The Introduction provides a historical and literary context for the examination of Albert Camus’s 1947 fictional novel, The Plague, to suggest its relevance to our own lived experiences of the 2021 Covid-19 pandemic that brought the routines and expectations of our normal, daily lives to an unprecedented halt. Details of Camus’s life and work inform our reading of the narrative that give rise to multiple interpretations as well as intriguing questions of scholarly inquiry: How realistic are the characters? Does solidarity (...) eventually triumph over isolation? Does the popular novel inspire social change or fail in its aspirations? Facing the absurdity of a similarly unwelcome and unpredictable disease, have we managed our fear of death more successfully than the citizens of Oran? An overview of authors’ contributions sets the stage for new and unique perspectives: an invitation for readers to reflect upon our communal experience of immense grief. (shrink)

_La Peste_, originally published in 1947 by the Nobel Prize-winning writer Albert Camus, chronicles the progression of deadly bubonic plague as it spreads through the quarantined Algerian city of Oran. While most discussions of fictional examples within aesthetics are either historical or hypothetical, Camus offers an example of "pestilence fiction." Camus chose fiction to convey facts--about plagues in the past, his own bout with tuberculosis at age seventeen, living under quarantine away from home for several years, and forced separation from (...) his wife who remained in Algiers while he was abroad in Nazi-occupied France. His own lived experiences undergird an imaginative account of shared human realities with which we can identify: vulnerability to the disease, isolation, fear, and finally humanitarianism. _The Plague_ teaches us to neither covet nor expect what we so casually took for granted. This collection of original essays on philosophical themes in _The Plague_ is of special relevance during and in the aftermath of Covid-19 but also provides reflections that will be of lasting value to those interested in this classic work of literature. The novel explores questions of enduring importance. Do we collectively meet the threshold of ethical behavior posed by Camus who wrote, "What's true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves"? Or does the absurd undermine the compassionate? Do "heroes" dutifully fight a plague with "common decency," or does human nature resign itself to the normalization of uncontrollable suffering and death? There are myriad ways to approach the novel and this volume encourages readers to ponder human dilemmas in fictional Oran informed by our current pandemic. Series editor forward by Richard Eldridge. List of Contributors includes Steven G. Kellman, Jane E. Schultz, Andrew Edgar, Kathleen Higgins, Edward B. Weiser, Cynthia A. Freeland, and Margaret E. Gray; see "Introduction" by Peg Brand Weiser below. (shrink)

I investigate the role of feminist theorizing in relation to traditionally-based aesthetics. Feminist artworks have arisen within the context of a patriarchal Artworld dominated for thousands of years by male artists, critics, theorists, and philosophers. I look at the history of that context as it impacts philosophical theorizing by pinpointing the narrow range of the paradigms used in defining “art.” I test the plausibility of Danto’s After the End of Art vision of a post-historical, pluralistic future in which “anything goes,” (...) a future that unfortunately rests upon the same outdated foundation as the concept “art.” This essay was originally published in The Proceedings of the Twentieth Century World Congress of Philosophy (1999) and reprinted in Noel Carroll, ed., Theories of Art Today (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2000). (shrink)

Davies presents the reader with a sterling review of the literature--the recent history of the interest in defining "art" through the writings of Anglo-American philosophers that follow Morris Weitz' well-known 1956 essay, "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics"--and a stimulating discussion of the role of conventions in the making and appreciating of contemporary art. His emphasis on the social nature of art leads one to wonder how other recent inquiries into the multilayered contextually of the artistic enterprise might fare (...) under his perusal, for example, feminist critiques of traditional definitions of "art," challenges to the elitist makeup of the Artworld, . . . and opposition to his very choice of paradigms: in addition to Duchamp, the "hard cases" include works by John Cage, Andy Warhol, Olivier Messiaen, Jorge Luis Borges, and Gerald Hoffnung. Definitions of Art is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of aesthetics and as it informs the current dialectic on art. (shrink)

This paper is in four parts. The first sets out the debate between those who wished England to have only a professional army, and those who sought to supplement it with a citizen militia. This debate is crucial for understanding The History of the Proceedings in the Case of Margaret, Commonly Called Peg, Only Lawful Sister to John Bull, Esq. This political satire (commonly known as Sister Peg) is about the successful struggle to re-establish the militia in England in 1757, (...) and the unsuccessful attempt to extend the measure to Scotland. Adam Ferguson was in favour of Scotland having a militia, whereas some have claimed that Hume was against it. It is argued that Hume supported the measure. In the second part Sister Peg is briefly compared to Dr John Arbuthnot’s The History of John Bull, of which it is an imitation and sequel. In the third part the issue of the disputed authorship of Sister Peg is considered at length and Hume’s claim to have written it is compared to the Rev. Alexander Carlyle’s account that Ferguson alone wrote the work. Which of the two accounts is reliable? Richard B. Sher, in an article in this journal, assumes that Carlyle’s account is reliable, and takes issue with my arguments for reattributing the satire to Hume. It is argued that none of his arguments is successful, and that simply assuming the reliability of Carlyle’s account begs the question. In the fourth part some emendations made by Ferguson in his copy of Sister Peg are set out so that readers may see for themselves that they are almost certainly non-authorial. (shrink)

A philosophical investigation of new year's celebrations.

Take a trip back in time with award winning Star Tribune reporter Peg Meier.

Combating homophobia, racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination and violence in our society requires more than just focusing on the overt acts of prejudiced and abusive individuals. The very intelligibility of such acts, in fact, depends upon a background of shared beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that together form the context of social practices in which these acts come to have the meaning they do. This book, inspired by Wittgenstein as well as feminist and critical race theory, shines a critical (...) light on this background in order to show that we all share more responsibility for the persistence of oppressive social practices than we commonly suppose—or than traditional moral theories that connect responsibility just with the actions, rights, and liberties of individuals would lead us to believe. First sketching a nonessentialist view of rationality, and emphasizing the role of power relations, Peg O’Connor then examines in subsequent chapters the relationship between a variety of "foreground" actions and "background" practices: burnings of African American churches, hate speech, child sexual abuse, coming out as a gay or lesbian teenager, and racial integration of public and private spaces. These examples serve to illuminate when our "language games" reinforce oppression and when they allow possibilities for resistance. Attending to the background, O’Connor argues, can give us insight into ways of transforming the nature and meaning of foreground actions. (shrink)

My claim is that Arendt founds the 'right to have rights' in the anarchic event of natality. Arendt is very explicit that the event of natality is an ontological event. In The Human Condition, she writes: "The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal "natural" ruin is ultimately the fact of natality, in which the faculty of action is ontologically rooted." At the same time, she is equally insistent that this ontological event is not (...) metaphysical; it is not the origin of anything like human nature: "To avoid misunderstanding, the human condition is not the same as human nature and the sum total of human activities and capabilities which correspond to the human condition do not constitute anything like human nature". Indeed, this event has the character of a "startling unexpectedness." Natality, she argues, is the condition for human existence, but it can never "…explain what we are or answer the question of who we are for the simple reason that [it] can never condition us absolutely". The 'who' does not possess an enduring, fixed nature, but is instead inherently marked by contingency and unpredictability. Arendt's ontology, therefore, does not describe an immutable order of essences; it does not seek enduring truths upon which to ground both thought and action; it does not posit a metaphysical notion of human nature or subjectivity in which human rights are inalienably inscribed. Instead, it is rooted in an unpredictable, anarchic event that provides the arche and principium of human action. For Arendt, the event of natality is the arche in the double etymological sense of origin and rule. In other words, natality is the unpredictable, anarchic origin that carries its rule or principle within it. As she points out in On Revolution, "What saves the act of beginning from its own arbitrariness is that it carries its own principle within itself or, to be more precise, that beginning and principle, principium and principle, are not only related to each other, but are coeval." Arendt goes on to argue: "For the Greek word for beginning is arche, and arche means both beginning and principle." By articulating this principium, Arendt does not give us an ontological politics; rather, she provides an ontological foundation for human rights. (shrink)

This volume brings together the religious and philosophical writings of the founders of Russian religious philosophy, Aleksei Khomiakov and Ivan Kireevsky. Both began their intellectual careers in the literary world of the 1820s. The texts collected here make the philosophical concepts of Sobornost (community, universality, wholeness, ecumenicity) and integral knowledge, available to western readers. Based on the primacy of the heart, the spiritual wholeness of the human being and the cognitive will, integral knowing moves beyond rationality to union with the (...) object of knowledge in knowing. This book provides an introduction to Russian religious philosophy, and a profound, meditative text for anyone concerned with human and spiritual unity. Also included are two responses to Slavophile ideas by the prominent Russian philosophers Pavel Florensky and Nikolai Berdiaev. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Architectural Theory, Volume 1: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870Peg RawesArchitectural Theory, Volume 1: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870, edited by Harry Francis Mallgrave. Malden MA, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2006, 590 pp., $49.95.This anthology is a rich and comprehensive documentation of the key stages that construct Western architectural theory, from Vitruvius's classical writing to Gottfried Semper's theories in late-nineteenth-century Europe. Comprised of 229 texts by these (...) and other significant writers of architectural theory, it represents an extremely valuable resource for architectural design, history, and theory education and, more broadly, for aesthetic education, art history, aesthetics, and visual culture. Professor Mallgrave's career as an architectural historian and theorist at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and editor of Architecture and Aesthetics for the Texts and Documents Series at the Getty Research Institute, has enabled him to bring together a large number of canonical texts by architects and writers, including Alberti, Palladio, Vasari, Perrault, Wotton, Wren, Soufflot, Blondel, Boullée, Ledoux, Soane, Reynolds, Pugin, Viollet-le-Duc, Ruskin, and Greenough. In addition, Mallgrave has selected important contextualizing texts that inform the philosophical, cultural, and aesthetic development of the discipline by writers such as Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Morris, Chambers, Winckelmann, Locke, Hume, Ramsey, Burke, Walpole, Price, von Schlegel, Wolff, Jefferson, Emerson, Hugo, Zola, and Leibnitz.Six stages of development are laid out, beginning with the Classical and Renaissance periods in part I. In part II the debates about Classicism in France and Britain develop, leading into part III, in which texts from the Neoclassical and Enlightenment debates in Europe take precedence. In part IV, Picturesque and Sublime theories are documented, from which part V turns to consider the importance of Historicism in the nineteenth century and, finally, in part VI the impact of Historicism is examined in relation to developments in industrialization.Introducing each part, Mallgrave succinctly highlights the historical, cultural, and political structures that underpin the development of architectural ideas and debates during the period. Within each part, internal sections further distinguish the particular ideas that preoccupied specific individuals and groups to comprise different theoretical positions. Part II, for example, is divided into the nationalist differences between "French Classicism: Ancients and Moderns" and "British Classicism and Palladianism," and part IV identifies key texts that contribute to the theorization of eighteenth-century aesthetics in three stages: "Sources of the Picturesque," "Toward a Relativist Aesthetics," and "Consolidation of Picturesque Theory." In addition, Mallgrave introduces each individual text, drawing attention to the author's intellectual ambitions and the contemporary debates in which their contribution is constructed. Architectural [End Page 111] theory is therefore characterized as a discipline that is made up of dynamic discussions, which are frequently unresolved and irregular in their formation. Diverse and opposing agendas are pursued, both within and between different institutions, academies, and communities, including the late-sixteenth-century "stylistic battles" of Alberti and Serlio's treatises, which were developed out of Vitruvius's ten "books" of architecture; the pluralism of styles in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century that was comprised of puritanical influential theories, Gothic and French Classicism, and the new generation of American architectural theorists; and the emergence of a German architectural theory within the political disputes that led to the unification of Germany in 1871. Architectural theory is therefore firmly constructed in relation to social, material, cultural, and political systems and frameworks.This colorful construction of architectural theory is evident, especially in those sections that are central to Mallgrave's ongoing research interests, in the tension between the rational, technical, and empirical discussions that inform seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century aesthetics. Running through parts II and III, for example, is one of the most drawn-out and bitter disputes, which dominated architectural theory in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French Academy of Architecture. Focused on the value of Vitruvius's Roman origins of Classicism, versus revivalist ambitions to retrieve the ornamental Classicism of Greek and Gothic styles, this great quarrel occupies the texts, letters, essays, and articles by architects and writers, including Blondel, Perrault, Piranesi, Soufflot, Winckelmann, Le Roy, Boullée, and Ledoux. But this debate is also important in the context of... (shrink)

Hannah Arendt’s most important contribution to political thought may be her well-known and often-cited notion of the "right to have rights." In this incisive and wide-ranging book, Peg Birmingham explores the theoretical and social foundations of Arendt’s philosophy on human rights. Devoting special consideration to questions and issues surrounding Arendt’s ideas of common humanity, human responsibility, and natality, Birmingham formulates a more complex view of how these basic concepts support Arendt’s theory of human rights. Birmingham considers Arendt’s key philosophical works (...) along with her literary writings, especially those on Walter Benjamin and Franz Kafka, to reveal the extent of Arendt’s commitment to humanity even as violence, horror, and pessimism overtook Europe during World War II and its aftermath. This current and lively book makes a significant contribution to philosophy, political science, and European intellectual history. (shrink)

Peg Tittle’s ambitious business ethics text brings together readings, cases, and the author’s own informed opinions. The second edition includes over a dozen new readings and case studies, as well as a new chapter on issues in Information and Communication Technology. _Includes_ - Canonical and topical readings on issues ranging from whistleblowing and advertising to international business, the nature of capitalism, and the environment - Engaging overviews from the author encourage careful reflection and critical examination of conventional assumptions - _What (...) to Do?_ scenarios and _Case Studies_ illustrate the practical relevance of each topic - Comprehensive introductions to ethical theory and the ethics of business - Questions following each selection test understanding and promote active reading - A primer on ethical institutions examines the role of ethics consultants, codes of ethics, and more. (shrink)

It has become nearly a truism for contemporary theorists of democracy to understand the democratic space as agonistic and contested. The shadow that haunts thinkers of democracy today, and out of which this assumption emerges, is the specter of totalitarianism with its claims to a totalizing knowledge in the form of ideology and a totalizing power of a sovereign will that claims to be the embodiment of the law. Caught up in these totalizing claims, the citizenry becomes elated. The only (...) remedy to totalitarianism is a democratic space wherein no one can claim to know the truth, no one can claim to occupy the space of power, and no one can claim to embody the law. The problem with this remedy is that it fails entirely to take account of what Arendt understands to be the fundamental condition of totalitarianism, namely, the institution of a "lying world order" whereby reality is replaced with a lie. For Arendt therefore the remedy for totalitarianism and its elated citizenry depends first and foremost upon the existence of factual truth. Following Arendt as well as Shoshana Felman's work on testimony, I argue that bearing witness to factual reality is the ground of the democratic public space and the remedy to an elated citizenry caught up in a lying world order. (shrink)

A proprietor from a Washington State wildlife sanctuary shares true stories about some of the most remarkable animals she has worked with, including a mother cat and kittens who were shot with a pellet gun, a bear who was targeted by a poacher and Pete, the feline "co-author" of three of her books.

In all of the writings of Martin Buber there is one major theme which serves as a peg upon which he hangs most of his further thoughts. Nahum Glatzer uses this underlying theme, interpreting it as a "way of response," and brings together selections from many of Buber's works. Thus not only does the reader see the centrality of the "way of response" for this great Jewish thinker, but he captures a feeling for the man himself as well. The (...) "way of response" is not a concept expounded but a life lived, and the selections Glatzer employs in his book brings this out very well.—W. P. G. (shrink)

Keith Reader's brief, unfinished article ‘Freeze Peach’ situates contemporary controversies surrounding free speech in relation to material and economic concerns. Ian James's response draws attention to the way Keith does this by bringing together four key figures of late twentieth-century philosophy and theory: Louis Althusser, Jean-François Lyotard, Terry Eagleton and Stanley Fish. Ian argues that the conjugation of Marx-inspired theory with thinkers associated with the postmodern would have allowed Keith to develop a uniquely perceptive and productive insight into the (...) present moment of political disorientation, one which demands a renegotiation of the legacies of both modernity and postmodernity. (shrink)

The core of this text comprises chapters on all the key issues of business in Canada today. Each chapter includes a hypothetical case study and an introduction by the editor highlighting key ethical points; two academic essays; and a real-life case study. Questions for discussion accompany the essays and case studies. The editor has also included a general introduction to ethical theory; a section on institutionalizing ethics (discussing ethics officers/programs/codes, etc.); and appendices providing excerpts from important classic contributions to ethical (...) theory and relevant Canadian law. The result is a comprehensive and useable course text particularly helpful for Canadian students. (shrink)

It's easy to accept God's will when all is well and life is going along smoothly. But what about the hard times? Here is a compassionate guide for yielding to God's sovereignty in times of need -- and remembering His promise to never leave us nor forsake us.

Shoma Morita, M.D. was a Japanese psychiatrist-professor who developed a unique four stage therapy process. He challenged psychoanalysts who sanctioned an unconscious or unconsciousness that resides inside the mind. Significantly, he advanced a phenomenal connection between existentialism, Zen, Nature and the therapeutic role of serendipity. Morita is a forerunner of eco-psychology and he equalised the strength between human-to-human attachment and human-to-Nature bonds. This book chronicles Morita's theory of "peripheral consciousness", his paradoxical method, his design of a natural therapeutic setting, and (...) his progressive-four stage therapy. It explores how this therapy can be beneficial for clients outside of Japan using, for the first time, non-Japanese case studies. The author's personal material about training in Japan and subsequent practice of Morita's ecological and phenomenological therapy in Australia and the United States enhance this book. LeVine's coining of "cruelty-based trauma" generates a rich discussion on the need for therapy inclusive of ecological settings. As a medical anthropologist, clinical psychologist and genocide scholar, LeVine shows how the four progressive stages are essential to the classic method and the key importance of the first "rest" stage in outcomes for clients who have been embossed by trauma. Since cognitive science took hold in the 1970s, complex consciousness theories have lost footing in psychology and medical science. This book reinstates "consciousness" as the dynamic core of Morita therapy. The case material illustrates the use of Morita therapy for clients struggling with the aftermath of trauma and how to live creatively and responsively inside the uncertainty of existence. The never before published archival biographic notes and photos of psychoanalyst Karen Horney, Fritz Perls, Eric Fromm and other renowned scholars who took an interest in Morita in the 1950s and 60s provide a dense historical backdrop. (shrink)

In this essay I take up Butler’s and Arendt’s respective accounts of the production of precarity and superfluity, asking whether they are proximate accounts, as they seem to be, or whether Butler’s turn to precarity misses the radical nature of Arendt’s genealogy of the production of superfluity, a genealogy that begins at the inauguration of modernity, attempts to find a “perfect superfluousness” in the death camps, and continues unabated in the contemporary global world. Reading Arendt against Butler, I argue that (...) an ontology rooted in bodily precariousness cannot adequately address the production of superfluity which produces precarity as one of its effects. If precarity is an effect of superfluity, as I argue it is, then precarity’s remedy is found not in an appeal to the general ontological condition of bodily precariousness, but in a confrontation with the production of superfluity that threatens to eradicate all conditions of worldly and earthly existence, including the ontological condition of bodily vulnerability. (shrink)

Peg Rawes examines a "minor tradition" of aesthetic geometries in ontological philosophy. Developed through Kant’s aesthetic subject she explores a trajectory of geometric thinking and geometric figurations--reflective subjects, folds, passages, plenums, envelopes and horizons--in ancient Greek, post-Cartesian and twentieth-century Continental philosophies, through which productive understandings of space and embodies subjectivities are constructed. Six chapters, explore the construction of these aesthetic geometric methods and figures in a series of "geometric" texts by Kant, Plato, Proclus, Spinoza, Leibniz, Bergson, Husserl and Deleuze. In (...) each text, geometry is expressed as a uniquely embodies aesthetic activity because each respective geometric method and figure is imbued with aesthetic sensibility and geometric sense (rather than as disembodies scientific methods). An ontology of aesthetic geometric methods and figures is therefore traced from Kant’s Critical writings, back to Plato and Proclus Greek philosophy, Spinoza and Leibniz’s post-Cartesian philosophies, and forwards to Bergson’s "duration" and Husserl’s "horizons" towards Deleuze’s philosophy of sense. (shrink)

Beauty has captured human interest since before Plato, but how, why, and to whom does beauty matter in today's world? Whose standard of beauty motivates African Americans to straighten their hair? What inspires beauty queens to measure up as flawless objects for the male gaze? Why does a French performance artist use cosmetic surgery to remake her face into a composite of the master painters' version of beauty? How does beauty culture perceive the disabled body? Is the constant effort to (...) remain young and thin, often at considerable economic and emotional expense, ethically justifiable? Provocative essays by an international group of scholars discuss beauty in aesthetics, the arts, the tools of fashion, the materials of decoration, and the big business of beautification—beauty matters—to reveal the ways gender, race, and sexual orientation have informed the concept of beauty and driven us to become more beautiful. Here, Kant rubs shoulders with Calvin Klein. Beauty Matters draws from visual art, dance, cultural history, and literary and feminist theory to explore the values and politics of beauty. Various philosophical perspectives on ethics and aesthetics emerge from this penetrating book to determine and reveal that beauty is never disinterested. Foreward by Eleanor Heartney; "Introduction" by Peg Brand [Weiser] included here. Authors include Marcia M. Eaton, Noel Carroll, Paul C. Taylor, Arthur C. Danto, Kathleen M. Higgins, Susan Bordo, Dawn Perlmutter, Eva Kit Wah Man, Anita Silvers, Hilary Robinson, Kaori Chino, Sally Banes, and Peg Brand's essay "Bound to Beauty: An Interview with Orlan." (available on PhilPapers). (shrink)

Not everyone faces “modern” death equally, whether in Oran or today’s world. In this chapter, I argue that the “difficulty” in Oran of “modern death” as described by Camus is still with us today in that Americans neither faced death together in any form of solidarity under the Trump administration nor faced death individually in any traditional “decent” manner (as proposed by the character Tarrou), that is, comforted by family or friends. One reason is overwhelming fear of death—what neuroscientists call (...) “existential anxiety”—that can motivate human behavior toward either selfishness or an ethics of care. As a result of lived experiences of the pandemic, a sense of “heroic solidarity” has perhaps been finally achieved that moves us from despair to hope, confirming Camus’s faith in humanity. (shrink)

Leading philosopher Peg Birmingham explores the relation between political deception, violence, and law in an attempt to renew the concept of the political.

The dominant narrative today of modern political power, inspired by Foucault, is one that traces the move from the spectacle of the scaffold to the disciplining of bodies whereby the modern political subject, animated by a fundamental fear and the will to live, is promised security in exchange for obedience and productivity. In this essay, I call into question this narrative, arguing that that the modern political imagination, rooted in Hobbes, is animated not by fear but instead by the desire (...) for glory and immortality, a desire that is spectacularly displayed in the violence of the modern battlefield. I go on to argue that Hannah Arendt, writing in the ruins of the Second World War, rethinks the modern legacy of political glory. I claim that Arendt's reflections on violence and glory, which she rethinks from her earliest writings on violence in the 1940s to her later reflections on war in the 1960s, offer the possibility of a new political imagination wherein glory and the desire for immortality is now rooted in the responsibility of bearing an enduring world. (shrink)

From the early years of the Common Era to 1700, Indian intellectuals explored with unparalleled subtlety the place of emotion in art. Their investigations led to the deconstruction of art's formal structures and broader inquiries into the pleasure of tragic tales. _Rasa_, or taste, was the word they chose to describe art's aesthetics, and their passionate effort to pin down these phenomena became its own remarkable act of creation. This book is the first in any language to follow the evolution (...) of rasa from its origins in dramaturgical thought--a concept for the stage--to its flourishing in literary thought--a concept for the page. _Reader on Rasa_ incorporates primary texts by every significant thinker of classical Indian aesthetics, many never translated before. The arrangement of the selections captures the intellectual dynamism that has powered this debate for centuries. Headnotes explain the meaning and significance of each text, a comprehensive introduction summarizes major threads in intellectual-historical terms, and critical endnotes and an extensive bibliography add further depth to the selections. The Sanskrit theory of emotion in art is one of the most sophisticated in the ancient world, a precursor of the work being done today by critics and philosophers of aesthetics. This volume's conceptual detail, historical precision, and clarity will appeal to any scholar interested in a full portrait of global intellectual development. __Reader on Rasa___ is the inaugural book in the Historical Sourcebooks in Classical Indian Thought series, edited by Sheldon Pollock. These text-based books guide readers through the most important forms of classical Indian thought, from epistemology, rhetoric, and hermeneutics to astral science, yoga, and medicine. Each volume provides fresh translations of key works, headnotes to contextualize selections, a comprehensive analysis of major lines of development within the discipline, and exegetical and text-critical endnotes, as well as a bibliography. Designed for comparativists and interested general readers, Historical Sourcebooks is also a great resource for advanced scholars seeking authoritative commentary on challenging works._. (shrink)

It is often pointed out that Agamben’s most profound disagreement with Hannah Arendt is his rejection of anything like a “right to have rights” that would guarantee the belonging to a political space. I want to suggest, however, that the subject of rights in Agamben’s thought is more complicated, arguing in this essay that Agamben’s critique is not with the concept of human rights per se, but with the declaration of modern rights. In other words, this essay will explore how (...) Agamben’s analysis of language, especially vis-à-vis the figure standing outside the gates of the city, allows for rethinking the subject of rights. This analysis suggests that when thinking the notion of right, we must move from the declaration of right rooted in logos to the material dimension of language that makes such a declaration possible. Calling into question Aristotle’s claim that the human being is political because the human being is zoon logon echon, Agamben’s analysis shows that there is no place where the “I” can transform itself into speech. There is always a “non-place” of articulation that is not something outside the polis, but at the very heart of the polis itself. This non-place marks the exposure of the human as such. Following Agamben, I argue that human rights are not declared, but are exposed in our very appearance, our very being-manifest. I argue that our being-manifest provides for a new notion of human rights, rooted in the ontological condition of appearance that carries with it the right of exposure, without identity, to appear. In conclusion, I consider the relation of language and law in Agamben’s thought, asking whether Agamben’s critique of the juridical and his call for a politics without law preclude any resurrection of human rights? (shrink)

I argue that there are four solutions to the apparent contradiction of permitting abortion while prohibiting prenatal harm: there are other grounds both for condoning abortion and condemning prenatal harm which are not contradictory; there is a continuum of personhood or body; there is a continuum of rights; one can distinguish between the potentially born and the preborn on the sole basis of the woman’s intent to carry the fetus to term and give it birth. The fourth solution enables a (...) consequentialist approach to assessing abortion and prenatal harm, such that permitting the former while prohibiting the latter is not contradictory. (shrink)

A review of MacIntyre's Dependent Rational Animals.

The "Introduction" to "Symposium: Beauty Matters" in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Winter 1999), pages 1-10, is presented here. Abstract: The point of this symposium is to locate one trajectory of the new wave of discussions about beauty beyond the customary confines of analytic aesthetics and to situate it at the intersection of aesthetics, ethics, social-political philosophy, and cultural criticism. The three essays that follow, authored by Marcia Muelder Eaton, Paul C. Taylor, and Susan (...) Bordo, represent a conjoined effort to move "beauty" beyond the traditional parameters of past contextual theories of art--theories which in their own right (only decades ago and analogous to art criticism itself) opened up rich philosophical terrain beyond the confines of formalism. This introductory essay offer some guidance as to why a symposium on beauty merits attention. Exploring the ways artists and critics have revived the concept of beauty will provide a point of comparison between artworld practices and recent philosophical literature. Most importantly, a new approach to philosophical theorizing will be recommended: one that places questions of gender, race, and sexuality at the forefront of analyzing our experiences of beauty in nature, the human body, and art. Curiously, this new approach is not so much a radical departure from traditional philosophical aesthetics as it is a return to questions basic to the field since the time of Plato: questions about the types of qualities that inhere in objects of beauty, the kinds of experiences they provoke, and the ways we come to value both. (shrink)

This essay explores Dennis Schmidt’s notion of an “original ethics,” asking how language, freedom and history are at work in this original ethics. The essay first examines Schmidt’s claim that philosophy has traditionally understood ethical and political life as rooted in a subject ruled entirely by what he calls “the law of the common.” The essay specifically looks at how Plato and Hobbes embrace the law of the common, expelling thereby the law of the idiom from their respective ethical and (...) political thought. The essay then turns to an examination of Schmidt’s “original ethics” which he claims offers a way out from the law of the common and the logic of Machenschaft that animates this law. In conclusion, the essay expresses a concern on whether Schmidt can move as seamlessly as he seems to claim from an original ethics to political being in common, asking of the role of judgment in Schmidt’s original ethics. (shrink)

The gendered subcultures of our society may have different value systems. Consequently, sexual activity that involves members of these subcultures may be problematic, especially concerning the encoding and decoding of consent. This has serious consequences for labelling the activity as sex or sexual assault. Conceiving consent not as a mental act but as a behavioural act (that is, using a performative standard) would eliminate these problems. However, if we remove the mental element from one aspect, then to be consistent we (...) must remove it from all; and, as a result, the “mistaken belief” defense would be eliminated and mens rea would become insignificant (in other words, if what the woman means is irrelevant, then what the man believes or intends should also be irrelevant). This consequence suggests major changes to our current conceptions of legal justice, which changes, if undesirable, prompt reconsideration of the initial proposal to use a performative standard for consent. (shrink)

I investigate the role of feminist theorizing in relation to traditionally-based aesthetics. Feminist artworks have arisen within the context of a patriarchal Artworld dominated for thousands of years by male artists, critics, theorists, and philosophers. I look at the history of that context as it impacts philosophical theorizing by pinpointing the narrow range of the paradigms used in defining “art.” I test the plausibility of Danto’s After the End of Art vision of a post-historical, pluralistic future in which “anything goes,” (...) a future that unfortunately rests upon the same outdated foundation as the concept “art.”. (shrink)

Feminist art epistemologies (FAEs) greatly aid the understanding of feminist art, particularly when they serve to illuminate the hidden meanings of an artist's intent. The success of parodic imagery produced by feminist artists (feminist visual parodies, FVPs) necessarily depends upon a viewer's recognition of the original work of art created by a male artist and the realization of the parodist's intent to ridicule and satirize. As Brand shows in this essay, such recognition and realization constitute the knowledge of a well-(in)formed (...) FAE. Without it, misinterpretation is possible and viewers fail to experience and enjoy a full and rewarding encounter with a provocative and subversive work of art. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida is one of the most prolific and influential contemporary French intellectuals. Twenty-two essays and excerpts from Derrida's writings over the last twenty-five years are gathered in this accessible introduction, _A Derrida Reader_. The book's five sections are carefully introduced by the editor, and each selection of Derrida's work is presented succinctly in context. A general introduction to the volume by Peggy Kamuf provides an original interpretation and overview of Derrida's work and philosophy.

This anthology of the work of Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677) presents the text of Spinoza's masterwork, the Ethics, in what is now the standard translation by Edwin Curley. Also included are selections from other works by Spinoza, chosen by Curley to make the Ethics easier to understand, and a substantial introduction that gives an overview of Spinoza's life and the main themes of his philosophy. Perfect for course use, the Spinoza Reader is a practical tool with which to approach (...) one of the world's greatest but most difficult thinkers, a passionate seeker of the truth who has been viewed by some as an atheist and by others as a religious mystic. The anthology begins with the opening section of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, which has always moved readers by its description of the young Spinoza's spiritual quest, his dissatisfaction with the things people ordinarily strive for--wealth, honor, and sensual pleasure--and his hope that the pursuit of knowledge would lead him to discover the true good. The emphasis throughout these selections is on metaphysical, epistemological, and religious issues: the existence and nature of God, his relation to the world, the nature of the human mind and its relation to the body, and the theory of demonstration, axioms, and definitions. For each of these topics, the editor supplements the rigorous discussions in the Ethics with informal treatments from Spinoza's other works. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine Arendt's and Kristeva's account of the archaic event of natality, arguing that each attempts to show how this event is the source of our pleasure in the company of others. I first examine Arendt's understanding of natality, showing that in her early writings, specifically in The Origin of Totalitarianism, the event of natality carries with it a capacity for violence that Arendt does not continue to develop in her later formulations. This lack of development leaves (...) her later thought, specifically her notion of "public happiness" strangely light-minded on the topic of domination, unable to give an account of how violence can be part and parcel of our appearance in the public space itself. I then turn to Kristeva's understanding of the event of natality, arguing that her account, specifically the "violence beneath our desires" contributes significantly to Arendt's account of natality, allowing us to understand how pleasure in the company of others is possible despite such violence. I argue that Kristeva locates our capacity for public happiness in the aspect of natality Arendt abandons in her later thought. I conclude by showing how Kristeva's account of natality provides a foundation for Arendt's understanding of public happiness. (shrink)