It is proposed a critique of existing interpretations of quantum mechanics, both anti-realistic and realistic, and, in particular, the Copenhagen interpretation, the interpretations with hidden variables, the metaphysical interpretation of H. Everett’s interpretation, the many-worlds interpretation by D. Wallace, QBism by C. Fuchs, D. Mermin and R. Schack, the relational interpretation by C. Rovelli, neo-Kantian and phenomenological interpretations by M. Bitbol, the informational interpretation by A. Zeilinger, the Nobel Prize Winner in Physics 2022, and others. As is known compared (...) to classical physics, quantum mechanics is a new physical paradigm. The author argues that from a philosophical point of view quantum mechanics is an anomaly within the paradigm of (post)modern philosophy. A new approach to understanding quantum mechanics and resolving its paradoxes, rejecting the assumptions and prejudices of (post)modern philosophy, is proposed – contextual quantum realism (CQR). It is a moderately deflationary approach that combines elements of (neo-)Copenhagen, informational and realist interpretations and recognizes the possibility of knowing the things themselves. From the point of view of CQR, the measurement problem – the basic problem of philosophy of quantum mechanics – is a pseudo-problem . (shrink)

Moderate formalism is the view that all artworks which have aesthetic properties have formal aesthetic properties, and some but not all of those works also have non-formal aesthetic properties. Nick Zangwill develops this view in his Metaphysics of Beauty after having argued against its alternatives – extreme formalism and anti-formalism. This article reviews his arguments against the rivals of moderate formalism, and argues that the rejection of anti-formalism is unjustified. Zangwill does not succeed in proving that the broadly (...) determined (context-determined) properties of artworks are in some cases irrelevant to their aesthetic properties – and following that, interpretation and assessment. A historical argument presented here shows how aesthetic properties of every work must partly supervene on this work’s contextual properties. In particular, this disproves Zangwill’s claim that epistemological matters are unessential in determining the artwork’s properties, and exposes some problems his account has with explaining relations between nonaesthetic and aesthetic properties. (shrink)

Lyons’s (2003, 2018) axiological realism holds that science pursues true theories. I object that despite its name, it is a variant of scientific antirealism, and is susceptible to all the problems with scientific antirealism. Lyons (2003, 2018) also advances a variant of surrealism as an alternative to the realist explanation for success. I object that it does not give rise to understanding because it is an ad hoc explanans and because it gives a conditional explanation. Lyons might use axiological (...) realism to account for the success of a theory. I object that some alternative axiological explanations are better than the axiological realist explanation, and that the axiological realist explanation is teleological. Finally, I argue that Putnam’s realist position is more elegant than Lyons’s. (shrink)

Saatsi’s minimal realism holds that science makes theoretical progress. It is designed to get around the pessimistic induction, to fall between scientific realism and instrumentalism, and to explain the success of scientific theories. I raise the following two objections to it. First, it is not clear whether minimal realism lies between realism and instrumentalism, given that minimal realism does not entail instrumentalism. Second, it is not clear whether minimal realism can explain the success of (...) scientific theories, given that it is doubtful that theoretical progress makes success likely. In addition to raising these two objections, I develop and criticize a new position that truly falls between realism and instrumentalism. (shrink)

This essay critiques the return to objects posited by certain new materialisms, most specifically the speculative realism of Harman, Meillassoux and Brassier. It argues that their “non-relational” and “autonomous” ontology represents a neo-positivist conception of reality. In place of such an atomistic ontology, I will suggest that the new materialisms develop a more productive, “non-reductive materialism”—a term drawn from analytic philosophy of mind. I will interpret Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Luc Nancy as crucial examples of such a materialism on the continental (...) side. Rather than being based on the non-relational innerness of an object, this position instead takes into account matter’s fundamentally extended nature. Confirmed by examples such as the growing evidence for neuroplasticity, the externalist, non-reductive view advances the new materialist argument that matter is “agentive” and “active” rather than “mechanic” and “passive,” without slipping into an anti-social-constructionist biologism or behaviorism. (shrink)

This book addresses the metaphysics of Armstrongian states of affairs, i.e. instantiations of naturalist universals by particulars. The author argues that states of affairs are the best candidate for truthmakers and, in the spirit of logical atomism, that we need no molecular truthmakers for positive truths. In the book's context, this has the pleasing result that there are no molecular states of affairs. Following this account of truthmaking, the author first shows that the particulars in (first-order) states of affairs are (...) bare particulars. He then argues that the properties in states of affairs are simple, non-relational and concrete universals. Next, he argues that (material) relations in states of affairs are external relations. Lastly, he argues that a state of affairs is unified by a distinctive formal relation without giving rise to Bradley’s regress. (shrink)

Although Williams’ contextual thesis is above all a critique of one way of interpreting contextualism in epistemology, viz., simple conversational contextualisam, I will argue that this thesis has also been a very successful means for the critique of a standpoint on which that interpretation, and the entire traditional epistemology rests - epistemological realism. Accordingly, in spite of certain weaknesses in Williams’ position pointed out by his critiques, in this paper I will try to show that, by interpreting (...) the problem of scepticism as first and foremost a methodological necessity of epistemological realism, Williams succeeds in offering an enlightening diagnosis of the sceptical paradox problem which is at the centre of epistemology traditionally construed. (shrink)

Social emergence is one the most important problems in social science that the way it is answered affects the results of social studies and policies. The complexity of social emergence conception has caused a variety of definitions. This article seeks to define the robust social emergence conditions, using the philosophy of mind conception such as subvenience, wildly disjunctives, and multiple realization. Different approaches have different challenges in satisfying robust social emergence conditions. These challenges could be formulated in three problems i.e. (...) realism, top-down causality, and mechanism. This article aims to analytically criticize how critical realism approaches these problems. Critics believe that critical realism faces two sort of difficulties in satisfying robust social emergence: the first, the independence of structure from agencies that leads to reifying and the second, that ontological and causal emergence conflicts with subvenience. It seems the first problem could be resolved by employing the unrestricted mereological composition conception, and the second by the fact that subvenience do not necessitate ontological dependence. (shrink)

The critique of philosophical foundations of neoclassical economics is significant, because of its hegemony on economic education and research programs in Iran and worldwide academies. Due to an epistemological fallacy, methodological individualism plays a prominent role in the philosophy of economic; since the ontological aspects of economy are reduced to methodological considerations. Accordingly, critique of methodological individualism is regarded as the main entry for philosophical analysis of neoclassical economics. This article aims to analyze and appraise the methodological individualism (...) from critical realism’s point of view. Critical realism is taken as a stand for criticizing methodological individualism, because critical realism and neoclassical economics as a positive approach to economics, both share a realistic worldview. The critical realism’ critique of methodological individualism is bases on analyzing the concepts of formalism, syllogism, social atomism, isolation and reduction. From critical realism’ point of view because of unrealistic postulations of methodological individualism, neoclassical economics is turned to an abstract and deductive science such as mathematics with a low potentiality of explanation. (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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In this thesis the author focuses on the metaphysical implications of the realist interpretation of special relativity. The realist interpretation is found wanting in coherence as it utilizes metaphysical concepts (as causation) that are left unjustified if the theory is taken at face value. The author points at a possible re-interpretation of special relativity that allows for a coherent metaphysical basis while containing the mathematical structure of the theory.

Classical physics was inspired primarily by a metaphysical background concerned with substance and properties. Atoms were conceived according to the billiard ball model. Between these atoms, physical properties and relations existed in a secondary, dependent sense. This metaphysical background has problems that have defeated resolution for centuries. Is a more effective background conceivable?

In this paper I challenge the pernicious aspects of Milton Friedman's methodological outlook that continues to hold sway over mainstream neoclassical economists. I do this by showing how Friedman's own methodological dicta could have been used against him when he famously advanced the expectations critique of the Phillips curve at his presidential address to the American Economic Association. I use this case study to further suggest that psychological and neurophysiological data should not be deemed irrelevant to economic science.

Meillassoux seeks knowledge of transcendental reality, blaming Kant for the ‘correlationist’ proscription of independent access to either thought or being. For Meillassoux, correlationism blocks an account of the meaning of ‘ancestral statements’ regarding reality prior to humans. I examine three charges on which Meillassoux’s argument depends: (1) Kant distorts ancestral statements’ meaning; (2) Kant fallaciously infers causality’s necessity; (3) Kant’s transcendental idealism cannot grasp ‘the great outdoors’. I reject these charges: (1) imposes a Cartesian misreading, hence Meillassoux’s false assumption that, (...) for Kant, objects don’t exist without subjects; (2) misreads Kant, who infers causality’s necessity from the possibility of experience; (3) casts Kant’s idealism as subjective, ignoring his perspectival portrayal of it. (shrink)

Within critical realist circles, the development of knowledge in the natural and social domains has thus far been much stronger by comparison with its respective development within the personal domain. What I want to explore here is how knowledge can be positively used to have emancipatory effects at the level of the individual. The way in which we are able to achieve this is by coming to have what Spinoza calls more adequate ideas of ourselves, other beings, and our place (...) in nature through strengthening the explanatory power and minimizing the fallibility of the knowledge we use in our judgements and progressive articulations of personal situations by making use of explanatory critique and cause-object matching techniques. This article explains what an explanatory critique actually is and does before turning to explain why it interests us in relation to Spinoza’s thought and then how it is specifically useful in connection with emotional revision and control. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the importance of treating mental experience on its own terms. In defense of “experiential realism” I offer a critique of modern psychology’s all-too-frequent attempts to effect an objectification and quantification of personal subjectivity. The question is “What can we learn about experiential reality from indices that, in the service of scientific objectification, transform the qualitative properties of experience into quantitative indices?” I conclude that such treatment is neither necessary for realizing, nor sufficient (...) for capturing, subjectively given states (such as perception, pain, imagery, fear, thought, memory) – that is, for understanding many of the principle objects of psychological inquiry. A “science of mind” that approaches its subject matter from a third-person perspective should, I contend, be treated with a healthy amount of informed skepticism. (shrink)

In this Master's dissertation, I try to show that the causal theory of memory, which is the only theory developed so far that at first view seems more plausible and that could be integrated with psychological explanations and investigations of memory, shows some conceptual and ontological problems that go beyond the internal inconsistencies that each version can present. On one hand, the memory phenomenon analyzed is very limited: in general it is reduced to the conscious act of remembering expressed in (...) a propositional format: the idea of an agent who can control his memory reports, in contrast to a passive subject who merely retrieve his encoded memories, is not even considered. Furthermore, the representational function of memory is the only function taken into account; and all the diachronic changes that could entail a dynamic conception of memory are ignored, as is the consideration of context in a broad sense of the term. On the other hand, causal theories make some implicit assumptions that are obviously questionable (e.g., the difference between facts and events) and leave some of their key concepts unexplained, like the nature of the causality, the isomorphism between the memory trace and the memory event, etc. Nonetheless, the principal point that we criticized is the idea of a correspondence between a past event or representation of it, the correspondent memory trace and the memory representation of it. Psychological models of memory, with the exception of the spatial analogy, question some of these assumptions and suggest that memory information is organized in a way other than that implied by the causal theory. But it is distributed connectionism that actually challenges the causal theory of memory, not only through some of its basic postulates, like the superpositional conception of memory traces, their mutual influence and constant state of change, but also because it is compatible with a more situated approach to memory phenomena as well as with the idea that memory in reality accomplishes a variety of functions that go beyond the representational one. The explicit and implicit ideas provided by distributed connectionism, together with the previous criticisms that we made to of causal theory, clearly suggest the possibility of developing another kind of philosophical theory of memory, different from existing theories. This task, nonetheless, implies: (a) A much deeper study of connectionism principles and memory models, as well as of the rival candidate, symbolism, plus the evaluation of these models in the light of psychological and neurophysiological empirical research, which unfortunately I have not dealt with in this work. (b) An analysis of the metaphysical nature of events and facts, in order to see if we should decide in favor of a realist or a non-realist account. It is also clear that this decision can’t be taken without an examination of perception studies (and not exclusively philosophical ones) which would be crucial for determining what is encoded in memory, and studies devoted to language, which, I suspect, plays an important role in the segmentation of reality. (c) A clarification of the notion of causality, because we wouldn’t like to deny any kind entail the complete disappearance of boundaries between memory and imagination. And even if I suspect that my future work will question the existence of absolute boundaries between these two capacities, the notion of causality can’t be completely erase from the theory of memory without erasing the memory phenomenon itself. But this causality, as we’ve already showed, can’t consist in the naïve conception adopted by the causal accounts of memory, nor can it be explained in counterfactual terms. If we think of the reconsolidation concept, of the interdependence between all the memory system, and of the deciding influence of context, it’s almost sure that more than one notion of causality will need to be invoked in order to explain memory. (d) Because I do not want to reduce the study of memory exclusively to cases of remembering, it’s essential to analyze how memory intervenes not only in imagination, but also in perception, reasoning and future projection, for example. In this respect, we could quote the interesting articles of Atance & O’Neill (2001) and Bucker & Carroll (2006), the first concerning the relationship between episodic memory and episodic future thinking, the second concerning the relationship between episodic memory and all kinds of self-projection, such as navigation and theory of mind, relations that would also have to be explored from a philosophical perspective, in particular to overcome the tendency to suppose that representation is the only function of memory. I will also mention the necessity of combining the notion of metamemory with that of memory to some extent; as I have already remarked, it is implausible to suppose that a subject who consciously remembers something is unable to exert any kind of control over his memory reports. (e) Finally, in order to integrate a situated conception of memory into a philosophical account, it will also be indispensable to take into consideration what is known as “everyday memory research” as well as studies in social and collective memory. (shrink)

According to the “paradox of knowability”, the moderate thesis that all truths are knowable – ... – implies the seemingly preposterous claim that all truths are actually known – ... –, i.e. that we are omniscient. If Fitch’s argument were successful, it would amount to a knockdown rebuttal of anti-realism by reductio. In the paper I defend the nowadays rather neglected strategy of intuitionistic revisionism. Employing only intuitionistically acceptable rules of inference, the conclusion of the argument is, firstly, (...) not ..., but .... Secondly, even if there were an intuitionistically acceptable proof of ..., i.e. an argument based on a different set of premises, the conclusion would have to be interpreted in accordance with Heyting semantics, and read in this way, the apparently preposterous conclusion would be true on conceptual grounds and acceptable even from a realist point of view. Fitch’s argument, understood as an immanent critique of verificationism, fails because in a debate dealing with the justification of deduction there can be no interpreted formal language on which realists and anti-realists could agree. Thus, the underlying problem is that a satisfactory solution to the “problem of shared content” is not available. I conclude with some remarks on the proposals by J. Salerno and N. Tennant to reconstruct certain arguments in the debate on anti-realism by establishing aporias. (shrink)

This paper outlines an account of political realism as a form of ideology critique. Our focus is a defence of the normative edge of this critical-theoretic project against the common charge that there is a problematic trade-off between a theory’s groundedness in facts about the political status quo and its ability to consistently envisage radical departures from the status quo. To overcome that problem we combine insights from three distant corners of the philosophical landscape: theories of legitimacy by (...) Bernard Williams and other realists, Frankfurt School-inspired Critical Theory, and recent analytic epistemological and metaphysical theories of cognitive bias, ideology, and social construction. The upshot is a novel account of realism as empirically-informed diagnosis- critique of social and political phenomena. This view rejects a sharp divide between descriptive and normative theory, and so is an alternative to the anti- empiricism of some approaches to Critical Theory as well as to the complacency towards existing power structures found within liberal realism, let alone mainstream normative political philosophy, liberal or otherwise. (shrink)

Contemporary politics is often said to lack utopias. For prevailing understandings of the practical force of political theory, this looks like cause for celebration. As blueprints to apply to political practice, utopias invariably seem too strong or too weak. Through an immanent critique of political realism, I argue that utopian thought, and political theory generally, is better conceived as supplying an orientation to politics. Realists including Bernard Williams and Raymond Geuss explain how utopian programs like universal human rights (...) poorly orient their adherents to politics, but the realists wrongly conclude that utopias and other ideal theories necessarily disorient us. As I show through an analysis of utopian claims made by Michel Foucault, Malcolm X, and John Rawls, utopias today can effectively disrupt entrenched forms of legitimation, foster new forms of political identity, and reveal new possibilities within existing institutions. Utopias are needed to understand the political choices we face today. (shrink)

In this paper I argue, in the first section, that Schopenhauer was a direct perceptual realist. I think Schopenhauer’s critique of Kant in the Appendix to WWR 1 is largely bound together by his view that Kant was still welded to a pre-critical indirect perceptual realism which creates the various points of tension or compromise formations that Schopenhauer enumerates. In the second section I go on to argue that this perceptual direct realism sheds light on his account (...) of compassion, in particular making it more plausible that he is a direct realist about our perception of the emotions, or wills, of others (at least in the appropriate circumstances). This helps to resolve a problem identified in the literature, especially by David Cartwright. In the last section I address an objection, and show that far from being an objection, it in fact strengthens my position. (shrink)

For over 30 years I have argued that we need to construe science as accepting a metaphysical proposition concerning the comprehensibility of the universe. In a recent paper, Fred Muller criticizes this argument, and its implication that Bas van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism is untenable. In the present paper I argue that Muller’s criticisms are not valid. The issue is of some importance, for my argument that science accepts a metaphysical proposition is the first step in a broader argument intended to (...) demonstrate that we need to bring about a revolution in science, and ultimately in academic inquiry as a whole so that the basic aim becomes wisdom and not just knowledge. (shrink)

Karl Popper’s critique of idealism manifests itself with the application of his method, falsificationism, to metaphysics, epistemology, and social and political philosophy. According to Popper, who identifies himself as a philosophical realist, idealism has emerged as a result of the idea that reality cannot be known by reason and of the search for certainty which is erroneous, and it has begotten two mistaken and detrimental views. These views are historicism, the notion that history has an irresistible course, and holism, (...) the notion that social wholes are organic structures that amount to more than the individuals constituting them. Historicism and holism have become the philosophical underpinnings of closed societies throughout history, such as the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. Therefore, with a practical leaning, Popper actually takes aim at these pernicious consequences of idealism while criticizing it. In this study, idealism and the contours of Popper’s philosophy are examined, and then Popper’s metaphysical, epistemological, social, and political critiques against idealism are investigated. Keywords: Karl Popper, idealism, historicism, holism, falsificationism. (shrink)

What is the point of ideology critique? Prominent Anglo-American philosophers recently proposed novel arguments for the view that ideology critique is moral critique, and ideologies are flawed insofar as they contribute to injustice or oppression. We criticize that view and make the case for an alternative and more empirically-oriented approach, grounded in epistemic rather than moral commitments. We make two related claims: (i) ideology critique can debunk beliefs and practices by uncovering how, empirically, they are produced (...) by self-justifying power, and (ii) the self-justification of power should be understood as an epistemic rather than moral flaw. Drawing on the recent realist revival in political theory, we argue that this genealogical approach has more radical potential, despite being more parsimonious than morality-based approaches. We demonstrate the relative advantages of our view by discussing the results of empirical studies on the contemporary phenomenon of neopatriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa. (shrink)

his chapter discusses some of the basic tenets of a critical realist social ontology. It defines capitalism, which Roy Jacques conspicuously fails to do. Jacques argues that the very point of explanatory critique is to facilitate useful action. For Geoffrey Hodgson, the epsilon scenario could be described as beyond capitalism. A form of employment contract remains, but it is a mere shell of its former capitalist self. In the work process, the degree of control by the employer over the (...) employee is minimal. Hodgson argues that 'impurity' necessarily characterizes all socioeconomic systems. However, any assessment of feasibility depends crucially upon an adequate theoretical analysis of concrete socio-economic systems. The chapter explains the nature of disaggregative analysis, which is predicated upon a realist ontology. Transcendentally the social world is composed of internal and external social relations; disaggregative analysis enables thought experiments about alternative social arrangements. The chapter addresses the nature of division of labour, knowledge and Hayek. (shrink)

In this dissertation I consider the merits of certain nominalist accounts of phenomena related to the character of ordinary objects. What these accounts have in common is the fact that none of them is an error theory about standard cases of predication and none of them deploys God or uniquely theistic resources in its explanatory framework. -/- The aim of the dissertation is to answer the following questions: -/- • What is the best nominalist account on offer? • How might (...) it be improved? • Does it ultimately succeed? -/- I will argue that while so-called trope theory is the best account on offer, it can be significantly improved—or replaced—by a novel version of nominalism that is modeled after trope theory. Ultimately, however, I will argue that even the novel version fails. -/- The dissertation unfolds as follows. In Chapter 1, I introduce Austere Nominalism (AN), which is perhaps the most extreme version of nominalism that falls within the scope of the dissertation. AN is often described as the view that there exist only concrete particulars. According to AN, it is unnecessary to posit any entities other than ordinary objects—turkeys, tables, and the like—in order to account for explananda related to the character of those objects. (Such explananda include the phenomenon of attribute agreement, of attribute possession, of true subject-predicate sentences, etc.) In this chapter I argue that AN fails to provide an adequate account of these explananda. In addition, introducing and criticizing AN serves an important heuristic role for the rest of the dissertation. To understand this role, we must distinguish between the basic explanatory strategy deployed by the austere nominalist and the type of explananda for which she deploys that strategy. The austere nominalist deploys the strategy to account for the character of ordinary objects. As I argue in Chapter 1, this deployment is a failure. As I go on to show in Chapter 2, the widespread rejection AN has led to a variety of rival accounts of the character of ordinary objects. In rejecting AN, however, these accounts also tacitly reject its basic explanatory strategy. Thus goes the baby with the bathwater, since, arguably, there are some attractive features of AN’s basic explanatory strategy. Indeed, those who defend the most prominent version of nominalism—trope theory—seem to overlook the advantages of AN’s basic strategy, and by so doing, make an unnecessary concession to the realist. Or so I argue in Chapter 3. And, as I will argue in Chapter 4, the strongest version of nominalism is a novel account, modeled after trope theory, that deploys AN’s basic strategy at a more fundamental level than that of ordinary objects. This novel account—troper theory—is closer in spirit to AN than is traditional trope theory. (Thus, AN serves as a foil for the discussion of other nominalist views.) Finally, in the Afterword I indicate how troper theory is equally vulnerable to some of the traditional objections that plague trope theory. Thus, if you are not convinced that traditional objections to trope theory are conclusive and you want to be a nominalist, then you should abandon trope theory and adopt troper theory. If you take traditional objections against trope theory to have significant force, then you should reject both theories. (shrink)

The paper begins by introducing a heuristic distinction between the “dogmatist” and the “pragmatist” approaches to philosophy of history. Dogmatists tend to use history to exemplify and shore up their pre-existing philosophical convictions. Pragmatists, on the other hand, construe philosophy of history as a form of critical reflection on the actual historical practice, with epistemic criteria of proper practice emerging in the course of the research itself, not antecedently deduced from general philosophical considerations. The core of the paper discusses the (...) work of Paul Roth, which is treated both as a specimen of the pragmatist mode of argumentation, and as a philosophical vindication, in the context of history, of the central pragmatist contention that we cannot successfully define knowledge in terms of a relation to reality, where reality is somehow understood independently and in advance of us knowing it. It is argued that Roth’s skillful deployment of arguments emerging from the recent philosophy of science to expose naïve realism in philosophy of history as a vestige of the no-longer-tenable philosophical vision opens a way for thinking productively about history as a complex and evolving form of research practice. (shrink)

Mario Bunge’s Causality and Modern Science is arguably one of the best treatments of the causal realist tradition ever to have been written, one that defends the place of causality as a category in the conceptual framework of modern science. And yet in the current revival of causal realism in contemporary metaphysics, there is very little awareness of Bunge’s work. This paper seeks to remedy this, by highlighting one particular criticism Bunge levels at the Aristotelian view of causation and (...) illustrating its relevance for contemporary powers-based accounts. Roughly, the Aristotelian view depicts interactions between objects as involving a unidirectional exertion of influence of one object upon another. This idea of unidirectional action is central to the Aristotelian distinction between active and passive powers, and its corresponding distinction between active and passive objects. As Bunge points out, modern physics does not recognise the existence of any unidirectional actions at all; all influence comes in the form of reciprocal action, or interaction. If this is right, all notions deriving from or influenced by the idea of unidirectional actions—such as the concept of mutual manifestation and reciprocal disposition partners—risk being false by the same measure. Bunge drew the conclusion that the Aristotelian view is ontologically inadequate, but still advocated its use as the most useful approximation available in science. He considered, but ultimately rejected the possibility of a modified view of causation built on reciprocal action, because, in his view, it couldn’t account for the productivity of causation. Bunge’s critique of this particular aspect of the Aristotelian view cannot be overlooked in contemporary metaphysics, but it is possible to construe a modified view of causation that takes the reciprocity of interactions seriously without loss of productivity. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders Ockham's critique of the species theory of cognition. As Ockham understands this theory, it says that the direct objects of cognition are mental representations, or species. According to many commentators, one of Ockham's main objections to this theory was that, if the direct objects of cognition are species rather than external objects, we will never be able to establish whether or not a given species is a veridical representation of the world. In this paper I argue (...) that this line of interpretation sits uneasily with Ockham's epistemology, and offer a new interpretation of Ockham's critique of species. (shrink)

Several scholars familiar with Sextus Empiricus’s Pyrrhonism who have attentively read his Against the Ethicists have gotten the impression that something strange is going on in this book. For, at variance with the ‘official’ Pyrrhonian attitude of universal suspension of judgment, a number of passages of Against the Ethicists seem to ascribe to the Pyrrhonist both a type of negative dogmatism and a form of realism, which together amount to what may be called ‘moderate ethical realism’. The (...) purpose of this paper is to determine whether Sextus does embrace such a position in Against the Ethicists. (shrink)

Bernard Williams thought that philosophy should address real human concerns felt beyond academic philosophy. But what wider concerns are addressed by Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, a book he introduces as being ‘principally about how things are in moral philosophy’? In this article, we argue that Williams responded to the concerns of his day indirectly, refraining from explicitly claiming wider cultural relevance, but hinting at it in the pair of epigraphs that opens the main text. This was Williams’s solution (...) to what he perceived as the stylistic problem of how to pursue philosophy as cultural critique. Taking the epigraphs as interpretative keys to the wider resonances of the book, we show how they reveal Williams’s philosophical concerns – with the primacy of character over method, the obligation to follow orders, and the possibility of combining truth, truthfulness, and a meaningful life in a disillusioned world – to be recognisably rooted in the cultural concerns of post-war Britain. In the light of its epigraphs, the book emerges as the critique of a philosophical tradition’s inadequacies to the special difficulties of its cultural moment. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the possibility of adopting a representational approach for technoscience, in which representation is considered as a situated process of dynamic “intra-action” (Barad 2007 ). Re-elaborating the recent critiques of representationalism (Thrift 2008 ), my analysis begins by analysing Hayles’s situated model of representation from an early essay where she explains her definition of constrained constructivism (Hayles [ 1991 ] 1997). The essay then discusses the notions of figuration and diffraction and the way they are employed by (...) Haraway in many of her writings for her critique of technoscience (Haraway 1991 , 1997 ). Finally, after considering diffraction through Barad’s reading of this practice in the context of her theory of agential realism ( 2007 ), it shows the links that relate constrained constructivism, situated knowledge and agential realism, and the way all of them work at “diffract[ing] the rays of technoscience” (Haraway 1997 : 16) through an alternative representational practice. (shrink)

In their recent article, Graber and Golemon (_Sophia_ 1–18, 2019 ) argue that any attempted evolutionary debunking of naturalism faces a dilemma. First, in order to be evolutionarily plausible, the skeptical implications must not be too broad. Second, in order to constitute a genuine challenge to scientific realism, the skeptical implications must not be too narrow. Graber and Golemon further develop an evolutionary debunking argument that avoids both horns of this dilemma. De Ray (_Erkenntnis_ 1–21, 2020 ) criticizes Graber (...) and Golemon’s debunking argument then develops his own, competing debunking argument. We first respond to de Ray’s criticisms by showing how Graber and Golemon’s argument can be extended so as to avoid de Ray’s critique. We then show that de Ray’s argument debunking argument is impaled by both horns of Graber and Golemon’s dilemma. The ultimate result will be both a better understanding of the desiderata and the argumentative contours of a successful evolutionary debunking argument. (shrink)

Aristotle held that perception consists in the reception of external sensory qualities (or sensible forms) in the sensorium. This idea is repeated in many forms in contemporary philosophy, including, with regard to vision, in the idea (still not firmly rejected) that the retinal image consists of points of colour. In fact, this is false. Colour is a quality that is constructed by the visual system, and though it is possible to be a realist about colour, it is completely misleading to (...) think of it as received by the retina. Moreover, such supposedly “charitable” interpretations of Aristotle’s doctrines, based on miscon- ceptions of perception-science, distort our understanding of his historical context. (shrink)

Moral realism faces two worries: How can we have knowledge of moral norms if they are independent of us, and why should we care about them if they are independent of rational activities they govern? Kantian constitutivism tackles both worries simultaneously by claiming that practical norms are constitutive principles of practical reason. In particular, on Stephen Engstrom’s account, willing involves making a practical judgment. To will well, and thus to have practical knowledge (i.e., knowledge of what is good), the (...) content of one’s will needs to conform to the formal presuppositions of practical knowledge. Practical norms are thus constitutive of practical knowledge. However, I will argue that the universality principles from which Engstrom derives the formal presuppositions of practical knowledge are reflectively and psychologically unavailable. As a result, they cannot help Kantian constitutivism provide an answer to moral realism's worries. (shrink)

Since 2002 we have been testing and refining a methodology for ontology development that is now being used by multiple groups of researchers in different life science domains. Gary Merrill, in a recent paper in this journal, describes some of the reasons why this methodology has been found attractive by researchers in the biological and biomedical sciences. At the same time he assails the methodology on philosophical grounds, focusing specifically on our recommendation that ontologies developed for scientific purposes should be (...) constructed in such a way that their terms are seen as referring to what we call universals or types in reality. As we show, Merrill’s critique is of little relevance to the success of our realist project, since it not only reveals no actual errors in our work but also criticizes views on universals that we do not in fact hold. However, it nonetheless provides us with a valuable opportunity to clarify the realist methodology, and to show how some of its principles are being applied, especially within the framework of the OBO (Open Biomedical Ontologies) Foundry initiative. (shrink)

According to Charles Travis our language is occasion-sensitive. The truth- conditions of all our sentences, and their correctness-conditions more generally, vary depending on the occasions on which they are used. This is part of a broader view of language as unshadowed. This paper develops objections Travis has made from this viewpoint against Michael Dummett’s anti-realism. It aims to show that the arguments are suggestive but inconclusive. For all it shows unshadowed anti-realism is a possibility.

This paper draws attention to a divergence in approach to the social between Ken Gergen’s radical form of social constructionism and the more moderate constructionist approaches exemplified by the thinking of Shaun Gallagher, Jan Slaby and Karen Barad. Specifically, I argue that the latter stop just short of radical constructionism’s ontological and ethical implications. The ethical question for Gergen is not whether and how we achieve just relations but whether and how we deal with the struggle between competing goods, (...) how we manage to think beyond justice understood as singular traditions of the good, so that we can focus on enriching our traditions with alternative intelligibilities, thereby expanding the inclusiveness of our relational structures. Viewing the wayward person or group through Gergen’s lens of multi-being rather than the morality of blameful justice encourages us to strive for an ethics of responsibility without succumbing to a moralism of culpability. (shrink)

Peter Abelard's claim that universals are only words is well known, yet its metaphysical bearing for Abelard's philosophy is much disputed. Peter King has recently suggested that Abelard's nominalism is only an element of his larger irrealist metaphysic. Against this interpretation, I argue that Abelard's view is better understood as a form of moderate realism and a development of the solution attempted by Boethius in his Second Commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge. Both Abelard and Boethius clearly deny the independent (...) existence of universals, yet they should not be called irrealists, since they agree that universal words or concepts have a firm basis in real, individual things. (shrink)

Racial constructionists, anti-naturalists, and anti-realists have challenged users of the biological race concept to provide and defend, from the perspective of biology, biological philosophy, and ethics, a biologically informed concept of race. In this paper, an ontoepistemology of biology is developed. What it is, by this, to be "biological real" and "biologically meaningful" and to represent a "biological natural division" is explained. Early 18th century race concepts are discussed in detail and are shown to be both sensible and not greatly (...) dissimilar to modern concepts. A general biological race concept (GBRC) is developed. It is explained what the GBRC does and does not entail and how this concept unifies the plethora of specific ones, past and present. Other race concepts as developed in the philosophical literature are discussed in relation to the GBRC. The sense in which races are both real and natural is explained. Racial essentialism of the relational sort is shown to be coherent. Next, the GBRC is discussed in relation to anthropological discourse. Traditional human racial classifications are defended from common criticisms: historical incoherence, arbitrariness, cluster discordance, etc. Whether or not these traditional human races could qualify as taxa subspecies – or even species – is considered. It is argued that they could qualify as taxa subspecies by liberal readings of conventional standards. Further, it is pointed out that some species concepts potentially allow certain human populations to be designated as species. It is explained why, by conventional population genetic and statistical standards, genetic differences between major human racial groups are at least moderate. Behavioral genetic differences associated with human races are discussed in general and in specific. The matter of race differences in cognitive ability is briefly considered. Finally, the race concept is defended from various criticisms. First, logical and empirical critiques are dissected. These include: biological scientific, sociological, ontological, onto-epistemological, semantic, and teleological arguments. None are found to have any merit. Second, moral-based arguments are investigated in context to a general ethical frame and are counter-critiqued. Racial inequality, racial nepotism, and the “Racial Worldview" are discussed. What is dubbed the Anti-Racial Worldview is rejected on both empirical and moral grounds. Finally, an area of future investigation – the politics of the destruction of the race concept – is pointed to. (shrink)

The ethics of immigration is currently marked by a division between realists and idealists. The idealists generally focus on formulating morally ideal immigration policies. The realists, however, tend to dismiss these ideals as far-fetched and infeasible. In contrast to the idealists, the realists seek to resolve pressing practical issues relating to immigration, principally by advancing what they consider to be actionable policy recommendations. In this article, I take issue with this conception of realism. I begin by surveying the way (...) in which it exemplifies what certain political theorists have recently called ‘problem-solving’ realism – a species of realism which they reject as incoherent. These theorists demonstrate that what counts as a ‘feasible’ solution is far harder to establish than most problem-solving realists would have us believe. Applying this general critique to the specific domain of immigration ethics turns out to radically undermine the notion of realism that prevails in this sphere of applied ethics. I conclude that we should therefore revise our conception of what constitutes a genuinely realist approach to the problem of immigration. (shrink)

The three target articles constitute a powerful and persuasive call for actively anti-racist bioethics and biomedicine. All three articles reject race as a biological category. Nevertheless, they share a common commitment to racial classification. At one point, Ruqaiijah Yearby writes that “social race, like biological race, is an illusion created to establish racial hierarchy,” but mostly she writes about “races” as though they were not an illusion, but a reality. In this commentary I critique the racial realism of (...) the target articles. I argue that the biomedical fight against racism is best served by a form of anti-realist reconstructionism about race, which says that there are no races, only racialized groups—groups misunderstood to be races. Note that I do not defend the color blindness that Clarence H. Braddock (2020) persuasively rejects. Because of the role of skin color in racialization and racism, color blindness is a misguided goal. One can reject color blindness, though, without accepting racial realism... (shrink)

It has been claimed that naïve realism predicts phenomenological similarities where there are none and, thereby, mischaracterises the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. If true, this undercuts a key motivation for the view. Here, we defend naïve realism against this charge, proposing that such arguments fail (three times over). In so doing, we highlight a more general problem with critiques of naïve realism that target the purported phenomenological predictions of the view. The problem is: naïve realism, (...) broadly construed, doesn’t make phenomenological predictions of the required sort. So, as a result, opponents must resign themselves to attacking specific incarnations of naïve realism, or approach matters quite differently. (shrink)

A critique of a kind of 'moral realism' that is in fact a rather thinly disguised version of global historicist idealism. If you don't like the idea that facts are hard and values are soft, you can pump up the values to make them as hard as the facts or soften down the facts to make them as soggy as the values. Lovibond prefers the latter strategy. After some critical remarks about Lovibond's book (including its implicit authoritarianism) I (...) conclude with some equally critical remarks about McDowell's blurb. Unusually for a review and for a first publication, this has actually been cited in the literature, for instance in the second edition of Platts' *Ways of Meaning*. (shrink)

In order to re-contextualize the otherwise ontologically privileged meaning of metaphysical debates into a more insubstantial form, metaphysical deflationism runs the risk of having to adopt potentially unwanted anti-realist tendencies. This tension between deflationism and anti-realism can be expressed as follows: in order to claim truthfully that something exists, how can deflationism avoid the anti-realist feature of construing such claims singularly in an analytical fashion? One may choose to adopt a Yablovian fallibilism about existential claims, but other approaches can (...) be appealed to as well. Amie Thomasson's Easy Ontology is one such approach, whereby the interaction of empirical as well as analytic features within the construction of its ontological theory affords a role for analytical rules without forsaking a link with empirical reality. The development of these analytical and empirical features has resulted in significant critiques regarding, one, potential reference failure of easy-ontological claims, and two, a circularity in how easy ontology explains the relation between its analytical rules and existential claims. This essay offers a response by showcasing how an easy ontological deflationism can reject these criticisms without succumbing to, one, the anti-realism of pure analyticism, and two, a further critique of wholesale referential indeterminacy in its referring terms. (shrink)

RESUMO Neste artigo, discuto o que considero serem os pressupostos ontológicos da crítica de Nietzsche à metafísica no primeiro livro de Humano, demasiado humano e a natureza da relação estabelecida por ele entre filosofia e ciência. Busco definir sua posição como um realismo científico moderado, que considera que as ciências caminham progressivamente em direção a uma concepção puramente dinâmica do real. ABSTRACT In this paper I discuss what I consider to be the ontological assumptions of Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysics (...) in the first book of Human, all too human and the nature of the relation he establishes between philosophy and science. I try to define his position as a moderate scientific realism, as he claims that science progressively moves towards a purely dynamic conception of reality. (shrink)

In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then (...) put forward three main normative claims, each of which is compatible with the evidence. We start with a critique of the epistocratic position commonly thought to be supported by the evidence. We then introduce a qualified critique of referenda and other forms of plebiscite, and an outline of a tribune-based system of popular control over oligarchic influence on the policy process. Our discussion points towards a renewal of democracy in a plebeian but not plebiscitarian direction: Attention to the relative power of social classes matters more than formal dispersal of power through voting. We close with some methodological reflections about the compatibility between our normative claims and the realist program in political philosophy. (shrink)

As civil liberties are shredded and powerful corporate and political force engage in a range of legal illegalities, the state itself becomes a model for corruption and violence. Violence has become not only the foundation of corporate sovereignty, it has also become the ideological scaffolding of common sense. Under casino capitalism, the state has become the enemy of justice and offers a prototype for types of misguided rebellion that mimic the lawlessness enshrined by corporate sovereignty and the repressive state apparatuses. (...) Under such circumstances, the force of action does not reside in deliberation, compassion, justice, equality and freedom. The state of exception has become the rule serving to legitimate illegality and normalizing violence and force as the only mediating dynamic worth utilizing to solve problems. In addition, subjectivity itself has become both hyper-masculinized, transformed, and subordinated to the celebration of an aggressive, violent and hyper-competitive war machine. Evidence of the hardening of the culture and the ongoing visibility of a pathological form of hyper-masculinity abounds in polices that amount to a permanent war on the poor, women, immigrants, workers, public servants, Muslims, poor minorities and those adults marginalized by class and race. Casino capitalism's paranoiac and increasingly repressive institutional and ideological apparatuses live in fear of dissent, critical rationality and the possibility of collective struggles moved by the desire for justice and a radical democracy. This is precisely where questions about education and resistance connect to broader debates about producing critical agents capable of acting as engaged and responsible citizens in a substantive democracy. Neoliberalism, as a dominant ideology, changed not only ways of thinking, but, consequently, practices. Evidently, a process of transformation like the one imposed by the hegemony of neoliberal ideology does not take place without resistance-conscious or not-and here it is the role of the State (and its ideological apparatus) in the subjection of individuals. For Fisher, there is no element that shows that the public actually embraced neoliberal doctrines with enthusiasm. For Mark Fisher, capitalist realism is \\\"an expression of class decomposition, and a consequence of class disintegration\\\". The phenomenon resulting from this discontent that finds few ways to express itself that are not individual is named by Mark Fisher as the \\\"privatization of stress\\\", which easily converts into depression and other psychological suffering. Although both its neoliberal and neoconservative components are opposed to bureaucracy in favour of privatised decentralisation, in practice capitalist realism involves the normalisation of bureaucracy and the creation of additional and unnecessary labour. Although pyramidal hierarchies are flattened, the increase and establishment of constant communication through technology has led to people at the same level surveilling each other. (shrink)

In this paper I call attention to the fact that Lonergan gives two radically opposed accounts of how sense perception relates us to the external world and of how we know that this relation exists. I argue that the position that Lonergan characteristically adopts is not the one implied by what is most fundamental in his theory of cognition. I describe the initial epistemic position with regard to the problem of skepticism about the external material world that is in fact (...) implied by his theory of cognition, and I sort out some confusion about various forms of direct and representative perceptual realism. The paper concludes with a critique of Lonergan’s theory of description and explanation in empirical science that makes evident the difficulties into which he is led by lack of clarity in his theory of perception. (shrink)