The argument against need[Need: the belonging of the essence of mortals to, a belonging which is appropriated in the event.]Metaphysically, and t...

The article provides an introduction to Heidegger's manuscript “The Argument against Need”. It comments on the nature of the manuscript, the circumstances of its composition, and its major philosop...

Famously, in his seminal After Finitude, Quentin Meillassoux charges Heidegger with what he classifies as strong correlationism. In general,...

In this paper, I pay tribute to Jonathan Webber, one of the most dependable interpreters among recent Sartre scholars. I do so by challenging both him and Sartre on an issue that has long frustrated my work on Sartre. In short, Sartre contends that the For-itself’s desire to be Being-in-itself-for-itself is in bad faith. This raises two issues: Is this desire to be ens causa sui part of the ontological structure of the For-itself? If so, (...) is bad faith an essential part of the human being? I contend that the desire to be the In-itself-for-itself is, on Sartre’s premises, part of the ontological structure of an existing human being. As our original flight from freedom and “fundamental project,” this constitutes bad faith’s “coming into the world,” and remains part of Being-for-itself’s “natural” disposition to bad faith. (shrink)

This article focuses on Sartre’s concept of the practicoinert in his major work A Critique of Dialectical Reason, Vol. 1. I first show the progression from Sartre’s previous conception of in-itself to his concept of practico-inert. I identify five different layers of the practico-inert: human-made objects, language, ideas, social objects and class being. I show how these practico-inert layers form the possibilities for our subjectivity and how this represents a change from Sartre’s view of in-itself in (...) class='Hi'>Being and Nothingness. I then explore the relationship of freedom to the practico-inert and how Sartre argues that the practico-inert places limits on our freedom. Lastly, I argue that despite the pessimistic picture Sartre paints in CDR, the practico-inert has the potential to both limit and enhance our freedom. I appeal to Sartre’s post-CDR essay ‘A Plea for Intellectuals’ to argue that a Sartrean account of progress requires the utilisation of the practico-inert. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that the expression “an sich selbst” (“in itself”) in Kant combines with terms to form complex nouns such as “thing in itself” and “end in itself.” I argue that the basic use of “an sich selbst” in Kant’s German is as a sentence adverb, which has the role of modifying subject-predicate combinations, rather than either subject or predicate on their own. Expressions of the form “S is P an sich selbst” mean roughly that (...) S is P ‘in its own right’ or without some further ‘condition’. Accordingly, “an sich selbst” should not be treated as forming complex nouns. This analysis has significant consequences for the interpretation of “thing in itself” in particular, for it implies that the latter is not a complete nominal expression. Instead, one must treat ‘an sich selbst’ as expressing how some S is a ‘thing’, looking to the wider sentential context. I conclude with a brief account of the new significance granted to the concept of a ‘thing’ (Ding) according to the present interpretation. (shrink)

This article offers the first systematic investigation of the linguistic forms in which Kant expresses his transcendental idealism since Gerold Prauss’ seminal book Kant und das Problem der Dinge an sich. It is argued that Prauss’ own argument for the claim that ‘in itself’ is an adverbial expression that standardly modifies verbs of philosophical reflection is flawed and that there is hence very poor exegetical evidence for so-called ‘methodological two-aspect’ interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism. A comprehensive investigation of Kant’s (...) adverbial uses of ‘in itself’ rather reveals that there are various groups of verbs that ‘in itself’ modifies, which can more or less all be reduced to a standard use in which ‘in itself’ modifies verbs of predicative being such as the copula. It is also discussed how these findings can be accommodated by the two main alternative kinds of interpretations, that is, two-object and ontological two-aspect interpretations. (shrink)

The concept of being in a position to know is an increasingly popular member of the epistemologist’s toolkit. Some have used it as a basis for an account of propositional justification. Others, following Timothy Williamson, have used it as a vehicle for articulating interesting luminosity and anti-luminosity theses. It is tempting to think that while knowledge itself does not obey any closure principles, being in a position to know does. For example, if one knows both p and (...) ‘If p then q’, but one dies or gets distracted before being able to perform a modus ponens on these items of knowledge and for that reason one does not know q, one is still plausibly in a position to know q. It is also tempting to suppose that, while one does not know all logical truths, one is nevertheless in a position to know every logical truth. Putting these temptations together, we get the view that being in a position to know has a normal modal logic. A recent literature has begun to investigate whether it is a good idea to give in to these twin temptations—in particular the first one. That literature assumes very naturally that one is in a position to know everything one knows and that one is not in a position to know things that one cannot know. It has succeeded in showing that, given the modest closure condition that knowledge is closed under conjunction elimination, being a position to know cannot satisfy the so-called K axiom of normal modal logics. In this paper, we explore the question of the normality of the logic of being in a position to know in a more far-reaching and systematic way. Assuming that being in a position to know entails the possibility of knowing and that knowing entails being in a position to know, we can demonstrate radical failures of normality without assuming any closure principles at all for knowledge. Moreover, the failure of normality cannot be laid at the door of the K axiom for knowledge, since the standard principle NEC of necessitation also fails for being in a position to know. After laying out and explaining our results, we briefly survey the coherent options that remain. (shrink)

The discipline of Mental Health Counseling, referred to in this essay as Counseling, has no substantial philosophy. In the United States, much of Counseling philosophy is rooted in the American Counseling Association’s code of ethics. However, this is a code of material conduct, not a substantial Counseling philosophy, and by this orientation the distinction between doing and the knowledge that informs activity is not understood important. Counseling theories thereby adhere in a third principle that is left to disseminate in foreign (...) powers. This is to say, Counseling is commonly understood as a name for a loose set of theoretical practices bound by ethical standards, that these practices are reckoned to lay apart from one another while all referencing or otherwise answering to psychology. Due to this deferment, the apparent rise of mental health issues could be attributed to a weakening of intentional focus, since psychology, by its own scientific standard, is less a standard of care than an experimental method oriented in discovering and implementing an objective reality through which it then offers corrective protocols. This essay draws upon philosophical efforts more rigorous than a granting of epistemological deferment to propose that Counseling is a practice unto itself, in-itself, of a true substance, concerned, involved with, and related to psychology but not subject to it. (shrink)

The chapter deals with the two most distinctive elements of the Introduction of the Naturrecht Feyerabend, namely the notions of an end in itself and autonomy. I shall argue that both are to be interpreted with regard to the aim of explaining the ground of right. In this light, I suggest that the notion of an end in itself counters a voluntarist conception like Achenwall’s with a claim whose necessity has a twofold ground: First, the representation of an (...) unconditional worth emerges as a structural element of the practical use of reason. Second, that representation concerns the necessary self-understanding of moral subjects. Finally, I argue that the other distinctive element, the occurrence of the notion of autonomy, is best understood as an application of that idea to a specific issue, which Kant addresses by showing that freedom is a self-regulating domain. (shrink)

The general attitude towards Arthur Schopenhauer’s metaphysics is rather fiercely critical and at times even tendentious. It seems that the figure of Schopenhauer as an irredeemably flawed, stubborn, and contradictory philosopher serves as a leitmotiv among scholars. Schopenhauer’s identification of the thing-in-itself with the will continues to be a thorny puzzle in the secondary literature, and it presents perhaps the greatest challenge to Schopenhauer scholars. Schopenhauer borrows the term ‘thing-in-itself’ from Immanuel Kant, who uses it to refer to (...) a reality that is distinct from what appears to us, and hence unknowable. Despite the fact that several interpretations have been offered to make sense of Schopenhauer’s identification of the thing-in-itself with the will, there appears to be no consensus about how to interpret this identification as well as his understanding of the term ‘thing-in-itself’. Unlike the other interpretations, the interpretation that I offer here distinguishes between three distinct and mutually incompatible views that Schopenhauer formulates about the thing-in-itself. I argue that it is not only difficult to give a coherent, consistent account of Schopenhauer’s position, but also not worth trying, because such an endeavor comes at the cost of ignoring the textual richness and depth of thought that Schopenhauer’s works offer. (shrink)

The paper reviews some of the links between the notion of “ultimate reality” and everyday life, mainly art, beauty, the creative processes in art, and citizenship. If, according to M. Heidegger, art reveals the truth of being (i.e., also of ultimate reality), then we may find some historical descriptions of creative processes that are very close to descriptions of ultimate reality. Three examples of these kinds of descriptions are discussed (Abhinavagupta, St. Augustine, F. Engels). The final aim is to (...) show how the interpretation of ultimate reality can contribute to a better understanding of the creative process in art. These considerations can also throw light on one particular aspect of civil life—the relations between everyday life and its final goals. If we are to gain an understanding of the relations between ultimate reality, art and civil life, then the disciplines of aesthetics, philosophy, history and anthropology, and cultural history should all contribute together. (shrink)

The presence of a human being/organism—a living human ‘whole’, with the defining tendency to promote its own welfare—has value in itself, as do the functions which compose it. Life is inseparable from health, since without some degree of healthy functionality the living whole would not exist. The value of life differs both within a single life and between lives. As with any other form of human flourishing, the value of life-and-health must be distinguished from the moral importance of (...) human beings: less fulfilled means not less important morally, but more in need of being fulfilled. That said, to say that life and health has value is not to say exactly what—if anything—that value requires by way of active promotion at a given time. Many factors must be taken into account in making health care decisions, even if the worth of all lives, and the dignity of all human beings, must in every case be acknowledged. (shrink)

I argue that the lived experience of disabled people should be validated instead of a facile categorization. Thus far, a disabled sensibility is reduced to a categorical interpretation. Through my examination of a theoretical performance I illustrate how a disabled/able persona negates a disabled sensibility and allows an audience to experience the exotic disabled without examining their own `ableism'. Sobchack's and Clark's examinations demonstrate how both the techno-body and the cyberbody continue to devalue a disabled embodiment and sensibility. In the (...) final section of the article I explore how Deleuze's concept of `difference in itself' can free disabled people from the concepts of identity, hierarchy, representation and categorization that have been employed to devalue their embodiment and sensibility. Moreover, I believe that Deleuze's alternative theory of `difference in itself' can validate a disabled embodiment and sensibility. (shrink)

En la presente investigación se reflexionará sobre la guerra y su naturaleza en el contexto del sistema filosófico de Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, estableciendo como su fundamento ontológico la categoría del ser-para-sí o autoafirmación, aquella necesidad de toda autoconciencia que pretende ser libre, y que se alcanza a través del proceso dialéctico del reconocimiento. Se contrastará esta concepción con la clásica noción de guerra justa planteada por Tomás de Aquino, examinando el lugar que la negatividad del mal tiene en ambos (...) sistemas metafísicos, con el fin de determinar si es posible entender la eticidad de ambas guerras en un mismo sentido. (shrink)

The paper provides an axiological analysis of the concepts of respect for information and of information dignity from the vantage point provided by Information Ethics and the conceptual paradigm of object-oriented analysis (OOA). The general perspective adopted is that of an ontocentric approach to the philosophy of information ethics, according to which the latter is an expansion of environmental ethics towards a less biologically biased concept of a ‘centre of ethical worth’. The paper attempts to answer the following question: what (...) is the lowest possible common set of attributes which characterises something as intrinsically valuable and an object of respect, and without which something would rightly be considered intrinsically worthless or even positively unworthy and therefore rightly disrespectable in itself? The thesis developed and defended in the paper is that the minimal condition of possibility of an object’s least intrinsic worthiness can be identified with its abstract nature as an information entity. Thus, all entities, interpreted as clusters of information, have a minimal moral worth qua information objects (i.e. qua information), that deserves to be respected. The principles elaborated in the course of the analysis are those of ‘reflective respect’ (A’s respect towards all members of A’s class motivated by A’s respect towards A not qua individual, but qua instantiation of a class of entities), ‘ontic uniformity’ (A’s recognition of A’s membership to the class of information entities) and ‘ontic solidarity’ (A’s recognition of any information entity’s dignity). (shrink)

Theories about the dawn of "principality of existence" or "principality of quiddity" stand in the realm of "confusion of term and concept fallacy". It is true that asalat as a term appeared for the first time in Mirdamad's works such as Taqwim al-Iman to mention the problem of principality of existence, but we should notice that its meaning as a concept can be tracked in Suhrawadi's works. If by the term asalat we mean having real extension, as it is used (...) in Mulla Sadra's work, we can, without any doubt, claim that Suhrawardi is among the proponents of principality of quiddity. Proposing the distinction of existence and quiddity by al-Faraby and Avicenna, some philosophers regarded this distinction as a real one. But Suhrawardi, by presenting about nine arguments, claimed that existence remains as a mental predicate and does not have any real extension. He made use of his theory in the realm of the Necessary Being through Itself. Avicenna had claimed that the essence of God is His Existence but Suhrawardi denied this Avicennan Peripatetic principle. He said that existence has no real extension and so the essence of God cannot be existence. He claimed that here iniyyah means indivisible life. It seems that Mulla Sadra's arguments for demonstrating the principality of existence posed versus Suhrawardi's arguments for the mental nature of existence. (shrink)

Drawing on American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce›s »phaneroscopy«, and particularly on its point of disjunction from more orthodox phenomenology concerning the status and necessity of reception, this article argues that today’s databases phenomenalize the aesthetic dimension of worldly sensibility. Although database phenomenalizing explicitly substitutes for the phenomenalizing performed by consciousness on standard accounts of phenomenology, the important point is that it does so without severing contact with human experience. What is ultimately at stake here is the status of the phenomenon (...) itself: insofar as it hosts the self-manifestation of the world without necessarily manifesting it to anyone or anything, the phenomenon can be disjoined from its subjective anchoring in consciousness (or any of its avatars) and ascribed to the operationality of worldly sensibility itself. Gestützt auf die sog. »phaneroscopy« des amerikanischen Philosophen Charles Sanders Peirce und insbesondere auf ihre Differenz zur orthodoxeren Phänomenologie in Bezug auf den Status und die Notwendigkeit der Rezeption argumentiert dieser Beitrag, dass die heutigen Datenbanken die ästhetische Dimension weltlicher Sinnlichkeit phänomenalisieren. Auch wenn die Phänomenalisierung durch Datenbanken diejenige durch Bewusstsein explizit ersetzt, bleibt es bedeutsam, dass dies geschieht, ohne den Kontakt mit menschlicher Erfahrung abzubrechen. Worum es letztlich geht, ist der Status des Phänomens selbst: Insoweit es die Selbst-Manifestation der Welt beherbergt, ohne sie notwendigerweise für irgendjemand oder irgendetwas zu manifestieren, kann das Phänomen von seiner subjektiven Verankerung im Bewusstsein (oder jedem seiner Avatare) gelöst werden und der Operationalität weltlicher Sensibilität selbst zugeschrieben werden. (shrink)

In Being in Time I articulate and defend a theory of diachronic identity based on a new account of the relation between objects and time. Traditionally, the relation between objects and time has been considered to be a direct one, analogous to the one they have with space, and accordingly called location. In my dissertation, I argue that this locative approach is metaphysically problematic insofar as it commits us to questionable consequences about the nature of objects or about the (...) metaphysics of location. In particular, the locative approach, depending on how it is specified, requires that objects do not persist, have multiple exact locations, divide into temporal parts, or are extended simples. In place of this locative approach, and drawing from an analysis of our temporal semantics, I put forward an account of the relation between objects and time – transcendentism, to give it a name – according to which this relation is indirect, and has to be analysed in terms of the events in which objects participate. Accordingly, for a object to exist at a time is for it to participate in an event which is located at that time. As such, transcendentism is not yet a theory of persistence – insofar as objects may be in time without persisting, i.e. by existing at an instant alone –. Transcendentism is an open option for every kind of persistence theorist – be one an endurantist, a perdurantist, or an exdurantist –. However, the combination of transcendentism and endurantism may reveal itself to be a semantically grounded and metaphysically fruitful choice. Semantically grounded, insofar as the analysis of our temporal semantics speaks against the locative approach and in favour of endurantism. Metaphysically fruitful, insofar as it allows us to frame a theory of persistence that avoids all questionable consequences mentioned before – a theory according to which objects persist without having temporal parts and without being extended simples or multilocated entities. The dissertation consists of four self-standing chapters in which (i) I systematize and highlight the problematicity of the locative approach, (ii) I put forward and articulate the transcendentist alternative, (iii) I develop a suitable metaphysics of events, and (iv) I reply to five objections that have been moved against the view both in official communications and in print. (shrink)

For many philosophers, bad-history wrongdoers are primarily interesting because of what their cases might tell us about the interaction of moral responsibility and history. However, philosophers focusing on blameworthiness have overlooked important questions about blame itself. These bad-history cases are complicated because blame and sympathy are both fitting. When we are careful to consider the rich natures of those two reactions, we see that they conflict in several important ways. We should see bad-history cases as cases about whether and (...) how we should blame, rather than as cases giving us ready insight into the nature of moral responsibility. (shrink)

So far as his critical employment of the concept is concerned, the thing in itself is not a second object. The thing in itself is given in its appearances; it is the object which appears. In other words, the object is taken in a twofold sense. There is no contradiction, Kant maintained, in supposing that one and the same will is, as an appearance, determined by the laws of nature and yet, as a thing in itself, is (...) free. He never meant to hold that the self of the theoretical reason and the self of the practical reason are two separate and distinct entities. It is one and the same object considered from two perspectives. In this sense the thing in itself is purely a limiting concept. So far as the critical method is concerned, objects are always considered from a particular and limited perspective, e.g. science, morality, art, et cetera. This is the central meaning of his theory of appearances. In this employment of the concept it is completely meaningless to speak of the thing in itself as a cause of appearances. The critical distinction between appearances and things in themselves is not intended to be a distinction between subjective sense data and public objects, but between public objects as given according to two or more modes. This involves no extension of the category of causality beyond appearances. Moreover, it is not open to the charge that an unknown object is given the attribute of existence. The thing in itself is known as an appearance. By definition that is the only way that it could be known. To say that we know only appearances and not things in themselves is to state an obvious tautology, namely that objects are known only as they are known. (shrink)

Kant emphasizes that moral philosophy must be divided into two parts, a metaphysics of morals, and an empirical application to individuals, which Kant calls 'moral anthropology'. But Kant gives humanity (die Menschheit) a prominent role even in the purely rational part of ethics – for example, one formulation of the categorical imperative is a demand to treat humanity as an end in itself. This paper argues that the only concepts of humanity suited to play such a role are the (...) rational idea of humanity, and the rational ideal derived from this idea, which Kant discusses in Critique of Practical Reason and other texts. (shrink)

This article presents an interpretation of Deleuze’s concept of difference-in-itself. I argue that this is best understood as an adption of Duns Scotus’s concept of ultimate difference. After suggesting that the influence of Scotus on Deleuze extends beyond their shared commitment to the univocity of being, I turn to briefly review Deleuze’s notion of absolute difference. I proceed from there to explain Scotus’s accounts of univocity and ultimate difference, throughout noting the many stark parallels with Deleuze. On the (...) basis of this Scotistic reading of Deleuzian difference, I then show how Deleuze’s synthesis of univocal being and difference-in-itself can be uniquely situated within the fourteenth-century Scotistic disputations on the predicability of univocal being to ultimate difference. I conclude with some suggestions on possible further connections between Deleuze and medieval metaphysics which are opened up through this association of Deleuze with Scotus and the Scotistic tradition. (shrink)

In this article, I attempt to analyze some of the contexts of the language of being after Heidegger’s “turn” (Kehre), a clearly discernible change in his philosophy in the second half of the 1930s. Heidegger proposed a new concept to revealing being itself, namely its “event‑enowning” (Ereignis). The key to this understanding of being is that now language becomes “the house” of being. Heidegger combined this with the “joint” (fugue) function. Language as a fugue joins (...) with being itself, and therefore constantly follows and touches upon the boundary of silence. Silence is the ultimate complement of language and constantly limits it, because what is said only reveals a part of being, while the rest remains hidden and “expresses” silence, as it is in the case of a fugue, where the main motif of the theme “escapes” into silence. In the text, I first consider the fugue of being, then the language of being as its expression, in order to consider the problem of saying further, and finally analyze the limit of language, i.e. the way to silence. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to show that a particular interpretation of the end in itself, which is widely accepted in research on Kant’s critical philosophy, is at least worth dis­cussing. I refer to the interpretation of the end in itself as a so-called existing end, i.e., something for the sake of which we perform an action but which we do not realize – sim­ply because it already exists. As I will argue, this interpretation does not (...) take into account a crucial aspect of the end in itself, i.e., its property of being an end. Being an end, the end in itself must fit into the Kantian general definition of a practical end and must therefore be something to be realized. (shrink)

One approach to Kant’s argument for the Formula of the End in Itself takes Kant to ground FEI as a possible categorical imperative with a regressive argument that rests on a non-moral conception of rational nature. This paper presents a new, logical pluralism version of this approach. In conjunction with three other steps of argument, the logical pluralism version of the regressive argument grounds FEI by showing that an agent is rationally required to adopt a self-affirming plural standpoint, and (...) thus to take it to have absolute worth. A logical pluralism version of the regressive argument thereby avoids three objectionable claims relied on by other versions: that a rational agent must take their end to be objectively good; that if an agent values their own rational nature, then they must also value others’ rational nature; and that any source of value must itself be of unconditional value. (shrink)

This work is ''a systematic ontology.'' Ontology is the study of being as such, and a systematic ontology is an account of the most fundamental ways of being something or other - of what they are and of how they are related to each other. The questions it pursues are not primarily about what causes things, but about what things are or consist in - though causal questions cannot be totally avoided. The title of the work, What Is, (...) and What Is in Itself, marks the most important distinction in ways of being. What is includes everything there is, but not everything there is included in what is in itself. The first five chapters of the book define and examine the ways of being: in chapters 1 and 2, being actual or existing, or even just being something without existing or being actual; in chapter 3, being an intentional object, and perhaps a merely intentional object; in chapter 4, relations between things and their properties; and in chapter 5, being a thing in itself. Chapter 6 discusses whether only conscious beings are things in themselves, and suggests an affirmative answer. Chapter 7 discusses the epistemology of ontology. Chapters 8 and 9 discuss issues about thisness and identity. And chapters 10 and 11 discuss mainly occasionalist and panentheist answers to questions about the causal unity of the universe. (shrink)

Kant’s doctrine of the “transcendental object” has always puzzled interpreters. On the one hand, he says that the transcendental object is the object to which we relate our representations. On the other hand, he declares the transcendental object to be unknowable and identifies it with the thing in itself. I argue that this poses a problem that Kant only in the B edition of the Critique solves in a satisfactory manner. According to this solution, we ascribe sensible predicates to (...) things in themselves, but only insofar as they appear. I conclude that this could motivate a phenomenalist account of Kant’s idealism, but one that gives due weight to the role of things in themselves. (shrink)

It is argued that in beginning ``being and nothingness'' with the absolute ontological distinction between the for-itself (pure nothingness) and the in-itself (pure being), sartre makes it impossible to understand how the phenomenological account of experience which comes later in the work could be correct. attention is paid almost entirely to the critique of sartre implicit in the chapter of merleau-ponty's ``phenomenology of perception'' titled 'the cogito'. merleau-ponty's divergence from sartre is seen to center around his (...) critique of sartre on the nature of the in-itself, the world, and the pre-reflective 'cogito'. (shrink)

This book examines the unique views of philosopher Jacob Sigismund Beck, a student of Immanuel Kant who devoted himself to an exploration of his teacher's doctrine and to showing that Kant's transcendental idealism is, contra to the common view, both internally consistent and is not a form of subjective idealism. In his attempt to explain away certain apparent contradictions found in Kant's system, Beck put forward a new reading of Kant's critical theory, a view, which came to be known as (...) the Standpunctslehre, the Doctrine of the Standpoint. Author Lior Nitzan reconstructs, step by step, the historical development of Beck's doctrine. He shows how Beck's unique view is drastically different from that of his contemporaries and presents the relevance of Beck to contemporary debates about the proper interpretation of Kant's notion of objectivity, the refutation of idealism and the role of the thing in itself in Kant's transcendental idealism. In doing so, Nitzan presents a defense of Beck's radical perspective of Kant's theory and claims that some of Kant's negative responses to it may in fact be due more to the adversary academic environment at the time than to Kant's true, well considered, opinion. Jacob Sigismund Beck's Standpunctslehre challenges the two dominant schools in the interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism-the "two world" and the "two aspect" view. It presents a new way of understanding Kant's transcendental idealism, according to which the thing in itself plays no positive role in relation to the possibility of experience. Moreover, it claims that eliminating the thing in itself as the ultimate object of knowledge is not to admit idealism but in fact is the only way to consistently uphold realism. In addition, the book also addresses the question why, assuming that the proposed interpretation is correct, Kant had chosen not to make his true intentions clear. (shrink)

Against a remarkable hardware oblivion in discussions of algorithmic intelligence, this article insists that algorithmic thought, or abstract computation, cannot be separated from its technological implementation. It requires a material medium for an abstract mechanism to become a procedural event. Temporality is both the condition and the limiting (and irritating) factor in the computational function. ‘Radical’ media archaeology is proposed as a method for such an analysis, and the neologism of techno lógos to describe some aspects of algorithmic reason which (...) only unfold in the moment of its techno-processual coming-into-being. Some core operations, such as the time-discrete rhythm of actual computing algorithms, are discussed, where the ‘tempoReal’ flashes up in computing. In a wider sense, the time-discreteness of digital computing is related to an aesthetics of existence which acknowledges the machine element within human reasoning itself, while at the same time re-actualizing previous cultural techniques of non-narrative chronology. Turing the ‘man’ himself, in the sense of the Turing machine, can be addressed ‘itself’, in its archival sense as a sequence of expressions by symbols. (shrink)

Writers like Christine Korsgaard and Allen Wood understand Kant's idea of rational nature as an end in itself as a commitment to a substantive value. This makes it hard for them to explain the supposed equivalence between the universal law and humanity formulations of the categorical imperative, since the former does not appear to assert any substantive value. Nor is it easy for defenders of value-based readings to explain Kant's claim that the law-giving nature of practical reason makes all (...) beings with practical reason regard the idea of a rational nature as an end in itself. This article seeks to replace these value-based readings with a reading of the idea of rational nature as an end that fits better with the overall argument of the Groundwork. (shrink)

In the topological semantics for modal logic, S4 is well-known to be complete for the rational line, for the real line, and for Cantor space: these are special cases of S4’s completeness for any dense-in-itself metric space. The construction used to prove completeness can be slightly amended to show that S4 is not only complete, but also strongly complete, for the rational line. But no similarly easy amendment is available for the real line or for Cantor space and the (...) question of strong completeness for these spaces has remained open, together with the more general question of strong completeness for any dense-in-itself metric space. In this paper, we prove that S4 is strongly complete for any dense-in-itself metric space. (shrink)

This article responds to Dimitris Vardoulakis’s claim that Heidegger’s mistaken reading of phronēsis’s relation to the hou heneka, or that-for-the-sake-of-which, in Nicomachean Ethics VI at 1139a32–33, leads to an evacuation of ends from action. I argue that Heidegger is not wrong in his reading of Aristotle on phronēsis’s relation to the end. I offer a reading of the passage on which Vardoulakis focuses, which I believe is consistent with Heidegger’s, to show how Aristotle’s view of phronēsis’s role in action can (...) enable such judgment. I agree with Vardoulakis that on Heidegger’s reading, Aristotle does not view phronēsis as instrumental, but I show that this reading is borne out by the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole. I argue that the absence of instrumentality does not mean that phronēsis leaves action without an end; rather, the end of action is in the action itself. I argue in agreement with Heidegger [1997: 29, 34] and contra Vardoulakis that technē as a model of instrumentality does not capture the work of phronēsis in Aristotle (neither is it what is under critique when Heidegger criticizes modern technologizing). I argue in conclusion that Aristotle’s conception of phronēsis and the action to which it leads does allow for judgment: what can be judged is the person or the community as it shows itself in the action. (shrink)

One formulation of the Categorical Imperative tells us to treat humanity as an end in itself. It has become common to think that ‘humanity’ (die Menschheit) here refers to some minimal power of rationality that is necessarily possessed by any rational agent, but I argue that this common reading is misguided. Instead, ‘humanity’ refers to a good will, the will of a being who is committed to moral principles. This good will reading of ‘humanity’ is not only suggested (...) by passages in which Kant specifically discusses humanity, but also is more consistent with the main ideas of Kant's ethics. (shrink)

This chapter [of the edited volume, A Companion to Ancient Philosophy] examines the shift in Plato’s account of the eidē or ‘forms’ from the Republic to the Parmenides. Forms in the Republic are characterized in terms of perfection, purity, and changelessness, with the form being an ultimate explanatory principle for being-X. Participants, while being-X, are also capable of not-being-X, either through qualitative change and coming-to-be, or through external changes in perspective or opinion, by which they “appear (...) [φανήσεται]” not-X (R. V.479a7). The form is treated as prior to participant and as prior to mixture with what would deny what it is. It is intrinsically changeless and not subject to changes in appearance. -/- In the Parmenides, the account of form shifts to accommodate the types of admixture demanded for combination with and division from other forms. In the Fifth Hypothesis, forms are subject to determinate “bonds of being and not-being,” which permits the form to present itself as an object of discursive knowing, being-X, -Y, and -Z, and not-being not-X, not-Y, and not-Z. Forms are still treated as pure and perfect, but now with the power of gathering together intelligible bonds of being and not-being. Thus, in the Parmenides, forms are the gathering source and the gathered terms subject to the admixture; they are that by which true speech is explained. In this chapter, I argue that the “turning of the soul from becoming to truth and being” (R. VII.525c) announced in the Republic is partially fulfilled through the account of veridical speech in the Parmenides. (shrink)

Erick J. Ramirez, Miles Elliott and Per‑Erik Milam (2021) have recently claimed that using Virtual Reality (VR) as an educational nudge to promote empathy is unethical. These authors argue that the influence exerted on the participant through virtual simulation is based on the deception of making them believe that they are someone else when this is impossible. This makes the use of VR for empathy enhancement a manipulative strategy in itself. In this article, we show that Ramirez et al.’s (...) ethical rejection of empathy enhancement through VR is based on confusion. First, we show that this misunderstanding stems from the conception of empathy-enhancing simulations solely as failed attempts at “being someone else,” along with ignoring the crucial difference between the psychological perspective-taking processes of imagine-other and imagine-self. Then, having overcome that misconception, we argue that the ethical misgivings about the use of VR to promote empathy should disappear and that these projects have greater potential for behavioural change than purely sympathy-focused interventions. (shrink)

Thoughts and theoretical reflections about “governance” in Islamic society, whether theorizing about the desired structure of government or describing the characteristics of an ideal ruler, is one of the most important topics studied in the field of political thought and philosophy in Islam, to which great names such as Farabi, etc. are connected. In this context, this research, through a comparative approach, seeks to examine and analyze the views of Farabi and Sohrawardi about the ideal ruler from the perspective of (...) a judicial approach. Based on such an approach, a philosopher like Farabi considers the different ways of connecting to the active intellect as the separation of the theoretical intellect from matter and the connection to the active intellect, and a divine sage like Sohrawardi also speaks of the separation of the theoretical intellect and the separation of the power of imagination, which is manifested in a prophet. In the eyes of both thinkers, human reason has the ability to overcome material existence. This type of excellence is a condition for achieving complete metaphysical knowledge and theoretical perfection. The ultimate happiness is the achievement of the active intellect. “The Absolute First Leader” and “Quṭb (Imam or pole)” have both achieved this position. Introduction The ideal government and ruler, in the system of Islamic philosophy, are based on the approach of philosophers to wisdom and their opinions and ruling foundations. The philosophers’ approach to wisdom and intellect in the system of Islamic philosophy has changed and developed from Farabi to Sohrawardi and later. Based on this change in the method and approach to wisdom of the sages, philosophical issues and topics including the issue of government and the ideal ruler, have also undergone changes and transformations. Despite the significant evolution of Islamic philosophy in the two Peripatetic and Illuminative systems, it seems that the ideal ruler in Sohrawardi’s philosophy, which he refers to as “the pole/Imam (quṭb),” is compatible with the first leader of al-Farabi’s utopia. The problem of this research is to investigate the characteristic features of “Qutb” and “First Leader/Philosopher” in the Peripatetic and Illuminative systems of philosophy based on Sohrawardi and Farabi’s approach to wisdom and its types. “Qutb” in Sohrawardi’s thought In the wisdom of enlightenment, the perfect human being and the “Qutb” to whom the position of caliph belongs, is perfect in intuitive and argumentative wisdom, and in other words, he is both adept in reflection and adept in discussion. In Sohrawardi’s thought, the rulers must know wisdom as well be practical wayfarers, that is, they must possess a combination of theoretical and practical wisdom. On the one hand, Sohrawardi’s theory is influenced and consistent with Plato’s theory, both of which emphasize the “ruling sage,” and on the other hand, it is influenced by the Iranian tradition and the benefit of the ideal kings from wisdom and intellect, and “Khurra-yi Kiani”1 and the approval of God, which is in the interpretation Religious and close to Sufism and Shiism, it is interpreted as Qutb and divine sage. A Qutb or an Imam is one who is connected with the active intellect, receives grace from the higher realm, and spreads goodness, prosperity, knowledge, justice, and virtue among religions with a divine plan. “The First Leader” in Farabi’s thought The First Leader is someone who does not need the guidance of another human being; rather, all sciences and knowledge are obtained by him in esse and he is able to infer appropriate actions and behavior from general reasoning. He can also best guide others to perform these meritorious deeds; the same actions and actions that bring a person to happiness. These abilities are realized in people of great and outstanding nature by connecting to the active intellect. Such a person, in fact, in the eyes of the ancients, is a king and ruler and worthy of revelation. The rule of such a person is the first rule and his leadership is the first leadership, and the rule of others that is through his rule will be the subordinate rule, and people under the rule of this leader and leader are virtuous people, the chosen ones, and the fortunate ones. Conclusion In examining and comparing the two viewpoints, it should be said that a philosopher like Farabi considers the different ways of connecting to the active intellect to be the separation of the theoretical intellect from matter and the connection to the active intellect, and a Godly sage like Sohrawardi also speaks of the separation of the theoretical intellect and the power of imagination, which manifests itself in a prophet, where we witness detachment from matter and the ability to remove the soul from the body. In the eyes of both thinkers, human reason has the ability to overcome material existence. This type of excellence is a condition for achieving complete metaphysical knowledge and theoretical perfection. The ultimate happiness is the achievement of the active intellect.”First Leader”and “Qutb” have both achieved this position. Based on this, the complete transcendence of material existence is possible for certain people. (shrink)

Since Hume, philosophers of induction have debated the question of whether we have any reason for assuming that nature is uniform. This debate has always presumed that the uniformity hypothesis is itself coherent. In Part 1 of the following I argue that a proper appreciation of Nelson Goodman's so-called grue-green problem1 should lead us to the conclusion that the uniformity hypothesis, under its usual interpretation as a strictly ontological thesis, is incoherent. In Part 2 I argue that further consideration (...) of the grue-green problem leads to the conclusion that certain popular versions of the thesis of physical supervenience/the primacy of physics, under their usual interpretation as strictly ontological theses, are false. In Part 3 I argue that the notions of natural kinds and nature's joints should not be taken as ontologically objective notions but as interest relative. Together Parts 1, 2, and 3 provide support for the Nietzsche-Goodman thesis that philosophers are prone to mistakenly identify as absolute, mind and language independent, features of the world which are in fact only features of a particular discourse, or of the world relative to a particular discourse. (shrink)

In Necessary Existence and the Doctrine of Being in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing Daniel De Haan explicates the central argument of Avicenna’s metaphysical masterpiece. De Haan argues that the most fundamental primary notion in Avicenna’s metaphysics is neither being nor thing but is the necessary ( wājib), which Avicenna employs to demonstrate the existence and true-nature of the divine necessary existence in itself. This conclusion is established through a systematic investigation of how Avicenna’s theory of a (...) demonstrative science is employed in the organization of his metaphysical science into its subject, first principles, and objects of enquiry. The book examines the essential role the first principles as primary notions and primary hypotheses play in the central argument of Avicenna’s metaphysics. (shrink)

Today it is a rare journal article that does not begin with the words "on the threshold of the third millennium." Someone might say, "What do you, philosophers, have to do with the swift flow of time? You're always talking about the eternal!" But he would not be right. First, although philosophy reflects on the eternal, it exists in time. Like any intellectual community, philosophy has its beginning and history; indeed, a history full of dramatic and even tragic pages, including (...) death at the stake for one's ideas, the irreconcilable confrontation of systems, the blind disregard of some thinkers in their lifetime and the undeserved fame of others, and so on. And what will the future bring? This is a question raised by philosophers "on the threshold of the third millennium," as they ponder the fate and paths of their activity. Second, the central philosophical problem is the problem of Being and man's place in it; hence, the question what the philosophy of the twenty-first century will be like is the question of how we shall represent being itself, man himself, the meaning of human life. Can we today at least name the most general features of the future philosophy? To answer this question I have tried to compare two past philosophical systems—I. Kant's and A. Schopenhauer's. And the reason is this both philosophers are one in their passionate desire to find the Truth for humanity and the individual and, although they begin their reflections from the same positions, they end up with results that are quite incompatible. But both poles of philosophy—the rationalist and the irrationalist—have proved equally valid for humanity. And I think that these two systems determined one of the paths of philosophy in the twentieth century that will continue into the twenty-first. (shrink)

In his recently published Donner le temps II, Derrida raises, but does not develop, the possibility that Heidegger's notion of Gelassenheit (‘releasement’, ‘letting-be’) might escape the economic confines of exchange, debt, and repayment and therefore qualify as a pure gift. In this paper, I explore this possibility, explaining that Gelassenheit would have to be understood, first, not primarily as a human comportment but at the level of being itself, second, beyond appropriation, and third, as ‘without why’. If Heidegger's (...) focus on appropriation in ‘Time and Being’ remains entangled in the economy of exchange (as Derrida insinuates in the final session of Donner le temps II), Heidegger's anarchic treatment of ‘letting’ ( laisser, Lassen) in the final session of his 1969 seminar in Le Thor opens instead onto a ‘pure giving’ ( pur donner, reines Geben). (shrink)

Not only that, but the very attempt to do so is impossible of attainment, for the human mind cannot, even in pure thought, reach the central observatory of the absolute looker-on, for the startlingly simple reason that it is only by participating in reality that it exists at all. A system is a spectacle which is there for a disengaged mind, a mind which is not itself enclosed within the panorama it beholds. For the human subject such a disengagement (...) is unthinkable. Where its possibility seems plausible --for pure reason--it is only because the systematizer neglects the one element which can never be included within his structure: his own act of thinking. Our thought does not lie open to our gaze-we cannot stand outside it and treat it as an object, and it is only the objectified which is systematizable. Because I am altogether engaged in being, no merely "objective" judgment upon it is possible. (shrink)

This is a survey article in which I explore some important recent work on the topic in question, Kant’s formula of the end in itself (or “formula of humanity”). I first provide an overview of the formulation, including what the formula seems roughly to be saying, and what Kant’s main argument for it seems to be. I then call the reader’s attention to a variety of questions one might have about the import of and argument for this formula, alluding (...) to some of the works in which philosophers have recently raised or tried to answer these questions. Then, for the bulk of the paper, I focus my discussion on two issues of contention: the identity of the “end in itself” that the formula refers to, and the relation between the value of the end in itself and the value of other ends. I do not attempt to argue for a particular position of my own regarding these issues. Instead, I explain a number of the more interesting or influential recent attempts to answer these questions, compare these approaches in various ways, draw implications from them, and raise concerns about some of them. I also suggest that an important link connects the question about the identity of the end in itself and the question about the relation between the value of the end in itself in relation to the value of other ends: How one answers these questions commits one to a position on the thorny issue of whether, how, and how fully, autonomy is manifested through empirical (not simply pure) practical reason. (shrink)