This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Knowledge and Representation Education as a Re/Presentational Practice Complexity's Challenge to Representation Complexity's Challenge to Presentation Implications for Schooling Notes References.

In modern, Western societies the purpose of schooling is to ensure that school-goers acquire knowledge of pre-existing practices, events, entities and so on. The knowledge that is learned is then tested to see if the learner has acquired a correct or adequate understanding of it. For this reason, it can be argued that schooling is organised around a representational epistemology: one which holds that knowledge is an accurate representation of something that is separate from knowledge (...) itself. Since the object of knowledge is assumed to exist separately from the knowledge itself, this epistemology can also be considered ‘spatial.’ In this paper we show how ideas from complexity have challenged the spatial epistemology’ of representation and we explore possibilities for an alternative ‘temporal’ understanding of knowledge in its relationship to reality. In addition to complexity, our alternative takes its inspiration from Deweyan ‘transactional realism’ and deconstruction. We suggest that ‘knowledge’ and ‘reality’ should not be understood as separate systems which somehow have to be brought into alignment with each other, but that they are part of the same emerging complex system which is never fully ‘present’ in any (discrete) moment in time. This not only introduces the notion of time into our understanding of the relationship between knowledge and reality, but also points to the importance of acknowledging the role of the ‘unrepresentable’ or ‘incalculable’. With this understanding knowledge reaches us not as something we receive but as a response, which brings forth new worlds because it necessarily adds something (which was not present anywhere before it appeared) to what came before. This understanding of knowledge suggests that the acquisition of curricular content should not be considered an end in itself. Rather, curricular content should be used to bring forth that which is incalculable from the perspective of the present. The epistemology of emergence therefore calls for a switch in focus for curricular thinking, away from questions about presentation and representation and towards questions about engagement and response. (shrink)

Economics plays a significant role in decision-making in contemporary western societies, but its role is increasingly questioned. A recurring topic among the challenges raised by critics is that economics as a discipline lacks sufficient pluralism. That is, it fails to enable, encourage, and respect the use of different ontologies, methodologies, theories, and/or schools of thought to study economic reality. Has this been a productive critique? Does talk about pluralism help identify genuine problems in the discipline? Pluralism in economics (...) could draw support from the current consensus in philosophy that pluralism in science is a good thing. I argue, however, that the claim that economic research is insufficiently pluralist is unlikely to convince economists who believe economics is already pluralist enough and that it does not offer unambiguous recommendations for change. This is because there are too many legitimate ways to interpret how pluralism maps to practice. There are numerous variables that pluralist ideals might focus on—the things that they seek multiple rather than one of—and different interpretations of how many of those variables economics has in practice. Yet, as I go on to argue, this does not mean that talk of pluralism is entirely beside the point, since the reasons pluralists offer for their ideals do help to identify genuine problems in economics. The social epistemic strategies that arguments for pluralism recommend point us to three concrete issues in the way economic research is organised: gender imbalances, a steep internal hierarchy, and a dismissive attitude to outsiders. I show that economic research could be more progressive, representative of the interests of those in society, accepted, and legitimate and less likely to fall into bias if the discipline alleviated its gender imbalances, if it were less hierarchical, and if it had a healthier relationship with outsiders. -/- In chapter 1, I outline the debate about pluralism in economics and explain how my thesis utilises a novel approach to social epistemology to offer a way out of the impasse in which that the debate presently resides. In chapter 2, I explain the different philosophical arguments for pluralism in science and categorise them using the variables they focus on and the reasons they give for pluralism. In chapter 3, I argue that interpreting pluralism as a particular arrangement of variables for economics to attain does not lead to unambiguous recommendations for change because it leaves too much open. Yet, I go on to argue, in chapter 4, that drawing on the reasons for pluralism can provide a set of heuristics for piecemeal evaluations of the social epistemic practices in economics. In chapters 5, 6, and 7, I apply these heuristics to economics. I provide evidence that [a] women are outnumbered in economics and face an adverse environment in the discipline, that [b] economics is steeply hierarchical, and that [c] economists form an in-group that assumes superiority and frequently dismisses outside voices. I argue that these three features of economic research block avenues for productive forms of feedback (mechanisms that help to challenge, justify, and refine scientific knowledge), block the interests of certain perspectives being heard, and block public scrutiny of the decisions made by economists. (shrink)

In this chapter, I elaborate an idealized type of Islamic philosophy of education and epistemology. Next, I examine the crisis that Islamic schools face in Western societies. This will occur on two fronts: (1) an analysis of the relationship (if any) between the philosophy of education, the aspirations of school administration, and the actual character and practice of Islamic schools; and (2) an analysis concerning the meaning of an Islamic curriculum. To the first issue, I argue that (...) there exists a disjuncture between Islamic educational ideals (as expressed by Muslim philosophers of education), the aspirations of school administrators, and the manner in which Islamic schools operate in practice. Concerning the second item, I argue that Islamic schools, notwithstanding their own insistent claims, must struggle to define what an Islamic education entails that is uniquely distinctive to Islamic schools. Finally, I argue that Islamic educators need to encourage open-minded discussions concerning issues on which there is no settled opinion. I illumine this discussion by drawing upon minority Muslim voices that encourage further dialogue and debate. Above all else, this chapter is an attempt to highlight the challenges that Muslim educators in the West face as they aim to reconcile an idealized caricature of Islamic philosophy of education with the on-the-ground needs of Muslim children socialized in a non-Islamic society. (shrink)

Western philosophy has been greatly influenced by visual metaphors. Knowing something has commonly, yet implicitly, been conceptualized as seeing something clearly, learning has been framed as being visually exposed to something, and the mind has been understood as a ‘mirror of nature’. A whole ‘epistemology of the eye’ has been at work, which has had significant practical implications, not least in educational contexts. One way to characterize John Dewey’s pragmatism is to see it as an attempt to replace the (...) epistemology of the eye with an epistemology of the hand. This article develops the epistemology of the hand on three levels: A level of embodiment and metaphors, of craftsmanship and social practices, and of schooling and education. (shrink)

MARINA PAOLA BANCHETTI-ROBINO is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Florida Atlantic University. Her areas of research include phenomenology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and zoosemiotics. Her publications have appeared in such journals as Synthese, Husserl Studies, Idealistic Studies, Philosophy East and West, and The Review of Metaphysics. She has also contributed essays to The Role of Pragmatics in Contemporary Philosophy (1997), Feminist Phenomenology (2000), and Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial (...) Issue of Microcosm and Macrocosm (2006). She co-edited Philosophies of the Environment and Technology (1999) and is currently working on a book-length project entitled The Birth of Science Out of the Spirit of Myth: A Historico-Phenomenological Re-Examination of the Crisis of the European Sciences. BERNARD BOXILL was born in Saint Lucia, West Indies where he received his primary and secondary education. He studied philosophy at the University of New Brunswick, Canada and at the University of California, Los Angeles where he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy in 1971. He has published numerous articles, a book, Blacks and Social Justice (1992), and is professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ED BRANDON was born and educated in England, studying philosophy and linguistics at The University of York, England, and later philosophy at The University of Oxford with the late John Mackie. After teaching in Sierra Leone and briefly in England, he went to teach philosophy of education at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica in 1978. From 1992 he has been attached to a policy unit of the Vice-Chancellery, based at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados, where he has been assisting since 2000 with a new major in philosophy. His academic work can be accessed from http://cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/epb/personalpage.html CAROLYN CUSICK is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. She is a founding member of the Phenomenology Roundtable. Her research focuses on feminist epistemology, Africana philosophy, and phenomenology. LEWIS GORDON is President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is Laura H. Carnell Professor, the most distinguished chair, at Temple University, where he holds appointments in philosophy, religion, and Judaic studies and directs the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies. He is also Ongoing Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Government at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age (Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times (Paradigm, 2006), An Introduction to Africana Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of A Companion to African-American Studies (Blackwell, 2006) and Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice (Paradigm, 2005). CLEVIS HEADLEY is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University, director of the Ethnic Studies Certificate Program, as well as director of the Master's in Liberal Studies. Professionally, he serves as the Vice-President and Treasurer of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. Professor Headley has published widely in the areas of Critical Race Theory and Africana philosophy. He has also published in Analytic philosophy, focusing specifically on Gottlob Frege. PAGET HENRY is Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Brown University. He is the author of Caliban's Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy, Peripheral Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Antigua, and the co-editor of C. L. R. James' Caribbean. Professor Henry also serves as the editor of the C. L. R. James Journal, and has published numerous articles on the political economy of the Caribbean as well as on African, African-American, and Afro-Caribbean philosophy. ESIABA IROBI is Associate Professor of International Theatre/Performance Studies at Ohio University, Athens. His groundbreaking book: A Theatre for Cannibals: Resisting Globalization on the Continent and Diaspora since 1441 will be published by Palgrave Macmillan, London, in 2007. He has been invited to be an External Resident Fellow at the prestigious Dartmouth College Humanities Institute for the 2007-2008 academic year. CHIKE JEFFERS is a graduate student in the Ph.D. program of the Philosophy Department at Northwestern University. His interests are in Africana philosophy, social and political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion and aesthetics. He is originally from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. CATHERINE JOHN is Associate Professor of African Diaspora Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Her book Clear Word and Third Sight: Folk Groundings and Diasporic Consciousness in African Caribbean Writing was co-published by Duke University Press and UWI Press in 2003. She has published several articles on Caribbean literature and culture and her current book project is entitled The Just Society and the Diasporic Imagination. She spends her summer working in Woodside, St. Mary, Jamaica helping with a summer school for children and participating in the community's emancipation celebration. KENNETH KNIES is a doctoral student in philosophy at Stony Brook University. His areas of focus are phenomenology and ancient philosophy. He is also a contributing editor for Political Affairs magazine. EDIZON LEN is a photographer and coordinator of the Fondo Documental Afro-Andino at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. In 2006, he was curator of the photo exhibit "The Color of the Diaspora" presented at the Cultural Center of the Catholic University of Ecuador and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He is currently completing his doctorate at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar with a focus on Maroon thought. REKHA MENON is Associate Professor of Art History at State University of New York, Buffalo State. She is the author of Seductive Aesthetics of Post Colonialism (forthcoming). Her area of research focuses on current philosophical investigations in colonial and neocolonial aspects of Indian art, artistic/cultural practices and philosophies and their relationship to Western arts and philosophies. Her manuscripts under review are: Ashamed of Our Nakedness, Is There Ever a Naked Body? Ambivalence in Contemporary Indian Expressive Aesthetics and Insatiable Desire. MICHAEL R. MICHAU is a Ph.D. candidate in the Philosophy and Literature Program at Purdue University, and during the 2006-2007 school year, a lecturer in the Department of Comparative Studies and Department of Philosophy at Ohio State University. He is the co-founder and co-secretary of the North American Levinas Society. CHARLES W. MILLS is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He works in the general area of oppositional political theory, and is the author of numerous articles and three books: The Racial Contract (Cornell University Press, 1997), Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (Cornell University Press, 1998), and From Class to Race: Essays in White Marxism and Black Radicalism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). MABOGO P. MORE is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He has published articles on African philosophy and social and political philosophy in a number of academic journals, such as South African Journal of Philosophy, Dialogue and Universalism, Alternation, Theoria, and African Journal of Political Science. MARILYN NISSIM-SABAT, Ph.D., M.S.W. is Professor Emerita and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Lewis University. Dr. Nissim-Sabat is also a psychotherapist in private practice. She is the author of numerous book chapters and papers in the fields of philosophy (Husserlian phenomenology), psychoanalysis, feminism, and critical race theory. Citations of her works can be found on her website: marilynnissim-sabat.com. FREDERICK OCHIENG'-ODHIAMBO is a Senior Lecturer of Philosophy and Coordinator of the discipline at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. His major research areas are African philosophy and social philosophy. He has published several articles on philosophic sagacity. IVAN PETRELLA is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami. He is author of The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto (SCM Press, 2006) and editor of Latin American Liberation Theology: The Next Generation (Orbis Books, 2005) as well as co-editor of the series Reclaiming Liberation Theology (SCM Press) RICHARD PITHOUSE is a research fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. He is editor of Asinamali: University Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Africa World Press, 2006). SATHYA RAO is Assistant Professor in French translation at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta, Canada. His research fields include: theory of translation, continental philosophy, postcolonial studies, discourses on Africa, and Francophone cinema and literature. He has published articles in various peer-reviewed journals and written chapters in several collective books such as: De l'Ecrit Africain a l'Oral le Phenomene Graphique Africain, Simon Battestini (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006) and Thèorie-rèbellion. Un Ultimatum, Gilles Grelet (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2005). He has a co-edited a book on Francophone African cinema L'Afrique fait son cinema (Montreal: Memoires d'encrier, forthcoming). Sathya Rao is vice-president of the International Non-Philosophical Organisation (INPhO), member of the Canadian Association of Translatology (CATS), coordinator of the research team Poexil, and Secretary of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is co-founder of an online journal Alternative Francophone. CATHERINE WALSH is Professor and Director of the doctoral program in Latin American Cultural Studies at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. Her research interests include the geopolitics of knowledge, interculturality and concerns related to the Afro-Andean Diaspora and the production of decolonial thought. Among her recent publications are Pensamiento crìtico y matriz colonial (Quito: Abya Yala, 2005), "Interculturality and the Coloniality of Power. An 'Other' Thinking and Positioning from the Colonial Difference," in Coloniality of Power, Transmodernity, and Border Thinking, R. Grosfoguel, J.D. Saldivar, and N. Maldonado-Torres (Eds.) (Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming) and "Shifting the Geopolitics of Critical Knowledge: Decolonial Thought and Cultural Studies 'Others' in the Andes," Cultural Studies (forthcoming). KRISTIN WATERS has published widely in the areas of race and gender. Her anthology Enlightened Conversations: Women and Men Political Theorists (Blackwell, 2000) challenges political theorists to be more inclusive of race and gender in their research and teaching. Her book Black Women's Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds, co-edited with Carol Conaway (University of Vermont Press, forthcoming), addresses the varied intellectual traditions of black women's thought that spans more than two hundred years in North America. She is currently Professor of Philosophy at Worcester State College and Visiting Research Associate at Brandeis University. (shrink)

While in medicine, comparison of the data supplied by a clinical syndrome with the data supplied by the biological system is used to arrive at the most accurate diagnosis, the same cannot be said of financial economics: the accumulation of statistical results that contradict the Brownian hypothesis used in risk modelling, combined with serious empirical problems in the practical implementation of the Black-Scholes-Merton model, the benchmark theory of mathematical finance founded on the Brownian hypothesis, has failed to change the Brownian (...) representation, which has endured for more than fifty years despite the extent of its invalidation by experience. Without any statistical foundations, one mathematical representation has become the established approach, acting in the minds of practitioners as a “prenotion” in the sense the word is used by Durkheim, i.e. a “schematic, summary representation” which has produced a kind of spontaneous epistemology. The question arises of the persistence of this mathematical representation, which has been the basis for every financial risk modelling approach: how can its long life be explained? How was this spontaneous epistemology formed, and why did it prove to be so persistent? To address this question and offer an answer, I will test the various dynamics of scientific knowledge used with reference to financial modelling. All these dynamics are specific ways of describing the relationship between knowledge of a phenomenon and the phenomenon itself. Observing that it is impossible for the positivist approach to solve the financial puzzle, I turn to the three principal postpositivist dynamics, developed by Kuhn, Lakatos and Quine. I shall try to make to speak these representations of science for financial research, in order to reflect on the dominance of the Brownian representation in finance. We shall see that none of the epistemologies examined can explain why the Brownian representation continues to be used in mathematical finance research. I shall then propose an alternative hypothesis, concerning a significant pervading mental model that has irrigated both academics and practitioners in the financial sector: the “principle of continuity” introduced into economics by Marshall in. I consider that this principle of continuity has become a “persistent idea” in the form of a viral approach to representations, and I give this persistent idea the metaphorical name of the “Brownian virus”. Then, to explain the spread of this Brownian virus through the financial sector, the contamination of financial practices by this mental representation founded on the principle of continuity, I introduce the concept of the “financial Logos”, a discourse that structures practices and organisations, calculations, prudential regulations and accounting standards, leading to a general financialisation of society from the 1980s onwards. (shrink)

The book reconstructs the history of Western ethics. The approach chosen focuses the endless dialectic of moral codes, or different kinds of ethos, moral doctrines that are preached in order to bring about a reform of existing ethos, and ethical theories that have taken shape in the context of controversies about the ethos and moral doctrines as means of justifying or reforming moral doctrines. Such dialectic is what is meant here by the phrase ‘moral traditions’, taken as a name (...) for threads of moral discourse, made in turn of other interwoven threads, including transmission of shared codes, appeals to reform of prevailing custom, rational argument about the justification of some precept on the basis of some shared general teaching or principle, and rational argument about the ultimate basis for principles and justification of authoritative teaching. That is, the approach adopted to the reading of ethical texts depends on a firm belief in the fact that philosophers hardly created any ethical doctrine out of nothing. The main point this book tries to highlight is how different philosophical theories emerged and followed each other as a result of attempts at accounting for what was going on in the world of moral traditions. Changes were propelled by controversies between different schools, and highly abstract arguments were the unintended effects of moves made by controversialists forced to transform (and occasionally to turn upside down) their own doctrines in order to face the challenge posed by other arguments. This is the reason why the book examines not only texts that already enjoy pride of place in the history of philosophy (Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), but also other texts usually treated in the histories of religions (the Bible, the Talmud, the Quran), and others considered to be much less philosophical (Plutarchus, Pufendorf). -/- 1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism. Two different traditions of morality in VI-V century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates answer to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy. Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistence in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The chapter illustrates then the relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater familias, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexis, or ‘disposition’. Prudence, or better practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with bouleusis or deliberation is examined, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a way of life. The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. -/- 4. Epicurus and ethics as self-care. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of a science of well-being aiming, more than at pleasure as in the popular view, at reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. Cicero is treated, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is chosen as the best example of what the Stoic tradition could yield, an art of living based on sophisticated introspection, in turn aimed at making a kind of cognitive therapy possible, dismantling obnoxious passions at their root by systematically correcting false representations. -/- 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism. A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torā (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Leviticus is stressed as the turning point when emphasis mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, is combined with the legal tradition, yielding the change in sensibility of the Second Temple time. Philo of Alexandria is described as one of the three leading figures – together with Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Yeshua – at the apex the emergence of the mentioned new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, two eventually identical precepts whose meaning is arguably more sober and sensible than the long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine has made us believe and no novelty vis-à-vis so-called Ancient-Testament teachings. -/- 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism. The first section examines the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirqé Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deòt, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexeis and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was ‘the tool by which the world was built’; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous , but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure Judaism. The third section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manichaeism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. The last section summarizes the turbulent history of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and a few topics from the Stoic-Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua had been influenced by cynic preachers, is a proof of the necessity felt by Christian preachers to translate the original ‘Christian’ teaching into a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where an early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 8. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism. The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. Al-Farabi wrote an enjoyable remake of the Platonic Republic, arguing that the citizen’s virtues were the basis on which the political building needs to rest. The secular lawgiver is enlightened by the light of reason in his everyday practice of governance, but room is made for the Prophet as the voice of revealed truth that confirms and completes the rational truth that philosophy may afford. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 9. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelian ethics. The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place a first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed just less striking traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Torah and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirké Avot could be translated. -/- 10. Thomas Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian morality and Aristotelian ethics. In the first section the fresh start is described of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium. In a first phase, Anselm and Peter Abelard built on a Platonic and Augustinian legacy. In this phase. remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. Aquinas’s ethics is a theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract a self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave "pure nature" incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones, such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too demanding and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Ia-IIae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas could reduce the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethic, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is not ethical ‘absolutism’, as both traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularist enemies of dogmatic morality tend to believe. It is instead an ethic of prudential judgment. Exceptions to this approach – or better results of logical fallacies – are such claims as the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of "intrinsically evil acts", claims that simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences Thomas did not live long enough to draw or was not consistent enough to dare to draw. -/- 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry. The first topic illustrated is the discussion about the notion of pura natura, namely the human condition after the original sin and before divine revelation. The core notion was already there in Aquinas but was later developed by Caietanus (Thomas de Vio) with a number of interesting implications: firstly a view of human nature as such much more positive than Augustine’s and his followers’ view, including both Calvinists and Jansenists; secondly, the implication that the philosopher’s morality, as opposed to the Christian’s morality, is a quite respectable kind of morality; thirdly, that theocracy and prosecution of the unfaithful lacked justification, with more far-fetching consequences than Aquinas himself had dared to draw. The second topic is casuistry, a new name for a comparatively older way of thinking, which was already there in late Stoicism and Cicero as well as in the Talmudic literature. This is an approach aimed at yielding probable enough solutions for doubtful cases even in absence of completely safe staring points. The genre developed from medieval reference books for confessors and became by the sixteenth-century a sophisticated tool-box for dealing with various fields of applied ethics. Francisco Vitoria, the main authority of Baroque Scholasticism, was a controversial figure, among the proponents of the new discipline of casuistry and a consistent proponent of more separation between the religious and the civil authority, stricter limits to the legitimacy of war, innate rights of non-Christian nations in the New World based on the notion of pura natura, providing a standard of ‘natural’ goodness, previous to revelation, on which the Indian nations were judged to live in a naturally good condition, provided with the institutions of family, justice, and religion had accordingly a right to full respect by Christian sovereigns. Bartolomé de Las Casas, arguing along similar lines, was the leader of a historical battle in defence of the rights of the Indios. -/- 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living. A short description of one of the Renaissance Phyrronism, one of the classical philosophies revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Montaigne combines the sceptical epistemology with an understanding of ethics – indeed of philosophy as a whole – in terms of an art of living inspired by two basic ideas, sagesse, that is, practical wisdom as the only kind of rationality available after theology, science, and tradition have declared bankrupt, and an aesthetic ideal of self-transformation through the art of writing and introspection. -/- 13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism. The chapter illustrates first the vicissitudes of Augustinianism newly born after the late medieval triumph of Thomist Aristotelianism in the alternative Protestant and Catholic versions processed by the Calvinists and the Jansenists. Then it illustrates the doctrines of Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal’s best disciple, on the impossibility of introspection, on the ubiquity of self-deception, on the incurably evil character of the passion of love, and on the two moralities, the one of the man of the world, the morality of honesty which is indispensable for granting peace and order but devoid of any true value for eternal salvation, since the same external behaviour may be prompted by opposite motivations, and the morality of charity, the only true one but also useless to society. The third topic is Pierre Malebranche’s view of self-deception as a ubiquitous phenomenon accounting for human action and responsibility and his reformulated theory of self-love, no less ubiquitous than for Nicole and yet not as incurably evil, given the distinction between morally indifferent and even necessary amour de soi and vicious amour proper, a distinction on which the whole of Rousseau’s moral and political theory rests. -/- 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality. The chapter is dedicated to the discovery of the idea of a ‘new moral science’. Hugo Grotius is discussed first highlighting the real character of his project, much closer to the Thomist idea of a natural law accessible to non-corrupted human reason when human beings are living in a state of pura natura. Then Hobbes’s combination of scepticism, voluntarism, and conventionalism is described and both the continuity with Grotius’s new science, in the search for non-revealed rational morality, and the break with him, in the adoption of voluntarism and refusal of an intellectualist view of natural law, are illustrated. Pufendorf’s work is illustrated as a synthesis of the two previous attempts and the – up to Schneewind underestimated – paradigmatic example of the new science of morality. -/- 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism. The chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology – and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown, elaborated on Cumberland’s (and Malebranche’s, as well as Leibniz’s) strategy for finding a third way between intellectualist view and voluntarist view of the laws of nature. The result of their elaboration was a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number possible sets of laws on a maximizing criterion, and God’s maximandum is happiness for his creatures. The chapter notices also how such a solution aimed at solving at once the problem of evil and that of the foundation of moral obligation by proving how God’s choice was justified as far as it was the one minimising the amount of suffering in the world. 16. Richard Price and intuitionism. The chapter describes first the doctrines of the Cambridge Platonists, an example of hyper-rationalist reaction to Calvinism. Secondly it describes the sophisticated and universally ignored – from Sidgwick to Anscombe –version of what was later labelled ‘ethical intuitionism’ – showing how it escapes familiar objections and misrepresentations of intuitionism – from Mill to Rawls – in grounding its argument on transcendental arguments while carefully avoiding recourse to introspection and psychological evidence, which has been taken as a too easy target by critics of intuitionism. Thirdly, the chapter discusses Whewell’s ‘philosophy of morality’, as opposed to ‘systematic morality’, not unlike Kant’s distinction between a pure and an empirical moral philosophy. Whewell worked out a systematization of traditional normative ethics as a first step before its rational justification; he believed that the point in the philosophy of morality is justifying a few rational truths about the structure of morality such as to rule hedonism, eudemonism, and consequentialism; yet a system of positive morality cannot be derived solely from such rational truths but requires consideration of the ongoing dialectics between idea and fact in historically given moralities. Whewell’s intuitionism turns out closer to Kantian ethics than commentators have made us believe until now, and quite different from what Sidgwick meant by intuitionism. -/- 17. Adam Smith and the morality of role-switch. The chapter describes first, Hutcheson’s attempt at basing the ‘new science’ of natural law on different bedrock than Pufendorf and the English Platonists, namely a moral sense, a faculty whose existence is assumed to be proved on an empirical basis. The second step is a reconstruction of Hume’s rejoinder in terms of a new science of man including morality on an ‘experimental’ basis, that is, a ‘Newtonian’ hypothetical-deductive approach, distinguished from Hutcheson’s allegedly uncritical descriptive approach to human nature. The third step is a reconstruction of Adam Smith theory of morality understood as emerging from a spontaneous interplay of exchanges of situations (the most basic meaning of the word ‘sympathy’ as construed by this author). -/- 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to the doctrines of Jeremy Bentham. The Enlightenment spirit that suggested the idea of a new morality, free from religion, is illustrated. The notion of utility is illustrated as well as the subsequent formulations of the principle of utility. The idea of felicific calculus is discussed, showing how its inner difficulties prompted several reformulations of the principle of utility in order to avoid undesirable implications of proposed formulations. The role of the thesis of spontaneous convergence between interest and duty is discussed, showing how it left numberless questions open, and the distinction between the virtues of prudence, justice and beneficence is described as a way out of the deadlocks of classical utilitarianism. After Bentham, Mill’s reformed utilitarianism is reconstructed, showing how it is a kind of mixed system – as closer to common sense as it gives up Bentham’s claims to consistency and simplicity – resulting as unintended consequences from the controversies in which Mill was too keen to engage. The hidden agenda of the controversy between Utilitarianism and Intuitionism, going beyond the image of the battle between Prejudice and Reason, is described, showing how both competing philosophical outlooks turn out to be more research programs than self-contained doctrinal bodies, and such programs appear to be implemented, and indeed radically transformed while in progress thanks to their enemies no less than to their supporters. -/- 19. Immanuel Kant, practical reason and judgment. The chapter argues that Kant took from Moses Mendelssohn the idea of a distinction between geometry of morals and a practical ethic. He was drastically misunderstood by his followers precisely on this point. He had learned from the sceptics and the Jansenists the lesson that men are prompted to act by deceptive ends, and he was aware that human actions are also empirical phenomena, where laws like the laws of Nature may be detected. His practical ethics made room for judgment as a holistic procedure for assessing the saliency of relevant moral qualities in one given situation; this procedure yields the same results as the geometry of morals does for abstract cases but does so immediately and without balancing conflicting duties with each other, since what makes for the salient quality of a situation is perceived from the very beginning. Kant's practical philosophy is richer than the received image, making room for an ‘empirical moral philosophy’ or moral anthropology including treatment of commerce, needs, value and price, happiness and well-being; the overall social theory and philosophy of history is less different from Adam Smith's than the received image makes believe; the paradox of happiness is central to Kant's philosophy; a distinction between happiness and well-being is clearly drawn; the distinction plays a basic role in establishing a link between the economic and the moral life. -/- 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the critique of abstract universalism. The chapter describes first the Romantic movement and the implications some of its concerns, rescuing passions, community, tradition, the individual as the bearer of a unique destiny, and the longing for organic unity between the individual, mankind and nature. Hegel’s contribution is discussed then, highlighting how, on the one hand, he shared a number of these concerns and on the other he had more rationalist leanings. The notion of morality is the pivotal point of the reconstruction, highlighting how Hegel construes this notion as a key to his own diagnosis of the malaise of modernity – the separation of individual and Gemeinschaft – and how his attack on Kant turns around this very idea. -/- 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment. The chapter illustrates first the idea of deconstruction of the back-world of values. Nietzsche claims to be legitimate heir of the French moralists, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, in so far as he allegedly carries out to its deepest implications their discovery of what lies behind traditional naïve belief in the existence of an objective realm of values just waiting for description by the philosopher. The two exemplars form which genealogy draws inspiration are the classical philologist’s historical reconstructions of lost meanings and the chemist’s decomposition of elements. Then the genealogy of the notions of good and evil carried out in the first dissertation of Genealogy of morals is illustrated with its paradoxical conclusion that will to power is in fact the only ‘genuine’ kind of goodness. The third point illustrated is the dialectic of ascetism and self-realization with its ambiguous outcome. The suggested interpretation of such outcome is that Nietzsche’s normative ethics is a kind of virtue ethics taking an aesthetic ideal as a normative standard -/- 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism. The chapter discusses the ideas of common sense and common-sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences to reach, also in ethics, the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the a priori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of a naïve positivist starting-point, Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus, Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations. Then it reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore’s early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. I stress the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of rather diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. I add a comparison with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different way, one that manages to pave decisive objections in a more plausible way. I end by suggesting that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more ambiguous phenomenon than the received view would make us believe, and that the wheat (or some other gluten-free grain) of this tradition, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, should be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused and mutually incompatible legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. -/- 23. Edmund Husserl and the a-priori of action. The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl’s project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the a priori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy carried out in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach’s theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that basically sketches the very ideas ‘discovered’ later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section is dedicated to Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of ‘values’ – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler who claimed to Husserl’s legitimate heirs. -/- 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism. The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of ‘good’, its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with ‘emotive’ meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell’s ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of a rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson’s theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. Last of all, the discussion from the Forties about Hume’s law is described, mentioning Karl Popper’s argument and Richard Hare’s early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics. The chapter discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. A short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current is given trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot’s and Peter Geach’s critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre’s grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly unavoidable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism. The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick’s and Moore’s fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine definitely refuted. A glimpse at this uproarious process is given through two examples. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of Utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This results in preference utilitarianism combined with a ‘Kantian’ version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare’s two-level preference utilitarianism where act utilitarianism plays the function of eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of action-guiding practical device. -/- 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy. The post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named ‘Rehabilitation of practical philosophy’ is described. Among the actors of such rehabilitation there were a few of Heidegger’s most brilliant disciples, and Hans-Georg Gadamer is chosen as a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle’s lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger’s lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the central role of the notion of phronesis. -/- 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics. Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This started, instead than the rehabilitation of prudence, with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. An examination of his argument is some detail is offered, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’s elaboration on Apel’s theory. -/- 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics. Rawls’s distinction between a “political” and a “metaphysical” approach to one central part of ethical theory, namely the theory of justice, is interpreted as a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and neo-casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter, namely that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls’ view never will be close – on the basic criteria for judgment. -/- 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics. The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin’s new casuistry. -/- . (shrink)

The study of social, ethical, and political issues from a naturalistic perspective has been pervasive in social sciences and the humanities in the last decades. This articulation of empirical research with philosophical and normative reflection is increasingly getting attention in academic circles and the public spheres, given the prevalence of urgent needs and challenges that society is facing on a global scale. The contemporary world is full of challenges or what some philosophers have called ‘existential risks’ to humanity. Nuclear wars, (...) natural and/or engineered pandemics, climate change, global totalitarianism, and emergent technologies, are some of the challenges mentioned by many authors devoted to the study of long-term potential risks for the survival of the human species. However, while there are many reasons to be a pessimist about the future of humanity, there is also a lot of ink wasted in showing that the world today is far better than we had in the past and also that there have been many instances of social and moral progress in the last centuries. Some authors have even claimed that “we have made more progress over the last 100 years than in the first 100,000”. According to ‘our world in data’, some of the most relevant advances of humanity in the last centuries have to do with the reduction of poverty and/or inequality, better health and security, the decline of violence and war, and the development of democracy and institutional mechanisms to guarantee individual freedom and rights. Yet, there is a more concrete concern that our world faces nowadays, and requires a particularly detailed analysis. In a few words, the advance in information and communication technologies, the huge volume of people migration because of prevalent instances of global inequality, and the reality of an interconnected world that just mirrors an extensive history of massive human intergroup relations open the question about the feasibility of social and moral progress in the contexts of diverse, multicultural, and unequal societies. This makes it crucial to reflect not only on whether human societies may keep advancing on a path of social progress, but how this can be achieved by addressing the challenges of inequality and potential intergroup conflict. This concern closely relates to the further consolidation of democratic values and the achievement of a more generalized consideration of the equal moral value of human individuals far from group, ethnic, or collective distinctions. This vision of progress follows the moral convictions that have been considered right and worthy to be pursued by most ethical theories explored by philosophers and social scientists so far. This work aims to contribute to the study of the mechanisms and feasibility of social and moral progress grounded on the precept of human equality and is guided by the idea that social and moral progress in a plural world requires the accomplishment of a more democratic and tolerant society. These forms of progress have already been defined by philosophers Allen Buchanan and Russel Powell as inclusivist forms of moral progress. According to these authors, inclusivist moral progress is featured by the transformation of moral judgments, motivations, and norms guided by the rejection of “group-based restrictions on moral standing and moral status” (2018). The work of Buchanan and Powell is fundamental for the argumentation developed in this work since they have pioneered a more complex debate in the field of evolutionary social sciences and philosophical anthropology. In brief, these authors have inquired how human nature, conceptualized by the advances in evolutionary thinking and the empirical sciences, is related to our moral convictions and the possibilities that we have to establish certain forms of social and moral progress. The work of Buchanan and Powell contributes to the debate on moral progress by incorporating empirically-informed concepts and arguments. With this objective in mind, they develop their discussion around a generalized tension between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of moral progress. This tension revolves around the question of whether and to what extent human moral concerns, motivations, and norms, are limited or bounded by social identities, group thinking, or collective values. This question is at the center of this work. In other words, I aim to answer whether and to what extent the nature of our social and moral cognition hinders or enables the development of inclusivist forms of morality and moral progress. As I mentioned so far, the distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of morality has a practical implication and facilitates the reflection on the mechanisms and feasibility of concrete forms of progress based on the precept of human equality, which is the road to progress that we should follow according to most ethical theories. The distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist morality is not used here as a form of summarizing highly divergent descriptive approaches to morality, but as a way to address the practical implications of morality research, particularly around the question of the feasibility of social forms of progress based on the precept of equality and tolerance. My objective then has less to do with offering a conceptualization of human morality or with the proposition of a new ethical perspective. Instead, I aim to identify, from an empirically informed perspective, what enables the achievement of egalitarian forms of social progress, to subsequently offer a normative reflection about what we should do if we want to accomplish such inclusivist forms of progress. This task is of great relevance, having in mind that some theoretical proposals on the matter have claimed that human prosocial behavior and morality are constrained by exclusivist fixed tendencies as a product of our evolutionary history. According to these views, human morality is a group-centered cognitive and behavioral expression that has severe limits in its scope and extent, which hinders in the end the emergence of inclusivist forms of moral concerns and behaviors. These claims align with the philosophical intuition about the ‘dissociation of empathy’, or the fact that human individuals tend to express empathy and sympathy preferably for members of their group whereas their empathic and moral concern and recognition for outgroup individuals tend to be reduced or eliminated in real-life social interactions. Multiple theorists have expressed, however, that these assumptions are wrong for empirical and philosophical reasons, which results in a serious challenge to the conception of human morality as exclusivist by nature. Furthermore, simple intuition and practical experience constantly show us that human individuals can develop and endorse a broad spectrum of moral considerations and adopt an arguably inclusivist stance concerning the kind of persons or agents that deserve moral concern. Moreover, and adopting a historical perspective, the expansion of cultural and commercial exchanges, the consolidation of democracy, the development of welfare states, or the emergence of institutions based on the concept of universal human rights, have partially driven human progress based on the impartial concern for the well-being of persons. These historical instances of cultural evolution and institutional design have shown that it is feasible to promote behaviors and attitudes grounded in impersonal prosocial and inclusivist principles. This optimistic perspective, however, still begs the question of the exact relationship between social, cultural, and historical contexts, and the emergence of certain behavioral expressions of inclusivist morality. This is crucial since a great number of human individuals around the world still do not make part of these instances of social progress, and some authors have suggested that such instances of social and moral progress are particularly favored by the contexts of the WEIRD world, that is the world of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. Some of these approaches consider moral inclusivity a ‘luxury good’ and follow the ‘dependency thesis’ according to which the expression of moral inclusivity depends on the presence of very concrete material conditions that trigger inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. This thesis is problematic for various reasons and has led to incomplete explanations about the enabling and causal factors of inclusivist moral progress, as well as unsatisfactory suggestions about what we should do to foster the accomplishment of more generalized instances of progress based on inclusivist concerns. In an attempt to contribute to this debate, the main objective of this thesis is to offer an alternative proposal about the nature of human morality and a more detailed reflection on what we should do if we want to further accomplish such instances of progress. More precisely, this work adopts a particular developmental and constructivist vision of human morality to answer the question of how feasible it is to reach generalized forms of social progress based on the precepts of moral inclusivity. Furthermore, it offers some ideas about what are the most adequate and favorable conditions to foster such progress both at the individual and the collective level. At this point, a preliminary clarification of some starting points is necessary. In the first place, and contrary to what other authors have proposed when debating moral progress from an empirically-based approach, my perspective adopts a radical developmental and constructivist perspective, following particularly the conceptual and empirical ideas of the social-domain theory in moral psychology. From this perspective, morality is a domain of normative and social knowledge that develops and emerges in human interactions. Moral concerns, judgments, and norms are not only the result of the expression of innate adaptive intuitions, nor the product of social conformity and a simple process of mirroring the normativity that communities have established to organize their social life. Human individuals, instead, construct moral concerns and judgments during their situated interactions. More specifically, the constructivist tradition claims that we need to research how moral concerns, judgments, and reasons emerge in social interactions and how human beings construct the content of their moral knowledge in the first place. Based on these ideas, morality is defined here as the result of a constructive process through which human individuals, by the means of constant interactions on a background of mutual respect and recognition, develop evaluative concerns about how we ought to treat others, and how to ‘care’ and ‘respect’ others’ well-being, needs, and vulnerabilities. This developmental-constructivist theory of human psychology contributes to an alternative understanding of the origins of moral variability and informs a very particular normative stance about the most desirable contexts needed for the urgent accomplishment of inclusivist forms of morality in contemporary societies. This is so given that the very same definition of morality adopted presupposes the feature of inclusivity. The main objective of this work is then to argue, based on a developmental perspective, what are the most favorable conditions to foster the development of moral inclusivity and what we should do to accomplish concrete instances of moral progress that truly help us to overcome our most urgent moral challenges. The whole thesis is organized as follows. In part I, I show how received visions about human social evolution have informed conceptions of morality as an adaptive function evolved to solve the challenges of cooperative life. Based on these assumptions, some theories argue that human morality is limited by the boundaries of group thinking, and always obeys the mandates of collective interests and the will of the majority. However, this conception has problematic implications from a normative and ethical perspective. The aim of Chapter 1 is to present this introductory debate in detail. In chapter 2, I consider a relevant amount of scientific evidence that helps to consolidate a more optimistic and inclusivist perspective about the starting conditions of human prosocial behavior. Later, I will summarize some ideas offered to explain the possible evolutionary mechanisms that led to the consolidation of these inclusivist capacities. However, I will also show how evolutionary theories that share the same adaptationist foundations but initially seem relevant to explain the feasibility of moral inclusivity, result incomplete when considering the complexity of moral behavior and its ethical implications. Part II is devoted to presenting a developmental alternative to the adaptationist versions around the starting conditions of morality. In this section, I first summarize the epistemological, conceptual, and empirical basis of a constructivist perspective already proposed by several authors in the last decades. This is the goal of chapter 3. More precisely, I adopt the conceptualization of morality established by the social-domain theory school and clarify its conception of the situated development of moral concerns, motivations, and norms. All these ideas are essential for my argumentation on the feasibility of inclusivist moral progress offered later. Chapter 4 provides a more detailed idea of constructivist thinking about moral development, by analyzing one particular dimension: the development of moral concerns for fairness and the sense of justice in distributive dilemmas. In Part III, I assume a constructivist perspective on morality to contribute to the philosophy of moral progress. In particular, I discuss the implications of such a perspective for the conceptualization of human moral nature and discuss what are the most favorable conditions for moral inclusivity to emerge. Answering that question is of enormous relevance since favoring the transition of human societies towards more inclusivist forms of moral concern and behavior supposes a more generalized accomplishment of our most urgent moral convictions. Previous developmental or culturally-sensible attempts to explore this issue are already on the market. As mentioned before, most authors have approached the topic by situating the cultural evolution and development of (inclusivist) moral progress in the WEIRD world. For instance, some of these authors claim that very concrete material conditions (mostly present in the Western World) have been necessary for triggering inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. Despite their interest in explaining inclusivist morality and the feasibility of inclusivist forms of progress following a naturalistic and culturally situated approach, these theories are problematic for two main reasons. In the first place, most of the authors that explain moral progress tend to focus exclusively on the consolidation of liberal values in the Western world and the underlying adoption of laws, social-epistemic practices, and public narratives about tolerance and inclusivity, as unequivocal signs of inclusivist morality. Nevertheless, there is an enormous distance between the institutional and public support of inclusivist moral values or the construction of public images of tolerance and inclusivity, and the real materialization of impersonal moralities in situated social interactions. Secondly, the variability of human moral behavior is far bigger than most of the theories in moral psychology and moral progress tend to assume. Accordingly, inclusivist and exclusivist forms of morality may develop simultaneously in similar or divergent geographical and socio-ecological environments, including those with harsh conditions such as competition for scarce resources, potential intergroup conflict, and risks of disease transmission. In addition, harsh environmental conditions are usually present in almost all societies around the globe, and the presence of socio-ecological conditions such as physical security and prosperity, predominant in highly resourced populations, do not prevent the existence of exclusivist moral tendencies. My model explores a different perspective on the relationships between cultural, institutional, and historical factors, and the situated development of human morality. This supposes a clear distinction from previous approaches to the matter since it offers a different view on what we should do to pursue further instances of inclusivist social progress. In the fifth chapter, I first analyze the proposals of some defenders of the ‘dependency’ theory. The attention is focused on the ‘Evolutionary Developmental Model’ proposed by Buchanan and Powell (2018). Based on a critique of this approach, I will argue that to explain the evolution and development of human morality in its multiple manifestations, it is essential to put focus on social interactions. This also involves a different perspective on human-environment relations that in line with a constructivist worldview makes an innovative contribution to the philosophy of moral behavior and moral progress. Later, in the sixth chapter, I will define my alternative relational view of inclusivist morality and I will offer my view on how to establish favorable conditions that make inclusivist morality possible. Complementing the constructivist approach, my conception is based on the essential role of equality and individuality and on how moral inclusivity is favored if moral concerns do not develop driven by the accomplishment of group-centered, binding, and communitarian concerns and values. In brief, my relational model suggests that the accomplishment of moral inclusivity not only depends on the overall achievement of certain levels of physical security or economic prosperity. Instead, its development is favored by transforming the interactional contexts in which moral concerns towards autonomy and individuality emerge. In arguing so, I will need to start with a critique of contemporary situated and embodied approaches in ethics. Then, I will show how societies guided by the accomplishment of group-centered values of power, dominance, and relational inequality tend to express exclusivist moral behaviors, while individualistic societies tend to be more inclusivist. Starting from this diagnosis, my final attempt is then to reflect on which are the best conditions for the moral valuation of individuality to emerge and what we should do to promote the accomplishment of moral inclusivity at the societal level. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diasporic Impulses:Sikh Philosophy as an AssemblageArvind-Pal S. Mandair (bio)Let me begin this response by thanking the editors of Philosophy East and West for generously allowing space for this review forum on my recent book, Sikh Philosophy: Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing World (Bloomsbury, 2022), and thanking the reviewers Monika-Kirloskar Steinbach, Ananda Abeysekara, and Jeffery Long for their careful readings of this work. "Sikh Philosophy" names the modern academic (...) discourse that crystallized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a result of the encounter between modern Western philosophy and gurmat, a mode of thought-praxis deriving from and associated with Sikhi (lit. "the path of learning"), a spiritual-philosophical tradition hailing from India, which most readers may only have encountered through the modern knowledge system's categorization of it as the religion known as Sikhism. To avoid complicating the discussion, I will be referring interchangeably to gurmat and Sikh philosophy, even though they represent quite different entities. Gurmat represents a tradition of thought-praxis that goes back to Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhi, whereas Sikh philosophy is a modern formation that emerged from the encounter between gurmat and European thought, which is why I prefer to regard it as an assemblage. The book examines some of the key concepts of Sikh philosophy and how they inform its vision of life, what they tell us about the nature of reality, and whether it is possible to discern a distinct logic, epistemology, and ontology based on the principles of gurmat. In their reviews, Kirloskar-Steinbach, Abeysekara, and Long have provided critical readings and insightful questions, which I address below.Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach asks about the relationship between Sikh philosophy and Indian philosophy, noting that my book does not explicitly engage Indian philosophy. Specifically, she raises two questions: (1) whether Sikh philosophy should or potentially could be part of the broader field of Indian philosophy, and (2) whether I would be inclined to contribute to that field, particularly in light of recent efforts to diversify philosophical practices within Indian philosophy by scholars like Jonardon Ganeri in his Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy (2017) and Purushottama Bilimoria and Amy Rayner in their History of Indian Philosophy (2018). My immediate response would be "yes," but with an important caveat. In that vein, I applaud Ganeri's and Bilimoria/Rayner's efforts to open up philosophical inquiry within Indian traditions and take them beyond darśanic framings that narrowly positioned different thought-practices of South Asia either within or [End Page 364] in relation to the Brahmanical/Vedic/Sanskritic paradigm. Ganeri's "multiperspectival" narrative about practices might well enable discussions about Sikh philosophy to flourish, given that the lexicon of gurmat (the teaching, logic, practice of the Guru) is replete with concepts that have cognate terms in the main Hindu philosophical schools including Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedānta; the Jain and Buddhist traditions; and perhaps most importantly, within the Islamic, especially Sufi, traditions. It is the seeming parity between cognate terms such as the Punjabi dharam (Skt. dharma), karam (Skt. karma), yoga, śabad (Skt. śabda), guru, hukam, and many more, which has given rise to the misperception that Sikh philosophy is a purely syncretic thought system parasitic on earlier Indic systems. A similar misperception might be that Sikhi is more primarily a mode of lived praxis or dharam than it is a philosophy (Bhogal 2018) and therefore has less to do with thought than with spiritual attainment. But this approach is far too narrow in that it opposes "philosophy"/"thought" to spiritual praxis without asking whether there might be a broader definition of thinking at play within Sikhi or gurmat. Such an approach fails to extricate itself from the legacy of imperial categorizations of Indic traditions as essentially religious and therefore unrelated to what is called "thinking." By doing so, it falls prey to another misconception many have, that the closest Indians have come to philosophical thought are the darśanic schools, not realizing that most Indian philosophers and thinkers were at the same time devotees and spiritual adepts who developed rigorous modes of discipline and practice.Having said this, I would premise any... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.3 (2001) 407-436 [Access article in PDF] Dilthey's Epistemology of the Geisteswissenschaften: Between Lebensphilosophie and Wissenschaftstheorie James Reid A great part of my life's work has been devoted to formulating a universally valid science which should provide the human sciences with a firm foundation and a unified internal coherency.... I am neither an intuitionist, nor a historicist, nor a skeptic. Dilthey to Husserl, (...) 29 June 1911 To show life as it is, that is what we strive for. To describe life: that is our goal.... We want to make life visible in its unfathomable depths, and in its unfathomable nexus. Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften 19: 330 In the dedication of the first volume of the Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften to his friend and philosophical interlocutor Count Yorck, Dilthey famously named what would become his lifelong philosophical preoccupation a Kritik der historischen Vernunft, the overarching aim of which is to provide "an epistemological foundation for the human sciences" that would "determine the interconnections among the particular human sciences, the limits within which knowledge is possible in these sciences, and the relation of their truths to one another." 1 For Dilthey, the liberation of historical consciousness from the "grey cobweb of abstract essences" spun by traditional metaphysics constituted one of the [End Page 407] major intellectual achievements of the nineteenth century. 2 However, as important as the concrete historical investigations of Ranke, Droysen, and Mommsen undoubtedly are, the Historical School nevertheless failed in Dilthey's eyes to grasp the essence of historical consciousness—its scope, limits and objective validity: Its study and evaluation of historical phenomena remain unconnected with the analysis of facts of consciousness; consequently, it has no grounding in the only knowledge which is ultimately secure; it has in short no philosophical foundation. 3A critique of historical reason, grasped as an epistemological analysis of "the capacity of man to know himself and the society and history which he has produced," is needed in order to provide for the Geisteswissenschaften a foundation equivalent to the one furnished by Kant for mathematical natural science in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 4The epistemological dimension of Dilthey's project took shape as the elaboration of a basic science (Grundwissenschaft) identified, in the Einleitung at least, with descriptive psychology. 5 In an effort to delimit the province of the Geisteswissenschaften, Dilthey came to distinguish between outer experience and its objects and various levels of inner experience. Although Dilthey's thought developed considerably in the years after 1900, most notably in the direction [End Page 408] of a refinement of the relation between inner and outer experience, the distinction between these two fundamental modes of givenness remained central to his conception of the structure and methodology of the human sciences. 6 In a number of manuscripts, some published in Dilthey's lifetime, others (by far the majority) published after his death by former students, Dilthey envisages a comprehensive theory of consciousness and its objectifications that would shed light on the origins and ultimate validity of our knowledge of the historical world.As several commentators have pointed out, however, the epistemological dimension of Dilthey's project fails to capture the entire breadth of his achievement. 7 Dilthey's interest in the objective validity of historical investigation was subservient to broader concerns about the nature of human existence and its historicity, what Dilthey often referred to simply as Leben. 8 Life as it is revealed in the human sciences is the medium in which self-consciousness and self-knowledge, scientific and practical activity originate, and remains the abiding concern of the human sciences. At the most fundamental level of epistemological reflection, we encounter life as it is lived in pre-scientific and pre-reflective experience (Erlebnis). 9 Life, Dilthey consistently maintained, is the "prius" of thought: Knowledge (Erkenntnis) cannot go behind life, of which it is a function. Life always remains the presupposition of knowledge, i.e., of the consciousness or knowledge (Wissen) contained in life. As a presupposition of knowledge (des Erkennens) itself, life is [End... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reconsiderations on History and Antiquarianism: Arnaldo Momigliano and the Historiography of Eighteenth-Century BritainMark Salber PhillipsQuando mia figlia era molto piccola si divertiva a entrare nel mio studio e a chiedermi con finta gravità: “Signore papà che cosa hai concluso?” La sua domanda mi è tornata in mente molte volte più tardi, e mi ritorna nella mente anche oggi. Concludere non è facile, in qualsiasi lingua. E io per natura (...) preferisco proporre problemi.—A. Momigliano, “Epilogo senza conclusione”The question is: can we save for ourselves and for our successors this immemorial tradition, this long-standing delight, of talking to past historians as if they were our senior colleagues?—A. Momigliano, “Polybius Between the English and the Turks”More than any other historian of this century, Arnaldo Momigliano shaped our understanding of the evolution of Western historiography from the ancient to the modern world. Fundamental to this continuity, as Momigliano saw it, was the revival in the Renaissance of the classical division of history into two distinct genres. The first (often called, without further qualification, “history”) is the narrative of public events organized in linear [End Page 297] and causal fashion; the second, antiquities, is a more diverse body of writing that neglects political narrative for philosophical, literary, topographical, and other concerns. After the Reformation antiquarianism took on new tasks in response to the religious controversies of the age, but it remained distinct from the narrative tradition. Only in the eighteenth century did a convergence begin that has finally been completed in the historical methods of our own time. 1This identification of the eighteenth century as the time when historical narrative and antiquarian research converged gives Momigliano’s views their particular interest to students of this period. His terms, however, are always far wider than any single century. In fact his argument constitutes a genealogy of modern historical method, since the merging of the two traditions—first witnessed in the erudite historiography of Edward Gibbon—was a precondition of modern practice. On these foundations, a modern historical discipline has grown up in which systematic research has become indivisible from the task of representing the past in narrative, with the consequence that the ancient separation of history and antiquities has at last been transcended.This essay is intended as a sketch of an alternative approach to the study of historical thought and writing in eighteenth-century Britain. In my view an essential point of departure is the interest of eighteenth-century writers in the structures and experiences of private life, their desire to explore the inward lives of individuals and the everyday life of societies. This revaluation of private life challenged the classical conception of history in fundamental ways, resulting in a fruitful tension between the social and sentimental interests of the age and its inherited view of history. At stake, in the very [End Page 298] broadest terms, was the need to find forms of historical narrative that met the needs of a commercial society and recognized the values and activities of a non-aristocratic audience.In the eighteenth century antiquarian erudition was far from the only genre bordering on the territory of political narrative. Conjectural history, religious history, history of manners, history of sciences and of literature, biography, memoir, and novel all defined themselves in relation to a traditional conception of history and claimed the attention of readers for their own rival narrative spaces. More particularly, these related genres ranged themselves against history’s strict identification with public life, with all the assumptions about audience, gender, and intellectual authority that accompanied the public domain. Without ever displacing the national narrative in the hierarchy of literatures, these other genres offered a variety of alternative histories whose common ground was their resistance to the assumed priority of politics. 2For a generation Momigliano’s dialectic of history and antiquarianism has served as an organizing principle for a good deal of teaching and writing on early modern historiography. 3 It is time, I believe, for a revaluation of this conceptual scheme. The wider consideration of genres I am urging would greatly enlarge the framework of discussion and give us a sharper sense of the interests of eighteenth-century historians and their... (shrink)

The author argues that Michael Polanyi’s philosophy of science can be understood as an (unconscious) attempt to recapture elements of experience largely forgotten or repressed in modernity. Specifically, the author argues that Polanyi’s epistemology appears to draw on elements of oral—aural experience that have been relatively ignored by the heavily visual sensory orientation typical of modern Western societies. The author does this by first deriving the primary features of the modern objectivist conception of knowledge from Polanyi’s critique of (...) objectivism and then using the anthropological literature on the differences between oral and literate cultures to demonstrate that these same aspects of the objectivist paradigm correspond closely to typical features of literate, visual consciousness while Polanyi’s alternative formulations correspond to a more oral—aural orientation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.3 (2001) 407-436 [Access article in PDF] Dilthey's Epistemology of the Geisteswissenschaften: Between Lebensphilosophie and Wissenschaftstheorie James Reid A great part of my life's work has been devoted to formulating a universally valid science which should provide the human sciences with a firm foundation and a unified internal coherency.... I am neither an intuitionist, nor a historicist, nor a skeptic. Dilthey to Husserl, (...) 29 June 1911 To show life as it is, that is what we strive for. To describe life: that is our goal.... We want to make life visible in its unfathomable depths, and in its unfathomable nexus. Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften 19: 330 In the dedication of the first volume of the Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften to his friend and philosophical interlocutor Count Yorck, Dilthey famously named what would become his lifelong philosophical preoccupation a Kritik der historischen Vernunft, the overarching aim of which is to provide "an epistemological foundation for the human sciences" that would "determine the interconnections among the particular human sciences, the limits within which knowledge is possible in these sciences, and the relation of their truths to one another." 1 For Dilthey, the liberation of historical consciousness from the "grey cobweb of abstract essences" spun by traditional metaphysics constituted one of the [End Page 407] major intellectual achievements of the nineteenth century. 2 However, as important as the concrete historical investigations of Ranke, Droysen, and Mommsen undoubtedly are, the Historical School nevertheless failed in Dilthey's eyes to grasp the essence of historical consciousness—its scope, limits and objective validity: Its study and evaluation of historical phenomena remain unconnected with the analysis of facts of consciousness; consequently, it has no grounding in the only knowledge which is ultimately secure; it has in short no philosophical foundation. 3A critique of historical reason, grasped as an epistemological analysis of "the capacity of man to know himself and the society and history which he has produced," is needed in order to provide for the Geisteswissenschaften a foundation equivalent to the one furnished by Kant for mathematical natural science in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 4The epistemological dimension of Dilthey's project took shape as the elaboration of a basic science (Grundwissenschaft) identified, in the Einleitung at least, with descriptive psychology. 5 In an effort to delimit the province of the Geisteswissenschaften, Dilthey came to distinguish between outer experience and its objects and various levels of inner experience. Although Dilthey's thought developed considerably in the years after 1900, most notably in the direction [End Page 408] of a refinement of the relation between inner and outer experience, the distinction between these two fundamental modes of givenness remained central to his conception of the structure and methodology of the human sciences. 6 In a number of manuscripts, some published in Dilthey's lifetime, others (by far the majority) published after his death by former students, Dilthey envisages a comprehensive theory of consciousness and its objectifications that would shed light on the origins and ultimate validity of our knowledge of the historical world.As several commentators have pointed out, however, the epistemological dimension of Dilthey's project fails to capture the entire breadth of his achievement. 7 Dilthey's interest in the objective validity of historical investigation was subservient to broader concerns about the nature of human existence and its historicity, what Dilthey often referred to simply as Leben. 8 Life as it is revealed in the human sciences is the medium in which self-consciousness and self-knowledge, scientific and practical activity originate, and remains the abiding concern of the human sciences. At the most fundamental level of epistemological reflection, we encounter life as it is lived in pre-scientific and pre-reflective experience (Erlebnis). 9 Life, Dilthey consistently maintained, is the "prius" of thought: Knowledge (Erkenntnis) cannot go behind life, of which it is a function. Life always remains the presupposition of knowledge, i.e., of the consciousness or knowledge (Wissen) contained in life. As a presupposition of knowledge (des Erkennens) itself, life is [End... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aestheticism and SpiritualismA Narrative Study of the Exploration of Self through the Practice of Chinese CalligraphyMing-Tak Hue (bio)IntroductionCalligraphy has been used to preserve significant writings and texts in a beautiful form and to make the different styles of writing enjoyable. It is not only the art of beautiful handwriting but also a cultural heritage and tradition that reflects the culture and history of a society, a race, a (...) nation, and a country. Hence, it has very great educational value. In China calligraphy is done with a brush, which was a common writing implement in ancient times. In addition to its utilitarian function, calligraphy is the most fundamental element in other types of art, such as painting and seal-carving, and is closely connected to many subject disciplines, such as literature, history, and philosophy. Brush calligraphy is still popular in Chinese society and is frequently used in different forms of publication, such as banners and newspapers; however, it is becoming more popular for these publications to be created mechanically or in electronic form with computers rather than by hand. In the context of schooling, a similar phenomenon can be seen. Many teachers in Hong Kong, as elsewhere, are concerned that fewer and fewer students have the chance to write with a pen and enjoy the beauty of writing, as the use of computers and different types of electronic devices for writing become more popular with the general public.The aim of this article is to examine the meaning of the practice of Chinese calligraphy from a cultural perspective and to draw school practitioners' attention to the importance of calligraphy education in the promotion of the whole-person growth of students and of multicultural education. Relevant literature on Western and Chinese calligraphy will be reviewed. Then an explanation will be given on how a narrative approach to the personal experience method and textual analysis were adopted for the data analysis. The article argues that calligraphy serves more than a utilitarian function. It [End Page 18] has also been used as an aesthetic practice and spiritual discipline. Hence, it is suggested that the calligraphy of brushwork is not only delightful to the eye but also an inspiration to the spirit. It is a practice of mindfulness for promoting self-reflection and self-cultivation, which leads calligraphy practitioners to reflect in their mind and heart, and so brings them into a harmonious relationship with others and the natural world.Literature ReviewIn Western societies for the last one hundred years, calligraphy has been rediscovered and relearned.1 Knight pointed out that the heritage and traditions of calligraphy have not been properly addressed and inherited in Western societies. Uyehara further suggested that calligraphy had been basically restudied and relearned in Europe and the United States up until the end of World War II. Edward Johnston (1872-1944) could be the most influential scholar who attempted to rediscover the art of Western calligraphy, lettering, and illuminating. In his study of ancient inscriptions and old manuscripts, three essential qualities of calligraphy were identified: "legibility," "beauty," and "character."2 When creating a piece of artwork, calligraphers have to ensure the legibility of the letter forms, the mastery of the skills of creating beautiful writing, and the readability of their works. As he explained,To make good letters and to arrange them well. To make good letters is not necessarily to "design" them—they have been designed long ago—but it is to take the best letters we can find, and to acquire them and make them our own. To arrange letters well requires no great art, but it requires a working knowledge of letter-forms and of the reasonable methods of grouping these forms to suit every circumstance.3Similarly, Knight highlighted the essential qualities of "legibility" and "beauty." Further, he stressed that the "creativity" of calligraphy should be imposed upon the tradition and cultural heritage of ancient manuscripts. As he said,[M]any of the conventions we use today in letter design and typography were established during the manuscript age. To know the classic work of this period is to know more about the ground we stand upon. If we grasp the... (shrink)

This paper offers a genealogy of dialogic education, tracing its origins in Romantic epistemology and corresponding philosophy of childhood, and identifying it as a counterpoint to the purposes and assumptions of universal, compulsory, state-imposed and regulated schooling. Dialogic education has historically worked against the grain of standardized mass education, not only in its view of the nature, capacities and potentialities of children, but in its economic, political and social views, for which childhood is understood as a promissory condition. Dialogic (...) education is oriented to what Dewey called “a future new society of changed purposes and desires,” made possible by an emergent form of social character. It has followed its own developmental trajectory from its origins in Pestalozzi’s Rousseau-inspired innovations, through anarchist theory and practice and the Progressive Education movement, to its current most salient formulation in the Democratic Education movement, whether as an enemy within the gates of standardized education or as expressed in innumerable alternative forms of schooling or unschooling. The paper highlights several key characteristics, gleaned from all those forms, of the dialogic school—identified as intentionality, transitionality, emergence, aesthetic temporality, interdisciplinarity and group governmentality--and argues further that community of philosophical inquiry theory and practice as a form of post-Socratic group dialogue that emerged in the 1970’s, is a pedagogical praxis that offers a grand operational template for dialogic education as a form of schooling. (shrink)

Generally speaking, the ethics of Korean society today are going through an unstable stage, in which the traditional ethics of the East are becoming blended with the Western values that were introduced during the modern age. The resulting chaos has become a critical issue for debate, especially after the birth of a new subject, ‘national ethics’ in school education. Yet even nowadays, questions remain regarding whether the two systems of ethics are independent,complementary, or combinable in some way. I’m going (...) to propose a multi-layered structure of moral education; ‘ the three steps of Ethics’ for designing ethical system and moral education of South Korea. First, etiquette education, which is provided in the household prior to self-controlled critical thinking, will be discussed as an infrastructure of moral education. Then, one of the main purposes of schooling, moral thinking education will be described in terms ofdilemma model of organic form. Lastly, a long forgotten side of today’s moral education, the practical implications of ‘virtue education’, will be emphasized because of their cardinal importance to both Eastern and Western traditions. (shrink)

This article explores a modern approach to childhood that abandons the traditional view of children in western societies as inferior, fragile and vulnerable. The modern approach explored in this paper takes a plural perspective in the conception of children as people who are able to think for themselves and who have the absolute right to participate in the affairs that affect them. This modern approach is related in this study to the free-rangers thesis, in which childhood is interpreted (...) as a process of maturation and not as a stage of life, which is the conception linked to the traditional percepcion of childhood in the western societies. In the framework of formal education, this modern approach to childhood is related to Freire’s liberating education and the proposals for the school of philosophy with children in which philosophical practices are encouraged from an early age, thereby stimulating a much more active role for children in schools and giving their voice due recognition. So, this study highlights the importance of promoting liberating education in schools with the aim of making every effort to subvert the traditional roles of both teachers and pupils in formal education to give a more active role to children. In thi sense, this paper calls for the activity of philosophy whith children and encourages the idea of putting philosophy at the service of schools to give children’s voices greater value. (shrink)

The need for renewal felt in various fields with the Tanẓīmat, and the changes and modernization activities realized in accordance with it, and the nature and boundaries of these activities are important issues that determine the period's intellectual agenda. Some of the proposals for a solution to save the state are related to the renewal of religious thought. The bad situation in the Ottoman Empire stems from the way religion is understood, not from religion itself, and one of the names (...) that produce ideas about the necessity of changing this way of thinking is Ḥüseyin Kāẓım Kadri. He believes that Fiqh and Exegeticsshould be based on the work of updating the content of Islamic Sciences within the framework of contemporary needs. Claiming that the basic need of society is not Science of Kalām but Catechism, Kadri claims that the attempt of the science of Kalām, regulated to respond to the needs of the age will not result in even will cause religious conflict among people. In this article, Ḥüseyin Kāẓım Kadri'sintellectual background, his suggestions for the renewal of religious thought and his objection to the new Science of Kalām are discussed.Summary: What defines the history of late Ottoman period is the concept called change. There have been reform attempts in order to canalise the military, economic, socio-cultural change and transformation due to political turmoil starting from the end of the 16th century and beginning of the 17th century. Basic argument regarding these reforms finds its base on Qanūn al-Qadīm and the idea of returning to Sharia. Along with the Declaration of the Imperial Edict of Reorganization (Edict of Gulhane) the previous reforms which were made earlier changed dimension and westernization became a government policy. During the ongoing process, the change in terms of Westernization became a current issue within every segment of Ottoman society. Need for innovation in various areas, and therefore the change and modernization movements and accordingly these movements’ nature and boundries set the intellectual agenda of the era. Some of the suggestions are associated with renewal of the religious thought which are to keep the State from difficult situation it is in. Solutions proposed in this context creates a rich intellectual discussion environment within Western, Islamist, and Turkist intellectuals. Islamists in general terms are of the opinion that the difficult situation Ottoman is in does not stem from the religion itself but the way of understanding religion; and they are of the opinion that this way of thinking should be altered; when they bring about their suggestions, it is seen that the way of thinking is their starting point. What causes the Islamists fall apart within themselves is the nature of renawal. Islamist intellectuals, supporting the idea which is the content of islamic knowledge should be updated according the needs of era, suggest various ideas in terms of which dicipline should be in charge for the needs in question. While some intellectuals are of the opinion Kalām should be prioritised, some are of the opinion Fiqh and Exegetics should be prioritised. Ḥüseyin Kāẓım Kadri, who wrote under the pseudonym of Shaykh Muḥsin-i Fānῑ ez-Ẓāhirῑ, is one of these intellectuals coming up with an idea. Kadri suggests a renawal in thinking based upon Fiqh and ExegeticsḤüseyin Kāẓım Kadriis one of the most prominent intellectuals of Constitutional Period. Working as a governor of an Ottoman province, deputy, and minister and engaging in journalism, Kadri compiles a series of work in religion, language and agriculture. All of his efforts are to find ways of saving Ottoman from its difficult situations. Thus, Kadri questions the quality of the knowledge which was brought about in religious thinking and proposes solutions. What lies under his solution is the need for a dicipline for society’ s practical problems. He bases his opinion on opposition to new theology movement. According to Kadri, ever since Kalām was codified, it has never been useful to Muslims, on the contrary it has impaired the Muslims. Renowation of Kalām creates nothing but problem. In his opinion, due to using Greek philosophy content and method, Kalām is not a dicipline authentic to Muslims, besides it is a harmful dicipline which aims to damage the essence of Islam.One of the reasons why Kalām is out of Islamic thinking tradition is because of the Mu'tazila wises are the founders of this dicipline. Kadri is of the opinion that the wises/intellectuals belonging to this school and their theories regarding to understand the existence do not contribute to the field of faith. Admitting the function of Ahl-al Sunnah school generated after the Mihna Period, Kadri states the insufficient side of that function. To him, hence the subjects such as substance (cevher) –accident (araz), hudûth-eternality, wujud (vücûd)-nothingness (adem) etc have been discussed but at that time the subject in question could not be renovated in regard to needs. Another criticism of Kadri raised against Kalām is he considers this field the reason why Muslims are divided. Especially during the times when Muslims need to be in unity and solidarity, Kadri is worried about new discursion which will occur due to the renovation of Kalām attempts. This concern of Kadri causes him to object Kalām with a pragmatic motive.Kalām which is called Usulu'd-Din is another reason why Ḥüseyin Kāẓım Kadriis against Kalām. In his opinion, theologians complicates the subjects such as amalgation and adjectives of Allah instead of making it clear with ijtihad. Kadri who considers offering proof in terms of faith as faithlessness is of the opinion that faith is not a matter of reason but a matter of sense which has no doubt among people. Criticising the struggle for the enquiry of faith, Kadri puts an emphasis on the significance of the reinterpretation of the principles, for example in the field of Fiqh which deals with the practical area and says it is the most prominent religious duty. He also criticises the imitation of the past and remarks the importance of reason in Fiqh. As an alternative to Ilm-i Kalām, he claims a new Catechism and adds, it is going to provide the religious knowledge people need. It is an ideological contrast of Ḥüseyin Kāẓım Kadrito think Kalām is the reason for all the misfortune Muslims encountered. This opposition causes him to ignore all the accumulation in Kalām field. Moreover, it is the reason why he makes emotional deductions conflicting with historical facts. Kalām plays a role just like the other fields who could not contribute to Islamic Thinking and its renovation process in accordance with the needs of time. However, it is not realistic and reasonable to think Kalām is the only one responsible. (shrink)

Utilising Richard Rorty’s criticism of epistemology, this paper will demonstrate the manner in which traditional project management attempts to apply a reductive and limited range of quasi-scientific techniques to problems that continually defy such reduction. The argument will be made that project management is better considered as an existential response to organisational crisis rather than the systemic application of principles to achieve pre-determined objectives. Within the range of an existential response, two kinds of response are proposed: the reflective or defensive (...) (Segal 1999). Rorty’s edifying hermeneutic is offered as an example of a reflective response to organisational crisis and argues that the notion of the interpretation of competing language games better serves project management practice than the application of one over-arching meta-narrative as embodied in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK 2000). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 101-107 [Access article in PDF] Art Education in Lower Secondary Schools in Japan and the United Kingdom This essay compares the system and practice of art education in Japan and the United Kingdom at the lower secondary school level. Three surveys on how art is taught form the basis of this research. I conducted the first survey in 1992, distributed to (...) 156 art teachers in Japan on their "real" curricula and compared them with syllabus samplers of nationally authorized textbooks. From 1993 to 1994, I studied in the United Kingdom the newly introduced National Curriculum and performed a survey on its impact on classroomteaching in 49 art departments in secondary schools, mostly in England. Since 1994, I have participated in a joint study project on craft education in secondary schools in Japan and Britain, in which 717 Japanese schools are cooperating via a questionnaire survey. The issues common to these surveys are how art teachers respond to the national standards in their own teaching practice, and what these responses suggest for the future development of this subject. This essay identifies survey findings in both countries, together with overviews on the systems and cultural factors affecting the state of Art and its implementation in curricula. Japan and the United Kingdom: An Overview Let us look briefly at the historical background of the national curricula in Japan and the United Kingdom. The education system in Japan was established by the central government and has maintained its unity. After World War II, a new national Course of Study was recommended but was not compulsory. But in the legislation of 1958, this Course of Study became binding and a new subject called "Technology and Home Economics" was introduced. A new term, "design" was adopted in Art, "craft" was removed, and the time allocated to Art was drastically reduced. In the 1969 revision, five main areas of Art study were established: drawing (painting), sculpture, design, craft, and art appreciation. In 1977, a recommended time allocation for each area in Art was eliminated, and the five areas were reorganized into two fields: "expression" and "appreciation." Between 1969 and 1977, lower secondary schools in Japan allotted two compulsory hours per week for Art in grades 7 and 8, one compulsory hour and one non-compulsory hour in grade 9. However, after the revisions of 1989 and 1998, the time allotted for Art has gradually decreased. [End Page 101]In the United Kingdom, different educational systems developed concurrently, and through political and ideological conflicts, the involvement of central government gradually grew until an integrated school system was established. 1 The National Curriculum, first introduced through the Education Act of 1988, clearly indicates Art as compulsory from Years 1 to 9 in state schools. 2 The Courses of Study in Japan are separated into primary, lower, and upper secondary levels, however, the consistency of Art as a subject is not as clear. 3 In England, the content is not differentiated into the areas of art, craft, and design, but is organized as a series of processes common to these areas including investigation, creation, and evaluation, based upon knowledge and understanding.The United Kingdom has no national system for authorizing textbooks, but the examination board syllabus for the General Certificate ofSecondary Education (GCSE), for example, has influenced the school curriculum. Art departments of each secondary school function as fairly independent entities, taking responsibility for curriculum and study resources. In Japan, in most cases, lower and upper secondary schools are separated, with only about one art teacher per school, which means improving the curriculum is determined by the efforts of the individual teacher in a limited environment.We also need to consider the cultural background. The United Kingdom has made a notable effort to incorporate a multicultural perspective, based upon the urgent recognition that the country has become a multi-ethnic society. There is also a growing awareness in Western societies that individual expression should be approved in relation to the culture of a given social group. In Japan, it has... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 101-107 [Access article in PDF] Art Education in Lower Secondary Schools in Japan and the United Kingdom This essay compares the system and practice of art education in Japan and the United Kingdom at the lower secondary school level. Three surveys on how art is taught form the basis of this research. I conducted the first survey in 1992, distributed to (...) 156 art teachers in Japan on their "real" curricula and compared them with syllabus samplers of nationally authorized textbooks. From 1993 to 1994, I studied in the United Kingdom the newly introduced National Curriculum and performed a survey on its impact on classroomteaching in 49 art departments in secondary schools, mostly in England. Since 1994, I have participated in a joint study project on craft education in secondary schools in Japan and Britain, in which 717 Japanese schools are cooperating via a questionnaire survey. The issues common to these surveys are how art teachers respond to the national standards in their own teaching practice, and what these responses suggest for the future development of this subject. This essay identifies survey findings in both countries, together with overviews on the systems and cultural factors affecting the state of Art and its implementation in curricula. Japan and the United Kingdom: An Overview Let us look briefly at the historical background of the national curricula in Japan and the United Kingdom. The education system in Japan was established by the central government and has maintained its unity. After World War II, a new national Course of Study was recommended but was not compulsory. But in the legislation of 1958, this Course of Study became binding and a new subject called "Technology and Home Economics" was introduced. A new term, "design" was adopted in Art, "craft" was removed, and the time allocated to Art was drastically reduced. In the 1969 revision, five main areas of Art study were established: drawing (painting), sculpture, design, craft, and art appreciation. In 1977, a recommended time allocation for each area in Art was eliminated, and the five areas were reorganized into two fields: "expression" and "appreciation." Between 1969 and 1977, lower secondary schools in Japan allotted two compulsory hours per week for Art in grades 7 and 8, one compulsory hour and one non-compulsory hour in grade 9. However, after the revisions of 1989 and 1998, the time allotted for Art has gradually decreased. [End Page 101]In the United Kingdom, different educational systems developed concurrently, and through political and ideological conflicts, the involvement of central government gradually grew until an integrated school system was established. 1 The National Curriculum, first introduced through the Education Act of 1988, clearly indicates Art as compulsory from Years 1 to 9 in state schools. 2 The Courses of Study in Japan are separated into primary, lower, and upper secondary levels, however, the consistency of Art as a subject is not as clear. 3 In England, the content is not differentiated into the areas of art, craft, and design, but is organized as a series of processes common to these areas including investigation, creation, and evaluation, based upon knowledge and understanding.The United Kingdom has no national system for authorizing textbooks, but the examination board syllabus for the General Certificate ofSecondary Education (GCSE), for example, has influenced the school curriculum. Art departments of each secondary school function as fairly independent entities, taking responsibility for curriculum and study resources. In Japan, in most cases, lower and upper secondary schools are separated, with only about one art teacher per school, which means improving the curriculum is determined by the efforts of the individual teacher in a limited environment.We also need to consider the cultural background. The United Kingdom has made a notable effort to incorporate a multicultural perspective, based upon the urgent recognition that the country has become a multi-ethnic society. There is also a growing awareness in Western societies that individual expression should be approved in relation to the culture of a given social group. In Japan, it has... (shrink)

Exploring new frontiers of sociology does not mean extending existing theories and methods but rather interrogating some of its uncritically accepted modernist assumptions, such as the equating of society and nation-state, the dualism of individual and society and that of ontology and epistemology. Beyond Sociology explores pathways in which we go beyond sociology in terms of exploring the contours of a transformational sociology; this seeks to transform the assumptions of conventional sociological theorizing and practice as well as modes of (...) sociological imagination. Despite all the waters that have flowed around the world for the last 150 years, contemporary sociology, even so-called global sociology, suffers from what Ulrich Beck called the NATO-like firepower of Western sociology. In this context, sociology has to open itself to transcivilizational dialogues and planetary conversations about the very themes of thinking about self, culture and society. So far, globalization of sociology has meant globalization of themes and methods of modernist sociology, which makes an easy equation between sociology and modernity. For sociologists such as Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and André Béteille, sociology is a modern discipline and is post-traditional. But if sociology blindly follows the post-traditional teleology of modernity, how can it study varieties of forms of life—traditional, modern, postmodern and transmodern? These varieties of forms of life exist not only in the so-called traditional societies such as India or Lapland but in all contemporary societies—whether India, Indonesia, Sweden, France, Britain, Germany, Singapore, China or the USA. Beyond Sociology thus initially challenges us to go beyond an a priori teleological privileging of the post-traditional telos of modernist sociology. It invites us to make a foundational interrogation of modernist sociology as a prelude to making sociology part of a planetary conversation about the very themes such as society and individual that it seeks to understand. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bible and Yoga:Toward an Esoteric Reading of Biblical LiteratureSusanne ScholzThe ProblemWe live in a post-biblical world—a world that sentimentalizes the Bible, ignores it, or is indifferent about the sacred text of the Christian and Jewish religions. Our daily lives are not shaped by biblical rhetoric, imagery, or practice, but by our everyday efforts of making a living, staying healthy, and raising a family. By "we" I mean those (...) of us who are part of North America or Western Europe and belong to the culturally and politically dominant group of white, middle-class, educated people. We live in societies that are largely secularized, perhaps even "anti-religiously" oriented, increasingly digitalized, and economically organized by a capitalist system that eradicates equal and just distribution of wealth nationally and internationally. In our world the Bible plays, at best, a privatized, individualized, and societally marginalized role. Sometimes, especially in the United States, Christian fundamentalists organize politically to foster change, trying to reinstate the Bible's political centrality. The effort to place stone sculptures of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama state courthouse,1 or—related primarily to middle and high school education—the insistence on the validity of creationism are prominent examples for the Christian fundamentalist involvement in the secularizing developments of Western countries. Mostly, however, such reactionary struggles confront an indifferent majority that favors the Western scientific worldview over biblical primacy. And even among many American fundamentalists, the Bible is mainly a privatized source of religious piety.My comments come from and speak to the particularities of the Western secular context. I do not want to be understood as making general statements about locations different from the Western one since they face different priorities. For instance, in Asian countries biblical traditions have never enjoyed a majority position as they did in Europe or North America. Historical, cultural, and religious differences do not, however, imply that other locations have nothing to contribute to the understanding of the Bible in post-biblical societies—on the contrary. But here my comments focus on the situation of the Bible and biblical studies in the West. [End Page 133]The Situation: Biblical Studies TodayThe familiarity with biblical literature is dramatically lower among people younger than forty-five than among those older than forty-five. The so-called Generation X (those born after 1960) and the generation afterward (those born after 1984) know little of the Bible and have little use for it, except if they affiliate with a Christian or Jewish organization. This fact raises important questions: If the younger generations in post-biblical societies do not read the Bible, what is the future of this sacred text in the West? Will it simply turn into a relic of the past? And what does this trend indicate for the academic field of Bible research?Biblical scholarship—until the 1980s a largely Western endeavor—is still indifferent about these generational developments in our societies. To many biblical scholars, the fact that we are living in a post-biblical world is a nonissue and does not affect their daily work with biblical literature. Accordingly, many, if not most, publications in biblical studies continue operating within a nineteenth-century mindset that regards "the Church" as the powerful opposition to the historical and literary study of the Bible, although by now mainstream religion has little cultural, political, and religious authority and power. Furthermore, much of biblical scholarship is not read by laypeople, who remain mostly ignorant of the issues discussed in the field. And even when some scholars recognize independence from religious institutions, they seldom reflect on the limited relevance of their work to larger society.Perhaps oblivious of the changed circumstances or unable to relate to post-biblical discourse in Western societies, many researchers do what they know best: they apply historical and literary methods to biblical literature, as if nothing else is needed in our era. Accordingly, many Bible scholars hardly notice that they talk only with, and among, themselves. They seem undisturbed that their work rarely, if ever, has an impact on cultural, religious, or political discourse. In fact, many of them would not even agree that the Bible and biblical studies... (shrink)

This article argues that children represent one vanguard of an emergent shift in Western subjectivity, and that adult-child dialogue, especially in the context of schooling, is a key locus for the epistemological change that implies. Following Herbert Marcuse's invocation of a ‘new sensibility’, the author argues that the evolutionary phenomenon of neoteny—the long formative period of human childhood and the pedomorphic character of humans across the life cycle—makes of the adult-collective of school a primary site for the (...) reconstruction of belief. After exploring child-adult dialogue more broadly as a form of dialectical interaction between what Dewey called ‘impulse’ and ‘habit’, three key dimensions of dialogic schooling are identified, all of which are grounded in a fourth: the form of dialogical group discourse called community of philosophical inquiry (CPI), which is based on the problematisation and reconstruction of concepts through critical argumentation. As a discourse-model, CPI grounds practice in all of the dialogic school's emergent curricular spaces, whether science, mathematics, literature, art, or philosophy. Second, it opens a functional space for shared decision-making and collaborative governance, making of school an exemplary model of direct democracy. Finally, CPI as a site for critical interrogation of concepts encountered in the curriculum (e.g. ‘alive’, ‘justice’, ‘system’, ‘biosphere’) and as a site for democratic governance leads naturally to expression in activist projects that model an emergent ‘new reality principle’ through concrete solutions to practical problems on local and global levels. (shrink)

Although a substantial literature in anthropology and comparative religion explores divination across diverse societies and back into history, little research has integrated the older ethnographic and historical work with recent insights on human learning, cultural transmission, and cognitive science. Here we present evidence showing that divination practices are often best viewed as an epistemic technology, and we formally model the scenarios under which individuals may overestimate the efficacy of divination that contribute to its cultural omnipresence and historical persistence. We (...) found that strong prior belief, underreporting of negative evidence, and misinferring belief from behavior can all contribute to biased and inaccurate beliefs about the effectiveness of epistemic technologies. We finally suggest how scientific epistemology, as it emerged in Western societies over the past few centuries, has influenced the importance and cultural centrality of divination practices. (shrink)

This essay aims to demonstrate how attention to black political thought might expand and complicate our understanding of modern politics and the conceptualization of the political in contemporary political theory, and in modern politics more generally. Black political thought can be viewed as the attempt to develop a set of critical tools to help explain the political distinctiveness of black life-worlds and how this distinctiveness is structured by a series of relations between individual and community, self and other, state and (...) society, citizen and non-citizen, and national and multinational (or global) circumstances. Too often, black politics is exclusively considered as a form of minority group politics and phenomena reducible to empirical investigation and observation, rather than a set of practices with underlying conceptual, theoretical, and epistemological premises. If we understand race as a fundamentally relational concept, namely, an assumption of dynamic interaction between two or more putatively distinct groups, and racism as a political phenomena that is conditioned and articulated through politics, then taken together they provide the opportunity for reflection and consideration of how black peoples and subjects have conceptualized, created and engaged in politics, political communities, and their articulation. Race and racism, the modalities of political participation and, conversely, the modalities of political exclusion have been recurrent themes in black political thought. The distinctiveness of black political thought is symptomatic of the distinctive trajectories of black politics, which first emerged from spaces of exclusion in Western polities and colonies. The histories of black political and social movements provide evidence of the ways in which black subordination in Western societies and polities required the reconfiguration of the actual boundaries between the public and private, the political and the social. Race and racism, the distinction between identity and identification, black solidarities, and the relationship between history, context, and politics and the political are themes central to black political thought. (shrink)

Black Knowledges/Black Struggles: Essays in Critical Epistemology explores the central, but often critically neglected role of knowledge and epistemic formations within social movements for human emancipation. This collection examines the systemic connection that exists between the empirical subordination of "Black" peoples globally and the conceptual negation that subordinates or renders this population invisible within the epistemes of the West. The collection recognizes that as peoples of "Black" African and Afro-mixed descent mobilize against their dehumanized status within Western modernity, they (...) are involved in a struggle that is both contemporary and of long standing, one where local and national battles have a global dimension. The essays in this collection foreground the extent to which liberation from imposed subordination necessarily entails critiques of, challenges to, and counter-formulations against the epistemic formations that work to "naturalize" subordination. The essays in the collection engage primarily with knowledge formations and empirical practices generated from within the discourse of "race," but also in its relation to other socio-human discourses of Western modernity. These essays also analyze the critiques, challenges, and counter-knowledge/epistemic formulations put forth by specific individuals, schools, movements, and/or institutions of the "Black" world. Through these examinations, the collection's authors implicitly point towards, and sometimes explicitly take part in, the formulation of a new kind of critical - but also emancipatory - epistemology. What emerges is a more comprehensive view of what it means to be human, an epistemic construction that can serve as an instrument of liberation rather than subordination. (shrink)

Moral people (i) have good goals in acting in a challenging situation; and (ii) use their rightly disposed intellectual and voluntary capacities (virtues) and resources to choose a good action in that situation. This requires (iii) sound ethical deliberation and decision-procedures for realising practically the abstract values and principles relevant in the concrete situation. After deliberation about sub-goals and means, they (iv) choose to execute the best particular action plan. They will have canvassed possible outcomes of the intended act, which, (...) when executed, will have a particular result and (v) consequent outcomes for themselves, and for others; and (vi) it will show respect for the wellbeing of the community or wider society, represented by the state, and reflected in state law. A comprehensive third-party moral judgement on the act will encompass the intention and execution of the act in the situation.Part 1, Sections I-IV of this paper argue that organisations can be said to be quasi-persons, personal and moral. As artificial organisational quasi-persons, with a similar structure to natural persons, they can also have analogues of the moral features of natural persons’ moral acts: i)-vi): good goals, rightly disposed capacities and resources, ethical decision procedures, good acts or activities, with good outcomes for others, and respect for society’s norms represented in state law. An ethical acronym, GREAOS, capturing the six dominant features shared with natural persons, is suggested.In Part 2, an application of GREAOS is then made to assess a concrete organisational case, Mondragon Corporation, in order to show how if the analogy between persons and organisations is sound in principle, the acronym’s application can be made to ethically unpack a case. The acronym gives Mondragon Corporation at least a pass on ethics. Although a work in progress, its success in realising ideals of economic democracy can be an exemplar of stakeholder capitalism, an alternative to an unbridled shareholder capitalism, which has had its day. (shrink)

Michel Foucault defines the modern psychiatric hospital as an institution of power that excludes and disciplines those who are deemed immoral, perverse, or abnormal in society. Rather than a facility for healing, as Foucault has taught us, the psychiatric hospital operates more as a punitive method of the body. But what is not considered in Foucault’s historical account of the psychiatric institution are the epistemological preconditions that allowed for its original formation. Drawing on the Kyoto School philosophers’ critique of (...) modernity, this article will discuss how the biomedical model underlying modern psychiatric care is rooted in a prior epistemological duality that was developed even earlier within Western intellectual history—a duality we will call the “epistemology of nihilism.” Foucault’s political technology of the body is therefore a symptom of the epistemology of nihilism, that which leads to consequences beyond mere panoptical surveillance. This article will discuss such consequences, in particular the mechanization of human life derived from the excesses of scientific technology, in the service of introducing a new way of thinking about the limits of psychiatric treatment in today’s world. (shrink)

Criticism of post-modernizm and post-colonializm caused to question the mission of anthropology in terms of understanding different societies. Materialist, secular and anthropocentric anthropological approaches based on enlightenment and modern assumptions have faced criticism by many disciplines from philosophy and critical theory to science and quantum theory. Anthropology of religion which is a branch of cultural anthropology is also effected by changes within the broader field of anthropology. The aim of this project is to shed light on the potential of (...) the critical approach, which emerged in anthropology of religion recently and underlined the ontology, to understand religious experiences and practices of different societies. This approach is called ontological turn. In this article, first I point out the historical process in anthropology which led to the turn to ontology. Social structuralism and representationalism which played an important role for the formation of anthropology impacted significantly the ways in which anthropology understands nature and human being. According to these assumptions commonly used in anthropology, while human beings try to understand universal and static natural law principles, they create representations about nature. But, for there is only one nature, there must be only one true representation. This attempt to understand nature through representations created the base for the concepts of belief, knowledge, and mind of Edward Tylor who was the pioneer of cultural anthropology. While the mind refers to rational capacity of human being, belief is an area of irrational representations that human beings pragmatically need. Religious assumptions and practices are listed under incorrect representations. The concept of belief has been frequently used after Tylor as well to understand societies which are located outside of modernity. What ontological turn aims with criticism of conceptual framework is to prevent the domination of Western based reality. Therefore, one of the most emphasized arguments is the multiplicity of reality. This approach of ontological turn is called as taking everything serious. New definitions which are made in a way including the experiences of ethnographic objects mean taking them serious. Acceptance of the concepts by anthropologist in the ethnographic field means acceptance of difference in reality. The act of definition and conceptualizing is the act of creating different realities. In many ethnographic researches, ethnographers choses their concepts before entering to the field. This means that trying to fit differences within existing concepts and confirming the existing thoughts from different perspectives. Understanding ethnographic materials with its own terms or analyzing, explaining or interpreting ethnographic phenomenon by eliminating presumptions was always a concern for anthropology. These questions are asked so commonly that they can be seen as banal questions. The difference of ontological turn is not to ask these questions, but to ask ontological questions as an epistemological approach. The base of this ontological approach is the thought that what forms anthropologists’ perspective are not social or cultural but ontological assumptions. Thus, the question to be asked is how anthropologists’ assumptions about what the world is can be eliminated. To sum up, the idea of taking everything serious in ontological turn aims to eliminate the hierarchy between the subject and object of ethnography. Instead of seeing ethnography as an object of anthropology through modern categories, ontological turn suggests seeing ethnography as a real source to create new concepts and analytical tools. (shrink)

For virtually all the major schools of Western opinion, the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, between 1989 and 1991, represents a triumph of Western values, ideas, and institutions. If, for triumphal conservatives, the events of late 1989 encompassed an endorsement of “democratic capitalism” that augured “the end of history,” for liberal and social democrats they could be understood as the repudiation by the peoples of the former Soviet bloc of Marxism-Leninism (...) in all its varieties, and the reemergence of a humanist socialism that was free of Bolshevik deformation. The structure of political and economic institutions appropriate to the transition from post-Communism in the Soviet bloc to genuine civil society was, accordingly, modeled on Western exemplars—the example of Anglo-American democratic capitalism, of Swedish social democracy, or of the German social market economy— or on various modish Western academic conceptions, long abandoned in the Soviet and post-Soviet worlds, such as market socialism. No prominent school of thought in the West doubted that the dissolution of Communist power was part of a process of Westernization in which contemporary Western ideas and institutions could and would successfully be exported to the former Communist societies. None questioned the idea that, somewhere in the repertoire of Western theory and practice, there was a model for conducting the transition from the bankrupt institutions of socialist central planning, incorporated into the structure of a totalitarian state, to market institutions and a liberal democratic state. Least of all did anyone question the desirability, or the possibility, of reconstituting economic and political institutions on Western models, in most parts of the former Soviet bloc. (shrink)

For virtually all the major schools of Western opinion, the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, between 1989 and 1991, represents a triumph of Western values, ideas, and institutions. If, for triumphal conservatives, the events of late 1989 encompassed an endorsement of “democratic capitalism” that augured “the end of history,” for liberal and social democrats they could be understood as the repudiation by the peoples of the former Soviet bloc of Marxism-Leninism (...) in all its varieties, and the reemergence of a humanist socialism that was free of Bolshevik deformation. The structure of political and economic institutions appropriate to the transition from post-Communism in the Soviet bloc to genuine civil society was, accordingly, modeled on Western exemplars—the example of Anglo-American democratic capitalism, of Swedish social democracy, or of the German social market economy— or on various modish Western academic conceptions, long abandoned in the Soviet and post-Soviet worlds, such as market socialism. No prominent school of thought in the West doubted that the dissolution of Communist power was part of a process of Westernization in which contemporary Western ideas and institutions could and would successfully be exported to the former Communist societies. None questioned the idea that, somewhere in the repertoire of Western theory and practice, there was a model for conducting the transition from the bankrupt institutions of socialist central planning, incorporated into the structure of a totalitarian state, to market institutions and a liberal democratic state. Least of all did anyone question the desirability, or the possibility, of reconstituting economic and political institutions on Western models, in most parts of the former Soviet bloc. (shrink)

The current emphasis that organisations are placing upon knowledge and the corresponding attention that workplace epistemological values are receiving within the educational community has resulted in an interesting convergence of discourses—school-based and work-based. Even as workplaces are tending toward abstraction over practice—based knowing, schools are being nudged into doing the reverse. The result of this ferment is that traditional barriers between these kinds of knowledge are being removed. As can be seen from workplace examples, it is possible for (...) liberal learning to be in the service of instrumental ends. So too schools may come to see more clearly the value of situatedness and team-work in the transaction of liberal learning. More generally, we see also new possibilities for retreat from received views about the worth of practical knowledge. (shrink)

Whilst care imperatives have arisen across the breadth of Western societies, within the education sector they appear both prolific and urgent. This paper explores the deployment of care discourses within education generally and draws upon the case of Australian Health and Physical Education (HPE) more specifically, to undertake a Foucauldian interrogation of care. In so doing I demonstrate the usefulness of Foucault's pastoral power lens and its capacity to provide insight into the moral and ethical work conducted by (...) caring teachers on behalf of the state (Acker, 1995). Following a brief overview of the advocacy, challenges and debates surrounding the issue of caring teaching within education, I draw on the work of Hunter (1994) and three case studies from a genealogical interrogation of HPE that employed Foucualt's ethical fourfold as a heuristic device to reveal the ethical practices and objectives of the good HPE teacher. Drawing on this genealogical work, I argue that HPE teachers and their colleagues have been purposefully incited to constitute themselves as agents of pastoral power. From this Foucauldian perspective, I conclude with an exploration of the unintended and possibly ‘dangerous’ practices of caring teaching that may emerge within the complex and messy nexus of contemporary self‐constitution. (shrink)

Despite the recent growth of studies in virtue epistemology, the intellectual virtue of epistemic collaborativeness has been overlooked by scholars working in virtue theory. This is a significant gap in the literature given the import of well-motivated and skillful epistemic collaboration for the flourishing of human societies. This paper engages in an in-depth examination of the intellectual virtue of epistemic collaborativeness. It argues that the agent who possesses this acquired character trait is (i) highly motivated to engage in epistemic (...) collaboration (out of her rational desire for intellectual ends), (ii) competent at the characteristic activity of epistemic collaborativeness and (iii) has good judgement as to when and with whom it is epistemically appropriate to engage in epistemic collaboration. Furthermore, this paper discusses the place of epistemic collaborativeness among the virtues and argues that it is an overarching virtue—i.e. it presupposes certain other intellectual virtues although it remains distinguishable from them. Theoretical and practical merits of this virtue are also presented and considered. The virtue of collaborativeness highlights the social dimension of intellectual virtues and could be of significant value for contemporary virtue-based approaches to education. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School, and: A Buddhist-Christian Logic of the Heart: Nishida's Kyoto School and Lonergan's "Spiritual Genome" as World BridgeAmos YongPhilosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School. By James W. Heisig. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001. xi + 380 pp.A Buddhist-Christian Logic of the Heart: Nishida's Kyoto School and Lonergan's "Spiritual Genome" as World Bridge. By John Raymaker. Lanham, (...) MD: University Press of America, 2002. x + 214 pp.These are two very different types of books. Heisig, research fellow (since 1978) and former director (1999-2001) of the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture and well known to readers of this journal as author, book editor, and translator extraordinaire, [End Page 271] has produced the definitive exposition of the Kyoto School in the English language with Philosophers of Nothingness. Raymaker, a longtime Roman Catholic missionary to Japan and student of Lonergan's work, attempts in A Buddhist-Christian Logic of the Heart to establish points of contact between Lonergan's transcendental method and Nishida's pure experience. Let me briefly summarize the two volumes before making some comparative observations.Philosophers of Nothingness is divided into five sections: an "Orientation" (introduction) and a "Prospectus" (transitional epilogue) flanking the three sections on Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani, each constituting approximately twenty short chapters. In each case, Heisig combines intellectual biography and history of ideas approaches, thus both setting forth the wider social, political, and intellectual contexts of the Kyoto School thinkers and elaborating on their distinctive ideas. Those interested in the latter will not be disappointed. Nishida's "pure experience," "active intuition," "absolutely contradictory self-identity," "logic of locus" (or basho, topos, place), and "historical world," among other themes, are all given special attention within the broader framework of his philosophical project. In the case of Tanabe, unique concepts such as "absolute mediation," "logic of species," and "metanoetic philosophy" (or philosophy of repentance) are illuminated. And, of course, the contributions of Nishitani are fully represented: "nihilism," "the standpoint of emptiness," and the sunyata of time and history.At the same time, those looking for background discussion will also find Heisig's exposition helpful, and that along (at least) the following three lines. First, an attempt is made to take seriously the self-understanding of Kyoto School thinkers of doing philosophy in the world context. This is, of course, a bold undertaking which some in our time might summarily dismiss either as hubris or as ignorance. Yet beginning with Nishida and continuing through Tanabe, Nishitani and others (such as Tanabe's student, Abe Masao), the task was to engage as Japanese philosophers with Western thinkers and ideas. Here, of course, the tension between particularity and universality is most intense, and the Kyoto philosophers proceeded with full awareness of the issues at stake. Now while their endeavors can be criticized from either direction, what cannot be criticized without self-refutation is their motivating belief that they could understand the West and vice versa.Second, and connected with the first, is the social and political twentieth-century context of Japan and its relationship with modernity and with the Western world. Here, Heisig brilliantly negotiates between laying out the facts and locating the passions and failures of the Kyoto philosophers. This requires that he correctly identify their contributions as Japanese thinkers engaging modernity without ignoring their blind spots. As such, longstanding questions concerning Kyoto School philosophy as an ideology for Japanese nationalism are confronted head-on. Heisig shows how political naīvete resulted in political entanglements. At the same time, his discussion illuminates the sociopolitical backdrop that informs and shapes all philosophizing. The result is a balanced presentation that is neither apologetic on the one side nor condemnatory on the other.Finally, the question of religion and its relationship to Kyoto School philosophy [End Page 272] is also taken up. Nishida's practice of zazen is thus shown to inform his philosophizing, if only implicitly (on Nishida's own account), even while Tanabe's experience of metanoia (conversion) as mediated through the "Other-power" matrix of Shinran's religious thought is shown to impact his philosophy explicitly... (shrink)

This article assesses the prospects for the adoption of Rawls’s political liberalism in non‐Western contexts. The argument centers on the religious resurgence in non‐Western societies and presents an evaluation of the viability and acceptability of political liberal principles in the face of the normative, theoretical and practical challenges posed by this development. Political liberalism emerges as a significant theoretical and normative resource; nevertheless, the socio‐political conditions in non‐Western societies may fall short of satisfying the sociological (...) requirements of political liberalism. A strong historical interpretation of Rawls’s sociological assumptions suggests that relatively younger and developing democracies where religious movements are in the ascendant, will have to wait centuries to live up to the social and moral standards of political liberalism. This article comes to a less negative conclusion. The normative arguments of political liberalism can rest on weaker sociological assumptions that do not require such a long period of time to emerge as Rawls appears to suppose. Indeed, the institution of a political liberal regime may be the condition of its own success, encouraging in its own right the necessary political reasonableness among religious views. (shrink)

For many, anti-capitalism signifies too much and thus lacks the political conviction needed to inform left-wing strategy and tactics. What remains neglected, though, is how anti-capitalism can function as an organisational form, one that is constituted by the democratic requirements of struggle. At different moments and for different purposes, anti-capitalist organising may rely on vertical, horizontal, centralised, or decentralised formations. We cannot predetermine the organisational particularities of anti-capitalism because it is always a form of forms determined by the demands of (...) struggle. However, we can explore the psycho-political valances of anti-capitalist organisation. The appeal of anti-capitalism, so conceived, lies in its ability to facilitate subjects’ enjoyment and political commitment through formal and psychic lack, rather than through neoliberal excess or ideological surety. Psychoanalytic theory is useful for considering how the anti-capitalist form’s significatory field can foster emancipatory knowledges, acts, and ways of being in politically fraught contexts of struggle. (shrink)

The production of knowledge should be premised on the inclusion of all epistemologies to provide possibilities to build a more just world. However, knowledge production, as we have it today, is premised on Western epistemology which is used to distil other knowledges before they could be accepted as legitimate. This approach stifles possibilities to find different ways of knowing that could contribute to imagining the world anew. There is a need, therefore, to unthink the West such that we find (...) other ways to understand the world. The article helps in unthinking the West to allow an authentic understanding of the indigenous people of South Africa. I argue that the ontology of AmaZulu – one of the indigenous groups in South Africa – is an ethic-orientated ontology that is expressed through the concept of ukukhonza – a process where one surrenders their identity in order to belong to the group (this can also refer to worship). In ukukhonza, the surrendering of one’s identity is to ensure harmonious living centred on a common identity that is unified by the principles of ubuntu. Drawing on the nuances of ukukhonza, this article argues that the ontology of AmaZulu is centred on respecting life in its different forms because it is believed that everything is interconnected. This understanding of life provides a different conceptualisation of God which anchors the religion that is practised everyday such that doing good is inescapable. This is an ethic-oriented ontology which when brought forth in its authentic form can address the many ills of modern society.Contribution: This is the conceptual article that contributes to rethinking religion from an African perspective to provide a possibility of an ethic-centred society that can inform the new ways of being in the world. (shrink)

Recalling several profound disagreements about business ethics as it is currently discussed in Western societies, I emphasize the need for business ethics as an academic discipline that constitutes the “backbone” for both teaching business ethics and improving business practice (section 1). Then I outline a conceptual framework of business ethics that promotes a “bottom-up” approach (section 2). This “problem-and action-oriented” conception appears to be fruitful in terms of both practical relevance and theoretical understanding. Finally, I argue for (...) (section 3) the relevance of discussing goals at all levels of human action (i.e., individuals, organizations, systems) as well as the indispensability of human rights, and propose Amartya Sen's “goal-rights-system” approach as a normative-ethical framework for business ethics that integrates these two fundamental aspects. (shrink)

Indian philosophy being profoundly rich from socio-political, economical, and spiritual perspective has a lot to offer. A lot many philosophies of different Indian thinkers have been probed into for the purpose of character and national building such as that of Kautilya, Gandhi, Nehru, M.N. Roy and likewise. However, there exists a plethora of thinkers whose philosophies have been not studied systematically or have been overlooked. It is owing to this research gap, that the paper is prepared with special attention to (...) the teachings and philosophy of Swami Vivekananda who altogether gives a different perspective about life and its intricacies. This paper tends to explore the various socio-political concepts expounded by Swami Vivekananda which are relevant event today and if taken and deliberated upon seriously have the potential to resolve a lot many crises that are being faced by the Indian society. This is a qualitative study, examining the political philosophy of Swami Vivekananda through his works. The paper analyses the relevance of the philosophy in the then era as well as in the contemporary era with reference to western ideas and philosophy. A comparative approach is adopted in the paper to comprehend the differences as well as the similarities between the philosophy of western thinkers with that of Swami Vivekananda. (shrink)

The paper questions some of the premises in studying academic spin-offs in developed countries, claiming that when taken as characteristics of ‘academic spin-offs per se,’ they are of little help in understanding the phenomenon in the Eastern European countries during the transitional and post-transitional periods after 1989. It argues for the necessity of adopting a path-dependent approach, which takes into consideration the institutional and organisational specificities of local economies and research systems and their evolution, which strongly influence the patterns of (...) spin-off activity. The paper provides new findings and original arguments in support of Balazs’ seminal theses (Balazs 1995, 1996) about the emergence of academic spin-offs during the early transition. It reveals key economic and policy mechanisms bearing on academic entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe, such as the tensions between economic and political nomenclatures of former Communist Parties, where the dismantling or preservation of the power of political nomenclature resulted in different patterns of development—rapid reforms in the ‘first wave’ of EU accession countries or the establishment of rent-seeking and assets-stripping economies in countries like Bulgaria and Romania, making the transition period especially difficult. In the latter, a specific economic environment emerged, unknown in Western Europe and in the ‘champions’ of transition—such as suppression of the authentic entrepreneurship in a number of economic sectors, disintegration of corporate structures, etc. Thus, the paper reveals the common ground behind the two conflicting tendencies in post-socialist academic spin-offs, partially outlined in other research (Simeonova 1995; Pavlova 2000): as an authentic form of academic entrepreneurship grasping the opportunities opened up by the economic crisis and compensating failures in science and technology policy on the one hand, and as specific rent-seeking strategy draining valuable public assets on the other (the latter, in turn, boosting the negative attitudes in local scientific communities). The paper provides new findings about the evolution of the academic spin-offs in Bulgaria along the two polar trends and their positive and negative repercussions on parent research institutions. The results were achieved in the PROKNOW Project, EC 6th Framework Program. (shrink)

In view of the current fragmentation in management and organisation studies, we argue that there is a need to elaborate techniques that help reconcile contradictory and superficially incommensurable standpoints. For this purpose, we draw on ‘pre-modern’ Aristotelian epistemological and methodological sources, particularly the idea of ‘saving the appearances’ (SA), not previously introduced into organisation studies. Using SA as our starting point, we outline a methodology that helps to develop reasonable and acceptable intermediary positions in contemporary debates between ‘modernism’ and (...) ‘post-modernism’. We illustrate the functioning of SA in the case of three issues in the philosophy of science where ‘modernist’ and ‘post-modernist’ scholars seem to have incommensurable standpoints: the nature of scientific knowledge; the conception of causality; and the epistemology of practice. We show in particular how to use the logics of ‘qualification’, ‘new conception’, and ‘complementary combination’ to form the basis for mediating positions which could then be accepted by less extreme proponents of both ‘modernism’ and ‘postmodernism’. (shrink)

The intent of this book focuses on Australia’s First Nations truth, voice, recognition, diversity, and respect. Hope O’Chin explains that knowledge about Australian First Nations culture and learning can be seen through new conceptual lens, which she refers to as an Ontology of Dreaming Hope for Australians. The book proposes to move from ontological propositions embedded in pedagogies and methodologies that center on the relevance of Indigenous epistemes and ways of doing. O’Chin offers a conceptual framing for engaging with Indigenous (...) peoples, and forming communities of belongingness and relationality. She offers suggestions for ways in which art and education can act as ‘healing’ and a way forward towards a more inclusive civil society. Reflexive practice, ethnographic principles, and action research is described in a way that methodologies provide an understanding of a sense of Belonging. O'Chin argues that theoretical research, art, and educational practice can add to the value of determining a strategy of Indigenous art investment within Australia, and to address how art and education can be used to validate contemporary expression of Aboriginality within contemporary Australian society. Ultimately, the book is about Indigenous strengths and what Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing can offer, and how one might go about honouring and working in this way respectfully. (shrink)

The paper expands on Goshal’s criticism of what management as a scientific discipline teaches and the effects on managerial and societal ethics. The main argument put forward is that the economisation of management has a detrimental effect on the practice of management and on society in large. The ideology of economism is described and analysed from an epistemological perspective. The paper argues that the economisation of management not only introduces the problems of economics (three are identified and discussed) (...) but destroys the very essence of management because economics is focused on efficiency and management should be focused on effectiveness. What is more, the basic axioms of mainstream economics stand in stark contrast to the philosophy of the Enlightenment and therefore endanger the foundations of Western societies. Management theory (via corporate governance) is the Trojan horse carrying economism into society. (shrink)

This article identifies two different paths where the amnesia described by Hannah- Arendt and the fragmentation identified by Willie James Jennings of our historical past has distorted how people today view dan-cing. I set out how the Christian entanglement with colonial powers has impacted on people’s abilities to relate to their bodies, lands and other creatures of the world. I describe how the colonial wound of Western society forms the basis of the loneliness and alienation that totalitarianism inculcates. After (...) this, I examine how people who seek to find a solid tradition of dance within the Western traditions of Christianity often end up in a conundrum when they seek to legitimize the existence of the tradition in the wrong places. I show how seeking roots for Christian dance practices in Jewish customs is often entangled in supersessionist understandings. These arguments are constructed by means of both J. Kameron- Carter’s writings on race and theology and the black political theology outlined by Vincent W. Lloyd. The second-most-often chosen option for creating a dance tradition for Western forms of Christianity is to romanticize the non-Western ‘other’. Using Lindsey Drury’s work, I argue that dancers have perpetuated the interests that seek to possess the ‘other’ by bringing exotic dancers to the Western marketplace. Finally, I describe the third option – more commonly found amongst those critical of Christian tradition – to seek the roots of transformational dance practices in Hellenistic and more esoteric teachings flourishing in the early twentieth century. We run into the often forgotten or neglected stories of renowned dance teachers like Rudolf Laban and Isadora Duncan on this path. By combining esoteric bodily practices, Mother Earth ‘spirituality’ and superior views about race, they not only promoted but laid the foundation for how people were manipulated in the Third Reich. I end by sharing ethnographic stories of resistance towards how these past historical patterns have affected how dance is viewed today. Those exhibiting such resistance are not always consciously aware of the historical roots I have described. However, engagement in contemplative and healing dance practices seems to be forging new and better ways to create community and to live in a connected way with creation and our creatureliness. The central theme of these practices is to resist the illusion of perfection and control while helping people to listen to and discern the Holy Spirit leading them into a new way of living. (shrink)

This article is about nursing theories, the development of nursing knowledge and the underlying, hidden epistemology. The current technical–economical rationality in society and health care calls for a specific kind of knowledge based on a traditional Western, Socratic view of science. This has an immense influence on the development of nursing knowledge. The purpose of the article was therefore to discuss the hidden epistemology of nursing knowledge and theories seen in a broad historical context and point to an alternative (...) epistemology for a future context. It is a question about which nursing theories and what nursing knowledge should be developed in order to benefit patients and relatives of the future. We suggest that future knowledge development in nursing be developed in an interchange between theory and practice and guided by philosophy like a kind of pendulum where all three elements are treated as equals. We suggest a framework for the development of nursing knowledge based on a caring‐ethical practice, a theory on life phenomena in suffering and relationship‐based nursing, and thereby, we may be able to help patients to be cured, to recover, to be alleviated or comforted when suffering. (shrink)

The work "Taboos on the teaching vocation" was read by the German social philosopher and representative of critical theory Theodor Adorno as a report on May 21, 1965 at the Berlin Institute for Educational Research. In this report, Adorno considered the socio-psychological and socio-cultural reasons that in the context of Western European culture have historically led to the social emergence of many psychological taboos on the pedagogical work of the school teacher. The philosopher theoretically deduced the dialectical connection between (...) human hostility and disgust for the work of the teacher from the cultural tradition of German society, which historically developed as late bourgeois. A characteristic feature of the attitude of the overly materialistic socio-cultural system was aversion to the work of the teacher as a "hungry job", that is, to a poorly paid profession. Another factor of public disgust for the work of teachers, the philosopher called the socio-cultural tradition of society, which as a closed society willingly practiced physical violence as a means of social coercion. According to this tradition, through the use of violence, the teacher must subordinate students to his authority, subordinate to social and school ideology. The historical result of such dialectics was the socio-cultural distortion of the image of the teacher, the castration of his image in social psychology, his self-alienation from the professional vocation and the ideological elimination of the power of his spirit. As an ideological alternative, Adorno suggested that society, if it consciously seeks democratic change, first of all take into account such young teachers who demonstrate the impulse of their individual spirit in the performance of their profession. According to the philosopher, only the spiritual freedom of such a young educator, a man who is capable of self-understanding, conscious of himself and his vocation, who reflects and is socially active, can democratize schools, devalue society and destroy dehumanized social traditions. First of all – in order to overcome the barbaric tradition of violence. (shrink)

With regards to the inefficiencies and uncompromising situations within the humanities and social sciences field in Iran, the challenge of problematizing these sciences is inevitable. So far, numerous research analyzing humanities and social sciences’ problems in the Iranian academic system have been published. Considering the important role of humanities and social sciences in the modern Iranian society, we attempt to suggest a theoretical framework for the problematization of humanities and social sciences in Iran. The exploration of the main challenges facing (...) humanities and social sciences in Iran from the community, academy and administration point of view, sparks three hypotheses. First, humanities and social sciences’ theories and teachings are not applied accurately. Second, the humanities and social sciences’ schools of thought are not chosen properly according to Iranian circumstances. And third, there are metaphysical differences between axioms and presupposition of humanities and social sciences having western origins and those with Islamic-Iranian culture. (shrink)