Charles Taylor in A Secular Age (2007) reopened the debate about the possibility of “reenchantment,” presupposing that “enchantment” once existed, but got lost, such that we arrived at a state of “disenchantment.” However, the no longer marginal debate on the possibility of a “re-enchantment,” is in my view chaotic and lacks precise definitions. In this article the author tries to clarify the concepts involved and put some order in the debate and investigate the possibilities for a kind of re-enchantment. Firstly, (...) she discloses enchantment, disenchantment, and reenchantment as factors in an intellectual scheme, rather than as concepts describing an historical reality. Secondly, she shows that these terms are not applicable to epoque defining sociocultural constellations, a common conviction, defended by Taylor too, which has awkward ideology-related implications. Finally, she points out, in an analysis inspired by Ricoeur, that it rather is the domain of the individual life where the loss and the recovering of enchantment may take place, in a dynamic between the individual and the “call of reality,” having the enchanting capacity to inspire possible lives and give our lives its beacons. (shrink)

Enchanting Nietzsche: On ‘god is dead’ and new life For a long time, Nietzsche was considered by his contemporaries primarily as a literary man. In philosophy and theology, the death of God nevertheless found resonance in the secularization debate. In this article I take a different path and will introduce a similar autopsy in the dis-re-enchantment debate. To this end, I revert mainly to the literary metaphors in Nietzsche’s work, of course without ignoring its philosophical (and theological) value. First, I (...) retranslate some echoes of Nietzsche’s word from the secularization debate into the disenchantment debate. Here I note that this retranslation requires a shift from cultural to personal history. This provides me with two new, unexpected echoes of Nietzsche’s word. It also places radical questions on the current disenchantment debate. (shrink)

This short essay presents a critical cartography of the critical new materialist notion and methodology of diffraction.

This article reviews the debate on ‘intersectionality’ as the dominant approach in gender studies, with an emphasis on the politics of representation. The debate on intersectionality officially began in the late 1980s, though the approach can be traced back to the institutionalization of women's studies in the 1970s and the feminist movement of the 1960s. Black and lesbian feminists have long advocated hyphenated identities to be the backbone of feminist thought. But in recent years, intersectionality has sustained criticism from numerous (...) angles within gender studies, ranging from feminist philosophy to applied political research. This article will use the theorization of ‘interference’ as a searchlight to produce an overview of this interdisciplinary debate, culminating in our affirmative answer to the question: should we move from intersectionality to interference? Our answer is based on onto-epistemological reflections, i.e., reflections in which being and knowing are always already entangled. -/- . (shrink)

Quantum leaps happen in texts, too. This reading of the role of the quantum leap in Karen Barad's agential realism is necessary, because arguing that the diffractive reading strategy proposed by Barad's ethico-onto-epistemology mirrors the physical phenomenon of diffraction would indeed be representationalist. Reviewing how Barad—in her own oeuvre—has transformed diffraction into an innovative reading methodology that could not only potentially challenge the epistemological underpinnings of the canonization process that is at work in feminist theory, but could also radically change (...) the canonization practice of feminist oeuvres itself, our article embarks on a detailed examination of the ways in which the oeuvres of Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray have been mistakenly categorized and canonized in a hierarchical and Oedipalized manner. This conflict-based narrative has not only paralyzed the oeuvres of Irigaray and Beauvoir, but also has had a negative impact on the canonization of sexual difference philosophy as a whole in feminist theory. By (re)reading the oeuvres diffractively, this article brings the feminist philosophies of Beauvoir and Irigaray together by invalidating the idea that the feminist canonization process always has to run along the lines of discontinuity, Oedipalization and dialectization. (shrink)

The ‘What Being the Parent of a New Baby is Like-Revised’ is an instrument designed to measure adaptation to parenthood. In the process of pilot testing and validating the WPL-R in a postpartum Dutch population, we became aware of the potentially sensitive nature of the measure. Despite the ethics committee waiving the invasive nature of the measure, we conducted a survey to explore its possible effect on women’s thoughts and emotions by using the Positive And Negative Affect Schedule to measure (...) changes associated with completion of the WPL-R. Two hundred and fifteen questionnaires were returned. Our findings indicated a change in PANAS scores, implying an intervening effect when using the WPL-R, in research. This raises the question of whether it is acceptable to use a questionnaire with postpartum women without any knowledge of the possible effect it may have, even though the ethics committee has approved the study and considers the measure to be non-invasive. (shrink)

Cet essai développe une approche «trichotomique» du désir transcendantal de l'être humain pour la croissance et le développement. Le but principal de l'article est de s'enquérir du monde «après la vertu», pour citer les paroles de Alasdair MacIntyre. On le fait en montrant qu'après la réalisation légitime du bien-être psycho-physique, la recherche de la justice humaine poussera l'humanité jusqu'au point où cette recherche se supprime elle-même. Les biens, en effet, auxquels nous ne pouvons qu'aspirer - comme une connaissance définitive, une (...) jouissance inconditionnée d'une identité authentique, une justice pleinement satisfaisante - sont en soi et pour soi au-delà de notre capacité. De cette façon, la recherche produit un résultat strictement mystico-théologique: nous sommes incapables de nous assurer du Dieu que nous cherchons naturellement. Dans l'angoisse qui s'ensuit, il ne reste qu'une option, et elle est radicale: l'abandon aimant de soi-même en Dieu ou l'entretien moral de soi-même. Nous nous trouvons donc devant la porte qui ouvre sur le chemin de la forme la plus radicale du péché, qui n'est pas seulement morale, mais proprement théologique: il devient impossible de vivre avec le Dieu vivant, et l'humanité s'installera dans l'idolâtrie et l'athéisme comme options religieuses. Mais laissée à soi-même, la religiosité humaine deviendra une recherche troublante, capable de rendre acceptable des actes immoraux inouïs: 'Tantum religio p. (shrink)

This paper examines the prevalence of the ideal of “independence” in intellectual disability care in the Netherlands. It responds to a number of scholars who have interrogated this ideal through the lens of Michel Foucault’s vocabulary of governmentality. Such analyses hold that the goal of “becoming independent” subjects people with intellectual disabilities to various constraints and limitations that ensure their continued oppression. As a result, these authors contend, the commitment to the ideal of “independence” – the “ethic of autonomy” – (...) actually threatens to become an obstacle to flourishing in the group home. This paper offers an alternative analysis. It does so by drawing on a case study taken from an ethnographic study on group home life in the Netherlands. Briefly put, the disagreement stems from differing conceptualizations of moral life. Put in the vocabulary of moral anthropologist Cheryl Mattingly, the authors propose to approach the group home more from a “first-person” perspective rather than chiefly from a “third-person” perspective. They then draw on Mattingly to cast the group home as a “moral laboratory” in which the ethic of autonomy is not just reproduced but also enacted, and in which the terms of (in)dependence constantly get renegotiated in practice. What emerges is not only a new perspective on the workings of the “ethic of autonomy” in the group home, but also an argument about the possible limitations of the vocabulary of governmentality for analysing care practices. (shrink)

This intervention study examined the effects of a career crafting training on physicians' perceptions of their job crafting behaviors, career self-management, and employability. A total of 154 physicians working in two hospitals in a large Dutch city were randomly assigned to a waitlist control group or an intervention group. Physicians in the intervention group received an accredited training on career crafting, including a mix of theory, self-reflection, and exercises. Participants developed four career crafting goals during the training, to work on (...) in the subsequent weeks, after which a coaching conversation took place over the phone. Physicians in the control group received no intervention. A pre- and post-test 8 weeks later measured changes in job crafting and career self-management and employability of 103 physicians that completed the pre- and post-test. RM ANOVAs showed that the intervention enhanced perceptions of career self-management and job crafting behavior to decrease hindering job demands. No support was found for the effect of the intervention on other types of job crafting and employability. This study offers novel insights into how career crafting can be enhanced through training, as this is the first empirical study to examine a career crafting intervention. HR managers can use the outcomes to develop tailored career policies and career development practices. (shrink)

‘Waar blijven de intellectuelen?’ vroeg Balkenende in het najaar van 2006 . Waar blijven die maatschappelijke wetenschappers die eens in de zoveel jaar met een nieuw boek komen dat Nederland een Spiegel voorhoudt en aan het Denken zet? Een doorwrocht wetenschappelijk, maar toch uitstekend leesbaar boek dat de opiniepagina's wekenlang beheerst en ons zelfbegrip voor altijd verandert. Waar blijven de nieuwe Bram de Swaan, Trudy Dehue, Cees Schuyt, Hans Achterhuis, Christien Brinkgreve, Anton Zijderveld of Lolle Nauta? Wie gaat ons waarschuwen (...) voor de gevaren van utopieën of protoprofessionalisering of ons aansporen tot kleine deugden ? (shrink)

This longread addresses the (political and critical theoretical) aftermath of 9/11.

This article addresses the Conings case – a Belgian soldier, currently wanted for threatening Belgium’s top virologist Marc Van Ranst and the illegal possession of weapons in a terrorist context. It moreover argues for a more situated analysis of Belgium’s far-right extremism by looking at its complex political climate.

Ongeveer vijf weken na de start van de jacht op Jürgen Conings, de Belgische beroepsmilitair gezocht omwille van het bedreigen van viroloog Marc Van Ranst en andere prominente doelwitten, vond men zijn stoffelijk overschot terug in het Dilserbos, Dilsen-Stokkem. Ook na zijn dood – Conings overleed hoogstwaarschijnlijk door zelfmoord – blijft de zaak Conings het Belgische sociaal-politieke landschap beroeren en de publieke opinie verdelen: de mate van steun die Conings de afgelopen weken kreeg, toont nog maar eens aan dat extreemrechts (...) een serieus maatschappelijk probleem is in België, waarvan de reikwijdte bovendien maar al te vaak miskend wordt. (shrink)

Sinds de opmars van het Foucaultiaanse poststructuralisme – vaak opgepikt door feministische denkers die Michel Foucaults (1976) (le) pouvoir-savoir of de verstrengeling van macht en kennis wel konden appreciëren – zijn er verschillende post-poststructuralistische filosofieën bijgekomen die inzoomen op wereldlijke entiteiten en hun verhoudingen. Naast deze door Foucault opnieuw belichte verhoudingen, en de epistemologische manieren waarop wij kennis kunnen verkrijgen over de subjecten en objecten die achter deze door macht gekenmerkte relaties schuilgaan, bekritiseren deze stromingen ook een ander, door Foucault (...) aangestipt, Verlichtingsthema: het moderne antropocentrische wereld- en mensbeeld. (shrink)

Emancipatie en integratie, nationalisme, machtsonderdrukking en privileges, (super)diversiteit en erkenning. Het zijn slechts een paar van de beladen termen waar we tegenwoordig veel mee geconfronteerd worden, en dat in de context van persoonlijke identiteitsvorming als in debatten omtrent groepsidentiteit, de vraag naar minderheidsrechten en de gepercipieerde conflicten met de zogenaamde democratische Westerse Verlichtingsidealen die daar vervolgens uit voortkomen. Heel veel van deze politieke discussies die momenteel gevoerd worden binnen de politiek en de media draaien om ‘identiteit’, waardoor dit concept helaas (...) tot een gepolitiseerd en polariserend begrip verworden is. (shrink)

Recent new materialist and posthumanist research in curriculum and pedagogy studies is focusing more and more on the intertwinement between social justice, fairness, and accountability, and how to put these ideals to use to create inclusive, consciousness-raising canons, curricula, and pedagogies that take the dehumanized and the more-than-human into account. Especially pedagogical responsibility, often rephrased as ‘response-ability’ to accentuate the entanglements that this notion engenders versus forgotten or forcefully eradicated knowledges, and between teacher and student as intra-active learners, is highlighted (...) in this ethico-political turn. In this chapter, a critical pedagogical cartography of response-ability is sketched out to philosophically expand on—and also better anchor—the above turn. This critical cartography is put together at the backdrop of critical new materialist reflections with regards to the COVID-19 crisis; a crisis demanding a pedagogical but also ethico-political reorientation toward the hauntological powers of past-present-future injustices, the thick material present, and a more response-able engagement with the world. (shrink)

Deep neural networks (DNNs) provide a unique opportunity to move towards a generic modelling framework in psychology. The high representational capacity of these models combined with the possibility for further extensions has already allowed us to investigate the forest, namely the complex landscape of representations and processes that underlie human cognition, without forgetting about the trees, which include individual psychological phenomena.

A very important challenge for franchisors is adapting the strategies of their franchise systems to new threats and opportunities. During such strategic change processes (SCPs) franchisees are often required to make major financial investments and/or adjustments in their trade practices without any guarantee of positive benefits. It is, therefore, important that franchisees trust their franchisors during such change processes and that they perceive the change process as fair. This article aims to generate theory on franchisees' perceptions of trust and fairness (...) during SCPs. On the basis of case studies regarding eight change processes in four Dutch drugstore franchise systems, this article distinguishes different levels of franchisee trust and discusses five instruments that franchisors can "institutionalize" in their franchise systems to influence their franchisees' trust and fairness perceptions. (shrink)

Les essais de ce recueil étudient les différentes représentations de l'ascension de l'âme dans des sources anciennes et prémodernes, de Platon à Pierre Charron, en passant par la patristique grecque, l'iconographie byzantine, les théologiens chrétiens médiévaux, les philosophes et peintres catholiques de la Renaissance et les kabbalistes juifs du XVIe siècle. Ainsi, ce livre forme un répertoire détaillé des manières dont ont été imaginées à travers les siècles les vacations de l'âme après sa séparation du corps. Comment se représenter l'ascension? (...) Qu'est-ce qui se passe dans les régions supraterrestres? S'agit-il d'un envol vers une vérité morale, vers une unité sublime ou vers un double sublimé de la réalité terrestre?"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Over the past decades, the modernization of agriculture in the Western world has contributed not only to a rapid increase in food production but also to environmental and societal concerns over issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, soil quality and biodiversity loss. Many of these concerns, for example those related to animal welfare or labor conditions, are stuck in controversies and apparently deadlocked debates. As a result we observe a paradox in which a wide range of corporate social responsibility initiatives, (...) originally seeking to reconnect agriculture and society, frequently provoke debate, conflict, and protests. In order to make sense of this pattern, the present paper contends that Western agriculture is marked by moral complexity, i.e., the tendency of multiple legitimate moral standpoints to proliferate without the realistic prospect of a consensus. This contention is buttressed by a conceptual framework that draws inspiration the contemporary business ethics and systems-theoretic scholarship. From the systems-theoretic point of view, the evolution of moral complexity is traced back to the processes of agricultural modernization, specialization, and differentiation, each of which suppresses the responsiveness of the economic and legal institutions to the full range of societal and environmental concerns about agriculture. From the business ethics point of view, moral complexity is shown to prevent the transformation of the ethical responsibilities into the legal and economic responsibilities despite the ongoing institutionalization of CSR. Navigating moral complexity is shown to require moral judgments which are necessarily personal and contestable. These judgments are implicated in those CSR initiatives that require dealing with trade-offs among the different sustainability issues. (shrink)

This essay argues for a transversal posthumanities-based pedagogy, rooted in an attentive ethico-onto-epistemology, by reading the schizoanalytical praxes of Deleuzoguattarian theory alongside the work of various feminist new materialist scholars.

Gödel once offered an argument for the general reflection principle in set theory that took the form of an analogy with Leibniz' Monadology. I discuss the mathematical and philosophical background to Gödel's argument, reconstruct the proposed analogy in detail, and argue that it has no justificatory force.

Bernard Williams argued that historical and philosophical inquiry were importantly linked in a number of ways. This introductory chapter distinguishes four different connections he identified between philosophy and history. (1) He believed that philosophy could not ignore its own history in the way that science can. (2) He thought that when engaging with philosophy’s history primarily to produce history, one still had to draw on philosophy. (3) Even doing history of philosophy philosophically, i.e. primarily to produce philosophy, required a keen (...) sense of how historically distant from us past philosophers were, on his view, because the point of reading them was to confront something different from the present. (4) He held that systematic philosophy itself needed to be done historically, engaging not necessarily with its own history, but with that of the concepts it sought to understand. The chapter closes with an overview of the volume’s structure and content. (shrink)

While 4E approaches to cognition are increasingly introduced in educational contexts, little has been said about how 4E commitments can inform pedagogy aimed at fostering ethical competencies. Here, we evaluate a 4E-inspired ethics exercise that we developed at a technical university to enliven the moral imagination of engineering students. Our students participated in an interactive tinkering workshop, during which they materially redesigned a healthcare artifact. The aim of the workshop was twofold. Firstly, we wanted students to experience how material choices (...) at the levels of design and functionality can enable morally significant reimaginings of the affordances commonly associated with existing artifacts. We term this type of reimagining world-directed moral imagination. Secondly, through the design process, we wanted students to robustly place themselves in the lived embodied perspectives of (potential) users of their selected artifacts. We term this person-directed moral imagination. While student testimonies about the exercise indicate that both their world-directed and person-directed moral imagination were enlivened, we note that the fostering of robust person-directed moral imagination proved challenging. Using 4E insights, we diagnose this challenge and ask how it might be overcome. To this end, we engage extensively with a recent 4E-informed critique of person-directed moral imagination, raised by Clavel Vázquez and Clavel-Vázquez (2023). They argue that person-directed moral imagination is profoundly limited, if not fundamentally misguided, particularly when exercised in contexts marked by emphatic embodied situated difference between the imaginer and the imagined. Building upon insights from both the 4E field and testimonies from critical disability studies, we argue that, while their critique is valuable, it ultimately goes too far. We conclude that a 4E approach can take on board recent 4E warnings regarding the limits of person-directed moral imagination while contributing positively to the development of moral imagination in engineering ethics education. (shrink)