In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul twice evokes his rights as a Roman citizen. When he crosses from the jurisdiction of the Jewish to that of the Roman court, Paul in effect completes his definitive mapping of Jewish law as a local affair whose peculiar practices must be subsumed and refigured by the universal order promised by the Messiah to all nations. Paul's real and epistolary journeys to Rome effect a symbolic translation westward of Jewish civic themes, linking the (...) destiny of the Jews to the European political tradition. Yet Paul does so by evacuating the central mark of membership in Israel, namely the covenant of circumcision, of its continued validity. Rather than either salvaging Paul's universalism as the basis of modern democracy or critiquing his cultural politics, I use the concept of citizenship to begin calculating the consequences of Paul's multiple memberships in three distinct juridical orders: the Hellenistic city‐state, the nation of Israel, and the Roman Empire. My goal is not to re‐localize or de‐legitimate Paul's universalism in the name of individual cultures, but rather to recall the integral dream of universalism to its dialogue with diverse citizenship protocols, including Jewish ones, as well as to disclose the universal dimension of seemingly local civic rituals and routines. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 33.2 (2005) 71-97 [Access article in PDF] The Subject of Religion Lacan and the Ten Commandments Kenneth Reinhard Julia Reinhard Lupton Despite Freud's Nietzschean unmasking of religion as ideology, psychoanalysis has frequently been attacked as itself a religion, a cabal of analyst-priests dedicated to the worship of a dead master. Such critics "do not believe in Freud" in much the same way as atheists (...) "do not believe in God," and their rejections of psychoanalysis in the name of the secular partake in the very structure of religious thought they claim to repudiate. In Seminar XXI: Les non-dupes errent, Lacan comments on the blindness of the atheistic insight concerning religion: "I know that you're not believers, right? But that doesn't mean that you aren't all the more conned... because even if you are not believers, you still believe in that aspiration [for the love of God]. I won't say that you suppose it; rather, it supposes you" [Dec. 18, 1973; our trans.]. In Lacan's analysis, it is not that secular intellectuals suffer from unexamined religious "suppositions" or assumptions, to be swept away through a little ideology-critique or time on the couch. The case is rather, in Lacan's strong formulation, that religious discourse supposes us—supports and underwrites our very structures of being, subjectivity, and social interaction. That is, the secular subject is produced by the religious discourses that precede and continue to speak through it; the challenge for the contemporary critic is not to silence or debunk those discourses, but rather to bring the modern subject to assume responsibility for their enunciation.Throughout the decades of his seminar, Lacan addressed the monotheistic foundations of Western subjectivity as a set of discursive ruptures or cuts which continue to scar and brand the modern subject beyond their secular abrogation. Distinguishing between Freud "the individual with his atheistic profession of faith" and "the Freud who was the first to acknowledge the value and relevance of [the] myth... we call the death of God" [S VII 192–93], Lacan insists that Freud regarded monotheism as an epochal divide that irrevocably altered all that came before and after it: "On the left of this [monotheistic] message, there are some things that are henceforth outdated, obsolete; they no longer hold beyond the manifestation of the message. On the right, things are quite different" [172]. What, in Lacan's analysis, is the difference that monotheism has made, both during its periods of dominance and after? The laws, narratives, and symbols of monotheism continue to undergird key fantasies of personhood, nationhood, and neighborhood in the modernity that purports to have supplanted them. In Lacan's formulation, monotheism "supposes" the subject of these fantasies, precipitating it from out of the expanse of signifiers and in relation to a sublime object of both unbearable enjoyment and social obligation. Moreover, it is the scandal and the gift of monotheism that it not only creates moments of traumatic singularity, but also thinks the singular as trauma, rending the fabric of an animistic nature which would unite every polarity of being in the fullness of a sexual relation. Unlike the gods of Greek philosophy, the monotheistic God is not part of the nature he creates. In its decisive thinking of singularity, monotheism elicits and eludes all rapprochement with philosophical conceptions of the One, whether in the guise of Hellenized Judaism, Pauline theology, or Arab Aristotelianism. Lacan extends the monotheistic project of thinking singularity [End Page 71] by insisting that "there is something of One" [il y a de l'Un]—not the self-identical One of Greek logic, mathematics, and cosmology, but the One of a violent rupture that creates subjects and their worlds around a void, an un that un-does the primacy it speaks.If, from the Lacanian vantage, the singular invention of the God shared by the People of the Book forever separates religion from philosophy, we would also insist that religion is not simply a subset of "culture," understood as the symbolic practices that unify a people... (shrink)

ExcerptIf recent discussions of Schmitt in these pages have made a broad case for the centrality of culture for his thinking, the current issue both specifies and generalizes this approach. The specificity derives from our focus on one key text by Schmitt that is often passed over but is in fact crucial for understanding his work. The generality is a result of the breathtaking sweep of issues that this text opens up for the contributors to this issue: the relation of (...) sovereignty to popular will, the ontological status of modernity, the role of myth in society, the representational structure of…. (shrink)

To entertain an idea is to take it in, pay attention to it, give it breathing room, dwell with it for a time. The practice of entertaining ideas suggests rumination and meditation, inviting us to think of philosophy as a form of hospitality and a kind of mental theatre. In this collection, organized around key words shared by philosophy and performance, the editors suggest that Shakespeare's plays supply readers, listeners, viewers, and performers with equipment for living. In plays ranging from (...) A Midsummer Night's Dream to King Lear and The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare invites readers and audiences to be more responsive to the texture and meaning of daily encounters, whether in the intimacies of love, the demands of social and political life, or moments of ethical decision. Entertaining the Idea features established and emerging scholars, addressing key words such as role play, acknowledgment, judgment, and entertainment as well as curse and care. The volume also includes longer essays on Shakespeare, Kant, Husserl, and Hegel as well as an afterword by theatre critic Charles McNulty on the philosophy and performance history of King Lear. (shrink)

BackgroundTo prevent the planet from catastrophic global warming a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to net zero is required. Thus, divestment from fossil fuels must be a strategic interest for health insurers. The aim of this study was to analyse the implementation of environmental, social and governance criteria in German private health insurers’ investments.MethodsIn 2019 a survey about ESG strategies was sent to German private health insurance companies. The survey evaluated investment strategies and thresholds for the exclusion of sectors and (...) business practices, as well as company strategies for sustainable business development.FindingsGiven their business reports, German private health insurers manage assets of more than €350 billion. 11 of 40 insurance companies provided quantitative data, 10 refused to answer. According to quantitative data, €66 billion of assets is managed according to any ESG criteria; this equals an average of 76% of each company’s bonds. None of these insurers excluded the production and sale of fossil fuels. All excluded coal mining but only at high thresholds. For €226 billion, no data were provided.InterpretationThe findings are in contrast to the expected intrinsic economic interest of the insurers to stop global warming and improve public health. The majority of assets are managed in a highly problematic manner, especially the absence of capital allocated in fields contrary to medical ethics cannot be presumed. Lack of transparency is a major problem that limits clients in choosing the insurer who has the most advanced ESG criteria. (shrink)

Consequentialism is the view that the rightness or wrongness of actions depend solely on their consequences. It is one of the most influential, and controversial, of all ethical theories. In this book, Julia Driver introduces and critically assesses consequentialism in all its forms. After a brief historical introduction to the problem, Driver examines utilitarianism, and the arguments of its most famous exponents, John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, and explains the fundamental questions underlying utilitarian theory: what value is to (...) be specified and how it is to be maximized. Driver also discusses indirect forms of consequentialism, the important theories of motive consequentialism and virtue consequentialism, and explains why the distinction between subjective and objective consequentialism is so important. Including helpful features such as a glossary, chapter summaries, and annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, Consequentialism is ideal for students seeking an authoritative and clearly explained survey of this important problem. (shrink)

Offers a fundamental reexamination of Plato's ethical thought, highlighting the differences between ancient & modern assumptions & stressing the need to be ...

Was Anselm zu einem leuchtenden Vorbild für die Theologie heute werden lässt, ist nicht seine Gelehrsamkeit, sondern das Wagnis, auf die Anfragen seiner Zeit durch mutige und eigenständige Synthesen des christlichen Denkens zu antworten. Die hier vorliegende Interpretation gestaltet sich als Versuch, die zuletzt etwas eingefahren wirkende Zugangsweise zum Werk Anselms auf einen neuen Boden zu stellen. Die Komplementarität von Teleologie und Eschatologie, bzw. die Begründung der ersteren in der letzteren bietet dafür den begrifflichen Rahmen, von welchem her sich neue (...) Einblicke in das Denken des Doctor magnificus ergeben. (shrink)

While the enormous influence of Martin Heidegger's thought in Japan and China is well documented, the influence on him from East-Asian sources is much lesser known. This remarkable study shows that Heidegger drew some of the major themes of his philosophy--on occasion almost word for word--from German translations of Chinese Daoist and Zen Buddhist classics.

Powers of Horror is an excellent introduction to an aspect of contemporary French literature which has been allowed to become somewhat neglected in the current emphasis on para-philosophical modes of discourse.".

Trust and corporation (extracts) / by F.W. Maitland -- Respublica Christiana -- by J.N. Figgis -- Society and state / by R.M. MacIver -- The discredited state / by E. Barker -- Conflicting social obligations / by G.D.H. Cole -- Community is a process / by M.P. Follett -- The eruption of the group / by E. Barker -- The masses in a representative democracy / by M. Oakeshott -- The atavism of social justice / by F.A. von Hayek -- (...) Collective entities and moral rights / by V. van Dyke -- Capitalism, citizenship and community / by S. Macedo -- Liberalism and the politicization of ethnicity / by W. Kymlicka -- Are there any cultural rights? / by C. Kukathas -- The civil society argument / by M. Walzer. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.1 (2003) 98-115 [Access article in PDF] Tristram Shandy, David Hume and Epistemological Fiction Christina Lupton I LAURENCE STERNE's Tristram Shandy, the nine-volume novel which dominated London's literary marketplace during the years of its publication between 1759 and 1767, has served over the course of its reception as a case in point for reading literature and philosophy side by side. Yet even in this lengthy (...) and variegated history of Sterne appreciation, "side by side" has more often than not proved to be a question of reading philosophy as literature's source and the key to its logic. In most secondary work on the novel, Sterne's references to empirical psychology appear as clues to a line of influence which leads, depending on the turn of the critic and his or her milieu, either back to a Lockean faith in self-knowledge and to a Humean skepticism with its residual stress on the realm of social accountability and the merits of mental association, or forward to the terrain of modernism, with its insistence on the constitutive power of language itself. From the ongoing measured attempts to monitor Sterne's use of Locke to the conviction, instigated by John Traugott in 1954, that Sterne's dramatization of rationalism shares much with David Hume's positive account of association, this complex critical history is well rehearsed, and its variants soundly warranted by Sterne's liberal borrowing from each of the well-stocked Rabelaisian, empiricist, and Augustan shelves of his own library.In recent decades, this critical debate runs towards a view of Sterne working self-consciously with an emergent sense of the aesthetic as a response to the epistemological quandaries of rationalism under pressure. In this essay, I will diverge from the critical tradition which has [End Page 98] combed the texts of British empiricism for the right "key" to Tristram Shandy. 1 I want to avoid this avenue of investigation not because it promises poor results—in the case of Sterne, rich moments of "unlocking" are undeniable—but because it relies on lining up philosophy and literature in a particular generic relation to one another. In general, this method assigns problem-raising to philosophy and problem-echoing to literature. Established Sterne critics, including John Traugott, Melvin New, and Arthur Cash, routinely ask how Tristram Shandy follows up or even solves the formal articulations of a problem raised by Locke or Hume.Despite the importance to date of this philosophical-problems-played-out-in-literature model for reading Tristram Shandy, the model of reading literature and philosophy together which I want to introduce in this piece is much more a side-by-side one. More specifically, I want to suggest that the epistemological problem which shows up in Tristram Shandy is less a rearticulation of grand philosophical concerns at a local register than a transformation of the problem of epistemology at the site of its articulation. While knowledge can be seen as the problem which Locke's rationalism, Hume's rhetorical and social projects, or Kant's account of aesthetic judgment set out to solve, for Sterne, I will argue, epistemological uncertainty is less a problem than the basis of the productive relationship Tristram Shandy develops between, on one hand, literature as an object of knowledge and, on the other, the acknowledgement that words, particularly literary words, depend on subjective responses. By comparing Hume's Treatise and Tristram Shandy, my aim is to show how the closely allied texts diverge in their strategies for exploring and containing the fracturing implications of skepticism. II Like many other literary authors of the eighteenth century, Sterne is engaged in debates crossing what we now think of as the disciplinary boundary between philosophy and literature and, despite its celebrated status as an inaugural work of modern fiction, Tristram Shandy intimately incorporates nonfictional forms of political and philosophical inquiry. 2 One of Tristram's more celebrated briefs to his reader is a witty but revealingly knowing description of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding: "I will tell you in three words what the book... (shrink)

There are many cases in which people collectively cause some morally significant outcome (such as a harmful or beneficial outcome) but no individual act seems to make a difference. The problem in such cases is that it seems each person can argue, ‘it makes no difference whether or not I do X, so I have no reason to do it.’ The challenge is to say where this argument goes wrong. My approach begins from the observation that underlying the problem and (...) motivating the typical responses to it is a standard, intuitive assumption. The assumption is that if an act will not make a difference with respect to an outcome, then it cannot play a sig- nificant, non-superfluous role in bringing that outcome about. In other words, helping to bring about an outcome requires making a difference. I argue that the key to solving the problem is to reject this assumption. I develop an account of what it is to help to bring about an outcome, where this does not require making a difference, and I use this explain our reasons for action in the problem cases. This account also yields an error theory that explains why the standard assumption is so tempting, even though it is mistaken. (shrink)

This article develops and mobilises the concept of ‘mundane data’ as an analytical entry point for understanding Big Data. We call for in-depth investigation of the human experiences, routines, improvisations and accomplishments which implicate digital data in the flow of the everyday. We demonstrate the value of this approach through a discussion of our ethnographic research with self-tracking cycling commuters. We argue that such investigations are crucial in informing our understandings of how digital data become meaningful in mundane contexts of (...) everyday life for two reasons: first because there is a gap in our understanding of the contingencies and specificities through which big digital data sets are produced, and second because designers and policy makers often seek to make interventions for change in everyday contexts through the presentation of mundane data to consumers but with little understanding of how people produce, experience and engage with these data. (shrink)

This book is concerned with the notion of the "stranger" -the foreigner, outsider, or alien in a country and society not their own- as well as the notion of strangeness within the self -a person's deep sense of being, as distinct from outside appearance and their conscious idea of self. Kristeva begins with the personal and moves outward by examining world literature and philosophy. She discusses the foreigner in Greek tragedy, in the Bible, and in the literature of the Middle (...) Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the twentieth century. She discusses the legal status of foreigners throughout history, gaining perspective on our own civilization. Her insights into the problems of nationality, particularly in France are more timely and relevant in an increasingly integrated and fractious world. (shrink)

How should thinkers cope with uncertainty? Julia Staffel breaks new ground in the study of rationality by answering this question and many others. She also explains how it is better to be less irrational, because less irrational degrees of belief are generally more accurate and better at guiding our actions.

Measurement instruments assessing multiple emotions during epistemic activities are largely lacking. We describe the construction and validation of the Epistemically-Related Emotion Scales, which measure surprise, curiosity, enjoyment, confusion, anxiety, frustration, and boredom occurring during epistemic cognitive activities. The instrument was tested in a multinational study of emotions during learning from conflicting texts. The findings document the reliability, internal validity, and external validity of the instrument. A seven-factor model best fit the data, suggesting that epistemically-related emotions should be conceptualised in terms (...) of discrete emotion categories, and the scales showed metric invariance across the North American and German samples. Furthermore, emotion scores changed over time as a function of conflicting task information and related significantly to perceived task value and use of cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies. (shrink)

There is long standing agreement both among philosophers and linguists that the term ‘counterfactual conditional’ is misleading if not a misnomer. Speakers of both non-past subjunctive (or ‘would’) conditionals and past subjunctive (or ‘would have’) conditionals need not convey counterfactuality. The relationship between the conditionals in question and the counterfactuality of their antecedents is thus not one of presupposing. It is one of conversationally implicating. This paper provides a thorough examination of the arguments against the presupposition view as applied to (...) past subjunctive conditionals and finds none of them conclusive. All the relevant linguistic data, it is shown, are compatible with the assumption that past subjunctive conditionals presuppose the falsity of their antecedents. This finding is not only interesting on its own. It is of vital importance both to whether we should consider antecedent counterfactuality to be part of the conventional meaning of the conditionals in question and to whether there is a deep difference between indicative and subjective conditionals. (shrink)

¿Cómo es que un sistema cognitivo del que se dice no habría surgido para conocer, sino para sobrevivir, ha venido a conocer tantas cosas evolutivamente inútiles y -por qué descartarlo hoy- hasta nocivas para la supervivencia de la especie? El saber filosófico despierta, dirán Aristóteles o Hegel, una vez satisfecho lo necesario para la existencia. Puede incluso que la superfluidad sea esencial a la cultura, pues lo superfluo es para el hombre, según la expresión de Voltaire, «cette chose si nécessaire!». (...) Ese desequilibrio entre utilidad natural y uso cultural de la razón avala bien el rechazo a ver en ésta un elemento más de la naturaleza. Aceptarlo obligaría a normalizar su estudio y -consecuencia o premisa inevitable- a naturalizar su concepto. Ambas cosas conllevarían además una incursión, insolente no sólo para el filósofo, de las ciencias particulares en los dominios tradicionales de la filosofía, dominios con tanta acucia conseguidos a lo largo de su historia. No obstante, quienes estén convencidos de que la naturalización de la razón equivale al suicidio de la filosofía, y la rehúsen por ello, deberían sopesar antes las razones por las que habría de ser preferible salvar la filosofía a naturalizar la razón. Tal vez descubran al paso qué ancestral, qué prefilosófica es su idea de la filosofía. (shrink)

Her analysis deals with the role of narcissism and idealization in the formation of a love object. She accounts for the role of the death drive by coining the term "love/hate.".

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. The (...) book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

In _Black Sun_, Julia Kristeva addresses the subject of melancholia, examining this phenomenon in the context of art, literature, philosophy, the history of religion and culture, as well as psychoanalysis. She describes the depressive as one who perceives the sense of self as a crucial pursuit and a nearly unattainable goal and explains how the love of a lost identity of attachment lies at the very core of depression's dark heart. In her discussion she analyzes Holbein's controversial 1522 painting (...) "The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb," and has revealing comments on the works of Marguerite Duras, Dostoyevsky and Nerval. _Black Sun_ takes the view that depression is a discourse with a language to be learned, rather than strictly a pathology to be treated. (shrink)

Julia Annas offers a new account of virtue and happiness as central ethical ideas. She argues that exercising a virtue involves practical reasoning of the kind we find in someone exercising an everyday practical skill, such as farming, building, or playing the piano. This helps us to see virtue as part of an agent's happiness or flourishing.

Theories of reasons and other normativia can seem to lead ineluctably to a tragic dilemma. They can be personal but parochial if they locate reasons in features of the point of view of actual people. Or they can be objective but alien if they take reasons to be mind-independent fixtures of the universe. Kantian constructivism tries to offer the best of both worlds: an account of normative authority anchored in the evaluative perspectives of actual agents but refined by a procedure (...) that guarantees certain principles, like the moral law, will have universal and unconditional authority. This chapter considers motivations for such a view and chronicles the intrepid efforts of its adherents to make good on this guarantee - to show that the structure of practical reason commits reasoners to morality. -/- . (shrink)

These days, who still has a soul? asks Julia Kristeva in her psychoanalytic exploration, _New Maladies of the Soul._ Hailed by Peter Brooks in the _New York Times_ as "a critic of great psychoanalytic insight," Kristeva reveals to readers a new kind of patient, symptomatic of an age of political upheaval, mass-mediated culture, and the dramatic overhaul of familial and sexual mores. The book poses a troubling question about the human subject in the West today: Is the psychic space (...) that we have traditionally known disappearing? (shrink)

ABSTRACT I propose a division of the literature on natural kinds into metaphysical worries, semantic worries, and methodological worries. I argue that the latter set of worries, which concern how classification influences scientific practices, should occupy centre stage in philosophy of science discussions about natural kinds. I apply this methodological framework to the problems of classifying chemical species and nanomaterials. I show that classification in nanoscience differs from classification in chemistry because the latter relies heavily on compositional identity, whereas the (...) former must consider additional properties, namely, size, shape, and surface chemistry. I use this difference to argue for a scale-dependent theory of scientific classification. _1_ Introduction _2_ The Methodological Problem of Kinds _3_ Chemical Kindhood: Reactivity, Microstructure, and the Structure–Property Paradigm _4_ Scale-Dependence and Nanoscale Kinds _5_ Conclusion. (shrink)

Tiere haben erstaunliche kognitive Fähigkeiten, ein diesen Fähigkeiten entsprechendes Bewußtsein und Formen des Selbstbewußtseins. Das Denken in diskreten Einheiten von Urteilen scheint ihnen jedoch nicht zugänglich zu sein, damit auch nicht die Unterscheidung von Bejahung und Verneinung und von wahr und falsch. Wie ist das Denken und damit das objektive Erkennen beim Menschen entstanden? Welche Rolle spielt das Gehirn bei Mensch und Tier? Wir Menschen leben in zwei Welten, die paradoxerweise zugleich eine ist. Das Tageslicht, Gerüche, die Hauswand, an der (...) wir entlanggehen und die wir nicht durchschreiten können diese unsere Lebenswelt unterscheidet sich zunächst nicht von der des Hundes, der uns begleitet. Tiere nehmen sinnlich wahr wie wir, sie erschrecken wie wir bei einem lauten Geräusch, sie zeigen dieselbe freudige Erregung wie wir. Zugleich gibt es für uns eine andere, wiewohl identische Welt, von der die Tiere offenbar nichts wissen: Wir Menschen machen die Dinge zu Objekten der Erkenntnis; dieselbe Sonne, die uns blendet und die sich im Tageslauf langsam von Osten nach Westen bewegt, steht, so erkennen wir, fest im Zentrum des Planetensystems. Wir spüren die Kälte, aber wir erkennen in ihr zugleich die Ursache der Eisbildung; kein Tier weiß, was eine Ursache ist, kein Tier kann sich wundern, und auch denken kann es nicht. These: Natürlich können Tiere denken. "Ach, Sie werden es nicht glauben, aber unser Leo versteht jedes Wort." Gegenthese: Natürlich können Tiere nicht denken. Es fehlen ihnen vor allem zwei Voraussetzungen des Urteilens und Denkens: Sie verfügen über keine geeigneten Begriffe, und sie kennen keine gemeinsame Öffentlichkeit, die durch das Zeigen geschaffen und im Urteil vertieft wird. (shrink)

Das System der Disponibilitätshierarchien versucht in der Rechtsphilosophie eine neue Perspektive zu eröffnen, indem speziell das Phänomen der Disponibilitätssetzung und seiner Auswirkungen auf die Umgangsmöglichkeiten und Urteilsmacht des Menschen in der Gesellschaft betrachtet wird. Die Disponibilitätshierarchie der Umgangsmöglichkeit und die Disponibilitätshierarchie der Urteilsmacht dienen dem Aufbau eines neuen Freiheitsbegriffes. Mit der Darstellung des Aufbaus der Statikexistenziale und der Dynamikexistenziale begründet das Werk einen neuen Freiheitsbegriff und überschreitet damit die Grenze der Rechtsphilosophie hin zur Allgemeinphilosophie. In der antiken und in der (...) klassischen Philosophie wurde Freiheit zumeist als Möglichkeit, in der absoluten Daseinsform aufzugehen, verstanden. Kant hat die Möglichkeit der absoluten Eigenursächlichkeit eines gedanklichen Ereignisses für den Folgegedankengang und Ereignisablauf als transzendentale Freiheit verstanden und als notwendige Bedingung der konkreten praktischen Freiheit, die er Selbstautonomie nannte, angesehen. Die moderne Philosophie sieht zumeist in der größtmöglichen materiellen und ideellen Ungebundenheit die Freiheit, die negative Freiheit als Freiheit von Zwängen ist. In diesem Buch wird herausgearbeitet, daß Freiheit ambivalent erstrebt wird durch den Aufbau von Statik- und Dynamikexistenzialen. Der Autor, geb. 1969, absolvierte ein Studium der Rechtswissenschaft an der Universität Freiburg im Breisgau und unternahm darüber hinaus Studien zur Allgemeinphilosophie. Er ist derzeit Rechtsreferendar am Landgericht Freiburg. (shrink)

Julia Kristeva refracts the impulse to hate (and our attempts to subvert, sublimate, and otherwise process it) through psychoanalysis and text, exploring worlds, women, religion, portraits, and the act of writing. Her inquiry spans themes, topics, and figures central to her writing, and her paths of discovery advance the theoretical innovations that are so characteristic of her thought. Kristeva rearticulates and extends her analysis of language, abjection, idealization, female sexuality, love, and forgiveness. She examines the "maladies of the soul," (...) utilizing examples from her practice and the ailments of her patients, such as fatigue, irritability, and general malaise. She sources the Bible and texts by Marguerite Duras, St. Teresa of Avila, Roland Barthes, Simone de Beauvoir, and Georgia O'Keefe. Balancing political calamity and individual pathology, she addresses internal and external catastrophes and global and personal injuries, confronting the nature of depression, obliviousness, fear, and the agony of being and nothingness. Throughout Kristeva develops the notion that psychoanalysis is the key to serenity, with its processes of turning back, looking back, investigating the self, and refashioning psychical damage into something useful and beautiful. Constant questioning, Kristeva contends, is essential to achieving the coming to terms we all seek at the core of forgiveness. (shrink)

Sustainable development (SD) – that is, “Development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations” – can be pursued in many different ways. Stakeholder relations management (SRM) is one such way, through which corporations are confronted with economic, social, and environmental stakeholder claims. This paper lays the groundwork for an empirical analysis of the question of how far SD can be achieved through SRM. It describes the so-called SD–SRM (...) perspective as a distinctive research approach and shows how it relates to the wider body of stakeholder theory. Next, the concept of SD is operationalized for the microeconomic level with reference to important documents. Based on the ensuing SD framework, it is shown how SD and SRM relate to each other, and how the two concepts relate to other popular concepts such as Corporate Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. The paper concludes that the significance of societal guiding models such as SD and of management approaches like CSR is strongly dependent on their footing in society. (shrink)

This interpretive introduction provides unique insight into Plato's Republic. Stressing Plato's desire to stimulate philosophical thinking in his readers, Julia Annas here demonstrates the coherence of his main moral argument on the nature of justice, and expounds related concepts of education, human motivation, knowledge and understanding. In a clear systematic fashion, this book shows that modern moral philosophy still has much to learn from Plato's attempt to move the focus from questions of what acts the just person ought to (...) perform to the more profound questions of what sort of person the just person ought to be. (shrink)

Edited by one of the most renowned scholars in the field, Voices of Ancient Philosophy: An Introductory Reader is a unique and accessible introduction to the richness of ancient philosophy. Featuring a topical--as opposed to chronological--organization, this text introduces students to the wide range of approaches and traditions in ancient philosophy. In each section Annas presents the ancient debates on a particular philosophical topic, drawing on a greater diversity of ancient sources than a chronological approach allows. The book is divided (...) into six sections: Fate and Freedom; Reason and Emotion; Knowledge, Belief, and Skepticism; Metaphysical Questions; How Should You Live?; and Society and the State. Annas includes a generous selection of the works of Plato and Aristotle, as well as those of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics. She also includes selections from less familiar philosophers and from authors in whose works philosophical issues arise, such as poets, medical writers, historians, and Jewish and Christian writers. The volume features biographical sketches of the philosophers, a timeline, and short discussions of the major movements in ancient philosophy. An excellent text for courses in ancient philosophy and history of philosophy, Voices of Ancient Philosophy: An Introductory Reader will also be of interest to scholars and general readers. (shrink)

Humans have become increasingly datafied with the use of digital technologies that generate information with and about their bodies and everyday lives. The onto-epistemological dimensions of human–data assemblages and their relationship to bodies and selves have yet to be thoroughly theorised. In this essay, I draw on key perspectives espoused in feminist materialism, vital materialism and the anthropology of material culture to examine the ways in which these assemblages operate as part of knowing, perceiving and sensing human bodies. I draw (...) particularly on scholarship that employs organic metaphors and concepts of vitality, growth, making, articulation, composition and decomposition. I show how these metaphors and concepts relate to and build on each other, and how they can be applied to think through humans’ encounters with their digital data. I argue that these theoretical perspectives work to highlight the material and embodied dimensions of human–data assemblages as they grow and are enacted, articulated and incorporated into everyday lives. (shrink)

Julia Kristeva, herself a product of the famous May '68 Paris student uprising, has long been fascinated by the concept of rebellion and revolution. Psychoanalysts believe that rebellion guarantees our independence and creative capacities, but is revolution still possible? Confronted with the culture of entertainment, can we build and nurture a culture of revolt, in the etymological and Proustian sense of the word: an unveiling, a return, a displacement, a reconstruction of the past, of memory, of meaning? In the (...) first part of the book, Kristeva examines the manner in which three of the most unsettling modern writers--Aragon, Sartre, and Barthes--affirm their personal rebellion. In the second part of the book, Kristeva ponders the future of rebellion. She maintains that the "new world order" is not favorable to revolt. "What can we revolt against if power is vacant and values corrupt?" she asks. Not only is political revolt mired in compromise among parties whose differences are less and less obvious, but an essential component of European culture--a culture of doubt and criticism--is losing its moral and aesthetic impact. (shrink)