Ethical Naturalism and Moral Twin Earth

In order to rebut G. E. Moore’s open question argument, ethical naturalists adopt a theory of direct reference for our moral terms. T. Horgan and M. Timmons have argued that this theory cannot be applied to moral terms, on the ground that it clashes with competent speakers’ linguistic intuitions. While Putnam’s Twin Earth thought experiment shows that our linguistic intuitions confirm the theory of direct reference, as applied to ‘water’, Horgan and Timmons devise a parallel thought experiment about moral terms, in order to show that this theory runs against our linguistic intuitions about such terms. My claim is that the Horgan–Timmons argument does not work. I concede that their thought experiment is a good way to test the applicability of the theory of direct reference to moral terms, and argue that the upshot of their experiment is not what they claim it is: our linguistic intuitions about Moral Twin Earth are parallel to, not different from, our intuitions about Twin Earth.

Slavoj Žižek and the Real Subject of Politics

Slavoj ?i?ek's refusal to sketch an alternative to the global liberal-capitalist order, combined with his claim that there is an urgent need for a repolitization of, most of all, the economy, raises the question of the possibility of radical political thought and action. Considering fundamentalisms and politically correct multiculturalism not as oppositional, but as correlative to the “depolitization” of post-modern societies, ?i?ek invokes the emancipatory legacy of Europe in an attempt to reinvent Marxism in a way similar to what Lenin, thrown into an open situation, had to do in 1917 between the revolutions. A single question confronts political philosophy today: is liberal-capitalist democracy the ultimate horizon of our political practice, or is it possible to open up the space for another political articulation? The key to a repolitization is to identify with the “symptom” of the existing global order's false claim to Universality, with the excluded “part of no part” who politicizes it's predicament by claiming to stand for the real universal. In order not to discard political struggle as “unrealistic”, today's cynical “realist” consensus must be broken. Taking things as they “really are” has become the dominant ideological mode that keeps people from thinking about alternatives. The remedy is to show that things never are “really” as they are.

     

Power Politics and the Balance of Risk: Hypotheses on Great Power Intervention in the Periphery

Great powers frequently initiate risky diplomatic and military interventions in the periphery—regions that do not directly threaten the security of a great power's homeland. Such risky interventions are driven by leaders' aversion to losses in their state's relative power, international status, or prestige. These leaders often persist in such courses of action even when they incur mounting political, economic, and military costs. More surprisingly, they undertake risky strategies toward other great powers in an effort to continue these failing interventions. Hypotheses concerning such interventions are derived from the prospect theory and defensive realist literatures.     

Paul Tillich and Pitirim A. Sorokin on Love

An analysis of Paul Tillich's three‐volume Systematic Theology and Pitirim A. Sorokin's The Ways and Power of Love: Types, Factors, and Techniques of Moral Transformation reveals how a metaphysical dialogue on God and love contributes to scientific and theological scholarship on altruism. This article focuses on similarities and differences in Tillich and Sorokin. Similarities include a belief in the importance of the ontological/love connection and the conclusion that a special state, ecstasy, is integral to the experience of genuine love. Differences serve to complement rather than negate. For example, Tillich's recognition that ecstatic connections with the divine within finitude are fragmentary balances Sorokin's view that these ecstatic peaks are reached only by the few. The similarities give resonance and point to the overall creation, while the differences often serve as counterpoint to balance the ideas of the scientist and the theologian.     

Biohistorical Naturalism and The Symbol "God"

This article has two parts, as the title suggests. The first sketches what I call biohistorical naturalism, a naturalistic position in which it is emphasized that the historicocultural development of our humanity, particularly our becoming linguistic/symbolical beings, is as central to our humanness as the biological evolutionary development that preceded (and continues to accompany) it. Apart from such a biohistorical emphasis (or its equivalent), naturalistic positions cannot give adequate accounts of human religiousness. The second part suggests that, although it would not be consistent with biohistorical naturalism to continue thinking of God in the traditional supernaturalistic way as "the Creator," it would be quite appropriate to understand God as the ongoing creativity (of truly novel realities) manifest in the long history of the universe, particularly in the evolution of life on Earth.     

The relationship between space and mutual interaction: Kant contra Newton and Leibniz

Kant claims that we cannot cognize the mutual interaction of substances without their being in space; he also claims that we cannot cognize a ‘spatial community’ among substances without their being in mutual interaction. I situate these theses in their historical context and consider Kant’s reasons for accepting them. I argue that they rest on commitments regarding the metaphysical grounding of, first, the possibility of mutual interaction among substances-as-appearances and, second, the actuality of specific distance-relations among such substances. By illuminating these commitments, I shed light on Kant’s metaphysics of space and its relation to Newton and Leibniz’s views.     

The intuitive case for naïve realism

Naïve realism, the view that perceptual experiences are irreducible relations between subjects and external objects, has intuitive appeal, but this intuitive appeal is sometimes thought to be undermined by the possibility of certain kinds of hallucinations. In this paper, I present the intuitive case for naïve realism, and explain why this intuitive case is not undermined by the possibility of such hallucinations. Specifically, I present the intuitive case for naïve realism as arguing that the only way to make sense of the phenomenal character associated with perceptual experiences is by means of a naïve realist ontology. I then explain why this intuitive argument is not undermined by the possibility of hallucinatory experiences that possess the phenomenal character associated with perceptual experiences but, being hallucinations, do not have the ontological nature specified by naïve realism.     

RORTY ON REALISM AND CONSTRUCTIVISM

Abstract: This article argues that we can and should recognize the mind dependence, epistemic dependence, and social dependence of theories of mind‐independent reality, as opposed to Rorty, who thinks not even a constructivist theory of mind‐independent reality can be had. It accuses Rorty of creating an equivocation or “dualism of scheme and content” between causation and justification based on various “Davidsonian” irrelevancies, not to be confused with the actual Davidson. These include the Principle of Charity, the attack against conceptual schemes, the linguistification of social practice, intersubjectivism, and causal naturalism. It follows that realists and constructivists need neither follow Rorty's mischaracterizations nor succumb to his internal paradoxes.     

An investigation of preschoolers' misattributions of the properties of two‐dimensional images: understanding the relationship between a symbol and its referent

Previous studies have found that preschoolers are confused about the relationship between two‐dimensional (2D) symbols and their referents. Preschoolers report that 2D images (e.g. televised images and photographs) share some of the characteristics of the objects they are representing. A novel Comparison Task was created to test what might account for these misattributions of the properties of 2D images. Three‐and‐a‐half‐ and four‐and‐a‐half‐year olds made comparisons between items presented in two of three formats simultaneously, i.e. as a real object and as an object appearing on television (TV), as a real object and as a photo of that object, or as an object appearing on TV and in a photo. Presenting the televised object or the photo of the object along with the real object aided performance; children indicated that televised objects and photos of objects no longer shared the properties of the real objects. Children also performed better when presented with two 2D images of the same object (the photo of the object and the televised image of the object). Although dual‐representation might account for these misattributions of the properties of 2D images, because children also performed better when two 2D images of the same object were present, other possibilities such as children using pictures as communicative devices and disregarding the pragmatics of the task should be explored. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Feasibility and Stability in Normative Political Philosophy: The Case of Liberal Nationalism

Arguments from stability for liberal nationalism rely on considerations about conditions for the feasibility or stability of liberal political ideals and factual claims about the circumstances under which these conditions are fulfilled in order to argue for nationalist conclusions. Such reliance on factual claims has been criticised by among others G. A. Cohen in other contexts as ideological reifications of social reality. In order to assess whether arguments from stability within liberal nationalism, especially as formulated by David Miller, are vulnerable to a comparable critique, the rationale for their reliance on factual claims is discussed on the basis of a number of concerns in John Rawls’s political liberalism. The concern with stability in liberal nationalism differs from stability in Rawls’s work, mainly because of the stronger non-ideal or ‘realist’ focus of the former. In so far as the ‘realism’ of arguments from stability for liberal nationalism is recognized, they are not vulnerable to the reification charge. But if the arguments are construed as realist, this at the same time makes for other tensions within liberal nationalism.