Neal’s latest book uses Howard Thurman as a window through which to view concepts that shaped black thought in the Modern Era of the African-American Freedom Struggle. Thurman’s grasp of black culture and religious ideas during the period of enslavement allowed him to produce a body of work grounded in the musings and traditions of his ancestors.

In Common Ground, Anthony Neal examines the role that the ideas of consciousness and consciousness-raising play in the writings of Howard Thurman and Huey Newton. He examines these ideas from a broadly Afrocentric framework in which the concerns, interests, and perspectives of Africans--whether they reside on the continent or live in the African diaspora--are the legitimate and central subjects of scholarly study. This approach warrants Neal’s interpretation of Thurman’s and Newton’s writings as fitting within the “African Freedom Aesthetic,” in (...) which the aesthetic expressions of transcendence, transformation, human consciousness, and collective will have become the means by which Africans living under oppressive conditions during the modern period could work to liberate themselves from those conditions. (shrink)

In this author-meets critics discussion of Howard Thurman’s Philosophical Mysticism, Anthony Sean Neal argues that Thurman’s work requires systematic recognition of how he was rooted firmly within the Modern Era of the African American Freedom Struggle (1896–1975). Michael Barber suggests that Thurman may be understood in contrast to Levinas on two counts. Whereas Thurman develops the duty to love from within the one who must love, Levinas grasps the origin of love’s duty in the command of the one (...) who is to be loved. And while Thurman’s mysticism yearns for oneness, Levinas warns that oneness is ethically problematic. Eddie O'Byrn challenges the symbolic validity of calling love a weapon, and asks why the book has not treated Thurman’s relations to Gandhi or King. Neal defends a provisional usage of the term weapon in relation to love and offers some preliminary considerations of Thurman’s relation to Gandhi and King, especially in the symbolic significance of "the dream.". (shrink)

This study examines the idea of consciousness as a phenomenal reality in the writings of legendary civil rights figures, Howard W. Thurman and Huey P. Newton. Thurman is best known for his 1949 title, Jesus and the Disinherited, which is said to have inspired Dr. Martin Luther King, while Newton is best known for his work with The Black Panthers.

Philosophy and the African American Modern Freedom Struggle: A Freedom Gaze analyzes the ways oppression and marginalization produced the philosophical space necessary for the development of a unique form of Black consciousness within the African Diaspora.

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 91 Heft: 2 Seiten: 243-265.

Since the publication of The Man-Not in July of 2017, the wealth of empirical information challenging the conclusions of intersectionality and Black masculinity studies has gained the public’s attention. The Man-Not argues that in western patriarchal societies Black males and other racialized men and boys are targeted for extermination and social ostracization. Following the work of social dominance theorists and Global South Masculinities, Black Male Studies argues that patriarchy places outgroup-racialized men at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Philosophy and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle: A Freedom Gaze by Anthony Sean NealKordell DixonPhilosophy and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle: A Freedom Gaze Anthony Sean Neal. Rowman & Littlefield, 2022.Philosophy and the Modern African American Freedom Struggle begins with a clear and concise establishment of its aim: to analyze and expand upon those figures mentioned when discussing the academic project of (...) studying black people. Neal broadens the account of black scholars examining racialized existence by centering his work on the modern era and its initiator W. E. B Du Bois. Neal develops an ethnic reflective canon that documents the long history of black thinkers attempting to define their blackness and advance the conception of freedom. This book does an excellent job of capturing the genealogical structure of the struggle for freedom. Within the work, Neal denotes that all relevant figures in this tradition are freedom gazers. These gazers are spectators of a radically imagined future liberated from the oppressive systems that encumber the persecuted. Du Bois's approach to freedom gazing uses academic training to examine his blackness and inevitably to solve the "race problem." What Neal provides the reader is a road map of the intellectual work of black scholars. This road map details the common themes among black thinkers and how these themes relate to Du Bois. Neal's intricate network of philosophers uses their experience and their expertise to write about what is necessary for black people to obtain freedom. Neal composes a complex and remarkable catalog of black scholars that demonstrates the interconnectedness and progression of black thought on oppression and liberation.In the second chapter, Neal elucidates why Du Bois is chosen as the inaugurator of the modern era. As a formally educated black man, Du Bois questions his experience and what tethers him to oppression. Neal uses Du Bois as a focal point, not because Du Bois is the first black person to document their struggle with their racialized existence, but because he believes that Du Bois is the first scholar to analyze the black experience completely. The holistic nature of Du Bois's study of the existential conflict that race can manifest within its subjects allows Du Bois's analysis to be used as a tool to unify other works that discuss race and the struggle for freedom. Neal expresses how other scholars such as Frederick Douglass, Martin Delany, and Anna Julia Cooper all had work that takes up a similar task as Du Bois's but lacks the fullness of Du Bois's study. Here, Neal does not articulate clearly [End Page 87] how these figures are inadequate with respect to their work. It could be argued that each scholar named could be said to have accomplished a task similar to that of Du Bois. However, how these figures are studied throughout different disciplines gives the impression that their examination of race and freedom is much more focused on one specific field. This point speaks to how we interpret the work of these scholars and not to these scholars' work itself. Neal proceeds to describe Du Bois as a freedom gazer and explains how Du Bois's imagining of black persons as freed would allot a perceptual framework that motivates them to proclaim their right to mental and physical freedom. Further, Neal establishes that Du Bois's position as a freedom gazer allows him to expand the ethnic reflective canon. This canon includes Ida B. Wells, whose journalism on the lynching of black people during the Reconstruction era made headway on what social sciences could contribute to the struggle against injustice. Anna Julia Cooper is included in this canon; her radically imagined future was thought to be achieved through education. Wells and Cooper proceeded and directly influenced the work of Du Bois, creating a lineage of radical social thought. Neal maps his transition through the intellectual work of black scholars by using conceptions of peace, rebellion, revolution, and freedom as relational markers. The reader can identify the relationships among the varied work of freedom gazers despite the vast range of their spatiotemporal placement.In the third chapter, Neal examines the subjects Hubert Harrison, William H... (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which the review of corporate ethics codes is associated with individuals’ perceptions of the importance of virtue ethics, or more specifically, employee incorruptibility. A convenience sample of individuals working for a university or one of several business organizations located in the Mountain West region of the United States was compiled with a self-report questionnaire. A usable sample of 143 persons representing both the public and private industries was secured for (...) use in this study. The results of an analysis of covariance showed that reviewing ethics codes during employee orientation was positively related to individuals’ beliefs that incorruptibility is an important individual virtue. The managerial implications of the findings are discussed along with suggestions for future research. (shrink)

In the preceding article, Buchner and Wippich used a guessing-corrected, multinomial process-dissociation analysis to test whether a gender bias in fame judgments reported by Banaji and Greenwald was unconscious. In their two experiments, Buchner and Wippich found no evidence for unconscious mediation of this gender bias. Their conclusion can be questioned by noting that the gender difference in familiarity of previously seen names that Buchner and Wippich modeled was different from the gender difference in criterion for fame judgments reported by (...) Banaji and Greenwald, the assumptions of Buchner and Wippich's multinomial model excluded processes that are plausibly involved in the fame judgment task, and the constructs of Buchner and Wippich's model that corresponded most closely to Banaji and Greenwald's gender-bias interpretation were formulated so as to preclude the possibility of modeling that interpretation. Perhaps a more complex multinomial model can model the Banaji and Greenwald interpretation. (shrink)

This edited collection focuses on recently emerging debates around the themes of "risk", "trust", "uncertainty", and "ambivalence." Where much of the work on these themes in the social sciences has been theory based and driven, this book combines theoretical sophistication with close to the ground analysis and research in the fields of philosophy, education, social policy, government, health and social care, politics and cultural studies.

Often the only treatment available for patients suffering from diseased and injured organs is whole organ transplant. However, there is a severe shortage of donor organs for transplantation. The goal of organ engineering is to construct biological substitutes that will restore and maintain normal function in diseased and injured tissues. Recent progress in stem cell biology, biomaterials, and processes such as organ decellularization and electrospinning has resulted in the generation of bioengineered blood vessels, heart valves, livers, kidneys, bladders, and airways. (...) Future advances that may have a significant impact for the field include safe methods to reprogram a patient's own cells to directly differentiate into functional replacement cell types. The subsequent combination of these cells with natural, synthetic and/or decellularized organ materials to generate functional tissue substitutes is a real possibility. This essay reviews the current progress, developments, and challenges facing researchers in their goal to create replacement tissues and organs for patients. (shrink)

We describe a novel affect-inspired mechanism to improve the performance of computational systems operating in dynamic environments. In particular, we designed a mechanism that is based on aspects of the fear response in humans to dynamically reallocate operating system-level central processing unit (CPU) resources to processes as they are needed to deal with time-critical events. We evaluated this system in the MINIX® and Linux® operating systems and in three different testing environments (two simulated, one live). We found the affect-based system (...) was not only able to react more rapidly to time-critical events as intended, but since the dynamic processes for handling these events did not need to use significant CPU when they were not in time-critical situations, our simulated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was able to perform even non-emergency tasks at a higher level of efficiency and reactivity than was possible in the standard implementation. (shrink)

A crisis continues to brew within the pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) enterprise: productivity continues declining as costs rise, despite ongoing, often dramatic scientific and technical advances. To reverse this trend, we offer various suggestions for both the expansion and broader adoption of modeling and simulation (M&S) methods. We suggest strategies and scenarios intended to enable new M&S use cases that directly engage R&D knowledge generation and build actionable mechanistic insight, thereby opening the door to enhanced productivity. What M&S requirements (...) must be satisfied to access and open the door, and begin reversing the productivity decline? Can current methods and tools fulfill the requirements, or are new methods necessary? We draw on the relevant, recent literature to provide and explore answers. In so doing, we identify essential, key roles for agent-based and other methods. We assemble a list of requirements necessary for M&S to meet the diverse needs distilled from a collection of research, review, and opinion articles. We argue that to realize its full potential, M&S should be actualized within a larger information technology framework—a dynamic knowledge repository—wherein models of various types execute, evolve, and increase in accuracy over time. We offer some details of the issues that must be addressed for such a repository to accrue the capabilities needed to reverse the productivity decline. (shrink)

Previous research has successfully used feature integration theory to operationalise the predictions of Perceptual Load Theory, while simultaneously testing the predictions of both models. Building on this work, we test the extent to which these models hold up in a 3D world. In two experiments, participants responded to a target stimulus within an array of shapes whose apparent depth was manipulated using a combination of monoscopic and stereoscopic cues. The search task was designed to test the predictions of feature integration (...) theory, as the target was identified by a single feature or a conjunction of features and embedded in search arrays of varying size, and perceptual load theory, as the task included congruent and incongruent distractors presented alongside search tasks imposing high or low perceptual load. Findings from both experiments upheld the predictions of feature integration theory, regardless of 2D/3D condition. Longer search times in conditions with a combination of monoscopic and stereoscopic depth cues suggests that binding features into three-dimensional objects requires greater attentional effort. This additional effort should have implications for perceptual load theory, yet our findings did not uphold its predictions; the effect of incongruent distractors did not differ between conjunction search trials and feature search trials. Individual differences in susceptibility to the effects of perceptual load were evident and likely explain the absence of load effects. Overall, our findings suggest that feature integration theory may be useful for predicting attentional performance in a 3D world. (shrink)

The Heart of What Matters shows that literature has a powerful and unique role to play in understanding life's deepest ethical problems. Anthony Cunningham provides a rigorous critique of Kantian ethics, which has enjoyed a preeminent place in moral philosophy in the United States, arguing that it does not do justice to the reality of our lives. He demonstrates how fine literature can play an important role in honing our capacity to see clearly and choose wisely as he develops (...) a moral philosophy that engages with our intimate emotional concerns. Written in an accessible style and drawing from a provocative body of contemporary literature, this book shows how moral philosophy can reach a far wider audience than it has. -/- In part one of this book, Cunningham sketches out the theoretical basis for a redefined conception of moral philosophy. In part two, he engages in extended analyses of novels that address significant life and character issues, specifically Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Seraph on the Suwanee. Cunningham shows exactly how works like these can inform moral philosophy. Drawing from film, history, psychology, and other social sciences in addition to literature, this book adds to the growing number of works that use literature for ethical analysis and to the growing controversy over Kantian ethics. (shrink)

The Heart of What Matters shows that literature has a powerful and unique role to play in understanding life's deepest ethical problems. Anthony Cunningham provides a rigorous critique of Kantian ethics, which has enjoyed a preeminent place in moral philosophy in the United States, arguing that it does not do justice to the reality of our lives. He demonstrates how fine literature can play an important role in honing our capacity to see clearly and choose wisely as he develops (...) a moral philosophy that engages with our intimate emotional concerns. Written in an accessible style and drawing from a provocative body of contemporary literature, this book shows how moral philosophy can reach a far wider audience than it has. In part one of this book, Cunningham sketches out the theoretical basis for a redefined conception of moral philosophy. In part two, he engages in extended analyses of novels that address significant life and character issues, specifically Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Seraph on the Suwanee. Cunningham shows exactly how works like these can inform moral philosophy. Drawing from film, history, psychology, and other social sciences in addition to literature, this book adds to the growing number of works that use literature for ethical analysis and to the growing controversy over Kantian ethic. (shrink)

Education for Total Liberation is a collection of essays from leaders in the field of critical animal pedagogy (CAP). CAP emerges from activist educators teaching critical animal studies and is rooted in critical theory as well as the animal advocacy movement. Critical animal studies (CAS) argues for an interdisciplinary approach to understanding our relationships with nonhuman animals. CAS challenges two specific fields of theory: (1) animal studies, rooted in vivisection and testing on animals in the hard sciences and (2) human-animal (...) studies, which reinforces a socially constructed binary between humans and animals and adopts abstract theoretical approaches. In contrast, CAS takes a progressive and committed approach to scholarship and sees the exploitation of nonhuman animals as interrelated with oppression of humans based on class, gender, race, ability, sexuality, age, and citizenship. CAS promotes the liberation of all animals and challenges all systems of domination. Education for Total Liberation is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate level readers (and beyond) who wish to learn from examples of radical pedagogical projects shaped by CAS and critical pedagogy. Contributing to this collection are Anne C. Bell, Anita de Melo, Carolyn Drew, Amber E. George, Karin Gunnarsson Dinker, Sinem Ketenci, John Lupinacci, Anthony J. Nocella II, Sean Parson, Helena Pedersen, Ian Purdy, Constance L. Russell, J.L. Schatz, Meneka Repka, William E. Shanahan III, and Richard J, White. (shrink)

In 1959, Neal Miller made the bold claim that the Stimulus–Response, Behaviorist models of that era were describing the way in which stimuli lead to the entry of contents into consciousness. Today, researchers have begun to investigate the link between external stimuli and involuntary entry, using paradigms such as the reflexive imagery task, the focus of our review. The RIT has revealed that stimuli can elicit insuppressible entry of high-level cognitions. Knowledge of the boundary conditions of the RIT effect illuminates (...) the limitations of involuntary processes and the role of consciousness in the regulation of behavior. We review the boundary conditions of this paradigm as well as its systematic effects. Systematic effects are unlikely to be due to experimental demand. While reviewing each effect, we consider its theoretical implications. In addition, throughout our review, we discuss future directions for the study of insuppressible entry using the RIT. Last, we discuss a theoretical development that stems from the RIT and illuminates how involuntary entry and encapsulation, though at times disadvantageous for the actor, are essential for adaptive action selection during the course of ontogeny. (shrink)

The Expeditions: An Early Biography of Muḥammad by Maʿmar Ibn Rāshid according to the Recension of ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī. Edited and translated by Sean W. Anthony. Library of Arabic Literature. New York: New York University Press, 2014. Pp. xlv + 372. $35.

The Caliph and the Heretic: Ibn Sabaʾ and the Origins of Shiʿism. By Sean W. Anthony. Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 91. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Pp. xiii + 352. $189, €152.

Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The Making of the Prophet of Islam. By Sean William Anthony. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2020. Pp. xiv + 287. $32.95, £26.

Crucifixion and Death as Spectacle: Umayyad Crucifixion in Its Late Antique Context. By Sean W. Anthony. American Oriental Series, vol. 96. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 2014. Pp. x + 99. $39.50.

Shaftesbury's Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times was published in 1711. It ranges widely over ethics, aesthetics, religion, the arts (painting, literature, architecture, gardening), and ancient and modern history, and aims at nothing less than a new ideal of the gentleman. Together with Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Addison and Steele's Spectator, it is a text of fundamental importance for understanding the thought and culture of Enlightenment Europe. This volume presents a new edition of the text together with an (...) introduction, explanatory notes and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

In this chapter I articulate the threat that time travel to the past allegedly poses to the free will of the time traveler, and I argue that on the traditional way of thinking about free will, the incompatibilist about time travel and free will wins the day. However, a residual worry about the incompatibilist view points the way toward a novel way of thinking about free will, one that I tentatively explore toward the end of the chapter.

This chapter explores the concept of judgmentalism: what it is and why it’s morally problematic. After criticizing an account offered by Gary Watson, the paper argues for a broader understanding of what it is to be judgmental, encompassing not just the overall beliefs that we form about someone else, but also the very pattern of our thoughts about those with whom we are involved in interpersonal relationships. The thesis is that to care about someone is to be oriented toward them, (...) or to see them through a particular mental lens, in a way that produces a particular pattern of salience and silence. That is: caring about someone (at least ideally) has the effect of making some features of that person particularly salient, and silencing or screening off other features from one’s consciousness. One is aptly described as judgmental when one’s thoughts do not display this sort of pattern, indicating a failure to fully adopt the orientation that constitutes properly caring about the person. (shrink)

The concept of alienation: Hegelian themes in modern social thought -- Creative activity and alienation in Hegel and Marx -- The concept of labour -- The individual and society -- Freedom and the "realm of necessity" -- Alienation as a critical concept -- Private property and communism -- The division of labour and its overcoming -- Marx's concept of communism.

Aquinas needs no introduction as one of the greatest minds of the middle ages. Highly influential on the development of Christian doctrine, his ideas are still of fundamental philosophical importance. This new critique of his natural law theory discusses the theory's background in Aristotle and advances new interpretations of contemporary legal issues which hark back to Aquinas.

This article sketches an intellectual history of the distinction between Christian theology and Christian ethics. The twists and turns of that history have been obscured by a recent tendency to deny the distinction's usefulness, as part of a wider strategy for reasserting theology's relevance to modern social problems. By contrast, earlier theologians assumed the value of the theology/ethics divide, interpreting it through Aristotelian, neo-Kantian, and finally Marxist categories. The distinction fell into disrepute because theologians struggled to maintain the distinction consistently (...) and disagreed on the concerns implicated by it, variously using it to affirm the moral subject's agency, the divine/human difference, or the complexity of real people's circumstances. Nonetheless, the distinction has persisted as a useful shorthand for recognizing the limitations of Christian theology, qua a conceptual discourse, in fully apprehending its subject matter of the Christian life. (shrink)

Taking a refreshingly hands-on approach to introductory ethics, A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox provides students with a set of tools to help them understand and make a constructive difference in real-life moral controversies. Thoroughly optimistic, it invites students to approach ethical issues with a reconstructive intent, making room for more and better options than the traditional "pro" and "con" positions that have grown up around tough problems like abortion and animal rights. Ideal for introductory and applied ethics courses, this unique (...) text does not treat ethics as a purely academic, historical, or theoretical subject, but as a wide-ranging and ongoing set of challenges that calls for multiple and interwoven kinds of intelligence. It covers the skills that are most vital to making real progress in ethics, including paying careful attention to the values at stake on all sides of an issue; looking for creative opportunities within difficult problems; critical-thinking skills such as defining key terms and making sure to judge similar cases alike; and learning how to engage in constructive dialogue. Instructors can readily use the experiential and applied activities inspired by this "toolbox" of practical skills to design an interactive and collaborative ethics course. Students can carry these essential skills directly from this book into such projects as campaigning for environmental awareness and staffing local homeless shelters. In addition to his own discussion, Weston includes gripping and provocative short selections from essayists, activists, and philosophers, and also cites his own students. Extensive "Exercises and Notes" sections end each chapter, and a detailed appendix offers instructors advice on how to use the Toolbox in the classroom. (shrink)

Both critique and an appropriation of a large and diverse body of work, Home and Beyond is a major contribution to contemporary Husserl scholarship.

In this paper I argue that adopting a perdurance view of persistence through time does not lead to skepticism about moral responsibility, despite what many theorists have thought.

First published in 1973, Sir Anthony Kenny’s classic introduction to Wittgenstein was widely praised for offering a lucid and historically informed account of the philosopher’s core concerns. Kenny's study is also remarkable for demonstrating the continuity between Wittgenstein’s early and late writings. Focusing on Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind and language, Kenny closely examines the works of the middle years. He exposes apparent conflicts and then goes on to reconcile them, providing a persuasive argument for the unity of Wittgenstein’s thought. (...) This revised edition includes an extensive new introduction in which Kenny outlines developments in Wittgenstein scholarship since the book was first published and assesses Wittgenstein’s influence in the latter part of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Names, descriptions, and demonstratives raise well-known logical, ontological, and epistemological problems. Perhaps less well known, amongst philosophers at least, are the ways in which some of these problems not only recur with pronouns but also cross-cut further problems exposed by the study in generative linguistics of morpho-syntactic constraints on interpretation. These problems will be my primary concern here, but I want to address them within a general picture of interpretation that is required if wires are not to be crossed. That (...) picture will be sketched in sections 3 and 4; subsequent sections will focus on pronouns and binding, drawing heavily on what has preceded. (shrink)

Throughout his long and distinguished career, Sir Anthony Kenny has encountered some of the most notable and influential leaders of the post-war world. In these brilliantly vivid vignettes Kenny offers telling and often unexpected insights into the achievements, flaws and foibles of sixty public figures—past and present—each of whom has contributed in decisive ways to British political, spiritual, and cultural heritage.