Critical Philosophy Research Articles

To what extent can institutional control explain the dominance of analytic philosophy?

Katzav and Vaesen have argued that control by analytic philosophers of key journals, philosophy departments and at least one funding body plays a substantial role in explaining the emergence of analytic philosophy into dominance in the Anglophone world and the corresponding decline of speculative philosophy. They also argued that this use of control suggests a characterisation of analytic philosophy as, at the institutional level, a sectarian form of critical philosophy. I test these hypotheses against data about philosophy job hires at key philosophy departments in the USA during the period 1930–1979 and against data about PhD completions during the period 1956–1965. I argue, further, that Katzav and Vaesen’s hypotheses can fully explain the data and are more fully able to do so than some other key accounts of the emergence of analytic philosophy in the USA.

Parallax Theology: Reframing Compensation Theodicy

The reality of suffering and the existence of natural and moral evils appear to present significant obstacles to the doctrine of God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. Theodicy is an attempt to resolve the problem of evil. One formerly prominent theodicean response can be termed “compensation theodicy” (or “afterlife theodicy”), premised on the notion that, in the words of the philosopher Stephen Maitzen, “Heaven swamps everything,” that is, that God compensates for earthly suffering by way of heavenly reward. This approach has fallen into disrepute. Here, two minor responses and one major response are sketched, drawing on restorative justice, phenomenology, and the concept of parallax. Building on the critical philosophies of Kojin Karatani and Slavoj Žižek, parallax denotes a perspectival shift, or optical cycling, between two irreconcilable positions that nevertheless is in some sense productive. Viewed through the lens of parallax, compensation theodicy appears far less controversial than some theological thinkers have contended.

The works of M. Y. Lermontov in the religious and philosophical criticism of V. S. Solovyov, D. S. Merezhkovsky and V. V. Rozanov

The article discusses literary and critical articles by representatives of religious and philosophical criticism dedicated to M. Y. Lermontov. The works are united not only by the subject of analysis and the commonality of methodology, but also by the internal controversy that unfolded against the background of increased interest in the personality and creativity of the poet at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. The author analyzes how the ethical work of V. S. Solovyov influenced his idea of Lermontov's "three demons", how the religion of the Third Testament of D. S. Merezhkovsky determined his search for Sophia, Eternal Femininity in Lermontov's work and how pantheism and anti-Christian sentiments of V. V. Rozanov were reflected in his analysis of the poet's God-fighting and demonic motives. The main conclusions of the study are the following: each of the three interpretations is based on the philosophical beliefs of each of the critics. All three are united by the desire to actualize Lermontov's work in the context of his modern era, moreover, they all view Lermontov's personality and work from neo-Christian positions. V. S. Solovyov interprets Lermontov negatively, due to the fact that he sees in him the ancestor of Nietzscheanism, which spread at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, including in Russia. Merezhkovsky, on the contrary, sees Lermontov as a model for inspiration when creating a renewed, "improved" Church of the Third Testament – with attention to the issue of gender, to the ontological equivalence of Good and Evil. Rozanov also assesses Lermontov positively from the point of view of the need to turn to the pagan-Jewish foundations of religion, as opposed to traditional Christianity.

Conquest and Law as a Eurocentric enterprise: An Azanian philosophical critique of legal epistemic violence in “South Africa”

This essay will critically analyse how conquest that resulted in white settler colonialism laid the foundation for epistemic violence. Epistemic violence, which took the form of the imposition of the law of the European conqueror in the wake of land dispossession in 1652 in South Africa is the fundamental problem this essay will critically engage with. We will rely on the Azanian philosophical tradition as a theoretical framework to critique this legal epistemic violence. Our theoretical framework is in line with Afrikan jurisprudence, which is grounded in the culture and worldview of the Indigenous people conquered in wars of conquest. Fundamental to our argument is that the law of the European conqueror, which was imposed through conquest is a Eurocentric enterprise, which seeks to negate the Afrikan worldview and culture and reinforce historic injustice. It is important to note that epistemic violence commenced with the issuing of papal bulls, which undergirded conquest and white settler colonialism in South Africa. The thesis of the essay is that in the wake of conquest and the attendant imposition of the law of the European conqueror, white settlers used their law to technicalise issues of historic injustice such as land dispossession. It is in this sense that this essay seeks to contribute to the decolonisation of law by foregrounding the worldview and culture of the Indigenous conquered people.

Gentrification: A philosophical analysis and critique

ABSTRACT Philosophical discussions of gentrification have tended to focus on residential displacement. However, the prevalence of residential displacement is fiercely contested, with many urban geographers regarding it as quite uncommon. This lends some urgency to the underexplored question of how one should evaluate other forms of gentrification. In this paper, I argue that one of the most important harms suffered by victims of displacement gentrification is loss of access to the goods conferred by membership in a thriving local community. Leveraging the social scientific literature, I go on to argue that non-displacement gentrification also often damages local communities. One can hence extend existing philosophical critiques of displacement gentrification to argue that non-displacement gentrification likewise poses a threat to relational equality, and often violates certain basic occupancy rights. Focusing on the value that inheres in thriving local communities also suggests some new possibilities for critiquing gentrification. For instance, existing occupancy rights critiques focus on incumbent land users’ interests in stability. However, one can also argue in a Lockean mode that incumbent land users’ occupancy rights are at least partially grounded in their community having labored together to create objects of value. An extension of Michael Walzer’s theory of justice to incorporate community goods as a separate “sphere” might also have widespread appeal. Taken together, these arguments constitute a sustained and theoretically ecumenical case for the pro tanto moral objectionability of gentrification.

Hume’s Empiricism versus Kant’s Critical Philosophy (in the Times of Artificial Intelligence and the Attention Economy)

The article exposes how one of the most fundamental oppositions in the history of modern philosophy – the opposition between Hume’s empiricism and Kant’s critical philosophy – is embedded in the current debate on the impact of artificial intelligence (in particular, the algorithmic selection of content) on human society. Hume’s empiricism – with its deduction of subjectivity based on a process of habituation – corresponds to the functioning of recommending algorithms, while Kant’s idea of autonomous subjectivity corresponds to the ideals underlying today’s ethical attempts towards the regulation of artificial intelligence. According to such ethics, the use of empirical data can endanger humans; whereby our attention can be easily caught by sensationalist content and our autonomy replaced by the agency of machinic intelligence. However, as argued in the present article, such ethical positioning also reproduces the gap between the empirical reality and normative principles, which is why transcendental (Kantian) ethics should be supplemented with Hume’s immanent and practical reasoning.

The Moral Difference between Faces & FaceTime.

Although the technology for telemedicine existed before the Covid-19 pandemic, the need to provide medical services while minimizing the risk of contagion has encouraged its more widespread use. I argue that, although telemedicine can be useful in certain situations, physicians should not consider it an adequate substitute for the office visit. I first provide a narrative account of the experience of telemedicine. I then draw on philosophical critiques of technology to examine how telemedicine has epistemic and ethical effects that make some of the goods of medicine unavailable. Telemedicine rules out an embodied encounter between physician and patient, in which the sense of touch has special importance. The individualized attention facilitated by the in-person visit may better sustain a caring physician-patient relationship. Physicians should criticize attempts by administrators, insurers, or other parties to incentivize the wholesale replacement of traditional office visits with telemedicine.

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali in Our Times: How al-Ghazali is Interpreted and Transmitted in the Contemporary Turkish Context

Whether Abu Hamid al-Ghazali contributed to the decline of rationalist and scientific tradition in the Muslim world is a grand debate in Islamic studies. However, the literature on this question ventures only to construct a historical debate. Though al-Ghazali died in 1111, his opinions still influence Muslims today. So this research, rather than contribute to that historical debate, studies how al-Ghazali is interpreted in contemporary Turkey, and what this inter­pretation reveals about approaches to natural law, knowledge and philosophy (essentially, the study of conceptual lucidity and the valid procedures of reaso­ning). These three disciplines are chosen because al-Ghazali is accused of contributing to the decline of the scientific tradition in the Islamic world beca­use of his criticism of philosophy, his occasionalist view of causality, and his incorporation of inner knowledge into Sunnism. The research aims to answer ques­tions like: ‘Are al-Ghazali’s works referenced today to justify a hostile stance on philosophy?’ To achieve this goal, the research studies how al-Ghazali is interpreted by two Islamic social movements in Turkey: Işıkçılar and Erenköy. Studying these cases, the paper concludes that how al-Ghazali is interpreted and transmitted in Turkey contributes to (i) a highly sceptical stance on natural law, (ii) a deep suspicion of rational knowledge and the consequent belief in inner knowledge, and (iii) a highly critical stance on philosophy.

A Researcher With Conclusions in Search of Questions: On Wandering Toward Ignorance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provoke new understandings of the roles and uses of research. Specifically, I argue for the productive and creative potential of ignorance in educational research. Design/Approach/Methods This conceptual paper undertakes a playful experiment, beginning with conclusions and working backward to create a paper within a paper based on these conclusions. The paper then offers philosophical critiques on the generation and use of research. Findings It is a thinkable discourse that educational research begins with conclusions and works backward to justify those prefigured conclusions. It would make sense, therefore, to suggest a re-centering of inquiry. Yet, this approach to research remains grounded in stable understandings of knowledge. Rather than the transcendent approach to research, which moves from ignorance toward knowledge, this paper finds that ignorance resides in a plane of immanence, situated within and pursuing new questions. It calls for ignorance not as a means of research but as an ends. Originality/Value The paper contributes new understandings of how research can be conducted and used, welcoming new playful understandings of research, attending to shifting roles, and blurring the lines drawn between the researcher and research subjects or academic research and creative projects.

“Strong Anthropic Principle”(SAP) Examined in The View of Kant’s Critical Philosophy

“Strong Anthropic Principle”(SAP) Examined in The View of Kant’s Critical Philosophy

Philosophical Criticism Applied to Kassandra’s Brand Novel by Ch. Aitmatov

Philosophical Criticism Applied to Kassandra’s Brand Novel by Ch. Aitmatov

Bewußtseinslust. Das freie Spiel der Vermögen in Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft als transzendentales Verhältnis

Kant´s critical philosophy as a whole operates on the condition of possibility that the faculties of pure reason can be isolated analytically in order to evaluate them, while at the same time they work together in various effective forms of inter-play. As one of these forms, Kant in the Critique of the Power of Judgment introduces the "free play of imagination and understanding", which plays an important role in setting together the four moments of the aesthetic judgement. Within the last two decades or so it has been discussed widely how this cooperation between these two faculties works, but it barely has been reflected on the question how to address the "free play" properly in terms of a methodological classification. This paper follows the various contexts in which the "free play" is referred to, focusses primarily on the dysfunctional cases in which the cooperation between the two faculties fails or comes to a halt and thus evaluates the basic structure of the "free play" under the perspective of theoretical technique on the horizon of transcendental philosophy. The aim is to eventually propose a more precise title of the free play or alternatively give a reason why such a labelling could not be possible after all.

O filosofo crítico é um gênio

This article intends to show first that the systematic demands placed in the Preface to Criticism of the faculty of judging impose a restriction on the concept of genius to artistic activity; second, it provides an interpretation of the complementarity of the receptive moment and the creative moment in the case of the work of art. In the concluding part, it brings together some characteristics of genius to the critical philosopher on the basis of some significant analogies: the legislative activity of genius and that of reason, the analogy with the function of making a technical activity compatible with an organic vision and the necessary complementarity between receptive and creative / communicative moments in art and philosophy.

Youth Deradicalization Through Educational Institutions: Philosophical Perspective

This article aims to discuss the deradicalization of youths and the important position of educational institutions. The perspective used in this paper is the philosophy of ideological criticism of Jurgen Hubermas. This analysis is used to examine more deeply the ideology and character of the radicalism movement and deradicalization programs carried out by various elements of the nation. By critiquing ideology, we can understand the background of the emergence of radicalism. We can also analyze all forms of expression of resistance to the ideology of radicalism through deradicalization programs, especially through youths. Youths are important to be involved because they are a group that is very vulnerable to exposure to the ideology of radicalism. This paper concludes that to carry out deradicalization, the most important thing is to understand the character and ideology of radicalism movements. This strategy is important because in reality incidents of radicalism continue to occur. Even though the security forces have arrested and detained, even shot dead, the perpetrators of radicalism. This reality shows that radicalism has become a growing ideology among its followers, especially youths. By understanding the character and ideology of the radicalism movement, deradicalization programs among youths through educational institutions will be more effective. Deradicalization programs must also be carried out in a dialogical and humane manner. It is in this context that cultural dialogue involving youths across ethnicities and religions must be carried out in a sustainable manner.

White Settler-colonialism and Epistemic Violence in “Post-apartheid South Africa”: An Azanian Philosophical Analysis

This article is a critical attempt to problematise the notions of European Modernity and Rationality. It is fundamentally an Afrikan philosophical critique of epistemic violence that comes with European Modernity and Rationality. It argues that European Modernity triumphed in “South Africa” following unjust conquest of the Indigenous people since 1652, which was characterised by loss of sovereignty and epistemicide. This resulted in the violent imposition of the law and jurisprudence of White settlers, which are antithetical to Afrikan law and jurisprudence. This epistemicidal nature of White settler colonialism manifests itself through the legal technicalisation of issues of historical injustice.

Decolonising Sinology: on Sinology’s weaponisation of the discourse of race

ABSTRACT The previous generation of Sinologists were of the overwhelming consensus that race consciousness did not exist in pre-modern China. However, in recent decades there has been a revision of this consensus. This paper frames this shift in terms of Sinology’s complicity with white supremacy, imperialism and the military-industrial-academic complex. Contemporary Sinology sets itself up as exposing a colonial mentality in pre-modern China. The irony is that it is contemporary Sinology which is complicit with white supremacy and itself is in need of decolonisation. This paper will analyse the most prominent example of this sea-shift in the Sinological consensus on race in China: Frank Dikötter’s The Discourse of Race in Modern China. That such scholarship, deficient in the most basic scholarly standards, was overwhelmingly feted upon its publication, continues to be cited as an authority and to receive inordinate recognition reveals Western academia’s problematic attitudes towards China and the issue of racism. This paper will show how all of the above phenomena can be understood in terms of the “epistemology of ignorance.” By misappropriating the discourse of the critical philosophy of race, Sinology’s epistemology of ignorance universalises Western racism. Sinology has weaponised the discourse of race.

Including the Caribbean. A commentary on David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh's ‘Abyssal geography’.

Including the Caribbean. A commentary on David Chandler and Jonathan Pugh's ‘Abyssal geography’.

Ежен Дюпреель і Хаїм Перельман: нормативно-критичні засади «риторичного повороту» в сучасній філософії. Частина ІІ

The purpose of the article is, firstly, to explicate and give a critical assessment of the methodological, epistemological, and philosophical foundations that led to the “rhetorical turn” in modern philosophy, and, secondly, to answer the question of how justified the grounds for such a “rhetorical turn” are. The answer proposed is based on a reconstruction of Eugene Dupréel’s critical arguments that were directed against the “classical philosophy” and their reception in Chaim Perelman’s works during his “turning point” period (1947 – 1949). The article proves that these two scholars’ critique of classical philosophy proceeds from a realistic position, therefore it does not apply to the epistemological principles of idealistic philosophy. Their criticism of the classical theory of progress and the ideal of universally valid knowledge is “axiological” in nature and boils down to a reassessment of all traditional values. As a result of this reassessment, the methodological principles of sophistry (subjectivism, pragmatism, pluralism, relativism, conventionalism, etc.) are actually rehabilitated. The criticism of philosophy that appeals to spoken language and everyday knowledge, is not justified, since it is based on a misunderstanding of the conceptual and constructive nature of the philosophical language. Although the rhetorical analysis of philosophical texts should be recognized as fruitful and useful, rhetoric cannot be an instrument of philosophizing, since the interpretation of values depends on their understanding, which is given by “classical philosophy”.

Nietzsche's Ecce Homo and the Revaluation of All Values: Dionysian Versus Christian Values by Thomas H. Brobjer

Reviewed by: Nietzsche's Ecce Homo and the Revaluation of All Values: Dionysian Versus Christian Values by Thomas H. Brobjer Charles P. Rodger Thomas H. Brobjer. Nietzsche's Ecce Homo and the Revaluation of All Values: Dionysian Versus Christian Values. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. Pp. viii + 210. Hardback, $115.00. It is difficult to review a book so rich in consequences and seemingly sui generis. To categorize it as the work of a "lumper" or "splitter," for example, would only confuse matters. Granted, Brobjer dismisses The Will to Power as the tendentious forgery of Nietzsche's sister. Methodologically, he also appears as a "moderate" splitter who provides a close textual reading and draws on the Nachlass only so far as this serves to elucidate the claims Nietzsche made in his published works. Nonetheless, Brobjer's central hypothesis might, albeit falsely, suggest that he is an old-fashioned lumper, for he holds that Mazzino Montinari was wrong to claim Nietzsche abandoned his plans for a Hauptwerk ("Nietzsches Nachlaß von 1885 bis 1888 oder Textkritik und Wille zur Macht," in Nietzsche Lesen [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1982], 92–119). Granted, Montinari admitted that after abandoning plans for The Will to Power, Nietzsche did, in the fall of 1888, entertain a new plan for a four-volume Hauptwerk titled The Revaluation of All Values. According to these plans, The Antichrist would be its first volume, followed by The Free Spirit, containing a critique of philosophy as a nihilistic movement; The Immoralist, containing a critique of morality and its dangers; and Dionysos Philosophos. Nonetheless, Montinari claimed, these plans also collapsed when, sometime after mid-November 1888, Nietzsche decided to make The Antichrist into the whole of The Revaluation of All Values. Indeed, Montinari's hypothesis was that Nietzsche finally realized, at the last minute, that the work of the past five years and what he had previously regarded as his life task was untenable and, having published everything he could salvage from his failed Hauptwerk project, "Nietzsche's collapse in Turin came when he had literally finished with everything" (12, emphasis in the original). To Brobjer, however, "this claim seems both psychologically improbable and, in regard to Nietzsche's intention to write a Hauptwerk, simply wrong" (12). Yet despite Brobjer having demonstrated in a number of articles published over the past decades that the evidence is not only too thin and ambiguous to sustain Montinari's hypothesis, but that it contradicts his timeline (92–94), scholars continue to treat Montinari's conclusions as established fact, and moreover treat all "discussions and considerations of a magnum opus … as hypothetical and old-fashioned" (12). But if so, why should the present study, wherein Brobjer advances this same thesis, not also fall on deaf ears? The answer is surprising: Ecce Homo. The Druckmanuskript shows that both the final chapter headings and the majority of the final text of Ecce Homo were established prior to mid-November, and, while Nietzsche continued to make additions and alterations to Ecce Homo up until a day before his collapse, his revisions to the completed portions of the text were only "minor" (21). Since, even according to Montinari's timeline, the vast majority of Ecce Homo was thus written at a time when Nietzsche still incontrovertibly intended that The Antichrist would constitute only the first volume of The Revaluation of All Values (47), nothing can possibly speak against examining whether Ecce Homo might retain at least traces of Nietzsche's original plans for his Hauptwerk. To the contrary, a great deal speaks for it. After all, the conventional interpretation of Ecce Homo as a "backward-looking autobiography" (5) has hardly borne fruit; read as a summary of Nietzsche's life and writings, Ecce Homo is so "elliptic, paradoxical, absurd" (48), and so contorted by excessive self-praise and praise for Thus Spoke Zarathustra, that the text is incoherent and unusable for its supposed purpose. Yet Nietzsche explicitly told his publisher that his intention was merely to tell of his life and works "in snatches" (3), and that Ecce Homo was being composed with the "intention to give this work the same form and appearance which that magnum opus [Hauptwerk] will have, to...

Philosophical Pragmatism and the Challenges of Information Technologies

Philosophical Pragmatism and the Challenges of Information Technologies