Doing Ontology and Doing Justice: What Feminist Philosophy Can Teach Us About Meta-Metaphysics

Abstract

Feminist philosophy has recently become recognised as a self-standing philosophical sub-discipline. Still, metaphysics has remained largely dismissive of feminist insights. Here I make the case for the value of feminist insights in metaphysics: taking them seriously makes a difference to our ontological theory choice and feminist philosophy can provide helpful methodological tools to regiment ontological theories. My examination goes as follows. Contemporary ontology is not done via conceptual analysis, but via quasi-scientific means. This takes different ontological positions to be competing hypotheses about reality’s fundamental structure that are then assessed with a loose battery of criteria for theory choice. Such criteria make up the constitutive values of ontology (e.g. providing a unified, coherent, non-circular, simple, parsimonious total theory). These values are distinguished from contextual values of a practice: the political and moral values embedded in the social context of inquiry. Although we may be frank about some meta-metaphysical value commitments, bringing in feminist contextual values is viewed as an unacceptable move when thinking about ontological theory choice. This paper then asks: is this move unacceptable? I think not and I aim to motivate this methodological insight here by examining recent work on grounding.     

"做哲学"的方法之起源

几乎可以肯定的是，公元前七到六世纪的前苏格拉底的哲学家比如色诺芬尼(Xenophanes)和巴门尼德(Parmenides)既不认识形容词“哲学的”(philosophos)，也不认识动词“做哲学”(philosophein)，更不用说是名词“哲学”(philosophia)了。而且，虽然存在一些古老但又十分可疑的证据，但是毕达哥拉斯(Pythagoras)和赫拉克利特(Heraclitus)也可能属于这种情况。     

Helpful

Pastoral Psychology -     

On Philosophy

In this article the author holds that progress in philosophy is a vague concept. Its criteria are not universally acknowledged. All that is clear is that philosophy does not develop in a linear way. Philosophy is polydiscoursive. As for the past fifty years, the author believes three important things happened in philosophy. (1) It has been shown that consciousness exists not within one individual but spreads within a community of people; (2) philosophy has discovered autism, a result that helps us to understand a human being as neither a biological nor a social individual but a third thing—a dreaming being who is not only asocial but also tongueless, where speech and consciousness are separated; and (3) contemporary philosophy has learned to distinguish between sign and symbol. And it has been realized that the human mind is neither an instinct nor a computer but an objectified suffering, a transformed emotion.     

Doing Good by Splitting Hairs? Analytic Philosophy and Applied Ethics

This article explores the connections between analytic philosophy and applied ethics — both historical and substantive. Historically speaking, applied ethics is a child of analytic philosophy. It arose as the result of two factors in the 1960s: the re‐emergence of normative ethics on the one hand, and urgent social and political challenges on the other. But is there a significant substantive link between applied ethics and analytic philosophy? I argue that applied ethics inherited important ‘analytic’ ideals such as clarity and argumentative rigour. At the same time these ideals are not the exclusive preserve of analytic philosophy and applied ethics. Moreover, they are under threat from various trends within applied ethics. In this context I rebut the allegation that the anti‐revisionist reliance on pre‐theoretical moral judgements (aka ‘intuitions’) is less rational than their revisionist dismissal. The article ends with a plea for an analytic approach within applied ethics.     

Teaching and Doing Philosophy of Education: The Question of Style

This paper explores the practice of teaching philosophy, and particularly philosophy of education, in a higher education context. Starting from a critical discussion of some of the literature on teaching and learning in higher education, I introduce the notions of philosophical style and temperament and suggest that exploring these notions, the problems they raise, and their implications for issues to do with our own identity as philosophers and as teachers, can enrich our understanding of the practice of teaching philosophy in higher education and our ability to reflect on and possibly improve our own teaching practice.     

On Philosophy

Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research - This paper demonstrates a problem with the philosophical question. To do so, it employs a style of reasoning employed by the Buddhist...     

On Progress in Philosophy

This article seeks to clarify the concept of progress in philosophy. It treats progress as a kind of development. But not every development is a progress. When we talk about progress, what really matters is the direction of development. In some cases it is relatively easy to reach agreement about this direction. But not in the case of philosophy, if we abstract it from the obvious and the trivial, like the number of books on philosophy. As a result, the article concludes that there cannot be progress in philosophy. Instead we see a continual multiplication of interpretations.     

持有权与程序正义的当代阐述者 --评诺齐克的自由至上主义权利理论

诺齐克提出了有关一般权利和财产权的性质的深层问题 ,而其理论出发点仍然是自由主义的基本原则 ,即是否可能不特别借助于关于人性及其目的的说明来发展出一种权利理论 ,以及是否可能发展出一种不预设人间善的观念的产权理论。他在具体论述时向罗尔斯和德沃金的正义理论发出了根本性的挑战 ,并且坚持了程序正义的底线和“最小国家”的古典自由主义原则。今天只有从经济全球化和自由贸易发展的国际大背景下才能深刻理解诺齐克的权利理论的理论意义和现实意义     

On Applying Applied Philosophy

If 'applied philosophy'is really to be applied it is necessary for its practical implications to be spelled out in some detail: both the specific goals implied if not entailed, and the life-style that would be expected to support such goals. To be as specific as this would only be to emulate the ancient Greek philosophers whose influence may still be discerned and is often claimed. Contributions to a recent issue of this Journal are taken as a basis for the discussion.     

理解"后现代"语境中的政治哲学——"现代政治哲学理念解读"之三

后现代政治哲学早已不是什么新话题,但国人对它的理解至今还主要停留在后现代主义一般性理论的层面上,政治哲学领域的独特性往往被忽视或淹没.事实上,无论从与传统政治哲学在研究起点、内容、方法、旨趣等方面的不同所规约出的理论视阈,还是从理性反思、合法性论证及日常生活强调等研究路径所反映出的理论取向,都鲜明地彰显着后现代政治哲学的独特魅力和启示.     

论康德的政治哲学

康德的"永久和平"(der ewige Friede)概念是其政治哲学的核心.在康德之前,马基亚维里、格劳秀斯、普芬道夫、博丹、霍布斯这些近代政治哲学和国际法学的奠基人都对永久和平的理想不屑一顾.只有圣·皮埃尔神甫的《欧洲永久和平的方案》和卢梭的和平观念构成了康德"永久和平"概念的直接源头.在《永久和平论》中,康德从自由的实践理性原则出发,并提出,共和国家的自由联盟是永久和平的基础,并给出了一整套关于世界公民权利的"世界公民主义"(Cosmopolitanism),给出了今天人们称之为"自由主义的国际主义"的哲学论证.这个思想对哈贝马斯和罗尔斯这些当代政治哲学家的思想产生了很大影响.     

作为实践哲学的解释学——论伽达默尔的实践哲学

伽达默尔的解释学思想和实践哲学具有密切的联系。他受古代实践哲学传统的影响,强调实践哲学和实践的互动关系,这决定了实践哲学不同于理论哲学和制作哲学的特点。这种关系启发了他对解释学特征的看法,以参与理想取代科学的客观性理想。他力图将实践哲学和解释学融合起来,形成解释学的实践哲学。这种实践哲学立足于当代历史处境,反思不同于科学技术理性的实践合理性,批判技术理性、工具理性的统治给人类造成的危机。他的解释学的对话理想对于当代实践问题,如不同文明如何共存,如何对待与传统的关系等,也有重要借鉴意义。