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Against Marxism: Why I am not a Marxist
No full textThis paper is a brief critique of some of the important points of Karl Marx’s economic theory, and a critique of what we can call ‘Marxism’ as the tradition that sprang after him. Dealing with both Scientific Marxism and Critical Marxism, I attempt to show the limits of these systems, as well as explain why I personally am not committed to the ideology, and the consequences of being in such an ideology
Independence and Kant's Positive Conception of Freedom
No full textScholarly discussion of Kant’s republicanism focuses heavily on his ‘negative’ conception of freedom as independence. Much less attention has been paid to Kant’s ‘positive’ conception of freedom as being subject to one’s own legislation. I argue that Kant’s positive conception of external freedom plays a crucial role in his Doctrine of Right: external freedom in the negative sense (mutual independence) requires and is realized by freedom in the positive sense (joint self-legislation). After discussing the ‘innate right to freedom’, I argue that, on Kant’s account, this fundamental right is only fully realized when external freedom is realized in both senses and in all three spheres of public right. I conclude that a satisfactory account of Kant’s republican theory must complement the focus on independence with an emphasis on citizenship and self-legislation
Applied Epistemology: What Is It? Why Do It?
No full textThe remaining seven papers (eight, if you count this introductory piece) in this volume of Oxford Studies in Epistemology constitute a special issue on applied epistemology, an exciting, novel, and currently burgeoning subfield of epistemology. The term ‘applied epistemology’ is a relatively recent one, however, and anecdotally, many people I’ve encountered are not quite sure what it denotes, or what different works within the field have in common. In this introductory piece, I’ll venture some views about these questions, and about why applied epistemology is worth doing, as well as about its dangers. Doing so will set the state for me to situate the papers in this volume within the subfield
Conceptual Engineering is Old News
No full textAccording to a prevailing view, conceptual engineering introduces a revolutionary philosophical methodology, challenging traditional conceptual analysis. However, in our paper, we argue that closer scrutiny reveals not only the falsity but also the inherent ambiguity of this narrative. We explore four interpretations of the "Anti-Novelty Claim", the claim that conceptual engineering is not a new way of doing philosophy. Discussing the Anti-Novelty Claim from the perspective of a text’s producer, the text’s consumers, and the exegetical potential of the text, we examine each perspective’s metaphilosophical implications and demonstrate that taking each perspective requires different methods. Adopting these different methods, we argue that the different interpretations of the Anti-Novelty Claim range from nearly trivially true to unlikely but untested. Importantly, we emphasize that each interpretation offers unique philosophical insights, yet addressing them requires diverse types of evidence, preventing a singular, straightforward answer to whether conceptual engineering is new
FDA Evidentiary Standards and the need to Attend to Stakeholders’ Values
No full textAlthough it seems both ethically and epistemically appropriate to engage with publics to ensure that values used in research consider the interests of relevant stakeholders, doing so successfully faces serious challenges. Because values play central roles in drug and medical device research, using the USA Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) attempts to incorporate stakeholders’ values can offer insights into these problems. I point out challenges regarding the incorporation of what are arguably legitimate but conflicting values from relevant stakeholders. Identifying these challenges is necessary to determine what strategies might be more likely to address them
Vulnerabilidad, virtud y cuidado
No full textVulnerabilidad, virtud y cuidado es una obra que propone una reflexión profunda y transformadora sobre el papel central de la fragilidad humana en la vida moral. Frente a una cultura marcada por el individualismo y la ilusión de autosuficiencia, los autores reivindican la vulnerabilidad como condición constitutiva del ser humano, fuente originaria de las virtudes y punto de partida para una vida auténticamente ética. A partir del pensamiento de Alasdair MacIntyre, y en diálogo con Aristóteles y Tomás de Aquino, se desarrolla una antropología de la vulnerabilidad que articula la biología, la racionalidad y la dependencia como claves esenciales para entender la moralidad, el bien común y la formación del carácter virtuoso.
Este enfoque no se limita a la teoría. Como se indica en el prólogo, encuentra su aplicación paradigmática en las unidades de Cuidados Paliativos, donde el acompañamiento en la enfermedad y la muerte se convierte en espacio de humanidad, hospitalidad y generosidad. El libro culmina en la propuesta de una virtud clave, la justa generosidad, que permite dar sin reservas y recibir con dignidad, superando los límites del emotivismo y del orden dominante moderno. En suma, este texto invita a redescubrir en nuestra contingencia corporal y relacional la fuente más profunda de nuestra libertad y de nuestra vocación al cuidado mutuo
How Far Does Occupancy Extend? Global Supply Chains, Foreign Land Acquisitions, and Territorial Sovereignty
No full textAppeals to occupancy rights are central to a number of prominent defenses of territorial sovereignty. Occupancy rights are grounded in the importance of people’s located life plans. However, these accounts usually do not consider the global economic practices on which many of our life plans now rely. Most of the stuff in our daily lives is produced within global supply chains. In this paper, I argue that if occupancy interests are grounded in life-plan-based interests, then we have occupancy interests in places far outside our places of residency. I further defend this argument by considering the implications of large-scale foreign land acquisitions. Through our participation in global economic practices, we effectively occupy, albeit not exclusively, land acquired for the use of global supply chains. By construing occupancy as bounded, occupancy-based defenses of territorial sovereignty obscure the highly hierarchical and unequal global structures that emerged from the world-building project of European colonialism. In the contemporary world, we cannot assess territorial sovereignty without assessing these structures
Ego, Exodus, and Deliverance: A Phenomenology of the Crossing
No full textEgo/Exodus names a descriptive configuration in which the structures commonly taken as “ego” appear, recede, or reorganize within lived experience. Situated within Somatic & Physical Literacy™ (SPL), the paper traces how ego-forms show themselves as positional tensions, narrative pressures, and interpretive overlays that gather around sensation. The “exodus” names the interval in which these forms loosen or withdraw, allowing the underlying somatic appearance to register without narrative demand. The paper outlines the descriptive features of this interval, its relation to somatic quiet, its adjacency to the Quiet Body Gap™, and its structural compatibility with RC Posture™. No psychological claims, outcomes, or interpretations are made. The discussion remains within the descriptive domain of how ego-forms appear, shift, and ease as phenomena