This paper scrutinizes the dialogical character of knowledge from the perspectives of Hegel’s and Davidson’s philosophies. First, it outlines their analogous trains of thought, particularly their “anti-representational” and “intersubjective” accounts of knowledge. Second, it draws a parallel between the two by discussing their contrasting views of the structure and goal of knowledge, showing that while Davidson advocates an open-ended, scheme-less empirical knowledge, Hegel maintains the notion of a (universal-rational) scheme and a goal-oriented dialectical process in which “the true is the (...) whole.” This section then critically traces their underlying disagreement to their divergent views on the nature of meaning, language, and thought. Finally, it argues that their views can be seen as complementary to two versions of dialectic, showing that while Hegel’s approach, akin to Platonic dialectic, focuses on the self-contained and “Truth”-oriented “negotiational” movement of ideas, Davidson’s, reminiscent of Socratic elenchus, emphasizes the truth-oriented ‘conversational’ interaction of subjects exchanging concepts. (shrink)

In addition to its main theme of freedom, Hegel’s political philosophy addresses the problem of poverty. This article proposes a theoretical foundation for a Hegelian welfare state by demonstrating how its rationale and concepts are derived from Hegel’s political philosophy. Poverty constitutes a fundamental deficiency in the modern liberal state focused on the self-actualization of its citizens. This poverty is not an accidental but a structural factor of modern market society, resulting from economic contingencies. The poor rabble is deprived of (...) the opportunities for self-actualization that market society provides. Therefore, the main task of a Hegelian welfare state is to secure the right of subsistence as a condition of the possibility of self-actualization. Without subsistence citizens are unable to develop and actualize their free will through property formation in market society. Derived from Hegel’s right of necessity and the guiding principle of freedom, the right of subsistence is paramount to the legitimacy of the state. Therefore, it cannot be left to the contingent morality of private charity. The right of subsistence does not only guarantee mere survival, but also includes a minimum of property needed to participate in market society. (shrink)

The paper discusses three talks, which were given at the meetings of the Philosophical Society of Berlin (Philosophische Gesellschaft zu Berlin) in the mid-1870s. In these talks, the principles of some main movements in contemporary philosophy (realism, absolute idealism, critical idealism) were elaborated and contrasted to each other. The paper focuses on the concepts of real-idealism and ideal-realism. All the discussants, Friedrich Frederichs, C. L. Michelet and J. H. von Kirchmann, introduce these concepts. Frederichs, an adherent of critical idealism, argues (...) only for the standpoint of real-idealism. Michelet, G. W. F. Hegel’s personal student and an adherent of absolute idealism, takes real-idealism and ideal-realism to be the two sides of the one coin. Kirchmann, an advocate of realism, regards real-idealism as an objective, and he is skeptical about the possibility to achieve it. (shrink)

Utterances of explicit performatives, such as “I order you to close the door,” have the forces named by the appearing verbs; here, the utterance has the force of ordering. These utterances utilize declarative sentences, which usually indicate the force of statements, rather than of any verbs contained in them. This leads many to theorize that explicit performatives are statements that cause their hearers to infer the forces they name. This article argues against this account on the grounds that it is (...) based on the false premise that hearers can unconsciously recognize illocutionary forces. Instead, I put forward the account that explicit performatives are nothing but the acts with the forces that they name. (shrink)

Supporters of the Evaluative Judgment Theories of Emotion mainly explore emotions from the perspective of cognitive evaluation and advocate that emotions are evaluative judgments. The Perceptual Theories of Emotion have made some modifications to the evaluative judgment of emotions, attempting to propose better theories. The Perceptual Theories of Emotion advocate verifying the similarities between emotions and perceptions through analogical reasoning. However, the Perceptual Theories of Emotion also have their problems. Compared to the Evaluative Judgment Theories of Emotion and the Perceptual (...) Theories of Emotion, the Embodied Emotion Theory has significant advantages, mainly reflected in avoiding the drawbacks of over-intellectualize emotions by evaluative judgments; infants and animals can also understand emotions through non-conceptualized ways of self-awareness and understanding of social rules and norms; the core relational property of emotions revealed in the embodied emotion theory demonstrates the action orientation of emotions, connects the organism’s body and external environment, and integrates both biological and social aspects, further clarifying the complexity and diversity of emotions. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that, on a reductionist reading of Buddhist no-self ontology, Buddhists could not have sincere ethical intentions toward persons. And if Buddhists cannot have sincere intentions toward persons, they cannot have second-personal moral reasons for acting. From this I conclude that Buddhists fail to qualify as genuine members of the moral community if, as some contemporary Anglo-American moral philosophers argue, such membership depends on an individual agent’s having the capacity to be motivated by second-personal moral reasons.

The uniqueness of Edith Stein’s approach to lived experience emerges only in light of intentionality as reasonableness. The “personal touch” or authentic affectivity means in this context one’s own “living body” in regard to a threefold dimension of the human experiencing: the personal, the humanistic, and the spiritual, and seems to echo those of Immanuel Kant’s, i.e., the soul, the world and God. Consequently, not whatever kind of own’s commitment is at stake. Moreover, no less important is the role of (...) community and its various types. For sure, Stein’s genuine account is found in dialogue with the phenomenologists of her time. It paves the way toward a community of life and life itself. Therefore, it seems to be possible to some extend to accord Stein’s account with contemporary discussions of the meaning of life and “a fundamental transformation of human existence.”. (shrink)

Hinging on a metaphysical examination of the concept of newness and Paul Guyer’s notion of the temporally extended self, this article analyzes what it means that we are a temporally extended being that is fashioned in time, which is none other than a transcendental object = newness, and argues that (fashioned) bodies can be things in themselves and mere phenomena simultaneously. Kant’s doctrine of self-positing assists us in decoding how the subject obtains an embodied experience while a thing in itself, (...) as well as how both a non-empirical affection and an empirical affection are at play, casually affecting the subject. By looking into how double affection is in operation, this article aims to broaden our understanding of Kant’s theory of self-consciousness. (shrink)

Smith asks whether patriotism and cosmopolitanism spring from the same source. If they do, we face two anomalies. First, we should expect a British subject to love France more than Great Britain because France has a larger population than Great Britain. Second, we should expect a British subject to love France more than a far-away country such as China given that the British subject is more familiar with the French than with the Chinese people. Both expectations are factually untrue. This (...) led Smith to reject the patriotism-cosmopolitanism continuum thesis. The love of country must spring from a source that is unrelated to the love of humankind. Nonetheless, neither kind of love can be reduced to substantive utility that informs the economist’s utility function and the social welfare function. Substantive utility appears as self-interest and other-interest (altruism). The altruist preference varies in intensity, depending on familiarity: people are ready to help more familiar people than less familiar ones. What complicates the discussion is that Smith uses the same term “familiarity” to discuss varying degrees of love: people tend to love more familiar people than less familiar ones. This paper sheds light on Smith’s confusing concept “universal benevolence”—which is best understood as the love of humankind. (shrink)

In this article after identifying four major trends in the discourse on Ethiopian philosophy, it will be argued that there is a need to introduce a mature conception of Ethiopian philosophy that can both diagnose existential predicaments and also has the ability of introducing an emancipatory dimension. At the heart of this article is the claim that there are four major trends in Ethiopian philosophy which is a discourse that is still looking for an identity and that these trends are (...) characterized by hermeneutics, intercultural philosophy, critical theory and indigenous Ethiopian philosophy. After identifying the limitations of the four trends in Ethiopian philosophy, the article will point towards the development of a new discourse in Ethiopian philosophy that has the power of pointing towards the emergence of a new discourse that is able to diagnose existing realties and also can engage in a dialogue with other philosophical traditions. (shrink)

This paper reinterprets Kant’s argument that conscience cannot err, in light of assessing the influence of Baumgarten’s opposite argument about an erring conscience. I thereby argue that, contra Kant and in agreement with Baumgarten, we have a duty to acquire the capacity of conscience and that we must develop our acute awareness of handling unwelcome events precisely because conscience is involved in deciding the inherent goodness of an action and yet prone to make mistakes. In substantiating this argument, I demonstrate (...) that it is helpful to demarcate self-judgment as a separate faculty in Kant’s theory of conscience. (shrink)

At every level, the study of organic life underlies the relational nature of its subject. Whether one looks at an organism as a whole and its relationship to its environment or other members of its species, or at the component parts of the organism at an organ system, cellular or even molecular level, there is an externally referential and thus relational nature to lived beings. There is perhaps no place as fruitful to illustrate this relationality than the field of immunology. (...) This paper argues that close attention to the phenomenon of relationality that is evidenced by natural scientific research provides an important occasion to demonstrate the wide-ranging validity of the sort of relational ontology defended by the tradition of phenomenological personalism. Such intersections as one discerns in interdisciplinary engagement between personalist phenomenology and immunology, moreover, can provide a basis for further clarification of the relation of person to the world of nature and vice versa in ways that call into question the dominance of reductive philosophies of nature. (shrink)

This article is devoted to the consideration of the problem of loneliness as a phenomenon of the modern world. The individual and his inner world are losing their primacy in the sphere of global political and economic changes in the modern world. The relevance of this study lies in the fact that loneliness is one of the most acute and pressing problems of society today, this problem determines the need for a theoretical basis and a modern concept of the phenomenon (...) of loneliness. This is not only a phenomenon in the life of a person, but also a crucial social phenomenon that requires deep and comprehensive social and philosophical understanding. The aim of this study is to provide theoretical justification for the phenomenon of loneliness as a phenomenon in modern society. The methodological basis of the research on the topic of study was the actual works of domestic and foreign scientists, who consider in their works such a phenomenon as loneliness. In order to achieve the stated goal of research and solve all the tasks, the following research methods were used: analysis, synthesis and generalization of scientific journalism, as well as classification. The circumstances and factors that determine the prevalence and level of loneliness in modern society of the Republic of Kazakhstan are considered. The theoretical meaning of the concept of “loneliness,” its social conditions, as well as the factors of the emergence and spread of the phenomenon of loneliness has been analyzed. This article analyses several current classifications of loneliness in the modern world, developed by domestic and foreign researchers. The emphasis is on causes, symptoms of loneliness as a phenomenon. The study showed that loneliness is an integral part of every person’s life, as well as having its advantages and disadvantages. The practical value of the study lies in the fact that the material considered in the scientific article can be used by psychologists and sociologists of the Republic of Kazakhstan to analyze this phenomenon when working with the population in the state. (shrink)

On its twenty-fifth anniversary, Fides et ratio remains relevant for its bold defense of reason and the complementarity of faith and reason. It describes a philosophy that is not the preserve of academics but the duty of every person. It asserts that philosophy is never contained in one system but is always open to new questions and further insights. St. John Paul defends a philosophy that welcomes pluralism based on the richness of being but rejects a pluralism based on the (...) impossibility of knowing the truth. Reflecting on Fides et ratio, this article describes six ways that theology uses philosophy and offers five lessons for philosophers, i.e., the universal character of philosophy, the complementarity of faith and reason, the necessity and limits of pluralism, the requirements for a philosophy to be consonant with theology, and the current reinvigoration of philosophy in seminaries. (shrink)

The epistemic value problem—that of explaining why knowledge is valuable, and in particular why it is more valuable than lesser epistemic standings, such as true belief—remains unsolved. Here, I argue that this problem can be solved by combining proper functionalism about knowledge with perfectionism about goodness. I begin by laying out the epistemic value problem and the extant challenges to solving it. I then proceed to begin solving the problem by explicating a broad and ecumenical form of proper functionalism. I (...) finish solving the problem by introducing the perfectionist theory of value and then showing how that theory of goodness, in tandem with proper functionalism, solves the epistemic value problem. (shrink)

Only concreta are causative, though other things can play a passive part in enabling them to do the causing that they do. Nonconcreta—platonic universals included—are just the instrumental and ethical values of concreta. There is no sense of the word in which both concreta and nonconcreta “exist”; but, coining one, we can say nothing “exists,” in that coined sense, over and above concreta, their vicissitudes and their values. That is nominalism.

This paper examines the use of the painting metaphor in the Republic, showing that earlier mentions of painting suggest an understanding of mimesis at odds with the critique of book X, and argues that this disagreement can only be understood in the dialogical context of the work as a whole. Early on, painters are said to be able to produce images truer and more beautiful than any existing object, and both the depiction of the city in speech itself and its (...) realization in practice are compared to the act of painting. Read in this context, the critique of mimesis in book X can be seen as a challenge to one of the central arguments of the Republic. But in critiquing images as representation of reality it leaves untouched the metaphorical use of images, and so allows the city in speech to fulfill its original purpose as an analogy for the soul. (shrink)

Many contemporary philosophers of mind disagree with substance dualism, saying that despite the failure of physical theories of mind, substance dualism cannot be advocated, because it faces more serious problems than physical theories, lacking compatibility with philosophical arguments and scientific evidence. Regardless of the validity of the arguments in support of substance dualism, it is demonstrated in this article that this theory is coherent, with no philosophical or scientific problems. The main arguments of opponents of substance dualism are explained and (...) criticized in this respect. Based on this, it becomes clear that the interaction of soul and body has a reasonable philosophical explanation, the problem of the pairing of soul and body, although it may not have a scientific explanation, it has a philosophical and theological solution, the principle of the physical causal closure lacks conclusive reasons and cannot reject the existence of the soul, the existence of the soul does not contradict the theory of evolution, the dependence of the soul on the brain is compatible with its independence, and finally, the principle of simplicity does not make any problem for accepting the substance dualism. (shrink)

Hebrews 4:15 says that Jesus was tempted like other human beings yet never sinned. Sinlessness is not the same as impeccability. Chalcedonian Christology or some variant of it seems necessary to show that Jesus was metaphysically unable to sin. Metaphysical impossibility to sin, though, appears to rule out temptation as experienced by ordinary human beings. This paper argues that Oliver D. Crisp, T. A. Hart, Brian Leftow, and Gerald O’Collins all fall short in trying to show how Jesus was both (...) impeccable and tempted as we are. (shrink)

As wars today involve the use of sophisticated weapons such as autonomous ones, this paper aims to address the moral permissibility of using autonomous weapons systems (AWS) in wars. In the debate on autonomous weapons, advocates argue based on AWS’s precision of targets (Arkin 2018) and it not being clouded by emotional judgments (Marchant, et.al 2011) and prohibitors who comment on the ethical and legal implications of autonomous weapons (A. Sharkey 2019; Blanchard 2022). However, there has been relatively little development (...) of compliance of the autonomous weapons with all the principles of jus in bello, amongst the scholarship as well as its engagement with the just war framework broadly. To assess the moral compliance of AWS, the paper focuses on just conduct or the jus in bello principles. It closely examines all the three principles of necessity, discrimination, and proportionality that makeup just conduct as well as the legal body of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Through a close analysis of all the principles of jus in bello against the use of autonomous weapons, this paper will result in the incompatibility of such weapons with the ethical framework of just war theory that gives out the norms for just and fair conduct during wars. It will thereby lead to a further reflection on the compliance of autonomous weapons as per jus in bello and the IHL to have greater restrain and ethical conduct during wars. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for the necessity of including what I call “categorical norms” in Thomas Aquinas’s account of the ground of obligation (normativity theory) by drawing on the value phenomenology of Dietrich von Hildebrand. A categorical norm is one conceptually irreducible to any non-normative concept and which obligates us irrespective of pre-existing aims, goals, or desires. I show that Thomistic normativity theory on any plausible reading of Aquinas lacks categorical norms and then raise two serious objections which constitute (...) master arguments against it. The upshot is that this theory requires reform. I end by proposing work remaining for such reform, namely, an expansion of the Thomistic metaphysic and anthropology. (shrink)