Why are the fundamentals of education apparently so little changed in our era of digital technology? Is their obstinate persistence evidence of resilience or obsolescence? Such questions can best be answered not by imagining an uncertain high-tech future, but by examining a well-documented past--a history of instruction and media that extends from Gilgamesh to Google. Norm Friesen looks to the combination and reconfiguration of oral, textual, and more recent media forms to understand the longevity of so many educational arrangements (...) and practices. Friesen examines the interrelationship of reading, writing, and pedagogy in the case of the lecture and the textbook--from their premodern to their postmodern incarnations. Over hundreds of years, these two forms have integrated textual, oral, and (more recently) digital media and connected them with changing pedagogical and cultural priorities. The Textbook and the Lecture opens new possibilities for understanding not only mediated pedagogical practices and their reform but also gradual changes in our conceptions of the knowing subject and of knowledge itself. Drawing on wide-ranging scholarship in fields as diverse as media ecology and German-language media studies, Foucauldian historiography, and even archaeological research, The Textbook and the Lecture is a fascinating investigation of educational media. (shrink)

A culturally influential sub-discipline within literary studies, literary theory has developed in parallel form in other arts and social science disciplines, so that one might refer to "cultural theory" or "social theory" as well, or even just to "theory." It's as familiar as the word "postmodern" and as tricky as "deconstruction." What is it about? What is at stake? Theory is about rationality. This book's title invites two different interpretations of what it might mean to say so. For many, the (...) essence of literary theory is the unmasking and redescription of rationality in other terms. Put ironically, rationality is male; rationality is white; rationality is repression.... The book's title, however, can also be read in a second way. On this reading, rationality itself is the essence of literary theory and central to literature, art, and society. Certain conceptions of what it entails can be problematic; the critique in the first way of reading the title remains relevant. Yet one can affirm rationality as integral to human flourishing, including the processes of producing, analyzing, and enjoying literature, art, and culture. This book provides readers with a clear overview of theory's development and the abiding presence of its concern with the status of rationality across its forms. (shrink)

This book is a comparative study of Kant, Rawls, and Habermas and a critical survey of recent theories of justice. It defends the thesis that the normative ground or basis of social criticism is found in a concept of the person as a free and equal moral being.

__The View from Within_ _examines the character of reason and the ability of an individual to effectively distance himself from the normative framework in which he functions in order to be self-critical and innovative. To accomplish this task, Menachem Fisch and Yitzhak Benbaji critically employ or reject the recent writings of Brandom, Friedman, Frankfurt, Walzer, Davidson, Williams, Habermas, Rorty, and McDowell to offer a fundamental analysis of the character of reason and the problem of relativism. This ambitious book forcefully raises (...) the problem of rational normative change and makes the unique and insightful claim that although we cannot be _convinced _by normative criticism to modify or replace our norms, we can be rationally _motivated_ to do so by the effect of exposure to trusted critics. Its unprecedented analysis, with its solution to the problem of normative self-criticism that has baffled philosophers for the past sixty years, will be welcomed by both students and scholars of philosophy. “__The View from Within_ _is a thorough evaluation of the arguments made by contemporary philosophers about the normative character of reason and the derivative problem of relativism. Fisch and Benbaji have admirably compared and contrasted competing positions, and with a balanced critique, they have made a sustained effort to ‘save’ rationality and provide new guideposts for its philosophical evaluation. A timely and important contribution.” —_Alfred I. Tauber, Boston University_. (shrink)

In this paper, making reference to Robert Brandom's philosophical proposal - and against the background of Brandom's debate with Jürgen Habermas - I shall endeavor, first, to define the relation between recognition and normativity and then between recognition and criticism; in the final part of the paper I shall suggest a perspective that approaches recognition in terms of capacities. On this basis I attempt to see the critical attitude as something that is founded more on individual potentials than on (...) formal criteria and that is essentially connected with a power of redescription: a dialectical anthropology of recognition is thus the most promising base to account for that which substantiates our critical powers. (shrink)

Can we ever justly critique the norms and practices of another culture? When activists or policy-makers decide that one culture’s traditional practice is harmful and needs to be eradicated, does it matter whether they are members of that culture? Given the history of imperialism, many argue that any critique of another culture’s practices must be internal. Others argue that we can appeal to a universal standard of human wellbeing to determine whether or not a particular practice is legitimate or whether (...) it should be eradicated. In this paper, I use the FGC eradication campaigns of the 1980s to show that the internal/external divide is complicated by the interconnectedness of these debates on the international level. As the line blurs between internal and external criticism and interventions, new questions emerge about the representativeness of global institutions. (shrink)

Can we ever justly critique the norms and practices of another culture? When activists or policy-makers decide that one culture’s traditional practice is harmful and needs to be eradicated, does it matter whether they are members of that culture? Given the history of imperialism, many argue that any critique of another culture’s practices must be internal. Others argue that we can appeal to a universal standard of human well-being to determine whether or not a particular practice is legitimate or whether (...) it should be eradicated. In this paper, I use the FGC eradication campaigns of the 1980s to show that the internal/external divide is complicated by the inter-connectedness of these debates on the international level. As the line blurs between internal and external criticism and interventions, new questions emerge about the representativeness of global institutions. (shrink)

The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 63, Issue 253, Page 816-819, October 2013.

This dissertation is an attempt at harmonizing hermeneutics. In particular, what I term the normative and descriptive approaches are explored and brought together. A normative approach is one concerned with providing the correct method for gaining knowledge of the meaning of a text. Beardsley's normative method of relying on the "text itself" is considered and rejected. Hirsch's normative method of relying on authorial intention is considered, criticized, and used as a springboard to my own normative method of urinterpretation. Propaedeutic to (...) the articulation of urinterpretation is an answer to the question: What is an author? After a survey of theories of authorship, I propose my own author construct--the urauthor. In constructing the urauthor we go back as far as possible to the model of the original. In urinterpretation we seek authorial intention on the basis of the urauthor. It is argued that through this method we secure the meaning of a text. ;Descriptive hermeneutics is concerned with describing the phenomenon of interpretive understanding. It eschews questions of epistemological method, which are at the center of a normative approach, in favor of an ontology of interpretive understanding. Gadamer's Truth and Method is the most complete philosophical account of descriptive hermeneutics to date, and accordingly our attention to descriptive hermeneutics is largely a critique of Gadamer's work. It is argued that both normative and descriptive hermeneutics can and should coexist, but to facilitate scholarship each should be explored separately. ;Interpretation and criticism are also harmonized. Interpretation is understood as the project of seeking the meaning of a text. The meaning of a text, it is argued, is discovered by seeking authorial meaning through the urauthor. Criticism is understood as the project of seeking the significance of a text. The significance of a text, it is argued, is its meaning-as-related-to: to me, to you, to our time, etc. The harmonization of interpretation and criticism is briefly explored in typical philosophical, literary, theological, and legal texts. (shrink)

© 2013 The Editors of The Philosophical QuarterlyThe aim of this book, set out in the first chapter, is to offer an account of rational action that can accommodate both a model of rationality that is performance‐based and one that is agent‐based. On the former model, rationality is measured in terms of successful performance and amounts to fitness of the performance to the task at hand, so the performance is rational if it does the job it was supposed to do; (...) on the latter, it is a feature of the deliberative processes that determine the choice of the action by the agent, so the action is rational if it is ‘the outcome of considered deliberation’. The proposed reconciliation is effected through the notion of expert opinion, which is authoritative because it is expert, and is accepted because it is authoritative. Fisch and Benbaji seek to show that... (shrink)

Reviews : Kenneth Baynes, The Normative Grounds of Social Criticism: Kant, Rawls and Habermas ; Janna Thompson, Justice and World Order: A Philosophical Inquiry ; Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics.

I. The Problem of Normative Foundations: Habermas's Original Criticism of Adorno and Horkheimer In The Theory of Communicative Action, Jürgen Habermas writes:From the beginning, critical theory labored over the difficulty of giving an account of its own normative foundations …1Call this Habermas's original objection to the problem of normative foundations. It has been hugely influential both in the interpretation and assessment of Frankfurt School critical theory and in the development of later variants of it. Nowadays it is a truth (...) almost universally acknowledged that any critical social theory in possession of normative…. (shrink)

Most recent discussions of reasons in art criticism focus on reasons that justify beliefs about the value of artworks. Reviving a long-neglected suggestion from Paul Ziff, I argue that we should focus instead on art-critical reasons that justify actions—namely, particular ways of engaging with artworks. I argue that a focus on practical rather than theoretical reasons yields an understanding of criticism that better fits with our intuitions about the value of reading art criticism, and which makes room (...) for a nuanced distinction between criticism that aims at universality and criticism that is resolutely personal. (shrink)

In chapter one I will try to reconstruct a plot, or a hidden agenda, in the discussion in ethics between the beginning of the twentieth century and 1958, the year of a decisive turning point in ethics, both Anglo-Saxon and Continental, and strangely enough also the year of the beginning of the end of the Cold War, of post-Tridentine Catholicism, and perhaps something else. My hypothesis will be that there are two similar starting points for the Anglo-Saxon and the Continental (...) twentieth-century discussion, the philosophies of Henry Sidgwick and Friedrich Nietzsche, both expressions of some kind of ethical scepticism, and that a third, somewhat analogous starting-point could be found in Émile Durkheim, the proponent of the dream of the morale laïque. I will discuss how far the diagnosis formulated by Karl-Otto Apel of a kind of ‘parallel convergence' between existentialism and analytic philosophy, based on the shared division of facts and values that eventually justified two kinds of 'decisionism' is useful in making sense of the agenda of the discussion. In the second chapter I will discuss the reasons for two parallel U-turns around 1958 which brought back traditional schools of normative ethics, 'deontologism' and utilitarianism, as well as the reasons for criticism to both schools from the heterogeneous alignment of virtue ethics. In the third chapter I will discuss the remarkable phenomenon of the emergence, starting with the Sixties or the early Seventies, of ‘applied’ ethics. I examine the reasons, both theoretical and political, for the revival, the point to which applied ethics may look as a grand return of a casuistic and natural law way of thinking, or in Alan Donagan’s words a case of “reverse subversion” of the modern secular world by traditional Scholastic ways of thinking, and the difficult coexistence between general normative ethics and procedures for settling issues in a ‘reasonable’ way while dissent on issues of principle is as alive as ever. Then I try to draw a provisional moral. My suggestions are that (i) casuistry is more alive than ever; (ii) natural law thinking is more alive than ever; (iii) moral dilemmas never arise; (iv) moral dissent is treatable, with the right strategy; (v) practical philosophy does not need the same degree of exactness as the theoretical sciences but this is no obstacle to its working in practice. (shrink)

Since Boorse [Philos Sci 44(4):542–573, 1977] published his paper “Health as a theoretical concept” one of the most lively debates within philosophy of medicine has been on the question of whether health and disease are in some sense ‘objective’ and ‘value-free’ or ‘subjective’ and ‘value-laden’. Due to the apparent ‘failure’ of pure naturalist, constructivist, or normativist accounts, much in the recent literature has appealed to more conciliatory approaches or so-called ‘hybrid accounts’ of health and disease. A recent paper by Matthewson (...) and Griffiths [J Med Philos 42(4):447–466, 2017], however, may bear the seeds for the revival of purely naturalist approach to health and disease. In this paper, I defend their idea of Biological Normativity against recent criticism by Schwartz [J Med Philos Forum Bioethics Philos Med 42(4):485–502, 2017] and hope to help it flower into a revival of naturalist approaches in the philosophy of medicine. (shrink)

In recent years, Charles Sanders Peirce has emerged, in the eyes of philosophers both in America and abroad, as one of America’s major philosophical thinkers. His work has forced us back to philosophical reflection about those basic issues that inevitably confront us as human beings, especially in an age of science. Peirce’s concern for experience, for what is actually encountered, means that his philosophy, even in its most technical aspects, forms a reflective commentary on actual life and on the world (...) in which it is lived. In Charles S. Peirce: On Norms and Ideals, Potter argues that Peirce’s doctrine of the normative sciences is essential to his pragmatism. No part of Peirce’s philosophy is bolder than his attempt to establish esthetics, ethics, and logic as the three normative sciences and to argue for the priority of esthetics among the trio. Logic, Potter cites, is normative because it governs thought and aims at truth; ethics is normative because it analyzes the ends to which thought should be directed; esthetics is normative and fundamental because it considers what it means to be an end of something good in itself. This study shows that pierce took seriously the trinity of normative sciences and demonstrates that these categories apply both to the conduct of man and to the workings of the cosmos. Professor Potter combines sympathetic and informed exposition with straightforward criticism and he deals in a sensible manner with the gaps and inconsistencies in Peirce’s thought. His study shows that Peirce was above all a cosmological and ontological thinker, one who combined science both as a method and as result with a conception of reasonable actions to form a comprehensive theory of reality. Peirce’s pragmatism, although it has to do with "action and the achievement of results, is not a glorification of action but rather a theory of the dynamic nature of things in which the "ideal" dimension of reality – laws, nature of things, tendencies, and ends – has genuine power for directing the cosmic order, including man, toward reasonable goals. (shrink)

The problem of the social foundations of normativity can be illuminated by discussing the narrower question whether rule-following is necessarily a social matter. The problems with individualistic theories of rule-following seem to make such a conclusion unavoidable. Social theories of rule-following, however, seem to only push back one level the dilemma of having to choose either an infinite regress of interpretations or a collapse into non-normative descriptions. The most plausible of these models, Haugeland's conformism, can avoid these objections if it (...) is supplemented with an ontologically reasonable concept of the collective attitude of a group. Groups of individuals who are bound to shared norms by recognizing each other as equipped with a standard authority of criticism have the necessary properties for ascribing to those groups such collective attitudes. Given such a weak notion of a collective attitude, there is hope for a plausible collectivist theory of rule-following. (shrink)

The immanent approach adopted by most contemporary representatives of the Critical Theory tradition has generally the purpose of offering a foundation for social criticism that, without relying exclusively on explicit or factually accepted principles, avoids both the potential arbitrariness of subjective judgment and the appeal to transcendent criteria. However, this project has not yet paid much attention to the socio-epistemic elements related to the intersubjective praxis of criticism. Based on this concern, I intend to explore the possibility of (...) immanent criticism by using the epistemic category of dissonance. I will begin by showing how Davidson’s notion of irrationality can overcome the problematic separation between healthy and pathological behavior found in Festinger’s classical theory of cognitive dissonance and serve as an indicator of epistemic contradictions that can lead to social change. Thereafter, I will explain the link between these approaches and both Brandom’s inferential semantics and Honneth’s normative reconstruction. At the end of the first part, I expect to show an articulated picture of how dissonance can serve as a key for the analysis of inconsistencies present both in the belief systems and in the institutions and practices that constitute forms of life. In the second part, I will reconstruct three possible objections to this comprehensive approach in relation to the role of the individual in processes of social criticism and to the notions of progress and rationality that the approach adopts. I will analyze here what kind of meta-criterion is necessary to overcome the discomfort generated by the experience of dissonance so that it leads to social change. Taking up the Hegelian-Pragmatist idea of accumulation of experiences, I will argue that such a meta-criterion refers to the possibility of gathering and using available and non-endogenous socio-epistemic resources that allow reconfiguring the foundations of the questioned form of life. (shrink)

Normative ethics concerns the criticism and justification of morality, law, and other systems of norms. This book develops a normative ethical theory based on individuals and offers a third way beyond the dominant paradigms of Kantianism and Utilitarianism. This theory can assist us in answering concrete ethical questions. The book discusses, for example, the existence of duties to oneself, the permissibility of paternalistic decisions for others, and the status of supererogatory actions. It also considers various problems in bioethics. Key (...) features: Development of a new normative ethical theory Up-to-date overview of the topic Written in clear and comprehensible style Provides answers to concrete ethical problems Also of interest for doctors, lawyers, and economists ". (shrink)

Timothy Williamson famously argued that assertion is constituted either by the knowledge rule or some similar epistemic rule. If true, the proposal has important implications for criticism of assertions. If assertions are analogical to other rule-constituted kinds like games, we can criticize assertions either on external or internal grounds, depending on whether the criticism draws from the necessary norms of assertion or some contingent ones. More recently, authors like Goldberg and MacFarlane have argued against other theories of assertion (...) on the grounds that they cannot explain the possibility of internal criticism for assertions. This paper raises methodological problems with these arguments. The main idea is to show that alternative, non-normative accounts of assertion can also explain the apparent differences in grounds of criticism without assuming that assertion is necessarily governed by some epistemic norm. (shrink)

이 글의 목적은 니체의 도덕철학에 대한 비도덕주의적 해석을 비판적으로 검토하는 데 있다. 비도덕주의는 기본적으로 도덕에 반대하는 니체의 입장을 이해하려는 시도라고 볼 수 있다. 비도덕주의는 도덕을 부정적 가치나 극복해야만 하는 어떤 것이라고 주장한다. 하지만 비도덕주의는 니체가 도덕적 가치와는 다른 미적 가치, 또는 도덕과는 다른 윤리적 삶의 형식을 지지한다고 주장한다는 점에서 무도덕주의와 다르다. 한마디로 비도덕주의적 입장은 니체가 도덕은 거부하면서도 도덕과는 다른 대안적 시각을 지지한다고 주장한다. 그런데 이러한 가치 평가적 기획에는 메타윤리적 질문이 동반될 수밖에 없기 때문에, 비도덕주의가 지지하는 니체의 대안적 가치가 그가 거부하는 (...) 도덕적 가치에 비해 어떤 특권을 가질 수 있느냐 하는 의문이 제기된다. 이 글에서 필자는 비도덕주의가 니체의 대안적 시각의 규범적 정당화 문제를 해결하기 어렵다고 주장한다. 이러한 주장을 위해 필자는 먼저 그것이 제안하는 대안적 시각의 성격에 따라 비도덕주의를 ‘미학적’ 입장과 ‘윤리적’ 입장으로 나누어 살펴보고, 각 입장의 의의와 한계를 검토한다. 그 결과 니체에 대한 비도덕주의적 해석이 다원화된 새로운 문화에 살고 있는 우리에게 미적이고 윤리적인 대안적 실존의 가능성을 위한 토대를 마련해 주었음에도 불구하고, 니체의 도덕철학에 담긴 대안적 시각을 규범적으로 정당화하기 어렵다고 주장한다. 필자는 그 한계가 비도덕주의적 입장이 여전히 ‘좋은 것의 정초’라는 전통 윤리학의 기본가정에 매여 있기 때문이라고 본다. 즉 필자는 비도덕주의가 도덕적 가치 대신 니체의 대안적 가치를 정초하려고 한다는 점에서 기본적인 한계를 갖는다고 주장한다. 결론적으로 필자는 그 한계가 니체의 도덕철학을 비도덕주의가 아닌 도덕적 자연주의로 이해함으로써 보완될 수 있고, 그 전환의 의미는 니체의 도덕적 자연주의를 ‘정초의 윤리학’이 아닌 ‘금지의 윤리학’으로 파악함으로써 더 잘 해명될 수 있다고 주장한다. (shrink)

In this paper I develop and defend a form of argumentative normativity that is not based on fundamental principles. I first argue that research agendas that aim to discover fundamental principles of ‘good’ argumentative discourse share one crucial weak spot, viz. circularity. I then argue that this weak spot can be avoided in a pancritical view of normativity.

Medicine is increasingly subject to various forms of criticism. This paper focuses on dominant forms of criticism and offers a better account of their normative character. It is argued that together, these forms of criticism are comprehensive, raising questions about both medical science and medical practice. Furthermore, it is shown that these forms of criticism mainly rely on standards of evaluation that are assumed to be internal to medicine and converge on a broader question about the (...) aim of medicine. Further work making medicine’s internal norms explicit and determining the aim of medicine would not only help to clarify to what extent the criticism is justified, but also assist an informed deliberation about the future of medicine. To illustrate some of the general difficulties associated with such a task, the paper concludes by critically engaging Edmund Pellegrino’s account of the aim of medicine as well as the Hastings Center’s consensus report. (shrink)

This chapter develops an account of the meaning and use of various types of legal claims, and uses this account to inform debates about the nature and normativity of law. The account draws on a general framework for implementing a contextualist theory, called 'Discourse Contextualism' (Silk 2016). The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the apparent normativity of claims of law from a particular contextualist interpretation of a standard semantics for modals, along with general principles of interpretation and conversation. (...) Though the semantics is descriptivist, it avoids Dworkin’s influential criticism of so-called “semantic theories of law,” and elucidates the nature of “theoretical disagreements” about the criteria of legal validity. The account sheds light on the social, interpersonal function of normative uses of language in legal discourse. It also gives precise expression to Hart’s and Raz’s intuitive distinctions among types of legal claims (internal/external, committed/detached), while giving them a uniform type of analysis. The proposed semantics and pragmatics of legal claims provides a fruitful framework for further theorizing about the nature and metaphysics of law, the relation between law and morality, and the apparent practical character of legal language and judgment. Discourse Contextualism provides a solid linguistic basis for a broader account of legal discourse and practice. (shrink)

Hume's theory of practical rationality, it has been claimed, fails to account for the intrinsically social character of practical deliberation and of the norms governing action. While the standard way of pressing this critique is unsuccessful, it can be advanced in another way. It is alleged that Hume cannot explain how it is possible to act contrary to reason because he holds that practical reasons are grounded in brute desires which are beyond the reach of rational criticism. But Hume (...) offers a rich explanation of practical irrationality. To show that Hume's theory of practical reason is too individualistic, a problem in his account of theoretical reason must first be appreciated. Hume thinks that rational agents should only trust in testimony about matters of fact when that trust can be reductively justified on the basis of their own observations. Such a stringently individualistic criterion would shrink the scope of human knowledge beyond recognition. Similarly, Hume thinks that rational agents should only trust advice---testimony about what is valuable or desirable---when that trust can be instrumentally justified in terms of their own antecedent values or desires. Individuals bound by this criterion would be unable to deliberate rationally when faced with novel and challenging circumstances. Humean theories must treat trust in advice as default justified if this problem is to be avoided. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relationship between economic theory and theories of justice in the design of public policy. In particular, it focuses on the role of mechanism design in policy contexts beset with issues of social, racial and distributive justice. Economists’ involvement in redesigning Boston’s algorithm for allocating K-12 students to public schools serves as an instructive case study. The paper draws on the distinction betweenideal theoryandnon-ideal theoryin political philosophy and the concept ofperformativityin economic sociology to argue that mechanism design (...) can enact elaborate ideal theories of justice. Anormative gapthus emerges between the goals of the policymakers and the objectives of economic designs. As a result, mechanism design may obstruct stakeholders’ avenues for normative criticism of public policies, and serve as a technology of depoliticization. (shrink)

A good chunk of the recent discussion of hypocrisy concerned the hypocritical “moral address” where, in the simplest case, a person criticises another for $$\phi $$ -ing having engaged in $$\phi $$ -ing himself, and where the critic’s reasons are overtly moral. The debate has conceptual and normative sides to it. We ask both what hypocrisy is, and why it is wrong. In this paper I focus on the conceptual explication of hypocrisy by examining the pragmatic features of the situation (...) where accusations of hypocrisy are made. After rejecting several extant views, I defend the idea that moral criticisms are best understood as moves in an agonistic or hostile conversation, and that charges of hypocrisy are attempts to prevent the hypocrite from gaining an upper hand in a situation of conflict. I finish by linking this idea to frame-theoretic analysis and evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

In a discussion of rule-following inspired by Wittgenstein, Kripke asks us to consider the relation which holds between meaning plus by ‘+’ and answering questions like, ‘What is the sum of 68 and 57?’. A dispositional theory has it that if you mean plus by ‘+’ then you will probably answer, ‘125’. That is because, according to such a theory, to mean plus by ‘+’ is , roughly speaking, to be disposed, by and large, and among other things, to answer (...) such questions with the correct sum. Kripke wants to emphasize, by contrast, that if you mean plus by ‘+’ then, faced with the question, ‘What is 68 + 57?’ you ought to answer, ‘125’. One could sum up the assumption about meaning which appears to underpin this criticism of dispositional theories in terms of the slogan that meaning is normative. Allan Gibbard gives us a way of reading that slogan which is suggested by Kripke's brief remarks: The crux of the slogan that meaning is normative … might be another slogan: that means implies ought . To use roughly Kripke's example, from statements saying what I mean by the plus sign and other arithmetic terms and constructions, it will follow that I ought to answer ‘7’ when asked ‘What's 5 + 2?’. (shrink)

The immanent approach adopted by most contemporary representatives of the Critical Theory tradition has generally the purpose of offering a foundation for social criticism that, without relying exclusively on explicit or factually accepted principles, avoids both the potential arbitrariness of subjective judgment and the appeal to transcendent criteria. However, this project has not yet paid much attention to the socio-epistemic elements related to the intersubjective praxis of criticism. Based on this concern, I intend to explore the possibility of (...) immanent criticism by using the epistemic category of dissonance. I will begin by showing how Davidson’s notion of irrationality can overcome the problematic separation between healthy and pathological behavior found in Festinger’s classical theory of cognitive dissonance and serve as an indicator of epistemic contradictions that can lead to social change. Thereafter, I will explain the link between these approaches and both Brandom’s inferential semantics and Honneth’s normative reconstruction. At the end of the first part, I expect to show an articulated picture of how dissonance can serve as a key for the analysis of inconsistencies present both in the belief systems and in the institutions and practices that constitute forms of life. In the second part, I will reconstruct three possible objections to this comprehensive approach in relation to the role of the individual in processes of social criticism and to the notions of progress and rationality that the approach adopts. I will analyze here what kind of meta-criterion is necessary to overcome the discomfort generated by the experience of dissonance so that it leads to social change. Taking up the Hegelian-Pragmatist idea of accumulation of experiences, I will argue that such a meta-criterion refers to the possibility of gathering and using available and non-endogenous socio-epistemic resources that allow reconfiguring the foundations of the questioned form of life. (shrink)

The immanent approach adopted by most contemporary representatives of the Critical Theory tradition has generally the purpose of offering a foundation for social criticism that, without relying exclusively on explicit or factually accepted principles, avoids both the potential arbitrariness of subjective judgment and the appeal to transcendent criteria. However, this project has not yet paid much attention to the socio-epistemic elements related to the intersubjective praxis of criticism. Based on this concern, I intend to explore the possibility of (...) immanent criticism by using the epistemic category of dissonance. I will begin by showing how Davidson’s notion of irrationality can overcome the problematic separation between healthy and pathological behavior found in Festinger’s classical theory of cognitive dissonance and serve as an indicator of epistemic contradictions that can lead to social change. Thereafter, I will explain the link between these approaches and both Brandom’s inferential semantics and Honneth’s normative reconstruction. At the end of the first part, I expect to show an articulated picture of how dissonance can serve as a key for the analysis of inconsistencies present both in the belief systems and in the institutions and practices that constitute forms of life. In the second part, I will reconstruct three possible objections to this comprehensive approach in relation to the role of the individual in processes of social criticism and to the notions of progress and rationality that the approach adopts. I will analyze here what kind of meta-criterion is necessary to overcome the discomfort generated by the experience of dissonance so that it leads to social change. Taking up the Hegelian-Pragmatist idea of accumulation of experiences, I will argue that such a meta-criterion refers to the possibility of gathering and using available and non-endogenous socio-epistemic resources that allow reconfiguring the foundations of the questioned form of life. (shrink)

The immanent approach adopted by most contemporary representatives of the Critical Theory tradition has generally the purpose of offering a foundation for social criticism that, without relying exclusively on explicit or factually accepted principles, avoids both the potential arbitrariness of subjective judgment and the appeal to transcendent criteria. However, this project has not yet paid much attention to the socio-epistemic elements related to the intersubjective praxis of criticism. Based on this concern, I intend to explore the possibility of (...) immanent criticism by using the epistemic category of dissonance. I will begin by showing how Davidson’s notion of irrationality can overcome the problematic separation between healthy and pathological behavior found in Festinger’s classical theory of cognitive dissonance and serve as an indicator of epistemic contradictions that can lead to social change. Thereafter, I will explain the link between these approaches and both Brandom’s inferential semantics and Honneth’s normative reconstruction. At the end of the first part, I expect to show an articulated picture of how dissonance can serve as a key for the analysis of inconsistencies present both in the belief systems and in the institutions and practices that constitute forms of life. In the second part, I will reconstruct three possible objections to this comprehensive approach in relation to the role of the individual in processes of social criticism and to the notions of progress and rationality that the approach adopts. I will analyze here what kind of meta-criterion is necessary to overcome the discomfort generated by the experience of dissonance so that it leads to social change. Taking up the Hegelian-Pragmatist idea of accumulation of experiences, I will argue that such a meta-criterion refers to the possibility of gathering and using available and non-endogenous socio-epistemic resources that allow reconfiguring the foundations of the questioned form of life. (shrink)

The immanent approach adopted by most contemporary representatives of the Critical Theory tradition has generally the purpose of offering a foundation for social criticism that, without relying exclusively on explicit or factually accepted principles, avoids both the potential arbitrariness of subjective judgment and the appeal to transcendent criteria. However, this project has not yet paid much attention to the socio-epistemic elements related to the intersubjective praxis of criticism. Based on this concern, I intend to explore the possibility of (...) immanent criticism by using the epistemic category of dissonance. I will begin by showing how Davidson’s notion of irrationality can overcome the problematic separation between healthy and pathological behavior found in Festinger’s classical theory of cognitive dissonance and serve as an indicator of epistemic contradictions that can lead to social change. Thereafter, I will explain the link between these approaches and both Brandom’s inferential semantics and Honneth’s normative reconstruction. At the end of the first part, I expect to show an articulated picture of how dissonance can serve as a key for the analysis of inconsistencies present both in the belief systems and in the institutions and practices that constitute forms of life. In the second part, I will reconstruct three possible objections to this comprehensive approach in relation to the role of the individual in processes of social criticism and to the notions of progress and rationality that the approach adopts. I will analyze here what kind of meta-criterion is necessary to overcome the discomfort generated by the experience of dissonance so that it leads to social change. Taking up the Hegelian-Pragmatist idea of accumulation of experiences, I will argue that such a meta-criterion refers to the possibility of gathering and using available and non-endogenous socio-epistemic resources that allow reconfiguring the foundations of the questioned form of life. (shrink)

The immanent approach adopted by most contemporary representatives of the Critical Theory tradition has generally the purpose of offering a foundation for social criticism that, without relying exclusively on explicit or factually accepted principles, avoids both the potential arbitrariness of subjective judgment and the appeal to transcendent criteria. However, this project has not yet paid much attention to the socio-epistemic elements related to the intersubjective praxis of criticism. Based on this concern, I intend to explore the possibility of (...) immanent criticism by using the epistemic category of dissonance. I will begin by showing how Davidson’s notion of irrationality can overcome the problematic separation between healthy and pathological behavior found in Festinger’s classical theory of cognitive dissonance and serve as an indicator of epistemic contradictions that can lead to social change. Thereafter, I will explain the link between these approaches and both Brandom’s inferential semantics and Honneth’s normative reconstruction. At the end of the first part, I expect to show an articulated picture of how dissonance can serve as a key for the analysis of inconsistencies present both in the belief systems and in the institutions and practices that constitute forms of life. In the second part, I will reconstruct three possible objections to this comprehensive approach in relation to the role of the individual in processes of social criticism and to the notions of progress and rationality that the approach adopts. I will analyze here what kind of meta-criterion is necessary to overcome the discomfort generated by the experience of dissonance so that it leads to social change. Taking up the Hegelian-Pragmatist idea of accumulation of experiences, I will argue that such a meta-criterion refers to the possibility of gathering and using available and non-endogenous socio-epistemic resources that allow reconfiguring the foundations of the questioned form of life. (shrink)

The immanent approach adopted by most contemporary representatives of the Critical Theory tradition has generally the purpose of offering a foundation for social criticism that, without relying exclusively on explicit or factually accepted principles, avoids both the potential arbitrariness of subjective judgment and the appeal to transcendent criteria. However, this project has not yet paid much attention to the socio-epistemic elements related to the intersubjective praxis of criticism. Based on this concern, I intend to explore the possibility of (...) immanent criticism by using the epistemic category of dissonance. I will begin by showing how Davidson’s notion of irrationality can overcome the problematic separation between healthy and pathological behavior found in Festinger’s classical theory of cognitive dissonance and serve as an indicator of epistemic contradictions that can lead to social change. Thereafter, I will explain the link between these approaches and both Brandom’s inferential semantics and Honneth’s normative reconstruction. At the end of the first part, I expect to show an articulated picture of how dissonance can serve as a key for the analysis of inconsistencies present both in the belief systems and in the institutions and practices that constitute forms of life. In the second part, I will reconstruct three possible objections to this comprehensive approach in relation to the role of the individual in processes of social criticism and to the notions of progress and rationality that the approach adopts. I will analyze here what kind of meta-criterion is necessary to overcome the discomfort generated by the experience of dissonance so that it leads to social change. Taking up the Hegelian-Pragmatist idea of accumulation of experiences, I will argue that such a meta-criterion refers to the possibility of gathering and using available and non-endogenous socio-epistemic resources that allow reconfiguring the foundations of the questioned form of life. (shrink)

Can subjective taste regulate social norms or political practices? This book argues that from the late seventeenth century to the present national cultures have sought to regulate the democratic subject through the academic form of arguments about the proper relations of aesthetics to ethics and politics. In so doing it offers a radical reconsideration of the history of modernity, tracing the emergence of criticism as a socio-cultural practice across all the major European nations, and drawing on an extensive range (...) of European literature and philosophy. (shrink)

Baynes's two main objectives are to show that Kant, Rawls, and Habermas share the view that "the idea of an agreement among free and equal persons [i. e., autonomous persons]... constitutes the normative ground of social criticism", and that this "constructivist" view is more adequately developed and defended with each successive theorist. The study, however, goes beyond these aims and can often fruitfully be read as a comparative study of Rawls and Habermas.

In this study of space and power and knowledge in France from the 1830s through the 1930s, Rabinow uses the tools of anthropology, philosophy, and cultural criticism to examine how social environment was perceived and described. Ranging from epidemiology to the layout of colonial cities, he shows how modernity was revealed in urban planning, architecture, health and welfare administration, and social legislation.

In this paper, we develop a general normative framework for criticisability, blamelessness and blameworthiness in action. We then turn to the debate on norms of assertion. We show that an application of this framework enables champions of the so-called knowledge rule of assertion to offer a theoretically motivated response to a number of putative counterexamples in terms of blamelessness. Finally, we argue that, on closer inspection, the putative counterexamples serve to confirm the knowledge rule and disconfirm rival views.