Plural and conflicting values are often held to be conceptually problematic, threatening the very possibility of ethics, or at least rational ethics. Rejecting this view, Stocker first demonstrates why it is so important to understand the issues raised by plural and conflicting values, focusing on Aristotle's treatment of them. He then shows that plurality and conflict are commonplace and generally unproblematic features of our everyday choice and action, and that they do allow for a sound and rational ethics.

This paper gives an account of the most significant elements of Derrida’s ethical thought, drawing on the desert of the Hebrew Bible, which Derrida associates with a moral law that is ethically troubling. Partly with reference to Kierkegaard’s account of the story of Abraham and Isaac, Derrida examines how ethical law can become subordinate to the sovereignty of the power apparently at the source of ethics which may then destroy moral law. The political equivalent of this is the decision proposed (...) by Carl Schmitt, drawing on Kierkegaard. Derrida’s famous statement that “deconstruction is justice” is the recognition that justice, and ethics in general, is caught between the formality of law and the violence of the sovereign power. One outcome of this is sacrifice as substitution, where ethics becomes recompense for violation through sacrifice. Sacrifice is the offering of a substitute. The substitution becomes repeated and itself is then the source of violence contravening some sense of ethics. Derrida’s attempts to escape from these deserts include a poetics which recognises the subjective and the aesthetic in the interpretation of law. It also includes the development of a form of sacrifice which is the individual responding to violation in an individualised way which cannot be substituted. (shrink)

This article provides the first comprehensive conceptual account for the imagistic mental machinery that allows us to travel through time—for the time machine in our mind. It is argued that language reveals this imagistic machine and how we use it. Findings from a range of cognitive fields are theoretically unified and a recent proposal about spatialized mental time travel is elaborated on. The following novel distinctions are offered: external versus internal viewing of time; ‘‘watching” time versus projective ‘‘travel” through time; (...) optional versus obligatory mental time travel; mental time travel into anteriority or posteriority versus mental time travel into the past or future; single mental time travel versus nested dual mental time travel; mental time travel in episodic memory versus mental time travel in semantic memory; and ‘‘seeing” versus ‘‘sensing” mental imagery. Theoretical, empirical, and applied implications are discussed. (shrink)

How people understand the fundamental dynamics of stock and flow (SF) is an important basic theoretical question with many practical applications. Such dynamics can be found, for example, in monitoring one’s own private bank account (income versus expenditures), the state of a birthday party (guests coming versus leaving), or in the context of climate change (CO2 emissions versus absorption). Understanding these dynamics helps in managing everyday life and in controlling behavior in an appropriate way (e.g., stopping expenditures when the balance (...) of a bank account approaches zero). In this paper, we present a universal frame for understanding stock-flow reasoning in terms of the theory of force dynamics. This deep-level analysis is then applied to two different presentation formats of SF tasks in the context of climate change. We can explain why in a coordinate-graphic presentation misunderstandings occur (so called “SF failure”), whereas in a verbal presentation a better understanding is found. We end up with recommendations for presentation formats that we predict will help people to better understand SF dynamics. Better public SF understanding might in turn also enhance corresponding public action – such as enhancing pro-environmental actions in relation to climate change. (shrink)

How people understand the fundamental dynamics of stock and flow is an important basic theoretical question with many practical applications. In this paper, we present a universal frame for understanding stock-flow reasoning in terms of the theory of force dynamics. This deep-level analysis is then applied to two different presentation formats of SF tasks in the context of climate change. We can explain why in a coordinate-graphic presentation misunderstandings occur, whereas in a verbal presentation a better understanding is found. We (...) end up with recommendations for presentation formats that will help people to better understand SF dynamics. Better public SF understanding might in turn also enhance corresponding public action – such as enhancing pro-environmental actions in relation to climate change. (shrink)

This 1996 book is the result of a uniquely productive union of philosophy, psychoanalysis and anthropology, and explores the complexity and importance of emotions. Michael Stocker places emotions at the very centre of human identity, life and value. He lays bare how our culture's idealisation of rationality pervades the philosophical tradition and leads those who wrestle with serious ethical and philosophical problems into distortion and misunderstanding. Professor Stocker shows how important are the social and emotional contexts of ethical (...) dilemmas and inner conflicts, and he challenges philosophical theories that try to overgeneralise and over-simplify by leaving out the particulars of each situation. In offering a realistic account of emotions and an in-depth analysis of how psychological factors affect judgments of all kind, this book will interest a broad range of readers across the disciplines of philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

This thematic issue of Angelaki covers the ethics in deconstruction in Jacques Derrida in the broadest way, so as to be an engagement with Derrida’s philosophy as a whole rather than the isolation...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Educational Imperative: A Defense of Socratic and Aesthetic LearningMark StockerThe Educational Imperative: A Defense of Socratic and Aesthetic Learning, by Peter Abbs; x & 250 pp. Bristol, Pennsylvania: Taylor & Francis, 1994, $29.00 paper.O tempora! o mores! Peter Abbs begins by deploring “the cultural catastrophe” of British education in the mid-1990s. He states in his always lucid and accessible prose: “I want to come clean; I want (...) to place the general argument of the book in the current arena of public debate, and to do so without apology and without equivocation.” He bemoans today’s massive denial of spiritual energy, of intellectual enquiry, of aesthetic beauty and public virtue. In a better world, he says, education would serve, “willingly and lovingly... the transcendent ends” of culture and society. Abbs decisively rejects the “Cato” model where teachers are unquestioning skill-based technicians who employ [End Page 393] “managerial” language. Instead, he advocates a Socratic view, which is “to reaffirm that education should be primarily concerned with critical reflection, with personal development and with the sustained enquiry into the various forms of meaning.”Subsequent chapters apply this approach to the arts curriculum. Its failure to gain proper recognition and the absurd and continued conflation of Dance and Physical Education are indicted. Abbs convincingly attacks the notion of “self-expression” in art and language long upheld by educationalists. Its application at the expense of reason, abstract thinking, and the study of “the truly significant writers through the centuries” has in his view helped to trivialize and to marginalize the arts. Nowhere is this more apparent than in so-called “educational drama.” For three generations it has denied “the aesthetic field of drama, the symbolic field of its own form,” and has elevated one genre, improvisation, and made it the totality.Abbs is committed to reconciling “the creative energies of the individual and the creative energies of the culture.” Who would argue with that? And who could deny the value of critical reflection or indeed public virtue? He declares, rather ponderously: “The vested interests of Coca-Cola manufacturers or political missionaries have to be seen as too ‘recent and relevant’ to be allowed” to shape education. The Abbs academy requires “a formally protected place, an institutional space more like the theatre than Tesco [a supermarket chain], more like the cathedral than the Stock Exchange.” For all this patent seriousness and sincerity, here is an educationalist irrevocably and irreconcilably out of joint with the present. The austere modernism of Herbert Read profoundly influenced Abbs in his teens; he also admires F. R. Leavis, Richard Hoggart, and David Holbrook, whose writing at its most influential spans the 1930s and the 1960s. Abbs’s most recent source of inspiration is the art critic Peter Fuller, whose abiding legacy was a romantic nationalism that eloquently celebrated an “essentially symbolic and figurative” tradition in British art from J. M. W. Turner to Henry Moore.Modern Painters, which Fuller edited, could afford to eschew popular culture and its connections with “higher” arts. Fine for a periodical, but how could such a fastidious approach be applied to the classroom experience? Abbs describes an experiment that he performed on student-teachers at the University of Sussex to understand their aesthetic responses. Among the events and objects that the students were asked to consider were John Constable’s The Haywain, Richard Strauss’s The Four Last Songs, a visit to Claude Monet’s garden and a performance of Coriolanus. Abbs’s list does not, however, contain Pulp Fiction, a Courtney Love concert, or an S. E. Hinton novel. What place, if any, do the latter have in the arts curriculum? Must they be ruled out for being too “recent and relevant”? Can student responses to them be brought to bear on their comprehension of higher culture? Or is there a great and ultimately irreconcilable divide? Abbs never faces these issues and instead, in his fogyish [End Page 394] coda, denounces once more “the consumer society” which has “trivialized on an unprecedented scale” and has “tarnished whatever it has touched.”Mark StockerUniversity of Canterbury, New ZealandCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

The later Wittgenstein claimed to resolve philosophical problems through returning words to their 'ordinary' use. The paradox arises that Wittgenstein's own philosophy must be written in a philosophical language and, therefore, in an extra-ordinary language. The paradox is discussed with particular reference to rules. Rules constitute language, but the account of the 'rule' itself leads to paradox and contradiction. A rule is followed and following a rule requires an interpretation. The interpretation of the rule requires a decision. The decision precedes (...) the rule, so it justifies following a rule but there cannot be a rule for the decision itself. (shrink)

Hegel's philosophy of literature, in the Aesthetics and other texts, gives no extended discussion of the novel. Hegel's predecessor Friedrich Schlegel had produced a philosophy of literature with a central position for the novel. Schlegel's discussion of the novel is based on a view of Irony which allows the novel to be the fusion of poetry and philosophy. Hegel retained a place for art, including poetry, below that of philosophy. The Ironic conception of the novel has themes, which also appear (...) in Hegel, of the unity of opposites. However, for Hegel Irony does not allow the unity of artistic form and does not allow art to be guided by law and science. Therefore Hegel's philosophy of literature owes much to Schlegel but needs to attack Irony and minimise the role of the novel. Irony is criticised as a purely negative position of a 'beautiful soul', which cannot act and in its absolutely subjective resistance to evil in the world becomes evil itself. Hegel gives great importance to Epic which foreshadows the emergence of philosophy in its unity, but it is a unity based on conflicting individuality and lawlessness. In the modern world Heroic lawlessness can only be approached as nostalgia, the novel cannot integrate individuality and law, only religion and philosophy above aesthetics, including the novel. (shrink)

A dirty hands case is justified, obligatory or permissible, and morally wrong. It is argued that dirty hands are conceptually unproblematic and that they are instances of ordinary evaluative phenomena. Some ordinary cases of moral conflict are like dirty hands in that they are entirely justified, yet regrettable. The analysis shows that such cases involve double counting––the disvalue is counted once and overridden in the act‐guiding evaluation, and counted again later as the object of the moral emotions and as being (...) a disvalue. In addition, dirty hands are cases in which what is morally required is also immoral, and therefore regrettable. Shows that ethical theories can and should account for the existence of moral choices involving acts that are justified, even obligatory, yet nevertheless wrong, shameful, and regrettable. (shrink)

: Using Judith Butler's notion that bodies are materialized via performances, "resignifying" disability involves a "democratizing contestation" of staircases because they exclude those in wheelchairs. Paleoanthropologist Maxine Sheets-Johnstone shows how consistent bipedal locomotion, together with the knowledge that we will die (upon which mutuality is based), are ingredients of our pan-hominid speciation, not contingent constructions. As axiologically important as contestation is, it forecloses the possibility of achieving a mutuality with others, that is wonderfully possible.

Does a woman's being repeatedly battered by her husband excuse her killing him while he was asleep? This and similar questions are often dealt with by asking a more general question, “Should we accept abuse excuses? ” These questions engender a lot of heat, but little light, in the media and other public forums, and even in the writings of many theorists. They have been discussed as if there is a typical abuse excuse we can examine in order to examine (...) abuse excuses in general. Similarly, the question of whether we should accept abuse excuses has often been discussed as if it is simple and straightforward. But there is no one typical abuse excuse, and the question of whether to accept such excuses is neither simple nor straightforward. There are many different abuse excuses, many different circumstances in which they are deployed, and many different sorts of concerns motivating their use. In this, abuse excuses are just like other, well-accepted excuses, such as self-defense. (shrink)

According to Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean, virtue and a good life involve a mean of feeling and action. This chapter focuses on David Pear's claim that the Doctrine is conceptually incoherent. It argues that there are serious difficulties in understanding what it could be for courage and its feelings to be in a mean. Courage involves plural and incommensurable values, victory and danger, and the respective emotions, confidence and fear––it is difficult to see how these can be resolved into (...) a mean. It is argued that this problem can be solved by seeing how incommensurable value and emotions can fuse into complex wholes of disparate and incommensurable values and emotions, and can thus be assessed as lying or not lying in a mean. (shrink)

This investigation of Kierkegaard as a political thinker with regard to the Danish context, and to his place in the history of political thought, deals with the more direct discussion of politics in Kierkegaard, and the ways in which political ideas are embedded in his literary, aesthetic, ethical, philosophical and religious thought.

Addresses the central claim of maximization that we must do what is best. It is argued that maximization is neither morally nor rationally required. Maximization cannot adequately deal with the ethical concepts of superogation, self‐regard, amusement, and friendship; furthermore, the central claims of moral and rational choice do not involve maximization. Moral and rational appraisal of a choice of action requires evaluating its contribution to a whole, where the whole need not be the best available, only good enough.

How does conscious thought occur? In the scene 'The cat is next to the dog', the cat is within a proximal distance to the left or right of the dog. This probabilistic proximal left/right cognitive space is an example of a mental 'place field'. A place field -- also in humans presumably represented by place cells in the hippocampus -- represents latent and thus potentially unconscious thought. Mentally 'seeing' the cat to the left or right is an example of a (...) 'localized point' within a place field. A localized point represents manifest and thus conscious thought. As proposed, this field-to-point reduction is naturally described in terms of force dynamics, a prominent theory of causal cognition. Possible generalizations from spatial mental imagery to all conscious occurrences of thought and emotion are discussed. (shrink)

RECENT STUDIES IN NORMATIVE ETHICS have concentrated on act evaluations, neglecting, almost ignoring, agent evaluations. A partial explanation of this defect is found in two related ones: the neglect of act evaluations other than the obligation notions, and the failure to do justice even to them. In each case, neglecting the "other" concepts is implicated in serious misunderstandings of what is considered—or more accurately, what is over-considered. Take, for example, the view that it is obligatory to obtain for oneself the (...) greatest good one can, e.g., pleasure. Even a cursory study of prudence and other primarily self-regarding notions could have saved Moore, Ross, Ewing, and many others from holding or committing themselves to this silly view. (shrink)

Using Judith Butler's notion that bodies are materialized via performances, “resig-nifying” disability involves a “democratizing contestation” of staircases because they exclude those in wheelchairs. Paleoanthropologist Maxine Sheets-Johnstone shows how consistent bipedal locomotion, together with the knowledge that we will die, are ingredients of our pan-hominid speciation, not contingent constructions. As axiologically important as contestation is, it forecloses the possibility of achieving a mutuality with others that is wonderfully possible.

Introduction Life, art and mysticism Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer Logic and ethics as the limits of the world Anthony Rudd To what extent is solipsism a truth? Michael Kremer Frege at therapy Kelly Dean Jolley 'Making sense' of nonsense Conant and Diamond read Wittgenstein's Tractatus Diarmuid Costello More making sense of nonsense: from logical form to forms of life Daniel D. Hutto Saying and showing: an example from Anscombe Cora Diamond Why worry about the Tractatus? James Conant Transcendence and contradiction (...) in the Tractatus Barry Stocker Wittgenstein's onto-logic Barry Allen Bibliography Index. (shrink)

People often make use of a spatial “mental time line” to represent events in time. We investigated whether the eyes follow such a mental time line during online language comprehension of sentences that refer to the past, present, and future. Participants' eye movements were measured on a blank screen while they listened to these sentences. Saccade direction revealed that the future is mapped higher up in space than the past. Moreover, fewer saccades were made when two events are simultaneously taking (...) place at the present moment compared to two events that are happening in different points in time. This is the first evidence that oculomotor correlates reflect mental looking along an abstract invisible time line during online language comprehension about time. Our results support the idea that observing eye movements is likely to “detect” invisible spatial scaffoldings which are involved in cognitively processing abstract meaning, even when the abstract meaning lacks an explicit spatial correlate. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

This article introduces the theory of cognitive spacetime. This account allows us to go beyond the space–time dichotomy that is commonly employed in psychology and cognitive science. Linguistic analysis and experimental review is provided to support the notion that what is commonly referred to as spatial cognition (or mental space) in the cognitive sciences always contains time, and that what is commonly referred to as temporal cognition (or mental time) always contains space. For “spatial cognition” the term object-spatiotemporal cognition (or (...) object spacetime) and for “temporal cognition” the term event-spatiotemporal cognition (or event spacetime) is introduced. In order to exemplify the virtue of the new spacetime account (with its two subdomains, object spacetime and event spacetime) with a specific example, it is investigated how this new notion can substantially refine our understanding of space–time conceptual metaphor. A new conceptual-metaphor spacetime typology for cognitive processing underlying fictive motion and non-fictive motion is also proposed. Implications of the new spacetime account are discussed for metaphorically mapped mental perspective, metaphorically mapped embodiment, and cognitive science in general. Finally, specific reasons are given why the current proposal of cognitive spacetime cannot be equated with the concept of spacetime in modern physics. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida is one of the most influential and controversial philosophers of the last fifty years. _Derrida on Deconstruction_ introduces and assesses: Derrida's life and the background to his philosophy the key themes of the critique of metaphysics, language and ethics that characterize his most widely read works the continuing importance of Derrida's work to philosophy. This is a much-needed introduction for philosophy or humanities students undertaking courses on Derrida.

One of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the twentieth-century, Jacques Derrida’s ideas on deconstruction have had a lasting impact on philosophy, literature and cultural studies. Jacques Derrida: Basic Writings is the first anthology to present his most important philosophical writings and is an indispensable resource for all students and readers of his work. Barry Stocker’s clear and helpful introductions set each reading in context, making the volume an ideal companion for those coming to Derrida’s writings for the (...) first time. The selections themselves range from his most infamous works including Speech and Phenomena and Writing and Difference to lesser known discussion on aesthetics, ethics and politics. (shrink)

Background Informed consent is often cited as the “cornerstone” of research ethics. Its intent is that participants enter research voluntarily, with an understanding of what their participation entails. Despite agreement on the necessity to obtain informed consent in research, opinions vary on the threshold of disclosure necessary and the best method to obtain consent. We aimed to investigate Australian researchers’ views on, and their experiences with, obtaining informed consent. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 researchers from NSW institutions, working (...) in various fields of research. Interviews were analysed and coded to identify themes. Results Researchers reported that consent involved information disclosure, understanding and a voluntary decision. They emphasised the variability of consent interactions, which were dependent on potential participants’ abilities and interests, study complexity and context. All researchers reported providing written information to potential participants, yet questioned the readability and utility of this information. The majority reported using signed consent forms to ‘operationalise’ consent and reported little awareness of, and lack of support in implementing more dynamic informed consent procedures, such as verbal informed consent, that was fit for the purposes of their studies. Views on Human Research Ethics Committees varied. Some reported inconsistent, arduous inputs on the information form and consent process. Others expressed reliance on HRECs for guidance, viewing them as institutional safeguards. Conclusions This study highlights the importance of transparent relationships, both between researchers and participants, and between researchers and HRECs. Where the relationship with study participants was reported as more robust, researchers felt that they were better able to ensure participants made better, more informed decisions. Where the relationship with HRECs was reported as more robust, researchers were more likely to view them as institutional safeguards, rather than as bureaucratic hindrances. Conscientious and mindful researchers are paramount to ensuring the procedure accommodates individual requirements. This study advocates that when designing ethical informed consent practices, researchers should be integrated as autonomous players with a positive input on the process, rather than, in the worst case, predatory recruiters to be curtailed by information forms and oversight. (shrink)

Looks at akrasia, monism, and pluralism. Many deem akrasia conceptually incoherent. Others, notably David Wiggins, argue that coherence is secured in so far as incommensurable values are present. Against these views, it is argued that coherent akrasia is possible, and that it requires the distinction between the cognitive and the affective, and not between comparable and commensurable values. Akrasia extends to monistic theories––a monistic theory, e.g. hedonism, is compatible with akrasia. Akratic conflict does not require plurality. An account of reasons, (...) which goes beyond value finality and value maximization, emerges. (shrink)

Philosophers commonly argue that conflicts of values are deeply problematic for ethical theories in so far as they force the theories into impracticality, incompleteness, or irrealism. To be complete, a theory must tell us in every case what must be done. To be practical, it must never tell us to do what is impossible. As conflict seems to involve just these features, some philosophers argue from the fact that avoiding conflict is impossible to the conclusion that ethical theories must either (...) be silent in some cases or that it requires us to do both of the jointly impossible acts. Others seek to explain the conflict away as merely apparent. Against these views, it is argued that mere incompossibility does not make for a conflict. All choice involves incompossibility, but not all choice involves conflict. Conflict must be understood in terms of what is conflicting. Understanding this requires seeing that many act evaluations are not action‐guiding. (shrink)

Examines arguments that maximization holds for conceptual reasons. Looks at maximizing theory and raises conceptual problems for evaluative maximization––difficulties in ranking mixes, problems with organic wholes, and mathematical versus internal evaluative judgments. As regards the evaluative decisions maximization is concerned with, it is argued that we are guided in our understanding of what is good by what is better. To the extent that the better is prior to the good, maximizations are parasitic on other evaluations. Concludes with a look at (...) the discussion of false pleasures in Plato's Philebus. (shrink)

Confucius, Plato, and Aristotle would agree on three propositions: genuine virtue represents a kind of second nature, a result of education such that patterns of choice become natural and predictable that would not be natural and predictable for the average person; there are patterns of gratification attendant on genuine virtue, that involve deeper values than most of the things that people pursue in life; and because of these, genuine virtue is always in a person's self-interest. The word “gratification” here is (...) deliberately broad. There can be brief periods of satisfaction, with performances that enjoyably are going well; these would amount to refined pleasures. But there also can be an agreeable sense of having come to terms with oneself, with no sense of self-disapproval or keen regret. This can be an important element in happiness. (shrink)

Examines the proposal that value conflict generally requires plural values, and finds that it is correct, but only about a kind of rational conflict, which is rational conflict restricted to practicable options. The focus is on kinds of conflict and whether monism is apt to handle them. The discussion lays out the intricacies of conflict, and its relation to time, agency, and differential care. It is concluded that only pluralism can allow for the lack and loss involved in rational conflict (...) over practicable options. (shrink)

The paper is an exploration ofhow Pascal and Derrida are both concerned with the consequences of not being able to find a transcendental centre for concepts. Both establish this through a discussion of the origin of geometry, and the contradictions of establishing a discourse for the pure principles of geometry. Pascal and Derrida both refer to the anxiety produced by the infinite possibilities of system and the impossibility of finding a foundation in a limited set of principles. For Pascal the (...) question emerges in his general philosophical work Pensées and ‘On the Spirit of Geometry’. Similarly for Derrida, what appears in his general philosophical work, also appears in a work referring to the possibility of transcendental foundations for geometry, ‘Introduction to Husserl’s Origin of Geometry’. For both philosophers questions arise of the contradictions of establishing basic concepts. Circularity inevitably appears, particularly with regard to ‘is’ and ‘being’; the concepts themselves are necessarily divided between their pure existence and their empirical applications. The essential difference suggested between Pascal and Derrida is that for Pascal, basic principles can be given an explanation in ‘reasons of the heart’, while for Derrida contradiction is necessary, present everywhere and is irreducible to any basic principle of any kind.L’article consiste en une exploration de la façon dont Pascal et Derrida se préoccupent des conséquences de ne pas pouvoir trouver un centre transcendantal pour les concepts. Tous deux en arrivent à ce constat suite à une discussion de l’origine de la géométrie, et des contradictions inhérentes au discours sur les principes purs de la géométrie. Pascal et Derrida renvoient tous deux à l’anxiété induite par les possibilités infinies du système et l’impossibilité d’une fondation se résumant à une suite limitée de principes. Pour Pascal, la question émerge dans ses Pensées et dans «De l’esprit géométrique». De façon similaire chez Derrida, la question se pose, comme dans son oeuvre générale, dans un ouvrage portant sur la possibilité de fondations transcendantales de la géométrie, Introduction à L’origine de la géométrie de E. Husserl. Pour les deux philosophes, la question se pose quant aux contradictions découlant de l’établissement de concepts fondamentaux. Une circularité est inévitable, en particulierautour du concept d’«etre»; les concepts eux-mêmes sont nécessairement divisés entre une existence pure et leur applications empiriques. La différence essentielle entre les deux penseurs, c’est que pour Pascal, les principes fondamentaux peuvent être expliqués par des «raisons du coeur», alors que pour Derrida, la contradiction est nécessaire, partout présente, et irréductible à un quelconque principe. (shrink)

This book explores the aesthetics of the novel from the perspective of Continental European philosophy, presenting a theory on the philosophical definition and importance of the novel as a literary genre. It analyses a variety of individuals whose work is reflected in both theoretical literary criticism and Continental European aesthetics, including Mikhail Bakhtin, Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. Moving through material from eighteenth century and ancient Greek philosophy and aesthetics, the book provides comprehensive coverage of the major positions (...) on the philosophy of the novel. Distinctive features include the importance of Vico’s view of the epic to understanding the novel, the importance of Kierkegaard’s view of the novel and irony along with his other aesthetic views, the different possibilities associated with seeing the novel as ‘mimetic’ and the importance of Proust in understanding the genre in all its philosophical aspects, relating the issue of the philosophical aesthetics of the novel with the issue of philosophy written as a novel and the interaction between these two alternative positions. (shrink)

Considers a cognate issue, which is whether what is immoral can nevertheless be admirable. It is argued that admirable immorality, like dirty hands, does not pose special problems for ethical theories. At the heart of admirable immorality lies a conflict of moral virtues, which is unavoidable and necessitates conflict. Looks at two case studies, the painter Paul Gauguin and Winston Churchill.

Takes up particular issues of conflict and plurality in Aristotle's ethics and moral psychology. Argues that Aristotle explicitly allows for dirty hands as well as conflicts of values and of desires. This involves discussing issues in Aristotle's treatment of voluntariness, mixed acts, eudaimonia, and pleasure. It is argued that for Aristotle, being a good person does not mean that choices among values can be executed lightly, nor does it ensure that the good never experience lack of eudaimonia, since even they (...) have to deal with dirty hands and conflict of values. (shrink)

The paper is an exploration ofhow Pascal and Derrida are both concerned with the consequences of not being able to find a transcendental centre for concepts. Both establish this through a discussion of the origin of geometry, and the contradictions of establishing a discourse for the pure principles of geometry. Pascal and Derrida both refer to the anxiety produced by the infinite possibilities of system and the impossibility of finding a foundation in a limited set of principles. For Pascal the (...) question emerges in his general philosophical work Pensées and ‘On the Spirit of Geometry’. Similarly for Derrida, what appears in his general philosophical work, also appears in a work referring to the possibility of transcendental foundations for geometry, ‘Introduction to Husserl’s Origin of Geometry’. For both philosophers questions arise of the contradictions of establishing basic concepts. Circularity inevitably appears, particularly with regard to ‘is’ and ‘being’; the concepts themselves are necessarily divided between their pure existence and their empirical applications. The essential difference suggested between Pascal and Derrida is that for Pascal, basic principles can be given an explanation in ‘reasons of the heart’, while for Derrida contradiction is necessary, present everywhere and is irreducible to any basic principle of any kind.L’article consiste en une exploration de la façon dont Pascal et Derrida se préoccupent des conséquences de ne pas pouvoir trouver un centre transcendantal pour les concepts. Tous deux en arrivent à ce constat suite à une discussion de l’origine de la géométrie, et des contradictions inhérentes au discours sur les principes purs de la géométrie. Pascal et Derrida renvoient tous deux à l’anxiété induite par les possibilités infinies du système et l’impossibilité d’une fondation se résumant à une suite limitée de principes. Pour Pascal, la question émerge dans ses Pensées et dans «De l’esprit géométrique». De façon similaire chez Derrida, la question se pose, comme dans son oeuvre générale, dans un ouvrage portant sur la possibilité de fondations transcendantales de la géométrie, Introduction à L’origine de la géométrie de E. Husserl. Pour les deux philosophes, la question se pose quant aux contradictions découlant de l’établissement de concepts fondamentaux. Une circularité est inévitable, en particulierautour du concept d’«etre»; les concepts eux-mêmes sont nécessairement divisés entre une existence pure et leur applications empiriques. La différence essentielle entre les deux penseurs, c’est que pour Pascal, les principes fondamentaux peuvent être expliqués par des «raisons du coeur», alors que pour Derrida, la contradiction est nécessaire, partout présente, et irréductible à un quelconque principe. (shrink)

Hegel's philosophy of literature, in the Aesthetics and other texts, gives no extended discussion of the novel. Hegel's predecessor Friedrich Schlegel had produced a philosophy of literature with a central position for the novel. Schlegel's discussion of the novel is based on a view of Irony which allows the novel to be the fusion of poetry and philosophy. Hegel retained a place for art, including poetry, below that of philosophy. The Ironic conception of the novel has themes, which also appear (...) in Hegel, of the unity of opposites. However, for Hegel Irony does not allow the unity of artistic form and does not allow art to be guided by law and science. Therefore Hegel's philosophy of literature owes much to Schlegel but needs to attack Irony and minimise the role of the novel. Irony is criticised as a purely negative position of a 'beautiful soul', which cannot act and in its absolutely subjective resistance to evil in the world becomes evil itself. Hegel gives great importance to Epic which foreshadows the emergence of philosophy in its unity, but it is a unity based on conflicting individuality and lawlessness. In the modern world Heroic lawlessness can only be approached as nostalgia, the novel cannot integrate individuality and law, only religion and philosophy above aesthetics, including the novel. (shrink)

We introduce a new and time-efficient memory-encoding paradigm for functional magnetic resonance imaging. This paradigm is optimized for mapping multiple contrasts using a mixed design, using auditory and visual stimuli. We demonstrate that the paradigm evokes robust neuronal activity in typical sensory and memory networks. We were able to detect auditory and visual sensory-specific encoding activities in auditory and visual cortices. Also, we detected stimulus-selective activation in environmental-, voice-, scene-, and face-selective brain regions. A subsequent recognition task allowed the detection (...) of sensory-specific encoding success activity in both auditory and visual cortices, as well as sensory-unspecific positive ESA in the hippocampus. Further, sensory-unspecific negative ESA was observed in the precuneus. Among others, the parallel mixed design enabled sustained and transient activity comparison in contrast to rest blocks. Sustained and transient activations showed great overlap in most sensory brain regions, whereas several regions, typically associated with the default-mode network, showed transient rather than sustained deactivation. We also show that the use of a parallel mixed model had relatively little influence on positive or negative ESA. Together, these results demonstrate a feasible, versatile, and brief memory-encoding task, which includes multiple sensory stimuli to guarantee a comprehensive measurement. This task is especially suitable for large-scale clinical or population studies, which aim to test task-evoked sensory-specific and sensory-unspecific memory-encoding performance as well as broad sensory activity across the life span within a very limited time frame. (shrink)