In his lectures on Logic and Metaphysics, Kant distinguishes between logical and real essences. While the former is related to concepts and is knowable, the latter is related to things and is unknowable. In this paper, I argue that the unknowability is explained by the modal characteristic of real essences as a necessitating ground on which a priori knowledge is impossible. I also show how this claim is related to the unknowable necessity of particular laws of nature. Since laws of (...) nature are conceived as grounded in real essences, the unknowability of the latter is equivalent to Kant's other claim that there can be no knowledge of the necessity of particular laws of nature. Necessity can only be known a priori, and therefore, the necessity of particular laws is only assumed and conceived as grounded in something unknowable, a real essence. This conclusion will allow me to attribute to Kant a position I label as “regulative essentialism”, meaning that real essences have an indispensable role in accordance with the rational interest to explain nature as a system of laws and natural kinds, combined with an epistemic humility about the correspondence of our empirical concepts to real essences. (shrink)

Andrew Chignell and Omri Boehm have recently argued that Kant’s pre-Critical proof for the existence of God entails a Spinozistic conception of God and hence substance monism. The basis for this reading is the assumption common in the literature that God grounds possibilities by exemplifying them. In this article I take issue with this assumption and argue for an alternative Leibnizian reading, according to which possibilities are grounded in essences united in God’s mind (later also described as Platonic ideas intuited (...) by God). I show that this view about the distinction between God’s cognition of essences as the ground of possibility and the actual world is not only explicitly stated by Kant, but is also consistent with his metaphysical picture of teleology in nature and causality during the pre-Critical period. Finally, I suggest that the distinction between the conceptual order of essences embodied in the idea of God and the order of the objects of experience plays a role in the transition into the Critical system, where it is transformed into the distinction between the intelligible and the sensible worlds. (shrink)

In the ‘Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic’ of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant contends that the idea of God has a positive regulative role in the systematization of empirical knowledge. But why is this regulative role assigned to this specific idea? Kant’s account is rather opaque and this question has also not received much attention in the literature. In this paper I argue that an adequate understanding of the regulative role of the idea of God depends on the specific (...) metaphysical content Kant attributes to it in the Critique and other writings. I show that neither a heuristic principle of conceptual systematicity, nor conceiving God as a hypothesis of an intelligent designer, can satisfy the demands of reason to make the unity and necessity of the laws of nature intelligible. Regarding the positive account about the metaphysical content of the idea of God, I support my argument by referring to Kant’s pre-critical discussion of the usefulness of the conception of God for the project of science, and by expounding Kant’s critical account of the necessity of the laws of nature. Thus my account sheds light on the continuity of Kant’s conception of God and his appropriation of his own rationalistic metaphysics. (shrink)

The nature of Kant’s criticism of his pre-Critical ‘possibility proof’ for the existence of God, implicit in the account of the Transcendental Ideal in the Critique of Pure Reason, is still under dispute. Two issues are at stake: the error in the proof and diagnosis of the reason for committing it. I offer a new way to connect these issues. In contrast with accounts that locate the motivation for the error in reason’s interest in an unconditioned causal ground of all (...) contingent existence, I argue that it lies in reason’s interest in another kind of unconditioned ground, collective unity. Unlike the conception of the former, that of the latter directly explains the problematic ontological assumption of the possibility proof, the existence of intelligible objects as the ground of possibility. I argue that such Platonic entities are assumed because they are amenable to the kind of unity prescribed by reason. However, since the interest in collective unity has a legitimate regulative use when applied to the systematic unity of nature, the conception of God entailed by the possibility proof is retained as a regulative idea of reason. (shrink)

Kant's “Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason” seems an odd element in Kant's oeuvre. Parts of it seem like scholastic theology or an arbitrary effort to reconcile the Kantian philosophical system with the doctrines of Christianity1. One of the most troubling notions is that of radical evil. Not only is the motivation for introducing the notion unclear, it is also difficult to grasp the line of argumentation, and furthermore accept its conclusion that there must be an innate propensity for (...) evil in human nature. The vague introduction of the concept of grace exacerbates the puzzlement even further. Nevertheless, I claim that the notions of radical evil and grace form a significant addition to Kant's conception of moral life lacking in his earlier works in ethics, Groundwork to the Metaphysic of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason. I contend that the depiction of human moral life is not exhausted by the consciousness of duty and the endless pursuit toward virtue. Moral life is characterized also by the ongoing introspection of character accompanied by the hope for moral transformation as manifested by the notions of radical evil and grace. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:In Morning Hours (1785), Moses Mendelssohn presents a proof for the existence of God from the grounding of possibility. Although Mendelssohn claims that this proof is original, it has not received much attention in the secondary literature. In this paper, I analyze this proof and present its historical context. I show that although it resembles Leibniz's proof from eternal truths and Kant's precritical possibility proof, it has unique characteristics that can be regarded as responses to deficiencies Mendelssohn identified in these (...) earlier proofs. I argue that by analyzing the semantics of judgments about dispositions, Mendelssohn provides a novel explanation for the basic premise shared by these proofs, namely that possibility is grounded in actuality. Additionally, this analysis simplifies the inference to a unique infinite mind grounding all possibility. Thus, the proof is worth studying both for historical reasons and for its original account of modal concepts. (shrink)

In Rules and Representations, first published in 1980, Noam Chomsky lays out many of the concepts that have made his approach to linguistics and human cognition so instrumental to our understanding of language.Chomsky arrives at his well-known position that there is a universal grammar, structured in the human mind and common to all human languages. Based on Chomsky's 1978 Woodbridge Lectures, this edition contains revised versions of the lectures and two new essays.

The renowned philosopher and political theorist presents a summation of his influential work in this series of Columbia University lectures. A pioneer in the fields of modern linguistics and cognitive science, Noam Chomsky is also one of the most avidly read political theorist of our time. In this series of lectures, Chomsky presents more than half a century of philosophical reflection on all three of these areas. In precise yet accessible language, Chomsky elaborates on the scientific study of language, (...) sketching how his own work has implications for the origins of language, the close relations that language bears to thought, its eventual biological basis. He expounds and criticizes many alternative theories, such as those that emphasize the social, the communicative, and the referential aspects of language. He also investigates the apparent scope and limits of human cognitive capacities. Moving from language and mind to society and politics, Chomsky concludes with a philosophical defense of a position he describes as "libertarian socialism," tracing its links to anarchism and the ideas of John Dewey, and even briefly to the ideas of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill. Demonstrating its conceptual growth out of our historical past, he also shows its urgent relation to our present moment. (shrink)

This chapter charts a metamorphosis in Djarin's ethical decision‐making across the first two seasons of The Mandalorian. Philosophy and psychology have centered on moral reasoning and developmental processes based on logic, reasoning, and a primary concern with oneself, sometimes tempered by respect for others. Female development typically orients women toward an “ethics of care”: People have responsibilities toward others as well as themselves. The Mandalorian is the story of one man's moral overhaul toward care. Early Mando's moral decisions are based (...) on hierarchy, status, rules, fairness, maximizing benefit, and values. The shift in Mando's decision‐making approach occurred gradually, beginning with the impact of a rampaging blurrg. The hypothetical scenario about the pharmacy illuminates something crucial for understanding Djarin's gradual adoption of ethics of care: often, our choice to frame an ethical dilemma through one perspective or another winds up determining our moral decision. (shrink)

A conversation with the founder of modern linguistics on the history of science, the limitations of technology, the current state of brain studies, the future of linguistics, and the fundamental mysteries of the human mind.

When attempting to generalize recursion theory to admissible ordinals, it may seem as if all classical priority constructions can be lifted to any admissible ordinal satisfying a sufficiently strong fragment of the replacement scheme. We show, however, that this is not always the case. In fact, there are some constructions which make an essential use of the notion of finiteness which cannot be replaced by the generalized notion of $\alpha$-finiteness. As examples we discuss bothcodings of models of arithmetic into the (...) recursively enumerable degrees, and non-distributive lattice embeddings into these degrees. We show that if an admissible ordinal $\alpha$ is effectively close to $\omega$ (where this closeness can be measured by size or by cofinality) then such constructions maybe performed in the $\alpha$-r.e. degrees, but otherwise they fail. The results of these constructions can be expressed in the first-order language of partially ordered sets, and so these results also show that there are natu. (shrink)

The scale and severity of the alterations to global ecologies should not simply be noted or acknowledged by communication scholars but rather should drive communication ethicists to carefully examine the values and communication practices that have enabled and promoted this kind of unchecked growth. At minimum, I argue, we ought to carefully examine this social trajectory to determine whether more growth at the current rate of speed should continue to be a goal of modern society and at what costs. Specifically, (...) as scholars of moral communication we should feel concerned with whether a moral transgression is associated with this type of rapid growth. (shrink)

Most scholars have not assigned much interpretive importance to the specific use of the term ‘persuasion’ in the cosmology of Plato’s Timaeus. This paper suggests understanding cosmological ‘persuasion’ in conjunction with ‘force,’ another trait of divine agency in the Timaeus. It analyses the nature of intelligent causation in the cosmology of the Timaeus, particularly in the construction of the cosmic body and soul. Then, it gives a detailed characterization of the causation of necessity, appearing in the Timaeus in three different (...) versions, and relates it to the complex notion of intelligent agency. Ultimately, it claims that the cosmic music in the Timaeus, the primary agent of ordered causation in the cosmos, functions on two levels of conflict with the disorder of the sensible aspect of the world. (shrink)

It is well-known that in the fifth of his Cartesian Meditations, Husserl puts forth a theory of intersubjectivity. Most commentators of Husserl have read his Cartesian Meditations as presenting a theory of intersubjectivity whose basis is empathy, in the form of a process of constituting the sense of “other” in one’s own experience, as the primary origin of the intersubjective layer of experience. In this paper, I claim that the structure of intersubjectivity as Husserl presents it in the Cartesian Meditations (...) is articulated as being governed by a logic of parts and wholes rather than that of a phenomenology of empathy, and that the articulation of this logic demonstrates that the transcendental ego is intrinsically intersubjective. My main philosophical claim in this regard is that the way Husserl’s account of transcendental empathy unfolds in the Cartesian Meditations implies a prior fundamental mereological structure of which the individual transcendental ego is only a part. That is, the transcendental ego has an eidetic a-priori intersubjective structure, in the sense of being a moment of an intersubjectively structured transcendental whole. In this sense, rather than being a singulare tantum, it is more fitting to say that transcendental subjectivity is actually a plurale tantum. (shrink)

From a theoretical perspective, most discussions of statistical learning have focused on the possible “statistical” properties that are the object of learning. Much less attention has been given to defining what “learning” is in the context of “statistical learning.” One major difficulty is that SL research has been monitoring participants’ performance in laboratory settings with a strikingly narrow set of tasks, where learning is typically assessed offline, through a set of two-alternative-forced-choice questions, which follow a brief visual or auditory familiarization (...) stream. Is that all there is to characterizing SL abilities? Here we adopt a novel perspective for investigating the processing of regularities in the visual modality. By tracking online performance in a self-paced SL paradigm, we focus on the trajectory of learning. In a set of three experiments we show that this paradigm provides a reliable and valid signature of SL performance, and it offers important insights for understanding how statistical regularities are perceived and assimilated in the visual modality. This demonstrates the promise of integrating different operational measures to our theory of SL. (shrink)

Legal obligation, the focal notion of this volume, is widely thought to be bound up with the idea of authority; and it is also linked (in ways that depend on one’s conception of legal obligation) with the justifiability of authority, which will be the primary focus of this chapter. In examining the justifiability of authority, particular attention will be given to Robert Wolff’s philosophical anarchist argument and a prominent response in the form of Joseph Raz’s ‘service conception of authority’. Following (...) an introduction, I provide a brief exposition of Wolff’s claim that authority is incompatible with moral autonomy (Sect. 2). After presenting the Razian response to Wolff (Sect. 3), I consider what implications follow from Raz’s service conception of authority assuming it is correct (Sect. 4). I argue that, even if the service conception successfully meets the anarchist challenge, it does so not by entirely dissolving the tension between authority and autonomy, but through a balancing act whereby one aspect of our autonomy is comprised by another aspect of our autonomy. Finally, I consider the service conception of authority itself and point out certain vulnerabilities thereof (Sect. 5). (shrink)

At its core, this exhilarating collection of essays, interviews, and correspondence spanning the years 1988 through 2018, and reaching back a decade or more previous is about the simple concept that ideas matter. And not only that ideas matter. But that ideas in this case, through the lens of two engaged intellectuals mutate, inform, inspire, and ultimately provide more fuel for thought, the actions that follow such thought, and for carrying on, and doing the work.

An inquiry into how to build the political force to make a global Green New Deal a reality.

All new, unpublished interviews with world-renowned dissident Noam Chomsky.

A unique solution is proposed to the problem of how thermodynamic processes between thermodynamic systems at relative rest “appear” to a moving observer. Assuming only transformations for entropy, pressure, and volume and the invariance of the “fundamental thermodynamic equation,” one can derive transformations for (thermodynamic) energy and temperature. The invariance of the first and second laws entails transformations for work and heat. All thermodynamic relations become Lorentz-invariant. The transformations thus derived are in principle equivalent to those of Einstein and Planck, (...) except that our expressions for energy and work do not include the mass motion energy. This results in a simpler formulation and endows our transformations (especially that of temperature) with a straightforward physical interpretation. (shrink)

The elections of 1994 are described as a "political earthquake," a "triumph of conservatism" that reflects the continuing "drift to the right" on the part of the American population. The victorious Gingrich army of welltrained, well-funded "conservatives" call for a Contract with America that will finally "get government off our backs" so that we can return to the happy days when the free market reigned. They will restore "family values," ridding us of "the excesses of the welfare state" and the (...) other residues of the failed "big government" policies of New Deal liberalism and Johnson's "Great Society." By dismantling the "nanny state" they will succeed, where the Democrats have failed, to achieve the shared goal of all elite and leadership elements: to "create jobs for Americans" and win security and freedom for the "middle class." And they will take over and successfully lead the crusade to establish the American Dream of free market democracy, worldwide. (shrink)

We show that the class of strongly jump-traceable c.e. sets can be characterised as those which have sufficiently slow enumerations so they obey a class of well-behaved cost functions, called benign. This characterisation implies the containment of the class of strongly jump-traceable c.e. Turing degrees in a number of lowness classes, in particular the classes of the degrees which lie below incomplete random degrees, indeed all LR-hard random degrees, and all ω-c.e. random degrees. The last result implies recent results of (...) Diamondstone's and Ng's regarding cupping with superlow c.e. degrees and thus gives a use of algorithmic randomness in the study of the c.e. Turing degrees. (shrink)

We prove that degrees that are low for Kurtz randomness cannot be diagonally non-recursive. Together with the work of Stephan and Yu [16], this proves that they coincide with the hyperimmune-free non-DNR degrees, which are also exactly the degrees that are low for weak 1-genericity. We also consider Low(M, Kurtz), the class of degrees a such that every element of M is a-Kurtz random. These are characterised when M is the class of Martin-Löf random, computably random, or Schnorr random reals. (...) We show that Low(ML, Kurtz) coincides with the non-DNR degrees, while both Low(CR, Kurtz) and Low(Schnorr, Kurtz) are exactly the non-high, non-DNR degrees. (shrink)

This book investigates law's interaction with practical reasons. What difference can legal requirements—e.g. traffic rules, tax laws, or work safety regulations—make to normative reasons relevant to our action? Do they give reasons for action that should be weighed among all other reasons? Or can they, instead, exclude and take the place of some other reasons? The book critically examines some of the existing answers and puts forward an alternative understanding of law's interaction with practical reasons. -/- At the outset, two (...) competing positions are pitted against each other: Joseph Raz's view that (legitimate) legal authorities have pre-emptive force, namely that they give reasons for action that exclude some other reasons; and an antithesis, according to which law-making institutions (even those that meet prerequisites of legitimacy) can at most provide us with reasons that compete in weight with opposing reasons for action. These two positions are examined from several perspectives, such as justified disobedience cases, law's conduct-guiding function in contexts of bounded rationality, and the phenomenology associated with authority. -/- It is found that, although each of the above positions offers insight into the conundrum at hand, both suffer from significant flaws. These observations form the basis on which an alternative position is put forward and defended. According to this position, the existence of a reasonably just and well-functioning legal system constitutes a reason that fits neither into a model of ordinary reasons for action nor into a pre-emptive paradigm—it constitutes a reason to adopt an (overridable) disposition that inclines its possessor towards compliance with the system's requirements. (shrink)

This report examines the issue of restraining prisoners undergoing medical treatment from several angles: Cases illustrating the situation regarding shackling since Physicians for Human Rights-Israel's establishment; the issues and ramification raised by this phenomenon, both in terms of human rights and medical ethics, as well as from the governmental point of view, and the PHR-Israel point of view.