We motivate a picture of social epistemology that sees forgetting as subject to epistemic evaluation. Using computer simulations of a simple agent-based model, we show that how agents forget can have as large an impact on group epistemic outcomes as how they share information. But, how we forget, unlike how we form beliefs, isn’t typically taken to be the sort of thing that can be epistemically rational or justified. We consider what we take to be the most promising (...) argument for this claim and find it lacking. We conclude that understanding how agents forget should be as central to social epistemology as understanding how agents form beliefs and share information with others. (shrink)

Just as speech can be acquired, so can it be lost. Speakers can forget words, phrases, even entire languages they once knew; over the course of time peoples, too, let go of the tongues that were once theirs, as languages disappear and give way to the others that follow them. In Echolalias, Daniel Heller-Roazen reflects on the many forms of linguistic forgetfulness, offering a far-reaching philosophical investigation into the persistence and disappearance of speech. In twenty-one brief chapters, he moves (...) among classical, medieval, and modern culture, exploring the interrelations of speech, writing, memory, and oblivion.Drawing his examples from literature, philosophy, linguistics, theology, and psychoanalysis, Heller-Roazen examines the points at which the transience of speech has become a question in the arts, disciplines, and sciences in which language plays a prominent role. Whether the subject is Ovid, Dante, or modern fiction, classical Arabic literature or the birth of the French language, structuralist linguistics or Freud's writings on aphasia, Heller-Roazen considers with clarity, precision, and insight the forms, the effects, and the ultimate consequences of the forgetting of language. In speech, he argues, destruction and construction often prove inseparable. Among peoples, the disappearance of one language can mark the emergence of another; among individuals, the experience of the passing of speech can lie at the origin of literary, philosophical, and artistic creation.From the infant's prattle to the legacy of Babel, from the holy tongues of Judaism and Islam to the concept of the dead language and the political significance of exiled and endangered languages today, Echolalias traces an elegant, erudite, and original philosophical itinerary, inviting us to reflect in a new way on the nature of the speaking animal who forgets. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 318-340 [Access article in PDF] Marlow's Morality Daniel Brudney "Good is a transcendent reality" means that virtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is. —Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good I THE REPUTATION OF Conrad's sailor-narrator, Charlie Marlow, has risen and fallen through the years. Initially seen as a simple master mariner or (...) at most as a technical device, a way to get a tale told, with the work of Albert Guérard he began to receive his due, becoming lionized as the true subject at least of Heart of Darkness, and of more than technical interest in the other stories. 1 In recent years, however, his reputation has slumped hard as his racism and sexism have come to the fore. In this article, I attempt no full-scale rehabilitation but simply point out that, despite his failings, Marlow possesses a virtue worth remarking and that his failings involve a failure to extend that virtue far enough.I call that virtue attentiveness, and more specifically, attentiveness to the other. It has been neglected, at least by philosophers, although as a virtue it is utterly obvious. This is not surprising. The moral life is generally the sphere of the obvious and progress here often consists merely in noting what has been overlooked. The presence or absence of this virtue is revealed less by what the agent feels or doesn't feel or does or doesn't do than by her stance or orientation toward others. And as orientations are slippery things to describe (and this one more than most) there is an advantage in looking at literary characters: they show palpably the virtue (or corresponding vice) at issue. My focus in this [End Page 318] article is the forms that Marlow's tales (particularly Lord Jim and Heart of Darkness) show attentiveness to the other can take—and fail to take—in a human life. II Let's begin with Marlow's sexism, and specifically as manifested in his lie to Kurtz's Intended. She asks for Kurtz's final words, and Marlow replies not "The horror! The horror!" but "The last words he pronounced was—your name" (HD, p. 161). 2 Marlow says that the truth "would have been too dark, too dark altogether" (p. 162). But what doesn't Marlow want the Intended to know? That her beloved went mad in the jungle, became evil? And why shouldn't she know this? Because it would bring her pain? But Marlow insists that the Intended has "a mature capacity" for suffering (p. 157; a capacity to handle it, presumably, not a proneness to it). Anyway, Marlow's lie will perpetuate suffering, her mourning for her image of Kurtz: smash her idol and she might be able to get on with her life. In any event, the issue of suffering does not explain why the truth is "too dark."Marlow does not class the Intended as "one of us" (LJ, p. 43). This is the phrase he, like Conrad, uses to characterize Jim in Lord Jim. It is usually taken to refer to national or racial identity or perhaps to membership in the merchant service. However, the phrase also has a biblical resonance. Genesis 3:22 says, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil." I think the reason the Intended is not "one of us" is that she does not know good and evil—does not know that there are good and evil. That is the mystery into which Kurtz's final words would have initiated her."There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies," Marlow says, "which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world—what I want to forget" (HD, p. 82). Yet he does lie, so there must be something he thinks worth saving even at the cost of siding with mortality. What might that be? In the beginning of Paradise Lost, Milton declares that he will sing Of Man's first disobedience, and... (shrink)

Gadamer’s question “Are Poets Falling Silent?” is motivated by the “linguistic need” of modern lyric indicative of the “forgetfulness of language” that prevails today. In Paul Celan’s late work, Gadamer finds poetry that, bordering on the cryptic, stands on the verge of silence. Nevertheless, he insists that these poems do speak and that the title of Celan’s poem series, Breath-crystal, figures the truth of the poetic word. From this standpoint the paper discusses Gadamer’s hermeneutic understanding of the poetic word treating (...) the constitutive elements of the poetic word as an event of language, the way this conception of the poetic word both embraces and yet departs from the usual understanding of the radical turn to language in modern lyric, and the meaning of Gadamer’s claim regarding the truth of the poetic word that fulfills the original saying power of language. (shrink)

My construction of the position of the eye in Rabbinic Judaism represents almost a reversal of the roles “Hebraic” and “Hellenic.” A powerful case can be made that only under Hellenic influence do Jewish cultures exhibit any anxiety about the corporeality of visibility of God; the biblical and Rabbinic religions were quite free of such influences and anxieties. Thus I would identify Greek influences on Judaism in the Middle Ages as being the force for repressing the visual. The Neoplatonic and (...) Airstotelian revision of Judaism undertaken by the Jewish scholastics was so successful that it has resulted in the near-total forgetting of the biblical and Rabbinic traditions of God’s visibility. W. J. T. Mitchell’s characterization of the Rabbinic tradition is a perfect example of this “forgetting.” In order to position Judaism in a typology of cultures, Mitchell cites Moses Maimonides. Mitchell’s reading of Maimonides is well-founded; the problem lies rather in the identification of Maimonides as if he typified the old Rabbinic tradition. In my view, he represents a distinct departure from that tradition. This Platonic departure was indeed marked and condemned as such by many of his contemporaries, but it has become the almost unchallenged orthodoxy of later Judaism as well as of the critical tradition. The memory of having seen God in the Bible and the desire to have that experience again were a vital part of Rabbinic religion. They constituted, moreover, a key element in the study of Torah, the making of midrash. Daniel Boyarin, associate professor of Talmud and midrash at Bar-Ilan University, has published essays on midrash and literary theory. His book Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash is forthcoming. This essay is part of a larger project tentatively entitled Bodies of Torah: Language, Sex and God in Talmudic Judaism. (shrink)

El autor hace una crítica a la pretensión de la ciencia económica de constituirse como un saber exacto e hiperespecializado al considerar que esta pretensión se ha traducido en una pérdida de la capacidad que es necesaria para comprender la complejidad social de las realidades económicas. Seducida por el objetivo de la exactitud, la economía parece haber olvidado su carácter de construcción social. Además, la economía ha olvidado que es una más entre las ciencias sociales y el largo periodo en (...) el que se ha separado de ellas reivindicando su plena autonomía no ha sido satisfactorio ni para ella ni para el resto de las ciencias sociales. Según el autor la crítica al capitalismo contemporáneo, si quiere ser más radical que moralizante, debe dirigirse a combatir el supuesto realismo de la ciencia económica dominante.The author criticizes the pretension of economic sciences of being an exact science and its tendency to specialization. The consequences of those pretensions are a loss of its capacity to understand the social complexity of the economic realities. The economy, seduced by its aim of exactitude, seems to forget that it is a social construction. Moreover, economy seems to forget that it is just a social science, and for a long period of time economy evolved as a separated and autonomous science; that time was not good neither for economic science neither for social sciences in general. According to the author, if we want to build a more radical and not only moralizing critique to contemporary capitalism, we must criticize the hypothetical realism of the economic science. (shrink)

At the end of the XVIIth century Nicholas Malebranche intervened in the «quietist dispute» in his Treatise on the Love of God (1697). This short treatise presents an anti-quietist standpoint based on the philosopher’s systematic analyses in the fields of theology and of psychology of the feelings and of the will. This article shows how Malebranche takes up the challenge of quietism, the logical heart of which, here reconstituted rigorously, is found in other moral philosophies. The requirement of impartiality produces (...) a paradox when the agent at the same time has to define and take responsibility for his own behaviour, and potentially forget himself due to his requirement of impartiality. Finally, Malebranche avoids this paradox by attributing a very important place to the notion of order, by means of which he fits in with his own analyses on the theme of Providence. (shrink)

In the multidisciplinary field of memory studies, remembering and forgetting have mainly been analyzed following two ideal-typical models: memory-as-containment (exemplified by the notions of framework and site of memory) and memory-as-flow (epitomized by the notions of afterlife and mnemohistory). These two models are often presented as mutually exclusive and counterposed. Yet, in linking past with present, and when connecting different spaces and generations, memory is always the result of circulation (flow) as well as of local semiotic conditions of production and (...) use (containment). By investigating memory-making and oblivion-making in processes of interpretation, the semiotic perspective elaborated by Umberto Eco allows us to envision memory-as-containment and memory-as-flow in a combined analysis, where the twofold conception of memory – either as movement or as form – merges. The aim of this article is, then, to provide an interpretative theory of memory, and to identify and describe the methodological tools capable of implementing such an approach. The memory of the former Italian concentration camp of Fossoli will serve as an exemplary and illustrative case study. (shrink)

The religious spirit in Plotinus. Lots of studies from last 30 years have shown similar attitudes and spiritual tendencies in early christian and neoplatonic teachings. But we could not forget that we are dealing here with two major rivals on the intellectual scene of Late Antiquity. Despite commun aspects in plotinian and gnostic doctrines, there are some strong critics in Plotinus works, most of them in Enneads II,9, that let no doubt of the distance between the gnostic and neoplatonic (...) positions on some key issues. This article points out four aspects of the plotinian doctrine that clearly break up with some of the main christian religious attitudes. Plotinus had a positive jugement on the sensible world, he had never expressed contempt towards nature, refused any presomption on religious matters and considered the philosophy as the only way to mistical union with the One. (shrink)

Responding to doubts expressed by contributors to the Common Knowledge symposium on xenophilia, this introduction to the seventh and final installment seeks to explain the critics’ methodological concerns in a case study of strong affect in the Babylonian Talmud. Examining the story of Rav Rehumi and his wife in Ketubot 62b, the author inquires whether differences of culture and the passage of time make it impossible for us to determine whether love is the affect involved. The case is especially difficult (...) to resolve, given that, while there may be two lovers in this narrative, there may be three objects of love: the rabbi, his wife, and the Torah. In the story, Rav Rehumi is so ravished by Torah that he forgets his wife. Since the narrative does not predicate that he chose not to visit her but, rather, that he was swept away, the author proposes that “studying Torah is sex, not like sex, but sex itself.” The story describes not sublimation of libido but its desublimation. If so, the story confronts us with an unnamed affect in ancient Jewish culture that “encompasses both the joy of sex and the joy of text.” It is not that, dourly, the Talmudic Rabbis cannot imagine, or that they ignore, corporeal pleasure; it is rather that the erotic experience of Torah is the same pleasure but, at least for them, even stronger. This piece concludes, therefore, that a term like xenophilia, which incorporates the word love, is not universally applicable across cultures and epistemai. The concept of love is too various. (shrink)

Visuomotor adaptation to novel environments can occur via non-physical means, such as observation. Observation does not appear to activate the same implicit learning processes as physical practice, rather it appears to be more strategic in nature. However, there is evidence that interspersing observational practice with physical practice can benefit performance and memory consolidation either through the combined benefits of separate processes or through a change in processes activated during observation trials. To test these ideas, we asked people to practice aiming (...) to targets with visually rotated cursor feedback or engage in a combined practice schedule comprising physical practice and observation of projected videos showing successful aiming. Ninety-three participants were randomly assigned to one of five groups: massed physical practice, distributed physical practice, or one of 3 types of combined practice: alternating blocks, or all observation before or after blocked physical practice. Participants received 100 practice trials. All groups improved in adaptation trials and showed savings across the 24-h retention interval relative to initial practice. There was some forgetting for all groups, but the magnitudes were larger for physical practice groups. The Act and Obs_During groups were most accurate in retention and did not differ, suggesting that observation can serve as a replacement for physical practice if supplied intermittently and offers advantages above just resting. However, after-effects associated with combined practice were smaller than those for physical practice control groups, suggesting that beneficial learning effects as a result of observation were not due to activation of implicit learning processes. Reaction time, variable error, and post-test rotation drawings supported this conclusion that adaptation for observation groups was promoted by explicit/strategic processes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 35.1 (2005) 8-21MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Klossowski's Reading of Nietzsche Impulses, Phantasms, Simulacra, StereotypesDaniel W. SmithIn his writings on Nietzsche, Pierre Klossowski makes use of various concepts—such as intensities, phantasms, simulacra and stereotypes, resemblance and dissemblance, gregariousness and singularity—that have no place in Nietzsche's own oeuvre. These concepts are Klossowski's own creations, his own contributions to thought. Although Klossowski consistently refused to characterize himself as a philosopher ("Je (...) suis une 'maniaque,'" he once said, "Un point, c'est tout!"),1 his work in its entirety was marked by an extraordinary conceptual creation. From this point of view, his Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle can be read as a work in philosophy—at least in the idiosyncratic sense given to this term by Gilles Deleuze, who defined philosophy as the creation or invention of concepts [Deleuze and Guattari 2]. No doubt, Klossowski remains an almost unclassifiable figure—philosopher, novelist, essayist, translator, artist—and attempting to analyze his work through the prism of philosophy may seem to be a reductive approach that belies the complexity of his exceptional oeuvre. Reading Klossowski as a conceptual innovator, however, at least has the advantage of allowing us to chart a consistent trajectory through his difficult and often labyrinthine text, without denying its other dimensions (affective, perceptive, literary, and so on). In what follows, then, I would like to examine three of Klossowski's most characteristic and important concepts—impulses and their intensities, phantasms, and simulacra and their stereotypes—as well as the precise interrelations he establishes among them. Taken together, these three concepts describe what Klossowski terms the tripartite economy of soul, which constitutes the implicit model through which he interprets Nietzsche's thought.1Impulses as Fluctuating IntensitiesKlossowski describes his books on both Nietzsche and Sade as "essays devoted not to ideologies but to the physiognomies of problematic thinkers who differ greatly from each other" ["Postface" 137, emphasis added]. This emphasis on the "physiognomy" of thinkers reflects Nietzsche's insistence on taking the body rather than the mind as a guide for philosophy since the body is a more accessible phenomenon, less surrounded by myth and superstition. "The body and physiology as the starting point," Nietzsche wrote. "Why?... The phenomenon of the body is the richer, clearer, more tangible [End Page 8] phenomenon.... Belief in the body is more fundamental than belief in the soul" [WP §§492, 489, 491]. Klossowski himself, however, when writing of the intensive status of the impulses, frequently makes use of the term "soul" (âme), owing in part, no doubt, to his interest in the theological literature of the mystics, such as Meister Eckhardt and Teresa of Avila. For the mystics, the depth of the soul is something irreducible and uncreated: it eludes the exercise of the created intellect, and can only be grasped negatively.2 Nonetheless, if one can find a similar apophaticism (or "negative theology") in Klossowski, it is related exclusively to the immanent and chaotic movements of the soul's intensive affects, and not to the transcendence of God. What is incommunicable in the soul (or body) are its "impulses"—their fluctuations of intensity, their rises and falls, their manic elations and depressive descents, which are in constant variation.Nietzsche himself had recourse to a highly varied vocabulary to describe what Klossowski summarizes in the term "impulse": "drive" (Triebe), "desire" (Begierden), "instinct" (Instinke), "power" (Mächte), "force" (Kräfte), "impulse" (Reize, Impulse), "passion" (Leidenschaften), "feeling" (Gefülen), "affect" (Affekte), "pathos" (Pathos), and so on.3 Klossowski frequently employs the musical term tonalité to describe these states of the soul's fluctuating intensities—their diverse tones, timbres, and changing amplitudes—which can take on various forms ("aggressiveness, tolerance, intimidation, anguish, the need for solitude, the forgetting of oneself" [NVC 6]). At bottom, what these impulses express are what Klossowski calls the "obstinate singularity" of the human soul, which is by nature noncommunicable; they constitute "the unexchangeable depth" (le fond inéchangeable) or "the unintelligible depth" (le fond unintelligible) of the soul. What makes every individual... (shrink)

Once an artist imagined how he would look if he plucked out an offending eye. He painted a self-portrait in which the orbit on the right side of his face was gaping, dolorous. Seven years passed, and then there came a day when the artist tried to break up a fight among his friends. In the ensuing melee he lost his left eye—the one he must have painted out all those years before, when working on the self-portrait, if he based (...) his image on the sight of himself in a mirror. Mirrors, of course, reverse the images before them.If we could forget niggling qualifications, epistemological hedges, all the huffing and puffing of the sense of responsibility that distinguishes intellectuals from assassins, then this story might be frightening, uncanny. As it is, I suspect most of my readers would find it terrible only in the derogatory sense. Although it has a certain primitive simplicity, it seems facile, as if it might have served for one of the weaker episodes in Walter Scott’s Waverley novels or Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone.” Even if it were presented by a master of simple plots, I can imagine it succeeding only as an occasion for metaphysical conjectures, glistening thorns and blossoms of irony, and the like. And even if I were to say that this is a true story, that Victor Brauner painted this Autoportrait in 1931 and suffered this injury in 1938, it seems unlikely that it would be more affecting. How could such a corny plot raise a shiver from anyone past the age of reason? If this story is true, so much the worse for truth. It ought to know better than to seek us out with such shopworn devices. Daniel Cottom is a professor in the English department at the University of Florida. His most recent book is Text and Culture: The Politics of Interpretation . He is currently completing a book on spiritualism and surrealism. (shrink)

In Metaphysics A 6, Aristotle claims that Plato only recognises formal and material causes. Yet, in various dialogues, Plato seems to use and distinguish efficient and final causes too. Consequently, Harold Cherniss accuses Aristotle of being an unfair, forgetful, or careless reader of Plato. Since then, scholars have tried to defend Aristotle’s exegetical skills. I offer textual evidence and arguments to show that their efforts still fall short of the desired goal. I argue, instead, that we can reject Cherniss’ assertation (...) by re-examining Aristotle’s exegetical and methodological assumptions. (shrink)

Pastoral theology in Indonesia is inherited from the West. Because the Indonesian context is not the same as that of Western society, theologians in Indonesia need to develop pastoral theology that is relevant to the Indonesian context. This article is an effort to engage with pastoral theology in a way that is relevant to Indonesia. This effort departs from an understanding of the church in Indonesia, which is open and serving. In relation to the traditional understanding of theology and its (...) branches, pastoral theology in Indonesia can be understood as a field of study on theory and practice of pastoral ministry. In addition, pastoral theology is a form of contextual theological reflection. Correlation is a pastoral theological method relevant to Indonesia, because in this method the process of theology starts from pastoral experience. Thus it is closer to the reality of Indonesian life, but this method does not forget Christian message. In order to gain a wider pastoral theological perspective, the understanding of pastoral ministry in Indonesia must be holistic, which includes individual, societal, and environmental perspectives. Keywords: Church, pastoral theology, understanding of pastoral theology, deductive method, inductive method, method of correlation, holistic pastoral ministry. Abstrak: Teologi pastoral di Indonesia diwarisi dari Barat. Para teolog pastoral di Indonesia perlu mengembangkan teologi pastoral yang relevan dengan konteks Indonesia, karena konteks masyarakat Indonesia tidak sama dengan konteks masyarakat Barat. Tulisan ini merupakan sebuah upaya untuk menggumuli teologi pastoral yang relevan bagi Indonesia. Upaya ini berangkat dari pemahaman tentang Gereja di Indonesia yang bersifat terbuka dan melayani. Dalam rangka pembagian teologi ke dalam cabang-cabangnya secara tradisional, teologi pastoral di Indonesia dapat dipandang sebagai salah satu bidang studi atau cabang teologi yang mempelajari teori dan praktik pelayanan pastoral. Di samping itu, teologi pastoral merupakan salah satu bentuk refleksi teologi yang bersifat kontekstual. Metode korelasi merupakan metode berteologi pastoral yang revelan bagi Indonesia, karena dalam metode ini proses berteologi pastoral dimulai dari pengalaman pastoral sehingga lebih dekat dengan realitas, tetapi metode ini tidak melupakan peranan berita Kristiani. Agar refleksi teologi pastoral mempunyai jangkauan yang luas, pemahaman tentang pelayanan pastoral di Indonesia harus bersifat holistik yang mencakup perspektif individu, masyarakat, dan lingkungan hidup. Kata-kata kunci: Gereja, teologi pastoral, pengertian tentang teologi pastoral, metode deduktif, metode induktif, metode korelasi, pelayanan pastoral holistik. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to (re)introduce D. P. Chattopadhyaya (1931–2022, henceforth DPC), one of the key-players in the field of contemporary Indian philosophy, his main books, his community-building activities, and his unique life-story. A modern Rājar ṣ i, DPC was both a philosopher and a statesman who served both as a minister in the Indian government in the 1970s and as the governor of Rajasthan in the early 1990s. The Śvetāśvatara Upani ṣ ad narrates the famous story of (...) two birds sitting on a single branch, one eating a fig, the other watching-witnessing. DPC’s life-story and writings show that the two birds could be one and the same, namely that action and reflection, or engagement and the detachment needed for reflection, do not necessarily exclude one another but can in fact complement and contribute to one another. Relying primarily on DPC’s chapter “A Short Intellectual Autobiography of D. P. Chattopadhyaya,” written by him in 1999, but not forgetting the next decade of his writing-life, this essay focuses on DPC’s contribution in the fields of phenomenology, philosophy of science and mind, and socio-political philosophy, and on his pivotal role in the ongoing attempt to decolonize knowledge towards the fulfillment of the ideal of Svaraj in Ideas, “independent thinking.” DPC is further depicted in the present essay as a comparative philosopher without borders, drawing on materials from different traditions of thinking, and committed to interdisciplinarity, traveling freely between disciplines, languages, eras, and life-experiences. (shrink)

Beware of economists bearing advice. Though some of it is valuable, the framework of theoretical welfare economics from which economic advice usually issues has serious normative limitations and distortions. When economists go beyond identifying consequences of policies to making recommendations, they typically rely on a theory whose only normative concern is welfare and its distribution and that mistakenly identifies welfare with the satisfaction of preferences. Their advice about how to increase welfare must accordingly be regarded with caution, and policy makers (...) must not forget that increasing welfare should not be their only goal. (shrink)

Why does someone, S, deserve blame or reproach for an action or event? One part of a standard answer since Aristotle: the event was caused, at least in part, by S’s bad will. But recently there’s been some insightful discussion of cases where the event’s causes do not include any bad will from S and yet it seems that S is not off the hook for the event. Cheshire Calhoun, Miranda Fricker, Elinor Mason, David Enoch, Randolph Clarke, and others include (...) in this category some cases of glitches, forgetfulness, inattentiveness, the actions of one’s children or one’s country, and certain instances of explicit bias and implicit bias. Enoch and Mason argue that in these cases S should extend the realm of S’s responsibility. Drawing on Aristotle’s emphases on retrospective attitudes and the non-voluntary, this paper attempts to clarify the relation between quality of will and blameworthiness. I analyze cases where (1) S is clearly not morally responsible for an action or event, E, yet (2) S deserves reproach for E unless S has the appropriate retrospective attitudes (such as regret) or the absence of inappropriate attitudes toward E. (shrink)

In this paper, Pareyson provides an analysis of the existential features of the philosophies of Jaspers and Heidegger, that he considers as the two greatest philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. In Jaspers, Pareyson identifies the idea that truth is both singular and one, meaning that it can be grasped only through a personal interpretation and never in absolute terms. This implies that truth and person are inseparably tied to each other and that existence carries transcendence in (...) itself: just as truth transcends our personal knowledge of it, Being itself transcends our personal existence. Moreover, Pareyson sees Heidegger as the initiator of an existential ontology that poses a fundamental relation between the human being and Being itself; hence, the philosophical discourse on human existence inevitably turns into a discourse on Being. Therefore, Heidegger finally manages to overcome traditional metaphysics and its forgetfulness of the question of Being itself, by giving such question a central role within philosophical reflection. In conclusion, Pareyson maintains that Jaspers and Heidegger are able to make the voice of Being been heard, in contrast with the humanist and nihilist tendencies of twentieth century philosophy. (shrink)

Whether Nietzsche’s genealogical critique of morality is best understood as an internal or as an external critique remains a matter of controversy. On the internalist interpretation (Ridley, Owen, Merrick ), the genealogical enterprise takes as its starting point the perspective being criticized, gradually revealing it to be untenable ‘from within.’ On the externalist interpretation (Leiter, and arguably Geuss, Williams, and Janaway ), this constraint is lifted; the starting point of the critique need not be the perspective being criticized, but may (...) be that of someone who already suspects the latter to be untenable. According to a common objection to ‘external critique’ interpretations, the limited-scope objection, since an external critique to a value-system could only work on an audience whose members were predisposed to abandon that system of values, ‘external critique’ interpretations impose a severe limitation on the transformative potential of Nietzsche’s project. ‘Internal critique’ interpretations, by contrast, can seem hard to reconcile with the polemical character of On the Genealogy of Morality (which lends the book its subtitle, Eine Streitschrift) and with Nietzsche’s frequent remarks to the effect his works were addressing a particular, ‘higher,’ kind of individual. -/- The overarching goal in this paper is to call into question the usefulness of the ‘internal-external’ or ‘immanent-transcendent’ dichotomy for understanding Nietzsche’s genealogical critique. I argue that the apparent usefulness of the distinction between external and internal critiques when approaching Nietzsche’s works rests on the assumption that any critique of values must itself be grounded on values that function as evaluative-critical standards. If the assumption is right, then one of two things, either the values that are deployed as standards coincide with those that are the target of critique, in which case the critique is internal, or they are not (etc.). Thus the assumption is liable to render us forgetful of a third possibility, that of a critical strategy that does not work by deploying (internal or external) values as standards of critical assessment, but by revealing something about the nature of value, and more precisely about the origin of any individual’s commitments to their values. -/- On the view that I defend, one of the crucial steps of Nietzsche’s genealogical method is to bring his reader to realize that any individual’s commitment to their values is expressive of and rooted in their commitment to preserve their way of life. Realizing this does not require that the reader abandon their own values. But it does require that they acknowledge that were they committed to a relevantly different way of life, they would subscribe to different values. And this, in turn, suffices to bring about a transformation in their understanding of and relationship to those commitments through the further realization that it is ultimately always up to them to undertake the project of taking distance from and ‘re-evaluating’ those values. (shrink)

Drawing on Nietzsche’s insights as well as those of his critics, this article explores the dangers and limitations of the antiquarian type of historical investigations. The author begins his analysis by closely examining Nietzsche’s conception of antiquarian history and explaining why he finds this mode of historical investigation so troubling. Next he shows that the problem that Nietzsche associates with the antiquarian type of historicizing can be seen in a contemporary genealogical investigation: Daniel Mendelsohn’s book The Lost. Returning to Nietzsche, (...) he then analyzes the meaning and value of his notion of the ‘power of forgetting’ and argues that it can serve as an antidote to some of the dangers of antiquarian history. In the final part of this article the author examines how the power of forgetting might be educationally valuable. (shrink)

The esteemed French philosopher Pierre Hadot’s final work, now available in English. With a foreword by Arnold I. Davidson and Daniele Lorenzini. In his final book, renowned philosopher Pierre Hadot explores Goethe’s relationship with ancient spiritual exercises—transformative acts of intellect, imagination, or will. Goethe sought both an intense experience of the present moment as well as a kind of cosmic consciousness, both of which are rooted in ancient philosophical practices. These practices shaped Goethe’s audacious contrast to the traditional maxim memento (...) mori (Don’t forget that you will die) with the aim of transforming our ordinary consciousness. Ultimately, Hadot reveals how Goethe cultivated a deep love for life that brings to the forefront a new maxim: Don’t forget to live. (shrink)

We present two studies that examine the effects of guanxi on multiple social groups from the perspective of Chinese business people. Study 1 (N = 203) tests the difference in perceived effects of six guanxi contextualizations. Study 2 (N = 195) examines the duality of guanxi as either helpful or harmful to social groups, depending on the contextualization. Findings suggest guanxi may result in positive as well as negative outcomes for focal actors and the aggregate.

ABSTRACT:While tone at the top is widely regarded as an important predictor of ethical behavior in organizations, we argue that recent research overlooks the various conflicting ethical tones present in many multi-organizational work settings. Further, we propose that the resolution processes promulgated in many firms and professional associations to reconcile this conflict reinforce the tone at the bottom or a tone at the top of the employee’s organization, and that both of these approaches can conflict with the tone at the (...) top of other important organizations such as professional and regulatory organizations. Here we adapt Integrative Social Contract Theory’s priority rules to propose a multi-tone reconciliation process which prioritizes conflicting ethical tones based upon features of the organization and the effects on society. Using three contextualizations, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the multi-tone reconciliation process over current processes. We conclude with recommendations for future research and implications for practice. (shrink)

Advances in medicine in the latter half of the twentieth century have dramatically altered human bodies, expanding choices around what we do with them and how they connect to other bodies. Nowhere is this more so than in the area of reproductive technologies. Reproductive medicine and the laws surrounding it in the UK have reconfigured traditional boundaries surrounding parenthood and the family. Yet culture and regulation surrounding RTs have combined to try to ensure that while traditional boundaries may be pushed, (...) they are reconstructed in similar ways. This paper looks at the most recent RT to be permitted in the UK, mitochondria replacement therapy. Despite controversial media headlines surrounding the technique, MRT is in fact an example of how science and regulation seek to expand models of traditional relatedness in a way that doesn’t challenge the existing order. Yet, like other RTs, while attempts are made to ensure it doesn’t push traditional boundaries too far, fissures and inconsistencies appear in law and culture, which give interesting insights into how genetics, parentage and identity are being mediated in new but familiar ways. (shrink)

The most enlightening examination to date of the developments of Frege's thinking about his logic, this book introduces a new kind of logical language, one that ...

Moving through a series of encounters, some with animals other than humans, some with other philosophers, this paper explores how Earth others can and do call humans to transformative and ethical attention. By creating a flow between creative non-fiction, and more discursive explorations of the process of encounter, it both considers and seeks to evoke the ways in which wonder transforms the outlines between humans and other animals. Whereas the ways of knowing that Val Plumwood called “master rationality” reduce the (...) otherness of other animals to the negative outside of the moral human, they are always there to be apprehended as their own, positive presence. When one attends with what Simone Weil calls “passive activity,” the truth of others as themselves or in their world can appear, and a type of ethical responsibility follows. (shrink)

In Making It Explicit Brandom distinguishes between, as he puts it, I–We and I–Thou sociality. Only I–Thou sociality, Brandom argues, is adequate to the task of instituting norms relevant to our self–understanding as rational beings because only I–Thou sociality can render intelligible the distinction between how norms are applied and how they ought to be applied —however anyone thinks they ought to be applied. In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein defends a version of I–We sociality, one that is not, I argue, (...) subject to Brandom’s criticisms. Indeed, I suggest, it is just such a conception of I–We sociality as we find in Wittgenstein’s Investigations that is needed if we are fully to understand the respects in which we are, as the rational beings we are, answerable to the norm of truth. (shrink)

This paper aims to position the birth of the Medical Humanities movement in a greater historical context of twentieth century American medical education and to paint a picture of the current landscape of the Medical Humanities in medical training. It first sheds light on the model of medical education put forth by Abraham Flexner through the publishing of the 1910 Flexner Report, which set the stage for defining physicians as experimentalists and rooting the profession in research institutions. While this paved (...) the way for medical advancements, it came at the cost of producing a patriarchal approach to medical practice. By the late 1960s, the public persona of the profession was thus devoid of humanism. This catalyzed the birth of the Medical Humanities movement that helped lay the framework for what has perpetuated as the ongoing incorporation of humanistic subjects into medical training. As we enter a time in medicine in which rates of burnout are ever-increasing and there are growing concerns about a concomitant reduction in empathy among trainees, the need for instilling humanism remains important. We must consequently continue to consider how to ensure the place of the Medical Humanities in medical education moving forward. (shrink)

Patient-funded trials are gaining traction as a means of accelerating clinical translation. However, such trials sidestep mechanisms that promote rigor, relevance, efficiency, and fairness. We recommend that funding bodies or research institutions establish mechanisms for merit review of patient-funded trials, and we offer some basic criteria for evaluating PFT protocols.

_Background:_ Weight-related stigma is reported frequently by higher body-weight patients in healthcare settings. Bariatric surgery triggers profound weight loss. This weight loss may therefore alleviate patients' experiences of weight-related stigma within healthcare settings. In non-clinical settings, weight-related stigma is associated with weight-inducing eating patterns. Dietary adherence is a major challenge after bariatric surgery. _Objectives:_ (1) Evaluate the relationship between weight-related stigma and post-surgical dietary adherence; (2) understand if weight loss reduces weight-related stigma, thereby improving post-surgical dietary adherence; and (3) explore (...) provider and patient perspectives on adherence and stigma in healthcare settings. _Design:_ This mixed methods study contrasts survey responses from 300 postoperative bariatric patients with ethnographic data based on interviews with 35 patients and extensive multi-year participant-observation within a clinic setting. The survey measured experiences of weight-related stigma, including from healthcare professionals, on the Interpersonal Sources of Weight Stigma scale and internalized stigma based on the Weight Bias Internalization Scale. Dietary adherence measures included patient self-reports, non-disordered eating patterns reported on the Disordered Eating after Bariatric Surgery scale, and food frequencies. Regression was used to assess the relationships among post-surgical stigma, dietary adherence, and weight loss. Qualitative analyses consisted of thematic analysis. _Results:_ The quantitative data show that internalized stigma and general experiences of weight-related stigma predict worse dietary adherence, even after weight is lost. The qualitative data show patients did not generally recognize this connection, and health professionals explained it as poor patient compliance. _Conclusion:_ Reducing perceptions of weight-related stigma in healthcare settings and weight bias internalization could enhance dietary adherence, regardless of time since patient's weight-loss surgery. (shrink)

In light of the growth in the conduct of international clinical research in developing populations, this paper seeks to explore what is owed to developing world communities who host international clinical research. Although existing paradigms for assigning and assessing benefits to host communities offer valuable insight, I criticize their failure to distinguish between those benefits which can justify the conduct of research in a developing world setting and those which cannot. I argue that the justification for human subjects research is (...) fundamentally grounded in the social value of knowledge, and that this value is context-dependent in a manner which should inform our ethical evaluation of the conduct of research in specific settings. I propose a new framework for the assessment of research benefits assigned to developing world host communities, a natural implication of which is to limit the types of research projects which may permissibly be conducted in developing world settings. (shrink)

My starting point is two themes from Peirce: his familiar pragmatist conception of meaning focused on what follows from an application of a term rather than on what is the case if it is correctly applied, and his less familiar and rather startling claim that even purely deductive, logical reasoning is not merely formal but instead constructive or diagrammatic — and hence experimental, and fallible. My aim is to show, using Frege’s two-dimensional logical language as a paradigm of a “constructive” (...) logic in Peirce’s sense, that taking this second theme into account in one’s interpretation of the first yield a very different, and arguably more fruitful, conception of meaning than is usually ascribed to Peirce, not only a different conception of the role of inference in meaning than is found in, say, Brandom following Sellars, but also a very different understanding of the role of pragmatics in semantics than is standard in social practice theories. (shrink)

The idea that social and political institutions can be designed in order to achieve specific human ends goes back, at least, to Plato’s presentation of the appropriate form of the just city-state i...

The Critical Theory of Axel Honneth provides a comprehensive study of the work of Axel Honneth, offering a critical reconstruction of his project in relation the themes of power, critique, and the intersubjective paradigm.

“Employees have rights by virtue of employment law and the contract of employment. They also have a third right, however: that of being treated with respect…” What this implies is explored here in detail by the Senior Partner of Phoenix Human Resources Consultants, 17 Den Road, Shortlands, Bromley, Kent BR2 ONH. Ms Douglas originally gave this presentation at a meeting of The Ethical Business Forum at London Business School.

Prouver des théorèmes est une pratique mathématique qui semble clairement améliorer notre compréhension mathématique. Ainsi, prouver et reprouver des théorèmes en mathématiques, vise à apporter une meilleure compréhension. Cependant, comme il est bien connu, les preuves mathématiques totalement formalisées sont habituellement inintelligibles et, à ce titre, ne contribuent pas à notre compréhension mathématique. Comment, alors, comprendre la relation entre prouver des théorèmes et améliorer notre compréhension mathématique. J'avance ici que nous avons d'abord besoin d'une notion différente de preuve (formelle), qui (...) ne tienne pas la forme pour opposée au contenu. La pratique de la preuve algébrique au xviiie siècle fournit un exemple de preuve à la fois pleinement rigoureuse et porteuse de contenu, et dans ce cas, il est possible de voir comment une preuve mathématique apporte une compréhension mathématique. Il s'agira alors de mobiliser les enseignements de cet exemple pour étudier le type de raisonnement déductif à partir de concepts, qui a constitué la norme dans la pratique mathématique depuis le xixe siècle. (shrink)