and Henri Bergson (18591941) from the perspective of a theory of the ‘generative factors of knowledge.’ It first studies the philosophies of Maine de Biran and Bergson separately and then brings together and compares the metaphilosophical aims drawn from these philosophers. The dissertation’s novel analysis, provided by its theory and structure, has far-reaching consequences. From a wide point of view, it fills in considerable scholarly gaps and provides great opportunities for future research in the study of the history of philosophy. From more specific points of view, it provides its most decisive contributions in such metaphysical and epistemological topics as the nature of causality, self-generated activity, the role of effort in knowing and learning, the complementary relationship between philosophy and science, and the non-conceptual basis of knowledge. (shrink)

In this chapter, we start by spelling out three important features that distinguish expressives—utterances that express emotions and other affects—from descriptives, including those that describe emotions (Section 1). Drawing on recent insights from the philosophy of emotion and value (2), we show how these three features derive from the nature of affects, concentrating on emotions (3). We then spell out how theories of non-natural meaning and communication in the philosophy of language allow claims that expressives inherit their meaning from specificities (...) of emotions—namely, from being felt, evaluative attitudes toward propositional or non-propositional contents (4). (shrink)

An important aspect of moral expertise is moral sensitivity, which is the ability to be sensitive to the presence of morally salient features in a context. This requires being able to see and acquire the morally relevant information, as well as organise and interpret it, so that you can undertake the related work of moral judgement, focus (or motivation) and action. As a distinct but interrelated component of ethical expertise, moral sensitivity can and must be trained and educated. However, despite (...) its importance to moral education, there has been comparatively little discussion about the role of ethical sensitivity and the ways that it can be trained within the context of Kant’s, and Kantian, ethics. This paper seeks to address this gap. While Kant does not explicitly focus in detail on moral sensitivity, by breaking sensitivity down into seven distinct aspects through drawing on the Four Component Model, we are able to identify a wealth of resources in Kant’s work from which we can con- struct an account of moral sensitivity education that draws on his underlying moral theory. (shrink)

In this paper, I first examine the classification of mental derangements contained in Kant’s "Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View", in order to highlight the role played by imagination in their pathogenesis. Later, on the basis of this examination, I reflect on the origins of critical philosophy, which can be seen as an attempt to construct a control device for the imagination structured as a systematic, organic space.

The paper discusses some thematic issues that emerge from the Kantian study of diseases of cognition and volition, taking into consideration his anthropological works and some problems emerging from his main critical works. Starting from the explanation of the taxonomy of the main mental illnesses, some epistemological themes will be illustrated, linked to the fallible relationship between transcendental truths and the empirical dimension of knowledge and to the Kantian concept of error. Subsequently, the study of affects and passions, conceived as (...) illnesses of volition, will show the difficulties linked to a total involvement of reason in moral action, concerning the shortcomings of human action with respect to the principle of responsibility. Finally, the paper will focus on the role of legal imputability in relation to moral responsibility and to mental diseases. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s notion of weakness or frailty warrants more attention, for it reveals much about his theory of motivation and general metaphysics of mind. As the first and least severe of the three grades of evil, frailty captures those cases where an agent fails to act on their avowed recognition that the moral law is the only legitimate determining ground of the will. The possibility of such cases raises many important questions that have yet to be settled by interpreters. Most (...) importantly, should we account for the failures of weakness by appealing to the activity of reason or sensibility? I will discuss this question in light of a tendency to adopt an overly dualistic reading of Kant’s moral psychology. Focusing on Kant’s remarks on weakness from the Religion and the Metaphysics of Morals, I argue that we should understand weakness as arising from the unique difficulties of sense-dependent judgment, rather than from self-deception, flagging commitment, or overwhelming desire. The resulting account offers a unified moral psychology capable of accommodating the many features of weakness that are difficult to reconcile on other readings. (shrink)

My dissertation covers a number of different topics in Kant scholarship, but is driven by one central question: how do our sense-based capacities to perceive, desire, and feel relate to our capacity to reason? I take the answer to this question to be key to understanding much about Kant’s philosophical system. For topics as diverse as the role that sensation plays in practical knowledge, the character of moral motivation, the nature of evil, or Kant’s theory that we are morally required (...) to believe in our immortality and God’s existence, I claim that the correct reading turns on a novel approach to the relation between our rational and sensitive capacities. To properly understand this relation, we must overcome the deeply entrenched thought that Kant inherits his conception of reason from the rationalists, and his conception of sense experience from the empiricists. This would be to adopt a fundamentally dualistic philosophy, on which reason and the senses are independently intelligible and sometimes even diametrically opposed. On Kant’s actual view, our capacities to perceive, feel, and desire are metaphysically interdependent with and thus not intelligible in isolation from our capacity to reason. Developing the details of this more unified position leads to satisfying philosophical accounts of a number of controversial issues in Kant scholarship that have suffered under a dualistic framework. (shrink)

Touch seems to enjoy some epistemic advantage over the other senses when it comes to attest to the reality of external objects. The question is not whether only what appears in tactile experiences is real. It is that only whether appears in tactile experiences feels real to the subject. In this chapter we first clarify how exactly the rather vague idea of an epistemic advantage of touch over the other senses should be interpreted. We then defend a “muscular thesis”, to (...) the effect that only the experience of resistance to our motor efforts, as it arises in effortful touch, presents us with the independent existence of some causally empowered object. We finally consider whether this muscular thesis applies to the perception of our own body. (shrink)

This dissertation may be divided into two parts. The first is about the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission. This model, introduced here, is meant to better explain how humans communicate and understand each other. It has been developed to apply to cases that were left unexplained by the two main models of communication found in contemporary philosophy and linguistics, i.e. the Gricean (pragmatic) model and the code (semantic) model. I discuss cases involving emotional reactions, ways of clothing, speaking, or (...) behaving that are not intended for communication but whose effects on the audience are controllable to some extent. I show why prevailing code and Gricean models cannot explain them and how my Extended Gricean Model does. The second part of the dissertation is about what emotional signs mean, in various senses of the term ‘mean'. I review existing theories of meaning and see how they apply to emotional signs, i.e. signs which give us information about the affective state of the sign producer. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to re-think the question of the world of persons with schizophrenia from the perspective of the German phenomenologist Max Scheler and that of the Japanese psychiatrist Bin Kimura. So far, no comparison between these two authors has been made, even though there are several convergences and evidence of Scheler’s indirect influence on Bin Kimura through Viktor von Weizsäcker. In recent years, Dan Zahavi, Louis Sass, and Josef Parnas have interpreted the modus vivendi of schizophrenic patients (...) in relation to a disturbance on the level of the “minimal self”. Subsequently, the discussion has highlighted the importance of disorders on the level of intercorporeality and intersubjectivity (Thomas Fuchs) and on the level of “existential feelings” (Matthew Ratcliffe). This paper argues that Max Scheler and Bin Kimura allow us to focus on an aspect which has been neglected so far: that of a “relational self” that relates to the very foundation of intersubjectivity and intercorporeality and that can thus be reborn in the encounter with the other and may position itself differently in the world. In Scheler’s perspective, the world of persons with schizophrenia is the result of an axiological disorder (valueception) that impairs contact with the primordial life impulse (Lebensdrang). As a consequence, they are incapable of attuning emotionally and socially with others: this prevents the singularity from being reborn in the encounter with the other and forces them to position themselves in their own solipsistic universe. Moving in a similar direction, Bin Kimura interprets the world of persons with schizophrenia as the result of a disorder of aida (one of the central concepts of Japanese culture that indicates the space of being in between). The disorder of aida compromises the basic relationship (Grundverhältnis in the sense of Viktor von Weizsäcker) and hinders what Bin Kimura calls festum, i.e. the birth of subjectivity, so that it is experienced by persons with schizophrenia only as ante festum. Starting from these two perspectives, I argue the existence of an axiological and anthropogenetic dimension of psychopathology. I begin with a discussion of Zahavi’s concept of minimal self and the thesis that reveals the disorders on this level of subjectivity as the origin of the world of persons with schizophrenia. I, then, analyze Max Scheler’s position and its historic importance for the emergence of phenomenological psychopathology. Thereafter, I introduce the concepts of “disorder of aida” (Bin Kimura) and “disorder of ordo amoris” (Max Scheler). Finally, I develop the concept of a “psychopathology of ordo amoris” by also comparing it with Ratcliffe’s thesis of “existential feelings”. (shrink)

The justification for harm reduction as an approach to drug use and addiction is seen by many to be consequentialist in form and it has been claimed that as a deontologist Kant would reject harm reduction. I argue this is wrong on both counts. A more nuanced understanding of harm reduction and Kant shows them compatible. Kant’s own remarks about intoxication reinforce this. Moreover, there is a Kantian argument that harm reduction is not only morally permissible but more consistent with (...) the Kantian duty of respect for autonomy than mandatory abstinence approaches. (shrink)

PLEASE NOTE: This is the corrected 2nd eBook edition, 2021. ●●●●● _Critique of Impure Reason_ has now also been published in a printed edition. To reduce the otherwise high price of this scholarly, technical book of nearly 900 pages and make it more widely available beyond university libraries to individual readers, the non-profit publisher and the author have agreed to issue the printed edition at cost. ●●●●● The printed edition was released on September 1, 2021 and is now available through (...) all booksellers, including Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and brick-and-mortar bookstores under ISBN 978-0-578-88646-6. ●●●●● In light of the length of this book, readers who would like to have a more detailed description of the book's objectives and method may find it helpful to read the detailed and clearly written Wikipedia entry about this work: From the Wikipedia search page, use the search phrase "Critique of Impure Reason". At least at the time of this writing (11/29/2021), the Wikipedia entry is well-researched and accurate. ●●●●● In addition, a "Primer on Bartlett's CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON" has been made available by the author. It is available under its title through PhilPapers and other philosophy online archives. ●●●●● COMMENDATIONS OF THIS WORK, from the back cover of the published edition: ●●●●● “I admire its range of philosophical vision.” – Nicholas Rescher, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, author of more than 100 books. ●●●●● “Bartlett’s _Critique of Impure Reason_ is an impressive, bold, and ambitious work. Careful scholarship is balanced by original analyses that lead the reader to recognize the limits of meaning, knowledge, and conceptual possibility. The work addresses a host of traditional philosophical problems, among them the nature of space, time, causality, consciousness, the self, other minds, ontology, free will and determinism, and others. The book culminates in a fascinating and profound new understanding of relativity physics and quantum theory.” – Gerhard Preyer, Professor of Philosophy, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, author of many books including _Concepts of Meaning_, _Beyond Semantics and Pragmatics_, _Intention and Practical Thought_, and _Contextualism in Philosophy_. ●●●●● “[This work’s] goal is of a unique and difficult species: Dr. Bartlett seeks to develop a formal logical calculus on the basis of transcendental philosophical arguments; in fact, he hopes that this calculus will be the formal expression of the transcendental foundation of knowledge.... I consider Dr. Bartlett’s work soundly conceived and executed with great skill.” – C. F. von Weizsäcker, philosopher and physicist, former Director, Max-Planck-Institute, Starnberg, Germany. ●●●●● “Bartlett has written an American “Prolegomena to All Future Metaphysics.” He aims rigorously to eliminate meaningless assertions, reach bedrock, and place philosophy on a firm foundation that will enable it, like science and mathematics, to produce lasting results that generations to come can build on. This is a great book, the fruit of a lifetime of research and reflection, and it deserves serious attention.” — Martin X. Moleski, former Professor, Canisius College, Buffalo, NY, studies of scientific method, the presuppositions of thought, and the self-referential nature of epistemology. ●●●●● “Bartlett has written a book on what might be called the underpinnings of philosophy. It has fascinating depth and breadth, and is all the more striking due to its unifying perspective based on the concepts of reference and self-reference.” – Don Perlis, Professor of Computer Science, University of Maryland, author of numerous publications on self-adjusting autonomous systems and philosophical issues concerning self-reference, mind, and consciousness. ●●●●● ●●●●● The _Critique of Impure Reason: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning_ comprises a major and important contribution to philosophy. Thanks to the generosity of its publisher, this massive 885-page volume has been published as a free open access eBook (3.75MB) as well as an open access printed edition. It inaugurates a revolutionary paradigm shift in philosophical thought by providing compelling and long-sought-for solutions to a wide range of philosophical problems. In the process, the work fundamentally transforms the way in which the concepts of reference, meaning, and possibility are understood. The book includes a Foreword by the celebrated German philosopher and physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. ●●●●● In Kant’s _Critique of Pure Reason_ we find an analysis of the preconditions of experience and of knowledge. In contrast, but yet in parallel, the new _Critique_ focuses upon the ways—unfortunately very widespread and often unselfconsciously habitual—in which many of the concepts that we employ _conflict_ with the very preconditions of meaning and of knowledge. ●●●●● This is a book about the boundaries of frameworks and about the unrecognized conceptual confusions in which we become entangled when we attempt to transgress beyond the limits of the possible and meaningful. We tend either not to recognize or not to accept that we all-too-often attempt to trespass beyond the boundaries of the frameworks that make knowledge possible and the world meaningful. ●●●●● The _Critique of Impure Reason_ proposes a bold, ground-breaking, and startling thesis: that a great many of the major philosophical problems of the past can be solved through the recognition of a viciously deceptive form of thinking to which philosophers as well as non-philosophers commonly fall victim. For the first time, the book advances and justifies the criticism that a substantial number of the questions that have occupied philosophers fall into the category of “impure reason,” violating the very conditions of their possible meaningfulness. ●●●●● The purpose of the study is twofold: first, to enable us to recognize the boundaries of what is referentially forbidden—the limits beyond which reference becomes meaningless—and second, to avoid falling victims to a certain broad class of conceptual confusions that lie at the heart of many major philosophical problems. As a consequence, the boundaries of _possible meaning_ are determined. ●●●●● Bartlett, the author or editor of more than 20 books, is responsible for identifying this widespread and delusion-inducing variety of error, _metalogical projection_. It is a previously unrecognized and insidious form of erroneous thinking that undermines its own possibility of meaning. It comes about as a result of the pervasive human compulsion to seek to transcend the limits of possible reference and meaning. ●●●●● Based on original research and rigorous analysis combined with extensive scholarship, the _Critique of Impure Reason_ develops a self-validating method that makes it possible to recognize, correct, and eliminate this major and pervasive form of fallacious thinking. In so doing, the book provides at last provable and constructive solutions to a wide range of major philosophical problems. ●●●●● CONTENTS AT A GLANCE ▪▪▪▪▪ Preface ▪▪▪▪▪ Foreword by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker ▪▪▪▪▪ Acknowledgments ▪▪▪▪▪ Avant-propos: A philosopher’s rallying call ▪▪▪▪▪ Introduction ▪▪▪▪▪ A note to the reader ▪▪▪▪▪ A note on conventions ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART I ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ WHY PHILOSOPHY HAS MADE NO PROGRESS AND HOW IT CAN ▪▪▪▪▪ 1 Philosophical-psychological prelude ▪▪▪▪▪ 2 Putting belief in its place: Its psychology and a needed polemic ▪▪▪▪▪ 3 Turning away from the linguistic turn: From theory of reference to metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 4 The stepladder to maximum theoretical generality ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART II ▪▪▪▪▪ THE METALOGIC OF REFERENCE ▪▪▪▪▪ A New Approach to Deductive, Transcendental Philosophy ▪▪▪▪▪ 5 Reference, identity, and identification ▪▪▪▪▪ 6 Self-referential argument and the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 7 Possibility theory ▪▪▪▪▪ 8 Presupposition logic, reference, and identification ▪▪▪▪▪ 9 Transcendental argumentation and the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 10 Framework relativity ▪▪▪▪▪ 11 The metalogic of meaning ▪▪▪▪▪ 12 The problem of putative meaning and the logic of meaninglessness ▪▪▪▪▪ 13 Projection ▪▪▪▪▪ 14 Horizons ▪▪▪▪▪ 15 De-projection ▪▪▪▪▪ 16 Self-validation ▪▪▪▪▪ 17 Rationality: Rules of admissibility ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART III ▪▪▪▪▪ PHILOSOPHICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE METALOGIC OF REFERENCE ▪▪▪▪▪ Major Problems and Questions of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Science ▪▪▪▪▪ 18 Ontology and the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 19 Discovery or invention in general problem-solving, mathematics, and physics ▪▪▪▪▪ 20 The conceptually unreachable: “The far side” ▪▪▪▪▪ 21 The projections of the external world, things-in-themselves, other minds, realism, and idealism ▪▪▪▪▪ 22 The projections of time, space, and space-time ▪▪▪▪▪ 23 The projections of causality, determinism, and free will ▪▪▪▪▪ 24 Projections of the self and of solipsism ▪▪▪▪▪ 25 Non-relational, agentless reference and referential fields ▪▪▪▪▪ 26 Relativity physics as seen through the lens of the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 27 Quantum theory as seen through the lens of the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 28 Epistemological lessons learned from and applicable to relativity physics and quantum theory ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART IV ▪▪▪▪▪ HORIZONS ▪▪▪▪▪ 29 Beyond belief ▪▪▪▪▪ 30 _Critique of Impure Reason_: Its results in retrospect ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ SUPPLEMENT ▪▪▪▪▪ The Formal Structure of the Metalogic of Reference ▪▪▪▪▪ APPENDIX I ▪▪▪▪▪ The Concept of Horizon in the Work of Other Philosophers ▪▪▪▪▪ APPENDIX II ▪▪▪▪▪ Epistemological Intelligence ▪▪▪▪▪ References ▪▪▪▪▪ Index ▪▪▪▪▪ About the author. 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My aim in this paper is to draw attention to a currently underdeveloped notion of pain and alienation, in order to sketch an account of the harms of ‘discursive abuse’. This form of abuse comprises systemic practices of violating a person’s vulnerable integrity as a knowing agent. Discursive abuse results in, what I would like to call, ‘agential alienation’. This particular genus of alienation, whose broad conceptual origins lie in the respective works of Hegel and the early Marx, involves an (...) agent being robbed of their self-conception as a rational inquirer and participant in a deliberative public sphere. Such alienation causes a particular kind of pain for an agent that often has harrowing material effects. (shrink)

Kant’s religious ethics is grounded in a practical philosophy where ‘God’ is subordinated to moral principles. To accomplish this goal, Kant dismantled the onto-theological groundwork of religion and the conventional method of attaching morality to God, as if morality was a consequence of religious belief. In this essay, I will show how Kant replaces the metaphysics of being with the metaphysics of morality. More importantly, I will show how Kant’s thesis of moral theism argues that the practical philosophy does not (...) end with the categorical imperative, but that Kant also thinks morality inevitably leads to religious belief. (shrink)

This paper urges contemporary Business Ethicists to reconsider the relationship between habit and virtue in the light of recent debates between contemporary philosophers and scientists. Synthesizing insights from current Neuroscience, from twentieth century American Pragmatism and from nineteenth century French Aristotelianism, this emergent intellectual tradition proposes a dynamic account of habit’s embodiment which we will first describe and then advocate. Two recurring suggestions within this habit renaissance are of particular relevance to Business Ethicists: firstly, that there is a ‘plastic’ structure (...) pertaining to habit and, secondly, that there is a processual ‘double-law of habituation’. Taken together, these accounts of habit and habituation provide virtue ethicists with a basis for claiming analytic and pragmatic authority within applied ethics debates in general and within Business Ethics debates in particular. We develop this argument in three steps. Firstly, we elaborate upon why habits are said to be plastic and why the process of habituation is said to be characterised by a double-law. Secondly, we distinguish this account of habit’s relationship to virtue from, and where necessary defend it against, the influential articulations of the habit: virtue relationship provided by situationism, by deontology and by communitarianism, respectively. Finally, we draw practical lessons from the initial elaborations made in the argument’s first step, and the subsequent clarifications provided in its second step, by announcing seven characteristics of highly effective virtue habituation projects. (shrink)

This essay, the last in a series, focuses on the relationship between Nietzsche’s mental illness and his philosophical art. It is predicated upon my original diagnosis of his mental condition as bipolar affective disorder, which began in early adulthood and continued throughout his creative life. The kaleidoscopic mood shifts allowed him to see things from different perspectives and may have imbued his writings with passion rarely encountered in philosophical texts. At times hovering on the verge of psychosis, Nietzsche was able (...) to gain access to unconscious images and the music of language, usually inhibited by the conscious mind. He reached many of his linguistic, psychological and philosophical insights by willing suspension of the rational. None of these, however, could have been communicated had he not tamed the subterranean psychic forces with his impressive discipline and hard work. (shrink)

Kant held that the moral vocation of the human species was to strive toward moral perfection. But in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, he at least entertained as part of the human condition a rationalist version of the Christian doctrine of original sin: that human beings have a universal, innate and inextirpable propensity to evil. Are these two Kantian doctrines inconsistent, or at least in tension with each other? If they are, the tension is a creative one. This (...) chapter will explain the Kantian doctrine of the radical human propensity to evil and relate it to Kant's theory of the acquisition of virtue and the struggle toward moral perfection. We will see that this struggle for Kant must be social, not merely individual, and that it involves both the development of moral character and the cultivation of empirical inclinations that harmonize with morality. (shrink)

El presente escrito pretende ser un aporte a la comprensión del singular valor de la buena voluntad según lo descrito en la Fundamentación de la metafísica de las costumbres. Para ello, después de aclarar sucintamente ciertos extravíos conceptuales sobre esta noción, repasaremos dos de las más representativas aproximaciones contemporáneas a la axiología kantiana que, sin embargo, arrojan resultados insatisfactorios al momento de precisar el valor de la voluntad buena: los abordajes de Korsgaard y Sensen. Intentaremos develar dichos fallos y luego (...) replantearemos la distinción entre valor irrestricto e incondicionado para aliviarlos en el marco general de la propuesta de Sensen. (shrink)

"Brower explores the way philosophers were inspired by entomological social systems and communication to reflect on human psyche, social behavior, community organization, communication, and inter-individual relationships. His essay rehearses the swarms of insects embedded in contemporary philosophy and literary theory, not only showing how many of the major concepts (or philosophemes) in continental philosophy – sexuality, politics, thinking, time, interdependence, and language – draw lessons from the world of insects, but also illustrating again how the insect world spurred human reflection.".

Many hold that theoretical reasoning aims at truth. In this paper, I ask what it is for reasoning to be thus aim-directed. Standard answers to this question explain reasoning’s aim-directedness in terms of intentions, dispositions, or rule-following. I argue that, while these views contain important insights, they are not satisfactory. As an alternative, I introduce and defend a novel account: reasoning aims at truth in virtue of being the exercise of a distinctive kind of cognitive power, one that, unlike ordinary (...) dispositions, is capable of fully explaining its own exercises. I argue that this account is able to avoid the difficulties plaguing standard accounts of the relevant sort of mental teleology. (shrink)

The paper argues that Kant’s distinction between pure and empirical apperception cannot be interpreted as distinguishing two self-standing types of self-knowledge. For Kant, empirical and pure apperception need to co-operate to yield substantive self-knowledge. What makes Kant’s account interesting is his acknowledgment that there is a deep tension between the way I become conscious of myself as subject through pure apperception and the way I am given to myself as an object of inner sense. This tension remains problematic in the (...) realm of theoretical cognition but can be put to work and made productive in terms of practical self-knowledge. (shrink)

There are passages in Kant’s writings according to which empirical intuitions have to be (a) singular, (b) object-dependent, and (c) immediate. It has also been argued that empirical intuitions (d) are not truth-apt, and (e) need to provide the subject with a proof of the possibility of the cognized object. Having relied on one or another of the a-e constraints, the naïve realist readers of Kant have argued that it is not possible for empirical intuitions to be representations. Instead they (...) have argued for a relationalist reading of empirical intuitions in terms of an acquaintance relation between the subject and the intuited object. -/- For the sake of argument, I will grant the naïve realist reader of Kant that empirical intuitions should satisfy all the a-e constraints. Nevertheless, by incorporating these constraints, one by one, into a representationalist theory of empirical intuitions, I will show that not only doesn’t a naïve realist reading of empirical intuitions follow, but also that the naïve realist has hastily overlooked a range of perfectly representationalist readings of intuitions available to Kant and his representationalist allies. On the positive side, I will argue that there is an extra constraint on intuitions—i.e., that givenness does not require presence to consciousness—that directly goes against any naïve realist account of intuitions. (shrink)

When Susan Sontag addresses the problem of pornography and relates it to Hegel, she is not merely describing a path in European philosophy aimed to construct a new language, but she is also committing this aim to the importance of re-reading culture. The fashion in which pornography describes reality is meaningful when we are trying to approach Hegel in his aim to construct a post-religious language that finally will make ready-to-hand life as life. Politics, and society, being two essential elements (...) to understand reality, become singularly interesting when analyzed through the gaze of Sontag in combination of Hegel’s philosophy. The conservative morals that reign over what we understand as pornography, and the cultural moment of Europe since the most progressive moments of the 19 th century, describe a fatalist landscape for the future of society and politics. Yet, the learnings from Hegel remain meaningful. In this paper I examine how a post-religious philosophy, aimed long ago by Hegel’s contribution to philosophy, can serve to the understanding of a post-pornographic society: a society that is able to learn from the contributions of Frankfurt’s school with regards to an efficient cultural tissue, and defeat the old religious morals that are inserted in the backbone of politics and philosophy still today. (shrink)

n the following essay, I will examine the connection between phenomenality and finitude, a problem developed by Michel Henry in The Essence of Manifestation in the context of a close dialogue with Heidegger and Kant on the theme of time and self-affection. Henry’s consideration of Kant’s transcendental philosophy, and of his conception of time as self-affection, appears in § 24 of The Essence of Manifestation, in the context of what Henry himself terms the “problématique” of The Essence of Manifestation as (...) such, the “critique of ontological monism.” It does so, then, in the context of Henry’s “interpretation of the essence of phenomenality… within the fundamental ontological presuppositions of monism,” in which Henry situates, and develops, the decisive problem of the receptivity of transcendence. The conclusive moment of this critique is provided by Henry’s ontological interpretation of Kant, through a point-by-point “contrelecture” of Heidegger’s own Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik. This constitutes only a final moment of a long critical path, that was always directed to the “essential interconnection of being and human finitude,” the “coappartenance” that, in the wake of Heidegger, contemporary phenomenological ontology would establish between the essence of phenomenality and finitude, on the basis of the transcendence of Dasein. The determination of the structure of the latter, which is the true task of Henry’s ‘ontological interpretation’ of Kant, is initiated already in the first part of L’essence de la manifestation, which thus will be the focus of my analysis herein. My intention is to reconstitute the methodological and theoretical foundations on which rest, ultimately, the phänomenologische Aufweisung—in the Heideggerian sense of a “démonstration phénoménologique” and a “mise en lumière”—of the internal incoherence of the ontological presuppositions of monism, as constitutes the pars destruens of this foundational work of Henry’s phenomenology. (shrink)

Russell’s theory of acquaintance construes perceptual awareness as at once constitutively independent of conceptual thought and yet a source of propositional knowledge. Wilfrid Sellars, John McDowell, and other conceptualists object that this is a ‘myth’: perception can be a source of knowledge only if conceptual capacities are already in play therein. Proponents of a relational view of experience, including John Campbell, meanwhile voice sympathy for Russell’s position on this point. This paper seeks to spell out, and defend, a claim that (...) offers the prospects for an attractive, unacknowledged element of common ground in this debate. The claim is that conceptual capacities, at least in a certain minimal sense implicit in McDowell’s recent work, must be operative in perceptual experience, if it is to rationalize judgement. The claim will be supported on the basis of two premises, each of which can be defended drawing, inter alia, on considerations stressed by Campbell. First, that experience rationalizes judgement only if it is attentive. Second, that attention qualifies as a conceptual capacity, in the noted, minimal sense. The conjunction of the two premises might be dubbed ‘attentional conceptualism’. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that for Kant, a combination of epigenesis and monogenesis is the condition of possibility of anthropology as he conceives of it and that moreover, this has crucial implications for the biological dimension of his account of human nature. More precisely, I begin by arguing that Kant’s conception of mankind as a natural species is based on two premises: firstly the biological unity of the human species (monogenesis of the human races); and secondly (...) the existence of ‘seeds’ which may or may not develop depending on the environment (epigenesis of human natural predispositions). I then turn to Kant’s account of man’s natural predispositions and show that far from being limited to the issue of races, it encompasses unexpected human features such as gender, temperaments and nations. These predispositions, I argue, are means to the realisation of Nature’s overall purpose for the human species. This allows me to conclude that man’s biological determinism leads to the species’ preservation, cultivation and civilisation. (shrink)

In this paper, we will conduct a reformulation of the means of emotional representation in intellectuals according to the principles of cognitivism, searching for the existence of an emotional archetype distinct from the classical _melancholic_: the _choleric_. In both cases, we look to explore the emotions related to the melancholic and choleric temperament and propose a link between multiple sociological theories of knowledge, before ending with a reinterpretation of the famous metaphor of the bee and the spider as representations of (...) the characteristic features of the choleric and the melancholic intellectual respectively. (shrink)

There has been the recurrent suspicion that community, harmony, cohesion, and similar relational goods as understood in the African ethical tradition threaten to occlude difference. Often, it has been Western defenders of liberty who have raised the concern that these characteristically sub-Saharan values fail to account adequately for individuality, although some contemporary African thinkers have expressed the same concern. In this chapter, I provide a certain understanding of the sub-Saharan value of communal relationship and demonstrate that it entails a substantial (...) allowance for difference. I aim to show that African thinkers need not appeal to, say, characteristically Euro-American values of authenticity or autonomy to make sense of why individuals should not be pressured to conform to a group’s norms regarding sex and gender. A key illustration involves homosexuality. (shrink)

After distinguishing between a metaphysical and a contemplative strategy interpretation of the no-self doctrine, I argue that the latter allows for the illumination of significant and under-discussed Kantian affinities with Buddhist views of the self and moral psychology. Unlike its metaphysical counterpart, the contemplative strategy interpretation, understands the doctrine of no-self as a technique of perception, undertaken from the practical standpoint of action. I argue that if we think of the contemplative strategy version of the no-self doctrine as a process (...) engaged in, in order to free oneself from delusion and to see things more objectively in order to promote right action, then we find a clear parallel in Kant’s duty of self-knowledge which demands that we rid ourselves of deluded moral self-descriptions. While in Buddhism the aim is a selflessness that liberates one from suffering, for Kant the aim is an agency free of the conceit that interferes with clear moral vision, sound judgement, and dutiful action. I conclude by responding to objections advanced by Charles Goodman which aim to show that the Kantian position is deeply at odds with Buddhist thinking, arguing that neither Kantian agency nor Kantian self-legislation is undermined by the doctrine of no-self. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to propose that an insightful way of articulating the feminist concept of epistemic injustice can be provided by paying significant attention to recognition theory. The article intends to provide an account for diagnosing epistemic injustice as a social pathology and also attempts to paint a picture of some social cure of structural forms of epistemic injustice. While there are many virtues to the literature on epistemic injustice, epistemic exclusion and silencing, current discourse on diagnosing (...) as well as explicating and overcoming these social pathologies can be improved and enriched by bringing recognition theory into the conversation: under recognition theory, social normative standards are constructed out of the moral grammar of recognition attributions. I shall argue that the failure to properly recognize and afford somebody or a social group the epistemic respect they merit is an act of injustice in the sense of depriving individuals of a progressive social environment i... (shrink)

Our lives are guided by habits. Most of the activities we engage in throughout the day are initiated and carried out not by rational thought and deliberation, but through an ingrained set of dispositions or patterns of action—what Aristotle calls a hexis. We develop these dispositions over time, by acting and gauging how the world responds. I tilt the steering wheel too far and the car’s lurch teaches me how much force is needed to steady it. I come too close (...) to a hot stove and the burn I get inclines me not to get too close again. This feedback and the habits it produces are bodily. They are possible because the medium through which these actions take place is a physical, sensible one. The world around us is, in the language of postphenomenology, an opaque one. We notice its texture and contours as we move through it, and crucially, we bump up against it from time to time. The digital world, by contrast, is largely transparent. Digital media are designed to recede from view. As a result, we experience little friction as we carry out activities online; the consequences of our actions are often not apparent to us. This distinction between the opacity of the natural world and the transparency of the digital one raises important questions. In this chapter, I ask: how does the transparency of digital media affect our ability to develop healthy habits online? If the digital world is constructed precisely not to push back against us, how are we supposed to gauge whether our actions are good or bad, for us and for others? The answer to this question has important ramifications for a number of ethical, political, and policy debates around issues in online life. For in order to advance cherished norms like privacy, civility, and fairness online, we need more than good laws and good policies—we need good habits, which dispose us to act in ways conducive to our and others’ flourishing. (shrink)

While Kant's pedagogical lectures present an account of moral education, his theory of freedom and morality seems to leave no room for the possibility of an education for freedom and morality. In this paper, it is first shown that Kant's moral philosophy and his educational philosophy are developed within different theoretical paradigms: whereas the former is situated within a transcendentalist framework, the latter relies on a teleological notion of human nature. The second part of this paper demonstrates that the core (...) ideas of Kant's moral philosophy are also present in his pedagogy. This means that the problem of moral education must be solved within the transcendentalist framework. It is finally claimed that Kant himself outlines a solution to this problem in his pedagogical lectures. (shrink)

This philosophical anthropology tries to explore the basic categories of man’s being in the worlds using a special quantum meta-ontology that is introduced in the book. Quantum understanding of space and time, consciousness, or empirical/nonempirical reality elicits new questions relating to philosophical concerns such as subjectivity, free will, mind, perception, experience, dialectic, or agency. The authors have developed an inspiring theoretical framework transcending the boundaries of particular disciplines, e.g. quantum philosophy, metaphysics of consciousness, philosophy of mind, phenomenology of space and (...) time, and ontological relativity. (shrink)

In this paper, I draw from Kantian and Husserlian reflections on the self-awareness of thinking for a contribution to the cognitive phenomenology debate. In particular, I draw from Kant’s conceptions of inner sense and apperception, and from Husserl’s notions of lived experience and self-awareness for an inquiry into the nature of our awareness of our own cognitive activity. With particular consideration of activities of attention, I develop what I take to be Kant’s and Husserl’s “agentive” and “proprietary” accounts. These, I (...) believe, augment contemporary discussions in interesting ways and further bolster the case for cognitive phenomenology. Moreover, the historical comparison highlights a number of assumptions made today that were not yet part of the framework at the time of Kant or at the time of Husserl. This helps reflect on the legitimacy of these assumptions. (shrink)

Ever since Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense, the transcendental apperception device has become a theoretical reference point to shed light on the criterionless selfascription form of mental states, reformulating a contemporary theoretical place tackled for the first time in explicit terms by Wittgenstein’s Blue Book. By investigating thoroughly some elements of the critical system the issue of the identification of the transcendental subject with reference to the I think will be singled out. In this respect, the debate presents at least (...) two diametrically opposed attitudes: the first – exemplified in the works by Hacker, Becker, Sturma and McDowell – considers the features of the I think according to Wittgenstein’s approach to the I as subject while the second, exemplified by Kitcher and Carl, criticizes the various commentators who turn to Wittgenstein in order to interpret Kant’s I think. The hypothesis that I will attempt at articulating in this paper starts off not only from the transcendental apperception form, but also from the characterizations of empirical apperception. It may be assumed that Kant’s reflection on the problem of self-identification lies right here, truly prefiguring some features of Wittgenstein’s uses of I, albeit from different metaphysical assumptions and philosophical horizons. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that for Kant, a combination of epigenesis and monogenesis is the condition of possibility of anthropology as he conceives of it and that moreover, this has crucial implications for the biological dimension of his account of human nature. More precisely, I begin by arguing that Kant’s conception of mankind as a natural species is based on two premises: firstly the biological unity of the human species (monogenesis of the human races); and secondly (...) the existence of ‘seeds’ which may or may not develop depending on the environment (epigenesis of human natural predispositions). I then turn to Kant’s account of man’s natural predispositions and show that far from being limited to the issue of races, it encompasses unexpected human features such as gender, temperaments and nations. These predispositions, I argue, are means to the realisation of Nature’s overall purpose for the human species. This allows me to conclude that man’s biological determinism leads to the species’ preservation, cultivation and civilisation. (shrink)

My purpose in this essay is to suggest, via case study, that if Anglo-American philosophy is to become more inclusive of non-western traditions, the discipline requires far greater efforts at self-scrutiny. I begin with the premise that Confucian ethical treatments of manners afford unique and distinctive arguments from which moral philosophy might profit, then seek to show why receptivity to these arguments will be low. I examine how ordinary good manners have largely fallen out of philosophical moral discourse in the (...) west, looking specifically at three areas: conditions in the 18th and 19th centuries that depressed philosophical attention to manners; discourse conventions in contemporary philosophy that privilege modes of analysis not well fitted to close scrutiny of manners; and a philosophical culture that implicitly encourages indifference or even antipathy toward polite conduct. I argue that these three areas function in effect to render contemporary discourse inhospitable to greater inclusivity where Confucianism is concerned and thus, more broadly, that greater self-scrutiny regarding unexamined, parochial western commitments and practices is necessary for genuine inclusivity. (shrink)

The purpose of this work is to offer a critical examination of Immanuel Kant's ethic of suicide. Kant's suicidology marks an influential view regarding the moral stature of suicide, yet one that remains incomplete in important respects. Because Kant's moral views are rationalistic, they restrict moral consideration to rational entities. Many people who commit suicide are not rational at the time of its commission, for they suffer from severe mental illness. Because of this, Kant's suicidology devastatingly excludes certain human demographics (...) from moral consideration, current Canadian statistics indicating that such people mark one of the highest populations at risk of committing suicide in the first place. This work contains a presentation, analysis, and critique of Kant's ethic of suicide, leading to an attempt to state criteria for an adequate suicidology.Dept. of Philosophy. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2006.T66. Source: Masterss International, Volume: 45-01, page: 0101. Thesis --University of Windsor, 2006. (shrink)

According to rationalist conceptions of moral agency, the constitutive capacities of moral agency are rational capacities. So understood, rationalists are often thought to have a problem with feeling. For example, many believe that rationalists must reject the attractive Aristotelian thought that moral activity is by nature pleasant. I disagree. It is easy to go wrong here because it is easy to assume that pleasure is empirical rather than rational and so extrinsic rather than intrinsic to moral agency, rationalistically conceived. Drawing (...) on underappreciated elements of Kant’s moral psychology, I sketch an alternative form of rationalism, according to which moral activity is by nature pleasant because at least some pleasures are by nature rational. (shrink)

Kant's critical philosophy promises to overturn both Empiricism and Rationalism by arguing for the necessity of a passive faculty, sensibility, and an active faculty, understanding, in order for cognition to obtain. Kant argues in favor of sense impression found in standard empirical philosophies while advocating conceptual necessities like those found in rational philosophies. It is only in the synthesis of these two elements that cognition and knowledge claims are possible. However, by affirming such a dualism, Kant has created yet another (...) problem familiar to the history of philosophy, one of faculty interaction. By affirming two separate and exclusive capacities necessary for cognition, Kant has bridged the gap between the two philosophical traditions, but created a gap that must be overcome in order to affirm his positive programmatic. Kant himself realizes the difficulty his new philosophy faces when he claims the two sources of knowledge must have a "common, but unknown root." To complete Kant's program one must ask: "What bridges the gap between sensible intuition and conceptual understanding?" In my dissertation, I turn to Kant's philosophy and find the answer to this question in the productive imagination. In order to evaluate the viability of this answer, I problematize the imagination as it has been found in the history of Western philosophy. By tracing the historical use of the imagination in archetypal figures from both empiricist and rationalist traditions, one finds a development of imagination that culminates in the fundamental formulation found in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. In his critical philosophy, Kant synthesizes the imagination and the use of imagination found in both traditions, thus demonstrating its role in both sensation and understanding. By employing the imagination at both sensorial and conceptual levels, Kant has found, I argue, the liaison that overcomes the dualism established by his requirements for knowledge, as well as the common root for both. (shrink)

One of the more striking aspects of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception (1945) is his use of psychological case studies in pathology. For Merleau-Ponty, a philosophical interpretation of phenomena like aphasia and psychic blindness promises to shed light not just on the nature of pathology, but on the nature of human existence more generally. In this paper, I show that although Merleau-Ponty is surely a pioneer in this use of pathology, his work is deeply indebted to an earlier philosophical study (...) of pathology offered by the German Neo-Kantian Ernst Cassirer in the third volume of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1929). More specifically, I argue that Merleau-Ponty, in fact, follows Cassirer in placing Kant's notion of the productive imagination at the centre of his account of pathology and the features of existence it illuminates. Recognizing the debt Merleau-Ponty's account of pathology has to the Kantian tradition not only acts as a corrective to more recent interpretation of Merleau-Ponty's views of pathology (Dreyfus, Romdenh-Romluc), but also recommends we resist the prevailing tendency to treat Merleau-Ponty's philosophy as anti-Kantian. Instead, my interpretation seeks to restore Merleau-Ponty's place within the Kantian tradition. (shrink)

The volume Applied Ethics. Perspectives from Romania is the first contribution that aims at showing to the Japanese reader a sample of contemporary philosophy in Romania. At the same time a volume of contemporary Japanese philosophy is translated into Romanian and will be published by the University of Bucharest Press. -/- Applied Ethics. Perspectives from Romania includes several original articles in applied ethics and theoretical moral philosophy. It is representative of the variety of research and the growing interest in applied (...) ethics in the last few years in Romania. The philosophy practised here is at the same time an international activity, but also a kind of research deeply involved in Romanian realities. The contributors to the volume are Romanian philosophers from the most important Universities in the country, including members of the Romanian Academy, but also junior researchers. -/- This volume was made possible thanks to the relationship established between the Applied Ethics Centres of the University of Bucharest, Romania, and Hokkaido University, Japan. (shrink)

What is the contrary of pleasure? “Pain” is one common answer. This paper argues that pleasure instead has two natural contraries: unpleasure and hedonic indifference. This view is defended by drawing attention to two often-neglected concepts: the formal relation of polar opposition and the psychological state of hedonic indifference. The existence of mixed feelings, it is argued, does not threaten the contrariety of pleasure and unpleasure.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of Schadenfreude - the pleasure felt at another’s misfortune - and to argue that feeling it in the course of health care work, as elsewhere, is evidence of a deficient character. In order to show that Schadenfreude is an objectionable emotion in health care work, I first offer some conceptual remarks about emotions generally and their differential treatment in Kantian and Aristotelian thought. Second, I argue that an appreciation of the (...) rationality of the emotions is crucial to our self-understanding as persons in general and nurses in particular. Third, I present a critique of Portmann’s (2000, When Bad Things Happen to Other People. London: Routledge) defence of Schadenfreude with examples from both nursing and medical scenarios. Specifically, I show how his exculpation of the emotion in terms of low self-esteem and a commitment to justice are not compelling. I argue that we are active in the construction of our emotional experiences of Schadenfreude, how we may indeed ‘nurse’ the emotion, and thus become culpable for them in ethical terms. (shrink)