Who are you? And did you have any say in choosing who you are? Identity is a complicated issue, it is both individualistic and necessarily relies on your environment and peers. I believe that as it stands, your identity may be a result of both solitary and societal thinking. However, I think that society and government act as the sole authenticators of an individual’s identity. I do not believe this is how an individual’s life ought to be treated. Thus, I (...) am arguing in this thesis that the individual has the capacity to choose their own identity, and that society and government ought to authenticate the decisions made by individuals. In order to prove my claim I will first specify the types of identity I will be discussing in this thesis. I will then explore the theories of three philosophers: Anthony Appiah, Ian Hacking, and Charles Taylor. In chapters 2 & 3, I will first analyze Anthony Appiah, who in arguing against the existence of race posits several ideas about identity including a theory of identity. Second, in chapter 4, I will analyze Ian Hacking, who presents a theory of identity creation, named labeling theory, and then presents a counter-theory of identity creation. Third, in chapter 5, I will analyze Charles Taylor’s claims about the effect recognition has on identity formation. Continuing to analyze Taylor in chapter 5, I will also analyze the importance of championing the politics of difference both to the individual and towards my claim. I will then provide examples of how my claim may be actualized in chapter 6, alongside counterarguments to my claims. Last, I will conclude my thesis in chapter 7. (shrink)

This article is a close reading of Edward Said’s image of the intellectual and offers a critique and restatement of that image. Said characterizes the intellectual in contrast to two other images:...

O propósito deste artigo é trazer à luz os pressupostos românticos que animam o livro de Hannah Arendt de título Eichmann em Jerusalém. De maneira a fazê-lo, explorarei na parte II a concepção romântico-alemã de “cultura” enquanto formação subjetiva da alma ; após isso, abordarei na parte III determinadas teses de cunho romântico articuladas por diferentes pensadores do século XIX relativas ao processo de massificação e, no seu entender, ao esvaziamento dos indivíduos na modernidade; por fim, na parte IV, a (...) sutil reelaboração arendtiana de várias dessas teses. Argumentarei, portanto, que o conceito romântico de “cultura” opera como premissa central na interpretação que Arendt fez do criminoso nazista Otto Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann, em suma, teria cometido os crimes que cometeu por não ter sido formado, cultivado, como um verdadeiro ser humano. (shrink)

Discussion is widely held to be the pedagogical approach most appropriate to the exploration of controversial issues in the classroom, but surprisingly little attention has been given to the questions of why it is the preferred approach and how best to facilitate it. Here we address ourselves to both questions. We begin by clarifying the concept of discussion and justifying it as an approach to the teaching of controversial issues. We then report on a recent empirical study of the Perspectives (...) on Science AS-level course, focusing on what it revealed about aids and impediments to discussion of controversial ethical issues. (shrink)

This article argues that contemporary polemics against critical reading, understood as the enduring legacy of “theory” in the humanities, overlook the unusual and generative concept of critique formulated by one of the literary scholars most closely associated with “theory,” the German-born American literary critic Geoffrey Hartman. For Hartman, critique amounts to a thinking that exposes itself to the alterity of the future and thus risks being wrong. Engaging two of Hartman’s essays from the mid-1980s, “The Struggle for the Text” and (...) “Meaning, Error, Text,” the article specifically argues that Hartman derives this concept of critique as thinking that risks error from rabbinic midrash. However, this does not mean that Hartman seeks to “do midrash” himself. To the contrary, what Hartman learns from midrash is that the very structure of linguistic repetition, citation, or imitation forecloses the possibility of absolute fidelity to tradition. In “The Struggle for the Text,” he demonstrates this lesson through subversive readings of Genesis 32 and a fragment from Sigmund Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle; in “Meaning, Error, Text,” Hartman historicizes his hermeneutic in relation to Christian supersession and the Holocaust, claiming ethical and political significance for his “restitution” of midrash as a model of critique. (shrink)

Many of us have experienced a peculiar feeling of freedom, of the world being open before us. This is the feeling that is captured by phrases like “the freedom of the open road” and “free spirits,” and, to quote Phillip Larkin, “free bloody birds” going “down the long slide / To happiness, endlessly.” This feeling is associated with the ideas that my life could go in many different directions and that there is a vast range of things that I could (...) become. It arises in concert with a wide range of human experiences, including experiences of artistic creation, play, fun, and resistance to authority. This freedom of openness and spontaneity, which I call spontaneous freedom, is central to our ordinary talk about freedom. Yet it is a phenomenon largely ignored in discussions of freedom in contemporary moral philosophy. This is because moral philosophers are primarily concerned to identify the sort of freedom that is a prerequisite for moral responsibility, and so focus on deliberate, voluntary action rooted in rational choice. When moral philosophers do discuss spontaneous freedom, it is often to disparage it as, in the words of Harry Frankfurt, the freedom of “the wanton” whose liberty is merely that of “anarchic impulsive behavior.” My dissertation develops a theory of spontaneous freedom and of the role it does and should play in our lives, including our moral and political lives. I argue that, to do full justice to the human aspiration for freedom, moral and political theory must recognize the value of spontaneity. Through a study of characters from stories and films by Virginia Woolf, Saki, Akira Kurosawa, and Aman Sethi, I develop a phenomenological account of the nature of spontaneous freedom. I argue that we experience spontaneous freedom when we experience our actions as arising out of ourselves but not fixed in advance either by the decisions of other agents or by our own preexisting commitments or plans. I further argue that spontaneous freedom is valuable because it allows for the distinctive pleasure of feeling that one’s life is unforetold and that one is among the sources of novelty in the world, a feeling that is central to artistic creativity. It also affords solace from the anxiety associated with the inevitability of death. As with many experiences, like falling in love or seeing an alpine lake, experiences of spontaneous freedom are most valuable when they are veridical. But even the subjective experience of spontaneous freedom, I suggest, activates our awareness of and openness to possibility. Achieving this awareness, at least on occasion, is valuable because it provides us with a sense of our own psychological potential and sharpens a skill that contributes to practical deliberation. My claim that spontaneous freedom is valuable conflicts with a popular account of the self. According to that account—endorsed by a number of moral philosophers but most famously associated with Christine Korsgaard—the ideal self is one that is well-ordered, actively constituted through rational deliberation. Such integrity theories of the self are attractive because they provide an account of agency according to which ideal moral agents invariably endorse their own actions and beliefs. Integrity theories view freedom as involving rational, deliberative control of one’s actions. But I argue that integrity theories forbid well-constituted moral agents to seek out experiences of spontaneous freedom: such agents must act in a manner that they antecedently and reflectively endorse, while spontaneous freedom requires acting in a manner not antecedently fixed by one’s own decisions. Insofar as spontaneous freedom is a kind of freedom that we do and should value, my account exerts pressure on this standard view of agency and the self. My account of spontaneous freedom also has important political implications. One version of liberal theory holds that the only sort of political freedom worth having is the freedom of each individual to effectively exercise choice compatibly with every other individual doing likewise. On this picture, I have all of the freedom that I could want if I am able to choose autonomously and act in accordance with my choices. But I argue that a community that secures this liberal variety of freedom does not yet provide its members with all the freedom for which people rightly yearn. When public and private institutions arrange our circumstances in ways that make the courses of our lives predictable, our own choices about how to act may be largely settled by the plans and decisions of other agents. This in turn makes it difficult for us to regard our futures as open in the way that is characteristic of experiences of spontaneous freedom. States should promote spontaneous freedom by providing the material and social preconditions for us to feel that our lives could head in radically different and unanticipated directions. (shrink)

Although Spinoza's formative influence on the cultural ideals of the West is widely recognized, especially with reference to liberal democracy, secular humanism, and naturalistic ethics, little has been written about the educational implications of his philosophy. This article explores the pedagogical tenets that are implicit in Spinoza's writings. I argue (1) that Spinoza's ethics is eudaimonistic, aiming at self‐affirmation, full humanity and wellbeing; (2) that the flourishing of individuals depends on their personal resources, namely, their conatus, power, vitality or capacity (...) to act from their own inner natures; and (3) that the combination of the Spinozian conceptions of humanism, liberal democracy, eudaimonistic ethics, and the enlightened and sovereign individual constitute together the grounds for a comprehensive empowering and liberating pedagogy. (shrink)

Humanistic reform of management theory and practice could be expected to take a plurality of guises. One such manifestation of the desire for a humanistic reorientation of management discourse is the Weltethos Institut at the University of Tübingen, Germany. The Institute’s work builds on the legacy of founder Hans Küng in the sphere of interreligious and intercultural dialogue, and seeks to apply the humanistic insights learnt there to the world of organisations. For Küng, the ‘World Ethos’ is a discovery, less (...) of a common letter than of a common spirit among the world’s major and minor spiritual and cultural traditions, which he summarises as ‘Basic Trust in life and reality’, a yes-saying disposition of love for life ‘despite all temptations to reject it’. Without such a basic disposition, Küng argues, ‘no one can behave ethically’. This paper explores the paradox at the heart of the ‘World Ethos’ idea as it applies to questions of organisational leadership and management: if a certain spirit of Grundvertrauen among employees is indeed a feature of successful organisations, the attempt to cultivate it directly in the name of increased efficiency or profit is a potentially sinister and counter-productive enterprise. A more truly humanistic approach to organisational management might ease up on the top-down ‘love and trust’ message and instead provide a platform on which all members of an organisation feel free to reveal their ‘whole selves’ and explore their own spiritual sources—and those of colleagues—in a critical but ultimately trusting and constructive climate. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the AHRC Cultural Value Project and the ensuing legacy work. It suggests that this work has resulted in the re-positioning of the field of inquiry into cultural value by shifting attention away from policy constructs and towards lived experiences; away from measuring the outcomes of cultural participation and towards understanding the process of engagement. The challenge still remaining is to develop an empirically grounded pragmatist account of cultural value as a form of practice—a situated interface of agents, (...) actions and structures taking place in an institutionalised and materially circumscribed environment. Reconceiving cultural value in these terms will have profound methodological implications, not least the challenge of finding methodologies appropriate to its analysis within the realm of historically and geographically variable relations and structures. It is however a challenge worth taking. The proposed shift, it is suggested, will provide a way of addressing some long-standing ‘problems’ arising in relation to cultural value: the separation of conditions and consciousness; the overemphasis on the cognitive at the cost of the bodily; the separation between ‘the best and the brightest’ and the ‘everyday’ conceptions of culture. The proposed approach may also drive the refinement of flat(ter)-ontology methodologies which neither succumb to methodological individualism nor overemphasise methodological structuralism. (shrink)

Sociological studies of culture have made significant progress on conceptual clarification of the concept, while remaining comparatively quiescent on questions of measurement. This study empirically examines internal conflicts (or “infighting”), a ubiquitous phenomenon in political organizing, to propose a “resinous culture framework” that holds promise for redirection. The data comprise 674 newspaper articles and more than 100 archival documents that compare internal dissent across two previously unstudied lesbian and gay Marches on Washington. Analyses reveal that activists use infighting as a (...) vehicle to engage in otherwise abstract definitional debates that provide concrete answers to questions such as who are we and what do we want. The mechanism that enables infighting to concretize these cultural concerns is its coupling with fairly mundane and routine organizational tasks. This mechanism affords one way to release the culture concept, understood here as collective self-definitions, from being “an amorphous, indescribable mist which swirls around society members,” as it was once provocatively described. (shrink)

Cultural commons are both a de facto common pool, as well as the aspiration that this common pool should be as large and as rich as possible. Cultural life is a specific common good that represents such an aspiration, and it is one of the human rights included in the Universal Declaration of 1948. After analyzing the features of this cultural common good, including its global dimension, it is addressed how privatization of other cultural commons influences on the cultural life (...) of humanity, as well as the relationship between cultural life and cultural appropriation. (shrink)

The current heated debate on the deteriorating status of the university raises a range of pertinent questions, including: What role can the humanities play in culture today in the face of the crisis of higher education? To answer this question, the authors begin by problematizing the relationship between culture, the humanities, and education. In the second part of the paper, they examine the changing role of the humanities in conjunction with the understandings of culture, and outline three salient ways in (...) which culture is conceived of today. Subsequently, they focus on the loss of the dominant status that culture suffered when everyday life was discovered in modernity. In the third part, they argue that everyday life, or rather social representations of everyday life and its practices, are currently becoming the chief criterion for assessing culture, the humanities, and education. However, everyday life remains complex both in theoretical conceptualizations and in research observations. For example, everyday life harbors a range of risks and anxieties which are veiled by its own obviousness and reinforced by socialization. The authors conclude that, given this, everyday life in democratic societies calls for the work of understanding, support, affirmation, and criticism, in which the humanities can retain their superior status. In the fourth part, the authors discuss non-consensual democracy, critical community, and the pedagogy of asylum as the forms of organization and action that promote an auspicious interconnection of culture, the humanities, and education. (shrink)

In this article, the concept of school discipline will be explored in relation to that of educational interest. Initially, Clark’s account of two different kinds of school order (discipline and control) will be explained. The interest-based theory of school discipline advanced by Pat Wilson will thereafter be analysed. It will be argued that both these scholars persuasively explain how school discipline may follow when learning activities are successfully married to pupil interests and experiences. However, it will be maintained that the (...) epistemic position adopted by Wilson is problematic. Although Wilson suggests that Richard Peters placed too great an educational emphasis on initiating pupils into public traditions of knowledge, it is here claimed that Wilson did not value that development enough. With reference to Whitehead, it is concluded that discipline in schools ought to be arranged so as to help pupils foster wisdom for life, as this concept integrates liberal knowledge and educational interest. (shrink)

У статті розглянуто історичні та соціокультурні відмінності між масовою і популярною культурою. З’ясовано стосунок обох феноменів до загальної сфери культури та її головних засад. Розуміючи культуру як облаштування, плекання, виховання, вміння, вдосконалення, можна говорити про високі зразки осягання світу. Позаяк масові соціальні явища пов’язані з ослабленням інтелектуально-естетичних параметрів, виникає потреба порівняти високі та низькі рівні культури. Індустріалізація й урбанізація прискорили розвиток медій, які допомогли наблизити здобутки цивілізації до мас. Але ринкові механізми розповсюдження благ сприяли диктату комерції. Мистецькі виміри культури не (...) відповідали прагматичним вимогам і були притлумлені маркетинговими програмами, що спричинили інфантильність і споживацтво. Ці риси характеризують масову культуру. Та поруч із високою культурою віддавна існувала й народна, традиційна, низова культура, ознаками якої є доступність, поширеність, неофіційність, периферійність, неоднорідність і субкультурність. Проаналізовано становлення популярної культури від стародавніх до модерних часів. З’ясовано, що творці культури зарівно оперують високими ідеалами та популярними смислами. Втім, популярне відрізняється від масового завдяки породженню альтернатив. Тобто популярна культура не виродилася у конформізм, а зберегла запал протесту. Популярні тенденції не лише містять прагнення до задоволення широких потреб, а й враховують шанс протистояти примусу. Отже, варто визнати нетотожність маскульту і поп-культури. Тому популярна культура є цариною виникнення ідей, у якій соціальні гравці здатні творчо реалізувати свої уявлення та цінності. (shrink)

The Confucian tradition, which places the virtue of ren or fellow feeling at its heart as a ‘gateway’ to the more concrete virtues of common Western parlance, offers a potential antidote to the excesses of a Western business ethics which, even after its recent academic reembrace of the Aristotelian tradition, in practice still too often instrumentalises virtue in the service of a ‘rational’ or ‘reasonable’ constraining of the profit motive. The deeper, intrinsic ‘ethos’ promised by a Confucian approach also finds (...) its echo in the West in the work of Hans Küng’s Weltethos project, led today on the business ethics front by Klaus Leisinger and Claus Dierksmeier. This paper explores a dilemma at the heart of the World Ethos movement seen from the twin peaks of the World Ethics Institute at Peking University and the Weltethos Institut at the University of Tübingen: namely, whether a business ethics culture accustomed to thinking in terms of CSR-esque lists of corporate values, virtues or principles can best be reformed via documents like the UN Global Compact, the 2010 Global Economic Ethic Manifesto, or even the UN Sustainable Development Goals, or whether a more radical, revolutionary quest for an inner ‘ethos’, to be lived and experienced by self-cultivating individuals engaged in business all over the world regardless of background, ought somehow to be undertaken parallel to these endeavours. The authors outline possible steps towards such a transformation of the management community’s understanding of virtue, without, however, dismissing the contribution of traditional, dilemma-oriented Western thinking about applied ethics in general, and business ethics in particular. (shrink)