This landmark volume brings together the work of the world's leading researchers in sublimated perception. This compilation marks a fundamental shift in the current study of subliminal effects: No longer in question is the notion that perception without awareness occurs. Now, the emphasis is on elucidating the parameters of subliminal effects and understanding the conditions under which stimuli perceived without awareness significantly influence affect, cognition, and behavior. PERCEPTION WITHOUT AWARENESS firmly establishes subliminal perception within the mainstream of psychological science. Well (...) represented here are the two main research branches that have emerged: One directly investigates the nature of subliminal effects; the other uses subliminal techniques as tools for investigating psychological phenomena such as hypnosis, dreaming, repression, social judgment and inference, psychopathology, and symptom formation. Broadly grouped into three main sections, the contributed chapters explore * The cognitive perspective--including implicit memory and implicit perception, the measurement of unconscious perceptual processes, and methods for revealing unconscious processes * The clinical perspective--exploring the cognitive and dynamic aspects of subliminal perception, memory, and consciousness; direct recovery of subliminal stimuli; and validation of subliminal psychodynamic activation * The social perspective--discussing subliminal mere-exposure effects, affect and social perception, and the role of subliminality in social psychology Timely and thought-provoking, PERCEPTION WITHOUT AWARENESS is sure to be of enormous interest to all psychoanalytic clinicians and scholars, as well as cognitive, clinical, and social psychologists whose work touches upon issues relating to psychopathology, perception, cognition, and memory. (shrink)

This book reassesses Gadamer's hermeneutics by bringing it into a dialogue with John McDowell's minimal empiricism. It employs the resources of McDowell's minimal empiricism to address the transcendental and ontological presuppositions for objective experience and understanding, while retaining Gadamer's emphasis on the historicity of understanding. By means of the dialogue with McDowell, the book develops a hermeneutical conception of objectivity and perceptual experience, which also entails reinterpretations of Gadamer's notions of tradition, practical wisdom and meaning. The book explores the philosophical (...) space beyond the analytic-Continental divide and demonstrates that hermeneutics is not limited to a reflection on understanding as it is practiced in the human sciences, but can be revived as a distinct and cogent philosophical approach with a transcendental and ontological dimension. Thaning's book is a richly detailed, well-argued and coherent presentation of a defensible, and potentially very important, philosophical position. It demonstrates an impressively deep understanding of the literature both from the phenomenological tradition and from the part of the analytical tradition, inspired by Wilfred Sellars, to which John McDowell belongs. Being a substantial philosophical achievement in its own right, the book raises far-reaching questions that will be of interest to a wide audience. Dr. Steven Crowell, Rice University, Houston (USA) Morten Thaning's book is an important contribution to the discourse of philosophical hermeneutics. Thaning extensively discusses a topic, which recent debates have touched upon, but which up to now has not been the subject matter of concentrated scholarly work: the relation between Gadamer's hermeneutics and McDowell's empiricism. With Thaning's interpretation Gadamer' work can be read anew as concerning the problem of hermeneutical objectivity. Prof. Dr. Günter Figal, University of Freiburg (Germany). (shrink)

In the final volume of his Homo Sacer series, The use of bodies, Agamben claims that for Foucault ethics never escapes the horizon of governmentality and therefore his conception of ethics is ‘strategic.’ In light of this criticism, motivated by Agamben’s Pauline conception of ‘use,’ we reassess the status and function of ethics in Foucault’s late lectures. We investigate how Foucault’s approach to ethics develops from his treatment of liberal governmentality and also how its methodological foundation is developed in an (...) interpretation of truth-telling in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Our interpretation emphasizes the ambiguous status of ethics in Foucault’s late work: on the one hand, Agamben is right that Foucault assigns an irreducible strategic function to ethics thereby connecting it intrinsically to governmentality. On the other hand, Agamben overlooks how Foucault’s interpretation of Sophocles implies a conception of governmentality which emphasizes how ethical practices cannot be captured solely in strategic terms. Foucault’s ‘anarcheological’ approach thus articulates a dimension of ethics that remains, using Agamben’s own terms, ‘ungovernable’ and therefore also genuinely creative. Even so, Foucault’s approach to ethics remains in Agamben’s perspective on the deepest level faced with an antinomy that Agamben seeks to mediate with his Pauline conception of ‘inoperativity.’. (shrink)

Can rational arguments convince a person to change from a commitment to living an unvirtuous life into striving after virtue? Or can rationality, even in the best cases, only help preserve an alrea...

Günter Figal's conception of epochē expresses a fundamental divergence from dominant interpretations of Husserlian phenomenology. The hermeneutical notion of objectivity employed by Figal is different from the notion as it is employed in generic forms of epistemology. He assumes that the questions which shape epistemology about the legitimate constraints on our understanding can be clarified though phenomenological descriptions of how we acknowledge the objectivity of the subject matter. Insofar as the objects of fine art already in Objectivity were conceived as (...) expressing a distinct kind of objectivity, Figal's aesthetics is developed in direct continuation of his hermeneutical philosophy. An audacious feature of Figal's aesthetic is the attempt to reinvigorate the classical discussion about how to distinguish between fundamental forms of art. Figal claims it is an indispensable task for a philosophical aesthetic to clarify why our always already practiced habit of categorizing works of art mirrors not just arbitrary conventions. (shrink)

Carleton B. Christensen, Self and World: From Analytic Philosophy to Phenomenology Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s10743-010-9078-2 Authors Morten S. Thaning, Department of Philosophy, Politics, and Management, Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark Journal Husserl Studies Online ISSN 1572-8501 Print ISSN 0167-9848 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 3.

Marya Schechtman's narrative self-constitution view relies on an account of reality as self-evident that eclipses the interpretive labor required to fix the content of intelligibility. As a result, her view illegitimately limits what counts as identity-conferring narrative and problematically excludes many with psychiatric disabilities from the category of full personhood. Plantikow cautions personal identity theorists against this move and offers an alternative approach to engaging in and conceptualizing narrative construction.

Marya Schechtman’s narrative self-constitution view relies on an account of reality as self-evident that eclipses the interpretive labor required to fix the content of intelligibility. As a result, her view illegitimately limits what counts as identity-conferring narrative and problematically excludes many with psychiatric disabilities from the category of full personhood. Plantikow cautions personal identity theorists against this move and offers an alternative approach to engaging in and conceptualizing narrative construction.

McDowell recently renounced the assumption that the content of any knowledgeable, perceptual judgement must be included in the content of the knowledge grounding experience. We argue that McDowell’s introduction of a new category of non-inferential, perceptual knowledge is incompatible with the main line of argument in favour of conceptualism as presented in Mind and World [McDowell, John. 1996. Mind and World. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press]. We reconstruct the original line of argument and show that it rests on (...) the assumption that a specific model of justification, the Comparison Model, must apply to all cases of non-inferential, perceptual knowledge. We then show that the Comparison Model cannot be applied to McDowell’s new category of non-inferential, perceptual knowledge. As a consequence, McDowell is in need of an alternative model of justification and an alternative argument for conceptualism. We propose such an alternative model of justification based on McDowell’s reading of Sellars, but argue that the model only serves to make the need for an alternative motivation for conceptualism more urgent. (shrink)

Book review of Rollinger & Sowa's 2004 translation of Husserl's own later collection of manuscripts on transcendental idealism (and realism): It has long served the interests of certain partisans to paint Husserl as a Cartesian philosopher of consciousness, as a man who, like his early modern predecessor, was obsessed with demonstrating that the ‘‘data’’ of conscious experience constitute an epistemological fundamentum inconcussum. Husserl thus becomes a stock character in those narratives of modern philosophy which see it as having been dominated (...) by a poisonous Cartesian subjectivism prior to the arrival of one or another of philosophy’s great twentieth-century saviors (typically one chooses either Heidegger or Wittgenstein here). On the other side, it has long been common for Husserlians to brush aside this character- ization of Husserl as a gross oversimplification and indeed fundamental mis- understanding of his thought, one resting on a lack of any real familiarity with his writings and ideas.We are thus presented with the paradox that while many of the most conscientious of Husserl’s expositors could read him as an anti- Cartesian philosopher, other, generally less sympathetic but often not less intelligent readers could come to the exact opposite conclusion... (shrink)

The main aim of this dissertation is to trace the systematic development of Husserl's early theory of intentionality, particularly as it reflects and influences his understanding of the mind-world relation. The dissertation is divided into two parts. ;In the first part, I trace the historical roots of phenomenology back to Husserl's teacher Franz Brentano. I argue that for Brentano, intentionality is a purely mental relation between a mental act and a mentally immanent intentional object or content. I also argue that (...) Brentano embeds this view in a roughly Lockean or "critical realist" position which adds a third element to the two elements of the intentional relation, viz., a really existing, extramental or worldly object---or, as Brentano prefers to call it, "thing." This "thing" is not psychologically accessible but is rather hypothesized by the natural scientist as a causal explanation for our intentional experiences. ;In the second part of the dissertation I chart the course of Husserl's early intellectual development in the period immediately following his philosophical apprenticeship under Brentano, again focusing on intentionality. I document Husserl's initial adoption of the Brentanian view, as well as his growing doubts about Brentano's immanentism. Through his work on the problem of nonveridical intentionality and the descriptive psychology of perception, Husserl is led to reject altogether the idea that intentionality is a genuine relation and to adopt instead an adverbial account which explains intentionality as an exclusive feature of mental acts, one that can be studied without any reference to the objects at which these acts aim. In the Logical Investigations , this conception of intentionality is coupled with a Cartesian, epistemologically oriented methodology to yield a conception of the philosophical study of the mind and its experiences in which no reference is made to the objects of the real world. I conclude the dissertation by indicating briefly how Husserl in subsequent years would augment and deepen this position through his concept of the noema. (shrink)

It is often said that by rejecting the representationalist model of mind, phenomenology makes a decisive advance over empiricism. Yet despite such pronouncements, the arguments Husserl uses to refute representationalism have received scant critical attention, and upon examination many turn out to be obscure. I argue here that some of Husserl's best known anti-representationalist arguments fail. I end the paper, however, by suggesting that if these unsuccessful arguments are paired with certain methodological considerations taken from Husserl's mature philosophy, they may (...) provide adequate grounds for a rejection of representationalism after all. (shrink)

How does perception provide reasons for our empirical judgements? This volume offers a set of new essays which in different ways address this fundamental question, and investigate the implications for our understanding of perceptual experience.

For many, the idea that people should be rewarded in proportion to what they deserve is the very essence of distributive justice. However, while the notion of moral desert is otherwise widely accepted, Rawls rejects it entirely in his A Theory of Justice. Many authors have argued that Rawls’s claims about desert have serious and unappealing consequences for his conception of justice as fairness, and also that they deny the possibility of autonomous choice to the very agents whose decisions are (...) supposed to underlie Rawls’s approach to justice. In this paper, I analyze the arguments of those who believe that Rawls can be interpreted in a way that doesn’t in fact deny either desert or the possibility of autonomous action. I conclude by allowing for the interpretation that Rawls does not necessarily deny autonomous action, but I contend that he nevertheless finds the idea of preinstitutional desert entirely off the mark. (shrink)

This article aims to reconstruct the normative distinction between sophistry and dialectics developed in Plato’s treatment of sophistry. We begin by describing Plato’s notion of sophistry as a knack of persuasion that succeeds by masquerading itself as truth-oriented and by providing gratification for its listeners. We then argue that the stringency of Plato’s arguments becomes clear by using his definition of sophistry as a guideline for the interpretation of the dialogues Protagoras and Gorgias. Together, these dialogues provide a well-structured argument (...) that questions the usefulness of sophistic practice, despite its effectiveness in attaining power within the Athenian democratic institutions. Plato’s fundamental critique of sophistry differs from certain misleading prejudices against sophistry, also found in Plato’s writings and challenged by historical research. The critique is therefore of lasting relevance not only to the understanding of Plato’s philosophical agenda but also to the interpretation of »the sophists«. We end by suggesting that Plato’s normative distinction between sophistry and dialectics is also of relevance for our contemporary conception of democratic discursive culture and its legitimacy. (shrink)

Intermediate labour markets provide fixed-term work opportunities and coaching for people in disadvantaged positions in labour markets. We study 46 sequences from six audio-recorded recruitment interviews for an ILM job targetted at people who have been unemployed for a prolonged period. Using an ethnomethodological approach to identity, membership categorisation analysis and conversation analysis, we study how interviewers and candidates construct and negotiate who is fit for the ILM job. We present interactional moves through which the participants jointly construct the ‘fit (...) for the ILM job’ category and treat the candidate’s membership in it as a positive matter. Further, we demonstrate how the candidates are put in an interactionally difficult position in the interview as there are contradictory and ambiguous expectations about the ideal candidate. We discuss the results in relation to the interactional and institutional logics of a recruitment interview and suggest that enhancing the transparency might reinforce ethics of recruitment in ILMs. (shrink)

The relation between aisthesis and interiority manifests in Wittgenstein’s account of the subject and his private language argument. But it is also an overlooked leitmotif in Dostoevsky’s novels—one of Wittgenstein’s favorite authors, and in W.G. Sebald’s work—who was inspired by Wittgenstein’s philosophy. This book reflects on the role literature can play in answering the philosophical question of an adequate presentation of intention and pain.

This essay argues that what makes Michel Foucault’s oeuvre not only stand apart but also cohere is an assiduous philosophical practice taking the form of an ongoing yet concrete self-modification in the medium of thought. Part I gives an account of three essential aspects of Foucault’s conception of philosophical activity. Beginning with his famous characterization of philosophy in terms of ascēsis, it moves on to articulate his characterization of philosophical practice as a distinct form of meditation, differing from both Cartesian (...) meditation and Hegelian meditation, as it aims to stand vigil for the day to come and operates as a preface to transgression. Part II begins the articulation of crucial traits left implicit in this understanding of philosophy by turning to Foucault’s in-depth investigation of philosophy in Antiquity during his lectures at the Collège de France in the 1980s. First, it develops how philosophy here begins to constitute and distinguish itself by establishing itself as an activity that has a privileged relationship to truth and truth-telling as an unremitting, existentially determining challenge for the philosopher. Further, it instantiates how Platonism elaborates the need for a sustained ‘auto-ascetic’ ethical non-compliant differentiation as the condition of possibility for accessing and stating truth, and then describes how the assertion of an ethical differentiation and attitude in Cynicism takes the form of an insistent combat for another world in this world. Finally, it underlines how the ethical-practical philosophical work upon oneself in Antiquity is developed in an ongoing critical and political exchange with others. Part III indicates how ethical differentiation according to Foucault remains an essential precondition for the practice of philosophy and is further developed in the modern age. This is particularly perspicuous in Kant’s determination of the Enlightenment, in the attitude of modernity exemplified by Baudelaire, and in the history of revolt since the beginning of early Modernity. On this background, Part IV develops how philosophy as an ongoing meditative practice of self-modification leads to an affirmative critique, confirming the virtuality of this world in order to investigate the potentiality in the examined. In this manner, the essay presents Foucault’s philosophical practice as well as an outline of the history of ideas of a seemingly alternate, yet still agenda-setting conception of philosophical practice today. (shrink)

This essay argues that what makes Michel Foucault’s oeuvre not only stand apart but also cohere is an assiduous philosophical practice taking the form of an ongoing yet concrete self-modification in the medium of thought. Part I gives an account of three essential aspects of Foucault’s conception of philosophical activity. Beginning with his famous characterization of philosophy in terms of ascēsis, it moves on to articulate his characterization of philosophical practice as a distinct form of meditation, differing from both Cartesian (...) meditation and Hegelian meditation, as it aims to stand vigil for the day to come and operates as a preface to transgression. Part II begins the articulation of crucial traits left implicit in this understanding of philosophy by turning to Foucault’s in-depth investigation of philosophy in Antiquity during his lectures at the Collège de France in the 1980s. First, it develops how philosophy here begins to constitute and distinguish itself by establishing itself as an activity that has a privileged relationship to truth and truth-telling as an unremitting, existentially determining challenge for the philosopher. Further, it instantiates how Platonism elaborates the need for a sustained ‘auto-ascetic’ ethical non-compliant differentiation as the condition of possibility for accessing and stating truth, and then describes how the assertion of an ethical differentiation and attitude in Cynicism takes the form of an insistent combat for another world in this world. Finally, it underlines how the ethical-practical philosophical work upon oneself in Antiquity is developed in an ongoing critical and political exchange with others. Part III indicates how ethical differentiation according to Foucault remains an essential precondition for the practice of philosophy and is further developed in the modern age. This is particularly perspicuous in Kant’s determination of the Enlightenment, in the attitude of modernity exemplified by Baudelaire, and in the history of revolt since the beginning of early Modernity. On this background, Part IV develops how philosophy as an ongoing meditative practice of self-modification leads to an affirmative critique, confirming the virtuality of this world in order to investigate the potentiality in the examined. In this manner, the essay presents Foucault’s philosophical practice as well as an outline of the history of ideas of a seemingly alternate, yet still agenda-setting conception of philosophical practice today. (shrink)

The dispute over Socrates’ apparent endorsement of hedonism in the Protagoras has persisted for ages among scholars and students of Plato’s work. The solution to the query concerning the seriousness and sincerity of Socrates’ argument from hedonism established in the dialogue is of considerable importance for the interpretation of Plato’s overall moral theory, considering how blatantly irreconcilable the defense of this doctrine is with Plato’s other early dialogues. In his earlier works, Socrates puts supreme importance on virtue and perfection of (...) the soul, so the puzzle apparent in the Protagoras merits a thorough examination.Several scholars have argued that, since Socrates’ defense of hedonism in this work clashes significantly with his views on morality in other dialogues, Socrates must only have been defending hedonism ironically, or with the intention of “diagnosing” his opponent’s point of view. In this paper, I examine the approaches according to which Socrates didn’t in fact mean to defend hedonism, but merely used it as a diagnostic tool; I argue that there is no compelling evidence for this resolution of Socrates’ defense of hedonism, and that the views that attempt to defend it really have no convincing grounds for it apart from the desire to reconcile the Protagoras with other Socratic dialogues. (shrink)

The dispute over Socrates’ apparent endorsement of hedonism in the Protagoras has persisted for ages among scholars and students of Plato’s work. The solution to the query concerning the seriousness and sincerity of Socrates’ argument from hedonism established in the dialogue is of considerable importance for the interpretation of Plato’s overall moral theory, considering how blatantly irreconcilable the defense of this doctrine is with Plato’s other early dialogues. In his earlier works, Socrates puts supreme importance on virtue and perfection of (...) the soul, so the puzzle apparent in the Protagoras merits a thorough examination.Several scholars have argued that, since Socrates’ defense of hedonism in this work clashes significantly with his views on morality in other dialogues, Socrates must only have been defending hedonism ironically, or with the intention of “diagnosing” his opponent’s point of view. In this paper, I examine the approaches according to which Socrates didn’t in fact mean to defend hedonism, but merely used it as a diagnostic tool; I argue that there is no compelling evidence for this resolution of Socrates’ defense of hedonism, and that the views that attempt to defend it really have no convincing grounds for it apart from the desire to reconcilethe Protagoras with other Socratic dialogues. (shrink)

A discussion of Christine Korsgaard's The Sources of Normativity.

In an increasingly globalizing world, the aesthetics of Dubai have become potentially available even for impoverished, peripheral cities such as Belgrade. With the explicit rhetoric of finally achi...

Scholars criticize privileging aesthetics over social and ecological considerations in park design. I argue that the real culprit is not aesthetics, but aestheticism. Aestheticism treats aesthetic objects as if they were ontologically distinct from everyday objects. Aestheticism in park design—treating parks like artworks to be admired like paintings—dovetails into treating parks like representations of a romanticized wilderness: of pristine, untouched landscapes. I argue that aestheticism is a means of constructing an ontological distinction between the beholder and the beheld, for landscapes (...) are not truly pristine if they are sullied by human presence. As an alternative, and while drawing on the works of John Dewey and Yuriko Saito, I argue for a continuity between everyday objects and aesthetic objects. I also draw attention to the question of whose every day is privileged and propose to introduce Wittgenstein’s concept of multi-aspectivity in the analysis of everyday affordances. (shrink)

Wittgenstein and Dostoevsky both ridicule a hypostasizing and fetishizing picture of interiority: viewing sensations and intentions like discrete material objects. The symbols for this misleading view in their respective works are a beetle and a sachet containing thousand five hundred roubles. The beetle in the box passage in the Philosophical Investigations discredits a Cartesian picture of pain as akin to a thing-like entity. The sachet in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov represents Dmitry’s intention to be honourable. Dostoevsky achieves a perspicuous view (...) of entangled webs of intentions, as opposed to labelling them like object-like entities. I show that Wittgenstein’ account of first-personal thought, including intentions, is not based on the Cartesian dualism of the inner and the outer, the mind and the body. To underscore my argumentation, I refer to The Brothers Karamazov, one of Wittgenstein’s favourite novels. I especially focus on Dmitry’s sachet, which inspired Wittgenstein’s beetle in the box example. I show parallels both in content and in form of Wittgenstein’s and Dostoevsky’s approach to intention as a species of first-personal thought. (shrink)

Book review of Christian Erbacher's Formen des Klärens, Literarisch-Philosophische Darstellungsmittel in Wittgensteins Schriften, Münster: mentis 2015. *** Christian Erbacher’s Formen des Klärens, Literarisch-Philosophische Darstellungsmittel in Wittgensteins Schriften, which I would translate as Forms of Elucidating, Literary-Philosophical Means of Presentation in Wittgenstein’s Works, comprises and critically analyzes the most important phases of almost a hundred years of both English and German speaking Wittgenstein scholarship on the form of his literary-philosophical presentation. Furthermore, Erbacher demonstrates a thorough first hand knowledge of Wittgenstein’s manuscripts (...) and manner of work, while at the same time offering an interpretation of the Tractatus logico-philosophicus, as well as later works, that is capable of comprehending both Wittgenstein’s serious and intense ethical and aesthetic preoccupations, as well as his significant contributions to logic and philosophy of language. Furthermore, despite its density, Erbacher’s slender book admirably achieves an elegant lucidity. Thus it performatively shows the unity of aesthetic-rhetorical form and philosophical content, as well as the ethical ideal of clarity at the core of Wittgenstein’s concerns. (shrink)

Luft’s contribution to this emerging wing of Husserl scholarship lies in the way he forces us to consider the possibility that certain fundamental Husserlian principles—most importantly, the “principle of all principles,” that is, the notion that intuitive demonstration is the indispensable bedrock of phenomenological philosophy—must be called into question when one attempts to advance beyond mere phenomenological description and develop a phenomenological system. It is both a basic conviction and a central conclusion of the book that “when one harbors pronounced (...) systematic aspirations, as Husserl does, one cannot dispense with speculative thinking”. Drawing on his intimate knowledge of Husserl’s late manuscripts on the reduction, Luft attempts to demonstrate this conclusion by contrasting Husserl’s approach to the issue of phenomenology’s systematic character with Fink’s outline of a phenomenological system in the Sixth Cartesian Meditation. Fink’s “merit,” Luft argues, is to have shown that phenomenology “cannot do without reflection on its systematic character”. More controversially, however, Fink also claims that such reflection “cannot itself proceed phenomenologically—or at least not only phenomenologically”. Husserl no doubt disagreed, but Luft, following Fink, argues that the systematic character of phenomenology “cannot be analyzed in the ‘straightforward’ manner” of standard phenomenological analysis. (shrink)

Despite its title, then, Derrida and Husserl is primarily about Derrida, and only secondarily about Husserl. A reader who approaches the book with the hope of gaining some perspective on the Husserl–Derrida debate will come away disappointed: the Husserl one finds is in every case Derrida’s Husserl, and no attempt is made to see things through Husserl’s eyes. Consequently, where Husserl is concerned, Lawlor’s analysis comes off as a something of a broadside. Where Derrida is concerned, on the other hand, (...) the book has much to offer. (shrink)

These volumes make available for the first time in English the full texts of two of Heidegger’s most significant lecture courses: Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit: Einleitung in die Philosophie, delivered in the summer semester of 1930, and Vom Wesen der Wahrheit: zu Platons Höhlengleichnis, delivered in the winter semester of 1931–32. They contain full translations of Volumes 31 and 34 of the Gesamtausgabe of Heidegger’s works. Coming at a crucial turning point in Heidegger’s career, the lecture courses treat two (...) central and interrelated themes in his thought—freedom and truth—pointing forward toward important developments in his subsequent philosophy and shedding valuable light on a number of key concepts and themes in Being and Time. Just as importantly, they contain sustained engagements with three major figures in the history of philosophy: Aristotle, Kant, and Plato. (shrink)

U radu se najprije razmatra značaj Nietzscheovih ideja za genezu i razvoj književnoteorijskih koncepcija Harolda Blooma, pri čemu je najveća pažnja posvećena revizionističkim temeljima ideje »straha od utjecaja«, kao i Bloomovoj polemici s onim suvremenim teorijskim orijentacijama koje je objedinio pežorativnom oznakom »škola resantimana«. Potom se pojedini elementi Bloomove poetike sučeljavaju s ničeanskim naslijeđem prisutnim kod dvojice filozofa, Michela Foucaulta i Richarda Rortyja, da bi se ukazivanjem na sličnosti i razlike – ali i na stavove koje su o naznačenim pitanjima (...) zauzeli autori poput Gillesa Deleuza i Paula de Mana – potvrdilo kako Nietzscheovo djelo, pored ostalog i zahvaljujući mogućnostima različite interpretacije, posjeduje ona svojstva koja Bloom naziva »kanonskima «. (shrink)

The notion that exploitation consists in taking wrongful advantage of another’s vulnerability is widespread in the philosophical literature. Considering the popularity of this view, it is disappointing to find that very few authors attempt to provide substantive accounts of characteristics they consider relevant vulnerabilities (i.e., those pertinent to exploitation), as well as of relevant features which make taking advantage of those vulnerabilities wrongful. In this paper, I analyze the few approaches (notably those presented by Ruth Sample and Robert Goodin) that (...) in fact provide such accounts, and I examine whether and how they pertain to exploitation in general, as well as to exploitation in more personal/intimate relationships. I conclude that these vulnerability-based accounts of exploitation are either too vague or too restrictive, since they tend to leave out many instances of exploitation (especially those within personal and intimate relationships), and are as such inadequate. (shrink)

Arlie Russell Hochschild is Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her books include: The Managed Heart, The Second Shift, The Time Bind and The Commercialization of Intimate Life. In her work, Hochschild explores the many ways we manage our emotions in personal life and perform emotional labor in the workplace. Her most recent work explores the growing political divide in America, and the need for each side to climb an ‘empathy wall’ to begin dialogue with those (...) on the other side. She reports on five years of field-work among Tea Party enthusiasts in Louisiana in her latest book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. In this interview, she reflects on the phenomenon of critique within the framework of emotional labor, which leads to discussions on neoliberalism and the ideal worker in contemporary working life. (shrink)

Ayahuasca, an ancient Amazonian psychedelic tea traditionally used ceremonially among indigenous peoples, has recently become known as a possible treatment for a wide range of disorders. The awareness of this sacred medicine has grown exponentially over the past decade, attracting westerners from a wide variety of backgrounds, hoping to find treatment for a myriad of emotional and physical illnesses, as well as spiritual needs. In the wake of the commercialization and westernization of the use of ayahuasca, and the subsequent proliferation (...) of ayahuasca treatment centers, this paper examines the benefits and possible risks of this form of therapy in an effort to create a safety protocol for Westerners in this context. The most practical approach to increasing safety for Westerners attending these Amazonian treatment centers is to educate the seeker prior to treatment and to provide access to specialized therapeutic aftercare services. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship of shame to class and to desire in Michelle Tea's memoirThe Passionate Mistakes and Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America. Through applying a class analytic to the framework of shame recently advanced by feminist, queer, postcolonial, and affect theorists, I foreground shame as central to the experience of being poor and queer, and examine shame as not only negative and positive, but as productive. I operationalize an “oppositional reading strategy” to insist on attention to (...) the materiality of embodied desire and labor, in particular queer desire and sex work, that is made available in poor and working‐class women's life‐writing. Tea's memoir demonstrates how writing about an ambivalent relation to shame is an act of resistance, an opportunity to transform private, individual experiences into public, and therefore collective, articulations. (shrink)

When America's Thomas Jefferson insists that work hard to perfect the work of the Framers, he exhorts us to carry forth the creative, revolutionary spirit ourselves. In Kevin Bleyer's Me the People: One Man's Selfless Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of the United States, Thomas Jefferson is a constant source of inspiration. Me the People doesn't remain at the level of theory. The chapter on the Judiciary, devoted to Bleyer's improbable lunch with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the Justice most (...) closely associated with the controversial constitutional theory of originalism, is the clear climax of the book. Although Scalia a darling of the Tea Party and a conservative Catholic, evangelicalism does not permeate his legal reasoning. Sure Me the People is a fun book on American history, but it prods the reader comically, by exploiting the comedic value of the fact that so few Americans read the Constitution. (shrink)

This report analyzes the role Japanese women play in the traditional art of the tea ceremony and its meaning for their lives. It is based on data collected for a larger study which explored the ways in which a cultural art transmits its practice and values to Japanese and foreign learners, conducted in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Yokohama, Japan, from 1983 to 1985. Using the Urasenke school, which accounts for approximately 70 percent of all practitioners as a case study, this report (...) explores the impact of women's participation as professionals and students on the organizational structure and activities of the school. Interviews with 31 teachers and 55 students, professionals, and amateurs provided the data to explore the ways in which the art has accommodated women's interests. (shrink)