In this paper, I explore Kant’s discussion of juridical and ethical laws in the introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals as a whole. Following Marcus Willaschek and early Allen Wood, I pose a dilemma for Kant that I call “the paradox of juridical imperatives”, a dilemma that Willaschek and Wood hold Kant can only avoid by giving up his claim that juridical laws are categorical imperatives. I show how a set of interpretative issues concerning juridical incentives, the content (...) of juridical laws, and the idea of an “indirect” ethical obligations, hang together, and must solved simultaneously in order to address the paradox. I argue, contra Willaschek and Wood, that we can dissolve the paradox, solving the network of issues satisfactorily and affirming the status of juridical laws as categorical imperatives, once we recognize that one can go wrong with respect to a principle while fulfilling the letter of its requirements. The picture that emerges is one on which we can straightforwardly affirm Recht as a moral concept for Kant, while simultaneously representing its distinctive character in his system of morality. (shrink)

In this incisive new book one of Britain's most eminent philosophers explores the often overlooked tension between voluntariness and involuntariness in human cognition. He seeks to counter the widespread tendency for analytic epistemology to be dominated by the concept of belief. Is scientific knowledge properly conceived as being embodied, at its best, in a passive feeling of belief or in an active policy of acceptance? Should a jury's verdict declare what its members involuntarily believe or what they voluntarily accept? And (...) should statements and assertions be presumed to express what their authors believe or what they accept? Does such a distinction between belief and acceptance help to resolve the paradoxes of self-deception and akrasia? Must people be taken to believe everything entailed by what they believe, or merely to accept everything entailed by what they accept? Through a systematic examination of these problems, the author sheds new light on issues of crucial importance in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. (shrink)

Ever since Plato it has been thought that one knows only if one's belief hits the mark of truth and does so with adequate justification. The issues debated by Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa concern mostly the nature and conditions of such epistemic justification, and its place in our understanding of human knowledge. Presents central issues pertaining to internalism vs. externalism and foundationalism vs. virtue epistemology in the form of a philosophical debate. Introduces students to fundamental questions within epistemology (...) while engaging in contemporary debates. Written by two of today’s foremost epistemologists. Includes an extensive bibliography. (shrink)

In Epistemology, Laurence Bonjour introduces the serious philosophy student to the history and concepts of epistemology, while simultaneously challenging them to take an active part in its ongoing debates. The text reflects BonJour's conviction that the place to start any discussion of the theories of knowledge is with the classical problems, beginning with and centered around Descartes.

This book is concerned with the alleged capacity of the human mind to arrive at beliefs and knowledge about the world on the basis of pure reason without any dependence on sensory experience. Most recent philosophers reject the view and argue that all substantive knowledge must be sensory in origin. Laurence BonJour provocatively reopens the debate by presenting the most comprehensive exposition and defence of the rationalist view that a priori insight is a genuine basis for knowledge. This important (...) book will be at the centre of debate about the theory of knowledge for many years to come. (shrink)

Two new philosophical problems surrounding the gradation of certainty began to emerge in the 17th century and are still very much alive today. One is concerned with the evaluation of inductive reasoning, whether in science, jurisprudence, or elsewhere; the other with the interpretation of the mathematical calculus of change. This book, aimed at non-specialists, investigates both problems and the extent to which they are connected. Cohen demonstrates the diversity of logical structures that are available for judgements of probability, and explores (...) the rationale for their appropriateness in different contexts of application. Thus his study deals with the complexity of the underlying philosophical issues without simply cataloging alternative conceptions or espousing a particular "favorite" theory. (shrink)

In “Internalism and Externalism,” Laurence BonJour suggests that the contemporary epistemological debate over internalism and externalism concerns the formulation of the justification or warrant condition in an account of knowledge. The internalist requires that for a belief to meet this condition, all of the necessary elements must be cognitively accessible to the believer, whereas the externalist claims that at least some such elements do not need to be accessible to the believer. BonJour gives an overview of this dispute. He (...) suggests that the opposition between the two views is less straightforward than has usually been thought. He proposes, in addition, that each of them has valuable roles to play in major epistemological issues, even though the internalist approach is more fundamental in an important way. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Classics and Complexity in Walden’s “Spring” M. D. USHER In 1843, two years before Henry Thoreau built his cabin at Walden Pond, the Fitchburg Railroad laid down tracks through the woods near the Pond for its line connecting Boston to Fitchburg. The original Fitchburg Line, at 54 miles long, was, until 2010, the longest run in the present -day MBTA Commuter Rail system. And it is one of (...) the oldest railways in New England. By 1900, fortunes swelled and the Fitchburg’s Hoosac Tunnel Line took passengers and goods westward toward Chicago. The Lake Champlain Route connected Boston to points north like Burlington, Vermont. (See Figure 1.) arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 Figure 1 (left): Advertisement for the Hoosac Tunnel Route in The New England Magazine (Vol. 21, Issue 6, February, 1900). Figure 2 (right): Herbert Wendell Gleason. The Fitchburg Railroad and Walden Pond in winter, Concord, Mass., March 24, 1920. Courtesy Concord Free Public Library. The Railroad was literally a fixture in Thoreau’s landscape. Its tracks pass remarkably close to Walden Pond (Figure 2), and the Fitchburg Line—both its reality and the specter of it—is practically a character in his writing: “I usually go to the village along its causeway, and am, as it were, related to society by this link,” Thoreau writes in “Sounds,” a chapter of Walden that contains what must be one of the most picturesque odes (or laments) to rail travel and commerce in all of American literature: The engine’s whistle, Thoreau complains, pierces the still silence of his idyllic retreat like a screaming hawk circling a farmer’s field, its billows of steam an ominous harbinger of “this travelling demi-god, this cloud-compeller.”1 Thoreau’s frequent, customary walks into Concord along the railroad tracks took him through a heavily excavated stretch of the line known as the Deep Cut, to which he returned again and again each year in early spring, even after leaving the cabin, to observe and to record his observations. The leaf-shaped sand flows and trickling surface erosion caused by melting frost in the banks of the Deep Cut are elaborately described in Thoreau’s chapter in Walden entitled “Spring,” what Laurence Buell calls the “high point of Thoreau’s epic.”2 And yet, in spite of the universal acclaim of this passage as a literary tour de force, it has not received the full attention it deserves. What warrants fresh consideration first and foremost is “Spring”’s deep-rootedness in classical sources. Many classical influences, allusions, and a good deal of etymological word play have gone so far unnoticed. The chapter is also important because it describes, by intimation, what contemporary scientists now call emergence. Emergent phenomena are properties or behaviors that arise in systems as a result of complex, dynamic interactions amongst constituent parts, including changes to a system brought about by human interventions3—not only, e.g., climate change and wildfires, but also traffic patterns and terrorist networks; kidney function in the body; the rings of Saturn. As he tries to capture the essence of the 114 classics and complexity in WALDEN’s “spring” Deep Cut and interpret its significance, Thoreau adumbrates this concept, but also grapples ingeniously with broader issues of perennial concern—the relationship of Nature to Culture, for example, of Wilderness to Civilization, of Science to the Humanities—making “Spring” not only a probing work of eco-criticism and environmental philosophy, but of scientific reflection and poetic experiment as well. In short, Thoreau’s “Spring” is that rare work of classical reception that transmits both literary and scientific insight. Perhaps at this point, in lieu of accolades, it is best to let Thoreau start speaking for himself. What I offer in the following pages is a commentary on the Deep Cut passage from “Spring.” Classical references and aspects of systems theory will be explained and contextualized as they emerge, as it were, from Thoreau’s text. The whole chapter corresponds to pages 289–308 in Cramer’s edition of Walden—26 paragraphs all told, of which only the relevant ones are printed and annotated here. (Transitions and extraneous material are briefly summarized, as needed, in paraphrase... (shrink)

Pentecostalism is a subject of increasing importance in the study of world Christianity. Pentecostal churches are growing and the movement is complex and vibrant. African Initiated Churches and Charismatic movements in mainline churches have both been defined as Pentecostal. It is the charismatic groups within historic mission churches and their relation to the broader Pentecostal movement which is the subject of this paper. Studying the influence of Pentecostalism in microcosm allows one to analyse the interpersonal dynamics at play and to (...) examine the complexities of a local movement. (shrink)

This introductory article orients the reader to the topic of this volume – the religious hermeneutics of violence – and situates the individual articles within the wider discussion of the role of religion in acts of violence. Summarising the state of modern scholarship on key debates concerning religion and violence, this article encourages the careful study of how individuals or groups in peculiar historical circumstances interact with their sacred texts and beliefs in a way that facilitates violence or oppression. Though (...) the relationship between sacred texts and violence is complicated, few subjects so demand our attention and require our careful thought. (shrink)

The papers in this book address the broad issues of authority, leadership and organizational culture, whilst concentrating on other issues in-depth, such as inter-group conflict, and gender and race relations in the workplace.

Recent research on the life of U Dhammaloka and other early western Buddhists in Asia has interesting implications in relation to class, ethnicity and politics. ‘Beachcomber Buddhists’ highlight the wider situation of ‘poor whites’ in Asia—needed by empire but prone to defect from elite standards of behaviour designed to maintain imperial and racial power. ‘Going native’, exemplified by the European bhikkhu, highlights the difficulties faced by empire in policing these racial boundaries and the role of Asian agency in early ‘western’ (...) Buddhism. Finally, such ‘dissident Orientalism’ has political implications, as with specifically Irish forms of solidarity with Asian anti-colonial movements. Within the limits imposed by the data, this article rethinks ‘early western Buddhism’ in Asia as a creative response to colonialism, shaped by Asian actors, marked by cross-racial solidarity and oriented to alternative possible futures beyond empire. (shrink)

One of the greatest challenges facing democracies is how to live together with difference. The growth of globalisation and international migration has presented schools with increased opportunities and challenges related to learning from and living with superdiversity. Yet within current policy settings and educational practices, the alignment between superdiversity and democratic education is not explicitly foregrounded. In this paper I examine how teachers (n = 24) from four superdiverse secondary schools in Aotearoa New Zealand’s responded to growing cultural, linguistic and (...) religious diversity in their classrooms. By examining empirical evidence from teacher’s practices, the paper illustrates how Dewey’s philosophy of learning by living together with difference, placing a priority on shared interests and developing a socio-political awareness of inequalities provides valuable insights for democratic education. The study illustrates the importance of recognising the complexity of interactions in superdiverse contexts and the significant role that teachers can play in creating conditions for inclusive classrooms where democracy can be lived and learned. It also highlights how teachers themselves, can undergo a journey toward developing more inclusive and justice-oriented pedagogical practices that support both Indigenous and ethnic minority groups in their schools. (shrink)

Though usually Edmund Burke is identified as the first to articulate the principles of a modern conservative political tradition, arguably he was preceded by a Scotsman who is better known for espousing a brilliant concept of skepticism. As Laurence Bongie notes, "David Hume was undoubtedly the eighteenth-century British writer whose works were most widely known and acclaimed on the Continent during the later Enlightenment period. Hume's impact in France] was of undeniable importance, greater even for a time than the (...) related influence of Burke, although it represents a contribution to French counter-revolutionary thought which, unlike that of Burke, has been almost totally ignored by historians to this day." The bulk of Bongie's work consists of the writings of French readers of Hume who were confronted, first, by the ideology of human perfection and, finally, by the actual terrors of the French Revolution. Offered in French in the original edition of David Hume published by Oxford University Press in 1965, these vitally important writings have been translated by the author into English for the Liberty Fund second edition. In his foreword, Donald Livingston observes that "If conservatism is taken to be an intellectual critique of the first attempt at modern total revolution, then the first such event was not the French but the Puritan revolution, and the first systematic critique of this sort of act was given by Hume." Laurence L. Bongie is Professor Emeritus of French at the University of British Columbia. Donald Livingston is Professor of Philosophy at Emory University. Please note: This title is available as an ebook for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes. (shrink)

The essays in Politics, Nature, and Piety take up the central question of political philosophy: What is the good life, and what place do nature, politics, and piety have in that life? 'The unity of the essays,' Alex Priou writes in his introduction, 'lies in the various tensions explored: between ancients and moderns, religion and philosophy, magnanimity and prudence, justice and friendship, and, most fundamentally, spiritedness and the intellect.' Laurence Berns proves an excellent guide for beginning one's study of (...) the great books of political philosophy, from Plato to the present." --Publisher's description. (shrink)

What sorts of things qualify as first principles of reasoning and what kind of justification for them can be offered? We think of principles like that of non-contradiction as first principles of reasoning. Laurence Bloom argues that Plato’s Republic, the first text that affords us a complete statement of the Principle of Non-contradiction, offers us a powerful, complex and detailed argument for taking form—specifically that of the good—as the first principle of both knowing and being.

In this paper I am primarily interested in establishing that a coherence theory of truth is conceptually incoherent. Although my primary concern is with the coherence theory of truth, I shall point out that the problem I raise has a striking parallel in a now well-known objection to coherence theories of justification (an objection that, ironically, was brought to the fore by a proponent of a coherence theory of justification, Laurence Bonjour).

Em “O Mito do Conhecimento”, Laurence BonJour defende a tese de que a concepção “falibilista” de conhecimento, assumida de modo preponderante pelos epistemólogos na era pós-Gettier, “está errada”, pois tal concepção “fraca” de conhecimento proporciona pouca satisfação da perspectiva filosófica e é inexistente no âmbito do senso comum, constituindo tão-somente um “mito filosófico”.

Em “O Mito do Conhecimento”, Laurence BonJour defende a tese de que a concepção “falibilista” de conhecimento, assumida de modo preponderante pelos epistemólogos na era pós-Gettier, “está errada”, pois tal concepção “fraca” de conhecimento proporciona pouca satisfação da perspectiva filosófica e é inexistente no âmbito do senso comum, constituindo tão-somente um “mito filosófico”.

In aesthetics and in philosophy generally, Dewey and Heidegger have many surprising convergences. Both find the contemporary world unsuitable for full human flourishing: Dewey because of the separation of art and religion from everyday life; Heidegger because of the disappearance of the sense of Mystery. Both go back to a time before the problems emerged. Both hold for the intentionality of consciousness, the bodily inhabitance of a common world having priority over a sovereign consciousness, the founding role of language in (...) the life-world, the distinction between the art-product and the working of art upon its audience, the founding role of poetry, and the way a sense of the Whole can open up in the working of art. But Dewey, centering upon the aesthetic as integral experience, underscored its linkage with the rhythmic character of the body interacting with the environment, while Heidegger focused upon the sense of the surrounding Mystery. (shrink)

What one takes to be a body is identified initially as what is available to sensing. Sensing and reflecting are not so available. How one conceives of theirrelation admits of at least six possibilities exhibited in the history of philosophy: Hobbesian materialism, Berkleyan idealism, Platonic dualism of soul and body,Aristotelian hylomorphism, Cartesian dualism of thought and extension, and a Leibnizian-Whiteheadian view of psycho-physical co-implication. The latter viewredraws the conceptual map in a way most in keeping with experience as a whole (...) and with neural physiology in particular. (shrink)

Contrary to wide-spread caricatures of Nietzsche, he has definite standards of value that are largely defensible, though on another basis than he provides. Thenadir is the Last Man; the zenith is the Overman. Contrary to the otherworldliness of Plato and the Christian tradition, Nietzsche demands fidelity to the earth anda love of the body. The modern virtue of truthfulness dissolved the tradition, but eventuated in the Last Man who lives in “wretched contentment.” The Overmanrequires organizing the chaos of one’s life (...) and submission to centuries-long practices without contempt for the earth. He demands the unity of conscious and unconscious, sensitivity to beauty, love of each individual thing and the love of eternity. He seeks broad vision grounding the unity of humankind in which each individual can find his or her highest potential. All these are eminently defensible values. (shrink)

Misunderstandings of Hegel have several roots: one is the intrinsic difficulty of his highly technical and interrelated conceptual sets, another is ideological opponents who consequently take statements out of context, and a third is following those of high stature who pass on the misunderstandings. Typical misunderstandings concern freedom and necessity, slavery, that status of the individual, God and the State, facts measuring up to concepts, the relation of rationality and actuality, the status of passion, and, above all, the nature of (...) absolute knowing. Resituating these notions within the whole of the System shows the one-sidedness of typical misunderstandings and opens the way toward appropriation. (shrink)

Hegel and Nietzsche stood opposed to the monastic tradition which they saw as based upon a denial of the intrinsic value of this life. Both sought to install eternity in this life and not seek for it in an afterlife. Central to both, and contrary to common caricatures of Hegel, is the notion of the heart, the aspect of total subjective participation, which is the locus of a fully concrete reason understood in Hegel’s sense. It is also central to Dostoevsky’s (...) Brothers Karamazov where the heart of Fr. Zosima, while yet rooted in the encompassing eternality of God, overcomes the contempt for the earth of Fr. Ferapont and leads Alyosha to embrace his vocation in the world. Hegel developed the fundamental categories that allows us to comprehend the situation. (shrink)