“The end of history ” and the fate of the philosophy of history

The “end of history” by Fukuyama is mainly based on Hegel’s treatise of the end of history and Kojeve’s corresponding interpretation. But Hegel’s “end of history” is a purely philosophical question, i.e., an ontological premise that must be fulfilled to complete “absolute knowledge.” When Kojeve further demonstrates its “universal and homogeneous state,” Fukuyama extends it into a political view: The victory of the Western system of freedom and democracy marks the end of the development of human history and Marxist theory and practice. This is a misunderstanding of Hegel. Marx analyzes, scientifically, the historical limitation of Western capitalism and maintains, by way of a kind of revolutionary teleology, the expectation of and belief in human liberation, which is the highest historical goal. His philosophy of history is hence characterized by theoretical elements from both historical scientificalness and historical teleology.     

Studying the specificity of spirituality: lessons from the psychology of religion

Psychological research on spirituality need not start from scratch: the psychology of religion provides substantial knowledge and experience that can be drawn on when psychologists want to do research on spirituality. Spirituality, while certainly not identical with religion or religiosity, is a human phenomenon to which many methodological insights from the study of religion may be applied, although it is also a domain where many mistakes from the history of the psychology of religion are likely to be repeated. After presenting some thoughts on the conceptualization of spirituality, and reflecting on the type of psychology required to do research on spirituality, the paper points out some hidden agenda's in the psychologies of religion and spirituality. Focusing on and keeping in mind the specificity of spiritual conduct, the paper discusses a number of practical aspects of empirical research on spirituality.     

Temporal Autonomy in a Laboring Society

The aim of this paper is to discuss which stance towards the allocation of labor and leisure would be defensible from the perspective of modern liberal political theory. There is a long tradition in philosophy defending an ideal of leisure, but this tradition has been rightly criticized for being too perfectionist. A liberal perspective seems more attractive in not dictating how much time people spend in labor or leisure, but leaving this choice to individuals. The question is whether this is possible. After scrutinizing the traditional philosophical defense of leisure I focus on Robert Goodin and his collaborators' recent proposal to think about labor and leisure in terms of “temporal autonomy”. I show that their concept is a great improvement over the older philosophical theories, both in its conceptualization of labor and leisure and in its ambition to leave labor/leisure choices to individuals. Nonetheless, it contains an important unresolved ambiguity about whether discretionary time maximization is a desirable end. Since the exercise of one's temporal autonomy can undercut the temporal autonomy of others in society, this leads to a dilemma. This dilemma can be resolved either in a libertarian or in a sufficientarian direction. I provide a cautious defense of the sufficientarian conception of temporal autonomy, because it accounts for the intuition in the older tradition of leisure that it is important not to be overwhelmed by the demands of labor, while also retaining the liberal emphasis on individual choice.     

Linguistic Archipelago and (Its?) History

In this article I examine Jean–François Lyotard's conception of history, its philosophical presuppositions, and its implications. As his conception's most crucial implicit assumptions I consider Lyotard's account of language and his notion of agonistics and dissent. Concerning its implications, I consider the nominalist and relativist conclusions Lyotard's theory may engender if thought through to its end, as well as the possibilities it opens up for ethics and justice for alterity, or otherness, via a new notion of human history. My aim is to show how Lyotard advances philosophical thought about history and to examine whether he succeeds in delivering the goods he promises. I conclude with suggestions for an alternative approach. The main thesis of the article is that Lyotard's metacritique of past accounts of human history is pertinent and apposite but, because of some negative implications of certain implicit assumptions on which he relies to articulate this critique, it appears inadequate in some respects. I argue that it is possible to promote a critique of older notions of human history along Lyotardian lines and to preserve the merits of Lyotard's critique for a sensitive and nonlogocentric approach to otherness via another route, one that is not committed to Lyotard's agonistics and incommensurability of language games.     

Heidegger on Plato,truth, and unconcealment: The 1931–32 lecture on The Essence of Truth

This paper discusses Heidegger's 1931–32 lecture course on The Essence of Truth. It argues that Heidegger read Platonic ideas, not only as stage‐setting for the western philosophical tradition's privileging of conceptualization over practice, and its correlative treatment of truth as correctness, but also as an early attempt to work through truth as the fundamental experience of unhiddenness. Wrathall shows how several of Heidegger's more‐famous claims about truth, e.g. that propositional truth is grounded in truth as world‐disclosure, and including Heidegger's critique of the self‐evidence of truth as correspondence, are first revealed in a powerful (if iconoclastic) reading of Plato.     

Indian cognitivism and the phenomenology of conceptualization

We perform conceptual acts throughout our daily lives; we are always judging others, guessing their intentions, agreeing or opposing their views and so on. These conceptual acts have phenomenological as well as formal richness. This paper attempts to correct the imbalance between the phenomenal and formal approaches to conceptualization by claiming that we need to shift from the usual dichotomies of cognitive science and epistemology such as the formal/empirical and the rationalist/empiricist divides—to a view of conceptualization grounded in the Indian philosophical notion of “valid cognition”. Methodologically, our paper is an attempt at cross-cultural philosophy and cognitive science; ontologically, it is an attempt at marrying the phenomenal and the formal.     

Self and society in the claims of individualism

The paper argues that an assessment of individualism requires distinguishing five individualistic claims about the self and society: 1) Philosophical Individualism holds that individuals are distinct from society in their reality and capacity for knowledge; 2) The dignity of the individual is a moral belief about the status of human beings; 3) The ideal of individuality is a value belief about the value of diversity; 4) Moral individualism is a comprehensive moral theory based upon philosophical individualism; 5) Political liberalism is a theory of social justice based on construing human dignity in terms of equal liberty. It is argued that philosophical individualism should be rejected and, hence, moral individualism, that individuality is desirable but not obligatory, and that political liberalism, if it can avoid a tendency toward favoring individualistic conceptions of the good, is necessary for dignity in a modern society.     

Wittgenstein on Reading

The section on reading occupies quite a large amount of space in the Philosophical Investigations (PI) and Wittgenstein makes little changes to it in the course of composing the book. This shows that the section on reading is important. This paper analyzes Wittgenstein’s treatment of the philosophical problem of reading in detail. It shows that Wittgenstein rejects six philosophical ideas about what reading is and employs three different methods. This paper also shows that the section on reading is not only important for grasping Wittgenstein’s discussion on understanding, but also for comprehending the whole of PI.     

Does empirical moral psychology rest on a mistake?

Many philosophers assume that philosophical theories about the psychological nature of moral judgment can be confirmed or disconfirmed by the kind of evidence gathered by natural and social scientists (especially experimental psychologists and neuroscientists). I argue that this assumption is mistaken. For the most part, empirical evidence can do no work in these philosophical debates, as the metaphorical heavy-lifting is done by the pre-experimental assumptions that make it possible to apply empirical data to these philosophical debates. For the purpose of this paper, I emphasize two putatively empirically-supported theories about the psychological nature of moral judgment. The first is the Sentimental Rules Account, which is defended by Shaun Nichols. The second is defended by Jesse Prinz, and is a form of sentimentalist moral relativism. I show that both of the arguments in favour of these theories rely on assumptions which would be rejected by their philosophical opponents. Further, these assumptions carry substantive moral commitments and thus cannot be confirmed by further empirical investigation. Because of this shared methodological assumption, I argue that a certain form of empirical moral psychology rests on a mistake.     

Between the quills: Schopenhauer and Freud on sadism and masochism

It is a matter of common knowledge that Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) shared a common worldview. Everyone familiar with the works of these two thinkers should recognize their general philosophical affinities. Both men were pessimistic about the power of human reason and attributed human behavior to powerful unconscious forces and, as a result, both were deeply skeptical about the future of human society. Drawing from previous literature, this essay compares the philosophical theory of Schopenhauer with the psychoanalytic theory of Freud. We find that, while Schopenhauer and Freud share a common philosophical orientation and diagnosed the same fundamental problems with life in civilization, they proposed some ostensibly similar, yet ultimately very different solutions. Focusing on each thinker's respective notion of sadism and masochism, this paper tries to understand and come to terms with the dimensions of this radical pessimism.     

Toward an appropriate baseline for measures of eye movement behavior during reading

In empirical studies of human eye movement behavior during reading, it is common to compute various summary measures from the data, but these measures are typically not evaluated with respect to corresponding measures of baseline performance. The authors present a method for deriving an appropriate baseline by mapping the actual behavior to a random perturbation of the text being read, and they find surprising similarities between the baseline and the empirical data. The practical message from these findings is that the importance of a particular factor in explaining either empirical or simulated eye movement patterns should be evaluated using an appropriate baseline. In addition to this methodological point, the authors suggest that eye movement behavior in reading may be constrained by the properties of an eye-guidance system that has adapted to the coarse-grained statistical properties of written language.     

The A Priori and the Empirical in Theories of Emotion: Smedslund's “Conceptual Analysis” of Emotion

Abstract

This paper examines the suggestion made by Smedslund that the empirical laws of emotion proposed by Frijda are a priori necessities, derivable from a definition of emotion Smedslund proposes. First, a distinction is drawn between a causal and non-causal reading of Smedslund's own definition of emotion. The suggestion is made that although on the causal reading the definition might provide sufficient conditions for being in an emotional state, causal regularities are empirical, so this reading would not meet his own criteria for an a priori definition. Moreover, showing that Frijda's laws are derivable from the definition thus understood would not undermine their empirical status. The non-causal reading is then examined and questions are raised about whether it can provide necessary and sufficient conditions for a state to be a state of emotion. Finally, the suggestion is made that the central issue in the question of whether or not a theory of emotion is wholly empirical turns not on whether it can be derived from a definition of emotion, but, rather, on the extent to which the explanations proposed of the regularities governing emotions must appeal to a priori rationality constraints.     

Human nature,corruption, and the African social order

Transparency International has consistently maintained two prominent assertions: that corruption remains a global threat because no human society in the world has a clean record, and that Africa is the most corrupt region in the world. These assertions raise some fundamental philosophical concerns. The former assertion re-opens the need to ascertain whether corruption is an essence of humans, or an acquired disposition. Howsoever this is resolved forms the fulcrum of concerns on the second assertion. This paper engages these philosophical concerns. The paper takes two paths to achieve this goal. The first draws from Aristotle’s essentialism and Thomas Hobbes’ accounts on human nature to engage the debate on the relationship between human nature and corruption. The second derives and discusses the plausibility and fundamental implications of the claim that Africa is the most corrupt region in the world. It was found that neither on the basis of Aristotle’s nor Thomas Hobbes’, nor even a possible African cosmology as discussed, can it be said that official corruption is essential to humans. The paper concludes that what is at issue concerning corruption as measured by Transparency International pertains to different African expectations of recompense in a protective communalism from which relatives in public offices must have drawn care, now termed “corruption” by Transparency International, which is not so regarded in the African social order.     

Ontology,Ontologies, and Science

Philosophers frequently struggle with the relation of metaphysics to the everyday world, with its practical value, and with its relation to empirical science. This paper distinguishes several different models of the relation between philosophical ontology and applied (scientific) ontology that have been advanced in the history of philosopy. Adoption of a strong participation model for the philosophical ontologist in science is urged, and requirements and consequences of the participation model are explored. This approach provides both a principled view and justification of the role of the philosophical ontologist in contemporary empirical science as well as guidelines for integrating philosophers and philosophical contributions into the practice of science.     

How Hume’s Philosophy Informed Radical Behaviorism

The present paper analyzes consistencies between the philosophical systems of David Hume and B. F. Skinner, focusing on their conceptualization of causality and attitudes about scientific behavior. The ideas that Hume initially advanced were further developed in Skinner’s writings and shaped the behavior-analytic approach to scientific behavior. Tracing Skinner’s logical antecedents allows for additional historical and philosophical clarity when examining the development of radical behaviorism.     

HEIDEGGER AND THE APPROPRIATION OF METAPHYSICS

Heidegger's deconstruction of the history of Western metaphysics has been a major influence behind poststructural critiques of modernity as well as more apologetic attempts to maintain a dialogue with historical sources, such as Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. This bifurcation has intensified the ambiguity of Heidegger's project: was it an attempt to relinquish philosophical ties to the past or a call for a fundamental reinterpretation of them? In this article I argue the latter, focusing my analysis on Heidegger's notions of appropriation and historicity. On the one hand, appropriation is the hermeneutical event by which ontology is reinfused into a reading of historical sources. On the other hand, historicity is the self‐reflexive historical involvement by which we become aware of what contemporary, philosophical conditions necessitate this reengagement. In the end, Heidegger's critique of metaphysics arises from this self‐reflexivity. It deconstructs the prevailing misunderstandings of philosophical sources in order to allow for reinterpretation at a revivified ontological level constantly in view of the question of being.     

Kuhn’s Legacy: Theoretical and Philosophical Study of History

This paper considers the legacy of Kuhn and his Structure with regard to the current history and philosophy of science. Kuhn can be seen as a myth breaker, whose contribution is the way he connected historical and philosophical studies of science, questioning the cumulativist image and demanding historical responsibility of the views of science. I build on Kuhn’s legacy and outline a suggestion for theoretical and philosophical study of history (of science), which can be subdivided into three categories. The first is the philosophical analysis of historical interpretation and its relation to the historical record. The second is ‘theoretical history’ in which one tries to infer philosophically relevant interpretations on the nature of science on the basis of historical evidence. The third is the conceptual reflection of the assumptions and implications of the contemporary historiography of science. At the end I suggest that theoretical and philosophical study of history offers a fresh way to make history and philosophy relevant to each other.