Metaphysical experience is one of the most obscure concepts in Adorno's Negative Dialectics. The obscurity stems partly from the way in which metaphysical experience is antinomic. To describe the antinomic character of metaphysical experience, Adorno situates it in relation to Kant's first Critique. He distinguishes two conceptions of antinomy in the first Critique: first, the explicit conception of antinomy that the transcendental dialectic exposes and resolves; and second, the implicit conception of antinomy that remains insoluble and structures the first Critique (...) and Adorno's own concept of metaphysical experience. Yet Adorno does not clarify what he means by the antinomic structure of the first Critique and how this structure underlies his own concept of metaphysical experience. Nor does the scholarship on Adorno. This article reconstructs Adorno's response to these questions, and, in so doing, demonstrates the Kantian origin of Adorno's concept of metaphysical experience in Negative Dialectics. (shrink)

How do we justify the normative standards to which we appeal in support of our moral progress judgments, given their historical and cultural contingency? To answer this question in a noncircular way, Elizabeth Anderson and Philip Kitcher appeal exclusively to formal features of the methodology by which a moral change was brought about; some moral methodologies are systematically less prone to bias than others and are therefore less vulnerable to error. However, we argue that the methodologies espoused by Anderson and (...) Kitcher implicitly appeal to the substantive principle of “moral universalism.” This sets up the positive project of the paper: an attempt to vindicate moral universalism with a pragmatic genealogy. Using resources from cultural evolutionary theory and the history of ideas we argue that the universalistic norms widely committed to in many societies today have the function of maintaining cooperation in large anonymous groups. Furthermore, while universalistic norms play this instrumental role, their functional benefits are best secured when people following such norms do so for intrinsic rather than instrumental reasons. Finally, having elaborated our pragmatic genealogy, we close by considering how this genealogy should affect our commitment to moral universalism and how it can complement the methods of Anderson and Kitcher. (shrink)

Would you rather your friends, family, and partners envy you, or admire you, when you flourish? Many people would prefer to be admired, and so we often strive to tame our envy. Recently, however, Sara Protasi offered an intriguing defence of “emulative envy” which apparently improves us and our relationships, and is compatible with love. I find her account unconvincing, and defend loving admiration in this article. In Section 2, I summarize Protasi's nuanced account of envy. In Section 2, I (...) argue that irrespective of how we analyze emotions in general we can argue that it is preferable to prioritize the cultivation of some emotions over others. In Section 4, I challenge Protasi's assumptions about the affinity between love and envy. My core argument is in Section 5 where I examine envy's impact on the envier, the envied, and relationships. Envy impedes an authentic relationship to the goods and goals in the envier's life, alienates the envied, and stifles joint-action. From all perspectives admiration typically fares better. After briefly considering the objection that admiration may impede love in Section 6, I conclude, in section seven, that admiration should be preferred to emulative envy in our intimate relationships. (shrink)

This paper makes a case for treating the boundary between what counts as practical reasoning and what does not as essentially indeterminate. The idea that there is an “essential indeterminacy in what can be counted as a rational deliberative process” was put forward by Bernard Williams in his well‐known discussion of statements about an agent's reasons for action. But in contrast to the more familiar argument of that paper, the idea has received almost no attention. To understand and defend the (...) idea, I first offer a somewhat novel reconstruction of the more familiar argument against making statements about a person's reasons intended on an “external” interpretation. On my reading, the argument shows how making such statements runs afoul of ideals of honesty in our interpersonal dealings. I then argue for countenancing an essential indeterminacy in what counts as practical reasoning, in a manner that involves a re‐application of these same ideals of honesty, albeit at a higher level of abstraction. One advantage of understanding the entire discussion of reasons statements and reasoning along these lines is that it highlights the deeply anti‐rationalistic flavor of Williams' own interest in these topics. Unsurprisingly, Williams' treatment displays a deep affinity with the anti‐rationalistic ethics advanced by Hume. It also turns out to be at cross purposes with the far more rationalistic ethical vision that animates more recent attempts to advance a “Humean Theory of Reasons,” which is sometimes mistakenly seen as following in Williams' and Hume's footsteps. (shrink)

Universals in the Platonic tradition were intended to play both metaphysical and epistemological roles. The contemporary debate around universals has focused overwhelmingly on the former, with even ‘platonists’ typically holding that our knowledge of universals is derived from our knowledge of particulars. In contrast, I wish to argue for the epistemological primacy of the universal: specifically, I defend the thesis that we perceive particulars as a result of knowing universals, and not the other way around. My argument draws from the (...) work of Malebranche, who notoriously contended that we see ordinary objects through the immutable ‘ideas’. I conclude with the suggestion that the resulting account of the relationship between our knowledge of universals and our perception of particulars may be thought of as a kind of Platonic indirect realism. (shrink)

This paper begins with the thought that there is something out of place about offloading inquiry into one's own mind to AI. The paper's primary goal is to articulate the unease felt when considering cases of doing so. It draws a parallel between the use of algorithms in the criminal law: in both cases one feels entitled to be treated as an exception to a verdict made on the basis of a certain kind of evidence. Then it identifies an account (...) of first‐person authority that can make good on this: agentialism. Thus, the paper constitutes an argument in favor of an agentialist treatment of self‐knowledge and first‐person authority. (shrink)

The history of the thesis of the guise of the good between Kant and Anscombe is not well understood. This article examines a notable disagreement over the thesis during this period, between Green and Sidgwick. It shows that Green accepts versions of the thesis concerning action and desire in one sense of 'desire', and that Sidgwick rejects the thesis concerning both action and desire. It then considers why Green accepts the thesis, and assesses Sidgwick's criticism of Green. Despite the appearance (...) of a mere clash of intuitions, an interesting rationale for the thesis can be found in Green’s theory of free will and moral responsibility, of which I defend a broadly compatibilist interpretation. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Phenomenological discussions of sociality have long been concerned with the relations between the I, the You, and the We. Recently, dialogue between phenomenology and analytic philosophical work on collective intentionality has given rise to a corpus of literature oriented around the first-person plural “we.” In this paper, I demonstrate how these dominant accounts of the “we” are not exhaustive of first-person plural experiences as such. I achieve these aims by arguing for a phenomenological distinction between an experience of being part (...) of a “we” compared to an experience of being part of an “us.” To have a “we-experience” there must be a plurality of (unified) subjects sharing in an experience together such that the experience has the phenomenal character of being ours. An “us-experience,” on the other hand, requires the experiential salience of an external “Third” in a way that is constitutively significant. Drawing on Sartrean social ontology, I argue that the “us” is distinct from the “we” on three levels, all of which pertain to the constitutive and unifying role of the Third. I then outline two forms of us-experiences: (1) the experience of being grouped and (2) the experience of apprehending one's seriality. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

This paper poses a challenge to theories of joint action. In addition to the typical requirement of explaining how agents count as acting together as opposed to acting in parallel or independently—the togetherness requirement—it is argued that theories must explain how agents can be spontaneously joined such that they can act together spontaneously—the spontaneity requirement. To be spontaneously joined is to be immediately joined. The challenge arises because the typical means of satisfying the togetherness requirement, for example, planning, expressing willingness, (...) and so forth, are forms of mediating, binding interaction and so seem to eliminate the possibility of spontaneity. Likewise, taking spontaneity seriously makes it difficult to see how the togetherness requirement can be simultaneously met. The challenge threatens the very idea of joint agency. (shrink)

Our interest in understanding belief stems partly from our being creatures who think. However, the term ‘belief’ is used to refer to many states: from the fully conscious rational state that partly constitutes knowledge to the fanciful states of alarm clocks. Which of the many ‘belief’ states must a theory of belief be answerable to? This is the scope question. I begin my answer with a reply to a recent argument that belief is invariably weak, i.e., that the evidential standards (...) that are required for belief are low. Although one state we refer to using the term ‘belief’ fits this profile, other ‘belief’ states do not. Crucially, when ‘belief’ is heard in a weak sense, it attributes a state that only a rational creature can be in. I will use this observation as a starting point for an argument that the study of (our) belief should not be constrained by the requirement that the illuminated state be held in common with any non‐rational being. This lends support to the Transformative Theory of Rationality, according to which rationality does not merely add powers or complexity to the animal mind, but transforms it into a different kind of mind altogether. (shrink)

In her book "Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant. The Violence and the Charity", Morganna Lambeth presents a comprehensive, compelling and original assessment of Heidegger's interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in the 1920s. She places Heidegger's controversial claim that the transcendental imagination is the original root of cognition in the centre of her interpretation and fleshes its implications out throughout her book, gauging its significance from multiple angles (e.g., with regard to the advantages of Heidegger's reading over the readings of (...) other post-Kantian philosophers). Thereby, she not only manages to bring much clarity into the often dark and twisted claims Heidegger articulates through Kant's voice but also convincingly defends many of them. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

There is a wide variety of cases of alienation, including (a) when an agent is alienated from her own motivational states and (b) deviant causal cases when an agent's motivational states cause her intended actions but via a deviant causal pathway. Reflecting on the variety of kinds of alienation reveals that action explanation still needs to account for the positive role that agents play in non-alienated actions in general. To fill this gap, this paper identifies a sui generis but crucial (...) notion of control, what I call “synchronic executive control,” where agents act on their reasons, which must be distinguished from (a) endorsing one's reasons as reasonable or as the reasons for action (from the autonomy literature), and (b) other, diachronic notions of executive control such as competence, skills-based control, planning-based control, and counterfactual control generally (from especially the deviant causation literature). The presence of such executive control is crucial for explaining the role of agents in non-alienated actions, and its absence explains the lack of agency in alienation cases. The result is the identification of a relationship agents have with their reasons which unifies the variety of non-alienated actions in a novel way. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an original interpretation of Marx's conception of unalienated labor, which I frame as a response to Aristotle's view of work, or technē. Both Aristotle and Marx share a particular conception of freedom as “normative self-determination,” according to which an activity is free insofar as it does not depend for its value on externally valuable things. For instance, when my activity is a mere means for satisfying some need separate from it, it comes to depend for (...) its value on the externally valuable effect—the “needs-meeting”—it achieves. Or, when my activity is only causally—but not normatively—enabled by the cooperative contributions of others, it comes to depend for its value on those externally valuable contributions. On Aristotle's view, work is unleisurely (ascholos) and servile (doulos) because it is normatively dependent in both of these ways. For Marx, by contrast, work possesses the capacity to “internalize” these external determinants of its value. Unalienated work does this, first, by satisfying “internal” needs, or needs whose satisfaction does not constitute a normatively external effect of the work that satisfies them. The satisfaction of internal needs is valuable because of the manner or way in which they are satisfied. Second, unalienated work would not only be causally, but also normatively, enabled by the contributions of others, in that those contributions would help to make it the distinctively valuable act that it is. Unalienated work would be valuable because, and not despite, its cooperative character. In both of these respects, then, cooperation is essential to make work fully free. (shrink)

In this paper, I take a fresh look at Husserl's key distinction between objectifying and non‐objectifying acts, which roughly amounts to a distinction between presentational and evaluative experiences. My goal is to provide a clear and unified reconstruction of Husserl's argument for the thesis that non‐objectifying acts are necessarily founded in objectifying acts, a thesis that is highly controversial in and beyond Husserlian scholarship. In the first section, I reconstruct Husserl's view in the Logical Investigations, according to which only objectifying (...) acts establish an independent intentional relation to their objects, and argue that it is justified by the positing function of objectifying acts. In the second section, I address two problematic interpretations of this view and, after criticizing them, I present what I take to be Husserl's core argument for his position. In the third section, I turn to the revision of the view of the Logical Investigations that Husserl proposes in the wake of his transcendental turn, especially in Ideas I and II. On Husserl's revised view, all acts are objectifying, including emotional acts [Gemütsakte]. This revision has led scholars to consider Husserl's view aporetic. I propose an alternative interpretation that dispels the purported aporia. I conclude with some remarks on the costs and benefits of my reading, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of Husserl's view in general. (shrink)

Theoretical reasoning (inference) is a conscious personal‐level activity and a causal process. It is the process of revising one's beliefs for a reason whereby some of our beliefs cause or result in other beliefs. But inference is more than mere causation. This raises the question of what exactly distinguishes theoretical reasoning from mere causal processes. Paul Boghossian has located the distinguishing feature of inference in, what he calls, the “taking condition” requirement (TC). It turns out, however, that all attempts to (...) explain this notion fail. In this paper, I shall offer an indirect argument for the taking condition grounded in a specific account of the structure of epistemic reasons that distinguishes two levels of epistemic normativity, namely, the possession and justification levels. I show how such an account can legitimize the role of (TC) in reasoning and deflect the standard objections raised against it. Finally, I explain how this proposal naturally accommodates the defeasibility of reasoning. (shrink)

In the current context of widespread environmental collapse, ecological grief—the sense of loss that arises from experiencing environmental destruction—has become a burgeoning topic of inquiry across psychology, geography, and anthropology. The central challenge in the study of ecological grief is that its theoretical foundations remain underdeveloped. Recent discussions in philosophy of emotions elucidate that a central element in this theoretical challenge is determining what the object of ecological grief is. In turn, our understanding of the object of ecological grief goes (...) hand in hand with our understanding of the nature of ecological grief. This paper develops a phenomenological analysis of cross‐cultural subjective reports that identifies crucial themes in the experience of ecological grief. This phenomenological analysis reveals the object of ecological grief as the loss of the life possibilities that are sustained by dwelling. The resulting view is that ecological grief corresponds to a crisis in dwelling—a disturbance in the very way we inhabit our home environment. (shrink)

Much of contemporary philosophy of perception revolves around the question of whether perceptual experience has representational content. On one side of the debate, we find representationalists claiming that perceptual experience is representational in that it always presents the world as being a certain way. Perceptual experience is therefore said to have content, which can be evaluated for truth or accuracy. Against the idea that perception has content, relationalists have leveled an argument based on the generality of content, which we shall (...) here refer to as the generality problem of perception (GPP). We will analyze and assess existing replies to the GPP. Based on these analyses, we will conclude that representationalists have as yet not offered a convincing answer to the problem and that, after almost 20 years, the problem still stands. (shrink)

In her book Heidegger's Interpretation of Kant. The Violence and the Charity, Morganna Lambeth presents a comprehensive, compelling and original assessment of Heidegger's interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in the 1920s. She places Heidegger's controversial claim that the transcendental imagination is the original root of cognition in the centre of her interpretation and fleshes its implications out throughout her book, gauging its significance from multiple angles (e.g., with regard to the advantages of Heidegger's reading over the readings of (...) other post-Kantian philosophers). Thereby, she not only manages to bring much clarity into the often dark and twisted claims Heidegger articulates through Kant's voice but also convincingly defends many of them. Generally, Lambeth aims to vindicate the significance of Heidegger's interpretation of Kant which, as she lays out, has received little acceptance in Anglophone Kant scholarship and is often met with the conviction that it is primarily informative about Heidegger's own philosophy into which he urges Kant violently (a view supported by Heidegger's later self-criticisms). Lambeth proposes a different and quite attractive story, suggesting that Heidegger is deeply engaged with Kant's own thought and offers a novel and “genuine interpretation of Kant” instead of looking into “a distorted mirror in which he can see only himself." In this vein, the conclusion of Lambeth's book assesses the merit of Heidegger's interpretation of Kant with regard to topics of contemporary Kant scholarship (metaphysics, discursivity, conceptualism, idealism, historicism). But Lambeth also makes a strong and original case for the significance of Heidegger's interpretation of Kant for Heidegger's own thought. As she argues, Heidegger develops his “temporal idealism” of Being and Time further when interpreting Kant. (shrink)

This paper raises a new problem for the widely held view that, according to the Confucian philosopher Mencius, being a benevolent person necessarily entails being affectively disposed in morally relevant ways. I argue that ascribing such a view to Mencius generates an inconsistent triad with two of his central philosophical commitments on what it means to be a benevolent ruler. I then consider possible ways of resolving the triad and I argue that the most attractive option is to reject the (...) view that a benevolent person must be affectively disposed in morally relevant ways; instead, being disposed to perform benevolent actions is enough. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

This paper raises a new problem for the widely held view that, according to the Confucian philosopher Mencius, being a benevolent person necessarily entails being affectively disposed in morally relevant ways. I argue that ascribing such a view to Mencius generates an inconsistent triad with two of his central philosophical commitments on what it means to be a benevolent ruler. I then consider possible ways of resolving the triad and I argue that the most attractive option is to reject the (...) view that a benevolent person must be affectively disposed in morally relevant ways; instead, being disposed to perform benevolent actions is enough. (shrink)