What the controversy over ‘the reasonable’ reveals: On Habermas’s Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie

2021 ◽  
pp. 019145372110349
Author(s):  
Alessandro Ferrara
Keyword(s):  
Structural Problem ◽  
Philosophical Project

This article discusses Jürgen Habermas’s latest book Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie from the specific angle of what the section on Rawls indicates about the overall philosophical project pursued by Habermas. This tiny element within the imposing architecture reveals a structural problem that affects Habermas’s program for a detranscendentalization of reason. After a general premise, Habermas’s appraisal of Rawls’s work is reconstructed and critically examined (Section 1). Then, in the guise of a Rawlsian rejoinder, a problematic understanding of pluralism is shown to undergird Habermas’s overlooking of the ground-breaking potential of the normativity of ‘the reasonable’ and ‘the most reasonable’ (Section 2). Finally, this neglect is argued to be indicative of a deeper lacuna: namely, a missing confrontation with Wittgenstein’s rival path to a postmetaphysical, intersubjective, detranscentendalized reason (Section 3). That lacuna, finally, invites a closer scrutiny of the overall genealogical picture and its central opposition between two pathways (related to Kant and Hume) to the postmetaphysicization of reason.

Madhyamaka

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Westerhoff
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Buddhist Philosophy ◽  
The Third ◽  
General Overview ◽  
Philosophical Project

The chapter begins by presenting a general overview of the rise of the Mahāyāna and its relation to the main schools of Buddhist philosophy associated with it, Madhyamaka and Yogācāra. This is followed by an introduction to the Madhyamaka school proper, focusing on the life and works of its founder, Nāgārjuna. The third section of the chapter examines the foundational sūtras of the Madhyamaka school, the Prajñāpāramitā or Perfection of Wisdom texts, focusing on their criticism of the Abhidharma philosophical project, their comprehensive illusionism, and their prima facie acceptance of contradictions. This is followed by an account of how these themes play a key role in the Madhyamaka system as set out by Nāgārjuna. The chapter then turns to examining the philosophical contributions of major Madhyamaka thinkers such as Buddhapālita, Bhāviveka, Candrakīrti, Śāntarakṣita, and Kamalaśīla. The chapter concludes by a discussion of the relation between Madhyamaka and Nyāya.

The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Zachhuber
Keyword(s):  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Gregory Of Nyssa ◽  
Eastern Christianity ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Full Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Problems ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
First Time

It has rarely been recognized that the Christian writers of the first millennium pursued an ambitious and exciting philosophical project alongside their engagement in the doctrinal controversies of their age. This book offers for the first time a full analysis of this Patristic philosophy. It shows how it took its distinctive shape in the late fourth century and gives an account of its subsequent development until the time of John of Damascus. The book falls into three main parts. The first of them starts from an analysis of the philosophical project underlying the teaching of the Cappadocian fathers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. This philosophy, arguably the first distinctively Christian theory of being, soon becomes near-universally shared in Eastern Christianity. A few decades after the Cappadocians, all sides in the early Christological controversy take its fundamental tenets for granted. Its application to the Christological problem thus appeared inevitable. Yet it created substantial conceptual problems. Parts II and III of the book describe in detail how these problems led to a series of increasingly radical modifications of the Cappadocian philosophy. The chapters of Part II are dedicated to the miaphysite opponents of the Council of Chalcedon, while Part III discusses the defenders of the Council from the early sixth to the eighth centuries. Through this overview, the book reveals this period as one of remarkable philosophical creativity, fecundity, and innovation.

scholarly journals Wastewater Treatment and Water Reuse in Spain. Current Situation and Perspectives

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1551 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Jodar-Abellan ◽  
María Inmaculada López-Ortiz ◽  
Joaquín Melgarejo-Moreno
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
European Union ◽  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Water Reuse ◽  
Wastewater Reuse ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Water Planning ◽  
Structural Problem ◽  
The World ◽  
Access To Water

The issues of wastewater treatment and the reuse of water are of great importance, especially in areas where the shortage of conventional resources is a structural problem, as it is in the case of Spain. Wastewater reuse is a valid mechanism to avoid problems derived from droughts and water scarcity. It allows access to water resources in areas with water restrictions and to prevent futures scenarios, due to it being expected that water consumption will double by 2050 over the world. Thus, the likelihood that this unconventional, strategic resource would become scarce is unquestionable, particularly in cases where water planning and exploitation systems prioritize the preservation, protection, and improvement of water quality, as well as the sustainable and efficient use of natural resources. This paper shows how wastewater treatment and reuse are linked, as the reuse of wastewater is associated with a previous regeneration, and both of them are essential tools for maximizing environmental outcomes, as called for in the European Union Directives.

scholarly journals Food Security and COVID-19: A Systematic Review of the First-Year Experience

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5294
Author(s):  
Boglárka Anna Éliás ◽  
Attila Jámbor
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
First Year ◽  
Structural Problem ◽  
Global Food Security ◽  
Global Food ◽  
Low Income Households

For decades, global food security has not been able to address the structural problem of economic access to food, resulting in a recent increase in the number of undernourished people from 2014. In addition, the FAO estimates that the number of undernourished people drastically increased by 82–132 million people in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To alleviate this dramatic growth in food insecurity, it is necessary to understand the nature of the increase in the number of malnourished during the pandemic. In order to address this, we gathered and synthesized food-security-related empirical results from the first year of the pandemic in a systematic review. The vast majority (78%) of the 51 included articles reported household food insecurity has increased (access, utilization) and/or disruption to food production (availability) was a result of households having persistently low income and not having an adequate amount of savings. These households could not afford the same quality and/or quantity of food, and a demand shortfall immediately appeared on the producer side. Producers thus had to deal not only with the direct consequences of government measures (disruption in labor flow, lack of demand of the catering sector, etc.) but also with a decline in consumption from low-income households. We conclude that the factor that most negatively affects food security during the COVID-19 pandemic is the same as the deepest structural problem of global food security: low income. Therefore, we argue that there is no need for new global food security objectives, but there is a need for an even stronger emphasis on poverty reduction and raising the wages of low-income households. This structural adjustment is the most fundamental step to recover from the COVID-19 food crises, and to avoid possible future food security crises.

The Secularity of Empire, the Violence of Critique: Muslims, Race, and Sexuality in the Politics of Knowledge‐Production

Hypatia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 715-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunera Thobani
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
First Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Epistemological Tradition ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Race And Sexuality ◽  
Queer Politics ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
Rare Opportunity

In the volatile conflicts that inaugurated the twenty‐first century, secularism, democracy, and freedom were identified by Western nation‐states as symbolizing their civilizational values, in contrast to the fanaticism, misogyny, and homophobia they attributed to “Islam.” The figure of the Muslim was thus transformed into an existential threat. This paper analyzes an exchange among scholars—Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech—that engages these highly contested issues. As such, the text provides a rare opportunity to study how particular significations of the West, its epistemological tradition, and its relation with Islam are contested and negotiated in a critically engaged site during a moment of global crisis. My reading of the text leads me to argue that the stabilization of the epistemic power of the West is presently reliant on a new iteration of its foundational philosophical concepts to suppress counter‐hegemonic narratives that foreground its forms of violence. Further, the terrain for this reshaping of the dominance of this tradition is gender/sexuality, such that queer politics are located at the forefront of the Western politico‐philosophical project. As such, the advancement of this tradition is co‐constitutive with that of the gendered‐sexual subject as emblematic of its highest civilizational values.

What Is Living and What Is Dead in Classic European Philosophy of Technology?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Mitcham
Keyword(s):  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Alan Turing ◽  
The World ◽  
European Philosophy ◽  
Jacques Ellul ◽  
Philosophical Project

Classic European philosophy of technology is the original effort to think critically rather than promotionally about the historically unique mutation that is anchored in the Industrial Revolution and has since progressively transformed the world and itself. Three representative contributions to this pivotal philosophical project can be found in texts by Alan Turing, Jacques Ellul, and Martin Heidegger. Despite having initiated analytic, sociological, and phenomenological approaches to philosophy of technology, respectively, all three are often treated today in a somewhat patronizing manner. The present chapter seeks to revisit and reconsider their contributions, arguing that, especially in the case of Ellul and Heidegger, what is commonly dismissed as their overgeneralizations about modern technology as a whole might reasonably be of continuing relevance to contemporary students in the philosophy of technology.

A Estrutura Triádica da Filosofia de M. Blondel (o Trinitarismo Blondeliano)

1998 ◽  
Vol 6 (11) ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
M. Patrão Neves ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Action ◽  
Characteristic Structure ◽  
Logic Of Action ◽  
Philosophical Project

The present work intends to show that Maurice Blondel's philosophy follows a triadic structure made up by the undissociable bond between thought, being and action, which is not just the resuit of the evolution achieved in the Trilogy but that was already present since L'Action (1893). Firstly we briefly outline the itinerary from L'Action (1893) to the Trilogy, underlining the continuity that Blondel ascribes to his progress coming later to make evident the unity of his philosophical project. Secondly we will consider the aspects revealing a triadic structure in the philosophy of action: the sense of action as mediation, the dialectics of action and the logic of action. Finally we will show how blondelian philosophy, in its characteristic structure, corresponds, quoting the author, to an "unitarian trinity".

scholarly journals Better Living Through Technology

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Gunkel
Keyword(s):  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
Important Shift ◽  
The Way

Abstract In this brief response to Mark Coeckelbergh’s contribution, I demonstrate how the author introduces an important shift in the way we approach technology. Instead of focusing on the new and often-times dramatic existential vulnerabilities supposedly introduced by technological innovation, Coeckelbergh targets the way technology already transforms our existential vulnerabilities. And I show how this shift in focus has three very important consequences: (1) a different way to ask about and investigate the question concerning technology, (2) the importance of hacking as a mode of responding to this question and (3) the significance of questioning as a philosophical project.

scholarly journals BASIC KNOWLEDGE FIRST

Episteme ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic States ◽  
Specific Category ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Philosophical Project

ABSTRACTAn influential twenty-first century philosophical project posits a central role for knowledge: knowledge is more fundamental than epistemic states like belief and justification. So-called “knowledge first” theorists find support for this thought in identifying central theoretical roles for knowledge. I argue that a similar methodology supports a privileged role for a more specific category of basic knowledge. Some of the roles that knowledge first theorists have posited for knowledge generally are better suited for basic knowledge.

scholarly journals Ibn Sīnā. A Philosophical Mysticism or a Philosophy of Mysticism?

2016 ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Jules JANSSENS
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Ibn Sina ◽  
Late Work ◽  
Philosophical Project

It is a well-known fact that Ibn Sīnā in the final part of his work al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt, Pointers and Reminders, extensively uses a mystical vocabulary. Given this fact some scholars have judged that he in this – in all likelihood rather late – work adheres to a kind of mysticism, either religious or, at least, philosophical. Based on a detailed analysis of some of the most significant passages, the present paper offers evidence that such an interpretation does not pay enough attention to the very way in which Ibn Sīnā interprets the mystical notions that are undeniably present in the last three sections of the Ishārāt. In fact, Ibn Sīnā’s use of them reveals to have nothing, or almost nothing in common with the meaning attributed to them in Sufi-writings, or in (mainly Neoplatonic) ‘mystical’ philosophy. It is concluded that Ibn Sīnā, in the final part of the Ishārāt, offers what may be labelled a ‘philosophical project that rationally interprets mystical terms, expressions, and phenomena’, rather than as ‘a philosophical mysticism’.

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