Auschwitz is still the greatest challenge for philosophy and reason, rather than representing their end, as Lyotard most prominently seems to imply. The article shows how the evolution of the question of dialectics from Hegel to postmodernism must be thought in relation to Auschwitz. The critics of reason and Hegel such as Lyotard, Derrida and Foucault are highlighting the break between reason and unspeakable suffering, for which Auschwitz is the most prominent symbol, but reintroduce ‘behind’ the scene much more speculative (...) concepts than Hegel himself (Plasma by Lyotard, khora by Derrida and power as an absolute by Foucault). Adorno for his part thought that only a negative dialectics could address the problem adequately but transferred the unity of opposites just in the realm of utopia. But there is no negative (Adorno) or positive dialectics, only dialectics which mediates and posit the positive and the negative on a higher level. (shrink)

Karl Marx’s “On the Jewish Question” has fueled discussions around his early intellectual development as a Young-Hegelian thinker as well as debates about an allegedly distinct form of anti-Semitism native to Left-Hegelian and later to left-thinkers in general, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. In this article, I argue that Marx’s assessment of contemporary Judaism is motivated by an underappreciated criticism of Hegelian historiography. Surveying the genesis of the Hegelian treatments of Judaism between Hegel and Marx, I distinguish Marx’s intervention as (...) a reaction to non-materialistic teleological historiography. This historiography assumes dialectical movement and demands practical change from those considered foreign to the movement. In contrast, this article suggests that Marx’s primary target is the belief that Judaism has been sublated into Christianity, that the abnormality lies not in Judaism’s historical persistence, but in the Christian pretense that the material contradictions Judaism was a response to have been overcome. Against the teleological nature of all renditions of Hegelian historiography, including Marx’s later historical-materialism, his “On the Jewish Question” weaponizes a hitherto unrecognized anti-teleological argument against the assimilationist views it responds to, of the kind that should evoke Nietzschean genealogy. (shrink)

“Dialectic” has been a matter of growing interest in contemporary philosophy. The present article analyzes dialectical methods and positions them by reference to two paradigmatic texts of German idealism and analytic philosophy, i.e. J.G. Fichte’s Science of Knowing (1804) and J. McDowell’s Mind and World. Both dialectical approaches will be interpreted with regard to their contribution in the debate on reductionism and anti-reductionism: both Fichte and McDowell claim that philosophical positions and logical terms stand in a dualistic relationship (...) to one another, on the one hand, but are separated by a gulf, on the other. I will argue that for McDowell dialectic seems to be an alternative to one-sided reductionisms as well as to normal anti-reductionistic holism. Furthermore, for Fichte dialectic is an adequate method for describing the relationship of reductionism and anti-reductionism itself. Both see in dialectic a technique for bridging the gulf between binary opposite terms of logic as well as mutually exclusive positions, such as mind and world, subject and object, or idealism and realism. (shrink)

Engels’ name stands and falls today with a variety of his contributions to socialist thought and Marxist philosophy. Yet there is one particular component of the Marxist body of thought that has been subject to a group of controversies for quite some time for which Engels is usually held responsible: dialectics and dialectics of nature. It is curious and ironic that a theoretical contribution to an intellectual tradi tion within the history of European political philosophy could be perceived and depicted (...) as a major distortion of that tradition. In Engels’ case, this irony is captured by the phrase “the Engels problem.” In this chapter, I will first briefly summarize what “the Engels problem” is about and lay out its connection to the reception his tory of Engels’ dialectics. Then, I will delve into the general outlines of Engels’ dialectics and focus on his intentions, tasks, and purposes in pursuing dialectics in some of his prominent works on this theme from 1870s to 1880s, most notably in Anti-Dühring and the Dialectics of Nature. In the final section, I will briefly discuss some of the open questions of Engels’ natural dialectics. (shrink)

In this treatise, I analyse the concepts of truth and impossibility, and then use a proof by cases method to show that truth is impossible. Since logic is the determination of how true ideas are, and truth is impossible, I proceed to establish a more optimal and comprehensive system called "anti-logic" that replaces logic. Anti-logic is everything logic is not (for instance, if logic is a finite system, then anti-logic is infinite). Developing this notion of anti-logic (...) further, I apply it to ethics, sociology, theology and much more, which allows for an effective guide to the world and to life. (shrink)

In this article an attempt is made to detect what could have been the dialectical reasons that impelled the Cār-vāka thinker Udbhatabhatta to revise and reformulate the classical materialistic concept of cognition. If indeed according to ancient Cārvākas cognition is an attribute entirely dependent on the physical body, for Udbhatabhatta cognition is an independent principle that, of course, needs the presence of a human body to manifest itself and for this very reason it is said to be a peculiarity of (...) the body. Therefore, Udbhatabhatta seems to de-scribe the cognizing faculty according to a double ontology: it is both a principle and a characteristic, both inde-pendent and dependent. Two philosophical contexts—Vaisesika and Nyāya schools—are here taken into account as possible anti-Cārvāka fault-finding points of view that spured Udbhatabhatta to reconsider the Cārvāka per-spective. Although we do not have so much textual material on this particular aspect of the ancient and medieval philosophical debate in India, it nonetheless can be supposed that Udbhatabhatta’s reformulation of the concept of cognition was a tentative response to the Vaisesika idea that cognition is not an attribute of the body, rather of the mind (which is here supposed to be eternal), and to the Naiyāyika perspective according to which cognition would be an attribute of an everlasting self. In the case of the Nyāya school, fortunately we have at our disposal the criticism put forward by Vātsyāyana against the materialistic conception of cognition during this time. By examining some Vātsyāyana’s objections, it will emerge that Udbhatabhatta’s idea of cognition really seems to have the aspect of a consistent answer to them, from a renewed materialistic point of view. (shrink)

Following the publication of Jonathan O. Chimakonam’s astounding book, Ezumezu: A System of Logic for African Philosophy and Studies, a monumental piece in the history of African philosophy and logic, which also undergirds the backbone of conversational thinking, various uncharitable misconceptions and misrepresentations have greeted the work. Of the several misrepresentations and misconceptions, the tendency to treat the logic as an African variant of Friedrich Hegel’s dialectics is common. Being a three-valued logic, the tendency to perceive thethird value ‘e’ in (...) conversational thinking as a synthesis is replete in several commentaries and criticisms. This has almost become the norm since Hegel’s third value, following thesis and anti-thesis signifies a synthesis. Through the method of philosophical analysis, I argue that: the logic of conversational thinking is not similar to Hegel’s dialectics hence, all commentaries and criticisms in this guise exhibit the Strawman fallacy; for the logic that underlies conversational thinking, synthesis is an anathema; and conversational thinking places emphasis on complementarity over contradiction. Following these points, I submit that when the veil of Hegel is cast aside, a deeper appreciation for an Africa-inspired logic, which has the capacity to mediate thinking for Africa and beyond, may be discerned almost effortlessly. (shrink)

This paper confronts the familiar prejudice in Western Marxism that Engels’ thought, as articulated in Anti-Duhring and the Dialectics of Nature, is of marginal interest and should be excised from Marxist theory. I argue that this view is mistaken. If we do not take seriously his insights about science, philosophy, nature, and history, his insights will take a fourfold revenge upon us. Natural science takes its revenge by unleashing technology that subjugates us in ways we cannot anticipate, understand or (...) control. Philosophy, in turn, takes revenge on science for neglecting the philosophical presuppositions of its own worldview. Nature itself takes its revenge upon those who consider it to be some formless and passive matter, deprived of history and negativity, responding to our productive activity in surprising ways that, without a rational form of regulation, could lead to our own extinction. Lastly, history takes revenge on those ‘well intentioned’ actors who try to impose their will upon it without a scientific knowledge of its internal, necessary, and objective forces. (shrink)

Deleuze said that he detested Hegelianism and dialectics: this paper claims that Deleuze is contra Hegel because he has and proposes a different philosophical system. Thus, I suggest that if we want to understand the reason of such a “disgust,” we need to focus the philosophical question that moves the entire Deleuzian system (§ 1). Then, I explain that if the ground-question of Hegel’s philosophy is “how is it possible that things are surpassed, that they go on?”, the Deleuzian one (...) is “how is it that there is always something new, that things come out?” (§ 2). Finally, I discuss how desire can be considered as a key-example for seeing how the perspectives of the two thinkers diverge (§ 3). (shrink)

In literature Peter Damian has been often presented as an anti-dialectic thinker. Over time this statement has been subjected to careful historiographical revision. Today it is commonly accepted that the distinction between dialectic and anti-dialectic thinkers only partially describes the state of philosophy in the eleventh century. In fact, the relation between faith and reason is complex in Damian. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider this relation in the light of the significance Damian (...) attributes to the notion of contradiction. Reason must respect the principle of non-contradiction not only when it describes the natural world, but also when it explores the dimension of the mysteries of faith. (shrink)

This article proposes an analysis of the use and value of the terms ‘philosophia’ and ‘philosophus’ in Peter Damian’s works. Despite a remarkable number of ‘negative’ occurrences, the two words are also used in a ‘positive’ sense, especially in the sermo VI, devoted to the figure of Saint Eleuchadius, a pagan philosopher who converted himself to the Christian truth and put his intellectual competencies at the service of the Church. Contradicting the standard image of Peter Damian as ‘anti-dialectician’, Eleuchadius’ (...) case shows how the cardinal-bishop of Ostia could accept the idea of a Christian philosopher, following the Augustinian interpretation of the biblical “Gold of the Egyptians”. (shrink)

«The world is about to get rid of morality, becoming total organization that is total destruction. Progress tends to culminate in a catastrophe». This few words sum up the fears of the late Horkheimer, who is increasingly worried about the effects of the dialectic of enlightenment. The fatal outcome of such dialectic has led the world to the brink of annihilation. According to Horkheimer, the root of the dialectic of enlightenment is an instrumental reason tending to the (...) dominion (the dominion of man over nature and the dominion of man over man). With his theoretical production, Horkheimer has tried to prevent the disastrous effects of this instrumental reason, ending up framing the longing for the Totally Other. In our opinion, the Totally Other plays an anti-dialectic function over enlightenment, having the triple meaning of transcendence as other than immanence; of utopia as an other society than the present one; and of an other reason than the instrumental reason, as a promise of a thought that is not anymore allied to the dominion. A new interpretation of the Totally Other would free its critical power, and it would be a “negative” attempt (in the sense of negative theology) to prevent the catastrophe towards which we all are pushed by what Horkheimer calls the immanent logic of history. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that, just as the problem of unconceived alternatives provides a basis for a New Induction on the History of Science to the effect that a realist view of science is unwarranted, the problem of unconceived objections provides a basis for a New Induction on the History of Philosophy to the effect that a realist view of philosophy is unwarranted. I raise this problem not only for skepticism’s sake but also for the sake of making a (...) point about philosophical argumentation, namely, that anticipating objections to one’s claim is not the same as supporting one’s claim. In other words, defending p from objections does not amount to support or evidence for p. This, in turn, presents dialectical and pragma-dialectical approaches to argumentation with the following question: does proper argumentation require that arguers anticipate and respond to unconceived objections? (shrink)

David Benatar argues that coming into existence is always a harm, and that – for all of us unfortunate enough to have come into existence – it would be better had we never come to be. We contend that if one accepts Benatar’s arguments for the asymmetry between the presence and absence of pleasure and pain, and the poor quality of life, one must also accept that suicide is preferable to continued existence, and that his view therefore implies both (...) class='Hi'>anti-natalism and pro-mortalism . This conclusion has been argued for before by Elizabeth Harman – she takes it that because Benatar claims that our lives are ‘awful’, it follows that ‘we would be better off to kill ourselves’ (Harman 2009: 784). Though we agree with Harman’s conclusion, we think that her argument is too quick, and that Benatar’s arguments for non-pro-mortalism deserve more serious consideration than she gives them. We make our case using a tripartite structure. We start by examining the prima facie case for the claim that pro-mortalism follows from Benatar’s position, presenting his response to the contrary, and furthering the dialectic by showing that Benatar’s position is not just that coming into existence is a harm, but that existence itself is a harm. We then look to Benatar’s treatment of the Epicurean line, which is important for him as it undermines his anti-death argument for non-pro-mortalism. We demonstrate that he fails to address the concern that the Epicurean line raises, and that he cannot therefore use the harm of death as an argument for non-pro-mortalism. Finally, we turn to Benatar’s pro-life argument for non-pro-mortalism, built upon his notion of interests, and argue that while the interest in continued existence may indeed have moral relevance, it is almost always irrational. Given that neither Benatar’s anti-death nor pro-life arguments for non-pro-mortalism work, we conclude that pro-mortalism follows from his anti-natalism, As such, if it is better never to have been, then it is better no longer to be. -/- . (shrink)

Cette note devait introduire à un public anglophone la traduction de la « Lettre de Louis Althusser datée du 18 mars 1966 et adressée au Comité central du PCF », elle est ici enrichie dans une version livrée au public français. Elle apporte le contexte historique et théorique nécessaire à la compréhension des interventions « anti-humanistes » de Louis Althusser qui questionne les choix politiques opérés par le PCF au cours des années 1960. Nulle part ailleurs, dans les écrits (...) publiés d’Althusser, nous ne voyons aussi clairement les enjeux politiques imbriqués dans son projet philosophique, ni comment ce projet évolua progressivement d’une entreprise « théoriciste » à la recherche d’une philosophie en lien plus étroit avec la pratique. Cette lettre nous paraît de la plus haute importance pour les spécialistes de l’œuvre d’Althusser, les historiens de la pensée marxiste, mais aussi plus largement à tous ceux qui s’intéressent à l’importance que peut revêtir le travail d’Althusser dans les débats actuels dans le champ de la philosophie marxiste. (shrink)

Defences of Williamson’s Anti-Luminosity Argument (ALA) that employ doxastic propagation principles—i.e., rules by which cases of beliefs and/or dispositions to believe are inferred from other such cases—risk running into sorites. Since these principles are explainable by an ineffective capacity to phenomenally discriminate between two adjacent cases, luminist rejections of the ALA can halt sorites by denying doxastic propagation, thereby reaffirming these discriminative capacities as appropriately effective. One potent method of resisting the luminist involves recharacterizing discriminative capacities in terms of (...) a distinction between beliefs and their underlying dispositions to reinstate the plausibility of doxastic propagation. To this effect, I propose a novel coarse-grained approach favouring the ALA that leverages a modal analysis of the belief/ disposition distinction. This motivates a sharp threshold between belief and absent belief that neither succumbs to sorites nor begs the question against the luminist. The upshot of this approach is substantial: by conferring a dialectical advantage to the anti-luminist, the luminist is held to highly problematic positions, regarding the trivialisation of safety and the relationship between beliefs and dispositions, if they deny the coarse-grained approach at many of its components. (shrink)

This paper explores the connections between and synthesis of Anarchist political philosophy with the ethical systems of the late Roman Stoics. Utilizing a dialectic virtue model, reminisce of Hegelian development, the analysis centers around the ways in which stoic virtue theory can be applied within anarchist social structure and the consequences of such a combination. Anarchism provides a particularly flexible framework for implementation; such a system’s loose structure, with the primary thesis of anti-statism, varies greatly between individuals and (...) groups. Stoic ethics share in anarchism’s need to reconcile the individual moral agent with their role in the moral community, and this connection is one in which the individual sovereignty and the wider community may be brought into a greater degree of flourishing. Stoicism is oft perceived as mostly conservative, yet not out of necessity, while Anarchism’s progressive libertarian nature allows for wide interpretation. A Dialectic Virtue Theory can be utilized as a vehicle to connect these two traditions—Stoicism being it’s exemplar, and Anarchism's natural freedom of interpretation and practice. Virtue will then be explored as something which, when pursued in earnest, increases the flourishing of the individualist as well as the communitarian. Individual Liberty will take center stage, and as we will see this is echoed in the stoic conceptions of self-discipline; to discipline one’s own individual attainment of virtue will have ripple effects when given the space to do so, and since this discipline does not come from a higher authority (ie. the state), this maps particularly well to anarchist political thought. Hereby the individual is given the utmost freedom to develop their own ethics of virtue while contributing positively to the generalized virtue of the larger community, and both grow evermore sophisticated via this dialectical exploration. This thesis asserts that the system which can be constructed from these traditions is not only preferable, but logically sound, just, and attainable. This then ushers in the newest in a long line of anarchist variance which we shall now call Anarcho-Stoicism. (shrink)

For decades, the question of whether dialectics applies to nature has been a hotly debated topic in the Marxian literature. A number of authors have claimed that the Marxist outlook on nature and natural sciences has been for-mulated by Engels alone. According to this view, Marx, unlike Engels, was concerned not with trans-historical laws governing the universe but with some particular laws of society. This anti-Engels camp, so to speak, mainly tended to draw bold lines between Marx and Engels, (...) and charged Engels with dis-torting Marxʼs original ideas of dialectics by some kind of reductionism, sci-entism and positivism that might also end up in an obsolete idealism. Engels was „following Hegelʼs mistaken lead“ by extending „the method to apply also to nature“. However, dialectics was „limited ... to the realms of history and society“.2 Some others objected to this view, and characterized any at-tempt to sharply contrast Engels with Marx as concealed mysticism and idealism. For the pro-Engels camp, Engelsʼs conception of nature was „in full conformity“ with Marxʼs materialist philosophy.4 Dialectics of nature was „no invention of Engels“. On the contrary, „it was worked out in collaboration with Marx and had his full agreement. (shrink)

A symposium on my *Objects: Nothing Out of the Ordinary* (2015). In response to Wallace, I attempt to clarify the dialectical and epistemic role that my arguments from counterexamples were meant to play, I provide a limited defense of the comparison to the Gettier examples, and I embrace the comparison to Moorean anti-skeptical arguments. In response to deRosset, I provide a clearer formulation of conservatism, explain how a conservative should think about the interaction between intuition and science, and discuss (...) what conservatives should say about scattered territories, clonal colonies, and arbitrary systems. In response to Tillman and Spencer, I fortify my original presentation of the debunking arguments by clarifying why, even while trees (if they exist) are paradigmatically causal, conservatives are meant to be rationally obstructed from believing that it is trees that are causing our tree beliefs. (shrink)

During the first half of the twentieth century, many philosophers of memory opposed the postulation of memory traces based on the claim that a satisfactory account of remembering need not include references to causal processes involved in recollection. However, in 1966, an influential paper by Martin and Deutscher showed that causal claims are indeed necessary for a proper account of remembering. This, however, did not settle the issue, as in 1977 Malcolm argued that even if one were to buy Martin (...) and Deutscher’s argument for causal claims, we still don’t need to postulate the existence of memory traces. This paper reconstructs the dialectic between realists and anti-realists about memory traces, suggesting that ultimately realists’ arguments amount to inferences to the best explanation. I then argue that Malcolm’s anti-realist strategy consists in the suggestion that causal explanations that do not invoke memory traces are at least as good as those that do. But then, Malcolm, I argue that there are a large number of memory phenomena for which explanations that do not postulate the existence of memory traces are definitively worse than explanations that do postulate them. Next, I offer a causal model based on an interventionist framework to illustrate when memory traces can help to explain memory phenomena and proceed to substantiate the model with details coming from extant findings in the neuroscience of memory. (shrink)

This paper situates Wittgenstein in what is known as the causalism/anti-causalism debate in the philosophy of mind and action and reconstructs his arguments to the effect that reasons are not a species of causes. On the one hand, the paper aims to reinvigorate the question of what these arguments are by offering a historical sketch of the debate showing that Wittgenstein's arguments were overshadowed by those of the people he influenced, and that he came to be seen as an (...) anti-causalist for reasons that are in large part extraneous to his thought. On the other hand, the paper aims to recover the arguments scattered in Wittgenstein's own writings by detailing and defending three lines of argument distinguishing reasons from causes. The paper concludes that Wittgenstein's arguments differ from those of his immediate successors; that he anticipates current anti-psychologistic trends; and that he is perhaps closer to Davidson than historical dialectics suggest. (shrink)

Strong non-maximalism holds that some truths require no ontological ground of any sort. Strong non-maximalism allows one to accept that some propositions are true without being forced to endorse any corresponding ontological commitments. We show that there is a version of truthmaker theory available—anti-aboutness truthmaking—that enjoys the dialectical benefits of the strong non-maximalist’s position. According to anti-aboutness truthmaking, all truths require grounds, but a proposition need not be grounded in the very thing(s) that the proposition is about. We (...) argue that if strong non-maximalism can be defended, then so can anti-aboutness truthmaking on the very same basis; one can enjoy the benefits of strong non-maximalism without giving up on the idea that truth is always grounded in being. (shrink)

This paper proposes a reading of Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina as analogous to a legal brief submitted to a court en banc. The Letter develops a theory of the general issues underlying the case at hand, but it is organized around advocacy for a particular judgment. I have drawn two architectonic implications from this framework, each of which helps to resolve an issue still standing in the literature. First, the Letter anticipates varying degrees of acquiescence to its (...) general account, and provides ‘hooks’ for different readers to interpret variously while still converging on the particular judgment. This reading allows for a coherent Galilean interpretation of passages that notoriously concede priority to Scripture, while also explaining their dialectical function. Galileo is neither self-contradictory nor dissimulating here, but strategically leaves the specification of key distinctions for the reader. Second, the Letter, and particularly its apparent shifting of the burden of proof, must be understood in light of the tripartite ‘adversarial-judicial’ framework that Galileo sets up. The burden of proof is shifted to anti-Copernicans within the Church, not as a rhetorical trick, but because of the benefits of adversarial procedure that will accrue to the Church as the responsible judge. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the challenge presented to scientific realism by the semantic incommensurability thesis. A twofold distinction is drawn between methodological and semantic incommensurability, and between semantic incommensurability due to variation of sense and due to discontinuity of reference. Only the latter presents a challenge to scientific realism. The realist may dispose of this challenge on the basis of a modified causal theory of reference, as argued in the author’s 1994 book, The incommensurability thesis. This referential response has been the (...) subject of a charge of meta-incommensurability by Hoyningen-Huene et al., who argue that the realist’s referential response begs the question against anti-realist advocates of incommensurability. In reply, it is noted that a tu quoque rejoinder is available to the realist. It is also argued that the dialectical situation favours the scientific realist, since the anti-realist defence of incommensurability depends on an incoherent distinction between phenomenal world and world-in-itself. In light of such incoherence, and a strong commonsense presumption in favour of realism, the referential response to semantic incommensurability may be justifiably based on realism. (shrink)

Fictionalism has recently returned as a standard response to ontologically problematic domains. This article assesses moral fictionalism. It argues (i) that a correct understanding of the dialectical situation in contemporary metaethics shows that fictionalism is only an interesting new alternative if it can provide a new account of normative content: what is it that I am thinking or saying when I think or say that I ought to do something; and (ii) that fictionalism, qua fictionalism, does not provide us with (...) any new resources for providing such an account. (shrink)

This essay examines Elizabeth Grosz's provocative claim that feminist and anti-racist theorists should reject a politics of recognition in favor of "a politics of imperceptibility." She criticizes any humanist politics centered upon a dialectic between self and other. I turn to Spinoza to develop and explore her alternative proposal. I claim that Spinoza offers resources for her promising politics of corporeality, proximity, power, and connection that includes all of nature, which feminists should explore.

The paper discusses Hilbert mathematics, a kind of Pythagorean mathematics, to which the physical world is a particular case. The parameter of the “distance between finiteness and infinity” is crucial. Any nonzero finite value of it features the particular case in the frameworks of Hilbert mathematics where the physical world appears “ex nihilo” by virtue of an only mathematical necessity or quantum information conservation physically. One does not need the mythical Big Bang which serves to concentrate all the violations of (...) energy conservation in a “safe”, maximally remote point in the alleged “beginning of the universe”. On the contrary, an omnipresent and omnitemporal medium obeying quantum information conservation rather than energy conservation permanently generates action and thus the physical world. The utilization of that creation “ex nihilo” is accessible to humankind, at least theoretically, as long as one observes the physical laws, which admit it in their new and wider generalization. One can oppose Hilbert mathematics to Gödel mathematics, which can be identified as all the standard mathematics until now featureable by the Gödel dichotomy of arithmetic to set theory: and then, “dialectic”, “intuitionistic”, and “Gödelian” mathematics within the former, according to a negative, positive, or zero value of the distance between finiteness and infinity. A mapping of Hilbert mathematics into pseudo-Riemannian space corresponds, therefore allowing for gravitation to be interpreted purely mathematically and ontologically in a Pythagorean sense. Information and quantum information can be involved in the foundations of mathematics and linked to the axiom of choice or alternatively, to the field of all rational numbers, from which the pair of both dual and anti-isometric Peano arithmetics featuring Hilbert arithmetic are immediately inferable. Noether’s theorems (1918) imply quantum information conservation as the maximally possible generalization of the pair of the conservation of a physical quantity and the corresponding Lie group of its conjugate. Hilbert mathematics can be interpreted from their viewpoint also after an algebraic generalization of them. Following the ideas of Noether’s theorem (1918), locality and nonlocality can be realized both physically and mathematically. The “light phase of the universe” can be linked to the gap of mathematics and physics in the Cartesian organization of cognition in Modernity and then opposed to its “dark phase”, in which physics and mathematics are merged. All physical quantities can be deduced from only mathematical premises by the mediation of the most fundamental physical constants such as the speed of light in a vacuum, the Planck and gravitational constants once they have been interpreted by the relation of locality and nonlocality. (shrink)

In A Metaphysics for Freedom, Helen Steward proposes and defends a novel version of the libertarian account of free action. Amongst several objections that she considers to her view, one that looms particularly large is the Challenge from Chance: ‘the most powerful, widely-promulgated and important line of anti-libertarian reasoning’. This paper begins by arguing that Steward’s response to the Challenge is not fully convincing. It then goes on to explore a further possible libertarian line of defence against the Challenge, (...) arguing that it, too, ultimately fails. The conclusion is that the Challenge remains an important source of dialectical advantage for the compatibilist. (shrink)

Karl Pearson is the leading figure of XX century statistics. He and his co-workers crafted the core of the theory, methods and language of frequentist or classical statistics – the prevalent inductive logic of contemporary science. However, before working in statistics, K. Pearson had other interests in life, namely, in this order, philosophy, physics, and biological heredity. Key concepts of his philosophical and epistemological system of anti-Spinozism (a form of transcendental idealism) are carried over to his subsequent works on (...) the logic of scientific discovery. This article’s main goal is to analyze K. Pearson early philosophical and theological ideas and to investigate how the same ideas came to influence contemporary science, either directly or indirectly – by the use of variant theories, methods and dialects of statistics, corresponding to variant statistical inference procedures and their specific belief calculi. (shrink)

In this essay, I fill this gap in knowledge by arguing that the central object of Fanonian dialectics is violence (anticolonial guerilla warfare), the achievement of the decolonized Black nation and the eventual creation of a new anti-colonial (Pan-African) world order over and against its dialectical negation: Neo-colonialism via colonial counterinsurgency. Furthermore, I argue that Fanon’s dialectical thought helped lay the basis for the emergence of a new theory of revolution against US empire coined by Huey P. Newton as (...) intercommunalism. The complementarity and conceptual harmony between Fanon’s and Newton’s dialectical thinking about US/colonial empire, counterinsurgency, the imperative of creating new forms of humanism, and the lumpen masses as primary agents in the revolutionary transformation of society comprise what I call the ‘empire as pacification’ thesis. (shrink)

Can poetry be Diasporic? Can poetry free itself from the shackles of conformism? Can it be independent and divergent, and not seek a home? Is it capable of mustering its inner strengths and living without being enlisted by a collective that accords it power? This article argues that poetry is essentially dialectic. It has little vitality without the presence of the Other, without interaction with him. However, it also contains independent, personal elements and reaches its peak through the individual’s (...) anti-conformist activity and expression. Poetry, like language, enables us to view ourselves from outside, thereby fulfilling an important role, similar to language itself, and it is created by the individual’s alienation even from himself. Poetry may provide one of the most creative potential tools of Diasporic philosophy, love and creativity being its cornerstones, but it can also be a destructive factor seeking to imprison the creative soul within a home with the solid walls of a rigid community. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to contribute to the debate about the normativity of meaning not by means of providing and defending new arguments, but by analysing and reflecting on some of the presuppositions and seemingly irresolvable dialectical points of disagreement. Second, it seeks to achieve the first aim by critically engaging with some of the objections raised against semantic normativity by anti-normativists like Kathrin Glüer, Anandi Hattiangadi and Åsa Wikforss as well as discussing (...) some of the ideas defended by normativists like Hans-Johann Glock, Severin Schroeder and Daniel Whiting. The upshot of the discussion is meant to provide a clearer representation of some of the arguments and concepts that guide the debate, though the proposed analysis, if correct, should also add some support for the normativist’s case. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the theoretical commitments of autopoietic enactivism in relation to Errol E Harris’s dialectical holism in the interest of establishing a common metaphysical ground. This will be undertaken in three stages. First, it is argued that Harris’s reasoning provides a means of developing enactivist ontology beyond discussions limited to cognitive science and into domains of metaphysics that have traditionally been avoided by phenomenologists. Here, I maintain enactivist commitments are consistent with Harris’s reasoning from (...) certain synthetic a priori first principles, to his derivation of a teleological anthropic principle, which asserts the necessity of consciousness within the cosmos. Second, it is proposed that Steven Rosen’s long-standing proposal for a topology of phenomenology may provide a common logical foundation for both Harris and enactivists regarding anthropic reasoning. Third, it is argued that a pragmatic approach to process ontology is the most rigorous way of responding to the realism/anti-realism concerns that inevitably follow. If successful, this work will update Harris’s arguments with contemporary scientific and philosophical terminology and extend enactivism from philosophy of mind, into a general phenomenological ontology. (shrink)

This paper analyses the interpretation of the Marxist dialectic proposed by three important French philosophers of the twentieth century: Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Raymond Aron (1905-1983). Starting from different theoretical and political points of view, they criticize the historical determinism of the Marxist dialectic and propose three different “philosophies of freedom.” In the Adventures of the Dialectic (1955), Merleau-Ponty criticizes a theory of human history based only on economic structure, and denounces the violence of (...) the Soviet communism. He also accuses his friend Sartre – who had a more favourable attitude towards Soviet communism – of “ultrabolshevism.” Merleau-Ponty was subsequently active in the French non-communist Left. The existentialist philosopher Sartre always sympathized with the Left, and supported the French Communist Party (PCF) until the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary. In his Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960), Sartre also underlined the failure of the Soviet revolution, and criticized the violence of Marxist revolutionary thought. The last part of this paper deals with the philosopher and political sociologist Raymond Aron, who had a lifelong, sometimes fractious, friendship with Sartre. He always defended a “skeptical and anti-ideological” liberal position. In his best known book The Opium of the Intellectuals (1955), Aron argues that in post-war France, Marxism was the opium of the intellectuals. In this book, Aron chastised French intellectuals for what he described as their harsh criticism of capitalism and democracy and their simultaneous defense of Marxist oppression, atrocities, and intolerance. In opposition to the dialectical ideology of Marxism, Aron proposes an antitotalitarian philosophical and political theory based on the development of individual liberties. (shrink)

In this article we explore the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious as it has taken shape within contemporary cognitive science - meaning by this term the mature cognitive science, which has fully incorporated the results of the neurosciences. In this framework we first compare the neurocognitive unconscious with the Freudian one, emphasizing the similarities and above all the differences between the two constructs. We then turn our attention to the implications of the centrality of unconscious processes in cognitive science (...) for the classical conception of the self. Our analysis will bring to light a bit of claustrophobic dialectic between an eliminative variety of naturalism and an anti-naturalistic form of hermeneutics. Hence we conclude by recommending the pursuit of a mediation between such extreme stances. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the relationship between physicalism and property dualism in the light of the dialectic between anti-physicalist arguments and physicalist responses. Upon rehearsing the moves of each side, it is hard not to notice that there is a puzzling symmetry between dualist attacks on physicalism and physicalist replies. Each position can be developed in a way to defend itself from attacks from the other position, and it seems that there are neither a priori nor a (...) posteriori grounds to choose between the two. I suggest that the reason for the intractability of the disagreement, perhaps surprisingly, is they are both true: physicalism and dualism are formulated in terms of different conceptual schemes, each involving basic metaphysical concepts such as possibility, necessity, law and property. My proposal is that this means that there is no real disagreement in fact; both schemes get at the same reality, in different ways. -/- . (shrink)

Meontology of Gorgias vs. Nihilism. The purpose of this paper is to challenge Gorgias’ image of a “nihilist existentialist”. The original thesis ouden estin, too frequently rendered as „nothing exists”, thus reducing the verb “to be” to denote “bare” existence, and ouden to denote “nothingness”. On close inspection, it turns out that, in Gorgias, neither do we have a negation of reality nor an affirmative treatment of the word “nothingness”.Therefore, ouden” should not be understood as a negation of all reality (...) or a kind of affirmative “nothingness”, whereas “estin” should not be reduced to “bare” existence. (When existence is negated what we obtain is annihilation). Such practices still affect the various translations of Gorgias’ treaty On the non-being or on Nature. Gorgias’ “sophist” thought is typically interpreted as a joke or a parody of dialectical thinking of the Eleatics. In fact, as it turns out, he made no parody of dialectic but applied the elenctic, apagogic method in Zeno’s masterly manner. He did so not for an artificial purpose but to prove the absurdity of the hypothesis of absolute, transcendent (hence incognizable) one Truth-Being, which eliminates the non-being of becoming as absolute non-being. Gorgias argued in earnest in favour of relative being as such, Becoming as the only reality, which from the point of view of absolute being is after all non-being, but not-this-being, or relative non-being but not non-relative non-being, as the Eleatics had claimed. Gorgias’ positions appears to be an apologia of non-being which is, that is of Becoming. We do not transform the “nothing” into a “no thing”. The main question of the treaty is: what is predicated by the word “nothing”? Gorgias’ position can be recapitulated as “nothing is sc. true, there is no criterion because, after all, everything is opinion. It is reinforced further by meontological, i.e. anti-eleatic Gorgias’ emphasis: “No thing is Being (substance)”, because everything is Becoming. Thus the title if Gorgias’ treaty can thus be treated as as an antithesis to that of Melissos’, which – in our opinion – is to emphasize the “non-beingness” of nature, the non-substantiality of things. Therefore, if Gorgias’ text was polemical, and it questioned (while at the same time maintaining the positivity of Becoming as non-being) only the immutability of things, and thus we cannot speak of the existence or the cognizability of natures or of essences of things. In sum, the reasoning of Zeno and Melissos was of a kind that is apt to cut both ways, and that is what Gorgias showed. The argument given as peculiar to himself was to this effect. “What is not” is not, so, it is just as much as “what is”. It is as if the onset of the issues that Plato will take up in The Sophist as the problem of non-being understood as difference. The axis of Gorgias’s anti-eleatic critique, in our view, is his polemic with Parmenides’ famous thesis B3 regarding the relationship of identity or equality between noein and einai. It is an additional and perhaps the most important point of his critique that aims at demonstrating that such relationship is impossible. In brief, things are not words just as thoughts are not words. (shrink)

This work is driven by the attempt to criticise Phenomenology with the help of Levinas. Similar to the Frankfurt School, he characterises it as a “vision of essences”. These eidetical essences are, and can never be fully absolute, not only because several movements of Hegelian Dialectics are refuted in submitting knowledge either to the imago of mere immanence, or to normative structures which are postulated as invariant like in certain versions of Neoplatonism, but because they function as an apriori of (...) an eternally unfinished and fragmented Lebenswelt. Maybe it is to harsh to compare Husserl to the neoscholastic readings of Descartes and to the formalist interpretations of Kant. Husserl is well aware of the kinaesthetic foundations of consciousness and, contrary to Heidegger, he even promotes Spinozism in a certain phase of his work which excels his adolescent fervour of Berkeley. Nevertheless, Husserl incorporates a subject-based, “monadic” transcendentalism, that paradoxically leads to the dissolution of subjective identity. Traditional reasoning itself is exfoliated to perfection in Heidegger afterwards. Husserl's halfhearted formalism ignores the materialist theory of the simulacrum by Lucretius. Heideggers philosophy widens this overseen aspect in calling the Eidos an Aussehen in referring to the Presocratics, but it despises any kind of method and finally flees in to poetry, maintaining its fatalist errors which it committed right form the start: this is why it gained the name of pseudo-concreteness. Cursed through a specific anti-sociological tendency caused by an anti-empiricist vision of history, their theories virtually (not conceptually) exclude the influences of society on philosophy: they are the end result of the era of Kulturkampf, in which idealism tried to battle positivism, naturalism and historicism. Husserl even defines this philosophical battle as the very struggle of existence. The formulation of the Eidos becomes performance. Aristotle used Eidos synonymous to genus and species. Hence the amplitudes of these philosophies foster the metaphysical standpoint of race, that got out of hand in the Nazi Era and even later on. The “topic” of blood and soil appears in Husserl's definition of Heimwelt and his Eurocentrism. Phenomenology is in no case to blame for National Socialism, and it has very little to to with its causes. My work simply tries to make the same analogy that Marx had made for Hegel. It tries to describe, how two leading philosophers of the German Bourgeoisie are reproducing the categories of their surrounding society without even really observing it. (shrink)

In this paper, I compare the Megarian thesis of Metaphysics IX 3 with other sources on the Megarians in order to clarify two questions: that of the unity and nature of the so-called Megarian school and that of Aristotle’s broader argument in IX 3. I first review the disputed issue of the status of the Megarian school and then examine two hypotheses regarding the identity behind Aristotle’s allusion in IX 3. Third, I explore the connection between Megarianism and Plato’s Euthydemus, (...) a task that helps us to contextualize Aristotle’s anti-Megarian polemic. Lastly, I build on the preceding argument in a re-examination of the Eleatic hypothesis with regard both to the Megarians as a whole and to the thesis that Aristotle transmits. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I will offer some examples of the effectiveness of Adorno’s concept of mimesis for an analysis of extreme violence and for a defence of democratic institutions against possible regressions into authoritarian regimes. I will start by reading the concept of mimesis through the lens of the interlacement between the concepts of play and power. My aim is twofold: first, I wish to further the analysis of Adorno’s concept of mimesis by showing that it can be interpreted (...) as a form of play, which either empowers subjectivity or becomes a means of domination; second, I will use these speculations to highlight the relevance of Horkheimer and Adorno’s explanation of anti-Semitic violence when seen through the lens of the concept mimesis. Before concluding, I will briefly highlight Adorno’s ideas about what makes democracy vulnerable to potential regressions into extreme violence, and examine what can be done practically – from an Adornian perspective – to avoid regression: defending democratic institutions, and working towards a removal of those barriers that obstruct genuine mimetic experience and self-reflection. (shrink)

“We are experiencing an ecological and social crisis, driven by exponential capital accumulation, whose end result will be the extinction of human civilisation” (p. 18). While it is easy to shrug off such a dramatic claim, in Alienation, Spectacle, & Revolution: A Critical Marxist Essay, Neil Faulkner takes this relatively strong claim and endeavors to demonstrate its truth. Thus begins his project of updating our understanding of alienation—not an easy task, but one that Faulkner does well. In a time of (...) a simultaneous dearth and deluge of information, Faulkner attempts to pull apart the dialectical and economic structures of the third industrial revolution and follows the breadcrumbs until he comes to a different “end of history.” Faulkner, who died in February 2022, was an archeologist and a political activist. He was a member of the Socialist Workers Party in the U.K. for many years and later a founding member of Anti-Capitalist Resistance. He wrote on topics ranging from the Arab-Anglo conflict to the history of the Olympics. While his corpus spanned several subjects, his books and articles all have a bitingly Marxist take that brought Faulkner much acclaim. (shrink)

In a crucial passage in the Parmenides, Parmenides states that the power of conversation (ten tou dialegesthai dynamin) depends on forms (135b-c) and indicates that this power is a prerequisite for philosophy. In chapter xx Kristian Larsen raises the question what implications this passage has for Plato’s conception of dialectic and argues that the discussion of the thesis that knowledge is perception in the Theaetetus, and in particular the conclusion to this discussion found at 184b3-186e12, provides an explanation of (...) Parmenides’ claims about the power of conversation. The chapter provides a detailed interpretation of the final refutation of Theaetetus’ thesis that knowledge is perception that highlights the way the dramatic features of the Theaetetus accentuate the argument Socrates develops in order to refute the thesis. Larsen argues that a central feature of the drama of the dialogue is Socrates’ attempt at redirecting Theaetetus from mathematics toward dialectic and philosophy. In particular, Socrates aims to make Theaetetus realize that being and the good or the beneficial are things that are what they are, themselves by themselves, that they are on a par, ontologically speaking, and that reaching for them, and attempting to come to grips with them, in thought, is a requirement for knowledge in general and for dialectic in particular. (shrink)

Anti-exceptionalism about logic is the thesis that logic is not special. In this paper, I consider, and reject, a challenge to this thesis. According to this challenge, there are basic logical principles, and part of what makes such principles basic is that they are epistemically exceptional. Thus, according to this challenge, the existence of basic logical principles provides reason to reject anti-exceptionalism about logic. I argue that this challenge fails, and that the exceptionalist positions motivated by it are (...) thus unfounded. I make this case by disambiguating two senses of ‘basic’ and showing that, once this disambiguation is taken into account, the best reason we have for thinking that there are basic principles actually implies that those principles do not require a special epistemology. Consequently, the existence of basic logical principles provides reason to accept, rather than reject, anti-exceptionalism concerning the epistemology of logic. I conclude by explaining how an abductivist, anti-exceptionalist approach to the epistemology of logic can accommodate the notion of basic logical principles. (shrink)

Anti-intellectualism involves general mistrust of scholars, academics, and ex- perts, often as pretentious or power-motivated. While scholars have described currents of anti-intellectualism in American public life, evangelical Christianity, in responses to COVID, and rural identity, to my knowledge none have looked at how anti-intellectualism specifically manifests in the New Atheism movement. In this work, we explore the way anti-intellectualism is commonly found and expressed in New Atheism and the modern Skeptical Movement, including scientific skepticism more generally.

This paper advances an approach to presupposition rooted in the concept of commitment, a dialectical notion weaker than truth and belief. It investigates ancient medieval dialectical theories and develops the insights thereof for analyzing how presuppositions are evaluated and why a proposition is presupposed. In particular, at a pragmatic level, presuppositions are reconstructed as the conclusions of implicit arguments from presumptive reasoning, grounded on presumptions of different type and nature. A false (or rather unaccepted) presupposition can be thus represented as (...) the outcome of a conflict of presumptions – the ones used by the Speaker and the ones commonly accepted or backed by evidence. From an interpretative perspective, this defaulted presumptive reasoning can be explained by comparing the available presumptions and repaired by replacing the weaker and unacceptable ones. (shrink)

This paper begins by applying a version of Timothy Williamson’s anti-luminosity argument to normative properties. This argument suggests that there must be at least some unknowable normative facts in normative Sorites sequences, or otherwise we get a contradiction given certain plausible assumptions concerning safety requirements on knowledge and our doxastic dispositions. This paper then focuses on the question of how the defenders of different forms of metaethical anti-realism (namely, error theorists, subjectivists, relativists, contextualists, expressivists, response dependence theorists, and (...) constructivists) could respond to the explanatory challenge created by the previous argument. It argues that, with two exceptions, the metaethical anti-realists need not challenge the argument itself, but rather they can find ways to explain how the unknowable normative facts can obtain. These explanations are based on the idea that our own attitudes on which the normative facts are grounded need not be transparent to us either. Reaching this conclusion also illuminates how metaethical anti-realists can make sense of instances of normative vagueness more generally. (shrink)

The scope of my considerations here is defined along two lines, which seem to me of essential relevance for a theory of dialectic. On the one hand, the form of negation that – as self-referring antinomical negation – gains a quasi-semantic expulsory force [Sprengkraft] and therewith a forwarding [weiterverweisenden] character; on the other hand, the notion that every logical category is defective insofar as the explicit meaning of a category does not express everything that is already implicitly presupposed for (...) its meaning. Both lines are tightly interwoven. This I would like to demonstrate with the example of the dialectic of Being and Non-Being at the beginning of the Hegelian Logic. I will first make visible the basic structures of dialectical argumentation (sections II and III) – whereby certain revisions will turn out to be necessary in comparison with Hegel’s actual argument. Thereby it proves essential that the whole apparatus of logical categories and principles must be always already available and utilized for the dialectical explication: proving dialectic as a self-explication of logic by logical means: dialectic, as it were, as the self-fulfillment of logic (sections IV–VI). (shrink)

Dialectics of Pedagogy: Implications of Paulo Freire's Philosophy of Transformative Education.

In contemporary philosophy of science, the no-miracles argument and the pessimistic induction are regarded as the strongest arguments for and against scientific realism, respectively. In this paper, I construct a new argument for scientific realism which I call the anti-induction for scientific realism. It holds that, since past theories were false, present theories are true. I provide an example from the history of science to show that anti-inductions sometimes work in science. The anti-induction for scientific realism has (...) several advantages over the no-miracles argument as a positive argument for scientific realism. (shrink)