This volume examines the nature/politics relationship anew in the wake of recent critiques of the category of "nature." Its essays draw on contemporary and canonical thinkers to reflect on "second nature" as a site or paradigm of political contest and intervene into debates about environmentalism, human rights, and more.

La notion de " seconde nature " désigne depuis l'âge classique le problème des rapports et des proportions entre l'originel et l'institué dans l'existence humaine collective et individuelle. Mais cette question n'est pas une question anthropologique, sociologique ou psychologique : c'est avant tout une question politique car cette construction institutionnelle est le lieu d'un conflit irréductible. Longtemps revendiquée par les tenants de l'émancipation, elle fait aujourd'hui l'objet d'une appropriation néolibérale qui exige qu'on la repense en termes plus politiques et (...) plus radicaux. (shrink)

In this article I intend to show the strict relation between the notions of “second nature” and “recognition”. To do so I begin with a problem (circularity) proper to the theory of Hegelian and post- Hegelian Anerkennung. The solution strategy I propose is signifi cant also in terms of bringing into focus the problems connected with a notion of “space of reasons” that stems from the Hegelian concept of “Spirit”. I thus broach the notion of “second (...) class='Hi'>nature” as a bridgeconcept that can play a key role both for a renewal of the theory of Anerkennung and for a rethinking of the “space of reasons” within the debate between Robert Brandom and John McDowell. Against this background I illustrate the novelties introduced by the dialectical conception of the relation between fi rst and second nature developed by Hegel and the contribution this idea can make to a revisited theory of recognition as a phenomenon articulated on two levels. I then return to the question of the space of reasons to show the contribution the renewed conception of recognition as second nature makes to the definition of its intrinsic sociality as something that is not in principle opposed to a sense of naturalness. (shrink)

Examining Henri Bergson's work, philosophy, and the body, this volume explores the history and philosophy of comedy, film, psychoanalysis and the comic performance of the future, creating a theoretical and practice-based framework for the field.

Hegel's discussion of the concept of “habit” appears at a crucial point in his Encyclopedia system, namely, in the transition from the topic of “nature” to the topic of “spirit” (Geist): it is through habit that the subject both distinguishes itself from its various sensory states as an absolute unity (the I) and, at the same time, preserves those sensory states as the content of sensory consciousness. By calling habit a “second nature,” Hegel highlights the fact that (...) incipient spirit retains a “moment” of the natural that marks a limitation compared to “pure thought” but that also makes perceptual consciousness possible. This makes Hegel's account analogous in important respects to John McDowell's “naturalism of second nature.” But Hegel's account of habit can be seen as a version of a Kantian synthesis of the productive imagination—and hence presupposes a given material that can become one's own by means of habit. This does not mean that Hegel falls into the Myth of the Given, but it does suggest that an appropriate account of second nature might be committed to something McDowell wants to deny: that nonconceptual states of consciousness play a role (even if not a justificatory role) in perception. (shrink)

Dewey’s notion of second nature is strictly connected with that of habit. I reconstruct the Hegelian heritage of this model and argue that habit qua second nature is understood by Dewey as a something which encompasses both the subjective and the objective dimension – individual dispositions and features of the objective natural and social environment.. Secondly, the notion of habit qua second nature is used by Dewey both in a descriptive and in a critical (...) sense and is as such a dialectical concept which connects ‘impulse’ and ‘habit’, ‘original’ or ‘native’ and ‘acquired’ nature, ‘first’ and ‘second nature’. Thirdly, the ethical model of second nature as habituation and the aesthetic model of second nature as art are for Dewey not opposed to one another, since by distinguishing ‘routine’ and ‘art’ as two modes of habit, he makes space for an expressive and creative notion of second nature. Finally, I argue that the expressive dialectics of habit formation plays a crucial role in Dewey’s critical social philosophy and that first and second nature operate as benchmark concepts for his diagnosis of social pathologies. (shrink)

Hegel’s philosophy of history is fundamentally concerned with how shapes of life collapse and transition into new shapes of life. One of the distinguishing features of Hegel’s concern with how a shape of life falls apart and becomes inadequate is the role that habit plays in the transition. A shape of life is an embodied form of existence for Hegel. The animating concepts of a shape of life are affectively inscribed on subjects through complex cultural processes. This paper examines the (...) argument Hegel puts forward in his Lectures on the Philosophy of World History for why civilizations come to atrophy and examines the decisive role habit plays in this process. The paper concludes with a discussion of the way in which the central role of second nature in historical transitions and norm formation conflicts with Brandom’s account of norm formation in Hegel’s thought. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhile Hegel’s concept of second nature has now received substantial attention from commentators, relatively little has been said about the place of this concept in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This neglect is understandable, since Hegel does not explicitly use the phrase ‘second nature’ in this text. Nonetheless, several closely related phrases reveal the centrality of this concept to the Phenomenology’s structure. In this paper, I develop new interpretations of the figures ‘natural consciousness’, ‘natural notion’, and ‘inorganic (...) nature’, in order to elucidate the distinctive concept of second nature at work in the Phenomenology. I will argue that this concept of second nature supplements the ‘official’ version, developed in the Encyclopedia, with an ‘unofficial’ version that prefigures its use in critical theory. At the same time, this reconstruction will allow us to see how the Phenomenology essentially documents spirit’s acquisition of a ‘second nature’. (shrink)

What does it take to be subjectively free in an objectively rational social order? In this book Andreja Novakovic offers a fresh interpretation of Hegel's account of ethical life by focusing on his concept of habit or 'second nature'. Novakovic addresses two central and difficult issues facing any interpretation of his Philosophy of Right: why Hegel thinks that it is is better to relate unreflectively to the laws of ethical life, and which forms of reflection, especially critical reflection, (...) remain available within ethical life. Her interpretation draws on numerous parts of Hegel's system, particularly on his 'Anthropology' and his Phenomenology of Spirit, and also explores connections between his account and those of other philosophers. Her aim is to argue that Hegel has a compelling conception of the ordinary ethical standpoint which takes seriously both the virtues and the perils of reflection. (shrink)

Abstract John McDowell argues for minimal empiricism via using the notion of second nature of human beings. I should like to invite him to discuss Helmuth Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology in order to elaborate a more substantial conception of second nature. McDowell seems to think that it is adequate for his more epistemological aim to remind us of second nature as though it were to be taken for granted. But I think, following Plessner, that this (...) right reminder needs a therapeutic elaboration in Kant's sense of propaedeutics. What had been called our second nature found itself being questioned in order to limit the range of ways of treating the self we can authorize. (shrink)

While the concept of “second nature” has received remarkable attention in recent years, the discussion has mainly focused on neo-Aristotelian accounts. In this paper, I develop a neglected post-Kantian alternative. Instead of focusing solely on the model of habit, this conception shifts our attention to a different paradigm for second nature: the work of art. Following Kant’s account in the third critique, producing a work of art can be understood as the production of an “other (...) class='Hi'>nature”, expressive of freedom. As the post-Kantian tradition from Schiller and Hegel to Marx and Nietzsche suggests, the work of art can thus serve as a model for the kind of second nature we require in order to realize an ethical life. Thus, the production of an ethical second nature is not a matter of mere habituation, but a challenging “art”: it is an aesthetic task, a complex dialectical exercise, and a social practice of objectification. This conception of second nature not only allows us to grasp the relation of freedom and nature more adequately than the dominant neo-Aristotelian conceptions – it also opens up a critical perspective on our contemporary aesthetic self-understanding. (shrink)

The expression ‘second nature’ can be used in two different ways. The first allows phronēsis to count as the sort of thing a second nature is. The second speaks of second natures...

McDowell’s argument to refuse a scientific approach to human rationality is that lawful explanations are unable to account for our rational agency. However, not every scientific explanation is a lawful one. There is another argument to the the same effect: (a) there are distinct inquiries concerning the space of reasons: causal inquiries and constitutive inquiries; (b) they are independent of each other; (c) science addresses only the first sort of questions; (d) therefore, it has no impact on inquiries concerning constitutive (...) features of the space of reasons. I will argue that (b) is false, and therefore (c) is at best unclear. The idea of a second nature suggests more unified view of human knowledge, a sort of Hegelian approach. However, for Hegel, the realm of reason encompasses all of nature, and this is an untenable route towards a full re-enchantment of nature. We should be open to the consequences to our self-understanding of different inquiries of natural sciences about how our second nature emerges and how it unfolds. Once we take account of the different sorts of inquiry in the surroundings of rational agency, we see that we cannot predict in advance how our self-understanding will change as a result of changes in different scientific domains. The concept of second nature gives an appropriate frame to this sort of accommodation. (shrink)

This paper offers a reading of key passages in Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit, which can serve as the basis for an argument to discuss the shortcomings of two contemporary readings of Hegel’s notion of ‘second nature’. It investigates two micro-processes which Hegel discusses within his Philosophy of Spirit, the process of transition from sound to speech and the process of transition from natural will to ethical will. Thereby, the text is able to mark the differences between mere habit, (...) second nature of an ethical agent, and self-mediated self-determination of spirit. Second nature is neither a falling back into nature and therefore a limitation of human freedom, nor is it a notion that in itself could explain the process of Bildung as Hegel sees it. Instead, second nature should be understood within the framework of freedom as practical self-determination which allows spirit to relate to itself as other through its product. (shrink)

In this article I raise a number of issues concerning John McDowell’s widely influential revisionist reading of Kant. These have to do with what I see as his failure – despite ambitious claims in that regard – to overcome the various problematic dualisms that dogged Kant’s thought throughout the three Critiques. Moreover, as I show, they have continued to mark the discourse of those who inherit Kant’s agenda in this or that updated, e.g., ‘linguistified’ form. More specifically, I argue that (...) McDowell’s ‘new’ reading amounts to no more than a series of terminological shifts or substitutions, such that (for instance) the well-known problem with explaining how ‘sensuous intuitions’ can be somehow synthesised with ‘concepts of understanding’ is replaced – scarcely resolved – by an equally opaque and question-begging appeal to Kantian ‘receptivity’ and ‘spontaneity’. My essay goes on to discuss a number of kindred dichotomies, among them that of nature and ‘second nature’, all of which can basically be seen as resulting from the normative deficit entailed by McDowell’s particular kind of half-way naturalizing project. I conclude that this project shows insufficient regard to the history of post-Kantian continental thought, in particular the similar problems faced by ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ idealists like Fichte and Schelling. (shrink)

What is the relation between democracy and second nature? What, that is, is the relation between a form of government that places a premium on a people shaping their shared destiny and a people who have been shaped by their past inheritance—an assortment of traditions, customs, perspectives, and practices? Does democracy fundamentally seek to escape custom and practice—the oppressive yoke of tradition—or does it, in fact, depend on a cultural inheritance, a second nature?In many standard accounts, (...) Romanticism frees itself from the encumbrance of tradition and discipline and thereby soars, unshackled, to the lofty heights of subjective expression, unrestrained imagination, and self-creation.1 In this view... (shrink)

John McDowell argues for minimal empiricism via using the notion of second nature of human beings. I should like to invite him to discuss Helmuth Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology in order to elaborate a more substantial conception of second nature. McDowell seems to think that it is adequate for his more epistemological aim to remind us of second nature as though it were to be taken for granted. But I think, following Plessner, that this right (...) reminder needs a therapeutic elaboration in Kant's sense of propaedeutics. What had been called our second nature found itself being questioned in order to limit the range of ways of treating the self we can authorize. (shrink)

In this chapter, I consider the relation of the three major spheres of ethical life that Hegel distinguishes – family, civil society, and the state – and analyse their contribution to the constitution of the "second nature" of objective spirit. Family and civil society are both analyzed by Hegel as ways of taking up and transforming our given nature such that a second ethical nature can be produced. Where the family helps bring forth such a (...) second nature by means of “education” (Erziehung), civil society does so by means of “cultural formation” (Bildung). As I show in sections (I) and (II), these processes are characterised by Hegel as steps of an actualization of freedom insofar they liberate us from our given nature without suppressing it and bring forth a second nature that gives freedom the consistency of living reality. However, while these processes constitute forms of liberation, they are at the same time forms of social subjection, involving discipline and normalization, the subjection to the will of another, and the adaption to the given necessities of the social world. Therefore, the completion of the process of liberation seems to require a third sphere that allows individuals to relate, collectively and politically, to the second nature thus produced. In order for the second nature of spirit to be a self-constitutive actualization of freedom, ethical life thus requires a specific political dimension that I turn to in section (III). While this political process is only possible on the basis of the republican infrastructures of family and civil society, it at the same time calls these infrastructures into question. Although Hegel himself does not develop this dimension properly, his conception of second nature points towards the desideratum of a politics of second nature. I will close the discussion of this political dimension in section (IV) by pointing out the general and diagnostic dimensions that such a politics of second nature can help us elaborate. (shrink)

This paper argues that children as members of a perennial psychoclass represent one potential vanguard of an emergent shift in Western subjectivity, and that adult–child dialogue, especially in the context of schooling, is a key locus for the epistemological change that implies. I argue from Herbert Marcuse’s prophetic invocation of a “new sensibility,” which is characterized by an increase in instinctual revulsion towards violence, domination and exploitation and, correspondingly, a greater sensitivity to all forms of life. As the embodiment of (...) a form of philosophical “post-animism” or hylozoism, it represents the evolutionary shift that, it could be argued, our species requires for survival at this historical moment. I suggest that the evolutionary phenomenon of neoteny—the long formative period of human childhood and the pedomorphic character of humans across the life cycle—makes of the adult-collective of school a primary site for the reconstruction of belief. After exploring child–adult dialogue more broadly as a form of dialectical interaction between what John Dewey called “impulse” and “habit,” I argue for a form, or archetype of schooling first articulated in ancient Greece called skholé, a space that functions, according to Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons, as a “meeting place,” a “form of gathering and action” dedicated to inquiry, and not to the production of calculated, preordained outcomes—a space removed from the world of production, and characterized by a form of temporality associated with childhood: aion, or “timeless time,” as opposed to kronos, or linear time. Skholé is dedicated to emergence and cultural reconstruction, which follows from an educative relationship between adults and children based on understanding the latter as bearers of the “novel,” and on a faith in the “reorganizing potentialities” of childhood impulse, or interest—that is, on natality as a fundamental principle of cultural evolution. (shrink)

‘I am not data’ has been produced in collaboration with a creative coder from the Netherlands. Over a period of six months around 4600 images were chosen from approximately 20,000 images of LatinX femmes. The images were then fed into a generative adversarial network (GAN) simulation that produced this film. The resulting work seeks to elucidate a process of lumping together foreign bodies as a method of amalgamation that works to create ‘new’ information. It exists in tandem with ‘Second (...) Nature’, a body of work on Mexican femme bodies and algorithmic web searches, from which some images are included in this article. The process behind the GAN used for this film becomes a mere reference to a human shape. Its processes of synthesis work as a metaphor for systems of human classification in which the bodies of foreigners become fuel for monstrous stereotypes. There is a sense of history repeating itself through the ways that these technological tools are used in artificial intelligence (AI) which launches questions regarding equality and progress in pursuit of social justice. (shrink)

Since the truth is only the whole, no statement or discipline can be true unless we understand how it relates to all other statements and disciplines within one encyclopedic knowledge. This theorem also applies to the perspective from which the exposition of the whole truth can be approached. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, for example, in a sense gathers the entire truth, but its perspective is the specific phenomenological one of experience and Bildung. All partial perspectives taken together, however, understood in (...) the necessity of their unity, form the one and overall perspective—which no longer is a perspective—that constitutes the truth of the truth beyond which nothing exists or can be known. This one and total Idea can be known by us, finite intelligences, only in the unfolding and time-consuming form of a discursive system. It knows itself in the eternity of its self-differentiating and self-temporalizing identity with itself. (shrink)

The concept of second nature plays a central role in McDowell's project of reconciling thought's external constraint with its spontaneity or autonomy: our conceptual capacities are natural in the sense that they are fully integrated into the natural world, but they are a second nature to us since they are not reducible to elements that are intelligible apart from those conceptual capacities. Rather than offering a theory of second nature and an account of how (...) we acquire one, McDowell suggests that Aristotle's account of ethical character formation as the acquisition of a second nature serves as a model that can reassure us that thought's autonomy does not threaten its naturalness. However, far from providing such reassurance, the Aristotelian model of second nature actually generates an anxiety about how the acquisition of such autonomous conceptual abilities could be possible. (shrink)

Since the truth is only the whole, no statement or discipline can be true unless we understand how it relates to all other statements and disciplines within one encyclopedic knowledge. This theorem also applies to the perspective from which the exposition of the whole truth can be approached. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, for example, in a sense gathers the entire truth, but its perspective is the specific phenomenological one of experience and Bildung. All partial perspectives taken together, however, understood in (...) the necessity of their unity, form the one and overall perspective—which no longer is a perspective—that constitutes the truth of the truth beyond which nothing exists or can be known. This one and total Idea can be known by us, finite intelligences, only in the unfolding and time-consuming form of a discursive system. It knows itself in the eternity of its self-differentiating and self-temporalizing identity with itself. (shrink)

I am concerned in this paper with McDowell's account of human uniqueness in nature in terms of a fundamental difference between humans and animals. I try to show that the concept of that difference is relevant for a Wittgensteinian understanding of the place of rationality in nature. I then develop an internal criticism of McDowell's transcendental way of approaching this topic by using Diamond's insights about the importance of the details for a realistic philosophical account of human mindedness. (...) My aim is to show that the difference between humans and animals is constitutive of our understanding of what it means to be humans, but this is not something we can explain in advance of looking at the weave of our life with them. (shrink)

The concept of second nature promises to provide an explanation of how nature and reason can be reconciled. But the concept is laden with ambiguity. On the one hand, second nature is understood as that which binds together all cognitive activities. On the other hand, second nature is conceived of as a kind of nature that can be changed by cognitive activities. The paper tries to investigate this ambiguity by distinguishing a Kantian (...) conception of second nature from a Hegelian conception. It argues that the idea of a transformation from a being of first nature into a being of second nature that stands at the heart of the Kantian conception is mistaken. The Hegelian conception demonstrates that the transformation in question takes place within second nature itself. Thus, the Hegelian conception allows us to understand the way in which second nature is not structurally isomorphic with first nature: It is a process of ongoing selftransformation that is not primarily determined by how the world is, but rather by commitments out of which human beings are bound to the open future. (shrink)

While in neo-Aristotelian conceptions of virtue and Bildung the concept of “second nature” describes the successful completion of human education, Hegel uses this term in order to analyze the irresolvably ambiguous, even conflictive nature of spirit. Spirit can only realize itself, in creating (1) a second nature as an order of freedom, by losing itself, in creating (2) a second nature—an order of externality, ruled by the unconscious automatisms of habit. In the (...) class='Hi'>second meaning of the term, “second nature” refers to spirit’s inversion of itself: the free enactment of spirit produces an objective, uncontrollable order; "second nature" is here a critical term. On the other hand, the very same inversion of free positing into objective existence is the moment of the success of ("absolute") spirit. The paper exposes this undecidable ambiguity of second nature and claims that its acceptance and development are the conditions of an adequate understanding of the constitution and forms of second nature. (shrink)

Discussions of habit in Hegel’s thought usually focus on his subjective spirit since this is where the most extended discussion of this issue takes place. This paper argues that habit is also important for understanding Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. The discussion of habit and second nature occur at a critical juncture in the text. This discussion is important for understanding his notion of ethical life and his account of freedom.

While in neo-Aristotelian conceptions of virtue and Bildung the concept of “second nature” describes the successful completion of human education, Hegel uses this term in order to analyze the irresolvably ambiguous, even conflictive nature of spirit. Spirit can only realize itself, in creating (1) a second nature as an order of freedom, by losing itself, in creating (2) a second nature—an order of externality, ruled by the unconscious automatisms of habit. In the (...) class='Hi'>second meaning of the term, “second nature” refers to spirit’s inversion of itself: the free enactment of spirit produces an objective, uncontrollable order; "second nature" is here a critical term. On the other hand, the very same inversion of free positing into objective existence is the moment of the success of ("absolute") spirit. The paper exposes this undecidable ambiguity of second nature and claims that its acceptance and development are the conditions of an adequate understanding of the constitution and forms of second nature. (shrink)

The central thesis of this article is that the notion of second nature that John McDowell has reanimated has something of ethical and educational importance, thereby possibly extending the borders of the philosophy of education. The argument to this conclusion is the subject of serious consideration and criticism. The aim of this article is therefore to clarify the educational implications of the conception of second nature by responding to the three likely objections: (1) the charge of (...) idealism, (2) the charge of anthropocentrism, and (3) the charge of triviality. Through critical discussions of these criticisms, it is made explicit that second nature, from the outset, illuminates every sphere of the lives of human beings. A lively appreciation of this leads to the conclusion that the issue of how we develop our world of meaning with the conception of second nature should come under the scope of serious philosophical discourse on education. (shrink)

This paper draws on the account of second nature in Aristotle, Dewey and Hegel to examine the way in which norms become embodied. It discusses the implications of this for both the authority of norms and how they can be changed. Using the example of veganism it argues that changing norms requires more than just good reasons. The appreciation of the role of second nature in culture allows us to: firstly, better conceive the difficulty and resistance (...) of individuals to changing norms because of the material resilience of norms, habits and customs in a culture. Secondly, it argues that the effective adoption of a new norm such as veganism or the behavioral change necessary to respond to climate change, requires not just more good reasons but the creation of material pathways in the culture in which those revised norms can be inhabited. (shrink)

Multiple authors in cognitive science of religion (CSR) argue that there is something about the human mind that disposes it to form religious beliefs. The dispositions would result from the internal architecture of the mind. In this article, I will argue that this disposition can be explained by various forms of (cultural) learning and not by the internal architecture of the mind. For my argument, I draw on new developments in predictive processing. I argue that CSR theories argue for the (...) naturalness of religious belief in at least three ways; religious beliefs are adaptive; religious beliefs are the product of cognitive biases; and religious beliefs are the product of content biases. I argue that all three ideas can be integrated in a predictive coding framework where religious belief is learned and hence not caused by the internal architecture of the mind. I argue that the framework makes it doubtful that there are modular cognitive mechanisms for religious beliefs and that the human mind has a fixed proneness for religious belief. I also argue that a predictive coding framework can incorporate a larger role for cultural processes and allows for more flexibility. (shrink)

Among the groundbreaking texts of the previous decade, John McDowell’s Mind and World stands as both one of the most widely read and passionately debated. The variety of fields and questions upon which McDowell’s work touches, and the wide array of thinkers interested in McDowell’s work is captured in the recently released collection edited by Nicholas H. Smith, Reading McDowell: On Mind and World.

The prior issue of Krisis (42:1) published Critical Naturalism: A Manifesto, with the aim to instigate a debate of the issues raised in this manifesto – the necessary re-thinking of the role (and the concept) of nature in critical theory in relation to questions of ecology, health, and inequality. Since Krisis considers itself a place for philosophical debates that take contemporary struggles as starting point, it issued an open call and solicited responses to the manifesto. This is one of (...) the sixteen selected responses, which augment, specify, or question the assumptions and arguments of the manifesto. (shrink)

This book is focused on what stabilizes and unifies our second nature, or that which we participants in a culture share in common. The claim is that in the triadic structure of the experience of all persons, trust is the key to the solidarity and stability of our second nature.

Ce travail opère une relecture de deux textes de jeunesse de Th. W. Adorno dans l’optique d’une réévaluation de leur importance pour son œuvre ultérieure, en particulier pour sa philosophie de l’histoire. Ces deux textes, dans lesquels est défini le concept d’interprétation philosophique de l’histoire, ou Deutung, seront abordés à partir d’une question issue des philosophies de l’histoire classiques du xixe siècle, celle du lien entre cette interprétation philosophique et une expérience commune de l’histoire. Nous montrerons que, loin de pouvoir (...) constituer un programme univoque pour la suite de la philosophie adornienne, ces textes de jeunesse sont au contraire travaillés par une ambiguïté. Fondamentale pour toute la philosophie adornienne de l’histoire, cette ambiguïté prend place entre un fondement méthodologique de la Deutung et la tentative de l’originer au contraire dans une expérience dialectique de la réalité historique. (shrink)

I argue that Husserl’s concept of position-taking, Stellungnahme, is adequate to understand the idea of second nature as an issue of philosophical anthropology. I claim that the methodological focus must be the living subject that acts and lives among others, and that the notion of second nature must respond to precisely this fundamental active character of subjectivity. The appropriate concept should satisfy two additional desiderata. First, it should be able to develop alongside the biological, psychological, and (...) social individual development. Second, it should be able to underlie the vast diversity of human beings within and across communities. As possible candidates, I contrast position-taking with two types of habit-like concepts: instinct and habitus, on the one hand, and customary habits, on the other. I argue that position-taking represents the active aspect of the subject while the habit-like concepts are passive. A subject’s position-takings and ensuing comportments are tied together by motivations, which evince a certain consistency, and for this reason are expression of the subject’s identity. I conclude by nuancing the relation between Stellungnahme and passivity. Passivity is deemed necessary to action but subservient to it; position-taking is thought to be prior to passivity. (shrink)

A groundbreaking contribution to scholarship on Hegel and nineteenth-century philosophy, this book makes the case that the "Anthropology" is essential to understanding Hegel's philosophy of spirit in its connection with the philosophy of nature.

This paper has a twofold aim. On the one hand, we will discuss the much debated question of the source of normativity (which traditionally has nature and practical reason as the two main contenders to this role) and propose a new answer to it. Second, in answering this question, we will present a new account of practical wisdom, which conceives of the ethical virtues as ultimately unified in the chief virtue of phronesis, understood as ethical expertise. To do (...) so, we will first criticize the main current view of phronesis and its bearer (the phronimos), then offer another view of the nature of phronesis and of its relation to the other ethical virtues. Our proposal should not be intended as an interpretation of Aristotle’s own view; rather, it should be seen as a broadly Aristotelian theoretical proposal, which we believe can satisfyingly address most of the problems that afflict the more traditional accounts of practical wisdom. In section 2 of this paper, after criticizing first-nature naturalistic views of moral virtue, we take practical reason to be the cornerstone of second-nature naturalistic views; in section 3, we will outline criticisms to which, in our view, the traditional views of phronesis are ill-suited to respond, and, in section 4, we will outline our view of phronesis as ethical expertise – a view which in our view is immune to the above-mentioned criticisms – by spelling out the three main tenets of phronesis as ethical expertise: a conceptual thesis, an epistemic thesis, and the educational implications of the two. Finally, we will support our proposal with some empirical evidence taken from cognitive science. (shrink)