O presente ensaio não se entende como uma pesquisa crítico-histórica das artes liberais e do seu papel nas universidades medievais, mas antes como uma reflexão filosófica sobre a lógica intrínseca destas artes e a sua interação com a filosofia aristotélica.

Resumo O fundamentalismo é um fenômeno relativamente recente, pelo menos como posição articulada e autoconsciente. O presente artigo apresenta, de início, uma reflexão sobre o surgimento do termo fundamentalismo, em breve resgate histórico. A seguir, identifica e analisa as características principais dessa atitude, tanto na sua configuração psicológica (subjetivismo fechado), como na sua teoria epistemológica implícita (fideísmo radical, fé ou submissão a uma autoridade religiosa como fonte exclusiva ou predominante de certeza epistemológica), na sua hermenêutica (liberalismo na interpretação de escrituras) (...) e na sua maneira de priorizar um ativismo radical, na perspectiva pragmática (tendência a medidas radicais, à militância e até ao terrorismo no prosseguimento efetivo dos seus fins). Aplicando essa análise, mostra que os debates atuais entre cristãos e "neoateus" parecem frequentemente fundamentalistas, mas não apenas do lado religioso da disputa. Talvez o nome de fundamentalista possa ser reivindicado por alguns que ficariam bem surpresos pela nova titulação. A última parte do artigo discute a religião "usada" e "abusada". Palavras-chave: Ateísmo; Fundamentalismo; Filosofia da religião.Fundamentalism is a relatively recent phenomenon, at least as an articulated and self-conscious position. The present article begins by reflecting on the origin of the term fundamentalism in a brief historical review. Then the principal characteristics of this attitude are identified and analyzed, both in its psychological configuration (a closed subjectivity), as well as in its implicit epistemological theory (radical fideism, faith or submission to a religiou authority as exclusive or predominant source of epistemological certitude), its hermeneutics (literalism in the interpretation of scriptures) and its manner of prioritizing radical activisim in its pragmatic perspective (tendency to radical means, to militancy and even terrorism in the effective persecution of its ends). Applying this analysis, current debates between Christians and "neo-atheists" appear frequently fundamentalist, but not only on the religious side of the dispute. Perhaps the name fundamentalist can be claimed even by some who would be quite surprised by the new christening. The last part of the article discusses "used" and "abused" religion. Key words : Atheism; fundamentalism; philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Este artigo discute artigos fundamentais da influência de Platão e Aristóteles em Santo Tomás.

The rise of the phenomenon of virtue ethics in recent years has increased at a rapid pace. Such an explosion carries with it a number of great possibilities, as well as risks. This volume has been written to contribute a multi-faceted perspective to the current conversation about virtue. Among many other thought-provoking questions, the collection addresses the following: What are the virtues, and how are they enumerated? What are the internal problems among ethicists, and what are the objections and replies (...) to contemporary virtue ethics? Additionally, the practical implications following from the answers to these questions are discussed in new and fascinating research. Fundamental concepts such as teleology and eudaimonism are addressed from both a historical and dialectical approach. This tome will contribute not only to providing further clarity to the current horizons in virtue ethics, but also to the practical conclusion following from the study: to challenge the reader toward a greater pursuit of the virtuous life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 11.2 (2003) 157-169 [Access article in PDF] Praxis and the PossibleThoughts on the Writings of Maxine Greene and Paulo Freire Randall Everett Allsup Columbia University Authors in a recent edition of the Philosophy of Music Education Review have assayed various understandings of praxis within the domain of music learning and teaching. 1 Leadened (perhaps) by history, this six-letter word sustains a multiplicity of (...) meanings. Philosophers as disparate as Aristotle, Marx and Engels, Sartre, Marshall Sahlins, Pierre Bourdieu, and David Elliott have represented praxis as a form of cultural-doing—but in many instances, this is where the similarities end. 2 By stirring up the pot, editor Estelle Jorgensen has sought to lighten history's burden, lest the word praxis suffer ossification, territorial over-use, or (worse) over-simplification.My first encounters with the word praxis were not particularly weighty or didactic. In graduate work with Maxine Greene, I would often hear praxis associated with the arts, with possibilities, openings, or alternatives. Greene does not construct a philosophical stance around the word; rather the conditions for praxis exist within the imagination, within "the capacity to look at things as if they could be otherwise." 3 Recalling Emily Dickinson, Greene writes that "imagination lights the possible's slow fuse." 4 Praxis, I think, is not simply the capacity to imagine alternative scenarios, but is instead the slow burning fuse of possibility and action. [End Page 157] This definition connects nicely with Paulo Freire, the revolutionary pedagogue who is of late often paired with Greene. 5 "Human activity," writes Freire, "consists of action and reflection: it is praxis." 6 The result is action upon our world.I must admit that as a long time fan of Freire (and as a student and friend of Greene), I have often wondered what exactly it means to act upon one's world, to name's one's world—especially as a music educator. Can such action lead to the creation of a love song? Can we say that certain art forms like the blues, be-bop, and jam band are more praxial than others? Might an encounter with Brahms lead to potentially transformative action upon my world?Freirian praxis, for sure, is non-neutral; it occurs when we disavow the traditional separation between abstracted learning and real life. After September 11, for example, my freshman music education majors created a requiem for the missing and the dead. This was the most difficult teaching I have ever facilitated. Before beginning our composition, we listened to several movements from the Faure Requiem, particularly the "In Paradisum": "May the choir of angels receive thee, and with Lazarus, once a beggar, mayst thou have eternal rest." We tried to attain Faure's sense of peace and hope; we admired his assurance that those who were gone were at rest, at peace. And we shared stories, and talked about our feelings and our pain. 7During this time, even the ordinary became infused with meaning. Banal pop music, like Enrique Inglesia's Hero, became a tribute song for many, including myself. Suddenly full of significance and relevance, I attended more closely to the simplicity of his chords and the sotto voce color of his voice: Would you die for the one you love? Hold me in your arms tonight. I wanna be your hero... The fact that this was an ordinary love song written some time before the terrorist attacks does not negate my feelings for it. Like Faure's requiem, it brought me a degree of comfort. In addition, I found solace in the music of Aaron Copland, particularly Quiet City. The open intervals seemed to speak of piece, quietude, and space. The opening trumpet recitative was defiant, but introspective—the English horn felt dark and mournful. I wanted to be back in an earlier New York, like the one that Copland knew and loved.Of course, acting upon our world requires inaction: thinking, perceiving, reflecting, reconceptualizing, connecting. For Freire and Greene, transformational or liberatory practice cannot... (shrink)

Consider the claims that representations of physical laws are intersubjective, and that they ultimately provide the foundation for all other intersubjective knowledge. Those claims, as well as the deeper philosophical commitments that justify them, constitute rare points of agreement between the Marburg School neo-Kantians Paul Natorp and Ernst Cassirer and their positivist rival, Ernst Mach. This is surprising, since Natorp and Cassirer are both often at pains to distinguish their theories of natural scientific knowledge from positivist views like Mach’s, and (...) often from Mach’s views in particular. Thus the very fact of this agreement between the Marburg School neo-Kantians and their positivist stalking horse points to a deep current of ideas that runs beneath the whole of the post-Kantian intellectual context they shared. (shrink)

Our life in this broken world requires tools to own and express our grief in ways that are connected to our faith in God. We find that the biblical genre of lament is appropriate to the task. However, we do not come to lament without baggage, and we sometimes require additional help in the form of symbolic capital borrowed from stories and songs. In this case, The Chronicles of Narnia provide such capital. As we reflect on these stories, we can (...) see lament in a new way that helps us bring our pain to God. As we engage in the discipline of lament, we are spiritually formed into the image of Jesus. (shrink)

This book propels the study of American revolutionary and radical Thomas Paine into the twenty-first century by engaging an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars in an exploration of Paine's role in politics, literature, and the invention of the global.

This paper will examine the problem of suffering as it arises from both moral and natural evil through a Christian philosophical and theological perspective. Suffering throughout our planet is pervasive. We all experience it in one form or another. In western culture, we are bombarded, through the media with the terrible tragedies that occur in our home country and abroad. Inevitably we ask ourselves, the following question, as Professor Ramon Martinez, probes into his book, Sin and Evil, “Why does God (...) permit suffering?” In order to address the question of suffering and its relation to the God of Christianity, we must understand what suffering is and how it affects humanity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 37.1 (2004) 42-71 [Access article in PDF] Narrative as Argument in Indian Philosophy: The Astavakra Gita as Multivalent Narrative Scott R. Stroud Department of Philosophy Temple University Indian philosophy has often been described as radically different in nature than Western philosophy due to its frequent use of narrative structure. By employing poetic elements in their use of language, such texts attempt to convey deep metaphysical (...) truths and philosophical positions about reality that are in many cases quite different from Western ideas (Babbili 1997). Often, these ways of conveying truths are an integral part of that truth. One particularly useful form is narrative, taking instantiations such as a dialogue between characters. Philosophical dialogues such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Astavakra Gita (also known as the Astavakra Samhita ) use a portrayed conversation involving a guru or deity to convey didactic lessons and values to the receptive audience, both ancient and modern. As texts such as the Bhagavad Gita gain in popularity and circulation in the Western world (Minor 1982; Paine 1998; Sharpe 1985), philosophical and rhetorical inquiry must be extended to explain how these texts function in an argumentative philosophical context.Stroud (2002a, 2002b) has advanced the idea that such ancient Indian narratives argue through the use of contradictions and conflicting value structures;1 he labels such texts as multivalent narratives since their use of contradictory value structures compel audience members to reconstruct the narrative's message and allow for the acceptance of novel views. Multivalent narratives are to be distinguished from polysemic narratives (Fiske 1986) in that the latter concern different audience members finding a preferred position from the ambiguous story. Polysemic narratives involve the difference in meaning of the same story to different auditors. Condit criticizes this notion of polysemic narratives and advances her own concept of polyvalent narratives. The concept of a polyvalent narrative involves different auditors understanding the same story in similar ways, but differing in how they evaluate its message. Condit's research with a popular television [End Page 42] show and two students from radically different backgrounds on abortion finds that they understood what occurred in a very similar fashion; they differed in that they "disagree[d] about the valuation of those denotations to such a degree that they produce[d] noticeably different interpretations" (1989, 106). Thus, the auditors differ as to their response to a certain story and how it treats their own cherished values. Stroud (2002a) provides a thorough justification as to why the concepts of polysemic and polyvalent narratives do not capture what can be called multivalent narratives. The important factor in distinguishing these three concepts is that the third involves contradictions at the level of values within a text and the reader's necessitated activity of trying to synthesize or reconcile such contradictions. It is this activity that is the hallmark of multivalent narratives.This employment of multivalent narrative offers a challenge to familiar Western conceptions of argumentative discourse and demands further investigation. This study explores the ways a particular text, the Astavakra Gita, argues its philosophical positions to its audience of potential "pupils."2 Using the insights provided by theories of narrative and reader-response theory, I will argue that this text advances its claims not through overt syllogism or validity claim redemption, but through textual indeterminacy between the audience's disposition and the foregrounded theme of non-individuation in the text. This tension, increased by certain textual devices, results in consistency building by the audience, which enables the transcendence of these two viewpoints (reader and text); it is this experience, not claim, that the Astavakra Gita seems to be advancing to any given audience.In order to explore this interpretation of this text and its argumentative relationship to an audience, insights from both literary studies and rhetorical theory must be used in laying a foundation. The work of Wolfgang Iser (1980, 1989, 1993) and Walter Fisher (1987) will assume roles of particular importance in this endeavor. Iser's theory of aesthetic response provides a useful description of the phenomenological process of reading such a... (shrink)

Greater public awareness of the occurrence of sexual assault has led to the creation of mobile phone apps designed to facilitate consent between sexual partners. These apps exhibit serious practical shortcomings in realistic contexts; however, in this paper I consider the hypothetical case in which these practical shortcomings are absent. The prospect of this viable consent app creates an interesting challenge for consequentialism – one that is comparable to the objection that the theory justifies killing innocent persons to prevent large (...) numbers of less serious harms like experiencing brief, painful headaches. I outline and reject the most straightforward way for consequentialists to address this challenge, and I argue that the empirical calculations at stake reveal something rarely appreciated: consequentialists ought to sometimes favour reinforcing deontological constraints in common-sense morality rather than seeking to undermine them. (shrink)

Since March of 2020, the world has been brought to its knees by unscientific and unethical mandates. These mandates have destroyed the world economy and the lives of countless innocent individuals. The “cure” that has been offered by medical bureaucrats and politicians has been more deadly than the disease (COVID-19). The imposition of ludicrous lockdowns, mask-wearing, coerced vaccination, and vaccine passports have not only proved to be ineffective, but also much more harmful than SARS-CoV-2 and all its variants. COVID-19 has (...) a recovery rate of close to 99% for most of the world’s population, however, despite this, institutions and power-hungry individuals have trampled upon our civil liberties and ignored our inalienable human rights. It is precisely as Thomas Paine famously stated: “The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.” -/- Many lives have been gratuitously lost because of the administration of deadly medical treatments, and the rejection of effective treatments that follow genuine science. In the process, informed consent has been disparaged and desecrated. For over two years, we were instructed to “trust the science,” but the “science” advocated by medical bureaucrats and greedy politicians was the reason why the world was turned upside-down. In the face of these crimes against humanity, justice will only be brought by real courts and real judges, but this will require the awakening of a critical mass. This book serves as an instrument for this awakening. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 37.1 (2004) 42-71 [Access article in PDF] Narrative as Argument in Indian Philosophy: The Astavakra Gita as Multivalent Narrative Scott R. Stroud Department of Philosophy Temple University Indian philosophy has often been described as radically different in nature than Western philosophy due to its frequent use of narrative structure. By employing poetic elements in their use of language, such texts attempt to convey deep metaphysical (...) truths and philosophical positions about reality that are in many cases quite different from Western ideas (Babbili 1997). Often, these ways of conveying truths are an integral part of that truth. One particularly useful form is narrative, taking instantiations such as a dialogue between characters. Philosophical dialogues such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Astavakra Gita (also known as the Astavakra Samhita ) use a portrayed conversation involving a guru or deity to convey didactic lessons and values to the receptive audience, both ancient and modern. As texts such as the Bhagavad Gita gain in popularity and circulation in the Western world (Minor 1982; Paine 1998; Sharpe 1985), philosophical and rhetorical inquiry must be extended to explain how these texts function in an argumentative philosophical context.Stroud (2002a, 2002b) has advanced the idea that such ancient Indian narratives argue through the use of contradictions and conflicting value structures;1 he labels such texts as multivalent narratives since their use of contradictory value structures compel audience members to reconstruct the narrative's message and allow for the acceptance of novel views. Multivalent narratives are to be distinguished from polysemic narratives (Fiske 1986) in that the latter concern different audience members finding a preferred position from the ambiguous story. Polysemic narratives involve the difference in meaning of the same story to different auditors. Condit criticizes this notion of polysemic narratives and advances her own concept of polyvalent narratives. The concept of a polyvalent narrative involves different auditors understanding the same story in similar ways, but differing in how they evaluate its message. Condit's research with a popular television [End Page 42] show and two students from radically different backgrounds on abortion finds that they understood what occurred in a very similar fashion; they differed in that they "disagree[d] about the valuation of those denotations to such a degree that they produce[d] noticeably different interpretations" (1989, 106). Thus, the auditors differ as to their response to a certain story and how it treats their own cherished values. Stroud (2002a) provides a thorough justification as to why the concepts of polysemic and polyvalent narratives do not capture what can be called multivalent narratives. The important factor in distinguishing these three concepts is that the third involves contradictions at the level of values within a text and the reader's necessitated activity of trying to synthesize or reconcile such contradictions. It is this activity that is the hallmark of multivalent narratives.This employment of multivalent narrative offers a challenge to familiar Western conceptions of argumentative discourse and demands further investigation. This study explores the ways a particular text, the Astavakra Gita, argues its philosophical positions to its audience of potential "pupils."2 Using the insights provided by theories of narrative and reader-response theory, I will argue that this text advances its claims not through overt syllogism or validity claim redemption, but through textual indeterminacy between the audience's disposition and the foregrounded theme of non-individuation in the text. This tension, increased by certain textual devices, results in consistency building by the audience, which enables the transcendence of these two viewpoints (reader and text); it is this experience, not claim, that the Astavakra Gita seems to be advancing to any given audience.In order to explore this interpretation of this text and its argumentative relationship to an audience, insights from both literary studies and rhetorical theory must be used in laying a foundation. The work of Wolfgang Iser (1980, 1989, 1993) and Walter Fisher (1987) will assume roles of particular importance in this endeavor. Iser's theory of aesthetic response provides a useful description of the phenomenological process of reading such a... (shrink)

It is considered the right of children to have their pain managed effectively. Yet, despite extensive research findings, policy guidelines and practice standard recommendations for the optimal management of paediatric pain, clinical practices remain inadequate. Empirical evidence definitively shows that unrelieved pain in children has only harmful consequences, with no benefits. Contributing factors identified in this undermanaged pain include the significant role of nurses. Nursing attitudes and beliefs about children’s pain experiences, the relationships nurses share with children who are suffering, (...) and knowledge deficits in pain management practices are all shown to impact unresolved pain in children. In this article, a relational ethics perspective is used to explore the need for nurses to engage in authentic relationships with children who are experiencing pain, and to use evidence-based practices to manage that pain in order for this indefensible suffering of children to end. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.4 (2003) 369-372 [Access article in PDF] Unity of Agency and Volition:Some Personal Reflections Stephen Weiner The issues of unity of agency, self-as-narrative, and more generally, volition are highly personal to me. Indeed, I would say I have frequently been obsessed with them. I am 52 years old, and date the onset of my psychiatric symptoms—my long-term misery—very specifically: 11:00 pm Pacific Standard Time, August (...) 28, 1965. At almost precisely that time, I started obsessing that I was homosexual and, in fact, turning into a girl. Within days, derealization followed: for instance, the houses in my neighborhood seemed one-dimensional—they seemed as though they were painted, as though I could stick my hand or an object through them. Colors seemed less bright as well—but I hardly had words for all this at the time: it was an overwhelmingly preverbal feeling, but I found some words for it.I was also depressed, and knew I was depressed—that is, I was worried, had trouble sleeping, and had suicidal thoughts and feelings. Within weeks, I asked my parents if I could see a psychiatrist, and I did. I remember asking my psychiatrist if he ever thought about the possibility that everything might be an illusion, and he quoted the refrain from "Row, Row, Row Your Boat": "merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream." But just asking him produced a chilling feeling that he did not exist and, largely for this reason, I did not mention unreality feelings again to therapists for another 20 years.So, like Dr. Wells' patient Edward, described by James Phillips (2003), I was in trouble; like Edward, I was starting to construct a narrative. I started feeling that I had "to tell my story" at about this time—before then, I had not felt a need to do that. That may be partly because young children take life for granted (at least, I did), and it may be partly because suffering, by its very nature, demands explanation; both reasons were probably operating—certainly, both my parents told me years later that I had seemed emotionally distressed as a child, and my mother told they would have given me Ritalin if it had been available. So, to other people (my parents and my teachers) I was mentally ill in some sense, and I have some pretty clear memories of what I now recognize as depression, especially in the second and third grades; but I did not think of myself as sick and I did not think of myself as suffering—and I did not experience the duality (at least) of selves that I started to experience almost immediately in August 1965.Phillips further points out that the "future Edward" could look back in his narrative, at a later age, and reconstruct his history either as someone with a continuing mental illness, or as someone who had attained a secure, healthy adulthood and saw his experience as adolescent pain in the service of ultimate adult health and integration. I see my story, I am sorry to report, as [End Page 369] one of unremitting basic pain but with the positive dimension that I was able to go on, obtain a good education, work a good deal in my adult life, and father a child. But my narrative—and am I not, as a highly verbal person, almost constrained to think of my life as a narrative?—has been one, as Phillips (following Kleinman) realizes, of suffering. It is, above all else, an illness narrative. I find the approach of J. Melvin Woody (2003)—of privileging performing and performing arts and spatial metaphors over story—less relevant and true to myself, although I see no reason to argue with Mary's preference for such forms. It may be that the temporal discontinuities she has experienced predispose her to see herself in such terms—may, in fact, necessitate doing so. I am not exactly sure why, but it probably has to do with acting, with trying on and performing one role... (shrink)

Adversity awakens people to the value of weakness and its role in spiritual growth. Qualitative research was conducted to ascertain ways in which adversity impacts spiritual growth. Semi-structured interviews exploring the lives of 12 mature Christians examined how God worked through adversity to bring depth. Three primary categories of spiritual transformation emerged: Awareness of self, humanity, God, and God’s grace; Openness to engage tension as a catalyst of growth, in accepting and extending grace to others, and in partnering with God; (...) and Realism about the time, process, and pain involved in spiritual growth. Through crises, patterns of self-reliance fail and are exposed, awakening believers to the limits and fallenness of human life in such a way that they gain a greater appreciation for the role weakness plays in catalyzing dependence on God in everyday life leading to deeper spiritual maturity. (shrink)

From one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, a rousing defense of the role of science in our lives The latest developments in physics have the potential to radically revise our understanding of the world: its makeup, its evolution, and the fundamental forces that drive its operation. Knocking on Heaven’s Door is an exhilarating and accessible overview of these developments and an impassioned argument for the significance of science. There could be no better guide than Lisa (...) Randall. The bestselling author of Warped Passages is an expert in both particle physics (the study of the smallest objects we know of) and cosmology (the study of the largest). In Knocking on Heaven’s Door, she explores how we decide which scientific questions to study and how we go about answering them. She examines the role of risk, creativity, uncertainty, beauty, and truth in scientific thinking through provocative conversations with leading figures in other fields (such as the chef David Chang, the forecaster Nate Silver, and the screenwriter Scott Derrickson), and she explains with wit and clarity the latest ideas in physics and cosmology. Randall describes the nature and goals of the largest machine ever built: the Large Hadron Collider, the enormous particle accelerator below the border of France and Switzerland—as well as recent ideas underlying cosmology and current dark matter experiments. The most sweeping and exciting science book in years, Knocking on Heaven’s Door makes clear the biggest scientific questions we face and reveals how answering them could ultimately tell us who we are and where we came from. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 11.2 (2003) 157-169 [Access article in PDF] Praxis and the PossibleThoughts on the Writings of Maxine Greene and Paulo Freire Randall Everett Allsup Columbia University Authors in a recent edition of the Philosophy of Music Education Review have assayed various understandings of praxis within the domain of music learning and teaching. 1 Leadened (perhaps) by history, this six-letter word sustains a multiplicity of (...) meanings. Philosophers as disparate as Aristotle, Marx and Engels, Sartre, Marshall Sahlins, Pierre Bourdieu, and David Elliott have represented praxis as a form of cultural-doing—but in many instances, this is where the similarities end. 2 By stirring up the pot, editor Estelle Jorgensen has sought to lighten history's burden, lest the word praxis suffer ossification, territorial over-use, or (worse) over-simplification.My first encounters with the word praxis were not particularly weighty or didactic. In graduate work with Maxine Greene, I would often hear praxis associated with the arts, with possibilities, openings, or alternatives. Greene does not construct a philosophical stance around the word; rather the conditions for praxis exist within the imagination, within "the capacity to look at things as if they could be otherwise." 3 Recalling Emily Dickinson, Greene writes that "imagination lights the possible's slow fuse." 4 Praxis, I think, is not simply the capacity to imagine alternative scenarios, but is instead the slow burning fuse of possibility and action. [End Page 157] This definition connects nicely with Paulo Freire, the revolutionary pedagogue who is of late often paired with Greene. 5 "Human activity," writes Freire, "consists of action and reflection: it is praxis." 6 The result is action upon our world.I must admit that as a long time fan of Freire (and as a student and friend of Greene), I have often wondered what exactly it means to act upon one's world, to name's one's world—especially as a music educator. Can such action lead to the creation of a love song? Can we say that certain art forms like the blues, be-bop, and jam band are more praxial than others? Might an encounter with Brahms lead to potentially transformative action upon my world?Freirian praxis, for sure, is non-neutral; it occurs when we disavow the traditional separation between abstracted learning and real life. After September 11, for example, my freshman music education majors created a requiem for the missing and the dead. This was the most difficult teaching I have ever facilitated. Before beginning our composition, we listened to several movements from the Faure Requiem, particularly the "In Paradisum": "May the choir of angels receive thee, and with Lazarus, once a beggar, mayst thou have eternal rest." We tried to attain Faure's sense of peace and hope; we admired his assurance that those who were gone were at rest, at peace. And we shared stories, and talked about our feelings and our pain. 7During this time, even the ordinary became infused with meaning. Banal pop music, like Enrique Inglesia's Hero, became a tribute song for many, including myself. Suddenly full of significance and relevance, I attended more closely to the simplicity of his chords and the sotto voce color of his voice: Would you die for the one you love? Hold me in your arms tonight. I wanna be your hero... The fact that this was an ordinary love song written some time before the terrorist attacks does not negate my feelings for it. Like Faure's requiem, it brought me a degree of comfort. In addition, I found solace in the music of Aaron Copland, particularly Quiet City. The open intervals seemed to speak of piece, quietude, and space. The opening trumpet recitative was defiant, but introspective—the English horn felt dark and mournful. I wanted to be back in an earlier New York, like the one that Copland knew and loved.Of course, acting upon our world requires inaction: thinking, perceiving, reflecting, reconceptualizing, connecting. For Freire and Greene, transformational or liberatory practice cannot... (shrink)

Moral injury emerged in the healthcare discussion quite recently because of the difficulties and challenges healthcare workers and healthcare systems face in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moral injury involves a deep emotional wound and is unique to those who bear witness to intense human suffering and cruelty. This article aims to synthesise the very limited evidence from empirical studies on moral injury and to discuss a better understanding of the concept of moral injury, its importance in the healthcare (...) context and its relation to the well-known concept of moral distress. A scoping literature review design was used to support the discussion. Systematic literature searches conducted in April 2020 in two electronic databases, PubMed/Medline and PsychInfo, produced 2044 hits but only a handful of empirical papers, from which seven well-focused articles were identified. The concept of moral injury was considered under other concepts as well such as stress of conscience, regrets for ethical situation, moral distress and ethical suffering, guilt without fault, and existential suffering with inflicting pain. Nurses had witnessed these difficult ethical situations when faced with unnecessary patient suffering and a feeling of not doing enough. Some cases of moral distress may turn into moral residue and end in moral injury with time, and in certain circumstances and contexts. The association between these concepts needs further investigation and confirmation through empirical studies; in particular, where to draw the line as to when moral distress turns into moral injury, leading to severe consequences. Given the very limited research on moral injury, discussion of moral injury in the context of the duty to care, for example, in this pandemic settings and similar situations warrants some consideration. (shrink)

This chapter aims to illuminate ways in which hope was significant in the philosophy of classical Greece. Although ancient Greek philosophies contain few dedicated and systematic expositions on the nature of hope, they nevertheless include important remarks relating hope to the good life, to reason and deliberation, and to psychological phenomena such as memory, imagination, fear, motivation, and pleasure. After an introductory discussion of Hesiod and Heraclitus, the chapter focuses on Plato and Aristotle. Consideration is given both to Plato’s direct (...) comments on hope and to the narrative contexts of his dialogues, with analysis of Plato’s positive and negative representations of hope, hope’s relationship to reason, and Plato’s more psychological approach in the Philebus, where hope finds a place among memory, recollection, pleasure, and pain. The chapter then reviews Aristotle’s discussions of confidence, hope, and courage, observing that although Aristotle does not mention hope as a virtue, he does note its importance to human agency and deliberation and as a foundation for the further development of virtue. The chapter concludes that discussions surrounding hope in ancient Greek philosophy are rich and challenging and can serve as a lively stimulus to further exploration of the concept of hope. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Coherence of a Mind: John Locke and the Law of Nature*Alex Tucknessit is almost thirty years since John Dunn’s book, The Political Thought of John Locke, argued that a more coherent understanding of Locke was possible if his religious beliefs were taken to play a crucial role in his political theory.1 Since that time many scholars have expanded our historical knowledge of the role of religion in Locke’s (...) political thought.2 This article will not use a historical methodology, but will rather take the claim that religion is crucial to Locke’s thought as a starting point. When one combines this assumption with a careful reading of the Two Treatises of Government (Two Treatises), The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in Scripture (The Reasonableness), and the Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Essay), significant progress in resolving many of the long-standing difficulties in Locke’s theory of natural law is possible.The difficulties are indeed serious. Prior to Locke there was a long standing theological debate about whether the laws of nature were binding because they were the command of God (voluntarism) or binding because of their intrinsic compatibility with reason (“rationalism” or “intellectualism”). There has been much dispute about whether Locke was consistently a voluntarist or not.3 Second, Locke argues in the Essay that the principles of morality are [End Page 73] capable of proof just like principles of geometry, yet Locke never produced a proof of the law of nature. In the Second Treatise the laws of nature are more asserted than defended, as if they were self-evident, yet in The Reasonableness Locke says that it is exceedingly difficult to discover the moral law through reason alone and says that no one has ever discovered the complete law of nature through unaided reason. It appears that Locke “… went on believing the arguments of the Second Treatise were plainly true even after he knew he could not properly ground them in natural law….”4Third, Straussians have been quick to point out that Locke adopted a hedonistic theory of human motivation and of good and evil, a position which seems to sit poorly with a Christian theory of natural law. Locke claimed that men5 were motivated to obey the law of nature by their perception of future pleasure or pain and that divine sanctions in the next life were necessary for the law of nature to be a proper law, yet later in life Locke admitted his inability to prove the existence of an afterlife.6 Fourth, the account of moral knowledge in the Essay seems to sit poorly with Locke’s account of natural law in the Two Treatises; his commitment in the latter to empiricism is questionable and the law of nature is presented with little argument as if it were obvious. Laslett has argued that the difficulties are so severe that Locke the philosopher of knowledge and Locke the political thinker should be kept very separate.7 This article will respond to each of these difficulties in order to show that Locke’s theory of natural law is more coherent than his critics have allowed.1. the ground of natural law: rationalism and voluntarismThe early Essays on the Law of Nature of Locke link morality to conformity with the rule of a superior; it is the will of God which provides the essential binding force of the law of nature. (ELN 183–185)8 In the Essay Concerning Human [End Page 74] Understanding, this theme continues. “I grant the existence of God, is so many ways manifest, and the Obedience we owe him, so congruous to the Light of Reason, that a great part of Mankind give Testimony to the Law of Nature”: But nonetheless many affirm these principles not “admitting the true ground of Morality; which can only be the Will and Law of a God, who sees Men in the dark, has in his Hand Rewards and Punishments, and Power enough to call to account the Proudest Offender” (Essay 1.3.6).There are, however, passages which seem to point to a more rationalist account of morality. When Locke writes in the Two Treatises that... (shrink)

This article interrogates postmodern and Levinasian conceptions of ethics with recourse to Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and certain psychoanalytical concepts formulated in Jacques Lacan's Ethics of Psychoanalysis. Since Levinas, ethical thinking has, in some quarters, moved away from conventional questions about moral agency, rights and social justice, on to a concern towards the ultimate unknowability of `the other'. Ethics depends, for Levinas, on an unpredictable, accidental encounter with something Other, that, in its singularity, demands a response; it is precisely the (...) contingency of the encounter that constitutes the ethical difference from the realm of morality and law. Tarantino's movie narratives are also structured around accidents, disclosing the pain and jouissance of accidental expenditures that lie at the heart of any relation to the Other. In the midst of trauma, the Thing emerges, around which goods and signification circulate, that both delimits the identification of the Good and marks a space beyond moral law that becomes the site of radical ethical questioning. (shrink)

Wishful thinking and self-deception are instances of motivated believing. According to an influential view, the motivated believer is moved by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain; i.e. the motive of the motivated believer is strictly hedonic--typically, the reduction of anxiety. This anxiety reduction account would, however, appear to face a serious challenge: cases of unwelcome motivated believing [Barnes (1997) Seeing through self-deception, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Scott-Kakures (2000) Motivated believing: wishful and unwelcome, Nous, 34, 348-375] or (...) "twisted" self-deception [Mele (1999) Twisted self-deception, Philosophical Psychology, 12, 117-137]. Annette Barnes (1997) has recently argued that the anxiety reduction account can, in fact, handle such cases. I show that the anxiety reduction account cannot explain cases of unwelcome believing. Neither precipitous unwelcome believing nor the intensive and recurrent testing of unwelcome hypotheses characteristic of cases of self-deception can be explained by such a view. We have reason, then, to reject the notion that the motivated believer is moved by strictly hedonic interests. (shrink)

The chapter explores the sufferingSufferingassociated with MAIDMedical Assistance in Dying (MAID) giving special attention to assessmentAssessment and the psychological responses elicited in caregivers highlighting the need for all MAIDMedical Assistance in Dying (MAID) enquiries to activate a period of intense assessmentAssessment and the provision of detailed treatment alternatives. This chapter calls for a renewed commitment to compassionCompassion (‘sufferingSuffering together with’) as the communal dynamic to relieve and assuage such sufferingSuffering. Using the four domains of ‘total pain’ (Saunders in The management (...) of terminal malignant disease. Edward Arnold, London, UK, 1978), we summarize the evidence for the multiple opportunities available to ‘relieve often and comfort always.’ Finally, we review evidence on the impactImpactof MAIDMedical Assistance in Dying (MAID) suggesting that the overall burden of sufferingSuffering in Canada has increased since legalization. (shrink)

Illusions play a central part in Epicurean philosophy. One of its fundamental assumptions is that men are the victims of a certain grand illusion and, as long as they remain so, can never aspire to a happy life. This is the illusion that pleasures can be increased in intensity without limit. It is as a result of this that men go to enormous lengths to enlarge their capacity to procure more pleasure, struggling in pursuit of goals that can rarely, if (...) ever, be achieved. But here mankind has made a disastrous mistake: the limit of pleasure is reached with the removal of pain, and after that point it cannot be increased, only varied. The illusion has therefore led to a tragic state of affairs, a sad history of fruitless war, struggle and ambition and it is a vital part of Epicurus’ programme to rid men of this evil by teaching them the true limits of pleasure. (shrink)

Current treatments for chronic pain have limited benefit. We describe a resilience intervention for individuals with chronic pain which is based on a model of viewing chronic pain as dysregulated homeostasis and which seeks to restore homeostatic self-regulation using strategies exemplified by survivors of extreme environments. The intervention is expected to have broad effects on well-being and positive emotional health, to improve cognitive functions, and to reduce pain symptoms thus helping to transform the suffering of pain into self-growth. A total (...) of 88 Veterans completed the pre-assessment and were randomly assigned to either the treatment intervention or control. Fifty-eight Veterans completed pre- and post-testing. The intervention covered resilience strengths organized into four modules: engagement, social relatedness, transformation of pain and building a good life. A broad set of standardized, well validated measures were used to assess three domains of functioning: health and well-being, symptoms, and cognitive functions. Two-way Analysis of Variance was used to detect group and time differences. Broadly, results indicated significant intervention and time effects across multiple domains: Pain decreased in present severity [F = 5.02, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.08], total pain over six domains [F = 14.52, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.21], and pain interference [F = 6.82, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.11]; Affect improved in pain-related negative affect [F = 7.44, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.12], fear [F = 7.70, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.12], and distress [F = 10.87, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.16]; Well-being increased in pain mobility [F = 5.45, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.09], vitality [F = 4.54, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.07], and emotional well-being [F = 5.53, p < 0.05, η2p = 0.09] Mental health symptoms and the cognitive functioning domain did not reveal significant effects. This resilience intervention based on homeostatic self-regulation and survival strategies of survivors of extreme external environments may provide additional sociopsychobiological tools for treating individuals with chronic pain that may extend beyond treating pain symptoms to improving emotional well-being and self-growth.Clinical Trial Registration: Registered with ClinicalTrials.gov. (shrink)

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

Alienation and Connection addresses social constructs that perpetuate alienation through suffering. The contributors discuss how alienation through suffering in a variety of contexts can be transformed into connection and reconnection: human relationship with the environment, economic and social systems that disconnect and reconnect, cultural constructs that divide or can heal, encountered difference that brings opportunity, and various manifestations of personal pain that can be survived and even overcome.

The contemporary moment in rhetoric studies is complex, marked by a number of powerful currents pulling scholarship in new directions. One of those currents is the deepening engagement with science and technology studies through rhetorical investigations of medicine, environmental policy, and science. Another is the increasing experimentation with qualitative methodologies, often called “rhetorical ethnography.” A third is the rapidly developing encounter with interwoven philosophies of speculative realism, object-oriented ontology, and new materialism. If you are interested in any of these, you (...) should absolutely read Scott Graham’s The Politics of Pain Medicine. The title is overly... (shrink)

When a person in pain seeks medical attention, but his doctors cannot help him, a quest begins for alternative treatment, with its attendant imperative to identify the difference between genuine solace and snake oil. This is the task undertaken by Scott Waterman, and the situation faced by millions of people in chronic pain for whom conventional medicine proves ineffective, and who likewise then embark on a desperate search for comfort.Alternative treatments sit on a spectrum of empirical plausibility, from some (...) like hypnosis or mindfulness with demonstrable mechanisms of action in the brain and nervous system to others like Reiki and craniosacral therapy that purport to channel mysterious energy fields beyond the... (shrink)

Scott Yenor argues that David Hume's reputation as a skeptic is greatly exaggerated. In David Hume's Humanity, Yenor shows how Hume's skepticism is a moment leading Hume to defend a philosophy that is grounded in the inescapable assumptions of common life. Humane virtues reflect the proper reaction to the complex mixture of human faculties that define the human condition. These gentle virtues best find their home in the modern commercial republic, of which England is the leading example. Hume's defense (...) of both common life philosophy and humanity are, however, flawed by his secretly dogmatic assumptions about the nature of history and his Enlightened approach to religious teachings and psychology. This study makes the case for Hume's manner of grounding philosophy in common life is essential to any reinvigoration of the humanities. It ultimately holds that Hume's practice of that philosophy is seriously flawed, but that a more philosophic philosophy of common life is available. (shrink)

Looking back, the moral panic that precipitated the decimation of horror comics in the 1950s seems quaint, yet concerns about the psychological impact of violent media on consumers have never disappeared. In this article, I outline a particular type of psychological impact we ought to take seriously when evaluating the moral status of entertainment. I then consider (a) ways in which comics seem immune from claims that they create this kind of impact for their readers, as well as (b) ways (...) in which we might think that comics generate special instances of moral danger for readers. (shrink)

The central question for this book is whether schools should attempt to cultivate patriotism, and if so why, how, and with what conception of patriotism in mind. The promotion of patriotism has figured prominently in the history of public schooling in the United States, always with the idea that patriotism is both an inherently admirable attribute and an essential motivational basis for good citizenship. It has been assumed, in short, that patriotism is a virtue in its own right and that (...) it is a foundational aspect of civic virtue more generally. Through an integrated historical and philosophical approach, this book demonstrates that there have been many and diverse attempts to cultivate patriotism in public schools in the United States and that they have been predicated on different conceptions of patriotism, citizenship, and learning. In order to assess these assumptions and evaluate the various practices of patriotic education, we address the nature of virtue and the motivational foundations of civic responsibility, and we frame a general approach to the ethics of education. We find that the history of attempts to cultivate patriotism in schools offers both cautionary and positive lessons. We argue that there is a virtuous form of patriotism and that an inclusive and enabling just school community may contribute to its development. Yet, we conclude that patriotism is not a virtue as such. We argue that civic virtue is what schools should aim to cultivate, and that civic education should be organized around three components of civic virtue, namely civic intelligence, civic friendship, and civic competence. We hold that virtuous patriotism is an appropriate responsiveness to a country’s value, and that such responsiveness is part and parcel of civic virtue that is also responsive to what has value beyond one’s own country. The book concludes with a defense of global civic education, arguing that it should promote global civic friendship and cooperation. The book situates its understanding of patriotism in the context of nationalist, populist, and authoritarian movements in the United States and Europe, and it mounts a spirited defense of democratic institutions that should be of interest to anyone concerned about the polarization of public life and future of democracy. (shrink)

Through network diagrams and sustained narrative, sociologist Randall Collins traces the development of philosophical thought from ancient Greece to modern ...