The Western Middle Ages witnessed the emergence of a wide array of economic theories of public life and the common good that emphasized the worthiness (indeed priority) of ensuring a satisfactory arrangement of economic goods primarily for the sake of meeting the physical, temporal needs of individuals from all classes and orders. The chapter surveys a plethora of texts, dating from the middle of the twelfth century up to the end of the fifteenth, that considered pragmatic issues related to how (...) the material self-interest of human beings coincided with the augmentation of public wealth within a community, and especially how governmental policies promoted or hampered the goal of personal economic improvement. Despite the diversity of and occasional discordance among these writings, all of them fundamentally agree on two interrelated points: (1) the pursuit of material self-interest, rather than conflicting with or detracting from the common good, actually supports and enhances it; (2) the responsibility of government to promote the public welfare requires paying careful attention to the protection and promotion of private advantage. (shrink)

While self-interest is depreciated in Confucian ethics the processes of family relations in traditional China are animated by the self-interested actions of family members. The paper outlines the Confucian ideology of filial piety which is commensurate with the governance of family life organized hierarchically and through the senior male's management of the joint-family's collective property. The structure, operations and principles of membership in traditional Chinese families are indicated, highlighting the tensions within them between consanguinity and conjugality and (...) their material bases. The differential operation of self-interested actions by husbands and wives is also presented. A non-Confucian model of the relational-self is outlined in which both the collective context of Chinese families and the self-interested actions of individual family members within them is explicated. (shrink)

Chapter 49 of the Han Feizi, entitled 'Wudu', includes one of the earliest discussions in Chinese history of the concepts of gong and si: Han Fei takes si to mean 'acting in one's own interest'. Gong is simply what opposes si. 'Acting in one's own interest' is not inherently reprehensible in Han Fei's view; but a ruler must remember why ministers propose their policies: they are concerned only with enriching themselves, and look upon the ruler as nothing more (...) than a resource to be exploited in their quest for material aggrandizement. The interests of the ministers and the ruler are diametrically opposed. Ministers hope for a comfortable career; a ruler must weed out the posers in his search for those rare and invaluable adjuvants who are genuinely capable of administering the state. In short, if si is the self-interest of the minister, gong is the self-interest of the ruler. (shrink)

ABSTRACT According to the material-heuristics hypothesis, people’s socioeconomic position affects their perceptions about the socioeconomic environment, including how society distributes opportunities and rewards and to what extent people are responsible for their own economic situation. These perceptions, in turn, affect attitudes toward wealth redistribution. In contrast to the material-heuristics hypothesis are the more familiar material self-interest hypothesis, which relates redistributive attitudes to one’s personal interest in gaining or losing from redistribution; and the self-serving (...) reasoning hypothesis, according to which perceptions of how society distributes opportunities and rewards are a consequence rather than a cause of attitudes toward redistribution, which are, in turn, driven by material self-interest. All three hypotheses connect socioeconomic position and attitudes toward redistribution, but only the material-heuristics and the self-serving reasoning arguments account for why perceptions of the causes of wealth and poverty vary across economic groups and why this variation matters for attitudes toward redistribution. Ignoring the role of such perceptions can lead to the simplistic attribution of attitudes toward redistribution to personal self-interest. (shrink)

It is shown that logical contradictions are derivable from natural translations into first order logic of the description and background assumptions of the Soros Game, and of other games and social contexts that exhibit conflict and reflexivity. The logical structure of these contexts is analysed using proof-theoretic and model-theoretic techniques of first order paraconsistent logic. It is shown that all the contradictions that arise contain the knowledge operator K. Thus, the contradictions do not refer purely to material objects, and (...) do not imply the existence of inconsistent, concrete, physical objects, or the inconsistency of direct sensory experience. However, the decision-making of rational self-interested agents is stymied by the appearance of such intensional contradictions. Replacing the rational self-interest axioms with axioms for an appropriate moral framework removes the inconsistencies. Rational moral choice in conflict-reflexive social contexts then becomes possible. (shrink)

_Material Falsity and Error in Descartes’s Meditations _approaches Descartes’s Meditations as an intellectual journey, wherein Descartes’s views develop and change as he makes new discoveries about self, God and matter. The first book to focus closely on Descartes’s notion of material falsity, it shows how Descartes’s account of material falsity – and correspondingly his account of crucial notions such as truth, falsehood and error – evolves according to the epistemic advances in the Meditations. It also offers important (...) new insights on the crucial role of Descartes’s Third Meditation discussion of material falsity in advancing many subsequent arguments in the Meditations. This book is essential reading for those working on Descartes and early modern philosophy. It presents an independent reading on issues of perennial interest, such as Descartes’s views on error, truth and falsehood. It also makes important contributions to topics that have been the focus of much recent scholarship, such as Descartes’s ethics and his theodicy. Those working on the interface between medieval and modern philosophy will find the discussions on Descartes’s debt to predecessors like Suárez and Augustine invaluable. (shrink)

In past decades, significant work in behavioural economics has decisively revealed the limitations of the human agency model known as Homo Economicus, whereby humans are purely driven by material self-interest. These behavioural findings are, however, far from integrated in mainstream economic theory, which builds heavily on the neoclassical tradition. Unbeknown to modern economics, Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith already proposed a richer model of human agency in which choices also depend on the desire for social approbation. The (...) social approbation mechanism complements material self-interest and provides a more diverse toolset, which is able to explain social preferences. Mainstream economic agency confines the study of human action to an artificially-limited spectrum because it reduces society to atomistic individuals who maximise one all-purpose measure of value: utility, which is often instrumented by consumption. Collective action is therefore only sustainable where material incentives are in place, as the economic agent rides for free unless financially penalised. To explain pro-social behaviour from the standpoint of self-interest, Mandeville and Smith proposed that agents also maximise social approbation, which conveys incentives to act pro-socially because the desire for others' approval encourages compliance with social norms. The upshot for collective action is that, assuming social norms represent common interests, approval from others provides an extrinsic motive for pro-social behaviour. I formalise the mechanism by proposing a simple utility function in which agents maximise social approbation as well as material self-interest. (shrink)

_Material Falsity and Error in Descartes’s Meditations _approaches Descartes’s Meditations as an intellectual journey, wherein Descartes’s views develop and change as he makes new discoveries about self, God and matter. The first book to focus closely on Descartes’s notion of material falsity, it shows how Descartes’s account of material falsity – and correspondingly his account of crucial notions such as truth, falsehood and error – evolves according to the epistemic advances in the Meditations. It also offers important (...) new insights on the crucial role of Descartes’s Third Meditation discussion of material falsity in advancing many subsequent arguments in the Meditations. This book is essential reading for those working on Descartes and early modern philosophy. It presents an independent reading on issues of perennial interest, such as Descartes’s views on error, truth and falsehood. It also makes important contributions to topics that have been the focus of much recent scholarship, such as Descartes’s ethics and his theodicy. Those working on the interface between medieval and modern philosophy will find the discussions on Descartes’s debt to predecessors like Suárez and Augustine invaluable. (shrink)

Self‐management is often presented as a panacea for chronic disease care. It plays an important role at the policy level and increasingly guides the delivery of health care services. Self‐management approaches to care are founded on traditional individualistic views of autonomy in which the patient is understood as being independent, rational, self‐interested, and self‐governing. This conceptualization of autonomy has been challenged, particularly by feminist scholars. In this paper I review predominant critiques of self‐management and the (...) traditional individualistic view of autonomy. I propose that a relational approach to autonomy, which is premised on social embeddedness and attends to social, political, and material conditions, is a more sound conception of autonomy capable of taking into consideration the complexities of illness experiences. I suggest that integrating a relational perspective of autonomy into self‐management will be valuable in guiding its progression and elaborate ways in which self‐management research and practice could benefit from incorporating a relational approach to autonomy. (shrink)

Recent experimental research has revealed forms of human behavior involving interaction among unrelated individuals that have proven difficult to explain in terms of kin or reciprocal altruism. One such trait, strong reciprocity, is a predisposition to cooperate with others and to punish those who violate the norms of cooperation, at personal cost, even when it is implausible to expect that these costs will be repaid. We present evidence supporting strong reciprocity as a schema for predicting and understanding altruism in humans. (...) We show that under conditions plausibly characteristic of the early stages of human evolution, a small number of strong reciprocators could invade a population of self-regarding types, and strong reciprocity is an evolutionarily stable strategy. Although most of the evidence we report is based on behavioral experiments, the same behaviors are regularly described in everyday life, for example in wage setting by firms, tax compliance, and cooperation in the protection of local environmental public goods. (shrink)

Self-relevance has been demonstrated to impair instrumental learning. Compared to unfamiliar symbols associated with a friend, analogous stimuli linked with the self are learned more slowly. What is not yet understood, however, is whether this effect extends beyond arbitrary stimuli to material with intrinsically meaningful properties. Take, for example, stimulus valence an established moderator of self-bias. Does the desirability of to-be-learned material influence self-learning? Here, in conjunction with computational modelling (i.e. Reinforcement Learning Drift Diffusion (...) Model analysis), a probabilistic selection task was used to establish if and how stimulus valence (i.e. desirable/undesirable posters) impacts the acquisition of knowledge relating to object-ownership (i.e. owned-by-self vs. owned-by-friend). Several interesting results were observed. First, undesirable posters were learned more rapidly for self compared to friend, an effect that was reversed for desirable posters. Second, learning rates were accompanied by associated differences in reward sensitivity toward desirable and undesirable choice selections as a function of ownership. Third, decisional caution was greater for self-relevant (vs. friend relevant) responses. Collectively, these findings inform understanding of self-function and how valence and stimulus relevance mutually influence probabilistic learning. (shrink)

Recent experimental research has revealed forms of human behavior involving interaction among unrelated individuals that have proven difficult to explain in terms of kin or reciprocal altruism. One such trait, strong reciprocity, is a predisposition to cooperate with others and to punish those who violate the norms of cooperation, at personal cost, even when it is implausible to expect that these costs will be repaid. We present evidence supporting strong reciprocity as a schema for predicting and understanding altruism in humans. (...) We show that under conditions plausibly characteristic of the early stages of human evolution, a small number of strong reciprocators could invade a population of self-regarding types, and strong reciprocity is an evolutionarily stable strategy. Although most of the evidence we report is based on behavioral experiments, the same behaviors are regularly described in everyday life, for example in wage setting by firms, tax compliance, and cooperation in the protection of local environmental public goods. (shrink)

Max Weber's understanding of the role of people's interests in determining their behavior has been widely misunderstood, because of a misinterpretation of a famous passage in which he analogizes interests to railway “switchmen.” Contrary to this widespread view, Weber does not see material self‐interest as the driving force behind human action. Rather, he distinguishes between material and “ideal” interests; emphasizes the latter; and, arguably, suggests that even the former are, to a great extent, culturally constructed, not (...) least because they rely on ideas about the way the world is. It is almost fair to say, then, that the notion that Weber reduces ideas to interests has things completely backwards. (shrink)

In this paper I take up the question about the unity of justice in Aristotle and advocate for a robust relationship between lawfulness and equality, the two senses of justice that Aristotle distinguishes in Nicomachean Ethics V. My strategy is to focus on Aristotle’s indication in NE V 2 that “other-relatedness” is the common element shared by the two justices and turn to Aristotle’s discussion of the notion of self-love in EN IX 8 to explain what that means. I (...) argue that the other-relatedness of justice can be characterized in terms of proper self-love. Concretely, the discussion of self-love makes clear that those who are concerned with the well-being of others in their community over their own material gain—i.e., those who are lawful and not grasping or pleonectic—are able to see that their own self-interest is in harmony with acting in benefit of their community. This shows that there is an intimate link between lacking pleonectic inclinations and being able to act for the sake of the common good—and in general, between lacking pleonectic inclinations and being virtuous in relation to others. (shrink)

This paper puts Jane Bennett’s vital materialism into dialogue with Luce Irigaray’s ontology of sexuate difference. Together these thinkers challenge the image of dead or intrinsically inanimate matter that is bound up with both the instrumentalization of the earth and the disavowal of sexual difference and the maternal. In its place they seek to affirm a vital, generative materiality: an ‘active matter’ whose differential becomings no longer oppose activity to passivity, subject to object, or one body, self or entity (...) to its ‘other’. For both thinkers, displacing the hylomorphic conceptual structures that have tended to dominate western metaphysical thought is inseparable from critiquing the model of the individual subject as bounded, autonomous and self-identical. Such individualism is countered by the relational ontologies figured in Bennett’s ‘distributed agencies’ and Irigaray’s ‘placental economy’, and by a shared attentiveness to the capacities of the human body to bear others within. Nonetheless, this paper argues that each thinker renders this ‘other within’ in very different ways. On the one hand, Bennett’s approach complements and expands Irigaray’s notion of the elemental by affording a greater attentiveness to inorganic and non-sexuate matters. On the other, Irigaray’s conception of generative relationality and the ontological priority of the in-between allows us to think such material entanglements in ways that more fully displace the twinned logics of individualism and instrumentalization. Her project thereby affirms the relational and irreducible differences on which the ‘vitality’ of a vital materiality depends. If there is no more “earth” to press down/repress, to work, to represent, but also and always to desire, no opaque matter which in theory does not know herself, then what pedestal remains for the ex-sistence of the “subject”? If the earth turned and more especially turned upon herself, the erection of the subject might thereby be disconcerted and risk losing its elevation and penetration. For what would there be to rise up from and exercise his power over? And in? Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman Jane Bennett has recently argued that “the image of dead or thoroughly instrumentalized matter feeds human hubris and our earth-destroying fantasies of conquest and consumption”, continuing that: “The figure of an intrinsically inanimate matter may be one of the impediments to the emergence of more ecological and more materially sustainable modes of production and consumption”.11J. Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010, ix. Henceforth VM. View all notes This insight is prefigured and re-affirmed by the work of Irigaray. Her sustained analysis of western thought and culture shows how its constitutive disavowal of sexual difference and the maternal is inextricably bound up with an equally deep-rooted disavowal of matter and corporeality. As the above passage from Speculum suggests,22L. Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman, trans. G. Gill, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985, 133. Henceforth S. View all notes Irigaray seeks to expose woman's reduction to an object for a subject and a maternal-material resource for man's speculations; but in disentangling woman from her symbolic identification with the earth, she also seeks to release the earth from its identification with a passive and manipulable matter. Her work thus bears directly on the revaluation required to transform human beings' relations to materiality: both their own, and that of the earth they inhabit. At the centre of this revaluation is Irigaray's work to displace the image of dead or intrinsically inanimate matter that Bennett also critiques, and to affirm instead a sexuate materiality that is both living and generative. Her consistent troubling of hylomorphism is as unsettling for the subject as her question: “But what if the ‘object’ started to speak?” This question is echoed in Bennett's concern with “the moment when the object becomes the Other, when the sardine can looks back, when the mute idol speaks”.33 VM, 2, citing W.J.T. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want?, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2005, 157. View all notes As this passage indicates, Bennett's own project is more concerned with the agency of non-human materialities – including their role in the constitution of the human – than with specifically sexed bodies or a materiality inflected by sexual difference. It is these crucial differences in emphasis, I will suggest, that allow the work of these two thinkers to be brought together in productive dialogue. On the one hand, Bennett's approach affords a greater attentiveness to inorganic and non-sexuate matter; on the other, Irigaray's twinned ontology of sexual difference and maternal relation is better able to affirm the relational differences on which the “vitality” of a vital materiality depends. The paper begins by outlining several key elements of Irigaray's philosophy of sexual difference to show how it leads necessarily to a rethinking of matter. This rethinking is especially helpful for shifting away from the hylomorphism that has been a dominant strand in western thought, informing an understanding of the earth as a fundamentally inert and ever-ready resource. As I will show, the figures through which Irigaray re-articulates female specificity also allow her to refigure the earth as active matter that “turns upon herself ” in generative flux. In the second section, I will situate Irigaray's re-thinking of matter in relation to Bennett's “vital materiality”.44Bennett can be aligned with a number of thinkers who have come to be grouped under the heading “new materialisms”. See S. Alaimo and S. Hekman, eds., Material Feminisms, Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008; D. Coole and S. Frost, eds., New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010. View all notes An advantage of this concept is that it refuses the separation between humans and matter still implicit in concepts such as “the environment”. By attending to “our own constitution as vital materiality”, as well as the ways our “own” bodies are never “fully or exclusively human”, Bennett adjusts the status of human actants while re-evaluating non-human bodies “as actants rather than as objects”. As I will show, her approach provides a constructive critical perspective on Irigaray's work by drawing attention to the specifically non-sexuate nature of the elemental. Equally, however, Irigaray's insistence on sexuate difference problematises any appeal to a generic notion of “the human”. This is especially helpful, I will suggest, in relation to contemporary descriptions of climate change as “anthropogenic”. By homogenising human beings, such descriptions make it more difficult to address the ways in which current ecological problems are inseparable from global patterns of social, political and economic inequity. For both thinkers, challenging hylomorphism needs to be matched with a critique of the dominant modern model of the subject as bounded, autonomous and self-identical. And for both, this model is displaced and undone by the capacity of the human body to bear others within, in ways that engender and sustain human life. Yet as I will discuss in the final two sections, each thinker renders this “other within” in very different ways, with significant implications for the ethics and politics of a “vital materiality”. In the end it is Irigaray's rendering of a distinctively female capacity to bear an other within, explored via the generative relationality of a placental economy, that more fully escapes the individualism of the One and the Same. Together, Irigaray and Bennett show that to take seriously the ecological crises that currently confront us means overcoming the disavowal of both human beings' own fundamental materiality and our dependency on the sustaining materialities of the earth. In contrast, a dominant strand in contemporary responses to these crises is an environmental politics of “enlightened self-interest”55I borrow this phrase from H. Kopnina's critical discussion in “Forsaking Nature? Contesting ‘Biodiversity’ Through Competing Discourses of Sustainability”, Journal of Education for Sustainable Development 7, no. 1 : 51–63. that precludes any serious re-evaluation of human beings' relations to matter and the earth. If human beings can be persuaded that current levels of environmental degradation are damaging to them, threatening perhaps their very survival, they are more likely to take decisive steps to alter their behaviour. Insofar as such approaches demand action only for the sake of human interests and ends, they are both anthropocentric and spring from the same instrumentalising rationality that has engendered the ecological crises we currently face. They may well be successful in prompting action. But by foregrounding the survival of “the human species” per se, such approaches foreclose discussion of whose interests are served if survival is all that is allowed to be at stake, and whose lives are thereby consigned to ongoing exploitation. Moreover, as I will argue below, the instrumental rationality that serves survival is at odds with an affirmation of life, as a becoming that depends on difference. With this in mind, I will problematise Bennett's proposed politics of “expanded self-interest”, while seeking to retain many of the insights her approach brings. To more fully displace the “rational” self-interest that has encouraged human exploitation of the earth, we might take up Bennett's “vital materiality” in ways informed by Irigaray's conception of generative difference and the relational space-time of the in-between. (shrink)

Han Fei was a central figure in Chinese Legalism, which was a leading school of thought in the Warring States period of China, and which left a huge imprint on political culture in imperial China. This article examines the complex duality of public and private interests in Han Fei’s political thought, a crucial aspect of his thinking. I argue that Han Fei adopted a sophisticated statist approach to understanding public and private interests. For Han Fei, public interests are embodied in (...) the state while private ones have dual functions. On the one hand, private interests threaten public ones by inviting corrupt material interests, personal morality, and knowledge, as well as human relationships. On the other hand, self-centered human psychology plays a dialectic role in strengthening the state. (shrink)

The purpose of cultural competence education for medical professionals is to ensure respectful care and reduce health disparities. Yet as Berger and Miller (2021) show, the cultural competence framework is dated, confused, and self-defeating. They argue that the framework ignores the primary driver of health disparities—systemic racism—and is apt to exacerbate rather than mitigate bias and ethnocentrism. They propose replacing cultural competence with a framework that attends to two social aspects of structural inequality: health and social policy, and institutional-system (...) activity; and two psychological aspects of structural inequality: the clinical encounter, and the epistemic. -/- We agree with the structural approach. To that end, we think it would be fruitful to include attention to physical contributors to structural inequality, namely the material artifacts used in medicine. Devices, tools, and technologies can materialize biases, perpetuate oppression, and contribute to health disparities. Granted, not everything that interests philosophers can be squeezed into medical education. Nevertheless, there are compelling reasons for including the study of material artifacts in education designed to reduce health disparities. First, devices and tools often carry forward biases from the past, and keep biases hidden from plain sight. Second, by studying these artifacts, future clinicians can begin to see themselves as part of a larger sociotechnical system. Finally, as medicine becomes increasingly tech-laden, it’s important for clinicians to see how material artifacts (including algorithms) connect individuals to structures. This will help to undermine oversimplified narratives according to which objective tools and technologies can correct for the bias and subjectivity of flawed human beings. (shrink)

David Hume and Adam Smith are often regarded as founding fathers of modern social science and champions of self-interested material acquisitiveness. Against this view I argue that their moral and political philosophies are better understood as modern installments in the classical tradition of virtue ethics. By focusing on Hume and Smith's conception of self-love and particularly on their distinction of self-love from self-interest, I demonstrate their dedication to encouraging virtues beyond the instrumental virtues of (...) the market. ;Hume and Smith regard egoism as a natural and inescapable element of human nature, but they also believe that egoism is educable. Untrained egoism manifests itself in such basic forms of selfishness as vanity and ambition, but a properly educated and elevated egoism heightens our sensitivity to the well-being of others. Through a careful analysis of their dialectical rhetoric, I show how Hume and Smith educate the egoism of their readers in their moral works. By so doing I demonstrate that the Scots understood themselves not merely as advocates of the pursuit of wealth, but as moral educators aspiring to introduce their readers to a life beyond the furious pursuit of external goods. Their portraits of magnanimous statesmen and wise and virtuous sages serve as models of this higher life, a life distinguished by the pursuit of moral nobility through beneficent activity. By tracing the Aristotelian and Ciceronian origins of their understanding of the relationship of self-love to benevolence, I thus show that far from celebrating commercial self-interest and denigrating virtue, Hume and Smith draw on classical sources in their attempts to ennoble modern liberalism and encourage decency and respect for the dignity of others. And by focusing particularly on their conception of the proper magnanimity for modernity, that of the wise and virtuous man, I argue that Hume's and Smith's practical writings on history, politics and economics are best regarded as attempts to discharge the beneficent duties they describe in their moral philosophy, and thereby claim wisdom and virtue for themselves. (shrink)

Introduction. The development of online marketing in social networks creates unique opportunities for personal selling. Especially these opportunities are manifested in online education when they buy a brand of an expert with experience in a particular field. That is why a competitive space is being formed in the Instagram social network, where a personal brand acts as a product or service. -/- Materials and methods. Studying the effectiveness of promoting a personal brand in social networks based on the Instagram platform (...) was chosen to have great visual opportunities for self-presentation. As part of the collection of empirical material, two methods were used: a survey (N-200) and content analysis of three blogger accounts with high rates of activity and popularity. -/- Results and discussion. Content analysis of bloggers showed that an algorithmic feed on a social network allows bloggers to control the content. To help them, Instagram provides statistical data on user reach, thereby capturing trends in the movement of the blogger’s audience. The main task of a blogger is to combine real and “virtual” images so as not to lose consumer confidence. A survey of social network users confirmed the importance of a personal brand for them. The survey also made it possible to identify the most popular audience requests that they expect from bloggers and their accounts: valuable reviews and recommendations, case studies and author’s solutions, storytelling, blogger’s reflections and motivating messages, live broadcasts, and stories are important. -/- Conclusions. The results obtained underline followers’ high level of interest in the bloggers’ personal brand on Instagram. The study results show that the most significant number of those involved (those who give feedback and are constantly involved in interaction with the account) is where the formation of a personal brand is built to a greater extent on the emotional level of perception of the individual. (shrink)

Introduction. The article is focused on studying the self-knowledge techniques used in Buddhism and their application in teaching philosophy. The relevance of the study is due to the search for new approaches to studying philosophy, including approaches related to philosophical practice, as well as the interest of modern scientists in the problem of consciousness. The problem of consciousness is interdisciplinary and its study is of practical importance for philosophers, psychologists, linguists, specialists in artificial intelligence. Buddhism as a philosophical (...) doctrine provides rich material for the study of the phenomenon of consciousness, which does not lose its relevance today. A feature of the Buddhist approach to consciousness is that it has an axiological orientation that is directly related to the problem of self-knowledge. The practices of self-knowledge used in Buddhism enable a person to become happier and more harmonious, which is so important for each of us. The aim of the study is to conduct a philosophical analysis of Buddhist practices of self-knowledge and self-transformation in order to use them in the educational process. Methods: the author uses general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, deduction and induction; phenomenological method to identify the intentions that are key for consciousness. The author also uses the hermeneutical method to interpret Buddhist texts. The method of introspection as self-observation of consciousness is used in Buddhist meditation techniques. The scientific novelty of the study is that we approach the study of extensive material on Buddhism in the context of the problem of selfknowledge, which is inextricably linked with the Buddhist concept of consciousness. The revealed and studied Buddhist techniques of self-knowledge have been adapted for teaching philosophy. Results. A philosophical analysis of the literature on Buddhism in the context of the problem of self-knowledge was carried out. As a result of the analysis, Buddhist techniques for working with consciousness, such as meditation, the method of pondering Zen koans, the method of getting rid of material attachments, or the practice of austerities, were studied and described. A philosophical analysis of various Buddhist meditation techniques showed that they are based on the Buddhist concept of consciousness, which denies the existence of an individual “I”, considers the “I” to be nothing more than a combination of various dharmas, therefore the purpose of meditation in Buddhism is to identify oneself with one’s own “I”, to achieve a state of voidness in which we must comprehend our true identity. The method of pondering Zen koans is also one of the techniques for working with one’s consciousness in Buddhism. As a result of deliberation of these paradoxical miniatures, a person goes beyond the boundaries of logical thinking; there is a transition from the level of profane consciousness to the level of deep consciousness. The basis of the method of getting rid of material attachments or the practice of austerities in Buddhism is the concept of the middle path. We have established a similarity between the method of getting rid of material attachments, the concept of the middle path and minimalism as a way of life. Findings. Elements of the Buddhist practices of self-transformation can be successfully used in the teaching of philosophy at the university as a practical aspect of studying this discipline, forming students with the idea of philosophy as a way of life leading to positive self-transformation. Studying the practical aspects of Buddhist philosophy contributes to the formation of tolerance, awareness, education of humanism and altruism, and the skills of psycho-emotional self-regulation. (shrink)

Towards the end of the first world war, a “principle of self-determination” was proposed as a foundation for international order. In the words of its chief advocate, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, it specified that the “settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relationship” is to be made “upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned and not upon the basis of the material (...) class='Hi'>interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for sake of its own exterior influence or mastery” (Wilson 1927, 233). The principle played a significant role in deliberations about lands newly liberated by the first world war, and, in the aftermath of the second, it was enshrined within Article 1 of the United Nations Charter which called upon member nations “to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.” Its status within international law was further heightened by the 1966 Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, whose first articles specify the following: “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development.” In 1970, General Assembly Resolution 2625 added that, “every state has the duty to respect this right in accordance with the provision of the Charter.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Material Virtue: Ethics and the Body in Early ChinaEdward SlingerlandMaterial Virtue: Ethics and the Body in Early China. By Mark Csikszentmihalyi. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Pp. vi + 402. Hardcover $180.00.Material Virtue: Ethics and the Body in Early China by Mark Csikszentmihalyi is a fascinating and meticulously researched study of early Chinese discussions of virtue and moral education in the period following what we might call the (...) "physiological turn," marked by a growing interest in the body and the embodiment of social ideals that begins sometime in the fourth century B.C.E. In Csikszentmihalyi's usage, the phrase "material virtue" refers "narrowly to descriptions of the virtues in terms of their quasi-material properties. More generally, such descriptions are characteristic of the view that, once cultivated, the virtues manifest themselves through physiological changes in the body that can be observed by others" (p. 5). This early Chinese development of this sort of nondualistic model of the self is a topic of growing interest to scholars of early China, with relevance to many contemporary debates about ethics and the mind-body relationship. This study's focus on a recently discovered archeological find, the text of the Wuxing 五行 (datable to sometime before 300 B.C.E.), also places it at the center of one of the most exciting recent developments in the field: the trove of newly discovered and, in many cases, previously unknown texts that are in the process of enriching and transforming our understanding of early Chinese thought. The two versions of the Wuxing that Csikszentmihalyi discusses come from Guodian (tomb closed ca. 300 B.C.E.) and Mawangdui (tomb closed 168 B.C.E.; this version also includes what seems to be a later commentary), two of the richest finds from the perspective of early Chinese philosophical and religious thought. Two substantial appendixes contain critical annotated editions of both texts, which summarize the state of the field with regard to their textual scholarship—an invaluable resource in itself.As Csikszentmihalyi notes, one important aspect of these finds is how they "have augmented the [received textual] record with different kinds of texts, challenging received notions of school and genre" (p. 1). This is one of the more interesting contributions of Csikszentmihalyi's study, part of a recent trend among scholars of early China to move beyond traditional "school" labels. Csikszentmihalyi presents the Wuxing, which modern scholars attribute to the disciple Zisi 子思,1 as a hitherto unheard voice in "an important conversation about the nature of the virtues in early China from the fourth through the second centuries B.C.E." (p. 2), and by doing so significantly increases the subtlety of our picture of the early Chinese philosophical [End Page 694] landscape. For instance, in place of a more-or-less linear picture of the development of "Confucian" thought, originating with Kongzi and then diverging with the two followers Mengzi and Xunzi, Csikszentmihalyi argues for a view of the ru 儒 tradition that sees it as consisting of many competing disciple lineages, united by a shared technical vocabulary and the acknowledgment of Kongzi as an authority, but much more internally diverse than traditionally thought.Csikszentmihalyi contextualizes his discussion of the Wuxing by placing it firmly in the Mengzi-Zisi lineage that appears as one of Xunzi's targets in his famous "Against Twelve Masters" chapter. He makes a strong case for doing so: besides Xunzi's comment that the misguided followers of Mengzi and Zisi "created a theory, and called it 'Five Kinds of Action' (wuxing)" (p. 60), there are many textual and conceptual parallels between the Wuxing and the Mengzi. Csikszentmihalyi also makes a strong case that both the Mengzi and the Wuxing can be seen as springing from a similar motivation: defending Confucianism from Primitivist charges of moral hypocrisy by arguing for a more internalist conception of virtue, grounded in the physical body and its animating qi. As he notes, "The 'psychologizing' or 'embodiment' of moral self cultivation implies that genuine virtue cannot be simulated because it is an observable physical process" (p. 86). For instance, in his interesting discussion of the Mencian concept of haoranzhiqi 浩然之氣 (usually translated as "flood-like" qi), Csikszentmihalyi follows... (shrink)

David Rodin denies that defensive wars against unjust aggression can be justified if the unjust aggression limits itself, for example, to the annexation of territory, the robbery of resources or the restriction of political freedom, but would endanger the lives, bodily integrity or freedom from slavery of the citizens only if the unjustly attacked state actually resisted the aggression. I will argue that Rodin's position is not correct. First, Rodin's comments on the necessity condition and its relation to an alleged (...) "duty to retreat" misinterpret the law, and a correct interpretation of the law is not only compatible with, but implies a permission to resist the "bloodless invader," and this is also the correct view from the perspective of morality. Second, Rodin's remarks on the proportionality of self-defense against conditional threats focus on physical or material harm but implausibly ignore the severity of the violations of autonomy and of the socio-legal or moral order that such conditional threats involve. Third, I will address Rodin's claim that defensive wars against "political aggression" are disproportionate because they risk the lives of those defended in an attempt to secure lesser interests. I will argue that this take on proportionality misses the point in an important respect, namely by confusing wide and narrow proportionality, and makes unwarranted assumptions about the alleged irrationality or impermissibility of incurring or imposing lethal risks to safeguard less vital interests. Next, I will also show that while Rodin talks of a "myth of national self-defense" and of the necessity of moving beyond traditional just war theory and international law, it is actually his interpretation of just war theory and international law that weaves myths. Finally, I will argue that Rodin's views on national self-defense on the one hand, and "war as law enforcement" on the other, are incoherent. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the lack of interest, among analytic moral philosophers, in the contingencies of our moral present, produces an impoverished moral philosophy, unable to address the moral problems and quandaries of ordinary people. What is needed to remedy this is a broadening of the scope of the moral philosopher’s thought to include a rich attention to moral phenomena of the present. One such phenomenon, attended to by sociologists and critical journalists over the past few decades, (...) is the contemporary proliferating genre of psychologically oriented self-help literature. I display a range of sociological responses to self-help in order to point out aspects of morality that are made visible in these discussions, whereas they often remain invisible in standard moral philosophy. The aim is not to suggest a specific methodology for including such material into philosophical discussions, but rather to urge philosophers to reconsider the range of materials they attend to in their work, in order to produce a more lively engagement with and understanding of contemporary morality. (shrink)

The rational choice assumption that any chosen behavior can be understood as optimizing material self?interest is not borne out by psychological research. Expressive motives, for example, are prominent in the symbols of politics, in social relationships, and in the arts of persuasion. Moreover, instrumentality is a mindset that is learned (perhaps overlearned), and can be situationally manipulated; because it is valued in our society, it provides a privileged vocabulary for justifying behaviors that may have been performed for (...) other reasons, and encourages the illusory belief in the universality of rational choice. (shrink)

A series of experiments are described on self-reversal of magnetization in a rock containing pyrrhotite. This self-reversal was produced by heat-treatment at about 320°c. Two unusual effects were observed. First, in suitable conditions the direction of magnetization could be made to change sign twice on cooling. Second, after appropriate heat-treatment the reversal mechanism became obliterated; leaving the specimen self-reversed, but containing only a single magnetic material. The second effect is of considerable interest for palaeomagnetism.

Over the past decades, self-assembly has attracted a lot of research attention and transformed the relations between chemistry, materials science and biology. The paper explores the impact of the current interest in self-assembly techniques on the traditional debate over the nature of life. The first section describes three different research programs of self-assembly in nanotechnology in order to characterize their metaphysical implications: (1) Hybridization (using the building blocks of living systems for making devices and machines) ; (...) (2) Biomimetics (making artifacts mimicking nature); (3) Integration (a composite of the two previous strategies). The second section focused on the elusive boundary between self-assembly and self-organization tries to map out the various positions adopted by the promoters of self-assembly on the issue of vitalism. (shrink)

There is proposed the analysis of conceptual foundations in researching of Poles’ national character on materials of Julian Leopold Ochorowicz (1850-1917) scientific heritage connected with philosophical and pedagogical implications of his ideas. Ochorowicz’s contribution to interdisciplinary approach on Poles’ national character is emphasizing. The heuristically potential of this approach is explicated using reconstruction and systemizing of his views, which had played a significant role in determining intentionality in discussions on the matter «What philosophy do Poles need?” for the successful (...) class='Hi'>self-statement in their national being. Critically evaluating of this experience there is combined with verifying of his theoretical assumptions that should be actual also in Ukrainian social and cultural contexts. Ochorowicz belongs to the group of outstanding Polish scholars with wide scientific interests and original achievements. This article presents his research on history perceived as a collective psychological process. In Poland, Ochorowicz should be regarded as a precursor of psychohistory. An important role in his conception is played by the theory of the so-called residual symptoms, on the basis of which he developed the concept of Poles’ national character with its educational implications. The question about the rudiments of our national character sharpens in border situations, in which those traits, previously presented in a declarative form, are verified. The strength of a nation is encoded in the irreal sphere, i.e. in the sphere of values around which people group themselves. (shrink)

Self-advocacy organisations support people in a wide range of political activities, alongside providing key social networks. The emergence of formalised self-advocacy for intellectually disabled people marked an important cultural shift. These groups soon became associated with the pursuit of social change and the attainment of rights. The role of the self-advocacy support worker, working together with self-advocates, has been pivotal. However, studies have shown there has been concern over the relationship between self-advocates and those who (...) advise or support them. Both parties are aware of the potential tensions of supporters teaching people skills to take control, to manage their workers, whilst, perhaps inadvertently, assuming a powerful position in the relationship. This interesting paradox hints at ethical complexities inherent in the role. A key challenge facing these support workers is how they can support their employers to run successful organisations, without ?taking over?. Using material from both Chapman and Tilley's research of self-advocacy organisations in the UK, this article problematises some key ethical issues within the role. (shrink)

In Section I, I criticize the view, implied by the concept of rational economic man, that feelings are inherently opposed to rationality. I attempt to show that emotions or feelings are essential to the proper functioning of reason, rational objectivity, and practical rationality or rational decision making. In addition, I argue that emotions can help to resolve certain ethical dilemmas. In Section II, I consider business writers who criticize business for overemphasizing the head at the expense of feelings or the (...) heart. In Section III, I discuss the connection between material self-interest (as manifested in trade) – a concept of rational economic man – and business virtues. (shrink)

Yi Hwang (1501–1570)—best known by his literary name, T’oegye—is one of the most eminent thinkers in the history of East Asian philosophy and religion. His Chasŏngnok (Record of self-reflection) is a superb Korean Neo-Confucian text: an eloquent collection of twenty-two scholarly letters and four essays written to his close disciples and junior colleagues. These were carefully selected by T’oegye himself after self-reflecting (chasŏng) on his practice of personal cultivation. The Chasŏngnok continuously guided T’oegye and inspired others on the (...) true Confucian way (including leading Neo-Confucians in Tokugawa Japan) while it criticized Buddhism and Daoism. Its philosophical merit rivals T’oegye’s monumental Sŏnghak sipto (Ten diagrams on sage learning) and “Four-Seven Debate Letters”; however, as a testament of T’oegye’s character, scholarship, and teaching, the Chasŏngnok is of greater interest. The work engages with his holistic knowledge and experience of self-cultivation by articulating textual and historical material on various key doctrines and ideas. It is an inspiring practical guide that reveals the depth of T’oegye’s learning and spirituality. The present volume offers a fully annotated translation of the Chasŏngnok. Following a groundbreaking discussion of T’oegye’s life and ideas according to the Chasŏngnok and his other major writings, it presents the core of his thought in six interrelated sections: “Philosophy of Principle,” “Human Nature and Emotions,” “Against Buddhism and Daoism,” “True Learning,” “Self-Cultivation,” and “Reverence and Spiritual Cultivation.” The bibliography offers a current catalogue of primary sources and modern works in Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and English. As the first comprehensive study of the Chasŏngnok, this book is a welcome addition to current literature on Korean classics and East Asian philosophy and religion. By presenting T’oegye’s thought-provoking contributions, it sheds new light on the vitality of Confucian wisdom, thereby affording scholars and students with an excellent primary source for East Asian studies in general and Confucian studies in particular. (shrink)

Truth, Rationality, and Self-Control incorporates work from seven previously published essays and five chapters of new material. Sometimes collections of this sort lack continuity. This is not the case with Hookway’s text. With only a few minor exceptions, the essays work well together, developing ideas in increments as the text unfolds. Although Hookway offers no single theme as the book’s project, his decision to focus on Charles Peirce’s notions of truth, rationality, and pragmatism indicates an investigation of Peirce’s (...) overall approach to inquiry. Specifically, he attends to all the features of human experience, from instinctive beliefs to logical constraints, that make scientific inquiry possible. What gives the book a feel of coherence and presence are Hookway’s persistence and penetrating style. He carefully pursues Peirce’s ideas among the manuscripts and published texts to find reasonable interpretations of even the most perplexing issues. (shrink)

Summary A provocative examination of the consequences of Levinas’s and Adorno’s thought for contemporary ethics and political philosophy. This book sets up a dialogue between Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor W. Adorno, using their thought to address contemporary environmental and social-political situations. Eric S. Nelson explores the “non-identity thinking” of Adorno and the “ethics of the Other” of Levinas with regard to three areas of concern: the ethical position of nature and “inhuman” material others such as environments and animals; the (...) bonds and tensions between ethics and religion and the formation of the self through the dynamic of violence and liberation expressed in religious discourses; and the problematic uses and limitations of liberal and republican discourses of equality, liberty, tolerance, and their presupposition of the private individual self and autonomous subject. Thinking with and beyond Levinas and Adorno, this work examines the possibility of an anarchic hospitality and solidarity between material others and sensuous embodied life. “This is an extremely impressive, original, and thorough treatment of two key twentieth-century thinkers and their applicability to the most pressing social and political issues of our time.” — Jeffrey A. Bernstein, author of Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History “This book is an excellent and timely contribution to political and environmental philosophy, located around a nuanced historical and philosophical approach to Levinas and Adorno. It will be of great interest to anyone concerned with these figures or with the current moment.” — Martin Shuster, author of Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity. (shrink)

This article argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, Xunzi’s and Hobbes’s understandings of human nature are qualitatively different, which is responsible for the difference in their respective normative political theory of a civil polity. This article has two main theses: first, where Hobbes’s deepest concern was with human beings’ unsocial passions, Xunzi was most concerned with human beings’ appetitive desires ( yu 欲), material self-interest, and resulting social strife; second, as a result, where Hobbes strove to transform (...) the pathological (anti-)politics of resentment into the politics of recognition by creating rational egalitarian citizenship under the all-encompassing constitutional sovereign power, Xunzi attempted to nourish human beings’ basic appetitive desires ( yu 欲) by instituting a li 禮 ordered civil entity. This article concludes by showing how Confucian civility that Xunzi reconstructed by means of the li 禮 can effectively deal with unsocial passions. (shrink)

This paper builds on a number of ideas concerning the nature, management and representation in case studies, of moral issues and dilemmas as experienced by people in organisations. Drawing on some cases used in teaching business ethics, and utilising a checklist of questions derived from the more general theoretical analysis, suggestions are offered regarding the contributions which such cases can make in developing students' understanding and potential for performative competence in real life situations. The distinction between issues and dilemmas is (...) emphasised, and different types of issue are identified. The status of self-interest as an issue, and as contributory to personal dilemmas, is given particular attention. The paper also addresses the distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive attributes required by individuals if they are to deal with such situations. Within the cognitive category attention is paid to the contribution of ethical and other theory, and to the need for moral imagination and judgement. (shrink)

This paper is primarily about metaphysics; specifically, about a Cartesian view of the self, according to which it is a simple, enduring, non-material entity.I take a critical look at Nida-Rümelin’s novel conceptual arguments for this view and argue that they don’t give us decisive reasons to uphold the Cartesian view. But in Nida-Rümelin’s view, what is at stake in these arguments is not merely theoretical: the truth – and our beliefs about it – has practical consequences as well. (...) In her view, if the Cartesian simple view of the self were false, we would have no reason to love and care for family and friends, and our special interest in our own future would be pointless. In the last section of this paper, I will say something about the sense in which it is right and the sense in which it is wrong to think that the metaphysics of the self has broader relevance for our lives. (shrink)

Like many interested in the gift, I have to confess to having always experienced a certain attraction for methodological individualism. Through its way of approaching social actors, methodological individualism introduces the actor's concern: what are the sound principles which account for the behaviour of the actors that are observed? This is the question which individualism compels us constantly to ask. Admittedly, its response is almost always the same: self-interest. As R.H. Frank wrote: Most [economists’] texts mention at the (...) outset that our rational choice model takes peoples’ tastes as given. They may be altruists, sadists, masochists; or they may be concerned solely with advancing their own material interests. But having said that, most texts then proceed to ignore all motives other than material self-interest.(Frank, 1994, p. xxiii). (shrink)

First published in 1996, _The Embedded Self_ was lauded as "a brilliant and long overdue rapprochement between psychoanalysis and family therapy conceived by a practitioner trained and experienced in both modalities of treatment." Mary-Joan Gerson’s integrated presentation of psychodynamic and family systems theory invited therapists of either orientation to learn the tools and techniques of the other, to mutual benefit. Firmly grounded in detailed case presentations, her focus on family therapy examined its history, organizing concepts, and developmental approaches, and addressed (...) practical questions of diagnosis, clinical interaction, and referrals. A dozen years later, the psychoanalytic community is more open to integrating perspectives, and the growth of analysts working with couples and families necessitates an update of the material presented in _The Embedded Self_. Similarly, the family therapy community has deepened its interest in individual dynamics within systemic patterning. From a new and revised perspective on the possibilities of integration, Gerson covers the latest research in neuroscience and the transmission of affect within intimate relationships, with a new chapter on attachment theory and emotionally focused therapy. Sections on narrative therapy and psychoanalytically-oriented family therapy are expanded as well. _The Embedded Self_ was a sterling introduction to family systems theory and therapy, and enhanced the work of analysts and family and couples therapists alike. The second edition proves no different in its context but wider in its scope, further enhancing the work of the family therapist interested in individual dynamics, and preparing the psychodynamically-oriented therapist who seeks to extend her craft from the dyad to the triad, and beyond. (shrink)

In a series of illuminating papers Frankena called attention to a basic philosophical disagreement about what features distinguish moral from non-moral principles, rules, ideals, etc., and about “what a morality is,” when, for example, one speaks of the “morality” of a person or a group. After reviewing a number of writings, he emphasized an important contrast between two “families” of moralists and moral philosophers. On the one side are those who think that certain “formal” conditions are sufficient to distinguish moral (...) “action-guides” from nonmoral ones. On the other side are those who insist that a certain “material” and “social” condition must be added; as they see it, an action-guide is moral only if it pronounces “actions and agents to be right, wrong, good, bad, etc., simply because of the effect they have on the feelings, interests, ideals, etc., of other persons or centers of sentient experience, actual or hypothetical.” The issue, in brief, is whether any set of principles or other articles counts as a morality simply because a person or a group of persons takes that set as the supreme, or as a rational and universalizable guide to what is right and wrong, or whether such a set must be “social” in the sense that acts are prescribed as right or wrong in virtue of the acts’ effects on others as well as on oneself. In the former group, Frankena includes existentialists, many religious thinkers, Hare, Ladd, Falk, etc.; in the latter, Toulmin, Baier, Singer, Strawson, Kemp, etc. (shrink)

Emotional openness is characterised by a capacity to tolerate threatening self-relevant material and an interest towards new emotional situations. We investigated how specific networks of memories could be an important contributing factor to emotional openness. At Phase 1, participants completed measures of personality traits and emotional intelligence, described a self-defining memory, provided other memories associated with it, and rated the valence of each of their memories. A score assessing the complexity of this memory network, comprising the (...) number of memories reported and their valence diversity, was created. Two weeks later, in laboratory, participants watched an anxiety-inducing film and took part in an interview assessing their emotional openness to the film. They completed a cognitive task before and after the film to measure ego depletion. Controlling for traits and emotional intelligence, memory network complexity was positively associated with emotional openness and negatively with ego depletion. The mental organisation of self-defining memories thus appears to be a critical factor contributing to emotional openness. (shrink)

Art therapy encourages the use of art materials to express feelings and thoughts in a supportive environment. Art materials differ in fluidity and are postulated to thus differentially enhance emotional response (the more fluid the material the more emotion). Yet, to the best of our knowledge, this assumption has not been empirically tested. The current study aimed to examine the emotional and physiological responses to art making with different art materials. We were particularly interested in vagal activity, indexed by (...) heart rate variability (HRV), because of its association with numerous health related outcomes. In this study, fifty adults (mean age 33 ± 10.27 years, 52% males) participated in a repeated measures experiment, in which they were requested to draw with three art materials (order randomized) differing in their level of fluidity (pencil, oil-pastels and gouache paint) intermittent with periods of music. We measured the emotional response to art making with each material using a self-report measure and matrices of HRV using a wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) device. We calculated two indices of HRV, one indicative of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity, and one indicative of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity. Art making with gouache paint and oil pastels resulted in improved positive mood, while pencil did not. Art making explained approximately 35% of the variability in parasympathetic reactivity, which may indicate changes in emotional regulation processes during the art-making task. Yet, fluidity was not sufficient to explain the reaction to art-making. Surprisingly, the largest suppression of PNS and augmentation of the SNS occurred during art-making with oil-pastels and not with Gouache. Moreover, PNS and SNS reactivity to oil-pastels were related to emotional valance, which may point to emotional engagement. We can conclude that art-making with oil-pastels, first created in Japan in 1924 to increase self-expression of students, results in a unique emotional and physiological responses. These findings might be explained by the enhanced tactile experience of art-making with oil-pastels along with their relative fluidity, triggering an arousal pattern. Further studies that take the format and presentation of the materials as well as the content of the artwork, into account, are needed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Materialities of CommunicationEric DeanThe Materialities of Communication, edited by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer; xvi & 447pp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994, $52.50 cloth, $17.95 paper.In closing this collection, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht outlines the common purpose which makes it more than a random assortment. There has been, as he characterizes it, a theoretical shift in the humanities “from interpretation as identification of given meaning-structures to (...) the reconstruction of those processes through which structures of articulated meaning can at all emerge” (p. 398). He motivates this shift by suggesting that theorists should no longer pursue final and therefore unchanging explanations, but rather should create provocations for changes in perspective. Focusing on the processes through which meaning can emerge—the materialities of communication rather than the insubstantialities of interpretation—stimulates the constant change, the perpetual “renegotiation of self-reference,” which Gumbrecht recommends as the rightful role of theory.The breadth of these ambitions is reflected in the scope of the collection. There are twenty-five essays from twenty-six writers, predominately German, including two from each editor—a context piece and a separate contribution. The range of subjects is enormous. There is one essay on ancient Egyptian signs and another on how the immune system creates the self it both recognizes and preserves. One touches on Nietzsche’s abortive attempt to save his eyesight by using an early version of the typewriter, another interprets the fall of the Roman Empire as the corruption of the postal system (Egyptian in origin) used to deliver the command, imperium, which constituted the Empire in the first place. The scholarly contexts range widely as well—from sociological communication theory to media history to biology to art criticism.There are some delightful curiosities the writers bring to light. For example, at one point in “The Early History of German Television,” the authors, M. Elsner, T. Muller, and P. Spangenberg are describing how fantasies about the new technology outran practicalities. They cite an illustration from a 1928 German magazine in which a man is shown lying in bed, “with a fragmented dashboard in front of him—he seems to steer some technical apparatus and, at the same time, to look at a mountain panorama, which is seen from a bird’s eye view on a kind of projection screen. The caption deciphers the illustration for us: ‘Marvels that we might still experience: viewing the world from bed through [End Page 395] television. The apparatus above the bed serves to operate, by remote control, an airplane that carries the filming apparatus...’” (p. 117).In other places too the writing evades the risk of self-absorption implicit, for all its purportedly exterior focus, in Gumbrecht’s theoretical project. Vivian Sobchack, for instance, closes an interesting meditation on film and electronic technologies this way: “Within the context of this material and technological crisis of the flesh, one can only hope that the hysteria and hyperbole surrounding it is strategic—and that through it the lived-body has, in fact, managed to reclaim its existence and against our attention, to forcefully argue for simulation. For there are other subjects of electronic culture out there who prefer the simulated body and a virtual world...” (pp. 105–6).By the end, though, I found myself wondering whether it was really possible to put this diversity together as a whole, whether the purportedly redeeming concreteness of a program focused on The Materialities of Communication wasn’t at odds with the idea that there is much in common among all these different materials. Coeditor K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, may have inadvertently provided the epigraph for the book. “Iago incites Othello to the greatest nonsense,” he writes, “because Othello no longer differentiates between manipulated sensual certainty and credibility” (p. 59). I wonder about a theoretical perspective that calls Othello’s torment his “nonsense,” and I wonder whether the advocates of such a perspective might not be manipulating sensual certainty to perhaps equally bleak, though in this case unintended, ends.Eric DeanChicago, IllinoisCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

This book is a fine introduction to the traditional problems in the philosophy of mind. The author succeeds in presenting difficult material accurately, clearly, and concisely. Though the problems are shown to have deep historical roots, the answers are generally in modern terms with frequent and useful allusions to contemporary philosophers and relevant research in psychology, anthropology, and biology. Perhaps the importance of this book lies in the fact that while the author does not understate the difficulty and complexity (...) of the problems, he considers the answers crucial in man's quest for self-knowledge and shows his readers how to approach philosophical self-examination. Beginning with the general philosophical problem of mind-body, he proceeds to particular analyses of perception, motivation, emotion, imagination, and memory where there is more interaction between philosophy and empirical science. Finally, he ends the book with a study of the problems of self-knowledge, taking into account the material that has preceded. For those interested in pursuing the subject, an interesting bibliography could be compiled from the notes and supplementary bibliography that follow the text.--J. A. W. (shrink)

In the heated debates over identity politics, few theorists have looked carefully at the conceptualizations of identity assumed by all sides. Visible Identities fills this gap. Drawing on both philosophical sources as well as theories and empirical studies in the social sciences, Martín Alcoff makes a strong case that identities are not like special interests, nor are they doomed to oppositional politics, nor do they inevitably lead to conformism, essentialism, or reductive approaches to judging others. Identities are historical formations and (...) their political implications are open to interpretation. But identities such as race and gender also have a powerful visual and material aspect that eliminativists and social constructionists often underestimate.Visible Identities offers a careful analysis of the political and philosophical worries about identity and argues that these worries are neither supported by the empirical data nor grounded in realistic understandings of what identities are. Martín Alcoff develops a more realistic characterization of identity in general through combining phenomenological approaches to embodiment with hermeneutic concepts of the interpretive horizon. Besides addressing the general contours of social identity, Martín Alcoff develops an account of the material infrastructure of gendered identity, compares and contrasts gender identities with racialized ones, and explores the experiential aspects of racial subjectivity for both whites and non-whites. In several chapters she looks specifically at Latino identity as well, including its relationship to concepts of race, the specific forms of anti-Latino racism, and the politics of mestizo or hybrid identity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:EMBODIED HUMAN AGENTS INHABITING A MATERIAL WORLD? CHARLES T. HUGHES Chapman University Orange, California I. /n;troduction HE CONCEPT of a "logically possible world" has roven useful in the investigation of issues within many ranches of philosophy, including the philosophy of religion.1 Since this paper includes an analysis of one "possible worlds" objection to Christian theism, based upon the problem of evil, it will prove useful to preface my (...) discussion with a paragraph which summarizes some of the ideas important to the logic of possible worlds. Each logically possible world contains a complete set of compossible facts, which includes the past, present, and future of its objects, properties, and relations. Those complete sets of compossible facts, each of which describes the way the actual world could have been, have in common the truth of all logically necessary propositions (for example, 2 +2 = 4, "Circles cannot be squared "), and the falsity of all logically impossible propositions (for example, 2 +6 = 7, " Circles can be squared"), but differ in their truth values with respect to at least some logically contingent propositions (for example, "Elephants exist" is true in one or more possible worlds but false in all others, and "Unicorns exist " is true in one or more possible worlds but false in all others). An impossible world includes an affirmation of the falsity of at least one necessary proposition (for example,,.._,(2 +2 = 4)), and/or affirms the truth of at least one logical1 See Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), chapters IX and X. 389 390 CHARLES T. HUGHES ly impossible proposition (for example, " Logically necessary propositions are false in all possible worlds ").2 The actual world, which is our world, is that complete set of compossible propositions which describe the way things actually are. The actual world, therefore, differs from other possible worlds in that all of its contingent propositions correspond to the past, present, and future of all of the objects, properties, and relations which actually obtain. There is an on-going debate about the nature and ontological status of possible worlds and their objects.3 The purpose of this paper is to analyze and reject a particular "possible worlds" objection to Christian theism, based upon the problem of evil, which is not frequently discussed in philosophical literature. The problem is this : If God must actualize a possible world in order to provide human agents with the initial stage of existence they require to develop freely as rational, moral, and religious beings, who choose their own destinies, why did God not create them as incorporeal agents within an immaterial world which would, by its very nature, eliminate the physical dimension of evil and suffering which plagues the actual world? For it seems, prima facie, that God could have realized his purposes by actualizing an immaterial world, populated with human-like incorporeal agents, thereby avoiding all of the terrible evil and suffering made possible by physicality. Therefore, the existence of the actual physical world, with all its evil and suffering, is evidence against the existence of God.4 In order to show that the previously stated objection from evil could pose a genuine threat to theism, I will first identify some of my important assumptions in this paper, and then outline particular Christian ideas to determine how the " possible worlds " 2 For an argument that some impossible propositions are not self-contradictory, see Linda Zagzebski, " What If the Impossible Had Been Actual," in Michael D. Beatty, ed., Christian Theism aml the Problems of Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), pp. 165-183. a Compare, for example, the positions of D. M. Armstrong, A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) and D. Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986). 4 Some interesting discussion of this type of problem can be found in Austin Farrer, Love Almighty and Ills Unlimited (London: Collins, 1962), pp. 69-76. EMBODIED HUMAN AGENTS 391 objection to Christian theism could arise in the first place. After that, I will discuss the nature of the " possible worlds " objection and how, in principle, it might be rebutted by theists who possess a great amount of... (shrink)

Readers expecting a history of nineteenth‐century pathology are in for a surprise. They will find instead a self‐conscious example of cultural studies, critical of some assumptions made in this field and of some feminist writing, but containing some alarming sentences like “My goal has been to give shape to the accidental palimpsests of an inveterately verbal, and increasingly visual, culture; to assemble a particular series of hermeneutic loose ends into a coherent account of how an extraordinarily bizarre system of (...) signification came into being” . With learned English like that, who needs Latin? But once we get into the main part of the book, things get much better. We are confronted with a study of the fringes of science, in popular writings, in literature, and in raree‐shows, one working from sources that the more austere scientifics of the Victorian period despised and that historians of science are prone to ignore. Metaphor and analogy are everywhere, and sensitive stomachs will be churned by vivid accounts of disease, deformity, and surgery.The first chapter is concerned with the cholera morbus, the plague of the nineteenth century, and with the way it could be perceived as an indicator of social ills. John Ruskin's word “illth” as an opposite of health is revived, and the terrible blackness of the shriveled and dehydrated victims of this disease imported from the East is linked with colonial and racist notions. The theme that a healthy body is like a well‐run state leads into the next chapter, on breast cancer. Surgery was not only agonizing but ineffective in the first half of the nineteenth century, but then the survival rate after three years rose gradually from 4.7 percent to 45 percent by 1900. O'Connor asks whether this saga, with cancer seen as cellular overproduction, reveals close connections with gender construction and the symbolic importance of breasts, concluding that it does not and that the language used really was neutral rather than sexual.She then looks at amputations and artificial limbs, seeing amputation as a threat to the whole masculine body that could be countered by prostheses almost undetectable to the observer. This allows reflection on illustration, where curiously disembodied hands are shown carrying out amputations; on dissembling and artificiality; on materialism; and on metaphors of wholeness and replacement and of extending senses and capacities. We see some extraordinary advertisements where men with artificial legs climb ladders and skate, perhaps on thin ice. The final chapter examines deformity, with monsters and freaks . P. T. Barnum is prominent here, but interesting links are also made to the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace and its successors and the numerous museums that were such a feature of the Victorian period. They are strikingly placed in a continuum, rather than opposed, in a discussion of chaos and order, capitalism and health, deformity and degeneration. Wonder is presented as the key to modern sensibility, and there is a nice quotation on page 152: “If Beauty and the Beast should be brought into competition in London at the present day, Beauty would stand no chance against the Beast in the race for popularity.” Readers will have been led into a fascinating world at the periphery of the respectable science that most of us study and will rejoice in the extraordinary sights they see. (shrink)

If the twentieth century was the age of the world picture taken as a photograph of the Whole Earth from outer space, today’s observations of the planet are produced by means of computer simulation. Pandemic models are of paramount sociological interest in this respect, since modelling contagion is closely intertwined with modelling the material connectivities of social life. By envisioning the global dynamics of disease transmission, pandemic simulations enact the relationscapes of a transnational world. This article seeks to (...) analyse such an enactment: It asks how simulation methods can establish a particular relation to the social from within the social. To provide an answer to this question, and adopting Niklas Luhmann’s theory of world society, pandemic simulations are described as modes of global self-observation that can be specified factually, socially, spatially and temporally. They instantiate a ‘doubling of reality’ designed to apprehend the potential future threat of disease transmission along the pathways marked by global infrastructures. They constitute scopic regimes that virtually synthesize a global situation of universal communicability in order to turn the world into an object of political intervention. (shrink)

This article provides a relation between the problem of shame in both Levinas and Agamben, focusing, for the most part, in the development of Levinas' metaphysics and its relation to the emotional tonality of shame in three works: "On Escape", "Time and the Other" and "Otherwise than Being". In stressing the unique take that Levinas has on metaphysics, I try to point at the tension between Jewish and Greek thought in Levinas, and his option for a radical notion of a (...) situated understanding of the "ethical". Hence my interest in contrasting Levinas and Agamben, as Agamben's appropriation of Levinas' lexicon in his "Remnants of Aushwitz" places the subject in a political, and material, position which is ultimately uncompatible with Levinas' situational and metaphysical take on the self. (shrink)

– The purpose of this paper is to explore the claim that online communication technologies are detrimental to off‐line communication practices., – This paper is based on material from focus groups with students from the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University, and in‐depth interviews from a mixture of employed people and students. The breakdown is as follows: three focus groups in total are ran, two cohorts of participants were students from University of Cambridge, and the third group from (...) ARU. Six individuals aged between 21 and 36 were interviewed in‐depth on their Facebook use. Questions relating to personal use of Facebook are asked. All names of participants have been changed., – The research findings show that opportunities for communication are increased by using Facebook. Facebook use also impacts on how other types of communicative technologies are used – such as the phone and email. From the small participant sample, it is founded that off‐line encounters were a prerequisite for a friend connection to be made online in Facebook. Finally, it is founded that the participants rarely interact with the majority of their Facebook friends and it is this dormant archive of relationships that hold the most interest as it provides an archive of relationships that would have dissipated without these technologies., – The key value of the paper lies in understanding this technology as an archive of human relationships. (shrink)