In philosophical circles, but not only there, Chomsky's views on natural language regularly fall a prey to misrepresentation. Very often the confusion involves the creative aspect of language use, an aspect of linguistic performance, which tends to be confounded with the notion recursivity, a property of the grammatical competence system. The present article clears away the most deep-seated confusions and proves that criticism of generative grammar based upon them cannot be upheld. In particular, it shows that the existence of metaphors, (...) and deviations from rules more generally, reinforces rather than refutes Chomsky's theory so long as the crucial distinction between knowledge of language (competence) and language use (performance) is taken heed of. It is argued that theories which deny this distinction and view human language as a set of dispositions or as an ability are misguided. The final section illustrates some properties of Universal Grammar (UG) by means of data from the domain of negative polarity and subject-object asymmetries. Though these phenomena are far from being fully understood, the present level of our insight warrants the conclusion that they lend considerable support to the Chomskyan conception of UG as a highly complex and richly articulated linguistic genotype. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced developmental researchers to rethink their traditional research practices. The growing need to study infant development at a distance has shifted our research paradigm to online and digital monitoring of infants and families, using electronic devices, such as smartphones. In this practical guide, we introduce the Experience Sampling Method – a research method to collect data, in the moment, on multiple occasions over time – for examining infant development at a distance. ESM is highly suited for (...) assessing dynamic processes of infant development and family dynamics, such as parent-infant interactions and parenting practices. It can also be used to track highly fluctuating family dynamics and routines. The aim of the current paper was to provide an overview by explaining what ESM is and for what types of research ESM is best suited. Next, we provide a brief step-by-step guide on how to start and run an ESM study, including preregistration, development of a questionnaire, using wearables and other hardware, planning and design considerations, and examples of possible analysis techniques. Finally, we discuss common pitfalls of ESM research and how to avoid them. (shrink)

A number of contemporary authors (e.g., Catherine Malabou, Slavoj Žižek, and John Caputo) claim that Hegel’s Religionsphilosophie provides important insights for contemporary philosophy of religion. John Caputo argues that Hegel’s notion of incarnation as radical kenosis is a powerful tool for postmodern Radical Theology. In this essay, I scrutinize this claim by balancing Hegel’s notion of incarnation with his notion of recognition—the latter of which Caputo removes from a “headless Hegelianism.” I argue that a non-Hegelian, non-dialectic sense of recognition ought (...) to be introduced in contemporary philosophy of religion to remove the confrontation with the Other from the realm of radical trauma. (shrink)

Kant’s critique/doctrine distinction tracks the difference between a canon for the understanding’s proper use and an organon for its dialectical misuse. The latter reflects the dogmatic use of reason to attain a doctrine of knowledge with no antecedent critique. In the 1790s, Fichte collapses Kant’s distinction and redefines dogmatism. He argues that deriving a canon is essentially dialectical and thus yields an organon: critical idealism is properly a doctrine of science or Wissenschaftslehre. Criticism is furthermore said to refute dogmatism, by (...) which Fichte means Spinozism. Schelling repudiates Fichte’s position in his Philosophical Letters by reviving Kant’s distinction. First, ‘critique’ for Schelling names a canon that is valid for all systems—including Spinozism—and thus favours none—not even the Wissenschaftslehre. Second, Schelling coins ‘dogmaticism’ to refer to what Kant calls ‘dogmatism’: reason’s uncritical claim to doctrine. Hence, he says all systems—even Fichte’s—are susceptible to the ‘enthusiasm’ of mistaking themselves for doctrines or ‘objects of knowledge’, instead of subjectively valid ‘objects of freedom’. I reconstruct Schelling’s argument for reviving Kant’s distinction, while noting two consequences for German idealism. First, if criticism favours no system, a system’s origin cannot be an act of knowledge, e.g., intellectual intuition, but only an act of endorsement. Second, if dogmaticism entails enthusiasm, a system’s goal cannot be absolute knowledge, but only infinite striving. Hence, by retrieving Schelling’s notion of dogmaticism, we can both gain a better understanding of the Letters and register the impact of a core Kantian distinction on the German idealist project. (shrink)

Active ending of the life of a newborn baby is a crime. Yet its clandestine practise is a reality in several European countries. In this paper, we defend the necessity to institute a proper legal frame for what we define as active neonatal euthanasia. The only legal attempt so far, the Dutch Groningen protocol, is not satisfactory. We critically analyse this protocol, as well as several other clinical practises and philosophical stances. Furthermore, we have tried to integrate our opinions as (...) clinicians into a law project, with the purpose of pinpointing several issues, specific of perinatality that should be addressed by such a law. In conclusion, we argue that the legalisation of neonatal euthanasia under exceptional circumstances is the only way to avoid all the “well-intentioned” malpractices associated with ending life at the very dawn of it. (shrink)

Meillassoux seeks knowledge of transcendental reality, blaming Kant for the ‘correlationist’ proscription of independent access to either thought or being. For Meillassoux, correlationism blocks an account of the meaning of ‘ancestral statements’ regarding reality prior to humans. I examine three charges on which Meillassoux’s argument depends: (1) Kant distorts ancestral statements’ meaning; (2) Kant fallaciously infers causality’s necessity; (3) Kant’s transcendental idealism cannot grasp ‘the great outdoors’. I reject these charges: (1) imposes a Cartesian misreading, hence Meillassoux’s false assumption that, (...) for Kant, objects don’t exist without subjects; (2) misreads Kant, who infers causality’s necessity from the possibility of experience; (3) casts Kant’s idealism as subjective, ignoring his perspectival portrayal of it. (shrink)

The importance of memory as a metaphysical concept throughout the history of thought was first discovered by Plato and elaborated in his famous though controversial doctrine of recollection. Various myths and metaphors in the dialogues Phaedrusand Theaetetus refer to the divine origin of memory and the a priori nature of true ‘scientific’ knowledge, as different from the ‘second-hand’ knowledge acquired from external sources, as well as to the function of earthly beauty, which is to remind the soul of the eternal, (...) transcendent beauty of truth itself. The philosophical practice of recollection aims – as we read in the Phaedo– at turning away the mind from beguiling sensuous appeareances. It is an ascetic self-purification finally culminating in death, which is but the liberation of the soul from the bodily impediment, so that it can fly back to its homeland to be reunited with its divine origin, the transcendent Good. This is the true destiny of mankind. This divine origin is vaguely remembered and longed for, thanks to the divine gift of memory, the metaphysical place where heaven meets the earth and – as Saint Augustine put it – the seeker can find God. (shrink)

This volume is dedicated to the exploration of the connection between freedom and creation in Schelling’s late philosophy. It contains contributions of internationally renowned and younger Schelling scholars from several countries. The scholarly interest in Schelling’s late philosophy has considerably increased during the last decades. Together with the rising number of available primary texts and translations, this has led, among other things, to a received scholarly view of Schelling’s Erlangen, Munich, and Berlin years that partly challenges and partly rejects many (...) claims of the older literature on Schelling. For example, his late philosophy is not conceived as a straightforward defence of orthodox theism anymore but seen within the context of his philosophical development, with a focus on the continuity between his early, middle, and late philosophy. The concepts of freedom and creation occupy a central position in these studies. The present volume examines the complex interrelations between these two concepts in detail, in a well-balanced combination of exegesis, systematic reconstruction and philosophical analysis. (shrink)

Most philosophers do not read Kant’s philosophy of religion as providing a foundation for Christianity, or even as in line with it. Recently, however, a number of so-called “affirmative Kantians” have argued that Kant’s philosophy of religion explicitly aims at recovering the spirit of Christianity. In this article I scrutinize this claim with regard to Kant’s conceptualization of “grace” as a supplement to his moral theory. Contrary to these “affirmative Kantians,” I argue that Kant’s account of grace stems from Kant’s (...) moral pessimism, not from any sense of the shortcomings of human beings in fulfilling their duties or the religious need for supernatural cooperation. Kant’s concept of grace tries to moderate this pessimism by providing what is needed for the possibility of moral progress. But simply by the way in which Kant regards grace as a rational concept needed for his moral theory, it seems to me that his philosophy of religion runs counter to certain central convictions of Christianity. (shrink)

Pour qui s’intéresse aux aspects socio-économiques de la construction ou aux activités comptables des sanctuaires du ive siècle, c’est peu dire que la deuxième livraison des Bauurkunden und Bauprogramm von Epidauros était attendue. Dans le premier volume, paru en 2014, Sebastian Prignitz (S.P.) s’était concentré sur la première moitié du ive siècle avec quatre inscriptions relatives à la construction du Temple d’Asklépios et de sa statue chryséléphantine, de la Thymélé (appelée Tholos par S.P...

This book connects Schopenhauer’s philosophy with transcendental idealism by exploring the distinctly Kantian roots of his pessimism. By clearly discerning four types of coming to knowledge, it demonstrates how Schopenhauer’s epistemology can enlighten this connection with other areas of his philosophy. The individual chapters in this book discuss how these knowledge types—immediate or mediate, representational or non-representational—relate to Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, ethics and action, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and asceticism. In each of these areas, a specific sense of pessimism serves to (...) disarm a number of paradoxes and inconsistencies typically associated with Schopenhauer’s philosophy. _The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessismism _shows how Schopenhauer’s claim that he is a true successor to Kant can be justified. (shrink)

Volume 52, Issue 6, June - July 2020, Page 602-612.

The historical evolution of the homotopy concept for paths illustrates how the introduction of a concept (be it implicit or explicit) depends upon the interests of the mathematicians concerned and how it gradually acquires a more satisfactory definition. In our case the equivalence of paths first meant for certain mathematicians that they led to the same value of the integral of a given function or that they led to the same value of a multiple-valued function. (See for instance [Cau], [Pui], (...) [Rie].) Later this dependency upon given functions is dropped (by Jordan for surfaces, by Riemann and most explictly by Poincaré) and this leads to a concept which depends only upon the manifold. It thus becomes a concept which belongs to topology. As a consequence of this hesitant evolution, there was at first a confusion between concepts and hence no attention to relations between them. At a later stage these relations were investigated, as for instance the fact that homotopy equivalence implies homology equivalence: in1882, Klein gave an example of a closed curve on a surface which is the boundary of a part of the surface but could not be shrunk to a point. In 1904, Poincaré explicitly said that this curve is “homologue à zéro” (null homologous), but not “équivalent à zéro” (null homotopic). Poincaré obtains the homologies from the fundamental group by allowing changes in the order of the terms in the “équivalences”. This means also that the equivalences imply homologies but not vice versa. From a methodological standpoint, this situation of using properties without asking about relations between them or without even properly defining them is reminiscent of mathematics of a century earlier. An example is the way differentiability was used for the differentiation of functions without consciously questioning the properties of this concept until in the nineteenth century examples were given by Bolzano (1834), Weierstrass (1872), Riemann (1854) and others of functions which are continuous but nowhere differentiable [Kli]. Another example is the use eighteenth-century mathematicians made of series without inquiring about the validity of the operations they used on them. Another aspect which had its influence was the success of algebraic methods in topology which explains the preference for theories with “base point” and constrained deformation even though free deformation is a more natural concept. As we can see the evolution of the homotopy concept for paths did not progress without impediments. It also had an influence on the evolution of the abstract group concept and the basic principle of equivalence. These aspects make it a history which is not only intrinsically interesting (how did homotopic paths come to be?), but also because it illustrates relations between different branches of mathematics. (shrink)

Most philosophers do not read Kant’s philosophy of religion as providing a foundation for Christianity, or even as in line with it. Recently, however, a number of so-called “affirmative Kantians” have argued that Kant’s philosophy of religion explicitly aims at recovering the spirit of Christianity. In this article I scrutinize this claim with regard to Kant’s conceptualization of “grace” as a supplement to his moral theory. Contrary to these “affirmative Kantians,” I argue that Kant’s account of grace stems from Kant’s (...) moral pessimism, not from any sense of the shortcomings of human beings in fulfilling their duties or the religious need for supernatural cooperation. Kant’s concept of grace tries to moderate this pessimism by providing what is needed for the possibility of moral progress. But simply by the way in which Kant regards grace as a rational concept needed for his moral theory, it seems to me that his philosophy of religion runs counter to certain central convictions of Christianity. (shrink)

Developmental dyslexia is considered to be most effectively addressed with preventive phonics-based interventions, including grapheme-phoneme coupling and blending exercises. These intervention types require intact speech perception abilities, given their large focus on exercises with auditorily presented phonemes. Yet some children with dyslexia experience problems in this domain due to a poorer sensitivity to rise times, i.e., rhythmic acoustic cues present in the speech envelope. As a result, the often subtle speech perception problems could potentially constrain an optimal response to phonics-based (...) interventions in at-risk children. The current study therefore aimed to extend existing research by examining the presence of potential speech perception deficits in pre-readers at cognitive risk for dyslexia when compared to typically developing peers and to explore the added value of a preventive auditory intervention for at-risk pre-readers, targeting rise time sensitivity, on speech perception and other reading-related skills. To obtain the first research objective, we longitudinally compared speech-in-noise perception between 28 5-year-old pre-readers with and 30 peers without a cognitive risk for dyslexia during the second half of the third year of kindergarten. The second research objective was addressed by exploring growth in speech perception and other reading-related skills in an independent sample of 62 at-risk 5-year-old pre-readers who all combined a 12-week preventive phonics-based intervention with an auditory story listening intervention. In half of the sample, story recordings contained artificially enhanced rise times, while in the other half, stories remained unprocessed. Results revealed a slower speech-in-noise perception growth in the at-risk compared to the non-at-risk group, due to an emerged deficit at the end of kindergarten. Concerning the auditory intervention effects, both intervention groups showed equal growth in speech-in-noise perception and other reading-related skills, suggesting no boost of envelope-enhanced story listening on top of the effect of combining GraphoGame-Flemish with listening to unprocessed stories. These findings thus provide evidence for a link between speech perception problems and dyslexia, yet do not support the potential of the auditory intervention in its current form. (shrink)

This essay explores three questions: What are the salient features of Hobbes's concept of prudence? Prudence for Hobbes is a capacity to predict the future rooted in experience. Second, can 'Hobbesian individuals' have significantly different capacities for prudence? Challenging a common view, asserted even by Hobbes himself, I contend that Hobbes's own conception of prudence yields significant variation across individuals' capacities for prudence. Finally, what is the role of prudence in Hobbes's political thought? A consequence of the significant variation among (...) individuals is that prudence plays a much more consequential role in Hobbes's political philosophy than is often appreciated. (shrink)

The work of the later Schelling seems antithetical to that of Nietzsche: one a Romantic, idealist and Christian, the other Dionysian, anti-idealist and anti-Christian. Still, there is a very meaningful and educative dialogue to be found between Schelling and Nietzsche on the topics of reason, freedom and religion. Both of them start their philosophy with a similar critique of the Western tradition, which to them is overly dualist, rationalist and anti-organic. In response, they hope to inculcate a more lively view (...) of reality in which a new understanding of freedom takes center stage. This freedom can be revealed and strengthened through a proper approach to religion, one that neither disconnects from nor subordinates religion to reason. Religion is the dialogical other to reason, one that refreshes and animates our attempts to navigate the world autonomously. In doing so, Schelling and Nietzsche open up new avenues of thinking about freedom, reason and religion. (shrink)

Continuing on the value of givenness, Dennis Vanden Auweele argues that a modern project for absolutized autonomy cannot do but dread silence, which signals a hiccup or momentary lapse in the project of logos. And yet, Vanden Auweele shows that silence can be a convalescence that renders human beings receptive to something in excess of finite determination, which can in turn inspire self-determination to new heights.

Recently, William Desmond’s metaxological philosophy has been gaining popularity since it proposes a powerful counterweight to the dominance of deconstruction in certain areas of contemporary philosophy of religion. This paper serves to introduce Desmond’s philosophy and confront it with one specific form of Postmodern theology, namely John Caputo’s “weak theology.” Since Desmond’s philosophy is—while thought-provoking and refreshing—not well known, a substantial part of this paper is devoted to fleshing out its central concepts: perplexity, metaxology, and hyperbolic indirection. Afterwards, I argue (...) for the advantages of a metaphysical (Desmond) over a deconstructive (Caputo) approach to philosophy of religion/God. (shrink)

Dennis Vanden Auweele explores Kant’s moral and religious philosophy and shows that a pessimistic undercurrent pervades them. This provides a new vantage point not only to comprehensively assess Kantian philosophy, but also to provide much needed context and reading assistance to the general premises of Kant's philosophy and rationality.

Schelling’s later philosophical thought and Schopenhauer’s philosophy undeniably have a Kantian pedigree. Their respective philosophies have had their major impact, however, in the late nineteenth century and twentieth century. For reasons that are both historical and systematical, the later Schelling (after 1809) and Schopenhauer were not deemed valuable interlocutors in the post-Kantian debates of the early nineteenth century. The reason for this, I argue, is that they go against the idealistic flow of the times. Instead of developing Kant’s positive concept (...) of autonomy as self-grounding reason (such as Hegel), they expand Kant’s notion of a free arbitrariness (Willkür; most often translated as power of choice). I wonder: When one goes against the flow, does one then not return to the source? In this paper, I show how Schopenhauer and Schelling (1809–1815) both start from Kant’s negative concept of freedom and develop a way to experience such freedom through a non-conceptual intimation. (shrink)