Communication, stereotypes and dignity: the inadequacy of the liberal case against censorship

J. S. Mill’s case against censorship rests on a conception of relevant communications as truth apt. If the communication is true, everyone benefits from the opportunity to exchange error for truth. If it is false, we benefit from the livelier impression truth makes when it collides with error. This classical liberal model is not however adequate for today’s world. In particular, it is inadequate for dealing with the problem of stereotyping. Much contemporary communication is not truth apt. Advertising and journalism, film and fashion portray images that can be neither verified nor refuted. Moreover, where these images do bear some relation to reality, any truth they may possess is not necessarily beneficial. Cultural stereotypes, for example, can be harmful even when true, to the extent that they reflect a distorted reality (the realities of life under conditions of injustice and exploitation). Exposure to such stereotypes affects a community’s self-conception. The resulting harms may be direct or indirect. Indirect harm is done when a stereotype affects a community’s capacity for self-determination, perpetuating existing inequalities by restricting the options its members understand to be available to them. Direct harm is done when a stereotype induces a distorted self-conception. Pace Kant, human dignity is not purely a function of our capacity to be authors of a universal moral law. It also resides in our capacity to achieve an undistorted self-conception. Thus true communications that reflect a distorted historical reality may threaten our dignity, through their effects on our self-conception, independent of any consequences they may have for self-determining action

Kant and Hegel on Purposive Action

This essay discusses Kant and Hegel’s philosophies of action and the place of action within the general structure of their practical philosophy. We begin by briefly noting a few things that both unite and distinguish the two philosophers. In the sections that follow, we consider these and their corollaries in more detail. In so doing, we map their differences against those suggested by more standard readings that treat their accounts of action as less central to their practical philosophy. Section 2 discusses some central Kantian concepts (Freedom, Willkür, Wille, and Moral Law). In Section 3, we take a closer look at the distinction between internal and external action, as found in Kant’s philosophy of morality and legality. In Section 4, we turn to Hegel and his distinctions between abstract right (legality), morality, and ethical life, as well as the location of his account of action within his overall theory of morality. We discuss the distinction between Handlung and Tat, and non-imputable consequences. The overall aims of our essay are to shed light on some puzzles in Kant and Hegel’s conceptions and to examine where their exact disputes lie without taking a stand on which philosophy is ultimately the most satisfactory.Peer reviewe

Jerzy Kmita’s Methodological Interpretation of Karl Marx’s Philosophy. From Ideology to Methodological Concepts

The article presents J. Kmita’s methodological interpretation of selected cognitive methods used by K. Marx. Those methods were (and I believe they still are) significant for the social sciences and the humanities, even a century after they had been developed. J Kmita’s interpretation reveals specificity of epistemic procedures carried out by the author of “Capital” and emphasizes contemporary actuality of Marx’s epistemological ideas. To achieve that aim, Kmita refers to the concepts established in the field of philosophy of science of his time. According to J. Kmita, the attractiveness of Marx’s approach lies in the opportunity to develop a methodological interpretation of Marx philosophy, which in turn enables the formation of a unique theory of science development, alternative to those provided by logical positivism, falsificationism, neopragmatism or sociology of knowledge. Such theory would combine the perspective of sociology of knowledge with an epistemological approach to the development of science

Can the Subaltern Listen? Self-determination and the Provisioning of Expertise in Papua New Guinea

Voice is a major concern in contemporary liberal-democratic politics, one that stresses the political importance of speaking (“giving voice,” “speaking up”). But in the Yopno valley of Papua New Guinea, where NGO and government projects are expanding, people’s sense that they are losing control of their future has led them to worry about their capacity to listen, not their capacity to speak. In largely acephalous villages, people’s self-determination seems particularly threatened by their ignorance of the true nature of their own actions. From a perspective in which the antecedents and the consequences of action are deeply unclear—a perspective stressed in the provisioning of expertise prevalent in political discourse—self-determination hinges on listening and gaining the understanding needed to shape one’s future.Anthropolog

Theses towards a new natural philosophy

In this paper I address some philosophical questions regarding the impact quantum mechanics has in the classical conceptions about reality and knowledge. I stress that onto-gnosiological realism still is an option to the issues regarding the relationship between knowledge and reality. Rejecting some radical aspects of Copenhagen interpretation of quantum formalism, I emphasize the advantages of de Broglie’s realistic and causal model. To finish with, I discuss the limits of the Cartesian concept of matter and the split between matter and mind

Feeling, Not Freedom: Nietzsche Against Agency

Despite his rejection of the metaphysical conception of freedom of the will, Nietzsche frequently makes positive use of the language of freedom, autonomy, self-mastery, self-overcoming, and creativity when describing his normative project of enhancing humanity through the promotion of its highest types. A number of interpreters have been misled by such language to conclude that Nietzsche accepts some version of compatibilism, holding a theory of natural causality that excludes metaphysical or “libertarian” freedom of the will, while endorsing morally substantial alternative conceptions of freedom, autonomy, and responsibility. I argue to the contrary that although Nietzsche’s rejection of..

Thoroughly modern Mannheim and the postmodern Weltanschauung.

There are a number of features of Mannheim’s method for the interpretation of weltanschauung that laid the foundations for his later sociology of knowledge and that could be considered as prefiguring the methodological principles of a postmodern world-view. Like postmodernists he stresses the significance of culture, and addresses the role of ideas and meaning in the form of society. His tripartite theory of meaning moves away from a determination of meaning by authorial intentions and towards the indeterminacy of documentary meaning. His theory of ‘relationism’ follows a similar pattern to the postmodernist concept of ‘difference’ and ultimately relies on immanent criteria of validity. Despite these continuities with postmodern perspectives I argue that Mannheim cannot be turned into a postmodernist because he seeks a foundation for meaning and its interpretation in historicism. Moreover, while his method analyses material objects and social subjects in the same way, he nonetheless maintains an ontological distinction between objects and subjects that distinguishes his approach from the hyperrealist perspective of postmodernism. If Mannheim cannot be claimed as a postmodernist before its time, his approach to analysing world-views reveals the modernist pretensions of theories that describe a postmodern weltanschauung as if the current epoch could be characterised in a unitary and coherent way