This is the first comprehensive account of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, highlighting its moral, political, legal, economic, cultural, and psychological aspects. Contrasting Kant’s views with those of his German contemporaries, and relating them to current debates, Pauline Kleingeld sheds new light on texts that have been hitherto neglected or underestimated. In clear and carefully argued discussions, she shows that Kant’s philosophical cosmopolitanism underwent a radical transformation in the mid 1790s and that the resulting theory is philosophically stronger than is usually thought. (...) Using the work of figures such as Fichte, Cloots, Forster, Hegewisch, Wieland, and Novalis, Kleingeld analyzes Kant’s arguments regarding the relationship between cosmopolitanism and patriotism, the importance of states, the ideal of an international federation, cultural pluralism, race, global economic justice, and the psychological feasibility of the cosmopolitan ideal. In doing so, she reveals a broad spectrum of positions in cosmopolitan theory that are relevant to current discussions of cosmopolitanism. -/- TABLE OF CONTENTS: Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. World citizens in their own country: Wieland and Kant on moral cosmopolitanism and patriotism; 2. Universal republic of world citizens or international federation?: Cloots and Kant on global peace; 3. Global hospitality: Kant's concept of cosmopolitan right; 4. Hierarchy or diversity?: Forster and Kant on race, culture, and cosmopolitanism; 5. International trade and justice: Hegewisch and Kant on cosmopolitanism and globalization; 6. Cosmopolitanism and feeling: Novalis and Kant on the development of a universal human community; 7. Kant's cosmopolitanism and current philosophical debates; Bibliography; Index. (shrink)

In the present book, Pauline Phemister argues against traditional Anglo-American interpretations of Leibniz as an idealist who conceives ultimate reality as a plurality of mind-like immaterial beings and for whom physical bodies are ultimately unreal and our perceptions of them illusory. Re-reading the texts without the prior assumption of idealism allows the more material aspects of Leibniz's metaphysics to emerge. Leibniz is found to advance a synthesis of idealism and materialism. His ontology posits indivisible, living, animal-like corporeal substances as (...) the real metaphysical constituents of the universe; his epistemology combines sense-experience and reason; and his ethics fuses confused perceptions and insensible appetites with distinct perceptions and rational choice. In the light of his sustained commitment to the reality of bodies, Phemister re-examines his dynamics, the doctrine of pre-established harmony and his views on freedom. The image of Leibniz as a rationalist philosopher who values activity and reason over passivity and sense-experience is replaced by the one of a philosopher who recognises that, in the created world, there can only be activity if there is also passivity; minds, souls and forms if there is also matter; good if there is evil; perfection if there is imperfection. (shrink)

Post-modernism offers a revolutionary approach to the study of society: in questioning the validity of modern science and the notion of objective knowledge, this movement discards history, rejects humanism, and resists any truth claims. In this comprehensive assessment of post-modernism, Pauline Rosenau traces its origins in the humanities and describes how its key concepts are today being applied to, and are restructuring, the social sciences. Serving as neither an opponent nor an apologist for the movement, she cuts through post-modernism's (...) often incomprehensible jargon in order to offer all readers a lucid exposition of its propositions. Rosenau shows how the post-modern challenge to reason and rational organization radiates across academic fields. For example, in psychology it questions the conscious, logical, coherent subject; in public administration it encourages a retreat from central planning and from reliance on specialists; in political science it calls into question the authority of hierarchical, bureaucratic decision-making structures that function in carefully defined spheres; in anthropology it inspires the protection of local, primitive cultures from First World attempts to reorganize them. In all of the social sciences, she argues, post-modernism repudiates representative democracy and plays havoc with the very meaning of "left-wing" and "right-wing." Rosenau also highlights how post-modernism has inspired a new generation of social movements, ranging from New Age sensitivities to Third World fundamentalism. In weighing its strengths and weaknesses, the author examines two major tendencies within post-modernism, the largely European, skeptical form and the predominantly Anglo-North-American form, which suggests alternative political, social, and cultural projects. She draws examples from anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, law, planning, political science, psychology, sociology, urban studies, and women's studies, and provides a glossary of post-modern terms to assist the uninitiated reader with special meanings not found in standard dictionaries. (shrink)

Paulin and Cahill‐Lane explore the origins of event processing and event prediction in animal evolution. They propose that the evolutionary benefit of being able to predict and thus to quickly react to anticipated events may have triggered the evolution of the earliest nervous systems.

The Montagovian hypothesis of direct model-theoretic interpretation of syntactic surface structures is supported by an account of the semantics of binding that makes no use of variables, syntactic indices, or assignment functions & shows that the interpretation of a large portion of so-called variable-binding phenomena can dispense with the level of logical form without incurring equivalent complexity elsewhere in the system. Variable-free semantics hypothesizes local interpretation of each surface constituent; binding is formalized as a type-shifting operation on expressions that denote (...) functions, & sentences containing a free pronoun are analyzed as a function from individuals to propositions having a meaning of type (e,t). Standard weak crossover effects & binding patterns in sentences with multiple pronouns are shown to submit to straightforward type-theoretic treatments that do not rely on indexation. The variable-free semantics smoothly implements full surface compositionality & requires less machinery than standard accounts to handle functional questions, their answers, sloppy inferences, & across-the-board binding. 73 References. J. Hitchcock. (shrink)

This chapter proposes a solution to the Trolley Problem in terms of the Kantian prohibition on using a person ‘merely as a means.’ A solution of this type seems impossible due to the difficulties it is widely thought to encounter in the scenario known as the Loop case. The chapter offers a conception of ‘using merely as a means’ that explains the morally relevant difference between the classic Bystander and Footbridge cases. It then shows, contrary to the standard view, that (...) a bystander who diverts the trolley in the Loop case need not be using someone ‘merely as a means’ in doing so. This makes it possible to show why the Loop scenario does not undermine the explanation of the salient moral difference between the Bystander and Footbridge cases. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of realism in relationship to contemporary serial fiction. Drawing on The Bureau, it argues that spy TV series are “realistic” not because they correspond to reality but because of their impact on reality. It begins by giving an overview of the many ways in which “realism,” in the ordinary sense of a resemblance with reality, served as the working framework for The Bureau’s team. It then identifies three distinct types of realisms in the series. The (...) first is a “fictional realism,” namely the ability of The Bureau to conform to the aesthetic and narrative conventions of realistic fictions. The second type of realism, which I qualify as “ordinary,” refers to the possibilities offered by the show’s aesthetics and the enmeshment of The Bureau with viewers’ ordinary experience. The third type of “performative realism” refers to the series’ impact on shared representations and reality. By providing a common language about the secret activities of the state, The Bureau has gone from being a framed version of reality to being one of the defining frameworks through which state secrecy is experienced both individually and collectively, by insiders and the public at large. (shrink)

In this seminal exploration of the nature and future of African philosophy, Paulin J. Hountondji attacks a myth popularized by ethnophilosophers such as Placide Temples and Alexis Kagame that there is an indigenous, collective African philosophy, separate and distinct from the Western philosophical tradition. Hountondji contends that ideological manifestations of this view that stress the uniqueness of the African experience are protonationalist reactions against colonialism conducted, paradoxically, in the terms of colonialist discourse.

In this essay, “The Principle of Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory: Its Rise and Fall,” Pauline Kleingeld notes that Kant’s Principle of Autonomy, which played a central role in both the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, disappeared by the time of the Metaphysics of Morals. She argues that its disappearance is due to significant changes in Kant’s political philosophy. The Principle of Autonomy states that one ought to act as if one were (...) giving universal laws through one’s maxims. The criterion of just legislation that Kant accepted in the mid-1780s does not require any actual consent on the part of the citizens—genuine universality is sufficient for a law to be just. Hence, at that time, Kant could indeed explicate the criterion governing the moral permissibility of one’s maxims by drawing an analogy with the criterion governing the justice of political laws. In the Metaphysics of Morals and in other works in the 1790s, however, he added the further condition that laws must be given with the consent of the citizens. With this further condition, the moral criterion was no longer fully analogous to the criterion for political laws being just. Accordingly, Kleingeld argues, Kant dropped the Principle of Autonomy, which was firmly based on that analogy. (shrink)

Kant is famous for his universalist moral theory, which emphasizes human dignity, equality, and autonomy. Yet he also defended sexist and (until late in his life) racist views. In this essay, I address the question of how current readers of Kant should deal with Kant’s sexism and racism. I first provide a brief description of Kant’s views on sexual and racial hierarchies, and of the way they intersect. I then turn to the question of whether we should set aside Kant’s (...) sexism and racism or ‘translate’ his egalitarian principles into inegalitarian ones. I argue for a third position, namely, that we should highlight the tensions that pervade Kant’s theory. In the final section, I argue that the use of inclusive language and female pronouns in recent discussions of Kant’s moral and political philosophy carries significant risks. I end by articulating several preconditions for fruitfully using Kant’s moral principles to criticize sexism and racism. (shrink)

Let me straight from the beginning confess one thing: I am not happy with the phrase “African Philosophy” used to describe a subject-matter, a specific discipline in the university curriculum. Why? Because it seems to particularize a kind of intellectual production taking place in Africa and to deny its universal validity. It apparently means, to use the words by Jonathan Chimakonam himself, “a bordersensitive, culture-bound exclusive system that holds only in Africa and is not universally applicable” This particularization, however, has (...) its own story. I wish first in this paper to recall briefly the earliest stage of this story and then discuss alternative ways to remain authentically African while doing philosophy in Africa today. Keywords: Ethnophilosophy, African philosophy, Africa, Philosophy, Calabar. (shrink)

The work of seventeenth-century polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz has proved inspirational to philosophers and scientists alike. In this thought-provoking book, Pauline Phemister explores the ecological potential of Leibniz’s dynamic, pluralist, panpsychist, metaphysical system. She argues that Leibniz’s philosophy has a renewed relevance in the twenty-first century, particularly in relation to the environmental change and crises that threaten human and non-human life on earth. Drawing on Leibniz’s theory of soul-like, interconnected metaphysical entities he termed 'monads', Phemister explains how an individual’s (...) true good is inextricably linked to the good of all. Phemister also finds in Leibniz’s works the rudiments of a theory of empathy and strategies for strengthening human feelings of compassion towards all living things. Leibniz and the Environment is essential reading for historians of philosophy and environmental philosophers, and will also be of interest to anyone seeking a metaphysical perspective from which to pursue environmental action and policy. (shrink)

Brown, Pauline I recently came across an article by Meg Keneally in The Guardian. I can think of no better description of our policies and practices on immigration detention than the following extract: It's a well-worn solution to an intractable human problem involving a large group of inconvenient people - ship them off somewhere, put a wall around them, and try to forget about the whole thing. You could argue that our country was founded as a result of this (...) approach. You could also argue that we learned our lesson too well, because it's an approach we are still using when it comes to vulnerable people who have undertaken hazardous ocean journeys - and the outcomes are no more humane than they were in the 18th and 19th centuries. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s views on politics, peace, and history have lost none of their relevance since their publication more than two centuries ago. This volume contains a comprehensive collection of Kant’s writings on international relations theory and political philosophy, superbly translated and accompanied by stimulating essays. Pauline Kleingeld provides a lucid introduction to the main themes of the volume, and three essays by distinguished contributors follow: Jeremy Waldron on Kant’s theory of the state; Michael W. Doyle on the implications of (...) Kant’s political theory for his theory of international relations; and Allen W. Wood on Kant’s philosophical approach to history and its current relevance. (shrink)

Le rapprochement initié au lendemain du 11 septembre entre scénaristes hollywoodiens et acteurs de la sécurité et de la défense dans le domaine de l’anticipation stratégique est ici interprété à l’aune d’une certaine parenté entre deux univers que tout semble a priori opposer. Il s’agit d’explorer ce que cette collaboration dit du renseignement dans son rapport au temps et à l’incertitude, pour ensuite examiner les éventuelles ressemblances entre renseignement et fiction dans leur rapport à la fictionnalité.

Résumé L’art américain des années 1960 et 1970 témoigne de mutations singulières à la fois en termes de pratiques et de lieux qui les accueillent. Le processus – processus de création, processus d’altération des matériaux, de développement de l’image filmé, de déploiement des gestes dansés ou d’une musique sérielle – œuvre comme une expérience primant sur l’objet et ouvrant vers la conjonction de temporalités distinctes, celle de l’atelier et celle de l’espace d’exposition. Le glissement esthétique de l’œuvre vers le processus, (...) accompagné d’un glissement sémantique de l’œuvre vers le « travail », participe alors d’un contexte plus vaste, dépassant le domaine artistique, comme un symptôme de mutations politiques, sociales et institutionnelles. (shrink)

Introduction: Geographers at the beach -- Positivism: Or, roughly, what you see is the knowledge you get -- Critical rationalism: Learning from our mistakes -- Marxism and critical realism: Seekig what lies eneath -- Phenomenology and post-phenomenology: The essence of experience, or, seeing a shark is different from seeing a dolphin -- Social constructtionism and feminism: It's all down to us -- Structuralism, poststructurlism and postmodernism: Lies at the surface -- Complexity theory: From butterfly wings to fairy rings -- Moral (...) philosophy and ethics: Right and wrong in geography -- Thinking, doing, constructing geography. (shrink)

This paper discusses how major changes in methodology, ideology and the points of view of researchers have given linguistics a new opportunity to study animal semiotics and return to the “animal language” question. The article presents new linguistic perspectives from language theory but also from sociolinguistics, language development studies or the study of sign language. This paper shows how these perspective changes have scientifically modified the way linguists approach animal communication and cleared a path for new study fields such as (...) biosemiotics and zoosemiotics. The second part of this article introduces other significant evolutions in various scientific fields, such as biology, neuroscience or ethology, but also philosophy, and how these changes are going in the same directions as linguistics’. It demonstrates how animal linguistics is without doubt a completely interdisciplinary subject where efficient research is only possible by paradigm changes in all related fields. The last part of the paper introduces some of these possible new study prospects. (shrink)

Contemplating Suicide: The Language and Ethnics of Self Harm By Gavin J. Fairbairn Routledge, 1995. Pp. xxx. ISBN 415?10606. £12.95(pbk). Religious Transformation in Western Society. The End of Happiness By Harvie Ferguson, Routledge, 1992. Pp. xvi + 269. ISBN 0?415?02574?5. £XX.xx. Feminism and the Self: The Web of Identity By Morwenna Griffiths Routledge, 1995. Pp. 191. ISBN 0?415?09821?1. £12.99 (pbk). Faith, Scepticism and Personal Identity. A Festschrift for Terence Penelhum Edited by J.J. Macintosh and H. A. Meynell University of Calgary (...) Press, 1994. Pp. vii + 304. CAN$27.95. The Shape of Space (second edition) By Graham Nerlich Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 0?521?45645?2. Logical Learning Theory: A Human Teleology and its Empirical Support By Joseph F. Rychlak University of Nebraska Press, 1994. Pp. 387. ISBN 0?8032?3904?1. £32.95 Philosophical Idealism and Christian Belief By Alan P.F. Sell University of Wales Press, 1995. Pp. x + 338. (shrink)

The present article will introduce a proposition of semiotic methodology that can be used to diagnose cohabitation issues in cities between human inhabitants and non-human liminals. This methodology is built on a few sets of data that should be easy to obtain in any important city, and can therefore be utilised in a variety of situations. The different sets of data allow us to map the cohabitation semiosphere (following Hoffmeyer’s meaning of the term) of the situation along three axes: the (...) materiality of the situation, the symbolic significance of the relationship, and the emotional significance of the interaction. These three aspects allow us to see gaps, paradoxes and points of consistency, enabling complex and multi-level understanding of the situation. (shrink)

Within Kantian ethics and Kant scholarship, it is widely assumed that autonomy consists in the self-legislation of the principle of morality. In this paper, we challenge this view on both textual and philosophical grounds. We argue that Kant never unequivocally claims that the Moral Law is self-legislated and that he is not philosophically committed to this claim by his overall conception of morality. Instead, the idea of autonomy concerns only substantive moral laws, such as the law that one ought not (...) to lie. We argue that autonomy, thus understood, does not have the paradoxical features widely associated with it. Rather, our account highlights a theoretical option that has been neglected in the current debate on whether Kant is best interpreted as a realist or a constructivist, namely that the Moral Law is an a priori principle of pure practical reason that neither requires nor admits of being grounded in anything else. (shrink)

The goal of this study is to reconstruct and evaluate the systematic role of Kant's views on history within his ‛critical' philosophy. Kant's philosophy of history has been neglected in the literature, largely due to the widespread though mistaken perception that it is at odds with central assumptions of Kant’s ‘critical’ thought. I discuss Kant's most important texts on history and examine the relationship between Kant's view of history and the central tenets of his Critiques (in particular, Kant's conception of (...) teleology, his notion of an 'interest of reason,' and the problem of the possibility of the highest good). I argue that Kant's philosophy of history should be seen as an integral (though not entirely unproblematic) part of his mature philosophy. I show this in part by correcting the standard view of Kant's philosophy of history, and in part by highlighting hitherto neglected aspects of his critical philosophy. (shrink)

A fundamental goal of biology is to understand how novel phenotypes evolved through changes in existing genes. The Dictyostelia or social amoebas represent a simple form of multicellularity, where starving cells aggregate to build fruiting structures. This review summarizes efforts to provide a framework for investigating the genetic changes that generated novel morphologies in the Dictyostelia. The foundation is a recently constructed molecular phylogeny of the Dictyostelia, which was used to examine trends in the evolution of novel forms and in (...) the divergence of genes that shape these forms. There is a major trend towards the formation of large unbranched fruiting bodies, which is correlated with the use of cyclic AMP (cAMP) as a secreted signal to coordinate cell aggregation. The role of cAMP in aggregation arose through co‐option of a pathway that originally acted to coordinate fruiting body formation. The genotypic changes that caused this innovation and the role of dynamic cAMP signaling in defining fruiting body size and pattern throughout social amoeba evolution are discussed. BioEssays 29:635–644, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In his critical works of the 1780's, Kant claims, seemingly inconsistently, that (1) theoretical and practical reason are one and the same reason, applied differently, (2) that he still needs to show that they are, and (3) that theoretical and practical reason are united. I first argue that current interpretations of Kant's doctrine of the unity of reason are insufficient. But rather than concluding that Kant’s doctrine becomes coherent only in the Critique of Judgment, I show that the three statements (...) are compatible, providing a new and more coherent account of Kant's 1780's doctrine of the unity of reason. (shrink)

Now available Open Access! See the Bloomsburycollections URL below. -/- Correct bibliographical information is as follows: Gottfried Achenwall, _Natural Law: A Translation of the Textbook for Kant's Lectures on Legal and Political Philosophy_, edited by Pauline Kleingeld, translated by Corinna Vermeulen, with an Introduction by Paul Guyer. London: Bloomsbury, 2020. -/- As the first translation into any modern language of Achenwall’s Ius naturae, from the 1763 edition used by Immanuel Kant, this is an essential work for anyone interested in (...) Kant, the natural law tradition or the history of legal and political theory. For over twenty years, Kant used this book as the basis for his lectures on natural law. It influenced his legal and political philosophy as well as his ethics, and it is indispensable for understanding Kant’s Feyerabend Lectures on Natural Law and his Metaphysics of Morals. -/- Articulating his theory of natural law with clear definitions and precise distinctions, Achenwall offers a lucid account that includes instructive comparisons with the work of Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf, Wolff and others. The volume also contains an Introduction by the eminent Kant scholar Paul Guyer, comparing Achenwall’s theory to the legal and political philosophy of Kant’s Doctrine of Right, and a concordance correlating Achenwall’s Natural Law to Kant’s Feyerabend Lectures on Natural Law. (shrink)

The central fact underlying all relations is the question of power and how it can be used to get one's way. When power does not work, we move to compromise. This paper questions the validity of compromise as an effective means of settling differences. My standpoint is that compromise debases relationships, is wrong in principle and does not work in practice either. There is a better strategy: integration, when the contending parties find the wider solution that includes both their interests. (...) Ethically right, integration also works better in practice, for it leads to longer-term, more productive and happier relations. (shrink)

This chapter offers a diagnosis of misconstructions in anti‐humanist feminism and shows how a radical or critical humanism might help to theorize feminism's critical, emancipatory interests. It traces something of the troubled history of modern feminism's relationship with humanism. The chapter suggests that feminism's repudiation has been based on a narrow version; on one that confuses humanism with the rationalist agendas of modern science. It also considers how feminism has rebuilt itself by reinterpreting its critical agendas through the lens provided (...) by critical humanism. Todorov stresses that humanism is concerned with human ways of knowing. He advances three general propositions: that all humans belong to the same species, that they are inherently sociable, and finally that they are essentially indeterminate. Feminism's critical purposes is re‐fashioned and strengthened as it rearticulates its appropriations along with dynamic changes occurring within Enlightenment thinking. (shrink)

Scholarship on the late fifth-century BC New Music Revolution has mostly relied on the evidence provided by Athenaeus, the pseudo-Plutarch De musica and a few other late sources. To this date, however, very little has been done to understand Athenaeus' own rale in shaping our understanding of the musical culture of that period. This article argues that the historical context provided by Athenaeus in the section of the Deipnosophistae that cites passages of Melanippides, Telestes and Pratinas on the mythology of (...) the aulos (14.616e-617f) is not a credible reflection of the contemporary aestheties and strategies of the authors and their works. Athenaeus is both following the structure of Aristotle's discussion of the topic of the aulos in Politics 8. 1341a-1342b and accepting the elite ideological position given there. Athenaeus' text thus does not provide evidence for the historical context in which late fifth-century authors were composing, but rather constitutes an attempt to illustrate Aristotle's argument with poetic examples from late fifth-century poets. (shrink)

Cet article traite de la fabrication des héroïnes en Grèce ancienne. Le traité « Vertus de Femmes » (Gunaikon Aretai, Mulierum Virtutes) de Plutarque propose des exemples de femmes ayant fait preuve d’arété dans leur vie. L’étude des quelques histoires permet de comprendre les caractéristiques de cette valeur féminine : les actes de bravoure, les leçons de courage, le consentement, les bons conseils, la résistance au tyran… Les femmes sont louées par la cité, mais la reconnaissance publique ne se traduit (...) jamais dans le domaine politique. La construction de l’héroïsme en Grèce ancienne est en rapport direct avec les coutumes et les valeurs de ces sociétés anciennes. Cet article relève à la fois de l’histoire du genre et de l’histoire du politique. (shrink)

Gottfried Achenwall, _Prolegomena to Natural Law_, ed. Pauline Kleingeld, trans. Corinna Vermeulen. Groningen: University of Groningen Press, 2020. Open Access, available via the 'direct download' link below. This is the first English translation of _Prolegomena iuris naturalis_ by Gottfried Achenwall (1719–1772). In this book, Achenwall presents the philosophical foundation for his comprehensive theory of natural law. The book is of interest not only because it provides the basis for a careful, systematic, and well-respected eighteenth-century theory of natural law in (...) the Leibniz-Wolffian tradition, but also because it sheds important light on the work of Immanuel Kant. Achenwall’s work influenced Kant’s legal and political philosophy as well as his ethics, and it is indispensable for understanding Kant’s _Feyerabend Lectures on Natural Law_ and his _Metaphysics of Morals_. The present volume complements the translation of Achenwall’s handbook, _Natural Law_ (London: Bloomsbury, 2020). (shrink)

The word ‘cosmopolitan’, which derives from the Greek word kosmopolitês (‘citizen of the world’), has been used to describe a wide variety of important views in moral and socio political philosophy. The nebulous core shared by all cosmopolitan views is the idea that all human beings, regardless of their political affiliation, do (or at least can) belong to a single community, and that this community should be cultivated. Different versions of cosmopolitanism envision this community in different ways, some focusing on (...) political institutions, others on moral norms or relationships, and still others focusing on shared markets or forms of cultural expression. The philosophical interest in cosmopolitanism lies in its challenge to commonly recognized attachments to fellow citizens, the local state, parochially shared cultures, and the like. (shrink)

In this volume, he responds with autobiographical and philosophical reflection to the dialogue and controversy he has provoked.