In this paper, I argue against certain dogmas about ambivalence and alienation. Authors such as Harry Frankfurt and Christine Korsgaard demand a unity of persons that excludes ambivalence. Other philosophers such as David Velleman have criticized this demand as overblown, yet these critics, too, demand a personal unity that excludes an extreme form of ambivalence (“radical ambivalence”). I defend radical ambivalence by arguing that, to be true to oneself, one sometimes needs to be radically ambivalent. Certain dogmas about alienation are (...) even more entrenched. Allen Wood’s entry on “alienation” in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy begins as follows: “A psychological or social evil, characterized by one or another type of harmful separation, disruption or fragmentation, which sunders things that belong together.” I think that it is not true that self-alienation is necessarily “harmful.” I argue that radical ambivalence is a form of self-alienation. Thus, because faithfulness to oneself sometimes requires radical ambivalence, to be true to oneself, one sometimes needs to be alienated from oneself. (shrink)

As witnessed by recent films such as _Fight Club_ and _Identity_, our culture is obsessed with multiple personality—a phenomenon raising intriguing questions about personal identity. This study offers both a full-fledged philosophical theory of personal identity and a systematic account of multiple personality. Gunnarsson combines the methods of analytic philosophy with close hermeneutic and phenomenological readings of cases from different fields, focusing on psychiatric and psychological treatises, self-help books, biographies, and fiction. He develops an original account of personal identity and (...) offers a provocative interpretation of multiple personality: in brief, "multiples" are right about the metaphysics but wrong about the facts. (shrink)

The literature of bioethics suffers from two serious problems. (1) Most authors are unable to take seriously both the rights of the great apes and of severely disabled human infants. Rationalism—moral status rests on rational capacities—wrongly assigns a higher moral status to the great apes than to all severely disabled human infants with less rational capacities than the great apes. Anthropocentrism—moral status depends on membership in the human species—falsely grants all humans a higher moral status than the great apes. Animalism—moral (...) status is dependent on the ability to suffer—mistakenly equates the moral status of humans and most animals. (2) The concept person is widely used for justificatory purposes, but it seems that it cannot play such a role. It seems that it is either redundant or unable to play any justificatory role. I argue that we can solve the second problem by understanding person as a thick evaluative concept. This then enables us to justify assigning a higher moral status to the great apes than to simple animals: the great apes are persons. To solve the first problem, I argue that certain severely disabled infants have a higher moral status than the great apes because they are dependent upon human relationships for their well-being. Only very limited abilities are required for such relationships, and the question who is capable of them must be based on thick evaluative concepts. Thus, it turns out that to make progress in bioethics we must assign thick evaluative concepts a central role. (shrink)

Is it rational to be moral? Can moral disputes be settled rationally? Which criteria determine what we have a good reason to do? In this innovative book, Logi Gunnarsson takes issue with the assumption made by many philosophers faced with the problem of reconciling moral norms with a scientific world view, namely that morality must be offered a non-moral justification based on a formal concept of rationality. He argues that the criteria for the rationality of an action are irreducibly substantive, (...) rather than purely formal, and that assuming that morality must be given a non-moral justification amounts to a distortion of both rationality and morality. His discussion includes substantial critical engagement with major thinkers from two very different philosophical traditions, and is notable for its clear and succinct account of Habermas' discourse ethics. It will appeal to anyone interested in practical reason and the rational credentials of morality. (shrink)

One way to understand philosophy as a form of therapy is this: it involves a philosopher who is trying to cure himself. He has been drawn into a certain philosophical frame of mind—the ‘disease’—and has thus infected himself with this illness. Now he is sick and trying to employ philosophy to cure himself. So philosophy is both: the ailment and the cure. And the philosopher is all three: pathogenic agent, patient, and therapist.

The aim of the paper is to defend the project of transforming philosophy carried out in my book Vernunft und Temperament. Eine Philosophie der Philosophie. In section 1, I distinguish between five philosophical genres in which transformation plays a role: 1. academic texts in which transformation is simply a topic; 2. texts meant to adequately articulate through their form the transformative experiences of their authors; 3. texts aiming to enable the reader to transform herself; 4. texts on other texts; 5. (...) manifestos defending the project of transforming philosophy. Section 2 is such a manifesto. Its main thesis is: “What makes somebody – anybody – a good philosopher is that she is a real human being.” Many of the remaining 16 theses of the manifesto are elaborations on this main thesis. One example is the thesis that the philosophical activity is essentially a becoming – the development of an individual human being. (shrink)

This paper is the work of two fictional authors, the late Johannes Philologus and Johannes Commentarius. One part consists of Philologus’s philosophical reflections on a fragment that, unbeknownst to him, is identical to the first four paragraphs of the Preface and the last two numbered propositions of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Commentarius writes a preface to Philologus’s article and a commentary on it, in which he, like Philologus, addresses the question of how a work consisting of nonsense can be elucidatory. By (...) publishing his contribution together with that of Philologus, Commentarius wants to produce a work mirroring the structure of the Tractatus itself. (shrink)

Drei Thesen verfolgt der Beitrag: Eine empirische, zirkuläre Theorie kann wichtige Probleme in der Diskussion um „personale Identität“ lösen. Eine Korrelatstheorie bietet die richtige Antwort auf die Frage „Was bin ich grundlegend?“: Ich bin grundlegend ein Akteur, der ein Korrelat zu den psychologischen Verbindungen ist, für die er minimal verantwortlich ist. Meine Identität kann auf Grund einer Festlegungstheorie erläutert werden, das heißt auf Grund der Relationen Festlegungsrevision und Festlegungserhalt.

It is commonly supposed that morality faces a justificatory crisis. Rationalism seeks to resolve this crisis by means of a direct response to the moral sceptic--to the person who doubts that there is a rational way of deciding what moral position to adopt or whether to be moral at all. I argue that the very aspirations of rationalism--to seek a refutation of the sceptic that concedes her initial standpoint and to base morality on a formal concept of rationality--are misguided. As (...) an alternative, I introduce an approach which has neither of these aspirations--the substantive approach--and argue that it offers a more satisfactory justificatory ideal than rationalism. When measured by this ideal morality does not face a justificatory crisis. ;I argue that both subjectivist and inter-subjectivist rationalists fail to refute the sceptic. I consider the possibility that there is something specific to subjectivism which gives rise to the appearance that morality faces a justificatory crisis and argue that the justificatory standards set up by inter-subjective rationalism--if not met--equally give rise to the same appearance. Thus, it might be thought that rationalism's failure to refute the sceptic reveals that morality does indeed face a justificatory crisis. Instead, I contend that the rationalistic standards themselves should be rejected. To demotivate rationalism, I argue that the substantive approach makes better sense of our lives. The task of making sense of our lives includes not only the task of making our lives intelligible but also one of rendering them meaningful. With regard to subjectivist rationalism, I argue that agents employ substantive reasons in the attempt to make sense of themselves, that this employment of substantive reasons is part and parcel of a meaningful life, and that rationalism's formal concept of rationality cannot capture this use of these reasons. In the case of inter-subjectivist rationalism, I claim that in criticizing others for, say, cruel acts it is the cruelty of those acts that we should focus on and that in its attempt to refute the moral sceptic rationalism distorts our view on such matters. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Internationales Jahrbuch für philosophische Anthropologie Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 1 Seiten: 73-86.

The literature on theoretical reason has been dominated by epistemological concerns, treatments of practical reason by ethical concerns. This book overcomes the limitations of dealing with each separately. It sets out a comprehensive theory of rationality applicable to both practical and theoretical reason. In both domains, Audi explains how experience grounds rationality, delineates the structure of central elements, and attacks the egocentric conception of rationality. He establishes the rationality of altruism and thereby supports major moral principles. The concluding part describes (...) the pluralism and relativity his conception of rationality accommodates and, taking the unified account of theoretical and practical rationality in that light, constructs a theory of global rationality--the overall rationality of persons. Rich in narrative examples, intriguing analogies, and intuitively appealing arguments, this beautifully crafted book will spur advances in ethics and epistemology as well in philosophy of mind and action and the theory of rationality itself. (shrink)

I argue for two theses: 1) An unconscious belief that p is not the same attitude as a conscious belief that p (here I am disagreeing with David Finkelstein and Richard Moran). 2) An unconscious belief that p is the attitude it is on account of its rational connection with the conscious belief that p (taking issue with Georges Rey). I defend parallel theses for emotions. I then argue that Wittgenstein can be understood as accepting both theses and that this (...) shows – contrary to the interpretations of Jacques Bouveresse and Donald Levy – that Wittgenstein can accept talk not only of descriptive but also dynamic unconscious states (in Freud's terminology). (shrink)

A subject who has a self-transformation behind herself—say, a conversion to Catholicism—may say of herself "before transforming myself, I was a different person�. How are we to understand such a claim? Obviously, there is a sense in which the subject takes herself to be the same as before and another sense in which she considers herself to be somebody else now. One possible way of understanding it would be the following: Despite the change involved in the selftransformation, there is enough (...) similiarity between the preconversion subject—S1—and the converted subject— S2—to say that they are numerically identical. And there is enough difference for the subject to speak of herself before the self-transformation as another person. (shrink)

Tim Henning, Person sein und Geschichten erzählen: Eine Studie über personale Autonomie und narrative Gründe Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s10677-012-9341-z Authors Logi Gunnarsson, Department of Philosophy, University of Potsdam, 14469 Potsdam, Germany Journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Online ISSN 1572-8447 Print ISSN 1386-2820.