To attract complementary assets, firms that sponsor proprietary de facto compatibility standards must trade off control of the standard against the imperative for adoption. For example, Microsoft and Intel in turn gained pervasive adoption of their technologies by appropriating only a single layer of the standards architecture and encouraging competition in other layers. In reaction to such proprietary strategies, the open source movement relinquished control to maximize adoption. To illustrate this, we examine the rise of the Linux operating system from (...) 1995–2001, particularly the motivations of organizational buyers and suppliers of complementary assets, and Microsoft’s reaction to its success. (shrink)

One prominent response, based on the work of Robert Adams, Edward Wierenga, and others, to the Euthyphro objection to the divine command theory is to point out that God is essentially omnibenevolent. The commands of an essentially loving being will not be arbitrary since they are grounded in his nature, nor is it possible for a loving God to issue horrendous commands such as the gratuitous torture of infants. This paper argues that this response is inadequate. The divine command theory (...) attributes to God the power to make an action morally obligatory. Given the reasonable assumption that any omnipotent being has the same powers as God, contemplating the commands of a malevolent deity is enough to cast doubt on the claim that any being, loving or otherwise, has the power to make an action morally obligatory just by commanding it. (shrink)

A difficult question in the philosophy of sport concerns how winning athletes should perform in uneven contests in which victory has been secured well before the competition is over. Nicholas Dixon, the protagonist in the ongoing debate, argues against critics who urge following an 'anti-blowout' thesis that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with running up the score. We engage this debate, providing much needed distinctions, and draw on Aristotelian resources to explore a framework by which to understand competing claims found (...) within the literature. (shrink)

The horrendous deeds objection to metaethical divine command theory (MDCT) says that since God can command anything whatsoever, even things that are horrendous, MDCT seems to imply that God can make any action, no matter how repugnant, morally obligatory. Defenders of MDCT frequently claim, by way of response, that since God is essentially omnibenevolent, it is impossible that he commands us to do horrendous things. I have recently argued that it is irrelevant that God cannot issue horrible commands. The argument (...) runs as follows: On MDCT, God has moral grounding power — the power to make an action morally obligatory by commanding that we do it. Given that omnipotence is possession of maximal power, every omnipotent being has this power. In some possible world, there exists a non-benevolent omnipotent being who issues horrible commands. Therefore, on MDCT, there is a possible world in which some horrendous action is morally obligatory. Matthew Flannagan has responded to this argument on behalf of the divine command theorist. Flannagan argues that since, on MDCT, moral obligations are constituted by God’s commands, and no other being can perform God’s actions, no other being can possess moral grounding power. In this paper, I criticize Flannagan’s argument. His argument assumes that when some phenomenon is constituted by the actions of an agent, no other agent’s actions can constitute this phenomenon. I argue that this assumption is false. (shrink)

Problem one: why, if God designed the human mind, did it take so long for humans to develop theistic concepts and beliefs? Problem two: why would God use evolution to design the living world when the discovery of evolution would predictably contribute to so much nonbelief in God? Darwin was aware of such questions but failed to see their evidential significance for theism. This paper explores this significance. Problem one introduces something I call natural nonbelief, which is significant because it (...) parallels and corroborates well-known worries about natural evil. Problems one and two, especially when combined, support naturalism over theism, intensify the problem of divine hiddenness, challenge Alvin Plantinga’s views about the naturalness of theism, and advance the discussion about whether the conflict between science and religion is genuine or superficial. (shrink)

This chapter seeks clarification into how Marion understands “desire,” especially in The Erotic Phenomenon. Philosophies of “objectivity” have lost sight of love and its uniquely supporting evidences, and desire plays a number of roles in restoring to love the “dignity of a concept,” in its contribution to forming selfhood and “individualization,” and in its establishing the paradoxical bases of the erotic reduction and “eroticization.” Since he claims in La Rigueur des Choses that “The Erotic Phenomenon logically completes the phenomenology of (...) the gift and the saturated phenomenon,” it is necessary to conceive of how and to what degree. The erotic reduction demands that one bracket oneself and return to the Ursprung of intuition by asking the important question “can I be the first to love?” This chapter initiates an application of these findings on the manifold of desire back onto Marion’s understanding of “the gift” and his phenomenology of givenness. How might the erotic reduction and the reduction to givenness interrelate? Might love and desire be modes or “capacities” of alteration of one’s experience within intuition? Desire, which is conceived in relation to “lack” as a resource, provides a kind of “negative assurance” that allows the adonné to access an affirmation of love. (shrink)

State dignitaries and United Nations delegates draw inspiration from a diverse body of philosophical, political, and religious sources as they attempt to produce substantive change throughout the world, or, less altruistically, to further the agendas of their respective nations. The Bible is no stranger to the international body; indeed, it is frequently referenced by U.N. delegates and visiting dignitaries. Its incorporation into monumental architecture near the New York headquarters and its appearance upon artwork at the U.N. complex causes one passage, (...) Isaiah 2:4, to be of particular importance, functioning as the unofficial standard by which the organization is judged. In the analysis that follows, both the unofficial and official roles of the Bible in U.N. discourse, as well as the corpus’ impact on individuals and organizations affiliated with the international organization, will be examined, demonstrating the pervasiveness of both testaments in United Nations affairs. (shrink)

One way of assessing the philosophical literature on causation is to consider views on the nature of the causal relation. Early theorists were 'monists', taking there to be one causal relation. More recent theorists, however, have turned to pluralism, which holds that the causal relation is only accurately captured by two (or more) relations. I argue that one way of being a pluralist – the way which takes there to be exactly two types of causation – is self defeating, if (...) it promises to handle intuitions about all causal situations. I illustrate the point via neuron diagrams. (shrink)

We study generalizations of shortest programs as they pertain to Schaefer’s problem. We identify sets of -minimal and -minimal indices and characterize their truth-table and Turing degrees. In particular, we show , , and that there exists a Kolmogorov numbering ψ satisfying both and . This Kolmogorov numbering also achieves maximal truth-table degree for other sets of minimal indices. Finally, we show that the set of shortest descriptions, , is 2-c.e. but not co-2-c.e. Some open problems are left for the (...) reader. (shrink)

When a person in pain seeks medical attention, but his doctors cannot help him, a quest begins for alternative treatment, with its attendant imperative to identify the difference between genuine solace and snake oil. This is the task undertaken by Scott Waterman, and the situation faced by millions of people in chronic pain for whom conventional medicine proves ineffective, and who likewise then embark on a desperate search for comfort.Alternative treatments sit on a spectrum of empirical plausibility, from some like (...) hypnosis or mindfulness with demonstrable mechanisms of action in the brain and nervous system to others like Reiki and craniosacral therapy that purport to channel mysterious energy fields beyond the... (shrink)

Some philosophers have argued for what I call the reason-giving requirement for conscientious refusal in reproductive healthcare. According to this requirement, healthcare practitioners who conscientiously object to administering standard forms of treatment must have arguments to back up their conscience, arguments that are purely public in character. I argue that such a requirement, though attractive in some ways, faces an overlooked epistemic problem: it is either too easy or too difficult to satisfy in standard cases. I close by briefly considering (...) whether a version of the reason-giving requirement can be salvaged despite this important difficulty. (shrink)

In this engaging and comprehensive introduction to the topic of toleration, Andrew Jason Cohen seeks to answer fundamental questions, such as: What is toleration? What should be tolerated? Why is toleration important? Beginning with some key insights into what we mean by toleration, Cohen goes on to investigate what should be tolerated and why. We should not be free to do everythingÑmurder, rape, and theft, for clear examples, should not be tolerated. But should we be free to take drugs, (...) hire a prostitute, or kill ourselves? Should our governments outlaw such activities or tolerate them? Should they tolerate “outsourcing” of jobs or importing of goods or put embargos on other countries? Cohen examines these difficult questions, among others, and argues that we should look to principles of toleration to guide our answers. These principles tell us when limiting freedom is acceptableÑthat is, they indicate the proper limits of toleration. Cohen deftly explains the main principles on offer and indicates why one of these stands out from the rest. This wide-ranging new book on an important topic will be essential reading for students taking courses in philosophy, political science and religious studies. (shrink)

In this book Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely set out to make the most comprehensive case yet for an 'interpretive' or hermeneutic approach to the social sciences. Interpretive approaches are a major growth area in the social sciences today. This is because they offer a full-blown alternative to the behavioralism, institutionalism, rational choice, and other quasi-scientific approaches that dominate the study of human behavior. In addition to presenting a systematic case for interpretivism and a critique of scientism, Bevir and (...) Blakely also propose their own uniquely 'anti-naturalist 'notion of an interpretive approach. This anti-naturalist framework encompasses the insights of philosophers ranging from Michel Foucault and Hans-Georg Gadamer to Charles Taylor and Ludwig Wittgenstein, while also resolving dilemmas that have plagued rival philosophical defenses of interpretivism. In addition, working social scientists are given detailed discussions of a distinctly interpretive approach to methods and empirical research. The book draws on the latest social science to cover everything from concept formation and empirical inquiry to ethics, democratic theory, and public policy. An anti-naturalist approach to interpretive social science offers nothing short of a sweeping paradigm shift in the study of human beings and society. This book will be of interest to all who seek a humanistic alternative to the scientism that overwhelms the study of human beings today. (shrink)

Although Eugen Fink often reflected upon the role religion, these reflections are yet to be addressed in secondary literature in any substantive sense. For Fink, religion is to be understood in relation to “play,” which is a metaphor for how the world presents itself. Religion is a non-repetitive, and entirely creative endeavor or “symbol” that is not achieved through work and toil, or through evaluation or power, but rather, through his idea of play and “cult” as the imaginative distanciation from (...) a predictable lifeworld. This paper describes Fink’s understanding of religion and its most relevant aspects found in Spiel als Weltsymbol. The paper is organized into five sections—1: An introduction to his phenomenological approach in general, and description of the role of “play”; 2: investigations into the relation between play and world; 3: a description of his phenomenology of religion; 4: engagements in the idea of cult-play and the sacred sphere, and 5: reflection on his idea of the play of God. (shrink)

Recent work in the psychology of happiness has led some to conclude that we are unreliable assessors of our lives and that skepticism about whether we are happy is a genuine possibility worth taking very seriously. I argue that such claims, if true, have worrisome implications for procreation. In particular, they show that skepticism about whether many if not most people are well positioned to create persons is a genuine possibility worth taking very seriously. This skeptical worry should not be (...) confused with a related but much stronger version of the argument, which says that all human lives are very bad and not worth starting. I criticize the latter stance, but take seriously the former stance and hope it can be answered in future work. (shrink)

Giorgio Agamben emerged in the twenty-first century as one of the most important theorists in the continental tradition. Until recently, 'continental' philosophy has been tied either to the German tradition of phenomenology or to French post-structuralist concerns with the conditions of language and textuality. Agamben draws upon and departs from both these lines of thought by directing his entire corpus to the problem of life political life, human life, animal life and the life of art. Influenced by the work of (...) Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin and the broader tradition of critical Marxism, Agamben's work poses the profound question for our time just how exceptional are human beings. This beautifully written book provides a systematic, engaging overview of Agamben's writings on theology, aesthetics, political theory and sovereignty. Covering the full range of Agamben's work to date Claire Colebrook and Jason Maxwell explain Agamben's theology and philosophy by referring the concepts to some of today's most urgent political and ethical problems. They focus on the audacious way in which Agamben re-conceptualizes life itself. Assessing the significance of the concepts key to his work such as bio-politics, sovereignty, the ‘state of exception’ and ‘bare life’, they demonstrate his wide-ranging influence across the humanities. They also explore the critical reactions to Agamben's thinking and his reception in philosophical and theoretical circles. This book will be essential reading for students in anthropology, politics, philosophy and related disciplines and anyone interested in finding out more about one of the influential thinkers writing today. (shrink)

In this century a number of events could extinguish humanity. The probability of these events may be very low, but the expected value of preventing them could be high, as it represents the value of all future human lives. We review the challenges to studying human extinction risks and, by way of example, estimate the cost effectiveness of preventing extinction-level asteroid impacts.

The challenge from religious diversity is widely thought to be one of the most important challenges facing religious belief. Despite this consensus, however, many epistemologists think that standard versions of the challenge fail because they threaten to implicate many seemingly reasonable yet highly controversial non-religious beliefs. In light of this we develop an alternative, less discussed, diversity challenge that does not generalize. This challenge concerns why so much religious diversity exists in the first place given common religious, and in particular (...) theistic, views. Although there are some interesting scientific explanations of such diversity, satisfying theistic explanations of its existence are still required. (shrink)

Many people think that the amount of evil and suffering we observe provides important and perhaps decisive evidence against the claim that a loving God created our world. Yet almost nobody worries about the ethics of human procreation. Can these attitudes be consistently maintained? This chapter argues that the most obvious attempts to justify a positive answer fail. The upshot is not that procreation is impermissible, but rather that we should either revise our beliefs about the severity of global arguments (...) from evil or develop new and better defenses of human procreation. Although both possibilities are worthy of pursuit, this chapter focuses on the latter possibility. (shrink)

A number of scientists have recently argued that neuroscience provides strong evidence against the requirements of the folk notion of free will. In one such line of argumentation, it is claimed that choice is required for free will, and neuroscience is showing that people do not make choices. In this article, we argue that this no-choice line of argumentation relies on a specific conception of choice. We then provide evidence that people do not share the conception of choice required of (...) the argument, nor do people hold that free will requires the conception of choice on which the argument relies. This leaves the proponents of the no-choice argument with a dilemma: Either they adopt a conception of choice that is not required of the folk concept of free will and thus they cease to be talking about the folk concept of free will, or they adopt a conception of choice that aligns with the folk concept of choice and thus the no-choice argument fails. (shrink)

In his article entitled 'Divine hiddenness and the demographics of theism' ("Religious Studies", 42 (2006), 177–191), Stephen Maitzen draws our attention to an important feature that is often overlooked in discussion about the argument from divine hiddenness (ADH). His claim is that an uneven distribution of theistic belief (and not just the mere existence of non-belief) provides an atheological challenge that cannot likely be overcome. After describing what I take to be the most pressing feature of the problem, I argue (...) that a hidden premise causes Maitzen to overlook a Molinist solution. The upshot is a softening of the atheological import of the demographic data. (shrink)

This article argues that Max Scheler’s conception of “religious acts” and his criticisms of types of “difference” help rethink the relevance of discernment and decision making, especially today, in an age in which we are faced with an unprecedented range of "options" in nearly every area of social lives. After elucidating Scheler’s engagements with religion in On the Eternal in Man, his work is then applied to rethinking more deeply the four steps of Christian discernment developed by the 5th century (...) Mystic, John Cassian. Since Scheler’s work offers detailed and passionate depictions of the religious relevance of "values", it is an untapped resource for expanding upon Cassian’s still relevant work on discernment; an expansion that is necessary in order to demonstrate the often overlooked importance of discernment. This article concludes by employing the work of these two thinkers to show how discernment can help “sort-out,” like good "money changers", the differences between 1) finite values and supreme values, 2) an authentic and inauthentic doctrine of God 3) true differences and superficial differences, and 4) the social imaginaries of theomorphism and anthropomorphism. (shrink)

The new field of sustainability science that has arisen over the past three decades, largely oriented toward cities, under closer examination may prove to be wholly inadequate to deal with the issues it was initially designed to address. Built largely upon modernist value assumptions, its entire range of outlooks has failed to account for the character virtues needed to realize sustainable approaches for the future, which are better found working within different religious traditions’ theologies and ethical outlooks. In light of (...) this, the present article takes up a replicable agenda for analyzing how these particular character virtues—with special focus on parsimony and futuremindedness—work with regard to visions of sustainability that promise to bring about a more just transition in cities. (shrink)

If there is such a ‘post-secular’ milieu, mindset, or thesis, it will need to furnish its own interpretation of the ‘world’ in ways distinct from those championed by the secular. Indeed an essential aspect of the ‘secular’ is how it has interpreted the ‘world’ as the ‘space, time, and age’ in which things come into presence clearly, neutrally, and obviously. This paper interprets and compares some of Heidegger’s and Henry’s specific engagements with the theme of ‘world’, and how each thinker (...) claims the world itself is presentable as a phenomenon, namely, via disclosive moods and the self-revelation of life. Since the world can appear, and its phenomenality can be presented, an inquiry into the specific, inconspicuous means by which the experiences of the world’s neutrality, clarity, and obviousness might yield phenomenological description. What presents itself as neutral is precisely what demands attention by merit of its hiddenness. (shrink)

Disability-positive philosophers often note a troubling tendency to dismiss what disabled people say about their well-being. This chapter seeks to get clearer on why this tendency might be troubling. It argues that recent appeals to lived experience, testimonial injustice, and certain challenges to adaptive-preference reasoning do not fully explain what is wrong with questioning the happiness of disabled people. It then argues that common attempts to debunk the claim that disabled people are happy are worrisome because they threaten everyone’s well-being (...) and are further challenged by an argument from moral risk. (shrink)

Our concept of choice is integral to the way we understand others and ourselves, especially when considering ourselves as free and responsible agents. Despite the importance of this concept, there has been little empirical work on it. In this paper we report four experiments that provide evidence for two concepts of choice—namely, a concept of choice that is operative in the phrase having a choice and another that is operative in the phrase making a choice. The experiments indicate that the (...) two concepts of choice can be differentiated from each other on the basis of the kind of alternatives to which each is sensitive. The results indicate that the folk concept of choice is more nuanced than has been assumed. This new, empirically informed understanding of the folk concept of choice has important implications for debates concerning free will, responsibility, and other debates spanning psychology and philosophy. -/- Specifically, 'having a choice' appears to require genuinely open alternatives, or alternative possibilities that are actually realizable, while 'making a choice' appears to only require psychological open alternatives, or the ability to consider alternatives independent of whether these alternatives are actually realizable. We argue that these findings are relevant to the free will debate because choice is central to the folk concept of free will and many philosophical analysis of free will. The kinds of alternatives required for having a choice appear to be incompatibilist in nature, while the kinds of alternatives required for making a choice appear to be compatibilist in nature. If free will requires having choices, then this is perhaps evidence against compatibilism. If free will requires making choices, then this is perhaps evidence in favor of--or at least consistent with--compatibilism. (shrink)

The nature and time course of sleep onset (hypnagogic) mentation was studied in the home environment using the Nightcap, a reliable, cost-effective, and relatively noninvasive sleep monitor. The Nightcap, linked to a personal computer, reliably identified sleep onset according to changes in perceived sleepiness and the appearance of hypnagogic dream features. Awakenings were performed by the computer after 15 s to 5 min of sleep as defined by eyelid quiescence. Awakenings from longer periods of sleep were associated with (1) an (...) increase in reported sleepiness, (2) a decrease in the length of mentation reports, (3) a decrease in the frequency of reports of normal, wake-like thoughts, (4) an increase in the frequency of ''unusual thoughts,'' and (5) increased frequencies of formal dream features, including visual hallucination, self-representation, fictive movement, narrative plot, and bizarreness. While sleep-onset reports can include all features of rapid eye movement (REM) dream reports, the number of such features is markedly reduced at sleep onset, suggesting that this mentation is a greatly diminished version of REM dreaming. (shrink)

Drug companies are moving their research from academic medical centers to physicians’ private offices. The shift brings in more subjects, and could mean faster and better results. It also changes the physician's relationship to patients, dangles monetary lures in front of physicians, and could produce subjects who don't understand what they're participating in and results that are unreliable.

The nature and time course of sleep onset mentation was studied in the home environment using the Nightcap, a reliable, cost-effective, and relatively noninvasive sleep monitor. The Nightcap, linked to a personal computer, reliably identified sleep onset according to changes in perceived sleepiness and the appearance of hypnagogic dream features. Awakenings were performed by the computer after 15 s to 5 min of sleep as defined by eyelid quiescence. Awakenings from longer periods of sleep were associated with an increase in (...) reported sleepiness, a decrease in the length of mentation reports, a decrease in the frequency of reports of normal, wake-like thoughts, an increase in the frequency of “unusual thoughts,” and increased frequencies of formal dream features, including visual hallucination, self-representation, fictive movement, narrative plot, and bizarreness. While sleep-onset reports can include all features of rapid eye movement dream reports, the number of such features is markedly reduced at sleep onset, suggesting that this mentation is a greatly diminished version of REM dreaming. (shrink)

Given that Lucretius offers a systematic and cohesive explanation of the workings of nature, we should not expect inconsistencies in his poem. The explanation presented by Lucretius emphatically rejects any interventionist divine machinery of the cosmos, offering in its place the eminently regular dynamics of atomic configuration and dissolution, which can explain everything that pertains to natural philosophy without necessitating the activity of any divinity. The reader who understands the basics of Lucretius’ philosophy, therefore, should be surprised that theDRNbegins with (...) an anthropomorphic description of the goddess Venus, whom the poet petitions to intervene actively in human affairs. Lucretius gradually refines this initial presentation of the goddess’ essence throughout the poem, suggesting that the Venus who inaugurates the poem must be nuanced once one has learned the basic principles of Epicurean philosophy. At the end ofDRN4, Venus is presented not as a divine being but as nothing more than the sexual drive shared by all creatures in nature (haec Venus est nobis, 4.1058). Historically scholars have been keen to ‘correct’ perceived inconsistencies such as this, either by arguing that such imperfections derive from later interpolators or by appealing to the incomplete nature of the text as we possess it. Of course, no one has suggested that Lucretius would have changed or removed the proem, so the Venus problem remains an issue. One major aim of this article is to show that the process we witness with Lucretius’ Venus is not inconsistent but programmatic, a point grasped by many with regard to Venus herself but not in respect to theDRNas a whole. In other words, this article extends this insight about Lucretius’ Venus, whose providential attributes are only provisionally attached to her at the outset of the poem and, in due course, are completely removed. In fact, I will argue that the technique of gradually redefining initial propositions—a process I will refer to as provisional argumentation—fundamentally informs Lucretius’ famous metaphor of the honeyed cup, and I will suggest that we ought to recognize this technique as a major aspect of Lucretius’ discursive method throughout theDRN. (shrink)

It has been 40 years since the seminal papers on pharmacy's status as a profession sparked debate about the pharmacist's role in health care, yet the questions they raised are just as poignant today as they were then. Questions about whether pharmacists are the experts when it comes to drug therapy information can be answered practically by assessing the perception of pharmacists' obligations to patients as being dependent on or independent of physicians' responsibilities. Both options have important implications for pharmacy's (...) status as a profession, the value that pharmacists can add to health care, and a pharmacist's right to deny a patient emergency contraception. (shrink)

Some of the most powerful persons today are those most successful at convincing others they have the greatest claim to victimhood. This new, socio-political shift marks the rise of what recently has been called “victimhood culture.” This article addresses how certain Christian theological views on God’s wrath, along with differing appropriations of the church’s collective victimhood both have played significant roles in generating a “culture war of victimhood”—a mode of conflict in which individuals and parties fight for the status of (...) being the most socially oppressed and marginalized, especially for the purpose of gaining power. To better understand this collective intentionality of victimhood, the article provides a multidisciplinary exploration into recent works in sociology of religion, anthropology, and historical theology. (shrink)

At least for Schleiermacher, religion is life in immediate feeling. Whether or not we agree with him, immediacy can be understood as one essential aspect of feeling that makes feeling congenial as the means by which we tend to express the source of religious experience. Yet in general, immediacy is difficult to define and qualify. Is there a hope for immediacy in seeking “to be delivered from contingency”? Is immediacy expressed in the instantaneity of how qualities of things are given (...) in a “total interpenetration”? Or are “immediacy and mediation” always inseparable, thus leaving any “opposition between them to be a nullity”??[i] Might immediacy entail a threat to faith through the absolutizing of the relative? And finally, would not the absolute insistence upon mediation morph it into a new form of immediacy? It is against the backdrop of these questions that this paper investigates the constellation of roles immediacy might play in religious experience, and it does so through building upon the claims of Jean-Yves Lacoste and Anthony Steinbock in regards to religion. For Lacoste, “feeling” is not an adequate means by which we should give expression to religion, in part because it leaves religion responsive to an all too volitional and intentional account. Lacoste also prefers to conceive relation with the Absolute/God not as an experience, but as a non-experience. Whereas for Steinbock, even though emotions all to often are conceptualized according to sentimentality and solipsism, he undertakes to reveal that they in fact have an inherent inter-personal/Personal or Moral intelligibility. The paper builds up to the final claims that immediacy is a temporal expression of the unconditioned, yet that it is precisely this temporal element in relation to the Absolute that complicates the mediation/immediacy interaction. (shrink)

In Heidegger’s last seminar, which was in Zähringen in 1973, he introduces what he called a “phenomenology of the inconspicuous”. Despite scholars’ occasional references to this “approach” over the last 40 years, this approach of Heidegger’s has gone largely under investigated in secondary literature. This article introduces three different, although not necessarily conflicting ways in which these sparse references to inconspicuousness can be interpreted: The a priori of appearance can never be brought to manifestation, and the unscheinbar is interwoven with (...) the scheinbar as an active characteristic or form of “hiddenness”, therefore making inconspicuousness inherent within all phenomenology. Or, there is now a particular step or reduction within phenomenology that involves one’s being attuned to the various modes of potential hiddenness, of which “inconspicuousness” is a particular character trait. Or there are particular, unique, and specific phenomena that give themselves “inconspicuously,” and there is also thus a corresponding, particular phenomenology in which one must engage in order to gain some kind of access to these specific things’ phenomenal strata. This paper introduces Heidegger’s “phenomenology of the inconspicuous” most especially in his last seminar in Zähringen in 1973, engages related references to unscheinbar in his 1942/1943 Seminar on Parmenides, and then puts forward an interpretation of what these somewhat ambiguous references could mean when contextualized according to Heidegger’s overall interests. This essay brings these references to light, and puts forward a proposal as to what kind of phenomenology Heidegger was–somewhat inconspicuously–referring. (shrink)

This essay demonstrates Ricoeur’s explication of the various roles religion can play especially in regards to acts of collective violence, and also how his conceptions take us beyond the traditional dichotomies of religion as necessarily violent, or necessarily peaceful. It focuses on three essays where his most formidable reflections on religion and violence can be found: “Religion and Symbolic Violence”, “Power and Violence”, and “State and Violence”. First, the essay hermeneutically describes the intricate relationship between violence and religion within these (...) three essays, pointing to three perils of religion especially regarding communities, the figure of the magistrate within some religiously motivated political revolutions, and the danger of ecclesiastical orders demonstrating not only authority but also forms of domination. The essay then phenomenologically ties these three threads together, demonstrating a way of understanding both the promises and perils of religion as it relates to violence, both in the work of Ricoeur and beyond it. (shrink)

How we use our own victimhood and that of others has been changing in recent years. Today it may be used to decry an injustice of violence, to garner attention to our causes, to command a unique moral and ecclesial authority, or even to gain advantage over other groups. The many possible uses of victimhood lead us to study phenomenologically its influence upon our human condition, considering especially its cultural manifestations, and religious underpinnings. The contributions investigate the topic through four (...) sections: 1) Blame, Liability, Ressentiment, 2) Christianity, Atonement, Scapegoating, 3) Trauma, Survivor Guilt, Exile, and 4) Culture, Globalization Media. (shrink)

Sacrifice, solidarity, and social decadence were essential themes not only for Patočka's philosophical work, but also for his personal life. In the "Varna Lectures" sacrifice is characterized uniquely as the privation of a clear telos, as counter-escapist, and as sutured to a comportment of finite life that is non-causal and non-purposive. In his Heretical Essays a similar hope is expressed to extract meaningfulness from use-value, and to deploy a Socratic and Christian "Care for the Soul" that can counteract the decadences (...) of our age. These interests and developments of the practice and notion of sacrifice point to Patočka's double-hereticism, both of the post-industrial age of technological advancement, and of what had become the unthought-through of the Christian tradition. In both senses, his theory of sacrifice is not unlike that of St. Paul, who saw the necessity of counter-acting the decadence and pompousness of the Corinthians by calling them to become "scum of the earth." This helps reveal how sacrifice presumes, in general, an operative notion of waste, and this paper seeks to lend further understanding to the relation between solidarity and sacrifice by developing, from out of Patočka's own work, precisely how waste figures prominently in such a relation. Waste may be refused by merit of being deemed to have no value; waste can mark a layer of expenditure of using "something up" in a way that overlooks its societal surplus; and waste could depict whatever is, like a wasteland, uncultivable and barren. Waste then is employed in the essay as a heuristic tool for understanding how the normalization of the relation between solidarity and sacrifice is in need of being inverted, and how this inversion has consequences also for how solidarity can be considered in relation to atonement. (shrink)

En este texto se examina la alteración de la subjetividad kantiana propuesta por Jean-Luc Marion. Marion cuestiona la noción de un sujeto estable y autónomo, argumentando que el sujeto debe estar en constante relación con lo saturado y lo otro. Rechaza la idea de un yo cogito cartesiano y busca una reconcepción del ser en relación con el otro y lo trascendente. Marion destaca la importancia del amor como centro de la subjetividad y plantea que el sujeto no busca tanto (...) su subsistencia como el amor y ser amado. El texto explora las implicaciones de esta perspectiva en relación con la temporalidad y la manifestación fenomenológica. Marion propone una reconfiguración del sujeto que se revela en la relación con lo saturado y la co-constitución con el otro. (shrink)

Deleuze & Guattari, Politics and Education mobilizes Deleuzian-Guattarian philosophy as a revolutionary alternative to the lingering forms of transcendence, identity politics, and nihilism endemic to Western thought. Operationalizing Deleuze and Guattari's challenge to contemporary philosophy, this book presents their view as a revolutionary alternative to the lingering forms of transcendence, identity politics, and nihilism endemic to the current state of Western formal education. This book offers an experimental approach to theorizing, creating an entirely new way for educational theorists to approach (...) their work as the task of revolutionizing life itself. Examining new conceptual resources for grappling with and mapping a sustainable political alternative to the cliche's that saturate contemporary educational theory, this collection of essays works toward extracting a genuine image of education and learning that exists in sharp contrast to both the neo-liberal educational project and the critical pedagogical tradition. (shrink)

This chapter examines a common objection to the philosophy of religion, namely, that it has not sufficiently embraced the injunction of Socrates to follow the argument where it leads. Although a general version of this charge is unfair, one emerging view in the field, which I call religious Mooreanism, nonetheless risks running contrary to the Socratic injunction. According to this view, many people can quickly, easily, and reasonably deflect all known philosophical challenges to their core religious outlooks, including arguments from (...) evil. This chapter argues that, in addition to being in tension with the Socratic injunction, religious Mooreanism is less plausible than traditional Mooreanism and in any case has not been adequately defended. (shrink)