The current state of mental health law in England and Wales exhibits a set of systematic antinomies. This should not be seen as a flaw of the legislation; the antinomies in law reflect an underlying antinomial structure at work where the vocations of care are practiced and regulated in a broadly liberal legal environment. The aim of this paper is to identify these antinomial structures and to deploy resources from the post-Kantian idealist tradition to diagnose them and to consider how (...) they might be managed. (shrink)

Kit Fine has reawakened a puzzle about variables with a long history in analytic philosophy, labeling it “the antinomy of the variable”. Fine suggests that the antinomy demands a reconceptualization of the role of variables in mathematics, natural language semantics, and first-order logic. The difficulty arises because: (i) the variables ‘x’ and ‘y’ cannot be synonymous, since they make different contributions when they jointly occur within a sentence, but (ii) there is a strong temptation to say that distinct (...) variables ‘x’ and ‘y’ are synonymous, since sentences differing by the total, proper substitution of ‘x’ for ‘y’ always agree in meaning. We offer a precise interpretation of the challenge posed by (i) and (ii). We then develop some neglected passages of Tarski to show that his semantics for variables has the resources to resolve the antinomy without abandoning standard compositional semantics. (shrink)

1. Introduction. Sources of difficulty in the investigation.–II. Dr. Monro′s pitch theory. The passage in Heraclides. Supplementary evidence from the Problems.–III. Prof. Macran′s theory. Evidence against this theory. Prof. Macran′s answer to this evidence. Further objections. Criticism of the evidence in favour of Prof. Macran′s theory.–IV. Prof. Cook-Wilson′s theory. Platonic and Aristotelian evidence against Dr. Monro. Objections to this theory.–V. Recapitulation. Statement of the antinomies in the evidence.–VI. Conclusion. The nucleus of certainty. The Greek, as contrasted with the modern, (...) musical sense. (shrink)

During the second half of the last century, the importance of serendipitous events in scientific frameworks has been progressively recognized, fueling hard debates about their role, nature, and structure in philosophy and sociology of science. Alas, while discussing the relevance of the topic for the comprehension of the nature of scientific discovery, the philosophical literature has hardly paid attention to the cognitive significance of serendipity, accepting rather than examining some of its most specific features, such as its game-changing effect, the (...) unexpectedness of its occurrence, and its affinity with the concept of “luck”. Thus, in this paper we aim at analyzing these characteristics in the light of their cognitive implications in the recognition, performance, and possible stimulation of serendipitous events in relation to scientific discoveries. (shrink)

The antinomy of teleological judgment is one of the most controversial passages of Kant’s "Critique of the Power of Judgment". Having developed the idea of an explanation of organized beings by mechanical and teleological natural laws in §§ 61-68, in §§ 69-78 Kant raises the question of whether higher order mechanical and teleological natural laws, which unify the particular empirical laws of organized beings, might pose an antinomy of conflicting principles within the power of judgment. I will argue (...) against alternative views that this antinomy is neither a conflict between objective constitutive principles of the determining power of judgment nor a conflict between an objective constitutive principle of the determining power of judgment and a subjective regulative maxim of the reflecting power of judgment nor does it consist in a confusion of a pair of subjective regulative maxims of the reflecting power of judgment with a pair of objective constitutive principles of the determining power of judgment, but does consist in an apparent conflict between mechanical and teleological natural laws as subjective regulative maxims of the reflecting power of judgment. I will further argue that Kant’s resolution of the antinomy consists in the regulative idea of a supersensible that represents the unity of both kinds of natural laws and justifies the unification of both kinds of natural laws in the human power of judgment. Kant uses three notions when he talks about the supersensible – the regulative idea of a divine artisan, the regulative idea of a divine intuitive understanding, and the regulative idea of an underdetermined, supernatural ground of nature. I will show how each of these notions accounts for the unity of both kinds of natural laws and will discuss possible correlations between them. I will then explain how the unity of both kinds of natural laws in the regulative idea of a supersensible accounts for the unification of both kinds of natural laws in the human power of judgment. While the divine intuitive understanding is perfect and uncreated and, thus, capable of a representation of the unity of both kinds of natural laws, the human discursive understanding is imperfect and created; it is capable only of the representation of the unification of both kinds of natural laws in form of a hierarchy of laws. (shrink)

In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant argues that morality obliges us to believe in the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. I argue, however, that in two late essays – “The End of All Things” and “On the Miscarriage of all Philosophical Trials in Theodicy” – Kant provides moral counterarguments to that position: these beliefs undermine moral agency by giving rise to fanaticism or fatalism. Thus, I propose, the Kantian position on the justification of religious belief (...) is ultimately antinomial. One ought, moreover, to understand Kant’s considered position concerning the immortality of the soul and the existence of God to be similar to that he proposes concerning the theoretical ideas of reason in the Appendix to the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason: they are necessary as regulative ideas guiding moral action, not endorsed or even postulated as propositions. In other words, they are subject matters not of belief, but of hope. (shrink)

One thing this book attempts to show is that Kant's antinomies open a way towards an overcoming of that nihilism that is a corollary of the understanding of reality that presides over our science and technology. But when Harries is speaking of the antinomy of Being he is not so much thinking of Kant, as of Heidegger. Not that Heidegger speaks of an antinomy of Being. But his thinking of Being leads him and will lead those who follow (...) him on his path of thinking into this antinomy. At bottom, however, the author is neither concerned with Heidegger’s nor Kant’s thought. He shows that our thinking inevitably leads us into some version of this antinomy whenever it attempts to grasp reality in toto, without loss. All such attempts will fall short of their goal. And that they do so, Harries claims, is not something to be grudgingly accepted, but embraced as a necessary condition of living a meaningful life. That is why the antinomy of Being matters and should concern us all. (shrink)

The present article focuses on the antinomy of pure practical reason and the deduction of the Highest Good in the Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason (in the second Critique). Although Kant claims that the Dialectic contains both the antinomy and the deduction, the boundaries dividing one from the other are at best vague. It is difficult to make out where the antinomy of practical reason ends and where the deduction begins. To locate both and to distinguish one (...) from the other (with special attention paid to the modality of the Highest Good) are the chief aims of this article. Additionally but no less importantly, I show, against the line of criticism originally traceable to Schopenhauer, that the antinomy of practical reason amounts to more than a reflection of Kant’s “architectonic obsession.” Not only does the antinomy of practical reason correspond to a genuine dialectical problem in the Critique of Practical Reason, but it also shares a fundamental (even if not immediately apparent) similarity with the antinomy of pure speculative reason. Finally, I consider Kant’s transcendental deduction of the Highest Good against the backdrop of his other deductions, especially the deduction of the categories in the Critique of Pure Reason, and defend it against the charge of potential circularity. (shrink)

The antinomy of future contingents is here understood as a trilemma whose horns are (a) the thesis of the closed past, (b) the thesis of the open future, and (c) the thesis that all events can be represented at any time. The latter thesis can take different forms, like the principle of bivalence or the thesis of divine foreknowledge. Different versions of (c) lead to different versions of the antinomy itself. The antinomy has been formalized. It hasbeen (...) proven that the theses (a), (b), and (c) make up an inconsistent set but are consistent with each other. Possible solutions have been considered. It has been argued that there are only two global solutions to the antinomy: radical determinism (fatalism) and retroactive causality. The latter solution has been recommended and developed. (shrink)

This essay discusses the main contentions of The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci by Perry Anderson in a critical reading of both the positions of the British historian, and of his critics among ‘Togliattian Gramscianists’.

This article builds on Arendt’s development of a Kantian politics from out of the conception of reflective judgment in the Critique of Judgment. Arendt looks to Kant’s analysis of the beautiful to explain how political thought can be conceived. And yet Arendt describes such Kantian reflection as an empirical undertaking that justifies itself only in relation to the abstract principle of the moral law. The problem for such an account is that the autonomy of the moral law appears to be (...) at odds with the social cohesion of Kantian political life. The ensuing contradiction can be deemed the antinomy of political judgment. Kant’s conception of reflective judgment offers such an inquiry considerably more to work with than Arendt uncovers. In particular, the regulative principle of the purposiveness of nature that is shown to direct all reflection can be seen to offer the solution to this antinomy. (shrink)

This article discusses the remarkable conversation between Ernst Bloch and Theodor W. Adorno regarding the relationship between utopia and death. It unpacks the antinomy of death and analyzes the m...

The aim of this paper is to show that there is a genuine difficulty in Kant’s argument regarding the connection between mechanism and teleology. But this difficulty is not the one that is usually underlined. Far from consisting in a contradiction between the first and the third Critique, I argue that the genuine difficulty is intrinsic to the antinomy of reflective judgement: rather than having any hope of resolving anything, it consists in an inescapable conflict. In order to support (...) this claim, I show firstly why converting the thesis of the antinomy about mechanism into reflective judgement does not require renunciation of the universality of causality demonstrated in the first Critique. Then, I suggest that the actual difficulty with Kant’s argument is that there is a genuine conflict inherent in the reflective form of the antinomy. Finally, I examine in detail the antinomy of reflective judgement and compare it to the other Kantian antinomies in order to show that its uniqueness makes it uniquely troubling. This leads me to conclude that the Kantian resolution of the conflict between mechanism and teleology is unsatisfactory. (shrink)

The critique of modernity was one of the important themes in philosophy in the 20th century. Theorists focused on the spiritual characteristics of modernity by which they tried to find a solution to the crisis of modernity, a solution beyond economics and politics. György Márkus, one of the members of the Budapest School, focused on the culture of modernity for 30 years. He presented a critical theory of modern culture. His theory had a clear logic and offered a compelling view. (...) At the core of his theory of cultural modernity was the idea of the ‘antinomies of culture’. These antinomies are of vital importance since the struggle and tension between the poles of culture provides, on his view, the energies and orientation required for the development of cultural modernity. In this essay, I will try to analyse the reality of cultural modernity in China employing Márkus’s ideas and evaluating the significance of his theory. (shrink)

Cornelius Castoriadis made a significant and distinctive contribution to the development of the notion of the dialectic of control. In the first instance, Castoriadis formulated an important reconceptualization and restatement of the Marxist conception of the central contradiction of capitalism. He argued that capitalism depended on the creativity of workers while excluding them from effective control. Similarly, Castoriadis sought to extend the Marxist analysis of those tendencies present within the structuration of the labour process that may prefigure a socialist reorganization (...) of production. Castoriadis’s analyses of capitalism during the phase of his involvement with Socialism or Barbarism are likewise informed by his assessment of state socialist regimes. In particular, this assessment provided important insights into the modalities of control in modern society and the complications of transcending forms of institutional domination in modernity. It will be argued that some of the distinctive intentions of Castoriadis’s later elucidation of the social imaginary can be traced to his interpretation of bureaucratic capitalism and that this is evident in his subsequent accounts of the capitalist imaginary. In his later theory, Castoriadis interprets the problem of the dialectic of control in terms of the relationship between instituting and instituted society. Castoriadis’s analysis of capitalism during the period of Socialism or Barbarism will be situated in the wider debates over capitalism at that time. Similarly, Castoriadis’s departure from some of the philosophical sources that influenced the development of the notion of the dialectic of control will be explored. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the ?eighties of the present century, a circle of relatively young American sociologists who are followers of Jeffrey Alexander are making energetic and spectacular efforts to supply sociology with a uniform and comprehensive theoretical framework by continuing Talcott Parsons' lifework. The present article is an appreciation of Alexander's achievements in the justification of a general sociological theory (especially a theory of action and social order) while pointing to objections that can be raised against the character of (...) his theory. A scrutiny of Alexander's metatheoretical deliberations and of his interpretations of sociological classics such as Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and Parsons reveals that Alexander's metatheoretical frame is not flexible enough to actually reconstruct the problem situation of the classics. Pointers are given toward a theory of action that is not subject to the antinomy of utilitarianism and normativism, so that it is more adequate and appropriate to the heritage of the sociological classics, both from a theoretical and an interpretative angle. (shrink)

There is a solution to the antinomy of the variable that does not call for semantic relationism. I argue that if we carefully distinguish between variable types and variable tokens or occurrences, and if we take the number of variable types involved properly into account, then coordination among variable tokens or occurrences is reducible to an intrinsic semantic feature of those tokens or occurrences. The fact that two tokens or occurrences of the same variable type contained in the same (...) sentence or context assume the same value at a time derives from an intrinsic semantic feature of a token or occurrence, namely from being a token or occurrence of a type whose tokens or occurrences must assume the same value at a time if contained in the same sentence or context. (shrink)

A new semantical antinomy, the antinomy of designation, is introduced into a metalanguage M with respect to a modal object language L. Carnap's device of restricting the principle of interchangeability for L does not suffice to prevent occurrence of this new antinomy. To achieve this result it seems most natural to replace the rules of designation for L by more complicated rules. This replacement suffices to prevent occurrence of the antinomy with respect to L. Moreover, it (...) seems likely that analogous replacement will suffice to prevent occurrence of the antinomy with respect to languages which in means of expression are richer than L. (shrink)

Kant’s Antinomy of Teleological Judgment is unique in offering two pairs of oppositions, one of regulative maxims, and the other of constitutive principles. Here I defend a traditional interpretation of the antinomy— as proposed, for example, by Stadler (1874), Adickes (1925), and Cassirer (1921)—that the antinomy consists in an opposition between constitutive principles, and is resolved by pointing out their legitimate status as merely regulative maxims. I argue against recent interpretations—for example, in McLaughlin (1990), Allison (1991), and (...) Watkins (2009)—which treat the regulative pair as itself antinomial. I then address several textual worries having to do with reconciling the traditional interpretation within the overall structure of the Dialectic of Teleological Judgment that have led these scholars to espouse the new view. Throughout the paper, I emphasize hitherto neglected parallels with Kant’s treatment of the antinomy of taste, which sheds light on understanding the antinomy of teleology. (shrink)

[Time, the fundamental dimension of our existence, has fascinated artists, philosophers, and scientists of every culture and every century. All of us can remember a moment as a child when time became a personal reality, when we realized what a "year" was, or asked ourselves when "now" happened. Common sense says time moves forward, never backward, from cradle to grave. Nevertheless, Einstein said that time is an illusion. Nature's laws, as he and Newton defined them, describe a timeless, deterministic universe (...) within which we can make predictions with complete certainty. In effect, these great physicists contended that time is reversible and thus meaningless. (shrink)

The essay considers three classic definitions of philosophy, namely those offered by Socrates, Boethius, as semantically enriched by Montaigne, and Kant, in order to reflected on individual and collective death. Kant’s philosophical tool of the antinomies of reason is deployed to think through the antinomies of our pandemic in order to make clear that in a pandemic there is only collective, and not individual or even national, inoculation. The false dichotomies of physical versus social, embodiment versus virtuality, nationalism versus planetarization, (...) and propaganda versus science, are discussed. Lady philosophy appears wearing blue plastic gloves. (shrink)

Truth-telling is a project that is both gripping and problematic for Rousseau, as he is both captured by an ideal of telling as complete, undistorted discernment, documentation and communication, and also haunted by the fear that telling can never be this innocent. For Rousseau, as for Kant, telling does not leave the told untouched; rather, telling gives us a type of contact with objects that is marked and mediated by the process of telling itself, and hence the possibility of immediately (...) grasping objects through telling is forever lost to us. The drive to capture things in themselves, which originates, according to Kant, in a formal principle of reason, shows up in Rousseau's writings as a nostalgia that governs and animates inquiry. I will read Rousseau, and the traumas of truth-telling he articulates, as important pretexts for Kant's critical epistemology. Rousseau discloses tensions that infect his truth-telling practices. Kant seeks to neutralize these tensions, not by dissolving them, but rather by translating them into the terms of transcendental philosophy and thus showing how they can be defused and rendered harmless in their empirical form, so as to secure the possibility of proper truth-telling. (shrink)

In earlier work, Raymond Tallis defends the distinctive nature of human consciousness against the misrepresentations of many philosophers and cognitive scientists who aimed to reduce it to a set of functions understood in evolutionary, neurobiological, and computational terms. This book continues to investigate these implications of human nature advanced in his earlier works for our understanding of the nature of truth, of language, of the mind, and of the self.

The ways in which Wittgenstein was directly influenced by William James (by his early psychological work as well his later philosophy) have been thoroughly explored and charted by Russell B. Goodman. In particular, Goodman has drawn attention to the pragmatist resonances of the Wittgensteinian notion of hinge propositions as developedand articulated in the posthumously edited and published work, On Certainty. This paper attempts to extend Goodman’s observation, moving beyond his focus on James (specifically, James’s Pragmatism) as his pragmatist reference (...) point. It aims to articulate the affinity between Wittgenstein’s thought on the topic of certainty and that of the neglected pragmatist thinker, George Santayana. -/- The paper draws on Duncan Pritchard’s recent reading of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty in order to articulate the concept of certainty involved in the notion of hinge propositions. It identifies two important and related points of affinity between this Wittgensteinian line of thought on certainty and the line of thought on the same topic articulated in Santayana’s Scepticism and Animal Faith. The paper argues, firstly, that, both lines of thought reflect a pragmatist concept of certainty, according to which our most fundamental certainties are not conceived as purely theoretical objects of belief or knowledge but rather as thearational presuppositions of beliefs and practical action. Secondly, it examines the way inwhich the pragmatist concept of certainty functions, for the two thinkers as a response to scepticism. It argues that although the two thinkers’ responses are very different, they are mutually compatible and, together, point towards the possibility of a distinctively pragmatist response to scepticism, which involves an anti-epistemological model of the intimate relation of the human self to the world. (shrink)

Many students find themselves caught in an antinomy between “Rationalism”, a view of the world as open to objective, complete, and intellectual comprehension, and “Anti-realism”, the view that the Rationalist vision is façade since there is no objective perspective and any “truth” is relative to the individual. This paper offers a description of an introductory course that provides conceptual resources (through the use of Descartes, Hume, and Kant) for resolving the Rationalism-Antirealism debate. Such conceptual resources include: the representation/reality distinction, (...) the fact/evidence disparity, the nature of skepticism, Kant’s distinction between Transcendental Idealism and Transcendental Realism, and the subject/object dichotomy. (shrink)

본 논문은 플라톤의『프로타고라스』편에 있는 탁월함(aretē)의 교육 가능성에 대한 논쟁의 구도에서 리더십 교육(지도자 양성 교육)이 이율배반과 같은 상황에 놓여 있음을 밝히고자 한다. 프로타고라스가 가르칠 수 있다고 말한 탁월함은 어떤 직종에서나 필요한 “장인의 기술(dēmiourgikē technē)”이 아니라 공동체 혹은 나라를 잘 운영할 수 있는 “시민적 훌륭함(politikē aretē)” 또는 “정치적 기술(politikē technē)”을 의미한다. 그런데 소크라테스는 이러한 탁월함이 교육될 수 없다고 주장하면서 프로타고라스와 논쟁을 벌인다. 이 논쟁은 사실 결론을 내리지 못한 채로 마치게 된다. 그런데 오늘날 지도자를 교육으로 양성할 수 있다는 생각이 거의 일반화되어 있다. 따라서 (...) 다양한 종류의 지도자 양성 교육프로그램이 진행되고 있다. 그러나 지도자양성 교육은 프로타고라스와 소크라테스가 “시민적 훌륭함”을 교육할 수 있는지를 두고 논쟁한 것과 같은 문제에 빠질 수 있다. 그리고 본 필자는 이 문제가 마치 이율배반의 문제와 같다고 생각한다. 왜냐하면 “지도자를 교육으로 양성할 수 있다.”라는 주장도 가능하지만, 동시에 “지도자를 교육으로 양성할 수 없다.”라는 주장도 가능할 수 있기 때문이다. 이러한 이율배반의 문제를 해소하거나 제대로 성찰하지 않은 상태에서 지도자 양성교육을 수행하는 것은 일종의 독단이 될 수 있을 것이다. 이 글에서는 지도자 양성 교육의 이율배반 문제의 해소방안으로 지도자 양성 교육이 가능하다는 입장과 불가능하다는 입장의 부정적 자기 관계성을 제시한다. (shrink)

This dissertation is a historical and critical study of a controversy that raged among all the great figures of Enlightenment natural philosophy. The issue at stake is the structure or internal architecture of matter. One the one hand, an array of a priori arguments seems to show that matter must be fundamentally discrete in its fine structure: it must resolve to metaphysical atoms or monads. On the other hand, an opposing battery of a priori arguments seems to show that it (...) must be fundamentally continuous and altogether without simple first elements. ;The conflict between these rival sets of arguments deeply unsettled natural philosophers of the Enlightenment. Since both incompatible sets of arguments seemed compelling, the clash between them appeared to expose a paradox or antinomy in the new world view pioneered by Galileo and Newton. The new science's account of a fundamentally geometrical Creation, mathematicizable and intelligible to the human inquirer, seemed to be under threat. ;In this dissertation I present a rational reconstruction of the Enlightenment debate that challenges the standard interpretation in the secondary literature. Contra that standard interpretation, I argue that the debate turns crucially on substantive metaphysical theses about the 'filling' or 'stuffing' of matter, not just on theses about its mathematically tractable form or structure. The early moderns were committed to a particular metaphysical doctrine concerning the stuffing of matter and it is this doctrine that lies behind the paradoxes of material composition. Having set out this new metaphysical reading of the Enlightenment debate, I then mobilize it in order to reassess the various early modern responses to the paradoxes of material structure. (shrink)

In the wave of critical theory's recent turn to ethics, Karatani's transcritique and Eagleton's ethics of agape have emerged as two of the most outstanding attempts to reinstate morality at the centre of Marx's analysis of capitalist society. This article argues that, in spite of their merits in repositioning the normative generalizations of the moral discourse within the context of Marx's political economy, both theories share certain fundamental flaws which are inherent in the very meaning of the possibility of moral (...) action in a wrong society. By taking Karatani's transcritique as a sample of what Christoph Menke names `rational morality' and Eagleton's revival of classical morality as a variant of `virtue ethics', it is shown that they are both amenable to Adorno's charge that wrong life cannot be lived rightly. Finally, it is contended that what Adorno's criticism indicates is that, when it most matters in real situations, morality always reveals its political overdetermination. Key Words: Theodor Adorno • critical theory • dialectics • Terry Eagleton • Kojin Karatani • rational morality • totality • transcendental • transcritique • virtue ethics. (shrink)