Ante las distintas maneras de entender la objetividad científica, con prevalencia del sentido empirista, que propugna una discriminación sobre la cientificidad de las distintas áreas del conocimiento, Evandro Agazzi, con su realismo científico y su concepción epistemológica abierta, configura un concepto de objetividad adecuado para todo quehacer científico y académico. Con su distinción entre objetividad en sentido débil y fuerte, Agazzi sostiene que estas formas de entender la objetividad pueden incluir y armonizar los variados horizontes epistemológicos desde los cuales es (...) posible hacer ciencia. (shrink)

La formación docente es indispensable para responder a los requerimientos de la compleja sociedad actual. De su conocimiento, iniciativa, praxis y creatividad depende el éxito o el fracaso del sujeto que aprende. Al modificar el rol del docente se transforma la actitud de los estudiantes. ¿Cómo entender la formación filosófica transdisciplinar? Este texto responde a este y otros cuestionamientos: ¿cuáles son los planteamientos pedagógicos afines a la era digital? ¿en qué medida las TIC se encuentran al servicio de una filosofía (...) educativa transdisciplinar?, ¿cómo se explica ese enfoque en la formación del docente?, ¿cuál es la función de la formación en la innovación educativa?, ¿cómo formar para la ciudadanía mundial?, ¿cuáles son las contribuciones de las nuevas ciencias para la formación educativa? El crecimiento exponencial de la ciencia y de la tecnología nos obliga a pensar en procesos formativos innovadores. En tal sentido, resulta imprescindible el estudio de estas problemáticas. (shrink)

2. The equal status mentioned in Thesis 2 need not mean, "equally concrete" or "inclusive," but only, "equally real," where "real" means having a character of its own with reference to which opinions can be true or false. But becoming or process is alone fully concrete or inclusive, since if A is without becoming, and B becomes, then the togetherness of AB also becomes. A new constituent means a new totality. In this sense, becoming is the ultimate principle.

In business, politics, marriage, indeed in any significant relationship, trust is the essential precondition upon which all real success depends. But what, precisely, is trust? How can it be achieved and sustained? And, most importantly, how can it be regained once it has been broken? In Building Trust, Robert C. Solomon and Fernando Flores offer compelling answers to these questions. They argue that trust is not something that simply exists from the beginning, something we can assume or take (...) for granted; that it is not a static quality or "social glue." Instead, they assert that trust is an emotional skill, an active and dynamic part of our lives that we build and sustain with our promises and commitments, our emotions and integrity. In looking closely at the effects of mistrust, such as insidious office politics that can sabotage a company's efficiency, Solomon and Flores demonstrate how to move from naïve trust that is easily shattered to an authentic trust that is sophisticated, reflective, and possible to renew. As the global economy makes us more and more reliant on "strangers," and as our political and personal interactions become more complex, Building Trust offers invaluable insight into a vital aspect of human relationships. (shrink)

By way of preface it should be noted that Jordan was mainly concerned with formulating a metaphysics of value and a philosophy of art. And although this formulation can serve as a foundation for specific art criticism, Jordan was not attempting such criticism, and should not be held responsible for not doing what was extraneous to his purpose. It is helpful to remember also that Jordan's polemics are directed against a philosophy of subjectivism in the theory of art criticism and (...) art creation; i.e., he denies that the private consciousness is the sole standard of the nature and value of a work of art, and he denies that the artist creates by merely revealing the state of his own internal feelings and emotions. (shrink)

El presente ensayo es una interpretación de la novela de Robert Musil “El hombre sin atributos” a partir de fuentes filosóficas. Se trata de una obra que ha producido algunas metáforas decisivas para comprender las crisis de la identidad social en el horizonte de la última modernidad europea. Muchos de los conceptos clave que ayudaron a crear la leyenda de la modernidad empiezan a erosionarse de modo irreversible: se descomponen las aspiraciones nacionales, el sujeto pierde su núcleo sustancial y (...) la cultura es un carrusel de esperanzas abortadas incapaces de responder a ninguna idea rectora. Y, sin embargo, en el paisaje de esta Europa tardomoderna en que se han agotado las pasadas ilusiones surge la idea de que el “hombre sin atributos” es también el “hombre de las posibilidades”. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The question of human consciousness is a crucial part of Novalis’ aim of construing a self-critique of the I, or critique of human identity, as it is proposed in his “Fichte-Studien”. Namely, this question is an intermediary stage in said critique, serving as proof for Novalis’ theory of the opposites, the fundamental stage, and his position on philosophizing, the final stage of this endeavor, which will be at the basis of his whole philosophical system; and as such, it is (...) a topic of great importance, as it is not only a link in a chain of thought which aims at proving the organicity or living heterogeneity - and not Fichte’s machine-like homogeneity - of the human but is also a key topic towards the resolution of Novalis’problem of philosophy as an existential problem. Given this, the present article intends to situate the question of human consciousness in the framework of Novalis’greater scope of a critique of the I; and from then, to comment on Novalis’own position on the problem of human consciousness, as it is stated in the formula “Consciousness is the Being outside of Being, within Being”; a position which further separates the young poet from Fichte, as it renders him closer and closer to other young idealists, such as Hölderlin or Schelling. RESUMO A questão da consciência humana é uma parte crucial no intento novaliano de construir uma autocrítica do Eu, ou crítica da identidade humana, como ela é proposta nos seus “Fichte-Studien”. Designadamente, esta questão constitui um estado intermédio em tal crítica, servindo como prova da teoria dos contrários de Novalis, o estádio fundamental desta, e a posição de Novalis sobre o filosofar, o estádio final da sua empresa, a qual está na base de todo o seu sistema filosófico; e, como tal, é um tópico de grande importância, visto ser não só um elo em uma linha de pensamento que visa provar a organicidade ou heterogeneidade viva - e não a maquinal homogeneidade de Fichte - do humano, mas também um tópico-chave tendo em vista a resolução da questão novaliana da filosofia enquanto problema existencial. Assim sendo, o presente artigo propõe-se situar a questão da consciência humana no contexto maior da crítica da identidade de Novalis; e, a partir daí, comentar a posição de Novalis sobre o problema da consciência humana, como ele surge exposto na fórmula “A consciência é o Ser fora do Ser, no Ser”; uma posição que decisivamente separa o jovem poeta de Fichte, enquanto o aproxima de outros jovens idealistas, tais como Hölderlin ou Schelling. (shrink)

This paper presents an interpretation of the 1945 forbidden film Scarlet Street in a way so as to touch the problem of gender in film noir. Firstly, I give an ac-count of film noir, agreeing with Robert Pippin’s argument concerning film genres. Then, I claim that time and repetition, irony and hierarchy, art and per-spective constitute the core subjects explored in Scarlet Street. Furthermore, I try to connect all the subjects into a single one. My point is to show (...) how art, perspective, time, repetition, irony and hierarchy are articulated in the main character’s gender identity. Finally, I suggest there is a deep connection be-tween the movie’s character constitution and Cavell’s understanding of gender and agency.Keywords: Film. Gender. Psychoanalysis. Cavell. Freud. (shrink)

Hans Jonas developed in ‘Past and Truth’ (1991) a demonstration of the existence of God based on the ‘truth of past things’. And in ‘The Concept of God after Auschwitz’ (1984) he created a new myth of divine self-alienation in order to take away God’s responsibility for human misery. Both these texts were conceived as an alternative to a more Hegelian, objective idealist perspective on theology. This article shows that Jonas’s alternative does not fully succeed in this respect because his (...) arguments bring him back to an idealist perspective. His proof of God is revisited and explained using new insights recently developed by Robert Spaemann, whose interpretation of the proof makes it clear that many important critics of Jonas are too quick to reject his claims. The arguments of Jonas now seem to show a new strength even though they still fail to give an alternative to an objective idealist theological framework. (shrink)

Notes by Dr. Robert Gahringer, who was C.I. Lewis' assistant at Harvard, Dr. Francis H. Parker, and those of the editor were used to reconstruct Lewis' lectures in Phil. 130, Kant, as those lectures were presented at Harvard in the late 40's and early 50's. The test of the reconstruction includes a detailed discussion of European epistemology in the period before Kant in addition to Lewis' interpretation of Kant's epistemology, critique of metaphysics, theology, and a brief presentation of his (...) moral philosophy. (shrink)

Sigmund Freud fue uno de los protagonistas de aquella Viena fin de siglo que simboliza no sólo el Finis Austriae sino una fecunda crisis de la condición moderna. Las relaciones entre la subjetividad y el lenguaje centran en gran medida la problemática filosófica de la época. Este ensayo intenta reconstruir el contexto cultural en que prosperó el psicoanálisis freudiano estableciendo un diálogo entre sus principales tesis y la visión de algunos de los más destacados intérpretes del apocalipsis habsbúrgico: principalmente, Hugo (...) von Hofmannsthal, Hermann Broch, Karl Kraus y Robert Musil. La significación de Freud es analizada dentro del cuadro literario de una Viena que situó al yo y al lenguaje en el vórtice de una catástrofe cuyas consecuencias filosóficas son rastreadas aquí a través de algunos de los textos y documentos más representativos de aquel período. (shrink)

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

For thousands of years, people have used nature to justify their political, moral, and social judgments. Such appeals to the moral authority of nature are still very much with us today, as heated debates over genetically modified organisms and human cloning testify. The Moral Authority of Nature offers a wide-ranging account of how people have used nature to think about what counts as good, beautiful, just, or valuable. The eighteen essays cover a diverse array of topics, including the connection of (...) cosmic and human orders in ancient Greece, medieval notions of sexual disorder, early modern contexts for categorizing individuals and judging acts as "against nature," race and the origin of humans, ecological economics, and radical feminism. The essays also range widely in time and place, from archaic Greece to early twentieth-century China, medieval Europe to contemporary America. Scholars from a wide variety of fields will welcome The Moral Authority of Nature, which provides the first sustained historical survey of its topic. Contributors: Danielle Allen, Joan Cadden, Lorraine Daston, Fa-ti Fan, Eckhardt Fuchs, Valentin Groebner, Abigail J. Lustig, Gregg Mitman, Michelle Murphy, Katharine Park, Matt Price, Robert N. Proctor, Helmut Puff, Robert J. Richards, Londa Schiebinger, Laura Slatkin, Julia Adeney Thomas, Fernando Vidal. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo general examinar los elementos que conforman el no-positivismo inclusivo; postura epistemológica y filosófica desarrollada a través de los años por Robert Alexy. Los métodos empleados son el deductivo, analítico y dialéctico; la principal técnica utilizada ha sido la investigación documental. El presente documento, grosso modo, se encuentra dividido en tres apartados. Primero, son explicados los elementos que conforman el no-positivismo inclusivo de Robert Alexy. Segundo, se explican algunas críticas formuladas a los elementos constitutivos (...) del no-positivismo inclusivo con base en las ideas de Riccardo Guastini, Juan Antonio García Amado, Joseph Raz, Eugenio Bulygin, Matthias Klatt, Carlos Bernal Pulido; entre otros autores. Por último, en tanto objetivo particular, se expone una reflexión con el propósito de indicar uno de los múltiples caminos que los estudios jurídico-científicos sobre el no-positivismo inclusivo podrían seguir en el porvenir. (shrink)

El objetivo de este estudio es demostrar la estrecha relación que media entre dos de los manuscritos que actualmente se conservan de la traducción latina del Corán de Robert de Ketton (1142-1143), y la figura de Juan de Segobia (1390/5-1458), quien desde 1437 había estudiado esta versión del Corán hasta que él mismo, con la colaboración de un alfaquí hispano, elaboró una nueva traducción. Tras exponer las noticias que Juan de Segobia ofrece sobre los ejemplares del Corán latino que (...) poseyó, se esboza una ordenación general de la tradición manuscrita del Alchoran de Robert de Ketton, que se divide en dos familias, α (la de los códices más antiguos) y β (la de los más recientes, derivados de un manuscrito traído en 1437 desde Constantinopla a Basilea por Johannes de Ragusio). La comparación entre la redacción que ofrece un grupo de manuscritos de la familia α (muy en particular, la del códice Paris BNF lat. 3393) con las variantes presentes en los códices de la familia β y en la propia edición de Theodor Bibliander (1543) permite concluir que el códice Paris BNF lat. 3669 es una copia de un manuscrito supervisado por Juan de Segobia, donde se ofrecía una redacción del Alchoran de Robert de Ketton revisada a partir de las variantes del códice de Johannes de Ragusio. (shrink)

Tomando como ponto de partida o diálogo "Clara", escrito por Schelling, o autor faz da conexão da Natureza com o Espírito o fio condutor da trajetória do pensamento schellinguiano. É, antes de tudo, na disputa com as filosofias de Fichte e Hegel, que se revela a convergência entre a concepção transcendental do Espírito e a filosofia da Natureza, dando-se assim a entender a importância de um conceito especulativo da Natureza como acesso ao mundo real. Taking the dialogue "Clara", written by (...) Schelling, as a starting point, the author uses the conection of Nature with the Spirit as a guiding line for his exposition of Schelling’s thought. It is, above all, the dispute with the philosophies of Fichte e Hegel that reveals the convergence between a transcendental conception of Spirit and the philosophy of Nature. Thus, the author implies the importance of speculative concept of Nature as an access to the real world. (shrink)

An explanatorily powerful approach to the modal dimension of knowledge is Robert Nozick’s idea that knowledge stands in a tracking relation to the world. However, pinning down a specific modal condition has proved elusive. In this paper, I offer a diagnosis and a positive proposal. The root of the problem, I argue, is the unquestioned assumption that tracking is a matter of directly preserving conformity between what is believed and what is the case in certain possible worlds. My proposal (...) is that what we track is whether the conditions for belief formation are appropriate in such worlds. Accordingly, we indirectly track the truth by ensuring that we only use our methods of belief formation in conditions that make it likely that conformity is preserved between what is believed and what is the case. (shrink)

Que la sociedad corre peligro de ser destruida es un tema recurrente en todas las áreas de la cultura. Pero en el libro que aquí reseñamos se nos recuerda que Émile Durkheim y otros grandes colaboradores a la gestación y desarrollo de la sociología eran extremadamente conscientes de esta problemática e insistían en la necesidad de no sólo abordar sus temáticas intrínsecas, sino también en mantener viva y activa esa reflexión. Rodrigo Ottonello, el autor de esta obra, hace honor a (...) dicho mandato como muy pocos lo logran en la actualidad. Pero también nos advierte: para entender el verdadero problema que acarrea la discusión sobre la destrucción de las sociedades se requiere afrontar, primero, la pregunta por la posibilidad de que el objeto de la sociología, esto es, la sociedad en sí -y no tan sólo ésta o aquella sociedad- pueda o no padecer destrucción... (shrink)

La intuición no es tratada por la etología, lo cual la excluye de los animales no humanos, sin embargo, psicólogos, neurólogos y filósofos reconocen que la intuición, del latín intueri «mirar hacia dentro», es percibir y decidir instantáneamente, sin la participación de la razón, y con la intervención de la parte más primitiva del sistema nervioso central de los animales humanos. La fenomenología apela a la experiencia intuitiva como fundamento del estudio de la realidad, manifiesta al ser, tal como es. (...) La intuición se asocia con experiencias previas, y de acuerdo al controversial misticismo cuántico: incluso con el futuro. Pero no se puede explicar con claridad racional, sino con expresiones emotivas, de por qué, luego de procesar tal información, se llega a tal conclusión, decisión o creación. La intuición es un fenómeno de animales humanos, y de animales no humanos, y más que eso. Es un fenómeno de las cosas vivas. Propongo, obviamente por intuición, su reconocimiento en un dialogo de saberes donde se ejercite más ésta y menos la razón. (shrink)

This paper discusses the commitment account of assertion, according to which two necessary conditions for asserting that p are the speaker's undertaking a commitment to justify her assertion in the face of challenges and the speaker's licensing the audience to defer justificatory challenges back to her. Relying on what I call the "cancellation test," and focusing on Robert Brandom's version of the CAA, I show that the latter is wrong: it is perfectly possible to assert that p even while (...) explicitly disavowing the justificatory commitment and while refusing to issue a deferring license. Then I sketch an alternative to the CAA, the trust account of assertion, according to which speakers necessarily present themselves as trustworthy concerning p's truth whenever they assert p. I explain why this is different from undertaking a justificatory commitment, and offer some reasons for thinking that this is a more promising account. (shrink)

Fernando Ortiz introduced his account of transculturation to replace Melville Herskovits’s notion of acculturation as a way of describing the historical contact between cultures. Ortiz understood the idea of acculturation to be promoting a kind of assimilationist model very different from what he witnessed in his native Cuba. Transculturation conforms neither to the model of cosmopolitanism promoted by Kant’s universal history, nor to the kind of multiculturalism that is rooted in Herder’s rival approach to history. Instead, it presents a (...) concept of cultural contact and cultural transformation that highlights the way the material and economic conditions of social existence shape the institutions in which cultures more narrowly conceived are embedded and relate to each other. By bringing transculturation into dialogue with the idea of the porosity of cultures initially promoted in 1925 by Walter Benjamin in his essay on Naples, we find a way to free transculturation from Ortiz’s tendency to lapse into biological metaphors with the danger of retaining a reference to cultural purity that he would not endorse. Transculturation, thus revised, recommends itself as a term helpful for thinking about a world shaped by mass migration and the new technological forms of ever more rapid cultural exchange. Properly understood, it promotes a future where openness and sharing are valued over ownership and preservation. (shrink)

Old Havana: Spirit of the Living City artistically captures the architecture, people, and daily life of La Habana Vieja through the lenses of two visionary photographers and colleagues, one American and the other Cuban. Chip Cooper and Néstor Martí began collaborating in 2008, documenting the picturesque features of the oldest and most historically rich quarter in Cuba's capital city at the behest of Eusebio Leal Spengler, the historian of the city of Havana and the director of the Habana Vieja restoration (...) project. Cooper's and Martí's images highlight the spirit of change and renewal underlying the restoration of this international treasure and its revival as a vibrant business and residential area. Inspired by the work of twentieth century American photographer Walker Evans, Cooper and Martí, through perspectives both unique and deeply entwined, capture the humanity of the city, in a language at once universal and transcendent. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article examines how Robert Owen’s ideas, and the example of his New Lanark Mill, were understood and received in Spain in the nineteenth century. It follows recent historiographic trends in the history of early Spanish socialism to show that although Owen’s ideas could not have a decisive impact in a largely agricultural economy and society, his ideas did draw more significant attention that has been thought. The article examines how Owen’s ideas, like those of Fourier and Saint-Simon, (...) were transmitted in Spain through different channels, in particular in education through the work of Pablo Montesino, and in the 1850s and 60s how they proved important to the creation of workers’ co-operatives in Valencia and Madrid. The article also explores how Owen’s ideas were important to the influential Spanish author Ramón de Sagra, and shows that the epistolary relationship between the two suggests that de Sagra might have been a more important voice for Owen’s ideas in Spain than has been appreciated. (shrink)

O presente artigo visa elucidar as relações entre Fernando Pessoa, Schopenhauer e a questão do livre arbítrio, tendo por base a leitura que o autor português fez da obra schopenhaueriana. Com efeito, ao longo dos escritos de Pessoa encontramos múltiplos testemunhos da leitura que o poeta e pensador português fez do pensamento schopenhaueriano. Um importante indício para o estudo da reapropriação pessoana do pensamento de Schopenhauer constata-se, desde logo, na Biblioteca Particular de Fernando Pessoa, onde encontramos uma tradução (...) francesa do texto Über die Freiheit des menschlichen Willens [Sobre a liberdade da vontade] de Schopenhauer. A leitura deste livro viria a ocasionar a produção de uma multiplicidade de escritos filosóficos que Fernando Pessoa atribui a duas das suas personalidades literárias fictícias inglesas do universo pré-heteronímico: Charles Robert Anon e Alexander Search. Assim, tendo por base todos estes indícios, pretendemos mostrar o impacto da leitura de Schopenhauer no universo literário pessoano. (shrink)

In this sixth issue of Speculations, a serial imprint created to explore post-continental philosophy and speculative realism, a wide range of contemporary philosophical issues pertaining to the contemporary philosophical scene is touched upon, from the continental realism of Tristan Garcia, Graham Harman and Quentin Meillassoux to the 'new realism' of Maurizio Ferraris, from Lacanian and Laurellian speculations to the synthetic philosophy of Fernando Zalamea's mathematics.

Gregory Pappas faced a difficult task in offering a critical response to this book, as he is not only the current philosopher who is most cited in the book, but the book frequently acknowledges his work as being the single greatest intellectual bridge between the various filosofías vivas (living philosophies) of the Americas. I am humbled by Goyo's (Pappas's) kind words and thankful for his critiques.Pappas's most significant critique concerns Part II of the book, the part that investigates the (...) danger that inter-American philosophy might function, intentionally or not, as a form of US propaganda. Pappas suggests that this section descends into an oversimplified kind of cultural Manichaeanism, where all of Latin America's problems are explained as being due to yanqui colonialism and the peoples of Latin American countries are all virtuous, long-suffering victims with no agency or accountability themselves. Worse yet, Pappas raises the possibility that I have foolishly set out on a Quest for Purity (fighting words to be sure since he knows how much I dig Dewey's Quest for Certainty!) where I make it my mission to imagine an American philosophical discourse disinfected of all North American colonialism. Pappas's critique is fair and insightful. I am most concerned that in my effort to take seriously the linkages between American pragmatism and American colonialism that Rodó, Vasconcelos, and others allege exist, I have painted an oversimplified and crude picture that, most troublingly, elides the moral agency of the peoples of the Caribbean and Latin America. Please let me offer a few responses to his critique that the book lacked subtlety in its analysis of colonialism as it relates to inter-American philosophy and North American Pragmatism.First, Pappas is undoubtedly correct that the United States is not to blame for all the problems that beset the peoples of Latin America, and that every country has its own, homegrown problems of corruption and vice. However, a philosophy centered on the problems of life recognizes our contexts and various situated positions. Therefore, as a gringo (even a gringo Boricua who was raised in Puerto Rico), I contend it is not my place to remove the mote of moral failures from those living within a colonial system while the beam of white colonialism still blinds most white Americans (including me) from properly seeing ourselves in this system. Pappas is, of course, correct when he says that the “other side also needs some correction.” However, as a white US citizen who has benefitted from these colonial systems, I think it is most productive and appropriate for me, for reasons of pragmatist fallibilism if nothing else, to attend to my side in the problem, which is the history and present of US colonialism in the Americas. While I accept that my analysis lacked balance and subtlety, as Pappas rightly notes, the reason was that I was trying to write consistently from my position as a yanqui who wanted to thematize the role of US colonialism within Latin America, not to strive for purity, but instead a full reckoning of a system that my privilege encourages me to ignore.This leads to a second valence of my response to Dr. Pappas's critique, one that regards how my affinities impact my epistemology. If some readers find the critique of American Pragmatism in Part II to be too vociferous (though, I am sure many others will find the critiques too tame), it was because I was intentionally trying to write with my off-hand, as it were. The chapters of Part II strive to charitably consider and make room for the charge that was suggested by Frondizi and strenuously argued by Vasconcelos, Rodó, and Albizu, that philosophies of the Global North, including Pragmatism, facilitate systems of oppression in the Global South. I did so to try to correct for the fact that my starting point is one of great admiration and even love for American Philosophy, including many English-language North American pragmatists like Dewey, James, and Addams. One of the premises of this book is that the academic discourse of inter-American philosophy is ready to grow past the initial stage of development, which has heretofore focused on delineating points of affinity between the intellectual traditions of the Americas, and to start to contend with points of discord and contention. So while I was (and truthfully still am not) convinced by José Vasconcelos's depiction of John Dewey as the High Priest of the American Empire, I also know that since Dewey is one of my greatest influences, my personal affinity might lead me to exculpate him even if a critique is valid. Therefore, I argue that it is appropriate and necessary to offer a charitable summary of these critiques so that other scholars with different perspectives and starting points might weigh in on these and other critiques. The purpose of this book was less to argue a position about many of these issues, than it was to invite and foster a broader, truly inter-American community of inquiry to engage with these questions to have a full and complex assessment of the questions. Somewhat ironically, I dedicated a third of this book to making charitable room for critiques of North American Pragmatism for good pragmatist reasons. One of the most significant values of philosophical Pragmatism is its prioritization of a particular method of inquiry that is democratic and sincere above any particular claim. In this case, that means it is more important to have an inter-American philosophical dialogue that makes room for and charitably considers all claims (including claims that are profoundly distrustful of Pragmatism by thinkers like Rodó and Vasconcelos) than it is for me, as one voice speaking at what I think is still an early stage of the conversation, to defend or refute particular claims about philosophers. A full scholarly discourse developed by an inter-American community of philosophical inquiry will yield the sort of subtle and nuanced historical understanding Pappas calls for. The intent was to move this discourse toward the more contentious points of inter-American philosophical exchange and precisely because I believe that fostering a broader, truly American philosophical discourse is a legitimate aspiration. The Deweyan in me believes that this kind of community of engaged inquirers is the best group to encourage the sort of ground-up change that Alexis Massol and others call us to make.Finally, the most personally authentic response to Pappas's critique is that the parts of the book that sought parallels between the horrific crimes and injustices of American imperialism and American Pragmatism were my attempt to heed Anzaldúa's imperative from Borderlands/La Frontera to accept the doppelganger in our psyches, to acknowledge and correct the “negative” parts of ourselves that we have pushed onto mexicanos and other latine peoples for centuries (Anzaldúa 86). Since I take to heart her claim that the tendency of white Americans is to displace our problems onto others, it is essential for me to fully know myself and my cultures in the context of colonialism. While Pappas is, of course, right to say the problems are not entirely due to yanqui colonialism, it is also certainly the case that white Americans are still casting their faults onto people they frame as Others and scapegoating Latin American immigrants as the source of their woes. So, as with the responses above, it felt right to me to air out these more critical perspectives on not just US foreign policy but also the philosophies of the United States, in order to work against the tendency that Anzaldúa sees in white folk to let ourselves off the hook and the push our faults onto others.As with Pappas above, I am greatly honored that Alexander Stehn would write such a thoughtful and nuanced critique that demonstrates such a careful reading of the book. I am heartened that a scholar as well versed as Alex would say that he learned from the book. If that is so, I am sure that it is because this book's primary value is ostensive: it hopefully functions as a signpost directing the reader to dig deeply into the works of thinkers like Pedro Albizu Campos, Fernando Zalamea, and Henríquez Ureña, who are still little-read in English-language settings. I am excited for Stehn's students to get to read Albizu's political philosophy alongside works by Socrates, King, and Zea! Still, Stehn is too gracious by directing the first part of his comments to developing insights that are largely praiseworthy of the book.However, I have long noticed that whenever a philosopher starts a critique with kind and thoughtful comments of praise, they will follow with a shot to the heart. Stehn's third point, which is well-warranted and framed very gently, is that I fail to give the reader enough access to my inner life. Stehn is correct to note that this is a significant failing on my part since I specifically frame the book in part as my effort at an Anzaldúan autohistoria that strives to draw insights by blending personal introspection with traditional approaches to history and theoretical analysis. My friend and colleague Alex is correct that the moments of self-reflection are too few and certainly less brave and self-revelatory than those of first-order writers in this genre, like Anzaldúa, Lugones, and Mariana Alessandri.1Therefore, my first response to Stehn's critique is to simply cop to the fact that I am less skilled and less brave than these and other authors that I emulate and hold up as guides. For what it's worth, that was me, as someone from an Irish-Italian Catholic family who learned to repress and conceal all problems at an early age, trying to be self-revelatory! However, Stehn is correct that the book certainly would have been stronger had I delved more deeply into the truths of my life being brought up as a gringo in Puerto Rico. A more authentic autohistoria would have done a more thorough job of reclaiming my own doppelganger and illustrating what it might mean to be a white, straight guy who sincerely strives to adopt his version of the mestiza consciousness that Anzaldúa argued we all need to develop. In particular, I should have connected the dots more explicitly between the colonial laws and policies that enabled my parents and me to move to Puerto Rico in the 1970s and the colonial and white supremacist ideas and habits that I learned from my family and perpetuated myself that often put me out-of-sorts with the people I was lucky to be raised with.Stehn asks what experiences still haunt me about my childhood that I did not address in the book. There are lots and too many to talk about today, but I will say the most difficult ones center around my mom, Joan, who passed away a few weeks before our panel in Boston. She was born into crushing poverty in New York City during the Great Depression and learned early-on to be ashamed of her poverty as well as her Italian heritage, which she learned to associate with poverty. She spent most of her life working hard to care for her five kids and to make sure we were well-prepared to “succeed in life,” which to her meant to make the most of white privilege by doing well financially and getting as far as possible from the rough Bronx upbringing she had. She therefore found it a cruel and mirthless joke to have worked her way all the way to the comfort and status of the white-flight New Jersey suburbs only to find herself back in an apartment in a crowded city. She also manifested and conveyed to me the logic of a white supremacist ideology that sorted people according to the same racial taxonomy that she learned as a kid, the one that made her suspicious to my dad's Irish father, but nonetheless just barely inside the lines of whiteness. If I were a braver writer, I would have perhaps written about the wounds within mi propia alma (my own soul) born of being taught by the person who loved me best in the world that I should be terrified of “the Puerto Ricans” and then to have to go make friends and live in Puerto Rico.There is, perhaps, a mitigating factor to Stehn's critique that I do not bring myself sufficiently to account in my work, and I offer this not by way of self-defense, but to hopefully illuminate a significant point. As with my response to Pappas's critique above, I strove through this work to eschew any pretense of a view sub specie aeternitatis in favor of a work that was mindful of my context and situatedness. So while Stehn is right that the work would have been more valuable were I braver in my self-analysis, I think that, as a person situated in a context of great lived privilege, it is proper for me to balance out a tendency toward taking up more space than is fair. To make the point simply, I did not want the work to be about me, but instead about how I might open an important discussion on how to develop an inter-American philosophical community capable of addressing the legacy of US colonialism across the Americas. Therefore, perhaps autohistoria should look different for me than it did for Anzaldúa. If I am lucky enough to have my gig as a professor long enough to write another book (my university just announced we were moving to a “polytechnic” model that emphasizes STEM and professional fields even more than they already are, so perhaps I will yet become another over-educated Irish-American bartender after all!), I will continue to find the right balance between being forthright about my own efforts to reclaim my doppelganger and heal the splits in my heart and being humble and quiet in the self-awareness that people like me have spoken too much already, and that sometimes the wisest thing for me to do is to stop talking. (shrink)

Da ficção científica para a ficção religiosa: ideias para pensar o cinema de ficção científica como o culto da religião vivida (From Science Fiction to Religious Fiction: ideas to think on Science Fiction cinema as the cult of lived religion). DOI - 10.5752/P.2175-5841.2012v10n26p552 Este artigo tem como objetivo refletir sobre a chamada religião vivida como uma forma de repensar o papel da teologia e das ciências da religião na contemporaneidade. O estudo da religião vivida será investigado na relação entre o (...) cinema de ficção científica e a religião, propondo que, nesta relação, há uma forma de religião vivida intensa e viva. Sugere-se, assim, que o cinema seja hoje uma forma de culto e ritual, cumprindo parte do papel que os mitos e ritos sagrados desempenham na vida das pessoas, ao longo dos tempos. O artigo contém quatro partes: introdução sobre a religião vivida; religião vivida no caso específico do cinema; o cinema de ficção científica como uma forma de religião; aplicação da teoria no filme “Contato” (Robert Zemeckis, USA 1997); conclusões sobre a vivência religiosa em forma de mito e rito nos filmes de ficção científica e as consequências disso para a teologia e as ciências da religião. Palavras-chave : Cinema de ficção científica. Religião. Culto e rito. Religião vivida.: This article aims at reflecting about the so-called lived religion as a way of rethinking the role of theology and religion in contemporary society. The study of the lived religion will investigate the relationship between the cinema of science fiction and religion, suggesting that, in this relation, there is particular and intensive form of lived religion. The present article suggests that cinema today is a form of cult and ritual which performs part of the role that sacred rites play in the lives of people along the time. The article contains four parts: introduction about the lived religion; lived religion in the specific case of cinema; the cinema of science fiction as a form of religion; the application of theory in the movie “Contact” (Robert Zemeckis, USA 1997); conclusions on the religious experience in the form of myth and rite in science fiction movies as well as the consequences for theology and religious studies. Keywords : Science fiction cinema. Religion. Cult and rite. Lived religion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:1 1 6 Philosophy and Literature 1.Jesse Kalin, "Philosophy Needs Literature: John Barth and Moral Nihilism,"Philosophy and Literature 1(1977): 170-82. 2.Kalin states, in summary fashion, that in argument by "exhibition" we are made aware that Jake's concern for Rennie is a "case of relative value which is genuinely reason giving" (p. 176). But he does not defend this claim, so we can only note it and pass on. 3.A. (...) C. Bradley, "Poetry for Poetry's Sake," Oxford Lectures On Poetry (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965), p. 24. 4.On the "heresy of the separable substances," see Bradley, p. 12 ff., where he defends the claim that "subject is the opposite... of the whole poem. Substance is within the poem." Recall also Robert Frost's dictum that the poem is what remains after translation. 5.J. Glenn Gray, On Understanding Violence Philosophically and Other Essays (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), p. 79. 6.Cf. Eliseo Vivas, "Critical Assizes," The Blue Guitar 1 (1975):84. "... The critic who is interested in going through literature to moral philosophy, political thought, social theory, or the rest, is a man the seriousness of whose interest in any of these disciplines can be questioned. As a moral philosopher, no novelist or literary critic can tie Kant's shoes or those of Bishop Butler; I know of no novelist or literary critic who as a political thinker can hold a candle to Edmund Burke or Michael Oakeshott, or who as a sociologist can rival Karl Marx or Max Weber. A literary critic who thinks he can go through literature to a well established discipline cultivated by the men I have mentioned or others of lesser stature is a dilettante in the pejorative sense of the term. He can't take his drink at the bar and take it straight; he sits in a booth and sweetens his bourbon with gingerale, or, God forbid, with Coca-Cola." 7.William Gass, Fiction and the Figures of Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), p. 11. "An idea must be thought before it can be tested, but a principle encased in fiction has, most likely, not been thought at all. It has been used." HOW WIDE THE GULF? a rejoinder by Jesse Kalin Several rather loosely related but important theses can be abstracted from Curtler's remarks. First, that philosophy and literature are so different in character that it is hard to see how they can seriously have anything to do with each other. Second, that the main thesis of my paper—that philosophy at least sometimes needs literature as an essential stage in its program—is false. And third, that my interpretation of Barth's novels is, if not incorrect, only one of several conflicting readings and hence not able to support the claims I base upon it. I shall discuss each of these in turn. Jesse Kalin117 Throughout, Curtler tries to draw the difference between philosophy and literature as sharply as possible. He concludes that not only do they have no need for each other, but to the degree that one "succeeds as a poet he fails as a philosopher" (p. 115). What might appear to be overstatement (and thus most unphilosophical) is supported by a series of contrasts. Philosophy is a matter of proof, not intuition, of argumentation, not persuasion, of concepts, not images, and so on. However, this rigid and rather positivistic picture of philosophy, resting on a supposedly clear and unbridgeable distinction between philosophy and literature made in terms of method and style, is mistaken, and with it the corollary that the two have nothing to contribute to one another.1 If we look at the actual practice of major philosophers, especially modern ones, we will find that their styles are not readily describable in the terms Curtler suggests they should be to count as philosophy. Imagination, intuition, images, makings, even the actual construction of characters and "dramatic action," are in many cases central. Descartes, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Sartre are all cases in point. The essence of this supposed gulf between philosophy and literature is brought out when Curtler says "the way of... (shrink)

HIV/AIDS continues to constitute a serious threat to the social and physical wellbeing of African mothers and their babies. In the hardest hit countries of sub-Saharan Africa, more than 60% of all new HIV infections are occurring in women, infants and young children. Mother-to-child transmission constitutes 90% of new HIV infections among infants and young children. Most of these infections can be prevented. However, the social stigma of HIV/AIDS insidiously continues to undermine the success of prevention programs. Ironically, some attributes (...) or characteristics of prevention of mother-to-child transmission programs may in fact serve as catalysts to the stigmatization process. This paper identifies and discusses six potential initiators: Routine HIV testing, Six months exclusive breastfeeding, Incentives, Home visits, Location of PMTCT program, and PMTCT terminology. In all these areas, there are practical strategies that may be applied to reduce the chances of being stigmatized. These strategies are introduced and discussed. (shrink)

Jordan holds that art is constitutive of culture. The doctrine has thus, obviously, its roots in idealistic philosophy. Audacious, perhaps foolhardy as it may seem to some, and absurd and even perverse as it will seem to others, Jordan seeks to demonstrate that poetry "is literally the creator and legislator for the real world".

In this contribution, the role of epistemology in understanding quantum chemistry is discussed. Quantum chemistry is the study of the behavior of atoms and molecules using the principles of quantum mechanics. Epistemology helps us evaluate claims to knowledge, distinguish between justified and unjustified beliefs, and assess the reliability of scientific methods. In quantum chemistry, the epistemology of knowledge is heavily influenced by the mathematical nature of quantum mechanics, and models can be tested, proven, and validated through experimentation. This paper also (...) discusses key concepts used in quantum chemistry, such as the wave-particle duality of matter and the uncertainty principle. This work utilizes Kant’s philosophy of science to frame debates and discussions in quantum chemistry, particularly with regard to the interplay between empirical observation and theory. Additionally, the text explores how Kant’s ideas about the role of the mind in constructing our understanding of the world can help us comprehend the counterintuitive phenomena of quantum mechanics and its applications in quantum chemistry theory. (shrink)