This chapter contains sections titled: Either – Or Two Upbuilding Discourses (1843) further reading.

There is much to be learned philosophically from this volume, but philosophical instruction was not Kierkegaard's aim here, except in the broad sense of self-knowledge and deepened awareness. Indicating the intention of the discourses, the titles include "The Expectancy of Faith," "Love Will Hide a Multitude of Sins," "Strengthening in the Inner Being," "To Gain One's Soul in Patience," "Patience in Expectancy," and "Against Cowardliness."In tone and substance these works are in accord with the concluding words of encouragement in (...) Either/Or, which was paired with the first volume of discourses: "Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer, for one may have known something many times, acknowledged it; one may have willed something many times, attempted it--and yet, only the deep inner motion, only the heart's indescribable emotion, only that will convince you that what you have acknowledged belongs to you, that no power can take it from you--for only the truth that builds up is truth for you.". (shrink)

There is much to be learned philosophically from this volume, but philosophical instruction was not Kierkegaard's aim here, except in the broad sense of self-knowledge and deepened awareness. Indicating the intention of the discourses, the titles include "The Expectancy of Faith," "Love Will Hide a Multitude of Sins," "Strengthening in the Inner Being," "To Gain One's Soul in Patience," "Patience in Expectancy," and "Against Cowardliness." In tone and substance these works are in accord with the concluding words of encouragement (...) in Either/Or, which was paired with the first volume of discourses: "Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer, for one may have known something many times, acknowledged it; one may have willed something many times, attempted it--and yet, only the deep inner motion, only the heart's indescribable emotion, only that will convince you that what you have acknowledged belongs to you, that no power can take it from you--for only the truth that builds up is truth for you.". (shrink)

In his praise for Part I of Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, the eminent Kierkegaard scholar Eduard Geismar said, "I am of the opinion that nothing of what he has written is to such a degree before the face of God. Anyone who really wants to understand Kierkegaard does well to begin with it." These discourses, composed after Kierkegaard had initially intended to end his public writing career, constitute the first work of his "second authorship." Characterized (...) by Kierkegaard as ethical-ironic, Part One, "Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing," offers a penetrating discussion of double-mindedness and ethical integrity. Part Two, "What We Learn from the Lilies in the Field and from the Birds of the Air," humorously exposes an inverted qualitative difference between the learner and the teacher. In Part Three, "The Gospel of Sufferings, Christian Discourses," the philosopher explores how joy can come out of suffering. (shrink)

While philosophers feel relatively comfortable about talking of the present and the past, some of them feel uncomfortable about talking in just the same way of future events. They feel that, in general, discourse about the future differs significantly from discourse about the past and present, and that these differences reflect a logical asymmetry between the past and future beyond the merely defining fact that the future succeeds, and the past precedes, the present time. The problem is: how can we (...) talk about events which have not yet happened, or at any rate are not yet bound to happen, or whose participants do not yet exist? The effect of these worries has led them to claim to recognise restrictions on our talk about the future which do not govern talk about the past and present. The most famous of these views is Aristotle's. According to one familiar interpretation, he holds that a statement about a future event which is not yet settled, a contingent event in the future, is neither true nor false, even though the statement that the event either will or will not happen is necessarily true. Proponents of this view felt that if a future-tensed statement were already true then the fact that it stated would already be settled. I do not propose to discuss this well-known and muchdiscussed doctrine of Aristotle's, but I do want to consider some allied views which have been aired recently, and to look at their philosophical significance. Before I look at these, however, it will be convenient to recall three of the main reasons why the Aristotelian doctrine is unpopular. In the first place it is paradoxical to accept that a statement of the form p v ∼ p is true while claiming that neither of its disjuncts is true. Then there are misgivings about the notion of truth involved: many feel that truth is essentially an attribute of timeless propositions and that it is nonsense to talk of a statement's becoming true as you would of Aristotle's views if the event described became inevitable. There is also the difficulty of accounting for the meaning of a future-tensed sentence which may express a statement that is neither true nor false simply because what it states is not yet settled. It could not be said of the sentence expressing such a statement that you know what it means if you know what it is for the sentence to express a true statement. I know the meaning of the present-tensed sentence ‘A sea-battle is now being waged’ if I know that it can normally be used to make a true statement precisely in the event of there being a sea-battle being waged at present. But I do not know the meaning of the future-tensed sentence ‘A sea-battle will be waged tomorrow’ simply by knowing that the sentence expresses a true statement if it is already settled that there is going to be a battle: the statement doesn't mean that the battle is already settled, otherwise it would not lack a truth-value when the matter was still open – it would be false. (shrink)

Both in formal situations (as school teachers, football trainers, etc.) and in many, often unpredictable informal situations (both inside and outside institutions)—adults come close to children. Whether we intend it or not, we continually give them examples of what it is to live as a human being, and thereby we have a pedagogical responsibility. I sketch what it could mean to let ourselves “be built up”, in a Kierkegaardian sense, on the foundation of unconditional love, presupposing that this love is (...) possible for all human beings. Kierkegaard’s Upbuilding discourses invite each reader to engage in a dialogue with the possibilities in the text. Thereby the reader may become aware of his or her present situation in life and see possible alternatives. These discourses or “talks” (taler in Danish) exemplify a manner of indirect communication which perhaps may be transferred to encounters with works of art in general: How could I let examples in literature, pictures, films and music invite and challenge me—to ask myself who I am right now and who I ought to be? My aim is to present an alternative to the instrumental advices that adults are given today. I attempt to clarify the leading concept “upbuilding examples”, sketch the difference between upbuilding, education and Bildung, refer to works of art that seem to have upbuilding possibilities, and consider why upbuilding examples should be studied and how they could be studied in small self-governed groups of adults. (shrink)

For all its diversity, contemporary discourse about the Other shares the following suppositions: the Other in its radicality eludes the economy of the logic of the Same; it is beyond Being; its alterity is tied to the infinite in a manner that exceeds the ambit of thematization; and the problem it presents to philosophy is novel, in the precise sense that the dominant logic of the Western tradition, the so-called “logic of the Same” , is incapable of recognizing the full (...) depth of the problem of the Other. In what follows I will engage critically each of these suppositions, to the end of answering the question whether contemporary discourse about the Other is determined by a two-fold one-sidedness, characterized by its thoroughly modern presuppositions about the nature of the Self and logic and by its positing of the kath auto status of the Other as something that is either completely unrelated to the Same or, granting the necessity of recognizing some kind of relation to the Same, something that has absolute priority over the Same. My answer to this question will be “yes.” I will endeavor to demonstrate the two-fold one-sidedness belonging to these suppositions by first returning to the original discussion of the Other in the Western tradition, Plato’s account of the dialogue between the philosophical Stranger from Elea and the mathematician Theaetetus in the Sophist. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show that intuition plays no role in mathematics. That intuition plays a role in mathematics is mainly associated to the view that the method of mathematics is the axiomatic method. It is assumed that axioms are directly (Gödel) or indirectly (Hilbert) justified by intuition. This article argues that all attempts to justify axioms in terms of intuition fail. As an alternative, the article supports the view that the method of mathematics is the analytic (...) method, a method originally used by the mathematician Hippocrates of Chios and the physician Hippocrates of Cos, and first explicitly formulated by Plato. The article examines the main features of the analytic method, and argues that, while intuition plays an essential role in the axiomatic method, it plays no role in the analytic method, either in the discovery or in the justification of hypotheses. That the method of mathematics is the analytic method involves that mathematical knowledge is not absolutely certain but only plausible, but the article argues that this is the best we can achieve. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Fictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative TheoryCarol S. GouldFictions of Discourse: Reading Narrative Theory, by Patrick O’Neill; x & 188 pp. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994, $35.00 paper.Patrick O’Neill serves up a rich stew of narratology, reader-reception theory, and a postmodern theory of truth. Many narratologists have taken the postmodern turn, while others have pursued a reception-theory route. Either path requires careful navigation, and the combined one (...) even more so. Classical narratology focuses on the textual structure with its network of various narratological relations. Reader-reception theory assigns to the reader a leading role in the creation of the text. O’Neill in various ways challenges or at least reformulates the notions of both text and reader, endorsing as he does a postmodern theory of truth which he terms the “Zeno Principle.” This principle is that “narrative discourse is always potentially subversive of the story it would seem to reconstruct” (p. 7). The Zeno Principle is a version of what he understands to be the Heisenberg Principle, namely that “discourse (including theoretical discourse) at least potentially subverts the story it sets out to narrate, and ultimately itself also” (p. 9). O’Neill contends that his narratological project will support the Zeno Principle. If successful, though, his endeavor will of course meet the usual self-destructive fate of such theories. But its self-annihilation seems not to discourage O’Neill, who finds all theories essentially “ludic.” O’Neill’s undertaking is ambitious; I shall focus on just a few of his moves.First of all, it is no surprise to hear that postmodernism is not new nor even that it has a classical pedigree. But it will probably astound—not to say sadden—the reader to see O’Neill locate its origins in the paradoxes of Zeno—the fifth-century Eleatic, the logician so well known for defending the epistemic primacy of reason, one of the uncontested intellectual progenitors of Plato, who remains the explicit target of Derridean fire. This is not simply a persnickety objection to O’Neill’s terminology, but a reflection on the broad implications he draws from his narratological investigations.Plato, working in the Eleatic (Zenoian) tradition, draws our attention to the perspectival nature of literature and would extend this to all empirical discourse. Any empirical narrative—history, biography, or literature—is in principle illusory because merely perspectival. Plato, true intellectual heir of Zeno, anticipates the narratological enterprise in this respect, while demonstrating [End Page 532] the exclusive epistemic integrity of logical thought. One finds this of course in his Republic, but nowhere are his narratological sympathies more evident than in the Symposium, with its many tiers of narration. He prefigures, then, the modern insight that all narrative is, in Wayne Booth’s terms, rhetoric and in narratological terms, focalized.If we grant with Zeno, Plato, and other friends of rationality that empirical discourse is perspectival or focalized, we can see that narrative must place us in some hypothetical vantage point: from another standpoint, the world looks different and assumes new contours and mood. Once we acknowledge that no one point of view is more privileged than another, our perceptions seem less stable. Lolita, for example, told from the viewpoint of the nymphet herself, would be a different story. Moreover, any narrative must be mediated by narrative perspective, and as O’Neill indicates, the narrative vantage point may not be that of the narrator or implied author. As he puts it, “Voice and vision... [may] derive from separate points of origin” (p. 84).In a sense, then, all empirical discourse is subversive. But does it follow that all theoretical discourse is therefore subversive? O’Neill scrutinizes fictional discourse, and helpfully so for us. But the perspectival nature of literary or empirical narrative hardly suffices to cast doubt on the notion of truth per se. The real Zeno Principle is the Platonic one that however arbitrarily empirical perspective might shift, rational intuition does not. If one wants to challenge that view, one must defend the Protagoras Principle, the true classical articulation of postmodernism. Aristotle, after all, wrestles with this in his Metaphysics rather than in his Poetics.O’Neill... (shrink)

At first sight constitutionalism appears to be a key concept in public law discourse in the United Kingdom. It appears in all the major academic discussions from the rule of law and judicial review to the ‘new constitutional settlement’ and in relation to constitutional culture. And yet attempts to define the scope, meaning and role of constitutionalism remain vague. This article discusses the different fields in which constitutionalism is discussed and the different meanings that are attributed to the concept. (...) It shows that constitutionalism is routinely conflated by public law scholars with other constitutional values and principles, like the rule of law or separation of powers. This article argues that constitutionalism should either be conceived as distinct from those concepts or, failing that, can safely be eliminated from public law discourse. The article concludes by asking whether a nuanced and normative discussion of constitutionalism could have any meaningful application in the United Kingdom constitution. (shrink)

George Pattison provides a bold and innovative reassessment of Kierkegaard's neglected Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses and reading of his work as a whole. The first full length assessment of the discourses in English, this volume will be essential reading for philosophers and theologians, and anyone interested in Kierkegaard and the history of philosophy.

George Pattison provides a bold and innovative reassessment of Kierkegaard's neglected Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses and reading of his work as a whole. The first full length assessment of the discourses in English, this volume will be essential reading for philosophers and theologians, and anyone interested in Kierkegaard and the history of philosophy.

Both Zhuangzi and Søren Kierkegaard use fables to portray humorous and clever insights about life. Here two fables are drawn from the first chapter of the Zhuangzi and compared from a variety of perspectives with two fables found in Kierkegaard's Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. Questions about the value of comparing oneself with others, the character of dependence and independence, and matters related to self-identity and utility are explored. Contrasts related to theological concerns in Kierkegaard and their (...) absence in Zhuangzi, as well as the former's promotion of wuwei spontaneity rather than Kierkegaard's emphasis on making determined choices are highlighted. (shrink)

This article explores universal normative bases that could help to shape a workable legal construct that would facilitate a global use of advance directives. Although I believe that advance directives are of universal character, my primary aim in approaching this issue is to remain realistic. I will make three claims. First, I will argue that the principles of autonomy, dignity and informed consent, embodied in the Oviedo Convention and the UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, could arguably be (...) regarded as universal bases for the global use of advance directives. Second, I will demonstrate that, despite the apparent consensus of ethical authorities in support of their global use, it is unlikely, for the time being, that such consensus could lead to unqualified legal recognition of advance directives, because of different understandings of the nature of the international rules, meanings of autonomy and dignity which are context-specific and culture-specific, and existing imperfections that make advance directives either unworkable or hardly applicable in practice. The third claim suggests that the fact that the concept of the advance directive is not universally shared does not mean that it should not become so, but never as the only option in managing incompetent patients. A way to proceed is to prioritize work on developing higher standards in managing incompetent patients and on progressing towards the realization of universal human rights in the sphere of bioethics, by advocating a universal, legally binding international convention that would outlaw human rights violations in end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

Many recent theories of epistemic discourse exploit an informational notion of consequence, i.e. a notion that defines entailment as preservation of support by an information state. This paper investigates how informational consequence fits with probabilistic reasoning. I raise two problems. First, all informational inferences that are not also classical inferences are, intuitively, probabilistically invalid. Second, all these inferences can be exploited, in a systematic way, to generate triviality results. The informational theorist is left with two options, both of them (...) radical: they can either deny that epistemic modal claims have probability at all, or they can move to a nonstandard probability theory. (shrink)

The current cult of the personality of the teacher and personal development as an official goal in education policy documents are problematic as they make it difficult to distinguish a teacher from a seducer, thus blurring the distinction between education and therapy. In order to describe the pedagogical bond proper the article draws on Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts such as identification, suggestion, and transference. Lacan's distinction between the discourse of the university and the discourse of the master is presented in order (...) to clarify, firstly, the formal characteristics of a pedagogical social bond, and secondly, the difference between being authoritative and being authoritarian. Furthermore, the psychoanalytic concept of the unconscious serves to point towards the fundamental unpredictability of pedagogical praxis. As teachers we are dealing with subjects and not with the individuals, persons or egos of psychology. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Understanding how extremist Salafists communicate, and not only what, is key to gaining insights into the ways they construct their social order and use psychological forces to radicalize potential sympathizers on social media. With a view to contributing to the existing body of research which mainly focuses on terrorist organizations, we analyzed accounts that advocate violent jihad without supporting any terrorist group and hence might be able to reach a large and not yet radicalized audience. We constructed a critical (...) multimodal and multidisciplinary framework of discourse patterns that may work as potential triggers to a selection of key cognitive biases and we applied it to a corpus of Facebook posts published by seven extremist Salafists. Results reveal how these posts are either based on an intense crisis construct or on simplistic solutions composed of taken-for-granted statements. Devoid of any grey zone, these posts do not seek to convince the reader; polarization is framed as a presuppositional established reality. These observations reveal that extremist Salafist communication is constructed in a way that may trigger specific cognitive biases, which are discussed in the paper. (shrink)

In recent times, whistleblowing has become one of the most popularly debated issues of business ethics. Popular discussion has coincided with the institutionalisation of whistleblowing via legal and administrative practices, supported by the emergence of academic research in the field. However, the public practice and knowledge that has subsequently developed appears to construct a dichotomy of whistleblowing/silence ; that is, an employee elects either to ‘blow the whistle’ on organisational wrongdoing, or remain silent. We argue that this public transcript (...) of whistleblowing/silence overshadows the importance of continuing research into alternative (individual or collective) employee behaviour. Drawing on original research with a financial services organisation, our research uncovers a dissenting discourse that operates through implicit communication, such as codes, sarcasm and jokes. We suggest that this hidden transcript offers significant opportunities for employees to act ethically, and offers the potential to sustain an ethical organisational culture. (shrink)

To what extent do we pay attention to the text and images that cover our hospital walls and do we offer any critique either as professionals or service users? In the past we might have expected to see functional or helpful instructions about where to go (or not to go) and in more well‐endowed buildings, perhaps we would see some works of art, sculpture, stained glass even, with the intention to encourage, distract or even forewarn us. However, it is (...) now common in UK hospitals, for wall space to be used as a portal for a range of institutional political messages, that convey information about everything from its own values, behaviours to advertisements for products and services to requirements for rule following. Michel Foucault's ideas about Heterotopic space can help us to see that hospitals tend to fall (awkwardly) between being a public and personal health care space, and this is a possible explanation for the confused material culture and messages that are shared there. This paper draws on ethnographic methods to reflect on personal experience in order to offer a critique of the contemporary political discourse which has become 'literally' written onto our hospital walls. (shrink)

In the quest for a workable ideal of democracy, the systems approach has recently shifted its perspective on deliberative democratic theory. Instead of enquiring how institutionalized decision-making might mirror an ‘ideal deliberative procedure’, it asks how democracy might be construed as a ‘deliberative system’. This leads it to recommend de-emphasizing the role of parliament and focusing instead on non-institutionalized actors and communications. Though this increased emphasis is undoubtedly warranted, the importance of parliament must not be downplayed. In the debate about (...) transnational democracy – and about EU democratization in particular – it is widely held that making democracy safe for transnational politics entails finding new, non-parliamentary ways of organizing it. Here, the deliberative systems perspective may be misunderstood as offering an alternative, non-parliamentary route to transnational democracy. This article argues that a deliberative system without a parliamentary legislature is tantamount to deliberation without democracy and that an elected parliamentary legislature is constitutive of democracy as a deliberative system – national or transnational. To substantiate this claim, the article suggests looking at Habermas’ discourse theory in a new light, as a sociological-reconstructive approach that aims to explicate the cognitive dimension of modern democratic decision-making. Acknowledgement of discourse theory’s sociological intent enhances our understanding of democracy as a deliberative system in two important ways. First, it helps elucidate the epistemic meaning of democracy differently from the accounts given in alternative theories. Discourse theory holds that what generates democratic legitimacy in modern democracies is a particular epistemic quality which the democratic process lends to decisions by enabling citizens to view the latter as valid outcomes of a cooperative practice of collective problem-solving among equals. From this pragmatist understanding it follows, second, that the presence of a parliamentary legislature is crucial to the establishment and operation of democracy as a deliberative system. (shrink)

Machiavelli is known chiefly for The Prince, but his main considerations on politics are in his most profound and later work Discourses on Livy, the complexity, length and style of which have often discouraged new readers and interpreters of Machiavelli, despite its historical and theoretical importance. For this reason, the Discourses has not been given the attention it deserves. This volume of newly commissioned essays by some of the world's leading experts on Machiavelli overcomes this gap. It is (...) the first collective volume dedicated specifically to this work, ranging over topics such as Machiavelli's republicanism, the relation between liberty and tyranny, the role of religion, his conception of history, his writing style, his view of society as a plural and conflictive body, his suggestion of how a free state should be organized, or his notions of the people and virtù. Contributors include: Jérémie Barthas, Thomas Berns, Alessandro Campi, J. Patrick Coby, Marie Gaille, Marco Geuna, Mark Jurdjevic, Cary J. Nederman, Gabriele Pedullà, Diogo Pires Aurélio, Fabio Raimondi, Andre Santos Campos, Miguel Vatter, and Camila Vergara. (shrink)

This article explores universal normative bases that could help to shape a workable legal construct that would facilitate a global use of advance directives. Although I believe that advance directives are of universal character, my primary aim in approaching this issue is to remain realistic. I will make three claims. First, I will argue that the principles of autonomy, dignity and informed consent, embodied in the Oviedo Convention and the UNESCO Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, could arguably be (...) regarded as universal bases for the global use of advance directives. Second, I will demonstrate that, despite the apparent consensus of ethical authorities in support of their global use, it is unlikely, for the time being, that such consensus could lead to unqualified legal recognition of advance directives, because of different understandings of the nature of the international rules, meanings of autonomy and dignity which are context‐specific and culture‐specific, and existing imperfections that make advance directives either unworkable or hardly applicable in practice. The third claim suggests that the fact that the concept of the advance directive is not universally shared does not mean that it should not become so, but never as the only option in managing incompetent patients. A way to proceed is to prioritize work on developing higher standards in managing incompetent patients and on progressing towards the realization of universal human rights in the sphere of bioethics, by advocating a universal, legally binding international convention that would outlaw human rights violations in end‐of‐life decision‐making. (shrink)

Although Les Philosophes was an ordinary comedy, and Palissot was far from the caliber of Molière or Voltaire, it successfully consolidated conservative criticisms of the philosophes within a satirical framework, enjoying a successful three-month run in 1760. The reason behind its success was that it was at the center of a debate between the Enlightenment philosophers and the Counter-Enlightenment figures. In addition to being an example of 18th-century French comédie, the play serves as a valuable source for understanding the key (...) points of conservative discourse of the time. While Palissot seemed to focus on attacking individual philosophes’ personalities, he paired these attacks with conceptual critiques, and directed the most of his criticism primarily at Diderot and Rousseau. The play remains significant for two reasons: First, it captures almost all of the concerns and arguments of the conservative reaction to the Enlightenment. Second, it sheds light on Enlightenment thinkers' personal and intellectual struggles. This paper examines Palissot’s Les Philosophes not as a mere literary dispute but as a rich text that reveals the Counter-Enlightenment discourse that emerged in the second half of the 18th century. (shrink)

Discussion on God's knowledge, awareness of God with people though are different, but still closely related. This article talks about God's knowledge, although knowledge of God and the people, but not for the medieval Shengboerna the so-called "secular knowledge" and "God of knowledge" distinction; this will only be God's own knowledge or wisdom, philosophical discussion. First, the paper will compare the start, mainly related to the so-called Fozhi Buddhism and Western philosophers such as Aristotle,圣多瑪斯, Hegel and others about God, (...) know God, absolute spirit of the discussion, especially圣多瑪斯discussion on knowledge of God, compare, and summarize them are focused on comprehensive and complete self-conscious, and of all things and the universal and the individual's knowledge. Then, this paper will further discuss whether it contains the narrative of God to know the ingredients, that is God for individuals and groups in the body of the story or may occur, actual and imagined the story of building awareness. In short, my book can only be regarded as restricted view up to see. Both for Glimpse, then it is limited, should be able to break the world's big pipe to significantly; both for the discussion, it should be deconstructed in order to display the infinite Creator. The discussion of "Scientia Dei " is very much related to, though still different from, the question "Quomodo Deus a nobis cognoscatur ." This paper deals with Scientia Dei, not in the sense it is distinguished from Scientia Mundi by St Bernard of Clairvaux, but in the sense it is related to all philosophical discourses on the wisdom of God Himself. The first step of this paper is a comparative study with "Buddha's Wisdom" taught by some major Mahayana Buddhist Schools, and the ideas of God, God's Knowledge and Absolute Spirit in Aristotle, St. Thomas and Hegel, in particular St. Thomas' discussion of "Scientia Dei." The result of this comparison is their common emphasis on God's total and complete transparent self-understanding, and His universal and concrete knowledge of all things. After this, we will move on to discuss the narrative component of Scientia Dei, to see whether in God's knowledge there is a place for the historical and imaginative stories of all social groups and individuals, of their inexhaustible possibilities, developments and constructions, both descriptive and imaginative. Anyhow, this essay is limited to a comparative and discursive study, without any ground in the author's religious experience with God's knowledge. Therefore it should be deconstructed once it is pronounced, erased once it is written. (shrink)

Excerpt from Discourses of Epictetus Thus we owe to an accident the existence of these "Discourses," which form one of the world's vital books. The "Manual" is a collection of aphorisms taken substantially from the larger work. Epictetus was not the founder of a new philosophy. Zeno, the originator of the Stoic system, was his master, and Zeno himself derived his fundamental principles from Antisthenes, the author of the cynic school and the friend of Socrates. The Greeks are (...) the creators of philosophy, and their earliest attempt at systematic thought was an effort to understand Nature. But they soon learned that it was necessary to begin from within, since to know anything man must first know himself. Thus the problem of the conduct of life forced itself upon them. This is the constant preoccupation of Socrates, who was born five hundred years before Epictetus. He taught that the good is to be sought not in outward things, nor in the indulgence of appetite, but in virtue, which for him, however, is an intellectual rather than a moral habit. His calm and rational temper led him to the belief that man always acts in accordance with his knowledge, does what insight shows him to be useful to himself. He who does evil, does it from a mistake of judgment. Sin is error. Virtue, then, being chiefly knowledge, may be taught, and to teach it is the philosophers life work. But Socrates moved in a circle from which there was no escape. To know the useful is virtue. But what is the useful? That which makes for virtue. Antisthenes does not attempt to determine the meaning of the good. He simply declares that virtue is the only good, and, in his view, virtue is the intelligent conduct of life. Right life is the essential good; virtue is its own reward, and one need not look to its results. It is, in the midst of whatever vicissitudes, a sure possession. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:196 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY in 1943, was to write an Epilogue to Julian Marias' History o] Philosophy. In early 1944, the Epilogue was conceived as a volume of 400 pages, and later of 700. In 1945 a part of the Epilogue was to be detached and given the title The Origin ol Philosophy. Then one completed part of that was published in 1953 as an essay in a Festschrift (...) for Karl Jaspers. That, and other sections, have been put together here. The first part of the book treats philosophy as a cumulative enterprise in which each man rethinks and thinks further what other men have thought. Even when past thought has reached an end, or taken a direction we will not follow, it is only for the reason that it has already happened that we do not have to do it ourselves. This is not because history is rational but because thought is historical, rooted in ideas we did not ourselves create and based on methods we have acquired and sometimes altered. The second part of the book deals with the origin of philosophy--and the origin of "philosophy" for Ortega is concerned throughout with language and etymology. The word "philosophy" is not one Ortega likes; he prefers the word "aletheia," which was used by Parmenides and his contemporaries. In popular language, aletheia meant discovery, exposure, denudation, revelation. For the thinker, "aletheia" is "truth" as a verb, the activity of uncovering reality, which is concealed under the robes of appearance or falsehood. Philosophy, for Ortega, begins with Parmenides and Heraclitus; "proto-philosophers" he calls them. The Ionians had been scientists; their attempts at natural explanation upset religion and tradition, and prepared the way for philosophy. In a remarkably subtle and complex analysis for so short a space, Ortega argues that skepticism, atheism, wealth, and knowledge of nature created a freedom based on a need to create or choose one's own beliefs in a world in which relative abundance demands choice, since in poverty "an individual is never in the position of being able to choose; for choice assumes that the circle of one's possibilities is notably greater than that of one's needs" (p. 98). The social need to define the thinker and so grant him professional status that might minimize the hostility of the tradition-ridden and reactionary populace, especially in Athens, led to the name "sophist," which became disreputable to a hostile citizenry, and then to "philosopher." Socrates was, unfortunately, the only philosopher, the man who liked, had a taste for, or loved wisdom, but made no pretense that he had any, saying only he sought it. But the name persisted, and helped institutionalize the new profession. I haven't even intimated the delight of Ortega's incidental insights. He was probably justified in believing that his stature as a thinker was much greater than his reputation. A first-rate, full-scale study of Ortega in English would help, but what we need most is a collection and translation of his complete works. RSLPH ROSS ~cripps College Discourse on Thinking. By Martin Heidegger. Translated by John M. Anderson and E. Hans Freund. (New York: Harper and Row, 1966. Pp. 93. $3.50.) This is a translation of a speech and conversation originally published under the thematic title Gelassenheit (Pfullingen: Giinther Neske, 1959). Heidegger uses this unusual German word to remind us that there is another way of thinking than the calculative and dialectical modes made prominent by the mathematical sciences and modem cultural philosophy respectively. We have forgotten a less busy mode of thinking, a thinking released from all desire to control reality. Gelassenheit is rendered throughout as "releasement" in this translation. But Gelassenheit does not just mean letting go, or freedom from, as "releasement" may suggest. It also has the more positive sense of composure and a patient letting things be. In the context of Heidegger's attempts to define a mode of thinking not concerned with dominating reality, Gelassenheit comes to mean the freedom to be open to reality. BOOK REVIEWS 197 Heidegger stresses the ability to wait for insight, which is not, however, a mere passive waiting for something fixed. It would be... (shrink)

This essay explores ways in which cultures at different levels and in different historical circumstances employ different modes of discourse to deal with conflict and with ways to resolve it. The study is based on ethnographic observations of the Tsimshian myth of Asdiwal, collected by Boas and made famous by Lévi-Strauss; the story of Sakuntala, from a Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata; and Remarque's war novel of 1929, All Quiet on the Western Front. In the first case, no resolution of (...) the conflicts comprising the narrative is required, because in mythical thinking adversaries are united in the strife that divides them. In the second example, the conflict is between the contested realities, colliding ideologies, and divergent social practices of the priestly and warrior castes; the discourse of the epic illuminates the differences in explicit detail in order to permit negotiation. The final instance is of a modern European narrative in which the specific causes and consequences of the Great War are obscure to the soldiers fighting in it. It is random chance, rather than the negotiation or transcendence of difference, that is thought, in this mode, to determine who lives and dies. The essay concludes with speculation about why this third and present mode has been less successful than the other two in dealing with conflict and its resolution. (shrink)

War metaphors are ubiquitous in discussions of everything from political campaigns to battles with cancer to wars against crime, drugs, poverty, and even salad. Why are warfare metaphors so common, and what are the potential benefits and costs to using them to frame important social and political issues? We address these questions in a detailed case study by reviewing the empirical literature on the subject and by advancing our own theoretical account of the structure and function of war metaphors in (...) public discourse. We argue that war metaphors are omnipresent because they draw on basic and widely shared schematic knowledge that efficiently structures our ability to reason and communicate about many different types of situations, and they reliably express an urgent, negatively valenced emotional tone that captures attention and motivates action. Nevertheless, we find that the meaning of war metaphors is intimately tied to the context in which they are used, which may result in either positive or negative outcomes, depending on the situation. Thus, blanket statements about whether or not a war frame is useful are misguided or overly constraining. Here we situate our case study results in relation to popular theories of metaphoric representation and processing and offer some guidelines for using a war framing effectively. This work helps illuminate the complex, dynamic, and nuanced functions of metaphor in cognition in general, and in public discourse in particular. (shrink)

HARDIN PK. Nursing Inquiry 2003; 10: 209–217 Shape-shifting discourses of anorexia nervosa: reconstituting psychopathologyThis article explores how the circuitous relationship between individuals, the media, and discursive systems replicate and reinforce the act of self-starvation in young women. Using a feminist poststructuralist methodology, the focus of this article is on how discourses and institutional practices operate to position young women who take up the subject position of wanting to be diagnosed as anorexic. Utilizing data from online accounts and individual (...) interviews, I attend to the ways in which young women are institutionally positioned as ‘anorexics’ and the effects that those positions have on their behaviors, in addition to reinforcing institutional practices that construct anorexia nervosa. Questions addressed through this inquiry are: How do institutional practices create and continue to constitute ‘anorexia nervosa’? How do discourses operate to position young women such that they are either included and/or excluded into the category of ‘anorexia nervosa’? What are the effects and consequences that emanate from these positionings? (shrink)

I will first discuss a peculiarity of the realism-antirealism debate. Some authors defending antirealist positions in a philosophical discussion seem to be inconsistent with what they do when treating scientific subjects. In the latter situation, they behave as realists. This tension can be dissolved by distinguishing different discourses belonging to different levels of philosophical radicality. Depending on the respective level, certain presuppositions are either granted or questioned. I will then turn to a discussion of the miracle argument (...) by discussing a simple example of curve fitting. In the example, multiple use-novel predictions are possible without indicating the truth of the fitting curve. Because this situation has similarities with real scientific cases, it sheds serious doubt upon the miracle argument. Next, I discuss the strategy of selective realism, especially its additional crucial component, the continuity argument. The continuity of some X in a series of theories, with X being responsible for the theories’ use-novel predictions, is taken to be a reliable indicator for the reality of X. However, the continuity of X could as well be due to the similarity of the theories in the series with an empirically very successful theory embodying X, without X being real. Thus, the two main arguments for scientific realism show severe weaknesses. (shrink)

Discourse and grammar often complement each other, each imposing a different set of constraints on speakers' utterances. Discourse constraints are global, pertaining to text coherence, and/or to interpersonal relations. Grammatical constraints are local, pertaining to possible versus impossible structures. Yet, the two must meet in natural discourse. At every point during interaction speakers must simultaneously satisfy both types of constraints in order to communicate properly. It is also during conversational interaction that language change somehow takes place. This overview first (...) explains and exemplifies how discourse constraints guide addressees in selecting specific grammatical forms at different points in the interaction. It then examines the relationship between discourse and grammar from a grammaticization point of view, demonstrating how a subset of discourse patterns turn grammatical. The central theme is then that discourse depends on grammar, which in turn depends on discourse. (shrink)

This article introduces the key issues and themes that the articles in the Special Issue aim to apply and develop in greater detail. First, we argue that the field of collective remembering can be conceived as a site of active contestation, rather than simply a means of communicating a historic past or our deontic position in relation to these pasts. Approaching collective remembering as a Lieu de Dispute allows us, in turn, to foreground three consequential dimensions of remembrance, which (...) the articles in the issue examine in different ways: that collective remembering is an interpersonal, political and affective practice. This introduction discusses these three dimensions to collective remembering in greater detail, before outlining the remaining contents of the Special Issue. (shrink)

Asked to define poetry, one is likely to reply with a sigh, a shrug, a look of exasperation or even one of contempt, indicating not only that the question is oppressive but that anyone who asks it must be something of a fool, a pest, or a vulgarian. Though these uncongenial reactions may be interpreted as the signs of intellectual embarrassment, they are, I think, quite justified. For the nature of definition and the particular historical fortunes of the term poetry (...) conjoin to this effect: that a definition of the term will either be a total chronicle of those fortunes or will constitute merely one more episode in them. In other words, a definition of poetry is bound to be either inadequate to the job or, if adequate, then both unmanageable and uninteresting for any other purpose. Barbara Herrnstein Smith, professor of English and communications at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End, for which she received the Christian Gauss and Explicator awards, and the editor of Shakespeare's Sonnets. This article will be part of a book, Fictive Discourse. She has also contributed "Narrative Versions, Narrative Theories" to Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

The proposed multilevel framework of discourse comprehension includes the surface code, the textbase, the situation model, the genre and rhetorical structure, and the pragmatic communication level. We describe these five levels when comprehension succeeds and also when there are communication misalignments and comprehension breakdowns. A computer tool has been developed, called Coh-Metrix, that scales discourse (oral or print) on dozens of measures associated with the first four discourse levels. The measurement of these levels with an automated tool helps researchers (...) track and better understand multilevel discourse comprehension. Two sets of analyses illustrate the utility of Coh-Metrix in discourse theory and educational practice. First, Coh-Metrix was used to measure the cohesion of the text base and situation model, as well as potential extraneous variables, in a sample of published studies that manipulated text cohesion. This analysis helped us better understand what was precisely manipulated in these studies and the implications for discourse comprehension mechanisms. Second, Coh-Metrix analyses are reported for samples of narrative and science texts in order to advance the argument that traditional text difficulty measures are limited because they fail to accommodate most of the levels of the multilevel discourse comprehension framework. (shrink)

The following article examines the theoretical foundations and practical consequences of Slavoj Žižek's critique of Foucauldian discourse analysis. It does so by uncovering Žižek's idiosyncratic approach to the question of ideology critique. The aim of our investigation is twofold. First, we attempt to demonstrate the implications of Foucault's failure to theorize the generative principle of sociosymbolic formations; second, we argue that by conceiving the Real of class antagonism as the disavowed core of ideological fantasy, Žižek rectifies Foucault's inconsistency while (...) simultaneously opening up a vital political space for the reconceptualization of the paradigm of ideology critique. Our article does not attempt to bring into dialogue Foucault's theory of discourse with Žižek's theory of ideology; rather, it stages an encounter between the two. The encounter involves a contrastive comparison, the tertium comparationis of which is the problematic of how Foucault's and Žižek's respective frameworks may help us conceptualize political change. Against this background and criterion it is possible to establish where and why their social theories differ, and to assess the extent to which Žižek's theoretical choices are preferable to Foucault's. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question how to analyze multimodal public discourse in such a way that the resulting reconstruction of the rhetor’s accountability either obliges the rhetor to acknowledge the argumentative reconstruction as valid or to refute its validity in a meta-discussion. This is a challenge for discourse theory as well as for argument theory because multimodal discourse seems far removed from the ‘standard’ propositional format of an argument. We argue that multimodal discourse should be analyzed as a coherent (...) and relevant discourse, assuming the possibility of instant interactions between all modes. We introduce a method that allows us to account for an argumentative reconstruction in a systematic way. We illustrate our method by analyzing the ABC news item titled Hu Jintao Visit: Economics and Panda Bears of January 20, 2011, holding ABC news as a rhetor accountable for several far reaching standpoints that are implied in the multimodal format. (shrink)

Introduction Numerous guidelines and policies for ethical research practice have evolved over time, how this translates to global health practice in resource-constrained settings is unclear. The purpose of this paper is to describe how the concept of ancillary care has evolved over time and how it is included in the ethics guidelines and policy documents that guide the conduct of research in the global south with both an international focus and providing a specific example of Malawi, where the first (...) author lives and works, as a case study. Methods Discourse analysis was conducted on 34 international ethics guidelines and policy documents. Documents were purposively selected if they contained a set of key terms that reflect the concept of ancillary care. Following a process of inductive discourse analysis, five key interrelated text phrases relating to ancillary care were extracted from the documents. The evolution of these phrases over time was explored as they represented the development of the concept of ancillary care as a component of ethical health research guidance and practice. Results We found key interrelated phrases that represent discourses regarding the evolution of ancillary care including participant protection; provide care as appropriate; supererogation; patient needs prevail over science; and ancillary care as an obligation. Arguments for the provision of ancillary care were characterised by safeguarding the safety, health rights and well-being of study participants. However, despite the evolution of discourse around ethical obligations to provide ancillary care, this is rarely made explicit within guidance documents, leaving interpretive space for differential application in practice. Conclusion While there have been major changes to the ethics guidance that reflect significant evolution in the ethical conduct of research, the specific vocabulary or language used to explain the ethics of researchers' ancillary care obligations to the health needs of their research participants, lacks clarity and consistency. As a result, the concept of ancillary care continues to be under-represented in local ethical guidelines and regulations, with no clear directives for country-level research ethics committees to apply in regulating ancillary care responsibilities. (shrink)

Epistemology mirrors reality but notperfectly, and in the process molds reality butnot exactly as intended or anticipated. Horizontal interconnections also exist betweenand among epistemology, ideology, theory andpraxiology. However, these relations areneither deductive nor deterministic in naturebut are merely resonant, and then unclear,ambiguous and confounded. In this paper, thepoint is made that we need a grand reflectionon both our paradigms of reality and ourpredicaments of life as lived, to deal with thediscontent of humanity at this moment of thehistory of our civilization, (...) and to engage inpraxis ``to act on our world and to reconstructit'' to make it moral, just and more humane. Toundertake such a grand reflection, we need apractical philosophy of knowledge – that is, apractical epistemology – to bridge across themultiple epistemological approaches nowcrowding our discussions. An epistemictriangle formed by systems thinking,constructivist thinking, and dialecticalthinking is offered to serve as the startingpoint of crystallization for building a commonground for epistemologies. It is shown how suchan epistemological diagram could be first usedto develop a minimum ideological consensus andthen to bring orderliness to the chaos ofcontemporary themes of our civilization andissues of education and culture within andacross nations. Finally, an agenda foreducational leadership for educational practiceis offered to fit the needs of the globalcommunity of nations as we enter thetwenty-first century. (shrink)

The ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry has a parallel in an equally ancient dispute between philosophy and history. Which is to be the great teacher, ideas, words, or deeds? In the education of the human race, particularly for political life, are we to think of the state as an ideal concept, as a work of art, or as an achievement of a person of action? These themes have exercised political thinkers as old as Plato and Aristotle and as modern (...) as Hobbes and Hegel, as well as perhaps the first modern, Niccolò Machiavelli. The issues of power, reason, and language, raised again and again in his masterpiece, The Prince, are equally central to the longer, less often read, but no less profound work, the Discourses on Livy, here given a loving and lucid translation, with a perceptive and helpful introduction, notes, glossary, and index. The Prince, usually taken as recommending absolute and ruthless individual sovereignty, is presumed to be the characteristic work of its author. The Discourses, with its recommendation of virtue and republicanism, on the other hand, is thought of as an inconsistent extravagation from the true Machiavellian position. However, as the translators make clear, this is textually and conceptually foreign to the facts. Machiavelli perhaps emphasizes the one set of values in the shorter book, and the other in the longer, but both are necessary to a full picture of his thought. The political problem for Machiavelli is balancing force with freedom. The unity of states is effected by force, their diversity by freedom. There is a problem of the one and the many in political theory as there is in other branches of philosophy. (shrink)

It has been argued by several philosophers that a deflationary conception of truth, unlike more robust conceptions of truth, cannot properly account for the nature of moral discourse. This is due to what I will call the “quick route problem”: There is a quick route from any deflationary theory of truth and certain obvious features of moral practice to the attribution of truth to moral utterances. The standard responses to the quick route problem are either to urge accepting a (...) conception of truth more robust than deflationism (Boghossian 1990), or to revise deflationary accounts in order to block straightforward attribution of truth to moral utterances (Field 1994). I contend that neither of these standard responses is well-motivated, for it is a merit of deflationary accounts rather than a defect that such accounts present a quick route to moral truth. (shrink)

In this article we examined the ways in which strategic ambiguity in the use of keywords served an enabling function within a discourse marked by conflict and ideological divisions. Our analysis focused on the intertextual relationships between five documents intended by the government to guide the development of biotechnology in New Zealand. Through our analysis we identified ‘sustainability’ as a keyword and three major roles for the deployment of the discourse strategy of strategic ambiguity in the use of this keyword. (...) First, strategic ambiguity lent an internal and intertextual coherence to the texts. Second, it allowed multiple perspectives and objectives to co-exist. Third, strategic ambiguity facilitated the participation of discourse actors who subscribed to ideologies that were more or less incommensurable. (shrink)

The range of issues related to the origins of Christianity, the formation of its doctrine, and its existence in the early, pre-Conciliar period has always been of concern not only to Christian scholars, not only to those scholars who were in one or another way involved in these researches, but also to society as a whole. However, in Ukraine, and especially in academic circles, these issues are still not sufficiently studied. The article examines the reasons that led the official Church (...) to change the key provisions of Christian doctrine, including ideological positions about "this world," narratives about war, and the commandments "thou shalt not kill" and "love your enemies." The author argues that the final rejection of the original evangelical pacifism occurred after the conquest of Christianity by Emperor Constantine the Great, when the Church was transformed into an institution of secular power, changing its original status as the "Kingdom of God" to belonging to the "Kingdom of Caesar." Since the reign of Constantine, Christianity has essentially existed divided into two camps. – the first, to which belong all those who profess the church doctrine in its new, "conciliar" and different from the original form and who, in particular, has rejected Jesus' original idea of renunciation of earthly things and, accordingly, the pacifism and anti-militarism he proclaimed; the second camp are those who remained faithful to the apostolic tradition and who continued to practice Christianity according to the original New Testament standard. The latter camp today includes mostly Protestants, including in Ukraine. However, with the onset of Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine, their pacifist stance is changing. The solution of urgent socio-political issues and issues directly related to defense are increasingly leading Protestants in Ukraine to rethink their traditional pacifism, which may lead to a complete rejection of it in the future. The results obtained in the course of the study provide grounds to significantly adjust the current perceptions of Protestantism in Ukraine, in particular, its positive attitude to socio-political processes and active involvement in them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.1 (2003) 48-76 [Access article in PDF] Dialogic Characteristics of Philosophical Discourse:The Case of Plato's Dialogues 1 Frédéric Cossutta The dialogic is increasingly acknowledged as a fundamental factor in the study of human language, a factor that transcends its explicit presence in dialogue. Habermas and Apel are examples of philosophers who do not think of the dialogic as subordinate to the monologic, an approach to reflexive (...) consciousness inherited from Cartesianism; they also invest it with a constitutive dimension when they demonstrate its foundational role in knowledge and ethics. In their eyes, dialogue does not so much constitute ordinary human activity as create the conditions of its possibility. Thus with Apel this pragmatic dimension becomes transcendental, a dimension logically independent of the social or historical circumstances within which it is brought to bear, and one that is capable of playing the role of ideal regulator in the establishment of any community that is authentically human.My aim in this paper is to investigate the role that this dialogic dimension plays in philosophical discourse. If it is constitutive, and not derived, as Habermas and Apel claim, then it should be found at work in the history of philosophy. Indeed a number of philosophers and historians of philosophy have recently claimed an implicit dialogicity at the core of Descartes's Meditations, although these are actually presented in the form of a soliloquy (cf. Jacques 1979; Beyssade and Marion 1994; Bouvier 1996). But while it is true that every philosophy exhibits interdiscursive and intertextual dimensions even at the moment that it attempts to efface all traces of this interplay to present itself as a closed system, may we not question this dialogical property as constitutive of philosophical discourse as such? Philosophers who present their doctrines in the form of dialogues often use this form merely for the purposes of polemic, refutation, or instruction. There is, however, one famous exception: Plato, whose philosophy [End Page 48] is developed for the most part through a series of fictional dialogues, to which his talent gives an intrinsic "literary" quality. We thus have a case in which we can justifiably examine the philosophical value of the dialogue form. Historians of philosophy usually claim that the elements of his dialogues are no more than expressions of an underlying and constitutive dialectical dimension, though there is some dissent. 2 But I shall show that all of the elements of the dialogues, even the prologues and the settings, play a role that is intrinsically philosophical. Studying these elements will enable us to reveal the philosophical status of the dialogical dimension.I shall consider three hypotheses: (1) Though Plato's dialogues are literary rather than actual, their form cannot be reduced to the empty shell for an otherwise purely monological thought; there is an effective dialogism at work in both the early and the later Dialogues. This statement can be more easily accepted if it is recalled that philosophical activity for Plato consists of dialegsthai (Dixsaut 1985). 3 (2) In Plato, in effect, dialogue constitutes philosophical speech itself. The link between dialogue as a way of embodying doctrine and dialectics as an expression of the process of thought is intrinsic and necessary. Insofar as this link is necessary, dialogic activity cannot be characterized as an empirical practice of conversation, nor can it be reconstructed as a literary genre; rather, it is informed throughout by a philosophical theory whose explanation it makes generally available. (3) As a consequence, dialogic interplay at work in the Dialogues follows pragmatic rules that are not empirical in nature but possess a transcendental dimension and require ethical presuppositions. A parallel may thus be drawn between the Platonist conception of dialogue and the theory developed by Karl Otto Apel as "transcendental pragmatics" (1987 and 1994). This last point I shall dwell upon at length. Plato's Dialogues: Dialogism or hidden monologism? Paradoxically, the very thinkers who regard language as constitutively dialogic refuse to see this dialogism in Plato. It is true that at first sight the Platonic dialogues seem to turn the... (shrink)

This book, which represents probably the most comprehensive discussion of the emergence of modem social science yet produced, is of far more than merely historical interest. The contributors set out to rewrite the history of the social sciences and to show the limitations of conventional conceptions of their development. These tasks they accomplish with great success and much distinction. Yet in so doing they contribute in a direct way to our understanding of the relation between social analysis and the nature (...) of human societies today. The brilliant and distinctive perspective of the papers in this collection is to demonstrate, with many specific examples, that social science and modem institutions have helped shape each other in mutual interplay. Modem systems are in some part con stituted through the reflexive incorporation of developing social science knowledge; on the other hand, the social sciences organise themselves in terms of a continuing reflection upon the evolution of those systems. Such a perspective, as Wagner and Wittrock in particular make clear, does not in any way either impugn the status of knowledge claims made within social science or destroy the independent reality of social institutions. The book questions the notion that the institutionalising of the social sciences can be understood as a process of their increasing autonomy from extemal social connections. 'Autonomy' forms a mode of legitima tion and a basis of power rather than a distinctive phenomenon as such. (shrink)

The works of many early critics of the Christian church were burned by ruling emperors or otherwise destroyed in the second and third centuries, but the writings of the Greek pagan philosopher, Celsus, have survived indirectly through his eloquent opponent Origen of Alexandria. In his apologetical treatise, Contra Celsum, Origen argues against the ideas set forth by Celsus and quotes from Celsus' The True Doctrine at length. Through this treatise, Celsus has come to represent the detached pagan voice of the (...) ages. In this translation, Professor Hoffmann has, for the first time, painstakingly reconstructed the main order of the philosopher's argument. Celsus' discourse shows him to be an eclectic philosopher--a dabbler in various schools of thought, including Platonism and Stoicism, and a student of the history and religious customs of many nations. Hoffman supplements this definitive translation with an informative introduction, summarizing Celsus' premises and placing the identity of Celsus in its historical context. (shrink)

Speech Act Theory has proved useful for classifying utterances, because of its seemingly universal application; on the other hand, legal theorists are interested in speech acts for several reasons, the most important being the fact that the theory helps to explain how the law uses language. In legal language there is a large number of speech acts, and most of them fall under the category of performatives: these do not report about doing something, their utterance actually constitutes performing an action. (...) Because performatives are actions, they cannot be considered to be either true or false but only “felicitous” or “infelicitous". Laws could be considered as types of speech acts, as well as contracts and wills. We can say that in, a very general way, speech act theory is helpful because it permits us to understand legal events from a new perspective: in this paper my attempt is to show that a difference exists between "doing something with words" and "doing something legal with words", and that doing something in speaking in the common language is different from doing it in speaking the legal discourse, since in the legal domain we do not speak to do speech acts, but to carry out legal acts. (shrink)

The question of language is as wide open today as it was for the author of the Cratylus. We do not finally possess a linguistic science which knows and can inform us of the truth about language, its nature, what it is, how it works, etc. But the ‘question of language’ today is not whether such a science is so much as possible; the question is whether we really want one, whether we so much as realize the cost of one, (...) or how much of that cost has already been exacted from the societies in which we live and speak. The question of language is first and last an ethical and political question, no matter how much ‘modern linguistics’ and our ‘philosophy of language’ prefer not to see this, preferring instead to obliterate such a perception with ideas of language and meaning tailor-made to efface the often ethically and politically sensitive social and historical differences which nevertheless remain the sine qua non of language. -/- This is by no means irrelevant to how one conceives of philosophy, or of the practice that constitutes its contemporary ‘presence.’ To look into this further requires that I first establish, at least in outline, how I see the interpenetration of history, social practice, and language. The discussion of this in Sections 1-4 frames the context in which I embed a certain statement concerning philosophy. Out of context, the statement runs: Philosophy, insofar as it is not just a history, is the discursive practice which makes the historical discourse of philosophy contemporary. But this can be done in different ways, with different styles, implying different degrees and qualities of reflectiveness about one’s own practice and the social and historical environment which embeds it. It is to these differences that we should look if we wish to understand what is problematic about English-speaking philosophy at the end of the twentieth century. (shrink)

This paper responds to Are the Semi-Living semi-good or semi-evil? (Technoetic Arts, 2003) in which artists/authors Zurr and Catts state that there is not, as yet, an existing discourse that deals with the Semi-Living a new life form created for the purpose of artistic engagement using the tools of tissue engineering and stem cell technology. As a means to reflect on what a discourse on the Semi-Living might include and exclude and to create the potential to say something different beyond (...) the artists own discourse, this paper initiates two approaches. First, it considers that which the Semi-Living defers by working from Zurr and Catts contribution, which I argue evokes a both/and logic that echoes the Derridean deconstructive event. Secondly, it proposes a genealogy of the Semi-Living using a figure of Roman archaic law, homo sacer (sacred man) who shares with the Semi-Living a life exposed to death (Agamben 1998). The symbiosis of these two approaches identifies, problematises and contaminates the limits of acceptable discourse concerning the Semi-Living, concluding with the proposal of a semi-discourse. As the transdisciplinarity of bioart increasingly becomes the focus of academic and artistic inquiry, this paper signals towards the importance of critically acknowledging a community of artists writing and working within the academy, stipulating the acceptable discourses of their practice. (shrink)