Critical theory is a multifarious and dynamic body of thought, and it is hard to make general statements about its relation to practical philosophy without shoehorning it into one-size-fits-all judgments. To avoid doing this, this article indicates wherever possible whose critical theory is at issue and at what phase in its development. The Frankfurt School critical theory is a particular kind of Gesellschaftskritik or social criticism, the practical aims of which are essential to and inseparable from it. Indeed, as distinct from social theory or sociology, critical theory is, in the eyes of its architects and practitioners, a kind of practice. Yet critical theory is still very much philosophy. Furthermore, critical theory from early on had an almost entirely negative view of instrumental reasoning. This raises the question which asks about the kind of practical upshot that critical theory can have, absent of all political, moral, and prudential considerations.

In this paper I hope to demonstrate two different (and seemingly independent) ways of interpreting the tenets of evidentialism and show why it is important to distinguish between them. These two ways correspond to those proposed by Feldman (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 60, 667–695, 2000, Evidentialism: Essays in epistemology, Oxford University Press, 2004) and Adler (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 23, 267–285, 1999, Beliefs own ethics, MIT Press, 2002). Feldman’s way of interpreting evidentialism makes evidentialism a principle about epistemic justification, about what we ought to believe. Adler’s, on the other hand, makes evidentialism a principle about how we come to believe, what it is, broadly speaking, rational for us to believe. Having identified this difference, I consider two complaints levied against evidentialism, namely what I call the threshold problem and what I call the availability problem, and hope to show that: (a) only an independent, bracketed justification principle of evidentialism can deal with those problems; (b) the rationality principle of evidentialism is not in fact independent from the justification principle; (c) the rationality principle is hard to motivate; and that (d) in the final analysis the argument for the justification principle depends on the rationality principle. I thus conclude that although it may be convenient for evidentialists to treat these two principles as independent, such an independence cannot be maintained.

Zizek elsewhere attributes the understanding of the ontological difference he here considers beyond Heidegger to Heidegger himself. This understanding takes being to be nothing besides a void within beings as a whole, and hence not at all on a level other than that of this immanence. I argue that this understand can and should indeed be attributed to Heidegger, but the later Heidegger alone, and not the middle period.

As a consequence of this, Heidegger's own later works contain a notion of action strikingly similar but importantly different from Zizek's own, which he draws from the works of Heidegger's middle period. It involves precisely a prepatory action among beings as a whole that strikes at their symptomatic moment in order to indicate the contingency of this configuration and thus make possible a new event without presuming to force this event. The name for this place in beings as a whole which thinking comports itself towards is 'the thing'. What is crucial is that in his later period, Heidegger refuses the humanism that for him still afflicts communism and indeed his earlier notion of politics.

I argue that Zizek's advocacy of Stalinism runs the risk of this same humanism which Heidegger later strove to overcome. For the latter, it is the exploitation of nature, which has resulted in today's environmental crisis that has the potential to force the current revelation of beings as a whole to change. Man's action merely opens up spaces or voids which make a new revelation possible.

I also consider the possibility that this form of action which Heidegger advocates may not be 'political' at all, and also what would be the case if communism did not contain the potential which Zizek identifies. I suggest that Heidegger set himself a task still more difficult than Zizek's, which was to think a way beyond democracy that did not just forbid itself the Nazi option, but also the communistic.

Interpretations of Kants transcendental idealism have been dominated by two extreme views: phenomenalist and merely epistemic readings. There are serious objections to both of these extremes, and the aim of this paper is to develop a middle ground between the two. In the Prolegomena, Kant suggests that his idealism about appearances can be understood in terms of an analogy with secondary qualities like colour. Commentators have rejected this option because they have assumed that the analogy should be read in terms of either a Lockean or a Berkelean account of qualities such as colour, and have argued, rightly, that neither can provide the basis for a coherent interpretation of Kants position. I argue that the account of colour that the analogy requires is one within the context of a direct theory of perception, as opposed to Lockes representative account. Using this account of colour, the secondary quality analogy enables us to explain how appearances can be mind-dependent without existing in the mind.

Long scholarly and historical investigation of the practical philosophy (morality and politics) of the first generation of Frankfurt School critical theorists, with an emphasis on Adorno and Horkheimer.

This paper argues against the priority of temporality over spatiality, which Heidegger defends in Being and Time. The argument, however, does not follow the turn in Heideggers philosophy and his later retrieval of the spatial, but is developed as a delimitation that is, an internal critique and reconstruction undertaken within the transcendental framework of his early thinking. This delimitation proposes a demonstration of the fundamental role of spatialising, defined as dissemination, in the constitution of human Being-in-the-world. A rethinking of human Being-there in terms of the co-originality of spatiality and temporality permits a revisiting of the question of the transcendental and makes it possible to pursue the overcoming of a philosophy of the subject which, critics often point out, Heidegger unsuccessfully sought to transgress in his early work.

This chapter argues that Antigone is a tragedy about law and its inherent conflicts. The nature of the human as it emerges from this tragedy has to include an understanding of the human as a creature entangled in law, or specifically, as both creator of and subject to laws. There is an essential tension at the core of law. On the one hand, it is the nature of law that it has to be conceived as something unchangeable, like the sacred laws which Antigone invokes to justify her actions. On the other hand, laws are either created by humans or at least receive their specific formulations from humans, and in that sense, they are open to criticism and modification. It is shown that approaching the law from the outset as open to changes and interpretations means not to treat it as a law.

Two studies addressed the impact of rape schemata on judgements about rape cases. In Study 1, 286 undergraduate students rated perpetrator and victim blame for five rape scenarios and completed the Perceived Causes of Rape Scale. Most blame was assigned to victims of an ex-partner rape, followed by acquaintance and stranger rape. Least blame was assigned to perpetrators of ex-partner rapes, followed by acquaintance and stranger rapes. Female precipitation beliefs increased victim blame and reduced perpetrator blame. In Study 2, 158 students rated rape scenarios that varied in victim perpetrator relationship and coercive strategy and completed a measure of Female Precipitation Beliefs. Half expected to be held accountable for their judgements. The perpetrator was held less liable and the victim blamed more when the perpetrator exploited the victim's incapacitated state versus using physical force. Accountability instruction reduced the impact of female precipitation beliefs on perceived perpetrator liability and victim blame.

This paper argues against the view in the ontology of musical works that the relation between musical works and performances of them is the relation between a type and its tokens. I claim that this cannot do justice to the fact that musical works are essentially meaningful, in the sense of essentially being there to be understood. The type-token view risks treating musical works as found objects, and it cannot accommodate the fact that the relation between musical works and performances must be intentional if musical works are essentially meaningful.

This paper compares Marx's first conception of capital, in 1844, to his conception of the modern political state in 1843. It argues that in 1843 Marx conceives the modern democratic state as realising human 'species-being', that is, the universality and freedom inherent in human nature, but only in the form of 'abstract' universality and freedom, and therefore inadequately. In 1844 he conceives capital in the same way, as an abstract and therefore inadequate realisation of human species-being. Accordingly the transition from capital to communism consists essentially in transforming the abstract universality and freedom realised in capital into a 'concrete' universality and freedom. The paper concludes by commenting on the implications of this early philosophical conception of capital for Marx's later writings.

This article re-examines the Habermas-Rawls debate. It contends that what is at issue in this dispute has largely been missed. The standard view that principle (U) and the original position form a useful point of comparison between their respective theories and that the dispute between them can be fruitfully understood on this basis is rejected. I show how this view has arisen and why it is wrong. The real issue between them lies in their respective accounts of the justification of political norms,and in their competing conceptions of legitimacy. I show how these two concepts connect. I distinguish between methodological disputes arising from the differences in approach that each takes to the questions of political legitimacy and political justification, and substantive issues about whether, and if so how moral (and ethical) reasons are germane to the justification of political norms.

The article is a contribution to contemporary debates in aesthetics concerning the relative merits of autonomism and of moralism (or ethicism) in the context of literature. It is argued that the basic moralist insight that moral concerns are relevant to our judgement of literary works is best understood if we focus on the nature of the experience of reading as the autonomists urge us to do.

In Being and Time as well as in his later writings, Heidegger comes to distinguish between fundamental moods and everyday or inauthentic moods. He also claims that phenomenology, rather than psychology, is the appropriate method for examining moods. This article employs a schematic approach to investigate a phenomenology of fundamental moods in terms of its possibilities and limits. Since, in Being and Time, the distinction between fundamental moods and ordinary moods is tied to the division between authenticity and inauthenticity, the latter concepts need to be addressed first. Guided by Klaus Held's article 'Fundamental Moods and Heidegger's Critique of Contemporary Culture', the second part of the article argues that Heidegger's phenomenology of moods is indeed one-sided, favouring anxiety at the expense of awe. Finally, I argue that, contrary to Held's claims, this one-sidedness cannot be amended by the means one finds in Heidegger's analyses. Instead, it is necessary to undertake closer examination of those moods which necessarily involve the other person.

This article outlines a critique of the currently widespread assessment that the there is nothing at issue in Habermas Rawls debate. It shows what is wrong with this assessment and explains how it arose. Finally it attempts to outline what is really at issue in the Habermas Rawls debate, and se tthe debate in the wider framework of Kantian justifications of political norms.

A Discussion of Frankfurt School Critical theory and its problematic relation to practical philosophy, e.g. ethical, political and prudential reason.