While Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics does not provide a guide for action in the form of rules for a decision process as deontological or consequentialistethical theories purport to do, he does present a description of the virtuous agent and the virtues that this agent exercises in his choices of action. In this paper Iargue that Aristotle’s mature virtuous agent characteristically exercises the virtue of wisdom (sophia) as well as the practical virtues of character and intelligence in his choices of (...) action and that students of virtue (those sincerely interested in becoming virtuous by acting as the virtuous agent does) can derive certain action-guiding rules from a description of these three virtues and how they are exercised by the mature virtuous agent in any given choice of action. (shrink)

Jonathan Lear in Radical Hope tackles the idea of cultural devastation, in the specific case of the Crow Indians. What do we mean by “annihilation” of a culture? The moral point of view that he imagines as he reconstructs the eve and aftermath of this annihilation is not second personal, of obligation, but first personal, in the collective and singular, as told by the Crows, with Lear as “analyst.” Radical Hope is a study of representative character of a people—of virtue, (...) courage, resilience, and hope in the face of cultural collapse. The leading questions are shaped by ancient Greek ethics, but with a twist: On the brink of cultural death , what counts for us as good living and what is the nature of the virtues or excellences that constitute it? How might a leader, a phronimos , exemplify it? This puts it too narrowly. The questions, also, are Wittgensteinian: How does a nation go on, when the concepts and way of life it has lived by for centuries are no more? What does it mean to go on? What does it mean to stop when the marks of going on are no longer? (shrink)

This paper explores the gendered and temporal dimensions of the political ontology of hospitality that Derrida has developed from Levinas's philosophy. The claim is that, while hospitality per se takes time, the more that hospitality becomes conditional under conservative political forces, the more that the time it takes is given by women without acknowledgment or support. The analysis revisits Hannah Arendt's claim that central to the human condition and democratic plurality is disclosure of "natality" (innovation or the birth of the (...) new). This can be described as accounting for the "temporalisation of time": the disruption of the past (cultural tradition) in the present that is a condition of agency and political hospitality. On the other hand, the unpredictability and instability of human affairs that this temporalization of time engenders can, in times of heightened insecurity and fear, give birth to political conservatism that would contain "natality" and dampen the hospitality that characterizes democratic pluralism. The paper examines the connection between this idea of the temporalization of time and feminist observations, overlooked by Arendt, that "lived time" is gendered, that is, that the condition of "natality" and political hospitality is an unacknowledged stability provided by women giving lived time to others, beginning with reproduction in the "home." The inequities that result are exacerbated, and democracy is further compromised, if this re-gendering of domestic space is accompanied by the deregularization of labor time. (shrink)

A literary, historical and philosophical discussion of attitudes to blindness by the sighted, and what the blind 'see'.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Holding Doctors Responsible at Guantánamo*Nancy Sherman (bio)I recently visited the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center with a small group of civilian psychiatrists, psychologists, top military doctors, and Department of Defense health affairs officials to discuss detainee medical and mental health care. The unspoken reason for the invitation to go on this unusual day trip was the bruising criticism the Bush administration has received for its use of psychiatrists and (...) psychologists in the interrogation of suspected terrorist detainees.1We disembarked from our Navy jet to find an island lush and green from recent storms. A small boat took us from the airfield to the naval hospital. From the boat there was no sign of Camp Delta, where the detainees are actually held. Nor was there a sign of prisons or barbed wire or the detention facility's 505 inmates.Our host was the commanding officer of Gitmo, Major General Jay W. Hood (an artillery officer by training), who had replaced Major General Geoffrey Miller, implicated in the "migration" of torture methods from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib. Dressed in fatigues, General Hood briefed us using PowerPoint. His intelligence director told us that interrogators have not used harsh "fear up" tactics—the ones designed to terrify—since 2003.We went by bus from the naval hospital to the 30-bed detainee hospital for quick briefings from a psychiatrist and a physician. Still, we were not permitted to see any detainees or hunger strikers, despite our requests. During our six hours on the ground, we had only a fleeting glimpse of a few detainees outside their cellblocks behind barbed wire and screened fences.Indeed, when I got home and saw the play "Guantánamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom," by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo, I had the disquieting feeling that I had absorbed more about detainee life at the theater than I had from actually being at Gitmo. This only amplified my anxiety that what I had heard and seen during my VIP visit sidestepped the central moral issue of whether abuse is still occurring at Gitmo and whether health professionals are, or have been, a party to coercive interrogation. [End Page 199]The question that the Pentagon leadership has been focusing on, and which was a key subject of discussion during our day at Gitmo, is whether there is an ethical difference between using psychologists or psychiatrists on interrogation teams—what the Pentagon calls, "behavioral consultation teams," or BSCTs, pronounced "biscuit." Some in the Pentagon would like to have doctors and psychiatrists, who are bound by the Hippocratic teaching to "do no harm," be the clinicians treating detainees. Psychologists, who are not as bound by Hippocratic dicta, would consult with and advise interrogators. But this is a red herring. It is hair-splitting that detracts from the real issue of whether health professionals of any stripe can ethically be involved in interrogations that may involve coercive techniques or torture. The answer is clearly no. They should not be involved, directly or indirectly, in situations that may lead to the breach of confidential medical records; to torture or to cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment; or to exploitation of fears or phobias. Mental health professionals simply should not be collaborating with interrogators in inflicting psychological torture.Hood said that "rapport building" was the preferred and an effective interrogation technique, but that is no guarantee that rougher tactics will not be used. The fact is that there is enormous pressure on the people at Guantánamo Bay to get good intelligence for the war on terror, and it is as easy for behavioral scientists as it is for interrogators to compromise their moral standards. Cunning and deception to extract information may be acceptable in some cases. But many people have been outraged to learn from media reports that methods developed by military psychologists to train our own troops to resist torture—the so-called "survival, evasion, resistance, and escape" methods taught at Ft. Bragg—have been "reverse engineered" at Guantánamo Bay to create coercive, psychologically manipulative interrogation techniques for use against detainees.Plato warned long ago that a doctor's skill, abstracted from good character and wisdom, is a neutral... (shrink)

This paper develops a political ontology of hospitality from the philosophies of Arendt, Derrida and Levinas, paying particular attention to the gendered, temporal, and corporeal dimensions of hospitality. Arendt's claim, that central to the human condition and democratic plurality is the welcome of ‘natality’, is used to argue that the more that this hospitality becomes conditional under conservative political forces, the more that the time that it takes is given by women without acknowledgement or support. Women's bodies are thus caught (...) within the dual poles of conservative government: regulation of the unpredictable expressions of ‘natality’ in the ‘home’ and management of the uniformity and ‘security’ of the nation. The limitations in Arendt's political ontology of hospitality are addressed by adding consideration of the operation of biopolitics and of the body as bios. (shrink)

Although Adorno criticizes the existential tradition, it is frequently argued that he and Heidegger share a number of theoretical interests. Adorno does come into direct contact with existential thought at certain points, but it is Kierkegaard, not Heidegger, who more closely approaches his concerns. I begin by reviewing Adorno's Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic. I then argue that, unlike Hegel, who is also criticized by Adorno on various grounds, Kierkegaard has had an influence on Adorno that has been underappreciated. While (...) Adorno criticizes Kierkegaard for breaking off the subject-object dialectic, they converge in their attacks on identity-thinking, the retention of a negative utopian standpoint of critique, and a deliberately provocative style of writing, all of which are marshaled in defense of the individual, who is besieged by modern society. Unlike Kierkegaard, however, and despite the generally accepted view, I conclude by arguing that because Adorno does not break off the subject-object dialectic, he has the necessary theoretical resources to deal with the theory-practice problem. Key Words: Adorno • communication • dialectic • individual • Kierkegaard • subject-object • subjectivity • theory-practice. (shrink)

This paper develops an ontology of sound from Merleau-Ponty’s accounts of linguistic expression and political communication framed in terms of the instituted-instituting character of the “flesh.” The analysis explores the role of sound and hearing in experiencing and making sense of a world in order to explain two problems: first, the impact of hearing loss on a person’s relations with others and with their environment and, second, the impact of “trump talk” on the fabric of political community. The argument is (...) that hearing loss and “trump talk” weaken or erase what Merleau-Ponty refers to as the “spirit” of communication and intersubjectivity. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the Stoic view on attachment to external goods, or what the Stoics call “indifferents.” Attachment is problematic, on the Stoic view, because it exposes us to loss and exacerbates the fragility that comes with needing others and things. The Stoics argue that we can build resilience through a robust reeducation of ordinary emotions and routine practice in psychological risk management techniques. Through a focus on selected writings of Seneca as well as Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations and (...) Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, I nonetheless ask whether Stoicism leaves any room for grief and distress. I argue that it does, and that consolation comes not from a retreat to some inner citadel, but from the support and sustenance of social connections. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker’s book Epistemic Injustice calls attention to an important sort of moral and intellectual wrongdoing, that of failing to give others their intellectual due. When we fail to recognize others’ knowledge, or undervalue their beliefs and judgments, we fail in two important respects. First, we miss out on the opportunity to improve and refine our own sets of beliefs and judgments. Second—and more relevant to the term “injustice”—we can deny people the intellectual respect they deserve. Along with describing the (...) wrong of epistemic injustice, Fricker proposes that epistemic justice is a virtue we “can, and should, aim for in practice”. But I argue that there are two major problems. First, it is not clear that it is reasonable to imagine there is any such stable disposition—that is, any such virtue—as the sort of justice she imagines. Second, even if there could be such a virtue, her theory of epistemic justice does not provide good guidance for avoiding epistemic injustice. While it could.. (shrink)

Highlighting the contemporary resurgence of interest in Aristotle's ethical theory, this text contributes to the debate by asserting that, in Aristotle's view, excellence of character is constituted both by the sentiments and by practical reason.

Jeremy Sherman distills Terrence Deacon's breakthrough natural science hypothesis for the emergence of agents and agency, selves and aims in an otherwise aimless universe. The theory cuts a new path through the dualistic spirit vs. mechanism debate, unifying the hard and soft sciences and suggesting new solutions to philosophical mysteries.

The ethics of Aristotle, and virtue ethics in general, have enjoyed a resurgence of interest over the past few decades. Aristotelian themes, with such issues as the importance of friendship and emotions in a good life, the role of moral perception in wise choice, the nature of happiness and its constitution, moral education and habituation, are finding an important place in contemporary moral debates. Taken together, the essays in this volume provide a close analysis of central arguments in Aristotle's Nicomachean (...) Ethics and show the enduring interest of the questions Aristotle raises. (shrink)

This article compares Nietzsche's and Arendt's critiques of the juridical concept of responsibility (that emphasizes duty and blame) with the aim of deriving an account of responsibility appropriate for our time. It examines shared ground in their radical approaches to responsibility: by basing personal responsibility in conscience that expresses a self open to an undetermined future, rather than conscience determined by prevailing moral norms, they make a connection between a failure of personal responsibility and the way a totalizing politics jeopardizes (...) human plurality. Two differences between Arendt and Nietzsche are also explored: Nietzsche's account of the corporeal and affective dimensions of conscience explains how politics can foreclose the futural, undetermined dimension of conscience; Arendt's account of political community exposes the mutual dependence of personal and political responsibility. By drawing together these aspects of Arendt's and Nietzsche's thought, the article aims to show how a failure of political responsibility can precipitate a failure of personal responsibility by undermining the basis of normativity that both liberal democratic politics and individual moral conscience would ordinarily share. Key Words: Hannah Arendt • conscience • futurity • Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche • normativity • responsibility • somatic reflexivity • totalitarianism. (shrink)

The concept of negative dialectics constitutes the philosophical core of Adorno's wide-ranging thought. It reflects his attempt both to consider the status of dialectics in the face of a history that has failed to actualize its prognostications and to rework dialectics to make it adequate to his own time. Among the themes considered are Adorno's critique of conceptuality in the German idealist tradition, his critique of enlightenment reason and its relationship to capitalist society, his qualified rejection of universal history, his (...) concern with revitalizing experience, and his concept of the constellation, which he offers as an alternative to existing epistemological paradigms. (shrink)

This is a field-based disguised case which describes a dilemma faced by the protagonists; do they continue to do business with a land developer who has assisted them in the past when now the developer chooses to, against their recommendations, also do business with their ex-business partner? The problem for the characters in question is whether or not to work on a project that will yield them a net profit of $4 million dollars given the fact it would require them (...) to work in the same development as their former business associate. The central characters are afraid that their ex-partner will be a destabilizing factor in the development of the project and that their work sites will be in jeopardy of being vandalized. Several factors complicate this situation including: the developer’s desire for a quick land purchase, the developer’s changing the discount rate from 20% to 10% perhaps based upon difficulties that surrounded the first land deal, the protagonists’ plans to build their own homes in this new development, and the negative relationship between the protagonists and the ex-business partner. The case has a difficulty level appropriate for a sophomore or junior level course. The case is designed to be taught in one class period and is expected to require between three to five hours of outside preparation by students. (shrink)

Persuasive social robots can influence human behavior through giving advice. The current study investigates whether references to prior discourse and signals of empathy make an advice-giving robot an even more effective persuader and whether participants follow the robot’s advice and drink even more water when the robot additionally uses these strategies. We recruited students and university staff for a lab-study in which three different robot personalities on the same robot type presented health-related information. In one condition, the robot gave advice (...) and referred to something mentioned earlier in the conversation (i.e., to dialog history), in another condition, the robot gave advice and used empathic signals, and in the third condition, the robot gave advice only. Our results show that participants drank significantly more when the advice-giving robot also used the persuasive strategies of empathy and references to dialog history than when the robot only gave advice. This study shows that both strategies increase the persuasiveness of the robot and makes it more influential. (shrink)

Globalization, technological advances, and changing employment structures have facilitated greater flexibility in how and where many Americans do their paid work. In response, a new work arrangement, coworking, has emerged in the United States. Coworking organizations bring together professionals from different companies to share a common workspace and build community. Despite the prevalence and potential benefits of coworking, little systematic research about coworking contexts exists, let alone research focused on gender inequality therein. Using 78 interviews and more than 700 hours (...) of observation across nine coworking spaces, we examine the organizational logics that shape gender dynamics, as well as intersecting racial and class dynamics, in coworking spaces. Building on Acker’s inequality regimes framework, we uncover organizational logic that either reduces or reproduces inequality for diverse groups of women in coworking contexts. We conclude by discussing important theoretical and empirical implications of these findings. (shrink)

Chapter I: The background to Aristotle's theory is provided by Aristophanes' Clouds in the debate between the traditionalists and Socratics on moral education. Aristotle steers a middle course between the old and new educations, preserving on the one hand, the role of filial ties in the transmission of values, and on the other, the importance of practical reason in providing a critical assessment of attachments. ;Chapter II: Here I argue against a common reading of Aristotle that views moral training as (...) merely a matter of habituation and practice whereby certain skills become second-nature. I propose instead that moral training is a training of "right pleasures and pains", or attachments to certain ends and objects of value. These I argue are transmitted through antecedent attachments to family. ;Chapter III: A theory of the development of character requires an analysis of emotions and desires constitutive of character. Aristotle regards emotions as intentional, where by intentional he means directed at certain objects regarded by an agent selectively, as the result of certain beliefs, perceptions, and phantasia. Thus, emotions have desiderative and cognitive elements, and training is directed at each. ;Chapter IV: Another aspect of moral training is paideia through music and tragedy. Both ensure for the transmission of a common core of cultural values, and thus extend training beyond the family to the city. At the heart of this paideia is the notion of mimesis. In music, mimesis is a process is one of association, whereby the pleasurable quality of music reinforces an attachment to the characters which music expresses. In tragedy, the identification is more complex. Katharsis through pity and fear requires that we identify not merely with characters, but with choice and actions and deliberations which lead to them. ;Chapter V: I conclude by studying Aeschylus' Oresteia as a tragedy which illustrates the notion of identification, as well as Aristotle's general belief that moral training takes place within the family. Through tragedy we see the complexities that develop within philia, and are forced, through pity and fear, to examine our own filial sentiments and obligations. (shrink)

A deeply informed exploration of what Stoic ideas have to offer us today Stoicism is the ideal philosophy of life for those seeking calm in times of stress and uncertainty. For many, it has become the new Zen, with meditation techniques that help us face whatever life throws our way. Indeed, the Stoics address a key question of our time: how can we be masters of our fate when the outside world threatens to unmoor our well-being? In Stoic Wisdom, Georgetown (...) philosophy professor Nancy Sherman, an expert in ancient and modern ethics, shows what a practical modern Stoicism really looks like. Drawing on the wisdom of Stoic thinkers Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and others, Sherman paints a portrait that uncovers the true subtlety and power of Stoic ideas. That portrait reveals a truth often ignored: that the Stoics never thought self-sufficiency was only about rugged self-reliance and mental discipline. We are at home in the world, they taught, when we are connected to each other in cooperative efforts. While mastery of one's self is essential, we also must draw on our deepest relationships for true strength and resilience. Bringing these ancient ideas to bear on 21st century environments-from Silicon Valley to first responders in a pandemic, to soldiers on the battlefield-Sherman shows how Stoicism can both prepare us for an uncertain future and help us cope with traumatic events. Stoic Wisdom will appeal to anyone feeling helpless or looking for deeper, meaningful strength and goodness in addressing life's biggest and smallest challenges. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: notes further reading.

Through a re-reading of Antigone, I offer a critique of Hegel's use of the story to illustrate the unity which emerges from the representation of sexual difference in ethical life. Using Hegel's own account of habits, as the mechanism by which the body becomes a sign of the self, I argue that the pretense of social unity assumes the proper construction and representation of one body only. This critique is brought to bear upon contemporary moves towards a post-Hegelian ethics of (...) difference. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Camus’s Meursault and Sartrian IrresponsibilityDavid ShermanIn the wake of poststructuralism, with its glorification of the libidinal play of unaccountable, fragmented subjectivities, the concept of personal responsibility has been rehabilitated. From the French fascination with various forms of neo-Kantianism to the American interest in homey (albeit demagogic) books on the virtues, personal responsibility is regaining currency. But what, exactly, does it mean to be personally responsible? When Albert Camus suggested (...) in “Neither Victims Nor Executioners” that non-violence was the “responsible” position for intellectuals to take on the Algerian crisis, he was reproached for legalistically evading responsibility by his erstwhile friend Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre, who offered up the concept of “absolute responsibility,” and viewed any attempt to obscure the nature of this ontological burden for oneself as “bad faith,” regarded Camus’s position as just such an attempt: “If you’re not victims when the government which you voted for, when the army in which your younger brothers are serving... have undertaken race murder, you are, without a shadow of a doubt, executioners.” 1 For Sartre, who tentatively advocated revolutionary violence, taking responsibility meant acknowledging that “bloodying one’s hands” is unavoidable.The concept of personal responsibility is well considered within the context of French existentialism, which made it one of its hallmarks. In this essay, however, I shall approach personal responsibility from the vantage point of its opposite, personal irresponsibility. Towards this end, I shall consider Meursault, the protagonist in Camus’s The Stranger, whom I take to be one of the most irresponsible characters in literature. The depths of Meursault’s irresponsibility can best be appreciated, fittingly enough, within Sartre’s psychoanalytic framework. [End Page 60]IIn Being and Nothingness, Sartre offers up the ontologically rooted phenomenon of bad faith, which, for present purposes, can be explicated as follows: consciousness, which is intentional (nothing more than that which it is conscious of), reflectively reconstitutes the Self, which does not exist in consciousness but as an object in the external world. There is no intrinsic Self, and the Self that does exist is perpetually being transcended. Despite this state of unremitting transcendence, however, at any point in time there are the undeniable facts of our particular existences, which (however we choose to interpret them) define the range of our possible projects. These brute facts, which are inexorable, constitute our facticity. Thus, Sartre tells us, there is a “double property of the human being, who is at once a facticity and a transcendence” (B&N, p. 98). 2 It is in a person’s approach to the relationship between these two properties, which is marked by an irresolvable tension, that bad faith arises: “Bad faith does not wish either to coordinate them or to surmount them in a synthesis. Bad faith seeks to affirm their identity while preserving their differences. It must affirm facticity as being transcendence and transcendence as being facticity, in such a way that at the instant when a person apprehends the one, he can find himself abruptly faced with the other” (B&N, p. 98).Sartre provides numerous illustrations of individuals who flee from either their facticity or transcendence. For example, there is the homosexual and his interlocutor, the “champion of sincerity.” The former, despite repeated homosexual encounters, refuses to draw the conclusion that he is a homosexual; instead, he sees both his past behavior and his present inclinations as part of a “restless search.” Conversely, the latter demands that the homosexual sincerely avow what he is, “a homosexual.” Both are in bad faith. The homosexual denies responsibility for all that he has done by perpetually pushing his conception of Self into the future, and thus perpetually beyond the reach of his ability to make judgments about himself—he makes a mockery of his past and present choices. The champion of sincerity, on the other hand, pushes the homosexual’s conception of Self into the past in order to make it a thing—he denies the homosexual’s (and perhaps his own) freedom to make future choices, which is what enables us to transcend what we presently are. The former flees facticity; the latter, transcendence.All persons in bad faith fall... (shrink)

Successful tutoring depends in part on child tutors’ ability to recognise and interpret accurately signals of misunderstanding by their tutees. Age- and gender-related differences were investigated in a study which exposed 80 children to a video-recorded episode involving a target child receiving ambiguous instructions in her attempts to move a model car along a designated route on a playmat roadway from one destination to another. The results showed that explicit, general and facial modes of displaying puzzlement by the target child (...) were judged as equally powerful expressions of degree of puzzlement, but 8-10 year olds judged the target child as significantly more puzzled than did 7 year olds. Older children were also more likely to attribute the puzzlement of the target child to the ambiguous instructions than to her verbal or facial expression of puzzlement. Girls were generally more accurate than boys in judging facial expressions and less likely than boys to give wrong or alternatively ambiguous responses when given the opportunity to correct the video-recorded ambiguous instructions. The results throw some light on the developing sensitivities of boys and girls in recognising and attributing failures of understanding by other children. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore the philosophy that is embedded in the Philippine higher education system, and to locate the country’s philosophy of education within the global context. The Philippine higher education is marked by complexity in terms of governance and organization. More importantly, its origin and development are deeply implicated in the country’s colonial history, which in turn significantly impacted how the aims and purposes of higher education are defined and perceived by various stakeholders. Such a condition has resulted (...) in specific social practices, and in a specific understanding of what higher education must contribute to the society. This paper thus examines a ‘distinct’ Filipino philosophy of higher education, the narratives that formed it, and the tensions that surround it. Moreover, it brings the field of Filipino philosophy in conversation with postcoloniality and the emerging field of philosophy of higher education. Analysis of the data shows consistency of the discourse topics, and the concept of nation-building as fundamental in understanding the mandate of higher education institutions. (shrink)

Ever since Max Weber started an argument about the role of Protestantism in jump-starting northern Europe's economic development, scholars have clashed over the influence of religion and culture on a society's economic prospects. Today, many wonder whether the "explosion" of Protestantism in Latin America will effect a similar wave of growth and democratization. In this book, Sherman compiles the results of her field study and national survey of 1000 rural Guatemalan households. She offers persuasive evidence that, in Guatemala and (...) throughout the region, religious world-views significantly influence economic life. Sherman explains how the change in attitude and behavior that accompanies conversion from animism to a Biblically orthodox world-view has improved the domestic welfare and economic status of many families. Further, she asserts that this new attitude, sympathetic to democratic-capitalism, has created a "moral cultural soil" in which freedom, personal empowerment, an enhanced status for women, and a desire to get ahead can be nurtured. (shrink)

Many on the left lament an apathy or amnesia toward recent acts of war. Particularly during the George W. Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, opposition to war seemed to lack the heat and potency of the 1960s and 1970s, giving the impression that passionate dissent was all but dead. Through an analysis of three politically engaged works of art, Rosalyn Deutsche argues against this melancholic attitude, confirming the power of contemporary art to criticize subjectivity as well as war. Deutsche (...) selects three videos centered on the deployment of the atomic bomb: Krzysztof Wodiczko's _Hiroshima Projection_ (1999), made after the first Gulf War; Silvia Kolbowski's _After Hiroshima mon amour_ (2005-2008); and Leslie Thornton's _Let Me Count the Ways_ (2004-2008), which followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Each of these works confronts the ethical task of addressing historical disaster, and each explores the intersection of past and present wars. These artworks profoundly contribute to the discourse of war resistance, illuminating the complex dynamics of viewing and interpretation. Deutsche employs feminist and psychoanalytic approaches in her study, questioning both the role of totalizing images in the production of warlike subjects and the fantasies that perpetuate, especially among the left, traditional notions of political dissent. She ultimately reveals the passive collusion between leftist critique and dominant discourse in which personal dimensions of war are denied. (shrink)

"Safe sex" discourse attempts to protect women from dangers assumed inherent in erotic life, such as domination, submissiveness, and loss of freedom and self-control. However, Beauvoir's and Merleau-Ponty's revision of Sartre's ontology suggests that erotic life involves a kind of generosity that transforms existence; sex neither liberates personal existence nor poses a necessary threat to women's freedom. I also reconsider the conditions under which sex is assumed to involve a violation of being.

Sartre’s intention in the Critique of Dialectical Reason is to establish the heuristic value of the dialectical method when applied to the social sciences. Toward this end, he furnishes an account of how, on the basis of natural needs, rational choices, burgeoning social ensembles, natural and social contingencies and unintended consequences, human beings make their history. I shall argue that his dialectical method, especially when modified, opens up interesting possibilities for clarifying the two most important and enduring meta-issues in the (...) philosophy of social science: whether social phenomena should be explained in terms of the beliefs, desires and actions of individuals or the rules and practices of social institutions and whether social phenomena should be explained in terms of causes, as in the natural sciences, or in terms of what they mean in their social contexts, as in hermeneutics and other interpretive approaches. (shrink)

Martin's book develops and defends a theory of hope. My review gives details and critiques her argument.

Questioning a particular tradition of reading, Carol Sherman writes a series of metacritical essays that revise many of our assumptions about Voltaire's stories, substantiate others, and attempt to account for the phenomenon of interpretation for the paradoxical case of fictions that proffer truths. Micromegas, Zadig, Candide, and L'Ingene constantly guide the interpreter to a single reading; nonetheless, these tales deconstruct their premises at the hands of readers who are conscious of their own status as text.

Having initially not had the attention of Sartre or Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty's work is arguably now more widely influential than either of his two contemporaries. "Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts" presents an accessible guide to the core ideas which structure Merleau-Ponty's thinking as well as to his influences and the value of his ideas to a wide range of disciplines. The first section of the book presents the context of Merleau-Ponty's thinking, the major debates of his time, particularly existentialism, phenomenology, the history of (...) philosophy and the philosophy of history and society. The second section outlines his major contributions and conceptual innovations. The final section focuses upon how his work has been taken up in other fields besides philosophy, notably in sociology, cognitive science, health studies, feminism and race theory. (shrink)

What makes us think, and what makes us think as feminists? In seeking to answer these questions, this paper draws on both Deleuze and Guattari's account of the creation of concepts, and feminist thought on feminist thinking, before suggesting with Levinas that our relation to ideas is primarily affective. Via further engagement with Levinas, I argue that it is the relation to the other which provokes and produces thought; models of autonomous theorizing are thereby supplanted by the teaching of the (...) other. (shrink)