First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

To what extent should states accommodate religious liberty claims? Can the pluralist state be neutral between religions and secularism? This book explores contemporary legal controversies regarding the protection of religious liberty from a theoretical and comparative perspective, looking at issues such as family and parenting, medical treatment, education, employment, religious group autonomy, and freedom of expression.

In the late 1990s, Rosalind Krauss, one of the principal theorists of post-modernism in the arts, began using the term "post-medium" in her work. It was a nod to the American "ordinary language" philosopher Stanley Cavell, who had been thinking through a concept of medium in art for 30 years. Today with the decline of post-modernism, Stanley Cavell has emerged as one of the most important figures for thinking again about the visual arts, film and theatre. Stanley Cavell and the (...) Arts looks at Cavell's extensive writings on a wide variety of artforms and at a number of writers (Michael Fried, William Rothman) influenced by his work. Over a 50-year career, Cavell wrote about visual art, photography, classical music, Shakespeare, the plays of Samuel Beckett and perhaps most notably Hollywood cinema. Stanley Cavell and the Arts offers an overview of Cavell's writings on the arts, situating them within his wider philosophical practice, analysing in detail his treatment of particular art forms and looking at the work of those he has deeply shaped. (shrink)

This article is a study of the earliest Twelver Shiʿi literature on pilgrimage to the tombs of the Prophet Muḥammad and his revered descendants. Such tombs had been visited since the first centuries of Islam, holding especial importance for Shiʿis, but the associated pilgrimage rites were not discussed in early Islamic legal literature. This had changed by the mid-fourth/tenth century, as Twelver scholars sought to codify ziyāra alongside long-established rites like prayer and ḥajj. As they did so, these scholars had (...) to mediate between the accustomed texts and tools of legal discourse and a world of practice, identity, and devotion that lay beyond the usual purview of the law. Ziyāra might be just another voluntary piety, but it might also be more important than the ḥajj itself. (shrink)

Nietzsche's influence upon European philosophy has been, and continues to be, profound. Indeed, recent years have seen Nietzsche scholarship become the battleground for debates over philosophical method between the analytic and continental traditions. This fresh introduction to Nietzsche's philosophical work provides students new to Nietzsche with an excellent framework for understanding the central concerns of his philosophical and cultural writings and why Nietzsche's ideas continue to spark controversy in philosophy and in allied disciplines. The book is divided into three parts. (...) In the first section "Nietzsche Against the Tradition", the author shows why Nietzsche rejects wholesale certain components of the Western philosophical and religious traditions and examines the implications of rejecting them. Those components are considered under the headings of morality, religion and nihilism. In the second part "Nietzsche and the Tradition", the author explores Nietzsche's ambivalent and sophisticated reflections on some of the central topics in the Western philosophical tradition. These include Nietzsche's criticisms of metaphysics, his analysis of truth and knowledge, and his reflections on the self and consciousness. In the final section "Nietzsche Beyond the Tradition", Welshon discusses some of the ways in which Nietzsche does, or is thought to, transcend the Western philosophical tradition with chapters on the will to power, politics and education, artistry and the flourishing life. The book provides readers with balanced, clear analysis and is ideally suited as a companion resource for students tackling Nietzsche's challenging prose style. (shrink)

The authors of the articles in this special section discuss an array of psychological perspectives on emotion. The articles provide only a limited consideration of status and power processes, however, which play a larger role in sociological theories of emotion than in psychological ones. Here, I examine the ways in which the theories account for status and power and suggest opportunities for greater inclusion of these key facets of social structure.

This important new introduction to Nietzsche's philosophical work provides readers with an excellent framework for understanding the central concerns of his philosophical and cultural writings. It shows how Nietzsche's ideas have had a profound influence on European philosophy and why, in recent years, Nietzsche scholarship has become the battleground for debates between the analytic and continental traditions over philosophical method. The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, the author discusses morality, religion and nihilism to show why (...) Nietzsche rejects certain components of the Western philosophical and religious traditions as well as the implications of this rejection. In the second part, the author explores Nietzsche's ambivalent and sophisticated reflections on some of philosophy's biggest questions. These include his criticisms of metaphysics, his analysis of truth and knowledge, and his reflections on the self and consciousness. In the final section, Welshon discusses some of the ways in which Nietzsche transcends, or is thought to transcend, the Western philosophical tradition, with chapters on the will to power, politics, and the flourishing life. (shrink)

In his well known proposition that pleasures differ qualitatively, Mill seems to be arguing three principal points. ‘Mental’ pleasures as a kind are intrinsically ‘more desirable and more valuable’ than ‘bodily pleasures’ . This estimation of pleasure, Mill says, is such as to rule out the claim that it ‘should be supposed to depend on quantity alone.’ Indeed, he continued, the ‘superiority in quality’ might be ‘so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account’ . The (...) ‘test of quality and the rule for measuring it against quantity,’ Mill says, is ‘the preference’ of experienced judges . ‘[T]he judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final’. (shrink)

Here we review 37 modern neuroimaging studies in an attempt to address this question posed by Halstead (1947) as he and other icons of the last century endeavored to understand how brain and behavior are linked through the expression of intelligence and reason. Reviewing studies from functional (i.e., functional magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography) and structural (i.e., magnetic resonance spectroscopy, diffusion tensor imaging, voxel-based morphometry) neuroimaging paradigms, we report a striking consensus suggesting that variations in a distributed network predict (...) individual differences found on intelligence and reasoning tasks. We describe this network as the Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT). The P-FIT model includes, by Brodmann areas (BAs): the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BAs 6, 9, 10, 45, 46, 47), the inferior (BAs 39, 40) and superior (BA 7) parietal lobule, the anterior cingulate (BA 32), and regions within the temporal (BAs 21, 37) and occipital (BAs 18, 19) lobes. White matter regions (i.e., arcuate fasciculus) are also implicated. The P-FIT is examined in light of findings from human lesion studies, including missile wounds, frontal lobotomy/leukotomy, temporal lobectomy, and lesions resulting in damage to the language network (e.g., aphasia), as well as findings from imaging research identifying brain regions under significant genetic control. Overall, we conclude that modern neuroimaging techniques are beginning to articulate a biology of intelligence. We propose that the P-FIT provides a parsimonious account for many of the empirical observations, to date, which relate individual differences in intelligence test scores to variations in brain structure and function. Moreover, the model provides a framework for testing new hypotheses in future experimental designs. (shrink)

In the first section of this paper, I articulate Jaegwon Kim's argument against emergent down ward causation. In the second section, I canvas four responses to Kim's argument and argue that each fails. In the third section, I show that emergent downward causation does not, contra Kim, entail overdetermination. I argue that supervenience of emergent upon base properties is not sufficient for nomological causal relationsbetween emergent and base properties. What sustains Kim's argument is rather the claim that emergent properties realized (...) by base properties can have no causal powers distinct from those base properties. I argue that this is false. (shrink)

This article argues that secularism is not neutral. Secularization is a process, the secular state is a structure, whereas secularism is a political philosophy. Secularism takes two main forms: first, a “benevolent” secularism that endeavours to treat all religious and nonreligious belief systems even-handedly, and, second, a “hostile” kind that privileges unbelief and excludes religion from the public sphere. I analyze the European Court of Human Rights decision in Lautsi v Italy, which illustrates these types. The article concludes that secularism (...) as a political philosophy cannot be neutral, and the secular state is not neutral in its effects, standpoint, governing assumptions or treatment of religious truth claims. (shrink)

“What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age?” This apparently simple question opens into the massive, provocative, and complex A Secular Age, where Charles Taylor positions secularism as a defining feature of the modern world, not the mere absence of religion, and casts light on the experience of transcendence that scientistic explanations of the world tend to neglect. -/- In Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age, a prominent and varied group of scholars chart the (...) conversations in which A Secular Age intervenes and address wider questions of secularism and secularity. The distinguished contributors include Robert Bellah, José Casanova, Nilüfer Göle, William E. Connolly, Wendy Brown, Simon During, Colin Jager, Jon Butler, Jonathan Sheehan, Akeel Bilgrami, John Milbank, and Saba Mahmood. -/- Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age is edited by Michael Warner, Jonathan VanAntwerpen, and Craig Calhoun. (shrink)

This article is a critical review of work on the concept of rights, Including the concept of human rights, From 1963 to 1978. Our focus is mainly on issues of the analysis of rights and human rights. We do not deal with the closely related issues bearing on the normative foundations of moral and human rights. Nor have we attempted much in the way of historical treatment of our topic. Section I surveys general characterizations of rights. In section ii, We (...) discuss treatments of the defeasibility of rights with special attention to the notion of a prima facie right. Section iii takes up attempts to give an account of human rights. Section iv provides a brief conclusion. A bibliography listing what we take to be the most important works in this area, Including everything cited, Concludes our essay. (shrink)

This article explores the recurrent global claim by indigenous peoples for their spiritual concerns to be taken seriously and given appropriate effect in public policy. The secular liberal state's commitment to ideals of religious neutrality and equal treatment of all faiths and none is clearly tested to the degree it privileges traditional indigenous religion in the name of fostering indigenous culture. This dilemma has been acutely raised in New Zealand where Maori metaphysical concerns—the appeasement of taniwha (spiritual monsters) and the (...) evils of mingling the mauri (life-force) of human and non-human species in genetic engineering—have been subjected to judicial scrutiny. Quite apart from issues of justiciability, the legal acknowledgment of indigenous spirituality raises questions about the continued secularity of the state. This essay traverses the varying responses to indigenous spirituality, especially criticisms that such recognition constitutes government countenancing of primitive superstition, a fostering of paganism or naked religious favouritism. (shrink)

The most compelling evidence for Epstein et al.'s central thesis that adult second language acquisition is constrained by the innate cognitive structures that constrain native language acquisition would be evidence of poverty of the stimulus. Although there are studies that point to such evidence, Epstein et al.'s primary form of argumentation, targetlike performance by second-language acquiring adults, is much less convincing.

An argument is developed for the conclusion that certain neurological conditions and disorders are directly relevant for understanding the self?'s embodiment and the ownership of conscious experience enjoyed by such an embodied self. Since these neurological conditions and disorders provide evidence that there can be shifts of, and compromises to, ownership, they help identify neural substrates and realizers of such ownership. However, even if recent neuroimaging and neuropsychological nominees for neural substrates of ownership unity are core realizers of ownership, they (...) are not its total realizers. Implications of the distinction between core and total realizers are discussed. (shrink)

This volume examines Rawls's theory of international justice as worked out in his controversial last book, The Law of Peoples.

The essays in this 1987 volume are concerned with ideas of contrarity and other kinds of polar opposition in French literature of the eighteenth century. Originally these ideas were merely part of an impulse to undermine the establishment, but as the century progressed the desire to invert social values and question accepted norms merged with the main groundswell of the age to form part of the movement of Revolution. Professor Rex considers some of the major writers of the period: Diderot, (...) Rousseau, Voltaire, and Beaumarchais. He also explores minor genres such as opéras comiques, theatrical parodies, and erotic or pornographic pieces; these have been largely forgotten, but in their time they imbued the creative life of the era with vitality. In treating the literature in relation to the other arts, especially painting and music, these essays will be of interest to scholars of all aspects of eighteenth-century French culture. (shrink)

The essay attempts to rethink the relationships between styles, publics, and politics, as well as the position of intellectuals in it. Any writing, even in the most private form of a diary, as an example from the George Orwell’s novel 1984 shows, is addressed to a public. Paradoxically, the public only exists, as Warner asserts, by virtue of its own address. In this sense, style does perform a political function. However, the critics of the opaque writing of some left (...) ist academics overlook that the public can have a temporal span into the future when they view it only horizontally in terms of its size and deduce the political effi cacy of writing on that account. The confusion of the public with citizens in general leads to the undermining of politics by the headline temporality of journalistic publics. Aspirations of some academics for the role of public intellectuals are faced with the fact that for the most part there are currently no conditions for public circulation between these spheres. As a possible counterweight, Warner recalls the approach of Michel Foucault, not merely as a reminder of how it relocated the limits of the political, but also in order to suggest how the path between intellectual work and politics could be bridged by the method of “problematization”: the development of a domain of acts and practices on the scene of a tentative counterpublic. (shrink)

THE CASE OF SOCRATES, like that of Antigone, holds a high place in the history of the discussion of civil disobedience. Yet the position which Socrates took on this question is seemingly unclear, even with respect to its broadest outlines. This is exhibited by a surprising and considerable divergence of opinion, bearing on what Socrates did and said, in some of the recent writings on civil disobedience.

An Essay on Metaphysics is one of the finest works of the great Oxford philosopher R. G. Collingwood : in it he considers the nature of philosophy, especially of metaphysics, and puts forward his original and influential theories of absolute presuppositions, causation, and the logic of question and answer. Three fascinating unpublished pieces by Collingwood have been added for this revised edition: they illuminate and amplify the ideas of the Essay, to which they are closely related. The editor Rex Martin (...) contributes a substantial introduction telling the story of the composition of all these works, discussing their major themes, and setting them in the context of Collingwood's philosophy as a whole. (shrink)