Agnes Arber's international reputation is due in part to her exceptional ability to interpret the German tradition of scholarship for the English-speaking world. The Mind and the Eye is an erudite book, revealing its author's familiarity with philosophy from Plato and Aristotle through Aquinas to Kant and Hegel; but it is not dull, because the quiet enthusiasm of the author shines through. In this book she turns from the work of a specialist in one science to those wider questions (...) which any scientist must ask at intervals. What, in short, is the relationship between the eye that sees and the mind that weighs and pronounces? An important feature of this Cambridge Science Classics reissue is the introduction provided by Professor P. R. Bell, who as a Cambridge botany student at the time that Agnes Arber was writing The Natural Philosopby of Plant Form, is uniquely able to set The Mind and the Eye in the context of contemporary biological research. (shrink)

The debate about the nature of modernity and postmodernity has become central to intellectual culture today. In this work, two distinguished social theorists make a distinctive contribution to this continuing discussion.

Agnes Heller conversó con la Redacción de Areté el 24 de abril de 2003, durante una visita a la Universidad Católica para dictar la Lección Inaugural del Año Académico de la Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas. En la conversación estuvieron presentes los profesores Pepi Patrón, Fidel Tubino y Miguel Giusti.

This book is the first attempt to think philosophically about the comic phenomenon in literature, art, and life. Working across a substantial collection of comic works author Agnes Heller makes seminal observations on the comic in the work of both classical and contemporary figures. Whether she's discussing Shakespeare, Kafka, Rabelais, or the paintings of Brueghel and Daumier Heller's Immortal Comedy makes a characteristic contribution to modern thought across the humanities.

INTRODUCTION Is there a * Renaissance ideal of man'? The consciousness that man is a historical being is a product of bourgeois development ; the condition ...

Ricœur n’a cessé d’explorer les liens de la littérature et de la philosophie, du poétique entendu au sens large et de la philosophie pratique. Ces réflexions ont fécondé ses analyses de façon majeure, le concept d’identité narrative – l’adjectif s’entendant aussi dans sa dimension littéraire – en étant un des centres. Mais cette valorisation de la linéarité du récit a parfois donné l’impression d’avoir davantage mis en avant l’importance du roman, délaissant le rôle de la poésie et du théâtre. Cet (...) article se propose d’explorer les liens mutuels entre la sagesse poétique et la sagesse pratique en leur redonnant toute leur place. Il le fait en suivant la manière dont le philosophe a donné une place à la poésie, singulièrement celle de Rilke, et en mettant au jour les différentes stratégies argumentatives (l’exergue, la correspondance, le commentaire) par lesquelles la poésie, et surtout le psaume, éclaire et enrichit la compréhension de ce/celui qui s’engage dans l’action. (shrink)

Herméneutique en contexte, le droit initie des techniques d’interprétation. Plus encore, il pense la justice au risque de l’interprétation. Parmi les grandes disciplines exégétiques, à côté de la littérature, de l'exégèse biblique et de l'historiographie, le droit occupe ainsi une place singulière. Discipline exégétique, il sait la nécessité de l’interprétation et le danger de la mésinterprétation en raison du caractère équivoque d’un énoncé ou d’un contexte engageant faux-sens ou contre-sens. Ici le travail d’interprétation s’arrêterait une fois l’énoncé ou la situation (...) clarifiés. In claris cessat interpretatio. Mais, le droit travaille à interpréter les signes (preuve ou témoignage) de la conflictualité inhérente au corps social sur un fond tragique. L’interprétation juridique se déploie, sur le fond de la violence sociale du mal commis, lestée d’un lourd coefficient existentiel. Une hantise habite le droit à laquelle il réplique : l’obligation, au nom de la possible exécution de la justice, de rajouter de la peine à la peine ; la violence de l’erreur judiciaire. En droit, le tragique de l’interprétation est sous-tendu par une « pathétique de la souffrance » : le différend, le litige, le délit, la sanction, la peine. Ici l’interprétation, en plus d’être une technique, s’impose également comme une pratique : l’arbitrage par un tiers. Arbitre, pour se prémunir de l’arbitraire, le droit ne doit-il pas expliciter le statut des signes sur lesquels s’appuyer pour juger et dire le droit ? N’est-ce pas là que s’ouvre la carrière de l’interprétation ? (shrink)

Le dialogue de Paul Ricœur a été constant avec les sciences humaines et sociales, mais peu avec l'économie. Ce silence ricœurien sur l’économie est relatif. Sans faire une épistémologie des sciences économiques, il manifesta une préoccupation constante pour la condition ouvrière (cf. Simone Weil) et les effets pratiques de l’aliénation économique. Il n’a cessé de porter son attention sur le travail plutôt que sur l’économie, sur les échanges plutôt que sur la modélisation de l’économie mathématique oublieuse de l’économie comme science (...) sociale. Son anthropologie est une anthropologie de l’homme capable plutôt que celle de l’homme comptable. En effet, son souci éthique réinstalle sur le plan des évaluations une activité économique, non seulement uniformisante mais unidimentionnalisante, qui résorbe le plan de la valeur dans celui du prix. Son anthropologie de l’homme capable réévalue la figure de l’agent économique. Ainsi chez Ricœur, le souci éthique est-il instruit épistémologiquement par les sciences sociales. Il pense ensemble éthique et économie via les médiations symboliques des institutions et des structures qui rendent possibles les échanges. D'où une approche fine des thèses de Marx sur l’aliénation économique, et plus tardivement une rencontre des travaux de l’économiste Amartya Sen, non sans liens, avec les travaux de Martha Nussbaum sur les capabilités. (shrink)

L’homme est l’être qui tourmente la déesse auguste entre toutes, la Terre,La Terre éternelle et infatigable, avec ses charrues qui vontsans répit la sillonnant chaque année, celui qui la fait labourerpar les produits de ses cavales. […]Mais, ainsi maître d’un savoir,dont les ingénieuses ressources dépassent toute espérance,il peut prendre ensuite la route du mal tout comme du bien.Sophocle, Antigone,trad. P. Mazon, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1950, pp. 87-88. Il est différentes expériences hum...

The “small” Ricœurian ethic disrupts the classical presentations of different ethics because of the place it gives to the moral imagination and the tragic. Difficult to classify in the panorama of contemporary ethics, the Ricœurian project values the pluralism of moral traditions as practical preunderstandings while giving practical creativity a prominent place. This tension of traditions and ethical imagination gives his practical wisdom a dynamic and heuristic character. This article shows the fruitfulness of this wisdom in an age of pluralistic (...) and complex societies, and deploys its practical significance. It analyzes, first, cells of good advice, where practical inventiveness is mobilized. Second, through discussion of the work of Ricœur and Nussbaum, it then studies, within the framework of the economy where the role and place given to play is central, the place of imagination in an anthropology of the capable human being. (shrink)

S'il était un empire de l'imagination, ce serait moins celui du réel que celui du refuge fantastique, de l'imaginaire. Dès lors, il est capital de redonner à l'imagination sa juste place dans une philosophie de l'action. L'imagination est le médiateur de la créativité. Elle est la faculté du possible pratique en nous ancrant poétiquement au monde. Les images fournissent un cadre herméneutique pour l'agir. Elles augmentent notre intelligence du réel et testent notre capacité a nous investir. En ces termes dominés (...) par la rationalité instrumentale et le contrôle, voire l'évaluation tous azimuts du vécu, reconnaître la place des puissances de l'imagination est devenu tâche urgente pour habiter autrement notre monde! (shrink)

This article proposes to analyze the relations between ethics and the poetics of testimony. It does so by testing Paul Ricoeur’s analyses of testimony with the literary work of the Belarusian Nobel Prize winner Svletana Alexievitch. After having shown why witnessing occupies a type of expressivity that is singular in contemporary times, and then having been surprised by the strong links that unite witnessing and the experience of evil, Alexievitch’s work is chosen to explain what the resource of the poetic (...) could be, in the face of the question of evil. Ultimately, the consequences are drawn for the development of a practical wisdom in which testimony would be in a good place. (shrink)

La thèse de cet ouvrage est qu'il faut prendre soin du monde et qu'une "anthropologie relationnelle" permet de penser ce soin. Une pensée spécifique de la relation devient particulièrement nécessaire en médecine, dans le monde du travail et vis-à-vis de l'environnement. Elle entend s'opposer à une attitude peu soigneuse qui se répand à l'égard des personnes et des différents contextes de vie. L'exigence du soin, se faisant catégorie critique, permet ainsi de relier des domaines souvent envisagés comme distincts où, à (...) rebours de l'exploitation générale du monde, elle invite à porter attention aux relations humaines et aux différentes formes de vulnérabilité. Si la philosophie du care occupe désormais une place importante au sein de la philosophie contemporaine, cet ouvrage fait apparaitre la diversité des philosophies du soin, montre la pluralité des champs qu'elles investissent et l'unité d'une démarche d'attention au monde. (shrink)

As social and ecological transition and climate change raise issues that go far beyond individual responses, how can these challenges be balanced with ethical and political responses? This article intends to show that the strength of virtue ethics lies in the fact that it translates these abstract issues into concrete biographical events that shape lifestyles. The search for the good life in these matters then finds in temperance, humility and hospitality three virtues, private and social, to operate this translation. Humility (...) makes explicit the deep interdependencies between the living, while temperance calls for practices that are attentive to these relationships, in the knowledge that our ways of life here have far-reaching consequences on the other side of the globe. This in turn invites us to restore hospitality to its cosmopolitical dimension. (shrink)

Le témoignage a retenu de très près l’herméneutique philosophique de Paul Ricœur. De son sens quasi empirique, celui du témoin d’un procès, à sa signification religieuse, celle du témoin de la foi, en passant par sa signification morale, le témoin vit du bien dont il témoigne. Se trouvant donc au croisement du juridique, de l’historique, de l’éthique et du religieux, le témoignage trouve, dans les analyses de Paul Ricœur, son principe unificateur dans le concept d’identité narrative. J.-Ph. Pierron montre (...) que pour le philosophe de Temps et récit, le témoignage dans le témoin est texte. Il donne donc à penser, ce qui implique une herméneutique de la réception, axée sur l’analyse d’un accueil du témoignage. Corrélativement, parler d’identité narrative, c’est donner l’occasion au témoignage de passer insensiblement d’un pôle d’extériorité, celui du narrateur qui n’est pas l’acteur de ce qu’il raconte, à un pôle d’intériorité, qui fait constitution progressive de soi. En quoi doit se définir une éthique du témoignage. Bearing witness is a very important concept in the philosophical hermeneutic of Paul Ricoeur. From its quasi-empirical meaning, that of the testimony of a witness in a trial, to its religious significance, that of a witness to the faith, and its moral significance, the witness lives from the good to which he bears witness. Bearing witness, which lies at the core of legal, historical, ethical, and religious testimony, finds its unifying principle in the analysis of Paul Ricoeur in the concept of narrative identity. J.-P. Pierron shows that, for the philosopher of Time and Narrative, the testimony of the witness becomes text in the one who bears witness. Thus, it leads to thinking, which implies a hermeneutic of receiving, centered on the analysis of how testimony from a witness is received. Correlatively, to speak of narrative identity is to give an opportunity for bearing witness to move imperceptibly from a position of exteriority, that of a narrator who is not the actor of that which he recounts, to a position of interiority, which makes for a progressive constitution of the self. This ought to define an ethic of bearing witness. (shrink)

The paper sketches the historical development from emotion as a mysterious entity and the source of maladaptive behaviour, to emotion as a collection of ingredients and the source of also adaptive behaviour. We argue, however, that the underlying mechanism proposed to take care of this adaptive behaviour is not entirely up for its task. We outline an alternative view that explains so-called emotional behaviour with the same mechanism as non-emotional behaviour, but that is at the same time more likely to (...) produce adaptive behaviour. The phenomena that were initially seen as requiring a separate emotional mechanism to influence and cause behaviour can also be explained by a goal-directed mechanism provided that more goals and other complexities inherent in the goal-directed process are taken into account. (shrink)

Jean-Philippe Pierron | : Dans leur réflexion sur le raisonnement moral, critique d’une approche rationaliste stricte, les théories du care et les philosophies travaillant à une compréhension enrichie de la raison pratique se sont attachées à mettre en valeur l’importance éthique qu’il y a à envisager la perspective de l’autre. Elles se sont concentrées à cette fin sur le travail de l’imagination. On montre ici que l’éthique du care de Gilligan, l’éthique de la narration de Nussbaum et l’éthique de (...) la sollicitude ricoeurienne, quoique différentes, se renforcent mutuellement à partir d’une compréhension renouvelée du rôle de l’imagination dans la morale. Si l’enquête psychologique de Gilligan, la philosophie de la littérature chez Nussbaum et l’herméneutique du texte chez Ricoeur diffèrent, ces trois auteur.es ont en commun de ne pas se satisfaire des méfaits d’une rationalité instrumentale qui bride la créativité pratique des actrices morales et acteurs moraux. Il appartiendrait à l’imagination éthique de prendre la mesure de la complexité des situations morales et d’en suivre les variations subtiles, afin de prendre soin de formes de vies rendues invisibles ou d’existences vulnérables. | : Critical of a strictly rationalist approach, theories of care and philosophies working toward a deeper understanding of practical reason have valorized the ethical importance of envisioning the perspective of the other in their reflection on moral reasoning. To this end, they have focussed on the task of the imagination. Here it is shown that, however different, Gilligan’s ethics of care, Nussbaum’s narrative ethics, and Ricoeur’s ethics of solicitude mutually reinforce each other through a renewed comprehension of the role of the imagination in the philosophy of action. Although Gilligan’s psychological investigation, Nussbaum’s philosophy of literature, and Ricoeur’s textual hermeneutics differ, these three authors have something in common: a discontent with the misdeeds of an instrumental rationality that shackles the practical creativity of moral actors. It is up to the ethical imagination to size up the complexity of moral situations and to appreciate their subtle variations, in order to take care of forms of life made invisible and vulnerable existences. (shrink)

Humans seem to readily track their conspecifics’ mental states, such as their goals and beliefs from early infancy. However, the underlying cognitive architecture that enables such powerful abilities remains unclear. Here I will propose that a basic representational structure, the belief file, could provide the foundation for efficiently encoding, and updating information about, others’ beliefs in online social interactions. I will discuss the representational possibilities offered by the belief file and the ways in which the repertoire of mental state reasoning (...) is shaped by the characteristics of its constituents. A series of questions will be outlined concerning the representational skeleton of the belief file, sketching a possible structure that supports the rapid encoding and re-identification of belief related information. After analyzing the possible limitations of the belief attribution system, I will examine some of its characteristics that might enable a flexibility that is often neglected. I will suggest that operations involving belief files are not impeded by the absence of precise first-person information regarding their contents. In fact, the system permits manipulations with “empty” belief files, allowing humans to ascribe beliefs to conspecifics based on little or no direct information regarding the content of the mental state. Such an analysis aims to advance our understanding of how spontaneous belief attribution may be performed, and to provide an insight into the possible mechanisms that allow humans to successfully navigate the social world. (shrink)

I present an overview of emotion theories, organised around the question of emotion causation. I argue that theories of emotion causation should ideally address the problems of elicitation, intensity, and differentiation. Each of these problems can be divided into a subquestion that asks about the relation between stimuli and emotions (i.e., the functional level of process description, cf. Marr, 1982) and a subquestion that asks about the mechanism and representations that intervene (i.e., the algorithmic level of process description). The overview (...) reveals that theories of emotion causation sometimes differ with regard to the kind of process that they hold responsible for emotion causation. More precisely, they hold different assumptions regarding the conditions under which the process is supposed to operate (optimal versus suboptimal), the format of the representations involved (propositional versus perceptual), and the object or input of the central process (stimulus versus responses/experience). Further, the overview reveals that theories of emotion causation sometimes differ with regard to the level of process description that they focus on. Finally, the overview brings to light several similarities among the theories discussed. (shrink)

Utilising science and technology to maximize human performance is often an essential feature of military activity. This can often be focused on mission success rather than just the welfare of the individuals involved. This tension has the potential to threaten the autonomy of soldiers and military physicians around the taking or administering of enhancement neurotechnologies (e.g., pills, neural implants, and neuroprostheses). The Hybrid Framework was proposed by academic researchers working in the U.S. context and comprises “rules” for military neuroenhancement (e.g., (...) ensuring transparency and maintaining dignity of the warfighter). Integrating traditional bioethical perspectives with the unique requirements of the military environment, it has been referenced by military/government agencies tasked with writing official ethical frameworks. Our two-part investigation explored the ethical dimensions of military neuroenhancements with military officers – those most likely to be making decisions in this area in the future. In three workshops, structured around the Hybrid Framework, we explored what they thought about the ethical issues of enhancement neurotechnologies. From these findings, we conducted a survey (N = 332) to probe the extent of rule endorsement. Results show high levels of endorsement for a warfighter’s decision-making autonomy, but lower support for the view that enhanced warfighters would pose a danger to society after service. By examining the endorsement of concrete decision-making guidelines, we provide an overview of how military officers might, in practice, resolve tensions between competing values or higher-level principles. Our results suggest that the military context demands a recontextualisation of the relationship between military and civilian ethics. (shrink)

This volume provides theoretical construction to the extraordinary events that resulted in the collapse of communism worldwide. The authors attribute a great deal of the problems of totalitarianism to its blind acceptance of a Marxist philosophy of practice. With the failure of communist practice, the collapse of the Marxist paradigm was quick to follow. At its roots, this volume is a critique of the idea that we can have "scientific knowledge" of the social and political future.

Aspiration by Agnes Callard locates standing assumptions in the theory of rationality, moral psychology and autonomy that preclude the possibility of working to acquire new values. The book also explains what changes need to be made if we are to make room for this form of agency, which I call aspiration.

In this paper, I take scientific models to be epistemic representations of their target systems. I define an epistemic representation to be a tool for gaining information about its target system and argue that a vehicle’s capacity to provide specific information about its target system—its informativeness—is an essential feature of this kind of representation. I draw an analogy to our ordinary notion of interpretation to show that a user’s aim of faithfully representing the target system is necessary for securing this (...) feature. (shrink)

This two-part paper is about the possibility of analyzing the content of chemistry from a gender perspective. The first part provides an example of what such an analysis would look like. The second part is an outline of the theoretical perspective that makes the analysis possible. The example is the model of the ideal gas, the cornerstone of the theory of matter in chemical thermodynamics. I argue that this model is built on fundamental philosophical assumptions (Platonic idealism, hierarchy among states (...) of matter, atomism/individualism, and the negligence of interrelationships among parts and of their embodiment) that have been problematized by feminist scholarship. The same patterns are evident in the treatment of ideal and real solutions in chemical thermodynamics. I argue that it is possible to imagine a theory that utilizes different philosophical ideas and which therefore would be more compatible with feminist values. (shrink)

Si la dépression du sujet âgé est souvent étudiée sous un angle individuel dans la littérature, la rencontre avec le conjoint du patient dépressif nous invite à l’articuler à une approche groupale du couple. Or, les résonances de la dépression restent mal connues dans le couple âgé, au point que le rôle du conjoint paraît souvent secondaire et qu’il se reconnaît rarement comme un aidant. Pourtant ses réactions aux troubles dépressifs de son partenaire semblent avoir une incidence sur le devenir (...) du lien conjugal et la restructuration du couple âgé face à la dépression. Cet article s’appuie à la fois sur les concepts psychanalytiques de la clinique du négatif et sur les apports de la théorie de l’attachement pour analyser les effets individuels et groupaux de la dépression dans le couple âgé. L’articulation de ces processus tend à éclairer la transformation des vécus de perte et d’étrangeté et l’aménagement du lien conjugal face à la dépression. Plusieurs observations cliniques visent à illustrer ces développements conceptuels. (shrink)

Philosophes et psychiatres nourrissent des capillarités secrètes et des questionnements communs. Souvent, la méditation du philosophe se met à l'école de ces situations et de ces visages de l'humain malade qui habitent des masques que l'on croit inhabitables, "horla", et que lui rapporte le psychiatre. Sous le souci de biologiser la maladie mentale, le savoir et le savoir-faire de la psychiatrie font le pari de l'humanité et de la nécessité de la relation, demandant: où demeure-t-il celui dont on dit qu'il (...) est un "demeuré"? Où est vraiment l'homme, lorsque nous découvrons combien nous sommes pressés de tracer très vite, trop vite, la frontière entre le délire et la réalité? (shrink)

La bioéthique est animée par la volonté d’une reprise en main de la question des fins sur celle des moyens du soin. Ainsi, la bioéthique peut-elle se comprendre comme une tentative de juguler le discours de la rationalité instrumentale qui déferle dans le champ de la maîtrise du vivant et du monde vécu, en y altérant ou détruisant les fragiles liens de soins mutuels. À cet endroit arrivent les interrogations. La gravité de situations inouïes impose-t-elle une éthique inédite? N’encourage-t-elle pas (...) une idéologie bioéthique qui instrumentalise l’éthique, dérive allant d’une attention à l’action vers une science de l’action dans une approche procédurale de la décision? Si la bioéthique s’est bien souvent concentrée sur l’éthique médicale et ne l’a pas toujours articulée avec une réflexion plus générale sur la vie vulnérable considérant la vie en nous, entre et en dehors de nous, peut-elle nous dispenser d’une réflexion plus en amont sur la nature de la raison pratique déployée elle-même sur l’assise d’une anthropologie du soin et de la vulnérabilité? (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty et Paul Ricoeur pensent tous deux l’inscription du corps dans la chair du monde, mais ne tirent pas les mêmes conséquences de ce point de départ anthropologique. Le premier creusera toujours plus profond la signification et la portée de toute inscription charnelle en développant une ontologie du sensible, une esthétique de cet entrelacs qui lie l’homme et le monde. Ricoeur, à la différence de son ainé, médiatisera de plus en plus cette inscription dans une herméneutique des identités individuelles (...) et culturelles reconnaissant l’importance structurante des institutions, accentuant la dimension éthique. Entre une quête de l’originaire qui veut retrouver l’expérience d’un être sauvage et une philosophie pour laquelle la vérité est révélation, pour un sujet, d’un sens profond que nous livre une herméneutique de la récollection du sens, quelles affinités et quels motifs de divergence alors? Le point de rupture, s’il en est un, entre les deux philosophes ne tient-il pas à ce que Ricoeur, fidèle à la tradition réflexive, maintient l’idée d’une personne, au moins capable d’une reprise de l’expérience du monde, là où Merleau-Ponty a cherché à s’en affranchir? Faut-il opposer une philosophie de la chair et de la « vision » à une philosophie du texte et de la narration jusque dans leurs conséquences pratiques?If Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Paul Ricoeur both think the inscription of the body in the “flesh” of the world, they differ as regards the consequences they draw from this anthropological starting point. Merleau-Ponty delves ever deeper into the meaning and scope of this carnal inscription, developing an ontology of the sensible, an aesthetic of the intertwining of human and world. Ricoeur, by contrast, explores the implications of this inscription for a hermeneutics of individual and cultural identities which recognizes the structuring importance of institutions, emphasizing the ethical dimension. But what affinities and what divergences are there between a quest for the originary that wishes to recover the experience of wild being and a philosophy for which truth is revelation, for a subject, of a profound meaning yielded to us by a hermeneutic of the recollection of meaning? Does the point of rupture between the two philosophers, if there is one, lie in the fact that Ricoeur, in faithfulness to the reflexive tradition, maintains the idea of a person capable at least of appropriating the experience of the world, while Merleau-Ponty relinquishes it? Is it necessary to oppose a philosophy of the flesh and of “vision” to a philosophy of the text and of narration even in their practical consequences?Maurice Merleau-Ponty e Paul Ricoeur pensano entrambi l’iscrizione del corpo nella carne del mondo, ma non ricavano le stesse conclusioni da questa comune premessa antropologica. Il primo andrà scavando sempre più a fondo il significato e la portata di ogni iscrizione carnale sviluppando un’ontologia del sensibile, un’estetica dell’intreccio che lega l’uomo e il mondo. Ricoeur medierà sempre più quell’iscrizione andando verso un’ermeneutica delle identità individuali e culturali, riconoscendo l’importanza strutturante delle istituzioni e accentuando il rilievo della dimensione etica. Quali affinità e quali divergenze sussistono allora tra una ricerca dell’originario che mira a ritrovare l’esperienza dell’essere selvaggio e una filosofia che pensa la verità come rivelazione al soggetto di un senso profondo che ci viene restituito dal movimento di un’ermeneutica che ne raccoglie pazientememnte le tracce? Il punto di rottura tra le due prospettive non ha forse a che vedere col fatto che Ricoeur resta fedele alla tradizione della riflessione, conserva l’idea che la persona sia capace di una ripresa dell’esperienza del mondo, mentre Merleau-Ponty cerca di affrancarsene? Dobbiamo allora opporre una filosofia della carne e della “visione” a una filosofia del testo e della narrazione fin nelle loro conseguenze d’ordine pratico? (shrink)

This paper attempts to examine the symbols being used by the protagonists in the war in Iraq relative to traditional Christian theology, the myths on which it was built and ensuing praxis. In particular I wish to consider the value allotted to ‘the feminine’ in the cultural and religious symbolic realm that underpins societal understanding of the relational climate necessary for liberty and justice to be effective.

An incidental extension of the central domain of argumentation theory with non-classical ways of constructing arguments seems to automatically raise a question that is otherwise rarely posed, namely whether or not it is useful to consider the sex of the arguer. This question is usually posed with regard to argumentation by women in particular. Do women rely more, or differently than men do on non-canonical modes of reasoning stemming from the realm of the emotional, physical and intuitive, instead of the (...) logical? One may simply refer this question to folk-linguistics. One may also take the question seriously, given the findings on women's linguistic behaviour, and for various other reasons that will be explained below.Section 1 sums up the most frequently quoted differences in language use between women and men. This is followed by a non-exhaustive, interdisciplinary review of studies on male/female differences in verbal and written argumentation.Section 2 discusses the role of language and texts in generating and maintaining ideas on gender. These gender messages not only influence the actual argumentation behaviour of women and men, but also the way such behaviour is valued.Section 3 subsequently shows that our ideas on rationality are gendered, and therefore also our ideas on the proper central domain of argumentation theory.Section 4 briefly reflects on why this kind of wrong question about the reasoning of women should sometimes be addressed seriously anyway. (shrink)

Critics of appraisal theory have difficulty accepting appraisal (with its constructive flavor) as an automatic process, and hence as a potential cause of most emotions. In response, some appraisal theorists have argued that appraisal was never meant as a causal process but as a constituent of emotional experience. Others have argued that appraisal is a causal process, but that it can be either rule-based or associative, and that the associative variant can be automatic. This article first proposes empirically investigating whether (...) rule-based appraisal can also be automatic and then proposes investigating the automatic nature of constructive (instead of rule-based) appraisal because the distinction between rule-based and associative is problematic. Finally, it discusses experiments that support the view that constructive appraisal can be automatic. (shrink)

We investigated whether motivationally determined stimulus valence can be processed in an automatic way, as is assumed in many appraisal theories (e.g., Frijda, 1986, 1993; Lazarus, 1991; Scherer, 1993a). Whereas appraisal theorists typically use conscious self-report methods to investigate their assumptions, our experiments used indirect experimental methods that leave less room for deliberate, conscious reflections of the participants. Using variants of the affective priming and Simon paradigms, we demonstrated that intrinsically neutral, but wanted stimuli facilitated responses with a positive valence, (...) whereas intrinsically neutral, but unwanted stimuli facilitated negative responses. In addition, the second experiment proved to be supportive of another assumption made by appraisal theorists according to which a relation exits between different (automatic) outcomes of motivational appraisal (positive-negative) and different action tendencies (approach-withdrawal). (shrink)

An Ethics of Personality d addresses the ultimate question of modern ethics: how is morality possible after the `death of God'. It is the closing volume - General Ethics d and Philosophy of Morals d - of Agnes Heller's trilogy A Theory of Morals. d.