The experience of being in love involves a longing for union with the other, where an important part of this longing is sexual desire. But what is the relation between being in love and sexual desire? To answer this it must first be seen that the expression ‘in love’ normally refers to a personal relationship. This is because to be ‘in love’ is to want to be loved back. This much would be predicted by equity and social exchange theories of (...) interpersonal attraction. Findings suggest however that love differs fundamentally from liking and, consequently, distinct approaches to the theory of love have been developed. A phenomenological theory is then put forward which suggests that the experience of being in love involves a complex of desires for reciprocal vulnerability in order to care and be cared for. Sexual desire is then seen to involve the physical expression of these desires in the form of desires for mutual baring in order to caress and be caressed. Unlike love, however, sexual desire need not refer to the other person's desires. This is supported by the existence of sexual desires like fetishism. It is concluded that other desires which often appear in instances of being in love are not basic to the experience of being in love. (shrink)

Despite the importance of effective observational analysis in the technical aspects of climbing performance, limited research informs this aspect of climbing coach education. Thus, the purpose of the present research was to explore cognitive-perceptual mechanisms underpinning visual search strategies of expert and novice climbing coaches through the novel combination of eye-tracking technology and retrospective think-aloud methodology. Analysis of gaze data revealed expert climbing coaches to demonstrate fewer fixations of greater duration, and fixate on distinctly different areas of the visual display, (...) than their novice counterparts. Retrospective think-aloud interviews further demonstrated differences in the cognitive-perceptual mechanisms underpinning these visual search strategies, with expert coaches more cognisant of their visual search strategy. To expand, the gaze behaviour of expert climbing coaches was underpinned by hierarchical and complex knowledge structures relating to principles of climbing movement. This enabled expert coaches to actively focus on the most relevant aspects of a climber’s performance for analysis. Findings demonstrate the utility of combining eye tracking and retrospective think-aloud interviewing as a new, efficient methodology of capturing the cognitive-perceptual processes of climbing coaches to inform coaching education/strategies. (shrink)

What is it about having a body that might dispose us to think it a plausible candidate for the basis of personal identity? The answer seems plain: the body is a physical object which, as long as it exists, is spatio-temporally continuous throughout the different moments of its existence. In consequence, myself of today can be said to be the same person as myself of twelve years ago so far as my body of today is spatio-temporally continuous with my body (...) of twelve years ago. Exponents of this view are not, of course, denying that over time a person's body will or may undergo various changes; rather they are claiming that so long as these changes occur within a body which maintains a spatio-temporal continuity, then the identity of the person whose body it is will be ensured. (shrink)

The problem of personal identity is often said to be one of accounting for what it is that gives persons their identity over time. However, once the problem has been construed in these terms, it is plain that too much has already been assumed. For what has been assumed is just that persons do have an identity. A new interpretation of Hume's no-self theory is put forward by arguing for an eliminative rather than a reductive view of personal identity, and (...) by approaching the problem in terms of phenomenology, Buddhist psychology, and the idea of a constructed self-image. (shrink)

This book is a exploration of the notion of personal identity. Here it is shown how the various attempts to give an account of personal identity are all based on false assumptions and so inevitably run aground. One of the first Western thinkers to realize this was David Hume, the 18th century empiricist philosopher who argued that self was a fiction. A new interpretation of Hume's no-self theory is put forward by arguing for an eliminative rather than a reductive point (...) of view of personal identity, and by approaching the problem in terms of phenomenology, Buddhist critiques of the notion of the self, and the idea of a constructed self-image. No Self to Be Found explores the problem of personal identity from the most basic level by raising the question of the existence of personal identity itself. (shrink)

The Nature of Sexual Desire takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the psychology, philosophy, and anthropology of this most urgent of human desires. Examining both ancient writings and modern research, both Eastern and Western thought, the author argues that sexual desire is a continuous element in awareness and can only be understood in terms of our experience. The experience of sexual desire is explored and its relation to sexual interaction, erotic pleasure, the experience of gender, and romantic love, (...) is skilfully unravelled. Sexual desire is presented in a new light: an existential need that is continually sweeping through us, pulling us on to one of life’s highest fulfilments. (shrink)

The experience of being in love involves a longing for union with the other, where an important part of this longing is sexual desire. But what is the relation between being in love and sexual desire? To answer this it must first be seen that the expression ‘in love’ normally refers to a personal relationship. This is because to be ‘in love’ is to want to be loved back. This much would be predicted by equity and social exchange theories of (...) interpersonal attraction. Findings suggest however that love differs fundamentally from liking and, consequently, distinct approaches to the theory of love have been developed. A phenomenological theory is then put forward which suggests that the experience of being in love involves a complex of desires for reciprocal vulnerability in order to care and be cared for. Sexual desire is then seen to involve the physical expression of these desires in the form of desires for mutual baring in order to caress and be caressed. Unlike love, however, sexual desire need not refer to the other person's desires. This is supported by the existence of sexual desires like fetishism. It is concluded that other desires which often appear in instances of being in love are not basic to the experience of being in love. (shrink)

Some scholars attempt to explain sexual desire biologically by claiming that sex hormones play a necessary causal role in sexual desire. This can be claimed even if sexual desire is seen to be an experience. Yet the evidence for such biological essentialism is inadequate. With males the loss of sexual desire following hormonal changes can easily be explained in terms of social stigmas that are attached to the physiological situation. Concerning females, the relevance of sex hormones here is even more (...) unclear. Although some women seem to have fluctuations in sexual desire during hormonal changes, other women do not. Even where there are such fluctuations these can be explained by responses to other physiological changes or the meanings that are attached to the situation. Research with non-human primates supports this view of the non-essential relation of sex hormones to sexual desire. A phenomenology of sex hormones is given that shows a possible non-essential relation between sex hormones and sexual desire. Here hormone induced excitations in the genitals may or may not lead to sexual desire depending on the meaning they are given within awareness. This suggests that sexual desire has its origin in the meanings we give our biology and not in our biology itself. (shrink)

This book gives an account of the experience of sexual attraction. Despite its vital role in daily life, it is something that scholars have all but completely ignored. Various factors surrounding this experience have been studied, even in depth, but the experience itself remains an uncharted region of human life. In this book it is argued that the essence of sexual attraction is the experience of allure, namely, a sense of being helplessly drawn to the attractive person that involves a (...) sexual fantasy of intimate contact. It is argued that this allure is widespread, taking different forms in a variety of human relationships. This is because a person who is seen to be sexually attractive is fundamentally entangled in the sort of relationship we have to him or her. Consequently, the structure of allure differs according to whether it is allure felt for a stranger, a cross-sex friend, a sexual friend (or “friend with benefits”), or a romantic partner. It is concluded that allure challenges our sense of free will by forcing us to take notice of and orientate ourselves towards the sexually attractive person. -/- The book is full of concrete examples, personal accounts, analyses of literature and film, and the latest social psychological research. It is guaranteed to be an exciting read for anyone who has ever wondered about sexual attraction . (shrink)

Various scholars argue that sexual desire is socially constructed. There is, however, little agreement surrounding the nature of social constructionism. Vance contrasts social constructionism here with a cultural influence model and distinguishes between degrees of social constructionism. There are, however, problems with this classification. These problems can similarly be found with Foucault whose arguments fail to support his claim that sexual desire is a social construction. Difficulties also appear in Simon and Gagnon's scripting theory of sexual desire, a theory that (...) is commonly applauded as establishing a social constructionist account. This is because scripting theory depends entirely on theatrical metaphors. But there is much inconsistency involved in applying such metaphors to everyday life. This does not, however, imply a biological essentialist view of sexual desire must be true. For there is the further alternative that sexual desire has its origin in existential features of human awareness. Sexual desire arises simply because we are aware of both our own gender and the genders of others, and that gender phenomenologically presents itself to us as something in need of completion. This awareness is something that is fundamental to the human condition and thus has little to do with social construction. (shrink)

Phenomenalism is a philosophical theory of perception involving the idea that statements about material objects can be explained in terms of statements about actual and possible sense experiences. In this study James Giles explores the development of phenomenalism through the works of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and others. He shows how problems occur for phenomenalists precisely at the point where they abandon their empiricism. Holding to empiricism, Giles then presents his own version of phenomenalism as a metaphysical thesis (...) in which the material objects are constructed out of sense experience. He then argues that the major critiques of phenomenalism, including Wittgenstein’s private language argument and Sellars’ famous attack on the ‘myth of the given’, all fail to dislodge the basic phenomenalist insights. (shrink)

Sexuality is a basic feature of human life. Gender, sexual and romantic attraction, sexual excitement, and sexual desire and fantasies all move in various degrees through our daily awareness. However, despite this pervasiveness, there is much disagreement surrounding the nature of such things and experiences. This book explores just these issues in an attempt to get clear about this enigmatic aspect of our existence. Through a series of interrelated essays, internationally acclaimed philosopher James Giles takes the reader on (...) a fascinating journey to the depths of experiential, social, biological, and evolutionary aspects of sexual life. Presenting his arguments and ideas in a clear and easy to follow language, Giles criticizes several popular views, clearing the way for his own unique vision of human sexuality. Often controversial, always engaging, these pages will prove to be absorbing reading for anyone who has ever pondered the nature of sexuality and why it fills our lives in the way it does. (shrink)

This paper shows that a careful reading of Laozi’s The Way and Its Power enables one to come up with a metaphysics of awareness. This is done by rejecting those accounts that paint Laozi as a mystic or cosmologist and by arguing for the human-centeredness of his approach. It is shown that three central ideas in Laozi’s work can all be understood as referring to properties of awareness. These three ideas are the Way , return , and non-action . The (...) “Way” refers to awareness itself, “return” refers to the way in which awareness oscillates between activity and stillness, and “non-action” refers to how awareness expresses itself in action. This interpretation fits with the Daoist project of articulating a way of living that brings human existence into harmonious relation to the world. (shrink)

In Kise and Ngyuen’s “Adult Baby Syndrome and Gender Identity Disorder” (2011), the authors refer to their male subject as “Ms B” because he prefers to identify with being a female. But they do not refer to her as being a baby, even though the subject also prefers to identify with being a baby. This shows that although they respect the subject’s gender identity preferences, they do not respect the subject’s age identity preferences. One reason for this might be that (...) some people feel the term “adult baby syndrome” sounds a bit silly and therefore that the wishes of someone having this syndrome are not worthy of being taken seriously, not as seriously, at least, as someone who shows the more scientifically respectable gender identity disorder. A solution here might be to replace the term “adult baby syndrome” with the term “age identity disorder”, perhaps involving “age dysphoria”. This would also be more accurate because not all of those who are discussed under the heading of “adult baby syndrome” wish to be identified as babies, but rather as toddlers or older children. The problem then is that numerous people prefer to identify with being a different age. Such people do not believe they are older or younger than they really are, but neither do those with adult baby syndrome. (shrink)

Those with a keen sense of the history of ideas will have noticed that just a few years before Kierkegaard’s 200th birthday was Darwin’s 200th birthday. Those with an even keener perception will have also seen the significance of the relation between these two bi-centenaries For Kierkegaard’s writings were a reaction to Darwin or, more broadly put, to the spirit of the times of which Darwin was the pinnacle. Both Darwin and Kierkegaard lived when it was becoming obvious that the (...) claims of the Bible could not literally be true. The findings of science rendered the Christian account of creation untenable. It was during the rush to discover the mechanisms of evolution, a discovery that would ring the death knell for any objective truth in the Christian story of creation, that Kierkegaard came up with the idea that objective truth had nothing to do with Christianity. Kierkegaard thus can easily be seen as fighting a rear-guard action to salvage what was left of Christianity. For if the objective findings of science were raising questions about the objective truth of Christian beliefs, then one way to avoid answering these questions would be to argue that Christianity has nothing to do with objectivity. There is, however, a major problem with Kierkegaard’s attempt to save Christianity in this “retreat to subjectivity” fashion. For in addition to pulling the carpet out from under the evolutionists, he also pulled the carpet out from under himself. The reason for this is because, despite his claims about Christian truths existing only in subjectivity and Christianity having no existence in objectivity, it is quite clear that Kierkegaard wants various Christian claims to be objectively true and therefore for Christianity also to have an objective existence. (shrink)

After reaching the verge of obsolescence, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is once again on the increase. There remains, however, no sound theoretical basis for its use. By 1948 at least 50 different theories had been proposed to account for the workings of ECT. Today there are numerous more. Further, there is no good evidence for its therapeutic effectiveness. Although some studies show what are claimed to be positive results, others show significant amount of relapse, even with severe depression (the disorder against (...) which ECT is supposed to be most effective), while even other studies show ECT to have little more effect than a placebo. Finally, there is much evidence for ECTs damaging effects, particularly to cognitive functioning like memory, general intelligence level, and perceptual abilities, and quite possibly to brain functioning. Some studies even suggest that the alleged therapeutic effects of ECT are essentially the effects of organic brain damage. The question, then, is why, despite these problems, does ECT continue to be used? ECTs salient features suggest an answer here. These are the features of dehumanization, power, control, punishment, and others, all of which can be traced back to the fear of deviant psychotic behavior. (shrink)

This book is a critical appraisal of the distinctive modern school of thought known as French existentialism. It philosophically engages the ideas of the major French existentialists, namely, Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, Marcel, Camus, and, because of his central role in the movement, especially Sartre, in a fresh attempt to elucidate their contributions to contemporary philosophy.

For Kierkegaard, inwardness is a focusing on one’s own existence. Inwardness is therefore concerned with one’s relations to objects rather than with the objects themselves. This means that within the realm of inwardness objective truth loses importance. For here, the question of the truth of one’s beliefs will not be determined by the existence of the object of one’s belief, but rather by the way in which one holds belief about it. Consequently, says Kierkegaard, ‘as long as this relationship is (...) in truth, the individual is in truth even if he should be thus related to what is not [objectively] true’. This is the basis of his claim that subjectivity is truth. Yet for Kierkegaard, both subjectivity and objectivity can take turns at vanishing and being brought forward. Kierkegaard does not explain the way in which these two transform into one another. Yogacara Buddhism offers insight here because it gives an account of the how subjective and objective reflections can transform into each other. This is done in the three-natures theory of how the other-dependent nature functions as a basis for the transformation of the imagined nature (objectivity) and the ultimate nature (subjectivity) into each other. In the ultimate nature, emptiness and thus freedom is experienced. This parallels Kierkegaard’s idea of inwardness’ relation to freedom. (shrink)

One of the most significant figures in the history of Japanese philosophy is the Zen master Hakuin. Yet, in the West, little attempt has been made to present and evaluate his thought in a way that would make it accessible to Western philosophers. This article attempts to redress this neglect. Here, it is shown how Hakuin uses kōan meditation to create ‘the great doubt’ or scepticism concerning the self. Hakuin’s method shares elements in common with both ancient Greek scepticism and (...) Descartes. Kōan-induced scepticism leads to ‘the great death’ or a rejection of the self as a delusion. Hume’s similar rejection of the self helps to explain the basis of this delusion. The rejection of this delusion carries with it the realization that one is not separate from the rest of reality. This is the instant of seeing into one’s own nature and, for Hakuin, is the experience of nirvana. (shrink)

Kierkegaard and Freedom is a critical exploration of the ideas of Kierkegaard on the various problems surrounding the issue of human freedom. Kierkegaard's views here have been largely ignored by modern English-speaking philosophers. Through the combined efforts of eleven philosophers and scholars this book enndeavours to fill the gap by giving a clear presentation of Kierkegaard's position on such things as radical choice, autonomy, freedom and anxiety, necessity and fate, and self-deception, all the while critically assessing his contributions to one (...) of philosophy's most perplexing problems. (shrink)

The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is an enigmatic thinker whose works call out for interpretation. One of the most fascinating strands of this interpretation is in terms of Japanese thought. Kierkegaard himself knew nothing of Japanese philosophy, yet the links between his own ideas and Japanese philosophers are remarkable.. This book examines Kierkegaard in terms of Shinto, Pure Land Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, the Samurai, the famous Kyoto school of Japanese philosophers, and in terms of pivotal Japanese thinkers who were influenced (...) by Kierkegaard. (shrink)

All primates except human beings have thick coats of body hair. This suggests the primate ancestors of human beings likewise had such body hair and that, for some evolutionary reason, lost their body hair. Various theories have been put forward but none is fully adequate. This article presents the “naked love theory.” This theory locates the origin of human hairlessness in the ancestral mother—infant relationship. In this view, hairlessness is ultimately the adaptive consequence of bipedalism. Because of bipedalism, ancestral infants (...) lost their prehensile feet and thus lost the ability to grasp the mother's fur with their feet, as do other primate infants. Early bipedal mothers were thus under pressure to carry the infant. Therefore infants survived only if mothers had a strong desire to hold them. Because of the pleasure of skin-to-skin contact, the desire to hold the infant would have been stronger in mothers possessing a hairless mutation that enabled them to give birth to hairless infants. Survival of these infants would have then been greater than that of hair-covered infants. The hairlessness that began to appear in this context of maternal selection was then reinforced by sexual selection in the male—female sexual relationship. This is because a hairless sexual partner would have enabled the hairless individual to recreate the pleasure of skin-to-skin contact in the mother—infant relationship. This theory then helps to explain the evolutionary origins of romantic love. (shrink)

The ideas of mindfulness and no-self are intimately connected in Buddhist philosophy. This is because, in Buddhist Philosophy, the practice of mindfulness leads to the realization that there is no self. In contemporary mindfulness in psychology, the no-self theory has not played such a basic role. An outline of Buddhist philosophy is given showing how the ‘root delusion’ of having a self lies at the base of human suffering and how mindfulness, when appropriately deployed, enables one to free oneself from (...) this delusion and thus achieve psychological well-being. This is not to say that mindfulness based interventions do not help to alleviate suffering. Nor is it to say that people working in these areas should not use mindfulness in their own way. It is only to say that by ignoring the no-self experience, teachers and practioners are falling short of achieving what mindfulness was originally employed to achieve. (shrink)

This book explores ancient Daoist philosophy and argues against interpretations that paint the early Daoist philosophers as mystics or cosmologists. It claims that Dao is best understood as awareness and that Daoist concerns are primarily with the nature of human experience, meditation, and our relation to the world. The Dao of Awareness starts by placing Daoist philosophy within the context of ancient Chinese thought. It then proceeds by critically engaging each of the major Daoist thinkers, works, or schools: Laozi, Yang (...) Zhu, Zhuangzi, the Inward Training, Liezi, and Neo-Daoism. It concludes by pointing to ways in which Daoist thought can offer insights into contemporary Western philosophy. Throughout the book, comparisons are drawn with Western thinkers, psychological research, and Buddhist thought. The book is both a scholarly examination of Chinese and cross-cultural philosophy as well as an original work on ethics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 19, Issue 5, Page 1004-1008, September 2011.

_Beyond Solidarity_ is an impassioned argument for a sharable morality in a world increasingly fractured along lines of difference. Giles Gunn asks how human solidarity can be reconceived when its expressions have become increasingly exceptionalist and outmoded, and when the pressures of globalization divide as much as they unify. He finds the terms for answering these questions in a more inclusive, cosmopolitan pragmatism—one willing to explore fundamental values without recourse to absolutist arguments. Drawing on the work of William and (...) Henry James, John Dewey, Primo Levi, Richard Rorty, and many others, as well as postcolonial writing, Jewish literature of the Holocaust, and the cultural and religious experience of African Americans in slavery, Gunn points pragmatism in a transnational direction and shows how it can better account for the consequences of diversity. _Beyond Solidarity_, then, is a study of the difference that difference makes in a globalized world. (shrink)

Thomas Paine's words were like no others in history: they leaped off the page, inspiring readers to change their lives, their governments, their kings, and even their gods. In an age when spoken and written words were the only forms of communication, Paine's aroused men to action like no one else. The most widely read political writer of his generation, he proved to be more than a century ahead of his time, conceiving and demanding unheard-of social reforms that are now (...) integral elements of modern republican societies. Among them were government subsidies for the poor, universal housing and education, pre- and post-natal care for women, and universal social security. An Englishman who emigrated to the American colonies, he formed close friendships with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and his ideas helped shape the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. (shrink)

Disputing the Unity of the World: The Importance of Res and the Influence of Averroes in Giles of Rome's Critique of T homas Aquinas concerning the Unity of the World G. j. MCALEER 1. INTRODUCTION tILES OF ROME earned, after a decidedly difficult start, the most complete honors open to an academic religious in the Middle Ages. Joining the Hermits of St. Augustine at age 14, he became the first regent master of his order at the University of Paris (...) ; his works were made compul- sory in the education of students entering the Hermits in 1287; finally, in 1292 he became the general of the order itself.' Giles is significant, as Mandonnet puts it, because he "est incontestablement au premier rang des th~ologiens de la fin du XIII e si~cle. "2 But this is not all. Giles is also important to the period because his writings were censured by the same commission that composed the famous Parisian condemnation of 1277. As a result of this I would like to thank Robert Wielockx, Jos Decorte, Jennifer DeRose, and especially two anonymous referees of theJHP, for their extremely useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. P. Nash, "Giles of Rome," New Catholic Eneydopedia, vol. 6 , 485 9 "P. Mandonnet, O. P., "La carri6re scolaire de Gilles de Rome," Revue des sciences philosophiques et thlologiques 4 09t~ 497. [~9] 3 ~ JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 36: I JANUARY 1998 censure, Giles had to leave.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Asian PhilosophiesJames McRaeAsian Philosophies. By John M. Koller. Fourth edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2001. Pp. xxi+ 361.John M. Koller's Asian Philosophiesprovides an excellent overview of many of the major traditions of Eastern thought. It is divided into three parts, each representing a broad field of Asian philosophy: Indian Philosophy, Buddhism, and Chinese Philosophy (Japanese thought is briefly examined in a chapter on Zen Buddhism in the (...) second section). Each part begins with a historical overview that provides important contextual information for the philosophical systems it examines (a feature added since the third edition).Part 1, concerning India, gives detailed summaries of the Vedas and Upanishads, Jainism, the Bhagavad Gita, Samkhya-Yoga, Nyaya-Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta (a section expanded since the last edition), and Theism. This section also includes chapters on Islamic thought and modern Indian philosophy. Koller does not simply give a bare-bones overview of these traditions; rather, he takes great care to quote from and analyze the primary sources of the traditions examined.Part 2, on India, contains chapters that focus on Siddhartha Gautama's life and thought, the doctrine of pratitya samutpada, Sarvastivada (with new material added since the third edition), Mahayana (a new chapter), Madhyamaka and Nagarjuna (also with new material), and Yogacara. A final chapter on Zen Buddhism is included in this section, although no other schools of Japanese Buddhism are discussed.Part 3, on Chinese thought, contains chapters on Confucianism, Taoism, and Neo-Confucianism, with a final chapter that examines modern Chinese philosophy (Koller uses Wade-Giles romanization for Chinese terms throughout the text).Asian Philosophiesalso contains many helpful appendixes: maps; pronunciation guides for Sanskrit, Chinese, and Japanese terms; a brief glossary; a detailed bibliography and suggestions for further reading; and timelines for each tradition (added since the third edition).Koller's book offers a clearly written and well-organized summary of the thought of most of the major Asian traditions. It is accessible to undergraduates, but rich enough to serve as a reference for graduate students studying Asian or comparative philosophy. It would provide a clear, concise introduction to Eastern thought for upper-level undergraduate philosophy courses. However, professors interested in teaching Japanese philosophy would need to supplement the text with information on non-Zen philosophy (such as Shin and Kegon Buddhism) and on modern Japanese philosophy (such as the Kyoto School).Copyright © 2005 University of Hawai'i Press. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Asian PhilosophiesJames McRaeAsian Philosophies. By John M. Koller. Fourth edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2001. Pp. xxi+ 361.John M. Koller's Asian Philosophiesprovides an excellent overview of many of the major traditions of Eastern thought. It is divided into three parts, each representing a broad field of Asian philosophy: Indian Philosophy, Buddhism, and Chinese Philosophy (Japanese thought is briefly examined in a chapter on Zen Buddhism in the (...) second section). Each part begins with a historical overview that provides important contextual information for the philosophical systems it examines (a feature added since the third edition).Part 1, concerning India, gives detailed summaries of the Vedas and Upanishads, Jainism, the Bhagavad Gita, Samkhya-Yoga, Nyaya-Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta (a section expanded since the last edition), and Theism. This section also includes chapters on Islamic thought and modern Indian philosophy. Koller does not simply give a bare-bones overview of these traditions; rather, he takes great care to quote from and analyze the primary sources of the traditions examined.Part 2, on India, contains chapters that focus on Siddhartha Gautama's life and thought, the doctrine of pratitya samutpada, Sarvastivada (with new material added since the third edition), Mahayana (a new chapter), Madhyamaka and Nagarjuna (also with new material), and Yogacara. A final chapter on Zen Buddhism is included in this section, although no other schools of Japanese Buddhism are discussed.Part 3, on Chinese thought, contains chapters on Confucianism, Taoism, and Neo-Confucianism, with a final chapter that examines modern Chinese philosophy (Koller uses Wade-Giles romanization for Chinese terms throughout the text).Asian Philosophiesalso contains many helpful appendixes: maps; pronunciation guides for Sanskrit, Chinese, and Japanese terms; a brief glossary; a detailed bibliography and suggestions for further reading; and timelines for each tradition (added since the third edition).Koller's book offers a clearly written and well-organized summary of the thought of most of the major Asian traditions. It is accessible to undergraduates, but rich enough to serve as a reference for graduate students studying Asian or comparative philosophy. It would provide a clear, concise introduction to Eastern thought for upper-level undergraduate philosophy courses. However, professors interested in teaching Japanese philosophy would need to supplement the text with information on non-Zen philosophy (such as Shin and Kegon Buddhism) and on modern Japanese philosophy (such as the Kyoto School).Copyright © 2005 University of Hawai'i Press. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Giles of Rome on Political AuthorityGraham McAleerDabo tibi regem in furore meo“I will give you a king in my rage” 1It is a commonplace among historians of medieval political theory that two great systems of thought dominate the period. Augustine’s City of God held the field until Thomas Aquinas absorbed Aristotle’s political thought largely culled from the latter’s Politics and Nicomachean Ethics. Aquinas stands as a watershed, a (...) moment when both sources meet and a synthesis is worked out in which Augustine loses ground to Aristotle. Indeed, Augustine’s thought loses such a hold on the political theory of the age that R. A. Markus has spoken of a “comfortable obliviousness” in the minds of theorists subsequent to Aquinas that “a profound cleavage” had been wrought by Thomas in the tradition of Christian political thought. 2 Ptolemy of Lucca and Giles of Rome, both of whom were students of Thomas, are picked out by Markus as typical of those theorists who are oblivious to the definitive break that Aquinas makes with Augustine.Although modern commentators of medieval political theory speak of an Augustinian tradition after Aquinas they are only referring to a series of thinkers who defended papal authority over and above monarchical authority. This tradition is said to be Augustinian because the thinkers defending papal authority, who included Giles, James of Viterbo and Augustinus Triumphus, were members of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine. Nevertheless, these Augustinians are said to have absorbed Thomas’s Aristotelianism: convinced by his argument that since coercive power is intrinsic to political authority and since political authority is natural to the human condition, it must have been the case that coercive power existed in the state of innocence. These Augustinians, [End Page 21] modern scholarship maintains, did not then defend Augustine’s thesis that coercive political authority is unnatural to human society and was only introduced (albeit necessarily) into post-lapsarian society so that the worst excesses of our sinful condition might be controlled. Markus is by no means alone in identifying Giles as a follower of Thomas whose theory of dominium marks a radical break with Augustine. 3 Recently, J. M. Blythe has cited Markus when concurring with him that Giles simply adopts Thomas’s position which, as he puts it, “was to become ubiquitous in late medieval political discourse.” 4Perhaps this consensus has its origin in a most peculiar fact about twentieth-century scholarship on Giles’s political thought: none of it is based on a wide reading of his philosophical and theological corpus. Admittedly, an extensive reading of Giles is a daunting task. The editors-in-chief of the project to provide critical editions of Giles’s works catalogue sixty-seven titles and this vast array of writings match those of the other “greats” of the period in their scope, variety, complexity, and influence. 5 The hope of this essay is to show that a reading of Giles’s Sentences-commentary reveals him to be far more Augustinian than previously acknowledged this century.Although it is well recognized that Giles was one of the most original and influential political theorists of the Middle Ages, the pages dedicated to his political ideas amount to a few pages here and there, and sometimes as little as a few isolated comments, in the standard works on medieval political theory. 6 Moreover, these works unanimously consider only Giles’s explicitly political works. This limitation began with Otto Gierke, who single-handedly demonstrated the depth and richness of medieval political theory. At the beginning of his classic work, Political Theory of the Middle Age, Gierke provides a fifteen-page list of sources. For Thomas’s political thought Gierke directs us not only to Thomas’s explicitly political treatises such as his commentary on Aristotle’s Politics and the opusculum, De regimine principum, but also to the Summa theologiae, Summa contra gentiles, Thomas’s Disputed and Quodlibetal questions, [End Page 22] his exposition of the Psalms, and commentaries on Paul’s Letters as well as his Sentences-commentary. Yet for Giles only his De regimine principum and De potestate ecclesiastica are cited. 7 Gierke’s selection is repeated... (shrink)

James of Viterbo’s ethical writings focus mostly upon happiness and virtue. His basic approach is Aristotelian. Although he is not a Thomist in the sense that some of his contemporary Dominicans were, he frequently quotes or paraphrases Thomas while arguing for his own positions, especially in response to views defended by such figures as Giles of Rome, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Henry of Ghent. James departs from Thomas by arguing that all acquired virtue is based on an (...) ordered self-love. James’s emphasis on self-love is in turn supported by his own understanding of willing and happiness, which involves a Neoplatonic account of the ratio boni as consisting in unity. Consequently, many aspects of James’s Aristotelian moral thought are ultimately based upon an understanding of the good that has roots in Neoplatonic authors. (shrink)

Until fairly recently, psycholinguists and linguists have tended to provide an understanding of language without due concern to the situation in which it was spoken; it is as though they have largely considered context to be a static given. Such a viewpoint is rather surprising when most of us could recount instances during a day when our style of speech has changed. For instance, we are aware how often our speech becomes grammatically less complex with our children, that we tend (...) to speak more formally, enunciate more precisely with our superiors, talk more slowly for foreigners, and so forth. Indeed, the nature of the setting, the topic of discourse and the type of person to whom we are talking all interact to determine the way we speak in a particular situation. In many ways, sociolinguistics emerged as an attempt to fill this yawning gap in the language sciences and it has made a tremendous impact on psycholinguistic theory in the last decade. For example, people are now looking at language development not only with an emphasis on how children acquire rules of grammar (their linguistic competence), but also on the process which enables them to use these rules appropriately in different social situations (their communicative competence). Such thinking has also made a contribution to foreign language dearning techniques as educators seem more aware that if people are to become really skilled in another language they should not only know the grammatical rules for its use but the social ones as well. (shrink)

The theme of The Planetary Clock is the representation of time in postmodern culture and the way temporality as a global phenomenon manifests itself differently across an antipodean axis. To trace postmodernism in an expansive spatial and temporal arc, from its formal experimentation in the 1960s to environmental concerns in the twenty-first century, is to describe a richer and more complex version of this cultural phenomenon. Exploring different scales of time from a Southern Hemisphere perspective, with a special emphasis on (...) issues of Indigeneity and the Anthropocene, The Planetary Clock offers a wide-ranging, revisionist account of postmodernism, reinterpreting literature, film, music, and visual art of the post-1960 period within a planetary framework. By bringing the culture of Australia and New Zealand into dialogue with other Western narratives, it suggests how an antipodean impulse, involving the transposition of the world into different spatial and temporal dimensions, has long been an integral (if generally occluded) aspect of postmodernism. Taking its title from a Florentine clock designed in 1510 to measure worldly time alongside the rotation of the planets, The Planetary Clock ranges across well-known American postmodernists (John Barth, Toni Morrison) to more recent science fiction writers (Octavia Butler, Richard Powers), while bringing the US tradition into juxtaposition with both its English (Philip Larkin, Ian McEwan) and Australian (Les Murray, Alexis Wright) counterparts. By aligning cultural postmodernism with music (Messiaen, Ligeti, Birtwistle), the visual arts (Hockney, Blackman, Fiona Hall), and cinema (Rohmer, Haneke, Tarantino), this volume enlarges our understanding of global postmodernism for the twenty-first century. (shrink)