Ong and Derrida are concerned with presence—for Ong the presence of the other; for Derrida the presence of the signified. These seemingly disparate epistemological meanings of ‘presence’ actually share some striking similarities, but differ about how reason should be figured, that is, what metaphors should be used to conceptualize reason. This disagreement is fundamentally about what Ong called ‘analogues for intellect.’ After describing the history of Ong's and Derrida's concept of presence, we indicate how the ethical and religious implications Ong (...) and Derrida draw from ‘presence’ proceed logically from the analogues for intellect that each assumes. We will conclude, first, that these implications reveal a conflict of traditions—philosophy and rhetoric—but we also indicate how Ong's own rhetoric may permit dialogue between traditions. (shrink)

Norms have a strong influence on human social interactions, but the emotions and actions associated with norm-breaking events have not been systematically studied. We asked subjects to imagine themselves in a conflict situation and then to report how they would feel, how they would act, and how they would imagine the feelings and actions of their opponent. By altering the fictional scenario that they were asked to imagine (weak vs. strong norm) and the perspective of the subject (norm-breaker vs. the (...) one whose norm has been violated), the emotions and actions associated with norm-breaking events could be examined. We tested the following hypotheses: (1) norms create emotional asymmetries that resolve conflicts in otherwise symmetrical contest situations; (2) sex differences exist in response to norm-breaking events, with males more prone to violence than females; (3) individual differences exist in response to norm-breaking events, along the lines predicted by theoretical models; and (4) emotions and actions attributed to one’s opponent are distorted in ways that can be interpreted as adaptive for the believer. In addition to these basic hypotheses, we address more subtle issues concerning the particular emotions provoked by norm-breaking events, the degree to which emotional response is fine-tuned to the situation, and the degree to which emotional response correlates with anticipated behavioral response. We discuss the relevance of our study to the general study of emotions and the use of fictional scenarios as a research method in addition to the study of norms from an evolutionary perspective. (shrink)

Ong and Derrida are concerned with presence—for Ong the presence of the other; for Derrida the presence of the signified. These seemingly disparate epistemological meanings of 'presence' actually share some striking similarities, but differ about how reason should be figured, that is, what metaphors should be used to conceptualize reason. This disagreement is fundamentally about what Ong called 'analogues for intellect.' After describing the history of Ong's and Derrida's concept of presence, we indicate how the ethical and religious implications Ong (...) and Derrida draw from 'presence' proceed logically from the analogues for intellect that each assumes. We will conclude, first, that these implications reveal a conflict of traditions—philosophy and rhetoric—but we also indicate how Ong's own rhetoric may permit dialogue between traditions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Locke, Literary Criticism, and PhilosophyDavid GormanLocke, Literary Criticism, and Philosophy, by William Walker; xviii & 227 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, $54.95.Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding is one of those large, difficult, canonical works that are cited a great deal more often than they are read. In the case of the Essay this syndrome has resulted in historical mythmaking which, while rightfully monumentalizing Locke’s book, has done (...) so at the expense of its actual or potential significance. Walker’s study is aimed at destroying the myths about the Essay while rethinking its significance, through a carefully rhetorical reading of its text.Rhetoric is, of course, one of the things which Locke—along with Bacon and Descartes—is held to have rejected from philosophical discourse. This image of Locke as a proponent of commonsensical empiricism and an opponent of rhetorically-oriented speculation is one of the mainstays of intellectual history—of several distinct histories, in fact: philosophical, literary, and linguistic. But, Walker argues, it is also a mythic image. He further holds that an attentive, unprejudiced reading of the Essay will illustrate this claim by showing the work to be imagistic through and through. The Locke who emerges from this [End Page 250] rereading is not the sworn enemy of those literary effects to which language lends itself, one who has proven convenient to the formulation of neat defenses of poetry (including rhetoric) against simple-minded epistemologues. Walker’s suggestion is that this Locke, not having existed, had to be invented. The Locke of the Essay as Walker rereads it is, instead, a thinker about mind, language, and their intertwined effects who stands much closer to Nietzsche than anyone might have thought previously. And this Locke is anything but the naive philosophical butt simply awaiting a sophisticated (meaning, linguistically-oriented) deconstruction of the kind associated with Nietzsche.As might be expected from this summary, the spirit of Paul de Man hovers over Walker’s project. But this is deconstruction with a difference (and what other kind is worthwhile?). On the one hand, Walker’s whole analysis follows the mandate laid down in de Man’s celebrated essay on “The Epistemology of Metaphor” (1978), which is to ignore the commonplaces of intellectual history about Locke and to look at the text of the Essay with an eye to what happens there (the relevant passage in de Man is quoted on p. 133). On the other hand, however, the result of following out de Man’s suggestion has been Walker’s discovery and demonstration of severe problems in de Man’s own treatment of Locke and his Essay, a treatment that depends for its effect very strongly on the kind of mythmaking that casts Locke and Nietzsche as antagonists, and more specifically Locke as the problem for which Nietzsche proves the diagnosis.Walker is in fact quite harsh on de Man in places. Thankfully, however, the relevant chapters of his book do more than provide a litany of “de Man’s flagrant violations of fact and reason” (p. 154)—though this is no bad place to start in reconsidering de Man’s analyses, which have all too easily acquired the status of received wisdom. The exemplary achievement of Walker’s book, aside from its careful scrutiny of Locke’s writing, is to have suggested criteria against which deconstructive readings can be judged (a task that deconstructors themselves have been inclined to shirk). After all this, what remains, meanwhile, of the Essay? “I find the Essay to be complicated...,” Walker asserts, modestly but pregnantly (p. xv). Another claim that his study enforces against de Manian orthodoxy is that literary and intellectual history is indeed still possible, not despite but precisely because of close linguistic analysis: the change that rhetorical reading brings to historical study is to show that literary history is more complicated than is often supposed.David GormanNorthern Illinois UniversityCopyright © 1996 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The American Philosopher: Conversations with Quine, Davidson, Putnam, Nozick, Danto, Rorty, Cavell, MacIntyre, and KuhnDavid GormanThe American Philosopher: Conversations with Quine, Davidson, Putnam, Nozick, Danto, Rorty, Cavell, MacIntyre, and Kuhn, by Giovanna Borradori; translated by Rosanna Crocitto; xii & 177pp. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, $32.00 cloth, $12.95 paper.The idea for this book, first published in Italian in 1991, was good—to assemble a collection of interviews with (...) the key figures in American philosophy. And the list of philosophers whom Giovanna Borradori chose as representing the best in contemporary American thought was very good—as becomes especially clear when in her introduction she mentions the ones who, for whatever reason, got away: Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor, Nelson Goodman, Saul Kripke, John Rawls, and John Searle (p. 5). Add these names to those of the philosophers whom she was able to interview for this volume, and you have an impressively complete roster of the thinkers who have made the postwar era in the United States arguably one of the great periods of philosophy.Unfortunately, the execution of the book does not fulfill the promise of its conception. And perhaps nothing could have; the fact remains, however, that Borradori proves herself singularly ill-equipped, in terms both of background knowledge and of intellectual orientation, to bring out very much of importance in these important philosophers’ ideas, either in the interviews that she conducts with them or in the prefatory material that she supplies to bind the collection together.The essence of Borradori’s problem is that she approaches these professional academic philosophers with the incongruous assumption that they are [End Page 388] people with interesting general ideas about history, society, art, religion, or whatever—she assumes in short that these professors are intellectuals. But that is scarcely a term that describes your typical American philosopher. Nor do I mean this condescendingly: on the contrary, just what is significant and valuable about contemporary philosophers in the analytic mold (as almost all of Borradori’s interviewees are) is the narrowness of their focus on problems and methods of logic and the natural sciences, the two Archimedean levers by which analytic philosophy has come far closer than anyone could have predicted to moving the conceptual universe decisively.Of course, not everyone views matters this way, and Richard Rorty in particular has made a spectacular career out of disputing this image—largely a self-congratulatory one, as he takes it—of the analytic tradition. Whether his dissent is justified or not, his role in the collection constitutes another of its problems, because he is not just one of the group of thinkers whom Borradori is interviewing: beyond this, it is Rorty’s ideas which supply Borradori with an intellectual program (in default of one of her own), which necessarily distorts her presentation of the other philosophers’ thoughts, and her line of questioning in these interviews. So, for example, all the interviewees are subjected to questions about American Pragmatism generally and John Dewey in particular, not because these things are of any inherent significance to most of them (as several of them point out, politely), but because Rorty thinks that they should be, and because Borradori follows his line unquestioningly. Thus most of the conversations recorded here are at cross-purposes to start with.Borradori provides brief introductions for each interview, betraying little familiarity with the work of the philosophers, particularly when the work involved is at all technical, or more than about ten years old. Except to summarize these summaries her general introduction for the volume does no more than to indulge in the kind of military and cartographic metaphors made tiresomely familiar by such recent European thinkers as Foucault. Little seems to have been lost in the retranslation of this volume from the Italian, except that the historian of science George Sarton has somehow become “Georges Sardon” (p. 31).David GormanNorthern Illinois UniversityCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public LifeDavid GormanPoetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life, by Martha C. Nussbaum; xii & 143 pp. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995, $20.00.This volume, a revision of lectures given in 1991, is a philosophical study comparing aspects of law and literature. The law in question is contemporary American case law (hence the reference to “Public Life” in the book’s subtitle). The literature (...) to which it is juxtaposed consists primarily of “realist social novels” (p. 87), represented chiefly by Dickens’s Hard Times, though with some attention also given to E. M. Forster’s Maurice, Richard Wright’s Native Son, and to passages from Whitman’s poetry (quoted, characteristically, at some length). Nussbaum’s thesis is that both this kind of legal discourse and this kind—or kinds—of literary discourse constitute, involve, or otherwise rely upon an imaginative vision of human life and its possibilities. Thus lawyers have a great deal to learn from literature, insofar as contact with the capacious imaginations of a Dickens or a Whitman can only enlarge the sensibilities of those who read them in a sufficiently open-minded, reflective way.It may be both too kind and overly reductive to ascribe to Poetic Justice such a thing as a thesis. On the contrary, this compact book, like all of Nussbaum’s writings, teems with theories and theses. This is the main reason, I suppose, for the dichotomy of responses to Nussbaum: some find this pullulating quality of her work exhilarating, while others just find it annoying. One advantage that I think both parties will recognize in the compactness of Poetic Justice (due to the constraints of the lecture format) is that it inhibits the author’s native prolixity, which makes her previous books—The Fragility of Goodness (1986), Love’s Knowledge (1990), and The Therapy of Desire (1994)—something of an effort even for Nussbaum’s biggest fans to stay with through every last qualification, tertiary argument, and cross-reference. [End Page 196]The opening pages of these lectures seem, if anything, all too simple. Nussbaum’s initial target is the economistic, deterministic school of social analysis associated with the University of Chicago generally and with Richard Posner in particular, which has lately exercised a disproportionate influence in American jurisprudence and—especially during the Reagan-Bush era—in public policymaking. Against this kind of thinking, which attempts to treat human beings and their actions and decisions as much as possible in terms of quantifiable, statistical measures, Nussbaum emphasizes the autonomy, the irreducible singularity of each human being and the qualitative aspects of each person’s experience, which is the kind of cautionary lesson that she sees literary works as driving home—hence their value as a counterweight, or even a vaccine, against reductive economism. Thus readers will tend to assume from the first lecture (“The Literary Imagination”) that what they are in for, pretty much, is something like Bob Cratchit’s comeback to Ebenezer Scrooge. The Dickensian comparison is not fortuitous, of course, because although the text of reference is Hard Times and not A Christmas Carol, the moral antithesis is familiar enough: a coldly, blindly all-embracing utilitarianism versus a warm, empathetic humanism.Yet, as Nussbaum develops her account, things are not so simple. What emerges is that her aim is not simply to mount an attack on the economic-determinist approach to analyzing (and thus judging) human behavior, but in the first place to understand it, to get inside this worldview. This empathetic response to Chicago-style social analysis, in turn, weaves itself into the texture of Nussbaum’s book in two ways. For one thing, it supports her call to treat literature as making a potentially significant contribution to public life, since what better path can there be to understanding neo-utilitarians like Posner than via imaginative portrayals of such paleo-utilitarians as Mr. Gradgrind? For another thing, moreover, the very gesture of trying to empathize with economic determinism rather than trying to bury it serves the purpose of showing up the latter’s limitations, because this kind of other-directed response is just what the utilitarian approach is least... (shrink)

David GormanNorthern Illinois UniversityThe official topic of Steve Fuller’s editorial is aphorisms, but I think that it is early days in his thinking about this interesting genre. He mentions them...

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic prompted the need for a teleneuropsychology protocol for the cognitive assessment of older adults, who are at increased risk for both COVID-19 and dementia. Prior recommendations for teleneuropsychological assessment did not consider many of the unique challenges posed by COVID-19. The field is still in need of clear guidelines and standards of care for the assessment of older adults under the current circumstances. Advantages of teleneuropsychological assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic include reduced risk of contracting (...) the virus, eliminating travel time and reducing cost, and more rapid access to needed services. Challenges include disparities in technology access among patients, reduced control over the testing environment, impeded ability to make behavioral observations, and limited research on valid and reliable cognitive assessment measures. The aim of this perspective review is to propose a teleneuropsychological protocol to facilitate neuropsychological assessment utilizing a virtual platform. The proposed protocol has been successful with our clinical and research populations and may help neuropsychologists implement teleneuropsychology services without compromising validity or reliability. However, there is increasing need for research on teleneuropsychological assessment options for both clinical and research purposes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle’s Phantasia in the Rhetoric:Lexis, Appearance, and the Epideictic Function of DiscourseNed O’GormanIntroductionThe well-known opening line of Aristotle's Rhetoric, where he defines rhetoric as a "counterpart" (antistrophos) to dialectic, has spurred many conversations on Aristotelian rhetoric and motivated the widespread interpretation of Aristotle's theory of civic discourse as heavily rationalistic. This study starts from a statement in the Rhetoric less discussed, yet still important, that suggests that a visual (...) aspect inheres in Aristotle's theory of rhetoric. Near the beginning of book 3, which deals with lexis (style, sometimes subsuming delivery1 ), Aristotle conjoins lexis and phantasia with the copula "is" (eimi): "The subject of expression [lexeôs], however, has some small necessary place in all teaching; for to speak in one way rather than another does make some difference in regard to clarity, though not a great difference; but all these things are forms of outward show [phantasia] and intended to affect the audience" (1404a).2 Whereas scholars exploring the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic have compared and contrasted the Rhetoric and the Topics, I explore rhetoric's relationship with phantasia by reading the Rhetoric alongside De Anima. De Anima is Aristotle's seminal account of the senses and their relationship to psychê (often translated "soul"). It addresses topics intimately connected to rhetoric: perception, cognition, deliberation, visualization, imagination, and the image. Phantasia is integral to each of these psychic processes and to Aristotle's understanding of the function of appearance in human experience. Hence, itis a lens suitable for exploring the relationship between Aristotle's conception of civic discourse and his notions of sight and appearances as they relate to perception, interpretation, deliberation, and judgment. I find in Aristotle's phantasia a tie between his art of rhetoric and his psychology and phenomenology (anachronistic though these terms are). Aristotle's psychological works, as Richard McKeon points out, are foundational to Aristotle's philosophy, and thus to his Rhetoric. [End Page 16] "Psychological inquiries occupy an extremely important position in the philosophy of Aristotle, for the conception of the psychê lays the foundation for the continuity of functions in nature" (1947, 142). De Anima, especially, articulates the psychological and phenomenological conceptions often tacitly at work in the Rhetoric.The importance of phantasia for the trajectory of ancient rhetorical and aesthetic theory is seen in the parallels between the visual arts, rhetoric, and poetics in Greek and Roman thought.3 As David Freedberg states (perhaps, slightly overstates), parallels between painting and poetry are "to be found everywhere in classical literature" (1989, 50). With respect to such visual-verbal parallels in Aristotle, D. Thomas Benediktson's reading of Aristotle's psychological, poetic, and rhetorical works concludes that phantasia ties together the visual and the literary. "[Aristotle's passages on phantasia] do help to see why Aristotle took for granted the similarity, almost the identity, of literature and the visual arts. Both types of art are imagistic; they present to the viewer either an image, as in visual art, or as in literature, a set of moving images that the soul then uses as raw data (phantasia) to enable thought to occur" (2000, 170). Phantasia developed a legacy in Hellenistic aesthetics, where it came to designate suprarealism in painting, moving art "beyond imitation" (Fowler 1989, 180–81). In later Greco-Roman works, phantasia was used to designate vivid imagery in written and oral discourse, imagery that could create sights and scenes in the minds of audience members. As Quintilian noted in his discussion of forensic rhetoric, in Latin phantasiai were termed visiones. Here, phantasiabecame a mode of displacing narrative in rhetorical discourse:There are certain experiences which the Greeks call phantasiai, and the Romans visions [visiones], whereby things absent are presented to our imagination with such extreme vividness that they seem actually to be before our very eyes.... From such impressions arises that enargeia which Cicero calls illumination [illustration] and actuality [evidential], which makes us seem not so much to narrate [dicere] as to exhibit [ostendere] the actual scene.(Institutio Oratoria 4.2.29, 32)Quintilian's invocations of phantasia and enargeia can be traced to Aristotle's discussion of rhetorical style in book... (shrink)

This book celebrates the work of Patricia Werhane, an iconic figure in business ethics. This festschrift is a collection of articles that build on Werhane’s contributions to business ethics in such areas as Employee Rights, the Legacy of Adam Smith, Moral Imagination, Women in Business, the development of the field of business ethics, and her contributions to such fields as Health Care, Education, Teaching, and Philosophy. All papers are new contributions to the management literature written by well-known business ethicists, such (...) as Norman Bowie, Richard De George, Ronald Duska, Edwin Hartman, Michael Hoffman, Mollie Painter-Morland, Mark Schwartz, Andrew Wicks, and others. The volume is comprised of articles that reflect on Werhane’s work as well as build on it as a way to advance further research. At the end of the festschrift, Pat Werhane provides responses to each chapter. The first chapter of the book also includes the overview of Patricia Werhane’s work and her academic career. The book is written to appeal to management scholars and graduate students interested in the areas of Business Ethics, Modern Capitalism, and Human Rights. Patricia Werhane is one of the most distinguished figures in the field of business ethics. She was a founder of the field, she is one of its leading scholars, and she has had a profound impact on the world of business practice. Among her many accomplishments, Pat is known for her original work on moral imagination, she is an acclaimed authority on employee rights in the workplace, and she is one of the leading scholars on Adam Smith. Having been active in Academia for over 50 years, Werhane is a prolific author of over a hundred articles and book chapters, and the author or editor of twenty-seven books, including Adam Smith and his Legacy for Modern Capitalism, Moral Imagination and Management Decision-Making, and co-authored books Organization Ethics in Health Care, Alleviating Poverty Through Profitable Partnerships, Obstacles to Ethical Decision-Making, Corporate Responsibility: The American Experience, and Research Approaches to Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility. (shrink)

I summarize the history of twentieth-century theorizing about history by historians and by philosophers of different traditions. I clarify the nature of ‘analytical’ philosophy, with philosophical arguments imagined to exist in a shared atemporal space. Analytical philosophy of history largely presupposed David Hume’s empiricism, explicit in Carl Hempel’s 1942 analysis of historical explanation as causal. Others argued for reasons instead, but by 1965 analytical philosophers were analysing historical narratives. Many theorists were unclear about the nature of philosophical method, and (...) ‘empathizing’ with them is fruitful. Empathy is here analysed as shared imagination, where the space imagined is not atemporal but time-extended. Making meaningful sense of our shared world requires the denial of Hume’s view that ‘complexes’ are built entirely out of ‘simples’, and we can think of historical narratives as units of time-extended empirical significance. That we can make our world is argued for and illustrated. (shrink)

This paper traces an expanded ethical perspective for youth and community work (YCW) practice in response to the climate and biodiversity crises. Discussing ecological ethics, we problematise the liberal humanist emphasis on utilitarianism and reject it as inappropriate for YCW in these times. Instead, we argue for an ecocentric practice ethic which intrinsically values the non-human world. To advance an ecocentric ethical perspective for YCW we draw on decolonial and posthuman theory. Inspired by a Freirean dialogical approach, we apply these (...) theoretical domains as lenses to problematise YCW practice, seeking a generative dialogue between perspectives. Through this, we identify three emergent tasks for ecocentric YCW: (a) thinking and acting beyond the individual; (b) cultivating reciprocal care and connection and (c) practicing critical pedagogies of place. This third element builds on YCW's social pedagogic tradition and provides a practical means to incorporate ecocentric ideas into practice. We conclude that, given the unprecedented implications of climate crises and biodiversity collapse, a YCW ethics that does not consider these implications for young people is insufficient for the context of practice today. Enacting an ecocentric YCW ethics requires ongoing collective praxis and dialogue between young people, practitioners, educators, managers and students. (shrink)

There is no consensus on how to define substance, but one popular view is that substances are entities that are independent in some sense or other. E. J. Lowe’s version of this approach stresses that substances are not dependent on other particulars for their identity. I develop the meaning of this proposal, defend it against some criticisms, and then show that others do require that the theory be modified.

A study of the personal histories and interconnected lives and careers of the Britons who worked at the United Nations after 1945.

Examines the history and the consequences of living in the contemporary culture of forgetfulness.

Ned O'Gorman's Politics for Everybody is, at its core, a defense of politics for our polarized times. In an accessible and impassioned style, O'Gorman argues for a political middle ground, which is not aligned with any particular party or ideology, but which embraces the worth, value, and importance of politics itself. Inspired by Hannah Arendt, O'Gorman shows how political thinking is rooted in common sense and everyday experiences, and is rooted in all of us, even and especially (...) when politics is the last thing we want to talk about. Resisting the deadening of political experience by the bombast of contemporary media, the impoverishment of public discourse, and the low-minded violence of smear campaigns, O'Gorman calls for a purer, simpler relation to politics, one that does justice to the virtues of open, honest exchange, which can be critical without being hateful. Politics for Everybody is, in short, a defense of the dignity of politics in the age of its infamy, and a plea for the notion that to give politics a thinking chance, we must take it more seriously, not write it off. (shrink)

Subjectivism about normativity (SN) is the view that norms are never intrinsic to things but are instead always imposed from without. After clarifying what SN is, I argue against it on the basis of its implications concerning intentionality. Intentional states with the mind-to-world direction of fit are essentially norm-subservient, i.e., essentially subject to norms such as truth, coherence, and the like. SN implies that nothing is intrinsically an intentional state of the mind-to-world sort: its being such a state is only (...) a status relative to the imposition of a norm. If one rejects this view of mind-to-world states, then one has grounds for rejecting SN itself. If one accepts it, an infinite regress arises that makes it impossible for norms to be imposed, which means that SN has undermined itself. (shrink)

According to Christian belief, Jesus Christ is a divine person who became “incarnate,” i.e., who became human. A key event in the second act of the drama of creation and redemption, the incarnation could not have failed to interest Aquinas, and he discusses it in a number of places. A proper understanding of what he thought about it is thus part of any complete understanding of his work. It is, furthermore, a window into his ideas on a variety of other (...) topics: God, human nature, language, substance, and so on. Finally, it forces us to come to grips with what is at stake in acknowledging that Aquinas was not only a philosopher but a theologian as well. (shrink)

This paper answers several open questions around structures with o‐minimal open core. We construct an expansion of an o‐minimal structure by a unary predicate such that its open core is a proper o‐minimal expansion of. We give an example of a structure that has an o‐minimal open core and the exchange property, yet defines a function whose graph is dense. Finally, we produce an example of a structure that has an o‐minimal open core and definable Skolem functions, but is not (...) o‐minimal. (shrink)