This paper will examine a cardinal problem, yet one seldom raised in the existing bibliography of Hegelian philosophy: that of the distinction between reason and understanding. Portraying the objective path of the development of thought, this distinction is pertinent to any cognitive development, ontogenetic and phylogenetic, and can illuminate a number of epistemological puzzles of Hegel’s doctrine, such as the construction of totality, the appreciation of contradiction, and the relationship between logic and dialectic. I will begin by locating (...) the problem in the development of German Idealism and showing Hegel’s response, based on his metaphysical assumptions that are often overlooked in recent scholarship. In the second section, I will address a number of existing interpretations that do not account for Hegel’s dynamic portrayal of thought as thought that is coming to be. The latter problem will be the focus of the final two sections that deal with a realistic reconstruction of the triad sense-understanding-reason and emphasize the unity between concept and intuition. (shrink)

One of the key tenets of Linda Zagzebski’s book " Epistemic Authority" is the Preemption Thesis. It says that, when an agent learns that an epistemic authority believes that p, the rational response for her is to adopt that belief and to replace all of her previous reasons relevant to whether p by the reason that the authority believes that p. I argue that such a “Hobbesian approach” to epistemic authority yields problematic results. This becomes especially virulent when we (...) apply Preemption to cases in which the agent and the authority share their belief, maybe even for the same reasons, or in which both have either a positive or a negative graded doxastic attitude toward a given proposition. As an alternative I propose a “Socratic account”, according to which the authority will not only motivate us to adopt her belief, but also provide us with higher-order reasons for re-assigning our own considerations their proper place in the web of reasons for and against the view in question. (shrink)

Taking as point of departure Hegelrsquo;s early reflections on his historical present, this essay examines the relationship between dialectical reason and the activity of the understanding in generating contradiction. Dialecticmdash;as logic and methodmdash;is Hegelrsquo;s attempt at a philosophical comprehension of the conflicts and the deep changes of his contemporary world. This idea of dialectic as logic of historical transformation guides the development of consciousness in the emPhenomenology of Spirit/em. Since my claim is that the dialectic of consciousness and (...) its capacity of overcoming contradiction are rooted in the historical situation of 1807, the question is raised of what would be the specific problems encountered by consciousness in our contemporary worldmdash;in 2007. What are the challenges posed by our globalized world to a phenomenology of contemporary spirit; and what is the role that contradiction and dialectic play in the understanding of our own historical present? (shrink)

Problems and Postulates: Kant on Reason and Understanding ALISON LAYWINE THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER is to think anew Kant's conception of reason and understanding, the relation between these two faculties and the principles that govern them. I am chiefly interested in the contributions of reason and under- standing to the advancement of knowledge. Hence the focus of my paper, so far as reason itself is concerned, is the theoretical rather than the practical employment (...) of this faculty. On the other hand, I think it is useful and fair to say, on Kant's account, that theoretical reason is itself practical -- at least to the extent that we regard scientific enquiry as some kind of activity, namely a research activity, involving practices such as proof and experimentation, under- taken for the sake of a certain end, namely, the acquisition of knowledge. One of Kant's concerns in the Critique of Pure Reason is to explain how this activity can be profitably pursued. To meet this concern, Kant must explain first of all how we set research goals for scientific enquiry. For without any such goals, Susan Neiman's book, The Unity of Reason , was the original stimulation for this paper. . I am more indebted to Susan.. (shrink)

Although Habermas sees intercultural understanding as a political task, his model of communicative rationality cannot satisfactorily explain how this could happen. One reason is the definition of the aesthetic, form-giving, moment of imagination, which reflects deeper epistemological and linguistic assumptions of discourse ethics. Despite sporadic attempts to recognize the role of rhetoric and poetry as an indispensable part of the communicative praxis, at the end of the day, Habermas sees language as fundamentally geared toward transparency and clarity, and (...) not as endowed with poetic power and polyphonic creativity. My article aims to further develop, with the help of Vico and Bakhtin, the incipient thread in Habermas's discourse ethics that recognizes the importance of linguistic creativity and of imagination in communicative practice. This would help one to argue that, even when rational consensus and agreement cannot be achieved, dialogue is still not abandoned. This is the case because, through a larger definition of the dialogical, which adds to the discursive aspect, an aesthetic, rhetorical, and metaphorical dimension, it is possible to say that, even when conflicting, different voices and languages are still creatively and imaginatively interilluminating and hybridizing each other. Thus, they still transform each other, creating, at the same time, a prediscursive commonality, that can function as a necessary prerequisite for intercultural understanding. (shrink)

The ability to analyze arguments is critical for higher-level reasoning, yet previous research suggests that standard university education provides at best modest improvements in students’ analytical reasoning abilities. What techniques are most effective for cultivating these skills? Here we investigate the effectiveness of a 12-week undergraduate seminar in which students practice a software-based technique for visualizing the logical structures implicit in argumen- tative texts. Seminar students met weekly to analyze excerpts from contemporary analytic philosophy papers, completed argument visualization problem sets, (...) and received individualized feedback on a weekly basis. We found that Seminar students improved substantially more on LSAT Logical Reasoning test forms than Control students (d = .71, p < .001), suggesting that learning how to visualize arguments in the seminar led to large generalized improvements in students’ analytical reasoning skills. Moreover, blind scoring of final essays from Seminar students and Control students, drawn from a parallel lecture course, revealed large differences in favor of seminar students (d = 0.87, p = .005). Seminar students understood the arguments better, and their essays were more accurate and effectively structured. Taken together, these findings deepen our understanding of how visualizations support logical reasoning, and provide a model for improving analytical reasoning pedagogy. (shrink)

While the presence or absence of consciousness plays the central role in the moral/ethical decisions when dealing with patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC), recently it is criticized as not adequate due to number of reasons, among which are the lack of the uniform definition of consciousness and consequently uncertainty of diagnostic criteria for it, as well as irrelevance of some forms of consciousness for determining a patient’s interests and wishes. In her article, Dr. Specker Sullivan reexamined the meaning of (...) consciousness in the DOC taxonomy and proposed to go away from the routinely used clinical definition of consciousness as “wakeful awareness”, and adopt the meaning that is common in the Eastern tradition which is a form of “pure experience” (Specker Sullivan 2018). She further argued that understanding consciousness as a “pure experience” is ethically relevant for DOC patients. This suggestion is original, novel and important since it preserves the importance of the notion of consciousness for the clinical practice while simultaneously offering an additional ethical tool for the moral decisions in medicine. At the same time, without placing such Eastern notion in the Western tradition it is difficult to see how pure experience could be usefully operationalized to make sense in the clinical practice with DOC patients. It is so because pure experience is a subjective phenomenon which is completely inaccessible in noncommunicative DOC patients and also it does not express behaviorally (Monti et al 2010), therefore some objective-like operationalization is needed. This is why the fusion of Eastern and Western traditions is required to gain the full potential of Dr. Specker Sullivan’s suggestion. We propose that such fusion could be achieved on the basis of the Operational Architectonics (OA) theory of brain-mind functioning (Fingelkurts et al. 2010; 2013a) which suits ideally the purpose due its compatibility with both Western and Eastern traditions of consciousness. (shrink)

Some sensory experiences are pleasant, some unpleasant. This is a truism. But understanding what makes these experiences pleasant and unpleasant is not an easy job. Various difficulties and puzzles arise as soon as we start theorizing. There are various philosophical theories on offer that seem to give different accounts for the positive or negative affective valences of sensory experiences. In this paper, we will look at the current state of art in the philosophy of mind, present the main contenders, (...) critically compare and contrast them. In particular, we want to examine how they handle the reason-giving power of affective states. We will look into two representationalist proposals (Evaluativism and Imperativism) and a functionalist proposal, and argue that, contrary to their own advertisements, the representationalist proposals don’t have good accounts of why and how sensory affect can motivate, rationalize, and justify subsequent behavior and intentional mental activity. We will show that our own functionalist proposal does a much better job in this regard, and that when the representationalist proposals are modified to do a better job, they fare better not because of their representationalist credentials but due to their functionalist ones. (shrink)

Taking as point of departure Hegelrsquo;s early reflections on his historical present, this essay examines the relationship between dialectical reason and the activity of the understanding in generating contradiction. Dialecticmdash;as logic and methodmdash;is Hegelrsquo;s attempt at a philosophical comprehension of the conflicts and the deep changes of his contemporary world. This idea of dialectic as logic of historical transformation guides the development of consciousness in the emPhenomenology of Spirit/em. Since my claim is that the dialectic of consciousness and (...) its capacity of overcoming contradiction are rooted in the historical situation of 1807, the question is raised of what would be the specific problems encountered by consciousness in our contemporary worldmdash;in 2007. What are the challenges posed by our globalized world to a phenomenology of contemporary spirit; and what is the role that contradiction and dialectic play in the understanding of our own historical present? (shrink)

Russians and Westerners access, process and communicate information in different ways. Whilst Westerners favour detailed analysis of subject matter, Russians tend to focus on certain components that are, in their view, significant. This disparity makes it difficult to achieve constructive dialogues between Western and Russian stakeholders contributing to cross-cultural communication problems. The author claims that the difference in the ways Russians and Westerners negotiate information is a significant cultural difference between Russia and West rather than an irritating (and in principle (...) amenable) lack of analytical skills on the Russian partners’ part. Understanding the reasons behind the Russian-specific approaches to dealing with information would be a positive step towards a more effective cross-cultural communication, important in business situations and essential in diplomacy. (shrink)

In Part One Paul Helm provides a general discussion of these themes, seeking both to contextualize the debate and to engage with contemporary philosophical discussion of the relation between faith, reason and understanding. Part Two contains five case studies that illustrate the work of seminal figures in the tradition. They include treatments of Augustine on time and creation, Anselm on the ontological argument and the necessity of the atonement, Jonathan Edwards on the nature of personal identity and John (...) Calvin and the ’sensus divinitatis’, focusing on the way in which Calvin has been appealed to by contemporary reformed epistemology. (shrink)

Contemporary forms of Kantian constitutivism generally begin with a conception of agency on which the constitutive aim of agency is some form of autonomy or self-unification. This chapter argues for a re-orientation of the Kantian constitutivist project towards views that begin with a conception of rationality on which both theoretical and practical rationality aim at forms of understanding. In a slogan, then, understanding-first as opposed to autonomy-first constitutivism. Such a view gives the constitutivist new resources for explaining many (...) classes of reasons, while also offering a new way of understanding the unity of theoretical and practical reason. The chapter concludes by arguing that the resulting view is best understood, not so much as an alternative to autonomy-first constitutivism, but as a complement to it. (shrink)

The first part of the paper focuses on the role played in thought and action by possession of the first‐person concept. It is argued that only one who possesses the I concept is in a position to fully articulate certain fundamental, a priori aspects of the concept of reason. A full understanding of the concept of reason requires being inclined to be affected or immediately motivated by reasons—to form, change or confirm beliefs or other attitudes in accordance (...) with them—when those reasons apply to one's own attitudes. The cases where rational evaluations of acts and attitudes rationally motivate immediate implementation of the evaluations to shape the acts and attitudes are distinguished from cases where they do not, by the use of the first‐person concept to mark those acts and attitudes as one's own. The second part of the paper examines asymmetries between self‐knowledge and knowledge of other minds. The usual view that self‐knowledge has an immediate and a priori warrant, whereas knowledge of others’ minds rests on observation and inference is disputed. A sketch is given of knowledge of other minds that can be non‐inferential and can rest on an intellectual, non‐perceptual entitlement. When one seemingly understands an utterance in interlocution, one is a priori prima facie entitled to suppose that it comes from a rational source, and because knowledge of other minds can be immediate and epistemically grounded in intellectual, non‐empirical entitlements, it is distinguished from self‐knowledge not by being necessarily inferential or by being necessarily grounded in perception, but by being in some known contrast with thought known as one's own. (shrink)

This paper exploits recent work on the normative and constitutive roles of knowledge in practical rationality, to put pressure on the idea that speakers could communicate without exploiting linguistic knowledge. I defend cognitivism about meaning, the view that speakers have rationally accessible (i.e., implicit rather than tacit) knowledge of semantic facts and principles, and that this knowledge is constitutive of their linguistic competence.

Many contemporary writers misunderstand early Christian views on philosophy because they identify the critical stances of the ante-Nicene fathers toward specific pagan philosophical schools with a general negative stance toward reason itself. Dariusz Karlowicz's Socrates and Other Saints demonstrates why this identification is false. The question of the extent of humanity's natural knowledge cannot be reduced to the question of faith's relationship to the historical manifestations of philosophy among the Ancients. Karlowicz closely reads the writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, (...) Clement of Alexandria, and others to demonstrate this point. He also builds upon Pierre Hadot's thesis that ancient philosophy is not primarily theory but a "way of life" taught by sages, which aimed at happiness through participation in the divine. The fact that pagan philosophers falsely described humanity's telos did not mean that the spiritual practices they developed could not be helpful in the Christian pilgrimage. As it turns out, the ancient Christian writers traditionally considered to be enemies of philosophy actually borrowed from her much more than we think-and perhaps more than they admitted. -- back cover. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Whether explicitly or implicitly, Kant's critical project weighs heavily upon Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. This article argues that we can understand Merleau-Ponty's text as a phenomenological rewriting of the Critique of Pure Reason from within the paradoxical structures of lived experience, effectively merging Kant's Transcendental Aesthetic and Transcendental Analytic. Although he was influenced by Husserl's and Heidegger's interpretations of Kant's first version of the Transcendental Deduction, Merleau-Ponty develops a unique position between Kant, Husserl, and Heidegger via an embodied (...) and lived synthesis that collapses Kant's distinction between sensibility and the understanding, and that makes sense of temporality and subjectivity as a paradoxical trajectory. (shrink)

There has been a considerable amount of debate about the norms of belief, but little discussion to date about what the reasons associated with these norms demand from us. By working out an account of what reasons demand, we can better understand the nature of justification.

In this essay I argue that the mainstream ‘Standard Story’ of action – according to which actions are bodily motions with the right internal mental states as their causal triggers (e.g., ‘belief-desire-pairs’, ‘intentions’) – gives rise to a deeply problematic conception of inter-subjective action-understanding. For the Standard Story, since motivating reasons are internal mental states and bodily motions are not intrinsically intentional, an observer must ascribe internal states to others to make rational sense of their outwardly observable bodily motions. (...) I argue this is both phenomenologically distorted and requires, on pain of infinite regress, a deeper, non-inferential, practical-perceptual form of understanding: ‘knowledge-how’, in a broadly Rylean sense. Recognizing the irreducible role of practical-perceptual knowledge-how in inter-subjective understanding, I argue, undermines core assumptions of the Standard Story concerning what an agent can directly perceive in interacting with others, and how our everyday practices of explaining actions with reasons function – and this opens the space for a radically opposed alternative view of inter-subjective action understanding. (shrink)

This chapter argues that there is a particular kind of ‘internal’ commitment typically made in the context of romantic love relationships that has striking meta-normative implications for how we understand the role of the will in practical normativity. Internal commitments cannot plausibly explain the reasons we have in committed relationships on the usual model—as triggering reasons that are already there, in the way that making a promise triggers a reason via a pre-existing norm of the form ‘If you make (...) a promise to x, then you have a reason to x’. Instead, internal commitments are that in virtue of which one has the special reasons of committed relationships; they are the grounds of such reasons. In this way, the will is a source of practical normativity. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is a particular kind of ‘internal’ commitment typically made in the context of romantic love relationships that has striking meta-normative implications for how we understand the role of the will in practical normativity. Internal commitments cannot plausibly explain the reasons we have in committed relationships on the usual model – as triggering reasons that are already there, in the way that making a promise triggers a reason via a pre-existing norm of the form ‘If (...) you make a promise to x, then you have a reason to x’. Instead, internal commitments are that in virtue of which one has the special reasons of committed relationships; they are the grounds of such reasons. In this way, the will is a source of practical normativity. (shrink)

Which form of explanation is adequate for the humans sciences? Mahajan argues that social reality can be perceived in different ways--hermeneutic understanding, narrative, reason action and causal explanation--and each alters our perception of reality. A new chapter on poststructuralist and postmodern theories brings this important book up-to-date with current thinking.

In the late summer of 1998, the authors, a cognitive scientist and a logician, started talking about the relevance of modern mathematical logic to the study of human reasoning, and we have been talking ever since. This book is an interim report of that conversation. It argues that results such as those on the Wason selection task, purportedly showing the irrelevance of formal logic to actual human reasoning, have been widely misinterpreted, mainly because the picture of logic current in psychology (...) and cognitive science is completely mistaken. We aim to give the reader a more accurate picture of mathematical logic and, in doing so, hope to show that logic, properly conceived, is still a very helpful tool in cognitive science. The main thrust of the book is therefore constructive. We give a number of examples in which logical theorizing helps in understanding and modeling observed behavior in reasoning tasks, deviations of that behavior in a psychiatric disorder (autism), and even the roots of that behavior in the evolution of the brain. (shrink)

Kant's Reason develops a novel interpretation of Kant’s conception of reason and its philosophical significance, focusing on two claims. First, it argues that Kant presents a powerful model for understanding the unity of theoretical and practical reason as two manifestations of a unified capacity for theoretical and practical understanding (or “comprehension”). This model allows us to do justice to the deep commonalities between theoretical and practical rationality, without reducing either to the other. In particular, through (...) it, we see why the activities of both theoretical and practical reason are governed by a version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, while also seeing why reason is essentially autonomous. At the same time, Kant's Reason also reads Kant as presenting us with a compelling picture of the role that reason (as a capacity or power) should play in a systematic approach to foundational philosophical questions. In doing so, it argues for an account of the fundamental norms that apply to rational beings that treats as fundamental neither substantive reasons or values nor merely structural rationality, but instead a robust conception of reason as a power or capacity — namely, the capacity for theoretical and practical understanding. The result is a form of “rational constitutivism” – one which contrasts both with the forms of “reasons fundamentalism” that are currently fashionable and the forms of “agency-first constitutivism” that have dominated much of Kantian metaethics. In this sense, the aim of the book is to vindicate Kant’s insistence that his philosophy represents nothing more or less than reason’s implicit self-understanding coming to explicit and systematic self-consciousness. (shrink)

I offer a new understanding of Descartes’ metaphysics, arguing that his primary question is ‘what is real and true?’ – not as we have been accustomed to believe, ‘how can I be certain?’ – an inquiry that requires both reason’s authority and freedom’s autonomy. I argue that without freedom and its internal relation to reason, Descartes’ undertaking would not get off the ground; yet that relation has gone unnoticed by successive studies of his philosophy. I demonstrate that (...) it is only when we grasp the centrality of freedom to his Meditations that we can understand what motivates key parts of his metaphysics. I present Descartes’ distinctive metaphysics of freedom and resolve what has been seen as an intractable inconsistency between his account of freedom in the Meditations, and the account of freedom he presents in the Principles I 37 and the notorious letter to Mesland (1645). I defend his compelling conception of the true unity of the self, a thinking active being, and its place in the world. (shrink)

Lovejoy's philosophical interpretation is a model of penetrating insight and helpful criticism.

Public reasoning is widely thought to be essential to democracy, but there is much disagreement about whether such deliberation should be constrained by a principle of public reason, which may seem to conflict with important democratic values. This paper denies that there is such a conflict, and argues that the distinctive contribution of public reason is to constitute a relationship of civic friendship in a diverse society. Acceptance of public reason would not work against mutual understanding, (...) learning, or compromise, nor does the principle involve any violation of political equality. The real threat to democracy is not public reason, but the framing of public reason by a presumption against state action. (shrink)

This thesis develops a novel framework for explaining delusions. In Chapter 1, I introduce the two fundamental challenges posed by delusions: the evidence challenge lies in explaining the flagrant ways delusions flout evidence; and the specificity challenge lies in explaining the fact that patients’ delusions are often about a few specific themes, and patients rarely have a wide range of delusional or odd beliefs. In Chapter 2, I discuss the strengths and weaknesses of current theories of delusions, which typically appeal (...) to one or both of two factors: anomalous experience and reasoning abnormality. I argue that anomalous experience can help explain the specificity of delusions, but has difficulties in addressing the evidence challenge; reasoning abnormality can help address the evidence challenge, but has difficulties in explaining the specificity of delusions. This suggests that there may be an important factor that has not been captured by current theories of delusions. To search for this missing factor, in Chapter 3, I turn to normal believing. Inspired by the literature on Cartesian clarity and phenomenal dogmatism, I develop a dual-force framework of believing, according to which beliefs can be understood as the results of the interaction between the justificatory force and causal force of evidence and the justificatory force and causal force of clear experience, in which something clearly seems to be so to the subject. This framework suggests that the missing factor may be the clear experience with its distinctive phenomenal clarity that compels assent. In Chapter 4, I return to delusions, and argue that the dualforce framework can help us to get a better grip on some personal descriptions of delusions; make progress in addressing the evidence and specificity challenges of delusions; and shed new light on the underpinnings of delusions. In the end, I conclude with some remaining questions for future study. (shrink)

Based on extensive research conducted by the authors, Reasoning and Sense Making in the Mathematics Classroom, Pre-K-Grade 2, is designed to help classroom teachers understand, monitor, and guide the development of students' reasoning and sense making about core ideas in elementary school mathematics. It describes and illustrates the nature of these skills using classroom vignettes and actual student work in conjunction with instructional tasks and learning progressions to show how reasoning and sense making develop and how instruction can support students (...) in that development. Students who can make sense of mathematical ideas can apply those ideas in problem solving, even in unfamiliar situations, and can use them as a foundation for future learning. Without them, students are reduced to rote learning, often experiencing frustration and failure. But what do reasoning and sense making during learning and teaching look like? Each chapter of Reasoning and Sense Making in the Mathematics Classroom, Pre-K-Grade 2 explores a different topic that young children encounter in mathematics, demonstrating with actual student work and classroom dialogue how their mathematical knowledge and reasoning ability move through "levels of sophistication" or learning progressions: After opening with a discussion of the nature of reasoning and sense making and their critical importance in developing mathematical thinking, chapter 1 examines how young students attempt to make sense of the concepts of place value and length measurement. Chapter 2 focuses on how early childhood instruction can engage students in mathematical reasoning while helping them construct a rich sense of number and operations. Chapter 3 identifies core algebraic ideas and shows how students can engage with these ideas in ways that not only deepen their understanding of arithmetic but also lays the foundation for the future study of algebra. Children's reasoning and sense making as they decompose and compose geometric shapes--including reasoning about area--is examined in chapter 4. The use of learning progressions to understand students' reasoning and to guide their sense making with appropriate teaching is also discussed. Not just a theoretical discussion, the book also provides specific suggestions for related instructional activities for each topic. Supplementary online resources can be accessed at NCTM's More4U website. Reasoning and Sense Making in the Mathematics Classroom, Pre-K-Grade 2 will be a valuable and practical addition to your professional library. (shrink)

As Josef Pieper writes in his study “On Hope,” the virtue of hope is the virtue that completes the human being in its intermediary, temporal state (the “status viatoris,” or condition of being “on the way”). To be human is always to be “on the way” toward a fulfillment and completion not yet available to it (the “status comprehensoris”). Those who are hopeful direct themselves toward this end as to their fulfillment despite recognizing that it, in some sense, exceeds their (...) grasp, whereas those who are not hopeful either reject the possibility of such a fulfillment (despair) or prematurely suppose themselves to have attained it (presumption). While Pieper’s account of hope is largely based on the theologically-inflected account found in Thomas Aquinas, Pieper draws his conception of the nature of philosophy and philosophical reasoning ultimately from Plato. Philosophy, for Plato, on Pieper’s view, is essentially structured by the “not yet” condition that Pieper calls the status viatoris, as we see mythically depicted in Diotima’s account of Eros as being an intermediary daimon who, partaking of his parents’ opposed natures, is fundamentally characterized by poverty and lack (the “not”) on the one hand and by resourcefulness (the “yet”) on the other. The human soul, erotic at its very core, is structured by this twofold relation to the object of its greatest longing, Beauty Itself, which it doesn’t yet possess but for which it strives with all of its being. In this essay, I show that Plato has a “hopeful” sense of reason on account of the erotic condition (the status viatoris) that essentially characterizes the human soul’s spatio-temporal life during its incarnate, earthly state. If reason is, for Plato, to be true to itself, it must strive for the whole of wisdom even as it lacks that wisdom. Because reason is directed toward a fulfillment it can’t quite fathom, it must relate to that fulfillment essentially in the mode of hope. When, by contrast, reason becomes presumptuous, thinking that it already has a clear and secure cognition of the truth for which it seeks, it becomes dogmatic and runs the risk of falling into the misology diagnosed in the Phaedo when it inevitably comes up against some crack in its understanding. Likewise, when reason succumbs to despair—as we see, for example, in Meno’s eristic argument about the impossibility of learning—it becomes excessively skeptical and inert. Only when reason avoids the twin errors of presumption and despair can it continue in its pursuit of the whole of wisdom while remaining mindful of its limitations. (shrink)

Freedom and its internal relation to reason is fundamental to Descartes’ philosophy in general, and to his _Meditations on First Philosophy_ in particular. Without freedom his entire enquiry would not get off the ground, and without understanding the rôle of freedom in his work, we could not understand what motivates key parts of his metaphysics. Yet, not only is freedom a relatively overlooked element, but its internal relation to reason has gone unnoticed by most studies of his (...) philosophy. Self, Reason, and Freedom: A New Light on Descartes’ Metaphysics, by defending freedom’s internal relation to reason, sheds new light on Descartes’ metaphysics and restores the often dismissed _Fourth Meditation_ to the core of his metaphysics as he conceived it. Implicit in that relation is a rejection of any authority external to reason. Andrea Christofidou shows how this lends strength and explanatory force to Descartes’ enquiry, and reveals his conception of the unity of the self and of its place in the world. Self, Reason, and Freedom: A New Light on Descartes’ Metaphysics is essential reading for students and scholars of Descartes and anyone studying seventeenth-century philosophy. (shrink)

People act for reasons. That is how we understand ourselves. But what is it to act for a reason? This is what Fred Schueler investigates. He rejects the dominant view that the beliefs and desires that constitute our reasons for acting simply cause us to act as we do, and argues instead for a view centred on practical deliberation--our ability to evaluate the reasons we accept. Schueler's account of 'reasons explanations' emphasizes the relation between reasons and purposes, and the (...) fact that the reasons for an action are not always good reasons. (shrink)

Aesthetic cognitivism is best thought of as a conjunction of an epistemic and an aesthetic claim. The epistemic thesis is that artworks have cognitive functions, the aesthetic thesis that cognitive functions of artworks partly determine their artistic value. In this article, my first aim is to defend the epistemic thesis of aesthetic cognitivism. Since it seems undeniable that artworks have cognitive functions, yet less clear whether they have them as artworks, I will focus on cognitive functions that plausibly belong to (...) the proper functions of artworks. My second aim is to sketch a suitable epistemological framework for aesthetic cognitivism. I will pursue my first aim by realizing my second aim and hence argue for the thesis that artworks have cognitive functions by sketching a suitable epistemological framework. In Section 1, I present reasons for conceiving of epistemology as a theory of understanding rather than a theory of knowledge. Art enters the stage only in Section 2, where I show that an epistemology of understanding can and should accommodate the cognitive functions aesthetic cognitivists claimed for artworks, hence providing a suitable epistemological framework. To argue in this way in favour of the claim that artworks have cognitive functions does not beg the question since my argument for an epistemology of understanding does not depend on my aim to defend the epistemic thesis of aesthetic cognitivism. In Section 3, I will answer some of the most pressing non-cognitivist objections within the proposed framework. (shrink)

Amidst the seemingly endless books on more and more narrowly specialized topics within politics, Mark Blitz offers something very different. Reason and Politics: The Nature of Political Phenomena examines the central phenomena of political life in order to clarify their meaning, source, and range. Blitz gives particular attention to the notions of freedom, rights, justice, virtue, power, property, nationalism, and the common good. At the same time, Blitz shows how, in order to understand political matters correctly, we must also (...) understand how they affect us directly. We do not merely theorize over political questions; we experience them. Blitz also considers matters such as the powers and motions of the soul, the nature of experience, and the varieties of pleasure and attachment. Living at a time when technological change makes it difficult even to claim convincingly that there are defining human characteristics and natural limits that we simply cannot change, Reason and Politics proposes that there are in fact basic phenomena not only in politics, but that make up human affairs as such. In examining these central phenomena in a lucid and articulate manner, this book makes a unique contribution not only to the study of politics but also to the study of philosophy more broadly. It will interest undergraduate and graduate students, political scientists and philosophers, those interested in politics, and general readers"-- Back cover. (shrink)

An important part of what it means for agents to be situated in the everyday world of human affairs includes their engagement with economic practices. In this paper we employ the concept of cognitive institutions in order to provide an enactive and interactive interpretation of market and economic reasoning. We challenge traditional views that understand markets in terms of market structures or as processors of distributed information. The alternative conception builds upon the notion of the market as a ‘scaffolding institution’. (...) Introducing the concept of market as a ‘socially extended’ cognitive institution we go beyond the notion of scaffolding to provide an enactive view of economic reasoning that understands the market participant in terms of social interactive processes and relational autonomy. Markets are more than inert devices for information processing; they can be viewed as ‘highly scaffolded’, where strong constraints and incentives predictably direct agents’ behavior. Building on this idea we argue that markets emerge from (a) the economic interaction of both supply and demand sides, in continual and mutual interplay, and (b) more basic social interactions. Consumer behavior in the marketplace is complex, not only determining the market price, but also extending the consumer’s cognitive processes to reliably attain a correct evaluation of the good. Moreover, this economic reasoning is socially situated and not something done in isolation from other consumers From a socially situated, interactive point of view buying or not buying a good is something that enacts the market. This shifts the status of markets from external institutions that merely causally affect participants’ cognitive processes to social institutions that constitutively extend these cognitive processes. On this view the constraints imposed by social interactions, as well as the possibilities enabled by such interactions, are such that economic reasoning is never just an individual process carried out by an autonomous individual, classically understood. In this regard, understanding the concept of relational autonomy allows us to see how economic reasoning is always embodied, embedded in, and scaffolded by intersubjective interactions, and how such interactions make the market what it is. (shrink)

In this era of increased polarization of opinion and contentious disagreement, CRITICAL REASONING presents a cooperative approach to critical thinking and formation of beliefs. CRITICAL REASONING emphasizes the importance of developing and applying analytical skills in real life contexts. This book is unique in providing multiple, diverse examples of everyday arguments, both textual and visual, including hard to find long argument passages from real-life sources. The book provides clear, step-by-step procedures to help you decide for yourself what to believe--to be (...) a consumer of information in our contemporary "world of experts.". (shrink)