placed side by side, james’s A Pluralistic Universe and Addams’s Twenty Years at Hull-House seem to have little in common. James’s critique of absolute idealism is written for intellectuals comfortable with philosophical abstractions. Twenty Years is full of stories about the lives of poor people and immigrants. Yet, sometime after April 1909, when A Pluralistic Universe appeared, and before November 1910, when Twenty Years was published, Addams inserted a few telling quotations into her manuscript. I will give a reading of (...) Twenty Years as a presentation in real time of James’s pluralistic universe, with both form and contents conveying the “essential provisionality” of experience in James’s “strung-along”.. (shrink)

Consumers have a growing desire to know where their food comes from and how it is produced, not only for health and safety reasons, but also to satisfy a nostalgia or a perception of “true”, “healthy”, “authentic” and “traceable”. The commercial urban agriculture sector attempts, at least in part, to respond to a growing demand from citizens for locally produced food and for local agriculture that can be signalled to consumers with the help of quality signs, such as reserved designations (...) and added-value claims labels. To date, however, we can wonder about the issues of establishing an added-value claim “urban agriculture” to promote the distinction and development of food products from commercial urban agriculture. This study, using semi-directed interviews with 16 urban farmers and managers of urban agriculture businesses in Quebec, explores their perception of an added-value claim "urban agriculture" to certify their food products. The results of the thematic analysis carried out showing seven main issues, namely: notion of urbanity, sustainability of agricultural practices, valorization of hyper-locality, community, regulations, ownership concerns and relevance of the claim. These issues underline that the logic of commercial urban producers is not only mercantile but also community, social and environmental. In this sense, legislating a movement, under the establishment of a public food label to meet the market's needs and promote the development of this industry, can reveal the various forms of power, exclusion and inequality embedded in urban agriculture initiatives but also some niche opportunities for them. Thoughts are proposed to promote products from urban agriculture from the perspective of increasingly nurturing cities. (shrink)

InThe View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel develops a theory of practical reasoning which attempts to give the personal, or subjective, point of view its due2 while still insisting on the objectivity of ethics.On the objective side, Nagel affirms that there are truths about values and reasons for action which are independent of the ways in which reasons and values appear to us, independent of our own particular beliefs and inclinations (p. 144). The objective foundation for these truths consists in a (...) certain distinctive process of understanding. Objective understanding is explicated in terms of an objective standpoint, a standpoint defined as impersonal, that is, as detached from the subjective point of view. The objective standpoint is structured by a conception ‘of the world as centerless—as containing ourselves and other beings with particular points of view’ (p. 140). As with scientific reasoning, ‘we begin from our position inside the world and try to transcend it by regarding what we find here as a sample of the whole’ (p. 141). (shrink)

Although William James was a significant presence in Paris at the dawn of the 20th century, his psychological and philosophical theories well known, any role he played in the gestation of Marcel Proust’s ground-breaking novel À la recherche du temps perdu has been neglected by scholars on both sides of the Atlantic—until now. Much of what made Proust’s novel so startlingly original stems from James’s writings, which were available to Proust in French translation.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Housing the Powers: Medieval Debates about Dependence on God by Marilyn McCord AdamsZita V. TothMarilyn McCord Adams. Housing the Powers: Medieval Debates about Dependence on God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. 240. Hardback, $80.00.Housing the Powers is a collection of eight interrelated articles by the late Marilyn McCord Adams (the fourth one coauthored with Cecilia Trifogli), pieced together as chapters of a book by Robert (...) Merrihew Adams, who also provides an introduction to the volume and a bibliography. The chapters are detailed and rigorous, and provide new perspectives on some old issues in medieval Aristotelian philosophy. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in medieval theories of causal powers and their surrounding clusters of problems, whether in the context of metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, or even ethics.The book receives its title from some persistent conundrums in the medieval discussion concerning how to find suitable subjects for some Aristotelian causal powers, what these subjects must be like, how they and their power(s) are related, and some connected issues on the side of these powers’ objects. The subtitle indicates that the book also pays attention to the theological considerations that often played a significant role in the medieval treatments of these puzzles.Housing the Powers divides roughly into four parts. The first two chapters give a general introduction to the basic hylomorphic framework, discussing issues such as why to posit causal powers in the first place and how to account for the appearance of self-actuation (a causal power’s ability to reduce itself from potency to act) in some but not all instances of observed causal interaction. The next two chapters apply this general theory of causal powers to the human soul, discussing how the soul is related to its powers while dealing with various theological issues, mostly in connection with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Specifically, these two chapters analyze various solutions to a central conundrum: although the intellect is purely inorganic and immaterial, and the sensory part of the soul is necessarily tied to bodily organs, nevertheless they constitute some kind of a unity, since we commonly think that the subject of intellection and the subject of sensation are the same. Chapters 5 and 6 turn to the problem of knowledge and divine illumination, presenting various solutions to another puzzle: while for certainty and knowledge proper we need stability of objects and subjects, in our current life we seem to have neither. Finally, chapters 7 and 8 discuss some issues related to habits and virtues—especially regarding the role they play in relation to powers—and the problems arising from the theological thesis that some of these virtues are supernaturally infused. [End Page 662]The greatest strength of the book is Adams’s almost ruthless way of getting to the bottom of things: she sees where certain seemingly innocuous claims eventually lead and chases disagreements to their ultimate source—which can be a rather difficult task in the case of the authors under consideration, who share a basic theological outlook as well as a broadly speaking Aristotelian background. This ruthlessness makes the discussion of these otherwise relatively well-known issues unique and fascinating. Thus, in chapter 2, we can see how the seemingly niche question of self-actuation led to broader disagreements between Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Duns Scotus on the matter of free will and the basic nature of causal powers. Similarly, in chapter 3, we see how the question of the essential relationality of powers led to remarkably different views concerning the number of distinct powers or even the number of distinct substantial forms.Disagreements between the discussed authors come in many forms and from many sources. Thus, already in the first chapter, we glimpse a disagreement between Aquinas and Scotus on the adequate object of powers, which ultimately points to their deeper disagreement regarding how to define powers in the first place. Similarly, chapter 6 leads us to an exhilarating search for the roots of the disagreement regarding the question of divine illumination: while it is well known that Henry of Ghent thinks that some divine illumination is necessary... (shrink)

continent. 1.1 (2011): 27-32. “My”—what does this word designate? Not what belongs to me, but what I belong to,what contains my whole being, which is mine insofar as I belong to it. Søren Kierkegaard. The Seducer’s Diary . I can’t sleep till I devour you / And I’ll love you, if you let me… Marilyn Manson “Devour” The role of poetry in the relationalities between people has a long history—from epic poetry recounting tales of yore; to emotive lyric poetry; (...) to rude, irreverent limericks; to Hallmark cards which have ditties that allow one to cringe, and somehow fall in love at the same moment. Without going into a notion of aesthetics, or attempting to choose which form of poetry is superior, we might want to consider why the form of poetry itself has long been a part of relationality. And whilst doing so, we might always keep in mind that poetry—especially poetry that moves, transports us—is the form that Plato has been warning us about, particularly if we want to become good citizens.As Avital Ronell teaches us in Stupidity : the poet, irremediably split between exaltation and vulgarity, between the autonomy that produces the concept within intuition and the foolish earthly being, functions as a contaminant for philosophy—a being who at least since Plato, has been trying to read and master an eviction notice served by philosophy. The poet as genius continues to threaten and fascinate, menacing the philosopher with the beyond of knowledge. Philosophy cringes (287). And considering that the philosopher is the lover of wisdom, we might begin to ask ourselves why one lover is warning against another—if the philosopher is in love with wisdom, then is the poet perhaps his rival, his challenger, for that very love? For, one must also remember that Plato—through Socrates—mentions constantly that Homer is his favourite. Moreover, by adopting both his own voice, whilst mixing it with Socrates’, Plato is adopting the form of poetry that he warns most about—the warning almost serves more as a homage to poetry than anything else. Here, we might open the register that one of the main reasons that he ejects a particular kind of poet is on the grounds of effecting effeminacy on the populace—good poetry moves you, affects you, transports you, shifts you beyond reason, puts you “out of your mind.” However, Plato also teaches us that rhetoric in its highest form requires divine inspiration by way of the daemon, or the muse. This moment of divine intervention is one that seizes—perhaps even ceases—you; putting you “beyond yourself.” In other words, a good rhetorician must always already be open to the possibility of otherness—the same otherness that possibly resides in the feminine. One could also trace this back to the poet that he both loved, and feared, most—Homer. Perhaps the effect of effeminacy that Homer's poetry opened is precisely the source of its power: through listening to Homer, one's body, one’s habitus is opened to the possibility of the feminine. And here, one must remember that the source of all learning—and all teaching—also lies in mimesis, in repetition, in habit. Once the habitus is opened to the possibility of invasion, of intervention, of otherness, there is quite possibly no possibility of distinguishing whether the mimesis is that of reproduction, or if there is always already a productive aspect to it. And by extension, if learning cannot be controlled, the very notion of teaching itself is shifted from a master-student relationality to one where the master is potentially changed as well—the relationality between the master and the student is not only inter-changing, but one cannot even know who is teaching, or learning, at any point. All that can be said is that they are in a relationality; which means that one is ultimately unable to locate the locus of knowledge, of wisdom—the site of which Plato is attempting to convince us is the sole domain of the philosopher. And it is this that philosophy is cringing from. To compound matters, philosophy is striving for wisdom; which can only come from the Gods. In other words, this is a gift that has to be bestowed on them—and more than that, wisdom is always already exterior to one’s control and knowledge. At best, it is the role of one to recognise the gift, to answer the call as it were. Here, if we listen carefully, we can hear the echo of Alexander Graham Bell, and the telephone. And as we are attempting to respond to the call of wisdom—the call that both poetry and philosophy are listening out for—it might be helpful to recall the agreement between Alexander Graham Bell and his brother Melville. In the biography, Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solitude , Robert V. Bruce notes that Aleck and Melly made a “solemn compact that whichever of us should die first would endeavour to communication with the other if it were possible to do so” (63). Since Melville was the one who passed on first, this pact put the onus on Aleck to receive the call of his brother. If you take into consideration the fact that until Melville’s death, both brothers had been working on an early prototype of the telephone, the instrument of distant sound can be read as an attempt by Aleck to maintain the possibility of keeping in touch with Melly, of hearing the voice from beyond. However, this was a connection that was not premised on any knowing, reason, or rationality; it was rather, one that was based on hope, and born out of love. And here, if we eves-drop on a cross-line with The Telephone Book , we can pick up the voice of Avital Ronell once again and hear, “the connection to the other is a reading—not an interpretation, assimilation, or even a hermeneutic understanding, but a reading” (380). In other words, the telephone can be read as the openness to the possibility of responding to the other; one that might always remain unknown. Even in this day of caller-identification, we can never know for sure who the other person on the line is until we pick up: hence, the only decision we can make—the effects of which we remain blind to until it affects us—is to either pick up or not, to either respond or not. And it is not as if the decision to pick up comes without risks: each time we answer a call, we run the risk of it ruining our day. Even when we don’t know who the caller is, perhaps especially when we don’t know who the person on the other end of the line is—and here one only has to think of prank calls—we are leaving ourselves completely open to being affected by another. Thus, philosophy finds itself in the position of Vladimir and Estragon. Since they have no idea who Godot is, they can never know if or when he shows up—thus, if he (and we are taking his gender on the word of the boy, some boy—we don’t even know if it is the same boy—who comes round in the evening) has already come, they would not be in the position to know it. And even if someone comes to them and announces that “I am Godot,” the wait would not be over—without referentiality to the name, they would have to take on faith that that person is indeed Godot. Hence, all they can know is that they are waiting for Godot; and Godot is the name of that waiting itself. All philosophy can know is that it is waiting; and wisdom is the name of that waiting itself. Which brings us to Tina Turner’s eternal question, “what’s love got to do, got to do with it?” In order to begin to consider that, we have to first attempt to examine the notion of love itself. Perhaps we might begin to consider what the difficulty of the statement “I love you.” For, if love is a relationality between two persons—both of whom remain singular, and are attempting to respond to each other—this suggests that neither of them subsume the other under themselves. In other words, the other remains wholly other. If this is so, then the “you” in the statement always remains shrouded in mystery. And even if the “you” was replaced with the name of the person, the veiling remains: for, names refer both to the singularity that is the person, and also every other person bearing that name, at exactly the same time. To compound matters, the only time one has to utter a persons name is in their absence—thus, the correspondence of a name to that particular person is at best an affect of memory. And if we consider the notion of memory, we have to also open the register of forgetting—bringing along with it the problem that there is no object to forgetting. For instance, when one utters “I forgot,” all one is uttering is the fact that one has forgotten, and nothing more—the moment there is an object to the statement, one has strictly speaking remembered what one has forgotten. Moreover, we have no control over when forgetting happens to us. And since it is always already exterior to us, affects us, and has no necessary object, there is no reason to believe that every moment of memory might not bring with it a moment of forgetting. Hence, whenever we utter a name—even if we accept the correspondence between the utterance and the person in front of us—all we are doing is uttering the fact that we are naming. Thus, it is not so much that ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’ but more appropriately, ‘a rose is a rose is a rose’—the relationality between its name and the phenomenon of its sweet smell can only be established after that moment of naming, that instance of catachresis. So, whenever one utters “I love you,” not only is it a performative statement, it is the very naming of that love—all you are doing is establishing a relationality between you and the other. And since there is no necessary referent—one is naming that referentiality as one utters it—this suggests that it is always already a symbolic statement; without which the mystery of the other cannot me maintained. In other words, one cannot love the other without maintaining this symbolic distance—through a ritual; in this case the utterance “I love you.” This might be why Valentine’s Day seems to provoke such a massive reaction: the most common one from people (besides florists) being, Valentine’s Day is mere commercialism. Those among the nay-sayers who maintain a soft spot for Karl Marx would proceed to call it the commodification of relationships; those who prefer the Gods would claim that the sanctity of relationships has been profaned; the gender theorists would note how the fact that males buy the gifts only serves to highlight the unequal power-relation between the genders. Whichever side and variation of the arguments they choose boils down to this: the discomfort lies in the fact that they are confronted with the notion of relationships moving into a mediated sphere. The underlying logic is that love is between two persons only; it should not only remain between them, but more pertinently, be an unmediated experience between two persons. Which of course completely misses the point. For, if we reopen the register that relationships are the result of a negotiation between two persons, there must then be a space between them for this very negotiation to occur. Otherwise, all that is happening is, one person is subsuming the other within their own sphere of understanding; effectively effacing the other. If that were the case, there would no longer be any relationality; all negotiation is gone and the other person is a mere extension of the self—one is in a masturbatory relationality with one’s imaginary. Hence, any relationship must always already carry with it the unknown, and possibly always unknowable. The other person is an enigma, remains—must remain—enigmatic to you. This is the only way in which the proclamation “I love you” remains singular, remains a love that is about the person as a singular person—and not merely about the qualities of the person, what the person is. For, if the mystery of the other is unveiled, then the love for the other person is also a completely transparent love: one that you can know thoroughly, calculate; a check-list. And if they are knowable, this suggests that they can also be negated, and hence, the love can also go away. Only when the love for the other person is an enigmatic one, one that cannot be understood, can that love potentially be an event—and if it is an event, then strictly speaking, it cannot be known before it happens; at best, it can be glimpsed as it is happening, or perhaps even only realised retrospectively. At the point in which it happens, it is a love that comes from elsewhere: this strange phenomenon is best captured in the colloquial phrase, I was struck by love;” or even more so by, “I was blinded by love.” This is a blinding to not only the subject of the encounter—the self—but also of the very object of that encounter, the “you”—all that can be said is that there is an encounter. And it is for this reason Cupid is blind: not just because love is random (and can happen to anyone at any time), but more importantly because even after it happens, both the reason you are in love, and the person you are in love with, remain blind to you. Since there is an unknowable relationality with the other person, the only way you can approach it is through a ritual. This is the lesson that religions have taught us: since one is never able to phenomenally experience the God(s), one has no choice but to approach them symbolically. These rituals are strictly speaking meaningless—the actual content is interchangeable—as it is the form that is important. Rituals allow us momentary glimpses at secrets; and secrets are never about their content(s). Rather, secrets entail the recognition that they are secrets; the secret lies in their form as secret. This can be seen when we consider how group secrets work: since the entire group knows the secret, clearly the content of the secret is not as important as the fact that only members within the group are privy to this secret. Occasionally the actual content can be so trivial that even other people outside the group might know the information; they just do not realize its significance. For instance, if I used my date of birth as my bank-account password, merely knowing when I was born would not instantly give you the key to my life savings. In order for that to happen, you would have had to recognise the significance of the knowledge of my birthday. This means that you have to know that you know something. Since the God(s) are, strictly speaking, unknowable, this suggests that rituals put one in a position to potentially experience the God(s). The meaningless gestures on Valentine’s Day play precisely this ritualised role. It is not so much what you give the other person, but the fact that you give it to them. The gift in this sense is very much akin to an offering; the gift opens the possibility of an exchange. Gift-giving does not guarantee that you will like what is returned; there is always a reciprocation of the gift, but what is returned to you is never known in advance, until the moment it is received. This means that the worst thing that one can do is not give the gift: that would be akin to a cutting off of all possibilities, a complete closing of all communication with the other person. This at the same time also means that you cannot wait for the other person to give you something before you get them their gift: if that were the scenario, the reciprocal gift would be nothing more than a calculated return. The only manner in which both persons can give true gifts is to offer them independently of the other person, whilst keeping them in mind. In this way, the two gifts are always already both uncalculated (in the sense of not knowing what the return is) and also a reciprocation for the other (without knowing whether the other person actually has a gift in the first place). Naturally, this would seem like an irrational, even stupid, way of buying gifts. But it is precisely the stupidity involved that saves the relationship from being banal—more importantly, stupidity prevents it from entering the mere profane. This is not to say that an enigmatic love cannot end—of course it can. However, the difference lies in the fact that if the relationality is wholly transparent, it is subsumed under reason—completely predictable, within the self, and thus never open to the possibility of otherness, exteriority, musing. A love that is an event is one that is also open to the possibility of the divine, the sacred—always already closer to the possibility of wisdom. If we establish that both love and wisdom are exterior, to our knowledge, and the finitude to our selves, this suggests that both are names for the possibility of openness to otherness. In other words, and what choice do we have here but to use the words of the other, the philosopher—the lover of wisdom—is a name for one who is waiting, and nothing more. But that still leaves us with the question of this uncomfortable relationality between philosophy and poetry. But before we address that question, we have to take a momentary detour, and consider the whether it is possible to call one a poet. For, if we take the notion of a poet to be one who reaches the highest levels of rhetoric (beyond the lawyer, and the orator, who only aim to either please the crowds, or convince by way of sophistry), then we must also acknowledge that one can only become a poet at the moment of seizing, the point of inspiration, by the muses. Without this divine moment, all (s)he can do is practice her craft. As no one can control when the muses make their appearance, one could always be practising in vain—in some way, one is always already practising to be least in the way when the muse whispers into one’s ear; one is practising so as not to be vain. And since one cannot know when the muse will appear, there is no time frame to the practising—unlike the lawyer who speaks against a clock, poetry knows no time; the only time that matters is the time appropriate to poetry itself. Thus, all the poet (if one can use this term) is practising for the possibility of effacing her/him self—and waiting. Thus, in order for poetry to occur, in order to be seized, the poet—along with all her concerns—must cease. In other words, there is no poet; there is only the possibility of poetry. However, even as there is no time frame to this waiting, even as all we can say is that poetry is a name for waiting, the one who is practising is always already also in time. And since (s)he is in a symbolic relationality with the possibility of poetry, this suggests that the practising is her sacrifice, and time is precisely what she is sacrificing. Here, it might be helpful to turn to a strange source when it comes to poetry—Georges Bataille—and consider his teachings in the first volume of The Accursed Share where he reminds us that, the “essence [of sacrifice] is to consume profitlessly .” This is where each exchange is beyond rationality, beyond calculability, beyond reason itself, “unsubordinated to the ‘real’ order and occupied only with the present.” He continues: Sacrifice destroys that which it consecrates. It does not have to destroy as fire does; only the tie that connected the offering to the world of profitable activity is severed, but this separation has the sense of a definitive consumption; the consecrated offering cannot be restored to the real order.” (58) Since there is no need for a physical change in the object of sacrifice—“it does not have to destroy as fire does”—this suggests that the tie is severed symbolically. Hence, there is an aspect of trans-substantiation in this sacrifice: the form remains the same; in fact there is no perceivable change—this is the point at which all phenomenology fails—but there is always already a difference, an absolute separation from the “real order,” from logic, calculability, reason. The object of sacrifice, the victim [,] is a surplus taken from the mass of useful wealth…Once chosen, he is the accursed share , destined for violent consumption. But the curse tears him away from the order of things…” (59). And it is this tearing away from the order of things—the order of rationality—that “restores to the sacred world that which servile use has degraded, rendered profane” (55). For, only when it is no longer useful, when it is no longer abstracted—subjected, subsumed under—merely a use-value, can the object be an object as such, can a subject be a subject as such; be a singularity. Thus, it is never so much who or what is sacrificed, but the fact that there is a sacrifice. So even as (s)he is sacrificing her time to poetry, it is always already beyond her knowledge whether what (s)he is doing is actually preparing her for poetry or not—all (s)he can know is that she is sacrificing and nothing more. Hence, all (s)he can do is to open her self to the possibility of this relationality—all (s)he can do is be in love with poetry. At the moment the muse whispers into her ear, (s)he ceases to be, and becomes a medium for poetry—and since this possession is always already beyond our cognitive knowledge, this is also a moment of divine wisdom. In other words, there is no difference between poetry and wisdom—the moment of poetry is the moment of wisdom. And this might be the very reason for the philosopher’s aversion to poets. Not so much because they may corrupt the youth (this is after all the aim of all thinking, all philosophy), but precisely because in order to do so, the philosopher must wait for a moment of possession, for divine musing, for poetry. Hence, all thought, all thinking, all philosophy, is nothing but the waiting for the possibility of poetry itself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Defense of My Reading of Husserl and a Final NotePeter Hadreas (bio)KeywordsSSRI, Prozac, Fluoxetine, Zoloft, Sertraline, Paxil, Paroxetine, Husserl, phenomenologyI want to acknowledge Dr. Mark D. Rego and Professor Marilyn Nissim-Sabat for the care they put into the responses to my paper "Husserlian Self-Awareness and Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors." One of the abiding strengths of Philosophy, Psychiatry and Philosophy is its debate format.Thanks to the debate format, (...) I am not constrained from openly (and sincerely) contesting Marilyn Nissim-Sabat's reading of my paper. In my opinion, Marilyn Nissim-Sabat remarks suffer from many misconceptions. I'll respond in some detail to these misconceptions and misapprehensions. Contrastingly, I am largely in agreement with Mark Rego's commentary. After discussing Nissim-Sabat's misconceptions, I'll use the remaining space to propose how some of Mark Rego's suggestions might be filled out for further psychological research using the model of prereflective awareness.Nissim-Sabat brings many misunderstandings to my paper. They extend to the paper's purposes, its manner of evidence, as well as its consequences for psychotherapy. I respond to each of these issues.First about the paper's purpose. She writes: "I share with Hadreas the conviction that Husserlian phenomenology is the best philosophical approach to understanding, and indeed, possibly improving the treatment of mental disorders" (54). Nissim-Sabat and I do not share the same point of view regarding Husserlian philosophy and mental disorders. I am keen on Edmund Husserl's theories of pre-reflective awareness inasmuch as they provide a model for understanding mental disorders. Given the space limits, I focus my paper on puzzles emerging from case histories of people treated with SSRIs. Even so, I think it is a mistake to make Husserl's philosophy into a Rosetta stone for decoding this topic. This may mislead the reader as well as misrepresent the history of philosophy. As I point out in the section of the paper titled, "Husserl on Self-Awareness," Husserl is not the only well-known philosopher or psychologist who proposes a pre-reflective account of self-awareness. William James proposes an analogous notion of self-awareness. G. W. Leibniz, at the and of the seventeenth and the beginning of eighteenth centuries, worked out a very sophisticated understanding of pre-reflective awareness, which he applied to a multitude of psychological, epistemological, and ethical topics (Leibniz 1996, 53, 11, 164, 194). Husserl's account of pre-reflective awareness is 'better' inasmuch as it is systematically connected to an epistemology that can enable a researcher to understand how pre-reflective awareness fits both personal self-understanding and empirical psychological [End Page 61] experimentation. But James' and Leibniz 's accounts also have their strengths. Their descriptions of pre-reflective awareness are less burdened with technical language than Husserl's and, in the case of Leibniz, broadly applied to topics outside of psychology and epistemology.Perhaps in keeping with Husserl's philosophy as "the best," Nissim-Sabat argues that I am unfaithful to Husserl's true mission as she sees it. I fail to uphold the essence of Husserlian philosophy. She reminds us: "… Husserl's view that the raison d'etre of phenomenology is to develop an attitude that 'overcomes naturalism once and for all' …" (55–56). She quotes from Husserl's "Vienna Lecture," in support of the claim that overcoming naturalism is the raison d'etre of Husserl's phenomenology. Nissim-Sabat picks out one theme of Husserl's philosophy and makes it into its "raison-d'etre." Those familiar with Husserlian philosophy, and circumspect of its application to current issues in psychiatry and psychotherapy, would find her position worrisome. Specifically, as regards the application of Husserlian philosophy to current issues, a more specific obstacle than a looming naturalism is the prospect that researchers in the empirical sciences will doubt the efficacy of Husserlian philosophy for establishing causal relations through statistical correlations. Because Husserlian philosophy is intentionality based, it might seem (falsely) that it cannot handle the rigorous quantitative analysis of after and side effects that psychopharmacology requires.There should be little worry that anyone who would apply Husserlian philosophy to current psychological or psychiatric issues might... (shrink)

Jim Sterba’s Is a Good God Logically Possible? looks to resurrect J. L. Mackie’s logical argument from evil. Sterba accepts the general framework that theists seeking to give a theodicy have favored since Leibniz invented the term: the search for some greater good provided or greater evil averted that would justify God in permitting the type and variety of evil we actually observe. However, Sterba introduces a deontic twist, drawing on the Pauline Principle (let us not do evil that good (...) may come) to introduce three deontic side constraints on God’s choice of action. He then splits the possible goods into four categories: first- vs. second-order goods, goods to which we have a right, and goods to which we do not have a right. He argues that his deontic constraints rule out each combination, thereby showing that no God-justifying good is on offer. To defuse the argument, I draw on a pair of ideas from Marilyn McCord Adams: (i) God is outside the bounds of morality, and (ii) God can defeat evils by incorporating them into an incommensurately valuable friendship with each human. Properly appreciated, these show that the new logical argument relies on a false premise that is not easily repaired. (shrink)

[Marilyn McCord Adams] In this paper I begin with Aristotle's Categories and with his apparent forwarding of primary substances as metaphysically special because somehow fundamental. I then consider how medieval reflection on Aristotelian change led medieval Aristotelians to analyses of primary substances that called into question how and whether they are metaphysically special. Next, I turn to a parallel issue about supposits, which Boethius seems in effect to identify with primary substances, and how theological cases-the doctrines of the Trinity, (...) the Incarnation, and of the human soul's separate survival between death and resurrection-call into question how and to what extent supposits are metaphysically special. I conclude with some reflections on various senses of being metaphysically special and how they pertain to primary substances and supposits. /// [ Richard Cross] Scotus's belief that any created substance can depend on the divine essence and/or divine persons as a subject requires him to abandon the plausible Aristotelian principle that there is no merely relational change. I argue that Scotus's various counterexamples to the principle can be rebutted. For reasons related to those that arise in Scotus's failed attempt to refute the principle, the principle also entails that properties cannot be universals. (shrink)

This essay counteracts that trend [regarding the debate about whether partiality can be justified, those supporting impartiality have generally been on the offensive arguing that morality calls for impartiality] by taking a closer look at the moral complexity of our social practices of partiality. My adoption of this approach does not represent an endorsement of current notions of impartiality. The ideal of impartiality, in my view, should be substantially reformulated. However, that the concept of partiality is transparently defensible. In this (...) discussion, I focus on the aspects of partiality that complicate the philosophical defense of it. In the first part of the discussion, I argue that the moral value of partiality depends partly on the moral value of the relationships it helps to sustain. It matters to the philosophical issues at stake that personal relationships can be abusive and oppressive. In Section II, I refer to the vastly unequal social distribution of the means for favoring loved ones. Because many people have inadequate resources for caring for their loved ones, our conventional relationship practices of partiality-practices by which we care only for our ``own''-can be disasterous for many people. This seriously complicates the defense of partiality. The paper ends with a discussion, in Section III, of ``global moral concern'' and the resistance which most partialists show to it. (shrink)

There are many ways that accountants and managers can influence the reported accounting results of their organizational units. When such influence is directed at changing the amount of reported earnings, it is known as earnings management. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of surveys of undergraduate students, MBA students, and practicing accountants concerning their attitudes on the ethical acceptability of earnings management. Analysis of the survey results reveals how the attitudes of the three groups differ and (...) what variables are associated with these differences. Based on the analysis, the authors suggest changes in accounting education curriculum and ethics awareness programs in business which might increase students'' and practitioners'' sensitivity to the ethical ramifications of earnings management. (shrink)

This book presents a series of studies by the late Marilyn McCord Adams of medieval philosophical and theological views regarding the powers that govern human psychological processes. She explores which of them were taken to be ours to exercise and control, and which to be controlled and exercised only by God.

Politics of Reality includes nine essays that examine sexism, the exploitation of women, the gay rights movement and other topics from a feminist perspective. -/- The essays "The Problem That Has No Name" and "A Note On Anger" have been translated into Spanish by Maria Lugones for circulation in la Asociacion Argentina de Mujeres en Filosofia.

This paper explores the implications of conceptualising phenomenology as explanatory for the ongoing dialogue between the phenomenological tradition and cognitive science, especially enactive approaches to cognition. The first half of the paper offers three interlinked arguments: Firstly, that differentiating between phenomenology and the natural sciences by designating one as descriptive and the other as explanatory undermines opportunities for the kind of productive friction that is required for genuine ‘mutual enlightenment’. Secondly, that conceiving of phenomenology as descriptive rather than explanatory risks (...) committing us to what Zahavi (2019) identifies as the error of equating the phenomenological with the phenomenal. Finally, that the erroneous reduction to the descriptive occludes the rich resources that the phenomenological tradition can contribute to investigations of non-human cognition. The second half of the paper then turns to focus specifically on the promising relationship between phenomenology and enactive approaches to cognition. It will suggest that phenomenology must be seen as having explanatory capacities if it is to shed light on the structures of “mind in life” (Thompson, 2007), before drawing on the model of explanation put forward by Louis Sass to explore what this might look like. (shrink)

This book treats Hannah Arendt as a distinctly political writer who attempts to carve out a way in which humanity, poised between the Holocaust and the atom bomb, might reclaim its position as the creators of a world fit for human habitation. Marilyn LaFay argues that Arendt tries to bring a humanity into modernity, rejecting the argument that Arendt is an 'antimodernist lover of the Greek polis.' Rather, Arendt tries to politically reconcile the potential of humanity with the demands (...) of the modern condition: she encourages us to locate and use the expressive element of the modern for our political ends. This work identifies the paradox of Arendt's choice of an expressive, existentialist interpretation of politics over that of a politics of vision and imagination, concluding that Arendt's politics leads to little more than political aesthetics. (shrink)

Embark on a visual journey of self-discovery. In Beaming, Marilyne Verschueren-the artist behind internet sensation @beamingdesign-presents 100 expansive visuals designed to stimulate your mind and awaken your intuition. Messages of hope, resilience, and joy are incorporated into radiant art, with each image offering the reader an opportunity for deep contemplation and introspection. Powerful imagery is paired with 25 guided exercises for mindfulness, journaling, and breathwork to deepen your interactive experience. Full of warmth and positive energy, Beaming is an exquisite companion (...) and a stirring call to follow your truth. (shrink)

A distinguished philosopher and a practicing minister, Marilyn McCord Adams has written a highly original work on a fundamental dilemma of Christian thought -- ...

Women have historically been prevented from living autonomously by systematic injustice, subordination, and oppression. The lingering effects of these practices have prompted many feminists to view autonomy with suspicion. Here, Marilyn Friedman defends the ideal of feminist autonomy. In her eyes, behavior is autonomous if it accords with the wants, cares, values, or commitments that the actor has reaffirmed and is able to sustain in the face of opposition. By her account, autonomy is socially grounded yet also individualizing and (...) sometimes socially disruptive, qualities that can be ultimately advantageous for women. Friedman applies the concept of autonomy to domains of special interest to women. She defends the importance of autonomy in romantic love, considers how social institutions should respond to women who choose to remain in abusive relationships, and argues that liberal societies should tolerate minority cultural practices that violate women's rights so long as the women in question have chosen autonomously to live according to those practices. (shrink)

"The Problem That Has No Name," in The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press, 1983), has been translated into Spanish by Maria Lugones for circulation in la Asociacion Argentina de Mujeres en Filosofia. See the links below for the original book.

How can the Body and Blood of Christ, without ever leaving heaven, come to be really present on eucharistic altars where the bread and wine still seem to be? Marilyn McCord Adams examines how this question and its answer engaged thirteenth and fourteenth century philosophical theologians.

I very much welcome Professor Wilder’s debunking of Rossi’s theses and arguments and I wholeheartedly share his rejection of that sort of biological determinism and his recognition of the unnaturalness of all human behavior. That last is, I think, an essential first step toward our assuming responsibility for how things are. However, I am not as comfortable as he seems to be with the liberal anyone-can-parent line of thought. What gives me pause about that may be some of the same (...) experience and observations that make the Rossi sort of view so plausible to so many people. That is, regardless of my clear knowledge that an ability to acquire facility in the home kitchen or with infant care is not biologically determined, and also my knowledge that ability to become competent in the maintenance of the common automobile is not biologically determined either, I see many such propensities and abilities as being hardly less difficult to acquire or to lose as a gendered adult than if they had been biologically determined. In other words, the tracking into gender-correlated competencies creates a “second-nature”—each individual seems to take to some activities and practices naturally. It feels natural, one is “a natural” as a mother or as a businessman; it seems natural to all those around, as well. And, learned and human-created though it may be, it is not therefore easy to undo. (shrink)

Some theodicists, skeptical theists, and friendly atheists agree that God-justifying reasons for permitting evils would have to have an instrumental structure: that is, the evils would have to be necessary to secure a great enough good or necessary to prevent some equally bad or worse evil. D.Z. Phillips contends that instrumental reasons could never justify anyone for causing or permitting horrendous evils and concludes that the God of Restricted Standard Theism does not exist—indeed, is a conceptual mistake. After considering Phillips’ (...) and other objections in the neighborhood, I argue that the Expanded Theism of Christian theology does forward a God who ‘digs in’ and eternally answers for horrors. (shrink)

L'A. propone una lettura critica della questione De grammatico di Anselmo in contrasto con l'interpretazione già proposta da D.P. Henry, per il quale l'opera intende sviluppare una teoria del significato dei paronimi. Dopo un esame del testo e della teoria di Henry, l'A. propone la tesi che lo scritto sia un'introduzione alla lettura delle Categorie di Aristotele ad uso del lettore/studente. Una sezione dello studio verte sulla distinzione fra quaestio, lectio e disputatio nella seconda metà del sec. XII, che giustifica (...) la collocazione dell'opera esaminata. (shrink)

A contribution to the feminist discussion on moral theory, exploring the debate between moral impartiality and the partiality that characterizes personal relationships, the ethic of care and its relation to justice in a gender asymmetrical society, and the role of intimate friendship in an era of the dissolution of both extended and nuclear families.