The traditions about isrāʾīliyyāt that were seen almost in all the types of Islamic sciences appeared in the sources of tafsīr from early periods. These traditions that were generally used to explain the Qurʾān were seen problem and critisized by some exegetical specialists. Even though corresponding to a relative later period in the classical era, an approach was tried to put forward in view of the traditions about isrāʾīliyyāt. This methodological concern for isrāʾīliyyāt in classical period has increased and (...) been influential for many researchers from east and west to work on this issue in modern times. There has been reached to important results about the issues of the definition of isrāʾīliyyāt, the source of it, its spread in Islamic sciences, its aim of usage, the progress of these positive-negative attitudes against these traditions in historical process. But it is important to discuss some evaluations and analysis again that put forward in this process when different cases about the issue are taken into consideration. According to this, a series of problem, such as how the isrāʾīliyyāt can be defined in tafsīr, when the criticism of isrāʾīliyyāt started, whether Biqāʿī was the first exegete who made reference to Bible or not will be discussed considering relevant resources in this article.Summary: Since the early periods, isrā’īliyyāt narratives were used as a source of information in tafsīrs. These narratives, which are transmitted in various tafsīrs of the Qur’ān, one of the main sources of Islamic religion, have also taken the methodological interests of some exegete since the early periods. This interest continued in the modern period, and both Western and Eastern researchers made research on isrā’īliyyāt. Some of the findings, analyses, and claims available in researches on this subject will be reexamined in this article. The first of these is the problem of the definition of isrā’īliyyāt. In contemporary research, inclusive definitions are made for isrā’īliyyāt, seen in all sources. These definitions do not allow for a refined description of isrā’īliyyāt which is handled in terms of different intentions in the sources of each different field and which varies in terms of the issues it covers, leading to the underestimation of some of its aspects in relevant fields. In the definitions, it is stated that isrā’īliyyāt is mostly learned from the Ahl al-Kitāb, (the People of the Book) it became widespread along with Islām and it included narratives about caliphs, dynasties, and Mahdī, as well. Another issue is to be emphasized that they are fictive or mythological. In classical tafsīrs, isrā’īliyyāt is observed to be related mainly with the history of the Ahl al-Kitāb or with the subjects they know about. In the modern era, the narratives about the ancestors of the Arabs have been identified as isrā’īliyyāt. If some of the isrā’īliyyāt narratives are related to the history of Arabs, then their resource should be the historical-cultural memory of Arabs. However, as almost all Qur’ānic stories were somewhat known before the revelation period and relations with the Ahl al-Kitāb dated back to times long before the Islamic period, the claim that these narratives became widespread along with Islām should be revised. It is also problematic to emphasize the legendary nature of some of the isrā’īliyyāt and to make that as a reason to reject all. Such emphasis also leads to the underestimation of the functions of narratives in tafsīrs. In isrā’īliyyāt, tafsīr was used for i) interpreting the ambiguous words in the stories, ii) to bring evidence to the Ahl al-Kitāb, and ii) tarhīb-targhīb (encouragement-warning). These narratives can be used as a source in tafsīr unless they are explicitly falsified by the data of fields such as history, history of religions and archaeology as well as the Qur’ān and the true Sunnah. The first criticisms of isrā’īliyyāt are claimed to belong to exegete like Ibn al-‘Arabī (d. 543/148) or Ibn ‘Aṭīyah (d. 541/1147). However, criticism of isrā’īliyyāt is also observed in the tafsīrs of earlier exegete, such as al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058) or al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067). They do not necessarily have to use the term isrā’īliyyāt explicitly in their criticism like the later ones. If the narratives they criticize and the reasons for their criticism are the same as those of the later exegete, it will be necessary to date the criticism of isrā’īliyyāt back to the 4th Century of the Hegira. The understanding that "the expression in the story is sufficient, it is unnecessary to deal with the ambiguities; instead, it is necessary to deal with the lesson and wisdom in the story" is one of the criteria that Muḥammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905), who is deemed to be the pioneer of the strict criticism of isrā’īliyyāt in the modern period, took as basis in this criticism, is valid for the exegete of the classical period, as well. Although exegete, such as al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), al-Māturīdī, al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), and Abū Ḥayyān (d. 745/1344) who had this understanding, gave place to isrā’īliyyāt, these people recognized that "these narratives were not final, binding or necessary”, indeed. The understanding that such expression in the story is sufficient, which is one of the reasons for such awareness in the classical period, seems to have turned into a strict rejection in the modern period. Another issue is the claim that Biqā‘ī (d. 885/1480) was the first exegete to systematically benefit from the Bible in tafsīr in the classical period. However, al-Daylamī (d. 593/1197) before Biqā‘ī, is also observed to have used the Old Testament systematically in tafsīr. He cited the Tanakh in his period in two ways. He either directly quoted from the translation of Tanakh or the Hebrew text written in Arabic letters. Another exegete who used the Tanakh as a source in his tafsīr was al-Ṣafadī (d. 696/1296). He enriched his tafsīr with systematic quotations from the Tanakh. Therefore, the use of the Bible as a source of interpretation in the classical period should not be started with Biqā‘ī. The reason why the pioneer exegete of the classical period did not directly use the Bible is claimed to be the fact that they falsified it and deemed the isrā’īliyyāt narrated from the predecessors to be more reliable. However, it is known that a significant portion of the isrā’īliyyāt, which was orally transferred from the predecessors, is based on written sources, particularly including the apocryphal texts. So just like the Bible, isrā’īliyyāt, which was orally transferred from the predecessors, is problematic in terms of authenticity. This allows us to argue that classical exegete have an inconsistent attitude, indeed. On the other hand, when we take into account the fact that classical exegetes criticize these narratives from time to time and believe that they are not final or binding, the problem of potential inconsistency disappears. Accordingly, they did not deem chain transmission of these narratives from the predecessors by reliable transmitters to be a sufficient reason for their acceptance and adoption for good and all. (shrink)

The human species' adaptive advantage is driven by its ability to build new material structures and artefacts. Engineering is the modern manifestation of this building instinct, and its advent has made the construction and use of technologies the central pattern of human life. In parallel, efficiency, the overarching narrative driving technology and related life practices, has pervaded most occupations as a value, forming a cultural backdrop that implicitly guides decisions and behaviour. We examine the process through which this backdrop has (...) developed, and argue that it emerged through the constant presence and use of built artefacts and structures, which function as manifestations of the engineering value of efficiency. The constant presence and use of built structures leads to the slow percolation of their building values into society, forming a cultural narrative that emphasises efficiency. This narrative then feeds back, to further reinforce efficiency-driven engineering processes. This loop creates a runaway building system that is highly resistant to change, even when faced with the prospect of the species going extinct. Any effort towards sustainability can be successful only when this all-pervading - and hence invisible - building loop is made explicit, and compensated for, through a counter-loop where building manifests sustainable engineering values. As a first step in revealing this structure, we characterise the emergence of the efficiency value as a cultural narrative, and analyse its wide-ranging environmental effects. We then present the design principle of 'Solving for Pattern' (SfP) as an illustrative contrast case. SfP, first articulated by Wendell Berry, focuses on interconnectedness and flourishing of all species as central design principles. We argue that these ecological principles can be extended to engineering, and can thus support the development of a robust operational-level building movement that manifests value systems oriented towards sustainability. To ground this proposal in actual practice, we outline two case studies of technology design that illustrates SfP. We also discuss three cases that illustrate SfP at a larger scale, and examine how these extend existing design approaches such as systems engineering. We conclude with a proposal to include SfP in engineering education curricula, to facilitate a faster cultural shift towards flourishing, which is required given the limited time window available to move to sustainable building practices. (shrink)

Health and health care are vitally important to all of us, and academic interest in the law regulating health has, over the last 50 years, become an important field of academic study. An analysis of the development of, changes in, and scope of Health Law and Ethics to date, is both timely and of interest to students and scholars alike, along with an exploration of its likely future development. This work brings together contributions from leading and emerging scholars in (...) the field. Each contributor has been invited to select and analyse a 'leading work', which has for them shed light on the way that Health Law and Ethics has developed. The chapters are both autobiographical, reflecting upon the works that have proved significant to contributors, and also critical analyses of the current state of the field. This collection also includes a specially written Introduction and Conclusion, which critically reflect upon the development of Health Law and Ethics and its likely future developments in the light of the reflections by contributors on their chosen leading works. The book will be of interest to students, teachers and researchers in Health Law and Ethics, as it provides critical discussions and assessments of some of the leading scholarship in the field. (shrink)

There has been much discussion in recent years regarding the date and authorship of the poems included in the Appendix Vergiliana, and about the Civis and the Culex in particular. Evidence of very various kinds has been brought to bear on the question. My chief aim in this paper is to propound a criterion which as far as I know is new—though it seems to me a fairly conspicuous thing, and I do not know why it has not been investigated (...) —and to examine certain criteria which seem to me to have been treated quite wrongly—treated in a way which could lead to no conclusion—even by so distinguished a scholar as Norden. I propose in a second paper to examine the argument from diction, especially in regard to the Culex, and to try to show that the evidence adduced for Virgilian authorship by Miss Jackson is not so conclusive as it has been supposed to be; and, next, to point out certain features or mannerisms in the Culex which seem to me to be on the whole against authorship by Virgil. I have hardly any doubt that both the Ciris and the Culex were written before 44 B.C., and the Lydia and Dirae only two or three years later; but, while the evidence for the early date of some of the Vergiliana grows stronger on further examination, the evidence for Virgilian authorship seems to me to grow weaker, even in the case of the well-attested Culex. (shrink)

It is probable that few critics, if directly challenged, would admit to believing that a work of literature which was, in some sense, morally objectionable was therefore necessarily totally lacking in literary merit. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon for a man—in the language he uses, in the conclusions he draws, in his obiter dicta—to seem yet to hold a view which, in its bald statement, he has denied. Certainly, those critics who most vehemently wish to dissociate themselves from any (...) claims that art exists for art's sake, or that there are peculiarly ‘aesthetic’ criteria, and who believe that such claims lead to irresponsibility, such critics often use moral concepts extensively in their criticism. Furthermore, they often do this in such a way as to suggest that if a work is morally objectionable, then there is no way of redeeming it aesthetically; for, it would seem, moral criticism exhausts the critical possibilities; no aesthetic saving graces are allowed. (shrink)

Dr Schaffer outlines the development of the mythological school of European Biblical criticism, especially its German origins and its reception in England, and studies the influence of this movement in the work of specific writers: Coleridge Hölderlin, Browning, and George Eliot. The 'higher criticism' treated sacred scripture as literature and as history, as the product of its time, and the highest expression of a developing group consciousness; it challenged current views on the authorship and dating of the (...) class='Hi'>Pentateuch and the Gospels, on inspiration, prophecy, and canonicity, and formulated a new apologetics closely linked with the growth of Romantic aesthetics. The importance of this study is that it shows that readings of specific literary texts can intersect with general movements of thought and action through the scrutiny of a clearly defined intellectual discipline, here the higher criticism, which developed as a particular expression of the larger trends in the history of the period. Dr Shaffer throws light on individual works of literature, the formation between England and Germany, and the bases of European Romanticism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Idealization of Contingency in Traditional Japanese AestheticsRobert Wicks (bio)In many popular writings that date from the initial decades of the twentieth century, and also in recent scholarly studies, "Japanese aesthetics"—insofar as we can speak sweepingly of a complicated, multidimensional, and dynamic historical phenomenon—is characterized with a set of adjectives whose present linguistic entrenchment is clearly evident. Specifically we read that traditional Japanese aesthetics is an aesthetics of imperfection, (...) insufficiency, incompleteness, asymmetry, and irregularity, not to mention perishability, suggestiveness, and simplicity.1 Given this collection of qualities, we are presented with a matching set of paradigmatic Japanese aesthetic experiences and objects, both as illustrations and as legitimations of this close-to-standard portrait. Examples include the suggestive moon covered by drifting clouds, the irregularly formed ceramics of ceremonial teacups, the simple and asymmetrical arrangement of unpolished rocks in the dry landscape garden, the bold and dashing monochromatic strokes typical of Zen calligraphy, transient cherry blossoms, serene and cloud-capped mountain summits, lonely thatched huts, sunsets in the foggy twilight, the call of a crane that breaks through the silence, and the light autumn rain that drizzles upon a secluded pond.Upon further reflection, it becomes noticeable that some familiar Japanese aesthetic objects do not easily conform to this standard picture, and this raises doubts about the typical characterization of Japanese aesthetics. The quintessentially Japanese shōji screens and tatami mats, for instance, are uniformly rectangular rather than irregular in form. They are, moreover, neither asymmetrical, nor imperfect, nor incomplete, nor insufficient. How then, can these perfectly regular screens and mats—items crucial to the aesthetics of Japanese domestic architecture—fit neatly into the usually encountered portrait of traditional Japanese aesthetics, if it is said to be fundamentally "the worship of imperfection"?2 Or similarly if "imperfection" is [End Page 88] the keynote of this aesthetics, how does one explain the meticulously raked surfaces of the dry landscape garden or the impeccably perfected movements requisite for performing the Japanese tea ceremony?3Since such examples do not obviously fit into an "aesthetics of imperfection and insufficiency," some reconsideration of the prevailing characterization of Japanese aesthetics is needed to accommodate these, along with other examples of "perfected" items and arrangements. In short, the main difficulty is that the concept of "perfection" has been underthematized.4 To develop a revaluation of the presently submerged status of "perfection" in most scholarly discussions of Japanese aesthetics, I will highlight the familiar principle of aesthetic complementarity but contextualize the experiential foundations of this principle in a specifically Japanese-philosophic manner, namely, in reference to a fundamental feature of time-consciousness, as described by Dōgen (1200-53). This historical grounding will align the principle of complementarity with some of the acknowledged Zen Buddhist sources of traditional Japanese aesthetics.5 The upshot will be that the above-cited collection of adjectives typically used to describe the prevailing atmosphere of Japanese aesthetics—imperfection, asymmetry, incompleteness, suggestibility, etc.—presents only half of the aesthetic and philosophic story and, moreover, tends to pass over what can be appreciated as a more consequential underlying concept, namely, the idea of "contingency."In what follows, basic reflections on the phenomenology of time-consciousness will lead to the claim that, in many paradigmatic instances of traditional Japanese aesthetics, we have before us a situation that is aptly describable as "the idealization of contingency." This involves the assertion of a philosophic proposition through an aesthetic presentation (i.e., the proposition is expressed using metaphor, symbolism, or analogy). In the case of traditional Japanese aesthetics, the main proposition is the Buddhist-associated one that the foundation of things is contingent, conditional, and nonabsolute (i.e., there are no absolute foundations). The aesthetic presentation of this proposition will, as we shall see, make ample room for "perfection" in understanding Japanese aesthetics: By means of juxtaposing contingent, perishable individuals (which usually have an "imperfect" appearance) against a perfected, polished, and idealized background, the contingency of the individuals is thereby aesthetically highlighted and made more readily appreciable.The resulting criticism of the standard characterization is thus a simple one: The typical group of concepts used to describe traditional Japanese aesthetics has neglected to give due... (shrink)

The contextual approach is a prominent framework for thinking about group selection. Here, I highlight ambiguity about what the contextual approach is. Then, I discuss problematic entailments the contextual approach has for what processes count as group selection—entailments more troublesome than typically noted. However, Sober and Wilson’s version of the Price approach, which is the main alternative to the contextual approach, is problematic too: it leads to an underappreciated paradox called the vanishing selection problem and thereby generates the wrong qualitative (...) account of whether group selection is occurring in a certain family of cases. In response, I develop an account of group selection that can deal with the counterexamples to both the contextual approach and the Price approach. I then discuss the role that contextual analysis can continue to play in the discussion of individual fitness and metapopulation evolution. (shrink)

This essay provides an overview of some recent issues in criticism of early modern English literature. For some scholars the early modern period can only be understood if we accept its irreducible difference; for others, people have always been more or less the same and so reading the past involves knowledge but not a vast leap of faith. Often these differences result in scholars using exactly the same material to reach diametrically opposed conclusions, as examples drawn from (...) the study of early sixteenth-century literature demonstrate. Debates about love and allegory also reveal significant differences between scholars who want to see erotic language in allegorical terms and those who point out that there is a danger is missing the literal reading. Debates about the nature of print and publishing, how writers perceived their careers, how texts should be edited and what methods are appropriate for the study of early modern literature are also discussed. The article does not attempt to resolve all these important debates but shows that differences often stem from diverse conceptions of what literature actually is and what it does, indicating that the importance of such arguments ranges beyond the immediate object of study. (shrink)

The trend to centralization of the Mizrahi narrative has become an integral part of the nationalistic, ethnic, religious, and ideological-political dimensions of the emerging, complex Israeli identity. This trend includes several forms of opposition: strong opposition to "melting pot" policies and their ideological leaders; opposition to the view that ethnicity is a dimension of the tension and schisms that threaten Israeli society; and, direct repulsion of attempts to silence and to dismiss Mizrahim and so marginalize them hegemonically. The Mizrahi Democratic (...) Rainbow [The Keshet], the most prominent proponent and representative of this trend, was established in the 1990s with the intention of being a leading civic and political body in Israeli society. While it was the Mizrahi worldview that led to selection of the organization's name and aims, their vision was to be involved in social struggle on behalf of other groups in Israeli society. Since it was established, The Keshet has aimed to function as an assertive, long-term alternative coalition exerting influence, power, and pressure on the Israeli narrative network. And, indeed, the organization has succeeded in disrupting Israeli discourse, principally, by challenging the ideological foundations of the Zionist meta-narrative. Nearing the end of the first decade of the 21st century and nearly a decade since it was established, The Keshet not only represents the most current wave of Mizrahi discourse, it has changed it to such a great degree that it is impossible to ignore its influence. Further, this alternative narrative may have significant potential to advance the internal Jewish discourse so fundamental at this time given the changing Israeli situation and regional conditions. And, while it is possible to view The Keshet and this new narrative as a continuation of the Mizrahi struggle, as a narrative The Keshet's agenda represents a post-colonial perspective and multi-cultural alternative to Zionism as a social vehicle. Amidst all of this, The Keshet continues to offer concrete proposals to change the Jewish character of the state as well as its internal and external relations. One of the primary goals of this study was to examine the rise of the Mizrahi narrative over the last two decades and the new Mizrahi discourse in Israeli society. More specifically, the study sought to attain an in-depth understanding of the central narrative created and represented by The Keshet. An additional goal was to investigate the influence of The Keshet's activity and the narrative it constructed in regard to other narratives. In particular, the study focused on The Keshet's opposition to the central Zionist narrative that infuses civic, political, and academic frameworks in Israel. Accordingly, the primary research questions investigated in the study sought to determine: What has been the influence of the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow on the Mizrahi narrative in Israel? And, what are implications of such influence for the central Zionist narrative? Methodologically, the study was based on narrative and comparative analyses of texts from different periods of the older and newer Mizrahi narratives. The corpus included two types of texts: First, academic texts and opinion pieces, both philosophical and programmatic in nature, published in magazines, journals, books, as well as position papers; second, all of the texts published by prominent and influential figures who charted the path of The Keshet or led it organizationally and/or intellectually over the last twenty years (e. g., Yehudah Shenhav, Yossi Yona, Moshe Krief among others). All texts were examined by means of philosophical, historical and critical hermeneutic tools. This analysis revealed different levels of Mizrahi and civic discourse in Israel as well as among The Keshet's founders and leading ideologues. The study was based on a three stage process model, developed for purposes of this study, for investigation and analysis of the new Mizrahi narrative as well as other oppositional narratives, in particular opposition to the hegemonic meta-narrative. The stages are: issuing the challenge, dissolution and, liberation; that is, liberation is the measure of the ultimate success of the struggle for narrative change. Such change is not based on success in the field, but rather on a radical, fundamental reversal of thought, discourse patterns, stylistic structures, as well as forms of questioning - in this case of taken-for-granted racist mechanisms. However, the principal change is in achieving a deep, inner de-legitimization of the signifiers, categories, and reproductions of all manner of mockery that are based on immoral colonialist processes that are reinforced by regimes of fear and intimidation whose self-destruction began upon their very creation. This three stage model charts the course of the oppositional Mizrahi narrative from: accounting for the past (passing judgment on the so-called historic colonialist Zionism) to writing a new (pure Mizrahi) history and creation of a Mizrahi-Arab identity separate from the Ashkenazic, identified as Zionist. Contemporary post-colonialist discourse is integral in these stages. Such a perspective has been transformed by transitions from - binarism to hybridity, Orientalism to Occidentalism, the politics of "liberation" to "constructive" politics, from the history of consciousness to the history of change, as well as from nationalist to post-nationalist questions. Fundamentally, according to this approach, political and other struggles for the emerging narrative of Mizrahi (or Arab) history seek to centralize it in society and weave it amidst the models of multiculturalism. Undertaken in parallel, the central characteristics of all these stages are borrowed from countries in which the need for national reconciliation led to renunciation of apartheid and racist policies and historical judgment of the hegemony supported by racist leaders. In addition, these three moves were undertaken in Keshet and its ideologues by means of substantive symbolic violence directed at the hegemonic Ashkenazic discourse, which included creation of hatred of it, use of stereotypes the opposite of oppressive discourse, and adoption of an arrogant point of view toward it. This stands in stark contrast to the claims of the self-proclaimed new Mizrahi stance of a discourse established on purely ethical grounds that sought to cleanse itself of these very same oppressive elements. The model developed for and demonstrated in this study allows for analysis of oppositional narratives in which the libratory stage evolves into a form of entrapment, as appears to be occurring to the new Mizrahi discourse. This conclusion is based on the observations shared by many Keshet proponents including leading intellectuals who worked on the manifestos that were the subject of criticism from the Zionist camp. The study identified and defined the following six interwoven strata, which for purposes of explication are each discussed in a separate chapter: The first chapter presents a general theoretical discussion of the issue of the narrative and the inter-narrative struggle that has become central and applicable in various ways in the latest generation (e. g., anthropologically, hermeneutically, and philosophically). The analysis surveys different discussions in the inter-narrative struggle and locates them in the contexts, relations, and meanings derived from, representing, and indeed reproducing the narrative of national identity. The second chapter includes a historical survey of the older Mizrahi struggle that existed prior to the ascendance of the new Mizrahi narrative. Initially, Mizrahi discourse focused on expressing the ethnic protest that grew in years to follow. These feelings of discrimination and social distancing of the immigrants from Islamic countries gave birth to expressions of protest, the most prominent of which were Wadi Salib and the Black Panther Movement's various activities. The research literature contains many explanations for the exacerbation of the ethnic problem and creation of a situation that could not be ignored. The consensus academic view reached at the end of the 1970s identified a number of primary factors for this situation: the existence and extensive numbers of different ethnic groups; the relative or absolute segregation of frameworks within which members of these ethnic groups lived and acted; and the significant overlap between socio-economic status and feelings of discrimination retained by members of the Mizrahi group due years of neglect by the Ashkenazic establishment, the strengthening of Mizrahi social, cultural, and political power, as well as the emergence of a Mizrahi elite that identified with Mizrahi problems. The severe consequences of feelings of discrimination were expressed in a long series of events, such as: rioting by residents of the Rehovot Sharayim neighborhood in 1956; events of Wadi Salib in Haifa in 1959; and a chain of activities involving the Black Panthers in the 1970s. Protest was also an aspect of the "tent movement" in the 1970s and 1980s. Political activities were advanced by the Tami Movement that competed in the election for the 10th Knesset in 1981 and the Shas Movement that has continued to garner political power since being found in 1984. The 1980s and 1990s were characterized as the era of radical consciousness of Mizrahi discourse as well as by the rise to power, in consecutive order, of the political parties – Tami, Shas, and the Mizrahim HaHadashim [the New Mizrahi]. The latter party laid the foundations of the new radical Mizrahi discourse from which emerged such cultural activities as: Iton Aher [A Different Newspaper]; Bimat Kivon Aher [Another Direction Forum]; Efir'yon journal; the Halah Organization for Education in Neighborhoods, Development Towns, and Villages; Kedma; the newspaper – Patish [Hammer]; and, eventually the establishment of Keshet. The third chapter presents an examination of the materialization of the inter-narrative struggle in the case of Israel, with a specific focus on The Keshet and the new Mizrahi narrative advanced by it and intellectuals. The Keshet ideology is examined in the context of its grounding in post-colonial thought, especially that of Edward Said; the directions proposed by Ella Shohat and her followers; the central thinkers of the narrative in Israel in the last decade; and the harsh critique leveled at the Ashkenazic-Zionist narrative. The practical steps proposed for implementation within the multicultural model are also examined. Here the effort to reduce the centrality of Zionism while revealing its oppressive mechanisms was undertaken in parallel with use of these mechanisms in order to create a Mizrahi space with broad margins inclusive of alternative forms of Israeli identity in the Middle East and in conjunction with Arabs within and beyond Israel. Mizrahi traditionalism is examined in the fourth chapter in two particular respects. First, the criticism of the new Mizrahi narrative leveled by the renewed view and, second, the implications of the alternative in terms of creating a Mizrahi space that does not oppose Zionism. Rather, in opposing the post-colonialist perspective, this renewed traditionalist perspective criticizes as well as values Zionism. This space seeks to be both Jewish and Mizrahi. It does not detach itself from nationalist Zionism but rather views itself as a continuation of this tradition and, accordingly, is an effort to develop a next stage in its development. For example, an essential dimension of the traditionalist perspective, "commitment," is considered in this stage to be a fertile basis for dialogue with the past and as an anchor for contemporary interpretation of Mizrahi and other Jews' identities in Israel. The fifth and sixth chapters deal with all of the vectors of criticism directed at the new Mizrahi narrative, including its ideological foundations, philosophical stance, as well as intellectual and practical basis in the Israeli sphere in the face of Palestinian nationalism. These vectors of criticism from within and beyond The Keshet deal with issues, such as, the meaning of the movement's activities and the narrative that it offers regarding questions of Israeli identity, Israeli collective memory, and Mizrahi self-perception. At the same time, it must confront the capitalist neo-liberal narrative in a global world and thrive in a context in which it must make itself manifest amidst oppositional narratives. The final chapter presents a comprehensive, critical analysis of the new Mizrahi narrative. It does so by means of a theoretical model that examines it as an oppositional narrative – one that seeks to challenge the hegemonic meta-narrative, to dissolve the boundaries of the narrative discourse, and to propose liberation and redemption that may led to entrapment amidst a changing, a-dichotomous realities (e. g., global economic development in the face of Zionist nationalisms that display ideological strength as well as development of the sense of being an Israeli that maintains its vitality and continuity while being constituted by sectors that challenge being a Mizrahi, such as co-ethnic subjects. The Keshet's influence is dramatic and extends in a number of central directions. Its political activity and non-entry into the domains of the Israeli parliament granted the movement significant power in civic discourse and contributed to changing the persona of the Mizrahi discourse; for example, from political-party struggles over budgets and obtaining shares of the regime to changing the face of Israeli society and the centrality of the Mizrahi narrative. This change included deconstructing the Ashkenazic narrative and constructing comprehensive Ashkenazic-Zionist guilt, as evident in the Ehud Barak's request for collective forgiveness. This was accomplished through the participation of leading members of Keshet who appeared in prominent intellectual forums and engaged in lively discourse - principally in academic, social, and media domains. Such participation gave new meaning to various aspects of Israeli society while establishing different models of multiculturalism. The rise of the new Mizrahi narrative is a significant marker in the inter-narrative struggle as it represents a desire for separate or hybrid identities. And, the deep probing of the narrative constructed by leaders of The Keshet and those who identify with the movement produced a number of clear ways to distinguish it from the old Mizrahi struggle, whose history was portrayed through social protests, in a manner similar to linear vectors marked with wars and elections. The old Mizrahi struggle selected the traditional tactical struggle identified usually with social and political movements that seek to change political, social, and economic reality - from the bottom up. Their primary demand was to change decisions as well as the division of social goods and resources. Hence, this older period of struggle was not aimed at opposing the ideological foundations of the hegemonic narrative nor did it seek to undermine in a radical manner the unique nature of the state of Israel as a revolutionary solution for the problems of the Jews according to the Zionist approach, as a national home for the Jewish people, and recognition of the right to an preferred and meta-definition of Jewish nationalism. In contrast, the top down struggle advanced by the new narrative is part of an ideological movement led by the educated that is assertive and ground in post-colonialist theory. Accordingly, it was critical of the techniques and mechanisms of oppression as well as sought to attack the Zionist ideological foundations and to reveal its racist operations and the regimes that have preserved it so efficiently for many years. The uniqueness of this narrative is the intellectual offensive that continues to be advanced and, in parallel, development of the discourse struggle in Israel concerning the justification for Zionism and the concrete political proposal that Jews reject the taken-for-granted status of it as an ideology. This new narrative recognizes the historic difficulties of subversion as an emancipatory and, principally, moral effort. In addition, the new Mizrahi narrative shares the foundations and narrative of Palestinian victimization. In its radical version, the new Mizrahi narrative seeks to connect to the Palestinian narrative in order to create a new space here. According to this version, this action will take place gradually. The first stage will be characterized by opposition to Western European, Ashkenazic Zionism. The Eurocentric Zionism will surrender in the second stage, to be followed in the last stage by creation of a coalition of Jews and Arabs that will be establish through concrete actualization of the refugee status and victimization that is shared by both Palestinians and Mizrahim (whether as Mizrahim or Jewish-Arab). Not a speculative academic exercise, the goal sought by this narrative is delineate and to achieve a multicultural model in which equality, liberty, and social justice will overcome the nationalism and colonialism of either side; that is it will be neither Zionist nor Jewish. Thus, this approach stresses what is shared (e.g., acceptance of the Arab space and not a rejection of it; the legitimacy of the Arab language and culture). This is part of detachment from and historic judgment of the colonialist Zionist enterprise. This possibility includes moral elements that remove the evil and harm caused by Zionism for many years as well as inner cleansing – primarily among Ashkenazim – of attitudes towards Jews and non-Jews. Though, in this regard, it should be noted that, to date, the new narrative has not made similar claims that Palestinians undergo a similar process. The assumption seems to be that this should be tested, that the coalition proposed is a possibility that will be recognized by the Palestinians, and that they are prepared to undergo a similar, shared moral process that involves negating the state of Israel as a Jewish, Western state, a state of the Jewish people, and not only for those who live within it. These Mizrahi thinkers conducted a significant move through deconstruction and substitution of the Eurocentric narrative with a multi-cultural proposal that is optimistic and even attractively naïve. Today, they acknowledge that they did not take into account Palestinian nationalist violence directed to citizens, the traditionalist alternative, and widespread opposition within the Mizrahi community toward what is perceived to be Mizrahi seclusion. They also did not take into account the harsh criticism rendered by young and educated Mizrahim who claim that they were born into a complex, multi-dimensional, multi-layered identity that includes internalization of the language of the West and rules of the game of this complex identity. And, though they are critical of some of its values, this makes it difficult to mount internal emotional opposition to the West and to the globalization contained within this world. Hence, this more familiar world is preferred over the values of the Mizrahi-Arab alternative, particularly in regard to problems in the domains of democratic citizenship, stance taken toward women, and freedom of speech. Further, educated Mizrachim reject the post-colonialist perspective and are stridently critical of its dichotomization. They claim that such a division is irrelevant in a world in which older ideologies have collapsed and new spheres – such as cyberspace and others – are open to them in which they can present themselves with an Israeli identity that is not categorized as necessarily Mizrahi. (shrink)

Dispositionalism is the theory of modality according to which all (metaphysical and natural) modal truths are made true by some actual irreducibly dispositional property. The relationship between Dispositionalism and time is yet to be satisfactorily explored. In this paper we contribute to this task by examining how Dispositionalism deals with ‘dated truths’: propositions involving a specific time, e.g. “It might rain at 12.30”. We examine two possible accounts: the first, 'Dated Manifestations Strategy', is the idea that powers are very (...) fine-grained, and tend towards temporally very specific manifestations. We argue that such strategy should not be adopted, for it leads to unnecessary violations of ontological parsimony; it is unable to accommodate an ontology of platonic universals; and it is incapable of offering a principled explanation of the forward-looking nature of powers. We offer an alternative account, the "Duration Strategy", which relies on an independently determined arrow of time and the existence of some “duration facts” that specify how long a power takes to bring about its manifestation. We argue that the Duration Strategy is to be preferred. We then flesh out the account by exploring the connection between powers, duration facts, and processes. (shrink)

Based on two presentations during a February 2020 South African academic visit at the University of Pretoria and the University of Johannesburg, in this contribution, the authors of this article engage with one of the bestselling recent volumes in philosophy, Martin Hägglund’s This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free (here, the 2020 edition; initial publication date, 2019). In this book, Hägglund propagates ideas akin to those promoted within secular humanism. Whilst on the one hand this article elaborates the shortcomings of (...) Hägglund’s criticism of religion, on the other hand it also strives for an empathetic reading of his secular humanist philosophy. The authors place this conversation within the post-secular religio-cultural climate currently rising internationally, along with some further contextualising remarks. The most important part of this article is the last section (‘Pitting some theological voices…’) in which the authors engage Hägglund’s main arguments theologically, which elaborate on the finitude of human life all the whilst denying it a prospect of immortality. The debate in this section procceeds along the lines of religious thought of Emmanuel Falque, Ebenhard Jüngel and Dewi Zephania Phillips, with a view to reconcile the radical awareness of finitude and temporality of human life, characteristic for modern discourse(s), with the religious language practices sustaining belief in eternal life. Contribution: This article engages with how Martin Hägglund’s This Life: Why Mortality Makes Us Free does not fairly convey aspects of the sense of secularism, and can additionally on the senses of finitude and temporality be improved by insights from Emmanuel Falque, Ebenhard Jüngel and Dewi Zephania Phillips. (shrink)

Attention to criticism and growth! It appears Aristotle had a dialectical method with two main phases: a) doxographic induction - a form of re-collecting ideas of previous generations; it is related to Plato's anamnesis. b) organisation of knowledge by classification ; it is natural in view of Aristotle's organismic outlook. Against common misconceptions: Aristotle was not anti-empirical, nor anti-critical . Doxographic induction is a prime example of critical and "empirical" methodology. Against Popper: Aristotle's subscription to the ideal of certainty (...) is not the main source of dogmatism in the Aristotelian paradigm. A theory of science has to take cognizance of social settings, how these support or repress critical dialectical method. Against Feyerabend: Galileo's use of re-collection in his dialogues is not trick persuasion; it is a continaution of an old method, viz., doxographic induction. Granted that it has always had persuasive as well as other psychological aspects. It serves the double function of giving clues, and leading the mind into the frame of a paradigm. Finally, it is proposed that theory of science and classical scholarship must sometimes call on each other, just like theory of science and history of science. (shrink)

Max Scheler and Mencius both take feeling to be the origin of value and could therefore be considered to be proponents of axiological sentimentalism. Despite the great spatial and temporal distance between them, there are striking similarities between the theories of value they developed. It should be noted, however, that there are also some differences between them that are mainly derived from some difficulties with their theories of value. These difficulties should be removed so that a better theory (...) of value could be developed. It is accordingly the aim of this paper to promote a phenomenological dialogue between Scheler and Mencius that could lead to such a better theory. In Sects. 1, 2, I will first delineate Scheler’s theory of value and feeling, then that of Mencius. In Sect. 3, I will point out some difficulties with the two theories and promote a dialogue between them that would improve each theory. In Sect. 4, I will conclude with some remarks concerning the future task of the phenomenological dialogue between Scheler and Mencius. (shrink)

The main objection to non‐cognitivism explored in the philosophical literature to date has been semantic in nature. How can normative claims lack truth conditions when they have so many features in common with claims that have truth conditions? The main aim of this paper is to shift attention away from this dominant line of objection onto a range of other problems that non‐cognitivists face. Specifically, I argue that, contrary to the non‐cognitivists, normative claims do express beliefs, even by their own (...) lights; that the truth of Normative Judgement Internalism does not support non‐cognitivism; that arguing for non‐cognitivism on the basis of the Open Question Argument, as non‐cognitivists do, leads them to embrace a contradiction; and, finally, that non‐cognitivists do not provide us with plausible candidates for the desires and aversions that, as they see things, get expressed in normative claims. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Knowing Better: Sex, Cultural Criticism, and the Pedagogical Imperative in the 1990sRichard Burt (bio) and Jeffrey Wallen (bio)Teacher Petting“A distinguished professor and her graduate student French-kissed in front of a semicircle of gaping students. Were they furthering ‘an exploration of the erotics of the relation between teacher and student’ as the professor says—or was it part of a pattern of sexual harassment as the student later charged?” So (...) ran the copy on an envelope advertising in 1994 an “extraordinary one-time offer $9.95 trial subscription” to Lingua Franca in 1994. 1 The enclosed letter relates an anecdote about two complaints against Jane Gallop filed by two female graduate students alleging she had sexually harassed them. Gallop defended having French-kissed a graduate student in a bar in front of other students in the same class by saying it was a pedagogical performance. The letter quotes from a Lingua Franca cover story that came to Gallop’s defense [Talbot].As sex between students and professors has become a topic of new interest in the wake of sexual harassment legislation, as colleges have adopted campus sexual conduct codes or debate doing so, and as debates and incidents involving sex and teaching have attracted widespread media attention, the anecdote has become central. Some critics might want to dismiss the Lingua Franca story as nothing more than titillating tabloid gossip or take it seriously only by regarding it as an effort to combat a right-wing agenda to smear innocent professors who, as feminist or queer, are politically and intellectually well to the left of the mainstream. But the anecdotal interests us precisely because it involves more than just a tabloid scandal in any simple sense. Sex is not merely a way one can slur kinds of criticism one doesn’t like by tarnishing its proponents (for teaching sexual, transgressive material to shock, pervert, or in the extreme case—as in this instance—literally seduce students) though it can sometimes function in this way. For sex comes up in anecdotes told by cultural critics to one another, and when it comes up, it comes up in the same way it does in “tabloid” coverage. The anecdote about sex is never really just about sex, about who did or didn’t (French) kiss, suck, and/or fuck whom: it is rather a story about something in the pedagogical relation that has gone wrong, about a connection that has gone off track. Anecdotes about sex and teaching are really stories about criticism, about pedagogy itself as a form of criticism, and about failed pedagogy as the occasion for self-criticism.Yet if the anecdote is not really about sex, sex is hardly irrelevant to the production of what the anecdote is really about, namely, criticism. Indeed, we want to focus on the question of sex between students and professors because it is precisely sexuality that puts pressure on different, key aspects of the project of cultural criticism and on the present contestation over it within and outside of academia. Campus codes are being introduced [End Page 72] as new pedagogical practices, and new courses are being introduced into the classroom: disruption though impersonation, performative strategies, bringing the personal and the erotic into the classroom, and classes making use of pornography, even hardcore visual pornography, often taught by feminist women. 2 According to leading cultural critics, destabilizing gender roles shows us how gender is constructed, and tells us about power in ways that are politically and performatively effective. 3But there is often a moment when the game breaks down in the classroom. Someone gets offended, and given the way that for some sexual harassment extends from unwanted sexual advances or trading grades for sexual favors to classroom materials (both written and visual), offense can easily move into complaint, legal action, media attention, and of course administrative and professorial panic. The usual rationale for transgressive pedagogy is that this disruption will be successful, not just anarchic: it will be successful in that it gets in the way of the replication and reproduction of power (this is the new mission for teaching: to disrupt the transmission and reproduction of patriarchal power structures... (shrink)

In this paper, I will examine the possibility of first philosophy from a phenomenological point of view. I will do this by assessing Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s conception of first philosophy. In Sect. 1, I will delineate Husserl’s conception of first philosophy. In Sect. 2, I will introduce Levinas’s conception of ethics as first philosophy and sketch out his criticism of Husserl’s conception of first philosophy. In Sect. 3, I will assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s conception and (...) show that from a phenomenological point of view, it is possible to develop first philosophy only in a relative sense and not in an absolute sense. The possibility of first philosophy in a relative sense implies that both Husserl’s and Levinas’s conceptions of first philosophy have some limitations and should be revised, since in a certain way, they are each conceived from an absolute point of view. In Sect. 4, I will show that the conception of first philosophy in a relative sense is a phenomenological one and sketch out some basic features of first philosophy in a relative sense. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 13.2 (2005) 142-145 [Access article in PDF] The Doing of Philosophy in the Music Class: Some Practical Considerations. Response to Bennett Reimer Mary J. Reichling University of Louisiana at Lafayette How I respond to Bennett Reimer's challenge depends in part on how we define philosophy in this context. We might think of philosophy as a subject of study, that is, philosophy in itself (...) such as epistemology, metaphysics, and so on. Or we may conceive it as philosophy of music, better designated as aesthetics. Or we may consider philosophy as a verb in the sense of "doing" philosophy where our goal is to assist students in developing their thinking skills. It seems that Reimer is placing focus on the last, the doing of philosophy, not that these other views of philosophy are mutually exclusive; they are not.Yet even this distinction is not sufficient for discussion. I am reminded of a little book edited by Eunice Boardman, titled Dimensions of Musical Thinking and published by MENC in 1989. It is a real gem with many fine ideas. In particular it stresses the relationship of content-area knowledge to thinking, and that is what I want to do. Developing thinking skills does not take place in a vacuum: "Now I am going to think." It occurs with respect to a subject area. We have philosophy of science, philosophy of history, philosophy of art, and so on, and philosophy of music.Further, our thinking about music occurs in at least two different ways. I suggest that music possesses both instrumental and intrinsic value with respect to philosophical analysis, as well as instances where the two values are combined. In pondering these values we bring together several so-called philosophical 'methodologies': the search for meaning or understanding, analysis, criticism, [End Page 142] and synthesis. In the process we build arguments that are consistent, coherent, and correspond with the musical evidence.1And further, in our field, students, whether it be through course content itself or through performance classes, have the advantage of gaining both propositional knowledge, learning that, for example, the rhythmic value of eighth notes, and procedural knowledge or learning how, for example, performing eighth notes vocally or instrumentally.2Both of which challenge the students' thinking skills.It is also important to articulate several assumptions if we aspire to "doing" philosophy within the teaching of music. These include a belief that it is worthwhile to develop such thinking skills as I have outlined; that we are willing to take the time for dialogue within the music class or rehearsal hour; and that we as teachers are willing to be facilitators of questions rather than experts with answers.I shall attempt with a few examples to show how these thinking processes might be integrated into the music curriculum following Jerome Brunner's view that children can be taught anything if done so at their level of understanding.The first example relates to the instrumental value of music as it supports text or programmatic conceptions. Let us consider the text of a particular song such as "Blowing in the Wind" or the "Kookaburra" song, the subject of an opera such as Berg's Wozzeck, or the topic of war as exemplified in Britten's War Requiem or some of the protest songs. We ask students how the extra musical subjects are established musically, how the music communicates the ideas, why one musical setting is preferred or better than another, and so forth. In dialoging about these examples, students must first of all be perceptive listeners or participants, then analyze at their level of ability. For an elementary child such analysis might be as simple as pointing out the tempo, mood, rhythms, dynamics, or other expressive elements. Advanced students will have a more extensive musical background to draw upon. Through the analysis students come to a synthesis of these factors that leads to greater understanding of the meaning of the music as they approach questions of value and beauty. If the teacher... (shrink)

In his article ‘The substance view: A critique’, Rob Lovering argues that the substance view –according to which a human person comes into existence at the moment of conception – leads to such implausible implications that this view should be abandoned. I responded to his reductio arguments in ‘A critique of Rob Lovering's criticism of the substance view’ and concluded that his arguments did not justify a rejection of the substance view. Now Lowering and William Simkulet have both responded (...) to my criticism, claiming that my criticism of Lovering's article did not refute his original arguments. In this article I respond to their criticism and conclude that, while the substance view has some less plausible implications, none of them justify a complete refutation of this view. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 13.2 (2005) 142-145 [Access article in PDF] The Doing of Philosophy in the Music Class: Some Practical Considerations. Response to Bennett Reimer Mary J. Reichling University of Louisiana at Lafayette How I respond to Bennett Reimer's challenge depends in part on how we define philosophy in this context. We might think of philosophy as a subject of study, that is, philosophy in itself (...) such as epistemology, metaphysics, and so on. Or we may conceive it as philosophy of music, better designated as aesthetics. Or we may consider philosophy as a verb in the sense of "doing" philosophy where our goal is to assist students in developing their thinking skills. It seems that Reimer is placing focus on the last, the doing of philosophy, not that these other views of philosophy are mutually exclusive; they are not.Yet even this distinction is not sufficient for discussion. I am reminded of a little book edited by Eunice Boardman, titled Dimensions of Musical Thinking and published by MENC in 1989. It is a real gem with many fine ideas. In particular it stresses the relationship of content-area knowledge to thinking, and that is what I want to do. Developing thinking skills does not take place in a vacuum: "Now I am going to think." It occurs with respect to a subject area. We have philosophy of science, philosophy of history, philosophy of art, and so on, and philosophy of music.Further, our thinking about music occurs in at least two different ways. I suggest that music possesses both instrumental and intrinsic value with respect to philosophical analysis, as well as instances where the two values are combined. In pondering these values we bring together several so-called philosophical 'methodologies': the search for meaning or understanding, analysis, criticism, [End Page 142] and synthesis. In the process we build arguments that are consistent, coherent, and correspond with the musical evidence.1And further, in our field, students, whether it be through course content itself or through performance classes, have the advantage of gaining both propositional knowledge, learning that, for example, the rhythmic value of eighth notes, and procedural knowledge or learning how, for example, performing eighth notes vocally or instrumentally.2Both of which challenge the students' thinking skills.It is also important to articulate several assumptions if we aspire to "doing" philosophy within the teaching of music. These include a belief that it is worthwhile to develop such thinking skills as I have outlined; that we are willing to take the time for dialogue within the music class or rehearsal hour; and that we as teachers are willing to be facilitators of questions rather than experts with answers.I shall attempt with a few examples to show how these thinking processes might be integrated into the music curriculum following Jerome Brunner's view that children can be taught anything if done so at their level of understanding.The first example relates to the instrumental value of music as it supports text or programmatic conceptions. Let us consider the text of a particular song such as "Blowing in the Wind" or the "Kookaburra" song, the subject of an opera such as Berg's Wozzeck, or the topic of war as exemplified in Britten's War Requiem or some of the protest songs. We ask students how the extra musical subjects are established musically, how the music communicates the ideas, why one musical setting is preferred or better than another, and so forth. In dialoging about these examples, students must first of all be perceptive listeners or participants, then analyze at their level of ability. For an elementary child such analysis might be as simple as pointing out the tempo, mood, rhythms, dynamics, or other expressive elements. Advanced students will have a more extensive musical background to draw upon. Through the analysis students come to a synthesis of these factors that leads to greater understanding of the meaning of the music as they approach questions of value and beauty. If the teacher... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 334-345 [Access article in PDF] Philosophy After Joyce:Derrida and Davidson Reed Way Dasenbrock A GOOD DEAL OF ATTENTION has been paid to James Joyce's influence on literature. Few novelists in the twentieth century have escaped Joyce's influence one way or another, and Robert Martin Adams has even dedicated a book, AfterJoyce, 1 to the proposition that the history of prose fiction is most properly (...) divided into two eras, before and after Joyce. One suspects that Joyce would have appreciated Adams's quasi-blasphemous periodizing.My focus here is Joyce's influence on a different intellectual and cultural realm, philosophy. Joyce's impact on philosophy clearly has not been of the same magnitude. Joyce is not one of those rare figures who have spanned fields or been as important an influence in another field as in his own, unlike Nietzsche, say, or a figure of concern to us here, Jacques Derrida. Joyce's impact on philosophy, thus, is not epoch-changing or field-changing in the way his impact on literature is. Wittgenstein and Heidegger are the two philosophers in the twentieth century whose work have comparably been assessed as epoch-changing. It is worth noting that both men are close contemporaries of Joyce: Wittgenstein, in particular, with his multilingual, Austro-Hungarian, and pan-European character, orientation towards the arts, defiance of so many philosophical conventions, and self-awareness of language, offers a fascinating parallel with Joyce, a parallel already explored to [End Page 334] some extent in the literature. If Joyce, Stravinsky, Picasso, and Le Corbusier, for example, can be said to exemplify modernist literature, music, painting, and architecture, then Wittgenstein is the exemplification of modernist philosophy. But Modernism, or at least so we are told, is out of fashion and out of date, yet Joyce remains our contemporary in ways many of his fellow modernists may not. Nowhere is this more clearly shown than in his continuing presence in contemporary philosophy.The conventional way of writing the history of philosophy in the twentieth century is to divide it into two camps, one oriented towards mathematics, science and logical analysis, a school of philosophy called the analytic or Anglo-American school, the other oriented towards literature and culture and an engagement with the history of philosophy, called the Continental school. That there are a number of problems with this way of mapping the field is by now widely accepted, but no one has successfully replaced this division with anything generally seen to be more adequate, so we continue to use the terms, if as Derrida might say "under erasure." If contemporary analytic philosophy has a single leading figure, I would assign that position to Donald Davidson; continental philosophy has distinct German and French variants, but clearly foremost on the French side is Jacques Derrida. One of the factors leading to our awareness that this bipolar model of the history of twentieth-century philosophy doesn't work very well has been a body of work pointing out a number of similarities between the work of these two philosophers. 2 But what hasn't been pointed out is that both philosophers are interested in Joyce. Thus, the work of Joyce is one of the places the two currents of philosophy merge or at least come into contact. In my opinion, neither Derrida nor Davidson is or deserves to be a crucial figure in Joyce criticism, but looking at their interest in Joyce allows us to trace a neglected chapter in Joyce's influence on the culture and thought of our time and to assess the similarities and differences between the work of these two philosophers.Derrida's work on Joyce includes two essays on Joyce, one an address to the 1984 Joyce Symposium in Frankfurt, "Ulysses Gramophone: Hear say yes in Joyce," 3 an essay which Margot Norris included in A Companion to James Joyce's Ulysses (in abridged form) as one of five exemplary or representative pieces of theoretical approaches to Ulysses (representing deconstruction, of course), and an earlier essay on Finnegans Wake, "Two Words for Joyce... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Social, the Outer and the ReflexiveSome More Dimensions of Subjectivity, Schizophrenia, and Its RecoveryThe author reports no conflicts of interest.First of all, I want to express my gratitude to the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry, Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, and the Karl Jaspers Award Committee for their recognition of my paper "Institution or individuality? Some reflections on the lessons to be learned from personal (...) accounts of recovery from schizophrenia" (Wannberg, 2024). I am also very thankful for Dr. Paul B. Lieberman's (2024) and Pr. Elizabeth Pienkos' (2024) stimulating comments on the paper.In the original paper, I used the case of the first person accounts of recovery from schizophrenia as a paradigm to elucidate the components of subjectivity more generally, as well as their logical relations. My main point was that considering the "recovery claim" as potentially endowed with a meaning sufficiently close to the official definition of the "personal" sense of recovery at stake—that is, in brief, having "become oneself" despite recurring or residual symptoms—invites us to question current phenomenological, narrative and constructionist approaches of the self in psychopathology. By contrast to these, I stressed the need of a conception of the self more sensible to its social and interpersonal dimensions, which I attempted to sketch out notably by resorting to Wittgenstein's (1953/1997) idea of "grammar." I am very happy that both Lieberman and Pienkos see the appeal to the social as a welcome move with regard to prevailing approaches to schizophrenia and its recovery. But what does it really mean for the subjective or the individual to be socially and interpersonally constituted, and how are we to account for that? [End Page 75]At a first glance, appealing to the social seems to be in line with current trends in psychopathology, including, as Pienkos points out, in the phenomenological tradition. She elsewhere announces a "shift in emphasis" currently taking place within phenomenological psychopathology, characterized by an increasing interest in the situated and dated aspects of subjectivity (Pienkos et al., 2023). This is a valuable turn. However, I am quite dubious that the well-known distinction between an "experiential" and a "narrative" self to which Pienkos appeals is apt to do all the conceptual work required to attain a satisfactory conception of the self and its social dimensions. In my original paper, I took the "recovery account" to challenge both these notions. As concerns the experiential dimension, I held that this type of account questions the phenomenologist's assumption that subjectivity is ultimately grounded in lived (self-)experience. Provided that typical symptoms of schizophrenia (e.g., thought insertion) are expressions of a disorder situated at this most "fundamental" level of the self and provided that they are stemming, at least according to one of the most widespread phenomenological models, from a trait-like disposition present before the onset of psychosis (e.g., Henriksen et al., 2019), it is quite natural to think that these symptoms persist in some form in the context of recovery (e.g., as intrusive thoughts or as "thoughts spoken out loud"). This is indeed the case for several of the authors "in recovery" in the Schizophrenia Bulletin's archives (e.g., Greenblat, 2000), which provided the main source of my analysis. But if this is so, we cannot see their recovery claim as an expression of a "whole" self, so to speak. So we must either say that "personal" recovery from schizophrenia is an illusion or a contradiction, or else we must revise the foundational status of the experiential dimension (other possible options are left aside for the purposes of this brief comment). I argue for the revisionist option. For the equation between the subjective and the experiential does not only lead to an unwelcomed skepticism about the recovery account. There are also more straightforward philosophical reasons for refusing it. Wittgenstein (1980) made a first important step by inviting us to better take into account the variability of the psychological concepts. He notably made a crucial categorical distinction between "lived experiences" (like sensations and mental images) and "attitudes" (like beliefs and intentions) such that all concepts which, when used in the first person... (shrink)

Linguist, critic, poet, psychologist, I. A. Richards was one of the great polymaths of the twentieth century. He is best known, however, as one of the founders of modern literary critical theory. Richards revolutionized criticism by turning away from biographical and historical readings as well as from the aesthetic impressionism. Seeking a more exacting approach, he analyzed literary texts as syntactical structures that could be broken down into smaller interacting verbal units of meaning. Practical Criticism, first published in (...) 1929, is a landmark volume in demonstrating this method.Practical Criticism was born of an experiment Richards undertook to discern the psychological foundations of reading and interpretation and a means for readers to discover how they think and feel about poetry. He submitted thirteen poems for analysis, without date or author given, to some four hundred of his Cambridge students. Poets of stature went in undifferentiated from obscure and forgotten figures. The results were mixed at best, with many of the interpretations shockingly bad. These readings were based, in large part, not on the texts themselves but on then-current opinions, presuppositions, theories, and beliefs. The results led Richards to define a set of interrelated mental obstacles to intelligent and accurate reading including "irrelevant associations," "stock responses," "sentimentality," and a general misunderstanding of the purpose or "doctrine" of poetry.Richards' concerns in Practical Criticism went well beyond the merely formal. In the humanist tradition, he believed that the ability to read critically and use language truthfully was culturally regenerative, a necessary skill in the modern world of mass-produced art and advertising. This classic volume will be of interest to teachers of literature, cultural studies specialists, and intellectual historians. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.1 (2003) 211-222 [Access article in PDF] Criticism and the Terror of Nothingness C. Jason Lee DESTINY IS OFTEN ANOTHER NAME for narrative, it being the order we retrospectively find in scattered events. It is traditionally the role of the storyteller to create a believable narrative, with the reader investing attention into believing the story while the critic dissects the results to ascertain whether the (...) magic works. As Wallace Stevens put it, "we orchestrate a whole history and then imprison ourselves in the score, as if someone else had written it." 1 In the author's note to the second edition (1962) of Wise Blood (1949) Flannery O'Connor makes the point that her novel is a comic novel, yet its comedy does not lessen the depth of understanding it offers concerning the complexity of freedom. 2 The obsession with fate and destiny that swamps her characters, leads the reader into a gothic nightmare where humans in their attempt to re-create themselves dig themselves further into the graves of their dead relatives. For O'Connor free will does not mean one will but many wills conflicting in one man, and she explains the integrity of the central character of Wise Blood, Hazel Motes, as stemming from his vigorous attempts to rid himself of the "ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind."This figure is the Jesus of his grandfather, and it is also the religious preoccupation of the Deep South. Destiny has shaped his features and his character in the mold of his grandfather, and whomever he meets believes he too is a preacher. After establishing the Church Without Christ, like many sons attempting to shake off their origin, Hazel Motes realizes that his new way of behaving is in some sense being controlled [End Page 211] by his past and that he must shake off all vestiges to possess freedom. One might argue that, by eventually blinding himself, Hazel Motes is behaving as a soul who has given into the temptation of purgation, as if this is destiny. But it can be argued that this act is going against destiny, as it is an act that is perhaps trying to persuade God of something, despite the Oedipal connotations.Questioned by his landlady why he blinded himself he says to pay, and when asked to pay for what, he replies it does not matter what. Mrs. Flood is frightened of death, particularly death being one long blind existence, and Hazel Motes is a reminder to her of her destiny. This can be read as a judgment on life also. Yet she eventually decides to take care of him, for both altruistic and materialistic reasons, believing that his widow would inherit his war pension. Mrs. Flood, her name evocative of apocalyptic occurrences and Old Testament punishment, is a critic of the text; the text in this instance is nothing written but rather Motes himself. It seems that Hazel Motes, his name a reference to taking the mote out of one's own eye before you try and take the splinter out of another's, is punishing himself for his previous denial of Christ and for his sins, such as fornication, as with Mrs. Watts the prostitute and Sabbath Hawks, and murder, but also something more primal.After trying desperately to break the curse of his biological inheritance, his wise blood, just like the character Enoch Emery, it forces him to once again take on roles that deny him freedom. Hazel Motes may seem to a contemporary reader as a caricature, the mad preacher/antipreacher of the American South, but as V. S. Pritchett puts it, Hazel Motes is "entirely real" (p. viii). His self-blinding is part of his further alienation from the world, the world he has come back to after the "Great War." O'Connor shows how this watershed in human history was so devastating, Motes's new theology entirely rational. After having an insight into the world in reality through war, Hazel Motes is now "going to do some things... (shrink)

Structuralism as well as other methods of literary criticism, take positions analogous to ones espoused in some philosophies of science. Examples are: regarding a discipline as self-contained, having no necessary connection with the external world; taking interpretation (or the postulating of theories) as an arbitrary process, valid if it makes sense of the data, thus avoiding questions of truth; diminishing individuality by overemphasizing the learned aspects of a discipline (reading as governed by assimilated rules, research as controlled by (...) shared goals and methods and implicit agreement on fundamental questions). Interdisciplinary exchange should lead to greater awareness both of difficulties of these positions and of proposed solutions to the difficulties they raise. (shrink)

The long-term health of business ethics is suspect. In particular, there are some troubling trends within the discipline’s methodology that should be closely monitored and, in some cases, countered. Furthermore, business ethicists and management theorists should take some steps to make business ethics more robust and more relevant to actual business practice. Part 1 of this article argues that, while the dominance of the social science approach should be curtailed, relations between normative and empirical scholars need not (...) be hostile; on the contrary, there are some modest ways in which the two approaches could complement each other more than they have to date. Part 2 examines why business ethics needs more systems thinking. Part 3 explores why business ethicists in general should follow the lead of some of our colleagues who are engaging in powerful and influential research with direct and immediate practical applications. The article closes with a few modest suggestions for enhancing business ethics theorizing and provides some concrete ways for scholars to become more involved with business practitioners and business practice and to learn from the latter in ways that can productively feed research streams. (shrink)

The article is a presentation of the Thomist response to Scotist criticism of analogy; namely, the defense of St. Thomas’ teaching in some leading renaissance and post-renaissance Thomists: Thomas de Vio, better known as Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, John Versor and John of Saint Thomas. The author first explains the general core of the semantic doctrine of analogy and outlines the basic terminology. Then he exposes the way Cajetan and other Thomists knit Aquinas’ dispersed remarks on analogy (...) into a systematic doctrinal whole. (shrink)

The article is a presentation of the Thomist response to Scotist criticism of analogy; namely, the defense of St. Thomas’ teaching in some leading renaissance and post-renaissance Thomists: Thomas de Vio, better known as Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, John Versor and John of Saint Thomas. The author first explains the general core of the semantic doctrine of analogy and outlines the basic terminology. Then he exposes the way Cajetan and other Thomists knit Aquinas’ dispersed remarks on analogy (...) into a systematic doctrinal whole. (shrink)

The article is a presentation of the Thomist response to Scotist criticism of analogy; namely, the defense of St. Thomas’ teaching in some leading renaissance and post-renaissance Thomists: Thomas de Vio, better known as Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, John Versor and John of Saint Thomas. The author first explains the general core of the semantic doctrine of analogy and outlines the basic terminology. Then he exposes the way Cajetan and other Thomists knit Aquinas’ dispersed remarks on analogy (...) into a systematic doctrinal whole. (shrink)

The Muslim Banna' kept the world's earliest extant diary, but diary keeping was a widespread practice even in the tenth century. Hadith criticism, which was concentrated mainly on the chain of transmitters of the words and deeds of the Prophet of Islam and his followers, brought about the publication of the diary. The ta'rikh-diary in Islam was a diary kept for personal use, a dated record of notes kept by the author for use in writing other historical compositions. The (...) substance of biographical dictionaries and annalistic histories was drawn from these diaries. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Modern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700–1900) by Scott W. Hahn and Jeffrey L. MorrowSteven C. SmithModern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700–1900) by Scott W. Hahn and Jeffrey L. Morrow (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2020), 312 pp.Almost anyone who has suffered through a course in biblical studies at a secular (or, increasingly so, Christian) university, read a book, or heard a (...) lecture from one of its scholarly progenies is acquainted with the litany of hermeneutical absolutes. Among the factum historicum are the following certainties: the Enlightenment rescued the Bible from the Dark Ages; the Old Testament was shaped out of the mythical clay of Hellenism; Israel's priesthood was a lamentable development that hijacked an earlier, socially oriented love-of-neighbor religion, replacing it with its bloodthirsty, sacrificial cult; the Documentary Hypothesis is not merely a theory, but the scientific truth of how the Pentateuch emerged; one must separate the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith; Peter and Paul clashed over their dueling Christianities; and above all, historical criticism is the only reliable lens by which the Bible is to be studied.In Modern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700–1900), Hahn and Morrow expose such positivisms as the outflow of Europe's secularized universities over these centuries. Not only did politically motivated institutions seek to diminish the theological truths of Scripture (and sadly, were often successful at it), but they eventually repurposed the Bible as "a work of historical fiction," such that the Sacred Page was "to be studied like other ancient myths and fairy tales; it is one fairy tale among many" (24). The authors present a thoroughly researched and meticulously detailed study of the period, and throughout the book amply demonstrate that the aforementioned tropes (and numerous others), no matter how often or how confidently recited, are merely one slant on "the story of biblical criticism" in the modern age.Taking their lead from the lead of Pope Benedict XVI, Hahn and Morrow provide a much-needed critique of historical biblical exegesis and its "appearance of quasi-scientific certainty."1 These salient words of the biblical-theologian Pope, articulated in a variety of contexts (e.g., Verbum Domini), provide the jumping-off point for this robust three-hundred-page voyage. And it is a journey through a divided and secularized Europe, with notable stops in England, France, and above all, Germany. This "divided" Europe, the authors explain, was not a result of the Protestant [End Page 985] Reformation, nor of the so-called "war of religions" that sprang from it—no. The divisions run much deeper still. Drawing upon Andrew Jones's important Before Church and State, Hahn and Morrow rightly lament the societal competition that developed within late medieval Christendom between church and state.2Building upon Jones's work, the authors rightly stress that there indeed existed "a unified medieval worldview wherein what we might think of as temporal authorities and spiritual authorities were united in a single purpose—the extension of the kingdom of God—and this was the background that unified Christendom" (3). As Jones point out, this earlier period of European history "was a world not of the religious and the secular, but of the New Testament and the Old, of virtue and vice, grace and law.... It was an integral vision which included all of societal reality."3 Sadly, the reality of "sacramental kingdoms," in which there lived a reciprocal respect and vision of unity between throne and alter, was torn asunder long before the 1700s, the time at which the present volume commences. Over time, this formerly unified European world gave way to the very complicated, deeply skeptical, and highly politicized world of nation-states. And biblical criticism (along with many other worthy and creative endeavors), became deeply mired in "statecraft."Here, it is worth mentioning that the book should be approached as the rightful heir to an earlier volume (which involved one of its authors, Hahn), Politicizing the Bible.4 While Modern Biblical Criticism may be intelligently read upon its own merits, the reader would do well to pick up the earlier... (shrink)

ABSTRACT The individual-community relationship has always been one of the most fundamental topics of social sciences. In sociology, this is known as the micro-macro relationship while in economics it refers to the processes, through which, individual actions lead to macroeconomic phenomena. Based on philosophical discourse and systems theory, many sociologists even use the term "emergence" in their understanding of micro-macro relationship, which refers to collective phenomena that are created by the cooperation of individuals, but cannot be reduced to individual actions. (...) "Emergence" theories attempt to explain the nature of society as a complex system by examining how individuals and their relationships lead to the creation of integrated and macro-social phenomena such as markets, educational systems, cultural beliefs, and shared social practices. As a prelude to activity, every researcher has to answer the question from the methodological point of view, how is it possible to study the behavior of social groups and how can we gain knowledge about the laws related to social groups? Anyone who deals with humanities and social sciences or any reality and phenomenon that affects human beings, inevitably deals with the reality that is emerging. In fact, emergence occurs when one level of reality emerges radically from another level. Examples of emergent levels of reality include how the mind emerges from the body; or the way society emerges from human beings. Therefore, when there is an emerging factor, different scientific disciplines should be used, because it is inevitable to talk about social affairs, psychology and neurobiology, as well as physical and even chemical. -/- INTRODUCTION Since its beginning in the 19th century, sociology has faced the fundamental question of what a social phenomena stands for? At a glance, sociologists deal with the study of social groups, collective behavior, institutions, social structures, social networks, and social dynamics, and ultimately all such phenomena are composed of individuals. Therefore, social phenomena seem to have no independent ontological status, and in this case, sociology is ultimately about reducible individuals. Different approaches about the micro-macro relationship, using the concept of "emergence", argue that although collective phenomena are created by individuals, they cannot be reduced to individual action. The term "emergence" is used to distinguish "emergent results" from " Procedural results". Results are called Procedural that can only be calculated by adding or subtracting the causes that act together. On the contrary, they are emergent outcomes that are qualitatively novel compared to the causes from which they originate. An example of such emergent results is mental characteristics that emerge from neural processes, but are not considered among the characteristics of neural processes of components - which are their origin. Philosophical debates about emergentism and reductionism focus on the mind-brain relationship, but as many philosophers have noted, they can be generalized to apply to any hierarchical set of features. The cognitive revolution reactivated a 19th century controversy between theorists of Identity and dualism. The theorists of Identity believe in reductionist materialism and elimination of metaphysics, according to which the mind is nothing more than the biological, while the dualists believe that the mind and the brain are distinct from each other. Emergence has been considered as a third way between the theories of Identity and dualism. -/- METHODOLOGY Interdisciplinarity Is fundamentally indicated by the dominance of open systems as well as social and emerging systems at different levels. Therefore, as long as we are facing a new emergentism, there will necessarily be different fields and an interdisciplinary method. The commonality of social sciences and cognitive sciences on the issue of emergence provides the possibility of interaction and exchange of concepts between these two for deeper research. Therefore, in this research, apart from the concepts of Subvenience and downward causation, we have used multiple realization and wildly disjunctive, which are used to explain the emerging concept in cognitive sciences, including neurobiology, psychology, and philosophy. For analytical and interdisciplinary approaches, after examining the concepts of subvenience, and wildly disjunctive, Individualistic and collectivist emergentism have been reviewed. And then their adequacy is criticized and evaluated in meeting strong emergence conditions. -/- FINDINGS Philosophers of the mind have been able to define the conditions of irreducibility and downward causation, which are essential for strong emergence, by using the principle of subvenience with the help of multiple realization and wildly disjunctive principles. Therefore, by definition, emergentist individualism suffers from the problem of how to explain downward causality and irreducibility, and emergentist collectivism faces the challenge of reification. The analysis of the challenges facing the two methodological approaches of individualism and collectivism leads us to three unresolved issues about the emerging phenomenon, which are realism, downward causality, and mechanism. Despite the differences in the stances of these two approaches regarding the aforementioned triple problems, individualists and collectivists both agree that some social characteristics are reducible; and some others are irreducible due to their complexity, the determination of which, depends on the case study of the mechanism of emergence of each social characteristic. -/- CONCLUSION An emergence that is consistent with reductionism is called a weak emergence. And strong emergence includes the principle of irreducibility and downward causality. According to strong emergence, the characteristics of social phenomena have downward causal power, which cannot be reduced to the causal forces. The principle of subvenience, together with multiple realization and wildly disjunctive, can provide the conditions of irreducibility and downward causality, which are essential conditions of strong emergence. Based on the philosophical analysis of two methodological approaches, individualist and collectivist, it can be concluded that emergentist individualism suffers from the problem of how to explain downward causality and irreducibility, and reification collectivism faces the challenge of reification. The analysis of the problems faced by these two approaches leads us to three unresolved issues, which are realism, downward causality, and mechanism. individualist emergentists acknowledge the existence of emergent social characteristics, but despite this, they believe that these characteristics are not real but merely analytical constructs that require explanation based on individuals and their mutual actions. But collectivists argue that emergentism yields a categorical ontology and supports social realism. They accept the dependence of social characteristics on individuals, but claim that social entities and structures are ontologically independent. Individualists and collectivists both agree that some social characteristics are reducible; and others are irreducible due to their complexity; and the only way to recognize this is to engage in empirical studies of the mechanisms and temporal processes of "emergence" that create social characteristics. -/- NOVELTY The newness of this compact article is as follows: a) Presenting an interdisciplinary approach using the analysis of philosophy of cognitive sciences, including the philosophy of mind, neurobiology and psychology to formulate the issue of social emergence; b) Criticizing individualist and collectivist methodological approaches to the issue of social emergence and explaining the sufficiency and shortcomings of both in providing weak and strong emerging conditions; c) Explaining and categorizing the challenges facing methodological approaches in explaining the phenomenon of social emergence, in three categories: realism, downward causality, and mechanism. BIBLIOGRAPHY Beckermann, A., Flohr, H., & Kim, J. (eds.) (1992). Emergence or reduction? Essays on the prospects of nonreductive physicalism. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Bhaskar, R. (1979). The possibility of Naturalism. New York: Routledge. Bhaskar, R., Danermark, B. & Price, L. (2018). Interdisciplinarity and wellbeing: A critical realist general theory of interdisciplinarity. London and New York: Routledge. Blau, P.M. (1981). Introduction: diverse views of social structure and their common denominator. In Blau, P.M. & Merton, R.K. (eds.), Continuity in Structural Inquiry (pp. 1–23). Beverly Hills: Sage. Blau, P.M. (1987). Microprocess and macrostructure. In K.S. Cook (ed.), Social Exchange Theory (pp. 83–100). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Brooks, R.A., & Maes, P. (eds). (1994). Artificial life IV; proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Putting brain, body, and world together again. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Coleman, J. S. (1987). Microfoundations and macrosocial behavior. In: J. C. Alexander, B. Giesen, R. Munch, & Neil J. Smelser (Eds.). The Micro-Macro Link (pp. 153–73). Berkeley: University of California. Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Elster, J. (1985). Making sense of Marx. New York: Cambridge University Press. Fodor, J.A. (1974). Special sciences (Or: The disunity of science as a working hypothesis). Synthese, 28(2), 97–115. Fodor, J.A. (1989). Making mind matter more. Philosophical Topics, 17, 59-79. Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hempel, C.G. (1965). Aspects of scientific explanation and other essays in the philosophy of science. New York: The Free Press. Horgan, T. (1993). From supervenience to superdupervenience: meeting the demands of a material world. Mind, 102, 555-586. Humphreys, P. (1997). How properties emerge”. Philosophy of Science, 64, 1-17. Kim, J. (1999). Making sense of emergence. Philosophical Studies, 95, 3–36. Kincaid, H. (1997). Individualism and the unity of science. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Lewis, D.K. (1986). The plurality of worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nigel, G., & Conte, R. (eds.) (1995). Artificial societies; The computer simulation of social life. London: UCL Press. O’Connor, T. (1994). Emergent properties. American Philosophical Quarterly, 31, 91-104. Popper, K.R. (1968). Conjectures and refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York: Harper & Row. Sawyer, R. K. (2001). Emergence in sociology: contemporary philosophy of mind and some implications for sociological theory. American Journal of Sociology, 107, 551-585. Sawyer, R. K. (2004). The mechanisms of emergence. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 34, 260–282. Sawyer, R. K. (2005). Social emergence: societies as complex systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sawyer, R.K. (2003). Nonreductive individualism: Part 2, Social causation. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 33, 203–224. Winch, P. (1993). The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy‭ (SAMT, Trans.). Tehran, Iran: SAMT. (shrink)

The Peri ide^on is the only work in which Aristotle systematically sets out and criticizes arguments for the existence of Platonic forms. Gail Fine presents the first full-length treatment in English of this important but neglected work. She asks how, and how well, Aristotle understands Plato's theory of forms, and why and with what justification he favors an alternative metaphysical scheme. She examines the significance of the Peri ide^on for some central questions about Plato's theory of forms--whether, for example, (...) there are forms corresponding to every property or only to some, and if only to some, then to which ones; whether forms are universals, particulars or both; and whether they are meanings, properties or both. Fine also provides a general discussion of Plato's theory of forms, and of our evidence about the Peri ide^on and its date, scope, and aims. While she pays careful attention to the details of the text, she also relates it to contemporary philosophical concerns. The book will be valuable for anyone interested in metaphysics ancient or modern. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:REID' S CRITICISM OF HUME'S THEORY OF PERSONAL IDENTITY One of the most interesting philosophical controversies is that between Reid and Hume, considered as representatives of two different sorts of empiricism. Hume, for these purposes, represents 'radical' empiricism, and the attempt to base knowledge solely on experience and what can be validly inferred from it, regardless of how far this leads one from everyday notions and beliefs. Reid, (...) in contrast, represents 'common sense' empiricism, and the view that the. results of experience and deduction must conform to a number of 'first principles or intuitive judgments' (Essays on the intellectual powers of man, VI, 4), which aie unprovable, but which no one can avoid accepting. It is important to be clear about the status of Reid' s 'intuitive judgments', or 'principles of common sense'. They are not merely the general beliefs of a particular culture, which could be 'vulgar errors or preJUdICeS''. Nor are they merely beliefs generally held by people uncorrupted by philosophy. They are assumptions which have to be made if theoretical or practical activity is to be possible at all, principles which are always accepted in practice even by those who deny them in theory. For example, although the uniformity of nature is not a logically necessary truth, everybody always thinks and acts in ways that presuppose that it is true: 'Nature is governed by fixed laws, and if it were not so, there could be no such thing as prudence in human conduct.... the whole fabric of natural philosophy is built upon this principle.' (Essays, VI, 5) Again, everyone, even a theoretical determinist, makes moral judgments and deliberates what to do; and these activities presuppose a belief in human free will. (Essays, ibid.) Hume himself, as Reid was aware, accepted the validity of some principles of this sort, notably of the 42. uniformity of nature. But Reid was dissatisfied with Hume's account, partly because he thought Hume had rejected far too much, and partly because of the grounds Hume gives for accepting, for example, the validity of induction, and the existence of the external physical world. Hume regards these beliefs as non-rational, and deriving from our psychological make-up; it is nature and not reason which causes the belief in an ordered physical reality. In Hume's eyes this is a sufficient justification: if our nature compels us to believe something, this is as good a ground for believing it as any other. Reid, on the other hand, believed, first, that there were many more principles of this sort than Hume had acknowledged, and secondly, that the justification of them was rational, and not merely psychologically determined, since it was based on the impossibility of thinking and acting coherently without them. Hence, even though Hume builds up with one hand what he pulls 'down with the other, and destroys the rational basis for belief only to replace it by one based on human nature and psychology, Reid continues to treat him as the archsceptic. In constructing his list of first principles in Essays, VI, 5, Reid explicitly or implicitly attacks Hume's 'scepticism' on five points - the existence of the mind; the existence of the physical world and the reliability of our senses; the reliability of memory; the reliability of reason; and the uniformity of nature. Against this scepticism he deploys three types of argument. The first is the argument from the universal beliefs of mankind, particular!/ as displayed in the structural features supposedly common to all languages. The second is the argument that the position of the sceptic is, when its consequences are worked out, either self-contradictory or incoherent. And the third is the argument already mentioned, that this position is inconsistent with other beliefs which the sceptic inevitably holds, since he thinks and acts in ways which are 43. inconsistent with their falsity, and cannot avoid doing so. To assess the force of Reid' s attacks, we have to consider both the strength of arguments of this sort in general and whether they apply in all these five cases. In this article, I want to concentrate on the first issue of the five, that of personal identity. Apart from displaying Reid... (shrink)

Muḳātil b. Sulaymān’s (d. 150/767) tafsīr named al-Tafsīr al-kabīr, is accepted as the first completed tafsīr that has reached us from the early sources of tafsīr literature. One of the issues that the mufassir, deals with emphatically by emphasizing the concealment of the Prophet’s tabs̲h̲īr in the Bible. The Mufassir make a connection between the concealment of the Prophet’s tabs̲h̲īr and the falsification of the Bible. When we examine the verses that Muḳātil commented to prove his claim related with falsification (...) of these books, we encounter the phenomenon of takhṣīs in tafsīr. Takhṣīs is a term used in the literature of fiḳh method, in the sense of explaining with a word, with a proof, that some of the individuals it covers are meant. Considering the content of this term, it is understood that Muḳātil’s takhṣīs in tafsīr means limiting the meaning of words with many meanings to only one content. The main issue that prompted Muḳātil to make a takhṣīs in tafsīr is falsification. The issue of falsification of the Bible has been a subject that attracted the attention of Muslim scholars. Because in the Ḳurʾān, the distortion of the Torah is described in the following terms: يحرفون “they distort”, فبدل “altered”, يلون السنتهم “who twist their tongues”, يكتمون “they conceal”, ولا تلبسوا الحق بالباطل “confound not truth with falsehood”, وتكتموا الحق “conceal the truth”, يكتبون الكتاب بِاَيْد۪يهِمْ “They write the book with their hands”. The Ḳurʾān’s statement on this matter encouraged the criticism of the scholars about the Torah. Among the issues criticized there are; tabs̲h̲īr of Muḥammad in previous books, the origin of the Torah, inaccuracy in chronological order, stylistic differences, information errors and contradictions. Among these criticisms directed at the People of the Book, Muḳātil focuses on tabs̲h̲īr. The main source that leads him to argue that Muḥammad was heralded in previous books is the verses of the Ḳurʾān. In addition to this, it is highly probable that the geography where the mufassir lived was also influential in shaping his criticisms. Considering the Jewish population in the neighborhoods where he lived, such as Balk̲h̲ and Marw, it is possible for the commentator to develop a dialogue with the Jews, and it is also possible that his criticisms will be shaped within the framework of these dialogues. Muḳātil’s falsification criticism is expressed in the context of the Prophet’s tabs̲h̲īr. However, the mufassir’s emphasis on tabs̲h̲īr goes beyond the criticism of falsification. The mufessir always keeps the issue alive on the reader’s agenda with short phrases such as “كتم أمر محمد / بكتمان أمر محمد Muḥammad’s subject is hidden in the Torah”, “نعت محمد / صفة محمد / Muḥammad’s qualification”. As far as we can determine, there are fifty-two verses in al-Tafsīr al-kabīr that Muḳātil consider directly related to tabs̲h̲īr. He deals with the issue of distortion in thirty-eight verses. The number of verses that the mufassir associates with both distortion and tabs̲h̲īr is thirty-six. The number of verses that he does not associate with falsification but only about tabs̲h̲īr is twelve. Among them, it has been determined that Muḳātil made takhṣīs in the interpretation of forty-eight verses in total. When we classify his takhṣīs’s, we can form a tidy framework under four main headings: in the interpretation of sila sentences, idioms and idiomatic expressions, determining the content of words, and indicates of pronoun. Since the thought of tabs̲h̲īr is one of the main motifs in the mind of the commentator, his tafsīr’s follow a parallel course to this motif. In the interpretation of many verses, there are examples of interpretations that will legitimize this thought and confirm this claim. As a matter of fact, in the interpretation of the expression يلوون ألسنتهم بالكتاب “While reading the Book, they bend their tongues” in the 78th verse of sūrat āl ʿImrān, it is said that Muḥammad’s qualification in the Torah were deleted and other adjectives were written instead of it. In the tafsīr of the 37th verse of sūrat al-Nisāʾ, there are the expressions like this: “The concealment of Muḥammad’s tabs̲h̲īr and its removal from the Torah (بكتمان أمر محمد و محوه من التوراة)”. Muḳātil narrowed the content of the expression, which has a wide meaning area. This narrowing of the meaning is technically considered an example of takhṣīs. Other examples where takhṣīs made in tafsir are present in the interpretations of the phrases of guidance/aberration, right/false, belief/disbelief, verse, word, stinginess, knowledge, promise, declaration, turning away and the book of Allah. The tafsīr’s extreme loyalty to the context is accompanied by his limiting the meaning of words with broad content to a narrow content. (shrink)

There are things we routinely say that may strike us as literally false but that we are nonetheless reluctant to give up. This might be something mundane, like the way we talk about the sun setting in the west, or it could be something much deeper, like engaging in talk that is ostensibly about numbers despite believing that numbers do not literally exist. Rather than regard such behaviour as self-defeating, a "fictionalist" is someone who thinks that this kind of discourse (...) is entirely appropriate, even helpful, so long as we treat what is said as a useful fiction, rather than as the sober truth. "Fictionalism" can be broadly understood as a view that uses a notion of pretense or fiction in order to resolve certain puzzles or problems that otherwise do not necessarily have anything to do with literature or fictional creations. Within contemporary analytic philosophy, fictionalism has been on the scene for well over a decade and has matured during that time, growing in popularity. There are now myriad competing views about fictionalism and consequently the discussion has branched out into many more subdisciplines of philosophy. Yet there is widespread disagreement on what philosophical fictionalism actually amounts to and about how precisely it ought to be pursued. This volume aims to guide these discussions, collecting some of the most up-to-date work on fictionalism and tracing the view's development over the past decade. After a detailed discussion in the book's introductory chapter of how philosophers should think of fictionalism and its connection to metaontology more generally, the remaining chapters provide readers with arguments for and against this view from leading scholars in the fields of epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and others. (shrink)

A general consensus has emerged in the scholarship on Latin American thought dating from the latter half of the nineteenth century through the first quarter of the twentieth. Latin American intellectuals widely adapted the European philosophy of positivism in keeping with the demands of their own social and political contexts, effectively making positivism the second most important philosophical tradition in the history of Latin America, after scholasticism. However, as thinkers across Latin America faced the challenges of the twentieth century, they (...) grew increasingly disappointed with positivism, so that “anti-positivism” stands out as a defining feature of Latin American philosophy in the early twentieth century. In this essay, I challenge or at least add nuance to this widely accepted narrative by demonstrating considerable continuity rather than simple rupture between positivism and “anti-positivism” in Latin America. I focus on Mexico, where both positivism and the reaction against it are generally taken to have been strongest, or at least most politically significant. After tracing the history of positivism’s transformations in Mexico from Auguste Comte (1798-1857) to Gabino Barreda (1818-1881) to Justo Sierra (1848-1912), I show how Mexico’s leading “anti-positivist” philosophers—José Vasconcelos (1882-1959) and Antonio Caso (1883-1946)—draw substantially upon their positivist predecessors. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Renaissance Project of Knowing:Lorenzo Valla and Salvatore Camporeale’s Contributions to the Querelle Between Rhetoric and PhilosophyMelissa Meriam BullardThe Journal of the History of Ideas has published two symposia devoted to examinations of Lorenzo Valla's place in Renaissance intellectual history, both of which sought to situate Valla in his appropriate contemporary context and to assess his contributions to developing tools of rhetorical analysis and textual criticism in the (...) fifteenth century. In the first JHI debate published in 1989, Salvatore Camporeale's foundational reexamination of Valla's views on language, rhetoric, and theology was frequently cited; and his assessment served as a fulcrum in the disparate interpretations offered by John Monfasani and by Richard Waswo and Sarah Gravelle.1 In the second forum published in 1996, Camporeale was invited to contribute an essay on Valla's famous critique of the false Donation of Constantine; therein the Roman humanist had appealed for Christian renewal inspired by an early Christianity, unburdened by medieval ontological discourse, and seeking to subvert the imperial (Constantinian) model of the church that had dominated since the fourth century.2More than half a century later in the early sixteenth century, reform-minded intellectuals such as Erasmus, More, Luther, and Melanchthon picked up Valla's pleas and used his insights and textual criticism to buttress their own calls for ecclesiastical reform, challenging the claims to authority of the [End Page 477] Roman church. But despite the popularity among the reformers of Valla's two most noted and provocative texts, his rhetorical and philological refutation of the Donation of Constantine and his annotations for a new translation of the New Testament from Greek, his legacy gradually faded from prominence after the sixteenth century. By then when the Protestants' split from Rome had become an accepted reality, and their battle to achieve a place in a divided Christian world won, the reformers' use of Valla's arguments no longer seemed so controversial. For its part, Catholic discourse in the Tridentine era had reverted to reassertions of papal hierarchy along the Constantinian model. Valla's other contributions to understanding rhetorical hermeneutics and philosophy gradually receded, especially from Anglophone intellectual consciousness and in some quarters even from the metanarratives of intellectual history.3 His legacy frequently goes unacknowledged in reconstructions of antecedents to modern intellectual history and philosophy despite the late twentieth century's lingering love affair with philosophies of language and the stress on contextualization pioneered by Heidegger and Wittgenstein, which share many of the same concerns Valla had plumbed for his day.4 The present group of essays attempts to address that lacuna in various ways, by revisiting Valla's contributions to the philosophy of language, by casting his story forward to understand the nature of his legacy beyond the Renaissance and Reformation, and by exploring why his and other Renaissance humanists' contributions to the project of human knowledge have been minimized or overlooked in more recent times. It is the contention of all the contributors that Valla, and to wit Camporeale's Valla, richly deserves our attention and that his overlooked legacy endures.Beginning in the 1970s Salvatore Camporeale, the leading modern Valla specialist, wrote and lectured widely to highlight the Roman humanist's place in the history of thought and to discuss him in an idiom reflective of modern sensitivities to issues of rhetoric, philosophy, language, and historical context.5 Camporeale's massive tome, Lorenzo Valla. Umanesimo e teologia (Florence, 1972) has only slowly made its fortune beyond Italy and Europe. The book, densely written and daunting for its close philological examination of variant texts and datings, has been more often consulted than read outside [End Page 478] the select circle of Valla devotees, this despite Eugenio Garin's clearly stated appreciation in his presentation of the volume. Garin lauded the depth and precision of Camporeale's scholarship and the lucidity with which he brought into focus the rich fabric of fifteenth-century theological disputes that engaged Valla and that invested his understanding of language and philology.6 Through careful and insightful analysis, Camporeale not only established Quintilian as the major inspiration behind Valla's rhetorical theory, but, logical step by logical step, he... (shrink)

This work deals with Mollā Gūrānı̄’s critique (d. 813/1488) of Qāḍı̄ al-Bayḍawı̄ (d. 596/1200) and Zamakhsharı̄ (d. 538/1144). The Fātiḥ̣a and Baqara sūras in his manuscript tafsı̄r “Ghāyat al-Amānı̄” are chosen as the texts to examplify Mollā Gūrānı̄’s critique. His criticism is mostly related to language, qirāʾa (recitation and vocalization of Qur’ānic text), conceptual meaning and disagreement in interpretations of the Qur’ānic verses in question. Gūrānı̄ primarly criticisez Qāḍı̄ due to his reputation among Ottoman scholars. Guranı̄ has not only (...) criticized Kādı̄ and Zamahsharı̄ in the commentary of the surahs Fātiḥ̣a and Baqara but also Taftāzānı̄ and Kavāshı̄. This clearly shows thah he is a well-versed scholar in researching especially in comperative analysis. In this study, our investigation is limited to, however, Zemakhsharı̄ and Qāḍı̄. This stuyd shows that Zemakhsharı̄ is strictly bound to Ahl al-Sunnah. Moreover, the hadith reports are considerably important for him in understanding and interpreting the Qur’ānic verses. He closely follows the interpretive traditions of early Muslim scholars, especially on the matters that Muslim scholars had an argeemnet.Summary: This study discusses the criticism of Mollā Gūrānı̄ (d. 813/1488), one of the Ottoman commentary scholars, against Qāḍı̄ al-Bayḍāwı̄ (d. 685/1286) and Zamakhsharı̄ (d. 538/1144). The two Qur’ānic Surahs Fātiḥ̣a and Baqara are chosen from his critiques in a manuscript of his commentary called Ghāyat al-Amānı̄. Mollā Gūrānı̄’s manuscript is registered in Sulaymāniye Library, Dāmād Ibrāhı̄m Pasha Section at number 146 and consists of 352 pages in total. This copy is one of the oldest among other its existent copies. The main reason of our preference of this copy is that it is both legible and at the end of the book (the farāgh part), it writes that it was proofread by his author himself and that handwriting notes at the margins of the pages belonged to the author. We have examined this copy by comparing another copy which is again in the Sulaymāniye Library, Haji Maḥmūd Efendı̄ section at number 162, consisting of 484 pages in total, comparatively. We have examined critiques of 41 verses in total from Fātiḥ̣a and Baqara surahs.Gūrānī’s critiques of Zamakhsharı̄ and Qāḍı̄ are too wide to be discussed within the limits of an article. Therefore, we have tried to briefly introduce these critiques. While presenting the commentators views, we tried to make their inexplicit expressions clear and furthermore elaborate their purposes by making use of some other resources. We have to say that we also used bracketed explanatory statements while giving commentators opinions.Most of the critiques of Gūrānı̄ are aimed at Qāḍı̄ since the latter’s commentary was one of the favourite ones among Ottoman intellectual circles. Therefore, in writing his commentary manuscript, Gūrānı̄ ambivalently both followed and criticized Qāḍı̄’s commentary. When Fātiḥ̣a and Baqara surahs are used as a base, it is evident that Gūrānı̄’s commentary Ghāyat al-Amānı̄ is a reason-based (dirāyah) in line with those of Zamakhsharı̄ and Qāḍı̄ as commentary methodology. Gūrānı̄ modelled himself so much on Qāḍı̄ in this commentary of his that it seems as an abridged copy of Qāḍı̄’s. Ghāyat al-Amānı̄ as a commentary example of Ottoman era shows that the commentary methodology of the time did not change even four hundred years after Zamakhsharı̄.It is possible to say that Gūrānı̄ criticized Zamakhsharı̄ and Qāḍı̄ in this commentary in a meticulous manner. Although many of his critiques are disputable, his rigorous approach to texts and his courage of critique, instead of imitative attitude, of Qāḍı̄’s commentary, which was held in high esteem in madrasahs of the time, and of commentary of Zamakhsharı̄, who was competent in Arabic language, is of great significance. Gūrānı̄ used a comparative scientific methodology and was a prominent. When his commentary manuscript examined it can be seen that it was not only Zamakhsharı̄ and Qāḍı̄ but also Taftāzānı̄ (d. 792/1390) and Kavāshı̄ (d. 680/1281) who got their shares from his critiques. Most of Gūrānı̄’s critiques were on the subtleties of Arabic language. He sometimes expressed his criticism using Arabic grammar rules and sometimes rhetoric requirements. His other critiques involved topics such as, conceptual meaning, verses integrity, recitation and some interpretations of verses that he disagreed with. His critical method was based on the integrity of the Qurʾān, interpretive traditions, Salaf’s views and logical contradictions. We ought to mention that Gūrānı̄ showed his strong commitment to his predecessors and scholars for matters on which they had consensus. We comprehend this commitment on occasions when he rejected the claim that, for instance, a given form of qirā’a from Salaf was wrong according to Arabic grammar in favour of Salafı̄ reciter. The aim of this study is to give an idea about commentary understandings and methods of commentators in Ottoman era and to make contribution to introducing Gūrānı̄, who criticized Zamakhsharı̄ and Qāḍı̄, two prominent commentators competent in their field, to researchers in terms of his attribute as a critic. An earlier study on his critiques made in this commentary of Gūrānı̄ only covered his critiques of Qāḍı̄ for some of his interpretations in Fātiḥ̣a and Baqara surahs. Therefore, another important factor leading to this study was to cover all critiques he made against the views and comments of both Zamakhsharı̄ and those shared by Zamakhsharı̄ and Qāḍı̄. Hence, this study aims to contribute to the fiedl as an analytical study or a translation made by researchers on this concise and handwritten manuscript.Some conspicuous features are seen in Gūrānı̄’s critiques. As he pointed out in his reviews, in case of subjects with availability of narratives (rivāyah) and of suitability of the literal meaning of verses, he did not prefer allegorical interpretation. He gives the impression that he based his reviews on Ahl al-Sunnah, and he took pains to follow Ashaʿrı̄te school of thought. Although Gūrānı̄, did not see harm in sharing the same things with Zamakhsharı̄, opposing Qāḍı̄ as regards Arabic language, he was always in opposition with Zamakhsharı̄ in relation to commitment to sectarian view and Ḥadı̄ths. It can also be said that Gūrānı̄ did not favour esoteric-allusive commentary style.It can also be said that Gūrānı̄ had sound and deep knowledge in the field of Kalām. This can be deduced from his considering Qāḍı̄’s arguments to criticize Muʿtazila as insubstantial and sometimes from his criticism of Qāḍı̄ for his careless selection of phrases he used in theological issues. Meanwhile, Gūrānı̄ criticized some views which did not belong to Qāḍı̄. For example, it is seen that he criticized Qāḍı̄ for his citation of an opinion through the phrase “it is said that” as if it was his own view by writing an annotation on the margin that it was Qāḍı̄ who said it. In our opinion, the most important thing that the critique of Gūrānı̄ shows is his scholarly identity and his outspoken character of enunciating of what he believed scholarly and conscientiously. This, also, shows the existence of critical thinking in Ottoman scholarship tradition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Black Deconstruction: Russell Atkins and the Reconstruction of African-American CriticismAldon Lynn Nielsen (bio)“What does that signify?” “It don’t signify nothin’ Mr. Warner.”—Russell Atkins, MaleficiumThere are, everywhere unheard (as one might see deep in an electron microscope) rigidities violently breaking—Russell Atkins, WhicheverCritical debates about the applicability of recent literary theories to the reading of African-American writing have often been marked by curious lacunae. Despite the rapid proliferation of critical texts (...) addressing themselves to black writing, it remains the case that many critics come to black writing with methodologies and agendas already in hand, while few critics have taken upon themselves the task of rereading the critical history of African-American work in theory. This has often resulted in a sort of critical shortsightedness, with the field of black literary theory presented as a foreshortened, if now more level, playing field. While some have engaged in arguments about the question of whether or not African-American writing should be engaged by poststructuralist theorists (a question that seems to begin with the assumption that poststructuralism is a particularly white mode of mythology), the fact is that a form of deconstruction had been theorized by an African-American poet long before deconstruction had entered the American academy. That this fact is largely unknown among contemporary critics is the result of a continuing practice of not reading the theoretical work of black poets who have published outside the established circuit of the academic press. With the prominent exceptions of poets like Amiri Baraka, June Jordan, Larry Neal, and Haki Madhabuti, the critical writings of recent African-American poets have seldom been collected and circulated in any very effective way. Characteristically, Neal’s essays were gathered into a book posthumously, and Madhabuti’s have been published and distributed primarily through his own publishing house. Even Baraka’s collections have been allowed to pass out of print in most instances, only the books on music remaining readily available throughout his career. This may change for black poets who write in more mainstream modes in the near future. Now that Rita Dove has served a term as Poet Laureate of the United States and Derek Walcott has won the Nobel Prize, we might expect a modest increase in interest by publishers and readers in critical works by poets whose forms are less troubling than their content. And black poets who attain academic credentials and write scholarly/critical essays, such as Nathaniel Mackey and Harryette Mullen, may succeed in getting their works published by the university presses. However, surveys of shelves in bookstores and [End Page 86] libraries will confirm that there has been little concern among even university and small presses to collect and preserve the critical legacy of black experimentalists in the way that the essays of Charles Olson, Ed Dorn, or Robert Creeley have been maintained before a public.Russell Atkins has been one of the most prolific and demanding of black poets writing criticism and theory in the last four decades, but like Percy Johnston, central figure of the Dasein group of poets centered at Howard University in the 1950s, he has had to publish most of this work through his own magazine and workshop press, and there has never been a published collection of his critical work. The special Russell Atkins number of the Free Lance, a journal with which Atkins was associated for two decades, included a section surveying his work in critical prose, but little of that work has found its way into the broader critical discourse of literary scholars (it has fared a little better with musicologists), and Atkins’s prose is infrequently cited. As eccentric as Atkins’s prose can sometimes be, these works are important early signs of a break with the “rigidities” of traditional humanist discourse among African-American writers. Atkins’s statements on music, literature, politics, and education parallel the works by Baraka leading into and out of the Black Arts Movement, but Atkins, as he does in his verse, travels an independent and often disturbing path.Speaking of Anthony Braxton’s experimentalism, Ronald Radano observes that it “emerged from the changing landscape of urban American life, from... (shrink)

The essay challenges the de facto dichotomy between the discipline of logic and the activity of social criticism, i.e., it provides an illustrated reminder to philosophers that the gulf between these two areas of philosophy is not quite as wide as our curriculum andspecialization designations tend to suggest. Social criticism plays some necessary roles in certain branches of logic, and the second-order accounting of the contents of these branches leads back to social criticism. These points suggest (...) an adjusted conception of logic that would, among other things, render phrases such as “applying logic to social criticism” as misleading since certain branches of logic would not even coherently exist apart from social criticism. The lead illustrations are the identification of basic, pervasive, and thought-impeding logical errors that have been missed by numerous logic texts, and the assessment of contemporary academic logic as properly a quest for communal sanity that lies caught between communal insanity and communal mendacity. (shrink)

Performing Difference is a compilation of seventeen essays from some of the leading scholars in history, criticism, film, and theater studies. Each author examines the portrayal of groups and individuals that have been traditionally marginalized or excluded from dominant historical narratives. As a meeting point of several fields of study, this book is organized around three meta-themes: race, gender, and genocide. Included are analyses of films and theatrical productions from the United States, as well as essays on (...) cinema from Southern and Central America, Europe, and the Middle East. Topically, the contributing authors write about the depiction of race, ethnicities, gender and sexual orientation, and genocides. This volume assesses how the performing arts have aided in the social construction of the "other" in differing contexts. Its fundamental premise is that performance is powerful, and its unifying thesis is that the arts remain a major forum for advancing a more nuanced and humane vision of social outcasts, not only in the realm of national imaginations, but in social relations as well."--Jacket. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Simone Weil for the Twenty-First Century by Eric O. SpringstedLissa McCulloughSPRINGSTED, Eric O. Simone Weil for the Twenty-First Century. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2021. xxi + 264 pp. Cloth, $100.00; paper, $35.00This book proposes taking French philosopher Simone Weil as a polestar to inspire and orient thought in the twenty-first century. It collects revised versions of eleven articles and essays published between 1994 and (...) the present, now organized into a whole with three new framing chapters (1, 3, and 14). Not intended as an introduction to Weil's life and work, nor as a study primarily directed to Weil scholars, the book seeks a broader readership that need not be well versed in her thought. Weil is recommended as a model for leading a thoughtful life of action exemplifying integrity, discipline, and the exercise of attention: "[W]ith Weil it is important to understand not only what she thought but how she thought," as in her own intellectual transformations she "moved from a strict disciplining of the mind to a regime of attentiveness." [End Page 160]A condensed three-page biography is provided for orientation to Weil's life before the reader is launched into the book's two parts, the first focused on philosophical and theological themes, the second on social and societal concerns. Springsted notes that these themes profoundly converge in Weil's later work, describing her political thought as a "retheologization of the space in which we dwell... an attempt to think about the natural life of humankind in supernatural terms while keeping in mind that this relation is often mediated and veiled." Theology concerns itself with "the sense that God communicates Himself and His Holiness," and the appropriate response is an opening up of oneself in order to listen further: "This is what mystery is about; it is not something to be solved, it is not a set of facts, but something that keeps giving itself.... This is not only the biblical worldview; ancient Greeks such as Plato had it too." Even as Weil's thinking on good, beauty, and truth is profoundly inspired by Plato's, dating back more than two millennia, her bold originality and gift for synthesis manages to pull this thinking into our late modern, post-Christian, and indeed anti-Platonic world of novel perplexities, demonstrating how powerfully this handful of essential words (God, truth, justice, love, good) can speak in our day. This is the key value that Weil offers: "Unless human thought finds some way of connecting itself to something bigger than itself, something that gives a sense of value (and this is what the world's beauty does), human thought will lose depth and dimensionality."Speaking in his own voice, the author affirms that "how we look at our problems can be very different if we understand that we have eternal obligations and that humans have an eternal destiny." This quest for ultimate value and sacramental order puts Springsted on the path of "searching for a new Saint Benedict," the formation of moral communities that bring thoughtful attention and practical work together in a communal life oriented to the good—though he admits that such value-community formation is difficult in increasingly pluralistic and divided societies. Partly because Weil tended to accent individualism, there is no easy or short route to apply Weil's insights on a communal level, even as she clearly sought to do so in her final book-length essay, The Need for Roots, written in 1943 just before her death at age thirty-four.To read Weil's final essay is to be struck by her prescience concerning the dominant intellectual-spiritual conundrums we face today, almost a century later, which are keenly analyzed by her far-seeing attention: the quandaries of post-colonial oppression and uprootedness, us-versus-them nationalisms, money-value as erosive force, mendacity and propaganda in politics, cultural vacuity and soullessness even in the nominally religious domain. To take Weil as one's polestar is indeed to be guided by a sharply critical, rarely lucid thinker whose rigorous criticism of social, political, and religious domains challenge the spectrum... (shrink)

We reviewed the current state of knowledge regarding visual function and its suitability as part of medical examinations for driving licenses. We focused only on Group 1 drivers. According to previous studies, visual acuity, which is the most common test, is weakly associated with a higher risk of road accidents, with a greater role of visual field. The inclusion of the visual field test in medical examinations is therefore important, but the actual limit value is still unclear and further research (...) in specific situations is needed. Color vision impairment was not found a threat to traffic safety. Contrast sensitivity decreases with age and is affected by abnormal eye conditions. Resulting glare can lead to an increased risk of traffic accidents during night driving in the elderly and others with conditions that impair contrast sensitivity. However, the universal cut-off limits have not been established either. The current European Union (EU) regulations therefore reflect minimum common denominator across the member states which may not entirely translate to optimal driving safety. Due to these open questions, standardized testing in simulators or on polygons that simulate real life conditions would be needed to better determine safe limits of visual function in different conditions. As there is a need to have better standardization across Europe regarding the requirements and rules regarding driving licenses in European countries, we first analyzed existing rules and compared them with each other, also in terms of deviations from the EU directive itself. We reviewed the literature in this field and prepared proposals for a more optimal regulation of the rules in the future. Particular attention is paid to the new method of examining the visual field that was created to respect the European directive. The paper can serve as a basis of information for research teams to design further protocols, as it gathers research findings to date on the importance and impact of various visual functions on driving safety, as well as a starting point for a debate on revising existing rules for obtaining and maintaining licenses, as it compares the current regulations in European countries and differences between them. (shrink)

Gregory Vlastos was one of the twentieth century's most influential scholars of ancient philosophy. Over a span of more than fifty years, he published essays and book reviews that established his place as a leading authority on early Greek philosophy. The two volumes that comprise Studies in Greek Philosophy include nearly forty contributions by this acknowledged master of the philosophical essay. Many of these pieces are now considered to be classics in the field. Perhaps more than any other modern (...) scholar, Gregory Vlastos was responsible for raising standards of research, analysis, and exposition in classical philosophy to new levels of excellence. His essays have served as paradigms of scholarship for several generations. Available for the first time in a comprehensive collection, these contributions reveal the author's ability to combine the skills of a philosopher, philologist, and historian of ideas in addressing some of the most difficult problems of ancient philosophy. Volume I collects Vlastos's essays on Presocratic philosophy. Wide-ranging concept studies link Greek science, religion, and politics with philosophy. Individual studies illuminate the thought of major philosophers such as Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, and Democritus. A magisterial series of studies on Zeno of Elea reveals the author's power in source criticism and logical analysis. Volume II contains essays on the thought of Socrates, Plato, and later thinkers and essays dealing with ethical, social, and political issues as well as metaphysics, science, and the foundations of mathematics. (shrink)

This excellent and accessible work includes many major texts in translation: Aristotle's Poetics, Longinus' On Sublimity, Horace's Art of Poetry, Tacitus' Dialogues, and extracts from Plato and Plutarch. Based on the highly praised Ancient Literary Criticism, it contains a new introduction and explanatory notes, and will be of enormous value to students both of Latin and Greek and of literary criticism and theory. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range (...) of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)