In the present work, we are interested in establishing the possible influence of Socrates in the Aristotelian dialectic. To do this, we will divide the work into three sections. In the first, we will focus very briefly on the problem of the Aristotelian reconstruction of Socrates’ thinking. In the second part, we will analyze some aspects of the so-called Socratic method. Finally, in the third section, we will examine what aspects of this method Aristotle may have inherited. Our thesis is (...) that the Aristotelian dialectic has Socratic reminiscences that allow us to speak of an inheritance Socratic. (shrink)

El Sofista es una obra actualmente perdida de Aristóteles de la que se conservan escasos fragmentos. En tres de ellos, 1a, 1b y 1c, el Estagirita le adjudica a Zenón la invención de la dialéctica, pese a que las estrategias argumentativas que esta técnica supone son rastreables en diversas obras pertenecientes a diversos ámbitos: la literatura, la historia, la filosofía, la medicina, etc., incluso con anterioridad al desarrollo del pensamiento de este último filósofo. Esto nos lleva a preguntarnos sobre el (...) sentido de esta caracterización y cuáles son los motivos por los cuales Aristóteles la realiza. En este trabajo nos proponemos analizar esta cuestión. Para ello, previamente examinaremos los usos de ciertas prácticas, consideradas posteriormente como dialécticas, por pensadores y escritores que antecedieron o fueron contemporáneos a Zenón. Tras hacer eso, nos centraremos en la reconstrucción de los fragmentos 1a-c del Sofista a la luz de otros textos del corpus, como, por ejemplo, Metafísica III 4 y Física VI 9. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo analizaremos los procedimientos metodológicos implementados por Aristóteles en el fragmento 16 de Sobre la filosofía, en los que postula cierta entidad que caracteriza como divina y eterna. Para dar cuenta de esa entidad, Aristóteles se vale de un argumento factible de dividirse en tres momentos: en el primero, presenta el razonamiento por el cual se debe aceptar su eternidad; en el segundo, establece la identificación entre lo divino y lo óptimo y se focaliza en las posibles (...) causas por las cuales algo cambia, y, finalmente, sobre la base de este último resultado, en el tercer momento, se centra en demostrar que lo divino es inmutable. Para hacer esto, se vale de lo que suele llamar “silogismos a partir de hipótesis”. Nuestro objetivo es examinar el uso dialéctico de este tipo de silogismos, que en la primera parte del fragmento son equiparables con lo que en la terminología de la lógica actual conocemos como modus ponens y, hacia el final del fragmento, adquieren la forma de una reducción a lo imposible. (shrink)

En la serie de frags. 11-17 del Protréptico Aristóteles presenta un extenso argumento, cuyo hilo conductor es su noción de phýsis. Se trata de un argumento progresivo en el cual Aristóteles traza una relación entre phýsis y techné, cuyo objetivo es concluir la relevancia de recibir educación filosófica y filosofar.En este trabajo, nuestro objetivo es analizar este argumento atendiendo a sus supuestos ontológicos y epistemológicos. Para ello, dividiéremos el trabajo en dos partes: en la primera haremos un análisis muy escueto (...) de cómo Jámblico cita el Protréptico de Aristóteles, en función de que es la fuente mediate la cual accedemos al argumento aquí estudiado; en la segunda, nos detendremos en el análisis del argumento propiamente dicho. (shrink)

En el segundo libro de la Metafísica (II 1, 993b, 11-15), al hablar de la investigación sobre la verdad, Aristóteles menciona el valor del aporte de sus predecesores. Allí, Aristóteles enfatiza que aun aquellos que han estudiado superficialmente la naturaleza de las cosas han hecho una contribución en esa búsqueda. En este libro, la filosofía parece ser concebida como un quehacer cooperativo en el cual participa, de alguna manera, toda la tradición filosófica. Por tal motivo, en el presente trabajo intentaremos (...) indagar entorno a esta concepción de la filosofía, poniendo énfasis en el uso que hace Aristóteles de la opinión de sus predecesores. Una de las nociones en la que nos centraremos es la de éndoxa y el papel que esta juega en la epistemología aristotélica. (shrink)

La tesis que intentaremos mostrar en este trabajo es que, al exponer su concepción acerca de la sabiduría en _Sobre la filosofía_, Aristóteles habría operado tomando como punto de partida el supuesto de que en el orden del conocimiento se debe proceder de “lo más conocido para nosotros” a “lo más conocido en sí”. Para ello, dividiremos el trabajo en dos secciones. En la primera, abordaremos de forma esquemática el uso de términos perceptuales en algunas de las obras del _corpus_. (...) En la segunda parte, analizaremos los fragmentos 8b y 8c de _Sobre la filosofía_, que son los estratos de la obra en donde este principio epistemológico aparecen más claramente. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la relación entre la concepción de la sabiduría y el uso de metáforas lumínicas presentes en los fragmentos 8b y 8c de Sobre la filosofía. Al hacer esto, nos interesa establecer si el uso de esta metáfora responde a la utilización que Aristóteles hace de términos perceptuales en otras obras, como la Física, la Metafísica, Sobre el alma y el Protréptico. El objetivo de este análisis es examinar si, al hacer uso de la (...) metáfora lumínica en estos fragmentos, Aristóteles supone la distinción entre “lo más más conocido en sí” y “lo más conocido para nosotros”, presentada en las obras arriba mencionadas como “lo más claro en sí” y “lo más claro para nosotros”, esto es, en términos perceptuales. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo nos interesa analizar cómo Aristóteles formula los principios de la física a partir de la noción de generación. Nuestra tesis es que Física I 7 es el “momento” de euporía que cierra un proceso que se inicia en 1-2 con la problematización acerca de la naturaleza y número de los principios. Para demostrar esto, dividiremos el trabajo en dos partes. En la primera intentaremos establecer por qué Aristóteles emprende esta investigación y cuál es el contexto argumentativo (...) a partir del cual postula sus principios. En la segunda parte, analizaremos los supuestos con base en los cuales sostiene que materia, forma y privación son los tres principios buscados. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente artículo es analizar la noción de noûs en el Protréptico de Aristóteles. Para ello, me centraré en los fragmentos 24, 28, 65 y 110. Mediante el examen del primero de ellos argumentaré que el noûs es una facultad cuya meta es el conocimiento de los objetos inteligibles. A través del análisis de los fragmentos 28 y 65 intentaré demostrar que el ejercicio de esta facultad no es una actividad más entre otras, sino la distintiva del hombre, (...) su función propia, siendo, por esto mismo, aquello de lo cual depende su felicidad. Finalmente, por medio del fragmento 110, intentaré mostrar cómo, pese a ser lo divino en el hombre, el noûs constituye su naturaleza específica, aquello que lo distingue de los demás seres, incluso de los dioses. The aim of this article is to analyze the notion of noûs in Aristotle's Protrepticus. For this, I will focus on fragments 24, 28, 65 and 110. By examining fragment 24, I argue that noûs is a faculty whose goal is the knowledge of intelligible objects. Through the analysis of fragments 28 and 65, I try to show that the exercise of this faculty is not only one activity among others, but that it is distinctive of human beings, their own function, and for this reason, that on which their happiness depends. Finally, by means of fragment 110, I try to demonstrate why, despite the fact the noûs accounts for the divine in man, it constitutes his specific nature, that which not only sets him apart from other beings, but also from gods. (shrink)

RESUMEN Sobre la filosofía es una obra exotérica que se conserva de forma fragmentaria. Se cree que tenía tres libros. En los dos primeros Aristóteles habría realizado un compendio sobre las diferentes concepciones de la filosofía y su respectivo objeto; en el tercero habría presentado sus propias concepciones sobre los temas abordados en los libros precedentes. Los escasos fragmentos conservados y la disparidad de las fuentes por las cuales estos son transmitidos representan una dificultad para establecer cuáles son esas concepciones. (...) En este sentido, en este trabajo intentaremos demostrar que en Sobre la filosofía Aristóteles presentaba muchas de las tesis vinculadas con la concepción de la filosofía primera como el estudio de los primeros principios y causas. Para ello nos centraremos en el análisis de los fragmentos 8b, 16, 17, 27a y27b. El examen de estos fragmentos a la luz del resto del corpus nos permitirá demostrar que en Sobre la filosofía Aristóteles identifica la sabiduría con el conocimiento, los principios y las causas. ABSTRACT On Philosophy is an exoteric work that is preserved in a fragmentary mode. It is assumed that it had three books. In the first two, Aristotle would have made a compendium of the different conceptions of philosophy and its respective object. In the third book he would have presented his own conceptions on the topics approached in the previous books. The few preserved fragments and the disparity of the sources by which they are transmitted represent a difficulty for establishing which would have been these conceptions. In this sense, in this paper we will try to demonstrate that in On philosophy Aristotle presented many of the theses related to the conception of the first philosophy as the study of the first principles and causes. With this end, we will focus on the analysis of the fragments 8b, 16, 17, 27a y27b. The examination of these fragments in light of the rest of the corpus will allow us to demonstrate that in On philosophy Aristotle have identified wisdom with the knowledge of these principles and causes. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo nos proponemos analizar el uso que Aristóteles hace en el Protréptico de la analogía entre phýsis y téchne centrándonos para ello en su concepción de la naturaleza como principio de movimiento presentada en la Física. La tesis que intentaremos defender es que el uso de la analogía obedece a la metodología aristotélica de ir de lo más conocido para nosotros a lo más conocido en sí y, por lo tanto, al intento de develar a través de (...) los procesos técnicos cómo llegan a ser los procesos de generación en el caso de los entes naturales. Para probar nuestra tesis, dividiremos el trabajo en dos secciones. En la primera, nos centraremos en el análisis del uso de la analogía y en los supuestos conceptuales que implica. En la segunda parte, nos detendremos en la limitación que esta analogía presenta y, por lo tanto, en la restricción explicativa que supone. (shrink)

Se trata de una reseña del libro de Navarro, Jorge Fernando (2021). _El concepto de justicia en la filosofía de Epicuro. Naturaleza y convención_, Buenos Aires, Miño & Dávila, 193 páginas.

La hipótesis que intentaremos defender en este trabajo es que en Sobre la filosofía Aristóteles hace una defensa dialéctica de su concepción de los principios, tomando como punto de partida algunas de las opiniones existentes al respecto. En ese sentido, el modo de proceder aristotélico en esta obra es consistente con el implementado con idénticos fines en las obras canónicas y contribuye a comprender el uso epistémico de la dialéctica en este pensador. Para demostrar esto, nos centraremos en el análisis (...) del fragmento 17. A tales efectos, dividiremos el trabajo en dos partes: en la primera, analizaremos el uso de las opiniones citadas en relación con el tema a discutir; en la segunda, examinaremos los recursos metodológicos por medio de los cuales Aristóteles da cuenta de sus propias concepciones. (shrink)

Entre los testimonios a las obras fragmentarias de Aristóteles, se suele incluir un fragmento de Diógenes de Enoanda. En dicho fragmento, Diógenes critica a Aristóteles por sostener dos tesis: 1) la incognoscibilidad de las entidades sensibles y 2) la negación de la física como ciencia. La confrontación de los textos aristotélicos con el fragmento de Diógenes nos lleva a preguntarnos cuáles son los motivos por los cuales este pensador tiene esta particular interpretación del pensamiento del Estagirita. En contra de las (...) tesis que, por diversos motivos, suponen lecturas platonizantes, creemos que Diógenes pretende demostrar una aparente inconsistencia en el pensamiento de Aristóteles. Con el objetivo de examinar esto último y de determinar la legitimidad de las objeciones de Diógenes, dividiéremos el trabajo en dos partes. En la primera, analizaremos el testimonio de Diógenes de Enoanda, cuya consecuencia sería la negación de la física como ciencia. En la segunda parte, estableceremos de qué modo Aristóteles puede dar respuesta a las objeciones planteadas. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente trabajo será examinar la serie de fragmentos33-36 del Protréptico a la luz de la posible influencia platónica. La tesis que intentaremosponer a prueba es que, pese a que la definición de ciencia como elconocimiento de las causas y la identificación de estas con los principios de lo reales una concepción esencial del platonismo, el hecho de que encontremos en elProtréptico la influencia de esta concepción no nos permite inferir que Aristótelesse esté refiriendo allí a las Ideas (...) platónicas o a los números ideales defendidospor su maestro ya sea en su obra exotérica o en sus enseñanzas orales. Desdenuestra perspectiva, si bien pareciera ser indudable que, al momento de escribirel Protrético, Aristóteles se nutre de algunas de las principales tesis platónicasque condicionarán su propia manera de entender la realidad, también parecieraser innegable que Aristóteles tiene una postura crítica respecto de algunas delas concepciones defendidas en el núcleo de la Academia. (shrink)

El libro es una compilación de diversos trabajos, editados por Viviana Suñol y Raquel Miranda. El objetivo del texto es reivindicar los estudios sobre el pensamiento antiguo en lengua hispana. Por tal motivo, reúne trabajos de diferentes especialistas de Latinoamérica. El libro tiene once capítulos, precedido por un prólogo de Sinnott y una introducción a cargo de las editoras. Los ejes temáticos elegidos son la ética, la retórica, el arte y la educación. Tal como lo señalan Suñol y Miranda, este (...) último eje, la educación, es de algún modo, transversal, aquel que permite reunificar en un todo las distintas contribuciones de los investigadores intervinientes. La causa de esto es que, “las preguntas sobre como educar al ciudadano y cómo habituar a los niños para que adquieran los valores de la pólis” son las cuestiones recurrentes a lo largo de todo el libro (Suñol y Miranda, 2020, p. 26). (shrink)

What distinguishes evils from ordinary wrongs? Is hatred a necessarily evil? Are some evils unforgivable? Are there evils we should tolerate? What can make evils hard to recognize? Are evils inevitable? How can we best respond to and live with evils? Claudia Card offers a secular theory of evil that responds to these questions and more. Evils, according to her theory, have two fundamental components. One component is reasonably foreseeable intolerable harm -- harm that makes a life indecent and (...) impossible or that makes a death indecent. The other component is culpable wrongdoing. Atrocities, such as genocides, slavery, war rape, torture, and severe child abuse, are Card's paradigms because in them these key elements are writ large. Atrocities deserve more attention than secular philosophers have so far paid them. They are distinguished from ordinary wrongs not by the psychological states of evildoers but by the seriousness of the harm that is done. Evildoers need not be sadistic:they may simply be negligent or unscrupulous in pursuing their goals. Card's theory represents a compromise between classic utilitarian and stoic alternatives (including Kant's theory of radical evil). Utilitarians tend to reduce evils to their harms; Stoics tend to reduce evils to the wickedness of perpetrators: Card accepts neither reduction. She also responds to Nietzsche's challenges about the worth of the concept of evil, and she uses her theory to argue that evils are more important than merely unjust inequalities. She applies the theory in explorations of war rape and violence against intimates. She also takes up what Primo Levi called "the gray zone", where victims become complicit in perpetrating on others evils that threaten to engulf themselves. While most past accounts of evil have focused on perpetrators, Card begins instead from the position of the victims, but then considers more generally how to respond to -- and live with -- evils, as victims, as perpetrators, and as those who have become both. (shrink)

The article introduces the problematics of the classical two-valued logic on which Western thought is generally based, outlining that under the conditions of its logical assumptions the subject I is situated in a world that it cannot address. In this context, the article outlines a short history of cybernetics and the shift from first- to second-order cybernetics. The basic principles of Gordon Pask’s 1976 Conversation Theory are introduced. It is argued that this second-order theory grants agency to others through a (...) re-conception of living beings as You logically transcending the I. The key principles of Conversation Theory are set in relation to the poetic forms of discourse that played a key role in art as well as philosophical thinking in China in the past. Second-order thinking, the article argues, is essentially poetic. It foregoes prediction in favour of the potentiality of encountering tomorrow’s delights. (shrink)

Statements such as “X is beautiful but I don’t like how it looks” or “I like how X looks but it is not beautiful” sound contradictory. How contradictory they sound might however depend on the object X and on the aesthetic adjective being used (“beautiful”, “elegant”, “dynamic”, etc.). In our study, the first sentence was estimated to be more contradictory than the latter: If we describe something as beautiful, we often intend to evaluate its appearance, whereas it is less counterintuitive (...) to appreciate an appearance without finding it beautiful. Furthermore, statements including “beautiful” appeared more contradictory than those including “elegant” and “dynamic”, pointing to its greater evaluative component. When related to artworks, sentences could appear less contradictory due to readers’ consideration of the divergence between conventional beauty and art-related sensory pleasures that can even include negative valence. Such ambivalence might be more frequent in art-objects than in other artefacts. Indeed, in our study, sentences referring to artworks were estimated to be less contradictory compared to sentences referring to other artefacts. Meanwhile, an additional small group of graphic design students showed a less clear difference between art-related and non-art-related sentences. We discuss the potential influence of art experience and interest as well as theoretical and methodological challenges like the conceptualization of beauty. (shrink)

Addressing studying as a distinct educational concept and phenomenon in its own right, the essays in this volume consider study and studying from a range of perspectives. Countering dominant educational discourses, which place a heavy emphasis on learning and instruction, the contributors explore questions such as: What does it mean to study something? How is studying something different from being taught about it, or learning something about it? What does the difficulty demanded by study mean for the one who studies (...) and for the teacher? What mode of existence does study induce? The book highlights the significance of study not only, or even primarily, for its educational outcome, but as a human activity. (shrink)

In recent times, phenomena of conversational asymmetry have become a lively object of study for linguists, philosophers of language and moral philosophers—under various labels: illocutionary disablement and silencing, discursive injustice :440–457, 2014; Lance and Kukla in Ethics 123:456–478, 2013), illocutionary distortion. The common idea is that members of underprivileged groups sometimes have trouble performing particular speech acts that they are entitled to perform: in certain contexts, their performative potential is somehow undermined, and their capacity to do things with words is (...) distorted or even annulled. In this paper I will assess this idea, focusing on Rebecca Kukla’s and Rae Langton’s accounts; in particular, I will criticize the role the notion of uptake plays in their accounts, and claim that it may ultimately undermine the very idea of discursive injustice. While, according to Kukla and Langton, members of disadvantaged groups are victims of a kind of uptake failure, leading to illocutionary disablement and even silencing, in the account I present they are victims of a kind of communicative disablement. My overall aim is to develop a notion of discursive injustice that is more plausible and more effective for our broader purposes of criticising the structures of power and oppression. (shrink)

One way to silence the powerless, Langton has taught us, is to pre-emptively disable their ability to do things with words. In this paper I argue that speakers can be silenced in a different way. You can let them speak, and obscure the meaning of their words afterwards. My aim is to investigate this form of silencing, that I call retroactive distortion. In a retroactive distortion, the meaning of the words of a speaker is distorted by the effect of a (...) subsequent speech act by a different speaker. After introducing this notion, I explore some reasons why retroactive distortions can be difficult to challenge and argue that, besides constituting a communicative injustice, they can eliminate topics from public consideration and therefore erode public debate. (shrink)

The editorial introduces issue 21.1 of Technoetic Arts via a critical reflection on the artificial intelligence hype (AI hype) that emerged in 2022. Tracing the history of the critique of Large Language Models, the editorial underscores that there are substantial ethical challenges related to bias in the training data, copyright issues, as well as ecological challeges which the technology industry has consistently downplayed over the years. -/- The editorial highlights the distinction between the current AI technology’s reliance on extensive pre-existing (...) human-generated data for pattern recognition and the performative process inherent in art practice. Patterns of creative output can be replicated without a thorough understanding of underlying concepts. In contrast, the performative process of art practice, as explored through the conceptual frameworks of creativity by Noam Chomsky, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Roger T. Ames and with reference to an earlier publication of the editorial’s author, creates concepts and continually ‘strives to extend itself towards the unknown.’ -/- Following this introductory section, the editorial provides an overview of the ten articles featured in this issue of Technoetic Arts. The first four texts engage with emerging technologies from various perspectives in art and design. The subsequent six articles, part of a special section titled 'Perspectives from Chandigarh,' reflect a quest for meaningful existence within colonial, patriarchal, and biopolitical structures that frame everyday practices of exclusion and oppression. (shrink)

Clinical Ethics Consultation (CEC) has grown significantly in the last decade, and efforts are being made to professionalize the practice. The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) has been instrumental in this process, having published the _Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibilities for Healthcare Ethics Consultants_ and founded and endorsed the creation of the _Healthcare Ethics Consultant Certified (HCEC) Certification Commission._ The ASBH also published “core competencies” for healthcare ethics consultants and has delineated a clear identity and role of (...) such consultants distinct from that other healthcare professionals. In addition, more enter the field armed with advanced degrees (MA and PhD) or certification in clinical ethics consultation. While some have questioned the trend toward professionalization, the momentum is clearly in its favor. This paper explores three questions: Does the professionalization of healthcare ethics consultation expose those engaged in the field to the types of liability claims faced by professionals in other fields? What specific liabilities could affect a healthcare ethics consultant? And finally, what should healthcare ethics consultants do to protect themselves against liability claims? We conclude that while the risk of liability remains low, those engaged in the field should accept that risk just as part of their status as professionals and, like those in allied professions, seek appropriate protection in the form of liability insurance. (shrink)

Das ethische Prinzip des Respekts vor der Autonomie des Patienten/Probanden hat in der modernen Medizin mittlerweile weltweit Bedeutung erlangt. Die Betonung der Autonomie des Patienten und Probanden in allen in der letzten Zeit verabschiedeten internationalen Deklarationen gibt dieser Tendenz unmissverständlich Ausdruck. Doch wenngleich diese Entwicklung unstrittig positiv ist, wirft sie dennoch eine Reihe von Fragen auf, die mit der Kodifizierung, Interpretation, Reichweite und Anwendung dieses universalen Prinzips verbunden sind. Die Antworten auf diese Fragen entscheiden darüber, ob Autonomie als hilfreiches, emanzipatorisches (...) oder als überforderndes, gar hegemoniales Prinzip begriffen wird. Diese normativen Probleme werden anhand von Beispielen aus der globalen Medizinethik verdeutlicht. Was in modernen Gesellschaften als Autonomie bezeichnet und für die Praxis fruchtbar gemacht wird, ist als ein soziales Konstrukt zu verstehen, nicht im Sinne einer Schimäre, sondern im Sinne einer soziokulturellen Leistung, die auf komplexen, historisch gewachsenen und kulturell geprägten Interaktionen von Gesellschaften, Institutionen und Individuen beruht. (shrink)

The opportunities to become a good person are not the same for everyone. Modern European ethical theory, especially Kantian ethics, assumes the same virtues are accessible to all who are capable of rational choice. Character development, however, is affected by circumstances, such as those of wealth and socially constructed categories of gender, race, and sexual orientation, which introduce factors beyond the control of individuals. Implications of these influences for morality have, since the work of Williams and Nagel in the seventies, (...) raised questions in philosophy about the concept of moral luck. In The Unnatural Lottery, Claudia Card examines how luck enters into moral character and considers how some of those who are oppressed can develop responsibility. Luck is often best appreciated by those who have known relatively bad luck and have been unable to escape steady comparison of their lot with those of others. The author takes as her paradigms the luck of middle and lower classes of women who face violence and exploitation, of lesbians who face continuing pressure to hide or self-destruct, of culturally Christian whites who have ethnic privilege, and of adult survivors of child abuse. How have such people been affected by luck in who they are and can become, the good lives available to them, the evils they may be liable to embody? Other philosophers have explored the luck of those who begin from privileged positions and then suffer reversals of fortune. Claudia Card focuses on the more common cases of those who begin from socially disadvantaged positions, and she considers some who find their good luck troubling when its source is the unnatural lottery of social injustice. (shrink)

Das ethische Prinzip des Respekts vor der Autonomie des Patienten/Probanden hat in der modernen Medizin mittlerweile weltweit Bedeutung erlangt. Die Betonung der Autonomie des Patienten und Probanden in allen in der letzten Zeit verabschiedeten internationalen Deklarationen gibt dieser Tendenz unmissverständlich Ausdruck. Doch wenngleich diese Entwicklung unstrittig positiv ist, wirft sie dennoch eine Reihe von Fragen auf, die mit der Kodifizierung, Interpretation, Reichweite und Anwendung dieses universalen Prinzips verbunden sind. Die Antworten auf diese Fragen entscheiden darüber, ob Autonomie als hilfreiches, emanzipatorisches (...) oder als überforderndes, gar hegemoniales Prinzip begriffen wird. Diese normativen Probleme werden anhand von Beispielen aus der globalen Medizinethik verdeutlicht. Was in modernen Gesellschaften als Autonomie bezeichnet und für die Praxis fruchtbar gemacht wird, ist als ein soziales Konstrukt zu verstehen, nicht im Sinne einer Schimäre, sondern im Sinne einer soziokulturellen Leistung, die auf komplexen, historisch gewachsenen und kulturell geprägten Interaktionen von Gesellschaften, Institutionen und Individuen beruht. (shrink)

What distinguishes evils from ordinary wrongs? Are some evils unforgivable? How should we respond to evils? Card offers a secular theory of evil--representing a compromise between classic utilitarian and stoic approaches--that responds to these and other questions.

This article considers the question ‘What makes hope rational?’ We take Adrienne Martin’s recent incorporation analysis of hope as representative of a tradition that views the rationality of hope as a matter of instrumental reasons. Against this tradition, we argue that an important subset of hope, ‘fundamental hope’, is not governed by instrumental rationality. Rather, people have reason to endorse or reject such hope in virtue of the contribution of the relevant attitudes to the integrity of their practical identity, which (...) makes the relevant hope not instrumentally but intrinsically valuable. This argument also allows for a new analysis of the reasons people have to abandon hope and for a better understanding of non-fundamental, ‘prosaic’ hopes. (shrink)

The paper emphasizes the inadequacy of formal semantics, the classical paradigm in semantics, in treating contextual dependence. Some phenomena of contextual dependence threaten one central assumption of the classical paradigm, namely the idea that linguistic expressions have a fixed meaning, and utterances have truth conditions well defined. It is possible to individuate three forms of contextual dependence: the one affecting pure indexicals, the one affecting demonstratives and "contextual expressions", and the one affecting all linguistic expressions. The third type of dependence (...) is top-down: context, and not only linguistic material, shows which variables must be instantiated, relying on context itself. The generalization of underdetermination to all linguistic expressions is in fact a kind of metadependence: the mode of dependence itself depends on context. (shrink)

I argue for a novel answer to the question “What is hope?”. On my view, rather than aiming for a compound account, i.e. analysing hope in terms of desire and belief, we should understand hope as an irreducible concept. After criticizing influential compound accounts of hope, I discuss Segal and Textor's alternative of describing hope as a primitive mental state. While Segal and Textor argue that available developments of the standard definition do not offer sufficient conditions for hope, I question (...) the deep‐seated idea that desire and belief are even necessary conditions for hope. My suggestion is that we should take seriously the fact that we hope in a great variety of ways and should question the search for elements that are common to all cases. A promising alternative follows the Wittgensteinian idea that cases of hope are related in terms of family resemblance, i.e. are multiply realizable on the ontological level while falling under the non‐definable concept of hope. (shrink)

This essay argues that current advocacy of lesbian and gay rights to legal marriage and parenthood insufficiently criticizes both marriage and motherhood as they are currently practiced and structured by Northern legal institutions. Instead we would do better not to let the State define our intimate unions and parenting would be improved if the power presently concentrated in the hands of one or two guardians were diluted and distributed through an appropriately concerned community.

Providing a unique interpretation of Kant's theory of judgement as integral to his overall project, Claudia Brodsky explores his continued relevance to contemporary theoretical concerns. The Linguistic Condition traces how Kant combined sensus communis, or common sense with the communicative nature of judgement to reveal that, for him, acts of judgement are dependent on their linguistic articulation, so that in Kantian philosophy language and judgement are inextricably linked. In this first in-depth analysis of language in the Critique of Judgement, (...) Brodsky forms creative connections between literature and philosophy. (shrink)

In this contribution to philosophical ethics, Claudia Card revisits the theory of evil developed in her earlier book The Atrocity Paradigm, and expands it to consider collectively perpetrated and collectively suffered atrocities. Redefining evil as a secular concept and focusing on the inexcusability - rather than the culpability - of atrocities, Card examines the tension between responding to evils and preserving humanitarian values. This stimulating and often provocative book contends that understanding the evils in terrorism, torture and genocide enables (...) us to recognise similar evils in everyday life: daily life under oppressive regimes and in racist environments; violence against women, including in the home; violence and executions in prisons; hate crimes; and violence against animals. Card analyses torture, terrorism and genocide in the light of recent atrocities, considering whether there can be moral justifications for terrorism and torture, and providing conceptual tools to distinguish genocide from non-genocidal mass slaughter. (shrink)

Nel Noddings, in Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, presents and develops an ethic of care as an alternative to an ethic that treats justice as a basic concept. I argue that this care ethic is unable to give an adequate account of ethical relationships between strangers and that it is also in danger of valorizing relationships in which carers are seriously abused.

ABSTRACT Truth-conditions are systematically determined when they are the output of an algorithmic procedure that takes as input a set of semantic and contextual features. Truth-conditional sceptics have cast doubts on the thesis that truth-conditions are systematic in this sense. Against this form of scepticism, Schoubye and Stokke : 759–793) and Dobler : 451–474.) have provided systematic analyses of utterance truth-conditions. My aim is to argue that these theories are not immune to the kind of objections raised by truth-conditional sceptics. (...) In particular, I argue that the use of Questions Under Discussion and ways of being is problematic. (shrink)