Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 75-77.

Background Following passage of the Patient Self Determination Act in 1990, health care institutions that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding are required to inform patients of their right to make their health care preferences known through execution of a living will and/or to appoint a surrogate-decision maker. We evaluated the impact of external factors and perceived patient preferences on physicians’ decisions to honor or forgo previously established advance directives (ADs). In addition, physician views regarding legal risk, patients’ ability to comprehend (...) complexities involved with their care, and impact of medical costs related to end-of-life care decisions were explored. Methods Attendees of two Mayo Clinic continuing medical education courses were surveyed. Three scenarios based in part on previously court-litigated matters assessed impact of external factors and perceived patient preferences on physician compliance with patient-articulated wishes regarding resuscitation. General questions measured respondents’ perception of legal risk, concerns over patient knowledge of idiosyncrasies involved with their care, and impact medical costs may have on compliance with patient preferences. Responses indicating strength of agreement or disagreement with statements were treated as ordinal data and analyzed using the Cochran Armitage trend test. Results Three hundred eighty-eight of 951 surveys were completed (41% response rate). Eighty percent reported they were likely to honor a patient’s AD despite its 5 year age. Fewer than half (41%) would honor the AD of a patient in ventricular fibrillation who had expressed a desire to “pass away in peace.” Few (17%) would forgo an AD following a family’s request for continued resuscitative treatment. A majority (52%) considered risk of liability to be lower when maintaining someone alive against their wishes than mistakenly failing to provide resuscitative efforts. A large percentage (74%) disagreed that patients could not appreciate complexities surrounding their care while 69% agreed that costs should never impact a physician’s decision as to whether to comply with a patient’s AD. Conclusions Our findings highlight the impact, albeit small, external factors have on physician AD compliance. Most respondents based their decision on the clinical situation at hand and interpretation of the patient’s initial wishes and preferences expressed by the AD. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 68-70.

Mayo Clinic is recognized as a worldwide leader in innovative, high-quality health care. However, the Catholic mission and ideals from which this organization was formed are not widely recognized or known. From partnership with the Sisters of St. Francis in 1883, through restructuring of the Sponsorship Agreement in 1986 and current advancements, this Catholic mission remains vital today at Saint Marys Hospital. This manuscript explores the evolution and growth of sponsorship at Mayo Clinic, defined as “a collaboration between the Sisters (...) of St. Francis and Mayo Clinic to preserve and promote key values that the founding Franciscan sisters and Mayo physicians embrace as basic to their mission, and to assure the Catholic identity of Saint Marys Hospital.” Historical context will be used to frame the evolution and preservation of Catholic identity at Saint Marys Hospital; and the shift from a “sponsorship-by-governance” to a “sponsorship-by-influence” model will be highlighted. Lastly, using the externally-developed Catholic Identity Matrix (developed by Ascension Health and the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota), specific examples of Catholic identity will be explored in this joint venture of Catholic health care institution and a secular, nonprofit corporation (Mayo Clinic). (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 12, December 2019, Page 60-62.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 RECORDER'S PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (...) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 THE DISCUSSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.. (shrink)

In this astonishingly rich volume, experts in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, aesthetics, history, critical theory, and hermeneutics bring to light the best philosophical scholarship on what is arguably Nietzsche's most rewarding but most challenging text. Including essays that were commissioned specifically for the volume as well as essays revised and edited by their authors, this collection showcases definitive works that have shaped Nietzsche studies alongside new works of interest to students and experts alike. A lengthy introduction, annotated (...) bibliography, and index make this an extremely useful guide for the classroom and advanced research. (shrink)

In 1923, Sir Arthur Keith proposed that many common back problems are due to the stresses caused by our evolutionarily novel form of locomotion, bipedalism. In this article, we introduce an updated version of Keith’s hypothesis with a focus on acquired spinal conditions. We begin by outlining the main ways in which the human spine differs from those of our closest living relatives, the great apes. We then review evidence suggesting there is a link between spinal and vertebral (...) shape on the one hand and acquired spinal conditions on the other. Next, we discuss recent studies that not only indicate that two common acquired spinal conditions—intervertebral disc herniation and spondylolysis—are associated with vertebral shape, but also suggest that the pathology-prone vertebral shapes can be understood in terms of the shift from quadrupedalism to bipedalism in the course of human evolution. Subsequently, we place the aforementioned findings under an umbrella hypothesis, which we call the “Evolutionary Shape Hypothesis.” This hypothesis contends that individuals differ in their propensity to develop different acquired spinal conditions because of differences in vertebral shape that relate to the evolutionary history of our species. We end the article with some possible directions for future research. (shrink)

Contrary to the popular belief that feminism has gained a foothold in the many disciplines of the academy, the essays collected in Theorizing Backlash argue that feminism is still actively resisted in mainstream academia. Contributors to this volume consider the professional, philosophical, and personal backlashes against feminist thought, and reflect upon their ramifications. The conclusion is that the disdain and irrational resentment of feminism, even in higher education, amounts to a backlash against progress.

BackgroundDespite rapid growth of the scientific literature, no consensus guidelines have emerged to define the optimal criteria for editors to grade submitted manuscripts. The purpose of this project was to assess the peer reviewer metrics currently used in the surgical literature to evaluate original manuscript submissions.MethodsManuscript grading forms for 14 of the highest circulation general surgery-related journals were evaluated for content, including the type and number of quantitative and qualitative questions asked of peer reviewers. Reviewer grading forms for the seven (...) surgical journals with the higher impact factors were compared to the seven surgical journals with lower impact factors using Fisher’s exact tests.ResultsImpact factors of the studied journals ranged from 1.73 to 8.57, with a median impact factor of 4.26 in the higher group and 2.81 in the lower group. The content of the grading forms was found to vary considerably. Relatively few journals asked reviewers to grade specific components of a manuscript. Higher impact factor journal manuscript grading forms more frequently addressed statistical analysis, ethical considerations, and conflict of interest. In contrast, lower impact factor journals more commonly requested reviewers to make qualitative assessments of novelty/originality, scientific validity, and scientific importance.ConclusionSubstantial variation exists in the grading criteria used to evaluate original manuscripts submitted to the surgical literature for peer review, with differential emphasis placed on certain criteria correlated to journal impact factors. (shrink)

The epistemic basing relation is the relation occurring between a belief and a reason when the reason is the reason for which the belief is held. It marks the distinction between a belief's being justifiable for a person, and the person's being justified in holding the belief. As such, it is an essential component of any complete theory of epistemic justification. ;I survey and evaluate all theories of the basing relation that I am aware of published between 1965 and 1995. (...) These include causal theories, , theories involving pseudo-overdetermination relations , theories involving what a person would appeal to in defense of her beliefs , and doxastic theories , involving an appeal to meta-beliefs. My discussion of these theories includes a detailed analysis of variations of Lehrer's case of the gypsy lawyer which, I show, can be reformulated to pose a decisive objection to causal theories, if not causal analyses, of the basing relation. ;Rejecting all published theories, I present a new kind of causal analysis of the basing relation which I call the causal-doxastic theory. This theory states that a belief is based on a reason if the reason bears an appropriate causal relation to the belief, or, it does not bear such a causal relation, but an appropriate meta-belief is present. A causal analysis of which meta-beliefs are appropriate is given, so as to count as inappropriate rationalizations, mistaken meta-beliefs, etc. In developing the causal-doxastic theory, I present a solution to the problem of deviant causal chains, a discussion of the causal sustaining of beliefs, an account of rejecting reasons, and a partial analysis of showing that one is justified. I then discuss implications of my theory regarding foundationalism, inference, basic and non-basic belief, holistic and linear coherentism, process reliabilism, internalism and externalism, and various closure principles. (shrink)

According to naïve realist (or primitivist) theories of colour, colours are sui generis mind-independent properties. The question that I consider in this paper is the relationship of naïve realism to what Mark Johnston calls Revelation, the thesis that the essential nature of colour is fully revealed in a standard visual experience. In the first part of the paper, I argue that if naïve realism is true, then Revelation is false. In the second part of the paper, I defend naïve (...) realism against a number of objections. (shrink)

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birthmark offers a sharp lens through which to examine power, purity, and personal identity. Scientist and spiritual idealist, Aylmer, is obsessed with “correcting” the only flaw he perceives in his wife Georgina, the imprint of a small red hand on her pale cheek. For Alymer, this one “imperfection” reaches deep into Georgina’s heart, a sign of sin, decay, and mortality. It is the natural that must be overcome with science. Drawing on Hawthorne’s tragic fiction, this paper questions (...) the influence of stigma, power dynamics, and mind-body dualism in constructing disability identity within the framework of medical and spiritual practices of care. Whether in the role of a spiritual leader, chaplain, or medical professional, people providing care must first address ableism and perceptions of normalcy in relation to their own identity and calling before offering professional advice to disabled people seeking guidance or support. It is only as professional fields adopt a posture marked by courageous humility that healing practices will promote the flourishing of all people, including those with disabilities. (shrink)

In the recent literature on the ontology and metaphysics of words, Jerrold J. Katz’ type-realist or ‘Platonist’ view is often mentioned but never spelt out in detail. This is perhaps understandable in light of the fact that his most developed statements on this matter are effectively offshoots of his main discourse in Realistic Rationalism (Katz, 1998a). His direct statements about the metaphysics of words are few and far between and are scattered across the text. This situation has often led to (...) misunderstandings or misconstruals about the exact nature of his view, some of which is buried in footnotes, and some of which must be reconstructed. Hence, criticisms of Katz’ approach have been wide of the mark or otherwise unproductive. In this article, I provide a remedy for this situation by drawing together and abstracting the relevant material regarding the metaphysics of words from its context and reconstructing the theory. I also develop the view further through resolving some potential problems and omissions, and by responding to recent criticism that the approach has received in the burgeoning literature on the philosophy of words. I hope that this will help to clarify the theory and lead to further debate and development on all sides of the discussion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:JOHN PASSMORE AND HUME'S MORAL PHILOSOPHY1 A quarter century ago, the message undergraduates absorbed about David Hume was as an extremely favourable one. He was the great precursor of logical empiricism and so his philosophy, at least in its main lines, must be nearer the mark than that of any other of the great names. Hume had discovered the right view of causation. He had exposed and banished (...) school metaphysics. He had rightly drawn attention to the problem of induction. He had discovered the isought gap and revealed the practical impotence of reason in the face of the passions. But for his weight problem, he could have walked on water. Those were the circumstances in which I first read John Passmore's book on Hume. Because he was plainly not, like many of Hume's critics, an apologist for Thomism or any of Hegel's offspring, his work could not be dismissed on the grounds of parti pris. It was 2 a shock, therefore, to find him, in Hume's Intentions, presenting an image of Hume a considerable distance this side of idolatry. Passmore's critical and, for its time, boldly unfashionable appraisal is to be admired, taken to heart, and extended. Hume's Intentions concentrates on Hume's philosophy of the understanding. It takes up strands of that philosophy and points to their inherent implausibility and mutual incompatibility. Yet these problems also vitiate other parts of Hume's position. In this paper I attempt to introduce the Passmorian method of reasoning into what are nowadays the moral subjects. Let me remind you of the structure of Passmore's book: it does not mount a consecutive argument so much as take up, tease out, and display one or other leading element in the Humean philosophy. Thus we have chapters on Hume as an enthusiast for the 110. moral (that is, human, or social) sciences, as a critic of traditional Aristotelian logic, as a developer of more suitable methods for scientific advance, as a positivist, a phenomenalist, an associationist theoretician in psychology, and a sceptic. We learn as we read that in these respects Hume is not consistent. Principles which he espouses, principally negative and sceptical principles, lead to conclusions too extreme to suit his major purposes. Accordingly, they must not be pressed to their proper conclusions. Hume's philosophy of the study must be abandoned rather than actually taken seriously. Thus, for example: in methodology, Hume insists that reason cannot yield results in the contingent and fallible natural and human sciences. This should lead him to the view that any scientific hypothesis which goes beyond immediate experience is, so far as reason goes, as good, or as bad, as any other. But he recoils from this, distinguishing sensible men from the foolish and superstitious on the basis of the regularity and consistency of the experiences on which the wise rely. Yet as Passmore points out, on Hume's principles, the preference for regularity and consistency cannot be more than a prejudice. Prejudices do not admit of any genuinely rational defence. There is real substance to the superiority claimed for the wise. Again, consider Hume's positivism. He offers a beguilingly short way with nonsense, especially learned and theological nonsense. School metaphysics and superstition (i.e. Christianity) are to be banished by the use of the impressions and ideas test: When you come upon a word whose meaning you would discover, ask if it refers to an impression or an idea. If to an impression, well and good, its meaning is to be found in present experience. If to an idea, ask from which impression (or impressions) the idea did (or could) Ill, derive. If you cannot find any suitable impressions, the idea is chimerical, and is to be excised from thought as a pathological intruder. This procedure produces most satisfactorily negative results when it comes to the Trinity and the sacraments, or essence, inherence, substantial form, and such metaphysical extravagances. Unhappily the very same procedure, the impressions and ideas test, also wrecks the foundations of Hume's own thought. As Passmore makes sure we remember, the test robs Hume of the resources with which to account for substance and... (shrink)

Recent developments in politics, the media, and society have stressed the rising importance of public communication from the government about policies not yet been adopted by Parliament. Government communication professionals and journalists are key figures in this process but conflicting interests mark a tense relationship. Up until now, few empirical studies have been conducted to shed light on the opinions of both professions concerning ‘Communication about Not yet Adopted Policy’. We studied the issue in both the Netherlands and Belgium (...) because research has shown that these countries stand out in regard to debating and reflecting on CNAP. This article maps recent Dutch empirical research and a more elaborated Belgian study, and shows that CNAP is generally accepted by government communication professionals and journalists. Moreover, the Belgian study shows the respondents' opinions regarding the acceptance of CNAP, their arguments, and the conditions CNAP must meet. (shrink)

Intentionality is a mark of the mental, as Brentano (1874) noted. Any representation or conception of anything has the feature of intentionality, which informally put, is the feature of being about something that may or may not exist. Visual artworks are about something, whether something literal or abstract. The artwork is a mentalized physical object. Aesthetic experience of the artwork illustrates the nature of intentionality as we focus attention on the phenomenology of the sensory exemplar. This focus of attention (...) on the exemplar in aesthetic experience simultaneously exhibits what the intentional object is like and what our conception of it is like. The exemplar is Janus-faced, looking in one direction outward toward the objects conceived and in the other direction inward toward our conceiving of them. It shows us what intentionality is like and how we know it. (shrink)

This article seeks to explore some of the origins of Zygmunt Bauman's social thought. Using the metaphor of paths from a story by Borges, the article argues that Bauman's work follows paths which were opened up to him by Gramsci, Camus and Levinas. Bauman has acknowledged the importance of Gramsci and Levinas in his intellectual development and, therefore, the identification of a path leading from Camus is offered by way of circumstantial rather than direct evidence. The article discusses each of (...) these thinkers in the context of Bauman's own themes and concerns and, in so doing, it is hoped to show that Bauman's work has long been marked by a consistence of ambition and foundational assumptions. (shrink)

In this article I focus on a “set” of four paintings by Diego Velázquez that form part of his contribution to the interior decoration of the Torre de la Parada. Developing upon Lacan’s response to Foucault’s famous commentary on Las Meninas I argue that Velázquez’s modernity is nowhere more marked than in this set of paintings in which an unprecedented focus is directed towards the liminal figure of the court dwarf. Reading these works as displaced portraits of the King, I (...) suggest that with them Velázquez encountered a certain impossibility in the process of representation. In following Lacan on the uncanny, and by drawing attention to the significance of Velázquez’s depiction of his subjects’ hands in these paintings, I propose that the uncanny presence of these dwarfs should be understood via Lacan’s concept of the objet a: an impossible object that has no place in given reality and that arises from the failure of the painter’s act of inscription. (shrink)

This book marks the retirement of Donald Harris as Director of the Socio-Legal Studies Institute, Oxford University. Dr Harris was at the forefront of the move in legal scholarship from traditional black-letter approaches to one supplemented by a socio-legal perspective, making use of the insights of the social sciences. His success can be seen in this unique volume of original essays by some of the most distinguished scholars in this field, all of whom have connections with the Centre. The essays (...) range from an economic analysis of the law, the behaviour of lawyers in the business world, the property and financial consequences of divorce, to current tensions between judges and politicians. All are fused by their achievement in providing a succinct summary of the current state of research while making a considered assessment of future directions. (shrink)

This paper examines the contemplative techniques that comprised wesley's method of spiritual transformation. By employing a psychoanalytic perspective that explains the pastoral effectiveness of the method, I claim that Wesley's view of spiritual growth was therapeutic and transformative as measured by contemporary clinical standards. Wesley's developmental model involved a series of spiritual phases each characterized by techniques and meditations that culminated in sanctification, a cognitive-emotional transformation marked by the eradication of sinful temptations and the perfection of altruism. Couched in a (...) theological idiom, the method helped individuals to work through conflicts created by the three main traumata of British middle class childhood: authoritarian parenting and unresolved bereavement grief. This paper argues that religious-cultural symbolism may promote transformations of archaic affect and neurotic conflict that progressively reshape these pre-reflective materials into complex existential insights and convictions. (shrink)

In an effort to reassess the status of Phenomenology of Perception and its relation to The Visible and the Invisible, this essay argues that Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl's text and his discussion of the “field of presence” in La temporalité are intended to think through the field in which time makes its appearance as one of passage. Time does not show itself as presence or in the present but manifests itself as Ablauf, as lapse or flow, an écoulement that is (...) simultaneously an explosion, an éclatement. Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in these pages is thus legible as recovering the primordial experience of time as a self-differentiating déhiscence in its dual power of articulation and erosion. Time is thus simultaneously the vehicle of the world's appearance and of its “disarticulation”, the passage of a rhythm of affirmation and disintegration. Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in Phenomenology of Perception is oblique, somewhat fragmentary and circuitous.11 References to Merleau-Ponty's works cite the French followed by the English translation. I will use the abbreviation PhP for Phenomenology of Perception and VI for The Visible and the Invisible. Other texts by Merleau-Ponty will be referenced by the title. References to Husserl and Heidegger use the German followed by the translation. I will use the abbreviations ZB for the Zeitbewußtsein lectures; FT for Formale und transzendentale Logik; EU for Erfahrung und Urteil; and SZ for Sein und Zeit. View all notes While of course this phenomenon comes under close scrutiny in La temporalité, a brief inspection of this text as a whole finds it to be virtually everywhere.22 The theme of temporality is introduced as early as the Preface to Part I, “Experience and Objective Thought” and appears again in almost every subsequent chapter: the first chapter of Part I ; in his discussion on number blindness and Goldstein's patient known as Schneider in La spatialité du corps et la motricité ; in the sexuality chapter ; in the discussion of memory in La corps comme expression et la parole ; in Le sentir ; in the discussion of depth in L'espace ; in La chose et le monde naturel ; in Autrui et le monde humain and in Le cogito. Rather than providing the perhaps much called for synopsis of these scattered accounts of time or trying to locate a unified account in Phenomenology of Perception through such a synopsis, this essay will focus only on La temporalité, particularly the discussion of Husserl's diagram from the Zeitbewußtsein and the “champ de présence”. View all notes It is this apparent ubiquity that will motivate scholars such as Renaud Barbaras to claim that “… the entire structure of Phenomenology of Perception rests on a chapter devoted to temporality”.33 Barbaras The Being of the Phenomenon, 218. View all notes In spite of this ubiquity and apparent centrality, however, the treatment of temporality seems to neglect a systematic and thoroughgoing approach, and whether this work manages to address this theme with a sufficient degree of rigor remains open to debate. Furthermore, beyond the scattered and fragmented appearance of temporality in the text, the chapter devoted to its exploration contains numerous, well-recognized problems.44 Merleau-Ponty's misinterpretation of Bergson in this chapter has received much warranted attention. Alia Al-Saji, for example, has criticized Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in this chapter of Phenomenology of Perception for this misreading as well as its perhaps too uncritical infatuation with Husserl and his emphasis on presence. See Lawlor Thinking Through French Philosophy, Al-Saji “The Temporality of Life” and “A Past Which Has Never Been Present” and Barbaras “The Turn of Experience”. View all notes Among these difficulties, Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl's lectures on time-consciousness, the Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins,55 The 1928 publication of the Zeitbewußtsein, edited by Heidegger, is what appears in the bibliography of Phenomenology of Perception. This version, from the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologishe Forschung, as Brough notes, appears as “Part A” of Husserliana X. The notes that constitute this version of the text, furthermore, as Heidegger mentions in his preface to the Jahrbuch version and which Brough repeats were heavily edited by Husserl's assistant at the time, Edith Stein. Merleau-Ponty's references to the Zeitbewußtsein cut across various moments of the text and do not focus on one section in particular, and in fact, he actually references section 11, “Urimpression und retentionale Modifikation”/“Primal impression and retentional modification” in his discussion of the field of presence. As Al-Saji has noted, the extent to which Merleau-Ponty's account of time in La temporalité centres the account of time on “the living present” can be shown to be at play behind the misreading of Bergson. While I do not wish to dispute the specifics of her compelling reading, it is nonetheless worth noting that Al-Saji's reading of the Zeitbewußtsein only focuses on Appendix V, “Gleichzeitigkeit von Wahrnehmung und Wahrgenommenem”/“Simultaneity of Perception and the Perceived”. View all notes looms large, as it seems that his discussion of what he designates as le champ de présence or “field of presence” commits him to the ontological primacy of the present in his account of time. As a result, this earlier work appears to confine itself to a metaphysics organized around the privilege and authority of the present in establishing the structure of time.66 Leonard Lawlor has convincingly argued against this interpretation. Following the famous remark at the end of Le Sentir about “a past which has never been present”, Lawlor argues that precisely because Merleau-Ponty's critique of Bergson is a straw man – that is, because his critique of Bergson is based on a misreading – a closer inspection of Le Sentir and La temporalité shows Merleau-Ponty to be committed to the ontological primacy of an “originary” past. See Lawlor Thinking Through French Philosophy, 89. Marratto, following Lawlor, takes up the charge of a metaphysics of presence in Phenomenology of Perception in dialogue with Derrida. Marratto argues that Derrida's reading selectively overlooks “the very imporant dimensions of difference, discontinuity, and delay and non-self-presence in Merleau-Ponty's descriptions”, located particularly in the latter's theory of subjectivity. I agree with Marratto's assessment, and my aim here is to deepen it by turning in more detail to La temporalité. View all notes This apparent commitment to the ontological primacy of the present, for some readers, has also functioned as an index for tracking the revision of Phenomenology of Perception that is said to figure in The Visible and the Invisible, where a metaphysics of the present is replaced with a commitment to the primacy of an original past, signalling a significant break in the development of Merleau-Ponty's thought.77 This has bearing on the debate mentioned above as the question of temporality and Merleau-Ponty's evolving relationship with Bergson are also cited as part of the index for tracking the differences between Phenomenology of Perception and The Visible and the Invisible. What we see, according to this reading, is Merleau-Ponty move away from a more strictly phenomenological orientation of Phenomenology of Perception, an orientation that is said to adversely mediate his early, critical stance with respect to Bergson, toward a progressively less Husserlian and more Bergsonian stance in The Visible and the Invisible. While he does not specifically address Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Bergson, Marratto's reading also places a special emphasis on the significance of the past, specifically Merleau-Ponty's reference to a “past which has never been present”. It is also not my intention to enter into the question of Merleau-Ponty's relationship with Bergson. Rather, I will restrict my remarks specifically to Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl and the Zeitbewußtsein in La temporalité in order to show that there are grounds for at least questioning one of the premises of the interpretation mentioned above, namely that Phenomenology of Perception is unequivocally legible as committed to the ontological primacy of the present. As will become clear later in the essay, I also dispute interpretations that would place the emphasis on the ontological primacy of an original past. For my own views on the significance of a “past which has never been present”, see Whitmoyer “The Primary Silence of the Past”. View all notes In considering the manner in which the Zeitbewußtsein figures in La temporalité and Merleau-Ponty's discussion of the field of presence, it will do to think about the parameters in which his engagement with Husserl is staged more generally. It seems that Merleau-Ponty never considered his task in terms of the perhaps false alternative of fidelity and heresy, because “any commemoration is also a betrayal”, and because the task of the interpreter is, as he famously notes, thinking through that “unthought-of element … which is wholly his [Husserl's] and yet opens out on something else”.88 Merleau-Ponty, Signes, 203/160. This methodological dictum is developed in more detail in the notes to the course offered on Husserl's Origin of Geometry in 1959–1960. “We are saying not that Husserl was that, but that Husserl was not only what they say, was also another, bearer of an unthought”. View all notes Following Merleau-Ponty's own indications, we could suggest that Husserl's text, rather than a source of orthodoxy, functions as a point of orientation through which Merleau-Ponty marks out his own theory of temporality.99 I will not, therefore, address the question of the “accuracy” of his interpretation of Husserl because, according to Merleau-Ponty himself, this question presupposes that the author, in this case Husserl, has a privileged access to his thought, as if there is some kernel or essence of what a philosopher thought that interpreters can either get right or wrong. As the remarks in “The Philosopher and His Shadow” make clear, interpretation can never really avail itself of this presupposition and in this manner the question of accuracy is precisely the wrong question. View all notes This essay argues that his discussion of the Zeitbewußtsein in Phenomenology of Perception does not offer an account of time that “centers around the living present”, as some have argued,1010 Al-Saji “A Past Which Has Never Been Present”, 42–44. View all notes but that the discussion of the field of presence and what follows are rather intended to account for the field of temporal phenomenalization – not as a presence – but as écoulement, passage and flux. Time, therefore, does not appear in the present or as presence, but manifests itself as a flow and movement that is simultaneously an éclatement, an eruption, and a self-differentiating “dehiscence”.1111 A favorite word of Merleau-Ponty, borrowed from botany, where it designates the splitting open of a seed-pod or flower as well as medicine, where it refers to the splitting open of a healed or partially healed wound. The idea here is that, in its flow and passage, time splits open in a process of differentiation – which is simultaneously a process of degeneration, decay, and what Merleau-Ponty will term in The Visible and the Invisible, “disarticulation”. View all notes Time's passage is not determined, organized and oriented in advance in accordance with a transcendental synthesis that would give it shape and form, privileging one temporal dimension over another, so much as it is understood in terms of a splitting open, or to use another favoured locution of Merleau-Ponty, a “deflagration”.1212 In Eye and Mind, Merleau-Ponty speaks of the “deflagration of being”. Metaphors of explosiveness and dissonance populate his attempt to think being otherwise than as structure, form, and stability. Here I will focus particularly on écoulement, flux and éclatement, eruption, because these are the terms he uses in his discussion of time in La temporalité. See Merleau-Ponty L’Œil et l'esprit, 64/369. View all notes To this extent, Merleau-Ponty's account of temporality in Phenomenology of Perception cannot be said to orient itself in terms of the ontological primacy of any one temporal dimension – past, present, or future – but is more accurately understood as an attempt to recover the primordial experience of time as the simultaneity of écoulement and éclatement – an account that thinks time in its dual power of phenomenalization and erosion, the “pulse [pulsation] of my existence, its systole and diastole”.1313 Merleau-Ponty PhP, 337/332. View all notes Time is the vehicle of the world's appearance, and at the same time of its “disarticulation” [désarticulation],1414 This is a term Merleau-Ponty uses in The Visible and the Invisible in a well-known working note entitled “ Transcendence – forgetting – time”. See Merleau-Ponty VI, 247/197. View all notes the vehicle through which “becoming” – rather than being – shows itself. This process of phenomenalization, precisely because it is temporal, never achieves the density of fully realized being – the sense of this becoming is never fully articulate – but is perpetually subject to a temporal erasure that necessitates its repetition and reiteration. Time, in other words, is the principle of the world's eloquence – it is that thanks to which things have and make sense and simultaneously the principle of the world's murmuring stutter, the principle through which the sense of things remains incomplete and even erodes, decays, and degenerates. To begin, I will turn to Merleau-Ponty's reading of Husserl's diagram from the Zeitbewußtsein, which opens his attempt to “arrive at authentic time”.1515 Merleau-Ponty PhP, 477/483. View all notes Rather than simply rehearsing Husserl's discussion of primal impression, retention and protention, Merleau-Ponty's analysis of the diagram provides an opportunity for raising two problems: the problem of time's representability and the problem of its synthesis. Rather than through an “act intentionality” carried out by a transcendental subjectivity, time appears in accordance with an “operative intentionality” always already under way. Turning to the section of La temporalité aptly entitled “Passive Synthesis”, we see that Merleau-Ponty's analysis of the diagram leads him to the paradox of passive synthesis and what he calls, following Husserl, “transition synthesis”. Time does not show itself punctually – time appears neither as presence nor in the present – but only in the dual movement of its flux, its écoulement, and its éclatement, its explosive, self-differentiating unfurling. These reflections, finally, bring Merleau-Ponty into dialogue with Heidegger on what the latter called the Zusammenhang des Lebens. The “unity of a life”, accordingly, is not a question of any “resolution”, but is a function of our immersion in this temporal dehiscence. The important lesson to be learned from Merleau-Ponty's engagement with Husserl's Zeitbewußtsein is not something about the ontological primacy of one temporal dimension over another but what Merleau-Ponty famously calls in The Visible and the Invisible the “passivity of our activity”1616 Merleau-Ponty VI, 270/221. View all notes and our immersion in time's power of disarticulation. (shrink)

In this recent addition to the Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Law series, John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza offer the culmination of their efforts of the last several years to devise a comprehensive account of moral responsibility, based in large part on their notion of “guidance control”. This comprehensive account is presented not as the last word on the matter, but rather as a “philosophical explanation”. This valuable contribution to current debate offers rich resources for those concerned to (...) dispel some of the confusion at the intersection of ascriptions of legal and moral responsibility. (shrink)

This special issue of Thesis Eleven has been published to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The concern is to think about what the bombings mean today and how their challenge can be confronted across social and cultural thought and action. The question running through this special issue is: What do the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki mean for us today?

This essay examines Ricœur’s mimetic and transfigurative perspective on non-objective art and adopts it as an idiom for examining Mark Rothko’s artistic intention in the multiform canvases of his “classical” period from 1949 until his death in 1970. Rothko unequivocally denied being an abstractionist, a colorist, or a formalist, insisting, on the contrary, that he desired to communicate discrete dimensions of experience and emotions to his viewers, specifically, experiences of the sacred and the spiritual. His large canvases, with their (...) blurred edges, force the spectator into an intimacy of experience that opens the potentiality of heterogeneous interpretations. In other words, one might consider his paintings to be metaphors of dense meanings that imitate reality, not through facile representation, but through a Kierkegaardian repetition of worlds that track Ricœur’s own ideas of prefiguration, configuration, and re-figuration. I contend in this essay that Rothko’s “abstract expressionism” adequately illustrates Ricœur’s contention that non-figurative art succeeds far better than representational art in refiguring new worlds of meaning. (shrink)