In this article, I wish to discuss in an informal way the motivations and the motifs of the constructivist approach to logic and mathematics and by a natural extension to the general field of science, particularly theoretical physics. Foundational questions in those domains are not ruled by philosophical principles, but a critical philosophy of foundations could be the leitmotiv to the extent that it can be used as a criterion to decide between the theoretical options of scientific practices that are often oblivious to their own doctrinal presuppositions. My objective is to provide the justificatory reasons for a constructivist option or posture in the field of scientific knowledge.

One challenge involved in integrating so-called ‘non-Western’ philosophies into ‘Western’ philosophical discourse concerns the fact that non-Western philosophical texts frequently differ significantly in style and approach from Western ones, especially those in contemporary analytic philosophy. But how might one bring texts that are written, for example, in a literary, non-expository style, and which do not clearly advance philosophical positions or arguments, into constructive dialogue with those that do? Also, why might one seek to do this in the first place? This paper addresses these questions by means of a case study involving the Daoist classic, the Zhuangzi.

Christine Korsgaard’s Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity is an impressive endeavour to synthesize the ethics of Plato and Kant in a comprehensive account of action and agency that locates the key to understanding both in self-constitution. A purportedly comprehensive account of action and agency will fail on its own terms if it cannot adequately account for some morally salient phenomenon. Korsgaard’s account fails to adequately account for the possibility of evil actions and evil people. If self-constitution is key to action and agency, then we must abandon the Platonic and Kantian elements that Korsgaard endorses.

Those who criticize as well as those who nowadays defend constructivism in metaethics consider John Rawls’s constructivism to be incomplete. According to them, his ontological agnosticism makes evident this incompleteness; I question this widely accepted charge. I propose an alternative interpretation, according to which Rawls’s agnosticism is the effect of his metaethics rather than a lack of metaethics. Thanks to this interpretation, I question the originality and attractiveness of Rawls’s metaethics. My claim is that Rawls’s metaethics adequately captures the specific historical nature of political norms.

Christian Thomasius claims for himself the label of ‘eclectic philosopher.’ This claim first regards the emancipation of reason from any other authority, which not only allows him to claim new juridical rights but also to determine philosophy as a wisdom-for-the-world. This claim is, however, narrowed by both the limits of scholastic knowledge and the undue generalizations Thomasius finds in it. The claim is intended to make room for belief, and for a faith purified of all philosophical-theological confusion, i.e., for a wisdom-outside-the-world. Despite being an anti-dogmatist and anti-syncretist, Thomasius’ eclectic claim never proved to be—contrary to a common statement—anti-systematic nor anti-religious.

I defend a version of what Sharon Street has dubbed “Humean constructivism.” I’ll first sketch out why I think that contextual constructivism provides us with a more plausible understanding of the ontological status of values than both Kantian constructivism and moral realism. In addition to its recognition of the role of evolutionary pressures in the emergence of human morality, contextual constructivism must now clarify the role of historical intersubjectivity in the subsequent development of morality. I will then claim that adding a coherentist module to Humean constructivism provides a satisfactory answer to those who fear that contextual metaethical theories can only be non-cognitivist. Finally, I will sketch out why I think that the notion of a mind-independent “space of moral reasons” is largely compatible with Humean constructivism.

The standard interpretation of Diderot’s article “Éclectisme” in the Encyclopédie emphasizes the idea that Diderot is setting out the program for modern philosophy, thereby making himself its illustrious representative and promoter. In this paper, I complement this interpretation by showing that “Éclectisme” also contains an influential reflection on continuity in the history of philosophy and, consequently, on what constitutes philosophical discourse itself, both methodologically and politically.

Karl Löwith moved to Japan in 1936 where he became acquainted with the founder of the School of Kyôto, Nishida Kitarô. Löwith was unable to appreciate the meaning of Nishida’s philosophy and maintained, until the late 1940s, a Eurocentric point of view regarding Japanese culture. Nonetheless, beyond this missed historical encounter between Löwith and Nishida lies a space of philosophical common ground located in a shared understanding of time and history that puts much emphasis on the eternal present and the impossibility of thinking history as a linear progression bringing salvation, as some philosophies of history have attempted to prove.

In the second Critique, Kant claims that the moral law is given as a fact of reason. In this paper, contra the standard view, I argue that there is a non-dogmatic way of defending this claim. And Kant’s principle of morality is widely taken to be a formal principle. How then can such a formal principle be reconciled with our substantial moral end? In this paper, I also argue that Kant’s principle of morality can be construed as a formal principle in the sense that it provides correctness conditions for moral laws, rather than providing specific moral laws.

The appraisal model of love is object-centred and reasons-based: love is based on reasons derived from the valuable properties of the beloved. The bestowal model of love is subject-centred and non-reasons-based: love is not based on reasons derived from the valuable properties of the beloved, but rather originates in the lover. In this paper, I blend these disparate models, with the aim of preserving their virtues and overcoming their difficulties. I propose a subject-centred, reasons-based account: love arises within the lover, but, within the lover, love is based on the lover’s motivating reasons.

We argue that philosophy education across the globe is still bedevilled with the ‘politics’ of marginalization of less favoured traditions like African philosophy. Extant works show that the conventional curriculum of philosophy used in educational institutions across the globe is predominantly Western and, as such, very much colonial. We contend that this amounts to a sort of ‘epistemic injustice’ that is detrimental to knowledge production. We argue specifically that this ‘politics’ should be discontinued. We propose the conversational tradition, out of which a philosophy curriculum that is comprehensive and antithetical to the politics of exclusion may be developed.

In this paper, I reply to Sharon Street’s objection against quasi-realism, according to which this theory is subject to a problem of unexplained coincidence between the normative truths and our evaluative attitudes. I argue that this problem cannot be applied to quasi-realism because the necessary element for it to be applied is missing in this theory: an ontological commitment towards robust normative entities. This lack of commitment allows quasi-realists to argue for a minimalist conception of normative truths, and to escape the scope of the problem of unexplained coincidence.

Jean Bernard Mérian is one of the main representatives of empiricism at the Academy of Berlin. This article seeks to show how Mérian articulates both his critique of systematic metaphysics, which is based on a synthetic method borrowed from mathematics, and his defence of a new philosophical ethos: an academic or eclectic spirit. I point out a relation of interdependence between terms like “empirical,” “academic” and “eclectic” in Mérian, and I examine how the eclectic approach to philosophy provides him with a method for comparing and critiquing the pretensions of philosophical systems, opening up the possibility of an eclectic conception of the history of philosophical debates.

My aim is to defend a peculiar epistemic version of the particularity thesis, which results from a sui generis combination of what I call the ‘singular relational view’ and what I call the ‘relativistic content view.’ Particulars are not represented as part of putative singular content. Instead, we are perceptually acquainted with them in the relevant sense that experience puts us in direct perceptual contact with them. And the content of experience is best modelled as a propositional function, that is, the content of a complex predicate that is true or false only relative to some circumstances of evaluation.

In the Traité des systèmes, Condillac analyses a plurality of systematic metaphysical doctrines, specifically, those of Spinoza, Malebranche and Leibniz. Commentators have mainly interpreted this plurality as a way for Condillac to illustrate his criticisms and to raise doubts about the main contemporary systems while using the same criteria for interpretation. However, I note that his analytic tools differ according to which philosopher or philosophical system he analyses. This paper focuses on the criticism of Leibniz’s system, and aims to show that Condillac operated from subsequent reconstructions. In order to raise criticisms against the Leibnizian system, Condillac gave it an architectonic structure that is borrowed mainly from Wolff.

I analyze the extent to which the theoretical cogency and practical efficacy of descriptive and ameliorative social constructionist programs are affected by relativism in the context of competing analyses of some purported social construction X. My task in this paper is successful if it can explain, organize, and clarify how relativism concerning the question ‘What should our concept of X be?’ affects social constructionist programs, and ameliorative versions of social constructionism especially. In this paper, I aim to make clearer to those not well-versed in this field what is at stake in these programs and why these programs should not be easily dismissed.

We argue that Reasons Fundamentalism, as defended by T.M. Scanlon, faces two important difficulties—one ontological, the other epistemological—namely the ontological proliferation problem and the reliability challenge. We suggest that formal constructivism can avoid these difficulties, and that Scanlon would do well to adopt it. We also show that Scanlon’s three main objections to this view depend either on a misunderstanding of what formal constructivism is or on a question-begging argument in favour of realism.