I argue that Sartre's Transcendence of the Ego draws on Kant's theory of spontaneity to articulate its metaphysical account of consciousness's mode of being, to defend its phenomenological description of the intentional structure of self‐consciousness, and to diagnose the errors that motivate views of consciousness qua person or substance. In addition to highlighting an overlooked dimension of Sartre's early relation to Kant, this interpretation offers a fresh account of how Sartre's argument for the primacy of pre‐personal consciousness works, and brings (...) the extent of his proximity to idealist models of mind into greater relief. It also affords Sartre the resources to respond to criticisms that his account of self‐consciousness relies on a spurious distinction and that his view of freedom cannot explain how consciousness is conditioned by its world. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s view of philosophical explanation. Some commentators stress his indebtedness to the transcendental tradition, but this influence does not extend to his view of explanation. I argue that Merleau-Ponty gives up on the transcendental ideal of explanatory completeness, shared by Husserl and Kant. Motivated by a distinctive understanding of transcendental expression, he argues that phenomenological reflection, and the explanations that issue from it, must both have a circular structure if they are to provide a (...) persuasive account of experience. This circular view of phenomenological methodology is further developed in later texts, which stress the openness and incompleteness of both reflection and explanation. Merleau-Ponty’s reliance on the concept of circularity testifies to the increasing importance of Hegel for his view of phenomenological explanation and philosophical methodology. (shrink)

Scholarly discussions of Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetics tend to focus on his philosophy of painting. By contrast, comparatively little attention has been paid to his philosophy of literature. However, he also draws significant conclusions from his work on literary expression. As I will argue, these reflections inform at least two important positions of his later thought. First, Merleau-Ponty’s account of “indirect” literary language led him to develop a hybrid view of phenomenological expression, on which expression is both creative and descriptive. Second, a (...) study of literature furnished him with the resources to develop a novel account of phenomenological “essences”, which holds that essences are revisable explanations of first-order experience. Both results have been overlooked by commentators. They demonstrate the systematic import of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of literature and language, and amount to a qualified extension of a basic Husserlian position. (shrink)

Through accessible analyses of Merleau-Ponty’s views of linguistic expression and understanding, and by tracing the evolution of these views throughout the course of his philosophical career, Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Language offers a comprehensive picture of his engagement with the philosophy of language.

abstract: I argue that Merleau-Ponty's reading of Hegel's account of experience exerts a significant and hitherto overlooked influence on his attempt to recast Phénoménologie de la perception 's account of intentionality. This reading informs two important claims of his later projects: that intentional relations are more fundamental than their relata, and that a metaphysical condition irreducible to consciousness or object constitutes the structure of intentionality. I argue that these positions inform key tenets of reversibility, and that a revisionary interpretation of (...) Hegel's absolute offers Merleau-Ponty a model for the principle that individuates the basic conditions of experience. In addition to demonstrating that he was a more assiduous reader of Hegel than many commentators assume, and highlighting some overlooked debts to Hegel, these results show that Merleau-Ponty's later thought inherits significant idealist commitments, which should motivate us to reconsider its standing within post-Kantian philosophical currents. (shrink)

La structure du comportement details consciousness-nature relations by navigating between realist and intellectualist alternatives. A phenomenological reading of form guides its attempt to formulate a view that does not reduce consciousness to matter or perceptual structure to a product of mind. I show that this strategy relies on hitherto overlooked idealist commitments. Forms are perceived objects whose intentional structure is intelligibly organized. Having denied that forms are constituted by mind or emergent from matter, Merleau-Ponty likens form-constitution to an ideal process (...) of intentional self-organization. Despite recognizing that Gestalt psychology develops fruitful models of perceptual self-organization, and adopting the transcendental view that form is significant for consciousness, his revisionary interpretation of form outstrips these accounts’ ontologies of mind and nature, and is better understood in light of a post-Kantian philosophical heritage. These results cast Merleau-Ponty’s relation to the Gestalt, post-Kantian, and phenomenological traditions in new light, challenge naturalizing interpretations of Structure, and motivate a rethinking of the status of metaphysics in his early thought. (shrink)

Aron’s writings are lauded for their contributions to liberal political theory, international relations, and sociology. I argue that his early thought also offers phenomenological considerations for a relativist view of historical meaning, whose important role in the text’s argument has been suppressed by received interpretations. Drawing a direct link between introspective, intersubjective, and historical understanding, Aron argues that the “objectification” of intentions necessarily transforms their meaning. This impedes an objective account of historical subjects’ lived experience. Some of the Introduction’s appraisals (...) of historical understanding rely on Aron’s phenomenological observations, and indicate that the intentionality of historical understanding circumscribes claims to historical objectivity. These results highlight the broader implications of largely overlooked phenomenological commitments in Aron’s thought, offer a fresh interpretation of the Introduction, and suggest that the standard account of Aron’s relation to the phenomenological movement should be reconsidered. (shrink)

This paper attempts to clarify Merleau-Ponty’s later work by tracing a hitherto overlooked set of concerns that were of key consequence for the formulation of his ontological research. I argue that his ontology can be understood as a response to a set of problems originating in reflections on the intersubjective use of language in dialogue, undertaken in the early 1950s. His study of dialogue disclosed a structure of meaning-formation and pointed towards a theory of truth (both recurring ontological topics) that (...) post-Phenomenology premises could not account for. A study of dialogue shows that speakers’ positions are interchangeable, that speaking subjects are active and passive in varying degrees, and that the intentional roles of subjects and objects are liable to shift or ‘transgress’ themselves. These observations anticipate the concepts of ‘reversibility’ and ‘narcissism’, his later view of activity and passivity, and his later view of intentionality, and sharpened the need to adopt an intersubjective focus in ontological research. (shrink)

Since Husserl, the task of developing an account of intentionality and constitution has been central to the phenomenological enterprise. Some of Merleau-Ponty's descriptions of ‘the flesh’ suggest that he gives up on this task, or, more strongly, that the flesh is in principle incompatible with intentionality or constitution. I show that these remarks, as in Merleau-Ponty's earlier writings, refer to the classical, early Husserlian interpretations of these concepts, and argue that the concept of the flesh can plausibly be understood to (...) advance a refined account of intentionality and constitution. Instead of a first-personal, unidirectional act or embodied motor project, intentionality is a latent openness to things, where the roles of subject and object are reversible. Whereas the view of constitution as meaning-bestowal is untenable, the flesh has a constitutive role, which is supported by a ‘constitutional passivity’ from the subject. On this reading, Merleau-Ponty's later work aims to develop basic tenets of his earlier thought, albeit at a critical distance, an attempt he thought was continuous with the central problems that Husserl claimed a phenomenological philosophy must grapple with, even if Merleau-Ponty's answers to these problems are not Husserl's. (shrink)

This chapter reconstructs Dufrenne’s phenomenological interpretation of the aesthetic attitude. I argue that Dufrenne develops a fecund alternative to competing formulations, advances an innovative proposal for how artworks are perceived on their own terms, and undercuts the claim that a reliance on the subject-object frame- work in aesthetics entails a commitment to ‘subjectivism.’ On Dufrenne’s view, the aesthetic attitude is an intentional stance toward a special category of perceived object, which is defined by a ‘purposive’ mode of appearance. Whereas aesthetic (...) attitude theorists argue that a subjective ability to attend disinterestedly to objects is a sufficient condition for aesthetic experience, Dufrenne locates decisive condi- tions for aesthetic experience in the object-term. This innovative approach develops a novel take on the aesthetic attitude, blunts the edge of aesthetic anti-subjectivist arguments, advances an original interpretation of Kant’s relevance for phenomeno- logical aesthetics, and offers a plausible philosophical account of art’s objectivity and world-disclosive power. (shrink)

Hyppolite stresses his proximity to Merleau-Ponty, but the received interpretation of his “anti-humanist” reading of Hegel suggests a greater distance between their projects. This paper focuses on an under-explored dimension of their philosophical relationship. I argue that Merleau-Ponty and Hyppolite are both committed to formulating a mode of philosophical expression that can avoid the pitfalls of purely formal or literal and purely aesthetic or creative modes of expression. Merleau-Ponty’s attempt to navigate this dichotomy, I suggest, closely resembles Hyppolite’s interpretation of (...) Hegel’s “speculative” mode of expression. In particular, his emphasis on the “mediating” character of philosophical language, which moves between descriptive and creative expression, suggests a debt to Hyppolite. This reading provides more evidence to think that Hyppolite cannot be straightforwardly understood as an anti-humanist or post-phenomenological thinker, and paves the way for a _rapprochement_ between his work and the broader phenomenological tradition. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

The impact of Islam upon women’s entrepreneurship in conflict zones is woefully absent from the entrepreneurship literature. This is due to the absence of published scholarship about this context rather than the absence of Muslim women’s entrepreneurship there. To address the gap in the literature, we offer a contextualized analysis and contribution by adopting an Islamic feminism lens and explore how Islamic feminism empowers women entrepreneurs and their entrepreneurial activities and behaviours in conflict zones. We argue that Islamic feminism is (...) a process of ‘ijtihad’ shaping the business ethics of Muslim women entrepreneurs operating in conflict zones and removing the traditional, patriarchal, colonial and other cultural layers with which Islam has been veiled. The findings from the 16 Muslim women entrepreneurs operating in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine and participating in our study reveal that Islamic religiousness plays a critical role in shaping the Muslim women’s entrepreneurial behaviour and their ability to endure the hardships of living in a conflict zone. Within all three research contexts, the participants interpreted and practiced their Islamic religiousness in ways consistent with Islamic Feminism principles and that deviated from patriarchal Islam dominating their conflict zones. This paper contributes to the growing research areas on Islamic feminist foundations for business ethics and women’s entrepreneurship in conflict zones by exploring how Islamic feminism empowers women entrepreneurs in Muslim conflict zones. (shrink)

As is well known, A. C. Haddon visited Torres Straits for the first time in the\nsummer of 1888 with the purpose of studying, as a marine biologist, the fauna\nand the structure and mode of formation of the coral reefs in Torres Straits. There\nbegan Haddon’s ’conversion’ from zoology to anthropology.’ It seems that\nHaddon felt an urgent need to collect ethnographic information on the islanders\nbecause he saw they were changing and diminishing in number very quickly, and\ntherefore their customs were vanishing.\nVery soon after (...) my arrival in the Straits I found that the natives of the\nislands had of late years been greatly reduced in number, and that, with the\nexception of but one or two individuals, none of the white residents knew\nanything about the customs of the natives, and not a single person cared\nabout them personally. When I began to question the natives I discovered\nthat the young men had a very imperfect acquaintance with the old habits\nand beliefs, and that only from the older men was reliable information to be\nobtained. So it was made clear to me that if I neglected to avail myself of the\npresent opportunity of collecting information on the ethnography of the\nislanders, it was extremely probable that that knowledge would never be\ngleaned - for if no one interested himself in the matter meanwhile, it was\nalmost certain that no trustworthy information could be collected in, say, ten years’ time. This being my opinion, I felt it my duty to fill up all the\ntime not actually employed in my zoological researches in anthropological\nstudies. (shrink)

For the last four years I have been working on a book on the origins and\nimpacts of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolution. I have\nsubtitled the book a ’philosophical history’ because one of my aims is to\nrevive the lost art of passing judgement on history, in this case the history\nof our own times. This is not an easy art to practise even in the best of\ntimes, and ours is not one of them. As I delved more deeply into Kuhn’s\nbackground (...) and influence, it became clear that he was indeed correct to\nhave disowned the more radical sociological readings of Structure that\nplaced all disciplines on an equal epistemic footing. However, in the long\nterm these misreadings have unwittingly served to contain the critical\nimpulses of the would-be radicals, a result that should meet with Kuhn’s\napproval and certainly the approval of his mentor, Harvard president and\nCold Warrior James Bryant Conant, the man to whom Structure is dedicated.\nIn terms of the new sociology of science associated with the Edinburgh\nschool and its successors, ’Kuhnification’ has affected both the form\nand the content of their inquiries. In form, most of the work consists of\n’normal science’ that speaks to a narrow community of specialists rather\nthan to scientists or society at large. In content, it continues to centre on\nscience as a society in the small, at the expense of science’s role in society\nat large. While it is indeed possible, as feminists have shown, to study the\nscientific workplace as a microcosm of the injustices perpetrated in the\ngreater society, such studies have been in the minority, thanks to a lingering\nKuhnian sense of what is properly within the domain of ’science\nstudies’. (shrink)

Main figures in Byzantium after the Byzantium were Ioannis Zygomalas (1498-1584) and his son and fellow Theodosius (1544-1607) who drew a spiritual path that left many and rich traces and presumptions. They served in the Patriarchate of Constantinople in key positions. There they taught the ancient Greek language and they copied and distributed manuscripts of works of ancient and byzantine writers. Their mailing correspondence with European scholars and travelers is well known. Thanks to that, the humanistic Europe met not only (...) the Greek scholars of the 16th c. but also their spoken language of that era, as a continuation of the Greek classical times and the Byzantine world. The historical information concerning them that has been saved is of interest to many categories of specialists of human sciences: Theology and Philosophy, Social History, History of Law and Institutions, Literature and Linguistics, Palaeography and Codicology, Letter-writing. Authors: Hans Eideneier, Ernst Gamillscheg, Christian Gastgeber, Andreas Rhoby, Dora E. Solti, D. G. Apostolopoulos, Athanasios E. Karathanasis, Vassilis Katsaros, R. Georgios D. Metallinos, Machi Paizi-Apostolopoulou, Stavros Perentidis, Konstantinos Pitsakis, Georgios Steiris, Notis Toufexis, Andronikos Falaggas. (shrink)

The undecidability of first-order logic implies that there is no computable bound on the length of shortest proofs of valid sentences of first-order logic. Some valid sentences can only have quite long proofs. How hard is it to prove such "hard" valid sentences? The polynomial time tractability of this problem would imply the fixed-parameter tractability of the parameterized problem that, given a natural number n in unary as input and a first-order sentence φ as parameter, asks whether φ has a (...) proof of length ≤ n. As the underlying classical problem has been considered by Gödel we denote this problem by p-Gödel. We show that p-Gödel is not fixed-parameter tractable if DTIME(h O(1) ) ≠ NTIME(h O(1) ) for all time constructible and increasing functions h. Moreover we analyze the complexity of the construction problem associated with p-Gödel. (shrink)

We use finite model theory to prove:Let m ≥ 2. Then: If there exists k such that NP ⊆ σmTIME ∩ ΠmTIME, then for every r there exists kr such that PNP[nr] ⊆ σmTIME ∩ ΠmTIME; If there exists a superpolynomial time-constructible function f such that NTIME ⊆ Σpm ∪ Πpm, then additionally PNP[nr] ⊈ Σpm ∪ Πpm.This strengthens a result by Mocas [M96] that for any r, PNP[nr] ⊈ NEXP.In addition, we use FM-truth definitions to give a simple sufficient (...) condition for the σ11 arity hierarchy to be strict over finite models. (shrink)

THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER IS TO ATTEMPT TO SOLVE THE\nPROBLEM OF OTHER MINDS. THE METHOD USED INVOLVES\nINTRODUCING THREE NEW TERMS, EACH OF WHICH IN SOME WAYS\nRESEMBLES IN MEANING, AND IN SOME WAYS DIFFERS FROM IN\nMEANING, THE ORDINARY TERM "EXISTS." WHEN THE PROBLEM OF\nOTHER MINDS IS RESTATED WITH THESE NEW TERMS, THERE IS A\nPRONOUNCED INCREASE IN THE COMPLEXITY OF THE DISCUSSION,\nBUT THERE IS ALSO A PRONOUNCED DECREASE IN THE VAGUENESS OF\nTHE DISCUSSION. A COMPLETE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF OTHER\nMINDS IS (...) OFFERED. A VERSION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF THE\nRELATIVITY OF TIME, WHICH IS EVEN MORE DRASTIC THAN\nEINSTEIN'S VERSION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF THE RELATIVITY OF\nTIME, IS NEEDED IN THE SOLUTION. (shrink)