This essay attempts a phenomenological analysis of Descartes' statement, ‘my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself,’ and Buber's claim that God ‘is also the mystery of the self-evident, nearer to me than my I.’ I radicalize the implications of Descartes' and Buber's claims by drawing on the thought of Husserl and Levinas, and couching the analysis in terms of Merleau-Ponty's experiential notions of haunting and reversibility. This forces us to interrogate the subjective space in (...) which we think God qua recognize the other, and shows us a kind of necessity that underlies the I-Thou relation. My conclusion leaves us in a place of powerless subjective inwardness and awe. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 35.4 (2002) 328-344 [Access article in PDF] Spaces of Invention:Dissension, Freedom, and Thought in Foucault Kendall R. Phillips Over the past two decades, invention has become an increasingly difficult concept to discuss. In an age when the free, rational actor has become not only de-centered but viewed as both impossible and undesirable by some social theorists, the traditional conception of invention, especially rhetorical invention, becomes (...) more tenuous. While some continue to promote a rational deliberative model of the human subject—Habermas is a prime example of this school of thought—the harsh and unrelenting critiques of poststructural and postmodern thinkers have cast these recovery efforts in a nostalgic and often negative light. Chief among these critics of the modern, humanist conception of human action is Michel Foucault. Within Foucault's perspective our utterances are governed by underlying rules of discourse formations, our actions are proscribed and authorized by relations of power, and our very conception of our self is circumscribed by technologies of subjectivity. Contained within these intertwined relations of knowledge, power, and subjectivity, the human subject takes on a very different meaning and even the concept of "human subject" is itself a product of these intertwined relations; a product that may, in time, disappear under new relations of discourse and governance.Despite the apparent centrality of a creative human subject to the study of rhetoric, Foucault has taken his place within the study of rhetoric. Of course, neither this incorporation of Foucault nor the observation of its peculiarity is particularly new. The incorporation of Foucault into rhetoric took its most dramatic turn in 1989 with Raymie McKerrow's "Critical Rhetoric" essay and the implications of this union of Foucault and rhetoric were forcefully raised by Barbara Biesecker in "Michel Foucault and the Question of Rhetoric" (1992). These two important essays made the relationship between Foucault and rhetoric most pressing: McKerrow by offering [End Page 328] a practical agenda for a Foucaultian rhetorical perspective and Biesecker by opening a space for reflection on this type of agenda. In the intervening decade, however, the incorporation of Foucault into rhetoric has outstripped the reflection on this incorporation and Foucault now sits as comfortably in the bibliographies of rhetorical scholars as Burke or McKeon or Perelman.The purpose of the present essay is to revisit this relationship between Foucault and rhetoric. I pursue this end not in order to critique McKerrow's project or to outstrip Biesecker's reflections, but in order to press the importance of their earlier arguments. The project of a Foucaultian rhetoric should be taken seriously, seriously enough to keep the peculiarity of this union in the forefront of our minds as we pursue it. My present effort furthers this end by seeking within Foucault a space for invention and, in so doing, asks the question: how might invention be rendered within a Foucaultian framework?My contention is that a space for invention exists within Foucault's studies of knowledge, power, and subjectivity and that this space can be demonstrated by considering the counterpoints to his tripartite understanding of the human condition. The limiting/enabling relations of knowledge/power/subjectivity are counterpointed by three terms that describe the conditions for invention: dissension, freedom, and thought. Before turning to the conditions for these spaces of invention and the unique shape of invention that emerges from them, I will briefly consider previous discussions of Foucault. Power, resistance, and invention Rhetoricians, to be clear, are not the first to be concerned with the apparent foreclosing of the possibility of invention within Foucault. Focusing mainly on dominating relations of power/knowledge/subjectivity, Foucault seems to leave little ground for the creation of new ways of acting, speaking, or being. However, what I call a concern for invention has generally not been expressed as such; rather, in rhetoric and in other fields, criticism of Foucault has been largely couched in terms of resistance. Edward Said (1986), for instance, contends that Foucault's work is "not finally as contestatory, or as oppositional as on the surface it seems to be" (152... (shrink)

Space and time are geometrical notions that Sophie Germain, a French mathematician, discusses on several occasions in her Pensées diverses, however not only in a geometrical way but also in terms of a philosophical and moral understanding: she speaks of a human’s lifespan, the space they occupy, their place in creation and the knowledge toward which they always aim. This mixture of mathematical and philosophical thinking brings out Germain’s dream: she wants to apply the language of numbers to (...) moral and political issues. As such this chapter aims to examine Germain’s mathematical understanding of space and time in order to discover her moral theory. Furthermore, in a purely hypothetical context (because one does not know which authors she has read), I compare Germain’s moral thinking to Pascal’s moral and mathematical thoughts in Pensées. We underline the possible inspiration by Pascal by highlighting the similarities between these authors concerning space and time, which both treat mathematically and philosophically. These authors agree that time and space can be measured, and thus provide constant and mathematically uniform elements. At the same time, time and space provide the framework for moral thinking. The latter is not “capable” of enjoying the present moment; he is on a quest for the future. For Germain, this results into knowledge, but for Pascal, this is a sign of an unhappy life in which people do not find rest and are constantly looking for a diversion. (shrink)

The articles assembled in this volume present an important selection of Professor Jao Tsung-i’s research in the fields of comparative mythology, early Chinese hemerology and the interrelation between divination, morals and ritual in early Chinese thought.

Spaces of Geographical Thought examines key ideas – like space and place - which inform the geographic imagination. The text: discusses the core conceptual vocabulary of human geography: agency: structure; state: society; culture: economy; space: place; black: white; man: woman; nature: culture; local: global; and time: space; explains the significance of these binaries in the constitution of geographic thought; and shows how many of these binaries have been interrogated and re-imagined in more recent geographical thinking. (...) A consideration of these binaries will define the concepts and situate students in the most current geographical arguments and debates. The text will be required reading for all modules on the philosophy of geography and on geographical theory. (shrink)

This article addresses Bruce Janz’s “enactivist” reading of African philosophy from two perspectives. The space in which African philosophy finds itself remains problematic, and, thus, this article attempts to unpack this issue. Janz argues that African philosophy allows for only a few or no possibilities for radical thought. However, his own reading of the Nigerian philosopher Sophie Oluwole serves to debunk this claim. Oluwole’s thought highlights the challenges of building a modern African philosophy within the context of (...) postcoloniality, in which problems of untranslatability are encountered when utilizing a metropolitan language, which, in her case, is English. But, beyond the problem of untranslatability, she is able to delineate a holistic cosmology that, in multiple ways, incorporates, complicates, and extends the borders of philosophy. (shrink)

A uniquely integrative work, this volume provides a much needed compilation of primary source material to researchers from basic neuroscience, psychology, developmental science, neuroimaging, neuropsychology and theoretical biology. * The ...

The articles in this volume present an important selection of Jao Tsung-i's research in the field of the early Chinese intellectual tradition, especially as concerns the question of the conditio humana. Whether his focus is on myth, religion, philosophy or morals, Jao constantly aims at describing the Chinese version of a series of developments that are broadly associated with the Axial Age in the study of the ancient world in general. He is particularly interested in showing how early China had (...) developed its own notion of transcendence as well as a system of prediction and morals that allowed man to act on his own account, without having to rely on divine providence. (shrink)

Customary interpretations state that Tractarian thoughts are pictures, and, a fortiori, facts. I argue that important difficulties are unavoidable if we assume this standard view, and I propose a reading of the concept taking advantage of an analogy that Wittgenstein introduces, namely, the analogy between thoughts and projective geometry. I claim that thoughts should be understood neither as pictures nor as facts, but as acts of geometric projection in logical space. The interpretation I propose thus removes the root of (...) the identified difficulties. Moreover, it allows important clarification concerning some central aspects of the Tractarian theory of representation, and it yields a unifying elucidation regarding Wittgenstein’s remarks on the solipsistic thesis. (shrink)

The articles in this volume present an important selection of Jao Tsung-i's research in the field of the early Chinese intellectual tradition, especially as concerns the question of the conditio humana. Whether his focus is on myth, religion, philosophy or morals, Jao constantly aims at describing the Chinese version of a series of developments that are broadly associated with the Axial Age in the study of the ancient world in general. He is particularly interested in showing how early China had (...) developed its own notion of transcendence as well as a system of prediction and morals that allowed man to act on his own account, without having to rely on divine providence. (shrink)

In this book, Graham Mayeda demonstrates how Watsuji Tetsuro and Kuki Shuzo, two twentieth-century Japanese philosophers, criticize and interpret Heideggerian philosophy, articulating traditional Japanese ethics in a modern idiom.

This book provides detailed information about the theories of place and space of the ancient atomists, Plato, Aristotle, Peripatetics, Stoics and others, about ...

Introduction. Whatever its underlying causes, even the description of the phenomenon of thought insertion, of the content of the delusion, presents difficulty. It may seem that the best hope of a description comes from a broadly cognitivist approach to the mind which construes content-laden mental states as internal mental representations within what is literally an inner space: the space of the brain or nervous system. Such an approach objectifies thoughts in a way which might seem to hold (...) out the prospect of describing the ''alienated'' relation to one's own thoughts that seems to be present in thought insertion.1 Method. Firstly, I examine the general structure of cognitivist accounts of intentional or content-laden mental states. I raise the general difficulty of explaining how free-standing, and thus world-independent, inner states can still have bearing on the outer world. Secondly, I briefly examine Frith's model for explaining thought insertion and other passivity phenomena by postulating a failure of an internal monitoring mechanism of inner states. I question what account can be given of non-pathological cases and raise two specific objects. Results. Cognitivist accounts of the mind face a general, and possibly insuperable, challenge: explaining the intentionality of mental states in non-intentional, non- question-begging terms. There have so far been no satisfactory solutions. Cognitivist accounts of passivity phenomena in terms of a failure of internal monitoring face two objections. Firstly, accounting for non-pathological cases generates an infinite regress. Secondly, no account can be given of the paradoxical nature of utterances of the form of Moore's paradox: ''it is raining but I do not believe it''. Conclusions. A cognitivist approach presents an alienated account of thought in normal, non-pathological cases and is no help in accounting for thought insertion. (shrink)

Behind the images, the actual logical work iscarried out by reasoning-specific operations on these spatial layout models.

Using Schelling's philosophy, Ben Woodard examines how an expanded form of naturalism changes how we conceive of the division between thought and world, mathematics and motion, sense and dynamics, experiment and materiality, as well as speculation and pragmatism. Nature, in Schelling's eyes, is not the great outdoors or some authentic pastoral realm, but the various powers, processes and tendencies which run through biology, chemistry, physics and the very possibility of thought itself.

The author of African Philosophy and Enactivist Cognition: The Space of Thought responds to four critiques of his book. After giving some context and history of the book, he addresses points raised by each of the readers.

This volume expands the concept and role of the schema, with three goals in mind: 1) to outline the continuing issues in the schema concept as the legacy of Kant's concept and analysis, 2) to show that Kant's challenges resulted in successful but truncated views of the schema and its functions, 3) to reconstruct Otto Selz's schema concept by proposing an alternative. The basis and scope of Selz's schema were intended to yield a more complete follow-up to Kant's challenges. These (...) had emerged out of his unresolved view of the schema as knowledge, on one hand, and thought, on the other. Sel'z concepts-'anticipatory schema,' 'coordinate relations,' and 'knowledge complex'-are more inclusive and psychologically dynamic than those of the influential but reductionist theorists: Piaget, Bartlett, and Craik. Harwood Fisher explores Sel'z ideas in past, present, and future temporal contexts. His predecessors' and his contemporaries' ideas influenced him. Present-day needs and future prospects round out a Selzian conception of the schema that would enrich a psychology of thought and knowledge. Harwood Fisher is Professor Emeritus, City College, City University of New York, USA. (shrink)

At Swim, Two Boys, a 2001 novel by Jamie O’Neill, tells a story of gay teen romance in the wake of the Easter Rising. This paper considers the ways in which the characters engage in patterns of masculine behaviour in a context that excludes queer men, and the rhetorical effect of transgressive strategies to form a coherent identity. These patterns include involvement with the masculine and heteronormative nationalist movement, as well as a regime of physical exercise, and a religious upbringing (...) in 20th-century Ireland. The strategies of broadening the practices of masculinity include their renegotiation and redefinition, as well as attempts to construct the Irish and the gay canons of history and literature. These strategies, as exemplified by character development, become a rhetorical basis for the novel’s main argument for inclusiveness. This analysis deals with the central metaphors of space and continuity in the novel in the light of a struggle between identities. It also observes the tradition of parallels drawn between the emasculated position of the gay man and the Irish man at the beginning of the 20th century, and O’Neill’s rhetorical deployment of the shared telos in construction of a coherent gay Irish revolutionary identity. (shrink)

This article sets out to think through the double absence of literary language posited by Blanchot in L’Espace littéraire in the shadow cast by a consideration of Alvin Lucier’s piece I am sitting in a room and the sound installation practice of Bernhard Leitner. What I wish to suggest is that a consideration of these sound works enables us to identify a parallelism in the mechanics of the literary sign that creates the space of literature in Blanchot and the (...) phenomenological experience of the visitor entering into and thereby enacting the space of installation. If the term “phenomenological” here requires a parenthetical qualifier, this is because the double absence enacted on the sign in Blanchot is deployed here from within the visitor in the creation of the space of installation in a move that requires us to reformulate our thinking about the creation of space of all kinds. In revisiting Blanchot’s L’Espace littéraire in this way, it is suggested that the ethical and... (shrink)

My objective in this paper is to write a pharmacology of the university by thinking about its relationship to systemic stupidity, intelligence, and the possibility of becoming. Starting with an exploration of the contemporary dystopia of drive-based stupidity imagined by the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler, which I seek to capture through the idea of the humiliation of thought, I look to deepen his response to this situation by suggesting a return to the work of two of his key sources, (...) Martin Heidegger and Gilles Deleuze. My objective here is to use their work in relation to Stiegler’s in order to suggest a utopia of educational becoming. Following my exploration of Stiegler’s dystopia, in the second part of the article I read Heidegger’s philosophy in order to formulate a utopian theory of education becoming, which is sensitive to the possibility of authoritarianism contained in his catastrophic decision to become a member of the Nazi party. Against the dystopic humiliation of thought Heidegg... (shrink)

The Cartesian concept of nature, which has determined modern thinking until the present time, has become obsolete. It shall be shown that Hegel's objective-idealistic conception of nature discloses, in comparison to that of Descartes, new perspectives for the comprehension of nature and that this, in turn, results in possibilities of actualizing Hegel's philosophy of nature. If the argumentation concerning philosophy of nature is intended to catch up with the concrete Being-of-nature and to meet it in its concretion, then this is (...) impossible for the finite spirit in a strictly a priori sense – this is the thesis supported here which is not at all close to Hegel. As the argumentation rather has to consider the conditions of realization concerning the Being-of-nature, too, it is compelled to take up empirical elements – concerning the organism, for instance, system-theoretical aspects, physical and chemical features of the nervous system, etc. With that, on the one hand, empirical-scientific premises are assumed (e.g. the lawlikeness of nature), which on the other hand become (now close to Hegel) possibly able to be founded in the frame of a Hegelian-idealistic conception. In this sense, a double strategy of empirical-scientific concretization and objective-idealistic foundation is followed up, which represents the methodical basic principle of the developed considerations. In the course of the undertaking, the main aspects of the whole Hegelian design concerning the philosophy of nature are considered – space and time, mass and motion, force and law of nature, the organism, the pro-blem of evolution, psychic being – as well as Hegel's basic thesis concerning the philosophy of nature, that therein a tendency toward coherence and idealization manifests itself in the sense of a (categorically) gradually rising succession of nature: from the separateness of space to the ideality of sensation. In the sense of the double strategy of concretization and foundation it is shown that on the one hand possibilities of philosophical penetration concerning actual empirical-scientific results are opened, and on the other hand – in turn – a re-interpretation of Hegel's theorem on the basis of physical, evolution-theoretical and system-theoretical argumentation also becomes possible. In this mutual crossing-over and elucidation of empirical and Hegelian argumentation not only do perspectives of a new comprehension of nature become visible, but also, at the same time – as an essential consequence of this methodical principle – thoughts on the possibilities of actualizing Hegel's philosophy of nature. (shrink)

Ben Woodard's book, exemplarily erudite and so not for the faint of heart, guides the reader through all periods of F.W.J. Schelling's thought—a feat important in its own right given the burgeoning Schelling renaissance in the English-speaking philosophical universe. Woodard follows this trajectory not in order to periodize this giant of German philosophy but rather in order to demonstrate the continuity of Schelling's thought through the leitmotiv of naturalism. Schelling's naturalism, however, is not of the sort to which (...) we have become accustomed. As Woodard rightly insists, for Schelling nature is "not some local part of the universe" but instead names the universal processes productive of... (shrink)

Although traditionally, nursing research has paid little attention to geographical approaches, recent years have witnessed some initial research interest in the dynamic between nursing, space and place. Such research potentially represents the foundations of what may be termed a ‘geography of nursing’. Although, to date, some novel and valuable perspectives have been gained into the spatial features of nursing, no consideration has been given to the theoretical development of, and basis for, a geography of nursing. Furthermore, no consideration has (...) been given to philosophical heritage; the treatment of space and place in human geography and the insights that this may provide for the new field of research. In this context, this paper provides an historical review of geographical research and traces the evolution of how space and place have been conceptualized and operationalized by it. The paper outlines the emergence of a health geography subdiscipline and its own changing and diverse perspectives. In the final section, the central themes of the current geography of nursing are considered and, reflecting back on the theoretical concerns of contemporary human geography, the paper outlines some philosophies and theories on which future geography of nursing could be based. From a disciplinary perspective, one potential role of the geography of nursing is argued to be the maintenance of the relationship between health geography and mainstream health service and medical concerns, but in a place‐sensitive, patient‐sensitive and qualitative form. (shrink)

Mental Spaces is the classic introduction to the study of mental spaces and conceptual projection, as revealed through the structure and use of language. It examines in detail the dynamic construction of connected domains as discourse unfolds. The discovery of mental space organization has modified our conception of language and thought: powerful and uniform accounts of superficially disparate phenomena have become available in the areas of reference, presupposition projection, counterfactual and analogical reasoning, metaphor and metonymy, and time and (...) aspect in discourse. The present work lays the foundation for this research. It uncovers simple and general principles that lie behind the awesome complexity of everyday logic. (shrink)

ABSTRACT While—as Yancy himself reminds us regularly in this book—philosophy may begin in wonder, it cannot end there. Philosophical thought must move from wonder to commitment, whether that commitment is to something as abstract as the nature of numbers or as morally pressing as the response to racism. Philosophy, however intellectual an exercise it may be, is only worth pursuing if it addresses what is important to us, and only if in philosophizing we commit ourselves to making a difference, (...) to transforming ourselves and to benefiting our fellows. I was particularly struck when reading Across Black Spaces by Prof. Yancy’s project of recovery, specifically his recovery of the work of Thomas Nelson Baker, Gilbert Haven Jones, and Joyce Mitchell Cook—three profoundly original African American philosophers whose achievements are largely ignored in America today. My interest in this section of the book was piqued in part because of my own experience, in close collaboration with my colleague Nalini Bhushan, in a recovery project. In that case we were working to recover the work of Indian philosophers of the late 19th and early 20th century whose work had fallen into obscurity. That project led us to reflect on our own reasons for engaging in this kind of history of philosophy. John Makeham’s work recovering the work of the early 20th‐Century New Confucians, who fused Buddhist Yogācāra, Confucian ethics, and Pragmatist philosophy of science provides another example of this kind of enterprise. Reflection on these projects constitutes the background for my own thoughts about Prof. Yancy’s similar project. (shrink)

Kant’s cosmopolitanism can be read from two main perspectives: temporal and spatial. Reading cosmopolitanism from a temporal perspective means paying attention to the historical realization of the ideal of cosmopolitanism and to its related issues such as: the progress of humankind, its final destination, the purpose of universal history, the highest purpose of nature. Instead, reading cosmopolitanism from a spatial perspective means paying attention, e.g. to the ‘fact’ of the sphericity of the earth and to its relationship with cosmopolitan right, (...) territoriality, borders and freedom of movement. In this paper I would like to show how adopting a spatial perspective is useful not only in order to delimit a field of inquiry, but also to shed new light on apparently well-known and thoroughly investigated notions of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, such as the notions of the citizen of the world, of the cosmopolitan right, and of the World republic. (shrink)

The central contribution of Ströker’s investigations is a careful and strict analysis of the relationship between experienced space, Euclidean space, and non-Euclidean spaces. Her study begins with the question of experienced space, inclusive of mood space, space of action and perception, of practical activities and bodily orientations, and ends with the controversies of the proponents of geometric and mathematical understanding of space. Within the context of experienced space, Ströker includes historical discussions of place, (...) topology, depth, perspectivity, homogeneity, orientation, and the questions of empty and full spaces. Her investigation concludes that any strict analysis of space must be founded upon an unavoidable ontology._ _Philosophical Investigations of Space__ addresses a number of methodological controversies. It tests the limitations of a variety of scientific, phenomenological, geometric, and logical methods in order to demonstrate limitations of both methodology and underlying assumption. In addition to the richness of her historical and systematic discussion, Ströker’s work is a model of thoroughly documented philosophical scholarship and conceptual precision. (shrink)

Several Buddhist schools in India, China and Japan concentrate on the interrelationships between waking and dreaming consciousness. In Eastern philosophy, reality can be seen as a dream and an obscure 'reality beyond' can be considered as real. In spite of the overwhelming Platonic-Aristotelian-Freudian influence existent in Western culture, some Western thinkers and artists - Valéry, Baudelaire, and Schnitzler, for example - have been fascinated by a kind of 'simple presence' contained in dreams. I show that this has consequences for a (...) philosophy of space. According to the authors discussed, the dreamer and the player recognize that human space always means the entire cosmos. (shrink)