Justice, equality, and righteousness—these are some of our greatest moral convictions. Yet in times of social conflict, morals can become rigid, making religious war, ethnic cleansing, and political purges possible. Morality, therefore, can be viewed as pathology-a rhetorical, psychological, and social tool that is used and abused as a weapon. An expert on Eastern philosophies and social systems theory, Hans-Georg Moeller questions the perceived goodness of morality and those who claim morality is inherently positive. Critiquing the ethical "fanaticism" of Western (...) moralists, such as Immanuel Kant, Lawrence Kohlberg, John Rawls, and the utilitarians, Moeller points to the absurd fundamentalisms and impracticable prescriptions arising from definitions of good. Instead he advances a theory of "moral foolishness," or moral asceticism, extracted from the "amoral" philosophers of East Asia and such thinkers as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Niklas Luhmann. The moral fool doesn't understand why ethics are necessarily good, and he isn't convinced that the moral perspective is always positive. In this way he is like most people, and Moeller defends this foolishness against ethical pathologies that support the death penalty, just wars, and even Jerry Springer's crude moral theater. Comparing and contrasting the religious philosophies of Christianity, Daoism, and Zen Buddhism, Moeller presents a persuasive argument in favor of amorality. (shrink)

For centuries, the ancient Chinese philosophical text the _Daodejing (Tao Te Ching)_ has fascinated and frustrated its readers. While it offers a wealth of rich philosophical insights concerning the cultivation of one's body and attaining one's proper place within nature and the cosmos, its teachings and structure can be enigmatic and obscure. Hans-Georg Moeller presents a clear and coherent description and analysis of this vaguely understood Chinese classic. He explores the recurring images and ideas that shape the work and offers (...) a variety of useful approaches to understanding and appreciating this canonical text. Moeller expounds on the core philosophical issues addressed in the _Daodejing_, clarifying such crucial concepts as Yin and Yang and Dao and De. He explains its teachings on a variety of subjects, including sexuality, ethics, desire, cosmology, human nature, the emotions, time, death, and the death penalty. The _Daodejing_ also offers a distinctive ideal of social order and political leadership and presents a philosophy of war and peace. An illuminating exploration, The _Daodejing_ is an interesting foil to the philosophical outlook of Western humanism and contains surprising parallels between its teachings and nontraditional contemporary philosophies. (shrink)

Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) was a German sociologist and system theorist who wrote on law, economics, politics, art, religion, ecology, mass media, and love. Luhmann advocated a radical constructivism and antihumanism, or "grand theory," to explain society within a universal theoretical framework. Nevertheless, despite being an iconoclast, Luhmann is viewed as a political conservative. Hans-Georg Moeller challenges this legacy, repositioning Luhmann as an explosive thinker critical of Western humanism. Moeller focuses on Luhmann's shift from philosophy to theory, which introduced new perspectives (...) on the contemporary world. For centuries, the task of philosophy meant transforming contingency into necessity, in the sense that philosophy enabled an understanding of the necessity of everything that appeared contingent. Luhmann pursued the opposite--the transformation of necessity into contingency. Boldly breaking with the heritage of Western thought, Luhmann denied the central role of humans in social theory, particularly the possibility of autonomous agency. In this way, after Copernicus's cosmological, Darwin's biological, and Freud's psychological deconstructions of anthropocentrism, he added a sociological "fourth insult" to human vanity. A theoretical shift toward complex system-environment relations helped Luhmann "accidentally" solve one of Western philosophy's primary problems: mind-body dualism. By pulling communication into the mix, Luhmann rendered the Platonic dualist heritage obsolete. Moeller's clarity opens such formulations to general understanding and directly relates Luhmannian theory to contemporary social issues. He also captures for the first time a Luhmannian attitude toward society and life, defined through the cultivation of modesty, irony, and equanimity. (shrink)

Health is a value-laden concept. The state of being that it designates is a fundamental human goal. As a value, the concept is normative, governing both clinical practice and the therapeutic treatment developed by medical research. Also, the promise of health plays a pivotal role in health-policy discourse. Almut Caspary considers philosophical and theological concepts of health in the context of its practical significance, both in the past and today. This conceptual analysis culminates in a preliminary sketch of a (...) concept of health; focusing on the stem-cell debate, it offers a discriminating approach to contemporary ethical problems in medicine. "Gesundheit" ist ein wertgeladener Begriff. Er bezeichnet einen grundsatzlich wunschenswerten Zustand menschlicher Existenz, der das arztliche Handeln im klinischen Alltag leitet. Daruber hinaus werden (gesundheits-)politische Debatten mit Verweis auf den Nutzen fur die Gesundheit entschieden. Vor diesem Hintergrund setzt sich Almut Caspary epochenubergreifend mit philosophischen und theologischen Uberlegungen zur Gesundheit auseinander. Die konzeptuelle Diskussion erlaubt die Skizzierung eines Gesundheitsverstandnisses, das - wie am Beispiel der Stammzelldebatte gezeigt wird - ein differenziertes Abwagen in medizinethischen Konfliktfallen zulasst. (shrink)

The so-called quantum Zeno effect is essentially a consequence of the projection postulate for ideal measurements. To test the effect, Itanoet al. have performed an experiment on an ensemble of atoms where rapidly repeated level measurements were realized by means of short laser pulses. Using dynamical considerations, we give an explanation why the projection postulate can be applied in good approximation to such measurements. Corrections to ideal measurements are determined explicitly. This is used to discuss how far the experiment of (...) Itanoet al. can be considered as a test of the quantum Zeno effect. We also analyze a new possible experiment on a single atom where stochastic light and dark periods can be interpreted as manifestation of the quantum Zeno effect. We show that the measurement point of view gives a quick and intuitive understanding of experiments of the above type, although a finer analysis has to take the corrections into account. (shrink)

The strict distinction and separation of mind and body is a particularly modern Western point of view that is routinely also applied to other cultures. Arguing against this dichotomy, the following contribution builds upon research on "implicit knowledge" and "knowing how" that allow us to view body and mind in their interaction. The focus is on Simeon Stylites the Elder, the most prominent representative of the Syrian ascetic movement, who, in a spectacular way and after incessant exercise, was able to (...) act from a sphere of internalized body-knowledge. Selected texts on him dating from Late Antiquity will illustrate how the ascetic body was represented as a body of knowledge with which the idea of Christian perfection was to be fulfilled. (shrink)

Hermann Cohen’s essay on Maimonides’ ethics is one of the most fundamental texts of twentieth-century Jewish philosophy, correlating Platonic, prophetic, Maimonidean, and Kantian traditions. Almut Sh. Bruckstein provides the first English translation and her own extensive commentary on this landmark 1908 work, which inspired readings of medieval and rabbinic sources by Leo Strauss, Franz Rosenzweig, and Emmanuel Levinas. Cohen rejects the notion that we should try to understand texts of the past solely in the context of their own historical (...) era. Subverting the historical order, he interprets the ethical meanings of texts in the light of a future yet to be realized. He commits the entire Jewish tradition to a universal socialism prophetically inspired by ideals of humanity, peace, and universal justice. Through her own probing commentary on Cohen’s text, like the margin notes of a medieval treatise, Bruckstein performs the hermeneutical act that lies at the core of Cohen’s argument: she reads Jewish sources from a perspective that recognizes the interpretive act of commentary itself. (shrink)

Druck der Zensur, nicht Aufhebung der Zielvorstellungen ist die richtige Begründung für das Vorherrschen der ober-flächlichen Assoziationen. Die oberflächlichen Assoziationen ersetzen in der Darstellung die tiefen, wenn die Zensur diese normalen Verbindungswege ungangbar macht. Es ist, wie wenn ein allgemeines Verkehrshindernis, z.B. eine Überschwemmung, im Gebirge die großen und breiten Straßen unwegsam werden läßt; der Verkehr wird dann auf unbequemen und steilen Fußpfaden aufrechterhalten, die sonst nur der Jäger begangen hat.

Thema des Sammelbands ist der Zusammenhang von ubung und Wissen in religiosen und philosophischen Kontexten der Vormoderne. AN einzelnen regional und sozial differenzierten Fallbeispielen aus dem euro-asiatischen Raum werden ubungspraktiken, durch die Wissen hergestellt, vermittelt und bestatigt, aber auch hinterfragt und modifiziert wurde, klassifiziert und erortert. UNtersucht werden Materialien, Medien und Darstellungsweisen aus griechisch-romischer Philosophie, Christentum, Judentum und Islam, Hinduismus und Buddhismus, die von der wechselseitigen Verwiesenheit von ubung und Wissen zeugen. uBerlegungen zum Thema im Kontext globaler Austauschbeziehungen, wie sie (...) z.B. Den modernen Yoga pragen, runden den Band ab. (shrink)

Imagination: Cross-Cultural Philosophical Analyses is a rare intercultural inquiry into the conceptions and functions of the imagination in contemporary philosophy. Divided into East Asian, comparative, and post-comparative approaches, it brings together a leading team of philosophers to explore the concepts of the illusory and illusions, the development of fantastic narratives and metaphors, and the use of images and allegories across a broad range of traditions. Chapters discuss how imagination has been interpreted by thinkers such as Zhuangzi, Plato, Confucius, Heidegger, and (...) Nietzsche. By drawing on sources including Buddhist aesthetics, Daoism, and analytic philosophy of mind, this cross-cultural collection shows how the imagination can be an indispensable tool for the comparative philosopher, opening up new possibilities for intercultural dialogue and critical engagement. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 1 Seiten: 13-19.

Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 23 Heft: 2 Seiten: 48-62.

The adoption of the French Duty of Vigilance law has been celebrated as a milestone for advancing the transnational business and human rights regime. The law can contribute to harden corporate accountability by challenging the “separation principle” of transnational companies and by obligating companies to report on their duty of vigilance. However, the question of whether the law actually contributes to human rights and environmental protection along global supply chains requires empirically grounded research that connects processes in home and host (...) state countries. This paper contributes to such a new research agenda by linking political ecology literature and empirical insights from the Global South to research on due diligence regulations. With reference to field research data on contestations between the oil and gas company Total E&P and indigenous communities in Bolivia, I argue that the burden of proof and contestations over valid knowledge represent major obstacles when trying to establish legal liability. (shrink)

The speech of Gregory Thaumaturgus to the Christian scholar and theologian Origen is a historical document of unusual importance, both in terms of its content, depicting the master-student relationship of the time from the perspective of the student, and in terms of form, providing an actual implementation of the theory of rhetoric that was a cornerstone of higher education. Yet disagreement persists to this day in the scholarly literature over the generic classification of this first example of Christian epideictic oratory. (...) It is most frequently found categorized as a speech of thanksgiving, of praise, or of farewell. This paper discusses the grounds for the various definitions, examines the text itself in search of such grounds, and shows, in reference to two treatises on epideictic attributed to Menander Rhetor, why the most plausible classification is as a logos syntaktikos – a farewell speech, in which a traveler, by means of portraying and arousing emotion, laments the necessary parting and praises the person or people of whom leave is taken. (shrink)

Abstract„Erleuchtung“ ist einer der prominentesten Begriffe, mit dem in der europäischen Kultur- und Religionsgeschichte Ideen der Vervollkommnung des Menschen zum Ausdruck gebracht worden sind. Anhand ausgewählter Beispiele umreißt das vorliegende Papier seine Entwicklung von einer Metapher in der griechischen Philosophie hin zu einem transkonfessionellen Sammelbegriff, der im Zuge der Pluralisierung von Religionen seit den 1960er Jahren eine Konjunktur in neuen, durch Markt und Medien allgemein zugänglichen Sinnstiftungsangeboten der „populären Religion“ (Knoblauch) erfahren hat. In einer Tour d’horizon, die bei Platon einsetzt (...) und über Clemens von Alexandrien und Ps.-Dionysios Areopagita ins 18. Jahrhundert sowie in die Gegenwart führt, wird gezeigt, wie sich Vorstellungen von Licht und Erleuchtung und die Rede hierüber zu einem religiösen Begriff verdichtet haben, der über lange Zeit einen Ort im Christentum hatte, bevor er, begünstigt durch die Aufklärung, zu einer populären Kategorie wurde, die vor allem mit asiatischen, oder zumindest asiatisch inspirierten, Praktiken zur Erlangung von Heil in Verbindung gebracht wird. Der Beitrag rückt bei der Darstellung dieser Entwicklung in der Moderne Auswirkungen der Aufklärung in den Blick sowie asiatisch-euroamerikanische Beziehungsdynamiken der europäischen Kolonialzeit, die zur Entdeckung des Buddhismus als Religion führten. Haben diese doch maßgeblich dazu beigetragen, dass Erleuchtung im gegenwärtigen populären Verständnis, wie es sich beispielhaft in der sog. Satsang-Bewegung und populär-religiöser Erzähl- und Ratgeberliteratur findet, nicht mehr, wie in der neoplatonischchristlichen Prägung des Begriffs, als Zwischenstufe auf einem Weg zur Vervollkommnung gilt, sondern als Ziel und bleibender Besitz, der mit Vollendung assoziiert wird. (shrink)

In both ancient tradition and modern research Pythagoreanism has been understood as a religious sect or as a philosophical and scientific community. Numerous attempts have been made to reconcile these pictures as well as to analyze them separately. The most recent scholarship compartmentalizes different facets of Pythagorean knowledge, but this offers no context for exploring their origins, development, and interdependence. This collection aims to reverse this trend, addressing connections between the different fields of Pythagorean knowledge, such as eschatology, metempsychosis, metaphysics, (...) epistemology, arithmology and numerology, music, dietetics and medicine as well as politics. In particular, the contributions discuss how the Pythagorean way of life related to more doctrinal aspects of knowledge, such as Pythagorean religion and science. The volume explores the effects of this interdependence between different kinds of knowledge both within the Pythagorean corpus and in its later reception. Chapters cover historical periods from the Archaic Period (6th century BC) to Neoplatonism, Early Christianity, the European and Arabic Middle Ages, and the Renaissance through to the Early Modern Period (17th century AD). (shrink)

Self-deception is an important construct in social, personality, and clinical literatures. Although historical and clinical views of self-deception have regarded it as defensive in nature and operation, modern views of this individual difference variable instead highlight its apparent benefits to subjective mental health. The present four studies reinforce the latter view by showing that self-deception predicts positive priming effects, but not negative priming effects, in reaction time tasks sensitive to individual differences in affective priming. In all studies, individuals higher in (...) self-deception displayed stronger positive priming effects, defined in terms of facilitation with two positive stimuli in a consecutive sequence, but self-deception did not predict negative priming effects in the same tasks. Importantly, these effects occurred both in tasks that called for the retrieval of self-knowledge (Study 1) and those that did not (Studies 2–4). This broad pattern supports substantive views of self-deception rather than views narrowly focused on self-presentation processes. Implications for understanding self-deception are discussed. (shrink)

This paper explores in detail an argument for epistemic expressivism, what we call the Argument from Motivation. While the Argument from Motivation has sometimes been anticipated, it has never been set out in detail. The argument has three premises, roughly, that certain judgments expressed in attributions of knowledge are intrinsically motivating in a distinct way (P1); that motivation for action requires desire-like states or conative attitudes (HTM); and that the semantic content of knowledge attributions cannot be specified without reference to (...) the intrinsically motivating judgments that such attributions express (P2). We argue that these premises entail a version of ecumenical expressivism. Since the argument from motivation has not been explicitly stated before, there is no current discussion of the argument. In this paper we therefore consider and reject various objections that one might propose to the argument, including some that stem from the idea that knowledge is factive, or that knowledge involves evidence that rules out relevant alternatives. Other objections to (P1) specifically might be derived from cases of apparent lack of epistemic motivation considered in in Kvanvig (The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding, 2003) and Brown (Nous 42(2):167–189, 2008), as well as from general forms of externalism about epistemic motivation. We consider these and find them wanting. Finally, the paper offers some critical remarks about the prospect of denying (P2). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:preface The essays in this special issue on Indigenous Feminisms in Settler Contexts engage feminist politics from multiple Indigenous geographies, histories, and standpoints. What emerges is a panoramic view of Indigenous feminist scholarship’s conceptual, linguistic, and artistic activism at this moment in time. We learn of praxis aimed at reclaiming Indigenous languages and ecological perspectives and the varied modes of resistance, survivance, and persistence. We also unpack the complex (...) racial/gender politics of colonial encounters in contexts where white women cared intimately for Indigenous children, or where they helped to recover Indigenous oral traditions, and we note how modes of help can also reproduce imperial power relations. Some essays, art works, and poems extend the geographic ambit of critiques of settler colonialism beyond American contexts: they deploy feminist rubrics to critique the continuing violent settlement of Palestine and Kashmir to demonstrate that the occupation of “marginal” places is constitutive of state-​ society relations; others describe how Australian Aboriginal and Sámi artists engage the question of Indigenous visibility. In different ways, they each show how staying in place, against all odds, can be radical. Our first two articles examine the politics of praxis. Michelle M. Jacob, Virginia R. Beavert, Regan Anderson, Leilani Sabzalian, and Joana Jansen analyze Indigenous feminist praxis surrounding Ichishkíin Indigenous language education. The “artivism” of Sámi artists Maxida 284Preface and Timimie Märak, which expresses concern for land and water rights, gender and sexuality, and Indigenous rights in Northern Europe takes center stage in Kyle Bladow’s essay. The next three articles interrogate historical records shaping Indigenous lives in northern Canada, southwest Pacific, and southwestern United States and Mexico. Val Marie Johnson examines how white women staff members’ intimate care relations at residential schools for Inuvialuit, Inuinnait, and Iñupiat peoples in Canada were bound up with the latter’s dispossession. Carolyn J. Eichner recounts the encounter between the Indigenous Kanak people and Louise Michel, a feminist and participant in the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871 who was banished to New Caledonia for seven years; Eichner argues that although Michel was staunchly anti-imperialist, her liberatory political project bore the temporal logics of colonization. Drawing on examples of Nahua reconfigurations of Christian scripture, Kenna Neitch proposes the language of “persistence” as a heuristic for avoiding the reactive, relational connotations that can pervade scholarly usages of “resistance” rhetoric. Next, our review essay by Jennifer McLerran describes recent Indigenous feminist scholarship that recasts the concept of sovereignty. Our News and Views piece focuses on modalities of occupation in the context of Kashmir: Nosheen Ali, Mona Bhan, Sahana Ghosh, Hafsa Kanjwal, Zunaira Komal, Deepti Misri, Shruti Mukherjee, Nishant Upadhyay, Saiba Varma, and Ather Zia argue that occupation is foundational to the making and reproduction of nationstates, and not exceptional to state power. The varied forms of resistance to occupation are examined by Sara Ihmoud in her article about how a group of Palestinian women, the Murabitat al-Haram, agitate for religious freedom simply by “staying in place.” Rabab Abdulhadi comments on shifts in contemporary settler colonial discourse in Israel, noting the increasingly overt and unapologetic deployment of highly sexualized and gendered images. Marina Tyquiengco examines the art of Australian Aboriginal artist Fiona Foley, specifically her Black Velvet series. Art and myth are also fused in Shantell Powell’s textual and visual rendering of Inuit memory. This issue features a range of poetry on topics such as language loss, human-land relationships, and sexual violence, written by Katherine Agyemaa Agard, Kei Kaimana, and Kai Minosh Pyle, and curated by our creative writing editor, Alexis Pauline Gumbs. In “Átaw Iwá Ichishkíin Sínwit: The Importance of Ichishkíin Language in Advancing Indigenous Feminist Education,” Michelle M. Jacob, Preface 285 Virginia R. Beavert, Regan Anderson, Leilani Sabzalian, and Joana Jansen examine Indigenous feminist praxis surrounding Ichishkíin-language education. They critique how Western education systems inflict pernicious forms of violence within Native communities, engaging in practices of linguistic genocide and alienating Indigenous peoples from their homelands. In response, Native peoples, along with non-Native allies, are engaging in educational and political activism to reclaim and revitalize Indigenous languages and ecological perspectives. In examining the foundational teaching of Ichishk... (shrink)

This book presents an innovative reading of Daoist philosophy that highlights the critical and therapeutic functions of satire and humor. Moeller and D'Ambrosio show how the Zhuangzi expounds the Daoist art of "genuine pretending" the paradoxical skill of enacting social roles without submitting to them or letting them define one's identity.