Testimony and Kant’s Idea of Public Reason

It is common to interpret Kant’s idea of public reason and the Enlightenment motto to ‘think for oneself’ as incompatible with the view that testimony and judgement of credibility is essential to rational public deliberation. Such interpretations have led to criticism of contemporary Kantian approaches to deliberative democracy for being intellectualistic, and for not considering our epistemic dependence on other people adequately. In this article, I argue that such criticism is insufficiently substantiated, and that Kant’s idea of public reason is neither at odds with deference to a certain kind of authority, nor with making judgements of character in rational deliberation. This view is corroborated by recent work on Kant’s epistemology of testimony.     

Reason and Rationality in Eze’s On Reason

abstract

The title of Emmanuel Eze’s fmal, posthumously published book uses the words “reason” and “rationality” in a maimer that might suggest they are interchangeable. I would like to suggest that we not Reat them as the same, but rather tease out a difference in emphasis and reference between the two. In African philosophy, the problem of reason is really two separate problems, the first of which I will call the “problem of reason” (that is, the question of whether there are diverse forms of reason or only one universal form) and the second the “problem of rationality” (that is, the question of whether everyone has the capacity to deploy reason past what mimicry or programming makes possible). Both of these problems are addressed by Eze’s schema for forms of reason. He identifies several forms, but focuses on “ordinary reason”, which allows all the other forms to operate. Ordinary reason also makes rationality possible, that is, the culturally specific yet emergent way of navigating forms of reason. Reason is necessarily diverse, because its multiple forms are deployed differently by different rationalities.     

Fales’s Defense of the Given and Requirements for Being a Reason

Fales defends the doctrine of the given against the Sellarsian dilemma. On his view, sensory experiences, to which one has direct access, can justify basic beliefs. He upholds this view by way of defending an expansive conception of inference, according to which a broadly inferential relation can hold between sensory experiences and perceptual beliefs. The purpose of this paper is to show that Fales’s defense of the given fails. For this purpose, I argue that there are two requirements for being a good reason, and that his conception of direct apprehension faces a serious dilemma with regard to these requirements. In addition, I argue that his expansive conception of inference is unfounded.     

WTO,Public Reason and Food Public Reasoning in the ‘Trade Conflict’ on GM-Food

Food trade is of economic importance for both developed and developing countries. Food, however, is a special commodity. Firstly, the lack of food – hunger, under-nourishment, and starvation – is one of the worlds pressing moral problems. But food is not only special because it is necessary for our survival; food is also special because it is strongly related to our social and cultural identity. Two recent transatlantic trade conflicts over food – over the use of artificial growth hormones in beef production and over the use of (modern) biotechnology in food production – show that food is a specific commodity. In these trade-conflicts, the obligations flowing from free-trade treaties collide with the cultural and social meanings of food. Current international trade agreements neglect this point and force countries to fight their case in the field of food safety science. This causes a bias in the discussion. Europes resistance towards artificial growth hormones and GM-food is not strictly science based; it is also culture based. For a fair resolution of trade-conflicts, this needs to be accommodated in international trade legislation. With the help of the notion of public reason I defend that (i) precaution with regard to scientific uncertainty, and (ii) the possibility for compulsory labelling with regard to sensitive non-nutritional properties of foodstuffs, need to be incorporated in international food trade regulations.     

Reason and Religion in Rawls: Voegelin’s Challenge

This article argues that we must abandon the still predominant view of modernity as based upon a separation between the secular and the religious - a “separation” which is allegedly now brought into question again in “postsecularity”. It is more meaningful to start from the premise that religion and politics have always co-existed in various fields of tension and will continue to do so. The question then concerns the natures and modalities of this tension, and how one can articulate a publically grounded reason with reference to it. It will first be argued that this question cannot be articulated, let alone fully answered, from the position developed by John Rawls. A different approach will then be developed, building on the writings of Eric Voegelin. This involves a much more serious engagement with the classical tradition in thought and philosophy than found in Rawls. It also implies much more than a “pragmatic” recognition of religion as a possible source for overlapping consensus, since for Voegelin a true, balanced rationality can only depart from an experientially grounded encounter with the transcendent.     

Come as you are? Public Reason and Climate Change

Res Publica - The likely adverse effects of climate change call for political action. In this paper, we argue that the public reason framework—with its insistence on justifiability to all...     

The Idea of Public Justification in Rawls’s Law of Peoples

The article examines Rawlss Law of Peoples as an attemptto extend the conception of public justification originallydeveloped in Political Liberalism to the internationaldomain. After briefly sketching the main elements of Rawlssconception of public justification, the article examineshow this is developed in Law of Peoples, pointingout the main differences with the domestic case. The articlethen tries to show that Rawlss justificatory strategy containsa number of inconsistencies which undermine the persuasivenessof the conception of international justice he advocates. Thisin turn can be traced back to the failure fully to addressthe constituency problem facing theories ofpublic justification.     

Religion, and not just Religious Reasons, in the Public Square: A Consideration of Robert Audi’s and Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Religion in the Public Square

For the last several decades, philosophers have wrestled with the proper place of religion in liberal societies. Usually, the debates among these philosophers have started with the articulation of various conceptions of liberalism and then proceeded to locate religion in the context of these conceptions. In the process, however, too little attention has been paid to the way religion is conceived. Drawing on the work of Robert Audi and Nicholas Wolterstorff, two scholars who are often read as holding opposing views on these issues, I argue that, for the purposes of their argument about liberalism, both have implicitly accepted a concept of religion that has come under severe attack in recent work on the subject. Namely, they have accepted a concept of religion that identifies religion primarily with belief, ritual practice, and ecclesial institutions. Following recent scholarship, I suggest that religion is better conceived as a kind of culture. To conclude the essay, I gesture toward what the beginnings of a re-visioned debate about religion and liberal society might look like if one started from this revised conception of religion.     

The Role of Religious Values in Decisions About Genetics and the Public’s Health

The latest health care legislation, which promotes prevention and health screening, ultimately depends for its success on recognition of people’s values concerning the technologies being employed, not just the interventions’ technical virtues. Values concerning the deterministic nature of a condition and what groups should be targeted rest on a sense of what is morally, often religiously right in a given health circumstance. This paper looks at a number of leading-edge case examples—breast cancer genetic screening and family decision-making, and newborn screening and biobanks—in examining how the choices made at the individual, family, and societal levels rest on faith in a higher source of efficacy and moral perspectives on the measures that can be taken. Qualitative responses expressing people’s attitudes toward these technologies underscore the importance of considering faith-based values in individual decisions and collective policies on their use. These examples are considered in the context of the historic interplay between science and religion and recent definitions and models of health which incorporate physical, emotional, and social elements, and most importantly, are expanding to incorporate the religious and spiritual values domains.     

Neuroimaging of Wernicke’s Encephalopathy and Korsakoff’s Syndrome

There is considerable evidence that neuroimaging findings can improve the early diagnosis of Wernicke's encephalopathy (WE) in clinical settings. The most distinctive neuroimaging finding of acute WE are cytotoxic edema and vasogenic edema, which are represented by bilateral symmetric hyperintensity alterations on T2-weighted MR images in the periphery of the third ventricle, periaqueductal area, mammillary bodies and midbrain tectal plate. An initial bout of WE can result in Korsakoff's syndrome (KS), but repeated bouts in conjunction with its typical comorbidity, chronic alcoholism, can result in signs of tissue degeneration in vulnerable brain regions. Chronic abnormalities identified with neuroimaging enable examination of brain damage in living patients with KS and have expanded the understanding of the neuropsychological deficits resulting from thiamine deficiency, alcohol neurotoxicity, and their comorbidity. Brain structure and functional studies indicate that the interactions involving the thalamus, mammillary bodies, hippocampus, frontal lobes, and cerebellum are crucial for memory formation and executive functions, and the interruption of these circuits by WE and chronic alcoholism can contribute substantially to the neuropsychological deficits in KS.     

Review of Penelope Deutscher,Foucault’s Futures: A Critique of Reproductive Reason

Continental Philosophy Review - In Foucault’s Futures: A Critique of Reproductive Reason, Penelope Deutscher explores the “suspended reserves” in Foucault’s writing,...     

Weyl’s Appropriation of Husserl’s and Poincar“s Thought

This article locates Weyl's philosophy of mathematics and its relationship to his philosophy of science within the epistemological and ontological framework of Husserl's phenomenology as expressed in the Logical Investigations and Ideas. This interpretation permits a unified reading of Weyl's scattered philosophical comments in The Continuum and Space-Time-Matter. But the article also indicates that Weyl employed Poincaré's predicativist concerns to modify Husserl's semantics and trim Husserl's ontology. Using Poincaré's razor to shave Husserl's beard leads to limitations on the least upper bound theorem in the foundations of analysis and Dirichlet's principle in the foundations of physics. Finally, the article opens the possibility of reading Weyl as a systematic thinker, that he follows Husserl's so-called transcendental turn in the Ideas. This permits an even more unified reading of Weyl's scattered philosophical comments.     

Children’s and Adolescents’ Conceptions of Happiness

Previous research on children’s and adolescents’ happiness has mainly focused on the different variables that may contribute to it. However, very few studies have investigated the beliefs that children and adolescents hold about happiness. It is important to study developmental and gender differences in the conceptions of happiness as beliefs affect people’s emotions and behaviors, and they may help explain how children and adolescents strive for their own (and potentially others’) happiness. To that aim, we conducted two different studies. In Study 1a 20 people (lay judges) completed two categorization tasks to obtain categorization systems that may include all the relevant content categories identified in previous literature with adults, adolescents and children. In Study 1b, we asked 162 children and adolescents to define—in their own words—what happiness meant for them. Their responses were coded according to two different systems derived from previous finding with adults and children and to an alternative coding system derived from the qualitative analyses of children’s and adolescents’ responses. Overall, results showed that hedonic conceptualization of happiness were mainly present in late childhood; whereas eudaimonic conceptualizations were mainly present in adolescence. No significant gender differences were found.     

Grice’s Analysis of Utterance-Meaning and Cicero’s Catilinarian Apostrophe

The pragmatics underlying Paul Grice’s analysis of utterance-meaning provide a powerful framework for investigating the commitments arguers undertake. Unfortunately, the complexity of Grice’s analysis has frustrated appropriate reliance on this important facet of his work. By explicating Cicero’s use of apostrophe in his famous “First Catilinarian” this essay attempts to show that a full complex of reflexive gricean speaker intentions in essentially to seriously saying and meaning something.

Hume’s theory of justice and Vanderschraaf’s vulnerablity objection

Philosophical Studies -     

A Comparison of Dewey’s and Russell’s Influences on China

John Dewey and Bertrand Russell visited China at around the same time in 1920. Both profoundly influenced China during the great transition period of this country. This article will focus on the differences between the two great figures that influenced China in the 1920s. This comparison will examine the following five aspects: 1. Deweyanization vs. Russellization; 2. Dewey’s “Populism” vs. Russell’s “Aristocraticism”; 3. Dewey’s “Syntheticalism” vs. Russell’s “Analyticalism”; 4. Dewey’s “Realism” vs. Russell’s “Romanticism”; 5. Dewey’s “Conservatism” vs. Russell’s “Radicalism”. This examination will highlight that, although their visit left indelible impressions among Chinese intellecturals, for the radical Marx–Leninists, any Western philosophy and socio-political theories, including Dewey’s and Russell’s, were prejudicial, outworn, and even counterrevolutionary. Soon “Marxi–Leninization” was gradually substituted for “Deweyanization” and “Russellization.”     

Images of Women’s Sexuality in Advertisements: A Content Analysis of Black- and White-Oriented Women’s and Men’s Magazines

This article represents an analysis of the sexual images of women in magazine advertisements. I examined advertisements in Black- and White-oriented, mens and womens magazines to compare the images of womens sexuality that are constructed for each specific audience. Over 600 images of women were analyzed based on seven dimensions, including function/role, relative function/authority, physical/body position, relative size/height, character traits, body view, and physical characteristics. The images of womens sexuality vary depending on the race of the intended audience and the race of the women in the advertisements. Advertisements for White audiences portray women in roles and with characteristics that suggest dependency and submissiveness, whereas advertisements for Black audiences portray women as independent and dominant. I also found that White women are objectified much more than Black women are.     

Erikson’s Schedule of Human Strengths and the Church’s Self-Images

This article focuses on Erik H. Erikson’s schedule of human strengths presented in his essay, “Human Strength and the Cycle of Generations” (Erikson 1964) and suggests that certain images of the church support these human strengths. In supporting these human strengths, they also contribute to our understanding of the importance of the fact that the church is an intergenerational body.