Grief is, and has always been, technologically supported. From memorials and shrines to photos and saved voicemail messages, we engage with the dead through the technologies available to us. As our technologies evolve, so does how we grieve. In this paper, we consider the role chatbots might play in our grieving practices. Influenced by recent phenomenological work, we begin by thinking about the character of grief. Next, we consider work on developing “continuing bonds” with the dead. We argue that for (...) some, chatbots may play an important role in establishing these continuing bonds by helping us develop what we term “habits of intimacy”. We then turn to the “ick factor” some may feel about this prospect, focusing especially on ethical concerns raised by Patrick Stokes and Adam Buben about the risk of replacing our dead with chatbots. We argue that replacement worries are not as pressing as Stokes and Buben suggest. We resist these replacement worries by appealing to the “thin reciprocity”, as we refer to it, that such bots offer, as well as the fictionalist stance that we think users of the bots adopt when engaging with them. We conclude by briefly raising some additional concerns and highlighting future research questions. (shrink)

Though most of analytic philosophy is based upon intuitions, some philosophers are beginning to question whether intuitions are an appropriate basis for philosophical theory. This paper responds to the arguments of some contemporary philosophers who hold that intuitions should not be treated as evidence for anything other than our contingent psychological constitution. It begins with a demonstration that skeptical arguments by Gilbert Harman and Alvin Goldman are variations on an argument with the potential to undermine the use of intuitions in (...) much philosophical inquiry. After a demonstration that Nicholas Sturgeon’s response to Harman’s argument is inadequate, it argues that all of the instances of the skeptical argument are unsuccessful because they are epistemically self-defeating. (shrink)

This is the third volume of Joel Feinberg's highly regarded The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, a four-volume series in which Feinberg skillfully addresses a complex question: What kinds of conduct may the state make criminal without infringing on the moral autonomy of individual citizens? In Harm to Self, Feinberg offers insightful commentary into various notions attached to self-inflicted harm, covering such topics as legal paternalism, personal sovereignty and its boundaries, voluntariness and assumptions of risk, consent and its (...) counterfeits, coercive force, incapacity, and choice of death. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers have long recognized the importance of species, yet species concepts serve two masters, evolutionary theory on the one hand and taxonomy on the other. Much of present-day evolutionary and systematic biology has confounded these two roles primarily through use of the biological species concept. Theories require entities that are real, discrete, irreducible, and comparable. Within the neo-Darwinian synthesis, however, biological species have been treated as real or subjectively delimited entities, discrete or nondiscrete, and they are often capable (...) of being decomposed into other, smaller units. Because of this, biological species are generally not comparable across different groups of organisms, which implies that the ontological structure of evolutionary theory requires modification. Some biologists, including proponents of the biological species concept, have argued that no species concept is universally applicable across all organisms. Such a view means, however, that the history of life cannot be embraced by a common theory of ancestry and descent if that theory uses species as its entities.These ontological and biological difficulties can be alleviated if species are defined in terms of evolutionary units. The latter are irreducible clusters of reproductively cohesive organisms that are diagnosably distinct from other such clusters. Unlike biological species, which can include two or more evolutionary units, these phylogenetic species are discrete entities in space and time and capable of being compared from one group to the next. (shrink)

This paper contributes to explaining the rise of logical empiricism in mid-twentieth century (North) America and to a better understanding of American philosophy of science before the dominance of logical empiricism. We show that, contrary to a number of existing histories, philosophy of science was already a distinct subfield of philosophy, one with its own approaches and issues, even before logical empiricists arrived in America. It was a form of speculative philosophy with a concern for speculative metaphysics, normative issues relating (...) to science and society and issues which later were associated with logical empiricist philosophy of science, issues such as confirmation, scientific explanation, reductionism and laws of nature. Further, philosophy of science was not primarily pragmatist in orientation. We also show, with the help of our historical characterization, that a recent account of the emergence of analytic philosophy applies to the rise of logical empiricism. It has been argued that the emergence of American analytic philosophy is partly explained by analytic philosophers’ use of key institutions, including of journals, to marginalize speculative philosophy and promote analytic philosophy. We argue that this use of institutions included the marginalization of speculative and value-laden philosophy of science and the promotion of logical empiricism. (shrink)

Many phylogenetic systematists have criticized the Biological Species Concept (BSC) because it distorts evolutionary history. While defenses against this particular criticism have been attempted, I argue that these responses are unsuccessful. In addition, I argue that the source of this problem leads to previously unappreciated, and deeper, fatal objections. These objections to the BSC also straightforwardly apply to other species concepts that are not defined by genealogical history. What is missing from many previous discussions is the fact that the Tree (...) of Life, which represents phylogenetic history, is independent of our choice of species concept. Some species concepts are consistent with species having unique positions on the Tree while others, including the BSC, are not. Since representing history is of primary importance in evolutionary biology, these problems lead to the conclusion that the BSC, along with many other species concepts, are unacceptable. If species are to be taxa used in phylogenetic inferences, we need a history-based species concept. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine two versions of the so-called “hierarchical” approach to personal autonomy, based on the notion of “second-order desires”. My primary concern will be with the question of whether these approaches provide an adequate basis for understanding the dynamics of autonomy-ascription. I begin by distinguishing two versions of the hierarchical approach, each representing a different response to the oft-discussed “regress” objection. I then argue that both “structural hierarchicalism” (e.g., Frankfurt, Bratman) and “procedural hierarchicalism” (e.g., Dworkin, Christman, Mele) (...) have difficulties accommodating the dynamics of how the attribution of autonomy to persons is claimed, disputed, and resolved. Although they differ in details, both shortcomings can be traced to viewing autonomy as a metaphysical rather than a normative, practical matter. I conclude by suggesting that these difficulties underscore the advantages of a more constructivist and pragmatist. (shrink)

When do probability distribution functions (PDFs) about future climate misrepresent uncertainty? How can we recognise when such misrepresentation occurs and thus avoid it in reasoning about or communicating our uncertainty? And when we should not use a PDF, what should we do instead? In this paper we address these three questions. We start by providing a classification of types of uncertainty and using this classification to illustrate when PDFs misrepresent our uncertainty in a way that may adversely affect decisions. We (...) then discuss when it is reasonable and appropriate to use a PDF to reason about or communicate uncertainty about climate. We consider two perspectives on this issue. On one, which we argue is preferable, available theory and evidence in climate science basically excludes using PDFs to represent our uncertainty. On the other, PDFs can legitimately be provided when resting on appropriate expert judgement and recognition of associated risks. Once we have specified the border between appropriate and inappropriate uses of PDFs, we explore alternatives to their use. We briefly describe two formal alternatives, namely imprecise probabilities and possibilistic distribution functions, as well as informal possibilistic alternatives. We suggest that the possibilistic alternatives are preferable. -/- . (shrink)

The second volume in Joel Feinberg's series The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, Offense to Others focuses on the "offense principle," which maintains that preventing shock, disgust, or revulsion is always a morally relevant reason for legal prohibitions. Feinberg clarifies the concept of an "offended mental state" and further contrasts the concept of offense with harm. He also considers the law of nuisance as a model for statutes creating "morals offenses," showing its inadequacy as a model for understanding (...) "profound offenses," and discusses such issues as obscene words and social policy, pornography and the Constitution, and the differences between minor and profound offenses. (shrink)

The transition from the traditional to the representational theory of measurement around the turn of the century was accompanied by little sustained criticism of the former. The most forceful critique was Bertrand Russell''s 1897 Mind paper, On the relations of number and quantity. The traditional theory has it that real numbers unfold from the concept of continuous quantity. Russell''s critique identified two serious problems for this theory: (1) can magnitudes of a continuous quantity be defined without infinite regress; and (2) (...) can additive relations between such magnitudes exist if magnitudes are not divisible? The present paper shows how the traditional theory answers these questions and compares the traditional and representational theories as contributions to our understanding of the logic of application. (shrink)

Might there be knowledge of non-instrumental values? Arguments are give for two principal claims. One is that if there is such knowledge, it typically will have features that do not entirely match those of other kinds of knowledge. It will have a closer relation to the kind of person one is or becomes, and in the way it combines features of knowing-how with knowing-that. There also are problems of indeterminacy of non-instrumental value which are not commonly found in other things (...) that we can know about. The second claim is that there is a strong prima-facie case for holding that there is such knowledge, and that the usual arguments against this are all faulty. (shrink)

This short encyclopedia entry defines the concept of the normate.

This essay seeks to demonstrate the following: 1. the value of metaphysical cosmology to our relationship with nature, and to making policy about the environment; 2. the mistaken nature and harmful consequences of the hegemonic cosmology of anthropocentrism; 3. the possibility of Zhang Zai's Qi/qi Great Harmony cosmology as both the refutation of and replacement for anthropocentrism. The essay concludes that ultimate moral progress of expanding the self from the narrow and exclusionary views of anthropocentrism consists in cosmocentrism, or the (...) transformation of thought to a cosmological perspective as exemplified by Zhang Zai's Great Harmony continual cyclical process of Qi/qi. It is argued that positive metaphysical visions such as Zhang Zai's can negate anthropocen-tric cosmology and inspire us to view our relationship with the environment in a fundamentally enlightened and more respectful way, which is not arrogantly self-centred, disconnected and supremacist. (shrink)

Most interpreters of Heidegger’s reflections on the body maintain that—whether early, middle, or late in the Gesamtausgabe—Dasein’s or the mortal’s openness to being/beyng is the ground of the fleshly or bodily (das Leibliche), but not the reverse. In this paper, I argue that there is evidence from Heidegger’s own oeuvre demonstrating that this relationship is instead mutually reciprocal. That is to say, I contend that corporeal variability is constitutive of Dasein’s openness to being just as Dasein’s openness to being is (...) constitutive of its corporeal variability. Understood in this way, Heidegger’s thinking puts forward what I call a corpoietic understanding of the body and of the meaning of ability. I show that, despite the ableist assumptions at play in much of Heidegger’s work, such an understanding is nevertheless grounded in the idea of access, a central concept in philosophy of disability and disability studies. After developing this idea of ability as access, I close by addressing the larger political stakes of using Heidegger’s work to think about embodiment and disability given the Third Reich’s mass slaughter of people with disabilities. (shrink)

In "Frailty Triage: Is Rationing Intensive Medical Treatment on the Grounds of Frailty Ethical?," Wilkinson (2021) argues that the use of frailty scores in ICU triage does not necessarily involve discrimination on the basis of disability. In support of this argument, he claims, “it is not the disability per se that the score is measuring – rather it is the underlying physiological and physical vulnerability." While we appreciate the attention Wilkinson explicitly pays to disability in this piece, we find the (...) distinction between disability and underlying vulnerability untenable both theoretically and practically. In this peer commentary, we begin with a brief overview of research in philosophy of disability concerning the meaning of the concept itself. We argue that this research demonstrates that many forms of disability do not involve underlying vulnerabilities, and, furthermore, that Wilkinson equivocates between "disability" understood as a medical category vs. "disability" understood as a feature of lived experience. We reject Wilkinson’s distinction on these grounds and offer further considerations to avoid disability discrimination in emergency and crisis standards of care contexts. (shrink)

Many philosophers think there is a luck problem confronting libertarian models of free will. If free actions are undetermined, then it seems to be a matter of chance or luck that they occur—so the objection goes. Agent-causal libertarians have responded to this objection by asserting that free actions, in their essence, involve a direct causal relation between agents and the events they cause. So, free actions are not lucky after all. Not everyone, however, is convinced by this response. Al Mele (...) and Peter van Inwagen, for instance, argue that luckiness remains even if agent-causation exists. One way to answer their arguments, I suggest, is by appealing to considerations in metaphysical grounding and the associated idea of explanatory priority. Mele’s argument loses force if facts about which possible world is actual are partly grounded in facts about free choices themselves. And van Inwagen’s challenge can be met if facts about free actions are explanatorily prior to any objective probabilities associated with those actions. (shrink)

Between the 1930s and the mid 1970s, it was commonly believed that in 1880 Karl Marx had proposed to dedicate to Charles Darwin a volume or translation of Capital but that Darwin had refused. The detail was often interpreted by scholars as having larger significance for the question of the relationship between Darwinian evolutionary biology and Marxist political economy. In 1973–4, two scholars working independently—Lewis Feuer, professor of sociology at Toronto, and Margaret Fay, a graduate student at Berkeley—determined simultaneously that (...) the traditional story of the proposed dedication was untrue, being based on a long-standing misinterpretation of the relevant correspondence. Between the two, and among several other scholars who became their respective allies, there developed a contest of authority and priority over the discovery. From 1975 to 1982, the controversy generated a considerable volume of spilled ink in both scholarly and popular publications. Drawing on previously unexamined archival resources, this article revisits the ‘case’ of the so-called ‘Darwin–Marx correspondence’ as an instance of the phenomenon of ‘multiple discovery’. A familiar occurrence in the natural sciences, multiple discovery is rarer in the humanities and social sciences. The present case of a priority dispute in the history of ideas followed patterns familiar from such disputes in the natural sciences, while also diverging from them in ways that shed light on the significance of disciplinary norms and research infrastructures. (shrink)

I find it more than merely suggestive that we call many different kinds of pictures "realistic." As a category label, "realistic" is remarkably elastic. We cheerfully place into the category pictures that are made in strict accordance with the rules of linear perspective, pictures that are at slight variance with those rules but that nonetheless look perfectly "correct" , and pictures made in flagrant contravention of perspective geometry . We accept as realistic pictures that are made in strict accordance with (...) the rules of perspective construction that we could never judge as being similar to anything we might or could ever see . We accept as realistic pictures that are in sharp disagreement with what we now take to be the facts of vision . . . There is something charming and yet nasty about the belief in the special relation of picture to world. It is charming because it allows us to "enter" with ease into pictures and allows them to "extend" into our world. It allows us to think of pictures as "true to life," to use [Ernst] Gombrich's beguiling term, to look at a picture and ask questions of it, as if we were looking at the world through a window. It allows us to treat pictures as substitutes for the objects they represent and so, for example, to buy clothing from an illustrated catalogue, or to analyze architectural styles from pictures of buildings. In brief, it allows us to feel proximity to what is depicted and urges us to conclude that in certain important respects looking at a picture is equivalent to looking at what is pictured. Joel Snyder, associate professor of humanities and of art and design at the University of Chicago, teaches aesthetics, and theory and history of photography. A practicing photographer, he is currently completing a monograph on the photographer Timothy H. O'Sullivan. His contributions to Critical Inquiry include "Photography, Vision, and Representation" and "Reflexions on Las Meninas: Paradox Lost", written with Ted Cohen in the Winter 1980 issue. (shrink)

In this essay, I answer Nick Trakakis’ second critique of my argument against the adequacy of traditional free will theodicy. I argue, first, that Trakakis errs in his implicit assertion that my argument relies upon our being strongly malevolent by nature. I argue, second, that Trakakis errs in thinking that our being weakly benevolent, morally bivalent, or weakly malevolent by nature is sufficient to refute my critique of the traditional freewill theodicy. I still maintain that the argument from freedom of (...) the will offers an explanation of moral evil that is, in the final analysis, manifestly inadequate. (shrink)

Winner of the 2015 Pierre-Antoine Bernheim Prize for the History of Religion by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-LettresAfter a century during which Confucianism was viewed by academics as a relic of the imperial past or, at best, a philosophical resource, its striking comeback in Chinese society today raises a number of questions about the role that this ancient tradition might play in a contemporary context. The Sage and the People is the first comprehensive enquiry into the "Confucian revival" that (...) began in China during the 2000s. Based on extensive anthropological fieldwork carried out over eight years in various parts of the country, it explores the re-appropriation and reinvention of popular practices in fields as diverse as education, self-cultivation, religion, ritual, and politics.The book analyzes the complexity of the "Confucian revival" within the broader context of emerging challenges to such categories as religion, philosophy, and science that prevailed in modernization narratives throughout the last century. Exploring state cults both in Mainland China and Taiwan, authors Sébastien Billioud and Joël Thoraval compare the interplay between politics and religion on the two shores of the Taiwan strait and attempt to shed light on possible future developments of Confucianism in Chinese society. (shrink)

This is the introduction to the inaugural issue of The Journal of Philosophy of Disability.

The managerial ethics literature is used as a base for the inclusion of Ethical Attribution, as an element in the consumer's decision process. A situational model of ethical consideration in consumer behavior is proposed and examined for Personal vs. Vicarious effects. Using a path analytic approach, unique structures are reported for Personal and Vicarious situations in the evaluation of a seller's unethical behavior. An attributional paradigm is suggested to explain the results.

Ctesias’ Persica and Its Near Eastern Context. By Matt Waters. Wisconsin Studies in Classics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2017. Pp. xiii + 159, illus. $64.95.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Joel Weinsheimer HISTORY AND THE FUTURE OF MEANING In "meaning and Significance Reinterpreted," E. D. Hirsch, Jr. offers what he calls a "new and different theory" of meaning, one which radically reduces the role of the mens auctoris as the normative principle defining validity in literary interpretation.1 Clearly this essay marks a noteworthy shift in Hirsch's own thought, though in the history of hermeneutics such a reduction is (...) of itself hardly new. More interesting are the arguments Hirsch offers for this "correction" of his views, and in particular his thesis that in the process of application "responsible interpreters can adjust old concepts to new beliefs" and still say that they "have not really changed the text's meaning. They can properly say this, first of all, on grounds that... the original speech-intent subsumes new contents in the way that a concept subsumes examples, whether or not the examples were available to the original speaker. But in addition to this, the provisionality of speech sanctions a degree of adjustment in the original concepts as well" (p. 223). Application does not alter meaning if the new example can be subsumed under the original concept or if the original concept is itself originally provisional and adjustable. Thus Hirsch now concurs with Gadamer that application belongs to meaning and yet still dissents from Gadamer's thesis that application to situations unlike those the author envisioned necessarily changes the meaning. If determinacy of meaning is to be preserved, the essential question is, how far can sameness be unlike without becoming difference? Hirsch replies, "It appears... that meaning can tolerate a small revision in mental content and remain the same — but not a big revision.... In our ordinary talk about language, our judgment of sameness of meaning is based on our ad hoc judgment about the closeness of two contents" (p. 221). 139 140Philosophy and Literature Since I (and, I think, Gadamer) agree in great part with this conclusion, Hirsch's theory in my view does not need to be refuted and replaced with something new and different. Rather, in the spirit of his essay, I propose to adjust and build on it — by showing first that the development of Hirsch's argument rehearses Kant's movement from the first Critique to the third, second that the result of merging the two Critiques is unacceptable, and finally that Gadamer's reading of Kant anticipates and refines Hirsch's new theory while avoiding its unacceptable consequences. "The first amendment I must make in my original explanation of the distinction between meaning and significance is to reject my earlier claim that future applications of meaning, each being different, must belong to the domain of significance" (p. 210). In this first phase of his argument, Hirsch argues that the details of literary texts exemplify concepts that are themselves broader than the particulars that exemplify them. In Shakespeare 's sonnet 55, "marble" exemplifies what will last long but not forever. Just as the sonnet itself offers additional instances of this concept, so also the interpreter can find still other, more modern examples of it. Even if Shakespeare did not mention these modern examples and could not be said to have had them in mind, yet they too belong to the poem's self-same meaning if they can be subsumed under the original concept and thus belong to its extension. We can always find more examples, then, and in Hirsch's view this means that through its applications a poem can always become fresh again without altering its meaning. But here's the rub: if new instances are always to be found and thus no instance ever exhausts a concept, then no instance ever fully exemplifies a concept. Every example is a bad example, and Shakespeare would have done better to stick to conceptual language in the first place. If this conclusion is unacceptable, then we can reverse it. When the purpose is only to exemplify a concept, the difference between two examples (say, marble and steel) can be ignored as irrelevant. But it is nonetheless real. Certain elements of the particular example must be eliminated before it can be used to exemplify the general concept. But... (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 12, Page 44-46, December 2011.

Why hasn’t democracy been embraced worldwide as the best form of government? Aesthetic critics of democracy such as Carlyle and Nietzsche have argued that modern democracy, by removing the hierarchical institutions that once elevated society’s character, turns citizens into bland, mediocre souls. Joel A. Johnson now offers a rebuttal to these critics, drawing surprising inspiration from American literary classics. Addressing the question from a new perspective, Johnson takes a fresh look at the worth of liberal democracy in these uncertain (...) times and tackles head-on the thorny question of cultural development. Examining the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, and William Dean Howells, he shows that through their fiction we can gain a better appreciation of the rich detail of everyday life, making the debate relevant to contemporary discussions of liberal democracy. Johnson focuses on an issue that liberals have inadequately addressed: whether people tend to develop fully as individuals under liberal democracy when such a regime does little formally to encourage their development. He argues that, though the liberal fear of state-guided culture is well founded, it should not prevent us from evaluating liberalism’s effect on individual flourishing. By extending the debate over the worthiness of liberal democracy to include democracy’s effect on individual development, he contends that the democratic experience is much fuller than the aristocratic one and thus expands the faculties of its citizens. Critics of American democracy such as John Rawls have sought to transform it into a social or egalitarian democracy in the European style. Johnson shows that neither the debate between Rawls and his communitarian critics nor the ongoing discussion of the globalization of American values adequately addresses the fundamental critique of democratic culture advanced by the aesthetic critics. Johnson’s cogent analysis reaches out to those readers who are ready for a more comprehensive evaluation of liberal democracy, offering new insight into the relationship between the state and the individual while blazing new trails in the intersection of politics and literature. (shrink)

This article deals with the grounds for accepting or rejecting the insights of mystics. We examine the social-epistemological question of what the non-mystic should make of the mystic's claim, and what she might be able to make of it, given various possible states of the evidence available to her.For clarity, let's reserve the term “mystic” for one who claims to have had an ineffable insight. As such, there are two parts to the mystic's claim: first, a substantive insight into the (...) way the world works; second, a meta-insight that the substantive insight is ineffable. The two parts to the claim are independent: it is possible to accept that the mystic has been struck by an ineffable idea, but refuse to lend credence to the idea itself. Similarly, it is possible to accept the mystic's claim that she has had a veridical insight, whilst denying her claim that it is ineffable, or that she can know that it's ineffable. Thus, we could inquire into the grounds for accepting either part of the mystic's conjunctive claim. In this article, we deal only with the grounds for rejecting or accepting the substantive insight of a mystic, granting the meta-insight that the insight is ineffable. (shrink)

In this book Joel Spring explores three major international educational ideologies that are shaping global society: neo-liberal educational ideology, human rights education, and environmentalism. _Neo-liberal ideology_ reflects a rethinking of nationalist forms of education as the nation-state slowly erodes under the power of a growing global civil society. Traditional nationalist education attempts to mold loyal and patriotic citizens who are emotionally attached to symbols of the state, whereas the goal of neo-liberal educational ideology is to change nationalist education to (...) serve the needs of the global economy. These changes are fueling a clash between the ideas of free-market and consumer-based neo-liberals and those of human rights and environmental educators. _Human rights education_ is concerned with creating activist global citizens. It is rooted in the idea that inherent in human rights doctrines is a collective responsibility to ensure the rights of all people. _Environmentalism_ is the most radical of the ideologies because it rejects the industrial and consumerist paradigm that has dominated most economic thought, including capitalism and communism. Spring synthesizes and analyzes the effect of these educational ideologies on shaping the future of the global society. In the concluding section, he compares the effect of these ideologies on global society with the possibility of a world divided between conflicting civilizations. _How Educational Ideologies Are Shaping Global Society: Intergovernmental Organizations, NGOs, and the Decline of the Nation-State_ features: *a critical exploration of the transition of schooling from a function of the nation-state to a globalized economic and political system; *a discussion of the major organizations and trading blocs shaping the future globalization of educational policies; *an analysis of the major competing global ideologies of education--including national and corporate models that emphasize training workers for a competitive global free market; the worldwide network of human rights and peace educators who are teaching a global set of ethics; and the environmental movement's efforts to create a common set of educational standards for sustainable development and sustainable consumption; and *an exploration of the possible future of global educational policy and school organizations. By integrating a wide range of previously scattered information within a bold new framework for understanding educational ideologies and their impact on the global society, Spring raises important questions for researchers, professionals, and students in history and philosophy of education, educational policy, educational studies, comparative education, multicultural education, curriculum studies, critical media studies, global studies, human rights education, and related areas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:iPod, YouTube, Wii Play: Theological Engagements with Entertainment by D. Brent Laytham, and: If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice by Maureen H. O’ConnellJoel WardeniPod, YouTube, Wii Play: Theological Engagements with Entertainment By D. Brent Laytham EUGENE, OR: CASCADE, 2012. 209 PP. $24.00If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice By Maureen H. O’Connell COLLEGEVILLE, MN: LITURGICAL PRESS, 2012. (...) 319 PP. $39.95Although, in the Republic, Plato discussed the usefulness (and danger!) of having artists practicing within the civic community, from his time forward, social philosophers, moral theologians, and religious ethicists have tended to avoid [End Page 199] probing too much into the relationship between the aesthetic and the ethical. To be sure, as organized academic philosophy developed, especially after the Enlightenment, the separate intellectual bailiwick of aesthetics left ethical considerations of what is morally (as opposed to artistically) good to the domain of ethics. The result of such segmentation was to keep both interests’ discussions of “the good” significantly apart.The two books reviewed here represent new (and, hopefully, now less uncommon) attempts to find the correspondence between beauty and goodness. Because both authors think and write specifically from the perspective of Christian ethics, these attempts make use of the resources of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, the sometimes contrasting traditions of Protestant and Catholic spiritual reflection, and the authors’ own personal engagement with sources of beauty or entertainment. Both authors argue in some way that the pursuit of the beautiful (or the enjoyable) bears a relation to goodness. They both also argue that our use of technology and our making of art ought to attend to the building of justice.In his book iPod, YouTube, Wii Play: Theological Engagements with Entertainment, D. Brent Laytham investigates varied forms of contemporary entertainment activities and technologies (e.g., the media-sharing website YouTube, video games, fashion magazines, sporting events) and unearths the ways in which these contemporary and technologically facilitated pastimes both support and endanger human social interaction. In particular, he pays close attention to how entertainment(s) help or hinder the drive of a community of believers into lives of discipleship.The thirteen chapters of the book are each organized around a particular technological theme and make good use of sociological reflection on media, as well as some Christian reflection on games, the communal pursuit of fun, and festivity. Laytham, a Methodist, takes a sympathetic stance toward modes of entertainment in how they function, at times, as legitimate means of communication between persons. But he also warns that they can, if used without an understanding of their effects on the inner lives of the persons involved, be damaging. The author often demonstrates remarkable psychological insight, such as when he discusses the pressures put upon teenagers’ sense of physical self-image when based on the values of fashion magazines (140), the spiritual dangers of any kind of escapism (118), and the complicated motivations underlying petty gambling (107). And though reflection questions that are scattered throughout the body of the text are sometimes distracting from the arguments he puts forward (and so maybe would be better placed at the end of each chapter), he clearly wants his critique of media and entertainment to lead to a fuller, better enjoyment of them, a proper enjoyment possible when they are understood in relation to what should be their ultimate purpose: the drawing together of communities of persons. [End Page 200]Moving from a consideration of entertainment to art, properly speaking, Maureen O’Connell’s If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice is a number of things. It is a narrative description of what has happened in one urban environment in the United States, where socioeconomic decline, street violence, and crushing poverty produce needful places for transformative grace; a theological-aesthetic analysis of a genre of fine art, peculiar for the materials used and the venues in which it is displayed; a moral-ethical project inspired by familial ties to a particular city, as well as the fruit of continued interest (and, one might even say, pastoral zeal) on the author’s... (shrink)

The Expression of Emotion collects cutting-edge essays on emotional expression written by leading philosophers, psychologists, and legal theorists. It highlights areas of interdisciplinary research interest, including facial expression, expressive action, and the role of both normativity and context in emotion perception. Whilst philosophical discussion of emotional expression has addressed the nature of expression and its relation to action theory, psychological work on the topic has focused on the specific mechanisms underpinning different facial expressions and their recognition. Further, work in both (...) legal and political theory has had much to say about the normative role of emotional expressions, but would benefit from greater engagement with both psychological and philosophical research. In combining philosophical, psychological, and legal work on emotional expression, the present volume brings these distinct approaches into a productive conversation. (shrink)

Setting itself at the heart of the problem of the schematism in Kant, Kant’s thing-in-itself problematic, and Nietzsche’s genealogical critique of metaphysics and morals, Blondel’s Nietzsche: The Body and Culture attempts to respond to a problem perhaps as old as philosophy itself: how is one to account for both the one and the many, both order and chaos, being and becoming, culture and nature, language and the body—especially if “accounting” is an act of reason, conceptualization, and language? Blondel finds in (...) Nietzsche a living thinking that refuses to give up on these conceptual oppositions altogether, but neither resolves them dialectically, nor simply remains a dualistic or oppositional thinking. (shrink)