v. 1. Ennoia kai methodos tēs philosophias, metaphysikē ontologia, philosophia tēs historias, praktikē philosophia.

Good interlocutors are a blessing, and needless to say, I’m feeling very blessed today. This is especially true for a project in which _vision_ figures so centrally, since we often see most clearly through the parallax of another’s eyes. Contributors to this conversation have cast distinct lines of sight onto _Anticolonial Eruptions _that have allowed me to see both otherwise and better, to recognize which elements of my original argument remain incomplete or unclear, to glimpse what was overlooked or taken (...) for granted, and to realize other moments where I might have been wrong entirely. They have revealed how my book, despite diagnosing colonial hubris, might reproduce blindspots that are more or less hubristic in their own right. This apparent irony is anything but. Any book, especially one this short, slices into and across history and theory ways that are inescapably partial, leaving a generative remainder to be dealt with. But more than this, I find nothing but encouragement in how my comrade-readers have taken up the lenses provided—the colonial blindspot, the second sight of the colonized, and the decolonial ambush—to excavate and cultivate a radical second sight from the depths of the colonial blindspot. Whether diagnosing the paradoxical unseeing of ocular-centrism, my own blindness toward the revolutionary nature of care as community resistance, or the ways that tropes of inevitability might refract my political judgment, each of the critiques printed above offers, in Kevin Bruyneel’s words, “more ammo for the canon/cannon” (88). (shrink)

The monk Gaunilo opens the vigorous disputation with Anselm by describing the infamous proof in the second chapter of the Proslogion. The following paper offers a detailed logical reconstruction of Gaunilo’s account of Anselm’s argument, thus making explicit the reasoning of Anselm in the view of Gaunilo. It will serve two purposes. Firstly it provides an easily understood example for the use of logic to interpret a nontrivial philosophical text. Secondly it reveals the reasons and the concepts involved in the (...) argument, thereby indicating further argumentative and semantic tasks. (shrink)

The monk Gaunilo opens the vigorous disputation with Anselm by describing the infamous proof in the second chapter of the Proslogion. The following paper offers a detailed logical reconstruction of Gaunilo’s account of Anselm’s argument, thus making explicit the reasoning of Anselm in the view of Gaunilo. It will serve two purposes. Firstly it provides an easily understood example for the use of logic to interpret a nontrivial philosophical text. Secondly it reveals the reasons and the concepts involved in the (...) argument, thereby indicating further argumentative and semantic tasks. (shrink)

Coherence and Correspondence. Questions on a Programme of Reconciliation. Nicholas Rescher has recently proposed an original synthesis of the correspondence and the coherence idea. My purpose is a critical examination of this proposal. Against the background of a sketch of Rescher's general truth-conception and the synthesis mentioned above, I ask two questions. First: Given that coherence can only be the criterion of truth, if it forms a constitutive part of the concept of truth too; why not accept the inverse idea, (...) which postulates the criterion-presence of correspondence? Secondly: Given the plausibility of the theoretical framework which allows the synthesis; why not accept a framework which allows a global synthesis between all truth-theories? (shrink)

A by-product of the Watergate investigations into illegal political contributions and money-laundering was the revelation that American corporations had been making questionable payments to foreign officials to gain business advantages. That discovery was the driving force behind passage of the FCPA in 1977. Many since have complained that the law put American firms at a disadvantage in international trade. This paper assesses the credibility of that claim, as well as exploring the socioeconomic implications of corruption in a world of intensifying (...) international competition. Based on the literature review, examination of international trade data and intensive interviews with foreign firms doing business in Nigeria, the paper reaches the following conclusions:1. Enforcement of FCPA has waxed and waned, but there is no evidence that its enforcement has impeded the growth of U.S. trade. In fact, trade with countries previously considered "bribe prone" has out-paced the growth of trade with non-bribe-prone countries, despite FCPA. (shrink)

Logical reconstruction is a fundamental philosophical method for achieving clarity concerning the prerequisites, presuppositions and the logical structure of natural language arguments. The scope and limits of this method have become visible not least through its intense application to Anselm of Canterbury’s notorious proofs for the existence of God. This volume collects, on the one hand, reconstructions of Anselmian arguments that take account of the problems of reconstruction and, on the other hand, theoretical reflections on reconstruction with a view to (...) Anselm. We hope that this will allow the reader to critically assess the merits of the theoretical accounts in the light of the reconstructions and the merits of the reconstructions in the light of the theoretical accounts. In general, by considering the example of an outstanding thinker in one or the other way, this volume aims at advancing the methodology and the practice of logical reconstruction. The following remarks explain and motivate this undertaking: What purposes does logical reconstruction serve? What purposes does the reflection on logical reconstruction serve? In which ways can the practice and theory of reconstruction profit particularly from studying Anselm’s reasoning? How can the resulting problems be addressed? – Finally, a short overview over the contributions to this volume is offered. (shrink)

Anselm of Canterbury’s so-called ontological proofs in the Proslogion have puzzled philosophers for centuries. The famous description “something / that than which nothing greater can be conceived” is part and parcel of his argument. Most commentators have interpreted this description as a definition of God. We argue that this view, which we refer to as “definitionism”, is a misrepresentation. In addition to textual evidence, the key point of our argument is that taking the putative definition as what Anselm intended it (...) to be – namely a description of a content of faith – allows getting a clear view of the discursive status and argumentative structure of Proslogion 2–4, as well as making sense of an often neglected part of the argument. (shrink)