The article presents an analysis of the existential paradigm of M. Lermontov's creativity in the light of the existential theories of S. Kierkegaard and K. Jaspers, which is considered in the context of the cultural transition in Russian literature of the 1830s-1840s. It is argued that Lermontov radically changed the nature of his literary activity by the mid-1830s, overcoming his own existential ambivalence and abandoning the subjective emotionality and exoticism of his youthful poetry in favor of objective observations and (...) research of the surrounding world. Lermontov was aware of his existential ambivalence and sought to overcome this state in order to achieve cultural integrity, which should be considered as one of his main values. Lermontov's works reflect the concept of integrity as the integration of culture through a set of prevailing norms and ideals, as well as the feeling that this integrity was disintegrating in transitional times. This state of affairs caused a sense of disintegration in Lermontov, which is similar to the borderline situation of Jaspers. Lermontov's works illustrate the loss of cultural ideals with the decline of Romanticism. But rejecting the ideals of Romanticism, Lermontov conveys the feeling that post-Romantic disappointment generated cynicism and distorted thinking. The novel "The Hero of Our Time" has become the embodiment of such shortcomings. Lermontov's works do not belong to romanticism, nor to protorealism, nor to any combination of both. But Lermontov played his transitional role superbly. Not only did he raise questions about Romanticism that realism would later make its own, he also shed light on Romanticism itself and how it was fading. Lermontov showed how difficult it is for an artist who is aware of his own existential ambivalence to create and live in a transitional time devoid of a unifying sense of cultural integration and integrity, illustrating how badly a creative personality needs such integration and integrity. (shrink)

Introduction. The emerging paradigm of socio- cultural development of the Russian Federation’s local communities is conditioned by the trans- formation of production and economic practices based on the concept of a multi-layered economy and multifunctionality emerging under the pressure of globalization on the development of localities. The desire to preserve and maintain socio-cultural traditions, customs, and values is an axiological guideline for developing local communities. The growing social vulnerability of communities creates certain conditions for losing identity, ability for self-identification, (...) and leads to the destruction of socio-cultural identity. The purpose of the study. The article analyzes the problem of socio-cultural evolution when modern- izing production and economic activity generating factors causing the transformation of culture and sociality of local communities, thus determining the processes of integration and disintegration of socioculture. Methods. Sociocultural analysis provides an op- portunity to reveal the main directions of sociocul- tural development of local communities, to explain the essence of interaction, mutual influence and unification of local communities into an interactive socio-cultural space with compatible formations and components. Scientific novelty of the research. The author dis- plays the models of culture and sociality transfor- mation reflecting the processes of modification of the local communities’ lifestyle that determine the transition from the paradigm of sustainable tradi- tional socio-cultural development to the paradigm of innovative transformations. Results. The problem of sociocultural integration and disintegration is associated with globalization processes that generate contradictions of globality and locality. The processes of integration/disin- tegration of the local communities’ sociocultural development are conditioned by the culture and sociality evolution of the constructing model of socio-cultural behavior. The pressure of globaliza- tion plunges the socio-cultural space into a state of diffusion, instability. Historically established traditions, norms, values are transformed into intermediate forms that help to adapt to new living conditions, neutralize the negative consequences of modernization. Territorial sociocultural formations are being formed, within the framework of which attempts are being made to preserve the tradition- al socio-cultural environment. Conclusions. The dynamics of sociocultural pro- cesses determines the emergence of multidirec- tional poles of sociocultural life: from the desire to preserve the traditional socio-cultural environment, to the full acceptance of the meaningful qualities of liberal socio-culture, which destroys the sociocul- tural identity of local communities. (shrink)

Paradigm transitions come with tremendous risk, as societies can come undone when people stop believing in the imaginary constructs that unite us. The Black Plague’s devastation resulted not only f...

My paper argues that Jürgen Habermas’s transformation of critical social theory seriously weakens the potential of the concept of instrumental reason as a tool of social critique. I defend the central role of the concept of instrumental reason in both i) the critique of social injustice, and ii) the diagnosis of pathologies of meaning stemming from cultural modernization. However, I argue that the root of these problems cannot come into view from within the Habermasian paradigm. Contra Habermas, I argue (...) that the problem of a ‘loss of freedom’ is better characterized as a process of integration through power; the problem of a ‘loss of meaning’ must also be reconceived as a problem of moral disintegration. My claim is that a proper understanding of these processes requires an engagement with the understanding of instrumental reason in earlier critical theory as primarily a distortion of the relation of language and experience. This necessitates rethinking the task of critical social theory along the lines of the concept of Selbstbesinnung (self-awareness) rather than according to Habermas’s Kantianized version of self-reflection. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:How The Mule Got Its Tale: Moretti’s Darwinian BricolageGeoffrey Winthrop-Young* (bio)Franco Moretti. Atlas Of The European Novel. London: Verso, 1998. [AN]Franco Moretti. Modern Epic: The World System From Goethe To García Márquez. Trans. Quentin Hoare. London: Verso, 1996. [ME]1. Darwinian Preliminaries1805: Cousin de Grainville, Le dernier homme. A world in which humans have displaced the oceans dies from ecological exhaustion. 1836: Louis Geoffroy, Napoléon et la conquête du monde. (...) A history in which Napoleon wins at Waterloo and becomes emperor of the world. 1854: Charlemagne-Ischir Defontenay, Star ou Psi de Cassiopée. A distant planetary system filled with its own mythologies, histories and migration patterns.... A litany of lost names and titles: dead, discarded, ignored, out of print, reduced to pulp and brief entries in reference books, known only to experts specializing in early French science fiction. Cut off from each other with little sense of coherence or continuity, two generations of writers had been probing the many possibilities of a new literary form, some of them in highly imaginative ways, but nobody could have foretold the fate of what Félix Bodin had named littérature futuriste. Suddenly, the literary equivalent of a mass extinction wiped out a broad spectrum of conjectural imaginations. Did they deserve their fate? Wrong question. Who is to blame for their disappearance? Cui bono? The prime suspect, no doubt, is Jules Verne. “It was as if SF had for sixty years sought in vain for an institutional ‘landing point,’” surmises Marc Angenot, before pointing out that Verne’s success coincided with, indeed was based on, the repression of a wide array of promising alternatives [64]. Displaying that jovial bluntness which in his days passed for commendable virility, he extracted certain formal features from his environment, eliminated the rest, and engineered his selections into a highly marketable literary model. A lot began with Verne, but a lot ended with him, too.At the outset a rapidly emerging set of random and undirected variations opens up a multiplicity of future possibilities; then a choice is made, a selection that locks in one particular variant while locking out the competition. Subsequently, a winner—who need not be the best or most promising candidate, but who by virtue of his selection manages to impose definite constraints on future developments—spawns a tradition that coasts along until another crisis is heralded by yet another round of proliferation and selection. Readers familiar with Franco Moretti’s work will recognize this Darwinian scenario, which provides the theoretical backbone for his analyses. In the programmatic essay “On Literary Evolution” in the revised edition of Signs Taken for Wonders, it allows him to whittle down the development of the European novel from its experimental phase in the eighteenth century to the victory of the Bildungsroman in the nineteenth century and its subsequent disintegration to what must be the shortest account of the history of the novel ever written: “Novels/novel/novels” [264]. In The Way of the World it helps explain how it was possible for the Bildungsroman “to emerge victorious from that veritable ‘struggle for existence’ between various narrative forms that took place at the [End Page 18] turn of the eighteenth century” [10]. Modern Epic, in turn, uses the Darwinian model to plot the evolution of the hybrid genre announced in its title, while Atlas of the European Novel explains the morphological change novels undergo when they move from one space to another. But why Darwin? Or, since “Darwin” means many different things to many different Darwinists: why this punctuated, nongradualist, highly contingency-tolerant Gouldian Darwin? How much do we gain by applying the proliferation/lock-in sequence to the development of devices, texts, and genres? What motivates the optimism that the Darwinian paradigm may “help us to explain in a new—and better—way numerous questions that literary history has never succeeded in resolving satisfactorily”? [ME 5].But then why raise these arcane questions? Surely, Moretti’s books center on more relevant issues. Atlas is about space—and given the current critical focus on space, what more timely topic could there be? And what more obvious criticism than... (shrink)

This paper explores Zha Changping’s humanistic criticism of pioneering Chinese art as a new paradigm in art criticism after the postmodern disintegration of traditional art history with its linear art history writing. It introduces the “seven forming factors” at the heart of Zha’s “world relational aesthetics,” which, on one hand, gauges the pulse of the time, while on the other hand seeking to uncover the underlying relational logic informing this generation of pioneering artists’ intellectual outlook and artistic output.

The thesis argues for the need to reexamine current theoretical conceptions or assumptions regarding Romantic self-consciousness and its perceived dependency on a productive dimension of expression. The origins of the allegedly aporetic relation between an inward form of consciousness and its linguistic "presentation" are traced in the Idealist reflection on self-consciousness by Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. Inadvertently, language as a productive force reveals itself as the contingent "ground" for the highly elusive, though philosophically essential, "unity" of self-consciousness. Thus the respective (...) conception of self-consciousness as a relation , production , or re-membring is always grounded in a stratum of "immediacy" that can no longer be contained within a systematic philosophical idiom. Through an incisive critique of the Idealists, Schleiermacher demonstrates that any notion of "immediacy" is essentially homologous to the transformation that all language undergoes in each individual utterance. Pointing to the "coinherence" of the psychological and the grammatical poles of interpretation, Schleiermacher develops a theory of "style" whereby consciousness becomes readable rather than being postulated as an autonomous transcendental agency. ;Wordsworth's narrative poetry conceives of self-consciousness as originating in a purportedly primordial affect. Beginning with the dialogic poems in the Ballads, yet also in Tintern Abbey and in the 1799 Prelude, Wordsworth experiments with a densely figurative form of "presentation" of these affective origins. Yet as his revisions--both between discrete narrative segments in his poetry yet also between earlier and later versions of the Prelude--evidence, Wordsworth becomes increasingly weary of the opacity that inheres in the figurative presentation of this "original" affect. The densely allusive and deliberately self-referential diction of later versions of the Prelude not only compromises the earlier paradigm of self-consciousness as originating in an inward affect, but it also highlights the mutual and irreducible "coinherence" of rhetorical and psychological structures. The final chapter examines Shelley's ironic response to the Wordsworthian impasse in Epipsychidion where the autobiographical vision of a perfect self continues to disintegrate under the verbal onslaught of the very language that constituted it in the first place. (shrink)

My paper argues that Jürgen Habermas’s transformation of critical social theory seriously weakens the potential of the concept of instrumental reason as a tool of social critique. I defend the central role of the concept of instrumental reason in both i) the critique of social injustice, and ii) the diagnosis of pathologies of meaning stemming from cultural modernization. However, I argue that the root of these problems cannot come into view from within the Habermasian paradigm. Contra Habermas, I argue (...) that the problem of a ‘loss of freedom’ is better characterized as a process of integration through power; the problem of a ‘loss of meaning’ must also be reconceived as a problem of moral disintegration. My claim is that a proper understanding of these processes requires an engagement with the understanding of instrumental reason in earlier critical theory as primarily a distortion of the relation of language and experience. This necessitates rethinking the task of critical social theory along the lines of the concept of Selbstbesinnung (self-awareness) rather than according to Habermas’s Kantianized version of self-reflection. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Human Perfection in Byzantine Theology: Attaining the Fullness of Christ by Alexis TorranceJoshua H. LimHuman Perfection in Byzantine Theology: Attaining the Fullness of Christ by Alexis Torrance, Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), ix + 239 pp.As a part of the series Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology, Alexis Torrance's Human Perfection in Byzantine Theology examines the role of Christ's human (...) perfection within key figures in the Byzantine tradition against the backdrop of trends in contemporary Orthodox theology. Torrance seeks to uncover a common "Christocentrism" within the Byzantine tradition that challenges the contemporary tendency among contemporary Orthodox theologians to "unmoor" theological anthropology from the doctrine of the humanity of Christ. Indeed, according to Torrance, some of these approaches go so far as to risk the danger of "theological shipwreck" (1). As general representatives of the tendency Torrance has in mind, we can name such figures as John Zizioulas and Vladimir Lossky, whose personalist anthropologies depart from the tradition by "bypassing or deferring Christology" (10) In the case of Zizioulas, for instance, Torrance sees the disintegration of theological anthropology into "a sentimental application or projection of worldly and hazy concepts of personality and 'community' to both the Godhead and the people of God" (10). If, for Torrance, the above thinkers appear to represent a wayward tendency (even if he takes issue with certain of their "starting points," Torrance nevertheless seems to agree with most of their conclusions), it is Fr. John Behr whose theology Torrance likely has in mind as risking "theological shipwreck."As we shall see, the overall intelligibility of Torrance's work appears only in the final chapter, against the backdrop of Behr's "unmistakably Christocentric" (206) anthropology. While Torrance joins Behr in bemoaning the non-Christocentric character of much of modern theological anthropology, nevertheless, he sees Behr's project as positing a Christocentrism that flies in the face of the Byzantine tradition. In light of Behr's Christocentrism (and in a way that is reminiscent of Gaudium et Spes §22), Torrance wishes to [End Page 373] show that, for any genuinely Byzantine doctrine, Christ, in his particular and enduring humanity, must be the starting point of the human ideal: "Human perfection and human destiny are only revealed, known, and bequeathed in the person of Jesus Christ, the God-man" (11). To this end, Torrance proposes a "fresh Christocentric paradigm" (3).Torrance's study provides insight into important texts which both implicitly and explicitly reflect the priorities of the Fathers. Taking the historical and systematic approach of Georges Florovsky's "neo-patristic synthesis" as his cue, Torrance highlights the centrality of Christ's humanity in four key figures. He examines the immovability of the human will in the eschaton in Maximus the Confessor (ch. 2), the particular ("depictable") and enduring humanity of Christ in Theodore the Studite (ch. 3), the attainability of human perfection in Symeon the New Theologian (ch. 4), and the possibility of deification through uncreated grace in Gregory Palamas (ch. 5). In each of these thinkers Torrance discovers a "thoroughly Christocentric gaze" (37), which begins from the concrete and particular human nature of Christ, and thereby provides a contrast with the abstract tendency of certain contemporary Orthodox thinkers. However, as we shall see, on account of the ambiguity surrounding the term "Christocentric," it is not always clear whether or how Christ's humanity and human perfection figure into the themes discussed. More problematically, it is not always clear whether Christ's perfect humanity provides an insight into human perfection or human nature, as such.For the purposes of this review, we will focus on Torrance's chapter on Theodore the Studite. Torrance's treatment of Theodore is distinct from his treatment of other Byzantine figures inasmuch as Theodore's teaching on Christ's depictability is historically situated in an explicitly Christological debate. While the studies on Maximus, Symeon, and Palamas certainly have themes that, in one way or another, advert to Christ's humanity, nevertheless none of particular issues treated can be said to have Christ's humanity as their essential starting point. This is to say that Christ's human perfection... (shrink)

Context: The enactive paradigm in the cognitive sciences is establishing itself as a strong and comprehensive alternative to the computationalist mainstream. However, its own particular historical roots have so far been largely ignored in the historical analyses of the cognitive sciences. Problem: In order to properly assess the enactive paradigm’s theoretical foundations in terms of their validity, novelty and potential future directions of development, it is essential for us to know more about the history of ideas that has (...) led to the current state of affairs. Method: The meaning of the disappearance of the field of cybernetics and the rise of second-order cybernetics is analyzed by taking a closer look at the work of representative figures for each of the phases: Rosenblueth, Wiener and Bigelow for the early wave of cybernetics, Ashby for its culmination, and von Foerster for the development of the second-order approach. Results: It is argued that the disintegration of cybernetics eventually resulted in two distinct scientific traditions, one going from symbolic AI to modern cognitive science on the one hand, and the other leading from second-order cybernetics to the current enactive paradigm. Implications: We can now understand that the extent to which the cognitive sciences have neglected their cybernetic parent is precisely the extent to which cybernetics had already carried the tendencies that would later find fuller expression in second-order cybernetics. (shrink)

Evidence of the intimate linkage of the shaman's song and divinatory procedures may be viewed in the ancient epics. These narrative poems contain structural and thematic elements recognizable from the shaman's song—in particular his or her voyage to the Otherworld and the guidance of oracular powers. In this paper, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Euripedes' Ion, and The Ozidi Saga (a living epic from West Africa) are examined as recuperations of the orally composed and transmitted song of the shaman. I argue (...) that the epics—the origins of which predate their composition in literary form—bear witness to these most ancient and mysterious forms of linguistic expression. As depictions of Otherwordly journeys, they can be viewed through a metaphysic outside of time, rendering divination not only possible but inevitable, and necessitating a language of abstraction, allusion, and ambiguity. Today's experimental poetries may not all partake of a conscious recuperation of shamanic themes and forms, but they share an imaginary (yet not imagined) repositioning of reality, an open questioning of consensus forms of awareness, and an aesthetic shaping of what Jean Gebser calls “Integral Consciousness” (15), the simultaneous integration-disintegration of archaic, mythic, magic, and mental paradigms in an intensification of awareness which sees time as diaphanous, and Mind as a doorway between possibilities. (shrink)

June 2022 A Revolutionary New Metaphysics, Based on Consciousness, and a Call to All Philosophers We are in a unique moment of our history unlike any previous moment ever. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. As I write, the planet is in deep trouble, heat, fires, great storms, and record flooding, (...) weather patterns drastic everywhere. Capitalism has been so successful in supplying us with an endless array of consumer items, that we have never noticed there is a cost. But there is a cost, the cost is the very life of the Earth herself, and now the day of reckoning is here. Days of reckoning are most often days of rath. But I am hoping that this is a day of major Awakening over the entire planet. We have caused a crisis so great for the Earth we can hardly get our minds around it. But I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis are ideas, about who and what the Earth is, Ourselves, and what we are here for. I am proposing that this is a call to all philosophy and philosophers to rethink ourselves from the ground up. The human race has never gotten the Earth right and now we must, for the Earth is the true foundation for civilization. We are in deep trouble with the Earth, and it owes to the fact that the great male thinkers never got the Earth right, they could never make the connection between the life of mind and the life of the Earth. I am proposing that deeply embedded in the crisis we are in are ideas. And that in fact the planet is in the grip of a false metaphysics, and scientific image of nature that really comes most recently from Descartes. His conviction that matter, and with it the Earth, are simply the weighable, the measurable the extended in space and time, utterly devoid of any inner life of mind thoughts or Consciousness. This view of matter and the Earth goes back to the very dawn of thought, Descartes is just its most recent and comprehensive version of things. This view of matter is really a false metaphysics that dominates most of the modern world and underpins the whole scientific image of nature itself. I am proposing this is a false metaphysics and offering a new version of things based on Consciousness. If there is a single idea fueling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something without Consciousness. When you intend to ravage and savage the planet, turn it into consumer items to be converted into money in the bank, first pretend that all of the bright beings in the natural world are devoid of Consciousness, just “things” you do not have to have any conscious about destroying them. I am proposing that this term Consciousness, that has appeared as term and a problem for modern science, is the key to getting ourselves right with the Earth. I propose this new theory for science will ramify into every other disciplines as well, and the ways we think just about everything. This old paradigm based on a false theory of matter, has run its course, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction. We need new ideas, and we need them now. You will find my recent work in the Scientific God Journal under the title: Consciousness as the Organizing Principle, and a very complete version of my arguments for this term Consciousness, along with radical reinterpretation of modern science itself, on the Galileo Commission site. It is a radical moment for all of the thinkers among us, take this as my small contribution to rethinking ourselves in new terms, based on my understanding that the true basis for the whole of Being, the Universe, the Cosmos, and with them Ourselves, is this term Consciousness. And unpack it. And I predict that with this term Consciousness every intractable human problem in both science and the modern world will go down like a line of dominos before it. And so, here are a few new ideas I would offer you. These are the times of the Reappearance of the Feminine, a great Awakening as of Springtime after a long dark and lonely Winter. We are leaving behind us an old civilization based on male dominance, fear lies and control, now in decay, disease, and death disintegrating all around us. We are moving into a whole new civilization based on Love and Truth. A new civilization requires new basic terms values and first principles. And so, I return to Descartes. 1. Just over 300 years ago a young man travelling with the army found himself stranded in a foreign town in a bare room lit by a candle with nothing to do but think. And in a couple of nights Descartes laid the entire thought foundations for modern science and most of the modern world. It isn’t clear that modern philosophers with their funding sources of grants, their graduate students, their reputation and all the perks and privileges of academia can do any better. Descartes claimed there are just two principles in the Universe, Matter and Mind. God was pure mind; human beings were mind and matter. And we are the only ones on the planet with mind. Everything else all of the bright array of beings who share the planet with us are simply matter. And matter? The weighable the measurable the extended in space and time utterly devoid of any inner life of thoughts, feelings, or Consciousness This classification was a boon for developing science. Scientists did not have to worry about any inner life in nature, ideas or Consciousness, they could just set about weighing and measuring, as they have until the present day. But it was a disaster for the Earth. Earth was once worshiped as a Goddess. With Descartes she became almost overnight “things.” Simply commodities and resources, an endless of supply of consumer items, to be turned into money in the bank. And now Descartes concept of matter is up for us. If there is a single idea that is enabling and driving the destruction of the Earth, it is the conviction that Earth is something without Consciousness. This whole scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is driving the destruction of the Earth, and driving us all insane, and it needs to change. Ever since Descartes formulated Dualism, scientists and philosophers have been trying to get rid of it. They have done this by attempting to make matter the fundamental term of reality, and to explain mind or Consciousness in terms of matter. And now, Consciousness has emerged as term and a problem for modern science. 2. The prevailing Universe picture has been mainly based on the belief that Consciousness appears only at the end of evolution in ourselves and some of the higher animals when matter attains “a certain state of complexity” and it is produced by neurons in the brain. But Consciousness is nothing real in itself, the neurons are doing the work, Consciousness is simply a byproduct of neural activity. As William James summed up this position, not his: Consciousness is to the brain as a shadow to the runner, it runs beside him but never influences his stride. And so, the great problem of neuroscience: How do neurons produce Consciousness? So far, no one has been able to say how. All we have is parallelism. Two processes are running in parallel a train of neural events and a train of Consciousness events. And so, which one is primary? The face of neuroscience and much of the modern world is that the neural events are what is really real, Consciousness is secondary. The conviction that Consciousness is something produced by neurons is so deeply held and has been so for so long, that it seems like an obvious fact. It is in fact an assumption and a theory, and it could all well be the other way around. The scientific image of nature as something devoid of Consciousness is now up for us. It has enabled the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a unique place in our own evolution where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, there are the best reasons for rethinking Descartes concepts of matter. Scientists and philosophers have been trying to escape dualism by making matter the fundamental term. And now, this has not worked. In a nutshell: The mind body problem, the “hard problem of Consciousness” ---how do neurons in the brain, atoms and molecules give rise to ideas thoughts and feelings and who what and where is the “I” who sees them? And then, the near-death experience. I remind you of the truth of the near-death experience. The body in the bed is brain dead eeg flat, but the patient, pure Consciousness is hovering at the ceiling watching the doctors work over the body below, able to read dials he could not have seen from the bed, sometimes able to events in the corridor beyond the room, all subsequently confirmed by the doctors. Evidence as good as it gets that the patient really was out of his body. And so, the patient is able to see without eyes, hear without ears and to think and remember without a brain. There is not a single scientific principle that can account for this. And I am proposing that the near-death experience is a threshold and a key for a much deeper understanding of the Universe. These three problems are so hard they cannot be solved by present scientific principles and therefore call all present principles and ways of thought into question. When your axioms cannot account for the data, it is time to drop them and find better fundamental terms. We have not been able to solve the problems of Consciousness with the assumption that matter is the most basic and fundamental term. And so, if Cartesian dualism is to be overcome at all, we need to try it the other way around. 3. We are in the position of Copernicus. Remember Copernicus? He was making his calculations on the assumption that the Earth was the center of the Universe until they became so unwieldy that he decided to try it all the other way around. To make the sun the center, the Earth revolving around it. And lo, all of his data fell neatly into place. I am proposing a whole new Universe picture. Evolution makes us continuous with every other being, Consciousness would not be in us if it were not in them also, and then, in the atoms and molecules and cells that make up living beings. I propose to make Consciousness the most basic term and see what follows. I am in fact, proposing a new Copernican Revolution, that Consciousness is the true basis for the Universe and the right fundamental term, for science itself all other disciplines as well, and the whole of the modern world. And I predict that every intractable problem in science or the modern world, will go down like a line of dominos before it. In a nutshell: Consciousness and not matter is “first and fundamental” in the Universe, it is there from the very “Beginning” everything has it and all of the true causalities, the explanatory principles belong to it. Not to matter. What then is matter? All matter is an Appearance of something much more real, Consciousness. All matter is an expression of Consciousness, even the least little bit of matter contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. And so, we revise the scientific image of nature. Science at present is two termed, matter/energy. It needs to become three termed: Matter/energy/Consciousness, with the recognition that all of the basic principles, the true causalities of events, and of the Universe belong to Consciousness. And now physics. To accommodate this new Universe picture physics needs to alter just one term, energy. All energy contains Consciousness, that idea alone will change our world forever. The animals the trees the plants are just as conscious as we are, as is the Earth herself, a continuum of many forms of Consciousness of which our own is one. The Earth consists of interacting and intersecting forms of Consciousness, Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness within Consciousness. A remarkable work has just appeared entitled “Beyond Words What Animals Feel and Think.” Describing in detail how like ourselves all of the animals are. And the more we can see how like us everything else really is, the harder it will be for us to do them all in, in the interest of turning them into consumer items. And so, here is a new principle of understanding, that entails completely new forms of explanation, and a whole new Universe picture to be spelled out in terms of Consciousness and its various properties. This is a Universe that is aware awake and Enspirited throughout. And so, there is only one principle, not two. And so, how does Consciousness work? There is “no mind/body problem.” My Consciousness is aligning the Consciousness of neurons in the brain, that aligns the Consciousness of all other cells in the body, that aligns the Consciousness of molecules and atoms themselves. Mainly from the top down, but also interactive, and not reduction to the purely physical forces. 4. And so, here is a radical new Universe picture, and with it a new way to think about the Universe itself, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. It requires a complete revision of both of the terms of modern science itself. The problem of the modern world owes in deep measure to Descartes concept of matter as something devoid of interior life. But he is only the most powerful and simple expression of a whole tradition of thought that predates him, that goes back to the very dawn of thought itself. It owes to the conviction of both Plato and Aristotle that the Earth was something devoid of reason, or mind, and therefore something to be held in complete contempt. We are emerging from a civilization based on contempt for the Earth, and down the road, it will become contempt for the body, sex, women, the Native people, and people of color everywhere. And so, this entire tradition is now up for us, it has brought us to the brink of our own extinction, and we need to get beyond it. I am proposing that this term Consciousness is the way out. The missing piece of the puzzle and the idea whose time has come. And it will enable us to move into a completely new civilization based on respect for the Earth, women, sex, people of color, that honors everyone and has a place for all. Revolutions in science occur when new data show up that cannot be accounted for by existing paradigms (Thomas Kuhns: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Consciousness, and all the properties and problems of Consciousness are just such data, and they compel a new scientific revolution. But we are a scientific age. A new Copernican revolution in science is such as revolution everywhere. And Consciousness is the key to getting every other reality at all levels and depths right as well. It will enable us finally to get the Earth right, get ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. Archimedes: Give me a place to stand, and I will move the world. I am proposing a new synthesis among our fundamental terms in which this term Consciousness is the new lynchpin. And so, I return once more to Descartes. Descartes in the Mediations was a dualist, they were two realities interacting in the pineal gland mind and body. But Descartes age was high on “Cartesianisms,” on Descartes concept of matter. Animals were simply cleverly wired machines (Hobbes called them automata). Rumor had it that Descartes followers went about kicking dogs reasoning that their howls were not due to any feelings of pain, but simply the wiring of the machine. We have been doing this to the Earth ever since, and now the Earth is not going to stand for it any longer. It is time we all woke up. There is no matter in Descartes sense of it, or in Plato and Aristotle’s sense of it. This old concept of matter is embedded in all of the crisis and catastrophes---fires, drought, pandemics, over population, the disintegrating economies, our ways of life, capitalism and consumerism themselves. All matter is Enspirited, contains Consciousness, and is an expression of Consciousness. Now I tell you something about Descartes you may not know. In the Mediations was a dualist, there are minds and bodies. But by the end of his life, he knew the truth. Descartes guided his whole life by these vivid dreams, and toward the end of his life he had this dream: He saw the Universe as a giant machine and in the heart of the machine propelling the whole, was Consciousness. And so, out of the shades and shadows and into the light of day. Here is a renewed and a new science, a new cosmology. And with it, a revolutionary new metaphysics. The whole of the modern world is in the grip of a false metaphysics, based on Descartes theory of matter. Here is a new, and finally true metaphysics based on the single term, Consciousness. 5. And in all my works, I spell out this new metaphysics based on Consciousness, and what it means for how we think about virtually everything: The Universe, the Earth, Ourselves, and Spirit. Of who, what and where Spirit is, that we may connect with Spirit everywhere. There is only one term for the Universe, and not two, this single term Consciousness, that manifests itself in two modes: Consciousness in Form, Consciousness Formless. And so, here is a sketch of what this new term Consciousness really means. For four great aspects of the real, four new cornerstones for a whole new civilization on Earth, based on Love and Truth. A. For the Universe: New causalities, all matter is an expression of Consciousness, awake and aware, Enspirited throughout, which has a place for the causalities of love ideas intent plan and purpose, what Aristotle called final causality, that for the sake of which. And it has a place for subjectivity, the greatest mystery in the whole of the Universe, knowable only in ourselves, but there in everything else as well, bedrock in the chain of causalities. The buck stops here. Here are two very different Universe pictures. The Cartesian Universe consists of things, pushed, and pulled around by the physical forces that function blind. The true Universe consists of selves and not things. Selves at least in ourselves, are organized and focused about an I, an I am, or a sense of self in everything, ever other being dear to itself. Just one aspect of subjectivity. And so, it is Consciousness all the way down, and subjectivity all the way down. Science proceeds on the basis of the negligible of what it can leave out as unimportant. Subjectivity is the ultimate animating principle of the Universe. What Descartes really did was to strip from nature what is most essential about it, its animating principle Consciousness. And so, we come out of a long history of “clunk.” The great male thinkers have killed creation. First in concepts and now in the lived life. And so, after centuries of fruitless search, not all of it in vain, finally, and just in time the true basic principle for the Universe has shown up in virtually all disciplines, this term Consciousness. B. And so, the Earth: What does this term Consciousness really mean for the Earth? It means that all of the bright array of beings around us have Consciousness. And the more we can realize how like us they are, the harder it will be to do them all in. Is this what it really means to be “made in the image of Spirit?” To destroy ever other living being? The god of Genesis is a creator god who has created billions and billions of living forms. Man, taking himself to be made in the image of Spirit has destroyed virtually all of it. The Earth is not things, not commodities and resources, not an endless array of consumer goods. The Earth consists of conscious living spiritual beings like ourselves, who need to be honored and respected, nurtured and cared for, to be Loved. And if the human race can finally pull it off and bring Love here and start helping the Earth rather than destroying her, even our vast numbers now at 8 billion, may not matter. Deeply embedded in the modern world is a false cosmology based on the hitherto useful but ultimately false metaphysics of Descartes. In particular it owes to Descartes concepts of matter, and of the Earth, as something devoid of Consciousness. And now this concept is up for us. If there is a single idea enabling and driving the destruction of the planet, it is the conviction that the Earth is something devoid of Consciousness. And we all have a vested interest in keeping this false concept in place. When you intend to ravage and savage the Earth, to turn it into consumer items, and money in the bank, first pretend she has no Consciousness that way we need not have any conscious about it. We are in deep trouble with the planet. Virtually all human economies are based on the destruction of the Earth, and we are now at a place in our history where we can foresee if we continue on as we are, our own extinction. And so, here are a few new guiding principles for the planet, based on Consciousness. Consciousness has field properties. The Earth is Consciousness throughout, connected and interconnected throughout, intersecting and interacting fields of Consciousness of which our own is one. To harm one is to harm all. Only this understanding of the Earth can set our destructive technologies, and capitalism, their goals, and their limits. The real problem with capitalism, and with civilization itself is it has no true understanding of the Earth, all the exquisite networks and webworks that connect all beings with one another. Nor it is about to admit that the Earth is our “life support system,” reason gone insane in the modern world. We are destroying our life support system, capitalism is the full expression of the human death wish in the modern world, and it needs to change. And now, let the barriers between ourselves and all other beings go down. C. And so, Ourselves. This new Universe picture based on Consciousness opens into and has a place for new concepts of human identity. In particular, it has a place for reincarnation, a process whereby one Consciousness dons’ bodies again and again and lays them down. This is a process wholly impossible on materialistic theories. This new view of things puts a higher perspective on Freudian determinism, which is a partial knowing in a greater account. We are something more than the victims of genes drives and childhood. We are immortally eternal evolving spiritual beings who take on a cycle of earthly lives in order to achieve certain goals and abilities, and then, our earthly cycle complete, we depart the Earth plane for other areas of the Universe physical or purely spiritual, to continue our evolution elsewhere. The scientific evidence for reincarnation is increasing on all sides, see for example the work of Michael Newton, a mainstream scientist forced to confront the fact of reincarnation. A completely new reincarnational picture is now emerging everywhere. We choose our parents for abilities we could acquire through them. We all come here with reasons for being here, and we all have free will, an original property of Consciousness, and we work out our issues accordingly. We all come here with the same reason for being here. It is to experience the Earth plane and human society at all levels and depths, in every social role, every climate, both sexes male and female and in all races. We are all here to acquire a deep understanding of the Earth plane with all its challenges and all of its present problems. We are not here to devour and consume the Earth, but to honor her for the learning experience she makes available for us. And so, reincarnation is the great equalizer, the fundamental basis for any bill of rights. Many of the problems of the modern world owe to the fact that reincarnation has not been taught in the West. Reincarnation was the center piece of Jesus teachings. It was banned by a fourth century council that decided the populous could best be controlled through fear. They edited all mention of reincarnation from the scriptures, and inserted fear terms instead, a judgmental god, and so on. If reincarnation had been taught, there would have been no suppression of women, but the gift of both sexes would have been honored and developed. And there would have been no reason for contempt for people of color because who they are, we have been or will be. There is no reason to look down on anyone when we know that our own identity includes membership in theirs. The truth of reincarnation needs to be the foundation for getting ourselves right with the Earth, and with one another. D. And so, Spirit. This new Universe picture, based on Consciousness, has a place for Spirit as simply Infinite Consciousness. All universes all worlds are formed out of this Consciousness, divine and sacred throughout. And Spirit is everywhere in the Earth and can be connected everywhere. And the Native North American people had things right. Everything has its own Spirit, and without contradiction is also an expression of Spirit. And what I am really doing in terms of concepts of modern science is presenting the Native North American version of the Real. And this new Universe picture has a place for the essential insight of all religions almost smothered by church tradition: Love. Not an emotion but a great Oneness, that can be found everywhere, even in a busy city street. But especially in the Earth, that is levels and depths of Oneness everywhere. And so, for the first time in their long and bitter antagonistic history, science and religion now share a common base with this term Spirit, the lynchpin in a new conceptual framework. And I offer an interpretation of where we are in our history, this present moment of historical grace, and these tumultuous times in which we live, the return of the Goddess and the Divine Feminine, the Reappearance of the Feminine in history, the Advent of Women, this great Awakening, as of Springtime after a long dark Winter, the Awakening, the Second Coming. And so, stay tuned! (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to show how the development of a phenomenology of the lived body is of special interest for a philosophical elucidation of the illness that takes charge of the patient's perspective in its specific theoretical relevance. Starting from a critique of the Cartesian paradigm of the body-machine and the consequent de-emphasis of the personal experience of the disease, it will be shown how the phenomenological perspective allows us to account for the constituent elements of (...) the illness experienced in the first person, such as alteration or disintegration of the link I-body-world-others. Finally, the question of the physical, emotional, and cognitive response to the disease and the way in which phenomenological reflections on the disease converge in a reflection on identity, vulnerability, and recognition will be addressed. (shrink)

Social entrepreneurship orientation is a behavioral construct of social entrepreneurship ; therefore, we examined the influence of SEO of the organization on social and financial performance. A random sample of 810 employees was drawn from social enterprises of Pakistan during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although increasing research focuses on SE, the discipline continues to disintegrate, and this has led to appeals for a careful investigation of the associations of firms’ SE. In the recent decade, “social entrepreneurship” has earned its importance as (...) a segment of entrepreneurship. Instead of mixed activity, firms are more likely to engage in either for-profit or non-profit activities. The causes for and consequences of this conduct has been mainly studied using objective measures of SEO, social performance, and financial performance, with little attention paid to the subjective experiences of social enterprises. We rely on the theory of stakeholder and mixed structuring to postulate that social performance intermediates the SEO-financial performance relation. By assessing a sample of 810 employees from active enterprises, we discover that social performance mediates positively and partially between SEO and financial performance, and both direct and indirect paths are in the same direction and significant. Our findings exhibit that social performance variance explained 74% of the mediating role, and the remaining 26% of the effect is because of SEO. We consider the functions by which an SEO influences enterprise performance and delivers more prominent understanding into multiple spectrums of performance. We discuss the prospective suggestions of our research and foster an encouraging pathway for more enquiry on the SEO paradigm. The study adds contribution to the literature, which has not been testified before on hybrid firms. SEO is a newly defined construct and requires more prospective research. This research gives the researchers/scholars new directions to address related disciplines and further explore this domain. (shrink)

This paper explores the theme of torture in the Colombian Truth Commission’s Final Report, focusing on its characterization of torture as a way of annulling a person’s identity. Drawing on Jean Améry’s approach, I argue that torture destroys the victim’s world and explore the further implications of this assertion. I begin by highlighting how the history of torture distorts legal and medical practices, masquerading as a quest for truth while exercising a farce of power, disintegrating the victim’s lived body. By (...) delving into Merleau-Ponty’s notion of “flesh,” I also explain how torture erodes the carnal trust that connects us to the world and enables proper communication. Consequently, torture results in an utter negation of the self and the world. In conclusion, I suggest that torture as understood as the destitution of a person’s world, can serve as a paradigm for comprehending the experiences of violence faced by victims in Colombia. (shrink)

This essay reflects on issues raised by commentators regarding my book, The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil (Oxford 2002). They are (1) Robin Schott's observation of the tension between my discussion of forgiveness and of castration fantasies; (2) Bat-Ami Bar On's questions regarding whether evil is ethical, political, or both; (3) Adam Morton's queries regarding the relative seriousness of evils and injustices; and (4) María Pía Lara's concerns regarding what is valuable in Kant's ethics.

This study aims to examine the relationship between Ramadan and social capital, that is, social solidarity and philanthropy, in Muslim communities in Indonesia. The data waere collected through a questionnaire that was distributed to 600 respondents in six districts or cities in two provinces. Respondents were randomly selected at the village level. The results showed that social solidarity during Ramadan was high with values of the spirit of togetherness, collective consciousness and cooperation. In addition, philanthropy was included in a high (...) category with different values of alms, infaq and waqf. Therefore, it can be concluded that Ramadan contributes positively to the social solidarity of Muslim communities in Indonesia. The result can be used to develop a model of social solidarity in overcoming the problem of disintegration. Furthermore, it improves Muslim philanthropy for social welfare and to overcome the problem of poverty.Contribution: This article contributes to the sustainable development goal of poverty alleviation. It focuses on a multidisplinary religious perspective from textual and hermeneutical studies within the paradigm of Qur’an studies. (shrink)

Periods of transition are often symbolically associated with death, making the latter the paradigm of liminality. Yet, many volumes on death in the social sciences and humanities do not specifically address liminality. This book investigates these "ultimate ambiguities," assuming they can pose a threat to social relationships because of the disintegrating forces of death, but they are also crucial periods of creativity, change, and emergent aspects of social and religious life. Contributors explore death and liminality from an interdisciplinary perspective (...) and present a global range of historical and contemporary case studies outlining emotional, cognitive, artistic, social, and political implications. (shrink)

The Disintegration of Community analyzes the social and cultural writings of Jorge Portilla (1919−1963) and demonstrates the continued relevance of his thought to contemporary debates on the politics of social and cultural identity, the nature of community, and the political role of affect and moods. Sánchez and Gallegos address questions as timely today as they were for Portilla: What drives the impulse toward political nationalism? What sustains the myths that organize our political lives? Under what conditions do communities disintegrate? (...) An appendix offers original English translations of three of Portilla's fascinating and hitherto untranslated essays, including Portilla's 1952 essay, "The Spiritual Crisis of the United States.". (shrink)

This paper attempts to provide a concise but systematic presentation of the discursive ontology of the social that underpins the thought of the Argentinian political theorist Ernesto Laclau. First articulated by Laclau and his collaborator Chantal Mouffe at the historical conjuncture of the late twentieth century that witnessed the disintegration of established leftist political visions and the rise of a plurality of new social movements, the post-structuralist discursive ontology on which Laclau bases his theorization of hegemony as the (...) class='Hi'>paradigm of politics is one that continues to exert a powerful influence on contemporary post-foundational political thought, discourse analysis, and “left populist” political movements. This paper traces the fundamental claims of that ontology, paying special attention to Laclau’s theses apropos the limits of universality and impossibility of “fullness.” In the final third of this paper, the French philosopher Alain Badiou’s approach to the conceptualization of social change is employed as a foil to draw some key implications of Laclau’s elevation of “hegemony” as the universal form of the political for political thought and practice. (shrink)

In this article I discuss Claudia Card's treatment of war rape in relation to her discussion of the victim's moral power of forgiveness. I argue that her analysis of the victim's power to withhold forgiveness overlooks the paradoxical structure of witnessing, which implies that there is an ungraspable dimension of atrocity. In relation to this ungraspable element, the proposal that victims of atrocity have the power to either offer or withhold forgiveness may have little relevance.

In this study of the cognitive paradigm, De Mey applies the study of computer models of human perception to the philosophy and sociology of science. "A most stimulating, and intellectually delightful book."--John Goldsmith "[De Mey] has brought together an unusually wide range of material, and suggested some interesting lines of thought, about what should be an important application of cognitive science: The understanding of science itself."-- Cognition and Brain Theory "It ought to be on the shelf of every teacher (...) and researcher in the field and on the reading list of any student or practitioner seriously interested in how those they serve are likely to set about knowing."-- ISIS. (shrink)

In order to perceive the world, we need more than just raw sensory input: a subliminal paradigm of thought is required to interpret raw sensory data and, thereby, create the objects and events we perceive around ourselves. As such, the world we see reflects our own unexamined, culture-bound assumptions and expectations, which explains why every generation in history has believed that it more or less understood the world. Today, we perceive a world of objects and events outside and independent (...) of mind, which merely reflects our current paradigm of thought. Anomalies that contradict this paradigm have been accumulated by physicists over the past couple of decades, which will eventually force our culture to move to a new paradigm. Under this new paradigm, a form of universal mind will be viewed as nature’s sole fundamental entity. In this paper, I offer a sketch of what the new paradigm may look like. (shrink)

The fictionalist paradigm is introduced, and differentiated from other paradigms, using the Lincoln & Guba template. Following an initial overview, the axioms of fictionalism are delineated by reference to standard metaphysical categories: the nature of reality, the relationship between knower and known, the possibility of generalization, the possibility of causal linkages, and the role of values in inquiry. Although a paradigm's ‘basic beliefs’ are arbitrary and can be assumed for any reason, in this paper the fictionalist axioms are (...) supported with philosophical considerations, and the key differences between fictionalism, positivism, and constructivism are briefly explained. Paradigm characteristics are then derived, focusing particularly on the methodological consequences. Towards the end of the paper, various objections and misunderstandings are discussed. (shrink)

This book focusses on conceptual shifts in the successive formulations of natural law theory by Aquinas, Suárez, Grotius, Pufendorf, and Finnis, and reveals the accumulation of problems, inherent in natural law and theory, which ultimately led to its demise.

Why would philosophers interested in the points or functions of our conceptual practices bother with genealogical explanations if they can focus directly on paradigmatic examples of the practices we now have?? To answer this question, I compare the method of pragmatic genealogy advocated by Edward Craig, Bernard Williams, and Miranda Fricker—a method whose singular combination of fictionalising and historicising has met with suspicion—with the simpler method of paradigm-based explanation. Fricker herself has recently moved towards paradigm-based explanation, arguing that (...) it is a more perspicuous way of reaping the same explanatory pay-off as pragmatic genealogy while dispensing with its fictionalising and historicising. My aim is to determine when and why the reverse movement from paradigm-based explanation to pragmatic genealogy remains warranted. I argue that the fictionalising and historicising of pragmatic genealogy is well motivated, and I outline three ways in which the method earns its keep: by successfully handling historically inflected practices which paradigm-based explanation cannot handle; by revealing and arguing for connections to generic needs we might otherwise miss; and by providing comprehensive views of practices that place and relate the respects in which they serve both generic and local needs. (shrink)

Social and moral issues in business have drawn attention to a gap between theory and practice and fueled the search for a reconciling perspective. Finding and establishing an alternative remains a critical initiative, but a daunting one. In what follows, the assumptions of two prominent contenders are considered before introducing a third in the form of Aristotle’s ancient theory of virtue. Comparative case studies are used to briefly illustrate the practical implications of each paradigm. In the quest for a (...) better sense-making and sense-giving lens, this paper refines and encourages the search by highlighting some of the key features required of a worthy paradigmatic challenge. The author proceeds to identify a particular type of institutional community, and a promising champion, for the practical unification of strategic and normative excellence. (shrink)

Animal ethics has tended to follow an analytical approach and has focused much attention on moral reason and theory. Recently, some have argued this to be a fundamental problem. The 'paradigmatic account' claims that instead of reason and theory, ethics ought to emphasize common paradigms and meanings. Since these paradigms and meanings tend to be anthropocentric, the pro-animal arguments presented within animal ethics ought to be viewed critically. The paper explores two variants of this account: anthropocentric casuistry and the Wittgensteinian (...) approach. It is maintained that, although the importance of paradigms and meanings ought to be recognized, both of these approaches face severe difficulties that make them, without further development, an unfruitful basis for ethics concerning non-human animals. (shrink)

The article considers the problem of love and madness as opposite modes of human existence. Using the example of human interaction with artificial intelligence it has been analyzed from the point of view of the phenomenology of love and Ludwig Binswanger's Dasein analysis the reciprocal influence of madness and disintegration of intersubjectivity in the context of an anthropocrisis. It has been demonstrated that the full realization of a person is impossible in isolation from others, it is possible only in (...) relationships with others, the highest form of which is love. A human being is a born possibility of a "generalized We", his task is to realize this possibility in a direct meeting of "We". Only through "We" can Dasein achieve its fullest realization. Love is defined as the essential structure of the human, the "fundamental form" that structures the human being and its failure causes madness. It has been considered the hypothesis of L. Binswanger about the failure of love in a psychopathological state, in connection with the perception of others as objects and the consequent impossibility of creating "We" as being-in-the-world-together, and about the form of treatment, which consists in opening the possibility of "We". A hypothesis has been put forward that the forced external limitation of the realization of intentionality to "We" can also affect the narrowing of the world-project and lead to madness. (shrink)

What distinguishes evils from ordinary wrongs? Are some evils unforgivable? How should we respond to evils? Card offers a secular theory of evil--representing a compromise between classic utilitarian and stoic approaches--that responds to these and other questions.

The study of sleep and wakefulness can inform debates about the nature of consciousness. We argue that sleep and wakefulness fall along a multidimensional continuum and that inconsistencies and paradoxes with the accounts put forth by Merker et al. and Tononi can be understood in terms of a pervasive false dichotomy between these two states.

The philosophy of Thomas Kuhn proposes that scientific progress involves periods of crisis and revolution in which previous paradigms are discarded and replaced. Revolutions in how mental health problems are conceptualised have had a substantial impact on the work of mental health nurses. However, despite numerous revolutions within the field of mental health, the biological paradigm has remained largely dominant within western healthcare, especially in orientating the understanding and treatment of psychosis. This paper utilises concepts drawn from the philosophy (...) of Thomas Kuhn to explore the impact of what Kuhn terms ‘anomalies’ within the dominant biological paradigm: the anomaly of the meaningful utterance, the anomaly of complex aetiology and taxonomy and the anomaly of pharmacological inefficacy in recovery. The paper argues that the biological paradigm for understanding psychosis is in crisis and explores the implications for mental health nursing. (shrink)

_Resumen:_ Este artículo explora los conflictos culturales que marcaron la desintegración del cristianismo bajo los desafíos de varios movimientos de Reforma. Rechazando la tradición católica, la reforma protestante propuso una nueva era basada en la liberación de la conciencia y la emancipación de la tradición. Causaría una agitación social sin precedentes, donde las nuevas libertades religiosas requerían protección por medio de la coerción secular. El posterior proceso para dotar de un carácter confesional a los territorios produjo nuevos modelos culturales con (...) pretensiones de tolerancia, pero también aumentó la probabilidad de guerra civil. Por último, los movimientos de Reforma crearían ideologías casi religiosas de naciones elegidas basadas en percepciones del tiempo inmanentes al mundo. Este ensayo termina con una reflexión sobre la ambivalencia de los fundamentos cristianos para el radicalismo colectivista e individualista de los movimientos seculares. (shrink)

This paper promotes a philosophy derived from the direct distribution of goods to needs that occur in mothering and invisibly in many other aspects of life. Such a philosophy is suggested as an alternative to market based values, which currently permeate society. It is important to bring alternative values to consciousness and validate them for both teachers and children so that the orientation towards the other that characterizes the gift paradigm will not be lost in the fight for survival (...) endemic to a market society. The hope is that we can find solutions that are viable for all. After presenting this philosophy, we show how it already exists among educators and children, and we suggest ways in which it may be validated and promoted in early childhood education. (shrink)

Erdelyi does us all a great service by his customarily incisive discussion of the various ways in which our field tends to neglect, confuse, and misunderstand numerous critical issues in attempting to differentiate conscious from unconscious perception and memory. Although no single commentary could hope to comprehensively assess these issues, I will address Erdelyi’s three main points: How the dissociation paradigm can be used to validly infer unconscious perception; The implications of below-chance effects; and The role of time. I (...) suggest that significant progress on construct validity issues is possible; below-chance effects are part of a more general bidirectional phenomenon, very likely unconscious, and do not threaten absolute subliminality; and practice/learning effects pose potential difficulties for time-based dissociation paradigms. (shrink)

I defend Kant’s definition of analyticity in terms of concept “containment”, which has engendered widespread scepticism. Kant deployed a clear, technical notion of containment based on ideas standard within traditional logic, notably genus/species hierarchies formed via logical division. Kant’s analytic/synthetic distinction thereby undermines the logico-metaphysical system of Christian Wolff, showing that the Wolffian paradigm lacks the expressive power even to represent essential knowledge, including elementary mathematics, and so cannot provide an adequate system of philosophy. The results clarify the extent (...) to which analyticity sensu Kant can illuminate the problem of a priori knowledge generally. (shrink)

As recent elections in Iran and Iraq have shown, the increasing diversity of religious practices around the world may redefine democracy as we know it—leaving many of us to wonder just how compatible religion and democracy really are. _The Pluralist Paradigm _explores this difficult question with essays from a variety of disciplines, including theology, philosophy, political science, sociology, and ethics. It will be an ideal reference for anyone concerned with fostering tolerance in a progressively global society.

What distinguishes evils from ordinary wrongs? Is hatred a necessarily evil? Are some evils unforgivable? Are there evils we should tolerate? What can make evils hard to recognize? Are evils inevitable? How can we best respond to and live with evils? Claudia Card offers a secular theory of evil that responds to these questions and more. Evils, according to her theory, have two fundamental components. One component is reasonably foreseeable intolerable harm -- harm that makes a life indecent and impossible (...) or that makes a death indecent. The other component is culpable wrongdoing. Atrocities, such as genocides, slavery, war rape, torture, and severe child abuse, are Card's paradigms because in them these key elements are writ large. Atrocities deserve more attention than secular philosophers have so far paid them. They are distinguished from ordinary wrongs not by the psychological states of evildoers but by the seriousness of the harm that is done. Evildoers need not be sadistic:they may simply be negligent or unscrupulous in pursuing their goals. Card's theory represents a compromise between classic utilitarian and stoic alternatives (including Kant's theory of radical evil). Utilitarians tend to reduce evils to their harms; Stoics tend to reduce evils to the wickedness of perpetrators: Card accepts neither reduction. She also responds to Nietzsche's challenges about the worth of the concept of evil, and she uses her theory to argue that evils are more important than merely unjust inequalities. She applies the theory in explorations of war rape and violence against intimates. She also takes up what Primo Levi called "the gray zone", where victims become complicit in perpetrating on others evils that threaten to engulf themselves. While most past accounts of evil have focused on perpetrators, Card begins instead from the position of the victims, but then considers more generally how to respond to -- and live with -- evils, as victims, as perpetrators, and as those who have become both. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION I first read Charles Darwin's masterpiece, On the Origin of Species , some twenty years ago. At once I fell under its spell - an emotion which ...

O trumpismo nos Estados Unidos, assim como outras erupções populistas ao redor do mundo, demonstra que valores fundamentais herdados pelo Iluminismo são muito menos seguros no Ocidente do que fora presumido. Estima pela racionalidade e conhecimento objetivo e o respeito pela liberdade individual vem sendo enfraquecidos pela dissolução da sociedade em facções intransigentes. O abandono de princípios centrais que por muitas gerações serviram como base comum para a civilização Ocidental, fragmentou a sociedade Ocidental em campos aparentemente irreconciliáveis, não mais sujeitos (...) a uma mente comunal compartilhada. Como pode suceder que uma sociedade governada por uma mente social compartilhada, e já estabelecida de longa data, sumariamente se fragmenta em campos, de opinião muito diferentes, claramente sob a influência de princípios discrepantes? Seriam a desintegração de ideias e a dissolução da mente, consequências inevitáveis de conteúdo mental proliferante, de entropia intelectual talvez até inerente? Guiado pela semiótica de Peirce e pela filosofia da mente, e utilizando a chacoalhada provocada pelo Trump na vida social e político dos EUA como exemplo ilustrativo de um cismo cultural profundo, considerarei algumas possíveis causas estruturais de um crescente sectarismo e abordarei as condições semióticas que explicariam a desintegração da mente social. (shrink)

In his classic essay The Gift, Marcel Mauss argued that gifts can never be truly free; rather, they bring about an expectation of reciprocal exchange. For over one hundred years, his ideas on economy, social relations, and exchange have inspired new modes of thought, none more so than what crystallized in the 1980s around an innovative group of French academics. In The Gift Paradigm, Alain Caillé provides the first in-depth, English-language introduction to La Revue du MAUSS - or, "Anti-Utilitarian (...) Movement in the Social Sciences," combining the work of anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, and others. Today, the very idea of a "general social science" seems unthinkable, unless you count the pervasive sway of a utilitarian logic in orthodox economics, or the diffuse influence of neoliberalism. Here, Caillé offers a distinctly different reading of economy and society, inspired by Mauss - as vital now as ever. (shrink)

Upshot: The cognitive paradigm organizes immune phenomena with an eye towards understanding the immune system as a perceptive faculty, where examination of the basic regulation of unstimulated immune activity becomes the primary investigative focus. While a fecund research program organized around the hypothesized “autonomous network theory” has yielded important insight into the “conservative physiology of the immune system,” the theoretical basis for these studies offers little more than one set of metaphors (arranged around “cognition”) challenging another (“selfhood”). However, breaking (...) the theoretical hold of protecting the immune self as the focus of immunology is no mean feat in terms of shifting research interest towards a key, but neglected aspect of immunity. (shrink)

In “Risk Based Passenger Screening in Aviation Security: Implications and Variants of a New Paradigm”, Sebastian Weydner-Volkmann describes the current paradigm shift from ‘traditional’ forms of screening to ‘risk based passenger screening’ (RBS) in aviation security. This paradigm shift is put in the context of the wider historical development of risk management approaches. Through a discussion of Michel Foucault, Herfried Münkler and Ulrich Beck, Weydner-Volkmann analyses the shortcomings of such approaches in public security policies, which become especially (...) evident in the aviation security context. As he shows, the turn towards methods of RBS can be seen as an attempt to address a trade-off ‘trilemma’ between the effective provision of security, the implied costs for industry and passengers, and the ethical, legal and societal implications of the screening procedures. In order to analyse foreseeable outcomes of embracing RBS, he differentiates three prototypical variants of the new paradigm on the basis of their main referent and rationale. For each variant, he then subsequently assesses the implications for the ‘trilemma’, after having unveiled the criteria of analysis that will necessarily have to be followed within a serious appraisal of RBS methods. (shrink)