This book offers an original account of a distinctly republican theory of social and global justice. The book starts by exploring the nature and value of Hegelian recognition theory. It shows the importance of that theory for grounding a normative account of free and autonomous agency. It is this normative account of free agency which provides the groundwork for a republican conception of social and global justice, based on the core-ideas of freedom as non-domination and autonomy as non-alienation. As the (...) author argues, republicans should endorse a sufficientarian account of social justice, which focuses on the nature of social relationships and their effects on people's ability to act freely and realize their fundamental interests. On the global level, the book argues for the cosmopolitan extension of the republican principles of non-domination and non-alienation within a multi-level democratic system. In so doing, the book addresses a major gap in the existing literature, presenting an original theory of justice, which combines Hegelian recognition theory and republican ideas of freedom, and applying this hybrid theory to the global domain. Fabian Schuppert creates a grand synthesis uniting neo-republican insights on freedom with Hegelian recognition theory. The result is an account of agency that arises from the idea of non-domination whose aim it is to safeguard individual freedom. When combined with Hegelian recognition theory a social focus also emerges. This amalgam comments on many of the major disputes concerning global justice from a cosmopolitan perspective. Because of the broad scope and the many contemporary discussions engaged this book will be of keen interest to scholars as well as a welcome addition to the classroom. (shrink)

Wem wird geglaubt und wem nicht? Wessen Wissen wird weitergegeben und wessen nicht? Wer hat eine Stimme und wer nicht? Theorien der epistemischen Ungerechtigkeit befassen sich mit dem breiten Feld der ungerechten oder unfairen Behandlung, die mit Fragen des Wissens, Verstehens und Kommunizierens zusammenhängen, wie z.B. die Möglichkeit, vom Wissen oder von kommunikativen Praktiken ausgeschlossen zu werden oder zum Schweigen gebracht zu werden, aber auch Kontexte, in denen die Bedeutungen mancher systematisch verzerrt oder falsch gehört und falsch dargestellt werden, in (...) denen manchen misstraut wird oder es an epistemischer Handlungsfähigkeit mangelt. In diesem Buch wird eine Übersicht über die breite Debatte epistemischer Ungerechtigkeit, epistemischer Unterdrückung und epistemischer Gewalt gegeben, in dem unterschiedliche Theorien, die sich auf der Schnittstelle von Gerechtigkeitstheorie und epistemischen Fragen befinden, systematisch und kritisch diskutiert sowie theoretische Vorgänger dieser Theorien beleuchtet werden. (shrink)

Den tyske filosofen Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel har betydd så mye for vår forståelse av historie, modernitet, frihet og fremskritt at han garantert preger måten du tenker på – kanskje uten at du vet det selv. -/- Hva skjer når Hegels tanker møter vår tid? Det er spørsmålet, når den unge filosofen Sigurd Hverven tar med Hegel på en rundreise i vår samtid. Boka viser at sentrale hegelianske ideer – om frihet, anerkjennelse, historie, fremmedgjøring og kjærlighet – fremdeles er relevante (...) for å forstå brennbare spørsmål i vår egen tid. Samtidig bruker Hverven Hegels tenkning til å kaste lys over fenomener Hegel ikke kjente til, som velferdsstaten, smarttelefoner og feministiske og antirasistiske frigjøringsbevegelser. -/- Hegels tekster er beryktet for å være vanskelige, på grensen til det uforståelige. Men i denne boka blir Hegel forståelig selv for lesere uten store filosofiske forkunnskaper. Med biografiske detaljer fra Hegels liv, kombinert med slående eksempler fra vår tid, gjør Hverven det abstrakte filosofiske stoffet levende. Boka er samtidig en tilgjengelig innføring i Hegels filosofi, og en vidtfavnende aktualisering av denne tyske mestertenkeren. (shrink)

Este libro promete ser una contribución para el estudio de la teoría crítica en general y para el análisis de la historia de la Escuela de Frankfurt en particular. Todos los trabajos que están contenidos en este volumen hacen parte del amplio marco teórico de la teoría crítica de la sociedad. Muchos siguen las huellas de los fundadores de esta tendencia, mientras que otros se presentan como críticos de la misma y unos cuantos más tratan de vincular problemas y contextos (...) de relevancia a los conceptos más destacados que se empezaron a construir hace cien años en Frankfurt. Encontramos como buena excusa para su publicación precisamente el año centenario del Instituto de Investigación Social. Además, hemos creído conveniente organizar los materiales en secciones que van desde la historia de la Escuela de Frankfurt hasta la consideración de algunos interrogantes de actualidad motivados por el desarrollo de la teoría crítica. No obstante, con esto no pretendemos establecer límites absolutos de clasificación. Confesamos que nuestra forma de organizar los ensayos responde simplemente a criterios editoriales más que a cuestiones teóricas y conceptuales. Claramente las intersecciones entre los estudios aquí presentados son amplias y hacen que cada una de las propuestas pueda dialogar con las otras en función de sus evidentes parecidos de familia. (shrink)

The Movement of Showing investigates the idea, shared by Derrida, Hegel and Heidegger, that the value of their thought is not found in its results or conclusions, but in its "movement." All three describe the heart of their work in terms of a pathway, development, or movement rather than in terms of its propositions or conclusions. This seems to deprive their thought of a solid ground, and indeed deconstruction in particular is often criticized in this way. Johan de Jong argues (...) that this is a structural vulnerability that is both its weakness and the source of its value, tracing Derrida's indirect method from his early to later works, and considering his engagements with Hegel and Heidegger. His analysis locates an affinity among Hegel, Heidegger and Derrida in a shared distrust of externality and, against the grain of some Levinasian commentaries, argues that Derrida's indirectness results in an ethics of complicity. The Movement of Showing answers a central question that many polemics about continental philosophy and postmodernism revolve around concerning how, methodologically, one can philosophize responsibly. It shows the difference between critique and polemics, and why simply taking up a position for or against is insufficient in order to think responsibly. (shrink)

According to a traditional interpretation of Kierkegaard, he endorses a strong form of direct doxastic voluntarism on which we can, by brute force of will, make a “leap of faith” to believe propositions that we ourselves take to be improbable and absurd. Yet most leading Kierkegaard scholars now wholly reject this reading, instead interpreting Kierkegaard as holding that the will can affect what we believe only indirectly. This paper argues that Kierkegaard does in fact endorse a restricted, sophisticated, and plausible (...) version of direct doxastic voluntarism. On Kierkegaard’s view, when we take ourselves to be in an epistemically permissive situation, we have the ability to form outright beliefs (but not credences) at will in virtue of our ability to voluntarily 1) open or close inquiry and 2) determine our attitude towards epistemic risk. (shrink)

Kant and Hegel share a common foundational idea: they believe that the authority of normative claims can be justified only by showing that these norms are self-imposed or autonomous. Yet they develop this idea in strikingly different ways: Kant argues that we can derive specific normative claims from the formal idea of autonomy, whereas Hegel contends that we use the idea of freedom not to derive, but to assess, the specific normative claims ensconced in our social institutions and practices. Exploring (...) these claims, I argue that each approach encounters certain difficulties. I then argue that Nietzsche develops a theory of normative authority that avoids these potential difficulties. Nietzsche’s theory proceeds, in part, by reconciling the most compelling aspects of the Kantian and Hegelian accounts—aspects that have seemed, to many interpreters, to be incompatible. The resultant theory generates a unique and fruitful account of normative authority. (shrink)

This thesis explores and discusses foundational issues concerning the relationship between phenomenological philosophy and the enactive approach to cognitive science, with the aim of clarifying, developing, and promoting the project of enactive phenomenology. This project is framed by three general ideas: 1) that the sciences of mind need a phenomenological grounding, 2) that the enactive approach is the currently most promising attempt to provide mind science with such a grounding, and 3) that this attempt involves both a naturalization of phenomenology (...) and a phenomenologization of the concept of nature. More specifically, enactive phenomenology is the project of pursuing mutually illuminative exchanges between, on the one hand, phenomenological investigations of the structures of lived experience and embodied existence and, on the other, scientific accounts of mind and life – in particular those framed by theories of biological self-organization. The thesis consists of two parts. Part one is an introductory essay that seeks to clarify some of enactive phenomenology’s overarching philosophical commitments by tracing some of its historical roots. Part two is a compilation of four articles, each of which intervenes in a different contemporary debate relevant to the dissertation’s project. (shrink)

While Hegel's metaphysics was long reviled, it has garnered more interest in recent years, with even the so-called non-metaphysical Hegelians starting to explicitly discuss Hegel’s metaphysical commitments. This brings up the old question: what are the social-philosophical implications of Hegel’s metaphysics? This chapter provides a unique answer to this question by contrasting the former non-metaphysical reading (as developed by Robert Pippin) with a traditional way of interpreting Hegel’s metaphysics and social philosophy, whose lineage includes not Wittgenstein, Sellars, or Brandom, but (...) rather Schelling, Marx, and Adorno. After discussing the two varieties of metaphysics (Sections 1–3), I will argue that a traditional metaphysical Hegel is more realist when it comes to assessing the power of social structures (Section 4), focused on structural freedom rather than agency (Sections 5 and 6), and more empowering for and lenient towards individuals who can make their interests count and are free to be irrational and egoist (Section 7). (shrink)

Metaethical constructivism aims to explain morality’s authority and relevance by basing it in agency, in a capacity of the creatures who are in fact morally bound. But constructivists have struggled to wring anything recognizably moral from an appropriately minimal conception of agency. Even if they could, basing our reasons in our individual agency seems to make other people reason-giving for us only indirectly. This paper argues for a constructivism based on a social conception of agency, on which our capacity to (...) recognize ourselves as having reasons ties us inescapably to others. It argues that mutual recognition is a pervasive feature of linguistic concepts, and builds this into a view called transformative expressivism. (shrink)

What is recognition and why is it so important? This book develops a synoptic conception of the significance of recognition in its many forms for human persons by means of a rational reconstruction and internal critique of classical and contemporary accounts. The book begins with a clarification of several fundamental questions concerning recognition. It then reconstructs the core ideas of Fichte, Hegel, Charles Taylor, Nancy Fraser, and Axel Honneth and utilizes the insights and conceptual tools developed across these chapters for (...) developing a case for the universal importance of recognition for humans. It argues in favour of a universalist anthropological position, unusual in the literature on recognition, that aims to construe a philosophically sound basis for a discourse of common humanity, or of a shared human life-form for which moral relations of recognition are essential. This synthetic conception of the importance of recognition provides tools for articulating deep intuitions shared across cultures about what makes human life and forms of human co-existence better or worse, and thus tools for mutual understanding about the deepest shared concerns of humanity, or of what makes us all human persons despite our differences. -/- Recognition and the Human Life-Form will appeal to readers interested in philosophical anthropology, social and political philosophy, critical theory, and the history of philosophy. It also provides ideas and conceptual tools for fields such as anthropology, education, disability studies, international relations, law, politics, religious studies, sociology, and social research. (shrink)

World Crisis and Underdevelopment examines the impact of poverty and other global crises in generating forms of structural coercion that cause agential and societal underdevelopment. It draws from discourse ethics and recognition theory in criticizing injustices and pathologies associated with underdevelopment. Its scope is comprehensive, encompassing discussions about development science, philosophical anthropology, global migration, global capitalism and economic markets, human rights, international legal institutions, democratic politics and legitimation, world religions and secularization, and moral philosophy in its many varieties.

ABSTRACTThe paper distinguishes between two different ways of cashing out the general insight that often goes by the name of ‘liberal naturalism’. The objective is to show how these two different argumentative strategies undergird two fundamentally different approaches to the project of elucidating the specificity of mental phenomena. On one approach, the central concern of such a project is the ontological status of subjective conscious phenomena; on the other, the central concern is the irreducibility of parochial capacities in the adoption (...) of intentional stances. I begin by tracing out some of the origins of this important divergence and then focus on the motivations of the latter approach. I show that there is a tension between its motivations and the way that it has been used to rehabilitate idealist themes from the post-Kantian tradition. (shrink)

In “Violence and Metaphysics” Jacques Derrida suggests that “the only effective position to take in order not to be enveloped by Hegel would seem to be…to consider false-infinity…irreducible.” Inversely, refuting the charge of logocentrism associated with Hegelian true infinity ( wahrhafte Unendlichkeit ) would involve showing that Hegel’s speculative logic does not establish the infinity of being exempt from the negativity of the finite. This paper takes up Derrida’s challenge, and argues that true infinity is crucial to Hegel’s understanding of (...) ideality as a question of normative authority, which does not fall prey to logocentrism. Through an exposition of the dialectic of the finite and the infinite in Hegel’s Science of Logic , I argue that true infinity is not an ontological category that eliminates division, but rather refers to the metalogical standpoint involved in a philosophical account of determinacy. Although fully achieved at the end of the Logic , the metalogical standpoint that Hegel elaborates in the Seinslogik under the banner of the true infinite already clarifies that determinacy is a product of normative authority that is itself precarious. (shrink)

The Hungarian theorist Georg Lukács is known for his reintroduction of Hegelian thought to Marxist philosophy—but I argue that his account of the subjectivity of the proletariat owes just as much to the Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard. Despite strong differences in their outlook, their accounts of subjectivity have strong structural similarities. For both, a division of the self against itself produces suffering that leads in turn to a growing consciousness of the roots of the problem; in the end, (...) the self is restored through a relation to itself grounded in the absolute, and thereby becomes capable of freedom. Lukács’s theory of subjectivity is, thus, predicated on changing the orientation of the proletariat towards itself—in ways that are deeply indebted to the peculiar theology of Kierkegaard. (shrink)

My goal in this essay is to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Hegel’s theory of right for contemporary emancipatory politics. Specifically, my contention is that Hegel’s Philosophy of Right can and should be read as defending the possibility of principled, decisive side-taking in political struggles. By revisiting Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, I seek to demonstrate four interconnected theses: that the will’s freedom is both a) the fundamental principle upon which genuinely political change can be grounded, and b) essentially external to, (...) or subtractable from, any and all social alignments; but is nonetheless c) necessarily actualized in specifically political institutions, and finally d) only truly actualized through emancipatory reforms of such institutions. In combination, these four theses demonstrate that politics is the principled, decisive and emancipatory reform of existent political institutions through historically determined political movements. Having established these basic theses, I will examine how the philosophy and politics of ‘prescriptive reform’ operates in practice. (shrink)

Based on key passages in The Analects, I develop a Confucian account of agency: more precisely, an account of the relation between agent and deed (action). The Confucian view is contrasted with "standard" causal accounts of action (e.g., Davidson, Searle), which hold that what makes an event an action is that it is intended. According to the Confucian account, the defining mark of action is not the causal involvement of a (prior) intention, but instead the expressive relation between agent and (...) action. What's distinctive about an action is that it is expressive of who the agent is; the action expresses one's character or self. For the Confucians, what one really intends (the content of one's intention) is not a prior state to the action, but is rather determined or settled by the action as it is completed. I then explore the implications of the Confucian account for our understanding of three moral-psychological phenomena: weakness of will, self-deception, and moral regret. (shrink)

Need-claims are ubiquitous within moral and political theory. However, need-based theories are often criticized for being too narrow in scope and too focused on the material preconditions for leading a decent life for grounding a substantial theory of social justice. The aim of this paper is threefold. Firstly, it will investigate the nature and scope of needs by analysing existing conceptualizations of the idea of needs. In so doing, we will get a better understanding of needs, which will help us (...) to carve out the importance and singularity of basic need claims. Secondly, on the basis of the analysis of needs, it will argue for the concept of a fundamental interest in free social agency, which is much better suited than the idea of basic needs actually to ground a theory of social justice, as it highlights the social and institutional conditions for free agency. Thirdly, using the distinction between basic needs and fundamental interests, it will clarify their respective role in and importance for grounding moral principles. Overall, the paper offers a friendly critique of need-based theories, while arguing for a shift of focus to the idea of fundamental interests. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss the role of psychoanalysis in a reconstruction of a social critique based in a critique of reason. This requires an operation able to expose social critique as a critique of hegemonical forms of life. Such forms of life are orientated by claims of rationality that are presents in material practices, ways modes of social interaction and institutions.

This paper contrasts the Hegelianism of contemporary neo-pragmatism and the Hegelianism of classical pragmatism as it has been reassessed in contemporary Deweyan scholarship. Drawing on Dewey’s interpretation of Hegel, this paper argues that Hegel’s theory of the spirit is in many aspects more akin to Dewey’s pragmatism than Brandom’s. The first part compares Dewey’s pragmatism with Hegel’s conceptions of experience and the theory/practice relation. The second part compares Dewey’s naturalism with Hegel’s theory of the relation between nature and spirit.

Among Kant's innovations in the understanding of logic (‘general logic’) were his claims that logic had no content of its own, but was the form of the thought of any possible content, and that the unit of meaning, the truth-bearer, judgement, was essentially apperceptive. Judging was implicitly the consciousness of judging. This was for Kant a logical truth. This article traces the influence of the latter claim on Fichte, and, for most of the discussion, on Hegel. The aim is to (...) understand the relations among self-consciousness, reason and freedom in the idealist tradition. (shrink)

I offer responses to criticisms about and questions concerning my book, Hegel's Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life, 1 first raised at a conference at Kalamazoo College and now published in this issue of Inquiry. There are responses to Richard Peterson, James Bohman, Hans-Herbert Kögler, David Ingram and Theodore R. Schatzki.

Pippin offers his reconstruction of Hegel's account of practical reason as a point of departure for contemporary social theory, yet he does not address the implications for us of Hegel's claim that social reflection can achieve its knowledge only on the basis of a world that has already become rational. After arguing that the unreasonableness of our world can be seen from the suffering it generates, I argue that an account of violence may be a way to retrieve the promise (...) of Hegelian insights so long as it draws in turn on existing challenges to violence and the suffering it causes. The argument discusses four kinds of violence (direct, formative, structural, and symbolic) and confronts these with a neo-Hegelian conception of social learning. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers have become increasingly interested in a Hegelian approach to Aristotelian non-reductive naturalism. This paper points out a challenge faced by naturalist readings of Hegel's conception of spirit. For Hegel, spirit and nature are essentially distinct and even related in an antagonistic way. It is difficult to do full justice to this thought while at the same time reading Hegel as a naturalist. The paper also seeks to suggest a response to this challenge. Drawing on Hegel's account (...) of mechanism in his philosophy of spirit, it shows that processes which can count as natural – such as mechanical processes – constitute for Hegel an integral and indispensable part of spiritual activity. Against this background, it is possible to develop a form of Hegelian naturalism which does not lose sight of the essential distinction, even opposition of spirit and nature. (shrink)

This paper critically evaluates what it identifies as ‘the institutional theory of freedom’ developed within recent neo-Hegelian philosophy. While acknowledging the gains made against the Kantian theory of autonomy as detachment it is argued that the institutional theory ultimately undermines the very meaning of practical agency. By tying agency to institutionally sustained recognition it effectively excludes the exercise of practical reason geared toward emancipation from a settled normative order. Adorno's notion of autonomy as resistance is enlisted to develop an account (...) of practical reason that is neither institutionally constrained nor without appropriate consideration of the historical location of the practical agent. (shrink)

This paper explores the ambivalent effects of recognition through a critical examination of Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition. I argue that his underlying perfectionist account and his focus on the psychic effects of recognition lead him to overlook important connections between recognition and power. These claims are substantiated through Butler’s theory of gender performativity and recognition; and issues connected to the socio-institutional recognition of transgender identities. I conclude by suggesting that certain problems with Butler’s own position can corrected by drawing (...) more from the Foucauldian aspects of her work. I argue that this is the most promising way to conceptualise recognition and its complex, ambivalent effects. (shrink)

the article explores the putatively non-metaphysical – non-voluntarist, and even non-causal – concept of freedom outlined in Hegel’s work and discusses its influential interpretation by robert Pippin as an ‘essentially practical’ concept. I argue that Hegel’s affirmation of freedom must be distinguished from that of Kant and Fichte, since it does not rely on a prior understanding of self-consciousness as an originally teleological relation and it has not the nature of a claim ‘from a practical point of view’.

Fichte’s early review of C. A. L. Creuzer’s neglected and idiosyncratic skeptical book on free will posed a serious challenge to what at the time was emerging as a consensus Kantian position on the role of free choice in the generation of imputable action. Fichte’s review was directed as much against Reinhold’s important letter on freedom of the will as it was against Creuzer himself. In the course of his brief review, Fichte suggests an important recasting of the strategy of (...) the Kantian postulates of rational faith; he poses a dilemma for the Reinholdian understanding of the relationship among an autonomous practical will, a free power of choice, and the actions of natural human organisms; and he hints at a radical reappropriation of the rationalist doctrine of pre-established harmony in re-orienting the search for a defensible reconstruction of a broadly Kantian position on the problem of free will. (shrink)

The notion of being-at-home-in-otherness is the distinctive way of thinking of freedom that Hegel develops in his social and political thought. When I am at one with myself in social and political structures they are not external powers to which I am subjected but are rather constitutive of my self-relation, that is my self-conception is mediated andexpandedthrough those objective structures. How successfully Hegel may achieve being-at-home-in-otherness with regard to these objective structures of right in thePhilosophy of Rightis arguable. What is (...) at issue in this paper is however to argue that there is a blind spot in the text with regard to nature. In Ethical Life the rational subject's passions and inclinations are brought into the subject such that she is ‘with herself’ in them; with regard to external nature no such reconciliation is achieved or even attempted. In Abstract Right external nature is effectively dominated by and subsumed into the will and it is never something in which one is with oneself. It remains outside the model of freedom that Hegel develops in thePhilosophy of Right. There is something troubling about this formulation, since it excludes nature from freedom, but also something accurate, as it reflects the unresolved attitude of moderns to the natural world. (shrink)

In thePhilosophy of RightHegel argues that modern life has produced an individualized freedom that conflicts with the communal forms of life constitutive of Greek ethical life. This individualized freedom is fundamentally unsatisfactory, but it is in modernity seemingly resolved into a more adequate form of social freedom in the family, aspects of civil society, and ultimately the state. This article examines whether Hegel’s state can function as a community and by so doing satisfy the need for a substantial ethical life (...) that runs through Hegel’s social thought. The article also examines why Hegel does not provide a detailed analysis of community, as a distinct sphere between the private and the public political sphere in thePhilosophy of Right, and why it is not a key platform of his social freedom. (shrink)

RESUMO: Gostaria aqui de contribuir tanto à compreensão das concepções de Hegel acerca da linguagem quanto para uma apreciação da interlocução entre essas concepções e alguns desenvolvimentos na filosofia pós-hegeliana. O tema mais geral consiste em evidenciar os esforços de Hegel para estabelecer uma relação intrínseca entre experiência e linguagem. Primeiramente, tomando como ponto de partida questões diretivas da epistemologia moderna, gostaria de compreender traços da concepção hegeliana de linguagem no contexto de uma tematização intersubjetivista da validade objetiva. Em segundo (...) lugar, gostaria de refletir sobre a relação entre metafísica inferencial e cognição. Finalmente, depois de tentar respaldar a tese de que Hegel antecipa a questão de uma tensão entre o gramatical e a historicidade do léxico, mostro como a conexão entre a guinada ontológica na hermenêutica e a doutrina hegeliana da sentença especulativa conduz à experiência do inacabamento linguístico do sentido poético. ABSTRACT: This paper attempts to examine Hegel's comprehension of language and evaluate its relation to some themes in contemporary philosophy. The main purpose consists in pointing out Hegel's attempt to account for the linguistic structure of experience. To begin with, I consider Hegel's comprehension of language in an epistemological context as an effort to ground intersubjective justification of objective validity. Then I discuss the relation between cognition and inferential metaphysics. Finally, after arguing that Hegel anticipates the tension between grammar and lexical historicity, I attempt to show how the connection between the ontological turn in hermeneutics and Hegel's idea of the "speculative sentence" leads to the experience of the unfinishedness of poetic meaning. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against Terry Pinkard's account of the relation between Deweyian pragmatism and Hegelian idealism. Instead of thinking that their affinity concerns the issue of normative authority, as Pinkard does, I argue that we should trace their affinity to Dewey's appropriation of Hegel's naturalism, especially his theory of habits. Pinkard is not in a position to appreciate this affinity because he misreads Dewey as an instrumentalist, and his social-constructivist account of Hegel – which he shares with Pippin (...) and Brandom, is not able to correctly take the measure of Hegel's naturalism. On my reading, Dewey's philosophy is concerned above all with understanding and making objective the proper relation between reason and habit, with our achieving an equipoise in which thought is informed by intelligent habits and where habits are instituted by past thought and inquiry. In achieving this equipoise, one's bodily nature becomes a form in which subjects can realize their freedom. I claim.. (shrink)

This paper presents a critical appraisal of the recent turn in comparative religious ethics to virtue theory; it argues that the specific aspirations of virtue ethicists to make ethics more contextual, interdisciplinary, and practice-centered has in large measure failed to match the rhetoric. I suggest that the focus on the category of the human and practices associated with self-formation along with a methodology grounded in “analogical imagination” has actually poeticized the subject matter into highly abstract textual studies on normative voices (...) within traditions, largely in isolation from considerations of socio-historical context, political and institutional pressures, and the lived ethics of non-elite moral actors. I conclude with some programmatic suggestions for how the field of comparative religious ethics can move forward. (shrink)

This entry discusses three forms of politics of recognition: politics of universalism, affirmative identity politics and deconstructive politics of difference. It examines the constitutive, causally formative, and normative role that recognition has for the relevant senses of universal standing, particular identity, and difference in these approaches.

This essay discusses Kant and Hegel’s philosophies of action and the place of action within the general structure of their practical philosophy. We begin by briefly noting a few things that both unite and distinguish the two philosophers. In the sections that follow, we consider these and their corollaries in more detail. In so doing, we map their differences against those suggested by more standard readings that treat their accounts of action as less central to their practical philosophy. Section 2 (...) discusses some central Kantian concepts. In Section 3, we take a closer look at the distinction between internal and external action, as found in Kant’s philosophy of morality and legality. In Section 4, we turn to Hegel and his distinctions between abstract right, morality, and ethical life, as well as the location of his account of action within his overall theory of morality. We discuss the distinction between Handlung and Tat, and non-imputable consequences. The overall aims of our essay are to shed light on some puzzles in Kant and Hegel’s conceptions and to examine where their exact disputes lie without taking a stand on which philosophy is ultimately the most satisfactory. (shrink)

This study compares Philip Pettit’s account of freedom to Hegelian accounts. Both share the key insight that characterizes the tradition of republicanism from the Ancients to Rousseau: to be subordinated to the will of particular others is to be unfree. They both also hold that relations to others, relations of recognition, are in various ways directly constitutive of freedom, and in different ways enabling conditions of freedom. The republican ideal of non-domination can thus be fruitfully understood in light of the (...) Hegelian structure of ‘being at one with oneself (Beisichsein) in another’. However, while the Hegelian view converges with Pettit on non-domination and recognition, their comprehensive theories of freedom are based on radically different metaphysics. One key difference concerns the relationship between freedom and nature, and there is a further difference between Pettit’s (ahistorical) idea of the concept dependence of freedom, and the Hegelian (historical) idea of the conception dependence of freedom. -/- Keywords: Pettit; Hegel; freedom; non-domination; mutual recognition; republicanism; ‘being at one with oneself’; social freedom. (shrink)

This essay discusses how, for Hegel, freedom can be realized in nature in a rudimentary fashion in solar systems. This solves a problem in Kant’s account of freedom, namely, the problem that Kant only gives a negative argument for why freedom is not impossible but does not give a positive account of how freedom is real. I give a novel account of Kant’s negative argument. Then, I show how, according to Hegel, solar systems can be considered as exhibiting freedom in (...) a rudimentary fashion. Finally, I lay out how Hegel systematically develops this point about the freedom of solar systems in the ‘Mechanism’-chapter of the Science of Logic. In doing so, he uses Kant’s negative argument in a ‘purified’ form to arrive at an account of an ‘intimate token-type relation’ between the planets in a solar system and the law that governs their motion. The essay as a whole provides a concrete example of how Hegel is an inheritor and radicalizer of Kant, both with respect to freedom’s reality and with respect to philosophical method. (shrink)

This contribution investigates whether Hegel’s critique of social contract theory is still applicable to contemporary contract theory proposed by, e. g., Rawls and Nozick. At first sight, they seem to have overcome the problems identified by Hegel because Rawls and Nozick appropriate the social contract as something essentially rational and normative. I argue, however, that for Hegel, their appeal to rational argumentation is not compatible with the concreteness of human individuals. A revised reading of the master/ bondsman-relation, emphasizing the role (...) of the “fear of death”, shows the limited scope of contemporary contract theory. (shrink)

By engaging Robert Pippin's Hegelian account of ?rational agency as ethical life?, the essay explores the consequences of an intersubjectivist conception of ethical agency. Pippin's core project consists of showing that intentional agency must be conceived within the social context of reason-giving practices which provide the necessary sense-making background of action. This socially grounded meaningfulness of action requires us to redefine agency as a social achievement, as real only if socially recognized. For Pippin, this means that ethical agency essentially becomes (...) the identifying expression of the situated agent with rationally acceptable and socially actualized modes of self-realization. In contrast, I argue that core features of agency such as intentional causality and reflexivity need to be more fully integrated into a social conception of agency. By drawing on a hermeneutic appropriation of G. H. Mead's intersubjective account, we come to see that the developing self emerges via processes of perspective-taking which involve intentional causality as well as reflexivity. The presumed opposition between an intentional-causalist and an expressivist account of agency thus becomes obsolete. The new account is put to a comparative test with Pippin's approach with regard to the issues of analyzing social power, approaching cultural difference, and conceiving of the relation between critical theory and the agents' everyday social self-understanding. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Adorno's metacritique of freedom in Negative Dialectics and related texts remains fruitful today. I begin with some background on Adorno's conception of ‘metacritique’ and on Kant's conception of freedom, as I understand it. Next, I discuss Adorno's analysis of the experiential content of Kantian freedom, according to which Kant has reified the particular social experience of the early modern bourgeoisie in his conception of unconditioned freedom. Adorno argues against this conception of freedom and suggests (...) that freedom is always conditioned by our embodiment and by our social and historical situation. Finally, I turn to Adorno's criticism of Kant's discussion of freedom and determinism in the Critique of Pure Reason and argue that while his philosophical argument against Kant fails, his metacritical argument remains suggestive. Scepticism about freedom arises when the standpoint of theoretical reason encroaches upon the standpoint of practical reason and assimilates persons to things. (shrink)

In Hegel's Practical Philosophy (2008), Robert Pippin argues that Hegel's mature concept of recognition is properly understood as an ontological category referring exclusively to what it means to be a free, rational individual, or agent. 1 I agree with Pippin that recognition for Hegel functions in this capacity. However, I shall argue that conceiving it this way also requires that we conceive it as a political category. Furthermore, while Hegel insists that recognition must be concrete?mediated by actors who hold one (...) another accountable according to institutional norms implicit in their actual social roles? I argue, appealing to Hegel himself, that social crisis impels actors to transcend their roles and adopt abstract points of view more in keeping with philosophical forms of reflection. Such alienation?so ardently embraced by postmodernists?need not undermine the possibility of recognition as an ontological category, as Pippin fears, but rather comports with the expressivist theory of action he imputes to Hegel, which describes the socially recognized intentions, rationales, and identities?not to mention, freedom?of actors as unfolding in interminable dialogue. (shrink)

ExcerptThe concept of the state presupposes the concept of the political. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political1Is such a relation still possible between the state and the political? If the primacy of the state is challenged, what becomes of the status of the political? How was this relation originally conceived, and what are the consequences of its dissolution? To facilitate a continued questioning of the state and the place of politics, this essay executes an unlikely juxtaposition of Thomas Hobbes (...) and Alain Badiou. Hobbes is a seventeenth-century English philosopher confronting the anarchy of religious…. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker’s account of hermeneutical injustice and remedies for this injustice are widely debated. This article adds to the existing debate by arguing that theories of recog- nition can fruitfully contribute to Fricker’s account of hermeneutical injustice and can provide a framework for structural remedy. By pairing Fricker’s theory of hermeneutical injustice with theories of recognition, I bring forward a modest claim and a more radical claim. The first concerns a shift in our vocabulary; recognition theory can give a name (...) to the seriousness of the long-term effects of hermeneutical injustice. The second claim is more radical: thinking of hermeneutical injustice as preventing what I call “self-recogni- tion” provides a structural remedy to the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice. Because hermeneutical injustice is first and foremost a structural injustice, I contend that every virtue theory of hermeneutical justice should be complemented by structural remedies in terms of recognition. Finally, what I argue sheds light on the seriousness of cases of exclusion of and discrimination against women in academia and helps to draw our attention to new ways to combat such problems. (shrink)

The probing readings of Putting On Virtue offered by Sheryl Overmyer, Darlene Weaver, and James Foster provide a welcome opportunity for further reflection on key questions: Was Aquinas really concerned with the status of pagan virtues? Can we properly understand a thinker whose driving questions are not the same as our own without taking up a stance of pure deference? Can an inquiry into hyper-Augustinian anxiety over acquired virtue assist us in arriving at an account of positive self-regard? Can an (...) account that stresses the graced character of all virtue formation be coherent? And can it do justice to the ways in which Christians reached for accounts of infused virtue precisely in order to affirm how grace overcomes the ways in which fortune hounds acquired virtue? I respond affirmatively to all of the above. (shrink)

Robert B. Pippin: Hegel on Self-Consciousness: Desire and Death in the Phenomenology of Spirit Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 481-487 DOI 10.1007/s10746-011-9199-4 Authors Trip Glazer, Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA Journal Human Studies Online ISSN 1572-851X Print ISSN 0163-8548 Journal Volume Volume 34 Journal Issue Volume 34, Number 4.

In this article I argue that Hegel has become analytic philosophy’s “pharmakon”—both its “poison” and its “cure.” Traditionally, Hegel’s philosophy has been attacked by Anglo-American analytical philosophers for its alleged charlatanism and irrelevance. Yet starting from the 1970s there has been a revival of interest in Hegel’s philosophical work, which, I suggest, may be explained by three developments: the revival of interest in Aristotelianism following Saul Kripke’s and Hilary Putnam’s work on natural kinds, and Elizabeth Anscombe’s, Philippa Foot’s, and Putnam’s (...) opposition to the fact-value distinction; the rehabilitation of Hegel’s theories by various philosophers, including Robert Pippin, Terry Pinkard, Fred Beiser, Robert Stern, and Stephen Houlgate; and the Sellars-inspired philosophy of mind of John McDowell and of Robert Brandom. The first and third of these reasons, I argue, have led several analytic theorists to cast Hegel in a more positive light as the “cure” for analyti... (shrink)

The nonmetaphysical interpretation of Hegel's philosophy asserts that the metaphysical reading is not credible and so his philosophy must be rationally reconstructed so as to elide its metaphysical aspects. This article shows that the thesis of the extended mind approaches the metaphysical reading, thereby undermining denials of its credibility and providing the resources to articulate and defend the metaphysical reading of Hegel's philosophy. This fully rehabilitates the metaphysical Hegel. The article does not argue for the truth of the metaphysical Hegel's (...) claims. Rather, it defends the correctness of reading his philosophy as metaphysical. (shrink)