Volume 98, Issue 2

Abstract: This article re-examines the meaning of P. Derv. XIX 1–4, not only arguing against understanding the phrase in the sense of Anaxagorean philosophy (in particular, in the sense of Anaxagoras A 41 DK, which is a periphrasis of Anaxagoras B 12 DK), but also stressing that the semantics of the verb ἐπικρατέω implies dominion in an absolute, rather than relative sense: it is used to refer to a substance that does not allow dominated substances to be present in the same reality and at the same time. This finding allows us to reinterpret the physical implications of XIX 1–4, to suggest a new syntactical understanding of the second part of the phrase, and to find a sense of analogy between the first and second parts of the sentence. Most importantly, the new interpretation connects the meaning of XIX 1–4 with its immediate and broader context (that is, it explains how the physical ideas it contains relate to the linguistic ones discussed in the rest of the commentary). This also leads to reconsideration of other physical generalisations found in this part of the commentary: the Anaxagorean paradigm that is often taken to be behind these generalisations turns out not to be always tenable, while the basic physical pattern is much closer to monistic systems such as those of Diogenes of Apollonia.

Abstract: Scholars recognize Spinoza’s conatus doctrine as one of the most important features of the Ethics . In this paper, I investigate two rather neglected aspects of this doctrine, namely, the notion of “transition of perfection” and its moral consequences. I argue that both aspects originate from significant changes in Spinoza’s thought from the positions held in his early writings. To support this claim, I focus on how Spinoza discusses these points in his correspondence with Willem van Blijenbergh (1664–1665). In his letters, Spinoza denies the reality of transitions of perfection, while such transitions will become a key feature of his later account of affects. Moreover, Spinoza subscribes to a kind of ethical intellectualism that he later rejects in his mature version of the Ethics . I conclude that the first draft of the Ethics mentioned in 1665 to van Blijenbergh must have been rather different from its definitive version.

Abstract: According to a widespread view, Kant abandons in the Critique of Practical Reason the attempt to justify the moral law. This paper argues against that view and presents a new interpretation of the doctrine that deals with the justification problem. The paper seeks not simply to affirm what the predominant view denies; it seeks instead to show that Kant’s argumentation isn’t an alternative that the predominant view allows for. On the predominant view, the impossibility of providing the relevant kind of proof, i.e. a transcendental deduction, amounts to the impossibility of providing a satisfactory justification. The paper shows that one thing doesn’t entail the other. Kant can resolve the justification problem without providing the relevant kind of proof because the mere exposition of that law already accomplishes what a proof would have accomplished. The purpose of the Fact of Reason is to point to the characteristic of the moral law – its particular relation to the act of willing –, which accounts for this convergence of exposition and justification. This new interpretation of the Fact of Reason sheds light both on the overall structure of the second Critique and on the second Critique ’s relation to the Groundwork .

Abstract: It has become typical to read Kant and Merleau-Ponty as offering competing approaches to perceptual experience. Kant is interpreted as an ‘intellectualist’ who regards perception as conceptual ‘all the way out’, while Merleau-Ponty is seen as Kant’s challenger, who argues that perception involves non-conceptual, embodied ‘coping’. In this paper, however, I argue that a closer examination of their views of perception, especially with respect to the notion of ‘schematism’, reveals a great deal of historical and philosophical continuity between them. By analyzing Kant’s theory of schematism, the interpretation of it by the Neo-Kantian Pierre Lachièze-Rey, and Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the body schema, we find that aspects of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception are better understood as a development of Kant’s theory of perception.