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.

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.

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)

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)

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)

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)

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...

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)

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)

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)

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.

Drug use and drug addiction are severely stigmatised around the world. Marc Lewis does not frame his learning model of addiction as a choice model out of concern that to do so further encourages stigma and blame. Yet the evidence in support of a choice model is increasingly strong as well as consonant with core elements of his learning model. I offer a responsibility without blame framework that derives from reflection on forms of clinical practice that support change and recovery (...) in patients who cause harm to themselves and others. This framework can be used to interrogate our own attitudes and responses, so that we can better see how to acknowledge the truth about choice and agency in addiction, while avoiding stigma and blame, and instead maintaining care and compassion alongside a commitment to working for social justice and good. (shrink)

Journal Name: SATS Issue: Ahead of print.

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)

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)

Whitehead’s categoreal scheme in Process and Realitv is so constructed that the several basic notions presuppose one another: despite this, there is good reason to consider “creativity” to be more ultimate than the others. But just how it is that creativity can be a metaphysical ultimate is not initially clear. For Whitehead’s various characterizations of creativity are confused and seemingly conflicting: moreover, and most importantly, creativity comes into conflict with the ontological principle. An analysis of the relation between creativity and (...) the ontological principle reveals a radical turn in philosophic thought: the conception of a metaphysical ultimate which is “ontologically neutral.”. (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)

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)

This paper deals with the nature of trust in science. Understanding what appropriate trust in science is and why it can reasonably break down is important for improving scientists’ trustworthiness. There are two different ways in which philosophers of science think about trust in science: as based on objectivity or as based on shared values. Some authors argue that objectivity actually grounds mere reliance, not genuine trust. They draw on a distinction that philosophers of trust following Annette Baier have made (...) with respect to interpersonal trust, where genuine trust has some normative element to it that is missing in cases of mere reliance. However, I will show that there are plural forms of trust in science: Both objectivity and shared values ground trust in science in a normative sense. I will link the trust in science debate to the literature on interpersonal trust. This is significant in that, beyond references to Baier, there is little connection between both areas of philosophy. In a pluralist reading, different trust accounts help to identify the normative elements involved in different kinds of trust in science. (shrink)

In Embodied Minds in Action, Robert Hanna and Michelle Maiese work out a unified treatment of three fundamental philosophical problems: the mind-body problem, the problem of mental causation, and the problem of action. This unified treatment rests on two basic claims. The first is that conscious, intentional minds like ours are essentially embodied. This entails that our minds are necessarily spread throughout our living, organismic bodies and belong to their complete neurobiological constitution. So minds like ours are necessarily alive. (...) The second claim is that essentially embodied minds are self-organizing thermodynamic systems. This entails that our mental lives consist in the possibility and actuality of moving our own living organismic bodies through space and time, by means of our conscious desires. The upshot is that we are essentially minded animals who help to create the natural world through our own agency. This doctrine--the Essential Embodiment Theory--is a truly radical idea which subverts the traditionally opposed and seemingly exhaustive categories of Dualism and Materialism, and offers a new paradigm for contemporary mainstream research in the philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

The landscape of addiction is dominated by two rival models: a moral model and a model that characterizes addiction as a neurobiological disease of compulsion. Against both, I offer a scientifically and clinically informed alternative. Addiction is a highly heterogenous condition that is ill‐characterized as involving compulsive use. On the whole, drug consumption in addiction remains goal directed: people take drugs because drugs have tremendous value. This view has potential implications for the claim that addiction is, in all cases, a (...) brain disease. But more importantly, it has implications for clinical and policy interventions. To help someone overcome addiction, you need to understand and address why they persist in using drugs despite negative consequences. If they are not compelled, then the explanation must advert to the value of drugs for them as an individual. What blocks us from acknowledging this reality is not science but fear: that it will ignite moralism about drugs and condemnation of drug users. The solution is not to cleave to the concept of compulsion but to fight moralism directly. (shrink)

Building on contemporary research in embodied cognition, enactivism, and the extended mind, this book explores how social institutions in contemporary neoliberal nation-states systematically affect our thoughts, feelings, and agency. Human beings are, necessarily, social animals who create and belong to social institutions. But social institutions take on a life of their own, and literally shape the minds of all those who belong to them, for better or worse, usually without their being self-consciously aware of it. Indeed, in contemporary neoliberal societies, (...) it is generally for the worse. In The Mind-Body Politic, Michelle Maiese and Robert Hanna work out a new critique of contemporary social institutions by deploying the special standpoint of the philosophy of mind—in particular, the special standpoint of the philosophy of what they call essentially embodied minds—and make a set of concrete, positive proposals for radically changing both these social institutions and also our essentially embodied lives for the better. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that the method of explication consists in replacing a vague, presystematic notion (the explicandum) with a precise notion (the explicatum) formulated in a systematic context. However, Carnap and others who have used this and related terms appear to hold inconsistent views as to what constitutes an adequate explication. The central feature of the present explication of 'explication' is the correspondence condition: permitting the explicandum to deviate from some established "ordinary-language" conventions but, at the same time, requiring (...) that the explicatum correspond (via an effective translation) to the chosen "definitive intension" of the explicandum. (In effect, the first stages of an explication provide an informal characterization of a vague and possibly inconsistent language convention.) The present account of explication contrasts sharply with that sketched by Quine in Word and Object (although Quine accepts a correspondence condition of a sort). The terms `explication 1 ' and `explication 2 ' are used to indicate these quite different senses of the term. In Kaplan's terminology, explication 1 is intended to remedy "external vagueness" while explication 2 is intended to remedy "internal vagueness.". (shrink)

Variation in addiction suggests that a good definition will be précising: it should serve a purpose. The authors canvass the various purposes served by a definition of addiction in psychiatric, social, legal, economic, interpersonal and scientific contexts. They argue that addiction is a strong and habitual want that significantly reduces control and leads to significant harm. What counts as significant varies relative to purpose and context. The authors offer a basic account of the nature of control and how and why (...) it can be reduced. The chapter explores the nature of harm and why it is part of the definition. And it concludes by suggesting that progress in understanding addiction depends on bearing in mind the various purposes and contexts of enquiry, together with the common-sense but often neglected point that both control and harm come in degrees. (shrink)

This paper argues that perception of one's body ‘from the inside’ provides one with an awareness of acting, and that this awareness explains a previously overlooked feature of one's knowledge of one's own actions. Actions are events: they occur during periods of time. Knowledge of such events must be sensitive to their course through time. Perception of one's body ‘from the inside’ allows one to monitor one's actions as they unfold, thereby sustaining one's knowledge of what one is doing over (...) the period of time in which one is doing it. (shrink)

According to Edmund Husserl in the Prolegomena to Pure Logic, which constitutes the preliminary rational foundation for – and also the entire first volume of – his Logical Investigations, pure logic is the a priori theoretical, nomological science of „demonstration“.1 For him, demonstration includes both consequence and provability. Consequence is the defining property of all and only formally valid arguments, i. e., arguments that cannot lead from true premises to false conclusions. And provability is the property of a logical system (...) such that, for every truth of logic in that system, there is, at least in principle, a rigorous step-by-step logically valid procedure demonstrating its validity according to strictly universal, ideal, and necessary logical laws. In this way, the laws of pure logic completely determine its internal structure. Moreover, these laws and these proofs are all knowable a priori, with selfevident insight. So not only is pure logic independent of any other theoretical science, in that it requires no other science in order to ground its core notion of demonstration, it also provides both epistemic and semantic foundations for every other theoretical science, as well as every practical discipline or „technology. “ To the extent that pure logic is the foundation of every other. (shrink)

In this paper we (i) identify the notion of ‘essentially non-conceptual content’ by critically analyzing the recent and contemporary debate about non-conceptual content, (ii) work out the basics of broadly Kantian theory of essentially non-conceptual content in relation to a corresponding theory of conceptual content, and then (iii) demonstrate one effective application of the Kantian theory of essentially non-conceptual content by using this theory to provide a ‘minimalist’ solution to the problem of perceptual self-knowledge which is raised by Strong Externalism.

This study examined cognitive predictors of susceptibility to orientation illusions: Poggendorff, Ponzo, and Zöllner. It was assumed that lower efficiency of information processing in WM and higher field dependence are conducive to orientation illusions. 61 architects aged M = 29, +/- 1.6, and 49 university students aged M = 23.53, +/- 4.24, were tested with Witkin’s EFT to assess their field dependence; the SWATT method was used as a measure of WM efficiency, and susceptibility to visual illusions was verified with (...) a series of computer tasks. We obtained a small range of the explained variance in the regression models including FDI and WM indicators. On the basis of WM efficiency indicators, we managed to confirm the existence of memory predictors of susceptibility to illusions. Among the architects, lower efficiency of WM processing and higher field dependence are responsible for greater susceptibility to orientation illusions. (shrink)

This article offers an insight into Yoḥanan Alemanno’s study of the ‘art of thinking’ through his notes from Averroes’s commentaries on Posterior Analytics, De anima and Parva naturalia. This case study represents an important example of the 15th-century Jewish learning based on the Arabic-Hebrew philosophical tradition and shows the continuity between the Provençal world and the Italian Renaissance. The textual appendix included at the end of the article aims at showing how Alemanno selected portions of Averroes’s commentaries on logic and (...) psychology that define the role of the faculty of imagination and the processes through which we acquire true knowledge. (shrink)