This thesis is a comparative study into the concept of duty in Gewirthian Kantianism and Pre-Qin Confucianism. It aims to bring out some similarities between the two traditions that are often overlooked and which are a) important, and b) give rise to specific questions that are in need of further exploration from the broader framework of the conceptual question of human dignity as the foundation of human rights (as endorsed in the UDHR).

This article provides an introduction to a new trend in continental philosophy, the turn toward metaphysics, realism and speculative philosophy. This stands in sharp contrast with the anitrealist and correlationist traditions that have held sway since Kant’s Copernican Revolution in 1781. It is claimed that the study of religion and gender has been shaped by the antirealist legacy of Kant, but there are good reasons for taking account of the new ‘speculative turn’. Two examples from the leading exponent of this (...) turn, speculative realism, are introduced, and some provisional notes toward applying these to the gender-critical turn in the study of religion are considered. Research notes on the current state of the Goddess movement serve as a test case for the introduction of an object-oriented ontology into religious and gender studies. (shrink)

This study provides an overview of the life and work of the seventeenth-century Utrecht professor of philosophy Henricus Reneri, with special focus on his close relationship with René Descartes. Reneri met Descartes during the winter of 1628/29. At that time he worked as a tutor in Amsterdam. Thirteen years earlier, he had fled the Prince-Bishopric of Liège as a Calvinist convert and had come to Leiden, where he enrolled in theology. After he broke off his studies he found work tutoring (...) children of patrician families. But Reneri had higher ambitions. He wanted to teach philosophy, which he had studied at Leuven University before his conversion. In his free time Reneri carried out experiments and constructed instruments for the investigation of nature, such as the thermometer. Discontented with traditional philosophy, he participated in the search for a method to advance science. At that stage he met Descartes. In Descartes Reneri immediately recognized a genius who would change the face of philosophy. They became best friends, and when Reneri was appointed as professor of philosophy at the Deventer Illustre Gymnasium in 1631, followed by an appointment at the Utrecht Illustrious School (which became a university in 1636) three years later, Descartes followed him to both towns. Already from the founding of the Utrecht Illustrious School in 1634, Reneri tried out Cartesian explanations in his classes. The result was a reformed Aristotelianism, which combined Aristotle’s physics with elements from that of Descartes and from other corpuscular theories into an eclectic mix of his own. Initially Reneri was reluctant to openly promote Descartes’ philosophy, but the publication of the Discours de la méthode in 1637 made him more confident. In 1638, he publicly taught the Discours and supervised the defence of fully Cartesian theses. Moreover, Reneri encouraged Descartes to write and publish. Furthermore, Reneri played an important role in the formation of Descartes’ network in the Republic and introduced his friends to Descartes’ philosophy. These findings not only fill a lacuna in the scholarship on the early Descartes, but also shed new light on the earliest philosophical instruction at Utrecht University. Reneri was an educational reformer. He taught Aristotelian physics, but in order to make philosophy useful and popular again he wanted to make observation and experiment part of natural philosophy teaching. For this purpose, he devised a programme inspired by the empirical and inductive method of Francis Bacon, in which students were to actively participate. With this plan he was ahead of his time. In addition, Reneri was working on a method of logic in the Ramist tradition aiming at the organization of knowledge. His plans, however, were hardly noticed by the Aristotelians working in academia. Accordingly, his international scholarly network mainly consisted of non-academics. Reneri’s course of life also shows the importance of networks and the possibility of social ascent in the Republic. By building up a network of influential connections, he climbed up from a poor refugee to a professor who married into the Utrecht regent patriciate. (shrink)

The aim of this thesis is to find a definition of excuses and translate this definition into a logic model that shows what is needed for an excuse, which is made afterwards, to be regarded as a proper excuse. The definition is an overarching definition of concepts and restrictions on excuses found in philosophy, psychology and logics.

This article contributes to contemporary philosophy of technology by carrying out a diffractive reading of Ernst Cassirer’s “Form und Technik” (1930) and Gilbert Simondon’s Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (1958). Both thinkers, who are here brought together for the first time, stood on the brink of the defining bifurcations of twentieth-century philosophy. However, in their endeavor to come to grips with the “being” of technology, Cassirer and Simondon, each in their own way, were prompted to develop an ontology of (...) emergence that gives ontological priority to “technicity,” that is, to technology considered in its efficacy or operative functioning. By reading Cassirer’s and Simondon’s insights through one another, we aim to further develop this ontology of emergence, and, simultaneously, to demonstrate the relevance of these thinkers for present-day theorizing. As we hope to show, the insistence on the ontological force of technological apparatuses transverses received philosophical and ontological divides and revitalizes the notions of “nature” and “the human,” which are now understood as coevolving with technology. (shrink)

This dissertation investigates the issue of our moral duties to animals in the context of Kantian moral philosophy. Kantian arguments promise a fundamental and neutral justification of moral duties. Kantians traditionally hold that rational capacities that only humans seem to possess are necessary for moral status. This dissertation challenges this view. It is argued that if Kantian arguments justify duties to others at all, they also justify duties to animals. The first part of the dissertation argues that the Kantian view (...) of the nature and justification of moral duty does not necessarily imply that we have duties to only those who can act morally (moral agents). Moral duties are regarded as categorical requirements, which the agent has to act on regardless of whether this fulfills her other desires or is in her overall interest. Such duties are justified with a transcendental argument, designed to show that moral agents cannot rationally deny having these duties. Moral agents are consequently regarded as capable of guiding their conduct on the basis of principles that they recognize to be rationally required. However, it does not follow that moral principles require us to respect only moral agents. Respect for moral principles may imply an indirect duty not to undermine the capacity to act on them, but not a direct duty to respect moral agents as a whole, including their ability to act for nonmoral purposes (such as alleviating pain, or caring for loved ones). The question is what moral principles moral agents have to accept. The second part of this dissertation deals with arguments for the claim that all agents rationally have to accept certain moral principles (by e.g. Korsgaard and Gewirth). The third part concerns arguments for moral principles from the perspective of agents who interact in specific ways (e.g. hold each other responsible) (by e.g. Apel and Darwall). It is shown that agents’ desires for nonmoral purposes play a more important role in both types of argument than has been traditionally recognized. They must be regarded as the basis of sufficient reasons and valid moral claims unless there are more important countervailing considerations (such as conflicting purposes of the same or other agents). Otherwise, there may be formal rational requirements (e.g. consistency), but no substantive moral principles: reason would not prescribe specific actions for their own sake. As we act, and make moral claims on one another, on a basis that we seem to share with certain animals (namely, desiring to attain purposes), we equally have direct duties to them. We do have different duties to moral agents and animals. We have to take moral agents’ own claims about their good and the right way to act seriously. In the case of animals, advocates have to represent their viewpoint in debates on how we should act. This should make us reconsider the ways in which we currently use animals, but also casts a different light on the nature and source of our own moral claims. (shrink)

In this thesis I want to take a look at the extreme ends of the moral spectrum. Specifically, I am going to examine the very extremes of the moral spectrum, namely the amoralist and the moral saint. I want to take a look at the justifications we have for the intuitions people commonly hold about these two opposites; the intuition being that both an amoralist and a moral saint are undesirable ideals. In examining both cases, I aim to answer the (...) central question of my thesis: can the commonly held intuitions about both the amoralist and the moral saint be justified? (shrink)

Tycho Brahe completed his catalogue with the positions and magnitudes of 1004 fixed stars in 1598. This catalogue circulated in manuscript form. Brahe edited a shorter version with 777 stars, printed in 1602, and Kepler edited the full catalogue of 1004 stars, printed in 1627. We provide machine-readable versions of the three versions of the catalogue, describe the differences between them and briefly discuss their accuracy on the basis of comparison with modern data from the Hipparcos Catalogue. We also compare (...) our results with earlier analyses by Dreyer (1916, Tychonis Brahe Dani Scripta Astronomica, Vol. II) and Rawlins (1993, DIO, 3, 1), finding good overall agreement. The magnitudes given by Brahe correlate well with modern values, his longitudes and latitudes have error distributions with widths of 2´, with excess numbers of stars with larger errors (as compared to Gaussian distributions), in particular for the faintest stars. Errors in positions larger than 10´, which comprise about 15% of the entries, are likely due to computing or copying errors. (shrink)

This thesis examines, on a case study basis, how written texts and traditions function in the construction of a Roman philosophical identity in Seneca's Epistulae Morales, and how these moral letters operate within the shared cultural framework of Seneca and his audience. In sum, Seneca's Epistulae Morales aim to construct and legitimise a Roman philosophical identity, and to make the journey of moral progress undertaken by Seneca and the addressee Lucilius the paradigm for its wider Roman audience. The first part (...) of the book, consisting of two chapters, discusses the central theoretical concepts and how these can be applied effectively to the study of Seneca's letters. It studies the cultural context of Seneca and his audience as well as the textual traditions to which the Epistulae Morales belong. In the second part of my thesis four letters (Ep. 11, 15, 78, 106) serve as case studies, each letter constituting one of the four chapters. The central theme in the selection of letters is the topic of the body. The theme of the body helps to bear out Seneca's construction of a cultural identity and his reinterpretation of authoritative texts and traditions as it serves as an ideological battleground characterised by disagreement and professional competition for authority on the subject. Against the background of various competing views, Seneca assesses the importance of physical exercise, chooses mental health over bodily health, and discusses the inability to change inborn characteristics scuh as blushing. This study brings out the process of cultural identity construction in the letters, drawing attention to the nature of cultural memory as inscribed in literature, as well as the interpretation of 'our own' views and values, and those of 'others'. Seneca's aim to adapt Greek (Stoic) philosophy to a Roman audience calls for the integration of different cultural backgrounds. The ambitious claims of philosophy, combined with the partly critical Roman attitude towards Greek philosophy, provide a challenging background for his project of presenting philosophy as not merely a viable, but even the most suitable, option for a member of the Roman elite. At the same time, in order to appeal to his Roman audience, Seneca takes account of the Roman cultural perspective and customises the philosophical tradition by addressing Roman concerns and by writing in Latin. In addition, Seneca capitalises on the epistolary form to give personal advice, to underline the friendly bonds between him and Lucilius, and to present a model for others that actualises a philosophical life in accordance with Roman culture. By singling out five central identities in the letters—the human, Roman, upper-class, philosophical and Stoic identity—we further define key elements of Seneca's self-presentation. In placing emphasis on the arrangement of the different themes within each letter, on how epistolary features are employed, and on how text and audience presuppose one another, the book seeks to further our understanding of these individual letters, of the Epistulae Morales as a literary and philosophical work, and of the ways in which Seneca conveys his philosophical message to his audience. (shrink)

The Meaning of Learning and Knowing contains three parts. In part 1 the authors describe their own six-stage developmental model of linked learning and teaching conceptions. This model is based on the written essays of over 600 students of higher education. The authors compare their model to five well known epistemological models (Ways of knowing of Baxter Magolda and Belenky et al., Orders of consciousness of Kegan, Epistemological theories of Kuhn and the scheme of intellectual development of Perry). In addition, (...) the dimensions of the learning and teaching conceptions model are compared to more quantitative approaches to epistemology, referring to the EBQ of Schommer-Aikins, the ILS of Vermunt and Hofer’s personal theories. Through this the authors underpin their proposition that the model of learning and teaching conceptions provides a window onto a broader and more fundamental intellectual development that is of interest to society as well as to higher education. Finally, the authors link the empirically supported developmental epistemological model through possible developmental dynamics to a second tier of intellectual growth. Where the first five stages focus on learning to know, a second tier of five stages would seem to focus on learning to be. A second central proposition concerns the empirical evidence that teachers are none other than students grown up, implying that the developmental models developed within student thinking are equally valid for teacher thinking. The second part contains the empirical studies regarding the activating curriculum of the Hotelschool The Hague: Enterprising Learning. Longitudinal data of 224 students who experienced Enterprising Learning as well as the essays of 43 teachers of the Hotelschool who taught within this curriculum are the basis for an evaluation indicating that Enterprising Learning is more successful in facilitating epistemological growth than a traditional curriculum. In this section the authors explore in depth all the developments and in a separate section describe subtle in-category developments as well. The teacher data provided insight into teachers’ conceptions of learning and good teaching. The authors introduce two distinct types of destructive friction in education: disenchantment and nostalgia. In addition, while Enterprising Learning was more successful than the traditional curriculum, most of the students developed no more than one stage in four years and by far the majority remained less sophisticated than required in higher education. The distribution of the teachers’ learning conceptions found could provide a possible explanation for this relative lack of development, implying that to truly implement a developmental curriculum puts conditions on the epistemological sophistication of the teaching staff. In part 3 the consequences of student and teacher epistemological development on teaching and learning in higher education are discussed. Firstly, a case is made regarding the minimal epistemological sophistication that is necessary for higher education to attain its own espoused goal. Secondly, some avenues are explored regarding staff development: educating our educators. In the final chapter the main research questions are recapped, a number of more generic conclusions are drawn regarding the nature of the development and new avenues of research are proposed. (shrink)

[For an updated version of this thesis, see Frederik A. Bakker, Epicurean Meteorology: Sources, Method, Scope and Organization, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016] This dissertation consists of three studies dealing with various aspects of Epicurean cosmology. The first study discusses the Epicurean practice of explaining astronomical and meteorological phenomena by multiple alternative theories. The second study compares the meteorological accounts of Epicurus and Lucretius with other ancient meteorologies as regards the scope and order of their subject matter. The third one examines the (...) claim that Epicurus and Lucretius held the earth to be flat. (shrink)