These remarks take up the reflexive problematics of Being and Nothingness and related texts from a metalogical perspective. A mutually illuminating translation is posited between, on the one hand, Sartre’s theory of pure reflection, the linchpin of the works of Sartre’s early period and the site of their greatest difficulties, and, on the other hand, the quasi-formalism of diagonalization, the engine of the classical theorems of Cantor, Gödel, Tarski, Turing, etc. Surprisingly, the dialectic of mathematical logic from its (...) inception through the discovery of the diagonal theorems can be recognized as a particularly clear instance of the drama of reflection according to Sartre, especially in the positing and overcoming of its proper value-ideal, viz. the synthesis of consistency and completeness. Conversely, this translation solves a number of systematic problems about pure reflection’s relations to accessory reflection, phenomenological reflection, pre-reflective self-consciousness, conversion, and value. Negative foundations, the metaphysical position emerging from this translation between existential philosophy and metalogic, concurs by different paths with Badiou’s Being and Event in rejecting both ontotheological foundationalisms and constructivist antifoundationalisms. (shrink)

It is well known to Sartre scholars that Sartre claimed his ethical theory follows from his ontology in his early philosophy. However, this claim had not been examined as closely as it deserved. Some scholars accepted it, but none of them has given a plausible explanation of how ethics is supposed to follow from ontology. Others rejected it, without taking trouble to explore the possible connections between ontology and ethics. ;I think this claim should be taken seriously. For Sartre himself (...) took it seriously; he spent much time and energy developing ethical views that can be based on his ontology. Through a detailed study of two critically important notions in Sartre's early philosophy, "bad faith" and "pure reflection," I give a close and in-depth examination of this claim. On the basis of the examination, I conclude that Sartre's early ethical theory is a "failure." ;The first two chapters are preparatory. In the first chapter I clarify some of Sartre's basic terminologies in his early philosophy. In the second chapter I explicate Sartre's basic ontological project in Being and Nothingness. ;In the third chapter, I study the ontological characters of "pure reflection" that Sartre presented in Being and Nothingness, which prepares the ground for a study of the ethical characters of "pure reflection" in the fifth chapter. ;In the fourth chapter, I study the ethical implication of the ontological characters of bad faith. Through a detailed examination of the notion of "bad faith" in Being and Nothingness, I show that bad faith as Sartre presented it in Being and Nothingness has only trivial and non-salient ethical implication. ;In the fifth and last chapter, I study the ethical characters of pure reflection that Sartre presented in Notebooks for an Ethics, on the basis of which I show that the ethical characters of pure reflection do not exactly follow from its ontological characters. As a result of these studies, I conclude that in Sartre's early philosophy his ethics does not really follow from his ontology. (shrink)

헤겔은 흔히 현존하는 공동체의 규범을 비난하거나 논박하려는욕망을 포기하라고 가르치는 관습주의자로 간주되곤 한다. 이 글에서 나는 이런 통념과 반대로 헤겔의 인륜성 이론이 ‘현존하는 공동체적 규범을 맹목적으로 따르는 태도’가 유발하는 위험에 대한해법을 찾고자 했던 시도였음을 보여줄 것이다. 이를 위해서 먼저소포클레스의 『안티고네』를 후경에 두고 전개된 『정신현상학』의｢정신｣장의 논의를 간략히 조망한다. 여기서 헤겔은 ‘주어진 인륜적 법칙’들을 맹목적으로 따르는 태도가 윤리적 개인의 정체성은물론이고 일반적인 공동체적 규범의 종말을 초래한다는 사실을 명료히 드러내기 때문이다(1). 이어서 나는 이런 인륜적 습관과 관습의 맹목성이 초래하는 위험에 주목한 헤겔연구자들인 크리스토프멘케(Christoph Menke)와 율리아네 레벤티쉬(Juliane (...) Rebentisch) 가 내놓은 해법의 한계를 비판한다. 감각적 충동의 복원을 제안하는 멘케의 미학적 해법은 주체를 인륜적인 것 ‘바깥의’ 고유성으로이탈하도록 만들기 때문에 부적절하다면, 레벤티쉬의 반성적 아이러니의 해법은 인륜적 규범의 참에 대한 회의적 비판을 지속하도록 만듦으로써 분열 상태를 영구화하기 때문에 불충분하다(2). 이로부터 나는 인륜적 관습주의의 타개를 위한 유력한 헤겔주의적해법은 『법철학』의 서론에 등장하는 자유의지론의 요체를 이루는“자아에 대한 순수한 사유”에 있다는 해석적 테제를 방어한다. 자아에 대한 순수한 사유는 ‘나를 포함한 모든 자아를 보편적 자기동일자의 관점에서 동등하게 바라볼 수 있는 역량’을 가리키기 때문에, 공동체적 규범이 편협한 배타적 관습이 되어 버릴 위기를 가로막는 주체적 힘의 요체를 이룬다(3). (shrink)

In this article I aim to clarify the nature of Kant’s transformation of rationalist metaphysics into a science by focusing on his conception of transcendental reflection. The aim of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, it is argued, consists primarily in liberating the productive strand of former general metaphysics – its reflection on the a priori elements of all knowledge – from the uncritical application of these elements to all things (within general metaphysics itself) and to things that (...) can only be thought (in special metaphysics). After considering Kant’s conception of metaphysics and his various uses of the term ‘transcendental’ I closely examine his account of logical and transcendental reflection in the section entitled ‘On the Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection’. Whereas commentators generally attribute the activity called transcendental reflection to Kant alone, I contend, first, that Kant regarded philosophy as such to rely on a mode of transcendental reflection and, second, that the critical mode of transcendental reflection enacted in the Critique itself yields insight into the reason why our a priori knowledge is limited to the realm of possible objects. This is illustrated by outlining the difference between Kant’s and Leibniz’ employment of the concepts of reflection. (shrink)

In this article I aim to clarify the nature of Kant’s transformation of rationalist metaphysics into a science by focusing on his conception of transcendental reflection. The aim of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, it is argued, consists primarily in liberating the productive strand of former general metaphysics - its reflection on the a priori elements of all knowledge - from the uncritical application of these elements to all things and to things that can only be thought. (...) After considering Kant’s conception of metaphysics and his various uses of the term ‘transcendental’ I closely examine his account of logical and transcendental reflection in the section entitled ‘On the Amphiboly of the Concepts of Reflection’. Whereas commentators generally attribute the activity called transcendental reflection to Kant alone, I contend, first, that Kant regarded philosophy as such to rely on a mode of transcendental reflection and, second, that the critical mode of transcendental reflection enacted in the Critique itself yields insight into the reason why our a priori knowledge is limited to the realm of possible objects. This is illustrated by outlining the difference between Kant’s and Leibniz’ employment of the concepts of reflection. (shrink)

In this article I argue for two closely related conclusions: one concerned more narrowly with the internal consistency of G. A. Cohen's theorizing about justice and the unique rhetoric in which it is couched, the other connected to a more sweeping set of recommendations about how theorizing on justice is most promisingly undertaken. First, drawing on a famous insight of G. E. Moore, I argue that although the purity of Cohenian justice provides Cohen a platform from which to put some (...) extremely challenging criticisms to Rawls and Rawlsian liberals, at the same time it generates a sort of self-referential paradox for many of the theses about the concept of justice to which Cohen himself is committed. I go on to conclude, using Rawls's theory of justice as a model, that it would serve political philosophy well to conceive of justice with less purity than Cohen conceives of it. (shrink)

The article debates the problems of metaphors in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The most important four Kantian metaphors analyzed here are: the Copernican revolution, the island of truth and the stormy ocean of illusion, the starry heavens and the moral law, and the vision of perpetual peace. Besides the extensive analysis of these four metaphors and of some criticism directed towards some of the core problems of Kantianism, these pages try to answer to the question if Kant‟s metaphors are (...) still capable of stimulating our systematic thinking. (shrink)

There are two prevailing interpretations of the status which Kant accorded his claims in the Critique of Pure Reason: 1) he is analyzing our concepts of cognition and experience; 2) he is making empirical claims about our cognitive faculties. I argue for a third alternative: on Kant's account, all cognition consists in a reflective consciousness of our cognitive faculties, and in critique we analyze the content of this consciousness. Since Strawson raises a famous charge of incoherence against such a (...) position, I begin by showing that this charge is misplaced. (shrink)

In the Essai sur Vorigine des langues (), Jean-Jacques Rousseau reports on an eighteenth-century curiosity that has, from time to time, fascinated musicians ...

The aim of this paper is to show the unity and consistency of Kant’s reflections throughout all three sections of the Canon of Pure Reason. More specifically, I argue that Section 3, which is devoted to the issue of Fürwahrhalten, or taking-to-be-true, is crucial to achieving the methodological goal of the Canon, which is to justify the legitimacy of the speculative assumptions of pure reason. After examining the historical roots of Kant’s notion of a transcendental doctrine of method, (...) I focus on the methodological role that the practical element plays in the first two sections of the Canon. I then show how the limitations of Kant’s argument necessitate the introduction of a third crucial section, which serves both an analytic and an orientative function. (shrink)

A critical review of Peter Kivy's "Music Alone: Philosophical Reflections on the Purely Musical Experience" Cornelle, Cornell University Press, 1990.

This paper discusses Jean-Paul Sartre's conceptions of pure reflection and impure reflection, affirming the distinction but arguing for an intermediate mode of reflection: creolized reflection. Creolized reflection is not impure as it does not regard consciousness as being-in-itself, but it transcends pure reflection in concretely negating the relationship between consciousness and imposed conceptions of being-in-itself. I argue that this mode of reflection is at play in much Africana phenomenology and conceptions of (...) potentiated double consciousness. (shrink)

Prompted by recent recognitions of the omnipresence of horizontal gene transfer among microbial species and the associated emphasis on exchange, rather than isolation, as the driving force of evolution, this essay will reflect on hybridization as one of the central concerns of nineteenth-century biology. I will argue that an emphasis on horizontal exchange was already endorsed by ‘biology’ when it came into being around 1800 and was brought to full fruition with the emergence of genetics in 1900. The true revolution (...) in nineteenth-century life sciences, I maintain, consisted in a fundamental shift in ontology, which eroded the boundaries between individual and species, and allowed biologists to move up and down the scale of organic complexity. Life became a property extending both ‘downwards’, to the parts that organisms were composed of, as well as ‘upwards’, to the collective entities constituted by the relations of exchange and interaction that organisms engage in to reproduce. This mode of thinking was crystallized by Gregor Mendel and consolidated in the late nineteenth-century conjunction of biochemistry, microbiology and breeding in agro-industrial settings. This conjunction and its implications are especially exemplified by Wilhelm Johannsen’s and Martinus Beijerinck’s work on pure lines and cultures. An understanding of the subsequent constraints imposed by the evolutionary synthesis of the twentieth century on models of genetic systems may require us to rethink the history of biology and displace Darwin’s theory of natural selection from that history’s centre. (shrink)

Traditionally, conceptual thinking is explored via philosophical analysis or psychological experimentation. We seek to complement these mainstream approaches with the perspective of a first person exploration into pure thinking. To begin with, pure thinking is defined as a process and differentiated from its content, the concepts itself. Pure thinking is an active process and not a series of associative thought-events; we participate in it, we immerse ourselves within its active performance. On the other hand, concepts are also (...) of an experiential nature. And yet, little is known about what is it like to have or produce a thought, a concept, or an idea? Is a concept our own construction, a product of our own activity, or is it something we merely discover instead of producing it? We address these issues in a systematic first person enquiry into pure thinking. (shrink)

Species spreading beyond their native ranges are important study objects in ecology and environmental sciences and research on biological invasions is thriving. Along with an increase in the number of publications, the research field is experiencing an increase in the diversity of methods applied and questions asked. This development has facilitated an upsurge in information on invasions, but it also creates conceptual and practical challenges. To provide more transparency on which kind of research is actually done in the field, the (...) distinction between invasion science, encompassing the full spectrum of studies on biological invasions and the sub-field of invasion biology, studying patterns and mechanisms of species invasions with a focus on biological research questions, can be useful. Although covering a smaller range of topics, invasion biology today still is the driving force in invasion science and we discuss challenges stemming from its embeddedness in the social context. Invasion biology consists of the building blocks 'theory', 'case studies' and 'application', where theory takes the form of conceptual frameworks, major hypotheses and statistical generalisations. Referencing recent work in philosophy of science, we argue that invasion biology, like other biological or ecological disciplines, does not rely on the development of an all-encompassing theory in order to be efficient. We suggest, however, that theory development is nonetheless necessary and propose improvements. Recent advances in data visualisation, machine learning and semantic modelling are providing opportunities for enhancing knowledge management and presentation and we suggest that invasion science should use these to transform its ways of publishing, archiving and visualising research. Along with a stronger focus on studies going beyond purely biological questions, this would facilitate the efficient prevention and management of biological invasions. (shrink)

The main goals of this paper are two. First, it articulates what kinds of knowing pure knowing is in its narrow sense pure knowing as the capacity of moral judgment; pure knowing as moral knowledge and standard. Besides, it analyses pure knowing’s different features through a phenomenological description. All these aspects of pure knowing are tied by moral feeling. Second, this paper addresses two sets of theoretical problems that have been raised in Confucian discourse with (...) respect to pure knowing and Heavenly principle, primarily those that render Wang’s notion of pure knowing to be static recognition toward particular moral issues, or immediate response, which reading cannot really admit the possibilities of extension, reflection, moral cultivation, and reform of institution; and those that understand pure knowing to be merely abstract without concrete content, such as merely being a metaphysical substance. When properly understood, that is, from the perspective of moral emotions, Wang Yangming’s account of pure knowing provides for the possibilities of enhancement and cultivation, while insisting that the content of pure knowing is always accessible to us. (shrink)

Like Werner Pluhar's distinguished translation of _Critique of Judgment_ (Hackett Publishing Co., 1987), this new rendering of _Critique of Pure Reason_ reflects the elegant achievement of a master translator. This richly annotated volume offers translations of the complete texts of both the First (A) and Second (B) editions, as well as Kant's own notes. Extensive editorial notes by Werner Pluhar and James Ellington supply explanatory and terminological comments, translations of Latin and other foreign expressions, variant readings, cross-references to other (...) passages in the text and in other writings of Kant, and references to secondary works. An extensive bibliography, glossary, and detailed index are included. Patricia Kitcher's illuminating Introduction provides a roadmap to Kant's abstract and complex argumentation by firmly locating his view in the context of eighteenth-century--and current--attempts to understand the nature of the thinking mind and its ability to comprehend the physical universe. (shrink)

Democracy used to be seen as a relatively mechanical matter of merely adding up everyone's votes in free and fair elections. That mechanistic model has many virtues, among them allowing democracy to 'track the truth', where purely factual issues are all that is at stake. Political disputes invariably mix facts with values, however, and then it is essential to listen to what people are saying rather than merely note how they are voting. The great challenge is how to implement that (...) deliberative ideal among millions of people at once. In this strikingly original book, Goodin offers a solution: 'democratic deliberation within'. Building on models of ordinary conversational dynamics, he suggests that people simply imagine themselves in the position of various other people they have heard or read about and ask, 'What would they say about this proposal?' Informing the democratic imaginary then becomes the key to making deliberations more reflective - more empathetic, more considered, more expansive across time and distance. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that hybrid logic is the deductive setting most natural for Kripke semantics. We do so by investigating hybrid axiomatics for a variety of systems, ranging from the basic hybrid language (a decidable system with the same complexity as orthodox propositional modal logic) to the strong Priorean language (which offers full first-order expressivity).We show that hybrid logic offers a genuinely first-order perspective on Kripke semantics: it is possible to define base logics which extend automatically to a (...) wide variety of frame classes and to prove completeness using the Henkin method. In the weaker languages, this requires the use of non-orthodox rules. We discuss these rules in detail and prove non-eliminability and eliminability results. We also show how another type of rule, which reflects the structure of the strong Priorean language, can be employed to give an even wider coverage of frame classes. We show that this deductive apparatus gets progressively simpler as we work our way up the expressivity hierarchy, and conclude the paper by showing that the approach transfers to first-order hybrid logic. (shrink)

John Rawls’ “reflective equilibrium” ranges amongst the most popular conceptions in contemporary ethics when it comes to the basic methodological question of how to justify and trade off different normative positions and attitudes. Even where Rawls’ specific contractualist account is not adhered to, “reflective equilibrium” is readily adopted as the guiding idea of coherentist approaches, seeking moral justification not in a purely deductive or inductive manner, but in some balancing procedure that will eventually procure a stable adjustment of relevant doctrines (...) and standpoints. However, it appears that the widespread use of this idea has led to some considerable deviations from its meaning within Rawls’ original framework and to a critical loss of conceptual cogency as an ethico-hermeneutical tool. This contribution identifies three kinds of “balancing” constellations that are frequently, but inadequately brought forth under the heading of Rawlsian “reflective equilibrium”: (a) balancing theoretical accounts against intuitive convictions; (b) balancing general principles against particular judgements; (c) balancing opposite ethical conceptions or divergent moral statements, respectively. It is argued that each of these applications departs from Rawls’ original construction of “reflective equilibrium” and also deprives the idea of its reliability in clarifying and weighing moral stances. (shrink)

Case B. You tell me that eating meat is immoral. Although I believe that, left to my own devices, I would not think this, no matter how long I reflected, I adopt your attitude as my own. It is not that I believe that you are better informed about potentially relevant non-moral facts (e.g., about the conditions under which livestock is kept, or about the typical effects of eliminating meat from one’s diet). On the contrary, I know that I have (...) all of the non-moral information relevant to the issue that you have. (shrink)

Existing interpretations of Kant’s appeal to the spontaneity of the mind focus almost exclusively on the discussion of pure apperception in the Transcendental Deduction. The risk of such a strategy lies in the considerable degree of abstraction at which the argument of the Deduction is carried out: existing interpretations fail to reconnect adequately with any ground-level perspective on our cognitive lives. This paper works in the opposite direction. Drawing on Kant’s suggestion that the most basic picture we can have (...) of our cognitive capacity already makes reference to its state of excellence, or health (“sound understanding”), I set out by assembling Kant’s normative ground-level view of our cognitive lives, and then search for the fundamental condition of its possibility. This leads me to Kant’s conception of reflection as a normative requirement of judgment. Through examination of Kant’s remarks on reflection, I connect Kant’s preoccupation with the enlightenment ideal of originality (thinking for oneself) with his central appeal to the spontaneity of the mind. (shrink)

This paper inquires into the necessity and limits of what Edmund Husserl calls a “pure” phenomenological psychology. It argues that there may be merit to this notion as a kind of philosophical psychology, the notion of purity in clinical psychology would unnecessarily limit the kinds of factors that the psychologist must take into account in understanding and treating most of the psychological conditions the therapist faces. The paper suggests that phenomenological psychology nonetheless has value in providing a counter-balance to (...) naturalistically inclined psychology that for its part neglects the meaning of various life events for the agent and can serve as means of critical reflection on the operative concepts guiding psychological practice. It can also help correct a deterministic tendency in modern psychology that does not take seriously enough human beings’ capacity for self-reflection and for self-responsibility that can often serve as key elements in psychological therapy and healing. (shrink)