This article concentrates on a number of publications such as Marcel Gauchet, Le Désenchantement du monde. Une histoire politique de la religion, Paris, Gallimard 1984. Luc Ferry, L'homme-Dieu ou le sens de la vie , Gianni Vattimo, Credere di credere, Garanti Editore 1996. Gabriel Ringlet, Evangile d’un libre penseur. Dieu serait-il laïque? Paris, Albin Michel 1998. All these books are concerned with the theme of secularization. Gauchet's eminal book sees Christianity as “the religion of the exit of religion”. This means (...) that Christianity itself has been the main influence in changing the very relationship between the Infinite and the finite, between God and the world. In stressing the divine Transcendence, the world becomes fully autonomous. Ferry recognizes the impact of Christianity on contemporary culture. Christianity is not just the religion of the incarnation of God; it is also the religion of the divinization of man. According to Ferry, contemporary humanism has many transcendental traits which are derived from its roots in Christianity. The author thinks that there is large support for the idea that Christianity and contemporary humanism are not so opposed to oneanother as many have thought. It might rather be the case that those two phenomena are sides of the same coin, at a different period of critical awareness. It would follow from this that religion can only survive if it takes far more seriously the challenges addressed by it by contemporary humanism, and starts to see in it not so much its opposite as its ally. All this is the result of a major shift in the very meaning of the word “God” in Christianity as the religion of the Incarnation. (shrink)

Lieven Boeve seems to take it for granted that there is an opposition between the 'modern' concern for universality and our 'postmodern' awareness of invincible particularity. Christian religion however is, according to Whitehead, 'a religion seeking a metaphysics'. Starting from its particular experience it throws light upon our existence as a whole and even upon cosmic reality . If the God of Israel is the true God, He is also the God of heaven and earth. There is in christian religion (...) itself an unavoidable drive towards universality . Lieven Boeve agrees that religion should not be relegated to orthopraxis and revelational positivism. True religion cannot give up its claim 'to be true'. Religion focusses more on particularity; philosophy strives for a wider generality. But the two should not be opposed. (shrink)

Exploration of Alfred North Whitehead's influence on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's ontology of nature.

This is an excerpt from the contentThe Khmer Rouge Tribunal is charged with prosecuting senior leaders and those most responsible for mass crimes committed in Cambodia during the 1970s. It has a unique structure as a court formally embedded in the Cambodian domestic system but with international participation by the UN. Under the agreement between Cambodia and the UN, the Tribunal has been composed of both local and international judges. On July 19, 2007, the prosecutors submitted a list of five (...) persons to the Tribunal’s co-investigating judges and requested that they be indicted and brought to trial.The current volume III of a series of volumes in this collection provides for the final trial evidence submitted by the co-lawyers for civil parties and the final closing statements by the co-prosecutors as of 2009 in the trial of Kaing Guek Eav , chairman of Tuol Sleng prison, Security Center 21 where at least 12,272 ‘enemies of the revolution’ were sent to be “smashed” . T. (shrink)

This handbook offers an in depth and comprehensive state of the art survey of the linguistic domains of modality and mood. An international team of experts in the field examine the full range of methodological and theoretical approaches to the many facets of the phenomena involved. Following an opening section that provides an introduction and historical background to the topic, the volume is divided into five parts. Parts 1 and 2 present the basic linguistic facts about the systems of modality (...) and mood in the languages of the world, covering the semantics and the expression of different subtypes of modality and mood respectively. The authors also examine the interaction of modality and mood, mutually and with other semantic categories such as aspect, time, negation, and evidentiality. In Part 3, authors discuss the features of the modality and mood systems in five typologically different language groups, while chapters in Part 4 deal with wider perspectives on modality and mood: diachrony, areality, first language acquisition, and sign language. Finally, Part 5 looks at how modality and mood are handled in different theoretical approaches: formal syntax, functional linguistics, cognitive linguistics and construction grammar, and formal semantics. (shrink)

This paper provides preliminary insights into the process of sense-making and developing meaning with regard to corporate social responsibility (CSR) within 18 Dutch companies. It is based upon a research project carried out within the framework of the Dutch National Research Programme on CSR. The paper questions how change agents promoting CSR within these companies made sense of the meaning of CSR. How did they use language (and other instruments) to stimulate and underpin the contextual essence of CSR? Why did (...) they do that in this particular way? What were the consequences of this approach for shaping the process of CSR in their company? Did their efforts contribute to a new way of thinking and acting or was it merely putting old wine in new barrels? A preliminary conclusion is that change agents use above all linguistic artefacts (words and notions) and carry out practical projects while constructing meaning. Still, the meaning of meaning itself remains highly intangible, situational and personality related. (shrink)

Live streaming platforms such as Twitch that facilitate participatory online communities have become an integral part of game culture. Users of these platforms are predominantly teenagers and young adults, who increasingly spend time socializing online rather than offline. This shift to online behavior can be a double-edged sword when coping with difficult periods in life such as relationship issues, the death of a loved one, or job loss. On the one hand, platforms such as Twitch offer pleasure, distraction, and relatedness (...) with others to help with coping, and the increased sense of anonymity and control could stimulate self-disclosure. However, the prevalence of trolling and memes may also discourage people from opening up, and relationships that are built online—especially those with microcelebrity streamers—could be perceived as more meaningful than they actually are. To create a deeper understanding of Twitch as a new media platform embedded in game culture, and how users perceive its potential as a coping mechanism, we have conducted a first exploration by means of a survey. The questions focused on general Twitch behavior, the difficult period in life, and the role of Twitch during this period. It was distributed online among people who considered themselves active Twitch users, and who had gone through a difficult period. Eighty-four participants completed the entire survey. The majority of participants indicated that Twitch helped them cope, and that it became a larger part of their lives during the difficult period compared to regular viewing. Recurring themes were the entertainment, distraction, and sense of community Twitch offers. Viewing behavior during difficult periods appears to remain largely the same in terms of the streamers that are watched, although time spent viewing increases, and there is a change toward more time spent actively watching rather than having the stream on in the background. With this work, we aim to create a deeper understanding of Twitch as a platform, and its importance for gamers that are going through difficult periods in life. (shrink)

A systematic study of testimony rooted in contemporary continental philosophy and drawing on literary case studies. From analytic epistemology to gender theory, testimony is a major topic in philosophy today. Yet, one distinctive approach to testimony has not been fully appreciated: the recent history of contemporary continental philosophy offers a rich source for another approach to testimony. In this book, Gert-Jan van der Heiden argues that a continental philosophy of testimony can be developed that is guided by those forms of (...) bearing witness that attest to limit experiences of human existence, in which the human is rendered mute, speechless, or robbed of a common understanding. In the first part, Van der Heiden explores this sense of testimony in a reading of several literary texts, ranging from Plato’s literary inventions to those of Kierkegaard, Melville, Soucy, and Mortier. In the second part, based on the orientation offered by the literary experiments, Van der Heiden offers a more systematic account of testimony in which he distinguishes and analyzes four basic elements of testimony. In the third part, he shows what this analysis implies for the question of the truth and the truthfulness of testimony. In his discussion with philosophers such as Heidegger, Derrida, Lyotard, Agamben, Foucault, Ricoeur, and Badiou, Van der Heiden also provides an overview of how the problem of testimony emerges in a number of thinkers pivotal to twentieth- and twenty-first-century thought. “The Voice of Misery is a special book. Van der Heiden has presented an argument that is poised to challenge discourse in analytic philosophy, reshape approaches in continental philosophy, and give new orientation to interdisciplinary research in continental philosophy and literary theory. The book will find a large readership across the discipline of philosophy and in several areas of the humanities.” — Theodore George, author of Tragedies of Spirit: Tracing Finitude in Hegel’s Phenomenology. (shrink)

After more than 15 years of study, the 1/f noise or complex-systems approach to cognitive science has delivered promises of progress, colorful verbiage, and statistical analyses of phenomena whose relevance for cognition remains unclear. What the complex-systems approach has arguably failed to deliver are concrete insights about how people perceive, think, decide, and act. Without formal models that implement the proposed abstract concepts, the complex-systems approach to cognitive science runs the danger of becoming a philosophical exercise in futility. The complex-systems (...) approach can be informative and innovative, but only if it is implemented as a formal model that allows concrete prediction, falsification, and comparison against more traditional approaches. (shrink)

Contextualist moral philosophers criticise hands-off liberal theories of justice for abstracting from the cultural context in which people make choices. Will Kymlicka and Joseph Carens, for example, demonstrate that these theories are disadvantageous to cultural minorities who want to pursue their own way of life. I argue that Pierre Bourdieu's critique of moral reason radicalises contextualist moral philosophy by giving it a sociological turn. In Bourdieu's view it is not enough to provide marginalised groups or subgroups with equal access to (...) public institutions and specific cultural rights—in some cases this may in fact be detrimental. He contends that scientists, politicians and other intellectuals have a duty to take seriously the social presuppositions of free deliberate choice and public opinion and to support cultural minorities with instruments to liberate themselves from their often precarious situation. (shrink)

The last two volumes of Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer series are concerned with developing a theory of use. This article offers a critical assessment of the two concepts, use and form-of-life, that form the heart of this theory: how do these two notions offer a solution to the problem of bare life that forms the core of the Homo Sacer series? First, the author describes how the original problem of bare life is taken up in The Use of Bodies and (...) how the notion of use offers an important additional characteristic of bare life. Second, inspired by Foucault’s analysis of ancient Cynicism, the author discusses in which sense the type of ‘solution’ Agamben offers to the problem of bare life might be seen as an heir to ancient Cynicism and how this interpretation clarifies his connection of form-of-life and exile. Third, the author critically assesses the different usages of use that we can find in Agamben, by comparing how Franciscan usus, Pauline chrēsis and Platonic chrēsis are taken up in his analysis. Fourth, following Foucault, the author deepens the Platonic sense of use and its relation to taking care of justice. The article concludes with a critical assessment of Agamben’s reading of Plato’s myth of Er, in which the motifs of use, exile, and care are gathered. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn The Netherlands, the public funding of a number of health care services is controversial. What can we learn from this about the moral concerns that underlie these judgements? And, if there is anything to learn, can we use this improved understanding to scrutinise the adequacy of particular decisions concerning the public funding of health care services? In the present paper, I will analyse three cases: corrective surgey, In Vitro Fertilisation and liver transplantation. I will summarise the arguments that have (...) been used to support or to challenge the public funding of these services. I will then assess the merits of Daniels’fair equality of opportunity account of justice in health care. Can this account improve our understanding of the moral concerns underlying our judgements about the public funding of these services? Can it serve to scrutinise the adequacy of particular decisions that are made concerning the public funding of health care services? My answer to both questions will be a qualified yes. Daniels’account can provide guidance, but not because we can deductively infer from it what is right and what is wrong. Instead, I will argue for a more casuistic use of the concept of fair equality of opportunity. (shrink)

The view that persons are entitled to respect because of their moral agency is commonplace in contemporary moral theory. What exactly this respect entails, however, is far less uncontroversial. In this book, Van der Rijt argues powerfully that this respect for persons’ moral agency must also encompass respect for their subjective moral judgments – even when these judgments can be shown to be fundamentally flawed. Van der Rijt scrutinises the role persons’ subjective moral judgments play within the context of coercion (...) and domination. His fresh, original analysis of Kant’s third formulation of the Categorical Imperative reveals how these judgments are intimately connected to a person’s dignity. The result is an insightful new account of coercion, a novel Kantian reformulation of the republican notion of non-domination and a compelling, innovative argument in favour of retributive justice. "In this admirably clear and insightful work, Van der Rijt develops an original account of coercion and dignity. On the basis of his analysis of the relation between these two concepts, he also provides an intriguing new angle on the nature of republicanism. I recommend this book to anyone interested in freedom and power and their roles in normative political theory." Ian Carter - University of Pavia "In this carefully argued and original study Jan-Willem van der Rijt offers an analysis of coercion, a broadly Kantian argument that coercion is an affront to dignity, and an illuminating contrast with Philip Pettit's republicanism. A most welcome contribution." Thomas E. Hill, Jr. - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "Jan-Willem van der Rijt has written a well argued, original book that will prove to be extremely helpful for the philosophical inquiry of the relationship between coercion and human dignity as well as for the assessment of republicanism and its consequences." Ralf Stoecker - University of Potsdam. (shrink)

This paper examines the increasingly popular view that new insights from the science of subjective well-being (SSWB) should play a prominent role in the determination of public policy. Though there are instrumental reasons for caring about societal happiness too, these political aspirations of the SSWB appear to be mostly intrinsically motivated. As the intrinsic value of happiness is endorsed across the political happiness as a fitting response to the state of the world, authenticity, and merit – it is shown that (...) different views of the conditionality of the intrinsic value of happiness have widely diverging policy implications, which greatly undermines the political aspirations of the SSWB. (shrink)

Symptomatic of the crisis of the current global political order are the millions of displaced that have fled their homes but are not allowed to enter the country in which they seek refuge. Instead, they are placed in camps. To understand the site of the camp and the bare life it produces, testimonies of refugees are indispensable. This essay aims to examine and listen to these testimonies by, first, introducing the notion of testimony and some of the characteristics of the (...) testimony of refugees; second, examining what it means to listen to testimony and which role is played therein by the narrative, literary structure of testimony; and, third, by interpreting the form of life to which the testimonies of the camp attest, which several witnesses describe as a life in “limbo.” This essay concludes with some brief remarks on the relation between experience, truth, and language in testimony. (shrink)

Departing from two diverging lines of inquiry of testimony that characterize philosophy today, this article aims to show what a hermeneutic phenomenology of witnessing and testimony is and how this approach to testimony offers a new framework to understand witnessing and testimony, which also repositions the present-day main lines of inquiry of testimony. The first section offers a critical assessment of the state of the art in the philosophy of testimony today and the second section reinterprets the two main diverging (...) lines of inquiry as a conflict. The major part of this article is devoted to a hermeneutic-phenomenological account of witnessing and testimony. The third and fourth sections describe several relations between subject matter, witness, acts of bearing witness, and addressee, to develop this hermeneutic-phenomenological framework and in the process also shows which place is awarded to the two main lines of the present-day inquiry within this framework. (shrink)

This article investigates how companies make sense of CSR. It is based on an explorative comparative case study of 18 companies in the Netherlands using background information, interviews and annual reports. Initially, the sensemaking process of CSR is guided and coordinated by change agents who are specifically appointed to explore the implementation of CSR in their company. These change agents initiate the CSR process within their own organisations. The meaning they develop stems from their personal and organisational values and frames (...) of reference. By attuning the vocabulary of CSR to the language of their colleagues, they aim to gain support for this undertaking in their organisation. This sensemaking procedure can be divided into pragmatic, external, procedural, policy‐oriented and value‐driven processes. The capability of an organisation to embed CSR is the result of trial and error, personal preferences and the use of language by the change agent that fits the (dynamic) situation at hand. Thus, each organisation needs a tailor‐made approach to implement CSR successfully. (shrink)

Several recent analyses of torture focus on the humiliation torture inflicts on the victim as the principal evil inherent in torture. This paper challenges this focus by arguing that the connection between torture and humiliation is not a necessary one. Though it is true that most contemporary usages of torture humiliate, it is shown that this is dependent on both the context of the torture and the specific means of torture applied. It is demonstrated that, in certain circumstances, torture is (...) feasible without inflicting the humiliation contemporary accounts of torture identify. At a theoretical level, it may even be possible to use torture as a way of explicitly expressing respect. The paper, therefore, warns against hinging the entire case against torture on humiliation and argues that we should scrutinize other ways in which torture may violate dignity, too. (shrink)

_Phenomenological Perspectives on Plurality_ offers twelve essays that discuss how the question of plurality is thought in contemporary continental philosophy. Its essays investigate how this issue influences topics in ontology, aesthetics, and social and political philosophy.

This book advances our understanding of the nature, grounds and limits of human dignity by connecting it with Kant's notion of an ideal moral community, or Kingdom of Ends. It features original essays by leading Kant scholars and moral and political philosophers from around the world. Although Kant's influential injunction to treat humanity as an end in itself and never merely as a means has garnered the most attention among those interested in analyzing human dignity with a Kantian lens, Kant (...) himself places much more emphasis on the Kingdom of Ends as crucial for defining human dignity. The chapters in this collection focus not only on interpretive issues related to the Kingdom of Ends, but also on practical applications that have the potential to advance discussions about the nature and foundations of rights, the content of moral principles, the importance of moral ideals and attitudes and the nature of moral motivation. Exploring and connecting the ideas of human dignity and the Kingdom of Ends significantly deepens our moral understanding, advances discussions in moral and political philosophy and enhances our appreciation of Kant's moral theory. Human Dignity and the Kingdom of Ends: Kantian Perspectives and Practical Applications will appeal to scholars and advanced students of Kant, moral philosophy, political philosophy, and political theory. (shrink)

This paper analyses the republican notion of non-domination from the viewpoint of individual dignity. It determines the aspect of individual dignity that republicans are concerned with and scrutinises how it is safeguarded by non-domination. I argue that the notion of non-domination as it is formulated by Pettit contains a number of ambiguities that need to be addressed. I discuss these ambiguities and argue for specific solutions that place great importance on a person’s moral beliefs and his status as a moral (...) being amongst others. Furthermore, I argue that the impunity interpretation is to be favoured over the immunity interpretation of non-domination. I show that whilst these solutions accord well with many important republican tenets, they have other implications that contradict known republican positions. In particular, I show there is both room and a need for retributivism within republicanism. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

The presence of the kingdom of God is usually associated with the theology of the Synoptic Gospels, but this article describes how the concept of kingdom also plays an important role in the Gospel of John, as Busse also argues. It is argued that the Johannine group identify themselves as children of the King and regard themselves as members of the kingdom, of which Jesus, the Messiah, is the major representative on Earth. What is expected of a king in ancient (...) Hellenistic times is true of Jesus. He has power, gives and interprets commandments, judges, saves and protects. Although these events are historically set in a politically tense situation between the Jews and Romans, Jesus' kingship is from above, revealing God's narrative of salvation and eternal life in the world below. In this way God's transcendental narrative of love, life, truth and light serves as a heuristic tool to understand and interpret events in the world below. (shrink)