Comments on Guyer

Paul Guyer's paper “Naturalistic and Transcendental Moments in Kant's Moral Philosophy” raises a set of issues about how Kantian ethics should be understood in relation to present day “philosophical naturalism” that are very much in need of discussion. The paper itself is challenging, even in some respects iconoclastic, and provides a highly welcome provocation to raise in new ways some basic questions about what Kantian ethics is and what it ought to be. Guyer offers us an admirably informed and complex argument, both historical and philosophical, that tangles with some of the most difficult problems in Kant's moral philosophy. It begins with some ambitious and controversial claims about Kant's moral philosophy prior to the Groundwork of 1785. It then offers an interpretation, and also a fundamental criticism, of the Groundwork's attempt to establish the moral law based on the idea of freedom of the will. And finally, it raises – and expresses some opinions on – the large and vexed questions of the relationship between transcendental philosophy and philosophical naturalism, and whether Kantian ethics can be made consistent with a naturalistic philosophical outlook. In these comments I will have something to say on each of these three topics, without pretending (any more than Guyer does) to have exhausted what might be said about them.     

KNOWLEDGE AND IMAGINATION IN FICTION AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Abstract: Autobiographies are particularly interesting in the context of moral philosophy because they offer us rare and extended examples of how other people think, feel and reflect, which is of crucial importance in the development of phronesis (practical wisdom). In this article, Martha Nussbaum's use of fictional literature is shown to be of limited interest, and her arguments in Poetic Justice against the use of personal narratives in moral philosophy are shown to be unfounded. An analysis of Aristotle's concept of mimesis shows that Nussbaum's claims for fictional literature also apply to personal narratives. A case is then made for the importance of personal narratives in developing practical wisdom, and three sub‐genres of autobiography are discussed: (1) the confession, (2) the apology and (3) the testimonial. These sub‐genres exemplify some of the unique features of personal narratives.     

Pragmatism, Science, And Society: A Review Of Richard Rorty's Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1

Richard Rorty's Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1 is a collection of papers that explores the implications of philosophical pragmatism in several areas, including natural science, mind—body issues in philosophy, and perspectives on liberal democracy and social change. Similarities between Rorty's pragmatism and Skinner's radical behaviorism are explored in each of these three areas. Although some important and interesting differences are found regarding the role of science in social change, most areas show remarkable similarities between the two systematic perspectives.     

Nonsense on Stilts? Wittgenstein,Ethics, and the Lives of Animals

Wittgenstein is often invoked in philosophical disputes over the ethical justifiability of our treatment of animals. Many protagonists believe that Wittgenstein's philosophy points to a quantum difference between human and animal nature that arises out of humans' linguistic capacity. For this reason – its alleged anthropocentrism – animal liberationists tend to dismiss Wittgenstein's philosophy, whereas, for the same reason, anti‐liberationists tend to embrace it. I endorse liberationist moral claims, but think that many on both sides of the dispute fail to grasp the import of Wittgenstein's philosophy. My argument proceeds through close engagement with Michael Leahy's Against Liberation, which makes extensive use of Wittgenstein's ‘notion of language‐games’ as an ‘essential methodological aid’ in its defence and justification of the moral status quo. Leahy's understanding and application of that method exemplifies an entrenched interpretative stance in the wider Wittgensteinian scholarship which I seek to counter. This enables me to show that far from entailing conservatism, as some of his critics and followers contend, Wittgenstein's philosophical method is just as conducive to radical moral and political critique as it is to any other normative position.     

From Kant to Heidegger. On the path from self-consciousness to self-understanding

In this article I explore the idea that Heidegger's lectures on The Basic Problems of Phenomenology are of particular importance to our understanding of the relationship between Heidegger and Kant. These lectures can be read as a “historical” commentary on Being and Time. Of course, Heidegger does not present himself as a historian of philosophy, but acts as a philosophical reader of Kant in order to expound the principal ideas of his own philosophy. My central claim is that it is through Kant's philosophy of self-consciousness that Heidegger attempts to provide us with a better understanding of his own conception of self-understanding.     

Kant's Criticism of Common Moral Rational Cognition

There is a consensus that Kant's aim in the Groundwork is to clarify, systematize and vindicate the common conception of morality. Philosophical theory hence serves a restorative function. It can strengthen agents' motivation, protect against self‐deception and correct misunderstandings produced by uncritical moral theory. In this paper, I argue that Kant also corrects the common perspective and that Kant's Groundwork shows in which senses the common perspective, even considered apart from its propensity to self‐deception and without being influenced by misleading theory, is deficient. Critical practical philosophy needs to set right agents about the stringency of some of their duties, and agents need to be made aware that they have certain other duties. I discuss how Kant corrects the common agent's notion of the stringency of the duty to not make false promises and how Kant corrects the common agent's notion of duties to self. I finally discuss how his critical practical philosophy can become popular and achieve the correction of the common perspective. I stress the role of education informed by philosophical theory for this and contrast it with so called ‘popular philosophy’.     

Artifice and virtue in the<Emphasis Type="Italic">Xunzi</Emphasis>

Xunzi was chronologically the third of the three great Confucian thinkers of China’s classical period, after Confucius and Mencius. Having produced the most comprehensive philosophical system of that period, he occupies a place in the development of Chinese philosophy comparable to that of Aristotle in the Western philosophical tradition. This essay reveals how Xunzi’s understanding of virtue and moral development dovetailed with his positions on ritual propriety, the attunement of names, the relation betweenli (patterns) andlei (categories), and his view ofdao (the way) in general. I have argued for a “constructivist” understanding of each of these aspects of Xunzi’s philosophy in some detail elsewhere (see Hagen 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003), and so here I will just briefly review a few key points before addressing their relation to moral development.     

Kant on Intentionality,Magnitude, and the Unity of Perception

This paper addresses a number of closely related questions concerning Kant's model of intentionality, and his conceptions of unity and of magnitude [Gröβe]. These questions are important because they shed light on three issues which are central to the Critical system, and which connect directly to the recent analytic literature on perception: the issues are conceptualism, the status of the imagination, and perceptual atomism. In Section 1, I provide a sketch of the exegetical and philosophical problems raised by Kant's views on these issues. I then develop, in Section 2, a detailed analysis of Kant's theory of perception as elaborated in both the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Judgment; I show how this analysis provides a preliminary framework for resolving the difficulties raised in Section 1. In Section 3, I extend my analysis of Kant's position by considering a specific test case: the Axioms of Intuition. I contend that one way to make sense of Kant's argument is by juxtaposing it with Russell's response to Bradley's regress; I focus in particular on the concept of ‘unity’. Finally, I offer, in Section 4, a philosophical assessment of the position attributed to Kant in Sections 2 and 3. I argue that, while Kant's account has significant strengths, a number of key areas remain underdeveloped; I suggest that the phenomenological tradition may be read as attempting to fill precisely those gaps.     

Gloria Anzaldúa's Affective Logic of Volverse Una

Although Gloria Anzaldúa's critical categories have steadily entered discussions in the field of philosophy, a lingering skepticism remains about her works’ ability to transcend the particularity of her lived experience. In an effort to respond to this attitude, I make Anzaldúa's corpus the center of philosophical analysis and posit that immanent to this work is a logic that lends it the unity of a critical philosophy that accounts for its concrete, multilayered character and shifting, creative force. I call this an “affective logic of volverse una.” Starting with the understanding of a situated modality of all subjectivity, Anzaldúa's work exhibits a logic of three moments distinguished by states of awareness. Each state of awareness is characterized by the generative degree of the subject's responses to its conditions: critical, individuating, and expansive. Led by her late concepts of conocimiento and nepantlera, I return to her earlier works and trace Anzaldúa's innovative exploration of undoing the oppressive condition of marginal subjectivities from “La Prieta” through Borderlands/La Frontera to her final published essay “now let us shift.” I find a liberatory schema of volverse una/becoming whole that is grounded in an active receptivity of sensibility and facilitated by affective technologies for transformation.     

Reflection,Nature, and Moral Law: The Extent of Catharine Cockburn's Lockeanism in her Defence of Mr. Locke's Essay

This essay examines Catharine Cockburn's moral philosophy as it is developed in her Defence of Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding. In this work, Cockburn argues that Locke's epistemological principles provide a foundation for the knowledge of natural law. Sheridan suggests that Cockburn's objective in defending Locke's moral epistemology was conditioned by her own prior commitment to a significantly un‐Lockean theory of morality. In exploring Cockburn's views on morality in terms of their divergence from Locke's, the author hopes to underscore the extent of Cockburn's intellectual independence and her philosophical creativity.     

Thinking Outside the Circle: The Place of Kierkegaard in Stern's Understanding Moral Obligation

Abstract

In Understanding Moral Obligation, Robert Stern presents an interesting account of the history of ethics from Kant through Hegel and Kierkegaard. I argue that Stern in this account misinterprets Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and Works of Love by reading them as presenting a Divine Command Theory of moral obligation, as a philosophical account meant to compete with those of Kant and Hegel. It mistakes, indeed subverts, Kierkegaard's purposes to read him as engaging in a philosophical dialectic in these texts. I argue that Stern's reading renders Kierkegaard's contribution internal to a philosophical dialectic that Kierkegaard means to speak against, from a position expressly and resolutely external to it.     

‘The Zone of the Carcass and the Knacker'—On Adorno's Concern with the Suffering Body

Adorno's moral philosophy is famously problematic. One of the main reasons for this is that it revolves around the moral addendum: a physical impulse of solidarity with suffering beings that, he argues, cannot and should not be rationalized. I show that, since this moral addendum remains vague and since Adorno's radical negativity forces him to dismiss as uncritical all other approaches to morality, he deliberately places his thought in danger of relapsing into irrationality. Most commentators therefore disagree about the manner in which Adorno's references to the moral addendum can be translated into a moral theory. In this paper, I bring in some often overlooked material to form a more complete overview of the issues at hand and to adjudicate this contested area. I do this by briefly discussing Schopenhauer's moral observations on Mitleid and by focusing on Adorno's references to animal cruelty and corporeality. Although this interpretation stays close to Adorno's observations on the moral addendum, it forces us to accept that his moral philosophy is rather weak. I conclude, however, that this weakness reflects a disturbing aspect of reality and in that sense has critical value.     

Art and the ‘Morality System’: The Case of Don Giovanni

Mozart's great opera, Don Giovanni, poses a number of significant philosophical and aesthetic challenges, and yet it remains, for the most part, little discussed by contemporary philosophers. A notable exception to this is Bernard Williams's important paper, ‘Don Juan as an Idea’, which contains an illuminating discussion of Kierkegaard's ground‐breaking interpretation of the opera, ‘The Immediate Erotic Stages or the Musical‐Erotic’, in Either/Or. Kierkegaard's pseudonymous author's (A) approach here is, in some respects, reminiscent of a currently rather fashionable narrative‐inspired moral philosophy, of which Williams himself is perhaps the most impressive recent exponent. In the light of this apparent methodological confluence, Williams's disagreement with A about the meaning of Don Giovanni's final two scenes seems particularly significant. By offering an interpretation of Don Giovanni that both retains A's fundamental ideas and manages to get round the problems in Williams's account, I will show that the greatness of Mozart's opera is largely a function of the challenge it presents to the ‘morality system’.     

Once More unto the Breach: Kant and Race

The last thirty years has seen an explosion of literature on Kant and race. Once overlooked essays and notes in which Kant expresses contempt for nonwhite people and support for slavery have been brought to light, and many scholars have wrestled with the question of how a philosopher who stressed the equal dignity of all human beings could hold such views. This article tries to reframe the debate over these issues. It begins by reviewing the racist texts in Kant's corpus and the responses to them proposed by scholars like Charles Mills (to whom the paper is dedicated), Robert Bernasconi, and Pauline Kleingeld. It then introduces elements of Kant's philosophical development that gave Kant reason to renounce his racism—whether or not he actually did so—from about the time of the Groundwork onward. Finally, it turns to the question of what Kant's racism can tell us about his moral philosophy—and perhaps about moral philosophy in general.     

KARL BARTH AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY

It is commonly held that Karl Barth emphatically rejected the usefulness of philosophy for theology. In this essay I explore the implications of Barth's theological epistemology for the relationship and proper boundaries between philosophy and theology, given its origin in Barth's theology of revelation. I seek to clarify Barth's position with respect to philosophy by distinguishing the contingency of its offence from any necessary incompatibility. Barth does not reject philosophy per se, but the way in which philosophy is typically conducted. This is made explicit through an analysis of Barth's censure of the uncritical acceptance in theology of modernist philosophical presuppositions. I nuance Barth's response to a collection of philosophical assumptions that are rarely distinguished in theological literature. Finally, I highlight a representative instance of Barth's reflections on philosophy in relationship to theology, to demonstrate that the criterion for evaluating the usefulness of philosophical assumptions and methods in the service of theology is the same criterion by which theology is itself evaluated.     

New Voices for Expressive Pragmatism: Bridging the Divide between Pragmatism and Perfectionism

This article explores the theme of moral rationality by examining two distinct philosophical approaches, those of perfectionism and pragmatism broadly construed. It does this by comparing Cora Diamond's reading of J. M. Coetzee's novel The Lives of Animals with an imaginary reading of the same novel tuned to a moral sensibility closer to Deweyan pragmatism. By comparing a real account with an imaginary one, the article intends to press Diamond's perfectionist understanding of problematic moral experience into confrontation with a pragmatist account of the same phenomenon. This reading becomes the starting point for a broader confrontation between two larger philosophical conceptions: perfectionism and pragmatism. By this comparison, the article means to extend a dialogue begun more than a century ago, showing in particular that integrating both perspectives within a common moral epistemology provides new insights into our understanding of moral experience. The general claim is that their differences notwithstanding, perfectionism and pragmatism share a common moral sensibility, although they part ways on some decisive issues that the article makes explicit.     

From Cudworth to Hume: Cambridge Platonism and the Scottish Enlightenment

This paper argues that the Cambridge Platonists had stronger philosophical links to Scottish moral philosophy than the received history allows. Building on the work of Michael Gill who has demonstrated links between ethical thought of More, Cudworth and Smith and moral sentimentalism, I outline some links between the Cambridge Platonists and Scottish thinkers in both the seventeenth century (e.g., James Nairn, Henry Scougal) and the eighteenth century (e.g., Smith, Blair, Stewart). I then discuss Hume's knowledge of Cudworth, in Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, The Natural History of Religion and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion.     

Engagement for progress: applied philosophy of science in context

Philosophy of science was once a much more socially engaged endeavor, and can be so again. After a look back at philosophy of science in the 1930s–1950s, I turn to discuss the current potential for returning to a more engaged philosophy of science. Although philosophers of science have much to offer scientists and the public, I am skeptical that much can be gained by philosophers importing off-the-shelf discussions from philosophy of science to science and society. Such efforts will likely look like efforts to do applied ethics by merely applying ethical theories to particular contexts and problems. While some insight can be gained by these kinds of endeavors, the most interesting and pressing problems for the actual practitioners and users of science are rarely addressed. Instead, I recommend that philosophers of science engage seriously and regularly with scientists and/or the users of science in order to gain an understanding of the conceptual issues on the ground. From such engagement, flaws in the traditional philosophical frameworks, and how such flaws can be remedied, become apparent. Serious engagement with the contexts of science thus provides the most fruit for philosophy of science per se and for the practitioners whom the philosophers aim to assist. And if one focuses on contexts where science has its most social relevance, these efforts can help to provide the thing that philosophy of science now lacks: a full-bodied philosophy of science in society.     

How to Throw a Pot: The Centrality of the Potter's Wheel in the Zhuangzi

This article explains Zhuangzi's philosophy by analyzing the metaphor of the potter's wheel. I argue that this is one of the central images in the core chapters of the Zhuangzi. Together with two cognate images, it not only appears in some crucial passages, but also allows us to integrate a variety of seemingly independent topics. The article consists of four sections. I start by placing the potter's wheel against a background of other artisan tools. A second section focuses on three major themes revolving around the image of the potter's wheel in the Zhuangzi: stillness of mind, flexibility in response, and harmonizing and living out one's years. A third section discusses the negative portrayal of measurement tools in the Zhuangzi. In an afterword, I summarize the findings and revisit some methodological issues. The study shows that concrete images such as artisan tools may provide important clues for interpreting philosophical texts.     

Critical Notice: Paul Russell's The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism,Naturalism, and Irreligion (OUP 2008)

In The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion (2008), Paul Russell makes a strong case for the claim that “The primary aim of Hume's series of skeptical arguments, as developed and distributed throughout the Treatise, is to discredit the doctrines and dogmas of Christian philosophy and theology with a view toward redirecting our philosophical investigations to areas of ‘common life,’ with the particular aim of advancing ‘the science of man’” (2008, 290). Understanding Hume in this way, according to Russell, sheds light on the “ultimate riddle” of the Treatise: “is it possible to reconcile Hume's (extreme) skeptical principles and conclusions with his aim to advance the ‘science of man’” (2008, 3)? Or does Hume's skepticism undermine his “secular, scientific account of the foundations of moral life in human nature” (290)? Russell's controversial thesis is that “the irreligious nature of Hume's fundamental intentions in the Treatise” is essential to solving the riddle (11). Russell makes a compelling case for Hume's irreligion as well as his atheism. Contrary to this interpretation I argue that Hume is an irreligious theist and not an atheist.