“Morality is relative to culture” is a descriptive claim; many people in many different cultures have different moral beliefs. When one adopts moral relativism, however, the claim accrues a normative dimension, in that what follows from relativity is the flattening out of rightness, of one moral belief being better than another regardless of culture. But in practice, humans rarely, if ever, actually behave as if certain things or beliefs are not better than others, as evidenced in everything from foreign policy (...) to religion to consumption choices. This leads to a problem of consistency: either the relativist does not act in accordance with her beliefs or her beliefs are different from what she espouses. Or so a.. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is to analyse the influence of Johann Bernhard Basedow and Rousseau on Kant’s cosmopolitanism and concept of cosmopolitan education. It argues that both Basedow and Kant defined cosmopolitan education as non-denominational moral formation or Bildung, encompassing—in different forms—a thin version of moral religion following the core tenets of Christianity. Kant’s encounter with Basedow and the Philanthropinum in Dessau helps to understand the development of Kant’s concept of cosmopolitanism and educational theory ‘in weltbürgerlicher Absicht’. Rousseau’s role (...) is more complex: he clearly influenced Kant; he is usually considered a precursor of modern nationalism and national education; and recent studies have stressed the cosmopolitan dimension of his educational programme. I claim that the dilemma of education according to Rousseau is that one has to choose between education of homme or education of citoyen, and that there is no way to avoid or go beyond this stark alternative. Kant’s reinterpretation of Rousseau is favourable and creative and has found many followers up to the present, but is misleading, as he ignores the dilemma and imposes his own conception of cosmopolitanism, of cosmopolitan education and of (possible) progress in history on Rousseau while claiming that this was actually Rousseau’s message. (shrink)

Šiame straipsnyje tiriami subtilūs Hobbes’o ir Kanto požiūrių į retoriką ir materializmą skirtumai, žvelgiant į juos platesniame politinės filosofijos kontekste. Nors abu šie filosofai buvo retorikos kritikai, tarp jų požiūrių išryškėja esminių skirtumų. Hobbes’as, būdamas monarchijos šalininkas, paveiktas Lukrecijaus, kritikavo retoriką iš materialistinės, antropologijos perspektyvos. Paradoksalu, tačiau jis pasitelkė retorines strategijas savo naujajame scientia civilis. Kantas, nors ir kritikuodamas tiek Lukrecijaus materializmą, tiek ir retoriką, į savo filosofijos perspektyvą integravo kai kuriuos suderinamus retorinius elementus, visų pirma susijusius su epikūrizmo tradicija. (...) Šiame straipsnyje tiriama, kaip du aptariamieji filosofai traktuoja paradiastole ir kokias pasekmes jų interpretacija turi jų politinei minčiai. Iškeliamas argumentas, kad abu mąstytojai, ieškodami racionalaus pamato politinei tvarkai, savąjį racionalumo sąvokos interpretavimą įtvirtina epikūrietiškame materializme, perkonfigūruodami retorinius elementus taip, kaip būtų patogu jų filosofijai. Straipsnyje išsiaiškinama, kad Kantas yra linkęs į respublikoniškas politines pažiūras; jis siekia kuo labiau padidinti piliečių autonomiją. Tai kategoriškai skiriasi nuo Hobbes’o orientacijos į monarchinę valdymo struktūrą. Šis tyrimas prisideda prie labiau niuansuoto suvokimo apie ankstyvąją Naujųjų laikų politinę mintį bei jos aktualumą šiuolaikinei respublikoniškai bei demokratinei teorijai. (shrink)

Upon first encountering Immanuel Kant’s 1766 essay Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics, one is immediately struck by its literary style. Indeed, Dreams constitutes a unique moment in Kant’s literary development—never before had he thrown himself with such fervor into the attempt to express his thoughts in a provocative manner, and never again would he indulge his poetic tendencies with such reckless abandon. Unsurprisingly, then, Kant’s poetic rhetoric in Dreams has long puzzled readers. Immediately following the essay’s (...) publication, Moses Mendelssohn voiced his perplexity about Kant’s mode of writing in it. In the early twentieth century, Ernst Cassirer noted this essay’s unorthodox... (shrink)

Recent scholarship on Kant and rhetoric suggests an inclusive relation between affectivity and cognitive judgment, but that position runs counter to a traditional philosophical opposition between sensibility and rationality. A way to overcome this opposition comes into view in the overlap in three significant areas between Kantian judgment and Aristotelian rhetoric. First, each allows that communicative capacities operate within the way a perceptual object or scene appears in the first place. Secondly, each significantly broadens such communicative capacities so as to (...) include the entire conceptual form of one’s disposition or orientation to the world as a whole. Thirdly, each links those broad mental dispositions to specifically affective states of mind. Taken together, the areas of overlap between Kantian judgment and Aristotelian rhetoric adumbrate an integrated picture of the affective sensibilities and cognitive capacities largely missing from the contemporary landscape. (shrink)