This study investigates the developmental pattern and relationships between oral narrative textual skills, spelling, and written narrative textual skills in monolingual and bilingual language-minority children, L1-Chinese and L2-Italian. The aims were to investigate in monolingual and BLM children: the developmental patterns of oral and writing skills across primary school years; the pattern of relationships between oral narrative textual competence, spelling skills, and written narrative textual competence with age and socio-economic status taken under control. In total, 141 primary school children from (...) grades 2 to 5 in Central Italy aged between 7 and 11 years obtained scores for oral and written narrative textual competence, spelling accuracy in dictation, and written texts. One-way ANOVA and ANOVA with robust method analyses and Bonferroni’s correction showed that BLM children had poorer spelling skills in dictation and written narrative textual competence than their monolingual peers. After preliminary correlation analysis, the results of hierarchical regression showed that the relationship between oral and written narrative textual competence is completely mediated by spelling accuracy in BLM children. These results suggest that adequate performance in written narrative textual competence depends on adequate spelling accuracy in writing stories. The Sobel test verified the power of this mediation. In monolinguals, the strongest predictor of written narrative textual competence is oral narrative textual competence. This relation is stronger in older children whose spelling skills are automatized. The identified pattern of relationships shows a complex network of oral and written processes. The scarce spelling skills characterizing BLM children may explain why spelling skills determine a low written narrative textual level. Scarce spelling skills absorb cognitive resources, hindering high-level cognitive processes that regulate narrative production. In monolinguals, the medium of writing does not impact narrative textual competence. Children’s oral narrative textual competence easily transfers into their written narrative productions. These findings have implications for the assessment and instruction of literacy skills in young BLM children and their monolingual peers. (shrink)

In this essay, I advance a reading of Philosophical Crumbs or a Crumb of Philosophy, published by Søren Kierkegaard under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus. I argue that this book is animated by a poetics of self-incrimination. Climacus keeps accusing himself of having stolen his words from someone else. In this way, he deliberately adopts the identity of a thief as an incognito. To understand this poetics of self-incrimination, I analyze the hypothetical thought-project that Climacus develops in an attempt to (...) show what it means to go further than Socrates. In my reading, I distinguish between a Socratic and a non-Socratic conception of education, both of which rely on an incognito. Socrates takes on the maieutic incognito of an ignorant bystander in order to force his interlocutors to turn inward so that the truth that is already within them can be born. In contrast, the non-Socratic education that Climacus advances as a hypothesis relies on what I call ‘the incognito as a true form’. It is an incognito insofar as it confronts the pupils with a paradox on which the understanding runs aground. It is a true form insofar as its immediate appearance is not a disguise, but a true form. This indirect mode of communication is necessary, without it pupils will not be able to encounter a truth that is not inherent within them. Climacus’ poetics of self-incrimination, I argue, tries to repeat this indirect mode of communication by adopting the incognito of a thief as a true form. (shrink)

As colleges and universities seek to invigorate ethics education, they need methods to identify where and describe how ethics is already present across their curricula. Meeting this need is complicated by the fact that much ethics education occurs in courses not explicitly focused on ethics or morality. In this paper, we review recent methodological advances before presenting a new Ethics Course Identification Tool (ECIT) that combines application of an expert-derived weighted dictionary and natural language processing methods to identify ethics-related courses (...) based on their titles and course catalog descriptions, even when the terms “ethic” or “moral” are not present. Two studies, the second a pre-registered replication, revealed considerable interrater reliability among experts in ethics education regarding the ethical relevance of courses. Critically, both studies revealed strong correlations between expert judgments and ECIT scores. This empirical evidence points to a shared understanding of ethics education among experts, and it supports the valid use of the ECIT to rapidly and reliably identify ethics-related courses. Based on these findings, we propose that the ECIT can be used both to advance research on trends in ethics education and to help target interventions to improve ethics education at colleges and universities. (shrink)

The Danish word 'incognito' means to appear in disguise, or to act under an unfamiliar, assumed name (or title) in order to avoid identification. As a concept, incognito occurs in several of Kierkegaard’s works, but only becomes a subject of reflection in two: the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments by Johannes Climacus and Practice in Christianity by Anti-Climacus. Both pseudonyms develop the concept from their own perspective and must be understood on their own terms. Johannes Climacus treats (...) incognito as a category of existence, defining it as a comic contradiction that creates a disguise in order to hide and protect the inwardness of the existing individual. However, Anti-Climacus treats incognito as a category of communication. He defines it as “a sign of contradiction” that creates a disguise in order to activate and disclose the inwardness of a listener or reader. (shrink)

Drawing upon a range of theorists, photographers and literary texts, this article explores the role of memory in grounding identity. If the subject is constituted in language, it is argued, identity can be achieved only in the realm of the imaginary, through fixation in an imago of the self. It is memory above all that gives this being-in-denial its imagined solidity; but that solidity is an effect of language’s ability to create verisimilitude in an eternal present of signification, and not (...) of memory’s relation to a real past. Identity therefore always remains precarious, because the signifiers that furnish the points de capiton of what we remember always also defer elsewhere. (shrink)

Abstract: In Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793 (1997), the Supreme Court for the first time in American case law explicitly applied the principle of double effect to reject an equal protection claim to physician-assisted suicide. Double effect, traced historically to Thomas Aquinas, proposes that under certain circumstances it is permissible unintentionally to cause foreseen evil effects that would not be permissible to cause intentionally. The court rejected the constitutional claim on the basis of a distinction marked out by the (...) principle, i.e., between directly intending the death of a terminally ill patient as opposed to merely foreseeing that death as a consequence of medical treatment. The Court held that the distinction comports with fundamental legal principles of causation and intent. Id. at 802. -/- Critics allege that the principle itself is intrinsically flawed and that, in any event, its employment in Vacco is without legal precedent. I argue in response to contemporary objections that double effect is a valid principle of ethical reflection (Part II); claims to the contrary notwithstanding, double effect analysis is a pervasive, albeit generally unacknowledged principle employed regularly in American case law (Part III); and drawing on the preceding two sections, Vacco's application of the principle of double effect is appropriate (Part IV). -/- My conclusion is that [o]peration of some form of the principle, by whatever name, is inevitable. In an imperfect world where duties and interests collide, the possibility of choices of action foreseen to have both good and evil consequences cannot be avoided. In rare circumstances, ethics and the law require that a person refrain from acting altogether. More often, however, they provide that a determination of whether an actor may pursue a good effect although knowing it will or may unintentionally cause an harmful effect requires a more complex analysis - a double effect analysis. -/- Keywords: Equal protection, double effect, intention, physician-assisted suicide, Constitutional Law, Bioethics. (shrink)

Biological scientists are increasingly encountering work-related ethical problems. For most, their training leaves them quite unprepared. Rather than merely providing additional bolt-on courses in ethics, a way of introducing critical thinking skills seamlessly into the curriculum is proposed. A method is described whereby students become engaged in self-generated discussion about the scientifically recognized, but philosophically complex, terms ‘disease’ and ‘health.’ Addressing these words, students are confrontedwith the need to develop critical thinking skills without realizing that they are entering into overt (...) philosophical argument—the like of which many often prejudge to be abstract and worthless. (shrink)

This article demonstrates a novel conceptualization of sublimity: the sublime in the pedestrian. This pedestrian mode of sublimity is exemplified by the Biblical Abraham, the central figure of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous Fear and Trembling. It is rooted in the analysis of one of the foundational stories of the three monotheistic religions: Abraham’s averted sacrifice of his son Isaac. The defining feature of this new, pedestrian mode of sublimity is that is remains hidden behind what I call a total incognito. It (...) is similar to the classical ‘elevated mode of sublimity’ as developed by Burke, Kant, and Schiller insofar as it denotes two contrasting feelings at once: repulsion and attraction. It is different insofar as Kierkegaard’s pedestrian mode of sublimity remains hidden from view and can only be shown indirectly. This article expounds the new, pedestrian mode of sublimity by investigating the relation between the incognito and the sublime in Fear and Trembling. It achieves that goal by engaging three perspectives: (1) the sublime failure that comes to the fore in the incognitos of an imaginary Abraham; (2) the ‘fear without being afraid’ that is invoked by God’s incognitos; (3) the total incognito of the pedestrian which conceals Abraham’s sublimity. (shrink)

Simulated standardized patients (SPs) are trained individuals who pose incognito as people seeking treatment in a health care setting. With the method’s increasing use and popularity, we propose some standards to adapt the method to contextual considerations of feasibility, and we discuss current issues with the SP method and the experience of consent and ethical research in international SP studies. Since a foundational discussion of the research ethics of the method was published in 2012, a growing number of studies (...) have implemented this method to collect data on the quality of care in a variety of settings around the world. We draw from that experience to provide empirical foundations for a popular approach to ethical approval of such studies in the United States and Canada, which has been to obtain a waiver of informed consent from the health care providers who are the subjects of the research. However, the majority of studies to date have evaluated quality of care outside the U.S., requiring additional ethical consideration when partnering with international institutions. We discuss these considerations in the context of a case study from a completed SP study in South Africa, where informed consent is constitutionally protected. (shrink)

Kierkegaard’s Concepts is a comprehensive, multi-volume survey of the key concepts and categories that inform Kierkegaard’s writings. Each article is a substantial, original piece of scholarship, which discusses the etymology and lexical meaning of the relevant Danish term, traces the development of the concept over the course of the authorship, and explains how it functions in the wider context of Kierkegaard’s thought. Concepts have been selected on the basis of their importance for Kierkegaard’s contributions to philosophy, theology, the social sciences, (...) literature and aesthetics, thereby making this volume an ideal reference work for students and scholars in a wide range of disciplines. -/- Contents: Envy, Janne Kylliäinen; Epic, Nassim Bravo Jordán; Epigram, David R. Law; Ethics, Azucena Palavicini Sánchez; Evil, Azucena Palavicini Sánchez and William McDonald; Exception/Universal, Geoffrey Dargan; Existence/Existential, Min-Ho Lee; Experience, Jakub Marek; Fairytale, Nathaniel Kramer; Faith, William McDonald; Finitude/Infinity, Erik M. Hanson; Forgiveness, John Lippitt; Freedom, Diego Giordano; Genius, Steven M. Emmanuel; God, Paul Martens and Daniel Marrs; Good, Azucena Palavicini Sánchez; Governance/Providence, Jack Mulder, Jr.; Grace, Derek R. Nelson; Gratitude, Corey Benjamin Tutewiler; Guilt, Erik M. Hanson; Happiness, Benjamin Miguel Olivares Bøgeskov; Hero, Sean Anthony Turchin; History, Sean Anthony Turchin; Holy Spirit, Leo Stan; Hope, William McDonald; Humility, Robert B. Puchniak; Humor, Alejandro González; Hypocrisy, Thomas Martin Fauth Hansen; Identity/Difference, Claudine Davidshofer; Imagination, Frances Maughan-Brown; Imitation, Leo Stan; Immanence/Transcendence, Leo Stan; Immediacy/Reflection, Zizhen Liu; Immortality, Lee C. Barrett; Incognito, Martijn Boven. (shrink)

Il est assez commun de se représenter le bûcheron comme un être plutôt fruste, qualifié avant tout par sa force au service d’une tâche peu valorisée. Or cette représentation se révèle tronquée, car l’équation qui associe la force à l’outil ne peut se réaliser sans le contrôle du geste. Plus encore, l’écoute des témoignages recueillis auprès des forestiers nous apprend que ce travail réclame d’efficaces systèmes de précision. C’est là une qualification oubliée, pourtant reconnue à part entière dès l’Iliade, qui (...) nous en donne deux témoins privilégiés par l’anthropologie historique de la Grèce, la mètis, l’« intelligence rusée », prêtée au kybérnêtês, le pilote du navire, au conducteur de char et, en bonne première place, au bûcheron. La théorie du contrôle nous permet maintenant de dépasser le flou conceptuel de la notion historiquement pré-théorique de mètis, la ruse s’appliquant à des cas bien trop divers, pour lui préférer les développements les plus récents d’une science du contrôle de l’action, théorisée depuis Wiener, nourrissant aujourd’hui les projets les mieux financés de cyber-cerveaux informatiques, au service des neurosciences et de la médecine. Le travail forestier, qui réclame une coordination maîtrisée des gestes, y compris de leurs commandes vocales dans le chant de travail — qu’un seul ou plusieurs bûcherons en équipe soient mobilisés —, nous en fournit une parfaite illustration. The woodcutter is commonly represented as a fairly boorish person, reduced to brute force and low-level tasks. But this representation is partial because a simplistic inferential link between an axe and strength obliterates that nothing can happen without any modus operandi, i.e. a set of neural controls over gestures. Indeed, listening to woodcutter’s testimonies led us to elicit that this work needs efficient precision systems. This high level of qualification was acknowledged at least since Homer’s Iliad as evidenced by two favourite telltales from historical anthropology of Ancient Greece: mètis ascribed to kybérnêtês, the ship’s pilot as to the chariot-driver and in the first rank to the woodcutter. Control theory allows now to avoid the fuzziness of meaning of the pre-theoretical notion of mètis to focus on a domain steadily developed since Wiener, now part of costly cyber-brain projects in informatics, for neuroscience and medicine. Forest work, which requires skilled gesture coordination, with vocal commands in a worksong—for one or more woodcutters being engaged in the task—is such a telling case. (shrink)

Contents include: Foreword Editor's Preface Introduction by the Editor Preface Introduction BOOK ONE: The Objective Problem Concerning the Truth of Christianity Introductory Remarks Chapter I: The Historical Point of View 1. The Holy Scriptures 2. The Church 3. The Proof of the Centuries for the Truth of Christianity Chapter II: The Speculative Point of View BOOK TWO: The Subjective Problem, The Relation of the Subject to the Truth of Christianity, The Problem of Becoming a Christian PART ONE: Something About Lessing (...) Chapter I: An Expression of Gratitude Chapter II: Theses Possibly or Actually Attributable to Lessing 1. The subjective existing thinker has regard to the dialectics of the process of communication 2. The existing subjective thinker is in his existential relation to the truth as negative as he is positive; he has a much humor as he has essential pathos; and he is constantly in process of becoming, i.e. he is always striving 3. Lessing has said that accidental historical truths can never serve as proofs for eternal truths of the reason; and that the transition by which it is proposed to base an eternal truth upon historical testimony is a leap 4. Lessing has said that, if God held all truth in His right hand, and in His left the lifelong pursuit of it, he would choose the left hand A. A logical system is possible B. An existential system is possible PART TWO: How the Subjectivity of the Individual Must be Qualified in Order that the Problem May Exist for Him Chapter I: The Task of Becoming Subjective. The conclusion that would be forced upon ethics if the attainment of subjectivity were not the highest task confronting a human being—Considerations left out of account in connection with the closer understanding of this—Examples of thinking directed towards becoming subjective Chapter II: The Subjective Truth, Inwardness; Truth is Subjectivity Appendix. A Glance at the Contemporary Effort in Danish Literature Chapter III: Real or Ethical Subjectivity—The Subjective Thinker 1. Existence and Reality 2. Possibility as higher than Reality—Reality as higher than Possibility—Poetic and Intellectual Ideality—Ethical Ideality 3. The Simultaneity of the Individual Factors of Subjectivity in the Existing Subject—The Constrast between this Simultaneity and the Speculative Process 4. The Subjective Thinker—his Task, his Form, his Style Chapter IV: The Problem of the Fragments: How can an Eternal Happiness be based upon Historical Knowledge? Section I. For Orientation in the Plan of the Fragments 1. That the point of departure was taken in the pagan consciousness, and why 2. The importance of a preliminary agreement concerning what Christianity is, before there can be any question of mediating between Christianity and speculative thought. The absence of such an agreement favors the proposal of medication, while at the same time making any mediation illusory; the presence of such an agreement precludes mediation 3. The problem of the Fragments viewed as a problem, introductory not to Christianity, but to becoming a Christian Section II. The Problem Itself. The eternal happiness of the individual is decided in time through the relationship to something historical, which is furthermore of such a character as to oinclude in its composition that which by virtue of its essence cannot become historical, and must therefore become such by virtue of the absurd A. Existential Pathos 1. The Initial Expression for Existential Pathos: the absolute direction (respect) toward the absolute telos, expressed in action through the transformation of the individual's existence Aesthetic Pathos—The deceptiveness of the principle of mediation—The medieval monastic movement—The simultaneous maintenance of an absolute relationship to the absolute telos and a relative relationship to the relative ends 2. The Essential Expression for Existential pathos: Suffering—Fortune and misforutne as the expression for an aesthetic view of life, in constradistinction to suffering as the expression of a religious view (illustrated by reference to the religious discourse)—The Reality of suffering (humor)—The reality of suffering in the last instance as evidence for the possession by the existing individual of a relationship to an eternal happiness—The illusion of religiosity—The category of Anfechtung—The primary ground and significance of the religious suffering: The dying away from the life of immediacy while still remaining in the finite—An edifying divertisement—Humor as an incognito for religiosity 3. The Decisive Expression for existential pathos: Guilt—That the investigation goes backward instead of forward—The eternal recollection of guilt is the highest expression for the relation between the consciousness of guilt and an eternal happiness—Lower expressions for the consciousness of guilt, and corresponding forms of satisfaction—Self-imposted penance—Humor—The religiosity of hidden inwardness Intermediate Clause between A and B B. The Dilectical 1. The dialectical contradiction which constitutes the breach: to expect an eternal happiness in time through a relationship to something else in time 2. The dialectical constradiction that an eternal happiness is based upon something historical 3. The dialectical contradiction that the historical fact here in question is not a simple historical fact, but is constituted by that which only against its nature can become historical, hence by virtue of the absurd Appendix to B. The retroactive effect of the dialectical upon the pathetic, and the factor simultaneously present in the pathos (a) The consciousness of sin (b) The possibililty of offense (c) The smart of sympathy Chapter V. Conclusion. About Childish Christianity Appendix. For an Understanding with the Reader First and Last Declaration Notes Index Originally published in 1941. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Blair, David Review of: Incognito: The secret lives of the brain, by David Eagleman, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2011, paperback, $35.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, fear has run rampant across the globe. To curb the spread of the virus, several governments have taken measures to drastically transition businesses, work, and schooling to virtual settings. While such transitions are warranted and well-intended, these measures may come with unforeseen consequences. Namely, one’s fear of COVID-19 may more readily manifest as aggressive behaviors in an otherwise incognito virtual social ecology. In the current research, a moderated mediation model examined the mechanisms underlying the relation (...) between fear of COVID-19 and overt and relational aggressive online behavior among Chinese college students. Utilizing a large sample of Chinese college students, results indicated that moral disengagement mediated the effect of fear of COVID-19 on college students’ overt and relational online aggressive behavior. A positive family cohesion buffered the effect of moral disengagement on relational aggressive behavior, but only for females. The findings, theoretical contributions, and practical implications of the present paper are also discussed. (shrink)

This article explains and assesses a particular method of loving others that is espoused by Søren Kierkegaard. In his later works, Kierkegaard advocates a kind of deceptive love whereby one mystifies or deceives another person for that other person's own good. The theological underpinning of this mode of love is found in the imitation of Christ. In other words, just as Jesus adopted an incognito, so also Christians should, at times, appear different or lowlier in order to help others (...) by meeting them where they are. After explaining this form of love, I argue that there are considerable reasons not to follow Kierkegaard in his support of outright deception within personal relationships. I conclude with some brief reflections on whether the deceptive structure of Kierkegaard's own authorship is thereby condemned or whether it can be exonerated. (shrink)

This article explores and discusses Tim Burton's film Edward Scissorhands by applying a Georg Simmel/Ernst Bloch analysis. Aside from each of the philosophical approaches serving as insightful analyses of the symbolism and narrative of the film, it is also theoretically useful to compare and unpack the similarities and differences in aspects of both Simmel's and Bloch's philosophical ideas and metaphors, influenced by their collaboratory experiences; Bloch became associated with Georg Simmel in 1908. The association and friendship with Simmel lasted until (...) 1911; at this time Bloch became increasingly disillusioned with Simmel's apparent inability to commit to any particular philosophical position. Correspondence finally drew to a close when Simmel openly supported the war policy of Imperial Germany in 1914. The influences of many of Simmel's ideas in relation to the development of Bloch's philosophy are implicitly noticeable in the cross-referencing of similar ideas, metaphors and themes. This article will suggest and tentatively work through aspects of some similarities and differences. The aim of this comparison and contrast of Simmel in relation to Bloch via Edward Scissorhands, will also serve to highlight Bloch's philosophical departure from Simmel's fragments. By exploring and discussing Simmel's essays 'The Aesthetic Significance of the Face', 'The Ruin' and 'The Stranger,' in the context of Edward Scissorhands, I will suggest that the film can be seen as a particularly poignant and effective cultural metaphor of not only the problematic nature of human ideals, but also urban ennui and disconnectedness. By comparison, the Blochian treatment of Edward Scissorhands will emphasise the Gothic, the radical stridency of Youth, and, potential utopian possibilities that are, so far, 'Not-Yet'. These frameworks will suggest that Edward Scissorhands be understood as a beautiful-monster, a cultural refraction of the utopian incognito of Not-Yet articulated future possibilities. (shrink)

Il y a tout juste un an se produisait en France un événement philosophique majeur. Un événement qui, comme tout grand événement, aura été à la mesure non pas du monde, mais de la vie – en ce sens qu’il fut aussi fondamental, aussi peu tapageur, aussi incognito que la vie peut l’être au regard de tout individu..

There are secrets but they are not the secrets of the filmmakers; the whispers remain inaudible to all: *Silencio*. The significance of _Mulholland Dr._ will be revealed indirectly, in a kind of articulate silence, like Kierkegaard's incognito Jesus.

Il pense, donc il est : sérieux, solitaire, méditatif et de noir vêtu, Descartes est depuis des siècles l'incarnation de la raison triomphante et du génie français. Tant de limpidité et d'éclat a éclipsé l'homme même, qui demeure très méconnu : fils d'un temps d'incertitude? père de la philosophie moderne? Qui était vraiment René Descartes et qu'en reste-t-il aujourd'hui, au-delà des idées reçues et de la référence obligée? Mettant en lumière les contradictions du philosophe, Françoise Hildesheimer brosse le portrait d'un (...) homme fort éloigné du mythe officiel. On le veut rationnel, on ne l'imagine pas rêvant ; c'est pourtant sur trois songes que Descartes a fondé son projet d'une science universelle qui devait faire de lui le nouvel Aristote. Il a côtoyé de très près les courants déviants de l'époque, avant de s'établir en Hollande en 1628 pour concevoir son système, dévoilé au fil du Discours de la méthode, des Méditations métaphysiques, des Principes de la philosophie et des Passions de l'âme. Sa vie durant, Descartes a balancé entre désir de reconnaissance officielle et soif d'incognito ; il invitait le monde entier à débattre de ses théories, mais n'aimait guère la contestation ; il affectionnait le repos, et n'a cessé de voyager, sans jamais s'établir durablement ; lui qui se tenait éloigné du pouvoir a fini ses jours, en 1650, à la cour de la reine Christine de Suède. Curieux paradoxe que cet obsédé du secret, ce maniaque du brouillage des pistes, se soit consacré corps et âme à la quête de la Vérité et à l'étude de la lumière... (shrink)

The articles in the present issue are the result of a study day on William Desmond’s recent book, Ethics and the Between, held at the K.U.Leuven's Institute of Philosophy. This important book certainly deserves a thorough discussion and for many reasons. It is the manifestation of an ambition that reminds us of past periods in the history of philosophy. These days not so many philosophers venture to set up a body of work — three volumes — in the tradition of (...) the great philosophical systems that once tried to cover and understand the whole of reality. When reading Ethics and the Between, Hegel’s system comes to mind not only because we know that William Desmond is a Hegel scholar but also because of its ambition to give everything a place within an encompassing system.Of course Desmond takes care to explain where the difference lies between his metaxological approach and an insufficiently open and pluralist dialectics. His is an attempt to rethink the notion of system so that it is more hospitable to otherness as other, to the rich inexhaustibility of being. He wants to be true to the equivocities of our being and not to give in to the seduction of mediated univocity, as some forms of dialectics do. What is at stake in his work is not forgetting the surplus, the excess, the otherness of the good which suggests a transcendence of each dialectical completion in terms of self-determination.Desmond’s oeuvre is not only unusual today because of its systematic ambition. A second characteristic marks off more specifically his book on ethics: the attempt to write an ethics dominated by the idea of the good, raising the question of the relation between metaphysics and ethics, between being and being good. Desmond seems to tell us that something has been forgotten: the good which continues to be there incognito, present even in philosophies that forget it. This seems to be Desmond’s way of situating himself in an age characterized by the subtle ethos of valuelessness, the perplexity about the inherent value of being, of being as good; an age oscillating between foundationalist unity and postmodern plurality.If it were my task to give an introduction to Desmond’s thought I would have to pay attention to the richness of the concept of metaxu, the between, the way it seems to encompass the whole and keep it together, while at the same time being excessive. I would have to speak about the fourfold meaning of being and the way it shapes different ways of being ethical that dwell more and more intensively with what is at play in the ethos, that is to say in the metaxu.But it is not my task to do this; others have made the attempt more extensively in the papers reproduced here. I doubt whether they will be sufficient to bring to light all the rich dimensions of this book that is written at the same tempo as William speaks when discussing and, I suppose, when he goes running in the morning. (shrink)

The aim of this contribution is to critically engage with the ricoeurian reading of the topic of recognition in the Homeric poem Odyssey. The hypothesis presented here is that the ricoeurian reading shows only one side of the coin, since it is almost solely focused on the recognition received by Ulysses when he comes back to Ithaca incognito. Ricoeur stresses the unilaterality of recognition, which is only directed to re‑establish Ulysses’ power as king. Being recognized as the king of (...) Ithaca does not imply, so Ricoeur’s argument goes, to recognize those who are subjected to him, and is a mere way of exhibiting power. But there is another possible reading of the scenes of recognition in the Odyssey, even if Ricoeur does not take them into account. Indeed, another moment of the recognition story can be found in the Isle of the Phaeacians, and it cannot be traced back to the “will to power”, but, rather, to Ulysses’s fragility. When Demodocus, the poet at the court of the king Alcinoos, starts singing the story of the famous hero Ulysses, who is there incognito, Ulysses cannot hold back his tears, and in the end he discloses his own identity. Here, Ulysses does not look for recognition, instead recognition is granted to him in an unexpected way. This act of recognition reveals all the fragility of the hero, who discovers himself in the words of others, and understands that he depends upon them to be, to exist, and, in the end, to come back home. This sort of “recognition by fragility” is possible due to a narrative dimension where Ulysses is hosted, and whose configurative and refigurative power makes the hero able to name his feeling as a feeling of “nostalgia”. (shrink)

"Par dizaines, des expressions issues de la mythologie grecque se sont inscrites dans le langage courant : une "pomme de discorde", un "dédale de rues", prendre le "taureau par les cornes", toucher le "pactole", "tomber de Charybde en Scylla", suivre un "fil d'Ariane", "jouer les Cassandre", etc. Mille références endormies aux Sirènes, à Typhon, Océan, Triton, Python, Sibylle, Stentor, Mentor, Laïus, Argus, OEdipe et à tant d'autres personnages mythiques habitent encore incognito nos conversations de tous les jours. Je vous (...) propose de les réveiller en racontant les histoires magnifiques qui en sont l'origine. Mais il y a plus. Les grands mythes ne se limitent pas à des "contes et légendes". Ils proposent des leçons de vie et de sagesse d'une profondeur abyssale. La mythologie représente ainsi une tentative grandiose pour apporter des réponses à l'antique question métaphysique de "la vie bonne pour les mortels". Son étude, passionnante en elle-même, constitue pour cette raison une excellente introduction à la philosophie." Luc Ferry. (shrink)

L'oeuvre de Sarah Kofman (1934-1994) est encore peu étudié : trop souvent on considère Sarah Kofman comme une simple interprète, qui n'aurait rien écrit qui lui soit vraiment propre. Sarah Kofman elle-même semblait cautionner ce jugement en émaillant ses textes d'innombrables reconnaissances de dettes. Il ne faut pourtant pas être dupe de cette position : derrière de nombreux masques, Sarah Kofman développe une véritable pensée inspirée des oeuvres de Nietzsche et de Freud. Sous sa plume, son argumentation se cache derrière (...) des prête-noms, comme Platon, Kierkegaard, Dionysos ou Baubô... Chez elle, la lecture et l'écriture se conjuguent avec bonheur. Mais moins qu'à une confusion réelle des signatures, les nombreux livres de Sarah Kofman confrontent le lecteur à une expérience d'écriture qui, dans l'incognito, se joue du travestissement. (shrink)

La tradition juive imprègne à tel point le discours philosophique de Levinas qu'on a pu le soupçonner d'être une théologie masquée de la transcendance. L'ambiguïté n'est qu'apparente. Son judaïsme est la voix singulière d’un recommencement. Dans sa jeunesse talmudique à Vilna, il a été à l'école d'une si haute pensée de la grandeur excessive de Dieu qu'elle échappe à nos représentations et décourage la philosophie de s'en faire l'interprète. Arrivé en France, s'adonnant avec émerveillement à la phénoménologie, il apprend d'elle (...) que l'esprit n'est rien que liaison au dehors, échange avec le monde et ouverture à autrui. Pour elle, le monde repose fondamentalement sur l'expérience empirique de la rencontre de l'homme, non directement sur la relation à Dieu. Mais dans l'exploration de son domaine propre, celui de l'existence finie, la raison se heurte à des limites – la mort, le visage d'autrui – où surgit une altérité exigeante, qui se refuse aux réductions et aux accaparements dont la transcendance divine est l'objet dans les religions même révélées et qui dénonce les violences infligées aux hommes au nom du divin. Ainsi transformée par son écoute de l'illimité, la raison phénoménologique déplace la notion de révélation. Dans le visage se révèle la sainteté de la personne, avec la justice absolue qui lui est due ; dans la sainte écriture, la responsabilité suprême de chacun vis-à-vis de l'autre. L'homme en perte d'identité se découvre orienté par un souffle de transcendance, non vers une vérité absolue, mais vers un Dieu absent qui s'est retiré dans son incognito.The Jewish tradition impregnates the philosophical discourse of Levinas to such an extent that one suspects it to be a theology of transcendence in disguise. The ambiguity is only apparent. His Judaism is a unique voice of a new beginning. In his Talmudic youth in Vilna, Levinas was at a school with such a high idea of the excessive greatness of God that it escapes our representations and discourages philosophy to be its interpreter. When he arrived in France he gave himself up to the wonder of phenomenology. From it he learned that the spirit is nothing other than liaison to the outside, interchange with the world, and openness to the other. The world is fundamentally based on the empirical experience of man’s encounter, not directly on relation to God. But reason, in the exploration of its own domain, finite existence, meets its limits – death, the visage of the other– where a demanding alterity arises. This latter refuses reductions and monopolizations whose object is divine transcendence, even in revealed religions, and denounces violence inflicted on men in the name of the divine. Thus transformed by listening to the limitless, phenomenological reason displaces the notion of revelation. In the visage is revealed the holiness of the person, with the absolute justice that is due him ; in Holy Scripture we find the supreme responsibility of each one toward the other. Man, in losing his identity, finds himself oriented by a breath of transcendence, not towards an absolute truth, but towards an absent God who has drawn back into its incognito. (shrink)

Since the turn of the century, however, a double upheaval has occurred, the formulation of the quantum theory and the theory of relativity, providing the ground for the development of modern physics. These theories issued from the problems of light that, in their strict forms, could not be assimilated by Newtonian physics. Before the turn of the century the wave theory had been victorious over the emission theory, and an hypothetical ether was assumed which was intended ultimately to represent absolute (...) space and to play a role similar to that of Anaximander's apeiron or Aristotle's prima materia. This last role seemed required since many philosophers of nature believed that they should see in matter and its elementary components the singularities, the exceptional peculiarities of the ether. However, since the ether held itself strictly incognito, Albert Einstein renounced it and declared that all systems in uniform, rectilinear motion are equivalent. The first portentous ontological consequence of this renunciation was that statements concerning spatial and temporal separation become relative. True relativity means, however, that objectivity and subjectivity enter equally into all statements, for to everything relative, as Max Planck once said, an absolute belongs. In this case the absolute was the combination of space and time into a four-dimensional spatio-temporal unity, which observers in different systems split into different space and time determinations. Our statements concerning space and time are thus neither merely subjective nor merely objective; rather a subject-object relation enters into them and makes them all relative. There is, to be sure, within the four-dimensional spatio-temporal unity a region of a spatial type within which the space-axes of the different observers lie, and the same is true for the temporal region. But even if there is no one universal time or simultaneity, temporality nevertheless plays its own role in contradistinction to spatiality, though both are expressible mathematically. We can say in the sense of critical realism that our spatial and temporal measurements are commensurate with the ordering relations of things and events. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 47, no. 1. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 15 Candice Lyons Behind the Scenes: Elizabeth Keckley, Slave Narratives, and the Queer Complexities of Space In the fall of 1867—just two years after the conclusion of the American Civil War—former First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, finding herself in dire financial straits, traveled incognito to New York. She hoped to sell select pieces from her famed wardrobe (...) in order to supplement her income, which was, at the time, rather meager. Accompanying the recently widowed socialite was her self-described “modiste” and “confidante ” Elizabeth Keckley, a formerly enslaved African American dressmaker who had been “intimately associated” with Lincoln for years.1 Despite the various measures undertaken to ensure the scheme’s success, including attempts to extort monied East Coast Republicans and strategic appeals to the press, it ultimately proved fruitless. Political nemeses seized on the opportunity to publicly mock Lincoln, who was seen as an “extravagant and improper” social climber, for her “pecuniary embarrassment,” treating the public auction of her clothing as a spectacle akin to the World Fair.2 Eventually, the former First Lady was forced to retreat to her home in Chicago, leaving Keckley behind to tend to her affairs. 1. Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2015): Location no. 406, 54, 53. 2. Carolyn Sorisio, “Unmasking the Genteel Performer: Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes and the Politics of Public Wrath,” African American Review 34 (2000): 20; Keckley, Behind the Scenes, Location no. 1321. 16 Candice Lyons This decision, however, left the ordinarily sought-after seamstress in dire straits of her own, given that the time she was compelled to dedicate to what would come to be known as “The Old Clothes Scandal ” necessitated closing down her then-thriving business in Washington, DC.3 This, coupled with the fact that indemnification for her services was not forthcoming from Mrs. Lincoln, was likely at least partially at the root of Keckley’s decision to publish her now-infamous memoir, Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years A Slave and Four Years in the White House in 1868.4 Keckley explained that she penned her autobiographical text in a bid to “defend [her]self” and Lincoln against charges of impropriety following the New York incident. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, the book’s release had the exact opposite effect: Keckley’s literary disclosures were met with scorn, regarded by large swaths of white Americans, including some of the same people who had been most vocal in their condemnation of Mary Todd Lincoln, as constituting a set of socially impermissible transgressions of class, race, and gender. Sales of the book were subsequently suppressed, Keckley’s relationship with Lincoln (who had been caught off guard by the text’s release) came to an abrupt end, and there was even a brief, parodic pamphlet produced, titled Behind the Seams; by a Nigger Woman Who Took in Work from Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Davis, which cast the entire ordeal as a sort of (racist) cautionary tale.5 Given the clear disdain held for Lincoln by people across the political spectrum at the time, it can be difficult to make sense of the visceral reaction prompted by Keckley’s airing of the controversial figure’s dirty laundry (pun intended). Considering the ways Behind the Scenes implicitly challenged the fixity of hierarchical distinctions between Black and white, employee and employer, however, repudiation of the work might be understood as inevitable. Further, given the “intimate” and ambiguous nature of Lincoln and Keckley’s relationship, the book may also 3. Sorisio, “Unmasking the Genteel Performer,” 19. 4. The text’s infamy is in part attributable to its anomalous structure, which rendered it distinct from many of the era’s other book-length slave narratives ; whereas monographs such as Harriet Jacobs’s 1861 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl centered on the author’s experience of and eventual escape from slavery, Keckley’s work deals only briefly with these matters, primarily concerning itself with the intimate affairs of the author’s (white) employer. 5. Sorisio, “Unmasking the Genteel Performer,” 19. Candice... (shrink)

Blair, David Review(s) of: Incognito: The secret lives of the brain, by David Eagleman, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2011, paperback, $35.

A few months ago, a young man in jeans and a baseball cap took a violin into a subway station in Washington DC during morning rush hour. He opened the case in front of him, put some coins inside to encourage donations and played for 45 minutes. The young man was Joshua Bell, one of the world's greatest violinists, and he was playing his multimillion-dollar Stradivarius. He was incognito, as an experiment devised by The Washington Post to see whether (...) people appreciate great art in an unlikely place. (shrink)