The Return of Causal Powers?

Powers, capacities and dispositions (in what follows I will use these terms synonymously) have become prominent in recent debates in metaphysics, philosophy of science and other areas of philosophy. In this paper I will analyse in some detail a well-known argument from scientific practice to the existence of powers/capacities/dispositions. According to this argument the practice of extrapolating scientific knowledge from one kind of situation to a different kind of situation requires a specific interpretation of laws of nature, namely as attributing dispositions to systems. My main interest will be to discuss what characteristics these dispositions need to have in order to account for the scientific practice in question. I will furthermore assess whether the introduction of dispositions in the context of the extrapolation argument can be described as a ‘revitalization’ or as a ‘return’ to those notions repudiated by early modern philosophers. More particularly I will argue for the following claims: I. In repudiating scholastic terminology, including substantial forms with their causal powers, post-cartesian philosophers focussed on a concept of causation that was much stronger than 21st century conceptions of causation. For this reason alone, whatever ‘causal’ is supposed to mean in today’s causal powers, embracing causal powers is not a simple return to a pre-cartesian notion. II. The dispositions presupposed in scientific practice need not (and should not) be construed in causal terms (whether strong or weak). III. While some early modern philosophers contrasted the characterisation of the natural world in terms of substantial forms (and their causal powers) on the one hand and a mathematical characterization on the other and suggested that these approaches are incompatible, the dispositions postulated by the extrapolation argument to account for scientific practice are themselves characterized in mathematical terms. More precisely: The behaviour the systems are disposed to display is – at least in physics – often characterized in mathematical terms. IV. The dispositions assumed in the law-statements in scientific practice are determinable rather than determinate properties

Situating Kant’s Pre-Critical Monadology: Leibnizian Ubeity, Monadic Activity, and Idealist Unity

This essay examines the relationship between monads and space in Kant’s early pre-critical work, with special attention devoted to the question of ubeity, a Scholastic doctrine that Leibniz describes as “ways of being somewhere”. By focusing attention on this concept, evidence will be put forward that supports the claim, held by various scholars, that the monad-space relationship in Kant is closer to Leibniz’ original conception than the hypotheses typically offered by the later Leibniz-Wolff school. In addition, Kant’s monadology, in conjunction with God’s role, also helps to shed light on further aspects of his system that are broadly Leibnizian, such as monadic activity and the unity of space

Middle Theory, Inner Freedom, and Moral Health

In her influential book, The Practice of Moral Judgment, Barbara Herman argues that Kantian ethics requires a “middle theory” applying formal rational constraints on willing to the particular circumstances and nature of human existence. I claim that a promising beginning to such a theory can be found in Kant’s discussion of duties of virtue in The Metaphysics of Morals. I argue that Kant’s distinction between perfect and imperfect duties of virtue should be understood as a distinction between duties concerned with respect for necessary conditions of moral health and moral prosperity in sensibly affected human agents who realize their moral nature only through the development and continuing exercise of inner freedom. Thus understood, perfect duties prohibiting self-deception, miserly avarice, and humility are oriented around concerns with the conditions of rational self-constraint in human agents and are contrasted with imperfect duties requiring the development of our talents and the perfection of our moral disposition concerned with the effective exercise of this kind of inner freedom in choice and action. Generalizing this account, I claim that it allows us to accommodate the range of duties that Kant discusses here including perfect duties owed to others prohibiting arrogance, defamation, and ridicule and imperfect duties enjoining gratitude and beneficence and suggests a much more subtle and promising account of moral duty than those typically associated with Kant’s view

The Phenomenology of Religious Life: From Primary Christianity to Eastern Christianity

In this paper I attempt a reading of Heidegger’s interpretations of St. Paul’s Epistles in light of the distinction between Eastern and Western thought. To this end, I suggest that Heidegger’s recourse to the Paulinic texts represents his endeavor to gain access to the original structures of life by circumventing the metaphysical framework of Greek (Plato’s and Aristotle’s) thought. Thus, I argue that by doing this, Heidegger actually approaches the Eastern way of thinking, i.e. a non-metaphysical alternative. In order to better understand what defines Eastern thought, I discuss in some detail Zizioulas’s interpretations of temporality in Eastern Christianity. Along the lines of this different understanding of temporality, the proximity of Heideggerian thought can be seen. Finally, I show that the importance of my argument lies in that it can open a possible research path for what Heidegger in his latter works calls “the other beginning.

Communication and rational responsiveness to the world

Donald Davidson has long maintained that in order to be credited with the concept of objectivity – and, so, with language and thought – it is necessary to communicate with at least one other speaker. I here examine Davidson’s central argument for this thesis and argue that it is unsuccessful. Subsequently, I turn to Robert Brandom’s defense of the thesis in Making It Explicit. I argue that, contrary to Brandom, in order to possess the concept of objectivity it is not necessary to engage in the practice of interpersonal reasoning because possession of the concept is independently integral to the practice of intrapersonal reasoning

Kant’s post-1800 Disavowal of the Highest Good Argument for the Existence of God

I have two main goals in this paper. The first is to argue for the thesis that Kant gave up on his highest good argument for the existence of God around 1800. The second is to revive a dialogue about this thesis that died out in the 1960s. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, I reconstruct Kant’s highest good argument. In the second, I turn to the post-1800 convolutes of Kant’s Opus postumum to discuss his repeated claim that there is only one way to argue for the existence of God, a way which resembles the highest good argument only in taking the moral law as its starting point. In the third, I explain why I do not find the counterarguments to my thesis introduced in the 1960s persuasive

フアン ノ ム ノ アカルイ ヨル ニ オイテ ハイデッガー ノ ム ノ ガイネン ノ イチコウサツ

　ハイデッガーは，伝統的に西洋形而上学は現象界に存在する事物の対象化された本質（存在者の存在）を問う形で思惟してきたことから脱却して，存在者とその本質という分離を超脱した，それらの根源である存在そのものから思惟することへと転換しなければならないと主張した。本稿は，ハイデッガーがどこまでも自らを秘匿する存在そのものにどこまで辿り着くことができたのかという関心を持って，この底なしの深淵からの思索に忠実に寄り添いながら，存在そのものへの帰還の途上で，無を頼りに存在そのものの性起の場の開けについて考察することを主として狙いとしている。そのためにまず，無を隠れ蓑にして自らは隠れたままの存在そのものと，存在そのものが現-存在の「現」において自らを開示するという現存在，そして現存在がその中に保たれているところの無について詳述し，次に，それらの概念的関連について述べる。以上の考察を基に先の関心に関して言えば，存在そのものはそれを訪れようと近づけば近づくほど却って遠ざかっていき，無のヴェールにわれわれが保たれていることを痛感するに終わる。ハイデッガーが敷いた道のりが伝統的な道の逆方向へ導くものであっても，存在そのものを一切の根拠あるいは超越者としている以上それはどこまでも西洋の形而上学の伝統に沿った道であり，その他にも道はあるとなると，帰還から異なる伝統の道のりへと旅立つこともあるいは予期されるのである。　 Martin Heidegger attempts to overcome traditional Western metaphysics, in which the objectified essence of things as they appear in the phenomenal world is sought to be understood. He claims that Western metaphysics must turn away from such a manner of thinking toward a philosophy that questions and elaborates “being itself”, that is, the source of both beings and the being of beings. He asserts that the source is without being grounded; the Ground itself remains thoroughly concealed. The aim of this study, which takes up an inquiry into being, is threefold. First, it aims to explicate Heidegger’s concepts of being and Dasein in light of the nothing of anxiety. Second, it aims thus to illuminate the interdependent conceptual relations between the two. By meticulously expositing these concepts, the fact that Heidegger privileges being over the nothing can be grasped. This privilege remains yet open to be challenged by other traditions of thought that do not take it for granted. Finally, I critically assess Heidegger’s view of the nothing. Dasein, inter alia the existence of human being, as being held into the nothing of anxiety, that is, as turning away from our preoccupations in beings, remains as a placeholder of the nothing. I conclude that being intercepted by the veil (i.e., the nothing), man seems to be at all unable of returning home, being itself (das Sein selbst), rather to fatefully shade it night and day

Caducitas and Śūnyatā: A Neoplatonist Reading of Nāgārjuna

In this paper I am addressing the question whether Nāgārjuna’s doctrine should be understood as a theory that describes reality itself (ontology) or as a theory of our relation to reality (epistemological, logical, psychological, etc.). To answer this question, I propose to compare Nāgārjuna’s concept of emptiness to that of ‘caducity’, a key element in the ontology of Renaissance Neoplatonist philosopher Francisco Patrizi. By showing that these concepts are similar, I argue that Nāgārjuna’s standpoint can be considered as that of ontology

Reformed Scholastic Philosophy in the Seventeenth-century Scottish Universities

In this chapter I formulate and analyse the definition of the philosophy of the seventeenth- century Scottish universities in terms of 'Reformed scholasticism'. Scholastic philosophy was still central to university teaching after the Reformation, and the Scottish universities produced a great synthesis of Reformed theology and scholastic philosophy. My main focus is on metaphysics: I argue that the Reformed understanding of the Eucharist as a symbol motivated the choice for the views that accidents essentially inhere in their substances and that matter is essentially extended. These views are central to Reformed metaphysics, and qualify Scottish scholasticism as 'Reformed'. They are also coherent with the tradition of Scotism, to which the Scottish scholastics adhered: I argue that they represent developments of Scotism despite being against Duns Scotus's own views. The analysis provides evidence of an original and lively philosophical tradition, an innovative synthesis of Reformed instances, Scotism and Renaissance scholasticism. It was important on a national level, for it influenced philosophy for the whole seventeenth century, and on an international level, through the Scottish presence in the French Protestant academies. The formulation of Reformed scholasticism is a, so far unrecognised, great achievement of the Scottish universities

Ubuntu’s Ontological Account in African Philosophy and its Cross-Tradition Engagement on the Issue of Being versus Becoming

This paper x-rays Ramose’s ubuntu ontological account in African philosophy and its cross-tradition engagement on the issue of being versus becoming (such as the Yin-Yang, Heraclitean, Nietzschean, Whiteheadean and the Buddhists’ accounts) with a view to showing how convergence and divergence of thoughts in the African, European, and Asian philosophy contexts can advance cross-cultural philosophizing or cross-tradition approach to doing philosophy. Ramose’s ubuntu ontology designates a reconstruction of reality within the framework of motion, as captured in his concept of be-ing-becoming, while the Heraclitean, Nietzschean, Whiteheadean and the Buddhists’ ontological accounts also conceive reality within the confines of endless motion, except the Yin-Yang metaphysical vision that interprets reality within the perspective of complementarity. Attempts are made, in the paper, to highlight the Ramosean ubuntu ontology and how it can constructively engage with other traditions’ ontological accounts, as mentioned above, in a fruitful encounter of the African thought tradition, which Ramose belongs to, and the European and Asian traditions of thought, which the other mentioned ontological accounts belong to