What is the one big idea of Koselleck’s Historik understood as a methodological framework for the attempt to combine a theory of historical times with a theory of historical time? In part (1) of this paper, I criticize the two most basic attempts to understand Koselleck’s one big idea as mistaken because they are exclusively interested either in history (in the singular) or in histories (in the plural) and thus miss the central relevance of structures of repetition (“Wiederholungsstrukturen”) for Koselleck’s (...) Historik. In part (2), I will clarify the rather hidden pre-history, the main ambition, the theoretical context and the substantial content of Koselleck’s concept of structures of repetition in history and language. In part (3), I will discuss four historiographical consequences of Koselleck’s structures of repetition. I will end the paper by observing a remarkable theoretical affinity between Barrington Moore’s search for recurring patterns in the field of sociology and Koselleck’s structures of repetition in history and language. Moore’s work illustrates the historiographical potential of the one big idea of Koselleck’s Historik better than any other work I am aware of. (shrink)

This eye-opening read spans the foundations of ethics and key Buddhist concepts. Professor Peter Singer is a world-renowned moral philosopher and preeminent voice in bioethics whose writings have helped shape the animal rights and effective altruism movements. Venerable Shih Chao-Hwei of Taiwan is a Buddhist monastic and social activist who's been a key figure in the Buddhist gender equality movement. This unlikely duo came together in conversation at a meditation retreat center in 2016 and continued discussions in writing. They (...) shed light on the intersection of philosophy, religion, and day-to-day life. (shrink)

Susanne K. Langer (1895—1985) Susanne Langer was an American philosopher working across the analytic and continental divide in the fields of logic, aesthetics, and theory of mind. Her work connects in various ways to her central concerns of feeling and meaning. Feeling, in Langer’s philosophy, encompasses the qualitative, sensory, and emotional aspects of human experience. … Continue reading Susanne K. Langer →.

Examines the common sense attractiveness of contextualism over invariantism, and ultimately takes such a common sense attractiveness to be a function of our intellectual habits as opposed to a reflection of objective fact. The claim that there do not exist semantic approaches that are more favorable than either contextualism or invariantism is made and argued for via an appeal to sortalism, superinvariantism, and supercontextualism, which are also rejected as brutally implausible. The possibility that any of these three semantic approaches might (...) be as good as either contextualism or invariantism merely serves to support semantic relativity. A foundation for semantic relativity is located within the vagueness of natural language terms. (shrink)

Applies the semantic relativism developed in the previous chapters to key terms in several philosophical debates in order to establish philosophical relativity. In all of these cases, invariantism forces the skeptical position whilst contextualism resonates with our common sense views. These philosophical debates and their relevant terms are the problem of epistemic skepticism via “know,” the problem of freewill and determinism as instanced by compatibilism and incompatibilism via “can” and “freewill,” the problem of specifying causal conditions via “cause,” and the (...) problem of explanation via “explanation.”,, and are straightforward categorical problems in that the skeptic's success will simply mean that the terms involved fail to apply. by contrast is a conditional problem such that it is contingent on the truth of determinism itself, which few assent to. (shrink)

Explores the distinction between the prevalent approach to ostensible intuitions, which takes such intuitions to be indicative of semantic conditions, and the broadly psychological approach, which does not. An attack is made against Kripke and Putnam's causal theory of reference via Putnam's Twin Earth thought experiments. Our responses to such examples may be distinguished into two types, a dominant response, and a dominated response. The common aspect to all demonstrable counterexamples to the causal theory of reference turns on the individual (...) differences among the responses. The prevalent approach must deny semantic competence to dissenting agents. We may maintain, in a relativist spirit, that there is no absolutely right answer in such cases. Kripke's distinction between epistemological examples and metaphysical examples is noted and the two are united in order to generate combined examples. The failure of the causal theory of reference to deal with any such examples in a successful and systematic way tells against the prospect of maintaining an internalized semantics. Historical and current versions of the causal theory of reference are explored, with neither accurately capturing our natural responses, strengthening the objection against the prevalent approach and supporting the broadly psychological approach, which in contrast to the prevalent approach attributes agents’ responses to the examples to their egocentric bias, which may not be fully rational. As such, the relativist now has a direct reply to the objection from semantic intuitions, this being that such common sense intuitions are not a function of an internalized semantics. Supposing that the broadly psychological approach is no stronger than the prevalent approach merely strengthens the relativist's position. (shrink)

Examines a different objection against the relativity hypotheses, the objection from superficiality, which takes the relativity hypotheses to be leaving deep philosophical issues aside. A similar objection is that the relativity hypotheses take many traditional philosophical problems to have the status of pseudoproblems. The objection from superficiality comes in several forms: the objection from particular expressions, the objection from a particular language, the objection from overgeneralization, and the objection from unnaturalness. All four forms of the objection from superficiality are countered (...) and the point is argued that many traditional philosophical problems are left untouched by the relativity hypotheses. With regards to those that are not, there is still much philosophical work to be done in these areas. The relativity hypotheses do not imply that such philosophical problems may be easily solved. The positive aspect of the relativity hypotheses is that the specific areas where they are active may be identified and distinguished in order to reveal the aspects of particular philosophical problems that may admit of nonarbitrary solutions. (shrink)

The „petite éthique” which Ricoeur develops in Soi-meme comme un autre is distinctive in its way of paying attention to the individual, the other and the society all at the same time. For this very reason the problem of the distribution of social goods is fundamental. Ricoeur tries to solve this problem through a synthesis of teleological and deontological considerations, and here the approach of Rawls occupies a central place. On the one hand, the attempt to solve this problem in (...) the framework of a teleological approach draws on principles of justice which Rawls establishes through formal procedure; on the other hand, Rawls‘ position depends on a number of teleological presuppositions which are not compatible with his deontological approach. Ricoeur does not only attempt to refute Rawls, but to interpret his principles of justice as the result of a rationalisation of a sense of justice which is simply presupposed. (shrink)

Band I. Das Körperbild und seine Störungen -- Band II. Unfassbare Zeitlichkeit.

Interviews met denkers uit het gehele politieke spectrum over het populisme.

We propose a solution to the problem of logical omniscience in what we take to be its fundamental version: as concerning arbitrary agents and the knowledge attitude per se. Our logic of knowledge is a spin-off from a general theory of thick content, whereby the content of a sentence has two components: an intension, taking care of truth conditions; and a topic, taking care of subject matter. We present a list of plausible logical validities and invalidities for the logic of (...) knowledge per se for arbitrary agents, and isolate three explanatory factors for them: the topic-sensitivity of content; the fragmentation of knowledge states; the defeasibility of knowledge acquisition. We then present a novel dynamic epistemic logic that yields precisely the desired validities and invalidities, for which we provide expressivity and completeness results. We contrast this with related systems and address possible objections. (shrink)

Through case studies on biodiversity, deforestation, pollution, and war, among others, Stoett analyzes the ability of international policy to provide environmental protection and discusses the ever-present factors of equality, sovereignty, and human rights integral to these issues. While providing a panoramic view of the actors and structures producing these policies. Stoett reminds readers that the topic is personal, that effective governance is not solely the responsibility of governments but of individuals and communities as well. Environmental diplomacy may not always meet (...) its intended goals, but positive steps are being achieved, and change can only happen when angst is replaced with an educated determination to work toward environmental justice. The Second Edition will explore new events, issues, and agreements since 2011; notably the Paris Agreement. The UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be a new theme added throughout and highlighted in each case study. (shrink)

The volume presents the views of ten authors from four PostCommunist Central and East European countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Latvia) on the impact of emerging technologies on human condition. They analyse the topic from anthropological, ethical, philosophical, ontological, empirical and legal perspectives.

Expressivists about epistemic modals deny that ‘Jane might be late’ canonically serves to express the speaker’s acceptance of a certain propositional content. Instead, they hold that it expresses a lack of acceptance. Prominent expressivists embrace pragmatic expressivism: the doxastic property expressed by a declarative is not helpfully identified with that sentence’s compositional semantic value. Against this, we defend semantic expressivism about epistemic modals: the semantic value of a declarative from this domain is the property of doxastic attitudes it canonically serves (...) to express. In support, we synthesize data from the critical literature on expressivism—largely reflecting interactions between modals and disjunctions—and present a semantic expressivism that readily predicts the data. This contrasts with salient competitors, including: pragmatic expressivism based on domain semantics or dynamic semantics; semantic expressivism à la Moss [2015]; and the bounded relational semantics of Mandelkern [2019]. (shrink)

There has been a groundswell of interest in the account of modality that Kant sets forth in his pre-Critical Only Possible Argument. Andrew Chignell's reconstruction of Kant's theistic argument in terms of what he calls has a prima facie advantage in that it appears to be able to block the plurality objection (namely, that even if every modal fact presupposes some ground, this does not entail that all modal facts share the same ground). I argue that it is both textually (...) and philosophically problematic to interpret Kant's argument in terms of real harmony. Then, I set forth an alternative response to the plurality objection which does not require the adoption of the problematic notion of real harmony. Instead, I argue that the objection can be overcome by observing that the argument seeks to ground modal facts as a totality and that, according to Kant, such relations can be accounted for only by their schematization in a single intellect. (shrink)

According to Peter van Inwagen, visible inanimate objects do not, strictly speaking, exist. In defending this controversial thesis, he offers fresh insights on such topics as personal identity, commonsense belief, existence over time, the phenomenon of vagueness, and the relation between metaphysics and ordinary language.

Building on self-professed perspectival approaches to both scientific knowledge and causation, I explore the potentially radical suggestion that perspectivalism can be extended to account for a type of objectivity in science. Motivated by recent claims from quantum foundations that quantum mechanics must admit the possibility of observer-dependent facts, I develop the notion of ‘perspectival objectivity’, and suggest that an easier pill to swallow, philosophically speaking, than observer-dependency is perspective-dependency, allowing for a notion of observer-independence indexed to an agent perspective. Working (...) through the case studies of colour perception and causal perspectivalism, I identify two places within which I claim perspectival objectivity is already employed, and make the connection to quantum mechanics through Bohr’s philosophy of quantum theory. I contend that perspectival objectivity can ensure, despite the possibility of perspective-dependent scientific facts, the objectivity of scientific inquiry. (shrink)

In this systematic study, Professor Achinstein analyzes such concepts as definitions, theories, and models, and contrasts his view with currently held positions that he finds inadequate.

Based on an analysis of the category of “infinite judgments” in Kant, we will introduce the logical hexagon of predicate negation. This hexagon allows us to visualize in a single diagram the general structure of both Kant’s solution of the antinomies of pure reason and his argument in favor of Transcendental Idealism.

How do we judge whether we should be willing to follow the views of experts or whether we ought to try to come to our own, independent views? This book seeks the answer in medieval philosophical thought. In this engaging study into the history of philosophy and epistemology, Peter Adamson provides an answer to a question as relevant today as it was in the medieval period: how and when should we turn to the authoritative expertise of other people in (...) forming our own beliefs? He challenges us to reconsider our approach to this question through a constructive recovery of the intellectual and cultural traditions of the Islamic world, the Byzantine Empire, and Latin Christendom. Adamson begins by foregrounding the distinction in Islamic philosophy between taqlid, or the uncritical acceptance of authority, and ijtihad, or judgment based on independent effort, the latter of which was particularly prized in Islamic law, theology, and philosophy during the medieval period. He then demonstrates how the Islamic tradition paves the way for the development of what he calls a "justified taqlid," according to which one develops the skills necessary to critically and selectively follow an authority based on their reliability. The book proceeds to reconfigure our understanding of the relation between authority and independent thought in the medieval world by illuminating how women found spaces to assert their own intellectual authority, how medieval writers evaluated the authoritative status of Plato and Aristotle, and how independent reasoning was deployed to defend one Abrahamic faith against the other. This clear and eloquently written book will interest scholars in and enthusiasts of medieval philosophy, Islamic studies, Byzantine studies, and the history of thought"-- Back cover. (shrink)

While Philosophy for/with Children (P4wC) provides a better alternative to the usual ‘banking’ model of education, questions have been raised regarding its applicability in non-western contexts. Despite its adherence to the ideals of democratic dialogue, not all members of a Community of Inquiry (COI) will be disposed to participate in the inquiry, not because they are incapable of doing so, but because they are positioned inferiorly within the group thereby affecting their efforts to speak out on topics that are meaningful (...) to them. In this article, I claim that it is essential to integrate positionality in P4wC research/practice. Aside from its role in helping a practitioner/researcher choose the appropriate method and materials that match the unique contexts of children, it also increases one’s awareness of the subtle forms of epistemic injustice that could leak in the COI, as well as the other subtle ways in which children are marginalized. In this regard, a P4wC researcher/practitioner must have a higher degree of sensitivity towards her positionality as this inevitably gets entangled with the positionality of children. I present some ‘areas’ in which the importance of positionality in the COI manifests, namely, restructuring classroom power relations, navigating a multi-ethnic classroom, facilitating meaning-making, and modeling reflective thinking. (shrink)

We often think or say that someone was wrong about something but almost right about it or close to the truth. This can mean more than one thing. Here, I propose an analysis of the idea of being epistemically close to the truth. This idea plays an important role in our practice of epistemic evaluation and therefore deserves some detailed attention. I start with an exposition of the idea of getting things right by looking at the main forms of reliabilism (...) about true belief and belief acquisition. The focus on reliabilism is justified because everyone is a reliabilist in a basic sense. Section 2 develops a notion of closeness to the truth in two steps. Section 3 mentions some ways in which this notion is useful, one having to do with the Gettier problem. (shrink)

Liberal representationalism is the view that even some internal states of very simple organisms like plants or bacteria count as genuine representations. This view has been heavily criticized by many authors, including myself. In a recent paper, Marc Artiga attempts to defend liberal representationalism against these criticisms. One of his main targets is an argument of explanatory exclusion that he ascribes to Burge, Ramsey, Rescorla, Sterelny and me (among others). In this paper, I reply to Artiga by distinguishing the exclusion (...) argument that he focuses on from what is, in my view, the real explanatory challenge for liberal representationalism, and I argue that none of the considerations put forward by Artiga in defense of the liberal view provide an adequate answer to this challenge. (shrink)

Al-Kindi was the first philosopher of the Islamic world. He lived in Iraq and studied in Baghdad, where he became attached to the caliphal court. In due course he would become an important figure at court: a tutor to the caliph's son, and a central figure in the translation movement of the ninth century, which rendered much of Greek philosophy, science, and medicine into Arabic. Al-Kindi's wide-ranging intellectual interests included not only philosophy but also music, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Through (...) deep engagement with Greek tradition al-Kindi developed original theories on key issues in the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, physical science, and ethics. He is especially known for his arguments against the world's eternity, and his innovative use of Greek ideas to explore the idea of God's unity and transcendence. Despite al-Kindi's historical and philosophical importance no book has presented a complete, in-depth look at his thought until now. In this accessible introduction to al-Kindi's works, Peter Adamson surveys what is known of his life and examines his method and his attitude towards the Greek tradition, as well as his subtle relationship with the Muslim intellectual culture of his day. Above all the book focuses on explaining and evaluating the ideas found in al-Kindi's wide-ranging philosophical corpus, including works devoted to science and mathematics. Throughout, Adamson writes in language that is both serious and engaging, academic and approachable. This book will be of interest to experts in the field, but it requires no knowledge of Greek or Arabic, and is also aimed at non-experts who are simply interested in one of the greatest of Islamic philosophers. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 85-87.