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97Hegel's manifold response to scepticism in the phenomenology of spiritProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103 (2). 2003.For many reasons mainstream Hegel scholarship has disregarded Hegel's interests in epistemology, hence also his response to scepticism. From the points of view of defenders and critics alike, it seems that 'Hegel' and 'epistemology' have nothing to do with one another. Despite this widespread conviction, Hegel was a very sophisticated epistemologist whose views merit contemporary interest. This article highlights several key features and innovations of Hegel's epistemology-including his anti-Car…Read more
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9On Hegel's Early Critique of Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural ScienceProceedings of the Hegel Society of America 13 137-166. 1998.
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2Nietzsche on Truth and KnowledgeDissertation, The University of Wisconsin - Madison. 1986.Four themes are central to the tension in Nietzsche's writings between skepticism and 'cognitivism,' the view that there are knowable empirical truths. These are his claims on behalf of truth and knowledge, his skepticism, his view of language, and his 'perspectivism.' I argue that none of his commentators has fully resolved this tension, and that a proper resolution of this tension must render his cognitive claims as claims to know truths about the world--without dismissing his radical claims a…Read more
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148Noumenal Causality Reconsidered: Affection, Agency, and Meaning in KantCanadian Journal of Philosophy 27 (2). 1997.The idea that noumena or things in themselves causally affect our sensibility, and thus provide us with sensations, has been rejected on two basic grounds: It is unintelligible because distinguishes between appearance and reality in such a way that things cannot in principle appear as they really are, and it requires applying the concept of causality trans-phenomenally, contra Kant’s Schematism. I argue that noumenal causality is intelligible and is required out of fidelity to Kant’s texts and d…Read more
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4Naturrecht, Künstlichkeit und die Sozialontologie moralischer GrundnormenIn Christian Krijnen & Stephan Zimmermann (eds.), Sozialontologie in der Perspektive des Deutschen Idealismus: Ansätze, Rezeptionen, Probleme, De Gruyter. pp. 21-40. 2018.
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‘Norm Acquisition, Rational Judgment and Moral Particularism’.Theory and Research in Education 10 (1): 3--25. 2012.This paper argues that moral particularism, defined as the view that moral judgment does not require moral principles, depends upon a constricted and untenable view of rational judgment as simple syllogistic ratiocination. This I demonstrate by re-examining Nussbaum’s (1986/2002) case for particularism based on Sophocles’ Antigone. The central role of principles in moral judgment and in educational theory is supported by explicating ‘mature judgment’, which highlights key features of Thomas Gree…Read more
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Kants Urteilstafel: Zur Deutung von Reinhard BrandtZeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 49 (1): 84-91. 1995.
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128Kant, Wittgenstein, and Transcendental ChaosPhilosophical Investigations 28 (4). 2005.Explicates and defends closely parallel, genuinely transcendental proofs of mental content externalism developed by Kant and by Wittgenstein. Both their proofs have been widely neglected, to our loss.
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49Review: Brandt, Reinhard, Kants Urteilstafel Zur Deutung (review)Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 49 (1). 1995.
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37Kant’s Proof of the Law of InertiaIn H. Robinson (ed.), Proceedings of the 8th International Kant Congress, Marquette University Press. pp. 413-424. 1995.According to Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, a proper science is organized according to rational principles and has a pure a priori rational part, its metaphysical foundation. In the second edition Preface to the first Critique, Kant claims that his account of time explains the a priori possibility of Newton’s laws of motion. I argue that Kant’s proof of the law of inertia fails, and that this casts doubt on Kant’s enterprise of providing a priori foundations for Newton’s phy…Read more
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20Kant on the State, Law, and Obedience to Authority in the Alleged ‘Anti-Revolutionary’ WritingsJournal of Philosophical Research 17 383-426. 1992.The tension between Kant’s egalitarian conception of persons as ends in themselves and his rejection of the right of revolution has been widely discussed. The crucial issue is more fundamental: Is Kant’s defense of absolute obedience consistent with his own principle of legitimate law, that legitimate law is compatible with the Categorical Imperative? Resolving this apparent inconsistency resolves the subsidiary inconsistencies that have been debated in the literature. I argue that Kant’s legal …Read more
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3Kant, Hegel, and the Fate of “the” Intuitive IntellectIn Sally Sedgwick (ed.), The Reception of Kant's Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, Cambridge University Press. 2000.The young Hegel was entranced by the notion of intellectual intuition, and this notion continues to entrance many of Hegel’ commentators. I argue that Kant provided three distinct conceptions of an intuitive intellect, that none of these involve aconceptual intuitionism, and that they differ markedly from Fichte’s and Schelling’s conceptions of intellectual intuition. I further argue that by 1804 Hegel recognized that appealing to an aconceptual model, or to Schelling’s model, or to his own earl…Read more
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17Kant’s Critique of Determinism in Empirical PsychologyProceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress 2 357-370. 1995.
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6Kant’s Critique of Determinism in Empirical PsychologyIn H. Robinson (ed.), Proceedings of the 8th International Kant Congress, Marquette University Press. 1995.The debate about the relation between the (phenomenal) psychological realm and our (noumenal) rational freedom is moot because Kant in fact argues that psychological determinism is undemonstrable, even in the phenomenal realm. Kant contends that causality is strictly related to substance. Also, the three Analogies form a mutually integrated set of principles. Kant’s Paralogisms show we have no knowledge of a substantial self. If we have no evidence of a substantial self, then we cannot apply any…Read more
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192Kant and the Capacity to JudgePhilosophical Review 109 (4): 645. 2000.Kant famously declares that “although all our cognition commences with experience, … it does not on that account all arise from experience”. This marks Kant’s disagreement with empiricism, and his contention that human knowledge and experience require both sensation and the use of certain a priori concepts, the Categories. However, this is only the surface of Kant’s much deeper, though neglected view about the nature of reason and judgment. Kant holds that even our a priori concepts are acquired…Read more
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75Intelligenz and the Interpretation of Hegel’s IdealismThe Owl of Minerva 39 (1-2): 95-134. 2007.Hegel’s idealism and his epistemology have been seriously misunderstood due to various deep-set preconceptions of Hegel’s expositors. Thesepreconceptions include: Idealism is inherently subjective; Hegel’s epistemology invokes intellectual intuition; Hegel was not much concerned with natural science; Natural science has no basic role to play in Hegel’s Logic. In criticizing these notions, I highlight four key features of Hegel’s account of intelligence: (1) Human cognition is active, and forges …Read more
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8Hegel today : ed. Bernard Cullen, Avebury Series in Philosophy , xi + 121p., Cloth, £18.50, $41.95 (review)History of European Ideas 12 (2): 283-287. 1990.
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Hegel's Solution to the Dilemma of the CriterionHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 5 (2): 173-188. 1988.
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1Hegel, Russell, and the foundations of philosophyIn Angelica Nuzzo (ed.), Hegel and the Analytical Tradition, Continuum. 2010.Though philosophical antipodes, Hegel and Russell were profound philosophical revolutionaries. They both subjected contemporaneous philosophy to searching critique, and they addressed many important issues about the character of philosophy itself. Examining their disagreements is enormously fruitful. Here I focus on one central issue raised in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: the tenability of the foundationalist model of rational justification. I consider both the general question of the tenabi…Read more
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35Hegel’s Natural Law ConstructivismThe Owl of Minerva 48 (1/2): 109-140. 2016.Replying to my four commentators allows me to clarify some distinctive features and merits of Hegel’s natural law constructivism; how Hegel’s insights have been obscured by common, though inadequate philosophical taxonomies; and how Hegel’s natural law constructivism contributes centrally to moral philosophy today, including ethics, justice, philosophy of law and philosophy of education.
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43Hegels Logik (review)The Owl of Minerva 29 (2): 240-243. 1998.Book review of: Justus Hartnack, Hegels Logik: Eine Einführung
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11Hegel’s Natural Law ConstructivismThe Owl of Minerva 48 (1-2): 109-140. 2016.Replying to my four commentators allows me to clarify some distinctive features and merits of Hegel’s natural law constructivism; how Hegel’s insights have been obscured by common, though inadequate philosophical taxonomies; and how Hegel’s natural law constructivism contributes centrally to moral philosophy today, including ethics, justice, philosophy of law and philosophy of education.
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38Hegel, Natural Law & Moral ConstructivismThe Owl of Minerva 48 (1/2): 1-44. 2016.This paper argues that Hegel’s Philosophical Outlines of Justice develops an incisive natural law theory by providing a comprehensive moral theory of a modern republic. Hegel’s Outlines adopt and augment a neglected species of moral constructivism which is altogether neutral about moral realism, moral motivation, and whether reasons for action are linked ‘internally’ or ‘externally’ to motives. Hegel shows that, even if basic moral norms and institutions are our artefacts, they are strictly obje…Read more
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Alumnus, 1986
Istanbul, Turkey