Intersectionality has utilized various feminist theories that continue subculture of violence thinking about Black men and boys. While intersectional feminists often claim that intersectionality leads to a clearer social analysis of power and hierarchies throughout society and within groups, the categories and claims of intersectionality fail to distinguish themselves from previously racist theories that sought to explain race, class, and gender, based on subcultural values. This article is the first to interrogate the theories used to construct the gendered categories and (...) the assumptions behind Black male positionality under intersectional analyses. Contrary to its promises for more liberated Black identities, intersectionality merely replicates the pseudo-science of racist criminology and presents decades old theories as cutting-edge gender analyses. In short, while intersectionality has allowed Black women to create nuanced experiences and epistemological accounts of Black womanhood, the very same theory has confined Black male experience to the perpetration of violence and defined Black manhood as lesser—merely the exemplification of white masculinity’s pathological excess. (shrink)

Despite of the fact that Reichenbach clearly acknowledged his indebtedness to Hilbert, the influence of this leading mathematician of the time on him is grossly neglected. The present paper demonstrates that the decisive years of the development of Reichenbach as a philosopher of science coincide with, and also partly followed the “philosophical” turn of Hilbert’s mathematics after 1917 that was fixed in the so called “Hilbert’s program”. The paper specifically addresses the fact that after 1917, Hilbert saw the axiomatic (...) method as an instrument for providing the foundations not only of mathematics but also of other sciences. In particular, Hilbert’s axiomatic program was closely connected with the theoretical physics and arguably helped Einstein to discover the general theory of relativity. In this context, one can see Reichenbach’s project to axiomatize Einstein’s theory of relativity as a continuation of this project. Under Russell’s influence, after 1914 Hilbert also developed an interest in mathematical logic. Reichenbach experienced similar transition from axiomatics to logic which went together with turn of his interest from Hilbert to Russell. Reichenbach’s rapprochement to Russell also supported the transition of his interests from epistemology to ontology. (shrink)

Beckett’s philosophical indebtedness has long been recognised – especially in conjunction with Dante, Descartes and Geulincx. In this article, I examine Beckettian universal values of Enlightenment, which will be exposed as self-serving mystifications that rationalize and instrumentalize the meaning of life. In this context, the awareness of the Enlightenment nature of Beckett’s writing in Waiting for Godot will be analysed along with the freedom appeal of his reader as he strives to attain the enlightenment.

In recent years, scholars have increasingly paid attention to the philosophy of Josiah Royce. Long lost in the shadow of fellow classical American figures, Royce’s philosophy has enjoyed a renascence, with a spate of publications in a variety of venues studying and applying his thought.1 Like his philosophical brethren, Royce wrote on a wide variety of subjects, his discussions underpinned by a smattering of influences. Much has been remarked of the various Western sources that made an impression on Royce’s thought, (...) but comparatively little has been said of his indebtedness to Eastern sources. Kurt Leidecker’s Josiah Royce and Indian Thought2 and Frank M... (shrink)

In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis' philosophy, defending the claim that in the 1970s, Margolis tackled the issues suggested by the analytic philosophy of art from an original theoretical perspective and through conceptual tools exceeding the analytical framework. Later that perspective turned out to be a radically pragmatist one, in which explicitly tolerant realistic claims and non-reductive naturalism converged with radical historicism and contextualism. We will endorse this thesis by focusing on two important concepts appearing (...) in Margolis' aesthetics essays from the late 1950s to the 1970s: the type-token pair and the notion of cultural emergence. On the one hand, we will emphasise Margolis' indebtedness to Peirce's first formulation of the type-token distinction, involving a strong interdependence between the two elements of the pair, as well as an anti-essentialistic, historicised, and contextualised notion of type. On the other hand, we will delve into Margolis' exploration of the concept of emergence and cultural emergence, involving a genuinely pluralistic view of ontology, as well as a non-reductive, continuistic form of naturalism. Finally, we will connect the criticism of the so-called closure of the physical world with Margolis' anti-autonomistic stance in defining artworks. (shrink)

This paper initiates a dialogue between classical Islamic philosophy and late modern European thought, by focusing on two peripheral, ‘heretical’ figures within these traditions: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyāʾ al-Rāzī and Friedrich Nietzsche. What affiliates these thinkers across the cultural and historical chasm that separates them is their mutual fascination with, and profound indebtedness to, ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophy. Given the specific themes, concerns and doctrines that they appropriate from this common source, I argue that al-Rāzī and Nietzsche (...) should be read as Epicureans and seen in relation to their predecessor as part of the subterranean tradition of philosophical naturalism. However, while each figure appropriates the philosophy of Epicurus, they ultimately transform it in important ways: al-Rāzī offers us a qualified “Platonic” Epicureanism, while Nietzsche forges a radicalized “Dionysian” Epicureanism. The point of such a comparative examination is twofold. First, analyzing the divergent paths of these “wayward” Epicureans sheds new light on the historical trajectory of naturalism as a philosophical stance (as well as its current prospects and limitations). Second, by initiating a dialogue between the classical Islamic and modern European philosophical traditions, we can better understand the antagonisms and shared concerns between these two horizons, as well as the ambiguities and self-questioning that occur within them. (shrink)

In an often-forgotten proclamation during an autobiographical interview in 1995, Thomas Kuhn notes, without much explanation, his indebtedness to psychoanalysis. While in the wake of Kuhn's 1962 publication The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, many psychoanalytic scholars have made use of his work to justify shifts in psychoanalytic traditions, few have attempted to point out the relation between Kuhnian science and the psychoanalytic process. This article argues that there is a strong affinity between the developmental and structural themes of Kuhn’s (...) scientific revolutions with that of the psychic restructuring that occurs in the psychoanalytic process. Furthermore, these affinities represent the lasting effects that psychoanalysis had on a young Kuhn. Utilizing the metapsychology of psychoanalyst Hans Loewald to highlight the theoretical underpinnings of Kuhn’s debt to the psychoanalytic experience, while also paying close attention to Kuhn’s discussions on resistance in science and his open-systems notion of individual and world, the author argues that we will learn how psychoanalysis, through Kuhn's own psychoanalytic treatment, revolutionized science. (shrink)

In this essay I suggest that Heidegger’s Being and Time provides a ground for ethics in the notion of Dasein’s ‘Being-guilty.’ Being-guilty is not a ground for ethics in the sense of a demonstration of the moral ‘ought’ or a refutation of moral skepticism. Rather, Being-guilty serves as a foundation for ethical life in a way uniquely suited to a phenomenological form of ethics, a way that clarifies, from a phenomenological point of view, why the traditional approach to ethics is (...) misguided. The traditional attempt to ground ethics through demonstration or refutation depends upon a misunderstanding of obligation as an imposition that is distinct from, and inflicted upon, the subject in a way that is in need of justification. Heidegger’s conception of Being-guilty, on the contrary, identifies the basis of moral obligation in a form of primary selfobligation that is constitutive of human nature, rather than an imposition upon it. Although primordial guilt or self-obligation does not justify ethical obligation, it does ‘ground’ ethics. For it is the primary source and support of our ethical activity in two distinct senses. First, it serves as the condition for the possibility of our indebtedness to others—it enables us to be morally obligated. It enables moral obligation towards others by determining Dasein as ontologically indebted to care for its own being—a being which is, in turn, ontologically determined as care for others. Second, Being-guilty provides a criterion for distinguishing what we call ethical and unethical behavior. Ethical behavior is distinguished according to the appropriateness of one’s care for the other according to proper recognition of the nature of the Other’s Being as Dasein. (shrink)

Household debt has been widely discussed among social scientists, policy makers, and activists. Many have questioned the levels of debt households are required to take on, and have made various proposals for assisting households in debt. Yet theorists of distributive justice have left household debt underexamined. This article offers a normative examination of the distributive justice issues presented by proposals to relieve household debt or protect households from overindebtedness. I examine two goals at which debt relief proposals aim: remedying disadvantage (...) and stabilizing expectations. I then examine strategies for relieving existing debts such as debt abolition, forgiveness, bankruptcy, and mitigation, as well as strategies that aim to prevent future indebtedness, such as public provision or financing of costly goods and credit or interest rate regulations. (shrink)

Hans Frei, one of the most influential American theologians of the twentieth century, is generally considered a founder of postliberal theology. Frei never set forth his thinking systematically, and he has been criticized for being inconsistent, contradictory, and insufficiently rigorous. Jason Springs seeks here to offer a re-evaluation of Frei's work. Arguing that Hans Frei's theology cannot be understood without a meticulous consideration of the complex equilibrium of his theological and philosophical interests and influences, Springs vindicates Frei's christologically motivated engagement (...) with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Clifford Geertz, and Erich Auerbach, as well as his use of ordinary language philosophy and non-foundational philosophical insights, while illuminating his indebtedness to Karl Barth's theology. Moreover, by placing Frei's work in critical conversation with developments in pragmatist thought and cultural theory since his death, this re-reading aims to resolve many of the misunderstandings that vex his theological legacy. What emerges from Toward a Generous Orthodoxy is a sharpened account of the christologically anchored, interdisciplinary, and conversational character of Frei's theology, one he came to describe as a "generous orthodoxy"--modeling a way for academic theological voices to take seriously both their vocation to the Christian church and their roles as interlocutors in academic discourse. (shrink)

As analytic philosophy is becoming increasingly aware of and interested in its own history, the study of that field is broadening to include, not just its earliest beginnings, but also the mid-twentieth century. One of the towering figures of this epoch is W.V. Quine (1908-2000), champion of naturalism in philosophy of science, pioneer of mathematical logic, trying to unite an austerely physicalist theory of the world with the truths of mathematics, psychology, and linguistics. Quine's posthumous papers, notes, and drafts revealing (...) the development of his views in the forties have recently begun to be published, as well as careful philosophical studies of, for instance, the evolution of his key doctrine that mathematical and logical truth are continuous with, not divorced from, the truths of natural science. But one central text has remained unexplored: Quine's Portuguese-language book on logic, his 'farewell for now' to the discipline as he embarked on an assignment in the Navy in WWII. Anglophone philosophers have neglected this book because they could not read it. Jointly with colleagues, I have completed the first full English translation of this book. In this accompanying paper I draw out the main philosophical contributions Quine made in the book, placing them in their historical context and relating them to Quine's overall philosophical development during the period. Besides significant developments in the evolution of Quine's views on meaning and analyticity, I argue, this book is also driven by Quine's indebtedness to Russell and Whitehead, Tarski, and Frege, and contains crucial developments in his thinking on philosophy of logic and ontology. This includes early versions of some arguments from 'On What There Is', four-dimensionalism, and virtual set theory. (shrink)

An examination of Emmanuel Levinas’ writings on money reveals his distance from—and indebtedness to—a philosophical predecessor, Georg Simmel. Levinas and Simmel share a phenomenological approach to analyses of the proximity of the stranger, the importance of the face, and the interruption of the dyadic relationship by the third. Money is closely linked to the conception of totality because money is the medium that compares heterogeneous values. Levinas goes beyond Simmel in positing an ethical relation to money permitting transcendence.

This paper examines Du Châtelet’s and Kant’s responses to the famous vis viva controversy – Du Châtelet in her Institutions Physiques (1742) and Kant in his debut, the Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (1746–49). The Institutions was not only a highly influential contribution to the vis viva controversy, but also a pioneering attempt to integrate Leibnizian metaphysics and Newtonian physics. The young Kant’s evident knowledge of this work has led some to speculate about his indebtedness to (...) her philosophy. My study corrects such speculations as well as misunderstandings of the Living Forces. This corrective result has implications for how to investigate Kant’s relation to the ever-evolving landscape of Leibniz exegeses. (shrink)

In Phenomenological Reduction in Heidegger's Sein und Zeit: a New Proposal, Matheson Russell investigates the indebtedness of the Heidegger of Being and Time to Husserl's transcendental phenomenology by way of distinguishing in it differing types of transcendental reduction. He supplies an overview of recent attempts to identify such reductions in order then to propose a new interpretation locating two levels of reduction in Heidegger's fundamental ontology. These concern, first, an enquiry going back to the horizon of 'existence', and, second, (...) one going back to the horizon of 'temporality'. While the first level is argued to be explicit in the published text, the second, Russell claims, lies within the horizon of the unfinished parts of Being and Time. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Augustine's conception of God as substance (substantia) has misleadingly been evoked by Martin Heidegger's deconstruction of onto-theological and substantialist variants of metaphysics as they mistook entities (Seienden, entia, beings) f r their very Being (Sein, ens, esse) which cannot be conceptualized or objectified by human thinking, but makes both their thought and reality possible. Even though Augustine sought somehow to reconcile a Neoplatonic, essentialist cosmology with a Judeo-Christian worldview of historical redemption, Heidegger not only (...) failed to properly recognize his indebtedness to Augustinian existential anthropology, but also the latter's contention that the actuality of beings and contingent history ultimately determines ontological concepts in their basic difference from their ontical counterparts, compromising thus Heidegger's intuitive criticisms against the confusion between God and Being (Sein). (shrink)

The category of metaphysical evil introduced by Leibniz appears to cast a sinister shadow over the goodness of creation. It seems to imply that creatures, simply in virtue of not being gods, are to some degree intrinsically and inescapably evil. After briefly unpacking this difficulty and outlining a recent attempt to deal with it, this paper returns to the texts to propose a novel and multilayered understanding of Leibniz’s category of metaphysical evil by reading it against the backdrop of the (...) traditional typologies of evil with which he was unquestionably familiar. It comes to the conclusion that metaphysical evil plays two key roles for Leibniz. First, it captures what Aquinas and especially Suarez meant by ‘natural evil’. Contrary to the common assumption that it is Leibniz’s category of physical evil that holds the place of natural evil, the paper shows that Leibniz’s physical evil corresponds to Augustine’s category of evil of punishment for sin whereas natural evil – intended as a kind of evil which is not related to moral responsibility -- is subsumed under metaphysical evil. Secondly, the category of metaphysical evil covers also the notion of original creaturely imperfection. In classifying creaturely limitation as a kind of evil Leibniz breaks from the Augustinian-Thomist-Scholastic tradition and its distinction between negatio and privatio. On the other hand, notwithstanding this important break, Leibniz’s notion of metaphysical evil is intended to account for something which is firmly within the broadly Augustinian-Scholastic tradition, namely the ascription to all creatures of a limitation that stems from their being created ex nihilo. Finally, the paper returns a verdict of non-guilty to the charge that Leibniz’s metaphysical evil implies that creatures qua creatures are to some extent necessarily intrinsically evil. More generally, in typical Leibnizian fashion, the notion of metaphysical evil will appear to be a complex mix of indebtedness to tradition and bending of received doctrines into something significantly different. (shrink)

This paper provides a new, comprehensive overview of Martin Heidegger’s interpretations of Immanuel Kant. Its aim is to identify Heidegger’s motive in interpreting Kant and to distinguish, for the first time, the four phases of Heidegger’s reading of Kant. The promise of the “phenomenological Kant” gave Heidegger entrance to a rich domain of investigation. In four phases and with reference to Husserl, Heidegger interpreted Kant as first falling short of phenomenology (1919-1925), then approaching phenomenology (1925-1927), then advancing phenomenology (1927-1929), and (...) finally recovering phenomenology (1930 and after). By identifying this motive and these four phases, the paper sets aside a number of common misinterpretations concerning the significance of the 1925 turn to Kant, the relation of the Kant-interpretation to Husserl, the relation of the 1929 'Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics' to 'Being and Time,' and Heidegger’s regard for Kant in his later writings. The paper thereby clarifies Heidegger’s path of thinking and its indebtedness to transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

David Hume’s thought has interrupted entire disciplines from dogmatic slumbers. Yet Hume’s influence is even more expansive and continuous than we might have thought. There are two significant areas of inquiry where Hume’s influence has not been adequately appreciated or articulated: analytic phenomenology and analytic process philosophy. My dissertation explores these traditions’ indebtedness to Hume by engaging with the work of Edmund Husserl and Alfred North Whitehead, who introduce consequential changes into their systems in direct response to what they (...) see as Humean problems with their initial models. Three major themes are of special interest. First, vis-à-vis “Unity of Mind,” each philosopher asks what accounts for the apparent unity of mind and experience, including what principles connect distinct experiences. Second, vis-à-vis “Temporal Awareness,” each philosopher inquires into what grounds temporality and the experience of temporal passage, including what principles connect distinct moments. Third, vis-à-vis “Personal Identity,” each philosopher investigates what constitutes the experience of continuity and unity over time, including personal continuity and unity qua “personal identity.” A fourth concordance is methodological. In pursuing the aforementioned themes, each philosopher accords epistemic primacy to lived experience and what discloses itself therein. An overarching Humean problem for all, correlatively, is how continuity and unity arise from distinct items: perceptions, intentional experiences, and actual occasions, respectively. My dissertation attempts to explicate this and related systematic issues from a historical perspective informed by contemporary analytic metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and recent scholarship in Hume, Husserl, and Whitehead studies. Chapter One argues that Hume’s infamous “Appendix problem” concerns reconciling the incontrovertible unity of mind with his unrenounceable epistemological principle that the mind never perceives real connections between distinct perceptions. Chapter Two traces Hume’s proto-phenomenological influence on Husserl’s theories (not theory) of temporal awareness. Chapter Three examines Hume’s proto-processual influence on Whitehead's theories (not theory) of personal identity. Unfortunately, neither Husserl nor Whitehead read each other’s work. Nevertheless, both take Hume to be the one who knocks at, yet ultimately fails to walk through the doors that his explorations unveil. By so doing, they beg that we do the same with them. (shrink)

This chapter examines the relation between citizenship and orientalism under the new conditions of indebtedness resulting from austerity. Taking its departure from a condition of precarity under debt economy, the crisis of Europe is described as the anxiety produced by a reversal of those paradigms that have sustained the image of Europe so far. This reversal coincides with a return in Europe of that which for a long time was ejected outside in order for Europe itself to be constituted (...) as a unified symbolic reality. The chapter illustrates how this new economy has exposed a certain ‘disorienting’ effect of austerity, contributing to rekindling the ambiguities of Europe and therefore reconfiguring the image of the European self against its others. It concludes that this reconfiguration forms the background against which a new relationship between citizenship and orientalism in contemporary Europe should be examined. (shrink)

This paper intends to show that Friedrich Nietzsche’s approach to morality or ‘immorality’ involves an attempt to see moral beliefs as a product of human psychology, rather than as a set of metaphysical ‘truths’ that are somehow given to, or discoverable by, us. Nietzsche wants to replace the metaphysical (or supernatural) account of morality with a natural one, and his treatment of moral belief-systems, from the perspective of this concern, can be divided into (a) a psychological analysis of the true (...) nature of moral action and agency, and (b) an historical/genealogical tracing of the real origins of moral values. In this paper I am going to focus on the second dimension of Nietzsche’s analysis through references from his polemical texts Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogy of Morals, Gay Science, and Will to Power. I will outline Nietzsche’s historical leitmotif on the morality of ressentiment or slave morality and will show how it figures as a point of departure for his revolutionary transvaluation of values, one that places a new order of morality which is disparagingly called ‘immoralism.’ Next, I will discuss Nietzsche’s treatment of bad conscience and posit that it involves two different stages: one is the present stage of the bad conscience as a feeling of guilt, and the other is an earlier stage. I shall argue that in order for this earlier stage to develop into the level of guilt, he needs another element, namely an indebtedness towards gods, which finds its most striking culmination in the Christian heritage of religious dogmatism. Finally, I will discuss how for Nietzsche Christianity as an ascetic ideal has promoted to preserve a declining life, i.e. a slave morality, for all of humanity. (shrink)

The essay investigates the question of Europe and philosophy, and its other side, which is not elsewhere but rather consists in the concrete gesture of inscribing here a division between an inside and an outside. I will explore its philosophical and political beginnings and oblivion, which condition the realization of Europe in a paradoxical separation, with an indebtedness to another side, by which it engenders its own orientation. From its inception "per differentiam" from the East, Europe becomes this very (...) project of techno-scientific-rationalization, of unrelenting assimilation, which presumes to manage and organize in its horizon of realization any new event in its history, any intrusion. But this same project or constitutive relationship with the other side puts Europe and philosophy, as borderlands, into question. (shrink)

In this article a reference to Jacques Lacan’s ‘capitalist discourse’ will help highlight the bio-political workings of neo-liberalism in times of austerity, detecting the transition from so-called ‘debt economy’ to an ‘economy of anxiety.’ An ‘il-liberal’ turn at the core of neoliberal discourses will be examined in particular, which pivots on an ‘astute’ intersecting between outbursts of renunciation; irreducible circularity of guilt and satisfaction; persistent attachment to forms of dissipative enjoyment; and a pervasive blackmail under the register of all-encompassing regulations (...) and evaluations — all of which elevates the production of success up to the point of a production and consumption of failure. (shrink)