Esther Rashkin, Family Secrets and the Psychoanalysis of Narrative (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). Pages: 228. ISBN: 0-691069-51-4. Price: 1750/US$29.95.
Over the years I have made numerous very strong and sometimes contradictory statements about Adi Da, mostly because he is a very strong and sometimes contradictory personality. In the Foreword I was asked to write to his book Scientific Proof of the Existence of God Will Soon Be Announced by the White House!, I stated my opinion that Da was one of the greatest spiritual Realizers of all time, unparalleled in his grasp of many profound spiritual issues. Yet in..
This book focuses on showing how the ideas central to the new wave oj dynamic systems studies may also form the basis for a new and distinctive theory of human development where both global order and local variability in behaviour emerge together from the same organising dynamical interactions. This also sharpens our understanding of the weaknesses of the traditional formal, structuralist theories. Conversely, dynamical models have their own matching set of problems, many of which are consiously explored here. Less readily (...) acknowledged, the youthfulness of this field means that many of the studies presented here struggle to pass beyond speculative metaphor. Nonetheless, the field is shown to be one of vigour, intelligence and great promise. (shrink)
The last positive statement I made about Da's work was in 1985, when I wrote a very strong endorsement for his major book, The Dawn Horse Testament. This is one of the very greatest spiritual treatises, comparable in scope and depth to any of the truly classic religious texts. I still believe that, and I challenge anybody to argue that specific assessment.
In this study, we want to show, through the analysis of a Christian author of the 10th. century, how commentaries on the works of Aristotle were continuously made, from the Greek commentators until Averroes. Taking as an example some texts of the Metaphysics, we can see that, even without direct contact with the original Greek version, several translations, both from the Greek and the Syriac, were compared by the author. In those cases, it was not only a translation, but also (...) a work of commentary on the text of Aristotle. KEY WORDS – Aristotle. Metaphysics. Islamic philosophy. Translations into Arabic. Commentaries. (shrink)
Adi Da argues that no solutions currently proposed are sufficient to righten the present unsustainable trajectory of life on Earth, because there is no integrated approach to the ordering of society and use of the planet. The presumption of separateness—manifesting collectively as separate “tribes” vying for control—characterizes human affairs, rather than the prior (“a priori”) unity of existence. The struggle for dominance is the “stave in the wheels” of the Earth-system's inherent capacity to self-correct. A new institution, “the Global Cooperative (...) Forum,” is proposed—invoked by “everybody-all-at-once” (a global populace awakened as a single force, capable of cooperatively effecting global change). (shrink)
Under the title The Reformation of Morals , the tenth-century Syrian Orthodox scholar Yahya ibn 'Adi offered encouragement to the effort to promote moral perfection, especially among kings and other members of the social elite: his tract, on the social virtues and vices, gives extensive advice about the cultivation of the former and the extirpation of the latter. Where there are many echoes of Hellenistic moral philosophy in his presentation, the topical profile of the work and the language the author (...) uses reveal his participation in the Baghdad circle of philosophers and intellectuals--both Christian and Muslim--who were responsible for much that has come to be regarded as typical of the classical culture of the Islamic world. In fact, this text has occasionally been attributed to one or another famous Muslim author. It now stands as an important Christian contribution, in Arabic, to a strand of moral philosophy that is an integral component of the intellectual tradition of the world of Islam. (shrink)
1. The Problem, and Two Examples Discussions of deontological moral theories typically focus on the advantages and disadvantages of deontological constraints, rules to the effect that some actions should not be performed – at least sometimes – even when performing them will maximize the good. And, of course, the jury is still out on whether deontological constraints can be defended. But in their recent paper "Absolutist Moral Theories and Uncertainty", Frank Jackson and Michael Smith1 emphasize not the general and well-known (...) challenges to deontological constraints, but a more particular difficulty relating to what deontologists2 should say about cases of uncertainty. In their key example, a skier is about to cause the death of ten people by causing an avalanche. Jackson and Smith assume that whether or not it is morally permissible (and presumably also – given the possibility of saving the ten – morally required) to kill the skier (this is the only way of saving the ten) depends, according to a typical deontological theory, on whether or not he intends to kill the ten: If so, then he can permissibly be killed in self- (or other-) defense. If not, then it is presumably impermissible to kill him, for presumably.. (shrink)
The overall goal of this target article is to demonstrate a mechanism for an embodied cognition. The particular vehicle is a much-studied, but still widely debated phenomenon seen in 7–12 month-old-infants. In Piaget's classic “A-not-B error,” infants who have successfully uncovered a toy at location “A” continue to reach to that location even after they watch the toy hidden in a nearby location “B.” Here, we question the traditional explanations of the error as an indicator of infants' concepts of objects (...) or other static mental structures. Instead, we demonstrate that the A-not-B error and its previously puzzling contextual variations can be understood by the coupled dynamics of the ordinary processes of goal-directed actions: looking, planning, reaching, and remembering. We offer a formal dynamic theory and model based on cognitive embodiment that both simulates the known A-not-B effects and offers novel predictions that match new experimental results. The demonstration supports an embodied view by casting the mental events involved in perception, planning, deciding, and remembering in the same analogic dynamic language as that used to describe bodily movement, so that they may be continuously meshed. We maintain that this mesh is a pre-eminently cognitive act of “knowing” not only in infancy but also in everyday activities throughout the life span. Key Words: cognitive development; dynamical systems theory; embodied cognition; infant development; motor control; motor planning; perception and action. (shrink)
This edited collection had its origins in a two-day conference held at the Tate Britain, organised collaboratively by research staff and students at Middlesex University and the London Consortium in order to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the publication of Edmund Burke's famous book on the sublime. The conference was funded by Middlesex University, the London Consortium and the Tate Britain's AHRC-funded "Sublime Object: Nature, Art and Language" research project. The conference set out to critically examine the legacy of the (...) sublime in contemporary art, culture and society and to assess the value and the dangers of this concept as it is articulated in current thought and practice. The book selected from and expanded on the papers delivered at the conference in order to pursue this goal further. It was broken into themed sections (each of which had an introduction), each exploring an different issue around contemporary uses of the sublime. The sections were: 1. Nature, Ecology and the Sublime; 2. The Sublime After Kant; 3. Capitalism, Terror, Art and the Sublime; 4. Baroque and Beyond: Art, Sex and the Sublime; 5. The Cinematic Sublime. The volume reflects the interdisiplinarity of the concept of the sublime today, and includes essays whose appraoches come from aesthetics and ethics, ecological and political thought, psychoanalysis, feminism, film studies, literary studies, art history and popular culture. It includes papers by internationally renowned authors from the UK, America and Europe alongside the new voices of younger academics. The contributors were: Jane Bennett (Johns Hopkins University), Mark Bould (University of the West of England), Eu Jin Chua (London Consortium), Gudrun Filipska (Middlesex University), Cornelia Klinger (Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna / University of Tübingen, Germany), Esther Leslie (Birkbeck), William McDonald (Middlesex Univeristy), Laura Mulvey (Birkbeck), Claire Pajaczkowska (Royal College of Art), Griselda Pollock (University of Leeds), Gene Ray (Geneva University of Art and Design), Bettina Reiber (Central St. Martins), Jan Rosiek (University of Copenhagen), Sherryl Vint (Brock University, Canada), and Luke White (Middlesex University). (shrink)
Erdelyi distinguishes between cognitive and emotional forms of repression, but argues that they use the same general mechanism. His discussion of experimental memory findings, on the one hand, and clinical examples, on the other, does indeed indicate considerable overlap. As an in-between level of evidence, research findings on emotion in neuroscience, as well as experimental and social/personality psychology, further support his argument.
This paper deals with modality in Peirce's existential graphs, as expressed in his gamma and tinctured systems. We aim at showing that there were two philosophically motivated decisions of Peirce's that, in the end, hindered him from producing a modern, conclusive system of modal logic. Finally, we propose emendations and modifications to Peirce's modal graphical tinctured systems and to their underlying ideas that will produce modern modal systems.
Libertarians, like Thomas Reid, hold that motives do not causally necessitate our choices. The problem that arises is to explain how the agent decides to act according to one motive and not the other. In light of some objections brought up by Leibniz and Edwards but also by contemporary compatibilists such as Haji and Goetz, I examine Thomas Reid's possible answer to this problem. I argue that to explain our choices Reid would appeal not only to motives and character (...) traits but also to the amount of effort needed to choose what is best. I also address Reid's criticism of the implicit presupposition of the Principle of Suffi cient Reason. My aim is therefore to explore, clarify and defend Reid's account of agency in choicemaking. (shrink)
This article echoes those voices that demand new approaches and ‹senses’ for management education and business programs. Much of the article is focused on showing that the polemic about the educative model of business schools has moral and epistemological foundations and opens up the debate over the type of knowledge that practitioners need to possess in order to manage organizations, and how this knowledge can be taught in management programs. The article attempts to highlight the moral dimension of management through (...) a reinterpretation of the Aristotelian concept of practical wisdom. I defend the ideas that management is never morally neutral and that Aristotelian practical wisdom allows the recovery of moral considerations in management practice. I analyze the impact and implications that the introduction of practical wisdom in business schools entails for the conception and objectives of management education. This view reconfigures management education in terms of attention to values, virtues and context. Therefore, management programmes should prepare students to critically evaluate what they hear and to make decisions coherent with their values and virtues. In the final section, I reflect on the pedagogical implications of this approach. I point out that an integrated model of ethics and practical wisdom promotes education of cognition and education of affect as well. I provide an example to illustrate my perspective and to support my conclusions. (shrink)
This article investigates whether Aristotelian practical wisdom could be considered as an advantageous "sense" in management practice and as an alternative rationality to that defended by modern tradition. Aristotelian practical wisdom is re-conceptualised in order to emphasise the intuitive component of practical wisdom, an aspect often sidelined by business ethicists. Levinas' insights are applied to Aristotelian practical wisdom in such a way that the role of emotion in moral action would be reinforced. It is argued that the role of emotion (...) in moral action and wise deliberation requires re-definition in accordance with the indeterminate character of the moral. Moreover, I argue Levinas' approach might be helpful to bring to light the conflictual aspect inherent in being prudential. By reinterpreting the intuitive component of practical wisdom as Levinas' moral impulse, wisdom theory is expanded to include the face, and to better account for the conflictive and the emotional aspects of phronesis. This approach enables practical wisdom to be understood as a human "sense" in ways that assist how we manage and understand contemporary organizations. (shrink)
ADHD is a psychiatric disorder characterised by persistent and developmentally inappropriate levels of inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. It is known that children with ADHD tend to produce incoherent discourses, e.g. by narrating events out of sequence. Here the aetiology of ADHD becomes of interest. One prominent theory is that ADHD is an executive function disorder, showing deficiencies of planning. Given the close link between planning, verb tense and discourse coherence postulated in van Lambalgen and Hamm (The proper treatment of events, (...) 2004), we predicted specific deviations in the verb tenses produced by children with ADHD. Here we report on an experiment corroborating these predictions. (shrink)
In a 2008 paper, Walmsley argued that the explanations employed in the dynamical approach to cognitive science, as exemplified by the Haken, Kelso and Bunz model of rhythmic finger movement, and the model of infant preservative reaching developed by Esther Thelen and her colleagues, conform to Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim’s deductive-nomological model of explanation (also known as the covering law model). Although we think Walmsley’s approach is methodologically sound in that it starts with an analysis of scientific practice (...) rather than a general philosophical framework, we nevertheless feel that there are two problems with his paper. First, he focuses only on the deductivenomological model and so neglects the important fact that explanations are causal. Second, the explanations offered by the dynamical approach do not take the deductive-nomological format, because they do not deduce the explananda from exceptionless laws. Because of these two points, Walmsley makes the dynamical explanations in cognitive science appear problematic, while in fact they are not. (shrink)
In his famous lecture on Kant's essay 'An Answer to the Question What is Enlightenment' Foucault distinguished between two traditions in modern philosophy coming out of Kant's work: 'an analytic of truth' and 'an ontology of present reality [ actualité ]' or 'a genealogy of ourselves'. The paper presents this distinction as a fruitful displacement of the distinction between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy,which gives the latter precise cultural and philosophical meaning. The paper clarifies the distinction and argues that almost without (...) exception, analytic philosophers are not interested -in their capacity as philosophers - in interpreting and understanding their historical present. Some possible reasons and some possible consequences of this lack of interest are examined briefly. Within the continental tradition itself, two major contemporary forms of 'an ontology of present reality' are distinguished, one exemplified by Habermas and the other by Foucault. The difference between these two forms of 'taking aim at the heart of the present' (to use Habermas' phrase) is explicated as a difference between distinct genres of critical discourse, or forms of critique. The difference is presented in respect to two major aspects: historical time and historicity, and critique's mode of engagement with 'an analytic of truth'. The last point, namely the presence of a crucial analytic moment in the philosophical interpretation of present reality, suggests a possible modification of the initial distinction between the two philosophical traditions. (shrink)
The evolutionary scenario described in this target article parallels developmental patterns observed in human infants. Early vocalizations are largely expressive, manual control develops more rapidly than intentional vocal articulation, and vocal and manual activity are linked. In ontogenetic development, language is strongly rooted in bodily action and gesture.
Al-Farabi and His School examines one of the most exciting and dynamic periods in the development of medieval Islam: the period which ran from the late ninth century to the early eleventh century AD. This age is examined through the thought of five of its principal thinkers and named after the first and greatest of these as the "Age of Farabism." Ian Richard Netton demonstrates that the great Islamic philosopher al-Farabi (870-950), called "the Second Master" after Aristotle, produced a recognizable (...) school of thought. This school of thought, which Netton refers to as the "School of al-Farabi," was influenced by the thought of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. Yet, it was much more than a mere clone of Greek thought. The originality and independence of thought expressed by such adherents as Yahya b. Adi, Abu Sulayman al-Sijistani, al-Amiri and Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi is described, appreciated, and critically assessed in this volume, with an emphasis given to the fundamentals of epistemology. Al-Farabi and His School is unique in its examination of the intellectual continuity that was maintained in an age of flux, and its particular emphasis on the ethical dimensions of knowledge. (shrink)
This essay argues that a restatement of Thomistic natural law reasoning is increasingly necessary in jurisprudential debate about international law. Mindful of Pope John Paul II's call for a renewal of international law, the essay engages with the present-day tension between Morgenthau-type realism (Goldsmith and Posner) and neo-Kantian discourse-oriented cosmopolitanism (Habermas). The essay addresses whether the former is sufficiently realistic in our global 21st century context, and whether the latter is adequately cosmopolitan. Attention is drawn to Aquinas's understanding of the (...) relation between custom, consent and political authority in order to expose some of the limits of present-day statism, and to suggest that Thomistic natural law reasoning is, potentially at least, better able to cope with the intractable disagreement that characterises 21st century global relations than some forms of neo-Kantian jurisprudence. (shrink)
This essay addresses moral hazards associated with the emerging doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). It reviews the broad acceptance by the Vatican and the World Council of Churches of the doctrine between September 2003 and September 2008, and attempts to identify grounds for more adequate investigation of the moral issues arising. Three themes are pursued: how a changing political context is affecting notions of sovereignty; the authority that can approve or refuse the use of force; and plural foundations (...) for human rights in a religiously and otherwise plural world such that the human rights protection does not become tyrannical. (shrink)
This study introduces the concept of moral imagination in a work context to provide an ethical approach to the controversial relationships between dirty work and dirty workers. Moral imagination is assessed as an essential faculty to overcome the stigma associated with dirty work and facilitate the daily work lives of workers. The exercise of moral imagination helps dirty workers to face the moral conflicts inherent in their tasks and to build a personal stance toward their occupation. Finally, we argue that (...) organizations with dirty work groups should actively adopt measures to encourage their employees’ exercise of moral imagination. This study investigates how organizations might create conditions that inspire moral imagination, particularly with regard to the importance of organizational culture as a means to enhance workers’ moral sensitivity. Furthermore, this investigation analyzes different company practices that may derive from a culture committed to moral imagination. (shrink)
We argue that mentalistic constructs like the “object concept” are not substitutes for process explanations of cognition, and that it is impossible to prove the existence of such constructs with behavioral tasks. We defend the field theory as an appropriate level for modeling embodiment. Finally, we discuss the model's biological plausibility and its extensions to other tasks and other species.
In B. Soria and E. Romero (eds.), Explicit Communication: Essays on Robyn Carston’s Pragmatics, Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition. London.
This paper presents a report on the first Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility, which was held between the 8th and 9th December 2006 at HEC Lausanne in Switzerland. The first section of the report introduces the topic of the master class – ‚Corporations as Political Actors – Facing the Postnational Challenge’ – as well as the concept of the master class. The second section gives an overview of papers written by nine young scholars that were selected to present (...) their research. The brief summary of each paper also includes a summary of comments from the masters, practitioners, and NGO representatives at the event. The third section brings in the perspectives of one master and one NGO representative on the discussed issues. The final section offers a brief wrap-up of the discussed topics and outlines ways to structure future conceptual and empirical research. (shrink)
Experiments in which subjects play simultaneously several finite two-person prisoner's dilemma supergames with and without an outside option reveal that: (i) an attractive outside option enhances cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game, (ii) if the payoff for mutual defection is negative, subjects' tendency to avoid losses leads them to cooperate; while this tendency makes them stick to mutual defection if its payoff is positive, (iii) subjects use probabilistic start and endeffect behavior.
Health care organizations are constantly seeking ways to improve quality of care and one of the often-posed solutions to deliver ‘good care’ is reflexivity. Several authors stress that enhancing the organizations’ and caregivers’ reflexivity allows for more situated, and therefore better care. Within quality improvement initiatives, devices that guarantee quality are also seen as key to the delivery of good care. These devices do not solely aim at standardizing work practices, but are also of importance in facilitating reflexivity. In this (...) article, we study how quality improvement devices position the relationship between situated reflection and standardization of work processes. By exploring the work of Michel Callon, Michael Lynch, and Lucy Suchman on reflexivity in work practices, we study the development and introduction of the Care Living Plan. This device aimed to transform care organizations of older people from their orientation towards the system of care into organizations that take a client-centred approach. Our analysis of the construction of specific forms of reflexivity in quality devices indicates that the question of reflexivity does not need to be opposed to standardization and needs to be addressed not only at the level of where reflexivity is organizationally situated and who gets to do the reflecting, but also on the content of reflexivity, such as what are the issues that care workers can and cannot reflect upon. In this paper we point out the theoretical importance of a more detailed empirical study of the framing of reflexivity in care practices. (shrink)
Cultural Semiosis traces the theoretical itinerary of the signifier in the continental tradition. Cultural semiosis provides links for cultural studies to the philosophical, the literary, the historical and the social. Understood semiotically, cultural signs and signifiers are inscribed in the fabric of cultural practices. Cultural semiosis enters the spaces of everyday language, visuality, sexuality and symbolization. These original essays interpret and provide tools for the understanding of cultural studies within a philosophical framework. Contributors: M. Alison Arnett, Debra Bergoffen, Peter Carravetta, (...) Alessandro Carrera, Julia Kristeva, John Llewelyn, Michael Naas, Kelly Oliver, Adi Ophir, Francois Raffoul, Mark Roberts, Stephanie Sage, Hugh J. Silverman. (shrink)
This paper gives a simple method for providing categorial brands of feature-based unification grammars with a model-theoretic semantics. The key idea is to apply the paradigm of fibred semantics (or layered logics, see Gabbay (1990)) in order to combine the two components of a feature-based grammar logic. We demonstrate the method for the augmentation of Lambek categorial grammar with Kasper/Rounds-style feature logic. These are combined by replacing (or annotating) atomic formulas of the first logic, i.e. the basic syntactic types, by (...) formulas of the second. Modelling such a combined logic is less trivial than one might expect. The direct application of the fibred semantics method where a combined atomic formula like np (num: sg & pers: 3rd) denotes those strings which have the indicated property and the categorial operators denote the usual left- and right-residuals of these string sets, does not match the intuitive, unification-based proof theory. Unification implements a global bookkeeping with respect to a proof whereas the direct fibring method restricts its view to the atoms of the grammar logic. The solution is to interpret the (embedded) feature terms as global feature constraints while maintaining the same kind of fibred structures. For this adjusted semantics, the anticipated proof system is sound and complete. (shrink)
: This paper discusses how Herbert Simon's initial interest in decision making became transformed into a focus on understanding human problem solving in response to the concrete conditions of the Cold War and the practical goals of the military. In particular, it suggests a connection between the seachange in Simon's interest and his shift in patronage. As a result, Simon is portrayed as a component of the scientific-military World War II cyborg that further evolved during the Cold War. Moving from (...) decision making to problem solving, Simon's cyborg science not only required large sums of money, but also managed to acquire these. (shrink)
This essay responds to Esther Reed's recent critique of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle in this journal. It argues that Reed fundamentally misunderstands and misrepresents R2P. Her critique of R2P would have served well as a critique of the earlier concept of humanitarian intervention had it been penned in the late 1990s. But most of the problems and dangers that Reed identifies are in reality the very problems and dangers that R2P seeks to overcome, and I suggest that (...) it does overcome them quite successfully. R2P does not impose Western ideals on the rest of the world, weaken the legal restrictions on the use of force, or promote abusive interventionism. Rather, it offers a bold but carefully constructed framework that holds the promise of promoting the protection of vulnerable populations from mass atrocities. (shrink)
This article explores the connection between the Heng Xian and the Changes of Zhou tradition, especially the “Tuan” and “Attached Verbalizations” commentaries. Two important Heng Xian terms—heng 恆 and fu 復—are also Changes of Zhou hexagrams and possible connections are explored. Second, the Heng Xian account of the creation of names is compared with the “Attached Verbalizations” account of the creation of the Changes of Zhou system. Third, the roles played by knowing and desire in both Heng Xian and the (...) Changes of Zhou tradition are explored, with particular focus on potential points of similarity. Finally, insights gained through these comparisons are used to interpret the Heng Xian advice on initiating action. (shrink)
In their “The Prevalence of Mind-Body Dualism in Early China,” Slingerland and Chudek use a statistical analysis of the early Chinese corpus to argue for Weak Folk Dualism (WFD). We raise three methodological objections to their analysis. First, the change over time that they find is largely driven by genre. Second, the operationalization of WFD is potentially misleading. And, third, dating the texts they use is extremely controversial. We conclude with some positive remarks.
This book offers an original and detailed reading of Plato's Republic, one of the most influential philosophical works in the development of Western philosophy.
This paper presents a report on the first Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility, which was held between the 8th and 9th December 2006 at HEC Lausanne in Switzerland. The first section of the report introduces the topic of the master class – ‚Corporations as Political Actors – Facing the Postnational Challenge’ – as well as the concept of the master class. The second section gives an overview of papers written by nine young scholars that were selected to present (...) their research. The brief summary of each paper also includes a summary of comments from the masters, practitioners, and NGO representatives at the event. The third section brings in the perspectives of one master and one NGO representative on the discussed issues. The final section offers a brief wrap-up of the discussed topics and outlines ways to structure future conceptual and empirical research. (shrink)
In this paper, we discuss contextualism, a philosophical position that some pragmatists have endorsed as a result of the philosophical reflection on pragmatics as a science. In particular, we challenge, from the results on phrasal pragmatics, the contextualist approach on incomplete definite descriptions and referential metonymy according to which optional pragmatic processes of interpretation are required (an optional pragmatic process of recovering unarticulated constituents for incompleteness and an optional pragmatic process of transfer for metonymy). By contrast, we argue from the (...) standpoint of phrasal pragmatics that what is descriptively referred to depends, in both cases, on truth-conditionally mandatory pragmatic processes of recovery of unarticulated constituents. (shrink)
