Robert Hanna argues for the importance of Kant's theories of the epistemological, metaphysical, and practical foundations of the "exact sciences"--relegated to the dustbin of the history of philosophy for most of the 20th century. In doing so he makes a valuable contribution to one of the most active and fruitful areas in contemporary scholarship on Kant.

Effective treatment of disorders of agency presents a clinical conundrum. Many of the core symptoms or maintaining factors are actions and omissions that cause harm to self and others. Encouraging service users to take responsibility for this behavior is central to treatment. Blame, in contrast, is detrimental. How is it possible to hold service users responsible for actions and omissions that cause harm without blaming them? A solution to this problem is part conceptual, part practical. This chapter offers a conceptual (...) framework that clearly distinguishes between ideas of responsibility, blameworthiness, and "detached" and "affective" blame. It argues that affective blame is detrimental to effective treatment. And it suggests that affective blame can be avoided by attention to service users' past history, which directly evokes compassion and empathy. Finally, the chapter briefly considers whether the clinical stance of responsibility without blame should be adopted in non-clinical interpersonal and social contexts. (shrink)

Robert Hanna works out a unified contemporary Kantian theory of rational human cognition and knowledge. Along the way, he provides accounts of intentionality and its contents, sense perception and perceptual knowledge, the analytic-synthetic distinction, the nature of logic, and a priori truth and knowledge in mathematics, logic, and philosophy. This book is specifically intended to reach out to two very different audiences: contemporary analytic philosophers of mind and knowledge, and contemporary Kantian philosophers or Kant-scholars. At the same time, it (...) rides the crest of a wave of exciting and revolutionary emerging new trends and new work in the philosophy of mind and epistemology, with a special concentration on the philosophy of perception. What is revolutionary in this new wave are its strong emphases on action, on cognitive phenomenology, on disjunctivist direct realism, on embodiment, and on sense perception as a primitive and proto-rational capacity for cognizing the world. Hanna makes a fundamental contribution to this philosophical revolution by giving it a specifically contemporary Kantian twist, and by pushing these new lines of investigation radically further. (shrink)

Hanna Pitkin argues that Wittgenstein's later philosophy offers a revolutionary new conception of language, and hence a new and deeper understanding of ourselves and the world of human institutions and action.

The Counterfactual Comparative Account of Harm says that an event is overall harmful for someone if and only if it makes her worse off than she otherwise would have been. I defend this account from two common objections.

Among the types of strings which are technically ungrammatical but fully intelligible, dialect variants form a special class. They can be viewed as generated by alternate transformations within the grammar; the means by which they are interpreted is therefore identical with the means by which interpretations are assigned to well-formed strings. Such language-specific rules thus differ from the universal procedures by which other types of ungrammatical strings are apparently derived.

Robert Hanna presents a fresh view of the Kantian and analytic traditions that have dominated continental European and Anglo-American philosophy over the last two centuries, and of the connections between them. But this is not just a study in the history of philosophy, for out of this emerges Hanna's original approach to two much-contested theories that remain at the heart of contemporary philosophy. Hanna puts forward a new 'cognitive-semantic' interpretation of transcendental idealism, and a vigorous defense of (...) Kant's theory of analytic and synthetic necessary truth, making this compelling reading for all who are interested in these fundamental philosophical issues. (shrink)

In Rationality and Logic, Robert Hanna argues that logic is intrinsically psychological and that human psychology is intrinsically logical. He claims that logic is cognitively constructed by rational animals and that rational animals are essentially logical animals. In order to do so, he defends the broadly Kantian thesis that all rational animals possess an innate cognitive "logic faculty." Hanna 's claims challenge the conventional philosophical wisdom that sees logic as a fully formal or "topic-neutral" science irreconcilably separate from (...) the species- or individual-specific focus of empirical psychology.Logic and psychology went their separate ways after attacks by Frege and Husserl on logical psychologism--the explanatory reduction of logic to empirical psychology. Hanna argues, however, that--despite the fact that logical psychologism is false--there is an essential link between logic and psychology. Rational human animals constitute the basic class of cognizers or thinkers studied by cognitive psychology; given the connection between rationality and logic that Hanna claims, it follows that the nature of logic is significantly revealed to us by cognitive psychology. Hanna 's proposed "logical cognitivism" has two important consequences: the recognition by logically oriented philosophers that psychologists are their colleagues in the metadiscipline of cognitive science; and radical changes in cognitive science itself. Cognitive science, Hanna argues, is not at bottom a natural science; it is both an objective or truth-oriented science and a normative human science, as is logic itself. (shrink)

Addiction is standardly characterized as a neurobiological disease of compulsion. Against this characterization, I argue that many cases of addiction cannot be explained without recognizing the value of drugs to those who are addicted; and I explore in detail an insufficiently recognized source of value, namely, a sense of self and social identity as an addict. For people who lack a genuine alternative sense of self and social identity, recovery represents an existential threat. Given that an addict identification carries expectations (...) of continued consumption despite negative consequences, there is therefore a parsimonious explanation of why people who identify as addicts continue to use drugs despite these consequences: they self‐identify as addicts and that is what addicts are supposed to do. I conclude by considering how it is nonetheless possible to overcome addiction despite this identity, in part by imagining and enacting a new one. Importantly, this possibility requires the availability of social support and material resources that are all too frequently absent in the lives of those who struggle with addiction. (shrink)

Contrary to the belief of most Kantians and Kant scholars, Kant is in fact an anarchist. In this paper, I distinguish sharply between two concepts of enlightenment, enlightenment lite and heavy duty or radical enlightement ; show how there is an unbridgeable gap between Kant’s official political theory in The Doctrine of Right and his ethics; show how Kant’s real political theory is worked out in Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, and is in fact a heavy-duty, radically enlightened (...) version of anarchism; refute and debunk widely-believed Hobbesian assumptions about human nature, which are in fact nothing but cognitive illusions; and propose a de-biasing strategy in political aesthetics for ridding ourselves of these Hobbesian cognitive illusions. (shrink)

I argue that addiction is not a chronic, relapsing, neurobiological disease characterized by compulsive use of drugs or alcohol. Large-scale national survey data demonstrate that rates of substance dependence peak in adolescence and early adulthood and then decline steeply; addicts tend to “mature out” in their late twenties or early thirties. The exceptions are addicts who suffer from additional psychiatric disorders. I hypothesize that this difference in patterns of use and relapse between the general and psychiatric populations can be explained (...) by the purpose served by drugs and alcohol for patients. Drugs and alcohol alleviate the severe psychological distress typically experienced by patients with comorbid psychiatric disorders and associated problems. On this hypothesis, consumption is a chosen means to ends that are rational to desire: Use is not compulsive. The upshot of this explanation is that the orthodox view of addiction as a chronic, relapsing neurobiological disease is misguided. I delineate five folk psychological factors that together explain addiction as purposive action: strong and habitual desire; willpower; motivation; functional role; and decision and resolve. I conclude by drawing lessons for research and effective treatment. (shrink)

In Skeptical idealism says that possibly nothing exists outside my own conscious mental states. Purported refutations of skeptical idealism – whether Descartes's, Locke's, Reid's, Kant's, Moore's, Putnam's, or Burge's – are philosophically scandalous: they have convinced no one. I argue (1) that what is wrong with the failed refutations is that they have attempted to prove the wrong thing – i.e., that necessarily I have veridical perceptions of distal material objects in space, and (2) that a charitable reconstruction of Kant's (...) ‘Refutation of Idealism’ in fact provides a sound refutation of skeptical idealism. (shrink)

The financial sector has seen a transformation towards ‘sustainable’ finance particularly in Europe, driven also by unprecedented regulatory reforms. At the same time, many are sceptical about the real impact of these reforms, fearing that they are triggering a paradoxical financialisation of sustainability. Building on recent research on institutional logics and institutional fields formation, we examine changes in the EU regulatory dynamics as characterised by shifts in framing the relationship between sustainability and finance. Deploying a longitudinal approach, consisting of archival (...) data and semi-structured interviews, we explore the development of EU sustainable finance regulation as an extended, interactive and contested process. Specifically, we suggest that regulatory dynamics depend on the hybrid configuration of the social constituencies supporting sustainable finance reforms and on shifts in the overall prevalence of the financial logic in society. Our paper sheds light on the inherent contradictions and limitations of sustainable finance as a means for transformative sustainability reforms. (shrink)

I argue that denial plays a central but insufficiently recognized role in addiction. The puzzle inherent in addiction is why drug use persists despite negative consequences. The orthodox conception of addiction resolves this puzzle by appeal to compulsion; but there is increasing evidence that addicts are not compelled to use but retain choice and control over their consumption in many circumstances. Denial offers an alternative explanation: there is no puzzle as to why drug use persists despite negative consequences if these (...) consequences are not straightforwardly known. I describe the nature of the causal knowledge that one's drug use is causing negative consequences; map the conceptual landscape of denial and explain how it can block such knowledge; and explore some of the processes and mechanisms that have been studied by philosophy and the cognitive sciences and which may underpin denial in addiction, including well-established information-processing biases, motivational influences on belief formation and self-deception, and cognitive deficits with respect to insight and self-awareness. I conclude by suggesting that addiction is as much a disorder of cognition as a disorder of conation. (shrink)

My first experience as a clinician was in a Therapeutic Community for service users with personality disorder. As well as having personality disorder, many of the Community members also suffered from related conditions, such as addiction and eating disorders. Broadly speaking, these conditions are what we might call ‘disorders of agency’. Core diagnostic symptoms or maintaining factors of disorders of agency are actions and omissions: patterns of behaviour central to the nature or maintenance of the condition. For instance, borderline personality (...) disorder is diagnosed in part via deliberate self-harm and attempted suicide, reckless and impulsive behaviour, substance use, violence, and outbursts of anger; addiction is diagnosed via maladaptive patterns of drug consumption; eating disorders involve eating too much or too little. If a service user is to improve let alone recover from these disorders, they must change the diagnostic or maintaining pattern of behaviour (cf. Pearce and Pickard, 2010). For instance, service users with borderline personality disorder must stop self-harming; addicts need to quit using drugs or alcohol; anorexics must eat. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDespite advances in the conceptualisation of facial mimicry, its role in the processing of social information is a matter of debate. In the present study, we investigated the relationship b...

This article seeks to clarify the potential that Herbert Marcuse's and Theodor W. Adorno's psychoanalytic accounts may have with respect to the philosophy of education today. Marcuse and Adorno both share the view that psychoanalytic theory enables a deeper understanding of the social and biological dynamics of consciousness. For both thinkers, psychoanalytic theory provides conceptual tools for thinking through contradictions between the needs of an individual and those of the governing entity. In fleshing this out, I first explore Marcuse's radical (...) account of sublimation which seeks to demonstrate how the revision of instinctual energy makes it possible to establish a subjectivity which utilises the human potentiality to its fullest. I then turn to Adorno who emphasises the importance of understanding that exterior conditions transform our instinctual energies. After recapitulating Adorno's conception of natural, instinctual impulses and his use of psychoanalytic theory, I will explore the possibility of a critical rationality through a critique of rationality's current mode. From the perspective of Adorno's and Marcuse's theories, both rationality and sensuous desire play their respective roles in enabling critical rationality. In conclusion, the article reflects the different advantage points of Marcuse's and Adorno's accounts from the perspective of philosophy of education. Thus, education should provide individuals with the ability to recognise the subtle and invisible ways through which the calculating mode of rationality operates in late-capitalist society. Regarding education, Adorno's conception of non-identity could be developed in the direction of promoting ways of experiencing non-conformity within such a society. (shrink)

Asylum legal aid lawyers are under continuous public scrutiny. On the one hand, these lawyers are portrayed as being solely motivated by profit. On the other hand, they are depicted as leftist activists frustrating the legal system. When assisting their asylum seeking clients under the state's legal aid scheme, lawyers need to balance the client's interest, the public interest in the administration of justice and their own interest in profit or survival. The current book examines this balancing act and explores (...) the role of the institutional context. It does so by studying the decision making of asylum legal aid lawyers in the Netherlands and England in respect of two ethical issues: 'time vs. money' and 'hopeless cases'. This empirical research into lawyers' professional ethics in practice will appeal to scholars engaged in lawyers' ethics, policy makers and those involved in the regulation of the legal profession. Dissertation. [Subject: Politics, Human Rights Law, International Law]. (shrink)

Based on extensive ethnography, this article investigates how contemporary Finnish hospice patients talk – or remain silent – about their own approaching death, and the imageries relating to death and the possible afterlife. I explore how the thought of an afterlife may have informed patients’ orientations at the end of life, and how it touched on actual funeral arrangements. Since death was a very difficult topic to speak about, the dying created other kinds of material or entirely fantastic imageries which (...) helped them to explore and express their feelings about death and the beyond. Drawing on the theoretical concepts of ‘metaphysical imagination’ (Hepburn 1996) and ‘virtuality’ (Deleuze and Guattari 2016; Kapferer 2004, 2006, 2010), this article shows how the virtual space of the metaphysical imageries by the research participants at times became a vital element empowering the dying, not only to encounter their situation but also to achieve resolution of some sort. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold: first, it seeks to provide a better understanding of lawyers’ ethics in practice in the field of publicly funded asylum law. It does so by examining Dutch asylum legal aid lawyers’ moral reasoning in respect of the ethically challenging issue of ‘the hopeless case’, employing a version of Christine Parker’s four approaches to moral reasoning in legal practice: adversarial advocacy, responsible lawyering, moral activism and relational lawyering. Second, it aims to demonstrate the applicability (...) of Parker’s taxonomy, developed in a common law country (Australia), to a civil law country (The Netherlands). This paper shows, in line with what Parker argued, that lawyers may apply a combination of approaches – different ethical considerations carry different in weight in different circumstances. It provides illustrations of situations in which approaches coexist and compete and the circumstances in which one prevails over the other in the area under review. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to investigate the impact of the Greek language on modern legal languages in the United Kingdom and United States of America. The focus is placed on terms with the prefix cyber- of Greek origin that have recently enriched the English legal languages in connection with the fact that certain new phenomena have been regulated by laws as a result of the development of new technologies. Therefore, the authors have investigated the occurrence of terms with (...) the prefix cyber- in legislation and other legal texts. Apart from the analysis of borrowings in the English legal languages, the authors have also investigated the occurrence of equivalent terms in Greek and Cypriot legislation and other genres of legal texts. Furthermore, the analysis involved the investigation of the occurrence of terms with the analysed prefix cyber- in European Union legislation and terminological databases to find out whether the borrowings may become internationalisms of Greek origin. Furthermore, the authors have also investigated whether for those terms with a prefix of Greek origin there are synonyms in the languages under scrutiny of non-Greek origin. (shrink)

Renaissance humanism.--Valla's Encomium of St. Thomas Aquinas and the humanist conception of Christian antiquity.--Machiavelli.

In "A Puzzle About Belief" (_Meaning and Use, A. Margalit (ed.), D. Reidel (1979), pp. 239-283), Saul Kripke argues that linguistic moves to all appearances normal in reporting the beliefs of others can be shown to generate paradox. In this paper, I argue that the supposed paradox is one in appearance only, and that the appearance rests on a covert vacillation in Kripke's paper between two conceptions of linguistic understanding, a weak, or 'minimal' one, and a 'strong' one. Only the (...) weak conception allows Kripke to set up the example which allegedly generates the paradox; only the strong allows the actual generation of the paradox. (shrink)

Budynki o czytelnej strukturze modularnej (w aspekcie kompozycji i konstrukcji) powinny charakteryzować się także klarownością układu funkcjonalnego, co wydaje się szczególnie istotne dla budynków użyteczności publicznej. Rola światła w prawidłowym czytaniu funkcji takich obiektów (także poprzez zastosowane archetypy – symbole w sekwencjach przestrzeni wewnętrznych) przez użytkownika, w połączeniu z oddziaływaniem mniej lub bardziej pożądanych efektów akustycznych, w budowlach zabytkowych i współczesnych realizacjach z wykorzystaniem klasycznych i nowych środków wyrazu to zasadniczy temat niniejszego artykułu rozeznany i opisany na podstawie autopsji oraz (...) dostępnej literatury. (shrink)

Rebound effects on the consumer level occur when consumers’ realized greenhouse gas emission savings caused by behaviors that might be beneficial to the environment are lower than their potential greenhouse gas emission savings because the savings are offset by behavioral adjustments. While previous literature mainly studied the economic mechanisms of such rebound effects, research has largely neglected the moral-psychological mechanisms. A comprehensive conceptualization of rebound effects on the consumer level can help fill this void and stimulate more empirical research in (...) this relevant area. To this end, the paper introduces three focal dimensions of rebound effects on the consumer level: mechanism of rebound effects, product category, and consumption context. Based on this conceptualization, and integrating assumptions from the theory of moral licensing, the theory of categorization, and the construal level theory, this paper further refines the conceptualization of the moral component as an explanatory factor for rebound effects and highlights that the moral-psychological mechanisms of indirect rebound effects are more complex and diverse than the economic mechanisms. The paper outlines promising directions for future studies considering the different quantification and characteristics of economic and moral currencies that explain rebound effects on the consumer level and the strategic categorization of products and consumption contexts. (shrink)

There are perceptual states whose representational content cannot even in principle be conceptual. If that claim is true, then at least some perceptual states have content whose semantic structure and psychological function are essentially distinct from the structure and function of conceptual content. Furthermore the intrinsically “orientable” spatial character of essentially non-conceptual content entails not only that all perceptual states contain non-conceptual content in this essentially distinct sense, but also that consciousness goes all the way down into so-called unconscious or (...) subpersonal mental states. Both my argument for the existence of essentially non-conceptual content and my theory of its structure and function have a Kantian provenance. (shrink)

Narrow views of systemic sustainability risks can result in ecological concerns being neglected, as well as giving rise to unequal distribution and exploitation of natural resources, creating injustice. Given recent advancements in integrating justice with the safe space environmentally, as defined by the planetary boundaries, now is a critical moment for business ethics researchers to deepen the conversation on managing systemic sustainability risks to create a safe and just operating space. We argue that the social-ecological systems approach, that views humans (...) as embedded in and dependent on the natural environment, provides a foundation for business ethics scholars to deepen the conversation. We build on two key dimensions from the social-ecological systems approach, social-ecological connectivity and cross-scale dynamics to develop a framework that illustrates four ways for business ethics scholars to research systemic sustainability risks. We demonstrate the relevance of these dimensions for understanding systemic sustainability risks, discuss their ethical implications, and outline opportunities for future research. (shrink)

Meeting the net zero emission targets set by many states after the Paris Agreement to help keep global warming well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels will require carbon dioxide removal technologies (CDRs). Several moral concerns arise if the contribution of CDRs to achieving net zero is not specified, but such concerns can be met by defining a permissible target for CDRs. This paper proposes a framework for defining the permissible contribution of CDRs to the net zero targets of individual states. (...) The framework identifies three categories of emissions for which the permissibility of CDRs varies depending on the ethical costs of both emission abatement and CDRs. We argue that a) luxury emissions should be reduced without using CDRs; b) emissions for full membership in society should be abated by structural efforts, although using CDRs is permissible, given certain conditions; and c) CDRs are permissible for residual emissions because otherwise net zero targets cannot be reached. (shrink)