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What Is That Thing Called Philosophy of Technology? - R
HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY – Vol. IV - What Is That Thing Called Philosophy of Technology? - R. J. Gómez WHAT IS THAT THING CALLED PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY? R. J. Gómez Department of Philosophy. California State University (LA). USA Keywords: Adorno, Aristotle, Bunge, Ellul, Feenberg, Habermas, Heidegger, Horkheimer, Jonas, Latour, Marcuse, Mumford, Naess, Shrader-Frechette, artifact, assessment, determinism, ecosophy, ends, enlightenment, efficiency, epistemology, enframing, ideology, life-form, megamachine, metaphysics, method, naturalistic, fallacy, new, ethics, progress, rationality, rule, science, techno-philosophy Contents 1. Introduction 2. Locating technology with respect to science 2.1. Structure and Content 2.2. Method 2.3. Aim 2.4. Pattern of Change 3. Locating philosophy of technology 4. Early philosophies of technology 4.1. Aristotelianism 4.2. Technological Pessimism 4.3. Technological Optimism 4.4. Heidegger’s Existentialism and the Essence of Technology 4.5. Mumford’s Megamachinism 4.6. Neomarxism 4.6.1. Adorno-Horkheimer 4.6.2. Marcuse 4.6.3. Habermas 5. Recent philosophies of technology 5.1. L. Winner 5.2. A. Feenberg 5.3. EcosophyUNESCO – EOLSS 6. Technology and values 6.1. Shrader-Frechette Claims 6.2. H Jonas 7. Conclusions SAMPLE CHAPTERS Glossary Bibliography Biographical Sketch Summary A philosophy of technology is mainly a critical reflection on technology from the point of view of the main chapters of philosophy, e.g., metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Technology has had a fast development since the middle of the 20th century , especially ©Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS) HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY – Vol. IV - What Is That Thing Called Philosophy of Technology? - R. -
From Liberalisms to Enlightenment's Wake
JOURNAL OF IBERTARIAN TUDIES S L S JL VOLUME 21, NO. 3 (FALL 2007): 79–114 GRAY’S PROGRESS: FROM LIBERALISMS TO ENLIGHTENMENT’S WAKE JEREMY SHEARMUR The progress of that darkness . from its first approach to the period of greatest obscuration. William Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles the Fifth I HAVE KNOWN JOHN Gray for quite a few years, and have long admired his work. We were among the (very few) political theorists in the U.K. who, in the early 1970s, had an interest in the work of Hayek, and more generally in issues relating to classical liberalism. During the 1980s, he emerged as the most powerful and effective theorist of classical liberalism in the U.K., notably through his re- interpretations of John Stuart Mill in Mill on Liberty (1983a), his Hayek and Liberty (1984), and his overview and critical assessment of the lib- eral tradition, Liberalism (1986). We had, over the years, various dis- cussions about Hayek and liberalism—as Gray mentions in his Hayek on Liberty—and in that connection we shared many intellectual con- cerns; notably, with problems about how classical liberalism related to particular traditional cultures, and about the value of lives that did not involve autonomy in any significant sense. Our discussions about these and related matters were occasional, and typically by telephone or at Liberty Fund conferences. In the course of one of these conversations, I suggested to Gray that he might consider col- lecting some of his essays on liberalism into a volume, as he kindly JEREMY SHEARMUR is Reader in Philosophy at the Australian National University. -
Mill's "Very Simple Principle": Liberty, Utilitarianism And
MILL'S "VERY SIMPLE PRINCIPLE": LIBERTY, UTILITARIANISM AND SOCIALISM MICHAEL GRENFELL submitted for degree of Ph.D. London School of Economics and Political Science UMI Number: U048607 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U048607 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 I H^S £ S F 6SI6 ABSTRACT OF THESIS MILL'S "VERY SIMPLE PRINCIPLE'*: LIBERTY. UTILITARIANISM AND SOCIALISM 1 The thesis aims to examine the political consequences of applying J.S. Mill's "very simple principle" of liberty in practice: whether the result would be free-market liberalism or socialism, and to what extent a society governed in accordance with the principle would be free. 2 Contrary to Mill's claims for the principle, it fails to provide a clear or coherent answer to this "practical question". This is largely because of three essential ambiguities in Mill's formulation of the principle, examined in turn in the three chapters of the thesis. 3 First, Mill is ambivalent about whether liberty is to be promoted for its intrinsic value, or because it is instrumental to the achievement of other objectives, principally the utilitarian objective of "general welfare". -
Libertarians in Bush's World
ESSAY ON LIBERTY+ LIBERTARIANS IN BUSH’S WORLD Todd Seavey* Imagine ordinary, non-ideological people hearing about an obscure politi- cal sect called libertarianism, which emphasizes self-ownership, property rights, resistance to tyranny and violence, the reduction of taxation and regulation, control over one’s own investments, and the de-emphasizing of litigation as a primary means of dispute resolution. Since this philosophy has very few adherents in the general population and is very much a minority position among intellectuals, one might expect proponents of the creed to count themselves lucky, given the likely alternatives, if the president of the country in which most of them live increasingly emphasized the themes of freedom and ownership in his major speeches; toppled brutal totalitarian regimes in two countries while hounding democracy-hating theocratic terrorists around the globe; cut taxes (despite howls even from some in the free-market camp that the cuts were too deep); called for simplification of the tax code; appointed relatively industry-friendly officials to major regulatory bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration despite frequent criti- cism by the media; proposed partially privatizing Social Security (America’s largest socialist boondoggle but one long regarded as sacrosanct by political analysts); and pushed tort reform to combat the chilling effect of lawsuits on doctors and manu- facturers. + Essays on Liberty is a continuing series of the Journal of Law & Liberty, dedicated to explorations of freedom and law from perspectives outside the legal academy. * Director of Publications for the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAnd- Fears.com), which does not necessarily endorse the views expressed here. -
POEC 301 Syllabus
Jon Bakija Jim Mahon Schapiro 330 Schapiro 337 office: x2325 office: x2236 Office hours: Office hours: Tu 1:30-3:30 W 10-noon and by app’t. and by app’t [email protected] [email protected] POLITICAL ECONOMY 250 ECONOMIC LIBERALISM AND ITS CRITICS Fall 2015 Economic liberalism holds that society is better off if people enjoy economic freedom. Its critics point to what they believe this position ignores or what it wrongly assumes, and hence, how it would make bad policy. This course explores the relationship between politics and economics by surveying influential works of political economy. Its first part examines major thinkers in relation to the historical development of capitalism in Western Europe and the United States: the classical liberalism of Adam Smith, Karl Marx's revolutionary socialism, and the reformist ideas of John Stuart Mill and John Maynard Keynes. The second part considers mid-20th-century writers who revise and critique economic liberalism from a variety of perspectives, including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, Arthur Okun, and Albert O. Hirschman. The third part surveys significant recent contributions relevant to the themes of the course, with applications to current public policy issues, including topics such as: power relations and autonomy in the workplace; asymmetric information and social insurance; economic inequality and distributive justice; equality of opportunity; the economics of health care; positional goods and the moral foundations of capitalism; intergenerational equity and climate change; economic nationalism and new trade theory; behavioral economics; finance and financial crises; and rent-seeking. The combination of the historical focus of the early part of the course with discussion of modern policy issues and debates in the latter part of the course permits you to appreciate the ongoing dialogue between classical and contemporary views of political economy. -
The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand
THE CONTESTED LEGACY OF AYN RAND Truth and Toleration in Objectivism THE CONTESTED LEGACY OF AYN RAND THE CONTESTED LEGACY OF AYN RAND Truth and Toleration in Objectivism DAVID KELLEY The OBJECTIVIST CENTER Transaction Publishers Poughkeepsie, New York New Brunswick (U.S.) & London (U.K.) First Printing, February, 1990 Second Revised Edition, 2000 Copyright © 1990 by David Kelley Copyright © 2000 by David Kelley All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted in any form without written permission from the author. For information address Dr. David Kelley, The Objectivist Center, 11 Raymond Avenue, Suite 31, Poughkeepsie, New York 12603 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kelley, David, 1949– The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand: Truth and Toleration in Objectivism/ David Kelley Includes bibliographic references (p. 103–111) and index. ISBN 1-57724-010-3 Printed in the United States of America The Objectivist Center 11 Raymond Avenue, Suite 31 Poughkeepsie, New York 12603 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE TO THE 2ND EDITION 9 INTRODUCTION 13 I. MORAL JUDGMENT 19 COGNITION AND EVALUATION 19 MORAL JUDGMENT 21 TYPES OF MORAL JUDGMENT 23 THE TEMPERAMENT OF A JUDGE 28 II. SANCTION 31 EXISTENTIAL AID AND MORAL SANCTION 31 THE CASE OF LIBERTARIANISM 36 III. ERROR AND EVIL 39 IDEAS AND ORIGINAL SIN 40 THE ROLE OF IDEAS IN HISTORY 43 THE SCOPE OF HONEST ERROR 50 INHERENTLY DISHONEST IDEAS 57 IV. TOLERATION 61 TOLERANCE, JUSTICE, AND BENEVOLENCE 61 TOLERANCE AND OBJECTIVITY 63 V. OBJECTIVISM 71 OPEN AND CLOSED SYSTEMS 73 OBJECTIVISM AS AN OPEN SYSTEM 75 WHAT IS OBJECTIVISM? 81 THE OBJECTIVIST MOVEMENT 85 POSTSCRIPT 95 NOTES 103 APPENDIX A: A QUESTION OF SANCTION 113 APPENDIX B: BETTER THINGS TO DO 119 INDEX 123 PREFACE TO THE 2ND EDITION 2000 Ayn Rand’s philosophical novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged made her the most controversial author of her age. -
Investigations of Worth: Towards a Phenomenology of Values Dale Hobbs Jr
Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations (2009 -) Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Projects Investigations of Worth: Towards a Phenomenology of Values Dale Hobbs Jr. Marquette University Recommended Citation Hobbs, Dale Jr., "Investigations of Worth: Towards a Phenomenology of Values" (2017). Dissertations (2009 -). 740. http://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu/740 INVESTIGATIONS OF WORTH: TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGY OF VALUES by Dale (D.J.) Hobbs A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Milwaukee, WI August 2017 ABSTRACT INVESTIGATIONS OF WORTH: TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGY OF VALUES Dale (D.J.) Hobbs Marquette University, 2017 The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a clear and compelling account of the existence and nature of values within a phenomenological context. Values such as beauty or virtue are certainly a major part of our experiential lives. After all, what would life be worth if we could never describe a painting as beautiful, for example, or a beverage as delicious? Nevertheless, understanding what these values are on their own terms has historically been a rather difficult task. Certainly, they are not ordinary objects that could be seen or heard, touched or tasted, like the physical objects to which they seem to be connected in some mysterious way. In this dissertation, I argue that a phenomenological approach enables us to give a solid account of the role that values play in experience. Working in dialogue with Husserl and other phenomenologists and related thinkers (especially Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann), as well as with recent commentary, I develop my own account of values as lying on the phenomenological “horizons” of experience. -
Tara Smith's Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics: a Positive Contribution?
Reason Papers Vol. 35, no. 1 Response to Eyal Mozes, “Tara Smith’s Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: A Positive Contribution?” Carrie-Ann Biondi Marymount Manhattan College Irfan Khawaja Felician College 1. Introduction In this discussion note, we respond to Eyal Mozes’s critique of Tara Smith’s Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics via his criticism of Carrie-Ann Biondi’s review of that book in Reason Papers.1 We take issue with Mozes’s discussion of Ayn Rand’s non-conflicts-of-interest principle (NCIP) along with his discussion of the nature of moral virtue. We end by taking issue with his inappropriately moralized conception of philosophical discourse. Since we agree with many (though not all) of Mozes’s claims about emergencies and the scope of morality, we leave those topics undiscussed. 2. Conflicts of Interest Mozes offers two objections to Smith’s discussion of the NCIP: For any book that purports to be a presentation of Rand’s normative ethics, a crucial part of its task is to give an elaborate explanation and defense of Rand’s no-conflicts-of-interest-principle, filling in the details of Rand’s own cursory discussion. In evaluating such a book, I don’t think there’s any question more important than how well it succeeds in explaining and defending this principle. Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics disgracefully fails in this task.2 We reject every element of this criticism. 1 Tara Smith, Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), hereafter ARNE; Carrie-Ann Biondi, “Review Essay: Tara Smith’s Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist,” Reason Papers 30 (Fall 2008), pp. -
Introduction
Copyrighted Material • Introduction I Although the term pragmatism is frequently used to characterize some or other highly specific thesis or program, pragmatism is not and never was a school of thought unified around a distinctive doctrine. In fact, the first pragmatists— Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey—were divided over what, precisely, pragmatism is. Peirce first proposed the “pragmatic maxim” as a tool for dispensing with metaphysical nonsense; for him, pragmatism was strictly a “method of ascer- taining the meanings of hard words and abstract concepts” (CP5.464).1 The core of this method is the idea that, To develop [a thought’s] meaning, we have simply to determine what habits it produces, for what a thing means is simply what habits it involves. (CP5.400) Hence the pragmatic maxim: Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object. (CP5.402) For Peirce, pragmatism was a way to clear away philosophical error and start upon the path of properly conducted philosophy. Peirce thought that by analyzing words and statements in terms of “what is tangible and conceivably practical” (CP5.400), one could “dismiss make-believes” (CP5.416) and free philosophy of “senseless jar- gon” (CP5.401). Although pragmatism is the beginning of Peirce’s philosophy, it is not the whole of Peirce’s philosophy. As is well known, Peirce went on to develop original (some might say idiosyncratic) views concerning topics ranging from philosophy of mathematics, logic, and science to phenomenology, semiotics, and aesthetics. -
What's Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging
What’s Left of the Left What’s Left of the Left Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times Edited by James Cronin, George Ross, and James Shoch Duke University Press Durham and London 2011 © 2011 Duke University Press All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper ♾ Typeset in Charis by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: The New World of the Center-Left 1 James Cronin, George Ross, and James Shoch Part I: Ideas, Projects, and Electoral Realities Social Democracy’s Past and Potential Future 29 Sheri Berman Historical Decline or Change of Scale? 50 The Electoral Dynamics of European Social Democratic Parties, 1950–2009 Gerassimos Moschonas Part II: Varieties of Social Democracy and Liberalism Once Again a Model: 89 Nordic Social Democracy in a Globalized World Jonas Pontusson Embracing Markets, Bonding with America, Trying to Do Good: 116 The Ironies of New Labour James Cronin Reluctantly Center- Left? 141 The French Case Arthur Goldhammer and George Ross The Evolving Democratic Coalition: 162 Prospects and Problems Ruy Teixeira Party Politics and the American Welfare State 188 Christopher Howard Grappling with Globalization: 210 The Democratic Party’s Struggles over International Market Integration James Shoch Part III: New Risks, New Challenges, New Possibilities European Center- Left Parties and New Social Risks: 241 Facing Up to New Policy Challenges Jane Jenson Immigration and the European Left 265 Sofía A. Pérez The Central and Eastern European Left: 290 A Political Family under Construction Jean- Michel De Waele and Sorina Soare European Center- Lefts and the Mazes of European Integration 319 George Ross Conclusion: Progressive Politics in Tough Times 343 James Cronin, George Ross, and James Shoch Bibliography 363 About the Contributors 395 Index 399 Acknowledgments The editors of this book have a long and interconnected history, and the book itself has been long in the making. -
Kelvin Knight Aristotelianism Versus Communitarianism
Analyse & Kritik 27/2005 ( c Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart) p. 259{273 Kelvin Knight Aristotelianism versus Communitarianism Abstract: Alasdair MacIntyre is an Aristotelian critic of communitarianism, which he understands to be committed to the politics of the capitalist and bureaucratic nation- state. The politics he proposes instead is based in the resistance to managerial insti- tutions of what he calls `practices', because these are schools of virtue. This shares little with the communitarianism of a Taylor or the Aristotelianism of a Gadamer. Although practices require formal institutions. MacIntyre opposes such conservative politics. Conventional accounts of a `liberal-communitarian debate' in political phi- losophy face the dilemma that Alasdair MacIntyre, often identified as a paradigmatic communitarian, has consistently and emphatically repudiated this characterization. Although neo-Aristotelianism is sometimes seen as a philosophical warrant for commu- nitarian politics, MacIntyre's Aristotelianism is opposed to communitarianism. This paper explores the rationale of that opposition. 1. Communitarianisms The term \communitarianism" was used by imaginative polemicists in the 1980s, and has been used by unimaginative textbook writers since then, to signify the criticism by a variety of Anglophone political philosophers of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice for resting upon overly individualist premisses. Despite the synthesizing efforts of Amitai Etzioni, it does not represent a coherent philo- sophical position. Nor can it do so unless some one theorist is chosen as its representative. Perhaps the best Anglophone candidate for such a position is Charles Taylor, yet Taylor considers the liberal-communitarian debate to have been conducted at `cross-purposes', with regard both to `ontological' issues of social theory and to moral or `advocacy' issues (Taylor 1989). -
Constructive Empiricism in the Social Sciences
Constructive empiricism in the social sciences Abstract ‘What problems face the aspirant empiricist today?’ is the question Bas C. van Fraassen asks in his seminal work The Scientific Image (1980). In this thesis, I interpret this question as a challenge to develop constructive empiricism [CE] in a field of scientific inquiry other than the context of physics in which it was conceived. The first part of the thesis expounds CE with reference to classical empiricism, discloses some of its fundamental assumptions, and spells out in detail its account of science. In the second part of the thesis, CE is extended to social science. Since CE was developed in the context of natural science, I take an articulation of the alleged fundamental differences between natural and social science as indicating challenges a CE-outlook on social science must address. I also provide a brief history of the gap between the sciences. Then, in the bulk of this thesis, I argue that CE’s model view accommodates social science, that description, prediction and explanation in the light of CE are proper fruits of inquiry in social science, and that CE is able to make sense of the differences in the concepts used in natural and social science. In the discussion of the feasibility of CE for social science, I show concurrently that contemporary articulations of the differences between the natural and the social sciences pose no insuperable problems for the constructive empiricist. Bram van Dijk | 3691454 History & Philosophy of Science | Utrecht University Daily supervisors | dr. Guido Bacciagaluppi & dr. Ruud Abma Third examiner | dr.