Burning fossil fuel in the North American continent contributes more to the CO2 global warming problem than in any other continent. The resulting climate changes are expected to alter food production. The overall changes in temperature, moisture, carbon dioxide, insect pests, plant pathogens, and weeds associated with global warming are projected to reduce food production in North America. However, in Africa, the projected slight rise in rainfall is encouraging, especially since Africa already suffers from severe shortages of rainfall. For all (...) regions, a reduction in fossil fuel burning is vital. Adoption of sound ecological resource management, especially soil and water conservation and the prevention of deforestation, is important. Together, these steps will benefit agriculture, the environment, farmers, and society as a whole. (shrink)

Non una pacifica esplorazione ma un’avanscoperta bellicosa, in sardonica guerrilla con alcuni baluardi della tradizione filosofica occidentale: le leggi e il linguaggio della metafisica, la concezione stabile e unitaria dell'identità personale, il modello tragico della volontà, il pregiudizio antropocentrico e l’asservimento della natura al dominio della tecnica. Senza la pretesa di comporre un discorso esaustivo o sistematico, Capra recupera soprattutto Nietzsche e il Wittgenstein delle Ricerche Logiche in una (auto)critica comparativa, per mostrare in quali modi il pensiero correlativo delle (...) filosofie orientali possa integrare e talvolta superare le impasse del pensiero antitetico. (shrink)

Durant les années 1970 en Amérique latine, le « courant critique » est très actif dans la reformulation des méthodologies, des objets d'études et des objectifs de la recherche en communication. Dans ce contexte, il élabore le modèle de communication participative en rupture avec le diffusionnisme en prenant comme point de départ la théorie de la dépendance et du colonialisme interne. Ce modèle questionne les relations verticales dans une société donnée. En partant du cas de la radiodiffusion en Bolivie , (...) est-il possible de comprendre les pratiques communicationnelles populaires? Quels sont les conditions et les contextes qui favorisent leur émergence et jusqu'à quel point parviennent-elles à leurs objectifs de démocratisation?.During the 1970s in Latin America, the "critical current" is very active in the reformulation of the methodologies, objects of study and research objectives in communication. In this context, it develops the model of participatory communication break with diffusionism taking as starting point the theory of internal colonialism and dependency. This model asks vertical relationships in a given society. Starting from the case of broadcasting in Bolivia , is it possible to understand the communicative practices popular? What are the conditions and contexts in which they emerge and to what extent they succeed in their goals of democratization? (shrink)

Este artículo tiene dos objetivos. El principal es mostrar la concepción de la historiografía como teoría crítica en la obra de Dominick LaCapra. El secundario es exponer las consecuencias impolíticas de la teoría crítica contemporánea que subestima la atención a la historia. Con tal fin, enmarco la historia intelectual de LaCapra en el contexto de la renovación de la metodología historiográfica y muestro la relevancia del estudio del trauma en su concepción del conocimiento histórico. Posteriormente, muestro que la clave (...) que convierte su concepto de historia en una teoría crítica es la idea de que la historia debe contribuir a elaborar el trauma y capacitar para la acción, así como la relación entre esta idea y el vínculo entre experiencia e identidad política. Después expongo la crítica de LaCapra a una corriente contemporánea de teoría crítica que renuncia a la elaboración del trauma. Por último, propongo tres categorías para identificar y analizar dicha corriente: diferencia histórica, viraje ético e impoliticidad. (shrink)

El cine clásico de Hollywood de los años treinta y cuarenta fue testigo de la crisis del 29 y sus repercusiones. Un estudio filosófico de este permite descubrir en la filmografía del director Frank Capra luminosos criterios de interpretación. Desde sus primeros títulos, sus películas ponen de manifiesto la relación entre la modernidad, la técnica y la centralidad de la persona. Filmar American Madness (1932) supuso para Capra entrar de lleno en el tema de la reflexión ética sobre (...) la economía, para hacer de ella una lectura moral, y así interpelar la responsabilidad de las personas al considerar la crisis económica como una auténtica bancarrota moral. La capacidad y la libertad de la filosofía para ser crítica debe afrontar la necesidad de superar las lecturas economicistas del cine, para descubrir en él no el predicado de un sistema productivo, sino un verdadero ejercicio creativo. Y así se descubre en American Madness una muestra del valor de la empatía frente a la crueldad, de la importancia de la comunidad varón/mujer para educarse en dicha empatía, de la continuidad entre el amor esponsalicio y las distintas formas de amor y de amistad. De este modo se comprueba que Capra relata en esta película la vida económica centrada en las personas y su responsabilidad moral contra la violencia en las relaciones de producción. (shrink)

La oveja (Ovis aries) es el primer animal domesticado para consumo en un hito histórico que marca el inicio de la sedentarización de las comunidades humanas al comienzo del Neolítico. Durante milenios, fueron semejantes al muflón asiático (Ovis orientalis), su ancestro salvaje. Las razas primitivas supervivientes en el norte de Europa son oscuras, mudan el pelo estacionalmente, tienen cuernos en ambos sexos y apenas producen lana. Los ancestros de las modernas surgieron hace unos 3.500 años. Se seleccionaron para producir lana (...) blanca, que crece indefinidamente y se colecta anualmente. Este proceso coincide con la invención de las tijeras de esquilar y con el descubrimiento de tintes como la púrpura. Solo la lana blanca puede teñirse de cualquier color, permitiendo trasladar al tejido las mismas señales que quizá antes nos pintábamos con ocre sobre el cuerpo. La oveja, un herbívoro social muy manejable, sumaba al suministro de alimento el de una fibra abrigada y modificable en su color distintiva de quienes la visten. Un lienzo en blanco donde trasponer las expresiones estéticas antes restringidas al cuerpo, al arte rupestre y al mobiliar. De ahí que diversas mitologías contemplen una relación simbólica especial con ellas. La revolución estética propiciada por las ovejas blancas zozobra en el siglo XX con la aparición de nuevas fibras y el abaratamiento de otras. Hoy, los arquetípicos y blancos rebaños característicos de la iconografía occidental tienden a una coloración mixta al devaluarse la lana. Otras especies domésticas con fibras que solo recientemente se han apreciado comercialmente, como las cabras de angora (Capra hircus) o las llamas (Lama glama), siguen un proceso idéntico al emprendido con las ovejas hace milenios para tornarse blancas. Presentamos las implicaciones estéticas que han estimulado la selección artificial de ovejas con lanas blancas desde un punto de vista transdisciplinar. Siguiendo la corriente bioevolutiva, que entiende nuestra conducta estética y sus manifestaciones como parte de nuestra etología, veremos cómo ese largo proceso estuvo incentivado por nuestro deseo de teñir los tejidos para expresar un fenotipo extendido creando una nueva señal social. Esa nueva señalización, operante en el plano de la selección sexual, se va complicando al desarrollarse nuestras capacidades simbólicas y tecnológicas, siendo sintomática del entorno causal en el que se produce. (shrink)

El propósito del presente artículo es el de profundizar en la interpretación de la lectura zambraniana en torno a eventos de su tiempo como la guerra civil española y el posterior exilio republicano, explicitando la discontinuidades y desniveles etiológicos que subyacen a su obra filosófica. Tal y como han desarrollado diferentes exégetas de su pensamiento, las reflexiones de María Zambrano han transitado desde el plano histórico a la articulación de una lectura de los acontecimientos desde un entramado metafísico y teológico. (...) A lo largo de este artículo nos focalizaremos en las claves histórico-conceptuales de dicha transición discursiva y proyectaremos sobre aquella las diferentes distinciones metodológicas elaboradas desde la teoría del trauma de Dominick LaCapra y, en particular, de su noción de “trauma estructural”. Desde esta perspectiva, arrojaremos luz en torno al trasfondo y a las implicaciones de la interpretación zambraniana de acontecimientos históricos desde un prisma metafísico. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 541 But the end result is what La Capra terms "a philosophical conservatism," a call to create a morality to counteract the disintegrating forces in modern society. Here too Durkheim joins hands with Weber, Freud, and Malinowski. "Excessive individualism was symptomatic of social disintegration" (p. 145). Its antidote is the formation of cooperative groups. So for Weber the individual, in order to be a genuine man, (...) must always stand in a state of tension between self-interest and selflessness. So too for Freud and Malinowski unbridled individualism, incest and rebellion, are the major threats facing society. In contrast to Weber, who foresaw that "not summer's bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness and hardness.... "Durkheim's work stands in the more benign, less beclouded light of Cartesianism. La Capra stresses the philosopher rather than the sociologist in Durkheim, but in a comparative analysis with his great contemporaries that judgement may well stand. LUCIANC. MARQUIS Pitzer College and Claremont Graduate School The Li/e and Mind o/John Dewey. By George Dykhuizen. Introduction by Harold Taylor; edited by Jo Ann Boydston. (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973. Pp. xxv + 429. $15.00) This detailed and documented account of the "life and mind" of John Dewey is the fruit of years of careful research by Professor Dykhuizen of the University of Vermont, and it is also the product of cooperation by many institutions and individuals whose records have been made available to the author. The book is a synthesis of biography, history, and philosophy; it is good reading matter as well as an excellent reference work, truly a magnum opus, a worthy record of the inseparability of Dewey's life and mind. The story begins in the obscurities of rural life and schooling in the 1860s, and it culminates in the complicated international affairs of the world since 1914. It is appropriate and inevitable that the public activities of Dewey should dominate the account of the last thirty years of his life. But it is remarkable that a philosopher should be devoted to so many and varied public affairs without being distracted by them. This fact is explained by the character of his philosophy: his philosophical devotion to "inquiry" made almost any public problem grist for his mill. He faced problems professionally as an analyst, not in order to solve them but in order to understand them concretely as obstacles to action. The biography gives abundant evidence of this fact, both in technical philosophical issues and in "the problems of men." Dewey confessed that his science of inquiry was unfortunately entitled "Logic." When he began his inquiries into the process of thinking, the German term logische Studien was still commonly used for any work on the theory of knowledge, and Dewey was not prepared for the revival and reconstruction of formal logic during his mid-career. I am reminded of a remark by his colleague, Professor Woodbridge, who said: "At first I could not figure out what Dewey's logic was about; then it suddenly occurred to me that he was telling us 'How We Think'." For Dewey and Mead the problem of knowledge was almost entirely the problem of thinking, "reflective thinking." At Columbia we tried to make textbooks on reflective thinking, much to Dewey's amusement and scorn: "You should use reflective thinking, not teach it as subject-matter. And as for formal logic, you should save that for graduate school; it corrupts young minds who mistake it for knowledge." Despite his emphasis on "reflective thinking" he disliked the term "reflection"; it had been too much abused by philosophers who engaged in speculation, meditation, and other forms of "day-dreaming." Dewey's preference for "imagination" instead of "consciousness" is related to this circumstance. He regarded "consciousness" as an abstraction; whereas imagining is a cenlxal 542 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY aspect of thinking. It implies not merely getting a suggestion in relation to a problem, but getting a suggestion whose consequences could be anticipated. Unless a suggestion anticipates consequences, it is not an idea; it has no meaning, no means to suggest for the problem or plan. Accordingly, for Dewey "acting consciously... (shrink)

Notas al pie de Gaza es una novela gráfica del artista Joe Sacco en la que se retoma el conflicto palestino-israelí ya tratado en Palestina: En la Franja de Gaza. En esta obra se abocará a la investigación de dos matanzas cometidas el año 1956 en territorio palestino.. En este trabajo nos centraremos en el controvertido final de la novela, en la que Sacco, mediante una notable técnica gráfica, obliga al lector a convertirse en una de las víctimas de la (...) matanza de Rafah. ¿Es esta técnica válida o éticamente cuestionable? Para contestar a esta pregunta buscaremos orientación mediante conceptos descriptivos de Dominick LaCapra y de Judith Butler. Este ejercicio teórico previo nos permitirá retomar una evaluación crítica más serena y exacta. (shrink)

In the treatise called La nobiltà et l’eccellenza delle donne co’ diffetti et mancamenti de gli uomini Lucrezia Marinella claims that women are superior to men. She argues that men are excessively hot, and that heat in a high degree is detrimental to the intellectual and moral capacities of a person. The aim of this paper is to set out Marinella’s views on temperature differences in the bodies of men and women and the effects of bodily constitution on the capacities (...) necessary for political deliberation and rule. I situate Marinella’s argument in the context of an ongoing debate about physiological differences between the sexes, begun in antiquity and extending into the Renaissance. That debate is important for several reasons: as part of a broader discussion of the nature and worth of women, as determining influential interpretations of ancient authorities on matters of physiology, and as anticipating later discussions of the relation between the sexed body and political roles. This paper considers Marinella in dialogue with a number of interlocutors, elements of whose work can be found in her own: Aristotle, Mario Equicola, Galeazzo Flavio Capra, Ludovico Domenichi and Torquato Tasso. (shrink)

After a quarter of a century in print, Capra's groundbreaking work still challenges and inspires. This updated edition of The Tao of Physics includes a new preface and afterword in which the author reviews the developments of the twenty-five years since the book's first publication, discusses criticisms the book has received, and examines future possibilities for a new scientific world.

"We are trying to apply the concepts of an outdated world view--the mechanistic world view of Cartesian-Newtonian science--to a reality that can no longer be understood in terms of these concepts.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reframing Baudelaire: Literary History, Biography, Postcolonial Theory, and Vernacular LanguagesFrançoise Lionnet* (bio)In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf quips: “History is too much about wars; biography too much about great men;” literary history, she might have added, is too much about sons murdering their fathers. Canonical readings of the canon have often insisted on the vaguely Freudian (if not biblical) model of literary creation susceptible both to “anxieties (...) of influence” and to creative revisions imposed by strong misreadings. Criticism has followed the same reactive pattern in order to clear new ground for further research: the debate between “traditionalists” and proponents of “cultural studies” all but repeats this familiar and combative dialectic. Between formalist and sociopolitical readings, French texts have been mined by many different critical trends; but the perspectives that do not fit neatly into one or the other of these agonistic moves tend to be left out. Dominick LaCapra has suggested that “one issue for readers today is whether a different, ‘noncanonical’ reading of the canon, which resists symbolic resolutions as well as narrowly formalistic interpretations, may be one force in reopening texts to the[ir] broader sociopolitical effects” [731].In the case of Baudelaire, the way to do this “noncanonical” reading might well be to go back to a discursive field which includes biography and oral histories, and to resist the temptation either to eulogize the innovations of the poet of modernity or to denounce the patent racism of his images. The challenge today is to return to the scene of writing and the conditions of production of the early poetry—in other words, to look at the text from outside of conventional literary, critical or cultural history, to reclaim it for our side, that of a more global francophonie. To do so might mean to map out once again the contested terrain of culturally and politically sensitive readings such as the ones Christopher Miller and Gayatri Spivak claim to do. Their readings, however, do not take into account the residual cultural element of the poetry, that is, the vernacular language it appropriates. This language is all but buried beneath the emergent theoretical practices of postcolonial criticism and its vaguely nationalist agendas. 1 Critics have tended to look for [End Page 63] symbolic resolutions and to settle cultural scores at the expense of historical and geographical specificity, despite claims to the contrary.The facts of Baudelaire’s youthful travels in the Indian Ocean have remained relatively obscure. While doing research in the islands of Mauritius and Réunion on two separate occasions during the past few years, I came across written documents and watercolors that helped me reconstruct the historical and visual contexts that appear to have been Baudelaire’s in 1841. By re-examining the criticisms that have been lodged against the exoticizing rhetoric of his poetry, I want to foreground the links between the Creole culture with which Baudelaire became familiar and the now canonical texts he produced. These links can allow us to bypass the sterile opposition between “literary studies” and “cultural studies” or between aesthetics and politics; they demonstrate the urgency of re-visioning the canon not just from the perspectives of its margins, but as an important source of muted cultural knowledge. The questions with which I begin, then, are the following: where did Baudelaire actually go on his travels in 1841? and why does this matter to the field of French studies?Il faut en finir avec la légende de l’Inde parcourue par Baudelaire. Elle était séduisante, Gautier l’a adoptée, Banville ne l’a pas négligée.... Mais la vérité vraie est que Baudelaire, embarqué malgré lui, brûla la politesse à l’Inde.... Peut-être Baudelaire abandonnait-il complaisamment au commun public ces bruits de longues pérégrinations en pays fabuleux, parce qu’il en tirait, avec des couleurs de mystère, l’air de revenir de loin. Dans tous les cas, il ne nous parlait jamais de ces voyages. A peine, à son retour, nous dit-il quelques mots d’une station dans l’île Maurice ou l’île Bourbon. 2[It is time to put a stop to... (shrink)

El mito de Ifigenia ha sido reinterpretado con extraordinaria vitalidad en multitud de obras literarias y artísticas a lo largo de la historia. Este artículo pretende examinar la particular repercusión de Ifigenia en el debate de la _Querelle des femmes_ a partir de la recuperación del manuscrito de la tragedia de Eurípides a finales del s. XV, en autores como Galeazzo Flavio Capra, Ludovico Dolce o Lilio Gregorio Giraldi. La recepción de la tragedia griega desde Italia, al verterse en (...) dramas y tratados, irradió en la cultura moderna europea nuevos emblemas sobre la condición femenina, hacia un modelo de virtud cuya moral supera la crueldad de los dioses y los hombres, pues lucha por su propia libertad y dignidad. (shrink)

In his philosophy of ethics and time, Emmanuel Levinas highlighted the tension that exists between the "ontological adventure" of immediate experience and the "ethical adventure" of redemptive relationships-associations in which absolute responsibility engenders a transcendence of being and self. In an original commingling of philosophy and cinema study, Sam B. Girgus applies Levinas's ethics to a variety of international films. His efforts point to a transnational pattern he terms the "cinema of redemption" that portrays the struggle to connect to others (...) in redeeming ways. Girgus not only reveals the power of these films to articulate the crisis between ontological identity and ethical subjectivity. He also locates time and ethics within the structure and content of film itself. Drawing on the work of Luce Irigaray, Tina Chanter, Kelly Oliver, and Ewa Ziarek, Girgus reconsiders Levinas and his relationship to film, engaging with a feminist focus on the sexualized female body. Girgus offers fresh readings of films from several decades and cultures, including Frank Capra's _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_ (1939), Federico Fellini's _La dolce vita_ (1959), Michelangelo Antonioni's _L'avventura_ (1960), John Huston's _The Misfits_ (1961), and Philip Kaufman's _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_ (1988). (shrink)

Near the middle of his first discussion with Lysis, Socrates asks an odd question—he asks if Lysis’ mother lets him play with her loom or touch her woolworking tools (208d1-e2). It is one of many odd questions, of course, but it is odd nonetheless. Odd, and also funny: it is the one of just two comments in the book that makes Lysis laugh. This question, I argue, reveals the profound depth of Socrates’ inquiry about Lysis’ views about himself and his (...) loved ones. Indeed, the challenge is so profound that at first the only response is laughter. One aspect is a challenge to certain ideals of masculinity, and so I briefly discuss Athenian conceptions of gender and masculinity, along with some Platonic questioning of these conceptions. Reading the Lysis through the lens of gender reveals not only the continued relevance of such a lens, but also the intensity of Socrates’ work, which calls into question basic social structures and markers of identity, like gender, in its pursuit of a liberatory turn to philosophy. We gain insight into his challenge to Athenian understanding of masculinity by observing the way that Socrates’ argumentation undermines much of it, and we more fully appreciate Socrates’ arguments if we see that they intend to subvert gendered expectations. The setting of the dialogue, the questions Socrates asks, and the responses from Lysis all reinforce that what is at stake in the text is Lysis’ character, including his masculinity. (shrink)

I consider the metaphysics of farts. I contrast the essential-bum-origin view with a phenomenological view, and I argue in favour of the latter.

During the last two decades, a new understanding of life emerged at the forefront of science.The development of complexity theory, technically known as nonlinear dynamics, has allowed scientists and mathematicians to model the complexities of living systems in new ways that have yielded many important discoveries. In this article, the author reviews the basic concepts, current achievements and status of complexity theory from the perspective of the new understanding of biological life. Models and theories discussed include the theory of dissipative (...) structures for nonlinear chemical systems, the application of bifurcation theory to genetic networks and cell differentiation, the study of the origin of biological form (morphology), a new approach to the understanding of developmental stability in embryology, and a model of the ‘origin of life’ and prebiotic evolution in tiny, membrane-bounded vesicles in the primeval oceans. (shrink)

Discusses the problems of text and context in studying the philosophical writings of Wittgenstein, Ricoeur, Sartre, Jameson, Marx, and Bakhtin.

"Dominick LaCapra is unequalled in his ability to bring theoretical concerns that are associated with literary theory to the attention of historians. He is responsible for enlivening the discipline of history and compelling historians to rethink their foundational assumptions, which normally go unquestioned."—Mark Poster, University of California, Irvine.

An exploration of the links within the study of history between experience and identity, history and various theories of subjectivity, extreme events and their representation, institutional structures and the knowledge produced within them.

Fritjof Capra, scientist, educator, activist, and accomplished author, presents the evolution of his thought over five decades in Patterns of Connection. First introduced in the late 1950s to the work of Werner Heisenberg, a founder of quantum mechanics, Capra quickly intuited the connections between the discoveries of quantum physics and the traditions of Eastern philosophy--resulting in his first book, the bestselling The Tao of Physics. This synthesis, representative of the change from the mechanistic worldview of Descartes and Newton (...) to a systemic, ecological one, went on to inform Capra's thinking about the life sciences, ecology, and environmental policy. (shrink)

The focus of this essay will be on Freud, although my approach is informed by certain aspects of “post-Freudian” analysis. In the works of Freud, however, history in the ordinary sense often seems lost in the shuffle between ontogeny and phylogeny. When Freud, in the latter part of his life, turned to cultural history, he was primarily concerned with showing how the evolution of civilization on a macrological level might be understood through—or even seen as an enactment of—psychoanalytic principles and (...) processes. And he openly acknowledged the speculative nature of his inquiry into prehistory, “archaic” society, and their putative relation to the civilizing process.One might nonetheless argue that throughout Freud’s work there are theoretical bases and fruitful leads for a more delimited investigation of specific historical processes for which documentation is, to a greater or lesser extent, available. This kind of investigation is, moreover, required to test the pertinence of Freud’s speculative and at times quasi-mythological initiatives. At present one can perhaps do little more than tentatively suggest how such an investigation might proceed and the sorts of issues it might conceivably illuminate. For its elaboration has been relatively underdeveloped in the research of those who looks to Freud for guidance. Dominick LaCapra is GGoldwin Smith Professor of European Intellectual History at Cornell University. His most recent books are “Madame Bovary” on Trial , Rethinking Intellectual History , and History and Criticism . He has just completed a book-length manuscript entitled “History, Politics, and the Novel.”. (shrink)

One of the cornerstones of modern medicine is the search for what causes diseases to develop. A conception of multifactorial disease causes has emerged over the years. Theories of disease causation, however, have not quite been developed in accordance with this view. It is the purpose of this paper to provide a fundamental explication of aspects of causation relevant for discussing causes of disease.The first part of the analysis will discuss discrimination between singular and general causality. Singular causality, as in (...) the specific patient, is a relation between a concrete sequence of causally linked events. General causation, e.g. as in disease etiology, means various categories of causal relations between event types. The paper introduces the concept of a reference case serving as a source for causal inference, reaching beyond the concept of general causality. (shrink)

Background: Causal reasoning as a way to make a diagnosis seems convincing. Modern medicine depends on the search for causes of disease and it seems fair to assert that such knowledge is employed in diagnosis. Causal reasoning as it has been presented neglects to some extent the conception of multifactorial disease causes. Goal: The purpose of this paper is to analyze aspects of causation relevant for discussing causal reasoning in a diagnostic context.

Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science, but man needs both. --Fritjof Capra, Ph.D. Their paths to the truth could not be more different--but the amazing thing is that, in their own ways, the mystics and the scientists are discovering the same truths about our world. In non-technical language, with no complex mathematics or formulae, this thought-provoking program explores the main concepts and theories of modern physics, the revelations coming from particle accelerators and laboratories--and compares (...) them with the ancient tenets of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. In the process, we gain a clear and fascinating picture of how such seemingly disparate areas of thought are ultimately quests for the same kind of understanding. (shrink)

In this paper, I begin with an account of the initial distinction between likenesses and appearances, a distinction which may resemble the difference between sophists and philosophers. That distinction first arises immediately after the puzzling appearance of the noble sophist, who seems to occupy an odd space in between sophist and philosopher. In the second section, I look more closely at the noble sophist, and on what that figure might tell us about images and the use of images. I also (...) attempt to use the insights provided by the noble sophist in an investigation of the kind of images that Plato the author produces. This raises the question of the general notion of image as it appears in the Sophist, and especially of the dual nature of all images, which in turn invites reflection on certain features of the examination of being and non-being late in the dialogue. Finally, I return to the deception inherent in images, and I argue that this dialogue does not present the possibility of completely honest images. Nevertheless, I hope to show that some uses of deceptions and images are better than others. (shrink)

To what extent do we and can we understand others--other peoples, species, times, and places? What is the role of others within ourselves, epitomized in the notion of unconscious forces? Can we come to terms with our internalized others in ways that foster mutual understanding and counteract the tendency to scapegoat, project, victimize, and indulge in prejudicial and narcissistic impulses? How do various fields or disciplines address or avoid such questions? And, in the light of recent developments, have these questions (...) become particularly pressing and not in the least confined to other peoples, times, and places? Making selective and critical use of the thought of such important figures as Sigmund Freud, Jacques Derrida, and Mikhail Bakhtin, the book investigates a series of crucial topics from the current state of deconstruction, trauma studies, and the humanities to newer fields such as animal studies and posthumanist scholarship. A feature of the book is the effort to bring critical historical thought into a provocative engagement with politics and our current political climate. (shrink)

This article outlines a genealogical profile of an elusive doctrinal concept that, after being discussed in several Mahāyāna sutras, had a significant impact on East Asian Buddhist traditions. This notion is known as ‘playful samādhi’, in Chinese youxi sanmei 遊戲三昧, which translates to Sanskrit vikrīḍita samādhi. The compound youxi 遊戲 (‘playful’ – ‘at play’) was cited in Chinese sutras and Buddhist documents, in renowned and widely diffused collections of gongans/kōans 公案, was expounded and commented on by Dōgen Zenji 道元禅師 (1200–1253) (...) in its Japanese version yuge 遊戲 and was explored by modern scholars and interpreters as Ryōsuke Ōhashi 大橋良介 and Wu Rujun 吳汝均, who compares youxi 遊戲 with Schiller’s Spieltrieb. Given the significance of ‘playful samādhi’ across different epochs and cultures, I believe a clarification of the term is especially needed. Furthermore, explicit reference to contemporary scholarship on play studies can help uncover its philosophical implications, shedding new light on a complex notion that defies a univocal interpretation and reunites in its semantic field both the aesthetic and religious dimensions. (shrink)

The article explores similarities between the philosophies of Zhuangzi and Aristippus, focusing in particular on play and eudaimonism. The main thesis is that both authors encourage the cultivation of a playful mindset, defined in the paper as the “ludic self”, which operates as a strategy for leading a flourishing life. By shaping a fluid, unstructured identity, the ludic self promotes negative subtraction from the structuring power of social nexus and proactive adaptation to shifting circumstances. Furthermore, some aspects of these philosophies (...) present an inter-disciplinary convergence with scientific findings from the psycho-biology of play, concerned with the mobilization of cathected energies and the prevention, or resolution, of addictive states. These promising connections with the fields of psychology and biology also represent an original contribution in respect to the existing debates within Zhuangzi studies, and scholarship on the Cyrenaics. From a methodological point of view, the article pursues what Rorty defines as a “rational reconstruction”, which involves a re-interpretation of past philosophies in light of present debates, ideas and vocabularies with the aim of engaging a trans-cultural, trans-historical dialogue. The value of this operation relies upon the universality of human experience, which always allows re-interpretation and re-actualization of past philosophies as a dialogical exercise of questioning otherness within a hermeneutic framework. (shrink)

Background: The concept of prognosis as a prediction concerning the probable outcome of an attack of disease shows some severe contextual drawbacks in the everyday clinical sense. It is often used to describe possible outcomes of the disease in general, or the progression of a disease course, not the expected course in a particular case. Goal: To render more discriminating uses of the term prognosis, in order to provide the prognosticating physician with a valid tool, comparable to the theoretical basis (...) of diagnostic and therapeutic actions. (shrink)

Introduction For Freud, beyond the explanatory limits of the pleasure principle lay the repetition compulsion, the death drive, and trauma with its ...

The present paper identifies creativity as a crucial component in the pedagogical process envisaged by Chan masters in the Song era. In particular, the paper considers ritual dialogues between masters and students involving questions and answers taken from the renowned collection known as the Blue Cliff Record. The first section is concerned with the definition of creativity and its role within the contextual framework of Chan pedagogy in the Song era. The second section analyses some significant ritual dialogues included in (...) the Blue Cliff Record with the aim of exploring a variety of different creative expressions in the considered Chan narratives. The third and last section illustrates how the ritualized performance of dialogical encounters, and by extension the use of gongan literature, entails and promotes the recourse to creativity as a functional strategy in Chan practice. (shrink)

In this paper I defend a reading of eikasia as the viewing of an image as an image; this condition need not involve any confusion of image and original. The “standard reading” of eikasia, on which experiencing this state involves mistaking images for originals, is unsatisfactory, despite the fact that it offers an attractive account of the relation of the line and the cave. The initial description of eikasia makes the suggestion that Socrates believes that anyone consistently mistakes images for (...) originals implausible. Furthermore, the similarity later described between eikasia and dianoia, the third highest state on the line, supports the claim that eikasia can sometimes involve the successful study of an object through its image. After outlining my view of eikasia and explaining these arguments against the “standard” view, I return to the cave and attempt a pairing of the line and the cave that accords with my account of eikasia. (shrink)

The introduction and appendices to Habermas's texts reveal, both explicitly and implicitly, some inner contestations within his social theory. Habermas attempts to ground critical theory in a philosophical anthropology based upon quasi-transcendental cognitive interests and an ideal speech situation involving a consensus theory of truth. Unlike other expositors of dialectical theory, Habermas fails to address systematically the notion of supplementarity. Thus the dichotomous typologies of his analysis appear frozen within the existing ideological framework and some are in conflict with the (...) emancipatory aspect of his theory. Habermas must clarify the overlapping character of his categories and recognize the logic of harmony implicit within his analyses in order to make his theory compatible with his criticism. (shrink)

The difficulty in historical research is to develop an exchange with the "other" that is both sensitive to transferential displacement and open to the challenge of the "other's" voice. Contemporary sociocultural history has often tended simply to reverse the assumptions of an abstracted history of ideas and replicate its documentary treatment of artifacts as symptoms of society and economy rather than of mind. Its populism replicates the scapegoating propensities of populism in society. Even the best historians, Carl Schorske and Robert (...) Darnton, have tended to deny the contestatory dimensions of high culture and the challenge of forging new links between it and popular culture. Everyone is a mentalito~ case, but certain artifacts are exceptional products of cultural activity with critical power and an uncanny ability to play uncommon variations on commonplace things. (shrink)

F.M. Scherer has not effectively rebutted my subjectivist criticism of the standard microeconomic welfare model; Scherer's historical reference to what Congress (allegedly) believed is irrelevant to the theoretical concerns raised by subjectivism. Nor does my “principal” criticism of antitrust policy rests on “philosophical foundations”; my principal criticism rests on conventional economic analysis and a detailed economic history of the classic antitrust cases. My conclusion that the electrical equipment conspiracy of the late 1950s had no significant effect on market prices is (...) supported by Ralph Sultan's findings; indeed, it is Scherer who brutally ignores the context and misrepresents the general thrust of Sultan's research. Scherer's comments on OPEC confuse the distinction that I made between private and governmental cartels.Finally, the economic welfare model that Scherer embraces so enthusiastically at the start of his review cannot be so suddenly discarded when I show something inconvenient: namely, that the “dominant firms” in the classic antitrust cases did not reduce market output and did not raise market prices. Scherer has not come to grips with my central thesis that antitrust regulation has generally been employed to restrain the competitive market process. (shrink)