Kant afirma que Dios conoce todo a priori, que tiene un intelecto intuitivo y puro; pero el sistema crítico enseña que este aspecto de la divinidad no es cognoscible por nosotros. Entonces, ¿cómo determinar los atributos del intelecto divino si Dios mismo no puede ser objeto de conocimiento? Algunos sostienen que este modo de concebir este atributo divino debe ser comprendido a partir de las convicciones religiosas del filósofo. Por el contrario, mostraremos que este peculiar modo de concebir el intelecto (...) de Dios está fundado en un argumento que Kant expone in extenso en las Lecciones de teología filosófica. Throughout his work, Kant states that God knows everything a priori, that He has pure and intuitive cognition. However, the Kantian critical system claims that the intellect of God cannot be known by our human cognition. Thus, the question that must be answered is how are we to determine God's intellectual attributes, consider-ing that God him/herself cannot be an object of our knowledge whatsoever. Some scholars claim that the way in which Kant determines God's mind should be understood in relation to Kant's religious convictions. On the contrary, we sustain that this peculiar way of conceiving the intellect of God is supported by an argument that Kant develops in extensor in his Lectures on Philosophical Theology. (shrink)

This paper, which is a homage to the life and work of Stephen Gaukroger, explores competing receptions of Spencer’s programmatic synthetic philosophy. In so doing, I show how T.H Huxley and C.S. Peirce reconfigured a familiar, long-standing debate about cosmogeny and cosmology in the early modern period.

Romanis and Adkins explore the near-term prospect of artificial amnion and placenta technology (AAPT) which is being developed to supplement the gestational process following the premature ending of a pregnancy.1 While fetal-centric narratives prevail in discussions surrounding AAPT, the authors subvert this trend by centering the experience of pregnant persons with respect to pregnancy loss. The overarching aim of their paper is to move beyond a ‘philosophical understanding of pregnancy towards practical-orientated conclusions regarding the care pathways surrounding [AAPT]’ (Romanis and (...) Adkins,1 p1). This commentary will critically examine the viability of this aim. Romanis and Adkins use the term ‘pregnancy loss’ to refer to the phenomenon where individuals experience a complex set of emotions following the premature ending of pregnancy, despite the survival of the gestated entity. Following Golish and Powell, the authors note how parents may experience contradictory emotions, such as joy mixed with grief, as well as a range of negative feelings including shame, disappointment and a sense of failure.2 At present, this phenomenon has been recognised among parents, particularly the (formerly) pregnant person, in the context of neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) when the infant survives preterm delivery and …. (shrink)

Review of Martijn Konings Capital and Time: For a New Critique of Neoliberal Reason. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections (...) in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. (shrink)

The technical term “ tarka ” in the Nyāya tradition is the object of the present investigation. Diverse texts including Buddhist ones exhibit a negative estimation of activities using tarka . In contrast, more often than not, later treatises dealing with logico-epistemic problems, especially certain Naiyāyika works, identify the methodological peculiarity of Nyāya with tarka . Such an ambivalent attitude toward tarka can be understood in a coherent way if the essential features of tarka that gave rise to it can (...) be grasped. Starting from the Nyāyasūtra 1.1.40 and the explanation given in the Nyāyabhāṣya on it, the present researcher sorted out three characteristic features of tarka in the early Nyāya tradition. These three features focus on the main feature of tarka : namely, reflective analysis without requiring further factual information on the object of investigation. Based on this, the present researcher critically reviewed what promoted an understanding of tarka as a reductio ad absurdum argument or an a priori reasoning. Furthermore, certain passages from the Nyāyamañjarī , Nyāyakalikā , and Tarkasaṅgraha were examined to demonstrate that the present researcher’s interpretative understanding of tarka was adequate for explaining the usage of this term in a broad sense, with positive connotations. (shrink)

The study of human evolution has attracted scientists of various disciplines, judging by the attendance of the conferences devoted to it, and by the publications concerned. In the course of years I became amazed about the seeming absence of a synthesis of the available information. This article presents an attempt to combine some results of the various publications.The study of human evolution has become particularly focussed on the emergence of language and human consciousness with respect to the social behaviour and (...) mental capacities of our closest relatives: the apes. Social relations imply communication, and mentation underlies the ability to communicate. The more it becomes apparent that the social behaviour of the apes resembles that of man in many respects, the greater the danger that typically, and perhaps even uniquely, human traits are ascribed to anthropoids. Anthropomorphic descriptions of animal behaviour tend to prevent a clear view on animal mentality. (shrink)

Buddhist philosophy asserts that human suffering is caused by ignorance regarding the true nature of reality. According to this, perceptions and thoughts are largely fabrications of our own minds, based on conditioned tendencies which often involve problematic fears, aversions, compulsions, etc. In Buddhist psychology, these tendencies reside in a portion of mind known as Store consciousness. Here, I suggest a correspondence between this Buddhist Store consciousness and the neuroscientific idea of stored synaptic weights. These weights are strong synaptic connections built (...) in through experience. Buddhist philosophy claims that humans can find relief from suffering through a process in which the Store consciousness is transformed. Here, I argue that this Buddhist 'transformation at the base' corresponds to a loosening of the learned synaptic connections. I will argue that Buddhist meditation practices create conditions in the brain which are optimal for diminishing the strength of our conditioned perceptual and behavioural tendencies. (shrink)

Frame -- Perspective -- Approach and Encounter -- To See and Look Away -- And What If the Animal Replied? -- Discussion Questions.

No one before Platter and Kepler proposed retinal reception of an inverted visual image. The dominant tradition in visual theory, especially that of Alhazen and his Western followers, subordinated the intra-ocular geometry of visual rays to the requirement for an upright image and to preconceptions about the precise nature of the visual spirit and its part in vision. Henry of Langenstein and an anonymous glossator in the late Middle Ages proposed alternatives to Alhazen, including the suggestion of double inversion of (...) the image. Leonardo da Vinci was aware of both Alhazen's theory and Henry's contradiction, but perhaps not of the anonymous hypothesis of double inversion. Leonardo's visual ‘theory’ has more the character of a critique than of a theoretical alternative, and he did not transcend the medieval concept of visual spirit. (shrink)

In the wake of the emergence and rapid development of nanoethics there swiftly followed fundamental criticism: nanoethics was said to have become much too involved with speculative developments and was concerning itself too little with actually pending questions of nanotechnology design and applications. If this diagnosis is true, then large parts of nanoethics are misguided. Such fundamental criticism must surely either result in a radical reorientation of nanoethics or be refuted for good reasons. In this paper, I will examine the (...) critics’ central arguments and, building on this scrutiny, formulate an answer to these alternatives. The results lead to conclusions which allow explaining and unfolding the thesis of this paper that instead of speculative nanoethics we should better speak of and develop explorative philosophy of nanotechnology. (shrink)

Despite wide recognition that speculation is critical for successful science, philosophers have attended little to it. When they have, speculation has been characterized in narrowly epistemic terms: a hypothesis is speculative due to its (lack of) evidential support. These ‘evidence-first’ accounts provide little guidance for what makes speculation productive or egregious, nor how to foster the former while avoiding the latter. I examine how scientists discuss speculation and identify various functions speculations play. On this basis, I (...) develop a ‘function-first’ account of speculation. This analysis grounds a richer discussion of when speculation is egregious and when it is productive, based in both fine-grained analysis of the speculation’s purpose, and what I call the ‘epistemic situation’ scientists face. (shrink)

The naturephilosophical challenge can be posed not merely to postkantian philosophy as an episode in the history of philosophy, but to the postkantianism that remains foundational for contemporary...

In this paper, I attempt to read the poetic principle behind the Tammuzi movement of modern Arabic poetry through the lens of speculative poetics. While speculative-poetic accounts of modern poetry, such as those provided by Allen Grossman, blazed new paths connecting poetry to personhood in modernity, their application to the development of modern poetry outside of Europe remains limited by their self-avowed focus on European history. This paper will outline a critical corrective to speculative poetics which, I argue, can be (...) of value in extending its domain of application to Arabic projects of poetic modernity, particularly the two tendencies of "free verse" and "commitment" poetry that emerged out of the Tammuzi movement. (shrink)

In serious art, where the best talents of each generation work, we have seen the elimination of didacticism, moral lessons, and the sentimentality so characteristic of the preceding century; in their place we find the celebration of dryness, acerbity, irony, withdrawal from emotion, balance in tension, the reduction of the authorial and, finally, the human presence: "empty words, corresponding to the void in things."1 Literature as practiced and as taught in the schools has tended toward the allusive and the elusive, (...) intellectual games, the pastiche, the echo, the comment on the comment. Brought into relation with twentieth-century political extremism, it has given a large allowance to the grotesque subject and mirrored that subject in an undermining of human consciousness, that naïvely assumed constant that enables moral judgment. While few regret the death of Emmeline Grangerford, it may be that she died only to bequeath us Oskar Mazerath. The corrective swing taken by our literature has given us harpsichord exercises in response to megalithic politics, and "tragedy," the name of our highest inherited literary form, a form we no longer pursue, becomes a devalued label to paste in traffic accidents and on My Lai. Like the Germans who found it "poor form" to talk about certain kinds of killing,2 we may be in a position where our aesthetics works to block our morality. · 1. Norman O. Brown, Love's Body , p. 259.· 2. Raul Hilberg cites in relation to this point the 4 October 1943 speech of Heinrich Himmler on the extermination of the Jews: "It was with us, thank God, an inborn gift of tactfulness, that we have never conversed about this matter, never spoken about it. Every one of us was horrified, and yet every one of us knew that we could do it again if it were ordered and if it were necessary" to Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

In Rock, Bone, and Ruin, Adrian Currie offers an account of how historically oriented researchers in paleontology, archaeology, and the geosciences make the most out of their epistemically unlucky circumstances. He argues that there are three things, in particular, that can help scientists gain traction in unlucky circumstances: methodological omnivory, epistemic scaffolding, and “empirically grounded speculation”. Together, these three aspects of the practice of historical science help explain its successes. I largely agree with Currie’s account of methodological omnivory and (...) epistemic scaffolding, but I want to raise some critical questions about his discussion of speculation. (shrink)

“Speculating God: Speculative Realism and Meillassoux’s Divine Inexistence.” In The Future of Continental Philosophy of Religion. Edited by Clayton Crockett, Keith Putt, and Jeffrey Robbins. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Faraday's view of the mutual relation of speculative theories and laws of nature implies that there should be a procedure, leading from speculative considerations to a system of facts and laws in which theories do no longer play any role. In order to make out the degree in which Faraday's claims correspond to his practice, the way in which he gains an explanation of Arago's effect is analyzed. The thesis is proposed that he indeed has a procedure of leaving theories (...) aside. It is intimately connected with certain methodological guidelines of his experimentation. (shrink)

En ces temps d’avenir perdu, les sociétés sont des sociétés spéculatives, qu’elles le veuillent ou non. Alors que la crise financière de 2007–2008 s’est transformée en une myriade de crises politiques dans les années qui ont suivies. En effet, l’esprit d’un âge néo-biedermeierien et les programmes politiques axés sur la stabilité sont devenus le modus operandi de l’Occident dans les contextes économiques et bien au-delà. Le désenchantement du néolibéralisme et son eschatologie politique dans un large éventail de domaines socioculturels perdurent (...) des deux côtés de l’Atlantique, tout autant que l’aporie des sociétés qui tentent de sauver le statu quo même si celui-ci avait perdu son chemin. En conséquence, les sociétés actuelles seraient, même sans le désirer, des sociétés spéculatives. Des éclaircissements sur la notion même de spéculation apparaissent alors nécessaires. Cet article vise à offrir ces éclaircissements. Pour cela, cet article s’appuie sur le cadre réglementaire d’après-crise de Bâle III. Cette analyse philosophique est d’autant plus éclairante si le « désarmement de la politique » (Habermas 2018, ma traduction) au nom de politiques prétendument inévitables, à vocation sécuritaire et stable, peut constituer l’objet de critique. Cet article est, par conséquent, une esquisse philosophique. Ce qui suit est une série de réflexions sur le concept de spéculation au-delà des frontières de la compréhension financière ou économique actuelle et, enfin, de minuscules manifestes sur la façon dont les études philosophiques et autres pourraient mobiliser et affiner ce concept. Tout d’abord cet article offre une histoire conceptuelle de la notion de spéculation (section deux). Dans un deuxième temps, les effets instables de l’aporie de stabilité concernant des régularisations financières sont analysés (section trois). Enfin, les bases pour un renouveau du concept de spéculation, utile pour la philosophie et qui maîtrise les apories des sociétés spéculatives, sont développées (section quatre). Si la philosophie ne peut prévenir la pensée d’être parfois large et incertaine, la philosophie peut sans doute être appréhendée comme un « hybride onto-épistémique-éthique », en recourant à la notion de spéculation. C’est ce que cet article suggère : offrir un langage qui pourrait permettre de penser la « spécularisation » des mondes sociaux en ce début du xxi e siècle. C’est à dire, le passage de la politique des classes à la politique identitaire (représentant les cultures plutôt que les classes), du capitalisme industriel à la politique culturelle (vendre des valeurs au détriment des fonctions) et des acteurs rationalisés au conservateur (choisir entre des identités à la place des préférences). (shrink)

Since its inception in the late 2000s, supporters of Quentin Meillassoux tended to oppose the movement he founded, speculative materialism, to Derrida and the Derridean community. The arc of Meillassoux's later publications, however, did not support that opposition, especially when it became clear that he neither dismissed correlationism nor set aside literary concerns. These approaches might not be as incompatible as has been supposed. Still, if any affinity is to be established, a first need is to reassess the core of (...) Meillassoux's argument in After Finitude, which has continued to influence his publications. In this article, I attempt not merely to comment upon Meillassoux's argument, but to justify it from within, and so to demonstrate its logic. Then, using a method of re-reading that will be familiar to many, I will attempt to show how that logic reveals speculative materialism and Derridean concerns to be better treated as logical affiliates. Doing so will not presuppose agreement, but will set the stage for more thorough comparisons in future. (shrink)

This book introduces the underlying ideas which have created the constellation of thought commonly referred to as Speculative Realism (SR). In a non-technical style Speculative Realism: An Epitome explores the thought of three contemporary philosophers: Quentin Meillassoux, Ray Brassier, and Iain Hamilton Grant. The book characterizes the milieu in which SR was born and charts how the tendencies of thought created from its birth have diverged into contemporary metaphysics. Readers will gain from the book an understanding how the evolving motion (...) of concepts created by the brief life of SR continue to change speculative philosophy in the contemporary Continental philosophical landscape today. (shrink)

Speculative logical theory, as provided in Hegel’s Science of Logic, consists of three main parts: the logic of being, the logic of essence, and the logic of the concept. The peculiar character of each logic’s starting point determines the most general character of each logic’s development. The present paper aims at making explicit the character of the starting-point of the third logic, the logic of the concept. This starting-point is exemplified by the category of universality. It is shown (a) that (...) the fundamental determination of this category is the harmonious unit y of self-identity and full determinacy and (b) that this unity has necessarily the logical structure of “double shining.” The latter is described in detail and justification is provided as to why it is preferred from “single shining.” I conclude the paper by defending the structure of “double shining” against certain objections raised against it by Friedrike Schick and Christian Iber. (shrink)