In this paper, I delve on Nietzsche’s concept of perspectivism and how it becomes relevant amid contemporary society’s openness to relative standpoints. The foremost era that reflects this description points to postmodernism as a politics of difference. Nietzsche’s perspectivism is generally a critique of the conditions that absolutize truth. While this may seem a valiant opening for a welcoming era on an epistemological standpoint, it does not however do away with its own paradoxes. I contend whether this fits well with (...) postmodernism and its ironic relationship to truth and asserts further that the conditions for Nietzsche’s perspectivism can only achieve its future if it hermeneutically stands as political consensus. Later, I will present the features of this perspectivism as political consensus and how it can be viable in postmodernity. (shrink)

This essay delves into Nietzsche’s understanding of the jester in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I argue here that its existence explains the shifting ethos from tragedy to comedy. The jester in the societal context exhibits the figure of fictionalism that redirects reality into a detour of comic interplays. As such, he embodies fictional overcoming from the modern backdrop. I then employ On the Genealogy of Morals to explain further four principles that aid in taking into effect the birth of the jester. (...) Nietzsche’s critique of morality attacks such principles as ressentiment, guilt and bad conscience taken together, free will, and ascetic ideal. Later, I present a way of going into the shadows as a manner of confronting the jester and overcoming it. (shrink)

The split between the subject and object is the epistemological inheritance of modernity’s enchantment with substance, notably shown by the subjectivism in the Cartesian ‘cogito’ and Kantian ‘transcendental I’. In this paper, I will attempt to argue that despite Heidegger’s ontological hermeneutics that eclipsed Descartes’ dualism and Kant’s transcendentalism, there is still a possibility of the return of both Subject and Object – exemplified even on ontological grounds in Žižek’s Subject-Oriented Ontology and Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology. Conveniently, I will situate the (...) two ontologies, dubbed respectively as SOO and OOO, in the recent Žižek & Harman Duel/Duet (2017). Further, I will rework the uses of two important notions found only in this debate – unhintergebar (the ‘unsurpassable’) and ostranenie (defamiliarization) – to explicate the transport from Heidegger’s metaphysical abyss to spectral abyss. Arguing from Heidegger’s ground (grund) and/or abyss (abgrund) that grounds possibilities of being, I will call this new ground for strange possibilities as spectral abyss (gespenstisch abgrund). To achieve this, I will do two things. First, I will briefly rehearse the epistemological split and Heidegger’s ontological turn. And second, I will resituate the debate by showing how Žižek and Harman’s ontologies can emerge from Heidegger’s spectral abyss. My ultimate goal is then to explicate not the return but the ground that makes it possible for a strange return. (shrink)

To commemorate the tragic event of Super Typhoon Yolanda (International Name: Haiyan) last 2013, local leaders of the province of Leyte, Philippines, are speculating on establishing a Haiyan Museum in 2023, a decade later. With connotations of ‘dark tourism’, one way to look at the speculative decade-inspired establishment is through Amy Sodaro’s ‘memorial museums’ with the purpose of ‘education-based memorialization.’ Juxtaposing this with Paul Morrow’s philosophical perception of objects in memorial museums as possible provocateurs of repulsive feelings, there is a (...) lingering suspicion of whether exhibits in the museum can really flesh out educational, therapeutic reflections or healing. Then, the crucial question to be addressed is: will this Haiyan Museum house feelings of healing, 10 years later, or trauma? To answer this question, I take insights from survivor-curators or the museum curators of Region VIII, Philippines, who experienced the Haiyan tragedy at, or proximate to, the landfall and aftermath first-hand. The notion of a ‘survivor-curator’ is a vital coinage that would represent a close perception of the museum and its museum objects. The responses are then thematised into a more coherent discussion to see how museums can be spaces of healing in their communal aspect and future museum projects. (shrink)

This chapter delves into the museological side of ‘the way forward’ to conservation for planetary health bioethics. Specifically, it highlights the crucial role that museums play – their curatorial or exhibition interventions, conservation operations, development policies, or practices – which present or represent the vital relationship between human and planetary health. While it is not new to stress the significance of museums’ link to the environment and environmental education, it is necessary to re-examine recent cases in light of the rapid (...) changes brought about by climate change and the constant call for sustainability. We thus offer a review of some recent literature that appraises the museum’s role in bioethically considering the health of our living planet. Learning this role taps into relatively new themes such as ecomuseums and architectural heritage, or critical eco-museology. (shrink)

In this essay, I present an alternative philosophical approach to meta-curating. While the debate surrounding the meta-curating of content often centers around technology like post-digital art, I prefer to take a broader perspective and examine its ontological implications. I consider the realist or anti-realist assumptions of meta-curating through Jean Baudrillard’s concept of seduction and Giorgio Agamben’s idea of spectrality. Both simulacrum and spectrality tend to support an anti-realist approach to meta-curating where the value of the object is made fragile when (...) constantly predetermined by a superficially seductive or spectrally floating context. Against meta-curating as anti-realist, I argue that meta-curation is realist. As a case, the seductive and the spectral in Zaha Hadid’s Morpheus in Macao demonstrate that meta-curating does not completely disregard, but rather raises the question of how to establish an antifragile realism prompted by an architectural object. (shrink)

The Traslación of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, Philippines conducts its rites and practices as a devotion outside the liturgy of the Catholic Church. As a popular religious practice widely known and attended by millions, it has become considered a religious phenomenon, attesting to the religiosity of Filipinos and their patient endurance for God. However, this religious practice is also condemned as idolatry, as one finds with reference to the golden calf in Exodus 32:4. In this paper, I create an (...) apologia for this devotion using Jean-Luc Marion’s concept of the icon. To do this I will first describe the various critiques of idolatry and iconography within the church and consider some of the negative interpretations of this devotion. Then I will consider the Traslación in relation to Marion’s project. Finally, I will present the apologia itself. This paper provides a defense of various kinds of Filipino devotion which addresses the idolatry critique and respects the rich religiosity of these devotions. (shrink)

Established in the northernmost part of the country in 2003, the Philosophical Association of Northern Luzon, Incorporated (PANL) is one of the regional philosophical organizations in the country. This interview article aims to produce the first published historical account of this organization as it marked its 18th year of existence and in connection with the development of Filipino philosophy. Thus, this interview article focused on the history of PANL as it differentiates itself from the national philosophical organizations, such as the (...) Philosophical Association of the Philippines, the Philosophy Circle of the Philippines, and the Philippine National Philosophical Research Society. Using the method of oral history, this interview article specifically documented and assessed: 1) the circumstances behind the foundation of PANL; 2) how PANL differentiated itself from the other major Philippine national philosophical organizations; 3) PANL's general stand on the development of Filipino philosophy, the contextualization of philosophy to the realities of northern Luzon, and the use of Ilocano language in philosophizing; 4) the trends of the research projects of its leading writers/thinkers; 5) the lasting imprints of its presidents on the organization; and 6) the general direction where the organization is heading to. The respondents of this interview article were: 1) Dr. Fernando Martin Serrano, the founding president of the organization; 2) Dr. Jeffrey Centeno, a founding member of the organization and the one who drafted its constitution and by-laws; and 3) Dr. Danilo Alterado, the current president of the same organization. (shrink)

Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight (2018), his latest novel to-date, contains nostalgic elements of strangeness and cartography. In this paper, I short-circuit such themes with health under medical humanities, which heeds a Nietzschean counsel of close reading in literature. To do so, I explore the case of Rachel's illness, namely her epileptic seizures, as an instance that drives her impetus for active forgetting and eventual convalescence. A close hermeneutical reading of the novel can reveal that both of Nietzsche’s ideas on active forgetting (...) and convalescence provide traction in terms of what this paper constructs as Rachel’s pathography or narration of illness. Shifting the focus from the main narrator, Nathaniel, I argue that it is not the novel's reliance on memory but the subplot events of Nathaniel's sister and her epilepsy that form a substantial case of medical or health humanities. (shrink)

The Philosophical Association of the Visayas and Mindanao (PHAVISMINDA), founded in 1979, is one of the oldest philosophical organizations in the country that continued to exist until the present time. This interview article focused on this organization as something distinct from the other major national philosophical organizations of the country, such as the Philosophical Association of the Philippines, the Philosophy Circle of the Philippines, and the Philippine National Philosophical Research Society. Using the method of oral history, this paper tried to (...) document and assess: 1) how PHAVISMINDA differentiated itself from the other major Philippine national philosophical organizations; 2) PHAVISMINDA’s general stand on the development of Filipino philosophy, the contextualization of philosophy to the realities of the Visayas and Mindanao, and the use of Cebuano language in philosophizing; 3) the trends of the research projects of its leading writers/thinkers; 4) its exemplary presidents and their lasting imprints on the organization; and 5) the general direction where the organization is heading. The respondents of this interview article are: 1) Dr. Amosa Velez, of the University of San Carlos, founding member of the organization, practically the first president, and three-time president; 2) Dr. Jane Gallamaso, of Xavier University, and the tenth president of the organization; and 3) Dr. Ruby Suazo, of the University of San Carlos, and the twelfth and current president of the organization. (shrink)

The Mamanuas of Basey, Samar have been in an itinerant state since the 1950s. Their indigenous experience can be capped in the term ‘diaspora,’ which pictures their plight as dispersive habituation, moving from town to town away from their homeland. In a recent study which this paper hinges upon, the concept of diaspora can no longer work and is argued to imperatively function as a vanishing mediator so that indigeneity must come to mean as a constant identity of becoming. Following (...) from such a theoretical lens, this paper delves again into the concept of ‘diaspora’ in the Mamanuan indigenous experience to argue further that its act of mediating functions as performative indigeneity. To do this, the paper runs in three parts: first, it plots the Mamanuan diaspora experience; second, it briefly reiterates the core argument of diaspora as vanishing mediator; and finally, it theorizes on a concept of what Judith Butler calls ‘performative indigeneity’ that takes its form from the mediation of an indigenous diaspora experience. (shrink)

The Lumad struggle in the Philippines, embodied in its various indigenous peoples (IPs), is still situated and differentiated from modern understandings of their plight. Agamben notes that the notion of ‘people’ is always political and is inherent in its underlying poverty, disinheritance, and exclusion. As such, the struggle is a struggle that concerns a progression of freedom from these conditions. Going over such conditions means that one shifts the focus from the socio-political and eventually reveals the ontological facet of such (...) knowledge to reveal the epistemic formation of the truth of their experience. It is then the concern of this paper to expose the concept of freedom as a vital indigenous knowledge from the Mamanwa of Basey, Samar. Using philosophical sagacity as a valid indigenous method, we interview ConchingCabadungga, one of the elders of the tribe, to help us understand how the Mamanwa conceive freedom in the various ways it may be specifically and geographically positioned apart from other indigenous studies. The paper contextualizes the diasporic element and the futuristic component of such freedom within the trajectory of liberation. The Mamanwa subverts the conception of freedom as a form of return to old ways and radically informs of a new way of seeing them as a ‘people.’ It supports recent studies on their literature that recommend the development of their livelihood rather than a formulaic solution of sending them back to where they were. The settlement in Basey changes their identification as a ‘forest people’ into a more radical identity. (shrink)

Cultural studies of recent memory tend to cling to love and find a certain answer from its musings. This critical move proceeds from various interrogations of cultural or cross-cultural practices towards adapting a linear progress so that love is tasked to provide an antidote to contemporary social maladies. This critical paper, however, attempts to appraise the idea that love is not a panacea, especially in a setting where theory is fragmented and assumes almost definitively a dead state. Instead, love functions (...) as a specter that haunts a post-theoretical culture. The paper hinges this take from contemporary thinkers whom Nicholas Birns points to as “theorists without ‘theory’.” As such, the spectral concept of love is explored and critiqued in the lens of Judith Butler and Giorgio Agamben – both thinkers taken as separate and together – as a subversion to its affirmative theoretical standing and as a proposal on how its spectrality can inform the possibilities of its function. (shrink)

In this paper, I explored what Sartre referred to as Camus’ ‘most beautiful and least understood novel,’ The Fall. As a methodology, I applied textual hermeneutics to immerse in the text and got out of it what I deemed as the crux of its existentialism as founded in the two-in-one leitmotif of narration and hypocrisy. In Clamence, there was a profound need – a specter that lingered and haunted – to narrate his life, especially the fall that triggered it and (...) the judgment that allowed him to do it. I argued then that the nature of the text reflected a deep sense of narration that stemmed from hypocrisy, in which Clamence branded himself as ‘judge-penitent’ – what such a life entails, how it freed him, and how it mirrored life-callings or vocations in all walks of life. (shrink)

Wat betreft economische groei en ontwikkeling van de werkloosheid heeft de Nederlandse economie het sinds 1973 slechter gedaan dan andere OECD-landen. Op de vraag naar de oorzaken van die slechte prestatie zijn in het verleden uiteenlopende antwoorden gegeven door o.m. Bomhoff en Clavaux. Ook zijn er diverse wegen aangegeven om op te rukken naar een betere positie. In dit artikel presenteren de auteurs de resultaten van een internationale doorsnee-analyse om de verschillen in economisch succes tussen landen met behulp van een (...) eenvoudig neo-klassiek macro-economisch model te verklaren. Dit biedt de mogelijkheid om te traceren wat de rol van de exportgroei, de groei van de bevolking, de wisselkoers, de verhouding tussen de binnenlandse en de buitenlandse prijsontwikkeling en de investeringsquote voor verschillen in economische ontwikkeling is geweest. Vooral de uitvoer gecorrigeerd voor de omvang van de bevolking, de investeringsquote en de nominale wisselkoers komen als belangrijke verklarende variabelen naar voren. Op grond van hun analyse komen de auteurs tot de conclusie dat een beleid gericht op het verbeteren van de Nederlandse economische prestatie op lange termijn zich vooral zou moeten concentreren op het benutten van exportkansen en op een hoog investeringsniveau ter bevordering van technologische vernieuwing en daarmee verbetering van de concurrentiepositie. Daarbij moet worden voorkomen dat revaluatie van de gulden het exporteffect teniet doet. (shrink)

According to metaphysical coherentism, grounding relations form an interconnected system in which things ground each other and nothing is ungrounded. This potentially viable view’s logical territory remains largely unexplored. In this paper, I describe that territory by articulating four varieties of metaphysical coherentism. I do not argue for any variety in particular. Rather, I aim to show that not all issues which might be raised against coherentism will be equally problematic for all the versions of that view, which features far (...) more nuance and diversity than is typically ascribed to it. (shrink)

This paper clarifies Merleau-Ponty’s original account of “higher-order” cognition as fundamentally embodied and enacted. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy inspired theories that deemphasize overlaps between conceptual knowledge and motor intentionality or, on the contrary, focus exclusively on abstract thought. In contrast, this paper explores the link between Merleau-Ponty’s account of motor intentionality and his interpretations of our capacity to understand and interact productively with cultural symbolic systems. I develop my interpretation based on Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of two neuropathological modifications of motor intentionality, the case (...) of the brain-injured war veteran Schneider, and a neurological disorder known as Gerstmann’s syndrome. Building on my analysis of Schneider’s sensorimotor compensatory performances in relation to his limitations in the domains of algebra, geometry, and language usage, I demonstrate a strong continuity between the sense of embodiment and enaction at all these levels. Based on Merleau-Ponty’s interpretations, I argue that “higher-order” cognition is impaired in Schneider insofar as his injury limits his sensorimotor capacity to dynamically produce comparatively more complex differentiations of any given phenomenal structure. I then show how Merleau-Ponty develops and specifies his interpretation of Schneider’s intellectual difficulties in relation to the ambiguous role of the body, and in particular the hand, in Gerstmann’s syndrome. I explain how Merleau-Ponty defends the idea that sensorimotor and quasi-representational cognition are mutually irreducible, while maintaining that symbol-based cognition is a fundamentally enactive and embodied process. (shrink)

This study clarifies the need for a renewed account of the body in physiotherapy to fill sizable gaps between physiotherapeutical theory and practice. Physiotherapists are trained to approach bodily functioning from an objectivist perspective; however, their therapeutic interactions with patients are not limited to the provision of natural-scientific explanations. Physiotherapists’ practice corresponds well to theorisation of the body as the bearer of original bodily intentionality, as outlined by Merleau-Ponty and elaborated upon by enactivists. We clarify how physiotherapeutical practice corroborates Merleau-Ponty’s (...) critical arguments against objectivist interpretations of the body; particularly, his analyses demonstrate that norms of optimal corporeal functioning are highly individual and variable in time and thus do not directly depend on generic physiological structures. In practice, objectively measurable physical deviations rarely correspond to specific subjective difficulties and, similarly, patients’ reflective insights into their own motor deficiencies do not necessarily produce meaningful motor improvements. Physiotherapeutical procedures can be understood neither as mechanical manipulations of patients’ machine-like bodies by experts nor as a process of such manipulation by way of instructing patients’ explicit conscious awareness. Rather, physiotherapeutical practice and theory can benefit from the philosophical interpretation of motor disorders as modifications of bodily intentionality. Consequently, motor performances addressed in physiotherapy are interpreted as relational features of a living organism coupled with its environment, and motor disorders are approached as failures to optimally manage the motor requirements of a given situation owing to a relative loss of the capacity to structure one’s relation with their environment through motor action. Building on this, we argue that the process of physiotherapy is most effective when understood as a bodily interaction to guide patients towards discovering better ways of grasping a situation as meaningful through bodily postures and movements. (shrink)

This paper considers whether Marx's views about communism change significantly during his lifetime. According to the ‘standard story’, as Marx got older he dropped the vision of self-realization in labour that he spoke of in his early writings, and adopted a more pessimistic account of labour, where real freedom is achieved outside the working-day, in leisure. Other commentators, however, have argued that there is no pessimistic shift in Marx's thought on this matter. This paper offers a different reading of this (...) debate. It argues that there are two visions of the good life in Marx. However, it suggests that these two visions cannot be understood in terms of a simple shift between a ‘young’ and ‘mature’ Marx. Rather, it claims that Marx moves between these two visions throughout his writings. In this way, it suggests that Marx's intellectual development on this issue is best understood as an oscillation rather than a shift. Once this interpretive claim is advanced, the paper then moves on to consider some potential causes and implications of Marx's life-long oscillation between two different conceptions of the good life. (shrink)

Marx’s vision of unalienated production is often thought to be subject to decisive objections. This article argues that these objections rely on a misinterpretation of Marx’s position. It provides a new interpretation of Marx’s vision of unalienated production. Unlike another well-known account, it suggests that unalienated production involves realizing oneself through providing others with the goods and services they need for their self-realization. It argues that this view is appealing and that it offers a more successful response to objections than (...) previous interpretations. In doing so, it hopes to put Marx’s concern with alienation and nonalienation back on the table. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction, as applied both to properties and to relations. In contrast to other accounts, the approach taken here locates the source of a property’s intrinsicality or extrinsicality in the manner in which that property is ‘logically constituted’, and thus – plausibly – in its nature or essence, rather than in e.g. its modal profile. Another respect in which the present proposal differs from many extant analyses lies in the fact that it does (...) not seek to analyse the ‘global’ distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties on the basis of the ‘local’ distinction between having a property intrinsically and having it extrinsically. Instead, the latter distinction is explicated on the basis of the former. (shrink)

Should Marxists support universal basic income (UBI), i.e., a regular cash income paid to all without a means test or work requirement? This paper considers one important argument that they should, namely that UBI would be instrumentally effective in helping to bring about communism. It argues that previous answers to this question have paid insufficient attention to a logically prior question: what is Marx’s account of communism? In reply, it distinguishes two different accounts: a left-libertarian version that associates communism with (...) the freedom to live and work how one wants, and a perfectionist version that associates communism with the overcoming of alienated labour and self-realisation in work. It argues that UBI would make steps towards the left-libertarian account but not the perfectionist account. Ultimately, then, the question “should Marxists support basic income?” is shown to partly depend on which account of communism Marxists want to bring about. (shrink)

The development of nuclear energy technologies in the second half of the 20th century came with great hopes of rebuilding nations recovering from the devasta-tion of the Second World War or recently released from colonial rule. In coun-tries like France, India, the USA, Canada, Russia, and the United Kingdom, nuclear energy became the symbol of development towards a modern and technologically advanced future. However, after more than six decades of experi-ence with nuclear energy production, and in the aftermath of the (...) Fukushima nuclear disaster, it is safe to say that nuclear energy production is not without its problems.Some of these problems have their origins in the very materiality of the technolo-gies involved. For example, not only does the use of highly radioactive materials give rise to risks for the current generation (e.g., in the potential for disaster when reactors melt down) but high-level radioactive waste from nuclear energy production presents a serious intergenerational problem for which an acceptable final solution or its implementation remains elusive. Moreover, nuclear energy technologies have specific social and political consequences. For example, they have been said to be authoritarian technologies (Winner, 1980), requiring cen-tralized authority, secrecy, and technocratic decision-making. While some of these problems could have been foreseen before nuclear energy technologies were introduced, others only arose after these technologies were already integrated into the social and infrastructural fabric of our lives. Addition-ally, new technologies (e.g., Generation III, III+ and IV reactors) are still being developed, bringing with them new and uncertain hazards and risks. Ignorance and uncertainty about the possible deleterious effects of introducing a new technology are inevitable, especially if the technology is complex, large time-scales are involved, or risks depend on social or political factors unforeseen in the design stage. However, this should not deter us from developing and intro-ducing new technologies. Rather, it should motivate us to organize these ‘exper-iments’ with new technologies in society in such a way that we can learn about their possible hazards and risks as effectively and responsibly as possible (van de Poel, 2011, 2015). In this way, it is possible to minimize risks and avoid unwant-ed moral, social or political developments. However, organizing such experi-ments responsibly also means that one could come to the conclusion that continuing an experiment is no longer responsible or desirable. Should we be prepared for such a scenario, and if so, how could we do that? One possible strategy to tackle this issue is that the technology and its introduction should be reversible. The aim of this thesis is to further explore this strategy by answering the following main research question (RQ) and accompanying subquestions (SQ):RQ: What are the implications of reversibility for the responsible develop-ment and implementation of nuclear energy technologies?SQ1: Under what conditions can nuclear energy technologies be considered reversible?SQ2: Why should nuclear energy technologies be reversible?SQ3: If so, how could the reversibility of nuclear energy technologies be achieved?After the introductory chapter 1, the chapters that form the main body of this dissertation each provide a distinct contribution to answering the three subques-tions and, by extension, the main research question. Guided by three historical case studies of nuclear energy technology development (i.e., India, France and the USA), chapter 2 answers the first subquestion by formulating the two condi-tions under which it can be considered reversible, i.e., 1) the ability to stop the further development and deployment of a that technology in society, and 2) the ability to undo the undesirable outcomes (material, institutional or symbolic) of the development and deployment of the technology. Chapter 3 subsequently tackles the second subquestion by establishing the general desirability of technological reversibility by virtue of its relation to responsibility in Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical phenomenology. It argues that technology development is a legitimate response to responsibility but inevitably falls short of the responsibility that inspires it, incessantly calling for technological and political change in the process. Having thus argued that nuclear energy technologies should ideally be reversible, chap-ters 4 and 5 work towards specific strategies to achieve technological reversibil-ity. Chapter 4 first investigates the processes that make it difficult to stop the further development and implementation of a nuclear energy technology in society, thus provid-ing input on how to fulfill the first condition for the reversibility of nuclear energy technologies. To do so, it presents a phenomenological perspective on technology and its adoption based on the work of Alfred Schutz. It also explores different ways in which technology adoption drives the processes of path depend-ence towards technological lock-in. Chapter 5 examines the history of geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste in the USA. It identifies a number of concrete policy pitfalls that could lead to lock-in and that should consequently be avoided. It also presents a number of general design strategies that could facilitate the undoing of undesirable consequences of a technology, thus providing input on how to fulfill the second condition for the reversibility of nuclear energy technol-ogies.Chapter 6 summarizes the central findings of the thesis and explains how these help to answer the research questions. On top of this, it reflects on a number of complications connected to reversibility considerations. Based on this, it is concluded that the question of irreversibility and reversibility is context- and technology-specific and a matter of degree. The chapter concludes with a reflec-tion on generalizations and limitations of the results. Finally, chapter 7 discusses the implications of this dissertation’s results for responsibly experimenting with nuclear energy technologies in society. (shrink)

This paper provides a realist analysis of the EU's legitimacy. We propose a modification of Bernard Williams' theory of legitimacy, which we term critical responsiveness. For Williams, 'Basic Legitimation Demand + Modernity = Liberalism'. Drawing on that model, we make three claims. (i) The right side of the equation is insufficiently sensitive to popular sovereignty; (ii) The left side of the equation is best thought of as a 'legitimation story': a non-moralised normative account of how to shore up belief in (...) legitimacy while steering clear of both raw domination and ideological distortions. (iii) The EU's current legitimation story draws on a tradition of popular sovereignty that sits badly with the supranational delegation and pooling of sovereign powers. We conclude by suggesting that the EU's legitimation deficit may be best addressed demoicratically, by recovering the value of popular sovereignty at the expense of a degree of state sovereignty. (shrink)

Gaunilo argued that Anselm could prove the existence of many perfect objects, for example, the happiest island, that is, happier than any other island. More formally, Gaunilo’s arguments were intended to show that the sentence “God exists‘ does not follow from premises accepted by Anselm. Contemporary versions of the ontological proof use the maximalization procedure in order to demonstrate that God exists as the most perfect being. This paper argues that this method, which is based on maximalization, is not sufficient (...) to prove God’s existence. Thus, a “contemporary Gaunilo‘ can repeat objections raised by his ancestor. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In The Longing for Total Revolution, Bernard Yack argued that Marx’s thought is plagued by a recurring contradiction. On the one hand, Marx criticized his Idealist predecessors for failing to get beyond the dichotomy between human freedom and natural necessity; and he identified labor, activity determined by the necessity of having to satisfy material needs, as the primary activity of human freedom. On the other hand, Marx’s account of what makes us distinctively human, as well as his view that (...) capitalism dehumanizes workers, implicitly rely on the same dichotomy. However, while Yack identified a real tension in Marx’s writings, he overlooked the resources Marx has to escape it. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s attitude to psychoanalysis was ambiguous. On the one hand, he realized that the phenomena psychoanalysis deals with require to go beyond the area of ​​act intentionality, and that, from a different angle, psychoanalysis addresses the same problem as Gestalt psychology, which played the central role in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical project. On the other hand, he explicitly rejected the terms used by Freud for conveying his discoveries. Merleau-Ponty replaced unconscious mental contents, which act on conscious behavior, by ambiguous consciousness. In the (...) Structure of Behavior and Phenomenology of Perception, he used the terms “habit,” “bad faith,” “bodily expression,” “affective intentionality,” and “body schema” to specify his notion of experiential “ambiguity.” This paper aims to present the key concepts of Merleau-Ponty’s early interpretation of the psychoanalytic concept of the unconscious. A partial task is to show how Merleau-Ponty’s concept of bad faith differs from that of Sartre, and to distinguish existential ambiguity from the psychoanalytic concept of overdetermination. (shrink)

In view of the philosophical problems that vex the debate on situated affectivity, it can seem wise to focus on simple cases. Accordingly, theorists often single out scenarios in which an individual employs a device in order to enhance their emotional experience, or to achieve new kinds of experience altogether, such as playing an instrument, going to the movies or sporting a fancy handbag. I argue that this narrow focus on cases that fit a ‘user/resource model’ tends to channel attention (...) away from more complex and also more problematic instances of situated affectivity. Among these are scenarios in which a social domain draws individuals into certain modes of affective interaction, often by way of attunement and habituation to affective styles and interaction patterns that are normative in the domain in question. This can lead to a phenomenon that is not so much ‘mind extension’ than ‘mind invasion’: affectivity is dynamically framed and modulated from without, often contrary to the prior orientations of the individuals in question. As an example, I discuss affective patterns prevalent in today’s corporate workplace. I claim that workplace affect sometimes contributes to what is effectively a ‘hack’ of employees’ subjectivity. (shrink)

In a recent paper, David James argues for a new understanding of the compatibility of freedom and necessity in Marx's idea of a communist society. According to James, such compatibility has less to do with anything distinctive about the nature of labour and more to do with how communist producers organize the sphere of material production. In this paper, I argue that James provides a nuanced and plausible account of one part of Marx's story of the compatibility of freedom and (...) necessity in communist society but that his account misses another, and, in my view, more fundamental part of the story. The part I have in mind centres on Marx's claim that communist producers achieve their freedom through the performance of necessary labour—by helping others to satisfy their needs. I argue that Marx is committed to a stronger claim than James wishes to make, namely, that freedom and necessity are not merely compatible but that participation in the realm of necessity is required for human freedom. (shrink)

This text addresses a problem that is not sufficiently dealt with in most of the recent literature on emotion and feeling. The problem is a general underestimation of the extent to which affective intentionality is essentially bodily. Affective intentionality is the sui generis type of world-directedness that most affective states – most clearly the emotions – display. Many theorists of emotion overlook the extent to which intentional feelings are essentially bodily feelings. The important but quite often overlooked fact is that (...) the bodily feelings in question are not the regularly treated, non-intentional bodily sensations (known from Jamesian accounts of emotion), but rather crucial carriers of world-directed intentionality. Consequently, most theories of human emotions and feelings recently advocated are deficient in terms of phenomenological adequacy. This text tries to make up for this deficit and develops a catalogue of five central features of intentional bodily feelings. In addition, Jesse Prinz’s embodied appraisal theory is criticized as an exemplary case of the misconstrual of the bodily nature of affective experience in naturalistic philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The goal of this chapter is to provide an interpretation of experiential learning that fully detaches itself from the epistemological presuppositions of empiricist and intellectualist accounts of learning. I first introduce the concept of schema as understood by Kant and I explain how it is related to the problems implied by the empiricist and intellectualist frameworks. I then interpret David Kolb’s theory of learning that is based on the concept of learning cycle and represents an attempt to overcome the corresponding (...) drawbacks of these frameworks. I show that Kolb’s theory fails to achieve its goal because it is rooted in some of the fundamental epistemological presuppositions of these frameworks. Subsequently, I present a group of works from phenomenology, in particular Merleau-Ponty’s, in order to show that Kolb’s attempt is insufficient due to a lack of understanding of the problem expressed by Kant via the concept of schema. Finally, I outline an interpretation of experiential learning as differentiation of experiential schemas and explain how it meets the epistemological challenges outlined above. (shrink)

A significant part of the "struggles" that took place within Czechoslovak interwar thought can be considered to be the criticism that Emanuel Rádl, a representative of the realist approach, led against the supporters of individualism, or the younger philosophical generation, which was gathered around the journal Ruch filosofický. The core of Rádl's critical position is philosophical realism in terms of thought and methodology. Radl's realist position was gradually shaped and developed in the period before and after the First World War, (...) with the turning point being his experience and concern about the effects of Russian thought, which was based on mysticism, intuitivism and idealism. Alongside this was also a defining change in attitude towards Kant's thought, which consisted in emphasising the positive aspect of his rationalism. From this position of post-war realism, Radl proceeded to criticize the alienation, apoliticality and amorality of the philosophy of individualism and the interest of its representatives in the thinking approaches of irrationalism: mysticism, intuitivism and spiritualism. (shrink)

The paper shows different approaches to creativity, i.e. emergence of new meanings, in Merleau-Ponty and Patočka. The comparison is based mainly on Merleau-Ponty’s lectures L’institution dans l’histoire personnelle et publique (1954/55) and Patočka’s project Negative Platonism (1953). Despite some similarities evident in the key concepts “institution” and “transcendence”, there is a decisive difference between the two approaches concerning the temporality of creation. Whereas Merleau-Ponty likens the temporality of institution to future perfect tense, emphasizing the intertwining of present and future events, (...) Patočka understands novelty as something totally different from the present state of affairs. In his eyes, the question of how something new can arise equals the question of how an attitude of distance to existing traditions can be achieved. Contrary to Patočka, Merleau-Ponty argues that any living tradition tends towards its own transformation and presents a case of self-transcendence because it is governed by the principle of divergence (écart). Finally, we argue that some aspects of these two approaches both complement each other, and also show the limits of each other. (shrink)

Recent research in Baroque Scholastic and early modern meditational exercises has demonstrated similarity between Descartes’s Meditations and St. Teresa of Ávila’s El Castillo Interior. While there is growing agreement on the influence of Catholic meditations on Descartes, the extent of Teresa’s role is debated. Instead of discussing the full extent of Teresa’s influence, this paper concentrates on one example of the considered influence: the skeptical scenario of demonic deception, having clear anticipation in Teresa’s work where the exercitant faces off against (...) deceiving demonic forces, which confound and temporarily halt the meditative progress. The paper analyzes Teresa’s use of deceptive demons and its influence on the Cartesian Evil Demon scenario, while contrasting both with a discussion of demonic deception in the late Medieval and Baroque Scholastic context, arguing that demonological discussions in 1500s allowed both Teresa’s and Descartes’s deceivers to not only cause diversions but to make the deception laborious to resist. (shrink)

The last decade has seen an increasing number of references to quantum mechanics in the humanities and social sciences. This development has in particular been driven by Karen Barad’s agential realism: a theoretical framework that, based on Niels Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, aims to inform social theorizing. In dealing with notions such as agency, power, and embodiment as well as the relation between the material and the discursive level, the influence of agential realism in fields such as feminist science (...) studies and posthumanism has been profound. However, no one has hitherto paused to assess agential realism’s proclaimed quantum mechanical origin including its relation to the writings of Niels Bohr. This is the task taken up here. We find that many of the implications that agential realism allegedly derives from a Bohrian interpretation of quantum mechanics dissent from Bohr’s own views and are in conflict with those of other interpretations of quantum mechanics. Agential realism is at best consistent with quantum mechanics and consequently, it does not capture what quantum mechanics in any strict sense implies for social science or any other domain of inquiry. Agential realism may be interesting and thought provoking from the perspective of social theorizing, but it is neither sanctioned by quantum mechanics nor by Bohr’s authority. This conclusion not only holds for agential realism in particular, it also serves as a general warning against the other attempts to use quantum mechanics in social theorizing. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the philosophical side of Karl Marx's thought as well as some of the major debates about it in the secondary literature. It first examines Marx's early writings, focusing, in particular, on his views on religion, the limitations of political emancipation and the dehumanizing conditions of work under capitalism. Marx and Engels considered the theory of history to be one of Marx's most important theoretical achievements. In an autobiographical note Marx described it as the “guiding thread of his (...) studies,” and in a speech delivered at Marx's graveside Engels compared Marx's discovery of “the law of development of human history” with Darwin's discovery of the law of nature. The chapter examines Marx's materialist theory of history, the view that history is characterized by the development of productive power to free people from material scarcity. It also examines the problematic area of Marx's ethics. (shrink)

It can be tempting to think of affect as a matter of the present moment – a reaction, a feeling, an experience or engagement that unfolds right now. This paper will make the case that affect is better thought of as not only temporally extended but as saturated with temporality, especially with the past. In and through affectivity, concrete, ongoing history continues to weigh on present comportment. In order to spell this out, I sketch a Heidegger-inspired perspective. It revolves around (...) two claims. The first is that we should understand what Heidegger calls 'Befindlichkeit' (findingness) as radical situatedness. Affectivity is a matter of 'finding oneself' constellated – thrown – into the world in ways that outrun what an individual or collective might grasp and process. The second claim is that the temporal dimension, as a relatedness to the past, takes precedence in affect's situatedness. Key to affect is the way in which the past continues to hold sway over present comportment, collectively and individually. In order to articulate this perspective, it is important to overcome the idea that affect must be understood mainly in terms of feeling or experiential states of other kinds. Better suited to grasp the idea of findingness is the concept of 'disclosive posture', as proposed by Katherine Withy. I suggest that this notion should be put at the fore of a phenomenological approach to situated affectivity. (shrink)

This paper aims to clarify Merleau-Ponty’s contribution to an embodied-enactive account of mathematical cognition. I first identify the main points of interest in the current discussions of embodied higher cognition and explain how they relate to Merleau-Ponty and his sources, in particular Husserl’s late works. Subsequently, I explain these convergences in greater detail by more specifically discussing the domains of geometry and algebra and by clarifying the role of gestalt psychology in Merleau-Ponty’s account. Beyond that, I explain how, for Merleau-Ponty, (...) mathematical cognition requires not only the presence and actual manipulation of some concrete perceptible symbols but, more strongly, how it is fundamentally linked to the structural transformation of the concrete configurations of symbolic systems to which these symbols appertain. Furthemore, I fill a gap in the literature by explaining Merleau-Ponty’s claim that these structural transformations are operated through motor intentionality. This makes it possible, in turn, to contrast Merleau-Ponty’s approach to ontologically idealistic and realistic views on mathematical objects. On Merleau-Ponty’s account, mathematical objects are relational entities, that is, gestalts that necessarily imply situated cognizers to whom they afford a specific type of engagement in the world and on whom they depend in their eventual structural transformations. I argue that, by attributing a strongly constitutive role to phenomenal configurations and their motor transformation in mathematical thinking, Merleau-Ponty contributes to clarifying the worldly, historical, and socio-cultural aspects of mathematical truths without compromising what we perceive as their universality, certainty, and necessity. (shrink)

Článek se zaměřuje na teorie kulturní mezery, jež ve svém díle rozpracovali Thorstein Veblen a William F. Ogburn. Sleduje přitom zejména dva motivy: jak se v přístupech těchto autorů tematizuje vztah sociální vědy a jejího publika a jak je argument mezery využit k prosazování specifického pojetí „účelu“ sociální vědy. Je zde předvedeno, jak se ve dvou různých stylech psaní a ve dvou různých argumentačních strategiích v podstatě identická teorie proměňuje a současně zužitkovává k prosazení distinktivního pojetí sociální vědy. Veblenův klíčový (...) motiv „sebe-konfrontace“ společnosti je srovnán s Ogburnovým motivem „využitelnosti“ vědění ve vztahu k úvahám o literárních technologiích vědy. (shrink)

In his 1953 lectures at the College de France, Merleau-Ponty dedicated much effort to further developing his idea of embodied subject and interpreted fresh sources that he did not use in Phenomenology of Perception. Notably, he studied more in depth the neurological notion of "body schema". According to Merleau-Ponty, the body schema is a practical diagram of our relationships to the world, an action-based norm with reference to which things make sense. Merleau-Ponty more precisely tried to describe the fundamentally dynamic (...) unity of the body, i.e. the fact there are various possibilities how the practical "diagram" of body schema could be de-differentiated (in pathology) or further refined (via cognitive and cultural superstructures, symbolic systems). This chapter summarises Merleau-Ponty's interpretation of the notion, while contrasting it to the more traditional understanding of the body in phenomenology and recent philosophical texts dealing with body schema. (shrink)

This study aims to corroborate Merleau-Ponty’s interpretations of fundamental ideas from Saussure’s linguistics by linking them to works that were independently elaborated by Jan Mukařovský, Czech structuralist aesthetician and literary theorist. I provide a comparative analysis of the two authors’ theories of language and their interpretations of thought as fundamentally determined by language. On this basis, I investigate how they conceive linguistic innovation and its translation into changes in the constituted language and other social codes and institutions. I explain how (...) they elaborate on Saussure’s idea of language as a system of oppositions by interpreting cultural innovation as a systematic variation of pre-established social norms and, similarly, linguistic innovation as gesturing within language. Connectedly, I show how Mukařovský’s works help clarify Merleau-Ponty’s focus on the gestural dimension of language. By discussing the two thinkers’ arguments in favour of linguistic innovation, I explore what could be called phenomenological limits of structuralism. (shrink)

According to the most prominent principle of early modern rationalists, the Principle of Sufficient Reason [PSR], there are no brute facts, hence, there are no facts without any explanation. Contrary to the PSR, some philosophers have argued that divine ideas are brute facts within Leibniz’s metaphysics. In this paper, I argue against brute-fact-theories of divine ideas, especially represented by Samuel Newlands in Leibniz and the Ground of Possibility, and elaborate an alternative Leibnizian theory of divine ideas.

I offer a novel reading in this dissertation of René Descartes’s (1596–1650) skepticism in his work Meditations on First Philosophy (1641–1642). I specifically aim to answer the following problem: How is Descartes’s skepticism to be read in accordance with the rest of his philosophy? This problem can be divided into two more general questions in Descartes scholarship: How is skepticism utilized in the Meditations, and what are its intentions and relation to the preceding philosophical tradition? -/- I approach the topic (...) from both a historical and a text-based analysis, combining textual and contextual research. I examine Descartes’s skepticism against two main traditions in the historical analysis: philosophical skepticism and Aristotelian Scholasticism. I argue that skepticism in the Meditations is intended to oppose and upheave both Scholasticism and skepticism. The intended results of the work are not merely epistemological but also metaphysical and even ethical. Furthermore, these ambitions cannot be neatly distinguished but merge into each other. -/- The third historical context against which the skeptical meditations are examined is the literary genre of meditative exercises, particularly from the 1500–1600’s, which, while religiously and spiritually oriented, likewise provided the practitioner with an enlightened understanding of self-knowledge and their cognitive place in the world on the way to closer spiritual proximity to God. I argue by this reading that the skepticism of the Meditations is an attentive, meditational cognitive exercise that is not merely instrumental and methodological but is to have a genuine and serious (psychologically real) effect on our thinking. The skeptical meditation is not simply a theoretical thought experiment but is to be seriously practiced as a transformative process of reorienting one’s cognitive framework to discover truth, certainty, and a way to a happy, tranquil, and virtuous life. -/- I offer a close reading in the textual analysis of the first three meditations of the Meditations. I argue that the meditative skepticism employed in the work does not reject the previous beliefs but suspends judgment on them, withdrawing assent until further evidence can be found. I introduce a new term into Descartes scholarship in this analysis, based on the terminology of ancient skepticism: Cartesian epochē (gr. epochē, suspension, withdrawal). Instead of rejecting previous beliefs or assenting to the probably false, the skeptical procedure of the Meditations is argued to emulate in important ways the suspension of judgment on equally balanced reasons in ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism. Novel interpretations are presented along the way of the will’s freedom, of the First Meditation’s skeptical scenarios, of the cogito, and of the vindication of metaphysical certainty, as well as a clarification of the Cartesian Circle problem. -/- Reinterpreting the relation of Descartes’s skepticism to the preceding historical and literary traditions leads to a new look at the skeptical method itself. Presenting a new interpretation of skepticism in the Meditations leads at the same time to a new look at its relation to the historical context. The two research questions are, then, intrinsically tied together. -/- My focus in the study is on the Meditations, but I also reference and discuss Descartes’s other philosophical works, as well as his correspondence, when necessary. (shrink)

The paper aims to define the concept of “felt sense”, introduced in psychology and psychotherapy by E. T. Gendlin, in order to clarify its relation to bodily sensations and its difference from emotions. Gendlin’s own definition, according to which the felt sense is a conceptually vague bodily feeling with implicit meaning, is too general for this task. Gendlin’s definition is specified by pointing out, first, the different layers of awareness of bodily feelings and, second, the difference between bodily readiness for (...) action and motivation for action. According to the more precise definition, the felt sense is the awareness of readiness to act carried by the configuration of bodily sensations. The felt sense differs from emotions because it is not able to motivate the action for which it makes us ready. The article also discusses the intuition that led to the founding of Gendlin’s psychotherapeutic technique and compares it with the psychoanalytic concept of working through resistance during therapy. (shrink)

Why are conditional degrees of belief in an observation E, given a statistical hypothesis H, aligned with the objective probabilities expressed by H? After showing that standard replies are not satisfactory, I develop a suppositional analysis of conditional degree of belief, transferring Ramsey’s classical proposal to statistical inference. The analysis saves the alignment, explains the role of chance-credence coordination, and rebuts the charge of arbitrary assessment of evidence in Bayesian inference. Finally, I explore the implications of this analysis for Bayesian (...) reasoning with idealized models in science. (shrink)

I defend the proposal that certain forms of work—specifically forms that are socially necessary but involve the imposition of considerable burdens—be shared between citizens. I argue that sharing burdensome work would achieve several goals, including a more equal distribution of the benefits and burdens of work, a greater appreciation of each other's labour contributions, and an amelioration of problematic inequalities of status. I conclude by considering three objections: that sharing burdensome work would (1) involve morally unacceptable constraints on freedom, (2) (...) be prohibitively inefficient, and (3) forbid mutually advantageous trades. I argue that none of these objections succeed. (shrink)

This article reconsiders Husserl’s concept of Leib in light of Merleau‐Ponty’s interpretation of the human body as an ontologically significant phenomenon. I first analyze Husserl’s account of the body as a “two‐fold unity” and demonstrate the problematic nature of its four implications, namely, the ambiguous ontological status of the body as subject‐object, the view of “my body” as “my object,” the preconstitutive character of the unity of the body, and the restriction of the constitution of the body to touch alone. (...) Building on this analysis, I explain how Merleau‐Ponty resolves the difficulties raised by Husserl’s account by reversing it. According to Merleau‐Ponty, “flesh” is not a two‐fold reality comprising subjective and objective aspects, but an ontological dimension from which these aspects can be abstracted through specific cognitive operations. Consequently, all subjective and objective aspects, even beyond the boundaries of one’s body, must be understood as founded in the indivisible unity of flesh. I argue that a thorough phenomenological description of the human body requires abandoning Husserl’s concept of Leib because it contributes to perpetuating subject‐object dualism. In contrast, Merleau‐Ponty’s notion of flesh reveals the circularity between subject and object and its general ontological significance. (shrink)

Kearns (2021) reconstructs Berkeley’s (1713) Master Argument as a formally valid argument against the Materialist Thesis, with the key premise the Distinct Conceivability Thesis, namely the thesis that truths about sensible objects having or lacking thinkable qualities are (distinctly) conceivable and as its conclusion that all sensible objects are conceived. It will be shown that Distinct Conceivability Thesis entails the Reduction Thesis, which states that de dicto propositional (ordinary or distinct) conceivability reduces to de re propositional (ordinary or distinct) conceivability. (...) While Kearns (2021) set out to avoid the confusion of a de re claim with a de dicto claim, which Prior (1955) accused Berkeley of, Kearns can be accused of making a similar conceptual confusion. (shrink)

Carnap's theory of descriptions was restricted in two ways. First, the descriptive conditions had to be non-modal. Second, only primitive predicates or the identity predicate could be used to predicate something of the descriptum . The motivating reasons for these two restrictions that can be found in the literature will be critically discussed. Both restrictions can be relaxed, but Carnap's theory can still be blamed for not dealing adequately with improper descriptions.