Rationalism

It is hard to deny that that we possess any moral knowledge, and yet it is even harder to explain where this moral knowledge comes from. We know, for instance, that the Holocaust was profoundly immoral, but how do we know this? Many philosophers explain moral knowledge in the same way as perceptual knowledge. On the perceptual model, we acquire moral knowledge without inference based on experiences that represent moral facts. In Deductive Moral Knowledge, Declan Smithies challenges that perceptual model (...) and replaces it with a deductive model, according to which our most basic moral knowledge is based on deductive inference. -/- Smithies argues against Hume's Law, which states that you can never deduce an “ought” from an 'is”. In its place, he defends “the anti-Humean thesis” that we can know moral facts by deducing them from the non-moral facts on which they depend. We can know the moral conclusion that the Holocaust was wrong, for example, by deducing it from the known non-moral premise that it was genocide. -/- The anti-Humean thesis has wide-ranging implications for moral epistemology. It undermines regress arguments for moral skepticism without relying on special moral faculties such as moral perception, intuition or emotion. It supplies a new form of moral rationalism that explains how we can acquire a priori moral knowledge by deducing moral principles from non-moral assumptions in suppositional reasoning. It explains why no one can be justified in holding or acting upon morally repugnant beliefs, such as the belief that genocide is permissible. In addition, it resolves puzzles about the epistemology of moral disagreement, moral testimony, and moral uncertainty. -/- Deductive Moral Knowledge uses recent innovations in general epistemology to illuminate contemporary debates in moral epistemology. In doing so, it advances our understanding of deductive knowledge and a priori knowledge in general, as well as moral knowledge. (shrink)

Las instituciones que forman licenciados en filosofía suelen exigir rigor metodológico en los trabajos finales de investigación (TFI), pero rara vez cuentan con instrumentos objetivos para evaluarlo. Este artículo propone una rúbrica de evaluación metodológica fundamentada en los cuatro componentes de la investigación filosófica descritos por Canale (2000): materia, objeto, principios de interpretación y funcionamiento. La propuesta responde a un vacío identificado empíricamente en un estudio previo, donde se constató que una institución de educación superior dominicana carecía de criterios explícitos (...) para evaluar el componente metodológico de sus tesinas de filosofía, pese a asignarle hasta un 40% de la calificación final. Se presenta la estructura de la rúbrica, sus fundamentos teóricos y recomendaciones para su implementación institucional. (shrink)

Este artículo argumenta que la pregunta "¿puede la filosofía ser científica?" está mal formulada porque confunde dos actividades distintas: filosofar, entendido como un ejercicio creativo de primer orden que produce pensamiento nuevo, e investigar sobre filosofía, un ejercicio reflexivo de segundo orden que estudia sistemáticamente ideas ya producidas. Se sostiene que la primera actividad no puede ni debe someterse al método científico sin perder su naturaleza, mientras que la segunda puede y debe aspirar a estándares de rigor metodológico equivalentes a (...) los de cualquier disciplina investigativa. El argumento se apoya en la propuesta de Fernando Canale sobre los cuatro componentes del método filosófico de investigación, en la tradición del debate entre filosofía científica y especulativa, y en evidencia empírica de un estudio sobre veinticinco trabajos finales de investigación de licenciatura en filosofía, cuyos resultados muestran que la ausencia de esta distinción conceptual se traduce en deficiencias metodológicas sistemáticas. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta un diagnóstico empírico sobre el rigor metodológico de los trabajos finales de investigación (TFI) de licenciatura en filosofía, a partir del análisis documental de veinticinco tesinas producidas entre 2010 y 2024 en una institución de educación superior dominicana, complementado con entrevistas a una autoridad académica y a un docente evaluador del área. Los resultados muestran una inconsistencia metodológica generalizada: la mayoría de los trabajos no explicita su paradigma epistemológico, no justifica la selección de su método ni de (...) sus técnicas, y carece de una estructura reconocible en el planteamiento del problema. Se concluye que estas deficiencias no obedecen a una supuesta incompatibilidad entre filosofía y rigor metodológico, sino a la ausencia de criterios institucionales claros para su elaboración y evaluación. (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of work by drawing on existing theories of recognition, self-worth, motivation, and narcissism. Its aim is to clarify the conditions under which work tends toward self-verification and the conditions under which it approaches the practice of an ideal. Human beings are situated within society through recognition by others. Recognition is an important social resource that supports belonging, trust, role-taking, and cooperation. Yet when the foundation of self-worth is placed in recognition, work tends to move away (...) from the realization of an ideal and toward the replenishment of self-worth or the calming of anxiety. Achievement becomes a means of self-verification, and failure is experienced not merely as a practical problem to be improved but as a disturbance of one’s very sense of value. This paper understands this structure as the self-verification of work driven by the impulse for recognition. This impulse enters not only work itself but also efforts outside work, such as acquiring qualifications, studying, self-improvement, and striving for personal growth. Effort is often described in admirable terms. However, when effort is driven by urgency, anxiety, the gaze of others, and the need to confirm self-worth, the foundation of the self becomes increasingly dependent on external evaluation. The central thesis of this paper is that work close to an ideal requires a foundation of self before effort. By “foundation of self,” I mean a psychological ground on which one does not entrust self-worth entirely to external evaluation, but can receive one’s own existence, life, and activity by oneself and form a certain degree of satisfaction. The more this foundation is established, the more room a person has to include the benefit of others, fidelity to the object, and social value in the initial motive of work. Effort undertaken on that basis does not function as self-verification. It becomes the force by which an ideal is implemented in reality. This paper refers to self-determination theory, the theory of contingent self-worth, the self-concordance model, self-compassion theory, Winnicott’s capacity to be alone, Fromm’s theory of self-love, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, social comparison theory, and self-presentation theory. While these theories are used to explain relevant psychological mechanisms, this paper rearranges them as a theory of work. The paper also emphasizes life-practice in the formation of the foundation of self. Life-practice refers to the repeated activity of acting upon one’s own lived world and receiving the changes brought about by that action. Housework, walking, reading, caring for tools, and rest can be completed within one’s own field of experience before being connected to public display or reactions on social media. Whether one can enjoy such activities alone is an important indicator of the foundation of self. However, the more unstable one’s foundation of self is, the more likely one is to feel guilt about enjoying oneself by oneself. Although enjoying life-practice is necessary, that very enjoyment is often rejected as “meaningless,” “lazy,” or “mere self-satisfaction.” Here lies a trap that prevents the recovery of the foundation of self. Therefore, what is first required of a person who suffers from self-anxiety is not additional effort, but the suspension of the impulse toward effort. Instead of immediately converting anxiety and urgency into effort, one must cultivate the capacity to receive one’s own life and savor one’s own activity. Only after this does effort become effective as the practice of an ideal. Through this argument, the paper presents the logical order of work close to an ideal: foundation of self, room for the benefit of others, practice of an ideal, and finally, desperate effort. (shrink)

【Withdrawn for preparation of a revised version】.

We give the first machine-checked contribution to an interpretive dispute in the history of philosophy: the forty- year disagreement between Jonathan Bennett and Michael Della Rocca over the demonstration of Proposition V of Spinoza’s Ethica Pars I. We formalise Ethica Pars I in Lean 4, encoding Bennett’s reading of Spinoza’s stated axioms as a typeclass and Della Rocca’s substantive Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) as an extension class, so that the question what is derivable from which axioms? is decided by (...) the kernel. The derivation attempt yields a partial result, that substances sharing all attributes are identical, but does not reach the full “sharing-any-attribute implies identity” content of Proposition V; it thereby tracks Bennett’s own verdict that the demonstration “cannot yield more than the conclusion that two substances could not have all their attributes in common,” whereas Spinoza’s text concludes that they cannot share any attribute. A four-element counter-model that satisfies both axiom sets — Spinoza’s stated register A1–A7 with its definitional bridges, and the PSR extension — while falsifying Proposition V’s content establishes the irreducibility against this specific augmenta- tion; a second, three-element counter-model establishes the analogous result for axiom A15, a load-bearing universality clause for Proposition XIV. Each non-derivability claim is a meta-logical consequence of kernel consistency, witnessed by a kernel-checked model rather than by the absence of a found proof. The contribution is twofold: a concrete result, the first kernel-checked counter-model against Della Rocca’s PSR-substance reconstruction; and a method, the demote experiment, that replaces part of a prose dispute with a checkable discipline. Stronger PSR variants, and the broader Bennett-line claim against every charitable augmentation, remain open as mechanical projects. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of the reciprocity of Nature in Spinoza as a central yet underappreciated dimension of Spinoza’s relational metaphysics. Building on Ziporyn’s interpretation of Spinoza, the paper argues that any understanding of infinity and necessity is incomplete without Spinoza’s relational account of the reciprocity of God or Nature (Deus sive Natura). Through a close analysis of the Ethics, the Principles and Letter 32, the paper shows that for Spinoza all finite things are reciprocally determined by another singular (...) thing to exist in a certain way through the infinite, eternal and equal force [vis] of Nature by which each thing perseveres in existing. This reciprocal and omnipresent structure of the whole of Nature constitutes the engaged, phenomenological experience of Individuality: God or Nature does not respond purposively or personally, yet every movement and thought is necessarily met by reciprocal determinations within the immediacy of Nature itself. The paper concludes that Ziporyn’s account is strengthened by a relational metaphysics grounded not in intellectual contemplation of infinite Substance but rather in the active and embodied immersion in the infinite encounters of Nature’s reciprocity. (shrink)

This paper reveals a long-concealed truth: for two thousand years, no publicly available commentary has truly understood the original meaning of the Zhou Yi (known in the West as the I Ching) and the classics of Chinese source culture. The fundamental reason lies in the complete misalignment between the Confucian “human-centered” cognitive coordinate system and the “theocentric” coordinate system of source culture. Source culture takes “God is absolutely egoistic” as its primary axiom, the unity of “Nature-Capacity-Law” (xìng-néng-fǎ) as its analytical (...) framework, and a “decentralized sacred governance mechanism based on the will of natural law” as its ultimate blueprint. Confucianism, by contrast, takes “benevolence, righteousness, self-restraint, and the restoration of rites” as its starting point, with “altruism, selflessness, and hierarchy” as its positive directions. The two coordinate systems are incommensurable; interpreting source culture through the Confucian lens is like using Newtonian mechanics to interpret quantum physics – the output is inevitably gibberish. This paper argues that the reawakening of source culture constitutes a fundamental cognitive revolution – a paradigm shift in human consciousness comparable to the invention of writing or the rise of modern science. Unlike previous revolutions that extended human physical capacity or information processing, this revolution reshapes the very cognitive coordinates through which humanity understands itself, its relationship with the divine, and the foundations of social order. It shifts from the human-centered to the theocentric, from the denial of self-interest to its recognition as a divine endowment, and from moral exhortation to the self-organizing governance of natural law. As the paper states, “No amount of human ink and paper can fully describe the goodness of the self-driven, decentralized sacred governance mechanism of natural law will.” The paper calls upon researchers in Chinese studies worldwide to abandon superstitions about prestigious titles such as “eminent Confucian scholars,” “masters of national studies,” and “philosophers,” to switch their cognitive coordinate systems, to return to the original meanings of Chinese characters and the field of hexagram images, and to face the original meaning of source culture with common-sense honesty. It argues that understanding source culture requires no profound erudition, but only two things: the recognition of the primary axiom that “God is absolutely egoistic,” and the mastery of the cognitive framework of the unity of “Nature-Capacity-Law.”. (shrink)

Cognition evolves cyclically through Art, Philosophy, and Science. All three are surprisingly continuous—both historically and in their persistence—yet remain indefinable. A traditionally upside-down view of syntactic success conceals the true foundation. The word “truth” is merely a syntactic “0.” Nevertheless, the truth of syntactic truth has ontological roots, though it tends to abandon them. In pursuit of unreasonably convenient algorithmicity, even the master of cognition is reduced to a spell-checker. Against that spell, a tablet is attached.

Donald Hoffman, in his book The Case Against Reality and in a number of scientific publications (together with several coauthors), has argued that we see none of reality veridically. Supposedly, evolution unavoidably drives organisms with even partially veridical perception to extinction. This conclusion was claimed to follow both from evolutionary game theory-based simulations and from abstract mathematical work. I analyze these arguments in more detail than has been done before, leading to what seem to be novel objections to it: On (...) the one hand, I show that simulations that incorporate aspects of evolution that Hoffman himself acknowledges as valid, yield results inconsistent with Hoffman’s claim. On the other hand, I point out that the attempted inference from the mathematical theorem to Hoffman’s conclusion suffers from a number of problems, including that it relies on an assumption that begs the question against the realist. (shrink)

This book defends a cluster of theses related to the rationality of action and belief. The starting point is that rational action requires rational belief but tolerates false belief. From there, it argues for a novel account of empirical evidence according to which said evidence consists of the content of undefeated experiences. This view, “Experientialism,” differs from the two main views of empirical evidence on offer nowadays: Factualism, according to which our evidence is what we know, and Psychologism, according to (...) which our experiences themselves are evidence. The book argues that Experientialism fares better than these rival views in explaining different features of rational belief and action. The discussion is embedded in a Bayesian framework, and the book also examines the problem of normative requirements, the easy knowledge problem, and how Experientialism compares to Evidentialism, Reliabilism, and Comesaña’s own (now superseded) Evidentialist Reliabilism. (shrink)

The Gageian Epistemic Model (GEM) proposes a structural dissolution of the Agrippa Trilemma by positing the five premises of the PIE Syllogism (P1-P5) as the mandatory architecture for warranted belief. This paper addresses two primary classes of structural objections: 1) the claim that Premise 1 (Subjective State) is operationally vacuous, failing to halt the Infinite Regress, and 2) the claim that Premise 5 (External Reliability) merely restates the problem of Circularity. This defense argues that P1 functions as a self-vindicating, non-inferential (...) precondition—a structural, not informational, foundation—and that P5 constitutes a necessary, constrained circularity that defines the maximal boundary of human warrant. The GEM is thus confirmed as a robust framework that successfully addresses the Trilemma by shifting the grounds of debate from metaphysical truth to structural necessity. (shrink)

The Pyrrhonian Skeptic’s Agrippa Trilemma asserts that any knowledge claim is doomed to infinite regress, arbitrary dogmatism, or circular reasoning. This paper argues that the Trilemma is an axiomatic consequence of the historical reliance on the problematic Justified True Belief (JTB) definition and the failure to rigorously define the necessary structure of conscious inquiry. This paper introduces the Gageian Epistemic Model ( GEM ), a descriptive meta-epistemology that formalizes the mandatory procedure of conscious warrant into the PIE Syllogism ( P1-P5 (...) ). The GEM offers a unique, structural response to the Trilemma: the infinite regress is terminated by the self-vindicating, structurally mandated axiom, P1: The Axiom of Subjective State ( S ). Arbitrariness is overcome by demonstrating the structural necessity of P3 (the Goal of resolution), and circularity is controlled by establishing two distinct, warranted standards for belief. The GEM formalizes all warranted belief across two categories: Intrinsic Knowledge as Justified Coherent Belief ( JCB ), warranted by internal coherence via P4, and Extrinsic Knowledge as Justified Reliable Belief ( JRB ), warranted by external predictive success via P5. This axiomatic procedure provides the foundational justification for the methodology of modern science and mathematics, proving it is the only structurally defensible path available to a conscious agent. (shrink)

This collection demonstrates the range of approaches that some of the leading scholars of our day take to basic questions at the intersection of the natural and human worlds. The essays focus on three interlocking categories: Reason stakes a bigger territory than the enclosed yard of universal rules. Nature expands over a far larger region than an eternal category of the natural. And history refuses to be confined to claims of an unencumbered truth of how things happened.

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) is the canonical expression of the idea of reality as fundamentally rational or intelligible, such that there is always a sufficient ground or explanation for everything about which such questions can be asked. In this essay, I argue that recent attempts to rehabilitate the PSR, despite their many virtues, have not gone far enough in emphasizing the centrality of this principle within all areas of philosophy - both theoretical and practical. Thus, I hope to (...) show that to fully appreciate the significance of the PSR, we need to attend to the role it plays in reasoning of both a theoretical and a practical sort. As we will see, this point is especially important from a Kantian perspective, where it is practical, and not theoretical reason that is the home of our deepest and most substantive commitment to a version of the PSR. Thus, for a Kantian, to understand the nature of our commitment to the PSR, we need to consider this question first and foremost from a practical perspective - or perhaps ultimately from a point of view that somehow transcends the practical-theoretical distinction itself. (shrink)

In the recent literature on the nature of knowledge, a rivalry has emerged between modalism and explanationism. According to modalism, knowledge requires that our beliefs track the truth across some appropriate set of possible worlds. Modalists tend to focus on two modal conditions: sensitivity and safety. According to explanationism, knowledge requires only that beliefs bear the right sort of explanatory relation to the truth. In slogan form: knowledge is believing something because it's true. In this paper, we aim to vindicate (...) explanationism from some recent objections offered by Gualtiero Piccinini, Dario Mortini, and Kenneth Boyce and Andrew Moon. Together, these authors present five purported counterexamples to the sufficiency of the explanationist analysis for knowledge. In addition, Mortini devises a clever argument that explanationism entails the violation of a plausible closure principle on knowledge. We will argue that explanationism is innocent of all these charges against it, and we hope that the strength of the defense we offer of explanationism is evidence in its favor, and a reason to investigate explanationism further as the long-elusive truth about the nature of knowledge. (shrink)

I have previously argued that theists should understand God as the foundational ground of the created world. This view is a version of metaphysical rationalism, holding that everything that is apt for grounding is grounded. Views of this sort can avoid necessitarianism only if some grounding relations are indeterministic, that is, if complete grounds, even given their total circumstances, do not always necessitate what they ground. The present paper argues that there are (at least) four places in the grounding hierarchy (...) where theists may plausibly insert this kind of indeterminism. (shrink)

Rationalists like Bealer (1999), BonJour (1998), and Plantinga (1993) hold there are conscious intuitions that supply a priori justification. Peacocke (2021) and Marasoiu (2020) point out that this raises a Problem of Arbitrariness: Why are beliefs justified by rational intuitions a priori, if rational intuitions are phenomenally conscious experiences, when other beliefs justified by experience are not a priori? I point out that the real issue for rationalists isn’t whether intuitions supply ‘a priori’ knowledge or justification, but whether they supply (...) knowledge or justification for necessary synthetic propositions. Such knowledge is what rationalists, but traditionally not empiricists, are really after. In answering the Problem of Arbitrariness by highlighting the necessary synthetic, these rationalists should commit to non-sensory or irreducibly cognitive phenomenology. For conscious intuitions that have merely sensory phenomenology cannot (re)present and justify the necessary synthetic propositions that rationalists are after. But these rationalists say such intuitions have some phenomenology. So their only recourse is to believe in non-sensory, cognitive phenomenology. I then offer reasons for such rationalists to prefer an acquaintance model of rational intuition: it explains why cognitive phenomenology must be present in experiential justification of the necessary synthetic, and differentiates phenomenal rationalism from recent versions of empiricism, which also accept justification of the necessary synthetic. (shrink)

Metaphysical rationalism is the view that, necessarily, every fact that stands in need of a metaphysical (grounding) explanation has one. Varieties of metaphysical rationalism include classical theism, Spinozism, spacetime priority monism, and axiarchism. Grounding indeterminism is the view that the same ground, in precisely the same circumstances, might not have grounded what it in fact grounds. I argue that a plausible defense of any form of metaphysical rationalism requires a commitment to grounding indeterminism.

In this paper, I assess John McDowell's paper "Avoiding the Myth of the Given" (2009) (AMG) and its theory of epistemological openness to the world. I trace its motivations back to Kantian, Sellarsian and Aristotelean roots. I argue that McDowell subscribes to a kind of Holistic Theory of Rationality (HTR). To explain the HTR, I will analyze the Sellarsian notions of the "Manifest Image," the "Myth of the Given" and the "logical space of reasons." I argue that the holistic nature (...) of McDowell's theory gives it particular properties that put it in need of conservatism, because all the elements of the theory "hang together" - i.e. cohere - in a dangerous fashion. I argue that McDowell cannot afford big changes without upsetting the apple-cart. With this in mind, I shall assess the merits and demerits of AMG, and its modified theory of perceptual content, as an attempted conservative reform of HTR. I want to argue that, taken independently, AMG is a good and important change, but taken holistically it is non-conservative, and disruptive, of the McDowellian picture. Thus, if we wish to proceed with the McDowellian path, we are led to a choice between rejecting the local reform (and retreating back to an earlier version) or demanding further explanations of its global implications. (shrink)

Los fragmentos que aquí se presentan bajo el título de Notas de la razón son el producto de una investigación que apenas si ha alcanzado algunas certezas relativas, y que nace, como todas aquellas que aspiran a la condición de filosóficas, de algunas perplejidades, de algunos desconciertos y también, por qué no confesarlo, de la insólita sorpresa que a veces nos produce el hecho de que las cosas sean lo que son. El asombro que nos despierta lo que ya está (...) ahí, como si fuéramos oscuramente conscientes de que podría haber no estado o haberlo hecho de cualquier otra forma, se deriva de una evidencia imponderable: no sólo que la verdad existe, sino que nosotros no podríamos existir sin ella. Si la verdad está, podría afirmarse, parafraseando a Epicuro, estamos nosotros, pero si ella desaparece, nosotros no existimos o lo hacemos de forma improbable. En estas reflexiones se cuestionan verdades: sobre la propia verdad, sobre la belleza y el arte, sobre el bien, el yo y la tragedia… Hay también una fracasada aspiración de unidad que, tal vez, tan sólo se alcance en la perspectiva final del lector. (shrink)

The Ḥatäta Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob and Ḥatäta Wäldä Həywät are two remarkable works of philosophy that were until recently virtually unknown to philosophers outside Ethiopia. The first is a philosophical autobiography narrated by the eponymous Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob, a scholar from Aksum in northern Ethiopia, exiled from his home country and forced to take refuge in a mountain cave, where he develops a philosophical system that encompasses a metaphysics of creation, an analysis of the relation between the divine and the human, an (...) account of both epistemology and ethics grounded in the faculty of ləbbuna or ‘reason’, and a strident critique of contemporary social norms. The second text is a much longer companion treatise written by his disciple Wäldä Həywät, and develops the arguments and ideas of Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob into a systematic social ethics. These works, essentially unexamined by philosophers before the past decade, have enjoyed a certain notoriety within the field of Ethiopian-Semitic philology, on account of a century-long controversy concerning their authorship. (shrink)

This article presents a visualist theory of design that contrasts with the instrumental rationalism that dominates the philosophy of design. My critique of rationalism is based on two omnipresent and paradigmatic phenomena in design: the variety of forms for one single function and the variety of uses of one form. Instrumental rationalism defines design as a coherent line that runs from a rational goal to the proper means and proper use of an object. Therefore, this philosophy values design according to (...) its efficiency. However, the diverse aesthetic forms of design objects and the creative ways that users engage with them. do not follow the instrumental rational plan, but rather aesthetic motivations and design’s visual affordance. I argue that the variety of forms of design objects and emergent uses are often more substantial than rationality in the constitution of design. Claiming that these encounters are innate to our essence and ontology as visual beings, I offer a visualist anti-rationalist theory of design and human nature. Keywords: instrumental rationalism, form, affordance, emergent properties, Visualism. (shrink)

Over the last twenty years, the political systems of the Western world have become increasingly divided-not between right and left, but between crazy and non-crazy. What's more, the crazies seem to be gaining the upper hand. Rational thought cannot prevail in the current social and media environment, where elections are won by appealing to voters' hearts rather than their minds. The rapid-fire pace of modern politics, the hypnotic repetition of daily news items and even the multitude of visual sources of (...) information all make it difficult for the voice of reason to be heard. In Enlightenment 2.0, bestselling author Joseph Heath outlines a program for a second Enlightenment. The answer, he argues, lies in a new "slow politics." It takes as its point of departure recent psychological and philosophical research, which identifies quite clearly the social and environmental preconditions for the exercise of rational thought. It is impossible to restore sanity merely by being sane and trying to speak in a reasonable tone of voice. The only way to restore sanity is by engaging in collective action against the social conditions that have crowded it out. (shrink)

Press coverage on rationalist movement in India.

Many philosophers have found in Hume’s skeptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding the materials for an argument that generalizes from induction to other domains, like our beliefs in the external world, other minds, and the past. This chapter offers a novel reconstruction of that argument and identifies the principles that are responsible for its capacity to generalize beyond induction. Next, it presents a classical reading of Hume’s skeptical solution and shows that Crispin Wright’s entitlement theory is close in (...) spirit to it. After that, it develops two objections to entitlement theory: it relies on the truth of deeply contingent propositions that are not a priori rational, and it does not manage to redefine the concept of epistemic rationality while offering an effective anti-skeptical response. The chapter concludes with a constructive suggestion: some passages that support a non-classical reading of Hume’s positive views on induction offer the materials to reject the steps of the skeptical argument that cause trouble for entitlement theory. (shrink)

The method of intuition, the view that the best philosophical perspective will maintain as many of our intuitions as possible, is one of the pillars of analytic philosophy. Unfortunately, the reliance on intuition by analytic philosophers has created conditions such that the biases of those who do philosophy, predominantly those of hegemonic identities, are accepted as a basis for philosophical knowledge. This problem can be solved by rejecting intuition as a basis for philosophical knowledge and instead relying on a methodology (...) derived from the Principle of Sufficient Reason. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In a recent article for Salvage, China Miéville responds to several of our earlier pieces in Jacobin Magazine and elsewhere. One target of Miéville’s criticism is our rationalist brand of Marxism, indebted as it is to the Radical Enlightenment legacy. He casts our differences in starkly theological terms; Ours is described as a “cataphatic” (i.e., orthodox, discursive, rationalist) Marxism while he prefers the “apophatic” (i.e., open, mystical, humble) alternative. These are real philosophical differences, and Miéville does a service to Marxist (...) discourse in illuminating such a critical and productive demarcation. -/- Miéville’s fundamental distinctions are correct. We do believe that knowledge is fundamental to politics, and that action unguided by reason is no action at all, but mere reaction. Nonetheless, if we are to justifiably choose between the “apophatic” and “cataphatic” worldviews, it will be necessary to clearly outline the essential elements of each in a schematic manner. (shrink)

Landon Frim and Harrison Fluss’s following article, “Reason is Red: Why Marxism Needs Philosophy” is a response to Aaron Jaffe’s, “Marxism, Spinoza, and the ‘Radical’ Enlightenment.' -/- It’s not that activism is of second-rate import. It’s that something as important as intervening in the world, and affecting people’s lives, requires sound justification. If we are committed to “the idea” of communism, then we’re also committed to its practical realization and all of the real-world consequences that this entails. Being serious about (...) ideas means confronting their flesh-and-blood impacts when they come to fruition. Intellectual maturity, then, demands an accounting of our political ideals. We have to care that we are right and that our enemies are wrong. And this means something more than being on the “right side” of a particular issue; it means knowing that your politics are grounded in an accurate conception of reality and of what is objectively good for human beings. (shrink)

Focusing on Descartes’ conclusion in the second Meditation that bodies are strictly perceived through the intellect alone, I contextualize, outline, and elucidate Descartes’ first two Meditations. I begin with a summary of key themes from the first Meditation and outline the reasons for Descartes’ radical doubt. I then provide a detailed explication of Descartes’ argumentitive journey in the second meditation, wherein Descartes arrives at the hypothesis that he is a thinking thing, and demonstrates the plausibility of this hypothesis by scrutinizing (...) a piece of wax until he is able to clearly and distinctly perceive it. I elaborate on Descartes’ conclusion that bodies are perceived through the intellect alone by discussing how abstraction can be used to understand any external body clearly and distinctly, before explaining the overall significance of the conclusion as an affirmation of Descartes’ existence, which gives him profound knowledge of the self. (shrink)

La rationalité est un concept difficile à circonscrire, car il en existe plusieurs sortes. Nous partons de cette diversité pour nous focaliser sur les rationalités qui sont à l'oeuvre en Afrique subsaharienne, en nous inspirant en grande partie du paradigme congolais, afin d'amener à un sursaut africain. En effet, le peuple africain apparaît aujourd'hui comme le grand absent de la scène scientifique et technologique. Cependant, en scrutant son histoire, il s'avère qu'il y a beaucoup d'indices de rationalité tant théoriques que (...) pratiques. Celle-ci est illustrée entre autres par la créativité, aujourd'hui en perte de vitesse voire simplement éteinte. D'une certaine façon, il y a eu un déni et un discrédit de la rationalité pratique de tout un peuple"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

According to ordinary language philosophy (OLP), philosophical problems can be solved by investigating ordinary language, often because the problems stem from its misuse. According to ideal language philosophy (ILP), on the other hand, philosophical problems exist because ordinary language is flawed and has to be improved or replaced by constructed languages that do not exhibit these flaws. OLP and ILP together make up linguistic philosophy, the view that philosophical problems are problems of language. Linguistic philosophy is opposed to what may (...) be called, for lack of a better word, ‘traditional philosophy’ (TP), the view that philosophical problems can be solved by discovering non-linguistic facts. In the following, OLP, ILP, and TP are taken to be methodologies, that is, frameworks in which to interpret and evaluate different philosophical methods (i.e., argumentative strategies). The two linguistic methodologies are discussed separately with TP as a foil, and then used to interpret the status of different philosophical methods. While each of the methods discussed here finds a plausible interpretation in each methodology, there are other arguments for and against linguistic philosophy in general, and for and against ILP and OLP in particular. As none of these arguments is decisive, I conclude with a superficial moral about peaceful co-existence. (shrink)

This piece is a comment on Quilty-Dunn, Jake, Nicolas Porot, and Eric Mandelbaum. 2023. “The Best Game in Town: The Reemergence of the Language-of-Thought Hypothesis across the Cognitive Sciences.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 46: e261. -/- The target article signal boosts important ongoing work across the cognitive sciences. However, its theoretical claims, generative value, and purported contributions are – where not simply restatements of arguments extensively explored elsewhere – imprecise, noncommittal, and underdeveloped to a degree that makes them difficult to (...) evaluate. The article's apparent force results from engaging with straw rather than steel opponents. (shrink)

This dissertation articulates our human capacity to judge as a capacity for knowledge, specifically for empirical knowledge, and for knowledge of itself as such. I interpret and draw on the account of such knowledge presented by Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, situate this account historically, and relate it to relevant contemporary debates. The first chapter motivates my project by assessing the insights and shortcomings of Cartesian epistemology. I argue that while Descartes draws on the essential self-consciousness of judgement to show (...) that the cogito is knowledge, he fails, by his own standards, to secure this status for any judgement beyond the cogito. I conclude that self-consciousness alone is empty, but that, since we can judge beyond the cogito, judgement can be given content from elsewhere. The next chapter evaluates the empiricist doctrine that operations of the senses by themselves give content to judgement and can vindicate it as empirical knowledge. I contend that Kant deepens Hume’s finding, that empiricism fails to enable us to explain empirical knowledge, into the more radical insight that empiricism fails to enable us to understand the senses as providing any content. I conclude that the senses alone are blind and that our account of empirical knowledge must privilege neither sensory givenness nor intellectual self-consciousness. The third chapter contrasts two readings of Kant on the cooperation between sensibility and understanding in empirical knowledge. I argue, against many Kantians, that the Transcendental Deduction shows that instead of understanding this cooperation compositionally – so that operations of sensibility are intelligible independently of acts of the understanding – we must conceive of it hylomorphically – so that the operations of sensibility and understanding constitute the mutually dependent matter and form of empirical knowing respectively. The final chapter substantiates this hylomorphism by explicating the form of knowledge as synthesis. Following Kant, I argue that inference is a species of synthesis and provide a synthetic explanation of inference. The resulting account simultaneously illustrates synthesis, addresses a prominent contemporary problem regarding the nature of inference, and explains how our capacity to know provides not just isolated glimpses of empirical reality, but a unified conception of it. (shrink)

The critical work on Realism in the first part of the 20th Century. The development of a constructive realism upon the basis of modern logic and science, and through the criticism of opposed philosophical systems. Edward Gleason Spaulding was a Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, and the President of the American Philosophical Association. He was a member of the "new realism" school of thought. His goal in this book is to "ascertain both what those postulates are from which each philosophical (...) system is logically derivable, and also, whether there is, finally, one body of principles that is common to all systems, and logically presupposed by them.." Contents include: The Problem of the Point of View, The Historical Problems of Philosophy, Methods and Problems of Method, Causation Philosophies, Substance Philosophies: Objective Idealism, and Realism: Function Philosophies. (shrink)