Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1353/rvm.2023.a906813
Kristoffer Willert
Abstract: In the epicenter of his attempt to justify the “objective validity” of morality and freedom in the Critique of Practical Reason , Kant introduces a so-called fact of reason, which is rendered as the fact that human beings are consciou s of the moral ought’s categorical authority. However, few parts of Kant’s thinking have bemused commentators as much as this. In this article, the author explores a set of intersecting problems related to the fact of reason: (1) the problem of its general argumentative role in Kant’s practical philosophy, (2) the problem of the fact as a brute fact . He argues that both problems can be understood and resolved only if we regard Kant’s introduction of the fact of reason as an implicit attempt to articulate intrinsic problems with reductive explanations of morality. His main claim, which has been surprisingly absent in most interpretations of Kant’s fact of reason, will be that the fact of reason functions as an undeniable yet improvable fact (similar to mathematical principles) from which other practical truths (such as the objective reality of freedom) can be derived. As Kant says unambiguously in the Jäsche-Logic : the “reality” of the moral law “is an axiom.”
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Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1353/rvm.2023.a906820
Jonah N. Schupbach
Reviewed by: The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn: Incommensurability in Science by Thomas S. KUHN Jonah N. Schupbach KUHN, Thomas S. The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn: Incommensurability in Science. Edited by Bojana Mladenović. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2022. xlviii + 302 pp. Cloth, $27.50 [End Page 151] When The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was first published in 1962, Kuhn (1922–1996) warned readers that “space limits” forced him to present his views “in an extremely condensed and schematic form.” From the start, Kuhn saw Structure as an essay in need of much more careful elaboration: “This work remains an essay rather than the full-scale book my subject will ultimately demand.” He endeavored to complete such a book late in his life but sadly died before completing the work. Nonetheless, we may gather a good sense of what this more careful study would have included by piecing together some important unpublished lecture notes and working drafts that he left behind. In The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn: Incommensurability in Science, editor Bojana Mladenović collects the most important three of these previously unpublished writings, making them generally available for the first time. The bulk of the collection is taken up by the working draft (about two-thirds complete) of the book itself. This is preceded by two finished works that lend framing to that draft. In the essay “Scientific Knowledge as Historical Product” (1986), Kuhn contrasts his developmental approach to the epistemology and history of science with the traditional foundationalist approach it seeks to displace. “The Presence of Past Science” (1987) summarizes Kuhn’s mature views on the history and philosophy of scientific development, canvasing much of the same terrain as the book was to cover in more detail. The collection also includes an introduction and abstracts by Mladenović, in which she provides context for the three writings, relates their themes, and fills in the blanks regarding the likely contents of unfinished chapters. Like Structure, these works argue against the alethic stance that science progresses by accumulating progressively more truths. Also as in Structure, Kuhn denies that this amounts to rejecting science’s cognitive authority or a legitimate sense in which science may be said to progress. Indeed, Kuhn claims that it is by understanding the incoherence of an alethic account that we gain a more accurate understanding of science’s real cognitive authority and progress. It is Kuhn’s more elaborate explanation and defense of this claim that distinguishes these last writings. As suggested by this collection’s subtitle, the central concept in Kuhn’s developed account is incommensurability. Kuhn goes beyond Structure’s more cursory remarks on incommensurability of paradigms, according to which different meanings assigned to terms lead to a breakdown of communication between normal-scientific traditions. On Kuhn’s developed account, semant
{"title":"The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn: Incommensurability in Science by Thomas S. KUHN (review)","authors":"Jonah N. Schupbach","doi":"10.1353/rvm.2023.a906820","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/rvm.2023.a906820","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn: Incommensurability in Science by Thomas S. KUHN Jonah N. Schupbach KUHN, Thomas S. The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn: Incommensurability in Science. Edited by Bojana Mladenović. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2022. xlviii + 302 pp. Cloth, $27.50 [End Page 151] When The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was first published in 1962, Kuhn (1922–1996) warned readers that “space limits” forced him to present his views “in an extremely condensed and schematic form.” From the start, Kuhn saw Structure as an essay in need of much more careful elaboration: “This work remains an essay rather than the full-scale book my subject will ultimately demand.” He endeavored to complete such a book late in his life but sadly died before completing the work. Nonetheless, we may gather a good sense of what this more careful study would have included by piecing together some important unpublished lecture notes and working drafts that he left behind. In The Last Writings of Thomas S. Kuhn: Incommensurability in Science, editor Bojana Mladenović collects the most important three of these previously unpublished writings, making them generally available for the first time. The bulk of the collection is taken up by the working draft (about two-thirds complete) of the book itself. This is preceded by two finished works that lend framing to that draft. In the essay “Scientific Knowledge as Historical Product” (1986), Kuhn contrasts his developmental approach to the epistemology and history of science with the traditional foundationalist approach it seeks to displace. “The Presence of Past Science” (1987) summarizes Kuhn’s mature views on the history and philosophy of scientific development, canvasing much of the same terrain as the book was to cover in more detail. The collection also includes an introduction and abstracts by Mladenović, in which she provides context for the three writings, relates their themes, and fills in the blanks regarding the likely contents of unfinished chapters. Like Structure, these works argue against the alethic stance that science progresses by accumulating progressively more truths. Also as in Structure, Kuhn denies that this amounts to rejecting science’s cognitive authority or a legitimate sense in which science may be said to progress. Indeed, Kuhn claims that it is by understanding the incoherence of an alethic account that we gain a more accurate understanding of science’s real cognitive authority and progress. It is Kuhn’s more elaborate explanation and defense of this claim that distinguishes these last writings. As suggested by this collection’s subtitle, the central concept in Kuhn’s developed account is incommensurability. Kuhn goes beyond Structure’s more cursory remarks on incommensurability of paradigms, according to which different meanings assigned to terms lead to a breakdown of communication between normal-scientific traditions. On Kuhn’s developed account, semant","PeriodicalId":46225,"journal":{"name":"REVIEW OF METAPHYSICS","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135255315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1353/rvm.2023.a906819
D. N. Byrne
{"title":"Art and Politics in Roger Scruton’s Conservative Philosophy by Ferenc HÖRCHER (review)","authors":"D. N. Byrne","doi":"10.1353/rvm.2023.a906819","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/rvm.2023.a906819","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46225,"journal":{"name":"REVIEW OF METAPHYSICS","volume":"122 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135255305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1353/rvm.2023.a906828
Dominic V. Cassella
{"title":"Matter and Mathematics: An Essentialist Account of the Laws of Nature by Andrew YOUNAN (review)","authors":"Dominic V. Cassella","doi":"10.1353/rvm.2023.a906828","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/rvm.2023.a906828","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46225,"journal":{"name":"REVIEW OF METAPHYSICS","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135255308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1353/rvm.2023.a906811
Sanja Särman
Abstract: The author explores whether Spinoza can consistently maintain two doctrines which he espouses in his Ethics . The first doctrine is the equivalence between perfection, reality, being, and essence. The second doctrine is the Metaphysical Difference between that in which essence and existence are identical (God) and those things for which essence and existence are distinct (everything but God). The article is structured as follows. First, the author shows that these two key doctrines apparently clash. Second, she shows two ways in which this clash can be avoided. The first way consists in drawing a line between mere being and existence. This reading of Spinoza has sometimes been called “Platonist” in the secondary literature. The second way consists in denying that the Metaphysical Difference cuts reality at its joints. Instead, the Metaphysical Difference, on this reading, differentiates between appearances (those things in which essence and existence come apart) and reality (that thing in which they are one). This reading of Spinoza has sometimes been called Eleatic in the secondary literature. The author concludes by suggesting that, if the Spinozist rejects both the Eleatic and the Platonist approach, she is obliged to find another way to salvage her system.
{"title":"Essence, Existence, and Being: An Inconsistency in Spinoza’s Metaphysics?","authors":"Sanja Särman","doi":"10.1353/rvm.2023.a906811","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/rvm.2023.a906811","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: The author explores whether Spinoza can consistently maintain two doctrines which he espouses in his Ethics . The first doctrine is the equivalence between perfection, reality, being, and essence. The second doctrine is the Metaphysical Difference between that in which essence and existence are identical (God) and those things for which essence and existence are distinct (everything but God). The article is structured as follows. First, the author shows that these two key doctrines apparently clash. Second, she shows two ways in which this clash can be avoided. The first way consists in drawing a line between mere being and existence. This reading of Spinoza has sometimes been called “Platonist” in the secondary literature. The second way consists in denying that the Metaphysical Difference cuts reality at its joints. Instead, the Metaphysical Difference, on this reading, differentiates between appearances (those things in which essence and existence come apart) and reality (that thing in which they are one). This reading of Spinoza has sometimes been called Eleatic in the secondary literature. The author concludes by suggesting that, if the Spinozist rejects both the Eleatic and the Platonist approach, she is obliged to find another way to salvage her system.","PeriodicalId":46225,"journal":{"name":"REVIEW OF METAPHYSICS","volume":"131 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135255312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1353/rvm.2023.a906810
Victor Salas
Abstract: This essay addresses dominant critiques of Francisco Suárez’s metaphysical project raised by many contemporary philosophers of religion. Those critiques often center upon two main claims. (1) God and creature are both comprehended under the concept of being such that God amounts to just one more being among others. As such, a univocal community of being results wherein God’s divine transcendence and irreducibility to creation are destroyed. (2) Since Suárez employs a univocal concept of being when conducting his metaphysical speculations about God, he has (unwittingly) abandoned the God of Christian revelation in favor of a conceptual idol. The author argues that both critiques harbor a severe misunderstanding of Suárezian metaphysics, and that it is precisely in turning to the concept of being that Suárez defends both God’s irreducible transcendence and his incomprehensibility. Paradoxically, to think of God in terms of being is just to leave God unthought.
{"title":"Idol Or Icon? Francisco Suárez And The Concept Of Being","authors":"Victor Salas","doi":"10.1353/rvm.2023.a906810","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/rvm.2023.a906810","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: This essay addresses dominant critiques of Francisco Suárez’s metaphysical project raised by many contemporary philosophers of religion. Those critiques often center upon two main claims. (1) God and creature are both comprehended under the concept of being such that God amounts to just one more being among others. As such, a univocal community of being results wherein God’s divine transcendence and irreducibility to creation are destroyed. (2) Since Suárez employs a univocal concept of being when conducting his metaphysical speculations about God, he has (unwittingly) abandoned the God of Christian revelation in favor of a conceptual idol. The author argues that both critiques harbor a severe misunderstanding of Suárezian metaphysics, and that it is precisely in turning to the concept of being that Suárez defends both God’s irreducible transcendence and his incomprehensibility. Paradoxically, to think of God in terms of being is just to leave God unthought.","PeriodicalId":46225,"journal":{"name":"REVIEW OF METAPHYSICS","volume":"57 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135255304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1353/rvm.2023.a906812
Maximilian Tegtmeyer
Abstract: Can sensibility, as our capacity to be sensibly presented with objects, be understood independently of the understanding, as the capacity to form judgments about those objects? It is a truism that for judgments to be empirical knowledge they must agree with what sensibility presents. Moreover, it is a familiar thought that objectivity involves absolute independence from intellectual acts. The author argues that together these thoughts motivate a common reading of Kant on which operations of sensibility are conceived as intelligible independently of acts of the understanding, so that their supposed objectivity can validate judgments as empirical knowledge. He contends that there are two reasons why this epistemic compositionalism is implausible both as a reading of Kant and in itself. First, read compositionally, Kant’s Transcendental Deduction is unable to fulfill its stated aim of showing that the categories are objectively valid, that is, exemplified by the objects that sensibility presents. Second, Kant sees that sensibility by itself cannot be understood to even purport to present objects, thus undermining the very intelligibility of compositionalism. The author argues that, given these challenges, Kant’s Deduction develops an alternative account, on which operations of sensibility and acts of the understanding can be understood only together. He contends that this epistemic hylomorphism transforms the familiar thought underlying compositionalism: objectivity simultaneously involves formal agreement with intellectual acts in general and material independence from any specific such act. He thus shows how Kant reconceives our conception of objectivity by overcoming compositionalism in favor of hylomorphism.
{"title":"Sensibility, Understanding, and Kant’s Transcendental Deduction: From Epistemic Compositionalism to Epistemic Hylomorphism","authors":"Maximilian Tegtmeyer","doi":"10.1353/rvm.2023.a906812","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/rvm.2023.a906812","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Can sensibility, as our capacity to be sensibly presented with objects, be understood independently of the understanding, as the capacity to form judgments about those objects? It is a truism that for judgments to be empirical knowledge they must agree with what sensibility presents. Moreover, it is a familiar thought that objectivity involves absolute independence from intellectual acts. The author argues that together these thoughts motivate a common reading of Kant on which operations of sensibility are conceived as intelligible independently of acts of the understanding, so that their supposed objectivity can validate judgments as empirical knowledge. He contends that there are two reasons why this epistemic compositionalism is implausible both as a reading of Kant and in itself. First, read compositionally, Kant’s Transcendental Deduction is unable to fulfill its stated aim of showing that the categories are objectively valid, that is, exemplified by the objects that sensibility presents. Second, Kant sees that sensibility by itself cannot be understood to even purport to present objects, thus undermining the very intelligibility of compositionalism. The author argues that, given these challenges, Kant’s Deduction develops an alternative account, on which operations of sensibility and acts of the understanding can be understood only together. He contends that this epistemic hylomorphism transforms the familiar thought underlying compositionalism: objectivity simultaneously involves formal agreement with intellectual acts in general and material independence from any specific such act. He thus shows how Kant reconceives our conception of objectivity by overcoming compositionalism in favor of hylomorphism.","PeriodicalId":46225,"journal":{"name":"REVIEW OF METAPHYSICS","volume":"27 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135255314","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1353/rvm.2023.a906817
D. J. Hobbs
{"title":"Transcendental Phenomenology as Human Possibility: Husserl and Fink on the Phenomenologizing Subject by Denis DŽANIĆ (review)","authors":"D. J. Hobbs","doi":"10.1353/rvm.2023.a906817","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/rvm.2023.a906817","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46225,"journal":{"name":"REVIEW OF METAPHYSICS","volume":"77 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135255306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1353/rvm.2023.a906826
Athanasia A. Giasoumi
{"title":"From Death to Life: Key Themes in Plato’s Phaedo by Franco TRABATTONI (review)","authors":"Athanasia A. Giasoumi","doi":"10.1353/rvm.2023.a906826","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/rvm.2023.a906826","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46225,"journal":{"name":"REVIEW OF METAPHYSICS","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135255307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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