What kind of a science is psychoanalysis? What constitutes its domain? What truth claims does it maintain? In this unique and scholarly work concerning the nature of psychoanalysis, Gunnar Karlsson guides his arguments through phenomenological thinking which, he claims, can be seen as an alternative to the recent attempts to cite neuropsychoanalysis as the answer to the crisis of psychoanalysis. Karlsson criticizes this effort to ground psychoanalysis in biology and neurology and emphasizes instead the importance of defining (...) the psychoanalytic domain from the vantage point of the character of consciousness. His understanding of the unconscious, the libido and the death drive offer new insights into the nature of psychoanalysis, and he also illuminates and develops neglected dimensions such as consciousness and self-consciousness. Karlsson's approach to psychoanalysis is rigorous yet original, and this book fills an intellectual gap with implications for both the theoretical understanding and clinical issues of psychoanalysis. (shrink)

This study aims at discovering the essential constituents involved in the experiences of guilt and shame. Guilt concerns a subject’s action or omission of action and has a clear temporal unfolding entailing a moment in which the subject lives in a care-free way. Afterwards, this moment undergoes a reconstruction, in the moment of guilt, which constitutes the moment of negligence. The reconstruction is a comprehensive transformation of one’s attitude with respect to one’s ego; one’s action; the object of guilt and (...) the temporal-existential experience. The main constituents concerning shame are its anchorage in the situation to which it refers; its public side involving the experience of being perceptually objectified; the exclusion of social community; the bodily experience; the revelation of an undesired self; and the genesis of shame in terms of a history of frozen now-ness. The article ends with a comparison between guilt and shame. (shrink)

This phenomenological-psychological study aims at discovering the essential constituents involved in congenitally blind people's spatial experiences. Nine congenitally blind persons took part in this study. The data were made up of half structured (thorough) interviews. The analysis of the data yielded the following three comprehension forms of spatiality; (i) Comprehension in terms of image-experience; (ii) Comprehension in terms of notions; (iii) Comprehension in terms of knowledge.Comprehension in terms of image experience is the form which is most concretely and clearly experienced. (...) It is important to notice, that this kind of image experience is not synonymous with a visually based image experience — a fact which is discussed in the article. The following three features, which are to be understood as a description of what characterizes congenitally blind people's image experience, are presented; (i) Experience of the whole; (ii) Synthesizing/Harmonizing; (iii) Spontanous presentation of the whole. Furthermore, comprehension in terms of image experience is made up of the following four constituents, which aim at specifying the conditions for the possibility of having an image experience; (i) The image experience is based on tactile experiences; (ii) The inner horizon of the object has to be limited in order for the tactile sense to constitute an image experience; (iii) The person must have reached a certain degree of familiarity with the object; (iv) The importance of the emotional investment in the object. (shrink)

Ethical theories in sport philosophy tend to focus on interpersonal relations. Little has been said about sport as part of the good life and as experienced from within. This article tries to remedy this by discussing a theory that is fitting for sport, especially elite sport. The idea of perfection has a long tradition in Western philosophy. Aristotle maintains that the good life consists in developing specific human faculties to their fullest. The article discusses Hurka's recent version of Aristotelian perfectionism (...) and relates it to various aspects of, and the good life in, sport. How much time should be spent on sport in relation to other activities, how much should one concentrate on one sport to reach one's best and how should one's efforts be spent over a season? Well-roundedness and concentration are central alternatives for theories of perfection. Similarly some activities are simple whereas other are complex and thIs poses problems for persons that want to maximise their achievements. Whereas Hurka thinks one has obligations to perfect oneself, the author of this article thinks perfection is an attractive choice but no obligation. (shrink)

Lessons of history are often referred to in public discourse, but seldom in scholarly discussions. This book wants to change this by introducing an innovative scholarly, analytical model of historical lessons, starting from the basic three-fold perspective that you simultaneously are history, share history, and make history. Not any history is useful for extracting or using lessons. Here, what are denoted as borderline historical events, demonstrating both time-specific and time-transcending qualities, are suggested as useful materials. Scholarly works on the Holocaust (...) and Soviet terror, from Raul Hilberg's and Robert Conquest's classical works of the 1960s to more recent books by Jan Gross and Timothy Snyder, are analyzed to identify lessons of history, and their change during a full half-century. (shrink)

Theorizing and writing social theory -- Basics of displays -- The use of displays in theorizing -- Basics of property spaces -- Reduction of property spaces in theorizing -- Expansion of property spaces in theorizing -- The model of argumentation: chain of reasoning, chains of argument and arguments -- Examples of using the model of argumentation -- Theorizing and writing.

We defend a contextualist account of deontic judgments as relativized both to (i) information and to (ii) standards or ends, against recent objections that turn on practices of moral disagreement. Kolodny & MacFarlane argue that information-relative contextualism cannot accommodate the connection between deliberation and advice; we suggest in response that they misidentify the basic concerns of deliberating agents. For pragmatic reasons, semantic assessments of normative claims sometimes are evaluations of propositions other than those asserted. Weatherson, Schroeder and others have raised (...) parallel objections to standard-relative contextualism; we argue for a parallel solution. (shrink)

This paper lists a number of puzzles for shared obligations – puzzles about the role of individual influence, individual reasons to contribute towards fulfilling the obligation, about what makes someone a member of a group sharing an obligation, and the relation between agency and obligation – and proposes to solve them based on a general analysis of obligations. On the resulting view, shared obligations do not presuppose joint agency.

The chapter begins by introducing the problem of free will and moral responsibility and the standard terminology used to frame it in the philosophical context. It turns to the contributions of experimental philosophy and the prospects for the use of this methodology in the area. People believe that experimental philosophy is relevant to the traditional debates. The chapter discusses an error theory for incompatibilist intuitions proposed by Eddy nahmias and colleagues, and the role that empirical studies might have in the (...) assessment of manipulation arguments for incompatibilism. It also presents the suggestion that empirical studies reveal that core criteria for moral responsibility ought not to be applied invariantly across different sorts of cases. A number of philosophers argue that the results of surveys provide confirming evidence for a meta‐view about moral theories, variantism. (shrink)

The traditional metaethical distinction between cognitivist absolutism,on the one hand, and speaker relativism or noncognitivism, on the other,seemed both clear and important. On the former view, moral judgmentswould be true or false independently on whose judgments they were, andmoral disagreement might be settled by the facts. Not so on the latter views. But noncognitivists and relativists, following what Simon Blackburn has called a “quasi-realist” strategy, have come a long way inmaking sense of talk about truth of moral judgments and itsindependence (...) of moral judges and their attitudes or standards. Thesuccess of this strategy would undermine the traditional way of understanding the distinction, and it is not obvious how it can be reformulated. In this paper, I outline the difficulty posed by quasi-realism, raise problems for some prior attempts to overcome it, and present my own suggestion, focusing on correctness conditions that are internal to the act of moral judgment. (shrink)

Clinical ethics support, in particular Moral Case Deliberation, aims to support health care providers to manage ethically difficult situations. However, there is a lack of evaluation instruments regarding outcomes of clinical ethics support in general and regarding Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) in particular. There also is a lack of clarity and consensuses regarding which MCD outcomes are beneficial. In addition, MCD outcomes might be context-sensitive. Against this background, there is a need for a standardised but flexible outcome evaluation instrument. The (...) aim of this study was to develop a multi-contextual evaluation instrument measuring health care providers’ experiences and perceived importance of outcomes of Moral Case Deliberation. (shrink)

Gunnar Olsson's tale follows an explorer from the oldest creation epics extant to the power struggles of today, an attempt to codify the taken-for-granted, a struggle with the invisible powers that make us so obedient and so predictable.

This chapter has two sections, each focusing on a distinct way in which ethical disagreement and variations in ethical judgment matter for theories of ethical thought and talk. In the first section, we look at how the variation poses problems for both cognitivist and non-cognitivist ways of specifying the nature of ethical judgments. In the second, we look at how disagreement phenomena have been taken to undermine cognitivist accounts, but also at how the seeming variation in cognitive and non-cognitive contents (...) between parties of deep ethical disagreement challenges both cognitivist and non-cognitivist accounts of disagreement itself. (shrink)

Essays, som behandler Nietzsches filosofi om nihilismen og dens forhold til mellemkrigstidens skønlitteratur og mere humanistiske syn.

Vi som är radikala i socialpolitik bör vara det också i kulturpolitik. Så kunde man uttrycka sig i svensk kulturdebatt för femtio år sedan. Därmed anslås ett ledmotiv i denna essä: växelspelet mellan modernitet och modernism och dess konsekvenser för musikens vidkommande. Vi får följa denna utveckling från mitten av 1800-talet till slutet av 1960-talet med personer som Wagner, Baudelaire och Nietzsche, Schönberg, Stravinskij och Adorno, de italienska futuristerna och fransmännen kring den konkreta musiken i blickpunkten. Vi möter reflexioner kring (...) avantgardism och dess svenska varianter i symbios med folkhemmet och det hela utmynnar i ett sammanflöde av modernism och modernitet med Luciano Berios berömda Sinfonia i centrum. (shrink)

This book offers a comprehensive, authoritative, and accessible introduction to journalistic transparency. Pulling from historical and theoretical perspectives, Transparency in Journalism explains the concept of transparency and its place in journalistic practice, offering a critical assessment of what transparency can and cannot offer to journalism. The author also reviews the key theoretical claims underlying transparency and how they have been researched in different parts of the world, ultimately proposing a communication model that can be used to study the concept of (...) transparency across journalism research. Other topics discussed include the use of algorithmic forms of transparency, the limitations of the transparency myth, and suggestions for future avenues for research. Transparency and Journalism is an important resource for students and scholars in the field of journalism and media studies, as well as for journalists and researchers interested in delving into an ever-relevant topic for the field. (shrink)

At samle artikler til en bog om filosofiens anvendelighed signalerer, at det ikke er en selvfølge, at man kan anvende filosofi enten til eller på noget. Fx at anvende den til at opnå ønskelige hensigter. Eller at anvende den på problemstillinger, der dukker op i løbet af et menneskeligt liv, og ikke kan løses på anden eller i hvert fald på en bedre måde. Bogens hensigt er at undersøge, om filosofi kan anvendes på hvilke problemstillinger og til at opnå hvilke (...) ønskelige resultater. Bogens elleve forskellige artikler søger at besvare begge disse spørgsmål fra lige så mange forskellige perspektiver og på lige så mange forskellige måder. Om der er underliggende ligheder mellem disse svar, hvori der måske aftegner sig en fælles grund for filosofiens anvendelighed - skal være overladt til læserens opdagelseslyst. (fra Forlaget). (shrink)

In a metaphorical sense, a thing is complex if it comprehends a magnitude of homogeneous or different things. However, it depends on the kind of comprehension, if we conceive something that consists of many things as complex or not. It is perhaps most distinctive for complex phenomena that their properties and behavior aren't reducible to the properties and behavior of their elements. This poses some challenging metaphysical problems. The articles in this anthology don't follow a leitmotif - aside from all (...) essays having a look at complexity problems in different areas of scientific research and showing in which ways the challenges of complexity can be answered. (Series: Applied Philosophy / Anvendt Filosofi - Vol. 4). (shrink)

Obszar etyki jest najczęściej ograniczany do człowieka i świata ludzkiego: tylko ludzie mogą działać moralnie lub niemoralnie, tylko ludzie mogą być z moralnego punktu widzenia godni pochwały lub nagany; tylko ludziom przypisuje się status podmiotów moralnego działania i podmiotów moralnych praw. W jakim stopniu ten antropocentryzm etyczny daje się utrzymać? Czy współczesna wiedza biologiczna, uwydatniająca ciągłość i stopniowalność cech właściwych dla istot żywych, nie podważa takiego mocnego rozgraniczenia i założenia o uprzywilejowanej pozycji człowieka? Czy nie powinniśmy wyjść poza gatunkowy egoizm, (...) a przynajmniej go ograniczyć? W niniejszym artykule rozważę argumenty na rzecz stanowiącej osobny paradygmat, wyjątkowej pozycji etycznej człowieka oraz zbadam argumenty na rzecz etycznego gradualizmu [czyli stopniowalnych różnic] między istotami ludzkimi a pozostałymi ssakami oraz między człowiekiem a przyrodą. (shrink)

Central cases of moral blame suggest that blame presupposes that its target deserves to feel guilty, and that if one is blameworthy to some degree, one deserves to feel guilt to a corresponding degree. This, some think, is what explains why being blameworthy for something presupposes having had a strong kind of control over it: only given such control is the suffering involved in feeling guilt deserved. This chapter argues that all this is wrong. As evidenced by a wider range (...) of cases, blame doesn’t presuppose that the target deserves to feel guilt and doesn’t necessarily aim at the target’s suffering in recognition of what they have done. On the constructive side, the chapter offers an explanation of why, in many cases of moral blameworthiness, the agent nevertheless does deserve to feel guilt. The explanation leans on a general account of moral and non-moral blame and blameworthiness and a version of the popular idea that moral blame targets agents’ objectionable quality of will. Given the latter idea, the morally blameworthy have harmed the standing of some person or value, giving rise to obligations to give correspondingly less relative weight to their own standing, and so, sometimes, to their own suffering. (shrink)

Our food and farming system is not socially, economically or ecologically sustainable. Many of the ills are a result of market competition driving specialization and linear production models, externalizing costs for environmental, social and cultural degradation. Some propose that market mechanisms should be used to correct this; improved consumer choice, internalization of costs and compensation to farmers for public goods. What we eat is determined by the path taken by our ancestors, by commercialization and fierce competition, fossil fuels and demographic (...) development. Based on those, governments and the food industry are the choice architects who determine what we eat; consumer choice plays a marginal role. Using market mechanisms to internalize cost and compensate farmers for public goods has been proposed for decades but little progress has been made. There are also many practical, ethical and theoretical objections to such a system. The market is not a good master for a sustainable food system. Instead we need to find new ways of managing the food system based on food as a right and farming as a management system of the planet Earth. The solutions should be based on relocalization of food production and de-commodification of food and our symbionts, the plants and animals we eat. (shrink)

This article examines how one of the most striking differences between the central doctrines of the Catholic Church and the secular context of Swedish society, attitudes to abortion, is managed by the Swedish church hierarchy and commentators in the official newsletter of the Catholic Church of Sweden. Using Foucauldian concepts of power, the article concludes that in its marginal position, the Catholic Church in Sweden mixes the traditional pastoral and sovereign power of the church with the way pastoral power is (...) exerted in modern society, in its efforts to continue asserting its influence over the possible courses of action for pregnant women. While traditionally abortion has been a woman’s crime, in the Swedish Catholic context it becomes rather the crime of the secular society. This means also that the image of woman as being responsible for her decisions and in need of forgiveness gives way to an image of woman as a victim in need of understanding. (shrink)

Das thermische Material erscheint vor dem Hintergrund realer Kunstentwicklung und traditioneller philosophischer Ästhetik (Kant, Hegel, Warburg, Adorno) denkbar ungeeignet für die künstlerische Verwendung: Zu unerheblich mutet das expressive Potential aufgrund geringer Formbarkeit an und allzu sehr erschwert die Unmittelbarkeitswahrnehmung durch die Haut den Transfer ins Ideelle, Geistige oder Metaphorische. Die Studie zeigt hingegen, dass der Bruch mit dem Visualitätsparadigma eine Reihe von unterschiedlichen Aneignungsstrategien des Thermischen hervorgebracht und zu funktionsvariabler Verwendung im ästhetischen Gesamtzusammenhang geführt hat: illustrative, affektive, indexikalische, mythische, utopische, (...) sinnlichkeitsschulende, assoziative und kritische Funktion werden im Kunstwerk zur Geltung gebracht. Trotz der semantischen Verfügbarmachung zeigt das thermische Moment eine Widerständigkeit gegen die Intellektualisierung, was eine tiefergehende Kenntnisnahme durch die Kunstwissenschaft und Kunstkritik bisher verhindert hat. In zwei historischen Exkursen zur Romantik und zum Ästhetizismus um 1900 wird die These vertreten, dass als Voraussetzung für thermo-künstlerische Wahrnehmung ein auf Sinnlichkeit orientiertes Subjekt angenommen werden muss. Allerdings geniesst dieser Subjekttypus in der Tradition einer auf Reflexion ausgerichteten Kunstphilosophie keine besondere Wertschätzung. Insofern ist die Studie auch das Plädoyer für einen neuen Ästhetizismus. (shrink)

Research into the causes of the 2008 financial crisis has drawn attention to a link between growing income inequality in the United States and high household indebtedness. Most accounts trace the U.S. idea of credit-as-welfare to the period of wage stagnation and welfare retrenchment that began in the early 1970s. Using France as a comparison case, I argue that the link between credit and welfare was not unique to the United States. Indeed, U.S. charitable lending institutions that emerged at the (...) beginning of the twentieth century were modeled in part on older French financial institutions. Three historical factors drove U.S. lenders and policymakers to push for expanded credit access for the working class. First, welfare reformers in the interwar period embraced private credit as an alternative to an expansive welfare state. Second, U.S. organized labor in the wake of World War II embraced credit access as a means to sustain industrial employment and finance strike actions. Third, commercial banks in the 1950s began offering revolving credit accounts as a means to attract new depositors at a time when banking regulation restricted the interest they could offer on deposits. (shrink)

Recently, contextualism about epistemic modals and predicates of taste have come under fire from advocates of assessment relativistic analyses. Contextualism, they have argued, fails to account for what we call "felicitous insensitive assessments". In this paper, we provide one hitherto overlooked way in which contextualists can embrace the phenomenon by slightly modifying an assumption that has remained in the background in most of the debate over contextualism and relativism. Finally, we briefly argue that the resulting contextualist account is at least (...) as plausible as the relativist alternative and should be carefully considered before contextualism is abandoned for relativism. (shrink)