The main purpose of my contribution is to provide an account of the similarities and differences between Kierkegaard’s emphasis on individuality and Hegelian mediation of Christian identity. This account will represent the main point of reference in supporting Kierkegaard’s claim, that by conceptualizing Christian identity, speculative mediation omits individuality, as it excludes its particular and distinctive character. Moreover, it will provide a way of evaluating the normative potential of Kierkegaard’s unique understanding of Cristian faith as one’s infinite interest in the (...) actuality of another. In the concluding part, I will summarize my investigation of Kierkegaard’s relation to the Hegelian tradition from within a broader social context concerning social integration and social plurality. (shrink)

Cette étude de la paraphrase langagière offre une vue d'ensemble sur ce procédé dans la théorie sens-texte, traite de deux problèmes théoriques liés à sa modélisation, la notion de paraphrase comme telle et les règles sémantiques d'équivalence. Elle propose une série de nouvelles règles sémantiques et lexico-syntaxique de paraphrasage.

This inquiry critically assesses previous research utilizing a game theory framework to understand Hume’s account of convention as the tangible expression of justice for the purpose of regulating possessions. In so doing, this research offers an alternative understanding of Humean convention that first clearly lays out the rules and main assumptions of the game, as presented in A Treatise of Human Nature, and then proceeds to analyze the implied optimal strategy and outcome. Rejecting commonly held views considering Humean convention in (...) terms of the Nash equilibrium and pure contractarianism, this research offers a novel middle approach—a “Third Way” between self-interest and sympathy, between cooperation versus non-cooperation, and ultimately between contractarianism versus utilitarianism. This “Third Way”conceives of Hume’s account of convention as a cooperative game with binding threats that necessarily always rests on the Pareto optimal strategy, and seeks a resulting Pareto optimal outcome. (shrink)

The cyclical theory f time, which is better known under the name of the 'theory of eternal recurrence,' is usually associated with certain ancient thinkers--in particular, Pythagoreans and Stoics. The most famous among those who have tried to revive the theory in the modern era is unquestionably Friedrich Nietzsche. It is less well known that the theory was defended also by C.S. Peirce and, as late as 1927, by the French historian of science, Abel Rey. The contemporary discussion of the (...) problem of the direction of time has a direct bearing on the problem of eternal recurrence. The primary purpose of this paper is to evaluate critically the theory itself and then to show how this critical analysis can be applied to Peirce's own version of this theory. (shrink)

Lackey’s (2007) class of “selfless assertions” is controversial in at least two respects: it allows propositions that express Moorean absurdity to be asserted warrantedly, and it challenges the orthodox view that the speaker’s belief is a necessary condition for warranted assertibility. With regard to the former point, I critically examine Lackey’s broadly Gricean treatment of Moorean absurdity and McKinnon’s (2015) epistemic approach. With regard to the latter point, I defend the received view by supporting the knowledge account, on which knowledge (...) is the necessary condition for warranted assertion. After examining two defenses of KA, by Montminy and Turri, I propose two alternative approaches. Although I remain neutral between them, I develop in more detail the view which classifies “selfless assertions” as “presentations”, a type of assertives distinct from genuine assertions. This account is motivated further by allowing for the expansion of the normative approach to other assertives, a feature we may be interested in, in the light of a recent wave of normative accounts of speech acts. (shrink)

The merging of space and time proposed by Minkowski in 1908 is still sometimes misinterpreted as a sort of four-dimensional hyperspace of which time is the fourth dimension, analogous to the other, spatial dimensions. An inevitable consequence of this view is that the future events somehow exist prior to, and independently of, human awareness and that what we call “becoming” is “merely a coming into our awareness” (A. Grünbaum). However, an attentive inspection of the space-time diagram and of Minkowski's formula (...) for the constancy of the world interval shows that the events contained in the absolute future of any frame of reference areintrinsically unobservable not only within this system, but also by any other conceivable observer: consequently, there is no reason to postulate their existence. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The article discusses the Hegelian opposition between institutions of Police and Corporation, leading to the objective spirit formed in the notion of the State. Juxtaposing both of Hegel's institutions against the usage of these notions proposed by Jacques Rancière (Police) and Alain Badiou (State of the Situation) opens a critical dividing line. We emphasize the inadequate handling of economic factors inherent in both notions, consequently obfuscating the economic conditioning of the political dimension in the social body. Moreover, we supplement (...) both of the institutions with an economic-counterpart notion; to Police we add “Private Property” and to Corporation “State of Technology”. Further, we apply Badiou's handling of Hegel's dialectics as the dialectics of “constitutive scission”. The dialectical play of private property and state of technology is distinguished in the dialectics of algebra of places and topology of localizations. The resulting intersection is shown to be the place of torsion – corresponding to the place of the Subject – an interval, where we confront an uttered “wrong”, an interruption in the smooth counting of parts in a social body. This torsion is an immanent backside operation of the economic structure as far as it is a necessary factor in the upsurge of political subjectivity. (shrink)

The term “fallacy of simple location” was coined by A. N. Whitehead in 1925 in his book Science and the Modern World; the two passages of the book that deal with this problem are worth being quoted in full and may serve as an introduction into our topic.

An assertion is existentially known if and only if: (i) the speaker knows that the sentence she uses to make the assertion expresses a true proposition; (ii) she makes the assertion based on that knowledge; and (iii) she does not believe, have justification for, or know the proposition asserted. Accordingly, if existentially known assertions could be made correctly—as argued by Charlie Pelling in his ‘Assertion and the Provision of Knowledge’—this would show that the norm of assertion cannot be the speaker's (...) belief in, justification for or knowledge of the proposition. In this paper, I try to show that Pelling's argument is inconclusive, as it rests on two assumptions which can be resisted. In turn, I offer a pair of alternative strategies to explain how we can deal with existentially known assertions under the assumption that the speaker's knowledge is the norm of assertion. (shrink)

The paper offers a semantic and pragmatic analysis of statements of the form ‘x is beautiful’ as involving a double speech act: first, a report that x is beautiful relative to the speaker’s aesthetic standard, along the lines of naive contextualism; second, the speaker’s recommendation that her audience comes to share her appraisal of x as beautiful. We suggest that attributions of beauty tend to convey such a recommendation due to the role that aesthetic practices play in fostering and enhancing (...) interpersonal coordination. Aesthetic practices are driven by a disposition towards the attunement of attitudes and aesthetic recommendations contribute to forwarding such attunement. Our view is motivated by an attempt to satisfy the following set of desiderata: to account for the experiential nature of aesthetic judgments, disagreements in aesthetic debates, and the normative aspirations of aesthetic discourse, as well as to avoid appealing to error theory and realist ontological commitments. (shrink)

In virtue of what does a linguistic act count as an insult? I discuss five main approaches to this question, according to which an insult is determined by (i) the semantic properties of the expression used; (ii) the insulter, her intention, or attitudes; (iii) the addressee and her personal standard; (iv) the features of the speech act performed; and (v) the standard of the relevant social group. I endorse the last, objectivist account, according to which an act x counts as (...) an insult if and only if x is assessed as demeaning when addressed at A by the standard of the relevant social group at t. (shrink)

An agent A blames B hypocritically for violating a moral norm N if and only if: A is likewise blameworthy for violating N, and A is not disposed to blame herself for violating N. Normally, an assertion involving blame is retracted following the objection that and hold. I discuss two prima facie explanations for such a withdrawal: that the objection hampers the speaker’s assertoric authority, rendering and the necessary condition to assert, and that the joint condition is, instead, merely a (...) regulative rule. Having shown that the former option is too revisory as it requires reformulation of all normative accounts of assertion on the table, and the latter false, I proceed to argue that and do not target assertions to begin with. An assertion involving blame is, instead, a clear case of a double speech act: after arguing for this claim, I proceed to show that qua assertion, the act is correct given one’s preferred normative account, whereas it is incorrect qua blaming, as in order to perform such an act, the speaker needs to satisfy the conditions and. (shrink)

The article surveys the development of james' views on the status of the psychological subject (self); the uncertainties and hesitations in james' views are pointed out. But, Contrary to the prevailing view, Upheld especially by john dewey and ralph b perry, James' article "does consciousness exist?" in 1904 does not represent the final stage of his thought. This can be found only in his last book "a pluralistic universe" six years later in which the existence of the "full self" is (...) reasserted. James reached this conclusion after the period of intense intellectual struggle which can be traced in the private notes and drafts published by r b perry. The idea of dynamic self was consonant with the process philosophy which james finally adopted. (shrink)

Kant?s legal and political philosophy is essential for understanding and advancing international order. The article aims to posit arguments that confront the claims that Kant was just war theorist. Since that is the most opposed part of Kant?s political philosophy, mostly due to the misleading interpretation of his argumentation, the author presents Kant?s standpoint on the matters of just war and international order and discusses potential ambiguities between Kant?s and his critics? theories. Furthermore, the consequences of opponents? arguments considering states (...) of states, world republic and cosmopolitan democracy in contemporary political philosophy are debated. Finally, the possibility of consent between the three model solutions which are arising from the contemporary international order theory and Kant?s position are compared and analysed. (shrink)

In his Concept of Nature Whitehead gives the following definition of the term “co-presence”: I call two event-particles which on some or other system of measurement are in the same instantaneous space ‘co-present’ event-particles. Then it is possible that A and B may be co-present, and that A and C may be co-present, but that B and C may not be co-present. For example, at some inconceivable distance from us there are events co-present with us now and also co-present with (...) the birth of Queen Victoria. If A and B are co-present there will be some systems in which A precedes B and some in which B precedes A. Also there can be no velocity quick enough to carry a material particle from A to B or from B to A. (shrink)

Thorstein Veblen once considered his work on instincts to be his only important contribution to economic theory. Instincts are the conditions and causes behind the formation of habits of thought, while the latter are the sine qua non elements of institutions. The article poses the question: If Veblenʼs relation instincts-habits of thought-institutions were to be thought of as a formal system, what role would they conceptually occupy? It interprets habits of thought as pure ideas in a Platonist fashion (eidos)—multiplicities thought (...) as Ideas—conceived by Georg Cantorʼs theory of manifolds and philosophically assessed by Alain Badiou positing that “mathematics is ontology.” The article aims: (1) to show how habits of thought, as institutions, abstracted from all content can be thought of as set-theoretic multiplicities; (2) to relate Veblenʼs prime instinct, the instinct of workmanship, in equivalence with set theory’s axiom of the empty set—pointing towards Veblenʼs materialist orientation. (shrink)