Philosophers of religion have distinguished between ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ atheism. This article considers further conceptions of atheism, especially the idea that atheism can facilitate a faith in God purified of idolatrous assumptions. After introducing Bultmann’s contention that a ‘conscious atheist’ can find something transcendent in the world, this contention is interpreted through reflection on Ricoeur’s claim that the atheisms of Nietzsche and Freud serve to mediate a transition to a purified faith – a faith involving heightened receptivity to agapeic love. (...) The troubling question of what differentiates atheism from belief in God is then discussed in the light of Simone Weil’s meditations on God’s secret presence. (shrink)

This project continues our interdisciplinary research into computational and cognitive aspects of narrative comprehension. Our ultimate goal is the development of a computational theory of how humans understand narrative texts. The theory will be informed by joint research from the viewpoints of linguistics, cognitive psychology, the study of language acquisition, literary theory, geography, philosophy, and artificial intelligence. The linguists, literary theorists, and geographers in our group are developing theories of narrative language and spatial understanding that are being tested by the (...) cognitive psychologists and language researchers in our group, and a computational model of a reader of narrative text is being developed by the AI researchers, based in part on these theories and results and in part on research on knowledge representation and reasoning. This proposal describes the knowledge-representation and natural-language-processing issues involved in the computational implementation of the theory; discusses a contrast between communicative and narrative uses of language and of the relation of the narrative text to the story world it describes; investigates linguistic, literary, and hermeneutic dimensions of our research; presents a computational investigation of subjective sentences and reference in narrative; studies children’s acquisition of the ability to take third-person perspective in their own storytelling; describes the psychological validation of various linguistic devices; and examines how readers develop an understanding of the geographical space of a story. This report is a longer version of a project description submitted to NSF. This document, produced in May 2007, is a L ATEX version of Technical Report 89-07 (Buffalo: SUNY Buffalo Department of Computer Science, August 1989), with slightly.. (shrink)

Although Ricoeur and Taylor are often grouped together, their conceptions of language, literature, and practical reason are very different. The first half of this essay focuses on Ricoeur's theory of triple mimesis and narrative, showing how his attempt to synthesize Kant, Husserl, and structuralism results in a formalism that blocks out the ontological, hermeneutical, and historical dimensions of literature and practical reason. The second half of the essay develops Taylor's ontological conception of public imagination and illustrates the dynamics of this (...) conception of language and interpretation by showing how literary works debate with each other over language, subjectivity, and reference. Narrative does not just order; it argues. (shrink)

In the article the main trends of modern philosophical theology are considered in the perspective of methodological tasks. Based on the diversity of the post-secular philosophical situation, the place of theology oft en turns out to be not only in the series of theological disciplines, but also acquires features of interdisciplinarity. Theological studies aimed at solving the problems of humanity, history, and time, combine hermeneutics and philosophical anthropology, philosophy of language and psychological methods, oft en becoming an experimental space for (...) applying of humanitarian approaches. In the paper the ideas of theologians and philosophers of the Bultmann and post-Bultman periods are compared. (shrink)

In Gaudium et Spes, the Catholic Church describes marital discernment as the married couple’s “common reflection and effort… [that] involves a consideration of their own good and the good of their children” and also as “an estimation of the good of the family… [that necessitates] prudent reflection and common decision.” With this description, we can say that the Catholic Church expects and desires married couples to resolve marital and family conflicts by coming together in discernment. And yet, how should married (...) couples discern? How should they exercise marital discernment? Since one cannot just go on discerning blindly without minding some rules, without following some basic steps, Ricoeur would emphasize that “discernment calls for a hermeneutics.” But how should hermeneutics be integrated into the process of marital discernment? This paper makes an attempt to integrate hermeneutics into the process of marital discernment by drawing some key principles from Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology and Karol Wojtyła’s phenomenology of spousal love. In so doing, this paper considers how the dynamics of marital discernment can be rendered more balanced, and hence more effective, in attaining conflict resolution within the family. (shrink)

In the spirit of Slavoj Žižek’s book, Hegel in a Wired Brain, this article asks how the questions central to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics are changed and complicated by the possibility of brain-to-brain communication and the datafication of thought made potential through brain-computer interfaces. By taking a phenomenological approach to understanding the nature of communication through a technology that does not require language for the transmission of ideas, this article explores how BCI communication confronts the ontological character of interpretation as (...) presented by Gadamer while also juxtaposing how the insights of Gadamer and Heidegger concerning temporality problematize materialist foundations of BCI communication. In the final analysis, it is argued that thought only becomes meaningful in accord with the temporality of Dasein and that hermeneutics remains central in BCI communication because the material replication of thought does not overcome the particular temporalities of historically effected consciousnesses. (shrink)

In recent years, feminist scholarship on emotional labor has proliferated. I identify a related but distinct form of care labor, hermeneutic labor. Hermeneutic labor is the burdensome activity of: understanding and coherently expressing one’s own feelings, desires, intentions, and movitations; discerning those of others; and inventing solutions for relational issues arising from interpersonal tensions. I argue that hermeneutic labor disproportionately falls on women’s shoulders in heteropatriachal societies, especially in intimate relationships between women and men. I also suggest that some of (...) the gendered burdens of emotional labor that feminist scholars point out would better be described as hermeneutic labor. Drawing on feminist philosophy as well as findings from social psychology and sociology, I argue that the exploitation of women’s hermeneutic labor is a pervasive element of what Sandra Bartky calls the ‘micropolitics’ of intimate relationships. The widespread expectation that women are relationship maintenance experts, as well as the prevalence of a gendered demand-withdraw pattern of communication, leads an exploitative situation to appear natural or even desirable, even as it leads to women’s dissatisfaction. This situation may be considered misogynistic in Kate Manne’s sense, where misogyny is a property of social environments rather than a worldview. (shrink)

Η εύληπτη εκπαιδευτική προσέγγιση ότι «κληρονομιά είναι οτιδήποτε θέλεις “εσύ” να διατηρηθεί για τις επόμενες γενιές» κλονίζεται στην ερώτηση «όλα όσα μας παραδίδονται από τους προγόνους μας αποτελούν μια προς διαφύλαξη κληρονομιά, εφόσον “εσύ” το αποφασίσεις;». Εκφάνσεις «βαρβαρότητας» που διασώζονται σε προγενέστερες εθιμικές πρακτικές θα μπορούσαν άραγε να αποτελέσουν στοιχεία ΑΠΚ προς διαφύλαξη; Η παρούσα εργασία επιχειρεί μια πρώτη ανίχνευση του σύνθετου αυτού θέματος. Περιπτώσεις μελέτης από τον ελληνικό και διεθνή χώρο διερευνώνται με κριτήρια αξιολόγησης τα αναφερόμενα στη Σύμβαση για (...) τη Διαφύλαξη της ΑΠΚ (UNESCO, 2003). Βάσει αυτών δεν γίνονται αποδεκτές εθιμικές πρακτικές ΑΠΚ που αναζωπυρώνουν μνήμες βίαιων συγκρούσεων μεταξύ μελών κοινότητας/κοινοτήτων, αποκλείουν με βίαιο ή/και υποτιμητικό τρόπο μέλη εξαιτίας του φύλου, της ηλικίας, της επαγγελματικής ιδιότητας, ή του σεξουαλικού τους προσανατολισμού, καθώς και εθιμικές πρακτικές που περιλαμβάνουν κακομεταχείριση ή/και βασανισμό ζώων. Η εφαρμογή των παραπάνω στην πράξη παραμένει αχαρτογράφητο πεδίο. Απαραίτητες φάσεις μιας συστηματικής μελέτης αποτελούν α) η αναγνώριση και η ευαισθητοποίηση των τοπικών κοινωνιών και του ευρύτερου κοινωνικού συνόλου για τις αξίες της ΑΠΚ, β) η έρευνα, τεκμηρίωση και αξιολόγηση των επιμέρους στοιχείων της, γ) η υποστήριξη των διαδικασιών μεταβίβασής της στις νεότερες γενιές, μέσω της τυπικής και μη εκπαίδευσης, δ) η ανάδειξη της σημασίας της σε τοπική, περιφερειακή, εθνική ή/και παγκόσμια κλίμακα. Η ΑΠΚ μετεξελίσσεται και μεθερμηνεύεται διαρκώς μέσω σύνθετων κοινωνικών και πολιτισμικών διεργασιών. Απόπειρες εξαναγκασμένης «αναβίωσης» κάποιας «αυθεντικής» ή «γνήσιας» μορφής μιας έκφανσής της συχνά αποτυγχάνουν, ενώ παραμένουν μεθοδολογικά μετέωρες. Ο ρόλος της εκπαιδευτικής διαδικασίας στην ανάπτυξη σχετικών ηθικών αρχών και κριτικής σκέψης είναι κρίσιμης σημασίας. Λέξεις κλειδιά: άυλη πολιτιστική κληρονομιά, κοινότητες, αξίες, ηθικές αρχές, εκπαίδευση For educational purposes, we may claim that heritage is whatever each one of us individually or collectively wishes to preserve and pass on to the next generation. However, should violent or other disturbing forms of expression, preserved in customary practices, be safeguarded, if the whole or part of the ‘community’ decides to do so? The present paper attempts a first approach to this complex issue. Case studies from Greece and worldwide are investigated and appraised on the basis of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH (UNESCO, 2003). According to the Convention criteria, customary practices that refresh memories of violent conflicts between members of the community/communities, or exclude members with an aggressive and pejorative way because of their gender, age, professional status or sexual orientation, as well as practices involving the ill-treatment and/or torture of animals do not deserve safeguarding. The implementation of the above criteria in practice, however, remains an uncharted area. A systematic study, therefore, should: (a) include initiation, recognition and awareness on the part of local communities and societies about the values of the ICH; (b) promote research, documentation and evaluation of heritage components; (c) support the transition to the younger generations through formal and non-formal educational events; (d) highlight its importance on the local, regional, national and international context. ICH is evolving and constantly interpreted through complex social and cultural processes. Any forced attempt to revive an ‘authentic’ or ‘genuine’ version of ICH cultural expression, besides appearing fake, is methodologically challenged. The role of education in developing ethical principles and a critical approach to heritage is undoubtedly crucial. Keywords: Intangible cultural heritage, communities, values, ethical principles, education. (shrink)

This study explores Islamic influences on corporate bribery practices in Indonesia. As the dominant religion in Indonesia, Islam substantially influences society in everyday life, including business practices. Although bribery issues in Indonesia have been raised in great numbers for many years, few studies have explored the role of Islamic influences in the ways businesspeople rationalize corporate bribery. This study aims to explore the lived experiences of businesspeople involved in corporate bribery. The authors conducted a phenomenological study to analyze the mindsets (...) of businesspeople who used the Islamic religion to rationalize corporate bribery. To this end, a phenomenological study was conducted based on in-depth interviews with inmates who were imprisoned for their bribery practices in Indonesia. The interview data were subsequently analyzed and revealed several ways that Indonesian businesspeople invoked Islam to rationalize their practices of bribery and render them coherent with their mindsets. The analyses in this study provide insights into how to curb the rationalization of corporate bribery via religious perspectives and point to recommendations for future research. (shrink)

This study conducts an epistemological and contextual discourse analysis of the idea of knowledge in the philosophy of the 20th century. The main key stones of this work are as follows: the identification of the essential characteristics indicating the ontological genesis of the existing crisis of epistemological and ethical foundations; consideration of the main distinctive features of knowledge interpretation in epistemology and contextualism as a possible knowledge production instrument; study of the possibility of restoring an integral picture of the world (...) based on phenomenological ontologies; study of possibilities in the language domain from a hermeneutical point of view in the light of the resolution of epistemological contradictions. For all people interested in modern philosophy. (shrink)

This study will answer the question, what do students expect to learn from philosophy teachers in the 21st century. by framing a response based on the following: The researcher’s teaching philosophy developed over 30 years, a survey conducted of UAEU students, and a discussion of the changing role and purpose of philosophy in the academy and current pedagogical philosophy in teaching. The study has focused on how philosophical questions have been changed over time, using new technology to teach philosophy, what (...) are the characteristics of philosophy teachers and students, the new direction for teaching philosophy, and career opportunities. The practical frame of this research will be analyzed students survey conducted on female students from United Arab Emirates University. I will use the method of content analysis to investigate and trace this phenomenon to determine its meaning, developing philosophical questions, and the new direction for teaching philosophy. Then I will examine the data taken from the theoretical and practical sources for the purpose of diagnosing and reaching conclusions a process which is called in philosophy synthesis, therefore the approach of the research would be analysis and synthesis. (shrink)

With the advent of the digital age and new mediums of communication, it is becoming increasingly important for those interested in the interpretation of religious text to look beyond traditional ideas of text and textuality to find the sacred in unlikely places. Paul Ricoeur’s phenomenological reorientation of classical hermeneutics from romanticized notions of authorial intent and psychological divinations to a serious engagement with the “science of the text” is a hermeneutical tool that opens up an important dialogue between the interpreter, (...) the world of the text, and the contemporary world in front of the text. This article examines three significant insights that Paul Ricoeur contributes to our expanding understanding of text. First under scrutiny will be Ricoeur’s de-regionalization of classic hermeneutics culminating in his understanding of Dasein (Being) as “being-in-the-world,” allowing mean-ing to transcend the physical boundaries of the text. Next, Ricoeur’s three-fold under-standing of traditionality/Traditions/tradition as the “chain of interpretations” through which religious language transcends the tem-poral boundary of historicity will be explored. The final section will focus on Ricoeur’s understanding of the productive imagination and metaphoric truth as the under-appreciated yet key insight around which Ricoeur’s philosophical investigation into the metaphoric transfer from text to life revolves. (shrink)

Intersubjectivity is a key concept in phenomenology as well as in psychology and especially in psychotherapy, given the reliance of the therapeutic process on its location in relationship. While psychotherapy encompasses a range of what Owen terms “talking therapies”, this paper focuses mainly on the Freudian model of psychoanalysis and its connection with Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology respectively. Freud’s recognition that symptoms have meaning, and that the methodical disclosing of their meaning needs to be guided by the experience of the (...) patient, accords with the emphasis of phenomenology on empathic attunement to the lived experience of the other. Insofar as the orientation of psychoanalysis towards methodically disclosing meaning gives it a hermeneutic dimension, it is also compatible methodologically with the interpretative mode of phenomenology. While Karlsson identifies seven centrally significant “points of connection” between psychoanalysis and phenomenology, Thompson suggests that “psychoanalysis is already phenomenological in its latency …. Indeed, Freud’s principles of technique make little sense outside a phenomenological context”.Can it thus be claimed that, in the quest for intersubjectivity, sufficient common ground exists for meaningful dialogue between psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and phenomenology in general, and between Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in particular? That is what this paper seeks to explore.The paper proceeds from pointing to the ambiguity of the Freudian mode as simultaneously natural scientific and hermeneutic to exploring the fundamental points of difference and commonality between psychoanalysis and phenomenology, and in particular the significance of the role of the unconscious and intentionality in psychoanalysis and phenomenology respectively, as well as the orientation of both towards greater understanding of one’s being in the world. Ultimately, however, the authors conclude that, while the points of commonality would seem conducive to dialogue between the Freudian and the phenomenological in the psychotherapeutic domain, their differences in aims and approach, each shaped by a different view of humankind, continue to obstruct it. The quest for it nevertheless remains ongoing, as demonstrated not only by the academic endeavours of theoreticians such as Owen and Karlsson, but by the contemporary urge of second century psychoanalysis for a theoretically coherent turn away from the Cartesian and towards the authentically intersubjectively relational. (shrink)

This essay examines what the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur can contribute to current debates on the role of spiritual exercise, or askēsis, in philosophical life. The influential work of Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault has sparked a widespread interest in the ancient model of philosophy, variously described as a way of life, art of living, or care of the self. Ricoeur’s potential contribution to this conversation has been overlooked, largely because he does not discuss these themes explicitly or often. However, (...) Ricoeur’s early phenomenology of embodiment in The Voluntary and the Involuntary offers valuable insights regarding the exercises of self-transformation. After a brief survey of Ricoeur’s concept of askēsis, this essay draws on Ricoeur to demonstrate the merits of physical exercise, or gymnastic, in ethical and spiritual formation. Gymnastic, Ricoeur shows, can be a form of spiritual exercise. The final section of the paper then makes a similarly counterintuitive claim: namely, that reading is an embodied practice that can facilitate the ethical formation of the lived body. (shrink)

This paper argues that Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutical philosophy attempts to reopen the question of human transcendence in contemporary terms. While his conception of language as self-transcending is deeply Husserlian, Ricoeur also responds to the analytical challenge when he deploys a basic distinction in Fregean logic in order to clarify Heidegger’s phenomenology of world. Ricoeur’s commitment to a transcendental view is evident in his conception of narrative, which enables him to emphasize the role of the performative in literary reading. The meaning (...) of the self in time provides Ricoeur with a discursive basis for distinguishing his own position from that of Kant and other philosophers in the transcendental tradition. (shrink)

Metabletics was first introduced by J.H. Van den Berg as a systematic study of the changing nature of human existence. It gives special focus to phenomena within their specific historical and social-cultural contexts, and inside a complex matrix of relationships. Metabletics provide a uniquely interdisciplinary approach through the analysis of simultaneous events to identify patterns in human experience. Most central to the metabletic method is that, while the world of science is constant, the landscape of human existence is continually changing (...) and causing humans to change. This article outlines the central principles and applications of the metabletic method and addresses tensions and possible challenges within the approach. (shrink)

Wolterstorff defends the claim not only that ‘God speaks’ through the Bible but also that the reader gains ever new insights upon subsequent readings of it. I qualify this project with the philosophical hermeneutics he rejects—namely that of Gadamer and Ricoeur. Wolterstorff thinks what he calls ‘authorial discourse interpretation’ provides warrant for religious communities believing that ‘God speaks’ to them through a text. In developing this hermeneutic, he dismisses the viability of Gadamer and Ricoeur's approach because, Wolterstorff asserts, their form (...) of interpretation is merely an operation performed on an artifact. While a cursory study of Gadamer and Ricoeur might support such dismissal, particularly Ricoeur's emphasis on writing's obliteration of dialogue, a closer study guided by the hermeneutic priority of questioning complicates Wolterstorff's caricature. If writing obliterates dialogue, what happens to questions and responses? My thesis is that dialogue with another is preserved through the hermeneutical arc. I demonstrate this through specifying distinct logics of question and answer that occur in the reading process, and I delimit these logics by way of appeal to contemporary literacy pedagogy and its taxonomies of questions. A voice does speak with and listen to a reader in the event of reading, in this case a God who is not behind but before the text. Isolating this other who speaks and listens provides reinforcement for constructive theological work aligned with Gadamer and Ricoeur's hermeneutics, and answers for the experience of hearing ‘God speak’ differently through sacred texts. (shrink)

In the last decade the systems approach to agricultural research has begun to subsume the older reductionist approaches. However, proponents of the systems approach often accept without critical examination a number of features that were inherited from previously accepted approaches. In particular, supporters of the systems approach frequently ignore the ironies and tragedies that are a part of all human endeavors. They may also fail to consider that all actual systems are temporally and spatially bounded. By incorporating such features into (...) a systems perspective, it becomes possible to consider them as involving the manipulation of things, the reconstruction of institutions, and the reformulation of policies in accordance with democratic goals and objectives as part of a single web of interrelationships. (shrink)

In recent years a number of writers have defended and attacked various features of structural, or neo-realist theories of international politics. Few, however, have quarrelled with one of the most foundational features of neorealist theory: its assumptions about the nature of science and scientific theories. In this essay I assess the views of science underlying much neorealist theory, especially as they are articulated in the work of Kenneth Waltz. I argue not only that neorealist theories rest on assumptions about science (...) and theory that have been questioned by postpositivist philosophers and historians of science, but also that the failure to consider the work of these writers yields theories of international politics that are deficient in several respects: they are weak theories in the sense that they cannot illuminate crucial features of international politics, they presuppose and sustain a narrow view of power and power relations, they reify practices and relations in the international arena and they offer little promise of producing the sort of Copernican Revolution for which Waltz called (or, more modestly, even a minimally satisfactory theory of international politics). In light of these shortcomings, I sketch an alternative approach to the study of international affairs, one that has been termed prototype studies. I contend that such an approach provides scholars with a rigorous way of studying international politics, without being a theoretical science. (shrink)

Today, there is an emerging interest for the potential role of hermeneutics in reflecting on the practices related to digital technologies and their consequences. Nonetheless, such an interest has neither given rise to a unitary approach nor to a shared debate. The primary goal of this paper is to map and synthetize the different existing perspectives to pave the way for an open discussion on the topic. The article is developed in two steps. In the first section, the authors analyze (...) digital hermeneutics “in theory” by confronting and systematizing the existing literature. In particular, they stress three main distinctions among the approaches: between “methodological” and “ontological” digital hermeneutics; between data- and text-oriented digital hermeneutics; and between “quantitative” and “qualitative” credos in digital hermeneutics. In the second section, they consider digital hermeneutics “in action”, by critically analyzing the uses of digital data for studying a classical object such as the political opinion. In the conclusion, we will pave the way to an ontological turn in digital hermeneutics. Most of this article is devoted to the methodological issue of interpreting with digital machines. The main task of an ontological digital hermeneutics would consist instead in wondering if it is legitimate, and eventually to which extent, to speak of digital technologies, or at least of some of them, as interpretational machines. (shrink)

_An exploration of philosophical and religious ideas about humor in modern philosophy and their secular implications._.

We explore how story has the potential to encourage environmental engagement and a sense of agency provided that critical discussion takes place. We illuminate this with reference to the philosophies of John Macmurray on personal agency and social relations; of John Dewey on the primacy of experience for philosophy; and of Paul Ricoeur on hermeneutics, dialogue, dialectics and narrative. We view the use of fiction for environmental understanding as hermeneutic, a form of conceptualising place which interprets experience and perception. The (...) four writers for young people discussed are Ernest Thompson Seton, Kenneth Grahame, Michelle Paver and Philip Pullman. We develop the concept of critical dialogue, and link this to Crick's demand for active democratic citizenship. We illustrate the educational potential for environmental discussions based on literature leading to deeper understanding of place and environment, encouraging the belief in young people that they can be and become agents for change. We develop from Zimbardo the key concept of heroic resister to encourage young people to overcome peer pressure. We conclude with a call to develop a greater awareness of the potential of fiction for learning, and for writers to produce more focused stories engaging with environmental responsibility and activism. (shrink)

We study a case that applies hermeneutics to social sciences, in particular to the Austrian School of economics. We argue that an inaccurate treatment of hermeneutics contributed to an epistemological downgrade of the Austrian School in the economic scientific community. We discuss hoe this shortcoming can be fixed and how a proper hermeneutic application to the Austrian school explains why this school of thought is neither positivist nor postmodern.