<P>While there are many books on the romantics, and many books on Heidegger, there has been no book exploring the connection between the two. Pol Vandevelde’s new study forges this important link. </P> <P>Vandevelde begins by analyzing two models that have addressed the interaction between literature and philosophy: early German romanticism (especially Schlegel and Novalis), and Heidegger’s work with poetry in the 1930s. Both models offer an alternative to the paradigm of mimesis, as exemplified by Aristotle’s and Plato’s discussion of (...) poetry, and both German romanticism and Heidegger owe a deep debt to Plato. The study goes on to defend the view that Heidegger was influenced by romanticism. The author’s project is thus both historical, showing the specificity of the romantic and Heideggerean works, and systematic, defending aspects of their alternative mode of thinking while also pointing to their weaknesses. </P>. (shrink)

Animal welfare has a long history of disregard. While in recent decades the study of animal welfare has become a scientific discipline of its own, the difficulty of measuring animal welfare can still be vastly underestimated. There are three primary theories, or perspectives, on animal welfare - biological functioning, natural living and affective state. These come with their own diverse methods of measurement, each providing a limited perspective on an aspect of welfare. This paper describes a perspectival pluralist account of (...) animal welfare, in which all three theoretical perspectives and their multiple measures are necessary to understand this complex phenomenon and provide a full picture of animal welfare. This in turn will offer us a better understanding of perspectivism and pluralism itself. (shrink)

شلنبرگ برای اولین بار در سال 1993 استدلالی با عنوان «اختفای الهی» را علیه خداباوری ارائه کرد. از آن زمان تا کنون استدلال او در کانون نقد و دفاع قرار داشته است. در این نوشتار، که با رویکرد تحلیلی-انتقادی انجام می‌پذیرد، ضمن تقریر استدلال شلنبرگ، افزون بر مهم‌ترین نقدهای مطرح‌شده بر استدلال او، دو نقد متفاوت دیگر بر این استدلال مطرح می‌شود. یکی از این نقدها از طریق معنای زندگی است. شلنبرگ در رابطه با مزیت ارتباط عاشقانه با خداوند معتقد (...) است که چنین رابطه‌ای به بهزیستی انسان کمک می‌کند. او ارتباط شخصی با خداوند را دارای ارزش ذاتی و مهم‌ترین عامل در معنادار بودن زندگی انسان می‌داند. اما پرسش اصلی این است که آیا ارتباط شخصی با خداوند، یعنی ارتباطِ آگاهانه، تعاملی و معنادارِ مثبت با او، حقیقتاً مهم‌ترین عامل در معنادار بودن زندگی انسان است؟ نقد دوم از طریق عدم فعلیت عاشقانه‌ترین جهان ممکن است. در این نقد بیان می‌کنیم که هر جهانی را که در نظر بگیریم، می‌توانیم جهانی عاشقانه‌تر از آن را نیز تصور کنیم و آن جهان نیز امکان فعلیت دارد. بنابراین، اگر عشق کامل الهی مستلزم فعلیت یافتن عاشقانه‌ترین جهان ممکن نباشد، پس با تحققِ ناباوریِ قاصرانه نیز سازگار است. (shrink)

Purpose. The paper considered the explication of the concept of "Sinn des Lebens" within the framework of Western philosophy and psychology of the ХІХ-ХХІ centuries. On the basis of this, the role of this concept in contemporary theoretical discussions and psychological and psychotherapeutic practices is understood. Theoretical basis. The authors believe that understanding the concept of "Sinn des Lebens" is possible only based on the synthesis of modern analytical philosophy methods with the methodological guidelines of modern psychology, in particular logotherapy. (...) Originality. The authors have proved that the problem of "meaning of life" is not an "eternal problem" of philosophy, but arises only in the early nineteenth century as a reflection on European secularization and widespread individualistic values and becomes extremely relevant gaining different interpretations at the beginning of the twentieth century based on the crisis of the sensory values of modern man. Conclusions. The concept of "Sinn des Lebens" originated in the philosophy of the German Romantics and gained philosophical significance only in the works by Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Russian philosophy and literature give priority to the meaning of life in ethical and anthropological studies, focusing on its religious intentions. Analytical philosophy and existentialism appear to be diametrically opposed to the life-purpose anthropological problems, but they attempt to solve this problem by understanding the absurdity of human existence and language from different angles of view. The most reasonable concept of meaning in psychology can be considered Frankl’s logotherapy, which, despite certain drawbacks, remains the most significant in modern Western psychology. Modern philosophical studies on the problems of the meaning of life, despite their prudent analyticity and systematic nature, have not found credible criteria and means of human life self-reflection yet and have further incentives to develop their methodological and philosophical considerations. However, the diversity of interpretations of the concept of "meaning of life" that exists in modern scientific literature needs further reflection. (shrink)

Over the last 20 years, there has been an increase in philosophical inquiries of hope both in philosophy of mind and of virtue as well as in the philosophy of education. This paper wishes to add to this discussion by presenting the analysis of hope by French existentialist philosopher and theologian Gabriel Marcel and examining its possible contribution to educational practices and beliefs. As one of the very few modern, systematic accounts of hope, Marcel’s provocative conception of it and his (...) critique of its common “technical” use could prove promising when applied to educational theory and practice. Following Marcel, I argue that in hope we find a complex and possibly contradictory view of the future: as a result of planning and technical problem-solving on one hand, and on the other, as an inclination towards the mysterious and radically unexpected. I suggest that maintaining educational hope within the tension between the planned and the unexpected, and specifically rejecting a complete disenchantment of the educational act, could help in securing education from being reduced to instrumental training and socializing, opening it up to new and unimaginable possibilities. (shrink)

Recent discussion on the ethics of killer robots has focused on the supposed lack of respect their deployment would show to combatants targeted, thereby causing their undignified deaths. I present two rebuttals of this argument. The weak rebuttal maintains that while deploying killer robots is an affront to the dignity of combatants, their use should nevertheless be thought of as a pro tanto wrong, making deployment permissible if the affront is outweighed by some right-making feature. This rebuttal is, however, vulnerable (...) to the charge that killer robots would cause unnecessary suffering. The strong rebuttal, in contrast, argues that the use of killer robots would not disrespect the dignity of combatants, for reasons discussed. I also argue that, irrespective of whether killer robots disrespect the dignity of combatants, they would not necessarily bring about their undignified deaths: for one can maintain dignity in the face of indignity. (shrink)

This paper argues that an adequate conception of a good life should recognize, in addition to happiness and morality, a third dimension of meaningfulness. It further proposes that we understand meaningfulness as involving both a subjective and an objective condition, suitably linked. Meaning arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness. In other words one’s life is meaningful insofar as one is gripped or excited by things worthy of one’s love, and one is able to do something positive about it. The (...) paper concludes with some speculations about how this conception of meaningfulness might help to explain the conditions under which social volunteering can be especially rewarding. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between labour, productivity and film. The purpose of this intervention is to suggest that narrative film can show us the unproductive tendencies that humans...

This paper critically examines the philosophical foundations of Colin Wilson’s New Existentialism. I will show how Wilson’s writings promoted a phenomenological strategy for understanding states of ecstatic affirmation within so-called ‘peak experiences’. Wilson subsequently attempted to use the life affirming insights bestowed by peak states to establish an ontological ground for values to serve as a foundation for his New Existentialism. Because of its psychological focus however, I argue that Wilson’s New Existentialism contains an ambivalent framework for establishing ontological categories, (...) which leads his thought into theoretical difficulties. More precisely, Wilson’s strategy runs into problems in coherently integrating its explicitly psychological interpretation of Husserl’s theory of intentionality within a broader, and philosophically coherent, phenomenological framework. Wilson’s psychological reading of Husserl’s transcendental reduction, for example, manifests tensions in how it reconciles the empirical basis of acts of transcendence with an essentialist conception of the self as a transcendental ego. The above tensions, I argue, ultimately render the New Existentialism susceptible to criticism from a Husserlian-transcendental perspective. After outlining a Husserlian critique of Wilson’s position, I end the paper by suggesting how some of the central insights of the New Existentialism might help to bridge the gap that persists between pure phenomenological description and metaphysics. (shrink)

The current medical approach to erectile dysfunction (ED) consists of physiological, psychological and social components. This paper proposes an additional framework for thinking about ED based on phenomenology, by focusing on the theory of sexual projection. This framework will be complementary to the current medical approach to ED. Our phenomenological analysis of ED provides philosophical depth and illuminates overlooked aspects in the study of ED. Mainly by appealing to Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, we suggest considering an additional etiology of ED (...) in terms of a weakening of a function of sexual projection. We argue that sexual projection can be problematized through cognitive interferences, changes in the ‘intentional arc’, and modifications in the subject’s ‘body schema’. Our approach further highlights the importance of considering the ‘existential situation’ of patients with ED. We close by reflecting briefly on some of the implications of this phenomenological framework for diagnosis and treatment of ED. (shrink)

This article argues that Orlando Patterson is a key contributor to postcolonial fiction and postcolonial theory as well as historical sociology and social theory, whose work contains crucial lessons for sociology in general. Patterson has coined striking concepts such as social death and human parasitism and made original historical interpretations such as the origins of freedom in the experiences of female slaves. Patterson has contributed to historical knowledge, social theory, and an alternative epistemology of interpretive social science. And through his (...) fiction, he exemplifies an alternative understanding of the métier of the social scientist, in which literary-aesthetic sensuousness and lyrical pleasure are combined with analytic rigor. The first part of the article suggests that Patterson’s work represents an overlooked foundation for postcolonial sociology. Demonstrating this involves reconstructing Patterson’s early intellectual context and then tracing the interplay between fiction and social analysis in his work. The article then analyses Patterson’s fictional writing, arguing that it is a crucial part of his overall production of social knowledge. The article’s final section argues that Patterson’s work lays out a non-positivist foundation for historical sociology and sociology as a whole. (shrink)

Commanders gain authority from obedience and lose authority from disobedience. We should expect commanders to therefore devise commands that reduce the probability of disobedience. To aid recognition of these techniques for reducing the risk of disobedience, I focus on the extreme of case of commands that reduce the probability to zero. Each of my ten commandments illustrates a logical technique for engineering out disobedience. Once you master these safety measures, you can confidently legislate your own universal maxims. Your innovations will (...) be good news for Immanuel Kant’s characterization of morality in terms of categorical imperatives. The commandments also raise interesting questions about responsibility for necessities and the nature of rule following. (shrink)

The history of the modern study of myth can be divided into two main categories: that which sees myth as the primitive counterpart to natural science, itself considered overwhelmingly modern, and that which sees myth as almost anything but the primitive counterpart to natural science. The first category constitutes the nineteenth-century approach to myth. The second category constitutes the twentieth-century approach. Tylor and Frazer epitomize the nineteenth-century view. Malinowski, Eliade, Bultmann, Jonas, Camus, Freud, and Jung epitomize the twentieth-century approach. The (...) question for the twenty-first century is whether myth can be brought back to the physical world, but in a way compatible with science. The case of the myth of Gaia will be considered as a possible way of doing so. (shrink)

It is a common pessimistic worry among both philosophers and non-philosophers that our lives, viewed sub specie aeternitatis, are meaningless given that they make neither a noticeable nor lasting impact from this vast, cosmic perspective. The preferred solution for escaping this kind of pessimism is to adopt a different measure by which to evaluate life’s meaningfulness. One of two primary routes is often taken here. First, one can retreat back to the sub specie humanitatis perspective, and argue that life is (...) meaningful only when viewed within the local context of human values, cares, and concerns. Or, second, one can distinguish between perspectives and standards for meaningfulness, arguing that the latter are independent of the former and are the most appropriate means by which evaluations of life’s meaningfulness are made. Importantly, none of these issues can be sufficiently addressed without first answering a prior question, and one that is surprisingly under-addressed in the literature: What is the sub specie aeternitatis perspective? Unfortunately, many philosophers who employ this perspective do so without carefully defining or clarifying it, or, if they do clarify what it means, they only note its time and spatial components. I will argue that, in addition to these components, this perspective includes something like a modal component (following Thomas Nagel), and an ontological Normative component. I will then apply this more nuanced understanding of the sub specie aeternitatis perspective to the question of whether perspectives can be distinguished from standards for meaningfulness. (shrink)

Claims that talk of life’s meaning is misguided, unmanageable or, worse, nonsensical, are overblown. Such claims especially track the cosmically focused the meaning of life. “The meaning of life” is perfectly intelligible, and is centered on a cluster of ideas encapsulated by what I call the “meaning triad.” One component of this triad—I-MEANING—provides the hermeneutical and conceptual resources for understanding the question “What is the meaning of life?” as asking for a single thing, in contrast to amalgam and pluralist views. (...) I will investigate the meaning triad en route to defending meaning of life holism. (shrink)

Post–dualist philosophies of nursing acknowledge embodiment as a condition of human existence. Philosophical writing, however, remains abstract and disembodied. A philosophical framework that embraces embodiment needs to recover the materiality of language; its text needs to include language that is not only rational and clear but sensuous and ambiguous. I describe three cultural narratives of women's embodiment and compare them with an imaginative narrative, a nurse's poem about women in labour. I propose, not that philosophers become poets, but that they (...) abandon a dualist position in which language is either literal or metaphorical, adopting instead the poet's approach in which any word or object has unlimited meanings. I argue that, without fixed reference points, language embodies rather than escapes contingency. Finally, I discuss two forms of philosophical writing – irony and motet – that savour contingency, illustrating philosophy as endless redescription, aiming not for finality but for the grace of a dancer's deliberate fall. (shrink)

This article argues for the elimination of the concept of life worth living from philosophical vocabulary on three complementary grounds. First, the basic components of this concept suffer from multiple ambiguities, which hamper attempts to ground informative evaluative and classificatory judgments about the worth of life. Second, the criteria proposed to track the extension of the concept of life worth living rest on unsupported axiological assumptions and fail to identify precise and plausible referents for this concept. And third, the concept (...) of life worth living is not shown to serve any major evaluative or classificatory purpose besides those served by already available axiological concepts. By eliminating the concept of life worth living, philosophers will free themselves of the task of addressing ill-posed axiological questions and ground reflection about the worth of life on more rigorous conceptual foundations. (shrink)

Among the most neglected of Albert Camus? literary works is his play The misunderstanding. Composed while Camus was in exile in occupied France, and first performed on stage in 1944, The misunderstanding depicts the events that unfold when a man returns, without declaring his identity, to a home he left 20 years ago. Unrecognized, he is killed by his mother and sister for financial gain. This article draws on ideas from Emmanuel Levinas in identifying and discussing some of the key (...) ethical and educational themes in the text. It is argued that the forms of misunderstanding evident in Camus? play mirror those exhibited in pedagogical institutions such as schools. The misunderstanding demonstrates that what is often missing in our communicative relations is careful attention to the Other. Camus does not offer us any easy way out when confronting the impossibility of fully knowing ourselves and others; instead, he shows that we must acknowledge the suffering this brings and take responsibility for it. (shrink)

Both literature and philosophy, as genres of writing, can enable us to address important ontological, epistemological and ethical questions. One author who makes it possible for readers to bridge these two genres is Albert Camus. Nowhere is this more evident than in Camus’ short novel, The Fall. The Fall, through the character and words of Jean‐Baptiste Clamence, prompts readers to reflect deeply on themselves, their motivations and commitments, and their relations with others. This paper discusses the origin and structure of (...) the book, identifies some of its key philosophical themes, and explores some of its educational implications. (shrink)

This article provides a Taoist reading of Camus’ posthumously published novel, The first man. With its focus on the early life of the central character, Jacques Cormery, The first man is a semi-autobiographical account of learning and transformation, but it is, like so many other stories of its kind, one sustained by complex tensions: between the comfort of the familiar and the promise of the new; between possibility and despair; between resistance and acceptance. A theme that binds some of the (...) key educational elements of the book together is love: Jacques’s love of his mother and his elementary school teacher and their love for him; love of learning; and love of ‘home’. A Taoist theoretical framework is helpful in understanding the nature of this love and its pedagogical significance. In particular, the book exemplifies the importance of the figure of the mother—both in the person of Jacques’s mother and more symbolically in the notion of ‘the Great Mother’. The article concludes with thoughts on the value of literature for educational inquiry. (shrink)

One of several life-affirming themes in Viktor Frankl’s classic Man’s Search for Meaning is the inviolate character of human freedom. Contrasting what he calls “inner freedom” with the dire external restrictions he experienced as a prisoner at Auschwitz and other concentration camps, Frankl insists that no matter how restrictive and dehumanizing one’s situation, the exercise of this internal freedom is always a possibility. Similar sentiments are found in Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus. Though it contains elements of a typical 1980s (...) American action movie, on closer inspection, Andrei Konchalovsky’s 1985 film, Runaway Train, proves far from typical. In interviews, Konchalovsky draws parallels between the film—based on an original screenplay by Akira Kurosawa—and philosophical themes in Dostoyevsky, and identifies the “relativity of freedom” as one of its primary concerns. My article uses Konchalovsky’s Runaway Train to shed light on the hard-won vision of the inviolate nature of human freedom on display in Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. (shrink)

Bering's argument that human beings are endowed with a cognitive system dedicated to forming illusory representations of psychological immortality relies on the claim that children's beliefs in the afterlife are not the result of religious teaching. We suggest four reasons why this claim is unsatisfactory.

Though it has gone unnoticed so far in Beauvoir Studies, the term “singularity” is a technical one for Simone de Beauvoir. In the first half of the essay I discuss two reasons why this term has been obscured. First, as is well known Beauvoir has not been read in the context of the history of philosophy until recently. Second, in The Ethics of Ambiguity at least, singularité is translated both inconsistently and quite misleadingly. In the second half of the essay (...) I attempt to demonstrate the importance of this term in The Ethics. The will to disclose being is the will to disclose the singularity of the other, whether human, land, sky or painting. Ambiguity, which Beauvoir distinguishes from absurdity in Camus, is an image suggesting this necessarily mutual disclosure of singularity. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe article contributes to current theoretical debates about the political significance of narrative imagination by drawing on Camus’s and Arendt’s existential aesthetic judging sensibility. It seeks to displace the prevalent tendency to probe literature for its moral-philosophical insights, and instead delves into the experiential reality of our engagement with literary works. It starts from Martha Nussbaum’s recognition of the literary ability to account for the fragility of human affairs, yet finds her reduction of narrative imagination to the role of furthering (...) moral lessons wanting politically. Against this background, the article reclaims Camus’s and Arendt’s dialogical-representative judging orientation and its insight into the narrative ability to respond to the intersubjective character of politics. As such, their aesthetic sensibility reveals the potential political significance of literary imagination in its capacity to open a public space where the contradictions of our situated existence can be confronted through politics between plural equals. (shrink)

The article examines the political challenge and significance of forgiveness as an indispensable response to the inherently imperfect and tragic nature of political life through the lens of the existential, narrative-inspired judging sensibility. While the political significance of forgiveness has been broadly recognized in transitional justice and reconciliation contexts, the question of its importance and appropriateness in the wake of grave injustice and suffering has commonly been approached through constructing a self-centred, rule-based framework, defining forgiveness in terms of a moral (...) duty or virtue. Reliant on a set of prefabricated moral standards, however, this approach risks abstracting from the historical, situated condition of human political existence and thus arguably stands at a remove from the very quandaries and imperfections of the political world, which it purports to address. Against this background, this article draws on Albert Camus’s and Hannah Arendt’s aesthetic, worldly judging sensibility and its ability to kindle the process of coming to terms with the absurd, and perhaps unforgivable character of reality after evil. As an aptitude to engage the world in its particularity, plurality and contingency rather than seeking to subdue and tame it under prefabricated standards of thought, namely, worldly judgement is able to reveal how past tragedies have arisen from the ambiguity of human engagement in the world and thereby also elicit the distinctly human capacities of beginning anew and resisting such actions in the future. As such, I suggest, it is well-suited to bring into clearer focus and confront the main political challenge and significance of forgiveness: how to acknowledge the seriousness of the wrongs committed, yet also enable the possibility of a new beginning and restore among former enemies the sense of responsibility for the shared world. (shrink)

Camus considered the most crucial philosophical problem to be that of suicide—whether to discontinue your existence by endingit. Alternatively, a most crucial philosophical problem may be procreation—whether to continue human existence by making new humans. The topic has spurred an increasing amount of debate over the past decade, with marked diversion with Anscomb’s comment that it makes no moral sense to inquire whether one should reproduce. One might as well ask why digest food or why should the wind blow. This (...) article reviews some of the most recent literature on this topic, which shows little resemblance to Anscomb’s remark. (shrink)

Two themes run through Kierkegaard’s authorship. The first defines existential requirements for “becoming human”—reflective honesty and earnest humor. The second demarcates the religious phenomena of sobriety when human becoming suffers insurmountable collisions. Living with existential pathos teaches the difference between the either/or logic of collisions and the both/and logic of development and transitions. There is a difference between self-transformation and a progressive individual and social development. In the developmental mode self experiences gradual progression or adaptive evolution; in the self-transformative mode (...) self undergoes qualitative upsurges, leaps, gestalt switches, musical key transpositions of becoming in individual and social evolutions. Each individual in every epoch begins at the beginning. The author traces the movements of becoming in their parallel dimensions, drawing a fork through Kierkegaard’s writing. The first leads through the existence spheres of his pseudonymous authorship. The second intensifies the movement on the spot and in the moment. (shrink)

During history humans have developed a large variety of contemplative practices, in many different areas of life, and as part of many different traditions and contexts. Although some contemplative practices are very old, the research field of Contemplation Studies is young, and there are no agreed-upon definitions of central concepts such as contemplative practices and contemplative experiences. The present paper focuses on contemplative practices, defined as practices that are engaged in for the sake of the contemplative experiences they afford. The (...) purpose of the present paper is to discuss the potential of experimental phenomenology to contribute to the development of the research field of Contemplation Studies. Experimental phenomenology is defined as the investigation of phenomenological practices and their effects on experience. Phenomenological practices involve intentional variations of experiencing by means of changes in the direction of attention and the choice of attitude, typically as guided by verbal instructions or self-instructions. It is suggested that contemplative practices represent a subcategory of phenomenological practices. Two different varieties of experimental phenomenology are described and illustrated in the present paper: an informal variety which involves the development of new phenomenological practices by creative variation of procedures and observation of effects; and a more rigorously scientific variety, which involves the systematic variation of phenomenological practices in accordance with experimental designs to study their experiential effects. It is suggested that the development of contemplative practices during the ages is the result of an informal experimenting of the first kind; this variety of experimental phenomenology can also be used to develop personalized health interventions in a clinical setting. As to the more rigorously scientific experimental phenomenology, it is possible that it may lead not only to an improved understanding of general principles underlying contemplative practices, but also to a more systematic development of new contemplative practices. The experimental-phenomenological approach to contemplative practices is illustrated by various examples involving mindfulness, gratitude, receiving and giving. (shrink)

COVID-19 has created significant concern surrounding the impact of pandemic lockdown on mental health. While the pandemic lockdown can be distressing, times of crisis can also provide people with the opportunity to think divergently and explore different activities. Novelty seeking, where individuals explore novel and unfamiliarly stimuli and environments, may enhance the creativity of individuals to solve problems in a way that allows them to adjust their emotional responses to stressful situations. This study employs a longitudinal design to investigate changes (...) in novelty seeking and mental health outcomes before, during, and after COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, among a group of students from a university in southeast China. Participants were surveyed at three points: November, 2019 ; between February and March, 2020 ; and between May and June, 2020. Cross-sectionally, correlation analysis indicated that greater novelty seeking was associated with lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression at all three time points. Univariate latent curve modeling indicated a growth trajectory in which novelty seeking increased over time and then remained high during the post-lockdown period. Stress, anxiety, and depression all showed V-shaped growth trajectories in which these variables decreased during lockdown, before increasing in the post-lockdown period. Multivariate LCM indicated the growth trajectory for novelty seeking was associated with the growth trajectories for stress, anxiety, and depression. This suggests that the observed decreases in stress, anxiety, and depression during the lockdown period may be attributable to the sample’s observed increase in novelty seeking. These findings are valuable in that they challenge the notion that lockdown measures are inherently detrimental to mental health. The findings indicate the important role of novelty seeking in responding to crises. It may be possible for future public health measures to incorporate the promotion of novelty seeking to help individuals’ respond to stressful situations and maintain good mental health in the face of crises. (shrink)

Several philosophers have argued that if we examine our lives in context of the cosmos at large, sub specie aeternitatis, we cannot escape life's meaninglessness. To see our lives as meaningful, we have to shun the point of view of the cosmos and consider our lives only in the narrower context of the here and now. I argue that this view is incorrect: life can be seen as meaningful also sub specie aeternitatis. While criticizing arguments by, among others, Simon Blackburn, (...) Nicholas Rescher, and Thomas Nagel, I show that what determines assessments of the meaning of a life are the standards of meaningfulness one endorses rather than the size of the context in which that life is assessed. Employing non-demanding standards of meaningfulness to assess a life is compatible with examining it in the context of the cosmos at large. That is also the case if we accept Nagel's claim that to examine a life sub specie aeternitatis is to examine it externally, impersonally and objectively: life can be evaluated as meaningful also when under these perspectives if the standards of meaningfulness we adopt are not overly challenging. Nor does the contingency of our existence, realized sub specie aeternitatis, render our life meaningless. Contrary to a commonly accepted view, then, examining our lives sub specie aeternitatis does not necessitate that we see them as meaningless. (shrink)

When it comes to a question as notoriously unclear as “What is the meaning of life?” clarifying the question and its conceptual setting is a necessary step before attempting to answer the question. The analysis of the concept of “the meaning of life” is a twofold task; “the meaning” and “life” both need to be examined. In this paper, I primarily focus on “the meaning”. I argue that, although there is much disagreement and confusion in the literature about the meaning (...) of “the meaning” as it is applied to life, there is one most plausible interpretation of this notion. In the end, even though I do not answer the question of the meaning of life, I propose an account of what a correct answer to the question is supposed to look like, based on my original function analysis of “the meaning.”. (shrink)

Ivan Karamazov’s famous dictum ‘If there is no God, anything is permitted’ in fact appears as a central meta-theme in many of Dostoevsky’s works. Western philosophers and writers repeatedly reinterpreted this idea. The most recent versions belong to the contemporary psychoanalytic and Freudian–Marxist philosophy. E.g. Jacques Lacan famously said that “if there is a God, then anything is permitted”, and Slavoy Zizek attributed this to Dostoevsky himself. The paper demonstrates which versions of this saying are present in Dostoevsky’s novel The (...) Brothers Karamazov, what meaning this meta-theme has within the integral structure of these literary works, and which of them express the author’s own position. The paper also provides insight into those bright reinterpretations of Dostoevsky’s central meta-theme that were given by certain representatives of contemporary European psychoanalytic philosophy. These readings are regarded as the significant attempts to explain the present from the standpoint of European psychoanalytic philosophy, made on the basis of elements of Dostoevsky’s artistic thinking. (shrink)

”Merely fact-minded sciences make merely factminded people.”“ …the positivistic concept of science in our time is, historically speaking, a residual concept. It has dropped all the questions which had been considered under the now narrower, now broader concepts of metaphysics….all these ‘metaphysical’ questions, taken broadly – commonly called specifically philosophical questions – surpass the world understood as the universe of mere facts. They surpass it precisely as being questions with the idea of reason in mind. And they all claim a (...) higher dignity than questions of fact, which are subordinated to them even in the order of inquiry. Positivism, in a manner of speaking, decapitates philosophy.”Edmund HusserlIn ethical literature associated with controversies at the beginning and end of human life, there is often a two-part structure: first, basic facts about the topic are presented in a more or less descriptive format, then there is the ethics or policy. (shrink)

Neuroscientific evidence requires a monistic understanding of brain/mind. Truly appropriating what this means confronts us with the vulnerability of the human condition. Ca‐muss absurd and Tillich's despair are extreme expressions of a similar confrontation. This crisis demands a type of courage that is consistent with scientific truth and does not undermine the spiritual dimension of life. That dimension is not a separate substance but the process by which brain/mind meaningfully wrestles with its crisis through aesthetic symbols, religious faith, and ethical (...) affirmation. The validity of these activities does not depend upon human autonomy but instead upon the fact that they exist. Furthermore, they constitute the self, which Dennett calls a “center of narrative gravity.”. (shrink)

Was Durkheim an apologist for the authoritarianism? Is the sociology founded upon his work incapable of critical perspective; and must it operate under the presumption that social agents, including sociologists themselves, are incapable of reflexivity? Certainly some have said so, but they may be wrong. In this essay, I address these questions in the light of Durkheim's revisionary sociology of morals. I elaborate on unfinished elements in Durkheim's abruptly concluded (because of his early and unexpected death) scholarship, pointing out Durkheim's (...) recognition that co-present moral spheres always exist in an organically complex society, and explaining how these co-present spheres obligate social agents to untether from any absolute moral affiliations. Ultimately, then, the argument shows how the solidarity/social-order relationship is transcended within Durkheim's sociology, even by Durkheim himself. (shrink)

This article examines Václav Havel's unconventional route to democracy. At the core of the enquiry is an analysis of the role his Absurdism played in the development of his thought and activism. The essay illustrates how a typically literary, non-democratic intellectual orientation sustained Havel in his struggle for democratic political change against the abuses of really existing socialism. Yet, Havel's thought did not stop there; he eyed Western liberalism critically as well. Springing from his Absurdist sensibility was a vision of (...) democracy that was neither wholly liberal nor socialist, yet quite practical. By making a case for reconsidering ideas that typically fall outside the purview of democratic theory, this article also suggests the possibility of critically rethinking democracy itself. (shrink)

This essay examines whether or not absurdity is intrinsic to human life. It takes Camus’ interpretation of ‘The Absurd’ as its conceptual starting point. It traces such thought back to Schopenhauer, whose work is then critically analysed. This analysis focuses primarily on happiness and meaning. This essay accepts some of Schopenhauer’s premises, but rejects his conclusions. Instead, it considers Nietzsche’s alternatives and the role of suffering in life. It posits that suffering may help people acquire meaning and escape absurdity. It (...) then analyses the role of compassion in absurdity, in reference to Nietzsche’s work and Buddhist teachings. Lastly, it examines absurdity in relation to death, rejecting the notion that death exacerbates absurdity. This paper understands absurdity to be a natural part of the human condition, as characterised by suffering, death and an absence of meaning. It concludes that although human life is absurd by nature, it need not remain so. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Albert Camus's notion of the absurd in order to elucidate his critique of historical teleology. In his life and work, Camus endeavoured to develop a fallibilist historical sensibility suitable for a cosmos shorn of meaning, which led him to reject ideas of progress and their traces of messianism when elaborating his treatment of rebellion. By making use of Camus's ideas about the absurd and rebellion, I suggest that these two themes productively unsettle contemporary cosmopolitanism as a teleological (...) orthodoxy of human progress and fruitfully, if paradoxically, lie at the heart of a concept of cosmopolitanism “without hope.”. (shrink)

Albert Camus's existential thinking has been the object of renewed interest over the past decade. Political theorists have looked to his work to shed light on the contradictions and violence of modernity and the dynamics of postcolonial justice. This article contends that Camus's account of the modern human condition provides a means of engaging critically with one of the most compelling ideas linked to thinking about global politics today: cosmopolitanism. By developing Camus's position on absurdity and rebellion, it suggests that (...) the idea of cosmopolitanism should be situated in a post-foundationalist and post-teleological nexus to prevent it becoming a new political ideology of immutable truth. In order to make this argument, the article focuses on how Camus's thinking supports a rebellious cosmopolitan disposition towards global transformations. In so doing, it shows that cosmopolitanism must strive against the injustices of a deeply divided world, yet at the same time accept theoretical, factual and moral limits on its vision and actions. (shrink)

This essay is based on a lecture delivered at the 2002 IRAS Star Island conference, the theme of which was “Is Nature Enough? The Thirst for Transcendence.” I had been asked to represent the position of those who would answer No to the question. I thought it would stimulate discussion if I presented my side of the debate in a somewhat provocative manner rather than use a more ponderous approach that would argue each point in a meticulous and protracted fashion. (...) Here I lay out a theological position that finds naturalism wanting in three ways: in terms of human spiritual needs, in terms of the mind's need for deep explanation, and in terms of the perennial human search for truth. Again, the style of presentation, like that of the original lecture, prohibits the kind of philosophical development that an adequate answer to each of the issues requires. The purpose is that of evoking discussion on a most important question. (shrink)