If Unamuno had been able to choose how to be remembered, he would have wanted him to be a poet. This book wants to do justice to that happy possibility. But above all because Unamuno was a poet in the highest sense: he was while writing the same essay as a novel, or theater, letter or verse, and he was also a poet when he passionately lived all the facets of his intense existence. His intellectual work was poetic and his (...) personal relationships, as well as his political activity, also responded to that peculiar Unamunian aesthetic in which the vital horizon is inescapably confused with the tasks of thought." --Translated from back cover. (shrink)

This paper situates the problem of defeaters in a larger debate about the source of normative authority. It argues in favour of a constructivist account of defeasibility, which appeals to the justificatory role of moral principles. The argument builds upon the critique of two recent attempts to deal with defeasibility: first, a particularist account, which disposes of moral principles on the ground that reasons are holistic; and second, a proceduralist view, which addresses the problem of defeaters by distinguishing between provisional (...) and strictly universal principles. The particularist view fails to establish that moral principles have no epistemological import, but it raises important questions about their role in practical reasoning. The proceduralist view fails to distinguish between reasoning by default and reasoning by principles, but it shows that moral principles have a structural justificatory role. The constructivist view recognizes that the moral valence of normative claims vary across contexts, but denies that this is because of holism about reasons. Rather, it defends defeasibility within a constructivist account of reasoning where universality serves as the matrix of judgment. The constructivist view vindicates the justificatory role of universal moral principles, and makes room for some ordinary sources of defeasibility. (shrink)

Justice, equality, and righteousness—these are some of our greatest moral convictions. Yet in times of social conflict, morals can become rigid, making religious war, ethnic cleansing, and political purges possible. Morality, therefore, can be viewed as pathology-a rhetorical, psychological, and social tool that is used and abused as a weapon. An expert on Eastern philosophies and social systems theory, Hans-Georg Moeller questions the perceived goodness of morality and those who claim morality is inherently positive. Critiquing the ethical "fanaticism" of Western (...) moralists, such as Immanuel Kant, Lawrence Kohlberg, John Rawls, and the utilitarians, Moeller points to the absurd fundamentalisms and impracticable prescriptions arising from definitions of good. Instead he advances a theory of "moral foolishness," or moral asceticism, extracted from the "amoral" philosophers of East Asia and such thinkers as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Niklas Luhmann. The moral fool doesn't understand why ethics are necessarily good, and he isn't convinced that the moral perspective is always positive. In this way he is like most people, and Moeller defends this foolishness against ethical pathologies that support the death penalty, just wars, and even Jerry Springer's crude moral theater. Comparing and contrasting the religious philosophies of Christianity, Daoism, and Zen Buddhism, Moeller presents a persuasive argument in favor of amorality. (shrink)

The authors study opera from the perspective of the theories of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, and argue that opera's second death corresponded with the rise of psychoanalysis in the early 20th century. With a preface by Lanfossi and an afterword by Alberto Toscano.

In this paper, I characterize a new kind of testimonial injustice, a phenomenon I call ‘testimonial void’, which involves a substantial extension of the limits of the original concept put...

The concept of testimonial injustice (TI) has been expanded considerably since Fricker's groundbreaking original formulation. Testimonial void (TV), as well as other kinds of TI identified in the last decade, encourage the idea that the virtue of testimonial justice (TJ) is not the appropriate remedy to battle against injustice in our testimonial exchanges. This paper contributes to the existing literature on the limitations of TJ as the remedy for TI by drawing attention to its shortcomings in the context of other (...) kinds of TI. By contrast, I propose furtherengaging epistemically with the other(EE) as a corrective to injustice in our testimonial exchanges. I understand EE as a practice in which information regarding epistemic injustice, strategies to fight it and skills training play the leading roles. If the problem lies in lack of appropriate epistemic interaction between knowers, we need to train ourselves to do what we fail to do. Given that we are in the domain of testimony, EE essentially amounts to engaging further with the other in conversation. In the process, EE sheds light on the need for second-order change to fight TI, as enacting EE would require the transformation of our concepts of testimony and credibility. (shrink)

Neoliberal ideology and exclusionary policies based on racialized identities characterize the current contexts in North America and Western Europe. Nursing knowledge cannot be abstracted from social, political and historical contexts; the task of examining the influence of race and racial ideologies on disciplinary knowledge and inquiry therefore remains an important task. Contemporary analyses of the role and responsibility of the discipline in addressing race‐based health and social inequities as a focus of nursing inquiry remain underdeveloped. In this article, we examine (...) nursing's engagement with ideas about race and racism and explore the ways in which nursing knowledge and inquiry have been influenced by race‐based ideological discourses. Drawing on Henry and Tator's framework of democratic racism, we consider how strategic discursive responses—the discourses of individualism, multiculturalism, colour‐blindness, political correctness and denial—have been deployed within nursing knowledge and inquiry to reinforce the belief in an essentially fair and just society while avoiding the need to acknowledge the persistence of racist discourses and ideologies. Greater theoretical, conceptual and methodological clarity regarding race, racialization and related concepts in nursing inquiry is needed to address health and social inequities. (shrink)

Imagination: Cross-Cultural Philosophical Analyses is a rare intercultural inquiry into the conceptions and functions of the imagination in contemporary philosophy. Divided into East Asian, comparative, and post-comparative approaches, it brings together a leading team of philosophers to explore the concepts of the illusory and illusions, the development of fantastic narratives and metaphors, and the use of images and allegories across a broad range of traditions. Chapters discuss how imagination has been interpreted by thinkers such as Zhuangzi, Plato, Confucius, Heidegger, and (...) Nietzsche. By drawing on sources including Buddhist aesthetics, Daoism, and analytic philosophy of mind, this cross-cultural collection shows how the imagination can be an indispensable tool for the comparative philosopher, opening up new possibilities for intercultural dialogue and critical engagement. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has made enormous contributions to the philosophy of action, epistemology, semantics and philosophy of mind and today is recognized as one of the most important analytical philosophers of the late twentieth century. _Donald Davidson: Truth, Meaning and Knowledge_ addresses * Davidson's writings on epistemology and theory of language with their implications of ontology and philosophy of mind * the central issue of whether truth is the ultimate goal of enquiry, challenged by contributions from Richard Rorty and Paul Horwich (...) * Davidson's approach to semantics and applied linguistics as addressed by Kirk Ludwig, Gabriel Segal, Peter Pagin, Stephen Neale, Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore and Reinaldo Elugardo * Davidson's advances in the philosophy of mind in relation to the views of Williard V. Quine, John McDowell and Peter F. Strawson, in essays by Roger Gibson and Anita Avramides. (shrink)

Purpose. Romanticism as a movement developed in Germany, where, becoming the philosophy of time in the 18th-19th centuries, spread to all European countries. The "mobility" of the Romantic doctrine, its diversity, sometimes contradictory views, attitude to man as a free, harmonious, creative person led to the susceptibility of this movement by ethnic groups, different in nature and mentality. Its ideas found a wide response in Ukraine with its "cordocentric" type of culture in the early nineteenth century. Since the peculiarity of (...) "Ukrainian Romanticism" was its "literary-centric" nature, the purpose of this study is to analyse and comprehend the place of man in the national philosophy and literature of this period. Accordingly, the main tasks of the work are as follows: to determine the main features, the nature of Ukrainian Romanticism; to trace the main vectors of comprehension and image of man in the literature of this time. Theoretical basis. The ideas of European Romanticism were creatively rethought and assimilated during the emergence of new Ukrainian literature. It provided samples of highly artistic works, unique names of talented writers – creators and thinkers, who in their works reflected the philosophy of time. Based on the works of F. Schlegel, partly E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, K. Jaspers, Romanticism in the Ukrainian humanities, in terms of philosophy, culturology, as well as at the intersection with literature, was studied by T. Bovsunivska, Y. Hrybkova, S. Efremov, N. Kalenichenko, S. Kozak, T. Komarynets, D. Nalyvayko, Y. Nakhlik, I. Ogorodnyk, V. Ogorodnyk, A. Sinitsyna, D. Chyzhevsky, M. Yatsenko, E. Kyryliuk, M. Biletsky, D. Dontsov, S. Efremov, G. Kostyuk, S. Krymsky, Y. Sherekh and others. Originality. The authors of the article prove that Romanticism in Ukraine, being "literary-centric" inherently, having absorbed the main ideas and features of European Romanticism, has its own features and vectors of formation and development. Man in this kind of movement, thanks to the means of art, appears very clearly as a spiritually rich, sensitive, vulnerable and strong person. For him or her, the highest value is freedom, the ability to make freely independent fateful decisions. Conclusions. Ukrainian writers, reflecting the philosophical ideas of Romanticism, saw in man a harmonious combination of "natural" and "social", through which he indirectly carries out his own national existence. In addition to the objective realities of the external world, in their works, Romantic writers appeal to the subjective, internal, spiritual, "ideal" world of the hero, who interacts with reality through his own system of values. At each level of development of the humanities and methodology of cognition, this allows a new reading of these works. (shrink)

Background Ethical decision making in intensive care is a demanding task. The need to proceed to ethical decision is considered to be a stress factor that may lead to burnout. The aim of this study is to explore the ethical problems that may increase burnout levels among physicians and nurses working in Portuguese intensive care units . A quantitative, multicentre, correlational study was conducted among 300 professionals.Results The most crucial ethical decisions made by professionals working in ICU were related to (...) communication, withholding or withdrawing treatments and terminal sedation. A positive relation was found between ethical decision making and burnout in nurses, namely, between burnout and the need to withdraw treatments , to withhold treatments and to proceed to terminal sedation . This did not apply to physicians. Emotional exhaustion was the burnout subdimension most affected by the ethical decision. The nurses' lack of involvement in ethical decision making was identified as a risk factor. Nevertheless, in comparison with nurses , it was the physicians who more keenly felt the need to proceed to ethical decisions in ICU.Conclusions Ethical problems were reported at different levels by physicians and nurses. The type of ethical decisions made by nurses working in Portuguese ICUs had an impact on burnout levels. This did not apply to physicians. This study highlights the need for education in the field of ethics in ICUs and the need to foster inter-disciplinary discussion so as to encourage ethical team deliberation in order to prevent burnout. (shrink)

While foregrounding the historiography of HIV and AIDS in the South African context, this article analyses AIDS as simultaneously existing in three spheres: first, virtually – as the subject matter of electronically measurable research; second, academically – as a topic of research in the discipline of History; and third, actually – as a complex health concern and signifier that, via the field of Medical and Health Humanities, could allow for new collaborations between historians and others interested in understanding AIDS. Throughout, (...) the central focus is the discipline of History and the global trends that become evident when examining metrics about AIDS research, particularly those that show the hierarchies of knowledge ‘production’, the reinforcement of disciplinary boundaries, and the discrepancy between the amount of research ‘produced’ by scientific and humanities disciplines. Overall, the article suggests that ‘post-AIDS’ is not currently helpful to health historians working on South African and other majority world contexts. More specifically, the article reflects on what AIDS histories still need to be written, and I argue that Medical and Health Humanities could provide a space for historians to work within and across disciplinary boundaries given the ever evolving remit of AIDS histories, temporalities, and narratives. (shrink)

Comme ailleurs dans le monde, les courants évangéliques et pentecôtistes ont tenté dès les années 1980 de s’imposer dans l’espace public de l’Afrique de l’Ouest. Bien qu’apparus au début du XX e siècle, ce n’est que dans la deuxième moitié du siècle que l’on observe un changement dans l’engagement évangélique vis-à-vis de la société : d’un retrait du monde à une « ouverture vers l’activité politique », marquée par le thème du combat spirituel pour les territoires. En Afrique de l’Ouest, (...) cette nouvelle visibilité dans l’espace public s’est concrétisée par l’élection de présidents évangéliques, comme Matthieu Kérékou au Bénin en 1996, ou Laurent Gbagbo en Côte d’Ivoire en 2000. Mais au sein d’une même société, les relations entre évangélismes et politique peuvent ainsi être multiples. Pour les saisir, il est nécessaire d’adopter différents points de vue, depuis les instances de pouvoir jusqu’aux relations interpersonnelles de la vie quotidienne. (shrink)

In Apartheid South Africa, eugenic notions formed an underlying justification for the superiority of the white race over Africans, through the works of international eugenicists like Galton and Pearson, and locally through prominent South African eugenicist H. B. Fantham. These ideas are expressed and elaborated upon in Emevwo Biakalo's essay ‘Categories of Cross-Cultural Cognition and the African Condition’. His work serves particularly to highlight that the mind and cognitive processes of Africans were considered very different from their white counterparts, and (...) thus they would require different approaches to education. I demonstrate here how these views served as part of the underlying justification for Apartheid in South Africa, particularly in Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd's insistence on creating separate and distinct educational systems for different races. This eugenic legacy is still visible in South Africa's radically unequal education system to this day. (shrink)

According to Carl Schmitt, the phenomenon of the political has different forms. These forms can be distinguished based on different possible relationships between political action and the state. This article presents the history of what Schmitt refers to as the phenomenon of partisanship. Partisanship is a specific form of politics, established in the early ninetieth century, which has gradually expanded its presence. Partisan activity is characterized by totality, which has evolved to become the dominant component of political action over time, (...) particularly in the twentieth century. This totality affects not only the size and range of political activity, but it is also – and perhaps first of all – ruthless in its use of terror and violence, which is considered entirely justified by total partisans/terrorists. (shrink)

This book compiles and reviews the most prominent linguistic theories into a single source that serves as an essential reference for future solutions to one of the most important challenges of our age.

ABSTRACT As we strive for a more polyvocal history of science, historians have placed increasing emphasis on local case studies as a way to globalize the field. This tension between the local and the global extends to the practice as well as the content of the history of science, as the field has begun to pay more attention not just to local case studies, but also to local cultures of historiography. Many historians of science want multiple historiographical voices that take (...) seriously the concerns and literatures in different linguistic and national contexts. As more journals urge translation into what are perceived as the dominant languages in “global” humanities discourses and scholars are encouraged to facilitate the Englishing of their historical research, many questions remain: In what ways does it make sense to nationalize or culturally locate individual cultures of the history of science? Is translation a democratic and positive force in the discipline, and/or does it kill local difference? Will it continue to be meaningful to talk about the history of science? A collective dialogue within the field depends on finding a way to take local diversity in historiography and epistemology seriously while translating that local difference into a meaningful common conversation. This essay considers the challenges of embracing multiple ways of knowing that might fall under the purview of the history of science, while wondering what that means for the coherence of the field as we move forward into the next century of work in Isis. (shrink)