Visual forms of episodic memory and anticipatory imagination involve images that, by virtue of their perspectival organization, imply a notional subject of experience. But they contain no inbuilt reference to the actual subject, the person actually doing the remembering or imagining. This poses the problem of what (if anything) connects these two perspectival subjects and what differentiates cases of genuine memory and anticipation from mere imagined seeing. I consider two approaches to this problem. The first, exemplified by Wollheim and Velleman, (...) claims that genuinely reflexive memories and anticipations are phenomenally unselfconscious, with the co-identity of the notional and actual subjects secured by a determinate causal history. The second approach posits some distinctive phenomenal property that attaches to genuinely reflexive memories and anticipations and serves to experientially conflate the notional and actual subject. I consider a version of the second approach, derived from Kierkegaard’s discussions of phenomenal contemporaneity, and argue that this approach can better account for the possibility of affective alienation from the selves we were and will be: the way in which our sense of self and awareness of our causal history can sometimes come apart. (shrink)

This article provides a broad overview of the problem of irony to contemporary hermeneutics. It offers a thematic account of the effects of irony on interpretation, and argues that the problems of irony are embedded within the relation between the free play of irony and the regulative role of interpretative discourse. It argues, against hermeneutic theories such as that of Hans‐Georg Gadamer, that the “problems” which irony poses for interpretation can be seen as symptomatic of irony's identification: that irony is, (...) essentially, problematic. It argues that any account of irony needs to account for the value of irony as a problem, rather than subsuming such problems into larger models of understanding. The article explores this notion by looking at the interpretative “discourse of irony” and noting its thematic features. It is argued that the account of irony as a negation of meaning is intrinsically tied to the construction of a sovereign economy in response to the excesses of ironic possibility, but that such a construction is determined only by the stepping‐away from the initial ironic possibilities which enabled its construction. Using the work of Gadamer as an example, the article argues that this in itself does not close irony, but produces yet more irony which frustrates the interpretative act while lending itself to interpretative possibility. (shrink)

Universalism can be defined as the belief in the universal application of certain knowledge, world-views and value-views. Universalism has often been confused with Occident-centrism, due to the fact that the latter was used to justify the former, which confused the content of a thought with the social condition that gave rise to the thought. For many years, clarifications of this confusion have been made in sociology of knowledge, relativism and skepticism. Yet, the particularistic conclusion thus reached has led to more (...) confusion, namely, that between the intrinsic criterion for truth and the practical application of thought. China, with its long tradition of Sino-centrism, has recently shown a movement towards particularism, characterized by a search for national and cultural superiority by “returning to the source”. In today’s academic circles, some particularist themes are taken for granted, and believed to be true, but cannot be proved with rational examination. The particularistic claims to the “self grounded”, “self-featured” and “self-located” tradition of Chinese culture jointed with the post-modernism, neo-leftist movement of anti-globalization in the West, are not only harmful in practice, but also impotent in theory. The propaganda against the hegemony of Western discourse should be analyzed with questioning which hegemony and whose discourse. (shrink)

Two questions are central to the “rationality debate” in the philosophy of social science. First, should we acknowledge differences in basic norms of epistemic and agential rationality, or in the content of perceptual experience, as the “best explanation” of radical differences in belief and practice? Second, can genuine understanding be achieved between cultures and research traditions that so differ in their beliefs and practices? I survey a number of responses to these questions, and suggest that one of these, “dialogical optimism”, (...) while attractive, is in need of further clarification. Such clarification may be forthcoming if we attend to recent work by John McDowell. McDowell claims that perceptual experience, as our primary mode of epistemic access to the world, must be located within what Sellars termed the “space of reasons” if we are to make sense of our conception of ourselves as thinking creatures. I develop a reading of this claim in terms of a fundamental duality in human perceptual experience, and use this conception of experience to illuminate the dialogical optimist strategy in the rationality debate. (shrink)

This article surveys the output of contemporary Italian philosophers and distinguishes three principal ways of approaching their intellectual endeavor: denial, the “evil-queen syndrome,” and compliance. Philosophers in a state of denial seem unaware of the loss in status that Italian philosophy as an academic discipline suffers in international forums. The evil-queen syndrome concerns the habit of compiling surveys of past philosophies, focusing on traditions of which one considers oneself the privileged inheritor. Compliance—in its commendable aspect—refers to the growing number of (...) philosophers who participate in international debates, whose forums are for the most part Anglo-American peer-refereed journals. This article urges a less subservient intellectual attitude, capable of contributing new ideas and arguments to the international philosophical forum. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Modernity as a Rhetorical Problem: Phronēsis, Forms, and Forums in Norms of Rhetorical CultureJames Arnt AuneThe true paradises are the paradises that we’ve lost.—Marcel Proust, The Past RegainedThomas B. Farrell’s Norms of Rhetorical Culture (1993, 6) remains both a masterly synthesis of previous constructive work in rhetorical theory and the essential starting point for anyone committed to reconciling the practical impulses of Aristotelian rhetoric, ethics, and politics with the (...) critical imperatives of modernity. In what follows, I try to make a very simple point about Farrell’s recuperation of Aristotelianism: he neglects matters of social causation and institutional design that were essential to Aristotle’s understanding of rhetoric. In turn, by displacing the social in favor of the cultural—a displacement characteristic of much recent work in the human sciences (Schudson 1997)—Farrell lacks a coherent account of the gap between the normative aspirations of classical rhetoric and the empirical characteristics of public life in modern liberal democracies.The problem appears most clearly in chapter 7 of Norms : “Criticism, Disturbance, and Rhetorical Community.” Farrell defines culture as “the common definition of places for the invention and perpetuation of meaning. A culture offers to those who live in it symbols and families of practices that [End Page 402] permit ongoing performances of meaning and value” (1993, 277). Summarizing his previous arguments, Farrell contends that Aristotle’s Rhetoric informs modern “cultural occasions” in three ways: “the impetus for rhetorical meaning, which we find in Aristotle’s seminal understanding of phronēsis, typified by deliberative prudence; a concept of rhetorical form, which we have found in the prototype for public inference and judgment—the enthymeme; and a modern rhetorical forum, a space of engagement wherein the modern constraints of rhetorical culture might assert themselves” (1993, 277). Although these three concepts are inherently useful, both for analyzing past rhetorical episodes and for projecting emancipatory rhetorical possibilities in the present, they are insufficiently grounded in a historical account of the differences between ancient and modern prudential deliberation, rhetorical forms, and rhetorical forums. An adequate history of these differences would require attention to modern social systems as a whole, which include the economy, the polity, and social institutions such as the family, schools, religious and ethnic organizations, and, most crucially for contemporary social systems, the entire apparatus of the culture industry, including the news and entertainment “media.”The cultural aspect of the modern social system, loosely following Talcott Parsons (1951), includes norms, which make for communal solidarity, and values, which undergird the whole system. Although a thoroughgoing account of the place of rhetoric in the entire contemporary social system of a modern liberal democracy such as the United States or Canada would have required a book three times as long as Norms, there are three ways in which modernity complicates the appropriation of Aristotle’s concepts. First, rhetorical meaning is very different in a social system in which individual autonomy takes precedence over communal solidarity as a fundamental value (Pippin 1999). Second, rhetorical forms function differently in a social system in which those forms can be commodified (Aune 1994, 2001). Third, rhetorical forums are also far more complex, especially in an extended republic like Canada or the United States, requiring greater attention to the way in which constitutions literally create persons who speak (such as the president or prime minister) and spaces for speaking (Congress, the state or provincial houses [White 1984]). The need to raise massive sums of money to obtain media access for common rhetorical deliberation, as is especially the case in the United States, complicates the notion of a rhetorical forum immensely. Even without adopting a broadly Marxian framework, it is clear that the rise and development of capitalism have permanently altered rhetorical deliberation and its forms and forums. [End Page 403] In what follows, I expand on these three criticisms first, by developing a historical account of the social changes that necessitate a rethinking of classical rhetorical theory; second, by comparing and contrasting Farrell’s work with two other contemporary Aristotelianisms, one antimodernist and the other solidly modernist; and third, by developing a framework for normative and empirical investigation of rhetoric that is, I hope... (shrink)

One can extrapolate from the art of language instruction to discover methods applicable across the disciplines in higher education. The paradigm presented by language instruction is applicable throughout the arts and sciences. If cultivated—and there are institutional pressures working against it—such an art can impact the languages and codes of the individual disciplines so as to advance the research mission of scholars in those fields; it can also favor the interrelationships between the disciplines. How the student learns another language (L2) (...) is comparable to the process of learning a scientific discipline. (shrink)

This paper describes four plays which illustrate ethical themes relevant to engineers and which could be used as a resource for engineers who wish to explore ethical topics and their relationship with professional practice. The plays themselves have been chosen because a character in the play is involved in engineering activities. Each play is analysed to highlight some of the ethical issues the play raises. Often ethical topics are presented in abstract terms but the plays relate ethical issues to individuals (...) and individual actions in specific situations that connect either directly or figuratively to practical situations engineers find themselves in. The paper describes how the resources have or could be used in an educational programme. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy and psychology there is an ongoing debate around the concept of theory of mind. Theory of mind concerns our ability to understand another person. The two approaches that dominate the debate are “Theory Theory” (TT) and “Simulation Theory” (ST). This paper explores the connection between theory of mind and hermeneutics. Although both speak of the nature of understanding, and the way we gain and organize our knowledge of others, certain aspects of Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics reflect a theory approach, (...) long before TT itself was developed. In contrast, Dilthey’s hermeneutics reflects a simulation approach. In contrast to both of these approaches, I propose a contextual theory, as a parallel to Gadamer’s work in hermeneutics, and as a view that offers the basis for an important critique of both TT and ST. (shrink)

I argue in this paper that a recovery of the cognitive role of the experiencing subject is the common theme uniting Theodor Adorno's philosophy and Marcel Proust's literary project. This shared commitment is evidenced by the importance given by both thinkers to the expressive dimension of language in relation to its social function as a vehicle for communication. Furthermore, I argue that Adorno and Proust conceive of language's expressive dimension as the expression of suffering. However, whereas, for Proust, this means (...) the private suffering of the artist transforming itself into a work of art, for Adorno it means suffering that is rooted in sociohistorical conditions. It is this thesis, I suggest, that enables Adorno to employ the recovery of the experiencing subject as a form of social criticism. (shrink)

The radical forms of naturalistic epistemology look more like revolutionary manifestos than a reasonable alternatives. A modest form of naturalism is worth promoting. This modest form can cooperate with hermeneutics to solve epistemic problems, and therefore wins the title of cooperative naturalism, and benefits from the hermeneutic account of experience. Cooperative naturalism somewhat bridges the gap between analytic and continental philosophy.

Evidence-based medicine has beendefined as the conscientious and judicious useof current best evidence in making clinicaldecisions. This paper will attempt to explicatethe terms ``conscientious'''' and ``judicious''''within the evidence-based medicine definition.It will be argued that ``conscientious'''' and``judicious'''' represent virtue terms derived fromvirtue ethics and virtue epistemology. Theidentification of explicit virtue components inthe definition and therefore conception ofevidence-based medicine presents an importantstarting point in the connection between virtuetheories and medicine itself. In addition, aunification of virtue theories andevidence-based medicine will illustrate theneed for (...) future research in order to combinethe fields of virtue-based approaches andclinical practice. (shrink)

There are many places that we must save from destruction. Sadly, they are mostly distant from us. If we accept Heidegger's notion of Being-in-the-World, this distance means that we cannot authentically speak of their Being. Even if we 'dwell' in our own lands, we are not 'at home' in these beautiful places. However, if we cannot speak of their Being, of what 'is', how can we ask logging and mining multinationals to stop destroying them? This speechlessness may be overcome with (...) a Whiteheadian process metaphysics, and 'late' Heideggerian poetics. These may then be developed in a concrete community life. (shrink)

In response to the increasingly acknowledged power of metaphor upon everyday and scientific thinking, the present essay aims to revitalize the metaphoric process in commonsense psychology from the interaction view perspective. As prerequisites, a historical review of the "man-the-scientist" metaphor inherited in commonsense psychology, and a situation analysis of its dormant state are attempted. With metaphorical imagination, a holistic-paradigmatic view of personal theories is postulated on the basis of new knowledge in the philosophy and history of science, namely, the Duhem (...) - Quine (holism) thesis and Kuhn's paradigmatic perspective of scientific activities. To optimize the metaphoric process, deliberations are made on the similarities as well as the differences between the principal subject (i.e. everyday activities) and the subsidiary subject (i.e. scientific activities). It is shown that the "man-the-scientist" metaphoric process can be far-reaching and dialectic in nature, resulting in fresh perspectives for understanding both everyday and scientific activities. The focus of the present essay lies in elaborating a more sophisticated view on personal theories, and in calling for a non-reductionist approach to the investigation of commonsense psychology. (shrink)

This paper heeds the advice of EPAT's editor, who said he 'will be happy to publish further works on Heidegger and responses to these articles' after introducing four articles on Heidegger and education in the August, 2005, issue. It discusses the papers in order of appearance critically, for none of them shows understanding of Heidegger's writings and descriptions of human existence in his most important work, Being and Time, nor the work of the internationally recognized educational philosopher who has written (...) about educational problems using Heidegger's perspective over the past forty years and that should be considered in any application of Heidegger's thought to education if educational philosophy is to become a cumulative discipline. Because philosophy of education is notoriously non-accumulative and requires far more than referring to education in the first and last paragraphs of an article in order to be about an educational problem or phenomenon, the publications of this scholar in the phenomenology of education are mentioned throughout, as are Heidegger's works, to show how the four authors might have benefited from library research to utilize existing understandings and go beyond them. Finally, some suggestions are made about how to read with understanding Heidegger's magnum opus, Being and Time. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The concepts of experience and experiential learning are of critical significance in both the study and practice of adult education. Adults are seen as uniquely characterised by their experience, experiential learning an alternative to didactic and knowledge-based modes of education. In this paper a critique is presented of the powerful discourse of the autonomous subject based on humanistic psychology which, it is argued, has shaped adult education in a misleading, inappropriate and unhelpful way. A postmodern perspective drawing on Continental (...) philosophy is utilised. The ‘situated’ subject provides a conception of subjectivity and experience which preserves a needed dimension of agency whilst avoiding psychologism and individualism. (shrink)

This paper responds to Tröhler's charge that my paper ‘As if by Machinery: The levelling of educational research’ takes Francis Bacon's vision of scientific research out of context. I distinguish four senses of ‘decontextualisation’: as ignorance, as belief in ‘timeless truths’, as comparison of contexts, and as genealogy. I argue that Tröhler has a case against the first sense and aspects of the second, but that his argument against the last two makes philosophy and philosophical conversation impossible and his own (...) case self‐annulling. (shrink)

It has become commonplace to interpret 'Easter Island' in terms of an environmental allegory, a Malthusian morality tale of the consequences of over-exploitation of limited natural resources. There are, however, ethical dangers in treating places and peoples allegorically, as moralized means (lessons) to satisfy others' edificatory ends. Allegory reductively appropriates the past, presenting a specific interpretation as 'given' (fixed) and exemplary, wrongly suggesting that meanings and morals, like islands, are there to be 'discovered' ready-formed. Gadamer's hermeneutics suggests an alternative understanding (...) which expresses something of the ethical ambiguities involved in giving meaning to the environmental history of Easter Island. (shrink)

This paper develops a new interpretation of Heidegger's concept of conscience in order to show to what extent his thought establishes the possibility of civil disobedience. The origin of conscience lies in the self's appropriation of language as inviting a reciprocal response of the other (person). By developing the social dimension of dialogue, it is showsn that conscience reveals the self in its capacity for dissent, free speech, and civil disobedience. By developing the social roots of conscience, a completely new (...) light is cast on the political implications of Heidegger's thought. (shrink)

Death is an unavoidable fact of human life, which cannot be totally ignored in education. Children reflect on death and raise questions that deserve serious answers. If an educator completely evades the issue, children will seek other conversation partners. It is possible to find arguments both from secular and religious sources, which alleviate the anguish that death awakens in the mind of a child.

To achieve its goals of managing andrestricting access to psychiatric care, managedcare organizations rely on an instrument, theoutpatient treatment report, that carriessignificant implications about how they viewpsychiatric patients and psychiatric care. Inaddition to involving ethical transgressionssuch as violation of patient confidentiality,denial of access to care, spurious use ofconcepts like quality of care, and harassmentof practitioners, the managed care approachalso depends on an overly technical,instrumental interpretation of human beings andpsychiatric treatment. It is this grounding ofmanaged care in technical reason that I (...) willexplore in this study. I begin with a reviewof a typical outpatient treatment report andshow how, with its dependence on the DSM-IV,on behavioral symptoms and patient`functioning'', on the biomedical model ofpsychiatric illness, and on gross quantitativemeasures, the report results in a crude,skeletonized view of the human being as acongeries of behavioral symptoms and functions. I then develop the managed care construal ofhuman existence further by showing itsgrounding in technical reason, exploring thelatter in its modern embodiment and deriving itand its opposite, practical reason, fromAristotle''s distinction between technical andpractical reason, techne and phronesis. Inthis analysis of the role of technical reasonin managed care, I point out that managed caredid not have to develop its rationale de novobut could rather lift its arguments, e.g. thebiomedical model, from contemporary psychiatryand simply apply them in a restrictive manner. Finally, I conclude this study by arguing forpsychiatry''s status as a discipline ofpractical knowledge. (shrink)

Computer simulation has become important in ecological modeling, but there have been few assessments on how complex simulation models differ from more traditional analytic models. In Part I of this paper, I review the challenges faced in complex ecological modeling and how models have been used to gain theoretical purchase for understanding natural systems. I compare the use of traditional analytic simulation models and point how that the two methods require different kinds of practical engagement. I examine a case study (...) of three models from the insect resistance literature in transgenic crops to illustrate and explore differences in analytic and computer simulation models. I argue that analyzing simulation models has been often inappropriately managed with expectations derived from handling analytic models. In Part II, I look at simulation as a hermeneutic practice. I argue that simulation models are a practice or techné. I the explore five aspects of philosophical hermeneutics that may be useful in complex ecological simulation: (1) an openness to multiple perspectives allowing multiple levels of scientific pluralism, (2) the hermeneutic circle, a back and forth in active communication among both modelers and ecologists; (3) the recognition of human factors and the nature of human practices as such, including recognizing the role of judgments and choices in the modeling enterprise; (4) the importance of play in modeling; (5) the non-closed nature of hermeneutic engagement, continued dialogue, and recognizing the situatedness, incompleteness, and tentative nature of simulation models. (shrink)

Dialogic leadership as ethics method respects, values, and works toward organizational objectives. However, in those situations where there may be conflicts and/or contradictions between what is ethical and what is in the material interest of individuals and/or the organization, the dialogic leader initiates discussion with others (peers, subordinates, superiors) about what is ethical with at least something of a prior ethics truth intention and not singularly a value neutral, constrained optimization of organizational objectives. Cases are considered where dialogic leadership: (1) (...) helped build ethical organizational culture; (2) was effective; and, (3) as a by-product, produced integrative win-win results. Philosophical foundations for the method as well as differences between dialogic leadership and Theory X forcing leadership, Theory Y win-win integrative leadership, industrial democracy, participative management, action inquiry, and double-loop learning action science are explored. Limitations of the method are also explored. (shrink)

Crisis management can be simultaneously a content specific problem solving process and an opportunity for stimulating and enabling an organizations ethical tradition. Crisis can be an opportunity for ethical organizational development. Kierkegaardian upbuilding dialog method builds from within the internal ethical tradition of an organization to respond to crises while simultaneously adapting and protecting the organizations tradition. The crisis itself may not be a directly ethical crisis, but the method of responding to the crisis is built upon the ethical foundations (...) of an organizations tradition. A limitation of this method is that it may be less applicable to organizations with questionably ethical traditions. The concept of upbuilding dialog is derived from Kierkegaard, but here is applied to organizational crisis management. The method is illustrated and discussed in the context of a wrongful death crisis of the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute, a nonprofit organization, and an economic survival crisis at Ben and Jerrys, a business organization. (shrink)

This is a response to two reviews of our book "Science Unfettered: A Philosophical Study of Sociohistorical Ontology." We clarify the relationship between the ontological and the ontic, the key phrases: 'being-in-the-world,' the 'facticity' of human existence. We show where the sources of reviewers misunderstandings lie.

ABSTRACT Recent discussions of practice in this Journal have appealed to what they describe as the classical concept of practice. In this paper, it is argued that if there is a single classical concept of practice, it has not been described with sufficient clarity for it to be of use in illuminating or correcting anything, even our ‘radically ambiguous’ common-sense understanding of educational practice; and that there are writers today whose understanding of practical wisdom is far superior to that of (...) the modern philosophers whose treatment of the topic has been relied upon. (shrink)

The display of personal photographs in hospital is a common practice that has yet to be rigorously examined. The photographs displayed are subject to interpretation by the viewer and may lead to misunderstandings or miscommunication if clarification of meaning is not sought. This paper explores a range of possible meanings that the display of photographs in hospital may hold, based on a case study of a 15 year old boy hospitalised with a life threatening illness. Further research is needed into (...) the actual meanings attributed to the display of photographs in hospital by patients and family members. (shrink)

This paper discusses the possibility of an ethics of difference. It begins with an introduction to current poststructural and critical theories in order to show their significance for transcultural politics and ethics. Its theme is formulated in terms of the debate between the affirmation of ethical cognitivism cast in the form of universalism and the advocacy of moral skepticism in the mode of communitarianism. Distancing itself from the idea of universal morality, this paper attempts to respond to the challenge of (...) both communitarians and deconstructionists in contemporary French poststructuralism. In the end, it argues for transversality in place of universality. (shrink)

In his book Tales of the Mighty Dead Brandom engages Gadamer’s hermeneutic conception of interpretation in order to show that his inferentialist approach to understanding conceptual content can explain and underwrite the main theses of Gadamer’s hermeneutics which he calls “the gadamerian hermeneutic platitudes”. In order to assess whether this claim is sound, I analyze the three types of philosophical interpretations that Brandom discusses: de re, de dicto and de traditione, and argue that they commit him to an “ecumenical historicism” (...) that is directly at odds with the hermeneutic approach. Although the variety of de re interpretation that Brandom denominates de traditione comes indeed very close to the Gadamerian approach, I conclude that if Brandomian scorekeepers were to adopt it, they could become Gadamerian hermeneuts, but once they did, they would not be able to go back to their scorekeeping practices as described by Brandom. (shrink)

Establishing a cosmopolitan ethical culture for a multinational company requires special effort above and beyond that needed for standard domestic ethics initiatives. This articles discusses some of the perils and prospects involved in international corporate ethics programs, and recommends some key guiding principles.