Trust is one of the big buzzwords in debates about the shaping of society, democracy, and emerging technologies. For example, one prominent idea put forward by the High‐Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence appointed by the European Commission is that artificial intelligence should be trustworthy. In this essay, we explore the notion of trust and argue that both proponents and critics of trustworthy AI have flawed pictures of the nature of trust. We develop an approach to understanding trust in AI (...) that does not conceive of trust merely as an accelerator for societal acceptance of AI technologies. Instead, we argue, trust is granted through leaps of faith. For this reason, trust remains precarious, fragile, and resistant to promotion through formulaic approaches. We also highlight the significance of distrust in societal deliberation, as it is relevant to trust in various and intricate ways. Among the fruitful aspects of distrust is that it enables individuals to forgo technology if desired, to constrain its power, and to exercise meaningful human control. (shrink)

Law as a leap of faith -- Legal positivism : 5 1/2 myths -- Some types of law -- Can there be a written constitution? -- How law claims, what law claims -- Nearly natural law -- The legality of law -- The supposed formality of the rule of law -- Hart on legality, justice, and morality -- The virtue of justice and the character of law -- Law in general.

How do laws resemble rules of games, moral rules, personal rules, rules found in religious teachings, school rules, and so on? Are laws rules at all? Are they all made by human beings? And if so how should we go about interpreting them? How are they organized into systems, and what does it mean for these systems to have 'constitutions'? Should everyone want to live under a system of law? Is there a special kind of 'legal justice'? Does it consist (...) simply in applying the law of the system? And how does it relate to the ideal of 'the rule of law'?These and other classic questions in the philosophy of law form the subject-matter of Law as a Leap of Faith. In this book John Gardner collects, revisits, and supplements fifteen years of celebrated writings on general questions about law and legal systems - writings in which he attempts, without loss of philosophical finesse or insight, to cut through some of the technicalities with which the subject has become encrusted in the late twentieth century. Taking his agenda broadly from H.L.A. Hart's The Concept of Law, Gardner shows how the key ideas in that work live on, and how they have been and can still be improved in modest ways to meet important criticisms - in some cases by concession, in some cases by circumvention, and in some cases by restatement. In the process Gardner engages with key ideas of other modern giants of the subject including Kelsen, Holmes, Raz, and Dworkin. Most importantly he presents the main elements of his own unique and refreshingly direct way of thinking about law, brought together in one place for the first time. (shrink)

Following an introductory examination of possible reasons why past researchers have overlooked Kierkegaard’s debt to Kant, two specific areas of influence are documented and analyzed: the ideality of ethics, and the notion of faith as a leap. Closing remarks suggest that there are other areas as yet undocumented.

This is my reply to five extended critical assessments of my book Law as a Leap of Faith, appearing together in a symposium issue of Law and Philosophy. The critics are Kevin Toh, Luís Duarte d’Almeida and James Edwards, Fábio Perin Shecaira, Cristina Redondo, and Matthew Smith. The topics include H.L.A. Hart’s philosophical legacy, the moral claims of law, the nature of legal reasoning, the doctrine of legal positivism, and the possibility of alienation from law.

This article explores the young Georg Lukács through the prism of his early intellectual identifications and obsessions with Kierkegaard, his model, Mann, his poet, Dostoyevsky, his pro...

There is consistent evidence that everything coming out from the religious/spiritual phenomenon bends us most harshly. And that occurs regardless of the form religiousness or spirituality takes in practice or theory, despite the broad range of embracing religious concepts and creeds from atheism to fanatism, or moreover disregarding the impossibility of labeling as good or wrong these creeds from another perspective than the one that produced it. Many people adhere to religion for the sake of their souls, but it turns (...) out that regular participation in faith-based activities is good for the body and mind, too. Whether we are talking from a social perspective, or a psychological, mental, or bodily one, religious creeds and/or faith-based activities change us in a way or another, nearly for good and incessantly. Is that a good or a wrong thing? – the problem is that we cannot even assess this except from the same perspective that originates it, which makes even more difficult to analyze the religious phenomenon, especially for its better eventual management. Could this be a motif for lesser religious engagement in the civil societies characterized by a decreasing religious attachment? (shrink)

In his collection of essays, Law as a Leap of Faith, John Gardner lucidly develops a powerful account of legal positivism, primarily via a careful interrogation of H. L. A. Hart’s work, with a particular focus on Hart’s most important text, The Concept of Law. In this essay, I raise a question regarding the significance of legal subjects’ understanding of themselves as legal subjects. I claim that as Gardner fills out the picture of what it takes to have (...) an ideal legal system, we will find that there is no requirement that subjects have any understanding of themselves as legal subjects, much less an understanding either of what the law requires of them or of the legal status with respect to officials that the law gives them. In particular, I argue that Gardner’s account of the law is too focused on the perspective of officials, and leaves out the perspective of legal subjects. This manifests what I call a unidirectional legal optic: the view of the law is the view from a single perspective, namely the perspective of the official. This is not an accurate picture of the law and so should not be presented as the paradigmatic account of law. (shrink)

This article contains the author's responses to five critics of his book Law as a Leap of Faith whose criticisms appear in this journal. The critics are Kimberley Brownlee, Antony Hatzistavrou, Kristen Rundle, Sari Kisilevsky and Nicola Lacey. The criticisms and responses pick up the following fifteen themes from the book: law, morality, society, explanation, continuity, rationality, ends, instruments, values, justice, allocation, games, modalities, generalities, jurisprudence.

One of the things for which Kierkegaard is both best known to English and American philosophers and most criticized by them, is his contention that “truth is subjectivity.” His discussion of “truth” and “subjectivity” occupies a considerable part of his most important philosophical work, Concluding Unscientific Postscript; and his contention that “truth is subjectivity” is the pivotal claim around which virtually the entire work revolves. Yet few of Kierkegaard's claims have been more frequently misunderstood; and a misunderstanding of this claim (...) has led many philosophers wrongly to dismiss him as unworthy of serious consideration. (shrink)

This chapter opens with a discussion on the Luke Skywalker's role in Return of the Jedi. At the end of the film Skywalker must make a decision whether to ignore the utilitarian principle that he must kill his father to save the galaxy, or violate the ethical principle against dishonoring and murdering his own father and risk being turned to the dark side by the Emperor. Both are unacceptable to Luke. So he will have to turn a Sith to the (...) light side of the Force. Such a maneuver requires a leap of faith, and for that this chapter turns to a man who knew just how hard it was: the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Luke realizes that killing Darth Vader will not bring balance to the Force. Luke defeats Vader in the duel, but saves him in not ending it the way everyone has been telling him to. (shrink)

The moral dilemma Mando faces as he struggles to return the Child to the Jedi Order is illuminated by Soren Kierkegaard, one of the central figures of existentialism, a philosophy centered on the belief that individuals define themselves through their actions. Kierkegaard's Christian existentialism was critical of the social dynamics and religious models that were supposed to represent authentic religiosity but were actually hypocritical and naive. Religious leaders spoke of virtue but rarely modeled it. Kierkegaard, by contrast, upheld the central (...) tenets of the faith but was humble about what he could claim as objectively true or real. The persona of Din Djarin evolves in complexity: from enigma, to soldier, to father. He believes in the Mandalorian creed and its rules, but he experiences a personal attachment to Grogu. The final stage of life according to Kierkegaard is the religious, in which one makes a leap of faith. (shrink)

The goal of Fear and Trembling is to illuminate the difficulty of faith. At an important juncture, he claims that both types of knight are dancers, but only the knight of faith can dance perfectly, doing what perhaps no dancer can do: he does not “hesitate” in the moment between landing from his leap and assuming the position from which to reengage with finitude. This analogy has been given small attention in the literature. Given Kierkegaard’s surprisingly precise (...) grasp of classical ballet’s vocabulary and aesthetic, I examine how these provide him additional power to clarify the difference between faith and resignation. (shrink)

This article illuminates the open ending of Christopher Nolan's film Inception (2010) in light of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. Drawing particularly on Nietzsche's notions of ascetic ideals and honest illusions, the article contends that Cobb's refusal to look at the spinning top can be seen not necessarily as his renunciation of autonomy but as his new attempt to affirm his existence and create meanings. Mal's tragic death has turned Cobb into an ascetic idealist who paradoxically resorts to self-torture to alleviate his (...) pain and suffering. Only when he sees the destructive power of his sense of guilt about Mal does he come to realize that what he really needs is not exactly the ability to distinguish the dream world from reality per se but the ability to make things seem and feel real – that is, in Nietzsche's words, honest illusions. Faced with the challenge to regain the capability to see and appreciate illusions as illusions without deceiving himself into believing that they are real, Cobb takes “a leap of faith” with Saito into the world to which he wishes to belong and finally embraces the moment of seeing his children's faces, which, fortunately for him, seem real – that is, “good” – enough. (shrink)

Does our available evidence show that some particular religion is correct? It seems unlikely, given the great diversity of religious - and non-religious - views of the world. But if no religious beliefs can be shown true on the evidence, can it be right to make a religious commitment? Should people make 'leaps of faith'? Or would we all be better off avoiding commitments that outrun our evidence? And, if leaps of faith can be acceptable, how do we (...) tell the difference between goodand bad ones - between sound religion and dogmatic ideology or fundamentalist fanaticism? Believing by Faith offers answers to these questions, inspired by a famous attempt to justify faith made by William James in 1896. In doing so, it engages critically with much recent discussion in the philosophyof religion, and, especially, the epistemology of religious belief. (shrink)

Søren Kierkegaard and John Henry Newman have starkly opposed formulations of the relation between faith and reason. In this essay I focus on a possible convergence in their respective understandings of the transition to religious belief or faith, as embodied in metaphors they use for a qualitative transition. I explore the ways in which attention to the legitimate dimension of discontinuity highlighted by the Climacan metaphor of the 'leap' can illuminate Newman 's use of the metaphor of (...) a 'polygon inscribed in a circle', as well as the ways in which Newman 's metaphor can illuminate the dimension of continuity operative in the Climacan appreciation of qualitative transition. (shrink)

In the early 1950s, astronomer Allan Sandage inherited from Edwin Hubble the task of determining whether expansion was real. In the succeeding forty years, Sandage “established the discipline of observational cosmology” (Overbye 1991, 188). At the same time, he encountered the limits of science to address the full mystery of existence. In seeking an answer to the question of purpose, in particular, Sandage came to the “abyss of reason” and made the “leap of faith.” This conversion, however, involved, (...) and continues to involve, an ongoing process of balancing two avenues to the truth, drawing upon resources from both scientific and religious traditions. Reason and faith seem reconcilable in life lived as an experiment and in “bowing before the mystery” (Sandage 1990). Ultimately, Sandage suggests that religious conversion comes not so much through reasoned pursuit as in the realization of being pursued. (shrink)

F. H. Jacobi (1743–1819), a key figure in the philosophical debates at the close of the eighteenth century in Germany, has long been regarded as an irrationalist for allegedly advocating a blind 'leap of faith'. The central claim of this essay is that this venerable charge is misplaced. Following a reconstruction of what a charge of irrationalism might amount to, two of Jacobi's most important works, the "Spinoza Letters" (1785) and "David Hume" (1787), are scrutinized for traces of (...) irrationalism. Far from being an irrationalist, Jacobi is best read as questioning the analytical-geometrical model of rationality popular among his contemporaries, and of proposing a more naturalistic theory of rationality that situates it more firmly in human psychology, the ultimate import of which lies in a reconceptualization of the relation between faith and reason. (shrink)

This paper suggests that learning a language is accomplished through the formation of new language identities and explains this process through the use of existential phenomenology. In order for learning (and specifically, the learning of a language) to happen, a permanent change in the identity of the learner must occur. The paper suggests the introduction of the concept of linguistic ego states as a model for such a change in learner identity which, in turn, brings about the embodied (not just (...) cognitive) retention of the acquired knowledge. In order for such retention to occur the situation must bring about anxiety, an existential crisis, or the distress and turmoil mentioned in the article’s title. This leads to a leap of faith, or an irreversible, qualitative personal change, a move to a different existential mode of being. (shrink)

Most secondary sources about Fear and Trembling do not mention the weaning passages that appear in the "Attunement" chapter. Edward Mooney's book, Knights of Faith and Resignation: Reading Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (1991), devotes almost two pages of his commentary to the weaning sentences. While what Mooney suggests was quite helpful in directing my thoughts on this subject, I will present a more sustained discussion of the weaning sentences than Mooney's and argue that the weaning passages are more instrumental (...) in Kierkegaard's presentation of the Abraham and Isaac story than previously imagined. They foreshadow the main theme of Fear and Trembling—the existential leap of faith by the knight of faith. (shrink)

The article discusses the criteria for authentic humanity within the moral paradigm of Russian philosophy. In Russian philosophy, the disciplines of ethics and anthropology are intertwined, as the question of human nature is primarily addressed from a moral perspective. The article primarily focuses on the interplay between faith and conscience, a topic that is approached and resolved differently within the context of Russian philosophy compared to Western European philosophy. For instance, the concept of “elimination of the ethical,” a fundamental (...) aspect of S. Kierkegaard’s existential philosophy, is discussed. The transcendence of ethical rationalism through a leap of faith, exemplified by Abraham’s act, forms the essence of authentic Christian ethics. It explores how faith is challenged by ethics, which requires not blind faith, but rational behavior in accordance with the widely accepted norms of social morality. The article highlights the conflict between existential faith and social ethics as the primary contradiction identified by S. Kierkegaard. The author revisits the ideas of F.M. Dostoevsky, N.A. Berdyaev, and others to illustrate that within the context of Russian philosophy, the critical situation is less about the anticipation of death and more about the moral anguish of conscience arising from the evil and falsehood prevalent in the world, a sentiment shared by diverse individuals like V.S. Solovyov and V.M. Shukshin. This perspective significantly redefines the concept of the existential in Russian philosophy, equating it with profound moral reflection. In discussing philosophical and anthropological issues under the “post-human threat,” the author introduces the concept of “conscientious faith.” This concept, serving as a fundamental anthropological unit, posits that it is the conscience, with its appeal to personal moral responsibility, that reveals the moral essence of an individual, thereby establishing human uniqueness. (shrink)

Trust has been widely investigated both theoretically and empirically. Whether thought of as the result of a calculation of costs/benefits, a shared identity, or a leap of faith, there always seems to be an ‘as if’ rhetorical gesture which is ultimately needed to explain how actors move from the base of trust to expectations of trust via suspending judgment on uncertainty and fear of vulnerability to betrayal and exploitation — the actors ultimately act ‘as if’ they do not (...) fear uncertainty and vulnerability to betrayal. Yet this ‘as if’ element has remained seriously under-theorised. Drawing on Derrida's deconstruction, I propose a way of thinking this ‘as if’ element of trust. I thus argue that the decision to trust occurs in a terrain of structural undecidability. The latter is thought of as the possibility condition of trust as well as the subject of trust and a sense of responsibility for this trust. The aporiatic nature of undecidability makes this trust an auto-immune trust which obeys the tripartite logic of ‘without’ which both negates and affirms trust. (shrink)

Here I wish to report on developments on three fronts concerning ‘religion’ in expanding global debates about the ‘the end of the world’ and ‘the ways we know it’, concerning: the word ‘religion’ itself, as half of the religion-science binary, and its marginalization–or complete absence–in the construction of the modern scholarly disciplines and university departments, and influencing of ‘modern’ culture and politics; proliferating doubts about the positivist epistemology of modern ‘science’; and the growing sense that we are caught up in (...) epochal transitions, in which we are significant actors, and that, far beyond what we can know ‘scientifically’, our responses involve leaps of hope and faith which contribute to tipping the balance among divergent possible futures. (shrink)

For Kierkegaard the leap to faith is an acceptance of the Unknown which is neither given by reason nor deducible from a previous content of consciousness.

This paper explores the interrelations between temporality and emotion in rhetorical argumentation. It argues that in situations of uncertainty argumentation affects action via appeals that invoke emotion and thereby translate the distant past and future into the situated present. Using practical inferences, a threefold model for the interrelation of emotion and time in argumentation outlines how argumentative action depends on whether speakers provide reasons for the exigence that makes a decision necessary, the contingency of the decision, and the confidence required (...) to act. Experiences and choices from the past influence the emotions experienced in the present and inform two intertemporal mechanisms that allow speakers and audiences to take the leap of faith that defines decision-making under uncertainty: retrospective forecasting and prospective remembering. Retrospective forecasting establishes a past–future–present link, whereas prospective remembering establishes a future-past-present link, and, together, the two mechanisms provide a situated presence that transcends the temporal constraints of uncertainty. Finally, the applicability of the model is illustrated through an analysis of a speech delivered by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time where the need for decisive, yet argumentative action was crucial. (shrink)

While the influential analytical philosopher Hilary Putnam has made significant contributions to philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and philosophy of science, he isn't generally regarded as a philosopher of religion or a theologian. Nonetheless, I argue that his work should be of great interest to philosophers of religion and theologians. Focusing on the relationship between science and religion, this paper explores the importance of Putnam's attempt to reconcile his anti-metaphysical stance and his commitment to a religious form of life (...) for theology. I first demonstrate why an anti-metaphysical stance and a commitment to Judaism can be deemed contradictory, and then characterize Putnam's anti-metaphysical stance as a modus vivendi to avoid both of what I call analytic and scientistic metaphysics. In a third step I offer my interpretation of Putnam's way of relating science and religion without metaphysics in the qualified sense, and subsequently spell out some important consequences of the emerging picture for theology. In my conclusion I give an account of Putnam as a transitional thinker, and draw a parallel between some of his work and Kierkegaard's “leap of faith”. (shrink)

The organizational trust literature relies strongly on the notion of trust and trustworthiness as a calculative cause-and-effect relationship aimed at assessing the advantages and disadvantages between two actors. This utilitarian notion of trust has been critiqued by studies that highlight _construct inconsistencies_ related to utilitarian trust, which, it is argued, is deficient, incomplete and misleading. Our empirical study of the Dutch insurance sector identifies and categorizes three _process inconsistencies_ that help to explain why the calculation of trust in a utilitarian (...) sense is seemingly impossible in practice and is a barrier to the unambiguous assessment of individual needs and individual utility. These process inconsistencies successively concern insufficient information, complex behavioural dynamics, and a convoluted pattern of stakeholder influence to assess utility in trust relationships, specifically within complex socio-economic systems. Our findings contribute to the trust literature by proposing a classification of the previous critiques on utilitarian trust, and by showing that in scenarios of systematic rather than dyadic trust, process inconsistencies may be too strong to endure a ‘leap of faith’, at least with regard to suspension and assessing utilitarian trust in these more complex socio-economic systems. (shrink)

The argument of this article assumes that religious literacy is urgently needed in the present geopolitical context. Its urgency increases the more religion is viewed in opposition to criticality, as though religion entails an irrational and inviolable commitment, or leap of faith. This narrow view of religion is reinforced by certain rather dogmatic secular framings of religion, which require any and all forms of religious expression to be excluded from public life. Excluding religion from the public has the (...) unfortunate effect that religiosity can take extreme forms with little social mediation through political deliberative cultures. Such approaches do not support religious literacy, but tend to generate increasingly polarized and fractured debates about the place of religion in society and education. In contrast to the attitude that seeks to privatize religion, I argue that religions are fundamentally public facing, not least because they act as social institutions that bind communities together. I argue that it is the hermeneutical traditions immanent to religions themselves that must inform the ways that religions can appropriately inform public life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Crisis of Meaning in Sartor Resartus—Thomas Carlyle's Pioneering Work in Articulating and Addressing the Existential ConfrontationFrank Martelawhat i call an "existential confrontation" is the encounter with the possibility that human life is absurd: created for no purpose and devoid of any lasting value or meaning. It is "the hour of terror at the world's vast meaningless grinding" that William James (Will to Believe 173) examines, described by Todd May (...) (xi) as "the confrontation of our need for meaning with the unwillingness of the Universe to yield it to us." This confrontation with the existential void and the potential absurdity of human existence is often not just an intellectual dilemma, but felt as a deep personal crisis accompanied by melancholia, angst, nausea, or even suicidal thoughts. Young William James confessed in a letter to a friend that "all last winter" he "was on the continual verge of suicide" (quoted in Gunnarsson), writing later that "too much questioning" leads "to the edge of the slope" wherein lies "nightmare or suicidal view of life" (James, "Is Life Worth Living?" 6). Similarly, Leo Tolstoy (54) reports how his inability to identify a lasting meaning of life drove him to a "state of lunacy" where "the best I could do was to hang myself."Despite a few earlier allusions—most famously the Book of Ecclesiastes proclaiming that "all is vanity and a striving after wind," and Shakespeare's Macbeth lamenting that life is "a tale told by an idiot … signifying nothing"—the existential confrontation is predominantly a modern phenomenon (Martela, A Wonderful Life). The modern history of descriptions of existential confrontations start at the turn of the nineteenth century, and includes Søren Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death, Leo Tolstoy's A Confession, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Camus's Outsider, Sartre's Nausea, and T. S.Eliot's The Waste Land.There are many responses that the confrontation with the existential void has generated. Sartre embraced the lack of values imposed from outside and [End Page 80] emphasized human freedom. Human beings are "cast into this world … condemned to be free" without any "luminous realm of values" providing "justification or excuse," as Sartre famously summarized in "Existentialism Is a Humanism" (29). Other responses range from Søren Kierkegaard's leap of faith and William James's will to believe to Albert Camus's happiness from absurdity.While some of the responses end up finding a new way of connecting with God and faith, and others are explicitly atheistic, embracing the "death of God," a common thread in most responses is an acknowledgment of the situatedness of human experience and an emphasis placed on human subjectivity and the opportunity to live one's life more authentically. While existentialism, broadly conceived, is often seen as the central philosophical tradition dealing with the existential void, the confrontation was very much alive in the United States as well, visible in both literature and philosophy. As already alluded, William James had an existential confrontation in his youth, writing about the topic in "Is Life Worth Living" and other essays in Will to Believe. There has also been much back-and-forth between Europe and the United States around these themes, with the influences crossing the Atlantic on many occasions. For example, William James cites Thomas Carlyle in Will to Believe, while Sartre cites William James in Nausea, when discussing themes related to the existential confrontation. Similarly, Emerson inspired Nietzsche who inspired Josiah Royce. Typically, the histories tracing the early encounters with the existential confrontation acknowledge Friedrich Nietzsche, Søren Kierkegaard, and Fyodor Dostoevsky as key nineteenth-century predecessors to Existentialism, as all faced directly the question of the meaning of life and the dreadful possibility that life might not have any meaning or value to it.However, there is a key author usually not mentioned in these histories, despite the fact that he played a pivotal role in introducing existentialist themes to the English-speaking audience, coining the phrase "meaning of life" in the English language. Thus, in writing the prehistory of Existentialism, we need to examine Thomas Carlyle and his Sartor Resartus, which has been described by literary historians as "one of... (shrink)

Being questioned about the nature of Christian faith, Mark Twain famously declared it as 'believing what you know ain't so'. Indeed, the role of reason for faith is a matter of dispute. Jesus, some argue, was not a philosopher or a teacher of wisdom. Rather, he is the saviour because of his unassuming sacrificial death and resurrection. Not reason, but the leap of faith is the ultimate condition of salvation. The Enlightenment however epitomises a Copernican revolution (...) in favour of reason. According to Charles Taylor, the dissemination of Jesus' message into Hellenistic culture contains within itself the risk of a secularisation of the faith. At the same time, voices opposing the overemphasis of reason have also been raised throughout the ages. Paul's speech to the Athenians was one such occasion that deals with the ambiguous relationship between faith and reason. Relying purely on divine grace and the Bible alone, Martin Luther rejected any form of speculative theology. According to the Reformer, it is a type of theology that trusts more in human reason than in God's revelation. In Luther's opinion, it also reverses the moral order because theological speculation justifies evil as good while professing as good what is evil. To such a theology of human glory, Luther prefers a theology of the cross that 'calls the thing what it actually is'. For the former Augustinian monk only God's grace is good beyond reasonable doubt. Hence true theologians are lovers of the cross while theologians of glory misuse their reason for the worst. Luther's theology of the cross, Marco Barone claims, has its root in Augustine. Hence, Luther's Augustinism appears to have decidedly broken with Aristotelian scholasticism. In this context, Thomas Aquinas was criticised for his threefold failure. First, the Dominican friar's speculative theology lacks an experiential human dimension. Secondly, it gives too much credit to Aristotle. Thirdly, Thomas is reprimanded for his serious deficiency of a theology of justification. (shrink)

This essay provides an overview of some recent issues in criticism of early modern English literature. For some scholars the early modern period can only be understood if we accept its irreducible difference; for others, people have always been more or less the same and so reading the past involves knowledge but not a vast leap of faith. Often these differences result in scholars using exactly the same material to reach diametrically opposed conclusions, as examples drawn from the (...) study of early sixteenth-century literature demonstrate. Debates about love and allegory also reveal significant differences between scholars who want to see erotic language in allegorical terms and those who point out that there is a danger is missing the literal reading. Debates about the nature of print and publishing, how writers perceived their careers, how texts should be edited and what methods are appropriate for the study of early modern literature are also discussed. The article does not attempt to resolve all these important debates but shows that differences often stem from diverse conceptions of what literature actually is and what it does, indicating that the importance of such arguments ranges beyond the immediate object of study. (shrink)

This edition replaces the earlier translation by Walter Lowrie that appeared under the title The Concept of Dread. Along with The Sickness unto Death, the work reflects from a psychological point of view Søren Kierkegaard's longstanding concern with the Socratic maxim, "Know yourself." His ontological view of the self as a synthesis of body, soul, and spirit has influenced philosophers such as Heidegger and Sartre, theologians such as Jaspers and Tillich, and psychologists such as Rollo May. In The Concept of (...) Anxiety, Kierkegaard describes the nature and forms of anxiety, placing the domain of anxiety within the mental-emotional states of human existence that precede the qualitative leap of faith to the spiritual state of Christianity. It is through anxiety that the self becomes aware of its dialectical relation between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal. (shrink)

In his lectures on neoliberalism, Michel Foucault argues that neoliberalism produces subjects as ‘entrepreneurs of themselves’. He bases this claim on Gary Becker’s conception of the utility-maximizing agent who solely acts upon cost/benefit-calculations. Not all neoliberalized subjects, however, are encouraged to maximize their utility through mere calculation. This article argues that Foucault’s description of neoliberal subjectivity obscures a non-calculative, more audacious side to neoliberal subjectivity. Precarious workers in the creative industries, for example, are encouraged not merely to rationally manage their (...) human capital, but also to take a leap of faith to acquire unpredictable successes. It is this latter risk-loving, extra-calculative side to neoliberal subjectivity that economists usually designate as ‘entrepreneurial’. By confronting Foucault with the theories of entrepreneurship of the Austrian School of Economics, Frank Knight, and Joseph Schumpeter, the Foucauldian analytical framework is enriched. Neoliberal subjectivation is not the monolithic promotion of utility-maximizing agents, but the generation of a multiplicity of modes for entrepreneurs to relate to oneself and the market. (shrink)

Self-discovery leads to the development of the ethics of self-mastery. Many ethical systems prescribe how the individual could attain self-mastery by means of critical self-examination or self-analysis. Once such critical self-examination or self-analysis is successfully carried out, the individual begins to use himself, his personal preferences, as the standard of what is right or wrong. This is the background to the Confucian, Kantian and Existentialist ethics of categorical imperatives. Even in religious ethical systems that attribute the source of the moral (...) law to divine authority, the individual still has to take a leap of faith to discover God's purpose for his existence, which he then internalizes. In the final analysis, any ethics that truly works must issue forth from the self. Hence self-mastery is the absolutely fundamental premise upon which to erect a sound moral character. (shrink)

What, if anything, has faith to do with intention?1 By ‘faith’ I have in mind the attitude described by William James: Suppose...that I am climbing in the Alps, and have had the ill-luck to work myself into a position from which the only escape is by a terrible leap. Being without similar experience, I have no evidence of my ability to perform it successfully; but hope and confidence in myself make me sure I shall not miss my (...) aim, and nerve my feet to execute what without those subjective emotions would perhaps have been impossible. But suppose that, on the contrary, the emotions of fear and mistrust preponderate; or suppose that...I feel it would be sinful to act upon an assumption unverified by previous experience,—why, then I shall hesitate so long that at last, exhausted and trembling, and launching myself in a moment of despair, I miss my foothold and roll into the abyss....There are then cases where faith creates its own verification. Believe, and you shall be right, for you shall save yourself; doubt, and you shall again be right, for you shall perish.2.. (shrink)

To eliminate the leap of faith required to explain how visual consciousness arises from visual representation, O'Regan & Noë focus on the sensorimotor interaction with the outside world and ban internal representations from their account of vision. We argue that evidence for transsaccadic representations necessitates a central position for an internal, on-line stimulus rendition in any adequate theory of vision.

In 'Law as a Leap of Faith' Gardner's analogy of faith in law to faith in God may seem outlandish. But consider the implications of the positions Gardner's jurisprudential views assemble: law can give us reason to do what we would otherwise not have reason to do - in fact it can give us reason to do what would otherwise be immoral. This is the implication of a commitment to law's capacity to give exclusive reasons, on (...) one hand, together with the commitment, on the other, that any given law is valid because of its sources and not its moral merits. (shrink)

Abstract:Though critics have long recognized the influence of Søren Kierkegaard on poet W. H. Auden, the understanding of Auden's debt to Kierkegaard has primarily focused on the most famous aspects of Kierkegaard's thought: the "stages of life" and "leap of faith." By recovering the depths of Auden's reading of Kierkegaard, this article redefines their relationship: Kierkegaard's most lasting impact on Auden consisted in his views on the public, literary vocation, and necessity of indirection. In redefining Auden's debt to (...) Kierkegaard, I also seek to recover Auden's continued commitment to public poetry in his supposedly private later career. (shrink)

Believing in God requires not only a leap of faith but also an extension of people’s normal capacity to perceive the minds of others. Usually, people perceive minds of all kinds by trying to understand their conscious experience (what it is like to be them) and their agency (what they can do). Although humans are perceived to have both agency and experience, humans appear to see God as possessing agency, but not experience. God’s unique mind is due, the (...) authors suggest, to the uniquely moral role He occupies. In this article, the authors propose that God is seen as the ultimate moral agent, the entity people blame and praise when they receive anomalous harm and help. Support for this proposition comes from research on mind perception, morality, and moral typecasting. Interestingly, although people perceive God as the author of salvation, suffering seems to evoke even more attributions to the divine. (shrink)

No one really knows where nanotechnology is leading, what its pursuit will mean, and how it may affect human and other forms of life. Nevertheless, its research and development are moving briskly into that unknown. It has been suggested that rapid movement towards 'who knows where' is endemic to all technological development; that its researchers pursue it for curiosity and enjoyment, without knowing the consequences, believing that their efforts will be beneficial. Further, that the enthusiasm for development comes with no (...) malicious intent but rather from simple ignorance. Contrary to that commonly held perception about the collective pursuit of technological development, there are individual research scientists and engineers who are quite willing to reflect on the meaning of their work in nanotechnology. Nanotalk is a book of conversations and explorations with thirty five such nano-research scientists and engineers who share their ideas, experiences, perceptions, and beliefs about their work, humanity, nature, change, and the future of the world with nanotechnology. Precisely because of the unknowable nature of nanotechnology research and development, conscientious foresight and ethical reflection are warranted every step of the way. Not only do nanotechnology research and development represent enormous financial commitments, but they also require a profound leap of faith regarding its possible outcomes. Using these conversations as the basis of reflection and deliberation, the author explores the possible significance of nanotechnology to humanity and how it might be pursued conscientiously and ethically. (shrink)

What makes trust such a powerful concept? Is it merely that in trust the whole range of social forces that we know play together? Or is it that trust involves a peculiar element beyond those we can account for? While trust is an attractive and evocative concept that has gained increasing popularity across the social sciences, it remains elusive, its many facets and applications obscuring a clear overall vision of its essence. In this book, Guido Möllering reviews a broad range (...) of trust research and extracts three main perspectives adopted in the literature for understanding trust. Accordingly, trust is presented as a matter of reason, routine or reflexivity. While all these perspectives contribute something to our understanding of trust, Möllering shows that they imply, but cannot explain, ‘suspension’ – the leap of faith that is typical of trust. He therefore proposes a new direction in trust research that builds on existing perspectives but places the suspension of uncertainty and vulnerability at the heart of the concept of trust. Beyond a purely theoretical line of argument, the author discusses implications for empirical studies of trust and presents original case material that captures the experience of trust in terms of reason, routine, reflexivity and suspension. Möllering concludes by suggesting how the new approach can enhance the relevance of trust research and its contributions to broader research agendas concerning the constitution of positive expectations in the face of prevalent uncertainty and change at various levels in our economies and societies. The book is essential reading for anyone who wants to gain a thorough understanding of trust. It can serve as a general introduction for advanced students and scholars in the social sciences, especially in economics, sociology, psychology and management. For more experienced researchers, it is a challenging and provocative critique of the field and a new approach to understanding trust. (shrink)

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) has often been cast as an irrationalist -- an enemy of reason, logic, and perhaps even truth. It is easy to see why. Some of his works encourage us to "crucify" our understanding or to take a leap of faith beyond the evidence.[1] We also encounter texts suggesting that passionate beliefs are more important than true ones.[2] Perhaps his most frequently read book, Fear and Trembling, lauds Abraham for following God's commands "by virtue of the (...) absurd."[3] Finally, a number of passages encourage us to accept "the absolute paradox" or "the contradiction" of the God-man, Jesus Christ.[4] Richard McCombs joins a growing chorus of scholars who reject this view. Indeed, there is something approaching a consensus among specialists that Kierkegaard is not as irrational as he appears. What sets McCombs apart is that he also defends a more ambitious thesis. In addition to downplaying the irrationality of Kierkegaard, he maintains that Kierkegaard is actually a "robustly rational thinker" (7). (shrink)