Absorbing—being absorbed in—the vision of Robert Neville's Philosophical Theology recalled to me a lowly cartoon by much-beloved Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig.1 A small man carries a big briefcase on a smudgy street. With a look of—relief? regret? foreboding? anticipation?—the man beholds a sign on a wall that reads: "If you see anything mysterious or unusual just enjoy it while you can." Neville's vision is unusual, and the contemplation of mystery sounds as a basso continuo through each and all three opera (...) of his Philosophical Theology. I want to say: enjoy it while you can. For who can say whether its beauty is that of things ephemeral or something more perennial?It seems we might be coming to an end of... (shrink)

I analyse the conceptual and mathematical foundations of Lagrangian quantum field theory (QFT) (that is, the ‘naive’ (QFT) used in mainstream physics, as opposed to algebraic quantum field theory). The objective is to see whether Lagrangian (QFT) has a sufficiently firm conceptual and mathematical basis to be a legitimate object of foundational study, or whether it is too ill-defined. The analysis covers renormalisation and infinities, inequivalent representations, and the concept of localised states; the conclusion is that Lagrangian QFT (at least (...) as described here) is a perfectly respectable physical theory, albeit somewhat different in certain respects from most of those studied in foundational work. (shrink)

This book discusses theories in economics and ethics to help the reader understand all points of view regarding the crossroads between economic systems and individual and social values.

The work of Gleason and of Kochen and Specker has been thought to refute a naïve realist approach to quantum mechanics. The argument of this paper substantially bears out this conclusion. The assumptions required by their work are not arbitrary, but have sound theoretical justification. Moreover, if they are false, there seems no reason why their falsity should not be demonstrable in some sufficiently ingenious experiment. Suitably interpreted, the work of Bell and Wigner may be seen to yield independent arguments (...) for the falsity of naïve realistic approach to quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is no more like classical statistical mechanics than its creators thought it was. (shrink)

This paper examines varieties of naiveté manifested in the world of sport. In particular, I examine epistemological, ethical, and metaphysical naiveté. My contention is that virtually from cradle to grave forms of naiveté toward sport are present. We are tempted and all too often succumb to the temptation to accept appearances. But the initial appearances of sport often disappoint, and the underlying reality that confronts us is sometimes a hard reality. Faced with disappointment and exposed illusions, one’s next step may (...) be to adopt a hermeneutics of suspicion towards sport. There is no going back to the earlier naive stance. But is this the final word on the matter? Once one has adopted a critical perspective towards sport, is it possible to join the hermeneutics of suspicion to what Wendy Doniger refers to as a “hermeneutics of retrieval”? That is, after the first naiveté toward sport is exposed as inadequate, is it possible to arrive at what the philosopher Paul Ricoeur calls a “second naiveté.. (shrink)

The naive realist takes a veridical visual experience to be an immediate relation to external entities. Is this how such an experience is phenomenally, by its phenomenal character? Only if there can be phenomenal error, since a hallucinatory experience phenomenally matching such a veridical experience would then be phenomenally but not in fact such a relation. Fortunately, such phenomenal error can be avoided: the phenomenal character of a visual experience involves immediate awareness of a sort of picture of external entities, (...) as on a representative theory of perception. The attraction of naive realism results from an erroneous projection of the immediacy of the subject's awareness of this picture onto the external entities pictured. (shrink)

While it is impossible to transfigurephilosophical and Judaic thought of EmmanuelLevinas into a moral agenda for education orthe programmatic regularities of a pedagogicalmethodology, this paper argues for theimportance of his work for re-openingeducational questions. These questions engagethe problem of what it could mean to livehistorically, to live within an uprightattentiveness to traces of those who haveinhabited times and places other than one'sown. In this sense, I address the problem ofremembrance as a question of and for history,as a force of inhabitation, (...) as an inheritance weare obligated to live within, that intertwineswith our sense of limits and possibilities,hopes and fears, identities and distinctions.Substantively, this problem is manifest in howone attends to the experiences of others: howone reads, how one views, and how one listens,always historically specific normalizedpractices that in any given epoch are ingrainedin what it means to live in consort withothers, to live as though the lives of otherpeople mattered. The paper seeks to display thefecundity of the thought of Levinas forre-thinking such issues. (shrink)

Marx and Engels argue that capitalism must ultimately destroy itself because it contains an internal contradiction: Capitalism requires wage laborers at first to be in competitive isolation from one another, lest their common interests become transparent and they unite collectively to improve their employment conditions. At a certain later stage of capitalism's historical development, however, competition eventually forces capitalists to bring their workers together in common workplaces (factories), where their shared interests can be immediately perceived and mutual grievances directly communicated. (...) The Communist Manifesto's argument for the inevitable downfall of capitalism is epistemically naïve in several ways, resting as it does on the idea that material interests are perceivable, and that an awareness of common problems translates automatically into a sense of shared interests powerful enough to motivate coordinated action for the sake of achieving economic-political reform. (shrink)

Marx and Engels argue that capitalism must ultimately destroy itself because it contains an internal contradiction: Capitalism requires wage laborers at first to be in competitive isolation from one another, lest their common interests become transparent and they unite collectively to improve their employment conditions. At a certain later stage of capitalism's historical development, however, competition eventually forces capitalists to bring their workers together in common workplaces , where their shared interests can be immediately perceived and mutual grievances directly communicated. (...) The Communist Manifesto's argument for the inevitable downfall of capitalism is epistemically naïve in several ways, resting as it does on the idea that material interests are perceivable, and that an awareness of common problems translates automatically into a sense of shared interests powerful enough to motivate coordinated action for the sake of achieving economic-political reform. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty et Deleuze demandent « Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? »La naïveté de la pensée et l’innocence de la questionLa philosophie doit reconnaître que son obligation pressante à l’égard de « l’histoire souterraine du problème du monde » implique qu’elle affronte les conditions de sa propre détermination. En d’autres termes, l’historicité de la philosophie est l’histoire du « monde » en tant qu’il devient problématique. Mais ce devenir problématique « n’appartient pas à l’histoire ». Dans la pensée de Merleau-Ponty comme (...) dans celle de Deleuze, est à l’oeuvre une historicité qui refl ète la genèse du problème du « monde » en tant que l’être problématique de l’ontogenèse. Je soutiendrai que Merleau-Ponty et Deleuze cristallisent la thématique qui est déjà en germe chez Fink : le problème du monde contraint la pensée à se confronter à sa pratique. Toute philosophie se trouve comme nue face à sa propre naïveté en cherchant un rapprochement avec le monde. Dans le retour vers le monde, le philosophe est contraint de mettre sa pensée en rapport avec la naïveté qui la nourrit. Mais inversement, le philosophe doit admettre le rôle intrinsèque joué par la naïveté dans la pensée elle-même, dans sa pratique philosophique propre. Ce faisant, le statut philosophique de la naïveté se trouve confirmé. Le problème du monde est dès lors le problème philosophique de la construction d’un plan pour orienter notre pensée sur larelation entre la connaissance et l’être. Par là, on a identifi é le parallélisme épistémicoontologique structurant la question « Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? », que posent et à laquelle répondent nos deux philosophes. C’est pourquoi la présente étude soutient que c’est par la répétition philosophique du chemin par lequel le « monde » prend le statut d’un problème ontologique qu’un seuil épistémologique se trouve exposé. Le monde requiert du philosophe qu’il retrouve la naïveté intrinsèque à l’engendrement du penser, qu’il apprécie le monde en tant que problème philosophique, concept opérationnel et acte authentiquement créatif. Nous devons donc redécouvrir ce qui est importait tant à Merleau-Ponty et à Deleuze : l’expressionnisme philosophique. Ainsi, reposer la question « Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? » constitue une répétition afi n de penser le problème du monde. Le défiposé par la naïveté contraint le philosophe à admettre lebesoin de réconcilier l’impuissance inhérente à la naïveté avec l’exigence insistante de surmonter cette impuissance d’une manière ou d’une autre et de rendre la pensée possible. Bref, ce texte cherche à dramatiser la manière dont les deux philosophes, chacun différemment, posent la question « Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? » comme une propédeutique à l’ontologisation de la pensée. C’est pourquoi je montrerai que ce qui motive leur insistance à revenir à cette question est le besoin de comprendre leur propre pratique en tant qu’expression d’une sorte d’intuition philosophique – une pure naïveté de la pensée, une stimulation de la créativité – et, ainsi, de saisir l’être du devenir libéré de toute prétention à représenter, communiquer, fi xer l’ontogenèse. Inversement, il faut reconnaître qu’une telle transformation du motif transcendantal de la philosophie requiert de la pratique philosophique qu’elle se place aux marges de ce qui est considéré comme « savoir ».Merleau-Ponty e Deleuze chiedono “Che cos’è la fi losofia?”L’ingenuità del pensiero e l’innocenza della domandaLa filosofia non può non ammettere che il suo insistente riferimento alla “storia sotterranea del problema del mondo” deve portarla ad affrontare le condizionedella sua propria determinazione. In altre parole, la storicità [Geschichte] che guida la filosofia è la storia del “mondo” in quanto esso diviene problematico. Ma questo problematico “‘divenire’ non appartiene alla storia” [Historie]. Implicita nel pensiero di Merleau-Ponty e di Deleuze è la scoperta di una storicità che rifl ette la genesi del problema del “mondo” come il problematico essere dell’ontogenesi. In questo modo, vorrei sostenere che Merleau-Ponty e Deleuze cristallizzano il germe tematico inizialmente formulato da Fink: il problema del mondo forza il pensiero ad affrontare il suo esercizio. Ogni filosofia rimane nuda di fronte alla propria ingenuità quando cerca una riconciliazione col mondo. Ritornando al mondo, un filosofo si ritrova obbligato a mettere il pensiero alla prova di quella stessa ingenuità che lo nutre.Ma, inversamente, il filosofo deve confessare il ruolo giocato dall’ingenuità nel pensiero stesso, nella sua pratica filosofica. Così facendo, lo status filosoficodell’ingenuità resta confermato. Il problema del mondo è il problema filosofico della costruzione di un piano utile a orientare il nostro modo di pensare la relazione fra conoscenza e essere. Con ciò abbiamo identifi cato il parallelismo ontologicoepistemologico che struttura la domanda “Che cos’è la filosofia?”, così com’è posta e affrontata da Merleau-Ponty e Deleuze. Questo saggio, perciò, sostiene che è attraverso la ripetizione da parte del fi losofo del percorso mediante cui il mondo assume lo statuto di un problema ontologico che una soglia epistemologica viene dischiusa. Il mondo esige che il fi losofo trovi questa ingenuità intrinseca per generare il pensare nel pensiero, per considerare il mondo in quanto problema filosofico, in quanto concetto operativo e in quanto atto veramente creativo. Si potrebbe affermare che qui si scopre ciò che è importante per Merleau-Ponty e Deleuze: una forma di espressionismo filosofico. Pertanto, la riproposizione della domanda “Che cosa è la filosofia?” è una riproposizione, per il pensiero, del problema del mondo. La sfida dell’ingenuità costringeil filosofo a riconciliare l’impotenza relativa all’ingenuità con l’insistente esigenza di sormontare quell’impotenza, rendendo possibile, così, il pensiero stesso. In breve, questo saggio vorrebbe ‘drammatizzare’ il modo in cui entrambi i filosofi, in maniere distinte e divergenti, pongono la domanda “Che cosa è la filosofia?”, avviando in tal modo una sorta di propedeutica all’ontologizzazione del pensiero. Vorrei argomentare, dunque, che ciò che motiva la loro insistenza nel tornare sulla questione “Che cos’è la fi losofi a?” è il bisogno, per Merleau-Ponty e Deleuze, di comprendere il loro esercizio come espressione di una sorta di intuizione filosofica, una pura ingenuità di pensiero, uno stimolo alla creatività e, di conseguenza, una maniera per cogliere dell’essere del divenire libero da ogni pretesa di rappresentare, comunicare o arrestare l’ontogenesi. Per converso, riconosciamo immediatamente che una tale trasformazione della sua forza trascendentale richiede che la filosofia e il suo esercizio circoscrivano il proprio luogo ai margini di ciò che la filosofia considera propriamente come “conoscenza”. (shrink)

As the patient drew her last breaths, with her daughter at her bedside, and the curtain closed across the room, my resident, whom I will call Emma, talked me through what was happening. She explained that the patient's only hope for survival had been surgery, yet surgery would surely have killed her. Emma talked about the different ways different families approach withdrawing the level of care provided in the intensive care unit, allowing a loved one's death. She talked about how (...) hard it is to leave behind everything that happens in this job when she goes home. An intern arrived to make the declaration of death, and Emma encouraged me to go back into the patient's room for this. I placed my stethoscope on the patient's still chest, confirming what we already knew to be true. Death was palpable in that room, and my response was visceral. I did my best to leave the ICU calmly and then ran down five flights of stairs to the hospital chapel and sobbed. When I returned, Emma could see that I was shaken. “It's human,” she told me. In the afternoon, I felt the deep tiredness that I always feel after really crying. In that haze of emotion, I wasn't sure quite how to respond when Emma's next activity for us was to find a patient who needed an arterial blood gas. (shrink)

이 연구는 성서텍스트에 대한 나이브한 접근인 “1차 단순성”을 해체한 불트만의 비신화화를 비판하면서 리쾨르가 성서의 신화를 해석학적으로 복원하는 논증이다. 소위 2차 단순성(seconde naïveté)을 해명하기 위해 이 논문의 3장부터 리쾨르가 본격적으로 비판하게 될 불트만은 성서의 신화에서는 사유할 거리가 있는 그 어떤 것도 찾아내지 못한다. 말하자면 불트만은 신화를 너무 무가치한 것으로 본 것이다. 게다가 불트만은 자신의 신앙을 보존하기 위해 결국 이성에서 벗어나야만 했다. 고로 비합리적이고 실존적인 결단력에 의한 믿음의 비약이 그에게 필요했으며 이것이 바로 ‘신앙주의’로 불리게 된다. 반면 리쾨르는 신화에서조차 인간이 사유할 거리를 (...) 발견하면서 이성의 외부로 신화를 던져버리지 않는다. 그는 결코 합리적 반성의 외부에서는 판단하지 않을 이 신화들의 공헌으로부터 자신을 단절하지 않은 채 믿음의 보존을 바란 것이다. 요컨대 리쾨르는 신화를 다룬 그리스비극 및 성서텍스트가 인류학적 차원에서 중요할 뿐만 아니라, ‘주체의 발견’과 같은 인간 조건에 대한 인식에도 공헌한다고 강조하면서 불트만을 비판함으로 해석학적 철학을 재구성한 것이다. (shrink)

While the social and ecological landscape of the twenty-first century is worlds away from the historical-cultural context in which the biblical myth-symbols of the image of God and the knowledge of good and evil first emerged, Philip Hefner's understanding that Homo sapiens image God as created co-creators presents a plausible starting point for constructing a second naïveté interpretation of biblical anthropology and a fruitful concept for envisioning and enacting our human future.

Abstract. Found in the Primeval History in Genesis, the biblical concepts of the “image of God” and the “knowledge of good and evil” remain integral to Christian anthropology, especially with regard to the theologoumena of “fall” and “original sin.” All of these symbols are remained important and appropriate descriptors of the human condition, provided that contemporary academic theological anthropology engages in constructive dialogue with the natural and social sciences. Using Paul Ricoeur's notion of “second naïveté experience,” I illustrate the (...) hermeneutical significance of contemporary bio-cultural or socio-biological evolutionary theory for reformulating these concepts of Christian anthropology today. (shrink)

This paper employs Ricoeur’s hermeneutic approach to examine how fundamentalist religious communities shape personal and social identity. His biblical hermeneutics is used to analyze how narrative texts of various genres open a ‘fundamentalist’ world, while also challenging his monolithic emphasis on written texts. I argue that a wider variety of texts as well as rituals and other media must be examined, which all inform and display the fundamentalist world in important ways. Second, I employ his analysis of the formation of (...) identity and action to understand how identity is framed and prescribed by fundamentalist communities for their members. Finally, I draw on Ricoeur’s account of symbolism and move from first to second naïveté to provide an account of how fundamentalist communities respond to modernity and the threat of Enlightenment rationality. I argue that, contra what Ricoeur proposes, earlier mythic language was highly polyphonic and not understood literally. Fundamentalist communities move to more literalist understandings in response to modernity. Thus, while Ricoeur’s hermeneutic approach is richly useful for a philosophical approach to religious fundamentalism, the close examination of this phenomenon enables a broadening of Ricoeur’s work on religion, symbolism and identity. (shrink)

"Naiveté as Critique. The present paper addresses the similarities between the concept of “critique” used in phenomenology and the one put forth by critical theory in analyzing their corresponding understanding of “naiveté”. While Husserl develops a broad concept of naiveté in his reflections regarding the phenomenological reduction, where he characterizes the natural attitude as such as “transcendentally naive”, this concept becomes more nuanced when considering the unavoidable naivetés of phenomenology itself, on the one hand, and the complications brought to the (...) mutual relationship between naiveté and critique with his turn towards the life-world. This turn, the paper shows, can be seen as a metacritical reinvestment of naiveté that can also be traced in the works of Adorno. Keywords: Husserl, Adorno, life-world, metacritique, physiognomics. ". (shrink)

It is a philosophical naiveté to believe that the object of science is some ready-made world out there that the scientist, free of any preconceptions, simply stumbles upon. Of course, there is a world out there, given to us through the senses, but that must be intentionally elaborated to become a world for us and a possible object of scientific inquiry. The intentional constitution of the world of science supports and “justifies” a priori conceptions about the empirical world, even those (...) of a logical nature, that are, then, properly transcendental rather than metaphysical. My goal here is to investigate what these presuppositions are and on what they are based. (shrink)

Duration distortions familiar from trauma present an apparent counterexample to what we might call the naive view of duration perception. I argue that such distortions constitute a counterexample to naiveté only on the assumption that we perceive duration absolutely. This assumption can seem mandatory if we think of the alternative, relative view as limiting our awareness to the relative durations of perceptually presented events. However, once we recognize the constant presence of a stream of non-perceptual conscious mental activity, we can (...) provide an attractive, purely relative account of temporal distortions quite consistent with the naive view. I also consider (and reject) a second empirical challenge to the naive view arising from the so-called ‘oddball effect’. I conclude by tentatively pointing to further empirical data, traditionally accounted for in terms of an internal clock model of timing, which, I suggest, may be understood more illuminatingly by appeal to the idea that we perceive duration in part relative to concurrent non-perceptual mental activity. (shrink)

This paper expands on the discussion in the first section of 'Beyond phenomenal naivete'. Let Phenomenal Naivete be understood as the doctrine that some phenomenal characters of veridical experiences are factive properties concerning the external world. Here I present in detail a phenomenological case for Phenomenal Naivete and an argument from hallucination against it. I believe that these arguments show the concept of phenomenal character to be defective, overdetermined by its metaphysical and epistemological commitments together with the world. This does (...) not establish a gappish eliminativism, but a gluttish pluralism, on which there are many imperfect deservers of the name 'phenomenal character'. Different projects in the philosophy of mind -- phenomenology, philosophy of conscious, metaphysics and epistemology of perception -- are concerned with different deservers of the name. (shrink)

Dans les heures de grandes trouvailles, une image poétique peut être le germe d'un monde, le germe d'un univers imaginé devant la rêverie d'un poète. La conscience d'émerveillement devant ce monde créé par le poète s'ouvre en toute naïveté. [...] L'exigence phénoménologique à l'égard des images poétiques est d'ailleurs simple : elle revient à mettre l'accent sur leur vertu d'origine, à saisir l'être même de leur originalité et à bénéficier ainsi de l'insigne productivité psychique qui est celle de l'imagination.

The question of energy is among the most vital for the future of humanity and the flourishing of life on this planet. Yet, only very rarely (if at all) do we ask what energy is, what it means, what ends it serves, and how it is related to actuality, meaning-making, and instrumentality. Energy Dreams interrogates the ontology of energy from the first coinage of the word energeia by Aristotle to the current practice of fracking and the popularity of "energy drinks." (...) Its sustained, multi-disciplinary investigation builds a theoretical infrastructure for an alternative energy paradigm. This study unhinges stubbornly held assumptions about energy, conceived in terms of a resource to be violently extracted from the depths of the earth and from certain living beings (such as plants, converted into biofuels), a thing that, teetering on the verge of depletion, sparks off movement and is incompatible with the inertia of rest. Consulting the insights of philosophers, theologians, psychologists and psychoanalysts, economic and political theorists, and physicists, Michael Marder argues that energy is not only a coveted object of appropriation but also the subject who dreams of amassing it; that it not only resides in the dimension of depth but also circulates on the surface; that it activates rest as much as movement, potentiality as much as actuality; and that it is both the means and the end of our pursuits. Ultimately, Marder shows that, instead of being grounded in utopian naïveté, the dreams of another energy—to be procured without devastating everything in existence—derive from the suppressed concept of energy itself. (shrink)

One way in which the characteristic gestures of philosophy and criticism differ from each other lies in their involvements with disillusionment, with the undoing of our naivete, especially regarding what we take ourselves to know about the meaning of what we say. Philosophy will often find less than we thought was there, perhaps nothing at all, in what we say about the “external” world, or in our judgments of value, or in our ordinary psychological talk. The work of criticism, on (...) the other hand, frequently disillusions by finding disturbingly more in what is said than we precritically thought was there. In our relation to the meaningfulness of what we say, there is a disillusionment of plentitude as well as of emptiness. And no doubt what is “less” for one discipline may be “more” of what someone else is looking for.In recent years, metaphor has attracted more than its share of both philosophical and critical attention, including philosophical denials of the obvious, as well as critical challenges to the obviousness of the ways we talk about metaphor. In this paper I discuss a problem of each sort and suggest a complex of relations between them. The particular denial of the obvious that I’m interested in is the claim recently made by Donald Davidson that “a metaphor doesn’t say anything beyond its literal meaning ,” nor is it even correct to speak of metaphor as a form of communication.1 There’s disillusionment with a vengeance; and even if not strictly believable, it is still not without its therapeutic value, as we shall see. 1. Donald Davidson, “What Metaphors Mean,” in On Metaphor, ed. Sheldon Sacks , p. 30; hereafter abbreviated “WMM.” Davidson’s view has found supporters among both philosophers and literary theorists. It is, for example, important to the early argument of Richard Rorty’s recent book. See his Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity , p. 18. Richard Moran is an assistant professor of philosophy at Princeton University. He is currently working on a book on subjectivity and contemporary concepts of personhood. (shrink)

In his book, On Reflection, Hilary Kornblith criticizes what he regards as a chronic tendency in philosophy towards inflating the significance of reflection in ways that manifest a combination of philosophical naiveté and scientific ignorance about how reflection actually works. In these comments, I respond to Kornblith's challenge by sketching an account of the philosophical significance of reflection in the theory of epistemic justification.

History and literature provide striking examples of people who are morally admirable, in part, because of their profound faith in people’s decency. But moral philosophers have largely ignored this trait, and I suspect that many philosophers would view such faith with suspicion, dismissing it as a form of naïvete or as some other objectionable form of irrationality. I argue that such suspicion is misplaced, and that having a certain kind of faith in people’s decency, which I call faith in humanity, (...) is a centrally important moral virtue. In order to make this view intuitively more plausible, I discuss two moral exemplars – one historical and the other literary – whose lives vividly exhibit such faith. Then I provide a rationale for the view that having such faith is morally admirable. Finally, I discuss cases in which someone’s faith in humanity can lead her to make judgments that are, to some degree, epistemically irrational. I argue that the existence of such cases does not pose a serious objection to the view that having faith in humanity is a moral virtue. Rather, it makes salient important limits on the role that epistemic, as opposed to practical, rationality should occupy in our ideals of how to live. (shrink)

The discipline of academic philosophy suffers from serious problems of diversity and inclusion whose acknowledgement and amelioration are often resisted by members of our profession. In this paper, I distinguish four main modes of resistance—naiveté, conservatism, pride, and hostility—and describe how and why they manifest by using them as the basis for a typology of types of ‘resister’. This typology can hopefully be useful to those of us trying to counteract such resistance in ways sensitive to the different motives and (...) strategies that these resisters tend to employ. (shrink)

Scholars are divided as to whether reduction should be a central strategy for understanding the world. While reductive analysis is the standard mode of explanation in many areas of science and everyday life, many scholars consider reductionism a sign of “intellectual naïveté and backwardness.” This article makes three points about the proper status of antireductionism: First, reduction is, in fact, a centrally important epistemic strategy. Second, reduction to physics is always possible for all causal properties. Third, there are, nevertheless, (...) reasons why we want science to discover properties and explanations other than reductive physical ones. (shrink)

In this strikingly original contribution to our understanding of Chinese philosophy,Françle;ois Julien, a French sinologist whose work has not yet appeared in English usesthe Chinese concept of shi - meaning disposition or circumstance, power or potential - as atouchstone to explore Chinese culture and to uncover the intricate and coherent structure underlyingChinese modes of thinking.A Hegelian prejudice still haunts studies of ancient Chinese civilization:Chinese thought, never able to evolve beyond a cosmological point of view, with an indifference toany notion of (...) telos, sought to interpret reality solely on the basis of itself. In thisgroundbreaking study, prejudices toward the simplicity and "naiveté" of Chinese thought, Hegelianand otherwise, are dismantled one by one to reveal the intricate and coherent structure underlyingChinese modes of thinking and representing reality.Jullien begins with a single Chinese term, shi,whose very ambivalence and disconcerting polysemy, on the one hand, and simple efficacy, on theother, defy the order of a concept. Yet shi insinuates itself into the ordering and conditioning ofreality in all its manifold and complex representations. Because shi neither gave rise to anycoherent, general analysis nor figured as one of the major concepts among Chinese thinkers, Jullienfollows its appearance from one field to another: from military strategy to politics; from theaesthetics of calligraphy and painting to the theory of literature; and from reflection on historyto "first philosophy."At the point where these various domains intersect, a fundamental intuitionassumed self-evident for centuries emerges, namely, that reality - every kind of reality - may beperceived as a particular deployment or arrangement of things to be relied upon and worked to one'sadvantage. Art or wisdom, as conceived by the Chinese, lies in strategically exploiting thepropensity that emanates from this particular configuration of reality. (shrink)

In this new book, author Russell McCutcheon offers a powerful critique of traditional scholarship on religion, focusing on multiple interrelated targets. Most prominent among these are the History of Religions as a discipline; Mircea Eliade, one of the founders of the modern discipline; recent scholarship on Eliade's life and politics; contemporary textbooks on world religions; and the oft-repeated bromide that "religion" is a sui generis phenomenon. McCutcheon skillfully analyzes the ideological basis for and service of the sui generis argument, demonstrating (...) that it has been used to constitute the field's object of study in a form that is ahistoric, apolitical, fetishized, and sacrosanct. As such, he charges, it has helped to create departments, jobs, and publication outlets for those who are comfortable with such a suspect construction, while establishing a disciplinary ethos of astounding theoretical naivete and a body of scholarship to match. Surveying the textbooks available for introductory courses in comparative religion, the author finds that they uniformly adopt the sui generis line and all that comes with it. As a result, he argues, they are not just uncritical, but actively inhibit the emergence of critical perspectives and capacities. And on the geo-political scale, he contends, the study of religion as an ahistorical category participates in a larger system of political domination and economic and cultural imperialism. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is an embattled political project. It is accused of political naiveté for it only talks about power without taking power. Others, meanwhile, take issue with deliberative democracy’s dominance in the field of democratic theory and practice. An industry of consultants, facilitators, and experts of deliberative forums has grown over the past decades, suggesting that the field has benefited from a broken political system. This book is inspired by these accusations. It argues that deliberative democracy’s tense relationship with power (...) is not a pathology but constitutive of deliberative practice. Deliberative democracy gains relevance when it navigates complex relations of power in modern societies, learns from its mistakes, remains epistemically humble but not politically meek. These arguments are situated in three facets of deliberative democracy—norms, forums, and systems—and concludes by applying these ideas to three of the most pressing issues in contemporary times—post-truth politics, populism, and illiberalism. (shrink)

Media attention to retracted research suggests that a substantial number of papers are corrupted by misinformation. In reality, every paper contains misinformation; at issue is whether the balance of correct versus incorrect information is acceptable. This paper postulates that analysis of retracted research papers can provide insight into medical misinformation, although retracted papers are not a random sample of incorrect papers. Error is the most common reason for retraction and error may be the principal cause of misinformation as well. Still, (...) one-quarter of retracted papers are fraudulent, and misinformation may also arise through fraud. This paper hypothesises that error and fraud are the main sources of misinformation and that error is more common than fraud. Retraction removes misinformation from the literature; bias is non-retracted misinformation. Bias arises when scientific impropriety results in false research findings. Impropriety can involve experimental design, data collection, data analysis, or data presentation. Yet impropriety also arises through earnest error or statistical naiveté; not all bias is fraud. Several measures are proposed to minimise misinformation in the medical literature, including: greater detail in the clinical trial registry, with rigorous definition of inclusion and exclusion criteria and primary endpoints; clear statistical criteria for every aspect of clinical trials, especially sample size; responsibility for data integrity that accrues to all named authors; increased transparency as to how the costs of research were paid; and greater clarity as to the reasons for retraction. Misinformation can arise without malicious intent; authors of incorrect papers are owed a presumption of incompetence, not malice. (shrink)

What are the prospects for critique in an age of collapse? Collapsing ecosystems, “democratic decay,” vicious “culture wars,” and changing knowledge economies all impact the conditions of possibility for academic critique. Universities have become bastions of “academic neoliberalism,” driven by managerialism, rankings, and punishing overwork. Terms such as “postcritique” capture the possibility that critique has literally “run out of steam,” as Bruno Latour famously put it. This article takes the form of a staged call to arms to address some (...) of these issues. First, it sets out to name the combination of economic and cultural forces that constitute “academic neoliberalism,” and to propose a constructive strategy against them. Second, it critiques debates about “postcritique.” Third, it argues that academic neoliberalism can be resisted and that this is now primary business for the sciences, humanities, and social sciences. The article closes by proposing new scholarly practices based in “constitutive criticism,” explicitly oriented towards the retrograde politics of the present. (shrink)