Volume 101, Issue 4

John Ackrill argued that Aristotelian bodies are conceptually promiscuous, since they fail to exemplify the modal relations that are expected to hold between their matter and their form. Although “potentially alive”, organic bodies are bound to be ensouled, on pain of lacking the required potential; but to the extent that they are ensouled, they are already actually alive. It seems odd to claim that a body may lack (qua “potential”) what it cannot help having (as necessarily enjoying life). This paper claims that the standard solution (which distinguishes an essentially ensouled body from its underlying inanimate substrate) falls short of the strong unity living beings display, given that nothing in them can be accidentally alive ( De Anima 415b13). An alternative proposal is advanced, based on two distinctions Aristotle draws in his philosophical lexicon: (i) both matter and form have a claim to being called “nature”; (ii) formal nature may be found in its subject either (ii.a) in actuality or (ii.b) in potentiality ( Met . 1015a18). It is argued that the characterization of organic bodies as “potentially alive” conforms to (ii.b), a pattern that helps explain the specific way in which bodies share in the organisms’ life. Two possible instances of (ii.b) are finally considered by way of illustration.

In recent years, several philosophers have used “situationist” findings in social psychology to criticize character-based ethical theories. After showing how these criticisms apply, prima facie, to Kant’s moral theory, I lay out a Kantian response to them. Kant admits the empirical reality of situation-dependence in human actions but articulates a conception of “ought implies can” that vindicates his character-based moral theory in the face of rarity of character. Moreover, he provides an interpretive framework for the situation-dependence of human motivation in terms of humans’ “propensity to evil.” He also provides a framework for highlighting empirical bases for moral hope, a framework that makes it possible to see lack of character as something human beings can overcome. And he outlines a “moral anthropology” that develops something akin to what Mark Alfano calls “moral technologies,” but in Kant’s case, these technologies focus on cultivating character as such rather than merely good behavioral outcomes.

The goal of this paper is to better understand Kant’s conception of philosophy as a “world concept” ( Weltbegriff ), which is at the heart of the Architectonic of Pure Reason. This is pursued in two major parts. The first evaluates the textual foundation for reading Kant’s world concept of philosophy as cosmopolitanism and concludes that he most probably never himself equated philosophy as a world concept with any form of cosmopolitanism. The second major part of the paper clarifies this concept of philosophy through the specific role it plays in the argument of the Architectonic. Kant’s unique concept of science is examined and compared with several specific applications of it found elsewhere in Kant’s writings. From this it is concluded that Kant’s intention in the Architectonic was to derive his world concept of philosophy from its logical counterpart, namely the scholastic concept of philosophy, and that its function there is to provide the idea from which the entire structure (schema) of Kantian critical metaphysics can be derived. Philosophy as a world concept, it is further argued, is the complete system of critical or Kantian metaphysics in application and the philosopher in this sense is the ideal critical metaphysician who fully realizes its laws through her own understanding and will.

The Newtonian research program consists of the core axioms of the Principia Mathematica , a sequence of force laws and auxiliary hypotheses, and a set of methodological rules. The latter underwent several changes and so it is sometimes claimed that, historically seen, Newton and the Newtonians added methodological rules post constructione in order to further support their research agenda. An argument of Duhem, Feyerabend, and Lakatos aims to provide a theoretical reason why Newton could not have come up with his theory of the Principia in accordance with his own methodology: Since Newton’s starting point, Kepler’s laws, contradict the law of universal gravitation, he could not have applied the so-called method of analysis and synthesis . In this paper, this argument is examined with reference to the Principia ’s several editions. Newton’s method is characterized, and necessary general background assumptions of the argument are made explicit. Finally, the argument is criticized based on a contemporary philosophy of science point of view.