This long-awaited book sets out the implications of Habermas's theory of communicative action for moral theory. "Discourse ethics" attempts to reconstruct a moral point of view from which normative claims can be impartially judged. The theory of justice it develops replaces Kant's categorical imperative with a procedure of justification based on reasoned agreement among participants in practical discourse.Habermas connects communicative ethics to the theory of social action via an examination of research in the social psychology of moral and interpersonal development. (...) He aims to show that our basic moral intuitions spring from something deeper and more universal than contingent features of our tradition, namely from normative presuppositions of social interaction that belong to the repertoire of competent agents in any society. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

Wittgensteinian readings of Being and Time, and of the source of the intelligibility of Dasein''s world, in terms of language and the average everyday public practices of das Man are partly right and partly wrong. They are right in correcting overly individualist and existentialist readings of Heidegger. But they are wrong in making Heidegger into a proponent of language or everydayness as the final word on intelligibility and the way the world is disclosed to us. The everydayness of das Man (...) and language are partial sources of intelligibility but only insofar as they are comprehended within the greater unitary structure of care and temporality. Care and temporality constitute the foundational underpinnings for disclosure and the intelligibility ofthat wherein Dasein dwells. (shrink)

In a book that first appeared in 1965 entitled Analytical Philosophy of History, Arthur Danto argues that historical inquiry cannot be conceived as an attempt to reconstruct the past along the lines of an "ideal chronicler." The ideal chronicler "knows whatever happens the moment it happens, even in other minds. He is also to have the gift of instantaneous transcription: everything that happens across the whole forward rim of the Past is set down by him, as it happens the way (...) it happens." Historians cannot aspire to this ideal because they inevitably use what Danto calls "narrative sentences," that is, sentences that describe one event by referring to one or more later events. For example, "The Thirty Years War began in 1618" is a sentence typical of historical inquiry but unavailable to the chronicler because it goes beyond what could have been known at the time it occurred, that is, that the war was to last thirty years. Danto reasons that because of the indispensability of narrative sentences to historical understanding, we can never give a complete description of past events since this presupposes knowledge of all relevant later events. The consequence is that our descriptions of past events will inevitably change as history unfolds. This discovery is remarkable and incontrovertible: descriptions of past historical events will and must always be reconceived not just because of the unearthing of new documents or the changing interests of the historian but because of the peculiar narrative structure of historical understanding. (shrink)

Peter Geach and others suppose that change in an object's relational properties absent any change in its intrinsic properties is not a genuine change in that object but only a “mere Cambridge change.” I explain and reject two strategies challenging Geach's position. I then present my own argument against Geach which depends on the recognition of entities identified in terms of their emergent properties, i.e. properties not reducible to physical properties. I provide some examples of such entities and address the (...) problem of finding a criterion for distinguishing genuine from nonge‐nuine change. (shrink)

This book addresses the social, functional and symbolic dimensions of urban space in today’s world. The twelve essays range from a conceptual framing of the issues to case descriptions, rich with illustrations. Together they provide a thorough exploration of the nature and significance of social space and particular aspects of its distribution in today’s urban spaces and the various factors that are competing for it. -/- The book addresses a topic that is intrinsically interdisciplinary. Questions of space are examined from (...) a rich variety of perspectives from urban planning to political philosophy, shedding some light on this shadowy process. Some of the issues addressed include the dichotomies of public and private space, rights and duties regarding the use of space, and conflicts over its allocation. Well-reasoned and lively discussions are offered from the perspective of basic values and rights. The recognition of the specifics of (minority community) identity as an institutional policy is raised in opposition to “abstract distributive accounts of justice” – economic pressures by developers and would-be gentrifiers. (shrink)

This paper re-examines the central thesis of Gadamer’s hermeneutics that objectivity is not a suitable ideal for understanding a text, historical event, or cultural phenomenon because there exists no one correct interpretation of such phenomena. Because Gadamer fails to make clear the grounds for this claim, this paper considers three possible arguments. The first, predominant in the literature on Gadamer, is built on the premise that we cannot surpass our historically situated prejudgments. The paper rejects this argument as insufficient. Similarly, (...) the paper rejects a second argument concerning the heuristics of understanding. The paper then articulates a third argument that the object of understanding changes according to the conditions in which it is grasped. The paper appeals to the notion of relational properties to make sense of this claim and to defend the position against two objections: i) that it conflates meaning and significance, and ii) that it is saddled with an indefensible relativism. (shrink)

This paper re-examines the central thesis of Gadamer's hermeneutics that objectivity is not a suitable ideal for understanding a text, historical event, or cultural phenomenon because there exists no one correct interpretation of such phenomena. Because Gadamer fails to make clear the grounds for this claim, this paper considers three possible arguments. The first, predominant in the literature on Gadamer, is built on the premise that we cannot surpass our historically situated prejudgments. The paper rejects this argument as insufficient. Similarly, (...) the paper rejects a second argument concerning the heuristics of understanding. The paper then articulates a third argument that the object of understanding changes according to the conditions in which it is grasped. The paper appeals to the notion of relational properties to make sense of this claim and to defend the position against two objections: i) that it conflates meaning and significance, and ii) that it is saddled with an indefensible relativism. (shrink)

This paper reexamines the central thesis of Gadamer’s theory of interpretation that objectivity is not a suitable ideal for understanding a text, historical event or cultural phenomenon because there exists no one correct interpretation of such phenomena. Because Gadamer fails to make clear the grounds for this claim, I consider three possible arguments. The first, predominant in the secondary literature, is built on the premise that we cannot surpass our historically situated prejudgments. I reject this argument as insufficient. I also (...) reject a second argument concerning the heuristics of understanding. I then articulate a third argument that the object of understanding changes according to the conditions under which it is grasped. I appeal to the notion of relational properties to make sense of this claim and to defend it against two objections: that it conflates meaning and significance; and that it is saddled with an indefensible relativism. (shrink)