This essay explores the place in Clarice Lispector’s literature that seeks to touch a primary ground of the living with a language that exceeds the symbolic in order to read it from an anthropocenic, posthuman, and feminist present. It argues that the story “A menor mulher do mundo” (Laços de família, 1960) takes to an extreme what happens in all of Lispector’s literature at the point that we can find in Macabéa’s character from A hora da estrela (1976), a sort (...) of continuation of the smallest woman in the world. In both – the story and the novel – materiality comes to life and it is associated with a neutral background that goes beyond the difference between the human and the nonhuman, the feminine and the masculine, and that coincides with language, with the word. Both characters are residue and resistance, and operate in the stories in the same way that the word operates in Lispector’s writing. The Deleuzian concept of minor and its continuation on the concept of immanence are therefore read not only as a way to think beyond the species, but also as that which operates by destabilizing the concept of “woman” as a universal. Lispector’s writing, then, allows us to separate contemporary feminisms from an affirmation of the identity of the feminine and the masculine, to take them instead into an order that – regardless of whether embodied in woman – is outside the patriarchal. (shrink)

This is the first English scholarly edition of this pivotal essay, accompanied by the first comprehensive commentary on it.

This anthology is the first attempt to present a rounded picture of 'Kierkegaard as a philosopher' in English. After an introduction explaining how Kierkegaard viewed the task of 'becoming a philosopher', there are generous extracts from the Concept of Irony and the great pseudonymous works: Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Repetition, Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety, Prefaces, Johannes Climacus and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Kierkegaard's own attempts to summarize the significance of his writings are also included, so that readers have the (...) opportunity to make up their own minds about the adequacy of his retrospective accounting. The Kierkegaard who emerges from these pages is not only a penetrating analyst of temporality, individuality, and irony, but also a lithe, witty and versatile stylist. He is probably one of the greatest writers in the philosophical tradition, and surely one of the most humorous. The anthology makes use of a range of classic translations, and includes new translations by Jane Chamberlain and Jonathan Rée, explanatory introductions, an index and a glossary. (shrink)

This anthology is the first attempt to present a rounded picture of 'Kierkegaard as a philosopher' in English. After an introduction explaining how Kierkegaard viewed the task of 'becoming a philosopher', there are generous extracts from the Concept of Irony and the great pseudonymous works: Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Repetition, Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety, Prefaces, Johannes Climacus and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Kierkegaard's own attempts to summarize the significance of his writings are also included, so that readers have the (...) opportunity to make up their own minds about the adequacy of his retrospective accounting. The Kierkegaard who emerges from these pages is not only a penetrating analyst of temporality, individuality, and irony, but also a lithe, witty and versatile stylist. He is probably one of the greatest writers in the philosophical tradition, and surely one of the most humorous. The anthology makes use of a range of classic translations, and includes new translations by Jane Chamberlain and Jonathan Rée, explanatory introductions, an index and a glossary. (shrink)

Drawing on a qualitative study of women who cared for their elderly mothers, this article explores women's experiences of feeling responsible for elderly relatives. The minimal provision of public services for old people and the relative absence of brothers and husbands from family caregiving emerge as material constraints shaping women's sense of obligation. This is affirmed by ideologies and assumptions about women's association with caring and family ties that permeate subjects' accounts of their situations. Translating their sense of obligation into (...) their lives is a contradictory process characterized by ambivalence and guilt that stifle complaint. Further exploration of the social processes that sustain the inequitable division of caring labor can contribute to interpretations, practices, and policies that benefit rather than constrain women. (shrink)

The proposed new geological era, The Anthropocene (aka Age of Humans, Age of Man), marking human domination of the planet long called Mother Earth, is truly The Age of the Motherfucker. The ecocide of the Anthropocene comes from Man, the Western- and masculine- identified corporate, military, intellectual, and political class that masks itself as the exemplar of the civilized and the human. The word motherfucker was invented by the enslaved children of White slavemasters to name their mothers' rapist/owners. Man's strategic (...) motherfucking, from the personal to the planetary, is invasion, exploitation, spirit-breaking, extraction and toxic wasting of individuals, communities, and lands, for reasons of pleasure, plunder, and profit. Ecocide is attempted deicide of Mother Nature-Earth, reflecting Man's goal to come the god he first made in his own image. The motivational word Motherfucker further reveals the Anthropocene with a flip side signifying an outstanding, formidable, and inexorable force. Mother Nature-Earth is that "Mutha'" -- one defying translation into heteropatriarchal classifications of gender, one capable of overwhelming Man and not the other way around. Drawing upon Indigenous and African American scholarship, ecofeminism, ecowomanism, green activism, femme, queer, and gender non-binary philosophies, literature and arts, Afrofuturism, and popular culture, Call Your "Mutha'" contends that the Anthropocene is not evidence of Man's supremacy over nature, but that Mother Nature-Earth, faced with disrespect, is going away. It is imperative now to call the "Mutha'" by decolonizing land, bodies, and minds, ending rapism, feeding the green, renewing sustaining patterns and affirming devotion to Mother Nature-Earth. (shrink)

This volume presents the first complete translation of Fichte Studies, a powerful, creative and sustained critique of Fichtean philosophy by the young philosopher-poet Friedrich von Hardenberg, who under the pen-name Novalis went on to become the most well-known and beloved of the early German Romantic writers. Anyone interested in the fate of German philosophy and literature immediately after Kant will find this collection of notes and aphorisms a treasure-trove of original contributions on the nature of self-consciousness, the relation of art (...) to philosophy, and the nature of philosophical inquiry. There are also the beginnings of a strikingly contemporary-sounding semiotic theory. The text is translated by Jane Kneller, who also provides an introduction situating the Fichte Studies in the context of Novalis' life and work. (shrink)

This collection of essays by one of the foremost Kant scholars of our time is a welcome and timely addition to the literature. Henrich is a very prolific scholar, and the lack of English translations of most of his works may account in some measure for the fact that there has been surprisingly little sustained engagement with them by Anglo-American scholars, especially those working on Kant’s ethics. It is to be hoped that this volume will help provoke such an engagement.

Translation of "Von der Armut am Geiste; ein Dialog des jungen Lukács," by Ágnes Heller. This translation originally appeared in The Philosophical Forum, Spring-Summer 1972.

This article examines the contribution that poetry written over the last fifty years might make to the established and burgeoning field of Medical Humanities. It takes poems by women about cancer and depression as a case study of how they can offer insight into the impact of these conditions on the sufferer. Collectively, the poems document and effect shifts in knowledge about, and the associated stigmas concerning, illnesses that carry secrecy and shame, specifically cancer and depression. Additionally, drawing on Virginia (...) Woolf’s remarkable essay “On Being Ill”, we see how the non-verbal features of poems, particularly metaphors and symbols, mark the space of what a patient cannot fully articulate. Accordingly, the poems discussed illuminate how literature can express human interiority but at the same time remind the reader – or health professional – that interiority can never be fully presented. Thus, poetry both contributes to and also checks the ways in which literature is appropriated by the biomedical sciences. The poets included are Eavan Boland, Julia Darling, U.A. Fanthorpe, Jackie Kay, Gwyneth Lewis, Carol Satyamurti and Jo Shapcott. Some poems specify a female subjectivity, some express agency as autonomous individuals, while others presume to speak of common human experience. (shrink)

English translation by Kneller and Losonsky of Klaus Reich, Die Vollständigkeit der Kantischen Urteilstafel -/- "This classic of Kant scholarship, whose first edition appeared in 1932, deals with one of the most controversial and difficult topics in the Critique of Pure Reason: Kant's table of judgments and their connection to the table of categories. Kant's attempt to derive the latter from the former is called the "Metaphysical Deduction," and it paves the way for the Transcendental Deduction that is universally recognized (...) as the heart of the Critique." "Many commentators have passed over the Metaphysical Deduction in silence, as if embarrassed by Kant's fatuity, and his critics are almost unanimous in finding its premise ungrounded, its argument incorrect, and its conclusion false. At the heart of the failure of the Metaphysical Deduction, it is alleged, is Kant's inability to justify the table of the forms of judgment. Critics argue that Kant simply took these forms of judgment from the logic textbooks of his day and doctored them so as to yield the required categories. Such objections were current even in Kant's time; they were repeated by Hegel, and are commonplaces of Kant criticism today." "This book is the fullest and most systematic evaluation ever made of the Metaphysical Deduction. Reich argues that its principal conclusion is correct even though Kant failed to establish it in the Metaphysical Deduction proper, and he defends the conclusion by using Kant material far removed from the text of the Metaphysical Deduction, notes by Kant that only became available in the 1920's and that remain even now untranslated into English. With the publication of this translation for English-speaking Kant scholars, a neglected and impugned part of the Critique of Pure Reason can finally receive the attention it deserves."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

A. C. Graham's Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Sciences is the only Western-language translation of the obscure and textually corrupt chapters of the Mozi that purportedly constitute the foundations of ancient Chinese logic. Graham's presentation and interpretation of this difficult material has been largely accepted by scholars. This article questions the soundness of Graham's reconstruction of these chapters . Upon close examination, problems are revealed in both the structure and the content of the framework Graham uses to interpret the Canons. (...) Without a more reliable framework for interpreting the text, it seems best to remain skeptical about claims that the Canons represent evidence for the study of logic in early China. (shrink)

The reception history of a text is frequently at odds with its origins. Colin Burrow notes the irony that despite its loud support of those in power, Virgil’s Aeneid is taken up and translated by the disempowered during the Renaissance. The same is partly true of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. This paper examines the place of the Cyropaedia within the English humanist tradition, focussing on English translations of the text, and its interpretation within the speculum principis tradition. This culminates in the (...) moment when the reigning monarch, King James I of England, finds mirrored in the Cyropaedia an irresistible model of imperial kingship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Making the "One" ImpossibleJane Gallop (bio)The last paragraph of the first chapter of Mother Tongues presents the book's argument. "What I hope to argue in this book," writes Johnson, "is that the plurality of languages and the plurality of sexes are alike in that they both make the 'one' impossible" [25]. While I am not convinced that Mother Tongues actually demonstrates the similarity between the plurality of languages and (...) the plurality of sexes, my reading nonetheless does find its thesis in this sentence. I would say that Johnson's project in this book is to "make the 'one' impossible," that throughout this book, Johnson continually and consistently argues against the "appeal" of "the 'one'"—repeatedly locates herself in, and exhorts us to join her in, resistance to the powerful seductions of "the 'one.'"In the sentence I just quoted, the word "one" is in quotation marks because the word is not quite the proper name for what Johnson is talking about. When I use the phrase "the 'one'" here, as I do in my title ("Making the 'One' Impossible"), and as I will do throughout this paper, the word "one" will always be in quotation marks, scare quotes.In Mother Tongues, "the 'one'" goes by a number of different names. In the last paragraph of the first chapter, for example, where we found our thesis, it is called "universality." Under that guise, we might recognize the politics of this resistance to "the 'one'" (a politics we are, at this point in critical history, all more than ready to climb on board for). Johnson's resistance to "the 'one'" in Mother Tongues, however, usually appears—I'm happy to say—in other, less politic, more perverse guises.The most widespread elaboration of Mother Tongues's resistance to "the 'one'" is through its active interest in the practice of translation. The theory and practice of translation elaborated in this book is one I'd like to call insubordinate translation. At a number of places, Johnson looks at multiple translations of a text along with the original, not in order to determine which is closer to the original, but in order to enlarge the network of meaning. At times, Johnson productively follows meanings which appear in a translation but are not in the original.The first time this occurs is in the first chapter, in a section entitled "Translation." Johnson is looking at two different English translations of Kafka's The Trial: an "old translation" she "happened to have on hand" and "a more recent edition" in which the old translation "had been revised." Studying the first sentence of the novel in the original and the two translations, Johnson seizes on the word traduce, which she finds in the old translation but not the revision and proclaims: "The translation... is thus even better than the original" [16, emphasis added].The next chapter of Mother Tongues gives us a sense of where, theoretically, this insubordination comes from: "the theory that transformed literary studies utterly transformed the practice of translation. Translating Derrida or Lacan became an art in itself" [32]. "An art in itself" suggests a primary creation, not secondary. (We would certainly want to recall here that Johnson herself translated Derrida's Dissemination). [End Page 77]In the third chapter, "The Task of the Translator," we find Johnson comparing an English translation of Benjamin's "The Task of the Translator" to the German original. At one point she ponders the associations of "light" in the word lightly, which is translating the German fluchtig, associations that are not in the original. She concludes: "We have no way of talking about these creations ex nihilo of translation" [57]. Like the earlier "an art in itself," the phrase "creations ex nihilo" again makes translation a primary rather than secondary art. We may have "no way of talking about" these creations, but Mother Tongues does talk about them, regularly, throughout the book.The fifth chapter opens with an epigraph from a letter Benjamin wrote to Horkheimer, or rather an English translation of that letter. The conclusion to the first section of the chapter returns to the word apprehend, which appears in this epigraph: "the psychological... (shrink)

A. C. Graham's Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Sciences (1978) is the only Western-language translation of the obscure and textually corrupt chapters of the Mozi that purportedly constitute the foundations of ancient Chinese logic. Graham's presentation and interpretation of this difficult material has been largely accepted by scholars. This article questions the soundness of Graham's reconstruction of these chapters (the so-called "Neo-Mohist Canons"). Upon close examination, problems are revealed in both the structure and the content of the framework Graham uses (...) to interpret the Canons. Without a more reliable framework for interpreting the text, it seems best to remain skeptical about claims that the Canons represent evidence for the study of logic in early China. (shrink)

The dissertation examines the intersection of language and sense discrimination in the texts of classical Chinese philosophy . Through an analysis of the figures of speech related to language and sense discrimination, it argues that the pair 'aural and visual' forms a significant dualism within the Chinese cosmos. ;The significance of the aural/visual dualism is threefold. First, it clarifies classical Chinese epistemology. The dissertation argues that classical Chinese epistemology is a matter of matching many levels of parallels between the aural (...) and the visual. In other words, knowledge in classical China is verified through correspondences between the aural and visual. ;Second, the aural/visual dualism challenges a common assumption that in classical China sense discrimination is natural while language is conventional. The aural and visual are two aspects of sense discrimination, but they are also two aspects of language. That is, the category 'language' extends over both sides of the dualism. It is both aural and visual . As a result, the contrast of 'language as conventional' in opposition to 'sense discrimination as natural' does not develop in classical China. Both language and sense discrimination are to some extent both natural and conventional. ;Thirdly, the importance of the aural and visual is connected to the pair ming/shi. Ming/shi is typically translated 'names and reality' or 'names and objects' on the assumption that shi is more substantial and therefore more real. But as a form of the aural/visual dualism, there seems to be no justification for taking shi as 'reality'. Shi is what is seen by the eyes, just as ming is what is heard by the ears, but neither appears more intrinsically 'real'. Thus, the dissertation argues that in light of the aural/visual dualism we must reconsider what constitutes the notion of reality in classical China. (shrink)

An analysis of the Christian writings of Edith Stein helps to show how her philosophical training enabled her to develop a Christian epistemology and concomitant metaphysics. Special emphasis is placed on some of her shorter works in their translation by Hilda Graef.

An analysis of the Christian writings of Edith Stein helps to show how her philosophical training enabled her to develop a Christian epistemology and concomitant metaphysics. Special emphasis is placed on some of her shorter works in their translation by Hilda Graef.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bilingual Aesthetics:A New Sentimental EducationJane DuranBilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education, by Doris Sommer. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004, 254 pp.Doris Sommer's new work Bilingual Aesthetics is the sort of book that takes one by surprise—and for good reason. Filled with punning twists, and itself a valorizer of word games and magic, this work has not a lot to do with bilingualism (in the standard sense), not (...) a lot to do with aesthetics (again, in the standard academic sense), but a great deal to do with both. Whether the title is read (and Sommer's point is to forward the notion of alternate readings) as the aesthetics of bilingualism or as an account of what a bilingual might make of aesthetics, there is a startling amount of content in the work.Briefly, Sommer essays to make the case that our multicultural society is distinctly better off for being multicultural and multilingual (or at least, in some threatening sense, emergently bilingual) because the literal bilingual has a distinct advantage over her or his monolingual counterpart. The bilingual can play language games, and those games shock, amuse, or jolt—whatever it is that they do, they rouse us out of any state of intellectual torpor into which we might have fallen and they serve to make us all individuals who, in Du Bois' memorable phrase, have "double consciousness."Thus Sommer does in fact mean for her title to be read in at least two ways: Her work attempts to valorize and vindicate a sort of unofficial bilingualism (one of the blurbs on the back of the paperback edition begins by saying "Knowing a second language entails some unease... "), while she also attempts to let us in on the notion that there is an aesthetic that develops from the use of more than one code. Sommer plays remarkably on all these concepts: She is familiar with the standard, overt scholarship on bilingualism—she can cite work by sociolinguists and others. At the same time, as an author known for previous work on literature, especially with regard to Latin America, she is also familiar with much of the standard historical work in aesthetics, including Kant. Citing thinkers such as Kenji Hakuta, William J. Bennett, Wittgenstein, and Elena Poniatowska, Sommer leaves the reader somewhat bedazzled and breathless but better off for having read her work.Her overall thesis, if one may attempt to employ such a phrase, is that bilingualism and code-switching create for us the same sort of uneasiness and inevitable access to the unconscious that works of art and literature produce—and that the edginess that is a concomitant of code-switching is beneficial. Her first chapter "Choose and Lose" reminds Americans that the United States has always been a multilingual place and focuses on how much can be gained from attempting to forward the notion. If there is any difficulty to Sommer's work, it is that she practices what she preaches. Every page demands much of the reader, since every page itself engages in the [End Page 121] sort of rapid-fire twisting and switching that Sommer is trying to support as the ground for a new aesthetic consciousness.Early on, Sommer gives us the following:Complaints about the danger to national coherence [of multi- or bilingualism] can be downright funny.... [One irate journalist wrote:] "How can immigrants identify with America if they can't read Lincoln's words in the language in which they were spoken?(out of many, one) to a multicultural boarding house,...?" No need to be upset at this harangue. It's obviously a joke, even if the author missed it (a common asymmetry in bilingual humor). Notice that the translation from Latin assumes that English-only citizens don't understand the very slogan they hold dear.(p. 26)But of course the joke is to some extent on Sommer and on all of us, as she no doubt intends. It is highly unlikely that the journalist did get the humor, and the only funny part of the entire tirade is that we—assuming we have enough formal education—may be able to make something out of it... (shrink)

The first 1000 days of life, from conception to 2 years, are a critical window for the influence of environmental exposures on the assembly of the oral microbiome, which is the precursor to dental caries (decay), one of the most prevalent microbially induced disorders worldwide. While it is known that the human microbiome is susceptible to environmental exposures, there is limited understanding of the impact of prenatal and early childhood exposures on the oral microbiome trajectory and oral health. A barrier (...) has been the lack of technology to directly measure the foetal "exposome", which includes nutritional and toxic exposures crossing the placenta. Another barrier has been the lack of statistical methods to account for the high dimensional data generated by‐omic assays. Through identifying which early life exposures influence the oral microbiome and modify oral health, these findings can be translated into interventions to reduce dental decay prevalence. (shrink)

This collection of essays by one of the foremost Kant scholars of our time is a welcome and timely addition to the literature. Henrich is a very prolific scholar, and the lack of English translations of most of his works may account in some measure for the fact that there has been surprisingly little sustained engagement with them by Anglo-American scholars, especially those working on Kant’s ethics. It is to be hoped that this volume will help provoke such an engagement.

The purpose of this article is to elaborate the many literary allusions that Simone Weil used in her ultimate work: L' Enracinement, translated as The Need for Roots, to achieve her goal of encouraging her fellow countrymen to create a new postwar society. Understanding how she used the riches of the French and Western Literary Cannon, less easily grasped by those not educated in the French Education system, enriches the understanding of Weil's purpose and skill in writing on many (...) levels, simultaneously for different target audiences. Underlying her stress on the need for truth and honesty about a county's past and present, with discernable respect for every person, is her foundational belief in the spiritual destiny of every human being. Examining her literary allusions in detail to show her clever subversion of traditionally accepted interpretations brings a new dimension to Simone Weil studies, while underlining the relevance of this essay to contemporary dilemmas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 69~ created mind will reflect the divine essence in its own unique way (e.g., 77, 83) helps to solve some of the problems which Parkinson finds in the pbenomenalism that he attributes to Leibniz (see xxxi and xxxiv) and also partly motivates the original formulation of Leibniz's principle of the identity of indiscernibles (50 and his doctrine of marks and traces (51). But the point of The (...) Yale Leibniz surely has less to do with interpretation and more to do with text. Parkinson's translations are generally good. There are only a few cases where the English obscures both Leibniz's Latin and his argument (e.g., a paragraph on p. i 14 contains instances of the Latinfigura which are translated differently). That The Yale Leibniz has the excellent policy of including the original language on facing pages renders irrelevant the fact that one is bound to disagree with this qualified translator on some minor points. Parkinson's edition might have been a bit more scholar-friendly than it is: while his text contains both the page and essay numbers of the Academy edition, his table of contents contains neither; this means that one can neither make a quick comparison between the contents of the two volumes nor easily move back and forth between them. Nor is one privy, in Parkinson's text, to the many and important corrections which Leibniz made to his essays and which are carefully noted in the Academy volume. This is a serious flaw: these papers afford an extraordinary ringside seat on the development of beibniz's philosophy; it is a pity that many of the details of this metaphysical sparring remain out of sight. Despite these minor disappointments, Parkinson's edition of De Summa Rerum remains a genuinely helpful research tool. By taking on these enormously difficult and profoundly important texts and by placing them so securely in the context of Leibniz's later thought, he has done us a very great favor. He has also whetted our appetite for more of The Yale Leibniz. CHRISTIA MERCER Columbia University Claudio Cesa and Norbert Hinske, eds. Kant und seinJahrhundert: Gedenkschriftfiir Giorgio ToneUi. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1993. Pp. xiv + ~lZ. NP. Far-reaching both in historical and philosophical scope as well as in the diversity of scholars represented, this volume is a tribute to an important contemporary historian of philosophy, Giorgio Tonelli (1928-1978). A glance through the seventeen-page chronological bibliography confirms the breadth of Tonelli's historical interests, ranging over work on Albrecht von Hailer, Heine, and Maupertuis as well as his wellknown works on Kant and earlier figures of the Enlightenment. The editors point out in their brief introduction that Tonelli's work was important as an antidote to an earlier tendency in Kant scholarship to read Kant through the lenses of German idealism, rather than focusing on the Kantian corpus in the context of earlier traditions and philosophical achievements. "Sein Jahrhundert" includes essays that encompass the whole of the eighteenth century, as well as important seventeenth-century influences. The volume is quite 692 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER ~995 appropriately international and multilinguai, reflecting Tonelli's own background and widespread influence. The essays are for the most part clearly written, well-informed and carefully argued interpretations of important Enlightenment figures that aim to refocus our attention on neglected or misinterpreted aspects of these philosophers' views. What follows will give interested readers a brief overview of the contents. In "Corsi, Ricorsi and the Way Out of Modern Barbarism in Vico's New Science," Craig Walton offers an interesting 'third way' of reading Vico's notions of"course" and "recourse" that parallels Tonelli's approach to Kant. Walton argues against anachronistic idealist interpretations of corsi/ricorsi as cyclic or recurrence concepts, and also against ahistorical readings of these notions as aesthetic or ironic. Rather, for Vico, the "storia ideale eterna'" is to be understood as purposeful but open-ended, and this can only be fully appreciated if the notion of ricorso is interpreted as the possibility of human response to the course of human history. Ezequiel de Olaso's "Spinoza et l'Espagne ~clair6e... (shrink)

How similar are the philosophies of Quine and Wittgenstein? Quine himself invites speculation on this topic by remarking, "Perhaps the doctrine of indeterminacy of translation will have little air of paradox for readers familiar with Wittgenstein." And quite a number of philosophers, in passing comments or at greater length, have taken up the invitation. This collection is a useful continuation of the debate. The papers are of somewhat uneven quality, but most contain something of interest, and some are excellent.

The visibility of pregnancy in contemporary societies through various forms of medical imaging has often been interpreted by feminist critics as negative for the autonomy and experience of pregnant women. Here, I consider the representation of pregnancy in Virginia Woolf’s novel, Orlando, and Sally Potter’s film of the same name arguing that, despite limited critical attention to Orlando’s pregnancy, these texts offer a productive interpretation of gestation that counters conventionally reductive cultural images of that embodied state. In particular, I argue (...) that Potter’s translation of Woolf’s novel to the screen gives us a useful model for thinking through the new visibility of pregnancy in contemporary Western culture. (shrink)

The author presents Simone Weil’s theory that force, an inherent part of the human condition, generates and regenerates its own existence. She examines three essays by Weil: ‘The Iliad or a Poem of Force’, ‘Reflections on War’, and ‘The Power of Words’. Doering situates the essays historically: their publication in French journals, as World War Two was looming, and again in the mid-1940s when translations of the essays appeared in Dwight Macdonald’s New York journal: politics. She applies to modern times (...) Weil’s conviction that the escalation of war preparations on grounds of national security inexorably undermines the belief in the supreme value of the individual. Major issues include the hyping of war as an act of interior politics, fear as a means of social control, freedom of thought in a permanent war economy, Dorothy Day on violence, the media in a democracy and the Greek concept of nemesis. (shrink)

The language of “participant-driven research,” “crowdsourcing” and “citizen science” is increasingly being used to encourage the public to become involved in research ventures as both subjects and scientists. Originally, these labels were invoked by volunteer research efforts propelled by amateurs outside of traditional research institutions and aimed at appealing to those looking for more “democratic,” “patient-centric,” or “lay” alternatives to the professional science establishment. As mainstream translational biomedical research requires increasingly larger participant pools, however, corporate, academic and governmental research programs (...) are embracing this populist rhetoric to encourage wider public participation. We examine the ethical and social implications of this recruitment strategy. We begin by surveying examples of “citizen science” outside of biomedicine, as paradigmatic of the aspirations this democratizing rhetoric was originally meant to embody. Next, we discuss the ways these aspirations become articulated in the biomedical context, with a view to drawing out the multiple and potentially conflicting meanings of “public engagement” when citizens are also the subjects of the science. We then illustrate two uses of public engagement rhetoric to gain public support for national biomedical research efforts: its post-hoc use in the “care.data” project of the National Health Service in England, and its proactive uses in the “Precision Medicine Initiative” of the United States White House. These examples will serve as the basis for a normative analysis, discussing the potential ethical and social ramifications of this rhetoric. We pay particular attention to the implications of government strategies that cultivate the idea that members of the public have a civic duty to participate in government-sponsored research initiatives. We argue that such initiatives should draw from policy frameworks that support normative analysis of the role of citizenry. And, we conclude it is imperative to make visible and clear the full spectrum of meanings of “citizen science,” the contexts in which it is used, and its demands with respect to participation, engagement, and governance. (shrink)

Misophonia is a disorder generally characterised by a decreased tolerance to everyday sounds. Although research is increasing in misophonia, a cross-cultural validation of a psychometric tool for measuring misophonia has not been evaluated. This study investigated the validity of the S-Five multidimensional model of the misophonic experience in a sample of Chinese participants. The S-Five was translated in a forward-backward method to Mandarin to establish a satisfactory translation. The translation was also independently back translated to English, with no (...) significant differences when compared to the original S-Five. Through exploratory factor analysis, using responses from 256 Chinese individuals, the five dimensions were replicated, indicating the cross-cultural uniformity of the experience of misophonia as captured by the S-Five. That is, current results point to the stability of the manifestation of misophonia across cultures, seen here for the first time in the literature. By design, the S-Five items were developed to reflect sound sensitivities in a manner that is not specific or matching to individuals of a certain age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, socio-economic status, and educational level. Testimonial to this fact is not only the replication of the five factors, but also the replication of the evidence towards satisfactory psychometric properties of the scale. Based on the results of this study, the S-Five is a psychometrically robust tool to be used within the Chinese population. (shrink)

In the eleventh of his Antiquarian Letters, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing discusses a phrase from Lucian's description of the painting by Zeuxis called A Family of Centaurs: ‘at the top of the painting a centaur is leaning down as if from an observation point, smiling’. ‘This as if from an observation point, Lessing notes, obviously implies that Lucian himself was uncertain whether this figure was positioned further back, or was at the same time on higher ground. We need to recognize the (...) logic of ancient bas-reliefs where figures further to the back look over those at the front, not because they are actually positioned above them but because they are meant to appear as if standing behind.'1 · 1. The passage is in George Lessing, Briefe, antiquarischen Inhalts, p. 81. Panofsky's discussion does not note that the original text of Lucian makes clear that what is described is a copy of the original painting. This means that some of the issues of misunderstanding situated by Lessing and Panofsky in Lucian's court may in principle be attributable to the copyist. This makes no difference to the conceptual thrust of Panofsky's case.—Trans. (shrink)

Leopoldo Zea was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. Though in English-language scholarship Zea is known primarily as a historian of ideas, his philosophical producti...

‘Language and End Time’ is a translation of Sections I, IV and V of ‘Sprache und Endzeit’, a substantial essay by Günther Anders that was published in eight instalments in the Austrian journal FORVM from 1989 to 1991. The original essay was planned for inclusion in the third volume of The Obsolescence of Human Beings. ‘Language and End Time’ builds on the diagnosis of ‘our blindness toward the apocalypse’ that was advanced in the first volume of The Obsolescence in 1956. (...) The essay asks if there is a language that is capable of making us fully comprehend the looming ‘man-made apocalypse’. In response to this, it offers a critique of philosophical jargon and of the putatively ‘objective’ language of science, which are both dismissed as unsuitable. Sections I, IV and V introduce this core problematic. The selection of this text for inclusion in this special journal issue responds to present-day realities that inscribe Anders’s reflections on nuclear science and the nuclear situation into new contexts. The critique that ‘Language and End Time’ advances resonates with the way in which the decisions of a few companies and individuals are shaping the future of life on earth. At the same time, the wider stakes of Anders’s turn against the language employed by scientists are newly laid bare by the realities and politics of climate change and fake news. In this new context, the language of science is all too readily dismissed as if it were a mere idiom that can be ignored without consequence. It is against the backdrop of a future that is, if anything, more uncertain than at the time of Anders’s writing, that the essay’s reflections on popularisation, the limits of language and the nature of truth gain added significance. (shrink)

In 1813 Isaak von Sinclair published a poem entitled “The New Acquaintance.” It recounts a meeting between himself, his friend Friedrich Hölderlin, and one other unidentified guest whom Sinclair awaited with keen anticipation. Because of Hölderlin’s well established friendship with Hegel it has been assumed in the past that the unknown acquaintance was in fact Hegel. However, at the time to which the poem refers, Hegel was a relatively obscure and unknown figure with no reputation. If we are therefore to (...) accept that the poem does indeed allude to Hegel then we must assume that Sinclair, as early as 1813, had recognized Hegel’s genius and wanted retrospectively to associate his name with the newly rising star of German philosophy. In that case we must ask why he refrained from mentioning Hegel by name or at least making the character of the unknown unambiguously clear? In translating this poem for the first time into English I offer for consideration another candidate as the “acquaintance,” namely, Wilhelm Heinse. (shrink)

ABSTRACT “Meister Eckhart’s Mysticism in Comparison with Zen Buddhism” originally appeared as the concluding section of Ueda Shizuteru’s first book, Die Gottesgeburt in der Seele und der Durchbruch zur Gottheit: Die mystische Anthropologie Meister Eckharts und ihre Konfrontation mit der Mystik des Zen-Buddhismus. It was first published in 1965 as an expanded version of Ueda’s doctoral dissertation, which was written under the supervision of Ernst Benz at the University of Marburg. Ueda’s careful analysis not only illuminates important points of affinity (...) between Eckhart and Zen, but also explains why Eckhart’s mysticism cannot be simply interchanged with Zen Buddhism. To allow the reader to read for themselves, I kept all interpretative notes to a minimum. The text is translated from the most recent edition of the German text, published in 2018 by Verlag Karl Alber, and edited by Wolf Burbat. The German pagination is interpolated in bold throughout the text. (shrink)

The basic problem affecting humanitarian law today remains that of its implementation. As of now, requests made by individuals before national courts to assess the compatibility of certain acts with international humanitarian law failed. The present case study and commentaries focus on the decision of a German civil court sitting Bonn to deny the victims of a NATO air raid the right to sue Germany and claim compensation for alleged violations of international humanitarian law.

Despite the overuse of the word in movies, political speeches, and news reports, "evil" is generally seen as either flagrant rhetoric or else an outdated concept: a medieval holdover with no bearing on our complex everyday reality. In _A Philosophy of Evil_, however, acclaimed philosopher Lars Svendsen argues that evil remains a concrete moral problem: that we're all its victims, and all guilty of committing evil acts. "It's normal to be evil," he writes -- the problem is, we have lost (...) the vocabulary to talk about it. Taking up this problem -- how do we speak about evil? -- _A Philosophy of Evil_ treats evil as an ordinary aspect of contemporary life, with implications that are moral, practical, and above all, political. Because, as Svendsen says, "Evil should neither be justified nor explained away -- evil must be fought.". (shrink)