Kant’s doctrine of the Fact of Reason is one of the most perplexing aspects of his moral philosophy. The aim of this paper is to defend Kant’s doctrine from the common charge of dogmatism. My defense turns on a previously unexplored analogy to the notion of ‘matters of fact’ popularized by members of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century. In their work, ‘facts’ were beyond doubt, often referring to experimental effects one could witness first hand. While (...) Kant uses the German equivalent in different contexts, I argue that the scientific analogy opens up a new framework for interpreting his strategy of justification in the Critique of Practical Reason. In the final section, I address a few possible objections to my reading, one of which I anticipate coming from Dieter Henrich and Ian Proops, who have argued that Kant’s Fact of Reason is best understood under a legal analogy. (shrink)

The paper gives an interpretation of Kant's doctrine of the fact of reason against the background of a constructivist reading of his philosophy, which does not allow us to appeal to any indubitable facts. The fact of reason is the object of a philosophical account of the moral law forms the quid juris part of deduction or legitimization of the law. A more intuitive grasp of the fact is the phenomenon of reverence for duty which (...) ordinary people grasp in form of a feeling and emotion. (shrink)

The place of evidence regarding joint commitment and plural action is mostly reserved for documents and explicit linguistic expressions. This paper considers the problem of evidence in cases of engaged (jointly committed) social acts where there is no explicit expression or binding document, yet can still be ascribed to a plural subject. The argument rests on the double meaning of the term factum as fact (factum brutum) and deed (factum practica), as well as contemporary debates about the topic of (...) fact of reason in Kant. The text seeks to show that in certain cases, the execution of an act or the obligation produced by it can be considered evidence of a plural subject. Thus, these facts deserve a special position in relation to scientific evidence. (shrink)

In the epicenter of his attempt to justify the “objective validity” of morality and freedom in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant introduces a so-called fact of reason, which is rendered as the fact that human beings are consciou s of the moral ought’s categorical authority. However, few parts of Kant’s thinking have bemused commentators as much as this. In this article, the author explores a set of intersecting problems related to the fact of (...) class='Hi'>reason: (1) the problem of its general argumentative role in Kant’s practical philosophy, (2) the problem of the fact as a brute fact. He argues that both problems can be understood and resolved only if we regard Kant’s introduction of the fact of reason as an implicit attempt to articulate intrinsic problems with reductive explanations of morality. His main claim, which has been surprisingly absent in most interpretations of Kant’s fact of reason, will be that the fact of reason functions as an undeniable yet improvable fact (similar to mathematical principles) from which other practical truths (such as the objective reality of freedom) can be derived. As Kant says unambiguously in the Jäsche-Logic : the “reality” of the moral law “is an axiom.”. (shrink)

At the heart of the argument of the Critique of Practical Reason, one finds Kant’s puzzling and much-criticized claim that the consciousness of the moral law can be called a ‘fact of reason’. In this essay, I clarify the meaning and the importance of this claim. I correct misunderstandings of the term ‘Factum’, situate the relevant passages within their argumentative context, and argue that Kant’s argument can be given a consistent reading on the basis of which the (...) main questions and criticisms can be answered. (shrink)

In _The Sources of Normativity_, Christine M. Korsgaard argues that unconditional obligation can be accounted for in terms of practical identity. My argument in this paper is that practical identity cannot play this foundational role. More specifically, I interpret Korsgaard's argument as beginning with something analogous to Kant's fact of reason, viz. with the fact that our minds are reflective. I then try to show that her determination of this fact is inadequate and that this causes (...) the argument concerning practical identity to fail. Finally, I argue that a conception of the fact of reason more in line with what I take to be Kant's own is necessary to account for unconditional obligation. (shrink)

Commentators generally agree that one important difference between the arguments that Kant offers in the Groundwork and those in the second Critique is the appeal to the term “fact of reason” has a single referent, although they disagree about what that referent is. I argue that Kant employs the term to refer to two distinct phenomena. In some passages Kant claims it to be a fact of reason what we take the moral law as supremely authoritative (...) in our deliberations, whereas in others he uses it to refer to our consciousness of the content of the moral law. Despite that fact that some interpreters and even Kant himself at times run the two uses of the term together, each referent is a distinct phenomenon in its own right and each addresses distinct feature of Kant’s moral theory. I argue that this interpretation coheres best with Kant’s position that reason both provides both a sufficient motive for morally worthy action and also provides the content for morality. (shrink)

In this paper, I reconstruct the development and the complex character of Zilsel’s conception of scientific laws. This concept functions as a fil rouge for understanding Zilsel’s philosophy throughout different times (here, the focus is on his Viennese writings and how they pave the way to the more renown American ones) and across his many fields of work (from physics to politics). A good decade before Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle was going to mark the outbreak of indeterminism in quantum physics, Edgar (...) Zilsel started to develop a complex logical-philosophical theory in which statistical and causal laws were given an indeterministic foundation (Zilsel 1916). However, in developing his thoughts on the emergence of regularities from disorder, Zilsel arrives at a profound ambiguity with respect to the ontological or the epistemic nature of laws and order in the world: Whether this order is to be conceived of as an empirical finding or as the product of reason – this would have to remain unclear. This tension between rationalism and empiricism, as well as a tension between a realist and an anti-realist conception of lawfulness, can be identified in both Zilsel’s Viennese and American writings: a tension which touches the core of the “application problem” that would keep haunting Zilsel until his premature death. (shrink)

The focus of my argument is whether, and in what sense, freedom is “revealed” by the fact of reason in Kant’s second Critique. I examine the passages in which Kant refers to the fact of reason and conclude that he uses the term to refer to our taking morality as authoritative, and to our apprehending the content of the moral law. I then point out how various commentators have claimed each to be the fact of (...) reason. Next I address how each is claimed by Kant to reveal “freedom” to us and argue that our taking morality as authoritative is best understood as referring to our conception of ourselves as autonomous beings, and that our apprehending the moral law’s content reveals only the idea of freedom as a coherent one. So neither would demonstrate not that we are actually autonomous, nor would their conjunction, despite what some commentators have claimed. In closing I defend the highly deflationary position that the fact of reason entitles us to postulate our freedom, but only from the practical point of view, and that it demonstrates that freedom is a coherent idea. (shrink)

In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant invokes the moral law as an underived fact of reason. The aim of this article is to explore the highly debated role of the fact of reason and the nature of this fact, which apparently defies the senses of actuality commonly associated with empirical facts and objective entities. Following David Sussman's interpretation, I argue that the fact of reason not only marks the abandonment of deduction (...) of the moral law but illustrates that the failure to ground the moral law does not undermine its unconditional authority. Therefore, I claim that rather than signifying a methodological maneuver to get out of the circle that Kant admits to be entrapped, it operates as immanent, dynamic and an aporetic facticity. This perspective allows seeing its heuristic function for keeping intact the aporia that structures morality and offers away of coming into the circle of morality. (shrink)

This volume is a serious attempt to open up the subject of European philosophy of science to real thought, and provide the structural basis for the interdisciplinary development of its specialist fields, but also to provoke reflection on the idea of ‘European philosophy of science’. This efforts should foster a contemporaneous reflection on what might be meant by philosophy of science in Europe and European philosophy of science, and how in fact awareness of it could assist philosophers interpret and (...) motivate their research through a stronger collective identity. The overarching aim is to set the background for a collaborative project organising, systematising, and ultimately forging an identity for, European philosophy of science by creating research structures and developing research networks across Europe to promote its development. (shrink)

This volume is a serious attempt to open up the subject of European philosophy of science to real thought, and provide the structural basis for the interdisciplinary development of its specialist fields, but also to provoke reflection on the idea of ‘European philosophy of science’. This efforts should foster a contemporaneous reflection on what might be meant by philosophy of science in Europe and European philosophy of science, and how in fact awareness of it could assist philosophers interpret and (...) motivate their research through a stronger collective identity. The overarching aim is to set the background for a collaborative project organising, systematising, and ultimately forging an identity for, European philosophy of science by creating research structures and developing research networks across Europe to promote its development. (shrink)

I have been experimental in my comparative approach, using the instrument of Hua-yen Buddhism to investigate Kant's ‘fact or reason’. What has been demonstrated? Certainly, the hypothesis that comparative study is flexible enough to illuminate strands of our own philosophical tradition is both interesting and compelling. But for Kant, does the study of practicability with reference to the buddhi-mind end in the perception of the dharmadhatu? I have marshalled some evidence to support this theory, implicit throughout the Second (...) Critique. At the end of the Grundlagen, Kant offers one further note suggesting this conception must have been a continuing influence on his later moral thinking. Referring to the idea of a purely intelligible world, he says it serves to produce in us a lively interest in the moral law by means of the splendid ideal of a universal kingdom of ends in themselves (rational beings), to which we can belong as members only if we are scrupulous to live in accordance with maxims of freedom as if they were laws of nature.41. (shrink)

It is argued that the key to understanding the Doctrine of the Fact of reason lies in clarifying what Kant meant by a fact for moral practice. It is suggested that the facticity of the Fact of Reason must be understood in both a noetic and a performative aspect. Dietrich Henrich's interpretation is discussed, and it is argued that it risks reducing the Fact of Reason exclusively to its noetic function in moral ontology, (...) and that it ignores the fact that this is a doctrine of self-discovery, not of self-constitution. (shrink)

This essay examines one of the most obscure and controversial tenets of Kant’s critical philosophy, his claim in the Critique of Practical Reason that the moral law is immediately and unquestionably valid as an a priori fact of reason (Factum der Vernunft). This argument curiously inverts Kant’s earlier stance in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in which he justifies the reality of the categorical imperative through a much more cautious and qualified authentication of transcendental freedom. (...) Against constructivist readings which tend to downplay the justificatory burden of the Factum, I claim that Kant’s position is best understood as a transcendental argument. In other words, he argues from a given or assured conditioned, consciousness of binding moral obligation, to the sole condition of its possibility in transcendental freedom. In order to rebut the standard objections prompted by this line of interpretation, I emphasize the technical function of Kant’s Factum as both a deed (Tat) and product (Tatsache) of practical reason. (shrink)

Kant’s claims about supersensible objects, and his account of the epistemic status of such claims, remain poorly understood, to the detriment of our understanding of Kant’s metaphysical and epistemological system. In the Critique of Practical Reason, and again in the Critique of Judgment, Kant claims that we have practical cognition (Erkenntnis) and knowledge (Wissen) of the moral law and of our supersensible freedom; that this cognition and knowledge cohere with, yet go beyond the limits of, our theoretical cognition; and (...) that this knowledge grounds rational belief (Vernunftglaube) in the existence of God, the immortality of our soul, and the real possibility of the “highest good.” This essay untangles some of these claims about practical cognition, practical knowledge, and practical belief and their relation to Kant’s account of theoretical cognition and theoretical knowledge. There is a core conception of cognition and knowledge underlying the accounts of theoretical cognition and practical cognition, which allows for a principled distinction between cases of practical knowledge and practical belief. Kant’s doctrine of the “fact of reason” turns out to be crucial to his claims about legitimacy of and distinction between the two forms of practical cognition, one which constitutes knowledge and another which cannot. (shrink)

In the second Critique, Kant claims that the moral law is given as a fact of reason. In this paper, contra the standard view, I argue that there is a non-dogmatic way of defending this claim. And Kant’s principle of morality is widely taken to be a formal principle. How then can such a formal principle be reconciled with our substantial moral end? In this paper, I also argue that Kant’s principle of morality can be construed as a (...) formal principle in the sense that it provides correctness conditions for moral laws, rather than providing specific moral laws.Dans sa deuxième Critique, Kant affirme que la loi morale se donne comme un fait de raison. Dans cet article, contrairement à la position standard, nous prétendons qu’il existe une autre façon — non dogmatique — de défendre cette affirmation. Par ailleurs, le principe de moralité de Kant est largement considéré comme étant formel. Comment un tel principe formel peut-il être réconcilié avec notre fin morale substantielle? Nous soutenons également que le principe de moralité de Kant peut être interprété comme un principe formel dans le sens où il fournit des conditions d’acceptabilité pour les lois morales, et non des lois morales spécifiques. (shrink)

Kant's well-known statement from the “Critique of Practical Reason” (§ 7) that the consciousness of the basic law of pure practical reason (or the customary/moral law) can be called a fact of reason (V, 31.24) has not yet become the subject of adequate attention of domestic researchers. In the “Critique of Practical Reason”, Kant justify his famous categorical imperative by appealing to the “fact of reason” (§ 7). A closer reading of this passage (...) reveals that it refers to a “fundamental law of pure practical reason” and its “consciousness” is called “a fact of reason”. It is likely to think that Kant makes a “naturalistic fallacy” when he tries to justify “ought” (law) from “is” (fact). An analysis of the broader context of the use of the term “fact”, which occurs in the Critique in general 11 times, proves that its denotation is a moral law, which is explained in the corresponding train of thought. A special problem of interpretation is the explanation of the genitive in the expression “a fact of reason” [ein Factum der Vernunft]. It is common to read it as genitivus subjectivus (the fact is a product (act) of the reason, the fact arises thanks to the reason) and as genitivus objectivus (the reason itself is a fact, something factual). But from the standpoint of modern studies of Kant its reading as genitivus auctoris (Willaschek, Wolff, Noller) is promising. Kant’s specific use of the Latin form “ein Factum” in other works, which has the meaning not of “fact”, but of “imputable act” also, testifies in favor of this. Starting with Dieter Heinrich’s article “The Concept of Moral Insight and Kant’s Doctrine of the Fact of Reason” (1960), many researchers interpret the thesis of the “fact of reason” as Kant’s rejection of the attempt at the deduction of moral insight in the “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Moral” (1785). However, as modern studies (Riedel, Wolff) show, this interpretation is not convincing enough. There are sufficient reasons to believe that it is Kant’s moral and legal doctrine of imputatio facti can explicate an enigmatic passage of the II Critique. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of the historical development of Kant's understanding of belief ( Glaube ) from its early ties to George Friedrich Meier's Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre through various stages of refinement. It will be argued that the Critique of Pure Reason reflects an important but not final stage in Kant's understanding of belief. Its structure is further refined and its scope narrowed in later works, including the Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgment . (...) After charting these stages, an analysis of how belief relates to the Fact of Reason will be presented. (shrink)

Kant considers eudaimonism as his main opponent and he assumes that his ethics is the only viable alternative to eudaimonism. He does not explicitly address theories differing from both eudaimonism and from his own. I argue that whilst Kant and Act-Consequentialists advocate different normative principles, their positions share the important abstract feature that they establish what is to be done from a rational principle and not based on what is in the self-interest of the respective agent, as Kant thinks eudaimonism (...) does. Act-Consequentialism is thus closer to Kant’s ethics than is often assumed. I will demonstrate and vindicate this point with a new interpretation of the Fact of Reason. This reading also establishes that the notion of a Fact of Reason is less contentious than many of Kant’s critics believe. We should not expect that the Fact establishes Kantianism. Instead, the Fact is only supposed to count against a specific competing view of morality, namely, eudaimonism. Act-Consequentialists can accept the Fact as well. (shrink)

Contemporary society involves a number of different persons, groups, and ways of life that are deeply divided and very often opposed on fundamental matters of deep concern. Today, many contemporary philosophers regard this 'fact of diversity' as a problem that needs to be addressed when assessing the principles employed to organize society. In this paper, I discuss the fact of diversity, as it is understood by the notion of reasonable pluralism, and explain why it is thought by some (...) to challenge the stability of a society's political morality. I examine the leading attempt to offer an account of the stability of a political morality and I argue that John Rawls's attempt to account for the stability of Justice as Fairness fails for reasons applicable to all political moralities because the very notion of a stable political morality is implausible. Diversity, as reasonable pluralism understands it, is not a problem that can be solved either by identifying a stable political morality or by modifying a political morality in some way that will make it more stable. Instead, the fact of diversity indicates only that disagreements on all aspects of society's organization, including its organizing principles and matters of value, is a permanent feature of social life that cannot be ignored, wished away, or solved. (shrink)

Over the last decade, Robert Talisse has developed a devastating argument against reviving John Dewey’s democratic ideal. In his book, A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy, and in other essays, Talisse has argued that Deweyan democracy fails to accommodate Rawls’ conception of “the fact of reasonable pluralism” because it is committed to a perfectionist conception of the good. In response, this article offers a Rawlsian rebuttal to Talisse by drawing on Rawls’ own characterisation of perfectionism to show that Dewey’s conception (...) of the good is not perfectionist on Rawls’ account and thus can reasonably accommodate the fact of reasonable pluralism. is article thus begins by exposing and explaining Talisse’s argument, before articulating Shane Ralston’s rejection of the Berlinian and Rawlsian fillters presupposed by Talisse’s argument. Then, it develops its central argument by showing that, even if we accept the Rawlsian filter, Deweyan democracy does not fail to accommodate the fact of reasonable pluralism, because it only relies on a thin (not a full) theory of the good, before considering some foreseeable Talissean objections. Ultimately, the article concludes by showing that these objections fail because Deweyan democracy does not rely on a ‘full’ theory of the good. (shrink)

Many books explain what is known about the universe. This book investigates what cannot be known. Rather than exploring the amazing facts that science, mathematics, and reason have revealed to us, this work studies what science, mathematics, and reason tell us cannot be revealed. In The Outer Limits of Reason, Noson Yanofsky considers what cannot be predicted, described, or known, and what will never be understood. He discusses the limitations of computers, physics, logic, and our own thought (...) processes. Yanofsky describes simple tasks that would take computers trillions of centuries to complete and other problems that computers can never solve; perfectly formed English sentences that make no sense; different levels of infinity; the bizarre world of the quantum; the relevance of relativity theory; the causes of chaos theory; math problems that cannot be solved by normal means; and statements that are true but cannot be proven. He explains the limitations of our intuitions about the world -- our ideas about space, time, and motion, and the complex relationship between the knower and the known. Moving from the concrete to the abstract, from problems of everyday language to straightforward philosophical questions to the formalities of physics and mathematics, Yanofsky demonstrates a myriad of unsolvable problems and paradoxes. Exploring the various limitations of our knowledge, he shows that many of these limitations have a similar pattern and that by investigating these patterns, we can better understand the structure and limitations of reason itself. Yanofsky even attempts to look beyond the borders of reason to see what, if anything, is out there. (shrink)

Fichte develops his idealism through a higher-level critique: only through the Fichtean fact of reason can one justify a systematic transcendental idealism, thereby making possible the self-sufficiency of theoretical reason. By examining the metaphilosophical implications of our immediate consciousness of the moral law, Fichte is able to assert the necessary metaphilosophical primacy of practical reason for any possible wissenschaftlich philosophy as well as the philosophical unity of theory and practice within such a system.

In this article I argue that G.A. Cohen is mistaken in his belief that the concept of justice needs to be rescued from constructivist theorists of justice. In doing so, I rely on insights of John Rawls’ later work Political Liberalism and Rainer Forst’s discourse theory of justice. Such critical engagement with Cohen’s critique of constructivism is needed, because Cohen bases his critique of constructivism almost exclusively on Rawls’s arguments and positions in A Theory of Justice. He thus neglects - (...) at least by and large - that Rawls had further developed his constructivist method of justification in his later work Political Liberalism, as well as that Forst’s discourse-theoretical works offer elaborate versions of constructivism. These refined versions of constructivism recognize a plurality of reasonable conceptions of ideal justice and draw an important distinction between moral and political constructivism. Because of these features these advanced constructivist theories are not in need of Cohen’s rescue. (shrink)

This chapter considers whether legal requirements can constitute reasons for action independently of the merits of the requirement at hand. While jurisprudential opinion on this question is far from uniform, sceptical views are becoming increasingly dominant. Such views typically contend that, while the law can be indicative of pre-existing reasons, or can trigger pre-existing reasons into operation, it cannot constitute new reasons. This chapter offers support to a somewhat less sceptical position, according to which the fact that a legal (...) requirement has been issued can be a reason for action, yet one that is underpinned by bedrock values which law is apt to serve. Notions discussed here include a value-based conception of reasons as facts ; a distinction between complete and incomplete reasons ; and David Enoch’s idea of triggering reason-giving. Following a discussion of criticism against the view adopted here, the chapter concludes by considering some more ‘robust’ conceptions of law’s reason-giving capacity. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that Husserl, in his later ethics, reinterprets the philosophical content that discloses itself in the Kantian conception of a “fact of practical reason”. From 1917/18 on, Husserl increasingly ceases to pursue his initial idea of a scientific ethics. The reason for this move lies precisely in the phenomenological analysis of “Gemütsakte”, through which two main features of the fact of practical reason impose themselves more and more on Husserls thought: (...) the personal concernment/obligation and the primacy of the practical with the coeval call for universal validity. Husserl recognizes that the form of ethical facticity or entanglement cannot be grasped by a science of evidence, which speaks objectively and non-personally of acts of willing, valuing or preferring. Husserl thus gets to a reinterpretation of the fact of practical reason as the philosophical nucleus of his ethics, which is now a personal and affective ethics. He bestows a texture on this fact, however not as he would have thought in the first place: not as evident laws of a material apriori of “Gemüt”. In the person and her ethical experience as absolute affection Husserl rather discovers that which is per se not objectifiable and not to be made rationally evident. By this, Husserl captures and phenomenologically explains the non-objectifiable source of obligation and the possibility of complying with it. (shrink)

Some externalists have recently argued that the unity of theoretical and practical reason implies that epistemic justification is factive. It is argued that arguments for the factivity of epistemic justification either (i) equate two actions that are in fact different, or (ii) make the unwarranted assumption that the by-relation transmits justification. The unity of reason does not imply that epistemic justification is factive.

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of Kant’s justification of the categorical imperative. The book contests the standard interpretation of Kant’s views by arguing that he never abandoned his view about this as expressed in his Groundwork. It is distinctive in the way in which it places Kant’s argument in the context of his transcendental philosophy as a whole, which is essential to understand it as an argument from within human agential self-understanding. The book reviews that existing literature, then presents (...) a logical construction of Kant’s argument, which it defends by examining what Kant has to say about synthetic a priori practical propositions in the context of his transcendental philosophy as a whole, and by a detailed examination of how he presents his argument in the Second Critique and the Groundwork. Particular attention is given to the views of two scholars who share many of the views expressed in this book: Klaus Steigleder and Michael Wolff. Special attention is also given to the views of Owen Ware, who, while sharing many of our arguments has a very different overall view. The concluding chapter provides a statement about the validity of Kant’s argument. (shrink)

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of Kant’s justification of the categorical imperative. The book contests the standard interpretation of Kant’s views by arguing that he never abandoned his view about this as expressed in his Groundwork. It is distinctive in the way in which it places Kant’s argument in the context of his transcendental philosophy as a whole, which is essential to understand it as an argument from within human agential self-understanding. The book reviews that existing literature, then presents (...) a logical construction of Kant’s argument, which it defends by examining what Kant has to say about synthetic a priori practical propositions in the context of his transcendental philosophy as a whole, and by a detailed examination of how he presents his argument in the Second Critique and the Groundwork. Particular attention is given to the views of two scholars who share many of the views expressed in this book: Klaus Steigleder and Michael Wolff. Special attention is also given to the views of Owen Ware, who, while sharing many of our arguments has a very different overall view. The concluding chapter provides a statement about the validity of Kant’s argument. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to identify a type of fact-given warrant for action that is distinct from reason-based justification for action and defend the view that there are two types of practical warrant. The idea that there are two types of warrant is familiar in epistemology, but has not received much attention in debates on practical normativity. On the view that I will defend, normative facts, qua facts, give rise to entitlement warrant for action. But (...) they do not, qua facts, give rise to reason-based warrant. Normative practical reasons, I will argue, are true propositions that represent fact-based favouring and that are made true by normative facts. (shrink)

This article describes the Vaccine/Injury Project Corpus, a collection of legal decisions awarding or denying compensation for health injuries allegedly due to vaccinations, together with models of the logical structure of the reasoning of the factfinders in those cases. This unique corpus provides useful data for formal and informal logic theory, for natural-language research in linguistics, and for artificial intelligence research. More importantly, the article discusses lessons learned from developing protocols for manually extracting the logical structure and generating the logic (...) models. It identifies sub-tasks in the extraction process, discusses challenges to automation, and provides insights into possible solutions for automation. In particular, the framework and strategies developed here, together with the corpus data, should allow “top–down” and contextual approaches to automation, which can supplement “bottom-up” linguistic approaches. Illustrations throughout the article use examples drawn from the Corpus. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the fact of reasonable pluralism (FRP) – a famous Rawlsian assumption about the intellectual demographics of liberal democracies – is not as self-evident as is sometimes thought. The problem with the FRP is that in Political Liberalism Rawls is treating the freedoms and burdens story as being sufficient – in itself – to explain the demographics of reasonable pluralism. The inadequacy of the freedoms and burdens story is an indication that the FRP is (...) empirically underdetermined as a way of glossing the belief demographics of liberal democracies. And it is a reason to wonder whether pluralism is as permanent as Rawls thinks. But worldview disagreements are not necessarily so incorrigible. In response to the FRP, it can be asserted that there is nothing that is inherent in the idea of a liberal democracy to preclude the choice by the citizens of a common worldview. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the fact of reasonable pluralism (FRP) – a famous Rawlsian assumption about the intellectual demographics of liberal democracies – is not as self-evident as is sometimes thought. The problem with the FRP is that in Political Liberalism Rawls is treating the freedoms and burdens story as being sufficient – in itself – to explain the demographics of reasonable pluralism. The inadequacy of the freedoms and burdens story is an indication that the FRP is (...) empirically underdetermined as a way of glossing the belief demographics of liberal democracies. And it is a reason to wonder whether pluralism is as permanent as Rawls thinks. But worldview disagreements are not necessarily so incorrigible. In response to the FRP, it can be asserted that there is nothing that is inherent in the idea of a liberal democracy to preclude the choice by the citizens of a common worldview. (shrink)

In The Philosophy of Logical Atomism Russell held the view that facts in the world are formally structured complexes, the structure of which matches the logical structure of correspondent propositions. Russell also seems to have denied that there are facts of identity and of diversity. This paper argues that Identity and Diversity can be understood as purely formal structures in Russellian facts. It considers Russell’s possible reasons for denying the existence of facts of identity and diversity and shows how problematic (...) these reasons are. In particular, I argue that identity statements are not tautologies, and their denial does not result into a contradiction. An important consequence of this thesis is that Metaphysics and Logic are not as tied up as Russell took them to be, but nevertheless these are good news for the old formal program for Metaphysics that lies at the very heart of what he called philosophical logic. (shrink)