Nell’articolata analisi della tesi di dottorato (2021), l’autrice era pervenuta a rintracciare nel καυχάομαι l’inscrizione del profilo fondativo dell’identità credente, che Paolo dispone in una sorta di percorso testuale lungo Rm 1‒5. L’articolo presenta la sintesi della ricerca precedente, riaprendo il confronto con i contributi successivi alla sua stesura ed in particolare con quelli della prospettiva di Paul within Judaism. Il dialogo con il recente studio di John M.G. BARCLAY, Paul and the Power of Grace, in sede conclusiva conferma il (...) guadagno dell’indagine in ordine agli sviluppi della soteriologia paolina. (shrink)

In defense of moral testimony Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-21 DOI 10.1007/s11098-012-9887-6 Authors Paulina Sliwa, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116.

Plausibly, you should believe what your total evidence supports. But cases of misleading higher-order evidence—evidence about what your evidence supports—present a challenge to this thought. In such cases, taking both first-order and higher-order evidence at face value leads to a seemingly irrational incoherence between one’s first-order and higher-order attitudes: you will believe P, but also believe that your evidence doesn’t support P. To avoid sanctioning tension between epistemic levels, some authors have abandoned the thought that both first-order and higher-order evidence (...) have rational bearing. This sacrifice is both costly and unnecessary. We propose a principle, Evidential Calibration, which requires rational agents to accommodate first-order evidence correctly, while allowing rational uncertainty about what to believe. At the same time, it rules out irrational tensions between epistemic levels. We show that while there are serious problems for some views on which we can rationally believe, “P, but my evidence doesn’t support P”, Evidential Calibration avoids these problems. An important upshot of our discussion is a new way to think about the relationship between epistemic levels: why first-order and higher-order attitudes should generally be aligned, and why it is sometimes—though not always—problematic when they diverge. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been an increase in the establishment of biobanks for genetic and genomic studies around the globe. One example of this is the Human Heredity and Health in Africa Initiative (H3Africa), which has established biobanks in the sub‐region to facilitate future indigenous genomic studies. The concept of ‘broad consent’ has been proposed as a mechanism to enable potential research participants in biobanks to give permission for their samples to be used in future research studies. However, questions (...) remain about the acceptability of this model of consent. Drawing on findings from empirical research about the role of trust in decision‐making, we argue that an account of entrustment may be an appropriate way of addressing current challenges of seeking consent for biobank research in Africa. We propose a set of key points to consider that can support the proposed entrustment framework. (shrink)

Is it possible that non-natural chemical substances become natural without changing their chemical, physical or physiological characteristics? The history of synthetic flavors with a special emphasis on vanillin suggests that yes, it is possible. This process is called naturalization and means in this case the change of status of a synthetic flavor to something natural. In this article the history of vanillin as a frequently used flavor and its transformation into a natural ingredient in the twentieth century will be presented (...) and analyzed. Studying the particular characteristics of vanillin, it seems that known concepts in the history of science like Ersatzstoff (surrogate) or Wirkstoff (active agent) do not constitute the best fit in describing this flavoring agent. Categorizing vanillin as a Konsumstoff (commodity agent) seems more useful in order to classify its characteristics and its historical development. I suggest using Konsumstoff as a new theoretical and methodological approach to study the history of chemical substances. In this article, the concept of Konsumstoff will be outlined and developed using the vanillin case as a paradigmatic example. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Genomic research and biobanking present several ethical, social and cultural challenges, particularly when conducted in settings with limited scientific research capacity. One of these challenges is determining the model of consent that should support the sharing of human biological samples and data in the context of international collaborative research. In this paper, we report on the views of key research stakeholders in Ghana on what should count as good ethical practice when seeking consent for genomic research and biobanking in (...) Africa. This study was part of a multi-country qualitative case study conducted in three African countries: Ghana, Uganda and Zambia under the auspices of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa initiative (H3Africa). Our study suggests that while participants are willing to give consent for their samples and associated data to be used for future research purposes, they expect to receive feedback about the progress of the research and about the kinds of research being undertaken on their samples and data. These expectations need to be anticipated and discussed during the consent process which should be seen as part of an ongoing communication process throughout the research process. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta los fonemas segmentales del mapudungun hablado en Icalma y un perfil fonético-fonológico de parte importante del cordón cordillerano de habla pewenche. El marco de referencia utilizado es el descriptivismo norteamericano, cuyas propuestas provienen de Pike y se actualizan en los trabajos de Burquest y Salamanca, Cifuentes y Figueroa. El instrumento utilizado fue una lista léxica de 108 ítems y la cantidad de colaboradores entrevistados fue de nueve. Con respecto a la descripción fonético-fonológica del mapudungun hablado en la (...) zona, destacan los siguientes resultados: a) predominan las realizaciones fricativas áfonas [ f ] y [ θ ]; b) los fonos interdentales [ t̟ ], [ n̟ ] y [ l̟ ], y el fono fricativo velar [ ɣ ], tienen estatus fonémico; y c) el fono [ ʃ ] no ocurre en la zona. Por otra parte, si se compara el mapudungun hablado en Icalma con el de Alto Bío-Bío, Lonquimay y Curarrehue, se aprecia, en general, una mayor afinidad con el mapudungun hablado en esta última zona. (shrink)

The Trans-Pacific Partnership was negotiated with participation of the U.S. representatives from 2008. It was discussed not only in terms of the economic consequences of it. The proponents of signing TPP claimed that it would strengthen the alliances in Asia-Pacific region, curtail the Chinese influences and let the U.S. establish the global trade rules for the future. The debate on this issue took place in the Congress, also the front runners of the presidential elections of 2016 expressed their standpoints. The (...) attitude of public opinion will be also presented as well as the position of Donald Trump which resulted in the withdrawal of the United States from the agreement once he became the President of the U.S. (shrink)

La caracterización tradicional del Artículo de Investigación como un texto especializado en el que se comunican los resultados de una investigación con un lenguaje neutro, preciso y económico no da cuenta del hecho de que escribir y publicar un Artículo de Investigación es siempre una acción estratégico–persuasiva. En este trabajo presentamos un modelo empíricamente fundado del Posicionamiento Estratégico del Autor en Artículos de Investigación, modelo que rescata el carácter persuasivo de este género. Esta propuesta ha sido obtenida a partir de (...) una investigación de tipo inductivo- deductivo, en la que analizamos 182 Artículos de Investigación de cinco áreas de la ciencia, escritos entre 2010 y 2014 por autores con distintos niveles de experticia. El modelo fue validado exitosamente en distintas etapas y por diversos expertos disciplinares chilenos y extranjeros. En términos discursivos, el Posicionamiento Estratégico del Autor requiere de al menos de una de las siguientes funciones discursivas generales: valorar positivamente lo propio y negativamente lo ajeno. Estas dos macrofunciones se cristalizan en tres tipos de estrategias, que reflejan tres espacios simbólicos que sustentan la actividad científica: el del conocimiento, el del investigador y el del texto. La noción propuesta tiene la fortaleza de estar empíricamente fundamentada y de tener un alto potencial para la alfabetización científica. (shrink)

Memories, dreams, thoughts is an autobiographical book by Carl Gustav Jung in which the author deliberates on his life not only as a famous psychotherapist, but also as a protestant, psychiatrist, traveler, philosopher and mystic. Jung shows the paths that lead him to creating his own analytical branch of depth psychology and to revolutionizing the approach to the mechanisms of working with patients of mental hospitals. Although the book could be read as an autobiography only, we can also find a (...) part of the history of psychiatry, journeys diaries, analyses of dreams and even some philosophical and mystical reflections. (shrink)

Opening of the Tadeusz Ślipko Centre for Christian Ethics, and Seminar entitled “The Christian ethics approach to life and death”.

V Ogólnopolska Konferencja Naukowa z cyklu „W kręgu pytań o człowieka: osoba, brak, byt?”.

Irrespective of length of stay or voluntariness, (im)migration is the movement of individuals across borders. From national identity to labor markets, (im)migration affects various dimensions and spheres of social life. Currently, 3.6% of the global population are international (im)migrants, underscoring its profound significance in contemporary debates on humanitarianism, ethical governance, socioeconomic realities and sustainability. The analysis of (im)migration as a business is relevant since it raises important questions about precarious conditions and situations including marginalization, exploitation, and vulnerability in which (im)migrants (...) often find themselves, and about the much-needed policy and management and organizational practice responses needed to address them. This Special Issue aims to bring (im)migration to the attention of business and management researchers interested in ethics. The intention behind it is to enhance the current understanding of (im)migration in order to develop comprehensive policies, foster inclusive societal and organizational frameworks, and focus on the ethical issues raised by (im)migration for organizations and management, as well as the complex realities faced by (im)migrants all over the world. Moreover, we aim to call for new research perspectives and streams that would address the novel challenges that (im)migrants encounter as a result of technological advancements, climate (in)justice, the ‘dark side’ of the business of international (im)migration, and new—or the lack thereof—migration policies. (shrink)

To have moral worth an action not only needs to conform to the correct normative theory ; it also needs to be motivated in the right way. I argue that morally worthy actions are motivated by the rightness of the action; they are motivated by an agent's concern for doing what's right and her knowledge that her action is morally right. Call this the Rightness Condition. On the Rightness Condition moral motivation involves both a conative and a cognitive element—in particular, (...) it involves moral knowledge. I argue that the Rightness Condition is both necessary and sufficient for moral worth. I also argue that the Rightness Condition gives us an attractive account of actions performed under imperfect epistemic circumstances: by agents who rely on moral testimony or by those who, like Huckleberry Finn, have false moral convictions. (shrink)

What is the relationship between understanding and knowing? This paper offers a defence of reductionism about understanding: the view that instances of understanding reduce to instances of knowing. I argue that knowing is both necessary and sufficient for understanding. I then outline some advantages of reductionism.

For many decades, access to human biological samples, such as cells, tissues, organs, blood, and sub-cellular materials such as DNA, for use in biomedical research, has been central in understanding the nature and transmission of diseases across the globe. However, the limitations of current ethical and regulatory frameworks in sub-Saharan Africa to govern the collection, export, storage and reuse of these samples have resulted in inconsistencies in practice and a number of ethical concerns for sample donors, researchers and research ethics (...) committees. This paper examines stakeholders’ perspectives of and responses to the ethical issues arising from these research practices. (shrink)

There are certain standards of legal interpretation. Interpretive directives are heterogeneous—both in terms of the issues they address and of the form. Not all authors consider the canons of interpretation to be norms like any other ones. Moreover, some claim that the term “incorrect interpretation” refers only to an arbitrarily chosen concept. I intend to investigate whether, despite the objections raised, interpretative directives can be said to have the status of legal norms. I wonder whether the so-called law of interpretation (...) (LoI), can provide a normative key to assess the correctness of the interpretation of legal texts. Text raises important questions concerning LoI. Firstly, the question of the status of interpretative directives and the problem of their defeasibility. Second, it refers to the problem of compliance with interpretative directives and the consequences of their violation, drawing attention to the two contexts of legal interpretation (the context of discovery and justification) and to the fact that canons of interpretation can constitute a standard for the correctness of the interpretative procedure and for its result. Third, this paper refers to the problem of vagueness of interpretative directives, analysing the advantages of maintaining it to a certain extent, as well as the possibilities of reducing it in the rest. The fourth issue analysed is the multiplicity of canons and the lack of a defined hierarchy of them. I conclude by pointing out that LoI should provide a model by which to assess the correctness of an interpretation. (shrink)

The article examines the correlation between the world and the word in two novels which engage with a post-apocalyptic scenario: David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Shifting the focus from the very event of catastrophe to the notion of survival through memory and storytelling, both novels problematize the strained relationship between language and reality in an increasingly diminished and dehumanized world. My aim is to investigate the limits of language as well as its capacity to withstand the (...) chaos, loss, trauma, and death that follow the apocalypse. The issues to be considered include the influence of external experience on forms of communication, the role of central metaphors and their relation to the form of both novels, as well as the word’s capacity to preserve human values and hopes. Both novels will be discussed as deconstructionist projects in which language becomes a habitat at once impossible and life-preserving: in Wittgenstein’s Mistress it plays the role of both home and prison, whereas in The Road it functions as messianic discourse which simultaneously carries, propels and extinguishes the human hope for a transcendental reality beyond the post-apocalyptic emptiness and doubt. (shrink)

Este trabajo analiza los discursos de las mujeres/garzonas, que trabajan en las salas de cerveza (schoperías) sobre la discriminación de género y los modelos relacionales que se establecen en estos espacios entre clientes y garzonas. Se postula que estos aspectos recién mencionados, coadyuvan a la permanencia de una identidad masculina hegemónica, que se intensifica en el contexto de la minería. Los antecedentes obtenidos muestran que las garzonas- en su mayoría mujeres oriundas de los países limítrofes y/o del sur de Chile-, (...) se encuentran afectadas por una situación de vulnerabilidad social y económica, precariedad laboral y, además, cargan con una serie de imaginarios sociales en torno a ellas, a los lugares en los que trabajan (schoperías) y a la ciudad en la que habitan. Es decir, son mujeres discriminadas. Estas trabajadoras se encuentran atrapadas entre el proceso de crecimiento económico y atracción que ofrece la industria minera en el norte del país y, a la vez, a las expectativas que tienen por mejorar su situación familiar. Asimismo, se ven confrontadas por la fuerza de un sistema sociocultural de sexo/género hegemónico que favorece relaciones de poder asimétricas y la subordinación femenina, lo que contribuye a reforzar identidades de género y modelos relacionales de inequidad, que son naturalizados en este entorno productivo. (shrink)

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis generates a series of ethical and legal questions: Which goals does it pursue? Does it protect the embryo? Should this technique be regulated by the legal system? And if so, which is the incumbent criteria? This research describes the limits that some international laws regulating this technique have considered. Additionally, a series of judgments about the legal problems that have occurred with the application of this technique will be analyzed, among them, the misdiagnosis.

W ramach badań nad emocjami w tańcu naukowcy koncentrują się głównie na ich ruchowej ekspresji. Niniejszy artykuł traktuje o konceptualizacji emocji w specyficznej praktyce ruchu — języku ruchu Gaga, stworzonej przez izraelskiego choreografa Ohada Naharina, która jest oparta na ruchowej interpretacji werbalnych instrukcji podczas improwizacji tanecznej. System werbalnej komunikacji odgrywa istotną rolę w praktyce Gaga. Emocje w ruchowych wskazówkach funkcjonują implicite i są ważnym elementem pracy z ruchem i ciałem tancerzy. Istotne w refleksji o funkcjonowaniu emocji w języku Gaga są (...) rozważania fenomenologiczne Edmunda Husserla oraz Marice’a Merleau-Ponty’ego na temat ciała, które wpłynęły również na współczesną koncepcję poznania ucieleśnionego. Kluczowym w analizie funkcjonowania emocji w języku ruchu Gaga jest zagadnienie dynamiki ujęte z perspektywy fenomenologicznej oraz językoznawczej. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest wykazanie, że: 1) emocje, choć nie pojawiają się bezpośrednio w instrukcjach Gaga, stanowią ważny element pracy twórczej tancerza; 2) ich funkcjonowanie, rozumienie i ruchowa interpretacja opiera się na metaforycznym rozumieniu różnych aspektów dynamiki; 3) dla zrozumienia funkcjonowania emocji podczas tańca istotne są fenomenologiczne analizy ciała. (shrink)

Paulina Rivero’s paper is a description of a day lived in the shadow of the authentic danger that modern technique implies. It has taken us into a world that is merely functional, in which the forgetting of being leads to forgetting our own interiority. Rivero claims that a key phenomenon in..

We are frequently confronted with moral situations that are unsettling, confusing, disorienting. We try to come to grips with them. When we do so, we engage in a distinctive type of moral inquiry: hermeneutical inquiry. Its aim is to make sense of our situation. What is it to make sense of one's situation? Hermeneutical inquiry is part of our everyday moral experience. Understanding its nature and its place in moral epistemology is important. Yet, I argue, that existing accounts of moral (...) inquiry do not give us the resources to do so. This paper develops a positive account of hermeneutical inquiry. I argue that when we engage in hermeneutical inquiry, we search for an apt perspective on our situation. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre en El ser y la nada plantea una ontología basada en la dualidad fundamental del ser y una nada que, ante todo, se describe como un acto nihilizador. En virtud de una fuerte presencia de dinámicas activas en la ontología sartreana, esta investigación tiene por objetivo identificar el rol de la pasividad en la ontología y en la fenomenología sartreanas, con vistas a resaltar la necesidad de la dimensión pasiva en, al menos, dos fenómenos cruciales en la constitución (...) fáctica del para-sí, a saber, por un lado, la situación del cuerpo-para-sí y, por otro, el aparecer del otro a través de la mirada. Para este objetivo se recurrirá a la ontología merleaupontiana en torno a la pasividad expuesta en Lo visible y lo invisible a modo de guía. Con ello, la hipótesis a sostener es que hay un importante recurso a la pasividad en la fenomenología de la situación del cuerpo-para sí, agudizado con el aparecer del otro, el cual, no obstante, se ausenta en la exposición ontológica. (shrink)

The article is an attempt to determine the role of the media in shaping the image of the Polish- German borderlands. As examples, press releases published (from August 1994 to November 1996) in Gazeta Pogranicza [Borderland Gazette] were used. The newspaper is the result of cooperation between local editorial supplements to Gazeta Wyborcza and the Brandenburg regional daily newspaper Märkische Oderzeitung. An important element of this research is the assumption that the foundation of any international communication is the need to (...) know and understand. (shrink)

W naszym obrazie świata przyzwyczailiśmy się do tego, że roślinność jest niema. Zestawienie pojęć dźwięku i rośliny przywołuje w pamięci szum drzew, odgłos suchych liści, wysokich traw czy łamiących się gałęzi. Wówczas świat flory pobudzony przez wiatr generuje dźwięki. Okazuje się jednak, że te wyobrażenia będą musiały ulec zmianie, ponieważ źródłem dźwięku może być także wnętrze otaczającej nas natury. Ostatnia dekada badań tej materii ujawniła nie tylko odbieranie i wytwarzanie sygnałów akustycznych, ale również reagowanie na muzykę jako właściwości roślin. Obserwacje (...) wskazują także na wzajemne komunikowanie się badanych obiektów. Audialne fenomeny o roślinnym pochodzeniu stanowią punkt wyjścia do rozważań na temat analizy dźwięków w oparciu o teorie semiotyki. Wobec poszerzającego się spektrum możliwości rejestracji i sposobów wykorzystania dźwięku dokonano próby umiejscowienia niestandardowych źródeł dźwięku w przestrzeni audialnej. Namysłowi towarzyszą pytania o funkcje i znaczenie dźwięku, relacje walorów estetycznych, komunikacyjnych i poznawczych oraz płaszczyzny interpretacji. (shrink)

La enseñanza y evaluación de la escritura son actividades esenciales en cualquier área, máxime en Medicina, que es una disciplina altamente especializada. Sin embargo, los docentes, con formación médica, pero no en didáctica ni evaluación de la escritura, muchas veces carecen de herramientas adecuadas para evaluar los aspectos lingüístico-discursivos de los textos que producen sus estudiantes. El objetivo es proponer un instrumento de evaluación contextualizado que permita valorar la calidad lingüístico-discursiva de textos disciplinares producidos por estudiantes de Medicina. Para ello, (...) se desarrolla un estudio cualitativo mediante un estudio de caso, a fin de generar una rúbrica analítica que permita orientar la enseñanza y evaluación de la escritura en la formación en Medicina. El proceso de creación del instrumento incluyó la revisión de distintos insumos de la carrera mencionada, lo que permitió realizar un levantamiento de las propiedades lingüístico-discursivas que debiesen poseer los textos especializados en cuestión y los aspectos que tendrían que ser evaluados por los docentes disciplinares en dichos textos. El instrumento quedó constituido por 17 dimensiones, agrupadas en cuatro macrodimensiones: situación comunicativa, comunicación del conocimiento especializado en Medicina, estructura global y oracional, normativa. Tras diversos procedimientos de validación, la versión final del instrumento obtuvo un acuerdo considerable para la validez de contenido y uno casi perfecto para la confiabilidad intercodificador. En conclusión, este instrumento permitirá obtener información más precisa respecto del nivel de adquisición de la competencia escritural en la formación de médicos; y, además, definir estrategias de intervención adecuadas a las necesidades de la comunidad disciplinar. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the evolution of communication process as used by terrorist groups and organizations. It deals with this problem by starting with Russian anarchists and ending with the activists involved in modern groups engaged in the global jihad. The author analyses changes within the content of communication, as well as the means of spreading the message of violence. This essay reviews selected means and methods of public communication used by modern terrorist groups, and analyses the usefulness of these (...) tools in the “war for hearts and minds”. The keynote of this essay is the need to reflect on the popularity of the leitmotiv of violence in modern popular culture. (shrink)

This article featuring Ghana constitutes one of five articles in a collection of essays on local capacity-building in research ethics by graduates from the University of Toronto’s Joint Centre for Bioethics MHSc in Bioethics, International Stream programme funded by the Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences (FIC). Although there are no national ethical guidelines in Ghana, eight research ethics committees have been established in the country, with a number of them obtaining Federal Wide Assurances (FWA) from (...) the United States Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP).However, the existing ethics committees cannot match the volume of work to be done, especially in light of the increase of research activities in the country. This calls for the need to train more people in research ethics to fill that gap and provide continuing education to members of research ethics committees in the country. (shrink)

El objetivo de esta investigación es conformar una tipología de errores vinculada al uso de los artículos en ESL y asociar la mayor o menor recurrencia de errores a distintos niveles de lengua meta: A2 y B2. El aporte de este trabajo consiste en ayudar al tratamiento más sistemático y consistente de los artículos entre hablantes no nativos de español. Esta investigación contempló el análisis de 67 redacciones libres de aprendientes de español en dos niveles de lengua, a partir de (...) los cuales se creo una taxonomía de errores. Posteriormente se realizó un módulo de enseñanza de los artículos a cada grupo de nivel, para ver el efecto que tenía la instrucción en el manejo de estos elementos, efecto que fue medido en relación con un pretest y un postest. Los resultados muestran que tras el módulo de enseñanza aumenta el sobreuso y la selección errónea, por sobre los errores de concordancia que figuraban como los preminentes antes del módulo. La explicación de esto puede ser el uso de estrategias de hipergeneralización y un mayor sentimiento de confianza entre los aprendientes. Los conteos de errores también evidencian una correlación positiva entre un mayor nivel de lengua y un mejor empleo más de los artículos en español. Finalmente, puede decirse que tras el módulo de enseñanza se observa un mejor uso del neutro, si bien persisten las dificultades con los artículos los definidos. (shrink)

The analogies between religious and secular juridical arguments interest political theorists because they suggest a hidden link between religion and politics. However, merely describing analogies does not show that the link is significant. Why are there such analogies? The question matters because answering is a prerequisite for determining whether there can be a neutral political background to religion. This paper argues that there are such analogies because arguments in theology and arguments in the juridical theory of the state share a (...) common structure. This structure is such that the meaning of some concepts in the theory of the state, like political order and sovereignty, cannot be fully understood without reference to theological concepts. This thesis – political theology – has become associated with Carl Schmitt, but the argument in this paper differs importantly from his. Unlike Schmitt, this paper claims that in the contemporary state political theology can be superseded. (shrink)

In the past decade, there has been an increase in genomic research and biobanking activities in Africa. Research initiatives such as the Human Heredity and Health in Africa Consortium are contributing to the development of scientific capacity and infrastructure to support these studies on the continent. Despite this growth, genomic research and biobanking have raised important ethical challenges for key research stakeholders, including members of research ethics committees. One of these is the limited ethical and regulatory frameworks to guide the (...) review and conduct of genomic studies, particularly in Africa. This paper is a reflection on a series of consultative activities with research ethics committees in Africa which informed the development of an ethics and governance framework for best practices in genomic research and biobanking in Africa. The paper highlights the engagement process and the lessoned learned. (shrink)

The thesis of political theology holds that all justificatory theories of the state rely on metaphysical assumptions, rather than just empirical facts and accepted political conventions. For this reason, the thesis challenges liberal theories that justify the state on the basis of individual autonomy and popular will. The thesis is controversial because many theorists believe that metaphysical assumptions introduce decisionism – the view that a state depends on the unrestrained personal decision of a ruler – to the theory of the (...) state. But, does political theology entail decisionism? This article argues that decisionism does not follow necessarily from political theology because an omnipotent deciding sovereign is only one of many possible metaphysical assumptions in theology. It illustrates this claim with examples from the philosophy of Nicholas Cusanus and process philosophy. This conclusion challenges two different entrenched views: first, that the modern state is a continuation of theistic beliefs; and second, that metaphysical discussions have no place in contemporary normative political theory. (shrink)

The book examines the trajectory of joint philosophical-pedagogical concepts within the framework of the dialogue between Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, put in the context of questions concerning the nature of modernity.

The perplexing relationship between two of the twentieth century’s most important philosophers, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, has been the subject of much speculation within academic circles. For Arendt, Heidegger was at once, her mentor, her lover, and her friend. In this paper, we juxtapose Arendt’s theory of the banality of evil against her relationship with Heidegger in an effort to consider the question: How does corporeality inform theorizing? In answering this question, we repudiate the conventional reading of the banality (...) of evil, which attributes the theory to Arendt’s analysis of Adolf Eichmann during the latter’s criminal trial for the actions that he perpetrated in the operation of the Holocaust. Instead, we argue that the theory is, more compellingly, reflective of Arendt’s deeply personal attempts at making sense of Heidegger’s decision to affiliate himself with the German Nazi Party in the years preceding, and during, the Second World War. Through this revisionist account of the banality of evil, we animate the idea that theorizing is the discursive corollary, and belongs within the phenomenological parameters, of corporeality. Finally, we contend that any constructive understanding of how corporeality informs theorizing will only be realized, when there is a collapsing of the seemingly impervious philosophical boundaries that demarcate between ontology and epistemology. (shrink)

Moral understanding is a valuable epistemic and moral good. I argue that moral understanding is the ability to know right from wrong. I defend the account against challenges from nonreductionists, such as Alison Hills, who argue that moral understanding is distinct from moral knowledge. Moral understanding, she suggests, is constituted by a set of abilities: to give and follow moral explanations and to draw moral conclusions. I argue that Hills’s account rests on too narrow a conception of moral understanding. Among (...) other things, it cannot account for the importance of first-personal experience for achieving moral understanding. (shrink)