Mark S. Ferrara’s principle scholarly interests lie within the fields of religious studies and Asian philosophy, as indicated on his State University of New York–Oneonta English faculty page and demonstrated in his other books Between Noble and Humble: Cao Xueqin and the Dream of the Red Chamber and Palace of Ashes: China and the Decline of American Higher Education. However, it is his interests in rhetoric and political discourse, cultural studies, and world literature that make Barack Obama and the Rhetoric (...) of Hope such an insightful and pleasant contribution to the commentary on and criticism of the outgoing president.... (shrink)

In recent years, feminist scholarship on emotional labor has proliferated. I identify a related but distinct form of care labor, hermeneutic labor. Hermeneutic labor is the burdensome activity of: understanding and coherently expressing one’s own feelings, desires, intentions, and movitations; discerning those of others; and inventing solutions for relational issues arising from interpersonal tensions. I argue that hermeneutic labor disproportionately falls on women’s shoulders in heteropatriachal societies, especially in intimate relationships between women and men. I also suggest that some of (...) the gendered burdens of emotional labor that feminist scholars point out would better be described as hermeneutic labor. Drawing on feminist philosophy as well as findings from social psychology and sociology, I argue that the exploitation of women’s hermeneutic labor is a pervasive element of what Sandra Bartky calls the ‘micropolitics’ of intimate relationships. The widespread expectation that women are relationship maintenance experts, as well as the prevalence of a gendered demand-withdraw pattern of communication, leads an exploitative situation to appear natural or even desirable, even as it leads to women’s dissatisfaction. This situation may be considered misogynistic in Kate Manne’s sense, where misogyny is a property of social environments rather than a worldview. (shrink)

An argument is presented to the effect that the ability to feel or to experience meaning conditions the ability to mean, and is thus essential to our notion of meaning. The experience of meaning is manifested in the "fine shades" of use and behavior. Theses, so obvious in music, constitute understanding music, which makes music understanding so relevant to understanding language. Applying these notions of understanding, feeling, and experience--as well as their explication in terms of comparisons, internal relation, and mastery (...) of technique--to music, where they are so apt and natural, is fertile both for the philosophy of language and the philosophy of music. (edited). (shrink)

Rather than as a giving of permission to someone to transgress one’s bodily boundaries, I argue for defining sexual consent as feeling-with one’s sexual partner. Dominant approaches to consent within feminist philosophy have failed to capture the intercorporeal character of erotic consciousness by treating it as a form of giving permission, as is evident in the debate between attitudinal and performative theories of consent. Building on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Ann Cahill, Linda Martín Alcoff, and others, I argue that (...) taking consent to be an intercorporeal and dynamic coexistence of desiring bodies opens up new ways of thinking about the role of consent in sexual ethics. I suggest that phenomenology’s theories of embodied consciousness, operative intentionality, and the direct perception of others provide a better groundwork for conceptualizing the role of ambiguity and subtle power dynamics in sexual encounters than attitudinal or performative accounts of consent. I also defend my view against Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa’s argument for doing away with the concept of consent in sexual ethics due to consent's stubborn and infelicitous presupposition of permission-giving. (shrink)

The study of social inequality and stratification has long been at the core of sociology and the social sciences. In this article, I argue that certain tendencies have become entrenched in our dominant paradigm that leave many researchers pursuing coarse-grained analyses of how difference relates to inequality. Centrally, despite the importance of categories and categorization for how researchers study social inequality, contemporary theories of categories are poorly integrated into conventional research. I contend that the widespread and often unquestioned use of (...) state categories as categories of analysis reinforces these tendencies. Using research on colorism as an inspiration, I highlight several components of what I call the infracategorical model of inequality, which urges researchers to disaggregate difference by shifting our focus from membership in categories to the cues of categories, membership in subcategories, and perceived typicality. (shrink)

Sacred Harp singers the world over gather weekly to sing out ofThe Sacred Harp, a collection of shape-note songs first published in 1844. Their tradition is highly ritualized, and it plays an important role in the lives of many participants. Following the implementation of lockdown protocols to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, groups of Sacred Harp singers quickly and independently devised a variety of means by which to sing together online using Zoom, Jamulus, and Facebook Live. The rapidity and creativity with (...) which Sacred Harp singers developed ways to sustain their activities attests to the strength and significance of this community of practice, and in this article I describe each modality and provide an account of how it came to be developed and widely used. As a participant-observer, I completed extensive fieldwork across these digital sites and conducted semi-structured interviews with 22 other singers. I found that online singing practices have reshaped the Sacred Harp community. Many singers who did not previously have the opportunity to participate now have access, while others have lost access due to technological barriers or lack of interest in online activities. At the same time, geographical barriers have disintegrated, and singing organizers must make an effort to maintain local identity. A stable community of singers has emerged in the digital realm, but it is by no means identical to the community that predated the pandemic. I also identify the ways in which online singing has proven meaningful to participants by providing continuity in their personal and communal practice. Specifically, online singing allows participants to access and celebrate their collective memories of the Sacred Harp community, carry out significant rituals, and continue to grow as singers. While no single modality replicates the complete Sacred Harp singing experience, together they function “like pieces in a puzzle”, allowing individual participants to access many of the elements of Sacred Harp singing that are most meaningful to them. (shrink)

Brute facts are facts that don't have explanations. They are instrumental in our attempts to give accounts of other facts or phenomena, and so they play a key role in many philosophers' views about the structure of the world. This volume explores neglected questions about the nature of brute facts and their explanatory role.

On reading “Algorithms for Ethical Decision-Making in the Clinical: A Proof of Concept,” I imagined that for some the fundamental problem with the authors' approach is the very...

We describe an approach to textual inference that improves alignments at both the typed dependency level and at a deeper semantic level. We present a machine learning approach to alignment scoring, a stochastic search procedure, and a new tool that finds deeper semantic alignments, allowing rapid development of semantic features over the aligned graphs. Further, we describe a complementary semantic component based on natural logic, which shows an added gain of 3.13% accuracy on the RTE3 test set.

Discussions of sexual ethics often focus on the wrong of treating another as a mere object instead of as a person worthy of respect. On this view, the task of sexual ethics becomes putting the other’s subjectivity above their status as erotic object so as to avoid the harms of objectification. Ward and Anderson argue that such a view disregards the crucial, moral role that erotic objecthood plays in sexual encounters. Important moral features of intimacy are disclosed through the experience (...) of being an erotic object for another, as well as in perceiving another as an erotic object. Drawing on phenomenology, especially the insights of Simone de Beauvoir, Ward and Anderson argue that erotic encounters are shaped by the human condition of ambiguity, where being an object for others is intertwined with bodily agency. Because sexual agency is complex in this way, theories of sexual ethics and responsibility must widen their focus beyond transparent communication and authoritative expressions of will. (shrink)

Phenomenologists have long viewed love as a central form of inter-subjective engagement. I show here that it is also of concern to phenomenological ethics. After establishing the relation of phenomenology to ethics, I show that both classical and existential phenomenology view love as an act of valuing the loved one. I argue that a second act of valuing is latent in phenomenology: valuing the relationship. These values are evident in the phenomenological distinction between true love, which generates a “perspective in (...) difference,” and false love, which seeks union with the beloved manifesting in devotion and/or jealousy. Because culturally dominant heteronormative scripts incline individuals toward false love, lovers should create their own pacts for ethical relationships. I consider consensually non-monogamous relationships as an example. (shrink)

If, today, ‘politics is in culture and culture is relentlessly political’ (Brown, 2002), if the domains of ‘the political’ and ‘the cultural’ can no longer be easily distinguished or kept separate, then contemporary political theory requires an understanding and analysis of cultural politics. This essay undertakes the first stages of such a project by trying to theorize ‘cultural politics’. I argue that ‘cultural politics’ proves to be an object of discourse — it indeed has a certain discursive existence — but (...) not an object of discipline, since no single field or discipline produces it as an object of knowledge. I read this disciplinary failure optimistically, arguing that the study of cultural politics requires a reorientation of theory. The sort of interdisciplinary and multiple-genre work needed to study cultural politics produces a conception of theory as fugitive. Fugitive theory must travel among disciplines, calling on a variety of theoretical and political resources to sustain itself; it refuses the very notion of ‘applied’ theory, insisting that theory ‘is already at work’ in politics (Butler, 1997). To link politics to culture is to practise fugitive theory. And the practice of fugitive theory therefore has the capacity to reveal and explore the workings of cultural politics. (shrink)

This article asks the questions: Did the DPJ engage in crisis response and management differently than the LDP did? If so, why? If not, why not? In order to try to answer these questions systematically I use an inductive comparative method of choosing three equivalent each under the LDP and the DPJ in which they responded to a similar type of crisis. The crises selected were Okinawa bases issues in 1995 (LDP) and 2009 (DPJ), Senkaku Islands under the LDP (2008) (...) and DPJ (2010), and the Hanshin quake in 1995 (LDP) and Fukushima in 2011 (DPJ). This gave me a nice mix of intense, short-term cases to compare; one domestic (disaster-related), and two foreign (Okinawa bases with US; Senkaku/Daiyou conflict with China); coalition governments under LDP and DPJ (2009) of different kinds vs. single-party (other DPJ). A very brief description of each crisis will be followed by some generalizations comparing the two parties’ responses. I find that both parties had similar problems with information management, but that there were characteristic and predictable trade-offs of their different party decisionmaking structures and relations with the national bureaucracy. Finally, I mention some of the inherent structural problems of Japanese politics and policymaking that inhibit effective response regardless of the party in power. (shrink)

This article examines pregnancy as a dyadic body-project within surrogate motherhood arrangements. In gestational surrogacy arrangements, the surrogate mother agrees to have an embryo that has been created using IVF, with the genetic materials of the intended parents or of anonymous donors, surgically implanted in her womb. Based on anthropological fieldwork among Jewish-Israeli surrogates and intended mothers involved in these arrangements, this article focuses upon the interactive identity management practices that the women jointly undertake during the pregnancy. For each side, (...) creating an unambiguous definition of motherhood was central to their individual identity-work. For surrogates, the possible imputations of immorality required redefining pregnant embodiment as separate from maternal identity, while for intended mothers, the surrogate’s embodiment of the pregnancy represented competing claims to their own maternity. Through verbal communication and through practices of disembodiment and vicarious embodiment, the women construct a ‘shifting body’ which they use to designate the social label of pregnancy, identity-building processes associated with pregnant embodiment, and even the lived experience of pregnancy. This example of a dyadic body-project contributes to the existing scholarship on the role of the body in the management of identity. While previous works have examined projects of the body as individualistic pursuits, the shifting body exemplifies that body-projects can be collaborative, dual forms of identity-work and that pregnancy can be the site of these projects. (shrink)

An entry on the meaning and history of emergence as well as the current debate on emergentism in philosophy and the sciences.

Jean-Paul Sartre’s theory of “the look” has generally been understood as an argument for the impossibility of mutual recognition between consciousnesses. Being-looked-at reveals me as an object for the other, but I can never grasp this object that I am. I argue here that the chapter “The Look” in Being and Nothingness has been widely misunderstood, causing many to dismiss Sartre’s view unfairly. Like Hegel’s account of recognition, Sartre’s “look” is meant as a theory of successful mutual recognition that proves (...) the existence of others. Yet Sartre claims that such an account is plausible only if recognition is affective, not cognitive. Situating Sartre’s account of the look within his technical understanding of affect’s distinctness from cognition not only enables a better understanding of Sartre’s view, but also reveals a compelling alternative to the understanding of self-other relations in contemporary affect theory. (shrink)

This text considers how a host of ethical traditions define civil society.

In the words of Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley’s Beast and Man built “an urgently needed bridge between science and philosophy”.1 While science and philosophy have never been entirely remote, Murdoch w...

While Simone de Beauvoir’s theory of alterity has been the topic of much discussion within Beauvoir scholarship, feminist theory, and social and political philosophy, it has not commonly been a reference point for those working within ethics. However, Beauvoir develops a novel view that those concerned with the ethical import of respect for others should consider seriously, especially those working within the Levinasian tradition. I claim that Beauvoir distinguishes between two forms of otherness: namely, existential alterity and sociopolitical alterity. While (...) sociopolitical alterity is a contingent and surmountable form of otherness that results from oppression of individuals and groups, existential alterity is a necessary feature of the human condition that discloses the foreignness of the other as a freedom. Out of this view of existential alterity, I argue, Beauvoir develops an ethic of asymmetrical reciprocity. In contrast with Levinas, who dismisses reciprocity as a symmetrical or reversible model of relation that minimizes difference, Beauvoir promulgates a view of reciprocity that does not fall into the problems that Levinas diagnoses. Moreover, asymmetrical reciprocity more successfully figures the ethical relation to the other than the absolute asymmetry one finds in Levinas, which becomes evident through revisiting Levinas’s account of eros and contrasting it with that of Beauvoir. (shrink)

The original Italian text has been reproduced in the back of the volume.

The ‘reflexive turn’ transcended disciplinary boundaries within the social sciences. Feminist scholars in particular have taken up its core concerns, establishing a wide-ranging literature on reflexivity in feminist theory and practice. In this paper, I contribute to this scholarship by deconstructing the ‘story’ of my own research as a white, genderqueer, masculine-presenting researcher in Ghana. This deconstruction is based on thirteen months of field research exploring LGBT activism in the capital city of Accra. Using a series of ethnographic vignettes, I (...) examine questions of queer subjectivity, embodiment and self/other dynamics in the research encounter. Specifically, I interrogate what a reflexive concern for power relations means when researchers share moments of commonality and difference with research participants, here in relation to axes of gender, sexuality, race and class. Finally, I explore the challenge of theorising resistance in light of feminist postcolonial critiques of the politics of representation. I conclude that it is only by locating these tensions and dissonances in the foreground of our inquiries that reflexivity becomes meaningful as a way of rendering knowledge production more accountable and transparent, of practising feminist solidarity, and of excavating our own queer research journeys. (shrink)

It is always a delight to see contemporary engagement with the rich insights of Mencius and Xunzi. In the case of Sungmoon Kim’s thoughtful and ambitious book, this delight is further accompanied by a feeling of confidence about future possibilities. Indeed, the analytic style and the conceptual devices Kim adopts in his discussion and reconstruction of these two thinkers’ ideas provide us with a more focused and structured way to notice and appreciate their commonalities and differences. Moreover, he attends to (...) the differences in the social and political contexts these two thinkers were embedded in, as well as their different views regarding human nature and moral psychology. This attention is then followed by his... (shrink)

This book contains a group of 90 original dramatic essays, short plays, and letters_mostly written in the dialectical or dialogue style attributed to the great Greek philosopher, Socrates . Each essay seeks to take the reader to the uncharted territory of their own mind in order to break the shackles of hypocrisy_to develop individual virtue, character and to encourage morality, discipline, and perseverance in the face of obstacles.

The Progressive Revolution Volume III continues the historical and literary series systematically chronicling both the historical significance and political deconstruction that the Progressive Revolution or the Progressive Age has perpetrated against Western Civilization and American society even to this day.

The Progressive Revolution Volume IV continues this historical and literary series by systematically chronicling both the historical significance and political deconstruction that the Progressive Revolution or the Progressive Age has perpetrated against Western Civilization and American society.

The Progressive Revolution —continues his legal, historical and literary series based on Natural Law, Natural Rights and the original political philosophy of the constitutional Framers and original jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Progressive Revolution (Volume V)—continues his legal, historical and literary series based on Natural Law, Natural Rights and the original political philosophy of the constitutional Framers and original jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lacan postulated that the psyche can be understood by means of certain structures, which control our lives and our desires, and which operate differently at different logical moments or stages of formation.Jacques Lacan and the Logic of Structure offers us a reading of the major concepts of Lacan in terms of his later topological theory and aims to show how this was always a concern for Lacan and not only an issue in the last seminars. Ellie Ragland discusses how (...) various stages of formation can be uncovered topologically within language itself, and operate to place certain properties – fantasy, the drive, jouissance, discourse and ethics in language itself. In this way she explores not only how language actually works in tandem with the properties, but also gives a different idea of what knowledge actually is and what implications that may have for reimagining and reworking differential/diagnostic structures. Jacques Lacan and the Logic of Structure is a compelling exponent of the innovative approaches Lacan takes to rethinking what psychoanalysis is and what it can do to enlighten psychoanalysts and treat patients. It will be essential reading to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, training graduate students in the fields of film, literary, gender and cultural studies. (shrink)

_Autobiographical Reflections_ is a window into the mind of a man whose reassessment of the nature of history and thought has overturned traditional approaches to, and appraisals of, the Western intellectual tradition. Here we encounter the motivations for Voegelin's work, the stages in the development of his unique philosophy of consciousness, his key intellectual breakthroughs, his theory of history, and his diagnosis of the political ills of the modern age. Included in this revised volume is a glossary of terms used (...) in Voegelin’s writings. The glossary lists, defines, and illustrates from the author’s writings many of the key terms employed, paying particular attention to the Greek terms. Together, the glossary and enlarged index systematically include names, subjects, ideas, writings, and terms, making this volume an indispensable help for any serious study of Eric Voegelin’s oeuvre. (shrink)

A detailed description of an as yet unrecorded astrolabe quadrant in a private collection is presented. A date between 1291 and 1310 is deduced from the calendrical data engraved on it. The characteristics of the newly recorded instrument have been compared with those of six other medieval astrolabe quadrants. The newly recorded instrument appears to present an early, if not the earliest, stage of development in the history of the astrolabe quadrant. In the comparison the newly recorded instrument is also (...) distinguished by the red and black colours applied to differentiate between the superposed scales of the astrolabe quadrant. The names and the positions of the stars on the instruments were used to establish a connection between two of the instruments studied, those in Rouen and Oxford, and a manuscript tradition on the construction of the astrolabe quadrant, exemplified by MS Oxford Ashmole 1522. The data on three other astrolabe quadrants are shown to stem from star lists in treatises on astrolabes. For two instruments, those dated earliest and latest, no such connection was found. Some star names on the newly recorded instrument have hitherto not been recorded. Finally, the competence of the later medieval artisans has been investigated by analysing the accuracy of these instruments. (shrink)

"The Liberty for which Patriot Patrick Henry was willing to die was more than a rhetorical flourish. The American Patriots and Founders based their ideas about Liberty upon almost 200 years of experience on their own as well as the heritage of English Common Law and even back to the natural order of Thomas Aquinas, not to mention the philosophy of Aristotle and the Biblical Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. In over 50-years of scholarship Ellis Sandoz has researched, documented (...) and contemplated the governance of man throughout the ages. The erudition brought to bear in this compact tome reflects a depth and breadth of learning that illuminates the subject with dazzling insight. Yet, he always reminds us that principles of Liberty are readily comprehensible to the common man. Sandoz worries that the present day adherence to political correctness limits our response to obviously murderous terroristic movements. He attacks academia for ignoring the spiritual nature of existence and events. He even chastens "social dogoodism" when it is provided instead of, rather than as a reflection of, spiritual nourishment. The book revolves around the motivation and context of the American Founding and drives home its relevance to contemporary living. The Founders fought against tyranny that attempted to control their physical and spiritual lives. Unjust governance was deemed to be without authority. Aristocrats and commoners ultimately must answer to the Final Authority. These concepts are reflected in the Declaration of Independence: "all men are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights -- that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Sandoz is not only a scholar, but a grandfather; his words will engender Liberty for future generations."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

As debates rage over the place of faith in our national life, Tocqueville’s nineteenth-century crediting of religion for shaping America is largely overlooked today. Now, in _Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America,_ Ellis Sandoz reveals the major role that Protestant Christianity played in the formation and early period of the American republic. Sandoz traces the rise of republican government from key sources in Protestant civilization, paying particular attention to the influence of the Bible on the Founders and the blossoming (...) of the American mind in the eighteenth century. Sandoz analyzes the religious debt of the emergent American community and its elevation of the individual person as unique in the eyes of the Creator. He shows that the true distinction of American republicanism lies in its grounding of human dignity in spiritual individualism and an understanding of man’s capacity for self-government under providential guidance. Along the way, he addresses such topics as the neglected question of the education of the Founders for their unique endeavor, common law constitutionalism, the place of Latin and Greek classics in the Founders’ thought, and the texture of religious experience from the Great Awakening to the Declaration of Independence To establish a unifying theoretical perspective for his study, Sandoz considers the philosophical underpinnings of religion and the contribution that Eric Voegelin made to our understanding of religious experience. He contributes fresh studies of the character of Voegelin’s thought: its relationship to Christianity; his debate with Leo Strauss over reason, revelation, and the meaning of philosophy; and the theory of Gnosticism as basic to radical modernity. He also provides a powerful account of the spirit of Voegelin’s later writings, contrasting the political scientist with the meditative spiritualist and offering new insight into volume 5 of _Order and History_. _Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America_ concludes with timely reflections on the epoch now unfolding in the shadow of Islamic jihadism. Bringing a wide range of materials into a single volume, it confronts current academic concerns with religion while offering new insight into the construction of the American polity—and the heart of Americanism as we know it today. (shrink)

A broad sociocultural perspective defines trauma as the result of an event, a series of events, or a set of circumstances that is experienced as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening, with lasting impacts on an individual’s physical, social, emotional, or spiritual wellbeing. Contexts and practices that aim to be “trauma-informed” strive to attend to the complex impacts of trauma, integrating knowledge into policies and practices, and providing a sanctuary from harm. However, there is a body of critical and (...) decolonial scholarship that challenges the ways in which “trauma-informed” practice prioritizes individualized interventions, reinscribes colonial power relations through its conceptualizations of safety, and obscures the role of systemic injustices. Within music therapy trauma scholarship, research has thus far pointed to the affordances of music in ameliorating symptoms of trauma, bypassing unavailable cognitive processes, and working from a strengths-based orientation. In critiquing the tendency of the dominant trauma paradigm to assign vulnerability and reinforce the individual’s responsibility to develop resilience through adversity, this conceptual analysis outlines potential alternatives within music therapy. Drawing on a case example from a research project with young people in school, I elucidate the ways in which music therapy can respond to power relations as they occur within and beyond “trauma-informed” spaces. I highlight two overarching potentials for music therapy within a shifting trauma paradigm: (1) as a site in which to reframe perceived risk by fostering young people’s resistance and building their political agency and (2) in challenging the assumption of “safe spaces” and instead moving toward practices of “structuring safety.”. (shrink)

(1993). Fantasies on the fringe: Romantic concepts of nationalism in utopias set at the edges of nineteenth-century Europe. History of European Ideas: Vol. 16, No. 4-6, pp. 647-654.

All volumes of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek philosophy have won their due acclaim. The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship, his fairness and balance of judgement and the lucidity and precision of his English prose. He has achieved clarity and comprehensiveness.