Metaphilosophy is itself philosophy about philosophy. It is not something before or independent of philosophy. Both Kai Nielsen and Richard Rorty are deeply concerned (someone might say obsessively preoccupied) with metaphilosophy. They both are thoroughly historicist and contextualist resolutely rejecting any form of a transcendental or metaphysical turn. They argue against claims to absolute validity (as well as against absolutism in any form) and a natural order of reasons: some 'Reason' to which any rational agent must be committed. They (...) both see philosophy as a transitional genre first (historically speaking) from religion then metaphysics and more latterly from scientistic conceptions of the world. But they differ about what philosophy is transitional to. For Rorty it is historical narrative and utopian proposals; for Nielsen it is critical theory. Rorty claims this, Nielsen's intentions to the contrary notwithstanding, commits him to enlightenment rationalism. Nielsen replies that his form of critical theory is deeply historicist and contextual without being resolutely atheoretical. This plays out in political orientation to Nielsen's being a socialist while Rorty is a social democrat. (shrink)

In my Contemporary Critiques of Religion and in my Scepticism , I argue that non-anthropomorphic conceptions of God do not make sense. By this I mean that we do not have sound grounds for believing that the central truth-claims of Christianity are genuine truth-claims and that we do not have a religiously viable concept of God. I argue that this is so principally because of three interrelated features about God-talk. While purporting to be factual assertions, central bits of God-talk, e.g. (...) ‘God exists’ and ‘God loves man-kind’, are not even in principle verifiable in such a way that we can say what experienceable states of affairs would count for these putative assertions and against their denials, such that we could say what it would be like to have evidence which would make either their assertion or their denial more or less probably true. Personal predicates, e.g. ‘loves’, ‘creates’, are at least seemingly essential in the use of God-talk, yet they suffer from such an attenuation of meaning in their employment in religious linguistic environments that it at least appears to be the case that we have in such environments unwittingly emptied these predicates of all intelligible meaning so that we do not understand what we are asserting or denying when we utter ‘God loves mankind’ or ‘God created the heavens and the earth’ and the like. When we make well-formed assertions, it appears at least to be the case that a necessary condition for such wellformedness is that we should be able successfully to identify the subject of that putative statement so that we can understand what it is that we are talking about and thus understand that a genuine statement has actually been made. But, where God is conceived non-anthropomorphically, we have no even tolerably clear idea about how God, an infinite individual, occupying no particular place or existing at no particular time, and being utterly transcendent to the world, can be identified. Indeed we have no coherent idea of what it would be like to identify him and this means we have no coherent idea of what it would be like for God even to be a person or an it. He cannot be picked out and identified in the way persons and things can. (shrink)

This festschrift includes a dozen essays on issues that have been at the focus of Kai Nielsen's research, mainly issues in ethics and political philosophy. Among these are four essays on socialism and Marxism. There are also essays on philosophy of religion, epistemology, and meta-philosophy.

Noted philosopher Kai Nielsen offers an answer to this fundamental question - a question that reaches in to grasp at the very heart of ethics itself. Essentially, this innocent inquiry masks a confusion that so many of us get caught in as we think about moral issues. We fail to realize that there is a difference between judging human behavior within an ethical context, or set of moral principles, and justifying the principles themselves. According to Nielsen, it is (...) precisely this basic muddle that has spawned all sorts of challenges to morality, from relativism and intuitionism to egoism and skepticism. Nielsen first argues the case for these challenges in the strongest possible terms; then he shows that their failure to establish themselves demonstrates a fundamental flaw - an inability to understand what it means to have good reasons for the moral claims we make. In his search for "good reasons," Nielsen must face the innocent question "Why be moral?" He tries to show us that skirmishes among supporters of specific moral principles require a different sort of resolution than those that occur between groups of ethical principles. Justifying an action within a moral point of view is quite different from making the case for having a moral point of view in the first place. In its relentless search for the very basis of morality and the limits of moral justification, Why Be Moral? outlines the essential questions that will help us clear away confusion. Nielsen's approach will interest and delight informed readers and professionals alike. This vital work addresses itself to thoughtful people everywhere who are perplexed about morality and about the foundations of the moral life. (shrink)

Wittgenstein did not write on the philosophy of religion. But certain strands of his later thought readily lend themselves to what I call Wittgensteinian Fideism. There is no text that I can turn to for an extended statement of this position, but certain remarks made by Winch, Hughes, Malcolm, Geach, Cavell, Cameron and Coburn can either serve as partial statements of this position, or can be easily used in service of such a statement. Some of their contentions will serve as (...) targets for my argumentation, for as much as I admire Wittgenstein, it seems to me that the fideistic conclusions drawn by these philosophers from his thought are often absurd. This leads me back to an inspection of their arguments and the premisses in these arguments. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I argue that people have a right to self‐determination when they are plainly predominant in a certain territory and do not violate the civil liberties of minorities. But there is no self‐determination without the preservation of self‐identity and the cultural preservation that goes with its secure existence. So to preserve autonomy and self‐determination people must preserve their cultural identity and this cannot be securely sustained in modern conditions without a nation‐state concerned to nourish that identity. Such considerations support a (...) right to secession when certain conditions are met. The conditions are that the people in question have a cultural identity, live in a distinct territory which they have inhabited for a long time, form an extensive majority, and respect the civil liberties of the minorities living in that territory (as well as elsewhere). Where they are such a group they have a right to secede from a larger state to which they are historically attached. These conditions, I argue, are met in Quebec. (shrink)

Wittgenstein did not write on the philosophy of religion. But certain strands of his later thought readily lend themselves to what I call Wittgensteinian Fideism. There is no text that I can turn to for an extended statement of this position, but certain remarks made by Winch, Hughes, Malcolm, Geach, Cavell, Cameron and Coburn can either serve as partial statements of this position, or can be easily used in service of such a statement. Some of their contentions will serve as (...) targets for my argumentation, for as much as I admire Wittgenstein, it seems to me that the fideistic conclusions drawn by these philosophers from his thought are often absurd. This leads me back to an inspection of their arguments and the premisses in these arguments. (shrink)

Argues that morality can exist without religion, suggests that values and principles of conduct emerge from life, and examines the consequences of moral absolutism.

Self-realizationist theories are among the classical attempts to develop a comprehensive normative ethical theory. Plato and Aristotle, in giving classical statements of such theories, argue that a man's distinctive happiness, a man's distinctive flourishing, will only be realized when he realizes himself, i.e. when he achieves to the fullest possible degree his distinctive function. And to achieve one's function is to develop to the full those capacities which are distinctive of the human animal. In doing this we are being most (...) truly ourselves and in doing this we are doing what it is our own nature to do. Men who cultivate to the fullest that which men and only men have will be the happiest men and in so acting they will realize themselves most fully; they will achieve their maximum potential or their fullest distinctively human growth. To so realize oneself is the final end of all moral activity. It defines what is to constitute ‘the good life’ and what is to count as ‘a good man’. (shrink)

This volume considers in depth and carefully a cluster of issues central to contemporary philosophical and social scientific investigation while utilising methods and conceptualisations at the very cutting edge of philosophy.

Will globalization promote or hinder social justice throughout the world? In this cogent analysis philosopher Kai Nielsen argues that in its present form capitalist globalization will only ensure that the rich get richer and the poor poorer. Noting that the ratio of the richest countries to the poorest has steadily grown larger under capitalism in the 20th century and that the total dollar value of the world economy has increased fivefold while the number of people living in poverty has (...) doubled, Nielsen clearly demonstrates that globalization has made and still is making a bad situation worse. While inveighing against capitalist globalization, he makes the important point that a globalization based on "market socialism" - to ensure both needed efficiency and an egalitarian conception of justice - would be a trend that people in all nations would welcome. Democratic socialism, despite historical betrayals and recent setbacks, Nielsen contends, is still humanity's best hope for achieving a classless, nonracist, and nonsexist world community. He devotes a number of chapters to a discussion of the critical theory that is the basis of this vision of a completely egalitarian international society, and he compares and contrasts his own position with that of such thinkers as Richard Rorty, John Rawls, Juergen Habermas, G. A. Cohen, and others. This well-argued critique of capitalist globalization and defense of democratic socialism as a viable alternative is essential reading for philosophers, political scientists, students of international relations, and anyone concerned about the future of democratic and egalitarian ideals. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Reflecting on the North/south dialogue, I consider questions of global justice. I argue that questions of global justice are just as genuine as questions of domestic justice. A too narrow construal of the circumstances of justice leads to an arbitrary forestalling of questions of global justice. It isn't that we stand in conditions of reciprocal advantage that is crucial but that we stand in conditions of moral reciprocity. I first set out concerning the situation in the North and the (...) South and the relations between them something of the facts in the case coupled with some interpretative sociology. Such investigations show massive disparities of wealth and condition between North and South and further show that these disparities have been exacerbated by the interventionist policies of the West. I then, while remaining mindful of the strains of commitment, argue that justice requires extensive redistribution between North and South but that this can be done without at all impoverishing the North, though to do so would indeed involve a radical re‐ordering of the socio‐economic system of the North. (shrink)

W. D. Hudson's criticism of some points in my ‘Wittgensteinian Fideism’ are challenging and deserve comment. I remain, however, unconvinced that they require any modification in my assessment of Wittgensteinian Fideism. I shall try to justify this conviction.

Since Rorty, the crisis of method and interests in philosophy has been at the forefront of metaphilosophy. In this book, Kai Nielsen, one of the most prominent critics of philosophy-as-usual, examines critically the most important claims made on behalf of philosophy. After rejecting as chimerical the ambitious claims of traditional, especially foundational, epistemology and metaphysics, he presents the case for a more modest view of what philosophy can accomplish.Nielsen insists that philosophy must be devoted to actual problems of (...) real people in everyday life. Influenced substantively by Dewey and more methodologically by Rawls, he carves out a defensible terrain for philosophy to inhabit—a terrain cleared of the more extravagant but implausible claims made by traditional philosophy.Nielsen has been a major voice in debates about the scope of philosophy, and this latest work of his will be an important contribution to the “end of philosophy debate.”. (shrink)

There are, it is argued, conceptually and empirically adequate naturalistic explanations of religion that explain religion without explaining it away and without leaving out anything needed fully to comprehend religious phenomena. Moreover, naturalistic explanations arc sometimes also critiques of religion. This article concerns itself with a subspecies of such explanations through articulating and defending some naturalistic criticisms of the truth-claims of religion. The rationale is displayed for naturalistic thinkers going from truth-claim analyses to functional analyses and the central naturalistic explanations (...) of the roles and functions of religion are distinguished and related. It is shown how these analyses dovetail and, particularly when supplemented by an error-theory of religious belief, constitute a comprehensive and adequate explanation of religion. (shrink)

Psychological egoists deny that men ever voluntarily act to promote the interests of others as an end in itself or ever act in such a way that they have the same regard for others as they have for themselves. [...] This theory has a long history and was supposedly decisively refuted by Butler. Yet it continues to haunt the scene. I want, in the tradition of Butler but not in his manner, to try to set out a short snappy but (...) definitive refutation of psychological egoism which will also show why it has such a hold on people. (shrink)

Alasdair Maclntyre and Richard Rorty agree on two very fundamental matters, namely, to put it in Rorty's words, ‘that philosophy as practised professionally today lacks any systematic unity’ and that this very fact poses for us now, standing where we stand, ‘a central philosophical problem’.1 It is also true that they both have a much more historicist view of philosophy than does traditional analytic philosophy; they regard the study of the history of philosophy as an integral element in the study (...) of philosophy and think that philosophy is not something to be sharply separated, as a distinct discipline, from other areas of learning. (shrink)

Addressing the end-of-philosophy debate and the challenge it presents to contemporary philosophy, this book draws on Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson, Habermas and Foucault, among others. It develops the implications of Richard Rorty's arguments in particular.