Band 6, Heft 1

In his Knowledge and its Limits (2000) Timothy Williamson argues that knowledge can be causally efficacious and as such figure in psychological explanation. His argument for this claim figures as a response to a key objection to his overall thesis that knowing is a mental state. In this paper I argue that although Williamson succeeds in establishing that knowledge in some cases is essential to the power of certain causal explanations of actions, he fails to do this in a way that establishes knowledge itself as a causal factor. The argument thus fails to support his overall claim that knowledge should be conceived as a state of mind.

In this paper it is argued that cognitive rationality is standard-relative: what an inquiring agent rationally ought to do is determined by the set of rationality standards the agent herself accepts. The majority view, that rationality consists in acting in accordance with correct rationality standards, is criticized by arguing that rationality thus conceived cannot be action-guiding for inquiring agents.

Heidegger's account of the concept of conscience, given in Being and Time , is in many respects remarkable. Since the Middle Ages only a few philosophers have thought about conscience and probably no one with a rigour that equals that of Heidegger. Nevertheless Heidegger's account is imbued with some typically philosophical flaws. In his effort to avoid becoming a spokesman of any particular interpretation of conscience Heidegger singles out, with a characteristic philosophical gesture, the formal features of conscience. However, this formalisation has the consequence that the most crucial aspect of conscience, its call to love our neighbour, is left out. In this paper I will analyse Heidegger's account in some detail, display its errors and the philosophical character of those errors as well as sketch out an alternative account of conscience. This reveals that Heidegger's account does not make any distinction between a false conscience, which is an experience of the pressure of social values, and authentic conscience, which presents my neighbour in the light of love. Also, his account cannot make sense of the authority of conscience. Finally, I raise the question whether Heidegger's flaws tell us something about philosophy.

This essay will be divided into three main parts. The first part aims at a clarification of the ‘principle of performative self-contradiction.’ The first part will, therefore, elaborate the differences and similarities between simple (logico-semantic) contradictions and performative self-contradictions. The second part will focus upon the function of performative self-contradictions within transcendental pragmatics: performative self-contradictions work as the ultimate testing-ground for the discursive conditions within transcendental pragmatics. Performative self-contradictions do, as well, work as a tool for the identification of speech acts that violates the discursive conditions within real discourses. The third part will deal with the question of ‘ultimate justification’ within transcendental pragmatics: the challenging question will be whether the petitio principii of performative self-contradictions, in analogy with the principle of contradiction, could be justified on an ultimate basis of being non-contradictory in the performative sense.

The relation between mercy og retributive justice has been subject of much discussion over the last couples of decades. According to a traditional view on the matter mercy is exercised in cases where it is benevolently decided to impose less than the deserved punishment on a perpetrator. The purpose of this aricle is to challenge this idea of tempering justice with mercy. It is argued that proponents of the view will either have to modify the idea of mercy significantly or accept a set of implications which retributivists have standardly regarded as highly unacceptable.

Most contemporary advocates of state neutrality conceive of neutrality, not as a global or principled demand regarding all state actions or institutions, but rather as some form of limited demand vis-à-vis some state actions or institutions. However, it is arguable whether this limited neutrality is indeed coherent or whether it really serves to distinguish ‘Neutralist Liberalism’ from liberal perfectionism. These are the problems analysed in the present article.