The context or manner of an utterance can alter or nullify the speech-act that would normally be performed by utterances of that sort. Coercive contexts have this effect on some kinds of seeming assertions: they end up being non-assertoric, and are merely capitulations. An earlier version of this view is clarified, defended, and extended partly in response to a useful critique by Roy Sorensen. I examine some complications that arise regarding resistance to speaking under coercion when ideological or religious commitments (...) are implicated. (shrink)

Realists criticise the moralised approaches that inform ideal political theory for being unable to handle the brute facts of disagreement that constitute political reality. As a result, such approaches are insufficiently political, too ambitious in terms of the substantive unanimity that can be expected to emerge from political differences, and naive in the proposals they make. In this paper, I use Brian Barry’s ‘moralised‘ approach – as developed in ’Justice as Impartiality’ – to argue that ideal theory can be reformulated (...) to make it capable not only of responding to realist criticisms, but of offering a moralised approach to politics that has significant realist pedigree. As an instance of this pedigree, I argue thus understood, ideal theory can provide us the tools to distinguish between the making of compromises and the acceptance of capitulation and thereby contribute to an understanding of our political worlds. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 29 This essay offers a working analysis of the trait of intellectual perseverance. It argues that intellectual perseverance is a disposition to overcome obstacles, so as to continue to perform intellectual actions, in pursuit of one’s intellectual goals. The trait of intellectual perseverance is not always an intellectual virtue. This essay provides a pluralist analysis of what makes it an intellectual virtue, when it is one. Along the way, it argues that the virtue of intellectual perseverance (...) can be contrasted with both a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess. It also suggests that the virtues of intellectual courage and intellectual self-control are types of intellectual perseverance. The essay ends with several open questions about the virtue of intellectual perseverance. My hope is that this essay will stimulate further interest in, and analysis of, this important intellectual trait. (shrink)

This paper explores and defends a form of transcendental argument that is neither bold in its attempt to answer the sceptic, as ambitious transcendental strategies, nor epistemically humble, as modest transcendental strategies. While ambitious transcendental strategies seek to meet the sceptical challenge, and modest transcendental strategies accept the validity of the challenge but retreat to a position of epistemic humility, this form of transcendental argument denies the assumption that undergirds the challenge, namely that truth and falsity may be legitimately predicated (...) of the conditions of knowledge. As a result, although this form of transcendental argument is not truth-directed, it is not vulnerable to a charge that is often levelled against modest transcendental arguments, namely that they amount to the adoption of a strategy of sophisticated capitulation. This form of transcendental argument, which is implicit in Collingwood’s conception of philosophy as the search for absolut... (shrink)

Overtaxed by the realities laid bare in the pandemic, nursing has imminent decisions to make. The exigencies of pandemic times overextend a health care infrastructure already groaning under the weight of inequitable distribution of resources and care commodified for profit. We can choose to prioritise different values. Invoking philosopher of science Isbelle Stengers's manifesto for slow science, this is not the only nursing that is possible. With this paper, I pick up threads of nursing's historical ontology, drawing previous scholarship on (...) the historical narratives nurses use to understand themselves. Peeling back nursing's myth to alternate points of origin allows me to consider alternate lines of flight, a speculative adventure in paths not taken but paths that exist nonetheless. I go on to examine what a collective ethic of nursing could be, when we make space for these alternate histories, considering the confluences and conflicts that enable nurses to care and those that inhibit them from doing so. The imperative for this lies in the central importance of the reproductive labour of nursing health care, which leads me to a critique of nursing's capitulation to the pressures of late stage capitalism. This is a problem with ethical and ontological implications both for nursing, and also for those who require nursing care, an imperative to think about the kinds of present/futures for health, care, and health care we might cocreate in collaboration and solidarity with the communities in which nurses are imbricated, shedding the trappings of neoliberalism. There is significant power in the vision and praxis of 28 million nurses and midwives worldwide. Our ethics can guide our imagination which can in turn create possibility. This kind of endeavour—that of dreams and imagination—leads us to what could be, if only we leap. (shrink)

In a virtuoso display of erudition, thoughtfulness and humour, Terry Eagleton teases apart the concept of hope as it has been conceptualised over six millennia, from ancient Greece to today. He distinguishes hope from simple optimism, cheeriness, desire, idealism or adherence to the doctrine of Progress, bringing into focus a standpoint that requires reflection and commitment, arises from clear-sighted rationality, can be cultivated by practice and self-discipline, and which acknowledges but refuses to capitulate to the realities of failure and defeat. (...) Authentic hope is indubitably tragic, yet Eagleton also argues for its radical implications as ‘a species of permanent revolution, whose enemy is as much political complacency as metaphysical despair’. It is a means of facing the future without devaluing the moment or obviating the past. Traversing centuries of thought about the many modes of hoping – from Ernst Bloch’s monumental work through the Stoics, Aquinas, Marx and Kierkegaard, among others – this penetrating book throws new light on religious faith and political ideology as well as issues such as the problem of evil, the role of language and the meaning of the past. Hope Without Optimism is a brilliantly engaged, impassioned chronicle of human belief and desire in an increasingly uncertain world. (shrink)

A new emphasis on diversity and difference is displacing older myths of nation or community. A new attention to gender, race, language or religion is disrupting earlier preoccupations with class. But the welcome extended to heterogeneity can bring with it a disturbing fragmentation and closure. Can we develop a vision of democracy through difference: a politics that neither denies group identities nor capitulates to them? In this volume, Anne Phillips develops the feminist challenge to exclusionary versions of democracy, citizenship and (...) equality. Relating this to the crisis in socialist theory, the growing unease with the pretensions of Enlightenment rationality, and the recent recuperation of liberal democracy as the only viable politics, she builds on debates within feminism to address general questions of difference. When democracies try to wish away group difference and inequality, they fail to meet their egalitarian promise. When yearnings towards an undifferentiated unity become the basis for radical politics and change, too many groups drop out of the picture. Through her critical discussions of recent feminist and socialist theory Anne Phillips rejects this democracy of denial. She also warns, however, of the dangers on the other side. The simpler celebrations of diversity risk freezing group differences as they are, encouraging a patchwork of local identities from which people can speak only to themselves. Her arguments then combine in a powerful restatement of the case for a more active and participatory democracy. It is only through enhanced communication and discussion that people can respect and learn from their differences. (shrink)

:In this essay, I critically engage with a methodological approach in contemporary political theory — unconstrained utopianism — which holds that we can only determine how we should live by first giving an account of the principles that would govern society if people were perfectly morally motivated. I provide reasons for being skeptical of this claim. To begin with I query the robustness of the principles unconstrained utopianism purportedly delivers. While the method can be understood as offering existence proofs, because (...) we can devise other situations in which morally flawless decision making would unearth alternative sets of principles, I argue that such proofs tell us surprisingly little about how we should live in general. Drawing on this point, I contend that normative models that wish away certain phenomena that are uncontroversially central to any account of politics cannot plausibly claim to tell us how we should live in political society. I conclude by offering a more positive sketch of why avoiding this brand of utopianism might not represent a problematic capitulation to the morally nonideal and suggest that theorizing in light of certain constraints may be a precondition of good normative theorizing itself. (shrink)

I examine how co-parents should handle differing commitments about how to raise their child. Via thought experiment and the examination of our practices and affective reactions, I argue for a thesis about the locus of parental authority: that parental authority is invested in full in each individual parent, meaning that that the command of one parent is sufficient to bind the child to act in obedience. If this full-authority thesis is true, then for co-parents to command different things would be (...) for them to contest one another’s authority. The only course that respects the authority of both parents is for co-parents to agree to command the same thing. Further, what is commanded must not result from a ‘capitulation’ by one co-parent, rather, it should result from a compromise. Parental authority involves a duty to deliberate about which commands it is best to give the child. If a command results from a capitulation, one parent will rightly think of themselves as not having fulfilled their parental duty. Parental compromises are not best understood as bargains or conflicts, but by the metaphor of gifts given by each parent out of respect for the other’s authority. (shrink)

Private law theory must confront the plurality of values that inform the problems that private law addresses in practice. We consider Hanoch Dagan’s and Michael Heller’s The Choice Theory of Contracts as a case-study in the promise and perils that embracing plural values poses for private law theory. We begin by arguing that private law theory cannot ignore value pluralism and identify three approaches that theory might take to pluralism. We call these approaches capitulating to, leveraging, and embracing value pluralism. (...) We illustrate each approach and assess its strengths and weaknesses. Theories that capitulate to pluralism simultaneously limit their scope and hamper their persuasiveness even within their restricted domains. Theories that leverage pluralism limit their domains more dramatically still. And theories that embrace pluralism are difficult to operationalize in practice without abandoning their pluralist roots. We briefly illustrate the drawbacks of capitulating to and leveraging pluralism with examples from recent contract theory. We then take up theories that embrace pluralism in greater detail, by studying Dagan and Heller’s approach. We argue that Dagan and Heller do not solve the deep problems that operationalizing their embrace of pluralism inevitably engenders. (shrink)

The merit of Plato’s Laws remains largely untapped by those seeking genuinely collaborative models of the doctor–patient tie as alternatives to paternalism and autonomy. A persistent difficulty confronting proposed alternatives has been surpassing the notion of pronounced intellectual and values asymmetry favoring the doctor. Having discussed two prominent proposals, both of which evince marked paternalism, I argue that reflection on Plato yields four criteria that a genuinely collaborative model must meet and suggest how the Laws addresses them. In the process, (...) the Laws’ doctor–patient tie is shown to be far more nuanced than interpreters have previously observed. Although Plato’s account will not solve our own quandaries, it illustrates how one might retain asymmetry of a kind without capitulating to familiar oppositional modalities. Through this account, I hope to show that the Laws merits fuller inclusion in contemporary discussions than it has heretofore received. (shrink)

The turn to analytic philosophy in Anglophone countries, which is still underway and is spreading elsewhere, has generally involved a retreat from ‘synoptic’ thinking and an almost complete withdrawal from ‘synthetic’ thinking, the creative thinking that in the past has been the source of the greatest contributions of philosophy to science, the humanities and civilization. Analytic philosophy’s ‘naturalistic turn’ led by Willard van Ormond Quine was really a capitulation of philosophy to mainstream reductionist science. So-called ‘continental philosophy’ when it (...) abjures naturalism, offers no real challenge to this. This paper attempts to recover a much more powerful challenge to such analytic philosophy and reductionist science, a philosophy which is naturalist but values synopsis and synthesis along with analysis: speculative naturalism. As such, this is presented as a manifesto not only for philosophy, but for science and the humanities. As Mikhail Epstein argued, the practical outcome of the humanities is the transformation of culture. To transform culture is to transform ourselves, our society and our relationship to each other and to nature. (shrink)

How does our understanding of the reality (or lack thereof ) of race as a category of being affect our understanding of racism as a social phenomenon, and vice versa? How should we envision the aims and methods of our struggles against racism? Traditionally, the Western political and philosophical tradition held that true social justice points toward a raceless future--that racial categories are themselves inherently racist, and a sincere advocacy for social justice requires a commitment to the elimination or abolition (...) of race altogether. This book focuses on the underlying assumptions that inform this view of race and racism, arguing that it is ultimately bound up in a "politics of purity"--an understanding of human agency, and reality itself, as requiring all-or-nothing categories with clear and unambiguous boundaries. Racism, being organized around a conception of whiteness as the purest manifestation of the human, thus demands a constant policing of the boundaries among racial categories. Drawing upon a close engagement with historical treatments of the development of racial categories and identities, the book argues that races should be understood not as clear and distinct categories of being but rather as ambiguous and indeterminate (yet importantly real) processes of social negotiation. As one of its central examples, it lays out the case of the Irish in seventeenth-century Barbados, who occasionally united with black slaves to fight white supremacy--and did so as white people, not as nonwhites who later became white when they capitulated to white supremacy. Against the politics of purity, Monahan calls for the emergence of a "creolizing subjectivity" that would place such ambiguity at the center of our understanding of race. The Creolizing Subject takes seriously the way in which racial categories, in all of their variety and ambiguity, situate and condition our identity, while emphasizing our capacity, as agents, to engage in the ongoing contestation and negotiation of the meaning and significance of those very categories. (shrink)

Radical skepticism about the external implies that no belief about the external is even prima facie justified. A theoretical reply to skepticism has four stages. First, show which theories of epistemic justification support skeptical doubts (show which theories, given other reasonable assumptions, entail skepticism). Second, show which theories undermine skeptical doubts (show which theories, given other reasonable assumptions, do not support the skeptic’s conclusion). Third, show which of the latter theories (which non-skeptical theory) is correct, and in so doing show (...) that all of the rival theories of justification, skeptical and non-skeptical alike, are mistaken. Fourth, explain why skeptical doubts are sometimes (or sometimes merely seem) intuitive, and thereby accommodate skeptical doubts without capitulation. Michael Williams has pioneered the very idea of a theoretical reply. A theoretical diagnosis consists in just the first two stages. An adequate reply, which is correct at each stage, would rebut the skeptic entirely. Williams’ own reply, I argue, is inadequate. I offer in its place an exhaustive and accurate diagnosis of skepticism. I distinguish four kinds of skepticism and five theories of justification. I then show which theories do, and which theories do not, support which kinds of skepticism. (shrink)

As David Wiggins points out, although Ross is best known for opposing Moore's consequentialism, Ross comes very close to capitulation to Moore when he accepts, as required by beneficence, a prima facie duty to maximize the good. I argue that what lies behind this is Ross's acceptance of Moore's doctrine of agent-neutral intrinsic value, a notion that is not required by, but is indeed is in tension with, beneficence as doing good to or for others.

Presentism faces a familiar objection from truthmaker theory. How can propositions about the past be made true if past entities do not exist? In answering this question, there are, broadly, two roads open to the presentist. The easy road to presentism proceeds by capitulating to the demands imposed by truthmaker theory and finding truthmakers for claims about the past. This road typically involves the invocation of controversial metaphysical posits that must then be defended. The hard road to presentism resists the (...) demands of truthmaker theory by denying that all truths must be truth-made. The road is hard as it requires providing a principled restriction on the scope of truthmaker theory. In this paper, I argue that the hard road collapses back into the easy road; there is no hard road to presentism. (shrink)

In “The Choice Theory of Contracts,” we explain contractual freedom and celebrate the plurality of contract types. Here, we reply to critics by refining choice theory and showing how it fits and shapes what we term the “Contract Canon”. I. Freedom. (1) Charles Fried challenges our account of Kantian autonomy, but his views, we show, largely converge with choice theory. (2) Nathan Oman argues for a commerce-enhancing account of autonomy. We counter that he arbitrarily slights noncommercial spheres central to human (...) interaction. (3) Yitzhak Benbaji suggests that choice theory’s commitment to autonomy is overly perfectionist. Happily, in response to Benbaji, we can cite with approval Charles Fried’s point that contract types are “enabling our liberties.” II. Choice. (4) Aditi Bagchi criticizes our inattention to impediments to choice. We show how choice theory’s commitments to both multiplicity and relational justice ameliorate these impediments. (5) Gregory Klass explores parol evidence to highlight the mechanisms of choice. We substantially concur with his position, and show how such mechanisms can ensure voluntariness, an essential element of choice. (6) Oren Bar-Gill and Clayton Gillette question the institutional capacity of existing legal actors to implement choice theory. Working from the example of cohabitation, we offer a somewhat more optimistic view. III. Contracts. (7) Peter Benson contends our focus on the rational slights the reasonable. Although we did not use this Rawlsian vocabulary, choice theory complies with its strictures — more so than transfer theory. (8) Daniel Markovits and Alan Schwartz claim provocatively that contract theory must: capitulate before pluralism (as they endorse); leverage it; or fall victim to a so-called “embracing” approach (their charge against us). We reject the charge that choice theory is foundationally value-pluralist. Instead, we cabin pluralism and put it to work. (9) The Contract Canon starts on the next big step for choice theory by explaining existing doctrine (rebutting Benson on lack of fit) and helping adjudicate contract practice (countering Markovits and Schwartz on the vices of our pluralism). Each Article in this Issue advances the field; each prompts us to refine choice theory — all steps, we hope, toward a more just and justified law of contract. (shrink)

Epistemology and informal logic have overlapping and broadly similar subject matters. A principle of methodological symmetry is: philosophical theories of sufficiently similar subject matters should engage similar methods. Suppose the best way to do epistemology is in highly formalized ways, with a large role for mathematical methods. The symmetry principle suggests this is also the best way to do the logic of the reasoning and argument, the subject matter of informal logic. A capitulation to mathematics is inimical to informal (...) logicians, yet formal methods and mathematical models are an emerging force in epistemology. What is to be done? What’s sauce for the goose of epistemology is sauce for the gander of informal logic. (shrink)

There are five basic ways to resolve disagreements: keep arguing until capitulation, compromise, locate an ambiguity or contextual factors, accept Pyrrhonian skepticism, and adopt relativism. Relativism is perhaps the most radical and least popular solution to a disagreement, and its defenders generally think the best motivator for relativism is to be found in disputes over predicates of personal taste. I argue that taste predicates do not adequately motivate relativism over the other possible solutions, and argue that relativism looks like (...) the most promising approach when disputants cannot even agree on the meta-evidence for a contested proposition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Logic of God Incarnate. By THOMAS V. MORRIS. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986. Pp. 220. $19.95. Thomas V. Morris, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has written a technical yet provocative study on the Incarnation. As a faithful Christian he believes in and desires to defend the traditional Christian doctrine of the Incarnation proclaimed in the New Testament and defined by the (...) early councils of the Church, especially Chalcedon, that is, that Jesus is the One eternal Son existing in two natures. He also holds that, while the truth of the Incarnation is revealed, it must nonetheless stand the test of logic and reason. The Incarnation cannot be illogicaJ or meaningless. " If the church has been guided by God in such matters as the formulation of its creeds, conciliar decrees, and catechisms,.... we would not expect glaring logical flaws in its central doctrinal affirmations" (p. 46). The stated purpose of Morris's study is to defend the traditional doctrine against those who would hold it to be logically incoherent and meaningless. "In the course of thinking about the Incarnation for some years now, I have come to see that a few simple metaphysical distinctions and a solid dose of logical care will suffice to explicate and defend the doctrine against all extant criticisms of a philosophical nature" (p. 9). Morris meticulously analyzes and critiques a number of arguments that oppose the possibility of coherence of the Incarnation by attempting to demonstrate that such arguments are.either false and illogical themselves, or that they do not apply to a true understanding of the Incarnation. Moreover, Morris proposes a novel understanding of the Incarnation which he believes is both logical and intelligible, and which conforms to the Christian tradition. This goal of upholding the intelligibility of the Incarnate leads Morris to a three-fold task. He first of all must refute his chief adversaries, those who would deny the sensibleness of saying God became man in Jesus. Such critics deny the validity of the Incarnation on the ground..'! that it is meaning·less, and the'l'efore impossible to juxtapose the incommensurable. attributes of divinity and humanity, e.g., perfection/imperfection, immutability/corruptibility. They hold that Jesus could not have had both these sets of properties at once (cf. p. 20). Morris refuses to capitulate to such arguments. He nevertheless insists that any solution to the issue which would undermine human logic or which would fail to uphold the Christian's belief is no solution at all (cf. p. 32). 367 368 BOOK REVIEWS Secondly, Morris's task leads him to refute any attempts at a " OneNature " solution, which would "squash" together the human and divine natures in Jesus to form a single nature. Such proposals jeopardize either the integrity of Jesus's divinity (Arianism) or his humanity (Docetism, Monophysitism), inevitably composing a mythical tertium quid (cf. pp. 33-38). Morris presents a clear case against such corruptions of the Incarnation. Thirdly, Morris's task brings him to analyze contemporary kenotic Christology. He thoroughly discusses this approach, for the reason that it is directly involved in the issue at hand, namely, the incompatibility between divine and human properties in Christ. Secondarily, however, Morris's interest in kenoticism reflects his own hope that some variation of the approach might posibly arrive at a Christological solution (cf. p. 92). While he ultimately rejects kenoticism, Morris flirts with the various alternatives, and, as we shall see, his own perception of the Incarnation remains tinged with a kenotic flavor. How then is it possible to predicate of one and the same individual divine and human attributes intelligibly and coherentlyT To use contemporary computer jargon, the question might be phrased: is it possible that God and man can he "incarnation-friendly¥" Morris believes so. Morris first of all sets out to define the terms-divine nature and human nature. He believes part of the incompatibility problem lies in attributing to Jesus's humanity unnecessarily hostile aspects. He distinguishes between being "merely human" and being "fully human"· To be " merely human " is to possess not only those properties that narrowly define one's nature or kind, such as rationality, but... (shrink)

A common analysis of current U.S. politics identifies the main problem as ideological polarization leading to government dysfunction, and moderation as the main solution. But drawing from Martin Luther King Jr., I contend that the main problem is sectarianism or us-them thinking, leading to injustice, and the main solution a social movement of love and justice. Notably, while many call for deemphasizing ideas, my solution calls for more emphasis on ideas. The purpose of government is justice. The moderation solution, although (...) superficially value-free, implicitly values the status quo or gradualism over justice, reflecting King’s “white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.” Sectarianism is bad for involving animosity toward outgroup members and undermining critical thinking, resulting in decision-making based on group power rather than rationality and justice. The moderation solution resembles sectarianism in encourag­ing decision-making based not on substance but relative to where others stand. Moreover, responding to injustice with moderation often involves capitulation to it. Counteracting sectarianism requires caring across group lines and making political decisions based on justice. A social movement, appealing to high ideals and broad solidarity—like King’s “extremism” for love and justice—is necessary to transform policies and our political culture. (shrink)

That the human reason cannot gain knowledge of the world as a totality – is one of the main results of Kant’s critical philosophy. By the concept of the world – and Kant understood the world primarily as one of the reason’s concepts, an idea – one cannot gain any knowledge because nothing from the sphere of human experience corresponds to this concept. According to Kant, the author tries to show that striving towards transcendent and unconditioned as such is not (...) the crucial problem of metaphysical cosmology but the assumption that one can realize such striving within a theoretical area. Kant, on the contrary, claims that we can fulfill it only practically, so the question concerning the world as a whole for him is a practical question, too. The task of establishing the world as intelligible, as it should be or as a kingdom of ends, is the basis of Kant’s doctrine of the categorical imperative. Kant understands this establishment as an endless task. The author also considers political-historical and religious aspects of Kant’s understanding of the world as an idea, as well as Hegel’s claim that Kant’s thought of the world finally capitulates to the finiteness. (shrink)

This article aims to present four case studies of the different responses to governmental measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic by supreme and constitutional courts, especially in cases of jurisdictions that have been facing democratic erosion. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic demanded immediate public policies and other political decisions from the branches of government. Executive authorities were the main actors in effecting constitutional public health norms. The expectation was that they will abide by the rule of law in fulfilling (...) their duties; that has not been the case under governments that promoted democratic erosion. The different contexts of the threats posed to the constitutional democracies led populist and illiberal leaders to opportunistically either try to—and then be contained by courts—or effectively consolidate the expansion of powers under the conditions of the pandemic. Concentrating on four jurisdictions (the USA, Hungary, El Salvador, and Brazil), the article demonstrates that courts can effectively work as bulwarks against waves of democratic erosion, especially in situations of stress, as it was the case in the global COVID-19 pandemic. This hypothesis is also proven by episodes in which courts did not sufficiently operate to curb illiberalism because they were already captured. The analyses enable classifying the court’s responses to the COVID-19 executive measures in a threefold pattern: deferential, restrictive, and of forced capitulation. (shrink)

Philosophy is traditionally understood as the search for universal truths, and philosophers are supposed to transmit those truths beyond the limits of their own culture. But, today, we have become skeptical about the ability of an individual philosopher to engage in "universal thinking," so philosophy seems to capitulate in the face of cultural relativism. In Introduction to Antiphilosophy, Boris Groys argues that modern "antiphilosophy" does not pursue the universality of thought as its goal but proposes in its place the universality (...) of life, material forces, social practices, passions, and experiences --angst, vitality, ecstasy, the gift, revolution, laughter or "profane illumination" --and he analyzes this shift from thought to life and action in the work of thinkers from Kierkegaard to Derrida, from Nietzsche to Benjamin. Ranging across the history of modern thought, Introduction to Antiphilosophy endeavors to liberate philosophy from the stereotypes that hinder its development. --Publisher. (shrink)

Niccolo Machiavelli lived in a fiercely competitive world, one where brute wealth, brazen liars and ruthless self-promoters seemed to carry off all the prizes; where the wealthy elite grew richer at the expense of their fellow citizens. In times like these, many looked to crusading religion to solve their problems, or they turned to a new breed of leaders - super-rich dynasties like the Medici or military strongmen like Cesare Borgia; upstarts from outside the old ruling classes. In the republic (...) of Florence, Machiavelli and his contemporaries faced a choice: should they capitulate to these new princes, or fight to save the city's democratic freedoms? Be Like the Fox follows Machiavelli's dramatic quest for political and human freedom through his own eyes. Masterfully interweaving his words with those of his friends and enemies, Erica Benner breathes life into his penetrating, comical, often surprising comments on events. Far from the cynical henchman people think he was, Machiavelli emerges as his era's staunchest champion of liberty, a profound ethical thinker who refused to compromise his ideals to fit corrupt times. But he did sometimes have to mask his true convictions, becoming a great artist of fox-like dissimulation: a master of disguise in dangerous times. (shrink)

Richard Rorty has made popular the postmodern capitulation of philosophy in favour of literature. For him, the traditional efforts of philosophers and scientists to go more beyond o nearer language in search of the truth outside time, contingency and chance, have failed. Therefore, he proposes a postphilosophical culture in which a role of a new cultural tendency is assumed by poets and novelists. In view of all this, in this article, I reconstruct the fundamental hypothesis wich justifies that (...) class='Hi'>capitulation –the textualism– and I put forward epistemological reasons which show up its inssufficient and inadequate nature. (shrink)

Deprivation accounts of death's badness, such as Feldman’s (1992), that purport to avoid questionable life-death comparatives Silverstein warns against (1980) by comparing only the values of various alternative life-wholes, implicitly depend upon assigning greater comparative value to periods of these life-wholes (for the person who lives) than is assigned to periods when the person is not alive, and thus are simply special cases of the problematic life-death comparative. Life-death comparatives undermine any deprivation account if (1) there is no way things (...) are (good or bad) for one who does not exist, and (2) values are comparative in the way specified by VC. Rejecting VC is not an option for the standard deprivation account, since this account uses VC to show that since continued life is good for the person who continues to live, death must be worse for that person. The non-standard deprivation account, dubbed by McMahan the reconciliation strategy, does not employ VC, but it also fails to vindicate common sense attitudes towards matters of life and death, and is in the main a capitulation to the Epicurean position. The remaining option for one who wishes to defend the view that death is typically bad for the person who dies is to directly target the Epicurean starting point, that things cannot be good or bad for a person when he does not exist. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Stanley Cavell and Criticizing the University from WithinMichael FischerStanley Cavell has spoken often of his "lifelong quarrel with the profession of philosophy" but he has said less about the university as a whole and its pressures on all academic disciplines, philosophy included. 1 In Cavell's work, "academic" or "professional" philosophy takes shape in an institutional context he has not yet fully analyzed. I want here to extrapolate from Cavell's (...) work a critical, yet sympathetic, response to the university that I think is especially needed today, when the rise of the so-called corporate university is intensifying some of the professional pressures that Cavell resists.Cavell's discomfort with academic philosophy stems in part from what he regards as its narrowness, specifically, its marginalization of Ludwig Wittgenstein and other philosophers, not to mention Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, the comedies of remarriage, and other work that Cavell cares about. In his view, the professional marginalization of these writers partly results from their exemplifying what can seem to be a vague moral seriousness, even at times a prophetic urgency, that calls for something akin to conversion rather than issuing in specific conclusions or reforms. According to Cavell, academic philosophy, by contrast, subsumes moral concerns under ethics, a separate field in which the "point of conversation is getting the other to agree to, or to do, something." 2Although Cavell does not systematically analyze the institutional pressures on academic philosophy, he does drop some hints. As befitting a subject seeking legitimacy in the university, academic philosophy has aligned itself with teachable subjects such as science, as opposed to more elusive pursuits such as painting and creative writing, which [End Page 471] have been less at home in the university and where the necessity of university instruction may be less clear and the line between success and failure harder to draw. 3 What can be taught in academic philosophy is a method of analysis, mastery of which can be certified in students by professors and in professors by journals, promotion and tenure committees, and administrators. Subdividing philosophy into discrete fields such as ethics makes it even more manageable, or less susceptible to sweeping pronouncements that cannot be tested by experts. Finally, the interest in getting "the other to agree to, or to do, something" associates academic philosophy, or at least ethics, with measurable results and maybe even progress.The rise of the so-called corporate university has exacerbated the emphasis on teachable expertise and definable outcomes that I have been describing. Take the largest private university in the United States—the University of Phoenix—as a model that some state and non-profit private universities may be emulating as they struggle to cut costs, meet external expectations, and work with reduced budgets. At the University of Phoenix, the interest in measurable results gets recast as learning outcomes that teachers enable students to reach as efficiently as possible. Specialization narrows these learning outcomes to sharply defined skills, such as writing business memos, which students can master and build on. Finally, the emphasis on method does not simply depersonalize instruction; it reduces the need for instructors. Each instructor is tasked with teaching as many students as possible, sometimes through distance learning, with class size reaching a limit only when the learning outcomes cannot be delivered. Lacking tenure, these instructors can be replaced, like interchangeable parts, when they wear out or their student customers become too dissatisfied with them. At another rapidly growing for-profit university, DeVry, students unhappy with their instructors are assured, in the words of a campus dean, that "weak links" will be "fixed" in a "total quality management" environment. 4Along similar lines, Lindsay Waters has recently explored how "the corporate makeover of the university" and "the commercialization of higher education" have affected academic publishing. 5 Universities compete in an increasingly cutthroat marketplace and face an escalating insistence on results from state legislatures, federal agencies, accrediting associations, and boards. Capitulating to this "accountability culture" (EP, p. 20), bottom-line driven administrators have stepped up demands for faculty productivity, measured in quantitative terms by numbers of students taught, grants won, and, what most concerns Waters, books and [End... (shrink)

The question discussed is whether the conditions for knowledge laid down by externalist or causal theories of knowledge render knowledge claims secure from scepticism of the cartesian kind. a simple account of such conditions encourages an affirmative answer. but such an account proves inadequate and some of the conditions of an adequate account are sketched. once these conditions are introduced, it is argued, knowledge claims appear as open as ever to sceptical challenge. however it is also seen how modest knowledge (...) claims may be upheld, and the conclusion reached is that the type of theory discussed allows us to compromise with scepticism rather than to capitulate. (shrink)

The trope of the repressive Muslim, obstinately attached to their regressive world views, recalcitrant antagoniser of modernity, has become a thoroughly familiar drama. Redundant spectacles abound: events often highly mediatised, substantiated by conservativism and liberalism alike, deployed as justification for policing, surveillance and invasion. The 2019 protests against the ‘No Outsiders’ LGBT lessons held in Birmingham, England are one such spectacle. Foregoing the dominant portrayal of the protests as an event of Muslim homophobia, I instead examine the social processes that (...) render the event exceptional in the British imaginary and the statecraft it subsequently enables. First, the protests’ production as a spectacular event is analysed through the historical conditions of Europe’s self-constitution through Islam-as-Threat. It is through liberalism’s amnesiac frame, one that erases its imperial and racist culpability, that the sexual exceptionalism that undergirds the spectacle of the protests can be understood. Second, reading the protests ‘sideways’, I argue, reveals how the displacement of homophobia onto Muslims continues liberalism’s tradition of situating its Others as oppositional to its purported gendered and sexual freedoms. In this context, sex education as deradicalisation of Muslim pupils becomes normalised, even as British liberalism disavows racism. Thirdly, the inclusion of queer Muslims as the authentic voice emerging from the cross-sections of queer and Muslim identity is critiqued as a ‘non-performativity’. Rather than offering a relational understanding of queer, Muslim and queer Muslim vulnerabilities, this inclusion elides an intersectional analysis of British homonationalism. I conclude by arguing for ‘an unalienated politics’ that is vigilant to co-optation, refusing to treat queerness as an exceptional site of injury. As such, how can we imagine the ‘queer’ in queer Muslim as a political position that refuses to capitulate to the hierarchisation of the human? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Fragments PLATONIC ELEMENTS IN KAFKA'S "INVESTIGATIONS OF A DOG" by Lewis W. Leadbeater Few critics of Kafka, and certainly few German critics of Kafka, have been willing to allow for much of any classical influence on his works. There are exceptions, but for the most part these commentators can bring themselves to admit only the fact Kafka endured with distaste his lengthy involvement with the classical languages (...) and literature and that, if in any way, he was influenced only in terms of syntax or style.1 Yet it is certain that Kafka read classical literature with interest and that he was well acquainted with classical epic, tragedy, philosophy, and mythology. The wandering Odysseus, the sea god Poseidon, tortured Prometheus —all these and other classical figures are to be found in his works. Indeed, a recent interpretation of The Trial involves a discussion of it in comparison with the trial of Socrates.2 The fact is that Kafka knew Plato's Apology and counted as one of his prized possessions a copy of Plato's Phaedrus. He and Brod read Plato together in high school.3 Are we really to assume, then, that, given Kafka's philosophical bent, he saw no relationship between Plato and the later philosophers, like Kierkegaard for instance, with whom he was quite taken, and that given his fertile mind and penchant for metaphor, Kafka reflects only Platonic syntax?4 Quite the contrary; we must, I think, cede his classicism to Kafka, and in the discussion which follows I should like to point out that in one of the short stories, "Investigations of a Dog," parable and metaphor blend as well as they do because of Platonic influence, and especially that of the Apology and the Phaedrus. Kafka's animals pervade his works in both metaphor and simile. Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find himself transformed into a gigantic beetle; Joseph K dies, at the end of his trial, like a dog, and it is a questioning canine which investigates the meaning of dog104 Lewis W. Leadbeater105 ness in "Forschungen eines Hundes." Generally the animalistic metaphor involves removal, alienation, and isolation— a loss of kinship with humanity to be sure, but more important a loss of communication, an inability to communicate, and hence an emphasis on all-encompassing, frustrating silence. The natural result for these people turned animal is an involvement in a process of severe introspection frequently linked with the pursuit of some idea or ideal which will provide a hitherto unknown, transcendent nourishment for a famished, alienated soul. Such is certainly the case with Gregor Samsa and quite possibly the case with Joseph K; it is in fact such pursuits which lie at the heart of the researches of our investigating Dog. Though any attempt to pinpoint the source of Kafka's penchant for animalistic metaphors is quite certainly futile, one might well posit as paradigmatic the alienation plays of Aristophanes involving animals, and certainly the notion of a psychological link between man and beast is present in Plato's Phaedrus, a dialogue in which the soul metaphor itself involves horses, and one in which there is considerable discussion of the interchangeability of the souls of men and beasts.5 As noted above such interchangeability or transformation occurs regularly in Kafka; within the ugly form of beetle lay the psyche of Gregor Samsa. Perhaps within the not-so-ugly canine form of our investigating hound lies the soul of Socrates. Consider for a moment the character of our Dog in light of Plato's Socrates as he appears in the Apology. To begin with, the Dog, as he tells us, is a solitary creature, withdrawn and involved solely in his "investigations" (p. 278).6 In addition, he fully realizes that he is different from the rest of his species (p. 279) and that indeed at times he feels rejected by his kind, realizing as he does that his investigations run counter to the traditional values of his species, a species by which he had hoped at one time to be accepted with great honor (p. 308). What he has capitulated to is "questions" which, furthermore, have quite removed him from normal... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Is Literature Self-Referential?Eric MillerIIs literary language necessarily self-referential? And does this put paradox at the heart of literature? For at least two decades now, affirmative answers to both questions have been articles of faith among critics in the structuralist and poststructuralist mainstream. Literature’s ineluctable paradoxicality attracts us so because a paradox suggests that there are limits to human rationality, and thus strikes a blow for literature and against science. (...) Paradox ensures literature its own special realm, safe from the culturally imperialistic inroads of science’s orderly, rational-empirical constructions. Literature thus gets to be seen as “bigger” than reason, because only literature can live with paradox, and thus only literature reveals those “deeper” truths of contradiction-ridden human existence, whereas science can never penetrate beyond rational manipulations of phenomenal surfaces. Indeed, for anyone who holds all human existence to be fundamentally paradoxical, this special capacity makes literature the only genuine, demystified species of human knowledge. In the war between C. P. Snow’s Two Cultures, a war humanists are now losing badly, we like to regard paradox as our ultimate weapon.Belief in the paradoxicality of literature may also be found among the New Critics, 1 and in fact goes back at least to the Romantics, 2 but they did not derive this belief from a necessary self-referentiality of literary language. This newer way of deriving paradox appears to offer several competitive advantages. Self-reference seems to be the ultimate version of “art for art’s sake”: if all literary language is necessarily self-referential, then literature must be something totally self-contained, and is thus legitimized solely in and through itself. In addition, deriving [End Page 475] literature’s paradoxicality from self-reference seems to ground it in the same conceptual realm as mathematical logic, and thus tempts us to claim for literature a “rigor” normally conceded only to logic, mathematics, and theoretical physics. Self-referentiality would thus seem both to protect literature’s autonomy and to raise its cultural status into the company of mathematics and science.But it is a trap. For behind this new strategy lurks a capitulation to the underlying conceptual scheme of natural science, and literature thus comes to be conceived, in effect, as a science. Self-reference is, after all, still a kind of reference; paradox is still a kind of truth-relational construction;—and truth-relations built around reference constitute the correspondence theory of truth. From such a foundational commitment to reference and correspondence-truth, flows the rest of the scientific worldview: the dualism of referring expression and referent, word and object, sentence and fact, theory and data, language and world, culture and nature. The presentation of literature as a quasi-negation of this ontology changes nothing. The dualism of reference still functions as literature’s conceptual starting point, as its arche. We only appear to be defining a peculiar and radically distinct sphere for literature when we insist on its self-referentiality, on the (recursive) identity, for it, of referring expression and referent. For, this is still to treat the conceptual distinction between the two as foundational, and literature thereby tacitly assimilates science’s fundamental categorial division: the referential language-world duality of correspondence truth. Indeed, literature thus comes to live even more completely in the margins of science: it will have no essence of its own; it will differ at most in being a photo-negative image of science’s positiv(istic) project. In Snow’s war, self-reference is a Trojan horse.With self-reference as the essence of literature, we are thus staking our reputations on literature’s being a special field of formalizable “knowledge about...,” rather than, say, a quality or kind or realm of possible experience—which is to adopt science’s understanding of what is important. Matters are only made worse by that other attempt to define literary studies as a negation of the theory-data dualism of natural science: the poststructuralist denial of the distinction between criticism and literature. For the institutional need professional critics have to be seen as a discipline with a method and a subject, as a form of “knowledge about,” hardly disappears with... (shrink)

Narrowing the focus of his Soundings in St. Augustine's Imagination (1994) O'Connell (philosophy, Fordham U.) analyzes three decisive conversions portrayed in the Confessions: the youthful reading of Cicero, that sparked by the platonist books, and the final capitulation in the Milanese garden. He also compares the conversion imagery with that in the Dialogues of Cassicciacum to shed light on the question of two Augustines. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Clinical Ethics: Balancing Praxis and TheoryEdmund D. Pellegrino (bio)When André Hellegers founded the Kennedy Institute, he envisioned a close collaboration between ethics and clinical practice. He even called for physician specialists whose expertise would be in both fields (Reich 1994, p. 324). A quarter of a century later, his vision and prediction have become realities. Clinical ethics is today a thriving entity with its own literature, practitioners, and methodology.This (...) clinical turn has, on the whole, been salutary. The abstractness of ethical theory has been tempered by the concreteness of clinical realities; clinicians have been helped to make bedside decisions even in the face of theoretical uncertainty and dissonance; and a variety of disciplines besides theology and philosophy have entered ethical discourse and enriched it.These advantages notwithstanding, clinical ethics has certain inherent traits that make it problematical. Some seek its norms in what “works” in practice or in paradigm cases (Jonsen and Toulmin 1988); others shape it to achieve consensus or satisfy the needs of public policy (Meilaender 1995); still others reduce bioethics to merely a method for the resolution of moral conflict. Rather than simply modulating theory by practice, clinical ethics can end up by repudiating theory entirely (Toulmin, in press). Taken to their logical conclusion, these tendencies make clinical ethics a species of the antifoundationalism that has strongly influenced moral philosophy in the last decade (Tollefsen 1995, pp. 3–18; Rockmore and Singer 1992). But antifoundationalism itself is a theory of ethics even though it supposedly denies the validity of any overarching theories.Antifoundationalism presents its own difficulties. For one thing it begs important questions that will not go away: for example, how do we know that a decision is a good one? what does it mean to say that a decision “works”? is the [End Page 347] outcome of a good decisional procedure itself a good decision? and to what extent are compromise and exigency admissible in moral decisions? Theoretical and “foundational” questions of this sort will not evaporate because they are ignored. They inevitably will be answered by begging the essential questions or grounding them solely in prelogical presuppositions.To avoid these difficulties, the advantages of clinical ethics must be retained without capitulation to the anti-theory bias of contemporary philosophy. This means that theory and practice must both be retained and be conceptually related to each other. To effect this we must take account of the long intellectual history of the relationship between the speculative and the practical intellect—i.e., between knowledge sought for its own sake and knowledge sought for some use beyond simply the possession of it (Lobkowicz 1967, pp. 78–81). Suffice it to say that medicine has long been the paradigm case for the union of theory and praxis. Relating them conceptually is an essential propaedeutic to any theory of moral praxis in medicine.The rest of this essay examines the inextricability of theory and practice in two of the three major branches of clinical ethics—the substantive and the professional. The third branch, procedural ethics—i.e., the ethics of the process of decision making—deals with informed consent, with respect for persons, professional colleagues, and families, and with the ethics of conflict resolution. Obviously, there are theoretical issues here as well. For want of space, procedural ethics will not be discussed, but it presents the same conjunction of theory and practice encountered in professional and substantive ethics.Substantive EthicsSubstantive ethics refers to the moral content rather than the process of moral decisions, to the moral status and permissibility of the specific clinical medical acts themselves—e.g., abortion, euthanasia, pre-implantation diagnosis, surrogate motherhood, withholding and withdrawing treatment, the physician as gatekeeper, and the like—the whole range of moral questions clinicians face in treating patients. Moral diversity and plurality on these issues is the most powerful force behind the dominance of procedural ethics. But, unfortunately, a morally valid decision-making procedure does not confer normative validity on the decision itself. Moral validity rests on questions that go beyond prevailing practices, on what we take to be the nature and moral status of persons, fetuses, and brain-damaged humans, the value or disvalue of... (shrink)

The following essay investigates the animating force of jester-humour and trickster-critique as necessary components of prophetic consciousness and social movement. Climate change devastation coupled with racialised socio-economic predation today faces social movement with a stark demand. The root-work necessary enjoins challenge of human presumption about the meaning of life at the most basic level. The locus from which such a depth-exploration will be elaborated here is postindustrial Detroit, on the part of a poet-activist-educator who will insist that ‘jesterism’ as ‘prophetic (...) animation’ cannot merely be ‘talked about’, but begs performance and embodiment – even in the process of writing and theorising. Indigenous wisdom and folk spirituality will supply historical perspective in asserting laughter as both antidote to trauma and tactic of critique – whether looking at traditional African practices of tricksterism reincarnate in everyday street life in Detroit, medieval Christian celebrations of the Feast of Fools subverting official Church orthodoxies in feudal Europe, or the postmodern insurgence of hip-hop beats and tags in challenging corporate gentrification and church capitulation at the emblematic heart of de-industrialisation. (shrink)

In the summer of 1922 Franz Kafka wrote a short story entitled Investigations of a Dog wherein the investigating dog reflects:“Consider us dogs, on the other hand! One can safely say that we all live together in a literal heap, all of us, different as we are from one another on account of numberless and profound modifications which have arisen in the course of history. All in one heap! But now consider the other side of this picture. No creatures to (...) my knowledge live in such wide dispersion as we dogs, none have so many distinctions of class, of kind, of occupation, distinctions too numerous to review at a glance; we, whose one desire is to stick together — and again and again we succeed at transcendent moments in spite of everything — we above all others live so widely separated from one another, engaged in strange vocations that are often incomprehensible even to our canine neighbours, holding firmly to laws that are not those of the dog world, but are actually directed against it. How baffling these questions are, questions on which one would prefer not to touch — I understand that standpoint too, even better than my own — and yet questions to which I have completely capitulated.”Today in 1996 the questions we humans harbour about ourselves, about our living together, and whatever sense there might be to “human solidarity,” may not be alltogether so different from those of Kafka’s dog who was investigating the dog world. (shrink)

In one of his earlier essays he offered a sketch of what a philosophy ought to accomplish. It includes elements which have remained constant throughout thirty years of philosophical activity. He wrote then that the task of philosophy remains what it has always been: to "explain, not explain away, the world we all in some sense know." Prodded by the irritant of science and helped with the newly powerful instrument of modern logic, philosophy must build a system of explanation without (...) reduction. His later philosophy vigorously defends non-scientific ways of understanding and resists any capitulation of philosophy to science or logic, but both remain important for an adequate philosophy. The history of philosophy becomes perhaps even more important as time passes. PIP is taken up with long and intricate reflections on philosophers of every time and sort. In his early sketch, nevertheless, the history of philosophy is said to be valuable for avoiding past mistakes. The five errors he singles out have as their counterpart the embryonic concerns of the modal philosophy. (shrink)

The article examines the ethical and socio-political rationales behind France’s decision to sign the armistice with Nazi Germany in June 1940. Subsequent to the defeat, France confronted a binary choice: capitulation or armistice. Capitulation would have entailed responsibility falling on the military; in contrast, in the case of the armistice, it fell on civilian authority. Unlike capitulation, which did not bind civilian governance and remained an exclusively military action, the armistice extended the suspension of hostilities across territories (...) under French sovereignty. In practical terms, capitulation would have allowed France’s legal government to continue the war from other locations, whereas the armistice strictly prohibited such actions. Despite these constraints, France chose the armistice in an attempt to shield its populace from Nazi atrocities. However, this protection ultimately proved illusory. The article contends that the subsequent delegation of full constituent powers to Marshal Pétain deepened societal divisions between collaborationists and members of the Resistance. Contrary to popular belief, General de Gaulle mythologized the Resistance after the war not merely to glorify it but also to alleviate national tensions and position France among the victors of World War II. Reflecting upon the experience of French history, the article concludes on the political and social consequences of decisions regarding war and peace, contingent upon whether political or military leadership assumes the responsibility. (shrink)

Les femmes ont-elles été jugées pour des crimes perpétrés pendant la période nazie? Pour tenter de répondre à cette question, il convient de faire la distinction entre les procès qui se sont déroulés très vite après la capitulation allemande, dans les diverses zones d’occupation et ceux qui se font à Nuremberg, selon un nouveau droit international. Les seconds visent des criminels ayant un degré de responsabilité dans les divers appareils de l’État nazi, responsabilité alors interdite aux femmes. Les premiers, (...) qui se font selon le droit déjà établi, concernent ceux qui ont commis de leurs propres mains des violences meurtrières. On apprendra donc par cet article que de très jeunes femmes furent condamnées à mort et exécutées pour les crimes qu’elles ont commis dans les camps. (shrink)

A new public philosophy began to emerge in the United States during the Progressive Era. Promoted by such intellectuals as John Dewey, William James, and the coUectivists of the New Republic magazine, it called for a citizenry trained in an experimental milieu, free of dogma and emancipated from sources of allegiance other than the new centralized democratic state then being forged. Catholics, however, neither capitulated to the new creed nor retreated into a self-righteous isolation. In a culture whose chief value (...) was pluralism they insisted on the uniqueness of the Church and the need for making value judgments based on a sound philosophy of man. (shrink)

There has been a debate, popularized by Ifenyi Menkiti and Kwame Gyekye, regarding philosophical understandings of the human person in Africa. The debate revolves around the saying "So and so is not a person." Gyekye convincingly argues that the saying is a manner of speech, intended to be a moral evaluation of a person's actions. Menkiti, however, goes further and suggests that many of the African conceptions of a person are based on a dynamic understanding of the self. Similar findings (...) were made of Maasai concepts of personhood in the study done by Patrick Dikirr. The "potential self" is not given but is always being constructed by one's deeds and one's relations. While it is certainly a romanticization to imagine Africans as harmoniously communal in contrast to the "isolated individuals" who supposedly inhabit the West, nevertheless, for a Maasai one gains self-identity and status to a large extent through one's relations to other persons and to animals. However, the paper illustrates the many ways in which Maasais still emphasize individual achievement and thought, debunking notions of African "group-think" and conformity. The paper then draws on Axel Honneth's insights into "recognition" to note the extent to which Maasai recognition of each other prevents the community's capitulation to the value system of other ethnic groups in Kenya or Western influence. (shrink)

At eighty-five, Jacques Maritain, the most distinguished Catholic philosopher of the twentieth century, has written what he offers as his last book, and it turns out to be a shocker. The peasant, as Maritain calls himself in the title, is a man who calls a spade a spade; and a storm of controversy descended immediately on the book's publication in France, as both Right and Left reeled from the force of Maritain's criticism.The Peasant of the Garonne is a sharp attack (...) on the new philosophy, hoping to cool off the fever for change that Maritain believes is imperiling the church's traditional spirituality and even the substance of doctrine. There is sardonic humor in his treatment of Teilhardians, phenomenologists, existentialists, new-style biblical critics, and clerical Freudians, but Maritain is deeply serious in warning that their capitulation to fashioniable trends represents a kind of kneeling before the world. (shrink)

Recent developments of transcendental arguments reflect the struggle to accommodate Stroud’s devastating objection by giving up of failed expectations in providing a proof of what the external-world skeptic calls into question: knowledge of the existence of the outside world. Since Strawson capitulation in 1984, the truth-direct transcendental arguments gave way to modest belief-direct transcendental arguments that concedes that truth-direct transcendental arguments are doomed to fail to establish ambitious conclusions about reality, but at the same time hold that they can (...) nonetheless successfully establish modest conceptual connection between the major beliefs within our conceptual scheme. This article seeks the “reactionary” rehabilitation of the old hubris: a new defense of the truth-direct transcendental argument. I set forth a new reconstruction of Kant’s Refutation as successful truth-directed transcendental argument that meets Stroud’s objection. As several papers and books about the theme, this article is of a systematic and of a historical nature by connecting the contemporary debate about transcendental argument with Kant’ philosophy. (shrink)

Patriotism is a form of loyalty. The range of loyalty is from patriotism to friendship. Liberals were often accused of having no sense of loyalty. They usually tend to deny the charge — even while refusing to take a loyalty oath. Even the liberal philosopher Sir Karl Popper has claimed (Open Society, i, ch. 10), that liberals can be better patriots than others. 1 find this line of defense erroneous and morally wrong. I find it much nicer, much more honest, (...) to join Martin Buber in his taking Jeremiah as a model because when he felt that capitulation to the enemy is morally justified he recommended just that. Buber, fearful of the effects of patriotism, opposed the foundation of a Jewish state and proposed, instead, a program.. (shrink)

This article focuses on the role of servants in María Lugones’ “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception.” I show that Lugones uses and erases the work of servants in developing her understanding of world-traveling. This theoretical marginalization and instrumentalization challenges her claim to capture concrete, lived experience. This article argues that Lugones’ theory is “pseudo-concrete”: it capitulates into the very abstractions it seeks to overcome. Focusing on the role of servants reveals the class character of world-traveling and, in turn, its inability (...) to grasp class relations. This article, thus, invites decolonial feminists to reconsider the advantages of class analysis for understanding not only capitalist domination but also perception, identification, and love. -/- . (shrink)