Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Wang Chong, Truth, And Quasi-Pluralism, Lajos L. Brons

Lajos Brons

In (2011) McLeod suggested that the first century Chinese philosopher Wang Chong 王充 may have been a pluralist about truth. In this reply I contest McLeod's interpretation of Wang Chong, and suggest "quasi-pluralism" (albeit more as an alternative to pluralism than as an interpretation of Wang Chong), which combines primitivism about the concept of truth with pluralism about justification.

Othering, An Analysis, Lajos L. Brons

Lajos Brons

Othering is the construction and identification of the self or in-group and the other or out-group in mutual, unequal opposition by attributing relative inferiority and/or radical alienness to the other/out-group. The notion of othering spread from feminist theory and post-colonial studies to other areas of the humanities and social sciences, but is originally rooted in Hegel’s dialectic of identification and distantiation in the encounter of the self with some other in his “Master-Slave dialectic”. In this paper, after reviewing the philosophical and psychological background of othering, I distinguish two kinds of othering, “crude” and “sophisticated”, that differ in the logical …

Anarchism As Metaphilosophy, Lajos L. Brons

Lajos Brons

Philosophy once started as the critical reflection on relatively ordinary human concerns. Increasing specialization has moved the discipline farther and farther away from these concerns, however, undermining its relevance outside the academy, but has also resulting in an ever increasing fragmentation. This fragmentation has further divided the field into a large number of esoteric communities that hardly understand each other. "Further divided", because philosophy was already divided into schools and traditions that seem to speak mutually unintelligible languages. In addition to these problems for philosophy as a discipline or "cultural genre" (Rorty), this situation also creates a problem for individual …

Virtue Ethics, Rule Of Law, And Self-Restriction, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

Moral Demands And Ethical Theory: The Case Of Consequentialism, Attila Tanyi

Attila Tanyi

Morality is demanding; this is a platitude. It is thus no surprise when we find that moral theories too, when we look into what they require, turn out to be demanding. However, there is at least one moral theory – consequentialism – that is said to be beset by this demandingness problem. This calls for an explanation: Why only consequentialism? This then leads to related questions: What is the demandingness problematic about? What exactly does it claim? Finally, there is the question of what we do if we accept that there is a demandingness problem for consequentialism: How can consequentialists …

On The Intrinsic Value Of Genetic Integrity, Attila Tanyi

Attila Tanyi

Ought We To Forget What We Cannot Forget? A Reply To Sybille Schmidt, Attila Tanyi

Attila Tanyi

This is a short response to Sybille Schmidt's paper (in the same volume) "Is There an Ethics of Forgetting?". The response starts out by admitting that forgetting is an essential function of human existence, that it serves, as it were, an important evolutionary function: that it is good, since it contributes to our well-being, to have the ability to forget. But this does not give us as answer, affirmative or not, to Schmidt’s title question: “Is There an Ethics of Forgetting?” The main impediment to answering this question, certainly to answering it in the affirmative, seems to be a problem …

G. A. Cohen Why Socialism? Című Könyvéről (On G. A. Cohen’S Why Socialism?), Attila Tanyi

Attila Tanyi

Die Melancholie, Der Geist Des Kapitalismus Und Die Depression, In Burkard Sievers (Ed.), Sozialanalyse Und Psychosoziale Dynamik Von Organisationen, Ausgewählte Beitrage Der Zeitschrift Freie Assoziationen, Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag, 2015, Pp. 77-104, Isbn-13: 978-3-8379-2495-4., Marco Solinas

Marco Solinas

"Der Aufsatz zielt darauf, der Prozess der historischen Überlagerung, Substitution und Verbreitung des theoretischen Paradigmas der Depression gegenüber jenem der Melancholie darzustellen. Im ersten Teil wird versucht, einige der einschneidenden Eigenschaften der Thematisierungen der Melancholie in der Frühen Neuzeit anzugeben, auch im Verhältnis zum Geist des Kapitalismus. Nachdem eine Skizze der Entstehung der moderne Kategorie der Depression, geht es darum, den Verlauf nachzuzeichnen, der im 20. Jahrhundert zu ihrer Transformation in ein weitläufiges theoretisches Paradigma geführt hat, das schließlich jenes der Melancholie ersetzt hat. Der zweite Teil stellt den Versuch dar, eine Zeitdiagnose umzureißen: An dieser Stelle ist die psychosoziale …

Myths About The State Of Nature And The Reality Of Stateless Societies, Karl Widerquist, Grant Mccall

Karl Widerquist

Distributive Justice And Distributed Obligations, William A. Edmundson

William A. Edmundson

Collectivities, that is, groups constituted by some procedure for making group decisions, can be agents. Collectivities can be moral agents if they can appreciate and act upon moral reasons. Collectivities thus can have obligations that are not simply the aggregate of preexisting obligations of their members. Certain kinds of collective obligation distribute over their membership, i.e., become members’ obligations to do a fair share to fulfill the collectivity’s obligation. In incremental good cases, i.e., those in which a member’s fair share would go part way toward fulfilling the collectivity’s obligation, each member has an unconditional obligation to contribute that share. …