The Voice of Ambiguity: Simone de Beauvoir's Literary and Phenomenological Echoes

In this essay we investigate several moments in Simone de Beauvoir's philosophical and literary texts in which she refers to echoes and echoing. We notice that echoes help Beauvoir to figure and amplify the ethical character of her concept of ambiguity, which is so central to her thought. We argue that, for Beauvoir, literature has privileged access to the ambiguity of existence and therefore maintains a special status in exposing us to alterity and bringing us face to face with ethical responsibility. Considering her literary portrayals of echoing helps to explain why, despite her life‐long philosophical engagement, Beauvoir preferred not to call herself a philosopher. Finally, Beauvoir's phenomenological insight is that in order to carry ethical resonance, the form of a written work must mirror the fundamentally ambiguous or echolalic ontological structure of human existence.     

Truth and consequences

In his 1987 paper “Truth or Consequences,” Dan Brock describes a deep conflict between the goals and virtues of philosophical scholarship and public policymaking: whereas the former is concerned with the search for truth, the latter must primarily be concerned with promoting good consequences. When philosophers are engaged in policymaking, he argues, they must shift their primary goal from truth to consequences—but this has both moral and methodological costs. Brock’s argument exemplifies a pessimistic, but not uncommon, view of the possible shape and nature of applied philosophy. The present paper paints a richer and more optimistic picture. It argues that the difference between theoretical philosophy and applied philosophy is not best understood as a choice between truth and consequences. On the contrary, applied philosophers engage in forms of truth-seeking that are properly concerned with consequences—including the consequences of philosophical practice itself.     

How Is an Analytic Approach to Chinese Philosophy Possible? — An Observation from Perspective of Methodology

How to apply an analytic approach to Chinese philosophy has been a controversial issue in the field of the modern Chinese philosophy. The key to such an application is using an analytical approach. Various forms of analysis are used in modern philosophy. The term “analytic approach” refers to both conceptual and semantic analyses by which to analyze meaning and apply philosophical concepts, so as to interpret a different significance of these philosophical concepts. Beginning with the challenge of the analytic approach as applied to Chinese philosophy, it is necessary to address the line of holism and transcendental argument in terms of philosophical methodology. The former provides us with a framework of analysis of particular problems, while the latter helps us clarify the major difference between a philosophical argument and other arguments for knowledge. Chinese philosophy must greatly emphasize the importance of philosophical methodology, so as to reconstruct the framework of Chinese philosophy as it stands today.     

Venturing Beyond Analytic Philosophy's “Best” Arguments to the Implied Inadequacies of Its Metaphilosophical Intuitions

Gary Gutting argues, in his recent book What Philosophers Know, that analytic philosophy provides a sizable collection of exemplary arguments that effectively yield a “disciplinary body of philosophical knowledge”—“metaphilosophy,” he names it—that is, specimens that define in a notably perspicuous way what we should understand as philosophical knowledge itself. He concedes weaknesses in the best‐known specimens, and he admits that, generally, even the best specimens do not provide answers to the usual grand questions. I admire his treatment of the matter but argue that the metaphilosophical issues are, normally, of a much grander gauge than that of his sort of specimen; that they require a much more open, informal sort of inquiry and exchange than that of the distinctive rigor of the classic specimens themselves; that analytic philosophy, not uncharacteristically, tends to ignore the metaphilosophical issue or takes the validity of its method of argument for granted; and that the issue itself invites an appraisal of competing second‐order conceptions of how philosophical argument proves fruitful. I proceed by way of the examination of cases drawn from Quine and Kripke.     

The Philosophical Personality

The authors adopt a critico‐sociological methodology to investigate the current state of the philosophical profession. According to them, the question concerning the status of philosophy (“What is philosophy?”) cannot be answered from within the precinct of philosophical reason alone, since philosophy—understood primarily as a profession—is marked by a constitutive type of self‐ignorance that prevents it from reflecting upon its own sociological conditions of actuality. This ignorance, which is both cause and effect of the organization and investment of philosophical desire, causes philosophers to lose themselves in an ideological myth (“the philosopher as idea(l)”) according to which philosophers are unaffected by the material conditions in which they exist. This myth prevents philosophers from noticing the extent to which their activity is influenced by extra‐philosophical determinants that shape, empirically, who becomes a professional philosopher (“the philosopher as imago”) and who doesn't. This article explores the relationship between philosophy's “idea(l)” and its “imago” as a way of shedding light on some of the mechanisms that make philosophy inhospitable for so many women, people of color, and economic minorities.     

Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Reading The Orange

Ecofeminism, a new vein in feminist theory, critiques the ontology of domination, whereby living beings are reduced to the status of objects, which diminishes their moral significance, enabling their exploitation, abuse, and destruction. This article explores the possibility of an ecofeminist literary and cultural practice, whereby the text is not reduced to an “it” but rather recognized as a “thou,” and where new modes of relationship—dialogue, conversation, and meditative attentiveness—are developed.     

Simone de Beauvoir's Ethics of Freedom and Absolute Evil

Simone de Beauvoir held that human experience is intrinsically ambiguous and that there are no values extrinsic to experience, but she also designated some actions as absolute evil. This essay explains how Beauvoir utilized an intrinsic absolute value to ground an action‐guiding principle of freedom that justifies her notion of evil. Morgan's analysis counters Robin May Schott's objections that Beauvoir failed to systematically justify her notion of absolute evil and that Beauvoir shifted from a “logic of action” to a “logic of history” when she utilized the concept.     

The end of ubuntu or its beginning in Matolino-Kwindingwi-Metz debate: An exercise in conversational philosophy

Matolino and Kwindingwi in an essay “The end of ubuntu” published in this journal in 2013 argue that ubuntu has stalled both as a way of life and as an ethical theory which led them to draw the far-reaching conclusion that ubuntu has reached its end. In 2014 Metz published a rejoinder in this journal with the title “Just the beginning for ubuntu: reply to Matolino and Kwindingwi” in which he gestures that the justifications on which Matolino and Kwindingwi rested their conclusion were unfounded. Reacting to Metz in an essay published in this journal in 2015 with the title “A response to Metz’s reply on the end of ubuntu”, Matolino claims that Metz’s rejoinder poses no serious threat to their original position and insists that Metz’s counter-position is not only weak but grossly indefensible. In fact, he characterises Metz’s arguments as dogmatic rather than philosophical. In this paper, I wade into this encounter, which I now tag the “Matolino-Kwindingwi-Metz debate”, not for the sake of argument but to show the philosophical significance of the “Matolino-Kwindingwi conundrum”. That ubuntu has reached its end is not a mere declaration or position or conclusion, it is a problem, one whose significance would redefine not only the sphere of ubuntu philosophy but the historicity of African philosophy as a whole. I shall argue also that though the conundrum remains decisive, I agree with Metz that the arguments marshalled in its support are not decisive. Metz on the other hand may have offered systematisation of ubuntu but I agree with Matolino that his new system may not be as impregnable as he envisages. In showing the philosophical significance of the conundrum and in showing the weaknesses in the arguments of these actors, I shall argue not for the restoration but for the re-invention of ubuntu using the tool of conversational thinking.     

Reading the Lives of Others: Biography as Political Thought in Hannah Arendt and Simone de Beauvoir

In this essay, I focus on two biographical works by Hannah Arendt and Simone de Beauvoir that I read as political texts: Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess (Arendt 1957 ) and “Must We Burn Sade?” (Beauvoir 2012 ). Reading Arendt's Varnhagen and Beauvoir's “Sade” side by side illuminates their shared preoccupation with lived experience and their common political premises: the antagonism between freedom and sovereignty, and the centrality of action and constructive relations with others. My argument is that these texts constitute an original style of political thinking, which I call politico‐biographical hermeneutics, or reading the life of others as exercises in political theory. Politico‐biographical hermeneutics, as I take it, is not a systematic methodology, but an approach to interpreting sociopolitical forces as they come to bear and are embodied and inscribed in the lived experiences, struggles, and works of representative or exemplary individuals. This approach identifies the political lessons of lived experience and supports one of the central claims of feminist philosophy, namely, that the personal and the political are not antithetical, but relational.     

WHY IS THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY WORTH OUR STUDY?

Abstract: Assume for the sake of argument that doing philosophy is intrinsically valuable, where “doing philosophy” refers to the practice of forging arguments for and against the truth of theses in the domains of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and so on. The practice of the history of philosophy is devoted instead to discovering arguments for and against the truth of “authorial” propositions, that is, propositions that state the belief of some historical figure about a philosophical proposition. I explore arguments for thinking that doing history of philosophy is valuable—specifically, valuable in such a way that its value does not reduce to the value of doing philosophy. Most such arguments proffered by historians of philosophy fail, as I show. I then offer a proposal about what makes doing history of philosophy uniquely valuable, but it is one that many historians will not find agreeable.     

Love as a Problem of Knowledge in Kierkegaard's Either/Or and Plato's Symposium

At the end of the essay “Silhouettes” in Either/Or, Kierkegaard writes, “only the person who has been bitten by snakes knows what one who has been bitten by snakes must suffer.” I interpret this as an allusion to Alcibiades' speech in Plato's Symposium. Kierkegaard invites the reader to compare Socrates with Don Giovanni, and Alcibiades with the seducer's women. Socrates' philosophical method, in this light, is a deceptive seduction: just as Don Giovanni's seduction leads his conquests to unhappy love—what Kierkegaard terms “reflective sorrow”—so the elenctic method leads Socrates' interlocutors to aporia, not to knowledge. I offer a critique of Socrates' ironic stance as a philosopher, which stance is reflected in the theory of love he presents in the Symposium, and suggest that philosophy should be modeled on the romantic love of persons—a love that can be reciprocated—not the love of an impersonal Form, a one-sided love.     

How to Construct Marxian Thoughts as a Political Philosophy?

Importance of contemporary political philosophy has increased in recent decades. Since the 1970s, studies of Marx’s theories have become an important part of the discussion within contemporary theories of justice. More extensive studies concerning Marxist political philosophy from multiple perspectives are becoming a focal point in other fields of academic research. “How to understand Marx’s political philosophy?” has been a classic question for over a hundred years. Not an academic philosopher himself, Marx seems not to have issued a complete or consistent political philosophy by today’s standards, so it is only natural that his views would be interpreted differently by different scholars. While it is justifiable for us to construct Marx’s political philosophy, we must do it through a comprehensive theoretical reflection, and our construction must take full account of the history of the interpretations of Marx’s political philosophy. This applies especially of his theory of justice—a history which has lasted for more than a century. It is even more important for us to reread the original texts, particularly Marx’s early philosophical writings, and take them as the textual foundation for Marx’s political philosophy.     

Batman in the Classroom: Academic Philosophy and “… and Philosophy”

Though the interaction of philosophy with pop culture has so far mostly taken the form of books for nonphilosophers that use various shows and movies as sources of examples to illustrate “traditional” philosophical issues, this article contends that serious engagement with the informal philosophical discussions expressed in popular entertainments constitutes a kind of “ethnophilosophy” and should be considered an important part of the discipline. Our disciplinary responsibility for maintaining and considering the history of philosophy ought to include even the philosophical conversations that occur outside the academy; however unlike “proper” philosophy this material may be, it nonetheless represents engagement—sometimes substantial engagement—with the same issues that concern those of us who are considered “professional” philosophers, and thus is legitimately of interest to us.     

The local problem of God’s hiddenness: a critique of van Inwagen’s criterion of philosophical success

In regards to the problem of evil, van Inwagen thinks there are two arguments from evil which require different defenses. These are the global argument from evil—that there exists evil in general, and the local argument from evil—that there exists some particular atrocious evil X. However, van Inwagen fails to consider whether the problem of God’s hiddenness also has a “local” version: whether there is in fact a “local” argument from God’s hiddenness which would be undefeated by his general defense of God’s hiddenness. This paper will argue that van Inwagen’s present account contains no implicit response to the “local” argument from God’s hiddenness, and, worse, the “local” argument brings to the fore crucial inconsistencies in van Inwagen’s account. These inconsistencies concern van Inwagen’s criterion for philosophical success—his methodological use of an “ideal audience” in an ideal debate—and a crucial premise in his argument: namely, that people who do not believe in God are culpably deceiving themselves regarding the manifest presence of God. These considerations will be a platform for my arguing that the failures of van Inwagen’s account amount to his ignoring the extra-rational, concrete aspect of grasping “spiritual propositions”—propositions which, in order to be affirmed, require the full self-understanding which precipitates out of the mind, body, and will of a particular existing individual.     

Metaphysics and the Future-Like-Ours Argument Against Abortion

Don Marquis’s “future-like-ours” argument against the moral permissibility of abortion is widely considered the strongest anti-abortion argument in the philosophical literature. In this paper, I address the issue of whether the argument relies upon controversial metaphysical premises. It is widely thought that future-like-ours argument indeed relies upon controversial metaphysics, in that it must reject the psychological theory of personal identity. I argue that that thought is mistaken—the future-like-ours argument does not depend upon the rejection of such a theory. I suggest, however, that given a widely-accepted view about contraception and abstinence, the argument is committed to contentious metaphysics after all, as it relies upon a highly controversial assumption about mereology. This commitment is not only relevant for those who are inclined to endorse the argument but reject the mereological view in question, but in addition entails dialectical and epistemological liabilities for the argument, which on some views will be fatal to the argument’s overall success.     

Deception

Philosophers have based arguments on the contention that we arc deceived in our dreams. I argue that we are not, and that this can be shown by considerations concerning the meaning’ of the word “deceive”. This kind of argument, common in recent philosophy, has been much criticized. In a methodological digression (sections 2—6), some aspects of the nature, the rationale, and the relevance of the appeal to ordinary language in philosophy are exposed and defended. The paper presents an analysis of the meaning of the word “deceive” by way of a list of necessary conditions for the semantically nondeviant occurrences of utterances containing it. It is shown that the philosophical uses in question do not satisfy these conditions.     

Passing‐over: The Death of the Author in Hegel's Philosophy

Criticism of Hegel has been a central preoccupation of “postmodern” philosophy, from critical theory and deconstruction to Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and Foucauldian “archaeology.” One of the most frequent criticisms is that Hegel's invocation of “absolute knowledge” installs him in a position of authorial arrogance, of God‐like authority, leaving the reader in a position of subservience to the Sage's perfect wisdom. The argument of this article is that this sort of criticism is profoundly ironic, since Hegel's construction of the role of the Sage possessing absolute knowledge is in fact an elaborate mask covering over a radical project of disappearance of the author by which it becomes the reader who is left to author the text. The article explores Hegel's commitment to his own death as an author in his invention of a new method of demonstration, his epistemology, his philosophy of language, his theory of desire, and even in the seemingly least likely place of all, his portrait of “absolute knowledge.”     

Writing the history of Russian philosophy

This article addresses the writing of the history of Russian philosophy from the first of such works—Archimandrite Gavriil’s Russian Philosophy [Russkaja filosofija, 1840]—to philosophical histories/textbooks in the twenty-first century. In the majority of these histories, both past and present, we find a relentless insistence on the delineation of “characterizing traits” of Russian philosophy and appeals to “historiosophy,” where historiosophy is employed as being distinct from the historiographical method. In the 1990s and 2000s, the genre of the history of Russian philosophy has grown increasingly conservative with regards to content, with histories from this period demonstrating an almost exclusive Orthodox focus. This conservatism, in turn, has contributed to widespread contention in recent years over the status of these philosophical textbooks—disagreements that often lead to either (1) further appeals to “historiosophical” methods; or (2) denials of the domestic philosophical tradition altogether, where the response to the query “Is there philosophy in Russia?” is emphatically negative. This article argues that the contemporary disputes over the development and preservation of the Russian philosophical canon are in many ways part of a larger debate over the roles of Orthodoxy and the history of philosophy in post-Soviet philosophical thought.     

THE HEADING OF A PROBLEM

Efforts to understand the division between analytic and continental philosophy in strictly philosophical terms seem slated to disappointment. Nevertheless, the worldwide dominance of these two models and their numerous subvarieties is the most salient feature of the passage of philosophy through the twentieth century. This paper explores this dominance and offers an assessment of developments that point toward a change from the model of two models. Specific attention is paid to Jacques Derrida's work on philosophical nationalism, which suggests that this change reflects the growing extension of the English language across the world and, hence, belongs to a profoundly ambiguous development. According to Derrida, on the one hand, this development holds out the chance for something radically nonparochial: “the universal penetration of the philosophical and of philosophical communication,” while on the other hand, it raises the threat that certain forms of “dogmatism and authority” that are linked to particularities of nation and history will impose “an axiomatic of philosophical discourse without any possible discussion.” 1 The future of continental philosophy is assessed in light of this ambiguous development.