This paper argues that the diagnostic import of Adorno's culture industry writings lie in their psychoanalytically rooted claim that contemporary culture is losing its ability to negate and reconfigure experience, due to the modern subject's instrumentalized relationship to culture. Adorno uses psychoanalytic ideas—namely, modified and historicized versions of Freud's theory of the instincts, ego formation, the reality principle, and the superego—to show that changes in the social organization of the psyche, which track the transition from myth to enlightenment, put the (...) ego in a precarious position, torn between a primal fear of nature that drives it to submit to society, and internalized fear of its own internal nature, as well as of losing itself in society. This explains how culture becomes a resource capable of being mobilized by the ego's defense mechanisms of identification and introjection to shore up its own sense of solidity, thereby negating culture's potential for transcendence or transformation. This paper concludes with a coda that suggests that, while rejecting Adorno's metacritique of the reason is not sufficient grounds for rejecting the culture industry, critical theorists like Habermas and Honneth may have other tools at their disposal for contesting its conclusions. (shrink)

The paper points to quite a surprising change of the attitude among general public towards science and scientific progress that seems to have happened at the turn of the 20th century, and, to an extent, stays on: from holding scientific enterprise in high esteem to treating scientists and fortune˗tellers on a par, from hopes that science will eventually resolve our problems, both theoretical and practical, to anxiety and fear of what scientific experiments can bring about in nature and (...) human life. After considering, in Part 1, possible reasons for this change, the paper focuses on supposedly real dangers associated with some particular scientific achievements. Part 2, “Physicist’s nightmares”, recalls some historical instances of the progress in physics, from the Manhattan Project to the opening of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in 2008, fears that those experiments raised, and arguments ˗ both convincing and not quite so ˗ that were offered to reassure the public of their safety. Part 3, “Biologist’s dangerous plays”, turns to genetic engineering and certain fears this discipline raises which are captured in the term the “Frankenstein Syndrome”, e.g. the danger of genetically modified organisms getting to an unintended environment, or unexpected results of intended modifications. Here the paper offers some considerations regarding the notions of “intention” and “expectation”, which leads to fundamental doubts about plausibility of the conviction of the dangerous character of the research in question. Final conclusions point to a quite fundamental discrepancy between the power of science and the power of nature as the ultimate argument against exaggerated fears of scientific progress, and the post˗concluding remark offers additional support for it in terms of a brief theological observation for those who share Christian tradition. (shrink)

The museum of the colonial moment fused the expansion of knowledge and global contact of North Atlantic powers with the aggressive nationalist pride of their hegemonic positions, building national, cultural, and racial identity through framing. How does Black Panther use the museum scene to illustrate a fear of Black museums and the problems of existence observed through the philosophies of Black existentialism and Africana phenomenology? Killmonger's questioning of Wakanda reveals the truth and effect of Wakanda's isolationist history. Yet, Wakanda (...) is nevertheless shown as a representation of African history, not just in the tribal nature of Wakanda's social structure or in the clothing and physical adornments and jewelry, but also in the rituals and spirituality. (shrink)

The image of dead person returning to life was the most ancient source of irrational fear appeared in culture. This conclusion is argued with empirical data from archeology and ethnography. Fear has been expressed in funeral rites, the tying of extremities, burning and dismemberment of dead bodies, and ritual cannibalism etc. At the same time, it was attended by effective care for helpless cripples, which seems to descend to the Lower Paleolithic as well. Dread of posthumous revenge played (...) a decisive regulative role at the earliest stage of anthropogenesis, as the disparity between artificial weapons and natural aggression-retention mechanisms became self-destructive. In the new conditions, individuals with normal animal mind were doomed to catastrophe. Those hominid groups proved viable, in which mystical fear, a product of unnaturally developed imagination, bounded lethal conflicts among kinsmen. The phobias corresponded to the psycho-nervous system's “strategic pathology”; that was a condition for early hominids’ self-preservation. As a result, a causal connection between instrumental potential, cultural regulation quality and social sustainability was formed, which has been a mechanism of social selection for all of human history and prehistory. (shrink)

The fear of death resists philosophical attempts at reconciliation. Building on theories of emotion, I argue that we can understand our fear as triggered by a de se mode of thinking about death which comes into conflict with our will to live. The discursive mode of philosophy may help us to avoid the de se mode of thinking about death, but it does not satisfactorily address the problem. I focus instead on the voluntary diminishment of one’s will to (...) live. I argue that we can encourage a natural tendency for the will to live to decline as we approach death. I then consider two objections: Is not the will to live too fundamental for us to control? And even if we can control it, would not a declining will to live result in a general despair that it is better to resist? I argue that both of these objections can be overcome. (shrink)

The pandemic nature of COVID-19 has caused major changes in health, economy, and society globally. Albeit to a lesser extent, contingent access to shops and places to socialize the imposition of social distancing and the use of indoor masks is measures still in force today, with repercussions on economic, social, and psychological levels. The fear of contagion, in fact, has led us to be increasingly suspicious and to isolate ourselves from the remainder of the community. This has had (...) repercussions on the perception of loneliness, with significant psychological consequences, such as the development of stress, anxiety, and, in extreme cases, depressive symptoms. Starting from these assumptions, this research was developed with the aim of deepening the perceptions that the participants have of their own mental health, loneliness, fear linked to contagion, and attitudes toward imposed social distancing. In particular, we wanted to analyze whether there is a relationship between perceived fear and the perceived level of mental health, loneliness, and attitude toward social distancing. Finally, we wanted to analyze whether there are differences related to gender, age, marital status, current working mode, and educational qualifications. The research, performed after the diffusion of the vaccination in Italy, lasted 14 days. The participants were 500 Italians who voluntarily joined the study and were recruited with random cascade sampling. The research followed a quantitative approach. The analyzed data, from participants residing throughout the national territory, allow us to return the picture of the perceptions that Italians have of the fear of contagion, of their level of mental health, of loneliness and of their attitude toward social distancing. In particular, the data show that fear of COVID-19 is an emotional state experienced by the entire population and that young people have suffered more from loneliness and have been less inclined to accept the imposed social distancing. The data that emerged should make policymakers reflect on the need to find functional strategies to combat COVID-19 or other health emergency crises whose effects do not affect the psychological wellbeing of the population. (shrink)

Hobbes clearly and consistently maintains that we have a duty to love and fear God. However, he also problematizes love of God and, by implication, other passions putatively directed “to Godward.” We lack any conception of God, and therefore cannot love God in any literal sense. Moreover, even if love of God were psychologically possible, it is not clear that it would be appropriate, since love is apt only when someone is good to us. Love also requires wishing for (...) the well-being of the beloved, which is absurd in the case of God. Similar arguments apply to fear of God. (shrink)

This paper outlines the Epicurean conception of rationality and then tries to assess the merits of the notorious contention of the Epicurean philosophers that it is irrationalto fear death. At the outset, I talk about the nature of harmful emotions or passions, of which the fear of death is an outstanding example: their dependence on one‘s disposition, their cognitive and non-cognitive components, the ways in which these elements may be related to each other, and the healthy counterparts (...) of the passions, namely the ‚bites‘. Next, I distinguish different kinds of fears involving the thought of death and I examine the Epicurean arguments against each one of them: fears about the state of being dead, others about dying prematurely, yet others concerning the dying process and especially the moment when the soul leaves the body and, finally,the fear that we must die sometime. Much of the discussion focuses on the writings of Philodemus . Philodemus offers the most sustained discussion of the fear of premature death and of the fear of dying that survive in the Epicurean literature. In addition, in the peroration of his treatise On Death, he gives a brilliant example of how we can reconcile ourselves with the fact that we shall die sometime and accept our own mortality. My provisional conclusion is that although the Epicurean philosophers often succeed in appeasing our fears about death, for the most part they fail to prove that these fears are irrational. (shrink)

Discover the great wonder and wild freedom the fear of the Lord can bring. What does the Bible mean when it says we are to fear God' Is it difficult for you to reconcile the two sides of God's nature'His wrath and His love' Mattie Montgomery teaches that a right pursuit of the fear, fire, and fullness of God can lead you into the knowledge of a side of God you may never have imagined before. He (...) notes that the fear of God does not mean that we should be afraid of God; but rather, that we should be afraid to be against Him. And, if we abide in Christ, we can live in the continual awareness of the mighty Warrior King who calls us beloved. That realization is the glorious convergence of respect, awe, reverence, adoration, instruction, honor, worship, discipline, confidence, thanksgiving, love, and yes...'fear. The result'a joyful experience of God's grandeur and a grateful realization that only through Him do we receive His provisions and protection and are able to echo the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 8:31, "If God is for me, who can be against me'. (shrink)

Women who participate in outdoor recreational activities reap many physical and emotional benefits from their experiences. However, gender-related feelings of objectification, vulnerability, and fear in this space limit women’s participation. In this study, the authors investigate how women pursue their enjoyment of urban outdoor recreation at South Mountain Park in Phoenix, Arizona, despite their perceptions and experiences related to fear of violence. Through surveys and interviews with women who recreate at South Mountain, the authors look at the ways (...) the women cope with their fear using various strategies. This study reveals the gender-related conflicts that persist for participants, who grapple with their appreciation of uncompromised nature and their need to feel safe in this environment. Ultimately, they illustrate how an ongoing negotiation exists for the women as the authors balance choices and concerns related to their outdoor recreation and what aspects of surveillance and control they consider, reject, or accept. (shrink)

Levinas rarely speaks about non-human animals directly, but his texts and his interviews are saturated with animal rhetoric. Levinas’s most ubiquitous gesture is to cast non-human animals as beings whose striving to live is a form of violence. These images constitute violence as endemic to nature, and provide the essential contrast to what Levinas regards as the strictly human event of ethics. In order to sufficiently interrogate the fate of non-human animals in Levinas’s philosophy, we must address the manner (...) in which this animal imagery functions in Levinas’s rhetoric. What conceptions of the human are sustained, and what possibilities for an ethical comportment toward non-human animals are foreclosed, as a result of this oppositional imagery? How do essential vulnerabilities appear only as violence, and what forms of violence remain unacknowledged through their veiling by related vulnerabilities? What philosophical consequences result from Levinas’s relegation of violence, including human violence, to the figure of the animal or to animality? How might Levinas’s philosophy be transformed if we were to address ourselves to his imaginative acts of segregation and complementarity vis-à-vis human beings and non-human animals? (shrink)

Recent studies reveal that violence significantly contributes to explaining individual’s facial preferences. Women who feel at higher risk of violence prefer less-masculine male faces. Given the importance of violence, we explore its influence on people’s preferences for a different physical trait. Masculinity correlates positively with male strength and weight or body mass index. In fact, masculinity and BMI tend to load on the same component of trait perception. Therefore we predicted that individuals’ perceptions of danger from violence will relate to (...) preferences for facial cues to low-BMI. In two studies in Colombia, men and women from Bogota, Medellin, and surrounding communities were shown pairs of faces transformed to epitomize the shape correlates of men with high or low-BMI. The images were of European, Salvadoran, or Colombian men. Participants were asked to choose the face they considered most attractive. Subsequently, participants answered a survey about their health, media access, education level, and experiences/perceptions of violence in study 1 and about specific types of violence in study 2. Results from both studies showed that women who experienced/perceived higher levels of violence preferred faces of low-BMI Salvadoran men. Preferences for low-BMI facial cues were significantly explained by violence, even after controlling for all other variables. These results may reflect women’s strategy to avoid male partners capable of inflicting harm. (shrink)

The “Hyde” character of fear has been so widely, and generally so exclusively, dwelt upon, that a review of what can be truthfully said in praise of its “Jekyll” character is, I trust, not untimely. I shall proceed on the assumption that all the natural passions, with-out exception, are essential, ineradicable factors in our human make-up, each allowing of both use and abuse. This, as I shall endeavour to show, is no less true of fear than of what (...) we quite justly call the higher emotions. (shrink)

Death, violent or otherwise, is a matter of widespread concern with ongoing debates about such matters as euthanasia and the nature of brain death. Philosophers have often argued about the rationality of fear of death. This book argues that that dispute has been misconceived: fear of death is not something that follows or fails to follow from reason, but rather, it forms the basis of reasoning and helps to show why people must be cooperating beings who accept (...) certain sorts of facts as reasons for acting. Within the context of this account of reasons, the book gives a new understanding of brain death and of physician-assisted suicide. (shrink)

Does R. G. Collingwood’s theory that concepts in philosophy are organized as “scales of forms” apply to his own work on the nature of history? Or is there some inconsistency between Collingwood’s work as a philosopher of history and as a theorist of philosophical method? This article surveys existing views among Collingwood specialists concerning the applicability of Collingwood’s “scale of forms” thesis to his own philosophy of history – especially the accounts of Leon Goldstein and Lionel Rubinoff – and (...) outlines the obvious objections to such an application. These objections however are found to be answerable. It is shown that Collingwood did indeed think that the scale of forms thesis should apply to the philosophy of history, and even that he identified the “highest” form in history as a kind of scientific research or inquiry. But it is not claimed that Collingwood identified the “lower” forms explicitly. An account is provided of the three distinct forms that can be identified in Collingwood’s philosophy of history, and of the “critical points” by which lower forms are negated and incorporated by higher forms. But it is also explained that these forms are not neatly coterminous with the stages in Western philosophical thinking about history as Collingwood narrates them in The Idea of History. (shrink)

In the Critique of the Power of Judgment , Kant mentions transcendental and physiological judgments in their relationship to the sublime. He further mentions that for the best physiological treatment, one must look to Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful . Whereas for Burke, the feeling of the sublime “is based on the impulse toward self-preservation and on fear,” for Kant it is the mind that “is not merely attracted (...) by the object, but is also always reciprocally repelled by it,” which provides the basis for the transcendental exposition of aesthetic judgements. How does a reading of Burke in which “we shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, and are, in a manner, annihilated before the almighty power,” on the one hand, and Kant’s view of relation and purposiveness in transcendental judgements, on the other hand, aid us in a deeper understanding of the fear of God? Furthermore, how might these two authors connect or interact with contemporary theories of emotion, specifically the discussion of ‘ambivalent emotions’? In this paper, I hope to both open a discussion of Burke and Kant in relation to their respective readings of the sublime and the fear of God as well as open a discussion of emotions regarding a ‘mighty object’ to whom my ambivalent emotion is directed. (shrink)

Increasing evidence suggests that psychedelic experiences, undergone in controlled conditions, can have various durable psychological benefits. One such benefit is reductions in fear of death, which have been attested in both psychiatric patients and healthy people. This paper addresses the question: how, exactly, do psychedelic experiences reduce fear of death? It argues, against some prominent proposals, that they do so mainly by promoting non-physicalist metaphysical beliefs. This conclusion has implications for two broader debates: one about the mechanisms of (...) psychedelic therapy, and one about the potential non-medical uses of psychedelics for the alleviation of existential angst in psychiatrically healthy people. On the first count, the paper argues that the role of metaphysical belief change in fear of death supports the “Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics” (REBUS) model of psychedelic therapy over alternative accounts. On the second count, the paper argues that the role of metaphysical belief change undermines the proposed use of psychedelics in the “neuroexistentialist” project of naturalizing spirituality. The best available evidence suggests that when psychedelic experiences reduce existential angst and restore a sense of meaning in life, they do so primarily by persuading people of the falsity of a broadly naturalistic worldview, and thus do not help reconcile people to the truth of such a worldview. (shrink)

Rationalism bears a closer association with religion than empiricism does; the former offers a conception of the world that links the deepest truths of nature to the deepest thoughts of the human mind in a way that makes many people nervous. Nagel reassures defenders of atheism that they have no more reason to fear fundamental and irreducible mind–world relations than fundamental and irreducible laws of physics. Although Nagel endorses Robert Nozick's evolutionary explanation of human reason, which reverses the (...) Kantian dependence of facts upon reason, Nagel argues that an evolutionary story about reason must be coupled with an independent basis for confidence in reason. To be justified in trusting our reasoning capacity as a product of Darwinian natural selection, we must be justified in trusting it simply in itself in virtue of the content of its arguments. To the question, How can a biological species shaped by the contingencies of natural selection have access to self‐justifying reason?, Nagel offers the defensive reply that we do not know how biological possibilities and their likelihood of actualization are constrained by fundamental laws of nature. (shrink)

How to find freedom from fear: Buddhist teachings that really work, from a respected contemporary teacher. Fear is something that's such a part of our lives that it doesn't seem it would be possible to live without it. This book disputes that claim in a powerful way. Gaylon Ferguson presents traditional Buddhist teachings to show that the fear that so often wreaks havoc on us is in fact quite insubtantial—and it's mostly something we create ourselves. If we (...) can learn to see that, it becomes pretty simple to un-create it, and we also discover that there's a natural fearlessness in us that goes far deeper than fear. With this natural bravery as our foundation, we can live our own lives more effectively and also be a better help and comfort to others. (shrink)

This paper examines why robots are so often presented as monstrous in the popular media, regardless of the intended applications of the robots themselves. The figure of the robot monster is examined in its historical and cultural specificity—that is, as a direct descendent of monsters that we have grown accustomed to since the nineteenth century: Frankenstein, Mr. Hyde, vampires, zombies, etc. Using the psychoanalytic notion of projection, these monsters are understood as representing human anxieties regarding the dehumanising tendencies of science (...) and reason, and regarding a perceived transformation in human nature over the last two hundred years. In analysing these anxieties, we can therefore gain insight into the fears—genuine or naïve—that the public harbours towards new advancements in technology; these insights can then inform those working with and designing living machines as to how their inventions might be received. (shrink)

On the standard view, an agnostic might commit non-doxastically to religion because she wants to receive some goods, which might be either natural or supernatural in kind. I broaden the picture by showing how the agnostic must also take negative factors into account. Negative mundane factors should be avoided as far as possible by the agnostic, and in extreme cases, even at the price of giving up supernatural goods. Negative supernatural factors, like eternal torment, work differently. An agnostic who considers (...) an eternity of suffering in hell a live possibility might rationally make a religious commitment in order to avoid it. Non-doxastic religion is commonly conceived as requiring a pro-attitude. If fear can have the impact I suggest, we must broaden the picture to allow for a negatively based commitment as well. To make explicit the kind of attitude relevant here, I offer an analysis of fear as a rational, non-doxastic attitude. (shrink)

The “Morbid Fear of the Subjective” (copyright by Roy Wood Sellars) represents a key-element of the American naturalist debate of the Mid-twentieth century. On the one hand, we are witnessing to the unconditional trust in the objectivity of scientific discourse, while on the other (and as a consequence) there is the attempt to exorcise the myth of the “subjective” and of its metaphysical privateness. This theoretical roadmap quickly assumed the shape of an even sociological contrast between the “democraticity” of (...) natural sciences and the fanaticism implicit in supernatural metaphysical systems. In between these two extremes stood phenomenology, in its early days on American soil. Its notion of “evidence”, which is less easily to naturalize than it might seem, was in fact hardly consistent with the widespread concept of “natural experience” of the world. (shrink)

In recent years, images of climate catastrophe have become commonplace. However, Black visions of the confluence of the Anthropocene and the apocalypse have been largely ignored. As we argue in this article, Black social thought offers crucial resources for drawing out the implicit exclusions of dominant representations of climate breakdown and developing an alternative account of the planet’s future. By reading a range of critical race theorists, from Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois to Octavia Butler and Ta-Nehisi (...) Coates, we propose a rethinking of the climate apocalypse. The African American theoretical and cultural tradition elaborates an image of the end of the world that emphasises the non-revelatory nature of climate catastrophe, warns against associating collapse with rebirth, and articulates a mode of maroon survivalism in which the apocalypse is an event to be endured and escaped rather than fatalistically expected or infinitely delayed. (shrink)

In the contemporary fear of death literature, few if any discuss what implications insights from the philosophical literature on emotions might have for arguments about the fear of death’s rationality. I remedy that here. I discuss two types of arguments to conclusions about the fear of death’s rationality. One type is Badness Arguments. The other is Epicurean Arguments. Both argument types have contradictory conclusions. Both employ different conditional claims as their crucial premise. And both presuppose that there (...) is some relation between the fear of death’s rationality and the value of death. I argue these arguments share another feature: they are unsound. This is because the crucial premise of each argument type is false given some plausible analyses of the several conceptions of emotional rationality found in the fear of death literature, analyses that themselves follow from several ubiquitous assumptions about the nature of emotions. (shrink)

During an illness requiring brief use of life-sustaining therapy, patients and surrogates sometimes feel that LST must be withdrawn before it becomes unnecessary to avoid later being stuck living in a debilitated condition that the patient considers worse than death. This fear depends on the belief that the patient can legitimately refuse only artificial LST, so that if such therapies are no longer required, he or she will have missed the ‘opportunity to die.’ This fear of being stuck (...) with life can lead to premature decisions to terminate LST and is unfounded because adequate ethical and moral justification exists for refusal of not just artificial LST, but also for refusal of natural LST, including oral hydration and nutrition. (shrink)

Distinct sources of stress have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly, fear is expected to generate significant psychological burden on individuals and influence on either unsafe behavior that may hinder recovery efforts or virus-mitigating behaviors. However, little is known about the properties of measures to capture them in research and clinical settings. To resolve this gap, we evaluated the psychometric properties of a novel measure of fear of illness and viruses and tested its predictive value for future development (...) of distress. We extracted a random sample of 450 Chilean adult participants from a large cross-sectional survey panel and invited to participate in this intensive longitudinal study for 35 days. Of these, 163 ended up enrolling in the study after the demanding nature of the measurement schedule was clearly explained to them. For this final sample, we calculated different Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) to evaluate the preliminary proposed structure for the instrument. Complementarily, we conducted a content analysis of the items to qualitatively extract its latent structure, which was also subject to empirical test via CFA. Results indicated that the original structure did not fit the data well; however, the new proposed structure based on the content analysis did. Overall, the modified instrument showed good reliability through all subscales both by its internal consistency with Cronbach’s alphas ranging from 0.814 to 0.913, and with test–retest correlations ranging from 0.715 to 0.804. Regarding its convergent validity, individuals who scored higher in fears tended to also score higher in depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms at baseline. Furthermore, higher fears at baseline predicted a higher score in posttraumatic stress symptomatology 7 days later. These results provide evidence for the validity, reliability, and predictive performance of the scale. As the scale is free and multidimensional potentially not circumscribed to COVID-19, it might work as a step toward understanding the psychological impact of current and future pandemics, or further life-threatening health situations of similar characteristics. Limitations, practical implications, and future directions for research are discussed. (shrink)

A study of Teresa of Avila, Luther, Freud, Heidegger and Barth provides Berthold with a basis for a phenomenological analysis of anxiety. Anxiety is polar in nature, implying both longing and fear, and a desire and threat to its fulfillment. Berthold believes his analysis provides a mediating position between the Thomistic and Calvinistic anthropologies.--F. E. B.

The nature of time is perceived by intellectuals variedly. An attempt is made in this paper to reconcile such varied views in the light of the Upanishads and related Indian spiritual and philosophical texts. The complex analysis of modern mathematics is used to represent the nature and presentation physical and psychological times so differentiated. Also the relation between time and energy is probed using uncertainty relations, forms of energy and phases of matter.

Cognitive definitions cannot accommodate fear as it occurs in species incapable of sophisticated cognition. Some think that fear must, therefore, be noncognitive. This paper explores another option, arguably more in line with evolutionary theory: that like other "biological universals" fear admits of variation across and within species. A paradigm case of such universals is species: it is argued that they can be defined by ostension in the manner of Putnam and Kripke without implying that they must have (...) an invariable essence. Emotions can be defined in this way too, in principle, but the theoretical understanding of homology necessary to do so is lacking at present. (shrink)

In De Rerum Natura III 963-971, Lucretius argues that death should not be feared because it is a necessary part of the natural cycle of life and death. This argument has received little philosophical attention, except by Martha Nussbaum, who asserts it is quite strong. However, Nussbaum's view is unsustainable, and I offer my own reading. I agree with Nussbaum that, as she construes it, the cycle of life argument is quite distinct from the better-known Epicurean arguments: not only does (...) it start from different premises, but it is a completely different type of argument. However, thus construed, it is deeply problematic. It relies on premises that are much more at home in Stoic than in Epicurean ethics, and Lucretius' appeal to nature in this argument contradicts what he says elsewhere in De Rerum Natura. I consider why Lucretius offers what appears to be such a flawed argument, and I propose a reading on which the cycle of life argument could be offered consistently by an Epicurean. The cycle of life argument, unlike the better-known arguments, does not attempt directly to show that death is not a bad thing. Instead, it targets certain destructive attitudes towards one's life that result in one fearing death. By helping relieve the interlocutor of these attitudes, the argument aims at reducing his fear of death. (shrink)

In Humanity’s End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement, Nicholas Agar presents a novel argument against the prospect of radical life-extension. Agar’s argument hinges on the claim that extended lifespans will result in people’s lives being dominated by the fear of death. Here we examine this claim and the surrounding issues in Agar’s discussion. We argue, firstly, that Agar’s view rests on empirically dubious assumptions about human rationality and attitudes to risk, and secondly, that even if those assumptions are (...) granted, the fears that Agar adverts to are unlikely to dominate people’s lives if and when radical life-extension is made possible. Further, we claim that the structure of the decision-making process around life-extension is unlikely to be the way that it would have to be in order for Agar’s claims about fear of death to make sense. Finally, we argue that Agar is implicitly committed to a narrow conception of human value. In response, we suggest that the pursuit of life-extension can itself be seen as an expression of certain important aspects of our distinctively human nature. (shrink)

The overall goal of the article is to reexamine Hobbes’s concern to respond to the challenges of the republican perspective on the relationship between the liberty of subjects and the political power. If, according to Skinner, republican theorists appealed to sources of classical antiquity, I argue that Hobbes chooses to offer a blend of classical and theological ideas in order to generate a “science” of the political life within the confines of a postlapsarian world dominated by passion and the (...) class='Hi'>fear of death. If the image of God is maintained in the Hobbesian politics, it is because Hobbes needed a model of imitation of a stability that the individuals dominated by passions failed too often to have. Hobbes also needed a model of omnipotence and providence to be imitated by the sovereign. This complex relationship between the theological heritage of the past and the novelties inaugurated in political thought by Hobbes’s accent on human passions triggers a series of changes in Hobbes’s understanding of the law of nature and natural right. The article brings to discussion Hobbes’s indebtedness to Lactantius in reading Lucretius’s materialism, Augustine’s model of God as a Creator and the theological controversy between intellectualism and voluntarism when formulating his own anthropological perspective on “natural” and “civil” law and right. (shrink)

The relationship between fear and courage has been discussed in terms of opposite though mutually involving notions. However, their link has not been inquired extensively. Recently, new light has been shed on the topic thanks to recent empirical evidence within emotion theories that stress the role played by perception and/or cognition in the experience of fear, as well as the role played by the “emotional virtue” of courage in fear regulation. Questions arise whether fear has a (...) fundamentally perceptual structure or is a biologically-grounded natural kind, and whether such an emotion-related virtue as courage is intrinsically or extrinsically related to fear. This paper considers the last problem first, then enlarges the picture to fear modeling, finally drives some conclusions which aim at deepening the relationship between fear and courage. As a result, it emerges that the emotion of fear has a conceptual, emotional, situational and subjective dimension. Assuming fear as a possible emotional center within the subject’s cognitive experience, the virtue of courage appears to balance the excess and lack of fear, and is consequently related to rational thoughts and consistent behavior, laying the foundations for a new Aristotelian-Thomistic account for it. (shrink)

At the present time, when we are experiencing one of the extraordinary conditions in which the basics of life are shaken, exceptional practices concerning the sources of the meaning of the world of life have become one of the urgent issues for the sociology of religion to consider. This study discusses the reactions of people to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the regularity of social life in the early stages in the framework of Muslim religious groups. Since the (...) forms of social organization reveal reactions in their own specific forms, a research design that considers the differences were preferred. The provision that ‘man is social by nature,’ which is the indispensable principle of social sciences, has been the main feature of important issues to elaborate in the restrictions of today’s pandemic. Religious socialization, which is important for the inquiry, is a phenomenon that is desired to be carried out on a continuous basis. Its performative dimension draws attention to important elements that affect the formation and the social ontology of the group, such as consciousness and solidarity. While some religious groups insist on face-to-face interaction and rituals, some of them prefer to use effectively digital tools and channels. This differing approach has become a public issue, especially during the pandemic process. On the other hand, there is a discussion in the context of the digital world of new media tools and the travel possibilities of transportation technology. The theoretical basis of this study, which deals with the insistence of religious groups on face-to-face interaction and rituals is represented from the scope of Erving Goffman. His analyzes face-to-face communication and his comments emphasizing the ritualistic nature of daily life are operationalized through two basic case studies: the first case is the persistence and practice of Tablīghī Djamā‘at, in its annual meetings in the early days of the pandemic. The discussion started with the practice of the religious group in Delhi (Nizamuddin Markaz), since they did not cancel their annual meeting despite the diagnosis of the disease. The second case is based on the ritual insistence of pilgrims in visiting shrines in the Iranian city of Qom. The insistence of the Shiite Islamic understanding on ritual and pilgrimage and the solidarity built with the consciousness based on it is a well-known phenomenon. In the Covid-19 pandemic, the risk of contamination caused by the mobility of the pilgrims coming to the city of Qom from countries such as Pakistan was discussed, as well as the contact and social distance during the Hajj. Two cases were handled with a qualitative design including case analysis method and descriptive analysis technique. The main purpose and intended contribution of the article are to reveal the insistence of face-to-face interaction through the performative based on rituals as an analytical explanatory on the social level. Inferences based on the analysis of religious groups’ response to restrictions in times of emergency build the importance of the issue. Case information identified in the context of the case study shows that groups with traditional interaction forms insist on their own practice in the field of uncertainty and initiative. Unless necessity eliminates the initiative, the determination of this insistence of traditional religious groups is not only theological but also ontological confirmation. It is understood that the members of the group took the initiative to represent their reputation within the group and their extent to dedicate to the group. The fact that Tablīghī Djamā‘at, the largest group of the transnational Islamic da‘wa (call), did not give up on a method based on demographic mobility, has been a matter of discussion. The insistence of the group is because of the methods that require every ordinary believer to accept to convey the da‘wa as his primary duty. On the other hand, Shiism, which stands out with its traditional structure and ritual intensity in the Islamic world, insisted on the initiative process in the pilgrimage phenomenon, on which it attached special importance and built its solidarity and identity on this phenomenon. This insistence aims preserving the dynamics and social ontology of the religious group in the performance of the membership system. Essentially, the individual in the group insists on his position in face-to-face interaction because having a role in a group also means having a face. Thus, this insistence performance by religious groups should also be read as a reflection of self-technologies. In the final analysis, the insistence put forward should be considered essentially in relation to the insistence on the position in social ontology. (shrink)

This article demonstrates the ways in which Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s reflections on the dialectic of the domination of nature shed new light on recent discussions about the concept of the Anthropocene. A central motif is the fear of nature, which, according to Adorno, prevailed at the beginning of its mastery by humans in prehistoric times. Harnessing external nature enabled the stabilisation of internal nature and social relations. This link between nature’s relative stability and social (...) relations was characteristic of the Holocene. In the Anthropocene, capitalist domination destabilises nature, which in turn destabilises social life. The natural terror of nature returns in the face of the socially produced climate catastrophe, adding a new aspect to Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s diagnosis of the domination of nature. The article concludes by suggesting a changed relationship to nature, which no longer would understand it as a mere object, but as a “subject in its own right”. (shrink)

Seeing philosophy as conversation with a number of fruitful avenues of discourse, Rorty seems to be caught in limbo, unwilling to follow through or commit himself to any particular line of discourse for fear of closing himself off to alternative discourses. Choosing to adopt this particular attitude he still has made a choice: he has made a commitment to non-commitment, or as Ortega puts it, “decided not to decide.” Jose Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses, trans. anonymously (...) (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1957), p. 48. Such a commitment or decision is in no way neutral, for it attempts to enforce, by moral requirement, Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, p. 394. a new vocabulary which views philosophy as conversation between speakers, with a whole range of obligations and implications included. Thus the Rortian alternative, like the alternatives he criticizes, plays the role “of the cultural overseer who knows everyone's common ground — the Platonic philosopherking who knows what everybody else is really doing whether they know it or not, because he knows about the ultimate context ... within which they are doing it.” Ibid., pp. 317–318. In fact, Rorty even refers to “conversation as the ultimate context” Ibid., p. 389. In assuming to know everyone's common ground, that every-one is participating in the conversation of humankind whether they realize it or not, Rorty seems to fall prey to a similar “self-deceptive ... absurdity of thinking that the vocabulary [he uses] ... has some privileged attachment to reality which makes it more than just a further set of descriptions.” Ibid., p. 361.One implication of such a position is that despite its holder's claims that he or she will at least attempt to incorporate abnormal discourses of all sorts, the conversationalist will not be able to consider seriously a number of types of discourse. If the edifying, hermeneutical philosopher were really “willing to pick up the jargon of the interlocutor rather than translating it into his own terms,” Ibid., p. 318. it would often be necessary to drop the notion of conversation as being a fundamental practice or moral obligation. Rorty is obviously unwilling to really pick up the jargon of the epistemologist and the meta-physician he criticizes, or of Nietzsche and Stirner, for each of these does not have contained within them, at least as a primary consideration, the continuing of the conversation of humankind. Because he imposes his vocabulary and descriptions on them - they are merely speakers in a conversation - he will see them as merely threads in a larger social fabric, he will be translating their “jargon” into his own, and thus will never be able to take their position seriously, never be prepared to adopt their position as his own. Being possessed by the notion of continuing the conversation, he is closing himself off to traditional epistemological and metaphysical projects, as well as to the perspectives of thinkers like Stirner and Nietzsche, despite his claim to be open to all of them. He can only consider them as topics of conversation as long as he remains committed to conversation, and thus never consider them as live options, or consider them as alternative life-projects to be pursued on their own terms. In insisting on the moral obligation of philosophers to continue the conversation of the West, he is insisting on the moral obligation of philosophers not to whole-heartedly adopt any of the alternatives which would tend to close off this conversation. Therefore, instead of decrying “the very notion of having a view, while avoiding having a view about having views,” Ibid., p. 371. Rorty has a rather clear view about having views: one should not hold any view whole-heartedly except the view that philosophy should be conversation, and this conversation should be the way to decide among views; that is, the way to decide among all views except the view that conversation should be the way to decide, which for Rorty is not open to discussion, but is a moral obligation. All perspectives are encouraged in the conversation, but the conversational morality has already prescribed that these views should not be whole-heartedly adopted by responsible individuals. Requiring that philosophy be conversation, Rorty closes off numerous possible life-styles, and almost all traditional philosophical projects: he merely saves the appearances of these alternatives. Morally required to continue the conversation, philosophy becomes just talk. Along the same lines, when Rorty claims that the normal and abnormal discourses “do not compete, but rather help each other out,” Ibid., p. 346. he assumes that the epistemological and metaphysical discourses will be helped by various abnormal discourses, and assumes thinkers like Nietzsche and Stirner will be helped by being made to see the significance of societies which have fallen together and are united by civility. Yet, in doing this, Rorty is not attempting to understand - either sympathetically or intellectually - what it would mean to help these projects on their own terms, and as such is not trying to understand and assimilate these alternatives as he claims he is. Rather, he is holding each of these alternatives up to his own ideal of an “open conversation,” and judging what it would mean to “help out” these alternatives only according to his own particular standards. In continually translating what others are offering into his own particular frame of reference, he does not appreciate these philosophical alternatives for their worth as individual activities which can contribute to life and/or society, but values them only for what they can contribute to his larger project, the conversation of humankind. However, if these alternatives were taken seriously, then they would surely be seen to compete with his view which advocates social criteria for adjudicating disputes, thereby denying many of the fundamental aspects of the above-mentioned alternative philosophical under-takings. It should be seen that contrary to what Rorty suggests, edification also “provides only some, among many, ways of describing ourselves,” Ibid., p. 361. and is only one type of human project among many others. In suggesting that we shift our focus “from the relation between human beings and the objects of their inquiry to the relation between alternative standards of justification, and from there to the actual changes in these standards which make up intellectual history,” Ibid., pp. 389–390. Rorty neither breaks free from traditional concerns, nor brings the focus of attention onto our own lives. As Bernstein notes, “there is a sense in which Rorty himself is obsessed. It is almost as if he can't quite ‘let go’ and accept the force of his own critique. It is as if Rorty himself has been more deeply touched by what he is attacking than he realizes.... He himself is obsessed with the obsessions of philosophers.” R.J. Bernstein, “Philosophy in the Conversation of Mankind,” pp. 767, 775.As a result of this, Richard Eldridge correctly notes that Rorty is unable to realize that “[c]riticism matters just insofar as it enables us fruitfully to develop our lives and our practices out of the past.” Richard Eldridge, “Philosophy and the Achievement of Community: Rorty, Cavell and Criticism,” Metaphilosophy 14, No. 2 (1983), p. 124. As an alternative to the Rortian attitude, I invite the reader to entertain a perspective which is not primarily concerned with identifying oneself in accordance with, or in opposition to, particular traditions, but rather with assimilating and utilizing all previous philosophical labors in order to achieve the greatest appreciation of one's own personal possibilities, and the fullest expression of one's own powers. (shrink)

Social philosophy as a discipline has a number of standard research topics at its disposal, such as the search for the best form of government, the elucidation of the laws of the development of society, the problem of free will and will to power, etc., while the study of the phenomenon of fear is knocked out of this series and is not prerogative of social philosophy. However, upon closer examination, the problem of fear is extremely urgent for social (...) philosophy, and some of its aspects can be correctly interpreted only when using optics and the methodology of this field of scientific knowledge. In this article, we are talking about the peculiarities of the phenomenon of fear, which has an impact on a specific individual in particular and on society as a whole. The author strives to isolate those features that distinguish fear from the total number of problems of modern societies and to present fear as a phenomenon that can not be analyzed only with the help of the means of the natural sciences. Having these features determined, we will understand the need to examine the phenomenon of fear in studying the state of modern societies as well as social philosophy will possess the necessary tools for this analysis. (shrink)

The Buddhist Nikāya Suttas frequently mention the concept of fear (bhaya) and related synonyms. This concept does not receive much scholarly attention by subsequent Buddhist philosophers. Recent scholars identify a ‘paradox of fear’ in several traditions of classical Indian Buddhism (Brekke 1999, Finnigan 2019, Giustarini 2012). Each scholar points out, in their respective textual contexts, that fear is evaluated in two ways; one positive and the other negative. Brekke calls this the “double role” of fear (1999: (...) 443). Each also identify fear as purposely elicited to motivate acts aimed at achieving fearlessness, where freedom from fear is characteristic of nibbāna. They all find this puzzling. Finnigan asks: “Why would one purposefully incite fear if one’s goal is its elimination?” (2019: 221). Giustarini says that fear has a “contradictory nature” (2012: 513); Brekke calls it “the paradox of fear” (1999: 442). This article introduces the ‘paradox of fear’ as it appears in the Bodhicaryāvatāra of Śāntideva and the Nikāya suttas. It then critically examines Brekke and Giustarini’s proposed solutions. It argues that they get some things right in ways that are both supported by the Nikāyas and relevant to Śāntideva but that they leave some important questions unanswered. The article contends that these questions are best answered if fear is analysed as appropriate when its objects are related to karma and rebirth. (shrink)

An engaging account of how Shaftesbury revolutionized Western philosophy At the turn of the eighteenth century, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, developed the first comprehensive philosophy of beauty to be written in English. It revolutionized Western philosophy. In A Philosophy of Beauty, Michael Gill presents an engaging account of how Shaftesbury’s thought profoundly shaped modern ideas of nature, religion, morality, and art—and why, despite its long neglect, it remains compelling today. Before Shaftesbury’s magnum opus, Charactersticks of (...) Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, it was common to see wilderness as ugly, to associate religion with fear and morality with unpleasant restriction, and to dismiss art as trivial or even corrupting. But Shaftesbury argued that nature, religion, virtue, and art can all be truly beautiful, and that cherishing and cultivating beauty is what makes life worth living. And, as Gill shows, this view had a huge impact on the development of natural religion, moral sense theory, aesthetics, and environmentalism. Combining captivating historical details and flashes of humor, A Philosophy of Beauty not only rediscovers and illuminates a fascinating philosopher but also offers an inspiring reflection about the role beauty can play in our lives. (shrink)

Expectations can facilitate rapid fear conditioning and this may explain some phenomena that have been attributed to preparedness. However, preparedness remains the best explanation for some aspects of clinical phobias and the difficulty of creating fears of modern dangers. Rapid fear conditioning based on expectancy is not an alternative to an evolutionary explanation, but has, like preparedness, been shaped by natural selection.

Humans often intervene in the wild for anthropocentric or environmental reasons. An example of such interventions is the reintroduction of wolves in places where they no longer live in order to create what has been called an “ecology of fear”, which is being currently discussed in places such as Scotland. In the first part of this paper I discuss the reasons for this measure and argue that they are not compatible with a nonspeciesist approach. Then, I claim that if (...) we abandon a speciesist viewpoint we should change completely the way in which we should intervene in nature. Rather than intervening for environmental or anthropocentric reasons, we should do it in order to reduce the harms that nonhuman animals suffer. This conflicts significantly with some fundamental environmental ideals whose defence is not compatible with the consideration of the interests of nonhuman animals. (shrink)

We agree with Grossmann that fear often builds cooperative relationships. Yet he neglects much extant literature. Prior researchers have discussed how fear (and other emotions) build cooperative relationships, have questioned whether fear per se evolved to serve this purpose, and have emphasized that human cooperation takes many forms. Grossmann's theory would benefit from a wider consideration of this work.

There is a growing interest in the role of non-cognitive affective responses in the philosophical literature on fiction and emotion. This flurry of scholarly interest is partly a reaction to cognitivist accounts of fiction and emotion that have been found to be inadequate. The inadequacy is particularly salient when this approach is employed to account for narrative horror. Cognitivist conceptions of the emotion engendered by narrative horror prove to be too restrictive. Cognitivist accounts also fail to give the formal devices (...) and stylistic elements deployed in narrative horror a proper place within the spectator’s emotional engagement with it. In this paper I propose an alternative conception of the emotion “horror” that incorporates non-cognitive affective responses. I argue that this conception of “horror” is more fine-grained than the one characterized as a cognitivist approach. It captures more literary examples of the horror experience and it accommodates better the fear of the unknown. It also makes possible an aesthetics of horror in which formal devices and stylistic elements are given their proper place. (shrink)

The human capacity to oscillate between different ontological states is one of the central preoccupations of King Lear and Othello. In each play Shakespeare dismantles what he considers erroneous accounts of human nature, both traditional and emergent, in order to advance an account of our nature this is premised on human liberty, which the playwright describes as a capacity to act against nature. To demonstrate this capacity King Lear and Othello illustrate how the absence of political restraints (...) allows characters to slip from a civilized state into an environment defined by fear, violent competition, and jealousy, a state much like Thomas Hobbes’ imagined state of nature. (shrink)

In Sacred Nature Jerome Stone gives us an informative, earnest introduction to religious naturalism with a focus on its relevance for environmentalism. Environmentalism today often dwells upon warnings about the dire consequences if certain prescribed actions are not taken. Stone takes a different tack. He quotes Aldo Leopold: “Prudence never kindled a fire in the human mind; I have no hope for a conservation born of fear.” Stone’s approach—an engaging one, in my view—is to connect environmentalism with the (...) hope and passion of religious feeling. But Stone’s religious vision does not entail belief in the personalistic, supernatural deity of traditional monotheism. Rather, a sense of the sacred is discovered within... (shrink)

Philosophers have not been very preoccupied by the link between emotions and attention. The few that did (de Sousa, 1987) never really specified the relation between the two phenomena. Using empirical data from the study of the emotion of fear, we provide a description (and an explanation) of the links between emotion and attention. We also discuss the nature (empirical or conceptual) of these links.