Dem Alltagsverständnis zufolge bringt uns die Wahrnehmung in einen Kontakt mit der Wirklichkeit. Die Stabilisierung der Wahrnehmungsgewissheit ist tief im subjektiven Bildungsprozess verankert, hat sich alltagspraktisch bewährt und in der Sprache sedimentiert. Andererseits hat sich durch Erfahrungen kultureller Diversität und sozialer Differenz auch die Auffassung verbreitet, dass die Welt nur gleichsam durch die Brille spezifischer Herkünfte und Zugehörigkeiten wahrgenommen wird. Die Spannung zwischen realistischen und konstruktivistischen Interpretationen des menschlichen Weltbezugs bildet die Ausgangssituation, mit der sich die Beiträge zu dem geplanten (...) Sammelband In Kontakt mit der Wirklichkeit. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zur Situiertheit der Wahrnehmung auseinandersetzen. Ziel ist es, die Wahrnehmungsgewissheit des direkten Realismus zu verteidigen, ohne die berechtigten Einwände außer Acht zu lassen. Nicht nur der Begriff der Wahrnehmung wird dabei einer grundlegenden Prüfung unterzogen, sondern auch der Begriff der Wirklichkeit und mit ihm ein angemessenes Verständnis davon, als leiblich verkörperte Individuen in einer gemeinsam geteilten Welt zu sein. (shrink)

This is the first volume of an impressive project on the relation of art, philosophy and social change. In an on-going argument and review ing several important aesthetic theories Paul Crow ther in this book argues for the idea that aesthetics should be a kind of critical assessment of art w orks' experiential consequences. Although I go along w ith his resistance against postmodernist reasoning, w hich functions as the starting point of his book, beyond that, our w ays often (...) part. My disagreement, how ever, does not annul the evident quality of the argument in this w ork. It is recommended reading material for all those aestheticians w ho are interested in the cognitive and non-cognitive functionality of art w orks and in the possibility of any influence of art on societal change. I w ill now discuss the most crucial steps in Crow ther's argument. Postmodernists claim to have undone the alleged rigidity of modern categories, like that of the autonomous subject, but according to Crow ther they reach this `achievement' by overemphasizing the fluidity of modes of know ledge and experience, and of their status as social constructs, but there may w ell exist flexible constants. Aesthetics can help w ith the analysis of these flexible constants, not by looking for the essences of art or aesthetic experience, but by supplementing our theoretical assessments w ith a critique of art. Crow ther proposes to view aesthetic experiences as w ell as w orks of art as functions of critical aw areness and of body-hold, an historicized version of Merleau-Ponty's much neglected notion of embodiment. Critical aesthetics actualizes the critical aw areness involved in our aesthetic experiences. Art, defined in terms of originality, roots in the body-hold of the artist, w ho moulds his medium to solve technical problems traditional art forms confront him w ith. Postmodernism involves only tw o theses, really. First, contemporary experience and sensibility are analyzed as imbued by the shocks generated by the rapid succession of mechanically reproduced events.. (shrink)

This article explores how ethical agency, as ‘other-oriented’ caring, emerged from feelings of being ‘different’ in a cultural organization by drawing on feminist ethics of care. By analyzing interview material from an ethnographic study, we centralize the relationship between feelings of being ‘different,’ vulnerability and the development of sensibilities, practices and imaginaries of care. We elaborate on how vulnerability serves as a ground for caring with rather than for others, and illustrate how it allowed individuals to challenge both organizational, normative (...) diversity discourses and essentialization of differences. We contribute to the literature on critical diversity management by furthering problematizations of instrumental diversity management from the perspective of care, and to the organizational literature on feminist care ethics by empirically exploring how ethical agency emerges from tensions related to feeling ‘different.’ While previous studies have shown how marginalized individuals use their sense of ‘otherness’ to negotiate, conform to and resist organizational norms, practices and discourses, we provide further insights on how it also can drive concern and care for others, and thus serve as possible ground for ethical change initiatives within organizations. (shrink)

In this article we focus upon the embodiment of vulnerability as an area in which medicine, society and the humanities can be profitably conjoined. We illustrate our argument with two interrelated case studies of narratives of the embodiment of ageing and longevity. First, we draw upon Leoš Janáček’s opera The Makropulos Case (1926) as a locus for debates about human longevity. Second, we discuss 70-year-old Janáček’s decade of unrequited love for a woman 37 years younger than himself, through an examination (...) of their intimate letters. We suggest that both the opera and elements of Janáček’s biography illuminate the passionate emotions that are often hidden behind ‘the mask of ageing’. Finally, we propose that a focus on the embodiment of vulnerability is a productive catalyst for research on narratives of ageing. (shrink)