Showing papers in "Review of Metaphysics in 2017"

Hegel on Slavery and Domination

Abstract: G. W. F. Hegel's account of slavery is unique in the annals of thought in its attempt to derive slavery neither from nature, nor providence, nor chance, but from the very structure of self-consciousness. Hegel's account of the resolution of the struggle of master and slave reads almost like a burlesque on Aristotle's account of slavery in the Politics. The basis for slavery is the need of one self-conscious mind to be recognized by another. Marx's entire critique of political economy, and therewith his analysis of slavery, could well have developed out of an internal analysis of the paragraphs on civil society in the Philosophy of Right. The core of Marx's critique is that civil society is not an emancipatory institution but the creator of new forms of domination and servitude, which he characterizes by the term "alienation." Nietzsche was less concerned with the economic aspects of domination than he was with the political.

Warnke, Georgia, Ed. Inheriting Gadamer: New Directions in Philosophical Hermeneutics

Abstract: WARNKE, Georgia, ed. Inheriting Gadamer: New Directions in Philosophical Hermeneutics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. 242 pp. Paper, $120.00--This collection of essays takes its impetus from the later writings of Hans-Georg Gadamer. The editor notes that the essays extend themes Gadamer addresses throughout his long career--the importance of questions, the significance of play, verbal and nonverbal communication, and the roles of science and technology--to topics primarily addressed in contemporary discussions. Areas and interests treated are: critique, critical sociology, anarchic multiplicity, written style, nonviolence, standpoint theory, place, nonverbal language, neuroscience, medical narrative, and biomedical enhancement. The essays are grouped under four main divisions: Part 1: Critique and Causality; Part 2: Hermeneutics and Openness; Part 3: Place, Play and the Body; and Part 4: Science, Medicine and Biotechnology. Part 1: Critique and Causality. In the first essay, Lorenzo Simpson makes a proposal for alleviating some difficulties in the "hermeneutics of suspicion." Distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate prejudices, he proposes a critical perspective that is sensitive to cultural differences without falling into "indiscriminate relativism." The second essay by Isaac Arial Reed, writing on interpretative explanation in sociohistorical analysis, recasts Aristotle's four causes into what he calls "forcing" and "forming" causes, and with attention to the French Revolution, argues this reformulation provides for a better causal account of the event. In the final essay of this section, Santiago Zabala argues that since understanding is understanding differently, it is inherently connected with anarchy, that hermeneutics is a philosophy of praxis, and that the serious hermeneuticist must become militant. Part 2: Hermeneutics and Openness. The three essays in this section treat various aspects of openness, a central theme in Gadamer's work. In the first essay, Whitney Mannies argues that openness to the other requires attention not only to content, but also to style and form, and to the concomitant emotional, social and reflective dispositions. In the second essay, Steven Cauchon holds that Gandhi, rather than Gadamer, is more helpful in developing openness in oneself and others. Specifically, he sees the willingness to suffer as a way of shocking others into a response. Georgia Warnke, editor of the volume, contributes the final essay in this section, arguing that recognizing the histories and cultures of people of color can open one to avoid what Charles Mills calls "white ignorance. …

Skorin-Kapov, Jadranka. the Intertwining of Aesthetics and Ethics: Exceeding of Expectations, Ecstasy, Sublimity

Abstract: SKORIN-KAPOV, Jadranka. The Intertwining of Aesthetics and Ethics: Exceeding of Expectations, Ecstasy, Sublimity. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2016. 236 pp. Cloth, $85.00--Rather than simply showing that aesthetics and ethics have some overlap or similarities, Jadranka Skorin-Kapov makes the stronger claim that both branches have a common experiential ground. Through an extensive survey (with dense exposition) of many figures from modern and contemporary philosophy, she concludes that sublimity is that ground. The experiential environment is found in both art and nature, and, following Dewey, Skorin-Kapov argues that to understand experience, one must look to aesthetic experience. Uniting two historical and divergent perspectives, she holds that both art and nature provide the properly aesthetic experience, which she defines as the exceeding of expectations. In other words, the necessary element of surprise in each aesthetic experience can be found in art and nature as they provide the appropriate experiential context, and neither is more primary with regard to an aesthetic experience. Through a careful exploration of Kant, Hegel, Goethe, Gadamer, and Adorno, Skorin-Kapov presents different positions about the primacy of art or nature with regard to the aesthetic. For instance, Kant favors nature, while Hegel gives primacy to works of art. Skorin-Kapov shows that different types of art have correlates in nature. As an example, sculpture would be the counterpart of a rock formation. They relate because we can experience them in similar ways; we can walk around a sculpture as we can a rock formation. This unites the aesthetic experience we can have in art and nature. She turns to Kant's notion of the sublime, which she claims--contentiously, I should add--can extend to cover experiences of art along with nature. The sublime, says Skorin-Kapov, is more about one's response (spirit of the spectator) to nature, not the natural object itself. She then claims that someone's response to a work of art could also be sublime. Thus, sublimity provides the most proper aesthetic experience for both art and nature. Fundamental to aesthetic experience, Skorin-Kapov discusses authenticity as a governing force of expectation, and therefore the aesthetic. She begins by explaining that the possibility for authenticity according to Heidegger is the fact of death. She flips this around, however, to show that the beginning is just as important as any finality. This becomes the key for her notion of expectation. Once something happens, a person can no longer have expectations about what is going to happen. Expectations are, therefore, crucial because an aesthetic experience occurs when those expectations are surpassed. In chapter 3, "Experience and Art," the focus turns to art solely. Since Skorin-Kapov argued compellingly that neither art nor nature is primary for an aesthetic experience, it is a little curious why she would have a chapter on art without a similar discussion of nature. Presumably, the idea is that art is experienced differently than nature, even though both are aesthetic. …

Gallows Pole: Is Kant's Fact of Reason a Transcendental Argument?

Abstract: I There are few tenets of rant's practical philosophy as obscure and as controversial as his argument in the Critique of Practical Reason that the moral law is valid as a fact of reason (Factum der Vernunft). In an inversion of his equally notorious argument from the reality of freedom to that of the moral law in the third and final section of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, (1) Kant claims in the second Critique that an "undeniable [-unleugbar]" and "apodictically certain [apodiktisch gewiss]" (2) fact of the moral law underlies the reality of his concept of a transcendental, a priori faculty of freedom. The validity of the moral law is no longer the sought after conclusion of Kant's argument since it "has no need of justifying grounds [rechtfertigenden Grunde]." (3) Because the uniquely self-justifying character of the Factum authenticates the moral law while also serving as the basis of the reality of transcendental freedom, Kant's argument as a whole amounts to a legitimation of both as a priori moral concepts and shows that pure reason can be practical. With freedom referred to as nothing less than "the keystone of the whole structure of a system of pure reason," (4) it is not an exaggeration to say that Kant's doctrine of the fact of reason lies at the foundation of not just his practical philosophy, but also his entire critical enterprise. Despite its stated importance, however, Kant is not particularly clear about the exact nature of his fact of reason. This ambiguity has occasioned a long line of criticism. Hegel famously invoked the Factum when he called Kant's notion of moral duty a "Revelation given to Reason," the "undigested lump left within the stomach" of the critical philosophy, (5) while more recently Karl Ameriks has characterized it as an "un-argued for premise of the validity of the moral law" that is "intrinsically and Critically suspect." (6) Kant's more sympathetic interpreters have taken a variety of approaches to the fact of reason that has done little to settle the problem. These can be broken down into two very broad tendencies. On the one hand, commentators have taken the Factum as the premise of a justification of morality that is consistent with at least some important aspects of Kant's technical notion of a deduction in his other works, the paradigmatic example of which is the deduction of the pure categories of the understanding in the Critique of Pure Reason, (7) These treatments take Kant's deductive strategy as an argument for moral realism within the metaphysical framework of transcendental idealism. Though theoretically indemonstrable, Kant's aim is nevertheless to show the objective reality of his moral concepts for cognition as valid functions of practical reason. (8) The second Critique shares this basic aim with the Groundwork, even if their means of accomplishing it are quite different. On the other hand, some interpreters, often of an avowedly constructivist persuasion, oppose the first reading by separating the Factum from the onus of a formal Kantian deduction. They do so because taking the fact of the a priori moral law as the starting-point of a deduction of practical reason seems to: (1) beg the question, (2) imply an uncritical and dogmatic ethical intuitionism, or (3) set up a false equivalence between the models and standards of argumentation for theoretical and practical philosophy. One way of supporting this line of interpretation is simply to deny that the fact of reason constitutes an independent validation of morality in the Critique. (9) Another option is to accept that the Factum is such a justification of practical reason, but to lower the burden of Kant's argument by rejecting the idea that it entails a deep metaphysical commitment to a robust moral realism. (10) In both of its variants, the second reading claims that the fact of reason is not concerned with a transcendental deduction of a priori moral concepts like that proposed by the Groundwork, but rather with illustrating how practical norms emerge from the reflective viewpoint of rational agents without reference to a separate moral order. …

Everyone Desires the Good: Socrates' Protreptic Theory of Desire

Abstract: What IS the FIRST PRINCIPLE of Socratic ethics? Socrates' oft-repeated contention that everyone desires the good is a reasonable candidate. For consider what its competitors might be. Socrates also believes that one ought to devote one's life to care for the soul, (1) that no one willingly does wrong, (2) that wisdom is the only thing that is (really) good, ignorance the only thing that is (really) evil, (3) that being wronged is better than wronging, (4) that justice is piety and temperance is wisdom, (5) that only good men have the power to do evil, (6) and that a good man cannot be harmed. (7) Assuming that some of these Socratisms are grounded on others, the desire thesis is likely to stand in a relatively foundational position. As Rachana Kamtekar observes: "it does seem more likely that the doctrine that wrongdoing is unwilling should be a consequence of some deeper philosophical commitment about our orientation towards the good [that is, the desire thesis], rather than the other way round." (8) The desire thesis may, then, be conceptually prior to Socrates' other views; it is also, I think, prior in another way. Socratic theory-building happens via conversation, and these conversations have practical as well as theoretical aims. Socrates is speaking not only with a view to discovering the truth, but also for the sake of redirecting both himself and his interlocutor onto a pursuit of virtue and wisdom. Paraphrasing Plato, we can say that he aims to turn misdirected souls, his own included, toward the light. (9) Consider a few examples of Socrates' characteristically protreptic conversational style. He concludes the discussion of the Laches with the striking injunction: "What I don't advise is that we allow ourselves to stay as we are." (10) He has managed to divert a conversation about educating children to the topic of the adults' need for moral improvement. Plato indicates that this was a habitual Socratic practice by having Nicias predict early on that the conversation would turn inward. (11) Likewise, Socrates ends his discussion about akrasia with "the many" in the Protagoras by chiding them for not directing themselves to acquiring the art of measurement that would be their salvation. He tames the vaulting ambition of Alcibiades ("you want your reputation and your influence to saturate all mankind" (12)) into an avowed commitment on the part of Alcibiades to "start to cultivate justice in myself right now." (13) In the Euthydemus he both asks for and himself offers "an exhibition of persuading the young man that he ought to devote himself to wisdom and virtue." (14) His own "exhibition" concludes with the claim that "it seems to be necessary that every man should prepare himself by every means to become as wise as possible." (15) For all his humility, Socrates seems to arrogate to himself a limitless power to transform any desire anyone approaches him with into an impetus to inquire after virtue. It is as though Socrates takes himself to be able to say something like this to anyone he meets: "If you like power (or pleasure or money or honor or health or beauty or fame or not fearing death or educating your children or ...) you'll love virtue and wisdom." Readers are often struck by Socrates' many pedagogic failures (Meno, Alcibiades, Anytus, and so on), but the other side of that same coin is Socrates' remarkable willingness to take on the hardest cases. One thing Plato may be trying to show us by filling his dialogues with "bad" interlocutors is that no one is too avaricious (Meno), cynical (Callicles), self-satisfied (Hippias), belligerent (Thrasymachus), scatterbrained (Hippocrates), sophistical (Euthydemus and Dionysiodorus), fixed in his ways (Protagoras, Gorgias, Cephalus), naive (Charmides, Lysis), power-hungry (Polus), conventional (Anytus), spoiled by flattery (Alcibiades), narcissistic (Agathon), or pompous (Euthyphro) for Socrates to deem him worthy of his pedagogic efforts. …

Kant's Theory of Motivation: A Hybrid Approach

Abstract: ANYONE REMOTELY FAMILIAR WITH Kant’s practical philosophy knows that an agent’s actions count as moral only if he is moved to act by moral considerations. But once we get past this truism, the water becomes murky. Kant’s moral theory is committed to the view that moral judgments must be efficacious—the cognition “I ought to act morally” must be able to move us to act morally. The nature of the connection between cognition and action is the source of much disagreement, and scholarly interpretation diverges quite dramatically. On one side, we have Henry Allison, Andrews Reath, and Christine Korsgaard, all of whom endorse what is called intellectualism. In their estimation, moral agents are moved to act solely by their intellectual recognition of the authority of the moral law. But affectivists such as Patrick Frierson, Richard McCarty, and Iain Morrisson vigorously contest this picture, contending that affective forces, or feelings, are conditions of the possibility of moral judgment and moral action.

Hacking, Ian. Why Is There Philosophy of Mathematics at All

Abstract: HACKING, Ian Why Is There Philosophy of Mathematics At All New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014 xv + 290 pp Cloth, $3099--At first glance it would seem that the answer to the question posed in the title can be given in a sentence or two Plato long ago recognized that the theorems of geometry are about things that are not in the material world: ideal circles, angles, and lines For him--and for all mathematicians and philosophers since--this poses the question of just what are these things and what is their reality So the obvious answer to the author's question is, "Because we want to know the ontological status of mathematical objects" Clearly if they are, for example, ideas in God's mind, that tells us something important Plato's answer, of course, is that geometrical theorems refer to ideal objects, and indeed they are, for him, one proof of his theory of forms So what then is the purpose of the book? It is rather a discussion of the nature of mathematics, loosely centered around the question of what mathematics is The book has chapters with titles such as "What makes mathematics mathematics?", "Why is there a philosophy of mathematics?", "Proofs," "Applications," and two dealing with Platonic views These would appear to be very meaty topics, but the author does not really confront them in the deep manner required, despite his obvious familiarity with the views of many philosophers The chapters only loosely address their subject, and they are very episodic, jumping from one topic and philosopher's opinion to another, without developing any in a thoroughgoing manner It reads as a collection of short essays rather than a monograph Additionally, it is not, possible in the twenty-first century to discuss what mathematics is without in-depth treatment of Godel's Theorem and the question of provability and its relation to truth, which is not found in the book The very language of mathematics is in terms of existence, postulation, and exploration: "Let X be a Hilbert Space," or "There exists a number y such that ," or "There do not exist any integers a, b, c and n satisfying [asupn] + [bsupn] = [csupn], if n > 2 (Fermat's Last Theorem)" This should be a jumping-off point for any discussion of the nature of mathematics, but it is not for this author Rather, we read about this or that philosopher's opinion There is the obligatory nod to nominalistic interpretations of mathematics; but very few mathematicians have much interest in that approach since the very language of mathematics is quite contrary to nominalism The author also makes some comparisons of modern mathematics with that of other cultures …

Anaximander and the Ordering of Time: Metaphysics Viewed from the Margins of History

Abstract: Out of the Boundless [aperion] the World arises from whatever is the genesis of the things that are; into this [Boundless] they must pass away according to Necessity, for they must pay the penalty and make atonement to one another for their injustice according to the Ordering of Time. (1) The theme of the 2016 annual meeting of the Metaphysical Society of America (MSA), from which the selection of essays in this special issue of The Review of Metaphysics is drawn, was "Thinking with the Presocratics: History, Myth, and Metaphysics." This conference subtitle was intended to call attention to some connections between myth and history, on one hand, and metaphysical reflection on the other. This paper is based on the presidential address I delivered at the 2016 MSA meeting. With Anaximander's brief and famously cryptic fragment on being, boundlessness, injustice, and order of time as an interpretive guidepost, I seek here to highlight and to reflect on the significance of some of those connections, and in the process, to demonstrate what I believe metaphysics to be, and what it will require for its future practice. I proceed in four parts: (1) a brief discussion of the wider theme of the annual meeting itself; followed by (2) a panegyric on the history of philosophy from its margins; then (3) a short reflection on the longstanding quest for unmediated experience; and finally (4) concluding thoughts on Anaximander's denunciation of the injustice inherent in the flux of experience. Each segment aims to flesh out an underlying notion of metaphysical thinking itself as consisting fundamentally of an engagement with, and redemption of, historical experience. History, Myth, and Metaphysics. First, let me say a bit more about the main theme of the 2016 MSA meeting, and why for its title I chose the preposition "with" in particular, instead of the more conventional "about." I chose this deliberately in order to emphasize a way of doing philosophy that is grounded in its history and in the contributions of its predecessors, without limiting it merely to discourse about that history and those predecessors--at least, not exclusively. Thinking about the Presocratics, for example, is what eminent scholars like Phillip Wheelright, Kirk and Raven, and W. K. C. Guthrie do. (2) Some eminent philosophers do not value that kind of historical scholarship. When W. V. A. Quine offered his condescending distinction between those who are themselves philosophers, and others who merely examine its history, I think he had this distinction, and such scholars, in mind. (3) Quine mistakenly believed, however, these were the only two options possible, and furthermore, that only the first constituted genuine, original knowledge rather than merely mucking about in the past. Quine apparently did not envision the possibility of a third alternative, in which philosophers, authentically engaged in doing philosophy, pursue their philosophical inquiries primarily through engaging with its history. (4) It is this distinction, between thinking about, and thinking with, that I especially hoped that the MSA membership would highlight during our meeting as a way of doing philosophy, and particularly, of engaging in metaphysical reflection. Heidegger asserted that philosophy was the human enterprise of "called" thinking--namely, allowing the thing(s) to be thought about to call forth or elicit the activity of thinking as an openness toward being. (5) Yet Hannah Arendt asserted that "thinking itself is dangerous," and accused both Heidegger (her mentor) and Adolf Eichmann (her most famous research subject) of having failed to think. This lapse was the essence of the banality of evil. (6) It is with such rich resonances in mind that I hoped to call upon the MSA membership to think with the Presocratics, specifically about history, myth, and metaphysics. Parmenides, as Eva Brann reminds us in her brilliant essay, (7) claimed in his Proem that "thinking" (Nous/noein) and "being" (Esti/To Eon) were one and the same, (8) thus demonstrating that logic (Quine's first love) and metaphysics are finally inseparable. …

Ostension: Word learning and the embodied mind

Abstract: ENGELLAND, Chad. Ostension: Word Learning and the Embodied Mind. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2014. xxix + 305 pp. Cloth, $40.00--Although ostension is the primary title of this book, ostension is simply the phenomenon that unifies an extended and wonderfully insightful and engaging philosophical analysis of fundamental issues in the philosophy of language, action, mind, and nature. Readers of varied philosophical persuasions will find the book of interest as the author engages with and weaves together ideas and insights from empirical science, Continental and analytic philosophers, and the history of philosophy. There are extended treatments of the science of joint attention as well as the views of Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, Augustine, and Aristotle. The author then builds on these scientific and historical treatments in order to articulate his own unique phenomenological approach to the issues raised, and he discusses the metaphysical and epistemological implications of his approach as well as its import on our philosophical understanding of the mind, including the problem of other minds. In the available space I can provide only a bare summary of the author's central argument, which only scratches the surface of the detailed and in-depth philosophical analyses one will find in the book. The author begins by noting that philosophers have recognized and that empirical science has confirmed that joint attention is required if a child is to learn new words through ostension, which the author argues requires no prior linguistic resources or competency. That is, word learning by means of ostension requires the joint attention of learner and speaker toward what is ostended. The author marshals experiments showing that a child will not learn a new word ostensively if the speaker or what is ostended is not present, for instance, if the object is present but the child only hears an absent voice, or if the speaker is pointing to an object that is hidden from the view of the child. The first key insight motivating the author's approach is Augustine's recognition that children learn words even when the speaker is not intentionally and explicitly trying to teach the child a new word. Children leant new words simply by observing others speaking about an object while engaging with it. In this respect the author criticizes Wittgenstein for presupposing the Western model of word learning that suggests that children learn new words only by being explicitly taught. Because of this, joint attention is not sufficient to account for word learning. On the contrary, the author argues that joint presence is required, namely, that word learning occurs when the child, speaker, and object are present to one another. …