The terms immanence and transcendence have played a significant role in philosophical thought since its inception. Implicit in the notions of immanence and transcendence, as typified within the history of ideas, is often a separation and division between the human and the godly. This division has served to generate ontologies of isolation and set up epistemologies that can be both binary and divided. The terms immanence and transcendence thus sit at the heart of contemporary onto-epistemic accounts of (...) the world. As such, in seeking to examine the nature of what is, this paper traces a line through the history of ideas in an attempt to clarify the connections and dissonances in the notions of immanence and transcendence. This is done for the purpose of demonstrating what philosophical and religious accounts may offer in attempting to create a sound account of the godly and thus the world in a secular age. (shrink)

The essays in this book present a complex theme at the heart of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, what in his last writing he called simply "a life." They capture a problem that runs throughout his work--his long search for a new and superior empiricism. Announced in his first book, on David Hume, then taking off with his early studies of Nietzsche and Bergson, the problem of an "empiricist conversion" became central to Deleuze's work, in particular to his aesthetics and (...) his conception of the art of cinema. In the new regime of communication and information-machines with which he thought we are confronted today, he came to believe that such a conversion, such an empiricism, such a new art and will-to-art, was what we need most. The last, seemingly minor question of "a life" is thus inseparable from Deleuze's striking image of philosophy not as a wisdom we already possess, but as a pure immanence of what is yet to come. Perhaps the full exploitation of that image, from one of the most original trajectories in contemporary philosophy, is also yet to come. (shrink)

When we criticize social institutions and practices, what kinds of reasons can we offer for such criticism? Political philosophers often assume that we must rely on universal moral principles that are not necessarily connected to the particular social practices of our communities. Traditionally,continental critical theory has rejected this claim through its endorsement of the method of immanent critique. Immanent critique is a critique of social practices that draws on norms already present within these practices to demand social change, rather than (...) merely conservatively reproducing them. This book defends the claim that such a critique is not only possible, but also has politically powerful potential. Taking up recent developments in analytic collective intentionality theory and in the philosophy of language, the book argues that all social practices rest on structures of mutual recognition between persons that allow social theorists to reconstruct hidden norms present within these practices. Starting from a comprehensive critique of contemporary critical theory, the book also spells out the consequences of this line of thought for the practice of social critique, for the social sciences and for political philosophy. (shrink)

Critical theories often express scepticism towards the idea that social critique should draw on general normative principles, seeing such principles as bound to dominant conceptual frameworks. However, even the models of immanent critique developed in the Frankfurt School tradition seem to privilege principles over particular moral experiences. Discussing the place that particular moral experience has in the models of Honneth, Ferrara and Adorno, the article argues that experience can play an important negative role even for a critical theory that is (...) committed to the necessity of conceptual mediation, as moral experiences can undermine our confidence in the appropriateness of our moral concepts. Building on McDowell’s account of moral perception and Brandom’s interpretation of Hegel’s theory of experience, one can reconstruct Adorno as providing a “radically negativist” approach to immanent critique that takes particular moral experience seriously. (shrink)

This chapter considers the ‘hosting question’ of how immanent universals, in contrast to transcendent universals, are ‘brought down to earth’ from ‘Plato’s heaven’. It explores the thesis that the hosting amounts to their being constituents of the states of affairs that result from their instantiations. These states of affairs are concrete complexes consisting of particulars and universals, and perhaps something that links them together. The traditional view that immanent universals are concrete is briefly defended against a recent prominent objection. On (...) relationalism, states of affairs are unified by a relation of some sort; on non-relationalism they are unified non-relationally. Roughly, these two conceptions of states of affairs are equivalent to Armstrong’s relational and non-relational versions of immanent realism, respectively. Armstrong mostly criticises the former and defends the latter. It is argued, however, that relationalism, at least potentially, answers the hosting question, whereas non-relationalism realism does not. (shrink)

This monograph proposes a new way of implementing interaction in logic. It also provides an elementary introduction to Constructive Type Theory. The authors equally emphasize basic ideas and finer technical details. In addition, many worked out exercises and examples will help readers to better understand the concepts under discussion. One of the chief ideas animating this study is that the dialogical understanding of definitional equality and its execution provide both a simple and a direct way of implementing the CTT approach (...) within a game-theoretical conception of meaning. In addition, the importance of the play level over the strategy level is stressed, binding together the matter of execution with that of equality and the finitary perspective on games constituting meaning. According to this perspective the emergence of concepts are not only games of giving and asking for reasons, they are also games that include moves establishing how it is that the reasons brought forward accomplish their explicative task. Thus, immanent reasoning games are dialogical games of Why and How. (shrink)

Identifies immanence as the original impetus and the driving force behind Deleuze's philosophy In 5 chapters dealing with the status of thought itself, ontology, logic, ethics and aesthetics, de Beistegui reveals how immanence is realised in each of these classical domains of philosophy. Ultimately, he argues, immanence is an infinite task, and transcendence the opposition with which philosophy will always need to reckon.

I begin by identifying an ambiguity in the post-Hegelian literature on Immanent Critique, distinguishing two possible definitions: judging an object against its ‘internal’ norms; and accounting for one’s own standpoint with reference to the object. I then claim that both definitions are represented in Hegel’s Phenomenology, and develop extended interpretations of material from the Introduction in order to clarify and substantiate this thesis. This yields revisionist readings of the famous ‘internal criteria’ and ‘self examination’ tropes. My discussion builds towards elucidating (...) the relation between the two definitions of Immanent Critique I have distinguished, as it is developed in the Phenomenology. (shrink)

This book guides the readers through Brentano's life and works, investigating into the inherent complexity of both his view of mental life and the related methodology.

In this paper, I develop a theory on which each of a thing’s abundant properties is immanent in that thing. On the version of the theory I will propose, universals are abundant, each instantiated universal is immanent, and each uninstantiated universal is such that it could have been instantiated, in which case it would have been immanent. After setting out the theory, I will defend it from David Lewis’s argument that such a combination of immanence and abundance is absurd. (...) I will then advocate the theory on the grounds that it accomplishes all of Lewis’s “new work” while providing a gain in parsimony and a new account of fine-grained content. I will close with a discussion of how the theory also affords a new reply to two objections to uninstantiated universals: Armstrong’s charge that they are inconsistent with naturalism, and a Benacerraf-Field-style objection about epistemic access. (shrink)

In the past fifteen years or so there has been a lot of attention paid to theories of “sparse” universals, particularly because of the work of D. M. Armstrong. These theories are of particular interest to those of us concerned with the distinction between natural and non-natural properties, since, as David Lewis has observed, it seems possible to analyze naturalness in terms of sparse universals. Moreover, Armstrong claims that we should conceive of universals as being “immanent” as opposed to “transcendent”, (...) and if universals are immanent then, as we will see, there is pressure to admit they are sparse as well. But I will argue that neither of these alleged reasons to accept a sparse conception of universals succeeds: the outlook for a fully general analysis of naturalness in terms of universals is not good, and the apparent advantages of immanence over transcendence are illusory. (shrink)

Rocco Gangle addresses the methodological questions raised by a commitment to immanence in terms of how diagrams may be used both as tools and as objects of philosophical investigation. Gangle integrates insights from Spinoza, Pierce and Deleuze in conjunction with the formal operations of category theory.

SummaryMetatheory may be pursued immanently, i.e., within the object language, or transcendently in metalanguages. Immanently, the hierarchy of metalanguages gives way to a hierarchy of predicates. The immanent approach accentuates the symmetry between Russell's paradox and Cantor's theorem: class shortage versus predicate shortage. Appeal to metatheoretic models, in defining logical truth, gives way to appeal to substitutions of expressions of the object language. Can this be said also of set‐theoretic truth, despite predicate shortage? Equivalently: is substitutional quantification unscathed by predicate (...) shortage? Anyway substitutional quantification balks at impredicative cases. (shrink)

The present paper analyzes the dialogue between Gilles Deleuze and François Jullien. We focus on three axes articulated by the idea of immanence. Firstly, we shall compare the usage of the expression “absolutization of immanence”, coined by the sinologist in order to play down transcendence in Chinese thought, which was eventually applied by Deleuze within the realm of belief in this world. Secondly, we shall examine Jullien’s critic to Deleuze on the relation between philosophy and wisdom. We sustain (...) that even if the deleuzian description presents ambivalence in the “pre-philosophical” plane of immanence, it does not entail the superiority of philosophy. Thirdly, we shall confront the divergent perspectives on immanence: Deleuze’s treatment as plan and Jullien’s conception as fonds. Finally, we shall expose the hardship to think the idea of immanence present in the work of both authors. (shrink)

Le socle philosophique de l'oeuvre multiforme d'Alain Badiou (théâtre, romans, essais esthétiques ou politiques, éloges, polémiques...) est déposé dans trois grands livres, qui constituent une sorte de saga métaphysique : L'être et l'événement (1988), Logiques des mondes (2006) et enfin L'Immanence des vérités, auquel il travaille depuis une quinzaine d'années. Apres avoir étudié vérités et sujets du point de vue de la théorie de l'être, après avoir rendu raison de ce que cette universalité des vérités et de leurs sujets (...) peut se plier aux règles de l'apparaître dans un monde particulier, ce troisième volume aborde une question redoutable : d'où peut se soutenir que les vérités sont absolues, c'est-à-dire non seulement opposées à toute interprétation empiriste, mais encore garanties contre toute construction transcendantale? Qu'en est-il des vérités et des sujets, saisis, au-delà des formes structurales de leur être et des formes historico-existentielles de leur apparaître, dans l'irréversible absoluité de leur action et dans l'infini destin de leur oeuvre finie? Et que faut-il entendre par l'absoluité du vrai, puisque les dieux sont morts? Il s'est agi, au fond, d'un bout à l'autre, de construire pour notre temps une pensée complète, tirée, comme le firent Platon, Descartes ou Hegel, de matériaux rationnels contemporains, mathématiques, poétiques, amoureux et politiques. Il s'est agi de la vraie vie : nous sommes capables, dans la forme d'une oeuvre, individuelle ou collective, dans les quatre registres que fréquente l'animal humain survolté, de processus créateurs où se conjuguent dialectiquement la singularité, l'universalité et l'absoluité. Depuis sa naissance, la tâche de la philosophie ne tient qu'à ceci : créer, dans les conditions de son temps, le savoir de la possibilité existentielle du vrai. (shrink)

The Being and Event trilogy is the philosophical basis of Alain Badiou's entire oeuvre. It is formed of three major texts, which constitute a kind of metaphysical saga: Being and Event (1988). ), Logics of the Worlds (2006) and finally The Immanence of Truths, which he has been working on for 15 years. The new volume reverses the perspective adopted in Logics of Worlds. Where in that book, Badiou saw fit to analyze how truths, qua events, appear from the (...) perspective of particular worlds that by definition exclude them, in The Immanence of Truths Badiou asks instead how the irruption of truth transforms the worlds within which they by necessity must arise. An emphasis on regularity and continuity has given way to an attempt, one unquestionable in its philosophical power and implications, to formalize rupture and reconfiguration. The Being and Event trilogy is a unique and ambitious work that reveals how truths can be at once context-specific and universal, situational and eternal. (shrink)

Summary This paper presents an immanent criticism of Lakatos' reconstruction of the degenerating phase of Bohr's atomic theory. That is to say, the historiographical methods used are exclusively of a Lakatosian kind. Such a closer Lakatosian look at the historical episode in question shows that Lakatos' own reconstruction is incorrect on three essential points. These are the role of the correspondence principle, the position of the hard core in Bohr's programme, and the presence of important novel predicted facts. I conclude (...) that these defects are irreparable within the framework of Lakatos' methodology of scientific research programmes. (shrink)

It is argued in this paper that recent work on immanence and transcendence in Whitehead scholarship, notably by Basile and Nobo, provides helpful guidelines and ideas for work on problems regarding immanence in Deleuze's philosophy. By following arguments on theism and naturalism in the reception of Whitehead, it argues that Deleuze's philosophy depends on reciprocal relations between that actual and the virtual such that they cannot be considered as separate without also being incomplete. It is then shown that (...) Deleuze's philosophy allows for metaphysical terms such as ‘pure’ without having to concede a separate and self-sufficient pure realm. (shrink)

Salomon Maïmon argues that the formal determination of experience in Kant’s first Kritik insufficiently answers the question ‘quid juris?’. As an alternative to Kant’s theory, he develops a genetic transcendentalism in which experience is completely determined a priori. Discussing this genetic approach, I focus on how the spatiotemporal determinations of conscious experience are traced back to pure ideal relations. Relying on Leibniz and his theory of space and time, I explain how the extensive magnitudes of consciousness are founded in intensive (...) magnitudes of what Maïmon calls ‘pure thought’. As the latter is the transcendental ground for both sensibility and the understanding, Maïmon’s theory contains a radical form of immanence, much like the philosophy of Spinoza and Gilles Deleuze. (shrink)

One of the terminological constants in the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze is the word 'immanence', and it has therefore become a foothold for those wishing to understand exactly what 'Deleuzian philosophy' is. Deleuze's philosophy of immanence is held to be fundamentally characterised by its opposition to all philosophies of 'transcendence'. On that basis, it is widely believed that Deleuze's project is premised on a return to a materialist metaphysics. Christian Kerslake argues that such an interpretation is fundamentally (...) misconceived, and has led to misunderstandings of Deleuze's philosophy, which is rather one of the latest heirs to the post-Kantian tradition of thought about immanence. This will be the first book to assess Deleuze's relationship to Kantian epistemology and post-Kantian philosophy, and will attempt to make Deleuze's philosophy intelligible to students working within that tradition. But it also attempts to reconstruct our image of the post-Kantian tradition, isolating a lineage that takes shape in the work of Schelling and Wronski, and which is developed in the twentieth century by Bergson, Warrain and Deleuze. (shrink)

ABSTRACT There are two traditions of immanent social critique. One of them, prominent in contemporary Frankfurt school critical theory, regards the immanence of critique as a quality of the standard employed. Such a conception of immanent critique needs to show, prior to the concrete practice of critique, how the standard is immanent in the object of critique. Showing this is the task of a “model of immanent critique.” The other tradition, going back to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and practiced (...) in particular by Dewey in his later works, regards the immanence of critique as the form of critical practice itself. Because such a conception of immanent critique does not, at the outset, ask how the standard is immanent to its object, it also does not need a model licensing critical practice. Indeed, it must be inherently hostile to any attempt at modeling immanent critique because the immanence lies in the power of critical practice to transform any models it applies. (shrink)

When Brentano introduces the notion of immanent objectivity or the intentional inexistence of objects in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, he cites Scholastic theories of intentionality and suggests that his own view is continuous with medieval and ancient theories of objective being. Very few philosophers of the middle ages used the terminology of esse objectivuum and those that did, such as Peter Aureol, do not appear to be among the primary Scholastic sources for Brentano’s theory of immanence. To a (...) modern ear moreover talk of things existing in the mind objectively is confusing. But the contrast which is important for understanding Brentano’s theory of intentionality is not that between objectivity and subjectivity as commonly understood nowadays, as if having something objectively in mind excluded its being a subjective phenomenon, but something like Descartes’s opposition between that which objectively exists and that which formally exists. Hence for Descartes, whose characterization of immanent objectivity Brentano often cited approvingly in his lectures, any two thoughts, for example, a thought about God and a thought about a horse, will have exactly the same formal reality but may differ enormously in their degree of objective being. (shrink)

I defend an expanded reading of immanent causation that includes both inherence and causal efficacy; I argue that the latter is required if God is to remain the immanent cause of finite modes.

This article develops, illustrates, and defends a conception of immanent critique. Immanent critique is construed as a form of hermeneutical practice and second-order political and normative criticism. The common charge that immanent critique is a form of philosophical conventionalism necessarily committed to value relativism and to the rejection of transcultural and cosmopolitan norms is denied. But immanent critique insists that meaningful and potentially efficacious criticism must be connected to relevant criteria and understandings internal to the culture or social order at (...) which the criticism is directed. The complaint that this demand will likely limit political and moral criticism is also denied, and the ability of immanent critique to develop from convention unconventional thinking is defended and demonstrated. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that in the Jena period (1801–1803) Schelling and Hegel both rejected the conception of God as coinciding with the moral order, which they attribute to Fichte; such coincidence, in their view, turned God into a transcendent and merely moral Being. In an effort to demonstrate their distance from Fichte's view, we contend, Schelling and Hegel advocated for a metaphysical (rather than merely moral) and immanent (rather than transcendent) understanding of God, conceived in its inextricable relation (...) with nature and self-consciousness. We conclude by demonstrating that the cooperation between Schelling and Hegel in the Jena period led them to develop an analogous conception of immanence—which already foreshadows, however, the different directions that Schelling and Hegel take in their mature works. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on the term ‘immanence’ in Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and show how it relates to her historical account of sexual oppression. I argue that Beauvoir's use of Hegel's master−slave dialectic and of Claude Lévi-Strauss's reflection on the prohibition of incest lead her to claim that in all societies “woman” is constructed as “absolutely other.” I show that there is an ambiguous logic of abjection at work in Beauvoir's account that explains why men (...) are the only examples of transcendence in history, whereas women lack it. Finally, I discuss the way in which the relation between immanence and abjection helps to explain the intellectual relation between Georges Bataille and Beauvoir. (shrink)

The epochal transition from the medieval to the modern world has long been thought in terms of the "infinitization" of the world-picture, that is, as the transition from the finite, hierarchically ordered medieval cosmos to the infinite and homogeneous universe of the new astronomy and physics. In this dissertation I argue that this process of "infinitization" must be understood intensively as well as extensively. Nature, in the modern age, is thought not only as infinitely extended in space, but also as (...) exhibiting an infinite richness in all of its parts. Each individual being is grasped as utterly unique and consequently as conceptually inexponable. Thus the infinitization of the real leads to an infinitization of the knowable-- the radical shift in ontology grounds a corresponding shift in epistemology, so that the progress of human knowledge is understood as an unending project infinitely extended over time. ;I take as my point of departure a consideration of Hans Blumenberg's reading of this epochal transition in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. Blumenberg views the transference of the attribute of infinity from God to the world as characteristic of the modern rejection of the medieval tendency to locate the measure of self- and world-understanding in a transcendent deity. The "worldliness" of the modern age, Blumenberg holds, must be understood as a reaction to the extreme intensification of divine transcendence in late medieval Nominalism. In the face of an absconded God, human "self-assertion" aims at the realization of this-worldly possibilities through the mastery and alteration of reality. I agree with Blumenberg that the primary expression of this self-assertion has been seen in the progress of modern science. The possibility of that progress, however, is grounded in an understanding of nature as a law-like and yet inexhaustible field of investigation directing thought toward an objectivity that is never entirely realized. The origin of such an understanding, I argue, is to be found in late medieval Neoplatonic speculation on the nature of God's omnipresence in the world, in particular in the notion of the immanence of the infinite in the finite. (shrink)

This book presents detailed discussions from leading intercultural philosophers, arguing for and against the priority of immanence in Chinese thought and the validity of Western interpretations that attempt to import conceptions of transcendence. The authors pay close attention to contemporary debates generated from critical analysis of transcendence and immanence, including discussions of apophasis, critical theory, post-secular conceptions of society, phenomenological approaches to transcendence, possible-world models, and questions of practice and application. This book aims to explore alternative conceptions of (...) transcendence that either call the tradition in the West into question, or discover from within Western metaphysics a thoroughly dialectical way of thinking about immanence and transcendence. (shrink)

This paper argues that transcendental phenomenology (here represented by Edmund Husserl) can accommodate the main thesis of semantic externalism, namely, that intentional content is not simply a matter of what is ‘in the head,’ but depends on how the world is. I first introduce the semantic problem as an issue of how linguistic tokens or mental states can have ‘content’—that is, how they can set up conditions of satisfaction or be responsive to norms such that they can succeed or fail (...) at referring. The standard representationalist view—which thinks of the problem in first-person terms—is contrasted with Brandom’s pragmatic inferentialist approach, which adopts a third-person stance. The rest of the paper defends a phenomenological version of the representationalist position (seeking to preserve its first-person stance) but offers a conception of representation that does not identify it with an entity ‘in the head.’ The standard view of Husserl as a Cartesian internalist is undermined by rejecting its fundamental assumption—that Husserl’s concept of the ‘noema’ is a mental entity—and by defending a concept of ‘phenomenological immanence’ that has a normative, rather than a psychological, structure. Finally, it is argued that phenomenological immanence cannot be identified with ‘consciousness’ in Husserl’s sense, though consciousness is a necessary condition for it. (shrink)

Christian Gilliam argues that a philosophy of 'pure' immanence is integral to the development of an alternative understanding of 'the political'; one that re-orients our understanding of the self toward the concept of an unconscious or 'micropolitical' life of desire. He argues that here, in this 'life', is where the power relations integral to the continuation of post-industrial capitalism are most present and most at stake. Through proving its philosophical context, lineage and political import, Gilliam ultimately comes to outline (...) and justify the conceptual importance and necessity of immanence in understanding politics and resistance, thereby challenging the claim that ontologies of 'pure' immanence are either apolitical and/or politically incoherent. (shrink)

This paper argues that ontological immanence involves but is not reducible to substance monism. Attending to immanence in Spinoza’s ontology, I provide a creative exegesis of the defining features of Spinoza’s immanent ontology, arguing that it recasts the concept of substance itself, from a term of transcendence and totalization to one of immanence and differentiation. In critical conversation with Deleuze’s influential reading, I identify five interconnected features which, taken together, elaborate Spinoza’s ontology of immanence: substance monism, (...) univocity of attributes, immanent causality, the identification between G-d and Nature, and the status of finite modes as explications of substance rather than its extrinsic effects. I argue that, taken together, these features refashion the concept of substance, such that substance becomes not a term of totalization but rather one of ongoing production of diversity. Attending to the role of finite modes in this ontology, I emphasize the ways in which immanence can lend force to vital reconfigurations of ethical and political life: by defining beings and systems in terms of their capacities, which are augmented, diminished, or maintained depending on how they converge in relation. (shrink)

This paper applies Karl Jaspers’ and Martin Heidegger’s accounts of transcendence to their descriptions of Van Gogh’s art. I will contrast Jaspers’ more vertical account of immanent transcendence to Heidegger’s horizontal one. This difference between their separate understandings of transcendence manifests itself in their estimations of the significance of Van Gogh’s art. Using phenomenology to understand Van Gogh’s art in light of immanent transcendence, moreover, illuminates a new understanding of transcendence as the ‘beyond’ that is always already here in the (...) immanent and reveals the ability of an object to point beyond itself. Both of these concepts are at work in Van Gogh’s art as well as modern art in general as the expansion of reality through new sight. Immanent transcendence and Van Gogh’s art are different but interconnected ways of rethinking experience beyond the limits of positivism and the myth of the given. Van Gogh’s art thus embodies a sensible world transformed. In particular, Van Gogh’s landscapes and still life series suggest the inexhaustibility of the things we so often overlook in our everyday experience. (shrink)

Cet article explore la conception spinozienne du rapport entre substance et mode en analysant les notions de cause de soi, de cause immanente et de puissance. Nous soutenons que la théorie spinozienne de la causalité constitue une tentative pour développer une ontologie relationnelle de la puissance dans laquelle toute dénomination intrinsèque est fondée sur une dénomination extrinsèque. Par opposition à une interprétation courante selon laquelle la substance de Spinoza est une sorte de grande monade dans laquelle toutes choses inhèrent comme (...) les prédicats inhèrent à un sujet logique, nous maintenons que l’ontologie de l’immanence opère une extériorisation radicale de l’être : pour un mode fini, « exister » est s’extérioriser en tant que cause, c’est-à-dire agir. La substance, en revanche, n’est rien que la causalité en tant que telle, ou une forme absolue de l’extériorité. Par conséquent, quand Spinoza maintient que toutes choses sont « en Dieu » , la préposition in ne signifie pas s’intérioriser « dans un sujet » , mais plutôt s’extérioriser « dans l’action » .In this paper, I explore Spinoza’s conception of the relation between substance and mode through an analysis of the notions of self-causation, immanent causation and power. I argue that Spinoza’s theory of causality constitutes an attempt to develop a relational ontology of power where all intrinsic denominations are grounded in extrinsic ones. In opposition to a current reading according to which Spinoza’s substance is similar to a huge monad in which things inhere in the same way as predicates inhere in a logical subject, I argue that the ontology of immanence implies a radical exteriorization of being : for a finite mode, « to be » is to exteriorize itself as a cause, i.e. to act. As for substance, it is nothing but causality or action as such, an absolute form of exteriority. Hence, when Spinoza maintains that all things are « in God » , the preposition does not signify the interiorization « in a subject » , but rather an exteriorization « in action ». (shrink)

This essay by S. F. Davenport won the Norrisian Prize awarded by the University of Cambridge in 1924 and was published the next year. In it, Davenport examines the idea of 'immanence', which he defines as 'indicating the rapport between God and His creatures', and the possible application of the concept to the Incarnation of Christ. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Christology or Christian theology more generally.

Charles Taylor’s method of philosophical argumentation is distinctive, interlacing historical, ontological, phenomenological, hermeneutical, theistic, and ethical strands. His writings contribute t...

This working paper examines the notion of "immanent critique", a central methodological commitment of critical theories of society. In the first part, I distinguish immanent critique - a critique which reconstructs norms immanent in a social practice which point beyond the normative self-understanding of its members - from both external and internal critique and examine three questions that a theory of immanent critique has to answer (a social ontological, an epistemological and a justificatory question). After surveying some of the classic (...) accounts of immanent critique in part two, I then distinguish two varieties of immanent critique, a hermeneutic and a practice-theoretic approach. Drawing on theories in recent analytic philosophy, I finally argue for a practice-theoretic approach to immanent critique that locates the relevant norms in a practice constituted by mutual recognition. (shrink)

Objects partially resemble when they are alike in some way but not entirely alike. Partial resemblance, then, involves similarity in a respect. It has been observed that talk of “respects” appears to be thinly‐veiled talk of properties. So some theorists take similarity in a respect to require property realism. I will go a step further and argue that similarity in intrinsic respects (partial intrinsic resemblance) requires properties to be immanent in objects. For a property to be immanent in an object (...) is roughly for it to be wholly present in that object. (So understood, immanence does not imply repeatability, and thus tropes count as immanent.) If two objects are intrinsically similar in one way but not another, there must be a difference between the two ways. And if the similarity is between the objects as they are in themselves, then this difference, too, must be within the objects. Partial intrinsic resemblance thus requires internal structure. Without it, there can be no distinctions between ways in which things are intrinsically alike and ways in which they aren't. I will argue, further, that distinctions between properties that transcend objects fail to account for the possibility of partial intrinsic resemblance. (shrink)

In this essay, we will discuss what Husserl mean when he says that immanent objects are “constituted” by inner temporality. Our discussion will amount to a study of how sensations and intentions come to be in out subjectivity, and how we are conscious of them; Husserl’s opinion on these points will be taken from his Lectures on the Phenomenology of Inner Time Consciousness.