2020-01Forum
Where Are the Wild Things? A Cultural-Psychological Critique of a Political Theology of Climate Change Denial

Abstract: One aim of this essay is to understand why white evangelical Christians, more than any other religious adherents in the United States, are deeply invested in denying the emergency of anthropogenic climate change and in obstructing action to address anthropogenic climate change. Michael S. Hogue, in his recent book, American Immanence, blames a religious imaginary he names…

2019-04Forum
Education, Philosophy, and Morality: Virtue Philosophy in Kant

Abstract: This article investigates the interrelated roles of education, morality, and philosophy in Kant as a response to the transactional view of humanity promoted by the spirit of capitalism, known as the “capital form.” This article investigates the effect of the capital form upon educational institutions and self-cultivation, or Bildung. Kant’s views on the role of education in moral…

2019-04Forum
Philosophical Constraints on Normativity

Abstract: This essay is an exploratory reflection on a theme drawn from the work of Pierre Hadot and Juliusz Domański regarding “philosophy as a way of life.” I approach the matter from the naturalistic outlook of classic pragmatism and its own limitations. This approach stresses the possible improvement of the analysis of normativity by way of…

2019-03Forum
The Post-Secular Turn: Enlightenment, Tradition, Revolution

Abstract: The aim of this essay is to give a general and accessible overview of the so called “post-secular” turn in the contemporary humanities. The main idea behind it is that it constitutes an answer to the crisis of the secular grand narratives of modernity: the Hegelian narrative of the immanent progress of the…

2019-03Forum
Charles Taylor on Ethics and Liberty

Abstract: My argument in this paper is that Charles Taylor’s view of liberty and ethics unites Isaiah Berlin’s liberal pluralism with Elizabeth Anscombe’s virtue ethics. Berlin identifies, in “Two Concepts of Liberty,” a tradition of negative liberty advocated by figures like Locke and Mill. He maintains that this concept of liberty is unique to modernity, and it…

2019-03Forum
What Is Dignity?

Abstract: It stands to reason that a criterion is needed that can serve as a common denominator for weighing or assessing different values or ideals. Dignity is offered as a possible candidate, to be presented from religio-legal and cross-cultural vantages. A definition will be offered for dignity and its parts defended throughout the paper. The approach is not only not rigorously analytic…

2019-03Forum
A Subaltern Pain: The Problem of Violence in Philosophy’s Pain Discourse

Abstract: The scientific and philosophical approach to pain must be supplemented by a hermeneutics studying how racism has complicated the communication of pain. Such an investigation reveals that not only are non-white people seen as credibly speaking their pain, but also pain “science” is one of the ways races have historically been constructed. I illustrate this…

2019-02Forum
Artistic Research: Delusions, Confusions and Differentiations

Abstract: Concerning artistic research, the state of affairs is still one of delusions and confusions. The reason for this is the pluralization and dedifferentiation of rationality pushed forward by the postmodern period. The way out of it is the way of differentiations. Thus, it seems helpful, first, to remember what we already have…

2019-02Forum
Freud, Stern and McGilchrist: Developmental and Cultural Implications of Their Work

Abstract: “Human beings have two fundamentally different ways of thinking about and engaging with the world.” Some variant of this proposition is shared by many thinkers across time. This paper focuses on the core similarities and the subtle (but significant) differences between Freud’s theory of primary and secondary processes, Karl Stern’s theory…

2019-01Forum
Value Commensurability in Brightman and Scheler: Towards a Process Metaethics

Abstract: In the following paper, both Max Scheler and Edgar Sheffield Brightman’s rankings of value are compared. In so doing, Brightman’s table of values is found wanting along the lines of Scheler’s value rankings. The reason is, in part, that Scheler’s ordering of preference and hierarchy of feelings more readily explain what Brightman’s account…