Context: In spite of its advantages and its ability to make valid responses to objections, radical constructivism is not mainstream. Problem: Extolling the virtues of radical constructivism and responding logically to the objections does not work. We know this from the evidence of many attempts. Our theoretical stance, radical constructivism, also suggests this approach is not likely to have much influence on realists. We cannot transmit understanding in the signals with which we attempt to communicate. How can (...) we in radical constructivism enable those outside of RC to understand our explanation of human knowing? Method: Examine our understanding of radical constructivism itself, because it is an explanation of how, why and under what circumstances people change their understandings of their experiential worlds. Results: We must find ways to direct the attention of others to situations that they cannot explain with their existing understanding of the world. Then we must create conditions conducive to their revising and testing new understandings for fit with the evidence of their experience. Implications: Since radical constructivism is a theory of human knowing, it tells us how humans develop knowledge, hence it is an answer to the questions central to this special issue. This answer is not one to be used to win in debates with realists. Radical constructivism gives us an answer to the problem of engaging realists in understanding our position, but strategies consistent with radical constructivism are not easily carried out. Developing and executing such strategies is the work at hand. (shrink)

Kant's doctrine of the radical evil in human nature invites at least two serious worries: first, it is unclear how Kant could establish the claim that all human beings adopt an evil maxim; second, this claim seems to conflict with central features of Kant's doctrine of freedom. I argue, via criticisms of various charitable interpretations, that these problems are indeed insuperable if we read Kant as trying to establish that all human beings are evil as a matter of fact. (...) I then develop an alternative reading that avoids these problems. On my reading, Kant transforms the complaint that humans are evil into a prescriptive regulative principle. Although we cannot know whether all human beings really are evil, we ought to presuppose “inextirpable” human evil in the context of moral “ascetic”, the practical field that answers to the duty of moral self-perfection and that aims at the development of virtue. (shrink)

Salomon Maïmon argues that the formal determination of experience in Kant’s first Kritik insufficiently answers the question ‘quid juris?’. As an alternative to Kant’s theory, he develops a genetic transcendentalism in which experience is completely determined a priori. Discussing this genetic approach, I focus on how the spatiotemporal determinations of conscious experience are traced back to pure ideal relations. Relying on Leibniz and his theory of space and time, I explain how the extensive magnitudes of consciousness are founded in (...) intensive magnitudes of what Maïmon calls ‘pure thought’. As the latter is the transcendental ground for both sensibility and the understanding, Maïmon’s theory contains a radical form of immanence, much like the philosophy of Spinoza and Gilles Deleuze. (shrink)

How can we radically change the inhuman conditions existing in the world today? In this paper, I answer this question by explaining the how, when, and who of radical socio-political transformation. We need both critical theorizing and transformative practice to explain how we can change the world. We must theorize the moment of the limit in the objective domain of power to answer when the transformative agency becomes possible. I introduce the idea of the “political subject-in-outline” that moves within (...) the tension of minimal closure and permanent openness to theorize a who, which remains inclusive and has the strength to transform the status quo. Marx’s and Adorno’s thought remains central to theorize socio-political transformation today. (shrink)

I advance the Radically Enactive Cognition (REC) program by developing Hutto & Satne’s (2015) and Hutto & Myin’s (2017) idea that contentful cognition emerges through sociocultural activities, which require a contentless form of intentionality. Proponents of REC then face a functional challenge: what is the function of higher cognitive skills, given the empirical findings that engaging in higher-cognitive activities is not correlated with cognitive amelioration (Kornblith, 2012)? I answer that functional challenge by arguing that higher cognition is an adaptive tool (...) of the social systems we are embedded in, therefore, it is not necessarily aimed at achieving better cognitive states. In order to do so, I suggest interpreting key insights from autopoietic enactivism through REC lenses. (shrink)

The lack of knowledge—as Timothy Williamson (2000) famously maintains—is ignorance. Radical sceptical arguments, at least in the tradition of Descartes, threaten universal ignorance. They do so by attempting to establish that we lack any knowledge, even if we can retain other kinds of epistemic standings, like epistemically justified belief. If understanding is a species of knowledge, then radical sceptical arguments threaten to rob us categorically of knowledge and understanding in one fell swoop by implying universal ignorance. If, however, (...) understanding is not a species of knowledge, then three questions arise: (i) is ignorance the lack of understanding, even if understanding is not a species of knowledge? (ii) If not, what kind of state of intellectual impoverishment best describes a lack of understanding? (iii) What would a radical sceptical argument look like that threatened that kind of intellectual impoverishment, even if not threatening ignorance? This paper answers each of these questions in turn. I conclude by showing how the answers developed to (i-iii) interface in an interesting way with Virtue Perspectivism as an anti-sceptical strategy. (shrink)

According to radical scepticism, knowledge of the external world is impossible. Transcendental arguments are supposed to be anti-sceptical, but can they provide a satisfying response to radical scepticism? Especially, when radical scepticism is cast as posing a how-possible question, there is a concern that transcendental arguments are neither sufficient nor necessary for answering such question. In light of this worry, I argue that we can take a modest transcendental argument as a stepping stone for a diagnostic anti-sceptical (...) proposal, and I use a Wittgensteinian modest transcendental argument to illustrate my point. (shrink)

European Journal of Political Theory, Volume 21, Issue 1, Page 25-46, January 2022. This article explains how 19th-century radical republicans answered the following question: how is it possible to be free in a social order that fosters economic dependence on others? I focus on the writings of a group of French thinkers called the solidarists who advocated “liberty organized for everyone.” Mutualism and social right were two components of the solidarist strategy for limiting domination in commercial/industrial society. While the (...) doctrine of mutualism was rooted in pre-industrial artisan culture, social right was a novel idea that built on Durkheim’s analysis of the division of labour. In this article, I describe the main features of the solidarist account: solidarity, social property, quasi-contractual debt, and restorative justice. Classical republicanism was deeply concerned with citizen participation and the balance between popular and elite power, but 19th-century radical republicans thought that these goals must be approached differently in market societies in which enormous power is exercised outside the state. The solidarists cautiously embraced the state as a mechanism for regulating the market in order to ensure equal liberty. Social right and mutualism were also conceived as ways of limiting the centralization of state power. (shrink)

The main research question for this paper is: Are there radical left wing movements in Albania and Kosovo and what are their main traits? Through answering this question, we will explore the development of radical left wing movements. With radical left we intend movements that reject the underlying socio-economic structure of contemporary capitalism and its values and practices without opposing democracy. Through a thorough desk research and several interviews with experts and activists both in Albania and Kosovo, (...) we look at the two case Political Opportunity Structures to study the emergence, the strategies, success or failures of the radical left. In Albania the radical left has been in decline since 1992, with only a recent revival from 2009 on. In Kosovo, the Lëvizja Vetëvendojse!, a civil movement transformed in a party, has succeeded in imposing its left agenda. Both cases employ a new rhetoric unrelated to the past communist regimes thus changing the perspective of political debate in both countries. (shrink)

Problem: An answer to the question of whether or not Radical Constructivism RC can or will become a mainstream endeavour is difficult, because what is called RC is a bundle of quite divergent approaches and not a homogenous (super) theory. Therefore the article concentrates upon “classical” RC as developed first of all by von Glasersfeld, von Foerster and Maturana and Varela. The pros and cons of their approaches are discussed and evaluated. Solution: In order to overcome the most obvious (...) problems of RC, a strict process-oriented kind of argumentation is developed that replaces is/is not assertions with descriptions of processes and their results, thus answering the question of what might reasonably be called “construction.” Benefit: The paper presents a way of rewriting RC, i.e., avoiding its evident problems, without abandoning the insights that RC thinkers have gained in the past. (shrink)

Radical reflection is the philosophical and scientific exercise in answering the original question of human sciences. Starting from his criticism of scientific objectivism, Calvin O. Schrag points out his thesis that by radicalization of knowledge and values in human experiences, human sciences can develop its own rationality which couples with the technical methodological reason. This article will delve with Schrag’s concept of radical reflection in human sciences in three sections: the first section is dealing with Schrag’s appreciation of (...) Husserl’s critique of the ideals of objectivism, the second discusses the development of radical reflection, and the third focuses on the ontological implication of radical reflection that it guides us to understand of daily life experiences. The article concludes that since radical reflection focuses on the original experience, its rationality must be counted on by its technical methodological reason and the metaphorical reason. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the current debate about radical scepticism and the structure of warrant. After a presentation of the standard version of the radical sceptic’s challenge, both in its barest and its more refined form, three anti-sceptical responses, and their respective commitments, are being identified: the Dogmatist response, the Conservativist response and the Dretskean response. It is then argued that both the Dretskean and the Conservativist are right that the anti-sceptical hypothesis cannot inherit any perceptual warrants from (...) ordinary propositions about the environment—and so the Dogmatist response founders. However, if this is so Epistemic Closure lacks any clear rationale. There is therefore good reason to agree with both the Dretskean and the Dogmatist that perceptual warrants for ordinary propositions about the environment are enough in order for those propositions to enjoy a positive epistemic status—and so the Conservativist response founders. However, the Conservativist is nonetheless right that a warrant for the anti-sceptical hypothesis is needed. For contrary to what much of the recent literature suggests, the radical sceptic need not appeal to Epistemic Closure in order to cast doubt on the legitimacy of our beliefs in ordinary propositions about the environment: there is a Pyrrhonian version of scepticism that, though equally radical, is consistent with failure of Epistemic Closure. For this reason, the Dretskean response is insufficient to answer scepticism. (shrink)

What would happen if we could stroll through the revolutionary history of the 20th century and, without any fear of the possible responses, ask the main protagonists - from Lenin to Che Guevara, from Alexandra Kollontai to Ulrike Meinhof - seemingly naïve questions about love? Although all important political and social changes of the 20th century included heated debates on the role of love, it seems that in the 21st century of new technologies of the self we are faced with (...) a hyperinflation of sex, not love. By going back to the sexual revolution of the October Revolution and its subsequent repression, to Ches dilemma between love and revolutionary commitment and to the period of 68 and its commodification in late capitalism, the Croatian philosopher Srecko Horvat gives a possible answer to the question of why it is that the most radical revolutionaries like Lenin or Che were scared of the radicality of love. What is so radical about a seemingly conservative notion of love and why is it anything but conservative? This short book is a modest contribution to the current upheavals around the world - from Tahrir to Taksim, from Occupy Wall Street to Hong Kong, from Athens to Sarajevo - in which the question of love is curiously, surprisingly, absent. (shrink)

This article explains how 19th-century radical republicans answered the following question: how is it possible to be free in a social order that fosters economic dependence on others? I focus on the writings of a group of French thinkers called the solidarists who advocated “liberty organized for everyone.” Mutualism and social right were two components of the solidarist strategy for limiting domination in commercial/industrial society. While the doctrine of mutualism was rooted in pre-industrial artisan culture, social right was a (...) novel idea that built on Durkheim’s analysis of the division of labour. In this article, I describe the main features of the solidarist account: solidarity, social property, quasi-contractual debt, and restorative justice. Classical republicanism was deeply concerned with citizen participation and the balance between popular and elite power, but 19th-century radical republicans thought that these goals must be approached differently in market societies in which enormous power is exercised outside the state. The solidarists cautiously embraced the state as a mechanism for regulating the market in order to ensure equal liberty. Social right and mutualism were also conceived as ways of limiting the centralization of state power. (shrink)

We still ask the question ‘What is Enlightenment?’ Every generation seems to offer new and contradictory answers to the question. In the last thirty or so years, the most interesting characterisations of Enlightenment have been by historians. They have told us that there is one Enlightenment, that there are two Enlightenments, that there are many Enlightenments. This has thrown up a second question, ‘How Many Enlightenments?’ In the spirit of collaboration and criticism, I answer both questions by arguing in (...) this article that there are in fact three Enlightenments: Radical, Sceptical and Liberal. These are abstracted from the rival theories of Enlightenment found in the writings of the historians Jonathan Israel, John Robertson and J.G.A. Pocock. Each form of Enlightenment is political; each involves an attitude to history; each takes a view of religion. They are arranged in a sequence of increasing sensitivity to history, as it is this which makes it possible to relate them to each other and indeed propose a composite definition of Enlightenment. The argument should be of interest to anyone concerned with ‘the Enlightenment’ as a historical phenomenon or with ‘Enlightenment’ as a philosophical abstraction. (shrink)

I aim to provide a satisfying response to radical scepticism, a view according to which our knowledge of the external world is impossible. In the first chapter I investigate into the nature and the source of scepticism. Radical scepticism is motivated both by the closureRK-based and the underdeterminationRK-based sceptical arguments. Because these two sceptical arguments are logically independent, any satisfying anti-sceptical proposal must take both of them into consideration. Also, scepticism is a paradox, albeit a spurious one, so (...) we need to provide a diagnosis as to why we are lead into the paradox and why the alleged paradox misrepresents our epistemic standings. Hence, I advocate an obstacle-dissolving strategy for combating the sceptical problem. In chapter two, I discuss the anti-sceptical import of transcendental arguments. Although ambitious transcendental arguments are vulnerable to Stroud’s dilemma, I argue that modest transcendental arguments are promising. Modest transcendental arguments start from an undoubted psychological fact and then reveal some necessary theoretical commitments that we must make. Regarding these commitments, I submit that we are type II epistemically justified in believing them. Our commitments are type II justified in the sense that making these commitments can promote our epistemic goals, namely, the attainment of true beliefs and the avoidance of false beliefs. After that, in light of Cassam’s objection to transcendental arguments, I contend that a modest transcendental argument should be used as a stepping stone for a diagnostic anti-sceptical proposal. In chapter three, I develop a Davidsonian response to closureRK-based radical scepticism. This form of sceptical argument rests on the idea that there is no limitation on our acquisition of rationally grounded knowledge. I discuss Davidson’s theory of radical interpretation, the principle of charity and triangulation. Crucially, he argues that the content of a knowledge-apt everyday belief is determined by its typical cause and other relevant beliefs. Further, among different propositional attitudes, belief is prior to doubt. What follows is that doubt must be local because it must presume other content-determining beliefs. Also, I explore Davidson’s view on the concept of belief. On his view, in order to have a knowledge-apt belief, we must have the concept of knowledge-apt belief. We can command this concept by having the concept of objective truth. Objective truth requires that we are aware of and are capable of appreciating the possibility of a belief’s being true or false. And this possibility cannot be appreciated unless we have some related contentful beliefs to identify the content of the very belief. However, we are committed to, as opposed to believing, the proposition that the sceptical hypothesis does not obtain. It is impossible to appreciate the possibility of our fundamental commitments being false from our own perspective, because fundamental commitments specify the general cause of our beliefs. A change in this regard would cause a total change of the content of all beliefs, which leaves us no contentful belief at all to make this possibility intelligible. Therefore, the closureRK principle is not applicable to the evaluation of the sceptical hypothesis. Hence, we can retain the closureRK principle while evading the closureRK-based sceptical challenge. Unfortunately, the Davidsonian response cannot deal with the underdeterminationRK-based sceptical challenge, because we are not shown whether our rational support in the good case favours one’s everyday belief over its sceptical counterpart. In chapter four, I examine how epistemological disjunctivism can deal with underdeterminationRK-based radical scepticism. This form of sceptical argument assumes that our rational support provides at best inconclusive support for our beliefs. Therefore, a belief’s being rationally supported, no matter in the good case or in the bad case, is compatible with the belief’s being false. Epistemological disjunctivism claims that in paradigm cases of perceptual knowledge, our rational support can be both factive and reflectively accessible. The factive rational support at issue is one’s propositional seeing. I discuss both McDowell’s and Pritchard’s proposals for motivating factive seeing, and I argue for epistemological disjunctivism against three prime facie objections, i.e., the distinguishability problem, the basis problem and the access problem. When epistemological disjunctivism is shown to be a plausible view, I argue that underdeterminationRK-based radical scepticism can be dismissed. In particular, in the optimal case, factive rational support favours our everyday belief over the sceptical hypothesis. However, regarding closureRK-based radical scepticism, epistemological disjunctivism seems to licence a robust answer. The ambitious answer is that, in the good case, we can after all know the denial of the sceptical hypothesis in virtue of possessing factive rational support. And it is the immodesty of this answer that renders this response unpalatable. In the last chapter, I propose a combined treatment of the sceptical problem. Although both the Davidsonian response and the epistemological disjunctivist response can only deal with one aspect of the sceptical problem, their views are in fact mutually supportive. On the one hand, the Davidsonian response, together with a Wittgensteinian insight, shows that why rational support can only be provided in a local manner; on the other hand, epistemological disjunctivism reminds us that rational support can be factive in the good case. Putting these two points together allows us to answer the whole sceptical challenge in a uniform way. This combined proposal has three claims. First, our rational support can be both local and factive, so we can dismiss both sceptical arguments in one go. Second, the sceptical problem is a spurious paradox, so the combined treatment involves a diagnosis. This diagnosis starts from a modest transcendental argument which reveals some necessary commitments that we must make, and then proceeds to expose faulty assumptions in the sceptical paradox. Third, once the dubious assumptions are dislodged, we can evade the sceptical problem once and for all. In the end, we are offered with a satisfying response to radical scepticism. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt. Upshot: I focus my commentary on the fundamental metaphysical issue that Siegfried J. Schmidt’s very stimulating paper addresses in §45 and particularly upon the relationship between the ontological status of the processes from which worlds emerge and the temporality of the objects to be found therein. I argue that Schmidt’s emphasis on world-forming processes raises many questions concerning the (...) temporal stability of objects and the relationship between objects and actors belonging to different worlds. I suggest that some classic as well as contemporary thinkers (e.g., Fichte, Hegel, Heidegger, Gadamer, Foucault, and S. J. Gould) have faced similar problems and discuss how their answers could be integrated within Schmidt’s revised radical constructivism. (shrink)

In the first section of this paper I review the notion of Radical Interpretation, introduced by Donald Davidson in order to account for linguistic meaning and propositional thought. It is then argued that this concept, as embedded in Davidson's whole philosophical system, gives rise to a view of communication as a key explanatory concept in the social sciences. In the second section of the paper it is shown how this view bears upon the question as to what the bounds (...) of linguistic behaviour are. As opposed to major psychological and sociological perspectives on language, Davidson's communication-centred position gives rise to an inclusive, context-dependent answer to this question. (shrink)

Photo by Alex Guillaume on Unsplash Introduction The problem of climate change raises some important philosophical, existential questions. I propose a radical solution designed to provoke reflection on the role of humans in climate change. To push the theoretical limits of what measures people are willing to accept to combat it, an extreme population control tool is proposed: allowing people to reproduce only if they make a financial commitment guaranteeing a carbon-neutral upbringing. Solving the problem of climate change in (...) the long run by halting the procreation of human beings is controversial. In the absence of human beings and consequent climate change, other animals and plant species would benefit from an atmosphere more conducive to prolonging their existence and even improving their ability to thrive. If someone were to invent something to reverse the effects of climate change and improve animals’ lives, then human beings’ presence would be justified by the invention. Whether the propagation of the human species is beneficial to anyone or anything but human beings themselves is difficult to answer. Perhaps human beings are unfit to tackle this issue, being unable to judge it objectively. Managing Procreation: An alternative to Piecemeal Approaches Measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gases by nudging individuals and corporations may have a positive effect, but if their behavior is not climate neutral, they continue to contribute to climate change. Consequently, as long as the number of people increases, reducing greenhouse gases is at best a mitigation tool. If humans could rely solely on renewable energy, decreasing the population arguably would not be necessary. Significantly reducing the number of people appears to provide a solution to both problems: people who do not exist do not contribute to climate change, and renewable energy could meet the demand of a smaller population. One option is to let only those who produce the problem pay for its solution. One could determine the expected annual emission of greenhouse gases per person, assuming an average life expectancy, and calculate the costs to compensate them by, e.g., installing extra solar panels. Those expected costs could then be paid by the parents of each new person annually over the first eighteen years of that person’s life by dividing the total expected costs by eighteen. There are also practical difficulties. It would be difficult to determine the payment necessary. What should be done if a child has been born whose parents cannot afford to pay? In addition, child benefits could be canceled, contrary to recent incentives for child births instated in Italy,[1] where additional benefits will be made available to pay for childcare, and Hungary,[2] where women with four children or more will be exempted for life from paying income tax. A transition period could exist once the policy has been adopted, since it would be unreasonable to confront those who are already pregnant with costs they could not reasonably have expected. While the analysis is both hypothetical and theoretical, the impracticality is a noteworthy obstacle. There are several practical issues that cannot be addressed here, like the difficulty of calculating the added negative effects of each new individual and the unlikelihood that many citizens will support politicians who propose adopting policies that discourage having children. The upshot of what I have proposed is that climate change can be solved in the long run without financial costs to society as a whole, notwithstanding the transitional measures that would bring costs with them. Managing Procreation to Reduce Suffering Should this be deemed too harsh a stance, it is important to consider the basic issue of whether it is justified to introduce measures to reduce the number of people in an already overpopulated world, especially if climate change leads to additional suffering. One need not agree with Benatar, but his perspective must at least be taken seriously: It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.[3] Benatar argues that non-existence is preferable to existence,[4] which raises the question why new people should be created at all. Those who question whether this planet will be habitable for future generations presuppose that such generations will exist. If people are not brought into existence, they may be said to be deprived of what life has to offer, but life must not be presupposed to be something positive. Whether this is the case in fact merits an inquiry of its own. A solution to the problem of climate change despite an increased population does not equate to a positive outcome since it merely means that something negative is removed. After all, solving the problem is not a means to an end, but a means to a means, the latter means being a means to a happy life, which does not automatically ensue from a solution to the problem. Benatar, as an anti-natalist, argues that procreation is morally wrong. His basic idea is that there is an asymmetry between pleasure and pain and that the pleasure that is not experienced by someone because that person does not exist is not something bad whereas the absence of pain that is not experienced – for the same reason – is something good.[5] Accordingly, “The reason why we do not lament our failure to bring somebody into existence is because absent pleasures are not bad.”[6] One may question whether such a perspective suffices to prove that coming into existence is always a harm, but the assertion that coming into existence exposes a new being to potential harm is clear. Objections A drawback of the proposed radical solution, placing the financial impediment on procreation, is that it will not solve climate change in the short run. A significant drop in the number of people may have a positive effect in the long run, but for now the behavior of the people in existence is the problem. Other climate change mitigation policies would necessarily continue. Additionally, there are important practical reasons to continue to procreate. The benefits for the elderly are paid for by the labor force. It is a problem that new generations are created as mere means to benefit older people. Perhaps more troubling, a pyramid scheme is created: by the time those people have themselves become old, a new labor force must have been brought into existence, a process that must presumably continue. If a consideration for people in developing countries to have children is that they cannot provide for themselves at an advanced age, while benefits are either lacking or insufficient, developed countries could collectively fund a pension scheme.[7] This may be low-cost if it is tailored to the living standard in the countries in question and given the life expectancy. Such a pension scheme should be predicated on the countries’ efforts in reducing the birth rate. If the labor force decreases, the economy may suffer. The focus on economic growth is arguably one of the causes of climate change, but if the number of people is reduced, the living standard does not have to be compromised, since the economy can then still grow. If fewer people began to use natural resources and nonrenewable energy at higher per capita rates, then the procreation might not be beneficial to the climate. It would need to be accompanied by regulations on use. One may also object that only wealthy people will be able to afford children. This is correct, but there is no right to have a child one cannot afford. The right to procreate does not entail the right to have as many children as one wants.[8] Yet in many countries, like the United States, it is a fundamental right that is constitutionally protected. There are numerous social, emotional, and even biological reasons why people choose to procreate. These may include the joy of having a family, the hope that children may bring in society, and the intergenerational transference of knowledge. People may have a strong desire to raise children or even a religious duty. If someone procures a sports car that is highly polluting, it would be justifiable to impose a tax in such a case. Many taxes and fines are imposed on corporate polluters. Procreation is significantly different but if the issue is regarded with some distance, then a climate change prevention tax could be appropriate. Some may argue that raising children is expensive already, which nonetheless does not deter people from having children. The tax I propose would be additional and specifically dedicated to carbon neutrality, but it would be difficult to predict whether it would discourage procreation. One last objection may be that for those now dedicated to sustainability for preserving the earth for the sake of future generations, there would be little or no incentive to continue any climate change mitigation efforts at all. If they sense they cannot afford to procreate, they may simply use every natural resource rather than save the earth for animals or for next generations. In a democracy, this problem does not exist if the majority can afford to procreate and agree with legislation on the basis of which such behavior is discouraged or punished. CONCLUSION Prior to their existence, there is no obligation to bequeath the earth to next generations. Such generations will only exist if they are actually created, and there is no obligation to create them. The lack of existence should not be confused with harm. Climate change provides an important reason to stem overpopulation. Ironically, fast rates of procreation may lead to the earth becoming uninhabitable for humans altogether. The radical solution that has been proposed here is an unrealistic scenario. For now, the average global birth rate is just over 18 per thousand people, but there is a need to ensure that the number of people is not greater than the planet can endure. While it is better to prevent problems than to solve them, the interest in procreation and its associated joys, usefulness, and cultural value make mass reduction in the population unlikely. Some countries have smaller average family size than others and can act as models for reducing population in a less radical way. The need to continue efforts to reduce climate change persists. Whether it would curb population growth or not, an additional financial burden applied to neutralizing each person’s offspring’s carbon footprint provides a meaningful thought exercise that could help alleviate the pressure on current climate mitigation strategies. [1] The Local Italy, How Italy’s new ‘Family Act’ aims to increase the plunging birthrate, https://www.thelocal.it/20200612/what-you-need-to-know-about-italys-new-family-act/. [2] BBC, Hungary tries for baby boom with tax breaks and loan forgiveness, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47192612. [3] David Benatar, Better never to have been, 6. [4] David Benatar, Better never to have been, 44, 58. [5] David Benatar, Better never to have been, 14, 30, 38. [6] David Benatar, Better never to have been, 35. [7] Alastair Leithead, “Can Niger break out of its cycle of poverty?”, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41018081; Sebastien Malo, “Fewer children, fewer climate risks? Niger ponders a controversial option”, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-niger-climate-change-familyplanning-idUSKBN1WM11E. [8] Sarah Conly, “The Right to Procreation: Merits and Limits,” American Philosophical Quarterly 42, no. 2 : 105-115, 105, 106. (shrink)

Is libertarianism a progressive doctrine, or a reactionary one? Does libertarianism promise to liberate the poor and the marginalized from the yoke of state oppression, or does talk of "equal liberty" obscure the ways in which libertarian doctrines serve the interests of the rich and powerful? Through an examination of the history of libertarianism, this book argues that the answer is (and always has been): both. In this book we explore the neglected 19th century roots of libertarianism to show that (...) it emerged first as a radical and progressive doctrine. Libertarianism took a conservative turn in the 20th century primarily as a reaction against the rise of state socialism. Now, with international communism no longer a threat, libertarianism is in the midst of an identity crisis, with progressive and reactionary elements struggling to claim the doctrine as their own, most notably on issues of race. This book tells the history of libertarianism through an examination of six defining themes: private property, skepticism of authority, free markets, individualism, spontaneous order, and individual liberty. In doing so, it reveals that history to be longer, wider, and considerably more diverse than is commonly believed. It is a history full of internal tensions, idiosyncratic personalities, and surprising arguments. It is a history of the men (and sometimes women) who called themselves: The Individualists. (shrink)

This book is discussing patterns of radical religious thought in popular forms of Black music. The consistent influence of the Five Percent Nation on Rap music as one of the most esoteric groups among the manifold Black Muslim movements has already gained scholarly attention. However, it shares more than a strong pattern of reversed racism with the Bobo Shanti Order, the most rigid branch of the Rastafarian faith, globally popularized by Dancehall-Reggae artists like Sizzla or Capleton. Authentic devotion or (...) calculated marketing?Apart from providing a possible answer to this question, the historical shift of Bobo adherents from shunned extremists to firmly anchored personifications of authenticity in mainstream Rastafarian culture is being emphasized. A multi-layered comparative case study attempts to shed light on the re-contextualization of language as well as expressed dogmatic perceptions and symbolism, attitude towards other religious groups and aspects of ethnic discrimination. Further analysis includes the visibility of artists and their references to practical and moral issues directly derived from two obscure ideologies that managed to conquer airwaves and concert halls. (shrink)

In contemporary metaphysics, the doctrine that the fundamental facts are those which are wholly ungrounded is the received view or something near enough. Against this radical brutalism, several metaphysicians argued in favour of the existence of fundamental facts that are moderately brute or merely partially grounded. However, the arguments for moderately brute facts rely on controversial metaphysical scenarios. This paper aims to counteract the tendency in favour of radical brutalism on scientific grounds. It does so by showing that (...) naturalistic metaphysicians can appeal to plausible considerations from physical theory to establish the existence of moderately brute facts. But should the naturalistic metaphysician embrace moderate brutalism, namely the view that the fundamental facts are those which are merely partially ungrounded? Here I argue for a negative answer, recommending a more inclusive pluralism about the kinds of brute facts we can expect to find in nature. (shrink)

This article discusses R. G. Collingwood’s account of re-enactment and Donald Davidson’s account of radical translation. Both Collingwood and Davidson are concerned with the question “how is understanding possible?” and both seek to answer the question transcendentally by asking after the heuristic principles that guide the historian and the radical translator. Further, they both agree that the possibility of understanding rests on the presumption of rationality. But whereas Davidson’s principle of charity entails that truth is a presupposition or (...) heuristic principle of understanding, for Collingwood understanding rests on a commitment to internal consistency alone. Collingwood and Davidson diverge over the scope of the principle of charity because they have radically different conceptions of meaning. Davidson endorses an extensional semantics that links meaning with truth in the attempt to extrude intensional notions from a theory of meaning. Since radical translation rests on a truth-conditional semantics, it rules out the possibility that there may be statements that are intelligible even though based on false beliefs. Collingwood’s account of re-enactment, on the other hand, disconnects meaning from truth, thereby allowing for the possibility of understanding agents who have false beliefs. The paper argues, first, that Davidson’s account of radical translation rests on inappropriately naturalistic assumptions about the nature of understanding, and that Davidson commits this error because he develops his account of radical interpretation in response to an epistemological question that is motivated by a skeptical concern: “how can we know whether we have provided the correct interpretation?” Second, that in the twentieth century far too much philosophizing has been driven by epistemological concerns that have obscured attempts to provide adequate answers to the sort of conceptual question with which Collingwood is concerned, namely: “what does it mean to understand?”. (shrink)

The question “Why should I be moral?” has long haunted normative ethics. How one answers it depends critically upon one’s understanding of morality, self-interest, and the relation between them. Stephen Finlay, in “Too Much Morality”, challenges the conventional interpretation of morality in terms of mutual fellowship, offering instead the “radical” view that it demands complete altruistic self-abnegation: the abandonment of one’s own interests in favor of those of any “anonymous” other. He ameliorates this with the proviso that there (...) is no rational basis for morality’s presumption of precedence, leaving it up to each person to decide when and whether they prefer self-interested concerns to more stringent moral requirements. I counter Finlay’s radical altruism with fair egalitarianism, a more congenial interpretation of moral normativity that repudiates self-abnegation and holds instead that ceteris paribus everybody’s interests are equal. As a result, supererogation and moral sainthood become more intelligible, and the choice between self-interest and morality becomes one between different decision procedures, the particular advantage of morality being others compatible results. (shrink)

The paper discusses one of the later texts by Jacques Derrida. The text allows Derrida to be interpreted as a thinker of advanced modernity. Systematically it is possible to read modernity via the image of overcoming, which may be understood both in the sense of progress and restoration. The question Derrida asks is this: how can the potential of freedom to overcome be preserved without succumbing to teleology that informs it? The answer lies in the notion of future, which as (...) the simply uncontrollable cannot be situated in any history. However, Derrida‘s attempt to normatively fill the uncontrollable future by relying on Kant‘s practical philosophy and legitimise it as a form of the mind fails. The notion remains empty, as can be shown by setting the boundary against Nietzsche. Nietzsche‘s notion of Übermensch hints at modernity as a future that liberates it from the pressure of history. Nietzsche reflects the figure of overcoming without impoverishing it the way Derrida does.Der Beitrag diskutiert einen der späten Texte von Jacques Derrida. Der Text erlaubt es, Derrida als einen Denker der fortgeschrittenen Moderne zu interpretieren. Systematisch lässt sich die Moderne durch die Figur der Überwindung lesen, die sowohl im Sinne des Fortschritts als der Restauration verstanden werden kann. Derridas Frage lautet: Wie kann das Freiheitspotenzial der Überwindung beibehalten werden, ohne der in ihr liegenden Teleologie anheimzufallen? Eine Antwort ergibt sich durch den Begriff einer Zukunft, die als das schlechthin Unverfügbare in keiner Geschichte mehr situiert werden kann. Allerdings misslingt Derridas Versuch, diese unverfügbare Zukunft in Anlehnung an Kants praktische Philosophie normativ aufzuladen und als eine Form der Vernunft auszuweisen. Der Begriff bleibt leer, wie in Abgrenzung zu Nietzsche gezeigt werden kann. In Nietzsches Begriff des Übermenschen entwirft sich die Moderne auf eine Zukunft, die sie aus dem Zwang der Geschichte befreit. Nietzsche reflektiert die Figur der Überwindung, ohne sie, wie Derrida, zu entleeren.U prilogu se diskutira jedan od kasnijih tekstova Jacquesa Derride. Tekst dopušta interpretirati Derridu kao mislioca uznapredovale moderne. Sistematski je moguće modernu čitati kroz figuru prevladavanja, koja se može razumjeti u smislu napretka kao i restauracije. Derridino pitanje glasi: kako se može očuvati potencijal slobode prevladavanja, a da se ne podlegne teleologiji koja leži u njemu? Odgovor se nadaje u pojmu budućnosti, koja se kao ono jednostavno neovladljivo ne može više situirati ni u jednoj povijesti. No, propada Derridin pokušaj da tu neovladljivu budućnost normativno ispuni u osloncu na Kantovu praktičku filozofiju i legitimira je kao formu uma. Pojam ostaje prazan, kako se može pokazati u razgraničenju spram Nietzschea. U Nietzscheovu pojmu nadčovjeka nabacuje se moderna kao budućnost, koja je oslobađa prisile povijesti. Nietzsche reflektira figuru prevladavanja, a da je ne osiromašuje poput Derride. (shrink)

Problem: There is currently a great deal of mysticism, uncritical hype, and blind adulation of imaginary mathematical and physical entities in popular culture. We seek to explore what a radical constructivist perspective on mathematical entities might entail, and to draw out the implications of this perspective for how we think about the nature of mathematical entities. Method: Conceptual analysis. Results: If we want to avoid the introduction of entities that are ill-defined and inaccessible to verification, then formal systems need (...) to avoid introduction of potential and actual infinities. If decidability and consistency are desired, keep formal systems finite. Infinity is a useful heuristic concept, but has no place in proof theory. Implications: We attempt to debunk many of the mysticisms and uncritical adulations of Gödelian arguments and to ground mathematical foundations in intersubjectively verifiable operations of limited observers. We hope that these insights will be useful to anyone trying to make sense of claims about the nature of formal systems. If we return to the notion of formal systems as concrete, finite systems, then we can be clear about the nature of computations that can be physically realized. In practical terms, the answer is not to proscribe notions of the infinite, but to recognize that these concepts have a different status with respect to their verifiability. We need to demarcate clearly the realm of free creation and imagination, where platonic entities are useful heuristic devices, and the realm of verification, testing, and proof, where infinities introduce ill-defined entities that create ambiguities and undecidable, ill-posed sets of propositions. Constructivist content: The paper attempts to extend the scope of radical constructivist perspective to mathematical systems, and to discuss the relationships between radical constructivism and other allied, yet distinct perspectives in the debate over the foundations of mathematics, such as psychological constructivism and mathematical constructivism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.3 (2000) 193-220 [Access article in PDF] Unveiling Esther as a Pragmatic Radical Rhetoric Susan Zaeske Ahasuerus, king of Persia, hosted in the courtyard of his pavilion a grand feast bountiful in royal wine. Likewise, Queen Vashti gave a feast for the women in the king's palace. On the last day of the celebration, an inebriated Ahasuerus commanded Vashti to appear wearing her crown (only (...) her crown, according to some interpretations 1 ) to show the people her beauty. She refused. Burning with anger, Ahasuerus consulted his advisors with regard to how he should respond to the affront. They concluded that not just the king, but all husbands of the kingdom had been wronged. They advised the king to depose Vashti and issue a law commanding all wives to obey their husbands. Following this advice, Ahasuerus uncrowned Vashti and selected as his new queen the beautiful Esther, who hid the fact that she was a Jew.Esther had been raised in the provinces by her cousin, Mordecai, 2 who came with her to the king's city. One day when Mordecai encountered the king's prime minister, Haman, he refused to obey the law commanding all to bow before the king's official because Haman was an infamous enemy of the Jews. Haman was so angered by Mordecai's insolence that he decided to seek revenge by destroying not just Mordecai, but all the Jews in the kingdom. After casting lots to determine the best time to approach the king, Haman obtained Ahasuerus's permission to annihilate the Jews.When he learned of the imminent execution, Mordecai put on sackcloth and ashes and made his way through the streets of Susa, wailing. Through a messenger, Mordecai bid Esther to intercede with the king on behalf of her people. She protested that doing so would be a dangerous act because approaching the king without summons was an offense punishable by death. Reminded by Mordecai that inaction on her part meant death for her people, and possibly herself, Esther resolved to beseech the king. She commanded Mordecai to gather all the Jews in the city to fast and pray for her for three days. Then, Esther pledged, "I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish!" (Esther 4:16). [End Page 193]On the third day, Esther stood waiting in the inner courtyard of the palace, in front of the king's quarters, where he was sitting on his throne. When Ahasuerus noticed the queen, she won his favor and he extended his gold scepter. The king then said to her, "What do you want Queen Esther? What is your petition? Even if it be half of my kingdom, you may have it"(Esther 5:3). Esther did not immediately state her request, but invited the king and Haman to a banquet she would prepare for them. At the banquet, the king again invited her request. Again, she deferred, instead asking both men to another banquet.During the night between banquets, the king suffered a bout of insomnia and ordered the book of records brought to him. Ahasuerus read that Mordecai the Jew had saved his life by informing the king's guards of an assassination plot. The next day, the king asked Haman how best to honor a man for his loyalty. Thinking that Ahasuerus wished to honor him, Haman suggested that such a man should be paraded through the streets on a fine horse. To Haman's horror, he was ordered to lead a celebratory parade for his worst enemy, Mordecai.Haman was so distraught that he was almost late for the second banquet in the queen's chambers. Once all were assembled, the king repeated his offer to receive Esther's petition. She answered, "If I have obtained your favor, Your Majesty and if it please the king, let my life be granted to me at my request. And my people's at my petition! For we've been sold, I and my people, for destruction! For slaughter and annihilation... (shrink)

This book suggests that religion, in its usual sense, can be replaced by something better, that the human spirit or subjectivity can be the subject of scientific study and that lack of purpose or design in the universe is not a handicap but a positive opportunity for intelligent beings to make of the universe and its contents what they reasonably can. The book breaks new ground in suggesting a radical alternative to religion. It offers a scientific and humanist alternative (...) to religion which appeals to people’s critical faculties rather than emotions or intuitions. It also challenges current views of causation and the principle of sufficient reason by stressing the subjectivity of our reasoning powers and clarifying these in relation to an independent external reality. It develops and elaborates a notion of the˜noosphere™ within a theoretical system, this enables the notion to assume a scientific importance which it currently lacks because it is treated as an isolated, eccentric and rather mystical idea. (shrink)

Breaking new ground by suggesting a radical alternative to religion, this book offers a scientific and humanist alternative to religion which appeals to people's critical faculties rather than emotions or intuitions. It suggests that religion, in its usual sense, can be replaced by something better, that the human spirit or subjectivity can be the subject of scientific study and that lack of purpose or design in the universe is not a handicap but a positive opportunity for intelligent beings to (...) make of the universe and its contents what they reasonably can. (shrink)

Context: Few professional philosophers have addressed in any detail radical constructivism, but have focused instead on the related assumptions and limitations of postmodern epistemology, various anti-realisms, and subjective relativism. Problem: In an attempt to supply a philosophical answer to the guest editors’ question, “Why isn’t everyone a radical constructivist?” I address the realist (hence non-radical) implications of the theory’s invocation of “others” as an invariable, observer-independent, “external” constraint. Results: I argue that constructivists cannot consistently defend a radically (...) subjectivist theory of knowing while remaining entirely agnostic about the nature and existence of the larger world (including independent others). That is, any non-solipsistic account of human experience must explicitly acknowledge its extra-subjective, ontological dimension. Implications: It follows that no pedagogical, social, philosophical, or commonsensical insight associated with so-called “trivial” or “social” constructivism survives or receives any support from the move to radical constructivism. (shrink)

Whether or not Marxism leads straight to authoritarianism and the destruction of individual liberty is a question which has long exercised both theorists and politicians. This paper deals with a narrower, though related issue: Is Marxism actually reconcilable with radical democracy, the type of democracy advocated by those, including Marxists, who berate the iniquities and hypocrisy of parliamentary liberalism? The answer, according to my paper, is no. The Marxist tradition contains four characteristic features which tend to contradict the participatory (...) procedures most Marxists profess to desire. These features are: (1) the view of Marxism as a science, yielding objective solutions to social and political dilemmas; (2) the messianic aspiration for a society of perfect unity; (3) the belief that human rights are not independent moral norms but so much bourgeois ?ideological nonsense? (Marx), expressing the antagonistic relationships of the capitalist regime; and (4) hostility to the market mechanism, which results in a preference for a totally planned economy. Marxism, unless revised beyond recognition, would seem, paradoxically, to be more congruous with the élitist, constricted type of democracy we have in the West than with the more egalitarian mode of decision?making defended in the writings of Marx himself. (shrink)

Many Levinasians are prone to merely assert or presuppose that the Other is ‘radically Other’, and that such Otherness is of patent ethical significance. But building ethics into the very concept of ‘the Other’ seems question-begging. What then, if not mere Otherness, might motivate Levinasian responsibility? In the following discussion I argue that this can best be answered by reading Levinas as a post-Holocaust thinker, preoccupied with how one’s simply being-here constitutes a ‘usurpation of spaces belonging to the other’. Then, (...) drawing on Schutz’s phenomenology, I explain how the resultant usurpatory bad conscience presupposes the embodied ‘interchangeability’ of self and Other. As such, one can be said to ‘usurp’ the Other’s place only insofar as self and Other are not radically different. (shrink)

Context: Despite many obvious advantages (radical) constructivism has over other philosophies it has failed to become a mainstream philosophy that is widely taught and discussed. Problem: What are the reasons for this failure? Can we identify issues that make it difficult for scholars to accept and even embrace radical constructivist ideas? What is the best way to characterize, explain, and eventually refute objections? Method: By collecting articles from both proponents and opponents of radical constructivism the editors of (...) the special issue tried to present a range of answers to these questions. Results: Some problems are due to known objections to radical constructivism, in particular the idea that being responsible for one’s own constructions opens doors to a “whatever” attitude. Another important insight is that constructivism seems to resemble a river delta with ever branching new sub-disciplines that become increasingly incompatible with each other. Implications: The insights gained from the contributions may lead to a re-orientation of (radical) constructivism that will include less misunderstandings among its critics and to a higher acceptance in the academic community. (shrink)

It is hard not to sympathise with Professor Honderich's starting point. It is easy to feel pessimistic about philosophy's ability to throw light on the nature of consciousness. What, then, to do? One option is to persist with the various current approaches. It is clear that Honderich thinks this would be akin to putting more effort into trying to work out the temporal priority of the chicken and the egg. The thought of the orthodox is that an account of consciousness (...) is going to be either fundamentally materialist or fundamentally dualist. The first of these is untenable as consciousness has other or more than neural properties. The second is untenable for various reasons, Honderich's favoured one being that it renders consciousness as out of space and of a mysterious nature. A second option would be to follow Colin McGinn's lead, and think that the problem is of such a nature that it is necessarily unsolvable (McGinn, 1989). Alternatively, we should be more radical and think creatively, not necessarily respecting our current conceptual boundaries between the mental and the physical, the inside and the outside. The solution, Honderich says, lies in the thought that `my consciousness now consists in the existence of a world' (Honderich, 2004, p. 130). I shall say a little about what I understand by this claim, by raising what I take to be three obvious questions, looking at Honderich's answers them, and inviting some further clarification. Throughout I will address only the question of perceptual consciousness. (shrink)

Plato articulates a deep perplexity about inquiry in ?Meno's Paradox??the claim that one can inquire neither into what one knows, nor into what one does not know. Although some commentators have wrestled with the paradox itself, many suppose that the paradox of inquiry is special to Plato, arising from peculiarities of the Socratic elenchus or of Platonic epistemology. But there is nothing peculiarly Platonic in this puzzle. For it arises, too, in classical Indian philosophical discussions, where it is formulated with (...) great clarity, and analysed in a way that casts it in a new light. We present three treatments of the puzzle in Indian philosophy, as a way of refining and sharpening our understanding of the paradox, before turning to the most radical of the Indian philosophers to tackle it. The Indian philosophers who are optimistic that the paradox can be resolved appeal to the existence of prior beliefs, and to the resources embedded in language to explain how we can investigate, and so move from ignorance to knowledge. Highlighting this structural feature of inquiry, however, allows the pessimist philosopher to demonstrate that the paradox stands. The incoherence of inquiry is rooted in the very idea of aiming our desires at the unknown. Asking questions and giving answers rests on referential intentions targeting objects in a region of epistemic darkness, and so our ?inquiry sceptic? also finds structurally similar forms of incoherence in the pragmatics of interrogative discourse. (shrink)

This work focuses on the topic of freedom. The author starts with the old issue of free will — do we as individual human beings choose our conduct, at least partly independently, freely? He comes down on the side of libertarians who answer Yes, and scorns the compatibilism of philosophers like Daniel Dennett, who try to rescue some kind of freedom from a physically determined universe. From here he moves on to apply his belief in radical freedom to areas (...) of life such as religion, politics, and morality, tackling subjects as diverse as taxation, private property, justice and the welfare state. (shrink)

Few commentators (if any) would question Schrader's poignant obser­vation that 'the doctrine of the thing in itself presents the single greatest stumbling block in the Kantian philosophy' [S5:49]. Understanding what Kant meant by the doctrine i.e., the role it plays both in his overall System and in his transcendental idealism can help prevent it from being discarded 'as a per­versity' [49], inasmuch as it can be interpreted in such a way that it makes quite good sense [see VI.2]. Yet even (...) the most coherent interpretation could not prevent the philosopher who demands knowledge from 'stumbling' over it; for, accord­ing to Kant, the thing in itself is by definition unknow­able. In V.3 we saw, however, that there is one alternative to faith as the ultimate jus­tification for its employment which, if successful, would satisfy even the most persistent skeptic: viz., to justify the thing in itself by constructing a valid transcendental argument for the necessity of its existence. Since any ap­peal to faith would thereby be rendered superflu­ous, we must now examine more carefully the possibility of realizing this goal. For, although Kant him­self did not believe he required such a transcendental argu­ment, it may be pos­sible to reconstruct his System on the basis of a slightly different presup­posi­tion, such as that the thing in itself can, in fact, be proved to exist and to have certain knowable characteristics. Hence, in this Appendix I shall analyze the logical consistency of an affirmative answer to the meta­critical question: Is the thing in itself knowable? Our answer to this question will inevitably determine to a large extent how we should approach the task of interpreting the elements of Kant's Critical philosophy (as in Part Three), so it is important to deal with it seriously. (shrink)

Serious re-examination of participatory traditions of democracy is long overdue. Iconically central to such traditions of democratic education is the practice of whole School Meetings. More usually associated with radical work within the private sector, School Meetings are here explored in detail through two examples from publicly funded education, Epping House School, a mixed residential primary/elementary school for students with severe emotional, social and behavioural difficulties and secondary/high schools within the Just Community School movement in the USA. In addition (...) to providing richly textured accounts of the multiple realities and challenges of pioneering overtly democratic practices such as School Meetings within the publicly funded sector of education substantial attention is paid to analytic engagement with the kind of organisational structures, practices and cultures that seem to play an important role in their successful operation and development. The different phenomenological and theoretical strands weaving their way through the texture of Meeting practices also raise a number of key issues within the fields of social and political philosophy, in particular, whether School Meetings are best understood as predominantly political or communal phenomena. In gesturing towards the philosophical groundwork of a satisfactory answer I argue for the importance of the undeservedly neglected notion of democratic fellowship within the lexicon of democratic polity and aspiration. (shrink)

If $G$ is a group with a supersimple theory having a finite $SU$-rank, then the subgroup of $G$ generated by all of its normal nilpotent subgroups is definable and nilpotent. This answers a question asked by Elwes, Jaligot, Macpherson and Ryten. If $H$ is any group with a supersimple theory, then the subgroup of $H$ generated by all of its normal soluble subgroups is definable and soluble.

In this paper, we offer a novel solution to the much discussed " answering machine puzzle " and similarly problematic cases for the Kaplanian view of temporal indexicals. The solution we propose consists in an appeal to a well-established and (for many still) useful framework: Reichenbach's theory of tense and aspect. Starting from some more recent articulations of the theory in its application to temporal adverbials, we show how it can be applied to 'now' so that to provide an easy (...) and intuitive solution to the puzzle. In addition, the proposed solution, while departing in several important respects from the Kaplanian orthodoxy, it remains conservative in that it preserves some of Kaplan's central tenets about 'now', thus making it less radical than many of the alternative solutions found in literature. (shrink)

Successive waves of global protest since 1999 have encouraged leading contemporary political theorists to argue that politics has fundamentally changed in the last twenty years, with a new type of politics gaining momentum over elite, representative institutions. The new politics is frequently described as radical, but what does radicalism mean for the conduct of politics? Capturing the innovative practices of contemporary radicals, Routledge Handbook of Radical Politicsbrings together leading academics and campaigners to answer these questions and explore radicalism's (...) meaning to their practice. In the thirty-five chapters written for this collection, they collectively develop a picture of radicalism by investigating the intersections of activism and contemporary political theory. Across their experiences, the authors articulate radicalism's critical politics and discuss how diverse movements support and sustain each other. Together, they provide a wide-ranging account of the tensions, overlaps and promise of radical politics, while utilising scholarly literatures on grassroots populism to present a novel analysis of the relationship between radicalism and populism. Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics serves as a key reference for students and scholars interested in the politics and ideas of contemporary activist movements. er. Together, they provide a wide-ranging account of the tensions, overlaps and promise of radical politics, while utilising scholarly literatures on grassroots populism to present a novel analysis of the relationship between radicalism and populism. Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics serves as a key reference for students and scholars interested in the politics and ideas of contemporary activist movements. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:William James, Radical Empiricism, and the Affective Ground of Religious LifeJ. Edward Hackett (bio)In the following article, I aim to discuss three separate linkages in William James’s overall philosophy of religion. James’s philosophy of religion is based thoroughly on his radical empiricism, and this is the uniting thread often missed in contemporary scholarship. Radical empiricism makes it possible to link 1) his criticism of both representational (...) metaphysics and theology and that philosophy through James must take to heart the lack of access both representative metaphysics and theology conventionally claimed, and 2) the affective ground on which both philosophy and religion have operated for James, especially in his “Will to Believe” argument, and 3) how understanding the affective ground informs a thoroughly empiricist philosophy of religion that moves through his treatment of religious themes (e.g. his mysticism in The Varieties of Religious Experience) and how this affective ground emerges in the body and action.In showing the accuracy of James’s affective grounds of religion, many reading this essay will note that I am not directing my comments in any particular spiritual path. Instead, my Jamesian commitments are about the individual experience of religion, and for James, he affirmed the widest possible conception of religion to remain neutral to the power such traditions have. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, he writes, “Religion, whatever it is, is man’s total reaction upon life.” To get at and underneath these total reactions is not to regard these reactions as causal. Instead, to discover them, James writes, “you must go behind the foreground of existence and reach down to that curious sense of the whole residual cosmos.”1 This residualness is the affective dimension of experience and its unfolding relations that do not regularly become thematized in philosophy of religion. By contrast, many versions of philosophy of religion attempt to justify the epistemic beliefs about religion through theoretical reason. By contrast, our total reactions make us feel the marrow of our existence because the sense of the world’s presence causes us to feel existence. These religious feeling acts come to form our most completest [End Page 67] answer to the question: “What is the character of the universe in which we dwell?”2 In feeling existence, we experience an ongoing relation with particulars in the world. These feeling acts consist in a whole range of possible religious experiences. By looking at the character of the universe in which we dwell, James is asking: What is the place of feeling that comes to characterize the shared character of the universe in which we all dwell? Reason always comes last. Feeling is always constitutive of all later and built-up cognition.My essay is about the Jamesian-experiential-scaffolding surrounding the religious traditions as ways to encounter the meaning of suffering and uncertainty in these ongoing felt relations. Following the example of James Campbell, I am not committed to drawing a distinction between psychological and metaphysical interpretations of affectivity. Suffering and uncertainty are ways we encounter the feeling of existence. Feeling of existence is, then, akin to a nearly phenomenological-like ontology in which the psychological that inspired the metaphysical are not entirely separate.3 The experiential-scaffolding is regarded as the very same starting place for every single religious person. In this essay and what I hope to make clear in James is that philosophy starts in the affective ground where existence is felt and philosophized about rather than assuming the whole of reality is complete, determined, and somehow reflected in our contemplation of it.4 In essence, the lack of access to reality in-itself means that our beliefs are risky and must start in the marrow where existence is felt. [End Page 68] We risk everything in our spiritual practices. As James reminds, “On pragmatic principles we cannot reject any [religious] hypothesis if consequences useful to life flow from it.”5 That is what makes them so necessary on an existential and practical level. Our passional nature (what James calls the feeling sense of religious feeling in The Varieties of Religious Experience), thus, fuels what we need, and philosophical reflection turns into proposing concepts and beliefs... (shrink)

We believe that physics education has to meet today’s requirement for a qualitative approach to Quantum Mechanics (QM) worldview. An effective answer to the corresponding instructional problem might allow the basic ideas of QM to be accessed atan early stage of physics education. This paper presents part of a project that aims at introducing a sufficient, simple, and relevant teaching approach towards QM into in-/preservice teacher education, i.e., at providing teachers with the indispensable scientific knowledge and epistemological base needed for (...) a reform of science education along the aforementioned line. The investigation of teacher–learners’ (t-ls’) initial knowledge indicated that their main misconceptions appear to be the result of their pre-/in university traditional instruction, which causes the overlapping/mix-up of the conceptual frameworks of Classical Physics (CP) and QM. Assuming that these misconceptions form by nature epistemological obstacles to the acquisition of QM knowledge, the educational strategy proposed here aims at leading t-ls to form a conceptual structure that includes CP and QM as two totally independent conceptual systems. Accepting, furthermore, that the complete distinction of these systems demands a radical reconstruction of t-ls’ initial knowledge, we present here an instructional model that bases the required reconstruction on the juxtaposition of two models that constitute the signal point of twentieth century’s “paradigm shift”: (a) Bohr’s semiclassical atom model, and (b) the model of the atom accepted by modern physics theory. (shrink)

This study focuses on the concept of people developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in the context of radical theories of democracy and populism. People is defined as a subjectivity established as a contingency in the conflictual environment of politics. The construction of the people is a condition of the existence of populist politics as a form of subject that enables the division of politics and social into two camps in the form of friend/enemy and the formation of (...) antagonisms. The article seeks to answer the question of how to create a political order in Laclau and Mouffe's conception of the people in a pluralistic society, in order to cleanse politics from antagonistic (struggle between enemies) relations and transform it into agonistic (struggle between adversaries) relations, despite the danger of eliminating each other through a friend-enemy relationship. In this study, it will be discussed whether the antagonism that constitutes the foundation of politics and society is indestructible and whether it is a subject figure in which the people is organized as a counter-hegemonic subject against certain kinds of antagonisms and whether those who are partners can come together agonistically. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of Ghazālī's encounter with scepticism in the Deliverance from Error. For Ghazālī, I argue, radical scepticism about the possibility of knowledge ensues from intellectualist assumptions about the nature of justification. On the reading that I will propose, Ghazālī holds that foundational knowledge can only be justified via actions that lead to transformative experiences.