Action and Ethics. A Historical Perspective on the Late Frankfurt School (Apel, Habermas, Wellmer)

I shall delineate what I see as the strength and relevance of transcendental-pragmatics within the intellectual setting in the post-war period. I shall indicate how the discussions within transcendental-pragmatics have revealed inherent challenges, while at the same time the intellectual and institutional surroundings have changed unfavorably during the last few decades. And I shall briefly indicate how these inherent challenges and new constellations could and should be met, to the effect that transcendental-pragmatics could reveal its philosophical importance and practical relevance under changed conditions; the catchword here is gradual (melioristic) reasoning

The Idea of a Global History of Philosophy

In this paper I assume, by definition, that philosophers are arguing, first and foremost concerning their own validity claims, but now and then also concerning claims or presuppositions presented by other thinkers, and also concerning validity claims raised by scientists and scholars in different fields, or concerning political ideologies or religious claims, or concerning major events and challenges in societies. Hence, a history of philosophy should be situated and argumentative: both socio-historically situated, and argumentative, taking various validity claims seriously. Hence, we could learn something from these thinkers, and not merely about them. Moreover, for a global history of philosophy, in our time, it should be brought up to our present situation, epistemically and otherwise. If so, the idea of a global history of philosophy, conceived in this way, tends to become a history of global modernization – certainly, each time with its short-comings and special selections

Språkpolitikk i Norden med filosofiens briller

Dette innlegget er strukturert på denne måten: Først tar eg opp visse problemstillingar omkring demokrati og språklege rettar og dermed om vilkår for å kunne vere ein autonom person i moderne demokratiske samfunn (1). På denne bakgrunnen kommenterer eg språkpolitiske spørsmål ut frå spørsmålet om rett til demokratisk kommunikasjonsspråk,her i form av nasjonalspråk, om rett til internasjonalt språk (in casu engelsk), og om rett til morsmål, som hevdvunne minoritetsspråk og som innvandrarspråk (2). Deretter har eg allmenne merknader til den nordiske situasjonen (3). Så følgjer nokre merknader til aktuelle problemstillingar ved den norske situasjonen (4). Og til slutt lanserer eg eit forslag til ein meir offensiv nordisk språkpolitikk i forhold til EU (5)

Den argumenterande fornuft

Abstract This paper, on argumentative reason in a modernization-theoretical perspective, is a revised version of a public lecture held at Oslo University College, in memory of Professor Harald Grimen. There are three main points: argumentative reason conceived as self-critical reflection, to be extended to arguments from absurdity – from Apel to Ryle, as it were; argumentative reason conceived as a search for better arguments, ideally with mutual recognition and personal improvement – a meliorist approach; argumentative reason conceived as situated learning-processes, socially and institutionally. In short, a special blend of late-Wittgensteinian praxeology, transcendental-pragmatics and discourse theory, as it is discussed in my writings

Ethical gradualism – beyond anthropocentrism and biocentrism?

The realm of ethics is most often restricted to man and the human world: only humans can act morally or immorally, only humans can be morally praised or blamed, only humans can be moral agents and only humans can be moral subjects. To which extent is this ethical anthropocentrism tenable? In the light of contemporary biological knowledge and its recognition of biological continuities and gradual distribution of properties characteristic for living creatures, how can such strict division and the notion of the privileged position of man be still valid? Should not we reduce or overcome human speciesism? In this paper I shall consider arguments in favour of such a paradigmatically unique ethical standing for humans, and I shall look into arguments in favour of an ethical gradualism between humans and other mammals and between man and nature.Obszar etyki jest najczęściej ograniczany do człowieka i świata ludzkiego: tylko ludzie mogą działać moralnie lub niemoralnie, tylko ludzie mogą być z moralnego punktu widzenia godni pochwały lub nagany; tylko ludziom przypisuje się status podmiotów moralnego działania i podmiotów moralnych praw. W jakim stopniu ten antropocentryzm etyczny daje się utrzymać? Czy współczesna wiedza biologiczna, uwydatniająca ciągłość i stopniowalność cech właściwych dla istot żywych, nie podważa takiego mocnego rozgraniczenia i założenia o uprzywilejowanej pozycji człowieka? Czy nie powinniśmy wyjść poza gatunkowy egoizm, a przynajmniej go ograniczyć? W niniejszym artykule rozważę argumenty na rzecz stanowiącej osobny paradygmat, wyjątkowej pozycji etycznej człowieka oraz zbadam argumenty na rzecz etycznego gradualizmu [czyli stopniowalnych różnic] między istotami ludzkimi (humans) a pozostałymi ssakami oraz między człowiekiem a przyrodą

The epistemic status of the principles of justice in Habermas and Rawls

The debate between Habermas and Rawls that took place in 1990s concerned how philosophy can justify the principles of justice under the conditions of pluralism of different and irreconcilable moral, philosophical, and religious doctrines. The context of the debate was mainly Rawls’ Political Liberalism and Habermas’ Between Facts and Norms as well. This paper argues that a wider geo-cultural perspective is pertinent in order to better comprehend the different justification strategies in Habermas and Rawls, concerning the principle of justice. This goes for their different geo-cultural experiences and presuppositions – in short, Rawls living in a self-confident North America in the post-war period versus Habermas’ German experience of civilization breakdown. However, it might also be relevant for the assessment of these two strategies in our time, faced with new kinds of geo-political differences and conflicts

Velferdsstaten : den fornuftige samfunnsmodell

Forord og Katpittel 1 fra: " Velferdsstaten den fornuftige samfunnsmodell