Advocates of epistemic conceptions of democracy sometimes argue that democratic decision-making is a more reliable guide to getting the issues at stake right than the decision-making of individuals. Such arguments give rise to the question of whether those finding themselves in the minority should defer to democratic outcomes. In this article, I discuss the bearing of the normative criterion of reasonable acceptability on this question. I thus ask, can the demand to defer to democratic outcomes be rendered reasonably acceptable to (...) citizens who disagree with them? Using the example of David Estlund’s epistemic proceduralism, I show that the problem of moral deference is inherent to epistemic conceptions of democracy. I then discuss the kind of reasons that would make a demand of deference reasonably acceptable to the minority, arguing that they should be independent from the reasons supporting the majority position. Subsequently, I introduce the conciliatory conception of democracy as an example of what such reasons could be. The conception’s central idea is that disagreement between citizens conceived as equal epistemic authorities carries epistemic significance. This significance makes it rational for citizens so conceived to conciliate their conflicting judgments. Because democratic decision-making has an inbuilt tendency to track such conciliatory positions, the conception offers an independent reason to accept democratic outcomes as the more reliable guide to getting the issues at stake right. (shrink)

This article presents two interlocking arguments for epistemic political egalitarianism. I argue, first, that coping with multidimensional social complexity requires the integration of expertise. This is the task of political parties as collective epistemic agents who transform abstract value judgments into sufficiently coherent and specific conceptions of justice for their society. Because parties thus severely lower the relevant threshold of comparison of political competence, citizens have reason to regard each other as epistemic equals. Drawing on the virulent “peer disagreement debate,” (...) I then analyze the epistemic significance of political disagreement. I contend that citizens ought to pursue epistemic conciliation, an idea I contrast to the ideals of compromise and of consensus. Subsequently, I introduce insights from public choice theory and empirical findings which show that and why multi-party electoral competition coupled with equal rights to participation tends to produce conciliatory outcomes. We thus have reason to endorse political egalitarianism on epistemic grounds. (shrink)

In this book, Martin Ebeling discusses how we ought to react to our persistent political disagreement with other citizens. He presents this disagreement as not only a moral problem, but also as an epistemically unsettling phenomenon, as we often have reason to judge our opposition to be as competent as ourselves in judging the political issues at stake. Conciliatory Democracy reflects on the political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and claims that advocates of deliberative democracy, which treats political disagreement (...) mainly as a moral problem, should expand their approach. The author promotes Rousseau's appreciation of disagreement in contemporary political philosophy as a way to encourage conciliation within democracy. Ebeling furthermore draws on public choice theory and empirical research to reintroduce political parties as vital players in the institutional landscape of democracy. (shrink)

Der Begriff «Harmonie» wird unter musikalischen, philosophischen, psychologischen und neurologischen Gesichtspunkten behandelt. Sein Bezug zur Verschmelzungslehre von Carl Stumpf wird erörtert. Die Beiträge des Bandes reichen von der antiken Musiktheorie über die Phänomenologie bis zu neuen neuroakustichen Modellen.

Seit der Antike wird der Musik eine große emotionale Wirkung zugeschrieben. Bis heute sind unterschiedliche Erklärungsmodelle diskutiert worden. Das betrifft zunächst das Phänomen der Gefühle im Allgemeinen, aber auch die Frage nach der Ursache der ästhetischen Empfindungen im Besonderen. Die Gefühlslehre von Carl Stumpf versucht u. a. in seiner Auseinandersetzung mit William James (James-Lange-Theorie, die vornehmlich auf die somatische Genese der Emotionen insistiert) Erklärungsansätze zu entwickeln, die sowohl kognitive als auch emotional-wertende psychische Funktionen berücksichtigen. Dennoch ist in Bezug auf das (...) nur scheinbar triviale Verhältnis von Hören und Fühlen, Musik und Emotionalität unter stringent wissenschaftlichen Kriterien erst ein Anfang gemacht worden, weil die Thematik - wie der Band zeigt - von einer bislang unterschätzten Komplexität zeugt, die zukünftig wohl nur mit vereinten interdisziplinären Kräften einem besseren Verständnis näherzubringen sein wird. (shrink)

Recent developments in Continental philosophy have included the emergence of a school of “speculative realism,” which rejects the human-centered orientation that has long dominated Continental thought. Proponents of speculative realism differ on several issues, but many agree on the need for an object-oriented ontology. Some speculative realists identify realism with materialism, while others accord equal reality to objects that are non-material, even fictional. Several thinkers retain a focus on difference, a well-established theme in Continental thought. This paper looks at speculative (...) realism from the perspective of systems theory. Many of the tenets of speculative realism have long been features of systems metaphysics and are expressed clearly in a systems framework. However, some views of some speculative realists differ substantially from systems theoretic ideas. (shrink)

The phenomenon of altruism extends from the biological realm to the human sociocultural realm. This article sketches a coherent outline of multiple types of altruism of progressively increasing scope that span these two realms and are grounded in an ever-expanding sense of “self.” Discussion of this framework notes difficulties associated with altruism at different levels. It links scientific ideas about the evolution of cooperation and about hierarchical order to perennial philosophical and religious concerns. It offers a conceptual background for inquiry (...) into societal challenges that call for altruistic behavior, especially the challenge of environmental and social sustainability. (shrink)

In this lively collection ten philosophers tackle the notoriously elusive issues raised by religious discourse in a series of linked debates. The debates focus on reason and faith; the logic of mysticism; the meaning of the word 'God'; language, biblical interpretation and worship; and religion and ethics. Through contemporary philosophical analysis it is possible to shed new light on teh status and language of religion, and in many ways the contributors to Religion and Philosophy break new ground in this perennially (...) controversial field. The collection is addressed to philosophers, theologians and anyone with a general intellectual interest in religion. Certainly it will be a valuable addition to the reading list of all teachers or students of the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Many recent writers in the philosophy of mathematics have put great weight on the relative categoricity of the traditional axiomatizations of our foundational theories of arithmetic and set theory. Another great enterprise in contemporary philosophy of mathematics has been Wright's and Hale's project of founding mathematics on abstraction principles. In earlier work, it was noted that one traditional abstraction principle, namely Hume's Principle, had a certain relative categoricity property, which here we term natural relative categoricity. In this paper, we show (...) that most other abstraction principles are not naturally relatively categorical, so that there is in fact a large amount of incompatibility between these two recent trends in contemporary philosophy of mathematics. To better understand the precise demands of relative categoricity in the context of abstraction principles, we compare and contrast these constraints to stability-like acceptability criteria on abstraction principles, the Tarski-Sher logicality requirements on abstraction principles studied by Antonelli and Fine, and supervaluational ideas coming out of Hodes' work. (shrink)

Martin Wrights original ground-breaking and influential analysis of the defects of the adversarial system of justice, plus the arguments in favour of a more ...

Heidegger in America explores the surprising legacy of his life and thought in the United States of America. As a critic of modern life, Heidegger often lamented the growing global influence of all things American. However, it was precisely in America where his thought inspired the work of generations of thinkers – not only philosophers but also theologians, architects, novelists, and even pundits. As a result, the reception and dissemination of Heidegger's philosophical writings transformed the intellectual and cultural history of (...) the United States at a time when American influence was itself transforming the world. A case study in the complex and sometimes contradictory process of transnational exchange, Heidegger in America recasts the scope and methods of contemporary intellectual and cultural history in the age of globalization, challenging what we think we know about Heidegger and American ideas simultaneously. (shrink)

The discussion of collective agency involves the reduction problem of the concept of a collective. Individualism and Cartesian internalism have long restricted orthodox theories and made them face the tension between an irreducible concept of a collective and ontological reductionism. Heterodox theories as functionalism and interpretationism reinterpret the concept of agency and accept it as realized on the level of a collective. In order to adequately explain social phenomena that have relations as their essence, in this paper we propose a (...) relational, holistic account of collective agency and argue that functionalism and interpretationism can be integrated into such an account. (shrink)

Martin Ebeling argues that a popular theory in the epistemology of disagreement--conciliationism--supports an egalitarian approach to politics. This view is mistaken for two reasons. First, even if political parties have the epistemic value that Ebeling claims, voters should not regard each other as epistemic peers--which conciliationism requires that they do. The American electorate is strikingly heterogeneous in both its knowledgeability and its rationality, and so the necessary epistemic parity relation does not hold. Second, for technical reasons, the (...) beliefs that a rational voter arrives at after conciliating with his peers do not, in general, accord with the results of egalitarian decision procedures. As its theory currently stands, the epistemology of disagreement does not support egalitarian politics. (shrink)

Ausgehend von Nietzsches Medienkritik an der zeitgenössischen Massenpresse, ihrer Mitverantwortung für die Vermittelmäßigkeit moderner Kultur, Meinungsmanipulation und Informationsüberflutung, die auch die Künste und Wissenschaften verändert, werden Fragen gestellt, inwieweit und ob Nietzsches Beobachtungen und Schlussfolgerungen für den Umgang mit modernen Massenmedien und digitaler Kommunikation produktiv gemacht werden können. Greifen seine Auffassungen auch, wenn es um Internet, social media, Virtual Reality oder KI geht? Gibt es Schnittstellen zwischen moderner Medien-, Kunst- und Theorieentwicklung und Nietzsches Beobachtungen am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts? Die (...) Beiträge thematisieren u.a. den Zusammenhang von Digitalität und Medien, Fragen nach der Wahrheit unter massenmedialen Vorzeichen, mögliche Folgen einer ebenso erhofften wie gefürchteten ‚Herrschaft der Algorithmen‘, Perspektiven der Acceleration, neue Dimensionen der Künste und neue Denkansätze in Philosophie, Psychologie und Kunsttheorie. Diese Fragen betreffen die Herausforderungen des modernen Menschen, sein Selbstverständnis, seine Wahrnehmungswelten, seine Wertepräfiguationen und die Zukunft einer medial dominierten Welt betreffen. (shrink)

I argue that rather than aiming at the well-being of those whom we love, we should aim to share in their ends. The former stance runs the risk of being objectionably paternalistic and, as I explain, only the latter makes reciprocal relationships possible. I end by diagnosing our attraction to the idea that we should promote our loved-ones’ well-being.

Christine M. Korsgaard has had a profound influence on moral philosophy over the past forty years. Through her writing and teaching she has developed a distinctive, rigorous, and historically informed way of thinking about ethics, agency, and the normative dimension of human life more generally. The twelve original essays in this volume are written in her honor on the occasion of her retirement from teaching. They engage questions that recur in her work: Why are we obligated to do what morality (...) demands? What features of our nature make us subject to moral obligation? What does it mean to be autonomous and responsible for what we do? What do we owe to nonhuman animals? Contributors include Stephen Darwall, Kyla Ebels-Duggan, Barbara Herman, Richard Moran, Japa Pallikkathayil, Faviola Rivera-Castro, T.M. Scanlon, Tamar Schapiro, Sharon Street, David Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, and David Velleman. These essays shed light on Korsgaard's own views while staking out provocative new positions on the topics that feature centrally in her own work. (shrink)

In recent years consciousness has become a significant area of study in the cognitive sciences. The Frontiers of Consciousness is a major interdisciplinary exploration of consciousness. The book stems from the Chichele lectures held at All Souls College in Oxford, and features contributions from a 'who's who' of authorities from both philosophy and psychology. The result is a truly interdisciplinary volume, which tackles some of the biggest and most impenetrable problems in consciousness. The book includes chapters considering the apparent explanatory (...) gap between science and consciousness, our conscious experience of emotions such as fear, and of willed actions by ourselves and others. It looks at subjective differences between two ways in which visual information guides behaviour, and scientific investigation of consciousness in non-human animals. It looks at the challenges that the mind-brain relation presents for clinical practice as well as for theories of consciousness. The book draws on leading research from philosophy, experimental psychology, functional imaging of the brain, neuropsychology, neuroscience, and clinical neurology. Distinctive in its accessibility, authority, and its depth of coverage, Frontiers of Consciousness will be a groundbreaking and influential addition to the consciousness literature. (shrink)

Benacerraf’s 1965 multiple-reductions argument depends on what I call ‘deferential logicism’: his necessary condition for number-set identity is most plausible against a background Quineanism that allows autonomy of the natural number concept. Steinhart’s ‘folkist’ sufficient condition on number-set identity, by contrast, puts that autonomy at the center — but fails for not taking the folk perspective seriously enough. Learning from both sides, we explore new conditions on number-set identity, elaborating a suggestion from Wright.

Rawls' requirement that citizens of liberal democracies support only policies which they believe can be justified in 'public reason' depends on a certain ideal for the relationships between citizens. This is a valuable ideal, and thus citizens have reasons to try to achieve it. But it is not always possible to find the common ground that we would need in order to do so, and thus we should reject Rawls' strong claim that we have an obligation to defend our views (...) in public reason. Because I recognize that we have strong reasons to conduct our political enquiry within the guidelines of political liberalism, but deny that we always have an obligation to do so, one might call my view 'permissive political liberalism'. (shrink)

I attempt to vindicate our authority to create new practical reasons for others by making choices of own own. In The Doctrine of Right Kant argues that we have an obligation to leave the Juridical State of Nature and found the state. In a less familiar passage in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason he argues for an obligation to leave what he calls the Ethical State of Nature and join together in the Moral Community. I read both texts (...) as addressing and trying to resolve a tension between our individual freedom and our authority to make claims on one another. I explicate the political argument, and then develop the view that Kant sketches in the Religion, arguing that regarding others as capable of making choices that give you reasons to act is a condition of the full exercise of your autonomy. (shrink)