Although metaphysics as a discipline can hardly be separated from Aristotle and his works, the questions it raises were certainly known to authors even before the reception of Aristotle in the thirteenth century. Even without the explicit use of this term the twelfth century manifested a strong interest in metaphysical questions under the guise of «natural philosophy» or «divine science», leading M.-D. Chenu to coin the expression of a twelfth century «éveil métaphysique». In their commentaries on Boethius and under the (...) influence of Neoplatonism, twelfth century authors not only anticipate essential elements of thirteenth century metaphysics, they also make an original contribution to the history of metaphysics by attempting to integrate the theory of first principles, philosophical theology and ontology. This volume presents and examines the contributions of the twelfth century to metaphysics made by selected Jewish, Christian and Muslim authors of the Iberian Peninsula and Francia. -/- Contributors include Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Frankfurt am Main), Andreas Speer (Würzburg), Charles Burnett (London), Alexander Fidora (Frankfurt am Main), Thomas Ricklin (Neuchâtel), Yossef Schwartz (Jerusalem), Josep Udina (Barcelona), Jack C. Marler (St. Louis/USA), Gillian R. Evans (Cambridge), Andreas Niederberger (Frankfurt am Main) and Françoise Hudry (Paris). (shrink)

De Interpretatione is among Aristotle's most influential and widely read writings; C. W. A. Whitaker presents the first systematic study of this work, and offers a radical new view of its aims, its structure, and its place in Aristotle's system. He shows that De Interpretatione is not a disjointed essay on ill-connected subjects, as traditionally thought, but a highly organized and systematic treatise on logic, argument, and dialectic.

This book explores the relationship between democracy and republicanism, and its consequences; and articulates new theoretical insights into connections between liberty, law and democratic politics.

This chapter examines the assumptions of republican theory in relation to common notions of a legitimate international order. It considers an alternative definition of a legitimate global order that makes a distinction between states, federations of states, other organisations and political communities. In this definition, republican theory defends transnational democracy as the basic structure of a legitimate global order. The chapter begins with an overview of republican political theory and its differences from other approaches. It then discusses the internal relationship (...) between republicanism and modern statehood and shows the implications of reducing republicanism to individual states or attempting to ‘globalise’ the single republican state. Finally, it describes a model of transnational democracy that differs from the single state model. (shrink)

This study investigates the conditions of legitimate rule and argues that legitimacy can only be realized in a tiered global order. It criticizes theories of justice, democratic theory, legal philosophy, and philosophy of human rights and international relations, while developing a conception of transnational democracy. This conception connects states and other forms of organization into a global legal network that guarantees conditions of freedom in and between states.

The notion of human dignity stands at the core of contemporary debates on rights, politics, and ethics. Many scholars consider the Renaissance discourse on dignity as one of its main contributions to the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity. This article examines the role of human dignity in the philosophies of Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. In their works human dignity relates both to freedom and to a Neo-Platonic ontology, which raises the question of how they reconcile (...) these two possibly contradictory elements. I show that starting from the insight that human beings are “naturally” free and able to make right choices, Ficino and Pico argue that human dignity consists in the ability of humans to understand what is good and to act accordingly. I thus defend the thesis that their conception of human dignity is not modern because it liberates human beings from the “history of being” but rather because it paves the way for their liberation to become rational beings. (shrink)

Unter den Menschenrechten findet sich das Recht eines jeden, den Staat zu verlassen, in dem man geboren ist oder sich gerade aufhält. In jüngerer Zeit wird insbesondere unter Verweis auf verheerende Effekte eines Brain-Drain insbesondere für ärmere Staaten die Frage diskutiert, ob Staaten dennoch das Recht haben, direkte oder indirekte Maßnahmen zu ergreifen, um Personen an der Emigration zu hindern. Der vorliegende Beitrag analysiert die in diesem Kontext vorgebrachten Argumentationen für mögliche Grenzen eines Rechts auf Emigration und die Legitimation staatlicher (...) Gegenmaßnahmen. Die meisten vorgeschlagenen direkten und indirekten Maßnahmen zur Abwehr eines normativ relevanten Brain-Drain werden dabei als Formen der Zwangsausübung als nicht rechtfertigbar zurückgewiesen: Der Brain-Drain ist als Folge gravierender globaler Ungerechtigkeiten einzuordnen, für die die Verantwortung nicht einzelnen Hochqualifizierten aus dem globalen Süden zugeschrieben werden kann, die die Gelegenheit nutzen, ihre individuelle Situation zu verbessern. (shrink)

El presente artículo comienza reconstruyendo las razones por las cuales las teorías modernas se concentran en la ciudadanía como una garantía muy importante de legitimidad -arguyendo que la ciudadanía está intrínsecamente ligada a una forma republicana de orden político. La segunda parte del artículo muestra que, bajo las actuales condiciones de la globalización, la ciudadanía crea o mantiene un orden transnacional multinivel que impide que otras personas y políticas puedan realizar una ciudadanía (completa), y que incluso contribuyen a violaciones directas (...) de exigencias legítimas por parte de no-ciudadanos. La tercera parte discute críticamente las propuestas de Archibugi, Owen y Baubóck acerca de cómo repensar la ciudadanía transnacional o formas equivalentes de participación y control. En la parte final, el artículo aboga por una conexión entre la concepción de la ciudadanía constelación y una forma específica de democracia transnacional. Tal conexión permitiría a la ciudadanía seguir siendo el factor clave para la legitimidad. This article starts by reconstructing the reasons for the modern focus on citi-zenship as a major guarantee for legitimacy - arguing that citizenship is intricately linked to a republican form of political order. In its second part this paper shows that under the current conditions of globalization citizenships creates or maintains a transnational multi-level order which prevents other persons and polities from realizing (full) citizenship, and even contributes to direct violations of legitimate claims of non-citizens. The third part of the article critically discusses proposals by Archibugi, Owen and Baubóck, how to rethink transnational citizenship or equivalent forms of participation and control. And in its final part it advocates linking the conception of constellational citizenship to a specific form of trans-national democracy. With such a link citizenship could continue to be the key factor for legitimacy. (shrink)

This article starts by reconstructing the reasons for the modern focus on citizenship as a major guarantee for legitimacy – arguing that citizenship is intricately linked to a republican form of political order. In its second part this paper shows that under the current conditions of globalization citizenships creates or maintains a transnational multi-level order which prevents other persons and polities from realizing (full) citizenship, and even contributes to direct violations of legitimate claims of non-citizens. The third part of the (...) article critically discusses proposals by Archibugi, Owen and Bauböck, how to rethink transnational citizenship or equivalent forms of participation and control. And in its final part it advocates linking the conception of constellational citizenship to a specific form of transnational democracy. With such a link citizenship could continue to be the key factor for legitimacy. (shrink)

Both Carnap and Quine made significant contributions to the philosophy of mathematics despite their diversedviews. Carnap endorsed the dichotomy between analytic and synthetic knowledge and classified certainmathematical questions as internal questions appealing to logic and convention. On the contrary, Quine wasopposed to the analytic-synthetic distinction and promoted a holistic view of scientific inquiry. The purpose of thispaper is to argue that in light of the recent advancement of experimental mathematics such as Monte Carlosimulations, limiting mathematical inquiry to the domain of (...) logic is unjustified. Robustness studies implemented inMonte Carlo Studies demonstrate that mathematics is on par with other experimental-based sciences. (shrink)

This volume offers a systematic philosophical analysis of the normative challenges facing European refugee policy, focusing on whether the response to it can be based on European values. By considering the refugee policy through the lens of European values, cosmopolitan norms and universal human rights, the contributions expose the weaknesses and limitations of existing regulations and make proposals on how to improve them. The EU is often seen as a cosmopolitan project. Europe is supposed to be a community of states (...) that aspires to be guided by cosmopolitan norms. However, the idea of a cosmopolitan Europe has never been unanimously shared, and in recent years, it has come under increasing scrutiny, particularly with regard to the EU’s refugee policy. The guiding idea of this book is that a deeper philosophical understanding of the normative issues at stake can foster greater conceptual clarity and enrich political debates on the future of European refugee policy. The first part of the book revolves around the question of whether the rise in refugee numbers over the past decade has led to a crisis in the EU and, if so, how this crisis relates to or impacts European values. The second part traces the history of the discourse on “European values” and examines from a philosophical perspective how we can plausibly understand these values in terms of their moral grammar, their normative content and their implications for the behaviour of the EU and its member states. Finally, the third part puts forth recommendations for a feasible and normatively more compelling European refugee policy based on human rights, human dignity, justice and democratic self-determination as the decisive normative requirements. Cosmopolitan Norms and European Values: Ethical Perspectives on Europe’s Refugee Policy will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in ethics, political philosophy, political science, social sciences and law. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. (shrink)

This volume contains the selected discourses of four seventeenth-century philosophers, carefully chosen to illustrate the tenets characteristic of the influential movement known as Cambridge Platonism. Fundamental to their beliefs is the statement most clearly voiced by Benjamin Whichcote, their leader by common consent, that the spiritual is not opposed to the rational, nor Grace to nature. Religion is based on reason, even in the presence of 'mystery'. Free will and Grace are not mutually exclusive. The editor's comprehensive introduction delineates the (...) main principles of the Cambridge Platonists, in the light of their heritage. It compares their attitude to contemporary thought, stressing their mistrust both of institutionalised religion and of the rising tide of materialism. The sermons are reprinted from the original texts and fully annotated with comparisons and references to a wide range of works. The editor also includes a useful list for further reading, biographical notes and a comprehensive index. (shrink)

Postcolonial science studies entails ostensibly contradictory critical and empirical commitments. Science studies scholars influenced by Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers embrace forms of realist, radical empiricism, while postcolonial studies scholars influenced by Jacques Derrida trace the limits of the knowable. This essay takes their common use of the term cosmopolitics as an unexpected point of departure for reconciling Derrida’s program with Stengers’s and Latour’s. I read Derrida’s critique of hospitality and Stengers’s and Latour’s ontological politics as necessary complements for conceiving (...) a care-oriented subalternist cosmopolitics, a process of composing common worlds that remains attentive to the limits of representation. (shrink)

Biologists studying complex causal systems typically identify some factors as causes and treat other factors as background conditions. For example, when geneticists explain biological phenomena, they often foreground genes and relegate the cellular milieu to the background. But factors in the milieu are as causally necessary as genes for the production of phenotypic traits, even traits at the molecular level such as amino acid sequences. Gene-centered biology has been criticized on the grounds that because there is parity among causes, the (...) “privileging” of genes reflects a reductionist bias, not an ontological difference. The idea that there is an ontological parity among causes is related to a philosophical puzzle identified by John Stuart Mill: what, other than our interests or biases, could possibly justify identifying some causes as the actual or operative ones, and other causes as mere background? The aim of this paper is to solve this conceptual puzzle and to explain why there is not an ontological parity among genes and the other factors. It turns out that solving this puzzle helps answer a seemingly unrelated philosophical question: what kind of causal generality matters in biology? (shrink)