This article examines genealogical investigations in an attempt to explain what they are, how they work, and what purpose they serve. It is a critique of Robert Brandom’s view of genealogists as naïve semanticists who believe that normative thinking, as it relates to all forms of epistemic inquiry and language use, is reducible to naturalistic causes. This reduction, Brandom claims, is hopelessly misguided and semantically incoherent since genealogies are not epistemically neutral in that “they count no more and no less,” (...) as Habermas put it, than the traditional accounts of moral phenomena that they seek to replace. Nietzsche’s “story” of the origin of guilt in On the Genealogy of Morals is thus not even a useful fiction but merely meaningless. My analysis shows that Brandom’s understanding of genealogy is rather simplistic. While genealogists are naturalists insofar as they attempt to discover the specific historical causes that gave rise to current normative practices, they are neither reductive empiricists nor first-stage semanticists, as Brandom calls them, but multidimensional power-pragmatists. (shrink)

: In his work Truth and Truthfulness, Bernard Williams offers a very different interpretation of philosophical genealogy than that expounded in the secondary literature. The “Received View” of genealogy holds that it is “documentary grey”: it attempts to provide historically well-supported, coherent, but defeasible explanations for the actual transformation of practices, values, and emotions in history. However, paradoxically, the standard interpretation also holds another principle. Genealogies are nevertheless polemical because they admit that any evidence that would serve to justify a (...) genealogical account is indexical to a perspective. In short, genealogies are not true per se. This view of genealogy leaves it vulnerable to three criticisms. I call these three: (1) the reflexive, (2) the substantive, and (3) the semantic. In contrast, Williams argues that all genealogies provide a functional account for the manifestation of something and further, that a State of Nature story subtends these accounts. The upshot of Williams’ approach is that it makes for strange philosophical bedfellows. For example, Nietzsche’s account for the rise of Christian morality shares methodological features with Hobbes’ functional explanation for the emergence of civilization and yet Nietzsche seems to take issue with genealogists who are hypothesis mongers gazing haphazardly into the blue. In the following article, I flesh out, more fully, how to make sense of Williams’ novel reclassification of genealogy. I show that Nietzsche’s genealogies are State of Nature stories and, just like Hobbes’ State of Nature story in chapter thirteen of Leviathan, are subtended by our collective corporeality. I then demonstrate how Nietzsche’s three stories in the Genealogy, when brought together, serve to undermine what Williams refers to as “ . . . a new system (of reasons)—which very powerfully resists being understood in such terms . . . ” Finally, I explain how my reconstruction of Williams’ interpretation of the genealogy immunizes it against the three criticisms noted above. (shrink)

I examine three kinds of criticism directed at philosophical genealogy. I call these substantive, performative, and semantic. I turn my attention to a particular substantive criticism that one may launch against essay two of On the Genealogy of Morals that turns on how Nietzsche answers “the time-crunch problem”. On the surface, there is evidence to suggest that Nietzsche accepts a false scientific theory, namely, Lamarck’s Inheritability Thesis, in order to account for the growth of a new human “organ”—morality. I demonstrate (...) that the passages interpreted by some scholars to prove that Nietzsche is a Lamarckian can be reinterpreted along Darwinian lines. I demonstrate that Nietzsche hits upon the right drivers of phenotypical change in humans, namely, torture and enclosures (e.g., walls of early states), but misinterprets their true impact. Nietzsche believes that these technologies are responsible for producing what I call “culture-serving memory” and the bad conscience by causing emotions that once were expressed outwardly to turn inward causing the “psychological digestion” of the human animal. In reality, however, these mechanisms are conducive to breeding a particular type of individual, namely, one who is docile, by introducing artificial and unconscious selective pressures into the environment of early humans. In showing that Nietzsche’s genealogical account of memory and bad conscience is not underpinned on a false scientific theory and is consistent with Neo-Darwinism, I deflect a potentially fatal blow regarding the veracity of Nietzsche’s genealogies. -/- . (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Genealogy studies values by examining the historical origin of values. As the term is used today, it refers to the method of historical and ...

This book explains and defends a naturalized reading of Nietzsche’s doctrine of will to power. By providing a new interpretation of the term, Brian Lightbody argues that other aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophy, such as his ontology, epistemology and ethics become clearer and more coherent.

“Philosophical perspectivism” is surely one of Nietzsche's most important insights regarding the limits of human knowledge. However, the perspectivist thesis combined with a minimal realist metaphysical position produces what Brian Leiter calls the 'Received View': an epistemologically incoherent misinterpretation of Nietzsche which pervades the secondary literature. In order to salvage the thesis of perspectivism, Leiter argues that we must commit Nietzsche to an anti-realist metaphysical position. I argue that Leiter's proposed solution is (1) epistemically weak, and (2) inconsistent with much (...) of Nietzsche's views on truth, knowledge and the psychological make-up of human beings. I argue that we need to abandon the scheme/content distinction on which both the Received View and Leiter's anti-realist construal of perspectivism are predicated and instead construe perspectives as environments of power. (shrink)

Enneads I: 8.14 poses significant problems for scholars working in the Plotinian secondary literature. In that passage, Plotinus gives the impression that the body and not the soul is causally responsible for vice. The difficulty is that in many other sections of the same text, Plotinus makes it abundantly clear that the body, as matter, is a mere privation of being and therefore represents the lowest rung on the proverbial metaphysical ladder. A crucial aspect to Plotinus’s emanationism, however, is that (...) lower levels of a metaphysical hierarchy cannot causally influence higher ones and, thus, there is an inconsistency in the Egyptian’s magnum opus, or so it would seem. Scholars have sought to work through this paradox by positing that Plotinus is a “paleolithic Platonist” or Socratic. The advantage of this approach is that one may be able to resolve the tension by invoking Socrates’s eliminativist solution to the problem of weakness of will, as found in The Protagoras. In the following article, I argue that such attempts are not wrong-headed just underdetermined. They take up the standard reading of Socratic moral intellectualism, namely the “informational” interpretation and, therefore, fail to render a coherent view of Plotinus’s moral philosophy. The following paper, in contrast, utilizes a new reading of intellectualism advanced by Brickhouse and Smith, which, when subtended with a “powers approach” to causality, resolves the aforementioned, problematic passage of Enneads. (shrink)

In their recent paper, “Epistemology for Beginners: Two to Five-Year-Old Children’s Representation of Falsity,” Olivier Mascaro and Olivier Morin study the ontogeny of a naïve understanding of truth in humans. Their paper is fascinating for several reasons, but most striking is their claim (given a rather optimistic reading of epistemology) that toddlers as young as two can, at times, recognize false from true assertions. Their Optimistic Epistemology Hypothesis holds that children seem to have an innate capacity to represent a state (...) of affairs truthfully. In the following paper, I investigate the problems this research poses for deflationist theories of truth. Richard Rorty and Huw Price hold that the best way to understand truth or “the truth” is to understand the necessary conditions required for assertoric practice. Both philosophers present unique and very different deflationary theories when it comes to construing truth. I argue that neither philosopher’s approach is successful because they focus on truth and fail to recognize truthfulness as a norm of assertoric practice. I show that truthfulness is the elusive third norm of claim-based discourse and is consistent with Mascaro and Morin’s findings. (shrink)

The Internalization Hypothesis (I.H.), as expressed in GM II 16 of On the Genealogy of Morals, is the essential albeit under-theorized principle of Nietzsche’s psychology. In the following essay, I investigate the purpose I.H. serves concerning Nietzsche’s theory of drives as well as the Hypothesis’s epistemic warrant. I demonstrate that I.H. needs a Neo-Darwinian underpinning for two reasons: 1) to answer the Time-Crunch Problem of Transformation, and 2) in order to render it coherent with Nietzsche’s physiological determinism as articulated in (...) Twilight of the Idols. My re-examination of I.H., then, serves to underwrite the Hypothesis on solid empirical footing. In addition, my analysis provides further evidence to think that Brian Leiter’s initial (but naïve) type-fact reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy of psychology is accurate, deterministic warts and all. (shrink)

In his book Foucault and Religion, Jeremy Carrette presents a compelling argument against Foucault’s genealogical method (what he terms “relations of force”). In brief, Carrette holds that while Foucault’s genealogical method effectively unmasked the origins of “rationality” and “madness,” it was less successful when explaining the materialization of “the spiritual.” Foucault’s analysis of spiritual practices is at best functional and, according to Carrette, fails to explain the psychophysical state of subjects engaged in religious customs. In the following paper, I argue (...) that Carrette is correct; there are limitations to Foucault’s genealogical method, especially when explaining subjectivization processes, such as conversion experiences. However, I demonstrate that we can perform a successful genealogical investigation of the spiritual by adding an additional lens of analysis to “the relations of power” and “the relations of meaning” Foucault employs. I call this lens “the relations of affect.” I use this tool to explain Augustine’s transformative process, as observed in the saint’s Confessions. (shrink)

Our article identifies and describes the metaphoric fallacy to a deductive inference (MFDI) that is an example of incorrect reasoning along the lines of the false analogy fallacy. The MFDI proceeds from informal semantical (metaphorical) claims to a supposedly formally deductive and necessary inference. We charge that such an inference is invalid. We provide three examples of the MFDI to demonstrate the structure of this invalid form of reasoning. Our goal is to contribute to the set of known informal fallacies.

The essay “Archaeology and Humanism: An Incongruent Foucault”argues, among other things, that Foucault “endorses a kind of humanism.” Moreover, Calvert-Minor attempts to show that withoutsuch an endorsement then the curative aspects regarding Foucault’s genealogy of subjectivity would be nonsensical. To be sure, the author seems to demonstrate that there is a clear tension in Foucault’s oeuvre regarding the Frenchman’s changing stance towards, and at times unconscious embracement of, philosophical humanism. Such a claim, if true, would certainly be damaging to Foucault’s (...) archaeological and genealogical projects as he stridently rejected humanism in all of its myriad forms. (shrink)

In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre boldly asserts that: “To be dead is to be a prey for theliving.”1 In the following paper, I argue that Sartre’s rather pessimistic understanding of death isunwarranted. In fact, Herbert Marcuse forcefully suggests that Sartre is one of the “betrayers of Utopia”because Sartre’s notion of death stifles efforts towards true liberation. By returning to Eros andCivilization, I explain and further substantiate Marcuse’s critique of Sartrean freedom as originallypresented in Marcuse’s essay, “Existentialism: Remarks on Jean-Paul (...) Sartre’s L’Etre et le Neant.”. (shrink)

In Eros and Civilization, Marcuse claims that the two fundamental drives of civilization, namely, Eros and Thanatos, may eventually be reconciled. Such reconciliation, Marcuse contends, could potentially lead to new, utopian possibilities for humankind. However, Marcuse’s argument is deeply flawed: he equates time with death and therefore only defeats a straw man. Thus, it may be argued that Marcuse’s entire project in Eros and Civilization not only remains incomplete, but indeed fails. In the following paper, I demonstrate—by relying on Heidegger’s (...) understanding of temporality in Being and Time—that it may still be possible to reconcile Eros and temporality after all. I conclude that Marcuse’s project may still be viable, but only by reconciling time with Eros, and not death. (shrink)

With his Logic of Incarnation, James K. A. Smith has provided a compelling critique of the universalizing tendencies in some strands of postmodern philosophy of religion. A truly postmodern account of religion must take seriously the preference for particularity first evidenced in the Christian account of the incarnation of God. Moving beyond the urge to universalize, which characterizes modern thought, Smith argues that it is only by taking seriously particular differences--historical, religious, and doctrinal--that we can be authentically religious and authentically (...) postmodern. Smith remains hugely influential in both academic discourse and church movements. This book is the first organized attempt to bring both of these aspects of Smith's work into conversation with each other and with him. With articles from an internationally respected group of philosophers, theologians, pastors, and laypeople, the entire range of Smith's considerable influence is represented here. Discussing questions of embodiment, eschatology, inter-religious dialogue, dogma, and difference, this book opens all the most relevant issues in postmodern religious life to a unique and penetrating critique. (shrink)

In Romans 7:14-25, Paul declares, "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want, is what I do" (KJV). St. Paul's statement is a universal truth for all human beings; humans--whether Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, or atheists--are prone to committing free actions that are not "good." Furthermore, and irrespective of how we might construe the notion of "good" (whether as acting in accordance with some religious or spiritual precept or simply doing what (...) is in one's best interest), we often knowingly and freely choose actions that may, or in fact do, harm us. There is a name given to such actions. We call them "weak-willed." "Weakness of will," or akrasia, has perplexed philosophers, theologians, and laypersons alike for centuries. This book reveals why the idea has caused so much bafflement and consternation for so many. The main thrust of the work, however, is to illuminate and inspire: Lightbody seeks to demonstrate, concretely, how and why we are weak-willed. By extracting an "alchemical touchstone" from Plato's middle period philosophy, Lightbody, in addition, reveals how we may transmute harmful appetites into life-edifying passions. (shrink)

Studies in the Philosophy of Michel Foucault : A French Alternative to Anglo-Americanism.

Naturalism is a popular philosophical position. Indeed, within the past ten years alone, literally hundreds of articles and books have been published on the topic of naturalism, broadly construed. 1 It is all too common to find articles on the ...

Foundherentism is a new and promising theory of epistemic justification that has not received its due in the secondary literature. Accordingly, in this paper, I will examine foundherentism with three principal concerns in mind. First, I explain the epistemic components of foundherentism. Second, I defend foundherentism against the charge of reliabilism. While third and finally, I argue that foundherentism needs to be supplemented with a virtuous component.

Foundherentism is a new and promising theory of epistemic justification that has not received its due in the secondary literature. Accordingly, in this paper, I will examine foundherentism with three principal concerns in mind. First, I explain the epistemic components of foundherentism. Second, I defend foundherentism against the charge of reliabilism. While third and finally, I argue that foundherentism needs to be supplemented with a virtuous component.

Our article identifies and describes the metaphoric fallacy to a deductive inference (MFDI) that is an example of incorrect reasoning along the lines of the false analogy fallacy. The MFDI proceeds from informal semantical (metaphorical) claims to a supposedly formally deductive and necessary inference. We charge that such an inference is invalid. We provide three examples of the MFDI to demonstrate the structure of this invalid form of reasoning. Our goal is to contribute to the set of known informal fallacies.

In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre boldly asserts that: “To be dead is to be a prey for theliving.”1 In the following paper, I argue that Sartre’s rather pessimistic understanding of death isunwarranted. In fact, Herbert Marcuse forcefully suggests that Sartre is one of the “betrayers of Utopia”because Sartre’s notion of death stifles efforts towards true liberation. By returning to Eros andCivilization, I explain and further substantiate Marcuse’s critique of Sartrean freedom as originallypresented in Marcuse’s essay, “Existentialism: Remarks on Jean-Paul (...) Sartre’s L’Etre et le Neant.”. (shrink)

In the essay “What is Enlightenment?” , Foucault espouses a novel and emancipatory“philosophical ethos” which challenges individuals to undertake an ongoing, aesthetic project oftotal self-transformation . By advocating a view of the self---and moreaccurately the relationship one has to oneself --as a free creation on the part of thesubject, Foucault seems to be espousing a pluralistic ethical position. However, I argue that whilethis interpretation is not entirely false, it is not altogether accurate either. Quite simply, it is toobroad in scope. (...) Instead, I argue that Foucault’s philosophical ethos is best described as a DeepEthical Pluralist position. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the two most common objectionsto Foucault’s new ethos for the contemporary subject in the secondary literature, namely theregressive and dandyist objections miss their mark precisely because they are successful onlyagainst ethical pluralism but not DEP. (shrink)

In the essay “What is Enlightenment?”, Foucault espouses a novel and emancipatory“philosophical ethos” which challenges individuals to undertake an ongoing, aesthetic project oftotal self-transformation. By advocating a view of the self---and moreaccurately the relationship one has to oneself --as a free creation on the part of thesubject, Foucault seems to be espousing a pluralistic ethical position. However, I argue that whilethis interpretation is not entirely false, it is not altogether accurate either. Quite simply, it is toobroad in scope. Instead, I (...) argue that Foucault’s philosophical ethos is best described as a DeepEthical Pluralist position. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the two most common objectionsto Foucault’s new ethos for the contemporary subject in the secondary literature, namely theregressive and dandyist objections miss their mark precisely because they are successful onlyagainst ethical pluralism but not DEP. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl questions the so-called “objectivity” and focus of modern science in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Husserl claims that the sciences as presently practiced and understood rest upon a “ground” that goes unnoticed and unacknowledged. Husserl calls this ground the life-world; the everyday horizon and environment that provide the sciences with the consistent structures of the objects they investigate. By extrapolating on what the life-world means for us as beings-in-the-world, Husserl hopes to resolve what he terms (...) the “crisis of the European sciences.” In the following paper, I examine precisely what this “crisis” entails, how Husserl believes the crisis originated, and evaluate Husserl’s proposed solution to resolving this crisis. (shrink)

An essay exploring the question of 'why study philosophy'?

In this paper, I wish to show how new technologies come to alter one’s initial enjoyment and comportment towards a hobby. What I show is that new technologies serve to transform leisurely activities into a technique, in the Ellulian sense of the term. I begin from the outside in, as it were, by first articulating what I take a hobby to be. Secondly, I then examine the time-honoured pastime of fishing to show that new technologies, if utilized, either cause the (...) hobby to take on aspects of traditional work or in other cases, causes the hobbyist to quit the activity because the hobby is now deemed undesirable; the technological advancement makes the hobby too easy. Thirdly and finally, I turn my attention to another kind of hobby or leisurely activity, which some have called “Facebooking.” Looking at Facebook through an Ellulian lens, there are, to be sure, some rather unsettling aspects of the activity, but despite this, all is not lost; Facebook may be used as a tool to practice the Ellulian virtue of non-selectivity. (shrink)