This book explores the possible relations between Western types of rationality and Buddhism. It also examines some cliche;s about Buddhism and questions the old antinomies of Western culture (“faith and reason,” or “idealism and materialism”). The use of the Buddhist notion of the Two Truths as a hermeneutic device leads to a double or multiple exposure that will call into question our mental habits and force us to ask questions differently, to think “in a new key.” Double Exposure is somewhat (...) of an oddity. Written by a specialist for nonspecialists, it is not a book of vulgarization. Although it aims at a better integration of Western and Buddhist thought, it is not an exercise in comparative philosophy or religion. It is neither a contribution to Buddhist scholarship in the narrow sense, nor a contribution to some vague Western “spirituality.” Cutting across traditional disciplines and blurring established genres, it provides a leisurely but deeply insightful stroll through philosophical and literary texts, dreams, poetry, and paradoxes. (shrink)

Faur's interpretation of this text reveals Maimonides's views on prophecy and philosophy, on imagination and intellect, on providence, on the importance of ...

Gregory Bateson’s career from anthropologist, through his development of cybernetics and systems theory, to developing ideas around ‘the sacred’, has parallels with Roy Bhaskar’s intellectual journey. This paper proposes that as well as Bateson’s theory of cybernetics and systemic thought making a contribution to basic and dialectic critical realism, his final and posthumously published Angels Fear: Towards and Epistemology of the Sacred adds to our understanding of Bhaskar’s metaReality. Similarities between the development of Bateson’s work from 1936 to 1987 and (...) Bhaskar’s work from 1975 to 2016 enable the development of theory that adds to both of their respective appreciations of metaReality and the sacred. Thus, by starting a conversation between Bateson and Bhaskar, we can develop a higher order understanding of the world than proposed by Bhaskar’s metaReality alone. (shrink)

Peter Strawson makes a crucial distinction between reactive attitudes and the objective attitude. Reactive attitudes such as gratefulness, anger and indignation imply that we take each other seriously as responsible agents. The objective attitude implies that we stop taking each other seriously. Strawson argues that the objective attitude is not merely psychologically difficult: it is inconceivable that we would systematically refrain from taking each other seriously and stop discussing with each other or blaming ourselves or others. Strawson, however, only discusses (...) the reactive attitudes from a general point of view. In this paper, we argue that the reactive attitudes of remorse and moral indignation are forms of ”symbolic restoration’. Retributive punishment should also be interpreted from this perspective. Consequently, our concern with moral blame cannot be understood independently from a concern with the harm that has occurred. Our attitude to the outcome determines our attitude to the agent. The concern with the mental state is secondary: it is structured by its place within the practice of symbolic restoration. (shrink)

The meaning and grammatical status of ‘a notional’ in the schema for critical discourse analysis (CDA) from Bhaskar’s posthumously published Enlightened Common Sense (2016) is somewhat ambiguous. An ambiguity that has persisted through a subsequent development of the schema. Following the publication of Bhaskar’s original manuscript, it can now be seen that erroneous grammatical changes were made to the manuscript during the publication process. The original version provides a more coherent schema for CDA. This paper discusses the implications of the (...) original version coming to light. This shows that Bhaskar created a more coherent schema for CDA than the published version indicated. Clarifying the meaning and grammatical status of ‘a notional’ in Bhaskar’s schema for CDA and a schema that was subsequently derived from it is an important corrective for future critical realist critical discourse analysts. (shrink)

For many people attracted to Eastern religions (particularly Zen Buddhism), Asia seems the source of all wisdom. As Bernard Faure examines the study of Chan/Zen from the standpoint of postmodern human sciences and literary criticism, he challenges this inversion of traditional "Orientalist" discourse: whether the Other is caricatured or idealized, ethnocentric premises marginalize important parts of Chan thought. Questioning the assumptions of "Easterners" as well, including those of the charismatic D. T. Suzuki, Faure demonstrates how both West and East have (...) come to overlook significant components of a complex and elusive tradition. Throughout the book Faure reveals surprising hidden agendas in the modern enterprise of Chan studies and in Chan itself. After describing how Jesuit missionaries brought Chan to the West, he shows how the prejudices they engendered were influenced by the sectarian constraints of Sino-Japanese discourse. He then assesses structural, hermeneutical, and performative ways of looking at Chan, analyzes the relationship of Chan and local religion, and discusses Chan concepts of temporality, language, writing, and the self. Read alone or with its companion volume, The Rhetoric of Immediacy, this work offers a critical introduction not only to Chinese and Japanese Buddhism but also to "theory" in the human sciences. (shrink)

Volume 18, Issue 5, October 2019, Page 487-512.

Introducing the sixth and final installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Apology for Quietism,” Allen looks at the symposium retrospectively and concludes that it has mainly concerned “sage knowledge,” defined as foresight into the development of situations. The sagacious knower sees the disposition of things in an early, incipient form and knows how to intervene with nearly effortless and undetectable (quiet) effectiveness. Whatever the circumstance, the sage handles it with finesse, never doing too much but also never leaving anything undone (...) that must be accomplished. Quiet, when it is knowingly and effectively quiet (not pusillanimous or poor in spirit), is about what not to do, how not to approach a problem, what not to decide, what is not known, what will not work. Allen explains these principles in terms of traditional Chinese thought, Daoist and Confucian: wei we wei, or “doing-not-doing,” means effective inaction. What makes such wisdom possible is not mystical insight, he argues, but discipline in a certain kind of art. The sage has no need of reasons (let alone doctrines), only effectiveness; and he does not need truth or justice, only subtlety. The detachment of a quietist has little, if anything, to do with transcending perspectives. Detachment is good as a means to flexibility, and instead of transcending perspectives, a sage is skilled in the quiet art of never getting stuck in one. To be effectively quiet is not so much to be silent as to be inaudible, invisible; the sage “vanishes into things.”. (shrink)

This paper presents a longue durée account of the discursive emergence of ‘the market'. It seeks to develop understanding of the ‘crisis system' by showing that the crises of the present have their origins earlier than some critical realist scholars have suggested and can be better understood by the theorization of the generative mechanisms that emerged from the economic and political chaos of the early 1600s. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is employed to show that in the context of the emergence (...) of capitalism in England, these generative mechanisms resulted in the meaning of the word ‘market’ slipping loose of the geo-spatial semiotic bounds by which it had commonly been delineated – i.e. as a physical space in a town or city where goods were bartered or sold – and being re-semioticised to refer to abstract space where all acts of capitalist economic exchange, including those impacting upon the natural world, take place. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the impacts of the PREVENT Counter-Terrorism Strategy. The conclusion is reached that violence may be being promoted rather than prevented by government attempts to counter ‘radicalisation’ and ‘extremism’. The motivation for this paper is the author's experience of the PREVENT Counter-Terrorism Strategy in a school in east London; and its main recommendation is that counter-extremism strategies can and should be contested. This conclusion, and the explanation for it, is reached by using a critical realist approach to Critical (...) Discourse Analysis, supported by the framework of the semiotic triangle in the context of Bhaskar's transformational model of social activity. This brings in a time dimension that, it is argued, has previously been neglected in critical realist versions of Critical Discourse Analysis. (shrink)

A contribution to the sixth installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Apology for Quietism,” this article addresses a) the extent to which the familiar term “Buddhist quietism” is legitimate, b) the use of the term by Jesuit missionaries in Asia at the time that Catholic quietism was briefly flourishing in Europe, and c) the use of the term in the European philosophical controversy over Spinozism. Faure argues that, in most cases, the European critique of Buddhism was aimed at European enemies. (...) Chan Buddhism in China and Zen in Japan came to be associated with nihilism as well as quietism, and the association proved resilient down into the twentieth century, but the Jesuit critique has a peculiar provenance. The Jesuits in China borrowed arguments against Buddhism from neo-Confucianist allies, yet the Confucian critique of Buddhism was itself indebted to arguments that had been directed by Buddhist schools against one another. Certain Chan schools had accused other Chan schools of quietism and nihilism, and Western scholars even in the later twentieth century have taken sides in these disputes as well. However, Faure argues, the “no-thought” of Chan is not the “blank slate” of Christian quietism, on which God engraves his will and blessings. Nor does Buddhist quietism lead to the extasis of mystical union. Moreover, Buddhism was perceived by East Asian rulers mainly as an ideological weapon and only secondarily as a soteriological doctrine. Indeed “warrior monks” in Japan formed bands that attacked all who threatened their interests, and the country could not be unified under Tokugawa rule until this activist Buddhism was quelled. The article concludes with an expression of admiration for quietism and a wish that there might be more of it in Buddhism now. (shrink)

Ante la consideración general de que el principio verum/factum es una fórmula de implicación revolucionaria sólo con Vico, se pretende examinar la tesis del Quod Nihil Scitur de F. Sánchez, con objeto de mostrar que, lejos de ser una idea marginal e incidental, el principio se encuentra en la base de la teoría epistemológica del filósofo ibérico. De hecho, el presente trabajo intenta demostrar la formulación viquiana como una respuesta a la crisis escéptica que surgía de la teoría del concimiento (...) de Sánchez. Aceptando la premisa básica del escepticismo, Vico puso fin a la crisis escéptica.As to the general view of the verum/factum principle as a revolutionary formula of implication embodied in Vico’s Philosophy, this paper aims to examine the main thesis of F. Sánchez’s Quod Nihil Scitur in order to show that the principle, far from being a casual or incidental idea, lies on the bottom of his epistemological theory. In fact, this paper intends to present the vichian formula as a response to the esceptical crisis which came out from Sánchez’s very own theory of knowledge. Once the basic assumption of scepticism has been retorted, Vico brought to an end the sceptical crisis. (shrink)

Este ensayo propone un esbozo de análisis temporal de un momento político relevante en la historia mundial del siglo XX, la Unidad Popular chilena (1970-973). Para ello, se hace una revisión de una parte de la literatura secundaria sobre esta experiencia, a partir de dos conceptos forjados que hemos propuesto para indagar la politicidad del tiempo: batallas cronopolíticas y momentum. Este último es entendido como la dinámica de un tempo social donde se puede actuar, ya sea en su capacidad de (...) mantenerse en la duración u orientar cambios a través de un impulso. Se concluye que el proyecto de la Unidad Popular buscó acelerar el momentum expansivo de esta fase de la historia chilena, lo que provocó discronías y desinscronías que obligaron a la contraofensiva reaccionaria a romper con este momentum. (shrink)

Analyse du rapport entre la conception de l'individu et celle de l'espace résultant de l'élaboration d'une "schizo-analyse" comme critique de la psychanalyse classique. A travers l'étude de cette conception originale de la spatialité inspirée de la phénoménologie, l'article révèle la difficulté, pour Deleuze et Guattari, d'une réinterprétation de l'individu, à partir du phénomène central du corps, qui ne soit pas transcendantale.

La décentralisation ne passionne pas les foules. Pourtant, elle n'en demeure pas moins à l'épicentre de trois grands défis de modernisation de l'action publique. Le premier concerne la responsabilité croissante que prennent les hauts fonctionnaires des collectivités locales dans l'animation des dispositifs d'action publique. Le deuxième défi concerne les joutes quotidiennes qui mettent aux prises les différents acteurs de la décentralisation pour trouver concrètement des solutions aux problèmes de logement, de déplacement, d'éducation, de sécurité ou d'emploi. Troisième défi enfin : (...) les symboles de la décentralisation, les grandes collectivités expérimentant un travail inédit de certification et de stabilisation des valeurs de l'intérêt général. (shrink)

Depuis 2002, les régions sont pleinement responsables de la gestion des TER. Cette évolution permet-elle de faire l'hypothèse que la décentralisation s'apparente à une forme instituée d'expérimentation et d'innovation publiques ? L'hypothèse mérite discussion tant elle heurte frontalement une certaine tradition politique française.

This collection of articles is an important milestone in the history of the study of time conceptions in Greek and Roman Antiquity. It spans from Homer to Neoplatonism. Conceptions of time are considered from different points of view and sources. Reflections on time were both central and various throughout the history of ancient philosophy. Time was a topic, but also material for poets, historians and doctors. Importantly, the contributions also explore implicit conceptions and how language influences our thought categories.

En dos ensayos el autor aborda las afinidades entre Vico y los judíos: Vico y los hebreos, al defender sus respectivas tradiciones del embate del racionalismo secular, pudieron apreciar los métodos y los valores desarrollados en ellas, para aplicarlos en el seno de su propia interpretación. El primer artículo, tras examinar las concepciones de Voltaire y Vico sobre el hombre y la historia y sus influencias sobre el judío en la sociedad contemporánea, y antes de ofrecer algunas notas acerca de (...) la similitud entre la tradición hebrea y la romana, muestra el caso relevante de ciertos pensadores sefardíes, quienes en su afán de reivindicación de su propia tradición espiritual, percibieron el significado de las contribuciones de Vico en cuanto humanista religioso y aplicaron algunas de sus ideas para afrontar los retos del racionalismo secular. El segundo artículo contiene algunas observaciones sobre Vico y la tradición rabínica, con el fin de explicar cómo defienden la unicidad del "logos" frente a la escisión occidental entre filosofía y retórica: para el judío, el humanismo religioso y el pluralismo cultural viquianos, vinculados por su intento de recuperar el verdadero sentido de la tradición romana, que fue desplazada en favor de la griega, representaba la primera alternativa moderna al idealismo-racionalismo griego y a fortiori y a las dificultades en que lo envolvían la epistemología cartesiana y el racionalismo secular de la llustración. (shrink)

In this paper, I would like to introduce a complexity in the debate on the meaning of religion today. This complexity relates to the tension between an internal and an external perspective on religion. I will try to show how the disagreement between some protagonists in the debate and also the difficulties these protagonists face can be clarified by taking into account the difference between both perspectives. In the first part I discuss Marcel Gauchet’s view on the meaning of religion (...) today. In the second part I confront Gauchet with an ambiguity in his definition of religion. This ambiguity can also be found in Gauchet’s discussion with Luc Ferry, although neither Gauchet nor Ferry are capable of adequately dealing with the problem. This is because both authors are bound to an external perspective on religion, which doesn’t allow them to distinguish its specific content from other forms of meaningfulness. This is why we will concentrate in the third part on Taylor’s internal approach to religion. However, in the fourth part, we will demonstrate how such an approach is in tension with the normative ambitions Taylor seems to cherish. (shrink)

Tome 1. La personne est son engagement -- tome 2. Montrer, sans démontrer.