Neglect of the moral promise of disorientation is a persistent gap in even the most sophisticated philosophies of embodiment. In this article, I begin to correct this neglect by expanding our sense of the range and nature of disoriented experience and proposing new visions of disorientation as benefiting moral agency. Disorientations are experienced through complex interactions of corporeal, affective, and cognitive processes, and are characterized by feelings of shock, surprise, unease, and discomfort; felt disorientations almost always make us unsure of (...) how to go on. I argue that experiences of disorientation can strengthen the moral agency of individuals. I begin by clarifying experiences of felt ease and orientation. I then characterize disoriented embodiment by investigating select experiences that often involve or accompany disorientation, focusing throughout on how disorientation prompts changes in motivation and action. I conclude by charting how disoriented embodiments can help individuals become better moral agents overall, in part by challenging norms that restrict embodiment and undermining dualistic conceptions of the self. (shrink)

As a text in use by mental health practitioners, policy makers, and ordinary individuals, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) categorizes a variety of mental, psychological, and emotional experiences on a wide spectrum of disorders. Many common experiences are described there as symptoms, chiefly for the purposes of identifying, diagnosing, and treating disorders. “Disorientations” are not (yet) categorized as a stand-alone disorder in the DSM, but involve a cluster of experiences that border on and overlap with experiences (...) already categorized as symptoms of other disorders. Where experiences of disorientation appear in the DSM, they are, for the most part, still understood as.. (shrink)

"He is not a prophet, but he has a holy book" is a famous couplet among Mawlana Jalal-ad Din Rumi (d. 1273) followers. This couplet is attributed to Abdurrahman Jami (d. 1492). The three couplet that have similar connotations to Jami’s couplet, more common in Iran, speculated to be written by Baha-ad Din Amili (d. 1622). In these couplets, the phrase “The Persian Qur'an" is interchangeably used to refer to Mathnawi and draws attention to another phrase "guidance some and misguidance (...) others". Repeatedly these couplets phrase is also used by well known contemporary poets such as Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938) and Mohammad Hossein Shahriar (d. 1988) and some orientalist writers such as Reynold Nicholson (d. 1945) and Annemarie Schimmel (d. 2003). Rumi never claimed to be a prophet and introduced himself as the servant of the Qur'an and dust of the road of the prophet Muhammad. The poet has emphasized the qualities of the Qur'an, its commands and prohibitions, its universal messages and the importance of contemplating on the verses in various parts of Mathnawi. In order to understand the Qur'an better and correctly, he explained what should be done and presented methods. He re-told and elaborated some of the stories in the Qur'an, praised the lofty rank of the Holy Prophet Muhammad and narrated the stories of other prophets with the respect he showed them. The definitions in the poems sung as the praise of Rumi and the Mathnawi on the one hand, based on Rumi’s mentions in Mathnawi's preface: "This is the Mathnawi book and it is the principles of the principles of the principles of the religion". Here, Rumi has described his work with the attributes of the Qur'an and said that it is protected by Allah. Ismail Ankaravı, who is the commentator of the Mathnawi, said: "The Mathnawi is where two seas meet, composed of interpretations of the Qur'an and Hadith". The statement also explains this issue. The commentary of the verses or the references to the verses are clearly mentioned in the Mathnawi. There are references to more than two thousand and two hundred verses in total. This indicates that Mathnawi can be the interpretation of the Qur'an. From another point of view, various writing style and morphological similarities can be established between the Mathnawi and the Qur'an. Like the Qur'an, Mathnawi also starts with an order, is a product of inspiration (revelation), contains a summary of the entire book at the beginning, the mode of expression is generally stories and representations, and there is a need for commentary in order to be understood by passing from form to meaning etc. they have many similarities. In these respects, Mathnawi has been likened to the Qur'an written in Persian by a non-prophet one. In this study, first the process of the emergence and use of this expression will be followed, then Rumi's views on the Qur'an, the place of the Qur'an in Mathnawi, the common aspects of the Qur'an and Mathnawi will be discussed and it will be tried to explain why these great poets and writers called Mathnawi the Persian Qur'an. (shrink)

In Disorientation and Moral Life, I consider disorientations as experiences of not knowing how to go on following serious life events and experiences like those involved in traumas, grief, illness, education, consciousness raising, and migration. I challenge a history of moral philosophy that I claim has been preoccupied by a focus on the best moral agents as those who are most decisive, wholehearted, and clear about how they ought to act. In this piece, I respond to three commentaries on Disorientation (...) and Moral Life. In particular, I offer reflections on how disorientations might be useful in contexts of disability studies, prison abolitionism, professional philosophy, anti-racist action, and political organizing. (shrink)

One branch of bioethics assumes that mainly agents of the state are responsible for public health. Following Susan Sherwin’s relational ethics, we suggest moving away from a “state-centered” approach toward a more thoroughly relational approach. Indeed, certain agents must be reconstituted in and through shifting relations with others, complicating discussions of responsibility for public health. Drawing on two case studies—the health politics and activism of the Black Panther Party and the work of the Common Ground Collective in post-Katrina New Orleans—we (...) argue for the need to attend more carefully to the limitations of states and state-driven public health programs. (shrink)

This chapter examines the death of prisoners from illness in prison. It brings together first-person accounts and other research on the experiences of aging, being ill, and dying in prison, with and without formal hospice care, and the experiences of those working in hospice, caring for other prisoners at end of life. It considers these accounts, emphasizing Butler's analysis of livability and asking the question: what makes life, death, and grief in prison livable? It argues that adequately considering the complexity (...) of prison hospice programs means attending not just to how, where, and with whom prisoners are dying but also to who is most likely to be imprisoned, how their relationships are likely to be constrained, and how their lives and deaths are most likely to be perceived. Formal and informal hospice programs are important not only for the way prisoners provide basic care to each other within them but for the way they also allow for recognizing and mourning those who die in prison, as significant, remembered, and grievable. (shrink)

This paper considers an area of research in clinical psychology that focuses on the resilience of members of marginalized groups who have experienced traumas directly related to their social identities. The paper describes these as social group-based traumas and outlines three effects of social group-based traumas that can make the experiences of them, as well as experiences of recovery following them, distinct from those involved in other kinds of traumas. In cases where resilience frameworks are useful for understanding such recoveries, (...) the paper proposes three methodological strategies for designing research to address the characteristics of social group-based trauma. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Dans cet article, je m’intéresse à l’éthique de l’agentivité sexuelle courante. Il s’agit, plus particulièrement, des questions morales concernant quand, comment et pourquoi nous nous identifions à un type donné d’agent sexuel. Comme l’auto-identification met en jeux une combinaison complexe de processus individuels et sociaux, un cadre conceptuel qui rend justice à ces processus permettrait une analyse de l’éthique de l’auto-identification sexuelle. Je présente le concept de l’authenticité sexuelle comme étant utile dans les contextes où elle comporte deux aspects (...) principaux : l’adoption d’une identité sexuelle qui nous est propre et l’explication que nous en donnons à et avec d’autres personnes. (shrink)

Accounts of human beings as essentially social have had a long history in philosophy as reflected in the Ancient Greeks; in African and Asian philosophy; in Modern European thinkers such as Mary Wo...

ROOTS OF BERGSONS PHILOSOPHY Ben-Ami Scharfstein ROOTS OF BERGSONS PHILOSOPHY NEW YORK MCMXLIII COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS To My Father and Mother ...

An introduction to comparative philosophy relates European and Oriental philosophies and brings to light such aspects of Eastern philosophy as intellectuality, reasoning, and logical analysis usually associated with Western thought.

The adventure I am now undertaking is an appraisal of my profession, philosophy, of my fellow professionals, the philosophers, and, finally of myself at least ...

The aim of this paper is to prove strengthenings of three theorems appearing in Jensen [1].

This essay expresses ambivalence about the use of the term "evil" in analyses of terrorism in light of the association of the two in speeches intended to justify the United States' "war on terrorism." At the same time, the essay suggests that terrorism can be regarded as "evil" but only when considered among a multiplicity of "evils" comparable to it, for example: rape, war crimes, and repression.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Rationality and Logic J. Kekes i It is a basic assumption of the Western intellectual and moral tradition that rationality is a central value. ...

This book contains readings of canonical Western philosophical texts from the viewpoint of current feminist thinking. The contributors focus specifically on the ways in which modern Western philosophy constructs genders and analyzes gender relations. They provide a detailed analysis of modern philosophers’ conceptions of masculinity and femininity and call attention to the intertwining of gender with conceptual schema and networks.

In histories of Orthodox Judaism, one often reads the story of a collision between tradition and modernity. Orthodoxy, according to this logic, is a fortress of the old world, which, upon encounter...

: This essay expresses ambivalence about the use of the term "evil" in analyses of terrorism in light of the association of the two in speeches intended to justify the United States' "war on terrorism." At the same time, the essay suggests that terrorism can be regarded as "evil" but only when considered among a multiplicity of "evils" comparable to it, for example: rape, war crimes, and repression.

What if Immanuel Kant floated down from his transcendental heights, straight through Alice’s rabbit hole, and into the fabulous world of Lewis Carroll? For Ben-Ami Scharfstein this is a wonderfully instructive scenario and the perfect way to begin this wide-ranging collection of decades of startlingly synthesized thought. Combining a deep knowledge of psychology, cultural anthropology, art history, and the history of religions—not to mention philosophy—he demonstrates again and again the unpredictability of writing and thought and how they can teach us (...) about our experiences. Scharfstein begins with essays on the nature of philosophy itself, moving from an autobiographical account of the trials of being a comparativist to philosophy’s function in the outside world to the fear of death in Kant and Hume. From there he explores an impressive array of art: from China and Japan to India and the West; from an essay on sadistic and masochistic body art to one on the epistemology of the deaf and the blind. He then returns to philosophy, writing on Machiavelli and political ruthlessness, then on the ineffable, and closes with a review of Walter Kaufmann’s multivolume look at the essence of humanity, _Discovering the Mind_. Altogether, these essays are a testament to adventurous thought, the kind that leaps to the furthest reaches of the possible. (shrink)

Abstracts of the theses on scientific methodology; papers presented in un-known conference (s).

Collection of essays and lectures on Intellectuals, religious -- Arab countries -- Criticism, interpretation.