This book contains programmatic essays that focus on broad-ranging proposals for re-envisioning a discipline of comparative philosophy of religions. It also contains a number of case studies focussing on the interpretation of particular religio-historical data from comparatively oriented philosophical perspectives.

The papers collected in this volume exemplify some of the trends in current approaches to logic, language and computation. Written by authors with varied academic backgrounds, the contributions are intended for an interdisciplinary audience. The first part of this volume addresses issues relevant for multi-agent systems: reasoning with incomplete information, reasoning about knowledge and beliefs, and reasoning about games. Proofs as formal objects form the subject of Part II. Topics covered include: contributions on logical frameworks, linear logic, and different approaches (...) to formalized reasoning. Part III focuses on representations and formal methods in linguistic theory, addressing the areas of comparative and temporal expressions, modal subordination, and compositionality. (shrink)

Kant’s analysis of the concept of natural purpose in the Critique of judgment captured several features of organisms that he argued warranted making them the objects of a special field of study, in need of a special regulative teleological principle. By showing that organisms have to be conceived as self-organizing wholes, epigenetically built according to the idea of a whole that we must presuppose, Kant accounted for three features of organisms conflated in the biological sciences of the period: adaptation, functionality (...) and conservation of forms..Kant’s unitary concept of natural purpose was subsequently split in two directions: first by Cuvier’s comparative anatomy, that would draw on the idea of adaptative functions as a regulative principle for understanding in reconstituting and classifying organisms; and then by Goethe’s and Geoffroy’s morphology, a science of the general transformations of living forms. However, such general transformations in nature, objects of an alleged ‘archaeology of nature’, were thought impossible by Kant in the §80 of the Critique of judgment. Goethe made this ‘adventure of reason’ possible by changing the sense of ‘explanation’: scientific explanation was shifted from the investigation of the mechanical processes of generation of individual organisms to the unveiling of some ideal transformations of types instantiated by those organisms. (shrink)

:One view of practical reasoning is that it involves the weighing of reasons. It is not clear, however, how the weights of reasons combine, especially given the logical and substantive relations among different reasons. Nor is it clear how the weighing of reasons relates to decision theoretic maximization of expected value. This paper constructs a formal model of reasons and their weight in order to shed light on these issues. The model informs philosophical debates about (...) reasons, such as the question of whether reasons or values are more fundamental and the opposing doctrines of atomism and holism about reasons. (shrink)

This book offers new insights into the nature of human rational capacities by engaging inferentialism with empirical research in the cognitive sciences. Inferentialism advocates that humans' unique kind of intelligence is discursive and rooted in competencies to make, assess and justify claims. This approach provides a rich source of valuable insights into the nature of our rational capacities, but it is underdeveloped in important respects. For example, little attempt has been made to assess inferentialism considering relevant scientific research on human (...) communication, cognition or reasoning. By engaging philosophical and scientific approaches in a productive dialogue, this book shows how we can better understand human rational capacities by comparing their respective strengths and weaknesses. In this vein, the author critically revisits and constructively develops central themes from the work of Robert Brandom and other language rationalists: the nature of the assertoric practice and its connection to reasoned discourse, the linguistic constitution of the shared space of reasons, the social nature and function of reasoning, the intersubjective roots of social-normative practices and the nature of objective thought. Practices of Reason will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and philosophy of logic. (shrink)

Kant’s analysis of the concept of natural purpose in the Critique of judgment captured several features of organisms that he argued warranted making them the objects of a special field of study, in need of a special regulative teleological principle. By showing that organisms have to be conceived as self-organizing wholes, epigenetically built according to the idea of a whole that we must presuppose, Kant accounted for three features of organisms conflated in the biological sciences of the period: adaptation, functionality (...) and conservation of forms..Kant’s unitary concept of natural purpose was subsequently split in two directions: first by Cuvier’s comparative anatomy, that would draw on the idea of adaptative functions as a regulative principle for understanding in reconstituting and classifying organisms; and then by Goethe’s and Geoffroy’s morphology, a science of the general transformations of living forms. However, such general transformations in nature, objects of an alleged ‘archaeology of nature’, were thought impossible by Kant in the §80 of the Critique of judgment. Goethe made this ‘adventure of reason’ possible by changing the sense of ‘explanation’: scientific explanation was shifted from the investigation of the mechanical processes of generation of individual organisms to the unveiling of some ideal transformations of types instantiated by those organisms. (shrink)

The question as to whether Ian Hacking’s project of scientific styles of thinking entails epistemic relativism has received considerable attention. However, scholars have never discussed it vis-à-vis Wittgenstein. This is unfortunate: not only is Wittgenstein the philosopher who, together with Foucault, has influenced Hacking the most, but he has also faced the same accusation of ‘relativism’. I shall explore the conceptual similarities and differences between Hacking’s notion of style of thinking and Wittgenstein’s conception of form of life. It is a (...) fact that whether or not the latter entails epistemic relativism is still a controversial question. From my comparative analysis, it will emerge that there are stronger reasons to conclude that Hacking’s notion of style leads to epistemic relativism than there are to reach the same conclusion in the case of Wittgenstein’s conception of form of life. This point will be at odds with the anti-relativistic stance that Hacking has taken in his more recent writings. (shrink)

The ArgumentMany of the epistemological issues that occupied natural philosophers of the seventeenth century were expressed visually in title-page engravings. One of those issues concerned the relative status to be accorded to evidence of the senses, as compared to knowledge gained by faith or reason. In title-page illustrations, the various arguments were often waged by a series of light metaphors: the Light of Reason, the Light of Nature, and the Lights of Sense, Scripture, and Grace. When such illustrations are examined (...) with the authors' theological views in mind, it becomes apparent that in the first half of the seventeenth century, Catholic authors favored the Light of Reason as a source of truth, while Protestant authors favored the Light of Nature. Since by the end of the century it was widely accepted by scientists of all religious persuasions that certain knowledge must be grounded in sense evidence and the direct study of nature, one might argue that in this instance Protestantism was responsible for nurturing an important development of the Scientific Revolution. However, the skewed nature of the sample and the large number of counterexamples available mitigate against taking this offshoot of the Merton thesis too seriously. (shrink)

In a comparative study of karma theodicy and atonement theodicy, as developed by some Hindu and Christian theologians, this article argues that they present teleological visions where individuals become purged, purified, and perfected in and through their worldly suffering. A karma theodicy operates with the notion that there is some form of proportionality between past evil and present suffering, even if such correlations can only be traced by an enlightened sage or are known to the omniscient God. Christian mystics too (...) seek not so much to explain suffering as to identify suffering with the agony of Christ on the cross, and they envision such suffering as part of a unitive journey where their love of Christ is purified. In these ways, both styles of theodicy use rational resources towards the goal of explanation, while reminding their adherents that the faltering intelligibility that they seek is to be seen as an integral component of their active participation in a sense of theological mystery that enfolds, and yet transcends, their finite existences. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Wittgenstein’s conception of reason and rationality through the lens of his conception of reasons. Central in this context, I argue, is the image of the chain, which informs not only his methodology in the form of the chain-method, but also his conception of reasons as linking up immediately, like the links of a chain. I first provide a general sketch of what reasons are on Wittgenstein’s view, arguing that giving reasons consists (...) in making thought and action intelligible by delineating reasoning routes; that something is a reason not in virtue of some intrinsic property, but in virtue of its role; and that citing something as a reason characterises it in terms of the rational relations it stands in according to context-dependent norms. I then argue that on Wittgenstein’s view, we misconceive chains of reasons if we think of them on the model of chains of causes. Chains of reasons are necessarily finite, because they are anchored in and held in place by our reason-giving practices, and it is in virtue of their finitude that chains of reasons can guide, justify and explain. I argue that this liberates us from the expectation that one should be able to give reasons for everything, but that it limits the reach of reasons by tying them to particular reasoning-practices that they cannot themselves justify. I end by comparing and reconciling Wittgenstein’s dichotomy between chains of reasons and chains of causes with seemingly competing construals of the dichotomy, and I clarify its relation to the dichotomy between explanation and justification. (shrink)

This reissue of an American philosophical classic includes a new preface by Cavell, in which he discusses the work's reception and influence. The work fosters a fascinating relationship between philosophy and literature both by augmenting his philosophical discussions with examples from literature and by applying philosophical theories to literary texts. Cavell also succeeds in drawing some very important parallels between the British analytic tradition and the continental tradition, by comparing skepticism as understood in Descartes, Hume, and Kant with philosophy of (...) language as practiced by Wittgenstein and Austin. (shrink)

In recent years several proposals to view reasoning with legal cases as theory construction have been advanced. The most detailed of these is that of Bench-Capon and Sartor, which uses facts, rules, values and preferences to build a theory designed to explain the decisions in a set of cases. In this paper we describe CATE (CAse Theory Editor), a tool intended to support the construction of theories as described by Bench-Capon and Sartor, and which produces executable code corresponding to a (...) theory. CATE has been used in a series of experiments intended to explore a number of issues relating to such theories, including how the theories should be constructed, how sets of values should be compared, and the representation of cases using structured values as opposed to factors. (shrink)

Philosophers of education have had a longstanding interest in the nature and value of reason. Literature can provide an important source of insight in addressing questions in this area. One writer who is especially helpful in this regard is Fyodor Dostoevsky. In this essay Peter Roberts provides an educational reading of Dostoevsky's highly influential shorter novel, Notes from Underground. This novel was Dostoevsky's critical response to the emerging philosophy of rational egoism. In this close reading of Notes from Underground, Roberts (...) compares rational egoism with neoliberalism, analyzes the experiences of the central character (the Underground Man), and considers the need for harmony in our educational development as reasoning, feeling, and willing beings. (shrink)

I would like in this article to make some tentative comparative observations about several sorts of reasoning in Western and Chinese philosophy. I try to say something about three important forms of reasoning: logic, skepticism, and practical reason. In each of these cases one can find strands of Chinese philosophy that are strikingly similar to counterparts in Western philosophy. And while in two of the cases in question the strands involved are less common and less fully developed than their Western (...) counterparts, in the third case they are highly sophisticated and in many ways superior to their Western counterparts. (shrink)

Kant often compares reason to an organized body, which suggests that reason should be understood as a whole from which all possible uses of the faculties of reason are derived. However, Kant does not elaborate his conception of the whole of reason. Nor does the secondary literature. This paper suggests that the wholeness of reason is the apodictic modality of reason, i.e., the necessary standard that determines what can systematically belong to reason, and thus works as the systematic condition for (...) all possible uses of the faculties of reason. This necessary standard is the discipline of pure reason. Kant compare souvent la raison à un corps organisé, ce qui suggère que la raison devrait être comprise comme un tout à partir duquel dérivent systématiquement toutes les fonctions possibles des facultés de la raison. Ni Kant, ni la littérature secondaire n’élabore cependant sa conception de la raison comme un tout. Autrement dit, ils n’élaborent pas la notion d’unité de la raison. Je soutiens que l’unité de la raison devrait être comprise comme la modalité apodictique de la raison, c’est-à-dire le critère nécessaire qui détermine ce qui peut appartenir systématiquement à la raison. Ce critère nécessaire est la discipline de la raison pure. (shrink)

It is more or less common ground that an important aspect of the explanation of normativity relates it to the way Reason (our rational powers), reasons (for beliefs, emotions, actions, etc.) and reasoning, with all its varieties and domains, are inter-connected. The relation of reasoning to reasons is the topic of this this paper. It does not start from a tabula rasa. It presupposes that normativity has to do with the ability to respond rationally to reasons, and (...) with responding to reasons with the use of our rational powers. The question is where does reasoning fit in? I will compare two sketchy accounts of reasoning, judging their success in elucidating the concept and its role in the explanation of normativity. First I outline the view that reasoning is an activity of searching for a justified answer or for a justification of the answer to a question. Some critical reflection on that view leads to what I call the simple account, which takes reasoning to consist (broadly speaking) in responsiveness to perceived reasons. I will illustrate ways in which the simple account is at odds with the concept of reasoning. Its merits depend on the thought that intentions, attempts or actions can be conclusions of reasoning. Those who affirm that possibility often regard reasoning that has such conclusions as practical reasoning. Hence much of the paper will be about practical reasoning. That would lead to a tentative endorsement of reasoning as a search for a justified answer, suggesting a different view of the place of reasoning in explaining normativity. (shrink)

To speak of being religious lucky certainly sounds odd. But then, so does “My faith holds value in God’s plan, while yours does not.” This book argues that these two concerns — with the concept of religious luck and with asymmetric or sharply differential ascriptions of religious value — are inextricably connected. It argues that religious luck attributions can profitably be studied from a number of directions, not just theological, but also social scientific and philosophical. There is a strong tendency (...) among adherents of different faith traditions to invoke asymmetric explanations of the religious value or salvific status of the home religion vis-à-vis all others. Attributions of good/bad religious luck and exclusivist dismissal of the significance of religious disagreement are the central phenomena that the book studies. Part I lays out a taxonomy of kinds of religious luck, a taxonomy that draws upon but extends work on moral and epistemic luck. It asks: What is going on when persons, theologies, or purported revelations ascribe various kinds of religiously-relevant traits to insiders and outsiders of a faith tradition in sharply asymmetric fashion? “I am saved but you are lost”; “My religion is holy but yours is idolatrous”; “My faith tradition is true, and valued by God, but yours is false and valueless.” Part II further develops the theory introduced in Part I, pushing forward both the descriptive/explanatory and normative sides of what the author terms his inductive risk account. Firstly, the concept of inductive risk is shown to contribute to the needed field of comparative fundamentalism by suggesting new psychological markers of fundamentalist orientation. The second side of what is termed an inductive risk account is concerned with the epistemology of religious belief, but more especially with an account of the limits of reasonable religious disagreement. Problems of inductively risky modes of belief-formation problematize claims to religion-specific knowledge. But the inductive risk account does not aim to set religion apart, or to challenge the reasonableness of religious belief tout court. Rather the burden of the argument is to challenge the reasonableness of attitudes of religious exclusivism, and to demotivate the “polemical apologetics” that exclusivists practice and hope to normalize. Lexington Books Pages: 290 978-1-4985-5017-8 • Hardback • December 2018 • $95.00 • (£65.00) 978-1-4985-5018-5 • eBook • December 2018 • $90.00 • (£60.00) ISBN 978-1-4985-5018-5 (pbk: alk. paper) (coming 2020) [Download the 30% personal use Discount Order Form I uploaded for hardcover or e-book, and please ask your library to purchase a copy for their collection.]. (shrink)

This chapter focuses exclusively on normative reasons. Normative reasons count in favor of actions and attitudes like beliefs, desires, feelings, and emotions. Section 11.2 explores the common ground concerning the metaphysics of reasons. We shall see that the really controversial metaphysical issues in metanormative theorizing about reasons arise with respect to the metaphysics of the reason relation. The two subsequent sections therefore go beyond the common ground and consider competing accounts of the reason relation. Robust and (...) quietist versions of non-naturalism are considered in section 11.3 and naturalism is considered in section 11.4. Section 11.5 summarizes and gives a brief comparative assessment of the accounts considered. (shrink)

_The Bounds of Reason: Habermas, Lyotard & Melanie Klein on Rationality_ is a highly original yet accessible study of the debate between modernity and postmodernity. Emilia Steuerman clearly explains the modernity/postmodernity dispute by examining the problem that has driven the whole debate: whether the use of reason is an emancipatory or enslaving force. Steuerman clearly sets out this debate by critically examining the arguments of two of its key proponents, Jurgen Habermas and Jean-François Lyotard. She clearly explains Habermas' defence of (...) modernity and his attempt to salvage Enlightenment ideas of truth, justice, and freedom through the use of reason. She contrasts this with Lyotard's postmodernism and his scepticism about the use of reason, and its claims to universalism and objectivity. Throughout, Steuerman contrasts the Habermas-Lyotard debate with important insights from psychoanalytic theory, and shows how Habermas' notions of intersubjectivity and a community of shared language users can be compared and contrasted with Melanie Klein's theory of object relations. (shrink)

_The Bounds of Reason: Habermas, Lyotard & Melanie Klein on Rationality_ is a highly original yet accessible study of the debate between modernity and postmodernity. Emilia Steuerman clearly explains the modernity/postmodernity dispute by examining the problem that has driven the whole debate: whether the use of reason is an emancipatory or enslaving force. Steuerman clearly sets out this debate by critically examining the arguments of two of its key proponents, Jurgen Habermas and Jean-François Lyotard. She clearly explains Habermas' defence of (...) modernity and his attempt to salvage Enlightenment ideas of truth, justice, and freedom through the use of reason. She contrasts this with Lyotard's postmodernism and his scepticism about the use of reason, and its claims to universalism and objectivity. Throughout, Steuerman contrasts the Habermas-Lyotard debate with important insights from psychoanalytic theory, and shows how Habermas' notions of intersubjectivity and a community of shared language users can be compared and contrasted with Melanie Klein's theory of object relations. (shrink)

MARINA PAOLA BANCHETTI-ROBINO is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Florida Atlantic University. Her areas of research include phenomenology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and zoosemiotics. Her publications have appeared in such journals as Synthese, Husserl Studies, Idealistic Studies, Philosophy East and West, and The Review of Metaphysics. She has also contributed essays to The Role of Pragmatics in Contemporary Philosophy (1997), Feminist Phenomenology (2000), and Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial (...) Issue of Microcosm and Macrocosm (2006). She co-edited Philosophies of the Environment and Technology (1999) and is currently working on a book-length project entitled The Birth of Science Out of the Spirit of Myth: A Historico-Phenomenological Re-Examination of the Crisis of the European Sciences. BERNARD BOXILL was born in Saint Lucia, West Indies where he received his primary and secondary education. He studied philosophy at the University of New Brunswick, Canada and at the University of California, Los Angeles where he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy in 1971. He has published numerous articles, a book, Blacks and Social Justice (1992), and is professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ED BRANDON was born and educated in England, studying philosophy and linguistics at The University of York, England, and later philosophy at The University of Oxford with the late John Mackie. After teaching in Sierra Leone and briefly in England, he went to teach philosophy of education at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica in 1978. From 1992 he has been attached to a policy unit of the Vice-Chancellery, based at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados, where he has been assisting since 2000 with a new major in philosophy. His academic work can be accessed from http://cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/epb/personalpage.html CAROLYN CUSICK is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. She is a founding member of the Phenomenology Roundtable. Her research focuses on feminist epistemology, Africana philosophy, and phenomenology. LEWIS GORDON is President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is Laura H. Carnell Professor, the most distinguished chair, at Temple University, where he holds appointments in philosophy, religion, and Judaic studies and directs the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies. He is also Ongoing Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Government at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age (Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times (Paradigm, 2006), An Introduction to Africana Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of A Companion to African-American Studies (Blackwell, 2006) and Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice (Paradigm, 2005). CLEVIS HEADLEY is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University, director of the Ethnic Studies Certificate Program, as well as director of the Master's in Liberal Studies. Professionally, he serves as the Vice-President and Treasurer of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. Professor Headley has published widely in the areas of Critical Race Theory and Africana philosophy. He has also published in Analytic philosophy, focusing specifically on Gottlob Frege. PAGET HENRY is Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Brown University. He is the author of Caliban's Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy, Peripheral Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Antigua, and the co-editor of C. L. R. James' Caribbean. Professor Henry also serves as the editor of the C. L. R. James Journal, and has published numerous articles on the political economy of the Caribbean as well as on African, African-American, and Afro-Caribbean philosophy. ESIABA IROBI is Associate Professor of International Theatre/Performance Studies at Ohio University, Athens. His groundbreaking book: A Theatre for Cannibals: Resisting Globalization on the Continent and Diaspora since 1441 will be published by Palgrave Macmillan, London, in 2007. He has been invited to be an External Resident Fellow at the prestigious Dartmouth College Humanities Institute for the 2007-2008 academic year. CHIKE JEFFERS is a graduate student in the Ph.D. program of the Philosophy Department at Northwestern University. His interests are in Africana philosophy, social and political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion and aesthetics. He is originally from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. CATHERINE JOHN is Associate Professor of African Diaspora Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Her book Clear Word and Third Sight: Folk Groundings and Diasporic Consciousness in African Caribbean Writing was co-published by Duke University Press and UWI Press in 2003. She has published several articles on Caribbean literature and culture and her current book project is entitled The Just Society and the Diasporic Imagination. She spends her summer working in Woodside, St. Mary, Jamaica helping with a summer school for children and participating in the community's emancipation celebration. KENNETH KNIES is a doctoral student in philosophy at Stony Brook University. His areas of focus are phenomenology and ancient philosophy. He is also a contributing editor for Political Affairs magazine. EDIZON LEN is a photographer and coordinator of the Fondo Documental Afro-Andino at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. In 2006, he was curator of the photo exhibit "The Color of the Diaspora" presented at the Cultural Center of the Catholic University of Ecuador and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He is currently completing his doctorate at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar with a focus on Maroon thought. REKHA MENON is Associate Professor of Art History at State University of New York, Buffalo State. She is the author of Seductive Aesthetics of Post Colonialism (forthcoming). Her area of research focuses on current philosophical investigations in colonial and neocolonial aspects of Indian art, artistic/cultural practices and philosophies and their relationship to Western arts and philosophies. Her manuscripts under review are: Ashamed of Our Nakedness, Is There Ever a Naked Body? Ambivalence in Contemporary Indian Expressive Aesthetics and Insatiable Desire. MICHAEL R. MICHAU is a Ph.D. candidate in the Philosophy and Literature Program at Purdue University, and during the 2006-2007 school year, a lecturer in the Department of Comparative Studies and Department of Philosophy at Ohio State University. He is the co-founder and co-secretary of the North American Levinas Society. CHARLES W. MILLS is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He works in the general area of oppositional political theory, and is the author of numerous articles and three books: The Racial Contract (Cornell University Press, 1997), Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (Cornell University Press, 1998), and From Class to Race: Essays in White Marxism and Black Radicalism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). MABOGO P. MORE is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He has published articles on African philosophy and social and political philosophy in a number of academic journals, such as South African Journal of Philosophy, Dialogue and Universalism, Alternation, Theoria, and African Journal of Political Science. MARILYN NISSIM-SABAT, Ph.D., M.S.W. is Professor Emerita and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Lewis University. Dr. Nissim-Sabat is also a psychotherapist in private practice. She is the author of numerous book chapters and papers in the fields of philosophy (Husserlian phenomenology), psychoanalysis, feminism, and critical race theory. Citations of her works can be found on her website: marilynnissim-sabat.com. FREDERICK OCHIENG'-ODHIAMBO is a Senior Lecturer of Philosophy and Coordinator of the discipline at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. His major research areas are African philosophy and social philosophy. He has published several articles on philosophic sagacity. IVAN PETRELLA is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami. He is author of The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto (SCM Press, 2006) and editor of Latin American Liberation Theology: The Next Generation (Orbis Books, 2005) as well as co-editor of the series Reclaiming Liberation Theology (SCM Press) RICHARD PITHOUSE is a research fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. He is editor of Asinamali: University Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Africa World Press, 2006). SATHYA RAO is Assistant Professor in French translation at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta, Canada. His research fields include: theory of translation, continental philosophy, postcolonial studies, discourses on Africa, and Francophone cinema and literature. He has published articles in various peer-reviewed journals and written chapters in several collective books such as: De l'Ecrit Africain a l'Oral le Phenomene Graphique Africain, Simon Battestini (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006) and Thèorie-rèbellion. Un Ultimatum, Gilles Grelet (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2005). He has a co-edited a book on Francophone African cinema L'Afrique fait son cinema (Montreal: Memoires d'encrier, forthcoming). Sathya Rao is vice-president of the International Non-Philosophical Organisation (INPhO), member of the Canadian Association of Translatology (CATS), coordinator of the research team Poexil, and Secretary of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is co-founder of an online journal Alternative Francophone. CATHERINE WALSH is Professor and Director of the doctoral program in Latin American Cultural Studies at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. Her research interests include the geopolitics of knowledge, interculturality and concerns related to the Afro-Andean Diaspora and the production of decolonial thought. Among her recent publications are Pensamiento crìtico y matriz colonial (Quito: Abya Yala, 2005), "Interculturality and the Coloniality of Power. An 'Other' Thinking and Positioning from the Colonial Difference," in Coloniality of Power, Transmodernity, and Border Thinking, R. Grosfoguel, J.D. Saldivar, and N. Maldonado-Torres (Eds.) (Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming) and "Shifting the Geopolitics of Critical Knowledge: Decolonial Thought and Cultural Studies 'Others' in the Andes," Cultural Studies (forthcoming). KRISTIN WATERS has published widely in the areas of race and gender. Her anthology Enlightened Conversations: Women and Men Political Theorists (Blackwell, 2000) challenges political theorists to be more inclusive of race and gender in their research and teaching. Her book Black Women's Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds, co-edited with Carol Conaway (University of Vermont Press, forthcoming), addresses the varied intellectual traditions of black women's thought that spans more than two hundred years in North America. She is currently Professor of Philosophy at Worcester State College and Visiting Research Associate at Brandeis University. (shrink)

We read with great interest Garland, Morain and Sugarman’s manuscript on the obligations of clinicians to participate in pragmatic clinical trials (PCTs) (Garland, Morain and Sugarman 2023). We bel...

Immanuel Kant is often viewed by educational theorists as an individualist, who put education on “an individual track,” paving the way for political liberal conceptions of education such as that of John Rawls. One can easily find evidence for such a view, in “Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’,” as well as in his more metaphysical, moral inquiries. However, the place of reason in Kant’s philosophy––what I call the “autonomy of reason”––spells out a negative rather than positive conception of (...) freedom, from which stems a less individualistic or political liberal education than many presume. I cite both well known and lesser known works in the essay to demonstrate that Kant defended universal freedom only as a means towards developing the “autonomy of reason”, and I consider comparatively the education it entails with that spelled out by Rawls, despite the common conflation of the two. (shrink)

: This essay explores some themes in use of a relativized Kantian a priori in the work of Thomas Kuhn and Michael Friedman. It teases out some shared and some divergent beliefs and attitudes in these two philosophers by comparing their characteristic questions and problems to the questions and problems that seem most appropriately to attend to an adequate understanding of games and their histories. It argues for a way forward within a relativized Kantian framework that is suggested but not (...) argued for in Friedman (2001): philosophers of science should move from a concern with unreason as meaninglessness to a concern with unreason as argumentative coercion. It ends with a few suggestions regarding a place for philosophy in the history of reason. (shrink)

An organizing theme of the dissertation is the issue of how to make philosophical theories useful for scientific purposes. An argument for the contention is presented that it doesn’t suffice merely to theoretically motivate one’s theories, and make them compatible with existing data, but that philosophers having this aim should ideally contribute to identifying unique and hard to vary predictions of their theories. This methodological recommendation is applied to the ranking-theoretic approach to conditionals, which emphasizes the epistemic relevance and the (...) expression of reason relations as part of the semantics of the natural language conditional. As a first step, this approach is theoretically motivated in a comparative discussion of other alternatives in psychology of reasoning, like the suppositional theory of conditionals, and novel approaches to the problems of compositionality and accounting for the objective purport of indicative conditionals are presented. In a second step, a formal model is formulated, which allows us to derive quantitative predictions from the ranking-theoretic approach, and it is investigated which novel avenues of empirical research that this model opens up for. Finally, a treatment is given of the problem of logical omniscience as it concerns the issue of whether ranking theory (and other similar approaches) makes too idealized assumptions about rationality to allow for interesting applications in psychology of reasoning. Building on the work of Robert Brandom, a novel solution to this problem is presented, which both opens up for new perspectives in psychology of reasoning and appears to be capable of satisfying a range of constraints on bridge principles between logic and norms of reasoning, which would otherwise stand in a tension. (shrink)

Jonathan Singer's witty, erudite book is a celebration of rationality and an urgent call to make use of intelligence and reason to better cope with human problems. Emphasizing the importance of rationality's greatest achievement, modern science, Singer—one of the foremost biologists of our era—argues that for the first time in several million years humanity has at its disposal the tools for an objective understanding of the external world. Singer demonstrates that, today more than ever, the fullest exercise of rationality is (...) essential if humanity is to rein in a runaway technology and control an explosion of the human population that together threaten to devastate life on this planet within only a few more generations. The intrusion of reason and rationality into our largely irrational world has been painfully slow, uneven, and often unwelcome. Singer explains that for rationalists the founding of modern science—which took place only a few hundred years ago—has overthrown many of the myths of conventional wisdom and dogmas of traditional religions. Yet these beliefs still hold sway over the irrational world, obstructing efforts to deal sensibly with the problematic future of mankind. The core of _The Splendid Feast of Reason _is an engaging and accessible account of the knowledge that modern science provides. Singer offers an absorbing discussion of how life works, of the nature of reproduction, aging, and death, and of the necessary fragility of the individual life compared to the resilience of life itself. He emphasizes the primary role of the genes in determining the structural organization and the behaviors of living things, including humans. He also stresses the nature and mechanisms of biological evolution, mechanisms that have now been placed in jeopardy because of human ignorance and irrational appetites. Finally, Singer delves into the enigma of the real world with its irrational and chaotic operations and offers suggestions of how a rationalist can not only survive, but thrive in it. (shrink)

The art of living idiom suits well a practice-oriented approach in ethics of technology. But what remains or becomes of the functioning and use of reason in ethics? In reaction to the comments by Huijer this reply elaborates in more detail how Foucault’s art of living can be adapted for a critical contemporary ethics of technology. And the aesthetic-political rationality in Foucault’s ethics is compared with Wellner’s suggestions of holding on to the notion of code but with a new meaning. (...) Foucault’s fourfold scheme of subjectivation and a distinction of “below and above reason” structure the argument. (shrink)

This essay explores the extent to which comparative philosophy can assist decolonial struggle. In order to accomplish this task, I offer not only a description of philosophy's colonization but also an account of how this discipline remains subject to the coloniality of knowledge. In short, insofar as race, gender, class, and sexuality are considered irrelevant or accidental to the production of philosophical knowledge, professional philosophy replicates, if not continues, what Rajeev Bhargava terms the epistemic injustice of colonialism. One response to (...) the colonization of philosophy is “diversification” by means of putting into conversation philosophers, systems, and ideas from differing cultures or regions throughout the world. While a step forward, insofar as philosophical comparisons occur primarily on an East–West axis, philosophers are not necessarily addressing the biases, prejudices, racism, and exceptionalism endemic to their discipline. In fact, such a directionality typically reinforces the sense of historical development that undergirds Western philosophy's self‐understanding. This essay, therefore, offers a series of recommendations for how to radicalize comparative philosophical efforts so as to address global epistemic injustice and aid in the process of decolonization. (shrink)

The debate on the possibility of attaining metaphysical knowledge by the method of reasoning began with the ancient Greek philosophers and continues to this day. This article aims to examine how Râzî argues for the possibility of attaining metaphysical knowledge through the method of reasoning. He first argues that existence has two parts, the sensed and the thought, in order to demonstrate that metaphysical knowledge can be obtained through the method of reasoning. Then he tries to prove that existence is (...) not limited to the material. After presenting evidence for the existence of things other than the sensible in existence that can be perceived with the intellect, he tries to discuss our devices to relate to this sphere of existence in a comparative manner. In this comparison, two possible devices for attaining metaphysical knowledge emerge: the theoretical intellect and the purified soul. After revealing the positive and negative aspects of both in this comparison, he argues that the most reliable device is the theoretical intellect and the technique is the method of reasoning Râzî gives various answers to those who object to the possibility of obtaining metaphysical knowledge through the method of reasoning. Râzî tries to put forward the grounds on which the groups who object to the method of reasoning are based. He then evaluates their justifications in terms of accuracy and consistency. Thus, he tests both the relevance of each group's objection to the subject and its consistency with the group's other beliefs. He then presents the justifications for his own opinion on the method of reasoning and the consistency of this method with his other beliefs. Following this method, Râzî first divides those who object to the method of reasoning into two categories according to whether or not they accept a metaphysical sphere of existence. According to this division, those who object to the method because they do not accept a metaphysical sphere of existence are the Sophists, Sumeniyya, Mujasimah, Dhahriyya, and Hashawiyya. Although this group does not accept a metaphysical sphere of existence, they are divided into two classes: those who believe in God and those who do not. According to Râzî, the group that accepts the metaphysical sphere of existence but objects to the method of reasoning is the Talimiyya. They claim that metaphysical knowledge can only be attained through the teaching of an innocent instructor, not by the method of reasoning. The different approaches of these groups are the reason why Râzî sometimes emphasizes accuracy, sometimes consistency, and sometimes proving the metaphysical domain of existence in his answers to those who object to the method of reasoning. (shrink)

This paper concerns Hume’s treatment of the distinction of reason in the Treatise, I.i.7. Many scholars have claimed that there is a tension between his account of the distinction of reason and his commitment to his so-called separability principle. I explain why Hume’s account of the distinction of reason is fully consistent with the principle, and show how other discussions, both critical of and sympathetic to Hume, fail to appreciate the radicalness of his position. I evaluate Hume’s bold position and (...) compare it to earlier positions (Aquinas) and current positions (Donald Davidson). (shrink)

"An important contribution to contemporary jurisprudential debate and to legal thought more generally, Just Interpretations is far ahead of currently available work."--Peter Goodrich, author of Oedipus Lex "I was struck repeatedly by the clarity of expression throughout the book. Rosenfeld's description and criticism of the recent work of leading thinkers distinguishes his work within the legal theory genre. Furthermore, his own theory is quite original and provocative."--Aviam Soifer, author of Law and the Company We Keep.

A prolific philosopher who also held Rome's highest political office, Cicero was uniquely qualified to write on political philosophy. In this book Professor Atkins provides a fresh interpretation of Cicero's central political dialogues - the Republic and Laws. Devoting careful attention to form as well as philosophy, Atkins argues that these dialogues together probe the limits of reason in political affairs and explore the resources available to the statesman given these limitations. He shows how Cicero appropriated and transformed Plato's thought (...) to forge original and important works of political philosophy. The book demonstrates that Cicero's Republic and Laws are critical for understanding the history of the concepts of rights, the mixed constitution and natural law. It concludes by comparing Cicero's thought to the modern conservative tradition and argues that Cicero provides a perspective on utopia frequently absent from current philosophical treatments. (shrink)

On a ‘comparative’ conception of practical reasons, reasons are like ‘weights’ that can make an action more or less rational. Bernard Gert adopts instead a ‘toggle’ conception of practical reasons: something counts as a reason just in case it alone can make some or other otherwise irrational action rational. I suggest that Gert’s conception suffers from various defects, and that his motivation for adopting this conception – his central claim that actions can be rational without there being (...) reasons for them – does not require adoption of the toggle conception. The more intuitive comparative conception of reasons for action can accommodate the insight. (shrink)

"Kevin Hart and Geoffrey H. Hartman bring together essays by prominent scholars from a range of disciplines to focus on Blanchot's diverse concerns: literature, art, community, politics, ethics, spirituality, and the Holocaust."--Jacket.

This paper aims to make better sense of Hegel’s Philosophy of Objective Spirit and defend it against the charge of political conservatism and optimism. I will argue for the left Hegelian position in the theological-philosophical respect, thereby leaving the left-right divide in the social-political respect largely open. I will explain that Hegel’s commitment to the inherent rationality of the state and the course of human history as the progress of freedom does not imply blind optimism, since his thesis is not (...) to be taken as a factual description. Hegel’s point is rather a conceptual one: to comprehend the human world means to comprehend it as a holistically rational entity and process, which is the essential nature of comprehending in the context of the humanities. I will further clarify Hegel’s point by introducing relevant ideas from contemporary philosophy of mind and language, comparing it in particular with Davidson’s principle of charity. (shrink)

The (moral) permissibility of an act is determined by the relative weights of reasons, or so I assume. But how many weights does a reason have? Weight Monism is the idea that reasons have a single weight value. There is just the weight of reasons. The simplest versions hold that the weight of each reason is either weightier than, less weighty than, or equal to every other reason. We’ll see that this simple view leads to paradox in (...) at least two ways. We must complicate the picture somehow. I consider two candidate complications. The first, Parity Monism, is inspired by Ruth Chang’s suggestion that parity is a fourth comparative beyond the traditional three (>, <, =). This view complicates the single weight relation by allowing that the weights of reasons can be on a par. Unfortunately, Parity Monism resolves only one of the two paradoxes that afflict simple versions of Weight Monism. To resolve both paradoxes, we need our second candidate complication, Weight Pluralism. This view holds that reasons have at least two weight values (e.g., justifying weight and requiring weight) and these two values aren’t always equivalent. Parity is no substitute for Pluralism. (shrink)

Johnson -Laird has argued that spatial reasoning is based on the construction and manipulation of mental models in memory. The present article addresses the question of whether reasoning about time relations is constrained by the same factors as reasoning about spatial relations. An experiment is reported that explored the similarities and the differences in the performance of subjects in comparable spatial and temporal reasoning tasks. The results indicated that, in both the temporal and the spatial content domains, the data were (...) in agreement with the view that subjects solved problems by constructing models in memory rather than with a logical rule conceptualisation of reasoning. An analysis of the premise-reading times on the basis of premise-linking order provided support for an on-line process of mental models construction, and offered an explanation for the finding that spatial problems that did require an inference of transitivity were easier than problems that did not. No essential differences in processing and performance were observed across the two content domains, although in the time domain the correctness data were in agreement with both the mental models theory and the logical rules view. The results are discussed with respect to the mental models theory and the structural characteristics of the problems. (shrink)

This book examines the speculative core of Karl Barth’s theology, reconsidering the relationship between theory and practice in Barth’s thinking. A consequence of this reconsideration is the recognition that Barth’s own account of his theological development is largely correct. Sigurd Baark draws heavily on the philosophical tradition of German Idealism, arguing that an important part of what makes Barth a speculative theologian is the way his thinking is informed by the nexus of self-consciousness, reason and, freedom, which was most fully (...) developed by Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. The book provides a new interpretation of Barth’s theology, and shows how a speculative understanding of theology is useful in today’s intellectual climate. (shrink)

Buridan’s theory of sentences with epistemic verbs (‘to know’, ‘to believe’, etc.) has received much attention in recent scholarship. Its originality with respect to Ockham’s approach, however, has been importantly overestimated. The present paper argues that both doctrines share crucial features and basically belong to the same family. This is done by comparing Buridan’s notion of the ‘appellation of reason’ with Ockham’s application to epistemic sentences of the general principle that a predicate always ‘appellates its form’.

The subject matter of the article is the concept of “the real use of reason” alluded to by Kant in Critique of Pure Reason A299/b355 and in A305/b362. After comparing it with the “real use of understanding” examined in De mundi sensibilis and in the Critique of Pure Reason, the real use of reason is presented as a legitimate and useful performance that should be distinguished from the deceiving illusion induced by an appearance generated by reason itself. The real use (...) of reason proves itself as an unavoidable condition for the regulative use of ideas as well as a condition for the production of a critical metaphysics. (shrink)