Suppose a male philosophy teacher states in the classroom: philosophy is not suitable for women. This paper examines reasons this statement is a morally impermissible harassment speech. First, it examines some characteristics of this speech such as lack of vicious intention on the side of speaker, based on which one could claim that the speech is unproblematic. In opposition to this claim, this paper argues that speaker’s intention is not relevant to the moral nature of harassment speech. It further points out that speech act theory offers useful methods to analyze the moral wrong of harassment speech, particularly based on the reason that this theory is capable of directly addressing the right and wrong of the speech itself, without referring to speaker’s intentions nor consequences of the speech, neither of which are likely not to be observed in trustworthy methods in cases of harassment. Second, I analyze the above statement as subordinating speech that ranks female students as inferior to male students in terms of capabilities regarding philosophical research. The analysis particularly pays attention to the move of conversation within the specific context of the classroom, and clarifies the normative power involved in this move that forces hearers to accept the belief women are inferior to men regarding philosophical abilities. Third, the paper focuses on silence of male students as a reaction to the teacher’s statement, and argues that it licenses this statement and reinforces the authority of the speech. Moreover, it is pointed out that third person’s statements such as “you worry too much” cause secondary damage in which the moral personality of harasser is defended, while the personality of victims is blamed Overall, the paper shows that seemingly unproblematic statements could be impermissible harassment speech, because they subordinate a group to other groups and are also unacceptable due to harms they cause.

This paper examines the problem of harassments in higher education from the perspective of Iris Marion Young’s social connection model of responsibility and suggests the problem as results of structural injustice.

The first section reviews Young’s model of responsibility and sheds light on three features: (1) it imposes responsibility on all actors involved in structure that produces unjust outcome, (2) it sees responsibility as forward-looking and imposes this responsibility on all actors as shared responsibility, and (3) all actors are demanded to engage in collective actions to make unjust structures less unjust.

The second section applies Young’s model of responsibility to sexual harassments in higher education institutions. A hypothetical character of a female university lecturer is employed to show how in a gendered sexist society sexual harassments could occur in university setting where no single actor can be blamed for the unjust result. The third section points out one problematic feature of Young’s model of responsibility. Young’s idea of shared responsibility is useful to set the problem of sexual harassments as our collective problem, but it gives insufficient attention to capabilities of victims of unjust structures.

The forth section discusses the question of capability to responsibility. Although Young suggests that victims share responsibility at least to criticize unjust structure, they generally lack capabilities to do so due to the gendered sexist society. On the other hand, Young denies the idea of blaming non-victims, even when they have capabilities to reproduce such structures, for the sake of cooperative motivations. This paper argues that Young’s model should take capabilities of victims into account so that it does not allow a counter-argument that “no voices raised, no harassment done”, while admitting that in certain cases we cannot practically blame non-victims of unjust structure.

The fifth section suggests a sort of “self-investigating research project” as part of taking shared responsibility where individual actors take turns to reflect upon one’s own positions and actions and then present one’s report to others in meetings. This project seems fit into the university setting as a way for sharing responsibility for achieving justice.

This paper examines the semantics of Japanese generic sentences that involve reference to gender stereotypes and considers how they possibly contribute to the presence and perpetuation of sexual harassment. The main strategy of the paper is, first, to uncover the possible ways in which sentences that contain the explicit deontic modal expression in Japanese beki (roughly corresponding to ought) contribute to the cases of hostile environment sexual harassment, and second, to compare the explicitly modal sentences and generic sentences that contain no explicit modal in order to show that the latter also express modal, normatively laden contents. As a standard theory of deontic modality, I apply Angelika Kratzer’s analysis of ought to Japanese sentences containing beki. For the sake of concrete illustration, I also introduce Asher and Morreau’s (1995) analysis of generics and extend it to Japanese examples. The comparison shows that, insofar as the uses of explicitly normative sentences such as “All women ought to wear a skirt” contribute to hostile environment harassment, implicitly normative sentences such as “Women wear a skirt” make a similar, if not equal, contribution to the legitimization of gender-specific norms. The paper concludes with the suggestion that we pay more attention to generic sentences with gender-specific terms, and that we use explicit quantifiers and singular terms more often than not to avoid ambiguity and possible inadvertent consequences.

The “Working Group for Philosophy Education”, which promotes philosophy education under the aegis of The Philosophical Association of Japan, has been holding regular annual “Workshops for Philosophy Education”. Though the topics of the workshops are wide-ranging, the topic most frequently taken up so far is philosophy education in senior high schools. This is natural, considering the fact that “Ethics”which is taught in high schools is the only “philosophical” subject taught in primary and secondary education in Japan. Other topics are philosophy education in universities, elementary schools and junior high schools, and philosophical dialogue among citizens. Philosophy education in elementary and junior high schools and philosophical dialogue among the citizens may need some explanation as they are not so familiar as philosophy education in universities or senior high schools.

tween philosophical dialogue among laypersons and research and education in philosophy among experts.

This feature article on philosophy education consists of four papers contributed by the speakers of past workshops featuring philosophy education in senior high

schools, in universities, and in elementary and junior high schools, and teacher training for philosophy in schools in Australia.

Mayumi WATAUCHI’s paper, “Let twisted flowers be twisted: a report on philosophical dialogues in ‘Ethics’”, reports her practice of philosophical dialogue based on “p4c Hawai’i” in the “Ethics” course in a senior high school. She presents her conception of philosophical dialogue in secondary education, her teaching plan and materials, excerpts from students’ dialogues and essays, observations from her colleagues, and her own reflections.

Takeshi KIKUCHI’s paper, “Making good use of written dialogues and comments among the students in an introductory course on critical thinking”, discusses teaching critical thinking in higher education not only in terms of the skills and knowledge of critical thinking but also in terms of the attitude of critical thinking.

Tomoyuki MURASE and Yohsuke TSUCHIYA’s paper, “What “Philosophy for Children” challenges us about: its theory of education and philosophical questions”, gives an overview of the history, ideas, methodology, and recent developments in Philosophy for Children, and reflects on some philosophical challenges Philosophy for Children raises.

Tim SPROD’s paper, “Training teachers of philosophy in schools: thoughts from Australia”, discusses formal and informal forms of teaching philosophy in schools, naming the latter “P4C style”, and discusses the role of teachers in P4C style teaching and the training of the teachers, referring to some actual cases of teacher training in Australia.

The “Working Group for Philosophy Education”, which promotes philosophy education under the aegis of The Philosophical Association of Japan, has been holding regular annual “Workshops for Philosophy Education”. Though the topics of the workshops are wide-ranging, the topic most frequently taken up so far is philosophy education in senior high schools. This is natural, considering the fact that “Ethics” which is taught in high schools is the only “philosophical” subject taught in primary and secondary education in Japan. Other topics are philosophy education in universities, elementary schools and junior high schools, and philosophical dialogue among citizens. Philosophy education in elementary and junior high schools and philosophical dialogue among the citizens may need some explanation as they are not so familiar as philosophy education in universities or senior high schools.

The forms of philosophy education in schools taken up in the workshops belong to the stream of “Philosophy for Children (P4C)”, which was established by Matthew Lipman in the 1970’s. It is not meant for teaching concepts or theories of philosophy but to let children learn to think through philosophical dialogue. This form of education started to spread in Japan around 2010. The reasons P4C has been taken up in the workshops are that it is a significant form of philosophy in itself and that it is expected to contribute to fostering the most fundamental intellectual skills such as thinking for oneself and thinking together in communication with others.

The most popular form of philosophical dialogue among citizens is the “Philosophical Café”, which is supposed to have started in Paris in the early 1990’s. Philosophical cafés have been held in Japan since around 2000 and they are getting more and more popular today. The reasons philosophical dialogue among citizens has been taken up in the workshops are that it is expected to relate to forms of education in a broad sense, such as adult education and life-long learning, and that it is expected to provide a good opportunity for us to think about the relationship between philosophical dialogue among laypersons and research and education in philosophy among experts.

This feature article on philosophy education consists of four papers contributed by the speakers of past workshops featuring philosophy education in senior high schools, in universities, and in elementary and junior high schools, and teacher training for philosophy in schools in Australia.

Pour différencier le corps humain des autres corps du point de vue de la puissance, Spinoza présente les deux critères suivants : en premier lieu, l’aptitude d’être affecté par plusieurs choses de plusieurs manières en même temps et d’affecter plusieurs choses de plusieurs manières en même temps ; en deuxième lieu, une sorte d’autonomie du corps pour produire ses propres actions ou affections. En quel sens ces deux critères s’appliquent-ils au corps humain ? De quelles affections est-il capable ? Pourquoi, enfin, n’avons-nous de notre corps qu’une idée confuse ? C’est à partir de l’« Abrégé de physique » que Spinoza vient répondre à ces questions. En analysant les deux concepts majeurs de l’« Abrégé », celui d’« individu » et celui de « forme », le présent article a pour but d’expliciter la conception spinoziste du corps humain dans l’Éthique.

Spinoza détermine notre corps comme individu, qui est, selon lui, un corps composé de plusieurs corps de nature différente. Il dit aussi que notre corps a sa propre forme qui n’est rien d’autre que le rapport déterminé de mouvement et de repos que les parties du corps ont entre elles. Nous présenterons notre interprétation comme suit : ce concept spinoziste de forme ou de rapport nous permet de saisir un individu comme tel en le distinguant des autres corps, même dans la relation nécessaire avec eux, et en même temps, il rend possible de penser que l’individu conserve son identité malgré les changements qu’il subit. En outre, nous montrerons que ce concept de rapport doit être entendu comme les lois propres à un individu selon lesquelles il est déterminé à produire ses affections de manière précise et déterminée. Ainsi, le corps humain se différencie des autres corps par la haute complexité de sa composition, et avec cette complexité, il a l’aptitude d’être affecté par plusieurs choses et d’affecter plusieurs choses en même temps.

Mais, parce que les affections de notre corps proviennent de sa nature et en même temps de la nature du corps qui l’affecte, les productions des affections se réalisent suivant les lois générales de mouvement et de repos qui règlent toutes choses sans exception, et par conséquent, elles ne peuvent pas être expliquées entièrement par les uniques lois propres à notre corps. Par là même aussi, l’esprit humain, ne connaissant son corps qu’à travers les idées des affections dont le corps est affecté, n’a de son corps propre qu’une idée tout à fait confuse. Ce qui rend notre esprit capable de former les idées claires et distinctes des choses, c’est un certain degré de l’autonomie de notre corps dans la production des affections.

In den Pariser Manuskripten kritisierte Marx das kapitalistische Privateigentum als das, wodurch sich die Menschen von ihrem „Wesen“ entfremden. Innerhalb dessen erscheint die menschliche Arbeit nur als eine „Zwangsarbeit“, in der sich jeder „außer sich“ fühlen müsse. Seine Entfremdungskritik wird seit der Auslegung durch Marcuse essentialistisch verstanden und als eine normative Kritik aufgefasst; „normativ“ heißt, mit einer Konzeption des guten Lebens, die der Idee der Selbstverwirklichung des menschlichen Wesens entspricht, die entfremdete Gesellschaft zu kritisieren. Aber vom Standpunkt der Ideologiekritik aus wird oft bezweifelt, dass diese emanzipatorische Idee des guten Lebens zugleich ein Anzeichen für einen Essentialismus ist, bei dem es sich eventuell sogar um eine Art von Paternalismus handelt. Um sich mit einem solchen Ideologieverdacht auseinanderzusetzen, ist es für uns mindestens nötig, die zwei verschiedenen Verwendungsweisen des Wesensbegriffs bei Marx zu überprüfen und ihn damit in seiner ganzen Tragweite zu erkennen. Der vorliegende Aufsatz beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob und inwieweit der Begriff des menschlichen Wesens bei Marx für essentialistisch gehalten werden sollte. Erst dadurch kann die kritische Zeitdiagnose von Marx erneut verteidigt und aktualisiert werden. So gliedert sich diese Arbeit ihrer Zielsetzung gemäß in vier Teile.

Zuerst wird anhand der Darstellung im Ersten Manuskript das Modell der Vergegenständlichung analysiert. Dadurch lässt sich verdeutlichen, dass der Begriff des menschlichen „Gattungswesens“ auf einer essentialistischen Vorstellung der produktiven Fähigkeiten beruht, die nur dem Menschen eigen sind. Im Gegensatz zu diesem Anschein von Essentialismus versucht Marx bei der Analyse der drei Quellen des Einkommens, die essentialistische Annahme der Arbeitswerttheorie zu kritisieren. Anschließend werden vor dem Hintergrund dieser Kritik an der Nationalökonomie Überlegungen angestellt, ob Marx in Bezug auf die menschliche Körperlichkeit eine neue Idee entwickelt hat; der Mensch ist demnach kein substantiell bestimmbares Etwas, sondern für sich ein Prozess des „Verhaltens zum Gegenstand“ und damit der „Aneignung der menschlichen Wirklichkeit“. Abschließend lässt sich aus diesem im Dritten Manuskript formulierten Gedankengang die Schlussfolgerung ziehen, dass das, was in der Begriffsform des menschlichen Wesens enthalten ist, nichts anderes ist als ein Paradox, weil der Mensch selbst ein unendlicher Aneignungsprozess seiner Wirklichkeit ist, während der Wesensbegriff eigentlich eine unveränderbare Form der Sache voraussetzt. In einer solchen paradoxen Beschaffenheit des Wesensbegriffs besteht ein Unterschied zwischen dem frühen Marx und dem Essentialismus.

The aim of this paper is to understand Kant’s argument in the chapter “Refutation of Idealism” in the Critique of Pure Reason.

In “Refutation of Idealism,” Kant claims that experience of external objects is required for making a judgment about the temporal relation of one’s own inner mental episodes. Paul Guyer and Georges Dicker proposed an influential way of understanding this controversial claim. According to their interpretation, Kant claims that one can make such a judgment (e.g., I saw a desk after seeing a chair) only by appealing to some objective states of affairs (the desk was brought into the room after the chair had been removed). However, many commentators claim that there are many counterexamples against this interpretation. For instance, memory often contains sufficient information to make a judgment about the temporal relation of inner mental episodes.

In this paper, I propose another way of understanding Kant’s claim. Experience of external objects is required not because it is a necessary method, as Guyer and Dicker thought, for making judgments about the temporal relation of mental episodes. The necessity for experience of external objects should be understood in terms of commitment. In making a judgment about the temporal relation of mental episodes,one has to think that the temporal relation of one’s mental episodes corresponds to an objective state of affairs. Without this thought, the judgment one makes could not be regarded as significant. This is what Kant has in mind in “Refutation of Idealism.”

Furthermore, this paper clarifies a feature of Kant’s theory of self-knowledge in light of this interpretation. Kant and other contemporary theorists, such as Christopher Peacocke and Michael Tye, have claimed that inner and outer experiences are connected. They differ in how they treat introspection, a means of learning about one’s own mental episodes. Kant’s theory of self-knowledge in “Refutation of Idealism” is developed without denying introspection because it does not deal with methods of making judgments about the temporal relation of mental episodes, but with commitments in making such judgments. This is a distinctive feature of his theory because some contemporary theorists attempt to do away with introspection based on an alleged connection between inner and outer experience.

This paper intends to clarify Nietzsche’s concept of “contest.” This is because “contest” is an important concept in properly understanding Nietzsche’s view of our relation to others. In many cases, Nietzsche regards relation to others as a struggle, which may lead readers to think that Nietzsche considers relation to others negatively because struggle is associated with denying, suppressing, and destroying others. However, this interpretation is a misunderstanding. For Nietzsche, struggle is not only negative but also positive - if it is a form of relation in which people recognize others and which is associated with productive activity. This is clear from his early text, “Homer’s Contest.” In this text, he divides struggle into two forms: a positive and productive struggle, namely “contest,” on the one hand, and a negative and destructive struggle, namely “annihilative struggle,” on the other. Moreover, he postulates that “contest” was the foundation of progress in ancient Greek culture.

Thus, in “Homer’s Contest,” Nietzsche considers “contest” to be the ideal relation to others. Furthermore, in discussing “contest,” Nietzsche often compares ancient and modern cultures, criticizing modern culture’s inability to create the conditions for forming an ideal relation to others.

Nietzsche’s concept of “contest” has three fundamental elements: first, affirmation of envy and ambition, which are regarded as negative in the modern age; second, the necessity of equal or more powerful rivals and the availability of people who are capable of estimating correctly; and third, the necessity of maintaining pluralism. In this paper, these elements are explained in detail in order to clarify Nietzsche’s opinion on the ideal relation to others, namely “contest,” and emphasize his critical attitude toward modern culture apparent in “Homer’s Contest.

Brandom’s inferentialism is the thesis that meanings of linguistic expressions are determined by their roles in appropriate material inferences that are established in our discursive practices. Since Brandom tries to develop a general semantics to treat not only vocabulary in mathematics or logic but also empirical vocabulary used in our daily lives and scientific practices, one of the most important and difficult tasks of inferentialism is to establish appropriate empirical material inferences in his framework of normative pragmatics, which is supposed to describe our discursive practices. Observational reports play a key role in this task. It is necessary to show that we can explain sufficiently how subjects become entitled to make observational reports in normative pragmatics.

Our critical survey of Brandom’s main work Making It Explicit shows that his explanation of entitlements to make observational reports falls into infinite regress. This paper tries to show, however, that the problem of infinite regress can be dissolved by modifying the Hegelian mutual recognition model that Brandom develops in his later works Reason in Philosophy and Tales of the Mighty Dead. That is, although Brandom’s mutual recognition model also brings another kind of infinite regress that is distinct from the one in Making It Explicit, if we modify his model by introducing the concept desire for recognition, we can explain sufficiently how entitlements to make observational reports are instituted in normative pragmatics, avoiding the problem of infinite regress. The paper may therefore be regarded as a partial defense of Brandom’s inferentialism.

Descartes insists, “[...] there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me [...]” (CSM-II, 17; AT-VII, 25). But what is the basis for the insistence that I exist if a deceiver deceives me? At first sight, the Second Meditation seems to say that I exist as an object of the deception, and some earlier studies interpret it as such. Kenny, for example, insists that I exist “as the object of deception, not as the subject of thought.”* On the other hand, however, Wargner insists that I exist “as the active subject whose causal power is being exercised in generating the idea of the demon and all his other ideas.”**

The object of this article is to discuss this interpretative problem, examining the earlier studies of Gouhier, Kenny, Pariente, and Wargner. I reject the traditional interpretation (i.e. by Kenny and Pariente) based on the relation between an act and its object, and analyze what is concluded from being deceived, by focusing on the act of deceit itself. Furthermore, the paper shows: 1) it is not my existing but my thinking that is concluded from the supposition that a deceiver is deceiving me; 2) the abilities to understand, affirm, and deny (cf. AT-VII, 28) are discovered in the situation that I am deceived.

* Anthony Kenny, Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1987), 57.

** Stephen I. Wargner, Squaring the Circle in Descartes’ Meditations: The Strong Validation of Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 110-112.

Many philosophers suspect that the emotion of shame cannot play a significant role in morality because shame is the reaction to others’ contempt and therefore, a heteronomous emotion. This paper aims to defend the view that shame is a morally significant emotion by focusing on one form of reproach —“shame on you.” We employ this reproach, for example, with a President who establishes discriminatory policies or a scientist who falsifies data in his academic paper and in these cases, we assume this reproach is morally important. Therefore, what does “shame on you” imply? How can it be morally justified? Moreover, what are its characteristics? In this paper, I answer these questions by clarifying the notions of shame and self-respect.

The paper proceeds as follows. First, I resolve the issue of autonomy and heteronomy in the emotion of shame based on Gabriele Taylor’s observation that shame contains two elements — a self-directed adverse judgment and a notion of an audience. I argue that the adverse judgment is always rendered autonomously, but the audience can be either autonomous or heteronomous; essentially, agents feel shame either in their own eyes or in the eyes of others. Second, I explain the meaning of “shame on you” and demonstrate the moral validity of this reproach by referring to the nature and classification of self-respect. Finally, I examine the distinctive significance of “shame on you.” Examining the different characteristics of shame and guilt, I argue that this form of reproach involves more a comprehensive assessment of the agent than other forms of reproach that concern, for example, the violations of moral rules.

Es wurde schon gelegentlich darauf hingewiesen, dass „Von dem regulativen Gebrauch der Ideen der reinen Vernunft“ in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft mit der Kritik der Urteilskraft in einer engen Beziehung stehe, aber die Interpretationen stimmen nicht in der Frage überein, wie eng diese sei. Diese Abhandlung beschäftigt sich damit, die Gemeinsamkeiten und Differenzen der beiden Texte klar zu erfassen. Dadurch wird erklärt, warum die Kritik der Urteilskraft ihre systematische Aufgabe, d.h. den Übergang vom Gebiet des Naturbegriffs zum Gebiet des Freiheitsbegriffs zu formulieren, erfüllen kann

Ihre Gemeinsamkeit besteht darin, die Gleichheit der Funktion, den Begriff des Zwecks, auf die Natur analogisch anzuwenden. Die Differenz besteht hingegen darin, dass die reflektierende Urteilskraft dadurch, dass sie diese Funktion besitzt, die Einzelnen beurteilen kann. Vom Standpunkt der Kritik der Urteilskraft aus gesehen muss sich der Begriff der Zweckmäßigkeit zuerst auf die Einzelnen anwenden lassen, um danach auch die systematische Einheit der ganzen Natur zu ermöglichen. Gleichzeitig wird mit der Beurteilung des Einzelnen unvermeidlich auch ein übersinnliches Substrat und eine verständige Weltursache mit angenommen. Das ist unmöglich für die Vernunft, die sich nur mit der systematischen Einheit der ganzen Natur beschäftigt. Und die systematische Eigenheit der Kritik der Urteilskraft, die sich vom praktischen Standpunkt aus davon unterscheidet, besteht darin, dass dieses übersinnliche Substrat zwar mit dem Grund der Einheit von Natur und Freiheit verknüpft ist, aber von ihm unterschieden sein soll. Der zweite wichtige Unterschied besteht darin, dass die regulative Vernunft von Anfang ergänzend Gott zur Voraussetzung macht, wohingegen die reflektierende Urteilskraft nur eine verständige Weltursache annimmt. Diese physische Teleologie in der Kritik der Urteilskraft muss von dem praktischen Standpunkt aus Gott erst dann zur Voraussetzung machen, wenn sie sich mit der systematische Einheit der ganzen Natur beschäftigt, und das bedeutet, dass sie zur moralischen Teleologie übergeht.

Aus diesen Differenzen erklärt sich, warum nur die Kritik der Urteilskraft die systematische Aufgabe erfüllen vermag, denn das übersinnliche Substrat, das mit dem Grund der Einheit von der Natur und der Freiheit verknüpft ist und das den Übergang von der Natur zur Freiheit möglich macht, wird eben von der reflektierenden Urteilskraft vorausgesetzt, und die reflektierende Urteilskraft ermöglicht die Aufnahme der verständigen Weltursache und somit den Anschluss der physischen an die moralische Teleologie.

Le mal peut se dénier lui-même en se cachant lui-même. L’expérience montre que l’être humain peut faire le mal sans avoir aucune mauvaise volonté. Tout se passe comme si la mauvaise intention n’existait pas. Comment et pourquoi peut-on rejeter le savoir de son propre mal ? Selon Rogozinski, le sujet mauvais peut s’illusionner sur lui-même au point de croire qu’il fait le bien. En interrogeant le phénomène de la chasse aux sorcières, Rogozinski décrit comment le persécuteur, sous la poussée de la haine, construit des innocents en ennemis à exterminer. Tout en croyant résister aux ennemis mauvais, c’est la résistance même qui constitue leur menace. Le mal est alors un objet illusoire qui est construit par la résistance illusoire au mal. Le mal en tant qu’illusion, tel est le fil conducteur qui nous permet de tracer le développement de la pensée de Rogozinski sur la question du mal.

Dans Le Moi et la chair, Rogozinski analyse la haine comme la matrice affective du mal. La haine est mauvaise dans la mesure où elle défigure la vérité de l’ego. Si je haïs l’autre, c’est que je projette sur lui la haine que j’éprouve envers l’étrangeté en moi. L’autre en tant qu’objet de la haine est construit par la projection d’une part de moi-même sur l’autre pour dénier que j’en suis. Ce déni de soi s’accomplit au moment où je détruis dans l’autre l’objet de la haine que j’ai éprouvé en moi. C’est ainsi que Rogozinski définit la haine comme une « puissance de la contre-vérité ».

Dans Ils m’ont haï sans raison, Rogozinski analyse le « dispositif de persécution » pour nous montrer comment la haine persécutrice défigure la vérité du moi. Ce dispositif a une fonction essentielle de « faire dire » la vérité. En faisant avouer « être sorcière » sous la torture, le persécuteur construit lui-même son Ennemi. Ce qui est étonnant, c’est que la victime fait librement l’aveu de son crime imaginaire pour renier la vérité de son moi. Tout se passe comme si le « deceptor qui pousse le moi à se renier lui-même, à se laisser dérober sa vérité par un Autre » était la victime lui-même. Comment la résistance au mal est-il possible pour l’ego qui est dérobé de lui-même par lui-même ? Tel est la question que Rogozinski nous invite à discuter.

The Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (hereafter the PII) states that if any individuals exactly resemble each other, then they are necessarily identical. Intuitively, the PII seems valid, but Max Black attempted to refute it by introducing the possibility of a symmetry universe in which two iron spheres c and p can resemble each other exactly. This counterexample (hereafter BU) seems easy to rule out using a weak discernibility strategy (hereafter WD) according to which c, being spatially separate from p and not from c itself, is not indiscernible from p. WD, however, leads to ‘the presupposition problem’, because obtaining c as spatially separate from p presupposes the distinctness of c and p. In this discussion, I will give an outline of a defense of the validity of the PII that evades the presupposition problem through the elucidation of some aspects of ‘identity’.

In my view, ‘identity’ has two aspects: one is simply self-identity as a universal monadic property (hereafter identity-1), and the other is identity as an equivalence relation entailing indiscernibility (hereafter identity-2). The basis or ground for identity-1 obtaining with regard to an individual x can be called the individuator for x, but it is no wonder that the individuation and articulation of c and p are prior to or ground for obtaining c as spatially separate from p. So far as the PII is concerned with identity-1, it may not be valid. However, we can characterize identity-2, following David Wiggins’s lead, in terms of what is called the sortal dependency of identity-2 and the extended Locke’s Principle (hereafter ELP), according to which, for any sortal concept F, x falling under F is identical with y falling under F if and only if x is the same F as y, and x is the same F as y if and only if a) x and y share F and b) x is not spatially separate from y. If ELP is valid, we can regard BU as merely a general case to which WD is applied. And if the Wigginsian idea of the sortal dependency of identity-2 is also right, there is no longer a presupposition problem. I hence conclude that the PII is valid to the extent that it is concerned with identity-2.