Naturalism is the current orthodoxy in analytic philosophy. Naturalism is the conjunction of the (ontological) claim that all that truly exists are the entities countenanced by the natural sciences and the (epistemological) claim that the only true knowledge is natural-scientific knowledge. Drawing on some recent work in Critical Theory, this article argues that naturalism qualifies as an ideology. This is the case because naturalism meets three key aspects shared by paradigmatic cases of ideology: (i) naturalism has practical consequences and implications (...) of a specific kind, (ii) those endorsing naturalism fall prey to a dual deception: having false meta-level beliefs about naturalism as being without alternative, and (iii) naturalism has a tendency towards self-immunisation. The article ends by suggesting we pull naturalism out of our collective cognitive backgrounds onto the main stage of critical discourse, making it a proper topic for philosophical critique again. (shrink)

There is a close conceptual relation between the notions of religious disenchantment and scientific naturalism. One way of resisting philosophical and cultural implications of the scientific image and the subsequent process of disenchantment can be found in attempts at sketching a reenchanted worldview. The main issue of accounts of reenchantment can be a rejection of scientific results in a way that flies in the face of good reason. Opposed to such reenchantment is scientific naturalism which implies an entirely disenchanted worldview. (...) However, one of the main problems of scientific naturalism are placement problems. A reenchanted worldview does have the conceptual resources to avoid placement problems, yet seems to throw out the baby with the bathwater. A dilemma results: the Scylla of an undesirable scientific naturalism and the Charybdis of a rampant, seemingly prescientific reenchanted worldview. In this article I argue that there is a safe middle passage between these two options, i.e. the recently proposed liberal naturalism which allows for a moderate normative reenchantment. Liberal naturalism lets us have it both ways: avoiding the placement problems while retaining a necessary and reasonable adherence to science, thereby avoiding both an all-too restrictive scientific naturalism. (shrink)

Lookism refers to discrimination based on physical attractiveness or the lack thereof. A whole host of empirical research suggests that lookism is a pervasive and systematic form of social discrimination. Yet, apart from some attention in ethics and political philosophy, lookism has been almost wholly overlooked in philosophy in general and epistemology in particular. This is particularly salient when compared to other forms of discrimination based on race or gender which have been at the forefront of epistemic injustice as a (...) topic of research. This paper argues that lookism is associated with various forms of epistemic injustice. In the specific case of lookism, hermeneutic injustice takes the shape of the taboo of acknowledging that unattractive people are unattractive. This, on the one hand, results in a hampered understanding of one’s own situation insofar as one is deterred from seeing one’s looks as one major factor for one’s social position. On the other hand, this hermeneutic injustice serves as the backdrop of instances of a special kind testimonial injustice in which the ugly person’s burgeoning realization that their looks influence their social standing detrimentally is discounted due to the pejorative nature of ascribing someone the property of being unattractive or ugly. (shrink)

While Wittgenstein’s work has been extensively investigated in relation to many other important and influential philosophers, there is very little scholarly work that positively investigates the relationship between the work of Wittgenstein and Wilhelm Dilthey. To the contrary, some commentators like Hacker (2001a) suggest that Dilthey’s work (and that of other hermeneuticists) simply pales or is obsolete in comparison to Wittgenstein’s own insights. Against such assessments, this article posits that Wittgenstein’s and Dilthey’s thought most crucially intersects at the related topics (...) of scientism on the one hand and scientific and philosophical method on the other. In reconstructing Dilthey’s conceptions of understanding versus explaining and central points of Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, it becomes apparent that they share a staunch rejection of scientism and use the notion of understanding as a means to prevent methodologies from the natural sciences encroaching onto the human sciences (in Dilthey’s case) and philosophy (in Wittgenstein’s case). Notwithstanding a number of central ways in which these thinkers differ, this article closes by suggesting that there is some evidence according to which Wittgenstein, like Dilthey, can reasonably be understood as championing some central tenets of the hermeneutical tradition. (shrink)

Loneliness is commonly conceived of as a topic under the purview of psychology. Empirical research on loneliness utilizes a definition of psychology as essentially subjective, i.e. as a first-personal mental property an individual can have. As a first-personal mental property, subjects have, as it were, privileged access to their state of being lonely. Rehearsing some well-known arguments from later Wittgenstein, I argue that loneliness – contrary to an unargued assumption present in several academic engagements – is not subjective in the (...) sense that whether or not a person is lonely does not in all cases hinge on that person’s subjective mental states. This becomes apparent when considering cases of alienation from self-knowledge (Moran 2001). Using Heidegger’s notion of being-in-the-world and being-with I argue that such cases from alienation point towards the notion that loneliness is not merely a subjective feeling, but a categorically different privation of the fundamental mode of being with others. (shrink)

There is an unresolved stand-off between ontological naturalism and phenomenological thought regarding the question whether normativity can be reduced to physical entities. While the ontological naturalist line of thought is well established in analytic philosophy, the phenomenological reasoning for the irreducibility of normativity has been largely left ignored by proponents of naturalism. Drawing on the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Schütz, Stein and others, I reconstruct a phenomenological argument according to which natural science (as the foundation of naturalization projects) is itself (...) a part of the essentially normative life-world to the effect that ontological naturalism faces a bootstrapping problem. I aim to demonstrate that this stand-off is grounded in a deep disagreement about the possibility of reduction. I close by arguing that this deep disagreement turns on the question which conception about the nature of (natural) science is true. This result pits a perfectionist model of science (implied by ontological naturalism) against a pragmatist conception of science (in favour of the phenomenological argument). The motivation is that transforming the disagreement about the controversial principle into a disagreement about conceptions of science may help to offer a foundation for different attempts at solving the stand-off. (shrink)

There is an unresolved stand-off between ontological naturalism and phenomenological thought regarding the question whether normativity can be reduced to physical entities. While the ontological naturalist line of thought is well established in analytic philosophy, the phenomenological reasoning for the irreducibility of normativity has been largely left ignored by proponents of naturalism. Drawing on the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Schütz, Stein and others, I reconstruct a phenomenological argument according to which natural science (as the foundation of naturalization projects) is itself (...) a part of the essentially normative life-world to the effect that ontological naturalism faces a bootstrapping problem. I aim to demonstrate that this stand-off is grounded in a deep disagreement about the possibility of reduction. I close by arguing that this deep disagreement turns on the question which conception about the nature of (natural) science is true. This result pits a perfectionist model of science (implied by ontological naturalism) against a pragmatist conception of science (in favour of the phenomenological argument). The motivation is that transforming the disagreement about the controversial principle into a disagreement about conceptions of science may help to offer a foundation for different attempts at solving the stand-off. (shrink)

This paper argues that the current discourse on epistemic injustice in social epistemology itself perpetuates epistemic injustice, namely hermeneutic injustice with regards to class and classism. The main reason is that debates on epistemic injustice have foremost focussed on issues related to gender, race, and disability while mostly ignoring class issues. I suggest that this is due to (largely unwarranted) fears about looming class reductionism. More importantly, this is omission is not innocuous, but problematic insofar as it has an unlikely (...) ally in neoliberal propaganda which features as one main goal stifling class consciousness. While this “allyship” is unwitting, this presents grounds for the discourse of epistemic injustice to consider re-centring class issues and classism. (shrink)

This paper argues that the current discourse on epistemic injustice in social epistemology itself perpetuates epistemic injustice, namely hermeneutic injustice with regards to class and classism. The main reason is that debates on epistemic injustice have foremost focussed on issues related to gender, race, and disability while mostly ignoring class issues. I suggest that this is due to (largely unwarranted) fears about looming class reductionism. More importantly, this is omission is not innocuous, but problematic insofar as it has an unlikely (...) ally in neoliberal propaganda which features as one main goal stifling class consciousness. While this “allyship” is unwitting, this presents grounds for the discourse of epistemic injustice to consider re-centring class issues and classism. (shrink)

This paper gives a first theoretical formulation to a religious phenomenon which has not received much attention in philosophical discourse so far despite appearing in different highly heterogeneous religions. Vicarious religious ordinance refers to cases in which a living or deceased fully mature human being is knowingly or unknowingly assigned a religious affiliation without their consent or the consent of their dependents. I shall first offer three real-world examples of vicarious religious ordinance from Mormonism, Islam, and Shintoism and then raise (...) some normative concerns. I suggest (i) that vicarious religious ordinance does not fit neatly into current debates about religious epistemology, especially the recent debate on religious disagreement. I argue (ii) that normative questions as to why vicarious religious ordinance elicits indignation in its ‘victims’ is not easily explained through adducing similar examples. This paper aims to motivate further coordinated research on this topic. (shrink)

This paper deals with Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox, focussing on the infinite rule-regress as featured in Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. I argue that one of the most salient and popular proposed solutions (championed by John McDowell), which argues that rule-following is grounded in “custom,” “practice” or “form of life, remains unsatisfactory because part of this proposal is the rejection of further “theory” (commonly attributed to Wittgenstein) which seemingly makes it impossible to substantiate the claim of how customs, practices (...) or forms of life ground rule-following. I argue that this conundrum can be solved by introducing Wilhelm Dilthey’s overlooked notion of objective spirit as the objectivated sediment of historical human communality. This proposal allows us to substantiate Wittgenstein’s hints at the connection between rule-following and customs, practices, and forms of life without introducing “problematic theories.” Combining Wittgenstein’s views with Dilthey’s notion of objective spirit results in a solution that is neither skeptical nor straight, but therapeutic. (shrink)

Varying forms of ontological and methodological naturalism are among the most popular theses in contemporary philosophy. However, each of these theses faces a different dilemma: ontological naturalism is famously challenged by Hempel’s dilemma, while methodological naturalism faces issues regarding its coherence. Some prominent naturalists (Elpidorou and Dove 2018, Ney 2009, Rea 2002) have suggested to circumvent these respective dilemmas by reconceiving naturalism as an attitude (rather than a thesis). This paper argues that such attitude accounts are unsuccessful: naturalism as an (...) attitude either collapses into a thesis again or is rationally unjustifiable. This paper closes by suggesting two options a naturalist has remaining. Either a naturalist can reasonably choose to revert to defending naturalism as a thesis; given that naturalism receives substantial support, it is not unlikely that a solution to the problems encountered by naturalism qua thesis is forthcoming. Or a naturalist might simply want to embrace an a-rational form of naturalism as a worldview, as suggested by Kim (2003) and Stoljar (2010) (and earlier by thinkers like Dilthey 1960 and Jaspers1925). (shrink)

Conspiracy theories are currently all the rage in philosophy and broader intellectual culture. One of the most common background assumptions in the discourse on conspiracy theories is that conspiracy theorists exhibit certain epistemic vices in the sense of cognitive misconduct. This epistemic vice is mostly seen as a form of irrationality; the corresponding “remedy”, as suggested by some commentators, is a return to the ideals of the Enlightenment. This article argues that this idea is wrongheaded. Upon closer inspection, it becomes (...) clear that conspiracy theorists are actually motivated by the rational Enlightenment ideal of self-thinking in the first place. In contrast to the standard discourse, the article posits that conspiracism is based on a certain form of social scepticism, according to which conspiracy theorists radically mistrust a certain form of expert testimony, namely “official” statements. This form of social scepticism in turn facilitates a naive appropriation of the Enlightenment ideal of self-thinking. The article closes by drawing connections to the ethical and epistemological debate on trust and offers the pessimistic assessment that there are no easy solutions based on individual epistemic virtues. (shrink)

Some video games are said to be philosophical. Despite video games having received some attention in academic philosophy, that contention has not been sufficiently addressed. This paper investigates in what sense video games might be properly called “philosophical”. To this end, I utilize Wittgenstein’s distinction between saying and showing to get into view how some video games might be properly called philosophical. This leads to two senses of being philosophical: a conventional sense of expressing philosophy through propositions, i.e., through saying, (...) and a sense of being genuinely philosophical by expressing philosophical thought through showing. I argue that the conventional sense is not sufficient to call video games philosophical, leaving the question whether there are video games which satisfy the conditions of being genuinely philosophical. I furthermore contend that there are at least some examples of video games which qualify as being philosophical, e.g., Papers, Please and The Stanley Parable. (shrink)

Different forms of methodological and ontological naturalism constitute the current near-orthodoxy in analytic philosophy. Many prominent figures have called naturalism a image, a Weltanschauung, or even a “philosophical ideology”. This suggests that naturalism is indeed something over-and-above an ordinary philosophical thesis. However, these thinkers fail to tease out the host of implications this idea – naturalism being a worldview – presents. This paper draws on remarks of Dilthey and Jaspers on the concept of worldviews in order to demonstrate that naturalism (...) as a worldview is a presuppositional background assumption which is left untouched by arguments against naturalism as a thesis. The concluding plea is to re-organize the existing debate on naturalism in a way that treats naturalism not as a first-order philosophical claim, but rather shifts its focus on naturalism’s status as a worldview. (shrink)

While shame and embarrassment have received significant attention in philosophy and psychology, cringe (also sometimes called ‘vicarious embarrassment’ and ‘vicarious shame’) has received little thought. This is surprising as the relatively new genre of cringe comedy has seen a meteoric rise since the early 2000s. In this paper, I aim to offer a novel characterization of cringe as a hostile social emotion which turns out to be closer to disgust and horror than to shame or embarrassment, thus disclosing ‘vicarious shame’ (...) and ‘vicarious embarrassment’ to be misnomers. The closing part offers an explanation as to why cringe and cringe comedy in particular have become recently more relevant: cringe allows one to express hostility and disgust (often at other forms of life) in a nonviolent manner which fits perfectly well within the permissible boundaries of tolerance set up in liberal Western democracies since the second half of the 20th century. (shrink)

Is Naturalism Coherent? Naturalism is the philosophical orthodoxy of the late 20th and early 21st century. However, the content of naturalism is unclear. I aim to demonstrate that naturalism cannot be formulated coherently. I offer two main arguments. First, naturalism presupposes the unity of science thesis; but the unity of science thesis has come under serious attack. But even if the naturalist successfully entitles herself to the unity of science thesis, naturalism is still subject to an argument from incoherence. First, (...) I reconstruct naturalism as the conjunction of a methodological and ontological theme. The ontological theme of naturalism states that only those things truly exist which can be accounted for by physical science. The methodological theme asserts that “philosophy is continuous with science”. While this can be interpreted in different ways, it is often taken to state that philosophy should only make statements that can be countenanced by the standpoint of science. Second, I demonstrate that this common construal has the underlying tacit assumption of the unity of science. The unity of science claims that: the entities and laws of the special sciences can be reduced to a master science, commonly identified as physics. Third, I briefly rehearse two lessons from Fodor and Horgan. Fodor convincingly argued against the inter-level reducibility of special science laws to the laws of physics. Horgan´s argument starts with the observation that a sensible version of reductive physicalism has to be cashed out in terms of supervenience. He then goes on to argue that no available conception of supervenience captures the reductive ambitions of physicalism. Hence, the naturalist simply cannot entitle herself to an uncontroversial notion of the unity of science that is presupposed by naturalism. However, and fourth, even if the naturalist can establish the unity of science thesis, it is subject to an argument from incoherence. I take a cue from the coherence problem of the “empiricist criterion of meaning” in logical positivism, and apply it to the naturalist doctrine. The methodological commitment states that in philosophy only those claims can be made which are countenanced from the standpoint of the natural sciences. This is the standard for philosophical practice set by naturalism. And naturalism is itself a philosophical thesis. However, both commitments of naturalism fall short of this standard. The ontological commitment states that, in effect, the only things that really exist are those entities that are accepted and posited by physics. But this claim itself does not qualify as a piece of natural science since it transcends the bounds of what natural science investigates. Similarly, the methodological commitment cannot be countenanced from the standpoint of natural science. The claim that philosophical practice should only include statements that can be countenanced from the standpoint of natural science, is itself not a statement that is countenanced by natural science. Since this standard was set by naturalism qua methodological commitment, I conclude that naturalism turns out to be an incoherent doctrine. Bibliography Fodor, Jerry : “Special Sciences,” Synthese 28:2, 97-115. Horgan, Terence : “From supervenience to superdupervenience: meeting the demands of a material world,” Mind 102, 555-586. Quine, Williard v. O. : Word and Object, MIT Press. (shrink)

Two opposed movements of thought threaten philosophy as an autonomous practice from the inside: scientific naturalism and quietism. Naturalism (qua methodological thesis) threatens to turn philosophy into a mere ancilla of the sciences, quietism understood as the prescription to remain silent in philosophy would not countenance any more "positive" philosophy. This book reconstructs naturalism and quietism such that it becomes clear naturalism does have the potential to end philosophy as an autonomous practice and that quietism, correctly understood, does not. To (...) this end, this book provides arguments against the prevailing orthodox status of naturalism and a heterogenous reading of Wittgenstein's metaphilosophical quietism as the rejection of a certain kind of theories in philosophy, namely quasi-scientific theories. (shrink)

In this article I argue that the kind of scientific naturalism that tends to underwrite projects of naturalizing religion operates with a tacit conception of nature which, upon closer inspection, t...

This volume explores the connections between John McDowell's philosophy and the hermeneutic tradition. The contributions not only explore the hermeneutical aspects of McDowell's thought, but also asks how this reading of McDowell can inform the hermeneutical tradition itself. John McDowell has made important contributions to debates in epistemology, metaethics and philosophy of language, and his readings of Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein have proved widely influential. While there are instances in which McDowell draws upon the work of hermeneutic thinkers, the (...) hermeneutic strand of McDowell's philosophy has not yet been systematically explored in-depth. The chapters in this volume open up a space in which to read McDowell himself as a hermeneutic thinker. They address several research questions including: How can McDowell's recourse to the hermeneutical tradition be understood in detail? Besides Gadamer, does McDowell's work implicitly convey and advance motives from other seminal figures of this tradition, such as Heidegger and Dilthey? Are there aspects of McDowell's position that can be enhanced through a juxtaposition with central hermeneutic concepts like World, Tradition and Understanding? Are there further, perhaps yet unexplored aspects of McDowell's influences that ought to be interpreted as expressing hermeneutic ideas? McDowell and the Hermeneutic Tradition will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in American philosophy, Continental philosophy, hermeneutics, history of philosophy, philosophy of language, and epistemology. (shrink)

In the New Testament the concept of self-control or voluntary restraint of one’s desires is highlighted as a “fruit of the Spirit,” a trait of the spiritually mature, and a hallmark of Christian leadership. But as a Christian virtue, self-control is a product of spiritual discipline, a trait for which the Christian must engage in “strict training.” This biblical theme has inspired a long history of Christian moral-spiritual practices aimed at cultivating self-mastery or strength of will. Here I discuss several (...) of these as found in the writings of the Desert Fathers, Augustine of Hippo, Julian of Norwich, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Thomas à Kempis, and John Wesley. Despite their theological diversity, these Christian thinkers are united in the belief that self-control can and ought to be intentionally nurtured via the systematic practice of self-denial. (shrink)

Bei Nietzsches Texten handelt es sich häufig um Reaktionen auf seine breitgestreuten Lektüren. Sein Lesen ist zugleich ein Schreiben, und es verläuft ebenso selektiv und assoziativ wie aneignend: So werden unter Nietzsches Hand etwa Lesefrüchte aus naturwissenschaftlichen Lexika ästhetischen Überlegungen einverleibt oder ethno-anthropologische Fachbücher im Kontext philosophiegeschichtlicher Einordnungsversuche zitiert. Die Interpretation von Nietzsches Schriften ist daher stets auf eine philologisch-differenzierte Quellenarbeit angewiesen, die zugleich auch philosophisch-hermeneutischen Ansprüchen genügt. Nur so findet die spezifische Gemengelage aus Eigenem und Fremdem in Nietzsches Texten (...) ebenso adäquate Berücksichtigung wie die Vielzahl der handschriftlichen Lesespuren in den bis heute erhaltenen Büchern aus seiner persönlichen Bibliothek. In einer Reihe von Überblicksdarstellungen und exemplarischen Fallstudien unternimmt es der Band, Nietzsche im Spiegel seiner Lektüren als äußerst produktiven wie kreativen Leser zu charakterisieren, dessen Voraussetzungsreichtum nicht überschätzt werden kann. (shrink)

John Macquarrie's Hensley Henson Lectures for 1993-94 delivered at the University of Oxford may serve two different but not mutually exclusive audiences. First, as a brief, concise, reliable, and yet not uncritical survey of Heidegger's thought from Being and Time through his later meditative thinking of Being, this book stands at the top of my list. Following a discussion of Heidegger's career and early writings, Macquarrie devotes two chapters to his major work, Being and Time. He makes it clear that (...) Heidegger was primarily concerned with developing a general ontology, not philosophical anthropology as many persons initially thought. The fourth chapter, entitled "Theology and Metaphysics," focuses in particular on the essay "What Is Metaphysics?" including the later postscript and introduction, Introduction to Metaphysics, and A Letter on Humanism. These works take up some of the issues unfinished in Heidegger's major work and point the way towards a more direct focus on the question of Being itself. Chapter 5 is concerned with Heidegger's reflections on thinghood, technology, and art showing his development beyond the primarily instrumental world of work in his early writings to a much richer, perhaps even spiritual conception of world. In chapter 6 Macquarrie discusses three closely related topics in Heidegger's later work, thinking, language, and poetry. Here we see Heidegger's progression beyond traditional philosophical and metaphysical thinking of Being to what he calls meditative thinking, a kind of thinking and speaking of Being that has much in common with poetic thinking and speaking and an understanding of Being that finds parallels in some western and eastern mystical traditions. For the title of his seventh chapter, Macquarrie chooses the title of the well-known interview with Heidegger, "Only A God Can Save Us," published in Der Spiegel after his death. He is primarily concerned in this chapter with the understanding of Being, theology, and God. Macquarrie delays until his final chapter the discussion of Heidegger's relation to National Socialism which comprises half of the Der Spiegel article. With characteristic balance Macquarrie argues that although Heidegger's conduct at the time should not be excused or glossed over it needs to be seen in the particular historical and political context which he outlines. To this he adds two personal notes based on his experiences with German prisoners following the cessation of hostilities in 1945 and a conversation with Hannah Arendt. The conversation with Hannah Arendt took place at Heathrow Airport on May 19, 1973 where Dr. Arendt was on her way to Europe for her summer holiday. Heidegger had suggested that Edward Robinson and Macquarrie consult with Arendt if they had any special difficulties translating Being and Time, and Macquarrie and she continued to have contacts following the completion of the translation. Their conversation turned to the sales of the translation of Being and Time which had been quite large, and Macquarrie commented that Heidegger must be making a good bit of money from the translation. Arendt replied that Heidegger was not much of a business man and that most of the money went to the publisher. Macquarrie then asked, "Would you say then that it was because he is not a man of affairs that he became so involved with the Nazis in 1933?" "Yes," she said, "quite so.". (shrink)

Review of the following books: -/- Michael Ruoff: Foucault-Lexikon, München 2007. Fink/UTB. -/- Clemens Kammler, Rolf Parr und Ulrich Johannes Schneider (Hrsg.): Foucault-Handbuch. Leben – Werk – Wirkung, Stuttgart 2008. Metzler. -/- Paul Veyne: Foucault. Der Philosoph als Samurai, Stuttgart 2009. Reclam. -/- Thomas Lemke: Gouvernementalität und Biopolitik, Wiesbaden 2007. VS Verlag. -/- Patricia Purtschert, Katrin Meyer und Yves Winter (Hrsg.): Gouvernementalität und Sicherheit. Zeitdiagnostische Beiträge im Anschluss an Foucault, Bielefeld 2008. Transcript. -/- Daniel Hechler und Axel Philipps (Hrsg.): (...) Widerstand denken. Michel Foucault und die Grenzen der Macht, Bielefeld 2008. Transcript. -/- Jeffrey T. Nealon: Foucault Beyond Foucault: Power and its Intensifi cations since 1984, Stanford 2008. Stanford University Press. -/- Amy Allen: The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical Theory, New York 2008. Columbia University Press. -/- Wendy Brown: Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire, Princeton 2006. Princeton University Press. -/- Giorgio Agamben: Was ist ein Dispositiv?, Zürich-Berlin 2008. Diaphanes. -/- Philipp Sarasin: Darwin und Foucault. Genealogie und Geschichte im Zeitalter der Biologie, Frankfurt/M. 2008. Suhrkamp. (shrink)

Einleitung -- Die Restauration der Scholastik im Spiegel lehramtlicher Dokumente und zeitgenösssischer Diskussionen -- Historisch-genetische Sicht des Thomas von Aquin : Martin Grabmann -- Wendepunkt historischer Forschung : Marie-Dominique Chenu in seiner Bedeutung für Martin Grabmann und Otto Hermann Pesch -- Thomas-Deutung in ökumenischer Perspektive : Otto Hermann Pesch -- Im diachronen und synchronen Dialog : Historiographie und Zeitgenossenschaft.

Today the question of the moral foundations of democracy is more important then ever. In this book the author helps to explain when and why democracy is important and also gives us guidance as to how democracies ought to be shaped.

The newly updated Right and Wrong 2nd Edition is an accessible introduction to the major traditions in western philosophical ethics, written in a lively and engaging style. It is designed for entry-level ethics courses and includes real-life ethical scenarios chosen to appeal directly to students. Greatly expanded and improved, this successful text introduces students to the major ethical traditions, and provides a simple methodology for resolving ethical dilemmas Treats teleological and deontological approaches to ethics as the two most important traditions, (...) but now includes chapters on virtue ethics and the ethics of care The very accessible writing style speaks directly to students’ own experience Draws examples from three types of real-life ethical scenarios submitted by students: academic dishonesty, partying, and personal relationships Provides a concise treatment of this notoriously complex subject, perfect for entry-level ethics and applied ethics courses. (shrink)

The basic question I want to ask is: can the exercise of private property rights abridge fundamental norms of democratic decision-making? And, under what conditions can it do so? To the extent that we view democratic decision making as required by justice, the issue is whether there is a deep tension between certain ways of exercising the rights of private property and that part of social justice that is characterized by democracy. To the extent that this tension holds, I will (...) argue that commitment to democratic norms implies that private capitalist firms must cooperate with a democratic assembly and government in the pursuit of the aims of a democratic assembly even when this implies some diminution of the profits of the firms. The cooperation I have in mind goes beyond the norm of faithful compliance with the law. To be sure, there are limits to this requirement as we will see in the later part of the paper. To the extent that private capitalist firms fail to do this and partially undermine the pursuit of the aims of a democratic assembly, they act in a way that is incompatible with fundamental norms of democratic governance. (shrink)

Waldron argues that recent treatments of justice have neglected reasonable disagreement about justice itself. So Waldron offers a procedural account of democratic legitimacy, in which contending views of justice can be brought together to arrive at a decision without deciding which one is correct. However, if there is reasonable disagreement about everything, then this includes his preferred account of legitimacy. On the other hand, it is not clear that Waldron is right to count so much disagreement as reasonable. But then (...) Waldron has not undermined the view he opposes in which some prevailing disagreement about justice is held to be unreasonable. (shrink)

In this book Thomas Wren uncovers and assesses the largely hidden philosophical assumptions about human motivation that have shaped contemporary psychological ...

Analysis of the nature of voting is fundamental to an understanding of the nature and value of democracy. Three questions ought to be distinguished concerning voting. First, how are we to conceive of the activity of voting? What is its nature? Second, what is it that people aim at when they vote? What are the grounds on which people vote, the reasons with which they justify their vote? And third, what ought people to aim at when they vote? What are (...) the relevant grounds for voting in one way or another? These last are explicitly normative questions. At times individuals vote on the basis of concerns which are not appropriate to the issues involved. The first question is not a question of psychology or of value; it is a metaphysical question. What is the nature of voting? How is it possible to count votes? Two answers are widely given in the literature. The first is that voting consists in the expression of preference. On this kind of view, either a vote is a preference or it is a fairly direct and unambiguous expression of the preference of the voter. (shrink)

For courses in Business Ethics A fresh approach to the assumptions that underlie business practices Two recent events — the 2008 economic meltdown and the ongoing concentration of the nation's wealth in the hands of a very small percentage of the population — have led many people to question a number of basic assumptions about business, corporations, and the workings of contemporary free-market capitalism in a global economy. Written as a dialogue between Socrates and a hypothetical contemporary CEO,Socrates Comes to (...) Wall Street leads students to think critically about perspectives and practices that are taken as “givens” in most American business schools and corporations. Employing this original and provocative approach, author Thomas White seeks to encourage the next generation of business leaders to be more astute about the implications of their actions, and to act more prudently and more fairly than we have seen in the recent past. (shrink)

After presenting the major objections raised against standard formulations of the H-D method of theory testing, I identify what seems to be an important element of truth underlying the method. I then draw upon this element in an effort to develop a plausible formulation of the H-D method which avoids the various objections.

A critical but sympathetic treatment of Pierre Bayle.

It is often presumed by those who use propositions in their theories that propositions are representational; that is, that propositions represent the world as being some way. This paper makes two claims against this presumption. First, it argues that it does not follow from the fact that propositions play the theoretical roles usually attributed to them that they are representational. This conclusion is reached by rebutting three arguments that can be made in support of the claim that propositions are representational. (...) This paper then advances the further claim that propositions are not representational. It considers several ways to overcome the difficulties traditionally associated with this claim, particularly how to account for falsity. (shrink)