Carl Hausman makes human creativity "the most pressing problem of our time" and "speculate[s] systematically" about what it means for something to be a creation rather than a product. The problem is posed: if there is "absolute uniqueness and freedom of certain human acts," with the consequent impossibility of reducing creativity to a system of law, must we then say it is only "a mystery that defies speech and all forms of understanding?" In many other ways Hausman reformulates the challenge (...) of the existentialist absurd to inherited presuppositions about cosmic order, scientific lawfulness and predictability, and intelligibility. (shrink)

Read its title as a disjunction, not a conjunction—the objective of this book is to clear the way for a systematic evaluation of the real argument of Kant’s transcendental deduction of the categories by cleansing it of his Copernican theory of the subjective constitution of objects, and then to provide the evaluation of the surviving deduction. The prophylaxis occupies the first three of the book’s four chapters, and consists of the argument that neither of what the author regards as the (...) two independent components of Kant’s theory of constitution, the theories of the subjectivity of space and time and of the spontaneous synthesis of the understanding, either proves or is necessary to prove the a priori validity of the categories. Many of the arguments in these chapters are challenging even if not all are ultimately persuasive; the enterprise itself, however, a dozen years after The Bounds of Sense, is hardly novel. In his fourth chapter, Hossenfelder reaches the disappointing conclusion that the prospects for even the cleansed deduction are still quite dim. But this is no surprise, for in his examination of Kant’s theory of mathematical knowledge he deploys a "formal pre-evaluation" which seems to doom any reconstruction of Kantianism. He argues that a priori propositions could be derived only from analysis or inference; but if they derived from analysis, they would be analytic, not synthetic, while synthetic a priori propositions could derive from inference only if the inference had synthetic a priori premises, in which case the possibility of synthetic a priori propositions would be presupposed rather than proved. This argument leaves open only the question of why Kant’s deduction had to be purified before being rejected. (shrink)

Leslie Armour argues for the rules of a dialectical logic which can account for the metaphysical problems of stability and change. He proposes a specific/general exclusion reference, a variation of the polar opposites contrast, which will make possible a rigorous development of the core structural concepts necessary for systematic explanation. His initial move is significantly different from Hegel’s being-nothing-becoming triad. The opposite of "pure being," Armour contends, is "pure disjunction." "Being" unifies, "disjunction" makes distinctions possible. Seven more categories are developed, (...) each at lower levels of abstraction, to introduce actual specificity and change. Armour’s main contention is that Hegel erred in introducing concrete "becoming" at a high level of logical abstraction. The ordering of his concepts is straightforward. "Pure being" contrasted with "pure disjunction" necessitates "determinate being." "Systematic unity" unifies the opposing elements in and. "Pure process" establishes the possibility of ongoing experience. Particularity is accounted for by the concepts of "determinate process" instantiated in the contrast of "ideal" and "objective universality" realized in the "dialectical individual." The final concept maintains the tension between structure and actualization without resulting in mere vacillation. This is done by arguing that self-identity is not a matter of bodily and dispositional consistency, but, rather, the pursuit of reasonableness. Armour contends that we identify people by the coherence of their actions which is understood in the context of an overall structure, such as the one he proposes. Some will be bothered by Armour’s admission that the development of the concepts of specificity cannot exemplify the necessity of the more general initial dialectical concepts. Others will be attracted to the degree of freedom for the subject in his concept of individuality which is supported by a clear systematic account.—P. G. W. S. (shrink)