_Nature and Normativity _argues that the problem of the place of norms in nature has been essentially misunderstood when it has been articulated in terms of the relation of human language and thought, on the one hand, and the world described by physics on the other. Rather, if we concentrate on the facts that speaking and thinking are activities of organic agents, then the problem of the place of the normative in nature becomes refocused on three related questions. First, is (...) there a sense in which biological processes and the behavior of organisms can be legitimately subject to normative evaluation? Second, is there some sense in which, in addition to having ordinary causal explanations, organic phenomena can also legitimately be seen to happen _because_ they _should_ happen in that way, in some naturalistically comprehensible sense of ‘should’, or that organic phenomena happen _in order to_ achieve some result, because that result should occur? And third, is it possible to naturalistically understand how human thought and language can be legitimately seen as the normatively evaluable behavior of a particular species of organism, behavior that occurs in order to satisfy some class of norms? This book develops, articulates, and defends positive answers to each of these questions. (shrink)

_Rational Animals: The Teleological Roots of Intentionality_ offers an original account of the intentionality of human mental states, such as beliefs and desires. The account of intentionality in _Rational Animals_ is broadly biological in its basis, emphasizing the continuity between human intentionality and the levels of intentionality that should be attributed to animal actions and states. Establishing the goal-directed character of animal behavior, Mark Okrent argues that instrumentally rational action is a species of goal-directed behavior that is idiosyncratic to individual (...) agents and is distinguished by its novelty and flexibility. He also argues that some nonlinguistic animals are capable of instrumental rationality and that in the first instance, the contents of beliefs and desires are individuated by the explanatory role of those states in rationally accounting for such instrumentally rational behavior. The account of instrumental rationality offered in Rational Animals allows for understanding the practical rationality of linguistically competent human beings as a distinctive capacity of social animals capable of undertaking roles governed by socially sanctioned norms. Rational Animals will be of interest to cognitive scientists, philosophers of mind, philosophers of biology, philosophers of action, ethologists, and those interested in the debates concerning animal intelligence. (shrink)

Heidegger's Pragmatism deals with the relation between Martin Heidegger's early analysis of intentionality and his eventual rejection of metaphysics. Arguing for the essentially pragmatic nature of the early Heidegger's discussion of understanding, Mark Okrent shows that Heidegger's subsequent critique of metaphysics follows directly from his long-held pragmatic understanding of intentionality. Heidegger's Pragmatism is written with a clarity that makes it accessible to analytic and continental philosophers alike. Its boldly original conclusions will engage Heidegger scholars, literary theorists, intellectual historians, and a (...) wide range of philosophers. (shrink)

Questo articolo si interroga su ciò di cui i filosofi hanno parlato, o dovrebbero parlare, quando parlano di "una pratica". La questione è complicata per il fatto che, almeno in inglese, esistono diversi sensi piuttosto distinti della parola "pratica", in due dei quali "pratica" è usato come un sostantivo e in altri due sensi "pratica" è usato come un verbo. Tutti questi usi, sia nominali che verbali, sono in realtà ben distinti, ma chiaramente connessi, a ciò che interessa ai filosofi (...) quando parlano di "una pratica". In _Due concetti di regole_ John Rawls ha offerto una definizione di 'pratica' che ha influenzato le successive discussioni filosofiche su cosa significhi essere una pratica: «Uso la parola 'pratica' come una sorta di termine tecnico che indica qualsiasi forma di attività specificata da un sistema di regole che definisce posizioni, ruoli, mosse, penalità, difese e così via, e che dà all'attività la sua struttura. Come esempi si può pensare ai giochi e ai rituali, ai processi e ai parlamenti». La tesi centrale di _Due concetti di regole_ è che le regole consequenzialiste e deontiche (o norme) sono entrambe essenzialmente coinvolte nell'istituzione e nella valutazione delle pratiche. La tesi del presente lavoro, tuttavia, è che se ci si concentra sul processo di esercizio di una pratica per sviluppare e mantenere la capacità di occupare con successo una posizione in una pratica rawlsiana, si può vedere che Rawls ha sbagliato sia a identificare il carattere di queste norme sia a individuare i loro obiettivi. (shrink)

Richard Rorty thinks that Martin Heidegger is necessarily impaled on the horns of a dilemma in regard to the history and historicity of Being. The thrust of Rorty's criticism of Heidegger is aimed at the supposed vacuity of Heidegger's thought of Being without beings. In order to overcome this vacuity, Rorty thinks that Heidegger has recourse to the history of beings. But the form ordinary history takes for Rorty's Heidegger is the alienated form of the history of philosophy. The criticism (...) thus has three steps. First, Being without being is a vacuous notion. Second, this vacuity is overcome through a consideration of the history of philosophy. That is, Heidegger might be equally unable to determine the truth of Being without recourse to his version of the history of philosophy. Rorty's criticism of Heidegger in regard to the possibility for thinking at the end of philosophy is coordinated with a second criticism. (shrink)

While avoiding relativism, Rorty claims that: (1) truth is just for a time and a place; (2) ?truth? and ?rationality? are indexed to a community's standards of warranted assertibility; and (3) there is nothing more to be said about truth and rationality than is contained, in a community's procedures for evaluating claims. He makes these assertions because he believes that the cautionary uses of ?true? and ?rational? crucially depend upon the endorsing uses of these terms. I argue that Rorty is (...) wrong in this belief and that the principle of charity assures us that in their cautionary uses ?true? and ?rational? are independent of any idiosyncracies associated with any community's current standards of justification. (shrink)