The original proposal of H. H. Pattee (1971) of basing quantum theoretical measurement theory on the theory of the origin of life, and its far reaching consequences, is discussed in the light of a recently emerging biological paradigm of internal measurement. It is established that the "measurement problem" of quantum physics can, in principle, be traced back to the internal material constraints of the biological organisms, where choice is a fundamental attribute of the self-measurement of matter. In this light, which (...) is shown to be a consequence of Pattee's original suggestion, it is proposed that biological evolution is a gradual liberation from the inert unity of "subject" and "object" of inanimate matter (as "natural law" and "initial conditions"), to a split biological existence of them and, as a consequence, the "message of evolution" is freedom, rather than complexity in itself. Some classical philosophical systems are brought into context to show that the epistemologies of several strictly philosophical systems of the social sciences are well acquainted with the problem and their solutions support our conclusions. (shrink)

Heidegger and Sartre developed the projects of their fundamental ontologies within the framework of the phenomenological approach. The traditional view of reality is based on dualistic oppositions of ideal and material, spirit and body, reality and possibility, and visibility and essence. It is phenomenology that enables elimination of the above-mentioned dualisms and restoration of the world’s ontological unity on a reliable foundation. Though Sartre’s existentialism was exposed to criticism both from right, and from the left intellectuals, and is not (...) a “fashionable” current at present, and the fundamental ontology of Heidegger was estimated by Levinas as ontology of the power subject-centred line, nevertheless the author considers that attention which is paid in these concepts to such phenomena as the voice of conscience, care and freedom represents the most urgent philosophical value nowadays; the author in this regard points to insufficient validity of modern criticism of approaches of Heidegger and Sartre, in particular–reproaches in a subject-centred line from adherents of “ontology of the Other”. (shrink)

This chapter presents a displacement of the organism as a privileged level of analysis in evolutionary biology. It is concerned with the ontology of biology systems, with particular reference to hierarchical organization. It argues that the concept of a rank-free hierarchy can be transposed to the major transitions hierarchy, with interesting consequences. This chapter shows that the idea of rank freedom makes good sense of a number of facets of the recent discussion of evolutionary transitions and multilevel selection. It (...) suggests that the idea of rank freedom is already at work, implicitly, in much theorizing about evolutionary transitions and/or multilevel selection. (shrink)

I begin by clarifying Tallis’s revisionary terminology, showing how he redraws the lines of the traditional debate about free will by classifying himself as a compatibilist, when in standard terms he is an incompatibilist. I then examine what I take to be the two main lines of argument in Freedom, which I call the Mysterian Argument and the Intentionality Argument. I argue that neither can do the required work on its own, so I ask how they are supposed to (...) combine. I then argue that a commitment to the ontological priority of everydayness, of the kind suggested in chapters 5 and 6 of Freedom, might combine the arguments in such a way as to secure Tallis’s conclusion. I conclude that the argument of Freedom requires positive metaphysical commitment of a kind Tallis has yet to provide. (shrink)

Starting with the point of freedom being one of unavoidable ideas of existential philosophy, as well as philosophy in general, we shall consider ethical and ontological aspects of contemplation of freedom in Kierkegaard’s philosophy. We deem that existential philosophy, “contemplated” in all its variations, represents the very horizon or manner of philosophical comprehension of freedom phenomena, where freedom is integrally observed, thus allowing us to talk about unique bliss of ontological and ethical dimension, both (...) of those appearing to be equally important. Therefore, freedom dominates the Kierkegaard’s determination of individual, co-determines all its leap stages but also continually makes possible the sense of human existence. (shrink)

The concept of power shapes both the political philosophy and the general worldview of the modern age. For this reason, two areas of philosophy - ontology and political philosophy - which were hitherto treated separately, must be brought together. Freedom, Equality, Power brings out the ontological framework shared by the political philosophies of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. In the last chapter (The Ontological Consequences), the author uses the results of his earlier analyses as the stepping stone for (...) developing some themes belonging to ontology in general. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga’s reply to the grounding objection to propositions now called counterfactuals of freedom, originally made by Robert Adams, can be interpretedas follows: if, for the sake of argument, we require counterfactuals of freedom to be grounded in something that makes them true, we can simply (and trivially) say that there are corresponding counterfactual facts that ground them. I argue that such facts, together with the facts about the situations in which moral agents find themselves, would ontologically determine (...) that the agents perform their acts, rendering these acts unfree. Thus, I maintain that, contrary to Plantinga’s intent, allowing the grounding facts into the divine creation situation entails the falsity of Molinism. If there is no other way that God can know what free creatures would do than through counterfactuals of freedom, divine foreknowledge of human acts is inconsistent with human freedom and moral responsibility. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article develops the ontological doctrine of naturalistic emergence, detailing three distinct but related types of emergent structures. It thus provides a coherent framework for making sense of the reality of human freedom, consistent with the operative determinism of natural science. This possibility emerges from taking seriously the implications of the reality of non-separability and decoherence, the significance of conservation laws, and the causal significance of systemic properties. The metaphysics of ontological emergence that is thus suggested (...) reveals the ontological limitations of Aristotelian logic, Cartesian reduction, and their modern epigoni. Specific attention is paid to the formulations of scientific reductionism by E. O. Wilson with his theory of “consilience,” and to Jaegwon Kim’s critique of the doctrine of emergence. (shrink)

Heidegger and Sartre developed the projects of their fundamental ontologies within the framework of the phenomenological approach. The traditional view of reality is based on dualistic oppositions of ideal and material, spirit and body, reality and possibility, and visibility and essence. According to both authors, phenomenology enables elimination of the above-mentioned dualisms and restoration of the world’s ontological unity on a reliable foundation. A special attention is paid to a problem of authenticity and transcendence from the point of view (...) of above-mentioned ontological concepts. The problem of authenticity is one of the main issues of human life: the person can come up against a situation of a tough choice and get to a special paradigm of submission that it is practically similar to loss of own authenticity. Method of a research is the comparative analysis of approaches of Sartre and Heidegger to phenomena of freedom, authenticity, the truth and being. In addition, the analysis of a modern discussion on this subject is carried out. The main conclusion of this research is that though Sartre's existentialism was exposed to criticism both from right, and from the left intellectuals, and is not a "fashionable" current at present, and the fundamental ontology of Heidegger was estimated by Levinas as ontology of the power subject-centered line, nevertheless the author considers that attention which is paid in these concepts to such phenomena as the voice of conscience, care and freedom represents the most urgent philosophical value nowadays; the author in this regard points to insufficient validity of modern criticism of approaches of Heidegger and Sartre, in particular - reproaches in a subject-centered line from adherents of "ontology of the Other". (shrink)

This essay considers some meta-ethical questions that emerge from a consideration of the phenomena of terrorism in the context of Buddhist metaphysics: what, in the Buddhist view, ultimately causes terrorism (and its subsidiary effects)? What resources do the Buddhist metaphysical claims of no-self, karma, emptiness and related concepts bring to a meta-ethical understanding of terrorism and its effects?

Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault are two of the most important and influential thinkers of the twentieth century. Each has spawned volumes of secondary literature and sparked fierce, polarizing debates, particularly about the relationship between philosophy and politics. And yet, to date there exists almost no work that presents a systematic and comprehensive engagement of the two in relation to one another. _The World of Freedom_ addresses this lacuna. Neither apology nor polemic, the book demonstrates that it is not merely (...) interesting but necessary to read Heidegger and Foucault alongside one another if we are to properly understand the shape of twentieth-century Continental thought. Through close, scholarly engagement with primary texts, Robert Nichols develops original and demanding insights into the relationship between fundamental and historical ontology, modes of objectification and subjectification, and an ethopoetic conception of freedom. In the process, his book also reveals the role that Heidegger's reception in France played in Foucault's intellectual development—the first major work to do so while taking full advantage of the recent publication of Foucault's last Collège de France lectures of the 1980s, which mark a return to classical Greek and Roman philosophy, and thus to familiar Heideggerian loci of concern. (shrink)

Starting with the point of freedom being one of unavoidable ideas of existential philosophy, as well as philosophy in general, we shall consider ethical and ontological aspects of contemplation of freedom in Kierkegaard’s philosophy. We deem that existential philosophy, “contemplated” in all its variations, represents the very horizon or manner of philosophical comprehension of freedom phenomena, where freedom is integrally observed, thus allowing us to talk about unique bliss of ontological and ethical dimension, both (...) of those appearing to be equally important. Therefore, freedom dominates the Kierkegaard’s determination of individual, co-determines all its leap stages but also continually makes possible the sense of human existence. (shrink)

This article attempts to understand the relationship between politicity, ideology, and freedom of speech in the ontological state of the modern global world. Freedom of expression is recognised as a fundamental human right in the United Nations. On the other hand, it is inseparable from duties and responsibilities to both the other person and society. Democracy appeals to universal human rights, including freedom of expression. Democratic freedoms, on the other hand, result in a post-truth situation in (...) which fundamental human rights or freedoms no longer exist and are replaced by a variety of views, including aggressive and manipulative ones. When diagnosing the current ontological state of the world, an attempt is made to look for perspectives for overcoming the problems. (shrink)

Both Foucault and Deleuze define ethics as a form of creative activity. Yet, given certain ontological features indicated by both thinkers, ethics must be more than just creative and critical activity. Forgoing a transcendent ground for ethics, the ontological condition of ethics – what Foucault calls liberté and Deleuze calls the plane of immanence – is an opening for change that makes possible normalizing modes of existence as well transformative ones. In this context, ethics must be a practice (...) that comprehends the dangers of such open-ended creation. The concept of problematization, emphasized by Foucault and Deleuze, leads to an enhanced understanding of their conception of ethics. On this understanding, ethics is a practice of problematization requiring a determination and assessment of the most pressing problems to which one must respond rather than attempt to solve once and for all. Ethics is necessarily a responsive engagement with the problems of one’s present. (shrink)

In this paper, I suggest that Heidegger’s conception of freedom, elaborated in piecemeal fashion in Being and Time, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, and Metaphysical Foundations of Logic and culminating in The Essence of Human Freedom, providesa way of rethinking our conception of freedom, not as a set of specific determinations and rights, but as the very condition for the possibility of both existence and community. In this elaboration, it is possible to trace Heidegger’s gradual removal of (...) freedom from the ontology of self-presence. This, I argue, offers us a way of thinking freedom, not in terms of a quality or attribute that Dasein possess, but in terms of community, fraternity, and hence ethics. (shrink)

The present article examines the theology of John Zizioulas with a view to understanding its coherence and viability for ecclesiology. Instead of treating his trinitarian theology, or his historical claims, I focus upon the basic themes of his personalistic ontology, especially the relationship between the ‘hypostasis’ and its ‘nature.’ I argue that Zizioulas's central concept of freedom rests upon an equivocation: he affirms both that freedom and being are identical, and that they are mutually exclusive. In conversation with (...) the philosophy of Levinas, I further argue that Zizioulas's proposal, as an ontology of communion, falls prey to the same reduction of being to thought that forms the central tenet of Western conceptions of subjectivity. In conclusion, I argue that both of these problems trade on a basic inability to account for grace as the fundamental reality of communion. Throughout my basic concern is to inquire into just what function the category of ‘being’ has in Zizioulas's theology, and to point out its surprising obscurity. (shrink)

The Human Being in History affirms the ontological dignity of the human being, arguing that the challenges posed by the twenty-first century are not just political, economic, and social, but existential and metaphysical. In the face of these challenges, philosophy must show how to confront issues in a new way: not as problems that admit technical resolution, but as questions which involve openness to meaning and which demand the exercise of freedom.

Does Anne Conway (1631–79) hold that the created world consists of a single underlying substance? Some have argued that she does; others have argued that she is a priority monist and so holds that there are many created substances, but the whole created world is ontologically prior to each particular creature. Against both of these proposals, this article makes the case for a substance pluralist interpretation of Conway: individual creatures are distinct substances, and the whole created world is not ontologically (...) prior to the individual creatures that compose it. The basic argument for such a view draws on Conway's claims about the freedom and moral responsibility of individual creatures. The pluralist reading is straightforwardly compatible with these claims, while the monistic readings are not. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Sellars once remarked on the “astonishing extent to which in ethics as well as in epistemology and metaphysics the fundamental themes of Kant’s philosophy contain the truth of the variations we now hear on every side” (SM x). Also astonishing was Sellars’ 1970 Presidential Address to the American Philosophical Association (APA), which borrowed its title from the phrase in Kant’s Paralogisms, “...this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks...” (B404). In its compact twenty-five pages Sellars managed to (...) sketch novel yet plausible reconstructions of central aspects of Kant’s views on self-knowledge, persons, freedom, and morality, along the way suggesting how all of those Kantian views could plausibly be rendered consistent with a naturalistic ontology. In this chapter I focus on Sellars’ APA address as an occasion for reflection on how both Kant and Sellars offer insights into how we ought best to conceive the nature of and the relationships between our thinking selves, our practical agency, and our entirely natural, material embodiment. (shrink)

Whence comes the evil will? My paper examines Kant’s notion of radical evil and Kierkegaard’s analysis of sin in order to uncover the existential-ontological dynamic of the evil will. Ultimately, I argue, the evil will arises in response to the anxiety inherent in freedom itself. I conclude with an examination of Kierkegaard’s ‘formula of faith’ as a solution to the dilemma of freedom, and consider the role faith may play in freedom’s moral maturation.

In this article I present an original interpretation of Roy Bhaskar’s project in Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom. His major move is to separate an ontological dialectic from a critical dialectic, which in Hegel are laminated together. The ontological dialectic, which in Hegel is the self-unfolding of spirit, becomes a realist and relational philosophical anthropology. The critical dialectic, which in Hegel is confined to retracing the steps of spirit, now becomes an active force, dialectical critique, which interposes (...) into the ontological dialectic at the ‘fourth dimension’ of a naturalistically reconfigured account of relational human nature, agency. This account allows Bhaskar to explain and vindicate the crucial role social criticism must play in any realistic project of self-emancipation, and to create a space that didn’t exist in Hegel for an open-ended concrete utopianism. Freedom is thus the actualization of human nature, but is not automatic: the relation of human nature to freedom is mediated historically through dialectical critique, which, informed by concrete utopianism, can have emancipatory power. Content Type Journal Article Category Article Pages 13-44 Authors Craig Reeves, Brunel University Journal Journal of Critical Realism Online ISSN 1572-5138 Print ISSN 1476-7430 Journal Volume Volume 12 Journal Issue Volume 12, Number 1 / 2013. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the discussion of social freedom in the family in Axel Honneth's most recent book Freedom's Right. I argue, on the one hand, that radical democrats have much to learn from Honneth's method of normative reconstruction because it provides a much needed corrective to the “social weightlessness” that characterizes their thought about democracy. In contrast to the current preoccupation with rarefied issues of political ontology, Freedom's Right exemplifies a type of sociologically attuned thinking that (...) is essential for addressing issues of power and inequality. On the other hand, I argue that Honneth's reliance on a teleological notion of historical progress has deeply constraining effects on his critique of power. First, in so far as it underestimates the impact of growing social inequality on personal and intimate relations, it fails to acknowledge just how extensive, radical and, potentially deeply contentious the political measures needed to realize social freedom in the family may have to be. Second, Honneth's teleological reconstruction provides too thin a basis to generate substantive normative solutions to issues of social justice in the family. Third, teleology tends to depoliticize the process of emancipatory social change by construing it in terms of impersonal mechanisms and developmental tendencies rather than as open-ended, often polemical and deeply contested forms of political struggle. (shrink)

The author, who pioneered this argument in 1961, here places it in the context of traditional discussions of the problem, and answers various criticisms that have been made.

_Dialectic_ is now widely regarded as a classic of contemporary philosophy. This book, first published in 1993, sets itself three main aims: the development of a general theory of dialectic, of which Hegelian dialectic can be seen to be a special case; the dialectical enrichment and deepening of critical realism, viz. into the system of dialectical critical realism; and the outline of the elements of a totalizing critique of Western philosophy. The first chapter clarifies the rational core of Hegelian dialectic. (...) Chapter two then proceeds to develop a general theory of dialectic. Isolating the fallacy of 'ontological monovalence', Roy Bhaskar then shows how absence and other negating concepts such as contradiction have a legitimate and necessary ontological employment. He then goes on to give a synoptic account of key dialectical concepts such as the concrete universal; to sketch the further dialectical development of critical naturalism through an account of what he calls four-planar social being; and following consideration of the dialectical critique of analytical reason, he moves on to the real definition of dialectic as absenting absence and in the human sphere, the axiology of freedom. Chapter three extends and deepens critical realism’s characteristic concerns with ontology, science, social science and emancipation not only into the realms of negativity and totality, but also into the fields of reference and truth, spatio-temporality, tense and process, the logic of dialectical universalizability and on to the plane of ethics, where it articulates a combination of moral realism and ethical naturalism, whereby consideration of elemental desire involves commitment to the eudaimonistic society. This is then followed by a sublime discussion of key moments in the trajectory of Western philosophy, the tradition of which can now be seen to be based on what the author calls the unholy trinity of the epistemic fallacy or the reduction of being to knowledge, primal squeeze or the collapse of structure and alethic truth, and ontological monovalence. (shrink)

Introduction: Critical realism, hegelian dialectic and the problems of philosophy preliminary considerations -- Objectives of the book -- Dialectic : an initial orientation -- Negation -- Four degrees of critical realism -- Prima facie objections to critical realism -- On the sources and general character of the hegelian dialectic -- On the immanent critique and limitations of the hegelian dialectic -- The fine structure of the hegelian dialectic -- Dialectic : the logic of absence, arguments, themes, perspectives, configurations -- Absence (...) -- Emergence -- Contradiction I : Hegel and Marx -- Contradiction II : misunderstandings -- On the materialist diffraction of dialectic -- Dialectical arguments and the unholy trinity -- Dialectical motifs : tina formation, mediation, concrete universality, etc -- On the generalized theory of the dialectical remark, the failure of detachment, and the presence of the past -- Dialectical critical naturalism -- Towards a real definition of dialectic -- Dialectical critical realism and the dialectic of freedom -- Ontology -- The dialectic of truth -- On the emergence and derivability of dialecticized transcendental realism -- 1m realism : non-identity -- 2e realism : negativity -- Space, time and tense -- Social science, explanatory critique, emancipatory axiology -- 3l realism : totality -- 4d realism : agency -- The dialectic of desire to freedom -- Dialectical critical realism and the dialectics of critical realism -- Metacritical dialectics : irrealism and its consequences -- Irrealism -- The problems of philosophy and their resolution -- Contradictions of the critical philosophy -- Dilemmas of the beautiful soul and the unhappy consciousness -- Master and slave : from dialectics of reconciliation to dialectics of liberation -- The metacritique of the hegelian dialectic -- Marxian dialectic i: the rational kernel in the mystical shell -- Marxian dialectic ii: the mystical shell in the rational kernel -- Metacritical dialectics : philosophical ideologies, their sublation and explanation -- The consequences of irrealism -- Diffracted and retotalized dialectics -- Dialectic as the pulse of freedom. (shrink)

If there is something (P) that every possible agent is committed to value, and certain actions or attitudes either enhance or diminish P, then normative claims about a range of intentional actions can be objectively and non-trivially evaluated. I argue that the degree of existence as an agent depends on the consistency of reflexive-relating with other individuals of the agent-kind: the ontological thesis. I then show that in intending to act on a reason, every agent is rationally committed to (...) value ‘above all else’ being an agent, what consists in exercising the capacity to act and having the freedom to discriminate between more or less valuable actions: the transcendental thesis. Since the degree of possession of this personal but non-contingent good depends on relating to other agents in a special way, certain actions and attitudes may be objectively right or wrong for all agents. (shrink)

This article compares two currents of thought that are in search of a philosophy beyond onto-theology: the differential ontology of Jean-Luc Nancy and the asubjective hermeneutical phenomenology of Jan Patočka. Both claim that the demise of traditional metaphysics culminates in a new understanding of the “world.” Their reflections on the primacy of the world, on freedom, and on meaning which exceeds rational understanding show remarkable similarities. The discussion of their differences results in a few critical remarks concerning ideas of (...) Nancy. (shrink)

Human existence is a reality built on paradoxical structures. Existence takes place in the state of balance between these structures on its ground. Since man is in a constant state of being the states of equilibrium that take place on the ontological ground are constantly pregnant with new states of equilibrium. Whatever the subject of human-related research is to be done, it is necessary to look for a basis in these structures the issue of sin or existential crime is (...) also based on these structures in terms of its ontological background. In our study, the processes by which the rhythm states of the structures in question, which occur in situations of conflict and harmony, produce an unreal existence, that is, existential crime, have been handled. The issue of existential crime is mostly depicted from the perspective of the existentialist approach and in its onto-theological context. The main motive that makes the study important for us is related to the relation of existential crime and/or sin to human existence itself from an existential perspective. While dealing with the issue of existential crime, the picture of the issue has been tried to be presented with a more descriptive method, and various analyzes have been made where necessary. The freedom-destiny paradox has attached the tragic to human existence, and as a result, the sin situation caused by the hopelessness and anxiety in the tragic has been encountered. The dynamic-form conflict has attached the dramatic to human existence, and the sinfulness that seeks pleasure from the meaninglessness and emptiness caused by the pain in the dramatic has emerged. The conflict of individuality-participation, on the other hand, has attached the tragicomic to human existence, and the sinfulness of the ego based on self-deception arising from the identity problem caused by the tragicomic has emerged. The argument that all this is based on and that we want to be seen is that sin does not originate from some superficial motives, but from its dyadic structure, which is the ground of human existence, and on the other hand, an ontological background that expresses necessity for its existence. To sin can make a person guilty, but the existence of the possibility to sin is an existential vacancy that makes man a free being and expresses necessity for the realization of existence. (shrink)

In Ontological Catastrophe, Joseph Carew takes up the central question guiding Slavoj Žižek’s philosophy: How could something like phenomenal reality emerge out of the meaninglessness of the Real? Carefully reconstructing and expanding upon his controversial reactualization of German Idealism, Carew argues that Žižek offers us an original, but perhaps terrifying, response: experience is possible only if we presuppose a prior moment of breakdown as the ontogenetic basis of subjectivity. Drawing upon resources found in Žižek, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and post-Kantian philosophy, (...) Carew thus develops a new critical metaphysics—a metaphysics which is a variation upon the late German Idealist theme of balancing system and freedom, realism and idealism, in a single, self-reflexive theoretical construct—that challenges our understanding of nature, culture, and the ultimate structure of reality. (shrink)

In this essay, I reconsider the constitution of democratic freedom in aesthetic terms. My interest is in articulating a conception of aesthetic freedom that can be mapped onto a conception of democratic freedom. For this purpose, I bring together Charles Sanders Peirce’s ontology, which comprises fragments of an aesthetic theory, Friedrich Schiller’s concept of aesthetic play and Stanley Cavell’s democratic perfectionism. By providing a philosophical framework for constructing an aesthetics and politics that supports the recent aesthetic turn (...) in political theory, which urges overcoming political theory’s excessive dependence on an epistemological theory of representation, and by proposing a modification to the turn’s heavy reliance on theories of affect, my reading of Peirce, Schiller and Cavell offers a new way to think about the political significance of the autonomy of aesthetic experience and affect for democratic freedom. (shrink)