Cet article traite de la fabrication des héroïnes en Grèce ancienne. Le traité « Vertus de Femmes » (Gunaikon Aretai, Mulierum Virtutes) de Plutarque propose des exemples de femmes ayant fait preuve d’arété dans leur vie. L’étude des quelques histoires permet de comprendre les caractéristiques de cette valeur féminine : les actes de bravoure, les leçons de courage, le consentement, les bons conseils, la résistance au tyran… Les femmes sont louées par la cité, mais la reconnaissance publique ne se traduit (...) jamais dans le domaine politique. La construction de l’héroïsme en Grèce ancienne est en rapport direct avec les coutumes et les valeurs de ces sociétés anciennes. Cet article relève à la fois de l’histoire du genre et de l’histoire du politique. (shrink)

Cet article traite de la fabrication des héroïnes en Grèce ancienne. Le traité « Vertus de Femmes » (Gunaikon Aretai, Mulierum Virtutes) de Plutarque propose des exemples de femmes ayant fait preuve d’arété dans leur vie. L’étude des quelques histoires permet de comprendre les caractéristiques de cette valeur féminine : les actes de bravoure, les leçons de courage, le consentement, les bons conseils, la résistance au tyran… Les femmes sont louées par la cité, mais la reconnaissance publique ne se traduit (...) jamais dans le domaine politique. La construction de l’héroïsme en Grèce ancienne est en rapport direct avec les coutumes et les valeurs de ces sociétés anciennes. Cet article relève à la fois de l’histoire du genre et de l’histoire du politique. (shrink)

Plus de cinq ans de parution, douze numéros et sans doute plus de trois mille pages, CLIO a atteint l'âge adulte. CLIO est-elle connue de toutes et de tous, du moins parmi les historiens? Sans doute, si l'on excepte la tribu toujours un peu lointaine des historiens de l'Antiquité pour lesquels Klio (avec un K) reste et demeure une très savante revue d'histoire ancienne publiée à Vienne. Mais c'était bien le risque (mesuré) que de vouloir prendre le nom d'une muse (...) qui avait déjà séduit plus d... (shrink)

De nombreuses sources (iconographiques, littéraires, épigraphiques, archéologiques) offrent des documents sur la part prise par les femmes grecques antiques aux banquets dans des contextes très variés : symposion d’hétaïres, repas sacrificiels, repas dans des cultes exclusivement réservés aux femmes, banquets publics ouverts aux femmes, consommation individuelle et journalière. Cet article tente de les rassembler et de les comparer pour dégager les significations multiples de la présence des femmes aux banquets et poser en cours de route quelques questions de méthode et (...) d’histoire. (shrink)

This book is a translation into English of La religion grecque by Louise Bruit Zaidman and Pauline Schmitt Pantel, described by Dr Simon Price as 'an excellent book, by far the best introduction to the subject in any language'. It is the purpose of the book to consider how religious beliefs and cultic rituals were given expression in the world of the Greek citizen - the functions performed by the religious personnel, and the place that religion occupied (...) in individual, social and political life. The chapters cover first ritual and then myth, rooting the account in the practices of the classical city while also taking seriously the world of the imagination. For this edition the bibliography has been substantially revised to meet the needs of a mainly student, English-speaking readership. The book is enriched throughout by illustrations, and by quotations from original sources. (shrink)

À des « antiquisants » séduits par les publications de K. J. Dover, de P. Veyne et de E. Cantarella, à un lectorat pétri des travaux de M. Foucault, l’ouvrage de J. D. Davidson propose une autre « histoire des plaisirs » dans la démocratique Athènes, une approche plus complexe et plus souple parce qu’elle entend se dégager de l’opposition prégnante entre sexualité active et sexualité passive. Sa lecture est d’autant plus passionnante que l’ouvrage plus récent de F. Dupont et (...) T. Eloy - L’Érotisme masculin dans la Rome antique - invite, lui aussi, à réfléchir sur ce que l’auteur appelle « la théorie du phallus ». (shrink)

Les femmes mises en images abondent dans les livres d'histoire, de sociologie ou d'esthétique. Peut-être devrait-on plutôt parler, à leur propos, d'un rapport des hommes aux images, car il s'est presque toujours agi de la transcription des images que les hommes se font des femmes, de leur imaginaire de la Femme. Ainsi en est-il dans le monde grec ancien. S'il n'est nullement exclu que des femmes aient pu faire partie du personnel des ateliers de fabrication de vases à Athènes par (...) exemp... (shrink)

En choisissant de publier ce recueil d’articles (écrits et publiés entre 1977 et 2008) sur les femmes et le genre dans la collection dont Hélène Rouch fut l’une des fondatrices, Pauline Schmitt Pantel salue le rôle joué par la recherche féministe dans le renouvellement de l’historiographie de l’antiquité. Dans un avant-propos qui rappelle combien la recherche se nourrit de l’engagement de son auteur-e, elle dévoile discrètement quelques traces d’une autobiographie qui comporte, on s’en doute,...

Denyse et Philippe Durand-Ruel commencent leur collection de tableaux et d’objets d’art au début des années soixante : ils héritent alors d’une partie de la collection de tableaux impressionnistes qui avait été constituée par l’arrière-grand-père de Philippe Durand-Ruel. Ils décident de poursuivre cette collection. Leur intention première était de faire le lien entre le temps des impressionnistes et l’époque contemporaine, mais ils se rendent rapidement compte que des peintres comme Picasso...

La conjonction des planètes était certes aisée à décrypter, d'une part, la montée inéluctable de l'histoire du genre, d'autre part l'intérêt plus ancien pour l'histoire biologique ­ qui ne se dément pas ­ et, dans leur sillage, d'autres objets nouveaux (nouveaux, surtout en histoire ancienne et médiévale à un moindre degré) : l'enfant, l'adolescent et autres âges de la vie…, bref, tout cela annonçait assez clairement l'avènement du corps comme nouvelle frontière du territoire historien...

This book is a translation into English of La religion grecque by Louise Bruit Zaidman and Pauline Schmitt Pantel, described by Dr Simon Price as 'an excellent book, by far the best introduction to the subject in any language'. It is the purpose of the book to consider how religious beliefs and cultic rituals were given expression in the world of the Greek citizen - the functions performed by the religious personnel, and the place that religion occupied (...) in individual, social and political life. The chapters cover first ritual and then myth, rooting the account in the practices of the classical city while also taking seriously the world of the imagination. For this edition the bibliography has been substantially revised to meet the needs of a mainly student, English-speaking readership. The book is enriched throughout by illustrations, and by quotations from original sources. (shrink)

Le livre de Nadine Bernard n’aborde pas un sujet neuf et ne comble pas un vide bibliographique. Les synthèses anciennes, telle celle de Claude Mossé, et plus récentes, comme le premier volume de l’Histoire des femmes paru sous la direction de Pauline Schmitt-Pantel ou encore le livre récent de Pierre Brulé, ont déjà beaucoup donné au lecteur, spécialiste ou non, qui s’intéresse à ce champ d’étude. Mais ce livre fait pourtant oeuvre utile. Procédant d’une bonne connaissance de (...) la bibliographie... (shrink)

Cet ouvrage, dont le titre est emprunté à Eschyle (Sept contre Thèbes : la septième porte est celle où s’affrontent Etéocle et Polynice), est la publication d’une thèse d’histoire grecque, dirigée par Pauline Schmitt Pantel et soutenue en 2010 à l’Université de Paris I. L’objet de l’enquête est très large : la présentation des conflits dans la cité des Athéniens (Ve-IVe s.) exige une « démarche concentrique » qui part de l’espace domestique et déborde jusqu’à la cité, (...) son agora, son théâtre e... (shrink)

Spécialiste du polythéisme hellénique (notamment, en collaboration avec Pauline Schmitt Pantel, La religion grecque, Paris, Colin, 1989) et de l'histoire des femmes (comme « Le temps des jeunes filles dans la cité grecque », CLIO, 1996, 4, pp. 33-50), Louise Bruit Zaidman croise volontiers ses deux centres de recherche. Un exemple parmi d'autres : « Les filles de Pandore. Femmes et rituels dans les cités », le chapitre consacré aux pratiques religieuses féminines en pays grec dans Hist...

In 1979, on the thirty-ninth anniversary of the closing of the Franco-Spanish border at Port Bou and one day before the anniversary of the suicide of Walter Benjamin, Jacob Taubes and Carl Schmitt opened the Bible in the Sauerland. The two men sat down in Plettenburg to read St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapters 9-11. As if in memory of Benjamin, they spoke “under a priestly seal”: Schmitt, the most important state law theorist of the twentieth century, (...) a Roman Catholic and sometime member of the Nazi Party; Taubes, a Jewish philosopher of a Messianic and oddly left-wing disposition.…. (shrink)

'Autonomy' is originally a political notion. In this chapter, I argue that the political theory Kant defended while he was writing the _Groundwork_ sheds light on the difficulties that are commonly associated with his account of moral autonomy. I argue that Kant's account of the two-tiered structure of political legislation, in his _Feyerabend Lectures on Natural Law_, parallels his distinction between two levels of moral legislation, and that this helps to explain why Kant could regard the notion of 'autonomy' as (...) apt to express the principle of morality---at least in the mid 1780s. (shrink)

CHAPTER ONE CUSANUS' VISION OF MAN Historical and Historiographical Backgrounds Nicolaus Cusanus has fascinated and puzzled students of late medieval and ...

The present article will introduce a proposition of semiotic methodology that can be used to diagnose cohabitation issues in cities between human inhabitants and non-human liminals. This methodology is built on a few sets of data that should be easy to obtain in any important city, and can therefore be utilised in a variety of situations. The different sets of data allow us to map the cohabitation semiosphere (following Hoffmeyer’s meaning of the term) of the situation along three axes: the (...) materiality of the situation, the symbolic significance of the relationship, and the emotional significance of the interaction. These three aspects allow us to see gaps, paradoxes and points of consistency, enabling complex and multi-level understanding of the situation. (shrink)

The prohibition against using others ‘merely as means’ is one of Kant’s most famous ideas, but it has proven difficult to spell out with precision what it requires of us in practice. In ‘How to Use Someone “Merely as a Means”’ (2020), I proposed a new interpretation of the necessary and sufficient conditions for using someone ‘merely as a means’. I argued that my agent-focused actual consent inter- pretation has strong textual support and significant advantages over other readings of the (...) prohibition. In the present essay, I respond to comments by Claudia Blöser, Irina Schumski, and Oliver Sensen. I first address the role of maxims in relation to the Formula of Humanity, and I spell out in more detail the relation between the agent’s belief and the actual facts pertaining to the consent of the person who is used as means to the agent’s end. I then discuss the importance of the requirement that agents make their use of others conditional on the others’ consent as a matter of moral principle. I next show that the proposed reading of the prohibition, despite its focus on the agent’s maxims and practical reasoning, yields important conclusions about the moral status of external actions, and I address several cases that are pur- ported to spell trouble for my reading of Kant’s prohibition. I end by outlining two challenges for possible (rational) consent readings of the prohibition against using others merely as means. (shrink)

Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz stand out among their seventeenth-century contemporaries as the great rationalist philosophers. Each sought to construct a philosophical system in which theological and philosophical foundations serve to explain the physical, mental and moral universe. Through a careful analysis of their work, Pauline Phemister explores the rationalists seminal contribution to the development of modern philosophy. Broad terminological agreement and a shared appreciation of the role of reason in ethics do not mask the very significant disagreements that led (...) to three distinctive philosophical systems: Cartesian dualism, Spinozan monism and Leibnizian pluralism. The book explores the nature of, and offers reasons for, these differences. Phemister contends that Spinoza and Leibniz developed their systems in part through engagements with and amendment of Cartesian philosophy, and critically analyses the arguments and contributions of all three philosophers. The clarity of the authors discussion of their key ideas including their views on knowledge, universal languages, the nature of substance and substances, bodies, the relation of mind and body, freedom, and the role of distinct perception and reason in morals will make this book the ideal introduction to rationalist philosophy. (shrink)

The Moral Self addresses the question of how morality enters into our lives. Pauline Chazan draws upon psychology, r ral philosophy and literary interpretation to rebut the view that morality's role is to limit desire and control self-love. Perserving the ancients' connection between what is good for the self and what is morally good, Chazan argues that a certain kind of care for the self is central to moral agency. Her intriguing argument begins with a critical examination of the (...) views of Hume, Rousseau and Hegel. The constructive part of the book takes a more unusual turn by synthesising the work on the analyst Heinz Kohut and Aristotle into Chazan's own positive account, which is then illustrated by the use of Russian literature. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Einsatz von Psychopharmaka im Altenpflegeheim unterliegt aufgrund institutioneller und struktureller Besonderheiten dieses Versorgungsbereiches, aber auch aufgrund der großen Abhängigkeit und Vulnerabilität eines großen Teils der Altenpflegeheimbewohner in besonderer Weise der Gefahr, in inadäquater und missbräuchlicher Weise durchgeführt zu werden. Die Beachtung der ethischen Grundprinzipien des Wohltuns und des Nichtschadendürfens sowie des Respekts vor der Autonomie der Bewohner (bzw. der Patienten) sollte für alle an der Versorgung unmittelbar und mittelbar Beteiligten handlungsleitend sein. Zum Schutz der Heimbewohner, aber auch mit dem (...) Ziel die Versorgungsqualität in diesem Bereich nachprüfbar zu verbessern, werden in diesem Beitrag Kriterien zur Definition einer inadäquaten bzw. adäquaten Anwendung von Psychopharmaka explizit formuliert, sowie deren Implementierung in prozessorientierte Handlungsalgorithmen und Behandlungsleitlinien vorgeschlagen. Darüber hinaus sollen die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen nicht-pharmakologischer, psychologischer Interventionen als Alternative zur Psychopharmakamedikation diskutiert und hinsichtlich ihrer ethischen Implikationen reflektiert werden. (shrink)

Kant is famous for his universalist moral theory, which emphasizes human dignity, equality, and autonomy. Yet he also defended sexist and (until late in his life) racist views. In this essay, I address the question of how current readers of Kant should deal with Kant’s sexism and racism. I first provide a brief description of Kant’s views on sexual and racial hierarchies, and of the way they intersect. I then turn to the question of whether we should set aside Kant’s (...) sexism and racism or ‘translate’ his egalitarian principles into inegalitarian ones. I argue for a third position, namely, that we should highlight the tensions that pervade Kant’s theory. In the final section, I argue that the use of inclusive language and female pronouns in recent discussions of Kant’s moral and political philosophy carries significant risks. I end by articulating several preconditions for fruitfully using Kant’s moral principles to criticize sexism and racism. (shrink)

The prohibition on using others ‘merely as means’ is one of the best-known and most influential elements of Immanuel Kant’s moral theory. But it is widely regarded as impossible to specify with precision the conditions under which this prohibition is violated. On the basis of a re-examination of Kant’s texts, the article develops a novel account of the conditions for using someone ‘merely as a means’. It is argued that this account has not only strong textual support but also significant (...) philosophical advantages over alternative conceptions. (shrink)

A popular principle about grounding, “Internality”, says that if A grounds B, then necessarily, if A and B obtain, then A grounds B. I argue that Internality is false. Its falsity reveals a distinctive, new kind of explanation, which I call “ennobling”. Its falsity also entails that every previously proposed theory of what grounds grounding facts is false. I construct a new theory.

Kant’s most prominent formulation of the Categorical Imperative, known as the Formula of Universal Law (FUL), is generally thought to demand that one act only on maxims that one can will as universal laws without this generating a contradiction. Kant's view is standardly summarized as requiring the 'universalizability' of one's maxims and described in terms of the distinction between 'contradictions in conception' and 'contradictions in the will'. Focusing on the underappreciated significance of the simultaneity condition included in the FUL, I (...) argue, by contrast, that the principle is better read as requiring that one be able to will two things simultaneously without self-contradiction, namely, that a maxim be one's own and that it be a universal law. This amounts to a new interpretation of the FUL with significant interpretive and philosophical advantages. (shrink)

Advance directives convey consumers’ wishes about accepting or refusing future treatment if they become incompetent. They are designed to communicate a competent consumer’s perspective regarding the preferred treatment, should the consumer later become incompetent. There are associated ethical issues for health practitioners and this article considers the features that are relevant to nurses. In New Zealand, consumers have a legal right to use an advance directive that is not limited to life-prolonging care and includes general health procedures. Concerns may arise (...) regarding a consumer’s competence and the document’s validity. Nurses need to understand their legal and professional obligations to comply with an advance directive. What role does a nurse play and what questions arise for a nurse when advance directives are discussed with consumers? This article considers the cultural dimensions, legal boundaries, consumers’ and providers’ perspectives, and the medical and nursing positions in New Zealand. (shrink)

This chapter proposes a solution to the Trolley Problem in terms of the Kantian prohibition on using a person ‘merely as a means.’ A solution of this type seems impossible due to the difficulties it is widely thought to encounter in the scenario known as the Loop case. The chapter offers a conception of ‘using merely as a means’ that explains the morally relevant difference between the classic Bystander and Footbridge cases. It then shows, contrary to the standard view, that (...) a bystander who diverts the trolley in the Loop case need not be using someone ‘merely as a means’ in doing so. This makes it possible to show why the Loop scenario does not undermine the explanation of the salient moral difference between the Bystander and Footbridge cases. (shrink)

During the 1780s, as Kant was developing his universalistic moral theory, he published texts in which he defended the superiority of whites over non-whites. Whether commentators see this as evidence of inconsistent universalism or of consistent inegalitarianism, they generally assume that Kant's position on race remained stable during the 1780s and 1790s. Against this standard view, I argue on the basis of his texts that Kant radically changed his mind. I examine his 1780s race theory and his hierarchical conception of (...) the races, and subsequently address the question of the significance of these views, especially in the light of Kant's own ethical theory. I then show that during the 1790s Kant restricts the role of the concept of race, and drops his hierarchical account of the races in favour of a more genuinely egalitarian and cosmopolitan view. (shrink)

Post-modernism offers a revolutionary approach to the study of society: in questioning the validity of modern science and the notion of objective knowledge, this movement discards history, rejects humanism, and resists any truth claims. In this comprehensive assessment of post-modernism, Pauline Rosenau traces its origins in the humanities and describes how its key concepts are today being applied to, and are restructuring, the social sciences. Serving as neither an opponent nor an apologist for the movement, she cuts through post-modernism's (...) often incomprehensible jargon in order to offer all readers a lucid exposition of its propositions. Rosenau shows how the post-modern challenge to reason and rational organization radiates across academic fields. For example, in psychology it questions the conscious, logical, coherent subject; in public administration it encourages a retreat from central planning and from reliance on specialists; in political science it calls into question the authority of hierarchical, bureaucratic decision-making structures that function in carefully defined spheres; in anthropology it inspires the protection of local, primitive cultures from First World attempts to reorganize them. In all of the social sciences, she argues, post-modernism repudiates representative democracy and plays havoc with the very meaning of "left-wing" and "right-wing." Rosenau also highlights how post-modernism has inspired a new generation of social movements, ranging from New Age sensitivities to Third World fundamentalism. In weighing its strengths and weaknesses, the author examines two major tendencies within post-modernism, the largely European, skeptical form and the predominantly Anglo-North-American form, which suggests alternative political, social, and cultural projects. She draws examples from anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, law, planning, political science, psychology, sociology, urban studies, and women's studies, and provides a glossary of post-modern terms to assist the uninitiated reader with special meanings not found in standard dictionaries. (shrink)

"Sure to be controversial and of interest to a wide audience in feminist history" (Judith Grant, University of Southern California), this book draws on a wide range of political and intellectual traditions to demonstrate that, only by ...

This is the first comprehensive account of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, highlighting its moral, political, legal, economic, cultural, and psychological aspects. Contrasting Kant’s views with those of his German contemporaries, and relating them to current debates, Pauline Kleingeld sheds new light on texts that have been hitherto neglected or underestimated. In clear and carefully argued discussions, she shows that Kant’s philosophical cosmopolitanism underwent a radical transformation in the mid 1790s and that the resulting theory is philosophically stronger than is usually thought. (...) Using the work of figures such as Fichte, Cloots, Forster, Hegewisch, Wieland, and Novalis, Kleingeld analyzes Kant’s arguments regarding the relationship between cosmopolitanism and patriotism, the importance of states, the ideal of an international federation, cultural pluralism, race, global economic justice, and the psychological feasibility of the cosmopolitan ideal. In doing so, she reveals a broad spectrum of positions in cosmopolitan theory that are relevant to current discussions of cosmopolitanism. -/- TABLE OF CONTENTS: Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. World citizens in their own country: Wieland and Kant on moral cosmopolitanism and patriotism; 2. Universal republic of world citizens or international federation?: Cloots and Kant on global peace; 3. Global hospitality: Kant's concept of cosmopolitan right; 4. Hierarchy or diversity?: Forster and Kant on race, culture, and cosmopolitanism; 5. International trade and justice: Hegewisch and Kant on cosmopolitanism and globalization; 6. Cosmopolitanism and feeling: Novalis and Kant on the development of a universal human community; 7. Kant's cosmopolitanism and current philosophical debates; Bibliography; Index. (shrink)

Der Einsatz von Psychopharmaka im Altenpflegeheim unterliegt aufgrund institutioneller und struktureller Besonderheiten dieses Versorgungsbereiches, aber auch aufgrund der großen Abhängigkeit und Vulnerabilität eines großen Teils der Altenpflegeheimbewohner in besonderer Weise der Gefahr, in inadäquater und missbräuchlicher Weise durchgeführt zu werden. Die Beachtung der ethischen Grundprinzipien des Wohltuns und des Nichtschadendürfens sowie des Respekts vor der Autonomie der Bewohner (bzw. der Patienten) sollte für alle an der Versorgung unmittelbar und mittelbar Beteiligten handlungsleitend sein. Zum Schutz der Heimbewohner, aber auch mit dem (...) Ziel die Versorgungsqualität in diesem Bereich nachprüfbar zu verbessern, werden in diesem Beitrag Kriterien zur Definition einer inadäquaten bzw. adäquaten Anwendung von Psychopharmaka explizit formuliert, sowie deren Implementierung in prozessorientierte Handlungsalgorithmen und Behandlungsleitlinien vorgeschlagen. Darüber hinaus sollen die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen nicht-pharmakologischer, psychologischer Interventionen als Alternative zur Psychopharmakamedikation diskutiert und hinsichtlich ihrer ethischen Implikationen reflektiert werden. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer Einsatz von Psychopharmaka im Altenpflegeheim unterliegt aufgrund institutioneller und struktureller Besonderheiten dieses Versorgungsbereiches, aber auch aufgrund der großen Abhängigkeit und Vulnerabilität eines großen Teils der Altenpflegeheimbewohner in besonderer Weise der Gefahr, in inadäquater und missbräuchlicher Weise durchgeführt zu werden. Die Beachtung der ethischen Grundprinzipien des Wohltuns und des Nichtschadendürfens sowie des Respekts vor der Autonomie der Bewohner sollte für alle an der Versorgung unmittelbar und mittelbar Beteiligten handlungsleitend sein. Zum Schutz der Heimbewohner, aber auch mit dem Ziel die Versorgungsqualität (...) in diesem Bereich nachprüfbar zu verbessern, werden in diesem Beitrag Kriterien zur Definition einer inadäquaten bzw. adäquaten Anwendung von Psychopharmaka explizit formuliert, sowie deren Implementierung in prozessorientierte Handlungsalgorithmen und Behandlungsleitlinien vorgeschlagen. Darüber hinaus sollen die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen nicht-pharmakologischer, psychologischer Interventionen als Alternative zur Psychopharmakamedikation diskutiert und hinsichtlich ihrer ethischen Implikationen reflektiert werden. (shrink)

Knowledge, from Plato onwards, has been considered in relation to justified belief. Current debate has centred around the nature of the justification and whether justified belief can be considered an internal or extenal matter. Epistemological internalists argue that the subject must be able to reflect upon a belief to complete the process of justification. The externalists, on the other hand, claim that it is only necessary to consider whether the belief is reliably formed, and argue that the ability to know (...) by reflection is not required for a justified belief. In the historical section of this book the three most important epistemologists, Plato, Descartes and Hume, as well as the ancient epistemologies of the stoics, Academics and Pyrhonians, are considered. In reconsidering the history of epistemology the author is led to argue against hte view that internalism is historically dominant. His critique of internalism is then developed into a sustained argument against many of its forms, and he goes onto defend an externalist, reliabilist epistemology. (shrink)

In this essay, “The Principle of Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory: Its Rise and Fall,” Pauline Kleingeld notes that Kant’s Principle of Autonomy, which played a central role in both the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, disappeared by the time of the Metaphysics of Morals. She argues that its disappearance is due to significant changes in Kant’s political philosophy. The Principle of Autonomy states that one ought to act as if one were (...) giving universal laws through one’s maxims. The criterion of just legislation that Kant accepted in the mid-1780s does not require any actual consent on the part of the citizens—genuine universality is sufficient for a law to be just. Hence, at that time, Kant could indeed explicate the criterion governing the moral permissibility of one’s maxims by drawing an analogy with the criterion governing the justice of political laws. In the Metaphysics of Morals and in other works in the 1790s, however, he added the further condition that laws must be given with the consent of the citizens. With this further condition, the moral criterion was no longer fully analogous to the criterion for political laws being just. Accordingly, Kleingeld argues, Kant dropped the Principle of Autonomy, which was firmly based on that analogy. (shrink)

The Montagovian hypothesis of direct model-theoretic interpretation of syntactic surface structures is supported by an account of the semantics of binding that makes no use of variables, syntactic indices, or assignment functions & shows that the interpretation of a large portion of so-called variable-binding phenomena can dispense with the level of logical form without incurring equivalent complexity elsewhere in the system. Variable-free semantics hypothesizes local interpretation of each surface constituent; binding is formalized as a type-shifting operation on expressions that denote (...) functions, & sentences containing a free pronoun are analyzed as a function from individuals to propositions having a meaning of type (e,t). Standard weak crossover effects & binding patterns in sentences with multiple pronouns are shown to submit to straightforward type-theoretic treatments that do not rely on indexation. The variable-free semantics smoothly implements full surface compositionality & requires less machinery than standard accounts to handle functional questions, their answers, sloppy inferences, & across-the-board binding. 73 References. J. Hitchcock. (shrink)