Everyday Aesthetics was born in the 21 st Century as a sub-discipline of Anglo-American Aesthetics and it has spread in the international debate. However, the contribute of historical perspective has not properly explored yet. Is it possible to trace the history of everyday aesthetics before the official birth of this discipline? I will try and give an affirmative answer by focusing on an exemplary category: that of the decorum. Using the history of ideas, I will analyse the Greek concept (...) of prepon and the similar Latin concepts of decorum which express the idea of ‘convenience’ or ‘fitness to purpose’ in the ethical and rhetorical sphere. Later I will analyse the evolution of the concept of decorum in the theory of Ancient and Renaissance architecture. My goal is to demonstrate that in Ancient and Renaissance culture decorum is a category that refers to the objects and practices of everyday life but also a principle that regulates appropriate behaviour in the sphere of good manners. Consequently, given its pervasiveness in the different areas of everyday life, the concept of decorum can be a paradigmatic example to trace the history of everyday aesthetics. (shrink)

Everyday Aesthetics was born in the 21 st Century as a sub-discipline of Anglo-American Aesthetics and it has spread in the international debate. However, the contribute of historical perspective has not properly explored yet. Is it possible to trace the history of everyday aesthetics before the official birth of this discipline? I will try and give an affirmative answer by focusing on an exemplary category: that of the decorum. Using the history of ideas, I will analyse the Greek concept (...) of prepon and the similar Latin concepts of decorum which express the idea of ‘convenience’ or ‘fitness to purpose’ in the ethical and rhetorical sphere. Later I will analyse the evolution of the concept of decorum in the theory of Ancient and Renaissance architecture (Vitruvius, Leon Battista Alberti). My goal is to demonstrate that in Ancient and Renaissance culture decorum is a category that refers to the objects and practices of everyday life but also a principle that regulates appropriate behaviour in the sphere of good manners. Consequently, given its pervasiveness in the different areas of everyday life, the concept of decorum can be a paradigmatic example to trace the history of everyday aesthetics. (shrink)

This paper explores an important problem in political theory and a central issue in the study of Cicero’s thought: the tension between philosophy and rhetoric. Through an exploration of the virtue of decorum in Cicero’s rhetorical thought (chiefly On the Ideal Orator and Orator) and in his moral philosophy (On Duties), I argue that the virtue of decorum provides an external check on both speech and action rooted in humans’ rational nature. Given the roots of decorum in (...) humans’ rational nature and the natural law, the desire to meet our audience’s approval does not involve Cicero in a sophistic approach to rhetoric. Rather, the desire to observe decorum provides the orator and his audience with standards of judgement that transcend mere taste and reflect underlying moral knowledge. (shrink)

El artículo aborda una aplicación pedagógica del recurso retórico clásico del decorum en la pedagogía agustiniana. Se ofrece en primer lugar una introducción a la formación retórica agustiniana para posteriormente hacer un recorrido de la obra del Obispo de Hipona, deteniéndose en dos de los así llamados “Diálogos de Casiciaco”, concretamente en el De ordine, y el contra Académicos. El artículo analiza también desde la perspectiva del decorum la ep. 29, destacando cómo el Obispo de Hipona aplica dicho (...) recurso retórico a la solución de conflictos. Se aborda, asimismo, el De catechizandis rudibus, en donde el decorum, desde una perspectiva pedagógica agustiniana significa poner al alumno en la sintonía de la enseñanza, ya que según el Hiponate, es preciso “conectar para enseñar”. Finalmente aborda desde esta misma perspectiva el s. Dolbeau 5, 11 (= s. 114B ). (shrink)

In this essay I ask what it means to judge a work of art as failing to depict its subject in an appropriate way. I refer to such a judgment, when applied to visual art, as one of pictorial decorum, a notion that draws on ancient and early modern ideas of literary or poetic decorum. At play are two kinds of normativity. One intuition, of ancient vintage, is that a work of art may qua art be appropriately subject (...) to general standards of evaluation that we apply to non-art objects, states of affairs, events and persons generally. The other—apparently contrary—intuition is associated with modern conceptions of the fine arts: works of art are appropriately evaluated qua art only with reference to a specific kind of value, that is, artistic value. These intuitions are widely held to be incompatible. What I want to show is that far from being inconsistent, the former intuition can be preserved and defended in a framework supplied by the latter. (shrink)

Within the context of his epochal distinction between the sphere of law and of morals, of iustum and honestum, Christian Thomasius introduces a further category of conduct rules, which relate to so-called decorum, to good and proper behavior. They teach the individual how to behave socially, and have a stabilizing effect on society. As Thomasius distinguishes between a natural-law oriented, and thus for all individuals equal, natural decorum and a decorum politicum, which is oriented toward actual practices (...) and feudal order, he seems to waver between stabilizing and challenging then current feudalism. This impression weakens if one realizes that although Thomasius, in contrast to Cicero, undertook to demoralize decorum, still he accepted Cicero's theory of social roles. In the context of the actor's own interests, decorum covers those areas of social regulation that are not included within positive law seen as a means of coercive command. It is here that decorum is interesting systematically.Im Kontext seiner historischen Trennung der Sphären des Rechts und der Moral, des Iustum vom Honestum, führt Christian Thomasius noch eine weitere Kategorie von Verhaltensregeln ein, die zum sog. Decorum gehören, zur Wohlanständigkeit, welche die Menschen lehrt, in der Gesellschaft voranzukommen und für die Gesellschaft stabilisierende Wirkung besitzt. Da Thomasius zwischen einem naturrechtsnahen und daher für alle Menschen gleichen natürlichen Decorum und einem an die faktischen Sitten und die ständische Ordnung angelehnten Decorum politicum unterscheidet, scheint er zwischen einer Stabilisierung und einer Infragestellung der Ständegesellschaft zu schwanken. Dieser Eindruck schwächt sich ab, wenn man bedenkt, daß Thomasius gegenüber Cicero zwar eine Entmoralisierung des Decorum vornimmt, jedoch dessen Lehre der sozialen Rollen aufgreift. Das Decorum erfaßt unter Rückgriff auf des Eigeninteresse der Akteure jenen Bereich sozialer Regulierung, der von dem als Zwangsbefehl gedeuteten positiven Recht nicht berücksichtigt wird. Darin liegt sein systematisches Interesse. (shrink)

If we supply a missing connection in the master text of English Renaissance poetic theory, we can bring the dilemma posed by political poetry into sharp relief. Sidney’s Defence of Poesie seeks to confirm the supremacy of the poet’s power over human minds by invoking the celebrated three-way distinction between poetry, philosophy, and history in the Poetics. According to Sidney, the proper question to ask of poetry is not “whether it were better to have a particular act truly or falsely (...) set down” but “whether it be better to have it set down as it should be, … for your own use and learning.” On this criterion, the philosopher shows himself too devoted to “knowledge” that “standeth upon the abstract and general,” to the “precept,” to “what should be.” The historian attends too much to “the particular truth of things and not to the general reason of things,” to the “example,” to “what is.” Only the poet “coupleth the general notion with the particular example” in “the speaking picture of poesy,” thus synthesizing through his “imaginative and judging power” the best that the philosophical and historical domains can offer. “Aristotle himself,” concludes Sidney, “plainly determineth this question, saying that poetry … is more philosophical and more studiously serious than history … because poesy dealeth with … the universal consideration, and the history with … the particular.” Yet in mounting his Defence of Poesie, Sidney fails to give due force to a related and equally important distinction drawn from the Poetics. Aristotle ranks poetry below philosophy—and, by implication, history as well—at the crucial juncture where ontology and epistemology meet. He exclusively credits philosophical universals with rational “necessity.” Poetic universals are recognized as having imaginative “likelihood,” but no more than this.1 Under this second three-way distinction, the domain proper to poetry turns out to be neither the realm of historical fact nor that of philosophical truth but some half-region of the truthlike, the verisimilar, disjoint from the plane of knowledge.[…]Milton coped with the questions intrinsic to political poetry during the decade from 1642 to 1652 when he rose to prominence as a pamphleteer on public issued and concurrently pioneered the writing of political sonnets in English. This essay examines the responses he made, in part in his prose but mainly in the composition of seven sonnets. Political poems in a root sense, these sonnets concern themselves with human agency channeled into the functions of the state, with power manifested through governance. After exploratory and uneven beginnings, the group as a whole goes a fair way toward vindicating the enterprise of political poetry and offering one set of criteria for a good political poem. 1. The core distinctions are drawn by Aristotle in chap. 9, secs. 2-4, of the Poetics; also see chap. 1, sec. 1 of the Topics on the distinction between demonstration, based on reasoning from true knowledge, and dialectic, based on reasoning from what is generally accepted as probable. The quotations in this paragraph are from Sidney: A Defence of Poetry, ed. J. A. Van Dorsten , pp. 35, 32, 33, 35. Janel Mueller is professor of English and humanities at the University of Chicago. She has published mainly on poetry and prose of the earlier English Renaissance, culminating in her book The Native Tongue and the Word: Developments in English Prose Style, 1380-1580. An interest in Milton, however, has drawn her more recently to work in the later part of this period. She is writing a book on nature, culture, and gender in Milton’s major poems. (shrink)

Daniel KapustUniversidad de Wisconsin-Madison, USA.

This volume moves beyond ethics as problem-solving or ethics as etiquette to offer a look at ethics in primary care—as opposed to life-or-death—medical care. Professional Ethics and Primary Care Medicine deals with the ethics of routine, day-to-day encounters between doctors and patients. It probes beneath the hard decisions to look at the moral frameworks, habits of thought, and customs of practice that underlie choices. Harmon Smith and Larry Churchill argue that primary care, far from being merely a setting for the (...) rendering of care, provides a new understanding of both physician and patient, and thereby offers a fresh basis for medical ethics. (shrink)

Represented as the face of Venice, the houses of the Grand Canal were used during the Renaissance to support the portrayal of the Venetian Republic's unique structure of governance. Paolo Paruta's dialogue, Della perfettione della vita politica, a work of political theory on the Venetian Republic, is one such text used here to examine how in a changing context of modernization, architecture has been presented as a representation of state. Paruta's use of architecture as a representation of state was conceptually (...) different from those earlier writers such as Gasparo Contarini who presented the uniqueness of Venice's social qualities through its orderly governance and law. Fundamental to Paruta's incorporation of architecture to the conceptualization of Venice was Daniele Barbaro's interpretation of Vitruvius’ representation of the body-of-state, being reflected in the architectural makeup of the city. However, Vitruvius’ text, De architectura, described the monarch's body reflected in the architecture and urban strategies of the late Roman Republic. Paruta's use of the text and of Daniele Barbaro aimed to transfer these values to the Venetian Republic and its social formations. Subtly forging links between the radicalism of Doge Andrea Gritti's renovatio programmes and the power struggles of the young patricians, Paruta's aim for architecture was to support the preservation of Venetian values as distinct from those of Rome. Indications are that Paruta's message was understood. To examine the comprehensibility of Paruta's political propositions, his terms and arguments are analysed in the context of three different architectural composition types used in Venetian houses of the mid-sixteenth century. (shrink)

La responsabilidad ética de las acciones de un hombre que pudiera tornarse invisible reabre en Cicerón el debate entre lo honestum y lo utile y con él la necesidad de presentar un modelo de ciudadano que vincule elementos políticos, éticos y jurídicos en orden a la conservación de una serie de valores necesarios para la convivencia. Dicho modelo se presenta en De officiis como una traducción de la filosofía de Panecio en la que el complejo término decorum adquiere una (...) dimensión central. El artículo analiza dicho concepto y la posición que ocupa en el pensamiento político ciceroniano la imitación de los exempla virtutis como forma de garantizar la estabilidad política en un momento de grave crisis de los valores republicanos. (shrink)

The myth of an economy where nobody could have a predominant position, has lost its credibility. The presentiment of a high risk of social explosion makes companies undertake tentative moral legitimation. Thus, a new paradigm develops according to which the firm has to care for the satisfaction of public interest if it wants to try to win forgiveness for misbehavior towards the decorum rules of the atomicity of competition. Thus, there is a wave of business ethics industry building up. (...) However, the stock exchange performances considered as ethical, are not different from others! The market does not seem to be able to say why it might be interesting to invest in stock considered as ethical. Moreover, opinion polls reveal a very significant discrepancy between the characterization of the responsible company as defined by itself or by notation agencies and, on the other hand, the hierarchy of criteria according to the answers of polled people. When companies and agencies favor sustainable development and good governance, rejecting child labor and so on, polled people consider that the paramount criterion of ethical conduct is personnel management. The problem is right here. Such is the view of a positively critical economist, situated at the point where macroeconomics meets corporate management. (shrink)

Compiled by disciples of Confucius in the centuries following his death in 479 B.C.E., _The Analects of Confucius_ is a collection of aphorisms and historical anecdotes embodying the basic values of the Confucian tradition: learning, morality, ritual decorum, and filial piety. Reflecting the model eras of Chinese antiquity, the Analects offers valuable insights into successful governance and the ideal organization of society. Filled with humor and sarcasm, it reads like a casual conversation between teacher and student, emphasizing the role (...) of the individual in the attainment of knowledge and the value of using historical events and people to illuminate moral and political concepts. Confucius's teachings focus on cultural and peaceful pursuits and the characteristics of benevolent and culturally distinguished government. He also discusses ancestor worship and other rites performed for the spirits of the dead. The single most influential philosophical work in all of Chinese history, _The Analects of Confucius_ has shaped the thought and customs of China and neighboring countries for centuries. Burton Watson's concise translation uses the pinyin romanization system and keeps explanatory notes to a minimum, yet his intimate knowledge of the Confucian tradition and precise attention to linguistic detail capture the original text's elegance, cogency, and wit. (shrink)

Li (禮) and yi (義) are two central moral concepts in the Analects. Li has a broad semantic range, referring to formal ceremonial rituals on the one hand, and basic rules of personal decorum on the other. What is similar across the range of referents is that the li comprise strictures of correct behavior. The li are a distinguishing characteristic of Confucian approaches to ethics and socio-political thought, a set of rules and protocols that were thought to constitute the (...) wise practices of ancient moral exemplars filtered down through dynasties of the past. However, even while the li were extensive and meant to be followed diligently, they were also understood as incapable of exhausting the whole range of activity that constitutes human life. There were bound to be situations in life where there would be no obvious recourse to the li for guidance. As part of their reflections on the good life, the Confucians maintained another moral concept that seemed to cover morally upright exemplary behavior in these types of situations. This concept is that of yi or rightness. In this chapter, I begin with a brief historical sketch to provide some context, and will then turn to li and yi in turn. In the end, I will suggest how li and yi were both meant to facilitate the supreme value of social harmony that pervades much of the Analects and serves as its ultimate orientation. (shrink)

At Columbia University in 1906, William James gave a highly confrontational speech to the American Philosophical Association (APA). He ignored the technical philosophical questions the audience had gathered to discuss and instead addressed the topic of human energy. Tramping on the rules of academic decorum, James invoked the work of amateurs, read testimonials on the benefits of yoga and alcohol, and concluded by urging his listeners to take up this psychological and physiological problem. What was the goal of this (...) unusual speech? Rather than an oddity, Francesca Bordogna asserts that the APA address was emblematic—it was just one of many gestures that James employed as he plowed through the barriers between academic, popular, and pseudoscience, as well as the newly emergent borders between the study of philosophy, psychology, and the “science of man.” Bordogna reveals that James’s trespassing of boundaries was an essential element of a broader intellectual and social project. By crisscrossing divides, she argues, James imagined a new social configuration of knowledge, a better society, and a new vision of the human self. As the academy moves toward an increasingly interdisciplinary future, William James at the Boundaries reintroduces readers to a seminal influence on the way knowledge is pursued. (shrink)

There are few institutions that talk about virtues as much as military organizations. These military virtues are not, however, possessed by individuals in isolation; they are inculcated and influenced by the countless ways in which values are shared, both among military members and between individuals and the military itself. Unfortunately, a normative framework that is extremely well-suited to capture this significant link between individual virtue and shared valuing, namely Confucian virtue theory, is too often underappreciated in militaries in general and (...) in military moral education in particular. Focusing on the normative significance of ritual and decorum, I analyze this shortcoming and consider how more explicitly incorporating Confucian virtue theory into military education could provide a sturdier foundation for the essential link between individual virtue and collective valuing. -/- Analyzing the Confucian the virtue of princispled ritual etiquette (li 禮), I demonstrate that while such attention to ritual might seem questionable when considering the classic rituals often used as examples, once the pervasive presence of military rituals becomes apparent, such attention to principled ritual etiquette begins to seem far less anachronistic. Analyzing principled ritual etiquette in relationship to righteousness (yi 義) and benevolence (ren 仁), I argue that Confucian virtue theory provides a significant and distinct way to analyze modern military virtues, concluding with an analysis of how that framework can highlight the significance of ritualistic behavior on virtue development without promoting excessive and corrosive subservience. -/- . (shrink)

Compiled by disciples of Confucius in the centuries following his death in 479 B.C.E., _The Analects of Confucius_ is a collection of aphorisms and historical anecdotes embodying the basic values of the Confucian tradition: learning, morality, ritual decorum, and filial piety. Reflecting the model eras of Chinese antiquity, the Analects offers valuable insights into successful governance and the ideal organization of society. Filled with humor and sarcasm, it reads like a casual conversation between teacher and student, emphasizing the role (...) of the individual in the attainment of knowledge and the value of using historical events and people to illuminate moral and political concepts. Confucius's teachings focus on cultural and peaceful pursuits and the characteristics of benevolent and culturally distinguished government. He also discusses ancestor worship and other rites performed for the spirits of the dead. The single most influential philosophical work in all of Chinese history, _The Analects of Confucius_ has shaped the thought and customs of China and neighboring countries for centuries. Burton Watson's concise translation uses the pinyin romanization system and keeps explanatory notes to a minimum, yet his intimate knowledge of the Confucian tradition and precise attention to linguistic detail capture the original text's elegance, cogency, and wit. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: The Portrait of a Miniature Giant PAUL BAROLSKY There was a time when the art of the sixteenth -century Florentine painter Agnolo Bronzino was reviled for its aesthetic excesses. Writing in his classic “The Cicerone: An Art Guide to Painting in Italy,” the great nineteenth -century scholar Jacob Burckhardt wrote that “as an historical painter,” Bronzino must “be placed among the Mannerists,” a judgement equivalent to placing him (...) in an art historical hell. But, Burckhardt added, “as a portrait painter, he is inferior to none of his contemporaries, not even the Venetians.” Given the fact that among the Venetians, Titian is one of the great portrait painters, this is astonishingly high praise. Nowadays, it is not uncommon for art historians, appreciating Mannerism, to celebrate the elegance and preciosity of Bronzino’s exquisite portraits. Of all Bronzino’s portraits, that of the dwarf Morgante is one of the most beguiling. It is distinctive in so many ways. This picture is the subject of a remarkable book by the Israeli art historian Sefy Hendler, Gracious and Beautiful Monster : The Literary Universe of Bronzino’s Nano Morgante, which is an exceptional piece of scholarship. Different aspects of his book have influenced various scholars who have written about the picture and who have fruitfully exploited its various details. What needs to be appreciated, however, is the way in which this book brings out the extraordinary synthetic character of Bronzino’s strange painting and the diarion 28.3 winter 2021 Sefy Hendler, Gracious and Beautiful Monster: The Literary Universe of Bronzino’s Nano Morgante, Maschietto Editore, 2016. 158 the portrait of a miniature giant versity of ways in which it belongs to the courtly culture in which it was painted. The beauty of Hendler’s seemingly all-encompassing book is that it tells a fascinating and highly entertaining story with admirable brevity in just over seventy pages. Hendler, who packs a great deal of deeply absorbing information and insight into his slim and learned volume, is sensitive to the sentiment of Peter Whiffle’s well-known dictum: “You cannot begin not to tell until you know more than you are willing to impart.” Hendler’s exquisitely concise story concerns a favorite dwarf of Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, one Braccio di Bartolo in Poggio di Fornione, who flourished at the ducal court in the middle years of the sixteenth-century. Bronzino painted the dwarf for the Duke in 1552. His sometime rival, Giorgio Vasari, painter, architect, and biographer, described the picture as “beautiful and marvelous” in his Lives of the artists. The painting is double-sided, featuring a frontal view of the naked dwarf on the recto of the canvas (fig. 1) and a rear view of the dwarf, similarly exposed on the verso (fig. 2), where the dwarf’s backside dominates the composition. (We might well observe here that Bronzino specialized lasciviously in painting the culo (witness the coy Cupid in his famous Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time). It is therefore not surprising that the anatomical backside rendered over and over again in Italian Renaissance art, with all its connotations, sexual and otherwise, has recently been the subject of a considerable body of scholarship. Hendler, himself writing on various writers of the period, offers little hints into the psycho-sexual dimension of Bronzino’s picture. Its depiction of so many birds leads inevitably to a consideration of the word “bird” in its sexual dimension. Enough said. If Morgante’s posterior is manifest on the verso, the recto of the painting has its own special interest. A butterfly flies by the dwarf directly and conveniently in front of his genitals—a coy if not teasing gesture of decorum. The portrait once hung in the Palazzo Vecchio, which had become a ducal residence. In recent years it has moved around quite a bit, settling in the Galleria Palatina of the Palazzo Pitti, once a ducal residence. Vasari’s description of the picture is not without a certain iro- Paul Barolsky 159 ny, since the beautiful form of the painting as painting stands in opposition to the less than beautiful dwarf. The writer Anton Francesco Grazzini captured this paradox in his poem on the occasion of the death... (shrink)

The modern concept of ‘style’ – from which ‘stylistics’ is derived, a discipline that witnessed the quarrel between Linguistics and Literary studies in the 20th century – has inherited from Ancient Rhetoric its substance (figures and tropes) and was largely used as a direct translation from the Latin concept ‘elocutio’ (especially in Demetrius’ treatise De elocutione [Περὶ ἑρμηνείας]) and also as a translation for Greek concepts (usually indirectly), such as ἑρμηνεία, λέξις and φράσις. There are still some other concepts that (...) seem intimately connected to ‘style’, for instance ‘ornatum’ and ‘decorum’. Considering that classical references of ‘style’ present themselves essential to write the history of this modern concept, this paper seeks to present a catalog of ancient concepts that have found in ‘style’ (in English and French) their traditional translation, as well as attempting to build a short history of each of these translation paths. (shrink)

Introduction: Laughter as an expression of human nature in the Middle Ages and the early modern period: literary, historical, theological, philosophical, and psychological reflections -- Judith Hagen. Laughter in Procopius's wars -- Livnat Holtzman. "Does God really laugh?": appropriate and inappropriate descriptions of God in Islamic traditionalist theology -- Daniel F. Pigg. Laughter in Beowulf: ambiguity, ambivalence, and group identity formation -- Mark Burde. The parodia sacra problem and medieval comic studies -- Olga V. Trokhimenko. Women's laughter and gender politics (...) in medieval conduct discourse -- Madelon Köhler-Busch. Pushing decorum: uneasy laughter in Heinrich von Dem Türlîn's Diu crône -- Connie L. Scarborough. Laughter and the comic in a religious text -- John Sewell. The son rebelled and so the father made man alone: ridicule and boundary maintenance in The Nizzahon vetus -- Birgit Wiedl. Laughing at the beast: the judensau: anti-Jewish propaganda and humor from the Middle Ages to the early modern period -- Fabian Alfie. Yes . . . but was it funny? Cecco Angiolieri, Rustico Filippi and Giovanni Boccaccio -- Nicolino Applauso. Curses and laughter in medieval Italian comic poetry -- Feargal Béarra. Tromdhámh guaire: a context for laughter and audience in early modern Ireland -- Jean E. Jost. Humorous transgression in the non-conformist fabliaux: a Bakhtinian analysis of three comic tales -- Gretchen Mieszkowski. Chaucerian comedy: Troilus and Criseyde -- Sarah Gordon. Laughing and eating in the fabliaux -- Christine Bousquet-Labouérie. Laughter and medieval stalls -- Scott L. Taylor. Esoteric humor and the incommensurability of laughter -- Jean N. Goodrich. The function of laughter in The second shepherds' play -- Albrecht Classen. Laughing in late-medieval verse and prose narratives -- Rosa Alvarez perez. The workings of desire: Panurge and the dogs -- Elizabeth Chesney Zegura. Laughing out loud in the Heptaméron: a reassessment of Marguerite de Navarre's ambivalent humor -- Lia B. Ross. You had to be there: the elusive humor of the Sottie -- Kyle Diroberto. Sacred parody in Robert Greene's Groatsworth of wit -- Martha Moffitt Peacock. The comedy of the shrew: theorizing humor in early modern Netherlandish art -- Jessica Tvordi. The comic personas of Milton's Prolusion VI: negotiating masculine identity through self-directed humor -- John Alexander. Ridentum dicere verum (using laughter to speak the truth): laughter and the language of the early modern clown "pickelhering" in German literature of the late seventeenth century (1675-1700) -- Thomas Willard. Andreae's ludibrium: Menippean satire in The chymische hochzeit -- Diane Rudall. The comic power of illusion-allusion -- Allison P. Coudert. Laughing at credulity and superstition in the long eighteenth century. (shrink)

Este artículo trata de la distinción entre órdenes y consejos en la filosofía práctica moderna como doctrina de deberes. La distinción juega un papel esencial en el pensamiento cristiano de Thomasius por su diferenciación entre las distintas esferas de la vida práctica, iustum, honestum y decorum, por ejemplo, las esferas de la ley , ética correcta e incoercible comportamiento externo —con significado ético—, incluyendo las buenas maneras . En la filosofía práctica de Kant, la distinción entre mandatos y consejos (...) corresponde a la distinción entre moralidad y prudencia como búsqueda de la felicidad. La vida moral está regida por la ley moral y por la idea del deber, que organiza en su propia perspectiva los otros aspectos de la actividad práctica y los diferentes tipos de deberes. Según pasó el tiempo, Kant estaba cada vez más interesado en la realización histórica de la moralidad como Moralisierung a través de la promoción de sus condiciones externas como la coexistencia pacífica a través de la ley jurídica y el desarrollo de las relaciones intersubjetivas a través de Zivilisierung y buenas maneras. La doctrina de los deberes de Kant y del siglo dieciocho no deja espacio para una moralidad más allá del deber como supererogation, un concepto que ha recibido una nueva atención en el debate contemporáneo moral y puede seguir siendo discutido en una perspectiva kantiana. (shrink)

ArgumentThe paper explores the use of Freud's methods of dream interpretation by four English writers of the early twentieth century: T. H. Pear, W. H. R. Rivers, Ernest Jones, and Alix Strachey. Each employed their own dreams in rather different ways: as part of an assessment of Freud's work as a psychological theory, as illustrative of the cogency of Freud's method and theories as part of the psychoanalytic process. Each adopted different approaches to the question of privacy and decorum. (...) The paper argues that assessment of the impact of Freud's work must take account of the application of the method to the researcher's own dreams and the personal impact this process of analysis had upon them, and must also gauge how the dreamers' deployment of Freud's methods influenced their explicit relationship to him and his theories.The dream, then, is the chief gate by which we can enter into the knowledge of the unconscious…. Thoughts and desires, which, if they attempted to dominate consciousness in waking life, would be promptly suppressed, arise, develop and expand to an astonishing extent in the dream.This statement, of course, is entirely independent of the implications of any one “theory of dreams.” Its truth is evident to anyone who has honestly recorded or considered his own dreams for even a short period. (shrink)

This article describes how cc. 39 and 37 create distinct tones of voice and use them to preclude the social pretensions of Egnatius in different spheres. The style of c. 39, markedly oratorical—and non-Catullan—in the syntax of its opening lines, develops into the voice of a respectable senex by way of archaisms of vocabulary and syntax and is capped by a figure of humor otherwise absent from the polymetrics, the apologus. The style thus creates a voice perfectly suited to chastise (...) Egnatius' social ineptitudes and, more importantly, constitutes on the verbal level an embodiment of the standards of the urban elite. Catullus thus illustrates to Egnatius that a subtle system of social gestures can be learned - something which Egnatius, for all his apparent pretensions to social prominence, manifestly has not grasped, marred as he is by the habit of grinning inappropriately. C. 37, which ends with an attack on the same Egnatius, is far different in tone, commingling tokens of artfulness with vulgarity and forcefulness. That mixed style exercises ironic decorum towards Lesbia's lovers, who are themselves an oddly mixed group, well-off on the one hand, but "backstreet adulterers" on the other. But the two tones of voice, and indeed the two groups of lovers, also embody the paradoxes of the Roman construction of stylish behavior, which could be represented as elegant dalliance or reprehensible vice. Inasmuch as Egnatius' fashion affectations, ridiculed at the poem's end, fail to qualify him for the ranks of Lesbia's lovers, he is represented as outside sophisticated society, however it be constructed. In concert the two poems utterly derail Egnatius' social pretensions: c. 39 as it were outflanks him on the "right," barring him from respectable society, and c. 37 outflanks him on the "left," barring him from the "jet set.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Salonnières and the Philosophes in Old Regime France: The Authority of Aesthetic Judgment*Jolanta T. PekaczDuring the eighteenth century a significant shift occurred in the perception of the authority of aesthetic judgment in France, from a group usually referred to as “polite society” and widely considered the exclusive source of taste (goût) to various competing groups arrogating to themselves the right to judge artistic matters. 1 In the present (...) article I discuss the changing recognition of the genders as arbiters of taste, exemplified by Parisian salonnières on the one hand, and the philosophes on the other, during two eighteenth-century quarrels over the French and Italian operas: the Querelle des Bouffons in the 1750s and the controversy between Gluckistes and Piccinistes in the 1770s. I argue that by the end of the 1770s, as a result of the collapse of the old paradigm of “polite society” of which salons were a part, Parisian salon women lost the position (however illusory it might have been) which they enjoyed in the seventeenth century as arbiters of taste. While the philosophes attended feminine salons, [End Page 277] they rejected the idea of consulting salonnières on the matters of taste (and on other matters), as was previously the case, and relegated them to formal, if not merely decorative, roles of guardians of good manners and propriety, the roles accepted by salonnières.The ousting of the salonnière from aesthetic arbitration exemplified by the two operatic quarrels may be viewed as a continuation of the process of exclusion of salon women from discursive development that began in the seventeenth century, as discussed by Erica Harth in Cartesian Women: Versions and Subversions of Rational Discourse in the Old Regime (1992) and, most recently, by Joan DeJean in Ancients against Moderns: Culture Wars and the Making of a Fin de Siècle (1997). In the seventeenth century the norms of feminine bienséance (decorum, propriety) allowed a woman to establish a salon but made it impossible for a salonnière to create a space intellectually comparable to that of the French Academy. After having lost a gendered competition for intellectual space with the Academy by the 1680s, the salon, as Erica Harth put it, “proved a discursive dead end for women.”In this essay I carry through this argument into the eighteenth century and demonstrate that salon women lost a competition with the philosophes not only in the intellectual but also in the aesthetic sphere. Salonnières did not choose not to make aesthetic judgments out of respect for the exclusive right of the philosophes to make such judgments 2 but rather were silenced by the philosophes and complied in order not to violate the limits of feminine bienséance in the public sphere, that is, to survive as salonnières. The seventeenth-century ideals of feminine bienséance taken over by eighteenth-century salonnières were no longer perceived as sufficient (or legitimate) to recognize women as arbiters of taste. In fact these ideals proved to be as detrimental as a source of authority for salon women in the siècle des lumières as they were ambiguous in the grand siècle.Ironically, not only were the eighteenth-century Parisian salonnières ousted from aesthetic arbitration, but neither did they succeed in their roles as guardians of propriety and good manners for the philosophes, that is, in keeping the Enlightenment discourse civil. In both operatic quarrels the dominant genre of discourse was a pamphlet, a libelle, not a salon conversation. While during the Querelle des Bouffons the philosophes were unanimously pro-Italian, the Gluck-Piccini quarrel caused a deep split among them, followed by fratricidal fighting, which seriously undermined their authority in public matters.I. The negative connotation associated with the epithets pedant, savant, and their derivatives in seventeenth-century French treatises on honnêteté indicates [End Page 278] that the authority of judgment of “persons of quality” in matters of taste resulted from the code of bienséances in social relations. Blaise Pascal probably best summarized arguments for the superiority of an honnête person (as opposed to a professional) in the realm of aesthetics; being an... (shrink)

Many things are frightening in the process by which people identify against and resist oppressions. One of the worst is how easy it is for people to be made to feel, by some intervention from another, that their own identity and their standing from which to resist that oppression have been foreclosed or annihilated: their voices delegitimated, the authority of their grounding in an indispensable identity threatened with erasure. Anyone who has worked in feminist groups, for instance, knows the moment (...) when a woman or group of women announce that they have sat silent through a discussion, not because they had nothing to say, but because they felt silenced, felt radically denegated by some act or speech or some perceived dynamic of the group. These announcements make shifty moments in the power relations of a group. They bring to the surface, by rupturing it, how far from impartial or inclusive is the normal, “neutral” decorum of conversational exchange, and how far from detached are the needs and dreads that people have invested in it. The fabric of trust that gives a nominally egalitarian texture to activist interactions is—it is always shocking to have once more to learn—a fragile one that a multitude of unacknowledged presumptions can suddenly leave gaping. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick is professor of English at Duke University. She is the author of Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire and the forthcoming Epistemology of the Closet. Her most recent contribution to Critical Inquiry is “Sexualism and the Citizen of the World: Wycherley, Sterne, and Male Homosocial Desire”. (shrink)

Assyriologists who have studied Mesopotamian commentary formation have drawn upon ideas from scholars of religion in treating the creation of a static canon at the end of the second millennium bce as a necessary precondition for the emergence of cuneiform commentaries. The present contribution argues against the idea that Mesopotamian commentaries emerged in response to a closed canon by marshaling evidence from Mesopotamian divinatory compositions, including the celestial-divinatory series Enūma Anu Enlil and its associated aḫû, or “extraneous” tradition, as well (...) as the extispical treatise Bārûtu. These compositions illustrate that commentaries could be written about texts that were still fluid and malleable in ancient Mesopotamia. Moreover, a brief look at the phenomenon of inner biblical exegesis in the Hebrew Bible supports the idea that texts need not be unchanging to be the subject of interpretation, whether in ancient Mesopotamia or elsewhere. In response to these conclusions, I outline an alternate theory for Mesopotamian commentary formation that eschews the importance of a closed canon and stresses instead ideas of scholarly bilingualism, divination, authority, and textual decorum in ancient Iraq. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Practical Wisdom and Moral Imagination in Sense and SensibilityKaren StohrThere is no single virtue more important to Aristotle's ethical theory than the intellectual virtue of phronesis, or practical wisdom. Yet for all its importance, it is not easy to make sense of this virtue, either in Aristotle's own writings or in virtue ethics more generally. Insofar as Aristotle defines it, he does so opaquely, saying it is "a state (...) grasping the truth, involving reason, concerned with action about things that are good or bad for a human being." 1Practical wisdom is a form of knowledge aimed fundamentally at acting well. It requires both a general understanding of what is worthwhile in human life and the ability to act in ways that reflect that understanding. 2 My goal in this paper is to explore the latter aspect of practical wisdom in its application to ordinary social behavior. The circumstances that will interest me here are often thought to be the domain of manners or decorum, rather than morals proper. Although no one who takes Hume seriously can deny the moral significance of manners, the relationship between one's inner state of character and how that character is expressed in seemingly mundane behavior has received insufficient attention from moral philosophers. 3 In such a task, there can be few better places to begin than with Jane Austen, whose novels reveal the intricacies of ordinary moral behavior with extraordinary acumen.I shall use Austen's Sense and Sensibility to examine the skill associated with knowing how to behave rightly in the sense we associate with propriety or decorum. This skill is essential to pleasant social life, and hence, on the Aristotelian view, to human flourishing. Yet it is often lacking, even among those who have sound moral principles and good hearts. Well-meaning people frequently say or do what is inappropriate. [End Page 378] Consider, for instance, how common it is for kindly disposed people to say to bereaved friends things like, "it's all for the best" or "be thankful for your other healthy children" or "you're young, you'll marry again." The intricacies of offering sympathy are hard to get right, and otherwise good people can unwittingly leave behind disasters in their wakes.The skill of acting well in complex social situations has interesting links to the capacity for moral imagination. Engaging in imaginative identification with others is essential to empathy. 4 Without suggesting that empathy is at the root of all fluid social interactions, I shall argue that certain characteristic failures to act well in that sphere are imaginative failures. In other words, insofar as the exercise of practical wisdom is present in the realm of manners, it requires moral imagination.Failures of moral imagination, however, can take different forms and have different social effects. I shall use two of Austen's characters in Sense and Sensibility—Marianne Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings—to illustrate different ways in which inadequate imaginative capacity can impede the exercise of practical wisdom. The contrast I shall draw is with Elinor Dashwood, to whom I ascribe practical wisdom in full. 5 This contrast is especially interesting because it is not always very sharp: all three characters have fundamentally good moral principles and warm hearts. Yet unlike Elinor, Mrs. Jennings and Marianne routinely fail to act well, and in characteristic ways. Despite the differences in their characters, they have in common an inability to use moral imagination appropriately. The moral errors of Marianne and Mrs. Jennings occur in relatively insignificant circumstances, but the errors themselves point to something deeper about how the virtue of practical wisdom functions in ordinary moral practice.In exploring the link between moral imagination and moral practice, it will help to remember Aristotle's emphasis on the reciprocity between practical wisdom and the moral virtues. Aristotle held that that practical wisdom is necessary for the exercise of the moral virtues and that conversely, the moral virtues are necessary for the exercise of practical wisdom. 6 The justification for the first of these two claims is clearest in the context of Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. Since what counts as a virtuous action depends on features... (shrink)

Ovidians continue to be puzzled by the 404-line speech put into the mouth of Pythagoras in book 15 of the Metamorphoses. Questions of literary decorum and quality are insistently raised: how does the philosopher's popular science consort with the predominantly mythological matter of the preceding fourteen books? Do Pythagoras' revelations provide some kind of unifying ground, a ‘key’, for the endless variety of the poem? Can one take the Speech as a serious essay in philosophical didactic, or is it (...) all a mighty spoof, as intentionally laughable, perhaps, as the imperial panegyric with which the narrative of book 15 concludes? Or should we beware of imposing modern tastes on Ovid's original audience, and respect the Hellenistic and Roman predilection for scientific poetry? This article seeks to establish further contexts for the evaluation of the Speech of Pythagoras through a study of Ovid's allusive practice within the Greco-Roman tradition of hexameter epos. The figure who provides a foundation for Ovid's construction of his own poetic genealogy turns out to be the Greek philosophical poet Empedocles. The resulting reflections on Ovid's manipulation of generic conventions may be timely in the light of the recent appearance of sophisticated and fresh approaches to the question of whether the Metamorphoses is, or is not, an epic. (shrink)

Ovidians continue to be puzzled by the 404-line speech put into the mouth of Pythagoras in book 15 of theMetamorphoses.Questions of literary decorum and quality are insistently raised: how does the philosopher's popular science consort with the predominantly mythological matter of the preceding fourteen books? Do Pythagoras' revelations provide some kind of unifying ground, a ‘key’, for the endless variety of the poem? Can one take the Speech as a serious essay in philosophical didactic, or is it all a (...) mighty spoof, as intentionally laughable, perhaps, as the imperial panegyric with which the narrative of book 15 concludes? Or should we beware of imposing modern tastes on Ovid's original audience, and respect the Hellenistic and Roman predilection for scientific poetry? This article seeks to establish further contexts for the evaluation of the Speech of Pythagoras through a study of Ovid's allusive practice within the Greco-Roman tradition of hexameterepos.The figure who provides a foundation for Ovid's construction of his own poetic genealogy turns out to be the Greek philosophical poet Empedocles. The resulting reflections on Ovid's manipulation of generic conventions may be timely in the light of the recent appearance of sophisticated and fresh approaches to the question of whether theMetamorphosesis, or is not, an epic. (shrink)

Much of the fascination that Petronius' Satyricon holds for its readers originates in the work's gleeful violation of traditional categories of classical genres. Critical terminology makes explicit the issue of unconventionality, as it is reduced to the neutral word ‘work’ in describing the Satyricon, which, as far as we can tell, belongs to no single category , but appropriates elements from many sources in both poetry and prose. Perhaps if we had more evidence with which to compare the work, such (...) as a greater selection of Menippean satire or proto-novels from antiquity, we might be able to identify it more accurately. But the suspicion remains that the intense variety of its evocations, allusions, and parodic passages differentiates it clearly from its component genres without allowing it to settle firmly in any one established genre. A certain amount of ‘Kreuzung der Gattungen’ is, of course, typical of both Alexandrian and consequently Roman texts. But the Satyricon seems to revel in its generic instability; it plays with the notion of ‘literariness’ by revealing impulses from non-literary forms such as mime and subliterary prose fiction, raising this material to an unfamiliar level of literary sophistication even as it debases other traditional genres through parodic techniques. One of the results of this open experimentation with style and decorum is an extremely dense fabric of literary allusion which some would label ‘literary opportunism’. The reader quickly learns to expect intertextual pyrotechnics, swift changes from the sublime to the ridiculous, and humorous incongruities in plot and form, as the stylistic disorder of the text reflects the topsyturvy Petronian world. The modern reader's response to this profusion of referents is to explore the recognizable categories and sources embedded in the work, to tease out the familiar elements in the hope of gaining a better understanding of the whole. Since a great deal of the allusion in the Satyricon functions parodically, there is yet another step necessary in the interpretation, namely taking into account the effect of the decontextualization of language and events from the source material and their recombination and transformation into the new text. (shrink)

The construction of content standards has become one of the most politicized processes in K-12 public education as those who determine the value of knowledge(s) also shape who retains or gains political power (Placier, Walker, & Foster, 2002; Sleeter, 2002; Heilig, Brown, & Brown, 2012). In this study, authors examine the process of crafting secondary social studies standards in the state of Missouri. Findings indicate that common sense was deployed in three areas: committee selection, standards writing, and committee decorum. (...) As a result, the standards generated through this process served to reify the neoconservative/neoliberal status quo and failed to include reference to content beyond the scope of traditional knowledge, values, and intentions of conservative social studies. Authors also call for the adoption of a critical common sense which insists that the status quo of old-fashioned common sense is challenged. (shrink)

The concept of human dignity, despite its growing importance in legal texts and declarations in the last decades, is notoriously contested in moral philosophy and legal theory. There is no agreement either on what human dignity is or whether one should care much about it. We will show how these questions could be answered given the assumption that the expression ‘human dignity’ is to be read literally, as dignity of humans, where ‘dignity’ is understood as dignity proper, i.e. dignity as (...) it is usually ascribed outside of legal contexts. Dignity proper has played an important role in the history of mankind. It is sometimes also called ‘social dignity’ because it is bound to social relations, or ‘contingent dignity’, on the assumption that having dignity proper is due to contingencies of life and one's own behaviour (in contrast to human dignity as an essential feature of humankind). Dignity proper therefore depends on being treated with respect by others and on being able to present oneself as being of equal dignity in various practical contexts. Dignity proper is part of an extended conceptual space of evaluative terms which are important in moral life, including, among others, decency, nobility, rank, honour, respect, esteem, grace, decorum, merit, self-respect, coolness, offence, humiliation, degradation, shame. It is obvious, historically, that the concept of dignity proper must have played some role in the development of the concept of human dignity. (shrink)

This study examines the normative foundations of early Confucian ethics and suggests that rather than attempting to understand Confucian ethics in the language of ‘morality’ a more productive way would be to appreciate Confucianism as an ethics of propriety that can be articulated in terms of social roles, ritual decorum, and relational dependence. I argue that Western notions of ‘morality’ betray a thicker, more culturally loaded concept that possesses a limited utility in regard to comparative study. We can appeal (...) to a kind of methodological charity where we not only maximize the sense of the text or subject's sayings but also privilege the categories of thought that are native to the text's or speaker's lexicon. With this in mind, we can understand Confucian ethics as an ethics of propriety that departs substantially from Western moral systems, including virtue ethics, and challenges our received views on justice, autonomy, and personal identity. (shrink)

The issues of tithes and seed sowing have taken a central focus in contemporary Christianity in Nigeria among the preachers. Many a time, it is assumed that tithes and seed sowing are requirements for salvation, prosperity and total well-being of the members. Making many to believe that Christianity is a money-venture business one can succeed if he knows how to hoodwink the gullible. Many have been deceived that by parting with a substantial amount of money in the name of sowing (...) seed, their problems would be solved. Unfortunately, the person’s problem may remain the same or even be compounded. This paper evaluates the activities, attitude and their inordinate ambitions. It examines the impact of tithe and seed sowing on Christianity in Nigeria. The research method adopted for this work is the qualitative phenomenological method. The paper observed that the value of tithe and seed sowing has changed from what is prescribed in the bible to what is preached on the pulpits. The study recommends among other things, that these preachers should preach the gospel with decorum and as it were in the bible so that its influence on Nigerians will bring about a reduction in crime, corruption and other immoral activities in Nigeria. Contribution: The article is focused on the issues of tithes and seed sowing. It underscores the fact that the message of tithe and seed sowing has become a means of siphoning members and enriching the preachers. It further reveals its negative and positive impacts such as, the promotion of corruption and fraud in the church and society, contribution to the decline of morality in the church and the society, increasing crime rate and increasing poverty rate in Nigeria among others. (shrink)

Men played an important role in nursing in colonial Austalia. However the number of men undertaking nursing duties declined dramatically in the second half of the nineteenth century. Reasons for this are explored in relation to ramifications of the introduction of the Nightingale pattern of nurse training in Australia, which occurred within the Victorian ethos of gentility and decorum. In this context, nursing came to be seen as a calling that was natural and appropriate for women. The controlled, decorous (...) ambience of nursing, its subservient relationship to medicine and the attractiveness to employers of female pay rates are all associated with the decline in male participation over this period. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Poetry, Community, Movement: A Conversation*Charles Bernstein (bio), Ann Lauterbach (bio), Jonathan Monroe (bio), and Bob Perelman (bio)1JM: What remains at stake in the long-standing and still tenacious distinction in Western culture between making arguments and making metaphors, between “poetry” and “philosophy”? What is the investment in holding onto this dichotomy?AL: There’s a familiar split in the notion of what a creative act is. That split, in our culture, involves (...) an idea of creativity as being natural and expressive: a poet has no need to have thought about anything in order to make a poem; the enemy is the analytical. This is a long-standing divisive space, certainly within the academy but also in the culture at large.JM: Over the past thirty years or so that space became institutionalized to greater and lesser degrees within the academy in the United States in the familiar tensions that came to exist in many universities between Creative Writing programs and programs in literary theory. Although both kinds of programs acquired substantial institutional power at a roughly similar pace, they’ve often seemed to move along parallel tracks that communicated with each other poorly or at cross-purposes. How do you see their prospects developing midway through the nineties?CB: Let me come at this in a different way. I think there’s enormous value in poets teaching literature in graduate as well as undergraduate programs. We need to have many different perspectives and methodologies in the classroom. For example, it can be a value that we have diametrically opposite perspectives on many of these questions. What particularly interests me as a model for teaching is having the active involvement of contemporary poets in both undergraduate and graduate classes teaching literature in what I would prefer to call “Creative Reading” rather than “Creative Writing” classes.JM: When you say, “We tend to view things from diametrically opposed perspectives,” who is the “we” you’re referring to?CB: Well, the category of “poets” in and of itself is too broad. There is no single perspective of poetry any more than there is a perspective of philosophy or theory. Poets themselves often have diametrically opposed perspectives on these very issues we’re talking about. So there isn’t a perspective of poetry. Poets as a group don’t bring any one thing. As a class in and of itself, it’s just too general. [End Page 196]BP: It seems as though such distinctions are actually playing to an external audience like in the film Dead Poets’ Society, where the artist is this glamorous figure, an outsider.AL: Somewhere in this complicated, or not so complicated, or simplistic view, there may be a reading of reading. Poets who read theory, for example, might be said to read it differently than theorists read poetry, in other words for different ends.BP: That’s true.AL: It is true. And that in itself is interesting. I read a lot of theory but not to theoretical ends.JM: What does that mean, “not to theoretical ends”?AL: I read theory not in order to produce theory. I read theory to produce a way of thinking about poetry, if you see what I mean. So far anyway, I’m not interested in becoming a theoretician of poetry, but I’m very interested in what theory has to say, what it gives me.JM: What kinds of communities are being drawn together or held apart under the words “philosophy” and “poetry”? When you write, Bob, in “The Marginalization of Poetry,” about what you call “overgenred” writing, what happens to the “poetic”?BP: At the end of the poem, quoting from Glas, I wrote, and I still feel this is true, that Derrida is very responsive to philosophic decorum and that my use of his words are in the service of something very different. When I use the word “poetic” there, I’m using it not as a noun but as an adjective. If something is “poetic,” in that sense, I’d worry that it’s trying to be beautiful in old-fashioned ways, not responsive to theory, that it wants to be self-expressive and... (shrink)

In this essay David Black claims that, if one pieces together the many sketches of educational decorum found in the Confucian Analects, one will discover three types of misguided student; that is, one will come to recognize that Confucius admonishes three types of insensitive learners who, due to the lure of personal advantage and social rhetoric, begin to mismanage the exchanges of respect particular to the educational process. These students misappropriate key rituals of decorum and dialogue, and consequently (...) create a degree of disorder that, for Confucius, actually threatens the existence of civil society. (shrink)

“The Avoidance of Love” is Cavell’s magic looking glass onto Shakespeare, where the idea of missing something, not getting what is obvious, is, on Cavell’s reading, very close to a philosophical obsession. Shakespeare here means—besides Lear—Othello, Coriolanus, Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, and Antony and Cleopatra, and what Cavell finds in these plays is an attempt to think through what elsewhere, in the formation of the modern philosophical tradition, was getting formulated as the problem of skepticism, or not being able to (...) know that we know . It is not easy to say what this means. As if executing a skeptical decorum, Cavell’s writing does not try for transparency, nor does it always coincide with itself, and anyhow Shakespeare is not so much an object as a region of Cavell’s thinking, so everyday readers are apt to find themselves a bit at sea with him. Without claiming to match Cavell’s views point for point, I would like to give something like a para-Cavellian commentary that tries to say what his thinking, with respect to Shakespeare, seems to be getting at, and also where it leaves us.Gerald L. Bruns is William and Hazel White Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Notre Dame. His most recent book is Heidegger’s Estrangements: Language, Truth, and Poetry in the Later Writings. (shrink)

Freedom! Freedom! The word "rings" with meaning to each of us! Yet, what does it really mean? Only the tyrant, living in a secure environment and operating above the law, is theoretically free to do as he chooses. For the remainder of society freedom is an elusive condition, circumscribed by a wide spectrum of personal, social, economic, and governmental restraints. Freedom is bounded most fundamentally by the nature of man and the physical universe. Merely to remain alive human beings must (...) accept a myriad of restrictions on individual appetites, actions, and desires. Personal choices are limited by levels of intelligence and the capacity to think. Effective propaganda or advertising can affect the freedom of those unable to analyze or resist it. Poor health and poverty can set serious limits to choice. No less significant are the intellectual and moral limitations which society imposes on those whom it intends to respect and honor. Social customs and mores, and the restraints they impose, set limits of necessity and respectability and thus, for most, the limits of free choice. Freedom is boundless for none. Those are most free who accept personal and social restraints as the necessary price which they and society must pay for minimum of order, decorum, security, and satisfaction. Freedom with restraint for none creates chaos; freedom with restraint for some creates injustice. Thus restraints must be public no less than private, for freedom, in practice, must be limited by regard for the freedom and welfare of others. This book brings together fourteen outstanding and concerned scholars to acquaint readers with the history, nature, and significance of freedom in America since the Declaration of Independence. Its publication should cause the reader to reflect on the meaning of freedom for the future. Following a "stage-setting" introduction, the chapters are organized to cover four essential areas of concern: Foundations of Freedom, Freedom and Governmental Processes, Freedom and the Human Condition, and Freedom and the Physical Environment. As would be expected, various points of view are presented. However, the differences are not over the facts, but over their meanings and their significance for the future. Certainly this is one of the better efforts to capture the meaning of democratic thought in American history. (shrink)