A kantian reading of aesthetic freedom and complete human nature nourished through art in a classical Chinese artistic context

In this paper, I will show that classical Chinese artists adopted either Daoist or Chan Buddhist meditation to cultivate their mind to be in accord with the Dao, and that their view of the detached mental state as an ideal mental state for art appears to fit in with Kant’s notion of aesthetic freedom. Even though it might be claimed that sensibilities are stressed over rationality in the classical Chinese artistic tradition, I suggest that the detached mental state cultivated through Daoist or Chan Buddhist meditation and experienced in artistic practice helps artists restore a balanced human nature. By projecting Schiller’s account of the play drive, and the account of aesthetic freedom he developed from Kant’s ideas, into the classical Chinese artistic context, I attempt to explain the balanced nature realised through artistic play by classical Chinese artists and point out the differences behind the parallels between these two approaches.     

Place and Displacement: Towards a Distopological Approach

Most recently, debates on decolonization, transformation, and Africanization raise, again, critical questions about the continuous dominance of the Western practice of philosophy in an African place. Such debates bear particular reference to colonization; however, they are relevant to any place where displacement is an issue and transformation demanded. Yet, the concept of displacement receives surprisingly little attention in these debates or in literature on place. I argue that place and displacement are inherently related, and explore some implications of this relation with regard to the practice of philosophy. My contention is that while displacement is an issue that raises specific challenges to the practice of Western philosophy in an African context, it is in fact a defining feature of philosophy as such in search of its place in the world. In conclusion, I propose what I call a distopological approach towards a philosophical practice that takes seriously its place and inherent relation to displacement.     

Kant’s Virtue as Strength

The revival of virtue ethics has been accompanied by an increasing interest in Kant’s theory of virtue. Many scholars claim that virtue plays an important role in Kant’s moral theory. However, some worries and disagreements have arisen within the camp of contemporary virtue ethics concerning the Kantian concept of virtue. Some scholars have pointed out that Kantian virtue is at best nothing more than Aristotelian continence, that is, strength of will in the face of contrary emotions and appetites, and hence not a real virtue. In response to these criticisms and worries concerning Kant’s concept of virtue, this paper examines the question of whether Kant’s account of virtue is only a reformulation of Aristotle’s idea of continence. My analysis focuses on Kant’s concept of inner freedom, his ideas about latitude in the imperfect duties of virtue, and his notion of the perfection of virtue. I thus attempt to provide some evidence of the significant differences between Aristotelian continence and Kant’s virtue as strength. Then I explore the significance of Kant’s virtue as strength. Finally, I argue that Kant’s virtue as strength not only is not Aristotle’s idea of continence but also is located at a much higher level, that is, the state of inner freedom and the mental attitude of a human being’s soul.     

Theory construction and existential description in Schelling’s treatise on freedom

Despite considerable recent attention, important features of Schelling’s famous work, the 1809 treatise On the Essence of Human Freedom, remain under-explored. One of these is the methodological dualism which Schelling advocates at the very start of the text. Schelling aims to weld together into a coherent position a first-person phenomenology of freedom and an explanation achieved by locating freedom within a conceptual system articulating the basic structure of the world. Most interpretations of the Freiheitsschrift, however, concentrate on only one of these approaches, thus foreshortening their understanding of Schelling’s enterprise. The article explores this tendency towards one-sidedness by considering two sophisticated recent interpretations of the work, taking opposite tacks. One, by Markus Gabriel, focuses on the distinctive, self-reflexive metaphysics which Schelling proposes, while the other, by Sebastian Gardner, claims that Schelling’s ontology is extrapolated entirely from his account of our moral consciousness, a procedure pioneered by Kant. The article argues that neither of these interpretations can do full justice to Schelling’s project. Furthermore, although the Freiheitsschrift is not entirely successful, and hence points towards later developments in Schelling’s thinking, its treatment of freedom is superior to the ‘soft naturalism’ pioneered by Peter Strawson, and currently influential across various philosophical traditions.     

Is Socrates free? The Theaetetus as case study

Most scholars agree that Plato’s concept of freedom, to the extent he has one, is ‘intellectualist’: true freedom is submission to the rule of reason through philosophical knowledge of rational order. Surprisingly, though, there are few explicit linkages of philosophy and freedom in Plato. Socrates is called many things in the dialogues, but not ‘free’. I aim to understand why by studying the Theaetetus, heretofore ignored in discussions of Platonic freedom. By examining the Digression (172c-177c) and Socrates’ ‘dream’ about wholes and parts (201c-206c), I show that describing freedom as ‘rule of reason’ simplifies what, for Plato, is a more tangled skein. In the Digression, philosophers are free in occupying a comprehensive standpoint transcending all limited and partial perspectives. Socrates’ dream, however, shows that logos cannot completely account for the knowledge of complex wholes or for itself as such a whole. Philosophical freedom cannot mean comprehensive discursive knowledge, then, since reason lacks a comprehensive grasp of itself. Socrates dreams of the rational whole, but is aware of why it remains only a dream, rather than wakeful knowledge. This awareness constitutes a freedom attained, not in total liberation from the confines of the partial human perspective, but within those confines.     

Locke’s arguments against the freedom to will

In sections 2.21.23–25 of An Essay concerning Human Understanding, John Locke considers and rejects two ways in which we might be ‘free to will’, which correspond to the Thomistic distinction between freedom of exercise and freedom of specification. In this paper, I examine Locke’s arguments in detail. In the first part, I argue for a non-developmental reading of Locke’s argument against freedom of exercise. Locke’s view throughout all five editions of the Essay is that we do not possess freedom of exercise (at least in most cases). In the second part, I argue that, when Locke asks whether we possess freedom of specification, his question is intentionally ambiguous between two readings, a first-order reading and a higher-order reading. Locke’s view is that, on either reading, we do not possess freedom of specification (at least in any interesting sense).     

Soul,freedom and salvation: a literary,cinematic and musical journey to the crossroads

It is tempting to assume that the construction of rational arguments for the existence of God reflects the basic logical form of theological discourse and debate. However, it would also seem that most if not all major religions are grounded mainly in stories (including biographies) of divine or divinely inspired saviours or prophets, and that the form of much ordinary religious understanding is ‘narratival’. In addition, such latter‐day moral and social theorists as Alasdair MacIntyre have held that human moral and spiritual understanding cannot but take a narrative form, and regarded religious stories as contributing crucially to such appreciation. However, while it is tempting to support such claims by reference to classics of literary and artistic culture, it is arguable that much contemporary cinematic and other popular art has also developed the major moral and spiritual themes of classical culture in significantly insightful ways. This article explores the movie Crossroads as a particularly fertile instance of such development.     

康德关于纯粹实践理性方法论的思想

文章立足于分析康德对“客观的德性法则如何在主观上也成为实践的”这一问题的回答,梳理了康德的纯粹实践理性的方法论思想,提出了两个步骤的理论：判断力的练习与自由的意识;并分析了方法论与实践理性批判的分析论在方法上的统一。康德认为这一方法论思想对道德生活与道德培育具有重要的意义,尤其是自由的意识以及对自己的敬重是道德教育的立足点,因为它们也是人在内心防止心灵的腐败与堕落的惟一守卫者。     

论海德格尔对康德实践哲学的解读

海德格尔对康德实践哲学的解读是他阐释康德哲学的重要组成部分。本文围绕着道德情感、实践理性、实践自由等问题分析了海德格尔在这一方面的解读内容,并且指出海德格尔的解读是定向于存在论的,属于基础存在论筹划,人的存在问题是关注的核心。他力图发掘康德思想中的存在论-生存论的内涵,这反而丧失了原初的伦理学意义。     

The Axes of Debt: A Preface to Three Essays

This is a preface to three essays on different aspects of ontological and economic debt as themes in religious ethics. It frames their contribution by arguing that debt is central to traditions of philosophical and religious ethics yet is woefully neglected as a thematic problem and problematic in contemporary iterations of these traditions. In order to situate debt as a central moral concern, it is argued that any consideration of debt must wrestle with how debt exists on two axes. One is the axis of ontological and economic debt. The other is the axis of debt as an expression of mutuality and debt as a mode of domination. These axes generate deep ambiguities regarding the moral status of debt. But contemporary religious and philosophical ethics struggles to articulate, let alone address, this ambiguity due to being wedded to modern conceptions of the autonomous subject. The essay closes by setting out the themes of the three essays, the connections between them, and how they can be a catalyst for further reflection on this vital but under‐researched topic.