This article attempts to evaluate emotive meanings across languages and cultures expressed and elicited semiotically from viewers. It investigates the challenges of subtitling emotive feelings in the American filmHomeless to Harvard(2003) into Arabic. It adopts Paul Thibault’s (2000. The multimodal transcription of a television advertisement: Theory and practice. In Anthony Baldry (ed.),Multimodality and multimediality in the distance learning age, 311–385. Campobasso: Palladino Editore) method of multimodal transcription and Feng and O’Halloran’s (2013. The multimodal representation of emotion in film: Integrating (...) cognitive and semiotic approaches.Semiotica197(1/4). 79–100) framework of the multimodal representation of emotion to formulate strategies for subtitling emotion from English into Arabic. Additionally, Feng and O’Halloran’s (2013) framework is adapted to show how stylistic choices (e.g., cinematography, music, soundtracks, etc.) and semiotic expressions can elicit emotion from viewers. The social semiotic model is employed to investigate how emotive representation is realized through verbal and non-verbal items. The findings showed that the filmmakers had properly used stylistic choices and various semiotic techniques to elicit emotion from the viewer derived from the emotion of the film’s heroine. (shrink)

Assessing the quality of translation is never straightforward and rarely objective. Context, audience, text type, function and lexis are only some of the criteria that need to be taken into account. In the case of constrained intersemiotic translation, subtitling being a prime example thereof, determining universal criteria for assessment is particularly testing. Often referred to as “necessary evil”, audiovisual translation needs to avoid distracting the audience, while aiding their comprehension of the audiovisual message. This is particularly the case for (...) additive AVT, for instance subtitling, where the translation does not replace the original, but coexists with it. Relevance Theory, a controversial but flexible approach to communication, may provide a viable framework for gauging subtitling quality. The interplay between relevance, communicative intention and processing effort can help explain the rationale behind the process of decision-making in the practice of AVT. This paper provides a theoretical foundation for the application of Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory to interlingual subtitling, followed by an analysis of selected examples from a large corpus of mostly English-language movies, series and documentaries streamed on Netflix with Polish subtitles. Though the corpus is Polish-centred, the research conclusions are intended to be universal enough to apply regardless of the language pair. (shrink)

This paper features a critical review of the bookPoliteness and Audience Response in Chinese-English Subtitling. A brief introduction of the book’s content is given first, followed by a critical appraisal on merits and loopholes in the book. Furthermore, some interdisciplinary amendments — based on House’s (1998) comprehensive politeness theory and Lakoff’s (1987) embodiment concept — are put forward to remedy the loopholes in question. It is argued that covert translation works better in subtitling for it is compatible with (...) different social norms at the micro level and universally explanative politeness maxims at the macro level. Another issue discussed in this paper is the pretextual influence on audience interpretation. Pretextual influence — or embodiment system which we render more pertinent in cognitive interpretation practice — can barely be mitigated in the audience’s interpretation. Given the audience’s potential misunderstanding derived from access to various pretextual experiences, the translator may as well transfer the right implications underneath paralinguistic behaviors to the subtitling in domesticalized terms. (shrink)

Subtitling approaches are constantly changing based on the factors surrounding their implementation. This qualitative secondary study seeks to explore the factors that influence subtitlers’ decision in translating English to Arabic sensitive audiovisual material. This study adopts complexity theory to unveil the intricate interplay of factors that influence these decisions. We move beyond a linear cause-and-effect model, exploring how social media, Turkish movies, globalization and the Arab Spring influence subtitlers’ decision in translation. The results of this qualitative secondary investigation indicate (...) that many factors such as audience age and westernization among others influence subtitlers’ approaches in translation. Hence, it is essential for subtitlers to be dynamic and consistently review their subtitling approaches to ensure that they meet the needs of their target audiences, considering the presence of new and old target audiences of English to Arabic audiovisual translations. (shrink)

Introduction and Prologue 489 lines Part I. Officials and their ado. total: 6.214 lines Bk. 1. Curial occupations: 1.309 lines a) starting-point 3 ch.: 70 l. b) games 5 ch.: 820 l. c) varieties of magic 5 ch.: 419 l. Bk. 2. The truth of signs: prol.: 14 1. 3.116 lines a) true and false signs 3 ch.: 142 1. b) exc.: Jerusalem A.D. 70 6 ch.: 385 1. c) sequel: signs 5 ch.: 127 l. d) dreams 3 ch.: 386 (...) l. e) a problem 9 ch.: 1.272 l. f) prognostications 3 ch.: 790 l. Bk. 3. The falsehood of flattery: prol.: 26 l. 1.789 lines a) introduction 3 ch.: 194 1. b) flattery 4 ch.: 373 1. c) the theatre of life 2 ch.: 266 1. d) applications 6 ch.: 930 1. Part II. Public functions. total: 6.099 lines Bk. 4. The true sovereign: prol.: 21 1. 1.296 lines a) royal ethics 3 ch.: 258 l. b) a royal mirror from the O.T. 8 ch.: 926 l. c) conclusion I ch.: 91 1. Bk. 5. The body according to Plutarch (1): prol.: 20 l. 2.448 lines a) the comparison with the body 2 ch.: 74 1. b) the soul of the body 3 ch.: 389 1. c) the head of the body 3 ch.: 584 l. d) heart and bowels 1 ch.: 126 l. e) the flanks of the body 1 ch.: 218 l. f) eyes, ears and tongue 7 ch.: 1.037 l. Bk. 6. The body according to Plutarch (2): prol.: 34 1. 2.355 lines a) the hands of the body 19 ch.: 1.482 l. b) the feet of the body 1 ch.: 36 1. c) the commonwealth 4 ch.: 356 1. d) about lese-majesty 4 ch.: 372 1. e) general conclusion 2 ch.: 75 1. Part III. Philosophical reflections. total: 9.319 lines Bk. 7. Philosophy and ethics: prol.: 104 l. 3.716 lines a) which philosophy? 8 ch.: 786 1. b) how to attain a good philosophy? 7 ch.: 979 1. c) money and craving for power 5 ch.: 893 l. d) hypocrisy 3 ch.: 510 l. e) jealousy 2 ch.: 444 1. Bk. 8. Ethics, tyranny, and felicity: prol.: 45 1. 5.603 lines a) thirst for glory 5 ch.: 619 l. b) the five sense-organs 8 ch.: 2.225 l. c) true glory 3 ch.: 468 l. d) tyrannology 7 ch.: 1.858 l. e) conclusion 2 ch.: 388 1. Total: 166 chapters 22.121 lines. (shrink)

A concise introduction to personal and professional numeracy skills, helping readers to become more mathematically competent.

This study examines how subtitlers in underground subtitle groups in China perform skills and display competence in applying the rules around which annotations are built. I argue that by annotating, the act of creating notes, representing information not linguistically coded in the original US TV programs, subtitlers engage in a performative act in concert. Annotations reveal not only subtitlers’ stances toward the contents being translated, but also their meta­thinking on these contents. The analysis shows that two contradictory forces provide the (...) impetus for annotations. On the one hand, the desire for objectivity refers to subtitlers’ attempts to represent a professional and organized account of how Chinese subtitles are produced in the process of explicating knowledge. On the other hand, the desire for authenticity is implicit in the subtitlers’ narrative of what they actually experience when translating US TV programs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Steven Fuller A FRENCH SCIENCE (WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES) It is of no news to anyone with even a passing interest in the theoretical wranglings of literary critics that deconstruction is on the defensive. This is of special interest to an historian and philosopher of science such as myself because (with the notable exception of Frank Lentricchia's revisionist history of contemporary critical trends) ] most of the recent salvos launched (...) against deconstruction have been supplied by analytic philosophy.2 Indeed, some analytic philosophers have felt bold enough to enter the fray themselves. And as with other Anglo-American incursions into theoretical debates of continental origin, whatever is lost in subtlety and sheer ingenuity is made up for in clarity and commonsense. If there is one theme common to adi analytically inspired attacks on deconstruction, it is that critical method ought to be a systematic articulation of the intuitions of the average reflective reader. To be a literary critic is not to achieve esoteric insight into the uncommunicative nature of texts; rather, it is to become more fully aware of the many ways in which texts do communicate. While such advice may be reassuring, it is certainly not very "philosophical" in the sense of "deeply problematic" that deconstructionists would claim for the nature of texts. And the deconstructionists are right — so I believe. At least, I will try to show that the case for deconstruction, in all its radicalness, can be made with something of the clarity desired by analytic philosophers. A contentious critic might wonder, at this point, why the deconstructionists were not clear in the first place (thereby rendering this article superfluous). The reason, contrary to what certain "friends of deconstruction" in the analytic tradition would have us believe, is that there are few precedents in the recent history of philosophy for claims made by deconstructionists.3 It would indeed be faint praise to find, as Hacking and Rorty have maintained, that the theses of Barthes, Foucault, and Derrida were anticipated in the limpid prose style of a Quine, a Goodman, or a Kuhn.4 Why is the latter set of writers so clear, while the former set is so obscure? Our contentious critic might conclude diat clarity of style reflects a clarity of thought, and likewise for obscurity of style. In any case, both friends 2 Philosophy and Literature and foes of deconstruction tend to agree diat whatever is of value in the French texts may be derived with less effort by reading the American ones. The friends want to place deconstruction among several strains oftwentieth-century thought that would dissolve classical philosophy into a critical history of ideas, while the foes (more ingenuously perhaps) want to resume the business of practical criticism as usual and its attendant function (à la F. R. Leavis) of preserving Western Culture. Since the analytic devil can (and will) cite deconstructionist scripture for his own purposes, it is not clear that explicating Derrida will settle matters, especially since deconstruction gives an ironic twist to the search for what an author "had in mind" when he composed a particular text. It is, however, interesting to note that when one analytic philosopher recently presented a paradigm of literary criticism that allegedly compensated for the excesses of deconstruction, he resorted to Kantian talk about the intentions of the author being a "regulative ideal" toward which all responsible practical criticism aspires.5 This paradigm claims to owe to deconstruction the idea that, once an author is separated from his text, die reader becomes unable to verify any hypotheses about what the author meant by what he wrote. However, the evidence surrounding the text's composition (as well as the text itself) may be reconstructed so as to suggest a model of the audioes intentions. In that case, the explanatory adequacy of such a model would be relative to the evidence and methods available to the critic. And so, while the text certainly had a real audior who possessed a set of determinate intentions at the time ofwriting, mere is no reason to think that the most plausible model of the currendy available evidence picks out those intentions. What we have here is the first of two species of... (shrink)

The English Surgeon . 2008. Produced and directed by Geoffrey Smith. Eyeline Films and Bungalow Town Productions. English and Ukrainian, with English subtitles. 1 hour 33 minutes. http://www.theenglishsurgeon.com Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11673-010-9225-7 Authors Rebecca L. Volpe, California Pacific Medical Center Clinical Ethics Fellow, Program in Medicine & Human Values 2395 Sacramento Street, 3rd floor San Francisco CA 94115 USA Journal Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Online ISSN 1872-4353 Print ISSN 1176-7529 Journal Volume Volume 7 Journal Issue Volume 7, Number (...) 2. (shrink)

It is often put forward that the entire political project of epicureanism consists in the overcoming of fear, whereby its scope is deemed to be very narrow. I argue that the overcoming of the fear of death should actually be linked to a conception of freedom in epicureanism. This idea is further developed by Spinoza, who defines the free man as one who thinks of death least of all in the Ethics, and who develops this idea more in the Theological (...) Political Treatise. (shrink)

No entendimento de Habermas, "direito", na expressão "direitos humanos", é um conceito jurídico, donde direitos humanos, para ele, serem direitos jurídicos, normas legais declaradas em atos de fundações do Estado ou anunciadas em convenções do direito internacional e/ou constituições estatais. Ao conceber assim os direitos e tematizar os direitos humanos numa abordagem tríplice (focando-os entre moral, direito e política), ele fornece diferentes definições teóricas dos direitos humanos. O texto apresenta uma exposição sistemática dessas definições e focaliza os diferentes problemas que (...) motivaram Habermas a alterar e ampliar suas concepções de direitos humanos. In the understanding of Habermas, "right" in the phrase "human rights" is a legal concept, where human rights are legal rights, i.e., legal norms declared in acts of foundations of the State or announced conventions of international law and/or State constitutions. By conceiving of rights in this way and by treating human rights in a threefold approach (placing them between morals, law and politics), he presents different theoretical definitions of human rights. This paper presents a systematic exposition of these definitions, and focuses on the different problems that motivated Habermas to change and expand his conceptions of human rights. (shrink)

O objetivo do artigo é examinar como Habermas, orientado pela intuição normativa do uso público da razão, reconstrói uma concepção procedimental de democracia deliberativa, que, sem desconsiderar da dimensão estratégica e instrumental da esfera pública e da política, reformula a dimensão epistêmica da democracia: a aceitabilidade racional dos acordos políticos. Inicialmente, apresento brevemente a análise sociológica e histórica do conceito de esfera pública crítica, realizada em Mudança Estrutural da Esfera Pública (1962), para, em seguida, expor duas linhas de argumentação sobre (...) o conceito de esfera pública e de política deliberativa, em Direito e Democracia (1992): a que se refere ao princípio de legitimação baseado na razão pública como uma reconstrução intersubjetiva e política do conceito kantiano de autonomia; e a que concerne aos aspectos essenciais da teoria crítica da sociedade fundada na distinção entre mundo da vida e sistema e a "tradução" sociológica e institucional do uso público da razão, nos conceitos de sociedade civil e esfera pública. The objective of this article is to examine how Habermas, guided by a normative intuition of the public use of reason, reconstructs a procedural conception of deliberative democracy which, without disregarding the strategic and instrumental dimensions of the public sphere and of politics, reconstructs the epistemic dimension of democracy: the rational acceptability of political agreements. First, I briefly present a historical and sociological analysis of the concept of the public sphere in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962). I then present two lines of argumentation regarding the concept of the public sphere and deliberative democracy in Between Facts and Norms (1992): one refers to the principle of justification based on public reason as an intersubjective and political reconstruction of the Kantian concept of autonomy; the other refers to the essential aspects of the critical theory of society based on the distinction between lifeworld and system, and on the sociological and institutional "translation" of the public use of reason in the concepts of civil society and public sphere. (shrink)

The subtitle of Rousseau as Author refers to Rousseau’s motto, which elegantly describes the gist of Rousseau’s now commonly practiced ideas of authorship and responsibility, and concerns three overlapping issues: Rousseau’s well-known truthtelling in matters public and private, his devotion to a peculiar understanding of philosophy as a way of life, and his singular boldness in making statements that he knew could result in literary and political persecution. As Kelly says, the focus of the book is on the third issue, (...) but ultimately the book’s intention is to “show the preconditions” for a “full treatment of Rousseau’s understanding of philosophy”. (shrink)

Modestly subtitled How to Lose Weight & Change the World.

The subtitle of this book, Philosophie du faire, suggests both its Thomistic inclinations and the approach adopted to the problems of aesthetics. Professor Philippe is more than ready to distinguish between the fine arts and the useful arts, but only as modes of the activity of ‘making’.

The subtitle of the essay that Robert Markley attacks had, in its penultimate version, a parenthetical word that was ultimately dropped. It read, “ Metaphysical Snares of Ideological Criticism.” The editor of Critical Inquiry, W. J. T. Mitchell, politely suggested that my subtitle was redundant: snares, he observed, are by nature avoidable. Indeed they are. In fact, my parentheses were intended to indicate that the word didn’t really need to be there. The self-conscious redundancy was intended to underlines the fact (...) that the essay was not attacking ideological criticism in general, but only certain tendencies that seemed especially prevalent in ideological critiques of abstract ideas. Seeking support for my redundancy, I appealed to a sagacious friend, who promptly urged me to follow Mitchell’s suggestion and drop the “avoidable,” parentheses or no parentheses. I was asking my title to do too much, he observed; the essay itself would make it quite clear that I was undertaking to refine and strengthen the techniques of ideological criticism by urging that its pitfalls be avoided.If I had declined to follow this eminently reasonable advice and had retained the word “avoidable,” would that have kept Markley from so radically misconstruing my project? After all, near the end of his rebuttal, he acknowledges that “Kenshur is right … in one respect,” that there is a “lot of not particularly interesting pseudo-Marxist criticism being written” . If I had underscored my own sympathy toward and links with the new historicism—something that I could have done in all good conscience—would that have disarmed him? Or if I now undertook, after the fact, to offer assurances that I, like Markley, was working from within the capacious and self-critical Marxist tradition and trying to distinguish its strengths from its weaknesses, would that impel him, like Gilda Radner’s Emily Litella , meekly to say, “Never mind”? Perhaps, but somehow I doubt it. Oscar Kenshur is associate professor of comparative literature at Indiana University. He is author of Open Form and the Shape of Ideas and is completing Dilemmas of Enlightenment, a study that traces shifts in the ideological significance of early modern ideas about intellectual method, religious toleration, and female chastity. (shrink)

Subtitle: Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1886 on the Foundation of the Late Rev.

The subtitle of Jacoby's book, “Politics and Culture in the Age of Apathy,” aptly captures the way the present American political situation is usually perceived. Unlike conventional wisdom that celebrates this state of affairs as the achievement of genuine consensus, Jacoby bemoans it as an indication of general confusion: the result of the exhaustion of radical alternatives and a collapse of those utopian visions that generate political projects. The evidence seems compelling. Any cursory survey of the kind of issues being (...) articulated by the various presidential candidates positioning themselves for the November 2000 elections supports this diagnosis. In a country…. (shrink)

Subtitled: Illinois as seen by the Farm Security Administration photographers, 1936-1943. 162 photos reflect the wide diversity of what has been called the nation's most representative state. Includes the work of Dorthea Lange, Esther Bubley, Edwin Rosskam and others. Cloth edition, $29.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

The subtitle of this paper could have been, “Big Data meets Education to advance Cognitive Science.” In it, the authors analyze 20 million answers to 1700 simple arithmetic problems in an educational number game to determine “what makes some problems harder than others.” The results contribute to the cognitive science of arithmetic skill acquisition and have the potential to change how math is taught.

A subtitle for this paper might have been ‘The ugly face ofVerstehen’, for it asks whether the theory ofVerstehenhas, to switch metaphors, ‘dirty hands’. By the theory ofVerstehen, I mean the constellation of concepts—life, experience, expression, interpretative understanding—which, according to Wilhelm Dilthey, are essential for the study of human affairs, thereby showing that ‘the methodology of the human studies[Geisteswissenschafteri]is … different from that of the physical sciences’ :1 for in the latter, these concepts have no similar place. Even critics of (...) Dilthey tend to agree that his heart, if not his head, was in the right place: thatVerstehenwas designed as an antidote to ‘dehumanizing’ attempts by positivists to reduce the categories used in explaining human behaviour to just those equally operative in the physical sciences. As Dilthey himself put it, ‘there is no real blood flowing in the veins’ of human beings as examined by the positivists and their precursors: they do not treat of ‘the whole man’. The idea ofVerstehen, it seems, is doubly humane: a humanizing approach to the humane studies. (shrink)

The subtitle to the conference upon which this journal issue is based invited us to ‘follow Crowter’. This paper does so primarily by following the person and only thereby attends to the legal judgment. In particular, it will attend to her comment that When mum told me about the discrimination against babies like me in the womb, I felt like a knife had been put into my heart. It made me feel less valued than other people. The argument is that (...) (I) there are strong reasons for such an approach from the field of theological ethics and that this is valuable for pastoral theology and for bioethics. With this case made, the argument proceeds (II) by following and building on three elements of Heidi Crowter’s words concerning (a) the knife (b) the heart and (c) the person. The argument concludes (III) with theological reflection and deliberation regarding institutions, practices and actions which will make for ‘ethical society’, principally focussed on ecclesial life. (shrink)

Subtitled "The Lazy Gambler's Guide to Choosing a Religion," this essay presents an account of Pascal's Wager that avoids most of the major traditional objections to Pascal's appeal to self-interest as an incentive to the investigation of Christian evidences. I then turn to what I call "the Lazy Objection" to the wager, which claims that there are too many religions all of which can make a similar appeal and argue that this is simply false. I conclude that, considered as a (...) rhetorical strategy, the Wager is really a Challenge, one we decline at our peril. (shrink)

The title and subtitle entail the main claims of this article. In the face of the present debate on the question whether Wittgenstein was a foundationalist, a coherentist, or both things, I suggest that, at least in a certain important sense, he didn’t adopt either of these positions. The point concerns the status of propositions that I characterize as “unheard-of propositions” and that constitute the most important subclass of so called “Moore-type propositions”. Unheard-of propositions (and the corresponding beliefs) are neither (...) doubted nor justified, they are not said and not even thought. We simply count on them or we take them for granted. In calling our attention on these primitive, spontaneous and instinctive certainties Wittgenstein is trying to correct an intellectualist bias in traditional conceptions of human being. This reading is confirmed through an analysis of the origin of our basic certainties: we have some of them naturally or instinctively, we acquire others by training, but in neither case there are rational processes at stake (nor irrational ones, of course). The debate between foundationalism and coherentism conceals precisely what Wittgenstein is trying to uncover: a stratum of certainties that, being objective, precede the order of knowledge and justification. (shrink)

Subtitle: "Experiential understanding and the impossibility of intrinsically valuing suffering." Suffering, I argue, is bad. This paper supports that claim by defending a somewhat bolder-sounding one: namely that if anyone—even a sadistic ‘amoralist’—fully understands the fact that someone else is suffering, then the only evaluative attitude they can possibly form towards the person’s suffering as such is that of being _intrinsically against_ it. I first argue that, necessarily, everyone is disposed to be intrinsically against their _own_ suffering experiences, holding fixed (...) their specific overall degree of emotional aversiveness, because any evaluative attitude other than ‘being against’—including mere indifference—would in certain key circumstances make our suffering less emotionally aversive and thus different from the suffering experience (stipulatively) at issue. Second, fully understanding that someone else is having a given experience—Mary’s experiencing a vividly blue sky, say, or Job’s experiencing heart-rending grief—requires that we represent _experientially_ their very instance of that experience-type (it requires, in other words, token phenomenal concepts). The result is that what goes for our own suffering goes for others’, too: maintaining an accurate experiential representation of the fact that someone else is having a suffering experience with a specific degree of overall emotional aversiveness is only compatible with coming to be intrinsically against their suffering. So suffering is—‘objectively’—bad: it’s only possible to respond with indifference towards anyone’s suffering if we don’t fully understand that they are suffering in the first place. (shrink)

As its subtitle 'Skepticism, Individuality and Chastened Politics' indicates, this book is an exploration of and a largely favorable engagement with salient elements in the thinking of a theorist who is widely regarded as the greatest Anglophone political thinker and among the top rank of philosophical writers generally. In emphazing Hobbes's skepticism, Richard Flathman goes against the grain of much of the literature concerning Hobbes. The theme of individuality is more familiar, particularly from the celebrated writings on Hobbes by Michael (...) Oakeshott, but the idea of a chastened politics challenges the widely influential view that Hobbes was not only an authoritarian but an incipient or proto-totalitarian. (shrink)

Subtitled "Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of 'Natural Selection' and 'Inheritance' to Political Society," this book first appeared in 1867, but still offers insight into social psychology and the nature of civilization. The biographical introduction is by Hans Kohn.--E. T.

Subtitled "An Analytic and Historical Assessment of Process Philosophy," this book achieves a number of important goals. First, it situates Whitehead within the mainstream of philosophical thought in this century. Second, it demonstrates what Whitehead did and did not borrow from the tradition. Third, it provides a most useful update of recent process thought and its significance for current philosophical debate.

Subtitled "Ideas and Arguments from Plato to Sartre," this volume is intended, as are many others, to serve both as a textbook for introductory courses in philosophy and as an introduction to philosophic thinking. One of its goals, and one admirably achieved, is to provide some hearing both to all the very greatest figures in the history of western philosophy and to some major opposing traditions. No one can read the volume and fail to grasp something of the content and (...) spirit in the work of such men as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein and others. What makes Flew's work creative and original is a combination of factors. First of all, he combines in a very stimulating and integral way two methods commonly adopted in works of this kind, namely representative selections from original sources and expository and critical commentary. Almost one half of the work consists of material taken from the primary sources, but these selections are not set off in large chunks interspersed with commentary. Rather they are worked into the text to illustrate the thrust of the arguments and ideas involved, and thus we find Hobbes' militant manifesto of metaphysical materialism confronting the Eleatic Stranger's argument for the existence of "certain incorporeal Forms which are objects of the mind" in The Sophist, Hume's views on finality contrasted with the argument developed by Aquinas in his fifth way, and Frege's polemic against confusing the logical with the psychological set opposite the arguments of Locke concerning the meaning of human understanding. In addition, in offering his own critical comment Flew deliberately seeks to set forth his own conclusions even in areas that have been and are controversial. Thus the work is by no means an impersonal account but conveys something of the enthusiasm and excitement that the author experiences in trying to forge sound arguments and assess the soundness of arguments advanced by others--and this, for Flew, is the principal work of the philosopher. One could argue over many of the nuances that Flew's way of proceeding gives to the meaning of the philosophies discussed, but this in no way detracts from the value of this stimulating and exceptionally informative introduction.--W. E. M. (shrink)

In this personal essay, subtitled “A jaundiced view of journalism after 30 years in the trenches,” the author discusses the ethics challenges too often involved in the relationships between farm magazines and advertisers. Collusion between advertisers and editors is a clear and present danger, particularly in times when publications are struggling economically. Yet a more important question relates to agricultural journalists' collective failure to report on the underlying structural changes in agriculture and the broader society.

The subtitle is a little misleading in that the book is really a discussion of Michael Theunissen’s recent Sein und Schein. Die kritische Funktion der Hegelschen Logik, reviewed in the March Owl. The present book began life as a colloquium on Th.’s study held in Bielefeld in December of 1978, after which it was generally felt that much would be gained from asking the author himself to explain certain points. Hence the form of the book, which consists of seven questions (...) addressed by Fulda and Horstmann to determinate ‘theses’ imputed to Th., followed by Th.’s answer, and concluding with F.’s and H.’s replies. (shrink)

The subtitle of this dissertation raises the expectation that at last here is a study which will offer up the “key” to Schleiermacher’s thought. Given the widely differing assessments of Schleiermacher, ranging from those who see him as a betrayer of theology à la Feuerbach, to those who see him as a pioneer in theological reconstruction from whom much is yet to be learned, it is clear that such a “key” to Schleiermacher’s thought would be very desirable. Moreover, given Schleiermacher’s (...) focus on theology as an account of religious consciousness, it seems promising to look for the “key” in his theory of consciousness. Many English speaking scholars will be interested that the place where Keller-Wentorf has chosen to look for the key is one of the most difficult and incomplete texts of Schleiermacher, namely his ethics, or as we would say today, his social theory and philosophy of history. To drain this bog of its intellectual treasures might indeed shed important light on Schleiermacher’s concept of consciousness. Unfortunately, the key to Schleiermacher has not been found: What Keller-Wentorf serves up instead is merely one more key to be added to the already rather heavy key ring containing keys which have been tried and found not to work. (shrink)

Like the subtitle says, this is an intro to food ethics that also collects writings on food ethics by others. Topics include: animals, consumption, farming, identity, justice, paternalism, religion, and workers.

The subtitle of Joel Kovel's The Enemy of Nature (originally published in 2002, revised edition 2007) states his thesis bluntly: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? Kovel thinks we need a revolution--although he is fully cognizant as to how remote that prospect seems.

As the subtitle of Iso Kern’s newest monograph Der gute Weg des Handelns indicates, the author attempts to develop an “ethics for the present time”. For Kern, such a project implies more than just addressing today’s most pressing ethical problems. An “ethics for the present time” that deserves the name concurrently has to take seriously a trend that is noticeably gaining momentum. In the last decade or so, mainstream Anglo-European philosophy has increasingly come under the pressure to diversify and integrate (...) hitherto neglected philosophical resources from other traditions into its fields of inquiry. Within this movement towards deparochializing philosophy... (shrink)

As the subtitle indicates, this book is concerned with the relationship between consciousness and the physical world. It recommends a novel and disturbingly pessimistic view about this topic that it calls “naturalistic mysterianism.” The view is naturalistic because it maintains that states of consciousness are reducible to physical properties of the brain. It counts as “mysterian” because it asserts that the physical properties in question are entirely beyond our ken—that they lie well beyond the scope of contemporary neuroscience, and quite (...) likely beyond the scope of any body of scientific knowledge that we might develop in the future. Naturalistic mysterianism thus affirms the unity of consciousness with the physical world, while also claiming that the nature of that unity will forever elude us, due to inherent limits of our cognitive capacities. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION The subtitle of this book indicates that it may be understood to some extent as a study of that mysterious figure who for centuries passed ...

Subtitled "A Study in Comparative Philosophy," the concept of man in Greek, Jewish, Chinese, and Indian cultures is briefly outlined.--W. L. M.

The subtitle of this book could mislead. Although the book is "elementary in the sense of presupposing only first-order logic without sets", Martin's approach, here and in his other works, consists in the rigorous application of the techniques of formal logic to fundamental problems of analytic philosophy. The methodological conviction which underlies the present work is that "logic is... of particular interest for the study of natural language... [and] every formula of logic is a lesson for the student of language". (...) Martin's original study should prove illuminating even to linguists and philosophers who reject such sweeping claims on behalf of formal analysis. (shrink)

Subtitled "Rejections of Cartesian Dualism" this collection of essays traces through western Philosophy the strong but often overlooked idea that the body and the mind are not two different kinds of entity somehow reconciled in man, but rather a unity that is man. The editor's introduction sets forth Aristotle's ideas, concentrating on the dictum that it is the same man that thinks and runs. Spicker also treats Descartes' view, and the view of the Cartesians, ably separating the two when necessary. (...) The rest of the book is basically arranged chronologically, starting with extracts from Spinoza's Ethics, an essay on these extracts by Hans Jonas, and then moving through Julien de la Mettrie and two short essays by Kant. The second part of the book contains interesting essays on the human body by John Dewey, Douglas Long, and B. A. O. Williams, all defending the essential unity of body and soul. The third and last section of the book is itself divided into two parts, the first of which, entitled "Philosophy of Embodiment" contains four extracts from the works of prominent phenomenologists, Max Scheler, Gabriel Marcel, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. These essays all center around the necessity of a concept of the "lived body" to the understanding of man's being-in-the-world. In the last section, the quality of the essays drops, although it is delightfully leavened by a witty essay by Richard Griffith on the foot. This section contains essays on particular parts of the human body, such as sight and the upright posture, by Herbert Plügge, Hans Jonas, and Erwin W. Straus. There is a selected bibliography for those who are captured by this basic thread of western thought.--W. A. de V. (shrink)

Subtitled "Studies in Ethical Analysis," this collection of eleven essays, most of which have previously appeared in journals, deals with a number of problems central to modern ethical theory: the emotive interpretation of ethical language, persuasive definitions and their role in ethical reasoning, the cognitive versus emotive conceptions of ethics: many of these problems were first raised and examined by Stevenson in his earlier book Ethics and Language. Other essays are of a less retrospective nature: studies on Moore and Dewey, (...) naturalism and relativism in ethics, and a general discussion of the relations of linguistic analysis to philosophy as a whole. Stevenson is mainly concerned with analytical, as opposed to descriptive, ethics; and he completely avoids the topics of normative ethics except for a brief survey. The approach to ethics is therefore restricted, but there is enough here to interest the philosopher whose main area lies outside of ethics; although it presupposes no acquaintance with the author's previous work, some of the questions on emotivism and persuasive language are more motivated when seen in the context of that work.—P. J. M. (shrink)