In this paper, I explore the phenomenon of a felt sense of the concrete other. Although the importance of this phenomenon is recognised in the contemporary discussion on intercorporeality, it has not been subjected to systematic phenomenological analysis. I argue that the felt sense of the other is an aspect of intercorporeal body memory in so far as it is a habituation to something like the concrete other’s expressive style. Because it is inherently a sensory phenomenon, I speak of an (...) embodied sensorium of the other. I illustrate the phenomenon through contrasting case-vignettes taken from research in early parental bereavement. Based on this, I identify five modalities that outline the fundamental contours of a sensorium and specify that in their intermodal and synesthetic concretion they account for the felt sense of the other. Finally, I argue that the existential importance of the phenomenon is rooted in the distributed nature of my sense of self and self-familiarity. To illustrate this, I draw parallels between the felt sense of the concrete other and the felt sense of home and suggest that though there are also distinct differences between the two phenomena, they are rooted in the same underlying existential need for feeling-at-home in the world. (shrink)

Kant's political thinking is predominantly evaluated in contractarian terms, though recent contributions have also emphasized the natural law influence on him. This paper argues that the assimilation of Kant into either tradition is problematic. An analysis of his account of political obligation cannot ignore the distinctiveness of Kant's general philosophical framework. Two recurrent Kantian themes are crucial to a reconstruction of his political argument. The first is the tension between freedom and causality, or nature. The second is the role of (...) reflective judgment in practical reasoning. The paper analyses Kant's property argument, and his related account of political obligation, from the perspective of these Kantian themes. Kant's ‘antinomy of Right’, formulated in the context of his property argument, is interpreted as a conflict between freedom and nature, and in analogy with the third antinomy of the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant's obscure theorem, the lex permissiva, is central to his ‘solution’ to the antinomy. The theorem is best understood as a reflective practical judgment, through which agents are brought to acknowledge that their obligations of justice towards one another are a direct entailment of their respective claims to property. The connection between property rights and political obligations is thus intrinsic, not extrinsic; the acknowledgement of that connection an act of reflective judgment, not contractual. (shrink)

Aristotle claims man is a political animal and that the polis exists by nature. Taking literally his analogy between the legislator and the craftsman, Aristotle's critics contend that he 'blunders' because the polis is artificial, devised by a legislator/founder and imposed on a people. We defend Aristotle's claims by showing, first, how Aristotle's claim that man is by nature an animal possessing logos -- speech/reason -- grounds his account of the natural development of the polis out of the earliest partnerships (...) (which the critics concede are natural); second, that the person who first brought people together in a polis may well have done so without realizing the scope of his actions; and, finally, that the developmental process is clearly one of praxis (action), not poisis (making, the imposition of a form on matter). Aristotle's claims are evidenced by the Homeric hero Philoctetes, whom one critic takes to disprove Aristotle's theses. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions offers an insightful and engaging theory of science that speaks to scholars across many disciplines. Though initially widely misunderstood, it had a profound impact on the way intellectuals and educated laypeople thought about science. K. Brad Wray traces the influences on Kuhn as he wrote Structure, including his ‘Aristotle epiphany’, his interactions, and his studies of the history of chemistry. Wray then considers the impact of Structure on the social sciences, on the history (...) of science, and on the philosophy of science, where the problem of theory change has set the terms of contemporary realism/anti-realism debates. He examines Kuhn’s frustrations with the Strong Programme sociologists’ appropriations of his views, and debunks several popular claims about what influenced Kuhn as he wrote Structure. His book is a rich and comprehensive assessment of one of the most influential works in the modern sciences. (shrink)