Transplant centers and physicians in the United States have limited guidance on the information which they can and cannot provide to transplant candidates regarding donors of potential organs. Patients may refuse organs for a variety of reasons ranging from pernicious requests including racism to misinformation about emerging medicine as with the COVID-19 vaccine and infection. Patient autonomy, organ stewardship, and equity are often at odds in these cases, but precedent indeed exists to help address these challenges. This work uses such (...) cases to highlight the urgent need for uniform, national policy prohibiting informational requests unrelated to well-established risks. (shrink)

In this article, I view the dynamic capabilities of a social venture by examining organizational spaces through the means of qualitative engagement. Through the explication of one such organizational space, the WCB Bank, dynamic capability is understood as inhering in the purpose, the constructed memory and selves of human actors in the organization, and the collective endeavours that make the organization through deliberative processes. Such a view of organizations, while transcending the nuance of resources, provides an idea of capability as (...) emerging from the varied meanings that human actors make in organizations. An understanding of these meanings leads to comprehending dynamic capabilities as epistemological elements which lead to accessing the knowledge of the organization for the moment. (shrink)

This book traces the evolution of Hindu theories of warfare in India from the dawn of civilization.

Drawing upon an exemplary case surrounding a patent on the anti-cancer drug Gleevec, I trace how intellectual property regimes drive the re-institutionalization of pharmaceutical development in India today in unsettled and contested ways. I am interested in how this case resolves, in an apparent purification, into technical and constitutional components; how the technical components are entirely unsettled; and how the constitutional components open up questions regarding the relationship between biocapital and issues of constitutionalism, rights, and corporate social responsibility.

This paper explores contemporary Jewish identity-formation and the centrality of official Holocaust memory and Zionism – understood as the ongoing settler-colonial project aiming at the formation and maintenance of a Jewish-exclusivist state in Palestine – to this process. It argues that identity politics within the Jewish community are based on an understanding of identity, which assumes it to be static and individual. In doing so, this political approach reproduces the essentialisation of Jewish communities under the banner of Zionism and official (...) state history. The paper aims to show how this process of identification between Judaism, official Holocaust memory and Zionism has been a state-led process, rooted in the historical development of antisemitism and European colonialism. In order to do so, it builds on a critique of classical Marxist analyses of the Jewish question. It finally proposes a more fluid approach to identity, which understands it as socially constructed, contested, and subject to political contestation. (shrink)

In this paper, I revisit the question of how and in what sense can individuals comprising a group be held responsible for morally reprehensible behaviour by that group. The question is tackled by posing a counterfactual: what would happen if selfish individuals became moral creatures? A game called the Samaritan’s Curse is developed, which sheds light on the dilemma of group moral responsibility, and raises new questions concerning ‘conferred morality’ and self-fulfilling morals, and also forces us to question some implicit (...) assumptions of game-theory. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper was to determine whether the individual attributes of locus of control, gender, major in college and years of job experience affect the acceptability of certain workplace behaviors. A total of 198 college students of a mid-sized southeastern university formed the sample for this study. Locus of control, gender and years of job experience were found to have some affect on whether an individual considered a certain behavior acceptable or unacceptable.

Abstract There is increasing evidence suggesting that environmental and social criteria are impacting the market in complex ways. The corporate world has demonstrated a willingness to respond to public pressure for improved performance on non–economic issues by embracing Triple Bottom Line (TBL) principles. TBL reporting has been institutionalized as a way of thinking for corporate sustainability. However, institutions are constantly changing and improving, while TBL has been fairly conservative in its approach to change. The more balanced focus on the economic, (...) the environmental and the social has provided a framework for institutions and markets around the world who want to focus indicators towards a sustainable future. This paper presents a criticism of the TBL approach that adds to the limited information on the pervasiveness of this approach. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-21 DOI 10.1007/s13520-012-0019-3 Authors Kaushik Sridhar, Net Balance Management Group, 332, Kent Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia Grant Jones, Australian Catholic University, 8/20 Napier Street, NR House, North Sydney, NSW, Australia 2060 Journal Asian Journal of Business Ethics Online ISSN 2210-6731 Print ISSN 2210-6723. (shrink)

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse the developmental stages of non-financial reporting in corporations, by interpreting the views of interviewees from major ethical corporations on the six major dimensions of non-financial reporting (identified in the literature) within each stage of the five-stage model of non-financial reporting (developed in this paper). This study is part of a series of papers on Triple Bottom Line reporting (TBL), and its relevance to corporate reporting practices. The TBL is perhaps the (...) pioneer for getting corporations thinking about non-financial reporting. While literature has been done extensively on the TBL framework, empirical data linking TBL and how it has helped, or even hindered corporations progressing through different stages in their non-financial reporting processes is missing. In order to facilitate this analysis, 40 interviews were conducted over 1 year, with 40 corporations selected from various sustainability indexes, focusing on corporations that adopt best practices in this area, and also have a TBL approach to non-financial reporting. The results of the analysis show that TBL certainly got corporations started in the journey of non-financial reporting but has not pushed them far enough to develop a more integrated approach to reporting nor clearly aligning their non-financial reporting performance with their financial performance and business strategy. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-33 DOI 10.1007/s13520-011-0010-4 Authors Kaushik Sridhar, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia Journal Asian Journal of Business Ethics Online ISSN 2210-6731 Print ISSN 2210-6723. (shrink)

Mainstream economics was founded on many strong assumptions. Institutions and politics were treated as irrelevant, government as exogenous, social norms as epiphenomena. As an initial gambit this was fine. But as the horizons of economic inquiry have broadened, these assumptions have become hindrances rather than aids. If we want to understand why some economies succeed and some fail, why some governments are effective and others not, why some communities prosper while others stagnate, it is essential to view economics as embedded (...) in politics and society. Prelude to Political Economy is a study of this embeddedness; it argues for an 'inclusive' approach to institutions and the state.Modern economics recognizes that individuals' pursuit of their own selfish ends can result in socially suboptimal outcomes -- the Prisoner's Dilemma being the stark example. It has been suggested that what we need in such an eventuality is 'third-party' intervention, which can take the form of imposing punishment on players. Kaushik Basu objects to this method of wishing third parties out of thin air. He argues that if a third party that could impose its will on others were available, then it should have been modeled as a player to start with.The adoption of such an inclusive approach has implications for our conception of the state and the law. It means that the law cannot be construed as a factor that changes the game that citizens play. It is instead simply a set of beliefs of citizens; and, as such, it is similar to social norms. What the law does for an economy, so can social norms. The book discusses how the nature of policy advice and our conception of state power are affected by this altered view of the state and the law.As corollaries, the book addresses a variety of important social and philosophical questions, such as whether the state should guarantee freedom of speech, whether determinism is compatible with free will, and whether the free market can lead to coercion. (shrink)

This essay begins a conversation between Bernard Williams and Confucius (of the Analects ) in response to the general question of whether individuals are internally motivated in adopting role-specific reasons for action. It is argued that certain social roles such as Father, Son, Husband, Wife, Minister or Ruler, and Citizen or Subject are thick ethical concepts operative in Confucian ethical communities, such that the application of these thick ethical concepts results in role-specific internal reasons for action. If so, the Confucian (...) emphasis on li 禮 constitutes ethical knowledge regarding the applicability of these thick ethical concepts, the practice of which actively offers individuals reasons to apply their social roles. This expands Williams' ethical theorizing to account for the ethical significance of social roles and relationships within Confucian ethical communities, as the collective practice of li within a Confucian ethical community serves as a background to the sort of ethical theorizing favored by Williams. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of xiao 孝, often translated as filial piety or familial deference, which is compatible with Bernard Williams’s insistence that ethical deliberation should be indeterminate and open-ended, rather than pre-established on the basis of one’s social relationships. Through a critical reading of Williams’s account of ethical knowledge localized to an advisor model, I suggest that we trust those who share similar experiences in social relationships to offer advice specific to our social roles. This trust exhibits itself (...) as xiao, which amounts to no more than the deference children have towards their parents as their guides on the ethical question of how we ought to live—‘we’, as individuals who share common experiences of being children, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, and other such social roles. (shrink)

Much of economics is built on the assumption that individuals are driven by self-interest and economic development is an outcome of the free play of such individuals. On the few occasions that the existence of altruism is recognized in economics, the tendency is to build this from the axiom of individual selfishness. The aim of this paper is to break from this tradition and to treat as a primitive that individuals are endowed with the ‘cooperative spirit’, which allows them to (...) work in their collective interest, even when that may not be in their self-interest. The paper tracks the interface between altruism and group identity. By using the basic structure of a Prisoner's Dilemma game among randomly picked individuals and building into it assumptions of general or in-group altruism, the paper demonstrates how our selfish rationality interacts with our innate sense of cooperation. The model is used to outline circumstances under which cooperation will occur and circumstances where it will break down. The paper also studies how sub-groups of a society can form cooperative blocks, whether to simply do better for themselves or exploit others. (shrink)

One of the central tenets of mainstream economics is Adam Smith's proposition that, given certain conditions, self-interested behavior by individuals leads them to the social good, almost as if orchestrated by an invisible hand. This deep insight has, over the past two centuries, been taken out of context, contorted, and used as the cornerstone of free-market orthodoxy. In Beyond the Invisible Hand, Kaushik Basu argues that mainstream economics and its conservative popularizers have misrepresented Smith's insight and hampered our understanding (...) of how economies function, why some economies fail and some succeed, and what the nature and role of state intervention might be. Comparing this view of the invisible hand with the vision described by Kafka--in which individuals pursuing their atomistic interests, devoid of moral compunction, end up creating a world that is mean and miserable--Basu argues for collective action and the need to shift our focus from the efficient society to one that is also fair. Using analytic tools from mainstream economics, the book challenges some of the precepts and propositions of mainstream economics. It maintains that, by ignoring the role of culture and custom, traditional economics promotes the view that the current system is the only viable one, thereby serving the interests of those who do well by this system. Beyond the Invisible Hand challenges readers to fundamentally rethink the assumptions underlying modern economic thought and proves that a more equitable society is both possible and sustainable, and hence worth striving for. By scrutinizing Adam Smith's theory, this impassioned critique of contemporary mainstream economics debunks traditional beliefs regarding best economic practices, self-interest, and the social good. (shrink)

This volume of essays, written in honor of Amartya Sen, covers the range of contributions that Sen has made to knowledge. They are written by some of the world's leading economists, philosophers and social scientists, and address topics such as ethics, welfare economics, poverty, gender, human development, society, and politics.

This volume of essays, written in honor of Amartya Sen, covers the range of contributions that Sen has made to knowledge. They are written by some of the world's leading economists, philosophers and social scientists, and address topics such as ethics, welfare economics, poverty, gender, human development, society, and politics.

This two volume set of essays, written in honor of Amartya Sen, covers the range of contributions that Sen has made to knowledge. They are written by some of the world's leading economists, philosophers and social scientists, and address topics such as ethics, welfare economics, poverty, gender, human development, society, and politics.

Co-speech gestures are closely connected to speech, but little attention has been paid to the associations between gesture and L2 speech performance. This study explored the associations between four types of co-speech gestures and the meaning, form, and discourse dimensions of L2 speech performance. Gesture and speech data were collected by asking 61 lower-intermediate English learners whose first language is Chinese to retell a cartoon clip. Results showed that all the four types of co-speech gestures had positive associations with meaning (...) and discourse L2 speech measures but no association with form-related speech measures, except the positive association between metaphorics and the percentage of error-free clauses. The findings suggest that co-speech gestures may have a tighter connection with meaning construction in producing L2 speech. (shrink)

AbstractIn many cultures, interactions between humans and plants are rooted in what is called “relational values”—values that derive from relationships and entail reciprocity. In Mexico, biocultural diversity is mirrored in the knowledge and use of some 6500 plant species and the domestication of over 250 Mesoamerican native crop species. This research explores how different sets of values are attributed to plants and how these influence management strategies to maintain plant resources in wild and anthropogenic environments. We ran workshops in two (...) communities in a highly biodiverse region in western Mexico, to ascertain the values and management activities related to important plant resources. The relationship between values attributed to plants and management activities was examined through redundancy analysis. A total of 180 plant resources were mentioned during the workshops, with a broad spectrum of values attributed to them, including material, non-material, and regulatory dimensions. We divided plant management strategies into three general categories of increasing intensity and complexity. We found that participants in the Indigenous community value and manage more wild plant resources than people in the non-Indigenous community. We also identified relationships between plant resource values and the type of management performed; for example, more intensive forms of management, such as sowing seeds, were used for seasonal plants that had a food value. By valuing and managing different sets of plant resources from forest, agricultural plots, and home gardens, people enabled multi-functional landscapes to form, illustrating a key feature of relational values in agroecosystems, which promotes both conservation and domestication of plants. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty states in his Institution and Passivity lectures that he wants to "consider criticism itself as a symbolic form" as opposed to doing "a philosophy of symbolic form." This statement seems counterintuitive for Merleau-Ponty, who has been called "the philosopher of the sensible." In this book, Kaushik investigates this question, arguing that Merleau-Ponty has raised the stakes of his ontology such that it is no longer a matter of finding a solution to the difference between "the real and the (...) fictive" but rather, of constellating and matrixing them. This ontological matrix amounts to a psychoanalysis of the philosophy of identity. Kaushik argues that philosophies of reflection, in which reflection seeks to coincide with its origins, are in fact uncritical because they miss the form of differentiation that limits them. His analyses of the matrices between space-imagination, light-dark, awake-asleep, repression-expression, etc., subvert these philosophies and reveal the symbolic form in terms of its lack of precise origin or destination. Drawing from recently published course materials of Merleau-Ponty's, and attentive to his reliance on literary phrases for phenomenological insights, Kaushik brings out the living force of Merleau-Ponty's thought and develops his radical insight of the primacy of the symbolic form, even in an ontology that claims to be about the sensible and its elements. (shrink)

Antisemitism is an increasingly prevalent aspect of public life in the West, both as a consequence of the growth of the far right across the board and through its mobilisation against Palestinian liberation and Palestine solidarity activism. While synagogues are targeted and far-right politicians revive ideas of Jewish global power, it is the left, Muslims, and Palestinians that are continuously constructed as the source of the current rise in hatred and violence against Jews. If historically the Marxist tradition engaged actively (...) with the so-called Jewish question, in recent decades the subject has receded from focus. This shift took place as other forms of racism – directed at Muslims, Black populations, or migrants – became the basis for reactionary politics in the West. This article argues that while some of the assumptions that underwrote classical Marxist texts on the issue have been found wanting – perhaps most notably the inevitable (or desirable) character of the trend towards assimilation – they remain important starting points for making sense of our present, both by their method and their political commitment to liberation. (shrink)

This study evaluated the dimensionality and psychometric properties of the Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS) using a sample of university students in mainland China. Nine hundred and three students from a Chinese university participated in this study. The internal consistency, criterion validity, factorial validity and construct validity of the scale were examined. The Chinese versions of the BSCS demonstrated good internal consistency. The BSCS also showed significant moderate correlations with other construct-related scales. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis suggested that (...) only a modified 11-item BSCS with a four-factor structure was a good model fit in the sample of Chinese university students. The implications for research and theoretical development are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine the cross-cultural validity of the Organizational Stressor Indicator for Sport Performers scale by investigating its psychometric properties with Ghanaian footballers. The study particularly sought to assess in the Ghanaian context, 1, the convergence validity and reliability of the OSI-SP scale, 2, the discriminant validity of the OSI-SP scale to understand the applicability of its factor structure, and 3, whether the OSI-SP hypothesized model fits the data collected within the study context. The intensity (...) aspect of the OSI-SP questionnaire was administered to 424 Ghana Premier League male footballers who took part in the 2020/2021 season. Quality control strategies were put in place to ensure consistency across interpreters and as well improve the validity of the data. The results from a multi-factor first-order confirmatory factor analysis showed some level of convergence validity of the OSI-SP scale in the Ghanaian context using football players. Out of the 23 items on the original scale, 20 met the factor loadings criterion. In assessing the discriminant validity of the OSI-SP scale using Heterotrait-monotrait, 50% of the correlation ratios met the criterion for the original 23-item instrument. Comparing the new model with the original model using the Akaike Information Criterion value, the model fit indices for the modified model appeared better than the original model with 23-items. Generally, there was minimal support for the applicability of the OSI-SP instrument across the sample of Ghanaian footballers. The implications of these findings are discussed in detail. (shrink)

The traditional view of cognition as detached from emotions is recently being questioned. This study aimed to investigate the influence of emotional valence on the accuracy and bias in the representation of numbers on the mental number line (MNL). The study included 164 participants who were randomly assigned into two groups with induced positive and negative emotional valence using matched arousal film clips. Participants performed a computerised number-to-position (CNP) task to estimate the position of numbers on a horizontal line. The (...) results showed that participants in the positive valence group exhibited a rightward bias, while those in the negative valence group showed an opposite pattern. The analysis of mean absolute error revealed that the negative valence group had higher error rates compared to the positive valence group. Furthermore, the MNL estimation pattern analysis indicated that a two-cycle cyclic power model (CPM) best explained the data for both groups. These findings suggest that emotional valence influences the spatial representation of numbers on the MNL and affects accuracy in numerical estimations. Our findings are finally discussed in terms of body-specificity and the Brain’s Asymmetric Frequency Tuning (BAFT) theories. The study provides new insights into the interplay between emotions and numerical cognition. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, EarlyView.

Conventions and leaders are believed to be the two pillars of justice and order in society. This paper evaluates this proposition and draws attention to two intriguing ways in which these pillars can malfunction. The argument is constructed by creating two new games, Greta’s Dilemma and the Incarceration Game. An awareness of these problems can help us use our ‘moral intention’ to reexamine our own collective behavior and to design prior conventions, which limit the power of the leader.

Spiritual leadership has gained much traction among researchers and practitioners for its value-laden approach as it engenders feelings and expressions of a leader’s spirituality at the workplace by intrinsically motivating the followers to envision work as a calling, thereupon culminating in greater organizational performance. However, despite the significant attempts to consolidate the literature, organizational scholarly knowledge on spiritual leadership seems fragmented and incohesive. This is because the extant reviews pertaining to this field often employ subjective approaches in encapsulating the literature. (...) It is due to these limitations, leadership researchers might find it difficult to appreciate the advances made in the realm of spiritual leadership, to grasp a holistic understanding of its objective insights, and to chart a course for future research. Therefore, through our study, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of the past, present, and future of spiritual leadership research. This study combines a bibliometric analysis with a literature review wherein we analyzed 337 papers published between 1980 and 2021. First, through bibliographic coupling, citation analysis, prestige analysis, and co-word analysis of extant studies, we highlight the prominent authors, influential works, leading organizations, countries, and journals in the realm of spiritual leadership. Second, through our content analysis of the leading articles obtained from clustering, we map the emergent core themes in spiritual leadership literature. Third, based on these emergent themes, we offer a comprehensive conceptual framework. Finally, we determine and present potential avenues for future research by employing the TCCM framework that could stimulate scholarly research in this domain and discuss theoretical and managerial implications. (shrink)

This book opens with the emergence and development of the discipline of aesthetics in western countries, specifically the history of Western Music Aesthetics, to study and delve into the development of Chinese Music Aesthetics. The book provides a clear timeline throughout the writing - from the history of Chinese Music Aesthetics, to the construction of a theoretical framework, and the intersections and conversations between Western and Chinese Music Aesthetics. This academic piece is fundamentally consistent with the developing field of Chinese (...) philosophical and literary research. This book also discusses important music aesthetic categories of Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, and metaphysics, and uses critical thinking to analyse the relationship between these categories and relevant schools of thought, reflecting the author's academic vision and thought process. (shrink)

This paper examines the ways Merleau-Ponty and Nancy think about light, a central theme in Western philosophy closely tied with form and intelligibility. The first section of this paper points out that each thinker replaces the “highest moment of light,” where it is relieved of its weight and materiality, with darkness, where light instead emerges from some apophantic depth indissociable from the material. The second section of this paper gives a critique of darkness in Nancy from Merleau-Ponty’s perspective. According to (...) the latter’s view, Nancy’s claim that darkness is distinct from the structures of intentionality and instead has to do with a presentation of the inappropriable fact of things would be untenable. The difference between the thinkers relates to how each thinks about negation after their very similar critiques of light and form. Still, I argue, the same critique of presentation in Nancy ought to also be applied to Merleau-Ponty, or at least to the usual way he is thought to favour the sensible instead of intelligibility. In the third section of this paper I consider one of Merleau-Ponty’s phrases, “there is no painting before painting,” a statement I take to be about how explicit formal structures, and thus also light and line, comes from a sensible register that does not lack variation and is not totally “deformed,” to use Nancy’s word that describes the homogeneity of a sensible field. Cet essai examine les différentes façons qu’ont Merleau-Ponty et Nancy de penser la lumière, un thème central de la philosophie occidentale, et qui est étroitement lié avec les idées de forme et d’intelligibilité. La première section montre que les deux penseurs remplacent le « plus haut moment de la lumière », qui est sans poids ni matérialité, par l’obscurité, si bien que la lumière émerge d’une profondeur apophantique indissociable de la matérialité. La deuxième section propose un critique de l’obscurité chez Nancy d’une perspective merleau-pontienne. Pour Merleau-Ponty, l’affirmation de Nancy selon laquelle l’obscurité se distingue des structures de l’intentionalité et a plutôt affaire à la présentation du fait inappropriable de la chose serait tout à fait intenable. La différence entre les deux penseurs concerne la façon dont chacun pense la négation à partir d’une critique similaire de la lumière et de la forme. J’avance pourtant que la même critique de la présentation chez Nancy devrait aussi être appliquée à Merleau-Ponty, ou du moins à la façon dont il est habituellement vu comme préférant le sensible contre l’intelligible. Dans la troisième section, j’évalue la phrase de Merleau-Ponty, « la peinture n’existe pas avant la peinture », phrase qui selon moi concerne la façon dont les structures formelles explicites, et donc la forme et la ligne, proviennent d’un registre sensible qui n’est pas sans variations et donc pas totalement « déformé », pour utiliser le mot que Nancy emploie pour décrire l’homogénéité du champ sensible.Questo articolo prende in esame i modi in cui Merleau-Ponty e Nancy riflettono sulla luce, un tema centrale nella filosofia occidentale e strettamente connesso a quelli della forma e dell’intelligibilità. La prima sezione dell’articolo mostra come entrambi i pensatori sostituiscano “il più alto momento della luce”, che la libera dal suo peso e dalla sua materialità, con l’oscurità, in cui invece la luce emerge da una profondità apofantica indissociabile dalla sfera materiale. La seconda sezione offre una critica del concetto di oscurità in Nancy dal punto di vista di Merleau-Ponty. Secondo una prospettiva merleau-pontiana, la tesi di Nancy che l’oscurità sia distinta dalle strutture dell’intenzionalità e sia invece connessa a una presentazione dell’aspetto inappropriabile delle cose sarebbe insostenibile. La differenza tra i due pensatori riguarda il modo in cui ciascuno di essi elabora l’idea di negazione, a partire da due analisi della luce e della forma molto simili. Tuttavia, come cerco di mostrare, la stessa obiezione all’idea di presentazione in Nancy dovrebbe essere applicata anche a Merleau-Ponty, o quantomeno al modo in cui di norma si ritiene egli prediliga il sensibile piuttosto che l’intelligibile. Nella terza sezione, prendo in esame una frase di Merleau-Ponty, “non c’è pittura prima della pittura”, che a mio avviso si riferisce a come le strutture formali esplicite, e dunque anche la luce e la linea, provengano da un registro sensibile che non è privo di variazioni e che non è totalmente “deformato”, per impiegare un termine di Nancy che descrive l’omogeneità di un campo sensibile. (shrink)

This paper examines Jean-Michel Basquiat’s obsession with the marginal and the obscene - understood literally as the ob-scene. The context of a graffiti art, and particularly the glyphic character of graffiti art, allows the work to defy the ordinary logic of the picture frame in order to figure, rather than represent, indeterminate into it. Thus, Basquiat characterizes death and the dead body not in the light of a transcendent space but as prolonged into the depths of an alterity, an ob-scene (...) in the sense of an alter-side that belongs to the scene. (shrink)

This paper seeks to develop the connection in Merleau‑Ponty’s later ontology between the gesture and language. There is a concerted effort in Merleau‑Ponty’s “middle period” to illustrate that a linguistic system of signs is internally constellated by the body and its movement. This effort seems to give way to an ontology of flesh in the later period. On closer consideration, however, this ontology and the linguistic system of signs—both “diacritical”—are mutually imbricated. This highlights the crucial importance of separation, deviation, and (...) difference in Merleau‑Ponty’s ontology. A question remains, however: how can the body, and in particular the gesture, be the very site of separation rather than of an initiation or identification? I argue that, for Merleau‑Ponty, every gesture contains something internally antagonistic to it, something that cannot be grasped or moved. In this sense, the gesture is an “implex,” both internally resistant to and productive of signification. It is, in short, the site of a symbolization. In light of this, in the conclusion I reconsider the final passages from “Cézanne’s Doubt” where Merleau‑Ponty discusses Freud’s “hermeneutical musings” on Leonardo, and the passages from “Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence” and the nature lectures where he discusses the painter’s brushwork. (shrink)

This book offers a critical re-appraisal of what is perhaps Merleau-Ponty’s most widely read text, the Preface to his Phenomenology of Perception. Although open and enigmatic text, the Preface is still often used to introduce phenomenology in general and Merleau-Ponty’s work specifically to students, scholars in disciplines other than philosophy, and art practitioners. Taking advantage of the fact that many of his course notes have been posthumously published in the last few decades, this book situates the Preface to the Phenomenology (...) of Perception in the context of Merleau-Ponty's later work and shows how it contains many of the threads on which Merleau-Ponty would later pull. In doing so, the book chapters elaborate key themes in the Preface: “Phenomenology and its Paradoxes,” “Phenomenology and its Method,” “Phenomenology and its Incompletion,” “Phenomenology and Non-Phenomenology." Readers will learn about the radicality of Merleau-Ponty’s early articulation of phenomenology, how much it already suggests the profound transformation of phenomenology usually associated with his more mature work. (shrink)

This paper begins by pointing to an obvious difficulty in Merleau-Ponty’s late philosophy: undoing the decisive separation between linguistic connotation and the denotated, undoing the decisive separation between linguistic meaning and the sensible world. This difficulty demands that we understand how the sensible and the symbolic have a sort of spontaneous relation. How can this be? The history of this problem is then traced back to Husserl, and in particular to his The Origin of Geometry. For Husserl, ‘abstract geometry’ is (...) understood to be a self-constituting field that cuts itself off from a ‘pre-geometry.’ The latter sort of geometry has to do with a symbolic and phantasy consciousness that makes differences in an otherwise uniform sensible plenum. Merleau-Ponty is at odds with the idea of an abstract geometry that constitutes its own field. His phenomenology would have this abstract geometry reduced to pre-geometry, and this pre-geometry further reduced to the sensible, which is then not uniform at all. The problem becomes more precisely how the separations of the sensible and the differences between things are already symbolic.The paper suggests that a way to think through Merleau-Ponty’s problem can be found in a January 1960 Working Note to The Visible and the Invisible called “The Invisible, the negative, vertical Being.” This note, with its references to “joints and members” and “disjunction and dis-membering” is very likely a reference to, and correction of, Heidegger’s 1943 essay on Heraclitus. The point for Merleau-Ponty seems to be a radicalization of the Heraclitean coinstantiation of opposites. His reading allows him to resist understanding the sensible as a self-identity and replace it instead with disarticulation, disintegration, or even perhaps disruption. To show this very disruption is, the paper finally argues, to show the sensible with its phantasmagorical character. Finally, by way of conclusion, the paper takes a turn to sculpture precisely to discuss how we might grasp a sensible that is not uniform but always being shaped and differentiated; and how the symbolic is exactly in, enjambed with, this spacing apart. Ce texte commence par signaler une difficulté évidente dans l’oeuvre tardive de Merleau-Ponty : défaire la séparation décisive entre la connotation linguistique et la dénotation, défaire la séparation décisive entre la signification linguistique et le monde sensible. Cette difficulté requiert de comprendre comment le sensible et le symbolique se trouvent dans une sorte de relation spontanée. Comment cela se fait-il? L’histoire de ce problème remonte à Husserl et à son Origine de la géométrie. Pour Husserl, la « géométrie abstraite » est comprise comme un champ qui se constitue lui-même et qui se détache d’une « pré-géométrie ». Cette dernière sorte de géométrie est liée à une conscience symbolique et imaginative qui fait des différences dans un espace sensible autrement uniforme. Merleau-Ponty n’est pas favorable à l’idée d’une géométrie abstraite qui constitue son propre champ. Sa phénoménologie vise à réduire la géométrie abstraite à la pré-géométrie, et cette dernière au sensible, qui dès lors n’est plus du tout uniforme. Le problème consiste alors à montrer comment les séparations du sensible et les différences entre les choses sont toujours déjà symboliques.La contribution ici suggère qu’une solution peut être trouvée dans la note de travail du Visible et l’invisible de janvier 1960, intitulée « L’Invisible, le négatif, l’Être vertical ». Cette note, qui parle de « jointure et membrure » et de « dis-jonction et dé-membrement », est sans doute une référence à, et une correction l’essai de Heidegger de 1943 sur Héraclite. Le propos de Merleau-Ponty semble être une radicalisation de la co-instantiation héraclitéenne des opposés. Son interprétation lui permet de résister à la conception du sensible comme identité à soi et de la remplacer par la désarticulation, la désintégration ou même peut-être le bouleversement (disruption). Le fait de montrer ce bouleversement consiste précisément à montrer le sensible avec son caractère fantasmatique. Finalement, en guise de conclusion, le texte se tourne vers la sculpture pour discuter une notion du sensible comme étant non uniforme mais toujours déjà formé et différencié, et une notion de symbolique comme étant exactement dans cet espacement. Questo testo inizia portando l’attenzione su un evidente problema nella filosofia dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty: annullare la separazione decisiva tra connotazione linguistica e ciò che viene denotato, annullare la separazione decisiva tra significato linguistico e mondo sensibile. Questo problema richiede una comprensione della relazione spontanea tra sensibile e simbolico. Come ciò è possibile? La storia di questo problema risale fino ad Husserl, ed in particolare al suo L’origine della geometria. Per Husserl, la ‘geometria astratta’ è da concepire come un campo che si costituisce da sé, distaccandosi da una ‘pre-geometria’. L’ultima tipologia di geometria ha a che fare con una coscienza simbolica e immaginativa, che crea delle differenze in un altrimenti uniforme plenum sensibile. Merleau-Ponty non concorda con l’idea di una geometria astratta che costituisca il proprio campo. La sua fenomenologia intende piuttosto riportare la geometria astratta alla pre-geometria, e quest’ultima al sensibile, che quindi è tutto fuorché uniforme. Il problema diventa allora, più precisamente, come mostrare che le separazioni del sensibile e delle differenze tra le cose siano già simboliche. Questo testo suggerisce che una soluzione per pensare questo problema in Merleau-Ponty possa essere trovata in una nota di lavoro al Visibile e l’invisibile del gennaio 1960, intitolata “L’invisibile, il negativo, l’essere verticale”. Questa nota, con i suoi riferimenti a “spazio topologico e il tempo di congiunzione e di membratura”, e ancora “di dis-giunzione e dis-membramento”, è molto probabilmente un riferimento, ed insieme una correzione, al saggio di Heidegger su Eraclito del 1943. Il punto, per Merleau-Ponty, sembra essere una radicalizzazione del concetto eracliteo di compresenza degli opposti. La sua lettura gli permette di resistere alla comprensione del sensibile come un’auto-identità, per rimpiazzarla invece con una disarticolazione, disintegrazione, o perfino interruzione. Mostrare quest’interruzione è, come argomentiamo in questo testo, mostrare il sensibile con il suo carattere fantasmagorico. Infine, tirando le conclusioni, questo testo si rivolge alla scultura, per discutere come sia possibile afferrare un sensibile che non sia uniforme, ma sempre in-formato e in differenziazione, e come la simbolica sia sempre in – e intrecciata con – questa spaziatura, questa distanziazione. (shrink)

This paper considers the move from passivity to a generative passivity in Merleau-Ponty’s ontology. In The Visible and the Invisible Merleau-Ponty calls this generative passivity a “secondary passivity” and in his passivity lectures he describes it as “passivity without passivism.” The paper argues that this secondary passivity must be understood in terms of an écart within the phenomena. That is, in terms of a separation and distance which is matrixed and configured within what appears. This is the basis for Merleau-Ponty’s (...) statement in his passivity lectures that “the touchstone of a theory of passivity,” is a “notion of oneiric symbolism,” and why for him passivity is intimately connected to a “primordial symbol.” If the symbolic is so associated with passivity, the symbolic also does not concern origins but is both the ontological limit and divergence in phenomena. This association forces Merleau-Ponty to consider what it means for phenomenological reflection retrace its steps back to an initial event of expression and even whether phenomenology is ultimately served by description. Finally, this paper considers Merleau-Ponty’s attitude toward the literary usages of language as a means of doing a phenomenology of the secondary passivity. (shrink)