A good part of what makes the seemingly endless ascent up Mount Jihuashan such a powerful experience, for the curious visitor no less than for the earnest pilgrim, is the overwhelming solemnity of its atmosphere. As it is one of the four holy mountains of Chinese Buddhism, throngs of the pious march dutifully over its stone steps, passing temples and nunneries on their way to the summit. Bells ring out from behind open windows of old shrines, as if rushing to (...) compete with the glow of candles and wafts of smoking incense. Every element seems to conspire in inducing a sense of the beyond. All of this is entirely appropriate, for Jihuashan is the abode of Dizang—the bodhisattva or savior being most known for refusing... (shrink)

One topic frequently explored in the philosophy of humor is the relationship of comedy and laughter with other facets of human existence—including theological insight and religious experience. The aim of this essay is to employ the mature thought of John Dewey not only to illuminate the nature of humor, but also to discern the deep source and connection between the spiritually exalting and the funny from a naturalistic perspective. While a number of passages on comedy and humor from Dewey’s later (...) work are addressed, mostly from Art as Experience, they are synthesized with other ideas from this same text along with a few quotes from John Morreall. The focus is then shifted toward the central themes of A Common Faith, Dewey’s proposal for a de-supernaturalized form of the religious life. It is suggested that the humorous and the religious, understood through Dewey’s refined account of experience, disclose a few very important things about our place within the cosmos as a whole—that greatest of contexts in and through which laughter and the spiritual alike acquire their significance. This Deweyan vision is further clarified by way of comparison with Peter Berger’s theological reflections on humor. The controversies over sin and the place of tragedy in Dewey’s religious naturalism are briefly discussed in the conclusion. (shrink)

Despite Searle''s claim of theoretical proximity between his concept of the Background and Bourdieu''s concept of the habitus, there is at least one substantial difference in the respective ways in which these concepts have been elaborated: the Background is conceived as a nonintentional neurophysiological reality whereas the habitus is fully intentional, or rather constitutes a nonrepresentational level of intentionality completely overlooked from Searle''s standpoint. Moreover, each concept implicates a distinct perspective on social reality: the former suggests that significance is superimposed (...) yet essentially external to this reality; the latter indicates that significance is immanent. I elaborate on the comparison between the two concepts/perspectives from different angles in order to highlight the existing differences as well as explore possible underlying affinities, which depend upon reconsidering the conventional understanding of intentionality as an exclusive attribute of mental phenomena. I show that Searle''s analysis of the Background is inundated with indications of the undeniably intentional character of something he attempts to define as a nonintentional reality. Finally, I discuss the connection between the immanence of significance in Bourdieu''s account of social reality and the conflict-centered orientation of this account. This dimension is noticeably absent from Searle''s theorizing of the social. (shrink)

This paper utilises selective writings by John Dewey and Maurice Merleau-Ponty as the conceptual basis for considering how an enhanced synergistic focus on habit and embodiment could support practice gains in schools. The paper focuses on Dewey’s belief that established habits can help students to incorporate experiences into evaluations of educational progress and Merleau-Ponty’s spotlight on the body-subject, and how it provides a holistic way of conceiving relations that avoid over privileging abstraction and cognition and under-representing the centrality of the (...) body in human experience. We then evaluate the role of language and reflection in relation to habit, embodiment, and education before discussing some of the general educational practice considerations which might improve the quality of students learning experiences. In conclusion, we consider the possibilities for Dewey’s pragmatism to function as a theoretical bridge to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and the nature of experience. We argue that while it is important to recognise points of difference, in relation to philosophical treatments of habit and embodiment, it is also important to consider the overlap and new connections between Merleau-Ponty and Dewey which are valuable to take forward in contemporary education. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to develop a critical and extended understanding of creative practices in organisation from a phenomenological point of view. To develop such an understanding of practice, this paper will first outline a phenomenological understanding of creative practice, understood particularly with Merleau-Ponty as an embodied and situated nexus of action. Subsequently, the paper will show the contribution of pragmatism to an interpretation of practice as an experience-based reality and will describe the significance of habits. After briefly (...) comparing common characteristics of both pro-experiential philosophies, some perspectives on a creative "inter-practice" and an inclusive "pheno-pragma-practice" will be explored. Furthermore, improvisation is discussed as a form and medium for the actual realisation of an embodied, situational inter-practice. Finally, some practical, political, theoretical and methodological implications and perspectives on creative pheno-pragmatic practices in organisation will be outlined. (shrink)

Drawing on John Dewey's discussion of habit in Human Nature and Conduct and Simone de Beauvoir's discussion of the “adventurer” in The Ethics of Ambiguity, I argue that while some of our relations with things and people may very well be instrumental, many take a different form in which it is our very setting, and not merely our attainment, of ends that is at stake. Moreover, the fullest realization of our freedom requires us to recognize not only that this different (...) form of relation, which is cooperative rather than controlling, exists but also that it is constitutive of, rather than in opposition to, our freedom. I conclude by briefly examining how our honest acknowledgment of a kind of powerlessness inherent to our powers, to our freedom, might change the way we interact with other things and other people. (shrink)

This paper examines the status of naturalism in the philosophies of Edmund Husserl and John Dewey. Despite the many points of overlap and agreement between Husserl’s and Dewey’s philosophical projects, there remains one glaring difference, namely, the place and status of naturalism in their approaches. For Husserl, naturalism is an enemy to be vanquished. For Dewey, naturalism is the only method that can put philosophy back in touch with the concerns of human beings. This paper will demonstrate the remarkable similarities (...) between Husserl’s and Dewey’s thought before contending that Dewey’s “naturalistic humanism” offers a conception of naturalism which is compatible with Husserlian phenomenology. Furthermore, reading these two philosophers together, this paper argues, can point the way forward to a naturalism which avoids the dismissal of the contributions made by knowing subjects carried out by dominant contemporary strains of reductive naturalism. (shrink)