In the recent history of philosophy few works have appeared which favorably portray Idealism as a plausible philosophical view of the world. Considerably less has been written about Idealism as a viable framework for doing theology. While the most recent and significant works on Idealism, composed by the late John Foster (Case for Idealism and A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenological Idealism), have put this theory back on the philosophical map, no such attempt has been made to re-introduce (...) Idealism to contemporary Christian theology. Idealism and Christian Theology is such a work, retrieving ideas and arguments from its most significant modern exponents (especially George Berkeley and Jonathan Edwards) in order to assess its value for present and future theological construction. As a piece of constructive philosophical-theology itself, this volume considers the explanatory power an Idealist ontology has for contemporary Christian theology. (shrink)

_The Art of Theater_ argues for the recognition of theatrical performance as an art form independent of dramatic writing. Identifies the elements that make a performance a work of art Looks at the competing views of the text-performance relationships An important and original contribution to the aesthetics and philosophy of theater.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Art of Theater—A PrécisJames R. Hamilton (bio)In The Art of Theater I propose and explain a claim that many theater people hold true in some form but, so far as I can tell, have defended in a manner that has had almost no success outside discussions among themselves.1 The claim proposed is that, in an unqualified way, theater is a form of art. By that I mean (...) theatrical performances are what are created in the practice of theater and that theatrical performances are works of art because they can be picked out and appreciated in the same ways we appreciate other kinds of artworks.2The agenda I set for the book is to state and explain what that claim comes to—exactly and in detail. Accordingly, most of the book consists of explanations of what else must be true if the claim is true, together with arguments defending the truth of those entailments. Some of the material consists of clarifying what the claim does not entail, and some passages contain arguments to show that alternative claims have problems that this one does not. Of these, I have allowed the explanation and clarification materials to carry the burden. Many philosophers and literary theorists are likely to find the claim incomprehensible because they have inherited, rather than critically accepted, a conception of theater as centrally dependent on literary texts.3 Philosophers, literary theorists, and theater theorists are better served by the explanations and clarifications I offer, however, because they show the claim can withstand the immediate objections or worries likely to arise.The direct argumentation I offer for the claim is historical. Indeed, I begin the book by tracing how theater has been conceived and practiced in the European theatrical tradition since the 1850s. I start there and then for several reasons. First, it is the beginning of a period of great achievement in theater, when literary artists began again to write for theater. Second, the same period also gave rise to a now dominant conception of theater: namely, [End Page 4] the idea that theatrical performances, or at least the most often performed, are events that are dependant primarily if not exclusively on literary texts. Finally, the 1850s were also the beginning of a period in which theater people were both doing and thinking about theater in ways that resisted that very same dominant conception. The conclusion I come to in tracing this history is that—without always intending to and sometimes by intending the opposite—theater’s theoretical practitioners have put us in a position to see the truth of the claim that theatrical performance itself is an independent form of art. Assured we can see that truth in the actual historical practices of theater, even in its most self-consciously text-oriented period, I then proceed to explain and clarify the claim.To begin with, the enormous success of the conjunction of literature and theater in late European theater practice means that any view of the art status of theatrical performances must explain the relation between a performance and a literary text, at least when a literary text is used in the performance. This is the first bit of explanation I undertake. A number of models of this relationship have been proposed, and I survey three of the primary ones. First, the “literary” model holds that performances illustrate or, at best, interpret the text and exist as a means to present the content—or the interpreted content—of the text in a performance mode. Second, the “two-text” model holds that the content of the literary text must be translated, adapted, transformed, reconstructed, or otherwise “reinscribed” in the language of theater. A third model, popular in analytic aesthetics, attempts to piggyback an account of theatrical works, texts, and theatrical performances on the well-developed ontology of musical works, scores, and musical performance.4 This third model might provide the right ontology of theatrical performances. Before we try to determine what kinds of things or events make our experience of theater what it is, however, first we should seek the best explanation of that experience. And that is the task I undertake in... (shrink)

Hamilton explains why "drama" is a category of literature rather than of theater, even though it is appropriate to describe many theatrical performances as "dramatic." Consideration of the possibilities of theatrical performance are especially important to this category of literature, but need not be (and often are not) decisive in constraining interpretations of dramatic works.

Hamilton argues that narratives engage our imaginations not so much by having us pretend the events they depict are true or present as by having us engage in a kind of anticipation of events to come. The idea is that the grasp of a narratively structured presentation is explained in very much the same way any sequence of events, considered as a sequence, is grasped.

Hamilton shows how awareness of the uses of space -- in particular uses of space in which to stage an event of any kind -- enable spectators to pick out characters, props, and the like across performances within production runs, across production runs, and even across productions employing different scripts. The key ideas of object identification are taken both from the philosophical and the empirical literature and are treated as epistemic ideas rather than metaphysical conceptions.

Hamilton argues that there is a level of understanding of theatrical performances, and narrative performances in particular (called "plays"), that does not require grasp of the large-scale aesthetic features that usually inform the structure of what is presented. This "basic understanding" is required for any spectator to go on to have a deeper understanding and, so, grounds any spectator's understanding of the larger-scale features of a performance.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Replies to CriticismsJames R. HamiltonI am grateful to Noël Carroll, David Davies, Sherri Irvin, Aaron Meskin, and Paul Thom for stimulating discussions of The Art of Theater over the past year, culminating in these carefully crafted critical comments on various aspects of the book.1 I especially appreciate the efforts of Sherri Irvin, who edited this special issue and without whose encouragement, enthusiasm, and careful editing this would not have (...) happened.Whenever the central proposals made in The Art of Theater were made by theater people during the past hundred years, they were greeted with a kind of baffled outrage by many traditionalist literature scholars who had taken it as an obvious fact that theatrical performances are nothing more than illustrations or interpretations of works of dramatic literature, at best requiring artistry for performance but not issuing in independent works of art. Quite a few contemporary literature and theater scholars have seen errors in the traditionalist view and proposed that theatrical performances are capable of even great artistry and, perhaps, of being works of art in their own right. It must be said, however, that they will not find my defense of that position congenial. Indeed, it will seem worse still from their point of view because my defense of the position does not require semiotic analysis, let alone any sort of poststructuralist thinking about theatrical performances that depends on seeing performance as a novel kind of text—a “theater text.” This will disappoint because, unlike many contemporary literary theorists (and even some theater theorists), I do not think of theatrical performances as something to be read and, further, as something that falls within the purview of literary scholarship after all. Performances are actions and are to be understood in the ways we understand all other actions.I knew the central proposals in The Art of Theater would seem a little strange to philosophers. Some of the strangeness that they have felt about the view—if not the baffled outrage felt by literary theorists—can be mitigated, I believe, by considering three facts that served as motivations for making the proposal. I encountered these facts while teaching experimental theater techniques in a workshop format. Only gradually did I come to realize they are facts about any theatrical performance—its presentation, its [End Page 80] preparation, and its reception. It was only after I realized how general these facts are that I began to wonder why the view they seem to suggest is not more widely held, or even discussed, among philosophers working on the performing arts. My book was designed to get that discussion going. And, to judge by the quality of the discussion in this volume, it has succeeded admirably in meeting that goal. I think the book is also largely correct, however, so it is worth beginning at the beginning, with the basic facts I encountered in teaching experimental theater.First, it is undeniable that what typical spectators for any theatrical performance grasp is delivered to them entirely during the time of the performance itself. The typical spectator—which excludes academics and professional critics—is usually unfamiliar with what she is about to see and hear, in content if not in kind. Nevertheless, most spectators are successful in tracking most theatrical performances, even some in wildly unfamiliar styles and traditions. This is an important fact. Its importance lies in the implication that spectators do not need to recognize anything beyond what they see in the performance to regard the event as something they can assess aesthetically and artistically.Second, rehearsal processes for theatrical performances involve a lot of experimentation that focuses on how to make features of actors’ bodies and voices render clearly what the audience is supposed to see and hear and on how to make the sights and sounds generated by the ensemble, the set, the lighting, and so on focus audience attention in the places that will best enable them to understand what the company is presenting. This too is an important fact, for it highlights what any spectator has to know something about in order to make cogent artistic assessments of the event she has witnessed.Finally, consider the following case... (shrink)

In this article I propose a way of thinking about aesthetic and artistic verdicts that would keep them distinct from one another. The former are reflections of the kinds of things we prefer and take pleasure in; the latter are reflections of other judgments we make about the kinds of achievements that are made in works of art. In part to support this view of verdicts, I also propose a way of keeping distinct the description, the interpretation, and the evaluation (...) of works of art. (And along the way, I worry about whether we offer the same kinds of interpretations of the objects of our aesthetic pleasures, properly considered, that we clearly do offer with respect to works of art.) The thesis I propose—the achievement model—is not original with me. What is original, perhaps, is that it is posed as an alternative to two other views of artistic evaluation, namely the appeal to “ideal critics” and the appeal to one way of understanding our preferences with regard to works of art. I do not attempt to show that each of these alternatives meets with insuperable problems; but I do indicate what I take to be the substantive content of those problems. In the end, in order to flesh out the thesis I propose, I borrow some material from the literature on human well-being concerning how we determine what an achievement is. (shrink)

Describes the life and influence of B. Brecht. Offers useful explanations of several key concepts Brecht employed, and revised over his career, including: gestus, Verfremdung, and Verfremdungseffekt.

This chapter contains section titled: Minimal General Success Conditions for Basic Theatrical Understanding Physical and Affective Responses of Audiences as Non‐Discursive Evidence of Understanding The Success Conditions for Basic Theatrical Understanding Met by Moment‐to‐moment Apprehension of Performances “Immediate Objects,” “Developed Objects,” and “Cogency” Objects of Understanding having Complex Structures Generalizing Beyond Plays The Problem of “Cognitive Uniformity”.

This chapter contains section titled: General Success Conditions for Deeper Theatrical Understanding More Precise Success Conditions: Two Kinds of Deeper Understanding Some Puzzles about the Relation between Understanding What is Performed and Understanding How it is Performed Deeper Theatrical Understanding and Full Appreciation of a Theatrical Performance.

This chapter contains section titled: The Idea of a Tradition and Tradition‐Defining Constraints Constraints Derived from Origins in Written Texts What Really Constrains Performances in the Text‐Based Tradition The Myth of “Of”.

This chapter contains section titled: The Case of the Culturally Lethargic Company Broader Implications of the CLC Problem The “Imputationalist” Solution Solving the CLC Problem without Resorting to Imputationalism Full Appreciation of a Theatrical Performance and the Detection of Theatrical Failures.

This chapter contains section titled: Idealized Cases Models of the Text‐Performance Relation Definitions of Terms Used to Describe What Spectators Do Definitions of Terms Used to Describe What Performers Do Counterfactual Conditionals Demonstrative and Recognition‐Based Identification Feature‐salience Model Metaphysical Realism Necessary and Sufficient Conditions Ontology, Metaphysics, Epistemology Note.

An investigation of Handke's play by means of an analysis of the elements of the Tractatus, known to have influenced Handke at the time he wrote Kaspar. This approach yields a much more plausible account of Handke's representation of his central character's alienation than are available from now-standard semiotic and post-structuralist analyses.

This chapter contains section titled: Success Conditions for Interpreting what is Performed and Interpreting how it is Performed Eschewing Theories of “Work Meaning” Interpretation and Significance Interpreting Performers.

This chapter contains section titled: Identifying Characters, Events, and Other Objects in Narrative Performances Re‐Identification of Characters and Other Objects in Narrative Performances The Special Nature of Theatrical (Uses of) Space: Performances and Performance Space Cross‐Performance Re‐Identification Identifying and Re‐Identifying Objects in Non‐Narrative Performances Added Benefits of the Demonstrative and Recognition based Approach to Identification and Re‐Identification Theatrical Performance as a Fully Independent Practice.

This chapter contains section titled: Idealized Cases that Help Focus on Features Needing Analysis Three General Facts about Theatrical Performances and the Constraints They Impose on any Successful Account of Theatrical Performances.

A key epistemic puzzle about theatrical performances of fictional narratives has to do with how spectators pick out and recognize the characters they encounter. An adequate solution to the puzzle is constrained by several factors : it should be similar to what we need to say about picking out and recognition of characters in non-fictional narratives ; it should be similar to what we need to say about picking out and recognizing elements in non-narrative performances ; it be it must (...) be sensitive to the fact that most plays do not name or describe their characters ; it must be sensitive to the fact that most spectators have no prior experience or preparation for what they will encounter ; and it must comport with any plausible story we have to tell about the mechanisms we bring to the identification and re-identification of individuals in daily life. In this paper, I review a solution that meets these constraints and, in particular, I show why the proposed solution is likely to be subserved by very basic cognitive mechanisms involved in object perception and recognition in everyday life. I conclude by responding to ontological worries the solution is likely to foster. (shrink)

Gregory Currie offers a statement of an interesting problem about tragedy: ‘(1) We want the fiction be such that something, E, occurs in it; [yet] (2) we react in ways which make it tempting to say we want E not to occur.’ He argues for one way to make (2) more precise with regard to what it is we are tempted to say. I argue he should not so readily have accepted (1). More significantly, however, I argue both that Currie (...) is right to hold we need an account of what the tragic response is before we can determine precisely what Hume’s puzzle really is and that any account of the desires involved in the experience of tragedy must hinge on when, in the course of a performance of a tragedy, we are considering a spectator’s responses. (shrink)

A survey of and a comparison of the relative strengths of two favored views of what theatrical performers do: pretend or engage in a variety of self-display. The behavioral version of the pretense theory is shown to be relatively weak as an instrument for understanding the variety of performance styles available in world theater. Whether pretense works as a theory of the mental capacities that underly theatrical performance is a separate question.

This chapter contains section titled: The Backstory: 1850s to 1950s The Decisive Influences: Brecht, Artaud, Grotowski The Decisive Years: 1961 to 1985 The Final Threads: Absorption of New Practices into the Profession and the Academy.

This chapter contains section titled: Enactment: Something Spectators and Performers do The Crucial Concept: “Attending to Another” What it is to “Occasion” Responses Audience Responses: Willing Suspension of Disbelief, Acquired Beliefs, or Acquired Abilities Relativizing the Account by Narrowing its Scope to Narrative Performances.

This chapter contains section titled: The “Feature‐Salience” Model of Spectator Convergence on the Same Characteristics What it is to Respond to a Feature as Salient for Some Characteristics or a Set of Facts A Thin Common Knowledge Requirement A Plausibly Thickened Common Knowledge Requirement The Feature‐Salience Model, “Reader‐Response Theory,” and “Intentionalism” Generalizing the Salience Mechanism to Encompass Non‐Narrative Performances Some Important Benefits of the Feature‐Salience Model: Double‐Focus, Slippage, “Performer Power, ” “Character Power, ” and the Materiality of the Means of (...) Performance The Feature‐Salience Model and Explaining how Basic Theatrical Understanding Occurs. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Theatrical Performance as Radically Independent of Literature Theatrical Performance as a Form of Art.

This chapter contains section titled: What Performers do and what Audiences can Know The Features of Performers and Choices that Performers Make Theatrical Conventions as Sequences of Features Having Specific “Weight” What is Involved in Reference to Theatrical Styles More about Styles, as Produced and as Grasped Grasp of Theatrical Style and Deeper Theatrical Understanding.

Salespeople have a moral obligation to prospect/customer, company and self. As such, they continually encounter truth-telling dilemmas. "lgnorance" and "conflict" often block the path to morally correct sales behaviors. Academics and practitioners agree that adoption of ethical codes is the most effective measure for encouraging ethical sales behaviors. Yet no ethical code has been offered which can be conveniently used to overcome the unique circumstances that contribute to the moral dilemmas often encountered in personal selling. An ethical code is developed (...) that charts ethical paths across a variety of sales settings (addressing "ignorance") while illustrating why the cost associated with acting morally is generally reasonable (addressing "conflict"). The code applies the universal transactional notions of customer expectations and salesperson reputation to illustrate why and when salespeople are morally required to tell the truth. In doing so, the code tackles head-on the vexing question of how best to juggle mixed motives - involving self-interests, corporate-concerns, cus-tomer-needs and other influences such as the nature of the transaction. The issue of how mixed motives can be dealt with through moral means is one that ethicists have previously sidestepped (Stark, 1993). (shrink)

Salespeople have a moral obligation to prospect/customer, company and self. As such, they continually encounter truth-telling dilemmas. "lgnorance" and "conflict" often block the path to morally correct sales behaviors. Academics and practitioners agree that adoption of ethical codes is the most effective measure for encouraging ethical sales behaviors. Yet no ethical code has been offered which can be conveniently used to overcome the unique circumstances that contribute to the moral dilemmas often encountered in personal selling. An ethical code is developed (...) that charts ethical paths across a variety of sales settings (addressing "ignorance") while illustrating why the cost associated with acting morally is generally reasonable (addressing "conflict"). The code applies the universal transactional notions of customer expectations and salesperson reputation to illustrate why and when salespeople are morally required to tell the truth. In doing so, the code tackles head-on the vexing question of how best to juggle mixed motives - involving self-interests, corporate-concerns, cus-tomer-needs and other influences such as the nature of the transaction. The issue of how mixed motives can be dealt with through moral means is one that ethicists have previously sidestepped (Stark, 1993). (shrink)

The theories of inclusive fitness and multilevel selection provide alternative perspectives on social evolution. The question of whether these perspectives are of equal generality remains a divisive issue. In an analysis based on the Price equation, Queller argued (by means of a principle he called the separation condition) that the two approaches are subject to the same limitations, arising from their fundamentally quantitative-genetical character. Recently, van Veelen et al. have challenged Queller’s results, using this as the basis for a broader (...) critique of the Price equation, the separation condition, and the very notion of inclusive fitness. Here we show that the van Veelen et al. model, when analyzed in the way Queller intended, confirms rather than refutes his original conclusions. We thereby confirm (i) that Queller’s separation condition remains a legitimate theoretical principle and (ii) that the standard inclusive fitness and multilevel approaches are indeed subject to the same limitations. (shrink)

Consider the following facts about the average, philosophically untrained moral relativist: (1.1) The average moral relativist denies the existence of “absolute moral truths.” (1.2) The average moral relativist often expresses her commitment to moral relativism with slogans like ‘What’s true (or right) for you may not be what’s true (or right) for me’ or ‘What’s true (or right) for your culture may not be what’s true (or right) for my culture.’ (1.3) The average moral relativist endorses relativistic views of morality (...) without endorsing relativistic views about science or mathematics. (1.4) The average moral relativist takes moral relativism to be non-relatively true and does not think there is anything contradictory about doing so. (1.5) The average moral relativist adopts an egalitarian attitude toward a wide range of moral values, practices and beliefs, claiming they are all equally legitimate or correct. (1.6) The average moral relativist often admonishes others to be more tolerant of those who engage in alternative ethical practices and to refrain from making negative moral judgments about them. (1.7) The average moral relativist sometimes makes negative moral judgments about the behavior of others—e.g., by harshly judging moral absolutists to be intolerant—but is less inclined to do so when the relativist’s metaethical views are salient in a context of judgment. (1.8) The average moral relativist takes anthropological evidence concerning the worldwide diversity of ethical views and practices to support moral relativism. (shrink)

Recent empirical work on folk moral objectivism has attempted to examine the extent to which folk morality presumes that moral judgments are objectively true or false. Some researchers report findings that they take to indicate folk commitment to objectivism (Goodwin & Darley, 2008, 2010, 2012; Nichols & Folds-Bennett, 2003; Wainryb et al., 2004), while others report findings that may reveal a more variable commitment to objectivism (Beebe, 2014; Beebe et al., 2015; Beebe & Sackris, 2016; Sarkissian, et al., 2011; Wright, (...) 2018; Wright, Grandjean, & McWhite, 2013; Wright, McWhite, & Grandjean, 2014). However, the various probes that have been used to examine folk moral objectivism almost always fail to be good direct measures of objectivism. Some critics (Beebe, 2015; Pölzler, 2017, 2018) have suggested that the problems with existing probes are serious enough that they should be viewed as largely incapable of shedding any light on folk metaethical commitments. Building upon the work of Justin Khoo and Joshua Knobe (2018), I argue that many of the existing probes can be seen as good measures of the extent to which people think that the truth of one moral judgment excludes the possibility that a judgment made by a disagreeing party is also true and that the best explanation of the findings obtained using these measures is significant folk support for indexical moral relativism—the view that the content of moral judgments is context-sensitive. If my thesis is correct, many contemporary moral philosophers are deeply mistaken about the metaethical contours of folk morality in one very important respect. (shrink)

I argue that on very weak assumptions about truth (in particular, that there are coherent norms governing the use of "true"), there is a proposition absolutely inexpressible with conventional language, or something very close. I argue for this claim "constructively": I use a variant of the Berry Paradox to reveal a particular thought for my readership to entertain that very strongly resists conventional expression. I gauge the severity of this expressive limitation within a taxonomy of expressive failures, and argue that (...) despite its strength there is nothing incoherent about admitting its existence. The argument forms part of a project of clarifying precisely what trade-offs are required to secure the kinds of expressive power truth theorists typically want, in the process showing that the admission of very strong expressive limitations may ultimately prove to be the lesser of two evils. (shrink)

"In this study, James R. Harrison compares the modern cult of celebrity to the quest for glory in late republican and early imperial society. He shows how Paul's ethic of humility, based upon the crucified Christ, stands out in a world obsessed with mutual comparison, boasting, and self-sufficiency." --.

The goal of this unique text is to provide an "experience" that would facilitate a better transition for mathematics majors to the advanced proof-based courses required for their major. If you "love mathematics, but I hate proofs" this book is for you. Example-based courses such as introductory Calculus transition somewhat abruptly, and without a warning label, to proof-based courses, and may leave students with the unpleasant feeling that a subject they loved has turned into material they find hard to understand. (...) The book exposes students and readers to the fundamental nature and principles of constructing mathematical proofs and in the context of main courses required for the major, e.g., probability, linear algebra, real analysis, and abstract algebra. Four short chapters, each chapter focusing on a particular course, provide a short but rigorous introduction. Students then get a preview of the discipline, its focus, language, mathematical objects of interests, and common methods of proof presented in those courses. Because which ideas apply to which future courses may not be obvious in many transition courses, this structure addresses this need. The book may also be used as a review tool at the end of course and for readers who want to learn the language and scope of the broad disciplines of linear algebra, abstract algebra, real analysis, and probability, before transitioning to these courses. (shrink)