The Philosophy of the Infinite, With Special Reference to the Theories of Sir William Hamilton and M. Cousin by Henry Calderwood. This book is a reproduction of the original book published in 1854 and may have some imperfections such as marks or hand-written notes.

Drawing on ancient writers, from Aesop to Ovid, classicist and working farmer, Mark Usher compiles in this book an anthology of Greco-Roman passages illustrating how they thought about animals and illuminating they might help us to rethink our relationships with them. Not many contemporary readers will know, for example, the compelling arguments the second century AD Greek philosopher Porphyry makes for vegetarianism, long before a plant-based diet began to garner headlines. Plutarch's serio-comic exposition of the rationality and inherent dignity of (...) non-human creatures-put on the lips of one of Circe's pigs-is so fresh that it sounds like it was formulated just yesterday. The knowledge the poet Theognis derived from Greek sponge divers about the behavior of octopods rivals our contemporary fascination with the octopus. Aristotle's introduction to the scientific study of animal morphology and behavior remains unparalleled for its elegance and insight, and it represents one of the first forays into natural history writing. Seneca, employing an ingenious etymological pun on the word animal, endeavors to show that we humans are morally inferior to our animal cousins, who instinctively know and are satisfied with their place in Nature. The Greeks and Romans, amidst all their magnificent cultural achievements and reckless, destructive behavior, lived closer than most of us to the perils and prospects of their environments. This afforded them a sensitivity to their environments and, in particular, to their fellow creatures that can perhaps help to disabuse us of our disconnectedness from animal life. This small volume demonstrates how astoundingly relevant the ancients still are in this regard. (shrink)

This article examines the mutual influence between Ernst Cassirer and his cousin, the neurologist Kurt Goldstein. For both Cassirer and Goldstein, views on the nature of human cognition were fundamental to their understanding of scientific knowledge, and these were informed by both philosophical theorizing and empirical research on pathologies of the nervous system. Following Cassirer, and in agreement with the physicalism of the Vienna Circle, Goldstein held that the physical sciences had progressed by arriving at abstract, mathematical representations to take (...) the place of qualitative characterizations of observable reality. In tension with physicalism, Goldstein was not sanguine about the fruitfulness of the abstractive approach in biology. He proposed that biology must adhere to its own sui generis methods of observation and experimentation in order to obtain knowledge of the “natures” of living organisms. I argue that there is a parallel with Cassirer’s assertion of the differences between physical and cultural sciences, underwritten by the deployment of varying symbolic functions. I also propose that the neurological writings of Goldstein are an important backdrop to Cassirer’s positive evaluation of abstract thought, in contrast to the pessimism regarding a worldview dominated by scientific abstractions expressed by philosophers such as Bergson, Whitehead, and Husserl. (shrink)

“I'm not afraid of dying,” he says, despite his plea on arrival. “Listen up, douchebag. Are you calling my cousin or what?” The emergency department might be the only sphere of human exchange where one party—patients (and sometimes family)—are permitted to insult, threaten, and even spit at the very people on whom they depend for help, while the offended parties—physicians, nurses, and other health care providers—must not only tolerate the abuse, but treat their tormentors. Does the ED's collective duty to (...) greater numbers of patients demand a revised ethos of tough love for extreme cases of misbehavior? Can we ask these patients to leave without legal recourse after extending genuine, compassionate efforts to participate in their care—barring evidence of a medical explanation for their toxic comportment or a mental illness that puts them at risk of harming themselves or others? (shrink)

Of Peter Abelard's logical writings, the fruit of thirty-five years of his activity as a teacher and dialectician, there have been to date only four editions worthy of note: that of Cousin in 1836, of Geyer in 1919 and 1936, of Dal Pra in 1954, and lastly the critical reconstruction of Abelard's literal glosses by L. M. Rijk in 1956. With this handsome second edition of minor but relevant glosses of Abelard, Dal Pra aims to fill the gap still existing (...) in the previous collections. His volume includes Abelard's writings found in the Paris BN manuscripts n. 13.368 and 7493. Chronologically the former belongs to the period when Abelard was given the chair of dialectic at the University of Paris in 1114 and the latter to Abelard's more mature period when he began original speculations on the logical status of propositions in 1121. Dal Pra argues at great length that the glosses in the first manuscript are to be read as the best and only introduction to Abelard's own work on dialectic. Hence he suggests against Rijk the title Introductiones Dialecticae rather than Introductiones Parvulorum. He assembles them according to what he believes was Abelard's intellectual development at the time. They are: the glosses to Porphyrius, to Aristotle's Categories, to the De Interpretatione, and to Boethius' De Devisione. [[sic]] The second section of the volume contains the glosses Super Topica where Abelard discusses among other subjects his first position on the problem of universals. Against Geyer who had consigned these works to the literal glosses of Abelard, Dal Pra offers strong evidence for locating them in the bulk of Abelard's De Ingredientibus precisely between the De Interpretatione and the De Syllogismo Hypothetico. The modernity of Abelard's logical theory is well known among contemporary logicians. Dal Pra's finely planned and handsomely executed edition makes an excellent contribution to the history of medieval logic as well as to contemporary logical theories on names and propositions.--L. M. P. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Bibliography on Plato's "'Laws, "" 1920-1970: With Additional Citations through May, 1975. By Trevor J. Saunders. (New York: Arno Press, 1976. Pp. i + 60. $15.00) The Penguin Classics translator of the non-Socratic Laws, as Leo Strauss called them, has here compiled in a most usable way a thorough bibliography of books and articles about the Laws or parts of them. The section "Texts, Translations, and Commentaries" (...) properly excludes translations not made directly from the Greek. In previous centuries this would, also properly, have excluded many a famous or popular translation, such as Thomas Taylor's or Victor Cousin's, worked out from the text of M. Ficino's "first edition" in Latin. Given the state of the Greek text and the practice, inaugurated by Ficino, of improving upon the Greek in the translatioias, some notation about the literalness of the translations cited would have been of additional value. Section B, in thirty pages, is the largest and also deliberately the most selective in striving to limit itself to work concerned exclusively or primarily with the Laws. But it cannot avoid including much material about some aspect of Plato in general rather than about the Laws; this is especially true of the subsection, B1, on comprehensive accounts. Section B2, on the text and its tradition, has overwhelmingly more citations about the indirect tradition than about the texts themselves, an interesting indication of the current state of this question. The next subsections, to B12, divide according to subject matter. BI3 lists studies on the influence of the Laws. The last section, in twenty-four pages, is most valuable. It lists, by Stephanus page number, an abundance of discussions of individual passages from Book I through Book XII wherever these discussions, bibliographically speaking, may have occurred. Students of the Laws will be well served by, and most grateful to, Professor Saunders for this bibliography. I can only second the intent of his parting epigraph that sends us back to the study of the Laws themselves. But I must add that more explicitly detailed work appears to be required both on the difficulties the text itself presents to students of Plato (one thinks of A. Boeckh's analyses of the prose in Books I through III) and on those which arise when the Laws is contrasted--from the point of view of design and intellectuality--with those of Plato's works that are comparable, if not in number of pages, at least in scale of conception and monumentality. V. TEJERA SUNY at Stony Brook Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's Biological Works. By Anthony Preus. (Hildesheim and New York: George Olms, 1975. Pp. ix + 404. DM.88) A reciprocal influence between Aristotle's philosophy and biology--if it could be demonstrated through step-by-step criticism and not merely asserted in generalities about functionalism--might help to explain both, and might also itself be philosophically interesting ; for it should clarify Aristotle's concepts of form, essence, universal, and species-concepts which have been mercilessly jumbled in the traditional interpretations. With the failure of Jaegerian developmental analyses, we can hardly now hope for help from detailed chronology. But a general dating of Aristotle's biological interest to the Assos-Mytilene period, when he was already aged forty, is accepted by most people (though not by Jaeger who [463] 464 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY put it at the end, nor by Ryle who put it at the beginning of Aristotle's career) and is the basis of Anthony Preus's contention in this book. For if Aristotle began serious biology only in middle life we could expect a tension between the antiphenomenal metaphysics of the Academy, which he had just left after twenty years there, and the kind of philosophizing and explaining that might seem demanded by living concrete organisms. Preus sets out to show such a tension, claiming on page 1 that "in P. A. and G. A. sometimes the philosophical position is bent to fit the observed facts, and sometimes the observations are adjusted to fit the philosophical position." The reader may be assured at once that this appalling accusation (which is repeated in the publisher's blurb) is not... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:(P)rescription Narratives: Feminist Medical Fiction and the Failure of American Censorship. by Stephanie Peebles TaveraEtta M. MaddenStephanie Peebles Tavera. (P)rescription Narratives: Feminist Medical Fiction and the Failure of American Censorship. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022. Hardback, xii + 220 pp. ISBN 978-1-4744-9319-2.Utopian Studies readers first saw Stephanie Peebles Tavera’s work in print in her 2018 essay on reproductive health in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland. More recently, in (P)rescription (...) Narratives, she gives readers a view of the much broader historical scope of her scholarship in literary and cultural studies. Tavera’s analysis of what she labels “feminist medical fiction” considers not only novels and short stories but also literary reviews, dramas, and documentary films, many of which will be unfamiliar to readers of utopian and dystopian literature. Yet the book contextualizes the ways in which these works capture the “utopian possibilities” of women writers who pushed for breaking the boundaries of the dystopian strictures of embodied life. The literary works “rescript” what had been prescribed by others as “normalized behavior,” from the latter-nineteenth century through the Progressive Era (5, 37). As Tavera illustrates through her detailed analysis, these women’s narratives provide “interventions that... interrupt the dissemination of false [End Page 612] narratives of the female body” and “alter the course of cultural development toward greater inclusivity” (5).To establish the temporal boundaries for the project, Tavera emphasizes the Comstock Law, established in 1873, and the death of its author Anthony Comstock in 1915. While Comstock’s work often has been understood as restricting pornography, she explains the Comstock Law as more than merely that. Comstock sought to control what he and others saw as sexual deviation, which included birth control in any form. Tavera also bookends the project with lawsuits associated with Victoria Woodhull and Margaret Sanger, both women who advocated for abortion and birth control as means of allowing women to avoid the strictures over their bodies. Additionally, she explains, Comstock’s racism caused him to completely overlook Black women, ironically allowing a space in which Black women’s feminist medical fiction especially rescripts “normalized behavior” (37)—a topic she pursues in two parts of the book.The book follows a roughly chronological path as it examines four topics related to women’s health, brilliantly organized into “(p)rescriptions,” indicated by Rx, rather than chapters with numbers. Rx1, “Crip Medicine,” illustrates how authors such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman pointed to the socially constructed status of “hysteria” in a patriarchal culture that saw women as deviant by nature. Instead, these authors advocated for a more holistic examination of women’s health, impacted by the environments in which they lived. Drawing from Lyman Tower Sargent’s widely accepted view of utopianism as dreaming of a place “considerably better than the society in which the author lived,” she underscores “the utopian impulse underlies much of the work of feminist medical fiction” (39). In particular, writers of feminist medical fiction were “driven by failure.”Perhaps most familiar to illustrate this point is Gilman’s work, such as “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which illustrated how the culture failed certain characters. The narrator of that story suffers postpartum depression and is made worse by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell’s rest cure. Consequently, Gilman proceeded to write other works, such as Moving the Mountain (1911) and then Herland (1915), which push readers to envision “alternative societies” without such destructive patriarchal medical practices (39). But Tavera also explains how Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins, or the Aunt-Hill (1875) critiques contemporary culture by providing a “domestic utopia” in the female domain of Aunt-Hill, wherein the male Dr. Alec Campbell demonstrates “a better way... of caring for the female body” (55). And another key example is Rebecca Harding [End Page 613] Davis’s Kitty’s Choice: A Story of Berrytown (1875). Berrytown is described as “the Utopia in actual laths, orchards, and bushel-measures of the advance guard of the reform party in the United States” (qtd. in Tavera 55). Through its two physicians, Dr. Muller and Dr. McCall, who represent homeopathic and allopathic practitioners, readers see that the society... (shrink)

The twenty‐six‐year‐old patient requested a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction because of an extensive family history of cancer. She reported that she had developed melanoma at twenty‐five; that her mother, sister, aunts, and a cousin all had breast cancer; that a cousin had ovarian cancer at nineteen; and that a brother was treated for esophageal cancer at fifteen. The treating team was skeptical about this history, and they could find no documentation of the patient's reported melanoma. The surgeon wrote the (...) patient's primary care physician, explaining that he had seen the patient and planned to proceed with the bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction. The primary care physician responded that he was unable to substantiate several of the patient's claims; some of his colleagues believed the family history to be fabricated. Trying to make sense of the discrepancies, the genetic counselor called a counselor colleague who had met with this patient. The colleague suggested that the in‐house genetic counselor “google” the patient. The search revealed two Facebook pages linked to the patient. In one, apparently a personal profile, the patient stated that in addition to battling stage four melanoma, she had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. She provided a link to a site where she solicited donations to attend a summit for young cancer patients. The other Facebook page featured numerous pictures of her with a bald head, as though she has been through chemotherapy. The genetic counselor showed the Facebook pages to the surgeon, who then decided not to operate. Should health care professionals “google” their patients? (shrink)

Among the Karo of Indonesia, the frequency of matrilateral cross-cousin (impal) marriage has declined in recent decades. We conducted a vignette experiment to assess the contributions of a handful of factors in shaping this pattern. Surprisingly, we found that cosocialization of a hypothetical woman with her impal led to increased judgments of marriage likelihood and decreased feelings of disgust in male and female respondents (n = 154). We also found that females, more than males, judged impal marriage more likely when (...) there were practical advantages. Finally, we found that younger men expressed more disgust in response to impal marriages than did older men, while women displayed an opposite but weaker reaction. This suggests the existence of gender-specific changes in attitudes toward the practice, indicating that a full understanding may require the application of sexual conflict theory. Our study illustrates the potential utility—and limitations—of vignette experiments for studying social change. (shrink)

The historical analysis of the complex and often contradictory views of Florence Nightingale regarding the rights of women is explored in this paper. Feminism and nursing are often viewed as contradictory and antithetical. The relationship between the two is examined through the link between Florence Nightingale and her contemporary, Barbara Leigh‐Smith Bodichon. Leigh‐Smith was founder and primary financier of The English Women's Journal that provided a public platform for the major feminist writings of the period. Its offices in Langham Place (...) formed the administrative centre of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women. Bodichon and her colleagues were often referred to as the ‘Langham Place Group’. Unexplored prior to this study was the fact that Leigh‐Smith and Nightingale were first cousins. Utilizing techniques of internal and external criticism, primary and secondary sources were surveyed relating to Nightingale and Leigh‐Smith. The views of both women on the subjects of the rights of women, women's suffrage, the employment status of women, and the societal place of women are compared and contrasted. The legacy of both Leigh‐Smith and Nightingale to twentieth century feminism, the status of women, and the profession of nursing is then elaborated. The exploration of the views of both Nightingale and Leigh‐Smith is important to gain a clearer understanding of the existing relationship between nursing and feminism. In keeping with the aims of feminist inquiry, women's experiences, specifically those of Nightingale and Leigh‐Smith, are the major ‘objects’ of investigation. The concluding interpretation provides a synthesis that is emancipatory as well as knowledge generative. (shrink)

For psychology to mature into a natural science, it must confine itself to what can be observed, viz. behaviour. Behaviourist psychology, according to Watson, aims to discover scientific laws correlating external stimulus and behavioural response. A stricter psychological behaviourism would disregard physiology and concentrate upon searching for laws correlating stimulus and behavioural response. A stricter logical behaviourism would search for analyses which restrict the analysans of psychological statements to specifications of behaviour and behavioural dispositions. Behaviourism is first cousin to dualism. (...) Cartesians pictured the soul's relation to the body rather like that of an immaterial hand within a visible glove. Disillusionment with dualism bred behaviourism, which rightly rejected the Cartesian (and empiricist) conception of the mind, but accepted the associated conception of the body and behaviour. The human body is the best picture of the human soul not because the soul is something bodily, but precisely because the soul is manifest in behaviour. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In light of the careful work of Joshua Benson who argues that the De reductione is the second part to Bonaventure's inception sermon, this article will date the De reductione by determining when he incepted. This is not an easy task because the date of his inception has been a point of confusion within Bonaventurian scholarship. Scholars date it as early as 1248 and as late as 1257. Within (...) those nine years they assign various scenarios regarding his status as regent master. For example, the most common scenario has Bonaventure incepting in 1253 or 1254 and assuming the Franciscan Chair in theology, but only teaching in the Franciscan convent, unrecognized by the university until either 1256 or 1257.My thesis is that Bonaventure incepted in April 1254 to replace William of Middleton who relinquished the Franciscan chair in the wake of the Lenten riot of 1253. To argue this thesis, the paper divides into three parts. The first will briefly present the various dating for Bonaventure's inception. The second will examine all the thirteenth and fourteenth century sources that are used for determining Bonaventure's chronology so as to establish the evidence for calculating his inception. And third, building upon the evidence gleaned from those witnesses, I will present a narrative chronology that details events surrounding Bonaventure's inception in April 1254.I. Various Dating of Bonaventure's inception as MasterScholars assign various dates to his inception, which has caused much confusion. The Quaracchi editors of the Opera omnia, Robinson, Gilson, Moorman, and Crowley claim Bonaventure incepted in 1248; Robson alone gives a 1252 date; Callebaut, Longpré, the Spanish editors of the Obras de San Buenaventura, Abate, Bonafede, the earlier Brady, the later Hayes, and Hammond give a date of 1253; Pelster, Glorieux, the Quaracchi editors of the Opera theologica selecta, Veuthey, the earlier Bougerol, Cousins, Schlosser and Delio opt for 1253 or 1254; the later Bougerol, Quinn, the earlier Hayes, Noone, Hauser, and Cullen hold for a 1254 date; the later Brady posits a 1255 date; Bettoni and Dufeil push the inception back to 1257.Table 1 highlights the disparity between the last two studies that focus specifically on Bonaventure's chronology during his time at Paris. Click for larger viewTable 1. Disputed dates in Bonaventure's ChronologyAt least the two studies have one date in common, and with that one fixed date of 1257, we turn to examine the thirteenth and fourteenth century witnesses so as to dispel the disparity.II. Examining the SourcesEven though the dating for Bonaventure's inception spans nine years, there are only seven sources that scholars can use to calculate those dates. More specifically, the majority of scholars support a 1253 or 1254 dating, with the year discrepancy likely deriving from how they calculate the dates in the sources according to medieval/modern calendars. Thus, to sort through the tangle of dating, all the evidence will first be presented in full. Then, in light of all the evidence, a scenario for dating Bonaventure's inception can be advanced.The thirteenth and fourteenth century sources fall into four groups: the Chronica fratris Salimbene de Adam ; the two independent, short lists of General Ministers: Series Magistrorum Generalium Ordinis Fratrum Minorum , and Chronicon Abbreviatum de Successione Generalium Ministrorum ; the three interdependent texts of the Catalogus Generalium Ministrorum,Catalogus XV Generalium , and the Chronica XXIV Generalium , which contain significant variances from one another; and the Chronica Franciscis Fabrianensis . As will become clear, scholars who advance a 1248 date read Salimbene in light of Fabriano, while those who favor 1253 or 1254 read Salimbene in light of the Catalogus Generalium Ministrorum and related texts. Those who favor a 1257 dating, seem to.. (shrink)

Since Prozac emerged on the market at the end of 1987, there has been a dramatic increase in antidepressant use and in its discussion by popular media. Yet there has been little analysis of the gendered character of this phenomenon despite feminist traditions scrutinizing the medical control of women’s bodies. The authors begin to fill this gap through a detailed content analysis of the 83 major articles on Prozac and its “chemical cousins” appearing in large-circulation periodicals in Prozac’s first (...) 12 years. They find that popular talk about Prozac and its competing brands is largely degendered, presented as manifestly gender neutral, yet replete with latent gendered messages. These are about women with neurochemical imbalances but also about the need to discipline elite female bodies, to enhance their productivity and flexibility. This new form of female “fitness” mirrors demands of the New Economy and indicates how psychiatric discourse contributes to the historically specific shaping of gendered bodies. (shrink)

Jones and Coleman are among a handful of otherwise normal as a child and the number 5 was red and 6 was green. This the- people who have synesthesia. They experience the ordinary ory does not answer why only some people retain such vivid world in extraordinary ways and seem to inhabit a mysterious sensory memories, however. You might _think _of cold when you no-man’s-land between fantasy and reality. For them the sens- look at a picture of an ice cube, (...) but you probably do not feel es—touch, taste, hearing, vision and smell—get mixed up in- cold, no matter how many encounters you may have had with stead of remaining separate. ice and snow during your youth. Modern scientists have known about synesthesia since Another prevalent idea is that synesthetes are merely being 1880, when Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, pub- metaphorical when they describe the note C flat as “red” or say lished a paper in _Nature _on the phenomenon. But most have that chicken tastes “pointy”—just as you and I might speak of brushed it aside as fakery, an artifact of drug use (LSD and a “loud” shirt or “sharp” cheddar cheese. Our ordinary lan- mescaline can produce similar effects) or a mere curiosity. guage is replete with such sense-related metaphors, and perhaps About four years ago, however, we and others began to un- synesthetes are just especially gifted in this regard. cover brain processes that could account for synesthesia. Along We began trying to find out whether synesthesia is a gen- the way, we also found new clues to some of the most mysteri- uine sensory experience in 1999. This deceptively simple ques- ous aspects of the human mind, such as the emergence of ab- tion had plagued researchers in this field for decades. One nat- stract thought, metaphor and perhaps even language. ural approach is to start by asking the subjects outright: “Is this A common explanation of synesthesia is that the affected just a memory, or do you actually see the color as if it were right people are simply experiencing childhood memories and asso- in front of you?” When we tried asking this question, we did ciations.. (shrink)

Moral judgments can occur either in settings that call for impartiality or in settings that allow for partiality. How effective are impartiality settings such as hospitals in suppressing personal biases? Portrayed as decision-makers in an emergency department, 431 college students made judgments on which of two victims of a mass shooting should receive immediate, life-saving care. Patients differed in ways that could reveal biases, e.g., age, kinship, gender, and villain/hero. Participants rated each patient’s moral deservingness to receive immediate care and (...) the likelihood they would choose the patient. Both scales showed young favored over old, cousin over stranger, and policeman over shooter. In a hospital-room scenario with high risk of injury from falling, age bias disappeared. With moderate fall risk, age bias reversed and kinship deservingness bias disappeared. Bias decreases when there is a decrease in severity of potential harm to the preferred stakeholder. Settings that call for impartiality are not reliable “boundary conditions” against expressions of bias. In the absence of explicit guidelines for allocating scarce resources, a systematic, objective method of random selection offers a potentially useful strategy. (shrink)

This study examines the frequency of consanguineous marriage and the coefficient of inbreeding in the United Arab Emirates. The study was conducted in Al Ain and Dubai cities between October 1994 and March 1995. A sample of 2033 married UAE females aged 15 years and over participated. The degree of consanguinity between each female and her spouse, and the degree of consanguinity between their parents were recorded. The rate of consanguinity in the present generation was high with a coefficient of (...) inbreeding of 0·0222. The commonest type of consanguineous marriage was between first cousins. Double first cousin marriages were common compared to other populations. The consanguinity rate in the UAE has increased from 39% to 50·5% in one generation. The level of consanguinity was higher in Al Ain than in Dubai. (shrink)

The Dispeller of Delusion I. Translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Ñanamoli and revised for publication by L.S. Cousins, Nyanaponika Mahathera and C.M.M. Shaw. Sacred Books of the Buddhists XL, Pali Text Society, London 1987. xv, 359 pp. £18.00.

It is a pleasure for me to give this opening address to the Royal Institute of Philosophy Conference on ‘Explanation’ for two reasons. The first is that it is succeeded by exciting symposia and other papers concerned with various special aspects of the topic of explanation. The second is that the conference is being held in my old alma mater, the University of Glasgow, where I did my first degree. Especially due to C. A. Campbell and George Brown there was (...) in the Logic Department a big emphasis on absolute idealism, especially F. H. Bradley. My inclinations were to oppose this line of thought and to espouse the empiricism and realism of Russell, Broad and the like. Empiricism was represented in the department by D. R. Cousin, a modest man who published relatively little, but who was of quite extraordinary philosophical acumen and lucidity, and by Miss M. J. Levett, whose translation of Plato's Theaetetus formed an important part of the philosophy syllabus. (shrink)

It is a pleasure for me to give this opening address to the Royal Institute of Philosophy Conference on ‘Explanation’ for two reasons. The first is that it is succeeded by exciting symposia and other papers concerned with various special aspects of the topic of explanation. The second is that the conference is being held in my old alma mater, the University of Glasgow, where I did my first degree. Especially due to C. A. Campbell and George Brown there was (...) in the Logic Department a big emphasis on absolute idealism, especially F. H. Bradley. My inclinations were to oppose this line of thought and to espouse the empiricism and realism of Russell, Broad and the like. Empiricism was represented in the department by D. R. Cousin, a modest man who published relatively little, but who was of quite extraordinary philosophical acumen and lucidity, and by Miss M. J. Levett, whose translation of Plato's Theaetetus formed an important part of the philosophy syllabus. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Bibliography on Plato's "'Laws, "" 1920-1970: With Additional Citations through May, 1975. By Trevor J. Saunders. (New York: Arno Press, 1976. Pp. i + 60. $15.00) The Penguin Classics translator of the non-Socratic Laws, as Leo Strauss called them, has here compiled in a most usable way a thorough bibliography of books and articles about the Laws or parts of them. The section "Texts, Translations, and Commentaries" (...) properly excludes translations not made directly from the Greek. In previous centuries this would, also properly, have excluded many a famous or popular translation, such as Thomas Taylor's or Victor Cousin's, worked out from the text of M. Ficino's "first edition" in Latin. Given the state of the Greek text and the practice, inaugurated by Ficino, of improving upon the Greek in the translatioias, some notation about the literalness of the translations cited would have been of additional value. Section B, in thirty pages, is the largest and also deliberately the most selective in striving to limit itself to work concerned exclusively or primarily with the Laws. But it cannot avoid including much material about some aspect of Plato in general rather than about the Laws; this is especially true of the subsection, B1, on comprehensive accounts. Section B2, on the text and its tradition, has overwhelmingly more citations about the indirect tradition than about the texts themselves, an interesting indication of the current state of this question. The next subsections, to B12, divide according to subject matter. BI3 lists studies on the influence of the Laws. The last section, in twenty-four pages, is most valuable. It lists, by Stephanus page number, an abundance of discussions of individual passages from Book I through Book XII wherever these discussions, bibliographically speaking, may have occurred. Students of the Laws will be well served by, and most grateful to, Professor Saunders for this bibliography. I can only second the intent of his parting epigraph that sends us back to the study of the Laws themselves. But I must add that more explicitly detailed work appears to be required both on the difficulties the text itself presents to students of Plato (one thinks of A. Boeckh's analyses of the prose in Books I through III) and on those which arise when the Laws is contrasted--from the point of view of design and intellectuality--with those of Plato's works that are comparable, if not in number of pages, at least in scale of conception and monumentality. V. TEJERA SUNY at Stony Brook Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's Biological Works. By Anthony Preus. (Hildesheim and New York: George Olms, 1975. Pp. ix + 404. DM.88) A reciprocal influence between Aristotle's philosophy and biology--if it could be demonstrated through step-by-step criticism and not merely asserted in generalities about functionalism--might help to explain both, and might also itself be philosophically interesting ; for it should clarify Aristotle's concepts of form, essence, universal, and species-concepts which have been mercilessly jumbled in the traditional interpretations. With the failure of Jaegerian developmental analyses, we can hardly now hope for help from detailed chronology. But a general dating of Aristotle's biological interest to the Assos-Mytilene period, when he was already aged forty, is accepted by most people (though not by Jaeger who [463]... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sophocles’s Enemy Sisters: Antigone and IsmeneWm. Blake Tyrrell (bio) and Larry J. BennettAt the core of the Oedipus myth, as Sophocles presents it, is the proposition that all masculine relationships are based on reciprocal acts of violence. Laius, taking his cue from the oracle, violently rejects Oedipus out of fear that his son will seize his throne and invade his conjugal bed. Oedipus, taking his cue from the oracle, (...) does away with Laius, violently rebuffs the sphinx, then takes their places—as king and “scourge of the city,” respectively. Again, Oedipus, taking his cue from the oracle, plots the death of that unknown figure who may be seeking to usurp his own position. Oedipus, Creon, and Tiresias, each taking his cue from the oracle, seek one another’s downfall.All these acts of violence gradually wear away the differences that exist not only in the same family but throughout the community.—René Girard, Violence and the SacredRené Girard does not include feminine relationships in his assessment of the Oedipus myth, yet the same redundancy that characterizes the males marks the females.1 Jocasta conjoins in one person multiple and redundant social roles: she is the mother and wife of the same person, for which she [End Page 1] hangs herself, leaving for Oedipus “many pains that a mother’s furies fulfilled” (Homer Odyssey 11.279–80). Her daughters, their father’s sisters, manifest kinship redundancy in two persons. Incest produces circularly, reverting to a sibling of the parent rather than moving forward with a descendant. The absence of linear progression from one generation to the next creates a sameness and equilibrium that thwart separation and individuality. Oedipus’s brothers/sons fail in their adult roles, because neither can overcome the other’s right to the throne of Thebes and the mastery of its royal household. They are enemy brothers locked in reciprocal violence.2 Antigone and Ismene have escaped notice not only as enemy sisters but even as products of the same incest. Audiences for Sophocles’s Antigone have viewed them as “normal” women and cooperated with his characters in emphasizing the differences between them. They have assumed from Antigone’s betrothal to Haemon and resistance to Creon that she is the elder, more mature sister.3 They tend to accept without question that Antigone engages in burial rituals with Polyneices’s corpse (241–58) and returns to it (442–35).4 Bernard M. W. Knox’s critically powerful concept of the “Sophoclean hero” has bolstered this view of Antigone while reducing Ismene to a foil, and abetted the tendency of modern producers of the play to cast an older or more famous actress in the role of Antigone.5 Naturalistic readings like that of C. M. Bowra—“seeing that Ismene is her only close relative in the world, Antigone is remarkably cold to her”6—have masked the source and hence the vehemence of Antigone’s fury.That the reciprocity of the violence between Ismene and Antigone has gone unnoticed is understandable in view of the familiarity of the conflict between their brothers. Males in Greek society pursued difference by striving to excel as aristoi (best) in competition for prestige, wealth, and power.7 Whenever Eteocles and Polyneices came together, each asserted a right to Oedipus’s household and throne that was equally matched, and violence ensued from the equilibrium. On the other hand, Greek women were not supposed to compete with one another for distinction. They wove wool for clothes, maintained the household, and cared for the children, the sick, and the dead, activities that required cooperation away from public view.8 Proximity to other women was the norm and desideratum. Moreover, lawgivers like Solon based their funeral legislation on the premise that every woman wanted to participate in mourning.9 For the sake of public tranquillity, legislators tried to limit the numbers of women participants by imposing restrictions according to degrees of kinship, for instance, to children of fifth cousins. In this context, women were interchangeable, and the places they held during birth, coming of age in wedding ceremonies, and death, [End Page 2] were open to more than one woman. Closeness and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Recent Acquisitions, 2020–21Bridget Whittle and Kenneth BlackwellThe previous general update of acquisitions appeared in Russell in n.s. 39 (winter 2019): 188–90. The new listing covers items numbered 1,824 to 1,839, plus an addition to 840, with the latest items arriving in December 2021. Largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this update is smaller than usual as fewer items were received or available. Several items were received from other institutions (...) and through the generosity of researchers, to whom McMaster Library is very grateful. Internet prints are from the Hon. Russell Archivist. The following abbreviations are used: L(s). or l(s). = letter(s); X. = image copies of any kind.correspondenceArlott, John L. from BR, 1951, re “Rewards of Philosophy” (C48.06) and a cricket book for Conrad. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Bell, A. S. L. from BR, 1967. Re Alys Russell’s l. to Haldane. X. Courtesy of Nicholas Bell. rec. acq. 1,827.Cambridge Daily News L. from BR requesting they issue a public statement to clarify use of his title, 1945. Re B&R C45.07a. X. Courtesy of Dr. David Harley. rec. acq. 1,824.Cousins, Norman 2 ls. from BR, re quoting History of the World in Epitome and Manchester speech, 1960. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,826.Davies, Mansel 19 documents including ls. to BR, from Edith Russell, drafts, and notes re the Bertrand Russell Peace Fund, 1963 and later; and Dora Russell, also cnd, 1958. rec. acq. 1,828.Dewey, John 3 ls., 1 pc to William Ernest Hocking, 1936–40. Re BR at ccny and Harvard. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,836.Duman, R. Douglas L. from BR, 1963. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,826.Furtado, Celso 2 ls. from BR re Goldwater, and American war crimes in Vietnam, 1964, 1967. X. Courtesy of Camilo Furado. rec. acq. 1,829.Greene, Graham L. from BR on a Vietnam statement, 1967. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Haldane, Richard Burdon (1st Viscount) L. from Alys Russell regarding BR’s imprisonment status, 3 Mar. 1918. X. rec. acq. 1,827.Hocking, William Ernest 2 ls. from BR, 1939–40. Re Wm. James Lectures at Harvard. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,836. —. See also under Dewey, John.Jones, Lief (Lord Rhayader) L. from BR congratulating him on his election victory in North Westmoreland. 1904–05. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,831.Miller, Lawrence E. L. from BR enclosing signed photo (not present), 1963. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Modern Forum (Herman Lissauer) L. from BR declining another us lecture tour, 1954. X. Courtesy of David Harley. rec. acq. 1,831.Newnham College Report from BR to extend G. E. M. Anscombe’s scholarship. He comments on her 2 dissertations. X. Courtesy of Rachel Wiseman. Original at Newnham. rec. acq. 1,831.Post, Stanley Deverin L. from BR, 1962. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,824.Russell, Frank L. to Bill/Bull, 1902. Promises to send him a copy of his speech. X. Internet print. Courtesy of Ruth Derham. rec. acq. 1,824.Russell, Patricia L. to Emrys Hughes, ed. of Forward, 1945. Re the war and peace settlement. X. Courtesy of National Library of Scotland. Added to rec. acq. 840.Ryckman, Mr. L. from BR, 1923. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Schrödinger, Erwin L. from BR. X. Internet print. Online at U. of Vienna Library. rec. acq. 1,830.Silberstein, Ludwick 3ls. from BR,2in 1918, third in 1941. Silberstein had translated Problems into Polish, 1913. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Silverstein, Louis L. from BR regarding nuclear weapons and the Kennedy administration, 1961. X. Internet print. rec. acq. 1,831.Spencer, Herbert L. to Lady Amberley, 1869. Re Spencer’s visit to Rodborough. Purchase. rec. acq. 1,833.Stetler, Jr., Russell Dearnley 20 ls. from BR; 30 from R. Schoenman, C. Farley, P. Wood; 1963–65. On opposing the Vietnam War. X. Donation of Russ Stetler. rec. acq. 1,838.Thirring, Hans 11 ls. from BR, 1 to BR, 1952–62. X. Internet print. Online at U. of Vienna Library. rec... (shrink)

Philosophical writing on gratitude displays a pronounced preference for targeted gratitude (A’s being grateful to B for x) over propositional gratitude (A’s being grateful that p), treating the latter as a poor, less interesting cousin of the former, when it treats it at all. This paper challenges and attempts to rectify the relegation of propositional gratitude to second-class status. It argues that propositional gratitude is not only not reducible to targeted gratitude but indeed is more basic than it and that (...) propositional gratitude is morally important because of its conceptual connections to the virtue of humility. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:WomanistAlice Walker1. From womanish. (Opp. of "girlish," i.e., frivolous, irresponsible, not serious.) A black feminist or feminist of color. From the black folk expression of mothers to female children, "You acting womanish," i.e., like a woman. Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior. Wanting to know more and in greater depth than is considered "good" for one. Interested in grown-up doings. Acting grown up. Being grown up. (...) Interchangeable with another black folk expression: "You trying to be grown." Responsible. In charge. Serious.2. Also: A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women's culture, women's emotional flexibility (values tears as a natural counter-balance of laughter) and women's strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a separatist, except periodically, for health. Traditionally universalist, as in: "Mamma, why are we brown, pink, and yellow, and our cousins are white, beige, and black?" Ans.: "Well, you know the colored race is just like a flower garden, with every color flower represented." Traditionally capable, as in: "Mamma, I'm walking to Canada and I'm taking you and a bunch of other slaves with me." Reply: "It wouldn't be the first time." 3. Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless. 4. Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender. [End Page 45]FootnotesFrom Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose, 1st ed. (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), xi; reprinted in Katie Cannon, Katie's Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community (New York: Continuum, 1995), 22; reprinted in Stacey Floyd-Thomas, Mining the Motherlode: Methods in Womanist Ethics (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2006); reprinted in Alice Walker, We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting for: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness: Meditations (New York: New Press; Distributed by W. W. Norton, 2006).Copyright © 2012 University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

Bringing Flowers HomeWe try to put a bandage on the wound,offering a vague apology:Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.Towers turn out to have been built on sand.Regimes collapse. No use in asking whywe ripped the bandage off that bleeding wound.An earthquake followed by a hurricane,fires, floods: they've passed some of us by.Us. And who is we? And what is home?Last week an enormous yellow moonhung low in a corner of the sky.Beauty is no bandage for the wound,hole in (...) the future much too big to mendor even to imagine, though we tryto camouflage it, bringing flowers home.You said, when we were talking of the end,that no one teaches us to say goodbye,or how to ease the bandage from the wound.Forgive me, death. I brought these flowers home.Moving the PianoCompact, gleaming, black and white,this sturdy Yamaha uprightstood staunchly in one room for yearsuntil, maneuvered through several doorstoday by two young slender menand up a ramp into their van,it ventured briefly out into the world again.The change of space, the space of change:the walls look naked, empty, strange.Heavy has given way to light.Habitual soliditytoo familiar to seeyields to possibilitytoo unfamiliar to see.Late and early, early, late,end, beginning—all are swirledinto a mist that veils the world.The black and white of status quoblends to a color I don't know,transition that I cannot name,but I salute it all the same.Goodbye, piano, and hello.So where is the piano going?Where will it find another life,music and memories unpackedin an unfolding second act?North Carolina, near a riverwhose stream, like time, is always flowing.My son lives there with his wife.Beloved, nothing is forever.You can't step twice into this life.Nap at Stony PointMy cousin and my friendon their respective recent deathbedsslid from my mind. I noticedthe scarlet splash of a cardinal perched on a cannonon a bluff above the Hudson.I lay down on a picnic table,sun on my face, five turkey vulturescircling overhead, and closed my eyes.And when I opened them I felt as pleasedas if I had completed some needful taskinstead of having forgottenhow my friend in January and my cousin in March,both of them alert and wry and tranquil,had faced what each of them clearly saw approaching—more, had recognized and greeted it,instead of ignoring it by looking through it,the way some people, even iftheir office is two doors down the hall,look right through you, pretending not to see you.Or maybe they don't see youany more than one envisions deathon a sunny April afternoon.The Last Lecture HallTheaters that were never ours,classrooms empty and refill.Nor do the trees belong to us.We cross the stage and disappearor venture in among the treesand lose ourselves there.Feverish categories blur.Genre distinctions: what for?The empty theater becomesa lecture hall. A classroom morphsinto a forest murmuringwith voices. Words pelt down like rainor rise like mist and dissipate.The rustling trees swell to a roar.But they were never still.Theater, classroom, maple, fir:feverish categories blur,presences pressing through the veilof the phenomenal;a leopard padding down the aisle.Tiger-masked students fill the seatsof the amphitheater.The old professor, looking outover the upturned faces, said“You are all allegoricalfigures to me. I will not learnyour names.” Did the students laugh?Tragedy, satire, comedy:genres are deciduous.Modes blur, leaves spin and fall.The leaves of memory seemed to makeA mournful rustling in the dark(Longfellow, “The Fire of Driftwood”).Lights go on in the theater.Class is over. We stumble out.The GatesWhen I woke up I had walked through a gate.I looked around the room—trickle or torrent, stepping into time—and bent my head to drink at a black stream.I look around a roomthick with the dust of after and before.Am I meant to drink from this black stream?My lips are dry,thick with the crust of after and before,gate of ivory and gate of horn.My lips are dry, I'm thirsty.Heat, cold, fire, snow, sun.Gate of ivory and gate of horn:to cross a threshold ends one story(firelight; snow squeaking; winter sun)and begins another.To cross a threshold ends one story(ever after? or a transformation?)and begins anotherthere is no law compelling us to enter.Ever after or a transformation.Torrent, trickle: we set foot in time,but there's no law compelling us to enterstory once we've latched the gate of dream.FilamentsYour past is thickening. You can seeits filaments, as carefullyyou begin to part the strands(they're all connected) with both hands,and clear a path. Now warilyenter the web—not all the way,but toward some kind of clarity.We have been rightly taught that wecan't finish, but must do, the work.Partway through the leafy murk,crisscrossing dapple of the trees,so tough and so precarious,you find yourself in the dawn air,the circle's center everywhere.Along the PromenadeReading a book about transitioningin the twenty-first-century meaning of the wordblends with plans for my son's upcoming weddingand scraps of conversation overheardat the Japanese-themed street fair today.Somnambulists along the promenadefloat in the warm currents of Broadway,eat talk look linger in the sun and shade.Then to the park: October leaves still green(climate change or merely Indian summer?).Snatched memories, I catch them on the wing:Samos Septembers, pomegranate tree,lemon tree, okra, a chameleon,the little summer of Saint Dimitri,they called it. All this happened; but to me?Streams of conversation flowing by.The sound artist described his work like this(if work is the right word): “Accidentallyuploading seemingly private messages,”which describes, also, dreams and poetry,the drifting crowd, incessant carousel,city and weather, time and holiday,all lived, palped, tasted, tested, overheard.Somnambulists along the promenadehave set up booths, their dreams... Bookending my dawn dream: symmetricalsoaking sponges dripping... DNA?Destiny, temperament, personality:the cards we're dealt and that we have to play,except we now can change them gradually.Transition: he or she or rather they,constructed, deconstructed, rearranged,the tarot spread of genealogy,inheritance as aleatoric play.We walked west to Eleventh Avenue,drawn by rumors of Ad Reinhardt's blue,which buzzed and throbbed. Stand still: my head was spinning.Allusions to water or to sky,dense, deep, alarming, ending or beginning... I sat awhile and watched the crowd glide by,enchanted promenaders all drawn inon the exhibition's last dayby the silence's cerulean humming.And then they climbed the stairs, and so did we,to lighter textures on an upper floorwhere Ruth Asawa's baskets in midairweightlessly demonstrated gravity,twigs, trees, crowns, bubbles dancing in white space.Next week my class will read “On Being Ill.”“Blogs,” I'll tell them, is the word we nowuse, not “essay,” for the moving mind,that saunterer who takes note and leaves behindand doubles back and ponders and regretsamidst the wash of vision, the flowand tidal pull of what we see and know,what we've dreamed, what we have said and heard,the thrumming colors and the floating crowd,as if the bubbly brew of sunny dayand anxious dreams could somehow all be caughtup in one enormous, one all-encompassing word. (shrink)

Two theme–setting quotations introduce this essay—that of Yeats's falcon, deaf to the falconer's call, adrift in space above the blood–dimmed tide, counterpoised to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's call to abandon old nationalistic prejudices and build the earth. With primary references to the thought of Teilhard, along with, among others, to Ewert Cousins, Andrew M. Greeley, Karl Jaspers, Marshall McLuhan, Ilya Prigogine, Karl Rahner, Leonard Swidler, David Tracy, and Alfred North Whitehead, I argue that the most crucial intellectual paradigm shift (...) of the twenty–first century will challenge humanity to take the turn from uncritical attachment to rigid absolutism or atomistic fragmentation toward a sense of open–ended, off–centered centeredness and fluid connections—from a static to a dynamic model of reality. Central to my argument is the Teilhardian reinterpretation of the Christian metaphors of creation, fall, incarnation, salvation, and the eschaton in the evolutionary terms of the emergence of cosmic consciousness from the chrysalis of the world of the past—from chaos to order, from biosphere via noosphere to theosphere. Facilitated by the exponential growth of populations, collaborative research, science, technology, and global communication (most dramatically manifested by the Internet), this emergent understanding of what it means to be human can, first, foster the awareness that in humanity evolution has become conscious of itself, and then, gradually, precipitate the formation of “the global village” (the mystical body of Christ), as respectful dialogue replaces diatribe and the dualistic pugilism of Samuel Huntington's “Clash of Civilizations” is gradually transformed into a nonadversarial mentality that values shared humanity and a common purpose. Thus, eons hence, empowered by love–energy, the transmutation of the human into the ultra–human can take the ultimate quantum leap into a yet higher dimension where spirit/energy is no longer in need of flesh/mass, and Earth can be safely left behind. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eating Disorders and Mimetic Desire René Girard Stanford University Among younger women, eating disorders are reaching epidemic proportions. The most widespread and spectacular at this moment is the most recently identified, the so-called bulimia nervosa, characterized by binge eating followed by "purging," sometimes through laxatives or diuretics, more often through self-induced vomiting. Some researchers claim that, in American colleges, at least one third of the female student population is (...) involved to some degree. (Since nine out of ten sufferers are women I will use feminine pronouns in this paper but some undergraduates at Stanford tell me that the epidemic is spreading to male students.) G.M.F. Russell, the first researcher who focused on the specific aspects ofmodern bulimia, is usually presented as the discoverer of a new illness. The title ofhis 1979 publication contradicts this view: "Bulimia Nervosa: An Ominous Variant ofAnorexiaNervosa." And, indeed, all the symptoms he describes had been mentioned before in connection with anorexia (see Bruch). The insurance companies and the medical profession like only welldefined illnesses, and so does the public. We all try to distance ourselves from pathological contamination by giving it a name. Eating disorders are often discussed as ifthey were new varieties ofmeasles or oftyphoid fever. Why distrust the distinction between two illnesses with symptoms as radically opposed as those of anorexia and bulimia? Because we live in a world where eating too much and not eating enough are opposite but inseparable ways ofcoping with the slenderness imperative that dominates 2 René Girard our collective imaginations. Most of us oscillate all our lives between attenuated forms ofthese two pathologies. The man in the street understands perfectly a truth that most specialists prefer not to confront. Our eating disorders are caused by our compulsive desire to lose weight. Most books on the subject acknowledge the universal calorie phobia but somewhat absent-mindedly, as if it could not be the major cause ofa serious illness. How could a fundamentally healthy desire become the cause ofpathological behavior, even ofdeath? Many people would be healthier, no doubt, ifthey ate less. In view of this fact, it is not illogical to suppose that, in anorexia, there must be some motivation other than this healthy desire, some unconscious drive, no doubt, that generates abnormal behavior. By turning anorexia and bulimia into two separate pathologies, the classificators make it easier for us to lose sight of their common basis. The bankruptcy of modern theories The search for hidden motivations is the alpha and omega, ofcourse, of our modern culture. Our number one principle is that no human phenomenon is really what it seems to be. A satisfactory interpretation must rely on one of the hermeneutics of suspicion that have become popular in the nineteenth and twentieth century, or on several ofthese, on a cocktail of soupçon: psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, etc. We automatically assume that social phenomena have little if anything to do with what is obvious in them, in this case the rejection offood. In anorexia, psychoanalysts usually diagnose "a refusal of normal sexuality," due to the patient's excessive desire "to please her father," etc. These explanations are still invoked in books being written right now but the voice is growing fainter. Around this sort of thing the smell of mustiness is overpowering. Even in Lacan's own land, the old arrogance is gone. Early in my life, I had an opportunity to observe that the eating practices ofyoung women have nothing to do with a desire to please their fathers. Just before World War II, a pretty cousin of mine was dieting furiously and her father, my uncle, was storming about helplessly, trying to get her to eat more. Fathers, as a rule, are not pleased to see their daughters starve themselves. This particular father was also a physician, at a time when the medical profession had not yet caught the disease it was already trying to cure. Eating Disorders andMimetic Desire3 This uncle was our family doctor and, as such, had great prestige in my eyes, at least until that day. I had not yet read Freud but my later skepticism regarding his conception offatherhood may well originate in this incident. I immediately... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eating Disorders and Mimetic Desire René Girard Stanford University Among younger women, eating disorders are reaching epidemic proportions. The most widespread and spectacular at this moment is the most recently identified, the so-called bulimia nervosa, characterized by binge eating followed by "purging," sometimes through laxatives or diuretics, more often through self-induced vomiting. Some researchers claim that, in American colleges, at least one third of the female student population is (...) involved to some degree. (Since nine out of ten sufferers are women I will use feminine pronouns in this paper but some undergraduates at Stanford tell me that the epidemic is spreading to male students.) G.M.F. Russell, the first researcher who focused on the specific aspects ofmodern bulimia, is usually presented as the discoverer of a new illness. The title ofhis 1979 publication contradicts this view: "Bulimia Nervosa: An Ominous Variant ofAnorexiaNervosa." And, indeed, all the symptoms he describes had been mentioned before in connection with anorexia (see Bruch). The insurance companies and the medical profession like only welldefined illnesses, and so does the public. We all try to distance ourselves from pathological contamination by giving it a name. Eating disorders are often discussed as ifthey were new varieties ofmeasles or oftyphoid fever. Why distrust the distinction between two illnesses with symptoms as radically opposed as those of anorexia and bulimia? Because we live in a world where eating too much and not eating enough are opposite but inseparable ways ofcoping with the slenderness imperative that dominates 2 René Girard our collective imaginations. Most of us oscillate all our lives between attenuated forms ofthese two pathologies. The man in the street understands perfectly a truth that most specialists prefer not to confront. Our eating disorders are caused by our compulsive desire to lose weight. Most books on the subject acknowledge the universal calorie phobia but somewhat absent-mindedly, as if it could not be the major cause ofa serious illness. How could a fundamentally healthy desire become the cause ofpathological behavior, even ofdeath? Many people would be healthier, no doubt, ifthey ate less. In view of this fact, it is not illogical to suppose that, in anorexia, there must be some motivation other than this healthy desire, some unconscious drive, no doubt, that generates abnormal behavior. By turning anorexia and bulimia into two separate pathologies, the classificators make it easier for us to lose sight of their common basis. The bankruptcy of modern theories The search for hidden motivations is the alpha and omega, ofcourse, of our modern culture. Our number one principle is that no human phenomenon is really what it seems to be. A satisfactory interpretation must rely on one of the hermeneutics of suspicion that have become popular in the nineteenth and twentieth century, or on several ofthese, on a cocktail of soupçon: psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, etc. We automatically assume that social phenomena have little if anything to do with what is obvious in them, in this case the rejection offood. In anorexia, psychoanalysts usually diagnose "a refusal of normal sexuality," due to the patient's excessive desire "to please her father," etc. These explanations are still invoked in books being written right now but the voice is growing fainter. Around this sort of thing the smell of mustiness is overpowering. Even in Lacan's own land, the old arrogance is gone. Early in my life, I had an opportunity to observe that the eating practices ofyoung women have nothing to do with a desire to please their fathers. Just before World War II, a pretty cousin of mine was dieting furiously and her father, my uncle, was storming about helplessly, trying to get her to eat more. Fathers, as a rule, are not pleased to see their daughters starve themselves. This particular father was also a physician, at a time when the medical profession had not yet caught the disease it was already trying to cure. Eating Disorders andMimetic Desire3 This uncle was our family doctor and, as such, had great prestige in my eyes, at least until that day. I had not yet read Freud but my later skepticism regarding his conception offatherhood may well originate in this incident. I immediately... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Fabuler la fin du monde: La puissance critique des fictions d’apocalypse by Jean-Paul EngélibertCyril CamusJean-Paul Engélibert. Fabuler la fin du monde: La puissance critique des fictions d’apocalypse [Fabulating the end of the world: The critical power of apocalypse fiction]. Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2019. 239 pp. Print. 20€. ISBN 978-2-348-03719-1.Jean-Paul Engélibert is a well-established expert on apocalyptic and postapocalyptic fiction. His exploration of the genre thus far includes (...) the monograph Apocalypses sans royaume: Politique des fictions de la fin du monde, XX–XXIe siècles (2013), numerous articles, as well as the essay collection L’Apocalypse: Une imagination politique, XIXe–XXIe siècles (2018), which he co-edited. In his latest book, Fabuler la fin du monde, he returns to several texts and aspects of the genre previously covered, delving deeper into what he calls “fictions of the end of the world.” In the ten chapters, gathered in five parts, he approaches his subject as a seasoned scholar in the field of comparative literature, and his analysis draws from comparisons between modern fiction’s representation of apocalypse and biblical literature’s visions of apocalypse and messianism. The book also offers ecocritical insights into the specter of Anthropocenic manifestations in fiction, with reflections on the interrelated genres of utopia and dystopia, theories of cinema, and philosophical writings on the catastrophic history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.The range of fictional works discussed is wide, including Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville’s Le dernier homme (1805); Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818); Émile Souvestre’s Le monde tel qu’il sera (1846); Didier de Chousy’s Ignis (1883); Robert Merle’s Malevil (1972); José Saramago’s Blindness (1995); Antoine Volodine’s Minor Angels (1999); Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis (2003); Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006); Céline Minard’s Le dernier monde (2007); Davide [End Page 163] Longo’s The Last Man Standing (2010); and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (Oryx and Crake [2003], The Year of the Flood [2009], and MaddAddam [2013]). Engélibert also touches on feature-length movies such as Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach (1959), Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011), Abel Ferrara’s 4:44 Last Day on Earth (2012), and Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995), as well as on other literary and audiovisual fictions, such as E. M. Forster’s short story “The Machine Stops” (1909), Edward Bond’s dramatic trilogy The War Plays (1985), and the first season (2014) of Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta’s TV series The Leftovers (2014–17).Engélibert’s exegeses of the genre build around two aspects of the evolving relationship of apocalyptic narratives to the context of their production. Apocalypse (in the sense of “the end of the world” rather than the etymological sense of “revelation”) is no longer primarily a religious myth: the creation and use of the atomic bomb during the Second World War, the theorization of the Anthropocene, and the mainstreaming of concerns over climate change have made the term “apocalypse” a very real, tangible prospect for the future. Engélibert relies on Günther Anders’s Die atomare Drohung (1981) to highlight the importance of the A-bomb in bringing home the reality of potential annihilation to people’s collective consciousness. Yet his second contextual/historical point is that the Anthropocene (albeit unnamed at the time) actually started with the Industrial Revolution, and that thinkers and polemicists such as Charles Fourier or Eugène Huzar, as well as contemporary fiction writers, were already acknowledging the environmental impact of humans and their economic/industrial/technological activity as threats to human and nonhuman life, and to the health of the planetary system itself.1Citing the work of Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and Christophe Bonneuil on the history of climate science, Engélibert analyzes in detail several nineteenth-century novels (namely Le Dernier homme, Frankenstein, Le monde tel qu’il sera, and Ignis) and one early-twentieth-century story (Forster’s “The Machine Stops”) that denounce the harm that the idol of the time, Progress, was already wreaking on nature and human life... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Summary Of The Spoken Responses By The Poets To Their CriticsJohn HollanderMark Strand responded to Charles Berger’s comments by mak-ing appreciative remarks about the kind of attention his work had received, adding that he did occasionally in writing perceive “glimmers, in the kind of attention I pay, to what Charles Berger has spoken of.” With regard to certain aspects of prior intention, he said that “vague formal imperatives got (...) fulfilled in the writing” and that knowing at the time “the rightness of what I’ve said,” I was nonetheless able to “know the meaning of what I’d said only weeks afterward.” He also acknowledged the kinds of allusiveness which Berger had adduced in his writing, speaking of how and when in the course of writing the resources of his particular sort of echo and allusion seemed to make themselves available.He then turned to the specific question of one of the sequences of poems that Berger had discussed, the “Great Dog Poem No. 2.” He averred that in choosing a dog as speaker he had “not just meant to be funny” [he avowed later on in his remarks that his poems frequently began with “dark humor”] but had also sought for a mode of introspection more original than the fashionably solemn ones of so much contemporary poetry: “I could look within and bark.” With respect to the final line, he observed “I like to finish with a flourish, to pretend I’m Laforgue or Rimbaud,” manifesting “a desire to be a symbolist poet.” With respect to that concluding verse, “I feel like the end of a gorgeous line,” he added that if a dog said that—particularly “a [End Page 189] platinum retriever”—it could not be self-pitying. He spoke in general of the relation of high and low in the poem (a dog named “Rex,” and so forth) and of the relation of this sequence to a much earlier poem of his called “Eating Poetry” in which the speaker is likewise a dog.With regard to formal design, he concluded by saying that in general he tended to start poems “with rough drafts in blank verse” which he then “roughened up” in various ways, preferring as he said “cadences” rather than “measure” in the framing of lines. But he added that in the De Chirico poems he had read, he felt that if one wrote a villanelle, one should keep strictly to the form, without changing words in the refrain lines, and keeping to the iambic meter, saying that “I don’t think you should cheat” under those circumstances.Strand concluded by thanking Berger for the precise nature of his critical attentiveness.John Hollander started out by acknowledging with pleasure that Eleanor Cook’s analysis of his “Owl” had certainly helped him to understand it better; he observed that he felt he had only started to write what he called “real poetry” in his third book, when he had first written a poem he could not understand at the time, and only came to understand years later. He remarked that “The relation of poet and critic as framed by this panel is this: good criticism is a poem’s best friend. We all depend on our friends to point out to us things about ourselves we may not know or acknowledge; although their cousins and other familial relations are other poems, our poems’ best friends are pieces of critical writing.”He was particularly grateful to Cook for pointing out things he hadn’t himself seen—such as the question of the terminal words in the first stanza—but which as a result of the critical insight he had to acknowledge. And this brought up the crucial question of intentionality at the practical rather than theoretical level: in the case of such observations by critics and acknowledgments by poets, it would seem that the writing of a poem could have an intention of which the writer would be unaware. Hollander adduced the analogy of dreaming to poetic composition, paralleling the question “Did you mean to write that?” with (to anyone reporting a dream) “Did you mean to dream that?”He then observed about the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Growing Up: Seeing Myself for Who I Am and Loving ItKerry MagroLast weekend, I traveled to see my cousin. He had graduated from St Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore and was being ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. The event was attended by many of my family members. Several of the littlest attendees struggled with all the commotion, some were said to be shy, some didn’t want to be crowded, (...) and parents and caregivers did what they could to make it easier on them. Watching those kids trying to cope with a family event, which was different and a bit confusing, brought back a flood of memories of my own childhood. Nothing was simple about my childhood.My life has been “interesting” for sure. As a young child I faced many challenges. Until the age of two and a half I was nonverbal. Even though later I would gain speech, my developmental delays and sensory integration dysfunction issues caused great [End Page 202] difficulty for myself and my parents. I was evaluated by professionals and was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder–pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD–NOS) at the age of four.Thoughts of that difficult time filled my head when watching the children at this family function. My uncles, aunts and cousins couldn’t possibly know my struggles in those years. They weren’t present for all the interventions and therapy sessions I endured. Today, they don’t see me as someone different or disabled. I still have some obstacles to overcome in my development but rather than bemoan where I am or where I have been I have chosen to accept myself as I am. Although some may say I have a disability I choose to embrace my abilities and to celebrate them. I’m glad I’ve stayed on a path that has led me to become an independent adult. I am now a national motivational speaker, a Master’s graduate, owner of a non–profit corporation and soon to be an author.But what about this word “disabled”? Since I was six years old I seemed to have been tagged with this word by those around me. They all considered autism as a disability. I didn’t even know I had autism until I was 11. But I was very aware of people defining me as being disabled. It had to be the reason I was being placed in Special Ed classes, for the hours I had to travel to doctors and therapies: occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy. I was being called disabled and I didn’t know why. Of course the signs were there for me that I had a problem. In daycare many things confused and frightened me: loud noises, wind, water, transitions. I cried constantly, a lot more than everyone else. I had terrible tantrums (lying on the floor kicking and screaming) to the confusion and consternation of the adults and caregivers around me. I attended two different daycare centers and was asked to leave both of them. I couldn’t even make the transition from the door of a daycare center to my parent’s car without fighting, screaming and crying uncontrollably.It’s now hard to believe that my difficulty with sensory integration dysfunction, transitions and social interactions lasted for almost 15 years of my life. During those years there were many confusing, frightening and painful episodes for me, my parents and others around us.Like most kids with these types of deficits, we tried to find splinter skills to help me compensate. I have hyper–mobility of the joints making buttoning and fine motor tasks almost impossible. I also have dysgraphia, which makes it difficult for me to hold a pen or pencil to write. Even with therapy I never learned to ride a bicycle. One bright side to the hyper–mobility was being able to learn to type 100 words per minute.My sensitivity to water, wind and loud sounds was extreme. I fought my parents each time they tried to get me into the bathtub. I hated going on the swings because I couldn’t feel my feet on the ground... (shrink)

Recently two distinct forms of rule-utilitarianism have been introduced that differ on how to measure the consequences of rules. Brad Hooker advocates fixed-rate rule-utilitarianism, while Michael Ridge advocates variable-rate rule-utilitarianism. I argue that both of these are inferior to a new proposal, optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism. According to optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism, an ideal code is the code whose optimum acceptance level is no lower than that of any alternative code. I then argue that all three forms of rule-utilitarianism fall prey to two fatal (...) problems that leave us without any viable form of rule-utilitarianism. (shrink)