The philosopher Graham Harman argues that contemporary debates about the nature of reality as such, and about the nature of objects in particular, can be meaningfully applied to social theory and practice. With Immaterialism, he has recently provided a case-based demonstration of how this could happen. But social theorists have compelling reasons to oppose object-oriented social theory’s 15 principles. Fidelity to Harman’s aesthetic foundationalism, and his particular use of serial endosymbiosis theory as a mechanism of social change, constrain the very (...) practices which it is supposed to enable. However, social theory stands to benefit from object-oriented philosophy through what we call posthuman relationism – characterised as a commitment to the reality of the nonhuman, but not divorced from the human. The emphasis in object-oriented social theory on how objects withdraw from cognitive or affective capture and representation needs to be tempered by an equal focus on how objects appeal. (shrink)

In Continental Realism Paul Ennis tackles the rise of realist metaphysics in contemporary continental philosophy. Pitted against the dominant antirealist and transcendental continental hegemony Ennis argues that continental thinking must establish an alliance between metaphysics, speculation, and realism if we are to truly get back to the things themselves.

Responsibility has traditionally been associated with a project of appropriation, understood as the securing of a sphere of mastery for a willful subject, and enframed in a metaphysics of will, causality and subjectivity. In that tradition, responsibility is understood in terms of the subjectum that lies at the basis of the act, as ground of imputation, and opens onto the project of a self-legislation and self-appropriation of the subject. However, one finds in Heidegger and Derrida the reversal—indeed, the deconstruction—of such (...) a tradition, and responsibility is approached instead as an exposure to an inappropriable: assumption of an inappropriable thrownness and finitude for Heidegger, ‘experience of the im-possible’ for Derrida. I will explore how responsibility can be thought from such inappropriable, in an experience that Derrida called ‘ex-appropriation.’ In the process, I will engage the very complex and tortuous relation of Derrida to Heidegger. (shrink)

The first dictionary dedicated to Quentin Meillassoux and the controversies surrounding his thought Perfect for philosophers just starting to read his work and for those looking to deepen their engagement, this dictionary defines all of the major terms of Meillassoux's work, prefaced by an introduction explaining his importance for the Continental philosophy scene. A-Z entries explain the influence of key figures, from Kant to Heidegger to Derrida, and define the complex terms that Meillassoux uses. The entries are written by the (...) top scholars in the field of speculative realism, often by those that highlight their own disagreements with him. This is more than a dictionary; this is your invitation into one of the liveliest debates in current philosophy. (shrink)

Ever since the turn of the century aesthetics has steadily gained momentum as a central field of study across the disciplines. No longer sidelined, aesthetics has grown in confidence. While this recent development brings with it a return to the work of the canonical authors (most notably Baumgarten and Kant), some contemporary scholars reject the traditional focus on epistemology and theorize aesthetics in its ontological connotations. It is according to this shift that speculative realists have proclaimed aesthetics as "first philosophy" (...) and as speculative in nature. With speculative realism aesthetics no longer necessarily implies human agents. This is in alignment with the general speculative realist framework for thinking all kinds of processes, entities, and objects as free from our all-pervasive anthropocentrism, which states, always, that everything is "for us." This special volume of Speculations explores the ramifications of what could be termed the new speculative aesthetics. In doing so, it stages a three-fold encounter: between aesthetics and speculation, between speculative realism and its (possible) precursors, and between speculative realism and art and literature. (shrink)

With this special volume of Speculations, the editors wanted to challenge the contested term "speculative realism," offering scholars who have some involvement with it a space to voice their opinions of the network of ideas commonly associated with the name.

In this third volume of Speculations, a serial imprint created to explore post-continental philosophy and speculative realism, a wide range of topics are covered, from the philosophy of religion to psychoanalysis to the philosophy of science to gender studies, and in a wide variety of formats (articles, interviews, position pieces, translations, and review essays).

In the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781) Kant introduced the transcendental method on a precarious footing and he never shied away from the fact that the transcendental method is structured, and I mean it in the most direct sense possible, aporetically. The aporetic element, the unstable core within Kantian thought, is the distinction between phenomenal and noumenal content in the chapter entitled "On the ground of the distinction [Unterscheidung] of all objects [Gegenstände] in general into phenomena and noumena" (Kant A236/B295-A260/B315). (...) This distinction is noteworthy for introducing into the philosophical tradition the notion of the thing-in-itself [Ding-an-sich]. Depending on your interests this is either the most profound or absurd of ideas in our tradition. I prefer to think of it as the most productive notion in our tradition. We can see its generative function at work almost immediately when it spurred the German idealists into thinking obscenely ingenious thoughts, but the phenomenal-noumenal distinction, hereafter the aporetic distinction, remains an ever-persistent aporia for all continental thinking after Kant. In this article I want to focus on how the aporetic distinction functions in its generative capacity with an emphasis on its ontological rather than epistemological register. Considered as such I claim that it is possible to identify in the aporetic distinction a generative capacity (or logic or function) that is intrinsic to both it and all thought responding to it including, or perhaps especially, the speculative responses. (shrink)

The context for these interviews was a seminar [Peter Gratton] conducted on speculative realism in the Spring 2010. There has been great interest in speculative realism and one reason Gratton surmise[s] is not just the arguments offered, though [Gratton doesn't] want to take away from them; each of these scholars are vivid writers and great pedagogues, many of whom are in constant contact with their readers via their weblogs. Thus these interviews provided an opportunity to forward student questions about their (...) respective works. Though each were conducted on different occasions, the interviews stand as a collected work, tying together the most classical questions about “realism” to ancillary movements about the non-human in politics, ecology, aesthetics, and video gaming—all to point to future movements in this philosophical area. (shrink)

The philosopher Graham Harman argues that contemporary debates about the nature of reality as such, and about the nature of objects in particular, can be meaningfully applied to social theory and practice. With Immaterialism, he has recently provided a case-based demonstration of how this could happen. But social theorists have compelling reasons to oppose object-oriented social theory’s 15 principles. Fidelity to Harman’s aesthetic foundationalism, and his particular use of serial endosymbiosis theory as a mechanism of social change, constrain the very (...) practices which it is supposed to enable. However, social theory stands to benefit from object-oriented philosophy through what we call posthuman relationism – characterised as a commitment to the reality of the nonhuman, but not divorced from the human. The emphasis in object-oriented social theory on how objects withdraw from cognitive or affective capture and representation needs to be tempered by an equal focus on how objects appeal. (shrink)

Band 13 der psycho-logik widmet sich aus fächerübergreifendem Blickwinkel dem Thema Identität, das in den Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften zu einem Schlagwort des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts geworden ist. Gerade die moderne und liberale Gesellschaftsordnung, die uns ungeahnt viel Freiheit ermöglicht hat, charakterisiert ein Patchwork aus Identifikationsangeboten, das zugleich die kollektive und personale Identitätsfindung problematisch macht. Aktuell hat die narrative Theorie die erinnerte und erzählte Lebensgeschichte zum Gründungsort des Selbst erhoben. Sie spielt auch in den Beiträgen dieses Bandes eine prominente Rolle. (...) Es zeigt sich, dass die Identitätskonstruktion ein Prozess ist, in dem sich Identität als etwas Fragiles und Plurales offenbart. Identität ist ein tragisches Spiel zwischen Einheit und Mannigfaltigkeit: Identität(en). Forscher*innen aus Deutschland, Irland und den USA mit ihren Beiträgen aus Literaturwissenschaft, Theologie, Philosophie und Psychologie diskutieren u. a. das Band zwischen Identität und Erinnerung bei Marcel Proust, transsexuelle Identitätskonstruktionen in US-amerikanischen Biopics, den Film als Identitätsbildungsmedium des Publikums, Identitätspolitik(en) am Beispiel des Zugangs zu US-amerikanischen Hochschulen, die Identitätsfindung in Lebensgeschichten und den psychotherapeutischen Umgang mit gebrochenen Identitäten. Fotoarbeiten des Künstlers Hermann Recknagel runden den Band ab. Mit Beiträgen von Michaela I. Abdelhamid, Carsten Albers, Paul Clogher, Katherine Duval, Winfried Eckel, Fiona Ennis, Annette Hilt, Christopher A. Nixon, Paul Nnodim, Hermann Recknagel, Patricia Rehm-Grätzel, Martin Reker, Annika Schlitte und Hartwig Wiedebach. (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 69. In this issue of continent. , which takes as its theme the idea of the moraine, or that which is left behind, we attempt to think, and look beyond that horizon of the possible cataclysm, not in naive ways of hope and gleeful sounds, but in an attempt to present different directions in thought and looking and hearing. Beyond the cataclysm, or within it—or even, precisely anterior to it (anterior to an event not yet happened)—there are (...) new ways of thinking “beyond” already becoming apparent. These ideas are speculative, in a sense irresponsible: Graham Harman writes about Quentin Meillassoux’s God who does not exist now, but may do so in the future while Paul Ennis describes the speculative line backwards to Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena. Michael O'Rourke assesses the future of Queer Theory and we are compelled to ask if queer theory is a theory of everything. Karen Spaceinvaders “maps” the brain through sound leaving us to wonder where is the mind, while Phillip Stearns, as though echoing Spaceinvaders’ work, remaps digital photography, creating images from the stray electrical currents in the apparatus. In fiction, Ben Segal gathers the blurbs of the books yet possible. And there is more. And so we proudly offer forth continent. ’s second issue. Whereas issue 1.1 took the theme of isthmus (that which connects land to land, or even, throat to voice), in issue 1.2 we look at what remains after the crushing weight of slow, glacial time has passed. It is geological (which is genealogical) and it is archeological, but it is architectural too. In his later work, Heidegger describes the open ( das offen ) as a lightening ( lichtung ) in terms of a forest clearing which is not only “free for brightness and darkness, but also for resonance and echo, for sounding and diminishing sound. The clearing is the open for everything that is present and absent.” In continent. 1.2, we imagine that clearing, that lichtung which is both a lightening and a clearing, a space of being from which to observe (or even participate in) the coming, very possibly banal, cataclysm(s). (shrink)

Over the past few centuries the free will debate has largely turned on the question of whether or not the truth of the thesis of determinism is compatible with the relevant form of freedom that is required for moral responsibility. This way of approaching the free will problem was fundamentally challenged by P.F. Strawson in his hugely influential paper “Freedom and Resentment,” which was published in 1962. In this paper Strawson pursues a line of argument that can be found in (...) the work of several major figures in the “moral sense school,” such as David Hume and Adam Smith. The strategy Strawson employs is one that begins with a complex and subtle description of the attitudes and practices that are constitutive of moral responsibility as we observe it in human life. According to Strawson, both sides in this debate fail to identify the real foundations of moral responsibility, which rests with the fabric of our human emotional psychology. When we start from inside these natural, human commitments, Strawson maintains, we are better placed to generate a viable and pertinent theory of human freedom as it relates to the requirements of moral responsibility. (shrink)

This note on Propertius 4.7 argues that Cynthia, repeatedly cast in the role of the poet's Muse, rejects the burden of inspiration through a learned choice of words (non tamen insector, 4.7.49). The verb insector constitutes a clear reference to the invocation of the Camena in Livius Andronicus and of the Muse in Ennius. Cynthia recalibrates the parlance of poetic inspiration to end her relationship with Propertius, both as his puella and as his Muse.

Noam Chomsky and Frances Egan argue that David Marr’s computational theory of vision is not intentional, claiming that the formal scientific theory does not include description of visual content. They also argue that the theory is internalist in the sense of not describing things physically external to the perceiver. They argue that these claims hold for computational theories of vision in general. Beyond theories of vision, they argue that representational content does not figure as a topic within formal computational theories (...) in cognitive science. I demonstrate that Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims about Marr’s theory are false. Marr’s computational theory contains a mathematical theory of visual content, based on empirical psychophysical evidence. It also contains mathematical descriptions of distal physical surfaces and objects, and of their optic projection to the perceiver. Much computational research on vision contains these types of intentional and externalist components within the formal, mathematical, theories. Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims demonstrate inadequate study and understanding of Marr’s work and other research in this area. Computational theories of vision, by containing empirically based mathematical theories of visual content, to this extent present naturalizations of semantics. (shrink)

The rapid commercialization of applied genetics in the mtd-1970s, accompanied by a sudden rise in academic-corporate partnerships, raised questions about the impacts these linkages have had on the social and professional norms of scientists. The extent and pattern of faculty tnvolvement in commercialization of biological research is largely an unexplored area. This article provcdes a quantitative assessment of the linkages between biology faculty in American uncverscties and the newly formed biotechnology industry. The results of thes study, covering the period 1985-88, (...) show that academic scientists responded en masse to participating in the commercialization of genetecs research by estabhshmg formal associations with many of the new biotechnology compances. A data base consisting of 889 U.S. and Canadian biotechnology companies and 832 sccentcsts who had formal ties to them was developed over a four-year period. The patterns of academic-corporate Icnkages are revealed by institution. Three universities with the most commercially active faculty are Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. Of the 359 bcomedeca! scientists and geneteccsts who were members of the Nateonal Academy of Sceences, at minimum, 37% had formal ties with the biotechnology industry. (shrink)

We are witnessing increasing use of the Internet, particular social media, to criticize (perceived or actual) moral failings and misdemeanors. This phenomenon of so-called ‘online public shaming’ could provide a powerful tool for reinforcing valuable social norms. But it also threatens unwarranted and severe punishments meted out by online mobs. This paper analyses the dangers associated with the informal enforcement of norms, drawing on Locke, but also highlights its promise, drawing on recent discussions of social norms. We then consider two (...) crucial conditions that online public shaming must meet in order to be justifiable: proportionality and accountability. We argue that these requirements are in fact frequently violated, rendering most cases of online public shaming unjustified. While the use of online public shaming against others’ vices has some apparent virtues, it is currently rarely justified, given its own vices. (shrink)

Reasons and reasoning were central to the work of Paul Grice, one of the most influential and admired philosophers of the late twentieth century. In the John Locke Lectures that Grice delivered in Oxford at the end of the 1970s, he set out his fundamental thoughts about these topics; Aspects of Reason is the long-awaited publication of those lectures. This immensely rich work, powerfully evocative of the mind of its author, will refresh and illuminate discussions in many areas of (...) contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

This is Part I of a two-part reflection by Robert Ennis on his involvement in the critical thinking movement. Part I deals with how he got started in the movement and with the development of his influential definition of critical thinking and his conception of what critical thinking involves. Part II of the reflection will appear in the next issue of INQUIRY, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer 2011), and it will cover topics concerned with assessing critical thinking, teaching critical (...) thinking, and what the future may hold. (shrink)

This is Part I of a two-part reflection by Robert Ennis on his involvement in the critical thinking movement. Part I deals with how he got started in the movement and with the development of his influential definition of critical thinking and his conception of what critical thinking involves. Part II of the reflection will appear in the next issue of INQUIRY, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer 2011), and it will cover topics concerned with assessing critical thinking, teaching critical (...) thinking, and what the future may hold. (shrink)

This is a collection in translation of essays by Paul Ricoeur which presents a comprehensive view of his philosophical hermeneutics, its relation to the views of his predecessors in the tradition and its consequences for the social sciences. The volume has three parts. The studies in the first part examine the history of hermeneutics, its central themes and the outstanding issues it has to confront. In Part II, Ricoeur's own current, constructive position is developed. A concept of the text (...) is formulated as the implications of the theory are pursued into the domains of sociology, psychoanalysis and history. Many of the essays appear here in English for the first time; the editor's introduction brings out their background in Ricoeur's thought and the continuity of his concerns. The volume will be of great importance for those interested in hermeneutics and Ricoeur's contribution to it, and will demonstrate how much his approach offers to a number of disciplines. (shrink)

This is the second part of a two-part reflection by Robert Ennis on his involvement in, and the progress of, the critical thinking movement. It provides a summary of Part I (Ennis 2011), including his definition/conception of critical thinking, the definition being “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do.” It then examines the assessment and the teaching of critical thinking (including incorporation in a curriculum), and makes suggestions regarding the future of critical thinking. He (...) urges that now is the time to make a major effort in promoting critical thinking. Later may be too late. He also suggests a number of things to do. An Appendix, which provides a detailed elaboration of the nature of critical thinking, is at the end of Part I, but summaries are provided here. (shrink)

In this chapter a new problem about rule-following is outlined, one that is distinct both from Kripke’s and Wright’s versions of the problem. This new problem cannot be correctly responsed to, as Kripke’s can, by invoking Wright’s Intentional Account of rule-following. The upshot might be called, following Kant, an antinomy of pure reason: we both must — and cannot — make sense of someone’s following a rule. The chapter explores various ways out of this antinomy without here endorsing any of (...) them. (shrink)

The ethical issues raised by cybersecurity practices and technologies are of critical importance. However, there is disagreement about what is the best ethical framework for understanding those issues. In this paper we seek to address this shortcoming through the introduction of a principlist ethical framework for cybersecurity that builds on existing work in adjacent fields of applied ethics, bioethics, and AI ethics. By redeploying the AI4People framework, we develop a domain-relevant specification of five ethical principles in cybersecurity: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, (...) justice, and explicability. We then illustrate the advantages of this principlist framework by examining the ethical issues raised by four common cybersecurity contexts: penetration testing, distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), ransomware, and system administration. These case analyses demonstrate the utility of this principlist framework as a basis for understanding cybersecurity ethics and for cultivating the ethical expertise and ethical sensitivity of cybersecurity professionals and other stakeholders. (shrink)

Foreword William Schweiker Paul Tillich, one of the great Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, addresses in Morality and Beyond a basic problem ...

Feyerabrend argues that intellectual progress relies on the creativity of the scientist, against the authority of science.

This essay offers a comprehensive vision for a higher education program incorporating critical thinking across the curriculum at hypothetical Alpha College, employing a rigorous detailed conception of critical thinking called “The Alpha Conception of Critical Thinking”. The program starts with a 1-year, required, freshman course, two-thirds of which focuses on a set of general critical thinking dispositions and abilities. The final third uses subject-matter issues to reinforce general critical thinking dispositions and abilities, teach samples of subject matter, and introduce subject-specific (...) critical thinking. Subject-matter departmental and other units will make long-range plans for incorporating critical thinking in varying amounts in subject-matter courses, culminating in a written Senior Thesis/Project involving investigating, taking, and defending a position, which reinforce critical thinking abilities and dispositions and increase subject-matter knowledge. Teaching approaches used in the program are involving and based on the principle, “We learn what we use.” Both summative and formative assessment are employed as appropriate. Coordination and support are extensive. Objections and concerns are discussed, and alternatives, including possible transitions, are considered. An extended review of research supports moving toward CTAC. (shrink)

In this study of space and power and knowledge in France from the 1830s through the 1930s, Rabinow uses the tools of anthropology, philosophy, and cultural criticism to examine how social environment was perceived and described. Ranging from epidemiology to the layout of colonial cities, he shows how modernity was revealed in urban planning, architecture, health and welfare administration, and social legislation.

Eliminative materialism is the thesis that our common-sense conception of psychological phenomena constitutes a radically false theory, a theory so fundamentally defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced, rather than smoothly reduced, by completed neuroscience. Our mutual understanding and even our introspection may then be reconstituted within the conceptual framework of completed neuroscience, a theory we may expect to be more powerful by far than the common-sense psychology it displaces, and more substantially (...) integrated within physical science generally. My purpose in this paper is to explore these projections, especially as they bear on (1) the principal elements of common-sense psychology: the propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, etc.), and (2) the conception of rationality in which these elements figure. (shrink)

Paul Thom's book presents Kilwardby's science of logic as a body of demonstrative knowledge about inferences and their validity, about the semantics of non-modal and modal propositions, and about the logic of genus and species. This science is thoroughly intensional. It grounds the logic of inference on "that in virtue of which" the inference holds. It bases the truth conditions of propositions on relations between conceptual entities. It explains the logic of genus and species through the notion of essence. (...) Thom interprets this science as a formal logic of intensions with its own proof theory and semantics. This comprehensive reconstruction of Kilwardby's logic shows the medieval master to be one of the most interesting logicians of the thirteenth century. (shrink)

Assuming that critical thinking dispositions are at least as important as critical thinking abilities, Ennis examines the concept of critical thinking disposition and suggests some criteria for judging sets of them. He considers a leading approach to their analysis and offers as an alternative a simpler set, including the disposition to seek alternatives and be open to them. After examining some gender-bias and subject-specificity challenges to promoting critical thinking dispositions, he notes some difficulties involved in assessing critical thinking dispositions, (...) and suggests an exploratory attempt to assess them. (shrink)

De milieuproblematiek staat pas sinds kort op de agenda als een fenomeen dat de mensheid bedreigt. Toch blijkt het negentiende-eeuwse gedachtegoed van Karl Marx verrassende inzichten te bieden om deze actuele problemen te duiden. Marx laat zien dat het menselijk ingrijpen in de natuur leidt tot zelfvervreemding: de mens ondermijnt zijn bestaan als een wezen dat zelf deel uitmaakt van de natuur. Deze zelfvervreemding cumuleert in de kapitalistische samenleving. Marx lezend zien we dat de milieuproblematiek geen historische vergissing is, maar (...) fundamenteel samenhangt met de mens als redelijk wezen. Onze beheersingsrede heeft geleid tot de vervreemding van de natuur. Toch geeft dezelfde rede die de mens de vrijheid biedt zich boven het ecologische evenwicht te verheffen, hem de mogelijkheid zich te verzoenen met de natuur. Marx verwijst naar dit dubbele gezicht van de rede als hij stelt dat het 'rijk van de vrijheid' in de schoot van het kapitalisme wordt geboren. In dit boek onderzoekt Paul Cobben welke aanzetten de huidige samenleving biedt om vorm te geven aan de verzoening met de natuur. Paul Cobben is emeritus hoogleraar geschiedenis van de moderne filosofie aan Tilburg University. Momenteel is hij gastonderzoeker aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam en redacteur van de serie 'Critical Studies in German Idealism'. Van zijn hand verscheen o.a. 'Value in Capitalist Society. Rethinking Marx's Criticism of Capitalism' (2015)."-- Publisher information. (shrink)

"First published in this translation 1955; second edition (revised) 1974; reprinted with additional revisions 1987; reissued with new Further Reading 2003; reissued with new introduction 2007"--T.p. verso.