During his Jena period, Fichte endorses a curious dictum: ‘the kind of philosophy one chooses depends on the kind of person one is’. How can Fichte’s dictum support a vindication of German idealism over Spinozism, which he also calls ‘dogmatism’? I will show that the answer to this seemingly straightforward question reveals a rather complex series of metametaphysical objections that shape the development of the entire German idealist tradition. Ultimately, as I will suggest, the series of metametaphysical questions that shape (...) the German idealist tradition must culminate in the question of how to understand the relation between philosophy and its presuppositions. I will conclude by briefly considering a hermeneutical response to this question. (shrink)

McKenna’s version of non-ideal inquiry epistemology combines pessimism about the epistemic capacities of individuals with certain forms of optimism about the influence of social institutions on our epistemic lives. I suggest that the latter may amount to a problematic idealisation of the sort McKenna is trying to steer epistemology away from; moreover, a more thoroughgoing pessimism about the epistemic influence of institutions may make it clearer why we should value and strive for a degree of intellectual autonomy, even if this (...) is limited in scope and comes at a cost. I close by briefly considering two proposals that an inquiry epistemology that takes these points on board might make. (shrink)

Following an overview of Mark Textor's wide-ranging narrative in The Disappearance of the Soul and the Turn Against Metaphysics, I note his treatment of the discussion of Brentano's thesis and discuss that of the naturalistic opposition to Brentano, Textor's understanding of the concept of Austrian Philosophy and raise a question about the survival of metaphysics he advocates.

Evidence-based law seeks to make best use of evidence to assess the effectiveness of laws and regulations. The question arises as to how exactly to make best use of evidence. This paper argues that Evidential Pluralism provides an answer to this question and can thus provide philosophical foundations for evidence-based law. Evidential Pluralism is a theory of causal enquiry which maintains that one needs to scrutinise mechanistic studies alongside the experimental and observational studies that are the focus of present-day evidence-based (...) medicine and evidence-based policy. The paper develops a new approach to evidence-based law, called EBL+, based on the principles of Evidential Pluralism. Three examples show how the proposed methods work: banning hand-held mobile phone use while driving, sugar tax, and face-mask mandates for controlling Covid-19. (shrink)

Islamic theological contradictions are metaphysical contradictions as opposed to logical and semantic ones. I shall demonstrate that if these theological contradictions are tolerable on the theoretical account of metaphysical dialetheism, then logical space, despite being the space of all possibilities, does not accommodate them in virtue of Chalmers’s ‘deep epistemic possibility’. To resolve this issue, I offer a recalibration of the modal concept of possibility. Doing so would redraw a demarcation between what is possible and what is not. Consequently, we (...) can expand logical space, so it is properly inclusive of all possibilities, including metaphysical dialetheism. Expanding logical space in this way would repudiate Chalmers’s ‘deep epistemic possibility’ and make room for Islamic theological contradictions. (shrink)

Hans Kelsen’s application of his Pure Theory of Law to international law was supported by two key theoretical assumptions. According to the systematicity assumption, present in Kelsen’s work between 1920 and 1960, legal cognition constituted international law as a unified system, grounded in a presupposed basic norm. According to the evolutionist assumption, prominent between 1934 and 1945, social institutions underwent a teleological process of evolution, so that international law could be expected to recapitulate the development of domestic legal systems. This (...) paper analyses the evolutionist model, identifying what Kelsen considered to be the minimum content of a legal order and the characteristics of the earliest legal orders, and showing how his analysis of international law followed the model. It then reviews the systematicity assumption and the difficulty of applying it to international law, particularly with regard to the basic norm. These difficulties, and some potentially unsettling implications of the evolutionist assumption, are discussed with reference to the broader history of Kelsen’s theoretical work. In conclusion, the paper argues that the same drive for certainty that led Kelsen to champion these models led him to abandon or downplay them after 1945, discounting the insights that they could offer him – and us. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the hypothesis that a conception of right(s) that draws from the notion of needs is crucial for a critique of market constitutionalism. To this end, I review different theories of need, revisit the ‘needs versus rights’ debate and set it in the context of the Marxist critique of rights. Market rationality pits ‘needs’ against ‘rights’ (in the legal field) and favours a narrow conception of ‘need’ (in the field of normative theory). In contrast to this, (...) I propose a rich conception of ‘need’ based on Marx’s critique of capitalism and explore its potential for a materialist conception of right(s). I conclude with a tentative exploration of the constitutional implications of adopting a needs-based approach to rights, in terms of both judicial and political decision-making forms. To develop the above argument, I focus on labour rights – especially the ways in which market rationality has affected the conception and application of labour rights in the European Union and the United Kingdom. (shrink)

Chastʹ I. Zhiznennyĭ putʹ I︠U︡.K. Pletnikova -- Chastʹ II. Izbrannye raboty tvorcheskogo nasledii︠a︡ I︠U︡.K. Pletnikova -- Chastʹ III. Vospominanii︠a︡ o I︠U︡.K. Pletnikove.

I. Musulʹmansʹka kulʹtura ĭ filosofii︠a︡ na pivdennoukraïnsʹkykh zemli︠a︡kh -- Filosofsʹkyĭ sufizm Ibrahima alʹ-Kyrymi -- Abu lʹBaka'alʹ-Kafauvi: paradyhma postklasychnoho syntezu nauk -- Rat︠s︡ionalizm Mukhammada alʹ-Kafauvi ta Mukhammada alʹ-Akkirmani -- II. Obraz ti︠u︡rksʹkykh narodiv v ukraïnsʹkiĭ literaturi rannʹomedrnoï doby.