Balkan Journal of Philosophy

We are pleased to announce the topic of the SPECIAL ISSUE of Balkan Journal of Philosophy for 2027:

“THEORETICAL RATIONALITY AND PRACTICAL REASON”

The division of theoretical and practical philosophy was codified by Kant, who drew the distinction between the kingdom of natural necessity and the kingdom of moral ends. The last centuries saw gradual erosion of this neat distinction. Most of the proposed approaches are related to our understanding of rationality – a concept that looms large in many branches of philosophy and cannot be meaningfully located on one of the two sides of the divide. This special issue of Balkan Journal of Philosophy aims to explore different facets of this concept in order to discern some common tendencies and possibilities for heuristic transfer of ideas between different philosophical domains. The focal points of interest include:

Epistemology: Until recently, rational belief was equated to justified belief, which in turn was conceived as a prerequisite for knowledge. This identification came under attack, initially in the works of Stewart Cohen. This necessitates a reconsideration of the way we conceive these concepts, which relates to our understanding of reasons (theoretical vs. practical, objective vs. subjective, etc.) Another area of interest is the epistemology of disagreement, whose primary interest is whether there are rational disagreements between epistemic peers and how disagreement affects the justification of belief.

Philosophy of science: Ever since Thomas Kuhn attacked the received view of scientific progress associated with logical positivism, it has become apparent that disagreement in science could be rational. This raises important issues relating to objectivity, scientific realism, and the very idea of the method of science, conceived as a paradigmatic mechanism for acquisition of shared beliefs. In the aftermath of the Kuhnian turn it seems that the previously neglected, practical and social side of scientific research is equally important in this respect, and that individual and social rationality might diverge.

Social choice and decision theory: Science relates to a specific, idealized type of community, which shares a stringent code for belief formation. The relation between individual and social beliefs, values and preferences, and our conceptions relating to their rationality has been the object of social choice theory ever since the publication of the seminal work of Kenneth J. Arrow. It also relates to the broader issue of the interplay of normative constraints and descriptive adequacy of theoretical models in science and philosophy.

Philosophy of action and ethics: Moving to the practical side of the matter, since Donald Davidson’s influential contribution, the perceived rationality of human behavior, the fact that it is explainable by good reasons, is conceived as a mark for theoretical adequacy. Famously, ethics treats one subset of good reasons – reasons based on the good in the moral sense. The clashes of our moral intuitions and our ethical theories bring forth another facet of our topic: the tension between theoretical rationality and practical reason.

Call for Papers