Os ensinamentos de Jacques Maritainpara com os direitos humanosafirmam a dignidade humana como um valor caríssimo a ser preservado, bem como a liberdade da pessoa humana. Nessa vereda, o ser humano é reconhecido como tal pela sua natureza, portanto, sujeito de direitos e deveres. Com isso, a pessoa humana, dotada de razão, deve ser capaz de viver emsociedade de forma harmônica, buscando o bem comum e fazendo uso do direito, além dopositivismo, ou seja, fundamentando-se na Lei Natural. Primou-se pela utilização (...) do método dedutivo e técnicas de coleta de dados bibliográficos, documentaise via internet. (shrink)

El arte es una vía de conexión entre el corazón del mundo y el corazón del ser humano. Cuerpo, mente y alma son expresiones de un Espíritu unificado que habita el universo, y que puede tomar vida y manifestarse de un modo trascendente y resplandecer en las pequeñas cosas de la vida. Captar ese Todo Unificado es posible desde las posibilidades liberadoras que brinda el pensamiento complejo. Dado que el trabajo espiritual y los desafíos de la psicología profunda son aspectos (...) interconectados de una misma realidad, el artículo aborda el tema de la dimensión psicológica del arte y de la belleza. Más que referirse a la naturaleza intrínseca de la obra de arte, el artículo toma el tema de la actitud mental con la que el observador enfrenta dicha realidad. Se desarrolla aquí un análisis sobre las vías de acceso a la experiencia estética y al inconsciente colectivo. (shrink)

Suelen hallarse diversas argumentaciones respecto del Pensamiento Complejo; pero la oferta se restringe cuando queremos imaginar cuáles son las características que tiene el sujeto que sirve de soporte a esa epistemología. El artículo se refiere a las características del sujeto de la Complejidad considerándolo como un emergente de un modelo teórico transdisciplinar -que también se presenta en esta publicación-. En esta propuesta, el ejercicio de la reflexividad favorece el acceso a metacogniciones que van disponiendo al sujeto a un tipo de (...) convivencia basada en una ‘conciencia planetaria’. (shrink)

La autora argumenta que la experiencia de vincularse con un animal desde cierta paridad -como ‘tutor-amigo’ de una mascota-, es una de las experiencias vinculares más significativas en la comunicación humano/animal, y que ella muestra la artificialidad de las barreras que la sociedad erige frente al fenómeno animal. Desarrolla en el artículo el imaginario psico-social en torno a los animales, su investidura significante para la existencia humana, con virtudes elevadas a la vez que como un habitante amenazante para nuestro inconsciente, (...) y advierte sobre el daño psicológico para el ser humano al permitir el abuso de animales. Plantea finalmente que la nueva cosmovisión de la complejidad permite dar espacio a una mirada integradora en un universo de seres vivos. (shrink)

El viaje ha tenido un papel fundamental en la azarosa supervivencia humana, sin embargo nuestro paradigma es rico en quietudes y pautas fijas. De pronto, los escenarios se trastocan, sobreviene la crisis y nada será como era entonces. Todos estamos en tránsito, de conocimientos, de aprendizajes, de identidades, todos estamos forzados a ser migrantes, aunque la cabeza y el corazón intenten apegarse a una concepción del mundo y de la vida que pertenece a otra época ya pasada. El tercer milenio (...) le ha dado buenas razones de emergencia a una comunidad trashumante cuyo origen es la misma inestabilidad a la que tenemos que enfrentarnos. Ese flujo es el cambio de paradigma. ElYo haciéndosees un Yo siempre en tránsito hacia otra parte. Pero para generar este paisaje quieto el sistema dispone de una serie de controles. Nuestra cultura ‘reacciona’ negativamente, desconfía del nomadismo, como también del extranjero. El desorden es una noción compleja, como lo es el encuentro entre muchos azares, que son generadores del caos. (shrink)

El artículo considera el aspecto socio-psicológico y epistemológico de las utopías, y se plantea conectar utopía con la emoción. Revisa las condiciones de modernización económica y democratización que han derivado en el descreimiento de las utopías, y los valores que dotan de identidad a los sujetos que las adoptan. Se pone el acento en la necesidad de reformular la concepción del fenómeno del poder y de sus prácticas, y en la trascendencia que la tarea educativa tiene de re-encantar de utopías (...) a las nuevas generaciones. (shrink)

“comprenderlo todo, no significa personarlo todo”(Peter Burke)Einstein dijo una vez con relación al destino que «el Universo no juega con nosotros a los dados». Con ello quería decir que simplemente el azar no existe, y que además se trataba de una de las más descabelladas ideas fabricadas por la mente humana. Karl G. Jung, un apasionado defensor de la Astrología, definió al destino como «aquello de nosotros mismos que no conocemos». Y es justamente esto lo que le tocaría vivir al (...) Coronel Mi.. (shrink)

En este artículo se parte del reconocimiento de la crisis del actual modelo de desarrollo y del paradigma cartesiano, que han promovido la conciencia entrampada del “guerrero”. Desde la incorporación del pensamiento complejo a través de ejercicios reflexivos, es posible difundir una mirada transdisciplinar que permita enfrentar los problemas de una “sociedad de riesgo”, incentivando la conformación dialógica de un “mundo de la vida saludable”. La difusión de este nuevo humanismo depende de la efectividad de la Reforma Educativa que aún (...) está pendiente. Para ello, se requiere educar sujetos reflexivos, que asuman la propia multidimensionalidad, dispuestos a incorporar los nuevos aprendizajes que ofrece la sociedad globalizada. (shrink)

Este comentario sobre el texto “Sin visiones nos perdemos” parte considerando la premisa del Pensamiento Complejo que refiere a que el ‘sujeto’ (la autora) y el ‘objeto’ (el texto) están inseparablemente unidos. En el método “implexo” que he desarrollado y aplico para realizar intervenciones educativas y comunitarias, las realidades particulares del sujeto y su biografía son herramientas que activan sus procesos de ampliación de la conciencia. En ese sentido, es necesario también centralizar ..

El libro de María Novo está compuesto por un conjunto de artículos en los que diversos autores denuncian el tratamiento invisibilizante que el paradigma vigente -en el contexto de la Modernidad y también de la Globalización- ha comprometido la dignidad y la integridad de dos sujetos o entidades: la mujer y la naturaleza. El primer capítulo escrito por la misma María Novo, examina el papel que en los últimos siglos las sociedades patriarcales le han otorgado a la naturaleza y a (...) las mujeres, am.. (shrink)

ERPs (event-related potentials) correlates are largely used in cognitive psychology and specifically for analysis of semantic information processing. Previous research has underlined a strong correlation between a negative-ongoing wave (N400), more frontally distributed, and semantic linguistic or extra-linguistic anomalies. With reference to the extra-linguistic domain, our experiment analyzed ERP variation in a semantic task of comprehension of emotional facial expressions. The experiment explored the effect of expectancy violation when subjects observed congruous or incongruous emotional facial patterns. Four prototypical (anger, sadness, (...) happiness and surprise) and four morphed faces were presented. Moreover, two distinct cognitive tasks (an implicit vs an explicit elaboration) were analyzed in order to evaluate the influence of spontaneous decoding in N400-like effects. An automatic, high-order cognitive process was found, elicited by a negative ERP variation similar to the linguistic N400 effect, which allows us to explain the congruous/incongruous decoding in semantic extra-linguistic comprehension. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXI, Number 2, November 1995, pp. 275-287 Virtue, Commerce, and Self-Love R. G. FREY Can economic activity be virtuous? Can the pursuit of commerce and profits be moral? Both Hume and Adam Smith are agreed that Britain will live or die as a trading nation, and trade requires the harvesting or production of goods with which to trade. This in turn requires that people be motivated (...) to harvest or to produce these goods, and neither Hume nor Smith give any evidence of believing that people are motivated by a general love of mankind, an extensive sympathy, or a broadly-encompassing benevolence to produce them. Indeed, quite the opposite appears to be the case: both writers think the pursuit of luxury, wealth, and the general riches of life have much more to do with the harvesting and production of goods for trade than does any widespread, general concern for the well-being of others. And this fact leads straightforwardly to the question I want to consider, namely, whether this kind of what I shall call economic motivation is compatible with moral motivation.1 In Smith, our question can be seen as leading to what is sometimes called the "Adam Smith problem" (which on another occasion I should want to argue is a pseudo-problem). The Theory of Moral Sentiments gives an account of moral motivation in which sympathy and/or benevolence plays an integral role, whereas in The Wealth of Nations self-love is very much to the fore. No remark in Smith is better-known than his statement of this latter position: R. G. Frey is at the Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University, 305 Shatzel Hall, Bowling Green OH 43403-0222 USA. e-mail: rfrey@andy.bgsu.edu 276 R. G. Frey It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.2 Now it has sometimes been suggested that the way to solve this problem is to keep economics and ethics separate, to try to confine economic activity to a domain about which, in essence, we do not ask ethical questions. But to most of us this clearly will not do; the whole point is that we do want to ask ethical questions about economic activity. That is, in pursuing their trades, it must be possible for the butcher, brewer, and baker to be acting morally; otherwise, commerce and virtue will be incompatible, and in enjoining us to take up and to pursue the former vigorously Hume and Smith would be advocating immorality. Again, neither writer gives any evidence of taking himself to be advocating any such thing. It must be possible, then, for motivation by selflove to be moral, if a vibrant, prosperous nation is to result from and to propagate further commerce and trade. If the cost of morality is penury and a life of dreadful unhappiness, then while such a life may recommend itself to one consumed with the monkish virtues, it is far from clear that it would recommend itself to the rest of us. I am interested here in Hume and in one possible way of construing his remarks on self-love in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.3 But first a few words on Mandeville are necessary, since it is he who sets the terms of the debate over the compatibility of moral and economic motivation. In The Fable of the Bees,4 Mandeville praises vice (or the pursuit of selfinterest ) in the cause of national prosperity and castigates virtue as threatening to undermine prosperity. Employing an egoistic account of man's passions and motivation, he argues that individual pursuit of self-interest or vice produces public benefits. Pride, avarice, and the pursuit of enjoyment, luxury, and the fine things of life create economic activity, jobs, and economic and social opportunities, and these in turn benefit society. His point is that growth of (i) mutually beneficial economic activity, (ii) increases in general... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:R. D. Ackerman BELIEVING IN A FICTION: WALLACE STEVENS AT THE LIMITS OF PHENOMENOLOGY The "ring of men" of "Sunday Morning" will chant their "devotion to the sun, / Not as a god, but as a god might be, / Naked among them, like a savage source" (CP, pp. 69-70).' Solar nakedness is deferred even as it is named. The problem for belief is the question of appearance and (...) representation. Things appear as and like.... The phenomenological return to things is also a turn to fiction, as Husserl understood: "If anyone loves a paradox, he can really say... that the element which makes up the life of phenomenology... is fiction. ' " The sun is divine, and it is not; it is both naked and clothed, savage and civilized, source (or end) and means. But such paradox is ultimately unsatisfying, and as we will see with Stevens, the need for belief—for an image or idea of totality—forces the issue of fiction and reality. The Stevens we will have in view is not the Stevens—as if there were such a creature. Our Stevens is the one most persuaded by promises such as those of phenomenology, the one most concerned with decreation (reduction) and fresh beginnings, with discovery and recognition, with imagination, the body, and the earth. This is the Stevens for whom the barrier of language presages at last not absence and difference but fictive recovery of presence and identity, the one for whom poetry represents a way of belief beyond mysticism even as it bodes mythic proximity. Finally, this is the Stevens who predominates throughout the prose (as well as in much of the poetry), who tries mightily to secure a belief while disencumbering himself of metaphysics—but alas, I think, with small success. Although Stevens's association of the problem of belief with the idea of fiction occurs in early poems such as "A High-Toned Old Christian 79 80Philosophy and Literature Woman" and "To the One of Fictive Music," his most intensive involvement with fiction as belief dates from the early 1940s and spans the period of his major essays and his last four volumes of poems. He recounts, for instance, a 1942 conversation with a student: "I said that I thought that we had reached a point at which we could no longer really believe in anything unless we recognized that it was a fiction. The student said that that was an impossibility, that there was no such thing as believing in something that one knew was not true. It is obvious, however, that we are doing that all the time" (L, p. 430). What does it mean to believe in a fiction? That is my main subject here, as we seek out the limits of the phenomenological Stevens. His letters of this period are preoccupied with the problem of fictive belief: "If one no longer believes in God (as truth), it is not possible merely to disbelieve; it becomes necessary to believe in something else.... A good deal of my poetry recently has concerned an identity for that thing.... In one of the short poems that I have just sent to the harvard advocate, I say that one's final belief must be in a fiction. I think that the history of belief will show that it has always been in a fiction" (L, p. 370). The poem referred to, "Asides on the Oboe," begins: The prologues are over. It is a question now, Of final belief. So, say that final belief Must be in a fiction. It is time to choose. (CP, p. 250) Acknowledging that "in the long run, poetry would be the supreme fiction" (L, pp. 430-31), Stevens nonetheless singles out the nominative function of poetry as the essence of its claim to supremacy: "Poetry means not the language of poetry but the thing itself.... The subject matter is what comes to mind when one says of the month of August... 'Thou art not August, unless I make thee so'" (L, p. 377). The quoted line (also from "Asides") underscores the paradox that for Stevens the essence of fiction (the nontrue) is its capacity to nominate the true or the real. This... (shrink)

Every person acquires a worldview, a picture of reality. Within that picture, the existence of some things will be taken wholly for granted as the background to, and support of, everything else. Their existence will rarely be questioned. The cosmos or universe, the gods, God, Brahman, Heaven, the Absolute--R. T. Allen claims that all these and other world- views have been held to be that which necessarily exists and upon which all other beings depend in one way or another. European (...) philosophers, since antiquity, have offered arguments to show that their chosen candidates for the role of the necessary being or beings that support the rest of reality do actually exist. The Necessity of God sets the valid core of previous ontological arguments. It does not and cannot prove that God exists, but only that something necessarily exists. In an a priori manner and without inferring anything from what in fact exists, Allen proceeds to show that which necessarily exists is one, transfinite, eternal, and the archetype of personal existence: in short, that it is God as classically conceived. As for everything else that may exist, it must be finite and dependent for its existence upon God as its creator and sustainer. Few things are more erroneous in philosophy and disastrous in practice than artificial constructions produced without constant reference to concrete reality. That which necessarily exists may be the one exception. Before this constructive argument, Allen examines previous examples of ontological arguments in order to show exactly where they go wrong and to extract the valid core obscured within them. This will make clear the difference between them and his new version. The reader who is eager to engage the philosophical sources of belief will find a distinct treasure in The Necessity of God. (shrink)

Asırlarca Tevrat’ın Musa tarafından yazılan vahiy mahsulü bir eser olduğuna inanıldı. Geleneksel Yahudiliğin günümüzde de devam ettirdiği bu inanç Batı dünyasında yapılan eleştirel çalışmalarla sorgulanmaya başlandı. Bu araştırmalarda, Tevrat’ın değişik zamanlarda yaşayan farklı isimler tarafından kaleme alınan bir eser olduğu ortaya konuldu. Bu eleştirel araştırmaların zirve noktasını Julius Wellhausen tarafından son şekli verilen ve Tevrat’ın dört farklı kaynaktan oluştuğunu ileri süren Dört Kaynak Hipotezi oluşturur. Çoğunlukla kabul gören bu görüşe, 1970’lerden itibaren yapılan bazı çalışmalarla ciddi anlamda itiraz edildi. Bu makalenin (...) konusu, Dört Kaynak Hipotezi’ne büyük ölçüde karşı çıkan ve Tevrat’ın üç temel kaynaktan oluştuğunu ileri süren Kanadalı araştırmacı John Van Seters’in (d. 1935) Tevrat eleştirisidir. Van Seters’in en dikkat çekici iddiası, Tevrat’ın kaynaklarından Yahvist metnin milattan önce altıncı yüzyılda Babil Sürgünü’nde yaşamış bir tarihçi yazar tarafından başta Tesniye olmak üzere Tesniyeci Tarih, peygamber kitapları ve Antik Yakın Doğu anlatıları dikkate alınarak yazıldığıdır. Çalışmada, Van Seters’in bu iddiası üzerinde durulacaktır. (shrink)

The primary focus on fear, its nature and role, for a new philosophy for the 21st century, has been dubbed "philosophy of fearism" by Desh Subba and complemented by R. Michael Fisher in recent years. While still in its infancy as a social and pragmatic philosophy to counter the increasing danger of an Extreme Fear Age.... This paper looks at the evidence for this challenge and speculated what to expect in the near future. Dr. Noam Chomsky's work on fear and (...) terror is brought to the foreground of a fearanalysis.... (shrink)

It is immensely difficult to give a philosophically adequate account of mental imagery. Peter F.R. Haynes, pp. 709–19) objects to the standard accounts, and offers one of his own which avoids the standard difficulties. Unfortunately it in turn seems to lapse into incoherence.Haynes rejects Cartesian accounts which would make images private objects in non-physical space. He also rejects current alternative views: both Rylean or behaviourist ones; and also intentionally complex ones, which assert that the relevant terms change their meaning. He (...) thinks that J. J. C. Smart's “topic neutral” approach may supply “the basis for a correct, intentionally simple, intuitively satisfying account of mental imagery”. But an adequate account must also be neutral, as Smart's is not, between different theories of mind. In addition to avoiding these difficulties an adequate theory has certain other desiderata; in particular Haynes places valuable emphasis on the need to explain the fact that we can sometimes mistake images for real perceptions or, more real perceptions for images. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Homeric ΔΙΙΠΕΤΕΟΣΠΟΤΑΜΟΙΟand the Celestial NileR. Drew GriffithHomeric διιπετής, which occurs only in the verse–end formula διιπετέος (Il. 16.174, 17.263, 21.268, 326; Od. 4.477, 581, 7.284; cf. Hes. fr. 320 Merkelbach–West), is usually interpreted as "fallen from Zeus, i.e., from heaven,... fed or swollen by rain" (LSJ),1 for high–thundering, cloud–gatherer Zeus is the sky who rains and snows (Il. 12.25; Od. 9.111, 14.457, Alc. Z 14.1 Lobel–Page 5 338.1 Voigt; (...) Ar. Nub. 368, 373; Babrius 65.1; Marcus Aurelius 5.7), and rivers can be "swollen by rain and melted snow" (). Yet it only takes a moment for the desperate nature of this interpretation to become clear: it has at least four flaws.2First, there is διι–. We may explain the quantity of the second iota (long in διιπετής, short in Διί) either as metrical lengthening, or as a survival of the Mycenaean, with or without the emendation to διειπετής proposed by one Zenodorus (schol. E2Od. 4.477, var. l. Zenodotus, HQ) and supported by some moderns,3 but the form itself is unexpected. Even supporters of the usual interpretation admit that διι is a very odd way of saying "from Zeus," which should be expressed by a [End Page 353] genitive of source:4 indeed, when Euripides wants to characterize a statue as having "fallen from the sky," he uses διοπετής (IT 977; cf. fr. 971 Nauck2 ). They account for διι- in one of three ways: either as chosen on the analogy of διίφιλος where the dative is appropriate,5 or as a compendious expression meaning "by (the command of) Zeus,"6 as an Arcado– Cypriot use of the dative as an ablative.7 This last approach relies in turn on the hypothesis (itself controversial) of an Achaean stratum of the Homeric language, in which are alleged to persist forms specific to the Mycenaean dialect.8Second, the final element, πετής, is elsewhere in Homer derived from πέτομαι (Il. 12.201, etc.;Il. 8.42, etc.; cf. Hes. Theog. 267). Unlike διιπετής, these words are accented paroxytone (but note παλιμπετές Il. 16.395, Od. 5.27, which means "falling or flying backward"; Pind. Pyth. 3.105; and Aesch. Supp. 782), but this shows only that during the Alexandrian period, when the written accents were devised, scholars associated them with a different root from διιπετής. Leaving our word aside, for examples of -πετής derived from πίπτω we must look to Aeschylus, Pindar, and subsequent authors.9 (Words with πετής from πετάννυμι are attested in later Greek.)10Third, the earliest post–Homeric uses of διιπετής (Eur. Bacch. 1267, Rhes. 43, Hypsipyle fr. 1. sp. IV, 1.31 Bond; Hippoc. Morb. Mul. 1.24) demand the translation "translucent" vel sim. (Etym. Magn. s.v.), and Zenodotus (apud schol. Il. 17.263) glosses the word in its Homeric use as διαυγής,11 yet the semantic development from "fallen from Zeus, etc." (on the usual interpretation) to "translucent" can only be seen as "encore inexpliqué."12 [End Page 354]Fourth, one of the three named rivers to which Homer applies διιπετής is the Nile (Od. 4.477, 581; the others are Spercheius, Il. 16.174, and Scamander, Il. 21.268, 326), yet if ever there were a river that is not "fed or swollen by rain" it is the Nile: rainfall is scarce in Egypt (Hdt. 3.10.3), and, knowing this, Diogenes hypothesized that the Nile was fed by subterranean springs (64 A18 Diels–Kranz; cf. Sen. Q.Nat. 4.2.28–30, 6.8.3–5; schol. Ap. Rhod. 4.269 = p. 277 Wendel). The application of the epithet to the Nile would have, therefore, to be classed among Homer's (admittedly numerous) formulary illogicalities.13Not all scholars accept the usual view. In 1958 M. Treu pointed to a then newly discovered papyrus fragment of Alcman containing the adjective διαιπετής in the phrase (III 66–67 PMG, PMGF = fr. 26.66–67 Calame), which was taken to describe a star "falling through..., less prob.... flying through" heaven (LSJ Suppl. s.v.),14 to hypothesize that the Homeric instances of διιπετής are all miscorrections of an original διαιπετής, "flying through." This theory has won few adherents,15 and R. Renehan (1972b) has with more... (shrink)

This piece, included in the drift special issue of continent. , was created as one step in a thread of inquiry. While each of the contributions to drift stand on their own, the project was an attempt to follow a line of theoretical inquiry as it passed through time and the postal service(s) from October 2012 until May 2013. This issue hosts two threads: between space & place and between intention & attention . The editors recommend that to experience the (...) drifiting thought that attention be paid to the contributions as they entered into conversation one after another. This particular piece is from the BETWEEN INTENTION & ATTENTION thread: Jeremy Fernando, Sitting in the Dock of the bay, watching... * R.H. Jackson, Reading Eyes * Gina Rae Foster, Nyctoleptic Nomadism: The Drift/Swerve of Knowing * Bronwyn Lay, Driftwood * Patricia Reed, Sentences on Drifitng * David Prater, drift: a way * * * * The gaze drifts where the stare dares not. The gaze is attentive while the stare is intent. Dériver : Equally to drift and/or to derive. —When drifting then, something must be taken along. Something must be derived from the drift. Something of oneself must always become other. Incorporating the other, incorporating oneself as other. Je est un autre , Rimbaud disait; 1 this in his last letter to Georges Izambard, a final correspondence to a former mentor and friend, from whom he was drifting away, having derived much. The drift is a control incomplete. To drift is to come closer and closer, but to always be turning away, pulling apart, pulling oneself apart. It is parabolic in the sense that it is always eluding a formerly established intent. Of all axes, it never finds room to rest. Filling new spaces, always changing places, ever escaping the Cartesian; the indubitable pinpointing of position. It is never pinned down. Love together what we will be apart. Once together, we will drift apart. Il le faut . Attention is held; it traces the path. It follows each point which traces the arc, the line, the swerve. It is not concerned with the figure being drawn, but rather the movement between one point and the next. The smallest movement. The clinamen of De Rerum Natura is the smallest of swerves, it is nothing more than the minimum — nec plus quam minimum . Michel Serres says of the clinamen , that it is an absurdity — a logical, geometrical, mechanical, physical absurdity. 'The clinamen, from here (its state of absurdity), finds refuge in subjectivity; it passes from the world to the soul, from the physical to the metaphysical, from the theory of inert bodies in freefall to the theory of the free movements of the living.' 2 So this swerve is something of the mind and something of the body, both in action, rather than a body which is merely acted upon. Swerve, however, has a connotation of suddenness. It is a movement which is made to avoid an otherwise inevitable impact. Drift, on the other hand, is the unleashing of something which is then allowed to follow a more complex series of forces. These forces now come from within as well as without. It is no longer tethered; now following tides, winds, flows or pitched slopes, now acting on its own. We are not atoms in freefall. Our attention long ago pulled us from this precipitous descent. We now live, ourselves, as one of the many forces. In the drift, as with the gaze, there is an ease. ‘Ease is the proper name of this unrepresentable space.’ It is the space nearest, the next, the neighboring space. To occupy this space requires a turn, a shift or a drift. It cannot be reached by proceeding straight ahead. ‘..the space adjacent, the empty place where each can move freely, in a semantic constellation where spatial proximity borders on opportune time (ad-agio, moving at ease) and convenience borders on the correct relation.’ 3 Intention always seeks to straighten this line, to make it less complex, to isolate the point of departure and the desired destination. It believes there can be two points and, between them, there must be a straight line. Can there be? Maybe. Must there be? Never. Straight lines may exist, but they can never be followed to the finish. After leaving this point, we will never reach that one without being buffeted at least a little — at least the least. One foot in front of the other, this is a very restrictive dance, less even than a two-step. Straight lines lead only to lost intentions, being the shortest and quickest way to get there. When attention drifts it slowly turns away from the intended target, leaving it for something which pulls the attention away. Now we are for a moment free; all at once we can pivot, now we can waltz. Drifting along the page, deriving from what is seen. Reading is seeing; the movement of the eyes as they drift. Reading in the eyes what has been seen, what has been derived from the act of reading. Reading eyes drift back and forth down the page, now and then jump back and forth, up to the top, one word, back down, quickly a few pages back, now gaze out towards the horizon. When attention drifts it is the gaze that follows. Our attention is not restricted to the path the words follow, but links them together; deriving what is to be seen, rather than read. La philosophie fait voir . ‘Thus, philosophers speak through proverbs, and demonstrate. They connect their imaginations with foreign rings, flown into famous tombs.’ 4 Now drifting off to sleep, dreams come as unintended visions. To dream is pure drift, vision without an object, gazing into the dark, reading the unknown of the night. NOTES: Arthur Rimbaud, Poésies (Paris: Bibliothéque de Cluny, 1958), 57. Michel Serres, La Naissance de la Physique (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1977), 10. Translation courtesy of R.H. Jackson. Giorgio Agamben, The Coming Community (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1993), 25. Louis Aragon, Une Vague des Rêves (Paris: Editions Seghers, 2006), 10. Translation courtesy of R.H. Jackson.  . (shrink)

Thomas Hill Green was one of the most influential English thinkers of his time, and he made significant contributions to the development of political liberalism. Much of his career was spent at Balliol College, Oxford: having begun as a student of Jowett, he later acted effectively as his second-in-command at the college. Interested for his whole career in social questions, Green supported the temperance movement, the extension of the franchise, and the admission of women to university education. He became Whyte's (...) professor of moral philosophy at Oxford in 1878, and his lectures had a lasting influence on a generation of students. Much of Volume 1, edited by Green's pupil R. L. Nettleship and published in 1885, consists of Green's work on David Hume. In his essay, 'Introductions to Hume's Treatise of Human Nature', Green gives a detailed critique of Hume's metaphysical thought. (shrink)

In 1962 appeared one of the classic articles in Anglo-Saxon manuscript studies, the publication of two eleventh-century fragments of leaves of Old English found in the binding of a seventeenth-century printed book in the library of the University of Kansas, Lawrence. The fragment that more nearly concerns the present article now carries the shelf mark Pryce MS C2:1 in the Kenneth Spencer Research Library . It is a large part of a single leaf from The Legend of the Holy Cross (...) before Christ, an edifying work known in full only in a twelfth-century copy, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 343, fols. 14v–20v . Working from a photograph the great paleographer and codicologist N. R. Ker attributed the hand of the Kansas fragment to the scribe who also wrote the texts of two bits of the same work found in the library of Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury , at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, now MS 557 . He concluded, no doubt rightly, that all three are part of one manuscript. (shrink)

Though nominalism is a major presupposition in academia and western society, R. Scott Smith shows that nominalism undermines all knowledge whatsoever. In light of the many clear examples of knowledge that we do have, nominalism should be replaced by a realist view of properties.

For most of the church's history, people have seen Christian ethics as normative and universally applicable. Recently, however, this view has been lost, thanks to naturalism and relativism. R. Scott Smith argues that Christians need to overcome Kant's fact-value dichotomy and recover the possibility of genuine moral and theological knowledge.

A defence of the idea that there are sui generis duties of love: duties, that is, that we owe to people in virtue of standing in loving relationships with them. I contrast this non‐reductionist position with the widespread reductionist view that our duties to those we love all derive from more generic moral principles. The paper mounts a cumulative argument in favour of the non‐reductionist position, adducing a variety of considerations that together speak strongly in favour of adopting it. The (...) concluding section connects this debate with larger issues in moral theory concerning the general idea of obligation. (shrink)

Suzanne Langer's earlier works on the philosophy of art, particularly her Feeling and Form, are the points of departure for this general study of the phenomena of life and mind which she clearly intends to be her magnum opus. This is the first of two volumes, the second volume as yet unpublished. Her main thesis is that the "departure [of man] from the normal pattern of animal mentality is a vast and special evolution of feeling in the hominoid stock". She (...) opposes all attempts to bifurcate nature into matter and mind, and in this regard aligns herself with the main currents of contemporary thought. But the centrality she gives to the notion of feeling is uniquely her own, separating her views from those of most other contemporary thinkers and providing the most controversial part of her book. In different places throughout the work, the term "feeling" includes within its scope "sensation," "inward tension," "pain," "emotion," "intent," and a number of other phenomena. Critics of the work will no doubt argue that the theory cannot overcome the vagueness engendered by giving this central concept such a wide scope. But before making a final judgment on this point they will have to pay special attention to the second and third parts of this book where her concept of feeling slowly takes shape through reflection on the arts and on the nature of living things. In a second volume she promises to move beyond living things in general to the distinctive features of human consciousness. A second respect in which this work differs from much other writing in the philosophy of mind is the wealth of references and examples from the biological and psychological sciences which display the encyclopedic interests and openness which have always characterized Suzanne Langer's writings.--R. H. K. (shrink)

Originally published in 1942, this widely read book appears now in its third edition. In a brief prefatory note, Mrs. Langer describes it as "frankly a prelude to Feeling and Form," her more recent book on aesthetics, which, she indicates, may itself eventually prove to be a prelude to a more comprehensive work which will include ethical problems in its scope.--D. R.

Cavell is one of the most gifted and sensitive philosophers who has been influenced by Wittgenstein and Austin. He is no slavish disciple but an intelligent and perceptive interpreter of the contemporary sensibility. Six of the ten essays have already appeared in print and some have already become intellectual gems. In "The Availability of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy," Cavell better than most has managed to capture and convey the spirit and the intensity of the later Wittgenstein. The title essay is the (...) most articulate defense of what ordinary language philosophy can be at its best. But Cavell is also an incisive commentator on Beckett and Kierkegaard. He illuminates a range of aesthetic issues. Cavell's forte is that of an essayist who manages to create in each of his essays a "form of life" within which one can participate and share his insight.--R. J. B. (shrink)

Day argues that the meaning of "probable" is partly evaluative and partly descriptive--to say that a proposition is probable is both to recommend its assertion and to say that a certain procedure shows it to be so. The paradigm of an inductive probability judgment, which is the major concern of the book, is "The fact that all observed A's are B's makes it probable that all A's are B's." Several more complex kinds of probability judgments are distinguished and discussed in (...) detail, the author's own theory being illuminated by extensive criticism of the views of other philosophers, including Aristotle, Hume, Whewell, Mill, Peirce, Russell, Braithwaite, Carnap, and Von Wright. Philosophic problems related to induction, such as the existence of other minds and the reliability of memory, are briefly discussed. Ambitious in scope and carefully executed, the book demands, and rewards, close study.--J. R. W. (shrink)

A medley of sensible and informative papers ranging over Advaita Vedanta, the similarities of Eastern and Western philosophy, and social problems of contemporary India.--R. J. B.

Beginning with a sketch of Aristotelian science and the challenge of the new sciences, Smith leads the reader into a consideration of problems concerning the relation of philosophy and science. Smith provides a panoramic view of traditional and contemporary points of views. Smith also attempts to develop and defend an Aristotelian theory of the philosophy of nature.—R. J. B.

We argue that thoughts are structures of concepts, and that concepts should be individuated by their origins, rather than in terms of their semantic or epistemic properties. Many features of cognition turn on the vehicles of content, thoughts, rather than on the nature of the contents they express. Originalism makes concepts available to explain, with no threat of circularity, puzzling cases concerning thought. In this paper, we mention Hesperus/Phosphorus puzzles, the Evans-Perry example of the ship seen through different windows, and (...) Mates cases, and we believe that there are many additional applications. (shrink)

A collection of essays by a group of international scholars from Israel, England, the United States, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, and Argentina testify to the humane influence of Baumgardt. There is little that unites the subject matter of these essays and only one deals explicitly with the thought of Baumgardt. A bibliography of Baumgardt's writings is included.—R. J. B.

Since the publication of Edmund Gettier's challenge to the traditional epistemological doctrine of knowledge as justified true belief, Roberts and Wood claim that epistemologists lapsed into despondency and are currently open to novel approaches. One such approach is virtue epistemology, which can be divided into virtues as proper functions or epistemic character traits. The authors propose a notion of regulative epistemology, as opposed to a strict analytic epistemology, based on intellectual virtues that function not as rules or even as skills (...) but as habits of the heart. To that end, they divide the task of clarifying and expounding their notion in the book's two parts.In the first part, Roberts and Wood examine various components that constitute their notion of regulative epistemology. The first are the epistemic goods or goals that drive the epistemic process. What is needed, claim Roberts and Wood, is an enriched notion of these goods rather than the restricted notion of justified true belief. Epistemic agents are more than calculating devices in that …. (shrink)

A text for an undergraduate problems course placing special emphasis on a wide selection of texts for students to evaluate: in a treatment of teleological ethics the authors include Nietzsche, R. B. Perry and G. E. Moore; the section on political philosophy presents a range of authors from Mill to Mussolini. Perhaps its chief virtue is that it relies almost exclusively on modern writers and yet manages not to be parochial.--R.F.T.

From a study of Hindu scriptures, the author concludes that there is a "spiritual overturning in consciousness," after which there will be a purification and a Golden Age. The book is disorganized and diffuse.--A. R.

A revised and expanded version of studies by McKinsey, Winet and the authors, in axiomatic theories of value, together with a report of experiments designed to test the formal theories. This volume makes an important contribution to the theoretical and experimental investigation of values and decision-making, both of which subjects are still in their infancy. Experimental studies by Mosteller and Nogee and theoretical discussions of von Neumann and Morgenstern are criticized and improved. Ch. IV contains original suggestions for a theory (...) of utility involving incomparable values. -- A. R. A. (shrink)

A collection of previously printed articles on Greek philosophy, from the pre-Socratics to the neo-Platonists. It includes an article defending the methods and aims of the historian of philosophy, in which Bréhier argues that the problems of philosophy cannot be properly understood outside of their historical contexts.--A. R.

An interesting study of Croce's political philosophy, its relation to his ethics and metaphysics, as well as its place in the political milieu of pre-war Europe. The author argues that Croce's political philosophy, unlike Hegel's, is both humanistic and liberal. --A. R.

An analysis of the realism of M. Blondel, with an attempt to distinguish its traditional elements from its novel features. Blondel's emphasis on the inseparability of philosophy and action is argued to be the foundation of his return to Christian realism.--A. R.

An application of Einsteinian physics to biology and psychology, in the hope of developing a "unified ethical theory."--A. R.

A short study of the historical circumstances to which Marxism responded, and of the systematic character of its dialectic. The strength of Marxism the author finds to lie in its comprehensiveness, its weakness in the contradiction which arises from its espousal of humanitarian goals and its rejection of individual freedom.--A. R.

A philosophical diary, bringing together the previously published "Prelude to the Life of an Ordinary Man," "Commentary on Common Sense," and "Common Experience," with a new essay, "The Right Time."--A. R.

A study of post-Hegelian German historicism. There are chapters on Dilthey, Windelband, Rickert, Simmel, Weber, Spengler, Troeltsch, and Meinecke. The development of historicism as a form of Romanticism which treats history as a realization of an absolute principle, to its use as a justification for the relativity of values is traced, and its return to "the affirmation of the absolute" in the work of Troeltsch and Meinecke analyzed.--A. R.

A collection of essays in the history of ideas, including studies of Max Weber, Meinong, William James, and Royce, as well as of some Scandinavian thinkers of the recent past.--A. R.

An informative study of the conditions, the strengths, and the weaknesses of Russian totalitarianism by an expert on Russian affairs. The "Keys" are: the necessity of a struggle for power within the totalitarian regime, the necessity for secrecy and the complete control of all activity, the proscription of labor, the contempt for democratic election, the constant need for colonial expansion, and the subordination of the people to the state.--A. R.

A detailed exposition of what the author considers to be the few fundamental principles in the theology of St. Bonaventure: the continuity between theology and revealed scripture, the preeminence of faith, the discontinuity between theological and philosophical reason, and the development of theology as "the progression of... spiritual life."--A. R.

Diagnosing the "breakdown of modern philosophy" as a result of a neglect of existence and metaphysics, leading to a radical separation of theory and practice, the author examines the attempts of existentialism to correct the shortcomings of post-Cartesian "intellectual subjectivity." The book begins with a short history of existentialism, following which are critical expositions of Jaspers, Sartre, Heidegger and Marcel. The range of topics considered--epistemology, ethics and ontology--prevents detailed discussion of any single problem, and both the exposition and the criticism (...) remain on a very general level. The final chapters of the book are devoted to correcting what the author considers the excesses of the existentialistic reaction to intellectualism by supplementing it with realism. Here, however, he promises more than he delivers. Though sometimes too facile, the book constitutes an important attempt to come to grips with existentialism by relating it to trends in traditional philosophy.--A. R. (shrink)

In this well-bred polemic against Christianity, the "romantic religion," the author speaks from the standpoint of a devout Jew. He is most challenging in his reading of the Gospels as the history of a Jew among Jews, "manifesting...what is pure and good in Judaism," except so far as it has been unfortunately obscured by a later and less-admirable Pauline theology.--R. P.