The aim of this paper is to set out some features of Kant’s conception of transcendental philosophy. I would like to argue that this philosophy, although it is situated at a higher level of discourse than common knowledge, does not essentially transcend the limits that it sets to this knowledge. In order to achieve this, I stress the fact that Kant regards experience as a mere “possibility.” Now, the Critique of Pure Reason explains that the human understanding cannot conceive (...) of an absolute possibility, but only a relative one, namely a possibility that is tied to conditions. And possible experience as a whole is no exception here. Hence the expression “conditions of the possibility of experience” which designates the topic of the Transcendental Analytic. This also means that experience is “contingent”. It is not in itself necessary; rather, it is dependent upon certain conditions. But then we learn that the most important transcendental conditions for this experience, i.e., the dynamic principles, are themselves “contingent”. Consequently, these transcendental conditions are not unconditioned; they in turn depend on empirical conditions, over which they have no control. (shrink)

My aim in this chapter is to explore an analogy between logic and ethics, as Wittgenstein understands them in the Tractatus. First, I argue that Wittgenstein regards logic as a condition of the possibility of meaning, in the sense that logic makes meaningful language and thought possible. Second, I ask why Wittgenstein calls both logic and ethics ‘transcendental’. I suggest that, while logic is a condition of the possibility of semantic meaning, ethics is a condition (...) of the possibility of existential meaning. Without ethics, life could not be meaningful. Third, I show that harmony and agreement play a crucial role in Wittgenstein’s accounts of logic and ethics. A meaningful proposition can be true or false, a meaningful life can be happy or unhappy, and both truth and happiness consist in some kind of harmony or agreement with reality. (shrink)

Transreligious theologians are posed with a number of difficult questions. First, how can I understand the beliefs and practices of a worldview I do not share? Then, once I begin to construct and synthesize truth claims, how normative are the source traditions? Finally, how do we transreligious theologians judge truth claims as better and worse? By offering answers to these questions using a model of critical interreligious appropriation, we may find a basis for a critical transreligious theology that avoids naïve (...) syncretisms and pernicious incommensurability. (shrink)

In, I put forward a “possibility result” for Bayesian Coherentism, showing that there exist plausible sets of ceteris paribus conditions that imply that coherence is truth-conducive. Against this result, Schubert argues that the specific ceteris paribus conditions I consider are “jointly inconsistent”. In this article, I prove to the contrary that these conditions can consistently be enforced while allowing degrees of coherence to vary. Next, I consider a related criticism, inspired by Olsson’s constraints on ceteris paribus conditions. This leads (...) to a general discussion of the principle that should guide one in choosing appropriately stringent ceteris paribus conditions.En planteo un “resultado de posibilidad” para el bayesianismo coherentista mostrando que existen conjuntos plausibles de condiciones ceteris paribus que implican que la coherencia conduce a la verdad. Schubert argumenta en contra de este resultado que las condiciones ceteris paribus que considero son “inconsistentes tomadas conjuntamente”. En este articulo demuestro, sin embargo, que estas condiciones pueden ser satisfechas permitiendo que los grados de coherencia varien. Abordo despues una critica relacionada con la anterior e inspirada en los requisitos impuestos por Olsson a las condiciones ceteris paribus. Eso lleva a una discusion general del principio, o principios, que deberia guiarnos para elegir unas condiciones ceterisparibus que sean apropiadas, es decir, que no sean ni muy restrictivas, ni demasiado laxas. (shrink)

Three genuinely transcendental conditions for the possibility of self-conscious experience are and can only be material (§§2–4). Identifying these conditions shows that the link between transcendental proof and transcendental idealism is not direct, but must be justified by substantive argument (§§ 4, 5). This illuminates the prospect of separating transcendental proofs from transcendental idealism. Indeed, examining these conditions reveals a powerful strategy for using transcendental proof to defend realism sans phrase. Strikingly, this prospect illuminates some otherwise occluded aspects of (...) post-Kantian German Idealism (§6), and sets an important contemporary philosophical agenda (§7). (shrink)

Merab Mamardashvili’s philosophy can be defined as the philosophy of the transcendent event. An event is at once extremely concrete and extremely abstract. It occurs in an act of a special kind: an autonomous act which is not the realization of any pattern of transcendental historicity, is not attached to any teleology, that is, its meaning does not consist in the realization of a goal. It is, plainly speaking, purposeless and therefore indeterminate. However, this is not a variety of actionism, (...) not an outburst of absurdity subverting all order. An act turns out to be the realization of the “ontological abstraction of order” by means of a symbol actualized by the very event of the act. The article examines various aspects of the event from the aesthetic to the meta-historical. (shrink)

RESUMEN Se argumentará que, para expandir las capacidades de todos, hay que promover que los indivíduos, partiendo de su reconocimiento mutuo, auto contraigan sus elecciones para acomodarse y promover las libertades de otros y así lograr sus propios objetivos. Esta auto contracción no restringe la libertad, sino que la posibilita. Se partirá del diálogo entre las distintas concepciones de Libertad del Enfoque de Capacidades y Libertad Social, de Honneth. Se planteará que la Libertad consistirá en poder moverse entre sus distintas (...) concepciones, respondiendo a las distintas prácticas sociales de reconocimiento en las que se desarrolla. ABSTRACT I will argue that, to expand the capabilitites of everybody, we must promote that the individuals, starting from their mutual recognition, self-contract their elections to accommodate and promote the liberties of others and achieving their own objectives by these means. This self-contraction is not a freedom restriction, but it makes possible. I will start from the dialog between the different Honneth's conceptions of the Freedom from the Capability Approach and the Social Freedom. I will propose that the Freedom consists in the flow between their different conceptions, responding to the different social practices of recognition in which they develop. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s theory of justifiable resistance to authority is complex and, at times, appears to conflict with his own practice, if not with itself. He distinguishes between the role of authority in “public” and “private” contexts. In private—e.g., when a person is under contract to do a specific job or accepts a social contract with one’s government—resistance is forbidden; external behavior must be governed by policy or law. In contexts involving the public use of reason, on the other hand—e.g., when (...) a person is faced with a moral decision or is engaged in a philosophical dispute—the freedom of conscience sometimes requires resistance, especially in cases where other persons inappropriately attempt to usurp authority over matters that are rightfully up to the individual to decide. In texts such as Perpetual Peace, Kant looks forward to a political situation wherein no political resistance (e.g., in the form of war) would be necessary. Yet in Metaphysics of Morals, he argues that a citizen never has the right to revolt against one’s government, suggesting we must cooperate even with war. On a personal level, Kant openly praised both the American and the French revolutions; yet when his own writings on religion were deemed by the censor to have come into conflict with the king’s edict, Kant failed to resist the (arguably unjust) authority; instead, he gave up his (apparently public) right to free philosophical expression, promising never to write or speak on religion again during the king’s reign. I shall argue that a key to resolving these tensions lies in the principle that universities must promote a healthy, public “conflict” between philosophers and all “private” employments of reason. The only ground for disallowing private resistance, therefore, is the underlying presence of genuine philosophical resistance. (shrink)

In the opening sections of his Foundations of Natural Right, Fichte argues that mutual recognition is a condition for the possibility of self-consciousness. However, the argument turns on the apparently unconvincing claim that, in the context of transcendental philosophy, conceptions of the subject as an isolated individual give rise to a vicious circle the resolution of which requires the introduction of a second rational being to ‘summon’ the first. In this essay, my aim is to present a revised (...) account of the opening arguments on which they are more convincing. In particular, I argue that the problem of a circle is genuine and may be seen to result from a relation of mutual dependence between agency and cognition which ensures that for an exercise of either capacity to take place, an exercise of the other would have already had to have taken place with the result that neither can occur. Moreover, the solution is successful. The summons prevents us from being driven around the circle once more because it is a ‘synthesis’ that reconciles the constraint to which I am subject as a cognizer of independently given objects and my freedom as a self-determining subject. (shrink)

In the Postulates of Empirical Thinking, a section of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant presents an account of the content and role of our concept of real possibility in terms of formal conditions of experience. However, much later in the Critique he introduces the idea of a material condition of possibility. What is this material condition of possibility, and how does it fit with the conception of possibility in terms of formal conditions? This (...) essay argues that the key to answering these questions—as well as to understanding Kant’s criticism of rational theology, in which the discussion of the material condition of possibility appears—is Kant’s account of how we can individuate objects. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore Cassirer’s view of social contract theory. We maintain that Cassirer has established a linguistic turn of social contract theory, by exploring the conditions for the possibility of a promise. For that purpose Cassirer’s theory of the linguistic sign, as inspired by the linguistic theory of Wilhelm von Humboldt, becomes decisive, because of its specific nature and direction into the future. First, in Section 1, we explore previous social contract theorists, from Nicholas von Cusa to (...) Immanuel Kant. In Section 1, as a result, we establish the concept of the promise as the core concept of social contract theory, and as the fundamental philosophical problem conveyed by the natural lawyers. Moreover, in Section 2, we investigate the conditions for the possibility of a promise, and relate it to the symbolic nature of the human being. The promise, hence the capacity to enter into a contract, becomes a characteristically human activity, hence an expression of human dignity. (shrink)

The author of this paper presents the main interpretative orientations regarding the concept on the minority being of the reformed Transylvanian bishop Makkai Sándor who lived in the inter-war period. The author tries to point out the philosophical, moral, and existential sides of this problem which has become deep-rooted and permanent in the consciousness of the Hungarian intellectuals from Transylvania, and which has been known as the problem of the minority existential paradox. To accomplish this, the author relies on the (...) theoretical and methodological possibilities provided by the philosophical hermeneutics. (shrink)

For Bernard Stiegler ‘the question of philosophy is first of all that of action’ (p.7). By extending this statement to philosophy of education, I consider the possibilities of action in education in responding to the conditions of the contemporary. These conditions, which have come to be discussed and dissected with reference to such terms as Anthropocene (Stoermer, Crutzen), Capitalocene (Moore), Plantationocene (Haraway), hold unprecedented and mostly devastating consequences for all life. To consider possibilities for action within the field of education (...) to the conditions of the contemporary, I read Walter Mignolo’s concept of the colonial wound together with Gilles Deleuze’s conceptualisation of the wound. Based on this reading, I argue for the conditions of the contemporary to be understood as a wound in both Mignolo’s and Deleuze’s sense. Conceptualising it as such in turn allows me to ask how we might counter-actualise the wounds of the contemporary. In other words, how might we be worthy of the wound-event and respond in an affirmative yet critical manner to it within the field of education, and in so doing generate new possibilities of (educational) life. To consider what one such possibility of counter-actualisation might entail, I propose that education be informed by the notion of incompleteness, as expressed in the concept of conviviality. I conclude by reflecting on implications of counter-actualising the wound of the contemporary in relation to education if we were to activate the concepts of incompleteness and conviviality and pursue a different aesthetics of (educational) life. (shrink)

How can a business institution function as an ethical institution within a wider system if the context of the wider system is inherently unethical? If the primary goal of an institution, no matter how ethical it sets out to be, is to function successfully within a market system, how can it reconcile making a profit and keeping its ethical goals intact? While it has been argued that some ethical businesses do exist, e.g., Johnson and Johnson, the argument I would like (...) to put forth is that no matter how ethical a business institution is, or how ethical its goals are, its capacity to act in an ethical manner is restricted by the wider system in which it must operate, the market system. Unless there is a fundamental change in the notion of the market system itself, the capacity for individual businesses to act in an ethical manner will always be restricted. My argument is divided into two parts. The first part is to show the inherent bias towards unethical outcomes that is inherent in the market system. The second part is to suggest how to reorient the general economic framework in order to make ethical institutions more possible. The question then becomes, how to define economic behavior in terms other than competition for profit. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the problem of interpreting of the several consequences that derive from multi-world concepts of modern physics. The inflation scenario and the associated string landscape model are the objects of analysis. The reviewed multi-world concepts are exposed to presume the existence of a plenitude of various fundamental principles that govern the physics of one or another possible reality. The research is based on the hermeneutical method, comparative method, dialectical method, formal translation method, and scientific modeling method. (...) The author represents specifics of physical theories that claim to describe all possible worlds in the conclusions. In this regard, the issues of the status of “possible” and “impossible” worlds and practicable ways to determine them are discussed. The main result of the study is the justification that each type of world must correspond to a certain structure of consciousness defined by its basic physical principles. This possibly means that a unified “theory of everything” that includes all possible mathematical and physical fundamental structures cannot exist since every one of them determines a specific type of consciousness. (shrink)

Hospitality is a multifaceted concept that has been received by, and worked into, various academic realms and disciplines, such as philosophy, politics, anthropology, aesthetics, ethics, and translation studies. The essays collected in this volume, by a wide range of international contributors, examine how, in the wake of the work of Levinas and the late Derrida, this concept has entered into and transformed the thinking of these disciplines.

The challenge of accommodating difference has traditionally proved highly problematic for cosmopolitanism proposals, given their inherently universalistic thrust. Today, however, we are acutely aware that in failing to give difference its due, we stand to perpetrate a significant injustice through negating precisely what differentiates diverse groupings and confers on them their identity. Moreover, in an increasingly pluralistic and multicultural world it has become clear that doing justice to difference is an essential prerequisite for the internal flourishing as well as peaceable (...) coexistence of diverse cultural and other groupings. Accordingly, as a corrective for the homogenising presuppositions of highly a universalistic and decontextualised template like the Habermasian, the present paper defends the need for a situated, dialogical approach that can not only accommodate difference but also treat it as a resource for promoting mutual understanding and potentially transformative learning.In thus defending the merits of a situated, dialogical template, the present paper also seeks to shed light on the conditions of its possibility. To this end, I argue the need to transcend significant structural limitations inherent in the Habermasian discourse model, while aspring to preserve and enhance its distinctive strengths. Accordingly, I press the case for a thoroughgoing reappropriation of such core Habermasian tenets as the symmetrical reciprocity requirement, the anticipation of consensus as outcome, and a one-sided emphasis on argumentative deliberation as the sole acceptable means of achieving this. Proceeding thus, I defend the merits of a situated cosmopolitanism grounded in plurivocal transformative dialogue as a counterbalance to an unqualified universalism. Correlatively, I defend openness to otherness under appropriately structured dialogical conditions as the primary prerequisite for a viable cosmopolitanism capable of meeting the needs of an increasingly pluralistic and globalised world. In the process, some notable points of contrast with Richard Shapcott's dialogical template are identified. (shrink)

Resumo A problemática na relação entre Filosofia e Cinema dá origem a duas questões: a primeira, sobre as condições que os filmes têm de satisfazer a fim de poderem ser devidamente tratados por uma compreensão filosófica; a segunda, sobre os requisitos, que os discursos sobre os filmes têm de satisfazer, em ordem a serem legitimamente considerados como filosóficos. Respondendo à primeira pergunta, através de uma análise ao debate entre Paisley Livingston e Aaron Smuts, acerca da “Filosofia do Cinema”, será afirmado (...) que, embora os filmes em si mesmos não façam filosofia, é possível fazer filosofia a partir deles, desde que estes expressem ideias estéticas. Respondendo à segunda questão, através da leitura crítica de Days of Being Wild, In the Mood of Love e 2046 de Wong Kar-wai, com referência aos conceitos de Kierkegaard, Girard e Deleuze, será argumentado que uma análise filosófica implica a renovação de conceitos filosóficos centrais e o alargamento da compreensão da natureza das imagens cinematográficas. Palavras-chave : Deleuze, emoção-imagem, filosofia do cinema, Kierkegaard, repetição, Wong Kar-waiThe problem of the relationships between Philosophy and Films raises two questions: first, the conditions that films have to fulfill in order to be rightly concerned by a philosophical understanding; second the requirements that discourses about films have to fulfill in order to be truly considered as philosophical ones. Answering to the first question through a survey of the debate between Paisley Livingston and Aaron Smuts about “Film-Philosophy”, I will affirm that, though films in themselves are not doing philosophy, it is possible to do philosophy out of them provided they express aesthetical ideas. Answering to the second question through a critical reading of Wong Kar-wai’s Days of Being Wild, In the Mood for Love, and 2046 referring to the concepts of Kierkegaard, Girard and Deleuze, I will argue that a philosophical analysis implies to renew core philosophical concepts and to extend our understanding of the nature of cinematographic images. Keywords : Deleuze, film-philosophy, image-emotion, Kierkegaard, repetition, Wong Kar-wai. (shrink)

The author examines the possibility for a rapprochement between Luc Boltanski?s sociology of critique and Bourdieu?s critical sociology of domination by analyzing three subjects within the theoretical opus of Luc Boltanski: the place given to tests in the critical agency of actors, the relation between critique and institutions, and the role the collective plays in the appropriation and distribution of critique. In Boltanski?s works the question of the sense of justice and the critical capacities of actors, that is injustice (...) and its critique, is approached with full respect for the perspectives of the social actors. In his book On Critique the French sociologist writes about domination, or more precisely, the process of domination, but he doesn?t fully answer the question wether and how the capacities of social actors for critique can be realized and elevated to the level of a full-fledged critique of domination. This is considered to be the main condition of the possibility for connecting critical sociology and sociology of critique, so the analysis of the three mentioned topics should 76 determine whether the social actors within the theoretical world of Luc Boltanski are relatively close to the stage of a critique of domination. (shrink)

Our chapter interrogates the conditions that give rise to the possibility of the Event and proposes a Lacanian-Badiouian perspective to think through conditions for the truth procedures of love and politics. First, we situate the Event, Possibility and Truth in both Badiou and Lacan, which brings forward conceptual tensions between truth and knowledge as presented in the psychoanalytic act. We propose with Badiou and Lacan that the emergence of possibility follows a logic that rupture compulsive repetition and (...) whose effect is precisely the Event which results in knowledge of a savoir faire, of transmissible quality, that grant re-inscription (a new writing of the necessary) and/or a partial inscription of the impossible. The notion of love as beyond narcissism, allows us to discuss how to reimagine politics anew, including approaching it through the problem of ecology. (shrink)

This paper presents a reading of the Tractatus’ remarks on ethics. Drawing on work by Anselm Müller, subsequently developed by Anthony Price, the reading makes of some of Wittgenstein’s most striking and most puzzling early remarks a recognizable and insightful account of ethical experience, while also accommodating the equally striking formal quality of those remarks. The account identifies a distinctive ethical achievement that requires a distance from particular concrete goods that one might pursue and a responsiveness to those goods as (...) a whole—to one’s world as a whole; only through such openness is one open to the abstract objective that is doing what is best; and only through openness to that does one express oneself in, and assume responsibility for, one’s actions. This account allows us to understand why, for example, Wittgenstein connects “absolute or ethical value” with “wonder at the existence of the world” and with “understand[ing] the question about the meaning of life”. But it also makes sense of why that is precisely a question, and why those to whom “the meaning of life … become[s] clear” cannot “say in what this meaning consist[s]”. The responsiveness to a good which ethical subjects distinctively manifest is a responsiveness not to some distinctive and describable state of affairs but to the question of what is best—willing determination of what here and now that is. This account yields a vision of self-expression not as hearkening to some inner voice but as an openness to one’s life as a whole; and this, in turn, opens up a way of approaching the puzzle of Wittgenstein’s insistence that “of [the willing subject] we cannot speak”. I also suggest that we find here one possible sense for Wittgenstein’s famous remark to Ludwig von Ficker that “the point of [the Tractatus] is ethical”, in that openness to the world as a whole—openness to how things are as such and as a whole—emerges as fundamentally a practical, rather than theoretical achievement. (shrink)

Harry Frankfurt (1969) famously gave cases in which an agent lacks alternate possibilities and yet seems morally responsible. Such cases purportedly falsify the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, which states that the ability to do otherwise is necessary for moral responsibility. There is an enormous body of literature debating whether or not Frankfurt cases and their variants do in fact falsify PAP. In order to sidestep Frankfurt cases altogether, Garry Young (2016) argues for a different version of PAP, namely, PAP, on (...) which alternate possibilities are sufficient rather than necessary for moral responsibility. Young also argues for another sufficient but not necessary condition, the ‘Twin World Condition’. Only one of PAP and TWC needs to be satisfied for moral responsibility. I argue here that Young’s proposal as it stands generates too much moral responsibility. So I present versions of Young’s conditions that avoid this problem. I also argue that even with those revisions, Young’s proposal does not limit moral responsibility as effectively as PAP does. (shrink)

In today's conditions of postmodern space the most significant resource of the modern economy, which is being formed in the leading countries of economic development, is human capital. The main goal of the article is to study the process of managing the formation of human capital in the functioning postmodern society as the basis of the national economy and ensuring the economic security of the enterprise. The basic components of human capital are determined on the basis of the analysis. It (...) is established that the basic component is knowledge that affects others and in postmodern conditions of development of the national economy and determines the process of development of human capital. At the same time, the process of forming knowledge, in accordance with the principles of the functioning of the knowledge economy, is associated with the availability and possibility of obtaining information. The object of study is the enterprises of Eastern Europe. The subject of the study is human capital, the economic security system of the enterprise The results of the study allowed us to develop a model for the formation of human capital and to form a mechanism for ensuring the economic security of the enterprise through management of the formation of human capital under the conditions of the postmodern society. (shrink)

In this article, I examine whether the possibility exists that in the foreseeable future, robot technology will permit the development of emotional robots. As the title suggests, the content is of a technological as well as of a philosophical nature. As a matter of fact, my aim in writing this paper was that of bridging two distinctive fields in a world where humanity has become accustomed to technological innovations while overlooking any consequential complications arising from such inventions. To this (...) end, I review and commentate on what Anders Sandberg, Paul Thagard, Nikhil Churamani and other thinkers have contributed on the subject matter. The literature review indicates that in the short to the medium term, scientists will only design and engineers will only build robots that will be able to only learn, be trained, or under the most optimistic conditions only simulate human emotions. However, in the long term the possibility exists for technology to advance to such a state so as to permit an entire human brain to be emulated in a robot via a concept named ‘mind uploading’. If one day that becomes a reality, that will be the point where humanity will possibly come closest to creating robots with emotions. (shrink)

In this essay, we present a theory of intercultural philosophical dialogue and comparative philosophy, drawing on both hermeneutics and analytic philosophy. We advocate the approach of “de-essentialization” across the board. It is true that similarities and differences are always to be observed across languages and traditions, but there exist no immutable cores or essences. “De-essentialization” applies to all “levels” of concepts: everyday notions such as green and qing 青, philosophical concepts such as emotion(s) and qing 情, and philosophical categories such (...) as forms of life and dao 道. We argue that interpretation is a holistic multi-directional process constrained by the principle of mutual attunement. It is necessary to assume that “the other” is a human being, who, in most cases, is consistent and stating that which is true or right. This is the condition of possibility for intercultural philosophical dialogue and comparative philosophy. No more necessary conditions are needed. There is no need to presuppose concepts or categories that are universal for all humans and their languages (such as emotion(s) and qing 情). (shrink)

The sensitivity account of knowledge is a modal epistemology, according to which S knows that p only if S's belief in p is sensitive in the sense that S would not believe that p if p were false. There are different ways to state the sensitivity condition by means of a possible worlds heuristic. The sensitivity account is thus rendered into different versions. This paper examines cases of knowledge and cases of luckily true beliefs (e.g., the Gettier cases) and (...) argues that no version of the sensitivity account accommodates all cases. Therefore, the account is unsuccessful as an account of knowledge. (shrink)

The philosophical tradition of liberal political thought has come to see tolerance as a crucial element of a liberal political order. However, while much has been made of the value of toleration, little work has been done on individual-level motivations for tolerant behavior. In this article, we seek to develop an account of the rational motivations for toleration and of where the limits of toleration lie. We first present a very simple model of rational motivations for toleration. Key to this (...) model is an application of David Ricardo’s model of trade to thinking about toleration. This model supports the claim that we always have reasons to be as tolerant as possible. We then explore why we do not always see tolerant attitudes in the actual world, and point to some potential preconditions for toleration that the initial model does not capture. Subsequently, we examine a more detailed model that allows us to investigate more carefully the conditions under which tolerant behavior can be rewarded. We conclude by arguing that a consideration of self-interested motivations for toleration is essential to the success of a robust theory of toleration for a diverse society, but that even this approach has its limitations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 34.2 (2006) 14-36 [Access article in PDF] "The Possibility of the Poetic Said" in Otherwise than Being (Allusion, or Blanchot in Lévinas) Gabriel Riera Language would exceed the limits of what is thought, by suggesting, letting be understood without ever making understandable [en laissant sous-entendre, sans jamais faire entendre] an implication of meaning distinct from that which comes to signs from the simultaneity of systems or the (...) logical definition of concepts. This possibility [vertu] is laid bare in the poetic said. [...] It is shown in the prophetic said. —Emmanuel Lévinas, Otherwise than Being [my emphasis] Writing, without placing itself above art, supposes that one not prefer art, but efface art as writing effaces itself. —Maurice Blanchot, Writing of the DisasterIn an effort to elucidate a more originary difference than Heidegger's ontological difference between Being and entities, as well as an ethicity of thinking able to respond to the trace of transcendence of the other's face, Lévinas's philosophy redefines language radically and does so in uneasy proximity to poetic language. In Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence (1974), Lévinas deploys a constellation of terms—discourse, expression, communication, face, sincerity, witnessing, prophecy—in order to elucidate the ethical dimension of language, the ethicity of philosophical discourse. This constellation revolves around the crucial notion of signification and the two operative concepts of the said (le dit) and saying (le dire). By the former Lévinas understands the semantic content of an utterance or the giving of signs by a sender to an addressee, but also the different modalities by which a subject masters the world by assimilating it to the measure of consciousness (discourse, narration, history, manifestation, representation). Saying (le dire) refers to the way of signifying primarily that I am for the other, the expression of being-for-the-other that subjectivity "is" before positioned as the source of signs or comprehension: subjectivity as exposition. While the said expresses a content, the saying is expression without content.Language for Lévinas is the "structure" of both the retraction and the inscription of infinity (l'infini), and this "structure" is what Lévinas calls ethics. It is thus possible to affirm that in Lévinas there is no ethical turn without a certain linguistic turn, one in which the a priori of language is interrupted by an anteriority whose a priori character is enigmatic. But Lévinas's linguistic turn is turned inside out: for him language contains the other's call and thus harbors a form of exteriority within itself. This is because language is elevated to a metaphysical category (in the sense of Totality and Infinity [1961], where it means the breaching or interruption of totality) that exceeds the simple [End Page 14] "giving out of signs" [délivrance de signes] [AE 81/OB 48] or communication. Lévinas claims that "saying is communication, to be sure, but as a condition for all communication, as exposure [exposition]" [AE 82/OB 48]. Signification precedes and defines language as proximity and contact with the other and not as the "vicissitude [peripetia] of the thematizing intentionality" [AE 216/OB 137] of a subject whose main attribute is its ability to synchronize questions and answers, being and its manifestations, and by so doing leaves no margin for being exposed to the other. Further, signification also names an enigmatic pre-diction that challenges the primacy that language, understood as a system of signs, enjoys in other philosophies (structuralism and analytic philosophy, for example).Most critics agree that Lévinas's philosophy is inhospitable to aesthetic phenomena and ambivalent toward poetic language. His severe condemnation of the work of art in "Reality and Its Shadow" (1948) is still present in Totality and Infinity, Lévinas's first major work, where he establishes a relation with the other as face-to-face in discourse. And although in Otherwise than Being Lévinas finally acknowledges "poetic" language's ability to suggest significations that exceed the order of discourse and even endows it with a (quasi)-ethical force... (shrink)

Foucault and Sellars are representatives of conflicting philosophical traditions: whereas Foucault famously insisted that “power is everywhere,” Sellars proposed the well-known scientia mensura dictum. The tension between the two perspectives seems to be so strong that each of them ends up reducing the other to an epiphenomenal illusion. In this article, I shall attempt to show that the works of Sellars and Foucault are not necessarily irreconcilable. The common ground for this dialogue is what I shall define as a historico-practical (...) conception of science. I will build this concept by tracing a connection between the Foucauldian notion of “conditions of possibility” of science and Sellars’s thesis about the “indispensability” of the manifest image. Finally, I will argue that this conception of science problematizes the clash between the scientific and manifest images of the world, paving the way for a different relationship between naturalism and critical theory. (shrink)

Kant's central goal in the Critique of Pure Reason is to investigate conditions of the possibility of cognition. He assumes that what is given to us by means of the senses is not sufficient for cognition. The senses yield us only the "raw material" for cognition. It is because of our conceptual apparatus that we are able to determine, or discriminate among, what is presented by the senses. ;My main task in the dissertation is to examine Kant's account of (...) the nature of concepts relevant for empirical cognition. Contrary to some recent commentators, like Walsh, and Guyer, I conclude that Kant's account is philosophically defensible and that it has relevance to issues of contemporary concern in epistemology. ;Central to Kant's account of the possibility of empirical concepts is his understanding of concepts as rules. Even empirical concepts, like 'table' and 'book', function as rules because of their multiple instantiability. By means of such rules we identify and re-identify items of perceptual encounters and ascribe to them various properties and relations. However, the employment of such concepts yields cognition only if they are not formed and applied arbitrarily. Instead, those concepts have to be formed and employed in accordance with some rules. Kant argues that categorial concepts, like 'substance' and 'cause', function as meta-rules for the formation and cognitive application of empirical concepts. ;Kant further argues that categories are not arbitrary rules. I attempt to clarify and defend Kant's view by comparing categories with Searlean constitutive rules. By means of categories we construct cognizable properties for items of perceptual encounters; they must conform to categories for the reason that only by means of the application of categories can any of them become objects of cognition. It is, thus, the role of constitutive rules of cognition which proves the legitimate right of categories to be employed in cognition. (shrink)

In the mid-nineteenth century George Boole formulated his ‘conditions of possible experience’. These are equations and ineqaulities that the relative frequencies of events must satisfy. Some of Boole's conditions have been rediscovered in more recent years by physicists, including Bell inequalities, Clauser Horne inequalities, and many others. In this paper, the nature of Boole's conditions and their relation to propositional logic is explained, and the puzzle associated with their violation by quantum frequencies is investigated in relation to a variety of (...) approaches to the interpretation of quantum mechanics. * While preparing this paper for publication I have learnt of the untimely death of Professor J. S. Bell, and I wish to dedicate the paper to his memory. This research was undertaken while I spent a sabbatical leave at Wolfson College, and the History and Philosophy of Science Department at the University of Cambridge. I would like to thank Michael Redhead and Jeremy Butterfield for their hospitality and for helpful discussions. A first draft of this paper has been distributed among the participants of the conference 'Einstein in Context' which was held in Israel, in April 1990.1 have benefited from the comments of many colleagues. I would like to thank in particular Arthur Fine who enlightened me on the prism models, David Albert. Maya Bar-Hillel. Yemima Ben-Menachem, Mara Beller. Simon Saunders, and Mark Steiner. This research is partially supported by the Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science at the Hebrew University. (shrink)

The video game producers are currently in spotlight of market information services. Successes and huge budgets of such companies attract many readers. However, scientific studies related to this sector do not share the same popularity. A reflection on the source of value in this sector shows that what generates revenues is not disclosed in the report. Great examples are customers’ relationships or the value of employees creating the game code and story of the game. Video games producers sector presents a (...) good combination of business and culture that allows reflection on financial characteristics of knowledge based companies. Prior studies show that market’s valuation takes into account unrecognised assets but capital-intensive character of a production and intangibility of a product and its assets causes problems with exact valuation. In this paper the author asks about the impact of the characteristics on the assessment of a financial condition. The research question in this paper is whether it is possible to use and interpret correctly popular discriminant analysis model for knowledge based entities on the example of video game companies. Results are applicable by analysts and managers of this sector and help to determine the usefulness of this method, but it still depends on assumptions and accounting policies. The reflection presented also broadens the discussion on financialisation because analysed companies can oppose this trend in a specific way. (shrink)

Dr Lloyd maintains that a teacher's commitment is not only compatible with but a necessary condition for successfully teaching religious understanding within the system of public education. As I am in sympathy with this thesis, I do not wish to argue against it but to add some further interpretation of it. Lloyd's thesis deals with a certain process of communication, specified in two directions: first as to its subject , and secondly as to its context . His thesis contains (...) two points: the kind of communciation he has in mind is at least possible and the necessary condition for its success is the commitment of the teacher. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Evaluation, Standards, Normalization: Historico-philosophical Formations and the Conditions of Possibility for Checklist Thought Bernadette Baker University of Wisconsin-Madison In education today a new vocabulary has emerged that is far more than just words. In the context of educational policy the setting of goals or objectives is now being subsumed under terms such as statewidestandards, child development is now being adjectivized by descriptors such as learning disability or emotionally (...) disturbed, and the evaluation ofclassroom-based performance is now being collated in aportfolio. These are more than just buzz words-at one level they are new ways of governing children and teachers, of organizing action, and of perceiving the world. What, for instance, does it tell us about ourselves when first-grade students Mikey, Enrique, Waldo, orDonal are introduced to visitors to the school by labels such as LD, ED, ADD, ADHD, and so forth, rather thanby their name? What does it tell us about ourselves when we say a curriculum or program of study is in line with the standards established somewhere else? And what story do we think is being narratedin the documentation of a child's performance in portfolio form across a semester or year? In consideringwhyterms suchasstandards, child development, or even evaluation have such contemporary currency I am necessarily drawn into a study of the timespaces in which they did not have such currency at all. This paper maps four moves into a moment that I think of as a rather long present-day-a present that is not simply this morning, yesterday, or the daybefore, but one that links the subjectivities ofthose now living in educational workto those made available about one hundred years ago. The four moves that I analyze here can be thought of as conditions of possibility for the operation of contemporary educational mies of reasoning, especially those that have formed around the resurgent popularity of"checklist thought" in reform efforts. The four moves collectively historicize how notions of standards, child development, and evaluation can pop up as commonsensical tropes through which to gather and degather action in the educational field. The first ofthese moves is that which flows from the operation ofan ideal to the operation of a norm. The second move is that which flows between the advent of statistics and the advent of eugenics. The third move is that which flows between the appearance ofnovels and fiction and the novel ficticityoffacts. And the fourth move is that which flows from the fictions of child development narratives to the stories that standards tell us. Collectively, these historico-philosophical moves will enable reconsideration of what we think evaluation, standards, and norms for child development actually narrate, lending food for thought to the specificityoftheir uptake in music education. From Ideal to Norm One way inwhichto examinethe shift from a seventeenth-century concept of the ideal to the nineteenth-century concept of the norm is by telling a story that was told in the early twentieth century. At this time when the educational field was formalizing, there was great care taken to record discussions held at conferences. When conferenceproceedings werepublished, theywere usually structured so that the presenter's paper©Philosophy ofMusic Education ReviewlO, no. 1 (Fall, 2002): 92-101. Bernadette Baker 93 was followed by a transcript of the conversation held after it. Like today, in the discussion time, audience members asked questions or made comments. Unlike today, the names of such participating audience members were typed into the proceedings and their specific questions or comments were written up as part ofreporting on the paper presented. In a discussion held at a conference in 1 905 on the topic of methods for training children labeledas feebleminded, apresenterhadspokenof the positive uses of a vegetable garden in the disciplining of feebleminded girls. The audience members relayed their own versions of experimenting with gardening and gathering, some complaining oftoo little space and others indicating the effects of having too many fields from which to gather. Dr. Dunlap was one such participant, indicatingimplicitlytheeffectsofhavingtoo many choices. In the spirit ofthe hunter/gatherer dichotomy, thegirlslabeledas feeblemindedatthe institutionwhereDr. Dunlap worked weresentout to pick com. The following story emerged. Dr. Dunlap: Our girls go out under an attendant and gather vegetables... (shrink)

Various proposals have suggested that an adequate explanatory theory should reduce the number or the cardinality of the set of logically independent claims that need be accepted in order to entail a body of data. A (and perhaps the only) well-formed proposal of this kind is William Kneale’s: an explanatory theory should be finitely axiomatizable but it’s set of logical consequences in the data language should not be finitely axiomatizable. Craig and Vaught showed that Kneale theories (almost) always exist for (...) any recursively enumerable but not finitely axiomatizable set of data sentences in a first order language with identity. Kneale’s criterion underdetermines explanation even given all possible data in the data language; gratuitous axioms may be “tacked on.” Define a Kneale theory, T, to be logically minimal if it is deducible from every Kneale theory (in the vocabulary of T) that entails the same statements in the data language as does T. If they exist, minimal Kneale theories are candidates for best explanations: they are “bold” in a sense close to Popper’s; some minimal Kneale theory is true if any Kneale theory is true; the minimal Kneale theory that is data equivalent to any given Kneale theory is unique; and no Kneale theory is more probable than some minimal Kneale theory. I show that under the Craig-Vaught conditions, no minimal Kneale theories exist. (shrink)

In order to establish a rational framework within which to discuss aesthetic matters, I attempt to find grounds to support the notion that objectivity in aesthetic evaluation is possible, within the visual arts. I begin by exploring the possibility that the foundations of our aesthetic response are innate, because, if this is the case, it would indicate that aesthetic considerations have a common basis within us all, rather than belonging to a purely personal and subjective realm. In Part One, (...) in search of foundations, I turn to the art of those who are relatively unprogrammed in our artistic conventions, in an attempt to distinguish between innate impulses and conditioned responses. Next, by looking for the motivation behind the aesthetic impulse, and what this can tell me about how the aesthetic is constituted, I consider the possibility that the aesthetic impulse is in some way linked to characteristics which aid survival. This includes studying the nature of perception, including various innate perceptual mechanisms and the part they play in the way our idea of the aesthetic is constituted, and some theories concerned with the psychological aspects involved in creativity, which link the aesthetic impulse with creativity in all fields of enquiry. In Part Two, I study examples of how discussions on aesthetic matters are conducted in our culture, to see whether there is evidence to support the notion of objectivity in aesthetic evaluation. While recognizing that it is common for aesthetic discussions to be conducted in a confused and even unintelligible manner, often using criteria actually irrelevant to aesthetic value (an example of which I provide), I seek out examples of reviews which are conducted in a rational and intelligible manner, based on relevant objective criteria. Also, by analysing the terms we use when discussing an art work, I ascertain whether these terms refer to properties in the actual art work, which we believe exist independently from the spectator, or whether these terms describe how we feel when viewing a work. In other words, I examine whether we have the concepts to support the idea that objectivity in aesthetic evaluation in the visual arts is possible. (shrink)