Kierkegaard understood his thinking as philosophy confronting its own end. In campaigning against the existential amnesia of the 19th century, he revived the intellectual figure of a kind of philosophizing with roots in both the Socratic method and the apophatic reflections of Meister Eckhart. The Young Hegelians philosophy of action thereby became action of the text. The aim: existentially to move the reader.".

ABSTRACT What happens to the imagination in the process of overturning despair and becoming an authentic (i.e. a Christian) self? Using the mystic concept of Entbildung (i.e. getting cleansed of images) as heuristics, the article re-examines the relation of the imagination and the will in Kierkegaard. Analysing the rarely compared texts Practice in Christianity and the first of the Ethical-Religious Essay, and paying close attention to the semantics of the image, the article argues that grace and imagination cooperate in the (...) process of Entbildung, restoring the self’s receptivity for possibility as an uncontrollable, non-anticipatable divine possibility. It is in this kenotic discipleship that the aspiring followers of Christ may come to resemble Christ, who in the Garden of Gethsemane prayed ‘Father … everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will’. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe role of the image in the third part of Practice in Christianity suggests that Kierkegaard was inspired by Meister Eckhart’s and Johann Tauler’s account of detachment. I argue that Kierkegaard was not only indirectly influenced by Tauler through the works of the Pietistic writers, but also directly inspired by Tauler’s sermons. Particularly striking are similarities to a sermon that was included in the Tauler edition owned by Kierkegaard: the second sermon on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. (...) A comparison of the texts shows how both Tauler and Kierkegaard criticize the mental images their contemporaries hold of Jesus Christ. Both stress the importance of existential kenosis, which they describe as Entbildung of the intellect and the will, and which is an essential part of following Christ in his abasement. Furthermore, they analyze inadequate attempts to imitate Christ in a similar manner. Even though Kierkegaard and Tauler differ with regard to the ontological implications of Entbildung, the ethical implications are the same: one should not retreat from the world, but rather turn to it with a selfless attitude. (shrink)

To counteract the antinomian tendencies of nineteenth-century secular Protestantism, Søren Kierkegaard turns to Johannes Tauler's sermons, which vividly express a dialectics of works and grace, attacking an inflated asceticism as much as idleness. For reasons of reception history and because of the similarity of the images Kierkegaard and Tauler use, particularly servitude as expressed in Luke 17:10, this article proposes to understand Kierkegaard's account of grace as ‘Taulerian’ rather than ‘Arminian’. To show the intertwined agency of the human and the (...) divine, the article offers a comparative reading of Tauler's two sermons on Cantate Sunday, Kierkegaard's Upbuilding Discourse ‘The Expectancy of an Eternal Salvation’ and the second part of Judge for Yourself. Both Kierkegaard and Tauler design definitory ambiguities for a performative purpose: to help their readers and, respectively, listeners to become receptive to grace by humbling themselves and refraining from fathoming ‘what is not given to be understood’. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 1 Seiten: 379-394.

The article examines the explicit and implicit role that Kierkegaard played in the cultural criticism developed in the literary circle of the Danish journal Heretica (1948 – 1954). The cultural criticism of Kierkegaard and eminent Danish post-war authors (Martin A. Hansen, Vilhem Grønbech, Bjørn Poulsen, Tage Skou-Hansen and Ole Wivel) is contextualized in the tradition of Western cultural criticism. An analysis of central concepts such as crisis, rationality, spirit and reflection as well as alienation, individuality and community, demonstrates the original (...) contributions these authors make to the modern understanding of culture. Furthermore, the article addresses the reservations that some of the Heretica- authors had towards Kierkegaard. The accusation of solipsism, however, turns out to be unwarranted. Rather, it becomes clear that Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the individual, like the post-war authors’ critique of fascism, is directed against the power of the masses and the increasing bureaucratization of life. Finally, Kierkegaard as well as the 20th century authors depict neighbor love as decisive for a post-restitutive, forward-oriented way out of a severe cultural crisis. (shrink)

The development of Vertigo’s main characters provides a detailed illustration of the dialectics of despair as analysed in Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death, in particular of the so-called ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ types of failed selfhood. This article shows the relation of selfhood and despair to dizziness both in Kierkegaard’s work and in Hitchcock’s film, and it examines the religious subtext of Vertigo. The dramatis personae of Judy and Scottie are analysed by applying Kierkegaard’s phenomenology of despair. They display a variety (...) of failures to relate to their selves, like unconscious and conscious despair, possibility’s despair, despair over the earthly and despair of the eternal. Moreover, they epitomize the gendered types of despair as depicted in The Sickness unto Death: losing one’s self in relation to someone and obsessively striving for self-assertion at the cost of others. (shrink)

Nonrelativistic quantum mechanics (QM) works perfectly well for all practical purposes. Once one admits, however, that a successful scientific theory is supposed not only to make predictions but also to tell us a story about the world in which we live, a philosophical problem emerges: in the specific case of QM, it is not possible to associate with the theory a unique scientific image of the world; there are several images. The fact that the theory may be compatible with distinct (...) ontologies, and that those ontologies may themselves be associated with a plurality of metaphysical approaches, gives rise to the problem of metaphysical underdetermination. This paper concludes that the available metametaphysical criteria fail to deliver objectivity in theory choice, and it puts forward its own criterion based on a tension between two methods of metaphysical inquiry: one that is closely related to science and another that is not. (shrink)

BackgroundNeuroethics describes several interdisciplinary topics exploring the application and implications of engaging neuroscience in societal contexts. To explore this topic, we present Part 3 of a four-part bibliography of neuroethics’ literature focusing on the “ethics of neuroscience.”MethodsTo complete a systematic survey of the neuroethics literature, 19 databases and 4 individual open-access journals were employed. Searches were conducted using the indexing language of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. A Python code was used to eliminate duplications in the final bibliography.ResultsThis bibliography (...) consists of 1137 papers, 56 books, and 134 book chapters published from 2002 through 2014, covering ethical issues in neuroimaging, neurogenetics, neurobiomarkers, neuro-psychopharmacology, brain stimulation, neural stem cells, neural tissue transplants, pediatric-specific issues, dual-use, and general neuroscience research issues. These works contain explanations of recent research regarding neurotechnology, while exploring ethical issues in future discoveries and use. (shrink)

The sensitivity principle is a compelling idea in epistemology and is typically characterized as a necessary condition for knowledge. This collection of thirteen new essays constitutes a state-of-the-art discussion of this important principle. Some of the essays build on and strengthen sensitivity-based accounts of knowledge and offer novel defences of those accounts. Others present original objections to sensitivity-based accounts and offer comprehensive analysis and discussion of sensitivity's virtues and problems. The resulting collection will stimulate new debate about the sensitivity principle (...) and will be of great interest and value to scholars and advanced students of epistemology. (shrink)

There has been a lot of interest over the last fifteen years or so in no-collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics. The Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics has received several thorough accounts, perhaps most notably by Bohm himself.

In this paper, I describe some of the highlights of Melchior’s checking account and then suggest that its explanatory value could be enhanced with a less analyzed concept of checking. This thought inspires a rearguard defense of sensitivity, by no means aiming to rescue it from all its well-known problems, wherein it is suggested that sensitivity fares better as a necessary condition for knowledge when all the bells and whistles with which it has been adorned over the years are stripped (...) away. Finally, I investigate a recognizably Moorean position involving methods that can be construed as sensitive, such that persons using them can claim to have checked that skeptical hypotheses are false. (shrink)

Introduction to business ethics : approach and subject matter -- Ethical theory and its application to business contexts -- Conceptions of the economy and business : ethical aspects -- Organizational ethics : ethics of corporations, companies, and other business organizations -- Individuals in the world of business : ethical aspects of specific roles and professions -- Global business ethics -- Economic and ethical challenges of the 21st century : sustainability -- Conclusion--Index.

Modal epistemologies aim to explicate the necessary link between belief and truth that constitutes knowledge. This strain of epistemological theorizing is typically externalist; hence, it does not require that the agent know or understand the nature of the knowledge-constituting link. A central concern of modal epistemology is to articulate conditions on knowing such that no merely lucky true belief counts as knowledge. In the effort to eliminate luck, epistemic principles are often cast modally, requiring that an agent’s belief is true (...) not only in the actual world but also in relevant possible worlds, indicating that the link between truth and belief is more than an actual world lucky coincidence. (Note, then, that this entry is not about the epistemology of modals—statements involving modal operators such as “necessarily,” “possibly,” and the like—but about the use of modal principles in characterizing the nature of knowledge in general. For purposes of disambiguation and in deference to the other topic, perhaps “modalized epistemologies” would be a better term, though it is not typically used here.) Modal epistemologies typically have antiskeptical consequences, but the strengths of the antiskeptical results vary significantly, especially between the two best-known modal principles, sensitivity and safety. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhile Hegel’s concept of second nature has now received substantial attention from commentators, relatively little has been said about the place of this concept in the Phenomenology of Spirit. This neglect is understandable, since Hegel does not explicitly use the phrase ‘second nature’ in this text. Nonetheless, several closely related phrases reveal the centrality of this concept to the Phenomenology’s structure. In this paper, I develop new interpretations of the figures ‘natural consciousness’, ‘natural notion’, and ‘inorganic nature’, in order to (...) elucidate the distinctive concept of second nature at work in the Phenomenology. I will argue that this concept of second nature supplements the ‘official’ version, developed in the Encyclopedia, with an ‘unofficial’ version that prefigures its use in critical theory. At the same time, this reconstruction will allow us to see how the Phenomenology essentially documents spirit’s acquisition of a ‘second nature’. (shrink)

Mortality rates for middle-aged whites in the U.S. are rising due to drugs, alcohol, and depression. Unique to our country, these “deaths of despair” disproportionately occur among the under-educated, who are at particular risk for dying young. At one time, less-educated persons aspired to work in the same factory as their parents, at union wages, with benefits. Those jobs, and the sense of community and prosperity and security they allowed, are evaporating. Many former workers suffer from chronic pain, which underlies (...) America's ongoing opioid overdose epidemic. The pain is not only physical. It is psychic, spiritual, and economic. (shrink)

By reading mainly Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?,” the aim of this paper is to illuminate the ontological revelatory function of the nothing that occurs in anxiety. The two parts of this paper describe the same night of anxiety. While the first part shows this night from the point of view of the movement or sweep of anxiety, the second studies this same night from the point of view of the ontological revelatory role of the nothing and its negative logic of (...) disclosure. It is crucial for my analysis to keep apart two different meanings of the nothing. There is the nothing as being’s totally other (nihil negativum), on the one hand, and the nothing as Being, on the other. While with this second meaning one dwells in the realm of the ontological, it is the first meaning-which is the focus of this paper-that secures our access to it. Resumen Mediante la lectura principalmente del texto “¿Qué es metafísica?” de Heidegger, el objetivo de este artículo es iluminar la función reveladora ontológica de la nada que ocurre en la angustia. Las dos secciones de este artículo describen la misma noche de la angustia. Mientras que la primera sección muestra esta noche desde el punto de vista del movimiento o vaivén de la angustia, la segunda estudia esta misma noche desde el punto de vista del papel revelador ontológico de la nada y su lógica negativa de desvelamiento. Para nuestro análisis es crucial mantener separados dos sentidos distintos del concepto de nada: por un lado, está la nada como lo totalmente otro con respecto al ente (nihil negativum); y por el otro lado, la nada como Ser. Si bien con este segundo significado uno habita en el ámbito de lo ontológico, es el primer significado, el cual es el tema central de este artículo, el que asegura nuestro acceso a él. (shrink)

Let L be a countable language, let I be an isomorphism-type of countable L-structures, and let a∈2ω. We say that I is a-strange if it contains a computable-from-a structure and its Scott rank is exactly ω1a. For all a, a-strange structures exist. Theorem : If C is a collection of ℵ1 isomorphism-types of countable structures, then for a Turing cone of a’s, no member of C is a-strange.

Turri describes a case in which a group of experts apparently correctly advise you not to withhold on a proposition P, but where your evidence neither supports believing nor disbelieving P. He claims that this presents a puzzle about withholding: on the one hand, it seems that you should not withhold on P, since the experts say so. On the other hand, we have the intuition that you should neither believe nor disbelieve P, since your evidence doesn't support it. Thus, (...) there is apparently no doxastic attitude you are permitted to adopt to P. Turri considers various solutions to the puzzle, but in the end rejects all of them and concludes that it seems to be unsolvable. I suggest resolving the puzzle by distinguishing between what I call the subjective and the collective ‘should’. In light of your, the subject's, evidence, i.e., in the subjective sense of ‘should’, you should neither believe nor disbelieve P. However, in light of your and the experts' combined evidence, i.e., in the collective sense of ‘should’, you should not withhold on P. It is true that you are not permitted to adopt a doxastic attitude if you should not, in the subjective sense of ‘should’, adopt it; but this is not so if you should not adopt it in the collective sense. Thus, you are actually permitted to withhold on P. The puzzle is nonetheless philosophically interesting since it points something out that deserves more discussion in epistemology: epistemic advice and the collective sense of the doxastic ‘should’, which we use when giving epistemic advice. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially of the machine learning (ML) variety, is used by health care organizations to assist with a number of tasks, including diagnosing patients and optimizing operational workflows. AI products already proliferate the health care market, with usage increasing as the technology matures. Although AI may potentially revolutionize health care, the use of AI in health settings also leads to risks ranging from violating patient privacy to implementing a biased algorithm. This chapter begins with a broad overview of (...) health care AI and how it is currently used. We then adopt a “lifecycle” approach to discussing issues with health care AI. We start by discussing the legal and ethical issues pertaining to how data to build AI are gathered in health care settings, focusing on privacy. Next, we turn to issues in algorithm development, especially algorithmic bias. We then discuss AI deployment to treat patients, focusing on informed consent. Finally, we will discuss existing oversight mechanisms for health AI in the United States: liability and regulation. (shrink)

SummaryExamining waiting time to birth among newlywed couples is likely to provide insights into the desire for spacing births among newlywed husbands and wives. Data from the Indian National Family Health Survey of 2005–06 are used to examine the desired waiting time to birth among newlywed couples. The dependent variable is spousal concordance on desired waiting times. Overall 65% of couples have concordant desired waiting times. Among discordant couples, wives were more likely to want to wait longer than their husbands. (...) Couples from richer wealth quintiles were more likely than couples from the poorest quintile to have concordant desired waiting times. Muslims were less likely than Hindus to have concordant desires. There is a need for spacing contraceptive methods among newlyweds in India. This may have implications for the Indian Family Planning Programme, which to date has largely focused on sterilization. Programmes need to include newlywed husbands to promote use of spacing methods. (shrink)

The premise of this article is that cognitive development involves both conceptual and semiotic achievements. From this perspective, the authors emphasize the distinctness of the semiotic issues and develop a differentiated appreciation of the semiotic aspects of cognition, particularly in the field of elementary mathematical cognition. The authors provide semiotic analyses of the differences between counting, adding, and multiplying and of the conventional place-value system. The authors introduce the concept of the field of reference of a sign, the differentiation of (...) the field into foreground and background, and the dynamics within the field of reference. Finally, the authors relate these ideas to the dynamics between two dimensions of semiotic relations: the sign-referent dimension and the sign-sign dimension. (shrink)

L’expression connue de Platon êrnbcava ouatai et les considérations d'Aristote sur le thème de la philosophie première font reconnaître, dans l’idée de transcendance, un double sens, qui n’est pas éclairci. La poursuite systématique de ce problème conduit à une séparation de l’idée traditionnelle de transcendance en une « transcendance » proprement dite et en une forme nouvelle, jusqu’ici insuffisamment considérée, la « paratranscen- dance ». Elle correspond au « naturel », à la croissance organique, aux puissances maternelles, sang et terre. (...) La recherche qui la concerne fonde une nouvelle discipline métaphysique de même genre que l’ontologie, la « parontologie ». (shrink)

Systems of paraconsistent logics violate the law of explosion: from contradictory premises not every formula follows. One of the philosophical options for interpreting the contradictions allowed as premises in these cases was put forward recently by Carnielli and Rodrigues, with their epistemic approach to paraconsistent logics. In a nutshell, the plan consists in interpreting the contradictions in epistemic terms, as indicating the presence of non-conclusive evidence for both a proposition and its negation. Truth, in this approach, is consistent and is (...) dealt with by classical logic. In this paper we discuss the fate of the Liar paradox in this picture. While this is a paradox about truth, it cannot be accommodated by the classical part of the approach, due to trivialization problems. On the other hand, the paraconsistent part does not seem fit as well, due to the fact that its intended reading is in terms of non-conclusive evidence, not truth. We discuss the difficulties involved in each case and argue that none of the options seems to accommodate the paradox in a satisfactory manner. (shrink)

Résumé L’agir urbain est ici un agir ordinaire, comme celui d’un vieil homme qui persiste à habiter les Champs-Élysées. L’agir urbain se trouve en contradiction avec les politiques urbaines, ce que doit comprendre la gauche, alors qu’elle ne fait qu’organiser la résistance contre les expulsions, quand c’est trop tard. Qu’est-ce que cette ville qui résiste? Une idée peut en être donnée dans la parenté entre les icônes de l’architecture moderne et les baraques turques informelles des années 1950, à propos desquelles (...) s’est produit tout un théâtre à destination des classes moyennes, qui ont accueilli en leur sein les anciens squatters : le président Erdogan lui-même vit dans une de ces baraques! Mais de nouveaux réfugiés arrivent d’autres pays qui n’ont pas cet espace périphérique pour construire leur vie. (shrink)