This article has already been published in, and is available in open access from Time and Society, 0, 2017, pp. 1-29. We thank Stanley Blue for his permission to republish it here.: The practice turn in social theory has renewed interest in conceptualising the temporal organisation of social life as a way of explaining contemporary patterns of living and consuming. As a result, the interest to develop analyses of time in both practice theories and practice theory-based - Sur (...) le concept de rythme. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Barbarous On Either Side: The New York Blues Of Mr. Sammler’s PlanetStanley CrouchThere are no two ways about virtue, my dear student; it either is, or it is not. Talk of doing penance for your sins! It is a nice system of business, when you pay for your crime by an act of contrition! You seduce a woman that you may set your foot on such and such a (...) rung of the social ladder; you sow dissension among the children of a family; you descend, in short, to every base action that can be committed at home or abroad, to gain your own ends for you own pleasure or profit.... That man with yellow gloves and a golden tongue commits many a murder; he sheds no blood, but he drains his victims as surely; a desperado forces open a door with a crowbar, dark deeds both of them! You yourself will do every one of the things that I suggested to you today, bar the bloodshed. Do you believe there is any absolute standard in this world?—Vautrin, Père GoriotWe are now mightily perplexed by the vulgarity and the brutal appetites of our culture, which Mr. Sammler sees so, so clearly, startled from page to page and in passage after passage of Saul Bellow’s 1970 novel. The terrible children of our day, the worst of our politicians, and the rampant sleaze that slides up and down the classes, across the races and religions, from the cynical students to the unrepentingly jaded and old, can be traced back to the elements that are so alarming to the protagonist of Mr. Sammler’s Planet. As a well-educated man who has smelled the molten breath and felt the bloody teeth of European fascism, Mr. Sammler is obsessed with understanding what makes or breaks a society, what causes a civilization to embrace ruthlessness as the [End Page 89] best way to realize its ambitions and handle its fears. A veteran of World War II, he has seen killing and he has done it himself, which makes him a man for whom none of his questions exists in a speculative air unfouled by the odor of murder. His intellectual ponderings are thereby part of a drama in which he has seen the lowest the Western world has to offer. This lack of innocence makes him a hero and a thinker haunted by his past and startled to uneasiness by the present. Oh, yes: Artur Sammler knows firsthand how quickly the metamorphosis from the refined to the smugly savage can take place. “Like many people who had seen the world collapse once, Mr. Sammler entertained the possibility it might collapse twice.”The very conception of Mr. Sammler is expressive of Bellow’s gift for bringing together the intellect, the passion, the spirit, and the flesh. The physical responses to stimulation are rendered with the same attention given to all of the many things that Mr. Sammler contemplates as he tries to get a grip on New York, America’s financial capital and the pinnacle of the nation’s culture. Mr. Sammler’s ideas are counterpointed by feeling and sensuality to such a degree that the thoughts are themselves elements of emotion, which is something only our finest writers can bring off, the literary condition of character so complete that every aspect of consciousness takes form within the container of a body equal in the life of its senses to the spirit it carries. We get the feeling of a human being in repose, in grief, in rage, in self-protective contemplation, in unsparing self-examination, in attentive motion through Manhattan, on foot, in public transportation, in chauffeured limousine.New York’s power over the country was central to why it was chosen as the place of action. Mr. Sammler could not be in a better setting if he were to wrestle with the identity of the United States. One part of it obviously has to do with the character’s Jewishness. Manhattan and Hollywood are the two places where Jews have made their deepest imprints on the country. Unlike the dream factory of Hollywood, New York is the city... (shrink)

We define qualia space Q to be the space of all possible conscious experience. For simplicity we restrict ourselves to perceptual experience only, though other kinds of experience could also be considered. Qualia space is a highly idealized concept that unifies the perceptual experience of all possible brains. We argue that Q is a closed pointed cone in an infinite-dimensional separable real topological vector space. This quite technical structure can be explained for the most part in a simple, intuitive way. (...) The structure of qualia space allows us to consider and even answer in a precise way such questions as: Is there a continuous path from the sensation of blue to the sensation of pain? Once we fix a desired accuracy of approximation, do there exist finitely many perceptual experiences such that any possible perceptual experience is approximately equal to one of them? What should be meant by ‘fundamentally different’ perceptual experiences? There is the possibility of additional structure, such as a Hilbert space structure on the vector space in which Q is embedded. (shrink)

Despite high employment, low wages and job insecurity leave many families at or below the poverty line. The career instability previously experienced mostly by blue-collar workers has spread to middle managers and high-level executives caught in the rapid movement of capital and technologies. In light of these facts and the anxiety about employment prevalent in our society, Aronowitz argues for a new social contract between employers and workers.

Even as the philosopher can show us how to treat an object conceptually as a work of art, by regarding it in some context, so Cavell constantly implies that there are parables to be drawn about the way we treat the objects of our consciousness and the subjects of parts of it. But this special sort of treatment—like projective imagination itself—is not fancy or wit but more like a kind of epistemological fabling that is close to what Shelley called, in (...) A Defense of Poetry, "moral imagination." What is so powerful—and yet elusive of the nets of ordinary intellectual expectation—in The Claim of Reason is the way in which the activities of philosophizing become synecdochic, metonymic, and generally parabolic for the activities of the rest of life itself. It is the way in which the large , unphilosophical, "poetic," or "religious" questions are elicited from their precise and technical microcosms that makes so much of this book poetical, but not "literary," philosophy. When he writes of how tragedy "is the story and study of a failure of acknowledgment, of what goes before it and after it—i.e., that the form of tragedy is the public form of skepticism with respect to other minds"; or when, after brilliantly adducing The Winter's Tale in his consideration of Othello, he confronts the magic of Hermione's statue coming to life, he observes that "Leontes recognizes the fate of stone to be the consequence of his particular skepticism," the reader can perceive the kind of vast fiction in which minds, bodies, the privacy of insides, dolls, statues, and other representations figure as agents and elements. It will take longer to understand, I think, the imaginative significance of the earlier portions of the book. The philosophers who find its terrain familiar tend to have little patience with poetry; the reader whose sensibility is "literary" may be unable to distinguish between the arguments and examples, and the meta-arguments and examples, of the discussions of Wittgensteinian and Austinian method. Both kinds of readers should keep at it. John Hollander, a distinguished poet and critic, is professor of English at Yale. The author of The Untuning of the Sky: Ideas of Music in English Poetry, 1500-1700, Vision and Resonance: Two Senses of Poetic Form, and The Figure of Echo, his books of poetry include Spectral Emanations and Blue Wine and Other Poems. (shrink)

But play, you must,A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,A tune upon the blue guitarOf things exactly as they are.—Wallace Stevens.

This book is a major contribution to the study of the philosophy of action, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. Its central idea is a radically unorthodox theory of rational action. Most contemporary Anglo-American philosophers believe that action is motivated by desire. Professor Benn rejects the doctrine and replaces it with a reformulation of Kant's ethical and political theory, in which rational action can be determined simply by principles, regardless of consequences. The book analyzes the way in which value conflicts can (...) be rationally resolved, the objectivity of value, the concept of moral personality, the principles of non-interference and respect of persons, the ideals of autonomy and community and various aspects of individual rights - focusing on the rights to freedom, welfare, and privacy. (shrink)

Gunnar Broberg’s The Man Who Organized Nature is a unique biography of the life of Carl Linnaeus, “a scientist but also much more—an international celebrity, the first ecologist, a visionary, a uni...

William Wollaston, a leading British moral philosopher of the eighteenth century, has fallen into obscurity primarily, I believe, for two reasons. In the first place, it is usually supposed that Wollaston's moral theory was refuted by Hume in the opening section of the third book of the Treatise of Human Nature. Secondly, Wollaston's theory, or parts thereof, have been assigned pejorative labels such as ‘odd’ and ‘strange’, which create the impression that it is not a moral philosophy which can be (...) taken seriously. In this paper I attempt to deal with the second of these reasons by setting forth what I take to be Wollaston's meaning in certain key sections of his work, The Religion of Nature Delineated, especially in so far as they help to shed light on his theories of truth and happiness, and the relation of these to his theory of obligation. Wollaston will be found to be a moral philosopher with important things to say, and therefore to be a moral philosopher with a theory worth taking seriously. If I am correct in my interpretation of Wollaston, then it can also be established that Hume has not refuted Wollaston in the opening section of Book III of the Treatise. But here my attention will be confined entirely to Wollaston's own moral theory. (shrink)

Let DDQ be the thesis that definite descriptions are quantifiers. Philosophers often deny DDQ because they believe that quantifiers do not depend on context in certain ways, ways in which definite descriptions do depend on context. In this paper, we examine one such argument, which, if sound, would entail the negation of DDQ.We show that this argument fails, and draw some consequences from its failure.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Michael Fischer ACCEPTING THE ROMANTICS AS PHILOSOPHERS The romanticsarenot widely regarded as philosophers, at least not in philosophy departments, where they are seldom taught.1 Some of the reasons behind this exclusion of the Romantics involve a general disdain for literature; other reasons suggest a more specific uneasiness with Romanticism itself—with its apparent interest in animism, its selfindulgence, its coolness toward reason, and, perhaps above all, its refusal to abide (...) by Kant's containment of skepticism. These complaints are not the invention of paranoid or obtuse academic philosophers (as some literary critics might like to think). In fact, some ofthese objections have dogged the Romantics from the beginning. There is something risky, or outlandish, about Romanticism that these criticisms bring out. I want here to pursue what is at stake in accepting the Romantics as philosophers. In discussing what may be threatening about Romanticism, I will be drawing on the work of Stanley Cavell. Unlike most professional philosophers, Cavell declares his indebtedness to the Romantics, but unlike some literary critics, he appreciates the dangers of the Romantic quest that he nevertheless joins. The Romantics often leave Cavell feeling nervous and wretched, as Thoreau left Emerson— and as Cavell leaves many of his own readers. Cavell affirms Romanticism while acknowledging the risks that have repelled some ofits critics: hence his usefulness to me here. The Romantics' quarrel with Kant perhaps best accounts for the contempt, or indifference, that Romanticism can inspire in academic philosophers. Cavell pictures Kant as arriving at a settlement with skepticism, a compromise that concedes the inaccessibility of things-inthemselves, while reassuring us of our right to say that "we do know the existence of the world, or rather, that what we understand as knowl179 180Philosophy and Literature edge is ofthe world."2 For Kant, again as Cavell portrays him, limiting knowledge—by relinquishing any claim to know things-in-themselves— is necessary to shoring up knowledge, to our still claiming that there is such a thing. By "knowledge" Kant, in effect, means science: he saves science by positioning it between skepticism (the denial of knowledge) and fanaticism or dogmatism (the expansion of knowledge beyond acceptable limits). By affirming the possibility of (scientific) knowledge, Kant thus contains skepticism, or at least curtails its damage. But by putting thingsin -themselves beyond knowledge, he also gives in to skepticism. According to Cavell, the Romantics balk at this trade-off, saying, in effect, "Thanks for nothing." 3 Knowledge of things-in-themselves is precisely the knowledge that the Romantics are most interested in. From this point ofview, Kant concedes too much to skepticism—and gets too little in return. Resisting Kant accordingly entails putting us back in touch with things, or bringing us face-to-face with them, which in turn means showing that we can face things or shy away from them, presumably as we can confront or avoid people. Cavell finds examples of Romantic writers facing things and even listening to them in Waiden, the "Intimations" ode, and other texts.4 But I want to focus here on a poem that Cavell does not mention, "Tintern Abbey," where Wordsworth speaks of that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,— Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In Body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power ofjoy, We see into the life of things. (11. 37-49) By "things" Wordsworth means nothing less than "all objects of all thought" (1. 101), "all that we behold / From this green earth"(11. 1045 ), "all the mighty world / Of eye, and ear" (U. 105-6). He specifically mentions "setting suns" (1. 97), "the round ocean and the living air, / Michael Fischer181 And the blue sky" (11. 97-98) and he declares himself "a lover of the meadows and the woods, / And mountains" (11. 103-4). In these lines—and others I need not cite—the world... (shrink)

"In describing Hauerwas' work as Christian ethics, one can allow that phrase its full scope of meaning. It is the work of an ethician who is thoroughly conversant with that branch of philosophy and comes to grips with its major issues. He is also firmly committed to the view that, in modifying the substantive 'ethics' with the adjective 'Christian, ' one is designating a distinct reality. . . . Hauerwas invites us to share an understanding of ethics in general and (...) of Christian ethics in particular that is a great deal subtler and more complicated than most currently popular versions of those subjects. For contemporary Christian ethics to accept his invitation will mean letting itself in for some very rigorous and versatile thinking." --America. (shrink)

Proceeding on the assumption that confusion in Renaissance criticism arises from the way we talk and the vocabularies we use, Stewart investigates typical assertions in recent criticism of Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, and Herbert, using a Wittgensteinian method of investigation. This involves taking a thing, usually a statement, apart. If a statement, under such scrutiny, seems to make no sense, or to lead critics into blind alleys, then we must try to clarify the expression. As Stewart asserts, if we are to (...) go on together in critical conversation, then we must find a way to sort out the confusion that arises from our language. While Wittgenstein's thought has long been utilized by literary critics, this study represents the first sustained application of ordinary language philosophy to the vocabulary and assumptions of current criticism. This study is an original and important book⎯one likely to be of great interest to philosophers as well as literary theorists. While Renaissance Talk is primarily concerned with Renaissance and early modern studies, its patient but relentless exposure of what sometimes passes for scholarly criticism, along with its exemplary corrective explication of misinterpreted passages from the writings of major authors, makes it useful reading for a wide range of Literary Studies students and scholars. (shrink)

This work investigates the distinctiveness of virtues as illuminated by Christian practise using a discussion of Aristotle's ethics with contemporary scholars. It contrasts non-Christian accounts of virtue with Christian accounts of key virtues, including obedience, hope, courage, and patience.

“In describing Hauerwas’ work as Christian ethics, one can allow that phrase its full scope of meaning. It is the work of an ethician who is thoroughly conversant with that branch of philosophy and comes to grips with its major issues. He is also firmly committed to the view that, in modifying the substantive ‘ethics’ with the adjective ‘Christian,’ one is designating a distinct reality.... Hauerwas invites us to share an understanding of ethics in general and of Christian ethics in (...) particular that is a great deal subtler and more complicated than most currently popular versions of those subjects. For contemporary Christian ethics to accept his invitation will mean letting itself in for some very rigorous and versatile thinking.” —_America_. (shrink)

Diderot's Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville has often been read as a Rousseauian condemnation of modern civilization judged against the standard of pure Nature. A cursory reading of the Supplement does appear to present Tahiti as a natural utopia and Europe as a civilized prison. This essay rejects such a reading by demonstrating that the Supplement actually undermines any clear opposition between virtuous nature, represented by Tahiti, and corrupt civilization, represented by Europe. Although Diderot truly does offer a stinging (...) critique of modern Europe, he refuses to offer "nature" as a redemptive alternative. Instead, the Supplement offers an implicit critique of the politics of moralism. (shrink)

This volume presents the excellent and popular translation by Haldane and Ross of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy , an introduction by Stanley Tweyman which explores the relevance of Descartes' Regulae and his method of analysis in the Meditations , and six articles which indicate the diversity of scholarly opinion on the topic of method in Descartes' philosopy.