This book examines the complex and varied ways in which fictions relate to the real world, and offers a precise account of how imaginative works of literature can use fictional content to explore matters of universal human interest. While rejecting the traditional view that literature is important for the truths that it imparts, the authors also reject attempts to cut literature off altogether from real human concerns. Their detailed account of fictionality, mimesis, and cognitive value, founded on the methods of (...) analytical philosophy, restores to literature its distinctive status among cultural practices. The authors also explore metaphysical and skeptical views, prevalent in modern thought, according to which the world itself is a kind of fiction, and truth no more than a social construct. They identify different conceptions of fiction in science, logic, epistemology, and make-believe, and thereby challenge the idea that discourse per se is fictional and that different modes of discourse are at root indistinguishable. They offer rigorous analyses of the roles of narrative, imagination, metaphor, and "making" in human thought processes. Both in their methods and in their conclusions, Lamarque and Olsen aim to restore rigor and clarity to debates about the values of literature, and to provide new, philosophically sound foundations for a genuine change of direction in literary theorizing. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSchumpeter’s theory of socialism pivots on his response to Ludwig von Mises’s claim that rational economic calculation is “impossible” in a socialist economy. Mises held that because socialism eliminates market prices for the means of production, it is impossible under socialism to know the relative scarcities of productive inputs, and thus to determine rationally which of any number of technologically feasible production projects to pursue. Schumpeter appears to assume away Mises’s epistemic concerns about socialism by contending that it is theoretically (...) possible to determine which goods should be produced in a socialist economy if all the relevant data are known—which begs the question Mises had asked. Did Schumpeter really commit such an elementary error of interpretation? Or was the appearance of doing so part of his attempt to communicate to the reader of Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy a host of reservations about the likely consequences of socialism in practice, even as he ostentatiously praised its feasibility in principle? (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Background The Way Forward.

Recent experimental work suggests that the concept of contextual fields should be generalized to allow the modulation of local information extraction by both external and internal context. The external context relates to the coherent information of the stimulus; the internal context refers to the parts of this information which are relevant for behavior. This dual interaction, present at every level of the hierarchy, requires a fundamental unit of processing more complex than a single neuron appears today. We argue that the (...) cortical column supplies the required mechanisms for a separate top-down and bottom-up processing and allows for interaction without destructive cross-talk. This flexibility might explain why the same basic architecture of a cortical column is used in the whole isocortex. (shrink)

This anthology provides comprehensive coverage of the major contributions of analytic philosophy to aesthetics and the philosophy of art, from the earliest beginnings in the 1950’s to the present time. Traces the contributions of the analytic tradition to aesthetics and the philosophy of art, from the 1950’s to the present time. Designed as a comprehensive guide to the field, it presents the most often-cited papers that students and researchers encounter. Addresses a wide range of topics, including identifying art, ontology, intention (...) and interpretation, values of art, aesthetic properties, fictionality, and the aesthetics of nature. Explores particular art forms, including pictorial art, literature, music, and the popular arts. (shrink)

This paper considers a central objection to evolutionary epistemology. The objection is that biological and epistemic development are not analogous, since while biological variation is blind, epistemic variation is not. The generation of hypotheses, unlike the generation of genotypes, is not random. We argue that this objection is misguided and show how the central analogy of evolutionary epistemology can be preserved. The core of our reply is that much epistemic variation is indeed directed by heuristics, but these heuristics are analogous (...) to biological preadaptations which account for the evolution of complex organs. We also argue that many of these heuristics or epistemic preadaptations are not innate but were themselves generatedby a process of blind variation and selective retention. (shrink)

The domain of phenomenological investigation delineated by the Husserlian term authentic empathy presents us with an immediate tension. On the one hand, authentic empathy is supposed to grant the subject access (in some sense that remains to be fully specified) to the Other’s experience. On the other hand, foundational phenomenological considerations pertaining to the apprehension of a foreign subjectivity determine that it is precisely a disjunction in subjective processes that is constitutive of the Other being other. In my approach to (...) this problem, I seek, within the context of a reading of Edith Stein’s work On the Problem of Empathy, to clarify the place of ascription in authentic empathy, and to render more explicit a certain notion of “contiguity” that I take to be informing Stein’s understanding of the co-givenness of the Other’s mental life. I go on to argue that a resolution to the problem of empathy lies in the idea that the respective lived experiences of self and Other are, as a matter of descriptive fact, phenomenally connected by a relation of resemblance, and that, consonantly, the essential structure of authentic empathy is characterised in its mature phases by an homological relation to picture consciousness. (shrink)

The “smart village” flourishes – at least in policy papers that envision the revitalization of rural areas through the civic deployment of networked media and telecommunications. Yet, while such aspirations are widespread, little is known about the views of those tasked with supervising and supporting digitally driven public participation for rural progress. To address the lack of insight into what these intermediary administrators conceive as catalysts and challenges for the realization of smart village conceptions, we surveyed representatives of regions in (...) Germany who oversee rural development schemes, most notably within the European LEADER framework. For these key actors, digital participation does not mainly hinge on broadband access and IT availability. Instead, they emphasize the importance of human and administrative resources as well as multi-actor collaboration, which we discuss in terms of digital readiness, digital willingness, and digital activity. Building the smart village, we conclude, seems not so much a matter of technological infrastructure, but rather of sociotechnical infrastructuring. (shrink)

Jean Anouilh , Antigone, La Table ronde, ISBN - 9782710300250Seamus Heaney, The Burial at Thebes: a version of Sophocles' Antigone, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN - 9780374117214.

Studying with Husserl in Göttingen, becoming a Carmelite nun, and finally meeting her death in Auschwitz, the multifaceted life of Edith Stein (1891-1942) is well known. But what about her writing? Have the different aspects of her scholarship received sufficient attention? Peter Tyler thinks not, and by drawing on previously untranslated and neglected sources, he reveals how Stein's work lies at the interface of philosophy, psychology, and theology. Bringing Stein into conversation with a range of scholars (...) and traditions, this book investigates two core elements of her thinking. From Nietzsche to Aquinas, psychoanalysis to the philosophy of the soul, and even the striking parallels between Stein's thought and Buddhist teaching, Tyler first unveils the interdisciplinary nature of what he terms her 'spiritual anthropology'. Second, he also explores her symbolic mentality. Articulating its poetic roots with the help of English poetry and medieval theology, he introduces Stein's self-named 'philosophy of life'. Considered in the context of her own times, The Living Philosophy of Edith Stein unearths Stein's valuable contributions to numerous subjects that are still of great importance today, including not only the philosophies of mind and religion, but also social and political thought and the role of women in society. By examining the richness of her thinking, informed by three disciplines and the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century, Tyler shows us how Edith Stein is the guide we all need, as we seek to develop our own philosophy for life in the contemporary world. (shrink)

For more than a century, law schools have trained students to 'think like a lawyer'. In these times of legal crisis, both in legal education and in global society, what does that mean for the rest of us? In this book, thirty leading international scholars - including Louis Assier-Andrieu, Marianne Constable, Yves Dezalay, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Bryant G. Garth, Peter Goodrich, Duncan Kennedy, Martti Koskenniemi, Shaun McVeigh, Samuel Moyn, Annelise Riles, Charles F. Sabel and William H. Simon - (...) examine what is distinctive about legal thought. They probe the relation between law and time, law and culture, and legal thought and legal action; the nature of current legal thought; the geography of legal thought; and the conditions for recognition of a new 'contemporary' style of law. This work will help theorists, social scientists, historians and students understand the intellectual context of legal problems, legal doctrine, and jurisprudential trends in the current conjuncture. (shrink)

This contribution aims to unpack the ontological nexus of cyborg identity and culture. It highlights a set of core assumptions driving its operations that merit critical attention as cyborgic and A...

If the possible ends of art criticism are taken to include not only the provision of a detailed evaluation of the artwork, but, cognately, an elaboration upon how one has been, or believes oneself to have been, changed by a particular artistic encounter, then the very praxis of art criticism stands to benefit from a theoretical elucidation of the possible nature of the subjective transformations that may flow from the critical appreciation of art. We are entitled to enquire, in particular, (...) into the conditions under which, and indeed the extent to which, such putative change at the personal level can be explicated in moral epistemological terms. It is pertinent in this context also to investigate the phenomenal character of the experiences that have been operative and their essential structures; to enquire, in short, into the phenomenology of the transformative artistic encounter. In this thesis, the bearing, in particular, of intersubjectivity upon the content and modalities of disclosure in a literary context will be investigated. It will be shown how an understanding of the relevance of intersubjectivity to the phenomenology of literary experience can inform an assessment of the claims of literary aesthetic moral cognitivism. Yet the intention to clarify the connection between literary experience and intersubjectivity also requires reflection upon what it is in the first place to encounter someone else, and to apperceive a foreign subjectivity and its motivations. For this reason, the contributions of Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein to the investigation of the phenomenology of empathy will be discussed and evaluated. This discussion will in turn be shown to be of assistance in clarifying the role of the imagination in the apperception and comprehension of another person’s mental life. The thought of Jean Starobinski will prove to elucidate the question of why the insights of the phenomenological tradition are highly pertinent to the investigation of literary experience, and to the development, in particular, of a conception of an imagined ‘Other’ who is (in a sense that will be clarified) embedded within the literary text, a person, that is, to whom one might coherently refer as the “implied author”. For reasons which will emerge in the course of this study, it will be argued that authentic empathy, in its fulfilling explication (in the Steinian sense), is given to the empathising consciousness in the manner of a semblance, and, consonantly, that the phenomenological structure of authentic empathy is characterised in its mature phases by an homological relation to pictureconsciousness. The epistemological significance of literature’s capacities for moral suggestion will be explicated principally in terms of the unfolding of values within the human personality, and in terms of the disclosure of the phenomenal character and structures of virtuous experience. It will be explained why the structure of empathy has implications for the aesthetic value of literature. The question of the relation between aesthetic and ethical value will be clarified. In this context, it will be argued on phenomenological grounds that the appresentation of moral virtue in an implied author could contribute to the aesthetic value of a literary work, although it will also be shown that implied authorial moral virtue could conflict irremediably with other qualities like moral doubt and uncertainty, which may themselves be important sources of aesthetic value. For this reason, the thesis will conclude by challenging the ethicist view that an aesthetically relevant ethical flaw in a literary work must count as an aesthetic flaw. (shrink)

This collection of essays, published to coincide with Tony Honore's sixty-fifth birthday, focuses on the areas where Honore's thought has made the most significant contribution: Roman law and jurisprudence. Included are essays by P.S. Atiyah, Zenon Bankowski, John Bell, Peter Birks, John W. Cairs, Hugh Collins, David Daube, W. M. Gordon, J. W. Harris Nicola Lacey, A. D. E. Lewis, Detlef Liebs, G. D. MacCormack, Neil MacCormick, G. Maher, Pieter Norr, Alan Rodger, and Peter Stein.

_The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics_ is the most authoritative survey of the central issues in contemporary aesthetics available. The volume features eighteen newly commissioned papers on the evaluation of art, the interpretation of art, and many other forms of art such as literature, movies, and music. Provides a guide to the central traditional and cutting edge issues in aesthetics today. Written by a distinguished cast of contributors, including Peter Kivy, George Dickie, Noël Carroll, Paul Guyer, Ted Cohen, Marcia Eaton, (...) Joseph Margolis, Berys Gaut, Nicholas Wolterstrorff, Susan Feagin, Peter Lamarque, Stein Olsen, Francis Sparshott, Alan Goldman, Jenefer Robinson, Mary Mothersill, Donald Crawford, Philip Alperson, Laurent Stern and Amie Thomasson. Functions as the ideal text for undergraduate and graduate courses in aesthetics, art theory, and philosophy of art. (shrink)

Edith Stein’s work revolves around one central question, namely, the identity of the person. Discussions of this topic are already present in Stein’s dissertation. Iexamine her theory of identity, developed throughout her work and maturing in her magnum opus, Finite and Eternal Being, in three stages, each of which is historically relevant and original. First, Stein’s development of the question is examined phenomenologically, focusing on Stein’s early work. Second, I will show how Stein takes her (...) early phenomenological positions concerning the nature of the human person and combines them with Greek and medieval insights into ontology. Here I focus on Finite and Eternal Being. Finally, I concentrate on the meaning and value of Stein’s theory of identity as it contributes to a theory of the person in connection with Greek and medieval metaphysics, and a phenomenological philosophy of consciousness. Together, the three stages of the essay will demonstrate Stein’s systematic contribution toward a theory of personal identity, one of the most difficult problems of philosophy. (shrink)

The human being is an important subject in Edith Stein's work, not only in her first writings but also in her later work. Edith Stein's own contribution comes about as a result of the particular way she relates the classical metaphysics of being to the phenomenological philosophy of consciousness.

The topic of this study is a notion of empathy that is common in philosophy and in the behavioral sciences. It is here referred to as ‘the notion of empathy as emotional sharing’, and it is characterized in terms of three ideas. If a person, S, has empathy with respect to an emotion of another person, O, then (i) S experiences an emotion that is similar to an emotion that O is currently having, (ii) S’s emotion is caused, in a (...) particular way, by the state of O or by S’s entertaining an idea of the state or situation of O, and (iii) S experiences this emotion in a way that does not entail that S is in the corresponding emotional state. The aim of the study is to clarify this notion of empathy by clarifying these three ideas and by tracing the history of their development in philosophy. -/- The study consists of two parts. Part one contains a short and selective account of the history in Western philosophy of the notion of empathy as emotional sharing. In chapter 2 Spinoza’s theory of imitation of affects and Hume’s theory of sympathy are presented. It is argued that these theories only exemplify the second idea characteristic of the notion of empathy as emotional sharing. Chapter 3 contains presentations of Adam Smith’s theory of sympathy, and Schopenhauer’s theory of compassion. These theories are shown to exemplify the second and the third idea. In chapter 4 there are presentations of Edith Stein’s description of Einfühlung, and Max Scheler’s account of empathy and fellow-feeling. It is shown that these accounts contain explicit specifications of the third idea, and it is argued that they also exemplify the second idea. -/- In part two, the three ideas are further clarified and the notion of empathy as emotional sharing is defined. Chapter 5 contains a discussion of the main contemporary philosophical analyses of empathy. Three different views are distinguished: one that construes empathetic emotions as emotional states, one that construes them as imagined emotions, and one that construes them as off-line emotions. The first two views are criticized and rejected. The third is accepted and further developed in chapter 6, which contains a general analysis of the emotions. A distinction is made between two ways of experiencing an emotion, and it is argued that it is possible to have the affective experience characteristic of a particular kind of emotional state without being in that kind of state. In chapter 7, a definition of ‘empathy’ is proposed. This definition contains specifications of the three ideas characteristic of the notion of empathy as emotional sharing, and it shows both how the empathizer’s emotion resembles the emotion of the empathee, and how this emotion is caused and experienced. (shrink)

This article responds to the arguments put forth by Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen in Truth, Fiction, and Literature: A Philosophical Perspective (1994). It argues that the said work is representative of the widespread tendency in literary theory today to discard the possibility of literary truth, and it provides counterarguments to the work’s main theses. Consequently, it criticizes the philosophy of pragmatism and its implications, and it offers a theory that defines fictional objects as existing and solves (...) contradictions that commonly affect our debates on the ontology of fiction. The article does not provide a positive theory of literary truth, but it undermines its denials, which have become popular in recent decades. (shrink)

Peter Chaadaev (1794-1856) is rightfully considered to be one of the forerunners of modern Russian philosophy. There is a famous scene from his life that may help us to understand both his own thought as well as the whole subsequent tradition of Russian religious philosophy. When Chaadaev finished his studies of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, he crossed out the title on the cover and wrote beneath it Apologete adamitischer Vernunft (An Apology for Adamic Reason). Russian religious philosophy was (...) supposed to be a critique of such secular reason. In this book we seek a contemporary interpretation of Chaadaev's thought and its influence. Our authors, including such scholars as Andrzej Walicki and Boris Tarasov, investigate his views on religion, society, history, politics, and Russian fate. Chaadaev turns out to be a crucial figure who continues to influence Russian religious philosophy to this day. ""Nicolas Berdiaev credited Chaadaev with 'the awakening of independent original Russian thought.' Indeed, his main themes have ever since been at the center of Russian philosophy. As a Christian philosopher Chaadaev cherished love of truth over love of fatherland, which, he said, 'feeds national hatreds' and 'sometimes covers the earth with mourning.' This volume is an important contribution to the study of his enduring legacy, for Russia and the world."" --Randall A. Poole, Professor of History, College of St. Scholastica ""Modern Russian religious thought begins with Chaadaev. While his output was small, its impact was far-reaching. Khomiakov, Kireevsky, Herzen, Soloviev, Berdiaev and many others were indebted to Chaadaev in one way or another. He merits the careful attention the authors of this volume devote to him."" --Paul Valliere, Professor Emeritus, Butler University Artur Mrowczyński-Van Allen is Professor at the International Center for the Study of the Christian Orient and Instituto de Filosofia ""Edith Stein,"" Granada, Spain. He is the author of Between the Icon and the Idol: The Human Person and the Modern State in Russian Literature and Thought (Cascade, 2013). Teresa Obolevitch is Professor at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland. Recently she published La philosophie religieuse russe (2014) in French and Semen Frank: Shtrikhi k portretu filosofa in Russian (2017). Pawel Rojek is Assistant Lecturer at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. (shrink)

Among contemporary Christian thinkers the figure of Edith Stein looms large, both because of her remarkable life as a Jewish convert and Christian martyr, and because of her uncommon philosophical journey from phenomenology to metaphysics—without leaving phenomenology behind. In The Living Philosophy of the Edith Stein, marshaling resources of psychology, Peter Tyler provides a novel guide through Stein’s life and thought by drawing her into dialogue with Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, among (...) others. (shrink)

The phenomenon of parasocial relationships (or parasocial interaction) has been first described by sociologists in the second half of the 20th century (Horton & Wohl 1956).1 Parasocial relationships feature at least one person featured in a (mass) medium like television and at least one other person consuming and interacting with this mediated presence. This relationship is necessarily lopsided and asymmetric: both sides of this relationship have limited and essentially different means of engagement, making a form of imagination one of the (...) defining features of parasocial interactions (Valkenburg & Peter 2006). While parasocial relationships technically precede the advent of modern mass media (a believer’s relation to a deity is parasocial by design), they attain a new quality with the emergence of contemporary online social media, most notably through platforms like Instagram or Twitter and streaming providers like Twitch. The main difference between these forms of parasocial engagement and traditional ones is the specific quality of reciprocity and interaction which suddenly became possible. Despite the term being established in sociology, psychology and media studies, the phenomenon has received virtually no attention in philosophy generally or social ontology specifically. What truly are parasocial relationships? How do they differ from regular interactions on a deeper level? What is the social ontology of parasocial relationships? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 122.4 (2001) 567-578 [Access article in PDF] Brief Mention Greek Tragedy Goes West:The Oresteia In Berkeley And Albuquerque Mark Griffith Aeschylus, The Oresteia, translated by Robert Fagles, directed by Tony Taccone and Stephen Wadsworth; Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 6 March-6 May 2001. Aeschylus, The Oresteia, version by Ted Hughes, directed by David Richard Jones; University of New Mexico Department of Theatre and Dance; Theatre X, 1-10 (...) March 2001. Any opportunity to see a full-scale production of a Greek tragedy by a professional company is rare and precious, yet hedged with a certain anxiety. If things go well, the combined resources of designers, director, actors, and theater space promise to reveal things we had never previously imagined about a cherished text. But there are many ways for a production to go wrong, many obstacles to overcome in transposing the verbal, visual, and musical complexities of an Aeschylean drama into a modern idiom and context. Indeed, the more deeply committed we are to the idea that these plays depend upon live performance for their fullest effect, the more anxious we are likely to feel about seeing anyone try.In these days of videos and the Internet, fans of Greek tragedy can inform themselves far more extensively about previous productions and alternative performance styles than was possible even twenty years ago. Back then (as in the distant pre-phonograph days, when even an avid concert-goer might only get to hear her/his favorite symphony performed by a full orchestra a handful of times in a lifetime and had to be content otherwise with piano transcriptions and the printed score), we had only books, still photographs, and newspaper reviews. Nowadays, when teaching a course on Greek tragedy, one can expose students in quick succession to several radically different acting styles and directorial approaches; even a five-minute video clip of (e.g.) the Peter Hall/Tony Harrison [End Page 567] Oresteia or Julie Taymor's staging of the Stravinsky-Cocteau Oedipus Rex can immediately demonstrate to even the most inexperienced viewer how many more dimensions of meaning and emotional range reside in a tragic script than are evident on the printed page, or than can be conveyed by ordinary speech and "naturalistic" acting. Furthermore, as Helene Foley has recently remarked, the last twenty-five years have witnessed a veritable "deluge" of productions of Greek tragedy in all kinds of styles, all over the world. Indeed, it may be said that scholars, students, and audiences are in a better position these days to sample and critique the possibilities of Greek tragedy in performance than at any time since antiquity. 1The Oresteia has fared particularly well. Since the 1980s, in addition to the distinctive and internationally acclaimed productions of Peter Stein, Peter Hall, Karolus Koun, and Ariane Mnouchkine, several others have been mounted in London, New York, Epidauros, and elsewhere. And this spring brought two new productions to the American West, with an interesting and adventurous low-budget version at the University of New Mexico, and a full-scale professional production in Berkeley. The two were strikingly--and instructively--different.The Berkeley Repertory Theatre (BRT) was founded in 1968 by graduates and ABDs of UC Berkeley's Ph.D. program in Dramatic Art, as an alternative to a perceived blandness of mainstream Bay Area theater. A College Avenue storefront was converted into a 153-seat house, in which for several years enterprising and varied seasons were presented (including productions of Sophocles' Elektra and Antigone). With critical success and a growing reputation came the need for a bigger and better space, and in 1980 the company moved to a new building in downtown Berkeley, with a 450-seat thrust stage. Over the last twenty years, the BRT has built a national reputation and a solid subscription base (mainly upper-middle-class, well-educated, and liberal), with annual seasons that alternate original productions with imports from elsewhere. It is no [End Page 568] longer a "repertory" company (there are virtually none of these left in the United... (shrink)

This paper presents a phenomenological account of empathy inspired by the proposal put forward by Edith Stein in her book On the Problem of Empathy, published originally 1917. By way of explicating Stein’s views, the paper aims to present a characterization of empathy that is in some aspects similar to, but yet essentially different from contemporary simulationist theories of empathy. An attempt is made to show that Stein’s proposal articulates the essential ingredients and steps involved in empathy (...) and that her proposal can be made even more comprehensive and elucidating by stressing the emotional aspect of the empathy process. Empathy, according to such a phenomenological proposal, is to be understood as a perceptual-imaginative feeling towards and with the other person’s experiences made possible by affective bodily schemas and being enhanced by a personal concern for her. To experience empathy does not necessarily or only mean to experience the same type of feeling as the target does; it means feeling alongside the feeling of the target in imagining and explicating a rich understanding of the experiences of the very person one is facing. (shrink)

This book explores linguistic and philosophical issues presented by sentences expressing personal taste, such as Roller coasters are fun, or Licorice is tasty. Standard semantic theories explain the meanings of sentences by specifying the conditions under which they are true; here, Peter Lasersohn asks how we can account for sentences that are concerned with matters of opinion rather than matters of fact. He argues that a truth-theoretic semantic theory is appropriate even for sentences like these, but that for such (...) sentences, truth and falsity must be assigned relative to perspectives, rather than absolutely. The book provides a detailed and explicit formal grammar, working out the implications of this conception of truth both for simple sentences and for reports of mental attitude. The semantic analysis is paired with a pragmatic theory explaining what it means to assert a sentence which is true or false only relativistically, and with a speculative account of the functional motivation for a relativized notion of truth. (shrink)

Introduction -- Overview -- Theism, simplicity, and properly anthropocentric metaphysics -- Materialism and dualism -- The power, knowledge, and motives of the primordial God -- The existence of the primordial God -- God changes -- Understanding evil -- The Trinity -- The Incarnation -- Concluding remarks.