Abordaré la crítica de Axel Honneth a la primera Escuela de Frankfurt y su aparente omisión de Herbert Marcuse. Defenderé a Marcuse contra algunas de las críticas hechas por Honneth a la teoría crítica temprana de la Escuela de Frankfurt. Luego argumentaré que Marcuse siempre estuvo en busca de una subjetividad radical, incluso cuando advirtió contra los mecanismos unidimensionales en curso de producción de sujetos. Finalmente, mostraré que Honneth también construye su proyecto en torno a la búsqueda de una subjetividad (...) radical, pero aborda el problema a través de una teoría de la intersubjetividad que complementa el proyecto de Marcuse. (shrink)

I argue that a certain type of naturalist should not accept a prominent version of the no-miracles argument (NMA). First, scientists (usually) do not accept explanations whose explanans-statements neither generate novel predictions nor unify apparently disparate established claims. Second, scientific realism (as it appears in the NMA) is an explanans that makes no new predictions and fails to unify disparate established claims. Third, many proponents of the NMA explicitly adopt a naturalism that forbids philosophy of science from using any methods (...) not employed by science itself. Therefore, such naturalistic philosophers of science should not accept the version of scientific realism that appears in the NMA. (shrink)

Modern scientific knowledge is increasingly collaborative. Much analysis in social epistemology models scientists as self-interested agents motivated by external inducements and sanctions. However, less research exists on the epistemic import of scientists’ moral concern for their colleagues. I argue that scientists’ trust in their colleagues’ moral motivations is a key component of the rationality of collaboration. On the prevailing account, trust is a matter of mere reliance on the self-interest of one’s colleagues. That is, scientists merely rely on external compulsion (...) to motivate self-interested colleagues to be trustworthy collaborators. I show that this self-interest account has significant limitations. First, it cannot fully account for trust by relatively powerless scientists. Second, reliance on self-interest can be self-defeating. For each limitation, I show that moral trust can bridge the gap—when members of the scientific community cannot rely on the self-interest of their colleagues, they rationally place trust in the moral motivations of their colleagues. Case studies of mid-twentieth-century industrial laboratories and exploitation of junior scientists show that such moral trust justifies collaboration when mere reliance on the self-interest of colleagues would be irrational. Thus, this paper provides a more complete and realistic account of the rationality of scientific collaboration. (shrink)

Ignorance of one’s privileges and prejudices is an epistemic problem. While the sources of ignorance of privilege and prejudice are increasingly understood, less clarity exists about how to remedy ignorance. In fact, the various causes of ignorance can seem so powerful, various, and mutually reinforcing that studying the epistemology of ignorance can inspire pessimism about combatting socially constructed ignorance. I argue that this pessimism is unwarranted. The testimony of members of oppressed groups can often help members of privileged groups overcome (...) their ignorance. This paper argues that a particular type of speaker’s trust—hopeful trust—can motivate hearers to become cognizant of their privilege and prejudice. I argue that hopeful trust is a powerful way of eliciting trust-responsiveness that can be an effective mechanism for challenging privilege and prejudice. To make this case, I draw on case studies of online attempts to challenge ignorance. While the problems of testimonial injustice, defensi... (shrink)

The Pessimistic Induction over the history of science argues that because most past theories considered empirically successful in their time turn out to be not even approximately true, most present ones probably aren’t approximately true either. But why did past scientists accept those incorrect theories? Kyle Stanford’s ‘Problem of Unconceived Alternatives’ is one answer to that question: scientists are bad at exhausting the space of plausible hypotheses to explain the evidence available to them. Here, I offer another answer, which I (...) call the ‘Problem of Misleading Evidence.’ I argue that this proposal is, in important respects, superior to Stanford’s. (shrink)

This paper argues that trustworthiness is an epistemic virtue that promotes objectivity. I show that untrustworthy imposture can be an arrogant act of privilege that silences marginalized voices. But, as epistemologists of ignorance have shown, sometimes trickery and the betrayal of epistemic norms are important resistance strategies. This raises the question: when is betrayal of trust epistemically virtuous? After establishing that trust is central to objectivity, I argue for the following answer: a betrayal is epistemically vicious when it strengthens or (...) promotes oppressive, exclusive networks of trust, and a betrayal is epistemically virtuous when it expands trust networks to involve the oppressed. These criteria correctly account for both the epistemic vice of a recent case of Internet imposture and the epistemic virtue of resistant tricksters. (shrink)

Suppose one believes that the historical record of discarded scientific theories provides good evidence against scientific realism. Should one adopt Kyle Stanford’s specific version of this view, based on the Problem of Unconceived Alternatives? I present reasons for answering this question in the negative. In particular, Stanford’s challenge cannot use many of the prima facie strongest pieces of historical evidence against realism, namely: superseded theories whose successors were explicitly conceived, and superseded theories that were not the result of elimination-of-alternatives inferences. (...) Attempts to accommodate and within Stanford’s framework are incompatible with other commitments Stanford holds, such as anti-realism being piecemeal instead of global. As separate lines of criticism, I argue that there are problems with Stanford’s claim that the PUA is the most important challenge to realism, and with his view of instrumentalist theory endorsement. (shrink)

Many have tackled the question ‘What (if anything) is analytic philosophy?’ I will not attempt to answer this vexed question. Rather, I address a smaller, more manageable set of interrelated questions: first, when and how did people begin using the label ‘analytic philosophy’? Second, how did those who used this label understand it? Third, why did many philosophers we today classify as analytic initially resist being grouped together under the single category of ‘analytic philosophy’? Finally, for the first generation who (...) described themselves as analytic philosophers, what was their intended contrast class? Relatedly, when did ‘continental philosophy’ become the standard opposition? Some evidence I present justifies received answers to these questions; other evidence supports surprising and unorthodox answers to these questions. (shrink)

Confused terms appear to signify more than one entity. Carnap maintained that any putative name that is associated with more than one object in a relevant universe of discourse fails to be a genuine name. Although many philosophers have agreed with Carnap, they have not always agreed among themselves about the truth-values of atomic sentences containing such terms. Some hold that such atomic sentences are always false, and others claim they are always truth-valueless. Field maintained that confused terms can still (...) refer, albeit partially, and offered a supervaluational account of their semantic properties on which some atomic sentences with confused terms can be true. After outlining many of the most important theoretical considerations for and against various semantic theories for such terms, we report the results of a study designed to investigate which of these accounts best accords with the truth-value judgments of ordinary language users about sentences containing these terms. We found that naïve participants view confused names as capable of successfully referring to one or more objects. Thus, semantic theories that judge them to involve total reference failure do not comport well with patterns of ordinary usage. (shrink)

The logic of singular terms that refer to nothing, such as ‘Santa Claus,’ has been studied extensively under the heading of free logic. The present essay examines expressions whose reference is defective in a different way: they signify more than one entity. The bulk of the effort aims to develop an acceptable formal semantics based upon an intuitive idea introduced informally by Hartry Field and discussed by Joseph Camp; the basic strategy is to use supervaluations. This idea, as it stands, (...) encounters difficulties, but with suitable refinements it can be salvaged. Two other options for a formal semantics of multiply signifying terms are also presented, and I discuss the relative merits of the three semantics briefly. Finally, possible modifications to the standard logical regimentation of the notion of existence are considered. (shrink)

Many studies have shown that marijuana can negatively affect the cognitive development of adolescents. For some individuals, marijuana use may also initiate opioid use, dose escalation, and opioid use disorder. States that legalize marijuana should help adolescents through regulation of advertising and availability of marijuana-infused edibles. Such policies may assist in protecting neurodevelopment of the adolescent and young adult brain. The federal government should also remove its prohibition of marijuana sales and use, leaving their regulation to state law-makers.

Attempts to justify the objectivity and universality of aesthetic judgment have traditionally rested on unsupported assumptions or mere assertion. This paper offers a fresh consideration of the problem of judgments of taste. It suggests that the problem of securing universal agreement is false and therefore insoluble since it imposes an inappropriate logical criterion on the extent of agreement, which is irrevocably empirical. The variability of judgments of taste actually forms a subject ripe for inquiry by sociologists, psychologists, historians and anthropologists, (...) as well as by aestheticians. Scenic beauty provides a vivid test for the variability of these judgments. (shrink)

I’m grateful for the opportunity to give the 2019 AJTP Lecture and for the leeway since then allowed me in developing ideas first presented there; it is indulgent of this journal to publish the overlong result in two parts, of which this is the first.1 The philosophical tradition epitomized by William James and Charles S. Peirce figured importantly in my early philosophical formation, but I am not a scholar of their work; nevertheless, Mike Hogue—at the time the editor of AJTP (...) and once a doctoral student at the University of Chicago Divinity School at the same time as me—approached me about the AJTP Lecture after learning that I had taught a class in the University of Chicago Divinity School called “American... (shrink)

The Cogito formulation in Discourse on Method attributes properties to one conceptual category that belong to another. Correcting the error ends up defeating Descartes’ response to skepticism. His own creation, the Evil Genius, is to blame.

A provocative new view of Marx stressing his humanist philosophy and challenging both Soviet distortion and Western ignorance of his basic thinking.

A book review of Lee McIntyre's Respecting Truth: Willful Ignorance in the Internet Age.

1. D’après Schelling, la marque essentielle du monde moderne est la séparation entre le fini et l’infini, le « dédoublement ». — 2. De là suit la subjectivité de l’absolu relativement à l’objectivité du limité et la tendance de la religion et de la métaphysique modernes à « sauver le limité ». — 3. D’après Schelling, Descartes a donné de ce dédoublement une expression scientifique, et la philosophie critique n’est que l’accomplissement du développement qui commence avec lui. — 4. Contre (...) cette supposition chrétienne et idéaliste, Schelling exige une nouvelle philosophie. — 5. Son trait foncier est dans l’idée d’une personne ouverte à limite indéterminée ; il nie l’indépendance de la personne, contre le principe cartésien que la conscience de soi possède la suprême évidence. (shrink)

Bd. 1. Philosophische Schriften, I (1925-1933).--Bd. 2. Philosophische Schriften, II (1933-1938).--Bd. 3. Der Mensch, Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt : textkritische Edition (2 v.).--Bd. 4. Philosophische Anthropologie und Handlungslehre -- Bd. 5. Urmensch und Spätkultur, sowie weitere Schriften zu einer Theorie der Institutionen -- Bd. 6. Die Seele im technischen Zeitalter und andere socialpsychologische, soziologische und kulturanalytische Schriften --Bd. 9. Zeit-Bilder und andere kunstsoziologische Schriften.

This book introduces American readers to a philosophical and spiritual exemplar of dialogue. The author presents a way of thinking about ourselves, the world, and our relationship to God that is neither dualistic nor monistic. The thinkers presented in this book focus on a radical departure from objectivism and subjectivism. Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Herman Cohen, Ferdinand Ebner, Eugen Rosenstock, Franz Rosenzweig, and Martin Buber were all trying to find a way to allow a transaction between self, the world, and God without (...) foregoing either individuality or the experience of merging. (shrink)

Utopie und Tranzendenz.--Über Transzendenz und Symbol.--Der Einzelne und der Einsame.--Humanum und Exil.--Die phänomenologische Frage nach dem möglichen Menschen.

In recognizing the wide range of sensuous perception and at the same time the originary capacity of aesthetic experience, Mikel Dufrenne has shown us the rich capabilities of phenomenology. It is in that spirit that this essay explores musical performance. Music is a multiple art. Its many traditions, forms, genres, and styles, its large variety of instruments and sounds, and its diverse uses and occasions make it difficult to speak of music as a single art form. There are, nonetheless, certain (...) common characteristics that all musics share in the ordering of successive sounds and silences in movement, pattern, and studied length. And, of course, these sounds and silences must be devised and generated, usually by a person but increasingly by other means, especially electronic. Finally, music has its contexts, the particular occasions when it is produced and heard. Perhaps there is indeed a generic musical art, a common ground where all these disparities come together. (shrink)