Americans have an ambivalent relationship to guns. The debate over the role of guns and gun regulations in American society tends to be acrimonious and misinformed.

Paul Ricoeur was one of the foremost interpreters and translators of Edmund Husserl's philosophy. These nine essays present Ricoeur's interpretation of the most important of Husserl's writings, with emphasis on his philosophy of consciousness rather than his work in logic. In Ricoeur's philosophy, phenomenology and existentialism came of age and these essays provide an introduction to the Husserlian elements which most heavily influenced his own philosophical position.

Through a wide-ranging international collection of papers, this volume provides theoretical and historical insights into the development and application of phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology and offers detailed examples of research into social phenomena from these standpoints. All the articles in this volume join together to testify to the enormous efficacy and potential of both phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology.

Energy innovation offers us our best chance to solve the three urgent and interrelated problems of climate change, worldwide insecurity over energy supplies, and rapidly growing energy demand. But if we are to achieve a timely transition to reliable, low-cost, low-carbon energy, the U.S. energy innovation system must be radically overhauled. Unlocking Energy Innovation outlines an up-to-the-minute plan for remaking America's energy innovation system by tapping the country's entrepreneurial strengths and regional diversity in both the public and private spheres. The (...) authors map three waves of energy innovation to show how we can speed up the introduction of new technologies and business models and accelerate their deployment on a massive scale. "Business as usual" will not fill the energy innovation gap. Nor will wishful thinking--common enough today, with politicians and others talking up some technologies, talking down others, and claiming that if we price it, or if we mandate it, or if we simply say it often and inspiringly enough, the innovations will flow. Only the kind of systemic, transformative changes to our energy innovation system described in this provocative book will help us avert the most dire scenarios and achieve a sustainable and secure energy future. (shrink)

Numerous scholars, representing various fields of knowledge, have studied the Holocaust and published extensively on this subject since the end of the Second World War. Many original Holocaust documents, diaries and memoirs of victims and survivors have been edited and published, along with numerous historical, philosophical and theological treaties on the Shoah. The goal of this paper is to present psychology’s contribution to the study of the Holocaust. The authors discuss results of empirical research and clinical observations concerning the long-term (...) consequences of this trauma (the KZ/survivor syndrome), adaptation and coping skills of survivors, the phenomenon of transgenerational transmission of trauma and intrapsychic and interpersonal functioning of the children of survivors (the Second Generation). They present epidemiological data and psychological mechanisms of attempted and committed suicide among the Jews during the persecutions and deportations, as well as suicide in the ghettos and concentration camps, and among the Holocaust survivors. In the paper a short description ofpsychotherapy and other forms of psychological help available to the Holocaust survivors and their children is also presented. Last but not least, it is discussed how the knowledge of the psycho-social consequences of the Holocaust can be used by psychologists in their work with victims and survivors of other genocides and traumas. (shrink)

The ease with which genotyping technologies generate tremendous amounts of data on research participants has been well chronicled, a feat that continues to become both faster and cheaper to perform. In parallel to these advances come additional ethical considerations and debates, one of which centers on providing individual research results and incidental findings back to research participants taking part in genetic research efforts. In 2006 the Industry Pharmacogenomics Working Group offered some ‘Points-to-Consider’ on this topic within the context of the (...) drug development process from those who are affiliated to pharmaceutical companies. Today many of these points remain applicable to the discussion but will be expanded upon in this updated viewpoint from the I-PWG. The exploratory nature of pharmacogenomic work in the pharmaceutical industry is discussed to provide context for why these results typically are not best suited for return. Operational challenges unique to this industry which cause barriers to returning this information are also explained. (shrink)

Precision medicine is an emerging approach to individualized care. It aims to help physicians better comprehend and predict the needs of their patients while effectively adopting in a timely manner the most suitable treatment by promoting the sharing of health data and the implementation of learning healthcare systems. Alongside its promises, PM also entails the risk of exacerbating healthcare inequalities, in particular between ethnoracial groups. One often-neglected underlying reason why this might happen is the impact of structural racism on PM (...) initiatives. Raising awareness as to how structural racism can influence PM initiatives is paramount to avoid that PM ends up reproducing the pre-existing health inequalities between different ethnoracial groups and contributing to the loss of trust in healthcare by minority groups. We analyse three nodes of a process flow where structural racism can affect PM’s implementation. These are: the collection of biased health data during the initial encounter of minority groups with the healthcare system and researchers, the integration of biased health data for minority groups in PM initiatives and the influence of structural racism on the deliverables of PM initiatives for minority groups. We underscore that underappreciation of structural racism by stakeholders involved in the PM ecosystem can be at odds with the ambition of ensuring social and racial justice. Potential specific actions related to the analysed nodes are then formulated to help ensure that PM truly adheres to the goal of leaving no one behind, as endorsed by member states of the United Nations for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Structural racism has been entrenched in our societies for centuries and it would be naïve to believe that its impacts will not spill over in the era of PM. PM initiatives need to pay special attention to the discriminatory and harmful impacts that structural racism could have on minority groups involved in their respective projects. It is only by acknowledging and discussing the existence of implicit racial biases and trust issues in healthcare and research domains that proper interventions to remedy them can be implemented. (shrink)

For the first time, David Katz's classic monograph _The World of Touch_ has been translated into English. Regarded as one of the premiere experimental psychologists, Katz vigorously opposed the atomism and "tachistoscopic" mentality typical of the sensory psychology of his day. In _The World of Touch_, Katz sought to dispel the invidious distinction between the supposedly higher and lower senses. To help touch regain its original prominence in the field, Katz demonstrated, through very simple, yet creative experiments, how fascinating (...) the abilities of touch are, and how valuable the tactual stimulus can be in specifying objects, surfaces, substances, and events. In addition, Katz emphasized the importance of higher-order invariants in the perception of objects, and the holistic quality of perception in time as well as space. (shrink)

David Friedman posed a number of libertarian philosophical problems (Friedman 1989). This essay criticizes Walter Block’s Rothbardian responses (Block 2011) and compares them with J C Lester’s critical-rationalist, libertarian-theory responses (Lester [2000] 2012). The main issues are as follows. 1. Critical rationalism and how it applies to libertarianism. 2.1. How libertarianism is not inherently about law and is inherently about morals. 2.2. How liberty relates to property and can be maximized: carbon dioxide and radio waves. 2.3. Applying (...) the theory to flashlights. 2.4. Applying the theory to the probability of imposed risks. 2.5. “Homesteading” or initial acquisition. 2.6 What is “essential” for a “true libertarian.” 2.7. Crime and punishment. 2.8. Extent of punishment. 2.9. The libertarian response to a madman with a gun. 2.10. How contradictions in rights are possible. 2.11. The draft. 3.1. Utilitarian libertarianism and “nose counting”. 3.2. How interpersonal comparisons of utility are possible and utility monsters are not a threat. 3.3. Why it is not utilitarian in practice to kill an innocent prisoner to prevent a riot. 3.4. Why David Friedman should not be forced to give up one of his eyes. 3.5. How utilitarians can be libertarians. Conclusion: a proper theory of liberty combined with critical rationalism offers superior solutions to Friedman’s problems. Appendix: replies to two commentators. (shrink)

Nietzsche and the Origin of Virtue : This book is a discussion of Nietzsche's ethical and political ideas. It is an attempt to be both scholarly and, in a sense, activist. The ultimate point is to see how believers in liberal democracy (like me and most of my readers) should respond to the challenge that Nietzsche represents. As with any profound challenge, one is never the same again after it is overcome. In particular, I suggest that liberals can learn something (...) very important from the ideas that grow out of Nietzsche's early discussion of Homer's notion of agon or Wettkampf (roughly, conflict or competition). (shrink)

Charles Murray describes himself as a libertarian, most notably in his short book, What it Means to be a Libertarian. He might more accurately have described himself as having libertarian tendencies. My reading of Simple Justice is that the views it espouses are far more traditionalist than libertarian. Neither traditionalist state-retribution nor modernist state-leniency is libertarian. Nor does either provide as just or efficient a response to crime as does libertarian restitution, including restitutive retribution. Here, I shall respond directly only (...) to Murray's views, rather than also deal with state-leniency. This is because I accept Murray's thesis, without endorsing his specific arguments for it, that state-leniency is disastrous as a response to crimes against persons and their justly acquired property. (shrink)

Lester‘s reply to the review by Gordon and Modugno of Escape from Leviathan was due to appear in a later edition of the same periodical, but it was eventually dropped without notice or a reason being given. Subsequently, their review has occasionally been cited in isolation as a refutation of that book‘s theory of liberty, the compatibility of such liberty with welfare maximisation, and the use of "Popperian views" as though a complete reply did not exist and were not (...) freely available and easily found online. To make it harder to avoid the reply, whether by accident or design, it is reproduced here (but with sundry small emendations for greater clarity). (shrink)

Charles Murray describes himself as a libertarian, most notably in his short book, What it Means to be a Libertarian. He might more accurately have described himself as having libertarian tendencies. My reading of Simple Justice is that the views it espouses are far more traditionalist than libertarian. Neither traditionalist state-retribution nor modernist state-leniency is libertarian. Nor does either provide as just or efficient a response to crime as does libertarian restitution, including restitutive retribution. Here, I shall respond directly only (...) to Murray's views, rather than also deal with state-leniency. This is because I accept Murray's thesis, without endorsing his specific arguments for it, that state-leniency is disastrous as a response to crimes against persons and their justly acquired property. (shrink)

The most relevant and plausible conceptions of economic rationality, interpersonal liberty, human welfare, and private-property anarchy do not conflict in theory or practice. Using philosophy and social science, Escape from Leviathan defends this bold, non-normative, thesis from contrary positions in the scholarly literature. Writers considered include David Friedman, John Gray, R. M. Hare, Robert Nozick, Karl Popper, John Rawls, Murray Rothbard, Alan Ryan, Amartya Sen, and Bernard Williams. *** The rationality assumptions of neoclassical and Austrian School economics are reconciled (...) and related to liberty and welfare. A new pre-propertarian theory of interpersonal liberty as the absence of (initiated or proactively) imposed cost is argued to be libertarian. Human welfare is defended as the satisfaction of unimposed wants. Practical anarchy is simply unconstrained private property. Related topics include free will, weakness of will, the nature of moralizing, intellectual property, and restitution and retribution. Critical-rationalist epistemology (theories can only be criticized and tested, not justified or supported) is applied throughout. This is a ground-breaking work that is also an excellent introduction to libertarianism and social thought. (shrink)

David Hitchcock and Bart Verheij (eds): Arguing on the Toulmin Model. New Essays in Argument Analysis and Evaluation Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s10503-011-9214-y Authors Lester C. van der Pluijm, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Jacky C. Visser, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Journal Argumentation Online ISSN 1572-8374 Print ISSN 0920-427X.

This book has many arguments doing an excellent job of dismantling the positions of those who would have the state do considerably more than defend the national realm. Thus far, it is hard for me to fault it—which is more difficult when one is already in agreement: the ideologically opposed can often provide more useful criticisms. But, as the book‟s title indicates, it does not go all the way to anarcho-liberalism (in fact, it does not even fully embody certain basic (...) tenets of classical liberalism). And as its criticisms of anarcho-liberalism—or private-property anarchy—are those to which I am ideologically opposed, I shall mainly concentrate on those. (shrink)

Martin HEIDEGGER, Fiinţă şi timp [Être et temps] ; Bruce BÉGOUT, La généalogie de la logique. Husserl, l’antéprédicatif et le catégorial ; François-David SEBBAH, L’épreuve de la limite. Derrida, Henry, Levinas et la phénoménologie ; Marcus BRAINARD, Belief and its Neutralization. Husserl’s System of Phenomenology in Ideas I ; Toine KORTOOMS, Phenomenology of Time. Edmund Husserl’s Analysis of Time-Consciousness ; Roland BREEUR, Singularité et sujet. Une lecture phénoménologique de Proust ; John J. DRUMMOND & Lester EMBREE, Phenomenological Approaches (...) to Moral Philosophy A Handbook. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.3 (2000) 259-285 [Access article in PDF] The Personal, the Political, and Others: Audre Lorde Denouncing "The Second Sex Conference" 1 Lester C. Olsen Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference--those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older--know (...) that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish.--Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider 112Fifty years ago, in 1949, Simone de Beauvoir's book entitled The Second Sex was published in France. She did not consider herself a philosopher because, to her, a philosopher was "someone who has built a great system" (Simons and Benjamin 1979, 338). Her book, nonetheless, became a milestone in feminist philosophy, for it synthesizes elements of existentialism, phenomenology, and socialism in an account of women's situation in society. Central to this account is Beauvoir's concentration upon representations of "self" and "other." For example, Beauvoir affirmed, "The category of the Other is as primordial as consciousness itself. In most primitive societies, in the most ancient mythologies, one finds the expression of a duality--that of the Self and the Other. This duality was not originally attached to the division of the sexes; it was not dependent upon any empirical facts" (1993, xl). In an interview, Beauvoir stressed, "I believe that the Other is not simply an idealist relationship, it is a materialist relationship" (Simons and Benjamin 1979, 345). To develop her analysis, Beauvoir drew upon another binary, "master" and "slave." However, she concentrated on how women, as a category, had been subordinated as men's "other."Twenty years ago, in 1979, Audre Lorde delivered her best-known speech, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," at an international conference held in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of [End Page 259] Beauvoir's book. According to conference organizer Jessica Benjamin and reporter Lilly Rivlin, writing together in Ms. magazine, "[M]ore than 800 women from all over the world gathered at a conference on feminist theory, 'The Second Sex--Thirty Years Later,' sponsored by the New York Institute for the Humanities" (1980, 48). Like most of the conference participants, Lorde was a woman, a feminist, a socialist, a public intellectual, and an activist scholar. Lorde may have participated in the conference as a "consultant," a poet at a public reading, and a speaker at a plenary session 2 because her feminist philosophy is of resonance to Beauvoir's. Both women rejected biology as the basis for women's situation, believing instead that material conditions are most fundamental. Both commented upon the power of symbolism, especially myths about others, in perpetuating social inequalities and failing to differentiate categories for others. Both saw the relationship between "self" and "other" as a vital and creative tension.To understand this tension, Beauvoir drew explicitly on Hegel's ideas as they were treated in Sartre's oeuvre (Lloyd 1983). In contrast, Lorde may have drawn upon conceptions of double consciousness among black public intellectuals in the United States (Henderson 1989, 17-21). Unlike Beauvoir, Lorde was a lesbian, a mother, and a black woman for whom Beauvoir's analogies between the status of women and the status of "Negroes" were problematic. Confronting the conference participants on the last day, during the last panel entitled "The Personal and the Political," Lorde condemned the conference for its limited range of speakers, its substance, its very structure. Lorde examined the ramifications of failing to include others as equals. For in failing to do so, the conference had employed the same tools of oppression over others that the participants deplored in the politics of patriarchy. Lorde challenged the conference participants, who presumably understood that Beauvoir had represented woman as... (shrink)

In this book, which thoroughly revises and greatly expands his classic work Sameness and Substance, David Wiggins retrieves and refurbishes in the light of twentieth-century logic and logical theory certain conceptions of identity, of substance and of persistence through change that philosophy inherits from its past. In this new version, he vindicates the absoluteness, necessity, determinateness and all or nothing character of identity against rival conceptions. He defends a form of essentialism that he calls individuative essentialism, and then a (...) form of realism that he calls conceptualist realism. In a final chapter he advocates a human being-based conception of the identity and individuation of persons, arguing that any satisfactory account of personal memory must make reference to the life of the rememberer himself. This important book will appeal to a wide range of readers in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Lipsey and Lancaster's "general theory of second best" is widely thought to have significant implications for applied theorizing about the institutions and policies that most effectively implement abstract normative principles. It is also widely thought to have little significance for theorizing about which abstract normative principles we ought to implement. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show how the second-best theorem can be extended to myriad domains beyond applied normative theorizing, and in particular to more abstract theorizing about the normative (...) principles we should aim to implement. I start by separating the mathematical model used to prove the second-best theorem from its familiar economic interpretation. I then develop an alternative normative-theoretic interpretation of the model, which yields a novel second best theorem for idealistic normative theory. My method for developing this interpretation provides a template for developing additional interpretations that can extend the reach of the second-best theorem beyond normative theoretical domains. I also show how, within any domain, the implications of the second-best theorem are more specific than is typically thought. I conclude with some brief remarks on the value of mathematical models for conceptual exploration. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thus Spake Howard Roark:Nietzschean Ideas in The FountainheadLester H. HuntIThe position I will be taking here will seem very peculiar to many people. I will be treating a novel as a discussion of the work of a philosopher—namely, Friedrich Nietzsche. Worse yet, I will be treating it as a discussion that is philosophically penetrating and deserves to be taken seriously. Still worse, the novel is Ayn Rand's early novel (...) The Fountainhead. I think it is safe to say that her reputation, among academics who discuss the works of philosophers, is very low. If the reader will only bear with me, though, I think I can make a case that Rand opens a line of inquiry about Nietzsche's ideas and values that is not only quite interesting in itself but one that ought to be pursued further by others.There has always been ample reason to associate Nietzsche with The Fountainhead.1 He is after all, the only philosopher who is more or less directly quoted in the book.2 Beyond that, Rand's novel has many other passages that students of Nietzsche instantly recognize as conscious references to him or deliberate echoes of his style. In addition, she revealed, in an introduction written for the twenty-fifth anniversary edition, that the following quotation from Beyond Good and Evil had originally stood at the head of the book when it was still in manuscript:It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank to—employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning—it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not [End Page 79] to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost—The noble soul has reverence for itself.—3She said, in the same introduction, that she removed the quotation (evidently, immediately before publication) for philosophical reasons, because of her "profound disagreement with the philosophy of its author." Nietzsche, she says, was fundamentally "a mystic and irrationalist," and even in this quotation, chosen for its content, insinuates a philosophical position that she regards as erroneous (namely, determinism). Even her statement of what she likes about this passage is rather constrained: "as a poet [ie., not as a philosopher], he projects at times (not consistently) a magnificent feeling for man's greatness, expressed in emotional, not intellectual terms."4It is of course true enough that Rand does disagree with Nietzsche, and for more or less the reasons that she suggests here, but it is also true that the passage she has quoted expresses some ethical themes—nobility, order of rank, the "pathos of distance," and (most obviously) the idea of self-reverence as a characteristic of the ethically good—which are at least as important in The Fountainhead as they are in Nietzsche's writings. Though Rand's spirited disclaimer serves to remind us of her deep differences with Nietzsche, the quotation itself suggests that there might be an interesting philosophical, not merely literary or emotional, connection between The Fountainhead and Nietzsche's ideas. What I would like to show here is that this connection merits a much closer look than it has ever been given heretofore. Not only is the presence of Nietzschean themes in Rand's novel deep and pervasive, but the book actually contains a very interesting and powerful internal critique of one of Nietzsche's most characteristic ideas, a criticism based in large part on values and assumptions that he shares. Before I can set out this critique, I will need to explore some of the positive thematic and philosophical connections.IIOne evening, rather late in the novel, Gail Wynand, the corrupt newspaper publisher and financier, surprises his wife, Dominique, with a present: he has had an architect design a house for them. The architect, she realizes with shock as she sees the drawings for the house, is her former lover, Howard Roark, a man with whom she is still in love. None of this is known to her husband, who innocently tells her that [End Page 80] Roark... (shrink)

Artificial intelligence has historically been conceptualized in anthropomorphic terms. Some algorithms deploy biomimetic designs in a deliberate attempt to effect a sort of digital isomorphism of the human brain. Others leverage more general learning strategies that happen to coincide with popular theories of cognitive science and social epistemology. In this paper, I challenge the anthropomorphic credentials of the neural network algorithm, whose similarities to human cognition I argue are vastly overstated and narrowly construed. I submit that three alternative supervised learning (...) methods—namely lasso penalties, bagging, and boosting—offer subtler, more interesting analogies to human reasoning as both an individual and a social phenomenon. Despite the temptation to fall back on anthropomorphic tropes when discussing AI, however, I conclude that such rhetoric is at best misleading and at worst downright dangerous. The impulse to humanize algorithms is an obstacle to properly conceptualizing the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies. (shrink)

A collection of 14 essays honoring the life and work of Oxford philosopher Wiggins touching on topics from ancient philosophy to ethics, metaphysics and the theory of meaning. The contributing scholars debate many of the seminal issues of Wiggins' work, including the determinancy of distinctness, relative identity, naturalism in ethics, logic and truth in moral judgments, and the practical wisdom of Aristotle. The collection uniquely features replies by Wiggins to each of the papers. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, (...) OR. (shrink)

Drawing on work of the past decade, this volume brings together articles from the philosophy, history, and sociology of science, and many other branches of the biological sciences. The volume delves into the latest theoretical controversies as well as burning questions of contemporary social importance. The issues considered include the nature of evolutionary theory, biology and ethics, the challenge from religion, and the social implications of biology today (in particular the Human Genome Project).

Understanding how people comprehend visual narratives (including picture stories, comics, and film) requires the combination of traditionally separate theories that span the initial sensory and perceptual processing of complex visual scenes, the perception of events over time, and comprehension of narratives. Existing piecemeal approaches fail to capture the interplay between these levels of processing. Here, we propose the Scene Perception & Event Comprehension Theory (SPECT), as applied to visual narratives, which distinguishes between front-end and back-end cognitive processes. Front-end processes occur (...) during single eye fixations and are comprised of attentional selection and information extraction. Back-end processes occur across multiple fixations and support the construction of event models, which reflect understanding of what is happening now in a narrative (stored in working memory) and over the course of the entire narrative (stored in long-term episodic memory). We describe relationships between front- and back-end processes, and medium-specific differences that likely produce variation in front-end and back-end processes across media (e.g., picture stories vs. film). We describe several novel research questions derived from SPECT that we have explored. By addressing these questions, we provide greater insight into how attention, information extraction, and event model processes are dynamically coordinated to perceive and understand complex naturalistic visual events in narratives and the real world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thus Spake Howard Roark:Nietzschean Ideas in The FountainheadLester H. HuntIThe position I will be taking here will seem very peculiar to many people. I will be treating a novel as a discussion of the work of a philosopher—namely, Friedrich Nietzsche. Worse yet, I will be treating it as a discussion that is philosophically penetrating and deserves to be taken seriously. Still worse, the novel is Ayn Rand's early novel (...) The Fountainhead. I think it is safe to say that her reputation, among academics who discuss the works of philosophers, is very low. If the reader will only bear with me, though, I think I can make a case that Rand opens a line of inquiry about Nietzsche's ideas and values that is not only quite interesting in itself but one that ought to be pursued further by others.There has always been ample reason to associate Nietzsche with The Fountainhead.1 He is after all, the only philosopher who is more or less directly quoted in the book.2 Beyond that, Rand's novel has many other passages that students of Nietzsche instantly recognize as conscious references to him or deliberate echoes of his style. In addition, she revealed, in an introduction written for the twenty-fifth anniversary edition, that the following quotation from Beyond Good and Evil had originally stood at the head of the book when it was still in manuscript:It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank to—employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning—it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not [End Page 79] to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost—The noble soul has reverence for itself.—3She said, in the same introduction, that she removed the quotation (evidently, immediately before publication) for philosophical reasons, because of her "profound disagreement with the philosophy of its author." Nietzsche, she says, was fundamentally "a mystic and irrationalist," and even in this quotation, chosen for its content, insinuates a philosophical position that she regards as erroneous (namely, determinism). Even her statement of what she likes about this passage is rather constrained: "as a poet [ie., not as a philosopher], he projects at times (not consistently) a magnificent feeling for man's greatness, expressed in emotional, not intellectual terms."4It is of course true enough that Rand does disagree with Nietzsche, and for more or less the reasons that she suggests here, but it is also true that the passage she has quoted expresses some ethical themes—nobility, order of rank, the "pathos of distance," and (most obviously) the idea of self-reverence as a characteristic of the ethically good—which are at least as important in The Fountainhead as they are in Nietzsche's writings. Though Rand's spirited disclaimer serves to remind us of her deep differences with Nietzsche, the quotation itself suggests that there might be an interesting philosophical, not merely literary or emotional, connection between The Fountainhead and Nietzsche's ideas. What I would like to show here is that this connection merits a much closer look than it has ever been given heretofore. Not only is the presence of Nietzschean themes in Rand's novel deep and pervasive, but the book actually contains a very interesting and powerful internal critique of one of Nietzsche's most characteristic ideas, a criticism based in large part on values and assumptions that he shares. Before I can set out this critique, I will need to explore some of the positive thematic and philosophical connections.IIOne evening, rather late in the novel, Gail Wynand, the corrupt newspaper publisher and financier, surprises his wife, Dominique, with a present: he has had an architect design a house for them. The architect, she realizes with shock as she sees the drawings for the house, is her former lover, Howard Roark, a man with whom she is still in love. None of this is known to her husband, who innocently tells her that [End Page 80] Roark... (shrink)

What is African American Politics? What form should it take? How does it conceptualize white supremacy? In In the Shadow of Du Bois, Robert Gooding-Williams uses the work of W. E. B. Du Bois and Fredrick Douglass to provide answers to these questions. While the choices of Douglass and Du Bois make a great deal of sense, they reproduce the tendency of confining political theory to literature – a move that bounds the genre in problematic ways. In this article, I (...) in effect attempt to “unbound” the genre by considering Ella Baker, a civil rights era political organizer. (shrink)