This paper approaches the much-debated issue of corporate citizenship (CC). Many models depict the development process of CC, and yet attempts to find one extensive definition remain in progress. We argue that more than one type of citizenship may be needed to fully describe the concept. So far, social factors have dominated the definitions of CC, but citizenship functions can also be found in other areas. In fact, for maximum benefit, the type of citizenship should be tied to the sector (...) and business field of the corporation in question. Using data drawn from three internationally operating corporations headquartered in Finland, we introduce three different types of CC that are in line with their core business ideas: cultural citizenship, environmental citizenship and technological citizenship. These new types of citizenships can help in grasping the complexity of business responsibility and ethics, and offer tools for gaining competitive advantage by differentiation. (shrink)

This paper offers a phenomenological analysis of Heidegger’s account of “the uncanny” as it relates to the coronavirus pandemic. It explores how the pandemic has disrupted Dasein’s sense of “homelike” familiarity and how this disruption has undermined our ability to be, that is, to understand or make sense of things. By examining our experience of temporality, lived-space, and intersubjectivity, the paper illuminates different ways in which the pandemic has left us confused and anxious about our self-interpretations and future projects. The (...) paper concludes by showing how the uncanny is not simply something we feel in times of crisis; it is, for Heidegger, who we are. This means the secure feeling of familiarity that we embodied prior to the pandemic was an illusion all along, that we are not and never have been at-home in the world. (shrink)

_Challenges conventional understandings of Heidegger’s account of the body._.

This essay explores the unique temporal experience in anxiety. Drawing on first-person accounts as well as examples from literature, I attempt to show how anxiety not only disrupts our physiological and cognitive timing but also disturbs the embodied rhythms of everyday social life. The primary goal, however, is to articulate the extent to which human existence itself is a temporally structured event and to identity the ways that anxiety disrupts this structure. Using Martin Heidegger’s account of human existence as a (...) point of departure, I show how the mood of anxiety has the power to alter our self-interpretations by closing down or constricting our experience of the future. I argue that a constricted future impedes our ability ‘to be’ because it closes off the range of projective meanings that we would ordinarily draw on to create or fashion our identities. (shrink)

In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger introduces a unique interpretation of death as a kind of world-collapse or breakdown of meaning that strips away our ability to understand and make sense of who we are. This is an ‘ontological death’ in the sense that we cannot be anything because the intelligible world that we draw on to fashion our identities and sustain our sense of self has lost all significance. On this account, death is not only an event that we (...) can physiologically live through; it can happen numerous times throughout the finite span of our lives. This paper draws on Arthur Frank’s (At the will of the body: reflections on illness. Houghton, Boston, 1991) narrative of critical illness to concretize the experience of ‘ontological death’ and illuminate the unique challenges it poses for health care professionals. I turn to Heidegger’s conception of ‘resoluteness’ (Entschlossenheit) to address these challenges, arguing for the need of health care professionals to help establish a discursive context whereby the critically ill can begin to meaningfully express and interpret their experience of self-loss in a way that acknowledges the structural vulnerability of their own identities and is flexible enough to let go of those that have lost their significance or viability. (shrink)

Written in a jargon-free way, Body Matters provides a clear and accessible phenomenological critique of core assumptions in mainstream biomedicine and explores ways in which health and illness are experienced and interpreted differently in various socio-historical situations. By drawing on the disciplines of literature, cultural anthropology, sociology, medical history, and philosophy, the authors attempt to dismantle common presuppositions we have about human afflictions and examine how the methods of phenomenology open up new ways to interpret the body and to re-envision (...) therapy. (shrink)

In this paper, I draw on Heidegger’s phenomenology of “moods” (_Stimmungen_) to interpret loneliness as a diffused and atmospheric feeling-state that often undergirds the lives of older adults, shaping the ways in which they are attuned to and make sense of the world. I focus specifically on residents in long-term care facilities to show how the social isolation and lockdown measures of the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically intensified the mood. The aim is to shed light on how profound and totalizing the (...) experience has been for residents. Making use of Heidegger’s account of the affective “collapse” or “breakdown” (_Zusammenbruch_) of meaning, I argue that when older adults are functionally locked in their rooms for months at a time and cut off from the orienting routines and rhythms of the relational world, the result is a crumbling of the fundamental meaning-structures that constitute subjectivity. The global sense of abandonment and disconnection strips away the possibility for self-understanding, and residents are often left confused and abandoned to an existence that has been drained of meaning and significance. (shrink)

Using the theft of Indigenous land and territory and the destruction of Indigenous political authorities as an example, this paper examines two theories of territorial rights in relation to their treatment of historical territorial injustices. We apply Simmons’s historical theory of rights over territory, and the occupancy/self-determination theory of territorial rights associated with Moore and Stilz, to three problems: the Continuity Problem, the Particularity Problem, and the Distributive Justice Problem. We argue that the occupancy/self-determination theory is more promising for resolving (...) all three, but that the historical title theory can also be modified to accommodate this insight. (shrink)

This book explores new phenomenological research on the structural disruptions of spatiality, temporality, and understanding in the context of anxiety and depressive disorders. It offers critiques of mainstream psychopathology, taking a transdisciplinary approach to the relationship between mental illness and self-constitution.

A keen athlete in his late forties, philosophy professor Kevin Aho hadn't given much thought to his own mortality, until he suffered a sudden heart attack that left him fighting for his life. Confronted with death for the first time, he realized that the things he thought gave his life meaning, such as his independence or his ability to plan his own future, were in tatters. Aho turned to those thinkers who have reflected deeply on the meaning of life and (...) the anxiety of living when every heartbeat might be your last: the existentialists. Armed with insights from the likes of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and de Beauvoir, he found new meaning and comfort in a view of life that strives for authenticity and accepts aging and death as part of what makes life worthwhile. Existentialism asks us to face the frailty of our existence and to live with a sense of urgency and gratitude toward its manifold beauties. It is only then that we can be released from patterns of self-deception and begin to appreciate what truly matters in our fleeting, precious lives. (shrink)

This book offers cutting edge research on the modifications and disruptions of bodily experience in the context of anxiety, depression, trauma, chronic illness, pain, and aging. It presents original contributions in applied phenomenology, biomedical ethics, and the use of medical technologies.

_Theological and Philosophical Responses to Syncretism: Beyond the Mirage of Pure Religion_ by Patrik Fridlund and Mika Vähäkangas elaborates the consequences of admitting the unavoidable syncretic nature of religions in theology and philosophy of religion.

Provides an accessible and scholarly introduction to the core ideas of the existentialist tradition. Kevin Aho draws on a wide range of existentialist thinkers in chapters centering on the key themes of freedom, being-in-the-world, alienation, nihilism, anxiety and authenticity. He also addresses important but often overlooked issues in the canon of existentialism, with discussions devoted to the role of embodiment, the movement's contribution to ethics, politics, and environmental and comparative philosophies, as well as its influence on contemporary psychiatry and psychotherapy. (...) The enduring relevance of existentialism is shown by applying existentialist ideas to contemporary philosophical discussions of interest to a wide audience. The book covers secular thinkers such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, and Beauvoir as well as religious authors, such as Buber, Dostoevsky, Marcel, and Kierkegaard"--Back cover. (shrink)

In his Contributions to Philosophy, Martin Heidegger introduces "acceleration" as one of the three symptoms--along with "calculation" and the "outbreak of massiveness"--of our technological way of "being-in-the-world." In this article, I unpack the relationship between these symptoms and draw a twofold conclusion. First, interpreting acceleration in terms of time pathologies, I suggest the self is becoming increasingly fragmented and emotionally overwhelmed from chronic sensory arousal and time pressure. This experience makes it difficult for us to qualitatively distinguish what matters to (...) us in our everyday lives, resulting in a pervasive cultural mood of indifference, what Heidegger calls "profound boredom." Second, by drawing on Heidegger's hermeneutic method, I argue that the practice of mainstream psychology, by adopting the reductive methodology of the empirical sciences, largely ignores our accelerated socio-historical situation, resulting in therapeutic models that have a tendency to construct and perpetuate the very pathologies the psychologist is seeking to treat. (shrink)

This paper attempts to reconcile, what appear to be, two conflicting accounts of authenticity in Heidegger’s thought. Authenticity in Being and Time is commonly interpreted in ‘existentialist’ terms as willful commitment and resoluteness in the face of one’s own death but, by the late 1930’s, is reintroduced in terms of Gelassenheit, as a non-willful openness that “lets beings be.” By employing Heidegger’s conception of authentic historicality , understood as the retrieval of Dasein’s past, and drawing on his writings on Hölderlin (...) in the 1930’s and 1940’s, I suggest that the ancient interpretation of leisure and festivity may play an important role in unifying these conflicting accounts. Genuine leisure, interpreted as a form of play , frees us from inauthentic busy-ness and gives us an opening to face the abyssal nature of our own being and the mystery that “beings are” in the first place. To this end, leisure re-connects us with wonder as the original temperament of Western thought. In leisurely wonder, the authentic self does not seek purposive mastery and control over beings but calmly accepts the unsettledness of being and is, as a result, allowed into the original openness or space of play of time that lets beings emerge-into-presence on their own terms. (shrink)

This paper integrates personal narratives with the methods of phenomenology in order to draw some general conclusions about ‘what it means’ and ‘what it feels like’ to be depressed. The analysis has three parts. First, it explores the ways in which depression disrupts everyday experiences of spatial orientation and motility. This disruption makes it difficult for the person to move and perform basic functional tasks, resulting in a collapse or contraction of the life-world. Second, it illustrates how depression creates a (...) situational atmosphere of emotional indifference that reduces the person’s ability to qualitatively distinguish what matters in his or her life because nothing stands out as significant or important anymore. In this regard, depression is distinct from other feelings because it is not directed towards particular objects or situations but to the world as a whole. Finally, the paper examines how depression diminishes the possibility for ‘self-creation’ or ‘self-making’. Restricted by the illness, depression becomes something of a destiny, preventing the person from being open and free to access a range of alternative self-interpretations, identities, and possible ways of being-in-the-world. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 63, Issue 3, pp 257 - 292 It is commonly assumed that Aristotle defines a sense by reference to its ability to perceive the items that are proper to that sense, and that he explains perceptions of unities of these items, and discriminations between them, by reference to what is called the ‘common sense’. This paper argues in contrast that Aristotle defines a sense by reference, not only to its ability to perceive the proper items, but also (...) to its ability to discriminate between them, and thus aims to show that Aristotle’s theory of sense perception is basically a theory of perceptual discrimination. (shrink)

This paper examines the normative justification for special rights for Indigenous peoples whose traditional territories straddle contemporary international borders. Examining the Mohawks of Akwesasne (Quebec, Ontario, and New York state) and the Tohono O’odham (Arizona and Sonora, Mexico) as cases, I demonstrate how state claims to territorial jurisdiction and border regulation often interfere with the lives of Indigenous people whose social, cultural, economic, spiritual and political practices and relationships cluster across contemporary international boundaries. Through the concept of group occupancy interests, (...) I argue that members of Indigenous nations whose territories straddle borders possess special rights to access and use lands presently claimed by states of which they are not recognized citizens. Moreover, I demonstrate how border-straddling Indigenous nations challenge the unlimited sovereignty of contemporary states with respect to border policy: the occupancy and self-determination interests of Indigenous peoples may ground the moral rights of their communities to co-manage international border crossings with states. Finally, I argue that collective interests in cross-border political identities and self-determination can ground the rights of Indigenous peoples to form unified cross-border jurisdictional units that demand recognition by states, alongside the rights of Indigenous peoples to regulate group membership. (shrink)

The instrumental classification of depression made possible by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and the widespread pharmacological approach to treatment in mainstream biopsychiatry has generated a cottage industry of criticism. This paper explores the potential shortcomings of the DSM/bio-psychiatric model and introduces the value of philosophical counseling—specifically by means of integrating the insights of Existentialism and Buddhism—as a way to overcome a number of diagnostic and methodological problems. Philosophical counseling, in this regard, is not overly concerned with the objective question (...) of “What we are?” as biophysical beingswith overt behaviors but with a more fundamental question, namely, “How we are?” that is, how do we experience our existence as finite, impermanent beings, how does this experience shape and determine depressive episodes, and how can we come to accept our own finitude and impermanence? (shrink)

A 2016 article in the Journal of Consumer Research argues that busyness has become a status symbol. In earlier societies, such as the 19th century Thorstein Veblen describes in his Theory of the Leisure Class, the wealthy conspicuously avoided work. They saw idleness as an ideal. By contrast, contemporary Americans praise being overworked. They see busy individuals as possessing rare and desirable characteristics, such as competence and ambition. -/- To respond philosophically to our new overworked overlords and status icons, we (...) need only return to the 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard is known for his philosophical account of boredom, which is often associated with idleness. If busyness is the opposite of idleness, perhaps he can diagnose busyness also. (shrink)

Heidegger's assessment of animals in his 1929/30 Freiburg lecture course, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, has been the focal point of much recent debate. In this course, it appears Heidegger preserves the prejudices of metaphysical humanism by establishing an opposition between animal "behavior" (Benehmen) and human "comportment" (Verhalten) to the extent that humans, unlike animals, embody an understanding of being and, therefore, encounter beings as such. In this essay, I suggest this distinction can be properly understood only by turning to (...) Heidegger's earliest Freiburg lectures where the question of "factical life" (das faktische Leben) is explicitly addressed. In these lectures, I argue Heidegger develops a three-tiered distinction that allows us to differentiate human life from animal life: (1) Humans, unlike animals, can articulate how things in the world matter to them in terms of where they fit in a meaningful nexus of social relations. (2) By becoming absorbed in these everyday social relations, human life has a unique tendency to secure itself from the abyssal structure of its own temporal "movement" (Bewegung). (3) Human life has the capacity to announce its abyssal structure, an announcement that affects us as anxiety, and makes it possible for us to own up to our temporal and historical constitution. Finally, I suggest that, for Heidegger, any interpretation of animality--whether anthropocentric or not--is itself made possible by a horizonal "event" that is more-than-human, that is always prior to and makes possible any understanding of being whatsoever. (shrink)

Drawing on the work of Fowers, Richardson, and Slife, this commentary offers an overview and critical assessment of the theory and practice of virtue ethics in psychology. The commentary highlights the importance of a hermeneutic or relational understanding of selfhood and the value of interpreting human meanings within the context of a shared tradition. I conclude with some critical remarks that focus on reconciling the assumptions of naturalism with hermeneutic philosophy, the issue of conservatism in virtue ethics, and problems of (...) access and efficacy in approaches to psychotherapy. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Finland is internationally known as one of the leading centers of twentieth century analytic philosophy. This volume offers for the first time an overall survey of the Finnish analytic school. The rise of this trend is illustrated by original articles of Edward Westermarck, Eino Kaila, Georg Henrik von Wright, and Jaakko Hintikka. Contributions of Finnish philosophers are then systematically discussed in the fields of logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, history of philosophy, ethics and social philosophy. Metaphilosophical reflections on (...) the nature of philosophy are highlighted by the Finnish dialogue between analytic philosophy, phenomenology, pragmatism, and critical theory. (shrink)

One of the traditional metaphysical assumptions that Heidegger's Being and Time challenges is that the disembodied 'theoretical' standpoint has priority over the embodied 'practical' standpoint. Heidegger argues that any act of theoretical reflection is derivative of pre-reflective social practices that we are "always already" familiar with. Some contemporary critics insist they are continuing this project by exploring aspects of our concrete practices that Heidegger's analysis allegedly overlooks, particularly by focusing on the role that the body plays in everyday life. In (...) this dissertation, I address these criticisms and suggest that they contribute to Heidegger's project only on the ontic level and in no way diminish the original contribution of his philosophy. Heidegger is not overly concerned with regional investigations into the various ways that human beings meaningfully encounter things in the world. Heidegger is concerned with the being of beings , with fundamental ontology, which asks the question: "How come meaning?" Or, put in another way, "What are the conditions for the possibility of any meaning, any intelligibility whatsoever?" ;For Heidegger, human existence as Dasein is, ultimately, neither a body-subject with emotions, perceptions, instincts, or social habits nor a self-enclosed mind. Rather, Dasein is more like a 'mass' term, referring to a shared, unfolding background of cultural relations: norms, customs, institutions, historical events, and equipment. This public background is already "there," prior to the appearance of the body, and it is structured temporally, constituting a horizon, "clearing" , or "space of free play" in terms of which things can show up as meaning something to me. I argue that it is only by means of this prior clearing of intelligibility that I can make sense of my embodied practices and that bodies can initially emerge-into-presence as the kind of things that they are. (shrink)

Soren Kierkegaard (1813‐1855) is primarily known as a moral philosopher. This chapter looks at his contributions to ethics, and shows how Kierkegaard's writings can contribute to epistemology, metaphysics, and other areas of contemporary philosophy. In order to contextualize Kierkegaard's contributions to philosophy the chapter briefly surveys some of the ways Kierkegaard is connected to nineteenth‐century philosophers, as well as classical figures like Socrates. It considers Kierkegaard's contributions to moral philosophy in two ways. First, the chapter briefly recounts Kierkegaard's suspicion of (...) Hegelian social ethics as discussed in Fear and Trembling. While Works of Love contains much of Kierkegaard's mature ethical thought, the former text may still serve as an introduction to his approach. Second, the chapter discusses several specific ways Kierkegaard can contribute to contemporary ethics. It also considers future directions for Kierkegaard scholarship and identifies some other areas of philosophy to which Kierkegaard's writings might contribute. (shrink)

Neitzke-Spruill et al. (2025) offer an important overview of the ethical considerations around the use of touch within psychedelic assisted therapies (PAT) and MDMA-assisted therapy (MDMA-AT). Thei...

In Maori thought, the possibility exists for a sort of lateral thinking that does not necessarily directly respond to another’s utterance or opinion but that considers some of the creative and arbitrary themes that arise. In this article, I employ this counter-colonial speculation, keeping in mind a Maori worldview whilst thinking in the wake of Elizabeth Rata’s “Ethnic Ideologies in New Zealand Education: What’s Wrong with Kaupapa Maori?” The speculative powers that Maori have at our disposal here have undoubtedly been (...) employed in a number of ways throughout Maori history; here, I use them in a way that does not directly respond to a prompt. Although Rata’s true aim is to critique kaupapa Maori, she inadvertently brings my attention to a particular characteristic of her writing—the suffix -ism. The fact that it saturates her writing in this article leads me to consider the broader issues associated with instrumentalist language, and the impact of the -ism on a Maori relationship with things in the world. It emerges that, although Rata may be controversial for Maori in her views, her writing is useful for some unintended reasons, as it prompts some thinking around the appropriateness of the -ism for Maori. (shrink)

En partant principalement du recueil de R. Sugranyes de Franch , Économie et développement. Répertoire des documents épiscopaux des cinq continents , Fribourg , 1997, l’auteur analyse quelques déclarations des Conférences épiscopales en matière démographique . Privilégiant l’approche systémique des problèmes, les évêques refusent toute analyse causale simpliste, amenant à modifier un seul facteur, indépendamment des autres, à savoir la fécondité. Réfléchissant à partir de la création de l’homme, créé à l’image et à la ressemblance de Dieu, et à partir (...) de la théologie de l’incarnation, toutes deux inspiratrices d’une éthique de responsabilité , ils réprouvent les moyens qui portent atteinte au droit à la vie, à l’intégrité corporelle, à la responsabilité individuelle en matière de parenté responsable et à la dignité humaine en tant que « fin en soi ». Mais l’unanimité des conférences épiscopales se fissure à propos des méthodes contraceptives modernes, ce qui amène l’auteur à faire quelques propositions pour sortir de l’impasse. (shrink)