In his foundational text The Twenty Years’ Crisis: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, E. H. Carr juxtaposes utopian and realist approaches to world politics. This dicho...

Thomas E. Hill, Jr.; Servility and Self-Respect, The Monist, Volume 57, Issue 1, 1 January 1973, Pages 87–104, https://doi.org/10.5840/monist197357135.

Back to Kant is a study of the rise of the neo-Kantian movement from its origins in the 1850s to its academic preeminence in the years before World War I. Thomas E. Willey describes early neo-Kantianism as a reaction of scientists and scientific philosophers against both the then discredited Hegelianism and Naturphilosophie of the preceding era and the simplistic and deterministic scientific materialism of the 1850s. "Back to Kant" was the slogan of a revolt against theories of knowledge which (...) seemed inadequate to recent discoveries in thermodynamics, physiology, optics and other fields. Because Immanuel Kant was the philosopher who placed Newtonian physics on new epistemological foundations and demonstrated the possibility of universal scientific truth, he was the right thinker for a generation of scholars living through a new scientific revolution in Germany and dissatisfied with both speculative idealism and crude materialism. The second wave of neo-Kantians continued to discuss problems of scientific epistemology in the 1880s and after, but they also showed a keen interest in political and social matters, attempting to bridge liberalism and socialism with Kantian ethics. Neo-Kantians had to face questions of socialism, the place of the working class in society, the phenomenon of social welfare, the challenge of political democracy. Willey uses the biographical approach to develop the relationship between unity and diversity in the movement, and to underscore the importance of personality in history. While individual dissertations and monographs have been written on various thinkers and schools within neo-Kantianism, this is the first wide-ranging history of the entire phenomenon. Willey observes that the movement did succeed in reasserting ethical values and in separating humanistic studies from the methods of physical science. He also discusses the possibility that a wider acceptance of neo-Kantian ideals among bourgeois intellectuals and socialist leaders might have reduced class antagonisms and sustained a stronger feeling of community between Germany and the West. (shrink)

There are many ways of writing about the moral life, but at first sight few seem more formal and apparently remote from its urgent, anguishing problems than ...

This response considers the question whether empiricists are condemned to silence about the epistemic agency their theories attribute or presuppose. It is argued that, unlike Reichenbach or Carnap, Neurath allowed for and indeed provided specifications of the role of epistemic agency in scientific inquiry. If this is correct, it underscores once more the need to distinguish between the various strands of logical positivism which show different strengths and weaknesses.

The tendency to attribute foundationalist ambitions to the Vienna Circle has long obscured our view of its attempted revolution in philosophy. The present paper makes the case for a consistently epistemologically anti-foundationalist interpretation of all three of the Circle's main protagonists: Schlick, Carnap, and Neurath. Corresponding to the intellectual fault lines within the Circle, two ways of going about the radical reorientation of the pursuit of philosophy will then be distinguished and the contemporary potential of Carnap's and Neurath's project explored.

Respect, Pluralism, and Justice is a series of essays which sketches a broadly Kantian framework for moral deliberation, and then uses it to address important social and political issues. Hill shows how Kantian theory can be developed to deal with questions about cultural diversity, punishment, political violence, responsibility for the consequences of wrongdoing, and state coercion in a pluralistic society.

The term “globalization” was popularized by Marshall McLuhan in War and Peace in the Global Village. In the book, McLuhan described how the global media shaped current events surrounding the Vietnam War [1] and also predicted how modern information and communication technologies would accelerate world progress through trade and knowledge development. Globalization now refers to a broad range of issues regarding the movement of goods and services through trade liberalization, and the movement of people through migration. Much has also been (...) written on the global effects of environmental degradation, population growth, and economic disparities. In addition, the pace of scientific development has accelerated, with both negative and positive implications for global health. Concerns for national health transcend borders, with a need for shared human security and an enhanced role for international cooperation and development [2]. These issues have significant bioethical implications, and thus a renewed academic focus on the ethical dimensions of public health is needed. Future developments in science and health policy also require a firm grounding in bioethical principles. These core principles include beneficence; nonmaleficence ; respect for persons and human dignity ; and attention to equity and social justice. According to the World Health Organization [3], global ethical approaches should monitor and update ethical norms for research, as necessary; anticipate ethical implications of advances in science and technology for health; apply internationally accepted codes of ethics; ensure that agreed standards guide future work on the human genome; and ensure that quality in health systems and services is assessed and promoted. (shrink)

Logical Empiricism is commonly regarded as uninterested in, if not hostile to sociological investigations of science. This paper reconstructs the views of Otto Neurath and Philipp Frank on the legitimacy and relevance of sociological investigations of theory choice. It is argued that while there obtains a surprising degree of convergence between their programmatic pronouncements and the Strong Programme, the two types of project nevertheless remain distinct. The key to this differences lies in the different assessment of a supposed dilemma facing (...) post-Mertonian sociologists of science. (shrink)

_Taking Picture Books Seriously: What can we learn about philosophy through children's books?_ This warm and charming volume casts a spell on adult readers as it unveils the surprisingly profound philosophical wisdom contained in children's picture books, from Dr Seuss's _Sneetches_ to William Steig's _Shrek!_. With a light touch and good humor, Wartenberg discusses the philosophical ideas in these classic stories, and provides parents with a practical starting point for discussing philosophical issues with their children. Accessible and multi-layered, it answers (...) questions like, Is it okay for adults to deceive kids? What's the difference between saying the Mona Lisa is a great painting and vanilla is your favorite flavor? Each chapter includes illustrations commissioned especially for this book. (shrink)

Kaplan, Stalnaker and Wettstein all urge a two-stage theory of language whereon the propositions expressed by sentences are generated prior to being evaluated. A new ambiguity for sentences emerges, propositional rather syntactic or semantic. Kaplan and Wettstein then propose to explain Donnellan's referential/attributive ambiguity as simply being two-stage propositional ambiguity. This is tacitly seen as further confirmation for two-stage theory. Modal ambiguities are prime motivators for two-stage theory which distinguishes local from exotic evaluation to explain them. But if sentences can (...) be found which exhibit both modal and referential/attribute ambiguity, an apparent paradox arises for a two-stage account. The theory recognizes both singular and general propositions, in Kaplan's senses. But reflecting one sense of such a doubly ambiguous sentence, two-stage theory would seem to need a proposition both singular and general with respect to a definite description attributively used. Since modal operators will come into rendering the problem sentences, an obvious idea is to let scope distinctions rescue two-stage theory from the apparent paradox. But while a rescue based on multiple renderings is proposed, it is not strictly a scope rescue, though different scopes are involved. Readers are asked to trust the author on missing formalities of an intuitively transparent two-sorted modal language that is employed. Two-stage theorists explicitly oppose scope treatments of modal ambiguities seeing them as rivals. Stalnaker, in particular, argues against them. But his arguments are shown not to count against the proposed rescue, on which the anticipated rivalry proves to be minimal. (shrink)

Released in 1999, _Fight Club_ is David Fincher’s popular adaption of Chuck Palahniuk’s cult novel, and one of the most philosophically rich films of recent years. This is the first book to explore the varied philosophical aspects of the film. Beginning with an introduction by the editor that places the film and essays in context, each chapter explores a central theme of _Fight Club_ from a philosophical perspective. Topics discussed include: _Fight Club_, Plato’s cave and Descartes’ cogito moral disintegration identity, (...) gender and masculinity visuals and narration. Including annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, _Fight Club_ is essential reading for anyone interested in the film, as well as those studying philosophy and film studies. (shrink)

Rejecting Kant''s absolute opposition to revolution, I propose a modified Kantian perspective for reflecting on political violence, drawing from Kant''s basic ideas but abandoning some dubious assumptions. Developing suggestions in earlier papers, the essay sketches a model for moral legislation that combines the core ideas of each of Kant''s formulas of the Categorical Imperative. Though only a framework for deliberation, not a complete decision procedure, this excludes extremist positions, prohibitive and permissive, about political violence. Despite Kant''s hopes, the values implicit (...) in his fundamental principle fail to support easy, inflexible solutions; but they place strong presumptions against lawless coercion and killing, undermining social order, treating persons as dispensable, underestimating options, arrogant faith in one''s own judgment, and reckless simplicity in political thinking. (shrink)

Care ethics is often criticized for being incapable of outlining what responsibilities we have to persons beyond our personal relations, especially toward distant others. This criticism centres on care theorists’ claim that the concerns of morality emerge between people, generated through our relations of interdependent care: it is difficult to see how moral duties can be applied to those with whom we do not forge a relationship. In this article, I respond to this criticism by outlining a care ethical justification (...) for an interest theory of human rights. This theory will argue that the demands of global justice include various positive actions that aim toward ensuring the conditions for good caring relations to flourish, which in turn protect and promote the vital interests of all persons. In doing so, I aim to concurrently advance the sparse work on human rights within the care literature, systematizing the ideas of care theorists such as Daniel Engster, Virginia Held, and Fiona Robinson. (shrink)

Although there has been an extensive debate about whether films can actually do philosophy, this chapter bypasses that debate in order to examine a number of different ways in which philosophy has been done by contemporary filmmakers. Using a variety of different films from different genres—including Anomalisa, an animated film; Amour, a narrative fiction film; and The Act of Killing, a documentary—the chapter explores some of the central ways that philosophy has been done on film—such as providing a counterexample to (...) a philosophical thesis, providing evidence to support a philosophical claim, and presenting an argument in support of a philosophical view. (shrink)

Still, some may still want to say it. If so, my replies may gain nothing better than a stalemate against such persistence, though I can hope that earlier revelations will discourage others from persisting. But two replies are possible. Both come down, one circuitously, to an issue with us from the beginning: whether the language of the right side of (10) is suspect. For if (10) is to support instances for (6) which are about objects, that clause must itself be (...) about objects. (These would be ones assigned by variants of I it mentions to constants it mentions.) Yet Barwise and I would call it implicitly about functions. Ironically, the discussion surrounding (10), hoping to settle that issue, could only do so if the issue were already settled, revealing decisively the ontology of (10). If irritating, this is also inevitable, given the Tarskian spirit of the ensivioned semantics for QLB.A second reply begins by noting that a QLB semantics which implies (10) cannot simply be assumed. Even a QL semantics augmented to imply (11) is not trivial to frame, as I will let readers confirm. On the QLB project, Barwise comments thus:It is not possible to explain the meaning of an essential use of branching quantification ... inductively, by treating one quantifier at a time in a first-order fashion. Some use of higher-type abstract objects is essential. (BQE75)But believers in a modest ontology for QLB can claim a non sequitur here. For (10), as they read it, succeeds without mentioning abstract objects, though not in the “one quantifier at a time” way which Barwise rightly finds impossible. This is not yet to say the same about a QLB semantics implying (10). But that too can be said, as it happens, with as good a conscience as with (10). A suitable treatment can begin by somehow linearizing non QL sentences like (6). Still assuming prefixes whose rows each consist, speaking loosely, of n universal quantifiers followed by a single existential, we could simply line up these rows in any order, with unique deconcatenatability being assured. From then on, it gets both tedious and complex. A full syntax is essential, and some surprising categories arose in mine. I will spare readers all details, except to say that one can indeed “treat one quantifier at a time”, if not “in first-order fashion”: schematic rules for treating n quantifiers at once can be eschewed. Unsurprisingly, heavy use is made of the “depending only on” idiom seen in (10). Nor does it surprise me that this semantics can succeed, with that idiom available. Roughly, if open talk about functions works in a semantics for QLF, what I read as implicit talk about them should work in a semantics for QLB See [6] for a start on a semantics aspiring to handle sentences like (6) without invoking abstract objects. See also my comments on its notion of dependence, in [9]. . So even from a bare sketch, we can see that this new semantics settles nothing. It just leads back to the stalemate. Barwise and I will read crucial clauses as talking implicitly about functions, but this general charge against an idiom is equally deniable wherever the idiom occurs: in a reading for (6), say, or in the metalanguage can hardly repress a motherhood slogan: better dead than obscurely read. But that just denies the denial, unhelpfully. A better comment is the reminder that the claim stays alive only in a form which no one has ever imagined for it. The QLB quantifiers that cannot be shown not to range over objects are not the items anyone would ever have pointed to in illustrating the unkillable claim. (shrink)

Deacon presents a fascinating model that adds to explanations of the origins of life from physical matter. Deacon’s paper owes much to the work of Howard Pattee, who saw semiotic relations in informational terms, and Deacon binds his model to criticism of current information concepts in biology which he sees as semantically inadequate. In this commentary I first outline the broader project from Pattee, and then I present a cybernetic perspective on information. My claim is that this view of information (...) is already present within biology and provides what Deacon seeks. (shrink)