•  25
    Introduction
    Philosophy and Social Criticism 45 (9-10): 961-980. 2019.
    This introduction presents the articles contained in this special issue of Philosophy and Social Criticism on the topic of populism. It does so by placing them in the field of discussions that the standard conception of populism as ‘illliberal democracy’ has stimulated in many areas of the populism-research that was produced in response to the recent increase in populist governments in established constitutional democracies world-wide. Following the methodological canon of studies in the field, …Read more
  •  574
    The meaning of ‘populism’
    Philosophy and Social Criticism 45 (9-10): 1025-1057. 2019.
    This essay presents a novel approach to specifying the meaning of the concept of populism, on the political position it occupies and on the nature of populism. Employing analytic techniques of concept clarification and recent analytic ideology critique, it develops populism as a political kind in three steps. First, it descriptively specifies the stereotype of populist platforms as identified in extant research and thereby delimits the peculiar political position populism occupies in representat…Read more
  •  213
    The European Public(s) and its Problems
    In Hauke Brunkhorst, Charlotte Gaitanides & Gerhard Grözinger (eds.), Europe at a Crossroad: From Currency Union to Political and Economic Governance?, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft. pp. 19-59. 2015.
    I present three versions –Grimm, Offe and Streeck—of a general argument that is often used to establish that the EU-institutions meets a legitimacy-disabling condition, the so called “no demos” argument (II), embedding them in the context of the notorious “democratic deficit” suspicions against the legal system and practice of the EU (I). After examining the logical structure behind the no-demos intuition considered as an argument (III), I present principled reasons by Möllers and Habermas that …Read more
  •  176
    Realism, Beyond Miracles
    In Yemima Ben-Menahim (ed.), Contemporary Philosophy in Focus: Hilary Putnam, Cambridge University Press. pp. 83-124. 2005.
    Two things about Hilary Putnam have not changed throughout his career: some (including Putnam himself) have regarded him as a “realist” and some have seen him as a philosopherwho changed his positions (certainly with respect to realism) almost continually. Apparently, what realism meant to him in the 1960s, in the late seventies and eighties, and in the nineties, respectively, are quite different things. Putnam indicates this by changing prefixes: scientific, metaphysical, internal, pragmatic, com…Read more
  •  40
    This is a two tiered investigation. On the one hand, the author presents a systematic account of the philosophy of Hilary Putnam. Being the first comprehensive account to be published in the German-speaking world, the author traces the development of Putnam's realism and philosophy of language and their connections from the early 1950's to 2000. Contrary to the popular view of the discontinuity of Putnam's philosophy, he demonstrates that Putnam maintains certain semantic, pragmatic and epistemo…Read more
  •  24
  •  106
    Standard interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism take it as a commitment to the view that the objects of cognition are structured or made by conditions imposed by the mind, and therefore to what Van Cleve calls “honest-to-God idealism”. Against this view, many more recent investigations of Kant’s theory of representation and cognitive significance have been able to show that Kant is committed to a certain form of Mental Content Externalism, and therefore to the realist view that the ob…Read more
  •  71
    Recently, Kenneth Westphal has presented a highly interesting and innovative reading of Kant's critical philosophy.2 This reading continues a tradition of Kantscholarship of which, e.g., Paul Guyer's work is representative, and in which the antiidealistic potential of Kant's critical philosophy is pitted against its idealistic selfunderstanding. Much of the work in this tradition leaves matters at observing the tensions this introduces in Kant's work. But Westphal's proposed interpretation goes …Read more
  •  53
    Some Remarks on the Relations of Semantic Externalism and Conceptual Pluralism
    Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 22 (3): 59-82. 2003.
    This article defends the thesis that Putnam's theory of the use of empirical concepts constitutes a continuous backbone of his philosophy early and late. Thus, Putnam's theory of empirical concepts should be at least compatible with the most distinctive features of both, his realism (viz., semantic externalism) and his pragmatism (viz., conceptual pluralism). The article suggests the even stronger thesis that Putnam's theory of concepts is essential for the explanatory purposes of both. In doing…Read more
  •  24
    How to continue Kant's Perpetual Peace with Addams' newer Ideals of Peace
    Enrahonar: Quaderns de Filosofía 46 93-122. 2011.
    This article examines some arguments in favor of taking peace as a political obligation that can be found in one of the most important founders of the pacifist movement, Jane Addams. The main focus is on her 1907 book Newer Ideals of Peace, which has often been read as idealistic and outdated, and above all, as more of an activist’s manifesto than a serious contribution to either political philosophy or political theory. I point out that this owes much to an ambiguity of Addams’ criticisms of th…Read more
  •  405
    Natural Kinds and Projectible Predicates
    Sorites 1 13-45. 1995.
    The focus of this article is on the pragmatic presuppositions involved in the use of general terms in inductive practices. The main thesis is that the problem of characterizing the assumptions underlying the projection of predicates in inductive practices and the ones underlying the classification of crtain general terms as «natural kind terms» coincide to a good extent. The reason for this, it is argued, is that both classifications, «projectibility» and «natural kind term», are attempts to ans…Read more
  •  586
    Goodman, Nelson
    In Noretta Koertge (ed.), The New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons/macmillan. pp. 148-152. 2007.
    Article presenting basic methodological tenets in Goodman's philosophical development with their mutual connections, like the new riddle of indutcion, counterfactual conditionals and his use of reflective equilibrium as a methodological basis.
  •  471
    Löst Brandoms Inferentialismus bedeutungsholistische Kommunikationsprobleme?
    Zeitschrift Für Semiotik 34 (3-4): 141-185. 2014.
    This article analyzes whether Brandom’s ISA (inferential-substitutional-anaphoric) semantics as presented in Making It Explicit (MIE) and Articulating Reasons (AR) can cope with problems resulting from inferentialism’s near-implied meaning holism. Inferentialism and meaning holism entail a radically perspectival conception of content as significance for an individual speaker. Since thereby its basis is fixed as idiolects, holistic inferentialism engenders a communication-problem. Brandom conside…Read more