In her essay, “After de Brosses” (2017), Rosalind C. Morris briefly considers the historical importance of the concept of the fetish on the relatively recent movements of new materialism, but she does not engage with Speculative Realism and Object-Oriented Ontology. This essay addresses this gap and focuses on the influence of the fetish on Speculative Realism and Object-Oriented Ontology by focusing on Graham Harman’s conception of objects and Quentin Meillassoux’s theory of arche-fossils. In short, I am offering a posthumanist theorization (...) of the fetish in order to argue that Object-Oriented Ontology can be considered, at points, to be a fetish-oriented ontology and that this notion of the fetish allows us to think about philosophical considerations of objects in a new light. (shrink)

This article investigates the ‘discursive notion’ of communication technology, as embedded in the discussion of mediatization. Instead of focusing on the technical structure of media and its impact on society, I will alternatively turn my attention to its symbolic dimension. I will look beyond the surface of the symbolic, by questioning how this dimension has been discursively created. As such, I suggest using the term ‘discursive notion’, as discourse also refers to power relations. The analysis of the discursive notion relating (...) to the internet in Morocco is developed through the critical approach of postcolonial theory. This is done with the aim of dissecting the construction of colonial discourse, and in order to show how specific power relations continue to function to present. (shrink)

This paper begins by examining Erich Fromm’s “Manifesto and Program” written for the Socialist Party in 1959 or 1960, and addresses a simple question: Why would Fromm speak of something so apparently arcane as “prophetic messianism,” in his socialist program? When he insists that we have forgotten thatsocialism is “rooted in the spiritual tradition which came to us from prophetic messianism, the gospels, humanism, and from the enlightenment philosophers,” is this simply a literary flourish, a concession to liberalism, or religious (...) sentimentality? Part I, written by Nick Braune, answers the question by examining Fromm’ssocialist organizing commitments in the context of the late 1950s. Part II, written by Joan Braune, offers further defense of the term “prophetic messianism,” distinguishes two types of messianism, and suggests that Fromm may be attempting to address a problem in the Frankfurt School. (shrink)

In A Metaphysics for Freedom, Helen Steward argues that agents settle things when they act, and that in order for agents to settle things, the universe must be indeterministic. Steward suggests a ‘weak’ account of settling, on which settling is compatible with determinism, but she rightly claims that this weak account is unacceptable. In this paper, I argue that the weak account of settling is not the best account of settling available to the compatibilist. In the first part of this (...) paper, I present a ‘strong’ compatibilist account of settling, and argue that this account avoids the problems faced by the weak account. In the second part of this paper, I argue against Steward's claim that compatibilist accounts of settling must depend on the truth of causal theories of action. (shrink)

A clear and concise account of the metaphysical concept of world, its possibilities and limitations, from Kant to Derrida.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNGDer Aufsatz geht davon aus, dass Charles Taylors viel beachtetes Werk Ein säkulares Zeitalter neben verschiedenen anderen Erkenntnisinteressen auch auf eine ›religionsphilosophische Rehabilitierung der christlichen Religion‹ zielt. Es wird darum das Verfahren, mit dem Taylor dabei zu Werke geht, auf seine argumentativen Gehalte hin rekonstruiert und auf einige neuralgische Punkte aufmerksam gemacht. Die wesentliche These ist dabei, dass – unbeschadet aller Errungenschaften des Buchs – Fragen der Geltung in Taylors Religionsphilosophie letztlich zu kurz kommen.SUMMARYThe article assumes that Charles Taylor's highly (...) acclaimed A Secular Age attempts, in addition to several other interests, to offer a ›religio-philosophical rehabilitation of the Christian religion‹. Therefore, Taylor's chain of reasoning is reconstructed in regards to its argumentative content and attention is drawn to some critical points of his approach. In sum, the article's main thesis is that – notwithstanding all the achievements of Taylor's A Secular Age – questions of the validity in Taylor's philosophy of religion ultimately come up too short. (shrink)

Reichenbach’s ‘principle of the common cause’ is a foundational assumption of some important recent contributions to quantitative social science methodology but no similar principle appears in econometrics. Angrist et al. has argued that the principle is necessary for instrumental variables methods in econometrics, and Angrist Krueger builds a framework using it that he proposes as a means of resolving an important methodological dispute among econometricians. Through analysis of instrumental variables methods and the issue of multicollinearity, we aim to show that (...) the relationship of the principle to econometric methods is more nuanced than implied by previous work but nevertheless may make a valuable contribution to the coherence and validity of existing methods. (shrink)

From the publisher: "This book is a lucid and accessible companion to Plato’s Republic, throwing light upon the text’s arguments and main themes, placing them in the wider context of the text’s structure. In its illumination of the philosophical ideas underpinning the work, it provides readers with an understanding and appreciation of the complexity and literary artistry of Plato’s Republic. McAleer not only unpacks the key overarching questions of the text – What is justice? And Is a just life happier (...) than an unjust life? – but also highlights some fascinating, overlooked passages which contribute to our understanding of Plato’s philosophical thought.". (shrink)

A short core model induction proof of $\mathsf {AD}^{L(\mathbb {R})}$ from $\mathsf {TD} + \mathsf {DC}_{\mathbb {R}}$.

Prompted by Derrida's work on the animal-fable in eighteenth-century debates about political power, this article examines the role played by the fiction of the animal in thinking of pity as either a natural virtue (in Rousseau's Second Discourse) or as a natural passion (in Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees). The war of fables between Rousseau and Mandeville – and their hostile reception by Samuel Johnson and Adam Smith – reinforce that the animal-fable illustrates not so much the proper of (...) man as the possibilities and limitations of a moral philosophy that is unable to address the political realities of the state. (shrink)

We prove covering theorems for K, where K is the core model below the sharp for a strong cardinal, and give an application to stationary set reflection.

Many commentators now view Quine's ‘Truth by Convention’ as a flawed criticism of Carnap. Gary Ebbs argued recently that Quine never intended Carnap as his target. Quine's criticisms were part of his attempt to work out his own scientific naturalism. I agree that Carnap was not Quine's target but object that Quine's criticisms were wholly internal to his own philosophy. Instead, I argue that C.I. Lewis held the kind of truth‐by‐convention thesis that Quine rejects. This, however, leaves Carnap out of (...) the picture. I then show how Quine came to see the earlier criticisms as also having force against Carnap. (shrink)

What place, if any, moral principles should or do have in moral life has been a longstanding question f or moral philosophy. For some, the proposition that moral philosophy should strive to articulate moral principles has been an article of faith. At least since Aristotle, however, there has been a rieh counter-tradition that questions the possibility or value of trying to capture morality in principled terms. In recent years, philosophers who question principled approaches to morality have argued under the banner (...) of moral particularism. Particularists can be found in diverse areas of philosophical inquiry, and their positions and arguments are of broad interest. Despite its importance, a proper evaluation of particularism has been hindered both by the diversity of arguments employed to defend it, and, perhaps more significantly, by the diversity of positions that can fairly claim to be particularist. (shrink)

Moral particularists are united in their opposition to the codification of morality, and their work poses an important challenge to traditional ways of thinking about moral philosophy. Defenders of moral particularism have, with near unanimity, sought support from a doctrine they call “holism in the theory of reasons.” We argue that this is all a mistake. There are two ways in which holism in the theory of reasons can be understood, but neither provides any support for moral particularism. Moral particularists (...) are united in their opposition to the codification of morality in purely descriptive terms, but their opposition takes different forms. Sometimes particularists maintain that codifying the moral landscape is impossible. In other contexts particularists argue that moral principles are in any event unnecessary. In yet other contexts particularists contend that the codification of morality is undesirable, perhaps because it would encourage people to look less carefully at the case at hand.1 These are distinct theses, although particularists often endorse all three. As Jonathan Dancy, citing John McDowell puts it, “Particularism is at its crudest the claim that we neither need nor can see the search for an ‘evaluative outlook which one can endorse as rational as the search for a set of principles.’”2 On any interpretation, particularism poses an important challenge for traditional conceptions of moral philosophy.. (shrink)

Ethics, Policy & Environment, Volume 15, Issue 1, Page 51-56, March 2012.

Particularism takes an extremely ecumenical view of what considerations might count as reasons and thereby threatens to ‘flatten the moral landscape’ by making it seem that there is no deep difference between, for example, pain, and shoelace color. After all, particularists have claimed, either could provide a reason provided a suitable moral context. To avoid this result, some particularists draw a distinction between default and non-default reasons. The present paper argues that all but the most deflationary ways of drawing this (...) distinction are either implausible or else insufficient to help the particularist avoid flattening the moral landscape. The difficulty can be avoided, however, if we reject particularism's extremely ecumenical view of reasons. (shrink)

A central theme of the unified framework for addiction advanced by Redish et al. is that there exists a common value or incentive process controlling Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning. Here we briefly review evidence from a variety of sources demonstrating that these incentive processes are in fact independent. Clearly the influence of Pavlovian predictors and goal values on choice offer distinct potential targets for pathologies of decision-making.

The present chapter attempts to resolve a puzzle about normative testimony. On the one hand, agents act on the advice of others, advice which purports to tell them what they have reason to do. When they do so, they can act for good reason. This thought, though, sits uneasily with another: that the mere fact that someone has advised a course of action is not itself a reason. An interesting view of reasons recently defended by Stephen Kearns and Daniel Star (...) offers a resolution to the puzzle. On this view, reasons are evidence, specifically evidence concerning what one ought to do. If they are correct, then sufficiently good advice is, it turns out, itself a reason, and it is then no puzzle that an agent who acts on such advice is acting for a good reason. The chapter argues that this account of reasons is subject to counterexamples. There are reasons which are not evidence and evidence which is not a reason. This view of reasons cannot therefore hold the key to solving the puzzle of normative testimony. The solution to the puzzle of normative testimony lies instead in a more careful account of what it is to act for a reason. Such an account can preserve both the intuition that advice is not an independent reason and the thought that agents who act on sound advice act for good reason. The account also explains how agents can act for “elusive reasons.” These are facts which are reasons but which would not be if the agent became sufficiently aware of them. (shrink)

Many recent discussions of psychopaths have centered on the question of whether they can express ill-will when they act, a capacity which is generally taken to be required for moral blameworthiness. However, the debate over ill-will currently stands at an impasse; the participants are in substantial agreement as to which attitudes psychopaths can express, but disagree as to which attitudes count as ill-will. I argue that this impasse reflects an underlying, implicit disagreement as to which features of actions are wrong-making. (...) By uncovering this implicit disagreement and addressing it head-on, we should be able to break the impasse. (shrink)

Cicero's letters are saturated with learned philosophical allusions and arguments. This innovative study shows just how fundamental these are for understanding Cicero's philosophical activities and for explaining the enduring interest of his ethical and political thought. Dr McConnell draws particular attention to Cicero's treatment of Plato's Seventh Letter and his views on the relationship between philosophy and politics. He also illustrates the various ways in which Cicero finds philosophy an appealing and effective mode of self-presentation and a congenial, pointed medium (...) for talking to his peers about ethical and political concerns. The book offers a range of fresh insights into the impressive scope and sophistication of Cicero's epistolary and philosophical practice and the vibrancy of the philosophical environment of the first century BC. A new picture emerges of Cicero the philosopher and philosophy's place in Roman political culture. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas's Totality and Infinity (1961) is explicitly con cerned with the suppression of the voice of the Other by the synoptic totalizations of the voice of western philosophy. Levinas contests this emergence of Being and the systems of totality it indicates with the irruption of the face of the other, which signifies through contact and sensibility the presence of infinity within the human situation. Derrida's reading of this fundamental testing of western ontology rests on the accusation that western philosophy (...) already has a term for this: empiricism. That is, Derrida exposes an alien voice within Levinas's exposure of the voice alienated from ontological formulations. In the later Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (1974) Levinas implic itly recognizes the truth of Derrida's demonstration of a residual con ceptualism, and shifts from the thematization of infinite exteriority given by the Other, alterity and the face-to-face relation, to the search for a signifyingness that will breach the noema's identificational closure, that is, to the direct and exposed gesture of saying. Both the limit terms of Totality and Infinity and the response they produced in Derrida have become the starting-point of Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence: the testimony that is irreducible to a thematizing knowledge. What saves this saying from becoming in its turn another theme is that, in addition to its acting in the text, it acts upon and as HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES Vol. 10 No. 3 © 1997 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi) [0952-6951(199708)10:3] the text. The vocabulary, form of composition and mode of address of Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence strain against their inherited limits. And the work this obliges the reader to undergo is, of course, an ethical necessity, given the work's message. (shrink)

This commentary shall focus on the central claim made in Lynch et al.’s paper “Promoting Ethical Payment in Human Infection Challenge Studies.” According to their paper, there is a threefold...

This article explores one of the key themes of Hans J. Morgenthau's moral theory, the concept of the lesser evil. Morgenthau developed this concept by reference to classical political theory, especially the articulation of the lesser evil found in Aristotle and Epicurus. The article begins by differentiating Morgenthau's work from that of E. H. Carr, whom he regards as engaged in a Quixotic quest to provide Machiavellism with greater ethical purpose. The article also contrasts the ethics of the lesser evil (...) with Kantian ethics. Morgenthau places the lesser evil in the context of a modernity that has lost the capacity to think about the relationship between politics and morality and stresses the importance of coming to grips with the existential demands of love and power. Finally, the article argues that despite the ubiquity of evil, the existence of the lesser evil gives rise to the development of specifically political virtues such as prudence and moderation which raise the possibility of moral politics beyond mere expedience. (shrink)

We prove a variety of theorems about stationary set reflection and concepts related to internal approachability. We prove that an implication of Fuchino–Usuba relating stationary reflection to a version of Strong Chang’s Conjecture cannot be reversed; strengthen and simplify some results of Krueger about forcing axioms and approachability; and prove that some other related results of Krueger are sharp. We also adapt some ideas of Woodin to simplify and unify many arguments in the literature involving preservation of forcing axioms.

Commonsense psychological explanation of action upon objects seems to require not only reference to agents’ demonstrative beliefs about the objects acted upon but also the de re ascription of these demonstrative beliefs. There is an influential objection, however, to the de re component: since de re ascriptions permit the attribution to agents of inconsistent attitudes about the objects acted upon, they cannot explain (or predict) agents’ actions upon those objects. This paper answers the objection by presenting a contextualist theory of (...) de re action explanation according to which agents’ beliefs about objects are logically fragmented. (shrink)

This article examines whether vision in Plato’s Timaeus can realize its primary function of permitting humans to stabilize their misaligned orbits of intelligence by getting to know the universe’s orbits as revealed through the heavenly bodies’ movements. I consider a concern that Timaeus, while seemingly requiring nocturnal vision for this purpose, appears to preclude its possibility, thereby threatening the dialogue’s internal coherence. I then argue that Timaeus has the resources to overcome this worry and to provide a philosophically cogent account (...) of nocturnal vision. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap is well known for his attack on metaphysics, and W. V. Quine is equally well known for his attack on Carnap’s analytic/synthetic distinction. Receiving far less attention is their basic agreement that a properly scientific approach to philosophy should eliminate the metaphysical excesses of the past. This paper aims to remedy this. It focuses initially on the development of Carnap’s rejection of metaphysics from 1932 to 1950 and the role that analyticity plays. It then turns to Quine, emphasizing (...) his basic agreement with Carnap over the elimination of metaphysics and what this looks like without the analytic/synthetic distinction. (shrink)

This paper argues against the sufficiency of Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense, as presented in God, freedom, and evil as a response to the logical problem of evil. I begin by introducing the fundamental issues present in the problem of evil and proceed to present Plantinga’s response. Next, I argue that, despite the argument’s wide acceptance in the field, a central notion to the defense, transworld depravity, is internally inconsistent and that attempts to resolve the problem would result in an (...) abandonment of the original terms of the discussion. Finally, I consider some potential alternatives for a free will defense beyond the one presented by Plantinga and conclude that the logical problem of evil may have more worth as a philosophical topic than has been thought in recent years. (shrink)

Tough Choices: Bringing Moral Issues Home is a unique resource for use in Catholic high schools and parish religious education or youth ministry programs. It provides concrete ways for teenagers to learn about, apply, and make choices involving a number of current and practical moral issues. However, the real uniqueness of the material is that it suggests ways for these dilemmas to be shared and discussed between the teens and their parents. How so?

Against the prevalent trend in eco-criticism which is to deny the human difference, I summon a set of untimely tropes from metaphysics in the interest of advancing an ecological humanism: the difference in kind between human consciousness and animal sensibility; the uniquely human capacity for moral discernment; and the human being’s peculiar freedom from the material conditions of existence. While I agree with eco-critics who argue that anthropocenic nature is not only finite, but sick: sickened by our abuse and neglect, (...) I disagree that this abuse is simply a result of insisting on the human difference, nor is species egalitarianism the way forward. On the contrary, the eco-collapse, referred to as the sixth great extinction event, is the consequence of a general disavowal of the human’s special call to take responsibility for the relation between the human and the non-human, and only a re-awakening of this responsibility can restore health to anthropocenic nature. The non-human cannot effect this restoration, for that is not its vocation. A difference in vocation is not necessarily a difference in moral worth, and so the human difference does not justify denying the “intrinsic value” of the non-human. Humanity is uniquely responsible both for the mess we are in and for cleaning it up. (shrink)

I argue that a virtue ethics takes virtue to be more basic than rightness and at least as basic as goodness. My account is Aristotelian because it avoids the excessive inclusivity of Martha Nussbaum's account and the deficient inclusivity of Gary Watson's account. I defend the account against the objection that Aristotle does not have a virtue ethics by its lights, and conclude with some remarks on moral taxonomy.

The modern lawyer operates within a conception of law as a body of rules. To confront the law of contract, of torts, or of property, is to familiarize oneself with an intricate set of rules. Such familiarity is not yet legal scholarship, much less legal practice. For in order to use the rules as lawyers use them, the rules must be contemplated and considered, and the relationship between the different rules must be understood. Because the intellectual processes involved in handling (...) the rules exhibit a high degree of sophistication, those intellectual processes may themselves become the subject matter of philosophical argument. Thus we may regard jurisprudential theories as embodying differing understandings of the processes of handling legal rules; and we may conceive of legal theory as the attempt to grasp the moral significance of rules as a foundation for social order. This essay shall offer some thoughts on the relationship between the rule of law, considered as a moral ideal, and the notion of rules as the principal means by which legal order is manifested. (shrink)