In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Is Literature? What Is Art?Integrating Essence and HistoryJerry Farber (bio)I. Aesthetic ExperienceThere remains a widespread belief among literature professors that literature doesn't exist; that is, that it has no stable, transhistorical identity. The very term "literature," we are reminded, shifts its meaning from one century to another. And even if someone should insist that, when they talk about literature, they're not talking about writings in general or (...) a familiarity with books or whatever else the term "literature" may have signified in the past, but only about those texts that one might consider aesthetic, what has this person gained? Not much—since a literature professor who, in recent decades, has turned for answers to the philosophical study of aesthetics will have been likely to confront either a Wittgensteinian dismantling of "art" or, more commonly these days, an institutional theory that defines "art" not on the basis of any properties that it might possess or of any function that it might serve, but solely on the basis of its relation to a cultural institution that, in return, is identified in relation to "art." One might be forgiven for concluding that to follow this quest for essence from "literature" to "aesthetic" or "art" is to go from one sinking ship to another.So literature—as Terry Eagleton, for example, has continued to insist through two editions of his widely read Literary Theory: An Introduction1 —doesn't exist. Which makes it awkward to be a literature professor and helps to explain why so many of us have tried to reinvent ourselves as professors of something else. But this is by no means a mere problem of academic nomenclature, since more than a few of us continue to believe on some level (a level obviously below the graduate level) that there is something there all the same, something that is more stable and less culturally contingent than our theories tell us it is. We just don't know how to legitimize that belief. This dilemma tends to be reflected one way or another in [End Page 1] our teaching. We may repress any essentialist qualms and seek a lofty theoretical consistency as cultural historians for whom aesthetics is merely one more thing to situate—and we pass this disbelief in literature on to our students. Or we may learn to live with cognitive dissonance and pass that on to our students. Literature is hardly alone among the arts in its identity problem, but it does seem to have a more advanced case.Someone came for a job interview on my campus a few years ago, fresh out of a fairly prestigious doctoral program. He made his presentation and then mentioned during the question period afterward that, in his classes, he did make an effort not to ignore a text's aesthetic qualities. He stopped, looked around apprehensively, and said, "I know the term's problematic, of course...""So how do you resolve that?" I asked.He shrugged. "I don't know really."Nonetheless, just as there has been a "return of the aesthetic" in broader terms, books and articles have been appearing from the mid-90s on, arguing for or heralding a reemergence of the aesthetic in literary study.2 Certainly this makes sense, if only as a way of trying to shore up our precarious position in the academy, since, as has been repeatedly observed, literary study, in the absence of any delimiting aesthetic criterion, simply dissolves into other disciplines. And if literature doesn't exist, why spend money on literature professors? Why not hire real historians, sociologists, philosophers, psychologists, etc., to do those more respectable and definable things we keep claiming we do? But still, practical motives aside, what is to be the theoretical basis for any return to literary aesthetics? Can this merely be a matter of fashion? Will "the return of the repressed" do as a justification?The time has come, I think, not to revert to a simple, blind faith in "literature" and "art," but to find a way of reconciling our stubborn essentialist belief, on one hand, and our constructionist perspective, on the other—a way of understanding and teaching literature... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward a Theoretical Framework for the Study of Humor in Literature and the Other ArtsJerry Farber (bio)With a clearer understanding of the way humor works, we might be better able to give it the attention it deserves when we study and teach the arts. But where do we turn to find a theoretical framework for the study of humor—one that will help to clarify the role that humor (...) plays in the arts and that will help us as well to understand differences in the way individual perceivers respond to humor in art?A superiority theory of humor emerged in classical times and more or less held the stage through the seventeenth century; now, however, though an occasional attempt to revive it is still made,1 superiority theory is usually regarded as far too narrow in scope to be useful as a general account of humor. What are commonly referred to as "release" (or, occasionally, "relief") theories— and associated with Spencer and Freud—were for a time very influential, but are somewhat narrow too in their own way, and furthermore, as Noël Carroll puts it, "have the liability of presupposing hydraulic views of the mind that are highly dubious."2 Incongruity theory, which has been around in one form or another since at least the eighteenth century, dominates contemporary humor theory but is still widely regarded as not quite there yet. And so humor remains somewhat mysterious and elusive. Or not even that. It may be that most people, even teachers in the arts, bypass theory entirely and simply accept humor as a given: an unanalyzable fact of human life. I've sometimes wondered if it may be that we don't want to understand humor, either because we're afraid that this understanding will spoil the game or, just possibly, because we sense that, as a consequence of it, we may discover things about ourselves that we would prefer not to know.Is a well-founded, broadly inclusive theoretical framework for the study and teaching of humor in the arts achievable? I want to propose that it is if [End Page 67] we take incongruity theory a few steps further, integrating an analysis of the humorous situation (that is, what we perceive: the caricature, the witty dialogue, the bit of stage business) with an analysis of what goes on in the perceiver (the humor experience itself).A General Theory of HumorIncongruity theory, though clearly the front-runner these days, continues to be problematic, making too much sense for us to discard it, but not quite enough sense to get us where we need to go. Thus, Carroll concludes his recent overview of this theoretical tradition: "Though promising, the Incongruity Theory of Humor remains a project in need of further research."3 Reading this we may find ourselves wondering, just as we might about some writer or performer who's been on the scene for a good long time, how much longer this centuries-old theoretical approach gets to remain "promising."What have been the major problems associated with incongruity theory? For one thing, it doesn't tell us much about the affective dimension of humor.4 Neither does it satisfactorily explain differences in the way individual perceivers respond. The major weakness of incongruity theory, however, has been a failure to account adequately for all of those instances of incongruity that are not funny: for example, brainteasers, logic problems, and puzzles. One way of dealing with this problem has been to keep adding on exclusionary clauses until the category has been pared down satisfactorily. In other words, humor is based on incongruity, provided that we exclude situations that inspire fear, or are disgusting, or are perceived instrumentally, or are regarded primarily as a puzzle, and so on. But, of course, this is patchwork. What we need is a humor theory where stipulations such as these don't have to be added on, because they follow logically from the theory itself.It's been proposed repeatedly that the incongruous elements in humor are likely to be connected in some way, though some of the terms that have been advanced to identify this connection are unnecessarily limiting if... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Discover the Unknown Chekhov in Your ESL ClassroomNinah Beliavsky (bio)I was born in Moscow, ate aladushki, and listened to my mother read Chekhov in Russian. Kashtanka, a tale about a young, ginger-colored pup who gets lost, made me cry. And when I read about the death of Ivan Dmitrich Kreepikov, in The Death of a Civil Servant, I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. The poor (...) civil servant was sitting and watching an opera in a theater when all of a sudden he sneezed and spattered an old gentlemen, General Shpitzalov, in front of him. Now, as Chekhov writes, sneezing is not prohibited to any one or in any place; peasants sneeze, and even the chiefs of police sneeze. But, you see, the poor civil servant, being very much rank-conscious, could no longer live with himself after committing such a misconduct. He apologized profusely and went home, and without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa, and... died.And what about Van'ka Zhukov, an orphan boy of nine apprenticed to a shoemaker who is being beaten and overworked. He writes a letter to his grandfather on Christmas Eve, begging him for the dear Lord's sake to take him away from his misery. After scratching his head and thinking for a moment, he dips his pen in ink and addresses his envelope: "The Village. To Grand Dad." He then dashes out into the street and pushes his precious letter through the opening of the postbox...The second part of my childhood I spent in Jerusalem; there I ate falafel with humus, was obsessed with perfecting the pronunciation of the Hebrew guttural "r," and read Miriam Yalan Shtekelis's children's poetry, which was filled with magical objects that laughed and cried. By the time I was in high school I was living in Milwaukee, eating fries and ice cream sundaes and reading O. Henry.The literature that one comes in contact with during childhood and young [End Page 101] adulthood is often deeply engraved on a person's psyche. It is similar to an adult craving sweets because of the psychological association with her childhood and a safe and protected environment. We tend to think back to the "good old days" because we find comfort in our past. Today, as an adult, a wife, and a mother, I often find refuge in my childhood memories. And, like most people, much of what I encounter and read today I tend to associate with my past. If I come across a story that I heard in my childhood, as I search for something new and amusing to give to my college English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students, I try to incorporate it into my curriculum. A few years ago I came across the story The Necklace by Guy de Mappassant and immediately recalled reading it in my adolescence. This story brought back the warm memories of home that I felt would be understood and identified with by my foreign students. Today, this story is one of my students' favorites. By using stories from my own past, I feel that I can bring to my class discussions a unique perspective—my own recollections and feelings and an interpretation not only academic in nature but also personal. Often, my international students will recall hearing or reading some of the same stories (that I bring to class) in their childhood, in their native tongues, and thus these stories will not seem out of context anymore because there will be a sense of connection.I teach ESL to college students—reading and writing at the intermediate and advanced levels. Aside from following the standard curriculum of using grammar and writing textbooks, I bring to my ESL classes music, opera, art, young adult novels by American writers, and short stories by both international and American writers. For instance, my students enjoy reading O. Henry's "The Christmas Present," "The Last Leaf," and "The Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen." These stories are about real people—just like my students—they are about everyday events, they are humorous and tragic in nature, and they have an unexpected twist... (shrink)

Darwinism consists of two parts: a phylogenesis of biological species (ours included) and the claim that the primary mechanism of the evolution of phenotypes is natural selection. I assume that Darwin’s account of phylogeny is essentially correct; attention is directed to the theory of natural selection. I claim that Darwin’s account of evolution by natural selection cannot be sustained. The basic problem is that, according to the consensus view, evolution consists in changes of the distribution of phenotypic traits in populations (...) of organisms. An evolutionary theory must therefore explicate not just the notion of organisms being selected, but also the notion of organisms being selected for their phenotypic traits. I argue that that there is no way for a theory of natural selection to do so, and that Darwin’s assumption to the contrary was likely the consequence of placing too much weight on the analogy between natural selection and artificial selection. The paper ends with the suggestion that selectionist explanations, insofar as they are convincing, are best construed as post hoc historical narratives: natural history rather than biology. (shrink)

The paper explores the distinction between two doctrines, both of which inform theory construction in much of modern cognitive psychology: the representational theory of mind and the computational theory of mind. According to the former, propositional attitudes are to be construed as relations that organisms bear to mental representations. According to the latter, mental processes have access only to formal (nonsemantic) properties of the mental representations over which they are defined.The following claims are defended: (1) That the traditional dispute between (...) “rational” and “naturalistic” psychology is plausibly viewed as an argument about the status of the computational theory of mind. Rational psychologists accept a formality condition on the specification of mental processes; naturalists do not. (2) That to accept the formality condition is to endorse a version of methodological solipsism. (3) That the acceptance of some such condition is warranted, at least for that part of psychology which concerns itself with theories of the mental causation of behavior. This is because: (4) such theories require nontransparent taxonomies of mental states; and (5) nontransparent taxonomies individuate mental states without reference to their semantic properties. Equivalently, (6) nontransparent taxonomies respect the way that the organism represents the object of its propositional attitudes toitself, and it is this representation which functions in the causation of behavior.The final section of the paper considers the prospect for a naturalistic psychology: one which defines its generalizations over relations between mental representations and their environmental causes, thus seeking to account for the semantic properties of propositional attitudes. Two related arguments are proposed, both leading to the conclusion that no such research strategy is likely to prove fruitful. (shrink)

It's an achievement of the last couple of decades that people who work in linguistic semantics and people who work in the philosophy of language have arrived at a friendly, de facto agreement as to their respective job descriptions. The terms of this agreement are that the semanticists do the work and the philosophers do the worrying. The semanticists try to construct actual theories of meaning (or truth theories, or model theories, or whatever) for one or another kind of expression (...) in one or another natural language; for example, they try to figure out how the temperature could be rising compatibly with the substitutivity of identicals. The philosophers, by contrast, keep an eye on the large, foundational issues, such as: what's the relation between sense and denotation; what's the relation between thought and language; whether translation is determinate; and whether life is like a fountain. Every now and then the philosophers and the semanticists are supposed to get together and compare notes on their respective progress. Or lack thereof. (shrink)

Giving Voice to Values, under the leadership of Mary Gentile, has fundamentally changed the way business ethics and values-driven leadership is taught and discussed in academic and corporate settings worldwide. This book shifts attention to the future of Giving Voice to Values (GVV) and provides thought-pieces from practitioners and leading experts in business ethics and the professions on the possibilities for sustaining its growth and success. These include the creation of new teaching materials, reaching different audiences, and expanding the ways (...) in which Giving Voice to Values is making a difference in classrooms and the workplace and acting as a catalyst for organizational and societal change. The book closes with a reflective chapter by Mary Gentile, looking back at where GVV has been and looking ahead to where GVV might go. (shrink)

Nationalism was a driving, moving spirit in the nineteenth-century Germany of Friedrich Schleiermacher. Jerry F. Dawson, through his thoughtful and well-wrought study of Friedrich Schleiermacher, provides an insight into contemporary nationalistic movements and the people who have a part in them. Schleiermacher, a prominent theologian and educator, was also a leading contributor to the tide of nationalism which swept Germany during the Napoleonic era. Dawson does not present Schleiermacher as an archetype for nationalists, but rather as an example of (...) one man who was willing to sacrifice everything for the good of the nation. Examining the influence of Pietism, rationalism, and romanticism on Schleiermacher, the author explains the origins of his subject's nationalistic activities and traces the evolution of his patriotic point of view. Dawson depicts the development of Schleiermacher's patriotism from Prussian particularism to German nationalism—an allegiance to an idealized Germany unified in religion, language, folkways. He describes the diverse approaches utilized by Schleiermacher to achieve a patriotic awakening among his countrymen: "…he preached nationalistic sermons; he delivered scholarly lectures; he repeatedly risked his life on dangerous missions which would help free Germany from France; he used his journalistic talents to try to stimulate the national consciousness of the German people; and he even served in the government of Prussia in an attempt to reconstruct the educational system so that nationalism might be advanced.". (shrink)

The factual premise: A clinical trial takes place, with results suggesting that a new treatment is better than standard care for a particular medical problem. One large group of physicians—call the...

An approach to phenomenology, by D. Cairns.--Husserl's critique of psychologism: its historic roots and contemporary relevance, by J. Wild.--The ideal of a presuppositionless philosophy, by M. Farber.--On the intentionality of consciousness, by A. Gurwitsch.--The "reality-phenomenon" and reality, by H. Spiegelberg.--The phenomenological concept of "horizon", by H. Kuhn.--Phenomenology and logical empiricism, by F. Kaufmann.--Phenomenology and the history of science, by J. Klein.--Phenomenology and the social sciences, by A. Schuetz.--Art and phenomenology, by F. Kaufmann.--The relation of science to philosophy in the (...) light of Husserl's thought, by L. O. Kattsoff.--Husserl and the social structure of immediacy, by C. Hartshorne.--A materialist approach to Husserl's philosophy, by V. J. McGill.--Outline-sketch of a system of metaphysics, by W. E. Hocking.--Men and the law, by G. Husserl.--The ghost of modality, by H. Weyl.--Supplement: Grundlegende untersuchungen zum phänomenologischen ursprung der räumlichkeit der natur, by E. Husserl. (shrink)

This article discusses the doctrine of hell. It covers traditional versus contemporary defences of hell, challenges to freedom accounts of hell, and the coherence of eternal hell. The article then argues that the doctrine of heaven has not received as much attention from philosophers as hell has and identifies some interesting challenges raised against the Christian hope of eternal joy.

The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) requires as a condition of accreditation that every health care institution -- hospital, nursing home, or home care agency -- have a standing mechanism to address ethical issues. Most organizations have chosen to fulfill this requirement with an interdisciplinary ethics committee. The best of these committees are knowledgeable, creative, and effective resources in their institutions. Many are wellmeaning but lack the information, experience, and skills to negotiate adequately the complex ethical (...) issues that arise in clinical and organizational settings. Handbook for Health Care Ethics Committees is the first resource designed to address the range of work performed by ethics committees as part of their multiple responsibilities, including education, case consultation, and policy development. It features an eight-chapter curriculum reviewing the content of contemporary health care bioethics and discussing the ethical foundations of clinical practice, with each subsequent section focusing on a set of ethical issues that commonly arise in the clinical setting. Through case studies, the authors explore issues such as informed consent and refusal, decision making and decisional capacity, truth telling, decision-making concerns of minors, end-of-life issues, palliation, justice in and access to health care services, and organizational ethics. They offer sample policies and procedures, draft guidelines and protocols, and key legal cases. Providing both a strong theoretical foundation and practical applications, this handbook will be essential reading for every member of a health care ethics committee. (shrink)

"Faith Made Real" provides an authentic look at what the abstract truths of God look like in the living-faith experiences of his people. It models an awareness of and tuning in to God s work of transformation in our own lives. Stories are edited and organized into weekly topics, examining the challenging and inspiring evidence of God s providence, faithfulness, and calling on the lives of His people. In our current culture, with reality TV shows depicting an every man for (...) himself ethos, the life-changing stories in this book portray a very different model of God-transformed community. ". (shrink)

The Competitive Buddha is about mastery, leadership, and spirituality. Learn what you need to keep, what you need to discard, and what you need to add to your mental, emotional, and spiritual skill set as an athlete, coach, leader, parent, CEO, or any other performer in life. Understand how Buddhism can help you to be better prepared for sports and life, and how sports and life can teach you about Buddhism. Discover how people from all parts of the world have (...) brought together the Buddha and athletics for greater fun, enjoyment, and pleasure during their performances. Dr. Lynch is an avid runner and biker and he has coached athletes at the high school and AAU level. He earned his doctorate in psychology at Penn State University and has done extensive post-doctoral work in the area of philosophy, Taoist and Buddhist thought, comparative religions, leadership development, and performance enhancement. Dr. Jerry Lynch demonstrates how certain timeless core Buddha values inspire you to embrace and navigate unchartered waters and understand the Buddha-mind and the Kobe Bryant Mamba Mentality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers by Brian C. RibeiroJerry GreenRIBEIRO, Brian C. Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers. Leiden: Brill, 2021. ix + 165 pp. Cloth, $145.00; eBook, $149.00As the title suggests, this short, engaging work explores a continuity between three major thinkers in the Western skeptical tradition. The label "Pyrrhonizers" is well chosen: What draws Sextus Empiricus, Montaigne, and Hume together is a set of attitudes about the limits of (...) reason and the value of constant inquiry. These thinkers are united not by commitment to a set of propositions that would group them together in some kind of static philosophical school but, rather, by a kind of pessimism about rationality's power. Ribeiro uses these figures to prompt a thought-provoking inversion of a traditional challenge to skepticism: Not only is it possible for a skeptic to live his skepticism, it is also unexpectedly easy to do so, because rationality has a surprisingly weak hold on us. This means that we can continue to be skeptics even when we cannot bring ourselves to believe or reject dogmatic claims, so long as we continue to pyrrhonize.Chapter 1 is a defense of the psychological reality of epistemic akrasia, a phenomenon by which an epistemic agent fails to form beliefs governed by the evidence she takes herself to have (analogous to the more familiar weakness of will in moral psychology). In particular, Ribeiro focuses on skeptical cases where one takes oneself to have sufficient reason to suspend judgment regarding p but nevertheless persists in believing that p. This chapter engages with contemporary literature in epistemology that [End Page 158] denies the possibility of epistemic akrasia; Ribeiro points to real cases of the phenomenon to show that it is an actual occurrence in human psychology.Chapter 2 surveys the three eponymous subjects of the book, arguing that Sextus, Montaigne, and Hume are engaged in a single, historically continuous project regarding epistemic agency and human reason-responsiveness. Whatever differences these three figures may have, each is interested in probing the boundaries of belief, looking for the borders of rationality where our beliefs persist even in the face of evidence or arguments against them.Chapter 3 looks more closely at the version of Pyrrhonian skepticism found in Sextus Empiricus. Ribeiro argues that Sextus saw global suspension of belief as an ethical ideal conducive to tranquility and hence eudaimonia. Comparable to the Stoic moral sage, this ideal may not be fully realizable in actual life, but one can nevertheless make progress toward this ideal. Crucially, this progress is compatible with intractable beliefs about which suspension of judgment is difficult or fleeting: Even if one cannot globally suspend judgment about all matters at once, one can still become increasingly more tranquil as one develops the ability to suspend judgment more successfully over time.Chapter 4 transitions to Montaigne's Essays. Ribeiro devotes the bulk of the chapter to showing that Montaigne was explicitly influenced by ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism (via both Sextus and Cicero). The most important point, however, is that Montaigne exemplifies the Pyrrhonian project in his constant revisions to his Essays throughout his life, modeling the zetetic approach of perpetual investigation. Montaigne's chief contribution to this project is to redirect it away from the dogmatic disputes over unclear matters that we see among the ancient skeptics, and toward continual autobiographical self-reflection.Chapter 5 pauses the historical focus of the previous chapters, to return to the topic of human rationality. This chapter uses a Humean observation of the power of custom or habit compared to reason to argue that human rational self-control is surprisingly weak. Similar to the worry about epistemic akrasia discussed in chapter 1, here Ribeiro uses the plausibility of certain skeptical arguments to suggest that we may lack the ability to form beliefs even when we take the arguments supporting those beliefs to be persuasive.Chapters 6 and 7 return to a historical focus, this time concentrating on Hume. Drawing on the work of Karánn Durland, chapter 6 argues that there is an irresolvable tension across Hume's works: In some places Hume endorses naturalism, in others skepticism. Ribeiro takes this to be further evidence for... (shrink)

Three negative affective dispositions—anger, anxiety, and depression—are hypothesized to increase physical disease risk and have been the subject of epidemiological studies. However, the overlap among the major negative affective dispositions, and the superordinate construct of trait negative affectivity are only beginning to be tested. Presented here is a narrative review of recent prospective studies that simultaneously tested anger, anxiety, depression, and trait NA as risk factors for cardiac outcomes. Anxiety and depression emerged as independent risk factors for premature heart disease (...) in population studies of persons nominally healthy at baseline, and for recurrence/mortality among patients with existing heart disease. General trait NA also was a cardiac risk factor in population samples. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION: TWO KINDS OF RLDUCTIONISM The man who laughs is the one who has not yet heard the terrible news. BERTHOLD BRECHT I propose, in this book, ...

Preface 1 Introduction: The Persistence of the Attitudes 2 Individualism and Supervenience 3 Meaning Holism 4 Meaning and the World Order Epilogue Creation Myth Appendix Why There Still Has to be a Language of Thought Notes References Author Index.

I agree with the commentators that study of physical disease risk conferred by affective dispositions such as anger/hostility, anxiety, and sadness, should be more cognizant of developments in emotion theory. Emotions differ in their functional value depending on the person’s lifespan trajectory. Discrete emotions have different psychophysiological signatures; and emotional competence, including production, regulation, and knowledge, may be critical in determining whether specific negative affects, or general negative affectivity, are toxic for physical health. Emotion researchers, however, have mainly focused on (...) acute affective experiences and ignored the general effects of negative affectivity, which subsumes the discrete negative affects. Most diseases develop over years so more needs to be known about the biological signatures of chronic specific affects and negative affectivity. (shrink)

Adam Smith is the best known among economists for his book, The Wealth of Nations, often viewed as the keystone of modern economic thought. For many he has become associated with a quasi-libertarian laissez-faire philosophy. Others, often heterodox economists and social philosophers, on the contrary, focus on Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, and explore his moral theory. There has been a long debate about the relationship or lack thereof between these, his two great works. This work treats these dimensions of (...) Smith's work as elements in a seamless moral philosophical vision, demonstrating the integrated nature of these works and Smith's other writings. This book weaves Smith into a constructive critique of modern economic analysis and builds bridges between that discourse and the other social sciences. (shrink)