Guests in the Out-Side

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-43
Author(s):  
Becky Vartabedian ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Perpetual Peace

Jane Bennett’s vital materialism develops positive ontological commitments to lively matter and resistant vitality, articulated using notions of actant and assemblage, thing-power and the out-side. I show that these ontological commitments reveal a limit for traditional modes of human knowing, favoring an emergent epistemology that attends to the ways actants and assemblages express themselves. I then argue for an account of acting that positions humans as guests of vibrant matter. Compacts of guest-friendship in Plato’s Crito and Kant’s To Perpetual Peace indicate that to be a guest is to be embedded in an asymmetrical system. The compact that binds the guest in a world of vibrant matter is the prospect of friendship with nonhuman others, a prospect I discuss following the work of Nick Bingham. I conclude by addressing Axelle Karera’s recent critique of Anthropocenean discourses, explaining the role guest-friendship can play in addressing certain of the weaknesses Karera identifies.

If Not Here, Then Where? On the Location and Individuation of Events in Badiou and Deleuze

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Williams
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Alain Badiou ◽  
Ontological Commitments

This paper sets out a series of critical contrasts between Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze's philosophies of the event. It does so in the context of some likely objections to their positions from a broadly analytic position. These objections concern problems of individuation and location in space-time. The paper also explains Deleuze and Badiou's views on the event through a literary application on a short story by John Cheever. In conclusion it is argued that both thinkers have good answers to the objections, but that they diverge on the ontological commitments of their definitions of the event.

True Imaginings Integrating Panentheism and A Personal View of God

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Klaus Müller
Keyword(s):  
Challenging Problem ◽  
Personal View ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
As If

The perhaps most challenging problem for a panentheistic paradigm in Christian god-talk consists in integrating the trait of personhood in the monistic horizon of this approach. A very helpful way to this goal seems to be the concept of imagination. Its logic of an “as if” represents a modified variation of Kant`s idea of the postulates of reason. Reflections of Jürgen Werbick, Douglas Headley, and Volker Gerhardt substantiate the philosophical and theological capabilities of this solution which also include a sensibility for the ontological commitments included in the panentheistic approach.

Kantian Project of Perpetual Peace in the Context of Modern Ethical and Political Concepts of War

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Arseniy D. Kumankov
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Democratic Peace Theory ◽  
Perpetual Peace

The article considers the modern meaning of Kant’s doctrine of war. The author examines the context and content of the key provisions of Kant’s concept of perpetual peace. The author also reviews the ideological affinity between Kant and previous authors who proposed to build alliances of states as a means of preventing wars. It is noted that the French revolution and the wars caused by it, the peace treaty between France and Prussia served as the historical background for the conceptualization of Kant’s project. In the second half of the 20th century, there is a growing attention to Kant’s ethical and political philosophy. Theorists of a wide variety of political and ethical schools, (cosmopolitanism, internationalism, and liberalism) pay attention to Kant’s legacy and relate their own concepts to it. Kant’s idea of war is reconsidered by Michael Doyle, Jürgen Habermas, Ulrich Beck, Mary Kaldor, Brian Orend. Thus, Doyle tracks democratic peace theory back to Kant’s idea of the spread of republicanism. According to democratic peace theory, liberal democracies do not solve conflict among themselves by non-military methods. Habermas, Beck, Kaldor appreciate Kant as a key proponent of cosmopolitanism. For them, Kant’s project is important due to notion of supranational forms of cooperation. They share an understanding that peace will be promoted by an allied authority, which will be “governing without government” and will take responsibility for the functioning of the principles of pacification of international relations. Orend’s proves that Kant should be considered as a proponent of the just war theory. In addition, Orend develops a new area in just war theory – the concept of ius post bellum – and justifies regime change as the goal of just war.

A Cosmopolitan Legal Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alec Stone Sweet ◽  
Clare Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Legal Order ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Perpetual Peace ◽  
The World ◽  
European System ◽  
Constitutional Justice

The book provides an introduction to Kantian constitutional theory and the European system of rights protection. Part I sets out Kant’s blueprint for achieving Perpetual Peace and constitutional justice within and beyond the nation state. Part II applies these ideas to explain the gradual constitutionalization of a Cosmopolitan Legal Order: a transnational legal system in which justiciable rights are held by individuals; where public officials bear the obligation to fulfil the fundamental rights of all who come within the scope of their jurisdiction; and where domestic and transnational judges supervise how officials act. The authors then describe and assess the European Court’s progressivie approach to both the absolute and qualified rights. Today, the Court is the most active and important rights-protecting court in the world, its jurisprudence a catalyst for the construction of a cosmopolitan constitution in Europe and beyond.

The Structure of Truth

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Logical Form ◽  
Historical Document ◽  
Truth Theory ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Theory Of Meaning ◽  
First Time

Donald Davidson’s 1970 Locke Lectures appear in print for the first time in this volume, accompanied by an introduction highlighting their significance as a snapshot of his evolving views in the philosophy of language and describing their relationship to the work he published during his lifetime. The lectures comprise an invaluable historical document that illuminates how Davidson was thinking about the theory of meaning, the role of a truth theory therein, the ontological commitments of a truth theory, the notion of logical form, and so on, at a pivotal moment in the development of his thought. Unlike Davidson’s previously published work, they are written so as to be presented to an audience as a fully organized and coherent exposition of his program in the philosophy of language. Had these lectures been widely available in the years following 1970, the reception of Davidson’s work, especially in the philosophy of language, might have been very different. Given the systematic nature of the presentation of Davidson’s semantic program in these lectures, it is hoped that they will be of use to those encountering his thought for the first time.

Social Ontology and Model-Building: A Response to Epstein

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-192
Author(s):  
Nadia Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Model Construction ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social

Brian Epstein has recently argued that a thoroughly microfoundationalist approach towards economics is unconvincing for metaphysical reasons. Generally, Epstein argues that for an improvement in the methodology of social science we must adopt social ontology as the foundation of social sciences; that is, the standing microfoundationalist debate could be solved by fixing economics’ ontology. However, as I show in this paper, fixing the social ontology prior to the process of model construction is optional instead of necessary and that metaphysical-ontological commitments are often the outcome of model construction, not its starting point. By focusing on the practice of modeling in economics the paper provides a useful inroad into the debate about the role of metaphysics in the natural and social sciences more generally.

Kant's Contribution to Moral Epistemology

PARADIGMI ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 69-77
Author(s):  
Carla Bagnoli
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
First Order

This paper argues that the most innovative aspect of Kant's ethical theory is not afirst-order normative ethics, even though the importance and long-lasting mark ofKant's ethics of autonomy cannot be questioned. Rather, it consists in a constructivistaccount of moral cognition. This claim may be perplexing in more than one way, sinceconstructivism is often characterized both as a first-order account of moral judgmentsand as a retreat from epistemological and ontological commitments. This characterizationis misleading in general, and mistaken for Kant's constructivism in particular.Kant's constructivism is a methodological claim about the authority and productivefunction of reason and an epistemological claim about the nature of moral cognitions.

St. Pierre and the Project of Perpetual Peace

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (x) ◽  
pp. 111-123
Author(s):  
Theodore Caplow
Keyword(s):  
William Penn ◽  
Home Town ◽  
Perpetual Peace

One thinks of him as a voluble, untidy little priest, his pockets stuffed with papers and his mind with projects. But the portrait in the mairic of his home town, St. Pierre-Eglise in Normandy, shows a face full of serenity and power. He bears a distinct resemblance to William Penn, another well-connected social inventor, who published his own plan for perpetual peace twenty years before St. Pierre.

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