The Christian life and attitude can take different forms. The monastic life is one of them and it helps us to see the world through different lens. The spiritual ascension, the ascetical or the martyric one, is an assumed life for and in Christ, the Son of God. Since the beginning, the Christian logic was against the human logic. But this was like an attraction for many pagans. To exemplify this new attitude towards life, we present the most important models (...) of monks from the first centuries of Christianity. First, we speak about the life of Saint Anthony the Great, then about Saint Pachomius the Great and we end up with Evagrius from Pont. Indeed, they are truly confessors of the monastic philosophy and we demonstrate in this article this reality. (shrink)

Meillassoux seeks knowledge of transcendental reality, blaming Kant for the ‘correlationist’ proscription of independent access to either thought or being. For Meillassoux, correlationism blocks an account of the meaning of ‘ancestral statements’ regarding reality prior to humans. I examine three charges on which Meillassoux’s argument depends: (1) Kant distorts ancestral statements’ meaning; (2) Kant fallaciously infers causality’s necessity; (3) Kant’s transcendental idealism cannot grasp ‘the great outdoors’. I reject these charges: (1) imposes a Cartesian misreading, hence Meillassoux’s false assumption that, (...) for Kant, objects don’t exist without subjects; (2) misreads Kant, who infers causality’s necessity from the possibility of experience; (3) casts Kant’s idealism as subjective, ignoring his perspectival portrayal of it. (shrink)

On the History of Political Philosophy: Great Political Thinkers from Thucydides to Locke is a lively and lucid account of the major political theorists and philosophers of the ancient Greek, Roman, medieval, renaissance, and early modern periods. The author demonstrates the continuing significance of some political debates and problems that originated in the history of political philosophy. Topics include discussions concerning human nature, different views of justice, the origin of government and law, the rise and development of different forms (...) of government, idealism and realism in international relations, the distinction between just and unjust war, and the sources of public authority and the nature of legitimate sovereignty. The organizing principle of the book is the idea that the great political thinkers were searching for the best political order and a criterion for human conduct in both domestic and international politics. The book presupposes no previous knowledge of political philosophy. It will therefore be a valuable introductory book for students of philosophy, politics, and international relations. As it opens eyes to the perceptions that historical knowledge may convey, it will also be an illuminating and engaging reading for a general reader. (shrink)

Henry Sidgwick taught G.E. Moore as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge. Moore found Sidgwick’s personality less than attractive and his lectures “rather dull”. Still, philosophically speaking, Moore absorbed a great deal from Sidgwick. In the Preface to the Trinity College Prize Fellowship dissertation that he submitted in 1898, just two years after graduation, he wrote “For my ethical views it will be obvious how much I owe to Prof. Sidgwick.” Later, in Principia Ethica, Moore credited Sidgwick with (...) having “first clearly exposed the [naturalistic] fallacy” – a fallacy putatively committed when one defines naturalistically or super-naturalistically “good” – which was one of the book’s main ambitions (PE 39; also 17, 59). It is therefore unsurprising that Moore remarks in the intellectual autobiography he wrote years later that “From…[Sidgwick’s] published works…I have gained a good deal, and his clarity and his belief in Common Sense were very sympathetic to me.” This influence did not, however, prevent Moore from registering disagreements with Sidgwick, the sharpest of which concern the viability of egoism and the nature of the good. The disagreements between Sidgwick and Moore speak to many important moral theoretical issues arising both within and without the utilitarian tradition in ethical thinking. Because the two share much in common, a critical comparison of them on a range of moral philosophical questions proves instructive. It will tell us in particular something about the general direction of ethical thinking in the utilitarian tradition at the dawn of the twentieth century. This chapter has four parts. Part I compares the versions of utilitarianism to which Sidgwick and Moore subscribed. Part II examines the arguments each provides for the view. Part III discusses their conflicting theories of value. Part IV sums things up. (shrink)

Background Analysis of aphasic narratives can be a challenge for clinicians. Previous studies have mainly employed measures that categorized speech samples at the word level. They included quantification of the use and misuse of different word classes, presence and absence of narrative contents and errors, paraphasias, and perseverations, as well as morphological structures and errors within a narrative. In other words, a great amount of research has been conducted in the aphasiology literature focusing on micro-linguistic structures of oral narratives. Aspects (...) of macro- linguistic structures, such as the analysis of content information by a speaker, consistency of using cohesive devices to present information within a narrative, and order of presenting information necessary to form a coherent discourse, have not been extensively investigated. The current investigation proposes a clinical analytic system to target three aspects of macro-linguistic structures in narratives among speakers with aphasia. Specifically, (1) the presence of search events (i.e., the mentioning of key events that allow the listener to understand; Capilouto, Wright, &Wagovich, 2006) within a narrative, (2) the sequence of the mentioned events, and (3) the informativeness (i.e., the fulfillment of lexical items that allow the user to understand what the event is detailing) of the event contents, were focused in the proposed framework. Method Ten controls transcripts from were selected from the AphasiaBank (MacWhinney, Fromm, Forbes, & Holland, 2011). Three narrative tasks, including sequential picture description of ‘Refused Umbrella’, procedural narrative of making a ‘Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich’, and telling of ‘Cinderella’ story, were used to establish normative data for the basis of analysis. Specifically, the Search Events (e) and Informative Words (i) used by at least 70% of the speakers were listed for each genre. The sequential order of mentioning the Search Events, i.e., common order of events in 90% of the speakers, (s.total) was determined. Twelve speakers with aphasia (nine fluent and three non-fluent) were recruited and administered the Western Aphasia Battery and Object and Action Naming Battery. Their performance in the above three discourse tasks were orthographically transcribed and analyzed using the following measures: e.total, e.matched with norm, e.missed, e.irrlevant, e.extra, s.total, i.pb&j, i.umbr, i.cind, and i.total. Three samples were randomly chosen to be re-analyzed for inter- and intra-rater reliability. Results Results of an independent t-test suggested significant differences between the fluent and non-fluent subjects in sequential order of Search Events for all genres (s.total) and i.total, suggesting sensitivity of this framework to differentiate between the two fluency groups. Results of Pearson product-moment correlations revealed significant relation between Informative Words and WAB spontaneous speech scores, AQ, as well as OAB scores, for both aphasic groups. The mean value of coefficients for intra-rater reliability (0.992), with significant correlations on e.match, e.miss, and e.extra, was higher than that of inter-rater reliability (0.897). Discussion Based on our preliminary results, this objective framework allowed clinical evaluation of impairment in macro-linguistic structures present in aphasic discourse. Further extension should involve more subjects encompassing a wider range of severity with different types of aphasia. (shrink)

Neil Gorsuch lauds judges who purport to “apply the law as it is, focusing backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have understood the law to be . . . .” It’s hard to see how such a form of Originalism withstands scrutiny. -/- First, using “reasonable reader” understandings rather than speaker meaning turns language and law on their heads. Audiences effectively become (...) the speakers in ordinary speech (since reader or audience meaning prevails), and audiences (and thus the ruled) effectively become the rulers when interpreting law (since audiences’ meaning prevails). -/- Second, since laws look forward to govern conduct, how can best legal practices keep such a backward focus? -/- Third, words (however understood by others at the time “originally” uttered) may or may not (depending on speaker and not reader meaning) signify concepts whose meanings embrace change over time. For example, the word “planet” used by a speaker before the discovery of Uranus and Neptune may or may not include further planets depending upon what the speaker meant by “planet.” (The same applies to the inclusion or exclusion of Pluto had the speaker used the word “planet” after the discovery of Pluto but before its exclusion by current science.) Unlike the “reasonable” reader of Gorsuch’s Originalism as phrased above, speakers run the gamut from reasonable to unreasonable, from informed to uninformed, and from thoughtful to thoughtless. -/- Fourth, to the extent a judge is principally “constrained” by a text or texts (as he may determine), by dictionaries that he chooses, and by “history” as the judge understands it, isn’t judicial activism encouraged rather than restrained? Talk of a “reasonable” reader masks the fact that there can be multiple “reasonable” conclusions of what a reasonable or unreasonable speaker meant. Is a judge not therefore left to pick definitions and applications of terms that accord with the judge’s understandings of history, understandings that may well be colored by the judge’s politics and judicial philosophy? This applies to principles as well as labels for things. Principles are also subject to multiple frames, and their terms are subject to multiple definitions therefore raising the very same questions just raised above. -/- Finally, such Originalism doesn’t merely fail with legal texts. It also fails when applied to other texts (including sacred texts such as the Ten Commandments) and when used to interpret art (such as “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” often attributed to Bruegel and which inspired such great ekphrasis as Auden’s “Musée Des Beaux Arts”). These further failures underscore the dysfunction of Originalism in Gorsuch's form noted above. -/- Keywords: Originalism, Neil Gorsuch, Text, Textualism, Scalia, Interpretation, Pragmatics, Speaker Meaning, Art, Painting, Bruegel, Auden, Ekphrasis, Icarus, Bible, Ten Commandments, Herod, Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln. (shrink)

The ontological argument- proposed by St. Anselm and developed by Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, and Marx- furnishes a key to understanding the relationship between thought and reality. In this article, we shall focus on Hegel’s attitude towards the ontological argument as set out in his Science of Logic, where it appears as a paradigm of the relationship between thought and reality. It should be remarked, moreover, that our choice of the subject was not random and that it was selected for (...) the reason that belief in God is a preeminent social reality, inasmuch as faith in God creates His existence. Therefore, an investigation of the concept of God is an inquiry into the most profound recesses of human consciousness. The great opponents of the ontological argument, from Hume down to our day--and even Kant--have based their arguments upon the fundamental empiricist assertion that existential judgments are not analytical. This paper attempts to defend the ontological argument against its opponents. (shrink)

Reading Anthony Gregory's massive tome on the development of habeas corpus from fourteenth century England through its incorporation into Common Law, and then into Article One of the US Constitution and finally, down to the Patriot Act and other more recent modifications of the “great writ,” I am reminded of something that I heard as a graduate student many decades ago, when I asked a professor about reading a particularly demanding book. I was urged to plunge into that (...) text, providing I could spare a few months. Unlike the book I asked about then, which was a total waste of time (as I soon discovered), Gregory's study is a monument to meticulous research. (shrink)

Due to the emergence of ICT in ELT sector, seasoned English teachers find it resistant to such a shift despite having a positive attitude towards its use. This quasi-experimental study aimed to examine the extent to which seasoned English language teachers developed their ICT skills through a Service-Learning Activity (SLA). Using a one-group pre- and post-test design, this study collected the data through a modified Needs Assessment Survey (NAS) distributed to fourteen purposively selected participants. It was administered to examine what (...) professional ICT development would greatly benefit them. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and themes according to the Service-Learning Activity (SLA) topics. A Post Evaluation Survey (PES) was administered, and its result was compared to the initial test. The results showed that the seasoned teachers gained significant learning gains in terms of (1) sharing of knowledge from other teachers; (2) being encouraged to use ICT tools; (3) training opportunities; (4) working with other colleagues; and 5) attending professional workshops which include SLA. However, this study unveiled that the English teachers had no significant difference in perceptions regarding the roles of computers in teaching before and after the intervention. Limitations and recommendations for future studies were discussed. (shrink)

*NEWEST VERSION OF THIS RESOURCE ONLINE @ Philosop-her dotcom This textbook has developed over the last few years of teaching introductory symbolic logic and critical thinking courses. It has been truly a pleasure to have benefited from such great students and colleagues over the years. As we have become increasingly frustrated with the costs of traditional logic textbooks (though many of them deserve high praise for their accuracy and depth), the move to open source has become more and more (...) attractive. We're happy to provide it free of charge for educational use. With that being said, there are always improvements to be made here and we would be most grateful for constructive feedback and criticism. We have chosen to write this text in LaTex and have adopted certain conventions with symbols. Certainly many important aspects of critical thinking and logic have been omitted here, including historical developments and key logicians, and for that we apologize. Our goal was to create a textbook that could be provided to students free of charge and still contain some of the more important elements of critical thinking and introductory logic. To that end, an additional benefit of providing this textbook as a Open Education Resource (OER) is that we will be able to provide newer updated versions of this text more frequently, and without any concern about increased charges each time. We are particularly looking forward to expanding our examples, and adding student exercises. We will additionally aim to continually improve the quality and accessibility of our text for students and faculty alike. We have included a bibliography that includes many admirable textbooks, all of which we have benefited from. The interested reader is encouraged to consult these texts for further study and clarification. These texts have been a great inspiration for us and provide features to students that this concise textbook does not. We would both like to thank the philosophy students at numerous schools in the Puget Sound region for their patience and helpful suggestions. In particular, we would like to thank our colleagues at Green River College, who have helped us immensely in numerous different ways. Please feel free to contact us with comments and suggestions. We will strive to correct errors when pointed out, add necessary material, and make other additional and needed changes as they arise. Please check back for the most up to date version. (shrink)

This article explores problems with several definitions of Originalism proposed by Justice Scalia in "Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts." It begins by looking at Justice Scalia's citation of a possible statement by Queen Anne that Justice Scalia claims in itself justifies Originalism. Queen Anne may have told Sir Christopher Wren that St. Paul's Cathedral was "awful, artificial, and amusing" at a time when those words meant "awe-inspiring, highly artistic, and thought-provoking." Conceding that one must understand how Queen Anne (...) meant these terms, this article shows how this example actually undermines Originalism when applied to on-going rules. It also explores inconsistencies and problems with several definitions of Originalism including Justice Scalia's arbitrary exclusion of technology from the constraints of "original meaning." It further disputes his claim that Originalism ". . .will narrow the range of acceptable judicial decision-making and acceptable argumentation [and that it] will curb -- even reverse -- the tendency of judges to imbue authoritative texts with their own policy preferences." This article maintains that Originalism has the opposite effect. -/- Keywords: originalism, original meaning, Scalia, interpretation, meaning. (shrink)

From the above lines one can see that St. Cyril of Alexandria is presented, along with a great theologian, as it is clear from the writings against the heretics of his time, like a true apologist for Christianity with paganism dispute that resurfaced after Emperor Julian, the Apostate. On the other hand, the writing of the Orthodox Patriarch proves to be of great importance in understanding the difficulties experienced by the Christian faith in a territory where paganism flourished (...) from time to time. Moreover, the work of St. Cyril can be put together with Christian apologists ‗works from previous centuries, being of a real interest for our times into a field so necessary but forgot in the theological schools and pastoral work: Apologetics. (shrink)

In these pages, we expose the main traits of St. Albert the Great’s doctrine of providence and fate, considered by Palazzo the keystone of his philosophical system. To describe it we examine his systematic works, primarily his Summa of Theology. His discussion follows clearly the guidelines of the Summa of Alexander of Hales, in order to delve into the set of problems faced over the centuries by theological tradition. Albert also restates the reflections of different authors like Boethius or Saint (...) John of Damascus but, in his Summa he incorporates to his reflections also the noteworthy book of Nemesius of Emesa, De natura hominis, which includes some pages on providence. Albert gives his personal solution to the complex questions of providence, destiny and contingency of the world. His conception of providence is developed in the frame of the creative power of the almighty God. God’s knowledge is necessary and inerrant and his providential purposes are infallible, but that does not mean that every event is necessary. He does not communicate His own proprieties to the creatures. In order to understand this problem, Albert recalls the notion of hypothetical necessity coined by Boethius in an Aristotelian framework and the difference between 'necessitas consequentis' and 'necessitas consequentiae' proposed by Alexander of Hales. He also develops his account of providence, closely linked to the topic of fate. However, it would be exaggerated to deem his position deterministic. (shrink)

Hegel's lord-bondsman dialectic has been of especially great interest to progressive and radical Hegelians—broadly speaking, politically left-leaning interpreters of Hegel who object to certain social hierarchies and demand their abolition. They read Hegel as giving an account of how ‘lordship’ over others is an inherently unstable and unsatisfying social formation, even for its supposed beneficiaries. Marxists, feminists and post-colonial theorists have all found inspiration in Hegel's analysis of the lord and bondsman by applying it to concrete relations of oppression, such (...) as capitalism, patriarchy, or racism. In contrast, recent scholarship on Hegel's views on race and colonialism has cast doubt on whether his systematic political philosophy and philosophy of history can be of similar use to progressives. Hegel was undeniably a Eurocentric thinker, but philosophers like Robert Bernasconi and Alison Stone have convincingly shown that he was also a racist and a defender of colonialism. Crucially, however, few of the scholars who write on Hegel's pro-colonialism have analysed this feature of Hegel's thought in connection with the lord-bondsman dialectic. In this article, I argue for two connected theses. First, I argue that contrary to the hopes of some progressive defenders of Hegel, we cannot easily separate the lord-bondsman dialectic from Hegel's pro-colonialism. This is because Hegel himself appealed to the lord-bondsman dialectic to argue that colonial slavery educated its victims, and could therefore be temporarily justified. Second, I argue that this pro-colonial reading of the dialectic, though largely ignored by contemporary interpreters, was in fact recognized and embraced by a group of Hegelians in North America known as the St Louis Hegelians. They used the lord-bondsman dialectic as a basis for a qualified defence of pre-Civil War American slavery. (shrink)

After the death of Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi (d.1273), the cult of Mevlevi continued its structuring. Rumi's son Sultan Veled (d.1312) and his grandson Ulu Arif Çelebi (d.1320) contributed greatly to this structuring. Sultan Veled tried to turn the lodge he took over from his father into a systematic sect around Rumi's mystical thought and Mevlevi disciples. Ulu Arif Çelebi, on the other hand, is a very effective name in organizing Mevleviism as a cult. With his systematic studies and travels, (...) he made Mevlevi's spread in lodges and madrasahs, and he made efforts to teach Masnavi, the work of his grandfather Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, in madrasahs. In addition, Ulu Arif Çelebi asked Ahmet Eflakî to write a book called Ariflerin Menkıbeleri about Rumi’s life, in order to keep his grandfather's memory alive. The entry of Mevlevi into the Ottoman State was through marriage. Mutahhare Hatun, daughter of Sultan Veled, was married to Süleyman Şah, the Germiyanoğulları leader. Süleyman Şah married the daughter of this marriage, Devlet Hatun, to Yıldırım Beyazıt, and left as a dowry Kütahya, Tavsanlı, Simav and Eğrigöz to Ottoman Empire. Yıldırım Bayezıd was appointed as the governor of Kütahya. Mehmet Çelebi was born from this marriage. The title of Çelebi is a title given to the descendants of Rumi, and Mehmet Çelebi, one of the sultans of the Fetret Period (A period of great depression), was one of the grandchildren of Rumi. The children of Mehmet Çelebi are remembered with the title of 'Çelebi'. Through this marriage, Mevlevi began to spread to the Ottoman Empire. Thus, Mevleviism would prevail in the Ottoman Empire, where Ahilik organization and Ahi culture prevailed, and Mevlevihane and Asitane would be established in many parts of the country with the support of the Ottoman State. Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi’nin (ö.1273) ölümünden sonra Mevlevilik bir tarikat olarak yapılanmasını sürdürmüştür. Mevlana’nın oğlu Sultan Veled’in (ö.1312) ve torunu Ulu Arif Çelebi’nin (ö.1320) bu yapılanmada katkısı oldukça büyüktür. Sultan Veled babasından devraldığı dergâhı, Mevlana’nın mistik düşüncesi çerçevesinde ve Mevlevi müritler etrafında sistemli bir tarikat haline getirmeye çalışmıştır. Ulu Arif Çelebi ise Mevleviliği bir tarikat olarak örgütlemede oldukça etkili bir isimdir. O sistematik olarak yaptığı çalışmalar ve seyahatlerle Mevleviliğin tekke, zaviye ve medreselerde yayılmasını sağladığı gibi dedesi Mevlana Celaleddin ’in eseri Mesnevi’nin medreselerde okutulması için de çaba sarf etmiştir. Ayrıca Ulu Arif Çelebi, dedesinin hatırasını canlı tutabilmek Ahmet Eflaki adındaki bir yazıcıya Mevlana’nın hayatını yazdırmıştır. (Ariflerin Menkıbeleri kitabı) Mevleviliğin Osmanlı Devleti’ne girişi evlilik yoluyla olmuştur. Sultan Veled’in kızı Mutahhare Hatun, Germiyanoğulları Beyi Süleyman Şah ile evlidir. Süleyman Şah bu evlilikten olan kızı Devlet Hatun’u Osmanlı Devleti’nin o dönem şehzadesi olan Yıldırım Beyazıt ile evlendirmiş ve çeyiz olarak Kütahya, Tavşanlı, Simav ve Eğrigöz dolaylarını Osmanlılara bırakmıştır. Yıldırım Bayezıd ise Kütahya valiliğine getirilmiştir. Bu evlilikten Mehmet Çelebi dünyaya gelmiştir. Çelebi unvanı Mevlana’nın soyundan gelenlere verilen bir unvandır ve Fetret Dönemi padişahlarından olan Mehmet Çelebi, Mevlana’nın torunlarındandır. Mehmet Çelebi’nin çocukları ‘çelebi’ unvanıyla anılmaktadır. Bu evlilik yoluyla Mevlevilik Osmanlı’da yayılmaya başlamıştır. Böylece daha önce Ahilik teşkilatı ve Ahi kültürünün hâkim olduğu Osmanlı Devleti’ne Mevlevilik hâkim olacak ve Osmanlı Devleti’nin desteğiyle ülkenin birçok yerinde Mevlevihane ve Asitane kurulacaktır. (shrink)

2024 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of Theodor Smising’s giant volume De Deo Uno (printed in Antwerp in 1624), which was soon followed by a second volume, De Deo Trino (printed in Antwerp in 1626). Smising’s work was the first printed output of what developed into a specific tradition within early modern thought, the Louvain tradition of Scotism, itself but one part of the broad Scotist tradition that build upon the thought of John Duns Scotus (ca. 1266–1308). This (...) Louvain tradition was primarily based in the Franciscan Convent of the Holy Trinity in the famous university town. The convent itself was much older, dating back to around 1230, when the Franciscan Order was in its very beginnings and long before the University of Louvain was founded (in 1425). In 1607 a second Franciscan Convent was founded in Louvain, St. Anthony’s College, one of a series of convents established by the Irish Franciscans as a result of their persecution in their homeland by the English Protestant rulers. The Irish Franciscans in Louvain, and in their other convents on the European continent, also cultivated the intellectual heritage of Duns Scotus, editing and commenting on his works and writing new works “ad mentem Scoti.” Both of the Franciscan convents in Louvain were closed in the turmoil after the French Revolution. The buildings of St. Anthony’s College still exist, whereas the older “Minderbroedersklooster” (on our exhibition poster) completely vanished from the cityscape. In recent decades, the Maurits Sabbe Library has acquired a large fund of Franciscan books, mostly from various houses of the Franciscan Order in Belgium that have closed their doors. Our exhibition “Scotism Made in Louvain – The Scholastic Culture of the Franciscans in Belgium” explores this material, complemented by material from the KU Leuven Central Library’s Special Collections and two manuscripts from the archives of KADOC (Documentatie- en Onderzoekscentrum voor Religie, Cultuur en Samenleving). The exhibition tells the story of a significant local scholarly tradition which is placed in the context of the broader Scotist tradition of the Early Modern Period. Whereas Scholasticism as such is often seen as an exclusively medieval phenomenon, our exhibition highlights one important aspect of early modern scholastic culture. The three brief articles included in this catalogue provide an introduction to John Duns Scotus’s thought, investigate the institutional background of Louvain Scotism, and explore some of the most important aspects of the scholastic output of the Franciscans in Louvain. The numbers attached to the images refer to the annotated list of all exhibits. A virtual exhibition with additional photo material will accompany, and last beyond, the library exhibition. (shrink)

The crisis of our times is science in a world without wisdom. The immense intellectual success of modern science and technology have given some of us unprecedented powers to act, which has led to all the great benefits of the modern world, and to the grave global crises we now face. Before modern science, we lacked the power to do too much damage to ourselves or the planet; now we have science, wisdom has become, not a private luxury but a (...) public necessity. Unless we learn to become a bit wiser, sooner or later we will destroy ourselves. But how can we learn to become wiser? We can learn from the last place many would look - namely science! We can learn from scientific progress how to achieve social progress towards a wiser world. This is in fact an old idea. It goes back to the 18th century French Enlightenment. But, in developing the idea, the philosophes of the Enlightenment made three gross blunders. They failed to capture correctly the nature of the progress-achieving methods of science; they failed to generalize these methods properly; and, most disastrously of all, they applied their misconstrued scientific method, not to the social world directly, not to the task of making social progress towards an enlightened world, but instead to the task of improving knowledge of social phenomena, to the task of developing social science. This botched version of the profound Enlightenment idea was developed throughout the 19th century, and built into universities in the early 20th century with the creation of disciplines of social science. As a result, academic inquiry today is a botched version of what we need. Instead of giving priority to problems of living, and devoting itself to helping humanity acquire a bit more wisdom, academia today devotes itself to the pursuit of knowledge. That is the key disaster of our times. Our institutions of learning seek knowledge, but fail disastrously to devote themselves to helping humanity acquire a bit more wisdom. If the world is to acquire global wisdom, it needs institutions of learning rationally devoted to the task. As a matter of supreme urgency, we need to bring about a revolution in academia so that the basic task becomes, not just to acquire knowledge, but to seek and promote social wisdom. (shrink)

The dissertation traces the development of what I call “the problem of partiality” through the work of certain key figures in the British Moralist tradition: John Locke, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, Anthony Ashley Cooper (the Third Earl of Shaftesbury), Francis Hutcheson, John Gay, David Hume, Joseph Butler, and Adam Smith. On the one hand, we are committed to impartiality as a constitutive norm of moral judgment and conduct. On the other hand, we are committed to the idea that it is (...) permissible, or even obligatory, to expend disproportionate resources promoting the good of our loved ones over the good of strangers. However, these two commitments conflict with one another. This problem challenges us to provide an account of the scope and limits of reasonable partiality that does justice to both commitments. I argue that confronting this tension is a central project of early modern ethics. I offer a rereading of the British Moralist tradition, centered on debates about partiality, and thereby shift discussion of the tradition away from concerns about meta-ethics and moral epistemology, to issues of practical ethics. The topic of partiality remains central in contemporary ethics, as is evident in ongoing debates about the place of empathy in moral judgment, and the role of love in shaping our moral commitments. Though the aim of the dissertation is not to settle questions about the scope and limits of reasonable partiality, the focus here remains fixed on how the concept of partiality was problematized in our ethical thought, and how it informs our discussions in normative ethics and moral psychology. Alongside building a bridge between early modern scholarship and recent work in ethics, the dissertation casts light on two understudied figures in the British Moralist tradition – Cockburn and Gay – who contributed greatly to debates about partiality. By examining their contributions, I reconsider their place in the history of modern ethics and therefore provide a more contextualized account of philosophical thought in the period. (shrink)

The practice of Ontography deployed by OOO, clarified and expanded in this essay, produces a highly productive framework for analyzing Salvador Dalí’s ontological project between 1928 and 1935. Through the careful analysis of paintings and original texts from this period, we establish the antecedents for Dalí’s theorization of Surrealist objects in Cubism and Italian Metaphysical art, which we collectively refer to as ‘Ontographic art,’ drawing parallels with the tenets of Graham Harman’s and Ian Bogost’s object-oriented philosophical programmes. We respond (...) to the question raised by Roger Rothman concerning Object-Oriented Idealism in Dalí’s work by showing pivotal changes to Dalí’s ontological outlook, from Idealism to Realism, across the aforementioned period, positing the Ontographic intentionality of Dalí’s ontological project in Surrealist art. (shrink)

Empathy is a topic of continuous debate in the nursing literature. Many argue that empathy is indispensable to effective nursing practice. Yet others argue that nurses should rather rely on sympathy, compassion, or consolation. However, a more troubling disagreement underlies these debates: There’s no consensus on how to define empathy. This lack of consensus is the primary obstacle to a constructive debate over the role and import of empathy in nursing practice. The solution to this problem seems obvious: Nurses need (...) to reach a consensus on the meaning and definition of empathy. But this is easier said than done. Concept analyses, for instance, reveal a profound ambiguity and heterogeneity of the concept of empathy across the nursing literature. Since the term “empathy” is used to refer to a range of perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral phenomena, the presence of a conceptual ambiguity and heterogeneity is hardly surprising. Our proposal is simple. To move forward, we need to return to the basics. We should develop the concept from the ground up. That is, we should begin by identifying and describing the most fundamental form of empathic experience. Once we identify the most fundamental form of empathy, we will be able to distinguish among the more derivative experiences and behaviors that are addressed by the same name and, ideally, determine the place of these phenomena in the field of nursing. The aim of this article is, consequently, to lay the groundwork for a more coherent concept of empathy and thereby for a more fruitful debate over the role of empathy in nursing. In Part 1, we outline the history of the concept of empathy within nursing, explain why nurses are sometimes warry of adapting concepts from other disciplines, and argue that nurses should distinguish between adapting concepts from applied disciplines and from more theoretical disciplines. In Part 2, we show that the distinction between emotional and cognitive empathy—borrowed from theoretical psychology—has been a major factor in nurses’ negative attitudes toward emotional empathy. We argue, however, that both concepts fail to capture the most fundamental form of empathy. In Part 3, we draw on and present some of the seminal studies of empathy that can be found in the work of phenomenological philosophers including Max Scheler, Edmund Husserl, and Edith Stein. In Part 4, we outline how their understanding of empathy may facilitate current debates about empathy’s role in nursing. (shrink)

In this article, we re-examine Pascal’s Mugging, and argue that it is a deeper problem than the St. Petersburg paradox. We offer a way out that is consistent with classical decision theory. Specifically, we propose a “many muggers” response analogous to the “many gods” objection to Pascal’s Wager. When a very tiny probability of a great reward becomes a salient outcome of a choice, such as in the offer of the mugger, it can be discounted on the condition that there (...) are other symmetric, non-salient rewards that one may receive if one chooses otherwise. (shrink)

...If, in some places, backward science determines the remaining period by the lack of optimism only by the number 123456789, then our progressive science expands it to 987654321, which is eight times more advanced than theirs. However, due to the inherent caution of scientists, both sides do not specify the measuring unit of reference — year, day, hour or minute are meant. Leonid Leonov. Collected Op. in ten volumes. Volume ten. M.: IHL, 1984, p.583. -/- The modern men being as (...) a rule is proceeding in three relatively autonomous, but immanently coexisting, and each penetrating dialectically through other, and each contesting even cruelly with other, and each more or less dominating on other, differently in various societies, worlds: the first one of the barbarity, the second one the culture, the third one the civilization... Barbarity is the mode of coexistence of autonomous human societies based on the unlimited will to act so as subject wants to do without any limitations of his activities... Culture is the mode of coexistence of autonomous human societies based on the most ancient testaments, customs, traditions etc of the highestly sacrified appearence... Civilisation is the mode of coexistence of autonomous human societies based on the reasoned or legitimated by social contracts, by profits, by expediency and so more constitutions, institutions etc... -/- Andrei Melnikov-Pechersky in his epic "In the Woods" says that there was a movement among the Old Believers in Russia, or a current that proclaimed Kostroma the new and, it seems, the only true Jerusalem, in an apocalyptic sense, of course, which in its spiritual scale was probably not inferior to the Bogomils, shakers, Mormons, or else and the whole Reformation in potential. In Western Europe, every more or less convex nuance of the history of a state or region (even if it is a small San Marino) is overgrown with almost a dozen institutions, not always state ones, by the way, in which almost every sneeze and step of very ambivalent historical subjects in a broad sense is studied. Especially in the young, but very pretentious America of the United States, which embodies all world justice. In our country, for example, even many leading humanitarian specialists do not realize the spiritual value of the Ipatievsky MONASTERY. The Russian writer Boris Shiryaev, who died quite a long time ago and in a very far abroad, devoted a special part of his documentary and artistic epic of wanderings "The Inextinguishable Lampada" to an entertaining and instructive, tragic fate of a kind of village monarchy in some Villages of the Kostroma province (I could not identify the area, and, frankly, I did not really try) in the early years The Soviet government. At the same time, all Russians learn about the French emperor Napoleon almost with their mother's milk how many percent of cyanide potassium was found in his hair, they reflect on Lermontov's "Airship" (probably, just not to "memorize" the imposed "Borodino" by heart). The events, of course, are incomparable, but the fact is significant. The outstanding national artist (if not to say a thinker of the Chesnyakov level) Grigory Pavlovich Kusochkin was glorified wherever, in whatever catalogues he was not included. Paris, London, New York, St. Petersburg, Moscow... To look at some smear of luminaries like Picasso or Modigliani, international tourist routes are organized in the restaurant toilet using the finest marketing technologies, and we did not even know Grigory Pavlovich by sight until, thank God, a series of TV shows on all Russian channels was dedicated to him in one gulp. Why is this happening? Is it a consequence of poverty or the result of the conscious policy of the ruling elite of the country and the world? The regions of the Kostroma Region are Austria, Switzerland, Bavaria, Armenia, Moldova, and Georgia... Georgia! I served in the army there. In this small but very great country, judging even by the appearance of its President Shevardnadze, although it is smaller than the Kostroma region, there are so many different, but Georgian-speaking peoples! Kakhetians, Meskhetians, Imereti, Iveretians, Mingrelians, Khevsurs... Adjarians (mostly Georgian-speaking Muslims) even have their own autonomy. And some peoples are not Georgian—speaking at all — South Ossetians, Abkhazians, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, even Assyrians. In the Kostroma Region, and in any Russian "province" — not much less: there are plenty of the same Georgians or Armenians everywhere, quite moderate, loyal, and so on. Having, as a rule, their own officially registered associations within the framework of cultural autonomy. Well done! And Israel! He is the only one with all his "illegal" (and I am for the fact that every nation knows better where its ancestral lands are) territories half the size of the Kostroma region. The total number of Jews worldwide, according to the "Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary" in 1987, is about 14 million. Meanwhile, the fate of Israel is being preoccupied (it is very instructive how he achieved this!) all the united nations of the world. In the Kostroma Region and its diaspora, it seems to everyone, and especially to its semi-migrant, Varangian leadership. I don't care if they build a public atomic bomb here in the form of a nuclear power plant or not. Because they do not know the value of this land, the greatness of its spirit. Kostroma is a holy land. I will immediately make a reservation that by Kostroma I mean not only the modern region, but the entire area that has ever historically been associated with Kostroma. The USSR is also a part of the great historical Russia. In this sense, even the entire era of the Russian Romanov Empire is the Kostroma region. Or: many toponymic objects of our native land are called mysteriously beautiful: Sharya, Shunga, Shekshema, Sholezhka, - we need to find out what kind of peoples — and where are they now? — we left such euphonious archetypal combinations, because these are our Kostromsky peoples, these are our Kostroma people. Or, say, the classic of American and world sociology Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin writes in his autobiographical scientific novel "The Long Way" that he studied at the Khrenovskaya (what a strong word!) teachers' seminary of Kostroma province, but in an administrative row for propaganda activities, gendarmes were taken by sledge to the prison of the city of Kineshma - is this not a fact for Kostroma, and primarily for him, local history, although Kineshma has long been attributed to the Ivanovo region, and Pitirim Alexandrovich is buried on the other side of the planet?! I have not the slightest doubt that Kostroma provided spiritual food, gave birth to and nurtured a huge intellectual diaspora with extremely valuable material on a national, global scale. And this is both in direct and indirect order, in the form of a chain reaction. Apparently, it is easy for an intelligent person to grow up in Kostroma, but it is impossible to live, and somewhere on the contrary. Therefore, it is not surprising that the geneticist academician D. K. Belyaev, who was born in the village of Protasov near Nerekhta, very close to Kostroma, glorified Moscow and Siberia with his discoveries and practical results, which immeasurably enriched the Soviet state treasury with foreign exchange income from the sale of the most valuable fur grown according to the biotechnology developed by him in a much shorter time than it usually turns out in nature. And in Kostroma, most likely, few people know who he is and what he is famous for. I will focus in more detail on one of the aspects of his great life. This happened back in the so-called pre-Perestroika times. In a series of his speeches, Dmitry Konstantinovich, based on the results of his and colleagues' research, emphasized, in his opinion, the determining role of the biological factor in shaping the content of human essence, of course, only in a philosophical, conceptual aspect. For some reason, this was opposed by a geneticist, as they say, persecuted at one time by the "senile" in selectionism (including human nature) by the Michurino-Lysenkoists, academician N. P. Dubinin, which personally remains incomprehensible to me until now. With a grateful curtsey to Academician Dubinin and his point of view, the famous French humanist, member of the Politburo of the French Communist Party Lucien Sav appeared on the pages of the Communist magazine. The material was clearly titled: "Problems are not only scientific, but also political." He very indecently attributed the views of academician Belyaev to "a reactionary ideology that tries to put genetics at its service, and more broadly, biology, in order to present all kinds of social inequalities of all kinds as inherent in nature itself"(1). I would like to see any ideology that does not try to "put this or that at its service," much less something worthwhile... A little later, the editorial of the Communist hit the "biologizers", and soon Dmitry Konstantinovich was gone. In short, it is only on the example of our fellow countrymen that you can write interesting, world-class essays on science and its history, but instead our scientists should fit their global potencies into a page and a half (good yet. if not entirely at their own expense), and then for at least three years to guess whether they will be published or not. Now it no longer surprises me how at one time, when, after reading the listener card I filled out, the sweetest girl from the IPKPON office at USU congratulated me for something. It turned out that the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of USU, doctor, professor, Honored Scientist, and now academician Konstantin Niko-laevich Lyubutin is a countryman, Kostromsky, or rather Manturovsky by origin, as I write below in the notes — we are Kostromendors. To him, my fellow citizen in the most subtle micropatriotic dimensions, I owe a lot in my professional and social development, even in survival. Because that's how it often turns out: you can be born here, sometimes you can live here... It's very hard. Maybe the Kostroma origin of an outstanding Russian historian of philosophy, organizer of science and education, educator and friend of a galaxy of people devoted to the Motherland and the cause is not a great milestone in the history of the region, but name me at least a dozen Russian cities on the scale of Kostroma, from where such intellectual ones would come out into the world and light luminaries like ours. No matter who you take from the world significance of the pillars of national (and world, and foreign, - even the great Rabbi of Lubavitcher spent three years in exile in a Campfire, — I learned from some foreign voices) history, literature, culture in general, technology, science and so on - you will always find someone, which is very directly related to Kostroma. Pushkin, Lermontov, Gorky. Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, Pisarev, Uspensky, Katenin, Florensky, Savrasov, Kustodiev, Dyagilev, Mikhalkov, Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev; writers, artists, entrepreneurs, revolutionaries, inventors, politicians... In some world-famous for its classic Russian provincialism, Kologriv has been storing, figuratively speaking, unique sketches, if not of Leo-Nardo da Vinci himself, then certainly of his school, almost since the seventeenth century. And not only that. Nevertheless, the well-known Chukhloma to the Fatherland, in addition to thinkers of the rank of Rozanov and Zinoviev (where should domestic philosophers mature and not be born, if not in Chukhloma, Manturov or Khrenknowswhere?), gave an actor of amazing, national, originality — Mikhail Pugovkin, who can not be confused with anyone, a role that no one will repeat. (shrink)

The right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) has been associated with two apparently disparate functional roles: in attention and in social cognition. According to one account, the rTPJ initiates a “circuit-breaking” signal that interrupts ongoing attentional processes, effectively reorienting attention. It is argued this primary function of the rTPJ has been extended beyond attention, through a process of evolutionarily cooption, to play a role in social cognition. We propose an alternative account, according to which the capacity for social cognition depends on a (...) network which is both distinct from and in tension with brain areas involved in focused attention and target detection: the default mode network. Theory characterizing the rTPJ based on the area’s purported role in reorienting may be falsely guided by the co-occurrence of two distinct effects in contiguous regions: activation of the supramarginal gyrus (SMG), associated with its functional role in target detection; and the transient release, during spatial reorienting, of suppression of the angular gyrus (AG) associated with focused attention. Findings based on meta-analysis and resting functional connectivity are presented which support this alternative account. We find distinct regions, possessing anti-correlated patterns of resting connectivity, associated with social reasoning (AG) and target detection (SMG) at the rTPJ. The locus for reorienting was spatially intermediate between the AG and SMG and showed a pattern of connectivity with similarities to social reasoning and target detection seeds. These findings highlight a general methodological concern for brain imaging. Given evidence that certain tasks not only activate some areas but also suppress activity in other areas, it is suggested that researchers need to distinguish two distinct putative mechanisms, either of which may produce an increase in activity in a brain area: functional engagement in the task versus release of suppression. (shrink)

Part of John Andrew Rice’s legacy, besides being a founder of Black Mountain College, is his vision of what a small liberal arts college curriculum should be. This vision helps shed light on some possible avenues by which to answer the following important questions: What implications do John Dewey’s progressive educational ideas have for experimenting with curricular design at small colleges? Does the college teacher’s struggle for improvement or growth depend on her having a belief that there is an ideal (...) liberal arts college curriculum? Probably the best known of such ready-made curricula is the Great Books Program, which employs a list of classic primary-source texts as the entry point into highly engaged dialogue, scholarship and learning guided by a teacher or tutor. In order to answer these questions, the paper turns to the historical debate between John Dewey and Robert Maynard Hutchins over the relative merits of progressive educational ideals and the Great Books approach. Most who have commented on this debate emphasize the differences between Dewey and Hutchins’ views.[ii] While Dewey emphasized learning through practical problem solving, in a dynamic mix of subject matter and method, Hutchins stressed exposure to and discussion of at least one-hundred primary texts in the Western canon, from Plato and Aristotle to Emerson and J.S. Mill. Hutchins resisted what he saw as the progressive educator’s push to transform the proper end of educating the whole person into training her for a particular vocation. In response, Dewey criticized Hutchins’ insistence that there existed a “hierarchy of truths” and that higher learning should remain aloof to the concerns of everyday life. Few commentators, however, mention the significant areas of agreement between the pedagogical approaches of Dewey and Hutchins, as well as other Great Books scholars. Since Rice praised the ideas of at least one Great Books proponent (Stringfellow Barr of St. John’s College), a more positive reconstruction of the Dewey-Hutchins exchange helps us to see how Dewey’s ideas informed Rice’s vision for the experimental college at Black Mountain—or so I argue.[iii]. (shrink)

Introspective evidence is still treated with great suspicion in cognitive science. This work is designed to encourage cognitive scientists to take more account of the subject's unique perspective.

In this paper, I examine recent phenomenological research on both depressive and manic episodes, with the intention of showing how phenomenologically oriented studies can help us overcome the apparently paradoxical nature of mixed states. First, I argue that some of the symptoms included in the diagnostic criteria for depressive and manic episodes in the DSM-5 are not actually essential features of these episodes. Second, I reconsider the category of major depressive disorder (MDD) from the perspective of phenomenological psychopathology, arguing (...) that severe depressive episodes should not be characterized by any particular moods (such as sadness, hopelessness, or guilt), and should instead be characterized by a diminished capacity for finding ourselves situated in and attuned to the world at all. In other words, the affective dimension of depression should be characterized as a change in the way we have moods, not as a change from one kind of mood to another. Third, I turn to mania, arguing that manic episodes, taken as the opposite of depressive episodes, should be characterized not by any particular moods (such as euphoria, grandiosity, or even irritability), but should instead be characterized by an enhanced or heightened capacity for finding ourselves situated in and attuned to the world. In other words, the affective dimension of mania, like the affective dimension of depression, should be understood as a change in the way we have moods, not as a change from one kind of mood to another. Fourth, I return to the phenomenon of mixed states and argue that the affective dimension of depression and mania, when conceived along the phenomenological lines I set forth in the previous sections, dissolves the paradox of mixed states by showing that the essential characteristics of depression and mania cannot and do not coincide. Many cases of mixed states are diagnosed because moods that we take to be essential features of either depression or mania arise within the context of what is considered to be the opposite kind of episode (e.g. dysphoria, typically associated with depression, often arises in what is otherwise considered a manic state). However, if we conceive of the affective dimension of depression as a decrease in the degree to which one is situated in and attune to the world through moods, and the affective dimension of mania as an increase in the degree to which one is situated in and attuned to the world through moods, then the particular mood one finds oneself in is simply irrelevant to the diagnosis of either depression or mania. As a result, the manifestation of any particular moods in what otherwise seems to be a pure manic or depressive episode does not constitute a mixed state. (shrink)

According to internalism about prudential value, the token states of affairs that are basically good for you must be suitably connected, under the proper conditions, to your positive attitudes. It is commonly thought that any theory of welfare that implies internalism is guaranteed to respect the alienation constraint, the doctrine that you cannot be alienated from that which is basically good for you. The assumption is that because internalism requires a necessary connection between a subject’s positive attitudes and each (...) state of basic benefit to that subject, theories that imply internalism will only postulate goods that resonate with the subject. In this paper, I show that extant formulations of internalism do not have this desirable feature. The central defect of traditional formulations is that they do not respect an important but overlooked truth about alienation: namely, that even if a state of affairs is suitably connected to your positive attitudes, your negative attitudes can nonetheless render you alienated from it. By taking into account the relevance of the negative attitudes, I propose the new internalism—the view that x is basically good for you only if you have a net positive attitude towards it—as a way to advance our thinking about what is required to avoid alienating theories of welfare. (shrink)

In recent years, an increasing number of contemporary artists have incorporated live animals into their work. Although this development has attracted a great deal of attention in the artworld and among animal rights activists, it has not been much discussed in the philosophy of art—which is quite remarkable, given the serious ethical and artistic questions that these artworks prompt. I focus on answering two such questions. First, is the use of animals in these artworks ethically objectionable? Or are such artworks (...) instead morally permissible or even laudable? Second, what might be the distinctive value or good of incorporating animals into artworks in this way? In response to both questions, I argue that one distinctive value of some of the artworks I discuss is their ability to facilitate a relationship of moral concern and respect on the part of an audience toward the animals that are a part of the artwork. Insofar as artworks facilitate such relationships, they are not simply artistically important; they are also, to that extent, morally good. (shrink)

Penrose's conformal cyclic cosmology describes the cosmos as a collection of successive universes, the so-called aeons. The beginning and ending of our universe are directly connected to two other, anterior and posterior, universes. Penrose considers but rules out a different interpretation of conformal cyclic cosmology: that the beginning of our universe is connected to its own end in a cosmic loop. The paper argues that the view, aeon monism, should be regarded as a natural interpretation of conformal cyclic cosmology and (...) discusses its implications for the concept of eternal return in light of the most popular metaphysics of time. (shrink)

Sara Suleri has written recently, in Meatless Days, of being treated as an "otherness machine"-and of being heartily sick of it.20 Perhaps the predicament of the postcolonial intellectual is simply that as intellectuals-a category instituted in black Africa by colonialism-we are, indeed, always at the risk of becoming otherness machines, with the manufacture of alterity as our principal role. Our only distinction in the world of texts to which we are latecomers is that we can mediate it to our fellows. (...) This is especially true when postcolonial meets postmodern; for what the postmodern reader seems to demand of Africa is all too close to what modernism-in the form of the postimpressionists-demanded of it. The role that Africa, like the rest of the Third World, plays for Euro-American postmodernism-like its better-documented significance for modernist art-must be distinguished from the role postmodernism might play in the Third World; what that might be it is, I think, too early to tell. What happens will happen not because we pronounce on the matter in theory, but will happen out of the changing everyday practices of African cultural life.For all the while, in Africa's cultures, there are those who will not see themselves as Other. Despite the overwhelming reality of economic decline; despite unimaginable poverty; despite wars, malnutrition, disease, and political instability, African cultural productivity grows apace: popular literatures, oral narrative and poetry, dance, drama, music, and visual art all thrive. The contemporary cultural production of many African societies, and the many traditions whose evidences so vigorously remain, is an antidote to the dark vision of the postcolonial novelist. 20. Sara Suleri, Meatless Days , p. 105. Kwame Anthony Appiah, professor of philosophy and literature at Duke University, is the author of a number of books, including For Truth in Semantics , Necessary Questions , and In My Father's House , a collection of essays on African cultural politics. His first novel, Avenging Angel, was published in 1990. (shrink)

In this essay I address the question, “What is the subject matter of phenomenological research?” I argue that in spite of the increasing popularity of phenomenology, the answers to this question have been brief and cursory. As a result, contemporary phenomenologists lack a clear framework within which to articulate the aims and results of their research, and cannot easily engage each other in constructive and critical discourse. Examining the literature on phenomenology’s identity, I show how the question of phenomenology’s subject (...) matter has been systematically neglected. It has been overshadowed by an unending concern with phenomenology’s methodological identity. However, an examination of recent contributions to this literature reveals that a concern with articulating phenomenology’s subject matter has gradually increased, although such articulations remain preliminary. In light of this, I delineate, define, and illustrate three layers of phenomenological research, which I term “existentials,” “modes,” and “prejudices.” While the delineation of these layers is drawn primarily from classical phenomenological texts, they are defined and illustrated through the use of more contemporary literature. Following the articulation of this subject matter, I briefly consider some of the debates—both foundational and applied—that can be facilitated by the adoption of this framework. (shrink)

One of Marcuse's most salient concepts, The Great Refusal nevertheless exhibits considerable internal tension as it hovers between its individualistic and collectivist conceptualizations. Central to this unresolved dichotomy is the concept of reification, which leads Marcuse to subsume individual experience beneath the umbrella of the abstract universal, following Marx. Yet the Great Refusal is purported by Marcuse to issue from a purely individual rejection of the capitalist system of domination. I explore these contradictions in light of Marcuse's critique of (...) technology under capitalism, looking back to Condorcet and Torgot and the implied Myth of Progress these thinkers embrace, with a view to the implementation of a more satisfying articulation of what might be termed the "anarcho-psychological critique" of self and society. (shrink)

Aims and Objectives. This article uses the concept of embodiment to demonstrate a conceptual approach to applied phenomenology. -/- Background. Traditionally, qualitative researchers and healthcare professionals have been taught phenomenological methods, such as the epoché, reduction, or bracketing. These methods are typically construed as a way of avoiding biases so that one may attend to the phenomena in an open and unprejudiced way. However, it has also been argued that qualitative researchers and healthcare professionals can benefit from phenomenology’s well-articulated (...) theoretical framework, which consists of core concepts, such as selfhood, empathy, temporality, spatiality, affectivity, and embodiment. -/- Design. This is a discursive article that demonstrates a conceptual approach to applied phenomenology. -/- Method. To outline and explain this approach to applied phenomenology, the Discussion section walks the reader through four stages of phenomenology, which progress incrementally from the most theoretical to the most practical. -/- Discussion. Part one introduces the philosophical concept of embodiment, which can be applied broadly to any human subject. Part two shows how philosophically trained phenomenologists use the concept of embodiment to describe general features of illness and disability. Part three illustrates how the phenomenological concept of embodiment can inform empirical qualitative studies and reflects on the challenges of integrating philosophy and qualitative research. Part four turns to phenomenology’s application in clinical practice and outlines a workshop model that guides clinicians through the process of using phenomenological concepts to better understand patient experience. -/- Conclusion and Relevance to Clinical Practice. A conceptual approach to applied phenomenology provides a valuable alternative to traditional methodological approaches. Phenomenological concepts provide a foundation for better understanding patient experience in both qualitative health research and clinical practice, and therefore provide resources for enhancing patient care. (shrink)

The aesthetic domain is a social one. We coordinate our individual acts of creation, appreciation, and performance with those of others in the context of social aesthetic practices. More strongly, many of the richest goods of our aesthetic lives are constitutively social; their value lies in the fact that individuals are engaged in joint aesthetic agency, participating in cooperative and collaborative project that outstrips what can be realized alone. I provide an account of nature and value of two such social (...) aesthetic goods—aesthetic communities and aesthetic traditions—and further argue that such goods are a core constituent of an aesthetically good life. At the same time, I argue that the ideals of the dominant theory of aesthetic value, aesthetic value hedonism, are incompatible with a full commitment to these social aesthetic goods; the hedonist is thereby alienated from the other participants within aesthetic communities and traditions. This sets up a dilemma for the hedonist: either the hedonist must bite the bullet, accepting that the theory leads to a problematic form of aesthetic alienation; or, we must reject aesthetic value hedonism and adopt a different theory of aesthetic value which accommodates the value of social aesthetic goods. I argue that we should take the second horn of the dilemma. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that phenomenological psychopathologists, despite their critical attitude toward mainstream psychiatry, still hold problematic prejudices about the nature of psychiatric conditions as illness or disorder. I suggest that phenomenological psychopathologists turn to resources in the neurodiversity and mad pride movements to critically reflect upon these prejudices and appreciate the methodological problems that they pose.

Fichte assigns ‘intellectual intuition’ a new meaning after Kant. But in 1799, his doctrine of intellectual intuition is publicly deemed indefensible by Kant and nihilistic by Jacobi. I propose to defend Fichte’s doctrine against these charges, leaving aside whether it captures what he calls the ‘spirit’ of transcendental idealism. I do so by articulating three problems that motivate Fichte’s redirection of intellectual intuition from being to acting: (1) the regress problem, which states that reflecting on empirical facts of consciousness (...) leads only to further facts and so cannot yield a first principle; (2) the rhapsody problem, which states that the categories form a haphazard set and so lack necessity unless they derive from a first principle; and (3) the nihilism problem, which states that a first principle cannot lie outside our cognition of it, lest it be the cause of our cognition and, being first, the cause of all our actions, reducing us to machines. Crucially, Fichte’s three motivating problems are in fact aspects of a single problem. Leaving any aspect unsolved spoils putative solutions to the other two. Consequently, Fichte requires a single unified solution to all three, which his doctrine of intellectual intuition provides. (shrink)

How do we prepare engineering students to make ethical and responsible decisions in their professional work? This paper presents an approach that enhances engineering students’ engagement with ethical reasoning by simulating decision-making in a complex scenario. The approach has two principal inspirations. The first is Anthony Weston’s scenario-based teaching. Weston’s concept of a scenario is a situation that changes in response to choices made by participants, according to an inner logic. Scenarios can dynamically explore open-ended complex problems without imposing (...) predetermined results, allowing students to apply their ethical reasoning in a more realistic fashion. The second inspiration is Thi Nguyen’s theory of games. According to Nguyen, games are the “art of agency,” meaning that they provide a structure under which some result is agreed to be valuable, along with prescribed ways of achieving that result, in a relatively low-stakes and temporary social arrangement. By playing many games, Nguyen argues, we can develop a “library of agency,” that is to say, a set of values and means to achieving them that can inform how we make high-stakes decisions in real life. Engaging with carefully designed game scenarios, then, can enable students to practice making ethical decisions within a structured framework, which unfolds in response to their choices, while their decisions are driven by some defined goal. This roleplaying game–based approach thus allows students to build their own ethical libraries of agency, in preparation for professional decision-making. The approach is illustrated using a specific example recently deployed in a seminar on engineered living materials (building materials that incorporate living tissues). The scenario uses techniques from tabletop roleplaying games (e.g. Dungeons & Dragons) for outcome resolution, adventure design, and character creation. Through the game, students practice making difficult decisions in a humanitarian context. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an alternative phenomenological account of depression as consisting of a degradation of the degree to which one is situated in and attuned to the world. This account contrasts with recent accounts of depression offered by Matthew Ratcliffe and others. Ratcliffe develops an account in which depression is understood in terms of deep moods, or existential feelings, such as guilt or hopelessness. Such moods are capable of limiting the kinds of significance and meaning that one can (...) come across in the world. I argue that Ratcliffe’s account is unnecessarily constrained, making sense of the experience of depression by appealing only to changes in the mode of human existence. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s critique of traditional transcendental phenomenology, I show that many cases of severe psychiatric disorders are best understood as changes in the very structure of human existence, rather than changes in the mode of human existence. Working in this vein, I argue that we can make better sense of many first-person reports of the experience of depression by appealing to a loss or degradation of the degree to which one is situated in and attuned to the world, rather than attempting to make sense of depression as a particular mode of being situated and attuned. Finally, I argue that drawing distinctions between disorders of structure and mode will allow us to improve upon the currently heterogeneous categories of disorder offered in the DSM-5. (shrink)

Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have gripped the public imagination ever since Raymond Moody’s watershed book Life After Life brought them to widespread attention in 1975. These experiences are commonly reported to involve the sensation of leaving one’s body and watching efforts by medical per-sonnel at resuscitation or even events further afield, as well as experiences of passing through a tunnel towards a being of light and love and meeting deceased friends and relatives. Such experiences are some-times alleged to constitute evidence for (...) an afterlife, but exactly how they do so is seldom spelled out pre-cisely. The aim of this paper, then, is to carefully consider three different inferential pathways from data about NDEs to the conclusion that there is an afterlife. I shall argue that at least two of them provide moderately strong support to this conclusion. (shrink)

Anger has an undeniable hand in human suffering and horrific deeds. Various schools of thought call for eliminating or moderating the capacity for anger. I argue that the capacity for anger, like the capacity for grief, is at the heart of our humanity.

The aim of the article is to introduce a new concept of “pain-related bodily doubt,” which complements current concepts currently in use, such as pain-related fear, pain catastrophizing, and pain self-efficacy. This new concept, adapted from recent philosophical work on illness experience, has the potential to positively contribute to pain research and clinical practice by providing a vocabulary for clinicians and patients to discuss implicit or tacit dimensions of pain-related experiences.

The Situationist International (1957-1972) was a small group of communist revolutionaries, originally organised out of the West European artistic avant-garde of the 1950s. The focus of my thesis is to explain how the Situationist International (SI) became a group able to exert a considerable influence on the ultra-left criticism that emerged during and in the wake of the May movement in France in 1968. My wager is that the pivotal period of the group is to be found between 1960 and (...) 1963, a period marked by the split of 1962. Often this is described as the transition of the group from being more concerned with art to being more concerned with politics, but as I will argue this definitional shorthand elides the significance of the Situationist critique of art, philosophy and politics. The two axes of my thesis are as follows. First, that the significant minority in the group which carried out the break of 1962, identified a homology between the earlier Situationist critique of art — embodied in the Situationist ‘hypothesis of the construction of situations’ — and Marx’s critique and supersession of the radical milieu of philosophy from which he emerged in the mid- 1840s. This homology was summarised in the expression of the Situationist project as the ‘supersession of art’ (dépassement de l’art). Secondly, this homology was practically embodied in the resolution of the debates over the role of art in the elaboration of the Situationist hypothesis, which had been ongoing since 1957. However, it was the SI’s encounter with the ultra-left group Socialisme ou Barbarie that would prove decisive. Via Guy Debord’s membership, the group was exposed to both the idea of a more general revolutionary criticism, but also ultimately what was identified as the insufficiently criticised ‘political militancy’ of this group. Indeed, in the ‘political alienation’ found in Socialisme ou Barbarie, a further homology was established between the alienation of the political and artistic avant-gardes. This identity would prove crucial to the further elaboration of the concept of ‘spectacle’. By way of an examination of the peculiar and enigmatic ‘Hamburg Theses’ of 1961, and the relationship between these ‘Theses’ and the Situationist criticism of art and politics worked out over the first five years of the group, I will argue that the break in 1962 should be conceived as one against politics as much as art (rather than just the latter, as it is more often represented). Additionally, I will outline how the SI, through the paradoxical reassertion of their artistic origins, attempted to synthesise their criticism of art with the recovery of the work of Marx beyond its mutilation as Marxism. Indeed, it was the synthesis of these critiques that enabled the considerable development of the concept of ‘spectacle’, opening the way to the unique influence the SI exerted in the re-emergence of a revolutionary movement at the end of the 1960s. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a concerted attack on many of the precepts of Western civilization relating to the concept of God, truth, Christianity, morality, sex, the family, and even modern science, especially biology. The concern of this volume is to explore these and other attacks through the tools of philosophy, theology, science, and intuition. It seeks to bring clarity to the ongoing struggle of Western civilization to preserve its values and traditions. -/- The West is crumbling at an (...) accelerated rate. The unfolding erasure of history, objective morality, and truth has paved the way for our current predicament. We are now standing at the precipice of the future of human civilization. The attacks on the human person are unrelenting, malicious, multifaceted, and wide-ranging in their scope and breadth, from the time prior to birth until the moment of death. If you are granted the “right” to live, then you must be prepared for unending assaults on your, mind, body, and soul. Nevertheless, the spirit of man and the greatness of God are infinitely greater than any of these assaults. It is by making sense of nonsense that humanity will be able to navigate out of the West’s current quagmire. (shrink)

This is a critical review of Terence Irwin's The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study. Volume III: From Kant to Rawls. Among other things, the review remarks on the book's treatment of utilitarianism and on its lack of discussion of work in feminist ethics in the twentieth century.

The public constitutes a major stakeholder in the debate about, and resolution of privacy and ethical The public constitutes a major stakeholder in the debate about, and resolution of privacy and ethical about Big Data research seriously and how to communicate messages designed to build trust in specific big data projects and the institution of science in general. This chapter explores the implications of various examples of engaging the public in online activities such as Wikipedia that contrast with “Notice and (...) Consent” forms and offers models for scientists to consider when approaching their potential subjects in research. Drawing from Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, the chapter suggests that four main regulators drive the shape of online activity: Code (or Architecture), Laws, Markets, and Norms. Specifically, scientists should adopt best practices in protecting computerized Big Data (Code), remain completely transparent about their data management practices (Law), make smart choices when deploying digital solutions that place a premium on information protection (Market), and, critically, portray themselves to the public as seriously concerned with protecting the privacy of persons and security of data (Norms). The community of Big Data users and collectors should remember that such data are not just “out there” somewhere but are the intimate details of the lives of real persons who have just as deep an interest in protecting their privacy as they do in the good work that is conducted with such data. (shrink)

The paper explores the possibilities and limits of naturalizing the experience of intersubjectivity. The existence of mirror neurons illustrates that an experience of intersubjectivity is already present on a more primitive, precognitive, and embodied level. A similar argument had been made in the first half of the twentieth century by phenomenologists, such as Edmund Husserl. This motivated Vittorio Gallese, one of the discoverers of mirror neurons, and other philosophers to connect the functioning of mirror neurons with Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity (...) as presented in his Cartesianische Meditationen. I argue that such attempts are grounded in an inadequate interpretation of Husserl’s analysis and turn into a circular argument. As such, they bypass a more primordial experience of intersubjectivity, which Husserl thematizes in Ideen II as the experience of an “expressive unity,” and which resists any project of naturalization from within. (shrink)

The aim of the Validation Theory (VT) as a meta-empirical construct is to introduce a new vista in the reorganization of the neuroscience, in its role of a science of the Mind-and-Brain unification. The present study focuses on existing discrepancies and contradictions between the methods of basic neurosciences and those prescribed by the psychological science. Our view is that these discrepancies are based on a high penetration of traditional neuroscience methods into the biological processes, coupled with low extrapolation (experimenting with (...) animal models) and vice versa for the psychological and psychopathological methods. A novel epistemological model for integrating psychological and neuroscientific knowledge is proposed. It is represented as a simultaneous investigation of the brain activity with penetrating high resolution functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and in extenso application of set of psychological tests for exploring correspondence (cross-validation) between their compounds. The proposed approach leads to a revision of the neuroscientific and psychological terms, methods and data, followed by a revision of their relative interplay. This would make possible a practical exchange of expensive but objective fMRI with the lower costing psychological instruments (effect of "minimization"). The approaches proceeding from VT will infiltrate diagnostics and prevention in psychiatry. On a further stage the pharmaco-psychological monitoring will uncover new opportunities. This proofs' based research and practice represents an integral counterpart of the values-based mental health care. In conclusion VT is an evolutionary corner stone in order to traverse the stage of a Brain-Brain paradigm and to reach the point of development of the Mind-Brain paradigm. (shrink)

This dissertation is a contribution to the contemporary field of phenomenological psychopathology, or the phenomenological study of psychiatric disorders. The work proceeds with two major aims. The first is to show how a phenomenological approach can clarify and illuminate the nature of psychopathology—specifically those conditions typically labeled as major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. The second is to show how engaging with psychopathological conditions can challenge and undermine many phenomenological presuppositions, especially phenomenology’s status as a transcendental philosophy and its corresponding (...) anti-naturalistic outlook. In the opening chapter, I articulate the three layers of the subject matter of phenomenological research—what I refer to as “existentials,” “modes,” and “prejudices.” As I argue, while each layer contributes to what we might call the “structure” of human existence, they do not do so in the same way, or to the same degree. Because phenomenological psychopathology—and applied phenomenology in general—aims to characterize how the structure of human existence can change and alter, it is paramount that these layers be adequately delineated and defined before investigating these changes. In chapters two through five, I conduct hermeneutic and phenomenological investigations of psychopathological phenomena typically labeled as major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder. These investigations address the affective aspects of depression and mania, and the embodied aspects of depression. In addition to clearly articulating the nature of these phenomena, I show how certain psychopathological conditions involve changes in the deepest or most fundamental layer of human existence—what I refer to as existentials. As I argue, many of the classical phenomenologists (including Husserl and Heidegger) believed that these structural features were necessary, unchanging, and universal. However, this presupposition is challenged through the examination of psychopathological and neuropathological conditions, undermining the status of phenomenology as a transcendental philosophy. While this challenge to classical phenomenology is only sketched in the early chapters, in chapters six and seven I develop it in more detail in order to achieve two distinct ends. In chapter six I argue that psychopathology and neuropathology not only challenge phenomenology’s status as a transcendental philosophy, but also supply a key to developing a phenomenological naturalism (which I contrast with a naturalized phenomenology). Phenomenological naturalism, as I articulate it, is a position in which phenomenology is not subsumed by the metaphysical and methodological framework of the natural sciences, but nonetheless maintains the capacity to investigate how the natural world stands independent of human subjectivity (and how events in the natural world can bring about changes in the most fundamental structures of human existence). In the seventh chapter I argue that a phenomenology in which existentials are contingent and variable rather than necessary and unchanging allows phenomenologists to contribute to new dimensional approaches to psychiatric classification. Rather than begin from distinct categories of disorder, these approaches begin from distinct core features of human existence. These features, referred to as either dimensions or constructs, can vary in degree and are studied in both normal and pathological forms. (shrink)