It is widely believed that we are facing a problem, even a crisis, caused by so-called “echo chambers” and “filter bubbles.” Here, David Coady argues that this belief is mistaken. There is no such problem, and we should refrain from using these neologisms altogether. They serve no useful purpose, since there is nothing we can say with them that we cannot say equally well or better without them. Furthermore, they cause a variety of harms, including, ironically, a tendency to (...) narrow public debate within predetermined limits. (shrink)

Emptiness is a strange phenomenon that haunts us in many ways. Most of us have felt empty at one time or another, though we don’t often talk about it. We have a sense that something is missing in life. This absence extends beyond human experience to the physical world. As contemporary science has revealed to us on both a macroscopic and subatomic level, curiously, the vast majority of the universe is composed mostly of nothing but empty space. Emptiness is “abundant” (...) and beckons for our attention. Drawing on the Judeo-Christian wisdom of the Bible, in conversation with Eastern and Celtic thought, David Arthur Auten offers us an eye-opening and profoundly practical examination of the much neglected gift of absence. Nothing, ironically, turns out to be endlessly fascinating and significant. (shrink)

A permanent state of suspension or deferment -- How theory became history -- "Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences" -- "I will teach you differences" -- An assembling of reminders -- ". . . a complicated network of similarities, overlapping and criss-crossing" -- Gedankenwegen: on import and interpretation -- "Of which we cannot speak . . .": philosophy and the humanities -- What is (film) philosophy? -- Order out of chaos -- Idea, image, and intuition -- The world, (...) time -- The ordinary necessity of philosophy -- "Art now exists in the condition of philosophy" -- Falling in love with the world -- Ontology and desire, or a moving response to skepticism -- Automatism and the declaration of existence in time -- Ethical practices of the ordinary -- Perfectionism as self-disobedience -- Comedy and community -- A digression on difference and interpretation -- Perfectionism's ironic transport -- An elegy for theory. (shrink)

Miloš Forman began his career as a filmmaker at the Barrandov Studios in Prague in the 1960s and films Amadeus with Barrandov in the early 1980s. The contrast between the high budget historical spectacle of Amadeus and the gently ironic realism of his 1960s films could not be more pronounced. I will explore here the changes that mark both Forman’s own development as a filmmaker between the 1960s and the 1980s as well as considering the impact of normalisation on the (...) Barrandov Studios following the events of August 1968. During the 1960s, aside from its relationship with the young filmmakers of the New Wave, Barrandov supported an extraordinary range of films from popular to historical epics. Under the directorship of Josef Veselý, Barrandov turned out to be an environment that produced films that were successful with the public, formally experimental and politically challenging. The situation at Barrandov after 1968 quickly changed and Forman decided not to return to Czechoslovakia. Forman’s films during the 1970s in the USA brought him a level of international fame and popularity that is unrivalled in the history of Czech cinema but showed a radical departure from the films of the 1960s. This change culminates with Amadeus and his return to Barrandov. Even as his budgets increased massively, there was a loss of quality in the films of the 1970s and beyond and we can see in Amadeus, both as film and as production, a parable of exploitation and decadence that mourns the creative possibilities of the 1960s. (shrink)

David Hume (1711-76) is the grand intellectual figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. Ironically, what is now considered his magnum opus, the ill-received three-volume A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), was rejected by Hume himself by 1751. Subsequently, when Hume first compiled his Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects two years later, he excluded the Treatise and considered this new collection of essays to be his complete philosophical writings. Hume revised the Essays and Treatises some ten times in various editions, (...) adding, modifying and deleting material. This 1777 edition incorporates his final changes which he made quite literally on his deathbed, fully aware that this edition would be the last to involve his input. As such it is considered the definitive edition of Hume's philosophical writings and should be read alongside the first definitive edition of the Treatise. (shrink)

Foreword: Synchronicity is more than a happy accident by Brian Tart -- The quest -- Cycles of history and the law of one -- What is synchronicity? -- Understanding the sociopath -- The global adversary -- Karma is real -- Reincarnation -- Mapping out the afterlife -- The hero and his story -- The first and second acts of the hero -- Facing your fear and completing the quest -- Joan of arc rises again -- The 2,160-year cycle between rome (...) and the usa -- Vietnam, watergate and the fall of the iron curtain -- The sky is not falling-only our blindfolds -- September 11th-from both sides of the veil -- The thirteen years' war repeats in america -- 9/11 and the defeat of the cabal-the cycle perspective -- History gets a wicked case of deja vu -- Fomenko's cycles of history-and the Book of Daniel -- Explaining the cycles and the fourth-density shift. (shrink)

Johns Revelation wrestles with the question of how Jesus' followers were to live under the imperial domination of Rome. While some see John as establishing an alternative imperial system, attention to the irony with which the story is told reveals a more compelling critique of power.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SCANDAL AND IMITATION IN MATTHEW, KIERKEGAARD, AND GIRARD David McCracken University ofWashington Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest, but his resemblance was insufficient for the first- or secondplace prize. He finished third, and thus created a small scandal: the judges—experts on Charlie Chaplin—proved to be so inept that they could not recognize the genuine article1. The simple, mimetic entertainment of a look-alike contest can become (...) more interesting when marked by a spirit of ironic play, which we may plausibly attribute to Charlie Chaplin, and it certainly becomes more interesting when marked by the scandal of inept authorities. Scandals have a way of attracting attention: we take notice, and often pleasure, when experts are shown to be fools. If, on the other hand, we are the experts, then we are likely to take offense and become embarrassed or uncomfortable, defensive or aggressive, humiliated or angry. Either way, we may be scandalized—at the actions of others or at the treatment of ourselves. The Chaplin story suggests three observations about scandal and imitation, which must be understood together because they are necessarily related, one requiring the other. First, models (in this case, Chaplin as the object ofimitation) may be transformed into idols, something fantastic or untrue that we are led to admire, desire, or worship. The movie idol Chaplin was sufficiently far removed from the actual human, Charlie Chaplin, that Charlie Chaplin finished the contest in third place. In the 1 The story, perhaps apocryphal, has been around for some years and reappeared recently in Barash (87), but it is not recorded in Chaplin's autobiography. David McCracken147 Hebrew Bible, idolatry is more extreme: the golden calf is an attractive idol because it can be seen, a fantastic improvement (it would seem) over an invisible God whose mediator has decamped. Instead of worshipping God, the Israelites worship their own desires, which are literally "dungballs " in Ezekiel's graphic vocabulary. Whether the movement is from an invisible God named YHWH toward a golden calf or dung-ball, or from a movie star, who is usually seen as a large image on a silver screen, toward the movie-goer's fond, mental reconstruction ofhim, the process of idolatry leads humans to mistake the false for the real. Second, imitation has different forms: in a look-alike contest, imitation will depend to some extent on the happenstance of physical similarity—the size and face should resemble Chaplin's—but it will also depend on clothing and movement. The entrant Chaplin must have had a significant advantage in size and face, but this advantage was obviously not decisive. Since he failed to win, we begin to wonder: Did he wear the right clothes and hat? Did he, consummate actor that he was, move like Charlie Chaplin or rather more like Buster Keaton? Did he, for the sake of his little scandal, fail to appropriate himself, so to speak; did he misrepresent himself in order not to win? Looking alike is one thing, but appropriating and representing are quite another. Finally, imitation often involves rivalry, which leads to scandal: the Chaplin look-alike contest is a competition, a form ofrivalry that involves winners and losers—that is the point of the contest. By entering the contest, Chaplin made himself an unfair obstacle to the other contestants. But ifhe tried to lose, by not acting like Chaplin, he became an obstacle to thejudges, misleading them into the ludicrous conclusion that someone other-than-Chaplin looked more like Chaplin than Chaplin. The potential scandal is inextricably related to judgment and rivalry, however lighthearted it may be in this case. Like our ordinary contests, New Testament imitation raises the specter of competition: the Pharisee gives thanks that he is not like the poor man (he wins the competition for righteousness hands down, he thinks, and he is fundamentally persuaded that there is a competition); the disciples want to know who among them—the competitors—gets to sit on the right hand; and Peter maintains that, while other disciples may be scandalized, he will not be (he wins, they lose). All ofthese miss the point decisively: New Testament imitation requires the renunciation ofrivalry. The... (shrink)

Consequentialist and Kantian theories differ over the ethical relevance of consequences of actions. I investigate how they might differ too over the relevance of what actions are consequence of. Focusing on the case of group action and collective responsibility, I argue that there's a kind of analog to the problem of aggregating the value of consequencesthat Kantian theories will not confront and consequentialist theories will. The issue provides a useful way to characterize a deep difference between Kantian and consequentialist theories (...) and points, ironically, toward a way of making those views compatible. (shrink)

Keynes is widely accepted to have proved the existence of a consumption gap as a cause of economic depressions. Such a gap meant that, ironically, depressions could get worse as a result of the greater wealth produced by the modern economy, since, as Keynes argued, the wealthy consumed proportionately less than the lower?income groups. Textual analysis, however, shows that Keynes's arguments amounted to assumptions, not demonstrations. And a survey of the empirical research of the subsequent half?century reveals a lack of (...) convincing evidence of the consumption gap. (shrink)

Taking its orientation from Peter Winch, this article critiques from a Wittgensteinian point of view some “theoreticist” tendencies within constructivism. At the heart of constructivism is the deeply Wittgensteinian idea that the world as we know and understand it is the product of human intelligence and interests. The usefulness of this idea can be vitiated by a failure to distinguish conceptual from empirical questions. I argue that such a failure characterises two influential constructivist theories, those of Ernst von Glasersfeld and (...) David Bloor. These are considered in turn. Both theories seek to give a general, causal account of knowledge: von Glasersfeld's in term of cognitive subjectivity, Bloor's in terms of social agreement. Ironically, given that both writers cite Wittgenstein as a source of theoretical inspiration, assumptions of both theories run counter to key Wittgensteinian arguments. To show that Wittgenstein's views offer no solace to the realist, the article closes with a brief consideration of John Searle's theory of knowledge. (shrink)

In Smith’s view, the dédoublement that structures any act of sympathy is internalized and doubled within the self. In endeavoring to “pass sentence” upon one’s own conduct, Smith writes, “I divide myself, as it were, into two persons; and … I, the examiner and judge, represent a different character from that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into and judged of” . Earlier in his book, Smith claims that in imagining someone else’s sentiments, we “imagine ourselves acting the (...) part” of that person ; here he pictures us trying to play ourselves by representing ourselves as two different characters. “The first,” writes Smith, “is the spectator, whose sentiments with regard to my own conduct I endeavour to enter into, by placing myself in his situation.” The second character, according to Smith, is “the agent, the person whom I properly call myself, and of whose conduct, under the character of a spectator, I was endeavouring to form some opinion” . In the version of this chapter that appeared in the first edition, Smith made these roles explicitly by stating that “we must imagine ourselves not the actors, but the spectators of our own character and conduct” . In his final exposition, he makes it clear that we are both actors and spectators of our characters. We are actors not just because we appear before spectators played by ourselves but also because, as Smith describes, we personate ourselves in different parts, persons, and characters. The self is theatrical in its relation to others and in its self-conscious relation to itself; but it also enters the theater because “the person whom I properly call myself” must be the actor who can dramatize or represent to himself the spectacle of self-division in which the self personates two different persons who try to play each other’s part, change positions, and identify with each others. Ironically, after founding his Theory of Moral Sentiments on a supposedly universal principle of sympathy, and then structuring the act of sympathy around the epistemological void that prevents people from sharing each other’s feelings, Smith seems to separate the self from the one self if could reasonably claim to know: itself. In order to sympathize with ourselves, we must imagine ourselves as an other who looks upon us as an other and tries to imagine us. Indeed, calling the spectator within the self the person judged of, Smith writes, “but that the judge should, in every respect, be the same with the person judged of, is as impossible, as that the cause should in every respect, be the same with the effect” . Thus the actor and spectator into which one divides oneself can never completely identify with each other or be made identical. Identity is itself undermined by the theatrical model which pictures the self as an actor who stands beside himself and represents the characters of both spectator and spectacle.14 14. Smith’s depiction of the impartial spectator and the relations it creates within the self suggest that he has been reading Shaftesbury. The characterization of the impartial spectator as the “man within the breast” recalls Joseph Butler’s discussion of “the witness of conscience” in his sermons “Upon the Natural Supremacy of Conscience” . Hume discusses the moral value of considering how we appear in the eyes of those who regard us: “By our continual and earnest pursuit of a character, a reputation in the world, we bring our own deportment and conduct frequently in review, and consider how they appear in the eyes of those who approach and regard us. This constant habit of surveying ourselves, as it were, in reflection, keeps alive al the sentiments of right and wrong” . It is Shaftesbury, however, who expounds a “doctrine of two persons in one individual self” as he presents his “dramatic method” …. The terms and figures of theater are clearly inscribed within Smith’s characterizations of sympathy and the impartial spectator but they are clearly informed by Shaftesbury’s meditation on the dramatic character of the self and the problem of theatricality that threatens the self as it appears before the eyes of the world. This interpretation of Shaftesbury is developed at length in my The Figure of Theater. David Marshall, assistant professor of English and comparative literature at Yale University, has written on Rilke and Shakespeare. The present essay is adapted from a chapter of his forthcoming book, The Figure of Theater: Shaftesbury, Defoe, Adam Smith, and George Eliot. (shrink)

Debates on the practical relevance of ideal theory revolve around Sen's metaphor of navigating a mountainous landscape. In *The Tyranny of the Ideal*, Gerald Gaus presents the most thorough articulation of this metaphor to date. His detailed exploration yields new insight on central issues in existing debates, as well as a fruitful medium for exploring important limitations on our ability to map the space of social possibilities. Yet Gaus's heavy reliance on the navigation metaphor obscures questions about the reasoning by (...) which ideal theories are justified. As a result, Gaus fails to notice the ways in which his theory of the Open Society resembles the ideal theories he aims to dismiss. Ironically, Gaus winds up neglecting the ways in which the Open Society might tyrannize our efforts to realize greater justice. (This article is part of a symposium on Gaus's *The Tyranny of the Ideal*.). (shrink)

This paper examines the reaction of Victorian Presbyterian culture to the theory of evolution in late nineteenth century Scotland. Focusing on the role played by the Free Church theologian, biblical critic and anthropological theorist, William Robertson Smith, it argues that, compared with Smith’s radical scholarship, evolutionary theories did little to disturb the Scottish Calvinist mind-set. After surveying the attitudes to evolution among a range of theological leaders, the paper examines Smith’s fundamentally threatening proposals and the circumstances that led to the (...) public spectacle of his dismissal from his Free Church professorship. It concludes by suggesting that, ironically, even while his fellow churchmen were making their peace with Darwin, Smith was mobilising an evolutionary outlook that challenged Scotland’s conservative religious culture to its very core. (shrink)