Moral and political theories, insofar as they are based on the fragile life of human beings, usually incorporate a reflection on the role of uncertainty or contingency. The question remains however, how exactly do we experience ‘uncertainty’? Can it show us different faces, to which we then react in different ways? If so, what is the meaning of such multiplicity for the exercise of agency? Comparing Bergson’s inquiry into the modern belief in chance with Jean-Marie Guyau’s reflections on the love (...) of risk, I examine the moral significance of different ways of relating to uncertainty, and analyze their respective pedagogical purchase regarding the constitution of human freedom. When confronted with the unknown future, human agency gets easily trapped in the vicious and vertiginous circle of impotence and omnipotence. The contrast between Bergson and Guyau illuminates this problem, showing how our relation to uncertainty informs our identity, our capacity for action, and our sense of obligation. (shrink)

Maksymilian Del Mar’s Artefacts of Legal Inquiry. Some reflections This contribution explores Maksymilian Del Mar’s Artefacts of Legal Inquiry by posing several questions and an objection. First, I celebrate the role that Del Mar awards for hesitation and experimentation in adjudication, but I question, at the same time, whether it can backfire regarding the accountability to which judges and legislators are subjected. Next, I wonder about the author’s position with regards to the dangers of affective participation in the law, as (...) well as regarding the obstacles to true listening in adjudication. Then, I address Del Mar’s proposal to use of ‘figures’ in legal inquiry, and ask whether that can somehow imply that we, in turn, approach the defendants’ character in problematic ways. Finally, this contribution ends with an objection to Del Mar’s approach to the cognitive theory of language, and specifically with respect to metaphors, in legal studies. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

In her response, Alfaro fleshes out two main questions that come out from her book The Belief in Intuition. First, what is the relation between Henri Bergson and Max Scheler's personalist anthropology, on the one hand, and politics, on the other? What kinds of political order and civic education would sustain dense moral psychology, such as the one she claims follows from their writings? Second, and more specifically, what theory of authority corresponds to the philosophical anthropology that we learn from (...) these authors? How can the “small-scale exemplarity” that Alfaro argues is articulated in their writings be an alternative to how we think today about charisma and emulation in the public sphere? In articulating these responses, Alfaro reflects on phenomena like uncertainty, education, and social media in the contemporary public sphere. (shrink)