Western liberal democracies tend to impose duties on public and private bodies that are often formulated as an obligation not to discriminate. For instance, the European Union prohibits direct and indirect discrimination on certain grounds in certain contexts. Under this model, indirect discrimination involves a measure that, although it does not directly (i.e. explicitly) discriminate on the basis of a proscribed ground, produces a disparate impact that correlates with such a proscribed ground. Indirect discrimination is generally viewed, both conceptually and (...) politically, as subordinate to direct discrimination. Professor John Gardner has argued that anti-discrimination law is justified on the basis of duties to respect other people's autonomy. On the base of this analysis, he argues that indirect discrimination is a secondary concept to the paradigm wrong of direct discrimination. I contend in this article that, if one adopts Gardner's autonomy-based analysis of anti-discrimination law, indirect discrimination is not a secondary concept to direct discrimination. Further, I argue that autonomy does not provide a convincing justification for the prohibition of either direct or indirect discrimination. I tentatively suggest, however, that the widespread impact of certain types of discrimination (alluded to by Gardner) may support an equality-based justification for the prohibition of both direct and indirect discrimination. (shrink)

I argue that Quine’s early critique of Carnap’s conventionalism is in serious tension with the holism of "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", since his critique of convention- alism makes a compelling case for a privileged status either for logic, or for some other principle by means of which to derive consequences. Based on this, I call for a modification of Quinean holism, on grounds internal to Quine’s views. The result motivates a rehabilitation of Carnap’s notion of framework principles, and a rethinking (...) of logic as a kind of relativised a priori. (shrink)

The paper examines the interrelationship between mathematics and logic, arguing that a central characteristic of each has an essential role within the other. The first part is a reconstruction of and elaboration on Paul Bernays’ argument, that mathematics and logic are based on different directions of abstraction from content, and that mathematics, at its core it is a study of formal structures. The notion of a study of structure is clarified by the examples of Hilbert’s work on the axiomatization of (...) geometry and Hilbert et al.’s formalist proof theory. It is further argued that the structural aspect of logic puts it under the purview of the mathematical, analogously to how the deductive nature of mathematics puts it under the purview of logic. This is then linked, in the second part, to certain aspects of Gödel’s critique of Carnap’s conventionalism, that ‘mere syntax’ cannot capture the full content of mathematics, which is revealed to be closely related to the characteristic of mathematics argued for by Bernays. Finally, this is connected with Gödel’s latter-day views about two kinds of formality, intensional and extensional, and the relationship between them. (shrink)

This essay suggests that Continental Studies of Evil need a more global approach in thinking about political evils of today. Highlighting the need for a more comparative and global perspective, I explore two proposals: first, the in-between space of the geographical binaries of East/West and Global South/Global North cultivates many political evils. Second, taking issue with the conviction in Continental philosophy that the Holocaust caused a rupture in the thinking of evil, I argue for the continuity of evils and characterize (...) the insistence on the unprecedented character of the Holocaust as an example of Eurocentrism. (shrink)

It is a widely held view that lying is defined in the traditional tripartite model as the conjunction of a statement, the false belief, and the intended deception. Much of the criticisms have been levelled at the third condition—intended deception—with contemporary counterexamples. My main criticism of the traditional and contemporary model of lying centres on that philosophers discard the social existence of the hearer. Schutz‘s phenomenological sociology gives a sheer inspiration to redefine the third condition by taking the hearer as (...) a consciously social being into account. Lying should be an intersubjective action for the Other from the perspective of the liar; it might be, thus, reasonable to assume that there should be commonsense awareness between the speaker and the hearer. This paper, by focusing on this commonsenseness and its typifications, introduces a new approach to the third condition: S must intend that H be induced to believe that p, where p is false. In this regard, once you lie, by being subjected to the taken-for-granted commonsenseness in our daily life, you must try as hard as possible to succeed in deceiving the hearer by stating that p. You, as a typical person, tell a typical lie in typical contexts for typical Others. The focus of attention, therefore, is on the hearer and it is the key to understanding that mere intent to deceive is too broad and unpragmatic for a social human being who always intends to flee the negative consequences of the context in which she has to lie. Making the extension narrower necessitates a new term, anti-social bullshit generally being replied rhetorically as "how can you expect me to believe that?" comprises the excluded cases. (shrink)

Demonstrating that in George Berkeley's last major work, Siris, Berkeley had converted to a belief in the usefulness of the concept and existence of minute particles, Moked here posits that Berkeley developed a highly original brand of corpuscularian physics.

The scholarship on Frantz Fanon’s theorization of violence is crowded with interpretations that follow the Arendtian paradigm of violence. These interpretations often discuss whether violence is instrumental or non-instrumental in Fanon’s work. This reading, I believe, is the result of approaching Fanon through Hannah Arendt’s framing of violence, i.e. through a binary paradigm of instrumental versus non-instrumental violence. Even some Fanon scholars who question Arendt’s reading of Fanon, do so by employing a similar binary logic, hence repeating the same either/or (...) paradigm of instrumental versus non-instrumental violence. I aim to challenge such interpretations of Fanon by demonstrating that in the context of anticolonial armed struggle in which Fanon writes, the either/or framework of the instrumental/non-instrumental binary of violence cannot fully capture his perspective. Violence can indeed be conceived as having both constructive and instrumental aspects. My argument is supported by Fanon’s corpus, including his 1960 Accra speech, “Why We Use Violence” in Alienation and Freedom. This piece, I suggest, together with Fanon’s other writings, poses a direct challenge to the Arendtian binary of violence. My analysis resists positioning the difference between Arendt and Fanon through the instrumental/non-instrumental binary. By using Judith Butler’s notion of “frame” I complicate their difference and argue Arendt’s framing of violence prevents her from apprehending Fanon and – more importantly – interpretations of Fanon based on this Arendtian frame of violence inevitably lead to misinterpretations. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics VII Aristotle describes akrasia as a disposition. Taking into account that it is a disposition, I argue that akrasia cannot be understood on an epistemological basis alone, i.e., it is not merely a problem of knowledge that the akratic person acts the ways he does, but rather one is akratic due to a certain kind of habituation, where the person is not able to activate the potential knowledge s/he possesses. To stress this point, I focus on the (...) gap between potential knowledge and its activation, whereby I argue that the distinction between potential and actual knowledge is at the center of the problem of akrasia. I suggest that to elaborate on this gap, we must go beyond the limits of Nicomachean Ethics to Metaphysics IX, where we find Aristotle’s discussion of the distinction between potentiality and actuality. I further analyze the gap between potential and actual knowledge by means of Aristotle’s discussion of practical syllogism, where I argue that akrasia is a result of a conflict in practical reasoning. I conclude my paper by stressing that for the akratic person the action is determined with respect to the conclusion of the practical syllogism, where the conclusion is produced by means of a ‘conflict’ between the universal opinion which is potential and the particular opinion which is appetitive. (shrink)

The racist killing of Georg Floyd in the Summer of 2020 created waves of protests not only in the U.S. but all over the globe. In Turkey, my home country, there were also street demonstrations that demanded justice for Floyd, but “Twitter activism” was more popular. Turkish-speaking-twitter became a hotbed for condemnations. Amidst an array of tweets condemning Floyd’s racist killing, one stood out and made it to the headlines of alternative media outlets. A former official of the authoritarian Turkish (...) government, Yusuf Yerkel, wrote the following tweet in Turkish on June 5, 2020, in response to Floyd’s racist killing; here, I provide an English translation of his infamous tweet (the Turkish original of which is still available on Yerkel’s account on Twitter): “The reason that protests grew to this extent in the U.S. seems to be based on a phenomenon, in H. Arendt’s terms, ‘banality of evil,’ which has become evident in the face of Floyd’s murder. An ordinary White cop’s atrocity as an “everyday job” was the tipping point.”. (shrink)

The racist killing of Georg Floyd in the Summer of 2020 created waves of protests not only in the U.S. but all over the globe. In Turkey, my home country, there were also street demonstrations that demanded justice for Floyd, but “Twitter activism” was more popular. Turkish-speaking-twitter became a hotbed for condemnations. Amidst an array of tweets condemning Floyd’s racist killing, one stood out and made it to the headlines of alternative media outlets. A former official of the authoritarian Turkish (...) government, Yusuf Yerkel, wrote the following tweet in Turkish on June 5, 2020, in response to Floyd’s racist killing; here, I provide an English translation of his infamous tweet (the Turkish original of which is still available on Yerkel’s account on Twitter): “The reason that protests grew to this extent in the U.S. seems to be based on a phenomenon, in H. Arendt’s terms, ‘banality of evil,’ which has become evident in the face of Floyd’s murder. An ordinary White cop’s atrocity as an “everyday job” was the tipping point.” Yerkel herein uses Arendt’s notion of the banality of evil (see esp. p. 287 of the book) to describe Derek Chauvin’s atrocious act, where the evil of racist police violence has become ordinary, banal, and “every day.”. (shrink)

Since 2001, Continental philosophical studies of evil suggest that we are forced to rethink the category of evil as we face acts of terrorism on a global scale. In light of this suggestion, this article traces the idea of the “inscrutability of evil” as a common lens through which we associate the category of evil with the phenomena we identify as evil. This idea finds its first modern formulation in Kant’s theory of radical evil. I argue that Hannah Arendt and (...) Emmanuel Levinas follow Kant in identifying evil as an inscrutable phenomenon. While they all agree that evil cannot be rationalized, integrated into reason, or understood within the framework of theodicy, for Kant, evil is inscrutable because it is grounded in freedom; for Arendt, evil is inscrutable because it is “banal;” and for Levinas, evil is inscrutable because it is “excessive” and “useless.” My analysis demonstrates that inscrutability is an essential marker of the concept of evil since it is found in all three accounts as a feature of evil, even though in each account a different type of evil is at stake (moral, political, and existential). (shrink)

Dori's narrative is a heart-touching and zany blend of actual events in the life of a young Boxer. With edgy charm, she takes us on a romp through her world in such a way we can't help but reconsider our lives. Through her we get a dog's-eye view on human exploitation of animals. This unique approach is hauntingly effective.

Hans Urs von Balthasar's philosophical anthropology is the premise not only of his religious epistemology, but also of his whole theological enterprise. The importance of his anthropology to the rest of his theology is often overlooked, because its fundamentals are set out in an early work to which little critical attention has been given: Das Betrachtende Gebet– a work which emphasizes the “necessity of prayer”. According to von Balthasar, in praying, one encounters God, and it is through this encounter that (...) one can attain authentic personal identity and genuine fulfilment. In short, what this early work indicates is a conception of humanity as homo orans. (shrink)

Hans Urs von Balthasar's philosophical anthropology is the premise not only of his religious epistemology, but also of his whole theological enterprise. The importance of his anthropology to the rest of his theology is often overlooked, because its fundamentals are set out in an early work to which little critical attention has been given: Das Betrachtende Gebet– a work which emphasizes the “necessity of prayer”. According to von Balthasar, in praying, one encounters God, and it is through this encounter that (...) one can attain authentic personal identity and genuine fulfilment. In short, what this early work indicates is a conception of humanity as homo orans. (shrink)

Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Christocentric philosophical anthropology is the premise not only of his religious epistemology, but also of his whole theological enterprise. The importance of his anthropology to the rest of his theology is often overlooked, because its fundamentals are set out in an early work to which little critical attention has been given: Das Betrachtende Gebet—a work which emphasises the ‘necessity of prayer’. According to von Balthasar, in praying, one encounters God, and it is through this encounter that (...) one can attain authentic personal identity and genuine fulfilment. In short, what this early work indicates is a conception of humanity as homo orans. (shrink)

In the autumn of 430 BCE, the city of Athens was devastated by a plague, one chronicled by both the Athenian historian Thucydides and the Roman poet Lucretius. Albert Camus’ notebooks and novel The Plague (La peste) clearly show his interest in the plague of Athens and several scholars have detected comparisons between its narrator, Dr. Rieux, and the historian Thucydides. But a careful examination of what Rieux actually says about the plague of Athens complicates matters and suggests that Camus (...) in some sense rejects accounts of the plague of Athens as a model for his novel. Such a rejection seems confirmed by the novel’s identification of Joseph Grand as its hero, an example of decidedly non-Periclean virtue. I argue that although one can find comparisons within the Plague between Athens and Oran, more pronounced are their contrasts. (shrink)

Esta investigación intenta identificar al "muftí de Orán," bosquejando su vida y carrera a través de un análisis de los datos disponibles en las fuentes oorteafricanaa. Quisiera plantear que, ya en las fuentes biográficas del siglo XVI, se bao coofundido las biografias de dos emditoa, la del muftí, Abti l-'Abbáa Alimad b. Ahí (~um'a (m. 917/1511), y la de su hijo, Abti 'Abd Alláb Mul~ammad ~aqrtin (m. 929/1523-24). Mi investigación propone resolver esta confusión. Originario de Orán, Al~mad estudió en Tremecéo (...) y acabó por establecerse en Fez, donde cooaiguió un puesto como profesor de ley islámica. Ea probable que haya emitido su famoaafarwó de 910/1504 a los moriscos desde allá, como uno de los juristas prominentes de la ciudad, con la intención de oponerse a la opinión de su contemporáneo AlJmad b. YalJyá alWaniariai (m. 914/1508). (shrink)

The Introduction provides a historical and literary context for the examination of Albert Camus’s 1947 fictional novel, The Plague, to suggest its relevance to our own lived experiences of the 2021 Covid-19 pandemic that brought the routines and expectations of our normal, daily lives to an unprecedented halt. Details of Camus’s life and work inform our reading of the narrative that give rise to multiple interpretations as well as intriguing questions of scholarly inquiry: How realistic are the characters? Does solidarity (...) eventually triumph over isolation? Does the popular novel inspire social change or fail in its aspirations? Facing the absurdity of a similarly unwelcome and unpredictable disease, have we managed our fear of death more successfully than the citizens of Oran? An overview of authors’ contributions sets the stage for new and unique perspectives: an invitation for readers to reflect upon our communal experience of immense grief. (shrink)

This is the second of two articles that are connected in a reading of The plague by Albert Camus. The other article is a determined narration of the events of a tragedy that befalls a city on the coast of Algeria. That article resists analysis beyond the decisions that are made regarding text to use, and of course interpretations to make. This article is juxtaposed to the first, with the intention of taking key themes of education and narration and considering (...) them within the context of another tragedy and another kind of narration. In this article the narratives of government education policy are considered in relation to the event of a tragic earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. The government narratives are then replaced by the narratives of Oran to consider alternative ways of thinking about tragedy and education and in particular to think about the ways in which the narrative relates to the tragedy and to any learning that might happen as a result of, and during, a tragedy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 13.1 (2005) 104-108 [Access article in PDF] A Response to Estelle R. Jorgensen, "Four Philosophical Models of the Relationship Between Theory and Practice" Randall Everett Allsup Teachers College, Columbia University Each of the four philosophical models that Estelle Jorgensen has put forth contests, adheres to, or adjusts the hierarchical relationships between dualities, specifically the theory and practice of musical learning. The dichotomy model faces (...) binary associations head on, splitting existence however defined into dualisms like "this/that," "us/them," and "mind/body." Models of polarity, according to Jorgensen, accommodate dualities by buffering edges, emphasizing the interconnectedness of binary relationships. The fusion metaphor is exemplified by Paulo Freire's notion of praxis in which action and reflection are welded together to create hope for a new world, one free of the oppression and conflict that is inherent in binary relationships. The dialectical model is contrapuntal by nature, Edward Said would say.1This relationship highlights our postmodern devotion to différence by embracing the tension created through inclusion so that "this is with that," "we are with them and they are with us," and "mind is with body, just as body is with mind."2Perhaps there is a fifth model, a new kind of relationship where the oppositional or hierarchical nature of binaries co-exists peacefully without tension. [End Page 104] Such an arrangement is, I think, an outgrowth of capitalist democracy—it is, most especially, representative of our global, information age. This type of relationship is problematic philosophically, we will see, lacking as Jorgensen has outlined "logic evidenced in principles," "internal consistency," and "coherence within a unity or whole." Likewise for Bennett Reimer, this new mind-set fails the test of philosophical scrutiny, unconcerned as it is with a "reasoned, structured set of propositions."3 Whether philosophy or mind-set, this new arrangement has as much to do with freedom and free markets as it does with the particular conditions of both modernity and postmodernity.In the novel, White Noise, by Don DeLillo, the postmodern condition is represented in part by an "Airborne Toxic Event," a cloud of gas, Nyodene D, which floats above a tranquil All-American college town.4 A sense of crisis is felt, but felt obliquely and no one knows exactly what harm has been done. In Albert Camus' The Plague, by contrast, the disease that infests the North African town of Oran acts to awaken its citizenry, confronting the populace with the moral imperatives to fight or flee.5 Perhaps the metaphor of quarantine symbolizes the hard boundaries of modernism.Capitalism seeks to dissolve conflict. It operates silently, in the realm of social production, like a cloud of gas. Denise, Jack Gladney's daughter in White Noise, mumbles over and over in her sleep, "Toyota Corolla, Toyota Celica, Toyota Cressida...."6 There is a sense of ontological change, that the expanding reach of media, information, and technology rewires the way we think, the way we dream. Tensions are willed away. The expansion and survival of market shares, after all, depend on the peaceful erosion of boundaries—boundaries that demarcate what we learn, what we buy, and who we are.Questions about what this new system means—this new mind-set—are explored in a book called Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.7 These writers posit a global world of communication, cooperation, and affect, where an increase in hybrids creates a kind of "omniversality" where the virtual, natural, and ideological converge.8 In the dialectical relationship that Jorgensen shares with writers like Paulo Freire and Maxine Greene, there is no acceptable synthesis, no peaceful co-existence, between oppressors and oppressed. While according to Freire, the oppressed may internalize or house characteristics of the oppressor. In the global world of capital, the oppositional nature of the Other is replaced by niches or fragments, dissolving differences into marketing opportunities, really. That the avant-garde no longer exists is proof of this new state.As the essentialist nature of the Other fades away... (shrink)

Camus himself called The Plague his most anti-Christian text, and most theologically oriented readings of the text agree. This paper shows how the sermons of Fr. Paneloux—an Augustine scholar--as well as Dr. Rieux’s mother present an Augustinian picture of love. This love opposes the passionate concupiscence for possession of things with the divine love which wishes for the constant conscious presence of the beloved in the light of the good. Such is possible for us, as Augustine exhibits and helps us (...) practice, if one reads the world as it really is—temporal signs of the eternal goodness, wisdom and presence of God—which Augustine discovers “too late.” While the doctor describes Oran as a city “without intimations” many elements of the text intimate otherwise. In such an Augustinian sacramental reading the “problem of evil” disappears. (shrink)

İnsanlardaki nefsin yatkınlık seviyesi ve mizacın denge oranı eşit düzeyde olmadığından onların Ayüstü âlemden ulaşan haber içerikli mesajları kabullerinde farklılıklar ortaya çıkar. Akıl yetisi yetkin, sezgisi kuvvetli, taklit kabiliyeti yüksek olan insanların diğerlerine kıyasla Ayüstü âlemden feyz edileni kabulü güçlüdür. Makalede metafizik tözlerden iletileni kabul eden ve bilinmeyen olaylara ilişkin haber veren insanlar hakkındaki bilgi üç aşamalı olarak verilmiştir: (a) Platon’un şâir, kâhin, âşık arasında yaptığı ayrımın Aristoteles ve Plutarkhos felsefesindeki yeri. (b) İslam öncesi dönemde şâir ile kâhinlerin konumu ve (...) müşrikler tarafından Hz. Muhammed’e hem şâirlik hem de kâhinlik atfedilmesi, Hz. Muhammed’in ayetlerde nebî olarak tanımlanması. (c) Fârâbî’yle İbn Sînâ’nın şâir, kâhin, âşık ve nebîye yükledikleri anlam. Bu çerçevede ‘Hem Fârâbî hem de İbn Sînâ’nın şâir-kâhin hakkındaki fikirlerinin felsefî temelleri ve nebî kavramıyla ilgili görüşlerinin dinî dayanağı nedir’ sorularına cevap aranmaya çalışılmıştır. Bu sorulara yanıt bulmaya gayret gösterilirken nübüvvetin şiir ve kehânetten üstünlüğü göz önünde bulundurularak nebînin şâir, kâhin ve âşıktan farklı olduğunu belirleme hedeflenmiştir. (shrink)

How to conjure up a picture, for instance, of a town without pigeons, without any trees or gardens, where you never hear the beat of wings or the rustle of leaves—a thoroughly negative place in short?Though now home to the majority of the world's human population, cities—indeed the politics of life itself—have always been multispecies endeavors. The quote above is Albert Camus's description of Oran, the fictional town that is the site of a devastating plague outbreak in his seminal (...) work, The Plague. It is meant to conjure a decidedly dystopian urban landscape due to its marked absence of nonhuman life. Such a scenario is precisely what the visionary artistic and literary movement Solar Punk seek to counter... (shrink)

Özet Kuzey Kıbrıs emek piyasası üzerine yapılan çalışmalar, toplumsal cinsiyet temelli mesleki ayrışmayı kadının işgücüne düşük katılımını etkileyen en önemli sebeplerden biri olarak tespit etmiştir. Bu çalışma 11 yıl içerisinde bu tespitten yola çıkarak Kuzey Kıbrıs emek piyasasındaki mesleki ayrışmanın büyüklüğünü, zaman içerisindeki değişimini ve bu değişimin kaynaklarını araştırmayı amaçlamaktadır.Ayrışma, Hanehalkı İşgücü Anketi verileri kullanılarak 9 ana mesleki grup için genel, kırsal ve kensel bölgelerde ölçülmüştür. Çalışma bulguları, tüm bölgelerde toplumsal cinsiyete dayalı mesleki ayrışmanın yüksek ve yaygın olduğunu göstermiştir. İndeksin (...) ayrıştırılması artan ayrışmanın temel sebebinin net ayrışmadan, yani bireysel meslekler içindeki kadın erkek oranında meydana gelen değişmeden, kaynaklandığını göstermiştir. Yüksek ve yaygın olan mesleki toplumsal cinsiyet ayrışmasının, emek piyasasının kadın ve erkek meslekleri olarak katmanlaşmasına sebep olduğu, bunun da kadının meslek grupları arasında hareketinin kısıtlanmasına yol açarak işgücüne katılımını olumsuz etkilediği sonucuna varılmıştır. (shrink)