Against the growing trend in philosophy toward naturalistic analysis, Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment has gained significant attention. Some scholars suggest that Kant’s insights bear on our aesthetic appreciation of nature, others on our account of the life sciences. In this paper I draw these lines of inquiry together to identify two overlooked dimensions of Kant’s project: the role of moral hope in problematizing the limits of natural science and the role of culture in providing a solution. Kant argues that we cannot think consistently unless we are able to conceive of nature as a domain that is hospitable to human freedom. His response is to identify the productive capacity of the imagination to transform the material of nature into something more. While the prevailing conception of nature today is at best indifferent and at worst antagonistic to human habitation, this dimension of Kant’s work has much to bear on contemporary thought.

In this paper I focus on the analysis of the concept of the physical and its implications for the formulation of physicalism. Most of the paper is “negative,” insofar as it intends to show why the most accepted formulation of physicalism, the theory of the supervenience or complete determination of the empirical phenomena by the microphysical characteristics, has deep empirical and conceptual deficiencies: on one hand, it seems to be incompatible with the results of different sciences and, on the other, it allows us to understand neither the scientific nor the daily use of the notion of the physical. If this is the case, then we have strong reasons for constructing a non-reductive concept of physicalism that describes a world wherein some of its fundamental phenomena can be essentially macrophysical, i.e., physical phenomena which cannot be reduced to, nor understood purely in terms of the properties of their microphysical components.

The epoch of the Anthropocene is on the verge of becoming scientifically acknowledged by the science of Geology. In what way does this concern Philosophy? In this paper, we evaluate how the new concept of the Anthropocene contrasts with the classical concept of Nature, aiming to identify the territory of both. In order to do this we take as our starting point the approach of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) which separates God and Nature. This later translated into the separation of Nature and Culture. The latter dualism is contested by Philippe Descola (b.1942) who defends the convergence of both. Bruno Latour (b.1947) and Timothy Morton (b.1968) consider the concept of nature as obsolete. Ulrich Beck (1944-2015), Erie C. Ellis and Mark Lynas (b.1973) claim that science will be able to cope with whatever changes the Anthropocene brings. We consider that all these claims, albeit apparently contrasting, are grounded in belief and as a counter-proposal we aim to bring to the table the concept of spirituality as essential to re-evaluate what Nature is today in the light of the Anthropocene.

Until Speculative Realism’s arrival a few years back, few philosophers found it problematic to view nature as a cultural construct, circumscribed and dependent on human attitudes (Berleant, 1992: 53). While I share speculative realists’ goal to strengthen philosophy’s mind-independence (Immanuel Kant’s goal as well), I worry that isolating nature as beyond human minds not only absolves human responsibility, but eradicates “kinship” relations, which capture non-hu­man nature providing for and sustaining human beings, and vice versa. To develop an environmental philosophy that affords mind-independence and offers evidence, unlike Positive Aesthetics, which idealizes wilderness, I discuss: 1) the pro/cons of nature’s mind-independence, 2) the implications for aspection, 3) the need for assessment tools that guide human action, 4) the reasons for grounding ethical action in kinship, and 5) recent research that suggests biodiverse cities exemplify the kinship model. Inseparable from nature, human beings are kindred participants in shared eco-systems.

According to Kantian philosophy, it is freedom that should sanction religion and not religion that should sanction freedom. This thesis is the basic condition for religious tolerance, and it is grounded in three principles that regulate the relationship between politics and religion, namely: the principle of non-coercive force of religious belief; the moral requirement of truthfulness in professions of belief; and, the submission of religion to the principle of publicity. The objective of this paper is to present, explain and justify the application of these three principles towards the notion of religion and to indicate how they might help to understand political and moral issues regarding religious intolerance.

Interpretation is both a specific domain in the theory of knowledge (hermeneutics) and a technique suitable for use in the social sciences, and particularly in sociology. Interpretation can be applied to texts, actions and so forth. The aim of this presentation is to delve into the use of interpretation as a common, ordinary technique to establish a relationship with the world or with ourselves when we are faced with problematic, traumatic events. More specifically, we will focus on narrative as a specific type of common technique of interpretation used by individuals and groups seeking to inscribe shocking events into the story of their lives. However, for such a process to be possible, several conditions of possibility (both social and cultural) need to be met, and we will address these conditions in this presentation.

This paper presents two different, although related, approaches to the problem of the experience of the other person: E. Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and E. Levinas’ ethics. I begin by (1) addressing the transcendental significance of the experience of intersubjectivity in the broader context of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. I then turn to (2) Husserl’s solution to the paradox of constituting the alter ego, identifying and elucidating the key‑concepts of his inquiry. I hold that throughout his analysis there is a dominant underlying meaning in which the alterity of the other person is progressively suppressed and, ultimately, elided. Finally, I discuss (3) the consequences of Husserl’s analysis of the other in light of Levinas’ ethics. I hold that Husserl’s claim that there is a fundamental difference between the experience of myself and my analogical experience of the other is the basis upon which Levinas’ develops a new concept of experience, not as perception but as encounter. Upon close reading, I claim that Levinas’ revision of the topic of alterity is, ultimately, a consequence of Husserl’s transcendental analysis of intersubjectivity.

After a brief review of some of the issues facing ethicists becoming involved in actual clinical situations, as I experienced these at the beginning of my career, I present a detailed narrative focused on a encounter I had with parents of a badly damaged neonate, a situation for which I was asked to provide a consultation focused on unstated ethical issues. The narrative continues through these issues and concludes with what parents described as an acceptable resolution. The essay concludes with a brief indication of what are taken as the basic issues in the situation.

This paper explores some of the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, in which the phenomenologist provides a description of childhood or the child image that reports relevant aspects to his theory. The description of ‘childhood’ as a place inhabited by many places, as a primary silence or as that unspeakable, shows us childhood as the opening of a new field of experience and the institution of a new sense. Childhood will not only be a methodological object of interest in his psychology studies, but also a primal advancement of experience – the mere potentiality yet not thrown (or rather, having not yet been thrown) into the world where everything will, necessarily, have sense.

Recent work in the ethics of care is used as a point of departure for thought about the kinds of social conditions that lead to terrorism. Allusion is made to the work of Bayoumi, Held and others, and it is concluded that political acts of terror are often a response to a climate of hostility, including microaggression.

Hegel conceptualized the capitalist economy as a system of needs, with commodities and money serving as means to human ends. While anticipating Marx’s criticisms of certain tendencies in capitalism, Hegel insisted that higher-order institutions, especially those of the modern state, could put them out of play and establish a reconciliation of universality, particularity, and individuality warranting rational affirmation. Hegel, however, failed to comprehend the emergence of capital as a dominant subject, subordinating human ends under its end (“valorization”). The structural coercion, domination, and exploitation inherent in the capital/wage labor relationship illustrate that point, as does the depoliticization of inherently political matters in capitalist market societies. The reconciliation of universality, particularity, and individuality Hegel endorsed requires a form of socialism incorporating deliberative democracy in local workplaces and communities, conjoined with representative bodies on regional, national, and ultimately global levels.