The nature and value of autonomy has long been debated in diverse philosophical traditions, including moral and political philosophy. Although the notion dates back to ancient Greek philosophy, it was during the Age of Enlightenment that autonomy drew much attention. Thus, as may be known, moral philosophers tended to emphasize self-regulation, particularly one’s own will to abide by universal moral laws, as the term “autonomy” originates from the Greek words “self” (auto) and “rule” (nomos). In parallel, modern epistemologists supposedly espoused (...) the idea of intellectual autonomy as self-reliance. In this classical view, an intellectually autonomous explorer of knowledge must not depend on a belief that is obtained from another’s testimony, until one can justify it to oneself. However, accompanying the growing focus on the importance of social dimensions of acquiring knowledge and understanding, recent epistemologists have doubted the classical view and have since reconsidered intellectual autonomy from distinct approaches such as social and virtue epistemology. This paper propounds an interpersonal-epistemic approach to intellectual autonomy. First, it is argued that thinking through questioning both individually and with other epistemic peers is an interpersonal-epistemic practice. Second, it is demonstrated that with particular cognitive features inherent within us, an intellectually autonomous person must think through questioning in necessary situations. This interpersonal account of intellectual autonomy can conceptually enrich intellectual autonomy by considering its relationship with not only responsibility but also with vulnerability. Specifically, regarding responsibility, an intellectually autonomous person must be responsible for his or her own actions throughout questioning processes. Regarding vulnerability, our intellectual autonomy lies in retaining autonomy with vulnerability in the plastic control of the questioning processes. (shrink)

Kolb discusses postmodern architectural styles and theories within the context of philosophical ideas about modernism and postmodernism. He focuses on what it means to dwell in a world and within a history and to act from or against a tradition.

In this paper, I outline Kant’s attempt to account for the category of relations, which is concomitant with his effort to prove that atomism cannot describe human experience. Kant’s journey from the First Critique to his last work the Opus Postumum is a struggle against atomistic versions of the world. In the last instance, it is a transit from I think to I act; and it is also recognition that to act can only be performed in a relational manner in (...) community with others. In order to substantiate his explanation of real forces in the world, Kant rethinks and extends his understanding of the subject from the subject as the unity of apperception to the self-positing subject living in the world with others. In order to defend ‘the being in the world’ who ‘has rights,’ I argue that we need to return to Kant’s general account of rights for all humans in the world. (shrink)