The Quest for Certainty

The aim of this paper is to vindicate the Cartesian quest for certainty by arguing that to aim at certainty is a constitutive feature of cognition. My argument hinges on three observations concerning the nature of doubt and judgment: first, it is always possible to have a doubt as to whether p in so far as one takes the truth of p to be uncertain; second, in so far as one takes the truth of p to be certain, one is no longer able to genuinely wonder whether p is true; third, to ask the question whether p is to desire to receive a true answer. On this ground I clarify in what sense certainty is the aim of cognition. I then argue that in judging that p we commit ourselves to p’s being certain and that certainty is the constitutive norm of judgment. The paper as a whole provides a picture of the interplay between doubt and judgment that aims at vindicating the traditional insight that our ability to doubt testifies our aspiration to know with absolute certainty.

Justifying Interventions—The Case of ECOWAS in Liberia

In contrast to the other chapters in Part V, Nina Wilén’s focus is on multilateral military interventions at the regional level: She explores the relationship between sovereignty, intervention, and the international normative order, by examining how ECOWAS, an African regional organization, justified its intervention in Liberia’s civil war referring to international norms. Based on a critical discursive analysis of the speeches related to ECOWAS’ decision to intervene in Liberia in 1990, as well as the responses the justifications provoked from the UN and the United States, it is argued that ECOWAS’ intervention and the justifications which accompanied it were clearly influenced by an international normative order where sovereignty is the key constitutive norm and non-intervention the main regulative norm. Yet the fact that ECOWAS also violated the very same norms through its intervention, created a precedent for future regional interventions and implied long-term consequences for the international normative system.

Being True to Works of Music

This book argues that the so-called ‘authenticity debate’ about the performance of works of Western classical music has tended to focus on a side issue. While much has been written about the desirability (or otherwise) of historical authenticity—roughly, performing works as they would have been performed, under ideal conditions, in the era in which they were composed—the most fundamental norm governing our practice of work performance is, in fact, another kind of kind of authenticity altogether. This is interpretive authenticity: being faithful to the performed work by virtue of evincing a profound, far-reaching, or sophisticated understanding of it. While, in contrast to other performance values, both score compliance authenticity (being true to the work by obeying its score) and interpretive authenticity are valued for their own sake in performance, only the latter is a constitutive norm of the practice in the sense introduced by Christine Korsgaard. This has implications for cases in which the demands of these two kinds of authenticity conflict with each other. In cases of genuine such conflict, performers should sacrifice a little score compliance for the sake of making their performance more interpretively authentic.

The Normative Profile of Interpretive Authenticity

The book’s final chapter focuses squarely on interpretive authenticity’s place in our practice of work performance. It is pointed out, first, that interpretive authenticity is a performance value and, second, that, no less than score compliance, it is valued for its own sake. Crucially, however, it is argued, in addition, that interpretive authenticity is the practice of work performance’s most fundamental value. This is because interpretive authenticity, and not score compliance authenticity, is the practice’s constitutive norm: that is, it belongs to the nature of the activity of performing works of Western classical music that performances both ought to maximize, and are trying to maximize, interpretive authenticity. The chapter gives examples in which the norms of interpretive authenticity and score compliance authenticity conflict with each other. It follows from the proposed account of the practice’s normative profile that such conflict should be resolved by sacrificing textual fidelity for the sake of increasing a performance’s interpretive authenticity.

Assertion: The Constitutive Norms View

Two important philosophical questions about assertion concern its nature and normativity. This article defends the optimism about the constitutive norm account of assertion and sets out a constitutivity thesis that is much more modest than that proposed by Timothy Williamson. It starts by looking at the extant objections to Williamson’s Knowledge Account of Assertion (KAA) and argues that they fail to hit their target in virtue of imposing implausible conditions on engaging in norm-constituted activities. Second, it makes a similar proposal and shows how it does better than the competition. It suggests that Knowledge Norm of Assertion (KNA) is not constitutive of the speech act of assertion in the same way in which rules of games are constitutive, and thus KAA comes out as too strong. The final section embarks on a rescue mission on behalf of KAA; it puts forth a weaker, functionalist constitutivity thesis. On this view, KNA is etiologically constitutively associated with the speech act of assertion, in virtue of its function of generating knowledge in hearers.

Internalización del principio de las responsabilidades comunes, pero diferenciadas: interpretaciones desde la sociedad civil brasileña/Internalization of the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities: Interpretations from the Brazilian Civil

El principio de las responsabilidades comunes, pero diferenciadas, ha sido una norma constitutiva de la política climática global. Su interpretación tradicional sostiene que diferentes niveles de protección ambiental deben esperarse entre los países desarrollados y los países emergentes y/o en vías de desarrollo. Sin embargo, dicho sentido comenzó a ser cuestionado y contestado por actores de la sociedad civil, tanto a escala global como en contextos domésticos particulares. En este artículo se describe el proceso de localización del principio de las responsabilidades comunes, pero diferenciadas, en el discurso doméstico brasilero de la sociedad civil organizada sobre cambio climático entre los años 2005 y 2015, desde una perspectiva constructivista de las Relaciones Internacionales. Para alcanzar este objetivo, se plantean las diversas interpretaciones y reinterpretaciones del principio por parte de actores no estatales en Brasil. Abstract The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities has been a constitutive norm since the origins of the global climate policy. The traditional interpretation of this norm maintains that different levels of environmental protection should be expected between developed countries and emerging and/or developing countries. However, this interpretation began to be questioned and challenged by civil society actors, both globally and in particular domestic contexts. This article describes the process of localization of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities in the Brazilian domestic discourse of organized civil society on climate change between the years 2005 and 2015, from a constructivist perspective of International Relations. To achieve this objective, the different interpretations and reinterpretations of the principle by non-state actors in Brazil are presented.

Religious Assertion

According to a standard theory of religious language, it should be taken at face value. Opposition to this face-value approach has tended to offer radical alternatives, for instance, that indicative religious utterances are not assertions but express a different speech act, or that religious utterances do not communicate beliefs in what is said. This chapter brings together this debate with contemporary constitutive norm theories of assertion. The chapter defends a novel ‘moderate’ theory of religious affirmation that rejects both the face-value and opposition approaches. It argues that religious affirmations are normatively distinct from assertions, and it argues that a theory of religious affirmation should not undermine either the face-value representational content or belief-reporting role of indicative religious utterances. The moderate theory shows how it is possible to do justice to the distinctiveness of religious discourse while staying faithful to the evidence about how speakers use religious language.

Assertion

This chapter takes up the knowledge norm of assertion, according to which assertion is governed by the constitutive norm that one may assert only what one knows. The relationship between such norms and contextualism is controversial—some philosophers have argued that there is a special problem for this combination of views, and others have argued that the knowledge norm provides direct support for contextualism. This chapter rejects both kinds of simple connections. The book's relevant alternatives approach to knowledge, however, combined with Stalnakerian approaches to assertions and conversational contexts, is suggestive of an underexplored interpretation of the knowledge norm—the incremental knowledge norm of assertion, according to which what is required for proper assertion depends on its incremental conversational effect.

Rethinking the ‘Kurdish question’ in Turkey

It is not possible to make Turkish modernity multicultural, Turkish democracy consolidated, Turkish economy sustainable, Turkish society a society of living together, and Turkish foreign policy proactive, multidimensional, and effective, without resolving the Kurdish question. In this article I will suggest that the democratic solution to the Kurdish question lies in (a) a critical analysis of state-centric Turkish modernity and its recent crisis, as the Kurdish identity has always been constructed as the Other of Turkish national identity; and (b) an attempt aiming at a democratic reconstruction of the political in Turkey, which sees a multicultural and differentiated understanding of constitutional citizenship as a constitutive norm of ‘living together in diversity’. By doing so, it would be possible to seek a feasible and effective solution to the Kurdish question not in ‘ethnic terms’ but by exploring possible ways of ‘articulating identity-claims to citizenship rights with an emphasis on the practice of democracy’.