Journal of Philosophical Research

This paper looks at the current realism/antirealism debate in philosophy of science as a dispute between two objectivist interpretations of modern empirical success: Scientific realism and scientific antirealism. The paper traces the debate to a split in responses to the historicist relativism that gained force in the 1960s; it concentrates on the discussions that led to selectivism, a promising realist strategy that focuses on theory-parts rather than whole theories. The paper examines the merits and difficulties of selectivism and argues for a naturalist approach to its present deficiencies, particularly regarding the need for a more precise identification of theory—parts worthy of realist interpretation.

A popular defense of physicalist theories of consciousness against anti-physicalist arguments is the “phenomenal concept strategy” (PCS). According to PCS there are phenomenal concepts that designate phenomenal properties, and whose use requires adopting the first person perspective with respect to those properties, thus allowing an epistemic gap between the phenomenal and the physical without requiring a metaphysical gap. One version of PCS is the quotational version, according to which phenomenal concepts are in part constituted by the very properties they designate. The advertising for this version of PCS is that it does better justice to the phenomenology of consciousness than alternative versions. But in doing so, I argue, it threatens to reintroduce dualism. This can be avoided by adopting a Russellian account of physical concepts, but even with this we seem to be committed to a non-physicalist Russellian account of consciousness, and perhaps even a Russellian panpsychism. This can be avoided only by holding that, even though we now cannot see how the phenomenal supervenes on the physical, it does anyway, and perhaps future developments will make this clear. Thus, what starts out as a Type B physicalist strategy becomes a Type C strategy (following David Chalmers 2002 on this typology).

The philosophy of science took shape as an autonomous discipline in the first decades of the Twentieth Century in connection with the movement known as logical positivism or logical empiricism. According to logical empiricists philosophy of science ought to perform a “rational reconstruction” aimed at exhibiting the logical structure of scientific theories and inferential processes involved in the acquisition of scientific knowledge. While focusing on the syntactical and semantical aspects of scientific language, logical empiricists left out of the realm of the philosophy of science the sociological and psychological aspects of theory formation, as well as all methodological aspects belonging to experimentation. Starting from the early Sixties this conception gradually changed, and philosophy of science underwent a radical transformation, leading to a significant broadening of its scope. New issues and problems were addressed, belonging to fields neglected by the traditional approach. This paper sketches the main features of the discipline as it is understood today as opposed to its traditional outlook, and suggests that the term “philosophy of the sciences” is better suited than “philosophy of science” to describe its present state.

The severe accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant caused by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 was a typical disaster in the age of “trans-science,” which means the situation that science and politics are closely connected and inseparable. The stage of trans-science requires a philosophy of trans-science instead of a philosophy of science such as logical positivism. I would like to characterize norms for techno-scientists in the risk society as RISK, which includes Regulatory deliberation, Intergenerational ethics, Social accountability and Knowledge-product liability.

One can say that the historical Socrates cannot be interpreted as an “intellectualist” and an “enemy of life.” On the contrary: Socrates’s actuality lies precisely in the fact that wisdom implies knowledge of one’s own ignorance, the self-birthing and the daily improvement of myself using all the rational and irrational potentialities of life.This conception of the ethical soul in Socrates can be compared today with the moral brain of neuroscience, which is understood in its integral unity as the locus of the body-soul in its complex unity: reason-emotion-instinct. However, in spite of the analogies, there is a clear opposition between the Socratic encephalon and the moral brain of neurobiology. The Socratic one is free, internal, personal. The neuronal can be induced and manipulated through technology. The Socratic lesson is that virtue cannot be taught—and even less artificially provoked—from the outside. Nevertheless, in today’s world, we cannot think about ethics without both: Socrates as well as the advances in neuroethics.

This article critically examines two central concepts in normative theory—ethical life and morality—by comparing the pragmatist approach with that of Critical Theory. This is done by way of a close scrutiny of Axel Honneth’s reading of the pragmatist philosophers John Dewey and George H. Mead. This focus on Honneth’s use of pragmatism serves as a port of entry to provide a comparative analysis of pragmatism and Critical Theory’s approaches to normativity. As I intend to show, Honneth’s troubles with making sense of the pragmatist approach to normativity are a litmus test of some persistent ambiguities at the heart of his understanding of normativity. I set the stage by reconstructing Honneth’s reading of Dewey (§ II) and Mead (§ III). That will provide the background against which to set up a comparison between the pragmatist conception of normativity and that of Critical Theory, with a view to assessing their relative validity. I then relate Honneth’s reading of the pragmatists to his own philosophical project and to the important place occupied in it by the same dualism of ethical life and morality (§ IV).

Confucianism, since the time of Confucius, emphasizes “practical wisdom” as the realization of philosophy. This approach accentuates the practical aspects of wisdom rather than the analytical rationale of the intellect. Emphasis on practical wisdom persistently reinforces a moral foundation that is not differentiated from personal virtue. At the same time, practical wisdom in Confucianism stresses self-cultivation, or the complete transformation of the self, derived from the internal state of the heart/mind (xin 心). Finally, Confucian insists that practical wisdom must be transformed into practical action.

Along with our inordinate emphasis on managing our lives on the basis of impartial principles and rules, we have lost the sense that some of the greatest human achievements are accomplished precisely by going beyond anything that existing rules and principles allow. Along with our fixation on the values of morality and politics, which apply to everyone on the basis of our similarities to one another, we have lost the sense that there are also values that depend on our differences and distinguish us from the rest of the world. Philosophical Individualism is a theory that considers the values of difference and distinction to be of crucial importance to life, and models successful lives on successful works of art. That is what is meant by “the art of living.” But such an art is manifested in the abilities of successful leaders in any field: leadership always requires going at least one step beyond wherever what has been already codified can take them.

Philosophy is often understood in terms of public benefit as being synonymous with its application to other domains of public life such as politics, economics, education etc. The question I would like to raise is of an altogether different nature—namely, it is the question of whether philosophy can be seen as having any public or social value per se, before there is any further thought of application or usage. In particular, it is the question of whether it contains anything universally significant, something that could make it of interest to anyone as seen in the context of one’s personal evolution. And in order to answer that question, first we have to find out what philosophy is to the philosophers themselves and how it benefits them.

Does moral philosophy corrupt? Socrates spent his days talking with many others about goodness and virtue and suchlike, and, partly as a result of showing them how very ignorant they were about such things, he was eventually charged with corrupting the youth. Much more recently, Raimond Gaita has claimed that there are some things it is evil to believe or even to think, and that academic philosophy nevertheless instructs us to seriously consider such things. He lays two charges, that this is corrupt in itself, and corrupt in the effects it risks—anyone who seriously considers whether evil is an illusion is already morally corrupt, he claims, not to mention the risk that they might end up actually believing it. The aim of this paper is to examine whether moral philosophy as practiced today is susceptible to Gaita’s charges.

This paper begins with an overview of the origins and development of ancient direct participatory “democracy” and a related concept of the “public.” Through the Roman “res publica” and the “homo publicus” and much later the Magna Carta and the English tradition of participatory rights, as well as the French “division of powers” and the French Revolution and Kant’s “public usage of reason,” a rather modern concept of the “public” in representative modern democracies developed in the Enlightenment and materialized in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In social and political philosophy there was a noticeable impact of “the public” and “public life” in debates, formal constitutions and their philosophical and pragmatic foundations. Dewey’s lectures on “The Public and its Problems” already emphasized the impact and the growth of communication technologies for “the public,” publicity, political and social life. Habermas diagnosed a “Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere” from a pragmatic social philosophical point of view, although he did not really take up Dewey’s diagnoses and predictions of the role of media and communication technologies. The same is true for Gerhardt’s study The Public: The Political Form of Consciousness (2012). With the pervasive impact of digital communication and media technologies there has occurred another structural transformation of the public sphere and the concept of the public. Instant global multimedia communication certainly has largely positive effects, fostering social as well as individal freedom and even revolutionary changes. But there are also the widespread experiences of individual and group mobbing, “shitstorms,” cyber-crimes, electronic spying and data-mining, etc. The structure (the concept and reality) of the public has lately been and is currently rapidly changing again—due to the electronic information revolution.

The relevance of Aristotle’s philosophy today is the survival of many Aristotelian concepts, definitions, distinctions, in the culture of many countries. In some cases, e. g. in the fields of logic and of metaphysics, the Aristotelian concepts survive as useful instruments for reasoning, like the concepts of category, contrariety, contradiction, or the distinctions between matter and form and between potency and act. But in other fields, like biology and psychology, some Aristotelian doctrines serve equally as examples of conceptual innovations, as was recognised by the biologist Max Delbrück about the discovery of DNA and by Anthony Kenny about the discussion of the “Mind-Body Problem.” Even in the fields of ethics and of politics, the revival of the practical philosophy of Aristotle has been an occasion for developing new models of social life and organisation of society, as is shown by philosophers like Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha C. Nussbaum, and by economists like Amartya Sen.

This article explores the ties existing between the philosophies of Alasdair MacIntyre and Hans-Georg Gadamer. A comparison between these two contemporary authors shows that they diverge fundamentally as to the role accorded to language in their thinking. For Gadamer, language occupies the place royale. MacIntyre doesn’t accord it the same role and, in so doing, intends to restore metaphysics to its place of honor. Gadamer is felt to have masked the roles of both theoria and metaphysics in Aristotle’s philosophy. That said, the convergences between the two philosophers are quite numerous. This article studies them in detail. Essentially, they have to do with the central role of ethos for both of them. The comparison concludes with a particular focus on one last divergence. If they are very close to one another in measuring the influence of ethos on all human inquiry, they ultimately diverge as to the telos of that inquiry, a sign of their different understandings of language.

In recent years rule-scepticism has been dominant among experts concerning Aristotle’s ethics. The present paper addresses three points that speak for this sceptical attitude: (i) Aristotle’s caveat against precision in ethics; (ii) the emphasis on the particular conditions of actions and on experience; (iii) the fact that moral education relies on habituation rather than teaching. At a closer look it emerges that all these considerations presuppose universal rules, laws, and institutions rather than exclude them, for they concern the adjustment of universal principles to particular cases. Knowledge of these principles may not be necessary in routine cases, but the emphasis on a master-science that provides the laws necessary for every well-functioning community and the appropriate education of the citizens shows that these principles are the indispensable foundation of both ethics and politics. It is Aristotle’s aim to provide the groundwork of such a master science that is the common concern of his ethics and politics.

My paper is an inquiry into the political significance of Aristotle’s concept of scholê, a word usually translated as ‘leisure.’ The words ‘school’ and ‘scholar’ are derived from scholê, which indicates a richness of meanings that go far beyond anything suggested by the word “leisure.”Perhaps taking up the subject as a political issue seems untimely during this troubled period of economic crisis. And yet, if seen from the perspective in which it was first raised, that is as a response to the question put forth by Socrates—‘what type of life is worth living?’—then inquiry into its nature may help us entertain the possibility that our economic and social ills have arisen from wrong answers that we have given to the Socratic question.Before examining Aristotle’s thoughts on leisure, I will first briefly turn to Plato’s concept of scholê so as to economically bring to the fore the difficulties involved when leisure is projected unto an entire republic as an overarching aim of public life.

This paper provides a detailed account of the normal importance of self-knowledge. I critique two previous accounts, one developed by Bilgrami (1998; 1999; 2006) and the other inspired by Putnam (1981). It is argued that the former conflates self-beliefs with the intentional states that these higher-order beliefs are about, whereas the latter shows only that true beliefs of certain kinds—as opposed to true self-beliefs simpliciter—improve our chances of survival. Self-knowledge is valuable for four reasons. First, it improves our chances of survival because it enables us to assess our intentional states and adjust our behavior. Second, it plays a critical role in effecting cooperation because the efficient pursuit of common goals requires that one communicate to others information about one’s beliefs and desires. Third, it provides protection against psychopathologies such as anxiety and narcissism because it enables the agent to assume responsibility for his thoughts and actions. Fourth, it enhances the agent’s self-confidence and happiness because the less he doubts that his successes are the result of his acting on his attitudes and abilities, the more self-confident and happier he is. I conclude with a discussion of the disadvantages of self-knowledge and the advantages of self-ignorance and self-error.

In the history of philosophy, Plato’s theory of Forms has enchanted many philosophers, but it has faced more adversaries than proponents. Although it is unusual for contemporary philosophers to believe in the Platonic Forms, I confront Plato seriously and try to defend his thought by reflecting on its reception in modern Japan. For this purpose, the Japanese word “risō” (理想), which was originally a translation of the Platonic “Idea” or “Form,” will give us valuable hints.I discuss Aristotle, Friedrich Nietzsche and Karl Popper, each of whom raised fundamental questions about the Forms as transcendent entities. First, Aristotle ignores one fundamental factor of the Forms, i.e., Eros: we aspire for the perfect or ideal state in our life with reference to the Forms. Next, Popper misses the important difference between the Form and the Ideal: i.e., the ultimate reality and its expressed form in words. Aspiring for the latter does not necessarily lead us to totalitarianism. Then, I argue that Nietzsche shares the same framework with Plato in considering the notion of “ideal.” We have to face his radical question of whether we should hold an “ideal” in everyday life.Finally, I introduce a brief history of how philosophers confronted reality by learning Plato in modern Japan. Michitaro Tanaka, in particular, cast critical eyes on the pre- and post-war society by studying Plato’s philosophy. To consider and discuss the Forms changes views and meanings of the world and of life. Plato thereby invites us to this common search through his dialogues, and leads us to the ideal (risō).

This paper, originally read on the site of Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus, attempts to show how the two seemingly distinct themes of this dialogue, eros and rhetoric, are really one. Socrates there employs rhetoric, in which his decent but somewhat dull interlocutor, Phaedrus, takes great pleasure, in order to persuade the latter to assume philosophical eros, inclining his soul to truth. This aim contrasts vividly with the nihilistic one pursued by the greatest of the Sophist rhetoricians, Gorgias. Ultimately, philosophical eros conduces to intimations of immortality. This could be demonstrated, if more time were available, by exploring certain works of contemporary literature and philosophy; for example, in his Totality and Infinity, Emmanuel Levinas cites the Phaedrus more frequently than any other text.

This paper explores the epistemological problem of holding something to be true while building on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. I claim that it was Frege’s criticism of psychologism in logic that gave a boost to Wittgenstein’s reflections on this issue, an issue that already occupies a central place in Kant’s theory of knowledge. I shall endeavour to show that Wittgenstein’s considerations on rule-following and the systematic character of belief not only make evident the shortcomings of Frege’s explanation of how the mind works but also take a step forward in overcoming the flaws of Kantian epistemology. The later Wittgenstein, I argue, goes further than Kant in the recognition that truth cannot attain more objectivity than the expression of our holding for true, but this does not mean endorsing any subjectivism.

In this paper, I discuss the Stoic views on eros in general and “Eros as a god of the Stoic cosmopolis” in particular. In the first part I present the works on Eros written by the Early Stoics; I discuss the fragmentary evidence about their views focusing on Zeno, the founder of the Stoic School. I point out how puzzling most Stoic views appeared to the opposing schools whose members did not hesitate to ascribe many scandalous and shameful views to them, though the Stoic view on eros is not very different from the pedagogical one defended by Socrates as presented in the works of Plato, Xenophon, Aeschines of Sphettus and others. In the second part I focus on a single piece of information attested by Athenaeus, according to which Zeno in his Republic, a work written as an answer to Plato’s Republic, took “Eros who brings about friendship, freedom, and concord, to be the god of the city” (SVF I 263). This statement has been interpreted in various ways by eminent scholars, some of whose views I present in brief. In the third and last part, based on the testimony that the Stoics wanted to be called “Socratics,” I argue that Zeno proved himself a genuine Socratic, taking into account not only the Platonic Socrates’s view of eros, but also that of Xenophon, to whom Zeno’s philosophical education can be traced back. I also tend to believe that Zeno’s Republic is not a case of a conventional city, but that of the famous Stoic cosmopolis governed by the law of nature in a spirit of friendship, concord and freedom.