Trying to assess Kant's impact on contemporary aesthetics is by no means a straightforward task, for the simple reason that the subject is saturated with his influence. In all aspects of the theory and practice of art, it is possible to observe concepts and attitudes at work which are either a reflection of, or a response to, Kant's thinking. This might seem a rather overblown claim and a difficult one to substantiate but, without going into too much detail at this (...) point, one has only to consider that the central tenets of both modernism and postmodernism can be traced back to Kant's Critical thought. There is the modernist's interest in the conditions of possibility of representation – as evidenced, for example, by the push towards abstraction in the visual arts and the attempt to paint not the world but the process of painting itself – and, responding to this, the postmodernist's concern that these conditions of possibility should not become universal absolutes. (shrink)

<P>While there are many books on the romantics, and many books on Heidegger, there has been no book exploring the connection between the two. Pol Vandevelde’s new study forges this important link. </P> <P>Vandevelde begins by analyzing two models that have addressed the interaction between literature and philosophy: early German romanticism (especially Schlegel and Novalis), and Heidegger’s work with poetry in the 1930s. Both models offer an alternative to the paradigm of mimesis, as exemplified by Aristotle’s and Plato’s discussion of (...) poetry, and both German romanticism and Heidegger owe a deep debt to Plato. The study goes on to defend the view that Heidegger was influenced by romanticism. The author’s project is thus both historical, showing the specificity of the romantic and Heideggerean works, and systematic, defending aspects of their alternative mode of thinking while also pointing to their weaknesses. </P>. (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)

When I studied the Scriptures then I did not feel as I am writing about them now. They seemed to me unworthy of comparison with the grand style of Cicero (Augustine, III, 5).As for the absurdities which used to offend me in Scripture, … I now looked for their meanings in the depth of mystery (sacramentorum) (Augustine, VI, 5).

Kant’s effort to defend the co-existence of transcendental freedom and natural necessity is one of the crowning achievements of the first Critique. Yet by identifying the will with practical reason in his moral philosophy, he lent support to the view that the moral law is the causal law of a free will – the result of which, as Reinhold argued, left immoral action impossible. However, Reinhold’s attempt to separate the will from practical reason generated difficulties of its own, which Maimon (...) was quick to point out. By identifying freedom with indifferent choice, Maimon argued, Reinhold had no resources to explain why a free will acts at all. My aim in this article is to show how Fichte’s theory of freedom seeks to reconcile these two commitments: the key lies in what I call Fichte’s Genetic Model, according to which indifferent choice is the original condition of the will, but a condition we must actively overcome. (shrink)

This paper proposes a teaching alternative that can encourage the ethical reflective sensibility among students of social entrepreneurship. It does so by exploring the possibility of using religious parables as narratives that can be analysed from Ricoeur’s hermeneutics to provoke and encourage ethical discussions in social entrepreneurship courses. To illustrate this argument, the paper makes use of a parable from the New Testament as an example of a religious narrative that can be used to prompt discussions about social entrepreneurs’ ethical (...) dilemmas. The paper adds to the limited works that consider the teaching of ethics within social entrepreneurship education. It also advances studies that seek alternative strategies to teaching ethics in business contexts, making these strategies discernible for discussion within the broader business and management literature. (shrink)

Military metaphors are pervasive in biomedicine, including HIV research. Rooted in the mind set that regards pathogens as enemies to be defeated, terms such as “shock and kill” have become widely accepted idioms within HIV cure research. Such language and symbolism must be critically examined as they may be especially problematic when used to express scientific ideas within emerging health-related fields. In this article, philosophical analysis and an interdisciplinary literature review utilizing key texts from sociology, anthropology, history, and Chinese and (...) African studies were conducted to investigate the current proliferation of military metaphors. We found the use of these metaphors to be ironic, unfortunate, and unnecessary. To overcome military metaphors we propose to give them less aggressive meanings, and/or replace them with more peaceful metaphors. Building on previous authors' work, we argue for the increased use of “journey” metaphors as meaningful, cross-culturally app... (shrink)

Using the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur as an interpretive matrix, this article suggests that critical theologies may be understood as an instantiation of the concrete unity of past and present in religious symbol. The intransigence of debates between critical and counter-critical theologies is thus disclosed as an inability to account for and remain within the past-future dynamic in religious symbol. Ricoeur’s Freud and Philosophy provides the philosophical terminology for unpacking the simultaneously archaeological and teleological character of symbol. The article then (...) turns to Ricoeur’s accounts of metaphor and narrative to make the following observations: Reflecting the metaphorical capacity of language, critical theologies occur as a juxtaposition of known and unknown, here understood as a juxtaposition of past and present in religious expression; The inherently tensive character in critical theology gives way to a dialogical trajectory. Critical theologians engender Ricoeur’s reference to the pluralism of ontology in the ‘metaphorical is’; and Critical theology represents the very human capacity to create a new future out of a meaningless past by narrating the stories of the marginalized. These Ricoeurian themes are highlighted by examples drawn from the theologies of James Cone, Jürgen Moltmann, Mario Aguilar, David Tracy, and Johann Baptist Metz. (shrink)

Meaningful work refers to the idea that human work is an integral part of the way we think of our lives as going well. The concept is prevalent in sociology and business studies. In philosophy, its discussion tends to revolve around matters of justice and whether the State should take steps to eradicate meaningless work. However, despite the breadth of the recent, general literature, there is little to no discussion about how it is in fact the case that work is (...) meaningful. There is a basic assumption that certain facts about work make it meaningful. After noting the shortcomings in the literature, this essay argues that we can better understand the production of meaning in work by an analogy to speech acts. Using Paul Ricoeur’s theory of action as discourse, one can see how meaning is predicated in the performance of work in ways that are locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary. (shrink)

Book Review of Alison Scott-Baumann, Ricœur and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion (London: Continuum, 2009).

This article seeks to elaborate the step of epistemological affirmation that exists within every movement of learning. My epistemological method is rooted in philosophical hermeneutics in contrast to empirical or rationalist traditions. I argue that any movement of learning is based upon an entry into a hermeneutical circle: one is thrown into, or leaps into, an interpretation which in some sense has to be temporarily affirmed or adopted in order to be either absorbed and integrated, or overcome and rejected. I (...) illustrate this process through a retrieval of the concept of submission in pedagogy, particularly with reference to submission in Eastern traditions, as well as pre-modern Christian thought. These other traditions are introduced to contrast with the modern liberal Western perspective in which the role of submission has been almost entirely lost. (shrink)

In order for theology to have a cognitive dimension, it is necessary to have procedures for testing and critically evaluating theological models. We make use of certain features of scientific models to show how science has been able to move beyond the poles of foundationalism, represented by logical positivism, and antifoundationalism or relativism, represented by the sociologists of knowledge. These ideas are generalized to show that constructing and testing theological models similarly offers a means by which theology can move beyond (...) confessionalism and postmodernism. Our starting point is Paul Tillich's concept of God as the ground of being and the different levels of consciousness and thinking that accompany his understanding of theology. The ontological argument of Anselm is shown to play a key role, not as a proof for the existence of God but as a means for testing theological models. An example of a theological model, drawn from the domain of philosophy of science, is presented to show how theological models are constructed and tested. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 23, Issue 2, pp 127 - 160 This article illuminates rabbinic concepts of temporality through examining metaphorical uses of the root qbʿ. The root has both concrete and metaphorical meanings, describing the physical attachment of objects as well as temporal ideas of permanence, stability, and endurance. While it has been argued that rabbinic texts do not display concepts of time in the modern sense, a combination of philological and conceptual analysis shows how rabbinic images of temporal themes (...) can be elicited from rabbinic texts. Moreover, attention to the multivalence of words can clarify complex Bavli passages that engage overlapping but distinctive metaphorical meanings of the root. (shrink)

Academia’s mathematical metaphysics are briefly explored en route to an elaboration of the qualitatively rigorous requirements underpinning the calibration and unambiguous interpretation of quantitative instrumentation in any science. Of particular interest are Gadamer’s emphases on number as the paradigm of the noetic, on the role of play in interpretation, and on Hegel’s sense of method as the activity of the thing itself that thought experiences. These point toward and overlap with (1) Latour’s study of the metrological social networks through which (...) technological phenomena are brought into language as modes of being that can be understood, and (2) the way that Rasch’s models for measurement comprise a potential beginning for metaphysically astute, qualitatively and quantitatively integrated, mathematical methods in the social sciences. The paper closes with observations on the general problem that is philosophy, the need to remain open to multiplicities of meaning even as clear understandings are sought and obtained. (shrink)

Fieldwork involves imagination, social encounters and a recognition of feelings, emotions, in observer and observed. As with ‘ the field’ itself, emotions and encounters are dynamically temporal, whether they are observed, or felt by the investigator, or described by interlocutors. If we want to develop anthropological work on emotions and their significance, we must be aware of the layers of interpretation that mediate between a fieldwork event and its often manifold recensions. ‘Writing up’ therefore requires consideration of how to (re-) (...) present persuasive accounts and analyses: examples are discussed of such modes in different media and the role of mediators in academic descriptions of emotion. (shrink)

Of the theologians and philosophers now writing on biblical narrative, Hans Frei and Paul Ricoeur are probably the most prominent. It is significant that their views converge on important issues. Both are uncomfortable with hermeneutic theories that convert the text into an abstract philosophical system, an ideal typological structure, or a mere occasion for existential decision. Frei and Ricoeur seem knit together in a common enterprise; they appear to be building a single narrative theology. I argue that the appearance of (...) symmetry is an illusion. There is a fundamental conflict between the ‘pure narrativism’ of Frei and the ‘impure narrativism’ of Ricoeur. I give reasons for thinking that Ricoeur’s is the stronger position. (shrink)

Reflecting on group theory within clinical supervision offers useful vantage points from which to engage nursing and the helping professions in the task of supervisory practice. This paper presents reflective experiences of group clinical supervision training and practice through a critique of Hawkins and Shohet’s process centred model. The underlying premise of transference hypothesis is that experiences and memories from the past inform present behaviours. Little has been written about the hypothesis in relation to clinical supervision in nursing and the (...) helping professions. However, the hypothesis was criticised by John M. Shlien in the 1980s and remains pertinent today due to expansion into social and healthcare practice. Reflective autobiographical diary entries focus on the model’s two latter stages which propose the use of Sigmund Freud’s transference hypothesis. The work of Freud, Foulkes, Heidegger and Hawkins and Shohet are synthesised and conclude with a phenomenological suggestion that immediacy and openness are necessary ontological conditions for group clinical supervision. Valuing empathic attunement to better understand group clinical supervision may be more important than theoretical distractions for non-therapeutic clinical supervision practice. (shrink)

We develop a new metaphor account where metaphors become surrogate variables for different but related phenomena. As we will argue, subrogation is the result of the interplay between the things inspired by the metaphor and the empirical dynamics that result from such inspiration. In particular, we focus on adaptive radiation, a major concept of evolutionary biology. Our study suggests that there is no distinct phenomenon, process, or pattern in nature than can be identified as adaptive radiation. What we have instead (...) is a grouping variable that has surrogated different evolutionary phenomena into one expansive label. We believe this analysis of metaphors helps better understand the value of metaphors for science not only as a provider of epistemic and cognitive virtues but most importantly, as a crucial research tool that can both help and divert scientific experimentation. (shrink)

To describe how metaphors work from an argumentative point of view is the first step of this paper. After describing the metaphorical argumentative mechanism, the second step is to apply this mechanism by analyzing some paradigmatic international metaphors that are used in public speeches. This analysis will enable us to see some common grounds between different cultures and countries, especially regarding economical issues and argumentation theory.